Unit 2: Growth and Innovation (1865-1900)

Unit Overview: Growth and Innovation

This unit covers the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. Important themes covered in the unit:

Industrialization and big business in the Gilded Age
The Populist movement
The heavy immigration of the era
Political machines and rise of workers' unions
Urbanization
Race relations/NAACP and Women's Suffrage
Education and entertainment at the turn of the century

Unit Essay: Industrial America

In order to complete this project you must write an essay on the following topic:

Industrial America

By 1900 America had soared ahead of Great Britain and Germany to become the world's number one industrial power, as the transcontinental railroad, mechanized farming, and massive immigration at the end of the 19th century had super-heated its economy. America also played a decisive role in the allied victory in WWI, and by 1919 was recognized as one of the most powerful nations on earth...a long way from the colonial days and our early history. By the early twentieth century, America was industrial, politically and economically stable, and rapidly becoming the most powerful nation on earth. Using the knowledge of this era that you have gained from your lessons, write an essay of 600 words or more explaining how the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century had transformed America politically, economically, and socially.

Helpful links for this essay:

The Gilded Age

Politics in the Gilded Age

Urbanization in the late 19th Century

Poster calling workers to assemble in Haymarket Square, Chicago, May 4, 1886

Unit Documentaries:

American Experience: Triangle Fire

The Century Episode 1: Seeds of Change

Short Videos:

The Populist Dream and the Peoples' Party (5:31)

Meatpacking, "The Jungle" (2:51)

Immigrant Experience, Seeds of Change (3:53)

Immigrants, Politics, and Political Machines (1:01)

Women's Suffrage Movement (2:27)

History of the NAACP (4:15)

Progressive Era/Gilded Age Overview (3:23)

Unit Lectures:

American Industrialization, 1860-1914

Industrial America Essay Class

Unit Primary Sources:

US History Recon A Unit 2 Key Terms

For this project you must define the terms listed below and explain each term's significance to the unit/era being studied. Your definition should be 2-3 sentences long and may be copied and pasted from a source like Wikipedia, but the significance of the term must be in your own words and based on your own understanding. To fill out a term's significance, ask yourself, "Why is this item included in my study of this unit? Why is this term in a history book?" The answer to this question is your term's significance.

Unit 2 Key Terms:

Gettysburg Address

Reconstruction Era

Homestead Act of 1862

Pendleton Act

Freedmen's Bureau

Carpetbaggers

Pacific Railroad Act of 1862

Sherman Antitrust Act

13th Amendment

Indian Removal Act of 1830

Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

Captains of Industry/Robber Barons

Black Codes

Manifest Destiny

Immigration Act of 1882

Gilded Age

14th Amendment

Oregon/California Trails

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Boss William Tweed

Below is an example of a key term done with the proper format:

William the Conqueror: William I (c. 1028[2] – 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II. Before his conquest of England, he was known as William the Bastard because of the illegitimacy of his birth.To press his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Frenchmen (from Paris andÎle-de-France) to victory over the English forces of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.[3] (I copied and pasted this definition from Wikipedia)

Significance: William the Conqueror is significant because his conquest of England created the first nation state in Europe. His rearrangement of English feudal territories to give himself dramatically more power than the the barons and nobles around him caused him to be the most powerful monarch in Europe and eventually led to the rise of other nation states over the next few centuries. (These are my words based on my knowledge of English and European history.)