Unit 8 – Imperialism, Progressivism and the Great War, 1900 to 1920
Required Reading: American Pageant, 12th edition, Chapters 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31, pp. 623-727 (104 pages)
Unit Description: In this unit we examine the social and political reform movement known as
Progressivism, plus the social, legal, and constitutional changes the Progressives made, including the role of
individual reformers. We look critically at America’s reaction to the outbreak of the Great War, we trace
the events that led the U.S. into that war, and we analyze the political, social, and economic ramifications of
WWI for the nation.
Unit Objectives: The student will be able to:
 Discuss the origins and nature of the progressive movement.
 Identify the critical role that women played in progressive reform.
 Critically analyze Theodore Roosevelt’s approach to progressive reform.
 Describe how Taft’s policies offended progressives and caused a split in the
Republican Party.
 Describe the key issues of the pivotal 1912 election and how Wilson’s approach to
progressive reform differed from that of TR’s.
 Describe Wilson’s assault on the Triple Wall of Privilege.
 Discuss Wilson’s foreign policy with regard to Latin America.
 Describe America’s response to the war in Europe.
 Explain why America entered the Great War in 1917.
 Describe how Wilson’s idealism turned the war into a moral crusade.
 Discuss the mobilization of America for the war effort.
 Analyze Wilson’s attempt to establish peace based on the Fourteen Points and why he had to
compromise.
 Explain why Henry Cabot Lodge and others were able to block the ratification of the Treaty of
Versailles.
1
Date
2/25 Mon.
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
2/26 Tues.
2/27 Wed.
2/28 Thurs.
3/1 Fri.
3/4 Mon.
3/5 Tues.
3/6 Wed.
9
10
3/7, Thurs.
3/8, Fri.
Lesson
Causes of American Imperialism, The SpanishAmerican War
TR and Big Stick Diplomacy
The Progressives & TR
Progressive Presidents: Taft and Wilson
Wilson’s Domestic & Foreign Policy
America in WWI: The Homefront
America in WWI: The Battlefront
The Treaty of Versailles, The Fight for the
League of Nations
FRQ Writing Lab
Unit Exam FRQ
Quiz/Test/Homework Due
Reading
pp. 623-653
Quiz, chapter 27 terms
pp. 653-663
pp. 664-682
Pp .683-691
pp. 691-707
pp. 707-716
pp. 716-719
pp. 720-727
Quiz, chapter 28 terms
Quiz, chapter 29 terms
Quiz, chapter 30 terms
Quiz, chapter 31 terms
Unit 8 FRQ Due
Key Terms: Make vocabulary flash cards for the terms below. They are due on the day of the unit
exam and count as a test grade.
Chapter 27
1. Yellow Press
3. William Randolph Hearst
5. Alfred Thayer Mahan
7. Queen Liliuokalani
9. Gen. “Butcher” Weyler
11. “Remember the Maine!” Feb. 1898
13. Teller Amendment
15. Emilio Aguinaldo
17. Gen. William Shafter
19. Col. Leonard Wood
21. U. S. S. Oregon
23. Insular Cases, 1901
25. The Platt Amendment
Chapter 28
1. John Hay
3. Boxer Rebellion, 1900
5. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850
7. Hay/Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 1903
9. Col. George Washington Goethals
11. Roosevelt Corollary
13. Cuban intervention, 1906
15. Portsmouth Conference, 1905
17. Gentlemen’s Agreement, 1908
19. Root-Takahira Agreement, 1908
Chapter 29
1. Progressives
2. Henry Demarest Lloyd
3. Thorstein Veblen
4. Jacob Riis
5. Theodore Dreiser
6. Socialists
7. The Social Gospel
8. Muckrakers
9. Lincoln Steffens
2.
4.
6.
8.
10.
12.
14.
16.
18.
20.
22.
24.
26.
Joseph Pulitzer
Rev. Josiah Strong
Monroe Doctrine
Cuban insurrectos
The de Lome letter, Feb. 1898
McKinley’s war message, April 1898
Commodore George Dewey
Hawaiian annexation, July 1898
The Rough Riders
Santiago, July 1898
Anti-Imperialist League
Dr. Walter Reed
Guantanamo Bay
2.
