APUSH Ultimate Cram Guide and Study Guide

PERIODS 1–2 (1491–1754): COLONIZATION & CONTACT

• Spanish Colonial System and Domestic Policy     * Encomienda System: A labor system where the Spanish crown granted the right to native labor for gold and silver extraction; effectively a form of forced labor.     * Mission System: Efforts by Spanish religious orders to convert Native Americans to Catholicism.     * Mestizo Culture: A unique culture that emerged due to racial mixing between Spanish settlers and Native populations.
• Regional British Colonies     * New England: Settled by Puritans; characterized by covenant communities and town-meeting democracy. Economy focused on fishing and trade. Notable highlight: Harvard was founded in $1636$.     * Chesapeake (VA, MD): Focused on tobacco cash crops. Relied on indentured servants initially; transitioned to African slavery following Bacon's Rebellion in $1676$. Notable institution: House of Burgesses ($1619$).     * Middle Colonies: Ethically and religiously diverse populations; characterized by grain farming (‘breadbasket’). Philadelphia emerged as a major trade hub.
• Governing and Culture     * Salutary Neglect: British policy of loosely governing the colonies, which allowed for the development of self-governance and local assemblies, sowing seeds for independence.     * Great Awakening ($1730s – 40s$): A religious revival that challenged church hierarchies and promoted equality before God; it was the first truly intercolonial movement.
• Foreign and Imperial Policy     * Mercantilism: The economic theory that colonies exist to enrich the mother country; enforced via the Navigation Acts which controlled colonial trade.     * French & Indian War ($1754 – 63$): Britain versus France for North American control. Britain won but incurred deep debt, triggering the American Revolution.     * Native Diplomacy: The Iroquois Confederacy successfully played European powers against each other. The Powhatan Confederacy initially traded with English settlers but later turned to resistance.
• Continuity and Change     * Continuity: European powers persistently used colonies for economic gain.     * Change: Colonists developed a distinct American identity and self-governance traditions that fueled future revolution.

PERIOD 3 (1754–1800): REVOLUTION & NEW NATION

• Articles of Confederation Weaknesses     * No power to tax or regulate trade.     * No national army or executive branch.     * A requirement for unanimous consent for amendments.     * Shays' Rebellion ($1786$): Exposed the failure of the Articles to maintain order.
• The Constitution ($1787$)     * Established federal supremacy, separation of powers, and checks and balances.     * Elastic Clause: Granted Congress broad power to make ‘necessary and proper’ laws.     * Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists: Federalists (Hamilton) sought a strong central government; Anti-Federalists (Mason, Henry) demanded a Bill of Rights to protect individual liberty.
• Hamilton's Financial Program     * Assumption of state debts and creation of a national bank.     * Protective tariffs and excise taxes; intended to build federal credit but alienated agrarian interests.
• The Adams Administration     * Alien & Sedition Acts ($1798$): Criminalized criticism of the government.     * Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions: Authored by Jefferson and Madison; argued states could nullify federal law, establishing the early states' rights doctrine.
• Foreign Policy     * Neutrality Proclamation ($1793$): Washington's precedent of non-entanglement in European wars.     * Jay's Treaty ($1794$): Resolved tensions with Britain and avoided war despite controversy.     * XYZ Affair ($1797 – 98$): French agents demanded bribes, leading to anti-French sentiment and the brink of war.     * Washington's Farewell Address: Warned against permanent foreign alliances and political factions; shaped isolationism for over a century.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: Shift from colonial rule to republican self-governance.     * Continuity: The tension between federal power and states' rights remains a constant theme through history.

