PowerPoint of "FDR and the Isolationists"

FDR and the Isolationists, 1919-1941

Today we looked at the decades between the World Wars (1919-1941) and we evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the foreign policy pursued (primarily by FDR) in an age of isolationism. Although Roosevelt at first largely continued the isolationist course of his Republican predecessors (whose policies also receive some attention here), his struggles against the isolationists after 1937 show him at his most clever, effective and (for some) infuriating. We will examine the charge that, in his diplomacy, he sometimes played fast and loose with the Constitution.

Click here for the vodcast in the iPod format

The Second New Deal and its Evaluation, 1935-1941

In this vodcast we compare the two New Deals, from the first 100 days through the reforms of 1935. We examine what the New Deal changed and preserved about America, and we analyze whether FDR could have achieved more given the obstacles to reform confronting him and the New Dealers.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

From Hoover to FDR

The hapless Herbert Hoover was actually a progressive president in his response to the Great Depression-- compared to the previous presidents in their response to economic downturns. But he was swamped by his disgnosis of the depression, a diagnosis shared by all the experts. We detail the Hoover response and the Roosevelt alternative.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

From the Great Depression to the New Deal

The economic problems of the 1920s and the causes of the Great Crash in 1929 are detailed here, using John Kenneth Galbraith's 1955 book as our principle source. We see how the politics of the 1920s also played a role in the coming of the Great Depression.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

From the Politics of the 1920s to the Great Depression

in this vodcast we look at the urban-rural kulturkampf in America during the 1920s, including immigration restriction, the rise of the second KKK, and the political scene in the decade of Republican presidents and so-called "Nortmalcy." we look at how the spirit of progressivism was still alive but voiceless thanks to the urban-rural conflict.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

Opponents of War and Radicalism at Home

How were opponents of the first World War treated and how did the war lead to a postwar Red Scare? These events colored the subsequent politics of the 1920s, and not in a good way. We look at these events in this recording.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

War to End War: Woodrow Wilson's War, 1917-1919

The tragedy of Woodrow Wilson, progressive, idealist and war president is spotlighted in this vodcast. As Thomas A. Bailey remarked, Wilson commited the "supreme infanticide" with his destructive leadership over the fight for the League of Nations.

Click here for a vodcast of "Wilson's War" in the iPod format

America's Rise to Globalism, 1890-1917

The watershed decase of the 1890s was also a watershed in America's rise to imperial status. We look here at how new that change actually was (not that new, actually), and the controversy over whether America's rise to globalism carried benefits that were worth the cost.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

The Progressives, Part Two

Here we look at the presidential Progressives, TR, Taft and Wilson, as well as Progressive foreign policy in Latin America. Did they carry the big stick for democracy in foreign policy and national affairs? The answer is that they did not as often as they did.

Click here for vodcast in the iPod format

The Progressives, Part One

The middle-class Progressives dominated all levels of American politics between 1900 and 1920, local, state and national. Here we look primarily at the first two levels, and the relationship between the Progressives and the city bosses. We look as well at the way in which the Progressives increased the power of each vote and persuaded the Supreme Court to prioritize human rights over property rights in its rulings for the first time since the Civil War.

Click here for vodcast in the Ipod format

The Populists: America's First Modern Reformers

Were the Populists right-wing cranks, crazy, or our first modern reformers? Hisotrians have offered these explanations and more for the market farmers who upended the political scene in the 1890s and who foreshadowed the coming of the progressives.

Click for vodcast in the Ipod format

The Politics of the Gilded Age

Why was the late nineteenth century an era of political deadlock? Elections were close and the presidency was a revolving door. But the political scene offers many clues as to the meaning of the Age of Excess.

Click here for a video podcast of the Gilded Age political scene, in the ipod format

PowerPoint on Immigration Regulation and Restriction

In order to review the lecture below on immigration regulation and restriction, it may be helpful for you to see the PowerPoint without the audio. Here it is:

Immigration Regulation and Restriction, 1882-1921

What do you think of when you see the Statue of Liberty? For millions of Americans, especially immigrants, the statue is a symbol of welcome, of America as an asylum and haven for the oppressed. But although the poem of Emma Lazarus inscribed on its base perpetuates this idea, most Americans feared the impact of immigration on the nation during the half century after the statue was erected. In this lecture we look at the reasons why Americans slowly but steadily lowered the gates into the nation in the wake of seismic changes in the sources and number of immigrants coming into the country between 1882 and 1921. We will also look at how this change contrasts with what took place before and since this period.

Click for vodcast on the Immigrants in the late Nineteenth century (iPod video format)

The Politics of the Gilded Age

Yesterday we looked at the politics of the Gilded Age, an age of political deadlock in some ways not unlike our own. While politicians concentrated on getting out the vote and "waving the bloody shirt of the rebellion," they feared most of all antagonizing voters by addressing the real issues of the time. We talked about the role of the "politics of the past" in derailing the possibilities of federal regulation of the economy -- at the very moment when the Supreme Court was immobilizing the states from representing the interests of the farmers, workers and non-corporate interests.

Click on this link for the vodcast of the lecture in the iPod video format

First Lecture for Module Two

In Module Two of the course we examine the age of Excess, America between the years 1877 and 1920. Domestic matters concern us, including the Gilded Age era, the problems of poverty, immigration and deflation in the age of the Economic Revolution. In the first lecture, we take a look at The Age of Excess in Overview. (Video iPod format)

Final Module 1 Lecture

The last lecture for Module 1 is a video podcast on the crucial turning-point decade for race relations, the 1890s, when Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois debated the best path for blacks to take to extricate themselves from the situation in which they found themselves. This debate had huge meaning for the future as this lecture explores.

Click for Video podcast on this watershed decade. (iPod video format)

The New South

Module 1 also introduces us to the New South. This lecture is reproduced in audio form only.

Click here for the audio podcast of the lecture on the "New South."

Reconstruction and Race Relations

There are three lectures for this module in the course. They are on the respective subjects of Reconstruction, the New South and the prescriptions for reform that came in the final decade of the nineteenth century. First, we have our lecture on "America's unfinished revolution," Reconstruction following the Civil War.

Click here to watch and listed to the lecture

About This Blog

This blog consists of a series of abstracts describing, and links providing, the audio and video recordings that constitute the lectures of the course. You can use this blog to subscribe to podcasts of the lectures, including an iTunes podcast.