Hansen
American History
Study Guide for Spring 2011 Final Exam
Introduction- The U.S. history Spring Final Exam will occur during the week of April 25 th – 29th. Part I,
on Monday, April 25th, will cover units I, II, and III. Part II, taken on either April 26th or 27th (check STAR
schedule) will cover parts IV, V, VI, and VII. You may bring a 3x 5 inch note-card to each test (so you
may create two notecards) with helpful information from this study guide and from your notes. The final
will be approximately 300 points total and will be entirely scantron. We will have an entire week of review
to prepare for the final. Good luck (except for Alyssa Steele and Kori Krogman).
Unit One- Founding Ideals
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Founding American Ideals
o The Five Founding Ideals
o Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence, which captured these ideals
The Enlightenment
o What was the Enlightenment?

Central goal and methods.
o What were Enlightenment philosophers up against?

Absolute monarchs and Divine Right
o Enlightenment Ideas

The Social Contract

What was it?

Hobbes’s Version

Locke’s Version

Locke’s Key Ideas

Natural Rights

The Right of Revolution

Montesquieu’s Separation of Powers

Voltaire’s Freedom of Expression

Why important to him?
o The Enlightenment in America

Why were Americans in a unique position to capitalize on the new Enlightenment ideas?
(several reasons)
The American Revolution
o Long Term Causes

British History of Limited Government

Magna Carta

The Glorious Revolution

The Enlightenment

Locke

The Great Awakening (why important?)
o More Immediate Causes

French and Indian Wars

Why did this war increase American/British tensions? (two reasons!)

British Policies

Proclamation of 1763

New taxes

The Quartering Act

Colonial Reactions to British Policies

First Continental Congress
o Boycotts, militia, etc.

The Fighting

How did the colonists manage to win?
The American Constitution
o Why was a Republic chosen?

Fear of mob rule?
o Shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation?
o Problems faced at the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia to strengthen Articles of
Conf., and the ultimate Compromises

Small state (New Jersey) v Big State (Virginia) Plans

Compromise?

Senate v House of Representatives

Counting slaves?

3/5ths Compromise
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Avoid tyrannical federal government?

Checks and Balances
o Both the theory of this idea and the actual checks and balances that
were built into the Constitution

Judicial, Legislative, and Executive Branches
o the Ratification Fight

Federalism

Federalists versus Anti-Federalists

States maintained the rights not granted to Federal Gov’t in Constitution

Bill of Rights Compromise
o Other Elements of the Constitution

The Electoral College

Amending the Constitution

Impeachment
Fast Forward of American History From the 1780s (American Revolution) to the 1860s (the Civil War)
o Judiciary Act of 1789

What were the unique traits of the system of courts it established?
o Marbury v. Madison

Under Justice John Marshall

Established a precedent of Judicial Review (the right to declare a law of the congress
unconstitutional)
o Expansion of the U.S. Borders

The Louisiana Purchase

The Adams-Onis Treaty

The Mexican-American War
o Monroe Doctrine
o Indian Removal Act

Trail of Tears
o Manifest Destiny
o Mormon Migration
o Key Divisions Between the North and South That Developed Over This Time Period

Economics

Slavery

Reform Movements

Abolition and temperance
The Civil War
o Why did westward expansion heighten tension between slave and free states?

Dred Scott Case as an example.
o South secedes
o What were most northern states fighting for? (refer to the Lincoln quote about slavery to answer
this question)
o Why did Lincoln ultimately decide to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?
Reconstruction
o What does this term mean?
o What was the basic difference of opinion between Congress and the presidents (Lincoln and
Johnson) about the proper plan for Reconstruction?
o Which side won this struggle?

How did it win?
o In what ways were the gains of southern blacks limited?

Think: few elected black officials, failure of ‘forty acres and a mule plan’,
sharecropping
o How did some whites undermine and destroy Reconstruction?

Vigilante groups like the KKK

Refusal by other whites to do business with blacks who voted Republican
o How successful was the Federal government in saving Reconstruction?

Not very: Freedmen’s Bureau was allowed to expire, economic problems destroyed the
political willpower to address black rights

How did the closeness of the election of 1876 guarantee the end of Reconstruction in the
south?
Unit II- Industrialization, Immigration, and Reform
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
Know that this unit covers the time period from the end of the Civil War (1860s) to the 1910s
Industrialization
o 3 key necessary factors

Tons of natural resources in America

Growth of the railroad

Urbanization
U.S. Gov’t Role in Industrialization

Subsidies and loans

Laissez-faire, free enterprise, hands-off

No environmental controls, for example

Positives and negatives of the free enterprise system?

