Lecture Outlines - History 105 - U.S. History to 1877 - Dr. Susan Ditto, University of Mississippi

Most class days, students can expect to listen to a 50-minute lecture, during which they will take several pages of notes. These lectures will be accompanied by PowerPoint slides, projected on an overhead screen. Slides will contain important terms (names, events, concepts, and titles of literary works, for example) that every student should know, as well as maps, statistical tables, and other images.

Before each test, copies of PowerPoint lecture slides will be posted here.

THESE SLIDES ARE MERELY STUDY AIDS, AND SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THOROUGH NOTE-TAKING AND READING.

Students should use their textbook or one of the reliable internet sites on Dr. Ditto's list of helpful links to identify any key terms for which they do not have adequate notes.

In addition to being able to define each person, place, idea, or other term, students should be able to

place each term within the context of its time period, movement, and/or geographical location
explain the relationship between key terms (especially those on the same slide or within the same series of lectures)
give a sense of the overall IMPACT or SIGNIFICANCE of each

For example:
In addition to knowing that the term "tabula rasa" can be translated as "erased tablet," "blank page," or "clean slate," students should know that this term comes from the period known as the Enlightenment, and that it was a key component of a larger idea known as the "Perfectability of Man," which held that human beings were not limited at birth by class status or original sin. Rather, people could, through hard work and a little luck, rise to great intellectual, economic, and social success. Further, this idea was important to the thinking of men like Benjamin Franklin, who founded the first lending library in the American colonies so that poor young men whose families could not afford to send them to school could educate themselves and improve their lot in life by reading library books. This concept of individual opportunity (and responsibility for one's own advancement or lack thereof) became a central component of what is now known as the Americanm Dream.

In other words, this is NOT your high school "memorize it then forget it" history course!

In order to view the lecture slides below, the computer you are using must have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If yours doesn't, you can easily download one FREE by clicking here.

CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO VIEW COPIES OF THE POWERPOINT SLIDES THAT WERE SHOWN DURING CLASS LECTURES:.

(For information about the readings that will be covered on each test, see the "Readings" page of this site.)

Test #1 (Friday Sept. 17)

STUDY TIP: Be able to compare each of the four main regions of British colonial settlement (as well as French and Spanish claims) in terms of the goals of their founders, the kind of people who settled there, their settlement patterns, religion, family life, mortality, and other defining characteristics.

Test #2 (Friday Oct. 8)

STUDY TIP: Be able to connect the ideology of the Enlightenment and Great Awakening and the events that lead up to the American War for Independence to each other (in terms of cause & effect) and link each to provisions in one or more of the four major nation-building documents of that era that they inspired.

Test #3 (Friday Nov. 5)

STUDY TIP: Be able to explain how the Market Revolution contributed directly to changes in the lives of working-class and middle-class Americans, including new ideas about gender and generational roles within middle-class households. Consider how the Market Revolution helped fuel the growing abolitionist movement. Also, be able to explain both the diverse experiences of urban, skilled, domestic, and other kinds of slaves, as well as the typical experience of field hands on large plantations.

Test #4 (Wednesday Dec. 1)

STUDY TIP: Be able to trace the growing tensions over slavery -- divisions between free soilers and expansionists, abolitionists and pro-slavery theorists, northerners and southerners -- from the Missouri Compromise through the formation of the Confederate States of America, and be able to explain the relationship between States' Rights philosophy and the Civil War.

Final Exam (date & time TBA)

Before the final exam, the comprehensive essay topics and an accompanying study guide will be posted here.