DBQ/LEQ Key Ideas

Contextualization and Outside information Examples

P3: What was a key cause of the American Rev?

-French and Indian War (ended 1763)

-Btwn France and Britain over the Ohio River Valley

-End of salutary neglect: Br was in debt and started enforcing strict trade laws and new taxes

• Stamp Act: First direct tax on colonies over paper goods, and led to the Stamp Act Congress (colonial unity)

• Intolerable Acts: Punishment for the Boston Tea Party (closed harbor strangling Massachusetts economy + limited self govt) and led to the First Continental Congress

P3: What was Republican Motherhood?

-After American Rev idea that women were expected to raise virtuous, educated children

-women gained more importance and become more valued in society, but still no political power

-American democracy expanded but not for everyone

P3: Articles of Confederation?

-Very weak national government b/c American feared repeat of Br tyranny

-No executive + or national court system, only had one branch (the Congress)

-Could not tax, debt from the Rev could not be paid

-No national military, could not respond well to threats

• Shay’s Rebellion: Farmers rebel over debt and taxes led by war veteran Daniel Shay

• exposed weak federal govt

P3: Constitution (1787)

-Addresses weaknesses of the first govt (Articles)

-Stronger national authority while still protecting individual/state rights

-Separation of Powers

• Checks & Balances= prevent one branch from becoming tyrannical

-Bill of Rights added by Anti-Federalists (Compromise)

• limits govt power and guarantees certain liberties

-3/5 Compromise kept Southern states in the union by counting slaves towards state pop.

P5: What were the affects of the Mexican-American War? (1846-48)

-Conflict sparked by territorial disputes: Polk pushed for annexation of Texas and Oregon

-Fought over Texas, and US later annexed it

-Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo gave lots of western land

• Sectional tensions: new lands slave or free?

• Manifest Destiny expansionist spirit

• Led to Civil war

P5: Popular Sovereignty?

-Allowed residents of a territory to vote on whether to permit slavery (majority vote)

-Mexican Cession Tension

• After Mex-Am. War US had too much new land and no plan for slavery

• Kansas-Nebraska Act: applied popular sovereignty to areas that were supposed to be free under the Missouri compromise (repealed it)

-Overall FAILED + led to civil war

-Whig party split, led to republican party (opposed spread of slavery) and Know-Nothing Party

P5: What was Dred Scott v. Sandford? (1857)

-Ruled that black people were not citizens and that Congress had no power to ban slavery in US territories

-Declared enslaved people = property, denied citizenship

-Made Missouri Compromise unconstitutional (slavery could exist anywhere in the W)

-Federal Pro-Slavery stance

P5: Emancipation Proclamation? (1863)

-Lincoln executive order that changed legal status of enslaved people in the confederacy (rebelling states)

-Did it to weaken Southern economy

-Strategic: Lincoln preserved slavery in border union states like Kentucky so they would not secede

P5: Explain the significance of Reconstruction (1865-1877)

-Following Civil War → reintegrating S states and defining rights of free Africans

• 13th: abolished slavery

• 14th: granted citizenship + “equal protection under law”

• 15th: voting rights to black men

-Freedmen’s Bureau= Federal welfare program (food, housing, education for former slaves)

-KKK= White supremacists and southern democrats

-Compromise of 1877= Republicans got presidency, democrats got federal troops removed from South

• Ended reconstruction (black lost voting rights + Jim Crow Laws)

P6: Explain the Gilded Age (late 1800s)

-rapid economic growth and industrialization

-Big business used vertical integration and horizontal integration to create large monopolies

-urbanization (slum housing of the tenements)

-Looked “gold” on the surface but had deep social problems/corruption

P6: Laissez Faire

-Federal govt stays out of business affairs and economy (no regulations, no min. wage, no corporate taxes)

-Social Darwinism: argued that if govt helped the poor or regulated business, it would interfere with the “natural” survival of the fittest

• Rich were superior and poor were poor b/c they are unfit

-Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth= believed “fittest” had a responsibility to use their wealth for public good

P6: Labor Unions

-organization of workers who argued for better wages, conditions, and shorter hours

-B/c of machines, Labor was deskilled (easy to replace workers)

-Federal govt always sided with big business

-Knights of Labor

• Open to everyone (skilled/unskilled, women, blacks)

• wanted to abolish child labor and wanted shorter hours

-Pullman Strike

• Workers of Pullman Car Company went on strike after wages were cut but rent in the company town stayed high

• govt sided w/ company

P6: Sherman Antitrust Act? (1890)

-Federal attempt to regulate big business and promote economic competition

• prohibit companies from forming monopolies (trusts) that manipulate prices/crushed small business

• break up large corps like standard oil comp.

