Liberalism in the 20th Century

Catalog description

At a moment when American liberalism is embattled and in a profound state of flux, this research seminar explores the development of the political ideology of the Democratic Party since its first modern articulation in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. In addition to examining key moments of reform, expansion, and reimagining through the Cold War, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and under Bill Clinton’s New Democrats, students will explore the ways in which liberals and liberalism have both succeeded and often failed to meaningfully incorporate the interests of a diverse array of Americans including women, organized labor, African Americans, immigrants, rural constituencies, immigrants, and LGBTQ citizens. Over the course of the semester, students will develop a significant piece of original, primary source-based, historical research on a theme of their choosing within the modern history of liberalism, broadly construed.