HIS-350 America in the Founding Era, 1750-1815 †

This course explores the creation of the United States and the complex political, social, economic, and cultural dynamics that shaped American society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. We will begin by examining the British colonies in mainland North America at approximately 1750 and continue chronologically until 1815, when the War of 1812 ended. The course will examine the causes and consequences of the American Revolution, the critical period under the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention and ratification process, the Bill of Rights, the years of the early republic, and America's second war with Britain. Immersion in primary sources and analysis of the interpretations of historians who have written on this period will form the basis of the scholarly inquiry for the course.