There are many social, economic, political and cultural changes that have shaped American history from the 1400s to the end of the Civil War. Many events occurred between these time periods. Socially, America went from being undeveloped to developing quickly. Economically, America from hard times due from the rapid number of settlers to profitable because of the crops and goods America produced. Politically, America went from sharing a political system with England to creating a constitution directly for America alone, free from other rule. Culturally, America changed from using forced slave labor to freeing the African American slaves. These are only a few examples of the many that have shaped American history. Women, men, blacks and whites …show more content…
White women contributed to the profit of the New World by raising families. When the men were sick women would pick up on his duties such as farming. Later, in 1848, the problem of women’s inequality arose. Women fought for their rights and by 1860, fourteen states had given women greater power. Of course the fight was not over yet, these events made the social change clear. Men were seen as the higher power, head of the households. Men’s priorities changed from exploring, farming, inventing to fighting in the wars throughout this time period. Black men and women came to the New World as slaves. The New World started engage in the African American slave trade. Settlers realized that slaves were profitable; rather than hiring people to work for them, they bought slaves. Slave women were sold to for work just like the men; however, if the woman was able to have children she would be sold for almost as much as a male field hand. Black African American men were high in value and worked in the fields producing crops, especially cotton in the South. The Civil War approached in 1861, the North and South changed economically wise; however, this …show more content…
When Columbus asked the King to fund his trips to the New World, Spain was doing economically well. Spain’s goal was to become rich from trade, the King agreed with Columbus that the New World would be a great investment to get rich from trade. Between the 1500s and 1650, gold and silver were sent to Spain from the new world. Spain started to see promise in the New World. Once America started producing goods, England was gaining more profit. America was diverse economically, from livestock, fish to skilled shipbuilders. Settlers adjusted to the changing environments, created different economies, labor systems, and worshiped in different churches. Immigrants began to come to the New World to prosper with the opportunities of possibly getting rich or even for religious freedom. Up into the Civil War all of theses factors continued to
After the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the powerful Old World scrambled to colonize it. The three major nations involved in this were Spain, France, and England. Spain took more to the south in the Central American and Mexico areas while France went north in the Canada region. The English came to America and settled in both the New England and Chesapeake area. Although the people in these regions originated from the same area, the regions as a whole evolved into different societies because of the settlers’ purpose for coming to America and the obstacles faced in both nature and with the natives.
Both constitutional and social developments greatly changed the United States to a revolutionary proportion between 1860 and 1877. The new amendments and the fight for civil rights altered the previous way of life and forever changed American society. Inequality, fear, and corruption sent the United States into turmoil that would transform the country and lead to a revolution of change.
During the 1600’s people began to look for different types of work in the new world. As cash crops, such as tobacco, indigo, and rice, were growing in the South, there became a need for labor. This got the attention of convicts, debtors, and other people looking for new opportunities and money. Indentured servitude was vastly growing during the 17th and 18th centuries. Approximatively 10 million men, women, and children were moved to the new world. Women during this time found themselves being sold to men for these cash crops. A commonly used term during this time for these women was tobacco brides. Almost 7.7 million of the slaves captured and moved to the new world were African Americans. Slaves and indentured servants had it rough for
The Antebellum Period in America occurred between 1815-1860. During this time period, religion, economic expansion, and social reform all greatly changed the United States and ultimately formed the nation that we have today. The effects of the Second Great Awakening greatly affected religion, the market revolution permanently changed the American economy, and social reform movement lobbied for temperance, women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, and institutions for those in poor mental health.
When discussing change in the late 1800’s a few things come to mind, but the progression of capitalism was a major catalyst for most of them. Capitalism is an economic system of free market. It promotes private or corporate ownership of goods from investments based upon price, production, and distribution of goods. This new idea tended to promise wealth and stability, but when the distinction between the working lower class and bourgeoisie became more evident, people were irritated. Capitalism began to exploit the greed in man and bring fear to the strongest of wills. Many dreamed of this as the golden age of man kind and saw new prosperity as a benefit for all “for how could there be greed when all had enough.”(George, p.21) Poverty spread through the working class like disease and forced millions of Americans to fight for survival. In a trip to Chicago Rudyard Kipling furiously describes the dreary, money driven conditions that consumed the earth, water, and air. “I spent ten hours in that huge wilderness, wandering through scores of miles of these terrible streets, and jostling some few hundred thousand of these terrible people who talked money through their noses....
