2009-2010
2010-2011
ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY PEPS (PEOPLE, EVENTS, PLACES, SIGNIFICANCE)
These PEPS have been prepared by students at Valley Christian High School, San Jose, California. They have been edited for accuracy. These PEPS are correlated to The American Pageant, 14th edition, the College Board’s “Acorn Book” suggested outline, and five previously published AP multiple choice examinations. This document has been prepared as a study aid for the AP U.S. History examination to be given on Friday, May 6, 2010. If anyone has a suggestion, please email the teacher at lmarshall@. Note: If the PEP is italicized, be sure to know it well. If the PEP is
centered like this,
be sure to know it really, really well.
Colonial History to 1776
Columbian Exchange
Where: New World, Europe and Africa
What: Columbus’s discovery in 1492 began an explosion of trade among Europe, the New World and Africa. That trade is known as the “Columbian Exchange.” Slaves were brought to the new world from Africa; sugar, rice, horses, cows, pigs, and disease (smallpox) were brought to the New World from Europe; and gold, silver, corn, potatoes and disease (syphilis) were carried from the New World back to Europe.
Sig: Disease (smallpox) decimated Indian groups. The horse revolutionized Plains Indian culture. This international commerce is the beginning of what we would now call “globalization.” Note the racial and ethnic diversity that is automatically included in the “exchange.”
Iroquois Confederation- Late 1500’s
Who: Five Native American Nations (Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca)
Where: In the Mohawk Valley which is now New York
What: The Confederation was a powerful force to oppose European encroachment. Fierce tribes fought other Native Americans, and then began fighting the French, English and Dutch for control of the fur trade. They fought for survival. During the American Revolution, the Confederacy split up with most supporting the British.
Sig: Provided the largest organized resistance to the incoming Europeans in the colonial period, yet was at its peak just before the Europeans arrived.
Jamestown 1607
Who: The Virginia Company, John Smith
Where: Jamestown, Virginia
What: The Virginia Company sent young men, with no future in overpopulated England. They were lured by the Virginia Company with promises of land and wealth--much as people were lured to California during the Gold Rush. But there was no gold in Virginia, and these "prospectors" didn't know how to farm, didn't know how to hunt, and, possibly feeling betrayed by the Virginia Company's promises, and lacking any land of their own, were not known for their spirit of cooperation among themselves or with the local Indians of the Powhatan confederacy. They suffered greatly for several years until tobacco became available as a cash crop. While they did not discover gold, tobacco became an adequate substitute.
Sig: Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the new world.
French colonization in Canada 1608
Who: Samuel de Champlain (Father of New France)
Where: Quebec, Canada
What: The French settled in Quebec the year after the founding of Jamestown.
Sig: The French worked better with the Indians than the English or the Spanish, trading and intermarrying with the Indians. Quebec begins the French empire and the 150 years-long contest with the English for control of North America.
Spanish settlement of Santa Fe 1609
What: While St. Augustine, Florida was the first permanent settlement, note that the Spanish founded Santa Fe in about 1609.
Sig: The English, French, and Spanish all started important settlements about the same time (1607-09). Ultimately all three would fight for control of the North American continent.
Plymouth Settlement (1620)
Who: Separatist pilgrims fleeing from Holland
Where: Plymouth Bay
What: The Separatists fled Europe for cultural and religious freedom in America. They agreed to the Mayflower Compact before landing, pledging to obey “all just and equal laws.”
Sig: They weren't significant economically or numerically. However, they were very important morally and spiritually. The Mayflower Compact was crude but laid the foundations for democratic government. The Plymouth colony was merged with Massachusetts in 1691 when Massachusetts became a royal colony.
Puritans (1630) vs. Separatists (1620)
Who/where: Puritans-Boston; Separatists-Plymouth
What: Puritans wanted to reform the Church of England. Separatists (extreme Puritans) wanted to separate from the Church of England. Both were Calvinistic, strict, and religiously intolerant.
Sig: Their religious devotion principally shaped the beginning of English settlements and religious influence in New England.
Puritans early settlement and religious intolerance within the colony
Who: Puritans (not Separatists but those who wanted to “purify” the Church of England)
Where: Massachusetts (Boston)
When: 1630
What: They believed in the doctrine of a calling to do Gods work on earth. They had serious commitment to work yet they also enjoyed simple pleasures. They established a bible commonwealth with no tolerance for religious dissent (Williams, Hutchinson were banished for heresy). The colony was economically successful but religiously intolerant.
Sig: Church members had rights (vote) as “freemen.” They were intolerant of others who did not share their beliefs.
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
What: Bradstreet (1612-1672) is an important figure in the history of American literature. Bradstreet's work points to the struggles of a Puritan wife against the hardships of New England colonial life, and in some way is a testament to the plight of the women of the age.
Sig: She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and she is a woman.
Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (New York) 1624
Who: The Dutch West India Company
Where: New York (New Amsterdam)
What: Company town: developed for economic benefits of fur trade. Later became aristocratic in its habits and attitudes, having no toleration for religious toleration, free speech, or democracy.
Sig: Its bustling seaports brought many immigrants and great trade.
William Penn’s Settlement of Pennsylvania 1681
Who: William Penn
Where: Pennsylvania
What: King Charles II awarded Penn a tract of land in 1681 to repay a debt owed to Penn’s father.
Sig: Penn, representing persecuted Quakers, advertised Pennsylvania as a colony known for freedom and religious toleration. (Even though Penn was a Quaker, he enjoyed the King’s support.)
Mercantilism—theory
Where: British Empire (England to 1707: Britain thereafter)
What: Justified British control over the colonies. This theory proposed that wealth was power and that a country’s economic wealth could be measured by the amount of gold or silver in its treasury. A favorable balance of trade must be created by exporting more expensive goods to colonies and importing less expensive raw materials from colonies. The mother country produced finished goods; colonies supplied markets for finished goods and raw materials. Gold and silver would flow to the mother country as a result (finished goods are more valuable than raw materials.) Trade within the empire should not permit outsiders (Dutch, French, Spanish) to profit, lest gold and silver be shifted to them.
Sig: Mercantilism was the foundation for the economic relationship between the colonies and England up to the Revolution.
Mercantilism in practice
What: Navigation and Trade Acts brought mercantilism to life. The Navigation Acts from 1650 to 1663 required that all goods flowing to and from the colonies could be transported only in British ships. The captain of the ship must be English, and the crew must be ¾ English. Certain commodities must be shipped to England first before going to Europe from the colonies or to the colonies from Europe. Various Trade Acts included the hat and iron acts, which prohibited final colonial manufacture of hats and iron goods. Tariffs were imposed to protect British sugar planters, such as the Molasses Act of 1733 which imposed a duty of 6 pence per gallon on imported foreign molasses (thus favoring British molasses). The 6 pence was not meant to be paid and was, therefore, not really a tax. (When the Act was amended in 1764 to lower the rate to 3 pence per gallon, which was meant to be paid, the issue of taxation without representation arose and led in time to the Revolution.)
Sig: The colonies did not object to Navigation and Trade Acts in part due to “salutary neglect” (weak enforcement of the acts), and the colonies smuggled around the acts anyway.
Salutary neglect
What: Even though England believed in a system of Mercantilism, Sir Robert Walpole espoused a view of "salutary neglect.” This is a system whereby the actual enforcement of external trade relations was lax. He believed that this enhanced freedom for the colonists would stimulate commerce and be, in the end, beneficial to all.
Sig: The colonies were allowed to trade freely in spite of trade acts. When after 1763 the British began serious enforcement of the trade acts, thus abandoning salutary neglect, the colonists were resentful, believing that their freedom was being eroded.
The Half Way Covenant of 1662
Who: Troubled ministers of the Puritan church.
Where: New England
What: An agreement in response to the decline in “conversions.” Baptism in the church was extended to children of parents who were not able to experience the “evangelical experience” as did the first settlers from England did. Since full church membership was required for voting, this was an important issue.
Sig: Ironically, it actually weakened the distinction between the elect and its members, therefore diluting the spiritual ‘purity’ of the first settlers.
Dominion of New England 1686-1689
Who: Edmund Andros, Governor of the Dominion
Where: New England
What: The Dominion of New England was a short-lived administrative union of English colonies that was decreed by King James II. The Dominion of New England was governed by Edmund Andros. The dominion was created in an attempt to bolster the colonial defense in the event of war with the Native American and the French. It was also designed to promote urgently needed efficiency in the administration of the Navigation Acts.
Sig: The Dominion of New England was disliked by the colonists because the dominion was enforcing the Navigation Acts which prohibited the colonist from trading with whom they wanted and forced them to rely on England. This anger eventually leads to the overthrow of Edmond Andros and the end of the Dominion of New England (which was linked to the Glorious Revolution occurring in England—the King was being overthrown in both England and New England).
Indentured Servitude (including increase in slavery after 1675)
When: 17th and 18th centuries
Who: Poor English
Where: Colonies in America
What: A majority of English migrants came to America as ‘Indentures’ and, in exchange for a paid passage, worked as servants for 4-7 years.
Sig: Indentured servants were used as America’s main labor force before 1675. They were used to maintain the growing tobacco industry and to bring profit to their masters. The servants’ growing discontent and threatening behavior, a dramatic decrease in new indentures after prosperity to England returned in the 1670s, and the ever increasing wealth of masters led to a great increase in the African slave trade and the rise in the slave population from the 1680s on.
Agricultural developments in colonies 1612 on
Where: Mainly Southern and Middle Colonies
What: Virginia and the south: tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar
Middle colonies: rye, oats, barley, wheat, beef and pork
Sig: The production of tobacco and food crops by hand methods created an insatiable demand for labor in the colonies forcing servants and slaves to be brought in, raising the population dramatically and making the economy flourish.
Northern Merchants and Southern Planters
What: The Northern colonies excelled in trading with both fellow colonies and overseas countries. Their expertise in both sailing and trading contributed to their long lasting success. Using their advantage of fertile soil, Southern Colonies practiced a completely different economy. Producing crops in demand like tobacco and rice, these colonies were able to establish a profitable agricultural economy.
Sig: Both the Northern and Southern colonies established their economies early on, but with very different qualities, the North with merchant trade and South with plantation work. Because of these differences it was very easy for the two to rely on each other. However, eventually these differences would cause a rift between the two entities.
Virginia and Massachusetts as Royal Colonies
What: Virginia and Massachusetts became royal colonies
Why: Virginia was poorly managed and the Indian war eroded the colony’s credibility in London. Massachusetts got swept up in the governmental reorganization related to the Glorious Revolution that brought William and Mary to the throne.
When: 1624 (Virginia) & 1691 (Massachusetts)
Sig: Demonstrates the power of the King over previously corporate colonies
Colonial society: role of cities
What: Colonial cities functioned as the center for entertainment, education, religion, politics and courts, commerce (retail shops, blacksmiths), and farm support.
Sig: Colonial cities were the center of an essentially agrarian society.
Emergence of Slavery – 1660s on
Who: Africans, Colonists
Where: Southern Colonies
What: Slavery started for economic reasons. Rising wages in England (1670s) reduced the amount of people willing to become indentured servants to work in the new world. As cheap labor was needed for the tobacco and rice plantations, the need for slaves increased.
Sig: Brought Africans to the colonies and sparked the Southern economy.
Colonial Society: Role of Women 1607-1692
Who: Women in Colonial Era
Where: Colonial America
What: Women were encouraged to marry early and have many children. Child rearing became their full time job. As married women, they were essential to the maintenance of the family unit, with the husband tending the fields and the wife performing all household tasks, including the manufacture of candles, soap, and clothing.
Sig: Think of the married colonial women as fully one-half of an integrated economic unit. Thus her role was absolutely vital.
Married Women Property Rights in Colonial America
Who: Married Women in Colonial America
What: Single women in the colonies did have property rights. Married women in the south often lost their husbands early and had the right to own property to support her family as a widow. Women in the north also had rights but most of them gave them up upon getting married out of the government’s fear that they would have conflicting interest with their husbands. Married women in particular were economically and legally subordinate to their husbands.
Sig: Married women in particular suffered discrimination relating to property rights, even though laws were less restrictive in the south.
Resistance to Colonial Authority: Bacon’s Rebellion 1676
Who: Nathaniel Bacon and single young freemen
Where: Chesapeake Region, Virginia
What: One thousand young men were forced into the back country in search of land where they were attacked by Native Americans. Because the governor would not retaliate, Bacon’s rebels went on a rampage of plundering and pilfering. They destroyed Native American settlements and chased Governor William Berkeley out of Jamestown. The rebellion was crushed.
Sig: Bacon had ignited the smoldering resentments of poor, former indentured servants. These tensions between them and the gentry caused the plantation owners to look elsewhere (African slave trade) for workers.
Resistance to Spanish Colonial Authority: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Who: Pueblo people and Catholic Missionaries
Where: New Mexico: Santa Fe to Taos
What: Roman Catholic missionaries’ efforts to convert the native Indians and suppress their religious customs provoked the uprising, also call Pope’s Rebellion.
Sig: The Pueblo Indians cut off all ties to the Roman Catholic missionaries, thus pushing them further west. It took the Spanish nearly half a century to fully reclaim New Mexico from Pueblo control.
Resistance to Colonial Authority: The Stono Rebellion 1739
Who: South Carolina slaves
What: The Stono Rebellion was the largest slave uprising in the colonial period. Fifty South Carolina slaves marched towards Spanish Florida hoping for freedom, but got stopped by the militia in the process. (Many whites and slaves were killed.)
Sig: Because of the rebellion, a harsher slave code was put into action. They were no longer able to assemble in groups, earn their own money, and learn how to read.
Leisler’s Rebellion 1689-91
Who: Sir Edmund Andros, Jacob Leisler, New England and Chesapeake colonists
Where: New York
What: After the downfall of the highly unpopular King James II by the Glorious Revolution, Jacob Leisler led a rebellion and seized control of lower New York from Dominion of New England Governor Andros. His rebellion was smashed by the forces of the new King William. He was hanged.
Sig: The rebellion represents the problem the English had in maintaining a far-flung empire.
Scots-Irish in the colonial backcountry-18th century
Who: The Scot-Irish were hardy, independent, anti-authoritarian settlers in the colonial backcountry (western parts) of Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia (along the Appalachians). They detested the Anglican Church and the King of England due to religious and economic persecution. While independent, they generally supported the patriot cause against the King.
Sig: They represented a significant part of the backcountry population in colonial America.
Triangular Trade in the colonial period 17th/18th c.
What: On the initial passage, goods were carried from Europe or the American colonies to Africa: on the infamous “middle passage,” slaves were carried to the new world (Caribbean, for example): on the third passage, sugar and other plantation products were carried back to Europe or to the American colonies.
Sig: The triangular trade stimulated the global economy and greatly promoted slavery. (The international slave trade was abolished by U.S. law in 1808.)
Religious diversity in the colonies (by region: New England, Mid-Atlantic, and South)
What: There was great religious diversity in the colonies: Puritans or Congregationalists dominated in New England; various denominations could be found in the Middle colonies (Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics); and Anglicans (Church of England) dominated in the South.
Sig: More so than other countries, the American colonies were a land of religious diversity and (excepting Jews) religious toleration.
The Great Awakening of the 1730’s-1740’s
Who: Jonathan Edwards (pastor & theologian) and other pastors, George Whitefield
Where: Started in Northampton, Massachusetts, spread to the rest of New England
What: Unlike the preaching styles of older clergy, Edwards’s new unconventional preaching style emphasized a direct, emotive, spirituality that was seriously ignored by older clergy. Powerful evangelical preaching convicted sinners and brought them to conversion and a new understanding of faith.
Sig: It was the first mass movement and religious upheaval within the colonies which reduced the influence of the established church and strengthened the power of ordinary people.
Deism
What: Deism accepts the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation (distinguished from theism). God created the world but does not immediately intervene in the life of an individual. Jefferson was a Deist.
Sig: While some, including Jefferson, were not “Christian,” most people in colonial America generally accepted the existence of God.
John Peter Zenger (1734-1735)
Who: John Peter Zenger
Where: New York Colony
What: A legal case--a newspaper printer (Zenger) was charged with seditious libel when he criticized the corrupt government. Andrew Hamilton defended him and Zenger was found not guilty.
Sig: Freedom of the press, helped establish the doctrine that true statements about public officials could not be prosecuted as seditious libel.
New York Conspiracy Trials (1741)
What: Slaves and poor whites in New York City set several fires in protest to bad economic conditions. Over 150 were arrested; many were hanged or burned.
Sig: In view of recent slave rebellions in South Carolina and the Caribbean, whites feared a slave rebellion in New York. The conspiracy trials reflected that fear.
French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War (1754-1763)
Who: Britain and France (in America), Britain, France, Spain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria (in Europe and other continents)
Where: Ohio Valley and Canada
What: The French and British wanted the same piece of land—notably the Ohio River Valley. War with France was declared, not only in the America’s, but also on other continents. The British attacked France in the Quebec-Montreal region of Canada. The British took the city of Quebec. Then, in 1760, Montreal also fell to the British.
Sig: With the fall of Quebec and Montreal came France’s permanent removal from the North American continent. The war cost the British too much money, and the British looked to the colonies to support the financial burdens of empire, which in turn led to the issue of “taxation without representation,” and ultimately, to the American Revolution.
Treaty of Paris 1763
What: The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War and made Britain the dominant European power in eastern North America. France relinquished its claims to New France and all French territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain. Spain gave Florida to Britain, and as compensation, took over French Louisiana west of the Mississippi, thus solidifying its claim to all of western North America.
Sig: Britain had begun as a relatively insignificant country in 1600, but by 1763 it had become an influential European nation and a major colonial power.
Imperial Reorganization of 1763-64
What: Britain tightened its control on the American colonies, mostly motivated by debt caused by the French and Indian War. Include here the authorization to send 10,000 troops to the colonies, the Proclamation of 1763 (closes trans-Appalachia to settlement), the Currency Act of 1764 (no more paper money), and the Sugar Act of 1764 (changes Molasses Act of ‘33 from trade act to revenue act).
Sig: Britain’s tightening control eventually leads to America’s fight for independence, motivated by the infringement of colonial rights.
Proclamation Line of 1763
Who: King George III
Where: Along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains
What: The King prohibited settlement in the area beyond the Appalachians as a reaction to Pontiac’s Rebellion. The purpose was to work out the “Indian problem” fairly and prevent another bloody eruption such as Pontiac’s.
Sig: Americans charged west despite the proclamation, as they saw the west as their birthright. This signified the American’s defiance, and the early beginnings of separation from Britain.
Stamp Act (1765)
What: The Seven Years’ War had left Britain with a large debt. In order to pay it off, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. Stamps were required on bills of sale for about fifty trade items as well as on certain types of commercial and legal documents, including playing cards, pamphlets, newspapers, diplomas, bills of lading (documents that list goods to be shipped), and marriage licenses. Colonists used 1) violence (Sons of Liberty) to prevent collection, 2) nonimportation agreement, 3) Stamp Act Congress, asserting no taxation without representation and that the colonies could not be represented in Parliament [note revolutionary consequence of Stamp Act Congress resolves].
Sig: The Stamp Act was a direct blow to the colonist’s rights, bringing cries of "no taxation without representation.” The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 was formed because of it. The colonists eventually forced a nullification of the tax. This was an early beginning of a separation from Britain.
Declaratory Act 1766
What: Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but passed the Declaratory Act, stating that it had the right to bind the colonies “in all cases whatsoever” (that is, including taxation).
Sig: Between the Stamp Act resolves and the Declaratory Act, a showdown was bound to occur [remember that this is a question of sovereignty, i.e., who is in control of the land and the people].
Virtual Representation in 1760’s
Who: Prime Minister George Grenville
Where: Britain
What: This theory states that the members of Parliament represent all British people, even those living in America who do not vote for members of Parliament.
Sig: Grenville claimed this theory in response to the colonists’ outrage at being taxed by the Stamp and Quartering Acts of 1765. The Americans said that Parliament should not be allowed to tax them because there were no American representatives. This eventually led to the Americans rejecting Parliament’s influence and power.
Townshend Acts 1767
Who: Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer
What: Imposed duties on glass, lead, paper, paints, and tea imported into the colonies. Townshend thought that an indirect tax (tariff) on the colonists would not cause problems. However, the colonies still fought back with no taxation in any form without representation (the colonists did not accept the distinction between direct (Stamp Act) and indirect (tariff) taxation. A tariff for protection, not meant to be paid, was not a tax in the colonial mind. A tariff for revenue, meant to be paid, was a tax. (Thus the Sugar Act of 1764, which lowered the prohibitive tariff of 1733 on foreign molasses from 6 pence per gallon to a revenue producing tariff of three pence per gallon on foreign molasses, signaled a shift in purpose on the part of Parliament and the beginning of the taxation dispute between the colonies and Parliament.)
Sig: While the duties were repealed in 1770 (except on tea), the Townshend Acts stimulated the taxation discussion that in the end would result in the Boston Tea Party, the Coercive Acts, and Revolution.
Boston Tea Party 1773
Who: Sons of Liberty
Where: Boston Harbor
What: Angered by British taxation, most notably on East India Company tea, the Sons of Liberty decided to sneak aboard a British ship bearing tea and dump the cargo overboard.
Sig: This action lead to the British Parliament closing the Harbor and passing the Intolerable Acts, one of the causes of the war.
Committees of Correspondence of 1772-74
Who: Samuel Adams
What: Samuel Adams organized the first committee in Boston in 1772. Committees soon spread to other towns and then to all of the colonies.
Sig: The Committees fueled opposition of British policy, kept up communications among the colonies, and evolved into the First Continental Congress (called to respond to the Intolerable Acts).
Quebec Act 1774
What: Act by Parliament establishing governance of Quebec and extending the boundary of Quebec all the way down to the Ohio River. The act was aimed at insuring the loyalty of the Quebec colonists (respecting the Roman Catholic Church) and providing for the civil administration of Quebec.
Sig: The American colonists saw the Act as an attempt to stop their westward expansion because it incorporated large parts of the Ohio Country into Quebec. Many were alarmed by the spread of the Catholic faith. (Combine the Quebec Act and the Coercive Acts into the “Intolerable Acts.”)
Coercive Acts (1-4 below)
1 Massachusetts Government Act 1774
Where: Massachusetts
What: The Act did away with elections for the Governor’s council (making council appointed by the King) and restricted any meeting of the leadership of the colony to requiring official sanction.
Sig: This act worked to severely restrict the colonists’ governance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and spread anger against the crown.
2 Administration of Justice Act 1774
Where: Massachusetts
What: A British officer or official accused of a capital (someone is killed) crime can be tried in either a British court or a court in another colony. This angered the citizens of Massachusetts Bay because witnesses of the situations would not appear in trial, and thus the defendant would most likely be declared not guilty. This seemed to the colonists to be a denial of justice and the legalization of what could be called murder.
3 Boston Port Act 1774
What: A response to the Boston Tea Party, it outlawed the use of the Port of Boston until such time as payment was made to the King's treasury (for customs duty lost) and to the East India Company for damages suffered.
Sig: Closure of the port of Boston was an economic disaster for Massachusetts.
4 Quartering Act 1774
Where: 13 American Colonies
What: This act went further than previous acts by requiring the colonies to provide food and housing to British troops in occupied buildings, including private homes. (Previous quartering required that soldiers be housed in public inns, taverns, or unoccupied buildings.)
Sig: The British government made yet another intrusion on American lives. Soldiers could now have a place to stay even where they weren’t invited, and the colonists had to pay for it. This angered the Americans further and was one of the reasons for the American Revolution.
The American Revolution 1776-1783
“Philosophy of the American Revolution” #1: John Locke
Who: John Locke
Where: England (philosophies spread through the colonies)
What: Locke’s theories on natural rights were part of colonial arguments. “Natural rights” is part of a political theory that states when individuals enter into society they have basic rights that no government can take away.
Sig: Locke’s philosophy (see his Treatise on Civil Government, 1690) was the foundation for the American Revolution. That is, when government becomes destructive of certain ends (life, liberty, property), the people have the right to abolish it.
“Philosophy of the American Revolution” #2: Popular Sovereignty
Who: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau
What: A doctrine (that is closely associated with the social contract) that the state is created by and subject to the will of the People, who are the source of all political power. Contrast this with monarchy, where the people may have no formal voice in governmental affairs
Sig: Once Americans, as a whole, accepted the ideas of Popular Sovereignty, they started molding the foundations for a democratic political system (which was, of course, republican in form—republican meaning that the people vote for representatives who then make political decision).
“Philosophy of the American Revolution” #3: Small, Limited Government
What: Limited government is a system of government that is bound to specifically defined principles of action by a written constitution.
Sig: The concept of limited government flows naturally from the assumption of popular sovereignty: If the people are sovereign, then any powers held by government are "given on loan” and cannot detract from the people's innate sovereignty. Therefore such powers are inherently limited.
Congresses (First and Second) and Congress under the Articles of Confederation
Who: First Continental Congress: September 5-October 26, 1774 Second Continental Congress 1775 to 1781
Congress under the Articles of Confederation 1781-88
Where: Philadelphia
What: The First Continental Congress met to develop a common colonial response to the Coercive Acts recently passed by Parliament. An advisory council rather than an empowered legislature, the Congress (as it came to be called) included delegates from twelve of the American colonies; Georgia did not participate. Congress advised each colony to form a militia, organized an association to enforce strict economic sanctions against Britain, and recommended that Massachusetts, the focus of the Coercive Acts, form an independent government. After issuing addresses to the king and to the British and American people, the delegates agreed to meet again in May 1775 if their grievances had not been resolved. By the time the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in May 1775, fighting had taken place at Lexington and Concord. Congress quickly assumed responsibility for coordinating the rebellion, starting with the raising of a Continental army. A year later the Second Continental Congress took the final step toward separation by officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Second Continental Congress fought the War until superseded by the Congress created when the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781. The Congress under the Articles (1781-1788) perpetuated the wartime balance of power, keeping the central government politically and financially dependent on the states. Yet Congress under the Articles did manage to prosecute the war successfully and could point to a number of other important achievements, including the Land Ordinance of 1785, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and the complicated handling of land disputes among the states.
Sig: The various congresses reflect the hesitant yet practical movement towards a unified nation. While the states retained sovereignty (until ratification of the Constitution in 1788), the congresses did a great deal of important work, including moving the colonies from British colonies to an independent nation called the United States of America. Thus the congresses contributed mightily to the formation of a strictly American identity.
Abigail Adams 1744-1818
Who: Wife of President John Adams. In 1776, right before the Declaration of Independence, she wrote to her husband, “in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies.”
Sig: She saw the implications of revolutionary ideas for changing the status of women. Link to Republican Motherhood and improved educational opportunities for women.
Declaration of Independence--July 4, 1776
What: The Second Continental Congress approved an official document declaring independence from Great Britain, including justification for the rupture.
Sig: Arguably the most significant document in U.S. history, the declaration placed the colonies in open rebellion against the mother country, with the consequence being that armed conflict would determine the final outcome. War would decide the question: Who is sovereign?
Saratoga October 1777
Who: Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold (U.S.), John Burgoyne (British)
Where: Saratoga, New York
What: General Burgoyne surrendered a large British army at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777. This was one of the most significant battles in U.S. history because it stopped the British invasion from Canada, lifted sagging American morale, and led to the treaties of military alliance and friendship/commerce with France in 1778
Sig: The battle convinced the French that the Americans were capable of winning, which led to the treaties between the French and the U.S. a few months later.
Revolutionary War diplomacy: the Franco-American Alliance of 1778
What: France, thirsting for revenge against the British, provided Americans with supplies, and then officially became allied with the colonies in 1778. Both sides agreed to not end the war without the other’s consent [a pledge broken by the United States and not to France’s dismay (France could not deliver Gibraltar to Spain and the separate peace between the United States and Britain that ended the war also ended a problem for the French)]. The treaty was made possible as a result of the American victory at Saratoga the previous October (1777).
Sig: Without French help the colonies and then the United States may not have been able to win the war. Further, the treaty became a sticking point between France and the U.S. in the 1790s, when France wanted U.S. assistance in the Caribbean in fighting the British. (The treaty was cancelled in 1800 by the Convention of 1800.)
Loyalists during the Revolutionary War
Who: Colonials loyal to the king
What: Loyalists were colonials who were still loyal to the British king. Those who were in America under British rule, such as officers and officials, were also labeled Loyalists. The Loyalists were called “Tories,” opposing the Patriots, or “Whigs.” Tories were defined by patriots as “a thing whose head is in England and its body in America, and its neck ought to be stretched.” When the war was under way, loyalists were persecuted and driven from the U.S. Some Loyalists fought against the colonies.
Sig.: The colonies and then the U.S. mistreated Loyalists, a thorny issue with the British after the war. (The U.S. could not restore Loyalists’ properties and the British would not evacuate posts in the west, as agreed to in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.)
Treaty of Paris 1783
Who: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay representing the U.S.
What: This treaty ended the Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Britain. Also, the boundaries were set, from the Mississippi on the west, to the Great Lakes on the north, and to Spanish Florida on the South. (Recall that the Treaty set the southern border at the 31st parallel, while Spain independently claimed that West Florida went up to 32º28″-- an issue finally resolved in U.S. favor with the Pinckney Treaty of 1795.) America agreed to stop persecution of Loyalists, and Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures that the confiscated Loyalist property to be restored. Debts to British creditors should also be paid. Britain pledged to get out of western forts. (U.S. treatment of the loyalists and British withdrawal from the forts became sources of friction.)
Sig: Britain recognized the independence and sovereignty of the United States after almost eight years of being at war. The U.S. entered the world stage as a new nation with the Treaty.
The Articles of Confederation and
Constitution-Making 1776-1788
Constitution making in the states 1776 on
What: After the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress asked the states to prepare new constitutions. Eleven of the states did so, and most of these documents included a bill of rights, specifically guaranteeing long-prized liberties against legislative encroachment. As written documents, they were intended to be fundamental law, above or superior to laws that might be subsequently written by a legislature.
Sig: Constitution making in the states prepared the “founding fathers” for the job they eventually did in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 when they drafted the U.S. Constitution. The reason the Constitution is so good is that the people who drafted it were experienced at the state level (and they had immediate knowledge of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation).
Articles of Confederation March 1, 1781, to June 21, 1788
What: The Articles was the first written constitution of the United States. Fearing central government at a time of war against what was perceived to be a despotic central government (Britain), the Second Continental Congress proposed a loose confederation of sovereign states that would not have the power to declare war, impose taxes, and regulate commerce. There was no provision for an executive or judicial ( + no E or J.) In spite of these weaknesses, the congress under the Articles brought the Revolutionary War to a successful conclusion, got the states to relinquish western land claims to the national government, passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, and passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
Sig: The Articles provided a frame of government under which sovereign states could operate during a most difficult period in the history of the United States. In providing experience to members of congress and the states in the weaknesses of a loose confederation, the Articles served the added purpose of helping national leaders to understand what a good constitution should include (which helps to explain why the present Constitution is so good).
Land Ordinance of 1785
What: Law passed by Congress that allowed for sales of land in the Northwest
Territory to pay off the national debt. To avoid land disputes, land was to be surveyed
into 36 square mile townships, with the sixteenth section (one square mile) reserved for
public education.
Sig: This law laid the foundation of American land policy and was a great
achievement of the government under the Articles of Confederation.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Where: Applied to the Old Northwest
What: The Ordinance prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory (which became the future states Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota). When an area had 5,000 people, it could become a territory. When it had 60,000, it could become a state on an equal footing with older states. As many as five states could be carved out of the Territory.
Sig: The principles in the Northwest Ordinance were later used for the rest of the American territories. This law was a great achievement of the government under the Articles.
Shays Rebellion 1786-1787
Who: Daniel Shays and his supporters (poor farmers and veterans)
Where: western Massachusetts
What: Shays and the poor men that rose with him wanted cheap paper money, lighter taxes, and a suspension of property takeovers. To prevent foreclosures, they prevented courts from meeting. A rebellion was developing.
Sig: This rebellion, smashed by Massachusetts militia, made very clear that there were major problems with the Articles of Confederation. Specifically, there was no provision in the Articles for the U.S. to come to the aid of Massachusetts. This problem is solved and reflected in Article IV of the Constitution, written just a few months after the end of the Shays Rebellion. Article IV provides that the U.S. will protect the states against domestic violence.
The Great Compromise: 1787: the U.S. Constitution—writing of
Who: The Philadelphia Convention (mandated to revise the Articles, the convention went on to write the Constitution)
What: The Constitutional Convention decided that states would be represented in two separate bodies in the congress. In the Senate, each state would be given two representatives no matter how big or small; and in the House, the number of representatives would depend on the population of the state. It was agreed that every tax bill or revenue measure must start in the House.
Sig: This compromise settled an argument between large and small states.
The 3/5 compromise 1787: the U.S. Constitution—writing of
What: Southern states wanted slaves to count as people so they could have greater representation in the House, but the Northern states argued that slaves were property, not people. The 3/5 compromise stated that when counting total population in a state, slaves would be counted as 3/5 of a person. This increased the power of Southern slaveholding states in the House of Representatives.
Sig: Solved the problem of representation for the present, but put off the overall problem of slavery to be solved later.
“Electoral College” 1787
What: Each state is given the number of electoral votes for however many senators and representatives the state has in congress. Electors are chosen by the state (and each state chose to have the people vote for electors) and those electors vote for president and vice president. This became known as the “electoral college.” The original intent of having electors and not the people choose the president was to guard against mob excesses. The electors represented an intermediate body that would moderate popular passions and be more deliberative. (Recall that the people chose only members of the House in the original Constitution.)
Sig: The Electoral College is still used today in presidential elections. Also, note that the people do not vote directly for president—states have enacted laws to let the people vote for electors, then the electors vote for pres/vice pres.
Federalists v. Anti-Federalists 1787-88
Who and what: Federalists supported a stronger federal government and argued in favor of ratification of the Constitution. Anti-Federalists believed that the Constitution was drawn up by aristocratic elements and anti-democratic. They believed it was wrong to take away sovereignty from the states and that individual rights were being jeopardized because there was no bill of rights. Anti-Federalists tried to discourage states from ratifying the Constitution, while Federalists promoted the Constitution.
Sig: The Federalists won the argument after agreeing to a Bill of Rights (as amendments to the Constitution). Also, in this Federalist-Anti-Federalist argument of the day (1787-88), one can see the beginnings of what became the split between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians, with the former supporting small, limited government and the later supporting strong and energetic government.
The Federalist Papers 1787-88 (also known as The Federalist)
Who: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison
Where: New York
What: Deeply upset that New York would not ratify the Constitution, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote a series of 85 articles in New York newspapers that supported ratification of the Constitution.
Sig: These editorials helped with the ratification of the Constitution in New York and then later in Virginia, two very important states for the very existence of the United States. These papers became the most penetrating and authoritative commentary written on the Constitution.
Bill of Rights 1791
Who: James Madison
What: Written by James Madison, the Bill of Rights is more formally known as the first ten amendments to the Constitution. These amendments protect the freedoms of the American people from encroachment by Congress (and, at present, by the states). Examples of these are: freedom of religion, assembly, press, petition, speech; trial by jury; due process (protects life, liberty, property).
Sig: State constitutions frequently included a bill of rights. Opponents of the Constitution wanted a bill of rights included before they would support ratification. The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, is part of the Constitution that created a stronger central government while protecting individual rights.
Early National History 1789-1824
Hamilton’s Three Reports 1790-91
What: Hamilton’s plan submitted to Congress in order to bring about healthy change in a debt-ridden and somewhat disjointed nation. His plan included arguments for public credit (funding and assumption)—this is Report on Public Credit #1; a national bank—this is Report on Public Credit #2; and the encouragement of manufacturing and internal improvements—this is Report on Manufacturing.
Sig: This plan would bind the country together through a nation-wide public scheme, instead of the states wallowing in their own economic ruin, Hamilton suggested the new federal government take control and pass legislation that would favor all relatively wealthy Americans throughout the nation. He did not have a solely right-side vision: His plan for promoting manufacturing and internal improvements, while not approved by Congress, when linked to his public credit and bank reports, which were approved by Congress, would have created an integrated national economy favoring all sections of the nation, including the south and west.
Report on Public Credit #1
Who: Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
What: This first part of the plan was aimed at public credit. Split into two parts, “funding at par” and assumption, it restored the value of the dollar and relieved state debts, respectively. With “funding at par,” the government was to pay all national debts at face value with accumulated interest by levying taxes on items such as whiskey (see Whiskey Rebellion) and imposing a tariff for revenue purposes. With assumption, the national government would “assume” the debts of the states. Funding favored speculators and the wealthy who held national government notes. Assumption favored states that had not paid off their debts.
Sig: This plan served the purpose of restoring public credit and binding both the wealthy and the states to a financially stable and viable national government.
Report on Public Credit #2
Who: Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
What: The second part of the plan was Hamilton’s recommendation to establish a national bank to help standardize banking. Congress agreed and created the 1st BUS, with a twenty year charter.
