9/4/2009

ASSIGNMENTS:

SECTION #1

Answer all of the following questions in well-constructed 1-paragraph answers. Points will be earned for the completeness and accuracy of your answers as well as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Please proofread all work before you hand it in (spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes will be detracted from your grade—this hurt some people last year!!). Make sure that your answers are in your own words and that you use citations when necessary. You must attach all articles that you use to answer the following questions via hyperlinks.

1. Could Presidential Reconstruction have succeeded if politically skilled Abraham Lincoln instead of politically inept Andrew Johnson had been president?
2. Evaluate how truly “radical” Radical Reconstruction was.
3. How did Southern and Northern racial attitudes shape Reconstruction?
4. What effects did the failure of Reconstruction ultimately have on Southern blacks?
5. What were the conditions like for freed slaves in the South and what efforts were made to help them?
6. What are the major differences between Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction?
7. How did militant white opposition gradually undermine the Republican attempt to empower southern blacks?
8. Why did the Radical Republicans impeach Johnson but fail to convict him?
9. Evaluate whether or not the Freedman’s Bureau was successful.
10. Explain how the crop lien system kept freed slaves as socially, politically, and economically inferior in the South.

SECTION #2

All of the following requirements must be completed with attention paid to the topic of Reconstruction. Some of the requirements may necessitate you leaving your computer and going to a library for the research. Some of the requirements may even require that you use a college or university library for the research. What you hand in to me for the following 5 assignments should be completed with care.
1) Find 5 quotes from 5 different prominent people living in the time period of 1865-1867 that are relevant to our topics. Copy and paste them into Word, write a summary for each, and explain the significance of each (why you included them in this project).
2) Find 2 newspaper articles from the time period, attach them as hyperlinks, summarize them, and explain their significance to the time period.
3) Find 5 pictures/paintings from the time period (with focus on the context), attach them, and write a caption that explains why you included them in this project.
4) Find one contemporary (within the last 25 years) news article that discusses the importance of unionization at the turn of the century. Attach it, summarize it, and then explain in one paragraph why it is relevant to you as a student-historian.
5) Find one contemporary (within the last 25 years) news article that discusses the impact of immigration in this time period on the US.. Attach it, summarize it, and then explain in one paragraph why it is relevant to you as a student-historian.