INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Vincent P. Mikkelsen Florida State University
THE AMERICAN JOURNEY A History of the United States BRIEF SIXTH EDITION David Goldfield University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Carl Abbott Portland State University
Virginia DeJohn Anderson University of Colorado, Boulder
Jo Ann E. Argersinger Southern Illinois University
Peter H. Argersinger Southern Illinois University
William L. Barney University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Robert M. Weir University of South Carolina
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Worlds Apart ................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Transplantation 1600–1685............................................................................................. 5 Chapter 3 A Meeting of Cultures..................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 4 English Colonies in an Age of Empire 1660s–1763 ..................................................... 12 Chapter 5 Imperial Breakdown 1763–1774 ................................................................................... 15 Chapter 6 The War for Independence 1774–1783 ......................................................................... 18 Chapter 7 The First Republic 1776–1789 ...................................................................................... 22 Chapter 8 A New Republic and the Rise of Parties 1789–1800 .................................................... 26 Chapter 9 The Triumph and Collapse of Jeffersonian Republicanism 1800–1824 ....................... 30 Chapter 10 The Jacksonian Era 1824–1845................................................................................... 34 Chapter 11 Slavery and the Old South 1800–1860........................................................................ 38 Chapter 12 The Market Revolution and Social Reform 1815–1850.............................................. 42 Chapter 13 The Way West ............................................................................................................. 46 Chapter 14 The Politics of Sectionalism 1846–1861..................................................................... 50 Chapter 15 Battle Cries and Freedom Songs: The Civil War 1861–1865 ..................................... 54 Chapter 16 Reconstruction 1865–1877.......................................................................................... 59 Chapter 17 A New South: Economic Progress and Social Tradition 1877–1900.......................... 63 Chapter 18 Industry, Immigrants, and Cities 1870–1900 .............................................................. 67 Chapter 19 Transforming the West 1865–1890 ............................................................................. 71 Chapter 20 Politics and Government 1877–1900 .......................................................................... 75
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Chapter 21 The Progressive Era 1900–1917.................................................................................. 79 Chapter 22 Creating an Empire 1865–1917................................................................................... 83 Chapter 23 America and the Great War 1914–1920...................................................................... 86 Chapter 24 Toward a Modern America: The 1920s....................................................................... 90 Chapter 25 The Great Depression and the New Deal 1929–1939 ................................................. 94 Chapter 26 World War II 1939–1945 ............................................................................................ 98 Chapter 27 The Cold War at Home and Abroad 1946–1952....................................................... 102 Chapter 28 The Confident Years 1953–1964 .............................................................................. 106 Chapter 29 Shaken to the Roots 1965–1980................................................................................ 111 Chapter 30 The Reagan Revolution and a Changing World 1981–1992..................................... 115 Chapter 31 Complacency, Crisis, and Global Reengagement 1993–2010 .................................. 119
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Chapter 1 WORLDS APART Chapter Summary Chapter 1 provides an introduction to United States history by exploring the backgrounds of the three major cultures that came together to create the New World. Topics discussed include descriptions of Native American, West African, and European societies on the eve of contact; the motivations for European exploration and settlement in the New World; early Spanish, French, and British settlements; and the impact of contact with Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans during the sixteenth century. I.
Native American Societies before 1492 A. Hunters, Harvesters, and Gatherers B. The Development of Agriculture C. Nonfarming Societies D. Mesoamerican Civilizations 1. The Mayans 2. The Aztecs E. North America’s Diverse Cultures 1. Ancestral Puebloans 2. Plains Indians 3. Mound-building cultures F. The Caribbean Islanders
II.
West African Societies A. Geographical and Political Differences 1. Artisans and merchants 2. Farming and gender roles B. Family Structure and Religion C. European Merchants in West Africa and the Slave Trade
III.
Western Europe on the Eve of Exploration A. The Consolidation of Political and Military Authority B. Religious Conflict and the Protestant Reformation
IV.
Contact A. The Lure of Discovery 1. Advances in navigation and shipbuilding 2. The Atlantic islands and the slave trade B. Christopher Columbus and the Westward Route to Asia C. The Spanish Conquest and Colonization 1. The end of the Aztec Empire 2. The fall of the Inca Empire 3. Spanish incursions to the north 4. The seeds of economic decline D. The Columbian Exchange E. Cultural Perceptions and Misperceptions
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V.
Competition for a Continent A. Early French Efforts in North America B. English Attempts in the New World 1. The colonization of Ireland 2. Expeditions to the New World 3. The Roanoke colony
VI.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 1, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did geography shape the development of regional cultures in North America prior to 1492?
2.
What were the key characteristics of West African society?
3.
How did events in Europe both shape and inspire exploration of the Americas?
4.
What were the biological consequences of contact between Europeans and Native Americans?
5.
Why did early French and English efforts at colonization falter?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss pre-Columbian Native American culture, stressing the diversity and complexity of indigenous societies in the New World. Point out differences in population dispersal and density and the variety of religions, architecture, art, and political and economic organization in these cultures. Discuss the meaning of the term “civilization” and what modern-day Americans mean when they describe a society or culture as “civilized.” Have students question the traditional historical assertion that American history began with the arrival of Europeans and suggest that European settlement simply initiated another phase of American history. 2. Present a discussion of the factors contributing to the development of European interest in exploration and settlement in the New World. Because the United States originated as British colonies, focus specifically on the British motivation. A complete treatment of the issue would examine both political and individual reasons for movement into the New World. Include in the political discussion such issues as the national pursuit of a mercantile economic policy, the political power associated with the acquisition of empire, the expansion of military power, and the missionary motive. Considering the individual, how did religion, economic hardship, and the lure of adventure impact many people’s decisions to go to the New World?
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Compare and contrast Native American, European, and West African society on the eve of contact. How did beliefs regarding land ownership, family, religion, and law and justice impact relations among these groups? How did each group regard the others and why? 2. Compare and contrast European perception and treatment of Native Americans and Africans during the sixteenth century. What negative impressions did Europeans hold about each society? Did they see anything positive or worthy in either culture? Discuss the distinction between race and culture. To what extent did race and culture define the European perception and treatment of each group? Which of these factors—race or culture—contributed most to the European perception of Native Americans? Which contributed most to the European perception of Africans? 3. Organize a group classroom activity in which students develop an understanding of Native American, West African, and European culture. Organize students in the classroom into groups so that one-third of the class is working on Native American culture, one-third on West African culture, and onethird on European culture. For example, in a class of 30, set up six groups of five, with two groups working on each culture. Have them examine religion, family, politics, and the economy in their assigned societies. After the groups have finished this assignment, reorganize the class into groups of three. Each group will include one member who has studied each of the three groups. Have each student teach the other two about “his” or “her” culture. You can test the material by giving a take-home essay in which the students are asked to compare and contrast the Native American, West African, and European cultures.
Topics for Term Papers or Class Projects 1. Research the primary historical resources left by western Europeans in which they recorded the events of their initial contact with Native Americans in the New World. These resources could include written records, such as journals or diaries from explorers and early colonists, or European art, particularly paintings and sketches based on a Native American theme. Discuss how these primary resources teach us about the European response and reaction to Native American culture. 2. Research the debate over slavery in Spain. Why did the institution present special problems within the Spanish culture? How did the debate impact the characteristics of the institution of slavery in Latin America? 3. Examine the Spanish and British approaches to colonial administration. How did Spanish colonial rule reflect the political system of the mother country? How did British administration of its colonies reflect its political philosophies? Can we connect these distinctions to the futures of these respective colonies (particularly the American quest for independence)? 4. Write a paper exploring the British colonial experience in Ireland. How did this experience prepare the British for creating a colonial empire in the New World? How will British treatment of the Irish be reflected in the plantation society of the American South? Can the British experience in Ireland be tied to the emergence of slavery in the British colonies?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (1986). Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997). Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black (1986). Gary Nash, Red, White, and Black (2007). John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (1992).
Audio-Visual Resources 500 Nations, Warner Brothers Home Video, 1995. This eight-part video series explores the Native American populations of North and Central America from pre-Columbian times until the turn of the twentieth century. American Indian Artists, KAET-TV, 1975. This three-part video allows students to investigate Native American culture through the art of six artists from the Pueblo, Navajo, and Hopi cultures. In Search of History: The First Americans, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video examines the origins of the first human population in North America. Roanoak, South Carolina Educational Television, 1986, 180 minutes. This series chronicles the mysterious history behind “The Lost Colony.” The West: The People, Insignia Films/WETA/Florentine Films/Time-Life Video, 1991. The first episode of the nine-part Ken Burns series on the West, this film chronicles the early Native American populations of North America and the impact of Spanish conquistadores on these native cultures.
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Chapter 2 TRANSPLANTATION AND ADAPTATION 1600–1685 Chapter Summary This chapter provides a survey of the early European settlement of North America. The topics discussed include the establishment of New France, the nature of early British settlement in the Chesapeake and New England, the emergence of plantation societies in the Caribbean and the Carolinas, and the establishment of the Middle Colonies. I.
The French in North America A. The Quest for Furs and Converts B. The Development of New France
II.
The Dutch Overseas Empire A. The Dutch East India Company B. The West India Company and New Netherland
III.
English Settlement in the Chesapeake A. The Ordeal of Early Virginia 1. The Jamestown colony 2. The Powhatan Confederacy and the colonists B. The Importance of Tobacco C. Maryland: A Refuge for Catholics D. Life in the Chesapeake Colonies
IV.
The Founding of New England A. The Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony B. Massachusetts Bay Colony and Its Offshoots 1. Stability, conformity, and intolerance 2. The Connecticut Valley and the Pequot War 3. Roger Williams and the founding of Rhode Island 4. Anne Hutchinson’s challenge to the Bay Colony C. Families, Farms, and Communities in Early New England 1. Women in early New England 2. Community and economic life
V.
Competition in the Caribbean A. Sugar and Slaves B. A Biracial Society
VI.
The Restoration Colonies A. Early Carolina: Colonial Aristocracy and Slave Labor B. Pennsylvania: The Dream of Toleration and Peace C. New Netherland Becomes New York
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VII.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 2, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What role did the fur trade and fur traders play in the success of the French colonies?
2.
How did conflict between the English and the Dutch affect Dutch colonization in the Americas?
3.
How did tobacco cultivation shape the development of Virginia society?
4.
Why were the English colonies in New England so different than those in the Chesapeake?
5.
What was the connection between sugar cultivation and slavery in the Caribbean?
6.
How did the proprietors of the Restoration colonies shape their development?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the Chesapeake and New England colonies in a series of lectures in which you concentrate on the differences between the cultures and societies established in each of the two regions. Because the United States history course is normally split at the Civil War, you can use this opportunity to begin to discuss the fundamental differences between these two areas and introduce some distinctions between the two regions that will persist until the Civil War. Some topics for discussion might include the following: a. The different characteristics of the populations that originally settled these regions. From which regions of England did these original settlers come, and how did the cultures and mores of these regions influence the societies that developed in North America? b. The differences in how the original settlers of each region were motivated to come to the New World. To what extent was the state of the British economy a factor? To what extent was religion a factor? How did the differences in motivation impact the societies that emerged? c. The differences in the socioeconomic characteristics of each region. Point out the distinction between the plantation society of the Chesapeake and the freeholder society of New England, explain distinctions in how land was distributed in each region and the impact that the systems of land distribution had on the nature of each area’s social structure, and point out the diversity of the New England economy versus the one-crop economy of the Chesapeake. d. The difference in the level of importance placed on religion in each region. Explain the importance of Calvinist theology in defining New England society and culture. Contrast that emphasis with the lower priority placed on religion in the South (at least until the Great Awakening). How did these religious differences impact the emergence of regional ethics? e. The differences in the political systems that emerged in the Chesapeake and New England. Why did the Chesapeake evolve into a political aristocracy while New England developed one of the most democratic political systems in America?
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f.
In discussing fundamental differences between the North and the South prior to the Civil War, many historians have emphasized the progressive nature of the nineteenth-century North and the conservative nature of the Old South. Begin now to discuss the meaning of these terms. Was there already, during the colonial period, a philosophical distinction between the settlers of New England and the Chesapeake? Was there something progressive, even radical, about the decision of the Pilgrims and Puritans to come to the New World? Were they seeking something new or trying to retain the old? Was there something conservative about the decision of the early settlers of the Chesapeake to come to the New World? Were they seeking something new or were they more intent on preserving the England they knew and loved?
2. Prepare a lecture focusing on the life of Anne Hutchinson. A treatment of her experiences in New England can open discussion regarding a number of issues pertinent to New England culture, including the following: a. Her theological differences with the Puritan fathers. This discussion will allow an examination of covenant theology, including the distinction between the covenant of grace and the covenant of works as well as how religious intolerance emerged within the Puritan community as a requisite aspect of the covenant principle. b. The gender issues involved in Hutchinson’s challenge to the authority of the Puritan fathers and her instruction of theology, particularly her instruction of theology to mixedgender groups.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Discuss the nature of colonial political development in the British colonies. How did the political institutions created in the colonies reflect British political tradition in terms of structure and function? Do today’s state and federal political structures in America resemble the institutions created by the original British colonists? How does this reflect the element of persistence over time? 2. Conduct a classroom discussion that focuses on “freedom of religion.” Have students discuss the irony of the fact that we often associate freedom of religion with the Puritans, who came to America to escape religious persecution. To what extent was freedom of religion a reality in the Puritan community? How did these dissenters treat dissenters within their own ranks? 3. Compare and contrast the institutions of slavery that emerged in Virginia, South Carolina, and the Caribbean. Even though each of these colonial regions was British, the institutions of slavery that developed in each were distinctive. What factors contributed to these distinctions? What impact did South Carolina’s central location between Virginia and the Caribbean have on the nature of its plantation economy and its institution of slavery?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Choose one of the three major continental colonial regions and write a paper in which you examine the British background of the settlers in that region. How did the cultural mores of each geographical region of Britain impact the nature and characteristics of the various British colonial settlements?
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2. Research one of the Puritan dissenters, such as Anne Hutchinson or Roger Williams. How did their beliefs necessitate their removal from the Puritan community? How did their experiences serve to expand the meaning of religious freedom in America? 3. Examine the origins of slavery in South Carolina. Look at the demographics of the state, including the density of the slave population, as well as the link to the Caribbean. How did the link to the Caribbean impact the institution of slavery that developed in South Carolina?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989). Philip J. Greven, Jr., Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (1970). Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma (1958). Mary Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society, (1996). Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (1975).
Audio-Visual Resources American Visions: The Promised Land, Time, Inc./BBC/Thirteen WNET, New York, 1997, 60 minutes. This episode from the six-part series created by Robert Hughes depicts the origins of American ideas about art. Ranging from the Spanish West to Protestant New England to the aristocratic Chesapeake, Hughes takes a look at how American art began and flourished. Colonization of North America, PBS Video, 150 minutes. An exploration of early European discovery and settlement in the New World, including such North American locations as St. Augustine, Plymouth, and Roanoke. Jamestown Rediscovery: A World Uncovered, A&E Video. An examination of the search for the original Jamestown settlement, including footage from the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
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Chapter 3 A MEETING OF CULTURES Chapter Summary This chapter introduces the student to the nature and impact of contact among Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans in the New World. The topics emphasized include relations between Native Americans and the French, Spanish, and British colonists, the development of the institution of slavery in America and the emerging African American community within that system, other institutions of unfree labor in America, and late colonial patterns of European immigration. I.
Indians and Europeans A. Indian Workers in the Spanish Borderlands B. The Web of Trade C. Displacing Native Americans in the English Colonies 1. Land use and property rights 2. Colonial land acquisition D. Bringing Christianity to Native Peoples 1. Catholic missionaries in Spanish colonies 2. French Jesuits in Canada 3. Missionaries in English colonies E. After the First Hundred Years: Conflict and War 1. King Philip’s War 2. Bacon’s Rebellion 3. The Pueblo Revolt 4. Resumption of the Beaver Wars
II.
Africans and Europeans A. Labor Needs and the Turn to Slavery B. The Shock of Enslavement C. African Slaves in the New World 1. Slavery in the southern colonies 2. Slavery in the northern colonies 3. Changing race relations in the colonies 4. Repressive laws and slave codes D. African American Families and Communities 1. The rise of the creole slave population 2. Work and family life 3. Community life and religion E. Resistance and Rebellion
III.
European Laborers in Early America A. A Spectrum of Control B. New European Immigrants
IV.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful reading of Chapter 3, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What were the consequences of trade between the Indians and Europeans?
2.
How and why did race-based slavery develop in British North America?
3.
What methods did Europeans employ to acquire and manage labor in colonial America?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the impact of Native Americans on the relationships among British colonists. Examples include King Philip’s War in New England and Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia. This is also an appropriate time to discuss regional and class tensions among colonists. 2. Discuss the emergence of the institution of slavery in British North America and the Caribbean. Use this chapter to look at the origins of slavery, including the historical debate regarding the degree to which economic factors versus racial prejudice influenced the British decision to use slave labor. This chapter can also be used to discuss the differences between slavery in the northern and southern colonies. 3. Discuss the nature of early slave codes. Connect the development of the legal codes to the fear of slave rebellion. Why was fear of and response to slave rebellion so intense in southern colonies? 4. Discuss the African origins of cultural characteristics of the colonial African American community. Focus on the nature of family composition, religion, the development of dialects, the cultivation and preparation of food, and gender roles.
Topics for Essays and Class Discussion Compare and contrast the factors influencing the enslavement of Native Americans and Africans 1. in the New World. Why was the enslavement of Native Americans more successful in Latin America than in North America? 2. Initiate a discussion on the origins of slavery. Have students perform research using materials cited in the “Resources” section below. Then, have the class discuss the roles played by economics and race in the British colonial decision to adopt an institution of racial slavery. 3. Begin a discussion of the meaning of the word “American.” It is a word with different facets, meanings, and implications during various periods of United States history. At this point in the course, ask students to begin thinking about what the word means. Is being American distinctive from being “European” or “Western”? Begin to talk about the development through United States history of a distinct and unique American culture. Have students look at the Native American, African, and European cultures that came together in the New World. Were traditional historians accurate in referring to the British colonial experience in America as a transplantation of European cultures? To what extent is this interpretation true? Was any one of the three original racial/ethnic groups that came together during the colonial period left
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unchanged by its contact with the other two? Can we still trace characteristics of American culture and society back to each of these groups?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Explore the life of Mary Rowlandson. Captured by natives, Rowlandson spent three months living off the land and enduring physical and emotional pain. A study of her life offers insight into the distinctions between the societies of the colonists and Indians, acculturation, and the status of colonial women—slave and free. 2. Have students examine the relations between Africans and Native Americans during the colonial period. Have them explore the lives of African Americans such as Anthony Johnson in Virginia, who came to America as an indentured servant, became a freeman, and secured his own indentured servants. Students may also enjoy looking at the contact between the Seminole Indians and Africans in northern Florida, many of whom were fugitive slaves who sought refuge among the Seminoles. 3. Many students are interested in studying slave women (who endured a peculiar brand of suffering defined by the nature of their labor), the nature of sexuality and sexual mores on a plantation, and the distinctive challenges of motherhood on the plantation.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects T. H. Breen and Stephen Innes, Myne Owne Ground: Race and Freedom on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, 1640– 1676 (1980). Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (1988). John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (2000). Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1972). Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro (1968). Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (1975). Peter Wood, Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America (2002).
Audio-Visual Resources Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery, WGBH, Boston, 1998. This four-volume video series explores the American experience with the institution of slavery from its inception during colonial times through its abolition during the Civil War. Dark Passages, T. Hart, V. Witmore/BET, 1990, 58 minutes. This video explores the slave trade from its origins in Africa to the New World.
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Chapter 4 ENGLISH COLONIES IN AN AGE OF EMPIRE 1660–1763 Chapter Summary Chapter 4 explores the transformation of the colonies’ relationship with Britain between 1660 and the end of the French and Indian War. The closeness between mother country and colonies during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is examined with a look at such issues as the British imperial trade system, cultural and social connections between Britain and the colonies, and the nature of political thought in the colonies and Britain. By the mid-eighteenth century, tensions mount with renewed competition in North America among Britain, France, and Spain. The chapter ends by examining imperial warfare in the eighteenth century—with a special emphasis on the French and Indian War and its impact on relations between the colonies and Britain. I.
Economic Development and Imperial Trade in the British Colonies A. The Regulation of Trade B. The Colonial Export Trade and the Spirit of Enterprise C. The Import Trade and Ties of Credit D. Becoming More Like England: The Growth of Cities and Inequality 1. Artisans in colonial cities 2. The growing gap between rich and poor
II.
The Transformation of Culture A. Goods and Houses B. Shaping Minds and Manners C. Colonial Religion and the Great Awakening
III.
The Colonial Political World A. The Dominion of New England and the Limits of British Control B. Salem Witchcraft C. The Legacy of the Glorious Revolution D. Diverging Politics in the Colonies and Great Britain
IV.
Expanding Empires A. British Colonists in the Backcountry B. The Spanish in Texas and California C. The French along the Mississippi and in Louisiana
V.
A Century of Warfare A. Imperial Conflict and the Establishment of an American Balance of Power, 1689–1738 B. King George’s War Shifts the Balance, 1739–1754 C. The French and Indian War, 1754–1760: A Decisive Victory D. The Triumph of the British Empire, 1763
VI.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 4, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What were the goals of British trade policy?
2.
How did new intellectual and religious trends reshape colonial culture?
3.
How did the “Glorious Revolution” affect politics?
4.
What was the “backcountry”? Who settled there and why?
5.
What role did the colonists play in the French and Indian War?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Discuss Anglo-American transatlantic commerce. Explain the role of each continent, making a distinction between which regions imported raw materials and which exported finished goods. Discuss how each continent profited from the institution of slavery, regardless of how many slaves they actually possessed. 2. Create a slide presentation of American colonial dwellings from New England, the Middle colonies, and the South. Trace the various architectural features to their origins in England. Also, point out how the architectural distinctions reflect the cultural, social, and climate differences among the major colonial regions. 3. Discuss the settlement of the American backcountry during the early eighteenth century. How did the settlers of this area differ from the settlers of the seventeenth century? Consider the religious, regional, cultural, and moral backgrounds of the settlers. How would these characteristics define the relationship between the settlers of the backcountry and the established eastern population?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students discuss the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening as intellectual preludes to the American Revolution. Connect enlightened political thought to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the writings of John Locke. Use these issues to foreshadow Thomas Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence. Connect the Great Awakening to the cultural unification of the colonies and the emphasis on individual religious choice and autonomy. How do these developments help prepare colonists for revolutionary thinking? Why have historians linked the tradition among colonists of American religious revolution to their experience with political revolution? 2. Was the American Revolution “revolutionary”? Have students look at the nature of British colonial administration and explain how it contributed to the American love of liberty. In fighting for independence and freedom, were the colonists fighting for something with which they were unfamiliar? Were they fighting for political change or for a status of independence they had come to expect by the mid-eighteenth century?
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Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Explore the development of rice cultivation in South Carolina. Trace the African origins of this agriculture, how it was brought to Carolina settlers, and its impact on the economic and social development of South Carolina. 2. Explore the importance of the Great Awakening to the American South. How did the movement impact the emergence of southern religious style? What was the particular impact of the Great Awakening on the southern backcountry? 3. Research the causes of the Salem witch trials. A variety of historical and scientific studies offer many dimensions to the possible origins of this phenomenon in American history.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (1982). Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750: A Social Portrait (1971). Carol Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (1987). Frank Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening” (1999). David Lovejoy, The Glorious Revolution in America (1972). Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (1976).
Audio-Visual Resources Biography: Benjamin Franklin: Citizen of the World, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video from the A&E Biography series examines the eclectic life of Benjamin Franklin and presents a nice accompaniment to the study of the Enlightenment in the colonies. In Search of History: The Salem Witch Trials, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video explores the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, with a look at various social, psychological, and cultural explanations for the trials.
