APUSH Period 6 - Essay Prompts

Compare and contrast the patterns of immigration in the period 1840 to 1860 to the patterns of immigration in the period 1880 to 1900. In the development of your argument, explain the reasons for the similarities and differences. (Historical Thinking Skill: Comparison)
Thesis

Compare and contrast the patterns of immigration in the period 1840 to 1860 to the patterns of immigration in the period 1880 to 1900. In the development of your argument, explain the reasons for the similarities and differences. (Historical Thinking Skill: Comparison)
Thesis

Immigration in the period 1840 to 1860 and in the period 1880 to 1900 both lead to a nativist attitude towards the immigrants, and an increase in urbanization due to the population and industrial growth. Despite these similarities, the waves of immigration included people of different ethnicities, and they had different reasons to leave their nation.

Compare and contrast the patterns of immigration in the period 1840 to 1860 to the patterns of immigration in the period 1880 to 1900. In the development of your argument, explain the reasons for the similarities and differences. (Historical Thinking Skill: Comparison)

Similarities
- nativism-overt favoritism toward native-born Americans
- Ex. IRISH=catholic→ follows the pope and that the opposite of democracy
- Immigrants searching for jobs → lower wages, take jobs from Americans
- Language barrier lead to violence and riots
- urbanization and industrialization increased
- industrial growth - need for more workers and cheap labor
- Causes overcrowding, dirty cities, corruption
- Disparity between rich and poor
- Population increases, more people settle in
- Cities created
- Slums and tenements
- Pull factors: more opportunities (jobs), religious tolerance,

Differences
- 1840-1860: SECOND wave of immigration
- Immigrants mostly came from northern and western Europe
- Irish: fleeing potato famine in the 1840s→ mostly the poorest and the least skill who were arriving
- Germans: shortages of land, religious oppression, political instability/revolutions
- PUSH FACTORS
- New immigrants left to escape religious persecution
- Other Europeans left because of the rising population
- Land in Europe grew and land for farming became scarce
- 1880-1900: THIRD wave of immigrants
- Northern and western Europe
- PUSH FACTORS
- Religion shit

Synthesis
- First wave of immigration
- 1600 - 1775 - colonial times
- Come to America for the opportunity to get rich
- Also to run from religious persecution (Quakers?)
- Not welcomed by the inhabitants (Native Americans)
- Just like how immigrants weren't welcomes by the Americans
- Because of cultural aspects

Evaluate the effects of industrialization on U.S. society in the years 1865 to 1900.
(Historical Thinking Skill: Causation)
Thesis

As industrialization within the United States grew, big corporation flourished which increased tension in the labor forces resulting in the formation of labor unions. Industrialization further stratified the nation as the poor became poorer and the rich became richer with the justification of social ideologies.

Evaluate the effects of industrialization on U.S. society in the years 1865 to 1900.
(Historical Thinking Skill: Causation)

Intro
- Industrialization = more factories - people were treated in harsh conditions
- Industrialist: Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt
- There was corruption within business (monopolies and pools - agreement to set prices)
- Railroads helped industrialization grow because they could transport raw materials to factories and products from factories


P1 - Industrialization also led to the creation of labor unions and strikes because the factory workers were discontent with being treated under harsh conditions, paid low wages, and working long hours.
- Unskilled labor in factories → replaceable workers → low wages, harsh conditions, long hours
- Knights of Labor: labor union that was all-inclusive
- National Labor Union → 8 hour work day , skilled and unskilled
- Haymarket Square episode: strike that turned violent
- Homestead steel strike - Dispute between workers and Carnegie Steel Company , Major defeat for union

P3: Industrialists came up with social sciences in order to justify the right for the rich to become richer
Ideas that allowed rich to remain rich:
- Gospel of wealth
- Rich can be rich because they donate to charity and create stuff for the good of society
- Andrew Carnegie
- Social darwinism
- Rich are rich because they worked for it
- They deserve to be rich
- Resulted in stratification
- The rich had a concept of social darwinism where they justified their bad deeds by saying the those that are superior are meant to be the business owners
- Some rich believed that they could pay people low wages because they needed to use their money to help the society has a whole (ex: Carnegie funded the NYPL)

Synthesis:
- Wage Slaves - Industrial revolution
increasingly acute labor problem
- Hours were long, wages were low and meals were skimpy and hastily gulped
- Workers forced to toil in unsanitary buildings that were poorly ventilated, lighted and heated
- Forbidden by law to from labor unions to raise wages - criminal conspiracy
- Only 24 recorded strikes occurred before 1835

How and why did transportation developments spark economic growth during the period from 1860 to 1900 in the United States? (Historical Thinking Skill: Causation)
Thesis

Transportation developments led to the creation of a railroad industry, which prompted other industries to grow and overall creating more jobs. The development of railroads as a way of transportation also caused agricultural production to increase.

