U.S. History to 1877

Fictional sample for demonstration. Silver Oak University and Prof. Hartwell are fictional, used to showcase thecoursemaker.com. No real institution, course, or person is implied or endorsed. The historical figures, events, and documents studied in the course are real and are treated factually.

Course Description

U.S. History to 1877 is the first semester of the American history survey, and a course that satisfies the American-Institutions / General-Education requirement for students across every major. It follows a single coherent arc — contact and the worlds before 1607 → colonization → colonial society and the development of slavery → the Revolution → the Constitution and the early republic → Jeffersonian and Jacksonian America → reform and expansion → the sectional crisis → the Civil War → Reconstruction — from the diverse Indigenous societies of North America through the end of Reconstruction in 1877.

The emphasis throughout is on thinking like a historian, not memorizing a timeline. We lead with the narrative and the plain-language idea, then turn to the documents — because history is built from evidence, and the skill at the center of this course is learning to source, contextualize, closely read, and corroborate a primary source. A weekly Primary Source Workshop is where that craft gets practiced: each week you'll take one real, well-documented document — Columbus's 1493 letter, the Declaration of Independence, Seneca Falls' Declaration of Sentiments, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Fourteenth Amendment — and work it the way historians do. A weekly AI-tutor tutorial gives you a low-stakes place to practice — and to catch the chatbot's history mistakes, a habit this course returns to every week, because chatbots routinely fabricate quotations, misdate events, and misattribute documents.

A word on the subject matter. This is American history told honestly. It includes slavery, the dispossession and killing of Indigenous peoples, war, and racial violence. We study these subjects factually, with the gravity and respect they deserve, and we work from the documents. On questions historians genuinely debate, you'll get the competing interpretations and the evidence and be asked to weigh them yourself — not handed a single verdict to memorize.

A note on scope. This is the survey to 1877. The period from Reconstruction to the present is the second-semester course (U.S. History II) and is not covered here.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

1. Practice historical thinking and source analysis — source, contextualize, closely read, and corroborate primary sources, and reason with causation, change and continuity, periodization, contingency, and significance — to interpret the past from evidence.
2. Describe the major Indigenous societies of North America before contact, the motives and methods of European exploration and colonization, and the demographic and ecological transformation of the Columbian Exchange.
3. Explain how distinct colonial societies and economies developed in British North America, and analyze how the Atlantic slave trade and colonial law produced a system of hereditary racial slavery.
4. Analyze the causes, course, and consequences of the American Revolution and the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, including the Revolution's social possibilities and its limits.
5. Explain the creation of the U.S. Constitution and the federal system — the failures of the Articles of Confederation, the Convention's compromises, the Federalist/Anti-Federalist ratification debate, and the politics of the early republic.
6. Analyze the political, economic, and social transformations of the early-to-mid nineteenth century — Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, the market revolution, antebellum reform, and westward expansion and Manifest Destiny — including Indian Removal and the U.S.–Mexican War.
7. Explain how slavery and its expansion drove the sectional crisis of the 1850s — the cotton economy and the lives of the enslaved, the Compromise of 1850, Kansas–Nebraska, Dred Scott, and the breakdown that led to secession.
8. Analyze the causes, conduct, and consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction — emancipation and total war, the Reconstruction Amendments, the struggle over Black freedom, and why Reconstruction ended in 1877.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

• SLO A — Historical thinking & source analysis. Source, contextualize, closely read, and corroborate primary and secondary evidence to interpret the past.
• SLO B — Historical argumentation. Construct and support a historical thesis with relevant evidence drawn from sources, while acknowledging other interpretations.

Required Materials

There is no required textbook, and you will pay nothing for course materials. Readings, videos, and every primary source are delivered as links to external resources posted in each weekly module — opened in your browser, nothing to buy or download. We link primary sources at authoritative digital archives: the National Archives (and its DocsTeach tool), the Library of Congress, the Avalon Project at Yale, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Smithsonian / NMAAHC, and Documenting the American South. The reading load is intentionally light and is meant to support, not replace, the in-class work, the workshops, and the practice.

You will need:

• A device with a web browser and internet access.
• Access to the free digital archives linked in each module (all free; some short videos are on YouTube — CrashCourse US History, Khan Academy).
• A free historical-atlas / map resource (linked in the modules) for the geography of exploration, expansion, and the war.
• Access to one approved AI chatbot for the weekly Lecture Tutorials, adaptive activities, and the workshop AI-critique moment (see the AI-Use Policy below).

Grading

Your course grade is the weighted total of the groups below. Weights sum to 100%.

Attendance is tracked at every session but is not weighted (see the Attendance Policy).

Per-item points: quizzes 10 · discussions 20 · assignments 100 · Primary Source Workshops 50 · midterm & final 100 each.