Low taxes and high tariffs

Was the gov’ts approach better for factory owners or workers?
o Key innovations

the Bessemer Process

electricity (Alexander Graham Bell)
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the telegraph (Samuel Morse)
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assembly line (Henry Ford)
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Steam Ship (Robert Fulton)
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Cotton Gin (Eli Whitney)
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Skyscraper (William Jenny)
o Social Darwinism

What was it and what was its importance in terms of American Industrialization?
o Consolidation and Monopolies and Trusts

Key business leaders

Carnegie- steel

Rockefeller- oil

Vanderbilt- Railroads
o Captains of Industry versus Robbers Barons

Vertical and Horizontal forms of integration

Trusts

What was the benefit of a trust?

Anti-Sherman Trust Act- successful/failure? Why?

Labor Unions

Collective bargaining

Strikes

Robber Barons and Trusts had the money to influence politicians (later link to the
Progressive Movement)

Want high tarrifs
o Why?

This Contributed to the growth of political machines in key cities
o north industrialized more quickly than the south
o Banking

Lack of regulation leads to instability
o The Gilded Age

What does this term mean?

Who coined it?
Immigration
o What was the ‘Golden Door’?
o Who were ‘old’ European immigrants? Who were ‘new’ European immigrants?
o What Asian groups immigrated?

What specific job did many Chinese immigrants do?
o What were the basic push and pull factors of immigration?
o Know that Ellis Island and Angel Island served a similar function on different coasts, know which
coast was which, and what function they served.
o What was steerage?
o Why did many immigrants move into ethnic enclaves?
o What do the terms assimilation and cultural pluralism mean?
o What was Nativism and what factors caused it?
o What group of immigrants was first legally excluded from the U.S.?
o Did most immigrants arriving in America head for cities or the countryside?
o What was the Americanization Movement?
o What were the basic problems of America’s rapid urbanization?

Tenements, Sanitation , Etc.
Reform
o What problems did reformers, in particular the Progressives, try to solve?

Political Machines

Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall

What was a good side of the political machines?

What was their darker side?

Poor Working Conditions

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Instability in the banking system and in the economy as a whole
o
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
o
o
Corruption in the world of business

For example, railroads charging outrageous prices to farmers.
What methods did they use?

Social Gospel Movement

Settlement Houses

Unions

Muckrakers

Upton Sinclair- anti-poor working conditions and mistreatment of immigrants

Progressive Successes and Progressive Failure

Seneca Falls Convention- to promote women’s rights
o Eventually (in the long run- post WWI- gained women the right to
vote (19th Amendment)
o Some states (Wyoming was first) allowed women to vote pre-WWI

Teddy Roosevelt used the presidential Bully Pulpit to push for reform
o Was successful- Trustbuster, promised Americans a Square Deal,
set aside first American lands for environmental protection

Poor food quality
o Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
o FDA (Food and Drug Administration)
o Meat Inspection Act

Not much gain in Civil Rights
o Black Leaders argued about the proper route to take to gain rights

Booker T. Washington- fight for economic rights first and
then demand other rights

W.E.B. Dubois- demand all rights immediately

To regulate Trusts
o Clayton Act (newer version of Sherman Anti-Trust Act, but one that
actually had real power- more effective)
o FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to monitor monopolies and trusts

To Regulate Banks
o Federal Reserve (gov’t bank to monitor banks)
WWI turned America’s attention away from Progressive Era
Unit III. Foreign Policy at the Turn of the Century
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Motivations for American Imperialism
o Monroe Doctrine  Roosevelt Corollary
o Extension of Manifest Destiny
o White Man’s Burden
Methods of American Imperialism
o Roosevelt’s Big Stick
o Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy
o Wilson’s Moral Diplomacy
The reasons the U.S. was hesitant (more so than European nations) to become involved in Imperialism
The Spanish-American War
o Reasons (both selfless and self-serving) that the U.S. was interested in Cuba
o Impact of, and definition of, Yellow Journalism
o The basic steps leading up to the war (e.g., Sinking of the Maine, intercepted note from Spanish
Ambassador, U.S. desire for the Philippines, etc.)
o Ultimate result of the war and the Treaty of Paris
Some basics of facts of U.S. interventionism
o U.S. pursued (and got) an Open Door Policy in China
o What the Boxer Rebellion was.
o U.S. intervened in Hawaii, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Mexico
The U.S. in World War I
o Why was America initially neutral?
o What factors brought them into the war? (economic factors, Germany as bully, unrestricted
submarine warfare, Zimmerman Note, Russia’s collapse)
o Government control of U.S. economy during the war (Liberty Bonds, rationing, daylight savings)
o Loss of Constitutional Rights (Espionage and Sedition Acts)
o Impact on Women and Minorities (‘Great Migration’, women in factories)
o Influenza pandemic
o U.S.’s new position as (perhaps) leading world power
Unit IV- The Interwar Years

The 1920s

The Treaty of Versailles
What were Germany’s basic punishments?
Understand the debate in America over the Treaty:

What were the basic arguments of Americans who wanted to accept the treaty (and
join the League of Nations)?

