HSTA - History-American

HSTA 101IH American History I: 4 Credits (3 Lec, 1 Other)

An examination of the colonial world of the Americas and the development of the United States as a nation.

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Evaluate documents from early colonial to reconstruction
Synthesize ideas & information focusing on the settlement of the colonies and formation of the United States
Understand and analyze the behaviors, ideas, and institutions associated with the Americas from the colonial era through reconstruction
Demonstrate an awareness of competing interpretations of the colonial era through reconstruction
Demonstrate proficiency in the fundamentals of historical writing, including constructing an historical argument supported by evidence.

HSTA 102IH American History II: 4 Credits (3 Lec, 1 Other)

An examination of the United States after the Civil War through the 20th Century.

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Demonstrate a reasonable facility with all of the Core requirements noted above as evaluated through recitation participation, verbal and written assignments, and exams.
Evaluate documents from reconstruction to the present
Synthesize ideas information focusing on the emergence of the united states as a world power
Analyze the behaviors, ideas, and institutions associated with America since reconstruction
Demonstrate an awareness of competing interpretations of American history since reconstruction
Demonstrate proficiency in the fundamentals of historical writing, including constructing an historical argument supported by evidence

HSTA 129IH Asian American History: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

(F, Sp) This course provides a general introduction to the history and settlement of Asian peoples in the United States from the mid-19th century to the present day.

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Differentiate the multifaceted label of “Asian” (East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, etc.) in a historical context
Order a larger chronology and history of Asian diaspora and immigration to the United States
Recognize Asian peoples in the United States as both settlers and a minority ethnic group
Analyze the internal movement and community building of Asian peoples in both urban and rural spaces
Interpret the Asian experience within a context of race, class, and gender
Identify exclusive legal structures that marginalized Asian and Asian American peoples and how they change over time

HSTA 160D Introduction to the American West: 4 Credits (3 Lec, 1 Other)

Introduction to the American West examines the conquest, settlement, and development west of the Mississippi River.

View Course Outcomes:

Demonstrate knowledge of the key events, and actors as laid out in the course readings and lectures.
Demonstrate an understanding of the historical interpretations and debates regarding this period as laid out in the course readings and lecture
Draw on the above course material to write their own original analytical essays which include a clear thesis statement and adequate supporting historical evidence
Discuss and analyze the above course material, either in class or in an online forum, in an informed and intellectually incisive manner

HSTA 220IH Shaping of America: History of American Religion: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

In 1630, John Winthrop warned the Puritan community who was about to embark from the Arabella that the city they were going to found should be as a “city on a hill,” a beacon of godliness to the world. This course focuses on American religious life from Winthrop forward, looking at how religion has shaped American politics and society from the fifteenth century to the present.

View Course Outcomes:

Describe how religion has shaped American politics and society from the fifteenth century to the present..
Identify a variety of religious traditions within the United States and articulate the contours of their beliefs, practices, and experiences.
Compare and contrast academic and non-academic approaches to the study of religion.
Interpret a variety of sources, including films, sermons, academic monographs, and memoirs.
Effectively use primary and secondary sources to write persuasive arguments.
Respectfully discuss American religious experience using academic language
Utilization of disciplinary methods, including the kinds of questions asked in the discipline and the methods that practitioners use to explore those questions
Demonstrate critical thinking skills within the field.
Demonstrate communication skills.

HSTA 291 Special Topics: 1-4 Credits (1-4 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: None required but some may be determined necessary by each offering department. Course not required in any curriculum for which there is a particular one-time need, or given on a trial basis to determine acceptability and demand before requesting a regular course number
Repeatable up to 12 credits.

HSTA 298 American History Internship: 1-12 Credits (1-12 Other)

PREREQUISITE: Consent of instructor, and approval of department head. An individualized assignment arranged with an agency, business, or other organization to provide guided experience in the field
Repeatable up to 12 credits.

HSTA 300 Writing for History: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTR 101IH or HSTR 102IH. (F, Sp) This new course is designed for students who are early in their history careers. It will serve as a bridge between 100-level courses, which serve as introductions to central topics and problems in history, and 300- and 400-level courses in which advanced students are expected to apply a broad range of sophisticated historical and historiographical skills. Through the topic of American history, we will explore how historians think, write, and talk about the past. Students will be responsible for learning how to identify historical theses and persuasive evidence, to distinguish between primary and secondary sources, and to articulate verbally and in writing their own assessments of our readings

View Course Outcomes:

Recognize a historian's argument and key pieces of evidence in scholarly texts. 
Evaluate primary and secondary sources used in historical writing.
Synthesize historiographies across fields and chronologies.
Articulate an argument with a cohesive narrative using convincing evidence.
Reconstruct historical writings to communicate to a larger audience.
Formulate and investigate a significant historical question using the skills above.

