Course Schedule

Thomas Hart Benton's Steel

Below you'll find a week-by-week outline of our plan for the semester. You'll be expected to complete the listed reading (R) for each week before you arrive in class. This will ensure that you'll be prepared to follow along with lectures and to engage actively in our discussions.

If you find it difficult to keep up with the reading, prioritize the "R" items in the order they're listed.

All required assignments are listed with an "A," and in-class films are listed with an "F."  You can find further information about assignments here, and you can read grading policies here. Please let me know if you have questions.

January 26 ––   What Is American History?: An Introduction

  • No reading assigned.

February 2 ––   "How Free Is Free?": Emancipation and Reconstruction


February 9 ––   The Gilded Age: The West, Industrialization, Labor, and Immigration


February 16 ––   Democracy Tested: Imperialism and Jim Crow


February 23 ––   Transforming America: Progressivism and Socialism

  • R: Farewell, chaps. 7, 8, 9
  • R: Give Me Liberty, chap. 18
  • A: SOCIAL GOSPEL ASSIGNMENT due in class

March 2 ––   Making the World Safe for Democracy: World War I

  • R: Voices, Eugene V. Debs's Speech to the Jury, pp. 117-121
  • R: Farewell, chaps. 10, 11, 12
  • R: Give Me Liberty, chap. 19

March 9 ––   Excess to Crisis: The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression


March 16 ––   The Grand Experiment: The New Deal; Midterm Review


March 23 ––   MIDTERM


March 30 ––   "The Good War": World War II

  • R: Handout -- Excerpts from Studs Terkel, The Good War
  • R: Farewell, chaps. 19, 20
  • R: Give Me Liberty, chap. 22
  • F: The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter

April 6 ––   Age of Conformity and Unrest: The Cold War, McCarthyism, and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

  • R: Voices, The Southern Manifesto, pp. 253-255
  • R: Farewell, chaps. 21, 22, and afterward
  • R: Give Me Liberty, chaps. 23 & 24

April 13 ––   The Turbulent 1960s: Black Power, Free Speech Movement, Feminism, and the Counterculture


April 20 ––   SPRING BREAK


April 27 ––   The Unwinnable War: Vietnam


May 4 ––   The Rise of Conservatism: Nixon to Reagan


May 11 ––   The End of the American Century: the Global Economy and the War on Terror


May 18 ––   Final Exam Review


May 25 ––   FINAL EXAM


Italian immigrant familyA family of Italian immigrants arrive at Ellis Island, c. 1900.