APUSH-2019-DBQ

Sep 30, 2026

UNITED STATES HISTORY SECTION II presents a DBQ prompt asking students to evaluate how the Progressive movement drove political change in the United States from 1890 to 1920. The directions require a historically defensible thesis, broader historical context, and support using at least six edited primary-source documents, plus additional specific evidence beyond the documents. Students must also analyze at least three documents’ POV, purpose, historical setting, and audience, and use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify the argument.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Question 1 (Document-Based Question)

Writing requirements and sourcing documents

Prompt: Evaluate Progressive political change (1890-1920)

UNITED STATES HISTORY SECTION II Total Time—1 hour and 40 minutes Question 1 (Document-Based Question) Suggested reading and writing time: 1 hour It is suggested that you spend 15 minutes reading the documents and 45 minutes writing your response. Note: You may begin writing your response before the reading period is over. Directions: Question 1 is based on the accompanying documents. The documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise. In your response you should do the following. 􀂁 Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning. 􀂁 Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt. 􀂁 Support an argument in response to the prompt using at least six documents. 􀂁 Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents) relevant to an argument about the prompt. 􀂁 For at least three documents, explain how or why the document’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument. 􀂁 Use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument that addresses the prompt. 1. Evaluate the extent to which the Progressive movement fostered political change in the United States from 1890 to 1920. Document 1 Source: Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House, 1910, describing events in the 1890s. [The] Hull-House [social settlement] had instigated [a political campaign] against a powerful alderman who has held office for more than twenty years in the nineteenth ward, and who, although notoriously corrupt, is still firmly intrenched among his constituents. . . . We soon discovered that approximately one out of every five voters in the nineteenth ward at that time held a job dependent upon the good will of the alderman. There were no civil service rules to interfere, and the unskilled voter swept the street and dug the sewer, as secure in his position as the more sophisticated voter who tended a bridge or occupied an office chair in the city hall. . . . Another result of the campaign was an expectation on the part of our new political friends that Hull-House would perform like offices for them, and there resulted endless confusion and misunderstanding because in many cases we could not even attempt to do what the alderman constantly did with a right good will. When he protected a law breaker from the legal consequences of his act, his kindness appeared, not only to himself but to all beholders, like the deed of a powerful and kindly statesman. When Hull-House on the other hand insisted that a law must be enforced, it could but appear like the persecution of the offender. We were certainly not anxious for consistency nor for individual achievement, but in a desire to foster a higher political morality and not to lower our standards, we constantly clashed with the existing political code. Document 2 Source: President Theodore Roosevelt, speech at Providence, Rhode Island, 1902. The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is in duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown. There is clearly need of supervision—need to possess the power of regulation of these great corporations through the representatives of the public—wherever, as in our own country at the present time, business corporations become so very powerful alike for beneficent work and for work that isnot always beneficent. It is idle to say that there is no need for such supervision. There is, and a sufficient warrant for it is to be found in any one of the admitted evils appertaining to them. © 2019 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the web: [collegeboard.org](collegeboard.org). -6- GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. Document 3 Source: Julian W. Mack,“The Juvenile Court,” Harvard Law Review, 1909. Why is it not just and

FAQs

What is the main prompt for Question 1?

Evaluate the extent to which the Progressive movement fostered political change in the United States from 1890 to 1920.

What should the response include?

A historically defensible thesis, broader historical context, argument support using at least six documents, and at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence beyond the documents.

How must students use the documents?

For at least three documents, explain how the document’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant, and use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify the argument.

Sep 30, 2026

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