Prof McQueen

ASSIGNMENT 1

Assignment 3: Essay Question

Deadline and Deliverable

By Sunday, April 12, 2015, please select any 1 of the following topics and respond in an organized, 600-word essay that supports your statements by specific reference to relevant sections of the document. Submit your paper as an attachment in MS Word format to the W1 Assignment 2 Dropbox.

Requirements

•   Length: At least 600 words.

•   MLA Format (See a sample MLA-formatted essay)

•   Citations: Your essay must include a works cited page in MLA format with complete citations for each source you used. These sources must also be cited in the body of your paper in parenthetical references.

•   Essay Structure: Your essay should have an introductory paragraph with a thesis statement as the last sentence in the paragraph, several well-organized supporting paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph that sums up the main points of your paper and demonstrates to your reader that the thesis has been proven.

•   Quotations: Be sure that any and all text you have copied directly from a source is in quotation marks and is followed by a parenthetical reference. When you have paraphrased from a source, you must also use a parenthetical reference. Please limit your quoted material to 15% of the total word count of the paper. This means that the other 85% of your paper needs to be paraphrased from your sources or your own critical analysis.

Essay Topics

•   What key changes did emancipation make in the political and economic status of African Americans? Discuss the expansion of citizenship rights in the post–Civil War years. To what extent did women share in the gains made by African Americans?

•   How did white southerners attempt to limit the freedom of former slaves? How did these efforts succeed, and how did they fail? How did Plessy vs. Ferguson exacerbate this?

•   Describe the impact of new technologies and new forms of production on the routines of industrial workers. How did these changes affect African American and women workers in particular? What role did the trade unions play in this process?

•   Describe American foreign policy during the 1890s. Why did the United States intervene in Cuba and the Philippines? What were some of the leading arguments for and against overseas expansion?

•   How did urban life change during the Gilded Age? How did economic development affect residential patterns? How did the middle class aspire to live during the Gilded Age? How did their lifestyles compare with those of working-class urbanites?