APUSH - WW1-depression

WW1

Woodrow Wilson’s early efforts at foreign policy

Wilson initially felt America should only interfere abroad if it were morally necessary. He appointed WIlliam Jennings Bryan as secretary of state who negotiated a 25 million dollar apology to Colombia for Roosevelt's actions during the Panamanian revolution, and worked to prepare the Philippines for an eventual American withdrawal.

Wilson initially promised not to rely on the Roosevelt Corollary. Once president, however, Wilson intervened more abroad than either Taft or Roosevelt, sending troops to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.

During the Mexican Revolution, Mexican military leader Pancho Villa led a fifteen hundred man force across the border into New Mexico, attacking and burning the town of Columbus. WIlson responded by sending general John Pershing into Mexico to capture Villa

In June, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, murdered archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian empire, pushing the central powers into war with the allied powers.

American and the great war

At first, most Americans and president wilson wanted the us to pursue neutrality:

Isolationism had strong history in america

There were millions of German-Americans who sympathized with the central powers.

Many Irish-Americans distrusted Britain, and many American jets resented Russia.

The war was becoming incredibly destructive and deadly.

Germany used submarines, called unterseeboots or U-boats, around Great Britain to attack both merchant and military ships. A U-boat sunk the RMS Lusitania, on May 7, 1915.

While Germany had announced the Lusitania would be subject to attack for its cargo of ammunition, 128 American civilians died in the attack and Americans began to sympathize with the allies.

In the lection of 1916 Ilson and the democrats capitalized on neutrality and campaigned under the slogan “wilson-he hept us out of war.” Wilson won, however several different factors pushed Wilson toward the inevitability of American involvement.

Wilson continued to argue for neutrality until 1917, arguing that the war must end with “peace without victory.”

The zimmerman telegram was sent from the german foreign minister arthur zimmerman and instructed german diplomats to approach the mexican government, if the united states entered the war in europe, to offer an alliance between germany and mexico.

The Germans would offer “generous financial support” and “reconquer lost territory in texas, new mexico, and arizona>” Along with german unrestricted submarine warfare, this pushed many americans to support war.

In April, 1917, Wilson asked congress to declare war on Germany. Several congressmen expressed their concerns that the war was being fought over U.S. economic interests and fifty-six voted against war, including the first woman ever to be elected to congress. Representative Jeannette Rankin. Thus was the largest “No” vote against war as a resolution in American history.

The home front

In 1917 congress passed the selective service act in 1917, which required all men between eighteen and forty five to register for the draft. By the war’s end five million drafted, 1.5 million volunteered, and over 500,000 additional men signed up for the navy or marines.

Twenty thousand women volunteered, a quarter of whom went to France to serve as nurses or in clerical positions. Almost 350,000 Americans refused to register and many were prosecuted: courts handed down over two hundred prisons sentenced of twenty years or more, and seventeen death sentences.

In addition to the military, the scope and power of the federal government increased dramatically, with new agencies like the food and fuel administrations, the war industries board, and the U.S. railroad administration.

To pay for war, the liberty loan act allowed the federal government to sell 23 billion in liberty bonds to the American public. Additional monies came from the federal income tax revenue, which was made possible by the passage of the sixteenth amendment to the U.S. constitution in 1913.

The home front - dissent

Many Americans protested American involvement in the war. Wilson initiated a propaganda campaign, pushing the “america first” message and created the committee of public information under director george creel. Creel employed artists, writers, and filmmakers to develop a propaganda machine, molding an anti-German sentiment.

Schools banned the teaching of the German language and some restaurants refused to serve frankfurters, sauerkraut, or hamburgers, instead serving “liberty dogs with the liberty cabbage” and “liberty sandwich.”

Over one thousand people were convicted for opposing the war under the espionage and sedition acts. Socialist party leader Eugene v. Debs received a ten year prison sentence for encouraging draft resistance. In 1917, Roger Baldwin formed the national civil liberties Bureau, which was founded in 1920-to challenge the government policies.

In 1919, the case of Schenck V. The United States went to the supreme court to challenge the constitutionality of the espionage and sedition acts. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that such dissent presented a “clear and present danger" to the safety of the United States and the laws were justified. Congress ultimately repealed most of the espionage and sedition acts in 1921.

Over there

When the u.s declared war in April, 1917 the allies were close to exhaustion. The Russian Revolution forced Russia out of the war and the central powers turned all of their attention to winning the war on the western front before American soldiers could arrive.

American soldiers in the American Expeditionary force (AEF) were led by general John “Blackjack” pershing and flight in a series of battles from may 28 through august 6, 1918. In the second battle of Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, and the second battle of the Marne, American forces alongside the British and French armies succeeded in repelling the German offensive.

In September 1918, over one million u.s soldiers staged a full offensive in the Argonne Forest. On November 11, 1918, Germany and the allies declared an immediate armistice, thus bringing the fighting to a stop and signalling the beginning of the peace process.

A total of 117,000 American soldiers/doughboys had been killed and 206,000 were injured. The allies as a whole suffered over 5.7 million military deaths. The total cost of the war in America alone was an excess of 32 billion. With interest expenses and veterans benefits eventually bring the cost to well over 100 billion. Economically, emotionally, and geopolitically, the war had taken an enormous toll.

The treaty of Versailles.

Wilson's postwar peace plan was known as the fourteen points. He called for free trade, freedom of the sea, an end to secret diplomacy, promotion of self-determination of all nations and the creation of the league of nations to promote open discussion in place of intimidation and war. Britain, France and Italy had deep misgiving about the fourteen points and “peace without victory” and wanted revenge against Germany.

The sole piece of the original fourteen points that Wilson successfully fought to keep intact was the creation of the league of nations. The treaty of Versailles would have to be approved by the senate.

Wilson embarked on a speaking tour in support of the treaty, but the grueling pace proved too much. He suffered a stroke, leaving his second wife Edith Wilson in charge as de facto president for six months.

As a result, the United States does not join the league of nations or is a signatory of the treaty of Versailles. This shattered the international authority and significance of the organization. Although Wilson received the noble peace prize, he was embarrassed and angry at his country's refusal to be a part of that model.

The 1920s - The jazz age

Following the hardships of world war one, the United States embarked upon one of the most prosperous decades in history. Cities continued to grow and the majority of the population lived in urban areas for the first time. Jazz music, movies, speakeasies, and new dances dominated the urban evening scene.

The Ku Klux Klan rose to greater power, as they protested not only the changing role of african americans but also the growing population of immigrants, catholics, and jewish americans. This mixture of social, political,economic, and cultural change and conflict gave the decade the nickname the “roaring twenties” or the “jazz age.”

Prohibition

The eighteenth amendment, ratified in 1919, banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. The law proved difficult to enforce, as illegal alcohol soon poured in from Canada and the Caribbean, and rural Americans resorted to homemade “moonshine.”

The result was an eroding of respect for law and order, as many people continued to drink. Rather than bringing about an age of sobriety, it gave rise to a new subculture that included illegal importers, interstate smuggling (or bootlegging), clandestine saloons referred to as “speakeasies,” and the organized crime of trafficking liquor.

The democratic party found itself divided between urban, northern “wets” who hated prohibition, and rural, southern “dries” who favored the amendment. This divided the party and opened the door for the republican party to gain power in the 1920s.

“Scarface” Al Capone ran an extensive bootlegging and criminal operation known as the Chicago outfit. His Chicago soup kitchens during the great depression led some Americans to liken capone to a modern-day robin hood. He was eventually imprisoned for eleven years for tax evasion.

Pop culture

The increased prosperity of the 1920s gave Americans more disposable income to spend on entertainment. As the popularity of “moving pictures

“ grew in the early part of the decade, “movie palaces,capable of searing thousands, sprang up in major cities. People attended the movies far more than today, often going more than once per week.

Stars like rudolph valentina, charlie chaplin, and clara bow filled the imagination of millions of american moviegoers.

In 1927, silent movies began to wane with the release of the first “talkie”: the jazz singer. The plot of this film, which starred Al Jolson, told a distinctively American story of the 1920s. It follows the life of a jewish man from his boyhood days of being groomed to be the cantor at the local synagogue to his life as a famous and “americanized” jazz singer.

Film production was originally based in New York, where Thomas Edison first debuted the kinetoscope in 1893. But in the 1910s, moviemakers moved to Hollywood in southern California.

Radio

Radios became a common feature in American homes of the 1920s. Radio advertising was interspersed with entertainment. The powers of radio sped up the processes of nationalization and homogenization that were previously begun with the wide distribution of newspapers, railroads, and telegraphs.

Syndicated radio programs like AMos ‘n’ Andy entertained listeners around the country.

With the radio, Americans from coast to coast could listen to exactly the same programming. This smoothed out regional differences in dialect, language, music, and even consumer states.

