United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict
The framing of the Constitution, the founding principles, regional differences, the Civil War, WWI and the rise and effects of industrialization
- The conflicting interpretations of state and federal authority as emphasized in the speeches and writings of statesmen such as Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun
- The boundaries constituting the North and the South, the geographical differences between the two regions and the differences between agrarians and industrialists
- The constitutional issues posed by the doctrine of nullification and secession and the earliest origins of that doctrine
- Abraham Lincoln's presidency and his significant writings and speeches and their relationship to the Declaration of Independence, such as his "House Divided" speech (1858), Gettysburg Address (1863), Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and inaugural addresses (1861 and 1865)
- The views and lives of leaders (e.g., Ulyses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee) and soldiers on both sides of the war, including those of black soldiers and regiments
8.11 THE CHARACTER AND LASTING CONSEQUENCES OF RECONSTRUCTION
- The original aims of Reconstruction and its effects on the political and social structures of different regions
- The push-pull factors in the movement of former slaves to the cities in the North and to the West and their differing experiences in those regions (e.g., the experiences of Buffalo Soldiers)
- The effects of the Freedom's Bureau and the restrictions placed on the rights and opportunities of freedmen, including racial segregation and "Jim Crow" laws
- The rise and effects of the Ku Klux Klan
- The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and their connection to Reconstruction
8.12 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY AND THE CHANGING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED STATES IN RESPONSE TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
- Patterns of agricultural and industrial development as they related to climate, use of natural resources, markets and trade, and the locations of such patterns of develpment on a map
- The reasons for the development of federal Indian policy and the wars with American Indians and their relationship to agricultural development and industrialization
- How states and the federal government encouraged business expansion through tariffs, banking, land grants and subsidies
- Entrepreneurs, industrialists and bankers in politics, commerce and industry (e.g., Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Leland Stanford)
- The location and effects of urbanization, renewed immigration and industrialization (e.g., the effects on social fabric of cities, wealth and economic opportunity, the conservation movement)
- Child labor, working conditions and laissez-faire policies toward big business and the labor movement, including its leaders (e.g., Samuel Gompers), its demand for collective bargaining and its strikes and protests over labor conditions
- The new sources of large-scale immigration and the contributions of immigrants to the building of cities and the conomy; the ways in which new social and economic patterns encouraged assimilation of newcomers into the mainstream amidst growing cultural diversity; the new wave of nativism
- The characteristics and impact of Grangerism and Populism
- The significant inventors and their inventions and how they improved the quality of life (e.g., Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Orville and Wilbur Wright)