Sample History and Local Topics Versions
Sample Project # 1:
Native History of the Pikes Peak Region: What happens to Native Coloradans
as the 1858 Gold Rush and the population booms of the late nineteenth
century overwhelm the region? How does this story get ignored,
“popularized,” or re-imagined as we write history or biography in the
present?
a. Virginia Simmons, The Mountain Utes
b. Elliott West, The Contested Plains
c. Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land
d. Articles in WHQ, Colorado Heritage, and other journals for details
about different native groups.
e. Government records about Indian agencies and reservations, Meeker
Massacre, and Sand Creek
f. Popular biographies of Native people: Margaret Coel, Chief Left Hand,
and P. David Smith, Ouray: Chief of the Utes
Sample Project #2:
The History of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado: Why is Colorado a center of KKK
activity in the 1920s? How is it different from the Klan other places? How did
the power of the KKK affect politics and culture in Denver and Colorado
Springs?
g. Stephen Leonard, Lynching in Colorado , 2003
h. Robert A. Goldberg, Hooded Empire: The KKK in Colorado
i. Rory McVeigh, The rise of the Ku Klux Klan : right-wing movements
and national politics , 2009
j. Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the
Second KKK, 1994
k. Book reviews and review essays about the history of the KKK in
national history journals
l. Articles in local history journals about members of the KKK in Denver
and Colorado Springs
m. Interviews with local people whose relatives were in the local KKK.