Assignment Six, America's Rapid Expansion and Conflicts Over Slavery

Essential Questions

1. What national movements and trends swept through America in the decades prior to the Civil War?

2. How did these movements and trends shape America?

3. How are they still shaping America?

Description 

In addition to the growth of the nation, the market reforms, and transportation improvements sweeping America in the decades prior to the Civil War, national movements in the areas of religion, rights for enslaved people, expanded rights for women, literature, philosophy, and the arts were all making and re-making America.

In this unit we will look closely at how these shaped America at the time and how they still influence America today.

Objectives

Students will identify and describe key events and trends in abolition, religion, reform and the changes in the arts that swept through America in the decades prior to the Civil War.

Instructions

1. How was the Second Great Awakening connected to the reform movements of the time?

2. How did the Second Great Awakening come to involve so many Americans?

3. Why did so many reformers take on the cause of abolition?

4. What national and state actions were taken in relation to slavery?

5. What was the Monroe Doctrine and how did it affect America's relationship with other nations?

6. What happened to the abolition movement?

7. How were calls for religious reform and rights for women connected?

Online Files for this Assignment

Here is the link to the first textbook chapter that accompanies this unit. Read pages 16-30.

Here is the link to the second textbook chapter that accompanies this unit.
Read the whole chapter, but don't stress, there are a ton of pictures.

Click here to open a copy of the timeline you received in class.

Here is a great rendition of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, sung by one of the greatest singers of all time - Paul Robeson. It's an old recording, but it's a powerful voice.

Here is Paul Robeson again with Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen.

Here is a movie setting for Go Down, Moses.

The spirituals also had a up tempo side. Here is a setting for Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho by a traditional group.

And here is a modern tent revival setting of the same song.

And of course, Elvis also recorded it. Ignore the pictures, but follow the music.

Stephen Foster
The Sun Shines Bright on My Old Kentucky Home

Old Black Joe

Here are the links to the narrated PowerPoint videos that go with this and the following unit. One, Two, Three

Here is the link to the video about the Missouri Compromise of 1820 we used in class.

Here is a quick explanation of the Monroe Doctrine.

Here is the link to the PowerPoint we used in class about Andrew Jackson.

Click here to open the PowerPoint file about the presidency of James Monroe.

This is the link to the brief video about Andrew Jackson we used in class.

Click here to open the video about the abolitionist movement we viewed in class.

Click here for a printed copy of the assignment.