HSTA 311 Early America: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITES: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH
The development of the British American colonies and the establishment of the U.S. before 1800. Topics include pre-Columbian Native Americans, the European invasion and settlement of America, the social, economic and political evolution of the colonies, the American Revolution, and the establishment of the new nation.

View Course Outcomes:

Students should learn about the Revolutionary Era, including its political, social and intellectual aspects
Students should learn how to analyze a primary historical document, writing a paper and making a presentation about it
Students should develop their critical analytical ability, as demonstrated in essays they write for the course

HSTA 315 Early American Republic, 1787-1848: 3 Credits (3 Other)

PREREQUISITES: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH. The political, social and economic history of the United States during its formative years. Topics include the emergence of national political parties and democratic politics, westward expansion, economic and social development, slavery, Indian removal and social reform

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establish an in-depth knowledge of the political, social, and economic history of the United States from the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787 through the end of the war with Mexico in 1848 through careful reading of assigned primary and secondary sources.
demonstrate familiarity with the intense debates over the principles and policies, domestic and foreign, that would influence the direction and meaning of the new nation’s republican experiment and the emergence of mass political parties and democratic politics.
recognize how the emerging democratic republic and the revolutionary advances in technology, especially transportation and communication, combined to produce distinctive American society that honored individual initiative, gave rise to a capitalist economy, and shaped the daily lives and character of the new nation's men and women
acquire detailed knowledge about the troubling questions associated with slavery, race, and territorial expansion, and the threat they posed to the American Union
develop critical reading, thinking, and analytical skills, and to employ them effectively in class discussions and in writing.

HSTA 316 American Civil War Era: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH. Political, economic, and social developments leading to sectional division breakdown of political accommodations, Civil War, and Reconstruction

HSTA 320 Birth of Modern US: 1865-1945: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or consent of instructor. The modern US was born in the fiery crucible of these pivotal decades, shaped by the resurgent racism of Reconstruction, the wrenching dislocation of rapid industrialization and technological change, the rise of big cities and big business, and the catastrophic economic collapse of the Great Depression that gave rise to the New Deal order that would define the nation for decades to come

View Course Outcomes:

Students will be able to:
• Demonstrate knowledge of key actors and events in post-Civil War American history
• Demonstrate knowledge of and be able to analyze continuities and changes in post-Civil War American society, culture, politics, and foreign policy
• Interpret facts, evaluate historical arguments and interpretations, and form one’s own assessments about the American past
• Identify and analyze how we as a society remember the past and how history is used in the present
• Draw on the above to write analytical essays with a clear thesis statement and adequate supporting historical evidence

HSTA 322 Am History: WWII to Present: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITES: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH
Political, cultural, and economic history of the U.S. since the end of WWII.

View Course Outcomes:

Demonstrate knowledge of the key historical events and actors as laid out in the course readings and lectures
Demonstrate an understanding of the historical interpretations and debates regarding this period as laid out in the course readings and lecture
Draw on the above course material to write their own original analytical essays which include a clear thesis statement and adequate supporting historical evidence
Discuss and analyze the above course material, either in class or in an online forum, in an informed and intellectually incisive manner

HSTA 334 American Myth, Memory and Monuments: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: WRIT 101. Investigate how American public monuments create and reinforce historical narratives

View Course Outcomes:

Identify key myths in American history and explain how and why they developed\\n
Give examples of ways that historical myths have been used, manipulated, and contested
Find examples of historical commemorations in their own communities and interpret, evaluate, and critique the historical narrative that they tell \\n
Demonstrate the ability to read critically, formulate and support a historic argument, and thoughtfully engage in classroom discussion\\n

HSTA 402 Sex and Sexuality in America: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or AMST 101D. This course explores how definitions of sex and sexuality have changed in the United States from the sixteenth-century to the present. In the course, students will come to understand sexuality and sex as historically constructed and will investigate the importance of these topics to American politics and culture. Students will also examine how societies have tried to govern sexuality and the constant challenge that individuals have offered to sexual regulation. Topics will include: prostitution, birth control, abortion, homosexuality, the development of transsexual identity, and women’s liberation movements

View Course Outcomes:

Describe both the continuities and differences between past and present definitions of sex, gender, and sexuality.
Gather and contextualize information in order to convey both the particularity of past lives and the scale of human experience.
Describe how sex and sexuality have been defined in the past from a variety of perspectives.
Explain and justify how understandings of sex and sexuality have changed using conflicting sources.
Identify, summarize, appraise, and synthesize other scholars’ historical arguments.
Consider a variety of historical sources for credibility, position, perspective, and relevance.
Generate substantive, open-ended questions about the past and develop research strategies to answer them.