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Chapter 5 IMPERIAL BREAKDOWN 1763–1774 Chapter Summary Chapter 5 addresses the road toward colonial unity and resistance to British imperial administration after the French and Indian War. The topics explored in this chapter include the challenges facing Britain in North America after the French and Indian War; heightened tensions between Native Americans and American colonists after the war; changes in British imperial administration, including taxation of the American colonists; the impact of the changing political scene on tensions among colonists, particularly the Regulator Movement in the Carolinas; and the colonial movement toward unity—culminating with the convening of the First Continental Congress. I.
The Crisis of Imperial Authority A. Challenges of Control and Finance B. Native Americans and Frontier Conflict C. Dealing with the New Territories D. The Search for Revenue: The Sugar Act
II.
Republican Ideology and Colonial Protest A. Power versus Liberty B. The British Constitution C. Taxation and Sovereignty
III.
The Stamp Act Crisis A. Colonists Take to the Streets B. Repeal and the Declaratory Act
IV.
The Townshend Crisis A. Townshend’s Plan B. Renewed Resistance C. The Boston Massacre D. Partial Repeal and Its Consequences
V.
Domestic Divisions A. Regulatory Movements B. The Beginnings of Antislavery
VI.
The Final Imperial Crisis A. The Boston Tea Party B. The Intolerable Acts C. The American Reaction D. The First Continental Conference E. The Continental Association F. Political Polarization
VII.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 5, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What new challenges did the British government face in North America after 1763?
2.
How did Republican ideology inform the colonists’ view of their relationship to Britain?
3.
Why did the Stamp Act spark widespread unrest in the colonies?
4.
How did the colonists respond to Townshend’s colonial policies?
5.
What issues and interests divided the colonists?
6.
What pushed the colonists from protest to rebellion?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Prepare a presentation focusing on the Stamp Act Crisis as the first example of formal American resistance to British imperial policy after the French and Indian War. Explain the disagreement between American colonists and the British regarding the concepts of virtual representation and actual representation, and discuss their disagreement over the concepts of internal and external taxation. Look at the major pieces of legislation coming out of the Grenville administration and demonstrate the distinction of the Stamp Act from the others, such as the Sugar Act, the Quartering Act, or the Currency Act. Examine the phrase, “Taxation without representation is tyranny!” and have students understand the true meaning of the words. In other words, colonists were saying, “[Internal] taxation without [actual] representation is tyranny!” 2. Discuss the evolution of colonial unity between 1755 and 1774. Examine the Stamp Act Congress and the First Continental Congress. What was the extent of colonial participation in each congress? What issues motivated the convening of these meetings? How successful was each in demonstrating or promoting the degree of unity among the colonies?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Hold a class discussion on the circumstances surrounding the Boston Massacre. How much do we know about what really happened? Take this opportunity to introduce to students the inconsistencies in the detail of historical research, pointing out that accounts of this incident offer divergent views of the “facts of the case.” Look at the role of Crispus Attucks in this affair. How have historians defined both his ethnicity and his actions in the event? How did Attucks’ role in this incident differ from the popularly held ideas on what it meant to be “black” during the era? How do students explain the difference? 2. Have students read an article challenging the propriety of the American colonial response to British imperial policy after the French and Indian War. Were Americans treated unfairly? Were they treated differently or worse than other British colonists? What was the true cause of revolution?
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Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Examine the roles of John Adams and Samuel Adams in the events leading up to the American Revolution. Study their religious, philosophical, and family backgrounds and how these aspects of their lives helped to define the nature of their support for the Revolution. Why were their roles so different, and how did their political styles complement each other? 2. Explore American colonial opposition to the American Revolution. Who were the Tories? Were there regional, social, or economic factors that contributed to a colonist’s resistance to revolution? How did Tories respond to the actuality of the Revolution?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects John K. Alexander, Samuel Adams: America’s Revolutionary Politician (2002). Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1992). Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (1968). Benjamin Woods Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (1964). Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776 (1972). David McCullough, John Adams (2001). Edmund S. Morgan and Helen S. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis (rev. 1962).
Audio-Visual Resources Biography: George Washington: American Revolutionary, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video takes a look at the leader of the American Revolution and comes from the popular A&E Biography series. Founding Brothers, A&E Video, 2002, 200 minutes. Based on the Joseph Ellis book, this set of videos explores six moments that dramatically impacted American history. Showcased are such founding fathers as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn’t Be King: The American Experience, David Sutherland, 1992, 60 minutes. This film explores the life of America’s first president, offering both personal and professional perspectives on the man who originated the American presidency. John Adams, HBO Miniseries, 2008, 501 minutes. Based on the David McCullough book, this seven-episode set explores the political and social life of John Adams and the formation of the United States of America. Liberty! The American Revolution: The Reluctant Revolutionaries, Catherine Allan/KCTA, 1997, 60 minutes. This episode from the PBS series on the American Revolution explores pre-revolutionary politics in the colonies, focusing on the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party.
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Chapter 6 THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 1774–1783 Chapter Summary Chapter 6 offers the student a survey of the final conflicts that led the American colonies to declare independence from Britain, the ensuing military conflict, and the terms of the peace treaty that granted them freedom. The topics discussed include the last failed attempts at resolution of the conflicts between the colonies and Britain; the accomplishments of the Second Continental Congress, including the adoption of the Declaration of Independence; the military history of the War for Independence; the nature of the peace agreement ending the war; and the impact of the war on American society. I.
From Rebellion to War A. Contradictory British Policies B. Mounting Tensions in America C. The Battles of Lexington and Concord
II.
The Continental Congress Becomes a National Government A. The Second Continental Congress Convenes B. Early Fighting: Massachusetts, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Canada C. Independence D. The Loyalists
III.
The Combatants A. Professional Soldiers B. Women in the Contending Armies C. African American Participation in the War D. Native Americans in the War
IV.
The War in the North, 1776–1777 A. Britain Hesitates: Crucial Battles in New York and New Jersey B. The Year of the Hangman: Victory at Saratoga and Winter at Valley Forge
V.
The War Widens, 1778–1781 A. The United States Gains an Ally B. Fighting on the Frontier and at Sea C. The Land War Moves South D. American Counterattacks
VI.
War and Society, 1775–1783 A. The Women’s War B. Effect of the War on African Americans C. The War’s Impact on Native Americans D. Economic Disruption
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VII.
The American Victory, 1782–1783 A. The Peace of Paris B. The Components of Success
VIII.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 6, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
Why did tensions between the colonies and Britain escalate so rapidly between 1774 and 1776?
2.
What were the key differences between the British and American forces?
3.
How did the American forces survive the military setbacks of 1776?
4.
Why did the French enter the War on the American side?
5.
What was the social impact of the War for Independence?
6.
What were the key factors in the American victory in the Revolutionary War?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Prepare a lecture on the Declaration of Independence in which you describe the adoption of this document by the Second Continental Congress as the “moment of revolution.” Begin by explaining the distinction between the terms “resistance” and “revolution” and how the adoption of the Declaration of Independence moved Americans from the former to the latter. Ask students about the legality of the actions of the Second Continental Congress. Was the adoption of the Declaration a legal act? What did Americans have to do to validate that action? Explain the importance of military victory and recognition of American independence by other nations in making the Declaration legitimate. Point out how the Franco-American alliance promoted validation of the Declaration by helping to achieve military victory and by offering Americans recognition of independent status. 2. Prepare a lecture on the factors that contributed to the American victory in the Revolution. Offer treatment of a variety of issues, including these American advantages: home territory, passion and commitment to the cause, and the French alliance. Among British disadvantages, include lack of commitment or passion, overconfidence, personal and kinship ties to Americans, and distractions at home as the war evolved into world war.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Arrange a classroom discussion focusing on the content of the Declaration of Independence. Have students read the Declaration before coming to class and then present some of the following issues for discussion:
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a. b. c.
d. e.
Focus on the philosophical connections between the Declaration and the writings of John Locke by asking students to point out specific phrases in the document that directly reflect Lockean theory regarding natural law and the contract theory of government. Ask students to comment on Jefferson’s use of the phrase “all men are created equal.” What did Jefferson mean when he used the phrase “all men”? Use this opportunity to discuss the meaning of the term “democracy” in the eighteenth-century Western world. This is also a good time to initiate a conversation about the issue of historical relevancy. Have students address the strengths and weaknesses of applying twenty-first-century social and political standards to an eighteenth-century document. Explain how the assessment of history can be carried out on two levels. First, an assessment can be made based on historical relevancy. What does Jefferson’s use of the term “all men” teach us about eighteenth-century social and intellectual history? Within what historical context is Jefferson writing? Second, point out to students the value of assessing history based on the social and cultural changes that have taken place in America since 1776. Twentyfirst-century Americans may be disturbed by the gender specific language used by Jefferson and can use that reaction to recognize the strides that Americans have made as a nation to make the term “all men” more inclusive. Explore the meaning of the phrase “pursuit of happiness.” What did it mean to Jefferson within the context of eighteenth-century philosophy? Are there connections between this phrase and the principles of a capitalist economy? Have students comment on religious references in the Declaration of Independence. Did the Revolution have a moral tone? What do these references say about the American tradition of separation of church and state?
2. Discuss the British southern strategy in the American Revolution. Why did the British believe the South to be a hotbed of Toryism? What populations in the South had a reason to resent patriotism and embrace loyalism? Why did the southern strategy fail, and what factors convinced the South to choose revolution?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Research the relationship between John and Abigail Adams during the years of the Second Continental Congress and the Revolution. Suggest that students read manuscripts of the letters written between John and Abigail and use them to research the role Abigail played in the life of her husband and her influence on him and his role in the Revolution. A study of Abigail Adams can also shed light on the general condition of many American women during the war. Abigail’s letters reveal her political philosophy and her feelings about the Revolution. 2. Examine Thomas Jefferson’s influences in writing the Declaration of Independence. Was John Locke the only philosophical influence? How important were Scottish political philosophers of the Enlightenment? 3. George Washington has been described by one historian as the “Indispensable Man.” Write a paper exploring this premise. Was Washington indispensable to the American victory in the American Revolution? If so, why?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967). Wallace Brown, The Good Americans: The Loyalists in the American Revolution (1969). James Thomas Flexner, Washington: The Indispensable Man (rev. 1994). Robert A. Gross, The Minutemen and Their World (1976). Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (1980). Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (1997). Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence (2001).
Audio-Visual Resources The American Revolution, A&E Video. This six-part series presents the History Channel’s look at the birth of the American nation. Biography: John and Abigail Adams: Love and Liberty, A&E Video. This episode features the unique love and friendship between John and Abigail Adams. John Adams, HBO Miniseries, 2008, 502 minutes. This multiple disc collection describes the creation of the United States and specifically sheds light on the relationship between John and Abigail Adams. Fighting for Freedom: Revolution and Civil War, PBS Video, 2003, 90 minutes. This video presents an examination of American freedom as it developed through the two defining moments of American history: the Revolution and the Civil War. Founding Fathers, A&E Video, 2000, 200 minutes. This video offers a personal and intimate look at the men behind the founding of the United States. Liberty! The American Revolution, Catherine Allan/KTCA, 1997. This six-hour video chronicles the birth of the American republic from the prelude of the revolution through independence and the adoption of the Constitution. Save Our History: The Declaration of Independence, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video, narrated by Harry Smith, examines the origins of the Declaration of Independence.
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Chapter 7 THE FIRST REPUBLIC 1776–1789 Chapter Summary Chapter 7 explores the early American efforts to create a national government. Topics covered in this chapter include an examination of the political philosophy of republicanism; the nature and content of the early state constitutions; the nature and content of the Articles of Confederation and the document’s inability to produce effective government for the United States; British and Spanish threats to American security under the Articles; and the movement toward a stronger national government, culminating in the drafting and adoption of the United States Constitution. I.
The New Order of Republicanism A. Defining the People B. Women and the Revolution 1. The Revolution and African Americans in the South 2. Northern Blacks and the Revolution 3. The Revolution’s impact on Native Americans C. The State Constitutions 1. Toward religious pluralism 2. Conflicting visions of republicanism D. The Articles of Confederation
II.
Problems at Home A. The Fiscal Crisis B. Economic Depression C. The Economic Policies of the States 1. Shays’s Rebellion 2. Debtors vs. conservatives D. Congress and the West
III.
Diplomatic Weaknesses A. Impasse with Britain B. Spain and the Mississippi River
IV.
Toward a New Union A. The Road to Philadelphia B. The Convention at Work 1. The Great Compromise 2. Regulation of commerce and the issue of slavery 3. The office of the chief executive C. Overview of the Constitution D. The Struggle over Ratification
V.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 7, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What were the most significant weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation?
2.
How did economic problems lead to political conflict in the 1780s?
3.
What steps did Britain and Spain take to block American expansion?
4.
Which groups in American society were most likely to support the Constitution? Why?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the impact of the American Revolution on the institution of slavery. Focus particularly on the abolition of slavery north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Often, the emancipation of slaves by northern states after the Revolution was based on the principle of gradual emancipation. How effective was gradual emancipation as a means of liberating slaves? What motivated the northern interest in emancipation: concern for the individuals enslaved, or the desire to eliminate the troubling institution of slavery from its borders? 2. Prepare a lecture on the nature of early state constitutions and their historical and political importance as the link between two eras in American constitutional history. Point out the roots of state constitutions in the original colonial charters as well as their use at the Constitutional Convention as models on which to base the new federal document. Choose a state such as Connecticut and provide students with copies of the original colonial charter and the original state constitution and have them comment on the similarities. What characteristics of the state constitution predict the United States Constitution? 3. The Articles of Confederation are often dismissed as the failed first attempt by Americans to create a federal government. Prepare a presentation on the successes of the Confederation Congress ruling under the Articles. Point out the successful negotiation of the Peace of Paris of 1783, which awarded to the United States all of the western lands east of the Mississippi River. Place special emphasis on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, pointing out its re-adoption by Congress under the new Constitution; the continued use of its plan for admitting states to the union; and the legal precedent it established for Congressional regulation of slavery.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Prepare a class discussion on the socioeconomic backgrounds of the framers of the Constitution, perhaps having the students read an excerpt from Charles Beard’s Economic Interpretation of the Constitution before the class. Was there a connection in the late eighteenth century between wealth and the rising interest among some Americans in nationalism? How could a strong federal government provide security for the upper class? Was the United States Constitution conceived as an elitist document? 2. Prepare a class discussion focusing on the concept of federalism. What is the meaning of the term, and what characteristic of the American political system does it describe? How does the movement
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from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution reflect eighteenth-century American concerns about federal versus state and local power? To what extent is American fear of centralized power rooted in American colonial and revolutionary experiences? Do ambiguities regarding this balance of power persist today? Invite students to comment on how modern-day Democrats and Republicans disagree on this issue. How is this disagreement reflected in their views on current political issues? 3. Discuss the debate over the ratification of the Constitution. Who were the Federalists? Who were the Antifederalists? How did the regional and socioeconomic backgrounds of the two factions define their political views? What factors contributed to the Federalists’ success? Use this opportunity to set the stage for future battles by the common man to effect political change (e.g., the Jeffersonian revolution of 1800, the Jacksonian era, and the Populist movement of the late nineteenth century). How has agrarian political influence changed over time? 4. Discuss the importance of sectionalism as a political force in the late eighteenth century. How did sectionalism impact foreign affairs? What decisions were made by the Confederation Congress and the Constitutional Convention that would aggravate sectional tensions in the future? 5. Conduct a class discussion on whether the American Revolution was conservative or radical. Be sure students understand the meanings of these terms. Think back to Chapter 5 and have students comment on how new American political thinking regarding liberty, independence, and republicanism was at the time of the Revolution. Then, have them work with the Crevecoeur piece in the text and ask them to comment on his perceptions of American radicalism.
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Structure a creative controversy focusing on the debate over ratification of the Constitution. Divide the class into an even number of small groups. Have half the groups examine the Federalist argument supporting ratification and the other half examine the Antifederalist argument against ratification. Pair the groups (one Federalist group with one Antifederalist group) and have them debate the issue. Finally, have the groups switch sides and debate again. In this way, all students must argue both sides of the issue. 2. Write a paper describing the status of free African Americans in the North after the Revolution. How did the number of free African Americans change after 1783? What did freedom mean to African Americans in the northern United States after the Revolution? Were northern supporters of emancipation necessarily supporters of racial equity? How does racism figure into these issues?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (rev. ed. 1986). Mark W. Kruman, Between Authority and Liberty: State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America (1997). Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (1986). Richard B. Morris, The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789 (1987). Edmund S. Morgan, Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America (1988). Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (1961).
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Robert A. Rutland, The Ordeal of the Constitution: The Antifederalists and the Ratification Struggle of 1787–1788 (1966). Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991).
Audio-Visual Resources Liberty! The American Revolution: Are We to Be a Nation? Catherine Allan/KTCA, 1997, 60 minutes. The final episode of this six-part PBS series explores the American struggle to create a republic by examining the Articles of Confederation and the Constitutional Convention. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 2: Revolution.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). In this second installment, the viewer is introduced to the Declaration of Independence and the specifics of the Revolutionary War. The video also discusses British spies who have infiltrated the streets of New York City.
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Chapter 8 A NEW REPUBLIC AND THE RISE OF PARTIES 1789–1800 Chapter Summary Chapter 8 offers students a survey of the early national period, focusing on the regional diversity of the United States in 1789; the rise of the Federalist party during the Washington administration, including special emphasis on early legislation and the Hamilton financial policy; the emergence of opposition to the Federalist agenda and the rise of the Republican party; the decline of the Federalists during the Adams administration; and the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800. I.
Washington’s America A. The Uniformity of New England B. The Pluralism of the Mid-Atlantic Region C. The Slave South and Its Backcountry D. The Growing West
II.
Forging a New Government A. “Mr. President” and the Bill of Rights B. Departments and Courts C. Revenue and Trade D. Hamilton and the Public Credit E. Reaction and Opposition
III.
The Emergence of Parties A. The French Revolution 1. Franco-American relations 2. The growth of Democratic-Republican societies B. Securing the Frontier C. The Whiskey Rebellion D. Treaties with Britain and Spain E. The First Partisan Election
IV.
The Last Federalist Administration A. The French Crisis and the XYZ Affair B. Crisis at Home C. The End of the Federalists
V.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 8, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What explains the differing role of slavery in the country’s regional economies?
2.
What challenges faced the Congress that assembled in New York between 1789–1791?
3.
What forces shaped the development of party politics in America?
4.
Why was Adams defeated in the election of 1800?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Prepare a lecture on the distinctive role of New England in American life during the early national period. In his history of the Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson commented on traditional perceptions regarding regional distinction: Through most of American history, the South has seemed different from the rest of the United States with “a separate and unique identity . . . which appeared to be out of the mainstream of American experience.” But when did the northern stream become the mainstream? From a broader perspective, it may have been the North that was exceptional and unique before the Civil War. Was New England already unique by 1789? How did climate, geography, economics, and religion contribute to the region’s distinction? Why did New England lean toward a more centralized government than the South or West? How successful will the region be in appealing to the sympathies of the South and West? What does this predict about the Civil War? 2. Prepare a lecture examining the American West. Again, in anticipation of studying the Civil War, focus on the distinctions between the West and the rest of the nation. Even though the South and West generally voted alike in political elections, to what extent were their interests and concerns really similar? Anticipate the emergence of the West as the region caught in the middle during the Civil War, a region without strong political similarities or allegiances to either the North or the South. 3. Prepare a presentation focusing on Alexander Hamilton’s financial policy and the sources of opposition to it. Who were the major critics of the program, what region of the country did they represent, and what was the socioeconomic background of their constituency? To what extent did the debate over financial policy contribute to the emergence of political parties? 4. Prepare a lecture focusing on the emergence of the states’ rights political philosophy during the early national period. Using the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, discuss the concepts of state nullification of federal law and interposition. Historically, have we considered the use of these principles to be constitutional? Why or why not? Have we historically had a clear understanding in the United States about where sovereignty lies? Use this opportunity to help students anticipate the reemergence of these issues prior to the Civil War and during the Civil Rights Movement.
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have a class discussion focusing on the Whiskey Rebellion. Among questions for student consideration, include the following: a. Were the people of western Pennsylvania justified in protesting the excise tax on whiskey? b. Was the Washington administration justified in using force to put down the rebellion? c. Two men involved in the rebellion were found to be guilty of treason. Did their participation in the rebellion constitute treason? Why or why not? d. Who were the rebels? What was their socioeconomic background? With which class did the sympathies of the Federalists rest? e. To what extent is a democratic government obligated to respond to the will of the people? To what extent are the people of a republic bound to support and obey the government they create? f. What modern-day issues continue to reflect American ambiguities regarding the power of government versus the will of the people? 2. Have students discuss the Federalist use of the Alien and Sedition Acts against the Republican Party. Among questions for consideration are the following: a. How did Federalists justify the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts? How did they justify their use against members of the Republican Party? b. Have students connect the Sedition Act to the Bill of Rights. Was the Sedition Act unconstitutional? c. Does war, or the threat of war, justify an abridgment of civil liberties? Why or why not? At what point does the exercise of free speech become treasonous? Does freedom of speech take precedence over national security? d. Tie this issue to the future by discussing World War I and the Sedition Act of 1918. Pass out a copy of both the 1798 act and the 1918 act and ask students to comment on the two. Even though most students will have not yet studied World War I, ask them if they think the two laws were passed under similar circumstances. Was one law more justified than the other? Were both laws justified? Was neither law justified? e. Have students consider the twenty-first-century war in Iraq. Are current laws or government policies comparable to the Alien and Sedition Acts? How do students feel about Americans who publicly oppose the war? Do actions such as those sanctioned by the Alien and Sedition Acts make the United States safer? What is the impact of such actions on U.S. power in the world? 3. Compare and contrast the Federalist and Republican parties with the modern-day Republican and Democratic parties. Is there any similarity between the issues that divided Americans in the eighteenth century and the issues that divide Americans today? In making the comparisons, look at policies related to federalism, economics, socioeconomic sympathies, foreign affairs, and regionalism.
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Research the status of women in the late eighteenth century, focusing particularly on the ideal of “republican motherhood.” How did the experience of resistance and revolution change American women and cultural perceptions of them? How had the image of motherhood changed in America since the seventeenth century? How did these changes in the image of motherhood combine with the radical political changes of the Revolutionary era to create new expectations about the role of women in America? 28 ..
2. Examine Jay’s Treaty as an example of early American foreign policy. What were the weaknesses of the document? Were there any strengths? Were there sectional implications in the provisions of the document? Overall, was the treaty good for the United States or did it hurt the country?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (2000). Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (1993). Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (2000). Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System (1969). Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (1980). Phyllis Lee Levin, Abigail Adams (1991). Thomas Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (1986). James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (1950).
Audio-Visual Resources American Visions: The Republic of Virtue, Time, Inc./BBC/Thirteen WNET, New York, 1997, 60 minutes. The second episode of Robert Hughes’s series on American art examines the work of the early republican era. This video looks at the impact of early American political ideals on the development of national art. The Duel: The American Experience, Oregon Public Broadcasting, 1999, 60 minutes. This video chronicles the relationship between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, a political rivalry that culminated in the most famous duel in American history.
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Chapter 9 THE TRIUMPH AND COLLAPSE OF JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICANISM 1800–1824 Chapter Summary Chapter 9 offers a survey of the Republican era from 1800–1824, including the presidential administrations of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Topics discussed in this chapter include the final collapse of the Federalist Party, the domination and eventual transformation of the Republican Party, early nineteenth-century territorial expansion, the War of 1812, the tensions between nationalism and sectionalism, the initiation of the national debate on slavery with the Missouri Compromise, and the collapse of the Republican Party in the election of 1824. I.
Jefferson’s Presidency A. Reform at Home B. The Louisiana Purchase C. Florida and Western Schemes D. Embargo and a Crippled Presidency
II.
Madison and the Coming of War A. The Failure of Economic Sanctions B. The Frontier and Indian Resistance C. Decision for War
III.
The War of 1812 A. Setbacks in Canada B. Western Victories and British Offensives C. The Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans
IV.
