Calendar

LEC # TOPICS DUE DATES
Unit 1 – A New Birth of Freedom? Legacies of the Civil War And Reconstruction
1 Introductions  
2 Reconstruction, Race, and Reunion  
3 Analyzing Primary Sources: Reconstruction  
4 Screening: Independent Lens: Birth of a Movement - The Battle Against American's First Blockbuster. Directed by Bestor Cram and Susan Gray. Color, 60 mins. 2017.  
Unit 2 – Incorporating America in the Gilded Age
5 Conflict and Conquest in The Frontier West Essay #1 due
6 Capital, Labor, and the Standardization of Work  
7 Turning Points: 1893 and 1894  
Unit 3 – The Search for Order at Home and Abroad
8 Becoming a World Power  
9 Progressive Reform  
10 Culture and Conflict in the 1920s  
Unit 4 – The Global Crises of the 1930s and 1940s
11 The Great Depression and the New Deal  
12 The Second World War  
13 The United States and the Creation of Three Worlds Essay #2 due
Unit 5 – The Cold War And The Color Line
14 Cold War Culture and the Quest for Security  
15 Space, Place, and Race in Postwar America  
16 The Long Civil Rights Movement  
17 The International Black Freedom Struggle Essay #2 revision due
Unit 6 – Revolutions at Home and Abroad
18 Vietnam and the New Left  
19 Power, Protest, and the Politics of Identity  
20 Visit to MIT Archives and Special Collections Final paper proposal due
Unit 7 – A Nation Divided
21 The Silent Majority and the Crises of the 1970s  
22 Research Paper Workshop  
23 Conservatives in Power and the Long Life of “Law and Order”  
24 The Rediscovery of the Market and the Rise of a Digital Age  
Unit 8 – Toward a History of the Present
25 Growing Up in the Twenty-First Century  
26 Closing Thoughts Final paper due