American Studies 101

Welcome to American Studies 101. This is an introductory online course for students at California State University, Fullerton, and anyone el...

Beginning in the 1820s, James Fennimore Cooper wrote popular stories about Leatherstocking, a genteel explorer who was ambivalent about civ...

This week's reading is Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis" (1893). Turner delivered his thesis lecture at t...

One way to think about the power of Turner's frontier thesis is to examine Teddy Roosevelt, our 26th president, who was in the White Hou...

This week, we're reading Patty Limerick's  Legacy of Conquest , a spirited response to Turner. “Turner’s frontier rested on a singl...

This week, you are reading the early chapters from Robert Hine and John Mack Faragher's Frontiers: A Short History of the American Wes...

This week, we are reading about California's frontiers in mines and cities. MINING FRONTIERS To think about mining in ways that ge...

This week, you are again choosing among several chapters in Hine and Faragher's book. All these chapters focus on the economics of the f...

This may be the most important thing you ever learn in college: race is culturally constructed.  Americans often think that race is ...