4.1: The United States developed the world’s first modern mass democracy and celebrated a new national culture, while Americans sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals and to reform its institutions to match them.
4.2: Developments in technology, agriculture, and commerce precipitated profound changes in U.S. settlement patterns, regional identities, gender and family relations, political power, and distribution of consumer goods.
4.3: U.S. interest in increasing foreign trade, expanding its national borders, and isolating itself from European conflicts shaped the nation’s foreign policy and spurred government and private initiatives.
Dublin, Thomas. “Women, Work, and Protest in the Early Lowell Mills” [CR1c]
Faust, Drew. “Culture, Conflict, and Community: The Meaning of Power on an Antebellum Plantation” [CR1c]
Francese, Carl. “The North American Phalanx” [CR1c]
Zinn, Howard. “The Intimately Oppressed” [CR1c]
Zinn, Howard. “We Take Nothing By Conquest, Thank God” [CR1c]
The Alamo (film) [CR1c]
Burns, Ric. New York: A Documentary Film (Erie Canal and Grid System) [CR1c]
The Amistad
The Donner Party (PBS documentary film)
Primary Sources
Paul, Mary. “Letters” [CR1b]
Jefferson, Thomas. “To John Holmes” [CR1b]
Garrison, William Lloyd. “To the Public” [CR1b]
Douglas, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas” [CR1b]
Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society [CR1b]
Seneca Falls Convention, Declaration of Rights and Sentiments [CR1b]
Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience” [CR1b]
The Monroe Doctrine [CR1b]
Andrew Jackson to the Cherokee Tribe, 1835 [CR1b]
Student Activities
Students will write an essay responding to the following question: To what extent did the debates about the Mexican War and its aftermath reflect the sectional interest of New Englanders, westerners, and southerners in the period from 1845-1855? [CR12][CR10]
Students will be divided into groups to do presentations on Temperance, Abolition, Women’s Suffrage, and Workers’ Rights. Each presentation will include a poster created in the style of the era and analysis of primary sources related to the topic [CR1b]
Students will compose a poem reflecting the ideals of the Seneca Falls Convention
Students will create Cornell notes for chapters 11-17 of The American Pageant, 13th Ed.
Period 5[CR2](1844-1877)
As the nation expanded and its population grew, regional tensions, especially over slavery, led to a civil war – the course and aftermath of which transformed American society.
5.1: The United States became more connected with the world as it pursued an expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere and emerged as the destination for many migrants from other countries.
5.2: Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.
5.3: The Union victory in the Civil War and the contested Reconstruction of the South settled the issues of slavery and secession, but left unresolved many questions about the power of the federal government and citizenship rights.
Lincoln, Abraham. “Letter to Horace Greeley” [CR1b]
A proclamation on the suspension of habeas corpus, 1862 [CR1b]
Student Activities
Students read the sources in a DBQ on the Mexican-American War and engage in a classroom debate on POTUS Polk’s motives for entering the war [CR4]
Students will research and then evaluate the thesis that the American Civil War was a total war impacting those on the home front, abroad, as well as those on the battlefield. Your essay must assess the impact of the war on all three areas by focusing on U.S. regional economies and U.S. and Confederate relations with Britain and France [CR12]
Students will read “Popular Sovereignty Should Settle the Slavery Question” by Stephen A. Douglass and “Slavery Should Not be Allowed to Spread” by Abraham Lincoln. Students will identify major arguments of each man, and then debate whose argument was more persuasive. Students analysis should address at least two of the following features from each of the documents: audience, purpose, point of view, format, argument, limitations, and content germane to the evidence considered [CR7]
Working in groups of three, and using the following articles as a basis for their arguments, students will have a class discussion focused on the question: “What caused the Civil War?” 1. “The Economic Origins of the Civil War” 2. “The Political Origins of the Civil War” 3. “Slavery, the Constitution, and the Origins of the Civil War” [CR8][CR6]
Students will read The Spectator article “White Southerners Defense of Slavery.” What were the moral, political and economic arguments for slavery?
Students will create Cornell notes for chapters 17-22 of The American Pageant, 13th Ed.
Period 6[CR2](1865-1898)
The transformation of the U.S. from an agricultural to an increasingly industrialized and urbanized society brought about significant economic, political, diplomatic, social, environmental, and cultural changes.
6.1: The rise of big business in the United States encouraged massive migrations and urbanization, sparked government and popular efforts to reshape the U.S. economy and environment, and renewed debates over U.S. national identity.
6.2: The emergence of an industrial culture in the United States led to both greater opportunities for, and restrictions on, immigrants, minorities, and women.
6.3: The “Gilded Age” witnesses new cultural and intellectual movements in tandem with political debates over economic and social policies.
