History

For your essay information you should primarily use your textbook, noting page the page number(s) where you found the information, but you can use reliable outside sources too but you must paraphrase them (that is, not use them word-for-word), and you must cite them (that is, identify your source). Do not plagiarize.

Write two one-half page essays (300-400 words) and two one page essays (500-600 words). You will submit all 4 essays together as one document. Use Times New Roman, Font 12, one-inch margins. Write your essays in a Word document or similar program. If using Word please eliminate the space between paragraphs by going to Home to Paragraph (click on little arrow at the bottom right of the Paragraph tab) and check “Don’t add space between paragraphs.”

Put your name and the title on the top line. In your text, do not repeat the question at the beginning of the essay, simply put Question A1 or Question A2, etc.

Question A. Select one of the following two topics and write a one-half page (300-400 words), single-spaced, font 12, one inch margin essay.

1. Describe Congressional Reconstruction and the role religion and blacks played in it, and the white Southern Democratic response to it. How would you have participated in Reconstruction in the South?

2. Compare and contrast the new technologies and consumer choices of the Gilded age 1865-1896 to the new technologies and consumer choices of the 1920s. How did people use these things to express their values?

Question B. Select one of the following two topics and write a one-half page (300-400 words), single-spaced, font 12, one inch margin essay.

1. Describe and compare the beliefs and accomplishments of Florence Kelley, Frances Willard, and Ida Tarbell. Judging from the lives of these women, give a critique, positive or negative, of what you’ve been taught in school or in the media about what Victorian women could do and accomplish.

2. Compare and contrast the lives of Billy Sunday and George ‘Babe’ Ruth. How do these two represent the contest or contrast between traditional American values and new immigrant values? Which one of these two do you best identify with and why?

Question C. Select one of the following two topics and write a one-page (500-600 words), single-spaced, font 12, one inch margin essay.

1. Describe and explain how President Roosevelt’s New Deal approach either enabled the US or made it more difficult for the US to meet the challenges of World War II. (Your essay should give equal attention to the New Deal and World War II)

2. Compare and contrast mainstream consumer habits of the 1930s with mainstream consumer habits of the 1950s. In a Conclusion of 50 words (which may take you over 400 words), explain what type of consumer you are, a thirties consumer or a fifties consumer, and why. (“mainstream” refers to the average American: not the wealthiest and not the poorest)

   Question D. Select one of the following two topics and write a one-page (500-600 words), single-spaced, font 12, one inch margin essay.

1. Compare and contrast Roosevelt’s New Deal with Johnson’s Great Society, giving equal attention to each program. In a Conclusion of 50 words (which may take you over 500 words), explain, justifying with your political values, which program you admire most or despise most, and why.

2. Compare and contrast the popular culture of the Twenties with the counterculture of the Sixties, giving equal attention to each era. In a Conclusion of 50 words (which may take you over 500 words), explain, justifying with your ethical values, which era you best or least identify with and why.