Sig: Tied the states closer together in economic exchange, gave the vital power of money to the federal government, and pulled the U.S. out of a confusing era of debt. Bank and anti-bank forces rallied to form first two political parties (Federalists and Jeffersonian Democrats).
Report on Manufacturing (report #3)
Who: Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
What: The third part of the plan is a plea to Congress to encourage manufacturing in America through bounties (payments to encourage manufacturing) and temporary protective tariffs. Based on his observation of Europe, he also called for roads and canals. Hamilton listed the supposed benefits of industry, which, among other things, included the self-reliance of the nation (important for military purposes), the benefit of all the social classes, and cooperation with the already-sprawling agriculture. This was a spectacular vision that Hamilton had for an integrated national economy that would bind all regions of the country together
Sig: This part of Hamilton’s plan was the only part to fail in Congress. Its ideas were to be brought to life, though, by the mid-1800s.
Jefferson v. Hamilton and emergence of political parties 1790s
Who: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton
What: Hamilton’s financial successes created some political liabilities, which lead to a full-blown political rivalry with Jefferson. The parties that developed during this time were the Jeffersonian Republicans and Hamiltonian Federalists.
Significance: The two-party system has existed in the United States ever since. (Place the early Jeffersonians in the strict construction camp and the Federalists in the loose construction camp—this is a major point of departure for the two parties.)
Republican motherhood 1776 on
What: With the American Revolution accomplished and the Republic underway, women were assumed to have the role of instilling civic virtue into their sons by proper education. The idea of civic virtue is to subordinate individual selfish interests to the public good. Women would be the special keepers of the American conscience and as educated wives and mothers they would cultivate in their sons the civic virtues demanded by the new Republic. With government in the hands of the people, the people (especially sons, because only males could vote or hold political office) had to be well educated, and “Republican motherhood” was the answer.
Sig: Elevates the role of the woman in American society after the Revolution. (Note that Republican motherhood does not apply to poor, working class women or to slave mothers. Thus Republican Motherhood can be cast in terms of class, gender, and race.)
Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation 1793
Who: President Washington
What: When war broke out between France and Britain, Washington proclaimed the government’s official neutrality and warned Americans to be impartial towards both armed camps.
Sig: This was America’s first formal declaration of aloofness from Old World quarrels (called “isolationism). The problem was the U.S. was still married to the French in the Franco-American alliance of 1778 which obligated the U.S. to defend French possessions in the Caribbean (the alliance was cancelled in 1800 with the Convention of 1800).
Eli Whitney (1793 Cotton Gin and 1798 Interchangeable parts)
What: In 1793, Whitney invented the Cotton Gin that removed the seeds from cotton. Previously, the seeds were removed by hand, which took much more time. The Gin allowed plantation owners to remove seeds from cotton more efficiently (50 to 1), creating a demand for even more slave labor. In 1798, he also developed the process of interchangeable parts for mechanical items (primarily muskets).
Sig: The invention of the Cotton Gin promoted cotton culture and slavery throughout the south. The invention of interchangeable parts paved the way for mass production. Note how Whitney contributed to both the economic growth and separation of the north and the south.
Whiskey Rebellion 1794
Where: Western Pennsylvania farmers and President Washington
What: A tax of 9 cents per gallon was imposed by Congress (initiated by Hamilton) on whiskey in 1791, in order to pay national debts. Outraged farmers, who would ferment and distill their grain into whiskey to get it to the market, rioted in 1794. The Militia Act of 1792 was invoked, and the militia was called out.
Sig: The smashing of the rebellion demonstrated the power of the new Constitution versus the Articles of Confederation.
Jay’s Treaty 1795 (signed 1794; ratified 1795)
Who: Americans, British, John Jay
What: The United States and Britain were arguing over frontier forts still held by the British in the Northwest, navigation laws, and the seizure of American ships. The American statesman John Jay was sent over to negotiate. He compromised with a treaty. The senate ratified the treaty in 1795.
Sig: It averted war, Britain finally evacuated the posts, and while Britain agreed to compensate for U.S. ship losses, Britain did not agree to stop seizing the ships. The Jay Treaty was criticized in the U.S. but it was an alternative to war and did prompt the Spanish to negotiate the Pinckney Treaty.
Pinckney’s Treaty 1795
Who: Spain, U.S.
What: Spain granted the Americans free navigation of the Mississippi and a large disputed territory north of Florida (from 31º to 32º28'--see the “Area disputed by Spain and U.S.” on map on page 175)
Sig: Free navigation of the Mississippi was essential for the economic life of the west. The U.S. could not afford to have Spain block access to the Gulf of Mexico by denying shipping privileges at the mouth of the Mississippi. Pinckney’s Treaty was serendipity (unanticipated good thing) for the U.S. after the humiliating Jay Treaty. Spain feared an Anglo-American rapprochement (renewal of friendly relations) and dealt kindly with the Americans.
Treaty of Greenville 1795
What: Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis defeated the U.S. Army in 1790 and 1791, but lost in 1794 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers to American General Mad Anthony Wayne. The British refused to shelter the fleeing Indians. The Indians signed the Treaty of Greenville. The U.S. gained tracts of the Old Northwest (basically Indiana and Ohio); the Indians received $20,000 lump sum and $9,000 a year, as well as the right to hunt the lands they had ceded and the recognition of their sovereign status.
Sig: Demonstrates the continuing problem with the Indians and how the Indians generally lost, both militarily and politically.
XYZ Affair 1798
Who: French Foreign Minister Talleyrand; agents X, Y, Z
Where: France
What: The French had been furious over Jay's Treaty, condemning it as the first step toward an alliance with Britain. They further protested that the pact was a flagrant violation of the Franco-American Treaty of 1778. In response, French warships began to seize defenseless American merchant vessels, about 300 by mid-1797. President Adams sent three men to France to settle these disputes. The envoys eventually reached Paris in 1797, hoping to meet Talleyrand. Instead, they were secretly met by three go-betweens, otherwise known as X, Y, and Z. The French spokesmen demanded a bribe of $250,000, for the privilege of merely speaking with Talleyrand.
Sig: As the result of the XYZ Affair, anti-French sentiments rose, and an undeclared naval war between the US and France was ignited with both sides seizing ships.
Undeclared war with France (Quasi-War) 1798-1800
What: Insulted by the XYZ Affair, the three American envoys returned home. Pro-war sentiment gradually descended upon the US. War preparations were made. The Navy Department was created; the 3-ship Navy was expanded; the US Marine Corps was officially formed. War was confined to the sea, notably to the West Indies. In 2 1/2 years of undeclared hostilities, the new navy captured over 80-armed French vessels. Only a slight push might have plunged both nations into a full-fledged war. This uproar moved President John Adams to suspend all trade with the French, and American ship captains were authorized to attack and capture armed French vessels. Congress created the Department of the Navy, and war seemed inevitable. In 1800, the French government, now under Napoleon, signed a new treaty, the Convention of 1800 (which “annulled the marriage” of 1778), and peace was restored.
Sig: The US Navy was expanded. War with France could have resulted in loss of lives to either side. Suspension of French trade could have harmed the economy. It was also good that the war was still undeclared. If America had waged war on France in 1800, Napoleon would have not sold Louisiana to Jefferson on any terms whatsoever in 1803. Therefore, the Louisiana Purchase might not have occurred.
Alien & Sedition Acts 1798
Who: The Federalists and the Adams administration
What: Manipulating the anti-French sentiments, the pro-British Federalists, in 1798, managed to pass laws designed to silence or minimize their Jeffersonian foes. The first of these laws was aimed at the supposedly pro-Jefferson "aliens." Most Europeans immigrants, lacking wealth, were scorned by the aristocratic Federalist Party. But they were welcomed as voters by the less prosperous and more democratic Jeffersonians. The Federalist Congress thus raised the residence requirements for aliens who desired to become citizens from 5 years to 14. The Sedition Act, on the other hand, restricted the freedom of speech and freedom of the press as guaranteed in the Constitution by the Bill of Rights (1st Amendment). This law provided that anyone who impeded the policies of the government or falsely defamed its officials, including the president, would be liable to a heavy fine & imprisonment.
Sig: The Alien Act infringed the traditional American policy of open-door hospitality and speedy assimilation. The Sedition Act, meanwhile, infringed in the rights guaranteed to all American citizens in the 1st Amendment and prompted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
Virginia & Kentucky Resolutions 1798-1799
Who: James Madison (for Virginia) and Thomas Jefferson (for Kentucky)
What: Republican leaders were convinced that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional, but the process of deciding on the constitutionality of federal laws was as yet undefined. Jefferson and Madison decided that the states should have that power, and they drew up a series of resolutions, which were presented to the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures. They proposed that the state bodies should have the power to "nullify" federal laws within those states. These resolutions were adopted, but only in these states, and so the issue died.
Sig: The theoretical argument in these resolutions, that the U.S. was a compact among sovereign states, was used later as part of the nullification controversy of the 1830's and ultimately in the secession crisis of 1860-1861.
Slave revolts in Haiti and the U.S. and fears arising therefrom
What: Beginning in 1792 and continuing to 1804, slaves were rebelling in Haiti (St. Domingue or Santa Domingo). That rebellion, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, was successful. Not successful but terrifying were slave revolts in the U.S. (Gabriel Prosser, Virginia, 1800; Denmark Vesey, South Carolina, 1822; Nat Turner, Virginia, 1831).
Sig: These revolts caused great anxiety and fear among whites and plantation owners, who responded with increasingly harsh restrictions on the ability of slaves to communicate, learn, and travel. Free blacks were restricted too, and even whites could be held accountable if they challenged the slave system (because that might give slaves encouragement to resist). While the plantation economy provided many benefits for many owners, the scepter of slave rebellion was a continuing and haunting fear among southerners.
Election of 1800 (the "Revolution of 1800")
What: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr both ran as Jeffersonian Republicans against John Adams and Charles Pinckney for the Federalists in the election of 1800. The candidate winning the second-highest number of electoral votes would become vice-president. Jefferson and Burr received the highest and same number of electoral votes, so the selection went to the House of Representatives. After a long deadlock, Alexander Hamilton threw his support to Jefferson, and Burr had to accept vice-presidency. (The 12th amendment in 1804 required that electors vote once for president and once for vice-president, thus solving this problem.) Jefferson called his election a “revolution” in that he would halt and reverse the growth of government power and the decay of civic virtue that occurred under the Federalists. But this was no popular “revolution” because Jefferson barely won the election.
Sig: The election pitted two parties who were bitterly opposed to each other. The election was peaceful; the transition of power was peaceful. Thus the U.S. established the fact that a democratic nation, even with bitterly divided political loyalties, could effect a peaceful transition of power. This was the only “revolution” that occurred in 1800.
Significance of Jefferson’s presidency
What: Jefferson was president from 1801 to 1809. He called his election a revolution, but he did not dismantle the Bank of the United States or otherwise attack Hamilton’s financial structure. He did lower the debt, but that is hardly a revolution. His purchase of Louisiana was very important, even though he did not think he was constitutionally empowered to buy it. He fought a war with the Navy against Tripoli, even though he did not want to fight a war. (He supported limited government and desired only a small navy.) He represented agrarian interests against the monied and merchant class of the North, and yet he was a Virginia planter “aristocrat.”
Sig: Jefferson’s presidency time and again reflected the realities of the times and not his strict constructionist agrarian ideals.
Louisiana Purchase 1803
Who: Jefferson and France (Napoleon I)
Where: The huge territory of Louisiana, stretching from the Canadian border to
the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
What: In the early years of the United States, Louisiana was of concern chiefly because it bordered the Mississippi River, which was vital to U.S. trade. In 1762 France had ceded Louisiana to Spain, which was too weak to offer a serious threat to American Commerce. In 1800, however, rumors spread that Spain was about to cede Louisiana back to France. Jefferson was alarmed. Relations between the United States and France were still unfriendly, and France had the power to cut off American shipping at Louisiana's capital, New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi. There was, said Jefferson, "one single spot" on the globe, "the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce of three eighths of our territory must pass to market." In 1803, Talleyrand made Livingston a startling offer. Napoleon I was willing to sell the entire territory for $15 million. At the end of June, news of the treaty reached the United States. Jefferson was very eager to acquire the entire territory, but, viewing it from his strict-construction point of view, he did not think the purchase was constitutional. His remedy for the purchase was a constitutional amendment (which was never proposed).
Sig: The Louisiana Purchase has been called Jefferson’s “chief achievement”
during his administration. It allowed for much expansion and exploration into the West. It
also showed that Jefferson was strict in principle but loose in practice. Obviously, the purchase also finally resolved the important issue of control of New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi.
Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-06
Who: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Where: The West, up the Missouri River and over the Rockies to the Oregon coast, and return home
What: Jefferson had dreamed of exploration of the West from the time he was
secretary of state under Washington. As a scientist he wanted to know about the land and
its inhabitants. He realized the importance of such exploration for the future expansion of
the United States. In January 1803, one-half a year before the Louisiana Purchase, he
proposed his idea to Congress. In order to conceal its expansionist aims from England,
France, and Spain, he suggested that the journey be presented as a "literary pursuit."
Congress gave approval. Jefferson instructed them to observe and note down the physical
features, topography, soil, climate, and wildlife of the land and the language and customs
of its inhabitants.
Sig:In 1806 Lewis and Clark returned with their valuable journals. They had successfully breached the mountain barrier of the West, built a fort on the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, and mapped and explored much of the American Northwest. Moreover, they had secured the friendship of a number of Native American peoples and given the United States a claim to the Oregon country. They made important scientific discoveries, maps, and knowledge of the natives in the regions. This expedition, along with the Louisiana Purchase, helped promote nationalism (commitment to the U.S.) and the future idea of “manifest destiny.”
Marbury vs. Madison (1803)
Who: John Adams, William Marbury, and James Madison
What: After a bitter election, in his final days as president, Adams
attempted to fill the courts with members of his party, the Federalist Party. Just before
leaving office, President Adams appointed a Maryland banker and politician, William
Marbury, to one of the new posts. The Senate confirmed Marbury's appointment, President Adams signed the commission, and Secretary of State John Marshall affixed the Great Seal on the commission. But in the rush of business during the final days of the Adams administration, Marshall failed to actually deliver the commission to Marbury (and at least three other appointees). Jefferson became president on March 4, 1801, and the new secretary of state was James Madison. When Marbury and three others askedMadison for their commissions, the secretary of state, acting under orders from President Jefferson, refused to deliver the commissions. Marbury sued. The case was heard by Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court. While the Court did not address the specifics of the case, the Court struck down as unconstitutional a portion of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (which gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction the Court declared it did nothave).
Sig: The Supreme Court of the United States established its authority to review and invalidate government actions that conflict with the Constitution of the United States. The case is monumentally significant because it was the first time that the Supreme Court declared an act of Congress to be unconstitutional. The principle involved here is “judicial review.”
Aaron Burr
Who: During John Adams's term as President, national parties became clearly defined. Burr loosely associated himself with the Jeffersonian-Republicans, though he had moderate Federalist allies, such as Sen. Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey. Burr quickly became a key player in New York politics, more powerful in time than Hamilton, largely because of the Tammany Society, later to become the infamous Tammany Hall, which Burr converted from a social club into a political machine. As Jefferson’s vice president, Burr was not trusted by his own party. Burr's refusal to yield the victory in the election of 1800 to Jefferson, as he had promised, cost him the trust of his own party and that of Jefferson: for the rest of the administration, Burr remained an outsider. He killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804. He later organized a conspiracy to separate a part of the western U.S. and establish a country, for which he was tried but not convicted for treason.
Sig: He played a very dominant role in politics, especially in New York.
War with Tripoli 1801-1805
What: Tripoli was attacking U.S. ships and demanding tribute to engage in commerce in the Mediterranean. Jefferson went to war with the Pasha of Tripoli and won the war.
Sig: Jefferson, the noninterventionist, pacifist, small navy, and political foe of Federalist shippers, nevertheless sent the young U.S. Navy into combat in this war. This was the first war that the U.S. fought after the Revolution (not including the undeclared naval war with France).
Neutral Rights 1806 onward
Who: U.S. merchant shippers, Britain, France
Where: primarily the Atlantic Ocean…
What: Britain issued Orders in Council and France reciprocated with Decrees, prohibiting U.S. merchant ships from trading with the other country. Though the U.S. was neutral, American trade was caught in between these two warring countries.
Sig: The actions of Britain and France in defying neutral rights caused the
U.S. to respond with the Embargo of 1807, Non-Intercourse with Britain and France
in 1809, Macon’s Bill # 2 in 1810, and later the War of 1812 against Britain.
Jefferson’s neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars
When: 1807-1810
What: As the war progressed, Napoleon issued the Berlin and Milan decrees which enacted a blockade of Great Britain, and Great Britain issued Orders in Council, which ordered a blockade of Europe. Although the two blockades were not entirely successful, and some blockade-runners were able to sneak through, 1500 American ships were seized, and their sailors were impressed into the British navy. After the Chesapeake affair in 1807, Jefferson secured passage of the Embargo Act, prohibiting the merchants of the United States to trade with foreign nations. The act was intended to prevent an American entrance into the war by keeping the ships and goods in American harbors. However, it was next to impossible to enforce, and merchants looking for the lucrative trade smuggled many tons of goods in and out of the ports and into Canada. The act was repealed in 1809 during Jefferson's lame duck period, and replaced by the Non-Intercourse Act which allowed American ships to trade with any nations except the belligerent nations in Europe. Once again, the act failed to keep American ships out of the European harbors. The Non-Intercourse Act was replaced in 1810 with Macon’s Bill #2 (Madison is now president), opening trade with all with the understanding that if either Britain or France repealed the orders or decrees, the U.S. would impose an embargo on the other.
Sig: The U.S. was trying to stay out of war through economic sanctions, which in the end failed.
U.S.S. Chesapeake and H.M.S. Leopard 1807
Who: American frigate, Chesapeake; British frigate, Leopard
Where: Ten miles off the coast of Virginia
What: The Leopard attempted to force the impressment of four men on the Chesapeake. When the Chesapeake refused, it was fired upon, killing three Americans and wounding eighteen.
Sig: This incident greatly angered the American public. As a result, Jefferson was pressed for war, but he enacted the embargo instead.
Impressment
Who: The United States and Great Britain
Where: Neutral ships on the seas (mostly American ships)
What: The British Navy declared the right to search any neutral vessel on the seas for deserters. What they really did was they conscripted men between the ages of 18-55 years old to serve as sailors in the Royal Navy. The British were kidnapping American men and forcing them to serve in their navy.
Sig: The United States needed to prove to Britain that the U.S. was independent, not subject to the Crown any longer. The U.S. had to protect the safety and freedom of the American people, especially sailors. This led to the War of 1812.
Embargo 1807
Who: Jefferson’s presidency
Where: affected New England the most
What: Congress passed the Embargo Act in 1807, completely forbidding
the export of goods from the United States. Jefferson took this drastic measure in hopes of obtaining respect for neutral trading rights through letting Britain and France suffer from lack of American trade.
Sig: The embargo greatly harmed U.S. commerce, causing much resentment. New England and mid-Atlantic merchants routinely violated the embargo. Also, the failure of the embargo resulted in eventual war with Britain.
Non-Intercourse Act and Macon’s Bill #2 1809-1810
What: The Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 was similar to Jefferson’s embargo, but it solely targeted Britain and France. In 1810, Congress replaced it with Macon’s Bill No. 2, which opened up trade with Britain and France on one condition: if either of the two countries repealed its commercial restrictions, the U.S. would restore the embargo
against the country that failed to do so.
Sig: Napoleon craftily caused Madison to restore the embargo on Britain,
leading to the War of 1812.
War of 1812 Causes
Who: The United States and Great Britain
What: The English instituted maritime blockades of European ports to prevent American shipping from helping the French during the war between England and France. The British also claimed the right to stop any neutral vessel and search the ship for “deserters.” Many American ships were taken, and men were impressed into the British Navy. This can be seen in the Chesapeake-Leopard affair of 1807. Economic sanctions were tried but were unsuccessful (Embargo, Non-Intercourse, Macon’s Bill #2). With the coming of the War Hawks to Congress in 1810, western fears of and British aid to the Indians became an issue that contributed to war fever. Great Britain wanted to control the trade routes to keep the U.S. out of European ports during the war with France. The United States had to defend the right to export American goods without losing men or ships. The U.S. also objected to Great Britain supporting the Indians along the Great Lakes.
Sig: America had to defend its rights, government, commerce and independence. Madison and the War Hawks chose war as the vehicle to do so (Jefferson chose embargo, which did not work; Madison chose war, which defended American rights and honor).
Tecumseh and the Prophet early 1800’s
Who: Two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (“the Prophet”)
Where: Indian tribes east of the Mississippi in the Ohio Valley
What: Tecumseh and the Prophet organized a confederacy of Indian tribes to
renew their culture and fight against the advancing American frontier. At the
Battle of Tippecanoe (1811, in present-day Indiana), William Henry Harrison
defeated the Prophet’s people, hurting the movement. Tecumseh died fighting for the
British in the Battle of the Thames in 1813.
Sig: Tecumseh’s death in 1813 marked the end of the dream of an Indian
confederacy and represented continued evidence that opposition to the United States
would result in military and political defeat for Native-Americans.
American Successes Arise from European Distresses 1790’s-1820’s
Who: Indians, Britain, Spain, France, and the United States
What: While the wars of the French Revolution (1792-1801) and the Napoleonic Wars (1802-1815) were raging, the U.S. had an opportunity to achieve successes from European distresses.
There were six main instances when America profited from the distress of Europe.
1795 Greenville Treaty. After the battle of Fallen Timbers and being abandoned by the British, the Indians gave up some of the Old Northwest in exchange for $20,000 and the right to still hunt on those lands.
1794/95 Jay Treaty with Britain. The British promised to evacuate posts on U.S. soil and to pay damages for the seized American ships. The U.S. had to pay the debts owed to merchants on pre-Revolutionary accounts.
1795 Pinckney Treaty with Spain. Spain, fearing friendship between the U.S. and Britain due to the Jay Treaty, granted to the U.S. free navigation of the Mississippi and the right of deposit at New Orleans, while giving up its claim to that part of old British Florida north of the 31° parallel. (Britain once said that West Florida went all the way up to 32º28', so Spain claimed up to 32º28' but gave up that claim in this treaty.)
1800 Convention of 1800 in which the Franco-American Alliance of 1778 was cancelled (in return, the U.S. would pay damage claims of American shippers against the French). [The U.S. would not enter into a permanent entangling military alliance again until 1949 and NATO.]
1803 Louisiana Purchase from France, doubling the size of the U.S. at a small cost of $15 million.
1823 Monroe Doctrine which stated that other nations would no longer be allowed to colonize or interfere in the Western Hemisphere.
[Lum says CLAD’M in Green PJ’s (Convention of 1800, Louisiana Purchase, Monroe Doctrine, Greenville, Pinckney, Jay)]
Sig: America gained much from the distress going on in Europe. Much land was gained from other countries during this period. (If there is an early national foreign policy essay question on the AP exam, “Europe’s distresses = America’s successes” represents a good thesis/argument.)
Treaty of Ghent Christmas Eve, 1814
Who: U.S. and Britain
What: The U.S. and Britain agreed to stop fighting, ending the War of 1812.
Remarkably, neither side gained any concessions, attesting to a virtual draw between the two countries.
Sig: Though America didn’t get what it wanted at the start of the War of 1812, it didn’t lose anything to Britain either. The war fostered a sense of nationalism.
Indeed, the war is called the second war of American independence, announcing to
the world that the U.S. was not a nation to be taken lightly anymore.
Battle of New Orleans January 8, 1815
Who: Andrew Jackson led Americans against 8,000 British troops
Where: New Orleans, Louisiana
What: The British troops attacked Andrew Jackson’s well-fortified troops, resulting in a tremendous American victory. Two thousand British were killed or wounded compared with around seventy for the Americans.
Sig: Though this battle occurred after the War of 1812 ended,
the victory greatly boosted American nationalism and honor. Further, Jackson became
a national hero. (Americans like to elect presidents who were war heroes/generals.)
Hartford Convention December 15, 1814 to January 5, 1815
Who: Federalists who were discontented with the War of 1812
Where: Hartford, Connecticut
What: Numerous New England states, feeling abused by Madison’s war, sent representatives to Hartford, Connecticut to discuss their grievances. The resulting convention demanded compensation for lost trade and sought preventive measures against future embargoes, state admissions, and wars, among other things. The resolutions of the Hartford Convention were overshadowed by the victory of the Battle of New Orleans, causing the movement to die.
Sig: The Hartford Convention marked the death of the Federalist Party.
It is also an example of New England’s sympathy towards nullification at the time.
While nullification and secession are normally associated with the South, the
Hartford Convention demonstrates that the South did not have a monopoly on
states’ rights and secessionist thinking.
Consequences of the War of 1812
What: Following the War of 1812, a new nationalism emerged in the United States. Henry Clay's "American System" was a neofederalist program of a national bank, a tariff to promote and protect domestic industry, and congressionally financed internal improvements. President Madison, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams helped fashion this new political agenda, which promised to meet the needs of all sections (remember Lum’s BART). Also, with the beginnings of the Monroe presidency came the “Era of Good Feelings” (referring to the era of peace and prosperity in the beginning of Monroe’s presidency), which further sparked nationalism.
Sig: A new sense of American nationalism emerged after the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was nicknamed “the Second War of Independence” because this level of nationalism had not been seen since the Revolutionary War and the U.S. fought Britain to a draw. The United States became internally much stronger through Henry Clay’s “American System”.
Nationalism (devotion or loyalty to a nation)
A sense of nationalism arose after the War of 1812. Judicial nationalism of the Marshall Court can be cited. [All of the following very important cases are Marshall court decisions. Marbury v. Madison (1803), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) for lifting up national authority at state expense; Fletcher v. Peck (1810) and Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1832) for lifting up the sanctity of contracts that cannot be eroded by state actions. Marshall’s decisions, in addition to strengthening federal authority, protected business interests from encroachment by individual states. Thus the Marshall court can be characterized as pro-business also.]. Economic nationalism associated with the American System can be cited also: banks, roads, canals, protective tariffs, all contributed to the notion of “nation,” as opposed to more regional or sectional interests. Cultural nationalism can be seen in the works of the painters of the Hudson River School (Thomas Cole), and Lum’s BIC writers (Bryant, Irving, Cooper).
The Tariff of 1816
What: Even with the Federalist party gasping its last breath, the nationalist Congress of 1816 passed the first tariff in U.S. history primarily for protection—20 to 25 percent on many imports.
Sig: Hamilton would have been happy—here we see the emergence of the kind of leadership that he envisioned in his three reports of 1790/91. He would have been delighted with the American System, described below. Source: AP241
The “American System”—around 1824 [with comments on the power of BART]
Who: Henry Clay
What: Clay proposed a three-part plan to develop a profitable home market. First a strong banking system was needed that would provide easy and abundant credit. Next Clay wanted a protective tariff that would allow eastern manufacturing to flourish. Revenues from the flourishing economy would support the third component, a network of roads and canals that would help transport foodstuffs and raw materials from the South and West to the North and East.
Sig: Here is an emerging sense of nationalism. Cries for better transportation erupted in the nation, especially in the West. Individual states took control of construction of canals and roads (i.e. the Erie Canal). Clay’s American System is essentially what Hamilton proposed in his three 1790/91 reports and what President Madison articulated in his 7th annual address to Congress in 1815. All of these can be summed up in one of Lum’s words: BART!!! [What was the heart of the Whig political agenda in the 1840s, when they elected two presidents?? BART!!! What was the domestic political agenda (aside from winning the war, homesteads, and higher education) of the Republicans during the Civil War?? BART!! Start BART with Hamilton (1790-91), and then run it through Madison (1815), Clay (1824), the Whigs (1840s) and the Republicans (1860s).]
“Era of Good Feelings” (1817-1825)
Who: The Administrations of Monroe
What: When James Monroe (slaveowning Virginian) went into Federalist New
England, “the enemy’s country,” he received a heartwarming welcome. A Boston newspaper was so far carried away as to announce that an “Era of Good Feelings” had been ushered in. This happy phrase has been commonly used since then to describe the administrations of Monroe. The Era of Good Feelings, unfortunately, was something of a misnomer. Considerable tranquility and prosperity did in fact smile upon the early years of Monroe, but the period was a troubled one. The acute issues of the tariff, the bank, internal improvements, and the sale of public lands were being hotly contested.
Sig: The “Era of Good Feelings” helped to promote an emerging sense of
nationalism. (With the Panic of 1819, one can argue that the Era was short-lived.)
American Colonization Society 1817
Who: African-Americans
What: The American Colonization Society (ACS), founded in 1817, grew out of efforts by a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey, Robert Finley. It was typical of many benevolent societies of the period. Americans viewed the society as a solution to what was thought to be the dual problem of freeing blacks and the incompatibility of the races. Although William Lloyd Garrison and other activists ultimately rejected the gradual approach of colonizationists, the movement maintained its appeal for moderates, among them Abraham Lincoln.
In 1822 the ACS established Liberia on the west coast of Africa. Over the next forty years the society settled some twelve thousand African-Americans in that country. Although the society existed until 1912, after 1860 it functioned primarily as the "caretaker" of the settlement in Liberia. (Liberia is an independent nation today.)
Sig: Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, extreme hostility, prejudice, and racism can be seen throughout America. No matter what the motives of ACS supporters were, all believed that free blacks could not be assimilated into American society and that the solution was resettlement in Africa.
Convention of 1818
Who: United States and Britain
Where: The Oregon area (and the boundary between the US and Canada from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies)
What: The dispute originated because uncertainty in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
The Convention of 1818 set the boundary at the 49th parallel. The agreement extended
the northern boundary westward from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
Further, both sides agreed to occupy Oregon jointly for ten years (renewable).
Sig: This settled the disputed area at the 49th parallel and temporarily resolved the Oregon issue. (Final settlement came in 1846, shortly after the U.S. entered into war with Mexico.)
Panic of 1819
What: This was the first national financial panic since President Washington took office. It brought deflation, depression, bankruptcies, bank failures, unemployment, soup kitchens, and overcrowded pesthouses known as debtors’ prisons. Many factors contributed to the catastrophe of 1819, but looming large was over-speculation in frontier lands. The Bank of the United States, through its western branches, had become deeply involved in this popular type of outdoor gambling.
Sig: Not only was this the first national financial panic since President Washington took office, but it was also a rude setback to the nationalistic ardor. The Panic is considered by many to be the end of the “Era of Good Feelings.”
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Who: Maryland and Chief Justice John Marshall
Where: Baltimore, Maryland (branch of the 2nd BUS)
What: The state of Maryland levied a tax on the Bank of the United
States in opposition to the Bank and to protect the competitive position of its own state banks. Marshall’s ruling declared that no state has the right to control an agency of the federal government. Since “the power to tax is the power to destroy,” such state action violated Congress’ “implied powers” to establish and operate a national bank.
Sign: This Supreme Court decision strengthened federal authority and slapped at state infringements on federal authority under the Constitution. The Bank existed under the implied powers clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18). This decision represents judicial nationalism, where the Court is the final arbiter of the Constitution and where state acts contrary to the Constitution are null and void. This decision also reflects what is supported in The Federalist Papers and what is known as judicial review. In Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Court struck down part of an act of Congress. Here, the Court struck down a State act as unconstitutional.
Adams-Onis Treaty 1819 (“Step Treaty Line”, “Transcontinental Treaty”)
Who: Spain and the United States
Where: Florida, western boundary of Louisiana Purchase
What: With the collapse of its empire, Spain knew it could not hold Florida anymore. Spain also wanted to settle the Louisiana Territory border on its north (U.S. southwest/western border). Spain ceded Florida to the U.S., abandoned any claim to the Oregon territory, and agreed to a boundary for the Louisiana Territory and a boundary along the 42º to the Pacific Ocean. [The Spanish negotiated for the easternmost boundary it could get (in an effort to keep the U.S. as far from Mexico as possible), in the end settling on the Sabine River, which is the easternmost boundary of Texas.] (The United States in exchange agreed to assume $5 million in debts owed to American merchants.)
Sig: This gave the U.S. the rest of Florida and settled an uncertain boundary on the U.S. southwestern border. (Note: With the Spanish abandoning claims above 42º and the Russians in 1824 staying above 54º40', the entire Oregon Territory was left to the U.S. and Britain to jointly occupy under the Convention of 1818 and then finally divide in 1846.)
Missouri Compromise 1820
Who: North (US), South (US), and Henry Clay
Where: Missouri, the remainder of the Louisiana Territory, and Maine
What: Congress agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a separate free state. This kept the balance between the North and the South at twelve states each. (Balance was critical to maintain slave power in the Senate). Although the state of Missouri was permitted to retain slaves, all future bondage was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the line of 36o30’, which was the southern boundary of Missouri.
Sig: The Missouri Compromise deferred final discussion of slavery. In the end, the Civil War finally resolved the issue. Jefferson called it the “death knell” of the Union. (Death knell is a bell tolled slowly at the time of a funeral.)
Monroe Doctrine 1823
What: President Monroe, in his annual address to Congress in 1823, announced what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the European powers could no longer look to the new world for colonization. He argued that the old world’s political institutions (monarchy) were so different from the new world’s (republics) that the old world would no longer be welcome in the new. Further, he suggested that European nations not interfere in the new world. Noncolonization and nonintervention were in his message.
Sig: While this proud and nationalistic statement was scorned at the start by the powers of the old world, over time the Doctrine developed and was used by various presidents, including Polk and T. Roosevelt.
Age of Jackson, 1824-48
Texas in the 1820s
Where: Texas, from the Sabine River on the east to the Nueces on the southwest
Who: Spain (1819-21), Mexico (1821 to 1836), and American settlers
What: Spain and then Mexico invited Americans to settle in their northeastern province of Texas. In 1823, Mexico granted to Stephen Austin a tract of land upon which Americans could settle, with the understanding that they would become Catholic Mexicans. The Texans paid little attention to that, and by 1835 there were 30,000 Americans in Texas (ready to fight when Santa Anna established a dictatorship). Also, when Mexico prohibited slavery in 1830, the Texas slaveowners did not comply, further aggravating the situation between Americans in Texas and the Mexican government.
Sig: The settlement in the 1820s set the stage for the Texas War of Independence in 1836
Lowell System—1820s and into the 1830s
What: In pre-industrial America, farm girls made cloth, candles, soap, butter, cheese on the farm. Emerging industries in the nineteenth century replaced this kind of farm/subsistence labor and provided employment for the girls and young women in factories. In 1826 the town of Lowell was founded in Massachusetts. The “Boston Associates” built boardinghouses to accommodate its labor force of twelve-to-twenty-five-year-old females. The twenty-five or so women residing in each house developed a sense of sisterhood, working, eating, and spending leisure time together. Although they enjoyed the cultural and economic advantages available in Lowell, they did not succumb to the popular notion that Lowell was a "finishing school for young ladies." They had come, mostly from New England farms, to work, and they expected to be paid for their labor and treated with respect. When a downturn occurred in the textile industry beginning in 1829 and management sought to cut wages, these women reacted. They went out on strike in 1834 and 1836 and ran petition campaigns in the 1840s. They formed the Factory Girls' Association and joined the widespread ten-hour movement.
Sig: Theirs were among the first forms of collective action taken by industrial workers. In response, mill owners there and elsewhere turned to immigrant labor, hiring French-Canadian and Irish workers to replace the native-born labor force.
Anti-Masonic Party 1832 and later
What: A political party that first appeared in the 1832 presidential campaign, it opposed the “influence and secrecy” of the Masonic order. They were roused up by the mysterious disappearance of a New Yorker threatening to expose the secret rituals of the Masonic order (he was probably murdered by the Masonic order). The party fed upon the public’s suspicion of secret societies and spread its influence throughout the Atlantic and into the New England states. It was also anti-Jackson since Jackson was Masonic.
Sig: This is the first third-party in American politics. [While not significant, third parties can influence elections on occasion. Look at the effect of the Liberty Party votes in New York which cost Clay the election of 1844, or TR’s Bull Moose Party votes which cost Taft the election of 1912—in both cases the Democrats won: Polk in 1844, and Wilson in 1912, with both receiving less than 50% of the “popular vote.”]
Expansion of Suffrage early 18th century
What: As states dropped various property qualifications during the Jacksonian period, more and more adult white males were able to vote.
Sig: This is an element of Jacksonian Democracy; politics and campaigns became rougher and tougher as candidates sought the vote of the “common man.”
Jacksonian Democracy
What: Jacksonian Democracy refers to several elements that characterize the period roughly from 1828 to 1848 (from Jackson through Polk).
1. Expansion of suffrage occurred as states dropped property qualifications (many more “common” men voted).
2. Jackson’s and his followers hated monopoly and special privilege (e.g., the 2nd BUS). 3. Campaigns were directed at the “common man,” featuring political party conventions to select candidates, and campaigns that appealed to common people and not the privileged. (It became best to be born in a log cabin no matter where you might have been born.) Campaigns became more democratic.
4. While Jefferson appealed to farmers and agrarian interests, Jacksonian Democracy appealed to both rural and urban voters [Lum’s LAFS: laborers, artisans (shoemakers, wheelwrights, carpenters), farmers, small shopkeepers.]
5. The Spoils System, where party loyalists would get government jobs.
6. Jackson and many of his followers were anti-Native American (e.g., Indian Removal Act of 1830, leading to the Trail of Tears in ’38-’39)
Sig: The Jacksonian period is a watershed in American life. If you STAPLERD the period, you would be able to fire many PEPS not only related to Jackson and the Jacksonians but to many other matters too.
Jacksonian Policies: 1) the Bank, 2) the Specie Circular, 3) Indian Removal (1824-1837)
The Bank War
Who: The conflict was between President Andrew Jackson and the Bank’s president Nicholas Biddle
What: Andrew Jackson believed that the Bank was an unconstitutional monopoly. Thus, he started the War on the Bank (1832-1833). Biddle held enormous power over the financial affairs of the nation. Webster and Clay in 1832 presented to Congress a bill to renew the Bank of the United States charter that was to expire in 1836. However, they were pushing for renewal four years early to make it an election issue in 1832. If Jackson signed, it would alienate agrarian voters in the west. If vetoed, he would lose the election by alienating the wealthy in the east. He won, and in 1833, Jackson attacked the Bank by depositing federal revenues in other banks and removing federal deposits from its vaults, while continuing to make demands on the Bank of the United States. Biddle fought hard but lost in the end.
Sig: Jackson vetoed the re-charter bill. He was reelected, and thus used his reelection as a mandate to defeat the bank. Without some central guidance, state banks were free to engage in speculative activities, which created a disorganized financial situation in the nation. This would contribute to the Panic of 1837.
The Specie Circular
Another policy of Jackson involved the Specie Circular, which was a decree that
obligated all public lands to be purchased with “hard,” or metallic, money. There was too much speculation in western lands, and requiring that lands be paid with scarce hard money would slow or stop the speculation.
Sig: The Specie Circular helped contribute to the financial panic/crash in 1837.
Indian Removal
A third policy of Jackson was to remove the remaining eastern tribes--chiefly Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles--beyond the Mississippi. He wanted the lands for white settlers. His policy led to the forced uprooting of more than 100,000 Indians. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which relocated Indian tribes east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory in the west. In the fall and winter of 1838-39, during VanBuren’s presidency, the Army forcibly removed 15,000 Cherokees from their homes in the east to Indian Territory in the west (present day Oklahoma). This journey was known as the Trail of Tears. About 4,000 died on the journey.
Sig: By forced removal of the Native Americans, many died. The Indian removal vividly demonstrates continuing abuse of Native Americans by the ever-expanding people of the U.S. and its government. [Note that Chief Blackhawk in Illinois fought back, and Abe Lincoln was with the Illinois militia that helped the U.S. win the Blackhawk War of 1832. In talking so much about the five southeastern tribes, we tend to forget the Blackhawk War of 1832.]
Spoils system 1828 on
What: Jackson’s spoils system granted rewards to political supporters by giving them public office. Basically, governmental jobs went to the winner of an election. Thus party people could be rewarded with jobs. Scandal and corruption ensued as illiterates, incompetents, or thieves could be given high office. Its name came from Senator William Marcy’s classic remark in 1832, “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.” Jackson thought that government jobs were fairly simple, not requiring specialized expertise. The spoils system played a major role in the emerging two-party order.
Sig: The spoils system overwhelmed newly elected politicians. [Later, Politicians would see how shameful the spoils system was when President Garfield was assassinated by a disaffected office-seeker in 1881. The Civil Service Reform Act (Pendleton Act) of 1883 followed.]
The Second Party System
Who: Democrats and Whigs
What: A permanent two party system was spawned from the 1840 election. Democrats gloried in the liberty of an individual, and the Whigs gloried in the harmony of society and value of community. Democrats favored states’ rights and federal restraint in social and economic affairs, while the Whigs favored a renewed national bank, internal improvements, protective tariffs (BART), public school and moral reforms, including prohibition and the abolition of slavery.
Sig: Both parties were “mass-based,” i.e., they tried to appeal to as many voters as possible. The two-party system, which is not in the constitution but is simply a matter of tradition in the U.S., became a permanent part of the American political landscape.
Maysville Road veto 1830
What: The Maysville Road Bill authorized the use of federal funds to build a road between Maysville and Lexington. Jackson vetoed this, claiming it unconstitutional because it applied only to the state of Kentucky. Jackson had previously pledged to reduce the national debt and this was a perfect opportunity.
Sig: The veto dealt a blow to Henry Clay’s American System since it dealt with internal improvements. The Maysville Road veto does reflect Jackson’s left-side thinking.
Supporters and opponents of federal supremacy: The Webster-Hayne debate 1830
Who: Senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina
What: Hayne argued that the federal Constitution was a compact among the sovereign states and raised the specter of nullification as an option for states harmed by federal action. Webster argued that the Constitution was not just an agreement among the states but the supreme law of the land. He attacked the radical states’ rights position as being destructive of the United States, asserting that civil war could be a consequence.
Sig: The Webster-Hayne debate highlights the growing philosophical argument between federal supremacy and state sovereignty. Coming 30 years before the Civil War, the rhetoric is prophetic. Webster’s second reply to Hayne is a classic that ends with "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
Nullification Crisis—1828-33
What:
Tariff issue, including Tariff of Abominations/1828
Tariffs protected American industry against competition from European manufactured goods, but they also drove up prices for all Americans and invited retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural exports abroad. Southerners reacted angrily against the tariff because they believed the “Yankee tariff” discriminated against them. Calhoun wrote the “Exposition and Protest” which lifted up nullification.
Ordinance of Nullification (South Carolina)/November 24, 1832
Although the 1832 tariff was lower than 1828, the people of South Carolina met “in convention assembled” and declared the tariff to be null and void within South Carolina, in clear violation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
Force Bill/1833
Also know as the “Bloody Bill” it authorized the president to use the army and navy if necessary, to collect federal tariff duties. A compromise tariff was brokered by Clay. South Carolina repealed the ordinance of nullification, but then nullified the force bill. [This is the “s” word here: Who is sovereign, the U.S. with its supremacy clause or the people of the State of South Carolina ‘in convention assembled”?]
Sig: Stepping-stone to Civil War. Nullification provides the legal justification for violation of the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Nullification is a strong states’ rights concept, not consistent with Article VI (supremacy clause) of the Constitution.
Cherokee Indians and the Supreme Court
What: Supreme Court decision, Worcester v. Georgia 31 U.S. 515 (1832), in which the Supreme Court held that Cherokee Native Americans were entitled to federal protection from the actions of state governments.
Sig: This is a case of federal supremacy again, where the Court ruled that the U.S. government is the only agency to regulate Indian affairs (not the states). Jackson did nothing to enforce the decision, and Georgia was allowed to continue its abuse of the Cherokees.
Democracy in America by DeTocqueville (published in 1835)
What: The French traveler and observer wrote an analysis of America based on his journey in 1831-32. He observed that African-Americans and Indians are relegated to the lowest ends of the scale, that whites push out the Indians, that women fare better in the U.S. than in Europe, that there is no aristocracy in the U.S., and that fortunes are made on the basis of merit and opportunity in the U.S.
Sig: Democracy in America is one of the most credible and widely read books on American society in the early nineteenth century. Even with its elitist, Eurocentric biases, it is a very good analysis of the U.S. in the 1830s.
Panic of 1837
What: The cause of the Panic was the mania of get-rich-quick which caused large amounts of speculation. Gamblers in western lands were doing business off borrowed capital which eventually spread to canals, roads, railroads, and slaves. Failed wheat crop, high grain prices, failed banks, factories closing, and unemployed people were part of the Panic.
Sig: One of the many recurring panics or recessions in U.S. History, the panic cause failed banks, factory closure, and unemployment. The panic helped create the Jacksonian Democrats’ demand for an Independent Treasury.
Van Buren Independent Treasury System 1840
Who: President Van Buren
What: People thought that the financial fever and Panic of 1837 was caused by having federal funds in private banks (private banks could then speculate with U.S. funds). Van Buren wanted to separate the government from banking. With the establishment of the independent treasury the government locked its money in independent vaults in various cities, free from the control of state banks. The Whigs got rid of the independent treasury in the early 40s.
Sig: Reenacted by the Democrats under Polk in 1846, the independent treasury system continued until merged with the Federal Reserve system in 1913.
Whigs (about 1832 to 1852) and the American System
What: The Whigs favored a national bank, protective tariffs, internal improvements such as canals and roads, public schools, and moral reforms such as prohibition of liquor and abolition of slavery. [BART + reforms] They had many powerful leaders such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy Adams. They elected presidents in 1840 and 1848 (Harrison and Taylor).
Sig: The Whigs supported the BART system but eventually broke up in 1852 over slavery, most notably the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. [The northern Whigs joined the Republican Party when it was formed in 1854.]
Jacksonian Democracy: successes and limitations 1828-1848
Who: President Andrew Jackson and the Jacksonian Democrats (including Polk)
Successes: supported laborers, artisans, farmers, and shop keepers (Lum’s LAFS). Citizens no longer needed property to vote. Handled the tariff controversy
well. During Polk’s administration, secured the northern half of Mexico for the U.S., adding immensely to the nation’s wealth, and settled the Oregon boundary.
Limitations: treated the Indians badly, destroyed the second bank of
the United States, which contributed to the Panic of 1837, and created the spoils system; under Polk, engaged in an imperialistic war of conquest against a friendly nation (Mexico).
Transportation Developments in the Early Nineteenth Century
National Road and Cumberland Road
Who: The federal government and the individual states.
Where: Cumberland, in western Maryland, to Vandalia, in Illinois
What: Westerners scored a notable triumph in 1811 when the federal government began to construct the elongated National Road, or Cumberland Road. The War of 1812 interrupted construction, and a states’ rights shackle on internal improvements hampered federal grants. But the thoroughfare was belatedly brought to its destination in 1852 by a combination of aid from the states and the federal government.
Sig: The construction of these roads helped to stimulate the western expansion movement. Further, building national roads that link various regions of the nation together contributed to nationalism. The transportation system also contributed to the market revolution.
Erie Canal 1825
Who: State of New York
Where: The Hudson River at Albany, to Lake Erie
What: The Erie Canal, linking the Hudson River at Albany, New York, with Lake Erie was completed in 1825 and became the first and most successful example of an artificial waterway in the U.S. A rash of construction followed it until canals linked every major waterway system east of the Mississippi River.
Sig: This canal that ran east and west tied the new West to the old East and contributed to the development of a national economy, one in which farmers could move from simple subsistence farming to cash-crop farming. The transportation system that emerged allowed farm produce to move east and finished products to move west, thus connecting farmers with merchants and creating a national economy. Regional issues remained important, but increasingly those issues could be linked to national concerns (in this case, the production, distribution, and sale of goods and produce). Link all of this to the market revolution, where advances in transportation and manufacturing permitted inter-regional exchanges of goods and produce, thus making the farmer in the west dependent on the manufacturer in the east, and vice versa.
Railroads
What: The first railroad appeared in the U.S. in 1828, and by 1860 there were 30,000 miles of track, 3/4ths in the industrializing North. Railroads were less expensive than canals, could be built anywhere, and did not freeze over in winter. Railroads took over from canals by the 1850s. (Internal improvements in 1815 = canals; by 1860 = railroads)
Sig: Railroads became a major industry in the later part of the nineteenth century. Railroads contributed greatly to the growth of a national market economy that linked all regions of the country together (but mostly east and west).
Immigration and Nativism 1840-1850s
Irish Immigration 1830-1900
What: The Irish potato crop was destroyed in the 1840s, uprooting many Irish who emigrated to the U.S. With little money to move west they settled in eastern seaboard cities and became the cheap labor supply in competition with free African-American laborers. (Resentments rose over this.) They kept their own Catholic religion, which fomented resentment among Protestants. They started their own school systems and began to take over local political machines and police forces. While they were at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, they became a power to be reckoned with in eastern cities.
Sig: From 1830 to 1860, some two million Irish came to the U.S. Another two million came between 1860 and 1900. They were a political and economic force that fueled American urban politics and industry.
German Immigration
What: In the 1840s and 1850s, almost two million Germans emigrated to the U.S. due to crop failures and the failure of the liberal revolution of 1848. They brought money with them and had the ability to spread out to the farmlands of the Midwest. Better-educated than many, they supported public schools (the Kindergarten) and they became outspoken defenders of freedom and relentless enemies of slavery. They were culturally different from most Americans and resentment directed at them was common.
Sig: The Germans brought cultural diversity and many contributions to the U.S. They were hard-working, reform oriented, and freedom-loving.
American (Know-Nothing) Party and Nativism in the 1840s and 1850s
What: A political party organized in 1849 around one issue, hatred of foreigners. It also spread some ugly anti-Irish, anti-German, and anti-Catholic propaganda. The party wanted restrictions on immigration and naturalization and the deportation of alien paupers.
Sig: The Know-Nothing (American) Party reflected anti-immigrant nativist attitudes. (Nativism would reappear in U.S. history as a reaction to the flood of immigrants who came to the U.S. between the Civil War and
World War I. Nativists had a great victory with the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively reduced immigration to a trickle.)
Religion, Reform, and Renaissance in Antebellum American
Cult of Domesticity and Women’s Rights
What: As the market economy created separate roles for men and women (with the men at work and the women at home), the idea of the “cult of domesticity” arose, whereby women at home were meant to teach the young how to be good and productive citizens within her special sphere. It was in the home that the woman was expected to display her morally and artistically superior sensitivities (according to the “cult of domesticity,” she was too emotionally and physically weak to handle the demands of the workplace).
Sig: The “cult of domesticity” asserted the physical and emotional weaknesses of women while lifting up their moral and artistic strengths. This kind of discrimination was the foundation for keeping women politically and economically subordinate to men. The reaction to the “cult” can be seen in the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 (including the “Declaration of Sentiments”), Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a woman?” speech, and Margaret Fuller’s feminist book, Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845).
Women’s rights and the role of women in the nineteenth century 1790-1860
Who: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller
Where: The women’s rights movement was primarily in the northeast, but strong in other areas also.
What: Women fought to break down the “cult of domesticity” that bound women to their homes. They were also involved in other reform movements of the 19th century such as temperance and abolition of slavery. Most importantly, Mott and Stanton were at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, which produced the “Declaration of Sentiments” (modeled after the Declaration of Independence). [The fight over abolition eclipsed the women’s rights movement up to the Civil War, and when African-American males got the vote in 1870, many women were genuinely disappointed and disillusioned that they did not get the vote also. While some states, notably western, granted the vote to women as early as 1869 (in Wyoming), women did not get the vote at the national level until the 19th amendment in 1920.]
Sig: Starting with Seneca Falls, 1848, the women’s rights movement remains one of the most enduring civil rights movements in U.S. history.
Education Reform, 1820-1860
Who: Horace Mann, Noah Webster, William H. McGuffey, Emma Willard
Where: Massachusetts and then the rest of the U.S. (through Horace Mann and his brilliant reforms on the Massachusetts Board of Education)
What: Horace Mann’s reforms called for more 1) public schools, 2) higher pay for teachers, 3) longer teaching terms, and an 4) expanded curriculum. Schools were of poor quality and open only a few months of the year. Mann changed that as superintendent of schools in Massachusetts. Noah Webster wrote reading lessons for children and the dictionary, McGuffey published school reading books (the “Readers”.) Mary Lyon and Emma Willard each established a women’s seminary, and higher education was gaining throughout the country.
Sig: Stimulated the modern public school system and focus on education. All of the goals of the education reformers were achieved: better training for and higher paid teachers, expanded curriculum, a longer school year, and better facilities.
Second Great Awakening
What: Evangelical Christian revivals swept across America, notably in the 1830s and most notably in western New York, which became known as the “burned-over district.” Known as the Second Great Awakening, it was a growing reaction to liberalism and deism. As new converts swelled the ranks of Methodists and Baptists churches, those converts were also encouraged to crusade against the wrongs in society, notably alcohol, slavery and women’s rights.
Sig: The Second Great Awakening spawned many reform movements and was one of the most momentous episodes in U.S. religious history.
Second Great Awakening: Charles G. Finney and his PAW agenda (1830’s)
Who: Charles G. Finney was the greatest of the revival preachers during the Second Great Awakening.
Sig: In addition to his preaching, he supported the PAW agenda. P: prohibition of alcohol. A: abolition of slavery. W: women’s rights and women involved with religion. He had a great influence on many people.
Mormons (1830’s-40’s)
Who: Joseph Smith and Mormons
Where: New York, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois
What: Joseph Smith received golden plates from an angel, which became the Book of Mormon. People opposed Mormons because they voted as a unit and they practiced polygamy. In 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered in Illinois. Mormons then moved to Utah while being led by Brigham Young.
Sig: This is the most significant religion that arose out of the Burned-Over district of New York during the Second Great Awakening. It is the dominant religion in Utah today.
New Harmony
What: In 1825, Robert Owen purchased the community of New Harmony on the Wabash River in Indiana, hoping to establish a model (utopian) community where education and social equality would flourish. His “Community of Equality” dissolved by 1827, ravaged by personal conflicts and the inadequacies of the community in the areas of labor and agriculture.
Sig: This is one of the many failed utopian experiments in the early 19th century.
Oneida Community 1848-1880
Where: New York
What: Founded by John Humphrey Noyes, who repudiated the old Puritan doctrines that God was vengeful and that sinful mankind was doomed to dwell in a vale of tears. He believed in free love (“complex marriage”), birth control, and “Bible Communism." (Complex marriage meant that each man was married to every woman in the society, and vice versa, with the understanding that sexual intercourse was permissible, but no two people could form a traditional union.) In 1880, Oneida left communism and became a joint-stock company specializing in the manufacture of silver tableware. Society marginalized the Oneida Community because of free love (“complex marriage”) and selective breeding.
Sig: Was once one of the biggest utopian communities that arose out of the Second Great Awakening.
Brook Farm 1841-46
Where: Massachusetts
What: Transcendentalists settled on a 200 acre farm and practiced a communitarian lifestyle. A fire in 1846 destroyed their building and the experiment in “plain living and high thinking” collapsed in debt.
Sig: Brook Farm demonstrates the utopian fervor that captured the imagination of idealists at mid-nineteenth century.
Transcendentalists 1830s-1850s
Where: Largely in Massachusetts
What: Transcendentalists denied that all knowledge comes to the mind from the senses (or the Bible) but instead every person has an inner light that illuminates the highest truths and puts one in touch with God, or the “Oversoul.” Exaltation of the dignity of the individual was paramount in transcendentalism, and from this came an array of humanitarian reforms. Best known: 1) Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson promoted self-reliance, self-confidence, and freedom, all of which were well in tune with the ideals being developed by the American people. His most notable speech was his 1837 “American Scholar.”
(2) Henry David Thoreau, whose On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King. 3) Margaret Fuller, editor of the transcendentalist pamphlet Dial, and author of the feminist book Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845).
Sig: Transcendentalism is strictly American and liberates the people from the grasp of European influences. The movement represents the independence, self-reliance, and idealism of many Americans.
Hudson River School 1825-on
Who: A group of romantic landscape artists. Thomas Doughty, Albert Bierstadt, and Thomas Cole were some of the famous artists. See AP339 for Cole’s 1836 “Oxbow” (in the Connecticut River).
What: The group focused on romantic styles of landscape painting.
Sig: For the first time, a number of American artists began to devote themselves to landscape painting instead of portraiture. The works of these artists reflected a new concept of wilderness, one in which humans were an insignificant intrusion in a landscape more beautiful than fearsome.
Knickerbocker School 1820s
Who: William Cullen Bryant (Thanatopsis), Washington Irving (“Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle,” both in the Sketch Book), and James Fenimore Cooper (Leatherstocking Tales, including The Last of the Mohicans) [BIC illuminates the national literary landscape.]
Sig: These three writers represent the emergence of a national literature, independent from Europe and can be seen as “cultural nationalism” following the War of 1812.
Abolition 1830s-1860s
Who: Frederick Douglass (spoke against slavery, looked towards politics and government to support the cause. Theodore Dwight Weld (spoke against slavery and wrote the pamphlet, American Slavery As It Is), William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator and the American Anti-Slavery Society), Sojourner Truth (abolitionist and women’s rights)
Where: Primarily in the northeast area, but did spread westward
What: Through written messages, boycotts, and speeches, they fought for the abolition of slavery.
Sig: Fought for abolition of slavery; began to question the true meaning of equality; and caused divided opinions which propelled the nation towards the Civil war.
Temperance and Prohibition--1850s
Who: Neal S. Dow (sponsored Maine prohibition law) and many women
Where: Primarily the northeast
What: Two avenues of attack: 1) prohibition (no alcohol sale permitted) by law. Example: Maine Law of 1851 prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor. 2) temperance, meaning be moderate in drinking alcohol. Example: American Temperance Society 1826: fought to reduce temptation and urge to drink.
Sig: Alcohol negatively affected many lives, and with the temperance movement, it showed the growing concern for the overall quality of life. Women, locked into a society that valued the “cult of domesticity,” had to rely on men for economic well-being. Thus women led the temperance movement.
Criminals and the insane--1830’s and 40’s
Who: Dorothea Dix
Where: Massachusetts and then elsewhere as the movement spread
What: Criminal punishments were reduced and prisons began to reform and correct criminals. Dix wrote and spoke against the inhumane conditions of insane asylums until their conditions were improved. Her 1843 petition to the Massachusetts legislature was the turning point in the treatment of the mentally ill.
Sig: Treatment of criminals and mentally ill improved. Criminals were to be reformed instead of just punished; and mentally ill people would no longer be chained in jails or poor houses.
Territorial Expansion and Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny 1840’s-1850s
What: The idea of “manifest destiny” is that God ordained the American people to rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific (and later, in the 1850s, the idea was expanded to look to the south into Central America, Cuba, Mexico).
Sig: Manifest Destiny was a latently (hidden or unknown) racist and manifestly (visible or known) imperialistic notion that engendered a sense of national pride and led the American people to believe that developing the American empire at the expense of others was not only good but ordained by God.
Texas 1836-45
What: Texas fought a war of independence (1836) with the Mexicans but was refused entry into the U.S. in part because of the slavery issue. In 1845, during the last days of the Tyler administration, Texas was admitted as a slave state (annexed by joint resolution of Congress and signed by President Tyler).
Sig: Demonstrates the difficulties associated with the issue of slavery in the territories or in any new state. Clay’s straddling of the fence on the issue of Texas may have cost him the presidency in 1844 (Polk won, 1,338,464 to 1,300,097).
Oregon 1846
What: This was a compromise agreement with Britain, whereby the border was set at the 49th parallel. The U.S. and Britain under the Compromise of 1818 jointly occupied the Oregon country. By the 1840s, Americans settlers perfected their title by moving to Oregon, while the British lost interest in the southern part of the country. Neither side wanted a confrontation over Oregon. Polk did not get a fight—he got a good compromise instead. Compromise was necessitated in part because the U.S. just started a war with Mexico.
Sig: Resolved a longstanding point of contention between the U.S. and Britain. Provided the U.S. with territory that would ultimately become the states of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and some of Montana.
Polk and the Mexican War 1846-1848
Who: James Polk, Mexico
What: A war started over Polk’s desire for Mexican lands west of Texas, notably California. When U.S. troops advanced to the Rio Grande, in an area claimed by Mexico (between the Nueces and the Rio Grande), the Mexicans confronted the U.S. and the war began.
Sig: The U.S. gained the northern half of Mexico, including much of the American southwest. (See Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo/February 1848)
The Wilmot Proviso 1846
Who: David Wilmot, Democratic representative from Pennsylvania
What: At the start of the Mexican War, Wilmot proposed, as part of a war appropriations bill, that slavery be excluded from any territory acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso passed the House twice and failed in the Senate twice.
Sig: Although the Proviso failed, the discussion brought into sharp focus the differences then existing on the slavery question. (Emerson was right when he said: “Mexico will poison us.”)
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo February 2, 1848
Who: James Polk, Nicholas P. Trist, Mexican “government”
What: To conclude the Mexican War, Polk dispatched Nicholas Trist to Mexico City. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed by Trist and forwarded to Washington. The treaty confirmed the American title to Texas and yielded the enormous area stretching westward to the Pacific Ocean, including California. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the land and to assume the claims of its citizens against Mexico in the amount of $3,250,000.
Sig: Added the American southwest to the United States. Also contributed to the “burning” discussion of slavery in the territories, all of which resulted in the Compromise of 1850 (California = free state; Utah and New Mexico territories organized on basis of popular sovereignty; strong fugitive slave law; Texas boundary adjusted; D.C. slave trade outlawed),
The Crisis of the Union
Missouri Compromise 1820 (this is a PEP repeat because it is so important)
Who: North (US), South (US), and Henry Clay
Where: Missouri, the remainder of the Louisiana Territory, and Maine
What: Congress agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a separate free state. This kept the balance between the North and the South at twelve states each. (Balance was critical to maintain slave power in the Senate). Although the state of Missouri was permitted to retain slaves, all future bondage was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the line of 36o30’, which was the latitude of the southern boundary of the state of Missouri.
Sig: The Missouri Compromise deferred final discussion of slavery. In the end, the Civil War finally resolved the issue. Jefferson called it the “death knell” of the Union. (Death knell is a bell tolled slowly at the time of a funeral.)
Webster’s Second Reply to Hayne
What: Senator Daniel Webster responded to Senator Robert Hayne's claims of South Carolina's right of nullification in a speech mainly directed at Vice-President John C. Calhoun. Webster offered a brilliant summary of federalism and established forever the link between "Liberty and Union..."
Sig: The growing argument between nullification/states’ rights and federal supremacy came with great force in this exchange in the Senate in January 1830. This is one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history.
William Lloyd Garrison
Who: A journalist, abolitionist, and social activist, he turned his energies to fighting slavery. He gave many public speeches against slavery, and started The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper. He favored ‘immediate and complete emancipation’ of slaves.
Sig: He was the source of inspiration for those opposed to slavery. He fueled Southern hostility because he wanted to free the slaves immediately and without compensation to the owners.
The Liberator
Who: Published by William Lloyd Garrison
What: An anti-slavery, pro-immediate emaciation newspaper
When: January 1, 1831 begins publishing
Sig: A significant part of the abolitionist movement. The weekly magazine went from the 1830s to the end of the Civil War, in all producing 1,820 issues after 35 years. The main topic of the liberator was peaceful and immediate emancipation of slaves through passive resistance.
American Anti-Slavery Society 1833
Who: Founded by dedicated abolitionists
What: The American Anti-Slavery Society was a promoter, with its state and local auxiliaries, of the cause of immediate abolition of slavery in the United States. It fractured in 1840 over the role of women in the organization and the organization’s promotion of women’s rights in addition to abolition. The politicized elements supported the Liberty Party in 1840, the Free-Soil Party in 1848, and the Republican Party from 1854 on.
Sig: The Society demonstrates how abolition rose to become one of the most important antebellum reform movements.
Slavery in general from 1800 to 1860
What: After the gin (1793), upland cotton could be raised profitably. The cotton raised could feed the cotton textiles industry in the North and Europe (Britain, notably). The existing labor supply in the South was slaves, and the demand for slaves increased as the cotton culture spread throughout the U.S. south and southwest in the early nineteenth century. Slaves were property with no civil or political rights. After the international slave trade was prohibited in 1808, natural reproduction accounted for the increase in slave numbers. A prime field hand sold for about $500 in 1830 and $1,800 in 1860. Britain and the North depended on Southern cotton to feed the mills, and hundreds of thousands of workers would go unemployed if the supply were to be cut off. David Christy wrote Cotton is King in 1855, and Senator Hammond (S.C.) said, in 1858, “No one dare make war on cotton.” The Southern planters were powerful and successful in the 1850s, and they relied upon and defended slavery as the labor supply that was at the root of their wealth.
Some slaves lived in towns, perhaps rented out by their owners. Some were skilled at some craft (carpentry). Many more slaves lived in slave quarters on plantations. Many were married and had their families with them on plantations, and yet, as property, any slave was subject to being sold “down the river.” [Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) had a powerful impact on this issue.] While plantation owners had an economic self-interest in caring for their slave property, abuses were widely reported in the Northern press and among abolitionists. Rape, murder, and mutilation of slaves were not unknown on plantations. Publication of these atrocities enflamed both North and South (for opposite reasons, with the Southern position being that such reports were gross exaggerations).
Slaves were generally submissive, and yet there were exceptions. The Stono rebellion of 1739, Gabriel Prosser rebellion of 1800, Denmark Vesey rebellion in 1822, and Nat Turner rebellion in 1831 speak to the desire of slaves to be free. While all of those rebellions were suppressed, slaves had other ways to fight back: 1) petty theft; 2) negligence and breakage of equipment; and 3) work slow-downs. Whites had a great fear of slave rebellion, accounting for repressive laws limiting communications and travel among the slaves.
Religion played an important role in the life of slaves. Combining African religious rites with basic Christian doctrines, slaves spoke and sang quietly among themselves of Israel in Egypt and liberation from the yoke of slavery. More militant Christians among the slaves spoke of the flight to and then into Canaan, where militaristic confrontation with the Canaanites (slaveowners) was to be expected. (Slaveowners, not unaware of these developments, increasingly limited communication among slaves as the nineteenth century progressed.)
Sig: Slavery was inextricably intertwined with the social, technological, political, legal, economic, and religious life of the United States from the 1660s to the 1860s. To understand U.S. history, one must understand slavery.
Calhoun’s Defense of Slavery as a Positive Good (1837)
Who: Sen. John C. Calhoun of S. Carolina
What: Speech given in the Senate. Calhoun believed that the relationship between enslaved African people and free whites “forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political constitutions.” He believed that there should be a subservient level of people (Africans) that should work under the more mentally capable individuals (whites), and that Africans are equally benefited by this relationship as their white counterparts, since they were “rescued” from the barbarism of the jungle and “clothed with the blessings of Christian civilization.” Further, he argued that Northern workers fared worse than slaves.
Sig: Calhoun’s argument demonstrates the early reaction to abolitionism as southerners felt obligated to take up the defense of their “peculiar institution.” As the Civil War neared, attitudes hardened on both sides.
Frederick Douglass 1817?-95
Who: Brilliant orator and writer; most prominent of the black abolitionists. He wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an autobiographical account of his life, including his escape to the North. He looked to politics to end slavery: he supported the Liberty party in 1840, the Free Soil party in 1848, and the Republicans in the 1850s.
Sig: He was the most significant African-American abolitionist of the period whose courage and eloquence promoted the abolitionist cause.
Popular Sovereignty 1840s-1850s
What: This involved the right of the people in territories to vote to have slavery or no slavery. Stephen Douglas (Dem., Illinois) championed popular sovereignty.
Sig: Popular Sovereignty was meant to turn the national issue of slavery into smaller, more local issues, but failed to extinguish the fires lit by the abolitionists and free-soilers (Wilmot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Bleeding Kansas of 1856, Dred Scott of 1857).
Compromise of 1850
What: A set of five laws collectively called the Compromise of 1850
Concessions to the North:
1) California was admitted as a free state.
2) Territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico was surrendered to New Mexico (Texas received $10 million from the federal government as compensation.).
3) Slave trade was abolished in Washington D.C.
Concessions to the South:
1) The remainder of the Mexican Cession area was to be formed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, without restriction on slavery (open to popular sovereignty).
2) A more stringent fugitive slave law was implemented, going beyond that of 1793.
Sig: The Compromise of 1850 was an effort to defuse the slavery issue, but the Fugitive Slave Act exploded in the faces of both North and South and further divided the nation.
Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
What: “The Bloodhound Bill” stirred up a storm of opposition in the North. Fleeing slaves could not testify on their own behalf and were denied a jury trial. The federal commissioner who handled the fugitive’s case would be given five dollars if the runaways were freed and ten dollars if not, which looked like a bribe in favor of slavecatchers/slaveowners.
Sig: It prompted the Northerners’ “personal liberty laws,” which denied local jails to federal officials and otherwise hindered enforcement of the Fugitive Slave. The South, on the other hand, gave up equality in the Senate (CA = free state) in return for a strong fugitive slave law, only to see its power diminished by Northern opposition. Both North and South were alienated by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Whigs broke up over it in 1852.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852
Who: Harriett Beecher Stowe wrote the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
What: The novel sold over 7 million copies worldwide. It spoke of the
cruel treatment of slaves in America as well as stories from the Underground Railroad.
Many Northerners hated slavery after reading this novel. Abraham Lincoln
later said this novel started the Civil War (a comment made to Stowe during the
War: "So this is the little lady that started the big war.") Foreign countries now
were hesitant to trade with the South now that they were aware of the treatment of slaves
in America.
Sig: The novel enflamed the South and many proslavery books were published to counter the influence of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book is one of the most influential in U.S. history. (Don’t neglect the obvious fact that the book is written by a woman.)
Gadsden Purchase 1853
What: The United States wanted a piece of land for a southern railroad. The land ran through Mexico. James Gadsden, a South Carolina railroad man, was appointed minister to Mexico. Gadsden negotiated a treaty (1853) by which the United States purchased the land for 10 million dollars. That land is southern Arizona and New Mexico today. A southern route would be easier to build, cost less, and would satisfy Southern demands for a western railroad
Sig: The Gadsden Purchase facilitated the building of a southern railroad to the west coast and was the last territorial acquisition of the U.S. in the “lower 48.”
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
Who: Law sponsored by Stephen A. Douglas
What: The Act said that instead of using the terms of the Missouri Compromise,
which provided that all territories north of 36º30' in the remainder of the
Louisiana Purchase territory should be free, the area will be split into Kansas
and Nebraska territories, and popular sovereignty shall determine slavery or no slavery in
the territory (and by inference in future states).
Sig: The Act angered free-soilers because it opened territory previously
closed to slavery (under the Missouri Compromise) to the potential of slavery.
The Republican Party emerged as a result of this Act. Further, the Act led to
“bleeding Kansas” in 1856 as free-soilers and slavers competed to establish
different governments. Bleeding Kansas foreshadowed the coming of the Civil War.
Republican Party (origins, goals, and position on slavery) 1854 to present
Who: Many Whigs, Liberty party members, Know-Nothings, and Free Soil members became Republicans as their respective parties disbanded.
What: After the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, the Whig party was ended, and
meetings in the upper Midwestern states started the formation of a new party opposed to
the spread of slavery into the western territories. One meeting, at Ripon, Wisconsin, on
March 20, 1854, is widely known as the beginning of the Republican party. At the start,
it was a northern (free state) based party that was dedicated to the prevention of the
spread of slavery into the territories (in reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854). The Party did not mean to interfere with slavery in Southern states but insisted that slavery not be allowed to expand in the territories (the implication being that slavery would become less and less significant as more and more free states were added to the Union, a point that was not lost among Southern defenders).
The domestic agenda at the start of the party was BART (banks, internal improvements railroads, and higher tariffs), opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories, higher education, and homesteads for small farmers.
Sig: The Republican Party became a major player in United States politics,
electing many presidents, beginning with Lincoln in 1860. In addition to being the party
of Lincoln and winning the Civil War, the Republican Party’s agenda dominated U.S.
politics for several decades (essential pro-business).
Dred Scott decision 1857
What: In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all of the country's territories.
The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom.
Taney -- a staunch supporter of slavery and intent on protecting Southerners from Northern aggression -- wrote in the Court's majority opinion that, because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it."
Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that includes the phrase, "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."
Sig: This decision lifted the spirits of the proslavery forces and further enflamed the passions of the abolitionists. The decision itself, coming just a few years before the Civil War, contributed to the heated rhetoric that caused both sides to refuse to compromise and settle the slavery issue short of war. [The 14th amendment (1868), conferring citizenship on former slaves and blacks, was a response to Dred Scott. The 14th amendment says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Lecompton Crisis 1857
Who: Proslavery Forces
Where: Kansas
What: Proslavery Forces in Kansas devised a tricky document known as the Lecompton Constitution. The people were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as a whole, but for the constitution either “with slavery” or “with no slavery.” If they voted against slavery, one of the remaining provisions of the constitution would protect the owners of slaves already in Kansas so there would still be black bondage in Kansas no matter what.
Sig: In a congressional debate that at one point broke into a fistfight, enough Northern Democrats finally defected from their party to reject the Lecompton Constitution. Democratic Senator Douglas opposed the Lecompton Constitution, which cost him Southern democratic support, thus further dividing the Democratic Party and lifting up the prospects for the more unified Republicans.
Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858
Who: Lincoln (Republican) and Douglas (Democrat)
What: This was a series of seven debates between August and October of 1858, where Lincoln and Douglas opposed one another in a race for a Senate seat. These debates helped Douglas win the Senate seat but ruined his chance of winning the presidency. This contributed to the split of his party after the debate at Freeport. Essentially, Lincoln got Douglas to admit that if the people of a territory decided against slavery, the slavery would not be permitted—a seeming contradiction of the Constitution as interpreted in the Dred Scott decision.
