12/7/2025 5:04:36 PM	HIST 24 Course Outline as of Fall 2025	New Course (First Version)
CATALOG INFORMATION
Discipline and Nbr:  HIST 24	Title:  US ENVIRON HIST
Full Title:  United States Environmental History
Last Reviewed:5/13/2024

Units		Course Hours per Week			Nbr of Weeks	Course Hours Total
Maximum	3.00	Lecture Scheduled	3.00		17.5 max.	Lecture Scheduled	52.50
Minimum	3.00	Lab Scheduled	0		6 min.	Lab Scheduled	0
		Contact DHR	0			Contact DHR	0
		Contact Total	3.00			Contact Total	52.50
		Non-contact DHR	0			Non-contact DHR Total	0

Total Out of Class Hours:  105.00

Total Student Learning Hours: 157.50

Title 5 Category:  AA Degree Applicable
Grading:  Grade or P/NP
Repeatability:  00 - Two Repeats if Grade was D, F, NC, or NP
Also Listed As: 
Formerly: 

Catalog Description:

In this introductory course, students will learn the ways in which the physical environment influenced and was influenced by humans and their interaction with the nonhuman world. Course topics include the history of ecology; Native American ecology; agricultural history; human perceptions of nature; the environmental impact of industrialization; the preservation, conservation, and environmental movements; and environmental racism.

Prerequisites/Corequisites:

Recommended Preparation:
Eligibility for ENGL 1A or equivalent

Limits on Enrollment:

Schedule of Classes Information
Description:

In this introductory course, students will learn the ways in which the physical environment influenced and was influenced by humans and their interaction with the nonhuman world. Course topics include the history of ecology; Native American ecology; agricultural history; human perceptions of nature; the environmental impact of industrialization; the preservation, conservation, and environmental movements; and environmental racism.

(Grade or P/NP)
Prerequisites:
Recommended:Eligibility for ENGL 1A or equivalent
Limits on Enrollment:
Transfer Credit:CSU;UC.
Repeatability:00 - Two Repeats if Grade was D, F, NC, or NP

ARTICULATION, MAJOR, and CERTIFICATION INFORMATION

Associate Degree:		Effective:	Fall 2025	Inactive:
Area:	L3 L4	Arts and Humanities Social and Behavioral Sciences
CSU GE:	Transfer Area			Effective:	Inactive:
IGETC:	Transfer Area			Effective:	Inactive:
CSU Transfer:	Transferable	Effective:	Fall 2025	Inactive:
UC Transfer:	Transferable	Effective:	Fall 2025	Inactive:
C-ID:

Certificate/Major Applicable: Major Applicable Course

COURSE CONTENT

Student Learning Outcomes:
At the conclusion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Identify historical concepts, events, and policies that explain how human interventions have changed the environment over time.

2. Analyze the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation on colonized, minoritized, and marginalized people in United States (U.S.) History.

 

Objectives:

At the conclusion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Identify significant persons, places, events, documents, issues, groups, and other political/social/economic aspects of U.S. environmental history.

2. Analyze the role of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in environmental history.

3. Assess U.S. economic growth in relation to environmental degradation.

4. Analyze the relevance of environmental history to today's climate crises.

Topics and Scope

I. Prehistory

     A. From Pangaea to Beringia

    B. Ice ages and human migration

    C. 1491: The Americas before Columbus

II. Recontact

    A. Ecological imperialism

    B. Livestock, viruses, and other vectors

    C. Conquest or exchange?

    D. Categories of "race"

III. Colonial North America

    A. Chaotic Eden

    B. Furs and frontiersmen

    C. Native American managed landscapes

    D. Mercantilism and tropical commodities

IV. Frontier and Grid

    A. The Northwest Ordinance

    B. Frontier wars: empires and first nations

    C. Slavery and Environment

         1. Theft of body and mind

         2. The "rice coasts"

V. Gender and the Environment

        A. Indigenous farmers

             1. Three sisters

        B. Masculinity in Euro-American monoculture

        C. Enslaved women and environmental knowledge

        D. Silent Spring

         E. Ecofeminism

VI. Commons, Mills, Corporations

    A. The Industrial Revolution

    B. Theft of the commons

    C. Laws of Nature

    D. Water + labor = textiles

VII. The Transportation Revolution

    A. Sailing and navigation

    B. Internal improvements: roads, turnpikes, canals

    C. Internal combustion

         1. Part I: the Age of Steam (boats, Railroads (RRs))

         2. Part II: the Age of Fossil Fuels

    D. Transportation and commodities

VIII. Commodities: The Center and the Periphery

    A. Nature's metropolises

         1. Cincinnati

         2. Chicago

         3. Minneapolis

    B. The high price of cheap food

         1. "The Jungle"

         2. Populism, Progressivism, the regulatory state

         3. Mass production, marketing, mass consumption

IX. The Green Revolution

    A. The three minerals that control the world

         1. Nitrogen

              a. The Guano Islands

              b. The Haber-Bosch process

         2. Phosphorus

         3. Potassium

              a. Consequences of plowing up the prairie

              b. Dust Bowls, Dead Zones, Farm Aid

X. City Life

    A. Controlling the waterfront

    B. Controlling the waste water

    C. Mobility: walking, horses, streetcars, autos

    D. Cleaning up the cities: Progressive reformers

    E. Parks and suburbs

XI. Wilderness and Country Life

    A. Organizing farmers: the Grange, the People's Party

    B. Progressive conservationists

         1. The creation of "wilderness"

         2. Hetch Hetchy: preservation versus resource extraction

    C. Post-World War II Environmentalism

XII. Farmers and Agribusinesses

    A. After 1920: feeding an urban population

    B. Mechanization, concentration, and pesticides

    C. Enter the Chicken

XIII. Oil!

    A. Anthropocene?

    B. A "carbon democracy"

XIV. The Limits to Growth

    A. Escaping the Malthusian catastrophe

    B. Peak oil and the climate crisis

XV. Environmental Economics

    A. Green Capitalism

    B. Environmental inequalities, environmental justice

    C. Racial Capitalism

XVI. Food and Choice

    A. Roots of the climate crisis

    B. The genetically modified organism (GMO) debate

    C. Environmentalism, localism, veganism, alternative agriculture

Assignments:

1. Weekly reading assignments of approximately 30-50 pages a week. These assignments will be both primary and secondary sources.

2. 2000-4000 words of out-of-class writing will be assigned over the semester. These assignments may be reaction papers, analytical essays, and/or research papers. The assignments will critically interpret primary and secondary sources.  

3. One to two midterm(s) and a final. Exams must include essays with optional objective questions.

4. Participation in discussion as directed by instructor.

5. Optional objective quizzes.

Methods of Evaluation/Basis of Grade.

Writing: Assessment tools that demonstrate writing skill and/or require students to select, organize and explain ideas in writing.		Writing 30 - 60%
Writing assignments
Problem solving: Assessment tools, other than exams, that demonstrate competence in computational or non-computational problem solving skills.		Problem Solving 0 - 0%
None
Skill Demonstrations: All skill-based and physical demonstrations used for assessment purposes including skill performance exams.		Skill Demonstrations 0 - 0%
None
Exams: All forms of formal testing, other than skill performance exams.		Exams 30 - 60%
Exams, Final, Optional quizzes
Other: Includes any assessment tools that do not logically fit into the above categories.		Other Category 10 - 20%
Class attendance and participation

Representative Textbooks and Materials:

The Environment in American History: Nature and the Formation of the United States. Crane, Jeff. Routledge. 2015. (classic).

 

Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States. Fiege, Mark. University of Washington Press. 2013. (classic).

 

American Environmental History: An Introduction. Merchant, Carolyn. Columbia University Press. 2007. (classic).

 

Major Problems in American Environmental History: Documents and Essays. 3rd Edition. Merchant, Carolyn. Cengage Learning. 2012. (classic).

 

Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History. 4th Edition. Steinberg, Ted. Oxford University Press. 2018. (classic).

 

Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States. Zimring, Carl A. NYU Press. 2017. (classic).

 

Open Educational Resource:

 

American Environmental History. Allosso, Dan. 2019. https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/americanenvironmentalhistory/ Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

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