THE APUSH FILES: Recent Episodes
Ballston Spa High School
THE APUSH FILES are audio archives created for students enrolled in Advanced Placement United States History and College in the High School American History at Ballston Spa High School. The files are posted to provide students with audio content to compliment virtual and in-person instruction.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its aftereffects.[1] The Great Crash is associated with October 25, 1929, called Black Friday, the day after the largest sell-off of shares in U.S. history.
DIRECT LINK to ESSAY: The Crash of 1929
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:-JpHLQEb/11-12-%F0%9F%94%8E-The-Crash-of-1929
The fighting in World War I ended on November 11, 1918, but the ceasefire halted only one of wars America was engaged in during the years 1917–1920. Another war, the internal battle against revolutionaries and radicalism, soon intensified into a national fury that became the twentieth century’s first “Red Scare.”
During the 1920s, cultural conflict and modernization helped resuscitate the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Whereas the original KKK was a violent, racist organization born in the post–Civil War South, the modern Klan was driven by somewhat different concerns. Many white, lower middle-class, Protestant Americans in the North and Midwest were fearful that immigrants were changing traditional American culture, and they responded with anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism.
Direct Link to Essay: The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:P9mavqYZ@4/11-7-%F0%9F%94%8E-The-Ku-Klux-Klan-in-the-1920s
The Scopes Trial, was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant
DIRECT LINK TO ORIGINAL PROGRAM:Timeline: Remembering the Scopes Monkey Trial
A vocal leader of the twentieth century women’s suffrage movement, Alice Paul advocated for and helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Paul next authored the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, which has yet to be adopted.
DIRECT LINK to ESSAY: Alice Paul and the Struggle for Women’s Suffrage
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:tn5U-LjU@5/10-4-%F0%9F%94%8E-Alice-Paul-and-the-Struggle-for-Women-s-Suffrage
When Teddy Roosevelt was president, reporter Lincoln Steffens came to him with a request: "Mr. President," he said, "I want to investigate corruption in the federal government." And Roosevelt responded in a rather astonishing way, as presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells NPR's Steve Inskeep
DIRECT LINK to NPR Interview Teddy Roosevelt's 'Bully Pulpit' Isn't The Platform It Once Was
Ida Tarbell was an investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era. Born in Pennsylvania at the onset of the oil boom, Tarbell is best known for her 1904 book The History of the Standard Oil Company. The book was published as a series of articles in McClure's Magazine from 1902 to 1904. The work would contribute to the dissolution of the Standard Oil monopoly and helped usher in the Hepburn Act of 1906, the Mann-Elkins Act, the creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Clayton Antitrust Act.
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE:Ida M. Tarbell’s Crusade against Standard Oil
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:lRu4WSfR@6/10-3-%F0%9F%94%8E-Ida-M-Tarbell-s-Crusade-against-Standard-Oil
During the summer of 1896, a 10-day heat wave killed nearly 1,500 people, many of them tenement-dwellers, across New York City. Many thousands of people were crammed into tenements on the Lower East Side, with no air conditioning, little circulating air and no running water. Families were packed together -- with five to six people sharing a single room. Extra space on the floor was rented out to single men -- many of whom worked six days a week doing manual labor out in the sun.
DIRECT LINK TO ORIGINAL PROGRAM: The Heat Wave Of 1896 And The Rise Of Roosevelt
DIRECT TO BOOK: Hot Time in the Old Town
Roosevelt Corollary,foreign policy declaration by U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in 1904–05 stating that, in cases of flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American country, the United States could intervene in that country’s internal affairs. Roosevelt’s assertion of hemispheric police power was soon characterized as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, though, in reality, it was a significant extension of that doctrine rather than an interpretation of it. Nevertheless, it was designed to preclude violation of the Monroe Doctrine by European countries seeking redress of grievances against unruly or mismanaged Latin American states.
During the Spanish-American War, Filipino rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo proclaim the independence of the Philippines after 300 years of Spanish rule. By mid-August, Filipino rebels and U.S. troops had ousted the Spanish, but Aguinaldo’s hopes for independence were dashed when the United States formally annexed the Philippines as part of its peace treaty with Spain.
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE: Philippine independence declared
SOURCE CITATION: “Philippine Independence Declared.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/philippine-independence-declared
Construction of the Panama Canal began in 1904. A workforce of about 30,000 laborers completed the 51 mile long "big ditch" in just ten years. when it opened in 1914, the Panama Canal gave the United States a commanding position in the Western Hemisphere.
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE: The Panama Canal
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:pHAnkICT/10-8-%F0%9F%94%8E-The-Panama-Canal
NPR's Steve Inskeep interviews to Harvard professor Noel Maurer co-author of "The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran And Ultimately Gave Away The Panama Canal."
DIRECT LINK TO ORIGINAL PROGRAM Panama Canal Symbolizes U.S. Geopolitical, Technological Power
DIRECT LINK TO BOOK: The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran And Ultimately Gave Away The Panama Canal.
President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine.
DIRECT LINK TO DOCUMENT: The Monroe Doctrine
SOURCE CITATION: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/monroe-doctrine-1823. The Monroe Doctrine, 1823 | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. March 07, 2021
At the turn of the twentieth century, Americans and Filipinos fought bitterly for control of the Philippine Islands. The United States viewed the Pacific islands as a stepping-stone to the markets and natural resources of Asia. The Philippines, which had belonged to Spain for three hundred years, wanted independence, not another imperial ruler. For the Americans, the acquisition of a colony thousands of miles from its shores required a break with their anti-imperial traditions.
DIRECT LINK TO ORIGINAL PROGRAM -Philippines 1900
SOURCE CITATION: America 1900. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/1900/.PBS. March 07, 2021
Before writing his new book, The War Lovers, Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine, spent three years researching an event a century removed from his day job: the 1898 Spanish-American War. But he did so, he says, because of similarities he perceived between the way America entered that conflict and the way it approached the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
DIRECT LINK TO ORIGINAL PROGRAM: In 1898, Satisfying A National Appetite For War
SOURCE CITATION: In 1898, Satisfying A National Appetite For War. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126285238.NPR. March 07, 2021.April 27, 2010.
While a revolutionary crowd gathers outside the Lolani palace gates on January 14, 1893, Queen Liliuokalani is forced to relinquish control of the Hawaiian government. With the Queen dethroned, years of political turmoil would follow until Hawaii was officially annexed to the United States in 1898
The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw a new wave of American expansionism into the Pacific. A popular movement rooted in newfound industrial wealth, a desire for trade, strategic interests, and a sense of cultural and racial superiority, this “New Manifest Destiny” asserted spurious scientific foundations for its claims of racial and cultural superiority, as American writers echoed the widespread ideas of social Darwinism by applying the theory of natural selection to social, cultural, political, and racial issues and arenas.
DIRECT LINK to ESSAY: The Philippine-American War
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:6kt270bM/10-11-%F0%9F%94%8E-The-Philippine-American-War
In the closing years of the 19th century, the United States began to emerge as a world power. With the conquest of North America nearly complete, attitudes in the U.S. changed to become much more tolerant of foreign adventures. The changes, wrought by the industrial revolution and evolving social norms, contributed to a new willingness to engage in imperialistic expansion. This new version of Manifest Destiny arose from strategic and economic concerns and appeals to religious and emotional sentiments.
Source Link: Chapter 15. American Military History, Volume 1. “Emergence to World Power 1898-1902.” https://www.armyheritage.org/75-information/soldier-stories/343-spanishamericanwar
In late January 1898, President William McKinley dispatched the U.S.S. Maine to Cuban waters to protect American citizens and business investments during ongoing tensions between Spain and its colony, Cuba. During the evening of February 1898, Cubans celebrated the pre-Lenten holiday of carnival while the U.S.S. Maine floated quietly in Havana harbor. At 9:40 p.m., a powerful explosion rocked the ship, killing 260 sailors and marines aboard and throwing flames and smoke hundreds of feet into the air. The public clamored for war with the popular cry, “Remember the Maine!”
Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) was a naval strategist and historian. He graduated for the U.S. Naval Academy in 1859 and served in the Civil War. A prominent American historian who emphasized the importance of sea power in war and peace, he influenced the growth of the U.S. Navy and promoted U.S. Imperialism. Mahan wroteThe Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (1890), which had a significant impact on U.S. and world naval strategy and foreign policy preceding World War I.
The 1896 United States presidential election of 1896 former Governor William McKinley, the Republican candidate, defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. The campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a political realignment that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System.
Direct Link Book Review: What does McKinley’s election in 1896 teach us about today? by David R. Mayhew is Sterling Professor of Political Science emeritus at Yale University
Direct Link to Book on Amazon.com: The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters by Karl Rove
Direct Link to Author Karl Rove's website www.rove.com and Karl Rove's Wikipedia page
Is his introduction to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” L. Frank Baum claims that the book is simply an innocent children’s story. But some scholars have found hidden criticisms of late-nineteenth-century economic policies in the book. Is it possible that one of America’s favorite children’s stories is also a subversive parable?
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/does-the-wo... In his introduction to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” L. Frank Baum claims that the book is simply an innocent children’s story. But some scholars have found hidden criticisms of late-nineteenth-century economic policies in the book. Is it possible that one of America’s favorite children’s stories is also a subversive parable? David B. Parker investigates the text for clues. Lesson by David B. Parker, animation by Avi Ofer.
The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election.
The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired.
