American History 102: Student Web Notes

Part I: The Reconstruction of American Society, 1865-1920s

Lecture 01
Reconstructing the Nation
America has been split apart by three major wars: in the 1770's the American Revolution; in the 1970's the Vietnam War; and, in the middle of this period, the Civil War. Each war has dramatically changed the generation engaged in battles as well as the generations that followed. Lecture #01 will examine the repercussions of the Civil War, its effects on the American people, and the agreements and disagreements within the nation over the meanings of "Reconstruction."
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Lecture 02
The "New South"
By the late 1860s, some Southerners were already calling for a more diversified economy -- cotton was no longer "king." Increasingly there was a move from farm to factory, and many people encouraged industrialization in the South and an increased capital investment in the Southern economy from outside sources. This lecture explores the economic transformation and the racial politics of the "New" South after the Civil War.
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Lecture 03
Which "Old West" and Whose?
The American West played an increasingly significant role in United States' history between 1865 and 1890. During this period, Anglo-Americans settled 430 million acres of land and overwhelmed Native Americans in the so-called Indian Wars. Furthermore, ten new states entered the Union, bringing the total number of states to forty-eight by 1912. Finally, over the course of just a few decades, three commercial "empires" rose and fell: mining, especially gold and silver; farming; and cattle.
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Lecture 04
The Gilded Age and the Politics of Corruption
The term "The Gilded Age" comes from a novel of the same name published in 1873 by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, which, though fictional, is a critical examination of politics and corruption in the United States during the nineteenth century. This lecture explores how rampant economic and political corruption colored American society and culture during the Gilded Age.
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Lecture 05
Businessmen and "That Creature" the Corporation
Names like James J. Hill, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller have struck terror in the hearts of many, yet these same names have inspired millions of other Americans. Between 1870 and 1900, the United States became a world industrial power, in part, because of the trailblazing business practices of these individuals. Were these early industrialists "Robber Barons" or "Captains of Industry?" What about "that creature" the corporation and its monopolistic cousin, the trust? The debate over whether the business practices of the Gilded Age were corrupt or beneficial rages on even to this day. Even in our own times, corporate mergers, mass layoffs, deregulation, and Enron remind us that the line between corruption and progress is indeed a fine one.
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Lecture 06
The Social Philosophy of American Businessmen
Corporations, and the businessmen who were their recognizable heads, came under increasing attack at the end of the nineteenth century. Many Americans who had once associated "laissez-faire" with individual freedom now linked the term to unfettered corporate power, bullying trusts, and an unprecedented loss of individual freedom. American businessmen found themselves resorting to new ideologies and "scientific" terminology to defend themselves from angry Americans who felt the trusts were destroying traditional ways of life.
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Lecture 07
Labor and the Workers' Search for Power
While business leaders like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller took advantage of corporations and trusts to increase their wealth and commercial power, mass production and mechanization threatened the economic independence of American workers. Before the Civil War, labor organization had been relatively insignificant. After 1865, however, more and more workers joined unions, went on strike, and challenged collectively the growing power of corporate capitalists in American society.
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Lecture 08
Foreign Immigrants in Industrial America
While conditions in nineteenth-century Europe worsened for millions of its inhabitants, the United States entered a period of incredible prosperity. Millions of Europeans who suffered through the Industrial Revolution, economic depressions, and crushing famines, began to envision America as a land of unbounded opportunity. Unfortunately, the unprecedented economic turmoil that periodically swept the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century often dashed European dreams of gold-paved streets and free land. Furthermore, many Americans who sought scapegoats for the nation's festering economic and social problems pointed to the immigrants as the source of their problems.
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Lecture 09
The Great Migration: Blacks in White America
Although chattel slavery had been illegal for three decades by the 1890s, southern blacks often felt that a new kind of de facto slavery had taken its place. Lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and economic hardship made southern blacks feel as if very little had improved since emancipation. Beginning in the 1890s and lasting well into the 1970s, a "Great Migration" of southern blacks to the West and North changed the demographic structure of the nation. Blacks turned to the "Promised Land" of the North in search of jobs and greater racial toleration. However, such basic demands fueled increasing debate over the place of blacks in predominantly white America in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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Lecture 10
How Ya' Gonna' Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?: The Rise of Populism
Beginning in the 1870s, worsening conditions in rural America caused many people to abandon their farms. At the same time, changes in farming practices and the agricultural marketplace made farmers more dependent on commercial decisions made by big-city businessmen. In reaction to these trends, farmers began to take political action that led to the emergence of the national Populist movement in the 1890s. This lecture investigates changing agricultural conditions in the United States during the nineteenth century and explores how many rural Americans mobilized to deal with their crushing economic and political problems.
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Lecture 11
The Dawn of Liberalism: Progressivism
Historians often describe the Progressive movement as the urban counterpart to Populism. Although the two movements shared some characteristics, they also had some important differences. Most important, Progressivism found support among small businessmen, professionals, and middle-class urban reformers, in contrast to the disgruntled farmers who fueled the Populist movement. In the end, however, both Progressives and Populists left a lasting stamp on the nation's history. This lecture explores the origins of Progressivism and its impact on American government and society.
