Curriculum Map

US History Since 1877

Continue the American story from Reconstruction through today. Industrialization, the Progressive Era, world wars, the civil rights movement, Cold War, and the challenges of 21st-century democracy. TEKS §113.41 aligned.

14 Units

Early Units (Foundation)

Building Skills

Advanced Concepts

Capstone/Synthesis

Unfinished Revolution: Reconstruction 1865–1877

Examines the political, social, and economic transformations of the Reconstruction era, including the constitutional amendments that redefined citizenship and the forces that ultimately dismantled Black political power in the South.

3-4 days

Steel, Oil, and Sweat: The Gilded Age

Explores the explosive economic growth of the Gilded Age, examining how industrialization transformed American society, generated vast inequality, and sparked the first major labor conflicts and reform impulses in U.S. history.

3-4 days

Reform from Above and Below: The Progressive Era

Surveys the Progressive movement's multi-front campaign to regulate corporate power, expand democracy, and address social ills — examining who drove reform, who was excluded, and how much actually changed.

3-4 days

Over There and Back Again: WWI and the Roaring Twenties

Traces America's transformation from reluctant neutral to global power through WWI, then examines the contradictions of the 1920s — prosperity and poverty, cultural flowering and racial terror, democratic idealism and political repression.

3-4 days

When the Bottom Fell Out: Depression and New Deal

Examines the causes and human toll of the Great Depression, then evaluates FDR's New Deal as a political and economic response — exploring what it accomplished, what it left undone, and how it permanently reshaped the relationship between government and citizens.

3-4 days

The World in Flames: World War II

Examines America's road to World War II, the massive mobilization of the home front, and the moral complexities of the conflict — from the internment of Japanese Americans to the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan.

3-4 days

Iron Curtain: The Cold War Begins

Examines the origins and early escalation of the Cold War — the ideological conflict between the United States and Soviet Union that reshaped global politics, militarized American society, suppressed domestic dissent, and defined everyday life in postwar America.

3-4 days

We Shall Overcome: The Civil Rights Movement

Examines the struggle for racial equality from Brown v. Board of Education through the landmark legislation of 1964 and 1965, including the strategies, sacrifices, and ideological debates within the movement.

3-4 days

The Longest War: Vietnam and the Counterculture

Traces American involvement in Vietnam from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through withdrawal, examining the military conflict alongside the domestic antiwar movement and counterculture that fractured American society.

3-4 days

Power to the People: Social Movements of the 1960s-70s

Surveys the constellation of liberation movements that remade American society — women's liberation, Chicano movement, American Indian Movement, gay rights, and environmentalism — examining their origins, tactics, and lasting impact.

3-4 days

Morning in America: The Conservative Revolution

Examines the rise of modern conservatism from Watergate through the Reagan Revolution, including supply-side economics, the religious right, and the end of the Cold War as the Berlin Wall fell.

3-4 days

The Unipolar Moment: Post-Cold War America

Analyzes the United States in the 1990s — the Gulf War, Clinton's domestic agenda, NAFTA, the tech boom, and deepening culture wars — as America navigated a world without the organizing framework of Cold War competition.

3-4 days

A New Century: 9/11, War on Terror, and Modern America

Examines how the September 11 attacks transformed American foreign policy, domestic security, and civil liberties, and traces the country through the Iraq War, 2008 financial crisis, the Obama presidency, and the emergence of social media as a political force.

3-4 days

The Unfinished Story: America in the Present

Examines the forces shaping contemporary America — political polarization, the pandemic, racial reckoning, immigration debates, economic inequality, and the challenge of maintaining democratic institutions in the digital age.

3-4 days

Learning Progression

This course is designed to be taken sequentially. Earlier units establish foundational concepts that later units build upon. While you can explore units in any order, following the numbered sequence provides the most coherent learning experience.