This course focuses on the Great Depression and World War II and how they led to a major reordering of American politics and society. We will examine how ordinary people experienced these crises and how those experiences changed their outlook on politics and the world around them.

Poster showing an ambulance on a battlefield, with Russian men standing in foreground. Caption: This is the only American ambulance now saving lives in Russia. Send contributions to The American Ambulance in Russia, 527 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

Poster showing a figure on a galloping horse, carrying a torch, charging between a worker with tools and a warrior in armor with sword and shield. Caption in Russian: "Year 1914," with additional Russian text. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

Poster showing a soldier on horseback carrying a Russian flag. Signed in Cyrillic: A. O. Maksimov. Caption in Russian: "Military loan." Caption: This is the only American ambulance now saving lives in Russia. Send contributions to 527 Fifth Avenue, Room 501, New York. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

Poster showing soldiers advancing with bayonnets extended. Caption in Russian: "Military 5 1/2 % bonds." Poster has been trimmed and pasted into irregular shape. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

Poster showing a soldier on a battlefield, with others operating a cannon in the background. Signed in Cyrillic: E. Cheltsov. Caption in Russian: "Military 5 1/2 % loan," with additional Russian text. Caption: This is the only American ambulance now saving lives in Russia. Send contributions to 527 Fifth Avenue, Room 501, New York. Forms part of: Willard and Dorothy Straight Collection.

This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women’s Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women’s history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, the 60s civil rights movements. A primary focus will be themes studied and understood through the lens of gender: war, violence, and sexual exploitation (Keller, Rowlandson, Rowson); the relationship between women and religion (Rowlandson, Rowson, Stowe); labor, poverty, and working conditions for women (Fern, Davis, Wharton); captivity and slavery (Rowlandson, Jacobs); class struggle (Fern, Davis, Wharton, Larsen); race and identity (Keller, Jacobs, Larsen, Morrison); feminist revisions of history (Stowe, Morrison, Keller); and the myth of the fallen woman (take your pick). Essays and in-class reports will focus more particularly on specific writers and themes and will stress the skills of close reading, annotation, research, and uses of multimedia where appropriate.

What is a “life” when it’s written down? How does memory inform the present? Why are autobiographies and memoirs so popular? This course will address these questions among others, considering the relationship between biography, autobiography, and memoir and between personal and social themes. We will examine classic authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Mark Twain; then more recent examples like Tobias Wolff, Art Spiegelman, Sherman Alexie, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Edwidge Danticat, and Alison Bechdel.

How the Chinese buying of American debt leads to lower interest rates. Created by Sal Khan.

An advertisement announcing publication of the "American Citizen," a short-lived nativist newspaper. The broadside is illustrated with an elaborate and venomous anti-Catholic scene. At left a temple of Liberty stands on a mound labeled "Constitution and Laws." At the foot of the hill is a gathering of native Americans, including sailors, farmers, soldiers, and a Revolutionary War veteran. They hold banners emblazoned with such mottoes as "The Bible The Cornerstone of Liberty," "Beware of Foreign Influence," "None But Americans Shall Rule America," and "Education, Morality, and Religion." Other banners bear the names of sites of great revolutionary battles. In the background are a harbor with ships and the skyline of a city. In contrast, an unruly contingent of foreigners, mostly Irish, alight from a newly landed ship at right. The ship, "from Cork," bears the papal coat of arms. The foreigners carry banners reading, "We Are Bound to Carry Out the Pious Intentions of His Holiness the Pope," "Americans Shant Rule Us!!" and "Fradom of Spache and Action!" Among them are several clerics, a drunken mother with several children, and a few unkempt ruffians. One of the newcomers (lower right) beats a man with a club. In the distance, across the ocean, the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome is visible. From it issues a giant basilisk wearing the pope's crown, which is seized by a large hand from above. A commentary is provided in the lengthy continuation of the title: "Already the enemies of our dearest institutions, like the foreign spies in the Trojan horse of old, are within our gates. They are disgorging themselves upon us, at the rate of Hundreds of Thousands Every Year! They aim at nothing short of conquest and supremacy over us." Below the illustration the text states that the "American Patriot" favors "protection of American Mechanics Against Foreign Pauper Labor. Foreigners having a residence in the country of 21 years before voting, Our present Free School System, and Carrying out the laws of the State, as regards sending back Foreign Paupers and Criminals." The paper opposes "Papal Agression & Roman Catholicism, Foreigners holding office, Raising Foreign Military Companies in the United States, Nunneries and Jesuits, To being taxed for the support of Foreign paupers millions of dollars yearly To secret Foreign Orders in the U.S." |The Patriot is published by J.E. Farwell & Co., 32 Congress St., Boston, and for sale at the Periodical Depots in this place.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Purchase; Caroline and Erwin Swann Memorial Fund.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1852-3.

In the first case brought by a survivor of domestic violence against the U.S. before an international human rights tribunal, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) found that the United States violated the human rights of Jessica Lenahan (formerly Gonzales) and her children.

Case Summary and downloadable court documents

This subject is devoted to reading and discussing basic American historical texts that are often cited but often remain unread, understanding their meaning, and assessing their continuing significance in American culture. Since it is a “Communications Intensive” subject, 21H.105 is also dedicated to improving students’ capacities to write and speak well. It requires a substantial amount of writing, participation in discussions, and individual presentations to the class.

“What then is the American, this new man?” asked J. Hector St-John de Crèvecoeur in his Letters from an American Farmer in 1782. This subject takes Crèvecoeur’s question as the starting point for an examination of the changing meanings of national identity in the American past. We will consider a diverse collection of classic texts in American history to see how Americans have defined themselves and their nation in politics, literature, art, and popular culture. As a communications-intensive subject, students will be expected to engage intensively with the material through frequent oral and written exercises.

This presentation features selected documents from the American Colony in Jerusalem Collection. The full collection in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress represents well over 10,000 items stemming from the history of the American Colony, a non-denominational utopian Christian community founded by a small group of American expatriates in Ottoman Palestine in 1881.

A collection of over two hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress published from ca. 1490 to 1929. Along with dance instruction manuals, this online presentation also includes a significant number of antidance manuals, histories, treatises on etiquette, and items from other conceptual categories. Many of the manuals also provide historical information on theatrical dance.

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the “good life” through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.

This class examines how and why twentieth-century Americans came to define the ‰ŰĎgood life‰Ű through consumption, leisure, and material abundance. We will explore how such things as department stores, nationally advertised brand-name goods, mass-produced cars, and suburbs transformed the American economy, society, and politics. The course is organized both thematically and chronologically. Each period deals with a new development in the history of consumer culture. Throughout we explore both celebrations and critiques of mass consumption and abundance.

This course explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. It considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels, and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in daily life and how it intersects with other forms of social difference such as race and gender.

This course provides an overview of electoral politics in the United States, covering presidential, congressional, state, and local elections. It covers the development of American elections over time, electoral rules and institutions, the macro-structural forces shaping electoral outcomes, the key organizations involved in elections (parties, etc.), candidates’ calculations and campaign strategies, and the role of ordinary citizens in the electoral process, as well as potential reforms to the U.S. electoral system.

American English Sounds is a web resource that allows English as a Second Language (ESL) students to practice perceiving and producing the sounds of American English in order to improve their pronunciation.