ISSS 3260 - The Emergence of Modern America, 1877-1920

In the four decades following the period of Reconstruction, the extent to which the United States changed was remarkable. A reform impulse swept the nation in the first 2 decades of the twentieth century as America attempted to come to terms with its modernity. Americans living in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era saw political, social, economic, cultural, artistic, and intellectual life metamorphose. The nation on the eve of World War I in many ways barely resembled the nation of the Reconstruction Era. The developments of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century laid the foundation for the nation in which we live today. This course will attempt to study this most complex and important period of American history as thoroughly as possible.

Credits: 3