APUSH

Extra Credit – Second Quarter

For a maximum of five extra credit points, write a one-page single spaced paper addressing one of the topics below. You must use parenthetical citations to cite your sources. You will submit the paper to turnitin.com. A hard copy will not be accepted.

  • Focus on Jefferson as political philosopher, practical political leader, and enduring symbol of American democracy. Examine the elements of Jefferson’s political ideals and compare them with his actual performance in office.
  • Consider the role of the Supreme Court and judicial review in the American political system in Jefferson’s time and after. Discuss particularly its apparently antidemocratic character.
  • Focus on the causes and consequences of the Louisiana Purchase, particularly on its implications for the future westward movement of the United States. Examine the Lewis and Clark Expedition as both an enterprise of geographic and scientific inquiry and as a political maneuver to put an American imprint on the North American continent. (Note that Lewis and Clark traveled far beyond the Purchase territory proper, implying even further expansion.)
  • Examine the background and ambitions of the young western War Hawks of 1812, including people such as Congressman Henry Clay. Consider the important place of Canada in the thinking of those who pushed for war against Britain.
  • Consider the War of 1812 in relation to American nationalism. Discuss the way that Andrew Jackson’s victory in a battle, fought afterthe peace treaty had been signed, enabled Americans to emerge with flag-waving patriotism after a bungled and divisive war.
  • Review the demands made in the Hartford Convention’s final report. Were they reasonable remedies and thoughtful modifications to the federal government or were they simply partisan arguments for sectional self-interest?
  • Analyze one or more of Marshall’s rulings—for example, McCulloch v. Maryland—in order to show how he strengthened conservative federal power against the democratizing tendencies of states’ rights.
  • Discuss the mixed motives behind the Monroe Doctrine and the ambiguous meanings that could be attached to it. Consider whether its primary purpose was to thwart Britain and the Old World powers, to protect the Latin American republics, or assert American security interests.
  • Provide more material on the Five Civilized Tribes, particularly the Cherokees, and discuss their fate during and after the Trail of Tears.
  • Examine the dramatic events of the Texas revolution, such as the Alamo and San Jacinto, in relation to the broad historical context of the Texas revolt. Explain the reasons so many northerners regarded the Texas revolt as a slaveholders’ conspiracy. Consider how the Texas developments might have looked from a Mexican perspective.
  • Discuss the roots of Irish immigration to America. Consider the changing historical image of Irish-Americans and their culture from the nineteenth century to the present and the relationship between popular stereotypes (Irish police, St. Patrick’s Day) and the actual experience of Irish-Americans.
  • Discuss one or more of the early inventions and their relation to economic growth, for example, the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the mechanical reaper, and the telegraph. Consider how much technological progress depends on the proper social and economic conditions.
  • Use popular contemporary texts such as McGuffey’s Readers or Godey’s Lady’s Book to illuminate early American character and values. Discuss how the messages that were especially aimed at children or women reveal prevalent social attitudes, as well as the nature and purposes of nineteenth-century education.
  • Examine the story of the Mormons. In what way is it an American story (individualism, fighting religious persecution, and pioneering)? In what ways is it an un-American story (others’ intolerance, communalism, and polygamy)?
  • Analyze one or more of the utopian communities, such as the Shaker communes, New Harmony, Oneida, or Brook Farm. Consider how the success or failure of such efforts should be judged.
  • Describe the operation of a typical large plantation or the working life of a typical large-plantation owner, including relations with overseers and slaves.
  • Examine the black family and black religion. Consider how slavery affected both white and black views of women, family, and sexuality.
  • Examine the paradox that slavery often involved intimate and personal relationships between individual whites and blacks (exemplified by the photo of the slave nurse with white child), even while it maintained a strict and often violent system of control over the slaves as a group. Ask why this paternalistic element of American slaveholding was so important to southerners’ self-justification of slavery.
  • Focus on John Brown as a crucial character in two of the major events of the decade, bleeding Kansas and Harpers Ferry.
