History 181: United States History from 1865
Course Description
Level: 11th and 12th grade students
Credit: .5 Social Studies Credit.
Additional: This course is accepted as a social studies credit for H.S. graduation.
This course is accepted as a social studies credit for college admission.
This course is accepted as a social studies credit by the NCAA.
This is a dual credit course offered through Southwestern Illinois College.
Prerequisite:
Reading and writing assessment scores above the ENG 101 level or completion of all reading and
writing developmental requirements.
Course Description:
This course begins with the Reconstruction period, and includes the transformation of America from an
agrarian to urban civilization with emphasis on politics, business, finance, labor and society. Among
the topics covered are the end of Isolation, the Populist and Progressive movements, World War I, the
Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the emergence of the Civil
Rights Movement, the Sixties, and National Politics: 1968-1998.
Course Objectives:
•Students will be able to identify the key people in American history from 1865 to present.
•Students will be able to explain the significance of crucial events during this period of history.
•Students will be able to critically analyze the main economic, political and foreign policy
trends that have shaped American history after the Civil War.
•Students will be able to discuss how American society and culture has changed and developed
through this period in history.
•Students will be able to evaluate the influence of the United States on world events from 1865
to present.
•Students will be able to interpret areas of success and failure in American history from the Civil
War era to the present.
Course Outline:
•Unit Five
1. Reconstruction
a. Presidential Reconstruction
b. Johnson and Congress
c. Radical Rule, 1867-1877
d. Elections of 1868 and 1872
2. The Gilded Age
a. Politics, 1876-1892
b. Rise of Big Business
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Mrs. Dobson
c. The Nature of Industrialization
d. Ideologies of Capitalism
3. Rise of Labor
a. Rise of Labor Unions
b. Unions; growth and problems
c. Strikes
d. Immigration
4. Urbanization
a. Assimilating Immigrants
b. Problems of Rapid Urbanization
•Unit Six
1. The Last Frontier
a. Native American Cultures
b. Conflict
c. Cattle Industry
d. Western Mining
2. Revolt of the Farmer
a. Homesteading
b. The Grangers
c. The Populists
d. Silver and Gold
3. Imperialism
a. Manifest Destiny
b. McKinley’s Foreign Policy
c. The Spanish-American War
d. Problems of Imperialism
4. New Middle Class
a. Education, Religion, and Morality
b. New Leisure
•Unit Seven
1. The Progressive Period
a. Domestic; Teddy Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson
b. Foreign Policy; Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft
2. World War I
a. Causes
b. Course of the War
c. Impact of U.S. entrance in the War
d. 14 points
3. The 1920s
a. Societal Change
b. Social Unrest
c. Domestic Policy
d. Foreign Policy
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4. The Great Depression
a. Causes
b. Hoover’s Policies
c. FDR’s Policies
d. Social Problems
•Unit Eight
1. World War II
a. Causes
b. U.S. Role in the War
c. Home Front
d. Outcome and Change
2. Post World America
a. Causes of the Cold War
b. The Korean War
c. Cold War Politics
3. The Fifties
a. Eisenhower Policies
b. American Pop Culture
4. The Civil Rights Movement
a. The Early Champions
b. Leaders for Change
c. Radical Calls for Justice
5. The New Frontier and the Great Society
a. Domestic Policy: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
b. Foreign Policy, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
6. National Politics 1968-1998—From Nixon to Clinton
Methods of Presentation:
Lectures, classroom discussion, outside readings, videos, and primary sources
Methods of Student Evaluation:
•Four major exams covering the lectures and readings.
•Research paper, primary sources, series of essays on topics related to this course.
History 181 Term Paper Topics:
•The Manhattan Project
•The Populist Movement
•National Parks & Land Management
•Women’s Suffrage Movement
•The New Deal & The Supreme Court
•The Great Migration & The Harlem Renaissance
•The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
•Andrew Carnegie
•The KKK in the 1920s
•The Sacco and Vanzetti Case
•Movies and the Depression
•Organized Crime during Prohibition
•Japanese Internment
•The Progressive Era
•The Scopes Trial
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•The Tuskegee Airmen
•The Bay of Pigs
*Other topics may be selected with approval by the course instructor.
*The term paper will be an 8 page paper, consisting of MLA Citation and an annotated bibliography.
Academic Rigor Statement:
This is an academically rigorous course. According to the Administrative Rules of the Illinois
Community College Board (section 1501.309), it is assumed that the student will invest two hours of
outside study time for each hour of classroom lecture time.
This is supported by the following evaluation of outside of class work:
1. Term Paper work. It is estimated that for a 10-12 page paper an average of 20 hours would be
required for the collection of resources and the research of the topic. Then an additional 20
hours for analysis, writing and revising of the paper.
(40 hours)
2. Reading the textbook. The textbook for this class is 424 pages in length. According to data
from reading speed charts it is estimated that it will take an average college reader 26 hours to
read the textbook.
(26 hours)
3. Study for tests. Preparation for the test, including study of notes, review of textbook readings,
examination of study guide materials
8 hours per test X four test = 32 hours average
(32 hours)
Text:
Conlin, Joseph. (2013) The American Past: A Survey of American History, Vol. 2: Since 1865, 10th
edition. Thomson—Wadsworth, 2014.
History 181
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Mrs. Dobson