Sig: The Freeport Doctrine alienated Southerners who found it increasingly difficult to support Douglas and led to the fracture of the Democratic Part in 1860. The Lincoln-Douglas debate platform thus proved to be one of the preliminary battlefields of the Civil War.
King Cotton 1793-1860
Where: The southern states of the Union.
What: When Eli Whitney introduced his cotton gin in 1793, the southern cotton industry rode a wave to power. To supply the growing textile industry cotton farmers needed slaves to raise the cotton. One half of all American exports could be represented by the cotton industry alone after 1840. The South exported cotton to the North, providing for their textile industry, and European textile industries as well. About seventy-five percent of the British cotton in its textile manufacturing came from the South.
Sig: The southern states felt that Europe as well as the North could not survive without southern cotton, causing them to believe “cotton is king.” The South believed if they were forced into a war against the North, Europe would have to take their side and
assist them in the fight against the North because they believed Europe would not survive
without southern cotton.
John Brown's Raid October 1859
Who: John Brown and a group of northern abolitionists.
Where: Harpers Ferry, western Virginia.
What: John Brown devised a scheme to invade the South and call black slaves to rise, hoping to deliver them from bondage and create a free black state. Yet, as few blacks were aware of this attempted liberation, his plan failed and when Brown led several anti-slavery followers to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, several innocent bystanders were killed or wounded. Captured by the U.S. Marines, Brown was swiftly executed. Many revered Brown as a martyr for the abolitionist cause while others denounced his violent and seemingly irrational means to liberate the slaves.
Sig.: The raid fueled the conflict between the North and the South and rallied the anti-slavery movement while raising questions about the correct way to deliver the oppressed slaves (using violent tactics to liberate was questioned).
The election of 1860: Lincoln and the Republican Party Platform
What: Elected as candidate for the Republican Party and eventually President, Lincoln's Republican platform seduced many of its Northern followers. Non-extension of slavery, a protective tariff, a Pacific railroad, internal improvement paid for by federal means, and free homesteads from the public domain, were only some of the ideas that existed on the platform and had obvious to appeal to Northerners and none for Southerners. (Good BART here in platform.) Note the platform was not abolitionist but simply anti-extension of slavery in the territories.
Sig.: The election determined the fate of the United States as it delicately balanced the issue of peace or civil war. The North was given the upper hand as it had a union-minded president to back it up. South Carolina called for a convention to declare for secession just after Lincoln’s election. (The convention met and South Carolina seceded in December, more than two months before Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861.)
Civil War 1861-1865
Fort Sumter April 1861
Who: Union fort and Confederate artillery
Where: Charleston Harbor
What: Fort Sumter was one of two important federal forts based in the South. Low on provisions, Sumter would have to surrender in time if it was not re-supplied. The South Carolinians would not tolerate a Union fort standing between them and one of their most valuable Atlantic seaports. When Lincoln decided to send provisions to the fort, the South opened fire on the fort and the attack resulted in Union surrender. Lincoln used the defeat to unite the North. Lincoln, using the same words Washington used to call up the militia in 1794 (Whiskey Rebellion), called up 75,000 militiamen and declared his intention to enforce the laws. He ordered the rebels to disperse. They did not do so, of course, and the Civil War began.
Sig.: The firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for the militia represent the start of America’s Civil War in April, 1861. Four years and one million casualties later, the Union prevailed.
North vs. South - economy, military, population 1861 – 1865
Who: The Union [all free states and four (five after 1863) slave states] and eleven Southern Slave States
What: The free-labor and slavery-based labor systems of North and South both reflected and heightened an economic differentiation between the sections. The states of the Middle Atlantic and New England regions developed a commercial market economy in the first half of the nineteenth century, and gave birth to the nation's first factories. The Old Northwest, the free states west of the Appalachians, had an agricultural economy that exported its surplus production to the other U.S. regions and to Europe. The South depended upon large-scale production of export crops, primarily cotton and (to a lesser extent) tobacco, raised by slaves. (Slaves were a key component in Southern wealth, comprising the second most valuable form of property in the region, after real estate.) Some of its cotton was sold to New England textile mills, though much more of it was shipped to Britain. The dominance of this crop led to the expression "King Cotton." But shipping, brokerage, insurance, and other financial mediation for the trade were centered in the North, particularly in New York City.
Militarily, the North was much stronger than the South. The North could command a larger army and had a navy (the South could field smaller armies and had no navy). However, the South had the upper hand in leadership as it had better generals at the start of the war.
The North also had the upper hand with 20 million people while the South only had 9 million people. The North had over 100,000 factories while the South had about 20,000.
Sig: These key differences between the North and the South were extremely important because they ultimately decided the victors of the war and determined the history of our country. With advantages in population, firepower, and industry, the North won the war. (Had it been a quick war, these advantages would not have been important).
Lincoln and the Border States Issue 1861-1865
Who: Border States (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri)
What: The Lincoln administration regarded Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri (slave states loyal to the Union) as critical because of their geographical position. The Border States represented a serious dilemma for President Lincoln. He was convinced they were essential to victory (Lincoln: “I hope I have God on my side, but I have to have Kentucky”). He could not afford to alienate them with his emancipation policies, which could have driven them into the Confederacy. He had to maintain that the war was to maintain the Union and not free the slaves. He thus incurred the scorn of abolitionists. (The Emancipation Proclamation, effective 1-1-63, did not free any slaves in Union-held land, only Confederate-held land. The 13th Amendment in 1865 freed all slaves.) Though the Border States remained in the Union, there were bitter divisions within those states.
Sig: These states played a large role in the victory of the North and pointed to one of Lincoln’s wartime dilemmas.
Union war goals
What: The goal of the Union at the start of the Civil War was preservation of the Union. By the end of the war emancipation had been added as a war goal.
Sig: Expansion of war goals over time demonstrates how war effects rapid change in society. (Had it not been for the war, slavery would have continued indefinitely into the future.)
African-American Soldiers of the Civil War 1861-1865
Who: African-American Soldiers
Where: United States
What: Approximately 180,000 African Americans comprising 163 units served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and many more African Americans served in the Union Navy. Both free African-Americans and runaway slaves joined the fight. On July 17, 1862, Congress passed two acts allowing the enlistment of African Americans, but official enrollment occurred only after the September 1862 issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. In actual numbers, African American soldiers comprised 10% of the entire Union Army. In over 500 engagements, black soldiers won 22 Congressional Medals of Honor and more than 38,000 were killed.
Discrimination in pay and other areas remained widespread. Soldiers of African descent were to receive $10.00 a month, plus a clothing allowance of $3.50, but the Army held back the full amount. Many regiments struggled for equal pay, some refusing any money until June 15, 1864, when Congress granted equal pay for all black soldiers.
Sig: This marked the first time African Americans were allowed to fight as an organized and segregated unit in a war (starting with the 54th Massachusetts Infantry). Blacks were also granted the same pay as white soldiers even though it came near the end of the war
C.S.S. Alabama (Confederate raider 1862-64)
What: The Alabama was the most significant Confederate commerce-raider built by Britain. Although flying the Confederate flag it never entered a Confederate port. Britain was the chief naval base of the Confederacy. The Alabama captured over sixty vessels until a Union cruiser destroyed it off the coast of France in 1864.
Sig: This shows how powerful the Confederacy was with the help of Britain. The Alabama and Britain’s role in the Civil War was a source of contention between the Union and Britain. (After the Emancipation Proclamation and intervention by Union diplomats, Britain began to withdraw overt support for the South.)
Homestead Act 1862
What: An act passed by Congress in 1862 which provided for the distribution of 160 acres of public land for a fee of $30. About half a million families took advantage of the Homestead Act. This act was not as beneficial as it seemed to be at first because the 160 acres was inadequate on the rain-scarce Great Plains. Settlers would rather buy cheap land from a railroad than settle on free public land far from a railroad or other settlements.
Sig: The Homestead Act was part of the Republican Party’s agenda during the Civil War. The act can be seen as part of westward expansion of the American people (excluding Native-Americans).
Antietam September 17, 1862
Who: George McClellan (USA) and Robert E. Lee (CSA)
What: Lee invaded Maryland and was confronted by McClellan in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. While a draw, Lee withdrew back into Virginia and the North called it a “victory.” Lincoln used the “victory” as the occasion to issue the preliminary emancipation proclamation.
Sig: France and Britain, upon seeing the Union’s unexpected power at Antietam, and further prompted by the Emancipation Proclamation, backed off from any further overt (formal) support for the Confederacy.
Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863
Who: Lincoln
What: This was Lincoln’s Proclamation to free the slaves in all Confederate areas still in rebellion. The Civil War was turned into a moral crusade as Union armies advanced into slave territory. As the armies advanced, slaves were freed. No slaves were to be freed in the Border States or Confederate lands then held by the Union. Lincoln would not free all slaves, because that would lose him the support of the Border States that were slave and loyal to the Union.
Sig: The Civil War became a moral crusade to abolish slavery, thus demonstrating to the world that more was at stake than simple preservation of the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation changed the nature of the war because it effectively removed any chance of a negotiated settlement.
Higher Education: The Morrill Act of 1862
What: This was a farsighted and statesmanlike law that provided a generous grant of the public lands to the states for support of education. These “land-grant colleges,” many of them becoming state universities, in turn bound themselves to provide certain services, such as military training (e.g., Texas A&M). An increasing number of women were participating in higher education.
Sig: After the Civil War, a college education seemed to be indispensable. This Act furthered the sudden spurt of colleges and universities that occurred after the Civil War. [Republican agenda during Civil War: BART + Homestead + Education + preserve Union]
Reconstruction 1865 to 1877
Freedmen’s Bureau March 3, 1865
Who: Congress; Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandonment Lands
Where: South and former plantation areas
What: An agency established by Congress at the end of the Civil War to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and employment for the newly freed slaves. During its brief existence, the bureau spent over $17 million and started over four thousand schools for black children.
Sig: The Freedmen’s Bureau was the national government’s legitimate but in the end inadequate effort to care for the welfare of millions of “freedmen.” The Bureau did have some success in education for former slaves.
Thirteenth Amendment 1865
What: Freed all slaves without compensation. [This was one of the three “Civil War” amendments; 13th = abolish slavery (1865); 14th = provided citizenship to African-Americans (1868); 15th = give African-American adult males the vote (1870).)
Sig: Completely abolished slavery.
Sharecropping and tenant farming: Abuses by landowners and merchants
(after the Civil War): The reconfiguration of Southern Agriculture
Where: South
What: White and black sharecroppers now tilled the soil for a share of the crop (e.g., profits from the crop are split 50/50) or they became tenants in bondage to their landlords (tenants tilled the soil in return for land, housing, and money for supplies). Former slaves used sharecropping and tenant farming as a system of production. Sharecropping was the “predominant capital labor arrangement.” Sharecropping became a trap forced upon the blacks that often had freedmen stuck in its unfair systems for years. Unfortunately, these systems brought about “intense explicit or implicit desire of white Southerners to keep blacks subservient to them.” In addition to being held to the land by the landlord, farmers would buy on credit from merchants, using future crops as a “lien.” Merchants manipulated the system to keep sharecroppers and tenants in perpetual debt. The systems often were manipulated by whites and cheated the blacks out of the little success and profit they had.
Sig: Landowners and merchants kept poor white and black tenant and sharecropper farmers in perpetual debt, at the bottom of the social, economic, and political ladder. Further, the shift from plantation agriculture to smaller farms further divided former masters from former slaves as slaves moved from the slave quarters to outlying fields. This represents the reconfiguration of Southern agriculture after the Civil War.
Black Codes late 1865 and shortly after the Civil War
Who: Newly freed slaves
Where: Southern states
What: Laws passed by the legislatures of the southern states after the Civil War during Reconstruction in an attempt to regulate the activities of and place restrictions on the former slaves and to stabilize the labor force. The codes sought to restore as nearly as possible the pre-emancipation system of race relations. For example, through labor contracts, if freedmen quit contract jobs they could be arrested for vagrancy. This labor force was overseen by whites who had a desire to maintain a very tight control over the blacks, even though they were technically free. Also, blacks could not or serve on juries or vote.
Sig: The Black Code period immediately after the War became a source of great irritation for northern congressmen who wanted to do more for the freedmen (see Radical Reconstruction below).
Presidential Reconstruction: Lincoln (1863) and Johnson (1865)
Where: The states in the Confederacy
What: Lincoln’s “10 percent” plan was proclaimed in 1863, during the Civil War, when Lincoln wanted to restore seceded states to their rightful place in the Union without being punished for what they did. A rebelling state could be admitted if 10 percent of the state voters in the 1860 election swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. The States would then reestablish a government, and Lincoln would recognize the State as part of the Union. After Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, President Johnson kept Lincoln’s plan but added some restrictions that reflected his dislike for the planter aristocrats who had been Confederate leaders. Johnson’s plan added disenfranchisement of confederate leaders unless they were personally pardoned by him and new state conventions to repeal ordinances of secession, repudiate confederate war debts, and ratify the 13th amendment.
Sig: Lincoln’s plan to readmit the South was simple in nature and allowed for a quick healing of the severed nation. Lincoln wanted to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and thought the “10 percent” plan was the best way. Johnson was not quite as moderate as Lincoln but did not go far enough for the radicals who were taking control of Congress.
Congressional (radical) reconstruction: Military Reconstruction 1867-77
Who: Congress and the U.S. Military
Where: Reconstructed South
What: Congress divided the South into five military districts commanded by a U.S. general. Southern states had to adopt constitutions that gave African-Americans the vote and ratify the 14th amendment (citizenship for African-Americans). In effect, Martial Law was placed on the former Confederate states. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops were sent into all seceded states (except Tennessee, admitted earlier before Radical Reconstruction occurred.) Johnson vetoed the acts but Congress overrode his vetoes. The most notable achievement of the Reconstruction state governments came in the area of public education.
Sig: The Radical Reconstruction of the South created bitterness on both sides. The North was quick to judge the South and make them pay for their rebellious behavior, whereas the South grew embittered by the North’s refusal to accept re-admittance. U.S. troops remained in the South until the Compromise of 1877.
Civil War Amendments: 13th (1865), 14th (1868), and 15th (1870)
What: The Thirteenth Amendment gave freedom to the slaves in America and prohibited any slavery within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment gave African-Americans citizenship. The Fifteenth Amendment gave African-American males the right to vote.
Sig: The Civil War Amendments represent a huge step forward in equal treatment of African-Americans.
Impeachment of Johnson 1868
Who: President Andrew Johnson and the U.S. Congress
What: The House of Representatives accused the President of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The Senate conducted the trial, and Johnson fell one vote short of being removed from office. (The issue involved Johnson’s refusal to go along with the Tenure of Office Act. He believed that the Act was an unconstitutional encroachment on the President’s authority to remove cabinet officers. The Act provided that he needed Senate approval to remove a cabinet officer when the Constitution only said that he needed Senate approval to appoint.)
Sig: The first instance of a president ever being impeached in American history. Public interest in politics was intense, and the impeachment process proved to be “the biggest show of 1868.”
Seward and the purchase of Alaska 1867
What: Johnson did have one victory--in foreign policy. Russia wanted to sell Alaska for various reasons, and Johnson’s Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the treaty whereby the U.S. purchased Alaska for $7.2 million. While assailed by many as “Seward’s Folly,” the Senate approved the treaty on the basis that some other nation might get it instead and there was the long-term possibility of furs, fish, and gold. (Nobody at the time could have anticipated the much later oil and natural gas fields.)
Sig: Alaska proved to be a great strategic addition to the U.S. (In a global environment, Alaska is strategically placed on air routes. Further, vast deposits of natural resources were found and exploited—notably oil at present.)
The Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction
Who: Democrats and Republicans, namely presidential candidates Rutherford B. Hayes (R) and Samuel J. Tilden. (D).
Where: Congress
What: The election of 1876 was so close that it was impossible to choose a President. The electoral returns from Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida were disputed, with both parties claiming victory. Congress created a commission of 15 members and along party lines the commission awarded all disputed electoral votes to Hayes, the Republican. The Democrats agreed to go along if Hayes would pledge to sponsor internal improvements in the South and withdraw the last remaining federal troops from the South. This was the compromise, and Hayes took office. While he reneged on internal improvements, he did withdraw the troops
Sig: There was no one to protect African-Americans in the South after the Compromise of 1877. The removal of troops from the South led to Jim Crow and many other injustices toward African-Americans. With the Compromise of 1877, African-Americans were no longer on the national agenda and their welfare was left up to the states. Jim Crow was the result (see Jim Crow below).
Redeemers after the Compromise of 1877
Who: White Democrats who took control of the South after the Compromise of 1877
What: The Compromise of 1877 removed the last federal troops from the South, and white Democrats (“redeemers”) ruthlessly took over again. Blacks who attempted to assert their rights were threatened with unemployment, eviction, and physical harm.
Sig: The Redeemers gained control of the southern states and administered a society characterized by sharecropping, the crop lien system (borrow money using a future crop as collateral), and Jim Crow, doing great harm to blacks and poor whites.
Jim Crow after the Compromise of 1877
Who: Southern whites taking control of the “rights” of African-Americans by enacting legislation that segregated blacks and whites.
What: After the Compromise of 1877 led to the removal of federal troops from the South, southern whites implemented Jim Crow, which severely restricted the actions and rights of African-Americans: examples include segregated schools and segregated public facilities (upheld by Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896).
Sig: Jim Crow legislation set the stage for unfair treatment and segregation of blacks for many decades until 1954, when Jim Crow in education was declared illegal by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.
“New South” (1877 on)
Who: Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, coined the phrase, “New South.”
What: Grady called for Southerners to industrialize the South.
Sig: While the South saw some industrialization (James Duke and his American Tobacco Company, textile mills, and Birmingham steel are three to remember), the South remained well behind the North in industrial development.
Plains Indian Wars 1866-1890
Plains Indian Wars
What: From 1866 to 1890 (and most notably 1876), the U.S. Army and the Plains Indians fought for control of the Plains (largely in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana). While the Army sustained various defeats, the superior firepower of the Army overwhelmed the Indians (who were forced to live on reservations). By 1890 the wars were over.
Sig: The conquest of the Plains meant the conquest of the Indians and the virtual destruction of their nomadic, Buffalo-hunting way of life. White people, with their barbed wire fences, deep-water wells, farms, cattle, railroads, and towns would displace the Indians for an entirely different kind of life.
Washita River Battle of 1868
Who: U.S.A., Cheyenne Tribe
Where: Oklahoma
What: The Seventh Calvary, lead by Custer, attacks a Cheyenne village near an Oklahoma river (Washita) which resulted in an American victory. This event originated primarily from a miscommunication between the Cheyenne and their U.S. agent.
Sig: Although it predated the official Indian Wars, this battle caused much friction and anger between both sides that foreshadowed the impending war.
Treaty of Fort Laramie 1868
Who: US federal government and the Plains Indians
Where: Fort Laramie
What: After Sioux Chief Red Cloud successfully beat back the army, the U.S. abandoned the Bozeman Trail (from the North Platte to the gold fields in Montana). Under the terms of the Treaty, the sacred ground of the Powder River country would be respected. The “Great Sioux reservation” was promised to the Sioux tribes.
Sig: This is one of the few Indian victories; give Red Cloud credit here. The Treaty broke down in 1874 when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. This led to war in 1876-77.
Little Bighorn 1876
Who: Indians and Seventh Cavalry
Where: Little Bighorn River, present day Montana
What: Colonial Custer’s Seventh Cavalry went to suppress Indians and take them back to the reservation, but the Cavalry were killed by the Indians.
Sig: This spectacular U.S. military defeat enflamed Americans and energized the Army to fight the Indians for the last time. This led to a series of battles to return the hostile Indians to the reservation. By the end of 1877, the Plains Indian wars were over (except for Wounded Knee in 1890--but that was a battle, not a war).
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
Who: Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were great Sioux leaders.
Sig: They led an Indian allied force and won the Battle of Little Bighorn against the U.S. 7th Cavalry under Colonel Custer. Both were killed later by the U.S. Army (Crazy Horse 1877, Sitting Bull 1890).
U.S. Seventh Cavalry
What: The U.S. Seventh Cavalry, almost half immigrants, wanted to suppress the Indians and place them back in the reservation. Several companies of the 7th were killed at the Little Big Horn. (The 7th Cavalry appeared earlier at the Washita River and appears later at Wounded Knee.)
Sig: The 7th Cavalry was an important unit in the Plains Indian wars of the ‘60s and ‘70s (and at Wounded Knee in ’90).
Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé 1877
Who: Chief Joseph and the surrender of the Nez Percé Indians
Where: Not the Plains but the northwest (WA, OR, ID MT)
What: Forced off their land, the Nez Percé fled. They led the army on a great chase across the American Northwest in a running battle that lasted several months. Some victories, such as at the Big Hole in Montana, kept them going on their flight to Canada. Just short of the border, they were finally captured by U.S. forces.
Sig: Along with the Trail of Tears (’38-’39), this is one of the saddest stories in U.S.-Native American relations. The Nez Perce were a good and decent people, forced off their land by greedy whites who were protected by the U.S. Army. Chief Joseph, surrendering, uttered the famous: “From where the sun now stands, I shall fight no more forever.” His death certificate reported that he died of a “broken heart.”
Ghost dance (1890)
What: Sioux Indians believed that if they danced the Ghost Dance the buffalo and Indians killed would come back and that they would be invulnerable to soldiers’ bullets. Fearing a renewed outbreak of violence under the leadership of Sitting Bull (on the reservation now), Sitting Bull was killed. Army fear of the Ghost Dance was a contributing factor in the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Sig: The Ghost Dance represents an amalgam of Indian and Christian religious beliefs. Also, the Ghost Dance/Sitting Bull incident speaks to the fear and paranoia of the U.S. Army.
Wounded Knee (December 1890)
Who: United States 7th Cavalry and Sioux Indians under Chief Big Foot
Where: Wounded Knee Creek in Southwest South Dakota
What: After the death of Sitting Bull, a band of Sioux led by Big Foot was being escorted to the reservation by the reconstituted 7th Calvary. The Sioux were ordered disarmed, but a warrior pulled a gun and wounded an officer. The U.S. troops opened fire, and within minutes almost two hundred men, women, and children were shot. The soldiers later claimed that it was difficult to distinguish the Sioux women from the men. The United States 7th Cavalry lost twenty-nine soldiers.
Sig.: This battle ended the Indian Wars of the 19th Century
National Politics, 1877-96: The Gilded Age
Corruption during the Gilded Age
What: Corruption within and outside government was common during this period and damaged the reputation of presidents, most notably Grant (’69-’77). In New York City, Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring bilked the city out of up to $200 million. During Grant’s time, there was the Credit Mobilier scandal, where Union Pacific Railroad officials formed the Credit Mobilier construction company and then over-billed the railroad, pocketing profits and bribing governmental officials to keep quiet. The Whiskey Ring within the government stole excise taxes on whiskey. Finally, there was the Secretary of War William Belnap who accepted bribes from Indian agents.
Sig: Grant’s administration was plagued by corruption and he did little about it. He will always be remembered for this and is labeled one of our worst presidents.
Nativism 1880s
Who: Immigrants and Nativists
What: Nativism, or “anti-foreignism,” gained support during the 1880s. Nativists were against immigrants coming to America. One nativist agency was the American Protective Association, created in 1887. This agency had at least a million members, and the members were encouraged to vote against Roman Catholic candidates or other foreign candidates for office. One effect of nativism was that Congress gradually began to pass laws against immigration, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. (An earlier nativist reaction was in the 1840s and 1850s, directed against Germans and Irish. A later nativist reaction was in the 1920s, when the Immigration Act of 1924 essentially closed the door to eastern and southern European immigration.)
Sig: Various nativist reactions can be seen in U.S. history, as older Anglo residents perceived immigrants as threats, either economically, taking away jobs, or culturally and politically, eroding the “American way of life” as they saw it.
Pendleton Act of 1883
What: The Act created the Civil Service Commission, which made appointments to government jobs based on examinations instead of the old “spoils” system. This was prompted due to widespread disgust with “spoils” and because a deranged office seeker, Charles Guiteau, assassinated President Garfield. (This act also made political campaign contributions from government employees illegal.)
Sig: Now government employees had to be qualified for their positions, instead of just getting their jobs based on who they knew or how much money they gave to politicians. Politicians now had to look elsewhere for money, and corporations took up the slack. Over time, more and more jobs were added to the civil service, and the spoils system, started by Andrew Jackson, was eventually destroyed.
Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor (1881)
Who: Helen Hunt Jackson and Native Americans (Indians)
What: Helen Hunt Jackson, a Massachusetts writer of children’s literature, pricked the moral sense of Americans in 1881, when she published A Century of Dishonor. The book chronicled the sorry record of government ruthlessness and chicanery in dealing with the Indians. The book was sent to every member of Congress.
Sig.: By the 1880s the national conscience began to stir uneasily over the plight of the Indians. A Century of Dishonor gave a historical account of the government’s injustice to Native Americans. Debate seesawed. Humanitarians wanted to treat the Indians kindly and persuade them thereby to “walk the white man’s road,” yet hard-liners insisted on the current policy of forced containment and brutal punishment. Neither side showed much respect for Native American culture. The book inspired a reform movement aimed at helping Indians become full members of American society by “assimilating” Indians. This led to the Dawes Act in 1887.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad 118 U.S. 394 (1886)
What: Santa Clara County taxed the Southern Pacific Railroad. The court held that that the county could not do so and went on to suggest that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the 14th Amendment that natural persons enjoyed.
Sig: This case demonstrates the pro-business decisions of the Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century.
Wabash v. Illinois (1886) Case
What: U.S. Supreme Court in 1886 reversed Munn v Illinois (1876) that permitted state regulation of railroads. The court declared invalid an Illinois law prohibiting long- and short-haul clauses in transportation contracts as an infringement on the exclusive powers of Congress granted by the commerce clause of the Constitution. Sig: The result of the case was denial of state power to regulate interstate rates for railroads, and the decision led to creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Dawes Plan (Dawes Severalty Act) 1887
Who: Native Americans
What: Tribal land ownership was eliminated in favor of giving 160 acres of land to each Indian over 21. The idea was to “civilize” the Indians and educate their children in the “white man’s ways.” Assimilation of Indians was the goal and it did not work. (This plan was dropped in favor of respect for Indian culture and tribal identity with Indian Reorganization Act of 1934—called the Indians’ “New Deal.”)
Sig: This “liberal” and “reform” effort to civilize Indians resulted in continued destruction of the Indian way of life and the Indians’ loss of over 100 million acres of land.
Women’s Suffrage in Western States
(and compared with Southeastern states)
What: Starting in 1869 in Wyoming, western states began giving women the vote in state elections.
Sig: Western states were more liberal in their treatment of women. Western states led the way. (Southeastern states lagged behind.) The suffrage movement continued at the state level, finally ending with the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted women the vote (thus serving to end the battle for women’s right to vote).
Environmental impacts of western settlement
What: The Plains Indians’ way of life (nomadic buffalo hunting) ended by the 1880s. In their place could be found miners, loggers, ranchers, farmers, railroads, and towns. These varied interests adversely impacted the plains environment. Mining contaminated water sources. Logging and farming stripped the natural vegetation (prairie or “buffalo” grass and trees) that upheld the integrity of the soil.
Sig: The intergenerational impact of rapacious (greedy) exploitation of the seemingly limitless resources of the West can be seen in:
1. The “dust bowl” of the 1930s. That is, buffalo grass was removed to plant crops. Farm crops did not anchor the soil as did buffalo grass. Drought occurred, which meant that the crops did not grow, leaving unplanted topsoil. When the high winds came in the 1930s, great clouds of topsoil were blown away, literally, leaving the farmers with a farm that could not be sustained. The farmers left, becoming migrant farm laborers (the “Okies”). This sad tale of the migrants is told by John Steinbeck in his blockbuster novel, The Grapes of Wrath (Viking Press, 1939).
2. Contaminated water sources. Throughout the west, one can find contaminated water due to mining or other toxic waste disposal. (Mercury poisoning is a problem for fish populations.)
3. The huge Ogallala aquifer under eight Plains states is losing water due to excessive extraction of water. The long-term consequences to life on the Plains will be a concern well into the 21st century. To prevent dust storms, soil erosion, and what today would be referred to as desertification processes in general, more vulnerable areas should be taken out of cultivation and put into rangeland use for livestock. Rapacious exploitation of the Plains land continues to hold back conservation practices.
Turner thesis 1893—“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
Who: Historian Frederick Jackson Turner
What: In 1893, he argued that the frontier had a lasting impact on the democratic character of the American people. His idea organized the study of U.S. History for a generation. His thesis: The settlement of the West by white people - "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward" - was the central story of American history. Here is what he said about the frontier shaping the American character: “The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom--these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.” [Bold added.]
Sig: His thesis was influential until the Depression and remains a source of discussion to this day. There is an Anglocentric, imperialistic point of view loaded into his argument. Further, he was unable to incorporate the role of government into the discussion of the development of the West.
Trusts
What: In the late nineteenth century, stockholders in a number of companies in the same business would assign their stock to trustees in another company and those trustees would manage the affairs of many businesses. This created a monopoly within an industry and stifled competition. The Standard Oil Trust is the most famous, but there were many others, including, for examples, the beef, sugar, cotton, and linseed oil trusts.
Sig: Trusts were monopolistic and ruthless in suppressing competition. Congress reacted with various kinds of antitrust legislation, beginning with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Panics and recessions during the Gilded Age
What: 1873: Collapse of railroad financing ventures triggered widespread unemployment and business closures
1884: Another financial crisis causes thousands of businesses to fail
1893: Another financial crisis leads to worst depression in U.S. History to date, with unemployment rising to 18%.
Sig: Note that there were panics or depressions in every decade of the Gilded Age. Several years would elapse before the nation would pull itself out of a “panic” or depression. In many cases, workers would strike, protesting cuts in pay or other benefits. The 1873 panic led to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The 1893 panic led to the Pullman Strike of 1894. In addition to the distress caused by business closures and unemployment, this was a period of great labor agitation and labor-management strife.
Farmers’ problems in 1880s and 1890s,
including rise in agricultural production and impact of that rise
What: As productivity rose during the Gilded Age, prices for goods and farm products declined. Farmers borrowed for seed and equipment and then had to pay back loans with dollars that were worth less (they were getting less for their crops). Farmers felt cheated.
Sig: Farmers organized and supported various kinds of laws to promote their interests, notably: 1) railroad regulations, and 2) inflationary measures, including the increase in the money supply by printing paper money or coining silver.
“Crime of ’73”
What: Congress passed a law in 1873 that stopped the coinage of silver. This would have a deflationary effect and prices for goods would go down.
Sig: Farmers were angry because this would cause deflation, not inflation. (Farmers wanted inflation.)
Sherman Antitrust Act 1890
What: The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 flatly forbade combinations in restraint of trade, without any distinction between “good” trusts and “bad” trusts. Bigness, not badness, was the sin.
Why: The law was made to curb railroads and big business from creating monopolies through their control of trusts.
Sig.: This was Congress’s first attempt to limit the trusts. The law proved ineffective, largely because it had only baby teeth or no teeth at all, and because it contained legal loopholes through which clever corporation lawyers would wriggle. It was unexpectedly effective in one respect. Contrary to its original intent, it was used to curb labor unions or labor combinations that were deemed to be restraining trade. [The Clayton Act of 1914 exempted labor unions from the Sherman Act. Gompers called the Clayton Act the “Magna Carta” of the American labor movement.]
Populism (populist/peoples party) (notably the election of 1892)
Who: Middle Westerners and Southerners (mostly farmers)
What: They demanded an increase in the circulating money (free and unlimited coinage of silver), a graduated income tax, government ownership of the railroads, a tariff for revenue only, the direct election of U.S. senators, the initiative and referendum, immigration restriction, and appropriation of alien-held lands.
Sig: Populists garnered over 1 million votes in the 1892 presidential election. Progressive politicians subsequently adopted many of their reforms.
Free Silver
Who: Supported by Democrats and Populists, opposed by conservatives and businessmen.
What: “Free silver” meant the unlimited coinage of silver. Free-silverites wanted to inflate currency. The supporters of this policy were mainly the farmers in the Populist Party who needed inflation to help them get more for their crops and pay off their debts.
Sig: Free silver was the main plank in the Populist platform of 1892. When the Democrats adopted it in 1896, the Populists merged with the Democrats and ceased to exist as a viable political party. (Eastern workers did not like inflation as wages would not keep up with it, the result being that the farmers were not powerful enough to swing an election without eastern worker support.)
Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
What: Homer Plessy refused to ride in a Jim Crow car on a Louisiana train. He was tried in a criminal court by Judge Ferguson, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that Jim Crow did not violate the 14th Amendment equal protection clause because it did not “foster any inferiority of African Americans” as long as accommodations were “separate but equal.” Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only dissenting vote on the Court and harshly criticized the decision, claiming our Constitution to be “colorblind.”
Sig: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legalized Jim Crow laws and discrimination based on race. Segregation grew, enforced by law and violence, not to be overturned until the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.
Election of 1896
Who: William McKinley (Republican) v. William Jennings Bryan (Democrat)
What: Bryan gained the Democratic nomination with his famous “Cross of Gold” speech, in which he attacked business and banking interests by endorsing free silver and ending his speech with “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” The Populists joined with the Democrats. McKinley and the conservative, business-oriented Republicans behind him won the election. Their platform included the gold standard (“the existing gold standard must be maintained”) and the protective tariff (“The . . . uncompromising principle is the protection and development of American labor and industries.”).
Sig: America stayed on the gold standard, and this was the last time a candidate tried to gain office by mostly the votes of farmers. The depression of ’93 was ending, however, and the economic problems began to give way to international issues.
1890 -- A Good Year to Inaugurate the “New America” -- This is Dr. Burns’s phrase
Empire
1. a. Sioux chief Sitting Bull is killed on December 15, 1890.
b. The "Battle" of Wounded Knee December 29, 1890 ends the last major Indian resistance to white settlement in America.
2. The 1890 census announced that the frontier region of the United States no longer existed and therefore the tracking of westward migration would no longer be tabulated in the census. (Equate this to Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis” and then start looking outward to overseas empire.)
3. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by former Naval War College president Alfred T. Mahan demonstrates the decisive role of naval strength and will have enormous influence in encouraging the world powers to develop powerful navies.
Industry and Labor
1. Mesabi Iron Ore range in Minnesota is discovered. The mines provide plentiful iron deposits to fuel the rapidly expanding steel industry.
2. The United Mine Workers of America organized January 25 is an affiliate of the 4-year-old American Federation of Labor (AFL).
3. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed by Congress July 2 curtails the powers of U.S. business monopolies: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal."
4. The McKinley Tariff Act passed by Congress October 1 increases the average U.S. import duty to its highest level.
5. American Tobacco Company is founded by James Duke, who creates a colossal trust.
Gender: Women
1. The "Gibson Girl" created by New York illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, 22, makes her first appearance in the humor weekly Life. Millions will share his conception of the ideal American girl.
Race: African-American
1. Mississippi institutes a poll tax, literacy tests, and other measures designed to restrict voting by blacks—other states follow.
2. George Washington Cable publishes The Negro Question. In this essay collection, Cable challenges prevailing views by advocating equal access to education for blacks and rejecting the myth of black mental inferiority.
Class: Poor people
1. How the Other Half Lives by Danish-born New York Evening Sun police reporter Jacob (August) Riis, 41, portrays slum life and the conditions that make for crime, vice, and disease.
The City
1. The Wainwright building completed at St. Louis to designs by Chicago architect Louis H. Sullivan is the first true skyscraper.
Culture
1. The first Army-Navy football game begins a long rivalry between West Point and Annapolis; Navy wins 24 to 0.
Agriculture
1. It now takes 37 hours to plant, cultivate, and harvest an acre of wheat in America, down from 148 hours in 1837.
2. Kansas farmers should "raise less corn and more hell," Populist Party leader Mary Elizabeth Lease, 36, tells them. From 75 to 90 percent of all Kansas farms are mortgaged at interest rates averaging 9 percent; banks have foreclosed on roughly one third of all farm mortgages in the state in the past decade.
Industrialization and Corporate Consolidation
Bessemer process 1850’s
Who: William Kelly (American) and Bessemer (British)
What: A process that made cheap steel. By blowing cold air on hot iron it eliminated impurities. After a few years while the process became popular and useful.
Sig: This method combined with the abundant materials and labor of the United States greatly encouraged the high levels of production in the second half of the 1800’s. By 1900 America was producing as much as Britain and Germany combined. The U.S. was becoming the world’s industrial giant by World War I. (Recall the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which, in addition to settling the Maine boundary, settled the boundary from the Lake of the Woods to Lake Superior. The British did not know that the Mesabi iron ore range was in that part of the land ceded to the U.S.)
Horizontal integration
What: A method of monopolizing a market by buying out competitors.