Direct Link to passage: “Your Masters Sent Out Their Bloodhounds”
Source Citation: Schweikart, Larry. A Patriot's History of the United States : from Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror.
New York: Sentinel, 2004.
DIRECT LINK TO CLASS NOTES: Immigration and Cultural Conflict in Gilded Age America - Is America a haven for the poor and oppressed or guided by fluctuating feelings about race and ethnicity, and fear of foreign political and labor agitation?
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE: The Chinese Exclusion Act
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc%4013.2%3ALKzu_mbq%406/9-15-%F0%9F%93%8D-The-Chinese-Exclusion-Act
A progressive social reformer and activist, Jane Addams was on the frontline of the settlement house movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She later became internationally respected for the peace activism that ultimately won her a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, the first American woman to receive this honor.
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:kooQ1lBN@6/9-11-%F0%9F%94%8E-Jane-Addams-Hull-House-and-Immigration
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
While Industry made the country smaller and brought people into an integrated marketplace with new consumer products, their only avenue for participation is as an overworked and underpaid factory worker.
The Homestead strike, was an industrial lockout and strike which began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. The battle was a pivotal event in U.S. labor history. The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union of strikers and a setback for their efforts to unionize steelworkers.
DIRECT LINK to ARTICLEHomestead Strike
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:TTHu-Xys@6/9-13-%F0%9F%94%8E-The-Homestead-Strike
From 1866 to 1871, New York state and New York City were under the thumb of a man named William Marcy Tweed. the Tweed Ring, as it was called, was a group of four ambitious, greedy, and power-hungry men who cheated the state and city out of an estimated $30 million to $200 million.
DIRECT LINK TO AUDIO : William “Boss” Tweed and Political Machines
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:i7cal89O@6/9-6-%F0%9F%94%8E-William-Boss-Tweed-and-Political-Machines
Though a century has passed since the heyday of the great industrialists and financiers, debate continues: were these men captains of industry, without whom this country could not have taken its place as a great industrial power, or were they robber barons, limiting healthy competition and robbing from the poor to benefit the rich?
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America tells the story of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago from the viewpoint of the designers, including Daniel Burnham, and also tells the story of H. H. Holmes, a criminal figure in that same time often credited as the first modern serial killer.
Link to Passage: The Black City
Source Citation: Larsen, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. New York, Crown Publishers, 2003
Lewis Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and photographer. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing child labor laws in the United States.
CLASS NOTES: The Impact of Industrialization on American Society [1865 to 1900] While Industry makes the country smaller and brings people into an integrated marketplace with new consumer products, their only avenue for participation is as an overworked and underpaid factory worker
SOURCE CITATION: Teaching With Documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor. “The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.” 17 Feb. 2017, www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hine-photos.
Albany, Schenectady, even Saratoga Springs, like cities throughout the Northeast were bulging and growing and filling up again. Newcomers had flocked here looking for jobs in factories and foundries, which bustled along the Hudson and Mohawk rivers and rail lines.
DIRECT LINK TO CLASS NOTES: Progress and Poverty in Urban America [1865 to 1898]The explosive growth of America’s large urban centers was accompanied by often disturbing changes, including the new immigrants, crowded slums, and conflicts over cultural values.
LINK TO ARTICLE: Capital District 1900
SOURCE CITATION: Mark McGuire (1999) "The region bulged at its 19th century seams." Albany Times Union. Available at https://bit.ly/3jZDki3
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE: Plessy vs Ferguson
SOURCE CITATION: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," Bill of Rights Institute. https://cnx.org/contents/NgBFhmUc@13.2:9_ljj5a4@6/9-14-%F0%9F%94%8E-Plessy-v-Ferguson-1896
QUICK QUIZ Plessy vs Ferguson [Google Form]
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #7 [1890 to 1945] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #7 [1890- 1945] Part I on Vimeo
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #6 [1865 to 1898] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #6 [1865- 1898] on Vimeo
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #5 [1848 to 1877] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #5 [1848-1877] on Vimeo
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #4 [1800 to 1848] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #4 [1800 to 1848] on Vimeo
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #3 [1754 to 1800] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #3 [1754 to 1800] on Vimeo
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #2 [1607 to 1754] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #2 [1607 to 1754] on Vimeo
File #000 Time Period #1 Review [1491 to 1607]
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #1 [1491to 1607] focuses on strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.
DIRECT LINK to Gilder Lehrman APUSH EXAM PREP (Fall 2020)
DIRECT LINK to APUSH Study Guide for Time Period #1 [1491-1607] on Vimeo
Gilder Lehrman Institute’s APUSH Exam Review [Q and A] focuses on introductions and upcoming programs related to strategies for reading and writing that will prove essential for any student planning to take the APUSH exam during the 2020–2021 school year. The aim is to enable students to get the highest possible score on the exam and to come away with the deepest understanding of American history.