Interwar U.S.A.: Society and Culture, 1919-1939

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course considers U.S. history from the "Jazz Age" through the depression decade. Drawing on secondary literature and primary sources including novels, films, and non-fiction writing, we will focus especially on the social and cultural dimensions of consumerism, the rise of industrial unionism, religious fundamentalism, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, prohibition, immigration restriction, and the Great Depression and New Deal. We will consider the U.S. role in the world through a period often characterized as one of American isolationism; understandings of capitalism between the roaring ‘20s and the descent into economic depression; and intellectual thought and the participation of artists and intellectuals in public life.