Overview for Unit 1: Creating a New America - How America Changed from the 1860s to 1900

 

How to Use Each Unit to Save Yourself Time and to Match Your Personal Preferences for Learning?

To use the How-To videos and tips provided in the Course Orientation, click on the links below:

What’s Unique about Unit 1?

Unit 1 focuses on how America changes from the 1860s to 1900. It is frequently called the Gilded Age—Mark Twain’s term. The term golden age is sometimes used for the highest point of a civilization, but gild is anything but golden. The word gild means a fake, shiny substance over the cheapest metal. The Gilded Age was a period that was hard for many types of ordinary people in America.

This Unit tries to show you how dramatically history changes from 1860 to 1900:

 

To give you an idea of how much change occurred, in most cases if you wrote about any of the items above, a truth you said about 1865 could easily be false if you said it was still true in 1899. Observing how we changed is a challenge, but it is key to understanding this period—and the times we live in now. If history were a house, the Gilded Age is its basement and 1st floor—the Gilded Age is the structural foundation of the period you live in.

What Are the Parts in Each Unit?

 To make your work manageable, each Unit is divided into 3 smaller time periods, or Parts. For example, this Unit 1 is divided into Part A, Part B, and Part C, each its own maps and its own Check Your Knowledge quiz as an interactive study guide and its own quiz for 10 points.

Part A: Reconstruction Abandoned; Beginning of the Gilded Age

 

Chapters 16-17 (also requires 1860-1877 Quick Reference on the Civil War and Reconstruction)    

 

Interactive Study Guide That Shows What Facts Are Covered from the Chapters: Quiz A – Check Your Knowledge*

 

Quiz at the End of Part A: Quiz A  - For 10 Points

 

Part B: Gilded Age Transformations

 

Chapters 17, 18

 

Interactive Study Guide That Shows What Facts Are Covered from the Chapters: Quiz B – Check Your Knowledge*  

 

Quiz at the End of Part B: Quiz B  - For 10 Points

 

Part C: Turmoil and Expansion

 

Chapters 19

 

Interactive Study Guide That Shows What Facts Are Covered from the Chapters: Quiz C – Check Your Knowledge*  

 

Quiz at the End of Part C: Quiz C  - For 10 Points

* If you miss a question in the Check Your Knowledge quiz, you may be also required to use one of the optional resources at "Everything You Need for This Unit (except the maps)" or one of the files (such as maps). The "Everything..." link provides for each Part a list of all of the questions in Check Your Knowledge quiz with and without tips. After you take the Check Your Knowledge quiz to identify what you know and don’t know, be sure to check the list with the tips.

What Are the Writing Assignments for Unit 1?

Unit 1 also includes two Comparisons:

Both are available from the Unit 1’s “"Everything You Need for This Unit (except the maps)" and from Comparison Topics on the Course Menu. The resources for these Comparisons and the Turnitin Assignments are available if you click on Learning Modules and then on the folder Introductory Comparison Assignment (1860s-1877) and Comparison Assignment for Unit 1 (1860s-1900).

What Is the Objective Exam for Unit 1?

Unit 1 has an objective exam consisting of 40 multiple choice questions. The questions on the exam are pulled from the questions for Quiz A, Quiz B, and Quiz C.

 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2014

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2014

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/