Political Authority & Governance
This document established a weak national government that struggled with taxation and interstate trade.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
This amendment defined citizenship and guaranteed equal protection under the law.
What is the 14th Amendment?
This 1823 doctrine warned European powers against further colonization in the Western Hemisphere.
What is the Monroe Doctrine?
This 19th‑century industry became the backbone of American industrialization.
What is railroads?
This Second Great Awakening reform sought to eliminate alcohol consumption.
What is the Temperance Movement?
This Supreme Court case strengthened federal power by broadly interpreting the “necessary and proper” clause.
What is McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)?
This 1882 law marked the first major federal restriction on immigration based on ethnicity.
What is the Chinese Exclusion Act?
This war made the U.S. a global imperial power with overseas territories.
What is the Spanish-American War (1898)?
This belief held that wealth inequality was natural and beneficial.
What is Social Darwinism?
This muckraker exposed the meatpacking industry in The Jungle.
Who is Upton Sinclair?
This political compromise ended Reconstruction by resolving the disputed election of 1876.
What is the Compromise of 1877?
This early 20th‑century movement argued that U.S. women were morally superior and thus deserved the vote.
What is the Progressive-era Women’s Suffrage Movement?
This policy aimed to spread U.S. influence in China through equal trade access.
What is the Open Door Policy?
This post–World War II policy helped create the modern middle class.
What is the GI Bill?
Give an example of a civil disobedience strategy was used effectively during the Civil Rights Movement.
What are nonviolent protests such as sit-ins and boycotts?
These two policies illustrate the shift from laissez-faire to active federal involvement during the Great Depression.
What are the New Deal programs such as Social Security and the Tennessee Valley Authority?
This Supreme Court case upheld segregation by establishing the “separate but equal” doctrine.
What is Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)?
This Cold War policy justified U.S. intervention to prevent the spread of communism.
What is containment?
Give an example of how industrialization both increased opportunity and reinforced inequality between 1865 and 1900.
What is mass employment vs. exploitation, low wages, and unsafe conditions?
Explain ONE continuity in racial inequality despite constitutional amendments.
What is segregation, voter suppression, or economic discrimination?
Explain ONE way the Cold War expanded presidential power without a formal declaration of war.
What is the use of executive agreements or military action in Korea/Vietnam?
Compare how freedom was defined by African Americans during Reconstruction and during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s–60s.
What is political/legal equality vs. dismantling de facto segregation and economic inequality?
Both World War I and the Vietnam War were justified as defending freedom, but they were driven by different ideologies. Give ONE example.
What is spreading democracy in World War I versus containing communism in Vietnam?
This act legalized labor unions and collective bargaining during the New Deal.
What is the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act)?
Protest movements in the 1960s succeeded in pressuring the federal government to pass this legislation.
What is civil rights legislation such as the Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act?