United States History and Geography:
Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century
Major turning points in American History following a review of the nation's beginnings and the impact of the Enlightenment on U.S.democratic ideals; the impact of technology and a corporate economy; the change in ethnic composition; the movement toward equal rights; the U.S. as a major world power; the expanding role of the federal government and federal courts; the major social problems and their causes in historical events; how the U.S. has served as a model, and how it must have an educated populace in order to uphold its position.
- The Englightenment and the rise of democratic ideas as the context in which the nation was founded
- The ideological origins of the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers' philosophy of divinely bestowed unalienable natural rights, the debates on the drafting and ratification of the Constitution and the addition of the Bill of Rights
- The history of the Constitution after 1787 with emphasis on federal versus state authority and growing democratization
- The effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and of the industrial revolution, including demographic shifts and the emergence in the late nineteenth century of the United States as a world power
11.2 THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION, LARGE-SCALE RURAL-TO-URBAN MIGRATION AND MASSIVE IMMIGRATION FROM SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE
- The effects of industrialization on living and working conditions, including the portrayal of working conditions and food safety in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
- The changing landscape, including the growth of cities linked by industry and trade and the development of cities divided according to race, ethnicity and class
- The effect of the Americanization movement
- The effect of urban political machines and responses to them by immigrants and middle-class reformers
- The corporate mergers that produced trusts and cartels and the economic political policies of industrial leaders
- The economic development of the United States and its emergence as a major industrial power, including its gains from trade and the advantages of its physical geography.
- The similarities and differences between the ideologies of Social Darwinism and Social Gospel (e.g., using biographies of William Graham Sumner, Billy Sunday, Dwight L. Moody)
- The effect of political programs and activities of Populists
- The effect of political programs and activities of the Progressives (e.g., federal regulation or railroad transport, Children's Bureau, the Sixteenth Amendment, Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson)
11.3 THE ROLE RELIGION PLAYED IN THE FOUNDING OF AMERICA, ITS LASTING MORAL, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IMPACTS AND ISSUES REGARDING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
- The contributions of various religious groups to American civic principles and social reform movements (e.g., civil and human rights, individual responsibility and the worl ethic, antimonarchy and self-rule, worker protection, family-centered communities)
- The great religious revivals and the leaders involved in them, including the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Civil War revivals, the Social Gospel Movement, the rise of Christian liberal theology in the nineteenth century, the impace of the Second Vatican Council and the rise of current Christian fundamentalism
- The citation of incidences of religious intolerance in the United States (e.g., persecution of Mormons, anti-Catholic sentiment, anti-Semitism)
11.4 THE RISE OF THE U.S. TO WORLD POWER IN THE 20TH CENTURY
- The purpose and effects of the Open Door policy
- The Spanish-American War and U.S. expansion in the South Pacific
- America's role in the Panama Revolution and the building of the Panama Canal
- Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, William Taft's Dollar Diplomacy and Woodrow Wilson's Moral Diplomacy, drawing on relevant speeches
- The political, economic and social ramification of WWI on the home front
- The declining role of Great Britain and the expanding role of the U.S. in world affairs after WWII
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