The Era of Good Feelings A. Economic Nationalism B. Judicial Nationalism C. Toward a Continental Empire
V.
The Breakdown of Unity A. The Panic of 1819 B. The Missouri Compromise C. The Election of 1824
VI.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 9, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
Why was the expansion of the United States so important to Jefferson?
2.
What factors pushed Madison into a war with Britain?
3.
What were the consequences of the War of 1812?
4.
How did rising nationalism contribute to the Era of Good Feelings?
5.
Why did slavery become such a divisive issue in the years preceding the Missouri Compromise?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Deliver a lecture on the fundamental principles of Jeffersonian democracy. Start with the premise that the evolution of American politics has generally been a movement to the left, in that we have generally directed political reform toward expanding the principle of democracy and making it more inclusive. How did the emergence of Jeffersonian democracy initiate this process? Explain Jefferson’s reverence for the yeoman farmer, his contempt for the growth of business and industry, and his vision of American political leadership as an “aristocracy of the talented.” Place Jefferson in a historical context by asking students if he was more democratic than the Federalists who preceded him and if his political ideology seems democratic to Americans today. 2. Discuss the Louisiana Territory and how the debate over its acquisition reflected changes in the Federalist and Republican parties during the first Jefferson administration. Why did Federalists oppose the purchase? Why did Republicans support it? Comment on the Republicans’ willingness to overlook constitutional issues in order to preserve relations with France and guarantee the growth of Republican support. To what extent were Federalists sounding like old Republicans and to what extent were Republicans sounding like old Federalists? How did gaining control of the federal government change Republicans? 3. Deliver a lecture on the Monroe Doctrine and why it is considered the most important piece of American foreign policy in early U.S. history. Why did Monroe issue the statement? How does it reflect diplomatic nationalism? Ask students to comment on its importance to future American relations with Latin America. 4. Prepare a lecture on the Congressional debate that culminated in the Missouri Compromise. Outline and explain the provisions of the Tallmadge Amendment. Establish the question of debate: Did Congress have the authority to regulate the institution of slavery? Explain the use of property rights in the Fifth Amendment and the claim to equal access to new lands as the foundations of the southern opposition to the amendment. Then, explain how the North used the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 as a legal precedent allowing Congressional regulation of the institution of slavery. Is the debate over slavery in 1820 primarily a legal argument or a moral debate?
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Topics for Classroom Discussion and Essays 1. Discuss the transformation of the Republican Party between 1800 and 1824. How did Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe contribute to altering the original ideology of the Republican Party? Look at issues such as states’ rights, the agrarian ideal, the appeal to the common man, and strict construction of the Constitution and assess the extent to which Republican views on these issues were either preserved or altered during the party’s domination of national politics between 1800 and 1824. 2. Discuss the War of 1812 as the Second War for American Independence. What issues pushed the United States into war with Britain? Were all the factors that contributed to the war defensive or was there evidence of some degree of aggression among War Hawks? Even though the war ended as a draw, did Americans succeed in proving anything to themselves or to Britain? What issues were resolved as a result of the war? 3. Many historians characterize the years from 1815 to 1824 as a period of nationalism in American history. Conduct a class discussion in which you ask students to consider the extent to which nationalism is a valid term to use in describing the United States during this period. Introduce and define the terms “nationalism” and “sectionalism.” Look at the trends that historians generally associate with nineteenthcentury nationalism and ask students to comment on the ways in which they reflect nationalism. Then, have students look at the Panic of 1819 and the Missouri Compromise and connect them to sectionalism. Were these sectional concerns new issues that temporarily interrupted nationalism, or was nationalism a temporary reprieve from the persistent aggravation of a sectionalism that dated back to colonial times? 4. Discuss American foreign policy between 1800 and 1824. What issues defined American foreign policy during the early nineteenth century? Was American policy defensive or aggressive? Were there sectional implications in foreign policy? How did foreign policy during this period promote nationalism?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Investigate the controversy surrounding Thomas Jefferson and his position on the issue of slavery. One approach to such a paper would be to research Jefferson’s thoughts and writings about slavery and liberty and explain how Jefferson was able to reconcile the two. A more personal approach would be a study of the relationship between Jefferson and his female slave Sally Hemings. 2. Research the life of Aaron Burr, focusing on his role in the Republican Party. Trace his career from his being chosen as Jefferson’s vice presidential running mate in 1800 to his brush with conviction for treason after the Burr conspiracy in 1807. 3. Look at the election of 1824 as a turning point in American political history. Use the election to explore the status of the Republican Party by 1824. How did Americans feel about the loss of democracy through the entrenchment of Republican elitism? How would many Americans feel about Jackson’s loss of the presidency in 1824? How had the way been opened for the emergence of Jacksonian democracy?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening Up of the American West (1996).
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Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (1997). William Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 (1990). Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997). Ernest R. May, The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (1975). Glover Moore, The Missouri Compromise, 1819–1821 (1953). Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987).
Audio-Visual Resources Jefferson’s Bloodline. Frontline Series. Thomas Lennon, 2000, 60 minutes. This video explores the controversy regarding Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery. Florentine Films/Ken Burns/WETA, 1997. This four-part series provides an indepth investigation into the Lewis and Clark expedition. Thomas Jefferson. Florentine Films, 1997. This two-part series, crafted by Ken Burns, chronicles the life of Thomas Jefferson while exposing students to the art, architecture, and literature of Jefferson’s time.
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Chapter 10 THE JACKSONIAN ERA 1824–1845 Chapter Summary Chapter 10 introduces the student to the development of democratic ideals during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Topics covered in the chapter include the rise of the second national political party system; the expansion of democratic political rights to white males; the limited meaning of Jacksonian democracy for women and African Americans; the revival of evangelical Christianity with the Second Great Awakening; the growing debate over the issue of slavery; and the rise of the Whig party during the 1840s. I.
The Egalitarian Impulse A. The Extension of White Male Democracy 1. Extending the suffrage and democratic reform 2. The disenfranchisement of free blacks and women B. The Popular Religious Revolt 1. Evangelicalism and minority rights 2. The limits of equality C. The Rise of the Jacksonians
II.
Jackson’s Presidency A. Jackson’s Appeal B. Indian Removal C. The Nullification Crisis D. The Bank War
III.
Van Buren and Hard Times A. The Panic of 1837 B. The Independent Treasury C. Uproar over Slavery
IV.
The Rise of the Whig Party A. The Party Taking Shape B. Whig Persuasion C. The Election of 1840
V.
The Whigs in Power A. Harrison and Tyler B. The Texas Issue C. The Election of 1844
VI.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 10, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What factors contributed to the democratization of American politics and religion in the early nineteenth century?
2.
How did the Jacksonsonian Democrats capitalize on the new mass politics?
3.
What challenges did Van Buren face during his presidency?
4.
What was the basis of Whig popularity? What did they claim they stood for?
5.
Why was William Henry Harrison’s death such a blow to the Whig agenda?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Discuss the Second Great Awakening and the strengthening of evangelical Christianity in America during the early nineteenth century. Focus particularly on the impact of the movement on the American South. How will the religious image of the South be more clearly defined through this movement? What will the movement mean to the state of religion in the southern backcountry? Will evangelical religion threaten or strengthen the southern institution of slavery? 2. Examine the presidential election of 1828. Is Jackson’s victory in this election an example of democracy’s impact on the presidency or is it the beginning of the presidency’s impact on American democracy? Compare Jackson’s victory in 1828 to Thomas Jefferson’s victory in 1800. Consider the following issues in the comparison: a) parallels in regional support for Jefferson and Jackson, b) similarities in the political ideologies of Jefferson and Jackson, c) the role of the common man in defining the outcome of each election, and d) the transfer of power from one party to another in each election (i.e., from the Federalists to the Republicans in 1800 and from the Republicans to the Democrats in 1828). Another interesting parallel is the fact that Jefferson and Jackson followed the only one-term presidents at that time in American history: Jefferson followed John Adams and Jackson followed John Quincy Adams, John Adams’s son. 3. Discuss Andrew Jackson as a southern president. Which aspects of the southern political agenda did Jackson actively support? If we recognize states’ rights and slavery as the hallmarks of the southern political agenda, to what extent did Jackson support these broad issues? In so doing, was he the friend of the common man, as he is so often characterized, or was he the friend of the southern planter? What was the most significant occasion on which he refused to support the southern agenda?
Topics for Classroom Discussion and Essays 1. Have students compare and contrast Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy. How are the two ideologies similar? How are they different? Does the emergence of Jacksonian democracy continue the American ideological shift to the left? To what extent did the early nineteenth century see the expansion of democracy? What limits to Jacksonian democracy are evident to twenty-first-century Americans?
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2. Compare and contrast the political ideologies of the Democratic and Whig parties. How did they resemble the Federalist and Republican parties that preceded them? How did they differ? Are they comparable to the Democratic and Republican parties of today? 3. Discuss the issue of nullification as it had evolved to this point in American history. Begin by thinking back to the Suffolk Resolves and the colonial nullification of the Intolerable Acts. Proceed to the use of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions by Republicans against the Sedition Act in 1800. Finally, consider the nullification crisis of 1832. How do these events reflect American concerns about the powers of central authority? How justified was each act of nullification? How effective was each challenge to central authority?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Research the Cherokee experience on the Trail of Tears. What does this event reveal about U.S. Indian policy and the status of Native Americans living in the United States in the early nineteenth century? Why were the Cherokee considered “civilized”? 2. Explore the impact of the nullification crisis on John C. Calhoun’s political career. Having started his career as a nationalist who supported the War of 1812, the National Bank, and the Tariff of 1816, by 1832 Calhoun was a self-proclaimed sectionalist and the originator of the theory of nullification. Use Calhoun’s life, particularly his political transformation from nationalist to sectionalist, as a prism through which to study America’s larger transition from an era of nationalism to an era of sectionalism between 1815 and 1848. 3. Have students examine the impact of politicians’ personal lives on their professional lives. This chapter looks at the Eaton Affair. Compare Eaton’s dilemma with those of Grover Cleveland, Warren G. Harding, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. Should a politician’s personal life impact public assessment of his or her professional life? To paraphrase a feminist slogan, “Should the personal be political?”
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816– 1836 (1966). Richard P. McCormick, The Second Party System (1966). John Nivens, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union (1988). Merrill Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987). Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Empire, 1767–1821 (1977). Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832 (1981). Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845 (1984). Ronald N. Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era (1974).
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Audio-Visual Resources How the West was Lost, A&E Video, 60 minutes. This video includes a 15-minute treatment of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. 500 Nations, Volume 6: Removal, Warner Home Video, 372 minutes. This segment begins with interaction with whites in the Ohio Valley but then expands into the Trail of Tears, the rise of Tecumseh, and the demise of the Cherokee people.
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Chapter 11 SLAVERY AND THE OLD SOUTH 1800–1860 Chapter Summary Chapter 11 explores the society and culture of the antebellum American South, focusing on slaveholding as the unifying characteristic in this otherwise diverse region. Among the issues discussed in this chapter are the cultural, social, and economic distinctions between the Upper South and the Lower South, the characteristics of slave life and culture, the divisions in free white Southern society, and the emerging proslavery arguments used by white Southerners to defend the institution of slavery. I.
The Lower South A. Cotton and Slaves B. The Profits of Slavery 1. The slave trade 2. Urban slavery 3. Industrial slavery
II.
The Upper South A. A Period of Economic Adjustment 1. Growing urbanization B. The Decline of Slavery
III.
Slave Life and Culture A. Work Routines and Living Conditions 1. Diet and housing 2. Working conditions B. Families and Religion C. Resistance
IV.
Free Society A. The Slaveholding Minority 1. Large planters 2. Planters’ wives 3. Small slaveholders B. The White Majority C. Free Black People
V.
The Proslavery Argument A. Religious Arguments B. Racial Arguments
VI.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 11, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did the increasing demand for cotton shape the development of slavery in the Lower South?
2.
What caused the decline of slavery after 1800 in the Upper South?
3.
What was life like for African American slaves in the first half of the nineteenth century?
4.
How was free society in the South structured?
5.
How did the southern defense of slavery change between the early nineteenth century and the 1850s?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Prepare a presentation on historical myth with a focus on the antebellum South. Begin the class with a clip from the film Gone with the Wind and ask students to comment on the images they associate with the antebellum South. Then, discuss the reality of life in the Old South. Ask students why Americans have created myths about their history in general and why we have created myths about the antebellum South in particular. 2. Discuss the status of women on the antebellum southern plantation. Consider both plantation mistresses and female slaves. Describe the living conditions of each, and their relationship with each other. How did the sexual mores of southern planters impact the lives of both female slaves and plantation mistresses? How did the patriarchal system of the antebellum South validate this situation? 3. Discuss the connection between religion and politics in the slave community. What roles were played by the black preacher in the slave community? Examine the lyrics of spirituals and have students point out the connection between the lyrics of these religious songs and the slaves’ political agenda of freedom. Play some spirituals for the class to give students a feel for the power of the music. An excellent collection is Spirituals in Concert by Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. 4. Prepare a lecture on southern white dissent in the antebellum South. Was the white South united in its defense of slavery? Where did dissent appear, and what issues promoted opposition to the proslavery argument? How were dissenters treated by the defenders of slavery?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Introduce students to the concept of historiography by reviewing some of the classic works on the institution of slavery. Use a variety of historical treatments of this issue to help students understand the idea of revisionist history and to help them see how a historian’s objectivity is situated within a historical context. Some classic historical treatments of the issue of slavery include U. B. Phillips’s American Negro Slavery (1918), Kenneth Stampp’s The Peculiar Institution (1956), Stanley Elkins’s Slavery (1959), Eugene Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll (1972), and Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s Time on the Cross (1974).
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2. Have the class examine the proslavery arguments. Why did white southerners change their perception from believing slavery to be a necessary evil to believing it to be a positive good? Discuss the fact that, by 1850, the national debate on slavery had changed from being a primarily legal debate to being a moral debate. What impact did this transformation of the debate have on the southern defense of the institution? Why was the biblical defense of the institution so critical to the argument? 3. Have students look at the connection between racism and slavery. Increasing numbers of Americans began to oppose the institution of slavery during the early nineteenth century. Did opposition to slavery necessarily mean a person was not racist? Was it possible to have racist reasons for opposing slavery? Were there any aspects of the proslavery argument with which opponents of the institution might actually agree?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. If your location permits, have students visit plantations from the antebellum period. If not, contact historical sites such as Natchez, Mississippi, or Charleston, South Carolina, or visit Web sites (e.g., for Natchez: http://www.natchez.ms.us/custom/webpage2.cfm?content=content&id=110 and for Charleston: http://www.charlestonmuseum.org/topic.asp?id=1) and show students slides of the various architectural styles and varying degrees of opulence reflected in the southern plantation lifestyle. 2. Write a paper on the life of Sojourner Truth. Involved in both the abolitionist and women’s movements of the early nineteenth century, her life offers an insight into the connection between these two social reform movements. 3. Write a paper on children in slavery. An issue only recently examined, the plight of children in slavery reveals to students a particularly moving and poignant aspect of slavery’s horror. 4. Write a paper on the circumstances surrounding the Nat Turner revolt. How successful was the revolt? What factors contributed to the outcome? Slave rebellion was generally unsuccessful in the antebellum South. Why, then, did southern whites fear it so strongly?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (2nd ed., 1979). Catherine Clinton, The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South (1982). Carl Degler, The Other South: Southern Dissenters in the Nineteenth Century (1974). Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (3rd ed., 1976). Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. The Bondwoman’s Narrative (2002). Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (1988). Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974). Eugene D. Genovese, The Slaveholders’ Dilemma: Freedom and Progress in Southern Conservative Thought, 1820–1860 (1992). Eugene D. Genovese, The World the Slaveholders Made (1969). Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750–1925 (1976). Wilma King, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth Century America (1995). Larry Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701–1840 (1988). Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1985). Gavin Wright, The Political Economy of the Cotton South (1978). 40 ..
Audio-Visual Resources Africans in America, WGBH Educational Foundation, 1998. This four-part series examines the American experience with slavery from 1450 until the abolition of the institution during the Civil War. Ship of Slaves: The Middle Passage, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video explores the story behind Steven Spielberg’s 1997 movie Amistad.
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Chapter 12 THE MARKET REVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM 1815–1850 Chapter Summary Chapter 12 offers an overview of the transformation of the American North during the period from 1815 to 1850. Topics discussed in this chapter include the growth in American industry, transportation, and urbanization; German and Irish immigration during the 1840s; and the rise of nineteenth century reform movements. These movements include educational reform; the development of institutions for the poor, criminal, and insane; and the rise in experimental utopian communities. The women’s rights movement and the role of women in other reform movements are also examined, with a particular focus on the interconnections between women’s rights and opposition to slavery. I.
Industrial Change and Urbanization A. The Transportation Revolution 1. Steamboats and canals 2. Railroads 3. Government and the transportation revolution B. Cities and Immigrants 1. The port cities 2. Inland cities 3. New industrial cities 4. Immigration C. The Industrial Revolution 1. Sources of labor 2. Technological gains D. Growing Inequality and New Classes 1. The new middle class 2. Women and the cult of domesticity 3. The working classes 4. Early trade unions
II.
Reform and Moral Order A. The Benevolent Empire B. The Temperance Movement C. Women’s Role in Reform D. Backlash Against Benevolence
III.
Institutions and Social Improvement A. School Reform B. Prisons, Workhouses, and Asylums 1. Workhouses 2. Asylums for the mentally ill C. Utopian Alternatives 1. A distinctly national literature
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IV.
Abolitionism and Women’s Rights A. Rejecting Colonization B. Abolitionism C. The Women’s Rights Movement D. Political Antislavery
V.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 12, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did industrialization contribute to growing inequality and the creation of new social classes?
2.
What role did women play in the reform movements that followed the War of 1812?
3.
How did Enlightenment ideas shaped the reform of institutions for the poor, criminals, and the mentally ill?
4.
What was the relationship between abolitionism and the women’s rights movement?
Topics for Classroom Lectures 1. Discuss the impact of early nineteenth-century Irish immigration on the United States. Focus on a variety of issues, including the provision of an industrial labor force, the emergence of urban slums, and the Irish immigrants’ cultural and religious distinctions from middle-class, native-born Americans. How did their presence in the United States impact American moral and political values? How did their presence lead to the popularity of temperance and nativist organizations as parts of the American nineteenth-century social and political agenda? 2. Prepare a lecture on changing gender roles in the American middle class during the nineteenth century. Focus on the separation of men and women in American middle-class society and the increasing distinctions in their roles, as men were identified with the world of work and women with home and hearth. Why do we associate these gender role changes with the middle class? How were gender roles in the middle class distinctive from gender roles in the upper class and working class? 3. Prepare a lecture focusing on the temperance movement as a middle-class reform movement. Although there was a religious agenda involved in the movement, were there other more secular issues at stake? With what population did most middle-class Americans associate unacceptable drinking habits? Of what class and national origin was this population? How was the issue of alcohol consumption connected to the laboring class? Was the rise of the temperance movement in any way connected to the rise of nativism during the nineteenth century? Were there as many secular as religious motivations for promoting temperance in the nineteenth century? 4. Discuss the types of antislavery reform that emerged during the early nineteenth century. Be sure to address the following questions, connecting antislavery reform to racism: a. Could a person in the nineteenth century oppose slavery without being an abolitionist? b. Could a person in the nineteenth century oppose slavery and be a racist? 43 ..
c. d.
Could a person in the nineteenth century be an abolitionist and be a racist? Did abolitionists actually appeal to northern racist fears in an effort to popularize the agenda of the abolitionist movement?
Topics for Classroom Discussion and Essays 1. Discuss the Lowell girls of Massachusetts as an example of a labor force utilized during the early nineteenth century. Is the use of women for labor and their treatment by management at the Lowell factory an example of empowerment of women or exploitation of women? Were women strengthened by the economic rewards of labor or victimized by a patriarchal management style? Have students connect this issue from the early nineteenth century to the ongoing debate in America regarding women in the labor force. 2. Discuss the impact of nineteenth-century northern economic and social change on the issue of sectionalism. How did the construction of transportation networks during the nineteenth century promote a mutually beneficial, interdependent economic relationship between the Northeast and Northwest to the virtual exclusion of the South? How would industrialization, urbanization, and immigration impact the northern political agenda for the remainder of the nineteenth century? 3. Have students read the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention; then, have a class discussion focusing on some of the following issues: a. Have students point out phrases from the document that were lifted from the Declaration of Independence. Why did the women at Seneca Falls choose to model the Declaration of Sentiments on the Declaration of Independence? What did the Declaration of Independence mean to Americans? By using the Declaration of Independence as a model, what were Stanton and Mott saying about the status of women? b. Explain to students the significance of the year 1848 in Western history. Is there any significance to the fact that the year the Seneca Falls Convention adopted the Declaration of Sentiments is also the year of the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe and the year Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto? c. Have students discuss the Declaration of Sentiments as a document of its times. Have students choose phrases from the document that reflect nativism, the cult of domesticity, and the traditional nineteenth-century links among women, moral superiority, and social reform.
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Explore the issue of social mobility in nineteenth-century America. American historical myth often cites the “rags to riches” phenomenon as being typical of the American social condition. Was social mobility a reality in nineteenth-century America? What has typically been the nature of American social improvement over time? 2. Choose one of the nineteenth-century American utopian societies and write a paper on the origins, leadership, defining philosophy, and success of the community. What was it about nineteenthcentury American society that sparked the creation of the community, and how effective were its members in offering a workable alternative lifestyle? What characteristics of American culture and which American values have made it most difficult for Americans to embrace communal living as anything more than a passing fancy? 44 ..
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: Woman’s Sphere in New England, 1780–1835 (1977). Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth Century America (1981). Michael Fellman, The Unbounded Frame: Freedom and Community in Nineteenth Century American Utopianism (1973). Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants (1976). John Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790–1840 (1988). David Leverenz, Manhood and the American Renaissance (1989). Stephen Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life (1988). David Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum (1971). Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catherine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (1976). Stephan Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (1964).
Audio-Visual Resources The Irish in America: The Long Journey Home, Lennon Documentary Group, 1997. This four-part series, narrated by Michael Murphy, examines Irish immigration to the United States during the 1840s. Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History, WETA/ROJA Productions, 1994, 90 minutes. This three-part series examines the life and times of Frederick Douglass, the African American leader of the abolitionist movement. The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God, American Documentaries, Inc., 1991. Ken Burns examines this intriguing religious sect in one of his early historical documentaries. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Florentine Films, Inc., 1999. This three-and-a-half-hour series chronicles the professional lives and personal friendship of the two women who are credited with originating the American women’s movement.
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Chapter 13 THE WAY WEST Chapter Summary Chapter 13 offers an introduction to American westward expansion during the first half of the nineteenth century. Topics covered in this chapter include the economic and demographic pressures in the East that led to western migration, the development of large-scale farming in the Old Northwest, the extension of the plantation society into the Old Southwest, the philosophy of Manifest Destiny and its impact on westward expansion, the treatment of Native Americans and Hispanics by American settlers, and the acquisition of Texas and the Southwest from Mexico. I.
The Agricultural Frontier A. The Crowded East B. The Old Northwest 1. A mosaic of settlements C. The Old Southwest
II.
The Frontier of the Plains Indians A. Tribal Lands B. The Fur Traders C. The Oregon Trail
III.
The Mexican Borderlands A. The Peoples of the Southwest B. The Americanization of Texas C. The Push into California and the Southwest 1. California 2. New Mexico 3. Utah
IV.
Politics, Expansion, and War A. Manifest Destiny B. The Mexican War
V.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 13, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did economic and demographic pressures in the East spur Western migration?
2.
What strategies did the Sioux use to maintain their power on the Great Plains?
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3.
What forces contributed to the Americanization of Texas?
4.
