Given the changing nature of the Internet, you may wish to preview these sites. Always check for updated links to U.S. history sites.

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Allow two weeks to teach Chapters 10 and 11. Combining the two chapters encourages making comparisons and contrasts between and among the regions.

Students should be aware that about 35 percent of the multiple-choice questions on the test deal with social change, 10 percent with economic developments, and approximately another 5 percent with cultural and intellectual developments. However, as the College Board says, questions cut across categories. Students need to be as serious about understanding the economic, social, and cultural aspects of U.S. history as they are about learning the political developments.

The North:

• the social and economic transformations in the Northeast and Midwest
• the effects of industrialization on class structure
• the emergence of the middle class

The South:

• the domination of the Southern economy, politics, and social structure by the system of slavery
• the creation of African American communities under slavery

Chapter 10 deals with the development of the Northeast and Midwest in the first half of the nineteenth century and Chapter 11 describes similar topics for the South. By studying the two chapters together, students will be better able to analyze the growing division between North and South as the nineteenth century wore on. Creating a table to compare and contrast the economies, political philosophies, and social structures of the regions will help students establish the sectional divisions that underlay national politics in the first half of the nineteenth century.

There is also a heavy emphasis in Chapter 11 on the lives of enslaved Africans in the South, including their forms of resistance and attempts at open rebellion.

To help students synthesize what they have been reading, divide the class into groups of four or five students for a discussion. Have half the groups discuss the development of the Southern economy and the other half discuss the development of the Northern economy. After about ten minutes, stop the conversations and ask students as a whole group to list the topics they have been talking about. Write the items on the board in the order in which they have been volunteered. When the suggestions have been exhausted, ask students to classify the items as economic, political, and/or social or societal. Discuss the social and political implications of the two predominant economic systems: slavery and the factory system. Point out that while only 50,000 large plantations—those with from 20 to 200 enslaved African Americans—existed, this is the predominant image of the South that existed in the nineteenth century and continues to exist. This is a good place to introduce the theory of Herrenvolk democracy and its influence on race relations.

You might also find these additional readings useful in developing students' background knowledge or for DBQ activities: