World War I, the Great Depression, and the New Deal
Between 1914 and 1939, the United States went through a world war, a decade of giddy prosperity, and the worst economic collapse in its history. Each one changed what Americans expected their government to do, and by the end the federal government had taken on responsibilities that would have been unthinkable to a citizen of […]
Industrialization, the Gilded Age, and Reform
In 1873, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published a novel they called The Gilded Age. The title was an insult. Gilding is a thin layer of gold applied over something cheap, and the two writers were describing an America that glittered at the top while a great deal underneath was rotting. Keep building this […]
