Short Answer Questions: Period 4 (1800-1848)
1. Use your knowledge of United States History to answer a, b, and c.
a)Describe ONE example of political policy between1824 and1848 that illustrates the nation’s move toward a more participatory democracy.
b)Use at least ONE piece of evidence to support your explanation.
c)Briefly evaluate ONE limitation of this policy on the nation’s efforts to move to a more participatory democracy.
Learning Objective: ID-1
Learning Objective: POL-3
Learning Objective: POL-5
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Argumentation
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.1.I
Key Concepts: 4.1.II
2. Use your knowledge of United States History to answer a, b, and c.
a)Describe ONE of the reasons for growing tension between the federal government and states’ rights advocates in the United States between1824 and1848.
b)Use ONE piece of historical evidence to support your description.
c)Identify ONE political consequence of this source of tension.
Learning Objective: ID-1
Learning Objective: POL-3
Learning Objective: POL-5
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Argumentation
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.1.I
Key Concepts: 4.3.II
Key Concepts: 4.3.III
3. Use your knowledge of United States History to answera, b, and c.
a)Choose ONE of the following and explain why it had the greatest impact on the development of the American economy before the Civil War.
- Changes in the population
- Transportation
- Communication
- Technology
b) Provide at least ONE piece of evidence to support your answer.
c) Contrast your choice against ONE of the other options, demonstrating why that option is not as good as your choice.
Learning Objective: PEO-2
Learning Objective: PEO-3
Learning Objective: WXT-2
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Argumentation
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.2.I
Key Concepts: 4.2.II
4. Use your knowledge of United States History to answer a, b, and c.
a) Describe ONE way in which enslaved African Americans, isolated at the bottom of the social hierarchy, created communities.
b) Provide ONE piece of evidence to support your description.
c) Briefly explain ONE strategy enslaved African Americans used in order to protect their family structures.
Learning Objective: ID-1
Learning Objective: ID-5
Learning Objective: CUL-2
Learning Objective: CUL-5
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Argumentation
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.1.III
5. Use your knowledge of United States History to answer a, b, and c.
a) Describe the abolitionist movement in the context of an effort to match democratic political ideas to political institutions or social realities.
b)Use ONE piece of evidence to support your answer.
c) Provide ONE example of how the abolitionists were either successful or unsuccessful at achieving this goal.
Learning Objective: POL-3
Learning Objective: CUL-2
Learning Objective: CUL-4
Historical Thinking Skill: Contextualization
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.1.II
5. Have students examine one of the historical monographs below (or some of your choosing) and determine one of the author’s historical arguments. Have them choose a passage that illustrates one of the arguments, write it using proper citation style, and then answer questions a, b, and c below.
- Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Vintage, 1998
- James Ronda, Lewis and Clark Among the Indians, University of Nebraska Press, 1984
- Thomas C. Cochran, Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialization in America, Oxford University Press, 1983
- Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic, Oxford University Press, 1994
- Gary Wills, James Madison, Times Books, 2002
a) Briefly explain the main point of the author’s historical argument in the selected passage.
b) Provide ONE piece of historical evidence that is not included in the passage and explain how it supports the historian’s argument.
c) Briefly relate the historian’s argument to one of the following themes:
- Work, Exchange and Technology
- Politics and Power
- Peopling
Learning Objective: WXT-2
Learning Objective: WXT-5
Learning Objective: PEO-2
Learning Objective: PEO-3
Learning Objective: POL-2
Learning Objective: POL-5
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Argumentation
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.2.I
Key Concepts: 4.2.II
Key Concepts: 4.2.III
The Missouri Compromise, 1820
6. Use the map above and your knowledge of U.S. history to answer questions a,b, and c.
a) Choose ONE of the factors below and explain why it played the greatest role in precipitating the Missouri Compromise.
- Debate over political values
- Regional identity
- Environmental factors
b) Cite ONE piece of historical evidence to support your explanation.
c) Briefly contrast your choice against ONE of the other options, demonstrating why that option is not as good as your choice.
[for question 6]
Learning Objective: ID-5
Learning Objective: POL-6
Learning Objective: ENV-3
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Causation
Historical Thinking Skill: Comparison
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Key Concepts: 4.1.I
Key Concepts: 4.1.II
Key Concepts: 4.3.III
Much has been written and spoken in woman’s behalf, especially in America; and yet a large class of females are, and have been, destined to a state of servitude as degrading as unceasing toil can make it. I refer to the female operatives of New England… who are in fact nothing more nor less than slaves …to a system of labor which requires them to toil from five [a.m.]until seven o’clock [p.m.], with one hour only to attend to the wants of nature, allowed…
… Then too, when she is at last released from her wearisome day’s toil,… shemust… be subjected to the manifold inconveniences of a large crowded boarding-house…that…will not ensure to her the common comforts of life; she is obliged to sleep in a small comfortless, half ventilated apartment containing some half a dozen occupants each…
…we will soon show thesedrivellingcotton lords, this mushroom aristocracy of New England, who so arrogantly aspire to lord it over God’s heritage, that our rights cannot be trampled upon with impunity; that we WILL no longer submit to that arbitrary power which has for the last ten years been so abundantly exercised over us.
From a tract written by women workers in a Lowell, Massachusetts textile mill, 1845
7. Use the passage above and your knowledge of U.S. history to answer questions a,b, and c.
a)Describe the main point of this passage.
b)Explain this passage in the context of ONE of the following.
- Development of labor systems
- Gender roles and women’s rights
- Internal migration patterns
- The demands of regional economic specialization
c) Provide ONE piece of evidence not included in this passage to support your assertion.
Learning Objective: ID-1
Learning Objective: WXT-2
Learning Objective: WXT-4
Learning Objective: PEO-3
Learning Objective: ENV-4
Historical Thinking Skill: Contextualization
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.1.II
Key Concepts: 4.2.I
Key Concepts: 4.2.II
Key Concepts: 4.2.III
8. Use your knowledge of United States History to answera, b, and c.
a) Describe ONE specific debate over federal power in the years 1800-1848.
b) Assess the impact of this debate on the emerging national identity during thistime period.
c) Cite ONE piece of historical evidence to support your assessment.
Learning Objective: ID-1
Learning Objective: ID-5
Learning Objective: POL-5
Learning Objective: POL-6
Historical Thinking Skill: Historical Causation
Historical Thinking Skill: Appropriate Use of Relevant Historical Evidence
Historical Thinking Skill: Interpretation
Key Concepts: 4.1.I
Key Concepts: 4.3.II
Key Concepts: 4.3.III