Period 1: 1491-1607

Desert Culture: Way of life based on pursuit of small game and the intensified foraging of plant foods.

Forest Efficiency: Communities of native people achieved a comfortable and secure life by developing a sophisticated knowledge of the rich and diverse available resources.

Farming Developed in Mexico → Less mobile, larger families.

• Developed more effective means of storage.
• Villages → Towns → Large, Densely settled communities like Cahokia.
• Work considerably longer and harder than foraging.
• Depending on relatively narrow selection of food.

14 Century: Aztecs settled in Mexico and began a dramatic expansion into a formidable imperial power.

Encomienda System: Indians were compelled to labor in the service of Spanish lords.

• Relationship supposed to be reciprocal with lords protecting Indians but really slavery.
• Virgin Soil Epidemics: Devastating outbreaks of disease striking for the first time against a completely unprotected population.
• Disease secret weapon of Spanish, helps explain their extraordinary success.
• Conquest of native people and exploitation as a labor force.
• Forced natives to accept European cultural norms.

The Columbian Exchange: Large scale exchange of people, animals, plants, and goods between the old and new world.

• New World crops brought to Europe (long-term importance). Maize and potatoes.
• Domestic animals introduced to Hispaniola and Cuba.

Period 2: 1607-1754

Contact between Indians and French based on commerce because lacked manpower to conquer.

• French are interested in fur, Indians in textiles, glass, copper, and ironware.
• Negative consequences: Disease, warfare over hunting grounds, dependence on European suppliers.
• Attempted to understand native customs to introduce Christianity as past of existing Indian life.

Spanish and French “frontiers of inclusion” → Indians converted into subjects. Incorporated into society.

Dutch and English “frontier of exclusion” → Sent colonists who dispossessed Indians. Lived in separate communities.

Group known as Virginia Company sent vessels to Chesapeake to build a fort named Jamestown.

• A Union known as Powhatan Confederacy wanted alliance with Europeans for supplies of metal tools and weapons.
• Colonists only survived because of Indians. Second thoughts when demands for food multiplied.
• Captured Matoaka (Pocahontas) and Powhatan agreed to a treaty of peace.

Found “merchantable commodity” in tobacco.

• Needed a great deal of labor and exhausted soil.
• 1619: House of Burgesses to encourage immigration. The first democratically-elected legislative body.

¾ of English migrants came as indentured servants.

• Men and women contracted labor for a mixed term in exchange for transportation to the new world.
• Slaves introduced but more expensive than servants.

Pilgrims (separatists): Believed that English church was so corrupt they had to establish an independent congregation.

Puritans: English followers of John Calvin who wished to purify and reform English church from within.

• Massachusetts Bay Colony: Group of wealthy puritans protecting their congregations by emigrating.
• Little tolerance for religious differences.
• Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts for advocating religious tolerance. Established Rhode Island.

Principal Concern of colonists was acquisition of Indian land.

• Believed that they had the right to “unused land.”
• Used a variety of tactics to pressure leaders into signing “quitclaims.”

17th Century: Salem Witch Trials → 342 women accused of witchcraft. Most unmarried, childless, widowed, or reputation for assertiveness/independence.

• Group of girls claimed that they had been bewitched by a number of old women.

Quakers → Pennsylvania

• William Penn wanted to make the colony a haven for religious tolerance and pacifism.
• 1682: First frame of gov. included guarantees for religious freedom, civil liberties, and elected representation.
• Penn reputation for fair dealings with Indians.
• Pennsylvania “heaven for farmers” because proprietors willing to sell land to anyone who could pay modest prices.

1689: John Locke “A Letter Concerning Tolerance”

• Argued that churches were voluntary societies. Could only gain converts through persuasion.

1675: King Philip’s War → Native Americans' last-ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English settlement on their native lands. Most destructive Indian-colonist conflict in early American history.

1676: Bacon’s Rebellion → The immediate cause of the rebellion was Governor Berkeley's refusal to retaliate for a series of Native American attacks on frontier settlements. In addition, many colonists wished to attack and claim Native American frontier land westward, but they were denied permission by Gov. Berkeley.

• Demanded death or removal of all Indians from the colony as well as end of aristocratic rule.
• Burned Jamestown to the ground.
• Also Culpeper’s Rebellion which showed that Indians could play the role of a convenient scapegoat.

Middle Passage: Middle part of the trading triangle linking Europe to Africa, Africa to America, and America back to Europe.

• No adequate sanitation. Captives forced to wallow in their own waste.
• Many sickened and died, contracted infectious diseases.
• As Europe and American grew stronger, Africa grew weaker.

