Course Contents at a Glance

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The following list shows the module-level topics and assignments for the course. To see all of the course pages, visit the Table of Contents.

Module 1: The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877

  • Restoring the Union
  • Congress and the Remaking of the South, 1865–1866
  • Radical Reconstruction, 1867–1872
  • The Collapse of Reconstruction

Module 2: Go West Young Man! Westward Expansion, 1840-1900

  • The Loss of American Indian Life and Culture
  • The Impact of Expansion on Chinese Immigrants and Hispanic Citizens
  • The Westward Spirit
  • Homesteading: Dreams and Realities
  • Making a Living in Gold and Cattle

Module 3: Industrialization and the Rise of Big Business, 1870-1900

  • Inventors of the Age
  • From Invention to Industrial Growth
  • Building Industrial America on the Backs of Labor
  • A New American Consumer Culture

Module 4: The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900

  • Urbanization and Its Challenges
  • The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration
  • Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life
  • Change Reflected in Thought and Writing

Module 5: Politics in the Gilded Age, 1870-1900

  • Political Corruption in Postbellum America
  • The Key Political Issues: Patronage, Tariffs, and Gold
  • Farmers Revolt in the Populist Era
  • Social and Labor Unrest in the 1890s

Module 6: Leading the Way—The Progressive Movement, 1890-1920

  • The Origins of the Progressive Spirit in America
  • Progressivism at the Grassroots Level
  • New Voices for Women and African Americans
  • Progressivism in the White House

Module 7: Age of Empire—American Foreign Policy, 1890-1914

  • Turner, Mahan, and the Roots of Empire
  • The Spanish-American War and Overseas Empire
  • Economic Imperialism in East Asia
  • Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Foreign Policy
  • Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”

Module 8: Americans and the Great War, 1914-1919

  • American Isolationism and the European Origins of War
  • The United States Prepares for War
  • A New Home Front
  • From War to Peace
  • Demobilization and Its Difficult Aftermath

Module 9: The Jazz Age—Redefining the Nation, 1919-1929

  • Prosperity and the Production of Popular Entertainment
  • Transformation and Backlash
  • A New Generation
  • Republican Ascendancy: Politics in the 1920s

Module 10: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? The Great Depression, 1929-1932

  • The Stock Market Crash of 1929
  • President Hoover’s Response
  • The Depths of the Great Depression
  • Assessing the Hoover Years on the Eve of the New Deal

Module 11: Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1941

  • The Rise of Franklin Roosevelt
  • The First New Deal
  • The Second New Deal

Module 12: Fighting the Good Fight in World War II, 1941-1945

  • The Origins of War: Europe, Asia, and the United States
  • The Home Front
  • Victory in the European Theater
  • The Pacific Theater and the Atomic Bomb

Module 13: Post-War Prosperity and Cold War Fears, 1945-1960

  • The Challenges of Peacetime
  • The Cold War
  • The American Dream
  • Popular Culture and Mass Media
  • The African American Struggle for Civil Rights

Module 14: Contesting Futures—America in the 1960s

  • The Kennedy Promise
  • Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
  • The Civil Rights Movement Marches On
  • Challenging the Status Quo

Module 15: Political Storms at Home and Abroad, 1968-1980

  • Identity Politics in a Fractured Society
  • Coming Apart, Coming Together
  • Vietnam: The Downward Spiral
  • Watergate: Nixon’s Domestic Nightmare
  • Jimmy Carter in the Aftermath of the Storm

Module 16: From Cold War to Culture Wars, 1980-2000

  • The Reagan Revolution
  • Political and Cultural Fusions
  • A New World Order
  • Bill Clinton and the New Economy

Module 17: The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

  • The War on Terror
  • The Domestic Mission
  • New Century, Old Disputes
  • Hope and Change