Radio helped to popularize sports figures like jim thorpe, who grew up in the sac and fox nation in Oklahoma, played in major league baseball and national football league. In football, Harold “Red” Grange played for the University of Illinois. The biggest star of all was Babe Ruth, who became America's first baseball hero.

Nativism

For many white protestant Americans, the growing diversity of America led to nativism. In the trial Nicola Sacco and Bartolomei Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants who were accused of being part of a robbery and murder, despite no direct dividend linking them to the crime. Both men were anarchists who favored the destruction of American capitalist society. Both men were found guilty and executed in 1927.

The emergency immigration act of 1921 and the national origins act of 1924 introduced a quota system that restricted annual immigration and significantly redacted Asian, as well as southern and eastern European immigration.

The new KKK

The ku klux klan had been dormant since the end of reconstruction in 1877, but a second incarnation was established in georgia, under the leadership of william simmons in 1915. The new Klan attacked catholic and jewish immigrants as well as african americans and received mainstream support.

By 1924, the Klan had six million members in the south, west, and , partially, the midwest. While the organization publicly abstained from violence, its members continued to employ intimidation, violence, and terrorism against its victims.

The harlem renaissance

The ‘20s saw the continued great migration of African Americans to the north, with over half a million fleeing the Jim Crow south. Harlem, a neighborhood at the northern end of Manhattan, became a center for black art, music, poetry, and politics.

The Harlem Renaissance, a rediscovery of black culture, African American artists and writers formulated an independent black culture. Langston Huges invoked the just cause of civil rights in “the colored soldier," while zora neale hurston wrote “their eyes were watching God.”

Some African Americans proposed that black Americans had a distinct and separate national heritage or black nationalism. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant, promoted a “back to africa” movement. To return african americans to a presumably more welcoming home in Africa, Garvey founded the black start steamship line. Garvey's legacy set the stage for malcom X and the black power movement in the 1960s.

Harding and Coolidge

Republican Warren G Harding and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge won the election of 1920 promising a return to normalcy. Harding enacted pro-business policies, including tax cuts and tariffs, but is remembered for scandal. Harding was personally honest but surrounded himself with politicians we weren't. Secretary of Interior Albert B. Fall was involved in bribery in the teapot scandal.

Harding died in 1923, making Coolidge president. Known as “silent Cal” he believed in limited government intervention in the economy. As business boomed he won reelection in 1924, but chose not to run in 1928, when republican Herbert Hoover beat al smith, a catholic from new york.

Herbert Hoover and the crash

Herbet Hoover became president during the roaring 20s, but the stock market crash of 1929 helped plunge the economy into depression.

Multiple factors contributed to the crash, which in turn caused a consumer panic that drove the economy further downhill. Hoover thought that the country would right itself with limited government intervention. This was not the case and millions of Americans sank into grinding poverty.

Before the crash, stock speculation became the norm. In addition, banks began to offer easy credit, which investors used to buy risky stocks. This behavior set the stage for black Tuesday, October 29, when stockholders lost over 14 billion in wealth in a single day.

Bankers demanded payment for their loans to individual inventory, but many could not pay and several banks failed. This led to bank runs, the withdrawal by a large number of individuals of money from a bank due to fears of the bank's instability. Eventually, thousands of banks closed their doors leaving their customers penniless. The great depression had begun.

Hoover believed in American individualism: the idea that hard work and individual effort with less government interference comprised the formula of success in America.

Hoover opposed “handouts,” as he understood direct government aid to be. Instead, he made a call for volunteerism. He asked business leaders to promise to maintain investments and employment and encouraged state and local charities to assist those in need.

Hoover did create some federal relief programs The reconstruction finance corporation sought to boost public confidence in financial institutions by ensuring that they were on solid footing. The emergency relief act allowed the ref to invest in local public works projects. These efforts were too little, too late.

Protests ranged from factory strikes to farm riots, culminating in the bonus army protest in the spring of 1932. Veterans from world war one lobbied to receive their bonuses immediately, rather than waiting until 1945. Hoover called in the military, who violently put down the protests.

By March 1933, the banking system had collapsed, nearly 20 percent of the labor force was unemployed, and prices and productivity had fallen to ⅓ of their 1929 levels. Factories were shut down, farms and homes were lost to foreclosure, mills and mines were abandoned, and people went hungry.

“Hoovervilles,” or shanty towns built of packing crates, abandoned cars, and other scraps, sprung up across the nation. In the great pains, where the dust bowl was created by drought and dust storms, people simply abandoned their farms and headed for California. Gangs of youth, whose families could no longer support them, rode the rails as hobos in search of work.