How and why did transportation developments spark economic growth during the period from 1860 to 1900 in the United States? (Historical Thinking Skill: Causation)

Intro:
- Transcontinental railroad lines (Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, New York Central Railroad) connected the West with the East
- Bessemer process → made railroads safer and able to carry heavier loads
- was a way to make steel and involves the technique involved injecting air into molten iron to remove the carbon and other impurities

P1: The new railroad industry was a catalyst for big business such as the steel industry and investments.
- Constant need for cheap labor → Immigrants,
- Demand for steel to build rails → steel industry
- Costly to build → people invest in railroad industry
- Mostly funds from England
- New market for funds

P2: Serving as a quick and efficient way of transportation to markets for farmers, agriculture increased.
- Cheaply delivered farmers' crops to markets in the East
- Quick and easy mode of transit to the West
- Immigrants can quickly go out to get land and make money :D

Synthesis:
- Homestead Act of 1862 - farmers claimed land and became agriculture
Railroad
- allows for more of the US to be inhabited

Evaluate the extent to which the lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century were affected by technological developments and government actions? (Historical Thinking Skill: Causation)
Thesis

Although the government passed laws such as the Dawes Act to protect the lives of the plains Indians, these laws and many others did more harm to the lifestyle and culture of the native Americans and did almost nothing in preventing their demise in the face of technological advancements such as the railroads.

Evaluate the extent to which the lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century were affected by technological developments and government actions? (Historical Thinking Skill: Causation)

Technological developments:
- Railroad construction -> expansion westward for settlement
- Kill Bison in Great Plains, Buffalo is Native American's main source of food
- Lack of resources for the nomadic Native Americans
- the completion of the railroads caused western settlers to move farther west→ going to Indian property

Government actions:
- Reservations
- Dawes Severalty Act, 1887,
- dismantled American Indian tribes in the reservation into families
- split up the unity of the native americans and destroyed their culture
- Attempted to assimilate the Indians and replace their culture with american culture
- Homestead act: claim 160 acres of land for free as long as you live there and farm the land for five years
- As more settlers began coming to North America, conflicts arose between them and Native Americans
- Settlers and the US government wanted to take over their land
- Government - kill the buffalo, the Native Americans would surrender their lands and become a "civilized people"
- deny Native Americans food
- Instead of direct attack, attack their food source

Synthesis:
- Indian Removal Act - Andrew Jackson, May 28, 1830
- grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian reservations
- few tribes went peacefully, many resisted the relocation policy.
- Trail of Tears - 1838 - 1839
- part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy
- Cherokee nation - forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to present-day Oklahoma
- Many deaths and breaking apart of families

Evaluate the ways in which farmers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age
Thesis

During the period of industrialization during the Gilded Age, cash crops continued to be the main source of income for farmers but agricultural states suffered from worsening economic such as deflation. As a result, the Populist Party or the People's Party was formed during the late 19th century, changing the political platform of the period.

Evaluate the ways in which farmers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age

Intro:
- After the Civil War, America emerged as an industrial nation.
- Second Industrial Revolution and began in the mid-nineteenth century.
- Railroads benefited farmers, making agribusinesses and the shipping of goods possible
- The first transcontinental rail line was finished in 1869.
- Technological advances, such as the telegraph, typewriter, telephone, electric motors, and barbed wire, spurred phenomenal growth in industrial activity.

Continuities: cash crops continued to be the main source of income for farmers
- Farmers from the southern states uses the Transcontinental railroad to ship goods to the urban centers in the East
- Feeds the industrial states - large demand for food for workers
- Cash crops was the main source of income
- Cotton from South
- Grain from West
- Farmers relies on technological advancements to increase productivity

Changes: agricultural states suffered from worsening economic and social conditions such as corruption in the government and deflation.
- Since the end of the Civil War, farmers in the South and the plains states suffered from worsening economic and social condition.
- The source of the farmers' problems was a decrease in commodity prices caused by overproduction and growing international competition for world markets.
- Many farmers were stuck in a cycle of debt - they had to increase cotton production to make more money, but then the price of cotton began to drop.
- High tariffs put farmers at a disadvantage because they had to sell their cotton and other staples on world markets while manufactured goods sold in the United States were protected by tariffs.
- Farmers reasoned that there must be something messing with the system, and targeted the railroads and food processors.
- Resented high railroad freight rates - no alternative form of transportation, but rates were often considered criminally high.

Synthesis:
- 1890, Nebraska farmers formed the People's Independence party
- represent small farmers and wage laborers, blacks and poor whites, in their fight against greedy railroads, corporate monopolies, and corrupt politics.
- More rather than less government intervention in the economy, for only government was capable of expanding the money supply, counterbalancing the power of big business, and providing efficient national transportation networks to support the needs of agribusiness.

Evaluate the ways in which industrial workers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age (1865-1900).
Thesis

Before the Gilded Age, industrial workers took industrialization as a chance to get a job and make a living, but as working conditions got worse, workers started to form labor unions and go on strike.

Evaluate the ways in which industrial workers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age (1865-1900).

Paragraph 1:
- Before Gilded Age industrial workers responded to industrialization positively despite bad working conditions because it was an easy way to make a living
- Ex. immigrants coming from Europe due to economic hardships
- Mostly moved into the city because factories guaranteed a job for them
- Irish - potato famine (1840-1860)

Paragraph 2:
- During the Gilded Age, industrial workers started to form labor unions in order to fight for better working conditions
- Knights of Labor
- All workers, regardless of skilled or unskilled
- Aimed for 8 hour days
- Used to be 12 hour days for 6 or 7 days a week
- Strikes:
- Haymarket Square Riot
- 40k workers went on strike in Chicago
- Shots were fired, bombs were thrown
- People killed, more people wounded
- Led to the deterioration of the labor union

Paragraph 3:
- After the Gilded Age, industrial workers continued to go on strike against their employers.
- Anthracite Coal Strike
Strike by United Mine Workers
- Demanded higher wages and less hours
- Theodore Roosevelt took this to the White House
- First time in history where the government took control of a labor dispute

Synthesis:
- Industrial workers -> indentured servants
- Bad and unfair working conditions
- Reason why they both rose in a revolt (or a strike)
- Bacon's Rebellion

Compare and contrast opposing views of the United States overseas expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as they related to national identity. (Historical Thinking Skill: Comparison)
Thesis

Anti-imperialists believed that imperialism was against the ideals of America, and that it would be better to focus on the problems in the nation instead of expanding outwards. On the other hand, Pro-imperialists believed that it was America's duty to civilize and take over other races, as well as the fact that expanding outwards would lead to a flourishing economy.

Compare and contrast opposing views of the United States overseas expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as they related to national identity. (Historical Thinking Skill: Comparison)

Pro:
- social darwinism - Josiah Strong
- believed that it was America's duty to civilize other race
- Argued that the U.S. had a responsibility to spread Christianity and "civilization" to the world's "inferior people"
- It was right for America to intervene and help other Latin American countries→ Roosevelt's Corollary
- Alfred T. Mahan was former U.S. Navy and he urged government officials to build American naval power in order to compete with other powerful nations - Navy = Economic growth
- Caused the construction of modern battle ships such as the Maine and the Oregon→ helped transform the country into the world's third largest naval power
- Said that America has a unique position→ ideal geographic location
- ties military strength to economic growth
- Believed strong military strength will open to all markets
- Because of Britain

Anti:
- goes against constitution and shit
- Believed that America needed to solve homeland problems and prosper at home instead of dealing with foreign affairs
- poverty were created in new urban cities
- Rapid industrialization was creating disparity between the social classes
- Exploitation of labor jobs led to corruption and strikes from the labor Unions
- Also believed that imperialism violated core American values life freedom, liberty, and justice
- George Hoar @ acquisition of Philippines
- Filipinos fought for independence
- Just like how Americans fought the American Revolution
- They fought for it, so they earned it
- Acquiring new territories might create problems for the nation at home and abroad
- Outside info: Samuel Gompers was an anti-imperialist and thought that acquiring the Philippines would damage its goal to serve its workers where they can have a reasonable amount of wages, hours, and good working conditions
- Gompers affiliated the American Federation of Labor

Synthesis:
- Manifest Destiny: justification for westward migration
- Believed it was America's duty to take over North America
- Expand from "sea to shining sea"
- White man's burden