Last quarter of 17th century, Chesapeake “slave society”

• Sharp decline of indentured servants, incentive of land mostly gone.
• Slaves expensive but planters expected to keep them in the fields for longer.
• As tobacco production expanded, slaveholding became widespread.
• Slaves achieved self-sustained growth.
• Rice and indigo also valuable commodities

1680: Pueblo Revolt. Spanish in New Mexico depended on Indian slavery.

• Afterwards, more cautious.

1730: Chesapeake Rebellion → Largest slave uprising in the colonial period.

Mercantilism: A system of regulations created by imperialists to ensure wealth benefited their own nation-state.

• Political control of the economy by the state.
• 1651: Navigation Acts → Merchants from other countries were forbidden to do business with English colonies.
• Had a list of enumerated goods that could be shipped to England only.
• Placed limitations on colonial enterprises that might compete with those at home. (ex. Wool Act of 1699)
• Restrictive rules and regulations not enforced, merchants and manufacturers prospered.
• Salutary Neglect: British essentially let America do their own thing.

Prosperity of the plantation economy improved living conditions.

• White Skin Privilege: Began creating legal distinctions.

Frontier Heritage → Wide and general expectation of property ownership was the most important cultural distinction between North America and Europe.

• Led to demand land be taken away from Indians.
• Encouraged popular acceptance of forced labor because labor was the key to prosperity.
• Little incentive to work for wages because free men/women could work for themselves.

Population growth → Immigration, high fertility, low mortality rates, better health, more food.

• “Trade in strangers”: Vessels loaded with tobacco, rice, indigo, timber, and flour came back with immigrants.

Social Class

• New France: Landowning lords claimed privileges similar to those enjoyed by their aristocratic counterparts at home.
• New Spain: Status was based on racial purity. Indians and African slaves on the bottom.
• British colonies: Large landowners, merchants, and prosperous professionals. Unlike the other two, social mobility.

Economic stagnation of France and Spain compared to impressive economic growth of British colonies.

• Spain and France weighed down by royal bureaucracies and regulations. Administration was highly centralized.
• British colonies had a decentralized administration.

The Enlightenment used powers of human reason rather than spiritual revelation or mystical illumination as the sole way of discovering natural law.

• New ideas sparked cultural transformation.
• Belief in progress. Future better than present which was better than past.
• Poor Richard’s Almanac by Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to bring enlightenment thought to ordinary folk.
• Declined religious commitment and many questioned Calvinist theology of election which was the belief that salvation was the result of God’s decree and only a small number of men and women would be recipients. Many turned to view that salvation could be achieved by developing good faith and doing good works.

The Great Awakening was the widespread colonial revival of religion.

• Jonathan Edwards, a committed Calvinist, used a charged preaching style to attach liberal theology.
• Local revivals became intercolonial phenomena thanks to the preaching of George Whitefield. Unlike Edwards, he left the hope that God would be responsive to desire for salvation.

Period 3: 1754-1800

Albany Conference of 1754 adopted “Plan of Union”

• All colonies rejected the proposal because of fear of losing autonomy.
• The first important proposal to conceive of the colonies as a collective whole united under one government.

1756-1763: Seven Years’ War → War between Great Britain and France

• 1754-1763: French and Indian War
• 1763: Treaty of Paris, France lost all of North America mainland.
• Many colonists began to view themselves as having an identity distinct from the British. Strengthened intercolonial unity.

Proclamation Line of 1763 declared the trans-Appalachian region to be “Indian country” reserved as the homeland for Indian nations.

• British settlers expected the removal of French would allow them to move west.
• Outraged the British awarded the territory to enemies.
• British unable and unwilling to prevent western migration.

Republicanism asserted that state power directly contrasted liberty and needed to be limited.

• Argued that best if broad distribution of power to people who could select their own leaders and also could vote them out of office.
• Possible only for an “independent” population in control of its own affairs.

1764: Sugar Act placed a tariff on sugar imported into the colonies.

• James Otis → “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”

1765: Stamp Act required purchase of specially embossed paper for all newspapers, legal documents, licenses, insurance policies, ships’ papers, even dice and playing cards.

• Affected nearly every colonial resident.
• British argued Americans had “visual representation” while Americans argued for “actual representation”
• Sons of Liberty gained control of the resistance movement and encouraged more moderate forms of protest. Became impossible for British to enforce stamp act.

1767: Townshend Revenue Acts placed tariffs on importations of commodities such as lead, glass, paint, paper, and tea into colonies.