Why was James K. Polk so eager to provoke a war with Mexico?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Prepare a slide and lecture presentation exploring the theme of the West in American art. Focus on the depiction of Native Americans by American artists. What is negative about American artistic images of Native Americans? What is positive? If you discussed European images of Native Americans in Chapter 1, you may want to invite a comparison and contrast of seventeenth-century European depictions of Native Americans and nineteenth-century American depictions of Native Americans. Also, have students comment on American artists’ treatment of the western landscape. How did the West stimulate American imagination? Ask students to share their own images and impressions of the American West, even if they have never actually visited the region. From where have many twentiethcentury Americans derived their images of the West? 2. Prepare a lecture on the philosophy of Manifest Destiny. Was Manifest Destiny the only motivation for American westward expansion? Was it the most important motivation? Have students consider the economic, political, and military issues involved. Why did Americans require more than pragmatic justifications for western expansion? Connect Manifest Destiny to Protestant Christianity and to the emergence of feelings of racial and cultural superiority in the western world during the nineteenth century.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Compare and contrast the development of agriculture in the Old Northwest and the Old Southwest during the first half of the nineteenth century. How did the technology and innovation of the Agricultural Revolution impact American farming during the nineteenth century? To what extent did the Old Northwest embrace new agricultural technology? Why? What impact did the adoption of technology have on the development of both the agricultural and industrial sectors of the northwestern economy? Did agricultural technology impact the development of agriculture in the Old Southwest in the same way? Why? What was the primary example of agricultural technology widely embraced in the American South? How would the distinctions between northwestern and southwestern agriculture impact sectionalism during the nineteenth century? 2. Was the Mexican War a defensive war or a war of aggression? Were Mexicans justified in attacking Americans on the Texas border? Who started the war? Did Americans accomplish their goals in the Mexican War? Why did many Americans feel that they fell short? 3. How did Manifest Destiny impact sectionalism in America? What positions did the Whig and Democratic parties take on the issue of westward expansion? Why? Did regional issues influence the level of support for Manifest Destiny? Why did the North tend to oppose westward expansion while the South tended to support it?
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Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Write a paper focusing on the role of women in the westward movement during the nineteenth century. Excellent sources that would expose students to some primary material in this area are the edited journals left by pioneer women that describe the impact the movement west had on their lives and the lives of their families. 2. Write a paper on the unique role of the Sioux Indians in American history. Why were they so distinctive from other Native American peoples? Why were they so successful in surviving and even capitalizing on the European and American presence in North America? 3. Explore the other side of Manifest Destiny by looking at the Mexican impression of American foreign policy during the first half of the nineteenth century. How was the Mexican government impacted by Manifest Destiny? How did Manifest Destiny impact the status of Hispanics living in the Far West?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Gene M. Brack, Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821–1846 (1975). Manuel G. Gonzales, A History of Mexicans in the United States (1999). Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (1981). Robert Hughes, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America (1997). Julie R. Jeffrey, Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1880 (1979). Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987). John H. Schroeder, Mr. Polk’s War (1973). Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (1991).
Audio-Visual Resources The Alamo, American Heritage, A&E Video. This two-part series looks at the defeat that turned the tide in the War for Texas Independence. American Visions: The Wilderness and the West, Time, Inc./BBC/Thirteen, WNET, New York, 1997, 60 minutes. This episode from the Robert Hughes series examines the American romance with the West. At once awed and challenged by the great expanse, American artists depicted a nation’s dream of Manifest Destiny. The Mexican War, KERA TV/Dallas-Ft. Worth, 1998. This four-part series examines one of the most controversial wars in American history. It offers a fresh look at the war that was intended to see America’s realization of its Manifest Destiny. The Way West: Westward, The Course of Empire Takes Its Way, The American Experience, Lisa Ades and Ric Burns, 1994. This episode from the four-part series examines America’s western expansion from the 1840s through the Civil War.
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The West: Empire Upon the Trails, Insignia Films/WETA/Florentine Films/Time-Life Video, 1991. This is the second episode of the nine-part Ken Burns series. It examines the Texas War for Independence as well as the experience of American travelers on the Oregon Trail. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 3: Westward.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). In this third installment, the subject matter explores America’s westward expansion and conflicts with Native Americans. The episode specifically addresses frontier life and California’s gold rush.
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Chapter 14 THE POLITICS OF SECTIONALISM 1846–1861 Chapter Summary Chapter 14 discusses the turbulent political environment in the United States during the decade and a half leading to the Civil War. Topics discussed in this chapter include debates, and attempts to reach compromises, regarding slavery in the territories; the impact of the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the significance of “Bleeding Kansas”; the Dred Scott decision; the Lincoln-Douglas debates; the election of 1860; and the challenges facing Abraham Lincoln during the period of southern secession. I.
Slavery in the Territories A. The Wilmot Proviso B. The Election of 1848 C. The Gold Rush D. The Compromise of 1850 E. Response to the Fugitive Slave Act F. Uncle Tom’s Cabin G. The Election of 1852
II.
Political Realignment A. Young America’s Foreign Misadventures B. Stephen Douglas’s Railroad Proposal C. The Kansas-Nebraska Act D. “Bleeding Kansas” E. Know-Nothings and Republicans: Religion and Politics F. The Election of 1856 G. The Dred Scott Case H. The Lecompton Constitution I. The Religious Revival of 1857–1858 J. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
III.
The Road to Disunion A. North-South Differences 1. Economic differences 2. Social and religious differences 3. The effects of slavery B. John Brown’s Raid C. The Election of 1860 D. Secession Begins E. Presidential Inaction F. Peace Proposals G. Lincoln’s Views on Secession H. Fort Sumter: The Tug Comes
IV.
Conclusion 50 ..
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 14, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
Why was the issue of slavery in the territories so contentious?
2.
What factors contributed to the Republicans’ rise to political prominence?
3.
Why were Southerners so alarmed by the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the failure of political compromise as a means of resolving the slavery dispute in the United States between 1820 and 1860. Focus specifically on the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act while addressing some of the following questions: a. Which provisions of each law almost guaranteed its failure? b. How did the provisions of each law impact sectional divisions in the nation? Did these laws ease sectional differences or deepen them? c. Why did compromise fail? Could a different compromise have been more successful or were sectional differences so deep and fundamental that compromise was never really an option? 2. Prepare a lecture focusing on the year 1857 as a turning point in the road to disunion. Look at the Dred Scott decision, the Panic of 1857, and Buchanan’s ineffectiveness in confronting sectionalism as they relate to the coming of the Civil War. 3. Prepare an in-depth presentation on the fundamental differences that divided the North and South by 1860. Focus on the deep sectional differences in the industrial-agrarian balance in each section’s economy, urbanization, labor ideology, quality and quantity of internal improvements, literacy rates and commitment to education, work ethic, and degrees of social mobility. To what extent is the institution of slavery in the South connected to each of these differences?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students read the selection in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America that addresses the issue of “the tyranny of the majority.” Hold a class discussion on this intriguing criticism of American democracy, and focus on the following questions: a. What does de Tocqueville mean by “the tyranny of the majority”? b. How did John C. Calhoun use this idea in his defense of southern rights and the larger issue of defending minority rights within a democracy? What minority was Calhoun interested in defending? c. Is de Tocqueville’s criticism of democracy valid? Is the majority always correct or morally right? Does a minority have any rights within a democracy? How can a minority protect itself within a democracy? d. Connect the idea of “the tyranny of the majority” to more recent historical events such as the Civil Rights Movement. Have students comment on the irony that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s defense of the rights of African Americans was based on the same reasoning
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as Calhoun’s defense of southern slaveholders. Also look at contemporary works dealing with the issue of minority rights, such as those by Lani Guinier. 2. Have students look at the issues of morality and legality as they have related to revolutionary moments in American history. Focus on the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. Some questions to consider include the following: a. In the American Revolution, was the adoption of the Declaration of Independence legal? Did the delegates of the Second Continental Congress consider their adoption of the document to be moral? b. Prior to the Civil War, was the institution of slavery legal? Was it moral? Why would abolitionists protest the strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 as an act designed to force Americans to act immorally? c. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, was racial segregation in the American South legal? Was it moral? When they violated segregation laws, did the followers of the Civil Rights Movement act illegally? Did they act immorally?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Write a paper on John Brown’s raid in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Discuss the northern and southern responses to the raid, as well as the northern and southern responses to Brown’s execution. Why was this event a turning point for both sections? Why would the South turn almost irrevocably to secession after 1859? Did all northerners embrace Brown’s actions? Why would the Union go into the Civil War singing “John Brown’s Body”? 2. Research southern unionism prior to the Civil War. Was the South united behind secession? If not, who were the unionists? Why did they oppose secession? Who were the secessionists and why, especially in the Lower South, were they able to effect secession so rapidly? 3. Analyze Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a historical artifact. Analyze Harriet Beecher Stowe. What was her mindset while writing the book? How did her family’s history affect her writing? What was the plot and summary of the book? How was the book interpreted and received during the era, and since? Have other creations of popular culture created such a political and social dialogue among Americans? Explain what other movies, plays, or novels have affected the history of the United States. 4. Write a paper on the origins of the modern-day Republican Party. What political factions coalesced to transform the Republican Party into a national party? What ideologies defined the Republican agenda? Was the party a product of pre-Civil War sectionalism? Compare and contrast today’s Republican party with that of the era of Lincoln.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (2001). Don E. Fehrenbacher, Slavery, Law, and Politics (1981). Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970). Eric Foner, Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (1980). William Freehling, The Road to Disunion (1990). 52 ..
William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856 (1987). James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988). Stephen B. Oates and Buz Wyeth, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820–1861 (1997). James Roark, Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction (1977). Manisha Sinha, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina (2000). Kenneth Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (1990).
Audio-Visual Resources The Civil War: The Cause, 1861, Florentine Films/Ken Burns/WETA, 1990. This first episode of the classic Ken Burns series examines the prelude to Civil War through the events of the 1850s. The West: Death Runs Riot, Insignia Films/WETA/Florentine Films/Time-Life Videos, 1991. The fourth episode from Ken Burns’s series looks at the impact of sectional crisis and Civil War on the West, including an examination of Bleeding Kansas. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 4: Division.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). This episode examines the growing division in the United States and the question of slavery. The episode specifically addresses the violence in Kansas, sectionalism, and the continued polarization of the United States of America.
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Chapter 15 BATTLE CRIES AND FREEDOM SONGS: THE CIVIL WAR 1861–1865 Chapter Summary Chapter 15 offers an overview of the Civil War. Special emphasis is given to the relative advantages and disadvantages of each side on the eve of war; the capabilities and limitations of Presidents Lincoln and Davis; each side’s military strategies and attitudes about the length and nature of the war; the major battles of the years from 1861 to 1863; the events culminating in Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation; the impact of the Civil War on the economy, political life, and social life (particularly gender roles, race relations, and faith) in the Union and the Confederacy; the military accomplishments of Grant and Sherman during 1864 and 1865; and an assessment of the overall impact of the war on the United States. I.
Mobilization, North and South A. War Fever B. The North’s Advantage in Resources C. Leaders, Governments, and Strategies 1. Jefferson Davis and the South D. Abraham Lincoln and the North E. Lincoln’s fight for the border states 1. Strategies and tactics F. The Southern Landscape
II.
The Early War, l861–l862 A. First Bull Run B. The War in the West 1. The Real War D. The War in the East
III.
Turning Points, l862–l863 A. The Naval War and the Diplomatic War B. Antietam C. Emancipation 1. The Emancipation Proclamation 2. “Stealing” freedom 3. Black troops in the Union Army D. From Fredericksburg to Gettysburg 1. Fredericksburg 2. Chancellorsville 3. Gettysburg E. Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and the West 1. Vicksburg 2. Chattanooga 3. The war in the Trans-Mississippi West
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IV.
War Transforms the North A. Wartime Legislation and Politics 1. Suppressing dissent 2. Creating a national economy 3. Conscription and the draft riots B. The Northern Economy C. Trade Unions and Strikebreakers 1. Profiteers and corruption D. Northern Women and the War
V.
The Confederacy Disintegrates A. Southern Politics B. Southern Faith C. The Southern Economy D. Southern Women and the War
VI.
The Union Prevails, 1864–1865 A. Grant’s Plan to End the War 1. From the Wilderness to Cold Harbor 2. Atlanta B. The Election of 1864 and Sherman’s March 1. The Republican victory 2. Sherman’s march to the sea 3. Lincoln’s second inaugural 4. Arming the Confederacy’s slaves C. The Road to Appomattox and the Death of Lincoln 1. The surrender at Appomattox 2. The death of Lincoln
VII.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 15, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What were the North’s key advantages at the outset of the war?
2.
How did the two sides’ objectives dictate their strategies in the early years of the war?
3.
What convinced Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?
4.
What impact did the war have on the North’s economy?
5.
How did the war affect civilian life in the South?
6.
What was Grant’s strategy for ending the war?
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Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the Confederacy in terms of its government organization and effectiveness during the Civil War. Explain to students the link between a confederate form of government and the southern devotion to states’ rights. What characteristics of a confederate form of government would make it difficult for Jefferson Davis to conduct a war? How would the dominating principle of states’ rights in the Confederacy impact recruiting soldiers, raising finances, and creating the fundamental unity needed to wage war and win? Discuss the irony of the fact that the Confederacy was fighting for states’ rights, yet a states’ rights form of government would be one of the factors that would lead to defeat. 2. Discuss the distinctions between Union and Confederate military leadership during the Civil War. What strengths and weaknesses existed on each side regarding the quality and effectiveness of leadership? What advantages did the North have that would offset its difficulties in finding effective generals to lead the Union Army? 3. Discuss the issue of dissent during the Civil War. Choose either the North or the South as the focus of the lecture. If the North is the focus, look at the Copperheads or the Irish in New York City. Who opposed the war and why? In what regions of the North was dissent strongest? Is there a reason for this? Is socioeconomic background a factor? Do the same for the South. Who in the South opposed the Civil War and why? Again, is region a factor in defining dissent? Is class a factor? 4. Discuss the role of women in the Civil War. Consider American views on womanhood during the early nineteenth century, particularly the cult of domesticity. How did the Civil War impact these ideals regarding women and the home? Compare the roles of American women in the Civil War to the roles of women during both earlier wars and modern wars. Are there parallels? Distinctions?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students read a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation before class, and then conduct a discussion focusing on some of the following questions: a. Did the Emancipation Proclamation end slavery in the United States? b. Where did the proclamation end slavery? Were there slave states where slavery was protected and not abolished? Where were those states? Why did Lincoln protect slavery in these states? c. Was the Emancipation Proclamation primarily the result of a moral decision or a military decision on Lincoln’s part? Was it an emotional decision or a pragmatic decision? d. How might the Emancipation Proclamation be the result of a diplomatic decision on Lincoln’s part? e. What is the historical significance of the Emancipation Proclamation? 2. Have students read the Gettysburg Address, and then hold a discussion focusing on some of the following areas: a. Have students choose phrases from the address that speak directly to the Union war aims of reunion and emancipation. b. Have students comment on Lincoln’s meaning of the phrase “all men are created equal.” Ask students to recall where the phrase originates. What did the original author mean by it? What did Lincoln mean by it? What happened to the American understanding of equality during the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War?
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c.
Ask students to think about the phrase “new birth of freedom.” Again, are American ideas about freedom changing during the Civil War? To what extent? If the reference is to emancipation, how much freedom was inherent in the northern interpretation of emancipation?
3. Discuss the issue of civil rights during the Civil War. Have students respond to the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by the Lincoln government during the war and the subsequent arrests for disloyalty. Does civil war justify this abridgment of civil rights? Should the Lincoln administration have tolerated Copperhead opposition? How does this situation during the Civil War compare to the use of the Sedition Act of 1798 by the Federalists at the turn of the century? How does it compare to the use of the Sedition Act of 1918 by the Wilson administration during World War I? How does it compare to the second Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies? 4. Some historians have discussed the American Revolution as the First American Civil War. Now that students have studied both the Revolution and the Civil War, have them discuss the parallels and distinctions between the two. a. Consider the Continental Congress’s adoption of the Declaration of Independence and the South’s secession from the Union. Are there parallels between these two events? Are there distinctions? b. Was the Declaration of Independence by Americans in 1776 an act of secession? How could it be seen that way? Was the southern secession in 1860–1861 a declaration of independence? How could it be seen that way? c. How do victory and defeat define the way people identify military events in history? Would the American Revolution be called a revolution if the United States had lost? Would the American Civil War be called a civil war if the South had won?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Write a paper on the history of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, focusing specifically on its performance at Fort Wagner, South Carolina. How was the regiment recruited? What is the significance of the Massachusetts 54th in terms of the lasting reputation and historical legacy of African American troops who fought in the Civil War? What was the 54th’s role in the Darien affair? Who led the Massachusetts 54th? How were white officers perceived by black soldiers, or other white soldiers? In answering this question, focus specifically on the life and death of Robert Gould Shaw. 2. Research the role of southern women in the Civil War, focusing on the diary of Mary Chesnut of South Carolina. Chesnut left an extensive record in which she addressed issues such as slavery, gender roles in the antebellum South, class distinction in the antebellum South, and the impact of the Civil War on southern society. 3. Research the military personality of William Tecumseh Sherman. Examine his innovative contributions to the northern war effort. Why is Sherman often considered the originator of concepts about modern war? What is Sherman’s legacy? How is he viewed in the South today as opposed to the North?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Ira Berlin et al., Freedom’s Soldiers: The Black Military Experience in the Civil War (1998). Burchard, Peter, One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment (1965). Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, eds., Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (1992). William C. Davis, “A Government of Our Own”: The Making of the Confederacy (1994). Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (1997). Gary W. Gallagher, The Confederate War (1997). Louis S. Gerteis, From Contraband to Freedom: Federal Policy toward Southern Blacks, 1861–1865 (1973). Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005). John P. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order (1993). James B. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988). Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (2005). Lee Ann Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender, Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 (1995). C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (1981).
Audio-Visual Resources The Civil War, Florentine Films/Ken Burns/WETA, 1990. This nine-part epic series, which made Ken Burns an icon of popular history, uses archival photos and historical narrative to chronicle the events of the most tumultuous war in American history. Civil War Journal: Women at War, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video takes a look at the role of women in the Civil War. Fighting for Freedom: Revolution and Civil War, PBS Video, 2003, 90 minutes. This video examines the American idea of freedom as it developed during the two defining moments in American history: the Revolution and Civil War. Glory, Columbia/Tristar Studios, 1989. This feature film starring Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick depicts the role of the Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry in the Civil War. Images of the Civil War, A&E Video. Civil War historian James McPherson narrates this examination of visuals from the Civil War, focusing primarily on the paintings and illustrations of Mort Kurtsler. Lincoln, Kunhardt Productions, Inc., 1992. This four-part series examines the complicated personal and political life of a statesman who was arguably the greatest president in American history. Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry: The American Experience, Jacqueline Shearer, 1991, 60 minutes. Shearer presents a historical account of the events that inspired the feature film Glory.
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Chapter 16 RECONSTRUCTION 1865–1877 Chapter Summary Chapter 16 presents an overview of the Reconstruction era, focusing on the following topics: the disparity between southern white and African American expectations for the post-war South, federal programs for Reconstruction, the successes and failures of Republican state governments in the South during Reconstruction, and the circumstances and decisions that brought an end to the Reconstruction era. I.
White Southerners and the Ghosts of the Confederacy, 1865
II.
More than Freedom: African American Aspirations in 1865 A. Education B. “Forty Acres and a Mule” C. Migration to Cities D. Faith and Freedom
III.
Federal Reconstruction, 1865–1870 A. Presidential Reconstruction, 1865–1867 B. Congressional Reconstruction, 1867–1870 C. Southern Republican Governments, 1867–1870
IV.
Counter-Reconstruction, 1870–1874 A. The Uses of Violence B. Northern Indifference C. Liberal Republicans and the Election of 1872 D. Economic Transformation
V.
Redemption, 1874–1877 A. The Democrats’ Violent Resurgence B. The Weak Federal Response C. The Election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877 D. The Memory of Reconstruction
VI.
The Failed Promise of Reconstruction A. Modest Gains
VII.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 16, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did Southerners remember the war?
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2.
How did it shape their response to Reconstruction?
3.
What were African Americans’ hopes for Reconstruction?
4.
How did Presidential Reconstruction differ from Constitutional Reconstruction?
5.
What role did violence play in Counter-Reconstruction?
6.
Why did the federal government abandon African Americans after 1872?
7.
How and why did Reconstruction end?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the transition from slave labor to free labor in the South after the Civil War. Consider sharecropping. How did living arrangements for laborers change with sharecropping? What were the terms of agreement between cropper and landlord? To what extent did sharecropping differ from slavery? Consider, as well, the fates of middle- and lower-class southern whites. Were they immune from the same fate as former slaves? Was sharecropping a racial institution? 2. Prepare a lecture on the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the women’s movement. Trace the political maturation of American women from their involvement in the abolitionist movement to the creation of the New England Woman Suffrage Association and the American Equal Rights Association. How did the fight for abolition refine women’s understanding of their own status in the United States? How did progressive supporters of women’s suffrage respond to the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendments? How did these amendments impact the organization of the woman’s suffrage movement? Were women poised after the Civil War and Reconstruction to become more effective in realizing their own political goals? 3. Discuss the Compromise of 1877. Who was involved in the deal and what were each side’s motivations to “mend” sectional strife? To what extent were the terms of the compromise realized? What impact would the compromise have on the legacy of Reconstruction?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Discuss the successes and failures of Reconstruction in terms of providing for economic stability in the southern African American community. For a reference, Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: The Unfinished Revolution (1988) is one of the best assessments of the long-term effectiveness and legacy of Reconstruction. Also look at Foner’s Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (1980). Have students consider some of the following questions connected to the debate on land redistribution: a. Did the federal government have an economic or financial responsibility to freedmen after the Civil War? b. How far did the promise of emancipation go? Did it include personal freedom, civil rights, political rights, and economic rights? c. During Reconstruction, even some radical Republicans opposed a federal program guaranteeing property to freedmen—especially if it involved federal confiscation of private property. Why would they oppose such a policy? What traditional American
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d.
e.
economic and political principles prevented even radical Republicans from supporting a land redistribution policy? Was the failure to provide economic security and independence to the freed black population in the South the major downfall of Reconstruction? In spite of traditional American principles, was there anything unique about the ex-slave population and the economic challenges it faced after the Civil War? Did the federal government abdicate its responsibility in failing to meet that challenge? Students may also want to comment on present-day debates regarding reparations to African Americans for their suffering during slavery and their involuntary contributions to the nation’s wealth.
2. Who won the Civil War? Have students consider the years from 1865 to 1900. If the Civil War was intended to resolve issues connected to emancipation and the preeminence of the federal government, to what extent was it successful? Have students look at the Compromise of 1877, sharecropping, racial segregation, African American disfranchisement, and the lack of northern resistance to these trends. What did these trends in the South say about the supposed victory over slavery and states’ rights? 3. Discuss the differences and similarities between the disputed election of 1876 and the disputed election of 2000. Why were these two elections disputed? How did the South and race issues figure into these disputes? How was each election resolved? Do students feel that each resolution was constitutional?
Topics for Term Papers and Class Projects 1. Have students write a comparative book review on Reconstruction. Ask each student to choose two books dealing with the period of Reconstruction and write a comparison and contrast of the two writers’ treatments of the period. Some excellent choices for the review would include something from the Dunning school, such as Claude Bowers’s The Tragic Era (1929); a revisionist treatment, such as Kenneth Stampp’s The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877 (1965); an economic analysis, such as Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch’s One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (1972); or a treatment by an African American historian, such as John Hope Franklin’s Reconstruction after the Civil War (1966). 2. Write a paper on white terrorism in the South during Reconstruction, concentrating on some of the more obscure local paramilitary groups such as the Mississippi Riflemen or the South Carolina Red Shirts. 3. Have students examine the role of black politicians during Reconstruction. Who were the black congressmen or senators during reconstruction? What roles did these individuals play in politics? (Specifically look at the life of Hiram Revels.) What were the goals of these individuals? What was their background and what was their idea of an effective leader? How were they different or similar to their white counterparts? How successful were black politicians? 4. Have students look at the persistence of sectional tensions in the United States today. Are there southerners who “won’t forget”? What issues still distinguish the South from other parts of the nation? Do these same issues divide modern-day southerners? Is the South still a region apart?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Richard Nelson Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers: A Reinterpretation (1988). Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988). Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (1998). Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long (1979). James L. Roark, Masters Without Slaves (1977). Allen W. Trelease, White Terror (1971). Jonathan Wiener, Social Origins of the New South: Alabama, 1860–1865 (1978). Joel Williamson, After Slavery (1965). C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction (1951).
