In the 1860s and 70s, photographer Timothy O’Sullivan created some of the best-known images in American History. After covering the U.S. Civil War, O’Sullivan joined a number of expeditions organized by the federal government to help document the new frontiers in the American West. The teams were composed of soldiers, scientists, artists, and photographers, and tasked with discovering the best ways to take advantage of the region’s untapped natural resources. O’Sullivan brought an amazing eye and work ethic, composing photographs that evoked the vastness of the West. He also documented the Native American population as well as the pioneers who were already altering the landscape. Above all, O’Sullivan captured—for the first time on film—the natural beauty of the American West in a way that would later influence Ansel Adams and thousands more photographers to come.

Lecture Outline:

This condensed version of Lawrence Goodwyn’s Democratic Promise, the highly-acclaimed study on American Populism which the Civil Liberties Review called “a brilliant, comprehensive study,” offers new political language designed to provide a fresh means of assessing both democracy and authoritarianism today.

A Short History of Agarian Revolt in America free from Google Books

The Populist Party Platform (1892)

Response Sheet

DBQ on Farmers’ Alliances

Here are a series of lectures that I have devised. In creating these lectures I relied heavily on the scholarship of Duke University’s Lawrence Goodwyn and Richard Hofstadter.

Notes on Goodwyn’s Introduction to A Short History of Agrarian Revolt in America

The Alliance Develops a Movement Culture

Discovering the Limits of Populism in America

The Legacy and Irony of The Rise and Fall of Populism

My Class Lecture on Western Settlement and the Rise and Fall of Populism

Goodwyn’s book on Populism is available for free at here