Defensive Teaching and the Emphasis on Coverage

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas, all students were required to take two courses in US history. The courses were US History Before the Civil War and US History Since the Civil War. I took the first course from a historian who studied Thomas Jefferson. We spent a lot of time on the revolutionary period and barely got to the Civil War. I took the second course from a historian who studied Dwight Eisenhower. We moved quickly from the Civil War to the mid-20th century. Solely on the basis of those two courses, I would conclude that nothing much happened in the US in the 1860s but that for some reason the South decided to go through Reconstruction. Did both teachers discuss the Civil War? Yes, barely. Not enough for me to understand anything about its causes and consequences but enough for both instructors to claim they had “covered” it.