The Origins of American Liberalism

In the 1870s, liberalism in America was associated with freedom of contract, small government, and, quite often, restrictions on suffrage. Today, liberalism means nearly the opposite of that. This class examines how factors like war, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, disease, fascism, and economic instability have reshaped liberalism. American liberalism has been labelled protean, flexible, or just imprecise. The goal of this course is to identify some of the strands that hold it together by contextualizing its evolution within social changes that have forced liberals to reevaluate their ideas.