Civil War to the New Deal Exam Review Notes

Civil War Reconstruction

  • Prompt Structure

    • A Prompt: Three reasons and a judgment.
    • B Prompt: Basically two A prompts. Argument on both sides.
      • Most important reason and why, on which side you pick.

  • Civil War Basics

    • Advantages and disadvantages of both sides.
    • Military strategies.
    • Political changes, like suspending habeas corpus.
    • Lincoln's goal: Unify the Union.
    • Three main battles:
      • Antietam:
        • Allowed for the Emancipation Proclamation (freed slaves in the South, not border states).
        • Aimed to wreck the South's workforce, strengthen the Union army, and deter European intervention.
      • Gettysburg: Turning point of the war.
      • Vicksburg: Solved the Anaconda Plan.
    • Shift to total war after Lincoln replaced McClellan with Grant.
    • War lasted four years due to the South's determination and the initial ineffectiveness of the Union strategy.
    • The US strategy was not productive: taking too long.

Lincoln's Political Strategies

  • Habeas Corpus Suspension

    • Gave Lincoln more control.
    • Suppressed anti-war movements in the North.
    • Allowed for military justice to be applied.
    • The Supreme Court ruled the suspension illegal, but Lincoln proceeded anyway.

  • World War I and World War II Comparisons

    • Strikes were effectively considered treason.

  • Confederate Efforts

    • Davis attempted similar strategies, but state power limited effectiveness.

Great Depression - Hoover's Actions

  • Hoover Housing Act.
  • Hoover Dam construction.
  • Federal Home Loan Bank Act: To stop foreclosures.
  • Reconstruction Finance Corporation Act (Banking Act): Gave money to banks for distribution to businesses.
    • The idea was trickle-down economics, but banks used the money to pay off debt instead.

Gilded Age & Populist Movement

  • Farmers' Problems

    • Railroads gouging prices for grain elevators and storage.
    • Farmers formed the Grange for unity, ideas, and cheap loans.
    • Granger laws aimed to regulate railroad prices.
    • Farmers' Alliance unified to fight high railroad costs, leading to the Populist Party.

  • Homestead Act & Westward Expansion

    • Key to America's growth.
    • Battle over land ownership; railroads used high prices to indebt and buy out farmers.
    • The act provided land free if improved in five years, though many were bought out.

Labor Movements & Strikes

  • Pullman Strike

    • Led by Eugene V. Debs against Pullman refrigerator railroad car company.
    • Company cut wages but not rent in the company town.
    • The strike was suppressed using the courts, weakening unions.
    • Debs jailed and ran for president while incarcerated, receiving votes.

  • Haymarket Riot

    • Protest for eight-hour workdays turned into a riot.
    • Damaged the reputation of labor movements, particularly the Knights of Labor, due to association with violence.

  • Coal Strikes (1908)

    • Presidential intervention (compare to Reagan and air traffic controllers).
    • Significant economic impact.

Corruption & Legislation

  • Credit Mobilizer Scandal

    • Government officials taking kickbacks for jobs and overcharging (e.g., exorbitant furniture costs).

  • Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

    • Minimum wage and minimum prices.
    • Use acronyms or describe the program if you forget the name.

  • Collective Bargaining

    • Under the National Labor Relations Board.

Consumerism & Antitrust

  • Consumerism

    • Explosion of consumerism due to urbanization and industry.
    • People moved from farms and had to buy finished goods.

  • Sherman Antitrust Act

    • Initially strengthened businesses, but Teddy Roosevelt used it to break up monopolies and promote a square deal.
    • Strengthened by the Expedition Act and later by Wilson's Clayton Antitrust Act.

Political Machines & Progressive Reforms

  • Political Machines

    • Controlled local and state elections through bribery and influence over immigrants (jobs for votes).
    • Elected officials were beholden to the machine.
    • Tammany Hall in New York City was run by Boss Tweed.

  • Progressive Reforms

    • 16th and 17th Amendments:
      • 16th: income tax
      • 17th: direct election of senators.
    • Initiative, referendum, and recall.
    • City manager systems to reduce political machine power.

Civil Rights & Black Codes

  • Enforcement Acts & Civil Rights Act of 1866
    • Aimed to counteract black codes but were largely unenforced.
    • Poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses were used to disenfranchise African Americans.
    • Grandfather clauses were passed last, preventing descendants of slaves from voting.

FDR's Brain Trust & Political Strategy

  • Brain Trust

    • Intellectuals and academics advising Roosevelt.

  • Political Strategy

    • Appeased various groups, including white supremacists, African Americans, workers (Wagner Act), and businesses.
    • Utilized a Black Cabinet led by Mary Bethune McLeod Bethune.
    • Elected four times, serving twelve years.

