History 7B: The United States Since 1865

Japanese-American grocer, San Francisco, 1942

Welcome to History 7B!

What does it mean to be an "American"? How do we define American values and principles? How do these compliment and contradict the history of this nation? To what extent have all Americans been able to share in the rights, responsibilities, privileges, and protections of life since the Civil War? Throughout the semester, you will be asked to reassess your historical assumptions and sensibilities as you work to form your own informed conclusions about this nation's past.

Course Description

This course is a survey of the United States from the end of the Civil War to the 2008 presidential election. It focuses on the social, cultural, political, intellectual, and economic factors that have shaped our nation, and it will provide you with an understanding of the real consequences of policies, laws, attitudes, and activism.

Our ability to appreciate the experiences of our predecessors depends largely upon our capacity to see the world as those who came before us did. Toward that end, we will examine a broad selection of primary source materials offered by the famous and unfamiliar alike, relying as much on the experiences of slaves, soldiers, immigrants, and laborers, for instance, as on the lives of presidents, generals, and leaders of industry. We will explore legal codes, political cartoons, newspaper articles, and court cases as well as speeches, letters, interviews, works of art, music, literature, and photographs. We will also work with a secondary source––a textbook––which will assist us in organizing and making sense of these stories.

This is a 3 unit class. It is transferable to both CSU and UC. For prospective UC Berkeley transfer students, the course fulfills the UCB American Cultures requirement.


Student Learning Outcomes

    1. Identify the ideologies, events, movements, and historical figures that have shaped the way Americans see themselves and their standing in the world.
    2. Explain how issues of race, ethnicity, and gender affected the development of the American economy, American politics, and American culture.
    3. Critically evaluate the value of primary and secondary sources in the study of history.


Class time

Wednesdays, 7:00 - 9:50 pm

Class location

Berkeley City College Campus
2050 Center St.
ROOM 34


Required texts

  • Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History, Volume 2 (Third Edition)
  • Eric Foner, Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Volume 2 (Third Edition)
  • Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Farewell to Manzanar
  • Additional readings, in the form of class handouts and/or web links, will be assigned most weeks.

Each of these texts can be found at the Berkeley City College Student Bookstore. You can also find used copies online at Amazon.com and Abebooks.com.

Edgar Heap of Birds, Standing Before You, 1973Standing Before You, by Native American (Cheyenne/Arapaho) artist Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds. This work was created in 1973, amid a surge in the Red Power Movement in the United States.