Kazin, Michael. “Populism and Agrarian Discontent” [CR1c]
Cherny, Robert W. “Entrepreneurs and Bankers: The Evolution of Corporate Empires” [CR1c]
Primary Sources
Political cartoons
“The Protectors of Our Industries” (1883)
“Next!” (1904)
"History repeats itself”
“Hopelessly bound to the stake” (1883)
Workingmen’s Party of California pamphlet: “San Francisco’s Chinatown, 1880”
People’s Party campaign poster, 1892
Carnegie, Andrew. Gospel of Wealth
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York
Student Activities
Students will write an essay on this DBQ: In the post-Civil War U.S., corporations grew significantly in number, size, and influence. Analyze the impact of big business on the economy and politics and the responses of Americans to these changes. Confine your answer to the period 1870-1900. [CR8] [CR13a]
Interpret statistics: Using data from the Digital History website on farming in the Gilded Age, students will use OPTICS to discuss their findings in small groups and report their conclusions to the class [CR1b]
Students will compare and contrast the competing interests of labor and capital by completing a Competing Interests Chart [CR4][CR13a]
Students will analyze a map: major Indian battles and Indian reservations (1860-1900) and compose a thesis paragraph analyzing the effects of westward expansion on Native American peoples. [CR1b]
“Reading Like a Historian” lesson: Students exam why the U.S. invaded Cuba thus initiating the Spanish-American War [CR1b]
“Reading Like a Historian lesson: Students exam how advocates and critics used political cartoons to express their positions on annexation of the Philippines. [CR1b][CR13a]
Students will create Cornell notes for chapters 23-16 of The American Pageant, 13th Ed.
Cooperative Learning Activity: The Gilded Age Time Magazine Students will break up into groups in order to create a mock Time Magazine on a given topic during the Gilded Age. The topics will be focused on one of the following themes from the AP curriculum: Identity, Work/Exchange/Technology, Peopling, Politics and Power, Ideas/Beliefs/Culture.
Requirements 1) There are 5 required elements of the magazine a) The feature article b) Interview c) Yellow journalism article d) The cover, graphics, political cartoons 2) The tone of the report is to be written as a recent retrospective at the turn of the century. 3) Be creative in both the magazine cover and the article itself. 4) Each group should answer the thematic learning objectives that connect to their theme. They are as follows: ID-2,5,6,7 WXT-3,5,6,7 PEO-2,3,5,6 POL-2,3,6 CUL-2,3,5,6
Synthesis Activity * Groups will trace their topic based on today's lesson throughout US History. * Highlight the major eras and events associated with your topic. * Analyze how your topic connects to other historical periods or circumstances. * Are the comparisons being made to draw similarities, contrasts, or both? * Groups will create a graphic organizer to summarize these connections.
Ch. 23 (Gilded Age Politics) 1) Jim Crow 2) Panic of 1873 3) Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall 4) Chinese Exclusion Act 5) Great Railroad Strikes
Period 7[CR2](1898-1945)
An increasingly pluralistic U.S. faced profound domestic and global challenges, debate the proper degree of government activism, and sought to define its international trade.
Fundamentalist Christianity vs. scientific modernism
Management vs. labor
Native born vs. immigrants
White vs. black
Idealism vs. Disillusionment
Harlem Renaissance
World War I
Xenophobia
Civil Liberties
Strikes
Red Scare
Quotas
Great Migration
Frontier closed
Imperialism
Spanish-American war
Filipino insurrection
Anti-imperialist
Interventionists vs. Isolationists
Neutrality
Woodrow Wilson
American Expeditionary Force
Treaty of Versailles
League of Nations
World War II
Pearl Harbor
Japanese internment
Atomic bombs
Axis powers
Allied powers
Key Concepts
7.1: Governmental, political, and social organizations struggled to address the effects of large-scale industrialization, economic uncertainty, and related social changes such as urbanization and mass migration.
7.2: A revolution in communications and transportation technology helped to create a new mass culture and spread “modern” values and ideas, even as cultural conflicts between groups increased under the pressure of migration, world wars, and economic distress.
7.3: Global conflicts over resources, territories, and ideologies renewed debates over the nation’s values and its role in the world while simultaneously propelling the United States into a dominant international military, political, cultural, and economic position.
Badjer, Anthony J. “The Hundred Days and Beyond: What Did the New Deal Accomplish?” [CR1c]
Cohen, Miriam. “Women and the Progressive Movement” [CR1c]
Zinn, Howard. “The Empire and the People” [CR1c]
Zinn, Howard. “War is the Health of the State” [CR1c]
The War (PBS documentary series on WWII) [CR1c]
Primary Sources
Theodore Roosevelt on the sinking of the Lusitania, 1915[CR1b]
Triangle Shirtwaste Factory Fire pictures [CR1b]
Propaganda posters from WWI [CR1b]
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inauguration, 1933 [CR1b]
Japanese internment broadside, May 3, 1942 [CR1b]
Student Activities
Students will write a response to the following prompt: Analyze the roles that women played in Progressive Era reforms from the 1880s-1920. Focus your essay on two of the following: Politics; social conditions; labor and working conditions [CR5]
Students will write an essay comparing and contrasting progressive era reform with the antebellum reform movements [CR9] [CR11]
Students will read selections from Chapter 32 of the American Spirit and write a response to the following: Analyze the origins and outcomes of the intense cultural conflicts of the 1920s. In your response, focus on TWO of the following: Immigration, Prohibition, Religion. [CR8]
Digital History: The Great Depression Statistics in maps – maps include data from 1920, 1930, and 1940 that focus on wealth and income broken down by race and gender. What do the numbers say? Not say? In small groups, students will draw conclusions and share results with the large group [CR1b][CR7]
Students will write an essay on the following: To what extent were the policies of the New Deal a distinct turning point in U.S. history, and to what extent were they merely an extension of Progressive Era policy goals? Confine your answer to programs/policies that addressed the specific needs of American workers [CR10]
“Reading Like a Historian” lesson: Students investigate a series of primary documents to address the question: Why were Japanese-Americans interned during WW II? [CR1b] [CR13a]
Students will create Cornell notes for chapters 27-35 of The American Pageant, 13th Ed.