PERIOD 4 (1800–1848): DEMOCRACY & EXPANSION

• Jeffersonian Democracy     * Promoted limited government, the agrarian ideal, and strict constructionism.     * Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson stretched his constructionist principles to double the size of the U.S.
• Market Revolution     * Transportation Revolution: Marked by the Erie Canal ($1825$) and railroads.     * Lowell System: Textile mills utilizing a new industrial labor model.     * Shift from subsistence farming to a market-based economy, creating regional specialization.
• Jacksonian Democracy     * Expanded voting rights to all white men; utilized the spoils system.     * Bank War: Jackson vetoed the Second Bank of the U.S., viewing it as elite corruption.     * Indian Removal Act ($1830$): Forced displacement of Native Tribes.     * Nullification Crisis ($1832$): South Carolina declared federal tariffs null; Jackson threatened force; a compromise was reached but sectionalism deepened.
• Social Reform and Religion     * Second Great Awakening: Religious revival fueling movements like abolition (Garrison, Douglass), temperance, women's rights (Seneca Falls $1848$), prison reform, and the common school movement.
• Expansion and Foreign Policy     * Manifest Destiny: Claimed a God-given right to expand to the Pacific; used to justify displacement and war.     * Monroe Doctrine ($1823$): Closed the Western Hemisphere to European colonization; U.S. symbolic dominance.     * Mexican-American War ($1846 – 48$): Provoked by President Polk; resulted in the acquisition of California and the Southwest via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.     * Wilmot Proviso: Proposed ban on slavery in new territories; inflamed sectional crisis.     * Oregon Treaty ($1846$): Agreement with Britain for the Pacific Northwest.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: Mass democracy expands; the Market Revolution transforms the economy.     * Continuity: Slavery debate intensifies with new territory acquisitions; not resolved peacefully.

PERIOD 5 (1844–1877): CIVIL WAR & RECONSTRUCTION

• Domestic Policy — Road to War     * Compromise of $1850$: California admitted as a free state; creation of a strict Fugitive Slave Act; popular sovereignty in territories.     * Kansas-Nebraska Act ($1854$): Repealed the Missouri Compromise; popular sovereignty led to Bleeding Kansas and the formation of the Republican Party.     * Dred Scott v. Sandford ($1857$): Ruled slaves were property, not citizens, and Congress could not ban slavery, outraging the North.     * Election of $1860$: Lincoln won without Southern votes; Southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America.
• The Civil War     * Emancipation Proclamation ($1863$): Freed slaves in rebel states; reframed the war as a fight for freedom; blocked British recognition of the CSA.     * Reconstruction Amendments:         * $13th$ Amendment ($1865$): Abolished slavery.         * $14th$ Amendment ($1868$): Birthright citizenship and equal protection.         * $15th$ Amendment ($1870$): Black male suffrage.     * Draft Riots ($1863$): NYC riots largely by Irish immigrants protesting the first federal draft.
• The Era of Reconstruction     * Presidential Reconstruction: Lenient policies under Lincoln and Johnson; Johnson vetoed civil rights legislation.     * Radical Reconstruction ($1867$): Congressional takeover; creation of military districts in the South; support from the Freedmen's Bureau.     * Southern Defiance: Black Codes restricted labor mobility; KKK terrorism; sharecropping and debt peonage emerged.     * Failure of Reconstruction: Compromise of $1877$ withdrew federal troops; Jim Crow laws replaced slavery.
• Foreign Policy     * Cotton Diplomacy: Southern attempt to gain European recognition failed.     * Seward's Folly ($1867$): Purchase of Alaska from Russia for $\$ 7.2 – million$.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: Slavery abolished; federal power expanded; citizenship redefined.     * Continuity: White supremacy persisted via Black Codes, KKK, and sharecropping.

PERIOD 6 (1865–1898): GILDED AGE

• Economy and Business     * Laissez-faire: Minimal government regulation.     * Big Business Tactics: Vertical integration (Carnegie) and horizontal integration (Rockefeller).     * Social Darwinism: Herbert Spencer's idea that wealth indicates ‘fitness’; justified inequality.     * Gospel of Wealth: Carnegie's argument that the wealthy had a duty to use fortunes for the public good.
• Labor and Immigration     * Labor Unions: Knights of Labor ($1869$) and AFL (Samuel Gompers, $1886$).     * Strikes: Homestead Strike ($1892$) and Pullman Strike ($1894$) crushed by government intervention.     * New Immigrants: Influx from Southern and Eastern Europe; faced nativism.     * Chinese Exclusion Act $1882$: First race-based immigration ban.
• The West and Populism     * Populist Party ($1892$): Demanded silver coinage, graduated income tax, and direct election of senators. William Jennings Bryan’s ‘Cross of Gold’ speech in $1896$.     * Native Americans: Dawes Act ($1887$) broke up tribal lands. Battle of Little Bighorn ($1876$) was the last major Native victory; Wounded Knee Massacre ($1890$) ended resistance.
• Foreign Policy     * Alfred Mahan: Argued that ‘Sea Power’ was essential to global status.     * Spanish-American War ($1898$): Sparked by USS Maine explosion and yellow journalism; U.S. gained Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.     * Anti-imperialists: Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie argued empire contradicted American values.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: U.S. becomes an industrial and global power; government begins hesitant regulation.     * Continuity: Racial hierarchy maintained; labor suppressed; immigration restricted.

