us history essay

us history essay

Exploring Key Events and Themes in United States History

1. Introduction to United States History

Here’s a sample of the journey that awaits. A visit to the Battle of Gettysburg, where soldiers from the North and the South, blue and grey, fought and died on United States soil. A meeting with the settlers who struggled to survive in the inhospitable climate of New England, trying to create viable communities on a fresh and foreign continent. An eavesdrop on a private conversation between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as they create plans for the United Nations. An evening at a baseball game and the lessons learned about racism and discrimination in America… There are countless events and themes that will provide a vivid picture of the United States in all her glory and all her imperfections.

From the earliest indigenous groups to the latest immigrants, the American story is unlike that of any other country. It is a tale of dreams and disappointments, battles won and lost, hard work and hard living, a melting pot of people yearning for opportunity and freedom. Of course, written from a particular perspective, this story is just one of many that might be told. But it is a story that has defined and shaped the world in ways great and small. In the pages that follow, this story is told as a journey, an exploration of our history and heritage, not just as a simple chronology of events or a series of dry facts, dates, and places.

2. The Founding and Early Republic Period

The thirteen United States of America emerged from an unprecedented single insurgency campaign that broke all colonial ties with England during the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence was a written manifestation of Enlightenment values shared throughout the thirteen colonies and served to justify seeking independence from England. The delegates to the Second Continental Congress were representative of the white, Protestant male merchants, farmers, lawyers, and educated elite who lived in each of the colonies. Members of the better educated and financially well-off sectors of the colonial population, these leaders were the same as those from the upper echelons of society who were members of the First Continental Congress in 1774.

Geography shaped a distinct, decentralized, and diverse religiously and ethnically English, Scots-Irish, Dutch, German, and French Huguenot colonial population on the Atlantic coast of North America. Spanish, Portuguese, and local native populations lived in the Americas and thrived in the Caribbean for centuries as well. During a transformative period known as the Enlightenment, revolutionary political thought and activism doubled the territory of the young United States and reformed the equality and freedoms enjoyed by its citizens in the decades after independence from European colonial powers was finally won. Establishment of a constitutional republic put a nation known for political stability and peaceful transition of government power in the hands of its white, property-owning male citizenry created on principles professed to be universal.

3. Civil War and Reconstruction

Congress passed a range of important laws called the three Reconstruction Acts, which reorganized the political relationships in the Southern States, while at the same time instituting important legal and political changes to empower the Stalinist regimes.

Reconstruction was a tumultuous time, pitting the different factions of the ruling Republican party against each other, leading Republicans and northern states against the former Confederate states and Democrats, and the executive branch against Congress. The Reconstruction era was a time of important change for the newly-liberated abolitionist, women, and free black communities.

On June 6, 1836, the House received an antislavery petition from Pennsylvania Quakers. Other abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society, an add-on to the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and a Massachusetts antislavery convention, also circulated numerous petitions during the spring of 1836.

As abolitionism grew, so did hostility toward militant abolitionists, and vocal critics of abolitionism found pride of place in the debates prior to the Civil War. Southerners feared that the abolitionist call for immediate emancipation, perceived as a direct attack on the South’s “peculiar institution,” would end slavery and lead the South to bondage.

Prelude to the Civil War

4. The Progressive Era and Industrialization

Hopes for progressivism were rooted in the faith of Protestants and Roman Catholics who believed government should help people to live good lives. Social justice reformers included ministers and social workers who wanted recognition of what life was like for Blacks, Native Americans, new immigrants, and other white and nonwhite poor. American reformers were influenced by a variety of events and processes in the closing decades of the 19th century. Chief among these was the replacement of a majority agrarian society living on isolated farms with a society that was half urban, half rural. In 1870, four-fifths of all Americans resided in urban areas; by 1920, four-fifths of the population would reside in cities. At the same time, annual immigration swelled from 293,000 in 1880 to 805,000 in 1890, with yearly arrivals often reaching the million mark. By the 1920s, the cities contained more than half of the population and they were attracting a larger proportion of the immigrants than were rural areas.

During the Gilded Age, the United States grew from a mixture of small towns and rural settlements into a large, modern, industrial nation. Industrialization brought about new work opportunities and the rapid expansion of cities, but prosperity often came with long hours, grim, dangerous labor, and poverty in crowded urban slums. As a result, American reformers began to argue that social problems produced by industrialization justified new national and state government actions to help the needy. This spirit of reform, known as progressivism, began during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt and lasted for about 20 years. Progressives believed that every problem had a solution. Therefore, they endorsed a scientific approach to social issues and a faith in reform through governmental actions.

5. The Civil Rights Movement and Contemporary America

Contemporary American leaders approached race relations cautiously and fearfully. As a result, white panic and racial upheaval cast a shadow over the entire decade from 1968-1978. The “Revolt of the Black Athlete” in 1968 was the first sign of trouble. A student protest at Columbia University added to the climate of restlessness. In 1968, President Johnson initiated discussions on the state of the country, the status of reforms, and the need for further reforms. Many blacks thought that the country was spinning out of control. The murder of Dr. King was a shattering blow for many. Major black urban riots broke out in over 100 cities, leaving at least 164 dead, nearly 8,000 injured, 28,000 arrested, and close to $800 million in damages. The Watts riot in Los Angeles, in which 34 were killed and over $40 million of damage was done, demonstrated that King’s philosophy of nonviolence had no followers.

Despite obtaining significant civil rights victories in the 1960s, American society continued to face serious racial, economic, and social problems. While many African Americans were able to improve their lives, large numbers of poor urban and rural blacks found themselves excluded from the civil rights achievements. Promising black urban communities deteriorated due to declining industrial employment, housing shortages, inadequate schools, and intolerance. The civil rights movement brought immediate gains that included the desegregation of schools in a number of major cities, changes in racist hiring practices, the passage of antipoverty legislation, the ratification of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and the creation of the model cities program. However, many civil rights activists were disappointed that not more was accomplished.