UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 2003

I Choose one of the following: (75%)

a. Why did the invading army win the Civil War but lose the American Revolution?

b. Explain why a majority of Americans had supported the protection of slavery in the 1789 federal constitution but by 1860 had determined it must be destroyed.

c. Compare and contrast the life of colonial American women with antebellum American women.

III Identify and give the historical significance of five of the following: 25%

a. Molly Pitcher

f. John C. Calhoun

b. George Bingham

g. Tecumseh

c. Colleen

h. Erie Canal

d. George McClellan

I. Frederick Douglass

e. Kansas-Nebraska Act

J. Dred Scott decision

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 2001

I Choose one of the following: (75%)

a. “The Civil War was inevitable. By 1860 the differences between the North and the South were so profound, only war could resolve the differences.” Respond to this quote.

b. Compare and contrast the condition of American free women during the the Colonial Ear with northern women on the eve of the Civil War. How do you explain the differences?

c. Compare, contrast, and evaluate the presidencies of George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln.

II Identify and give the historical significance of five of the following: 25%

a. Jesuit Order

b. Second Great Awakening

c. Church of the Latter Day Saints

d. Chancellorsville

e. Cottiers

f. Kansas-Nebraska

e. Nat Turner

f. Dred Scott

g. Seneca Falls

h. Sequoia

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 2001

I Choose one of the following: (75%)

a. Write an essay that describes how the lives of American women changed from colonization in the 17^th century to the Civil War. Your essay should include material from lectures, the text, A Midwife’s Tale, Erin’s Daughters, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Your essay should also explain “why” these changes occurred.

b. What made “the Civil War inevitable?” When did it become inevitable? Your answer should be as complex and comprehensive as possible.

c. The “History of North American Indians after Columbus” was an unmitigated tragedy. Write an alternative “History of North American Indians, 1607 to 1840" that takes into account all the events and circumstances that native North American peoples faced but which was “not tragic.” That is, given the historical circumstances, how could it have been different?

III Identify and give the historical significance of five of the following:

a. Seneca Falls

b. Antietam

c. John Humphrey Noyes

d. Kansas-Nebraska Act

e. American Party

f. John Marshall

e. Battle of New Orleans

f. ex parte Milligan

g. Molly Pitcher

h. Trail of Tears

I. Eli Whitney

J. Missouri Compromise

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 1996

I Choose one of the following: (50%)

a. Compare the impact of Thomas Paine's Common Sense on the American Revolution with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin on the Civil War.

b. Write an essay on the influence of religion on American life from the seventeenth century to the Civil War.

c. Write an account of the Indian peoples of Eastern North America from the founding of Jamestown to their removal to Oklahoma in the 1830s. Was their fate avoidable? How?

II Choose one of the following: 25%

a. Why did the North win the Civil War?

b. Together, the notions of Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity altered the traditional role of women in American life. Trace the changes in the lives of the free women in the United States from the American Revolution until the Civil War. Show how, after 1830, these changes transformed American politics and life. How did these changes precipitate the Civil War?

c. Discuss the impact of cities on ante-bellum America.

(over)

d. Compare and contrast the experience of Irish immigrants in the United States with enslaved African Americans in the ante-bellum period.

III Identify and give the historical significance of five of the following:

a. Hannah Dunston

b. Battle of Horseshoe Bend

c. Oneida Community

d. James Polk

e. Senator Bird

f. Erie Canal

e. Mexican War

f. ex parte Milligan

g. Know-nothings

h. Hudson River School

i. Gibbons v. Ogden

J. Cotton Gin

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

1997

I Choose one of the following: (50%)

a. Compare and contrast the presidencies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Why do many historians consider them the most important American presidents?

b. Compare and contrast the experience of the Indian peoples of Eastern North America with African Americans in the United States from 1619 to 1860.

c. In 1776 thirteen of the British North American colonies seceded from the British Empire and in five years of conflict secured their independence. In 1860 the Confederate States of America seceded from the United States and in five years of conflict failed to secure their independence. Explain why the thirteen colonies succeeded and the why Confederate States failed.

II Choose one of the following: 25%

a. Write an essay on Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage: My Freedom and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. What did the two books have in common? How were they different? Why were they effective in discrediting southern slavery?

b. Write an essay on the Second Great Awakening. How did it reshape American life in the antebellum period?

c. Write an essay on the Cotton Revolution. How did it reshape American life in the antebellum period?

d. Write an essay on Jacksonian Democracy. How did it reshape American life in the antebellum period?

