United
States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century
Students in grade eleven study the major turning points in American history in
the twentieth century. Following a review of the nation's beginnings and the
impact of the Enlightenment on U.S. democratic ideals, students build upon the
tenth grade study of global industrialization to understand the emergence and
impact of new technology and a corporate economy, including the social and
cultural effects. They trace the change in the ethnic composition of American
society; the movement toward equal rights for racial minorities and women; and
the role of the United States as a major world power. An emphasis is placed on
the expanding role of the federal government and federal courts as well as the
continuing tension between the individual and the state. Students consider the
major social problems of our time and trace their causes in historical events.
They learn that the United States has served as a model for other nations and that
the rights and freedoms we enjoy are not accidents, but the results of a
defined set of political principles that are not always basic to citizens of
other countries. Students understand that our rights under the U.S.
Constitution are a precious inheritance that depends on an educated citizenry
for their preservation and protection.
11.1 Students analyze the significant events in the founding of the nation and its attempts to realize the philosophy of government described in the Declaration of Independence.
1. Describe the Enlightenment and the rise of democratic ideas as the
context in which the nation was founded.
2. Analyze the ideological origins of the American Revolution, the Founding
Fathers' philosophy of divinely bestowed unalienable natural rights, the
debates on the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, and the addition
of the Bill of Rights.
3. Understand the history of the Constitution after 1787 with emphasis on
federal versus state authority and growing democratization.
4. Examine the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and of the
industrial revolution, including demographic shifts and the emergence in the
late nineteenth century of the United States as a world power.
11.2 Students analyze the relationship among the rise of industrialization, large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and massive immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
1. Know the effects of industrialization on living and working conditions,
including the portrayal of working conditions and food safety in Upton
Sinclair's The Jungle.
2. Describe the changing landscape, including the growth of cities linked by
industry and trade, and the development of cities divided according to race,
ethnicity, and class.
3. Trace the effect of the Americanization movement.
4. Analyze the effect of urban political machines and responses to them by
immigrants and middle-class reformers.
5. Discuss corporate mergers that produced trusts and cartels and the economic
and political policies of industrial leaders.
6. Trace the economic development of the United States and its emergence as a
major industrial power, including its gains from trade and the advantages of
its physical geography.
7. Analyze the similarities and differences between the ideologies of Social
Darwinism and Social Gospel (e.g., using biographies of William Graham Sumner,
Billy Sunday, Dwight L. Moody).
8. Examine the effect of political programs and activities of Populists.
9. Understand the effect of political programs and activities of the Progressives
(e.g., federal regulation of railroad transport, Children's Bureau, the
Sixteenth Amendment, Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson).
11.3 Students analyze the role religion played in the founding of America, its lasting moral, social, and political impacts, and issues regarding religious liberty.
1. Describe the contributions of various religious groups to American civic
principles and social reform movements (e.g., civil and human rights,
individual responsibility and the work ethic, antimonarchy and self-rule,
worker protection, family-centered communities).
2. Analyze the great religious revivals and the leaders involved in them,
including the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, the Civil War
revivals, the Social Gospel Movement, the rise of Christian liberal theology in
the nineteenth century, the impact of the Second Vatican Council, and the rise
of Christian fundamentalism in current times.
3. Cite incidences of religious intolerance in the United States (e.g.,
persecution of Mormons, anti-Catholic sentiment, anti-Semitism).
4. Discuss the expanding religious pluralism in the United States and
California that resulted from large-scale immigration in the twentieth century.
5. Describe the principles of religious liberty found in the Establishment and
Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment, including the debate on the issue
of separation of church and state.
11.4 Students trace the rise of the United States to its role as a world power in the twentieth century.
1. List the purpose and the effects of the Open Door policy.
2. Describe the Spanish-American War and U.S. expansion in the South Pacific.
3. Discuss America's role in the Panama Revolution and the building of the
Panama Canal.
4. Explain Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, William Taft's Dollar
Diplomacy, and Woodrow Wilson's Moral Diplomacy, drawing on relevant speeches.
5. Analyze the political, economic, and social ramifications of World War I on
the home front.
6. Trace the declining role of Great Britain and the expanding role of the
United States in world affairs after World War II.
11.5 Students analyze the major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s.
1. Discuss the policies of Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and
Herbert Hoover.
2. Analyze the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies
that prompted attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids, Marcus
Garvey's "back-to-Africa" movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration
quotas and the responses of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties
Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the
Anti-Defamation League to those attacks.
3. Examine the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the
Volstead Act (Prohibition).
4. Analyze the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the changing role of
women in society.
5. Describe the Harlem Renaissance and new trends in literature, music, and
art, with special attention to the work of writers (e.g., Zora Neale Hurston,
Langston Hughes).
6. Trace the growth and effects of radio and movies and their role in the
worldwide diffusion of popular culture.
7. Discuss the rise of mass production techniques, the growth of cities, the
impact of new technologies (e.g., the automobile, electricity), and the
resulting prosperity and effect on the American landscape.
11.6 Students analyze the different explanations for the Great Depression and how the New Deal fundamentally changed the role of the federal government.
1. Describe the monetary issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries that gave rise to the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the
weaknesses in key sectors of the economy in the late 1920s.
2. Understand the explanations of the principal causes of the Great Depression
and the steps taken by the Federal Reserve, Congress, and Presidents Herbert
Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to combat the economic crisis.
3. Discuss the human toll of the Depression, natural disasters, and unwise
agricultural practices and their effects on the depopulation of rural regions
and on political movements of the left and right, with particular attention to
the Dust Bowl refugees and their social and economic impacts in California.
