Module Identifier HY38630  
Module Title FOUNDING OF MOD AMERICA:SECTIONALISM+SOCIAL CHANGE 1850-1900  
Academic Year 2002/2003  
Co-ordinator Dr Robert Harrison  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered N/A  
Next semester offered N/A  
Mutually Exclusive HY39420  
Course delivery Lecture   18 Hours  
  Seminars / Tutorials   10 Hours  
Assessment Semester Exam   3 Hours   60%  
  Semester Assessment   Essay: 2 essays (1 x 4,000 words, 1 x 2,500 words)   40%  

Learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:
a) Demonstrate familiarity with a substantial body of historical knowledge in the field of nineteenth-century United States history
b) Demonstrate familiarity with a variety of approaches to the study of the relationship between war and social change
c) Gather and sift appropriate items of historical evidence
d) Read, analyse and reflect critically on selected secondary and primary texts
e) Develop the ability to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of particular historical arguments and where necessary challenge them.
f) Develop oral (not assessed) and written skills which will have been improved through seminar discussions and essays
g) Work both independently and collaboratively, and to participate in group discussions (not assessed).

Brief description

"My country in 1900," wrote the historian Henry Adams, "is something wholly different from my own country in 1860. I am wholly a stranger in it." Between the world of Adam's boyhood and his old age lay two transforming experiences: the Civil War, in which most of the young men of his generation were engaged, and the process of economic and social change which converted the predominately agrarian society of the early nineteenth century into the largely urban-industrial society of 1900. These two historical experiences form the the subject of this option module. We shall consider how far they were related to one another: how far the sectional conflict was fuelled by the social and economic developments of the Civil War era; and how far, in turn, the outcome of the conflict accelerated the process of industrialisation. A major theme in the module is the diverging experiences of North and South. We consider how far the South had by 1860 become socially and culturally distinct from the rest of the nation. We then consider whether the war, along with the emancipation of the slaves and federal policies designed to reconstruct southern society, created a New South fundamentally different from the Old.