The progressives are probably the quintessential reform group in the history of the United States. A lecture on reform as a recurring aspect of American life will be of value to students. The lecture might concern itself with four themes: what was to be reformed, who the reformers were, the motivations for reform, and the organizational standards employed by the reformers. There are a multitude of options from which to choose. A backward look from the Progressive Era might include the reformist impulses of the 1840s and, later, the Social Gospel movement. A forward look might include the New Deal and then the civil-rights revolution of the 1960s. For the 1840s see Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment (1944). For the Social Gospel movement, consult Sidney Fine, Laissez Faire and the General Welfare State (1956). A classic work is Richard Hofstadter, Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (1955). William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal (1963), is a fine account. For the 1960s consult Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976).

It may be difficult for today's students to understand the pervasive character of racism in an era when national origin and ethnicity were widely considered as racial identities. Science supported racism, religion supported racism, and it is hardly surprising that Americans, including some who were denigrated, accepted a hierarchy of racial types with nordics at the top and African-Americans at the bottom. A lecture explaining these extreme views--drawing on the Dillingham Commission reports, the army psychological tests, and the teachings of the churches--may throw into bold relief the present day's still strong remnants of that earlier racism. Students not only will benefit from an exploration of this thinking of an earlier time but also will be confronted by the need to examine present attitudes. For the views of the earlier time, consult Henry P. Fairchild, The Melting-Pot Mistake (1926); Carl C. Brigham, A Study of American Intelligence (1923); and James E. Gregg, "Comparison of Races," Scientific Monthly 20 (March 1925): 248-254. See also John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955), and Rayford W. Logan, The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901 (1954).

All the students in the class will have been to school. Most will have decided opinions about the nature of their prior schooling. To what extent was it influenced by the teachings of John Dewey? A lecture explaining changes between the Committee of Ten Report of 1893 and the Seven Cardinal Principles of 1918 will be of interest. Further discussion of Dewey's influence and the Progressive Education Association, as well as teachers' resistance to change, is likely to evoke memories among class members. Consult Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (1964) and American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876-1980 (1988).

The so-called new immigration, with its large number of arrivals from southern and eastern Europe, filled the cities with people speaking strange languages and practicing strange customs. They were mostly poor and ill educated, but they were colorful. Students will benefit from a lecture that describes accurately the sordid conditions under which many immigrants lived and at the same time celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of American life. The lecture should end with a foreshadowing of a similar phenomenon with the arrival of the "fourth wave" after the immigration law of 1965. Good general histories include Thomas Archdeacon, Becoming American: An Ethnic History (1983), and Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (1991), both with excellent bibliographies. Daniels also has a brief account in Not Like Us: Immigrants and Minorities in America, 1890-1924 (1997). Walter Nugent, Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 1870-1914 (1993), is more focused. Striking contemporary accounts are Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890); John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906); and Allon Schoener, editor, Portal to America: The Lower East Side, 1870-1925 (1967), the last with wonderful photographs as well. The theme of the "fourth wave" is treated in David M. Reimers, Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America (second edition; 1992).

Theodore Roosevelt was brash, cocky, arrogant, conservative, progressive, and at times deeply sensitive. A biographical lecture that explores Roosevelt's leadership qualities will help introduce students to the most vigorous president since Abraham Lincoln. John Morton Blum, The Republican Roosevelt (second edition; 1954), is an excellent interpretive essay. John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest: Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (1983), compares these progressive presidents. To consult TR himself, see William H. Harbaugh, editor, The Writings of Theodore Roosevelt (1967), one slender volume with pieces on the economy, empire, conservation, race, and reform.

At last, seventy-two years after the Seneca Falls Convention, women got the vote. Why did it take so long? What were the politics of the passage of the amendment by Congress and its subsequent ratification? Why did some women oppose the suffrage? A lecture on gaining the right to vote will throw needed light on an important aspect of American history. The instructor may find it useful to draw parallels with the ill-fated Equal Rights Amendment of the 1970s. See Ann Firor Scott and Andrew Mackay Scott, One Half the People: The Fight for Woman Suffrage (1975); Sara Hunter Graham, Woman Suffrage and the New Democracy (1996); and other suggestions in the bibliography at the end of Chapter 22.