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Lecture 12
The Policemen of the World
In 1898, America, which was becoming an ever more important player in world affairs, entered into its first international conflict--the Spanish-American War. A series of wars and police actions followed in the twentieth century, from World War I to Afghanistan. Why did American leaders begin to believe that the United States had a right and a duty to police the world? This lecture examines trends of expansionism and imperialism in the period after the Civil War, trends which still influence American foreign policy today.
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Lecture 13
Roosevelt, Wilson, and the Morality of Power
Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, although they disagreed on many issues, both believed that, by the beginning of this century, it was time for the United States to take its place on the stage of world power. They were both convinced that the United States should use whatever power necessary to see that their vision of democracy and justice triumphed around the globe. This lecture discusses the roots of American imperialism and how the personal beliefs of Roosevelt and Wilson shaped the nation's foreign affairs.
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Lecture 14
Women, Feminism and Sex in Progressive America
On May 9, 1908, the United States Senate rejected a bill that would have established Mother's Day as a national holiday on the grounds that motherhood was too sacred to be demeaned by a day in its honor. Just 11 years later, in 1919, the Senate passed the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. At the dawn of the twentieth century, women activists and their male allies were preaching a new day for women. What was the relationship between the suffrage movement and other feminist campaigns, and why did the women's movement quiet down in the 1920s after women got the vote? This lecture explores the history of the women's movement in America, both the struggle of women to get the vote, and the larger goals of feminism--social and economic equality with men.
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Part II: The Reordering of American Society, 1920s-Present

Lecture 15
The Politics of Prosperity: The 1920s
World War I may not have made the world safe for democracy, but it did help to lay the groundwork for a decade of American economic expansion. The 1920s saw the growth of the culture of consumerism--many Americans began to work fewer hours, earn higher salaries, invest in the stock market, and buy everything from washing machines to Model T Fords. The culture of consumerism of the 1920s changed the politics of American society and set the tone for American attitudes about money in coming decades.
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Lecture 16
The Politics of Frustration: The 1920s
Not all Americans benefited from the "politics of prosperity" in the 1920s. Many servicemen had trouble finding jobs when they returned home from World War I. Furthermore, the nation experienced an upswing in racism and xenophobia. Moreover, by the 1920s, many Americans had grown weary of two decades of crusades for reform, seemingly endless attempts to pass moral legislation, and involvement in a brutal war. Many longed for a time when life was simpler, even if these "good old days" existed only in the popular imagination. This lecture highlights the frustrations and anxieties that many Americans dealt with during the 1920s.
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Lecture 17
The Politics of Prohibition: The 1920s
Historians often describe the 1920s as a decade of contrasts and conflicts. Freedoms in dress, behavior, and sexual attitudes clashed with a new Puritanism. The automobile was replacing the old horse and buggy. There were conflicts between the traditional small-town way of life and a new urbanism and cosmopolitanism. In the 1920s, some Americans saw life as a glorious orgy, with the popularization of Freud, songs such as "Hot Lips" and "I Need Lovin,'" and movies called "Up in Mabel's Room" and "Her Purchase Price." On the other hand, religious fundamentalism underwent a rebirth, as people tried to latch onto the traditional moral standards--either real or imagined--of bygone years. Overall, the decline of the Anglo-Saxon class as the most influential group in American society characterized this time period. Even as the power of the Anglo-Saxon establishment was on the wane, one of its final attempts at holding onto control was the passage of national Prohibition.
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Lecture 18
Crashing Hopes: The Great Depression
In 1929, Yale University economist Irving Fisher stated confidently: "The nation is marching along a permanently high plateau of prosperity." Five days later, the bottom dropped out of the stock market and ushered in the Great Depression, the worst economic downturn in American history. Although Americans often believe that the Crash was the starting point of the Great Depression, many historians point out that it wasn't the sole cause. This lecture examines the roots of the Crash and the effect of the Great Depression on the American public.
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Lecture 19
Liberalism at High Noon: The New Deal
The stock market crash of 1929 was an indication of serious, underlying problems in the United States economy, but it was not the sole cause of the Great Depression. The Crash merely made the cracks in America's superficial prosperity much more obvious. And, since the causes of the economic crises were complex, the solution to the economic problems facing the United States would be complicated as well. This lecture examines the first few years of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the New Deal, and the federal government's attempt to lift America out of the Depression.
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Lecture 20
"Dr. New Deal" Becomes "Dr. Win-the-War"
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First New Deal was followed by what historians characterize as the Second New Deal (1935-1937). Like the First New Deal, the Second New Deal had its Hundred Days, known as the Second Hundred Days. This lecture examines the reform measures of the Second New Deal, economic backsliding in the Recession of 1937, and the reaction of isolationist Americans to growing hostilities in Europe and Asia.