4. Analyze the effects of and the controversies arising from New Deal economic
pollicies and the expanded role of the federal government in society and the
economy since the 1930s (e.g., Works Progress Administration, Social Security,
National Labor Relations Board, farm programs, regional development policies,
and energy development projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority,
California Central Valley Project, and Bonneville Dam).
5. Trace the advances and retreats of organized labor, from the creation of the
American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations to
current issues of a postindustrial, multinational economy, including the United
Farm Workers in California.
11.7 Students analyze America's participation in World War II.
1. Examine the origins of American involvement in the war, with an emphasis on
the events that precipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor.
2. Explain U.S. and Allied wartime strategy, including the major battles of
Midway, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Battle of the Bulge.
3. Identify the roles and sacrifices of individual American soldiers, as well
as the unique contributions of the special fighting forces (e.g., the Tuskegee
Airmen, the 442nd Regimental Combat team, the Navajo Code Talkers).
4. Analyze Roosevelt's foreign policy during World War II (e.g., Four Freedoms
speech).
5. Discuss the constitutional issues and impact of events on the U.S. home
front, including the internment of Japanese Americans (e.g., Fred Korematsu
v. United States of America) and the restrictions on German and Italian
resident aliens; the response of the administration to Hitler's atrocities
against Jews and other groups; the roles of women in military production; and
the roles and growing political demands of African Americans.
6. Describe major developments in aviation, weaponry, communication, and
medicine and the war's impact on the location of American industry and use of
resources.
7. Discuss the decision to drop atomic bombs and the consequences of the
decision (Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
8. Analyze the effect of massive aid given to Western Europe under the Marshall
Plan to rebuild itself after the war and the importance of a rebuilt Europe to
the U.S. economy.
11.8 Students analyze the economic boom and social transformation of post-World War II America.
1. Trace the growth of service sector, white collar, and professional sector
jobs in business and government.
2. Describe the significance of Mexican immigration and its relationship to the
agricultural economy, especially in California.
3. Examine Truman's labor policy and congressional reaction to it.
4. Analyze new federal government spending on defense, welfare, interest on the
national debt, and federal and state spending on education, including the
California Master Plan.
5. Describe the increased powers of the presidency in response to the Great
Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.
6. Discuss the diverse environmental regions of North America, their
relationship to local economies, and the origins and prospects of environmental
problems in those regions.
7. Describe the effects on society and the economy of technological
developments since 1945, including the computer revolution, changes in
communication, advances in medicine, and improvements in agricultural
technology.
8. Discuss forms of popular culture, with emphasis on their origins and
geographic diffusion (e.g., jazz and other forms of popular music, professional
sports, architectural and artistic styles).
11.9 Students analyze U.S. foreign policy since World War II.
1. Discuss the establishment of the United Nations and International
Declaration of Human Rights, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and their importance in shaping
modern Europe and maintaining peace and international order.
2. Understand the role of military alliances, including NATO and SEATO, in
deterring communist aggression and maintaining security during the Cold War.
3. Trace the origins and geopolitical consequences (foreign and domestic) of
the Cold War and containment policy, including the following:
4. List the effects of foreign policy on domestic policies
and vice versa (e.g., protests during the war in Vietnam, the "nuclear
freeze" movement).
5. Analyze the role of the Reagan administration and other factors in the
victory of the West in the Cold War.
6. Describe U.S. Middle East policy and its strategic, political, and economic
interests, including those related to the Gulf War.
7. Examine relations between the United States and Mexico in the twentieth
century, including key economic, political, immigration, and environmental
issues.
11.10 Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting
rights.
1. Explain how demands of African Americans helped produce a stimulus for civil
rights, including President Roosevelt's ban on racial discrimination in defense
industries in 1941, and how African Americans' service in World War II produced
a stimulus for President Truman's decision to end segregation in the armed
forces in 1948.
2. Examine and analyze the key events, policies, and court cases in the
evolution of civil rights, including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v.
Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke, and California Proposition 209.
3. Describe the collaboration on legal strategy between African American and
white civil rights lawyers to end racial segregation in higher education.
4. Examine the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph,
Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa
Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr. 's "Letter
from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" speech.
5. Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights movement of African Americans from
the churches of the rural South and the urban North, including the resistance
to racial desegregation in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances
influenced the agendas, strategies, and effectiveness of the quests of American
Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equal
opportunities.
6. Analyze the passage and effects of civil rights and voting rights
legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the
Twenty-Fourth Amendment, with an emphasis on equality of access to education
and to the political process.
7. Analyze the women's rights movement from the era of Elizabeth Stanton and
Susan Anthony and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the movement
launched in the 1960s, including differing perspectives on the roles of women.
11.11 Students analyze the major social problems and domestic policy issues in contemporary American society.
1. Discuss the reasons for the nation's changing immigration policy, with
emphasis on how the Immigration Act of 1965 and successor acts have transformed
American society.
2. Discuss the significant domestic policy speeches of Truman, Eisenhower,
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton (e.g., with regard
to education, civil rights, economic policy, environmental policy).
3. Describe the changing roles of women in society as reflected in the entry of
more women into the labor force and the changing family structure.
4. Explain the constitutional crisis originating from the Watergate scandal.
5. Trace the impact of, need for, and controversies associated with
environmental conservation, expansion of the national park system, and the
development of environmental protection laws, with particular attention to the
interaction between environmental protection advocates and property rights
advocates.
6. Analyze the persistence of poverty and how different analyses of this issue
influence welfare reform, health insurance reform, and other social policies.
7. Explain how the federal, state, and local governments have responded to
demographic and social changes such as population shifts to the suburbs, racial
concentrations in the cities, Frostbelt-to-Sunbelt migration, international
migration, decline of family farms, increases in out-of-wedlock births, and
drug abuse.