Click on the desired period below for summaries, "must know" events & people, topics covered, and review videos.
Summary
The end of the Civil War and the frustrations of Reconstruction paved the way for unprecedented numbers of Americans to move west into the frontier. New opportunities in mining, cattle and farming attracted settlers like never before. The age of the cowboy and the open range had arrived while tense relations with natives created new problems and devastating wars across the west. The American farmers also faced great hardships but worked together to form the Populist Party and changed the frontier and American politics forever. Tycoons in various industries dominated and politicians bowed to their demands. One of the great new industries was the railroad which did what all great big businesses of the day did - it depended on immigrant labor and thrived on innovation and efficiency. Workers fought for their rights with strikes and unions but nothing could stop the growth of industrialization in America. The large number of immigrants that filled those cities and factories forced local governments to deal with housing, sanitation and criminal activity. Large numbers of immigrants, the rise of big business and the impact of industrialization created an atmosphere of corruption and greed as reformers came around in an attempt to change all of that.
Must Know Events & People
Segregation
Gilded Age
Political machines
Laissez-faire policies
Immigrants from Asia
Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe
Public debates over Americanization and assimilation
Settlement houses
Jane Addams
Social Gospel
African American reformers
Westward migration
Boomtown areas of the West
Confinement of American Indians to reservations
Government policies promoting assimilation of American Indians
Tenant farming
Mechanized agriculture
People’s (Populist) party
Political debates over tariffs and currency issues
Topics Covered
Political Corruption & Financial Panic in the Gilded Age
Compromise of 1877, Jim Crow & Ethnic Conflicts
Reform & the Rise of the Populist Party
The Rise of the Railroad
The Rise of Industrial Capitalism
The Responses of Industrialization
Urbanization & Immigration
Responses to Immigration
Religion, Education & the Press
Reforms & Family Life
Literature, Art & Amusement
Clash of Cultures
Economic Development in the West
Farming the Frontier
Troubled Farmers Take Their Stand
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Westward Expansion: Economic Development
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Westward Expansion: Social & Cultural Development
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - The “New” South
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Technological Innovation in the Gilded Age
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - The Rise of Industrial Capitalism
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Labor in the Gilded Age
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Immigration & Migration in the Gilded Age
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Development of the Middle Class
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Reform in the Gilded Age
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Controversies Over the Role of Government in the Gilded Age
Period 6 Review: Heimler’s History - Politics in the Gilded Age
Summary
Fueled by the industrial age and in search of new markets, America grew into an imperial power at the end of the 19th century. The power of the US navy and armed forces conquered far away lands in Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. The desire to spread democracy and sell manufactured goods put the United States on the world stage for the first time. The Spanish-American War brought with it controversy, opened new markets, and raised many new questions in America and around the world.
When world war broke out in Europe, America tried to stay out of it but the new role the US had assumed and tragic events involving American citizens dragged the reluctant giant into the conflict. The end result of the Great War would change the lives of everyone on the planet and solidify the role of the United States as a world power. America emerged from the Great War as the leading industrial nation in the world. The struggle to save democracy made this country long for a “return to normalcy” and a peaceful life once again. Americans were glad to put the war behind them and looked forward to a new, exciting decade.
The war years brought about less wheat for beer and more opportunities for women. The 1920s would reflect those trends through Prohibition and women's suffrage. It would also be a decade of big business, racial tension, changing values, religious conflict, automobiles, and new music. It was also a decade that saw a rise in the fear of foreigners, anarchists, and especially communists. As farmers struggled in rural America, the division between the rich and the poor in the cities became larger. Through it all, however, America seemed to be having a great time. The “Roaring ‘20s” gave the impression that this prosperity would have no end. Government let big business run wild and the rich kept getting richer. What they failed to notice was that the urban poor and the farmers were just the first groups that would suffer. Soon, the entire nation would be crushed in the grip of the Great Depression. America had to pay a price for the Roaring Twenties. The unchecked business practices, high tariffs, credit spending, and speculation in the stock market eventually sent the economy into a tailspin. The Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 marked the beginning of the Great Depression in America.
