Title: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory

Start Here: Fall 2026 Course Orientation
  Course Home
  Course Syllabus
  Course Practices and Historical Thinking
  Assignments and Grading
  Research, Citation, and Generative AI
  Reading and Source Guide
Week 1 · August 24–28, 2026: Where—and When—Is the West?
  Week 1 Overview and Inquiry
Week 2 · August 31–September 4, 2026: Indigenous Worlds and Competing Empires, 1700s
  Week 2 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 1: Indigenous Worlds and Empires
Week 3 · September 7–11, 2026: Borderlands, Louisiana, and the Platte Purchase
  Week 3 Overview and Inquiry
  Mapping the West: Boundary Argument and Defense
Week 4 · September 14–18, 2026: Removal, Sovereignty, and the Mexican North
  Week 4 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 2: Treaties and Removal
  Source Reasoning Lab 1: Treaty, Sovereignty, and Translation
Week 5 · September 21–25, 2026: Manifest Destiny, War, Slavery, and Gold
  Week 5 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 3: War, Slavery, and Gold
Week 6 · September 28–October 2, 2026: Overland Migration, Death, and Environment
  Week 6 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 4: Overland Migration
  Source Reasoning Lab 2: Mobility, Risk, and Environment
Week 7 · October 5–9, 2026: Civil War and Continental State-Building
  Week 7 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 5: Civil War in the West
  Public History Capstone: Question and Scope Conference
Week 8 · October 12–16, 2026: Railroads, Corporate Empire, and Dispossession
  Week 8 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 6: Railroads and Corporate Empire
  Historiographical Judgment Portfolio
Week 9 · October 19–23, 2026: Reservations, Allotment, Education, and Indigenous Persistence
  Week 9 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 7: Assimilation and Persistence
Week 10 · October 26–30, 2026 — Homecoming Week: Racial Regimes, Labor, and Border Violence, 1880–1920
  Week 10 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 8: Race, Labor, and Violence
  Source Reasoning Lab 3: Newspaper, Race, and Public Narrative
Week 11 · November 2–6, 2026: Conservation, Reclamation, Extraction, and Tourism
  Week 11 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 9: Conservation and Reclamation
  Public History Capstone: Source Dossier and Defense
Week 12 · November 9–13, 2026: Crisis and Mobilization in the West, 1920s–1945
  Week 12 Overview and Inquiry
  Reading Check 10: Dust, Development, and the New Deal
  Source Reasoning Lab 4: Oral History, Memory, and Silences
Week 13 · November 16–20, 2026: The Postwar West: Suburbs, Water, Nuclear Landscapes, and Red Power
  Week 13 Overview and Inquiry
  Public History Capstone: Interpretive Artifact and Decision Log
Week 14 · November 23–27, 2026: Thanksgiving Break — No Campus Classes
  Week 14 Overview and Inquiry
Week 15 · November 30–December 4, 2026: The Contemporary West and the Politics of Memory
  Week 15 Overview and Inquiry
  Public History Capstone: Showcase and Oral Defense
  Seminar Practice and Reflection Portfolio