Sig: Giants like Rockefeller used revolutionary and ruthless methods like horizontal integration to create trusts, stifling competition and leading in time to governmental regulation, starting with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) and “Vertical Integration”
Who: Andrew Carnegie
What: Andrew Carnegie was a kingpin among steelmakers, at one point producing 1/4th of the nations Bessemer steel. His company controlled every aspect of the steel-making process, through “vertical integration,” which was a means of combining into one organization all phases of production, from mining the ore to production of finished steel. He sold out to J.P. Morgan for 400 million dollars. Influenced by the gospel of wealth, he dedicated his remaining years to giving away his money for libraries, pensions for professors, and other philanthropic purposes.
Sig: He was one of the nation’s great industrialists who preached and practiced the “gospel of wealth.” He gave away about $350 million of his money.
John D. Rockefeller (1893-1937) and Horizontal Integration
What: The owner of the Standard Oil Company, he used the tactic of “horizontal integration,” whereby he would buyout or squeeze out competitors to achieve a monopoly. At one point he owned 95 percent of all oil refineries in the country. He used secret rebates from railroads as well as spies to achieve his ends. He was one of the first so called “robber barons.”
Sig.: He was part of the reason for the backlash against the “trusts” and the emergence of presidential trust busters Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson.
The American Federation of Labor: Samuel Gompers/1886-1900s
What: The AF of L was the brainchild of Samuel Gompers, president from 1886 to 1924. Strong craft unions within the AF of L were able to pool monies to fund boycotts and walkouts, all toward the end of establishing closed shops in which all workers had to be unionized. Crafts included cigar makers, electricians, carpenters, teamsters, for examples (no unskilled laborers). The AF of L was more conservative, pursuing practical and immediate goals relating to wages, hours, and conditions of employment. (Contrast this with the International Workingmen of the World (IWW), a union that wanted to attack capitalism.)
Sig: Under Gompers’s leadership, the AF of L became the premier labor union in American history.
Knights of Labor 1869-1890s
What: The Knights of Labor was the leading labor organization in the 1880s. Starting off as a secret society, in 1881 it soon rolled out a welcome mat for all laborers, black, white, man, women, skilled, and unskilled. Refusing to become entangled in politics, they campaigned for economic and social reform. Blamed for the Chicago Haymarket riot of 1886, they went into decline.
Sig.: The Knights were an important early national labor union. The public attitude toward labor was changing. They began to see the laborers right to bargain collectively and strike. Labor Day was even made a national holiday in 1894. In strikes, however, Presidents were willing to support management and call out troops if needed. Further, the Sherman Antitrust Act was sometimes used against striking workers.
Haymarket (Chicago, 1886), Homestead (Pittsburgh, 1892), Pullman (Chicago, 1894)
What: The Haymarket Riot (1886) was a rally organized by a small anarchist group to protest the killings during the McCormack Harvesting Machine Company strike. The police showed up and demanded they disperse; a dynamite bomb went off amongst the police killing one and wounding several, seven of whom would die later. The police responded with gunfire and killed seven to eight people. While the Knights of Labor were not responsible, they were blamed and their influence declined thereafter.
The Homestead strike (1892) pitted Carnegie Steel Company against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Carnegie wanted to break the union and so when the workers struck against the increased work hours, the manager called for 300 Pinkerton guards to break the strike. They were met on the docks by 10,000 strikers, many armed, and an all-day battle ensued. The Pinkertons surrendered, but the manager appealed to the governor who sent 8,000 troops to end the strike.
The Pullman strike (1894) resulted when George Pullman cut his workers wages by 30 percent but his company town did not reduce rents. Eugene Debs of the American Railway Union got involved. President Cleveland sent in troops to break up the strike, arguing that the disruption of railroad service adversely affected U.S. mail service. (Debs was defiant and spent six months in jail for not complying with a court order to abandon the strike.)
Sig.: These separate instances demonstrated the late nineteenth century’s viewpoint of business and government on labor. The nativist fear of immigrants and the arrival of radicals at the Haymarket affair led to further red scares in the future. At this time, the government generally supported management at the expense of labor.
Technological improvements in business and industry that changed the nature of the workplace (1830’s to 1900’s)
What: The sewing machine, electric light bulb, typewriter, telephone, transoceanic cable, and elevator revolutionized business practices. The assembly line was created to help businesses and factories produce more products at a faster pace.
Sig: Technological improvements supplied people with more products at lower cost, thus improving the standard of living in general.
Urban Society
Gospel of Wealth 1889
Who: Andrew Carnegie
What: “The Gospel of Wealth” was the philosophy preached by the wealthy entrepreneurs (most notably Andrew Carnegie) which held that “the wealthy, entrusted with society’s riches, had to prove themselves morally responsible.” As the “Steel Preacher” said, “the main consideration should be to help those who help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise. . . .” [Note: the Gospel of Wealth is not directed at aiding the individual but in aiding society with parks, museums, etc. The Social Gospel of protestant social workers was directed at helping needy individuals. Do not confuse the Social Gospel with the Gospel of Wealth.]
Sig: Prominent museums of art, parks, and public institutions are testaments to the enduring promise of the “Gospel of Wealth”
Social Gospel (around 1900)
Who: 1. Walter Rauschenbusch, a pastor of a German Baptist church in New York City’s “Hell’s Kitchen” (In Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), he argues that sin is not just applicable to the individual but to society at large also.)
2. Charles Sheldon’s book is of interest here. In His Steps (1897) was one of the most popular and influential books in the Social Gospel movement. According to Sheldon, American society would experience a dramatic transformation if only people would base their public and private actions on the answer to the simple question of "What Would Jesus Do?"
What: Rauschenbusch sought to apply the lessons of Christianity to the slums and factories. He preached the “social gospel,” insisting that the churches tackle the burning social issues of the day. The Sermon of the Mount, he declared, was the science of society. Social Gospel adherents, who were optimistic and pragmatic about helping the poor and relieving the conditions of their poverty, should be contrasted with Social Darwinists, who held that the poor were where they were as a result of the application of the principle of the “survival of the fittest.”
Sig: These “Christian socialists” did much to prick hardened middle-class consciences, thus preparing the path for the progressive reform movement after the turn of the century.
Social Darwinism (1870’s to 1880’s)
Who: Yale Professor William Graham Sumner
What: Social Darwinism is the misapplication to society of Charles Darwin’s principle of the “survival of the fittest.” Only the strongest and “fittest” survive, allowing humans to move towards a just and peaceful society. To literally feed, clothe, and shelter the needy would be inconsistent with Social Darwinism.
Sig: Social Darwinism could be used to rationalize insensitivity to the needs of the poor and needy and justify to the rich their place in society. [Further, Darwin’s thinking not only influenced “Social Darwinism” but another “ism,” i.e., Christian Fundamentalism (which was in part a reaction to Darwin’s theory relating to the descent of humankind from a more primitive being).] (Contrast Social Darwinism and Christian Fundamentalism.)
Social critics and dissenters
Who: African-Americans, Labor unionists, Socialists, Progressives, Feminists, and writers recognized that political, economic, and social changes were needed to correct injustices and imbalances in U.S. society at the turn of the century (1900).
Sig: As cities and industry flourished, many diverse groups of people worked, fought and argued for change. The most important result was the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920.
Immigration at the turn of the century
What: Immigration changed drastically around the coming of the 20th century; now, Jews, Italians, Croats, Greeks, Poles, and Slovaks started to arrive. Culturally and religiously they differed from old American (Anglo) stock. Also, many of these new immigrants were generally illiterate people who preferred to work in industrial tasks rather than farming duties; they moved to America because Europe seemed to be running out of space for its people to inhabit and because of persecution. Many Americans profited from this immigration as industrialists wanted the low-wage labor, states wanted more population, railroads wanted buyers for their land grants, and the steamship lines wanted more human cargo in their holds; however, some were nativists who hated America being populated by foreigners with different languages, religions, and customs. Most of these immigrants settled in cities like New York and Chicago even though many of these “Little Italys” and “Little Polands” became slums; Jacob Riis wrote How the Other Half Lives to communicate to the American people the living conditions of these poor souls.
Sig: These new immigrants filled a demand for cheap labor and they helped spread much European culture to America; also, their immigration in part caused many of the slums to be created (due to the immense population increase). A nativist reaction could be seen in the immigration laws of the 1920s.
Riis: How the Other Half Lives (1890)
Who: Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was a Danish immigrant and reporter for the New York Sun.
What: How the Other Half Lives (1890) was a powerful account that communicated the terrible living conditions of the New York slums. He told of the dirt, disease, vice, and misery of the rat-infested slums and convinced many to attempt to change these awful places.
Sig: This book convinced many to take action and helped fuel the Progressive movement.
City problems: slums; machine politics; water and sewer problems
What: The cities in the early 20th century had many problems that eroded the quality of life:
1. Criminals flourished.
2. Sanitary facilities could not keep up with the population increase which led to impure water, unwashed bodies, uncollected garbage, and the leaving of animal droppings all around the cities.
3. The slums were particularly terrible places to live.
4. Machine politics promoted widespread corruption. (Political machines such as Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall in New York City would provide immigrants with immediate services such as clothing, food, and a place to stay. Then a job would be found. In return, the worker would vote for the boss’s candidate in order to maintain the job. This simple and corrupt system filled a need that the city governments were unwilling and incapable of filling.)
Sig: These problems prompted the emergence of the Progressive reform movement, including the settlement house movement.
Jane Addams and Hull House
Who: Jane Addams (1860-1935) was a sort of urban American saint to some of her admirers and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931; she was born into a prosperous Illinois family as part of the first generation of college-educated women. However, she was rejected by some people like the Daughters of the American Revolution for her pacifistic attitude in life.
What: The Hull House was established in 1889 in Chicago and it was the most prominent American settlement house. It was located in a poor immigrant neighborhood; it offered instruction in English, cultural activities, and counseling to help these newcomers cope with American big-city life. In addition to helping people meet their immediate needs, Hull House worked for social change, addressing such issues as child labor, public health reform, garbage collection, labor laws and race relations.
Sig: The Hull House influenced other women-founded settlement houses like Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement in New York in 1893; also in 1893, the women of Hull House successfully lobbied for an Illinois sweatshop law which prohibited child labor and protected women workers.
Intellectual and cultural movements and popular entertainment around 1900
What: 1. Intellectual movements included Pragmatism, Socialism, Progressivism
2. Cultural movements included the rise of leisure time activities in urban areas:
a. sports (baseball, basketball, football, bicycling)
b. the circus
c. vaudeville
Sig: This is a period of great cultural ferment as the U.S. adjusts to an industrialized and urbanized age. Source:
Foreign Policy 1890 to 1914
Jingoism
What: Jingoism is a word describing fanatical nationalism or patriotism; it can also mean bullying other countries or using whatever means necessary to safeguard a country’s national interests; entered US vernacular near the turn of the 20th Century
Sig: Jingoism was evident in the big-navy advocates, the imperialists, the yellow journalists, and the pro-war faction that led to the Spanish-America War.
Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst Circulation War/Yellow Journalism
Who: Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst
Where: New York
What: Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were owners of rival newspaper companies, the New York World (Pulitzer) and the New York Journal (Hearst). They employed sensationalist headlines and articles, without great concern for the truth, in order to compete with each other. Their style was called “yellow journalism.”
Sig: The press had a large impact on the public. This was seen during the Spanish-American war—the yellow journalism of the papers spread lies about the Spanish, causing public outrage that propelled America into the war.
Alfred Thayer Mahan (Influence of Sea Power upon History-published 1890)
Who: Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914)
What: US Navy officer, geostrategist, educator; he was appointed commander of the new US Naval War College in 1886; published Influence of Sea Power upon History, an organized compilation of his lectures, in 1890. The book’s argument was that in the wars between France and England in the 18th century, domination of the waters through a powerful navy was a large asset if achieved and a harsh setback if not. Therefore, control of commerce and trade at sea was critical for national success. Many Americans joined in the demands for a mightier navy and for the American built isthmian canal between the Atlantic and Pacific. Greatness depended on economic power, and economic power depended on sea power.
Sig: Read by English, Germans, and Japanese, as well as Americans, Mahan helped stimulate the naval race among the great powers. Mahan promoted the idea of a big navy, and the U.S. began construction of the “great white fleet” (state of the art battleships) in the 1890s.
Spanish-American War 1898
Who: Spain and the U.S.
What: Causes: press exaggerated Spanish treatment of Cubans (public outrage); USS Maine sunk in Havana Harbor (Feb. 1898); press said ship had been blown up by the Spanish (public outrage); and America wished to spread the spirit of independence to oppressed Cuba.
Effects: America became an imperial nation, obtaining Cuba (freed in 1902), the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
Sig: The war made the U.S. an imperial overseas power, while at the same time creating a liability (the Philippines).
Aguinaldo and the War of the Philippine Insurrection 1889-1902
Who: Emilio Aguinaldo and the Filipinos, America
Where: in the Philippines
What: The US took the Philippines at the end of the Spanish-American War. Instead of granting them their independence as expected, the US had plans to make the Philippines an American colony. Emilio Aguinaldo had been declared the first president of the Republic but the U.S. would not recognize his government. 11,000 ground troops of American soldiers had been sent to the islands to occupy them, and tensions rose between them and the Filipinos. War broke out with brutal battles and large casualties on both sides; the Filipinos lost to the Americans but lived on to receive their independence later (1946).
Sig: America was truly an imperial nation, resorting to breaking former ties and resorting to ruthless war actions in order to attain more land and self-interest. While America was so eager to help fight for Cuban independence, they fought just as hard and more to take away Filipino independence.
Anti- Imperialist League 1898
Who: The League included prominent American leaders, such as the presidents of Stanford and Harvard Universities, the novelist Mark Twain, the labor leader Samuel Gompers, and the steel king Andrew Carnegie.
What: The League was created to fight the McKinley administration’s expansionist moves. Objections to the annexation of the Philippines included: 1) the Filipinos thirst for freedom; 2) annexation violates “consent of the governed” philosophy according to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; 3) imperialism was costly and was unlikely to make a profit; and 4) annexation brought the possibilities for the United States to get involved needlessly in the political and military cauldron of East Asia.
Sig: There was strenuous and credible opposition to annexation of the Philippines.
The Far East: John Hay and the Open Door Policy 1899-1900
Who: Secretary of State John Hay
Where: China
What: John Hay dispatched to all great powers a communication that urged them to announce that in their areas of influence in China that they respect Chinese territorial integrity and fair competition in China. (The U.S. was a late arrival in China and the Open Door was a way to get into the China trade.) All the great powers save Russia agreed to this. (Later, the U.S. and Japan signed the Root Takahira agreement in 1908 and were parties to the Nine Power Agreement in 1922, both of which pledged both powers to uphold the Open Door Policy in China. As Japan later violated the Open Door with its invasions of China, the U.S. stubbornly held onto to the Open Door, while Japan arrogantly rejected it. This all contributes to the rising tensions between the U.S. and Japan, which culminated in Pearl Harbor on 12-17-41.)
Sig: The Open Door policy remained a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy in Asia until China “fell” to the Communists in 1949.)
The Panama Canal--Construction started in 1904 – completed in 1914
Who: President Theodore Roosevelt
Where: Panama
What: The Spanish-American War had emphasized the need for the canal across the Central American isthmus. After the Panama route was decided, a treaty was negotiated between the U.S. and a Colombian government agent. The Colombian senate rejected the treaty. The infuriated Roosevelt, eager to be elected, was anxious to start the canal in order to impress the voters. The Panama Revolution started and Colombian troops were gathered to crush the uprising, but U.S naval forces would not let them cross the isthmus. Roosevelt justified this interference by a strained interpretation of the treaty of 1846 with Colombia. Fifteen days later, the new Panamanian minister signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty. The price of the canal strip was left the same, but the zone was widened from 6 to 10 miles. Active work on the canal began in 1904. In 1914, the canal project was completed at the initial cost of about $400 million.
Sig: The Panama Canal augmented the strength of the navy by increasing its mobility. The Canal also made easier the defense of such recent acquisitions as Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines, while facilitating the operations of the American merchant marine. The arrogance of the U.S. alienated Central and South Americans. TR said he took the Canal Zone, which was not the kind of sentiment that could be expected to engender love and respect among Latin nations for the U.S. In 1921, two years after T.R. died, Congress in effect apologized to Columbia and paid some conscience money.
T.R. and Russo- Japanese War
Who: Theodore Roosevelt
Where: Russia and Japan
What: War with Russia and Japan broke out in 1904. Japan beat Russia, but due to internal problems Japan secretly asked T.R to broker a peace settlement. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1905, Roosevelt guided the two parties to a settlement.
Sig: Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. More importantly, this was the first modern victory of an Asian power over a European power and foreshadowed the rise of Japan as the dominant power in Asia in the first half of the 20th century.
Roosevelt Corollary (logical extension) to the Monroe Doctrine 1904-05
Where: Became effective when the U.S. took over the management of tariff collections in the Dominican Republic.
What: Latin American debt defaults prompted Roosevelt to be involved in affairs south of the border. Roosevelt feared that if British or Germans became bill collectors, they might stay in Latin America, which would strictly go against the Monroe Doctrine. He then declared a policy of “preventive intervention” which was better known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Roosevelt announced that in the event that a future financial malfeasance by a Latin American nation, the U.S. would intervene, take over the customhouses, pay off the debts, and keep Europeans on the other side of the Atlantic.
Sig: This speaks to the heavy-handed foreign policy of TR, which created bitterness in Latin nations to the south of the U.S. Future presidents would send troops into Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Mexico for various reasons, further alienating Latin peoples
Taft (in office 1909-13) and “Dollar Diplomacy”
What: Efforts of the United States — particularly under President William Howard Taft--to further its foreign policy aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of economic power. “Dollar diplomacy” used American investments in Latin America and Asia rather than military might to achieve foreign policy objectives.
Sig: Compare TR’s “Big Stick” diplomacy, Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy,” and
Wilson’s “Moral Diplomacy.” All three presidents used differing approaches to foreign policy, with mixed results.
Wilson and moral diplomacy (in office 1913-21)
Who: President Woodrow Wilson
What: Wilson detested the “dollar diplomacy” of the Taft administration and instituted a new foreign policy of moral diplomacy. He proclaimed that the US wouldn’t offer special support to American investors in Latin America and China. Wilson wanted to improve foreign relations through moral persuasion, where human (not property) rights were more important.
Sig: This policy of moral diplomacy was evident in Wilson’s dealings with Latin America, the Mexican Revolution, and World War I. This reflects Wilsonian idealism that, when coupled with his stubbornness, did not serve him well. (In spite of his idealism, he sent troops into the Caribbean and Mexico on several occasions, and in the end he took the nation into World War I in 1917.)
Progressive Era 1900-1920
Progressivism (who they were; what their goals were;
include their dislike for Social Darwinism)
Who: Mostly middle class men and women (and largely white and urban)
Where: U.S.A. (especially big cities such as Chicago and New York)
What: The progressive movement of the early 1900s involved both men and women working at all levels of government to achieve many reforms. The cities were literally filthy and corruption was common at both the local and state levels. Big business was rapacious (greedy) and uncontrolled. The Progressives responded quite well to myriad tasks (except justice for African-Americans). The “Muckrakers” were one aspect of this movement’s reform-mindedness, with writers exposing the social, political, and economic ills of the nation. Further, some progressives used appeals to Christian morals to improve life for the poor, and Feminists fought for temperance and women’s suffrage. (An argument could be made that the origins of Progressivism are to be found among white, urban, middle-class people who felt threatened by filthy cities, corruption, big and greedy corporations, a huge alien immigrant population, and socialist agitation for the destruction of capitalism. Thus the Progressive Movement arose out of the fear of many Americans. This is merely an argument that makes some sense.)
Sig: Progressivism achieved many lasting triumphs in consumer protection, conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, getting rid of corruption, installing capable and honest government, welfare laws for women, children, and laborers, and laws that brought more political power to the people (e.g., direct election of senators, the secret ballot, the initiative, referendum, and recall, and the vote for women).
John Dewey and Pragmatism 1880s on
What: John Dewey, educator, philosopher, and psychologist, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophical school of “Pragmatism” (along with William James). The essential premise of pragmatism is that the “truth” is to be determined by what works and what does not work. Pragmatism is interactive, meaning that humankind interacts with the environment and through that interaction moves forward and makes improvements. (In the area of education, Dewey is best known for the idea that children learn by doing.)
Sig: Pragmatism is America’s home-grown philosophy that reflects the practical, down-to-earth approach that has come to characterize American self-sufficiency and individuality. Both Progressives and Pragmatists support the progressive improvement of civilization through the application of reason, especially scientific reason, and human will.
Good Government League(s) (local government cleans up corruption)
Who: Local governments in the U.S.
When: 1900-1916
What: At the local level, people formed “Good Government Leagues” to root out corruption at the local government level and install honest and efficient politicians and administrators.
Sig: Combine this with Progressive achievements at the state level (initiative, referendum, recall) and the national level (various laws, antitrust actions, constitutional amendments) and you have a picture of the progressives at all levels of government (national, state, local).
Initiative, Referendum, Recall (state and local government changes)
Who and Where: Progressives in both major parties, in all regions, at the state and local levels of government.
What: These reformers favored the “initiative” so voters could directly enact legislation, bypassing the corrupt state legislatures. Progressives also wanted “referendum” to allow the common people to vote on laws being proposed by legislatures. The “recall” gave the voters the right to remove corrupt or incompetent.
Sig: The initiative and referendum (not the recall) were Populist goals of the 1890s, realized during the Progressive Era. These acts would allow the common people to have more power in this new age where corruption was too often standard behavior of politicians. (Also add direct election of senators to these three for more “pure” democracy during the Progressive Era.)
Muckrakers Early 1900s
Who: Educated journalists and writers such as Upton Sinclair (The Jungle, 1906), Lincoln Steffens (The Shame of the Cities, 1904), and Ida Tarbell (The History of the Standard Oil Company, 1904)
What: Socially and politically conscious journalists, publishers and writers who used magazines, newspapers and other forms of publishing as a vehicle to expose business and social injustices, they campaigned for honesty in government and business. Important periodicals included magazines such as McClure’s and brought to light the problems in areas such as corruption in government, underhanded practices allying businesses and city governments, railroad and trusts monopolization of business and politics, prostitution, child labor, and problems in the medicinal field.
Sig: The Muckrakers were instrumental in exposing problems in society and raising the public consciousness which empowered the powerful progressive voting block to be more effective.
Upton Sinclair and The Jungle (1906)
Where: Chicago meat processing plants.
What: This novel by Upton Sinclair describes the life of a family of Lithuanian immigrants working in Chicago’s stock yards during the end of the 19th century. Public outrage followed publication, and Roosevelt sent Commissioner Charles P. Neill and social worker James Reynolds to Chicago to make visits to meat packing facilities. They were disgusted by the conditions at the factories and at the harsh treatment the workers endured, and reported back to Roosevelt. After this, the Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were enacted (1906). Ironically, Sinclair, a socialist, was disappointed with the laws because they did not address the working conditions of the workers. ("I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.")
Sig: This book was the basis of educating the nation about the corrupt meat packing businesses, the inhuman treatment of the workers. Roosevelt became a supporter of the regulation of the meat packing industry. The book was also the inspiration for the Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.
Lincoln Steffens and The Shame of the Cities (1904)
What: The Shame of the Cities sought to expose public corruption in many major cities. The work consists of articles written for the magazine McClure's in 1902 (book published in 1904) in one collection. His goal was to provoke public outcry and thus promote reform.
Sig: The book is considered one of the first primary examples of muckraking and contributed to the good government movement to install honest and efficient governments at local and state levels.
Ida Tarbell and The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904)
What: Also published first in McClure’s, Tarbell’s muckraking History was motivated by her father’s destruction at the hands of Rockefeller and Standard Oil.
Sig: Progressive outrage against corporate abuse was heightened by this work. President Taft filed an antitrust action against Standard Oil, and in 1911 it was ordered to be broken up into 34 companies because it was deemed to be a monopoly in restraint of trade and in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
What: This act was designed to prevent the contamination and mislabeling or packaging of foodstuffs; this act prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of contaminated food products or poisonous patented medicines. This law was enacted because of public education by people such as Upton Sinclair, Theodore Roosevelt, and the workers in the companies.
Sig: This act was a big step toward nationwide knowledge of hygiene and clean food, and gave the government the jurisdiction over food in interstate commerce. This act also created the Food and Drug Administration. Finally, this act represents the continuation of a relatively new activity—governmental regulation and oversight of business.
Meat Inspection Act of 1906
What: This decreed that the preparation of meat shipped in interstate commerce would be inspected before shipped off, and any product unfit for human consumption would be confiscated and condemned. This law was made partly in response to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
Sig: This act standardized and regulated the meat industry and the formation of the US Department of Agriculture’s inspection methods. Along with the Pure Food and Drug Act, this represents TR’s commitment to protect the consumer (one of TR’s 3Cs).
Elkins Act 1903
What: The Elkins Act imposed heavy fines on the railroads that gave rebates and
on shippers that accepted them.
Sig: Control of Corporations (one of TR’s 3Cs) Further, it demonstrated the Progressive notion that the regulation of big business was a legitimate end of government.
Hepburn Act 1906
What: Under the Hepburn Act, ‘free passes' were severely restricted. The
Interstate Commerce Commission was expanded and its reach was extended to include
express companies, sleeping-car companies, and pipelines. The ICC could set
maximum railroad shipping rates on complaint of shippers.
Sig: Control of Corporations (one of TR’s 3Cs)
Booker T. Washington (Black educator and author)
and the “Atlanta Compromise” Speech of 1895
When: Dominant from 1880-1915
What: Booker T. Washington was called an “accommodationist” because in petitioning for black rights, he stopped short of directly challenging white supremacy. He was called in 1881 to head a black school in Tuskegee, Alabama because he believed firmly in education. In his 1895 speech known as the “Atlanta Compromise,” he soothed Southern fears by saying that education, which gave blacks an opportunity for economic security, was more valuable to them than higher education, political office, or social status. His race would coexist with whites “by the productions of our hands.” Washington differed from another Black leader, W.E.B. DuBois, who believed that Booker T. Washington was too soft. DuBois believed that higher education and social status was the key to black equality. DuBois was a radical compared to Washington. Hear how Washington effectively accepted Jim Crow in his Atlanta Compromise speech, and then put yourself in the shoes of DuBois: "The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. . . . In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."
Sig: Washington and DuBois together reflect the contrast in approaches to justice for African-Americans, with Washington adopting an “accommodationist” approach that was detested by DuBois and his followers.
W.E.B. DuBois and the Niagara Movement
When: around 1890-1920
What: W.E.B. DuBois was an educator, writer, and civil rights activist. His The Souls of Black Folk (1903) set in words many of his ideas. He was the first African American to graduate with a Ph.D. from Harvard and thusly believed in higher education and economic/political justice now. He also founded the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was opposed to Booker T. Washington who believed in gradualism and change coming at its own pace. DuBois even proposed his idea in a “talented tenth,” that one-tenth of African Americans should be immediately granted complete access to mainstream America’s social and educational rights.
DuBois brought about the “Niagara Movement” in 1905, which renounced Booker T. Washington's accommodation policies set forth in his famed "Atlanta Compromise" speech ten years earlier. The Niagara Movement's manifesto is, in the words of DuBois, "We want full manhood suffrage and we want it now.... We are men! We want to be treated as men. And we shall win." On July 11 thru 14, 1905 on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, twenty-nine men met and formed a group they called the Niagara Movement. The name came because of the location and the "mighty current" of protest they wished to unleash which denounced Booker T’s “Atlanta Compromise” and championed for black suffrage immediately. The Niagara Movement led to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
Sig: Du Bois was one of America’s great African-American leaders who was uncompromising and courageous. His work led to the NAACP which championed black rights for the remainder of the 20th century.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/ 1909-Present
What: Founded by W. E. B. DuBois in 1909, the NAACP demanded that the “talented tenth” of the black community be given full and immediate access to the mainstream of American life. Over the years the main tactic of the NAACP was legal action that challenged Jim Crow and other discriminatory laws. The chief victory was in the 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which declared the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) to be unconstitutional. That decision began the process of school desegregation. Thurgood Marshall, a NAACP attorney on the case, became the first black Justice on the Supreme Court.
Sig: Contrast the more aggressive stance of Du Boise’s NAACP with Washington’s Atlanta Compromise approach (“accommodation”). The N.A.A.C.P. was and is a leader in the fight to achieve justice for African-Americans.
Marcus Garvey—African-American Leader
When: 1920’s
Where: Primarily New York
What: Jamaican-born political leader that founded the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) to promote the resettlement of American blacks in their own “African homeland” (Liberia)—this was the “back-to-Africa” movement in the post-World War I period. Toward this end, he formed the ill-fated Black Star Line, a shipping company. The UNIA also sponsored stores and other businesses to keep black dollars in black pockets, but most of the businesses failed. Garvey was convicted for mail fraud and was deported to his native Jamaica (he was not a U.S. citizen). While mismanagement was a certainty, there is speculation that his trial and conviction was politically prompted by J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I. (then the Bureau of Investigation—not F.B.I. until 1935).
Sig: Garvey was more international in his vision. He was among the first to mount an offensive against European colonialism in Africa. Garvey founded a million-member organization that gave racial pride and self-confidence to blacks. He foreshadowed the “black pride” movement of the 1960s.
Compare: Washington (work hard with your hands and “accommodate”), DuBois (fight for equal rights), and Garvey (separate from the whites and have your own businesses and country). (This is your late 19th and early 20th century essay answer to a question involving African-American response to injustice.)
Theodore Roosevelt’s “Square Deal”—1901-09
What: President Theodore Roosevelt (TR) was interested in the well being of the public and created a broad program referred to as the “Three C’s.” They were:
1) Control of the corporations
In 1902, TR’s plan was tested at the outbreak of the anthracite coal strike in Pennsylvania. He worked out a compromise of a 10 percent pay boost for the miners and a working day of nine hours after threatening mine owners with using troops to operate the mines and asking Wall Street to dump mine company stock. (This was the first time a president stood between management and labor and did not merely side with management.) Here is the origin of the 1904 presidential campaign phrase, “square deal.” The phrase relates to his attempting to establish a “square deal” between management and labor, specifically referring to his settlement of the anthracite coal strike of 1902. The phrase can be expanded to include what TR did under the “3Cs.”
TR also was engaged in “trust-busting” under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Notably was the Northern Securities Case of 1904. J. P. Morgan and James J. Hill, among others, formed a monopolistic trust composed of various northern railroads. TR sued them and in 1904 the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution (breakup) of the trust. (Sig: The Northern Securities case was one of the earliest and most important antitrust cases and provided important legal precedents for many later cases.)
TR promoted railroad regulation with the Elkins Act of 1903, which gave heavy fines to railroads and shippers who granted or received rebates, and the Hepburn Act of 1906 which restricted a kind of bribery--free railroad passes.
2) Consumer protection
The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 should be cited here.
3) Conservation of natural resources.
The Newlands Act of 1902 used the profit from the sale of public lands for irrigation projects in the Southwest. The Brown Pelican Refuge, the nation’s first wildlife refuge, was established in Florida in 1903. Finally, 125 million acres of forests were set aside for federal reserves.
Sig: TR began the process that continued for the remainder of U.S. History: using an energetic national government to do what is required to control corporations, protect the consumer, and conserve natural resources. Start energetic and intrusive national government activities with TR, and then reenergize them under FDR and the New Deal.
Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism-1910-1912
What: TR, out of office since 1909, ran on a third party ticket, the Progressive “Bull Moose,” against Taft (Rep) and Wilson (Dem). During the campaign of 1912, Roosevelt and Wilson had two varieties of progressivism. Wilson’s plan was called “New Freedom” and TR’s was “New Nationalism”. TR’s plan was rooted in Herbert Croly’s book, The Promise of American Life (1910), in which continued consolidation of businesses and labor unions would be paralleled by the growth of powerful regulatory agencies in Washington. (Thus big wasn’t bad as long as it was regulated. This should be contrasted with Wilson’s “New Freedom” which promised neutralization if not entire destruction of big business via antitrust actions and a return to an earlier period where smaller businesses competed in a free and open marketplace. The Progressive TR wanted regulation of big business; the Progressive Wilson wanted to promote small business enterprises.) During the election TR also argued for women’s suffrage and a broad program of social welfare which included minimum wage and social insurance.
Sig: The New Nationalism and the Progressives looked forward to the kind of activist welfare state that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal would one day make a reality.
Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy
When: 1910
What: When Secretary of Interior Richard Ballinger opened coal fields in Alaska to corporate development, he angered Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Forester and a friend of TR. Pinchot spoke out, and President Taft fired him for insubordination, which angered environmentalists and progressives, including TR. (Investigation revealed no impropriety by Ballinger but he remained under a cloud of suspicion.)
Sig: This controversy heightened the growing rift within Republican ranks between TR and Taft supporters. (In 1912, TR ran separately and split the Republican vote, causing the Democrat Wilson to be elected with less than 50% of the popular vote.)
The Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909)
What: This act was the first modification of tariff laws since the Dingley Tariff of 1897. President Theodore Roosevelt had simply avoided the issue during his tenure. Taft and the Republicans promised a lower tariff in the 1908 campaign, but the resulting Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909 only lowered the general rate from 46 to 41 percent. While lower than the very high McKinley Tariff of 1890, this tariff was still protectionist. Taft called it the best tariff ever passed by Republicans, thus angering Democrats and Progressive Republicans.
Sig: The struggle over Payne-Aldrich clearly identified the growing fissures within the Republican Party. The progressive or insurgent element was growing away from the G.O.P. Old Guard. This is another example that helps explain the breakup of the Republican Party in the election of 1912.
Customs (tariffs) as chief source of revenue before income tax
What: “For nearly 125 years, tariffs funded virtually the entire government, and paid for the nation's early growth and infrastructure. The territories of Louisiana and Oregon, Florida and Alaska were purchased; the National Road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, West Virginia, was constructed. . . . Customs collections built the nation's lighthouses; the U.S. military and naval academies; the City of Washington; and, the list goes on. The new nation that once teetered on the edge of bankruptcy was now solvent. By 1835, Customs revenues alone had reduced the national debt to zero!” (This is a quote from the U.S. Customs self-glorifying website.) Since 1913 the income tax rose to become the nation’s chief source of revenue.
Sig: Tariffs were the chief source of federal revenue up to 1913. Thus the tariff battles were a significant part of U.S. History, pitting class against class, region against region, farmer against industry.
Wilson’s New Freedom 1912-14
Who: President Woodrow Wilson
What: The policy promoted antitrust action, downward tariff revision, and reform in banking and currency matters.
1. Tariffs
Wilson supported the Underwood Tariff and reduced the basic United States tariff rates from the Payne-Aldrich rate of 41% to 27%. It was part of the Revenue Act of 1913 which included an income tax authorized by the recently ratified 16th Amendment.
2. Banking
One of his greatest achievements was the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which created the system that provided the framework for regulating the nation's banks, credit, and money supply today.
3. Unions
He supported the Clayton Antitrust Act, 1914, which was an amendment to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Self-dealing, large, interlocking directorates were prohibited. More importantly, labor unions and agricultural cooperatives could no longer be treated as a combination in “restraint of trade.” (The national government used the 1890 act against unions and strikers, arguing that they were acting in “restraint of trade.” The government’s position was contrary to the spirit and intent of the act, which was to prevent abuse by trusts or monopolies.) The Clayton Act restricted the use of the injunction against labor, and it legalized peaceful strikes, picketing, and boycotts. The Clayton Act has been called the Magna Carta (declaration of rights) of the American labor movement.
Sig: Wilson’s achievements were lasting. Today: 1) the income tax is the principal source of U.S. federal revenue; 2) unions and their peaceful activities are legal and protected; 3) The Federal Reserve System is the foundation of the nation’s money supply. (Compare with FDR’s legacy: nine programs still operative today.)
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Wilson
What: The FTC (1914) is an independent agency of the United States government. Its principal mission is the prevention of unfair or anticompetitive business practices. The FTC contains a bipartisan body of five members appointed by the President of the United States for seven year terms. This Commission was authorized to issue Cease and Desist orders to large corporations to curb unfair trade practices.
Sig: The Federal Trade Commission was one of President Wilson's legislative actions designed to promote fair competition. The FTC is consistent with Wilson’s New Freedom agenda.
Federal Reserve Act 1913
What: The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. Wilson supported the creation of the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) through a law passed in 1913, charging the FRB with a responsibility to foster a sound banking system and a healthy economy. There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks nationwide, each issuing standard paper money. The FRB regulates the amount of currency in circulation through various devices, including setting the interest that banks are charged for borrowing money from a Federal Reserve bank. (If the rate is high, there will be less spending and the economy will cool; if the rate is low, there will be more spending and the economy will heat up—according to the macroeconomic theory that supports current FRB thinking.)
Sig: The Federal Reserve Act is one of Wilson’s most important achievements, creating a national banking system that has endured for almost one hundred years.