What were the basic arguments of Americans who didn’t want to accept the treaty
(or join the League)?

Which side of the debate was democrat Woodrow Wilson on, and what side were
the Republican members of congress on?

Which side ultimately won the debate? In other words, what was the decision of the
U.S. about joining the League of Nations?
Impact of World War I on 1920s Society
o Desire for ‘normalcy’
o Isolationism

Decreased navy

Raised tariffs

Laws reducing immigration
o Desire for Economic Growth

Laissez-faire gov’t stance on economics

Gov. builds roads to boost car sales

Less gov tolerance for strikes
o New fear of radical foreign ideas and those who held them (aka subversives)

Fear of Socialism

No private property

‘gov’ should get involved in the economy to help the poor

Fear of Communism

No private property

Gov should get involved to make all people equally wealthy

Russian (Boshevik) Revolution of 1917

Anarchism
o Understand that the desire for ‘normalcy’ clashed with the lingering desires (left over from
pre-WWI America) for Progressive change
Results of this clash
o Red Scare
o Palmer Raids
o Rebirth of the KKK
o Rebirth of Nativism
o Anti-immigration quotas
o Sacco and Venzetti Trial
o National Guard called in to break up strikes
o Formation of groups to protect Civil Liberties

ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

ADL (anti-Defamation League- focus on anti-Semitism)
o Marcus Garvey- Back to Africa Movement
Other Important Interwar Trends
o Consumerism

Increased purchasing of consumer goods, often on credit

Rise of advertising

Transportation explosion
o
Politics- Normalcy?

Harding scandals

Ohio Gang

Teapot Dome

Mysterious death in SF

Coolidge

‘Coolidge or Chaos’

Hoover

Limited gov role in the economy (important to later Great Depression)
o Prohibition

Other names for it?

Led to organized crime

Connection to Progressive and Women’s Rights Movement

Connection to Flapper culture and Speakeasies
o Civil Rights

+  19th amendment- women’s right to vote

-  Sedition Laws during WWI

Great Migration of African American to the northern cities
o
o
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Harlem Renaissance
o Sports Mania
o Movies and Radio
The `1930s
Signs of Economic Woe
o Many were not part of economic prosperity
o Buying on credit meant that much of the apparent prosperity was hollow
o Speculation in the stock market
o Overproduction
Crash of 1929
o Buying on Margin
o Black Tuesday
o $30 billion lost in 1929
Bank Failures
Dust Bowl
o Okies
25 % Unemployment Rate
Hoover’s response to the Great Depression
o Basic policy?
o Hoovervilles
o Why was the Hawley Smoot Tariff passed and what was its basic impact?
o Reconstruction Finance Corporation (too little, too late)
o Loses 1932 election to FDR
FDR/New Deal
o Know the basics about FDR’s background and general political philosophy.
o Know the basic goals of the New Deal
o Successes of the New Deal, including

Infrastructure Projects

FDIC

SEC

Social Security
o Failures of the New Deal

Gave Federal government too much power?

Increased deficits

Perhaps did not go far enough- didn’t completely end the depression
Unit V. World War II
o
The Homefront

Government Control of the Economy
o Rationing
o Liberty Bonds
o Income Tax Raised

Withholdings system
o Strikes forbidden

Shortages
o Rubble drives
o Victory Garden

Impact on the Overall U.S. Economy
o GDP up (what is GDP?)

End of Great Depression
o Government debt up

The Experience of Minorities
o African Americans

Double V Campaign

Background of post-Reconstruction to World War II

Legal Segregation/’De-Jure’ Segregation
o Jim Crow Laws
o Poll Taxes and Grandfather Clauses

Plessy v Ferguson

Black Troops still segregated (white officers)

Black Americans increasingly move to northern/western cities

Increased industrialization of agricultural eliminated rural jobs

Factory war jobs were available
o Partly because black leaders (A Phillip Randolph, for example)
threatened black strikes and boycotts if FDR refused to eliminate
discrimination in war production
o Women
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
Rosie the Riveter as a symbol

Double Shift

WACS
o Mexican Americans

Zoot Suit Riots
o Japanese Americans

Executive Order 9066

Why were some Japanese interned and others not?

