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In Unit 4, students will examine how the United States transforms itself from a mostly rural, agricultural society to an urban, industrial one.  Farmers, miners, and ranchers settle all regions of the West, costing Native Americans their land.  Large businesses begin to dominate the economy and providing much of the labor for these huge new concerns are millions of immigrants who stream to the major cities of the North and East.  New manufacturing and selling techniques begin to create mass consumer markets for goods and services

 

For Discussion:

  1. Why did the Repubicans agree to the Compromise of 1877? What was the immediate effect of the compromise on the South?
  2. Who benefited and who lost out in the process of reforming the civil service and curbing political patronage?
  3. What was the role of immigrant labor in shaping the industrial growth of America during the late nineteenth century? Were these immigrants and the labor they provided more significant thantechnological innovations in spurring American economic development  during this period?
  4. In what ways did the Knights of Labor's vews on race and gender represent a departure from the norms of American  society in the late nineteenth century?
  5. Compare and contrast the viewpoints of Booker T. Washington and  W.E.B. Du Bois.
  6. Analyze the role of culture and the arts in nineteenth- and- twentieth- century movements for social and political change.
  7. Discuss the difficulties involved in the attempts to assimilate Native Americans into white culture.
  8. Discuss the short-term and ong-term effects of the large cattle drives.
  9. Justify and explain the formation of farmers' reform and political parties.
  10. Compare the causes and effects of the use of gold versus silver. What groups in society would profit from either standard and in what ways?
  11. Why did America become a world power?
  12. What were the goals of American policymakers in the Spanish- American War?