The Rise of Reagan and the Legacy of the New Conservatism

The aftermath of the Nixon Administration left many things in doubt, however, the growing conservatism of the nation was not one of them.  As much as the Vietnam War forced America to re-evaluate its military role in the world, as much as student protests and the Hippie Movement brought forward a strong counter-culture awareness that belied the cookie-cutter/Leave It To Beaver simplicity of the 1950s, and as much as the rise of the Middle East and of Japan, South Korea, and China as emerging powers called into question the economic influence of the United States, the country itself was clearly on a trajectory of greater and greater social conservatism - in time, this social tendency would become reflected politically and economically.

 

Discuss the administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, and Clinton in terms of their political response to the social and economic demands of the conservative electorate that was largely identified by Nixon back in the 1950s and then cultivated by the Nixon administration from 1968-1974.  What were the major issues and proposed solutions that emerged from the American people in response to both domestic and foreign concerns.  How did each of these presidents attempt to respond and perhaps lead this push by The People.

 

Clearly identify the major social, political, and economic concerns that characterize this time period of growing conservatism in America.  Contrast it with the recent very liberal period groing back to FDR.

 

DUE DATE: Monday, April 29, 2013 by midnight

 

Word Count: 1,000 words minimum

 

 

From Open Skies to a New Frontier to a Great Society: Ike, JFK, and LBJ

  

Discuss the evolution of American Society from 1955 to 1968 by focusing on the major social, political, and economic concerns that affected life on the homefront.  Make use of the essay at the end of Chapter 38 to evaluate the 1960s and whether or not they were a constructive time period or a destructive one, or, perhaps, a combination of both (remember, sometimes in order to build, you have to tear down, and sometimes one tears down in order to open the possibility for new building later).

As part of your discussion, evaluate each of the three administrations for their strengths and weaknesses, the things they got right and the things they got wrong.  So, frame your discussion of American Society in terms of these three administrations: a paragraph at least about Ike, then about JFK, then about LBJ.  It may prove useful to extend your frame outward a few years on each end to include the influence of Truman and Nixon as the bookends of this time period.

 

DUE DATE: Friday, April 26, 2013 by midnight

Word Count: 1,000 words minimum

The Little Rock Nine, Federal Authority, and Civil Rights

On September 24, 1957, in response to the use of the Arkansas National Guard by Governor Orval Faubus to prohibit the entry of nine African-American students from physically entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne (an elite military force that gained fame for taking down Hitler's forces in Europe during World War II) into Arkansas while simultaneously federalizing all 10,000 National Guardsmen in the state to make sure that these nine students could safely enter the school, attend classes, and then leave school unmolested by protesters.  This was a singular event in American History, seen by some as the fulfillment of the words of Thomas Jefferson nearly two hundred years earlier that "all men are created equal," while to others it was seen as the embodiment of an over-reaching and perhaps tyrannical Federal government now taking charge of public education which had long been a states' rights concern historically.

In class, we investigated the story of this event through several documents.  Your task, now, is to use those documents and any and all relevant and concise outside information (historical from lectures, from the history book, from documentaries, from works of literature, etc.) you can muster to answer the following prompt from an FRQ on the 1999 APUSH Exam:

How did the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s address the failures of Reconstruction?

Make use of all of the documents and the information from Chapters 37 & 38 as well as looking back at your notes and other materials relating to Reconstruction (Chapter 22).  Although this is an FRQ prompt, I am requiring that you treat it as a DBQ exercise, so be thorough in your synthesis of the information, but also be concise.  It will be important to address the role and growing power of the Federal Government and the example of the Little Rock Nine in your response.

DUE DATE:  Monday, April 15, 2013 by midnight

Word Count:  1,000 words minimum

Key Ideas & Terms to help focus your response:
Dred Scot Case
Plessy v. Ferguson
Brown v. Board of Education
Emancipation Proclamation
13th Amendment
14th Amendment
15th Amendment
Freedman's Bureau
Radical Republicans
Southern Democrats
Jim Crow
KKK
NAACP
SNCC
Freedom Riders
Rosa Parks
March on Washington
Black Panthers
Martin Luther King, Jr. v. Malcolm X

FDR: The Greatest President?

