Description

This course examines a turbulent period in American history: the era of the great economic boom and cultural revolution of the 1920s, the Great Depression and the New Deal, and World War ll. This course critically examines the growth of a consumer economy in the 1920s, the cause of the Depression, and how the New Deal response affected the lives of ordinary Americans. We take a close look at the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South and how it affected race relations and the impact of the Great Depression and the New Deal on women. Finally, we consider how the country shook off its isolationism and emerged at the end of the Second World War as the world's hegemonic superpower. Throughout, we consider the period's larger lessons for other disjunctures in history.