Suggested Responses to the Visual Source Exercises

Exercise 1

European Claims in the New World

Suggested Response: Because England and France had the largest populated regions with contiguous boundaries they were more likely to clash with each other rather than with Spain.

Exercise 2

The Battle of Saratoga

Suggested Response: The defeat at Saratoga derailed British strategy to divide the colonies down the Hudson River Valley in order to isolate New England from the other colonies. And after the battle, France agreed to an alliance with the Americans that doomed British ability to maintain control of the colonies.

Exercise 3

The Missouri Compromise

Suggested Response: While the compromise gave the South an eleventh slave state in Missouri, the region became increasingly circumscribed in its future ability to spread slavery westward. This became a major issue in the 1850s when the Kansas territory applied for statehood.

Exercise 4

Indian Removal Act

Suggested Responses:

1. Native Americans occupied potential rich cotton land in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
2. The South gained the most because it increased cotton production and promoted settlement in Alabama and Mississippi, which increased southern representation in the House of Representatives.
3. Native Americans were not numerous, and could not vote, thus they had no political power. And historically they had been viewed as an unwanted alien population.

Exercise 5

Trend in Alcohol Consumption, 1800-1870

Suggested Responses:

1. The per capita consumption remained steady but high from 1800-1830. It then dropped dramatically from 1830-1845 only to level off at a reduced rate of consumption from 1845-1870.
2. The Temperance Movement gained traction in the mid-1820s (The American Temperance Society formed in 1826) and the movement culminated with the Maine Laws in the early 1850s.
3. The reduction of alcohol may have reduced poverty, domestic violence, and crime. The working class probably benefited most from the reforms since prohibition actions tended to affect saloons and rum, which were mainly used by the lower classes.

Exercise 6

Mexican Cession

Suggested Responses:

1. The most beneficial to the nation was the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the nation, gave the country control of the Mississippi River, and cost a bargain price of 3 cents an acre.
2. Texas and the Mexican Cession were the most costly. While we paid $15 million for the land, we had to fight Mexico and lost 11,000 men. And as Ralph Waldo Emerson said the land we acquired became a “dose of poison” as the debate over the extension of slavery heated up to divide the nation.

Exercise 7

Resources for War: Union vs. Confederacy

Suggested Response: While the North had an overwhelming advantage over the South in resources, the eleven states had a significant population and were not without industrial, transportation and financial resources. The South also had the number one export: cotton (outside information).

Exercise 8

"Is This a Republican Form of Government?" by Thomas Nast

Suggested Response: The Northern Congress tried to provide a republican form of government in the South by expanding suffrage to include Black men. Through the Reconstruction Acts and the Fifteenth Amendment former slaves, with Northern protection, voted until the mid-1870s. Congress also passed Force Acts in the early 1870s to contain the Ku Klux Klan and the violence against Blacks and their allies. In the late 1870s, Congress returned Black rights back to enforcement by southern states and failed to maintain interest in civil rights for Blacks as the nation moved on to other economic and political issues.

Exercise 9

Price of Wholesale Wheat Flour, 1865-1900

Suggested Response: The trend for the price of wheat flour moved steadily downward after 1873 until the end of the century. Consumers of bread would benefit most from this reduction. Wheat farmers would suffer as prices for their crops fell. The major causes of this reduction in wheat prices were overproduction by farmers and the contraction of the currency by the government.

Exercise 10

American Expansion in the 1890s

Suggested Response: The focus of U.S. expansion in the 1890s was in the Pacific Ocean towards the China mainland and in the Caribbean. The benefits were increased trade especially in China and strengthening national security as we eliminated Spanish influence from Cuba. The cost was the war with Spain in 1898, and later the bloody revolution in the Philippines, which cost thousands of lives.

Exercise 11

"The Child Who Wanted to Play by Himself" by Leonard Raven-Hill

Suggested Response: The cartoon shows Wilson trying to drag a reluctant United States into the League of Nations. The cartoon depicts Wilson as a forceful leader, but also as someone who believed he knew what was best for the nation regardless of what public opinion might have suggested.

Exercise 12

U.S. Foreign-Born Population, 1890-1930

Suggested Response: The chart shows that the foreign born population as a percentage of the United States population dropping from 1920-1930. There was a slight increase in the foreign population (284,000) but the overall population grew by 17 million. The Red Scare and restrictive immigration laws helped to dampening down the number of foreign born people in the United States.

Exercise 13

National Unemployment, 1930-1939

Suggested Response: Unemployment rose sharply from 1930 to 1933, these were the years of the Hoover administration. From 1933-1937, unemployment went down, but never returned to 1930 levels. There was a spike in unemployment in 1937-1938 (the Roosevelt Recession) and then dropped in 1939 as World War II approached. The chart indicates that the New Deal reduced unemployment somewhat, and gave relief to the suffering nation, but it did not end the Depression---World War II would do that.

Exercise 14

"The Spirit of 37," by O. Seibel

Suggested Response: The cartoon depicts the collapse of the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union with the communists shown as predators, who hope to use economic and political disruption in Western Europe to their advantage. The cartoon suggests the United States must response with the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan to win the race to save Western Europe.

Exercise 15

"Step on it, Doc!" by Roy Justus

Suggested Response: The administration went from “watchful waiting” to see if the Soviets would live up to their wartime agreements to a belief that the Communist were on the march outside of their sphere of influence in East Europe and hoped to exploit the economic dislocation from the war to spread their system. The Administration decided to act in March of 1947 with the Truman Doctrine, which gave economic aid to Greece and Turkey and then later, in June with the Marshall Plan that extended aid to all of western Europe.

Exercise 16

Gulf of Tonkin, 1964

Suggested Response: South Vietnam bordered on both Laos and Cambodia, which according to the domino theory put each country at risk of falling to communism if the South was taken by the communist North. The domino theory suggested that external rather than internal forces determined a nation’s political and economic system. Many people questioned this idea as they saw internal factors as the most important factor in a country’s development.

Exercise 17

Women College Graduates, 1940-1980

Suggested Response: After a dip from 1940-1950 (probably because of World War II), the percentage of women as college graduates marked a steady rise from 1950-1980. The rise in women graduating from college was a reflection of the women’s movement that took hold in the mid and late 1960s. Possible individuals might include Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, or members of the National Organization of Women.