4.
6.
8.
10.
12.
14.
16.
18.
Open Door policy
McKinley’s assassination
Hay-Ponceforte Treaty, 1901
Panamanian revolution, 1903
Col. William Gorgas
Dominican intervention, 1905
Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05
San Francisco school incident, 1906
The Great White Fleet, 1907
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
Louis Brandeis
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911)
Frances Willard & WCTU
Square Deal
Anthracite Coal Strike (1902)
Elkins Act (1903)
Hepburn Act (1904)
Trusts
Northern Securities Case (1904)
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
Ida Tarbell
Thomas Lawson
Ray Stannard Baker
Initiative
Referendum
Recall
Australian Ballot
Seventeenth Amendment (1913)
Robert La Follette
Hiram Johnson
Charles Evans Hughes
Florence Kelly (National Consumers’
League)
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
Upton Sinclair
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
Gifford Pinchot
Newlands Act (1902)
John Muir
Panic of 1907
William Howard Taft
Eugene V. Debs (election of 1908)
Dollar diplomacy
Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909)
Progressives vs. the Old Guard (1912)
Chapter 30
1. The Progressive (Bull Moose) Party
2. Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism”
3. Wilson’s “New Freedom”
4. Triple Wall of Privilege
5. Underwood Tariff (1912)
6. Sixteenth Amendment
7. Federal Reserve System (1913)
8. Federal Trade Commission (1914)
9. Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
Jones Act (1916)
General Victoriano Huerta
Venustiano Carranza
Pancho Villa (1916)
General John “Black Jack” Pershing
Central Powers
Neutrality Proclamation (1914)
The Lusitania (1915)
Sussex Pledge (1916)
Chapter 31
1. “Peace without victory” (Jan. 1917)
2. Unlimited submarine warfare (Jan. 1917)
3. Zimmerman note (March 1917)
4. Russian Revolution (March 1917)
5. “War to end wars”/“Make the world safe for
democracy”
6. Wilson’s Fourteen Points (Jan. 1918)
7. League of Nations
8. George Creel
9. Sedition Act (1918)
10. Schenck v. United States (1919)
11. War Industries Board (Bernard Baruch)
12. Industrial Workers of the World
(Wobblies)
13. Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
14. Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
15. Bolshevik Revolution (Nov. 1917)
16. Marshal Foch
17. The Big Four
18. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
19. Senator William Borah (“Irreconcilables”)
20. Treaty of Versailles
21. Lodge’s fourteen reservations
22. Warren Harding and the 1920 election
Essay Topics: These are past FRQ and DBQ topics
1. Describe and account for the rise of nativism in American society from 1900 to 1930.
2. How successful was organized labor in improving the position of workers in the period from 1875
to 1900? Analyze the factors that contributed to the level of success achieved.
3. To what extent did the United States achieve the objectives that led it to enter the First World War?
4. To what extent and why did the United States adopt an isolationist policy in the 1920s and 1930s?
5. To what extent did economic and political developments as well as assumptions about the nature of
women affect the position of women during the period 1890-1925?
6. Analyze the reasons for the emergence of the Populist movement in the late nineteenth century.
7. To what extent was late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century United States expansionism
a continuation of past United States expansionism and to what extent was it a departure?
8. Analyze the ways in which state and federal legislation and judicial decisions, including those of
the Supreme Court, affected the efforts of any TWO of the following groups to improve their
position in society between 1880 and 1920.
 African-Americans
 Farmers
 Workers
9. Following Reconstruction, many Southern leaders promoted the idea of a “New South.” To what
extent was this “New South” a reality by the time of the First World War? In your answer, be sure
to address TWO of the following”
 Economic development
 Politics
 Race relations
10. Analyze the ways in which technology, government policy, and economic conditions changed
American agriculture in the period 1865 to 1900. In your answer be sure to evaluate farmers’
responses to these changes.