Lectures in History

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Johnson and Nixon Supreme Court Nominations Oct 04, 2020

Show notes

Brooklyn College Professor KC Johnson taught a class on Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon’s Supreme Court nominations. He described Johnson’s plan to fill the bench with liberal justices and the difficulties he ran into getting them confirmed. He outlined the resistance from conservative senators in the confirmation hearings and concluded with background on some of Nixon’s nominations to the court.

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Women in the Late-19th Century Sep 27, 2020

Show notes

Professor Heather Cox Richardson talked about the new roles women assumed in the workforce and in politics during the late-19th century. She described the gains women made in fields such as nursing, teaching, and social work. She also spoke about the growth of political organizations run by women that focused on issues such as Prohibition and women’s suffrage.

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U.S. Refugee Policy Since World War II Sep 20, 2020

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Professor Maria Cristina Garcia talked about the United States' refugee policy since World War II. She spoke about qualifications to be a refugee and how those have changed as well as legislation governing quotas and procedures.

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Culture of the Antebellum Congress Sep 13, 2020

Show notes

Professor Thomas Balcerski talked about the culture of Congress in the Antebellum Era. He described how members of Congress in the early 1800s bonded across party lines through tobacco use, social clubs, and living together in boarding houses. However, he said these friendships and alliances disintegrated as the Civil War approached, revealing the sectional divisions in national politics at the time.

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Asian Immigration and Angel Island Sep 06, 2020

Show notes

University of Minnesota professor Erika Lee talks about Asian immigration to the West coast from 1830 to 1930, including the role of San Francisco Bay’s Angel Island in the 20th century. She compared the Angel Island and Ellis Island experiences, describing how Asian immigrants in California had more extensive background checks and longer holding times than European immigrants in New York. This class was from a course called “American Immigration History.”

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Constitutional Convention of 1787 Aug 30, 2020

Show notes

Professor Jack Rakove talked about some of the issues debated during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, such as the number of representatives for each state and the method of presidential elections. He described the arguments put forth by James Madison and how delegates tried to reach compromises despite competing State interests. This class was from a course called “The Constitution: A Brief History.”

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Female Slaves and the Law Aug 23, 2020

Show notes

Professor Martha Jones talked about the mid-19th century court case of Celia, a female slave who killed her master after repeated sexual assaults. Topics included what options Celia may have had, and the involvement of her fellow slaves and her master’s white neighbors in her court case. This episode may contain content that is sensitive to some listeners.

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Alcohol Use in the Early American Republic Aug 16, 2020

Show notes

University of California, Davis Professor Alan Taylor spoke on alcohol use in the early American republic. By 1830, annual alcohol consumption in America reached four gallons per person, the most in the history of the nation before or since. Professor Taylor talked about why Americans drank so much, the consequences of so much drinking, and how it spawned the temperance movement in the 1830s.

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Polio Epidemic in the United States Aug 09, 2020

Show notes

Davidson College professor Sally McMillen talked about the polio epidemic in the United States in the early to mid-20th century. Fear of contracting polio grew following a series of outbreaks, including one in 1916 that started in Brooklyn, New York, and eventually killed more than 6,000 people. She also spoke about the efforts of President Franklin Roosevelt to help find a cure, in part by starting the March of Dimes organization.

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Culture and Society in the 1920s Aug 02, 2020

Show notes

Professor Michael Kazin taught a class about culture and society in the 1920s. He spoke about Prohibition and the exploits of the gangster Al Capone, who eventually went to prison on tax evasion charges, the motion picture industry and the new production codes that sought to reduce sexuality in films, and the 1925 State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes trial, in which a high school teacher faced charges of unlawfully teaching evolution in a state-funded school.

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