The United States' Gilded Age and Progressive Era

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course offers an introduction to the history of the United States from Reconstruction through the First World War with particular emphasis on the social, cultural, and intellectual formations of the period. The United States made a dramatic transition in these years: from a predominantly agrarian and rural society to an urban, industrial society and imperial, world power. It is also said that in this period, a new, national, and distinctly modern culture emerged. We will test the merits of this claim and attempt to understand how Americans grappled with these broad transformations by examining the history of social formations, including class, race, and gender, together with the history of cultural formations - American popular culture, the adaptations of bourgeois culture, and the creation of mass culture. In reading sources such as short stories, poetry, political speeches, and novels, and analyzing photography, film, advertising, and architecture, we will explore the making of a modern America.