United States Studies: 1865 to Present
Standard 5-1: The student will demonstrate an understanding of Reconstruction and its impact on racial relations in the United States.
5-1.1 Summarize the aims of Reconstruction and explain the effects of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on the course of Reconstruction. (P, H, E)
5-1.2 Summarize the provisions of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, including how the amendments protected the rights of African Americans and sought to enhance their political, social, and economic opportunities. (P, E, H)
5-1.3 Explain the effects of Reconstruction on African Americans, including their new rights and restrictions, their motivations to relocate to the North and the West, and the actions of the Freedmen’s Bureau. (P, G, E, H)
5-1.4 Compare the economic and social effects of Reconstruction on different populations, including the move from farms to factories and the change from the plantation system to sharecropping. (E, P)
5-1.5 Explain the purpose and motivations behind the rise of discriminatory laws and groups and their effect on the rights and opportunities of African Americans in different regions of the United States. (P, G, E, H)
Standard 5-2: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the continued westward expansion of the United States.
5-2.1 Explain how aspects of the natural environment—including the principal mountain ranges and rivers, terrain, vegetation, and climate of the region—affected travel to the West and thus the settlement of that region. (G, H)
5-2.2 Illustrate the effects of settlement on the environment of the West, including changes in the physical and human systems. (G)
5-2.3 Summarize how railroads affected development of the West, including their ease and inexpensiveness for travelers and their impact on trade and the natural environment. (G, E, H)
5-2.4 Provide examples of conflict and cooperation between occupational and ethnic groups in the West, including miners, ranchers, and cowboys; Native Americans and Mexican Americans; and European and Asian immigrants. (E, H)
5-2.5 Explain the social and economic effects of the westward expansion on Native Americans, including changes in federal policies, armed conflicts, opposing views concerning land ownership, and Native American displacement. (P, G, E, H)
Standard 5-3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of major domestic and foreign developments that contributed to the United States’ becoming a world power.
5-3.1 Explain how the Industrial Revolution was furthered by new inventions and technologies, including new methods of mass production and transportation and the invention of the light bulb, the telegraph, and the telephone. (E, H)
5-3.2 Identify prominent inventors and scientists of the period and summarize their inventions or discoveries, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers, and Albert Einstein. (H)
5-3.3 Explain the effects of immigration and urbanization on the American economy during the Industrial Revolution, including the role of immigrants in the work force and the growth of cities, the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy, and the rise of big business. (P, G, E, H)
5-3.4 Summarize the significance of large-scale immigration and the contributions of immigrants to America in the early 1900s, including the countries from which they came, the opportunities and resistance they faced when they arrived, and the cultural and economic contributions they made to this nation. (P, G, E, H)
5-3.5 Explain how building cities and industries led to progressive reforms, including labor reforms, business reforms, and Prohibition. (P, G, E, H)
5-3.6 Summarize actions by the United States that contributed to the rise of this nation as a world power, including the annexation of new territory following the Spanish-American War and the role played by the United States in the building of the Panama Canal and in World War I. (P, G,
Standard 5-4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the economic boom-and-bust in America in the 1920s and 1930s, its resultant political instability, and the subsequent worldwide response.
5-4.1 Summarize changes in daily life in the boom period of the 1920s, including the improved standard of living; the popularity of new technology such as automobiles, airplanes, radio, and movies; the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration; Prohibition; and racial and ethnic conflict. (P, E, H)
5-4.2 Summarize the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, including economic weakness, unemployment, failed banks and businesses, and migration from rural areas. (P, G, E, H)
5-4.3 Explain the immediate and lasting effect on American workers caused by innovations of the New Deal, including the Social Security Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. (P, E, H)
5-4.4 Explain the principal events related to the United States’ involvement in World War II—including the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the invasion in Normandy, Pacific island hopping, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and the role of key figures in this involvement such as Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. (P, G, H)
5-4.5 Summarize the political and social impact of World War II, including changes in women’s roles, in attitudes toward Japanese Americans, and in nation-state boundaries and governments. (P, E, H)
5-4.6 Summarize key developments in technology, aviation, weaponry, and communication and explain their effect on World War II and the economy of the United States. (P, E, H)
5-4.7 Explain the effects of increasing worldwide economic interdependence following World War II, including how interdependence between and among nations and regions affected economic productivity, politics, and world trade. (P, G, E, H)
Standard 5-5: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the social, economic, and political events that influenced the United States during the Cold War era.
5-5.1 Summarize the impact of cultural developments in the United States following World War II, including the significance of pop culture and mass media and the population shifts to the suburbs. (G, H)
5-5.2 Summarize changes in the United States economy following World War II, including the expanding job market and service industry, consumerism, and new technology. (E, P, H)
5-5.3 Explain the advancement of the civil rights movement in the United States, including key events and people: desegregation of the armed forces, Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. (P, G, H)
5-5.4 Explain the course of the Cold War, including differing economic and political philosophies of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States, the spread of Communism, McCarthyism, the Korean Conflict, the Berlin Wall, the space race, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam War. (P, G, E, H)
5-5.5 Explain the political alliances and policies that impacted the United States in the latter part of the twentieth century, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). (P, H, E, G)
Standard 5-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of developments in the United States since the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in 1992.
5-6.1 Use a map to identify the regions of United States political involvement since the fall of the communist states, including places in the Middle East, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Balkans in Europe, and Asia. (P, G, H)
5-6.2 Explain how humans change the physical environment of regions and the consequences of such changes, including use of natural resources and the expansion of transportation systems. (P, G, E)
5-6.3 Explain how technological innovations have changed daily life in the United States since the early 1990s, including changes in the economy and the culture that were brought about by computers, electronics, satellites, and mass communication systems. (E, H)
5-6.4 Identify examples of cultural exchange between the United States and other countries that illustrate the importance of popular culture and the influence of American popular culture in other places in the world, including music, fashion, food, and movies. (G, H)
5-6.5 Summarize the changes that have taken in United States foreign policy since 1992, including the globalization of trade and the war on terrorism. (P, H, G, E)
5-6.6 Compare the position of the United States on the world stage following World War I, World War II, and the collapse of the communist states. (P, H)
