Schedule
Week 1
W. 9/4: El Paso
Week 2
M. 9/9: Cahokia and Caddo
- Watch first 38:15 minutes of: Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge and Jeremiah Hayes, Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian (2009). Available through Kanopy using your Northeastern log-in credentials.
- Davis et. al., “Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago” Science 365 (2019), 891-897.
W. 9/11: Double Ditch Mandan Village
- Elizabeth Fenn, Encounters at the Heart of the World (Ch. 1 & 3)
Week 3
M. 9/16: Taos
- Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery (Introduction, Ch. 4, 6)
W. 9/18: St. Louis
- Elliott West, “The West Before Lewis and Clark” in The Essential West.
Week 4
M. 9/23: Comancheria
- Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery (Ch. 7, 9)
W. 9/25: Boston
- Elliott West, “Lewis and Park” in The Essential West.
Week 5
M. 9/30: Fort Vancouver
- Come to class with a laptop and one item you plan to include in your timeline
- Watch the trailer for The Revenant (2015)
- Stacy Nation-Knapper, “Film Friday: The Revenant is Beautiful, Disappointing Art” Active History, January 29, 2016.
W. 10/2: Visit to the Leventhal Map Center
- Meet in the lobby of the Boston Public Library at 700 Boylston St.
Timeline due Sunday, October 6th by 11:59PM
Week 6
M. 10/7: Sutter’s Mill
- Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery (Ch. 10)
- Backstory Podcast, “All That Glitters? Legacies of the California Gold Rush” 19 January 2018
W. 10/9: Sand Creek
- Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery (Ch. 11)
- Layli Long Soldier reading of “38” (poem from her collection WHEREAS) [text of poem]
Week 7
10/14: No Class, Official Holiday
W. 10/16: Promontory Summit
- Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” [excerpts]
- Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery (Ch. 12)
Week 8
M. 10/21: The Cherokee Outlet
- Peggy O’Donnell, “The Settler Fantasies Woven Into the Prairie Dresses” Jezebel, January 30, 2019.
- Watch the Season 1 Pilot Episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie. Available on Amazon or iTunes.
W. 10/23: Angel Island
- Kathryn Schulz, “Citizen Khan: The Old West’s Muslim Tamale King”, The New Yorker, June 2016.
- Kelly Lytle Hernandez, “How Crossing the Border Became a Crime”, The Conversation, April 30, 2017.
Week 9
Mon., Oct. 28: Ludlow
- Watch Bisbee ‘17 (2018). Available for rent through Grasshopper Film, Amazon Prime Video, or Apple TV.
W. 10/30: Hetch Hetchy Valley
- Prep for mock Congressional hearing on proposal to dam Hetch Hetchy Valley (primary source packets distributed by professor).
Pop Culture Review due Sunday, November 3rd
Week 10
M. 11/4: Hollywood
- Watch the first 1 hr. 29 min. of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962). Available for rent on YouTube or Amazon Video.
Wed., Nov. 6: Topaz Internment Site
- Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660
Week 11
M. 11/11: No Class, Official Holiday
Wed., Nov. 13: East Los Angeles
- Come to class with a 3-4 sentence description of your unessay project.
- Helena María Viramontes, Their Dogs Came With Them, Ch. 1-4 (p. 1-78)
Week 12
M. 11/18: Las Vegas Strip
- Listen to following podcast episodes of Leah Sottile, Bundyville, Season One:
- Episode 1: The Battle
- Episode 2: The Bomb
- By Sunday at 11:59PM: Email a 2-3 sentence description of your unessay to Professor Blevins
W. 11/20: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
- Philip Bump, “The Oregon occupiers’ land dispute, explained in 9 maps”, Washington Post, January 4, 2016.
- Listen and take notes on your assigned episode of Bundyville Season 1
- Write down 1-2 sentence description for one primary source and one secondary source that you are going to use for your unessay
Week 13
M. 11/25: Silicon Valley
- “How Silicon Valley Remade America In Its Image”, Backstory Podcast interview with Margaret O’Mara,12 July 2019.
W. 11/27: No Class, Official Holiday
Week 14
M. 12/2: Northeastern University
- Unessay due Monday, December 2nd at the beginning of class (2:50pm)
W. 12/4: Standing Rock
- Email Professor Blevins a “reading” (song, video, article, Reddit thread, etc.) that you would assign a future student taking a U.S. history class to help them understand college students in 2019. Include a short explanation of what you hope they would learn from it.
Take-Home Final Exam due Wednesday, December 11th