Audio-Visual Resources The Promised Land: Anywhere but Here, A&E, 60 minutes. This video looks at the legacy of sharecropping in the American South by the early twentieth century. The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This video chronicles the history of the Ku Klux Klan from its origins during Reconstruction to the present day.
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Chapter 17 A NEW SOUTH: ECONOMIC PROGRESS AND SOCIAL TRADITION 1877–1900 Chapter Summary Chapter 17 examines the post-Reconstruction South with a focus on determining how new the “New South” was. Topics considered in this chapter include the limited industrial and urban growth in the South after the Civil War, the southern Populist movement, women in the New South, and post-Reconstruction race relations in the South. I.
The “Newness” of the New South A. An Industrial and Urban South 1. Steel mills and textiles 2. Tobacco and Coca-Cola 3. Railroads and growth B. The Limits of Industrial and Urban Growth 1. Effects of low wages 2. Limited capital C. Farms to Cities: Impact on Southern Society
II.
The Southern Agrarian Revolt A. Cotton and Credit B. Southern Farmers Organize, 1877–1892 1. Salvation and cooperation 2. Storing cotton
III.
Women in the New South A. Church Work and Preserving Memories B. Women’s Clubs
IV.
Settling the Race Issue A. The Fluidity of Southern Race Relations, 1877–1890 B. The White Backlash C. Lynch Law D. Segregation by Law E. Disfranchisement F. History and Memory G. A National Consensus on Race H. Response of the Black Community 1. An urban middle class 2. Black women’s roles 3. Booker T. Washington’s accommodation 4. W. E. B. Du Bois attacks the Atlanta Compromise
V.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 17, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How new was the New South?
2.
What were the origins and nature of Southern Populism?
3.
How did traditional gender roles shape the opportunities available to women in the New South?
4.
What steps did white Southerners take in the late nineteenth century to limit the freedom of African Americans?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the emergence of the cotton textile industry in the southern Piedmont. Among the issues to consider, include the following: a. The composition of the labor force in the cotton textile industry. Identify the regional, racial, and socioeconomic origins of the cotton textile labor force. b. How did the emergence of a new southern laboring class affect the social structure of the New South? How were textile workers received by middle-class southerners already living in industrial towns? c. How would the emergence of a laboring class impact Piedmont politics? How did a lower-class white labor force fit into the racially defined southern political system? 2. Discuss the issue of racial segregation in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Was racial segregation unique to the American South? Had it been a characteristic of antebellum southern culture? Why did southerners embrace segregation after the Civil War? What institution of racial order did it replace? How did segregation guarantee the preservation of white supremacy? 3. Discuss the impact of institutionalized racism. What political rights did southern blacks possess? Could southern blacks protect themselves from unfair economic predicaments? Could southern blacks protect themselves from lynching? Was discrimination limited to only the southern states? What role did the federal government play in the persecution of southern blacks?
Topics for Classroom Discussion and Essays 1.
Discuss the meaning of the term New South. Have students comment on the following: a. What does New South mean? What did it mean to late nineteenth-century southerners? Did all southerners support the creation of a New South after Reconstruction? b. How successful were efforts to create a New South? How effective were efforts to industrialize, urbanize, and modernize the New South? c. Have a general discussion on the meaning of the word southern in American culture. Has there been a change in the meaning of this word since the Civil War? Are there distinctions between the South at the turn of the twenty-first century and the antebellum South? Are there similarities? Are there distinctions between the South at the turn of the twenty-first
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century and the South at the turn of the twentieth century? Are there similarities? Did a New South ever emerge after the Civil War? If so, when did it happen? 2. Was racism a regional, national, or international trend in the late nineteenth century? Discuss the importance of Darwinism in late nineteenth-century western social and racial philosophy. How did Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution and Herbert Spencer and the theory of social Darwinism impact western ideas about race and class at the turn of the century? Did traditional southern ideas about racial superiority and inferiority seem out of place in the late nineteenth century? How did the northern reaction to southern racial policies after Reconstruction reflect these characteristics of late nineteenthcentury social philosophy? Connect American ideas about southern race and class to other nineteenthcentury issues such as nativism and imperialism. 3. Discuss the debate involving the use of the Confederate battle flag by former Confederate states. As discussed in the “From Then to Now” feature, South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from the top of the state capitol and relocated it to the Confederate monument—also on the grounds of the state capitol. Do you agree with South Carolina’s resolution of this issue? What are the issues involved in this debate? What is a flag? What is its purpose? What is being said when a flag flies over a state or nation? Should Mississippi adopt a new state flag?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Write a paper on Durham, North Carolina, as an example of New South urbanization. Distinguished both as the home of the North Carolina tobacco industry and the locale of a flourishing black business community, Durham seemed to epitomize the potential of the New South. 2. Research the issue of lynching and its historical connection to the preservation of southern white female purity. Why was the separation of white women and black men so important to southern white males? What other factors contributed to lynchings? Was lynching a unique southern phenomenon? How did southern women feel about being used as a justification for lynching? Research on this topic might also involve the work of Jessie Daniel Ames during the 1930s and 1940s. 3. Have the students create a dialogue between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois (see also Chapter 21). Compare and contrast their family background and upbringing. How did they differ on the best way for African Americans to achieve prosperity and pride? Compare and contrast the writing and speeches of each; specifically, Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Speech of 1895 and later writings by Du Bois in the NAACP’s publication the Crisis. 4. Choose one former Confederate state and research the state constitutional convention proceedings that created that state’s post-Reconstruction constitution. In many former Confederate states, this process was the last major political exercise on a state level in which black delegates actively participated until the Civil Rights Movement. It was also one of the last opportunities among southern blacks and whites to discuss southern race relations in an open political arena. Look carefully at the white justifications for disfranchisement and at black resistance to these efforts to curtail the vote. Also note the variety of positions taken by southern whites on the issue. Did all southern whites support disfranchisement, and did those who supported it always support it for the same reasons? 5. Select the novel The Klansman, or the film Birth of a Nation; next analyze the work as a cultural artifact and introduce the aspect of cultural memory. Begin with the creators of these works: who was Thomas Dixon and/or who was W. D. Griffith? Address the artifacts and describe the plot, the characters
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and the work as a whole. How did these works attempt to reexamine history? What aspects were based on fact and which were purely fiction? What sources, if any, did the creators utilize while creating their interpretation? Finally, discuss both the intended audience and the effects on society. The project should include an analysis of the stereotypes used and the historical significance of the tragic view of reconstruction.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects David L. Carlton, Mill and Town in South Carolina (1980). William J. Cooper, The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877–1890 (1968). Robert F. Durden, The Dukes of Durham, 1865–1929 (1975). Ronald D. Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880–1920 (1982). Jacqueline D. Hall et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (1987). J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and Establishment of the OneParty South, 1880–1910 (1974). David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868–1919: Biography of a Race (1993). Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (1977). Jonathan Wiener, Social Origins of the New South: Alabama 1860–1885 (1978). Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation (1984). C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (1951). C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955). Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War (1986).
Audio-Visual Resources Empires of Industry: Leaves of Gold, History Channel, 50 minutes. This video examines the history of the tobacco industry in the United States. Ethnic Notions, California Newsreel, 1986, 57 minutes. This documentary examines the history of African American stereotypes in popular culture that intensified racism. W. E. B. Du Bois of Great Barrington, WBBY, Springfield, MA, 1992, 60 minutes. This film records the life of Du Bois, an advocate of civil and political rights and one of the founders of the NAACP.
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Chapter 18 INDUSTRY, IMMIGRANTS, AND CITIES 1870–1900 Chapter Summary Chapter 18 tells the story of late nineteenth-century northeastern urban and industrial development. Topics covered in this chapter include technological innovations of the times; the rise of the corporative model; the changing nature of work; turn-of-the-century immigration; and urban and social changes of the late nineteenth century. I.
New Industry A. Inventing Technology: The Electric Age B. The Corporation and Its Impact C. The Changing Nature of Work 1. Low salaries and long hours D. Child Labor E. Working Women F. Responses to Poverty and Wealth 1. The Gospel of Wealth G. Workers Organize
II.
New Immigrants A. Old World Backgrounds B. Cultural Connections in a New World C. The Job D. Nativism E. Roots of the Great Migration
III.
New Cities A. Centers and Suburbs B. The New Middle Class C. A Consumer Society D. The Growth of Leisure Activities E. The Ideal City
IV.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 18, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did workers respond to the changing demands of the workplace in the late nineteenth century?
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2.
What kind of communities did new immigrants create in America?
3.
How did the new cities help create the new middle class?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the development of early American labor organization. Compare and contrast the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor as two efforts to organize labor nationally during the late nineteenth century. The major distinction between the two organizations is that one failed and one succeeded. Outline the reasons for this by examining the memberships, policies, agendas, and recruitment practices of each organization. What do the failure and success of these two unions say about nineteenthcentury skilled and unskilled labor? Describe to students the tremendous challenges faced by any organization trying to unionize the large unskilled labor force of the nineteenth century. 2. Look at middle-class residences from the eighteenth century through the twentieth century and demonstrate to students how the architectural styles of the residences reflect the evolution of American middle-class values and priorities. How does the eighteenth-century farmhouse differ from the nineteenthcentury Victorian suburban dwelling? How do these differences reflect the American movement from an agrarian to an industrial society and from a rural to an urban society? How do the differences reflect technological innovations and an improvement in the standard of living? Do the differences reflect changes in middle-class family life and the level of importance attached to family life? How does the nineteenth-century Victorian dwelling differ from the 1960s ranch house? What room tends to become the center or core of the 1960s home? Why? Again, look at how the differences in these two houses reflect economic and technological, as well as social and psychological, distinctions between nineteenth-century and twentieth-century middle-class suburban life.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students discuss the impact of late nineteenth-century business consolidation on traditional American values regarding work and the economy. Consider the following issues for discussion: a. Ask students to define capitalism as an eighteenth-century economic philosophy emphasizing free enterprise, competition, individualism, and laissez-faire. b. Ask students to consider how late nineteenth-century entrepreneurship signaled the ultimate realization of these characteristics of capitalism. Then, have them consider how late nineteenth-century entrepreneurship undermined the promise of capitalism. In other words, did the success of men like Carnegie and Rockefeller demonstrate the power of free enterprise, individualism, and competition as the means to attain success? Or, did their success ultimately destroy the promise of free enterprise, competition, and individualism for others? c. Would Americans have to forfeit part of capitalism in order to save it? Of free enterprise, competition, individualism, and laissez-faire, which tenet of capitalism would prove to be most important to Americans? Which one would be sacrificed by Americans in the belief that it would preserve the other three? 2. Have students discuss the impact of urban poverty on nineteenth-century American social philosophy. Why has urban poverty been such a difficult issue for Americans to address? a. Have students recall the Protestant work ethic as one of the earliest and yet most lasting American philosophies regarding work, wealth, and social status. How did the new urban 68 ..
b. c.
industrial society challenge this seventeenth-century philosophy, which emphasized individual responsibility for wealth and created a strong connection between work, wealth, and salvation (morality)? Did nineteenth-century urban middle-class Americans see in their urban industrial society examples of people who worked hard but reaped little reward, either financially or morally? How would that impact the strength of the Protestant work ethic as a social and moral philosophy? How did the Gospel of Wealth and Social Darwinism address urban poverty? Do these social philosophies borrow anything from the Protestant work ethic? In what sense are they distinctive from the Protestant work ethic? Have students consider the debate regarding individual responsibility for wealth or poverty versus social responsibility for wealth or poverty. Have Americans resolved this issue yet? Invite students to share their opinions regarding the propriety or impropriety and the success or failure of modern-day entitlement, welfare, and social reform programs.
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Research the impact of immigration on American public education. Identify the challenges that faced the public school system at the end of the nineteenth century. How did native-born Americans expect public education to support the assimilation of the immigrant population into American society? 2. Research the early corporate cases that were decided by the Supreme Court. How did these cases reflect American concerns about the future of capitalism? How did corporations defend themselves against these fears? 3. Choose one of the ethnic and/or racial groups identified with nineteenth-century urban migration and explore the role of family in that culture. 4. Compare and contrast the new immigrants with previous waves of immigration; specifically address the themes of geography, economics, and culture. Additionally, identify which groups arrived as families versus single males and/or females. What problems did these groups face when they arrived to the United States? What was the nativist response to each wave of immigration? How and why did it differ based on ethnicity? Identify the rate that each group assimilated into American society. 5. Examine the Supreme Court case Muller v. Oregon. What questions did this case raise concerning women and the workplace? Was the decision a victory or a defeat for women? 6. United States immigration at the turn of the twenty-first century is being compared in many ways to immigration at the turn of the twentieth century. Ask students how the two demographic trends are similar. How are they different? Have students examine the number of immigrants who have entered the United States in the past 25 years or so. From where have many of these immigrants come? How has the United States addressed the economic, social, ethnic, racial, and political challenges that have accompanied present-day immigration?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects John Bodnar, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (1985). Howard P. Chudacoff and Judith E. Smith, The Evolution of American Urban Society, 5th edition (2000). Leon Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (1982). Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, A History of Urban America (1983). David Goldfield and Blaine Brownell, Urban America: A History (1990). Gerald N. Grob, Workers and Utopias (1961). Herbert G. Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America (1976). John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (1988). Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought and Culture, 1850–1920 (1995). Stuart Kaufman, Samuel Gompers and the Origins of the American Federation of Labor (1973). Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (1982). Noel Ignatiez, How the Irish Became White (1995).
Audio-Visual Resources Destination America, Discovery Channel, 30 minutes. This program examines the history of American sentiment regarding immigration and asks whether Americans have historically regarded it as a right or a privilege. Ellis Island, A&E Video, 150 minutes. This video is a four-part chronicle of the gateway of immigration at the turn of the century, drawing heavily from interviews from the Ellis Island Oral History Project. Empires of Industry: The Story of Oil, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This video explores the history of the oil industry in America from its origins in the nineteenth century. The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie: The American Experience, WGBH Boston, 1997, 120 minutes. This video is a biography of Andrew Carnegie, narrated by David Ogden Stiers. The Rockefellers: Biography, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This video examines the lives of the nineteenth-century oil barons.
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Chapter 19 TRANSFORMING THE WEST 1865–1890 Chapter Summary Chapter 19 traces the transformation of the American West from a pioneer society to an integrated component of the national economy, its culture shaped by technology, industrialization, and urbanization. Topics examined in this chapter include Native American culture and the development of the western economy with emphasis on the mining, cattle, and agriculture sectors. I.
Subjugating Native Americans A. Tribes and Cultures 1. Clashing values B. Federal Indian Policy C. Warfare and Dispossession D. Life on the Reservation: Americanization
II.
Exploiting the Mountains: The Mining Bonanza A. Rushes and Mining Camps 1. Prostitution 2. Saloon society 3. Collective violence B. Labor and Capital 1. Effects of corporate mining 2. Unions and union busting
III.
Using the Grass: The Cattle Kingdom A. Cattle Drives and Cow Towns 1. Cow town life B. Rise and Fall of Open-Range Ranching 1. Effects of corporate control C. Cowhands and Capitalists 1. Unions and strikes
IV.
Working the Earth: Homesteaders and Agricultural Expansion A. Settling the Land 1. Limits of the Homestead Act 2. Promoting settlement 3. Hispanic losses B. Home on the Range 1. Women’s work 2. Isolation and community C. Farming the Land 1. Growing crops 2. Growing tensions
V.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 19, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What were the main objectives of federal Indian policy in the late nineteenth century?
2.
How did mining in the West change over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century?
3.
What factors contributed to the development of the range cattle industry?
4.
How did new technologies contribute to the growth of Western agriculture?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the role of African Americans in western migration and settlement. Create a regional connection between the post-Civil War South and West by looking at cause and effect in African American western migration. What factors drove African Americans out of the South during the late nineteenth century, and what opportunities lured them westward? Comment on the impact of African Americans on the development of the West, as well as their status in western society. 2. Prepare a presentation on the depiction of the West in various American art forms. See previous chapters for guidelines on a slide and lecture presentation focusing on the West in American art. In exploring the West in other art forms, have students listen to music inspired by the American West, such as Aaron Copland’s Rodeo, or show examples of the choreography of Agnes deMille.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students discuss gender imbalance in the American western mining camps. How did gender imbalance impact the lives of the few women who lived in these communities? Were the causes or results of the gender imbalance in western mining camps any different from the causes or results of gender imbalance in other early settlements in American history? Why or why not? 2. Have students read an excerpt from Frederick Jackson Turner’s The Significance of the Frontier in American History, and then hold a class discussion focusing on some of the following questions: a. What is Turner’s thesis? What did he feel was significant about the western frontier? b. Was Turner right? Was the American frontier a haven for American democracy, liberty, and individualism? c. What impact did corporations have on this image of the West? Were political, economic, and social opportunities open to all genders, races, and ethnicities? d. Was the West assimilated into eastern American society or does it remain today something unique, different, and alluring? 3. Discuss the interdependence of the American Northeast, South, and West after the Civil War. In studying the post-Civil War era, we traditionally deal with these three regions separately and distinctly. Choose from among the following topics and discuss them regionally and nationally: a. Corporate development in the late nineteenth century in the Northeast, in the South, and in the West.
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b.
African American migration. Why did African Americans leave the South? What lured them northward? What lured them westward? c. Foreign immigration: To what extent did it impact the Northeast, the West, and the South? What is distinctive about it in each region? d. Urbanization: To what extent did it develop in the Northeast, the West, and the South? How was it similar in each region? How was it different? In summary, have students consider the potential for improved national unity at the turn of the century as well as the potential for continued regional tension.
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Research both the image and the reality of the American cowboy. What is the historical myth surrounding this figure? Where have most late twentieth-century Americans received their defining images of the American cowboy? Students may want to choose one figure from the American West, such as Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid, and compare the person’s image as it has been represented in twentiethcentury popular culture to the historical facts of his or her life. 2. Analyze the HBO dramatic series Deadwood in relation to other pop-culture depictions of the West. To what extent does the series seem to reflect accurately the demographics and dynamics of a booming mine town, and to what extent is it simply a repackaging of the same old myths, with more foul language and more on-screen sex? 3, Explore the relationship between Native Americans who remained traditional versus those that assimilated into the mainstream society of the United States. Trace these groups back to previous eras such as King Philip’s War or back to individuals like Tecumseh. Historically, who attempted to “Americanize” the Native Americans and what were their motives? 4. Research one of the Native American religions, such as the Ghost Dance religion, that was targeted by the federal government for annihilation. Describe the components of the religion and the means used by missionaries and federal agencies to destroy the practice of the religion.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects David Courtwright, Violent Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City (1996). Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, The West: An Illustrated History (1996). William L. Katz, The Black West (1996). Nell Painter, The Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction (1992). Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West (1990). Glenda Riley, The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains (1988). Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1920). Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (1991). Donald Worster, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (1991).
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Audio-Visual Resources Geronimo and the Apache Resistance, Neil Goodwin, 1988, 60 minutes. This video examines the life of the Native American who successfully resisted the American government for 25 years before finally being defeated. Rediscovering America: The Real American Cowboy, Discovery Channel, 30 minutes. This video makes the distinction between the myth and reality surrounding the image of the American cowboy. Last Stand at Little Big Horn: The American Experience, Paul Stekler, 1992, 60 minutes. This video takes a new look at Custer’s Last Stand. The White Man’s Image: The American Experience, Christine Lesiak and Matthew Jones, 1991, 60 minutes. This episode of The American Experience looks at the Carlisle School, which was established by the government in the 1870s for the purpose of “civilizing” American Indians. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 6: Heartland.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). This installment travels into America’s heartland and examines the history of the railroad, the cattle industry, and interactions with Native Americans. More specific topics include the Homestead Act, Native American resistance and the massacre at Wounded Knee.
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Chapter 20 POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 1877–1900 Chapter Summary Chapter 20 provides a survey of American political development during the late nineteenth century. Topics covered in this chapter include the strong partisanship of the era’s political campaigns and elections; the quality of leadership in the federal government; civil service reform, tariffs, and monetary policy; and the rise and fall of the Populist Party. I.
The Structure and Style of Politics A. Campaigns and Elections B. Partisan Politics 1. Party loyalty 2. Party identities 3. Third parties C. Associational Politics 1. Women as activists
II.
The Limits of Government A. The Weak Presidency B. The Inefficient Congress C. The Federal Bureaucracy and the Spoils System D. Inconsistent State Government
III.
Public Policies and National Elections A. Civil Service Reform B. The Political Life of the Tariff C. The Beginnings of Federal Regulation D. The Money Question 1. The silver issue
IV.
The Crisis of the 1890s A. Farmers Protest Inequities 1. Credit inequities 2. Freight rates and tariffs 3. Farmers organize B. The People’s Party 1. National action C. The Challenge of the Depression 1. Appeals for federal action 2. Protecting big business
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D.
V.
The Battle of the Standards and the Election of 1896 1. McKinley and the Republicans 2. Bryan and the Silverites 3. Money and oratory
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 20, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did parties shape late nineteenth-century politics?
2.
What explains the weakness and inefficiency of late nineteenth-centruy government?
3.
How effective was government in addressing the problems of America’s industrializing economy?
4.
What factors contributed to the rise of the Populist party?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Present a comparison and contrast of the Democratic and Republican parties at the turn of the century. Include some of the following issues: a. Who composed the membership of each party? Look at the regional, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious characteristics of each party’s membership. b. Consider perspectives on fiscal policy, social reform, sympathy toward business and agriculture, immigration, prohibition, civil service reform, and tariffs. c. Allow students to compare and contrast the characteristics of the Democratic and Republican parties at the turn of the century to the modern-day parties. Would modernday Republicans feel comfortable in the nineteenth-century party? Would modern-day Democrats feel comfortable in the nineteenth-century party? Where have the major changes occurred in each party’s membership and policies? Can students predict when in the twenty-first century these changes will occur? 2. Discuss the impact of populism on southern politics. Why did white southerners find the Populist movement threatening? Explain the potential danger southerners saw in the political union of lower-class whites and blacks. How could that union have impacted the white elite political structure already in place? How were members of the Populist party treated by southern Democrats? Explain the concept of fusion and how it figured into the 1892 and 1896 presidential elections. Is there a connection between the Populist movement and the southern disfranchisement movement of the 1890s? Did southern disfranchisement impact only the black community? 3. Discuss the importance of the issue of prohibition at the turn of the century. Consider some of the following issues: a. If you have not addressed it in earlier chapters, provide a moral and political context for this reform issue. How does prohibition connect to the following: evangelical Protestantism, nativism, modern industrialism, and feminism? 76 ..
b. c.