Progressive Era Constitutional Amendments (16 through 19)
What: The progressives heavily influenced Amendments 16-19 of the Constitution. The 16th Amendment (1913) authorizes income taxes. The 17th Amendment (1913) provides for the direct election of Senators by the people of a state rather than their selection by a state legislature. The 18th Amendment (1919) established prohibition. The 19th Amendment (1920) prohibits both the federal government and the states from using a person's sex as a qualification to vote.
Sig: These important reforms were achieved at the national levels and proved the power of the progressive reformers.
Women’s roles: family, workplace, education, politics, and reform (Progressive Era) Who: Women of the Progressive Era
What: 1) By 1910, about 40 percent of Americans who attended college were women.
2) Women established the settlement house movement, the women’s club movement, and literary clubs. Women who fought for laws to protect workers, women, and children in the workplace defended their activities on the basis that such agitation was consistent with the maternal role of the housewife who is merely protecting her family.
3) Women fought for abstinence from alcohol and founded the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1874. The WCTU emphasized an attack against alcohol but was active in many other reform movements including protection of women and children at work and at home, and the right to vote.
Sig: At a time when women could not vote or hold political office, they proved themselves to be a vital element of the Progressive Era. Their actions foreshadowed their future influence in every sphere of life. Their work empowered them and brought them greater equality, as well as needed reforms to American life.
World War I
World War I: Causes of U.S. participation in
What: Culturally, Americans were closer to Britain than Germany; trade with Britain skyrocketed, while trade with Germany dropped to almost nothing; Britain violated property rights on the high seas, while Germany violated human rights through its conduct of submarine warfare against merchant ships. While the U.S. wanted to stay out of the war, when the Germans began sinking U.S. ships in March, 1917, Wilson took the U.S. to war.
Sig: The U.S. stayed out of the war for almost three years, yet due to support for Britain and the submarine warfare of Germany, the U.S. finally got involved.
Neutral in thought and action: problems due to ties to England
Who: United States (England as well)
What: After war broke out in Europe in 1914, President Wilson issued a neutrality proclamation. The British were upset with this decision since they were culturally, linguistically, and economically connected to the U.S. The British began forcing American vessels into their ports for trade. The Germans announced a submarine war zone. They sank the Lusitania, in which 128 Americans died, and issued the Arabic and Sussex pledges to not attack unarmed ships. Wilson asked the U.S. people to be neutral in thought and deed, but close relationships with Britain made that impossible. Further, the British blockade caused business with Germany to fall off tremendously and go up several times over with the British.
Sig: The ties with Britain, along with the British blockade, were too strong to remain neutral in thought and deed. By the time of U.S. entry into the war in 1917, the U.S. was not in fact neutral, and both sides knew that—it was only a matter of time before the U.S. would be sucked into the fight, and the Germans prompted U.S. entry when it began to sink our ships in March, 1917.
Arabic Pledge 1915
What: The British liner, Arabic, was sunk in August 1915 by Germans with the loss of 2 American lives. The Germans pledged to not attack passenger ships without giving proper warning.
Sig: The German violation of human rights on the high seas was a source of controversy and finally war.
Sussex Pledge 1916
What: The Germans torpedoed the French passenger ship, Sussex.
Sig: The Germans broke the Arabic pledge and Wilson threatened to join the war. The Germans made yet another pledge—the Sussex Pledge. In February 1917, Germany, in a desperate need to break the British blockade, announced unrestricted sub warfare, and by April the U.S. declared war after losing several ships to German submarines.
Birth of A Nation relating racism and pro-KKK 1915
What: While a technically advanced film, Birth of A Nation (1915) by D.W. Griffith was a blatantly racist movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan.
Sig: The movie promoted racism and the reemergence of the KKK after WWI.
War Boards (WWI)
Who: President Wilson
What: War Industries Board of 1917-18 was meant to provide a national plan for the organization of the labor and factory efforts to aid the War effort. The WIB was largely cooperative, with the WIB working with industry to maximize production by increasing productivity and resolving labor disputes to avoid strikes. Coming late in the War, it was relatively ineffective.
Sig: The War Industries Board was a step toward national management of the private sector for war. (War boards arose again with greater authority to ration goods during WWII.)
WWI on the Home Front 1914-1918
What: 1) Industrial Production: Factories were reorganized to make bombs and guns. A popular saying was “Labor Will Win the War” and the War Department, in 1918, said “work or fight” threatening all unemployed people with the draft.
2) Women. Women gained a greater foothold in the workplace. With many new jobs opening up, women came forward to fill them.
3) Agriculture. Accompanying the boom in manufacturing was a boom in agriculture. Herbert Hoover headed up the Food Administration and introduced a number of policies like “meatless Tuesdays” and the growing of “victory gardens” to aid the war effort.
4) Energy. The Fuel Administration also adopted such efforts to great success.
5) War bonds. The large-scale sale of war bonds helped greatly in funding the war.
6) The Draft. One problem was the shortage of troops. Because of this a draft bill was begun, requiring all males between 18 and 45 years of age to sign up and nobody could hire a replacement: only men in industries such as shipbuilding were exempt.
7) Anti-German/anti-Socialist sentiment. There was much anti-German and anti-Socialist sentiment in the U.S. during the war. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 and prosecuted people who spoke out against the war. This was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919), in which Justice Holmes asserted the “clear and present danger” test: "The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
Sig: While women generally returned to the homes after the war, their contribution furthered their quest for the vote (19th Amendment, 1920). The War Industries Board, the Fuel Administration, and the Food Administration demonstrated the national government’s willingness to organize and manage the private economy in wartime. This would occur again in WWII. (The draft in WWII was started before the war; it occurred during the war in WWI. Further, control of the economy by the government was much greater during WWII.) The hysterical fear of espionage would reappear in WWII with the internment of the Japanese.
Wilson’s Fourteen Points--January 8, 1918
Who: President Woodrow Wilson delivered the Fourteen Points Address to the U.S. Congress.
What: The Fourteen Points were the proposals of President Woodrow Wilson designed to establish the basis for a just and lasting peace following the victory of the Allies in World War I. Some of the more important points were:
(1) abolition of secret diplomacy by open covenants, openly arrived at [secret alliances were a cause of WWI]
(4) reduction of armaments [an arms race was a cause of WWI]
(13) an independent Poland, with access to the sea [“access” became the Danzig corridor, which became a reason for the German invasion of Poland in 1939]
(14) creation of a general association of nations to give mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity (this led to the League of Nations)
Sig: The Fourteen Points held out hopes for a lasting peace, self-determination for previously subjugated minorities, and an international organization that would ensure a peaceful future world. The Allies, however, were too interested in punishing Germany, and the U.S. Senate balked at the League of Nations. The U.S. Senate did not agree to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, largely because of the League. (The U.S. signed a separate peace with Germany in 1921.) The idealistic Wilson was swept away by European realpolitik and the U.S. Senate’s fear of foreign entanglements.
Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924)
Who: U. S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
What: Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who led the successful fight against American participation in the League of Nations proposed by President Woodrow Wilson at the close of World War I. His reason was membership in the world peacekeeping organization would threaten the sovereignty of the United States by binding the nation to international commitments it would not or could not keep.
Sig: The League of Nations was established anyway, but only lasted about twenty years until WWII. (The U.N. was created in 1945: where the U.S. did not join the League, it created the U.N.—this is a huge contrast between WWI and WWI.)
Treaty of Versailles
League of Nations (including Article X) 1919
Who: U.S. and various nations involved in WWI, including Germany.
What: The League of Nations was Wilson’s ultimate goal for lasting peace in his fourteen points. He envisioned an assembly with seats for all nations and a council to be controlled by the great powers. The Senate denied the peace treaty, along with the League of Nations, twice. The leaders of the other "Big Four" nations Britain, France and Italy resisted many of Wilson’s proposals for the post war world that he had outlined in his Fourteen Points and insisted that Germany pay reparations for starting the war. Wilson was thinking peace while they were thinking punishment and reparations. Wilson did succeed, however, in making sure that his proposal for a League of Nations was included in the final draft of the Versailles Treaty. Article X bound the United States to aid any member victimized by external aggression. Article X was rejected by the Senate because it eroded the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war. (Senator Lodge would accept Article X only if the U.S. Congress approved going to war to defend a member of the League. One of his “reservations” was that the “United States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other country . . . unless . . . Congress, which . . . has the sole power to declare war . . . shall . . . so provide.” This was unacceptable to Wilson.)
Sig: U.S never joined in League of Nations. Wilson never compromised with the Republican Senators to water down his precious fourteen points. Without U.S. participation in the League, it was doomed from the start. (Compare this with the U.S. creating the United Nations in 1945 and being its chief supporter after WWII.)
Red scare 1919-1920 (include Palmer Raids)
What: Americans feared communism after the Bolshevik takeover in Russia. A nationwide campaign against left wingers whose Americanism was suspect was launched under the direction U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover. The “Palmer Raids” resulted in the rounding up of thousands of anarchists, socialists, and communists. Many were jailed, and many were deported for violations of various federal laws related to sedition, espionage, and alien status.
Sig: The Palmer Raids are part of post-WWI anti-communist hysteria. Compare this with the anti-communist hysteria (“McCarthyism”) in the post-WWII period.
African American Migration during and after World War I
Who: African Americans
What: During the war, tens of thousands of African Americans migrated from the South to the North because of war industry employment opportunities.
Sig: This was a major shift in regional migration for African Americans. This trend was accelerated during World War II. Thus black communities in the North and West (especially California) grew as a result of jobs during both world wars. (Facing continued discrimination after the war, many African Americans were locked in urban ghettos in Northern and Western cities, which in turn became the scene of great unrest, including rioting, after WWII.)
The Roaring 20s
Disarmament: Washington Naval Conference 1921-1922
What: President Harding invited major powers (except Russia) to Washington for a disarmament conference. The agenda was expanded to include the situation in the Far East and led to various agreements, including the 1) Four Power, 2) Five Power and 3) Nine Power agreements.
Sig: A series of agreements were reached with the intent to avoid confrontation and war in the Pacific. The U.S. was “isolationist” (no foreign entanglements that could lead to war) and these agreements should be analyzed in the context of “isolationism.” Tokyo terminated the Five Power Agreement in 1934 (the naval disarmament treaty) and in its invasion of China broke the Nine Power Agreement (Open Door), all contributing to the growing confrontation between the U.S. and Japan that led to WWII.
1) Four Power Agreement 1922
What: The U.S., Britain, France, and Japan agreed to respect the territorial integrity of their possessions in the far east.
Sig: In retrospect, this was a meaningless agreement to be respectful and to talk to each other if one of the signatories violates the agreement. From an isolationist perspective, however, it was a positive step to maintain peace in the Pacific.
2) Five Power Agreement 1922
What: The U.S., Britain, Japan, France, and Italy, agreed to limit the construction of capital (large) ships to a ratio of 5:5:3:1.75:1.75, respectively. Further, the U.S. Britain, and Japan agreed to not further fortify their insular possessions in the Pacific. This was intended to relieve potential tensions that might arise from an arms buildup, but it left the Philippines virtually defenseless in case of a Japanese attack, which came on 12-7-41. (The Philippines fell to the Japanese on May 6, 1942, just five months after Pearl Harbor.)
Sig: Immediately, an arms race was averted. This is all a part of the U.S. isolationist effort to avoid situations that might lead to war. (The bankruptcy of the process is obvious—with 20/20 hindsight.)
3) Nine Power Agreement 1922
What: This agreement was part of the Washington Naval Conference. The Big Four (U.S., Britain, France, Japan), plus Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and China supported the Open Door Policy whereby the signatories pledged mutual respect for Chinese territorial integrity and independence.
Sig: Japan violated the agreement after its invasion of China in 1931. The U.S. insistence on the Open Door in China became a continuing source of controversy for the U.S. and Japan and should be viewed as part of the background to the coming of WWII.
Harding Scandals (his shortened term was 1921-1923)
Who: Harding, the “Ohio Gang,” Colonel Charles Forbes, Harry Sinclair, and Edward Doheny
What: Harding, like Grant, was surrounded by crooked men, who are collectively known as the “Ohio Gang.” He was successful by going along with Ohio Republican machine politicians. When elected to the Senate, he said it seemed to be "a very pleasant place." He was nominated for president because his Ohio backers thought he looked like a president. Not surprisingly, scandal rocked his administration. One scandal included Veterans’ Administration head Colonel Charles R. Forbes, who was found to be stealing $200 million from the government. Another major scandal during his administration was the Teapot Dome in 1921, in which Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, who, after receiving almost $400,000 in bribes, leased oil lands to two oilmen, Sinclair and Doheny. Harding would not live to hear the public results of the scandals: In August of 1923, he died in San Francisco of a heart attack, and Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president.
Sig: Like Grant, Harding’s involvement with corrupt men shows his weakness of character. He is regarded as one of the worst presidents because of these scandals, but he should be given credit for the Washington Disarmament Conference and the various agreements resulting from that Conference.
Harding and Coolidge pro-business policies 1921-1929
Who: Harding, Coolidge, Mellon
What: Both Harding ("Less government in business and more business in government.”) and Coolidge ("The business of America is business.") had pro-business policies. Under Harding, antitrust laws were ignored or feebly enforced, letting corporations and big industrialists thrive. Both Harding and Coolidge often increased tariffs, rather than decreasing them, which is seen in the McCumber Tariff of 1922. Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon (served 1921-32, which means that three presidents “served under him”) promoted large tax reductions. Under his lead, Congress repealed excess-profits tax, as well as abolishing the gift tax, and reducing excise taxes, the surtax, the income tax, and estate taxes.
Sig: The actions of both presidents show their pro-business policies. Mellon’s actions concerning taxes shifted the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class. Relate all this to the pro-business mood of the country in the 1920s.
Jazz Age 1920s
What: This period in American history coincides with the Roaring Twenties. The name refers to jazz music, brought up from the South by the migration of African Americans during WWI. The age was also marked by individualism and a pursuit of pleasure. This age also brought forth literature, including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise, which addressed the superficiality, extravagance, and hedonism (pleasure-seeking) of the period.
Sig: This age influenced America deeply adding to its cultural identity, including the addition of America’s most native music. The age also displays the cultural influence created by the Black community.
Harlem Renaissance 1920s
Where: The black community in Harlem, a community within New York City
What: The Harlem Renaissance (rebirth) was the blossoming of racial pride and culture in Harlem. This includes expression through art, music, dance, literature, history, politics, and business. One of the great poets was Langston Hughes, who contributed greatly to the movement. Marcus Garvey contributed to the renaissance, founding the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the Black Star Line Steamship Company.
Sig: This movement furthered the cultural identity of the African Americans, as well as contributing to American culture as a whole. Out of this renaissance, contributions to various forms of art and black self-awareness and pride were achieved.
Prohibition, bootlegging 1919-1933
What: Prohibition was authorized in 1919 by the 18th Amendment and was implemented by the Volstead Act. Prohibition was considered a noble “experiment,” but was not able to stop the consumption of alcohol. Old-time saloons were replaced by “speakeasies” and “moonshine” was made at home. Bootlegging was also rampant, as alcohol was smuggled into America. Prohibition spawned criminal mobs associated with bootlegging. Prohibition was repealed with the 21st Amendment in 1933.
Sig: Prohibition, an antebellum reform movement that was finally successful, showed the influence of churches and women. Prohibition also demonstrated the bankruptcy of legislating morality without first convincing the drinking public of the need for prohibition.
Modernism in the 1920s and responses to it (fundamentalism, nativism)
Who: The “Lost Generation,” Fundamentalists, and Nativists
What: Modernism in the 1920s is rooted in the idea that people can make progress and can reshape their environment through the application of scientific and technical knowledge and the absence of any fear of change. Exploration and experimentation is critical to experience in many areas of life. This leads to a “try anything” attitude that was loathsome to many traditional Americans.
These changes in tradition were countered by the efforts of the Fundamentalists, who were concerned with modernism creeping into society and schools. Notably, they fought against the teaching of evolution in schools and were successful in getting many states to pass anti-evolution laws.
The “New Immigration” of the modern era was condemned by the “one hundred percent Americans” and their nativist ideals. They called for an end to mass immigration from Europe. Many of the immigrants embraced socialism, which was detested by many traditionalists. Nativists succeeded with the Immigration Act of 1924. The worst reaction here was the reemergence of a powerful KKK that opposed blacks, Jews, and Catholics--all seen as threats to traditional American culture.
Sig: The modernist movement of the 1920s led to a cultural struggle between traditionalists, including Fundamentalists, and those who embraced the Roaring 20s with its liberating, boundless, and progressive energy.
Nativism (throughout the nation’s history, 1700s-1900s)
Who: Conservative, American born citizens.
What: This anti-immigrant sentiment had its beginnings after the Revolution, with a major presence in the pre Civil War “Know Nothing Party.” By the 1880s, Chinese were the principal targets of Nativism. At the turn of the century, nativists based their actions upon the fear that European immigrants brought radical ideas over with them, and they feared that communist, socialist, and anarchist movements would take hold in America. Nativist ideas also appeared within organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s, as “native” Americans worked to crush the cultural diversity that was appearing with the foreigners.
Sig: This anti-immigration view reflects the racial, cultural, and economic fears directed at eastern and southern Europeans from 1890 up to the 1920s. The pressures put upon the government by those who held this view led Congress to establish the quota system through the Immigration Act of 1924 (finally repealed in 1965 as part of LBJ’s Great Society). The nativist outlook also helped to feed the “red scare” of 1920, which was a nationwide crusade against those who were suspected of being Communists.
Religious fundamentalists versus modernists:
the Scopes Trial 1925
Who: John T. Scopes, William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow.
Where: Dayton, Tennessee.
What: Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was charged with teaching evolution in his classroom, which contradicted a state law that made it illegal to teach any theory that disagreed with the Biblical account of creation. In a highly publicized event, he was defended by nationally acclaimed attorney Clarence Darrow. (The prosecution called on William Jennings Bryan, a famous Fundamentalist, as an expert witness.) Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but the supreme court of Tennessee released him from the fine due to a technicality.
Sig: This event signals the clash between modern scientific ideas and fundamental Christian beliefs. The Fundamentalists may have won the case, but Darrow’s cross examination made Bryan look like a fool. This ridicule of their cause caused many Christians to later reconcile their established beliefs with modern science. (Later, the Supreme Court struck down anti-evolution statutes.)
Ku Klux Klan 1920s
Who: Anglo Saxons, “native” Americans, Protestants, lower-middle-class fundamentalists.
Where: Midwest and the “Bible Belt” South.
What: This society of ultraconservative extremists, first founded as an anti-Black group during the Reconstruction period, witnessed a rebirth in the early 1920s. By the mid 1920s, it boasted of 5 million dues-paying members. The KKK was anti-foreign, anti-Jewish, anti-Black, anti-Catholic, anti-Communist, anti-pacifist, and
anti-evolutionist. Its members, the “Knights of the Invisible Empire” used the bloodied lash and the blazing cross as weapons of fear. With 5,000,000 members, the Klan could intimidate both blacks and politicians. The movement dwindled in popularity towards the end of the decade due to legal and financial issues.
Sig: The KKK is the best example of anti-black and nativist sentiment in U.S. History.
Women and the family in the 1920s
What: 1) Politically, women received the right to vote via the 19th Amendment, which was ratified in 1920.
2) Economically, women had been finding increased employment in cities since the late 1800s, and this trend continued throughout the 1920s. They worked in jobs such as retail clerking, typing, receptionist, teacher, nurse.
3) Socially, further independence was brought with the automobile, which decreased women’s dependence upon men. “Flappers” raised their hemlines, rolled their stockings, put rouge on their cheeks, and smoked cigarettes publicly to symbolize their break from the standards of previous generations. Margaret Sanger preached birth control, which meant that the new woman--working, more mobile, and relatively liberated--could control her own life to an unprecedented degree. The new woman could delay marriage and not have as many children as her mother or grandmother. With a smaller or no family, a more liberated woman was emerging. This trend would continue for many decades, accelerating in the 1960s.
4) Technologically, the woman was benefiting from inventions such as the refrigerator and the washing machine which saved time.
Sig: The changing roles of women reflected many changes in American society, and again traditionalists and Fundamentalists objected to the disruption of what would be characterized today as “family values.”
Margaret Sanger and Birth Control 1920s onward
What: Sanger promoted birth control openly. She criticized censorship of her message by civil and religious authorities. In 1921 New York police broke up the inaugural meeting of the American Birth Control League, whose founder, Margaret Sanger, saw contraception as the scientific alternative to poverty, crime and urban squalor.
Sig: Her promotion of birth control aided in the further erosion of traditionalism in the cultural revolution that took place during the Roaring 20s. Again, traditionalists fought her, arguing, for example, that the soaring divorce rate was a reflection of her kind of activities.
“Lost Generation” 1920s
Who: Authors: Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises), Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby), Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land), Gertrude Stein, eecummings
Where: US and Europe
What: The generation of young people coming of age in the US during and shortly after WWI was considered “lost” because the war had shaken their traditional beliefs. Disillusioned by the overwhelming death and destruction caused by the war, this generation rejected the notions of morality and propriety of their elders and as expatriates went to Europe. The sex and alcohol of the ‘20s literature was rooted in disillusionment with the world as a result of the horrors of World War I. (By the time of the 1950s and 1960s, the post-World War II generation of writers grew up with this disillusionment, along with the Depression and World War II. They engaged in sex, alcohol, drugs, not out of disillusionment but out of curiosity.) The Lost Generation of the ‘20s and the “Beat” generation of the’50s both rejected the normative standards of contemporary society, but the “Beat” generation of the ‘50s did so with a casualness that was absent in the ‘20s because the “Beat” generation simply accepted the world for what it was, while the “Lost” generation once believed in and supported societal standards of behavior and then became disillusioned.
Sig: The literature demonstrates the overwhelming effect of the war and how it contributed to the further degradation of traditionalism in America.
Isolationism in the 1920s and ‘30s
What: Isolationism drove U.S. foreign policy in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes that got the U.S. into World War I, Congress, presidents, and the public supported laws and policies that would keep the U.S. out of foreign entanglements (so they thought, erroneously). With this in view, various PEPS can be developed to support an isolationist foreign policy: the failure of the U.S. to join the League of Nations; the Washington Naval Disarmament Conference of 1921-22 and the various treaties arising therefrom; the Dawes Plan for reparations; the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact; the Stimson Doctrine; and the Neutrality legislation of 1935-1937.
Sig: Many of America’s isolationist actions actually provoked WWII by convincing the dictators in Europe and the Japanese militarists that America would not fight them if they tried to take over Europe or the Far East. By not helping nations under attack, the U.S. only bolstered Japanese and German confidence.
WWI Reparation Problems 1920s and 1930s
Who: Charles Dawes, Germany, England, and France
What: The French and British demanded that the Germans make enormous reparations payments as compensation for war-inflicted damages, but Germany suffered from hyperinflation and could not pay either Britain or France. America refused, however, to lower Britain’s and France’s debts to the U.S., so in order to be paid American Charles Dawes produced the Dawes Plan of 1924. The Dawes Plan stated that American investors would lend money to Germany so that Germany could make reparations to Britain so that Britain could repay their allied war debt to America. This financial merry-go-round only resulted in higher debt for Germany and a boost for American creditors who made profit on the high interest loans.
Sig: In the end America never did get its money, but it harvested a bumper crop of ill will in Europe. Also, Americans did not like the enormous debt caused by the war and this contributed powerfully to the isolationist policy of America leading up to WWII.
Farm problems in 1920s
What: Due to the advanced technology of machines, farmers faced an
over-abundance of crop production. Further, after WWI European farmers were having a greater impact on worldwide production. This abundance decreased prices on crops and increased the chance of depression for farmers. The McNary-Haugen Bill (1927-28) was an effort to boost agricultural prices by having the government buy surplus crops at pre-WWI prices, but Coolidge vetoed the bill twice.
Sig: The worldwide surplus of crops after WWI caused a decrease in price. The sudden price drop caused many farmers to lose money and their farms. The final solution, the AAA of the New Deal, would have to wait for FDR.
Henry Ford and Ford Motor Co
Who: Henry Ford
Where: Detroit, Michigan “Motorcar Capital of America”
What: Creator of the Ford car (Model T). This car was mass marketed and well within price reach at $260, thus providing a car for all classes of society. Ford mastered the techniques of assembly-line production and made a durable, inexpensive car for America. He opened a huge industry that created hundred of thousands of jobs. With improved transportation, including roads, farmers could get their produce more quickly to market, and people in general could travel almost anywhere and live far from city centers. Sig: The automobile was, arguably, the single most important contribution to American civilization in the 20th century, and Henry Ford is to be given credit for bringing it to the common person.
Immigration Restrictions in the 1920’s
What: In response to nativist fears of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, with their different customs, languages, and political traditions, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 (3% of a nation’s people who were in the U.S. in 1910 would be allowed into the U.S. every year; the Immigration Act of 1924 lowered the percent to 2% with the base year being 1890, before most of the immigrants from eastern and southern Europe arrived in the U.S.). The 1924 Act also prohibited entirely the immigration of Japanese.
Sig: The U.S., responding to nativist fears, sacrificed its tradition of freedom and opportunity for immigrants.
Consumerism in the 1920’s
What: The 1920s saw the growth of the culture of consumerism--many Americans began to work fewer hours, earn higher salaries, invest in the stock market, and buy refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars, and radios. Companies sent out ads to convince Americans to buy many things. Credit purchases fueled consumer purchases.
Sig: Consumerism fueled an already heated economy. Consumerism led to too much installment buying and overproduction by manufacturers who in the end could not sell their goods once the Depression got under way.
Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact 1928
Who: Frank B. Kellogg (Coolidge’s secretary of state) and Aristide Briand (France’s foreign minister)
Where: France, America, and ultimately 60 other nations
What: The U.S. and France signed this treaty which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy. The treaty had no enforcement or sanctions against those who broke the pact and it did not prevent war between countries.
Sig: This pact was ineffective and useless as seen in Germany’s invasion (Germany signed the document) of Poland. The pact was a hope that diplomacy would prove strong enough to keep countries from waging war against each other. The pact also fueled American isolationism in that the treaty produced a false sense of security.
The ongoing struggle for equality in the 1920s: African American and women
What: Both African-Americans and women struggled for freedom in the 1920s without governmental help. The government did little or nothing to suppress Jim Crow and women continued to be treated as they were before WWI in spite of their contributions to the war effort. Both groups sought freedom of expression.
African-Americans expressed their independence most notably through the Harlem Renaissance, and women expressed their independence most notably through the “flapper”—the short-skirted, drinking, smoking, unchaperoned young woman who defied tradition.
Sig: Contrast the post-WWI with the post-WWII period for both African-Americans and women. After WWII, from the 1940s to the 1970s and beyond, both groups broke the bonds of tradition and laws with assertive and aggressive social and political campaigns to achieve equality, and both groups were very successful.
Great Depression and the New Deal
Causes of Depression
What: The Great Depression was an economic crisis that lasted from 1929 to the late 1930’s. The reasons for the Depression were:
1) Overproduction of farm and factory goods and not enough demand. This caused factories to cut back production and layoff workers. As total salaries declined there was less money to spend on goods, and the cycle spiraled downward.
2) Overexpansion of credit purchases stimulated production, resulting in large inventories of goods.
3) Speculation in the stock market, where stock buyers would buy on “margin” (which meant they could pay a small part of the actual price, wait for the stock to increase in value, sell at the higher price, and pocket a tidy profit with little actually invested). Stock values soared as a result. The value of stocks was greater than the value of the companies the stock represented, and when nervous investors began the sell-off in 1929, there was a chain reaction where sellers greatly outnumbered buyers and stock prices plummeted. Manufacturers no longer had a ready source of added income for investment, and this contributed to further cutbacks in production and jobs.
Sig: The Great Depression was a national calamity that would take a decade to set straight in spite of New Deal gains. America seemed to be crumbling because there was no immediate answer provided that would get them out. FDR came along in 1932 and promised a “New Deal.” In the end, World War II was the answer to the Depression.
Hoover’s Response to Depression
What: President Herbert Hoover hoped that state and local governments and private welfare agencies could solve the problems of the Depression. As the Depression wore on, they ran out of money and he realized that the federal government had to get involved. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was developed. Hoover asked for money ($2.25 billion) to fund public works program to help generate jobs (i.e. Hoover Dam).
Sig: Hoover tried to do what Roosevelt would later do with the “Alphabet” agencies, which was to provide public works jobs that would put money into the hands of the common people and thus stimulate the economy. Hoover’s response was too little, too late.
Hoovervilles
What: Hoovervilles were “Villages” made of shacks and tents that were formed in desolate areas during the Depression. These served as temporary living quarters for those who could no longer afford a real home or apartment.
Sig: The Government did not formally recognize these and would often force people to move out of them, which led to riots.
Bonus March (Bonus Expeditionary Force)
Who: The Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF) was made up of impoverished veterans of World War I.
What: During the spring and summer of 1932 they converged on the capital and demanded that Congress immediately pay the bonus granted by Congress in 1924 but not payable for several years.
Sig: Some of the “Marchers” stayed in Washington and continued to protest which eventually forced Hoover to call in the army to remove the protestors. Hoover’s harsh treatment of veterans lessened his popularity right before the 1932 election.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Who: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president from 1933-1945
What: FDR was the only president to be elected more than twice (four times). He created the New Deal, which moved the government in a social welfare direction. Within the New Deal he created organizations to help with relief, recovery and reform. He fought WWII until his death in April 1945.
Sig: One of the most influential leaders in U.S. history, as President during the Depression and WWII.
100 Days: “alphabet agencies” including TVA
Who: Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
What: Agencies were created by FDR and Congress to aid relief, recovery and reform. CCC- Civilian Conservation Corps employed three million works who worked in environment jobs such as reforestation, forest fire fighting and flood control. AAA- Agricultural Adjustment Act- got money to pay mortgages of farmers and paid farmers not to plant. FERA- Federal Emergency Relief Act granted around three billion dollars to states for payments of wages on works projects. HOLC- Home Owner Loan Corporation refinanced mortgages of non-farm homes. CWA- Civil Works Administration created temporary jobs doing labor such as minor jobs involving roads, parks and bridges. TVA-Tennessee Valley Authority built dams and electrified Appalachia.
Sig: The “100 Days” restored the people’s faith in their government and helped employ many jobless citizens. The 1st 100 days (and the Second New Deal in 1935) helped move the U.S. towards a social welfare state—thus to argue that the U.S. is “capitalistic” to the exclusion of other issues is wrong; to argue that the U.S. is “socialistic” to the exclusion of other issues is wrong. The U.S. is capitalistic, but as a result of Progressive-inspired regulations, the capitalistic economy is controlled, and as a result of New Deal-inspired relief, the U.S. has significant social welfare programs but is not “socialistic.” Think of balance in answering essay questions.
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) (March 31, 1933)
What: Provided employment in fresh-air government camps for about 3 million
young men. Work included reforestation, fire-fighting, flood control, and
swamp drainage. Workers were required to send money back home to their parents.
Sig: This was a popular and productive effort to put young men to work and help their families.
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) (May 12, 1933)
Who: Harry L. Hopkins
What: Immediate relief, rather than long-term recovery The agency granted about $3 billion to the States for direct dole payments or wages on work projects.
Sig: While many argued against handouts or doles, FERA demonstrates FDR’s willingness to do whatever was required to help Americans in dire need.
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) (May 12, 1933: 2nd AAA in 1938)
What: The AAA established “parity prices” for basic commodities (parity = price set for a product that gave it the same value in purchasing power that it had from 1909-1914). The Act was supposed to eliminate price-depressing surpluses by paying growers to reduce their crop acreage. The money needed for this program was raised through taxing processors of farm products, such as flour millers.
Sig: Finally, the government did something about the chronic farm problem of overproduction. The AAA was struck down by Supreme Court in 1936 because its tax provisions were found unconstitutional. A second AAA was passed in 1938, and price supports (paying farmers to not produce surpluses) remain, in 2007, a costly program.
Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) (June 13, 1933)
What: HOLC helped refinance mortgage on non-farm homes. It assisted about a million households.
Sig: This program was designed to save non-farm homes from being foreclosed and is another social welfare program of the New Deal.
Civil Works Administration (CWA) (November 9, 1933)
What: A branch of FERA (headed by Hopkins) designed to provide temporary jobs during the winter emergency (immediate relief). Tens of thousands were employed at leaf-raking and other make-work tasks. This kind of work became known as “boondoggling.”
Sig: This program demonstrated FDR’s willingness to try anything and to help common people survive in dire times.
National Recovery Administration (NRA) (June 16, 1933)
What: Incorporated short-term and long-range recovery
Designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed
Individual Industries (over 200 in all)
were to work out codes of fair competition
hours of labor reduced (which would increase overall employment)
ceiling placed on max hours could work/floor placed on min wage levels (which would increase overall employment)
workers guaranteed right to organize and bargain collectively through reps of their own choosing (not of corporation’s choosing)
antiunion contract forbidden
restrictions placed on child labor
Patriotism for NRA aroused by mass meetings and parades
A blue eagle became NRA symbol
For a brief period, business activity improved
The NRA collapsed when the Supreme Court made the Schechter “sick chicken” decision that declared that Congressional control of interstate commerce could not properly apply to a local business.
Sig: The NRA was a massive national effort to improve the economy. When struck down by the Supreme Court, the labor protection part was salvaged with the Wagner National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
Public Works Administration (PWA) (June 16, 1933)
Who: Agency headed by Secretary of the Interior (Harold L. Ickes)
What: Intended for industrial recovery and unemployment relief, spending "big
bucks on big projects." Over $4 billion was spent on 34,000 projects (public buildings,
highways, schools, and hospitals). One project: Grand Coulee Dam on Columbia
River – largest structure since Great Wall of China.
Sig: This was an important “100 days” program for relief and recovery, providing many long-term jobs and projects.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) (May 18, 1933)
What: The TVA was initially intended to determine how much the production and distribution of electricity cost so that national standards could be set up to test the fairness of rates charged by private companies. (There was great concern about the possibility of price-fixing and gouging in the electricity industry at that time.) TVA involved the development of hydroelectric energy for the entire Tennessee River area. FDR could combine the immediate advantage of putting thousands of people to work with a long-term project for reforming the power monopoly.
Sig: The project brought to the area not only full employment and cheap electrical power, but low cost housing, abundant cheap nitrates, restoration of eroded soil, reforestation, improved navigation, and flood control. It became one of the most flourishing regions in the U.S. The TVA remains as an important federal agency in the U.S. southeast.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (June 6, 1934)
What: Designed as a watchdog administration agency. Stock markets would be operated as trading markets and less as gambling casinos.
Sig: The SEC was given regulatory authority over the stock market.
Second New Deal (1935—3 laws)
Who: Congress and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
What: 1) Social Security which provided “old age” payments to retired workers
2) Works Progress Administration (WPA) which spent billions of dollars employing millions to work on thousands of public buildings, bridges, roads, and art projects (the WPA expired during WWII when the economy had revived).
3) Wagner Act or National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave workers the right to organize and bargain with representatives of their own choosing and created the National Labor Relations Board to oversee union organizing and other labor activities.
Sig: Social Security is still present today and is the nation’s largest social welfare program. The Wagner Act and National Labor Relations Board remain the heart of private sector labor relations still, in 2007.
Immigration, including Mexican Immigration, during the Depression
What: Immigration declined significantly during the Depression, with the Roosevelt administration being reluctant to issue visas to those who wanted to come to the U.S. Mexicans were especially hard hit. They had been urged to emigrate before the Depression. With the Depression, those workers were a threat to the employment of U.S. citizens, and hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were deported. Those who remained were forced to find whatever work they could, including migrant labor.
Sig: This treatment of Mexicans reflects yet another nativist reaction to immigrants.
Radical and Critics of FDR and the New Deal
1. Father Coughlin
Who: An influential broadcaster during the Depression
Where: Michigan
What: As a Catholic priest, Coughlin began by preaching sermons and messages over the radio in 1926, but by 1930, Father Coughlin had moved on to politics and economics. Coughlin taught his message of “social justice” which heavily supported monetary “reforms.” He began as a FDR supporter, but when FDR did not continue making reforms in office, Coughlin became anti-FDR and anti-New Deal. Coughlin became extremely popular and influential during the Depression era, but when he showed signs of anti-Semitism, he was taken off the air in 1940.
Sig: During the Depression, almost one-third of the population in America was listening to his show. He became a very influential figure in politics and his views on “social justice” stuck with many Americans. He was FDR’s biggest critic during the Depression.
2. Huey Long 1893-1935
Who: Senator and Governor of Louisiana
What: Huey “Kingfish” Long was a radical populist who fought for the “little man” instead of the rich. Long fought for his “Share Our Wealth” program which promised $5,000 to each American family. In addition to this, he wanted to limit incomes and legacies as well as give old-age pension to anyone over 60. His slogan was “Every Man a King”. Fearing the rise of a fascist dictator, Long was assassinated in 1935.