PERIOD 7 (1890–1945): PROGRESSIVISM, WORLD WARS, & DEPRESSION

• The Progressive Era     * Progressivism: Middle-class reform movement using government power to fix industrial abuses; aimed to save capitalism, not replace it.     * Muckrakers:         * Upton Sinclair: The Jungle ($1906$) led to the Meat Inspection Act.         * Ida Tarbell: Exposed Standard Oil's monopoly.         * Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lives documentation of tenement slums.         * Lincoln Steffens: The Shame of the Cities regarding political corruption.     * Constitutional Amendments:         * $16th$: Federal income tax ($1913$).         * $17th$: Direct election of senators ($1913$).         * $18th$: Prohibition ($1919$); repealed by $21st$ ($1933$).         * $19th$: Women's suffrage ($1920$).     * Theodore Roosevelt's Square Deal: The ‘$3$ C’s’: Conservation, Control of corporations, Consumer protection.     * Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom: Federal Reserve Act ($1913$), Underwood Tariff, and Clayton Antitrust Act ($1914$).     * Social Justice: NAACP founded ($1909$) by W.E.B. Du Bois to challenge segregation legally.
• World War I ($1914 – 18$)     * Causes for U.S. Entry ($1917$): Lusitania sinking ($1915$), Zimmermann Telegram (offered TX, NM, AZ to Mexico), and unrestricted submarine warfare.     * Home Front: Espionage Act ($1917$) and Sedition Act ($1918$) restricted speech; Great Migration of Black Americans to North for factory work began.     * Post-War: Wilson proposed the $14$ Points and League of Nations; the U.S. Senate (Henry Cabot Lodge) rejected the Treaty of Versailles.     * Red Scare ($1919 – 20$): Fear of communism following the Russian Revolution; Palmer Raids arrested thousands.
• The 1920s     * Normalcy: Harding's return to pro-business policies and high tariffs.     * Culture War: Scopes Trial ($1925$) pitted evolution against fundamentalism. Harlem Renaissance saw a flourish of African American art and literature.     * Restriction: National Origins Act ($1924$) severely limited Southern/Eastern European and Asian immigration.
• The Great Depression and New Deal     * Causes: Stock speculation (buying on margin at 10 ext{%} down), overproduction, bank failures, and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff ($1930$).     * Dust Bowl: $3.5 ext{ million}$ ‘Okies’ fled the Great Plains due to drought and overfarming.     * First New Deal (Relief/Recovery): CCC employed $3 ext{ million}$ young men; AAA paid farmers to reduce production (later unconstitutional); Glass-Steagall created the FDIC.     * Second New Deal (Reform): Social Security Act ($1935$) created a permanent safety net; Wagner Act gave workers the right to unionize.     * Opposition: Huey Long (‘Share Our Wealth’) argued for capping incomes at $\$ 1 ext{ million}$. The Supreme Court struck down programs, leading to FDR's court-packing plan.
• World War II ($1939 – 45$)     * Neutrality to War: Lend-Lease Act ($1941$) provided $\$ 50 ext{ billion}$ in aid to Allies. Pearl Harbor (Dec. $7$, $1941$) triggered U.S. entry.     * Home Front: Executive Order $9066$ interned $120,000$ Japanese Americans (upheld in Korematsu v. U.S.). Double V Campaign sought victory over fascism and racism.     * Military: Battle of Midway ($1942$) turned the tide in the Pacific; D-Day (June $6$, $1944$) opened the Western Front.     * Atomic Bomb: Dropped on Hiroshima (Aug. $6$) and Nagasaki (Aug. $9$), $1945$, leading to Japanese surrender.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: Permanent expansion of federal government; U.S. becomes a global superpower; welfare state created.     * Continuity: Racial hierarchy and class tensions persist.