Provide an overview of turn-of-the-century parties and organizations dedicated to prohibition. Focus particularly on the Prohibition Party and the WCTU. Make a connection between prohibition and the politicization of the modern American woman. Have students comment on the fact that this movement will not only achieve federal prohibition of the production and distribution of alcohol, but it will achieve that prohibition through a constitutional amendment. Is there any connection between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Discuss the Populist movement as the first major modern American reform movement. Some issues to consider include the following: a. Have students define the word reform. What does it mean and how does it apply to the Populist movement? b. Analyze the Omaha Platform. Does it reflect a conservative or liberal agenda? What components of the agenda eventually became law? c. Was the Populist movement successful or was it a failure? Help students to anticipate the Progressive movement by predicting who would be successful in realizing much of the Populist agenda. Why would Progressives be successful when Populists were not? d. Was the Populist movement conservative or liberal? In what ways did Populists seek change? Was there a conservative element in the movement? Were the Populists in any way motivated by a desire to prevent change or to conserve some aspects of American cultural, social, and economic tradition? 2. Have the class look at the appeal of laissez-faire in American history. In Chapter 20, students considered the nature of capitalism and how it was changing at the turn of the century. Why did many Americans, by 1900, demand a retreat from laissez-faire? Were they interested in abandoning capitalism or retaining it? How did the federal government respond to the demand to move away from laissez-faire? How did business respond? Why did Americans turn to the government for help against business, railroads, and the banking system? Why did they not solve their problems without government involvement?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Research the children’s author L. Frank Baum and prepare a paper or presentation on his Oz series. Was Baum a zealous Populist who used children’s literature as a medium for communicating his political agenda? Look at the characters, symbols, and themes of the Wizard of Oz and explain how they may be representative of components of the Populist agenda. Also, some attention can be given to the idea of using children’s literature as a means of education or even indoctrination. Can students think of other literary works that do more than entertain? 2. Choose one of the political figures associated with the Populist movement, such as Mary Lease or “Sockless” Jerry Simpson, and examine his or her political agenda and style. Why has the Populist movement sometimes been connected to “the lunatic fringe”?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Ruth Bordin, Women and Temperance (1981). John A. Garraty, The New Commonwealth, 1877–1890 (1968). Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Movement (1978). Robert C. McMath, American Populism: A Social History, 1877–1898 (1993). R. Hal Williams, Years of Decision: American Politics in the 1890s (1978).
Audio-Visual Resources America 1900: The American Experience, WGBH Educational Foundation/David Gurbin Productions, Inc., 1998, 180 minutes. This series examines American political, social, and cultural history at the turn of the century. The Wizard of Oz, Warner Studios, 1939, 101 minutes. This is the film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s Populist-inspired children’s novel.
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Chapter 21 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA 1900–1917 Chapter Summary Chapter 21 explores early twentieth-century reform through the progressive movement. Topics examined in this chapter include the historical context for progressive reform; early strides in urban, rural, social, and industrial reform; early twentieth-century political reform; and progressive change under Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. I.
The Ferment of Reform A. The Context of Reform: Industrial and Urban Tensions B. Church and Campus C. Muckrakers D. The Gospel of Efficiency E. Labor Demands Its Rights F. Extending the Woman’s Sphere G. Transatlantic Influences H. Socialism I. Opponents of Reform
II.
Reforming Society A. Settlement Houses and Urban Reform B. Protective Legislation for Women and Children C. Reshaping Public Education D. Challenging Gender Restrictions E. Reforming Country Life F. Moral Crusades and Social Control 1. Controlling immigrants 2. Prohibition 3. Suppressing prostitution G. For Whites Only? 1. Black activism
III.
Reforming Politics and Government A. Woman Suffrage B. Electoral Reform C. Municipal Reform D. Progressive State Government
IV.
Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Presidency A. TR and the Modern Presidency B. Roosevelt and Labor C. Managing Natural Resources D. Corporate Regulation E. Taft and the Insurgents
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V.
Woodrow Wilson and Progressive Reform A. The Election of 1912 B. Implementing the New Freedom C. The Expansion of Reform
VI.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 21, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What values and beliefs bound progressives together?
2.
How did progressives respond to the social changes of industrializing America?
3.
How did progressives change American politics and government?
4.
How did Theodore Roosevelt envision the power of the president?
5.
How did Woodrow Wilson’s vision of reform differ from Theodore Roosevelt’s?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the life and work of Margaret Sanger as an example of the political complexity of the Progressive Era. On one hand, she contributed to the liberation of American women by removing barriers to birth control and fighting for reproductive rights for women. On the other hand, she was a student of eugenics, a pseudoscientific theory that advocated the promotion of reproduction within “superior” gene pools and the discouragement of reproduction within “inferior” gene pools. Have students consider whether Sanger was a liberal or a conservative. 2. Discuss the issue of laissez faire during the Progressive Era. Describe how progressives continued to change traditional American ideas about the role of government. Cite specific laws passed during the Progressive Era that gave more power to the federal government. Discuss the issue of police power and the laws that expanded that area of authority for the federal government. Examine the office of the presidency during the Progressive Era. How did it change under Theodore Roosevelt? How did it change under Woodrow Wilson? How did Wilson’s love of order and organization impact the size of the federal government? Why did Americans endorse these changes in the size and power of the federal government?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students discuss American ideas regarding poverty, focusing on a comparison of the Social Gospel and the Protestant work ethic. How did progressives at the turn of the century challenge traditional American ideas regarding the source of individual poverty? How did changes in beliefs about the source of poverty impact progressive ideas about who was responsible for minimizing the suffering associated with poverty? How did religion contribute to both the Protestant work ethic and the Social Gospel?
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2. Discuss American socialism during the Progressive Era. After providing some historical background on socialist leaders, organizations, and parties at the turn of the century, ask students to assess the appeal (or lack thereof) socialism has held for Americans historically. What factors have contributed to socialism’s limited appeal in the United States? Have students consider traditional American political values, the structure and function of the American political system, and traditional American ideas regarding wealth and poverty. How have these issues defined the American response to socialism? 3. Compare and contrast the populist and progressive movements. Have students recall the Omaha Platform from the populist movement and determine which of these goals were achieved by the populists themselves and which by the progressives. Look at the participants in each movement. How do they differ from each other? Are there any groups that were drawn to both movements? Did the nature of the membership in each movement impact the level of success attained by each? Also, use this opportunity to predict the next link in the evolution of twentieth-century American reform between the progressive movement and the New Deal. What has been achieved in the progressive movement that will be used, resurrected, or extended during the New Deal? 4. Was the progressive movement liberal or conservative? The progressive movement is included in the string of American reform movements dating from the populist movement through the reform era of the 1960s. Yet, historian Gabriel Kolko has characterized the Progressive Era as “a triumph of conservatism.” Have students discuss this issue by focusing on the following questions: a. How were the progressives motivated? What did they want and why did they want it? b. How did middle-class progressives feel about the communities they assisted? Have students consider the impact of nativism and social Darwinism on progressive motivation. How did these ideas connect to the Social Gospel and the Gospel of Efficiency? c. Consider issues connected to paternalism, control, and authority. Why were progressives willing to take responsibility for reform? If they did not assume responsibility for change, who did they fear would take that responsibility? Was the progressive movement in any way a contest between mainstream Americans and radicals for the right to control reform?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Have students participate in a class project focusing on muckraking. Assign students the task of writing an expose of wrongdoing in their own community. You may want to provide students with a list of topics from which to choose or let them choose their own. This is a good option for group projects that can be presented in class. It is also a good way to help students link the past and present. 2. Examine Prohibition from the perspective of a distillery. Look at the growth of the distillery business at the turn of the century, perhaps focusing on one company, such as Anheuser-Busch. Connect the growth in the distillery business to turn-of-the-century immigration. How did distilleries like Anheuser-Busch fight prohibition? How did these companies survive the years of prohibition?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor: The Life of Margaret Sanger (1992). Steven J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (1998). Eric Goldman, Rendezvous with Destiny (1952). Sara Hunter Graham, Woman Suffrage and the New Democracy (1996). Dewey Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation of Progress and Tradition (1983). 81 ..
Louis Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee (1983). Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (1955). Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism (1963). Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (2000). James Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement (1963). Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (1967).
Audio-Visual Resources Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Ken Burns, PBS Video, 1999, 180 minutes. Ken Burns looks at the story of the historic friendship between Stanton and Anthony and how it figured into the quest for woman’s suffrage. TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt: The American Experience, David Grubin, 1996, 240 minutes. This video is a four-part series chronicling the life of Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt: An American Lion, A&E Video, 2002, 200 minutes. The video presents a look at the life of Theodore Roosevelt with commentary by Edmund Morris.
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Chapter 22 CREATING AN EMPIRE 1865–1917 Chapter Summary Chapter 22 explores late nineteenth-century American imperialism. Topics covered in this chapter include the ideological, economic, and political justifications for imperialism; the events surrounding the SpanishAmerican War; American forays into Asia; and the emergence of American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. I.
The Roots of Imperialism A. Ideological and Religious Arguments B. Strategic Concerns C. Economic Designs
II.
First Steps A. Seward and Blaine B. Hawaii C. Chile and Venezuela
III.
The Spanish-American War A. The Cuban Revolution B. Growing Tensions C. War and Empire D. The Treaty of Paris
IV.
Imperial Ambitions: The United States and East Asia, 1899–1917 A. The Filipino-American War B. China and the Open Door C. Rivalry with Japan and Russia
V.
Imperial Power: The United States and Latin America, 1899–1917 A. U.S. Rule in Puerto Rico B. Cuba as a U.S. Protectorate C. The Panama Canal D. The Roosevelt Corollary E. Dollar Diplomacy F. Wilsonian Interventions 1. Caribbean interventions 2. Interfering with Mexico G. Engaging Europe: New Concerns, Old Constraints
VI.
Conclusion
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 22, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What arguments were made in favor of American expansion in the late nineteenth century?
2.
What steps did the United States take to expand its global influence in the decades before the Spanish-American War?
3.
What were the most important consequences of the Spanish-American War?
4.
What was the nature of U.S. involvement in Asia?
5.
How did Latin Americans respond to U.S. intervention in the region?
6.
Why did the United States take a larger role in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Contrast the imperialist and anti-imperialist arguments that were popularized in the United States at the turn of the century. In presenting the imperialist argument, stress the pragmatic motivations connected to economic, political, and military empowerment as well as the “moral” justification offered by social Darwinists under the guise of Manifest Destiny. In looking at the anti-imperialist position, consider questions some Americans had regarding the distinctions between early nineteenth-century westward expansion and late nineteenth-century colonial acquisition. Also, consider American concerns about the foreign lands and populations targeted by American imperialism at the turn of the century. Note that many anti-imperialists pointed out the historical and political inconsistencies of a nation that resisted its own colonial status and then grew up to colonize other territories itself. 2. Discuss Theodore Roosevelt’s assertive diplomacy and Woodrow Wilson’s missionary diplomacy. Explain to students the similarities between the two diplomatic philosophies as well as the significant differences between them. Examine foreign affairs under Theodore Roosevelt and assess the extent to which these events were reflections of his philosophy. Do the same for Wilson. Which President executed his philosophy more effectively?
Topics for Classroom Discussion and Essays 1. Have students discuss the tie between progressivism and imperialism. Theodore Roosevelt is an excellent example of a person who embodied both of these causes. Consider the following questions: a. How does imperialism represent an extension of the Social Gospel? What motivations and philosophical justifications behind the progressive movement could also be used to justify imperialism? b. How is social Darwinism reflected in both progressivism and imperialism? c. How are paternalism and the desire to exert control and authority reflected in both progressivism and imperialism? d. Did all progressives support imperialism? Why not?
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2. Discuss the American relationship with Europe at the turn of the century. To what extent did Europe figure either directly or indirectly in the development of American foreign policy? Did America still fear European power at the turn of the century? How did the Open Door policy, the Roosevelt Corollary, and dollar diplomacy reflect American concerns regarding Europe? Will these lingering worries about Europe impact the American role in World War I? 3. Research American newspapers and compile a collection of political cartoons from the SpanishAmerican War era. Discuss the historical significance of each cartoon and specify when general history is introduced versus specific terms and individuals. Aside from historical references, analyze the subject matter. Finally, dissect the symbolism and artistry utilized in each cartoon. How does the artist choose to portray the United States, Spain, and the average Cuban? Be sure to explore stereotypes and specifically address jingoism, race, and national identity throughout the cartoons.
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Prepare a paper on Spanish policies in Cuba and research the role of Spanish governor Valeriano “Butcher” Weyler. Examine his style of rule, the threat he presented to Cubans and foreign interests in Cuba, and his reputation as the originator of the concentration camp. 2. Examine nationalist responses to American imperialism at the turn of the century. Have students research and present reports on examples of native resistance to American expansion. Among topics to consider, include Queen Liliuokalani and the Hawaiian nationalist movement, Emiliano Aguinaldo and the Filipino-American War, and Augusto Sandino and the Nicaraguan resistance.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898–1900 (1985). William B. Gatewood, Jr., Black Americans and the White Man’s Burden, 1898–1903 (1975). Walter LeFeber, The American Search for Opportunity, 1865–1913 (1993). Walter LeFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (1963). Stuart C. Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation”: American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 (1982). David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (1977). Emily S. Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945 (1982).
Audio-Visual Resources Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War, Great Projects Film Company, Inc., 1999, 120 minutes. This series examines the Spanish-American War and includes some early footage and photography from battle sites. Hawaii’s Last Queen: The American Experience, WGBH Boston, 1997, 60 minutes. Part of The American Experience series, this video examines the life of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii.
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Chapter 23 AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR 1914–1920 Chapter Summary Chapter 23 introduces the student to the American role in World War I. Among the topics covered in this chapter are the inherent contradictions of the American policy of neutrality during the early years of the war; the challenges of mobilization and controlling the home front during the war; the controversies associated with the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson’s failed contest for ratification at home; and the social and political impacts of demobilization and the Red Scare. I.
Waging Neutrality A. The Origins of Conflict B. American Attitudes C. The Economy of War D. The Diplomacy of Neutrality 1. Submarine warfare E. The Battle Over Preparedness F. The Election of 1916 G. Descent into War 1. Wilson commits to war
II.
Waging War in America A. Managing the War Economy 1. Organizing industry 2. Ensuring food supplies 3. Overseeing labor relations B. Women and Minorities: New Opportunities, Old Inequities 1. Women and war work 2. Woman suffrage and prohibition 3. African Americans and war work C. Financing the War D. Conquering Minds 1. Government propaganda E. Suppressing Dissent
III.
Waging War and Peace Abroad A. The War to End All Wars 1. Into action in France 2. The Russian front 3. The Western front B. The Fourteen Points C. The Paris Peace Conference
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IV.
Waging Peace at Home A. Battle Over the League B. Economic Readjustment and Social Conflict 1. Postwar battles: gender and race 2. Fighting for industrial democracy C. Red Scare D. The Election of 1920
V.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 23, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
Why were Americans so reluctant to get involved in World War I?
2.
How did the war effort threaten civil liberties?
3.
What hopes did Wilson have for the Treaty of Versailles?
4.
What challenges did America face in the aftermath of the war?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. The Treaty of Versailles is often cited as one of the major causes of World War II. First, present an examination of the provisions of the treaty with an eye on World War II. Discuss the punitive clauses targeted at Germany. What psychological, social, and financial effects would the war guilt and reparations clauses have on postwar Germany? Second, look at the clauses that reorganized the European continent. What issues connected with the creation of new nations in Eastern Europe would aggravate future relations between Germany and the rest of the continent? Finally, consider the provision for the League of Nations. How effective would the League be in averting future wars? 2. Discuss the evolution of American foreign policy from 1865–1918. Look at Roosevelt and American imperialism. What was the goal of American foreign policy at this time? Review the ideals and philosophies that defined American imperial policy. Consider the role the United States hoped to play in world affairs. Then, examine Wilson and the philosophy of moral diplomacy. Examine the ways in which Wilson changed American foreign policy by the end of World War I. By this time, what ideals and philosophies defined American foreign policy? What role did the United States seek in foreign affairs? Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy (1994) provides an interesting look at the importance of Wilsonian moral diplomacy in the development of American foreign policy through World War II and until the end of the Cold War. In light of the war in Iraq, is the United States currently experiencing another shift in long-term foreign policy visions?
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Conduct a class debate on American neutrality during the early years of World War I. Begin with a formal definition of the word neutrality and then have students consider the following issues: a. Was the United States ever neutral during the years prior to its entry into World War I? Why or why not? b. Should the United States have been strictly neutral through the entirety of the war? What issues justified its entry into the war? What issues might have prevented its involvement in the war? c. Who determined American foreign policy between 1914 and 1917? Was there a gap between what the Wilson administration wanted and what the majority of the American people wanted? 2. Discuss the links between the progressive movement and World War I. Consider some of the following issues: a. Did reform groups tend to support American involvement in World War I? Why or why not? b. Once the United States entered World War I, what evidence of progressivism was seen in the process of mobilization? Look into the federal government for examples of the Gospel of Efficiency, government bureaucracy, and the desire to control and dictate conformity. c. Did progressives support moral diplomacy? Why or why not? 3. Have students discuss the issue of civil rights during a state of war. This discussion can be a continuation of issues considered earlier in connection with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and Lincoln’s handling of civil rights during the Civil War. Provide students with copies of the Sedition Act of 1918, and then have them consider the following: a. Do the provisions of the Sedition Act of 1918 violate the First Amendment freedoms of Americans? b. When the United States is at war, do issues of national security justify an alteration in the guarantee of civil liberties? c. American entry into World War I was preceded by years of debate regarding American neutrality and the propriety of American involvement in the war. In 1916, Wilson was reelected to the presidency largely based on a promise to keep the United States out of the war. Did Wilson betray the American people by breaking his promise to keep them out of war, or did Wilson have the right to promote unity and suppress dissent when he felt public support for the war was wavering? d. What should be done in the United States when the people oppose war and the government supports it? Should the government respect the democratic character of the American political system by only endorsing policies that reflect the people’s will, or should the people bend to the republican aspect of the American political system by trusting important decisions to their elected officials? e. Compare and contrast the experience of the United States with loyalty and dissent during World War I and the Vietnam War. Remember to point out to students that the Vietnam War was never a formally declared war. Which was better for America: the suppression of dissent during World War I or the expression of dissent during the Vietnam War? f. How are the American public and the American government dealing with issues of loyalty in the “war on terror”?
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Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Choose a figure associated with radical politics in the pre-war/World War I era. Focus on the person’s background and the issues that drew him or her to the left. Determine whether the individual remained a devotee of radicalism throughout his or her life. 2. Research the roles of African Americans in the military history of World War I. How were African Americans recruited? How were they treated in the armed forces? How were they treated in combat? What impact did the war have on the psychology of African Americans and their feelings about racism in America? 3. Have students research recent American policy in the Balkans. How were the events in Kosovo and Serbia in the 1990s connected to pre-World War I European affairs? Examine United States policy in the Balkans during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. Do students agree with those policies? How has the most recent war in Iraq changed the American role in European affairs? How does this role differ from 1914?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Ross Gregory, The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War (1971). David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980). Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace (1979). Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920 (1980). H. C. Peterson and Gilbert C. Fite, Opponents of War, 1917–1918 (1957). William Preston, Jr., Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933 (1963). David M. Smith, The Great Departure: The United States and World War I, 1914–1920 (1965). Robert H. Zieger, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience (2000).
Audio-Visual Resources The Great War: 1918: The American Experience, Tom Weidlinger, 1989, 60 minutes. This video explores the role played by the United States in the final year of World War I. The Great War and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century, KCET/BBC, 1996, 480 minutes. This eight-part series chronicles World War I and offers students insights into how this war shaped events in World War II, the Cold War, and current events in the Middle East and Bosnia.
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Chapter 24 TOWARD A MODERN AMERICA: THE 1920s Chapter Summary Chapter 24 explores the complexities the 1920s. Included in this chapter are examinations of the postWorld War I economy; the Republican domination of national politics; the continued expansion of urbanization; the emergence of a mass culture; the deep-seated conflicts over issues of identity and morality; and America’s new foreign policy challenges after World War I. I.
The Economy That Roared A. Boom Industries B. Corporate Consolidation C. Open Shops and Welfare Capitalism D. Sick Industries
II.
The Business of Government A. Republican Ascendancy B. Government Corruption C. Coolidge Prosperity D. The Fate of Reform
III.
Cities and Suburbs A. Expanding Cities B. The Great Black Migration C. Barrios D. The Road to Suburbia
IV.
Mass Culture in the Jazz Age A. Advertising the Consumer Society B. Leisure and Entertainment C. The New Morality D. The Searching Twenties
V.
Culture Wars A. Nativism and Immigration Restriction B. The Ku Klux Klan C. Prohibition and Crime D. Old-Time Religion and the Scopes Trial
VI.
A New Era in the World? A. War Debts and Economic Expansion B. Rejecting War C. Managing the Hemisphere
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VII.
Herbert Hoover and the Final Triumph of the New Era
VIII.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 24, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What contributed to the economic boom of the 1920s?
2.
What was the relationship between big business and government in the 1920s?
3.
What factors contributed to the growth of America’s cities and suburbs in the 1920s?
4.
How did new systems of distribution, marketing, and mass communication shape American culture?
5.
What forces fueled the culture wars of the 1920s?
6.
What role did the United States play in international diplomacy in the decade after World War I?
7.
What factors contributed to Herbert Hoover’s victory in 1928 over his Democatic opponent, Alfred E. Smith? In what ways did Hoover epitomize the policies of the New Era?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Prepare a lecture on the impact of the automobile industry on American life. Consider the economic impact on employment, wages, and profit; the impact of road construction on infrastructure and politics; the impact of improved transportation on national unity; and the social and moral impact on American youth who gained independence by escaping in the automobile. 2. Trace the early development of the American motion picture industry. Many early films are available on DVD for use in the classroom. By showing brief clips from a few significant films, students can see the rapid technological development in film production from the turn of the century until the Depression. Some films to examine might include The Great Train Robbery, Birth of a Nation, and The Jazz Singer. The inclusion of some films from the 1930s such as The Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind would illustrate how far film technique had come by that time. Another issue connected to this topic is racial and gender stereotyping in early twentieth-century film. This issue could be examined in both Birth of a Nation and The Jazz Singer. 3. Examine the Jazz Age within the larger context of the history of American music as well as African American history. Look at the regional aspects of the blues by focusing on its origins in rural America and its fruition in urban America. Examine the blues as an expression of African American despondency in the rural South. What happened to the blues and jazz emanating from cities? Supplement the lecture with recordings from blues and jazz artists. 4. Prepare a presentation on print advertising in the 1920s. Examine the images and text associated with advertising during the early twentieth century. What markets are being targeted? What kind of 91 ..
lifestyle is being promoted? Invite students to compare and contrast the advertising of this era with modern-day print ads. What evidence do we see in the ads of the 1920s of the “New Morality”?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. The Republican presidents of the 1920s often identified themselves with a return to laissez-faire economics. To what extent was this true? Review the literal meaning of laissez faire. Did the federal government of the 1920s refrain from interfering in the economy? Is government support of business any less an abandonment of laissez faire than government regulation or restriction of business? 2. Discuss Marcus Garvey as a black separatist. Have students begin to think about American efforts to resolve racial problems in the twentieth century. What is the difference between racial integration and racial segregation? How is racial separatism distinct from both? What solution to racial problems will Americans embrace as a result of the Civil Rights Movement? Are there still divisions in the African American community over the merits of racial integration, racial segregation, and black separatism? 3. How does the decade of the 1920s reflect the continuation of the urban-rural conflict in America? Did the decade hold the same promise for rural Americans that it did for middle-class urban and suburban dwellers? Did the gap between urban and rural lifestyles narrow or widen during the 1920s?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Research the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Explore its organization under the leadership of William Simmons, Edward Clarke, and Elizabeth Tyler. How was the Klan modernized under their leadership? How does it still resemble the original Klan? What issues signaled its failure by the end of the 1920s? 2. Present a comparison and contrast of W. E. B. Du Bois (see also Chapter 21) and Marcus Garvey as philosophical and political leaders for African Americans in the twentieth century. Look at the differences between the Niagara movement and the United Negro Improvement Association as approaches to gaining social, economic, and political rights for African Americans. 3. Choose an author or a poet from the Harlem Renaissance and read a sample of his or her work. Then place the author’s literature within its historical context. Point out universal themes in the work, but also look at it in terms of the times in which it was written, particularly within the context of the Great Migration. Does the author’s work make reference to southern rural African American poverty? Does it refer to African American urban poverty? Does it make statements about the status of African Americans during the early twentieth century? Does it offer hope or reflect hopelessness?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (1995). Paula S. Fass, The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s (1977). Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States (1975). James J. Flink, The Car Culture (1975). Colin Grant, Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey (2008).
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Nathan I. Huggins, Harlem Renaissance (1971). Nicholas Lamann, The Promised Land (1991). William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–1932 (1993). Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (1994). Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (1985). Lary May, Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry (1980). Andrew Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess (1962). Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (1994).
Audio-Visual Resources Brewed in America, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This video examines the history of the brewing industry before and after Prohibition. In Search of History: The Monkey Trial, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This video examines the battle between Darwinism and Creationism that took place in 1920s Dayton, Tennessee. In Search of History: The True Story of Sacco and Vanzetti, The History Channel, 50 minutes. A new look at a trial that still inspires debate today. The Prohibition Era, A&E Video, 150 minutes. This series is an excellent treatment of the Prohibition era and contains illuminating footage from the times. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 8: BOOM.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). This installment explores the social issues of the 1920s. As the only economy unscathed by the Great War, the United States excels through industrialization and the oil industry. Other aspects include the Great Migration, Ford’s automobile industry, and the rapidly changing state of California.
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Chapter 25 THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL 1929–1939 Chapter Summary Chapter 25 provides an overview of the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Topics covered include conditions surrounding the 1929 stock market crash; the impact of the Depression on the lives of Americans; Hoover’s difficulties confronting the economic crisis; the policies and programs of the New Deal; the impact of the New Deal on American life; the political stalemate reached by the end of the second Roosevelt administration; and emerging international challenges. I.
Hard Times in Hooverville A. Crash! B. The Depression Spreads C. “Women’s Jobs” and “Men’s Jobs” D. Families in the Depression E. “Last Hired, First Fired” F. Protest
II.
Herbert Hoover and the Depression A. The Failure of Voluntarism B. Repudiating Hoover: The 1932 Election
III.
Launching the New Deal A. Action Now! B. Creating Jobs C. Helping Some Farmers D. The Flight of the Blue Eagle E. Critics Right and Left
IV.
Consolidating the New Deal A. Weeding Out and Lifting Up 1. Social Security 2. Money, tax, and land reform B. Expanding Relief C. The Roosevelt Coalition and the Election of 1936
V.
The New Deal and American Life A. Labor on the March B. Women and the New Deal C. Minorities and the New Deal D. The New Deal: North, South, East, and West 1. The New Deal in the South 2. The New Deal in the West E. The New Deal and Public Activism
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VI.
Ebbing of the New Deal A. Challenging the Court B. More Hard Times C. Political Stalemate
VII.
Good Neighbors and Hostile Forces A. Neutrality and Fascism 1. Appeasement and more neutrality B. Edging Toward Involvement
VIII.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 25, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What triggered the Great Depression?
2.
How did Herbert Hoover respond to the Depression? Why did his policies fail?
3.
What were the goals of the early New Deal?
4.
What were the major accomplishments of the Second New Deal?
5.
What impact did the New Deal have on social and economic life?
6.
Why did the New Deal lose momentum after 1936?
7.
How did Roosevelt respond to the rise of fascism in Europe?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Introduce the “Dixie demagogues,” the cadre of Southern politicians who emerged during the 1930s. What kind of political style typified the Dixie demagogue? Comment on the special appeal the Dixie demagogues held for southerners in the 1930s. Was Huey Long a typical Dixie demagogue? If so, why? If not, how did he distinguish himself from the others? 2. Discuss the unique role of Eleanor Roosevelt during the New Deal era. How did Eleanor Roosevelt differ from the first ladies who preceded her? How did she impact the role of the first lady? How did she and FDR complement each other politically? To what extent did she contribute to defining the legacy of the era? 3. Present an examination of Franklin Roosevelt as a politician. Most historians agree the New Deal did little to significantly reduce the suffering associated with the Great Depression, yet Roosevelt was reelected in 1936 and again in 1940. Why? What were Roosevelt’s strengths as a politician? Did he have greater leeway and freedom in his role as president because of the times? How did the press treat Roosevelt? Would this be the case today?
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. The New Deal years are often considered a defining era for the modern Democratic Party. There is no doubt that the Republican and Democratic parties of the 1930s were markedly different from those at the turn of the century. Have students compare and contrast the parties of the 1930s with those of the 1890s. Address such issues as membership, attitude toward the strength of federal and state governments, financial and business agendas, and the degree of support for social reform. 2. Have students assess the impact of the New Deal on the American South. Consider the following questions: a. FDR referred to the American South in 1933 as “the nation’s number one economic problem.” Why? Was the South hit harder by the Depression than other regions of the country, or was Roosevelt referring to deeper economic problems in the South? How long had these economic problems plagued the South? b. Which New Deal programs were most important in the South? c. How did the New Deal impact the traditional relationship between the southern states and the federal government? d. How did the New Deal impact race relations in the South? What effect did changing race relations have on southern politics? e. Was the New Deal the gateway to the Second Reconstruction? Why? 3. Compare and contrast the New Deal era with other reform movements, such as the populist and progressive movements. What characteristics of these two earlier reform movements were inherited by the New Dealers? Also, does the New Deal predict future reform in the 1960s? What elements of 1960s reform have their roots in the New Deal era?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Have students examine the photographic legacy of the New Deal. Resources for such a project include the work of Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, and James Agee. In assessing this work, have students consider the following: a. Is one region of the country the particular focus of most of this work? Why? b. What does this photography tell us about southern life in the 1930s? c. Was it important and/or necessary for the government to finance this work? What is its value? d. What does this work tell us about the South and its connection to the rest of the nation between 1877 and 1940? 2. Examine the role of technology in Depression-era politics. Look at the use of radio by Roosevelt and his opponents. How much impact did radio have in defining political allegiances in the 1930s? What did this predict for the future? 3. Have students examine the individuals who composed Roosevelt’s “brain trust.” Who were Roosevelt’s closest advisors? What were their educational backgrounds? What suited them for the job of creating the New Deal? Most importantly, what was the political background of these advisors? To what extent had they been exposed to socialism and radical political philosophy?
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression (1982). Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt (1998–1999). Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (1990). Gerald Gamm, The Making of New Deal Democrats (1989). Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (1994). David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (1999). William E. Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (1963). James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal (1967). Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks (1978). George B. Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945 (1967). Nancy J. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of FDR (1983).
Audio-Visual Resources American Photography: A Century of Images, KTCA Twin Cities Public Television/ Middlemarch Films, Inc., 1999, 180 minutes. This three-part series examines the history of American photography. There are three episodes: one dealing with the period 1900–1934, the second focusing on 1934–1959, and the final episode looking at 1960–1999. Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Experience, America Productions, Inc., 1999, 150 minutes. This two-part series offers a new look at one of America’s most intriguing first ladies. The Great Depression, Blackside, Inc., 1993, 420 minutes. This seven-part series examines the causes and conditions of the Great Depression. Great Depression, A&E Video, 200 minutes. This A&E production, narrated by Mario Cuomo, examines the American economic crisis from 1929–1941. Huey Long, Ken Burns/Richard Kilberg, 1985, 90 minutes. An early biographical piece produced by Ken Burns and narrated by David McCullough. Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, The American Experience, PBS Video, 90 minutes. This video tells the story of the most significant racial legal challenge of the 1930s. Tennessee Valley Authority, A&E Video. This look at the Tennessee Valley Authority includes rare photographs, contemporary film, and first-hand accounts from those who were involved in the project.
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Chapter 26 WORLD WAR II 1939–1945 Chapter Summary Chapter 26 offers a survey of World War II. Topics covered in this chapter include the complexities of the American struggle with neutrality; the American military role in World War II; the economic, political, and social consequences of war on the home front; victory in Europe and Japan; and the emergence of the United States as a superpower. I.
The Dilemmas of Neutrality A. The Roots of War B. Hitler’s War in Europe C. Trying to Keep Out D. Edging Toward Intervention 1. The collapse of France and U.S. rearmament 2. The election of 1940 E. The Brink of War 1. The Atlantic Charter 2. Events in the Pacific F. December 7, 1941
II.
Holding the Line A. Stopping Germany 1. The Eastern Front and the Battle of Stalingrad B. The Survival of Britain 1. The Battle of the Atlantic 2. North Africa C. Retreat and Stabilization in the Pacific 1. The Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway
III.
Mobilizing for Victory A. Organizing the Economy B. The Enlistment of Science C. Men and Women in the Military 1. Native Americans in the military 2. African Americans in the military 3. Women in the military D. The Home Front 1. Families in wartime 2. Learning about the war 3. Women in the workforce 4. Ethnic minorities in the war effort 5. Clashing cultures 6. Internment of Japanese Americans 7. The end of the New Deal
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IV.
War and Peace A. Turning the Tide in Europe 1. The campaign in North Africa 2. The invasion of Italy 3. Soviet advances and the Battle of Kursk B. Operation OVERLORD C. Victory and Tragedy in Europe 1. The Battle of the Bulge and the collapse of Germany 2. The Holocaust D. The Pacific War E. Searching for Peace 1. Truman and Potsdam 2. The atomic bomb F. How the Allies Won
V.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 26, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
Why were most Americans reluctant to get involved with World War II?
2.
How did the Allies fare in 1941 and 1942?
3.
What steps did the U.S. government take to organize the economy for war?
4.
How did the war alter American society?
5.
Why did the allies win the war?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Prepare a lecture on the impact of World War II on American women. In considering the issue of women and the war, focus on the significant movement of females into the workplace during World War II and the impact that experience had on American women in terms of their own sense of independence and competence. Look at the impact of the end of the war in terms of forcing women out of these jobs. An interesting approach to use in examining this issue is to draw on material published in women’s magazines during the late 1940s and 1950s and compare it to material published in women’s magazines during the war. Examine how articles, as well as advertising, directed at women encouraged them in the early 1940s to support the war by joining the workforce, and then after the war to support home and hearth by leaving the workplace. How did the experience of American women during the early 1940s set the stage for the status of women during the 1950s? 2. Examine the impact of World War II on African Americans by focusing on the response of African Americans to the Holocaust. An excellent source for this issue is a videotape entitled The Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts (1992), a PBS documentary that was broadcast as part of The American Experience series. The film centers on the story of the 761st Tank Battalion, an African 99 ..
American regiment that was involved in liberating the German concentration camp at Dachau. The film provides a thorough examination of the treatment of African Americans in the U.S. Army, as well as the conflicted feelings of men who, while having lived with racism in their own lives, then witnessed the most horrific demonstration of racial hatred in modern history.
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students compare and contrast the American commitment to neutrality before both World War I and World II. In doing so, have them consider the following issues: a. Compare and contrast the American position on the two wars between 1914 and 1917 and between 1935 and 1941. How did the American public feel about U.S. intervention before World War I? Before World War II? How did federal policy reflect the public sentiment before World War I? Before World War II? b. Have students consider the gap between the presidents and the public regarding U.S. entry into both world wars. What roles did Wilson and Roosevelt play in the decision to enter the wars? Were their positions reflective of public opinion? 2. Compare and contrast the American internment of Japanese Americans with the Holocaust. To what extent are the two incidents similar? To what extent are they different? Consider some of the following issues in the comparison and contrast: a. The ideological background of each incident. Have students consider the history of Social Darwinism, racism, nativism, and eugenics dating back to the late nineteenth century. b. The national justification for each incident. Have students consider how each government rationalized the propriety of targeting these populations for unique treatment. c. Living conditions within the camps. Have students look at the provisions made for food, shelter, and medical care. d. The final resolution of the incident. Have students examine the extent to which each nation controlled the target population as well as the ways in which Japanese American internment and the Holocaust ended. e. Finally, have students consider the lasting impact of these incidents on the populations targeted. How did the Japanese American internment impact the lives of those who were victimized, and what impact has the Holocaust had on western Judaism? 3. Have students debate the American decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in August 1945. Have them consider the military, strategic, political, and moral issues that promoted use of the bomb, as well as the military, strategic, political, and moral issues used to oppose the use of the bomb. Use this opportunity to point out the significance of the American attack on Japan as both the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Research the issues surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A research project could focus on the ongoing historical debate regarding the nature of the attack and the extent to which the American federal government might have anticipated or even invited the attack as a means of gaining public support for entry into the war.
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2. Examine the early responses of the Allied powers to the Holocaust. How early did the Allies learn of the Nazi policy against the Jews? How did the Allies formulate policy on the issue?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Michael C. C. Adams, The Best War Ever: America and World War II (1993). John Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (1976). Susan Hartmann, The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s (1982). Greg Herken, The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945–1950 (1980). John Hersey, Hiroshima (1946). Peter Irons, Justice at War (1983). David J. O’Brien and Stephen S. Fugita, The Japanese American Experience (1993). Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (1975). Donald Watt, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938–1939 (1990). David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews (1984).
Audio-Visual Resources America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference: The American Experience, Marty Ostrow, 1994, 90 minutes. This video examines lingering questions about when Americans learned about the Holocaust and their response to it. America Goes to War: The Home Front, 1989, 300 minutes. This ten-part PBS series, narrated by Eric Sevareid, examines American domestic trends during the 1940s and 1950s. D-Day: The American Experience, Charles Guggenheim, 1994, 60 minutes. An examination of the day in June, 1944 that turned the tide of World War II. Free a Man to Fight, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This film examines the impact of World War II on working women in the United States.
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Chapter 27 THE COLD WAR AT HOME AND ABROAD 1946–1952 Chapter Summary Chapter 27 examines the post-World War II era in American history. Topics covered in the chapter include postwar domestic developments with an emphasis on the conversion to a peacetime economy and the impact of the baby boom; early Cold War policy, including the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine; Truman’s domestic policy, focusing on the Fair Deal; and the fruition of Cold War politics with the Korean War and McCarthyism. I.
Launching the Great Boom A. Reconversion Chaos B. Economic Policy C. The GI Bill D. Assembly-Line Neighborhoods 1. Isolation and discrimination E. Steps Toward Civil Rights F. Consumer Boom and Baby Boom
II.
Truman, Republicans, and the Fair Deal A. Truman’s Opposition B. Whistle-Stopping Across America C. Truman’s Fair Deal
III.
Confronting the Soviet Union A. The End of the Grand Alliance B. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan C. Soviet Reactions D. American Rearmament
IV.
Cold War and Hot War A. The Nuclear Shadow B. The Cold War in Asia C. NSC-68 and Aggressive Containment D. War in Korea, 1950–1953 E. The Politics of War 1. Consequences of the Korean War
V.
The Second Red Scare A. The Communist Party and the Loyalty Program B. Naming Names to Congress C. Subversion Trials D. Senator McCarthy on Stage E. Understanding McCarthyism Conclusion
VI.
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Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 27, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What was the catalyst for the economic boom that began in 1947?
2.
How was Harry Truman able to win the 1948 presidential election?
3.
What were the origins of the Cold War?
4.
How did the Korean War shape American domestic politics?
5.
Why did fear of Communism escalate in the years following World War II?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Present a lecture examining Franklin Roosevelt’s and Harry Truman’s contributions to the emergence of the Cold War. Compare and contrast the social, political, and intellectual backgrounds of the two men. Discuss Roosevelt’s role at the Yalta Conference, especially regarding the endorsement of the Declaration of a Liberated Europe. Did the endorsement of this agreement by the Allies set the stage for the Cold War? Could the Allies have avoided granting Stalin leverage in Eastern Europe? Discuss the extent to which Truman was prepared by Roosevelt to take over the presidency. Finally, have students comment on the early Soviet policy of the Truman administration. 2. Discuss the emergence of the States’ Rights Party and the presidential campaign of J. Strom Thurmond in 1948. Focus on the party’s appearance as an indication of increased racial tension in the South after World War II and as an indication of the potential of the future Civil Rights movement. Address the significance of Thurmond’s political career, which involved an early switch to the Republican Party, an indication of southern political developments to come during the last half of the twentieth century. 3. Discuss the connection between Cold War policies and World War II. What parallels did the former Allies see between prewar Germany and postwar Soviet Union? What mistakes made prior to World War II did the former Allies fear making again? Use this opportunity to have students consider the issue of “learning from history.” Can people learn from history? Is it wise or useful to allow mistakes from the past to determine policy for the future?
Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. In their book The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (1977), Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak assert that the 1950s was a decade of conservatism, consensus, and conformity. Have students review Chapter 27 and point out examples of these trends during the late 1940s and early 1950s. How did World War II moderate the liberal politics of the Depression era? Why were Americans eager to move to the middle, and why did they find security in conservatism, consensus, and conformity? 2. Have students compare and contrast the postwar decades of the 1920s and 1950s. Guide discussion to address some of the following issues:
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a.
b. c. d.
World War I has been characterized as the war that ended “American innocence.” How so? Did the American experience in World War II have a similar impact? Were Americans less naive and more experienced and mature as a nation because of the role they played in World War I? Compare and contrast American foreign policy development during the decades following the two world wars. Specifically, focus on the issues of isolationism and active intervention as they apply to the American foreign policy of the 1920s and 1950s. Examine the social and cultural aspects of postwar American society in the 1920s and 1950s. How do the social and cultural values of Americans reflect their reaction to world war? Explore developments in domestic politics in the postwar decades of the 1920s and 1950s. Which party would come to dominate national politics after World War I? After World War II? What would come to be the American response to radicalism after World War I? After World War II?
3. Consider American Cold War foreign policy within the historical context of modern American foreign policy. Students have already considered the similarities and differences between the turn-of-thecentury diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the moral diplomacy of Woodrow Wilson. How does Cold War policy compare to each of these phases of American foreign policy development? Consider specifically the content of NSC-68 (National Security Council Paper 68). Are the guidelines proposed in this document reflective of the “big stick” diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt or are they more reflective of the morally-based approach of Woodrow Wilson? Or, is post-World War II foreign policy completely different from both?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Research the American experience in fighting wars in Asia during the twentieth century. This project could focus on the Pacific War during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Among the topics that students might examine, consider the following: a. The cultural differences between the East and the West. What barriers existed that would complicate Asian and American understanding of each other’s cultures? How would these misunderstandings complicate diplomacy? b. The political and military goals of Asians and Americans in war. Especially in Korea and Vietnam, how did American global concerns complement or fail to complement the regional concerns of the Koreans and Vietnamese? How did regional civil wars turn into military manifestations of the Cold War? c. Racism and the American experience in Asia. Have students consider American stereotypes regarding Asians. How were these stereotypes manifested during the Pacific War, Korean War, and Vietnam War? Were Americans socially and culturally prepared to fight for the well-being of the Asian world? 2. Research the emergence of the Progressive Party in 1948. Was Henry Wallace’s liberal agenda in 1948 dated and archaic by the end of World War II, or did it predict and foresee the domestic reform agenda of the late 1950s and 1960s? Examine the role of the party as a link between the progressive agenda of the depression era and the progressive agenda of the 1960s.
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Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Gal Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy (1994). William Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II, 3rd ed. (1995). Frances Fitzgerald, Fire on the Lake (1972). John L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (1972). Joseph C. Goulden, The Best Years, 1945–1950 (1976). David Halberstam, The Fifties (1994). Alonzo Hamby, Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism (1973). Akira Iriye, The Cold War in Asia (1974). Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988). Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (1977). William Stuek, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (2002). John Toland, The Rising Sun (1970). Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of Cold War (1990).
Audio-Visual Resources The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: McCarthy Reconsidered, The History Channel, 50 minutes. Mike Wallace takes a fresh look at the man behind the second Red Scare. Truman: The American Experience, David Grubin, 1997, 270 minutes. This video is a four-part series examining the life and presidency of Harry Truman. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 11: Superpower.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). The second-to-last episode takes a closer look at the United States following World War II. The episode describes the 1950s by featuring America’s affluence and the exploration of the final frontier: outer space.
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Chapter 28 THE CONFIDENT YEARS 1953–1964 Chapter Summary Chapter 28 examines the broad impact of the Cold War on U.S. history, in areas ranging from military strategy to race relations. Topics considered in this chapter include the social history of the affluent 1950s; the continuation of Cold War policy; the mystique and mistakes of the John F. Kennedy administration; the birth of the modern American civil rights movement; and Lyndon B. Johnson’s rise to the presidency. I.
A Decade of Affluence A. What’s Good for General Motors 1. Eisenhower and the politics of the middle 2. The new prosperity B. Reshaping Urban America C. Comfort on Credit D. The New Fifties Family 1. The impact of television 2. Stay-at-home moms and working women E. Inventing Teenagers F. Turning to Religion G. The Gospel of Prosperity H. The Underside of Affluence
II.
Facing Off with the Soviet Union A. Why We Liked Ike B. A Balance of Terror C. Containment in Action D. Global Standoff
III.
John F. Kennedy and the Cold War A. The Kennedy Mystique B. Kennedy’s Mistakes C. Getting into Vietnam D. Missile Crisis: A Line Drawn in the Waves E. Science and Foreign Affairs
IV.
Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream: The Struggle for Civil Rights A. Getting to the Supreme Court B. Deliberate Speed C. Public Accommodations D. The March on Washington, 1963 E. Religious Belief and Civil Rights
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V.
“Let Us Continue” A. Dallas, 1963 B. War on Poverty C. Civil Rights, 1964–1965 D. War, Peace, and the Landslide of 1964
VI.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 28, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did the “Decade of Affluence” alter social and religious life in America?
2.
What impact did Dwight Eisenhower’s foreign policy have on U.S. relations with the Soviet Union?
3.
What was John F. Kennedy’s approach to dealing with the Soviet Union?
4.
What was the significance of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka?
5.
How did Lyndon B. Johnson continue the domestic agenda inherited from the Kennedy administration? In what ways did he depart from it?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Prepare a lecture on the emergence of a youth culture during the 1950s. One option is to focus on trends in popular music, particularly rock-and-roll. Connect the origins of rock-and-roll to the southern musical traditions of rhythm and blues, country, and gospel. Examine why early rock-and-roll was referred to as “race music” and why the white community responded with white “cover records.” Supplement the lecture with recordings of early rock-and-roll performers such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry, as well as examples of cover records by performers like Pat Boone. How does Elvis Presley fit into the picture? Presley recorded cover records, but was he distinct from Pat Boone? How so? 2. Examine the status of American women in the 1950s. How was the condition of middle-class American women in the 1950s significantly different from earlier decades in the twentieth century? To what extent was the status of women in the 1950s defined by World War II? How did television and journalism impact the American middle-class woman’s self-image? How does the status of women in the 1950s and 1960s lay the groundwork for a women’s liberation movement? 3. Examine the political ideology of Lyndon Johnson. Focus on the political paradox of a southern politician who eventually played a pivotal role in realizing a liberal reform agenda—including the most significant civil rights legislation since Reconstruction and one of the most ambitious programs addressing economic inequity in America since the New Deal. What factors in Johnson’s political background prepared him for this role? To what extent did interest in and loyalty to the Democratic Party define his role? Ask students to comment on Johnson’s significance to southern politics and to national politics.
