Period 7: 1890–1945
What this unit covers
The topics below follow the published US History course framework for Unit 7. This unit is worth 10–17% of the exam, so budget your time against that rather than against how long the unit takes to teach.
Lessons in this unit
- Progressivism & the Emergence of Empire14 min · 3 objectivesExplain the goals and achievements of the Progressive movement · Analyze how the Spanish-American War made the United States a world power · Evaluate the debate over American imperialism
- World War I & the 1920s13 min · 3 objectivesExplain why the United States entered World War I and the war’s domestic effects · Analyze the tension between traditionalism and modernism in the 1920s · Describe the causes of the Great Depression
- The New Deal & World War II15 min · 3 objectivesExplain how the New Deal reshaped the role of the federal government · Analyze the causes and consequences of U.S. entry into World War II · Describe how the war transformed American society and its global position
Every term in Unit 7
All 29 terms we publish for Period 7: 1890–1945, with definitions. Reading them through is the fastest way to find the ones you cannot define — then drill those in cram mode until you can produce them without the prompt.
- Muckrakers
- Investigative journalists — Tarbell on Standard Oil, Sinclair on meatpacking, Riis on tenements — whose exposés drove Progressive legislation.
- Spanish-American War (1898)
- Brief war yielding Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, making the US an overseas empire and igniting the anti-imperialist debate.
- Open Door Policy
- Hay's demand for equal trading access to China, protecting American commerce without territorial conquest.
- Roosevelt Corollary
- Claimed a US right to intervene in Latin America to forestall European intervention; the basis of repeated occupations.
- Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
- Passed with the Meat Inspection Act after The Jungle; established federal authority over product safety.
- Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments
- Federal income tax and direct election of senators, both 1913 — two Populist demands enacted by Progressives.
- Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments
- Prohibition (1919) and women's suffrage (1920), the twin culminations of decades of reform organizing.
- Federal Reserve Act (1913)
- Created a central banking system with an elastic currency to prevent the panics that had recurred since the 1870s.
- Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911)
- 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, died behind locked doors. Produced a wave of state factory-safety and labor law.
- Great Migration
- Roughly six million Black Southerners moved to Northern and Western cities from 1916, driven by Jim Crow and wartime jobs, reshaping American politics and culture.
- Zimmermann Telegram
- German proposal that Mexico attack the US in exchange for lost territory. Its publication pushed American opinion toward war in 1917.
- Schenck v. United States (1919)
- Upheld Espionage Act convictions under the "clear and present danger" test — speech protections narrowed in wartime.
- Fourteen Points
- Wilson's peace program of self-determination, freedom of the seas, open diplomacy and a League of Nations. Largely abandoned at Versailles.
- Red Scare (1919–20)
- Post-war panic over radicalism producing the Palmer Raids and mass deportations without due process.
- Harlem Renaissance
- Flowering of Black literature, art and music in 1920s Harlem — Hughes, Hurston, Ellington — asserting cultural self-definition.
- Scopes Trial (1925)
- Tennessee evolution trial that dramatized the clash between modernist science and fundamentalist religion.
- National Origins Act (1924)
- Quotas pegged to the 1890 census to favor northern Europeans and bar most Asians. Cut immigration sharply until 1965.
- Causes of the Great Depression
- Overproduction, unequal income distribution, margin speculation, weak banks, farm debt and a tariff war that shrank world trade — not the crash alone.
- Hoover's response
- Voluntarism, public works and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation — real intervention by prior standards, but too small and too late.
- First New Deal
- 1933–34 relief and recovery: banking holiday, CCC, AAA, NRA, TVA, FDIC. Aimed at stopping the collapse.
- Second New Deal
- 1935–38 structural reform: Social Security, Wagner Act, WPA. Shifted from recovery to permanent protections.
- Wagner Act (1935)
- Guaranteed collective bargaining and created the NLRB. Union membership tripled within a decade.
- Social Security Act (1935)
- Old-age pensions, unemployment insurance and aid to dependent children. Excluded agricultural and domestic workers, leaving out most Black and Latino workers.
- Court-packing plan (1937)
- FDR's proposal to add justices after the Court struck down New Deal laws. Failed and cost him political capital, though the Court softened anyway.
- Lend-Lease (1941)
- Allowed the US to supply Britain and later the USSR without payment — the "arsenal of democracy" before formal belligerence.
- Executive Order 9066
- Authorized the internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them citizens. Upheld in Korematsu; redress and apology came in 1988.
- Double V campaign
- Black wartime slogan demanding victory over fascism abroad and racism at home — a bridge to the postwar civil rights movement.
- Rosie the Riveter
- Symbol of the women who entered industrial work during the war. Most were pushed out afterward, but expectations had changed.
- Manhattan Project
- Secret program that built the atomic bomb, used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war and opening the nuclear age.
What examiners penalize here
- A frequent DBQ theme: World War II, not the New Deal, finally ended the Depression by generating full employment. Yet the New Deal’s legacy is the **expanded, activist federal government**. Distinguishing the two shows the causation graders look for.
Practice US History
Our practice bank is drawn from across the whole course rather than filtered to one unit, which is closer to how the exam asks anyway — it will not tell you which unit a question is testing.
Questions about this unit
How much of the AP United States History exam is Unit 7?
Unit 7, Period 7: 1890–1945, is worth 10–17% of the US History multiple-choice section according to the published course framework. Across all 9 units that makes it a substantial share — heavier than an even split would give it.
What topics are covered in US History Unit 7?
Period 7: 1890–1945 covers Progressivism, World Wars, The Depression and New Deal. We publish 29 terms with definitions for this unit, all of them on this page.
How should I study US History Unit 7?
Read the 3 lessons below first — about 40 minutes — then drill the 29 terms in cram mode until you can produce each definition from memory rather than just recognize it. Recognition is what makes a unit feel finished when it is not. Finish with practice questions and read the explanation for every one you get right by elimination as well as the ones you miss.
All 9 units of AP United States History
Unit names, topics and exam weights follow the published College Board course framework for AP United States History. AP® is a trademark registered by the College Board, which does not endorse this site.