HIST 1045 - Environmental History of the United States

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3 Lab 0
Internship hours per week 0
Course Description: This course surveys the complex relationship between the natural environment and human settlements in the United States from pre-colonial times into the present. It focuses on how the natural environment has shaped human settlements, how humans have restructured the natural world, and how humans’ interactions with nature have affected their relations with one another. Topics include colonialism, market economies, race, gender, class, industrialization, the role of the government, and cultural attitudes toward the environment.
MnTC Goals
Goal 5 History/Social/Behavioral, Goal 10 People/Environment

Prerequisite(s): Course placement into college-level English and Reading OR completion of ENGL 0950 with a grade of C or higher OR completion of RDNG 0940 with a grade of C or higher and qualifying English Placement Exam OR completion of RDNG 0950 with a grade of C or higher and ENGL 0090 with a grade of C or higher OR completion of ESOL 0051 with a grade of C or higher and ESOL 0052 with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: None

Major Content

1. What is Environmental History?

2. The Natural Environment of Indigenous America

3. Germs and Horses in the Spanish West

4. Changing the Land in Colonial New England

5. Tobacco and Rice in the Colonial South

6. Farms and Markets in the Early Republic

7. The Environment and Society of the Cotton South

8. Exploitation and Extraction in the Nineteenth-Century West

9. Urban Environments in the Age of Industrialization

10. Conservationism and Preservationism in the Progressive Era

11. Dust, Water, Trees: Environmental Transformations in the New Deal Era

12. Fallout, Pollution, and Sprawl: An Emerging Environmental Consciousness after WWII

13. Environmentalist Movements after 1965

14. Anti-Environmentalist Movements after 1980

15. Environmental Racism and Justice

16. Climate Change and Environmental Cataclysms

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course students will be able to:

1. interpret the environmental history of the United States by making connections between significant events, people, movements, and ideas in the past.

2. use historical thinking to make connections between the environmental history of the United States and the present.

3. assess the relevance and limitations of primary and secondary sources.

4. formulate a historical argument.

5. explain the process by which human society and the natural environment have shaped and constrained each other throughout United States history.

Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MnTC): Goals and Competencies
Competency Goals (MnTC Goals 1-6)

05. 01. Employ the methods and data that historians and social and behavioral scientists use to investigate the human condition.

05. 02. Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.

05.04. Develop and communicate alternative explanations or solutions for contemporary issues.

Theme Goals (MnTC Goals 7-10)

10.01. Explain the basic structure and function of various natural ecosystems and of the human adaptive strategies within those systems.

10.02. Discern patterns and interrelationships of bio-physical and socio-cultural systems.

10.03. Describe the basic institutional arrangements (social, legal, political, economic, religious) that are evolving to deal with environmental and natural resource challenges.

10.04. Evaluate critically environmental and natural resource issues in light of understanding about interrelationships, ecosystems, and institutions.

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HIST 1045 - Environmental History of the United States