Exploring American Histories

Keys for Success:

• Explain your points simply, like you would to another student.
• Write in short to medium-sized paragraphs.
• Use specific examples from our readings and class discussion. Instead of footnotes, simply put the lead author and one or more page numbers in parentheses.  Example:  (Hewitt, 42)
• Relate your answers to major concepts and trends we have covered.
• When you use pictures, note how the pictures help us understand the topics.

Part I.  Short Essays.  Write short essays (about three paragraphs each) on two of the following items.  Tell why the key term is important to our understanding of America in the late 1800s or early 1900s.  Show how each key term relates to major ideas and historical trends we have discussed.  Include at least one picture for each essay, and note how the picture helps us understand the topic.

Freedmen’s Bureau                                          New South

Geronimo                                                        Knights of Labor

Californios                                                       Populists

Chinese (in America)                                       Pullman Strike

Verticle Integration                                          Political Machines

Part II.  Longer Essays.  Write longer essays (at least five paragraphs each) on two of the topics below.  Include one or two pictures with each essay and tell how the pictures help us.  For each essay, include material from at least two primary source documents, available on LaunchPad, that relate to the topics. When you use a document, put the title of the document in bold.  Please make sure the topics you cover in Part II are different from what you discuss in Part I.

1. African Americans. Describe some of the challenges facing black Americans in era from Reconstruction to the early 1900s.  Please use information from at least three chapters.

2. Describe the political dynamics you see in several of these chapters.  Who do you see using power effectively?  How did politics relate to the lives of ordinary Americans?

3. The West. What was so special about the West in the late 1800s?  Describe some of the different types of people who lived in the West and the challenges they faced.  Explain how the West was changing rapidly in this time period.

4. Workers and Farmers. Describe some of the challenges facing working people in the late 1800s. What could they do to improve their situation?  How successful were they?

5. Changing Times. Describe how the lives of Americans changed as a result of industrialization, migration, and the growth of cities.  Discuss how the changes relate to developments within the country as well as larger global trends.