HIS 109 essay topics
Unlock all answers in this set
Unlock answersquestion
1.Assess the sincerity of the following words, which are inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. How welcoming was America to immigrants from 1870-1900? Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/I lift my lamp beside the golden door
answer
The Americans were not so welcoming to the new immigrants because immigrants lived in slums, were mistreated (were search when coming in), and had to conform
question
In 1867, the Nation grimly predicted, \"The great curse of the Old World—the division of society into classes\" was soon to \"befall\" the United States now that industrialization was underway. What were some of the ways that Americans reconciled the significant gap that did indeed develop between the \"haves\" and the \"have nots\" in the late nineteenth century?
answer
Social Darwinism is an example of the gap between the \"haves\" and \"have nots\", children, women and man all had to work.
question
In what ways does the reality of the settlement of the American West defy the mythical image we have of the area?
answer
The myth of Americans moving to the west was much different then the reality because Americans did not think of the Native Americans, the crops, or the bad living conditions that were in the west
question
Poor Hamlin Garland's mother, attending the Columbian Exposition in 1893 became overwhelmed by the dazzling displays of progress she witnessed, finally telling her son, \"Take me home. I can't stand any more of it.\" Was she justified in being ambivalent about the changes she saw? How were Americans' lives transformed for the better and for the worse by industrialization?
answer
Hamlin Garland's mother was justified in her ambivalent state of mind because new machinery was created like transportation, and factories and then people/children had to work 12 hour work days.
question
How did laborers and farmers respond to the changes they witnessed during the late nineteenth century? In what ways were their struggles linked, and in what ways did they diverge? How successful were their attempts to organize? How did they impact the political landscape?
answer
...
question
The Civil War led to the destruction of the Old South and the need for a New South to rise in its place. How new was the New South? In what ways did it represent a missed chance to build a more equitable society?
answer
The new south was not very new because they continued to engage in the process of segregation by using Jim Crow laws (separate but equal), the convict lease system (slavery), and the voting rights (literacy test, poll taxes, grandfather law)
question
In 1897, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend, \"In strict confidence....I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.\" What did he mean by this statement? Did America need a war as TR claimed, and how did the war that followed change the US?
answer
Got Puerto Rico, Guam, and Philippines took control over Cuba Financial motives: sugar needed to prove manliness made people forget class tension
question
Pick one of the following themes of American history, which we outlined during the first week of class. How do the events that we have discussed so far (approximately 1877- 1900) illustrate this particular theme? Possible themes include: American exceptionalism, compromise, sacred right to property, individual v. community rights, assimilation
answer
...