What evidence is there that the treatment of Japanese Americans was worse than
treatment of Italian and German Americans during the war? What is the explanation for
this harsher treatment?

What was ‘Korematsu v United States’ and what was the basic ruling of the Supreme
Court?

Understand the basic legal arguments for internment

President’s power to protect the citizenry during a time of war

Understand the basic legal arguments against internment

Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (what does each promise?)

How many Japanese Americans were individually convicted of treasonous actions against
the United States during the war?

How is this question connected to the Purple Heart Battalion?
o Native American coders
The War Abroad
Europe
o Know the details of D-Day

Other name for it

Point of the attack

What American general was in charge? (Ike!)

The reason(s) this attack was more significant than the U.S. invasions of North Africa or
Italy

Was the attack ultimately successful?
o The Battle of the Bulge

Where? Why? End Result?
o Yalta Conference

What was the point of the conference?

What decisions were reached?

What did FDR ultimately think about Stalin’s promises?
o V-E Day

Who invaded Berlin first?

What happened to Hitler?

What happened to FDR?

Who replaced him?

What amazing challenges faced this new U.S. president?
Japan
o Island Hopping

Why use it?

After what battle was it adopted? Why after this battle?

What two spots did the Japanese defend most desperately?

Why these two? (there are several reasons)

This connects to the idea of Kamikaze attacks

How do these spots and the Kamikaze factor into the Atom Bomb decision?
Atom Bomb Decision
o How is Einstein connected to the atom bomb? What was the point of his letter to FDR before
World War II?
o What was the Manhattan Project?

Why would the dollar cost of the Manhattan Project be important to Truman’s decision to
use the bomb?
o Why did the U.S. and the Soviet Union seek out German scientists at the end of World War II?
The Post War World
o United Nations

Why created?

Two key differences between the United Nations and the League of Nations?

Two tiered system

Where is its headquarters located?
o Division of Germany and Berlin

Stalin’s ‘Free Elections’ Promise
o Potsdam

Warning issued to Japan to surrender or ‘suffer total destruction’ (A-Bomb warning)
o
o
o
Nuremberg Trials

Crimes Against Humanity
American Homefront

Baby Boom

Economic Explosion

GI Bill
American Foreign Policy

No more Isolationism
 Start of the Cold War
Unit VI- The 1950s
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Economic Aftermath of World War II

Know that after WWII, Americans had money saved up due to rationing and work in war industries 
leading to a rise in post-war spending and an economic boom

Americans were eager to buy after the Great Depression and wartime rationing

Growth of white collar jobs, rather than blue collar jobs

Growth of service sector jobs
Renewed American Dream
o Baby Boom
o GI Bill
o Suburbia/Levittowns
o Car culture
o ‘golden age’ of the teenager (Why? How?)
o Dark side of the American dream  decaying inner cities, declining public transportation, minority
groups not included
50s Politics

Truman
o Democrat
o Fair Deal
o Banned discrimination in federal hiring
o Republicans seek to break the Democratic deadlock on the presidency

22nd Amendment  two terms max for prez

Eisenhower/Ike
o Republican
o What was his previous claim to fame?
o What modern Republican policies did he follow?
o NASA
o National Defense Education Act

Connection to ‘Sputnik Moment’?
The Cold War

What was it? Why? Who was involved?

What are the basic political and economic systems between the societies of the United States and that of the
USSR (aka Russia, aka the Soviet Union)?

Nuclear arms race, NATO, containment, spheres of influence, the iron curtain, Churchill, Stalin, ‘free
world’ versus ‘Soviet bloc’, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, demilitarized
zone (DMZ), the Warsaw Pact

The Truman Doctrine aimed to help Turkey and Greece and the Marshall Plan aimed to help the rest of
Europe
o Why Turkey and Greece?

Know the division of German land at the Yalta Conference and understand how this set the stage for the
Berlin Airlift

The Second Red Scare
o What and when was the First Red Scare?
o Who was Alger Hiss and why is he significant?
o Who was Senator Joseph McCarthy? What did he do? In what sense were his actions ‘Witch
Hunts’?
o What events increased American hysteria?  Alger Hiss, soviets get the A-Bomb, China falls to
Communism under Mao Zedong (Chiang Kai Shek is forced to flee the country) , the
Rosenbergs, Korean War
o How is communism’s adherence to atheism relevant for an understanding of the 2nd Red Scare?
o What elements of Communism make it so terrifying to the leaders of most world nations?
o Truman’s Loyalty Boards, Whittaker Chambers, HUAC, Pumpkin Papers, Klaus Fuchs,
McCarthy Army Hearing,
o Sputnik’s relevance?

