Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center in conversation with Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute. Created by Aspen Institute.
Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center in conversation with Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute. Created by Aspen Institute.
By the 1920s, a majority of the US population lived in cities rather than in rural areas. In this video, Kim explores the economic opportunities cities offered to women, migrants, and immigrants, as well as the passage of new immigration restrictions.
In this second video giving an overview of World War II, we see Germany and the Axis powers only continue to gain momentum in 1940.
In 1941, the Axis gains further momentum with control of most of Continential Europe. Hitler decides to break pact and invade Stalin's Soviet Union. United States enters World War II after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1942 we see the Axis get pushed back in North Africa and get bogged down in the Soviet Union. The tide of war turns in favor of the Allies.
In 1943, the tide really turns in favor of the Allies in World War II. They are able to push the Axis out of N.Africa and force a surrender from Italy (along with Mussolini being deposed). The Soviets are able to start pushing the Axis out of the Soviet Union.
As we go into 1944, we see the allies land at Normandy, liberate France and face Germany in their last major counteroffensive at the Battle of the Bulge. On the Eastern Front, the Soviets end Siege of Leningrad and begin to push through Poland and Romania. In the south, Allies land in southern France and take Rome.
1945 marks the end of World War II. V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) is May 8th 1945. War doesn't end in the Pacific until August of 1945 with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
African American History and Culture contains 10 modules starting with African Origins - History and Captivity and continuing through Reconstruction. Openly-licensed course materials developed for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Degree Initiative, led by Achieving the Dream https://courses.lumenlearning.com/catalog/achievingthedream.
This course focuses on the Great Depression and World War II and how they led to a major reordering of American politics and society. We will examine how ordinary people experienced these crises and how those experiences changed their outlook on politics and the world around them.
This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the ŰĎgood lifeŰ through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.
This course provides a basic history of American social, economic, and political development from the colonial period through the Civil War. It examines the colonial heritages of Spanish and British America; the American Revolution and its impact; the establishment and growth of the new nation; and the Civil War, its background, character, and impact. Readings include writings of the period by J. Winthrop, T. Paine, T. Jefferson, J. Madison, W. H. Garrison, G. Fitzhugh, H. B. Stowe, and A. Lincoln.
English and American backgrounds of the Revolution; issues and arguments in the Anglo-American conflict; colonial resistance and the beginnings of republicanism; the Revolutionary War; constitution writing for the states and nation; and effects of the American Revolution. Concerned primarily with the revolutionary origins of American government. Readings emphasize documents from the period -- pamphlets, correspondence, the minutes or resolutions of resistance organizations, constitutional documents and debates.
This is a seminar course that explores the history of selected features of the physical environment of urban America. Among the features considered are parks, cemeteries, tenements, suburbs, zoos, skyscrapers, department stores, supermarkets, and amusement parks. The course gives students experience in working with primary documentation sources through its selection of readings and class discussions. Students then have the opportunity to apply this experience by researching their own historical questions and writing a term paper.
This course is a seminar on the history of institutions and institutional change in American cities from roughly 1850 to the present. Among the institutions to be looked at are political machines, police departments, courts, schools, prisons, public authorities, and universities. The focus of the course is on readings and discussions.
The American Yawp constructs a coherent and accessible narrative from all the best of recent historical scholarship. Without losing sight of politics and power, it incorporates transnational perspectives, integrates diverse voices, recovers narratives of resistance, and explores the complex process of cultural creation. It looks for America in crowded slave cabins, bustling markets, congested tenements, and marbled halls. It navigates between maternity wards, prisons, streets, bars, and boardrooms. Whitman’s America, like ours, cut across the narrow boundaries that strangle many narratives. Balancing academic rigor with popular readability, The American Yawp offers a multi-layered, democratic alternative to the American past.
On this page, we have offered syllabi, course readings, chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, key terms, quizzes, essay assignments, and exams to do just that. Individual instructors, of course, should always govern their own curriculum and be able to determine their own pedagogy. Rather than attempting to build a common curriculum, these resources are designed merely as a starting point. Like our text, they are licensed openly (CC-BY-SA): you are encouraged to use them, download them, distribute them, and modify them as you see fit. Moreover, The American Yawp is, as always, an evolving, collaborative project. We welcome the submission of additional teaching materials and feedback on existing material. If you have any ideas or resources you’d like to share, please contact the editors (Ben Wright for the first half, and Joseph Locke for the second) directly.
In 1944, the Americans (and Allies) make even more progress in the Pacific. By the end of the year, they have taken positions that put them within bombing range of Japan.
Before the United States had the Constitution, it had the Articles of Confederation, a much weaker government that lasted from 1777 to 1789. In this video, Kim and Leah discuss the pros and cons of the Articles, and the reasons they were discarded in favor of a new Constitution.