1. What Caused the End of the Reconstruction? in Particular, Why Did the Majority of Republicans

CHAPTER 23

1. What caused the end of the Reconstruction? In particular, why did the majority of Republicans abandon their earlier policy of support for black civil rights and voting in the South?

2. What were the results of the Compromise of 1877 for race relations? How did the suppression of blacks through the sharecropping and crop-lien systems depress the economic condition of the South for whites and blacks alike?

3. White laborers in the West fiercely resisted Chinese immigration, and white farmers in the South turned toward race-baiting rather than forming a populist alliance with black farmers. How and why did racial animosity trump the apparent economic self-interests of these lower-class whites?

Map Discrimination

Using the maps and charts in Chapter 23, answer the following questions.

1. Hayes-Tilden Disputed Election of 1876: In the controversial Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, how many undisputed electoral votes did Republican Hayes win in the former Confederate states?

2. Hayes-Tilden Disputed Election of 1876: Democrat Tilden carried four states in the North—states that did not have slavery before 1865. Which were they?

3. Growth of Classified Civil Service: The percentage of offices classified under civil service was approximately how many times greater under President McKinley than under President Arthur: two, three, four, five, or ten?

4. Presidential Election of 1884: Which of the following states gained the most electoral votes between 1876 and 1884: New York, Indiana, Missouri, or Texas?

5. Presidential Election of 1884: How many states that were carried by Republican Hayes in 1876 were carried by Democrat Cleveland in 1884?

CHAPTER 24

1. What was the impact of the transcontinental rail system on the American economy and society in the late nineteenth century?

2. How did the huge industrial trusts develop in industries such as steel and oil, and what was their effect on the economy? Was the growth of enormous, monopolistic corporations simply the natural end result of economic competition, or did it partly result from corrupt practices designed to eliminate competition?

3. What early efforts were made to control the new corporate industrial giants, and how effective were these efforts?

4. What was the effect of the new industrial revolution on American laborers, and how did various labor organizations attempt to respond to the new conditions?

CHAPTER 25

A line graph is another visual way to convey information. It is often used to present notable historical changes occurring over substantial periods of time. Study the line graph on p.600 and answer the following questions.

1. There are five major peaks of immigration and four major valleys. What factors helped cause each of the periods of heavy immigration? What helped cause each of the sharp declines

2. About how long did each of the first four periods of major immigration last? About how long did each of the four valleys last? How long has the current (to 2006) phase of rising or steady immigration lasted?

3. During what five-year period was there the sharpest rise in immigration? What five-year period saw the sharpest fall?

4. In about what three years did approximately 800,000 immigrants enter the United States? In about what seven years did approximately 200,000 immigrants enter the United States?

5. Approximately how many fewer immigrants came in 1920 than in 1914? About how many more immigrants came in 1990 than in 1950?

CHAPTER 26

1. How did whites finally overcome resistance of the Plains Indians, and what happened to the Indians after their resistance ceased?

2. What social, ethnic, environmental, and economic factors made the trans-Mississippi West a unique region among the successive American frontiers? What makes the West continue to be a region quite distinctive from other regions such as the Northeast, the Midwest, and the South? How does the myth of the frontier West differ from the actual reality, in the late nineteenth century, and after?

3. What were the actual effects of the frontier on American society at different stages of its development? What was valuable in Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, despite its being discredited by subsequent historians.

4. Why did landowning small American farmers—traditionally considered by Jefferson, Jackson, and others the backbone of American society—suddenly find themselves trapped in a cycle of debt, deflation, and exploitation in the late nineteenth century? Was their plight due primarily to deliberate economic oppression corporate business, as they saw it, or was it simply an inevitable consequence of agriculture’s involvement in world markets and economy?

CHAPTER 27

Using the maps and charts in Chapter 27, answer the following questions.

1. United States Expansion, 1857–1917: Of the new American territories acquired in 1898–1899, which three were directly acquired from Spain as a result of conquest in the Spanish-American War (see also text, p. 679)?

2. United States Expansion, 1857–1917: Which new American acquisition was located the farthest south in the Pacific Ocean?

3. Dewey’s Route in the Philippines, 1898: Manila Bay lies off the coast of which island of the Philippine archipelago?

4. The Cuban Campaign, 1898: Which of the two battles fought by Rough Riders—San Juan Hill and El Caney—occurred nearer Santiago Harbor?

5. The Cuban Campaign, 1898: Which of the two Spanish-owned Caribbean islands conquered by the United States in 1898 was farthest from Florida?

Map Challenge

Using the map of United States Expansion on p. 673, discuss the exact geographical relation of each of America’s new Pacific colonies—Samoa, Hawaii, the Philippines—to (a) the United States mainland and (b) China and Japan. Which of the colonies was most strategically important to America’s position in the Pacific, which least, and which was most vulnerable? Why?