This part covers the following chapters in Henretta et al., America’s History, Seventh Edition: Chapter17 The Busy Hive: Industrial America at Work, 1877–1911 Chapter 18 The Victorians Meet the Modern, 1880–1917 Chapter 19 “Civilization’s Inferno”: The Rise and Reform of Industrial Cities, 1880 –1917 Chapter 20 Whose Government? Politics, Populists, and Progressives, 1880 –1917 Chapter 21 An Emerging World Power, 1877–1918 Chapter 22 Wrestling with Modernity, 1918 –1929
Part 5
Essential Questions
After studying the chapters in Part 5, you should know how to answer the following questions: 1. Why and how did American society industrialize during the late nineteenth century? 2. What were the causes and consequences of urbanization? 3. How did political change and progressive reform gain momentum after 1900? 4. How did the United States emerge as a world power by 1918? 5. What tensions between the old and new existed in the 1920s? The 1920 Census revealed that a majority of Americans (51 percent) lived in urban areas for the first time. Part 5 covers the accelerating trends that led up to this important shift in American life from the agrarian to the urban. As you review these chapters, in addition to the questions above, notice what stayed constant in American life despite astonishing economic growth, political upheaval, the rise of a mass culture, and the United States’ new role on the world stage. Various conflicts between tradition and innovation would consume Americans from the 1880s to the 1920s.
resources for review
In the following pages, you’ll find the Thematic Timeline and Essay for Part 5 from America’s History, exercises to review your knowledge of the period, and AP-style questions that address the time period covered: 15 practice multiple-choice questions, 1 document-based question, and 3 free-response questions. Answers with page references to America’s History can be found at the