  • Trace the rise of Lincoln through the events of the decade, from the Kansas-Nebraska Act to the Lincoln-Douglas debates to the 1860 election.
  • Identify the significance of the Border States to both the North and the South, and examine how they influenced decisions of the Union and the Confederacy.
  • Focus on the ordinary soldiers, North and South. Point out the differences (for example, in supplies) as well as the similarities in the experiences of Billy Yank and Johnny Reb.
  • Discuss different interpretations of the Civil War. Point out how its meaning has varied according to changes in North-South and black-white relations.
  • The South had long hoped for international intervention in its fight with the North. If the South had been able to secure international aid, what would have been most beneficial? What did the South need from other nations in order to win the war (or at least force a peace settlement)?
  • Compare and contrast the various Union leaders that Lincoln went through (McClellan and Meade specifically) before settling on Grant.
  • Compare Grant and Lee as military leaders. The focus might be on Lee as the greatest of the traditional strategists, whereas Grant represented the new age of total war.
  • Discuss the new circumstances and experiences of the ordinary freed African Americans. Consider such developments as the westward-migrating Exodusters and the newly powerful black churches. What obligation, if any, did the federal government have to the African Americans that it recently freed from slavery?
  • Look at the Ku Klux Klan in relation to its historical significance in the 1870s and its enduring presence as a symbol of white racism and illegal violence.
  • Focus on the character of Andrew Johnson, and particularly, his difficulty as a “poor Southern white” in the White House during Republican Reconstruction. Perhaps contrast him with his great enemy Thaddeus Stevens.
  • Why were women’s rights ignored during the period of Reconstruction? What does the failure to include sex in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments suggest about the nation’s commitment to equality?
  • Discuss Grant’s failures as president in contrast with his success as a general. Contrast his performance with that of other general-presidents such as Washington or Jackson who were successful politicians.
  • Consider the Compromise of 1877 in relation to race and sectional conflict. Ask whether a Republican unwillingness to compromise by ending Reconstruction might have led to renewed sectional violence.
  • Examine the “corrupt” J.P. Morgan gold deal of 1895 as a symbol of what many Americans saw as the capture of the federal government by big business. Consider Morgan himself as an important political as well as economic figure, and ask whether he deserved the villainous treatment he received from critics and protestors.
  • Discuss the railroads as both romantic enterprise (for example, the golden spike, the luxurious Pullman cars) and as controversial exploitative business (for example, the corruption of legislatures, price-fixing).
  • Examine the benefits and drawbacks of industrialization for various groups (business, labor, women, minorities, immigrants).
  • Using Edison as a symbol of the emerging technological and industrial age, show how his inventions were quickly taken up and incorporated into huge new industries.
  • Use the Haymarket affair to illustrate the growing class conflicts in industrial America and to highlight the debates over how American workers should respond to the new industrial conditions.
  • Use Jane Addams’s experiences to demonstrate how some Americans encountered the problems of new industrial metropolises like Chicago.
  • Examine the myths and the realities of immigration. A good starting point might be Emma Lazarus’s Statue of Liberty poem, which says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” but also called the immigrants “wretched refuse.”
  • Analyze the impact of urban life, immigration, Darwinism, and biblical higher criticism (literary scholarship) on religion, including the “immigrant religions” such as Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Judaism.
  • Focus on one of the notable Indian chiefs (for example, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, or Geronimo). Examine their roles as leaders of their people both in resistance to white conquest and under the forced circumstances of reservation life. Consider their subsequent role as continuing symbols in later American history and culture.
  • Examine the life of the typical homesteader on the Great Plains, perhaps drawing on literary works such as those of Ole Rolvaag or Willa Cather. Consider why such a person might be led to join the Farmers’ Alliances. Perhaps compare the condition of pioneer farmers with those in the South, white and black.
  • Analyze the long-term significance of the Republican victory in 1896. Consider McKinley as a symbol of triumphant urban industrial capitalism and the harbinger of an age of Republican political domination.