• Some started to boycott items taxed.

1768: Massachusetts Circular Letter denounced Townshend Revenue Acts and attacked British plan to make royal officials independent of colonial assemblies.

1770: Boston Massacre

May 1773: Tea Act

• The Tea Act 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the financially struggling company survive.
• Dec. 1773: Boston Tea Party where some men dressed as Indians, boarded ships, and dumped into harbor 45 tons of tea.

1774: The Intolerable Acts to punish Massachusetts and strengthen British hand.

• Boston Port Bill prohibited loading or unloading of ships in Boston harbor until the town fully compensated the East India company and custom services for destroyed tea.
• Massachusetts Governor Act annulled colonial charter and delegates now appointed.
• With acts, British terminated a long history of self-rule.
• Administration of Justice Act protected British officials from colonial courts.
• Quartering Act legalized housing of troops at public expense, not only in taverns and abandoned buildings but in occupied dwellings and private homes.

1774: First Continental Congress where most delegates wished to avoid war and favored policy of economic coercion.

• Passed a “Declaration and Resolves” declared 13 acts of Parliament in violation of rights and until acts repealed, set sanctions against Britain.

1775: Lexington and Concord

1775: Second Continental Congress agreed military defense was the most important issue.

• Olive Branch Petition professed attachment to King George and begged him to prevent further possibilities so there might be accomodation.

Spanish helped supply Americans through Havana and New Orleans.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776): helped persuade many to let go of loyalty to Britain, outlined Republican principles.

1776: Declaration of Independence

Patriots passed treason acts that prohibited speaking or writing against the Revolution.

• Bills of Attainder to punish loyalists where they were deprived of civil and property rights.

Thousands of women assumed management of farms and businesses.

• Tales told of Molly Pitcher who was a woman who carried water to thirsty fighters on the front lines and took her husband’s place at the cannon when he was killed by shrapnel.
• Homespun Movement → The movement of American women during the Revolutionary War to boycott British clothing and materials, spinning their own, homemade cloths.

1777: Battle of Saratoga turning point in the war.

• French started helping Americans. Financial and military assistance.

1781: Yorktown Surrender

1777: Articles of Confederation adopted by Continental Congress.

• Created national assembly, called Congress, delegates selected annually
• Couldn’t tax.
• Ratified 1781
• No executive branch to enforce acts passed by congress
• No national court system/judicial branch
• No national army, only state militias.
• Each state had its own currency.
  • It discouraged trade.
  • States could impose tariffs on other states.
• Very difficult to pass laws
  • 9 out of 13 states to pass a law.
  • All 13 states must agree to amend Articles.
• Accomplished land ordinance act of 1787

1780: Pennsylvania’s Gradual Abolition Law

• Prohibited the importation of slaves into Pennsylvania
• All children born in Pennsylvania would be free, regardless if their parents were free.
• Model for other states to follow.

1783: Treaty of Paris

• Got western territories extending to Mississippi
• British acknowledged America and removed troops

1786-87: Shays Rebellion - Massachusetts uprising of farmers and Revolutionary War veterans that protested foreclosures, taxes and imprisonment for debt.

• Opposition to a debt crisis among the citizenry and the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades.
• Shays rebellion exposed the weaknesses of the articles of confederation by exposing that the government, Congress, could not form a military or draft because the federal government did not have money due to the fact that they did not have the ability to enforce taxes upon the citizens.
• Massachusetts were losing farms because they could not pay in hard currency.
• Wanted end to foreclosures, imprisonment for debt, relief from high taxation, increased circulation of paper money.
• Convinced many that this showed that poor were too rowdy, needed stronger central government to keep control of them.
  

Northwest Land Ordinance of 1787: Congress established a system of government for territories north of Ohio.

• 3-5 states made slavery prohibited.
• One of the few things the Articles of Confederation accomplished.
• Defined the process for admitting new states

Annapolis Convention (1786): Convinced of necessity of strengthening national government after Shay’s Rebellion (thought rich needed to keep control of poor kind of).

• Only 5 states showed up.
• Promised for another convention in 1787.

Constitutional Convention (1787)

• The Virginia Plan (James Madison): Scraping Articles of Confederation to tax and enforce laws directly reducing states to little more than administrative institutions.
  • Bicameral National Legislature: House of representatives and Senate
• New Jersey Plan: Increased power of central gov. but states equally represented.
• Great Compromise: Representation proportional in house, equal in senate.
• Three-fifths compromise: 5 states equivalent to 3 white men in exchange for commerce clause.
• