Alright guys, tomorrow is my midterm for US history and i was sick a few days from class so i'm missing a few notes. Can you guys please help me out with these questions, Thank you !!

this is the list of questions my professor sent me, although i knows some of them but i would like to see smart people inputs here on IA
REps will be given


  • Why was Andrew Johnson an unsuitable President for the Reconstruction years? Why did American cities experience explosive growth in the late 19th century?
  • According to Alexander Stephens, why did Southern states secede from the United States?
  • Why can we call Reconstruction a success?
  • Why can we call Reconstruction a failure?
  • Why were department stores invented?
  • Why was the Gilded Age’s middle class so concerned with conformity?
  • Why did the Gilded Age’s middle class travel to “exotic” locations?
  • Why couldn’t the majority of African-American men vote in the US South, after 1877?
  • Why did the US Supreme Court rule, 8-1, Plessy v. Ferguson, that segregation was OK?
  • Why are historians of today pretty reliable?
  • Why did most white Southerners insist upon segregation in public facilities and private businesses?
  • Besides the easy answer of “racism,” why did segregation exist at all?
  • Why did lynching occur? A type of entertainment
  • Why was the NAACP established?
  • Why was the rural South the scene of most lynching at the turn of the century?
  • Why did poor whites take part in lynching?
  • Why was lynching justified by the charge of rape, or assault upon a white woman?
  • Miss Ida Wells, a nice respectable woman, had believed that white lynched black men in retaliation for raping white girls. Why did Ida Wells change her mind about lynching?
  • Why was Miss Wells’ friend, Tom the grocer, lynched?
  • According to Miss Wells, why did white men lynch black men?
  • Why did Ida Wells move to Chicago?
  • Why did the Wilmington Insurrection occur?
  • Why were the fusionists so unpopular among Democrats?
  • Why did white men restore Wade Hampton & men of the upper class to political power in Wilmington in 1898?
  • Why did the city fathers of Atlanta decide to displace and to agitate against the lower classes on Decatur Street downtown, in 1906?
  • Why was William Jennings Bryan in Atlanta in 1906?
  • Why did white Atlanta fear the votes of African-American men in 1906?
  • In 1906, why did white Atlanta want investors from outside of the city?
  • If you were a white country boy, newly migrated to Atlanta in 1906, with no money, no prospects, no vote, why would you riot against black guys in pretty much the same position?
  • Why would Democrats fight with each other for the gubernatorial seat in Georgia in 1906?
  • Why did the Atlanta Constitution stir up the riot of 1906?
  • Why were numerous all-black towns established during the late 19th and early 20th centuries?
  • Some people are conspiracy theorists. They suggest that Leon Czolgosz was not so much an anarchist as an assassin paid by a rival Republican faction to assassinate President McKinley. Some even think that Czolgosz was a government agent. Why would a conspiracy theorist come up with such a theory?
  • Why do we care about the motives of William McKinley’s and James Garfields assassins?
  • Why did the Republicans – William McKinley – win the election of 1896?
  • Why do we remember William McKinley’s presidency?
  • Why is Theodore Roosevelt best remembered for his foreign policy?
  • Why did the United States support the revolution of Panama against Colombia?
  • Why was Theodore Roosevelt’s approach to foreign affairs popular?
  • Why did Theodore Roosevelt’s theory of national interest have such an impact upon US foreign policy in the 20th century?
  • Why did Theodore Roosevelt dine with Booker T. Washington at the White House?
  • Why did Theodore Roosevelt’s administration initiate the national parks and national forest systems?
  • Why were the contributions of Mexican-Americans on “riparian rights useful to the US economy during the 19th century?
  • Why did German immigrants tend to migrate to the Midwest?
  • Why did the Irish migrate to the United States in the mid-19th century?
  • Why was ethnic bloc voting an expansion of democracy for the US?
  • Why was ethnic bloc voting counter-productive to the US republic?
  • Why did European immigration to the US spike in 1905?
  • Why are urbanization and economic revolutions linked?
  • Why does global urbanization occur when a transnational economic revolution occurs?
  • Why were dumbbell tenements dangerous?
  • If you were an immigrant from Greece to the US in 1900, why would you be young and strong?
  • Why would an immigrant man sell his vote?
  • Why did the managerial ethos take hold in the US, Japan, and England between the Civil War and WWI?
  • Why did Frederick Taylor advocate a single “best way” to do a job?
  • Why did Taylor call for the “complete mental renovation” of the workers?
  • Why did the new managerial class in the US employ a “blacklist”?
  • Why is the middle class society of the Gilded Age called a material culture?
  • Why did middle class people travel to “exotic” locations such as Florida or New Orleans?
  • Why were home and family so critically important to the Gilded Age man?
  • Why did fashions of the Gilded Age pinch in a woman’s waist?
  • Why did even Protestants of the Gilded Age middle class admire “Mary, Mother of God”?
  • If you had waited through the Civil War for your sweetheart to return home, and set up housekeeping, why would you have a much easier time settling down together than you would have had in 1859?
  • Why were department stores invented?
  • Why did department stores employ investigative agencies during the Gilded Age?
  • Why was credit linked to conformity during the Gilded Age?
  • Why did African Americans start up many all-black towns at the turn of the century?
  • Why did so many black-owned businesses prosper at the turn of the century?
  • Why was “lifting as we climb” the slogan of the National Association of Colored Women?
  • Educators such as Anna Julia Cooper, Booker T. Washington, Mary Bethune, and Nannie Burroughs became opinion makers at the turn of the century. Why?
  • Why was Palmer Memorial Institute controversial?
  • Why was Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of accommodation a good idea at the turn of the century?
  • Why was Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of accommodation a bad idea at the turn of the century?
  • Why did W.E.B. DuBois & others stress the need for African Americans to obtain college educations?
  • Why was the AFL so hostile toward the IWW?
  • Why did the IWW mock bigotry within the working class?
  • Why did the IWW die?
  • Why did the Niagara movement begin?
  • Why was Niagara’s 1905 “Declaration of Principles” a pioneering document?
  • Why was education a sort of theme song for black opinion makers at the turn of the century?
  • Why does citizenship in the US involve both rights and duties?
  • If you were an ordinary stock broker in New York City, why might you be perturbed while walking down Fifth Avenue from your snug midtown club to your Wall Street office?
  • Why were working class people so angry at the turn of the century?
  • Why did anarchists call for a rally at Haymarket in 1886?
  • Why did police fire wildly into the crowd at Haymarket Square in 1886?
  • Why would it be irresponsible to declare decisively that one group or another was responsible for Haymarket?
  • Even though there was no evidence, eight German-Americans were convicted of conspiracy, and three were executed, in the Haymarket affair. Why German-Americans?
  • Why did Lucy and Albert Parsons, both principals in the Haymarket Affair, draw the fatal attention of the authorities?
  • Why did 250,000 people line the streets of Chicago to watch a funeral procession in 1893?
  • Why did steelworkers at Homestead go on strike in 1892?
  • Why did George Pullman establish a town for his employees, a town called Pullman?
  • Why did Pullman employees go on strike in 1893?
  • Why did rioters burn down seven buildings at the Chicago Exposition (World’s Fair) in 1893?
  • Why did the Pullman workers ask Eugene Debs for help in 1894?
  • Why were injunctions able to destroy the Pullman strike, when even murders had not stopped them?
  • Why was the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association so successful in Oxnard, CA, in 1903?
  • What caused the US to enter into war with Spain in 1898?
  • Although defense of a traditional way of life is a plausible explanation for racially-motivated violence, it is not an entirely logical explanation. Why not?