OU - Exploring U.S. History
About Exploring U.S. History (HIST 1483 and HIST 1493)
Understanding the past, including the unique rights and responsibilities of American citizenship, is essential for our collective future. These courses will introduce you to the means and methods of original research, and will enhance your ability to articulate your own ideas and arguments-- both orally and in writing. These skills should serve you well throughout your academic and professional careers. We look forward to working with you!
James Hart, History Department Chair, University of Oklahoma
News
Congratulations to OU student Camille Matlock, whose research paper “America’s Dairyland: A Brie Bit Gay” won the David W. Levy Prize for Fall 2020. Matlock’s research examines how the Gay People’s Union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee used both major and independent media “to combat systemic oppression, promote political engagement, and destigmatize homosexuality” in the wake of McCarthyism.
Recent Submissions
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Into the Badlands: Japanese American Incarceration and the Environment Undergraduate
(2019)In the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States not only declared war on the Empire of Japan, but also began the forced relocation of thousands of Japanese American citizens from the Pacific ... -
America’s Dairyland: A Brie Bit Gay Undergraduate
(2020)The dogmatic, authoritarian 1950’s triggered a massive emergence of movements and sub-cultures that sought to counter repressive McCarthy-era persecutions and reject mainstream American society. Openly gay and lesbian ... -
The Cold War: The Pursuit of Freedom from an Unfreed Nation, The United States of America Undergraduate
(2020-04-24)The end of World War II brought some temporary joy to the United States and many other nations across the globe. Nevertheless, such a joy barely lasted as tension among its wartime ally, the Soviet Union, escalated to what ... -
After the Revolution: The Natural Rights of Women Undergraduate
(2019-04-25)The post-Revolutionary American woman was idealized as an embodiment of virtue, heralded for fulfilling her duties to family and society, but kept well outside of politics, academia, and other traditionally masculine ... -
Thomas W. Woodrow's Appeals for Socialism Based on Religion and Economics Undergraduate
During the early 1900s, Oklahoma contained one of the largest socialist parties in the United States. In his magazine, Woodrow's Monthly, Thomas W. Woodrow, a socialist Christian pastor in Hobart, Oklahoma, created a wide ... -
The Hull House, its Co-Founders, and the Progressive Era Undergraduate
Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr were the co-founders of the first settlement house in Chicago. This home, the Hull House, provided a plethora of amenities, clubs, and academic classes for poverty-stricken people in the ... -
Protesting Miss America Undergraduate
Topic statement: How did the 1968 Miss America Pageant protests exemplify the values of women during this time period, and how did the feminist movement affect other civil rights movements at the time? -
Out of the closet and into the streets : on the flamboyance and fervor of the gay liberation movement Undergraduate
Ironically enough, mere moments after bemoaning today's young generation of LGBT men and women for being uneducated on the history of LGBT rights, drag performer Derrick Barry erroneously asserted that "people were killed" ... -
Democracy deposed : U.S. media coverage of 1950's Guatemala Undergraduate
After World War II, the United States established itself as a crusader for democracy and capitalism around the world. The urge to fight communism while advocating for democracy meant a dilemma when faced with countries ... -
The corrupt bargain : a story of the Cherokee plight Undergraduate
The Cherokee Nation is one of the many Native American nations that had their rights and lives stolen by the United States, and arguments are made that they suffered the worst. The Cherokee did not admit defeat from the ... -
Buying your health : medical consumerism in the early twentieth century Undergraduate
After WWI, the United States saw an unprecedented rise in economic production and mass consumerism, an era that came to be characterized by wealth, prosperity, and vanity. Spurred on by the second industrial revolution, ... -
What the Black Panther Party did for you Undergraduate
In October of 1966 Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, a socialist, multi-racial, black nationalist group that endeavored to awaken the black community and unify it in activism ... -
"Manifestly unfit" : an analysis of eugenics in relation to race and disability Undergraduate
Eugenics was one of the darkest movements of the Progressive era. The eugenics movement argued that preserving "superior" humans will create a more productive and healthy class of people. It dated back to Francis Galton's ... -
The Mexican-American War : a war of American values Undergraduate
The Mexican-American War significantly expanded the territories of the United States. This has become common knowledge throughout the public, and the war is frequently left at that defining statement. However, the ... -
The rush to save the ill Undergraduate
Benjamin Rush is not to be dismissed as history has shown-his extensive medical training and experience, when contextualized within his own time, was highly beneficial to the people of Philadelphia during the summer 1793 ... -
Law and order : Nixon's rhetoric and the Southern strategy Undergraduate
Today's familiar Democratic and Republican party coalitions have not always existed; rather, they began to emerge in the 1960s as demographic and geographic groups shifted party alliances. This paper focuses on one factor ... -
"The new Negro" : center of the Harlem stage Undergraduate
Amidst a tragically long-standing history of oppression, the Harlem Renaissance was arguably the pinnacle of African American prosperity in the United States during the early twentieth century. The Harlem Renaissance, being ... -
American terror Undergraduate
For 150 years, those that have come to call the American Civil War "the War of Northern Aggression" have cited General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea as an unnecessary act of terror; opponents claim the South ... -
50 shades of slavery : sexual assault of black male slaves in antebellum America Undergraduate
Male slave owners used sexual assault to dominate, dehumanize, and emasculate male slaves in American Antebellum South. The oppression and violence that characterized the institution of chattel slavery are easily accessible, ... -
Survey of the Marine Corps as a distinct branch of the United States military from 1775 to 1805 Undergraduate
When the "shot heard 'round the world" sparked the American War for Independence in 1775, the emerging American nation was rattled, but only for a moment. The iron will of the Colonial forces provided the foundation for ...
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