Progressive Era to the Jazz Age, 1890-1920

Catalog description

What was progressive about the turn of the 20th century? What do we mean by the Jazz Age? During these years, the U.S. became the largest industrial power in the world. Accompanying its enormous economic power was an unprecedented economic, cultural and political transformation that led to extensive conflict.This course will examine urbanization, immigration and its backlash, racial tensions, explosive conflicts between labor and management, Prohibition, a new foreign policy designed to assert global power, and the establishment of a system of national parks equal to the size of France. The class will also examine leisure, music and film.