This course surveys U.S. history from Reconstruction to the present day. It explores major historical themes including social movements, imperialism, politics, popular culture, race, class, and gender to help us understand our modern era. Designed for a shortened session, this course teases out important contexts from major events such as the Spanish-American War, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, and Deindustrialization to explore how Americans navigated citizenship, political ideologies, and shifts in the economic geography of the country. This course contends with questions of Americaness in the 20th century. What did it mean to be an American? How did race, class, gender, and sexuality impact this American identity? Can the American identity be found in any specific space or place? This course is designed to introduce students to the historical discipline, train them to read critically, and construct well-organized arguments supported by historical evidence. Students will be graded on coursework comprised of annotated readings, primary source analyses, discussion posts, and a short historiographical paper. All materials for this class will be available for free online.