What opportunities and limitations did African Americans and Mexican Americans experience in the West?

a. How did American daily life change after the Second Industrial Revolution? b. Why might important breakthroughs such as the telegraph or the Wright brothers' flight have attracted so little attention or recognition at the time they occurred? c. How did innovations in industry, transportation, and communications affect the nature of work in American society?

How did the Square Deal reflect President Theodore Roosevelt's approach to government?

How did the growth of the railroads affect the West?

Generate Explanations

Explain how an uneven distribution of wealth weakened the U.S. economy.

Why were the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments adopted?

How did the Wisconsin Idea lay the foundation for further reforms?

Passage 1

The "one big thing" Reagan knew was the power and value of human freedom, which proved to be the defining principle of his worldview. It guided what he thought about domestic politics and was central to his vision for the world. For more than thirty years, Reagan embraced a vision for dealing with the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War that was remarkably consistent and proved to be decisive. People who note his apparent lack of interest in the details of diplomacy, missile throw weights, and international law fail to see his larger strategic vision. Details that animate so many in the word of politics, academe, and journalism did not interest him so much as the "metaphysics" of the Cold War.

• Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War, $2003$

Passage 2

But collapse was not inevitable in the 1980s... Structural contexts influenced decisions taken by individuals such as Gorbachev. Economic decline, technological backwardness, and modernization pressures shaped the preferences of the decision-makers who initiated institutional reform in the Soviet Union. Most basically, Gorbachev had to perceive problems in the system before setting out to address them through reform.

Nonetheless, it was decisions taken by Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that started the process of institutional change. A different leader at the top taking different decisions might have produced a different reform trajectory or no reform at all. Gorbachev opened the range of the possible, allowing other forces in Soviet society to emerge and then articulate alternate models for organizing the federation, the polity, and the economy.

• Michael McFaul, Russia's Unfinished Revolution, $2002$

Based on the two interpretations above of the collapse of the Soviet Union, complete the following three tasks:

a. Briefly explain the main point made by Passage $1$ .

b. Briefly explain the main point made by Passage $2$ .

c. Provide ONE piece of evidence from the late $1990$s or early $21$st century that is not included in either passage but which supports the interpretation of one of the passages.

Summarize

How did African American citizens take advantage of their newly granted political rights, and what affect did they have on American politics?

Apply Concepts

Identify the role of confidence in both the boom and the crash of the U.S. economy.

Identify the following term or individuals and explain their significance. hydraulic mining

Check Understanding

Explain how the Great Depression extended beyond the United States and became an international problem.

a. How did the Mann-Elkins Act alter the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Commission? b. In what way was the Sixteenth Amendment a progressive reform? c. What effect did the Bull Moose Party have on the 1912 presidential election

How does the history of the Old West differ from many images of it presented in popular culture?