We Build This Country on Rails and Coal...Or...A Bridge Over Troubled Waters?

An Integrated, Interdisciplinary Thematic Unit Exploring the Reconstruction Era from 1865-1986 This unit employs an integrated thematic approach for high school students to study the period following the Civil War to the beginning of the Progressive Era. Social, political, geographic, and economic ramifications motivated northern occupation of the South leading to the disintegration of sectionalism. The Civil War established the dominance of the Federal Government over "State's rights." This unit teaches the impact of reconstruction on the culture of that period in the areas of social studies, science, the humanities, fine arts, and mathematics. It also explores the moral ethical issues faced during this period and provides opportunity for students to reflect on the similarities and differences of those issues to today's moral ethical dilemmas.