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Aice United States History

Exam review

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Theme 1- Westward Expansion and the Taming of the west, 1840-96

• The doctrine of Manifest Destiny

• The annexation of Texas, the Mexican War and its consequences

• The Mormons and Utah

• The Oregon Question

• The railroads and their significance

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Essay 1

1. Assess the main factors involved in the taming of the ‘Wild West’ between 1840 and 1896.

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Essay 2

2. Why was it that the 1850 Compromise had started to unravel by 1856?

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Essay 3

3. Explain why, and with what consequences, America’s belief in Manifest Destiny proved so strong in the 1840s and 1850s.

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Essay 4

4. How far was the displacement of the Native American nations and the destruction of their way of life a consequence of deliberate government policy in the period 1840-1896?

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Theme 1 Trends

1. U.S. War with Mexico

2. Impact on Native Americans

3. Manifest Destiny

4. Compromise of 1850

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Theme 2- Civil War and reconstruction, 1861-77

• The Civil War: strengths and weaknesses of the Union and the Confederacy

• Lincoln and Davis as war leaders

• Different strategies of the armies, key campaigns and battles

• European attitudes and diplomatic initiatives

• The Emancipation Proclamation and its effects

• Weaknesses of the Confederate political system

• Wartime politics in the Union: civil liberties, the 1864 election

• Grant and Lee as generals

• Why did the South lose?

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Theme 2- Civil War and reconstruction, 1861-77

• Reconstruction: legacies of the war; devastated South and booming North

• Lincoln’s program for rebels

• Johnson’s Reconstruction program, Congressional opposition

• Radical Congressional Reconstruction, impeachment of Johnson

• Grant’s administrations, changing emphasis

• Erosion of black rights, reinstatement of white supremacy

• Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction

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Essay 1

1. ‘From the outset it was quite clear that the Union would ultimately be victorious in the Civil War.’ To what extent do you agree with this assessment?

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Essay 2

2. How close did the Confederacy come to ‘winning’ the Civil War?

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Essay 3

3. Examine the view that Lincoln’s contribution to the Union victory in the Civil War has been greatly exaggerated.

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Essay 4

4. To what extent was Reconstruction a failure?

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Theme 2 trends

Trends:

1. Strengths and weaknesses- Union, Confederacy

2. Reconstruction

3. Leadership- Lincoln, Davis, Grant, Johnson

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Theme 3- The impact of economic expansion

• Reasons for the expansion of US industry and commerce after the Civil War

• Effects of mass immigration

• Effects of technical innovations

• The impact of railroad expansion

• Steel, oil and finance

• Trust and monopolies, attempts at regulation

• Cult of the business ethic

• Agrarian revolt and populism, the rise of trade unions

• Ford and the production line revolution

• The Progressive Era

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Essay 1

1. Assess the impact of immigration on American social and economic life in the period from 1865 to 1914.

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Essay 2

2. Account for the rise of giant corporations in the period 1870-1914.

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Essay 3

3. To what extent is it true to say that Progressivism was simply Populism moved up into the middle classes?

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Essay 4

4. Account for the widespread unrest amongst American farmers in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

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Theme 3

Trends:

1. Immigration

2. Gov’t Attempts to Control Business

3. Progressivism

4. Populism