1. Discuss the transportation revolution of the period 1815-1840. What changes took place? What was the impact of those changes on the country economically, politically, and socially?
2. Discuss the doctrine of separate spheres for women. What changes, if any, did the doctrine produce in the lives of white middle-class, white working-class, and black and immigrant women?
3. Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America was impressed by the "general equality of condition among the people." Writing about the same period, New York merchant Philip Hone stated "the two extremes of costly luxury in living, expensive establishments, and improvident waste are presented in daily and hourly contrast with squalid misery and hopeless destitution." How do you account for these very different assessments? Which man came closer to the truth? Why?
4. Discuss federal government policy toward Native Americans during the period 1815-1840.
5. Chapter 9 states that "the pre-Civil War period witnessed the widespread substitution of horizontal allegiances for vertical allegiances." What does this mean, and what evidence is offered in the chapter to support the claim?