APUSH - The Transformation of the Mississippi West
This will require you to do some additional research from outside your AP textbook.
1. Describe the caste system that developed in the American Southwest under Spanish and
Mexican rule. What role did the Pueblo Indians and other tribes play in this system?
2. List some of the characteristics of the culture of the Plains tribes, with particular emphasis
on gender roles and the importance of the American bison, or buffalo.
3. What factors led to the decline of Mexican-American economic and social dominance in
California and Texas? What was the socio-economic status of most Mexican Americans by the
end of the 19th Century?
4. Up to 1869, in what two fields did the greatest number of Chinese immigrants work? How did
employment tendencies, residence patterns, and social relationships change in the Chinese
community later in the 19th Century?
5. Why was Anglo-European hostility toward the Chinese so high in California? What actions
resulted from this hostility? How did the Chinese Americans respond?
6. What was the composition of the western labor force? How was it shaped by racial prejudice
and gender imbalance?
7. What was the typical pattern of development and decline in the western mining industry?
8. What were the responses made by the Plains settlers to the living conditions and challenges
they encountered?
9. Describe the origins, purposes, and practices of the "long drive" and "open range" periods of
the cattle industry.
10. What unique challenges did women settlers face in the West?
11. Why did women tend to gain the right to vote in the western states and territories before
they did in the East?
12. What were the characteristics and functions of the Western cow town that emerged in the
late 19th Century?
13. How did the transformation of the open-range ranch change the nature of the cattle
industry on the Western frontier?
14. How accurate was Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis about the American frontier?
15. Describe the evolution of traditional national Indian policy up to the 1880s. What did these
policies accomplish? How were the policies and their implementation flawed?
16. What happened to the great buffalo herds in the last half of the 19th Century? What role
did the railroad play? How did this affect Native American life?
17. Identify some of the major encounters/battles between Native Americans and white
settlers/US Army at the end of the 19th Century?
18. What was the basic objective of the Dawes Severalty Act? How did it try to accomplish
this goal?
19. What was the "Ghost Dance?" Why was it so threatening to the white community nearby?
20. Why has Wounded Knee, SD become a symbol in the struggle for Native American civil rights?
21. Why can it be said that the western railroads were essentially public projects, despite their
private ownership?
22. How did the railroads stimulate settlement of the Great Plains?
23. How did Western farmers use invention, technology, and innovation to meet the challenges
of Western settlement? (Include specific examples of inventions/technology.)
24. How were market forces changing the nature of American agriculture at the end of the
19th Century?
25. What were the main grievances of the late-19th Century farmer?
Key Terms/Phrases – for your own reference, NOT for you to define:
Comstock Lode
Sooners
Buffalo Soldiers
Helen Hunt Jackson
Great Plains
Great Basin
Chivington's Sand Creek Massacre
George Armstrong Custer
Crazy Horse
Sitting Bull
Little Big Horn
Nez Perce
Chief Joseph
Chiracahua
Geronimo
General Oliver Otis Howard
General George Crook
William Sherman
Helen Hunt Jackson's Century of Dishonor
Dawes Severalty Act of 1887
Ghost Dance
Sun Dance
"Battle" of Wounded Knee
Union Pacific
golden spike
Promontory Point
Central Pacific
William F. Cody
claim-jumping
Vigilantes
Comstock Lode
Long Drive
Railhead
Joseph McCoy
Chisolm Trail
Longhorns
Goodnight-Loving Trail
William Bonney
Range Wars
Abilene Trail
Pre-emption
Homestead Act of 1862
Joseph F. Glidden
Sooners and Boomers
nesters
100th Meridian
John Deere
buffalo chips
Frederick Jackson Turner
"safety-valve" theory
APUSH Study Guide - Industrialization
This will require you to do some additional research from outside your AP textbook.
1. Evaluate the causes of the transformation of the American economy from the Civil War to
the turn of the century.
2. How were most transcontinental railroads financed and built? How did the original owners
try to turn a profit?
3. What business practices by the railroads caused demands for government regulation?
How were those demands met?
4. Critics accused the railroads and other large businesses of being "monopolistic" in the
decades after the Civil War. To what extent were these accusations valid and how did the
federal and state governments respond to these accusations?
5. Were the capitalists of the late 19th century and early 20th century "Robber Barons" or
"Industrial Statesmen"? Explain.
7. Explain the differences between, and give examples of, "vertical integration" and
"horizontal integration".
8. Why is Andrew Carnegie seen by many as a paradigm of industrialization? Was he really?
Explain. How about John D. Rockefeller? How might he be a better paradigm?
9. Why was “socialism” such an apparent failure in the good old capitalism society?
10. What is the difference between "industrial capitalism" and "finance capitalism"? Which
one won by 1900?
11. What types of business organizations evolved during the Gilded Era? Why were they
needed?
12. How was the disparity between rich and poor justified? In other words, what became
the ideology of American capitalism by the end of the 19th century?
13. What roles did the federal government play in industrialization by 1900? To what extent
did the federal government follow a laissez-faire policy? (Some years ago, this was a DBQ).
14. Mark Twain labeled this era “The Gilded Age”. What did he mean by this moniker?
Key Terms/Phrases – for your own reference, NOT for you to define:
Jay Gould
Jim Fiske
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt
William H. Vanderbilt
James B. Duke
R.J. Reynolds
Mesabi Range
William Kelley
Bessemer Process
Thomas Edison
George Westinghouse
Alexander Graham Bell
Gustavus Swift
J. Ogden Armour
R.H. Macy
Richard W. Sears
John Pierpoint Morgan
"watered stock"
Kickbacks (rebates)
Drawbacks
Pools
Trusts
Holding companies
Standard Oil
U.S. Steal, er, Steel
Social Darwinism
William Graham Sumner
Frederick Winslow Taylor
"scientific management"
Horatio Alger
Granger Laws
Munn v. Illinois
Santa Clara Co. v. Southern Pacific Railroad
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad
Company v. Illinois
United States v. E C Knight
Danbury Hatters Case
Lochner v. New York
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
Sherman Anti- Trust Act (1890)
Homestead Strike
Henry Clay Frick
"The Pinks"
Alexander Berkman
"Red Emma" Goldman
National Consumers League
Scabs
Lockouts
Blacklists
Yellow-dog contracts
Molly Maguires
James McParlan
Great Railroad Strikes of 1877
"One Big Union" (OBU)
National Labor Union
William Sylvis
Haymarket Riot
Albert R. Parsons
August Spies
Johann Most
John Peter Altgeld
Knights of Labor
Terrence V. Powderly
Pullman Strike
American Railway Union
Eugene V. Debs
Daniel De Leon
American Federation of Labor
P.J. McGuire
Adolph Strasser
Samuel Gompers
"pure & simple unionism"
Edward Bellomy's Looking Backward
Henry George's Progress and Poverty