By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain how American writers, both fiction and nonfiction, helped Americans to better understand the changes they faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesIdentify some of the influential women and African American writers of the era

Urbanization and Its ChallengesThe African American “Great Migration” and New European ImmigrationRelief from the Chaos of Urban LifeChange Reflected in Thought and Writing

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify how each class of Americans—working class, middle class, and upper class—responded to the challenges associated with urban lifeExplain the process of machine politics and how it brought relief to working-class Americans

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Identify the factors that prompted African American and European immigration to American cities in the late nineteenth centuryExplain the discrimination and anti-immigration legislation that immigrants faced in the late nineteenth century

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain the growth of American cities in the late nineteenth centuryIdentify the key challenges that Americans faced due to urbanization, as well as some of the possible solutions to those challenges

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain the factors that shaped the new morality and the changing role of women in the United States during the 1920sDescribe the “new Negro” and the influence of the Harlem RenaissanceAnalyze the effects of prohibition on American society and cultureDescribe the character and main authors of the Lost Generation

Prosperity and the Production of Popular EntertainmentTransformation and BacklashA New GenerationRepublican Ascendancy: Politics in the 1920s

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Discuss the role of movies in the evolution of American cultureExplain the rise of sports as a dominant social forceAnalyze the ways in which the automobile, especially the Model T, transformed American life

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Discuss Warren G. Harding’s strengths and weaknesses as presidentExplain how Calvin Coolidge was able to defeat the Democratic PartyExplain what Calvin Coolidge meant by “the business of America is business”

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Define nativism and analyze the ways in which it affected the politics and society of the 1920sDescribe the conflict between urban Americans and rural fundamentalistsExplain the issues in question in the Scopes trial

The Compromise of 1850The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Republican PartyThe Dred Scott Decision and Sectional StrifeJohn Brown and the Election of 1860

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and its resultsAnalyze the results of the election of 1860

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain the contested issues that led to the Compromise of 1850Describe and analyze the reactions to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain the importance of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott rulingDiscuss the principles of the Republican Party as expressed by Abraham Lincoln in 1858

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain the political ramifications of the Kansas-Nebraska ActDescribe the founding of the Republican Party

Summary and links to further reading on the question "What's Connecticut's role in westward expansion?"

Summary and links to further reading on the question "What's Connecticut's story of immigration?"