What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of this argument? Do you think that, regardless of its simplifications, it adequately describes the USA in the late 19th century? Or do you think it fundamentally mischaracterizes social and economic developments?

INSTRUCTIONS:
According to many historians, social conflict in the nineteenth-century United States was caused by the country becoming a national society: a country in which local power was increasingly transformed by growing national institutions and organizations. Various specific conflicts and trends–the Civil War, fights over western lands, the railroad and big industry, the emerging corporate form, managerialism, mass consumption, the increasing use and organization of immigrant labor, labor unions, Populism and progressivism, etc.–were, according to these historians, examples of the inevitable friction produced by reorganizing the country on a nation-wide and newly industrial scale.

What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of this argument? Do you think that, regardless of its simplifications, it adequately describes the USA in the late 19th century? Or do you think it fundamentally mischaracterizes social and economic developments?

In the answer, consider some of the specific regions, social groups, trends, and conflicts such as the following: the Civil War, Reconstruction, the displacement of Native Americans, Homesteading, Populism, the Industrial Revolution, railroads and national markets, managerialism, immigration, labor and labor unions, etc. Obviously, you cant discuss them all, especially not in depth. Nevertheless, please think about them in reference to the viewpoint discussed above. Your goal is not a long list, but a coherent essay that takes this interpretation seriously, and ultimately considers its plausibility.

QUESTION: According to historians, social conflict in the nineteenth-century United States was caused by the country becoming a national society: a country in which local power was increasingly transformed by growing national institutions. What conflicts and trends do you think are significant factors produced by reorganizing the country nationwide and the new industrial scale?

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