Documenting United States History

378 Chapter 16 | prosperity and reform | period seven 1890 –1945

Putting it All togEthEr

revisiting the Main Point

•   

What were some of the positive and negative economic and social effects of

the Second Industrial Revolution that were experienced during the late nine-

teenth and early twentieth century?

•   

Analyze the ways in which reformers and government programs sought to

control the negative effects. To what extent were these reformers and pro-

grams successful? What accounted for their lack of success?

•   

Trace the continuities and changes in Americans’ sense of themselves as a

nation throughout this period. How did immigrant assimilation and the rise

of a consumer economy shape Americans’ self-identity?

evaluating evidence: discovering turning Points

In writing historical argument, selecting evidence is a discrete process. You find

the examples that best support the prompt, and you organize this evidence in a

way that will help support your position.

Finding evidence is more than just an automatic, fill-in-the-blank procedure,

and reviewing carefully selected evidence may influence the direction of your

essay. Past chapters, for example, have looked at the notion of a working thesis,

which is an initial claim that the evidence might help confirm as the essay con-

tinues. You also have studied the role that is played by the outlier, or marginal

example, which can provide a qualification or exception to the norm and there-

fore increase an argument’s credibility.

There is an additional move you can make to create a fuller argument, and

that is to incorporate actual turning points and periodization in prompts that do

not explicitly ask for periodization. Consider the following prompt:

Trace the continuities and changes in Americans’ sense of themselves as

a nation throughout this period. How did immigrant assimilation and

the rise of a consumer economy shape American identity?

At first glance, the period is defined for you in this prompt—“immigrant assimi-

lation” and “the rise of a consumer economy.” But the actual turning points are up

to you to decide. Additionally, you may choose to create a new period to address

this prompt more fully.

BuilDing AP®

writing sKills

putting it all together 379

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