“Fun” and the Introductory US History Course

My presentation will focus on the redesign of my introductory 20^th century U.S. history course around a specific theme. The History Gateways project, supported by the Mellon Foundation, the AHA, and the Gardner Institute, has encouraged participants to seek more active learning methods, a move away from content-heavy lecture style surveys, and a more inclusive approach to the classroom. In the spring of 2020, I decided to reorganize my course and assignments, which had been fairly straightforward (chronologically organized around diverse events, with an emphasis on papers as assessment tools), around the idea of the history of fun. I wanted to explore the social, political, economic, and cultural developments in modern United States history by asking about how U.S. Americans of a range of backgrounds had fun. Entertainment and leisure trends in various moments are reflections of how regional, national, and international events influenced the everyday lives of ordinary Americans. Those same trends shed light on who embraced fun in what ways and who was excluded or lacked access to that fun, which allows us to explore themes like race, gender, class, region, and religion. After only a short time I've found that this approach draws students into the material in a different way. I've also found that it opens the door for thinking more directly about how historians form questions and interpret sources because the thematic focus demands more complex thinking about history as both a practice and as a factor in our present life. My presentation will discuss the successes, failures, and challenges raised by redesigning a survey-style course around one particular theme.