The Progressive Era Reformer YOU Would Most Like to Meet!

Choose the Progressive Era (~1890-1920) reformer you would most like to meet:

1) Name him or her.
2) Give a short biography of that person (birth, death, etc.) in your own words . . . that means summarize it.
3) Describe what he/she said/did during the progressive era that made him/her a progressive . . . what was he/she fighting to change?
4) Describe where and when you would like to meet him/her (time travel can happen . . . ask your Physics teacher!), explain why you would like to meet him/her, and describe what you would talk about.
5) Evaluate this person's achievements . . . is the world a better place today because of what your person fought for?  If so, how?  If not, why not?

• Comment to this post with your first name, last initial, and class period.
• This is a 10 point assignment, due by 11:59pm on Tuesday 2/22/12.
• Make sure your choice is unique . . . you know the drill . . . go to Option #2 if someone has already chosen your Option #1!

Good Luck . . . .

It's a Cute Teddy Bear with a Big Stick . . . Ch. 27-28 Test Time!

Reminder:  Your Imperialism HW (using the Google definitions packet) is due Thursday!

Your Ch. 27-28 Multiple Choice test and Binder Check will be on Friday 2/10/12 and your DBQ will be Monday 2/13/12.

The MC test will be ~35-40 questions plus 3 challenging regular bonus questions.

You already have a pretty good idea what the DBQ topic will be.

Things to ponder (click on images to see a larger version):

1) According to the quote below, why should the USA acquire foreign territories?

It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come in the world’s future. . . . The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken. . . . Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history -- the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. . . . Then this race of unequalled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it -- the representative let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization . . . will spread itself over the earth. If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the “survival of the fittest”?


Source: Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis, New York: American Home Missionary Society, 1885.


2) Who is the gentleman in the cartoon?  What is he carrying?  Where is he carrying it?  Why is he carrying it?

3) In the Supreme Court decision below, what is the Court saying about territory and people acquired by the USA?  How is this similar to, and different from, prior territorial acquisitions by the USA?
We are also of opinion that the power to acquire territory by treaty implies, not only the power to govern such territory, but to prescribe upon what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be in what Chief Justice Marshall termed the “American empire.” . . . Indeed, it is doubtful if Congress would ever assent to the annexation of territory upon the condition that its inhabitants, however foreign they may be to our habits, traditions and modes of life, shall become at once citizens of the United States. In all its treaties hitherto the treaty-making power has made special provisions for this subject. . . . In all these cases there is an implied denial of the right of the inhabitants to American citizenship until Congress by further action shall signify its assent thereto. . . .


It is obvious that in the annexation of outlying and distant possessions grave questions will arise from differences of race, habits, laws, and customs of the people, and from differences of soil, climate and production, which may require action on the part of Congress that would be quite unnecessary in the annexation of contiguous territory, inhabited only by people of the same race, or by scattered bodies of native Indians.

Source: Supreme Court Decision. Downes v. Bidwell, (one of the Insular Cases) 1901.

4) Who are these characters?  What are they doing?  What does this cartoon have to do with the USA and imperialism?

5) In the cartoon below, who is riding on whom?  What is the point cartoonist is making about imperialism?

6) Who is the gentleman with the shovel?  What is he doing?  What does this cartoon have to do with imperialism?  How is this related to USA expansionism prior to the late 1800s?

Good Luck!



Imperialism and the USA

Who wants 10 easy points . . . take this IMPERIALISM SURVEY NOW!  Complete by 2/9/12 at 11:59pm!

Finally . . . It's Test Time Again! (Ch. 23-26)

MC portion Tuesday 1/31, Non-MC Portion Wednesday 2/1

Test Hints and Tips:
1) There will be approximately 55-60 multiple choice questions and 6-8 total bonus and "special" bonus questions . . . read the directions carefully! 
2) Look at the documents in the Non-MC Portion Hints section below . . . you may see some of these on the multiple choice portion, as well.
3) Analyze the cartoons below (click on them to see a larger version):
A. In the cartoon below, who is the gentleman?  What is the cartoon implying about him?  How did he get his power?

