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1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975

  • 12 subtopics
  • 70 things to know
  • Component 1

What 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975 covers

Option 1K is a breadth study of the United States, taken as one of the Component 1 choices. It runs from Reconstruction and the Gilded Age through progressivism and depression to the superpower of the post-war decades.

Where it is assessed

Component 1

A breadth study, of which a student sits one.

Check the AQA specification ↗

The 12 subtopics

Each one has its own page. AQA AS History students sit this topic in the first year.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Which two significant pieces of legislation did Andrew Johnson veto, contributing to his conflict with Congress?

Key term

What happened to Andrew Johnson in 1868 as a result of his conflicts with Congress?

Process

How did the Ku Klux Klan and Redeemer violence undermine African-American gains during Reconstruction?

Process

Why is the period from the 1870s to 1890s called the 'Gilded Age'?

Process

What factors limited James Garfield's effectiveness as president?

Key term

What rights did the 14th Amendment grant to African-Americans?

Key term

When was the transcontinental railroad completed and what did it connect?

Key term

When and where was oil first discovered in the United States, launching the petroleum industry?

Key term

Why did industrial employment drive urbanisation during the Gilded Age?

Process

What did the Census of 1890 declare about the American frontier?

Process

What debates did the closing of the frontier prompt about America's future?

Process

How did the Monroe Doctrine guide American foreign policy during the Gilded Age?

Key term

What social and economic groups did the Populist movement of the 1890s primarily represent, and against whom did they direct their grievances?

Key term

What taxation reform did the Populists demand?

Key term

Who was the joint Democratic and Populist presidential candidate in 1896, and what was his famous speech?

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Which major trust did Roosevelt break up in 1904 using the Sherman Antitrust Act?

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What political party emerged from the split between Taft and Roosevelt in 1912?

Key term

What did Wilson's 'New Freedom' advocate regarding the banking system?

Key term

What did the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 create?

Key term

In what ways had the USA surpassed Britain as an industrial power by 1900?

Key term

Approximately how many immigrants arrived in the USA between 1890 and 1920, and from which regions did they predominantly come?

Key term

What public health issues arose from rapid urban growth?

Key term

What system of laws enforced racial segregation across the South during this period?

Key term

How did W.E.B. Du Bois's approach differ from Booker T. Washington's?

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What factors led to the Spanish-American War of 1898?

Key term

What did Roosevelt's 'Big Stick' diplomacy and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine assert?

Key term

What was the immediate cause of American entry into the First World War in April 1917?

Key term

What ethnic tensions existed in American society by 1920?

Key term

What cultural divide characterised American society by 1920?

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What major international agreement did the Senate reject, demonstrating political reaction against internationalism?

Key term

What slogan captured Warren G. Harding's approach to governance after World War I?

Key term

What was the Republican approach to taxation for wealthy Americans during the 1920s?

Key term

What term describes the Republican economic philosophy of minimal government interference in business during the 1920s?

Key term

What was the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and when was it established?

Key term

What was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)?

Key term

What landmark social welfare legislation was passed as part of the Second New Deal?

Key term

What role did consumer credit play in driving the 1920s economic boom?

Key term

How did agricultural overproduction weaken the 1920s economy?

Key term

What was margin buying and why did it create economic instability?

Key term

What happened to unemployment during American involvement in World War II?

Key term

When did American women gain the right to vote and through what measure?

Key term

How did mass unemployment affect American society during the Depression?

Key term

What characterised the industrialised North as a distinct American region?

Key term

What characterised the developing West as a distinct region?

Key term

How did discrimination against African-Americans in the North differ from the South?

Key term

What role did internal corruption play in the Klan's decline?

Key term

How did protective tariffs reflect isolationist sentiment in the 1920s?

Key term

What did the Neutrality Acts of 1935-1937 prohibit?

Key term

Which president served from 1945 to 1953 and oversaw immediate post-war reconstruction?

Key term

What change to welfare provision did the Fair Deal seek regarding social security?

Key term

Which 1947 act restricted trade union power by banning closed shops?

Key term

How did Kennedy's New Frontier aim to address economic hardship?

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What was the most ambitious expansion of federal government since the New Deal?

Key term

What was the Job Corps programme designed to do?

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What characterised the post-war economic boom from 1945 to the early 1970s?

Key term

What was Levittown an example of?

Key term

What education benefits did the GI Bill of 1944 provide to veterans?

Key term

What did the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigate?

Key term

Who emerged as the leading figure of the civil rights movement, advocating non-violent direct action?

Key term

What did the urban riots of the 1960s reflect?

Key term

Define the Cold War.

Key term

What was the purpose of the Marshall Plan from 1948?

Key term

How did US involvement in Vietnam escalate from Eisenhower to Johnson?

Key term

How did racial tensions demonstrate limits to social cohesion by 1975?

Key term

What did Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibit?

Key term

Define affirmative action.

Process

How did the Second World War change the American economy?

Process

What did Kennedy's New Frontier propose?

Process

What was the anti-communist campaign of the late 1940s, and why did McCarthy fall?

Process

Why did the Klan decline, and what did rejecting the League reveal?

Take 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Reconstruction vs Redemption

    Reconstruction: post-war programme for restoring the Union and redefining freedom. Redemption: southern conservative recovery of state political control.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What approach did Andrew Johnson take toward the former Confederate states during Reconstruction, and why did this weaken his presidency?

    Model answer

    Johnson pursued a lenient Reconstruction policy that allowed Southern states to quickly rejoin the Union with minimal requirements, which alienated Radical Republicans who wanted stricter conditions and protection for freedpeople.

  2. 2

    Which two significant pieces of legislation did Andrew Johnson veto, contributing to his conflict with Congress?

    Model answer

    Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, both of which Congress subsequently passed over his vetoes.

  3. 3

    What happened to Andrew Johnson in 1868 as a result of his conflicts with Congress?

    Model answer

    Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868, though he was acquitted by the Senate by a single vote.

  4. 4

    What was the Crédit Mobilier scandal that damaged Grant's administration?

    Model answer

    The Crédit Mobilier scandal involved a construction company that overcharged the Union Pacific Railroad for building the transcontinental railroad, with profits distributed to congressmen and government officials to avoid investigation.

  5. 5

    Describe the Whiskey Ring scandal during Grant's presidency.

    Model answer

    The Whiskey Ring was a conspiracy involving government officials and distillers who bribed Treasury Department agents to avoid paying taxes on whiskey, defrauding the federal government of millions of dollars.

  6. 6

    How was the South organised under Radical Reconstruction's military provisions?

    Model answer

    The South was divided into five military districts, each governed by a Union general who oversaw the registration of voters and the establishment of new state governments.

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1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975 revision questions

Is 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975 examined at AS in AQA History?
Yes. It sits in Component 1, which you take in the first year, so it is on the AS paper as well as counting towards the full A level.
What does 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975 cover in AQA AS-Level History?
12 subtopics: johnson, grant and radical reconstruction, the redeemers and the gilded age presidents, the post-reconstruction south and jim crow, the railroad boom and big business in the gilded age, the closing of the frontier and gilded age foreign policy, the populist movement and the people's party, progressivism and roosevelt's square deal, wilson's new freedom and america's economic rise, immigration, urban growth and segregation, american imperialism and the war of 1898, neutrality and entry into the first world war and american society and industrial power by 1920. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975 organised?
By the AQA 7042 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in 1K The Making of a Superpower: USA, 1865–1975, on a schedule.

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