-largely ineffective

-Teddy Roosevelt

• Good trust= fair prices, treated workers well

• Bad trust= attack comp. that bullied competitors, manipulated price, exploit labor

• Meat inspection act= federal inspection of meat and strict sanitary standards

P7: Describe the Progressive Era (1809s-1920s)

-Social and political reform aimed at using govt power to fix problems caused by Gilded Age

• massive wealth gap, corporate monopolies

• urbanization + muckrakers exposed scandals and drive reforms (How the Other Half Lives- horrible tenement life)

-Jane Addams Hull House: social/educational opportunities for immigrant families

-Failed to address racial injustice (Jim Crow Laws)

P7: World War 1 (1914)

-US transition from isolationist to major world power

-Wilson initially declared neutrality

• Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare targeted all merchant ships

• Br Lusitania sank killing Americans and outraging public

• Zimmerman Telegram (Germany sent secret message to Mexico promising US territory if they joined the war)

-Mobilization of home front (public helped support the war effort)

• Great migration (millions of Africans moved from S to northern cities for factory jobs)

• National War Labor Board (prevent strikes, gave higher wages/shorter hours)

-Espionage and Sedition Acts: criminalized anti war speech

• Schenck vs. US: speech could be limited in “clear and resent danger”

P7: Cause/Effects of the Great Depression?

-Overproduction (produced more than what people could buy/eat)

-Credit (people bought on a margin [borrowed $] and market fell)

-Increased federal intervention and death of laissez faire under FDR

• limited welfare state through New Deal

• Fireside Chats restored public confidence

• Social Security Act (safety net for elderly and disabled)

• Heavily expanded power of the executive

-Relief= immediate help to unemployed and starving

• CCC hired men for environmental work

-Recovery= get economy moving

• AAA paid farmers to not grow crops and raise prices

P8: What was containment during the CW?

-US foreign policy to stop spread of communism

“containing” USSR influence within existing borders

• Marshall Plan: gave financial aid to rebuild western Europe, make capitalism successful

• NATO: mutual defense alliance

• Truman Doctrine: provide economic/military aid to nations resisting com.

-Domino Theory= if one country fell to communism, neighbors will too

-B/c of nuclear wars, proxy wars were fought

P8: McCarthyism in US? (1950s)

-Second Red Scare during intense anti-communist suspicion characterized by aggressive invenstigation + accusations

-Federal Employee Loyalty Program

• domestic anti communist initiative by Truman, loyalty screening of federal employees

-House of Un-American Activities Commitee

• investigation body that searched for communist influences in films, unions, and education (primarily Hollywood and blacklisting")

P8: What was the Civil Rights Movement

-Federal govt dismantle legal framework of Jim Crow laws

-Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954)

• overturned plessy vs. ferguson ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional

• President Eisenhower sent federal protection or Little Rock Nine, students who were integrated into a public high school

-Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Banned discrimination in public accommodations and employment

-MLK

• nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, rooted in Christianity

-Malcolm X

• “By any means necessary” + black nationalism and separatism, nation of Islam

• Encouraged black pride and economic sufficiency outside of white systems

P8: Explain Vietnam (1955-1975)

-Failure of containment (despite major military intervention, US failed to prevent S Vietnam from falling to communism)

-”Credibility Gap”

• optimistic govt reports and the brutal reality shown on television led to decline in public trust

• My Lai Massacre= US soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed citizens, fueled anti war sentiment

-Berkeley Free Speech Movement

• New left where students used civil disobedience to launch political activism, including anti-war