Local History and Research Methods

Undergraduate

This seminar-based course introduces students to the history of southwestern Ontario and metro Detroit from the pre-colonial era to the twentieth century. It addresses many topics, including pre-colonial Indigenous history, the founding of Detroit and the local French presence, political regime changes in the eighteenth century and the creation of the border, Indigenous treaties and settler-Indigenous relations, the War of 1812, slavery and the Underground Railroad, industrialization/ urbanization and environmental history, cross-border economic and cultural ties, transportation, African Americans in Detroit, immigration, and collective memories.