Title: Reading and Source Guide
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Start Here: Fall 2026 Course Orientation

THE AMERICAN WEST

Reading and Source Guide

Access note: the OER and primary-source links are open. Scholarship selections require the instructor and library to verify lawful access and choose excerpt length. No copyrighted chapters are embedded in this package.

Week | OER spine | Primary-source portal | Scholarship lens
1 | American Yawp introduction and relevant map materials | Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893), excerpt Library of Congress Primary Source Analysis Tool | Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America (2023), introduction or library-reserve excerpt.
2 | American Yawp, chapters 2–4 selected sections | Native Knowledge 360° teaching resources Library of Congress Indigenous Peoples of the Americas collections | Pekka Hämäläinen, Indigenous Continent (2022), selected excerpt; Anne F. Hyde, Born of Lakes and Plains (2022), selected excerpt.
3 | American Yawp, chapter 7 selected sections | Northwest Missouri State University Archives Missouri Digital Heritage Platte Purchase Treaty copy, St. Joseph Museums | Anne F. Hyde, Born of Lakes and Plains (2022), selected chapter or excerpt.
4 | American Yawp, chapters 10 and 11 selected sections | NMAI Native Knowledge 360°: American Indian Removal NMAI Native Knowledge 360°: Horse Creek Treaty | Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America (2023), selected excerpt.
5 | American Yawp, chapter 12 | Library of Congress: Westward Expansion—Encounters at a Cultural Crossroads National Archives: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo | Kevin Waite, West of Slavery (2021), selected excerpt.
6 | American Yawp, chapter 12 selected sections | Library of Congress westward-expansion collections Oregon-California Trails Association educational resources | Sarah Keyes, American Burial Ground (2023), selected excerpt.
7 | American Yawp, chapters 13–15 selected sections | NMAI Native Knowledge 360°: The Long Walk National Park Service Civil War in the West resources | Elliott West, Continental Reckoning (2023), selected excerpt.
8 | American Yawp, chapter 16 selected sections | Library of Congress: The American West, 1865–1900 Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project | Manu Karuka, Empire’s Tracks (2019), selected excerpt.
9 | American Yawp, chapter 17 selected sections | Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition Digital Map | Katrina Phillips, Staging Indigeneity (2021), selected excerpt.
10 | American Yawp, chapters 18–20 selected sections | Chronicling America historic newspapers Refusing to Forget educational resources | Kelly Lytle Hernández, Bad Mexicans (2022), or Monica Muñoz Martinez, The Injustice Never Leaves You (2018), selected excerpt.
11 | American Yawp, chapters 17 and 20 selected sections | National Park Service: Honoring Tribal Legacies Bureau of Reclamation History Program | Megan Black, The Global Interior (2018), or Katrina Phillips, Staging Indigeneity (2021), selected excerpt.
12
American Yawp, chapters 22–24 selected sections
Library of Congress: Dust Bowl Migration
Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photographs
Densho Digital Repository
Densho teaching resources
Bracero History Archive
Sarah Deutsch, Making a Modern U.S. West (2022), selected excerpt; pair with a Densho or Bracero oral history.
13 | American Yawp, chapters 25–28 selected sections | National Park Service: Occupation of Alcatraz Atomic Heritage Foundation oral histories | Megan Black, The Global Interior (2018), selected excerpt; recent Western Historical Quarterly article chosen for local relevance.
14 | No new reading assigned |  | No new scholarship assigned
15 | Instructor-selected current public sources; verify immediately before teaching | Western Historical Quarterly, current research Northwest Missouri State University Archives | One recent Western Historical Quarterly article selected to match student capstone themes.

Links and current-affairs materials should be rechecked immediately before the course begins.