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Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Jacksonian Democracy

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: The aristocracy of our country . . . continually contrive to change their party name. It was first Tory, then Federalist, then no party . . . then National Republican, now Whig. . . . But by whatever name they reorganize...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Indian Removal

Geography, Government and Civics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Reading 1 Toward the aborigines of this country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits and make them a happy, prosperous people. Humanity...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Political Battles of the Jacksonian Era: The Bank War

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Political Battles of the Jacksonian Era: Nullification

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: And, sir, let it be remembered that a revenue system, grossly and palpably unequal in itself--a system which, under the most favorable modification, would levy the entire amount of the federal taxes from one-fifth part of...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Origins of the Cold War: The Containment Policy

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Soviet power...bears within itself the seeds of its own decay, and the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced...[If] anything were ever to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Origins of the Cold War and Soviet-American Confrontation

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague,...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Korean War

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 In Korea the Government forces, which were armed to prevent border raids and to preserve internal security, were attacked by invading forces from North Korea. . . . The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Anti-Communism at Home

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Sec. 2: (a) It shall be unlawful for any person— (1) to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Roots of Reform: Religion and Social Reform

Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

From 1801 for years a blessed revival of religion spread through almost the entire inhabited parts of the West. . . . The Presbyterians and Methodists in a great measure united in this work, met together, prayed together, and preached...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Antebellum Social Reform

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: “The elementary schools throughout the state are irresponsible institutions, established by individuals, from mere motives of private speculation or gain, who are sometimes destitute of character, and frequently, of the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Religion and Social Reform: Abolitionism

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” . . . I shall strenuously contend...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Urban Political Machines

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 An army led by a council seldom conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment. The head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Rise of the City

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 To-day, what is a tenement? . . . When last arraigned before the bar of public justice: “It is generally a brick building from four to six stories high on the street, frequently with a store on the first floor which, when...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Problems of Youth

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Every American boy, a hundred years ago, lived either on a farm or in such close touch with farm life that he reaped its benefits. He had all the practical knowledge that comes from country surroundings; that is, he could...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Progressive Reform and the Trusts

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men; their greed and arrogance . . . and the corruption in business and politics, have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition of excitement and irritation in the popular mind,...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: World War I

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action, must put a curb upon our sentiments, as well as upon every...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Reconstruction

Government and Civics

Reading 1 We hold it to be the duty of the government to inflict condign punishment on the rebel belligerents, and so weaken their hands that they can never again endanger the Union; and so reform their municipal institutions as to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Slavery

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

Reading 1: The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the...most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other.....Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Sectional Conflict

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 I do not . . . hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of California and New Mexico, purchased by the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Secession and the Civil War

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 The leaders and oracles of the most powerful party in the United States have denounced us as tyrants and unprincipled heathens through the whole civilized world. They have preached it from their pulpits. They have declared...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Conflict over Ratifying the Constitution

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

View these Guided Readings as a printable PDF.

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: African Americans after Slavery

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 All freedmen . . . over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Indian Policy

Geography, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 One [infantry] battalion...left Fort Lyon [Colorado] on the night of the 28th of November, 1864; about daybreak on the morning of the 29th of November we came in sight of the camp of friendly [Cheyenne and Arapaho] Indians.....

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Changing Status of Women

8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Man is or should be woman’s protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. . . .The paramount destiny and...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Farmers' Revolt

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 For our business interests, we desire to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers into the most direct and friendly relations possible. Hence we must dispense with a surplus of middlemen, not that we are...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Responses to Industrialism

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 It is idle to talk of a peaceful strike. None such has ever occurred. All combinations to interfere with perfect freedom in the proper management and control of one's lawful business, to dictate the terms upon which such...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Gospel of Wealth

Economics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Reading 1 Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Reflections on the Great Depression and the New Deal

Economics, Government and Civics

Reading 1 I want to tell you about an experience we had in Philadelphia when our private funds were exhausted and before public funds become available. . . . One woman said she borrowed 50 cents from a friend and bought stale bread...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Federalists and Jeffersonians

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

Reading 1 Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia ...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Toward Revolution

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 For fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other. . . . In short . . . were they left to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Impact of the Revolution on Women and African Americans

Government and Civics

8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Major Social Issues of the 1960s

Government and Civics

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Reading 1: Civil Rights The separate but equal doctrine has failed in three important respects. First it is inconsistent with the fundamental equalitarianism of the American way of life in that it marks groups with the brand of...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Imperialism and the Spanish-American War

Economics, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. . . . The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. . . . The frontier promoted the...