Letter-Grade Scale

Late & Make-Up Policy

• Late penalty: 10% per day. Submitted work loses 10 percentage points of its earned score for each day (or part of a day) it is late.
• Quizzes, the Midterm, and the Final are time-bound. Make-ups are arranged only for documented emergencies — contact Prof. Hartwell as early as possible, ideally before the due date.
• Primary Source Workshops build on the week's objective and are best done the same week; if you must miss one, contact Prof. Hartwell.
• Practice exercises are ungraded and exist for your benefit; the late penalty does not apply to them.
• If something serious is getting in the way of your work, reach out early. It is almost always easier to arrange support before a deadline than to repair a grade after it.

AI-Use Policy

This course requires you to use AI as a learning partner on your coursework, and it draws a clear line for the closed assessments. Read this section carefully.

Approved chatbots

You must use one of these three approved AI chatbots:

• Gemini
• Claude
• ChatGPT

The free tier of any of these is sufficient. You may pick whichever you prefer.

AI in this course (adaptive-learning activities)

Your Lecture Tutorials, Discussions, Assignments, and the AI-critique step of each weekly Primary Source Workshop are adaptive-learning activities you complete with the chatbot:

• Weekly Lecture Tutorials — work through the week's narrative and ideas in conversation, then submit the conversation share link and your Completion Summary.
• Discussions — think a historical question through in a real-time dialogue with the chatbot, then post the AI-generated summary plus your chat share link to the discussion board (and reply to peers).
• Assignments — build a short, thesis-driven, document-based argument with a chatbot coach that grades and teaches you as you go, then submit the coach's self-scored report (the line beginning STUDENT'S SCORE:) plus your chat share link.
• Primary Source Workshops — after working the source yourself, you'll ask the chatbot to interpret it, then catch its mistakes — a standing habit in this course, because chatbots routinely fabricate quotations, invent plausible-sounding "sources," misdate events, misattribute documents, and impose modern assumptions on the past.

For all of these, the share link is part of your submission — treat the conversation as your work, keep it on-topic, and do your own thinking.

Permitted vs. not permitted

• AI may be used on your coursework — the Lecture Tutorials, Discussions, Assignments, Primary Source Workshops, and the ungraded Practice Exercises. (For the adaptive activities above, working with the chatbot is the activity.)
• AI may not be used on the Quizzes, the Midterm, or the Final — these are closed to AI and must be entirely your own work. Quizzes and exams are built from auto-gradable items and are meant to confirm that you know the history.

Disclosure

The adaptive activities (tutorials, discussions, assignments, workshops) need no separate disclosure — the share link already documents your AI use. If you use an AI tool to help you think about any other graded work, add a one-line note stating which tool you used and how.

A standing habit: verify what the AI tells you

Chatbots are confident and often wrong about history. A central skill in this course is checking the machine against the record — when a chatbot hands you a quotation, a date, or a "source," your job is to confirm it against the document and the archive. We practice that every week.

Alignment with academic integrity

Using AI as described here is encouraged and fully consistent with the integrity standard below. The violations are fabricating or doctoring a chat you submit, and using AI on the closed assessments (Quizzes, Midterm, Final). When in doubt, ask before you submit.

Attendance Policy

This is an in-person course, and the in-class work — the narrative lectures, the document walkthroughs, the discussions, and the AI-critique moments — is where much of the learning happens.

• Attendance is tracked at every session. It is not part of your weighted grade, but a strong attendance record is expected, and consistent absence will show in your performance.
• Arrive on time, stay for the full session, and engage professionally with your classmates and instructor.
• If you must miss a session, notify Prof. Hartwell in advance when possible and review the module materials to catch up. You remain responsible for any content, announcements, and due dates from a missed class.

Academic Integrity

You are expected to do your own work and to represent it honestly. Cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, and submitting another's work — human or AI — as your own are violations of academic integrity and will be handled according to university policy, which may include a failing grade on the work or in the course. In a history course, integrity includes representing your sources honestly: quote accurately, attribute correctly, and never invent or doctor a quotation or a source. Collaboration is welcome where an assignment invites it; when in doubt about what is allowed, ask first.

Accessibility: Silver Oak University is committed to equal access. Students who need accommodations should contact the campus disability services office to arrange them; notify Prof. Hartwell early in the term so supports can be in place. (Placeholder — institutions should insert their official accessibility, Title IX, and integrity statements here.)

Course Schedule — Fall 2026 (16 Weeks)

Term runs Aug 31 – Dec 18. Campus holidays: Labor Day (Sep 7), Veterans Day (Nov 11), Thanksgiving (Nov 26–27). Week 16 is reserved for finals. Dates are the Monday of each week.

Practice exercises and a Lecture Tutorial are part of every week's module; the table lists the graded touchpoints. Exam weeks (8 & 16) carry no weekly workshop. The schedule may be adjusted with advance notice; changes will be announced in the course.