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Lecture 21
World War II: The Impact at Home
The quick fall of France to the German army in 1940 shook the strong pacifist sentiment of the American public. Suddenly, Great Britain alone stood between Nazi Germany and the United States. Once the United States was fully committed to the war in December of 1941, patriotism soared in American society. Americans' willingness to carry out blackout and civil defense drills; to recycle metals, paper, and even cooking fats; to work longer hours, but to have fewer consumer goods to buy with their salaries demonstrated the nation's strong support for the war. There were political changes as well, as the country began to shift to the right. This lecture examines the domestic side of World War II and the changes that took place in American society during the war.
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Lecture 22
From New Deal to Fair Deal: New Game?
When Harry S Truman succeeded Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, most Americans knew little about their new President. Having served as Roosevelt's vice president for only three months, Truman now struggled to sell Roosevelt's New Deal policies to an increasingly conservative Congress and American public. This lecture examines Truman's attempts to follow up on the New Deal with his own Fair Deal as America began to shift rightward politically, economically, and psychologically.
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Lecture 23
The Coils of Cold War
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States took a turn to the economic and political right. Nothing demonstrated this shift more than the Second Red Scare. The trials, denouncements, black lists, and paranoia about Communism in the Second Red Scare showed the domestic face of the Cold War--the international struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States for world dominance. This lecture traces how the Cold War transformed anti-Communism from a right-wing to a mainstream ideology.
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Lecture 24
The 1950s: The Cold War and the Affluent Society
The Cold War and the spread of Communism in Eastern Europe, China, and Korea in the late 1940s and early 1950s prompted the United States to increase dramatically its defense spending. As more and more companies came to rely on defense contracts, the power of the military-industrial complex grew. One domestic result of this was relationship was a wave of prosperity and the growth of the middle class in the United States. This lecture examines America's foreign policy in the 1950s and the effect of that policy on the American people.
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Lecture 25
Eisenhower and Kennedy
Americans often view Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy as symbols of two radically different eras: the tranquil, prosperous '50s and the tumultuous '60s. Nonetheless, Kennedy, himself, was a product of the Eisenhower years and, when we scrutinize his politics, we can begin to understand that he was not always as progressive as the "Kennedy Myth" would have us believe. This lecture examines the domestic policies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy as well as America's move away from the politics of tranquility.
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Lecture 26
Civil Rights in an Uncivil Society
The modern civil rights movement emerged during World War II and eventually transformed the nation in the 1950s and 1960s. Much like the earlier civil rights movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the modern movement had different leaders with different visions and methods, from A. Philip Randolph, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Malcolm X. This lecture explores the messages and actions of these three leaders, the history of the movement as a whole, and some of the most significant civil rights legislation.
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Lecture 27
The Almost Great Society: The 1960s
Novelist Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man, once called Lyndon Baines Johnson "The greatest American president ever for the poor and the Negroes" and this is certainly the way that Johnson wanted to be remembered. This lecture focuses on the two domestic agendas Ellison had in mind: civil rights and the War on Poverty. We will look at President Johnson's philosophies and political methods, explore how civil rights protestors convinced him to act in the interest of African-Americans, and discuss the consequences of the civil rights legislation that Congress passed during his administration.
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Lecture 28
The Asian Connection: The Road to Vietnam
The Vietnam War was the longest and most costly war in American history. From the Second World War through the end of the Cold War, United States policymakers tried to apply the lessons they had learned in Europe to the foreign policy problems of Asia. As a result, United States foreign policy in Asia was often incoherent and American intervention in Asian affairs often ended in tragedy. This lecture traces the origins and consequences of American involvement in Southeast Asia.
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Lecture 29
The Twilight of Liberalism: The Nixon Years
In the early 1960s, it seemed that the political career of Richard Milhous Nixon had come to an end. Having served Dwight D. Eisenhower for eight years as vice president, Nixon lost both the presidential race in 1960, and the California gubernatorial race in 1962. After his 1962 loss, Nixon, who was always distrustful of the media, held a press conference where he declared to the press: "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." For the next few years, Nixon enjoyed a successful career as a corporate lawyer while he rebuilt his political base. In 1968, he won the Republican nomination for president and then defeated Hubert Humphrey, his Democratic opponent, to win the White House. This lecture examines Nixon's political comeback after 1968 as well as the transformation of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
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Lecture 30
America Sinking through a Watergate: The Crisis of the Modern Presidency
During the 1968 presidential campaign year, America seemed closer to civil war than at any time since the Great Depression. Debates on the right of popular dissent fractured society, near-constant protests raged on college campuses, numerous riots broke out in the nation's cities, and the counter-culture seemed to threaten traditional American values. At the core of this dissent was the war in Vietnam, a war considered immoral by its opponents. Soon, the scandals around Watergate would lead many Americans to question further the nation's direction in the 1970s. This lecture describes the domestic turmoil that swept the nation during the 1960s and 1970s and undermined popular faith in government.
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