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. As mentioned in Chapter 27, some historians have characterized the 1950s as a decade of conservatism, consensus, and conformity. Yet, the 1950s preceded the 1960s, which is characterized as one of the most radical and turbulent decades in modern American history. Have students discuss the 1950s as the breeding ground for the sixties. Consider some of the following issues: a. The 1960s counterculture. Have students consider the baby boom and the emergence of the American teenager as predictors of this sixties phenomenon. Did the emergence of rockand-roll, the Beat generation, and fifties affluence play a role in the emergence of a counterculture? Did the conservatism, consensus, and conformity of the fifties play a role? b. The Vietnam War. Connect the American involvement in Vietnam to post-World War II foreign policy. Were there indications in the fifties that Americans might feel some ambivalence about military intervention in Vietnam? Why would the strongest protest come from youth? c. The civil rights movement. Connect the civil rights movement to the African American role in World War II. Remind students that some of the major events of the movement, including the Brown decision and the Montgomery bus boycott, occurred as early as the mid-fifties. 2. The civil rights movement is often referred to as the Second Reconstruction. Hold a discussion in which students consider the following: a. To what extent was the federal agenda in the civil rights movement similar to the federal agenda in the Civil War? To what extent was the southern agenda during the civil rights movement similar to the southern agenda in the Civil War? Consider the national attention to federal authority and racial justice in both cases and the southern commitment to states’ rights and racial control in both cases. b. Connect the civil rights movement to other historical conflicts regarding states’ rights. Take students back not only to the Civil War but also to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions and the Nullification Crisis. Review the meanings of nullification and interposition. What examples of these principles are seen in the events of the civil rights movement? c. Have students consider the issue of civil disobedience. Review the recurring theme in American history of Americans’ willingness to break the law for a higher good. What similarities exist between the role of African Americans in the civil rights movement and the earlier roles of patriots in the American Revolution or abolitionists who defied the Fugitive Slave Law? d. Compare and contrast the strides made in civil rights during Reconstruction and during the civil rights movement. Why was the civil rights movement needed when the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were in the Constitution? Were the civil rights laws passed during the 1960s as vulnerable to violation as the Reconstruction laws? 3. Have students compare and contrast 1950s and 1960s Cold War foreign policy with late nineteenth-century imperialism. Consider specifically issues related to the need for expanding economic markets, the fear of powers that were considered threatening, the need to expand American global military presence, and the lingering social problems connected with racism. Is there an element of moral diplomacy as well? How important was it in determining policy?
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Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Have students write a review of a book written by one of the 1950s authors mentioned in the chapter. In addition to providing a brief summary and assessment of the book, have students place the work within its historical context. How accurate was the author in assessing his or her own times? How well did he or she predict future developments in American society? 2. Choose one of the lesser figures in the civil rights movement and write a paper evaluating that person’s role and unique contribution to the movement. Some individuals to consider include Fannie Lou Hamer, Anne Moody, and Mose Wright. 3. Have students assess the impact of 1950s television situation comedies on contemporary American society. Divide the class into several groups and have each group choose one television program to study. The members of the group should watch three to five episodes of the program and consider the following questions: a. What does the American family look like in this program? Have students consider such issues as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and level of education. b. How are women portrayed in the program? What is the message being sent to American women of the 1950s regarding their appropriate role in society? c. How are children portrayed in the program? What message does this send to American parents about child-rearing and the expectations placed on children? d. Place the program in its historical context. Is there any indication in the program of the real issues facing Americans during the 1950s? e. Do the images in these programs (many of which still draw large audiences in syndication or in DVD sales and rentals) impact the self-image of Americans today?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Eric Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television (1982). Carl Belz, The History of Rock (1972). Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (1988). Wini Breines, Young, White, and Female: Growing Up Female in the 1950s (1992). Charlie Gillett, Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (1983). David Halberstam, The Fifties (1993). Michael Harrington, The Other America (1962). James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America in Vietnam, 1945–1990 (1991). Joanne Meyerowitz, Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960 (1994). Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954–1992 (1993). Ella Taylor, Prime-Time Families: Television Culture in Postwar America (1989).
Audio-Visual Resources America’s War on Poverty, Blackside, Inc., 1995, 300 minutes. Henry Hampton examines the American government’s role in addressing poverty in this five-part series from the same people who produced Eyes on the Prize.
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The Bay of Pigs, Oregon Public Broadcasting, 1997, 60 minutes. This is a look at Kennedy’s fiasco in Cuba. David Halberstam’s The Fifties, A&E Video, 400 minutes. This is the A&E documentary based on David Halberstam’s 1993 volume on the decade. Eisenhower: The American Experience, Austin Hoyt and Adriana Bosch, 1993, 150 minutes. This video offers a two-part look at the life and presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eyes on the Prize: Parts I & II, Blackside, Inc., 1987, 1990. This is the critically acclaimed 14-part documentary on the American civil rights movement. George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire: The American Experience, PBS Video, 180 minutes. This video tells the life story of the man who made a political career out of supporting segregation. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Biography, A&E Video, 50 minutes. This Biography episode examines the life of the civil rights movement leader. That Rhythm, Those Blues: The American Experience, George T. Nierenberg, 1988, 60 minutes. This video examines the origins of rock-and-roll with a look at rhythm and blues. Thurgood Marshall: Portrait of an American Hero, Columbia Video Productions, 1985, 30 minutes. This video presents a brief look at the life of America’s first African American Supreme Court justice.
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Chapter 29 SHAKEN TO THE ROOTS 1965–1980 Chapter Summary Chapter 29 addresses the turbulence of the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Topics focused on include the continuation of the American involvement in Vietnam; the emergence of the counterculture; urban and suburban growth; the Nixon presidency—with an emphasis on foreign policy and the Watergate scandal—and the Jimmy Carter presidency. I.
The End of Consensus A. Deeper into Vietnam B. Voices of Dissent 1. From protest to confrontation C. New Left and Community Activism D. Youth Culture and Counterculture E. Sounds of Change F. Communes and Cults G. The Feminist Critique H. Coming Out
II.
Cities Under Stress A. Diagnosing an Urban Crisis B. Conflict in the Streets C. Minority Self-Determination 1. Expressions of Black Power 2. Hispanic activism in the Southwest 3. Native Americans assert their identity D. Suburban Independence: The Outer City 1. Suburban economic growth and political influence 2. School busing controversies
III.
The Year of the Gun, 1968 A. The Tet Offensive B. LBJ’s Exit C. Violence and Politics: King, Kennedy, and Chicago
IV.
Nixon, Watergate, and the Crisis of the Early 1970s A. Getting Out of Vietnam, 1969–1975 1. “Vietnamization” and the secret war against Cambodia 2. Stalemate and cease-fire B. Nixon and the Wider World C. Courting Middle America D. Oil, OPEC, and Stagflation E. Americans as Environmentalists F. From Dirty Tricks to Watergate G. The Ford Footnote
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V.
Jimmy Carter: Idealism and Frustration in the White House A. Carter, Energy, and the Economy B. Closed Factories and Failed Farms C. Building a Cooperative World D. New Crises Abroad 1. The failure of Salt II 2. The Iranian hostage crisis
VI.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 29, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
Why did the national consensus of the 1950s and early 1960s unravel?
2.
What challenges did cities face in the late 1960s and 1970s?
3.
How did the Tet Offensive change American public opinion about the war in Vietnam?
4.
What was the legacy of Richard Nixon’s presidency?
5.
What factors limited Jimmy Carter’s effectiveness as president?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Discuss the issue of women involved with the New Left movement during the 1960s. Many students assume that because the New Left was a liberal political movement, gender equity was part of its agenda. Discuss with students how women were treated within the counterculture, the New Left, and the civil rights movement. How did men involved with these movements feel about the status of women? How did women’s experiences in these leftist movements pave the way for the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s? 2. Discuss the role of Henry Kissinger in the foreign affairs of the Nixon administration. How did his European background define his approach to diplomacy? How did he respond to the American tradition of moral diplomacy? How significant was Kissinger’s role in defining American foreign policy during the 1970s? 3. Present a lecture on Jimmy Carter as a southern president. How did his character, political style, and political agenda reflect his southern background? One historian has characterized Carter as the “Yankee from Georgia.” Why? How do Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter compare as southern presidents? How do they differ?
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Revisit the course’s ongoing debate regarding American dissent against war. Have students compare and contrast the ways in which the federal government addressed issues of dissent during World War I and the Vietnam War. Invite students to respond to some of the following: a. Assess the public’s response to American involvement in Vietnam. Which Americans were most active in their protests? What specific issues associated with the war were the targets of protests? Did these issues change over time? Demonstrate how domestic protest escalated with the escalation of the war. b. Assess the factors that resulted in American involvement in these two wars. How were these factors similar? How were they different? Does the fact that the Vietnam conflict was never a declared war affect the propriety or impropriety of dissent against the war? c. Assess the extent to which there was, during both these wars, a gap between the government and the American people regarding support for the wars from the very beginning. To what extent was the government effective in closing this gap during World War I? During the Vietnam War? d. Finally, address the issue of the propriety or impropriety of dissent against war. Was the government right to suppress dissent during World War I? Was it wrong? Was the public right to openly protest the Vietnam War? Was it wrong? Connect these debates to loyalty and dissent during the war in Iraq. 2. Have students compare and contrast the three major leftist movements of the twentieth century: the Lyrical Left, the Old Left, and the New Left. Have students consider the following: a. Place each movement in its historical context. During which general period of American history did each movement emerge? b. Who was involved in each movement? Which sector of society was moved and inspired by the message of each movement? Why? c. What was each movement’s agenda? Does it borrow anything in terms of issues or political style from the movements that preceded it? d. How effective was each movement? Did it have a lasting impact on American politics and/or society? 3. Compare and contrast the southern and northern civil rights movements. Who led the movements? How were these leaders similar? How were they different? What was the style and agenda of the movements? How were they similar? How were they different? How effective were the two movements? To what extent did they define American race relations for the future?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Have students address the issue of Hollywood and the Vietnam War. Allow students to choose one film that addresses American involvement in Vietnam, and then discuss the following: a. How accurately does the film portray the American role in Vietnam? Is it historically accurate? b. How does the film reflect the American struggle with the war—not only the struggle with protest during the war, but also the lingering conflicts after the war ended? c. When was the film produced? Are there differences between films produced immediately after the war and those produced decades later? d. What is the background of the producer and/or director of the film? Does he or she have a clear political agenda? Was he or she actually involved in the war? This assignment would work well for a group project. 113 ..
2. Have students create a dialogue between Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey Newton How were these leaders similar? How were they different? What was each individual’s philosophy toward the issues of violence, integration, and success for the black community? What affiliations did they create or join? What sector of society was inspired by these leaders? 3. Have students prepare an oral history project based on interviews with individuals who lived during the 1960s and 1970s. They can talk to individuals who participated in or were exposed to the counterculture, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the Vietnam War. Emphasize to students that the subject of an oral history does not have to be a renowned person. Anyone who lived through these years, either as an active participant or as a passive observer, offers a perspective from which historians can learn. This can be an exciting way to expose students to the fact that history is living and happening around them. It also often proves to be a personally rewarding experience for the students as well as the subjects.
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Larry Berman, Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam (1982). Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin’ It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader (1995). Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (1993). Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (1980). Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley (1966). Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (1992). Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (2000). Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (1991). Kim McQuaid, The Anxious Years: America in the Vietnam-Watergate Era (1989). William O’Neill, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s (1972). Irwin Unger, The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959–1972 (1974).
Audio-Visual Resources Chicago, 1968: The American Experience, Chana Gazit, 1995, 60 minutes. This video examines events surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Citizen Carter, The Discovery Channel, 60 minutes. This video presents a look at Jimmy Carter’s life after the presidency. Nixon’s China Game: The American Experience, Brook Lapping Associates, 1999, 60 minutes. This PBS video examines Nixon’s policy on China. The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: Vietnam: How We Went to War, The History Channel, 50 minutes. Mike Wallace takes a look at the policies and events that carried America to Vietnam. The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: Pioneers in Space, The History Channel, 50 minutes. Mike Wallace examines the early years of the NASA space program.
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Chapter 30 THE REAGAN REVOLUTION AND A CHANGING WORLD 1981–1992 Chapter Summary Chapter 30 summarizes and contextualizes political, social, economic, and intellectual developments in the United States between 1981 and 1992. Among the topics considered in this chapter are the Reagan revolution; the emergence of new regional economies; the resolution of the Cold War; conflicts in the Middle East; the significance of women’s and gay rights issues in national life; and the “culture wars” as yet another manifestation of the American search for spiritual and personal values. I.
Reagan’s Domestic Revolution A. Reagan’s Majority B. The New Conservatism 1. Downsizing the Great Society 2. Free market utopians 3. Conservative political savvy C. Reaganomics: Deficits and Deregulation 1. Environmental regulation and federal lands 2. Deregulation of the banking industry D. Crisis for Organized Labor 1. Decline of union membership and blue-collar jobs 2. Impact of economic restructuring E. An Acquisitive Society F. Mass Media and Fragmented Culture G. Poverty amid Prosperity 1. Corporate downsizing and white-collar jobs 2. Increase in the poverty rate 3. The wage gap and the feminization of poverty 4. Homelessness in America H. Consolidating the Revolution: George Bush
II.
The Climax of the Cold War A. Confronting the Soviet Union B. Risky Business: Foreign Policy Adventures 1. Intervention and covert activities in Central America 2. The war against drugs 3. Intervention in the Middle East 4. The Iran-Contra Affair 5. U.S. policy in Asia C. Embracing Perestroika D. Crisis and Democracy in Eastern Europe 1. The end of communist regimes in Eastern Europe 2. German reunification and the dissolution of the Soviet Union E. The Persian Gulf War
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III.
Growth in the Sunbelt A. The Defense Economy B. Americans from Around the World C. Old Gateways and New D. The Graying of America
IV.
Values in Collision A. Women’s Rights and Public Policy 1. Abortion rights and the conservative backlash 2. Women in the workforce B. AIDS and Gay Activism C. Churches in Change D. Culture Wars
V.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 30, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
What was revolutionary about the Reagan revolution?
2.
How and why did the Cold War come to an end?
3.
How did growth in the Sunbelt shape national politics in the 1980s and 1990s?
4.
What key social and cultural issues divided Americans in the 1980s and 1990s?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Address the emergence of the Sunbelt as the region of economic growth during the late twentieth century. What factors contributed to this regional shift in economic power? Aside from economic and/or financial issues, are there political, social, or cultural factors involved in the shift? What impact did World War II have on the modern transformation of the South? What impact did the civil rights movement have on the modern transformation of the South? 2. Discuss the connection between the sexual revolution of the 1970s and the broader women’s liberation movement. Although the sexual revolution is often considered part of the women’s liberation movement, sexuality has historically been a divisive issue even among the most progressive women, with some feminists arguing that sexual liberation demeans the status of women and others arguing that sexual liberation allows women to behave as equals with men. How did this conflict play out for men and women in the late twentieth century? How has sexuality and the changing status of women played out in the “culture wars” of recent years?
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Compare and contrast recent trends in American immigration with the New Immigration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Consider the following: a. Compare the two statistically. How many immigrants came into the country during these two periods, and what percentage of American population growth was accounted for by the immigrant population during the two periods? b. Compare the impact of immigration on cities during these two periods. Which aspects of the impact are similar? Which are different? c. Compare the native-born American response to the influx of foreign population during both periods. Again, to what extent is the response similar? To what extent is it different? 2. In recent decades, historians have debated whether the modern South has been nationalized or the nation has been southernized. Have students consider this question today. Have economic revitalization and the movement of people from other regions and countries into the South diminished its unique character and made it more comparable to the rest of the nation? Or, has the exposure of more Americans to southern culture and to problems formerly identified primarily with the South—such as race problems—made the nation more southern (i.e., more politically, socially, religiously, and racially conservative)? 3. Have students discuss the impact of the end of the Cold War on the future of American diplomacy. Review the major trends in modern American diplomatic history, including the imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the moral diplomacy of the world war eras, and the Cold War policy of the post-1945 era. What have been some of the challenges facing the United States as it attempts to develop a new foreign policy? Has the United States continued to organize its foreign policy around the issue of “good guys” and “bad guys”? Has it continued to define foreign policy morally, or has the United States embraced a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy? Has the war in Iraq shed new light on American foreign policy? Ask students what they see as the role of the United States in the global affairs of the twenty-first century.
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Have students investigate the ongoing debates regarding the future of Social Security. What are the demographic problems facing the future of the program? What are the generational issues at stake? How does the demographic phenomenon of the baby boom fit into the picture? This would work well as a class debate. 2. Have students write a paper researching the impact of one of the prominent evangelists of the modern era, such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, or Jimmy Swaggart. In the paper, they can address the contribution of the person to the popularization of evangelical Protestantism, as well as the extent to which each evangelist had a political agenda attached to his ministry. 3. Have students compare and contrast the riots of 1992 with the urban unrest of 1919 and the 1960s. What regions were affected during these events, and who particularly was targeted during the violence and chaos? What was the social climate of each era, and specifically, how did racism incite or defend these events? Did these events have a lasting impact on race relations and American politics? 4. Examine the image of the white male in American popular culture during the 1980s. Consider particularly the film industry and the popularity of Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is there a connection between the popularity of these leading men and the Reagan 117 ..
presidency? Is there a connection between the popularity of the characters these actors portrayed and the rising influence of women and minorities in American society?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects William Bennett, The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (1992). Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, The Deindustrialization of America (1982). Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Really Are (1990) and The Way We Never Were (1992). Lee Edwards, The Conservative Revolution (1999). Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (1999). Frances Fitzgerald, Cities on a Hill (1986). Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation (1975). Jane Davis Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (1991). Rickie Solinger, ed. Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950–2000 (1998). Garry Wills, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home (1987).
Audio-Visual Resources Century of Women, Turner Home Video, 1994. This three-part series examines the history of American women from the nineteenth century to the present. Episodes focus on sexuality, politics, economics, and popular culture. The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: The Iran-Contra Scandal, The History Channel, 50 minutes. The History Channel examines the scandal that failed to derail Ronald Reagan. Reagan: The American Experience, WGBH/Austin Hoyt and Adriana Bosch, 1998, 270 minutes. The American Experience examines the life and presidency of Ronald Reagan. The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: The Persian Gulf War, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This video examines George H. W. Bush’s efforts against Saddam Hussein. The Twentieth Century with Mike Wallace: Ronald Reagan and the Rise of the Right, The History Channel, 50 minutes. This video examines Reagan’s rise to the presidency as a reflection of the emerging New Right.
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Chapter 31 COMPLACENCY AND CRISIS 1993–2010 Chapter Summary Chapter 31 concludes the text with an examination of developments in U.S. history since 1993. Topics covered in this chapter include the 1992 election of Bill Clinton; the strengths and weaknesses of the new economy; the broadening of American democracy; the disputed election of 2000; the tragedy of September 11, 2001; and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. I.
The Politics of the Center A. The Election of 1992: A New Generation B. Policing the World 1. Bosnia and Kosovo 2. The reinvention of NATO 3. Clinton’s neoliberalism C. Contract with America and the Election of 1996 D. The Dangers of Everyday Life 1. Random violence and domestic terrorism 2. Gun control 3. Crime and the war on drugs 4. Debating the death penalty E. Morality and Partisanship F. A New Economy? G. The Prosperous 1990s H. The Service Economy I. The High-Tech Sector J. An Instant Society K. In the World Market 1. The politics of trade 2. Tourism and travel
II.
Broadening Democracy A. Americans in 2000 B. Women from the Grassroots to Congress C. Minorities at the Ballot Box D. Rights and Opportunities 1. Illegal Immigration and Bilingual Education 2. Affirmative Action
III.
Edging into a New Century A. The 2000 Election B. Reaganomics Revisited C. Downsized Diplomacy
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IV.
Paradoxes of Power A. September 11, 2001 B. Security and Conflict C. Iraq and Conflicts in the Middle East D. Hurricane and Financial Storm E. The Obama Phenomenon
V.
Conclusion
Learning Objectives After a careful examination of Chapter 31, students should be able to answer the following: 1.
How did Bill Clinton try to capture the political center?
2.
What role did new information technologies play in the economic boom of the 1990s?
3.
What gains did women and minorities make in the 1990s?
4.
What were the key elements of George W. Bush’s agenda?
5.
What were the causes of the Great Recession?
6.
How did the government and the American people respond to the enormous challenges of the first decade of the twenty-first century?
Topics for Classroom Lecture 1. Continue the assessment of modern southern presidents with a look at Bill Clinton. How did his political style and agenda reflect his southern roots? How does his presidency compare to Lyndon Johnson’s and Jimmy Carter’s, earlier southern presidents of the post-World War II era? Considering issues discussed, is Clinton a reflection of the extent to which the South has been incorporated into the nation, or is he a reflection of the extent to which southern politics have taken on a national appeal? Finally, consider whether George W. Bush could be considered a southern president: he came to the presidency after serving as governor of Texas, but his family and educational roots are firmly planted in New England. Whether Bush himself is or is not “southern,” what does his presidency say about the continuing political evolution of the South? 2. Discuss the intricacies of generational politics in modern America. A number of current authors have set forth the potential for conflict among the three major adult generations represented in American society today: the World War II generation, the baby boomers, and Generation X. Point out the distinctive historical contexts into which each of these generations was born. Demonstrate how these different historical contexts define each generation’s political, economic, social, and cultural agenda. Have students identify the potential for conflict among the generations as America moves forward in the twenty-first century.
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Topics for Class Discussion and Essays 1. Have students look at American foreign policy since the turn of the twentieth century. How has it changed over the last century? Guide students through an assessment that begins with turn-of-the-twentiethcentury imperialism and moves on to moral diplomacy, Cold War diplomacy, and emerging American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and the events of September 11, 2001. As we look at recent foreign policy, has the American approach to international relations changed? If so, how and why has it changed? Are Americans really, as some leaders claim, living in historically unprecedented times? What new challenges confront Americans and how do students think the United States should respond to these challenges? 2. During the study of modern American history, students have regularly evaluated the debate regarding individual versus social responsibility for the welfare of American citizens. Review the progress of this debate from the Progressive Era through the depression era, the 1960s, the Reagan era, and finally today. Have Americans made progress toward resolving this issue? Have students voice their opinions about whether they think the source of social stability lies more in the strength of each individual or in the responsibility assumed by the community. 3. Have students discuss the impeachment of Bill Clinton. You can revisit issues discussed earlier in the course regarding the personal sphere versus the political sphere. Why was Clinton impeached? How did his personal life figure into the events? Compare this impeachment to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Are there differences? Similarities? Have students consider the importance of partisanship in both cases of impeachment. 4. Have students compare and contrast the two major economic revolutions of modern American history. How does the modern transition from an industrial economy to a service, technology, and information economy compare to the late nineteenth-century transition from an agricultural to industrial economy? Consider the following issues: a. The challenges presented to those working in the old economic sector. How have people who were trained and positioned for success in declining economies brought into emerging economies? b. The impact on the size and location of major national urban centers. How did the changing economy define the regions that would prosper and the regions that would decline? c. The impact of the change on personal values and beliefs. How did economic revolution also revolutionize social philosophy and religious faith? d. The impact on the position of the United States in the global economy. Did the economic revolution strengthen the economic position of the United States, weaken it, or simply redefine it?
Topics for Class Projects and Term Papers 1. Have students assess the power of the media in politics today. Are the roles, responsibilities, and power of “traditional” media different than those of “new” media (Web sites, blogs, and other computerbased media)? To what extent has the media determined who was elected as the U.S. president over the last 30 years? A number of different approaches may be taken. Students may look at selected presidential campaigns of the last 30 years and determine the extent to which media coverage impacted the result. They may also choose selected political personalities and demonstrate how these individuals used the media to build political support for their agendas. This would work well as a group project. 121 ..
2. This and previous chapters have discussed “culture wars” and value conflicts within the United States. Have students investigate such conflicts globally rather than as a national issue. Describe the global culture wars that exist in the world today. Why did the events of September 11, 2001 happen? Why are there many nations in the world today that feel resentment and anger toward the United States? What are the most promising ways for the United States to respond to challenges to its global role and image?
Resources for Lectures and Research Projects Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together and What This Means for Democracy (1995). David Maraniss, First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton (1995). Richard A. Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War: The Search for Consensus from Clinton to Nixon (2001). Richard Posner, Breaking the Deadlock: The 2000 Election, the Constitution, and the Courts (2001). Stanley Renshon, High Hopes: The Clinton Presidency and the Politics of Ambition (1996).
Audio-Visual Resources First Lady on the Front Line, A&E Video, 50 minutes. A&E examines the life and future of Hillary Rodham Clinton—one of the most provocative first ladies in American history. NOVA: Why the Towers Fell, PBS Video, 60 minutes. This NOVA special, investigating why the World Trade Center towers fell, includes interviews with survivors of the attack, as well as with rescue personnel who were on the scene. America: The Story of Us, “Episode 12: Millennium.” The History Channel, 2010, 720 minutes (12 episodes). In the final installment, the series concludes with a somber approach to the last forty years; specifically an examination of the space shuttle disaster, 9/11, and the devastation of Katrina.
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