This course provides an introduction to the history of major American social movements from the Revolution to the present. It explores the impact of various historical actors - industrialists and workers, men and women, political leaders and political dissidents, capitalists and socialists, civil rights leaders and their opponents - whose actions, interactions, and struggles shaped our collective national past. We will cover a broad range of themes, confront and ask difficult questions, and attempt to make sense of how this period helped to make the U.S. what it is today.