AP US History Online
In AP U.S. History, students investigate the development of American economics, politics, and culture through
historical analysis grounded in primary sources, research, and writing. The equivalent of an introductory college-
level course, AP U.S. History prepares students for the AP Exam and for further study in history, political science,
economics, sociology, and law.
Through the examination of historical themes and the application of historical thinking skills, students learn to
connect specific people, places, events, and ideas to the larger trends of U.S. history. Critical-reading activities,
feedback-rich instruction, and application-oriented assignments hone students' ability to reason chronologically, to
interpret historical sources, and to construct well-supported historical arguments. Students write throughout the
course, responding to primary and secondary sources through journal entries, essays, and visual presentations of
historical content. In discussion activities, students respond to the positions of others while staking and defending
claims of their own. Robust scaffolding, rigorous instruction, relevant material, and regular opportunities for active
learning ensure that students can achieve mastery of the skills necessary to excel on the AP Exam.
Semester 1
Unit 1: Transformation in North America: 1491 - 1754
Unit Outline:
1.1 Thinking like a Historian
1.2 First Peoples of North America
1.3 European Colonialism in North America
1.4 Labor in British Colonial America
1.5 Struggle for Power in North America
1.6 Wrap-Up: Transformation in North America: 1491 – 1754
Unit 2: Birth of a New Nation: 1754 – 1800
Unit Outline:
2.1 The Road to Independence
2.2 Declaring and Winning Independence
2.3 Republican Governments
2.4 Political Debates in the Early Republic
2.5 Wrap-Up: Birth of a New Nation: 1754 – 1800
Unit 3: Growing Pains of the New Republic: 1800 - 1848
Unit Outline:
3.1 Defining Democracy: 1800 – 1848
3.2 The Early Industrial Revolution
3.3 Creating a Republican Culture
3.4 Slavery and Southern Expansion
3.5 Religion and Reform
3.6 Wrap-Up: Growing Pains of the New Republic: 1800 – 1848
Unit 4: Expansion, War, and Reconstruction: 1844 - 1877
Unit Outline:
4.1 Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion
4.2 Sectional Crisis
4.3 The Civil War
4.4 Reconstruction and the New South
4.5 Wrap-Up: Expansion, War, and Reconstruction: 1844 – 1877
Unit 5: Semester Wrap-Up
Semester 2
Unit 6: Industrialization and Culture Change: 1865-1900
Unit Outline:
6.1 Conquering a Continent
6.2 Industrial America
6.3 American Culture in the Gilded Age
6.4 Urbanization
6.5 Politics of the Gilded Age
6.6 Wrap-Up: Industrialization and Culture Change: 1865 – 1900
Unit 7: Domestic and Global Challenges: 1890-1945
Unit Outline:
7.1 Progressivism
7.2 The United States Becomes a World Power
7.3 World War I
7.4 The 1920s
7.5 The Great Depression and the New Deal
7.6 World War II
7.7 Wrap-Up: Domestic and Global Challenges: 1890 – 1945
Unit 8: America in the Age of Liberalism: 1945 - 1980
Unit Outline:
8.1 Cold War America
8.2 Triumph of the Middle Class
8.3 The Civil Rights Movement
8.4 The 1960s
8.5 The Conservative-Liberal Divide
8.6 Wrap-Up: America in the Age of Liberalism: 1945 – 1980
Unit 9: Global Capitalism and Redefining the Nation: 1980 to Present
Unit Outline:
9.1 The New Conservatism
9.2 A Global Society
9.3 Wrap-Up: Global Capitalism and Redefining the Nation: 1980 – Present