Documenting United States History

356 Chapter 15 | New Ideas aNd Old Ideas | Period six 1865 –1898^357

Putting it All together

Revisiting the Main Point

•   

Choose three of the above documents that are related to the pursuit of civil

or economic rights. What do the demands that are made in these documents

have in common? How are they different? In what ways do they reflect the

interests of the individuals who are making these demands?

•   

To what extent do the documents above present an optimistic view of the

Gilded Age? Use at least four documents to support your answer.

•   

Compare the various challenges to the status quo that appear in this chapter.

Based on these challenges, generalize what the status quo was at this time.

Periodization in Writing

Historical Arguments

As a historical thinking skill, periodization allows you to frame a series of events

through turning points, moments that occur at the start or end of an era. Trans-

ferring this skill into historical argument entails a similar skill, although this

time the periodization occurs simultaneous to the development of your thesis.

Consider the following prompt:

To what extent do the documents above present an optimistic view of the

Gilded Age? Use at least four documents to support your answer.

In assessing the Gilded Age—itself a periodized era—you must determine

whether the documents present the Gilded Age as an optimistic era. In determin-

ing the extent to which an assertion is true, you may rely on contextualizing your

argument. For example, you might claim that the Gilded Age was optimistic in a

social sense but was pessimistic in an economic sense.

Periodization gives you another option: you can synthesize documents to cre-

ate a new definition of an era or a new period. For example, many documents

in this chapter reflect the discontent, rebellion, and even violence of a frustrated

working class. These frustrations were exacerbated by the unprecedented wealth

that was visible in many parts of America.

But this era of rebellion also may be construed as a positive sign as the twen-

tieth^ century neared. Consider Edward Bellamy’s vision of the future (Doc.

15.5), in which he presented the late nineteenth century as a time where citizens

shed their mercenary qualities in pursuit of a greater whole, not unlike Daniel

building Ap®

writing skills

Putting It all Together 357

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