To the surprise of virtually everyone, President Harry Truman won a narrow victory over Thomas Dewey in 1948. In this course we’ll be looking at the immediate postwar era and the people and events of Truman’s first term. We’ll consider the problems of converting to a peacetime economy, the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the collapse of the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union, and the beginnings of the Cold War.

The 1948 election was not only a choice between Truman and Dewey, but also between a candidate from the left, Henry Wallace, and one from the segregationist right, Strom Thurmond. What’s more, in races for the House and Senate, four future presidents - Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford - were on the ballot. We’ll explore their campaigns, too.