Minnesota Social Studies Standards

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Grades 4-8, United States History

Standard A. The student will understand that large and diverse American Indian Nations were the original inhabitants of North America.

• Benchmark
1. Students will compare ways of life of Indian Nations from different regions of North America.

• Examples
1. Iroquois, Cherokee, Ojibwe, Dakota, Hopi, Navajo, Yakama

Standard B. The student will demonstrate knowledge of European exploration of the North American continent and the resulting interaction with American Indian Nations.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will identify key European explorers and how their voyages led to the establishment of colonies.
2. Students will know and explain that interactions between American Indian tribes and European explorers had positive and negative impacts.

• Examples
1. Christopher Columbus, Jacques Cartier, Henry Hudson, Ponce de Leon, John Smith
2. Trading relationships, wampum, smallpox

Standard C. The student will demonstrate knowledge of the colonies and the factors that shaped colonial North America.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will explain and understand the political, religious, social, and economic events and conditions that led to the colonization of America.
2. Students will compare and contrast life within the colonies and their geographical areas, including New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern colonies, and analyze their impact.
3. Students will identify the differences and tensions between the English colonies and American Indian tribes.
4. Students will understand the significance of enslaved Africans and their descendants in the economic and social life of the colonies.

• Examples
1. Religious persecution in Europe, economic opportunity, missions
2. Plantation agriculture, maritime industries (whaling, shipping, fishing, ship building), family farming, animal husbandry
3. Pequot War, French and Indian War

Standard D.1. The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and course of the American Revolution.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will understand issues and events that led to the American Revolution, and analyze how these events affected the move toward independence from Britain.
2. Students will understand the principles of the Declaration of Independence, including inalienable rights and self-evident truths.
3. Students will analyze the roles of key individuals and political leaders in the American Revolution.
4. Students will know and understand key factors and events contributing to the defeat of the British.

• Examples
1. The Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party, the Intolerable Acts
2. Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Crispus Attucks, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Francis Marion, John Hancock, Nathan Hale
3. Differences in warfare style, the Committees of Correspondence, the Battles of Trenton, Saratoga, Yorktown

Standard D.2. The student will demonstrate knowledge of how the principles of the American Revolution became the foundation of a new nation.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will know and understand basic principles of the new government established by the Constitution of the United States.
2. Students will know reasons why the United States developed the Constitution, including the debates and compromises that led to the final document.

• Examples
1. Separation of powers, three branches of government, checks and balances
2. Interstate commerce, Shay's Rebellion, 3/5 Compromise, Bill of Rights

Standard E. The student will demonstrate knowledge of western expansion, conflict, and reform in America.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will examine the processes that led to the territorial expansion of the United States including wars and treaties with foreign nations and Indian nations, the Mexican-American War, annexation, Louisiana Purchase and other land purchases, and the removal of American Indians to reservations.
2. Students will analyze the impact of inventions and technologies on life in America, including the cotton gin, the steamboat, and the telegraph.

• Examples
1. The acquisitions of Florida, Texas, Oregon, and California, the Mormon Trail, frontier families
2. The reaper, the steam locomotive, construction of canals, "King Cotton" and the expansion of slavery

Standard F.1. The student will demonstrate knowledge of the causes of the Civil War.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will identify and analyze the main ideas of the debate over slavery, abolitionism, states' rights, and explain how they resulted in major political compromises.
2. Students will identify on a map the states that seceded from the Union, and those that remained in the Union.

• Examples
1. Harper's Ferry, The Missouri Compromise, the Kansas -Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott case, rise of the Republican Party, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Standard F.2. The student will demonstrate knowledge of major events and people of the Civil War.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will know and understand the roles of significant figures and battles of the Civil War Era and analyze their significance, including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Harriet Tubman and Battle of Gettysburg.
2. Students will analyze the aftermath of the war and its effects on citizens from the North and South including free blacks, women and former slaveholders.

• Examples
1. William Lloyd Garrison, Dred Scott, John Brown, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert Lee
2. 13th Amendment, Reconstruction

Standard G. The student will analyze the transformation of the American economy and the changing social and political conditions in response to the Industrial Revolution.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will identify and understand the reasons for the increase in immigration, growth of cities, new inventions, and political challenges to American government arising from the industrial revolution, and analyze their impact.
2. Students will identify and explain racial segregation and racism, including the rise of "Jim Crow," the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination against immigrants, and the relocation of American Indian tribes to reservations, and analyze the impact of these actions.
3. Students will analyze how the rise of big business, the growth of industry, and the change in life on American farms and small towns with increased mechanization changed life in America.
4. Students will analyze the impact of the Progressive Movement on child labor and working conditions; the rise of organized labor; women's suffrage and the temperance movement, and identify the contributions of individuals in these movements.

