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Stage 3 - Alison Baxter - The USA PDF
Stage 3 - Alison Baxter - The USA PDF
Alison Baxter
Oxford Bookworms
Factfiles
states in two; after the war, he enough to bring the North and the
became head of the American army. South together. Anger and arguments,
General Ulysses S. Grant was the mostly about the rights of black
man who represented the North at people, continued.
Appomattox in 1865, when the
South, under Lee, accepted that they USA fact
had lost the war. Grant was very fair • A very important battle was won
to Lee's soldiers, who did not have to by the North at Gettysburg in
go to prison. Some years later, in Pennsylvania in 1863. Lincoln spoke
1868, he became president. there afterwards about the brave
Sadly, in April 1865, just after the soldiers who had died. This became
end of the war, Lincoln was shot at known as the Gettysburg Address
the theatre by a man called John and contains the famous words,
Wilkes Booth. After Lincoln's death, '. . . government of the people,
the new president was not strong by the people, for the people.'
5 The Wild West
During the nineteenth century, more
and more people went to live in the
West. Most of us have seen the 'Wild
West' in films and on television, and
so we think that it was full of
cowboys and fighting. But in fact
there were very few cowboys - no
more than 40,000 - and real
cowboys did not shoot each other
very often. They were hard-working A cowboy
men, and at least a quarter of them
were black or Mexican. They took other crops instead of keeping cows.
cows from Texas up to the railway The farms were very lonely, but
towns in Kansas and Missouri to be soon the railways helped to bring
killed for meat. From there, the meat people together. In 1869, the railway
was sent to the East and sold. line from the East met the line from
The cowboys almost disappeared the West in Utah, so it was possible
after about thirty years because the for Americans to travel right across
land was given by the government to the USA by train.
farmers and their families. From There were about two million
1862 to 1900, more than half a Native Americans (or 'Indians') in
million farmers came to live in the America in the fifteenth century,
West, where they grew corn and when the Europeans started to
colonize the country. They lived by
Indians hunting buffalo hunting and farming, and when they
got horses from the
Europeans, they used them
to hunt buffalo. There were
about 60 million buffalo
and the Indians needed them
for food, clothes, houses, knives, etc.
Sadly, the Europeans also brought
diseases which killed the Indians.
They fought and killed the Indians
too, because they wanted to take
their land for farms or railways. They
shot millions of buffalo, so that it is
said that by 1900 there were less than
a thousand animals left in all of the
USA - and less than 250,000 Native
Americans.
The Indian wars ended in 1890 An early American railroad
with the Battle of Wounded Knee,
when many Sioux men, women
and children were killed by different places; one man rode
American soldiers. After this, with a bag of letters for about
Indians had to live in special 120 kilometres and then gave
places called 'reservations'. it to another man. In this way,
Even today, many of the letters only took about ten
two million Native days to cross the country.
Americans live on • One very well-known
reservations; they rider was Buffalo Bill
are often very poor Cody. He later became
and a lot of them do a soldier and a hunter;
not have jobs. they say that he shot 4,280
buffalo in one year! In the
USA facts 1880s, Buffalo Bill started
• From 1860 to 1861, the his Wild West Show, a kind
mail was carried from East of travelling theatre, with the
to West and back again by famous cowgirl Annie Oakley.
the famous Pony Express.
Horses were kept at Buffalo Bill
6 New Americans
At the beginning of the nineteenth came from Ireland alone. Another
century most American families had five million immigrants came from
come from Britain, Germany and Italy, and millions more from Russia,
Scandinavia, and they were farmers Poland and other countries of Eastern
or businesspeople. But soon that Europe, hoping to find jobs and
began to change. freedom. America kept an 'open
Factories were built and cities door' until 1924 and about 27
grew; poor people arrived from other million people arrived between 1880
countries, hoping to find work. and 1930. They were often poor, had
Between 1840 and the end of the different religions, and had not been
century, about five million people to school for very long; there was a
lot of prejudice against them.
Chinatown, San Francisco The Chinese immigrants in the
West also met with prejudice. Many
people came to live in California after
gold was found there in 1848, and
among them were 300,000 Chinese.
Many of the Chinese stayed to work
building the new railways. Like black USA facts
people and Native Americans, the • Immigrants from Europe arrived
Chinese had no civil rights and after at Ellis Island in New York,
1882, they were no longer allowed to where they were checked for
enter the USA. illness and other problems.
