Readings in American History Since 1877

Readings

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction
2	Thinking About the 20th Century	Leff, Mark H. “Revisioning US Political History.” American Historical Review 100 (June 1995): 829-853. Maier, Charles S. “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era.” American Historical Review 105 (June2000): 807-831. Recommended Foner, Eric. The Story of American Freedom. 1998. Gerstle Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. 2001. Kazin, Michael. The Populist Persuasion: An American History. 1995. Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession. 1988. Sherry, Michael S. In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s. 1995. Susman, Warren. Culture as History: Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. 1984. Zunz, Olivier. Why the American Century? 1998.
3	Economy and Society at the Turn of the Century	Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism. 1987. Recommended Ayers, Edward. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. 1992. Boris, Eileen. Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States. 1994. Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. 1977. Dubofksy, Melvyn. The State and the Labor in Modern America. (1994) Galambos, Louis, and Joseph Pratt. The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: United States Business and Public Policy in the 20th Century. 1988. Gamber, Wendy. The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930. 1997. Rodgers, Daniel. The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920. 1974. Scranton, Philip. Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization, 1865-1925. 1997. Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market. 1989. Trachtenberg, Alan. The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age. 1982. Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War. 1986. Zunz, Olivier. Making America Corporate 1877-1920. 1990.
4	Immigration and Urbanization	Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York. 1986. Recommended Barrett, James R. “Americanization from the Bottom Up: Immigration and the Remaking of the American Working Class in the United States, 1880-1930.” Journal of American History 79 (Dec. 1992): 996-1020. Barth, Gunther. City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. 1980. Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. 1985. Deutsch, Sarah. Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870-1940. 2000. Fuchs, Lawrence. The American Kaleidescope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture. 1990. Grossman, James. Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerner, and the Great Migration. 1989. Gutman, Herbert G. “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919.” American Historical Review 78 (Jun. 1973): 531-588. Handlin. Oscar, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migration That Made the American People. 1951. Heinze, Andrew R. Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity. 1990. Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. 1963. Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. 1998. Orsi, Robert. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem. 1985. Roy, Rosenzweig. Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920. 1983. Thernstrom, Stephen. The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis. 1973. Trotter, Joe William, ed. The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class, and Gender. 1991. Zunz, Olivier. The Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880-1920. 1982.
5	Populism and Progressivism	Hofstatder, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR. 1955. Recommended Baker, Paula. “The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780-1920.” American Historical Review. (June 1984). Coven, Seth, and Sonya Michel. “Womanly Duties: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States, 1880-1920.” American Historical Review 95. (Oct. 1990): 1076-1108. Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. 1978.  Hays, Samuel P. The Response to Industrialism, 1885-1914. 1957. Hollinger, David. In the American Province: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ideas. 1985. Keller, Morton. Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in American, 1900-1933. 1990. Kennedy, David. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. 1980. Kloppenberg James T. Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920. 1986. Kolko, Gabriel. The Triumph of Conservatism. 1963. McGerr, Michael. The Decline of Popular Politics: the American North, 1865-1928. 1984. Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875-1920. 1986. Muncy, Robyn. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935. 1991. Rogers, Daniel. “In Search of Progressivism.” Reviews in American History 10 (1982). ———. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. 1998. Ross, Dorothy. Origins of American Social Science. 1991. Salvatore Nick. Eugene Debs: Citizen and Socialist. 1982. Kish Sklar, Kathryn. Florence Kelley and the Naton’s Work: The Rise of Women’s Political Culture, 1830-1900. 1995. Sklar, Martin. The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1790-1914: The Market, Law and Politics. 1991. Skocpol, Theda. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Harvard, 1992. Skowronek, Steven. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1977-1920. 1982. Steel, Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. 1980. Weinstein, James. The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, 1900-1910. 1968. Westbrook, Robert. John Dewey and American Democracy. 1991. Wiebe, Robert. The Search for Order, 1877-1920. 1967. William Appelman, Williams. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. 1959.
6	Modern American Culture	Dowd Hall, Jaqueline. Like A Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Textile Mill World. 1987. Recommended Chauncy, George. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. 1994. Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. 1987. Cross, Gary. An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America. 2000. Dumenil, Lynn. Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. 1995. Glickman, Lawrence, ed. Consumer Society in American History: A Reader. 1999. Hale, Grace. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940. 1998. Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. 1993. Lears, T. J. Jackson. No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920. 1981. ———. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. 1994. MacLean, Nancy. Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. 1994. Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940. 1985. May, Lary. Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry. 1980. Peiss, Kathy. Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture. 1998. Ross, Steven J. Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. 1998. Sanchez, George. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles. 1993. Scanlon, Jennifer, ed. The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader. 2000.
7	America in Depression	Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. 1990. Readings in Steve Fraser, and Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of New Deal Order, 1930-1980. 1989. Recommended Bernstein, Michael. The Great Depression: Delayed Recovery and Economic Change. 1987. Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression. 1982. Daniel, Pete. Breaking the Land; The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880. 1985. Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front. 1996. Faue, Elizabeth. Community of Suffering and Struggle: Women, Men and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945. 1991. Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor. 1991. Gertsle, Gary. Working-Class Americanism: The Politics of Labor in a Textile City, 1914-1960. 1989. Gregory, James. American Exodus: the Dustbowl Migration in an Okie Culture in California. 1989. Jacobs, Meg. “‘Democracy’s Third Estate:’ New Deal Politics and the Construction of a ‘Consuming Public.’” ILWCH, no. 55 (Spring 1999): 27-51. Katz, Michael. In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America. 1986. Kelley, Robin. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. 1990. Melosh, Barbara. Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhood in New Deal Public Art and Theater. 1991. Pells, Richard. Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years.       Sitkoff, Harvard. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue, the Depression Decade. 1979. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. 1979.
