Course Description
Students will explore the conflicts over economic, political, and social justice since the Civil War. They will learn about the movements, policies, and practices that have fought inequality as well as those that intentionally and unintentionally sustained inequality. Students will also discover how these movements, laws, and consequences appeared in popular culture.
Athena Title
Wealth Poverty U.S. Policy
Pre or Corequisite
One course in HIST or INTL or POLS or SOWK or SOCI or third- or fourth-year student standing
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to critically review historical trends and data on the historically racialized, gendered dimensions of US wealth and inequality.
- Students will gain an understanding of the politics and practices that have sustained American inequality since the Civil War.
- Students will have learned how to research and review some of the many movements that have advocated for equal opportunities and social democracy.
- Students learn to analyze how conflicts over inequality were represented in popular culture.
Topical Outline
- Long Gilded Age & Progressive Era
- Capitalist Chicago
- New Deal for the White Working Man: Race, Gender, & The Great Depression
- The New Deal: Inscribing Inequality
- War & Inequality
- Postwar Uncertainty
- Moment of Plenty?
- A Second Gilded Age? The Long 70's
- Movin’ On Up After the 1964 Civil Rights Act
- Work, Capitalism, and Democracy in the 21st Century
- Writing Assignments and thesis presentations
- In-class Peer Review
