The Great War transformed the world order, and it also revolutionized societies and individual experiences. In one of the year's most interesting books about the war's impact, Dr. Evan Sullivan explores the lives of blinded veterans and how their injuries completely changed the way we think about disability. Evan joins the show to discuss his book and the wider implications of disability studies for historical scholarship.

Essential Reading:

Evan Sullivan, Constructing Disability after the Great War: Blind Veterans in the Progressive Era (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Beth Linker, War's Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America (2011).

Audra Jennings, Out of the Horrors of War: Disability Politics in World War II America (2016).

Catherine J. Kudlick, "Disability History: Why We Need Another 'Other'," American Historical Review 108, no. 3 (June 2003).

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With the industrial revolution came a revolution in the education of Americans. In this episode, Connie Goddard discusses her latest book on the industrial education system that taught Americans how to do trades, skilled labor activities, and generally find work in factories and industrial jobs.

Essential Reading:

Connie Goddard, Learning for Work: How Industrial Education Fostered Democratic Opportunity (2024).

Recommended Reading:

Kelly Ann Kolondy, Normalites: The First Professionally Prepared Teachers in the United States (2014).

Christopher J. Lucas, Teacher Education in America: Reform Agendas for the Twenty-First Century (1997).

Helen Proctor and Kellie Burns, The Curriculum of the Body and the School as Clinic: Histories of Public Health and Schooling (2023).

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Presidential elections often serve as periodic demarcations from one historical epoch to another. 1876 has often been seen as the beginning of the Gilded Age. This roundtable episode brings together leading scholars of American law and politics to discuss the virtues and vices of this approach with the aim of determining if we can make sense of American political history from the Gilded Age to the present.

Essential Reading:

Richard Slotkin, A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America (2024).

Cynthia Nicoletti, Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis (2017).

Recommended Reading:

Heather Cox Richardson, "Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and Progressive Era" in A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2017).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.