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History of the United States

History of the United States

This article is part of a series

Timeline

Pre-Colonial period

Colonial period

1776–1789

1789–1849

1849–1865

1865–1918

1918–1945

1945–1964

1964–1980

1980–1991

1991–present

Topic

Civil Rights (1896–1954)

Civil Rights (1955–1968)

Civil War

Cultural history

Demographic history

Diplomatic history

Economic history

Historiography

Military history

Southern history

Technological and industrial history

Territorial evolution

Women's history

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The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The largest settlements were by the English on the East Coast, starting in 1607. By the 1770s the Thirteen Colonies contained two and half million people, were prosperous, and had developed their own political and legal systems. The British government's threat to American self-government led to war in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. With major military and financial support from France, the patriots won the American Revolution. In 1789 the Constitution became the basis for the United States federal government, with war hero George Washington as the first president. The young nation continued to struggle with the scope of central government and with European influence, creating the first political parties in the 1790s, and fighting a second war for independence in 1812.

U.S. territory expanded westward across the continent, brushing aside Native Americans and Mexico, and overcoming modernizers who wanted to deepen the economy rather than expand the geography. Slavery of Africans was abolished in the North, but heavy world demand for cotton let it flourish in the Southern states. The 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln calling for no more expansion of slavery triggered a crisis as eleven slave states seceded to found the Confederate States of America in 1861. The bloody American Civil War (1861–65) redefined the nation and remains the central iconic event. The South was defeated and, in the Reconstruction era, the U.S. ended slavery, extended rights to African Americans, and readmitted secessionist states with loyal governments. The national government was much stronger, and it now had the explicit duty to protect individuals. Reconstruction was never completed by the US government and left the blacks in a world of Jim Crow political, social and economic inferiority. The entire South remained poor while the North and West grew rapidly.

Thanks to an outburst of entrepreneurship in the North and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers from Europe, the U.S. became the leading industrialized power by 1900. Disgust with corruption, waste, and traditional politics stimulated the Progressive movement, 1890s-1920s, which pushed for reform in industry and politics and put into the Constitution women's suffrage and Prohibition of alcohol (the latter repealed in 1933). Initially neutral in World War I, the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917, and funded the Allied victory. The nation refused to follow President Woodrow Wilson's leadership and never joined the League of Nations. After a prosperous decade in the 1920s the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset of the decade-long world-wide Great Depression. A political realignment expelled the Republicans from power and installed Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt and his elaborate and expensive New Deal programs for relief, recovery, and reform. Roosevelt's Democratic coalition, comprising ethnics in the north, labor unions, big-city machines, intellectuals, and the white South, dominated national politics into the 1960s. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II alongside the Allies and helped defeat Nazi Germany in Europe and, with the detonation of newly-invented atomic bombs, Japan in Asia and the Pacific.

The Soviet Union and the U.S. emerged as opposing superpowers after the war and began the Cold War confronting indirectly in an arms race, the Space Race, and intervention in Europe and eastern Asia. Liberalism reflected in the civil rights movement and opposition to war in Vietnam peaked in the 1960s–70s before giving way to conservatism in the early 1980s. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, leaving the U.S. to prosper in the booming Information Age economy that was boosted, at least in part, by information technology. International conflict and economic uncertainty heightened by 2001 with the September 11 attacks and subsequent War on Terror and the late-2000s recession.

THE ACTIVITIES

BEFORE THE PLAY

1. Ask your students to discuss the difference between television and live theatre. It is important that they know about theatre etiquette, or manners. Refer to the poem above on Matinee Manners.

2. Have students learn the following vocabulary words and listen for them during the play. See how many words they can recall and how they were used in the context of the play.

discrimination dishonor earnest economy eloquent

endeavor equivocate freedom government immigration

industrial inspiration integrity liberty patriot

perish pilgrim polio prosperity renaissance

responsibility revolution score secede segregation

skeptic slavery taxes tyrannous virtue

 LA.A.1.1.3 (PreK-2) The student uses knowledge of appropriate grade-, age-, and developmental-level vocabulary in reading.

3. Have the students look and listen for patterns during the play. See how many patterns they can recall and how they were used in the context of the play. Encourage students to be aware of patterns that may occur in music, dance, scenery, costume fabric and dialogue. Students may also notice architectural patterns in the theatre.

4. This play is a musical journey through American History. Discuss with your students the differing types of music that they will encounter and how music has changed since 1776. After the show, have the students analyze and describe the music from the show. There are many classic songs as well as newer compositions that can be analyzed.

AFTER THE PLAY

1. Discuss the production with your students. What did they like or dislike about the play? What was their favorite time period and historical figure? Why? Have the students draw a picture or write a letter to the cast of “Let Freedom Sing” telling them what they learned.