An American Identity by 1848
The three threads, measured
- The United States began to develop a modern democracy and celebrated a new national culture, while Americans sought to define the nation's democratic ideals and change their society and institutions to match them.
- Innovations in technology, agriculture, and commerce powerfully accelerated the American economy, precipitating profound changes to U.S. society and to national and regional identities.
- The U.S. interest in increasing foreign trade and expanding its national borders shaped the nation's foreign policy and spurred government and private initiatives.
'The extent to which' asks for...
Greatly, but unevenly.
Politics: wider, and more organised
- Suffrage expanded to all adult white men, and mass parties grew to reach the new electorate.
- The federal boundary was contested case by case, and the judiciary claimed the last word on what the Constitution means.
- Continuity: exclusion by race and sex remained, and the boundary question was never settled.
Select all the political developments of the period.
Exclusion by race and sex remained.
Economy: national market, sectional map
- A market revolution, five named innovations, and transport networks that linked the North and Midwest more closely than they linked regions in the South.
- Cotton, manufacturing, banking and shipping tied the sections commercially even as infrastructure pulled them apart.
- So the economy produced one market and two identities, which is exactly what the second thread promised.
Politics, economics, or foreign policy?
Sort each development by 1848.
The economy produced one market and two identities.
Exactly what the second thread promised.
"The extent to which" asks for a judgement with a limit. Politics, economics and foreign policy strengthened a national identity and hardened a regional one at the same time — so the strongest answer is to a great extent, but unevenly, with the distinctive Southern identity as the evidence for the qualifier.
Select all the means of expansion this lesson names.
Plus the private half: settlers and relocating slaveholders.
Expansion: policy and private movement
- Purchase, exploration, the Monroe Doctrine, wars, and federal efforts to control and relocate American Indian populations.
- Frontier settlers and relocating slaveholders were the private half of the same expansion.
- Continuity: the continent remained contested, and each acquisition made the slavery question sharper.
The evidence for the qualifier 'unevenly' is the distinctive ____ identity.
Which is why 1848 is not an ending.
'The extent to which' is the objective's key phrase
- The objective asks the extent to which politics, economics, and foreign policy promoted the development of American identity.
- Extent invites a judgement with a limit: identity strengthened nationally and hardened regionally at the same time.
- So the strongest answer says to a great extent, but unevenly, and names the regional identity as the evidence for the qualifier.
The same decades that gave a country a shared vote, a shared market and a shared foreign policy also gave one of its halves a reason to describe itself as a separate way of life. Both sentences are true, and the second one is why 1848 is not an ending.
By 1848, politics had widened the vote to all adult white men and built mass parties while leaving exclusions and the federal boundary unsettled; economics built one national market whose transportation networks linked the North and Midwest more closely than the South, producing national and regional identities; and foreign policy expanded the borders by purchase, doctrine, war and removal, sharpening the slavery question with every acquisition. The answer to the extent is: greatly, but unevenly.