American Civilization

American Civilization 

History 1700

This class surveys 600 years of American History, beginning with the pre-Colombian civilizations and continuing through to the present day. While 600 years is a significant amount of history to learn, the class was more than mere memorization of names, dates and facts. The curriculum asked the students to learn the 'whys' behind the history so that we could make our own lasting connections, comprehension and appreciation of historical events. We were taught to think critically about how how historical themes resulted from contemporary political and social changes and how these themes influenced future developments.

Attached below is an example of the work completed for this course. The assignment asked that we choose a photograph from the National Archives and Records Administration's collection of Civil War images. We were to analyze this photograph, armed with the knowledge from classroom study, in order to make inferences about what was going on in America at that time. The analysis of the photograph contributed to my overall general education at SLCC because of the way it solidified and deepened my understanding of the Civil War and of the technological changes that were quickly shaping the landscape, and future, of America. The photograph gave me the opportunity to place it within a broader knowledge of American history and to connect with, and humanize, the distant past.

Work like the attached essay was typical of History 1700 - critical analysis of history rather than just memorization. These essays, and the course, challenged us to think in new ways, rather than to just higher levels, so that we may always see the links that bind cultural changes to political movements, technological achievements to economic stimulus. Historical events are not isolated from of the rest of history - they are the product of hundreds of years of interconnected stories and they are the seeds from which later histories unfold.