NY Regents U.S. History study guide

NY Regents U.S. History · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

History and Government is one of the Regents Examinations offered in New York State. The New York State Education Department lists Regents Exams among the assessments handled by its Office of State Assessment, alongside pages for exam schedules, computer-based testing, and the New York State Alternate Assessment. The NY Regents U.S. History study guide has 11 sections and about 3,600 words.

Colonial Foundations

Spain governed its colonies through viceroys, missions, and forced labor systems such as the encomienda; France relied on the fur trade and Native alliances with relatively few settlers; England planted agricultural settlements that grew traditions of self-government and, in the Chesapeake, a tobacco economy that moved from indentured servants toward enslaved African labor after Bacon's Rebellion (1676) exposed the dangers of a large, armed class of poor laborers. Virginia's House of Burgesses (1619) and New England town meetings are the standard examples of colonial self-rule, while the Mayflower Compact (1620) is a social-contract agreement among Separatists, not a constitution.

345 words, about 2 min 02

American Revolution and the New Nation

The Stamp Act (1765) taxed printed materials directly and triggered the argument that only colonial legislatures could tax colonists. The Townshend duties, the Boston Massacre (1770), the Tea Act (1773), and the Coercive Acts escalated the conflict.

325 words, about 2 min 03

Expansion, Nationalism, and Sectionalism

Canals, steamboats, railroads, and the telegraph tied regions together, while the cotton gin (1793) made slavery expand westward. Henry Clay's American System combined a protective tariff, a national bank, and internal improvements.

330 words, about 2 min 04

Civil War and Reconstruction

Lincoln's election prompted secession; Fort Sumter (April 1861) began the fighting, and four border states stayed in the Union. The Anaconda Plan targeted blockade and the Mississippi.

327 words, about 2 min 05

Industrialization, Immigration, and the Gilded Age

Railroads, coal, steel, and oil, plus favorable courts and government subsidies, fueled rapid growth after the Civil War. Carnegie practiced vertical integration, controlling ore, coke, ships, and rail lines; Rockefeller practiced horizontal consolidation, merging refineries into a trust.

337 words, about 2 min 06

Reform Movements and the Progressive Era

Progressives responded to industrial cities, corruption, and inequality, drawing on Populist ideas and on journalists called muckrakers. At the municipal level they pushed commission and city-manager plans; at the state level they introduced the initiative, referendum, recall, and direct primary.

313 words, about 2 min 07

Foreign Policy, Imperialism, and World War I

Washington's Farewell Address warned against permanent alliances, and the Monroe Doctrine (1823) claimed the hemisphere as a sphere of interest. Late-century expansionism added Alaska (1867) and Hawaii (1898).

336 words, about 2 min 08

The 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal

The 1920s mixed prosperity with reaction: the Red Scare and Palmer Raids, Sacco and Vanzetti, the National Origins Act (1924), a revived Klan, and the Scopes Trial. Prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act produced bootlegging and organized crime until the Twenty-first Amendment (1933).

337 words, about 2 min 09