History 204 Need someone serious only please

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History 204 Need someone serious only please

Part 1

Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the 19th Century
Background: Many Americans like to imagine the history of their nation as one of continual progress. While acknowledging that not all persons and groups enjoyed equal rights at all times, Americans often take it for granted that American history moves in only one direction: toward greater rights, greater freedom, and greater equality. However, from roughly 1867 to 1875, African Americans enjoyed far more political influence and equal rights than they ever had before, or ever would again, until the end of the modern Civil Rights Movement almost a century later. In addition to the disturbance in the social hierarchy created by the end of slavery, the nation experienced the influx of huge numbers of immigrants during the last half of the 1800s, many of whom were viewed by the American population as different and inferior to earlier waves of immigrants. Adding to concerns about social order was the push for women’s suffrage that arose after Civil War. These factors came together to create a threat to White male supremacy and combined to create a period characterized by conflict over race, ethnicity, and gender.

Review the following sources about the differences between primary and secondary sources:

Required sources:

Recommended sources:

  • Entertaining Citizenship: Masculinity and Minstrelsy in Post-Emancipation San Francisco

  • Identity, Marriage, and Schools: Life along the Color Line/s in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson

  • Whiteness, Freedom, and Technology: The Racial Struggle Over Philadelphia’s Streetcars, 1859-1867

Instructions: Explore the Alien Menace exhibit thoroughly, viewing all of the links. You are not required to answer the questions on the website, but consider them. Watch What is Freedom?—Freedom: A History of USfrom the Films on Demand database. Based on Chapter 1 in your textbook, the required exhibit, and the film, explain

  • Why the last half of the 1800s was a time of conflict over the meanings of citizenship, race, and gender.

  • How African Americans, White Americans, and immigrants worked to secure their places in the social and political hierarchy.

Part 2

Background: In the last quarter of the 19th Century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing; however, with the business boom came a number of concerns, including corporate influence in politics and waves of immigration, as well as a middle class in apparent decline. These developments seemed to threaten to alter the character of American society as new technologies introduced new social problems, as well as offering new opportunities. The rise of captains of industry (or robber barons), with their sway of politicians, created a widespread feeling among common Americans that they had had lost control of their government.

Required Source: 

Instructions: Based on your textbook and the assigned video, analyze how the revolutionary nature of this period impacted either Native Americans, immigrants, or farmers, using the following questions as the basis of your analysis:

  • What were the most revolutionary social and economic developments of the last quarter of the nineteenth century?

  • How did the group of Americans you chose to examine respond to those changes, and how effective were their responses?

  • What role did government play in these developments?