WEEK 8 · INQUIRY MODULE
Week 8: Railroads, Corporate Empire, and Dispossession
What did railroads connect, and what relations of land, labor, and violence did they conceal?
Dates: October 12–16, 2026
Focus
- Railroad finance and federal land policy
- Chinese, Indigenous, Black, Mexican, and white labor
- Buffalo destruction, military logistics, and market integration
Before class
- Read: American Yawp, chapter 16 selected sections.
- Open and inspect the linked primary-source collection(s). Record one source, one context question, and one limitation.
- Scholarship lens: Manu Karuka, Empire’s Tracks (2019), selected excerpt.
Primary-source portals
Tuesday/Thursday meeting plan
| Date | Status | Plan |
|---|
| Tuesday, October 13 | Class | Railroad promotion, federal subsidy, land policy, corporate sovereignty, and labor. |
| Thursday, October 15 | Class | Railroads, military logistics, dispossession, and the in-class historiographical synthesis. |
Campus full-term classes meet normally; the October 12–16 online break does not apply. Historiographical Portfolio due Friday, October 16.
After class
Deliverable: Historiographical Judgment Portfolio and Reading & Reasoning Check 6.
- I can answer the weekly inquiry with a contestable claim.
- I can name at least two pieces of evidence and explain their limits.
- I can identify an interpretation that my evidence supports, complicates, or challenges.