Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (Young Readers Edition, Volume 2)

VOLUME TWO: THE MAKING OF MODERN AMERICAFrom 1877 to 2020 The Founders of the American nation would have had trouble recognizing the America that emerged after the Civil War. By century's end we had rapidly evolved into the world's greatest industrial power. It was a nation of large new cities populated by immigrants from all over the world. And it was a nation that was taking an increasingly active role on the world stage, even to the point of acquiring an empire of its own. Many Americans began to wonder whether this modern nation had outgrown its original Constitution. That document had been written back in the eighteenth century, after all, and one of its main goals was limiting the size and scope of government. But did that goal make sense in the dynamic new America of the twentieth century? That became a central question. The Progressive movement and its successors believed it was time to replace the Constitution with laws permitting a larger and more powerful government. Others