Periodization, aka Can We Simplify Dates a Little?

One thing folks should probably know about me is that I’m an aspiring board gamer. What that means is that I own a ton of board games, and I never play them because… adulting is hard. My daughter will be old enough to start playing… soon(ish)! One of the things about having a big board game collection is that you’ve gotta have shelves. (Please email me immediately if you already know the world Kallax and live in the north DFW region!) The million dollar question is… How do you organize your shelves? Like books, there are thousands and thousands of ways. Some folks go thematically - all their worker placement games here, Ameritrash there, party games, social deduction games, that one publisher you’ve decided your favorite gets the top row, take your pick. Some of us just do it by vibes. Or what will fit.

I use shelf analogies a lot in history class, because we’re such an information heavy subject. People want to know how I remember all this crap about all these people, and the only thing I can tell them is that after studying history for so long, I have a really well developed system of shelves, so whenever I need to add new information, it has a comfy cozy place to stay, right next to the other stuff it relates to. I know if I need a 6 hour all day behemoth, it’s on that shelf in the back, but the games I actually enjoy are all right over here.

If there’s one word I never ever heard in junior high or high school history classes it was periodization. Of course we’ve heard era or time period or whatever, but never the process of splitting chronology into those time periods. Just like sorting board games onto shelves, understanding why US history is broken up a certain way can help us remember the relative chronology of things without getting hopelessly bogged down in specific dates constantly. It’s also a shorthand - just like regionalization in spatial analysis (aka geography), once we’ve broken things up we can also make generalizations that can help our brains remember stuff easier. I’m going to walk through a couple of versions of periodization in US history, which will hopefully help build a big picture story that folks can use to remember the story as we go along.

Example 1 - A Medium Detail View

1607-1763: The Colonial Era.

England founds 13 colonies on the eastern coast of North America, which develop separate regional identities as well as varying forms of self-government. A colonial war is fought against France as part of a global conflict between European colonial empires, which Britain wins.

Then Britain starts making rules.

1763-1800: Revolution and Founding

As a result of that win, Britain clamps down on colonial expansion in order to avoid further expensive conflict. Speaking of expensive, Britain begins the process of making the colonies pay for stuff whether they want to or not. Independence is declared, European enemies of Britain help out, and the USA is recognized. We try one form of government, it fails, so we try another, giving us the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams.

Then Adams loses in his bid for reelection.

1800-1844: The Early Republic

After Thomas Jefferson defeats Adams, power is peacefully transferred from one political party to another, an important marker in our political history. This era is largely dominated by one political group - Jefferson’s party that eventually turns into Andrew Jackson’s party. We fight Britain again, get the all important tie, and non-property owners gain the right to vote, changing parties and politics. Steam power and an industrial revolution starts changing the American economy.

Then Texas happens.

1844-1877: Sectionalism, Civil War, and Reconstruction

Following Texas’s second request to join the United States (Jackson of all people said no earlier), a war against Mexico brings in a massive amount of western land. Far from ending slavery, industrialization and mechanization creates both greater demand for Southern plantation cotton and the tools to produce more cotton. A conflict over whether to allow the expansion of slavery west gets bigger and bigger, until finally the South secedes. They’ll lose the Civil War, but presidential politics gives the South a chip to end formal federal attempts to protect the rights and life of newly freed people. Thanks Electoral College.

This marks the halfway point in US history in almost every curriculum and textbook. The time period can be split up other ways, this is just one that I happen to like.

So you can see a few things in this kind of periodization: first, there’s a flavor or character to the time period. Colonies develop. A new political state fights for independence then tries to figure things out. The slave question finally breaks the US after multiple threats and attempts from slave-holders to leave. Second, there’s some big shift or development that defines the shift to a new era. The end of the French & Indian War, Jefferson’s election, Texas joining the US, the ridiculous Electoral College in the election of 1876.

While not every event inside of each time period directly fits the narrative, lots and lots do. This sort of chronological separation also contains rhyming events or developments too - Southern states threaten to leave during the Constitutional Convention without the Senate and 3/5ths Compromise. They threaten again when Maine wants to become their own state. They do it again when Jackson refuses to cancel or veto a small tariff. Again, Compromise of 1850. Finally after the election of Lincoln they do it. This same event occurs across three separate time periods, and will be echoed again and again going forward. Believe me, I’m from Texas, where somehow people still think we can secede if we want to. —rolls eyes—

Example 2 - A Big Overview

• 1607-1844: Foundations and the Early Republic (probably wouldn’t go this big but it works - founding colonies, founding the USA, figuring out how to make it work, etc.)

• 1844-1929: Rich and Powerful Folks vs. The Not Rich and Powerful Folks (okay okay I wouldn’t normally do it this way, but it’s just an example - sectionalism over slavery + the Civil War and the Gilded Age + Progressivism share some similarities politically, economically, and socially at minimum, so it’s fun for this example. Oh, and imperialism, it fits the label too.)

• 1929-1980: Let’s Try a New Deal (The Great Depression + New Deal, Cold War + Great Society, Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, etc. etc.)

• 1980-Present: Freedom vs. Equality (I’d use this theme as an overarching idea for the whole shebang but the point is to split things up at least a little. Basically we’ve been engaged in a whole process of breaking down attempts going back to the Civil War and the Gettysburg Address to be a nation aimed at equality because those attempts violate some people’s freedoms, especially since we conflated equality with Soviet communism in the Cold War so giving women paid maternity leave is evil amirite?)

This is probably the smallest number of time periods I’d feel comfortable splitting US history into, and obviously there are some caveats there for why I’ve broken with some standard patterns of periodization. It’s a little synthesis - smashing some things together to make them fit - in order to make US history as streamlined as possible. There are many other ways of doing this — I just wanted to show a non-standard one to provoke some discussion and conversation: why split it there, why characterize each era that way, are you an anarchist? Well, on the last one, according to one student’s nomination of me for teacher of the month, I’m his favorite anarchist, so there you go.

For homework (hahahaha no, please don’t) or if you’re just curious, see if you can’t find a table of contents for a US history textbook on the intertubes (search for something like “high school US history textbook table of contents”) and just compare their division of things to mine. The fun part is finding the differences - do they have tiers of time periods (like 1492-1763 but then 1492-1607, 1607-something, something-1763?) or just a bunch of separate time periods? Spoilers: comparing periods like this is a GREAT way to firm up your own understanding and start using your trusty hex wrench to tighten up your own Kallax of US History. Oh, and if you’re lazy, here’s a link to the American Yawp, an open source textbook that even comes with a primary source reader.