apush thematic thinking

8/12/2019 APUSH Thematic Thinking

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American Culture

Transcendentalists:

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry

David Thoreau questioned the

doctrines of established churches and

the capitalistic habits of the merchant

class. Highly individualistic andsupported a variety of reforms (anti-

slavery movement).

Oneida Community:

Dedicated to an ideal of perfect social

and economic equality, member

shared property. Criticized for plannedreproduction and communal child-

rearing

Temperance:Shift from moral exhortation to

political action. Led to the foundation

of the American Temperance Society.

Strength gained in the late 1870s with

the Womens Christian Temperance

Union and goal accomplished with the

18thAmendment in 1919.

Mental hospitals: Dorothea Dix;

mental patients began receiving

professional treatment at state

expense.

Free Common

Schools: Horace

Mann

advocated

public school

movement.Late 1840s,

movement for

tax-supported

schools spread

rapidly to other

states.

Cult of Domesticity

Republican Motherhood: idealized

view of women as moral leaders in the

home and educators of children.Womens Rights Movement

Seneca Falls Convention (1848):

Declaration of Sentiments

The Jungle (Upton Sinclair):

muckraker-written story about

the disgusting meat-packing

industry. The Pure Food and

Drug Act and Meat Inspection

Act were passed in reaction to

this book.

Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes,

Countee Cullen. Embrace and

celebrated Black American culture


2/12

American Diversity

Booker T. Washington:

Civil Rights Leader who delivered the

Atlanta Compromise Speech.

Criticized by some for giving in or

accepting discrimination. Founded

Tuskegee Institute. Hoped AfricanAmericans would obtain vocational

training and rise economically.

Marian Anderson: famous African

American singer. Experienced racial

discrimination by not being allowed

the chance to perform. FDR arrangedfor her performance to be held on the

Lincolns memorial.

Reagonomics: Removal ofgovernment rules that

businesses are required to

follow a generally laissez-

faire approach. Felt that

private businesses could

make better decisions that

law makers.

Peace Corps: Organized by JFK. Young

people volunteered to live and work in

poorer 3rdWorld countries.

Brown v. Board

of Education:

outlawed

segregation in

public facilities.

Ended Jim CrowLaws.

19thAmendment: Suffrage regardless

of gender.

Red Scare: triggered by the Bolsheviksin Russia. Americans were also scared

by the radical strikes of 1919.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Voting Rights Act of1965: outlawed

discriminatory literacy

tests. Gave federal

officials the power to

enter southern towns to

register voters when

fewer than 50% of

African Americans were

registed to vote.

Beatniks: 1950s writers

criticized Americans for being

materialistic and culturally

shallow.

Supply-side Economics: Cut taxes for

the rich who will invest in the

economy and create jobs for the poor.

A lot like Mellons trickle-down theory

from the 1920s.


3/12

Demographics

Great Puritan Migration:

Strong religious convictions helped

sustain the Puritans in their struggles

to establish the Plymouth and

Massachussets Bay colonies. At the

same time, Puritan leaders wereintolerant of anyone who questioned

their religious teachings.

Missouri Compromise:

Missouris bid for statehood alarmed

the North because slavery was well

established there. If Missouri became

a slave state, it would tip the political

balance in the Souths favor.

1. Missouri was to be admitted as aslave state.

2. Maine was to be admitted as a

slave-holding state

3. In the rest of the Louisiana

Territory north of 36,30, slavery

was prohibited.

Trail of Tears:

Indian Removal Act, 1830. Jacksons

concept of democracy did not

extend to Native Americans.

Compelled NA to leave theirtraditional homeland and resettle.

Northwest Ordinance

3/5 Compromise

Bleeding Kansas:

Well before the 1856 election, the

bloody consequences of the Kansas-

Nebraska Act had become obvious.

Fighting broke out between the

proslavery and antislavery groups

Manifest Destiny:

Expressed popular belief

that the U.S. had a divine

mission to extend its

power across North

America. Driven by

nationalism, population

increase, rapid economic

development, and reform

ideals. Northern critics

argued that it was driven

by the southern ambition

to spread slavery.

Great Migration:

Movement of some 6

million African Americans

out of rural Southern U.S.

to the urban Northwest,Midwest, and West

Quota Acts:

Passed to reduce the

number of New

immigrants (Jews

and Catholics from

Southern and

Eastern Europe.


4/12

EconomicTransformation

16thAmendment:

Income tax amendment.

Eugene V. Debs and the American

Federation of Labor:

Jailed during the Pullman Strike.

Founded the Socialist Party and was

later again jailed during WWI forviolating the Espionage and Seditions

Acts.

Social Security Act:

Provided help to theelderly, unemployed,

disabled, orphaned.

Revolutionized the role

of government,

essentially so that it is

responsible for its needy.

Supply-side Theory:

Cut taxes for the rich whowill invest in the economy

and create jobs for the

poor. A lot like Mellons

trickle down theory form

the 1920s.

Mechanization:

Other American products

also declined in price

because more and more

machines were being

used to produce items in

electric poweredfactories. While

lowering consumer

prices, this process also

lowered wages and

increased

unemployment.

Stagflation:

Economic problem of the 1970s.

Inflation was triggered by: the

energy crisis, increased

government spending on the

Vietnam War and on socialprograms. Prices inflated while

unemployment also increased.

Margin buying:

Practice of taking out a loan to get into the stock

market. Banks who made these kinds of loans ended

up losing money and failing after the stock marketcrashed.

Federal Reserve Act (1913):

Passed to provide the federalgovernment more control over the

national money supply.

U.S. v. Northern Securities (190

4):

First successful prosecution under the

Sherman AntiTrust Act; a railroad

monopoly was busted by TeddyRoosevelt.


5/12

Slavery, Impact, &Legacy

W.E.B. DuBois:

First African American awarded a Ph.D.

Civil Rights Leader who rejected the

idea of waiting for political and

social equality. He demanded rapid

equality and also believed that a

talented 10thcould lead the way to

improvement.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Founded the Southern Christian Leadership

Conference. Delivered the famous I have a

Dream speech during the 1963 March on

Washingtonpeaceful, mass demonstration to

pressure Congress into supporting the CivilRights act of 1964.

Marcus Garvey:

Founded the UNIA

(Universal Negro

Improvement Association).Flamboyant Leader

especially in northern

urban areas. Said Black is

beautiful. Encouraged a

modern Back to Africa

movement.

As white violence rose in the 1870s, the national

government, even under President Grant, became less

enthusiastic about defending blacks, and certainly not

prepared to arm them. The Supreme Court played its

gyroscopic role of pulling the other branches of government

back to more conservative directions when they went too far.

It began interpreting the 14thAmendmentpassed

presumably for racial equality. In 1883, the Civil Rights Act of

1875, was nullified by the Supreme Court.

Ku Klux Klan: Pro-slavery, violent sect of people.

Increased from about 5,000 to 5 million members

during the post-WWI time period, anti-foreigner time

period between 1920 to 1925.

Booker T. Washington:

Civil Rights Leader who

delivered the AtlantaCompromise Speech.

Criticized by some for giving

in or accepting

discrimination. Founded

Tuskegee Institute. Hoped

African Americans would

obtain vocational training andrise economically.


6/12


7/12

Politics &Citizenship

Very soon after the 14th

Amendment became law,

the Supreme Court began todemolish it as a protection

for blacks, and to develop it

as a protection for

corporations.

In the 1880s, the new immigrants became laborers,

housepainters, or stonecutters. They were often importeden masse by contractors. Their conditions led sometimes to

rebellion. A traffic in immigrant child laborers developed,

either by contract with desperate parents in the home

country or by kidnapping. As the immigrants became

naturalized citizens, they were brought into the American

two-party system, invited to be loyal to one party or the

other.

STRIKES!

Coeur dAlene strike

marked by gun battles

between strikers and

strikebreakers, and many

deaths. Pinkertondetective agency hired to

protect strikebreakers.

The government played its part in

helping the bankers and hurting the

farmers. It was in Texas that the

FARMERS ALLIANCEmovement began. It is the South

that the crop-lien system was most

brutal.

1852-1853: ArgentinaMarines

were landed and maintained in

Buenos Aires to protect

American interests during a

revolution

1853-1854: JapanOpening of

Japan and the Perry Expedition

1855: UruguayU.S. and

European naval forces landed to

protect American interests

during an attempted revolution

in Montevideo.1859: ChinaFor the protection

of American interests in

Shanghai.

1860: Angola, Portuguese West

AfricaTo protect American

lives and property at Kissembo

when the natives became

troublesome.

1893: HawaiiTo protect

American lives and property;

actually to promote a

provisional government under

Sanford B. Dole.


8/12


9/12

EnvironmentalIssues

EARTH DAY:

The participation of 20

million citizens in the first

Earth Day in 1970

reflected the nations

growing concern overpollution and the

destruction of the natural

environment.

Massive oil spills around

the world, such as the

Exxon Valdez tanker

accident in Alaska in 1989,

reinforced fears about thedeadly combination of

human error and modern

technology.

Public opinion also turnedagainst building additional

nuclear power plants after

an accident at the 3 Mile

Island power plant in

Pennsylvania (1979) and

the deadly explosion of

the Chernobyl nuclear

reactor in the Soviet Union

(1986).

1970Congress passed

the Clean Air Act and

created the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA)

and followed thislegislation in 1972 with the

Clean Water Act.

1980the Superfund was

created to clean up toxic

dumps, such as Love Canalin Niagara Falls, New York.

The protest movements by diverse groups in

American society seemed to produce more socialstress and fragmentation. Combined with a slowing

economy and a declining standard of living, these

forces left many American feeling angry and bitter.

A conservative reaction to the liberal policies of the

New Deal and the Great Society gained momentum

in the late 1970s. RachelCarsonSilentSpring


10/12


11/12

Religion in theU.S.

Separatists:

Leaders stressed conformity to a strict moral code and exhorted

people to sacrifice their individuality for the common good.

Puritan influence seemed to suppress the individualism that later

came to characterize American culture.

Quaker:

The Quakers main belief was that

men could do harm and that

everyone was inherently good. They

were advocators of the Abolitionist

movement and for Womens equality.

Transcendentalism:

Best expressed romantic and idealistic

themes, by questioning the established

churches and the capitalistic habits of the

merchant class. Argued for a mystical andintuitive way of thinking as a means for

discovering ones inner self and looking for

the essence of God in nature. Challenged

the materialism of American society by

suggesting that artistic expression was more

important than the pursuit of wealth.

RalphWaldoEm

erson

HenryDavidThoreau

Transcendentalists were highly

individualistic and viewed organized

institutions as unimportant.

Supported various reforms,

especially antislavery.

Social Darwinism v. Gospel of Wealth:

Charles Darwins theory of natural

selection in biology played a role inbolstering the views of economic

conservatives. English social

philosopher Herbert Spencer used it

to conclude that the concentration of

wealth in the hands of the fit was a

benefit to the future of the human

race. A number of American found

religion more convincing than social

Darwinism in justifying the wealth of

successful industrialists and bankers.


12/12

War & Diplomacy

Civil War:

Clearly established the end to slavery

in the United States, thus beginning

to the Reconstruction Era, while

furthering the Abolitionist movement

in the face of still-racistsegregationists.

Spanish-American Civil War:

The outcome of the war confirmed

the U.S. as a world power. (U.S.

passed the Teller Amendment, which

stated that it would not try to take

hegemony over Cuba.)

World War I (The Great War, The War to End All

Wars):Following its victory, the U.S. became a creditor

nation, loaning money to Europeans so they could

revive their economies. Because U.S. land was

never touched, and European economies were in

ruin, the U.S. stood as the strongest victor. Built

up tension against Germany, leading to WWII.

World War II:

A divided Europe following Allies victorycaused tension between the USSR and

the USAAtomic diplomacy was used:

threat with nuclear weapons.

Cold War:

Raised peaked tensions between the

USSR and the U.S., resulting in massive

military spending deficits, while manylives were lost in containment efforts

(Vietnam and Korea)

Korean War:

Containment was the basis of U.S.

involvement (to contain the spread of

communism).

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