US History timeline & concept chart: 1789-1860 Early Republic to Antebellum
US History timeline & concept chart: 1790s-1860
Objectives:
- to help students to
- associate timelines with events, persons, themes & concepts
- associate presidents with timelines, themes & concepts
- identify timelines with BIG IDEAS across periods of US history
- find connections and common themes across US history
- easily find relevant details for larger comprehension
- to help teachers to
- quickly review US History content for lesson planning
- provide students with easy and complete reference source for US history
Click EXPAND for a note for mobile phone users (already shows on mobile)
- these timeline & concept charts use tables in order to connect ideas, timelines, and major concepts
- tables are not mobile-friendly (they do not wrap to a single column)
- when these charts are complete, we will in the future convert the charts to mobile-friendly format as an alternative file
- we encourage you to use a tablet or larger monitor in order to see the charts here
Index
Page structure & format guide
U.S. History course pages:
1790s Washington & Adams administrations
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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BIG IDEAS
National Debt
Whiskey Rebellion 1794
Hamilton "Report on Manufactures"
European wars & domestic U.S. politics
Washington Farewell Address
Adams presidency
Alien & Sedition Acts 1798
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
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Washington presidency, 1789-1797
click EXPAND for excerpt from Washington expressing his reluctance to become president in 1788, Washington wrote: I should unfeignedly rejoice, in case the Electors, by giving their votes to another person would save me from the dreaded dilemma of being forced to accept or refuse... If that may not be–I am, in the next place, earnestly desirous of searching out the truth, and knowing whether there does not exist a probability that the government would be just as happily and effectually carried into execution without my aid."(First President’s Election Was the Last Thing He Wanted (washingtonpapers.org) Upon election in 1791, Washington wrote that he had give up "all expectations of private happiness in this world." (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/george-washington-the-reluctant-president-49492/ George Washington: The Reluctant President (Smithsonian Magazine)]
click EXPAND for excerpt from and commentary on Washington's Letter to Adams from Archives.gov:
Many things which appear of little imp⟨ortance in⟩ themselves and at the beginning, may have ⟨great and⟩ durable consequences from their having be⟨en establis⟩hed at the commencement of a new general ⟨Govern⟩ment. It will be much easier to comme⟨nce the adm⟩inistration, upon a well adjusted system ⟨built on⟩ tenable grounds, than to correct errors or alter inconveniences after they shall have been confirmed by habit. The President in all matters of business & etiquette, can have no object but to demean himself in his public character, in such a manner as to maintain the dignity of Office, without subjecting himself to the imputation of superciliousness or unnecessary reserve. Under these impressions, he asks for your candid and undisguised opinions.
A major concern was the public image of the new administration. As Sen. William Maclay of Pennsylvania noted, GW “stood on as difficult ground as he ever had done in his life: that to suffer himself to be run down, on the one hand, by a crowd of visitants so as to engross his time, would never do, as it would render the doing of business impracticable; but, on the other hand, for him to be seen only in public on stated times, like an Eastern Lama, would be equally offensive. If he was not to be seen but in public, where nothing confidential could pass between him and any individual, the business would, to all appearance, be done without him, and he could not escape the charge of favoritism. All court would be paid to the supposed favorite; weakness and insignificance would be considered as characteristic of the President, and he would not escape contempt. . . . it was not thus the General gained the universal plaudits of his admiring fellow-citizens” (Maclay, Journal, 15).