Sig: Long helped pass many reforms as Governor to help the rural poor. He was feared by FDR as a threat to the government because of his stand on political matters.
3. Francis Townsend
Who: Retired physician who fought for support for the elderly
Where: California
What: Townsend gained the support of 5 million “senior citizens” through his proposed plan to the government. His plan stated that each month, any person over the age of sixty would receive $200, provided that all the money is spent within that month. Townsend claimed that this would help the economy during the Depression by providing more jobs because the elderly would have more money to spend. His Old Age Revolving Pension Plan was given to FDR with 20 million signatures attached.
Sig: Provided elderly citizens with a voice in government. Was one of the radicals who pushed New Deal reforms—collectively one of many demagogues who could have pushed the U.S. towards totalitarianism had it not been for FDR and his New Deal reforms.
4. Upton Sinclair, writer (The Jungle 1906) and socialist
What: Sinclair proposed EPIC, End Poverty in California, by which the government would buy or lease unused land or buildings and have unemployed workers or farmers raise crops or manufacture goods.
Sig: FDR and the Democrats saw Sinclair as a threat to the New Deal “corporate” form of relief, recovery, and reform. The Democrats actively sought to discredit him.
NOTE: THE POPULARITY OF THESE DEMAGOGUES HELPED PUSH FDR AND DEMOCRATS TO ADOPT LEGISLATION (E.G., SOCIAL SECURITY) THAT WOULD EFFECTIVELY NEUTRALIZE THE APPEAL OF THESE DANGEROUS MEN.
John Collier and the Indian Reorganization Act 1934
Who: John Collier and Native Americans
What: With the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, United States policy took a dramatic swing and acknowledged the continuing force and value of Native American tribal existence. The “Indian New Deal,” ushered in by the reform-minded Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, put an end to further allotment of lands. Native American tribes were encouraged to organize governments under the terms of the Indian Reorganization Act and to adopt constitutions and by-laws, subject to the approval of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Sig: The IRA of 1934 reversed the assimilation and allotment policies set down in the Dawes Act of 1887. For the first time, Indians were to be treated with dignity and respect by the U.S. government. For the Indians, the IRA was a “New Deal.”
Congress of Industrial Organizations 1935
What: The CIO was first formed within the A F of L as the Committee for Industrial Organization in 1935; its mission was to organize all workers in mass-production industries (steel, auto, rubber), which had few unions at that time. (Recall that the A F of L was composed of relatively autonomous craft unions.)
The leadership of the CIO included John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers. In 1938, the CIO broke away from the AF of L.
Sig: Along with the AF of L, the CIO was one of the nation’s important labor organizations, militantly supportive of its millions of workers in mass-production industries.
FDR’s Supreme Court fight 1937
What: The ultraconservative and obstructionist Supreme Court (struck down the AAA and the NRA) stood in the pathway of FDR’s New Deal progress. Therefore, in 1937, FDR asked Congress to permit him to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire. This was his “court-packing” scheme. His plan failed and he was accused of tampering with the checks and balances system and flirting with dictatorial motives. The Court did become a little more liberal in its decisions, but by then the New Deal was on the wane.
Sig: FDR lost much of his political goodwill that carried him so far. This court-packing scheme was an ugly and dangerous moment in his administration.
Keynesian Economics, 1937
Who: John Maynard Keynes and President Roosevelt
What: When the American economy in 1937 took another sharp downturn, President Roosevelt at last embraced the ideas of the British economist John Maynard Keynes. In April 1937, Roosevelt announced a bold program to stimulate the economy by planned deficit spending. Up to that point, FDR had not done enough to pull the nation out of the Depression because he believed in balanced budgets. In view of the 1938 recession, however, it appeared that Keynesian deficit spending was the answer. (This was proven when WWII deficit spending finally ended the Depression and Keynesian economics became orthodox belief thereafter—government deficit spending could invigorate a sluggish economy.)
Sig: This new program called “Keynesianism” became the new economic orthodoxy and remained so for decades. The rise of Keynesianism marked the end of laissez-faire economics.
Books – Grapes of Wrath (1939), U.S.A. (1938), Tobacco Road (1932)
Who: John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Erskine Caldwell
What: Grapes of Wrath is a book written by John Steinbeck that describes the migration of people from Oklahoma to California due to the Dust Bowl. The U.S.A. Trilogy is the major work of American writer John Dos Passos that comprises the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936). Dos Passos’s trilogy relates the lives of many characters as they struggle to find a place in American society during the early part of the twentieth century. Tobacco Road, written by Erskine Caldwell, takes place in Georgia during the worst years of Depression. It depicts a family of poor white tenant farmers, the Lesters, as one of the many small Southern cotton farmers estranged by the industrialization and migration to cities.
Sig: These books represent the struggles of American people during the Depression Era. They present the truthful tale of the major issues of that time era (like the Dust Bowl Migration) and the feelings and the responses of the American people.
Recession of 1938
What: By 1937 Roosevelt’s New Deal progress was not able to end the depression. In late 1937 the economy took another surprisingly severe depression-within-the-depression that the president’s critics quickly dubbed the “Roosevelt recession.” In the congressional elections of 1938, the Republicans, for the first time, cut heavily into the New Deal majorities in Congress, though failing to gain control of either house. The international crisis that came to a boil in 1938-1939 shifted public attention away from domestic reform.
Sig: The Recession of 1938 proved the inadequacy of New Deal programs, and it was not until WWII that the Depression finally ended. In the meantime, however, FDR and the New Deal gave the nation hope while putting millions to work in productive employment. Further, the New Deal forever entrenched the U.S. government in the social and economic welfare of the people.
The Coming of the Second World War
Stimson Doctrine and Japan 1931
Who: Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson (under Hoover)
What: After the Japanese violated the League of Nations agreement and Nine Power Treaty (affirming the Open Door) by launching an attack into Manchuria in September 1931, Stimson declared that the U.S. would not recognize any territorial claims acquired by force.
Sig: Japan went on to bomb Shanghai the next year and America did nothing serious to stop them due to hopes of staying isolated. In a sense, it was the start of WWII. The Stimson Doctrine was just words. Stimson later admitted that the Doctrine was just “spears of straws and swords of ice.”
Good Neighbor Policy and the Montevideo Conference: 1933
Who: FDR and his foreign policy in Latin America
What: In FDR’s inaugural address in 1933, he said "In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others." Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, participated in the Montevideo Conference of December 1933, where he backed a declaration favored by most nations of the Western Hemisphere: "No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another.” Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy represented an attempt to distance the United States from earlier interventionist policies, such as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and military interventions in the region during the 1910s and 1920s.
Sig: The Good Neighbor policy reflects American isolationist tendencies in the 1930s.
[NOTE: In Latin America we have the Good Neighbor Policy (1933); in Asia we have the Washington Disarmament Conference treaties of 1921-22 (disarm and respect the Open Door); in Europe we have the neutrality laws of 1935-37. All around the world the U.S. is trying to isolate itself and keep itself free from foreign entanglements in the 1920s and 1930s. This is an answer to an essay question.]
London Economic Conference 1933
Who: Roosevelt and delegates from other nations of the world
Where: London
What: A conference held in attempts to control global depression by stabilizing exchange rates. Roosevelt at first agreed but then withdrew because he wanted to pursue inflationary policies at home as a means of stimulating American recovery. FDR was unwilling to sacrifice the possibility of domestic recovery for the sake of international cooperation.
Sig: FDR’s announcement reflected America’s isolationism and essentially adjourned the conference, thus making international cooperation ever more difficult.
Nye Committee report 1934
Who: Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota
Sig: The Nye Committee presented evidence that shifted the blame for America’s entry into WWI from German submarines to American bankers and arms manufacturers. Naïve citizens leaped to the conclusions that munitions makers had caused the war in order to make money; this led to the belief that America could stay out of future wars if it could remove profits from the arms traffic and supported later neutrality legislation.
Sig: The Nye Committee report fueled neutrality legislation in 1935, 1936 and 1937.
Japanese, Italian, and German aggression in the 1930’s
Where: Europe, Asia, and Africa
What: Japan attacked China in 1931 (Manchuria) and 1937, all in violation of the Open Door. Italy (Mussolini) invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and annexed it in 1936. The League of Nations did nothing to fight Italy. Germany, led by Hitler, took over much of Europe (including France).
Sig: America claimed neutrality and attempted to remain isolationist while much of the world was going to war. The League of Nations was too feeble to stop the aggression. The aggressors had little to fear from American or League intervention.
Isolationism: neutrality legislation
What: The Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937 were passed by Congress as a way to legislate America out of World War. The acts stated that in a time of foreign war (or civil war), Americans could not sail on a war-involved ship, sell or transport arms to a war-involved nation, or make any loans to the countries involved.
Sig: The U.S. had abandoned what it had always striven and fought for: freedom of the seas. By staying out of the conflicts of the 1930s and then the first two years of WWII, America failed to assist those very nations that became our allies and friends during the war. American isolationism allowed the aggressors to continue their aggressive activities with confidence that the U.S. would not intervene. In retrospect, given the reality of U.S. participation in WWII, one could argue that the isolationist policy was dangerous and bankrupt.
Appeasement 1938
Who: Western European democracies, Germany
Where: Munich, Germany
What: In order to prevent war, a conference was held in Munich, Germany in hopes of appeasing (granting concessions to enemies to maintain peace) Hitler and the Nazis. The Western European democracies allowed Germany to continue taking the Sudetenland, wishing that it would be Hitler’s last conquest. Hitler promised it would be but he later took all of Czechoslovakia. The act of giving in to Hitler at Munich was called “appeasement.”
Sig: Nations learned that appeasing Hitler was not an effective way to stop his aggression. In spite of Munich, he invaded Poland in 1939, thus starting WWII.
Lend-Lease (1941)
What: Wanting to support Britain in spite of isolationist sentiment, FDR introduced a ‘Lend-lease’ Bill into Congress in January 1941 empowering him to sell, transfer, exchange, lease, or lend war supplies to any nation whose defense was deemed vital to US security. Though bitterly contested by isolationists, the bill became law in March 1941. Thereafter, the U.S. sent war supplies to Britain in its war against Germany.
Sig: The Lend-Lease Act must be seen in the context of Roosevelt's very delicate balancing act to reverse hostile US public opinion and bring it around to active support for Britain.
Atlantic Charter 1941
Who: Winston Churchill, FDR
Where: a warship off the coast of Newfoundland
What: Roosevelt and Churchill framed the eight-point Atlantic Charter at a secret meeting known as the Atlantic Conference. The Charter detailed plans for democracies when the war ended. Among other goals, it promised self-determination (the right of people to choose their own government) and “a permanent system of general security” (which became the United Nations in 1945).
Sig: Coming a few months before Pearl Harbor, the Atlantic Charter signals FDR’s growing commitment to bring the U.S. out of its isolationist shell and contribute to Britain’s victory (at the time of the Charter, Britain was the only major power actually fighting the Germans—France surrendered in 1940).
World War II
Pearl Harbor 12-07-41
Where: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
What: The Japanese initiated a surprise attack against the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The attack killed thousands of American sailors and sunk many ships, including many battleships. (The Japanese, however, did not sink a single aircraft carrier, which turned out to be the most important ship in WWII. No carrier was at Pearl on 12-07.)
Sig: This event drew the United States into World War II. Isolationism was sunk along with the fleet.
Midway, June 3-6, 1942
Where: This battle was fought over and near the tiny U.S. Mid-Pacific base at Midway Island.
What: All fighting was done by aircraft launched from carriers. Japan was defeated by smaller and more skillfully maneuvered American carrier task forces. The loss of their carriers put Japan on the defensive after Midway, just six months after Pearl Harbor.
Sig: Midway was a pivotal victory and the success halted Japan’s ‘Juggernaut.’
Teheran Conference November 28 - December 1, 1943
Who: Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin—the “Big Three”
Where: Teheran, the capital of Iran.
What: The “Big Three” met and FDR and Churchill agreed to open a second front in 1944.
Sig: Resulted in the Anglo-American invasion of Normandy on “D-Day,”
June 6, 1944.
D-day: General Eisenhower June 6, 1944
Who: The overall commander was General Eisenhower.
Where: Normandy on the coast of France
What: The allies pinpointed Normandy for the invasion assault. In spite of great losses, the invasion was ultimately successful and Germany surrendered in May, 1945 (Hitler committed suicide on April 30).
Sig: D-Day was the beginning of the end for Hitler. The Soviets, who sought a “Second front,” finally got it. (The Soviets resented the delay in opening the second front.)
Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur
Who: Admiral Nimitz was a high-level naval strategist; General Macarthur commanded American and Australian forces.
Where: General MacArthur fought in the south Pacific while Admiral Nimitz fought in the north Pacific.
Sig: Nimitz and MacArthur won the war against Japan in the Pacific.
Yalta Conference February 1945
Who: Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin.
Where: Yalta, in the Crimea
What: Stalin agreed that Poland should have a representative government based
on free elections. (Stalin then went back on this). Bulgaria and Romania were also to
have free elections. (This was another promise broken by Stalin.) There were also plans
for organizing a new international peacekeeping organization—the United Nations. Stalin
also agreed to attack Japan within three months after the fall of Germany (Stalin did so).
The Soviets were then promised Sakhalin Island (lost to Japan in 1905).
Sig: Yalta was called a “sellout” by critics of FDR (later). Stalin reneged on his promise of elections in Eastern Europe, instead setting up Communist puppet regimes.
Potsdam Conference—July, 1945
Where: Held near Berlin
Who/what: Pres. Truman (FDR died in April, 1945), Stalin (USSR), and British leaders (first Churchill, then Atlee) discussed how to overcome Japan.
Sig: The final decision on Japan was made at Potsdam: Japan must surrender or be destroyed.
United Nations—June, 1945
What: The U.N was suggested by the three allied leaders at the Yalta Conference. The U.N. became a reality after Roosevelt’s death. The U.N. was dominated by the “Big 5” powers; USA, Britain, USSR, France, and China. The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved the U.N. in 1945.
Sig: Learning from the failure to support the League after WWI, the U.S. pledged to support this new international peacekeeping organization. Organized in San Francisco and headquartered in New York, the U.S. has been an active and leading force in the U.N. since its founding in 1945.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki—August 6th and 9th, 1945
Where: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
What: The United States dropped two atomic bombs, first on Hiroshima, and then, three days later, on Nagasaki. Fearing an invasion of Japan would cost up to one million U.S. casualties, Truman decided to drop the bombs in the hopes that Japan would surrender and fight no more. He was correct.
Sig: The Japanese were ready to defend against an invasion. The two bombs, however, caused the Japanese to realize that they could not fight on. Japan surrendered soon after the bombs were dropped (August 15). Further, this is the only occasion in history when one nation used atomic weapons in war.
The Home Front during World War II
Wartime mobilization of the economy during WWII-- 1941-1945
What: War mobilization actions enabled the United States to begin the economic conversion needed for the war effort: to move industries into the manufacture of armaments, to establish the contracting procedures, and to launch the research and development that was needed to win the war and stay ahead of the German scientists.
1) Achieving these goals was possible only by converting existing industries and using materials that previously went into manufacturing civilian goods. (Auto companies, for example, stopped making cars and began to manufacture war items such as tanks, trucks and airplane engines.)
2) The draft was started in 1940, before Pearl Harbor and in anticipation of the need for soldiers.
3) By 1943, more workers were needed and more and more women went into the workforce.
4) There was large-scale migration to industrial centers, especially out of the South, and many blacks sought employment in northern or western cities. Mexicans were brought in to fill employment needs (braceros).
5) Importantly, the War Production Board (WPB) was established in 1942 by executive order of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purpose of the board was to regulate the production and allocation of materials and fuel during World War II in the United States. The WPB rationed such things as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics. (The WPB was dissolved shortly after the defeat of Japan in 1945.) (The WPB was much more important and effective in WWII than the WIB (War Industries Board) was in WWI.)
Sig: The harnessing of U.S. industrial power tipped the scales decisively toward the Allied forces, reversing the tide of war. Germany and Japan could not match the United States in this effort.
Urban migration and demographic changes—1941-1945
Who: Returning war veterans, blacks and American Indians.
What: The war triggered a migration of many Americans, including African Americans in the South, from rural areas to urban areas, including cities on the West coast
Sig: The war contributed significantly to the rise of significant minority populations in urban areas, including African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans.
War and regional development during WWII (1941-1945)
What: There was a massive industrial effort in the U.S. to win the war. All over the country, people moved to work for industries that were supplying the military. People were drawn to industrial areas like L.A., Detroit and Seattle. The South experienced very dramatic changes. The Southern states received a great number of defense contracts. This was especially helpful in raising the South from poverty. In spite of this fact, 1.6 million blacks left the South to work in other areas of the country. Native Americans left the reservations to work in major U.S. cities. Of course, men of all ethnicities joined the armed forces causing the need for those left on the Home Front to accommodate their absence in industry and agriculture. All these factors helped to develop different regions of the country especially the West and South.
Sig: The migration patterns created by the war led to the rise of the West as a major industrial and economic player in the U.S. economy. Further, the increase in the African American presence in northern and western cities signaled the nationalization of problems relating to race relations and justice.
Expansion of government power during WWII (1941-1945)
What: Totally dedicated to winning the war, government power expanded greatly. The War Production Board stopped the manufacturing of unessential items and converted ordinary factories to those that produced weaponry. The National War Labor Board, created to prevent work stoppages, imposed pay caps. Congress authorized the Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act, which gave the president power to seize and operate privately owned war factories when a strike disrupted war production. The draft was imposed on all men ages 18-45 thanks to the Selective Service Act of 1940. Important items like meat, gas and rubber were needed for the troops and were rationed.
Sig: The Government committed to win the war at any cost and for the most part Americans agreed to government’s decisions, whatever they may be. The government greatly increased its power as a result.
Women and Rosie the Riveter 1941-1945
What: When America entered the war, men went off to fight leaving the factories short of workers. Women were encouraged to take up industrial jobs and more than 6 million women heeded the call. Women who took up war jobs were affectionately called “Rosies” as they built items like aircraft and munitions. The fictional “Rosie the Riveter” was first seen in the propaganda poster entitled “We Can Do It!” After the war was over 2/3 of the women left the work force.
Sig: Women played a crucial role in winning WWII by supplying the troops with what they needed. This period really began women’s status change and after that point it was known that women could hold their own in the workforce.
Internment of Japanese-Americans 1942-46
Who: Japanese, Japanese American citizens (mostly living on the West Coast)
What: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there was a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast. F.D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of 120,000 Japanese in remote and hastily constructed camps. There were 10 camps located in some of the harshest climates of the country. They were forced to stay for the duration of the war. Those living in the camps were deprived of basic rights and human dignity. (There was no due process of law required under the 5th Amendment.) This was especially unjust because 2/3 of the internees were American citizens. In Korematsu v. U.S. in 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court approved the internment. In spite of the deprivations, Japanese Americans created small and vibrant communities within the camps. Many young Japanese American men served with and courage and distinction in the U.S. armed services while their parents and younger siblings remained in the camps. (The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is the best example.)
Sig: The internment of the Japanese demonstrated how a nation can deny rights to a minority as a result of hysterical overreaction to a perceived and unsubstantiated threat.
The Double-V Campaign
What: African Americans fought for Victory against fascism overseas and Victory over discrimination at home. This was the Double-V of WWII.
Sig: The Double-V campaign of WWII reflects the role that war has on effecting change more rapidly. Many African Americans and others became aware of the hypocrisy of fighting fascism abroad but doing nothing about Jim Crow at home. This accounts in part for the more aggressive civil rights activities that followed WWII, not just by African Americans but by the national government as well.
Zoot Suit Riots (1942-43)
What: Flamboyantly dressed Mexican and Mexican-American youth were attacked by white U.S. sailors in Los Angeles. The sailors claimed that they were being attacked while on liberty. Both sides claimed self-defense.
Sig: The riots symbolized the dangers of throwing groups of ethnically mixed youth into the same
Truman and the Start of the Cold War 1945-1952
Post WWII Economic Boom 1945-1950s
What: Once WWII ended, the soldiers returned ready to lead productive lives and forget their wartime nightmares. Thanks to the GI bill (1944), some 8 million veterans advanced their education. With help and encouragement from the Veterans Administration, many bought “tract” homes in the growing suburbs. Most of these 15 million veterans got married, and the “baby boom” followed, which added 50 million more to the population. These “middle-class” veterans experienced great prosperity, and there was desire for more consumer goods such as TVs, cars, and washing machines.
Sig: Veterans returned to build new lives. The country became exceptionally prosperous as families flocked to the suburbs, and industry thrived to supply American consumers.
G.I. Bill 1944
What: On June 22, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law: the Servicemembers' Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights. By the time the original GI Bill ended in July 1956, 7.8 million World War II veterans had participated in a college education or training program and 2.4 million veterans had home loans backed by the Veterans Administration
Sig: The G.I. Bill was one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the United States government. It helped with the transition of 15 million members of the armed services back into the civilian population and contributed to the robust economy of the post-war period.
Taft-Harley Act 1947
Who: Republican Congress over Truman’s veto
What: Immediately after WWII, removal of wartime price controls caused a 33% increase in the cost of goods. Workers believed that wages would not keep up and they would not be able to buy the goods they were making. Numerous strikes occurred in 1946. A more conservative Congress passed this law that outlawed the closed shop (must be union member before getting job), made unions liable for damages resulting from jurisdictional disputes, and required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath. Truman called it a “slave-labor bill” and vetoed it, but Congress had a 2/3rds majority needed to override the veto.
Sig.: This pro-management act slowed but did not stop the growth of organized labor after WWII. Note too the growing anti-Communist fear loaded into the bill.
Truman’s Fair Deal as extension of New Deal and resistance to it
Who: Truman
What: Democratic President Truman promoted full employment legislation, an increase in the minimum wage, economic assistance for farmers, extension of Social Security, and enactment of anti-discrimination employment practices. He faced a hostile, conservative, and veto-proof Republican Congress, and yet his Fair Deal did achieve some success.
Sig.: The minimum wage was raised, public housing was provided for with the Housing Act of 1949, and the benefits of Social Security were extended. Truman’s “Fair Deal” should be seen as an extension of FDR’s “New Deal.”
Employment Act of 1946
What: The Employment Act of 1946 was a definitive attempt by the federal government to "promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power." Conservatives in Congress stripped the Act of much of its power but the spirit of the act remains.
Sig: This act represents the U.S. government’s effort to manage the economy far beyond the more limited understandings of the past (i.e., control of money, trade, and commerce). The act represents a breathtaking example of the opposite of the laissez-faire policy that was characteristic of the late 1800s. From about 1900 to this act in 1946, the relationship of the U.S. government to the economy and society had undergone radical changes as industrialization, depression, and wars forced governmental responses and changes. Henceforth the U.S. government would be intimately involved in the economic and social affairs of the country.
Dixiecrats 1948
Who: Strom Thurmond
What: The Dixiecrats were a states-rights party that split from the Democratic Party and President Truman. The Democratic Party platform of 1948 included:
“The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination. We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina led a breakaway group and formed the Dixiecrats (States Rights Democratic Party) that carried several states in the Deep South in the Electoral College in the election of 1948. The Dixiecrats’ platform of 1948 included:
“We stand for the segregation of the races . . . . We oppose the elimination of segregation . . . We oppose and condemn the action of the Democratic Convention in sponsoring a civil rights program calling for the elimination of segregation . . . .”
Sig: The Dixiecrats were successful in the Deep South, thus demonstrating the power of Jim Crow after World War II and foreshadowing the coming of the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s.
Alger Hiss
When: 1948
What: Alger Hiss, an ex-New Dealer, was accused of being a communist by Richard Nixon. He demanded the right to defend himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee and denied having been a communist agent, but was caught in string of lies and sentenced to five years in prison for perjury.
Sig: The Hiss case reflected the largely anti-Jewish, anti-communist sentiment during the early years of the Cold War, and helped elevate Nixon’s career.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial 1951-53
What: The Rosenbergs were two communist spies who were American citizens and who were accused of sending atomic data to Moscow for the development of an atomic bomb. They were convicted of espionage and sent to the electric chair.
Sig: Sympathy for the Rosenbergs and their two orphaned children caused some to recognize that red-hunters were going too far.
Containment: Kennan 1947
Who: George F. Kennan, a soviet specialist, crafted the “containment” doctrine.
What: Kennan, writing in Foreign Affairs, stated that Russia was relentlessly expansionist and needed to be “contained” in order to prevent its expansion and domination.
Sig: Containment became the organizing principle of Cold War foreign policy from 1945 to 1991.
Containment: Truman Doctrine 1947
What: The Truman Doctrine stated that America needed to aide “free peoples” resisting attack by “armed minorities.” This aid would come primarily in the form of money. America was fearful that Greece and Turkey would fall under Soviet control and provided some 400 million dollars in aid.
Sig: The Truman Doctrine significantly expanded the U.S. role in hindering communist growth. It set the stage for the Marshall Plan, in which America rebuilt Western Europe and helped counter communist takeovers there. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan can be seen as “containment” in action.
Marshall Plan 1947
Who: Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed the plan.
Where: Europe
What: The Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for the reconstruction of Europe following World War II. The plan was in operation for four fiscal years beginning in July 1947. During that period some $13 billion of economic and technical assistance - equivalent to around $130 billion in 2006-was provided.
Sig: By the time the plan had come to completion, the economy of every participant state, with the exception of Germany, had grown well past prewar levels. Over the next two decades Western Europe as a whole would enjoy unprecedented growth and prosperity. The Marshall Plan was highly successful and effectively served the Truman administration’s need to confront Stalinist Russia and the expansionist tendencies of Communism.
Berlin Airlift Crisis 1948-49
Who: American, French, and British
Where: West Berlin
What: The Berlin food-drop, one of the first major crises of the Cold War, occurred from June 24, 1948 - May 11, 1949 when the Soviet Union blocked Western railroad and road access to West Berlin (The divided Berlin was wholly in Soviet-controlled East Germany). The crisis abated after the Soviet Union did not act to stop American, British and French airlifts of food and other provisions to the Western-held sectors of Berlin following the Soviet blockade. The Berlin airlift was huge, supplying 2.2 million West Berliners for almost one year.
Sig: This aerial supplying of West Berlin became known as the Berlin Airlift. Military confrontation loomed while Truman embarked on a highly visible move which would publicly humiliate the Soviets. A large amount of goods, such as coal and food were able to be transferred to West Berlin through the Airlift process. Stalin backed down in the end: the airlift was a victory for Truman’s foreign policy.
NATO—North Atlantic Treaty Organization 1949
What: NATO is an international organization for collective security established in 1949. Western European nations and the U.S. were (and are) members. The members agreed that an attack on one would be an attack on all. This was in opposition to the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact treaty, pitting eastern European nations within the Soviet bloc against NATO.
Sig: NATO is the first permanent entangling alliance since the Franco-American of 1778 (cancelled by the Convention of 1800). President Washington warned against such alliances, and the U.S. heeded his advice until the Soviet threat seemed to warrant joining NATO in 1949. NATO versus the Warsaw Pact represented the heart of the Cold War confrontation.
The 1950s
Korea/MacArthur Feud (during Korean War June 25, 1950 to cease fire on July 27, 1953)
Who: Gen. MacArthur and President Truman
What: The Korean War was taking place and a bitter feud between General MacArthur and President Truman took place. Although one of the most decorated soldiers in U.S. history, after several public criticisms of White House policy in Korea, which were seen as undercutting the Commander in Chief's position, Harry Truman removed MacArthur from command and ordered him to return to the United States (April, 1951). MacArthur would have expanded the war by going into China—which Truman and his military advisors knew would be the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sig: The feud demonstrated how divided Americans were on whom was the real enemy (North Korea? China? Soviet Union?). Truman asserted himself as Commander-in-Chief and kept the war contained to the Korean peninsula—to his credit. Truman was fighting a “limited” war consistent with “containment,” and many Americans were having a hard time with the concept, including MacArthur.
McCarthyism 1950-54
Who: Named after the U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin.
What: This communist witch-hunt took place during a period of intense suspicion in the United States, primarily from 1950 to 1954, when the U.S. government was actively countering American Communist Party subversion, its leadership, and others suspected of being Communists or Communist sympathizers. During this period people from all walks of life became the subject of aggressive "witch hunts," often based on inconclusive or questionable evidence. It grew out of the Second Red Scare that began in the late 1940s. McCarthy’s justified his unfairness on the basis that just as you would not want a person who associates with known sex offenders to baby-sit your children, you do not want someone who associates with Communists to be in a position of influence. Thus careers could be ruined and expertise lost, both within and outside government, solely on the basis that McCarthy accused the person of having Communist “connections.” Few had the courage to openly defy McCarthy, and if they did, their careers could be over.
Sig: Persons who were victims of McCarthyism were either denied employment in the private sector or failed government security checks. In the film industry alone, over 300 actors, writers and directors were denied work in the U.S. through the informal Hollywood blacklist. McCarthy's influence faltered in 1954. On March 9, 1954, famed CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow aired a highly critical "Report on Joseph R. McCarthy" that used footage of McCarthy himself to portray him as dishonest in his speeches and abusive toward witnesses. McCarthy’s attack on the U.S. Army, televised, brought him discredit and the Senate finally censured him.
McCarran Act 1950
What: This was an internal security act which authorized the president to arrest and detain suspicious people during an “internal security emergency.”
Sig: The McCarran Act was at the start of the McCarthy era (1950-54). President Truman vetoed the Act, but congressional “guardians of liberty” enacted the bill over Truman’s veto. Relate this to McCarthy-like hysteria of the times.
Impact of the Cold War on American society
What: "Cold war" is the term given to the competition, conducted through means short of direct military conflict, between the United States and the Soviet Union since World War II. The American society was impacted in many various ways. Economically: Military spending skyrocketed in order to confront the Soviet threat and this promoted economic prosperity in the 1950s.
Socially: 1) The Cold War heightened fears of nuclear war among Americans.
2) The Civil Rights movement was fueled by U.S. governmental awareness that the Soviets were using discrimination against African Americans as a propaganda tool in its quest for influence, particularly in Third World nations, including Africa.
3) Anti-Communism was normative. One could lose a job or career for being associated with Communists or espousing the communist cause. Conformity to the anti-communist position was required.
Sig: The communists' success in consolidating power and the possibility that their communism would spread to Europe, Asia, and perhaps even the Western Hemisphere created deep American suspicion and fear. While the ‘50s were “happy days” for most Americans, the constant fear arising from the Cold War and the civil rights revolution that was just beginning told a different story.
Impact of changes in science, technology, and medicine (1950’s)
What: The changes in science and medicine helped drive economic growth after WWII. The Salk polio vaccine was introduced in 1952, removing this awful disease from the world stage. Many changes involved technology, including the development of transistors and computers. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa) of 1958 was established, leading in time to putting a man on the moon in 1969. The Sputnik scare inspired the National Defense Education Act (1958), strengthening the educational underpinnings of science education in the U.S.
Sig: The changes made during the 1950s would lead to the development of what is known today as the “information age.”
Social developments during the ‘50’s
What: 1) Transportation. Anticipating a limitless future of low-cost fuels, endless ribbons of modern, multilane highways were constructed. The interstate highway system radically changed the movement of goods and people in addition to shifting hundreds of thousands of jobs away from small towns along the old U.S. highway system to new businesses and towns along the interstates.
2) Housing. With low-cost loans and inexpensive housing available, a mass migration occurred in which many people (with emphasis on white, middle-class) came to live in suburbs due to the speedy commutes that were now available due to low-cost housing and loans.
3) Standard of living. GNP (Gross National Product) increased dramatically. The economy also increased the average American’s living standards; more affluent people were looking at obtaining two cars, swimming pools, vacation homes, and even recreational vehicles. By the end of the 1950’s the vast majority of families owned a car and washing machine, 90% owned a TV, and many owned their homes.
4) Black migration. Huge numbers of African Americans poured into the northern cities, escaping southern racism and Jim Crow. (Note the unintentional segregation that occurred when whites moved to new suburbs built along new highway corridors while blacks moved to cities.) As African Americans left the south, not only conflict occurred, but also the incoming blacks imported the grinding poverty of the rural south into the inner cores of northern cities for the first time in large numbers.
5) Baby boom. The baby boom (1946-63) was the largest generation born in American history.
6) Rock and roll. In addition to all this, rock and roll, rooted in African American rhythm and blues music, changed music as America had known it. White performers such as Elvis Presley made rock and roll wildly popular.
7) “Happy days.” The ‘50s were “happy days” for many middle-class Americans, but many poor people, most especially Blacks caught in a Jim Crow society, suffered.
Sig: The 1950s, otherwise known as a decade of conformity, nevertheless witnessed profound changes in American society.
The literature of criticism of the 1950s: The Lonely Crowd, The Organization Man, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and The Affluent Society
Who: David Riesman, William H. Whyte, Sloan Wilson, John Kenneth Galbraith.
What: Riesman (The Lonely Crowd), Whyte (The Organization Man), and Wilson (The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit) all addressed similar issues relating to the idea that the postwar generation was a pack of conformists. Galbraith (The Affluent Society), on the other hand, questioned the relation between private wealth and the public good; he claimed that the postwar prosperity produced a troublesome combination which led to a lack in social spending, but abundance in private consumer purchases.
Sig: Critics of conformity and consumerism represent the conscience of America.
Consensus and conformity: suburbia and middle class America 1950s
Who: American middle class
What: The middle class was buying the same cars, the same houses, watching the same T.V. programs, and generally experiencing a homogenization of culture. “Localness” was yielding to mass merchandising of the same kind of products across a broad spectrum of goods. McDonald’s is arguably the best example of this rising culture of conformity. As prosperity increased for many Americans, the nation’s communities lost character. Modesty and conformity were normative.
Sig: The appearance of radical cultural forms during an era notorious for its social conservatism indicates that there were perceptible public doubts over whether this kind of mass consensus was really healthy. Elvis Presley, Rock and Roll, the Beatniks, the literature of alienation, all spoke to a growing awareness of changes that would eventually break through this conformity. The explosion would occur the 1960s.
Beatniks 1950s
Who: This was a group of American counter-culture writers of the 1950s (e.g., Jack Kerouac and his book On the Road)
What: Their writings reflected the new consciousness which became the groundwork for the social and cultural revolution of the '60s.
Sig: They mocked the materialistic people of America and the conservative conformity of the nation. This challenged the mainstream of America. The ‘50s had “Beatniks”; the ‘60s had “hippies.” Both groups were countercultural and embraced nonconformist behaviors rotating around communal activities, music, sex, alcohol, and drugs.
John Foster Dulles’ foreign policy 1954
Who: John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State
What: Dulles called for a revision of foreign policy based on “brinksmanship,” whereby the U.S. would confront the Soviet threat directly anywhere in the world. The new policy would be based on the idea of “massive retaliation,” or the ability to destroy the Soviet Union. This requires the buildup of intercontinental bombers and missiles carrying nuclear weapons. Massive military expenditures would be required.
Sig: The new look proved illusory and the rigid futility of massive (i.e., nuclear) retaliation was exposed. (American foreign policy had to be revised later to provide for greater responsiveness to local situations.) In the meantime, a nuclear arms race between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. got underway, leading to MAD (mutual assured destruction). The costs were astronomical.
Sputnik and the space race October 4, 1957
Who: Soviet Union
What: Sputnik was an unmanned space mission launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites. Sputnik caused great fear that the Soviets had a lead in the space race. That fear sparked the American space program.
Sig: Sputnik shook American confidence and complacency and Eisenhower was accused of allowing a “technological Pearl Harbor.” The U.S. made a commitment to catch up and spent billions of dollars on research and development leading to manned U.S. space flight, including the moon landing in 1969. In 1958, Congress authorized the National Defense Education Act in part to improve the teaching of the sciences.
Ike and the “Military Industrial Complex” January 17, 1961
Who: President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower
What: In his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961 he warned the nation to beware of the military-industrial complex which had arisen the 1950s in response to the Communist threat.
Sig: Ike’s warning went largely unheeded as military expenditures continued to skyrocket and the private sector defense contractors gained greater influence and power.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) (and Plessy v. Ferguson)
What: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction.
The Court declared separate educational facilities to be inherently unequal, thus reversing its 1896 ruling in Plessy vs. Ferguson. School boards were advised to desegregate "with all deliberate speed."
Sig: This is the most important civil rights decision in U.S. history. The decision drove a stake into the heart of Jim Crow.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott 1955
Where: Montgomery, Alabama
What: Rosa Parks was an African-American woman who refused to sit at the back of the bus one day in December 1955. She was arrested for this action. This led to the Montgomery bus boycott that lasted for a year and caused the integration of Montgomery buses. Her arrest was a test case which allowed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to challenge the segregation of public buses. The U.S. Supreme Court (1956) declared Jim Crow buses to be unconstitutional.
Sig: Rosa Parks sparked the civil rights movement and the coming to power and influence of Martin Luther King (who led the bus boycott).