The Irish, Italians and Eastern They were welcomed by the
Europeans usually stayed in the big Statue of Liberty, which was
cities of the East or the Mid-West, given by France to America in
like New York, Boston or Chicago, 1886. On it are written these
and worked in the factories. words:
Although most of them learned 'Give me your tired, your poor .. .'
English and became Americans, they • Today, the biggest number of
also wanted to keep their own way of immigrants to the USA come
life. So in many cities you can find from Spanish-speaking countries
places known as Little Italy or such as Mexico and Puerto Rico.
Chinatown, where the restaurants More than six million have arrived
have Italian or Chinese food. This is since 1980 and Spanish has
all part of what makes America an become the second language of
interesting and exciting country. the United States.
USA facts
• A story about the hard life of
slaves called Uncle Tom's Cabin,
by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was one
of the most popular books of the
mid-nineteenth century and made a
lot of people see that it was wrong
to keep slaves.
need for black people to be equal. He • Harriet Tubman and Frederick
began with these words, which have Douglass were famous slaves who
become famous: 'I have a dream . . .' helped many other slaves escape
In 1964, a law was passed from the South to the North using
giving black people their a route called the 'underground
civil rights and Dr King was railroad'.
given the Nobel Peace Prize.
Martin Luther King
But in 1968, Dr King was
murdered in Memphis, and
fighting broke out in more than a
hundred cities.
During the 1970s and 1980s,
prejudice against black people slowly
began to become less important,
and many black
people now have
good jobs in
business and
government.
8 The government of the USA
The government of the USA has three have more Representatives. Some
separate but equal branches: states, like Wyoming or Delaware,
Congress, the President, and the which do not have many people, only
Supreme Court. Women were given have one Representative.
the vote in 1920 and all Americans The President is head of the
can now vote when they are eighteen departments of government which
years old. carry out the laws. He (until now the
Congress makes the laws. president has always been a man) is
There are two 'houses' of Congress: the leader of the country (like a king
the Senate and the House of or queen) and head of the army. He is
Representatives. There are a hundred elected for four years, and can only be
people in the Senate (two from each elected twice. He can say 'no' to laws
state) and they are elected for six passed by Congress (but Congress
years. There are 435 people in the can also say 'no' to him), and he
House of Representatives, and they chooses the judges for the Supreme
are elected for two years only. States Court. He lives and works in the
with more people, like California, White House in Washington DC.
The Supreme Court is the most
Washington DC important court in the country and
has nine judges; their job is to decide
what the laws mean. They can also
say that Congress has made a law
which is wrong, or that the President
has done something wrong.
The USA is a union of fifty states,
and as well as the national
government in Washington, each
state has its own government. Laws
can be very different from one state
to the next. They say very different
The White House
USA fact
• There are only two important
political parties: the Republicans
and the Democrats. The Republicans
want people to work to help
Inside Congress themselves, and so they think that
taxes should be low.
things about, for example, how old The Democrats think that the
you must be to vote, get married, government should help the poor
leave school or drive a car. Different and so it needs taxes. But the
states punish criminals differently difference between the two is not
too; in some states, you can be killed always clear and it is not always easy
for murdering someone, in others you to say that one party is on the 'left'
only go to prison. or on the 'right' of the other.
9 Living in the USA
Most Americans who have jobs live
more comfortably than people in any
other country in the world. They A 'drive-in' bank
usually work a forty-hour week and
they have two weeks' holiday a year the USA has no official religion, but
as well as the official holidays like over 60% of Americans belong to a
Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 6 0 % Christian church.
of families, both the husband and the If they don't want to go out,
wife go out to work. Although more Americans can always stay at home,
than 4 0 % of the land is farmed, not and watch television. Nearly all
many people work as farmers, and families have a TV and it is said that
fewer Americans work in factories an ordinary family watches seven
than in the past. Most jobs are now hours a day! They have over 10,000
in hospitals, banks, hotels, shops, etc. TV stations to choose from, most of
How do Americans spend their which are owned by private
money? Two thirds of them own companies, not by the government.
their homes, often a house with a American TV programmes are sold
garden in a nice suburb. And at least all over the world, and in many
8 5 % of families have a car. They can
use it to go to 'drive-in' restaurants,
cinemas, banks, and even churches -
A suburban street
countries people watch the news on
C N N . Few newspapers cover all the
USA, but you can buy papers like the
New York Times and the Washington
Post everywhere, as well as the A shopping mall
magazines Time and Newsweek.
