Course Description:

In the 1920s, changes in America that had been underway for several decades came fully into view. This is the period when cultural wars appeared (e.g., the Scopes Trial) and the transformative effects of industrial capitalism touched every part of American life. In the 1930s, the Great Depression challenged received views of the proper relationship of the government to the economy. This course examines various political, economic, social, and cultural changes that occurred in this period, with special emphasis on the New Deal.

Learning Objectives:

1. Students will understand why victory in the Great War did not bring long-term international stability, and why the United States experienced widespread domestic turmoil after the war ended.
2. Students will learn why the 1920s were years of economic prosperity, and the limits to that prosperity.
3. Students will complete the course with knowledge of the cultural significance of the Harlem Renaissance and selected literature of the 1920s.
4. Students will learn why the Great Depression occurred and its social and cultural effects.
5. Students will understand the principles and programs of the New Deal and will assess its part in ending or ameliorating the Depression.
6. Students will learn how the United States interacted (or did not interact) with the world during the 1920s and 1930s, and how and why the United States entered into the Second World War.

Course Requirements:

• Completion of all assigned readings
• Participation in all course sessions
• Final examination
• Completion of a research paper on one of the course session topics or completion of a journal responding to session topics and themes

Students auditing the course as a part of a Teaching American History Grant program must complete the readings and attend all of the seminars and fully participate during the week.

Required Texts:

• Gordon Lloyd, The Two Faces of Liberalism: How the Hoover-Roosevelt Debate Shapes the 21st Century (Salem, Mass.: M & M Scrivener Press, 2006) ISBN: 09764041-2-5
• Course Pack (CP)

Sunday, July 5

4:30 - 6:00 pm: Introduction & Session 1 (Professor Schneider)

Topic: Versailles and its aftermath

Focus: What were Woodrow Wilson's goals for the peace following the Great War and how did they differ from the western European nations? How did the Bolshevik Revolution impact Wilson's thinking? What were the key debates at Versailles? How was Wilson's vision betrayed by the Allies' desire for a punitive peace? Why did Wilson fail to achieve his goal of American participation in a new international collective security organization? What impact did this have on American politics?

Readings:

• Woodrow Wilson, "Fourteen Points Address" (CP pg 3)
• Versailles Treaty - League of Nations covenant; economic arrangements (CP pg 6)
• Lenin on secret treaties "On the History of the Question of the Unfortunate Peace," in Lenin, Collected Works (CP pg 11)
• Arno Mayer, Wilson vs. Lenin: Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918 (World Publishing Co., 1964), excerpts (CP pg 19)
• Henry Cabot Lodge-speech against League of Nations (CP pg 73)
• William Borah, speech against the League of Nations, in Robert C. Byrd, ed., The Senate, 1789-1989: Classic Speeches, vol. III (CP pg 76)
• Wilson speeches in favor of the League of Nations (CP pg 84)

7:30 - 9:00 pm: Session 2: Institute Lecture (attendance required)

Monday, July 6

9:00 am - 10:30 am: Session 3 (Professor Krugler)

Topic: The war at home: racial conflict, labor strife, and the Red Scare

Focus: Why, after achieving victory in the Great War, did the United States experience so much economic, racial, and political turmoil? How did African Americans respond to the violent reassertion of white supremacy across the country? Why did strikes in key industries such as steel turn violent? What threat did labor radicals, communists, and anarchists pose to the domestic security of the nation? How did the incipient national security state (e.g., the Bureau of Investigation) respond to this threat?

Reading:

• W.E.B. DuBois, "Returning Soldiers," Crisis vol. 18 (May 1919) (CP pg 95)
• William M. Tuttle, Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum, 1970), 3-31 (CP pg 97)
• Military Intelligence Division (U.S. War Department), "Final Report on Negro Subversion," August 6, 1919, Case File 10218-361-1 (CP pg 113)
• "Gen. Wood Takes Command in Gary; Has 1,000 Troops," New York Times, October 7, 1919 (CP pg 128)
• Military Intelligence Division (U.S. War Department), report on Indiana's steel strikes, October 5-6, 1919, Case File 10634-670 (CP pg 132)
• "1 Dead, Many Hurt in Cleveland Riot," New York Times, May 2, 1919 (CP pg 134)
• "Find First Clue in Police Search for Bomb Maker," New York Times, May 3, 1919 (CP pg 136)
• Ann Hagedorn, Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 (2007), 218-33 (CP pg 138)
• Annual Report of the Attorney General of the United States for the Year 1919, 12-16 (CP pg 147)
• National Popular Government League, Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice, 3-10, 58-64 (CP pg 151)