New Deal Programs

  • Social Security.
  • Rural Electrification Administration (REA) for farmers.
  • Wagner Act for workers.
  • Indirect aid to Native Americans.

Reconstruction Failures & Johnson's Impeachment

  • Johnson hindered Reconstruction by:
    • Lessening pressure on the South.
    • Giving rights back to Confederate officers.
    • Vetoing the Freedmen's Bureau.
    • Fighting with Congress.
    • Impeachment process slowed progress.

FDR's Supreme Court & New Deal Criticisms

  • Court Packing Plan

    • Attempt to add more Supreme Court justices after programs were deemed unconstitutional.
    • National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) was deemed unconstitutional.
    • Violated powers of the state.

  • Criticisms of FDR

    • Inconsistency in government intervention.
    • The New Deal did not solve the economic problem; WWII did.
    • Short-term solutions.

New Deal Successes

  • Stabilized banks
    • FDIC
  • Housing market Stabilization
    • FHA and HELOC.
  • Stock Market Regulation
    • SEC.
  • Job Creation
    • CCC, WPA.

Temperance Movement & Prohibition

  • Temperance & Prohibition
    • Getting rid of alcohol will make men make better decisions

Pocket Veto

  • President leaves the bill on his desk until it expires.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

  • Divided South into five military districts.
  • Remaining states had to accept the 14th and 15th Amendments.
  • Rewrite their constitutions.

Gilded Age Figures

  • Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Duke, JP Morgan, Edison.
    *Edison's research facility came up with new ideas
    *Bessember process.

Business Strategies

  • Carnegie: Vertical integration.
  • Rockefeller and Vanderbilt: Horizontal integration (controlling the product).
  • Buying up railroads and connecting them.

Andrew Jackson

He became a southern sympathizer

1920 and Great Depression

  • Usually asked about how government lack of regulation caused great depression or impacted the great depression
    *Noninvolvement caused the great depression

Economic Policies

*Few restrictions
*Corruption
*No regulation on businesses
*Stock Market regulation
*Risky loans
*Consumer spending on credit

Roosevelt Recessions

*Would have growth- unemployment down. Then start growing again
*The creation of debt
*The Unions were given too much power-Businesses couldn't please that

There were only so many people in America so they could only sell so much stuff. * Worldwide trade- Great Depression stopped

Social Darwinism and Social Gospel

  • Social Darwinism: the idea that everyone has the same opportunity to be successful, but if they are not, there must be something wrong with them.
  • Social Gospel: the idea that you're supposed to help the underclass
    *End of life after you lived a food life,give to the community

Interstate Commerce Act- ICC

Commerce is created during the populist movement to regulate the railroads
Roosevelt used to try to regulate the railroads
*HEPBARN ACT and ELDER ACT
*Controls trade or movement trade or movement across the borders of states

What caused it end reconstruction?

*If Hays becomes president- Pull the troops out of the South. Reconstruction northern people tired of it because they had their own problems.
HOW DIFFERENT STATES ARE RAISED EUROPE RAISED AS WELL
*Spoon raised prices on imports
*Macombra raise out raises on exports.
HOLLYS MOOR THAT TOOK MARKET CRASH. BECAUSE OF INVOLVEMENT OF LACK OF INVOLVEMENT SPECULATION WITH WHAT IT WAS BANKS.
*RELIEF THE HOMELESS SEC FBC
*CHANGE REFORM IS CHANGE. JOBS THAT GRANTED WPA AND CDC.
*WAS UNION STRIKES BECAUSE 9-4 THEY COULDN'T REPLACE
*FAIR LAW WHAT YOU HAVE FOR IS DONE. 1838, DO IT DID DERE DID?
*ALL THEY DO IS OVERLAND. GREAT THING IS GAVE UNIONS POWER, BUT ALSO CAUSED RECESSION. BECAUSE THEY TRY, BUT HE HAD IT ALL RUN.
*YOU KNOW BECAUSE THIRTY QUESTIONS OBVIOUSLY ROAST WELL AND ALL JUST JUST REMEMBER EVERYTHING KNOW HOW TOLD A JIT GET IN WRITTEN FORM ALL GOOD. IF YOU OFF ON THE ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL WAR THATS WHEN THEY STOP AND YOU WILL BE FINE.
*DO OR DO YOU HAVE TO GET MORE POINTS AS MUCH AS YOU CAN.
*

How to Split Up the Time.

*You have 1 hr and 45 mins.
*10-12 mins on A prompts.
*4 questions in A total
*24 mins
*Planning as well.

Franklin Roosevelt