Over the course of American History thus far, we have stopped to consider the significance of certain presidents such as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.  Each of these men has a certain claim to being remembered for the positive impact that each has had on American History, either immediately at the time of their service, or later as the results of their efforts and policies have ripened and brought forth fruit.  None of them, however, has had the public appeal and lasting influence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who certainly felt a call to destiny, and a man who, despite his paralysis from polio, inspired others to rise to the multiple challenges facing the country (Great Depression, Fear of Fear Itself, Lingering Recession, Pearl Harbor, the War in Europe, the War in the Pacific, etc.) over the twelve-plus years in which he presided in the White House.  As far-reaching as his cousin's, Teddy Roosevelt's, presidency was, it is indisputable that the shadow of influence that is cast by FDR still hangs over presidents today.

Consider each of FDR's separate terms in office (1933-37; 1937-41; 1941-45; 1945) and sumamrize the major accomplishments (social, political, economic, etc.) and major failures (social, political, economic, etc.) in each.  Then, determine to what extent it can be said that FDR was or was not the greatest of American presidents up to his time.  This will require you to re-evaluate some of our past presidents so that you can convincingly argue for or against one of them in favor or not of FDR.

Your response will necessarily need to be at least seven (7) paragraphs in length (Introduction, First Term, Second Term, Third Term, Fourth Term, Evaluation, Conclusion) and will need to incorporate comparisons to previous administrations and their claims to greatness.

DUE DATE:  Monday, April 8, 2013

Minimum Word Count: 1,000 words

The Legacy of Teddy Roosevelt

This blog is essentially a review of the information in Chapter 28 and how it will impact American History up to and through the 1920s (Chapters 29, 30).



"When I say I believe in a Square Deal, I do not mean...to give every man the best hand.  If the cards do not come to any man, or if they do come, and he has not got the power to play them, that is his affair.  All I mean is that there shall be no crookedness in the dealing."

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was perhaps the single most defining President since Lincoln, as Lincoln was since Jackson, and Jackson since Washington.  He was dynamic and forceful, a man who felt the weight and majesty of destiny, a man who would make America what it should be no matter what.  However, he was also a man whom others felt threatened by, a man who was perhaps too consumed with his desire to "do, do, do!"

As you look over Chapters 28-30, consider the impact that Roosevelt had at first, and the long shadow of influence that his example cast over future Presidents and America itself.  To what extent was Teddy Roosevelt a great President who mastered the major issues of his time, and to what extent did his performance shape and define the Presidents after him and the country's view of itself, too.

DUE DATE: Monday, March 4, 2013

Word Count: 500 words minimum

Quick Facts on His Life & Presidency:
http://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt

The Teddy Roosevelt Center:
http://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/

The White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/theodoreroosevelt

The Roosevelt Thesis: America Had Become Effeminate

In addition to having been the Assistant Secretary of the Navy under McKinley, Governor of New York, and then running mate to and Vice President of McKinley, followed shortly after once McKinley was assassinated by becoming President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt was also an historian who posited an interesting and controversial thesis about why America did what it did in the late 1800s and early 20th century.  In short, Roosevelt had asserted that America had become too soft, to complacent, to effeminate over the course of the Gilded Age.  You have seen now that the time period from 1865 - 1900 was filled with many and diverse competing interests, from Reconstruction and how to faciliate it, to the rise of a Populist Party from the persistent monetary and financial issues that shaped the West and reflected the interests of the East, to the resurgence of Women for their rights and how that would sweep like a backlash from West to East instead of East to West, to the fate of the former slaves, Chinese, Japanese, Eastern Europeans, and Native Americans in all areas of the growing country.  On top of all of this was the rise of Billionaires and their massive industrial and financial monopolies which were supported by the Federal Government over the plight and desperation of the labor force.  And then there were the financial panics and the deep recession of the 1890s.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with Roosevelt's thesis that America had become too "womanly" or soft by the late 1890s and thus the territorial conquests of 1898 and their after effects were necessary to restore American vigor and manliness?  Include in your answers such topics as diplomacy, the Panama Canal, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and such groups as women, blacks, Native Americans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, and Hawaiians to contest or support his assertion that such groups were bound to be conquered by WASP America.

Refer to American Pageant pp 646-653.

DUE DATE: Monday, February 11, 2013 by midnight

WORD COUNT: 500 words minimum

The Spanish-American War: Ambition or Destiny?

The Spanish-American War is a controversial topic in American History, then and now.  At the time it was seen by many as the result of the ambitions of a handful of men (Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, Elihu Root, and Alfred T. Mahan) and their shared vision of America as a world power to be reckoned with, while it was seen by others as the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny and the natural or divine role of the United States of America in the world at large.  Both camps could and did subscribe to the observation of the historian Frederick Jackson Turner that America's rise to power and influence was due to the frontier that had always attracted explorers and pioneers, settlers and entrepreneurs.  The question was, however, with the frontier gone, what would happen to the United States of America?  Would it enter into the world through the efforts of a few or would it emerge as a major power as a matter of course?  Was America to be the consequence of ambition or of destiny?

Discuss the circumstances, persons, and consequences of the Spanish-America War with regard to the concepts of ambition and destiny.  To what extent was America's future determined by the desires of a few men or the natural course of its own sense of destiny?

Make use of the links I have provided on Edmodo regarding the Spanish-American War (uploaded Jan. 30, 2013 to APUSH), especially the PBS video Crucible of Empire and its accompanying webiste, to formulate your response.

DUE DATE: Monday, February 4, 2013 by midnight

WORD COUNT: 500 words minimum

RHETORICAL DEVICES: make sure you identify at least five rhetorical devices that you use in your own writing by identifying them by name in parentheses after each example.

The Continuous Recession: Indian Removal & The West

"We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this they made war.  Could anyone expect less?"  - General Philip Sheridan, United States Army (1878)


The fate of Native Americans as the United States continued to grow across the continent can be seen as one of a "continuous recession" through direct and indirect policies not only of the Federal government but also of white settlers and business interests themselves.  In reading over Chapter 26 (especially pp. 594-604, click HERE for the powerpoint), identify the major themes, individuals, and incidents that support the claim that the Native Americans were systematically, whether through actual policies or accidental consequences or both, forced further and further from their traditional ways, thereby experiencing a "continuous recession" of their cultures and their importance relative to the Federal government and the white settlers around them.  Begin with a complex-split introductory paragraph, and then provide at least one, well-developed body paragraph in which you identify and discuss the themes, individuals, and incidents that support the claim.

I have provided three additional links to more information to help you broaden your response and your understanding of this issue in American History.

DUE DATE:  Monday, January 28, 2013 by midnight

WORD COUNT:  500 words minimum

The Indian War:
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring10/war.cfm

The Thirty Years War:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3499

Reporting the Indian Wars:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2536601590.html

Radicals or Revolutionaries?

Reread the Varying Viewpoints Essay on p.529 in your American Pageant and then compose an argument that compares and contrasts the views of at least two of the historians discussed in that essay - you will need to do some research on the internet to find more specific information about each historian and work that is cited in the essay.  If you try to base your argument solely on the limited information in the essay itself, then you will end up with a VERY weak essay that may only score as high as a 2 or 3 on the 9 point scale.  Evaluate the extent to which each historian's view is potentially historically valid, and then the extent to which there are problems with that view that do not seem to fully address the significance of the Populists and the Populist Movement during the Gilded Age.  As before, identify and label at least one rhetorical device that you use in your argument (if you want to track more than one, please do so since the more practice you have at identifying and labeling your own, you will be that much better prepared for the AP Exam in May).

Historians in the Essay:
Charles and Mary Beard - The Rise of American Civilization (1927-42)
Vernon Louis Parrington - Main Currents of American Thought (1927-30)
John D. Hicks - The Populist Revolt (1931)
Richard Hofstadter - The Age of Reform (1955)
Lawrence Goodwyn - Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America (1976)
Edward L. Ayers - Promise of the New South (1992)
Robert C. McMath - American Populism (1993)

DUE DATE:  Monday, January 21st by midnight

Word Count: Minimum 500 words

The Gilded Age: Was It Only A Time of Corruption?

The timespan from 1872 - 1900 is characterized by a series of "Forgettable Presidents" whose administrations contended with rampant political and economic corruption by members of their cabinets, members of Congress, railroad barrons, and stock speculators to name the most prominent.  Explain the metaphor that Mark Twain coined to describe this time period, that this was the "gilded age" - what was the thin layer of value covering what depth of corruption?  In your response, explain the extent to which this time period was corrupt and in what ways it had redeemable qualities.  Use specific examples from Chapter 23 to develop your response.

Remember, too, that I am will be assessing you on your use of at least one correctly used and correctly identified rhetorical device in your response.  In order to ensure that I grade you correctly, you need to identify the device that you use by bolding it.  If you do not do this, I will not be able to give you full credit for your response.

DUEDATE: Monday, January 14, 2013

Word Count: 500 words minimum

Series of Videos on Youtube Covering Major Aspects of The Gilded Age:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0bwcppAGFc&playnext=1&list=PL67928E6ED0A35DA0&feature=results_main