10:50 am - 12:20 pm: Session 4 (Professor Schneider)

Topic: The Harding and Coolidge administrations

Focus: How did the Republican capture of the presidency during the 1920s contribute to the ending of progressive reform? What policies did Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge implement regarding the economy? Why was Harding's administration plagued by scandal? What were the foreign policies of Republican presidents during the decade? How much did these two presidents shape the decade?

Readings:

• Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man, excerpts (CP pg 168)
• Warren G. Harding, Inaugural Address (CP pg 199)
• Warren G. Harding, 'Normalcy' speech (CP pg 203)
• Immigration Act of 1924 (CP pg 204)
• Burl Noggle, Teapot Dome, excerpts (CP pg 222)
• Veronique de Rugy, "Tax Rates and Tax Revenue: The Mellon Income Tax Cuts of the 1920s," CATO Institute Tax and Budget Bulletin no. 13 (February 2003) (CP pg 258)
• Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925 (CP pg 260)
• Calvin Coolidge Address at Gettsyburg Battlefield, May 30, 1928 (CP pg 266)
• Coolidge speech on racial tolerance before American Legion Omaha Convention, October 6, 1925 (CP pg 269)
• Washington Naval conference, Five Power Treaty (CP pg 275)
• Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) (CP pg 287)

4:00 - 5:30 pm: Session 5 (Professor Krugler)

Topic: The Harlem Renaissance and the Lost Generation

Focus: Who, and what, was the "New Negro"? What was the "Lost Generation"? Did the 1920s really "roar"? Why was New York City so crucial to the renaissance of African American culture? Why, at a time when black artists and writers were celebrating both their African and American heritages, were white writers such as Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos producing works criticizing American culture and values?

Readings:

• John Dos Passos, The Big Money (1936), 3-31 (CP pg 293)
• Four short stories by Ernest Hemingway ("The Three-Day Blow," "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot," "Cat in the Rain," and "Hills Like White Elephants" (CP pg 308)
• Alain Locke, The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925), 3-16 (CP pg 321)
• Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (CP pg 330)
• Claude McKay, "If We Must Die," (CP pg 331)
• James Weldon Johnson, "The Making of Harlem," Survey Graphic (March 1925), 635-39 (CP pg 332)
• Zora Neale Hurston, "How It Feels to be Colored Me" (1928) (CP pg 339)

Tuesday, July 7

9:00 am - 10:30 am: Session 6 (Professor Schneider)

Topic: Social and cultural tensions of the 1920s

Focus: How did the cultural tensions of the war years drift into the 1920s? What were the tensions in society produced by Prohibition, immigration, fears of Bolshevism and the demand for 100% Americanism? Why did evolution become such a major issue in the Scopes Trial? How were the major conflicts between modernity and tradition reflected in the culture wars of the 1920s?

Readings:

• "The Temperance Army" lyrics (CP pg 342)
• Enforcing Prohibition in Oregon-Letter (CP pg 343)
• Governor Olcott, Oregon, Proclamation Against the KKK (CP pg 344)
• The Rise and Fall of D.C. Stephenson (New Republic, November 16, 1927) (CP pg 346)
• Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (1997), excerpts (CP pg 348)
• H.L. Mencken on the Scopes Trial (CP pg 395)
• Aimee Semple McPherson sermon (CP pg 399)
• Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows, excerpt (CP pg 404)
• Alfred Panzini, "The Flapper-a New Type," Vanity Fair (September 1921) (SCP pg )

10:50 am - 12:20 pm: Session 7 (Professor Krugler)

Topic: The economy and consumerism of the 1920s

Focus: What were the sources of economic growth and prosperity during the 1920s? Who benefitted the most, and the least, from this prosperity? Were there any structural weaknesses in the booming economy? How did new or improved technologies (mass-produced automobiles, radio, movies with sound) change Americans' spending and leisure habits? How did the advertising industry help produce a mass national culture?

