History 201-206 seminars are open to history majors only during pre-registration. If the course does not reach its enrollment maximum, it will be open to all students beginning with drop/add on a first-come first-serve basis.
HIST 204 American Reform, 1954 - 1974
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
R | SEM
This seminar will examine the long "decade" from the Brown decision in 1954 to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, an era that contained the Civil Rights Movement, the beginnings of the Woman's Movement, other social justice movements, the anti-war movement, the counterculture, the War on Poverty and other domestic reforms. It was such a turbulent and divisive period that it is difficult to assess it historically. Indeed, there is a sense in which the politics of today are driven by a reaction to this watershed "decade." Our task will be to make sense of the events of the period, develop interpretations about why things happened as they did, and come to some balanced judgments about what was good and what was bad about this era of American reform. We will be especially interested in understanding why the Civil Rights Movement made the transition from "freedom high" to "black power," and we will inspect the dynamics of other movements for similarities and differences.
Course Syllabus (PDF)
