HIST 815 (01) - The Rise of Modern United States, 1900-1945

Rise of Modern US

Durham Liberal Arts::History
Credits: 4.0
Class Size: 5 
Term:  Spring 2025 - Full Term (01/21/2025 - 05/05/2025)
CRN:  56519
Grade Mode:  Letter Grading
By 1900, the United States had emerged as the world's leading industrial power and leading destination for millions of immigrants and had begun to become a major player in world affairs. Americans enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and became eager consumers of new inventions and popular culture: cars, radios, jazz records, and the "motion pictures." But they also experienced the worst depression the country had ever known and struggled to make sense of a world that went to war twice within a generation. Women, African Americans, immigrants - all struggled to carve out their place in the new political order. By World War II, the United States assumed many of its "modern" characteristics. Using novels, movies, photographs, sporting events, political speeches and political debates, we will explore both the domestic and the international aspects of the development of modern U.S.
Instructors:  Lucy Salyer

Times & Locations

Start Date End Date Days Time Location
1/21/2025 5/5/2025 TR 2:10pm - 3:30pm HORT 215

Additional Course Details:

poster with images

Here are the required books for our class.  Additional books will be assigned to graduate students.  You have several options in obtaining copies of the books:

Online access:  Two of the books (Killing for Coal and The Hello Girls) are available for free download through the UNH Library, so you do not have to purchase them if you are ok with reading them online.  You can download the books as pdf documents.  It will be important to access them in a format that you can read them easily and annotate. Paper copies:  Paper copies of the book will be available at the campus bookstore and on reserve at Dimond Library.

Books:

Thomas G. Andrews, Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War (Harvard University Press, 2010; isbn: 9780674046917) ) [available for free download as ebook through UNH library]

Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019; isbn: 0374172145)

Elizabeth Cobbs, The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers (Harvard University Press, 2017; isbn: 0674237439) [available for free download as ebook online through UNH library]

Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age (Holt, 2005; isbn: 0805079335)