AP US HISTORY
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
What did “America” look like when
Europeans got here?
What were the Natives like in
Mesoamerica, Southwest, Mississippi
Valley?
What were American Indian Cultures
like when the Europeans got here?
If Columbus didn’t do squat, why is
he still so important 1492
• Columbian Exchange
What did Spain want in America?
What did France want in America?
How did the British develop in the
North, Mid Atlantic and the South?
Why did the South start to use slaves
rather than indentured servants?
Were people in the colonies that came
here for religious tolerance, religiously
intolerant?
Did anyone revolt? Bacon, Glorious,
Pueblo, Stono
Where did all the people come from?
Where did trade take place?
Who lived in the back country?
How did plantations develop?
What was the Great Awakening? Why
was everyone asleep?
What did Colonists think of America
before the Revolution?
How did the French and Indian War
lead to the Revolution?
What angered the American Colonists
enough to start a war?
What happened in the Revolution?
What did the first government look
like?
How did we get a new Constitution?
What do Washington and Hamilton do
when they start the new gov’t?
How do we get the Federalists and the
Republicans?
What is Republican Motherhood? Is it
a complement?
What is the significance of Jefferson’s
presidency?
What started the expansion into the
trans Appalachian west?
What made slavery grow in the US?
Were there any free African American
communities?
What were the consequences of the
War of 1812
What do we mean by a national
market economy?
How does industrialization change the
US?
What was the response to new
immigration in the US?
What social classes were in the South?
What is meant by Jacksonian
Democracy and how did it change
things?
How do we end up with the two party
system for good?
Fighting during Jackson: Judicial
Federalism, Bank War, Tariff of
Abominations, States rights
What is Jacksonian Democracy and
how does it change things?
Why did we need a Second Great
Awakening?
What were some of the first social
reforms?
What is the cult of domesticity?
Were the utopian communities
utopian?
When did we get so good at literature?
How were Native Americans
systematically moved West?
Why did people move West?
What was the progress of territorial
expansion?
What were the steps in the Mexican
American War?
What were the arguments for and
against slavery?
What were the effects of the
Compromise of 1850 and Kansas Neb
Act?
How did we end up with the
Republican Party?
What were the steps leading to
secession?
What were the strategies of the two
sides, mobilization?
How are the slaves freed?
What were the social, economic, and
political effects of the war?
What were the differences between
presidential and congressional
reconstruction?
What was going on in the South during
Reconstruction?
How did African Americans fit into
Reconstruction?
What was the Compromise of 1877
and did Reconstruction work?
How does sharecropping and crop lien
work?
What are Jim Crow Laws and Black
Codes
How do Railroads lead the movement
West?
Who went West?
How do the Native Americans get
ripped off….again?
What were the Gospel of Wealth and
Social Darwinism?
How were industries first organized?
What were the aims of the first labor
unions?
How did life in the cities change at the
turn of the Century?
Miners, rangers, ranchers, Native
Americans competing for the West
How did environment effect life on the
Great Plains?
What agrarian challenges led to the
Populists which led to the
Progressives?
What was done to make the US more
democratic and less corrupt during the
Progressive Era?
What were the goals of the
Progressive Presidents?
How do women’s roles change in the
early 1900s
What changes do the Great Migration
make?
What Imperialistic advances do the US
make in the early 20th Century?
How does the US manage to stay
neutral at the beginning of WWI?
What is it like during WWI?
What is Wilson’s struggle with the
Treaty of Versailles?
Why are the 20s so great for business
(w/Coolidge, Hoover, Harding?)
How did modernism (science, art
entertainment) effect the 20s?
What push backs were there to
modernism (nativism, prohibition,
Fundamentalism)?
What were the gains for women and
African Americans during the 20s?
What were the causes of the Great
Depression
How did Hoover and FDR respond?
What were the programs of the New
Deal?
How did labor unions make it during
the New Deal?
What were some of the outcomes of
the New Deal?
How did the US respond to militarism
around the world (Germany, Italy,
Japan)
How does FDR deal with neutrality?
What brings the US into the War?
How do we mobilize?
How do we fight on two fronts?
How does diplomacy figure into WWII?
How do atomic weapons change the
war?
Migrations and demographic changes
during the war?
What happens with Civil Rights and
Civil Liberties?
How does it end?