Lecture on Wilson's Foreign Policy in World War I

The PowerPoint of our lecture on the attempt to export Progressivism abroad to save the world for democracy in World War I is below.

TR and the Other Side of the Progressives

In this lecture we look at the not-so-progressive side of the Progressive reformers, concentrating on the domestic and foreign policies of Theodore Roosevelt. After summing up his contributions to conservation and consumer protection, we look at the notorious Brownesville episode (1906), TR's views on race and equality, and his policy toward Latin America. With the latter, Roosevelt revealed some of the less flattering aspects of Progressivism, compromising our nation'a philosophical ideals unecessarily in the legitimate quest to upold its objective security.

TR and the Other Side of the Progressives (a Video Podcast in the iPod Video format)

The Progressive Presidents

Today we had an exam at the end of the class but we began with a brief introduction to the Progressive Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson. In twenty minutes or so, we looked at the "bright" side of the story, the ways in which Theodore Roosevelt served the cause of democracy and equal rights for all with his sometimes symbolic, and sometimes substantive, actions on these fronts.
Next time we look at their failures to extend democracy and fail dealings to all Americans, failures that were often glaring.

The Progressive Presidents: An Introduction (Video iPod format)

The Progressives: Part One

This audio podcast introduces the Progressives, at the municipal and state levels.

Click here for the audio podcast.

The New South: How Much Like the Old?

Because we had an exam yesterday, we had time in the 11:00 am section only for a ten-minute or so introduction to the story of the New South, the South between 1865 and 1914. This podcast is that introduction, recorded as an audio podcast only. While many economic indicators support the idea that there was indeed a New South characterized by widepread industrialization and economic change, the New South turned out to be much like the old in all the most important areas. Certainly if one defines the New South as a society of "wealth and prosperity based on industry," there was no New South after the Civil War.

Introducing the "New South" (audio podcast)

Poverty and Immigration Restriction, 1882-1910

To many Americans there was an imagined link between poverty and immigration. Since most immigrants were poor, Americans made the false leap to the conclusion that most poor people were immigrants, or that their poverty was caused by immigration. In today's lecture, captured below as an audio podcast, we look at how Americans viewed the "Old" and the "New" immigrants and recoiled at the sources of immigration between 1882 and 1910. The organizations and legislation that resulted are reviewed.

"Golden Door" No More: Poverty and Immigration in the late Nineteenth Century Lens(audio podcast)

Lecture 04: Poverty and its Fatal Diagnosis

Yesterday we introduced the topic of poverty in the late nineteenth century and looked at its dimensions and diagnosis. We saw that the poor were blamed for their own poverty, an insensitivity that only made problems worse. Because the battery failed on my microphone and the lecture was not recorded, I made this special podcast providing a condensed (in fourteen minutes) overview of the lecture. Next time we will look at a case study of tenement house reform and the discovery of poverty in the 1890s to round out our look at the topic of poverty. it was a problem that would have to await the progressive reformers after the turn of the century to be seriously addressed.

The Dimensions and Diagnoses of Poverty in the Age of Excess (video iPod format)