Required Texts

I know a lot of students buy textbooks online to save a little extra cash, so here is the necessary information. The first textbook is also available in the KU bookstore in the Kansas Union.

REQUIRED TEXT #1: Henretta, James, David Brody, and Lynn Dumenil, eds. America: A Concise History. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2006. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you get the correct edition and volume number. At the bookstore it is $30 for a used copy.

REQUIRED TEXT #2: A document reader available from University Readers (approx. cost $40). This textbook is not available in the bookstores. Order it as soon as possible; I have hard copies of the first week’s readings since you most likely won’t have your coursepak by that date, but as of Week #3 I won’t be providing copies of the readings. To order, go to their website and follow the directions listed below, which are taken from their help page:

Click the GOLD Students “BUY HERE” button on the top right side of our home page

Click the “Create New Account” button (or enter your existing login information and skip to step 6)

Select your State from the dropdown menu.

Select your University from the resulting dropdown menu.

Enter the fields on the page such as a “login/password” you’d like to use and all applicable “address” info.

Click the “Save” button to create your account, and you’ll automatically be taken to your university page.

At your university page, click the “Add to Cart” button to the right of the course pack you want to purchase.

Click on the “Checkout” button on the next page.

Review your address info and click on the “Continue” button on the next page.

Review our service agreement page and click the “I Agree – Continue Checkout” button on the next page.

Select shipping and payment preferences from the dropdown menus. Click the “Continue” button.

Enter payment details and click the “Place Order” button to finalize your order. The authorization will take about 5-10 seconds. You’ll be prompted with an Invoice screen once your order has been authorized and completed. You will also receive confirmation via email regarding your order

Albert Bierstadt: Renowned American Landscape Artist

Photograph of Albert Bierstadt, undated.

The blog header seen above is a painting by Albert Bierstadt titled “Oregon Trail-Night Camp on Green River at Lander Cut-Off, Wyoming.” The painting was completed around 1875. Bierstadt was a prominent American artist during the nineteenth century, best known for his landscape paintings of the American West.

Bierstadt was born in Germany in 1830 and moved to the United States at the age of 2. His family settled in Massachusetts, and little is known about his childhood and adolescence. However, sometime around 1850 when Bierstadt was in his twenties, he became known locally as an art instructor. Hoping to further develop his skills, he traveled to Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1853 to study with well-known artists such as Emanuel Leutze, Worthington Whittredge, and Carl Wimar. After returning to the States in 1857, he participated in several expeditions exploring the American West, even settling for a time in California. His powerful western landscapes capture the beauty of the North American continent and range from sunset scenes over the Rocky Mountains, to paintings of California beaches, Yosemite, Mt. Saint Helens (in modern-day Washington State), and Indian encampments along the overland trails. A prolific artist, Bierstadt also painted this landscape of an Indian village on the Wolf River in Kansas, completed in around 1859.

Bierstadt gained international fame for his stunning masterpieces and today is recognized as a major contributor to the Hudson River School, which flourished from about 1835 until 1870. According to the online Artcylopedia, the artists affiliated with this school embraced romantic images of the American frontier, and “the particular use of light effects, to lend an exaggerated drama to such elements as mist and sunsets, developed into a subspecialty known as Luminism.”[1] Although this style fell out of favor in the late nineteenth century, Bierstadt will forever be synonymous with artistic representations of the American wilderness.

[1] “Artists by Movement: The Hudson River School,” Artcyclopedia, http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/hudson-river-school.html, accessed July 18, 2008.