Most Americans enjoy sports, And, of course, Americans love to
which helps to keep them healthy. shop; the supermarket first appeared
Their favourites are baseball, in America, and now many shops are
basketball, football and ice hockey. open twenty-four hours a day. In the
American football is very different 1990s, Americans were spending
from European football; players run twelve hours a month in indoor
and carry the ball more than they use shopping centres; some of the biggest
their feet. shopping centres in the world are
in the USA - Mall of America in
Minneapolis covers half a
million square metres!
Americans have
to pay if they are
1 Baseball
2 Ice hockey
3 Basketball
4 American
football
ill and visit a doctor or foods with them. And
go to hospital, but they more and more people
do not usually pay to are interested in healthy
go to school. Schools, eating, so they choose
like the laws, are 'low-fat' foods, or they
different from state to refuse to eat meat.
state, but in most
places, everyone goes to school for USA facts
about twelve years. And about a • The money in the USA is the dollar,
third of school students go on to which contains a hundred cents.
university. Some coins have special names: 50
What do Americans eat? In the is a nickel, 100 is a dime, and 250
past, America gave a number of a quarter.
different foods to the rest of the • Coca-Cola was first made in 1886
world: potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate by an American called John
and corn, for example. Today, Pemberton. Today it is sold in 195
American 'fast' food is sold in countries and Coke is one of the
restaurants in almost every country best-known words in the world.
of the world. The most famous • From 1920 to 1933, during
examples are probably hamburgers Prohibition, it was against the law
and hot dogs, eaten with to drink alcohol in the USA,
french fries. but many people still
But if you visit the wanted to drink it.
USA you can also eat So criminals like Al
all kinds of tasty Capone became rich
food from different by bringing alcohol
countries: Chinese, into the country.
Mexican, Italian . . .
the immigrants who
came to the USA Fast food
brought their
own favourite
10 Cities, lakes and rivers
Boston, where the fight for
independence began in the eighteenth
century, is one of the oldest cities in
the USA. In neighbouring Cambridge
is the oldest university in the USA,
Harvard, which was opened in 1636,
as well as the famous Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).
Perhaps the most well-known
family in twentieth-century Boston
was the Kennedy family. Like many Harvard University
other Boston families, they came
from Ireland. They became very rich, your country' He and his beautiful
and John F Kennedy, a Democrat, wife Jacqueline were young and
became President of popular, but sadly, in 1963,
the United States in 'JFK' was shot and killed
1960. At that time in Dallas, Texas.
he said '. . . ask not Everyone knows New
what your country York, the biggest city in the
can do for you, but USA. It is a great place for
what you can do for theatre, shopping and
Pages 12-18 How much can you remember? Check your answers.
1 How many black people are there in the USA today?
2 Who used the famous words, 'I have a dream . . .'?
3 What are the names of the two big political parties in the USA?
4 What are Americans' four favourite sports?
C Activities
1 Imagine that you are on holiday in the USA. Write a letter to a friend about
the places that you have visited.
2 Imagine that you were either a Pilgrim, or a black slave, or an immigrant in
the nineteenth century. You are now very old. Write a short paragraph
about how you came to the USA, and your life there.
D Project work
1 Write about the people who live in your own country. Are they all the same?
Were any of them immigrants? Did they fight any wars?
2 Write a short guide to your own country; include information about famous
cities, beautiful places to visit, the weather, etc.
Glossary
alcohol strong drinks such as beer, judge (n) the most important person
wine, whisky in a law court
allow to let someone do something law an order made by the
government
celebrate to enjoy a happy day
lead to be chief
civil rights the rights of all the
people in a country to do the same leader a person who leads
things: vote, work etc.
native a person born in a place, not
civil war a war between groups of an immigrant
people in the same country pilgrim a person who travels for a
colony a country that belongs to religious reason
another country
prejudice an idea (usually negative)
crops plants that farmers grow, which is not based on any reason
usually for food
religion following a god or gods
department part of a government,
represent to speak for other people
business, shop etc.
retire to stop doing paid work,
earthquake a sudden, violent
usually when you are old
movement of the earth
right (n) what the law lets you do
elect to choose people to be in
government (by voting) separate (adj) different, not joined