United States History: Post-Reconstruction through the Present
This domain tests continuity and change from the end of Reconstruction to the present, emphasizing industrialization, reform, war, civil rights, and the shifting role of the federal government. Questions often ask for the cause or consequence of a policy, not just its date.
Core chronology and concepts
- Gilded Age: railroad expansion, laissez-faire, Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), labor unrest such as Haymarket (1886) and Pullman (1894), and Jim Crow consolidation after Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
- Progressive Era: muckrakers, initiative and referendum, Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), Federal Reserve Act (1913), and amendments for income tax (16th), direct Senate election (17th), Prohibition (18th), and women’s suffrage (19th).
- World wars: U.S. neutrality in 1914–17, entry in 1917, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles; WWII mobilization, Japanese internment under Executive Order 9066, and the atomic bombings.
- Cold War: containment through the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and NATO; Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, détente, and Reagan-era escalation before 1989–91.
- Civil rights: Brown v. Board (1954), Montgomery bus boycott, Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965), and Great Society programs.
- Recent decades: Reaganomics, the end of the Cold War, 9/11, the War on Terror, and debates over immigration and technology.
Worked example
A question asks which decision directly undermined the legal basis of Jim Crow. Reasoning: Plessy (1896) endorsed separate but equal; Brown (1954) held racially separate schools inherently unequal and rejected that doctrine in education. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforced change through legislation, but Brown supplied the constitutional turning point.
Traps
- Confusing the 1964 Civil Rights Act with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- Saying the New Deal ended the Depression; full recovery came with WWII mobilization.
- Treating containment as rollback or as direct war with the USSR.