8	The New Deal State	Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Depression and War. 1995.                               Readings in Fraser, and Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of New Deal Order.  Recommended Badger, Anthony. The New Deal, The Depression Years, 1933-1940. 1989. Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935. 1994. Gordon, Linda. “Social Insurance and Public Assistance: The Influence of Gender in Welfare Thought, 1880-1935.” American Historical Review 97, no. 1 (Feb. 1992): 19-54. Gordon, Linda. Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. 1994. Gordon, Linda, ed. Women, the State and Welfare. 1990. Hawley, Ellis. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly. 1966. Jacobs, Meg. “‘How About Some Meat?’: The Office of Price Administration, Consumption Politics, and State Building from the Bottom-Up. 1941-1946.” Journal of American History 84, no. 3 (Dec. 1997): 910-41. Kennedy, David. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, 1999. Leff, Mark H. The Limits of Symbolic Reform: The New Deal and Taxation, 1933- 1939. 1984. Leuchtenberg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940. 1963. Lichtenstein, Nelson. State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. 2002. Rosenof, Theodore. Economics in the Long Run: New Deal Theorists and their Legacies, 1933-1993. 1997. Schlesinger, Arthur. The Age of Roosevelt, 1957-1960. Schwarz, Jordan. The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt. 1993. Skocpol, Theda. “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis: Neo-Marxist Theory of the State and the Case of the New Deal.” Politics and Society 10, no. 2 (1980): 155-202. Storss, Landon. Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers’ League, Women’s Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era. 2000. Tomlins, Christopher. The State and the Unions. 1985.
9	World War II	Sherry, Michael.The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon. 1987. Recommended Aperowitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. 1965. Blum, John Morton. V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II. 1976. Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps North America: Japanese in the United States and Canada During World War II. 1981. Dower, John. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. 1986. Hartmann, Susan. The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s. 1982. Jeffries, John. Wartime America: The World War II Home Front. 1996. Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor’s War at Home: the CIO in World War II. 1982. Lipsitz, George, A Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s. 1982. Milkman, Ruth. Gender at Work: The Dynamics of Job Segregation by Sex During World War II. 1987. O’Neill, William. A Democracy at War: America’s Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II. 1993. Sherwin, Martin. A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race. 1973. Westbrook, Robert. “Fighting for the American Family: Private Interests and Public Obligation in World War II.” In Richard W. Fox, and T. J. Jackson Lears, The Power of Culture. 1993, pp. 195-221.
10	Postwar Society	Sugrue, Thomas. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. 1996. Readings in Fraser, and Gerstle. The Rise and Fall of New Deal Order. Recommended Fones-Wolfe, Elizabeth. Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor Liberalism, 1945-1960. 1994. Freeman, Joshua. *Working Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II. * 2000. Gaddis, John. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947. 1972. Griffith, Barbara. The Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie and the Defeat of the CIO. 1989. Hirsch, Arnold. Making of the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960. 1983. Honey, Michael. Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers. 1993. Jacobson, Walter A. Gunnar Myrdal and America’s Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938-1987. 1990. Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor. 1995. Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: Postwar America, 1945-1974. 1995. Pells, Richard. The Liberal Mind in the a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s. 1985. Powers, Richard. Not Without Honor: A History of American Anticommunism. 1995. Schrecker, Ellen. No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities. 1986. ———. Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. 1998.
11	Postwar Culture	Horowitz, Daniel. Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique. 2000. Recommended Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. 1985. Clarke, Alison. Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America. 1999. Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption.   Engelhardt, Tom. The End of Victory Culture: Cold War American and the Disillusioning of a Generation. 1995. Evans, Sara. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. 1979. Horowitz, Daniel. Vance Packard and American Social Criticism. 1994. Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. 1985. Lemann, Nicholas. The Big Test: The Secret History of American Meritocracy, 1999. Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture. 1990. May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. 1988. May, Lary. ed. Recasting America: Culture and Politics in the Age of the Cold War. 1989. Meyerwitz, Joanne, ed. Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960. 1994. Spiegel, Lynn. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. 1992.
12	Postwar Politics	Matesow, Allen. The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s. 1984. Readings in Fraser, and Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of New Deal Order. Recommended Carter, Dan. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. 1995. Collins, Robert. More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America. Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. 1990. Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. 1996. Farber, David, ed. The Sixties: From Memory to History. 1994. Formisano, Ronald P. Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. 1991. Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. 1987. Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972. 1990. Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985. 1987. Jacoby, Sanford. Modern Manners: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal. 1997. Leffler, Melvyn. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War. 1992. Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Migration and How it Changed America. 1991. Schulman, Bruce. From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980. 1991. Stein, Judith. Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism. 1998. Zelizer, Julian. Taxing America: Wilbur D. Mills, Congress, and the State, 1945- 1975. 1998.
13	TBA