The United States Through Industrialism

Colonial heritage begins with how the first Americans adapted to their environment, then turns to European exploration and settlement in the Americas. Students compare the similarities and differences among the English colonies and look at what life in them was really like.

Revolution in the colonies asks why there was an American Revolution at all. Students examine the principles of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence and then consider how the Continental Army won a war for independence from Great Britain.

The Constitutional Convention and its compromises come first. Students then examine how the Constitution has created "a more perfect Union," which freedoms the Bill of Rights protects, and why those freedoms are important.

The early republic turns on the differing Federalist and Democratic-Republican visions for the United States. Lessons also weigh U.S. involvement in world affairs in the early 1800s, what it meant to be an American then, and how well Andrew Jackson promoted democracy.

Manifest Destiny anchors the expansion story, with students weighing the justification for U.S. expansion in the 1800s. Two more lessons cover the motives, hardships, and legacies of the groups that moved west, and how Mexicano contributions have influenced life in the United States.

Mid-century reform is the starting point, with students assessing how much the era's reform movements improved life for Americans. Lessons then contrast life in the North with life in the South and examine how African Americans faced slavery and discrimination.

A dividing nation follows, with students sorting which events of the mid-1800s held the country together and which pulled it apart. The Civil War's outcome and the Reconstruction era come next, including how far Reconstruction brought African Americans toward full citizenship.

Tensions in the West begin this unit, with a look at how settlers changed the region and affected American Indians. Students weigh whether the benefits of industrialization outweighed the costs, then study what life was like for immigrants in the early 1900s.