American History: A Survey, 13th editionAP U. S. History

Unit 6

Textbook chapters / Maps & documents
Chapter 16:The Conquest of the Far West
Chapter 17: Industrial Supremacy
Chapter 18: The Age of the City /
  1. Immigration into the U. S. by decade, data & chart
  2. Excerpt from Plessy v. Ferguson, decision & dissent by Justice John Marshall Harlan

Essential Questions: Think about these questions before, during, and after the reading. They are very general; there is no specifically correct answer. If you understand their complexity and feel confident in using information from the text and the supplementary reading in answering these questions, you should understand the major themes from this period.

  1. In what ways was the post-Civil War immigration different from the immigration that occurred in the 1830s and 1840s?
  2. Compare the post-Civil War industrialization with the "factory system" of the 1840s.
  3. How do you account for the growth of cities, the urbanization, of the 1880s and 1890s?
  4. The farmers of the west and south felt in some ways similar to the workers in Eastern cities. How did the farmers' response differ from the response of workers in the east?
  5. Discuss the similarities between the Horatio Alger "rags-to-riches" attitude and the Social Darwinism of William Graham Sumner.
  6. Evaluate the effect of "bigness"—inbusiness, in the burgeoning economy, in foreign affairs--on American Society in the period between 1875 and 1925.

Potential free response essay prompts: [At the end of this unit you should be able to answer all of the following using specific names, dates, locations, events (i.e. proper nouns), to demonstrate your understanding of the significant concepts listed below.]

  1. How were the lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century affected by technological developments and government actions?
  2. It was innovations in communications and transportation, more than innovations in business and industry, that changed the daily life of the working American. Assess the validity of this statement for the period 1875-1900.
  3. Because of industrialization the lives of most Americans underwent a fundamental transformation. Assess the validity of this statement in relation to TWO of the following for the period 1875-1900.

the family unit

in consumer behavior

in leisure-time activities

American class structure

  1. How did the “old immigration” of the 1840s and 1850s differ from the “new immigration” that began in the 1880s?

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