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 1993

I Choose one of the following: (50%)

a. Compare and contrast the American Revolution with the changes in American life and government brought about by the Civil War and the Lincoln Administration. Which was the most "revolutionary?" Was the Civil War, indeed, a "Second American Revolution?" Draw on text, lectures, and readings for your essay.

b. Compare and contrast Puritan religious life in seventeenth-century New England with the religious ferment that transformed the Northeast and Midwest in the decades prior to the Civil War. How were they alike? How were they different? How do you explain the differences?

c. Unlike New France and New Spain, the European setters in the British North American colonies, almost from the start, made the New World their home, bringing their families, building cities, and converting the wilderness into productive farms and plantations. Write a history of Anglo-American territorial expansion from 1607 to l860. Be as detailed and as inclusive as possible. In composing your essay, consider these questions: What caused such a seeming irresistible process? Was it inevitable? What were the consequences of this expansion?

II Choose one of the following: 25%

a. Together, the notions of Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity altered the traditional role of women in American life. Trace the changes in the lives of the free women in the United States from the American Revolution until the Civil War. Show how, after 1830, these changes transformed American politics and life. How did these changes precipitate the Civil War?

b. In detail compare and contrast Frederick Douglass' portrait of slavery with Harriet Beecher Stowe's. How do you explain the differences? Were they both accurate? Did slavery have the same impact on men as women?

c. Why did the South lose the Civil War? [Warning: Simple and short answers to this question will almost certainly result in a low grade.]

III Indentify and give the historical significance of ten of the following:

a. Eli Whitney

b. Shelbys

c. Tuchahoe

d. ex parte Vallandingham

e. Boston Marriages

f. Southern Honor

e. Northwest Land Ordinance

f. Kansas-Nebraska Act

g. Know Nothings

h. Mother Ann Lee

i. Seneca Falls

j. seriatim

K. Red Sticks

l. Coverture

k. Oliver Hazard Perry

m. Presidential Campaign of l828

n. Revolution of 1800

o. Midnight Judges

p. Antietam

q. William Sidney Mount UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 1996

I Choose one of the following: (50%)

a. Compare the impact of Thomas Paine's Common Sense on the American Revolution with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin on the Civil War.

b. Write an essay on the influence of religion on American life from the seventeenth century to the Civil War.

c. Write an account of the Indian peoples of Eastern North America from the founding of Jamestown to their removal to Oklahoma in the 1830s. Was their fate avoidable? How?

II Choose one of the following: 25%

a. Why did the North win the Civil War?

c. Discuss the impact of cities on ante-bellum America.

(over)

d. Compare and contrast the experience of Irish immigrants in the United States with enslaved African Americans in the ante-bellum period.

III Identify and give the historical significance of five of the following:

a. Hannah Dunston

b. Battle of Horseshoe Bend

c. Oneida Community

d. James Polk

e. Senator Bird

f. Erie Canal

e. Mexican War

f. ex parte Milligan

g. Know-nothings

h. Hudson River School

i. Gibbons v. Ogden

J. Cotton Gin

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 1995

I Choose one of the following: (50%)

a. Use Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin to outline the differences between America at the time of the American Revolution and America on the eve of the Civil War. What was most important to Paine? What was most important to Beecher? How do you explain the differences?

b. Write an account of the Indian peoples of Eastern North America from the founding of Jamestown to their removal to Oklahoma in the 1830s.

c. In 1776 thirteen British North American colonies seceded from the British Empire and in five years of conflict secured their independence. In 1860 the Confederate States of America seceded from the United States and in five years of conflict failed to secure their independence. Explain why the thirteen colonies succeeded and the why Confederacy failed.

II Choose one of the following: 25%

a. Who caused the Civil War?

b. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass contrasted the life of a slave on Maryland's Eastern Shore with the life of a slave in Baltimore. Using Douglass' My Bondage: My Freedom, discuss the impact that early nineteenth-century urbanization had on American slavery.

c. Discuss the impact that the "cotton revolution" had on early nineteenth-century America.

UNITED STATES HISTORY

FINAL EXAM

FALL 1995

I Choose one of the following: (50%)

b. Write an account of the Indian peoples of Eastern North America from the founding of Jamestown to their removal to Oklahoma in the 1830s.

II Choose one of the following: 25%

a. Who caused the Civil War?

c. Discuss the impact that the "cotton revolution" had on early nineteenth-century America.