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AP®

Topics 10-18

This outline is intended as a guide for students preparing to take the AP U.S History Exam. The outline is not intended in any way to be prescriptive of what AP students must study. It is illustrative only of topics that might appear in any one edition of the exam.

Note: The AP U.S. History topic outline contains 28 topics; topics 10-18 are outlined below.

  1. The Crisis of the Union
  2. Civil War
  3. Reconstruction
  4. The Origins of the New South
  5. Development of the West in the Late Nineteenth Century
  6. Industrial America in the Late Nineteenth Century
  7. Urban Society in the Late Nineteenth Century
  8. Populism and Progressivism
  9. The Emergence of America as a World Power

10. The Crisis of the Union

  1. Pro- and antislavery arguments and conflicts
  2. Compromise of 1850 and popular sovereignty
  3. The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the emergence of the Republican Party
  4. Abraham Lincoln, the election of 1860, and secession

11. Civil War

  1. Two societies at war: mobilization, resources, and internal dissent
  2. Military strategies and foreign diplomacy
  3. Emancipation and the role of African Americans in the war
  4. Social, political, and economic effects of war in the North, South, and West

12. Reconstruction

  1. Presidential and Radical Reconstruction
  2. Southern state governments: aspirations, achievements, failures
  3. Role of African Americans in politics, education, and the economy
  4. Compromise of 1877
  5. Impact of Reconstruction

13. The Origins of the New South

  1. Reconfiguration of southern agriculture: sharecropping and crop lien system
  2. Expansion of manufacturing and industrialization
  3. The politics of segregation: Jim Crow and disfranchisement

14. Development of the West in the Late Nineteenth Century

  1. Expansion and development of western railroads
  2. Competitors for the West: miners, ranchers, homesteaders, and American Indians
  3. Government policy toward American Indians
  4. Gender, race, and ethnicity in the far West
  5. Environmental impacts of western settlement

15. Industrial America in the Late Nineteenth Century

  1. Corporate consolidation of industry
  2. Effects of technological development on the worker and workplace
  3. Labor and unions
  4. National politics and influence of corporate power
  5. Migration and immigration: the changing face of the nation
  6. Proponents and opponents of the new order, e.g., Social Darwinism and Social Gospel

16. Urban Society in the Late Nineteenth Century

  1. Urbanization and the lure of the city
  2. City problems and machine politics
  3. Intellectual and cultural movements and popular entertainment

17. Populism and Progressivism

  1. Agrarian discontent and political issues of the late nineteenth century
  2. Origins of Progressive reform: municipal, state, and national
  3. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson as Progressive presidents
  4. Women's roles: family, workplace, education, politics, and reform
  5. Black America: urban migration and civil rights initiatives

18. The Emergence of America as a World Power

  1. American imperialism: political and economic expansion
  2. War in Europe and American neutrality
  3. The First World War at home and abroad
  4. Treaty of Versailles
  5. Society and economy in the postwar years

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