The Korean War
o Who owned Korea during and prior to World War II? How was Korea divided at the end of World
War II? Who got what? Why?
o



Although the Soviets and Americans eventually left, they only sort of left in 1949. Explain. How
would this contribute to later tensions? Why is China’s impact on Korea so huge and why is this
impact different after 1949?
o Which side (Northern or southern Koreans launched the first attack?
o Did U.N./U.S. troops support North or South Korea during the war?
o After winning back South Korea, the American general, named MacArthur, pushed troops on
towards China.

Why did he advise that this would work out ok for the U.S.?

How did the Chinese call his bluff?
o What argument did Truman and MacArthur have after the Chinese attack on American troops?
Which of the two sides ‘won’ the fight? What is the proof?
o What is the final (current) status of Korea today?
Civil Rights in the 50s

African-Americans
o Continued discrimination in almost all arenas- housing, public facilities, wages, etc.
o Plessy v Ferguson’s “Separate But Equal” replaced in the 50s by Brown v Board of
Education, in which the Supreme Court rejected legal segregation
o Early Civil Rights movement led by black church leaders (e.g. Martin Luther King)
o Chinese-Americans
o Americans who were seen to be foreign by most white Americans, like Chinese-Americans,
were seen as suspicious during the Red Scare
o Increasing number of educated Chinese and women as many sought to escape the Communist
takeover in China
o Children of these Chinese immigrants were caught in between the older ‘communal’ culture of
their parents and the newer ‘individualistic’ culture of America

Japanese Americans , Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and women all struggled for their rights
in the ‘50s
Pop Culture in the 1950s
o Music

What is conformity? Is this represented by Sinatra or Elvis in the 1950s?

Understand the racial component of early Rock and Roll and why it is important to be
able to link this to Brown Versus the Board of Education.
o Why was Elvis’ pelvis important? How did conservative networks deal with his pelvis?
TV
o Know that large numbers of Americans had TVs for the first time.
o Know that the number of networks (and thus choices of what to watch) were extremely limited
o Know what types of shows were most common in the 1950s? (conformist!)
o Understand the basic portrayals of women and minorities on TV in the 1950s and also the pressure
put on real people of living up to the ‘real life’ shown on TV

What were some of the key differences between the television world and the real world?
Unit VII- The 1960s
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1960s Election
o JFK barely won election

Unique because it was the first televised election

JFK won because of his physical appearance and from the support of MLK
o Camelot
The New Frontier
o ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’
o Deal with Poverty

Peace Corp
o Civil Rights

1964 Civil Rights Act
o Cold War

Cuba

Bay of Pigs

Cuban Missile Crisis

Fidel Castro

Sputnik

JFK promises man on the moon in the ‘50s
Kennedy Assassination
o Warren Commission
o Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby
o What was the commission’s finding?
1960s Counterculture
o Greatest Generation versus Baby Boomers
o
o
o
o
o
o
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WWII versus Vietnam
White versus multi-racial
Timothy Leary
Birth control, LSD
Woodstock
The New Left

SDS (Students for a Democratic Society)
LBJ
o Reduced Americans living in poverty
o Passed voting and civil rights acts
o Created Medicare and Medicaid
1960s Civil Rights
o Civil Rights Laws weren’t being enforced in the South African Americans to vote

Used poll taxes, literacy test, white primaries, gerrymandering

Brown v. Board of Education

Challenged school segregation
o Civil Rights Act of 1964

Banned discrimination in public accommodations, education, employment
o Voting Rights Act of 1965

Banned literacy tests

authorized federal intervention to enable African Americans to vote
o Civil Rights Act of 1968

banned discrimination in housing
o Martin Luther King Junior
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SCLC

believed in non-violent protest to achieve rights

March on Washington

highlight was MLKs I Have a Dream Speech
o Malcolm X

encouraged African Americans to use violent, militant tactics to fight for civil rights
o Little Rock, Arkansas

President Eisenhower used federal troops to integrate public schools
o Sit-In

Protest technique where African Americans occupied a segregated establishment and
demanded service
o Watts Riots

Violent reaction to de facto segregation

Black Power Movement

Affirmative Action designed to end de facto segregation