Consider the following questions:
PART. 1: Abolitionism and the The Civil War
What were the two principal causes of the Civil War?
To what extent was the Civil War a religious war?
Who were the most prominent abolitionists? What motivated them?
What impact did abolitionism have on the Protestant churches before the Civil War?
Why were Catholics opposed to abolitionism? What was the Catholics attitude to slavery?
How did Protestants and Catholics in the North and South react to the Civil War?
How did both sides exploit religion during the Civil War?
What were the three Civil War amendments?
PART. 2: The Reconstruction Era
What was the religion of African Americans before the Civil War?
What churches did the emancipated slaves join after the Civil War?
After the war. what efforts did American Protestants make to assist the emancipated slaves?
After the war, what efforts did Catholics propose to aid the emancipated slaves? To what extent were the proposals implemented?
Why did African Americans feel betrayed after 1877?
PART. 3: American Catholics in the Gilded Age: The View from Below
How did the new immigration affect American Catholics?
When and why did Italians emipate to the USA? Where did they settle in the USA?
What was distinctive about Italian religious customs and traditions in the USA?
Why was there considerable anticlericalism among the Italian immigrants?
Why was there friction between the Italian-American laity & Irish-American clergy?
Who were the principal Slavic and Eastern European immigrants to the USA?
Who were the so-called "aristocrats" among the Slavic immigrants to the USA?
Why are Ukrainian and Carpatho-Rusyn Catholics called Byzantine-rite Catholics?
Why did the Byzantine-rite Catholics have an especially difficult time in USA?
How and why did the situation begin to improve after 1907?
Who were the principal Hispanic Catholic immigrants?
What factors made Hispanic Catholic immigrants different from earlier immigrants?
What are some of the distinctive features ofilispariic Catholicism
How do Hispanic Catholics today resemble German Catholics in the 19th century?