SPECIFICATION INFORMATION:

•   AQA

  These webpages have been written to address the America 1920–73 specification and the recommended Scheme of Work.

•   OCR

  These webpages address the USA 1919-48 specification; and also the USA 1945-74 specification EXCEPT the Chicano, Native American, LGBTQ or Vietnam protests, or President Nixon).

•   Edexcel

  Webpages 20, 21 and, especially, 23 will provide helpful background to the Civil Rights sections of the USA 1954-75 specification, but you will wish to go deeper into the specific topics identified, and this website does not address the Vietnam War.

  

Contents:

American people and the 'Boom'

1.    America in 1916?

2.    The 'Boom' of the 1920s

3.    Inequalities of Wealth in the 1920s

4.    Women in 1920s America

5.    Entertainment, Prohibition and Crime

6.    Immigration

7.    The 'Red Scare' and the 'Monkey Trial'

8.    Racism and the KKK

  

Bust – Americans' experiences of the Depression and New Deal

9.    Crash and Depression

10.  Effects of the Depression

11.  The 1932 Presidential Election

12.  The New Deal - measures

13.  The New Deal - evaluation

14.  WWII - Economy & Society

15.  WWII - African Americans and Women

16.  WWII - Popular Culture

17.  1920-45 Cascade

  

Poat-WWII America

18.  The Economic Boom of the 1950s & '60s

19.  '50s & '60s Popular Culture

20.  McCarthyism

21.  Civil Rights 1945-65

22.  Civil Rights 1965-73

23.  Civil Rights Movement - interpretations

24.  Feminist Movements of the '60s & '70s

25.  Kennedy's 'New Frontier'

26.  Johnson's 'Great Society'

27.  1945-73 Cascade

28.  Self-test

  

Click the yellow arrow for advice on:

• How to STUDY this topic:
  • 1.   Start by reading my  Basics sheet.  Get a grasp of the basic story.  Make a list of key dates - leave space to add other dates you may discover during your studies.  It might be an idea to do this before you study this unit in class.
  • 2.   Work through the study sections above.  You can do this over time as you study the topics in lessons.  Take advantage of some of the links to explore, more deeply, aspects of the topics which attract your interest.  Make notes, perhaps using the Cloze exercises and/or their pdf printouts to build a set of notes.
  • 3.   Study the historiographies, to learn how historians have interpreted: Immigration, the KKK and the Civil Rights Movement , and to consider what YOU think about the debates.
  • 4.   Plunder the Cascade webpages on 1919-45 and 1945-73 to help you write any essays you are given.

• How to REVISE this topic:
  • 1.   Pre-revision:
    Skim-read the study pages in this unit, to refresh your memory of what you have learned in the lessons.  Read, and make notes on, your notes.
  • 2.   Four weeks to go:
    Go through the topics on the Cascade webpages on 1919-45 and 1945-73; use the yellow arrows to think FIRST how you would answer, before checking against my suggestions.
  • 4.   Three weeks to go:
    Choose the revision aid which suits you best from the ‘Revision factsheets’, and learn it off by heart; get someone to test you on it.  Then, using the yellow arrows to check your answers, do and re-do the Self-test until you can get every question ‘right enough’.
  • 5.   Two weeks to go:
    Invite a friend to revise with you and do the Revision Activies together, using them as an opportunity to share all you know and rehearse your 'explain how' skills.
  • 6.   Last week:
    Go through the blue Exam-style Questions for your specification to rehearse how you will tackle the kind of questions you will meet in the exam.  Spend the last evening re-revising your chosen revision aid.