HIST3434 · History
Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences
History Major Standing. Newspapers in the 1850s were fiercely partisan and intensely sectional. Editors disagreed vehemently with one another about the meaning and importance of events such as the Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, and the caning of Charles Sumner, and they also often disagreed about what actually happened. In this seminar, students will write major research papers analyzing some aspect of newspapers' partisan and sectional coverage of the events leading to the Civil War. The course is designed to teach students how historians research, develop a thesis, organize their findings, and write their analysis from start to finish.
Course experience
Averages use the original five-point historical evaluation scale.
Organization
4.2 / 5
How well the course was organized
Challenge
4.6 / 5
How intellectually challenging students found it
Attendance
4.6 / 5
How necessary attendance was
Assignments
4.4 / 5
How helpful assignments were
Weekly effort
~5
hours per week
Estimated from the original workload response buckets. Individual sections may differ.
Instructor options
Ratings below reflect only recovered evaluations connected to this course.
Across time
Section-level results available in the recovered archive.
Spring 2025
1 section