This depression affected millions worldwide and changed the course of history forever. When Herbert Hoover proved incapable of helping, America turned to Franklin Delano Roosevelt for answers. His election in 1932 brought dramatic changes to the lives of American citizens. His New Deal increased government spending, created works projects to get men off the streets and provided essentials that people needed to survive. His programs over the next decade gave the American people and economy relief, recovery, and reform. But most importantly, it gave them hope. America spent the 1930s digging out of the depression and fighting against the worst ecological disaster ever witnessed across this country’s heartland - the Dust Bowl. Americans had too much to worry about at home and had little time or resources to pay attention to what was happening across Europe and Asia. The dark clouds of war were gathering…
As America remained isolated from the rest of the world during the Great Depression, dangerous men were taking power in Europe and Asia. Men like Mussolini and Hitler took full advantage of the despair left behind from WWI and the depression. Nations like France and Great Britain did little to stop them. Meanwhile, Japan was taking control of the Pacific and crushing anyone who dared get in their way. Germany signed a secret pact with Russia and invaded Poland sparking the beginning of WWII. Japan, Italy, and Germany formed the evil Axis Powers and America stayed out of war. Over time, U.S. neutrality gave way to intervention on behalf of the Allied Powers but after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 America was all in. Soon Germany would betray the Russians and open up a two front war. The Allies fought to gain footing in Europe and finally did on June 6, 1944. D-Day, as it became known, proved to be the turning point in the war. Soon, forces from the east and west met in Berlin and ended Hitler’s reign. Victory in Japan would prove more difficult and controversial. Brutal battles on the islands in the Pacific showed that the Empire of Japan wouldn’t surrender but new technology offered a quicker solution. Harry Truman, who took office after FDR’s death in 1945, made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. This destruction ended their resistance and the war was finally over. However, new questions had to be answered about nuclear war and the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia that would threaten the entire globe for the next half of a century.
Must Know Events & People
Imperialists
Anti-imperialists
Spanish-American War
U.S. acquisition of island territory in the Caribbean and Pacific
U.S. suppression of a nationalist movement in the Philippines
Increase in involvement in Asia
Progressive era
Progressives/progressive reformers
Social gospel
Progressive era journalists (also called muckrakers)
Conservationists
Preservationists
Woodrow Wilson
World War I
U.S. initial neutrality in World War I
Woodrow Wilson’s calls for defense of humanitarian and democratic principles
American Expeditionary Force
Official restrictions on freedom of speech during World War I
Women’s suffrage
Woodrow Wilson’s postwar negotiations
League of Nations
Red scare
Nativist campaigns
Immigration restriction
Quotas that restricted immigration from Asia and southern and eastern Europe
New technologies and manufacturing techniques
Modernism
Harlem Renaissance movement
Post–World War I unilateral foreign policy
U.S. isolationism
Episodes of credit and market instability
Great Depression
Franklin D. Roosevelt
New Deal
New Deal legacy of reforms and regulatory agencies
Limited welfare state
Long-term political realignment of the Democratic party
Modern American liberalism
World War II
U.S. isolationism
The rise of fascism and totalitarianism
The aggression of Nazi Germany and Japan
U.S. participation in World War II
Mass mobilization of American society
Holocaust
Internment of Japanese Americans
Pacific “island hopping”
D-Day invasion
Allied victory over Axis powers
The use of atomic bombs
Postwar peace settlements
Topics Covered
U.S. Becomes a World Power
The Spanish-American War
Troubles in the New Empire
Teddy Roosevelt the Imperialist
The Origins of Progressivism
Political, African-American & Women Progressives
Foreign Affairs for President Wilson
The U.S. in WWI
Wilson Fights for Post-War Peace
1920s Politics & the Economy
1920s Culture & Conflict of Values
1920s Nativism & Foreign Policy
Herbert Hoover & the Crash
FDR & the Three "R"s
Banks and Industry in the New Deal
Farmers in the New Deal
Labor and the Courts in the New Deal
World War II - Prelude to War
World War II - From Neutrality to War
World War II - Homefront
World War II - The War
World War II - Victory
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - Debates About American Imperialism
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - The Spanish-American War
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - The Progressive Era
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - World War I: Military & Diplomacy
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - World War I: On the Homefront
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - The 1920s: Innovations in Communication & Technology
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - The 1920s: Cultural & Political Controversies
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - The Great Depression & the New Deal
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - Interwar Foreign Policy (between WWI & WWII)
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - World War II: Mobilization
Period 7 Review: Heimler’s History - World War II: Military Strategy
Summary
World War II was finally over but it was becoming more and more clear that the events of that catastrophic conflict would have a major impact on the upcoming years. Postwar America thrived but the economic and political instability left behind in Europe and across the Pacific left the United States and the Soviet Union scrambling to gain control in those regions. The ideological differences between the two superpowers and the dawn of the nuclear age combined for the most terrifying war of all - the Cold War. The constant threat of nuclear attacks made it even more difficult for America to carry out the policy of Containment wherein stopping the spread of Communism was the main goal. Smaller wars (compared to the World Wars) in Korea and Vietnam were confusing to the American people and costly in many ways.
