This course explores the fundamentals of the historian's craft through case study of the American West.  We will examine historians' differing views of the West as frontier, myth, and region, paying particular attention to the confluence of peoples, cultures, and environmental factors that characterized life in the region both during and after the frontier era. Students will conduct research in primary sources such as diaries, memoirs, travel, and periodical literature and write a major research paper analyzing how Americans encountered western lands and peoples and helped shape the mythology of the West.
 
 

Required Readings	Class Schedule
Course Requirements	Selected Bibliography

Required Readings (available for purchase at bookstore):

• Patricia N. Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest
• James Grossman, ed., The Frontier in American Culture
• William K. Storey, Writing History

Course Requirements:

The course will meet once a week for two hours, although in the latter half of the semester several sessions will be devoted to individual consultation. Attendance and participation at seminar meetings and consultations is absolutely essential; as few as two absences will put your continuation in the seminar in jeopardy. The completed research paper (roughly 20-25 pages, not counting notes and bibliography) will account for two-thirds of your grade. Class participation and assignments will make up the remaining third. Timely completion of assignments and paper drafts is essential.  No incompletes will be given.
 

Schedule of Class Meetings:

Sept. 7   Introduction to Course; Hands-on Tour of Library and Internet Research Tools

Sept. 14   The Frontier Thesis

• Turner, The Frontier in American History (on reserve)
• Storey, Writing History , 3-15

Sept. 21   The New Western History

• Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest
• Benjamin, A Student's Guide, pp. 76-89

• Grossman, ed., The Frontier in American Culture, pp. 7-55, 67-95
• Storey, Writing History, 25-42.

• Storey, Writing History , 17-23
• Sherry Smith, "Single Women Homesteaders" (on reserve)

Oct. 12   Anatomy of a Paper: Thesis, Argument, and Organization

• Alexandra Harmon, "Lines in Sand" (on reserve)
• Mark Spence, "Dispossessing the Wilderness" (on reserve)
• Storey, Writing History, pp. 59-82

1)  identifies the major thesis
2)  shows how the argument is made (methodology)
3)  identifies the types of sources used and adequacy thereof
4) describes the organization of the paper
5) discusses the author's contribution to the historiography

• Storey, Writing History, pp. 83-101

Oct. 26   Typed draft of first 7 pages and an outline of remainder of paper due in my mailbox in the history department (Carney 168) by 5 p.m.

Nov. 16  Typed draft of first 15 pages and outline of remainder of paper due in my mailbox by 5 p.m.

Nov. 23   FINAL PAPERS DUE IN CLASS (2 copies please). Assignment of paper critiques.

*PLEASE NOTE: Students turning in late papers will lose a third of a letter grade for each late day. NO papers will be accepted after Friday, Dec. 3. Be sure to keep all of your notes from this project and be prepared to submit them to me upon request.

--THANKSGIVING BREAK, Nov. 24-28--

Nov. 30 Presentations and critiques (Group A)--Each member of the seminar will give a short presentation, explaining the main conclusions of his or her paper. Each presentation will be followed by an oral critique of the paper by another member of the class who will also submit a 1-2 page written evaluation (2 copies).

Dec. 7   Presentations and critiques (Group B)ósame as above
 
 

Selected Bibliography
 
 

Sample Document Collections:

Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748-1846,

--, Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1610-1791

--, Original Jounals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Clarence Carter, ed. Territorial Papers of the United States; (see also edited papers of various colonies).

J. Roderick Korns, ed.,West From Fort Bridger: The Pioneering of the Immigrant Trails Across Utah, 1846-1850 (1994).

Sandra Myers, ed., Ho for California: Women's Overland Diaries (1980)

Donald Barclay, et al., Into the Wilderness Dream: Exploration Narratives of the American West (1994).
 
 

Bibliographies: