This Lumen Learning Waymaker U.S. History course aims to help students use historical thinking skills to describe, compare, contextualize, and construct historical arguments about major events in American history through 1877.

Other primary course goals include the following:

• Describe key historical trends, events, and figures in early American history
• Examine historical figures and events from multiple, diverse perspectives, recognizing how American history is influenced by race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, etc.
• Think like a historian; make historical connections by studying historical narratives and arguments, analyzing documents, synthesizing information, evaluating cause and effect, and studying how things change over time.

This course will guide students through a wealth of primary sources, readings, and videos tied to clear learning objectives designed to improve their critical thinking skills. Sample discussions and assignments are included. Key topics include early globalization and European exploration, colonial societies, the English Empire, America’s War for Independence, the creation of the American Republic, the industrial transformation, Jacksonian democracy, westward expansion, “King” Cotton and idealism in the antebellum South, the troubled 1850s, and the Civil War to Reconstruction.