The years after the civil war left one half of America, the north, satisfied and the other half, the south, mostly dissatisfied. Therefore the last third of the nineteenth century, 1865-1900, was a time period in which America was mending, repairing, improving, reshaping, and reconstructing its society, economy, culture, and policies. Basically it was changing everything it stood for. This continual change can be seen in the following events that took place during this time. These events are both causes and effects of why America is what it is today. These are some examples: the reconstruction of the south, the great movement towards the west, the agricultural revolution, the rise of industrialism, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and America's growth to gaining world power. All of these are reasons and events that characterize America as being an ever-changing nation.
The word progress has several different meanings. These definitions played a vital role in American thought. From the initial immigrants to the first government, progress was always on the American mind. Wars were fought on the grounds on progress. The first United States president represented progress. Everything America stands for is based on the progression of its people.
Looking back into history, at around the 1500s to the 1600s, people were very much the same in the sense that many countries were looking to aggrandize their economy and appear the greatest. It was this pride and thinking that motivated many of the superpowers of the world’s past. Two such monarchies in the European continent included England and Spain, which had at the time, the best fleets the world has ever seen. Because both were often striving to be the best, they conflicted with one another. Although England and Spain had their differences, they both had a thirst to see new things and it was this hunger that led them both to discovering different parts of the “New World” and thus, colonizing the Americas.
The time period between 1800 and 1850 was an incredible revolution of America. Everything had altered; America had even taken on forms of things we have today like modern forms of political parties. Women have just as many rights as any man, some day we could see a woman as president; which would be a joke of a statement at the time. There is no more slavery in America and African Americans have just as many rights as any other American. The things we see change in the 19th century shaped America as a country today.
From the 1950’s through the 1990’s, social and cultural issues impacted American history in a major way. America’s history was influenced by several events that happened over this time period. All of the events that I will talk about will prove how gender issues, the 1960’s counterculture, debates over immigration and multiculturalism, and the creation of “two America’s impacted U.S history. It also will explain why I believe some of the events from the 1950s to the 1990s played a big part in US history, while others may think otherwise.
During the years between 1920 and 1960, America saw change in many aspects of life. The United States was a part of two major wars and a crash of the banking system that crippled the economy greater than ever seen in this country’s history. Also the country had new insecurities to tackle such as immigration and poor treatment of workers. These events led to the change of America lives socially, economically, and politically. The people of America changed their ideas of what the country’s place in the world should be. The issues challenging America led the country to change from isolation to war, depression to prosperity, and social change. The threats to American way of life, foreign and domestic, were the changing forces to the country in the twenties to the sixties.
American History is a story written by Judith Ortiz Cofer in 1993. She normally writes about poetry but in this particular story she writes a short story about her life. The story begins with the speaker of the story, Elena, talking about the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The story continues through her own tragedy of her neighborhood crush shunning her away. The is short, however, it has many key points in life. Three of the themes of the story includes shame can be self-generated, shame can destroy your self confidence, and death can bring people together.
Many people see history as a set of facts, or as a collection of stories. The reality, however, is that history is a fluid timeline. Each act of an individual or a group has an effect on others. Each moment in history is a building block that, good or bad, contributes to the stability of the next. This can be seen clearly in American history, as there have been several developments since the 1800’s that have played major roles on the growth of the nation.
Economic concerns of the British caused the colonization of British North America. Such economic concerns included the opportunity to acquire gold, silver, a North American waterway that would lead directly to China and the Indies, and the prospect of countering Spain's dominance in North America (Boorstin et al. 34). In addition to these economic reasons for colonization, the English were also seeking to obtain the essential "raw materials" in America that they had been previously buying from other European countries for exorbitant amounts of money and gold (Boorstin et al. 34). Great Britain also sought to solve other economic problems through American colonization. For example, England needed to replenish some of its diminishing materials and assets, generate another "market" to export its cargo and merchandise, maintain its powerful navy and "merchant marine" through business with new American colonies, and to provide a new place for the unemployed to settle rather than escalating populace/crime and the economic burden in its own cities (Boorstin et al. 34).
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” — Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson