1
U.S. History I – Reviewing Main Ideas
Revolutionary War, Civil War, and Era of Reconstruction / Segregation
- Why did colonists want independence from Great Britain?
- Why have future generations of Americans pointed to the Declaration of Independence?
- What ideas were included by Chief Justice Roger Taney in the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision?
- What caused the U.S. Civil War?
- What was the immediate historical event that led the first seven states of the American South to secede from the
Union?
- What did the Emancipation Proclamation and the following amendments: 13th, 14th, and 15th accomplish?
- What were the accomplishments of the Freedmen’s Bureau?
- Why can the Era of Reconstruction be identified as a time in which the nation considered seriously whether “All Men
Are Created Equal?”
- What were the Jim Crow laws?
Westward Settlement, Industrialization, and Urbanization
- Manifest Destiny
- Individualism
- Capitalism
- Americanization
- Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) & Great Sioux Reservation
- Marxism
- Homestead Act of 1862
- Dawes Act
- Assimilation
- Laissez-faire
- Treaty of Fort Laramie 1868
- Entrepreneurism
- Social Darwinism
- Black Hills Cession of 1877
- Manifest Destiny
- Boarding Schools
- Nativism
Age of Imperialism, Progressive Era, and WWI
- Causes of western / U.S. imperialism
- Jingoism
- What is imperialism?
- Ethnocentrism
- Anglo-Saxonism
- Nationalism
- What were the consequences of the Spanish-American War?
- What did the Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Acts accomplish?
- What did the following amendments: 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th accomplish?
- Accomplishments of President Theodore Roosevelt: “trustbuster,” 1902 Coal Strike, and Western land reserves
- What were the consequences (effect) of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire?
2
- What was the “crisis in the Balkans?”
- Specifically, what were the two main causes that led to WWI?
- What consequences of the end of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles had the biggest impact eventually leading to WWII?
- What events and reasons caused the United States to enter WWI?
Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression
- By the end of the 1920’s, how many homes had electricity?
- Who were the flappers?
- What was the impact of the radio upon Americans?
- What was the Scopes Trial?
- Why did rural Americans turn to the K.K.K. and nativism in response to some of the cultural changes of the 1920’s?
- Why did the post-WWI and 1920’s optimism in part lead to the Great Depression?
- Why were farmers motivated to take out loans for more land and farming equipment during WWI and thereafter?
- By 1927, what percentage of household goods was purchased on credit or installment plans?
- What is buying on the installment plan?
- How did low interest rates lead to buying on the margin and eventually the “financial bubble?”
- What is the historical progression of events from WWI prosperity leading eventually to rural banks failing during the
1920’s?
1. During WWI, farm
prices are high, leading
to profits by farmers.
6.
2.
3.
5.
4. Crop prices drop in
1920 and 1921.
7.
- What are the two larger developments that led to the stock market crash of 1929?
- What is market liquidity?
- How did the Stock Market Crash of 1929 affect the banking industry, and what exactly caused the stock market
crash?
3
- What were the causes leading to the Dust Bowl?
- Grasshopper and jackrabbit plagues
- “Oakies”
- Dust pneumonia: explain how dust pneumonia occurs, explaining more than simply “it happens because of dust?”
- What were the Causes of the Great Depression?
- Uneven distribution of wealth: why was there a drop in consumer spending during the 1920’s?
- Falling demand: What is demand?
- Overproduction: Why did falling demand and overproduction eventually lead to deflation and unemployment
during the Great Depression?
- What is deflation?
- Low interest rates: Why did low interest rates lead to buying on the margin?
- Stock market speculation: What is “buying on the margin?”
- High tariffs: why did high tariffs slow down trade between nations?
- Describe what life was like during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.
- What are some of the statistics and facts that convey the level of desperation people felt (including suicide rates,
alcoholism, mental health, etc.)?
- From 1929 to 1939, how many young people left their families and homes, looking for working for work only to
never see their families again?
- Economic statistics during the Great Depression:
a. From 1929 to 1933, what percentage did personal income drop?
b. From 1929 to 1933, what was the increase in the unemployment percentage?
c. From 1929 to 1933, what was the dollar amount drop per capita for Americans in food expenditures?
d. From 1929 to 1936, what was the dollar amount drop per capita for Americans on housing expenditures?
e. From 1930 to 1940, what was the population change in California?
- Why did so many people move to California to resettle during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl?
4
The New Deal
- What was the decrease in the size of the economy from 1929 to 1933?
- Why was the Great Depression in many ways a failure of the banking industry?
- What were the reasons banks were failing during the 1920’s and during the Great Depression?
- What percentage of banks failed by the time Herbert Hoover left the presidency in March of 1933?
- Describe important new legislation passed during the New Deal Era and describe the impact this has upon our
lives as Americans today.
- How did Franklin Roosevelt’s experience with polio lead him to relate to people that struggled during the Great
Depression?
** Important New Deal policies:
- Reform Programs:
- Emergency Banking Relief Act
- Securities Act of 1933, including the Securities and Exchange Commission
- Glass-Steagall Act, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
- Wagner Act, including the National Labor Relations Board
- Social Security Act
- National Housing Act, including the United States Housing Authority
- Indian Reorganization Act of 1934
- Relief Programs:
- (HOLC) Home Owners Loan Corporation
- (FCA) Farm Credit Administration
- (FERA) Federal Emergency Relief Administration
- (CWA) Civil Works Administration
- (CCC) Civilian Conservation Corp
- (WPA) Works Progress Administration
- (FSA) Farm Security Administration
- Why did the Farm Security Administration send photographers across the country to take pictures of rural
famers during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl?
- Economic Recovery Programs:
- Agricultural Adjustment Act
- (TVA) Tennessee Valley Authority
- (NIRA) National Industrial Recovery Act, including the (NRA) National Recovery Administration
- Also including the (PWA) Public Works Administration
- How did the political affiliation of Americans forever change with the “New Deal Coalition” of voters?
- What is the legacy of the New Deal?
- What is Keynesian economics?