Classroom Resources

Guided Readings: American Foreign Policy in the 1970s

Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. . . . We have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: Manifest Destiny

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1: Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. John L. O'Sullivan, 1845 Reading 2: Texas has been absorbed into the Union as the...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: World War II

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

Reading 1 It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to...

Guided Readings

Guided Readings: The Atomic Bomb

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

Reading 1 Nuclear bombs cannot possible remain a "secret weapon" at the exclusive disposal of this country for more than a few years. The scientific facts on which their construction is based are well known to scientists of other...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: "Bookending" the Twentieth Century

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF.

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Growth of Cities

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12

Urban Growth Number of Cities 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 7 32 500,000 or more 2 6 Percent of Total Population 1860 1900 100,000-499,999 4% 8% 500,000 or more 4% 11% Questions for Discussion What factors contributed to the growth of...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: Education in America, 1860-1950

Economics, Government and Civics, Literature

9, 10, 11, 12

Resources Invested in Education Spending on Education Spending Per Child 15-19 Percentage of GNP 1860 $60 $5.33 1.4 1900 $503 $20.53 2.9 Improvements in Education % Illiteracy 10 or older High School Graduates College Enrollment Total...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: Slaves and Slaveholdings

Economics

6, 7, 8

Slaveholding, 1860 Non-slaveholders 76.1 percent 1-9 slaves 17.2 percent 10-99 6.6 percent over 100 0.1 percent Distribution of Slaves Number of slaves held 0 1-6 7-39 40+ Percent of white families 75 15 9 1 Percent of slaves held 0...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: North-South Comparisons before the Civil War

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

Download this infographic as an image.

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Casualties and Costs of the Civil War

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a PDF.

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Differences between Federalists and Antifederalists

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12

The differences between the Federalists and the Antifederalists are vast and at times complex. Federalists’ beliefs could be better described as nationalist. The Federalists were instrumental in 1787 in shaping the new US Constitution...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Changing Lives of American Women

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The Changing Family Age of First Marriage Average Household Size Male Female 1790 -- -- 5.79 1890 26.1 22.0 4.93 1900 25.9 21.9 4.76 1910 25.1 21.6 4.54 1920 24.6 21.2 4.34 1930 24.3 21.3 4.11 1940 24.3 21.5 3.77 1950 22.8 20.3 3.52...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: The Changing Lives of American Farmers

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12

Agricultural Productivity 1800 1900 Wheat Worker-hours to produce an acre 56 15 Yield per acre 15 14 Corn Worker-hours per acre 86 38 Yield per acre 25 26 Cotton Worker-hours per acre 185 112 Yield per acre 147 191 ...

Classroom Resources

Statistics: Trends in American Farming

Economics, Geography

9, 10, 11, 12

Percentage of Labor Force in Agriculture 1860 53% 1870 52% 1880 51% 1890 43% 1900 40% 1910 31% 1920 26% 1930 21% Farming Profession Number of Farms (in thousands) Proportion of Total Population 1940 6,350 23.1% 1950 5,648 15.2% 1960 3...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Industrialization: The Growth of Industry

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF. If you would like to learn more about Industrialization, view " Industrialization: American Labor " and " Industrialization: Changing Living Standards ." ...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Industrialization: American Labor

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF. If you would like to learn more about Industrialization, view " Industrialization: Changing Living Standards " and " Industrialization: The Growth of Industry ." ...

Classroom Resources

Infographic: Industrialization: Changing Living Standards

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12

View this infographic as a downloadable PDF. If you would like to learn more about Industrialization, view Industrialization - American Labor and Industrialization - The Growth of Industry . ...

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