Social Studies Curriculum

United States History

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Changing Nation (1867-1900)

Two weeks (through Week 11)

Enduring Understanding

The students will understand:

1. The American Republic constantly has to redefine itself due to the pressures of economic and territorial expansion.
2. The American Republic has always been powerfully shaped by mass migrations, dislocations and assimilations of peoples.
3. This period of American history saw the rise of corporations, mechanization and industrialism, and that these advances came with a cost.
4. Expanding democracy, promoting social welfare, and economic reform occurred because of the organization and struggle of America’s common people.

Essential Questions

1. How does territorial expansion cause regional tensions? 
2. What is the impact of changes in technology?
3. What is the impact of the changing labor force?
4. What role does social and political reform movements play in this period of change?
5. What is the impact of the interactions of immigrants and indigenous peoples? 
6. How do colonization and settlement establish and develop different economic, political, religious and social institutions over time?
7. What was the impact of the rise of corporations and industrialism?
8. How did the rise of the American labor and political movements reflect social and political change?

Objectives

• Analyze the significance of "rails and trails:" the age of railroad construction and cattle drives.
• Examine topics related to the decline of the Native American culture of the West:  the last of the Indian Wars and the Dawes Act.
• Analyze the composition of the Old vs. New Immigrants.
• Analyze the motives and examine the process by which immigrants came to the United States and became citizens.
• Trace the movement from rural to urban settings.
• Examine innovations in urban lifestyles: architecture, leisure, and transportation.
• Examine social problems accompanying the growth of cities.
• Examine the role of presidents in the Gilded Age.
• Discuss the pros and cons of political machines.
• Examine the factors leading to the rise of modern capitalists.
• Define and then compare and contrast the “isms”: capitalism, socialism, communism, and anarchism.
• Trace the history and struggle of the labor movements.
• Distinguish between the various forms of corporate ownership and control and governmental responses.
• Analyze the origins of the Progressive Movement.
• Analyze the importance of the role and impact of third party political movements.
• Define essential terms including: Treaty of Fort Laramie 1868, Dawes Act, scandal, transcontinental railroad, Interstate Commerce Act, vertical and horizontal integration, Social Darwinism, monopoly, trust, Sherman Anti-Trust, American Federation of Labor, collective bargaining, gild, Chinese Exclusion Act, “gentleman’s agreement,” urbanization, graft, assimilation, Ellis Island, civil service, “mixed salad,” Reed’s Rules, Battle of Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee, reservation, Sand Creek Massacre, Rose Bud Creek, department store, mail-order catalog, Plessy v. Ferguson, NAACP.
• Reflect on the contributions of the following Americans: Jane Addams, Dorothea Dix, Frederick Jackson Turner, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Chief Joseph, Mark Twain, Jack London, Thomas Nast, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Samuel Gompers, Mary Harris Jones, Wright brothers.

Next: Progressive Era »