Readings:

• John J. Raskob, "Everyone Ought to Be Rich," Ladies' Home Journal vol. 46 (August 1929), 9, 36 (CP pg 437)
• Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (1931), Chapter 7 (CP pg 441)
• Robert and Helen Lynd, Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (1929), Chapter 18 (pp. 251-271) (CP pg 458)
• Samuel Strauss, "Things Are in the Saddle," Atlantic Monthly (November 1924) (CP pg 480)
• "Negro Women Unprotected" (CP pg 492)
• "Buy an Electric Refrigerator," 1926 film advertisement, in-class viewing
• Cosmetic advertisements from the 1920s, in-class viewing

4:00 - 5:30 pm: Session 8 (Professor Krugler)

Topic: Origins and onset of the Great Depression

Focus: Why did the Great Depression occur? Who was to blame? Could the Depression have been avoided? Did economists fully understand the scope and depth of the nation's economic woes? What was done to ameliorate the depression during its earliest stages? To what extent is the Great Depression comparable to our current economic situation?

Readings:

• Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s (1931), Chapter 12 (CP pg 495)
• The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover vol. III: The Great Depression, 1929-1941 (1951), 16-40 (CP pg 514)
• Arthur B. Adams et al., "The Business Depression of Nineteen Hundred Thirty-Discussion,"
• The American Economic Review vol. 21 (March 1931), 183-201 (CP pg 540)
• James Livingston, "Their Great Depression and Ours: Part I," October 7, 2008, History News Network (CP pg 560)

Wednesday, July 8

9:00 am - 10:30 am: Session 9 (Professor Schneider)

Topic:The Hoover Administration

Focus: In what ways did Herbert Hoover's administration represent discontinuity from the previous Republican administrations of the 1920s? How did Hoover address the problem of the recession? What were his main economic policies? In what ways did this depart from traditional Republican orthodoxy?

Readings:

• Gordon Lloyd, The Two Faces of Liberalism: How the Hoover-Roosevelt Debate Shapes the 21st Century (Salem, Ma.: M&M Scrivener Press, 2006), 25-65, 66-126.
• Great Crash, newspaper headlines from 1929 (CP pg 565)
• Reconstruction Finance Corporation report (CP pg 567)
• Bonus March memoir (CP pg 569)
• Bonus Army-Patrick Hurley's response (CP pg 572)
• Hoover address to Senate on the worsening economy (CP pg 574)

10:50 am - 12:20 pm: Session 10 (Professor Krugler)

Topic: Franklin Roosevelt and the First New Deal

Focus: What were Franklin Roosevelt's basic political principles and beliefs? How did they evolve as Roosevelt journeyed from candidate to president, and how did he mold them into the policies and programs known as the New Deal? What problems did Roosevelt first seek to remedy upon taking office? How much did Roosevelt and the New Deal differ from the Hoover administration's attempts to end the Depression? What was the First New Deal (e.g., CCC, AAA, FERA) like in practice for African Americans, sharecroppers, and relief recipients?

Readings:

• Gordon Lloyd, The Two Faces of Liberalism: How the Hoover-Roosevelt Debate Shapes the 21st Century (Salem, Mass.: M & M Scrivener Press, 2006), 1-23, 127-39, 157-74, 193-201
• Franklin Roosevelt, "Three Essentials for Unemployment Relief," March 21, 1933 (CP pg 577)
• Presidential statement on the National Industrial Recovery Act, June 16, 1933 (CP pg 579)
• Robert Washburn, "Report, New Haven, Connecticut, December 2, 1934" New Deal
• Library's introduction to the site on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CP pg 584)
• William R. Amberson, "The New Deal for Share-Croppers," The Nation vol. 140 (February 13, 1934) (CP pg 592)
• The New Deal Network's introduction to the site on the Civilian Conservation Corps (CP pg 598)