• Examples
1. Political attitudes toward the post-Reconstruction South, transcontinental railroad and immigrant labor, American Indian relocation to reservations
2. The growth of ethnic stereotyping, American Indian boarding schools, Wounded Knee, Chinese exclusion, Plessy v. Ferguson
3. Andrew Carnegie, Standard Oil, McCormick Reaper, Populist Movement, The Grange
4. Samuel Gompers, Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Herbert Hoover, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jane Adams, NWSA, Frances Willard and the WCTU

Standard H.1. The student will demonstrate knowledge of the political, geographical, cultural, social, and economic forces shaping the modern United States.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will know and understand the reasons for the Spanish-American War and its resulting impact.
2. Students will know and understand the United States' actions in the Pacific, and resulting international reactions.
3. Students will identify and understand the struggles and contributions of African American leaders of this period, including W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, and compare their ideas.

• Examples
1. The Battle of Manila Bay, the annexation of the Philippines, and the rise of the U.S. as a world power
2. Panama Canal, the annexation of Hawaii, Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and the guerilla war in the Philippines, "Banana Wars"
3. Tuskegee Institute, establishment of the NAACP, Ida B. Wells

Standard H.2. The student will understand World War I, its causes and effects.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will know and understand the reasons for the United States' neutrality and delayed entry and involvement in World War I.
2. Students will explain Wilson's 14 Points and United States' isolationism.

• Examples
1. Zimmerman telegram, American Expeditionary Force, Influenza of 1918, Lusitania, Germany's breaking of the Sussex Pledge
2. U.S. non-participation in the League of Nations and the failure of League, post-war disillusionment

Standard I. The student will understand and analyze the economic, social, and political transition of the United States before, during and after World War II.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will examine causes and analyze the effects of the Great Depression and the impact of the New Deal.
2. Students will analyze the major causes and effects of American neutrality and eventual involvement in World War II, including the America First movement, lend-lease, and the impact of Pearl Harbor.
3. Students will recognize major events, battles and significant leaders in World War II and analyze their impact, including Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill, Adolph Hitler, the Battle for Midway, the invasion of Normandy, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
4. Students will evaluate the impact of World War II on the home front and on American culture, including Japanese internment, Tuskegee Airmen, and "Rosie the Riveter."

• Examples
1. Smoot-Hawley tariff, overheated economic expansion of the 1920s, 1929 stock market crash, bread lines, dust bowls, WPA, CCC, role of Franklin Roosevelt
2. Trade restrictions on Japan, economic impacts of the Great Depression
3. Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Battle of the Bulge
4. Port Chicago, Detroit race riots, women's military involvement (WAVEs and WACs), conversion to wartime economy

Standard J. The student will analyze the economic, social, and political transformation of the United States and the world between the end of World War II and the present.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will understand and explain the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after World War II, including the Marshall Plan and the American occupation of Japan.
2. Students will understand and analyze the emergence of the United States as a superpower, and its pivotal role in the establishment of the United Nations.
3. Students will analyze the role of American foreign policy and military action during the Cold War era, including the Truman Doctrine, Korean and Vietnam Wars and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
4. Students will explain the changing patterns of society, expanded educational and economic opportunities for military veterans, women, and minorities.
5. Students will identify major Supreme Court decisions during this era and analyze their impact, including Brown vs. Board of Education.

• Examples
1. Berlin Blockade, and creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), MacArthur
2. Development of nuclear weapons, Dumbarton Oaks Conference
3. The presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
4. Thurgood Marshall, Little Rock school integration, urbanization of American Indians, Caesar Chavez; the New Frontier, the NAACP, the Great Society, United Farm Workers' Movement, the women's and civil rights movements
5. Gideon, Miranda

Standard K. The student will recognize the opportunities and challenges facing the United States and explore its role in the world since 1989.

• Benchmarks
1. Students will identify and evaluate American contributions to the fall of the Soviet bloc, from the Truman Doctrine through the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
2. Students will analyze challenges of a postcommunist world, especially September 11, 2001 and its aftermath.

• Examples
1. U.S. support of dissident and anticommunist movements in Central and Eastern Europe, NATO
2. New clashes of economic, political and religious worldviews