B. In the cartoon below, the caption says: THE TRUST GIANT'S POINT OF VIEW "What a funny little government" . . . what is this cartoon implying about the government and its relationship to the trusts?

C. Who are Cyrus Field and Jay Gould?  What are they holding in front them, and what do these things have to do with the point the cartoonist is trying to make?

D. What is happening to Uncle Sam in the cartoon below?  Is this cartoon pro- or anti-immigration?

E. What is Lady Liberty doing in the cartoon below?  Why?  Who are the people in the background, and what do they have to do with the two people in the foreground?  Is this cartoon pro- or anti-immigration?

Non-MC Portion Hints, Tips, and Documents  (topic = Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois . . . know them both . . . know them well!):
Contrast this document and author . . .
“To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race,“Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, built your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress....


The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.”

Booker T. Washington “Atlanta Compromise Address” (September 18, 1895)


. . . with this document and author . . . 

“They do not expect that the free right to vote, to enjoy civic rights, and to be educated, will come in a moment; they do not expect to see the bias and prejudices of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet; but they are absolutely certain that the way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away and insisting that they do not want them; that the way for a people to gain respect is not by continually belittling and ridiculing themselves; that, on the contrary, Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys.”

Source:  W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

Check out the graphs below . . . how do these statistics relate to the philosophies and methods of Washington and Du Bois?

Your Favorite Western Character 1865-1890

1) Choose your favorite character of "The West" (someone who actually lived and became famous in that region of the USA in the timeframe 1865-1890). . . your choice must be unique . . . try your second favorite if number one is already chosen.
2) Describe, in your own words, for what he/she is famous.
3) Explain why that person is your favorite.
4) Connect your choice from "The West" to someone actually living and famous from nowadays (this comparison person must also be unique) . . . explain how/why you see your two choices as similar.
5) This is a 10 point assignment, due by 2/1/12 at 11:59pm, as a comment to this post (first name, last initial, class period).
Good Luck!

It's that time 1/17/12 . . . get ready !

Does this seem familiar? . . . don't let it happen to you on the final!

Good Luck!

Your Last Test of 2011 (Ch. 18-22+) . . . Enjoy!

1) Your Ch. 18-22 Multiple Choice Test will be on MONDAY 12/19/11.  There will be 61 questions and some bonus questions.  Study the documents that follow for some hints/tips related to actual test questions.

2) Your Ch. 18-22 DBQ Essay Test will be on TUESDAY 12/20/11.  This will be an actual essay, worth 18 points, written in class.  Study the documents that follow . . . these are some of the actual documents of the DBQ.  

Your DBQ topic will be about whether social and constitutional changes in the time period 1860-1877 amounted to a revolution. 

. . . Good Luck!

1) What does suffrage mean?  What is the point the author is making about suffrage, and for/about whom is he making that point?
The Federal government has no right and has not attempted to dictate on the matter of suffrage to any state, and I apprehend it will not conduce to any harmony to arrogate and exercise arbitrary power over the states which have been in rebellion. It was never intended by the founders of the Union that the Federal government should prescribe suffrage to the states. We shall get rid of slavery by constitutional means. But conferring on the black civil rights is another matter. I know not the authority.
Source: Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, Diary Entry, May 9, 1865.

2) What is the point this author is making about states' rights?  How does he feel the problems created by states' rights might be solved in the future?
The policy of this country ought to be to make everything national as far as possible; to nationalize our country, so that we shall love our country. If we are dependent on the United States for a currency and a medium of exchange, we shall have a broader and more generous nationality. The [lack] of such nationality, I believe, is one of the great evils of the times. . . . It has been that principle of states' rights, that bad sentiment that has elevated state authority above national authority, that has been the main instrument by which our government is sought to be overthrown.
Source: Senator John Sherman, speech in Congress on the new banking and currency systems, February 10, 1863.

3) Know this map . . . in its blank form!  (Click the map to open it in a larger size.)

4) When was this cartoon made?   What is happening over the shoulders of the family in the middle of the cartoon?  What is the point this political cartoon is making?  (Click the cartoon to open it in a larger size.)