Part I: Reconstructing the nation. Prologue: Mourning Lincoln ; In the wake of the War ; Radical reconstruction ; The greater reconstruction ; Home ; Gilded liberals ; Triumph of wage labor ; Panic ; Beginning a second century -- Part II: The quest for prosperity. Years of violence ; The party of prosperity ; People in motion ; Liberal orthodoxy and radical opinions ; Dying for progress ; The great upheaval ; Reform ; Westward the course of reform ; The center fails to hold ; The poetry of a pound of steel -- Part III: The crisis arrives. The other half ; Dystopian and utopian America ; The Great Depression ; Things fall apart ; An era ends -- Conclusion.