The United States Through Industrialism

History starts with method: what history is, how it is studied, and the key themes that run through the U.S. past. A Geography Challenge, an Inquiry Project, and source and timeline work round out the unit.

America before and after colonization begins with how Indigenous groups adapted to their environments, then turns to how Europeans colonized the Americas. Students compare the English colonies for similarities and differences, 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, then how the Continental army managed to win a war for independence from Great Britain.

Forming a new nation centers on the compromises that emerged from the Constitutional Convention. Students study how the Constitution created "a more perfect Union" and what freedoms the Bill of Rights protects, including why those freedoms matter.

The new republic opens with the differing Federalist and Democratic-Republican visions for the United States. Students weigh how involved the country should have become in world affairs, what it meant to be an American in the early 1800s, and Andrew Jackson's impact on democracy.

An expanding nation takes up Manifest Destiny and how justifiable U.S. expansion in the 1800s was. Students study the motives, hardships, and legacies of the groups who moved west, and how Mexicano contributions have influenced life in the United States.

Americans in the mid-1800s weighs how much the era's reform movements improved life for Americans. Students compare life in the North with life in the South, and study how African Americans faced enslavement and discrimination in the mid-1800s.

The Union challenged sorts the events of the mid-1800s into those that held the nation together and those that pulled it apart. Students then examine the factors and events that influenced the outcome of the Civil War, and the Reconstruction era that followed.

Migration and industry looks at how settlers changed the West and affected Indigenous groups and their way of life. Students weigh whether the benefits of industrialization outweigh the costs, and study what life was like for immigrants in the early 1900s.