APUSH Research Paper Potential Questions:
1. Was the Civil War fought primarily over the issue of slavery or states’
rights?
2. Should the ‘Founding Fathers’ of America be remembered as patriots or
traitors?
3. Should the actions of John Brown during the abolitionist movement be
considered acts of heroism or insanity?
4. Were the actions displayed by FDR during the New Deal within the
powers of the executive branch?
5. Was the New Deal an effective answer to the Great Depression?
6. Did the lavish lifestyle of the ‘roaring twenties’ serve as the main
contributing factor causing the Great Depression?
7. Was the U.S. government justified in interning Japanese American
citizens on the west coast during World War II?
8. Was the Mexican War an exercise in American imperialism?
9. Was the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 designed to protect the Latin American
countries from European intervention?
10. Was Prohibition a failure?
11. Did Booker T. Washington’s philosophy and actions betray the interests
of African Americans?
12. Has the women’s movement of the 1970’s failed to liberate American
women?
13. Was the Americanization of the war in Vietnam inevitable?
14. Did the Brown decision fail to desegregate and improve the status African
American education?
15. Was Woodrow Wilson Responsible for the failure of the United States to
join the League of Nations?
16. Was rock n’ roll responsible for dismantling America’s traditional family,
sexual, and racial customs in the 1950s and 1960s?
17. Which immigrant group made the greatest contribution to American
society in the late nineteenth century?
18. Was President Truman justified in making the decision to drop the bomb
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
19. Were the actions of the Black Panther party successful in bringing about
positive change during the Civil Rights Movement?
20. Were the protests of the counterculture movement successful in bringing
about an end to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War?
21. Was the involvement of the French necessary for colonial victory in the
Revolutionary War?
22. Were the preachers and revival meetings of the First Great Awakening
successful in bringing Puritan beliefs back to the forefront of
American society?
23. How effective were the reform efforts of the Progressive Era?
24. Were the actions of Andrew Jackson in regards to the removal of the
Cherokee nation in the Trail of Tears justified?
25. To what extent can the defense spending of the Reagan administration be
attributed to the decline of the Soviet Union?
26. Was the ratification of the Constitution and the government established
by it a radical departure from the government of the Articles of
Confederation?
27. If Richard Nixon failed to resign the presidency, would there have been
enough evidence against him to vote for his removal?
28. Did the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy violate the civil liberties of
citizens of the United States?
29. Should General Douglas MacArthur go down in history as a hero or
villain for his actions in the Korean conflict?
30. In what ways did Eleanor Roosevelt transform the role of the First Lady
of the United States of America?
31. Did the efforts of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers succeed in
bringing about positive change in the agricultural industry?
32. Who should be credited with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion?
33. Did the portrayal of ‘Rosie the Riveter’, as example of an independent
woman, change the perception of women in the workplace?
34. Compare and contrast the propaganda of World War I and World War II.
Which effort proved more effective in gaining support of the
American public?
35. Which presidential election has stirred the greatest controversy in
American history: The election of 1800, the election of 1824, the
election of 1876, or the 2000 election?
36. Have the efforts of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Mendez v.
Westminster (1946) succeeded in bringing about equal
opportunities in education?
37. Were the yellow journalists(mainly Hearst and Pulitzer) responsible for
‘furnishing’ the Spanish American War?
38. Was the military draft during the Vietnam War era responsible for the
ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment?
39. Should the business tycoons of the Industrial Revolution(i.e. Carnegie
and Rockefeller) be heralded as ‘Captains of Industry’ or
condemned as ‘Robber Barons’?
40. Compare and contrast the motivation behind the Espionage and Sedition
Acts(1917) and the Patriot Act(2001). In both cases, was the
legislation justified in the name of national security?