HSTA 403 Plants and Power in American History: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing. (F) This course considers the ways in which American agricultural history fundamentally shaped the political, economic, social, racial, and ecological structures of American society from the colonial period to the twentieth century

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Explain the major economic, social, political, technological, and scientific developments in the history of American agriculture
Recognize the cultural implications of America’s agricultural systems through the lens of race and gender
Critique American agricultural exceptionalism
Identify the causes, consequences, and significance of the major events, developments, and issues that shaped the agricultural history and present of the United States

HSTA 406 McCarthy, Populism and Fear in US Politics: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH. An analysis of the ways the Truman and Eisenhower administrations dealt with anti-communism, with a focus on McCarthyism

View Course Outcomes:

Demonstrate knowledge of the key historical events and actors as laid out in the course readings and lectures
Demonstrate an understanding of the historical interpretations and debates regarding this period as laid out in the course readings and lecture
Draw on the above course material to write their own original analytical essays which include a clear thesis statement and adequate supporting historical evidence
Discuss and analyze the above course material, either in class or in an online forum, in an informed and intellectually incisive manner

HSTA 407 Gender in US & Canadian West: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTA 160D or AMST 101D. Exploring the US and Canadian West in the light of gender. Focuses on topics of race and ethnicity, families and intimacy, politics and the law, paid and unpaid work, and art and culture

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Through a comparative analysis of women's experiences in the Canadian and U.S .Wests, students will gain an understanding of how a nation state influences women's lives in differing ways.
Students will have gained some familiarity with the variety of experiences of indigenous women and settlers and their descendants who came to the West from Mexico, Asia and Europe.
Students will have written analytical papers that require them to engage themes and evidence from multiple texts.

HSTA 408 Gender in America: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTA 160D or AMST 101D. History of women in America from colonial times to the present. Analysis of gender relations, the family, the struggle by women to achieve civil rights and social reform, the problems of working women, and the rise of feminism

HSTA 409 Food in America: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTA 160D or AMST 101D. An examination of the history of the production, consumption, and cultural meaning of food in America. In this class, food functions as the gateway to examine issues of labor, gender, race, and class in America from the colonial period to the present

HSTA 410 Disease in America: 3 Credits (1 Lec, 2 Other)

PREREQUISITE: Sophomore standing. (F, Sp) From smallpox to yellow fever to COVID-19, epidemics have played a significant role in American history. How have these diseases and others affected people’s lives as well as historical events? What have people’s responses to epidemics been, and how have those responses informed social relations and perceptions, including those around health, bodies, community membership and emerging conceptions of race? This course will explore the ways in which illness and disease shaped and changed populations and societies in the US. It will also examine various cultural approaches to sickness, health, and medicine, as we read about indigenous, African- and Euro-American medical traditions. Topics to be covered include “virgin soil” epidemics; the cultural and political aspects of medical practices; and various ways that race and social class affect people’s perceptions of, responses to, and experiences with illness and health

View Course Outcomes:

analyze and interpret primary sources from the seventeenth through the twenty-first century
identify the forces behind primary sources, and create their own primary sources
design projects both independently and in a group setting using different modes of communication (written, oral, etc.)
develop their critical thinking skills through written work and class discussion

HSTA 412IH American Thought and Culture: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTA 160D or AMST 101D. The fundamental purpose of this course is to show the interconnectedness of science, philosophy, literature, and religion in shaping the American intellectual tradition from the Puritan founding to the present

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Core Inquiry Outcomes: Understanding of disciplinary methods, including the kinds of questions asked in the discipline and the methods that practitioners use to explore those questions
Demonstrate critical thinking skills within the field
Demonstrate communication skills
Course Learning Outcomes: Students will understand the key ideas and themes in American intellectual and cultural history from the colonial period through the present.
Demonstrate their ability to analyze primary sources in historical context.
Improve their ability to advance their critical thinking skills through written work and class discussion.

