HIST 381 - 1950s America

Credit Hours: 3

Analyzes the history of the 1950s through the lenses of an idealized American Way of Life, alternatives to that ideal, and as a product of historical memory. Topics include suburbanization; the nuclear family and domestic life; expectations of sex and gender; the influence of popular and material culture; generational tensions; the Cold War; and Civil Rights and other rights-based movements. Through examination of historians’ evaluations and primary source evidence of the time period under study, this course allows students to identify how historical narrative and popular views of the past are constructed - both by those living during the time and those who look back on the era.