High United States History 1 AS

Segment 1:

Students explore the origins of the Civil War, 1820–61, through analysis and interpretation of events related to the following themes:

   
• The political systems of the time and how these affected sectional differences, focusing on issues such as the Fugitive Slave Act and Bleeding Kansas
   
• Impact of territorial expansion and population growth (including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850)
   
• The significance of states' rights, abolitionism, and the increased tension between the North and the South that eventually led to the secession of the seven Deep South states and the Battle of Fort Sumter
   
• The Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the election of 1860, including the impact of the election results

Students analyze and interpret events from the time periods of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–77, related to the following topics:

   
• Changing military strategies, politics, and military leadership in both the North and the South
   
• Differences between the Northern and Southern states, including strategies, politics and military leadership, resources available, their relationship with foreign influences, and civil liberties afforded citizens during the War
   
• Reasons for and responses to the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) as well as Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
   
• The impact of Grant’s Reconstruction policies, as well as the Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction

Segment 2:

Students explore the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1870s–1920, and interpret the influence of key events and figures from this time period, including the following:

   
• Growth of monopolies, trusts, and robber barons, including those related to railroads and technological innovations, and the trade policies and protectionism they benefitted from
   
• New immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe
   
• Industrial growth and periods of economic recession that led to urbanization, new immigration, and organized labour in industry and agriculture
   
• Movements against party machines and bosses, as well as the Temperance movement, prohibition, and female emancipation
   
• Achievements of the Progressive presidents, Constitutional reforms, and the limits of the Progressive Movement

Students identify and interpret major events from the time of The Great Crash and the Great Depression and the New Deal policies, 1920–41, including the following:

   
• Structural weaknesses in the U.S. economy in the 1920s, including the disparities between agriculture, traditional and new industries, growth of consumerism, and overproduction
   
• The main features of the Great Crash (October 1929) and the responses of the Hoover administration and industry, as well as the collapse of the financial system
   
• Social and economic impact of the Great Crash, including mass unemployment, Hoovervilles, and employment discrimination
   
• Roosevelt’s First Hundred Days, the First and Second New Deals, and the reasons for the Roosevelt Depression/Recession
   
• Opposition from the liberal left, the conservative right, and the Supreme Court to Roosevelt’s New Deal and his response.

• Browning, Pete, Tony McConnell, and Patrick Walsh-Atkins. History of the USA, 1820–1941 for Cambridge International AS Level History. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
   
• Cambridge International AS & A Level History 9489 syllabus
   
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