HST 235, 237 - American Civil War & Reconstruction

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR (students beginning prior to Fall 2024): Meets general academic requirement HU (and IL when offered as 237).
Writer and poet Robert Penn Warren once declared that the Civil War was “the greatest single event of our history”. The dramatic political, social, and cultural events surrounding the war, the end of slavery, and the reconfiguration of American society afterward continue to define us to this day. Why does the war remain a touchstone in our political culture? How did the Civil War change American society? What issues remain unresolved? These guiding questions underlie our exploration of the Civil War era. Topics to be covered include the role of slavery in American politics, sectional conflict in the 1850s, women’s war efforts, the experience of battle for both soldiers and civilians, Native Americans and the war in the West, and the rise of white supremacy and Jim Crow in the post-war South.