HIS 204 Week 2 - Discussion 1
Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to
your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.
Reference the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.
The Progressive Movement
Background: The Progressive Movement was a complex movement with both Republican and Democratic
wings. The movement addressed some of the worst domestic problems of its time, but its mainstream largely
ignored widespread and worsening racial injustices.
Required Sources:
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Primary source: Chapter Nine from The Jungle
The Progressive Era: America in the 20th Century in the Films on Demand database in the
Ashford University Library
Recommended Sources:
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The stockyards
Scholarly source: Segregation, Racial Violence and Black Workers. In Black Workers
Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle, pp. 15-43.
Scholarly source: “Let Each Reader Judge”: Lynching, Race, and Immigrant Newspapers
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After reading Chapter Nine from The Jungle and watching the The Progressive Era: America in the 20th
Century, use these sources and the textbook to address the following questions:
 What do you see as the most serious problem in the first decade of the 1900s?
 Why was this problem more serious than the other problems?
 How did Americans attempt to solve the problem?
 In what ways were they effective?
 In what ways did aspects of the problem still remain?
Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from the required
material(s) and properly cite any references. You may use additional scholarly sources to support your points
if you choose. Your references and citations must be formatted according to APA style as outlined by the
Ashford Writing Center.
HIS 204 Week 2 - Discussion 2
Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to
your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.
Reference the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.
America's Age of Imperialism
Background: During America’s Age of Imperialism in the 1890s, the United States aggressively pursued
overseas colonies, holding on to those colonies even in the face of indigenous resistance. Unlike its handling
of continental territories, the United States offered the new colonies no pathway toward equal statehood and
citizenship.
American Imperialism combined the expansionist ideology that propelled Americans from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Oceans with a desire to become a world power as well as the need for new markets and raw
materials to feed the growing industrial base. Inspired by Alfred Thayer Mahan’s concept of sea power,
Americans began to look outside their borders for the means to grow their global political influence. Fueled
by the technological innovations and cheap labor of the Industrial Revolution, American industry looked
abroad for new markets and access to natural resources. An early and vociferous proponent of American
Imperialism, Theodore Roosevelt aggressively and effectively promoted the cause through initiatives like the
construction of the Panama Canal and the demonstration of American military power embodied by the Great
White Fleet. With the articulation of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Roosevelt claimed the
U.S. right to keep European powers out of Latin America through the use of military force.
Required Source:
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To Conquer or Redeem: Manifest Destiny in the Films on Demand database in the Ashford
University Library
Instructions: Refer to your textbook and the film, To Conquer or Redeem: Manifest Destiny. Thoroughly
address the following points:
 Explain Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism.
 How were these ideas applied to U.S. foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century?
 What do you see as the positives and negatives of American Imperialism?
Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Provide specific examples to support your points.
Your references and citations must be formatted according to APA style as outlined by the Ashford Writing
Center.
HIS204 Week 2 - Assignment
The American Frontier
The West lives on in American imagination as a place where rugged individuals triumphed over adversity to
conquer an inhospitable land. However, historians often disagree with that view. In this assignment, you will
be looking at the common myths about the American Frontier and the historical realities.
Write a paper that contrasts the common myths of the American Frontier from the historical realities. Choose
one group who had a significant presence in the West (e.g., Native Americans, White settlers, Black
Americans, women, etc.), and maintain focus on your chosen group throughout the paper. In addition,
explain all of the following points:
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Explain what two opportunities and/or challenges this group faced during the last half
of the 1800s. You can choose two opportunities, two challenges, or one opportunity
and one challenge.
Explain the impact of the “closing of the frontier” during the last half of the 1800s on
this group.
Explain how the myths relevant to this group contrasted with reality.
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In order to gain a better understanding of the Closing of the Frontier, watch the following film:
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Ghost dance: The West, a Film by Stephen Ives from the Films on Demand database
in the Ashford University Library.
To further research this assignment, review the following online exhibition, and read the following scholarly
source:
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Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawings
Making and Unmaking Myths of the American Frontier
o This source is available in the EBSCOhost database in the Ashford University
Library.
Your paper must
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Be two to three pages in length, not including title and references pages.
Be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
Contain at least one quote from the article “Making and Unmaking Myths of the
American Frontier.” For information on how to do this, visit the Ashford Writing Center.
Discuss at least one of the images from the online exhibition on Indian Ledger
Drawings.
Cite sources in text and on the reference page. Your references and citations must be
formatted according to APA style as outlined by the Ashford Writing Center.