11877–1900
Reconstruction's Afterlives and the Gilded Age
United States and CanadaIndigenous AmericasGlobal
How did industrial expansion reshape freedom and power?
Analyze industrial capitalism, labor, immigration, western conquest, Native sovereignty, segregation, and reform.
Required anchors: railroads and corporations, labor movements, Chinese exclusion, Dawes Act, Jim Crow
21890–1919
Reform, Empire, and World War
United States and CanadaLatin America and the CaribbeanPacific and OceaniaGlobal
Who defined progress at home and power abroad?
Compare Progressive reforms and exclusions with U.S. expansion, resistance in colonized places, and World War I.
Required anchors: Progressivism, Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War, Puerto Rico and Hawaiʻi, World War I
31920–1941
Prosperity, Exclusion, and Depression
United States and CanadaAfricaLatin America and the Caribbean
How did cultural change and economic crisis reshape public life?
Study mass culture, Harlem Renaissance, migration, nativism, the Great Depression, New Deal, and their unequal effects.
Required anchors: Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, immigration restriction, Dust Bowl, New Deal
41941–1960
World War II and the Early Cold War
GlobalUnited States and CanadaPacific and OceaniaEast Asia
How did global war transform U.S. power and society?
Analyze multiple theaters, genocide, mobilization, incarceration, atomic warfare, international institutions, and early Cold War.
Required anchors: Holocaust, Japanese American incarceration, Double V campaign, Pacific War, atomic bombs, United Nations
51945–1980
Freedom Movements and a Changing Society
United States and CanadaIndigenous AmericasLatin America and the Caribbean
How did movements force institutions to confront unequal rights?
Study Black freedom struggles alongside Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, women's, disability, labor, and LGBTQ+ histories using age-appropriate sources.
Required anchors: Brown and Montgomery, grassroots organizing, Chicano movement, American Indian Movement, feminist movements, disability rights
61980–present
The United States in a Connected World
GlobalUnited States and Canada
How have political change, technology, migration, and globalization reshaped the nation?
Examine late Cold War change, deindustrialization, immigration, political realignment, terrorism and war, digital life, inequality, and climate policy through nonpartisan evidence.
Required anchors: end of Cold War, globalization, post-1965 immigration, September 11 and its aftermath, digital revolution