PERIOD 8 (1945–1980): COLD WAR & SOCIAL CHANGE

• Cold War Foreign Policy     * Containment: The doctrine by Kennan ($1946$) to stop Soviet expansion.     * Truman Doctrine ($1947$): Financial aid to Greece and Turkey ($\$ 400 ext{ million}$).     * Marshall Plan ($1948$): $\$ 13 ext{ billion}$ to rebuild Western Europe.     * Korean War ($1950 – 53$): UN intervention ended in an armistice at the $38th$ parallel.     * Cuban Missile Crisis ($1962$): $13 ext{-day}$ standoff over Soviet missiles in Cuba.     * Vietnam War: Escalated under the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution ($1964$); Tet Offensive ($1968$) created a credibility gap; U.S. withdrew in $1973$.
• Domestic Issues     * Prosperity: GI Bill fueled the middle class and suburbanization; Baby Boom saw $76 ext{ million}$ births.     * Red Scare: Senator McCarthy led anti-communist witch hunts.     * Great Society (LBJ): Ambitious programs including Medicare/Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act.     * Watergate: Nixon resigned in $1974$ following a break-in at the DNC headquarters and subsequent cover-up.     * $1970s$ Malaise: Stagflation (high inflation and unemployment) and the Iran Hostage Crisis.
• Civil Rights Movement     * Brown v. Board ($1954$): Overturned Plessy; school segregation unconstitutional.     * Montgomery Bus Boycott ($1955 – 56$): Rose MLK to leadership.     * Civil Rights Act of $1964$: Banned discrimination in public accommodations.     * Voting Rights Act of $1965$: Banned literacy tests.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: Legal segregation dismantled; welfare state expansion.     * Continuity: Racial inequality and containment doctrine persist.

PERIOD 9 (1980–PRESENT): CONSERVATISM & GLOBALIZATION

• Reagan Revolution     * Reaganomics: Supply-side economics involving massive tax cuts (top rate from 70 ext{%} to 28 ext{%}) and deregulation; national debt tripled.     * Reagan Doctrine: Rollback of communism by supporting guerrillas (e.g., Contras in Nicaragua).
• End of Cold War     * Fall of Berlin Wall ($1989$) and dissolution of the Soviet Union ($1991$).     * Gulf War ($1991$): US-led coalition expelled Iraq from Kuwait.
• Bush, Clinton, and Obama     * Globalization: NAFTA and the WTO expanded free trade.     * 9/11 ($2001$): Triggered the War on Terror, Patriot Act, and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.     * $2008$ Financial Crisis: Subprime mortgage collapse; TARP ($\$ 700 ext{ billion}$) bank bailouts.     * Obamacare (ACA): $2010$ healthcare reform extending coverage to $20 ext{ million}$ people.
• Continuity and Change     * Change: Cold War ends; conservative realignment; terrorism as a primary threat.     * Continuity: Income inequality grows; immigration debate remains unresolved.

QUESTIONS & DISCUSSION: TRICKY DISTINCTIONS

• Hamilton vs. Jefferson: Hamilton favored a strong central government and bank; Jefferson favored states' rights and agrarians.
• Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois: Washington advocated vocational education and patience; Du Bois demanded full civil rights immediately.
• MLK vs. Malcolm X: MLK used nonviolent integration; Malcolm X (early) advocated Black nationalism and self-defense ‘by any means necessary.’
• $14th$ vs. $15th$ Amendment: The $14th$ ensures citizenship/equal protection; the $15th$ ensures voting rights regardless of race.
• WWI Expansion of Power vs. New Deal: Both involved massive government intervention, but the New Deal’s role in the economy was permanent.

KEY SUPREME COURT CASES

• Marbury v. Madison ($1803$): Established judicial review.
• McCulloch v. Maryland ($1819$): Established federal supremacy and implied powers.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford ($1857$): Ruled slaves were property, not citizens.
• Plessy v. Ferguson ($1896$): Legalized ‘separate but equal’ segregation.
• Schenck v. United States ($1919$): Limited free speech if it poses a ‘clear and present danger.’
• Brown v. Board of Education ($1954$): Struck down school segregation.
• Roe v. Wade ($1973$): Established a constitutional right to abortion based on privacy.
• United States v. Nixon ($1974$): Ruled executive privilege is not absolute.

KEY DOCUMENTS & TEXTS

• Mayflower Compact ($1620$): First example of self-governance.
• Declaration of Independence ($1776$): Founded U.S. on Enlightenment principles like consent of the governed.
• Federalist No. $10$ ($1787$): Madison argued a large republic controls dangerous factions.
• Declaration of Sentiments ($1848$): Modeled on the Declaration of Independence; demanded women's suffrage.
• Emancipation Proclamation ($1863$): Freed slaves in Confederate states.
• MLK's 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' ($1963$): Justified nonviolent civil disobedience.
• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution ($1964$): Blank check for military force in Vietnam.