Civil Rights Commission 1957
What: A Civil Rights Act was passed in 1957, providing for a Civil Rights Commission authorized to investigate racial conditions within the United States. Further, a weakly enforced voting rights provision was in the law but little progress was made here. Eisenhower had little interest in the Act (this is his shortcoming—civil rights).
Sig: The watered down Act foreshadows the greatly strengthened Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The 1960s: Kennedy’s New Frontier
and Johnson’s Great Society
"New Frontier" 1960
What: The New Frontier was the legislative program John F. Kennedy announced when he ran for president in 1960. It called for economic reforms to "get the country moving again."
Sig: Kennedy proved unable to win passage of many of the items on his agenda, including Medicare to provide medical help for the elderly (approved under Johnson in 1965), programs to rebuild the inner cities, and an increase in federal funding for education. Congress did raise the minimum wage from $1.00 to $1.25 an hour and added 3.6 million workers to the rolls of those eligible to receive it. Kennedy also won support for expanding Social Security benefits and made $4.9 billion available in federal grants to cities for mass transit, open spaces, and middle-income housing.
Greensboro sit-in 1960
Who: Four black students from the North Carolina A&T (a local all-black college)
What: They sat down at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Although they were refused service, they were allowed to sit at the counter. In just two months the sit-in movement spread to 54 cities in 9 states. Six months after the sit-ins began, the original four protesters were served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Sit-ins would be effective throughout the South in integrating other public facilities. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Stokely Carmichael) arose out the sit-in movement.
Sig: The sit-in movement demonstrated the power of Martin Luther King’s strategy of nonviolent, passive resistance to injustice.
Freedom Rides 1961
Who: Congress of Racial Equality (core) and individuals from around the U.S.
What: The Freedom Rides were organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (core) to test the effectiveness of a 1960 Supreme Court decision, Boynton v. Virginia, which prohibited racial segregation in public areas that served interstate travelers. A small interracial group of core members traveling in two buses challenged southern segregated rest rooms, waiting rooms, and restaurants in bus terminals between Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. The first bus was set on fire and some passengers were beaten. The freedom ride movement caught on, and hundreds of buses rolled into the south from all over the U.S.
Sig: The initial Freedom Rides furthered desegregation in terminals throughout the South and demonstrated that civil rights victories in the Deep South were possible.
Khrushchev and Berlin 1961
Who: Khrushchev, Kennedy, and Eisenhower
What: Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's demand that the four-power
occupation of Berlin be terminated created tension. Khrushchev further threatened to
make a treaty with East Germany and cut off western access to Berlin. To stop the
continued exodus of East Germans to the West, East Germany built the “Berlin Wall” in
1961, heightening tensions between East and West.
Sig: The Berlin crisis of 1961 reflected the continued division of Europe after
World War II and represents the dangers of the Cold War turning hot at some flashpoint
such as Berlin.
Bay of Pigs (April 17, 1961)
Who: Two thousand Cubans who had gone into exile after the 1959 revolution
Where: At the Bay of Pigs, Cuba
What: This was an unsuccessful invasion by those Cuban exiles who believed that they would have air and naval support from the U.S. and that the invasion would cause the people of Cuba to rise up and overthrow the regime of communist Fidel Castro. Neither expectation materialized, although unmarked planes from Florida bombed Cuban air bases prior to the invasion. Cuban army troops pinned down the exiles and forced them to surrender within seventy-two hours.
Sig: Before and after the invasion, the U.S. promoted the expulsion of Cuba from the Organization of American States, attempted an unsuccessful diplomatic quarantine of Cuba, and stopped all Cuban exports from entering the U.S. Economic and diplomatic estrangement remained American policy toward Communist Cuba for the indefinite future. The Bay of Pigs invasion, organized by the CIA, was a crushing blow and staggering embarrassment to the U.S. and the Kennedy administration.
Cuban missile crisis (14 days in October, 1962)
Who: Kennedy and Khrushchev
What: Khrushchev deployed Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Kennedy rejected Air Force proposals for a “surgical” bombing strike against the missile-launching sites, and on October 22, he ordered a naval “quarantine” of Cuba and demanded immediate removal of the threatening weaponry. U.S. Navy warships were sent to blockade the Cuban coast. On October 28, Khrushchev agreed to a partially face-saving compromise, by which he would pull the missiles out of Cuba. The U.S. in return agreed to end the quarantine and not invade the island. The American government also signaled that it would remove from Turkey some of its own missiles targeted on the Soviet Union.
Sig: Nuclear war was a possibility at the time. Kennedy faced Khrushchev, and Khrushchev blinked first. This was a very grave Cold War crisis.
Affirmative Action (AA)
Who: Minority groups such as African-Americans, Native Americans, women
What: AA is a set of public policies and initiatives designed to help eliminate past discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; ensured an equal opportunity for all in employment and education.
Sig: AA gave better opportunities in school and the workplace for those who were once discriminated against. AA caused a white backlash on the basis of “reverse discrimination” and came under attack from the ‘80s on.
Silent Spring (1962)
What: Rachel Carson’s book exposed the dangers of DDT to animals and humans. DDT was removed from the market.
Sig: Carson’s book launched the modern environmental protection movement.
Martin Luther King (Early goals versus later goals only)
What: King’s early efforts attacked Jim Crow and emphasized political rights; after 1965, he began to emphasize economic rights (he was killed in 1968 while in Memphis supporting a trash collectors’ strike) and opposition to the Vietnam War (the war cost money that could have been better spend on social programs at home).
Sig: King’s agenda changed over time, from the early days of the Montgomery bus boycott (1955) to opposition to the Vietnam War (1968). In any event, he was the dominant African-American leader of the civil rights era.
The Feminine Mystique (1963) and Betty Freidan (and NOW)
Who: Betty Freidan
What: Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) is the book that launched the modern women’s movement. Freidan spoke in rousing terms to millions of able, educated women who applauded her indictment of the stifling boredom of suburban housewives trapped in the “comfortable concentration camp.” She told them of “the problem that has no name,” which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities. She argued that the “problem” was taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.
Sig: Freidan and her literature were most often credited with launching the “second wave” of the American feminist movement in the later half of the twentieth century. She was founder (1966) and first president of NOW, the National Organization for Women.
Vietnam War (1940s-1950s-1960s-1970s)
What: In the closing stages of World War II, the Japanese encouraged the people of
Indochina to declare themselves independent. When the Vietnamese declared independence in 1946, the French military and the French colonists opposed it. The United States supported the French effort in order to contain the Communist Vietnamese rebels under Ho Chi Minh. After the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu fell to the Communists in 1954, the U.S. backed a noncommunist regime established in the South. That noncommunist regime was corrupt and ineffective, and in 1964 Congress authorized President Johnson to fight the war against the Communists. By 1968, the war became unpopular, and the newly elected President Nixon began “Vietnamization,” which was the process of turning the war over to the South Vietnamese army. The U.S. pulled out in 1973 when a cease-fire was agreed to, but the fighting was renewed and Saigon, the capital of the South, fell in 1975, thus ending the long war with a Communist victory.
Sig: Vietnam, the only foreign war in which the U.S. has ever been defeated, cruelly convulsed American society, ending not only Lyndon Johnson’s presidency but the thirty-five-year era of the Democratic Party’s political dominance as well.
Tonkin Resolution (Gulf of Tonkin) (August 7, 1964)
Who: President Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress
What: After the U.S. destroyer Maddox was allegedly fired on and under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats, Johnson proceeded quickly to authorize retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. The next day he accused the North Vietnamese of “open aggression on the high seas.” He then submitted to Congress a resolution that authorized him to take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." The resolution was quickly approved by Congress. Johnson later admitted that the incident in the Tonkin Gulf may not have taken place. (The U.S. ships had not been damaged in the alleged “attack.”) The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was the war authority Johnson needed to begin a massive troop buildup in Vietnam.
Sig: Later, when more information about the Tonkin incident became available, many concluded that Johnson and his advisers had misled Congress into supporting the expansion of the war. The Tonkin resolution was characterized by Johnson as “grandma’s pajamas,” meaning it covered everything and that he could fight the war any way he wanted to fight it.
Antiwar Movement (1965 – 1972)
What: This was the most significant antiwar movement in United States history. Marches and mass protests occurred throughout the war. After Nixon began bombing Cambodia in 1970, the antiwar movement began to embrace the larger American public and the American war effort was doomed thereafter. (Included here is the demonstration at Kent State University in 1970, at which the National Guard killed four students.)
Sig: This antiwar movement had a great impact on policy and practically forced the US out of Vietnam. The antiwar movement applied pressures directly on Johnson and Nixon and turned the public against the war.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
What: The act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, creed (religion), national origin, and sex (Lum’s RACCOONS). It was originally made to protect the rights of blacks. However, the bill was amended prior to passage to protect the civil rights of women too.
Sig: The Act transformed American society. It prohibited discrimination in public facilities and in employment. The "Jim Crow" laws in the South were abolished, and it was illegal to compel segregation of the races in schools, housing, or hiring. This is one of the most important laws in U.S. history.
Selma Bridge (1965)
Who: Martin Luther King Jr. / Black Community of Marion, Alabama
What: Outraged over the killing of a demonstrator by a state trooper in Marion, Alabama, the black community of Marion decided to hold a march. On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, about 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They only reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge about six blocks away, when they were confronted by the state and local police. The police attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. ruled in favor of the demonstrators. On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000-strong.
Sig: Less than five months after the last of the three marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Great Society (1965)
Who: Lyndon Baines Johnson
What: This was a political slogan used by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (served 1963–69) to identify his legislative program of national reform. In his first State of the Union message (Jan. 4, 1965) after election in his own right, the president proclaimed his vision of a “Great Society” and declared a “war on poverty.” He called for an enormous program of social welfare legislation including
1) federal support for education (including Project Head Start, an antipoverty program),
2) medical care for the aged through an expanded Social Security Program (Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor),
3) federal protection for citizens deprived of the vote by state voter registration (Voting Rights Act of 1965), and
4) immigration reform (dropped the national origins quota test first established in the Emergency Quota Act of 1921).
After a landslide victory for the Democratic Party in the elections of November 1964, a sympathetic Congress passed almost all the president's bills (noted above in parentheses).
Sig: The War on Poverty, and the Great Society of which it was a part, left a mixed legacy. They were responsible for the most important legal protections of civil rights since the 1860s; they permanently expanded the American welfare and social insurance system; and they gave the federal government important new responsibilities in such areas as the environment, education, and the arts. But the largest Great Society programs—Medicare and Medicaid—proved to be highly inefficient and unwieldy; they ultimately became two of the most costly items in the federal budget. And the gap between the expansive intentions of the War on Poverty and its relatively modest achievements fueled later conservative arguments that government is not an appropriate vehicle for solving social problems. Further, the costs of the Vietnam War caused support for Johnson’s Great Society agenda to wane.
Voting Rights Act (1965)
Who: President Lyndon Johnson
What: This landmark law provided for the United States Department of Justice to supervise the registration of voters in states with histories of voter registration discrimination against minority citizens.
Sig: Because of this Act, within five years, millions of blacks were registered to vote and their votes changed the character of Southern politics.
Black Militancy after 1965
What: In August 1965, frustrations with high unemployment and poverty led to riots, one specifically in the Watts section of Los Angeles (primarily a black neighborhood). In the summers of 1966 and 1967, urban riots occurred in the poorer neighborhoods of several Northern cities. The summer of 1967 saw 150 racial confrontations and 40 riots. In 1968, the summer after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., many race riots broke out again. These urban riots of the mid-1960s voiced black rage and demands for Black Power, which changed the tone of the civil rights movement. Many people such as Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X helped to promote black economic and political independence. Conflicts soon arose between the older civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, and black power advocates, with their aura of militancy and violence. Some blacks called for racial pride and separatism instead of integration. Civil rights demands shifted from color-blinded to color-consciousness.
Sig: By the end of the 1960s, the African American quest for political justice (votes) shifted more to economic justice (jobs). Further, the civil rights movement had strongly influenced other groups, which adopted its protest tactics. For example, in 1968 Native American leaders demanded a reimbursement for lands that government had taken through treaties and Indians engaged in violent confrontations with Federal authorities. At the other extreme were abortion clinics protestors, who included those who would use violence. The violence of the later part of the 1960s foreshadowed a dark and ugly turn of events across America, a turn that influenced not only blacks but others.
Malcolm X
What: Malcolm X was one of the most prominent Black Nationalist leaders in the United States in the 1960s. As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride and economic self-reliance. He ultimately rose to become a world renowned African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights activist. He was assassinated in NY City on February 21, 1965 on the day of National Brotherhood Week.
Sig: He was a powerful African American leader who inspired millions of African Americans to believe in themselves and have pride in who they were.
Black Activists and Organizations in the 1960s
1. Stokely Carmichael: He was a black separatist and a Pan-Africanist and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and participated in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
SNCC: One of the primary institutions of the American Civil Rights Movement. Original student members were organizers of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in the southern United States. Its purpose then was to coordinate the use of nonviolent direct action to attack segregation and other forms of racism. SNCC played a leading role in the 1961 Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party over the next few years. When Carmichael led the organization, it focused on Black Power and then fighting against the Vietnam War.
2. Roy Wilkins: He was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and between 1931 and 1934 was assistant NAACP secretary under Walter Francis White. When DuBois left the organization in 1934, Wilkins replaced him as editor of the official magazine of the NAACP
NAACP: It was founded February 12, 1909 to work on behalf of African Americans. Members of the NAACP have referred to it as The National Association, confirming its pre-eminence among organizations active in the Civil Rights Movement since its origins in the first years of the 20th century. By the mid-1960s, the NAACP had regained some of its preeminence in the Civil Rights Movement by pressing for civil rights legislation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. Congress passed a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations in 1964, followed by a voting rights act in 1965.
3. James L. Farmer: In 1942, he founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
CORE: It played a pivotal role in the U.S. Civil Rights movement. It sought to apply the principles of nonviolence as a tactic against segregation. The group believed that nonviolent civil disobedience could be used by African-Americans to challenge racial segregation in the South and eventually other parts of the U.S.
4. Huey Percy Newton: He was the co-founder and inspirational leader of the Black Panther Party.
Black Panther Party: A revolutionary, Black Nationalist organization also founded by Bobby Seale and Richard Aoki. It grew to national prominence in the U.S. and is a representative of the counterculture revolutions of the 1960s. It was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, which called for greater autonomy of black Americans and correction of the injustices of racism. The group's political goals were often overshadowed by their confrontational and uncompromising views and approach toward agents of law enforcement, who the Black Panthers saw as the linchpin of racism that could only be overcome by a willingness to take up armed self-defense.
1968—A Year to Remember in U.S. History:
Important Events in 1968
1. Tet Offensive
What: Tet was the great battle of the Vietnam War, a coordinated surprise attack by the Viet Cong (the rebel forces, sponsored by North Vietnam) on hundreds of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. In January of 1968, on the first day of Tet (the lunar New Year holiday), Viet Cong units attacked five of South Vietnam’s six cities, most of its provincial and district capitals, and fifty hamlets. The U.S. and ARVN soldiers responded quickly by regaining most of the ground the attackers had won. Only in Hue did the Viet Cong hold on.
Sig: America and South Vietnamese military forces defeated the North Vietnamese everywhere, but the Communists demonstrated that they could attack when and where they wanted to attack. This demonstrated the absence of control of the country by South Vietnam and the U.S. and led to increased opposition to the war at home.
2. Assassination of MLK
Who: Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Earl Ray
When: April 4, 1968
Where: On the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee
What: He was preparing to lead a local march in support of the predominantly black Memphis sanitation workers’ union on strike at the time. The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 60 cities. Two months later they captured and escaped convict James Earl Ray. He confessed of killing him because of his extensive civil rights work.
Sig: King left a huge impact on America through his promotion of non-violence and racial equality. He was considered a peacemaker and martyr. It was a huge loss for America to lose the most famous leader of American Civil Rights Movement.
3. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
When: July 1, 1968
What: A treaty established to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The treaty is summarized as having three pillars: nonproliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology.
Sig: This has been a very successful treaty that still has great affect in today’s world.
4. Assassination of RFK
When: June 5, 1968
Who: Robert F. Kennedy and Sirhan B. Sirhan
What: Just four years after the death of his brother John F. Kennedy, Robert was assassinated. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old Los Angeles resident, fired a .22 caliber revolver directly into the crowd surrounding Kennedy. Kennedy never regained consciousness and died in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968 at the age of 42. Kennedy was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration.
Sig: He was one of President Kennedy’s most trusted advisors. In 1964, after his brother’s death, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of New York and at the time of his assassination he was running for president.
5. 1968 Washington D.C. Riots
Where: Washington D.C., Washington, Baltimore, and Chicago
What: The ready availability of jobs in the growing federal government attracted many to Washington in the 1960s, and middle class African-American neighborhoods prospered. As word of King's murder by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee, spread on the evening of April 4, crowds began to gather. By 11pm, widespread looting had begun (as well as in over 30 other cities).
Sig: The riots utterly devastated Washington's inner city economy. With the destruction or closing of businesses, thousands of jobs were lost, and insurance rates soared. Made uneasy by the violence, city residents of all races accelerated their departure for suburban areas, depressing property values. Crime in the burned out neighborhoods rose sharply, further discouraging investment.
6. 1968 Democratic Convention Riots
What: In August, 1968, the Democrats held their convention in Chicago. Antiwar protestors battled police before a national television audience.
Sig: The depths of antiwar protest were obvious. Further, many Americans viewed the protestors as dangerous radicals, which fueled Nixon’s campaign on behalf of the “silent majority.”
Nixon
The Election of 1968 and the “Silent Majority”
Who: Richard M. Nixon
Where: United States of America
What: Richard Nixon won the electron of 1968, beating out the Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey, and George C. Wallace. Nixon won with only 43.4% of the popular tally, and 191 electoral votes. He did not win a single major city.
Sig: Nixon’s appeal to the “silent majority” at the end of the decade of protest struck a chord in the electorate. An old anticommunist fighter, the people trusted him to get the U.S. out of Vietnam in some acceptable manner.
George Wallace and the race issue in the election of 1968
What: Wallace ran a third party campaign that was racist, in opposition to Democratic candidate Humphrey who supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Republican Nixon who was not overtly racist. Wallace’s Independent Party was successful in the deep South.
Sig: Wallace’s campaign demonstrates the deeply felt racist feelings in the South.
Nixon’s Challenge: Vietnam
What: President Nixon became President in January 1969, when the war in Vietnam was highly unpopular. His challenge was to get the U.S. out of the war without losing it. Thus he sought to “Vietnamize” the Vietnam War by withdrawing American Troops while concurrently training South Vietnamese troops to take over the American role. Nixon also pursued a peace treaty, and in January 1973 he announced the signing of a peace treaty with the phrase, “peace with honor.” The U.S. pulled out in 1973, and the war was renewed between North and South. The war was lost in 1975 when the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon, fell to the North Vietnamese.
Sig: Nixon got the troops out of Vietnam but the war was lost after the withdrawal.
Vietnamization
What: Soon after taking office President Richard Nixon introduced his policy of "Vietnamization.” The plan was to encourage the South Vietnamese to take more responsibility for fighting the war. It was hoped that this policy would eventually enable the United States to withdraw gradually all their soldiers from Vietnam.
Sig: Nixon was able to achieve “Vietnamization,” but the South Vietnamese government did not enjoy enough support to win the war on its own.
Nixon’s Challenge: China
What: In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first American President to go to China. The visit, planned in secret, amazed the world and marked the end of the deep freeze in Sino–American relations that started with the Communist takeover in 1949. It was an immense gamble but a brilliant stroke of policy, changing the international balance of power. With China not hostile, Nixon could withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam (hopefully, at least); American know-how could help Mao recover from his disastrous Cultural Revolution; most of all, each now had a card to play against the Soviet Union in the Cold War struggle.
Sig: Nixon, a hard-line anticommunist, may have been the only America with the ability to open relations with China and begin a more cordial era between the two nations.
Nixon’s Challenge: Watergate scandal and investigation--June 17, 1972 – 1974
Who: President Richard M. Nixon and some of his supporters
Where: Democratic Party’s 1972 campaign headquarters at Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C.
What: “Watergate” was a major political scandal, which began with the burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic Party’s campaign headquarters in the summer of 1972 and before Nixon’s reelection in November. The burglary was committed on June 17, 1972, by 5 men who were caught in the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. Their arrest soon uncovered a White House sponsored plan of espionage against political opponents and a trail that led to many of the nation’s highest officials, including the president himself. Tapes recorded by Nixon’s recording system were subpoenaed, but Nixon refused to turn them over. In U.S. v Nixon (1974), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s executive privilege defense and ordered him to turn over the tapes, which proved to be his undoing. Facing impeachment, he resigned in 1974, the only President in U.S. history to do so. Vice President Gerald Ford became president and pardoned Nixon from all crimes he might have committed while in office. (Nixon was then immune from federal prosecution.)
Sig: The Watergate scandal severely shook the faith of the American people in the presidency and turned out to be a supreme test for the U.S. Constitution. Watergate showed that in a nation of laws no one is above the law, not even the president.
New Federalism 1969-1989
Who: President Richard Nixon and President Ronald Reagan
What: New Federalism was a name given to programs designed to decentralize government power: money and power were directed away from federal bureaucracy and to the states. Nixon practiced revenue sharing, in which the federal government shared some taxes with state and local governments. Reagan continued this and consolidated categorical grants (made for a specific purpose) into block grants (affording state governments more latitude).
Sig: The assigning of greater responsibility for social and other programs to the states was characteristic of Nixon’s and Reagan’s efforts to shore up states’ rights privileges and responsibilities against an ever-expanding national presence.
Environmental Protection Agency--1970
Who: Independent agency of the U.S. government
What: The EPA was established to reduce and control air and water pollution, and to ensure safe handling and disposal of toxic substances. (In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which explained the dangers of pesticides, notably DDT. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the environment. Her book launched the environmental protection movement in the U.S. and is part of the background to the establishment of the EPA in 1970.)
Sig: The EPA reflected the growing public awareness of long-range dangers to the environment (unregulated toxic waste dumping, for example).
Title IX 1972
What: Title IX prohibits discrimination on account of sex in federally funded educational activities.
Sig: For practical purposes, this act helped women in school and college sports programs achieve some equality with men in the funding of athletic programs
Roe v. Wade 1973
What: The U.S. Supreme legalized abortion in 1973 in the Roe v. Wade case.
Sig: This pro-choice victory legalized abortion and sparked a civil rights conflict that is still going on today
Changes in American economy: 1975 on
What: Fundamental changes occurred in the U.S. economy from the 1970s on. Older and higher-paying industrial jobs in steel and autos were being lost to foreign competitors and low paying service jobs such as those found in fast-food restaurants, commercial bookstores, retail sales, coffee houses, hotels, and resorts took their place. Meanwhile, owners and managers of service sector companies enriched themselves with high salaries and stock options.
Sig: This problem was not solved as we closed out the study of U.S. History in the 1990s. This problem was further aggravated by “outsourcing” of even higher-paid jobs.
The United States since 1972
Détente (‘70s) and Glasnost (‘80s)
Who: Soviet Union and U.S.
What: Détente is “relaxation of tension” in French. Détente used to describe the decrease in tension between the Soviet Union and U.S. and the weakening of the Cold War. Nixon was the first president to visit Moscow. A tangible first fruit of détente was the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. Détente eventually failed when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, followed by the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan stressed military preparedness as the key to Soviet-American relations (he called the Soviet Union the “evil empire”). The warming of relations came later under the Soviet leader Gorbachev when Reagan responded to him. [Indeed, they agreed in the INF Treaty of 1987 to ban intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe.] Gorbachev wanted glasnost (openness) in governmental relations and embraced Reagan as a great leader. Reagan responded and the U.S. and Soviet Union developed a less confrontational and much friendlier relationship (indeed, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts in ending the Cold War).
Sig: Nixon should be given credit for an effort to reduce tensions with both China and the Soviet Union by making trips to both nations. (The cynic can always claim he merely wanted to drive a wedge between the two communist powers and play one against the other.) Reagan should be given credit for embracing Gorbachev and for a rapprochement (renewal of friendly relations] with Russia.
Camp David Accords 1978
Who: President Jimmy Carter, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel
Where: Camp David, Maryland
What: The Camp David Accords was a “framework for Peace in the Middle East.” Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize. This 1978 agreement ended the war between Egypt and Israel originally started in 1948 but never formally concluded. Israel agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in return for Egypt’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a separate nation.
Sig: This was President Carter’s greatest achievement as president. Egypt was the first Arab country to recognize Israel.
Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986)
What: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in the then Soviet Republic of the Ukraine were two nuclear power plants that sustained damage and eroded the safety and credibility of nuclear power. The Chernobyl meltdown was a disaster.
Sig: The Three Mile Island meltdown was less damaging than Chernobyl, but the U.S. lost its commitment to nuclear energy after the meltdown. The U.S. continued to rely on fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) for energy. (President George W. Bush is currently pushing for alternative energy as a way to become less foreign oil dependent—notably ethanol.)
Iranian Hostage Crisis 1979-1981
Who: U.S. President Carter, Iranian revolutionaries, and American hostages
Where: American embassy in Tehran
What: Iranian revolutionaries held more than 50 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy for 444 days, until the crisis was over. Carter’s efforts, both diplomatic and military, failed to get the hostages released during his term. The hostage crisis was Carter’s worst nightmare during his administration. Algeria interceded and negotiated an agreement between the U.S. and Iran just as the hardliner Reagan was about to be inaugurated. On the day of President Reagan’s inauguration, the United States released almost $8 billion in Iranian assets and the hostages were freed.
Sig: The hostage crisis demonstrated how weak and powerless the U.S. government was in dealing with terrorists.
Carter and the Panama Canal 1977, 1999
What: In 1977, Carter negotiated a treaty with Panama to give Panama full control over the Panama Canal in 1999.
Sig: The U.S. gave up control over the Canal to a foreign (but friendly) state toward the end of establishing friendlier relations with Latin American nations.
Carter’s economic problems
What: Carter's management of the economy aroused widespread concern. The inflation rate climbed higher each year he was in office, rising from 6 percent in 1976 to more than 12 percent by 1980; unemployment remained high at 7.5 percent; and volatile interest rates reached a high of 20 percent or more twice during 1980. Both business leaders and the public at large blamed Carter for the nation's economic woes, charging that the president lacked a coherent strategy for taming inflation without causing a painful increase in unemployment. (“Stagflation” was high unemployment coupled with high inflation.)
Sig: The nation blamed Carter for the struggling economy (including high gas prices, again) and the hostage crisis and he lost the election of 1980 to Reagan. Carter, on the other hand, blamed the American people in a startling 1979 TV speech, in which he said:
“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. . . . The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us.”
New Right and the Conservative social agenda 1980
Who: New Right activists under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan
What: The emergence of a “New Right” movement was in response to the countercultural protests of the 1960s. Many New Right activists were less worried about economic or cultural concerns and more worried about social issues. They rejected abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, and affirmative action. They put prayer in schools and added tougher penalties for criminals.
Sig: The Old and New Right were a powerful political combination, devoted to changing the character of American society. Ronald Reagan supported the New Right in his presidential bid in 1980.
Reaganomics 1980’s
Who: President Reagan
What: “Reaganomics” were the economic policies of President Ronald Reagan. He promised lower taxes and a smaller government. He favored “supply side” economics, whereby a cut in taxes would put more money in private hands with the understanding that the money would be used to stimulate investment and create jobs. His tax cuts were large, but in the end Reaganomics could not be judged fairly because of his massive military expenditures which drove the national debt up to new and staggering heights.
Sig: Reaganomics became a new word—the idea being to hold the line on the federal budget and have tax cuts stimulate the economy. The problem was that massive military expenditures fueled budget deficits that made the New Deal look stingy.
Reagan and Carter as Washington outsiders
What: Both Carter and Reagan did not have careers in Washington before becoming president. Both were “outsiders” in this sense, and the people, disenchanted with Washington for various reasons, found them attractive and voted them into the White House.
Sig: These men represent a popular revolt against the traditional “establishment.”
Arms Limitations Talks and Treaties 1970s-1990s
1. ABM Treaty and SALT I (Nixon)
Who: The United States and the USSR
What: The United States and the USSR agreed to an ABM (anti-missile missiles)
Treaty in 1972 which limited the anti-missile (defensive) nuclear
missiles between the two countries. The Treaty also provided for continued Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), which resulted in the limiting of the number of long
range offensive missiles.
Sig: The ABM Treaty and SALT I represented a temporary thaw in the U.S.
Soviet relationship.
2. SALT II, 1979 (Carter)
Who: President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
What: This failed treaty limited the number of lethal weapons both countries
could have, but the treaty was not approved.
Sig: Too many other issues clouded the relationship between the Soviet Union
and the U.S. The high water mark of strategic arms limitation and reduction came earlier,
during the Nixon years, notably 1972.
3. START I (1991) and START II (1993)—Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
Who: The United States and the Soviet Union
What: It took about ten years of negotiations between these two countries in
order to sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Sig: Five months after START I, the Soviet Union dissolved and four
independent states with strategic nuclear weapons in their territory formed--Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. Three of the four states came up with their own
strategic arms treaties. Russia, the fourth state, negotiated a separate START II Treaty
with the U.S. in 1993. Under START II, President Bush and Russian President Boris
Yeltsin agreed to reduce long-range nuclear arsenals by two-thirds within ten years.
Invasion of Grenada—October, 1983
Who: President Reagan and the United States
Where: Grenada (Caribbean)
What: Marxists in Grenada took control of the country and killed the Prime Minister in a military coup. President Reagan sent in an invasion force that quickly defeated the insurgents and installed a government friendly to the U.S.
Sig: Shows the policy of Reagan to assert America’s dominance in the Caribbean and openly confront communist expansion. Reagan did not have Congressional authority—he sent the troops in to protect American interests, as usual. This time the “interests” were American students attending a medical college. The President had to have some authority—he did the best he could but protecting the students was a sham for any intelligent observer. Once again, the U.S. president exerted an imperial-like attitude toward Latin American neighbors.
Iran-Contra Scandal—1986-87
Who: President Reagan and his administration
What: The President was sending money to Nicaraguan contras (fighting against the leftist Sandinistas government of Nicaragua). Reagan asked Congress for money for the contras. Congress refused. Reagan aides found a “neat” plan to subvert the will of Congress. That is, his aides sold arms to an embattled Iran in return for Iranian assistance in freeing American hostages being held by Middle Eastern terrorists. (The U.S. at the time was supporting Saddam Hussein of Iraq in his war with Iran.) The proceeds from the sale of the arms to Iran were provided to the contras. Televised Congressional hearings demonstrated the deceptions and lies perpetrated by high level officials in Reagan’s administration. National Security Advisor staff officer Lt. Col. Oliver North told Congress, in a televised hearing, that he thought it was a “neat” idea.
Sig: Reagan survived this scandal by playing dumb. This was a violation of the constitutional checks and balance system, where one Lt.Col. USMC presumed to know more than the U.S. Congress and had his way with his boss, the Secretary of State, and the President.
Resurgent Fundamentalism (1980s)
Who: Ronald Reagan, Evangelical Christian groups such as the Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority dedicated believers who enjoyed startling success as political fundraisers and organizers.)
What: New right activists were more interested in social issues than economic ones. They denounced abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, and affirmative action. They championed prayer in the schools and tougher penalties for criminals. The Christian “right” organized and became a political force at all levels of government. (For example, at the local level, Christian activists could gain control of a school board and influence textbook selection.)
Sig: The legacy of the counter-cultural 1960s was a more liberal, open, and tolerant society that was a threat to traditional Christian morality. The Christian “right” arose and became a political force.
Consumerism
What: Consumerism is the belief that the good life is rooted essentially in the possession of material goods—cars, electronic gadgets, boats, RVs, and every conceivable item that could ease the burdens of everyday living. Advertising and easy credit accelerated consumerism, a phenomenon that began in the 1920s, went into hiding during the Depression and World War II, and then came roaring back after WWII. By the 1990s, electronic breakthroughs added computers, cell phones, and video games to the list of “must-haves” for the typical consumer, thus adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the growing international consumer-oriented economy.
Sig: Consumerism reflected the growing selfishness of the industrialized world as it sought to deliver the “good life” to those who could afford it with little concern for 1) the poor or 2) intergenerational environmental costs (e.g., smog at the local level and “global warming” at the global level).
End of the Cold War (1991)
What: The collapse of the Soviet Union and the democratization of its client regimes in Eastern Europe ended the four decades-long Cold War and left the United States the world’s sole remaining superpower. Americans were unsure about how to use their power effectively. (By 9/11/01, anti-terrorism replaced anti-communism as the organizing principle of American foreign policy during the George W. Bush administration.)
Sig: The United States emerged as the only remaining superpower.
As the 1990s came to a close, the U.S. was becoming aware of “imperial blowback,” or the unintended consequences of covert CIA operations during the Cold War period. 9/11 represents the extreme example in caricature of CIA blowback. Thus the legacy of the Cold War could be that the U.S. has to fight or oppose many groups that were alienated principally due to U.S. overseas efforts to confront Communism during the Cold War.
Globalization and the American economy
What: Globalization is the tendency of investment funds and businesses to move beyond domestic and national markets to other markets around the globe, thereby increasing the interconnectedness of different markets. The U.S., committed to globalization through various free-trade agreements, is going into a period of economic realignment at it adjusts to such issues as the outsourcing of jobs and the decline of traditional American heavy industries (steel, auto).
Sig: The increased interconnectedness of different markets around the world renders isolationism obsolete as the domestic behavior of a nation affects other nations around the world.
Environmental Issues in a Global Context
What: Coal fired electrical generating plants helped form acid rain and probably contributed to the greenhouse effect, an ominous warming in the planet’s temperature. The unsolved problem of radioactive waste disposal prevented further development of nuclear power plants. The planet was being drained of oil, and disastrous accidents like the grounding and subsequent oil spill of the giant tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989 in Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound demonstrated the ecological risks of oil exploration and transportation at sea. By the early 21st century, the once lonely cries for alternative fuel sources had given way to mainstream public fascination with solar power and windmills, methane fuel, electric “hybrid” cars, and the pursuit of an affordable hydrogen fuel cell. As the human family grew at an alarming rate on a shrinking globe, new challenges still faced America. The task of cleansing the earth of its abundant pollutants, including nuclear weapons, was one urgent mission confronting the American people in the new century.
Sig: These issues are important to future generations (the issue is “intergenerational equity”). The Clinton administration was responsive to these issues, supporting, for example, the Kyoto Protocol, which called for the nations of the world to reduce greenhouse gases, a cause of global warming. The current Bush administration publicly criticized the Kyoto Protocol and proclaimed its opposition to it on the basis of the jobs that would be lost if the U.S. were to reduce greenhouse gases. The current Bush administration is promoting alternative energy sources, such as ethanol (derived from corn.
The Persian Gulf Crisis--1990
Who: Iraq and Kuwait
Where: Kuwait
What: Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait and seized its vast oil supply, also one of the world’s main oil supplies.
Sig: Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait resulted in Operation Desert Storm.
Operation Desert Storm--1991
Who: The U.N. and Iraq
Where: Kuwait
What: Operation Desert Storm was a U.N. rush of troops (U.S. led the attack throughout) after relentless air raids on Iraqi positions that ended the war and liberated Kuwait. The campaign lasted only one hundred hours.
Sig: Operation Desert Storm showed the might of the U.N. under U.S. leadership. Oil rich Kuwait was liberated, but America became more entangled in Middle Eastern affairs.
Clinton Impeachment--1999
Who: President Clinton
What: President Clinton lied under oath (perjury) to a grand jury about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and was also charged with obstruction of justice. The impeachment trial in the Senate failed to convict him (thus he was not removed from office).
Sig: This was the second time in United States history that a president has been impeached, the first being Andrew Johnson (who also was not removed). (Nixon faced impeachment but resigned first.)
The Graying of America (1970s-present)
What: Increased life expectancy is creating record numbers of people aged 65 and older. In less than a century, we have added 25 years to our life span. Those aged 65 and older will represent 13% of the population in 2000, and about 21% of the population in 2030.
Sig: The federal budget for older Americans’ programs will soon be the largest expenditure. Older Americans are becoming increasingly more politically powerful. The younger generation will be increasingly more burdened with financial and other needs to assist and service older Americans.
Domestic and Foreign Terrorism
Who: Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein
Where: New York City’s World Trade Center; the Pentagon
What: On September 11, 2001, suicidal terrorists hijacked planes and crashed into the Twin Towers and Pentagon. Those attacks were linked to Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.
Sig: Catastrophic terrorist acts posed an unprecedented challenge to the United States. The events of that murderous September morning reanimated American patriotism. Now American security and American liberty alike were dangerously imperiled. Subsequent reports indicated that President George Bush led the nation into a war against Iraq on the basis of faulty and/or manipulated intelligence. At present, there is no end in sight for the war in Iraq (President Bush declared in March 2006 that future presidents will have the job of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq). After a century of war in the 1900s, the U.S. was insecure as it began the 21st century.
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