Description
This course explores the social and cultural history of the United States from the onset of the Great Depression through the end of World War II. From the stock market crash of 1929 until the end of hostilities of the Second World War in 1945, American society experienced a number of dramatic events and changes. How did these crises affect and alter American society and American culture? And how did American culture reflect, comment on, and respond to events such as the Great Depression and World War II? These questions, and more, will be examined through specific topics, including: cultural conceptions of wealth and poverty, screwball comedies, art and the New Deal, representations of labor and unions, social understandings of ?big government,? the WW II homefront, gender and the military, the development of an organized racial equality movement, internment of Japanese-Americans, and the reactions to the dropping of the first atomic bombs. Throughout the class, we will address h