election of 1789
Bill of Rights adopted 1791 (BOR)
Hamilton-Jefferson split
Residence Act of 1790
Hamilton's 1791 "Report on Manufactures"
Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
Rise of Political parties
Constitutional interpretations
European conflictsclick EXPAND for list of French Revolution & Napoleonic era wars
European wars & domestic U.S. politics
Citizen Genet affair, 1793
Jay's Treaty (or "Jay Treaty"), 1794
"Pinckney's Treaty", 1795
Washington declines to run for a 3rd term
Washington's "Farewell Address
click EXPAND for excerpt from Washington's Farewell Address: The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts(for full text see Washington's Farewell Address (wikisource) John Adams presidency
Quasi-War 1798
XYZ Affair. 1797-98
Alien & Sedition Acts, 1798
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions 1798-99
Taxation and Fries's Rebellion, 1799
Washington DC opened as national capital, 1800
Midnight appointments
Leads to the "landmark" case, Marbury v. Madison that established judicial review (see below)
new States in 1790s
Northwest Indian War
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1800-1810 Jefferson & Madison administrations
1810s Madison & Monroe administrations
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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BIG IDEAS French/ British blockades
British impressment of U.S. sailors
Indian Wars in Northwest Territory
border dispute w/ Canada
War of 1812
Monroe & the ""Era of Good Feelings"
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events leading up to War of 1812
Northwest Territory Indian raids and conflict leading up to War of 1812![]()
War of 1812
post-War economic expansion and policies
Era of Good Feelings
Territorial acquisitions & border settlements with Britain and Spain
- McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) > said states cannot tax federal bank > asserted federal power over states, i.e. Supremacy Clause - Panic of 1819 > national bank tried to collect loans, very unpopular move
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1820s: Monroe, JQ Adams & Jackson administrations
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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BIG IDEAS
2nd Great Awakening, 1820s-1830s/40s
Alexis de Tocqueville & "Democracy in America
Henry Clay & the "American System"
National Bank Rise of the Whig Party
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Monroe presidency 1st term
Era of Good Feelings
Monroe Doctrine, 1823
rise of Whig party
Democratic party
SectionalismElection of 1826
Rise of Jackson and "Jacksonian democracy"
Second Great AwakeningSecond Great Awakening - religious revival, esp, Methodist & Baptists - Charles Finney ran religious revivals and promoted reform movements - new religions arose, including Mormons and Shakers, utopians > some preached apocalyptic visions, end of the world, etc. (“repent the end is near!”) - women involved, reform societies, esp against drinking (temperance), gambling & prostitution (vice) and slavery (abolition) - reformers built orphanages, asylums Alexis de Tocqueville * “Democracy in America”> if these people consider themselves each other’s equal, what will they do? - observed how democracies created >> culture of equality >> culture of civic engagement << everyone in a democracy wants to talk politics >> a fluid sociopolitical-economic society Henry Clay's "American system"Promoted by Henry Clay (from Kentucky) roads and canal building new technologies: railroads, telegraph = unifying effect, promotes commerce > allows for more western expansion and integration into national economy - internal improvements = main Whig policy (the American System)
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1830s Jackson, Van Buren & >> administrations
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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BIG IDEAS subsection
subsection
subsection
subsection
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sectionalism
Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)
Republic of Texas
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1840s: xx administrations
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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BIG IDEAS Manifest Destiny & western expansion
Expansion of Slavery (Texas)
<>big>Mexican-American War
Gold Rush of 1849
Abolition, Women's suffrage & other reform movements
Transcendentalism |
=== subheading
Manifest Destiny> Manifest -= plain, easy to see, clear + Destiny = going to happen >> to move westward Justifies western expansion, settlement >> v. Indians and Spain / Mexico = notion that the nation will expand and it is good and right Oregon Treaty, 1848
Mexican-American War
Gold Rush of 1849 Effects: transportation, movement, banking (also slavery tensions) > political activism, especially in response to Compromise of 1850
> American anti-slavery society >> William Lloyd Garrison< abolitionist leader, publisher >> inspired by David Walker, a free black in Boston in 1820s > Frederic Douglass > Harriett Tubman > Sojourner Truth > underground railroad Reform Movements >> combined activism: suffrage, abolitions, temperance, education Transcendentalism = belief that god exists in humans, man & society can be perfected > Ralph Waldo Emerson > Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlett Letter) > David Thoreau - Sectional dispute over where to build transcontinental railroad > northern or southern route?
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1850s: xx administrations
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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BIG IDEAS
subsection
Compromise of 1850 New territories & states from Mexican-American War & Western expansion = End of Missouri Compromise (1820) Sectional Tensions rise Slavery issues Hardening of politics: pro-/anti-slavery Heading towards war, 1850s presidents do nothing about it Panic of 1857 / Southern economic stability subsection
subsection
subsection
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Compromise of 1850
>> both sides radicalize >> no way to compromise Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)> book about slave life by Harriett Beecher Stowe > sold 2 mm copies > compared to Common Sense in influence on public - Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) >> popular sovereignty for KS and NB territories >> radicalizes the public > marks end of Whig party >> “Free Soil” party has KN as its sole issue << Republican can take a wider appeal - “personal liberty laws” passed in north to require trial by jury for disputes over fugitive slaves - Bleeding Kansas or Bloody Kansas (1854-1861) > territories > Lawrence, KS = location of battles between pro- and anti-slavery factions >> John Brown started anti-slave movement there > “Border Ruffians” (rough houser – proslvery MO go to KS / NB to get into a fight - Dred Scott decision by Roger Taney, 1857 > Scott, a slave, went to North, and declared himself free >> owner sues to get him back >> Supreme Rules that slave/blacks are not citizens << >> radicalizes the public - John Brown’s raid (1859) > messianic anti-slavery leader >> God wants us to do this! > Harpers Ferry, VA to instigate a slave rebellion > put down by Federal troops, Brown hanged for treason Western expansion
foreign trade & expansion
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