Throughout the era Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter faced unprecedented foreign and domestic issues. Consumerism, fast cars, television, and rock-n-roll music were a welcome distraction for many Americans as the conformity of the 1950s gave way to the cultural revolution of the 1960s and an economic crisis of the 1970s. More serious issues also kept Americans somewhat distracted from a nuclear showdown with the Soviets: The baby boom generation dealt with the terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tragedy of Kennedy’s assassination, and fought Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. While the Cold War continued to rage across the globe, other wars gained momentum within the United States. The Civil Rights movement renewed the old confrontation between the North and the South and the states and the federal government. One hundred years after the Civil War, the fight raged on. This time, however, the fight wasn’t to save the Union or to end slavery. This fight was to ensure that all Americans were treated like Americans. This was a fight to desegregate, extend civil rights to all men and women and the right to vote without fear of reprisal. Many brave men and women of all colors, Like Dr. King, fought and died in this war but the gains they made changed the course of history.
Must Know Events & People
Cold War
Containment (also referred to as “contain communism”)
Soviet Union
Military engagements in Korea
Policies and methods to expose suspected communists within the United States
The suburbs
U.S. support for noncommunist regimes in Latin America
U.S. involvement in the Middle East
Vietnam War
“Military-industrial complex”
Desegregation of armed services
Brown v. Board of Education
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Strategies of civil rights activists: legal challenges, direct action, and nonviolent protest tactics
Homogeneous mass culture
Challenges to conformity by artists, intellectuals, and rebellious youth
Vietnam War
Détente
Oil crisis
Lyndon Johnson
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Great Society
Counterculture of the 1960s
Gay and lesbian activists
Resurgent conservative movement
Mutual coexistence (détente)
Feminists
Topics Covered
Cold War America
The Korean War
The Red Scare
Cold War Prosperity
1950s Culture
Civil Rights and Boycotts
Ike's Triumphs at Home & Troubles Abroad
JFK's "New Frontier"
Foreign Flare-ups
Continued Struggle for Civil Rights & JFK's Assassination
LBJ's Great Society & Black Power
Vietnam & the Cultural Upheaval of the 1960s
Watergate and the Fallout
Feminism & Civil Rights in the 1970s
Carter's Malaise
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The Cold War
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The Red Scare!
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - Economy After 1945
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - Culture After 1945
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s & 1950s
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - America as a World Power
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The Vietnam War
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The African American Civil Rights Movement
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The Civil Rights Movement Expands
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - Youth Culture of the 1960s
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - The Environment & Natural Resources
Period 8 Review: Heimler’s History - American Society in Transition
Summary
The post-Cold War era saw some of the most sweeping changes in human history. Every aspect of human existence was changed by technology. While the world map was redrawn as the Soviet Union fell, it also shrank as a result of globalization. Internationally the United States became, for a short time, a global hegemon. Domestically, Americans continued struggling with the social issues of immigration, race, class, and gender. In the early 21st century the events of September 11th, 2001 changed the course of American history, enveloping the United States in multiple conflicts worldwide. Collectively those conflicts, known as the War on Terror, touched virtually every aspect of American international politics for the first two decades of the new century.
Must Know Events & People
Ronald Reagan
Election of 1980
Religious conservatives
Growth of evangelical Christian churches and organizations
Deregulation
Conflicts in the Middle East
Free-trade agreements
The Internet
International migration from Latin America and Asia
Attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001
War on terrorism
Conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq
Conflicts in the Middle East
Concerns about climate change
Topics Covered
Period 9 Review: Heimler’s History - Ronald Reagan & Conservatism
Period 9 Review: Heimler’s History - The End of the Cold War
Period 9 Review: Heimler’s History - A Changing Economy
Period 9 Review: Heimler’s History - Migration & Immigration of the 1990s & 2000s
Period 9 Review: Heimler’s History - Challenges of the 21st Century in America