Courses

This course will examine the development of American capitalism, with a particular focus on the period from American independence in the 1780s until the First World War. In this period, the United States grew from an Atlantic outpost to a major figure in a globalizing economy. This period saw the rise of wage labor, the development of a market society, the emergence of corporations, the construction of railroad networks, and the innovation of new financial and legal instruments. We will examine the reasons for and effects of these developments, examining the culture as well as the economy of capitalism. Writers ranging from popular pamphleteers to prominent novelists registered and commented on these changes, and we will look at how the development of capitalism changed family structures and ideas about the self. Finally, we will consider capitalism as a historiographical as well as a historical phenomenon, and consider why historians today are drawn to this field.