Grade 6: United States History

USII.3    The student will apply history and social science skills to understand how industrialization changed life in rural and urban America after the Civil War by

a. explaining relationships among natural resources, transportation, and industrial development from 1865;

b. explaining the impact of new inventions, the rise of big business, the growth of industry, and the changes to life on American farms in response to industrialization;

c. evaluating and explaining the impact of the Progressive Movement on child labor, working conditions, the rise of organized labor, support for eugenics as a social policy, immigration policy, women’s suffrage, and the temperance movement;

d. explaining the events, factors, and motivations that caused individuals and groups to migrate to the United States towards the end of the 19th century;

e. examining the cause-and-effect relationship between rapid population growth and city government services and infrastructure;

f.  explaining how governmental actions, including, but not limited to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, caused harm to Chinese Americans and other immigrants;  (Chinese Exclusion Act)

g. explaining how various groups worked to alleviate the issues facing new immigrants and how immigrants advocated for themselves; and

h. describing the technological advances and the broader impact of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair on America’s rise as a world leader in innovation, business, and trade.

USII.5 The student will apply history and social science skills to understand the social, political, economic, and technological changes of the early 20th century by

a. explaining how capitalism and free markets helped foster developments in factory and labor productivity, transportation, and communication and how rural electrification changed American life and the standard of living;

b. examining how the rise of communism affected America, including, but not limited to the first Red Scare;

c. describing the reasons for and impact of the Great Migration;

d. describing the events and leaders that lead to prohibition, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, including, but not limited to Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Burns, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Sojourner Truth; (Mabel Lee)

e. examining the art, literature, and music of the 1920s and 1930s, including, but not limited to the Roaring Twenties and the Harlem Renaissance; (Anna May Wong)

f.  analyzing the causes of the Great Depression and the impact of the Dust Bowl on the lives of Americans;

g. describing the features, effects, programs, and lasting institutions of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal;

h. describing racial segregation, housing discrimination via redlining, the rise of “Jim Crow” laws, Black Codes, and threats of violence, including, but not limited to intimidation, lynchings, armed conflicts, suppressed voting rights, and limits on political participation  faced by African Americans and other people during post-Reconstruction; and

i.  analyzing events and impacts of African American leaders in response to “Jim Crow,” including, but not limited to the formation of the NAACP, strikes, protests, the role of HBCUs, and the work of leaders like Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Mary White Ovington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

USII.6    The student will apply history and social science skills to understand the major causes and events of World War II and the effects of America’s role by

a. explaining the rise and spread of fascism and totalitarianism internationally and the policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany;

b. explaining the causes and events that led to American involvement in the war, including the attack on Pearl Harbor;

c. locating and describing the major events and turning points of the war in Europe, including, but not limited to the allied invasion of Italy, the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Berlin;

d. locating and describing the major events and turning points of the war in the Pacific, including, but not limited to the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Battle of Midway, and the Battle of Okinawa;

e. explaining and evaluating the role of key political and military leaders of the Allies and Axis powers, including, but not limited to the United States, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Great Britain;

f.  identifying the roles and sacrifices of American armed forces, including prisoners of war, women, and segregated units, as well as other notable heroics, including, but not limited to the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (Japanese Incarceration), Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, the Women Airforce Service Pilots, the Navajo Code Talkers, and the Bedford boys;

g. evaluating the effects of the war on the home front, including, but not limited to women in the workforce, the incarceration of Japanese Americans (Japanese Incarceration), rationing, conservation, and war bonds;

h. examining the causes and consequences of the Holocaust, including, but not limited to Jewish life before the Holocaust, antisemitism, the rise of the Nazi Party, Nuremberg Laws, persecution of Jews and other targeted groups, resistance efforts, the United States’ response, and the Nuremberg Trials; and

i.  describing the events that led to the surrender of the Axis Powers and America’s role in the Allied victory, including, but not limited to the Manhattan Project, as well as events that shaped post-war peace.