APUSH · Period 7
— c. 1890 to c. 1945 —

Empire, Progressivism, and total war.

Imperial expansion, Progressive reform, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the war that finally pulled America to global power.

What you need to know

The 1898 Spanish-American War made the U.S. an overseas power (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines). At home, Progressives — Jane Addams, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette — pushed antitrust, regulation, women’s suffrage (19th Amendment, 1920), prohibition (18th, 1919), and the income tax (16th, 1913). World War I ended European hegemony and triggered the Great Migration of African Americans north. The 1920s: cars, radio, jazz, the KKK’s revival, the Scopes Trial, immigration restriction (1924), and a stock market that crashed in 1929. FDR’s New Deal redefined the federal government’s role in the economy. World War II finished the Depression, mobilized the entire society, ended in nuclear weapons, and left the U.S. as one of two superpowers in a wrecked world.

Period topics (13)

The CED, topic by topic.

  • 7.1

    Contextualizing Period 7

    From the closing of the frontier to the dawn of empire.

  • 7.2

    Imperialism: Debates

    Mahan, McKinley, Roosevelt, and the Anti-Imperialist League.
    WOR · NAT

  • 7.3

    The Spanish-American War

    Cuba, the Maine, the Philippine-American War (1899–1902).
    WOR

  • 7.4

    The Progressives

    Trustbusting, muckrakers, the 16th–19th Amendments.
    PCE · SOC · WXT

  • 7.5

    World War I: Military & Diplomacy

    Neutrality, Lusitania, Zimmermann, Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
    WOR · PCE

  • 7.6

    World War I: Home Front

    Selective Service, Espionage Act, Red Scare, the Great Migration.
    NAT · SOC · MIG

  • 7.7

    1920s: Innovations in Communication & Technology

    Cars, radio, mass advertising.
    WXT

  • 7.8

    1920s: Cultural & Political Controversies

    Scopes, KKK revival, immigration restriction (1924), Harlem Renaissance.
    SOC · NAT

  • 7.9

    The Great Depression

    1929 crash, Hoover’s response, Bonus Army.
    WXT · PCE

  • 7.10

    The New Deal

    Glass-Steagall, Social Security, Wagner Act, AAA, TVA.
    PCE · WXT · SOC

  • 7.11

    Interwar Foreign Policy

    Isolationism, neutrality acts, FDR’s incremental moves toward intervention.
    WOR

  • 7.12

    WWII: Mobilization

    Pearl Harbor, conversion to wartime production, Japanese internment, Tuskegee Airmen.
    WXT · SOC · MIG

  • 7.13

    WWII: Military

    North Africa, Italy, D-Day, island-hopping, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Yalta.
    WOR

The New Deal is what changes most. Before it, “the federal government” mostly meant the Post Office. After it, the federal government is in your bank, your retirement, your fields, and your factory.— Mr. Jacobson, Period 7 Lecture

Connect to the bigger picture

Era: The Modern World

APWH cross-links: 7.1 Shifting Power After 1900; 7.4 Economy in the Interwar Period; 7.6 WWII

Next: Period 8 — Cold War, Civil Rights, Great Society

Practice the skill — DBQ

Practice DBQ stem.

Evaluate the extent to which the New Deal (1933–1939) marked a turning point in the relationship between the federal government and American citizens.