This course is the continuation of the first-year chronological
survey and provides an analysis of US social, cultural and
political history from 1815 to 1932. We will see how the young
republic managed to expand its territory in the 19th century and
spread over the whole continent. The debates over slavery will
be particularly explored as they contributed to the outbreak of
the civil war that tore the nation apart between 1861 and 1865
and put an end to human bondage. What happened after this
devastating conflict? How did the 4 million former slaves cope
with their new conditions and how were they treated? We will
also pay special attention to imperialism and the industrial
revolution that deeply transformed the country in the last
decades of the 19th century, increasing wealth but also widening
the gap between the rich and the poor and causing huge social
problems and political corruption. As the US entered the 20th
century, a number of social and political reforms were aiming at
solving these problems but scientific racism and segregation in
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the South also prevailed. Fights for a true democracy (for
example the women’s suffrage campaign) often failed to be
inclusive of non-white people. The entry of the US in the First
World War marked a turning point as the US (ironically) posed
as the champion of democracy. The course will analyze the
1920s as both a modern and reactionary decade that brutally
ended with the economic crash of 1929 and the survey will end
with the election of a president (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) who
introduced a new conception of government and deeply marked
US history.