HSTA 416 Race and Class in America: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTA 160D or AMST 101D Race in the history of the U.S. from early European and Native American contact until the present. Considers issues of racism, race relations, slavery, African-American culture, jazz, the modern Civil Rights movement, and current policy and racial questions

HSTA 450 History of American Indians: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH. Indian affairs in America from 1600-1970. Emphasis on white reaction to the American Indians and the effect of the European invasion on Indian culture

HSTA 460 Montana and the West: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or HSTA 160D. A survey of how the region that became the territory and then the state of Montana developed. Focuses on the social, economic, cultural, military, and political patterns that connect Montana with the rest of the American West

View Course Outcomes:

The course will help students understand and be able to explain in writing.
The use and value of maps, artifacts, and campus tours in history.
Montana in the regional contexts of western U.S. and Canada
The geography, basic chronology, government, and economics of the state.

HSTA 464 History of the American West: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH or consent of the instructor. (Sp) Exploration of major themes in the development of the American West, such as conquest and settlement, economic development, racial and ethnic diversity, urbanization, and popular culture

View Course Outcomes:

discuss and analyze texts that provide a variety of interpretations of the settlement of the American West.
gain familiarity with the concept of region and of historians approach to regional history.
write analytical papers that require them to engage themes and evidence from multiple texts.

HSTA 468 History of Yellowstone: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH. Historical analysis of changing perceptions of nature on development of Yellowstone and of the Park's place in the context of a modernizing American nation

HSTA 470 American Environmental History: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: HSTA 101IH or HSTA 102IH. Survey of changing perceptions and uses of the natural world from the colonial era to the present

HSTA 472 American Built Environment: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: Senior standing. (F) This course analyzes the buildings, structures, and landscapes of the American past to understand important developments in U.S. history

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Interpret the built environment and landscapes for the various meanings it yields to historians.
Identify major changes in North American architecture and landscapes and to relate such changes to their historic contexts.
Identify and generally date structures.
Relate changing building technologies to architecture.
Write physical descriptions of buildings required in historic preservation documentation.
Research and write statements of historic significance required in historic preservation documentation.

HSTA 474 Fire in America: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: Junior standing or consent of instructor. (F, Sp) History of fire and human interaction with fire from ancient times to the present, with emphasis on North America and the American West

View Course Outcomes:

identify the types and causes of historic fires in western North America.
cooperatively gather evidence to evaluate the history of selected fires in the North American West.
compare the historical evidence for the claim that the North American West has the wrong kind of fire.
identify the major developments and periods in the Earth's fire history with an emphasis on the North American West.
orally evaluate the uses of fire history knowledge in federal government land and resource management, agriculture and forestry, fire prevention and suppression, home ownership, and general public safety.

HSTA 482 Technology and the Fate of Humanity: 3 Credits (3 Lec)

From the earliest stone tools to electricity, nuclear weapons, and the modern smart phone, technologies have repeatedly transformed the very nature of what it means to be "human." Using case studies from the United States and around the globe, this course reveals how key technologies have shaped history while also grappling with a profoundly important question: Can we learn to control the technologies that increasingly threaten our future existence?.

View Course Outcomes:

At the conclusion of the course, the student will demonstrate an ability to:

1) Explain the nature of major technological changes and their historical consequences;

2) Thoughtfully analyze the challenges humans face in controlling potentially dangerous technologies;

3) Show a substantial knowledge of all course readings and lectures through course quizzes and exams; and,

4) Write well crafted essays analyzing key course themes and evidence.

HSTA 490R Undergraduate Research: 1-6 Credits (1 Other)

PREREQUISITE: Consent of instructor and approval of department head. (F, Sp, Su) Course will address responsible conduct of research. Directed research on an individual basis
Repeatable up to 12 credits.

HSTA 491 Special Topics: 1-4 Credits (1-4 Lec)

PREREQUISITE: Course prerequisites as determined for each offering. Courses not required in any curriculum for which there is a particular one-time need, or given on a trial basis to determine acceptability and demand before requesting a regular course number
Repeatable up to 12 credits.

HSTA 492 Independent Study: 1-4 Credits (1-4 Other)

PREREQUISITE: Consent of instructor and approval of department head. (F, Sp, Su) Directed research and study on an individual basis
Repeatable up to 6 credits.

HSTA 498 Internship: 1-12 Credits (1-12 Other)

PREREQUISITE: Consent of instructor, consent of internship supervisor, and approval of department head. An individualized assignment arranged with an agency, business, or other organization to provide guided experience in the field
Repeatable up to 12 credits.

HSTA 591 Special Topics: 1-4 Credits (1-4 Lec)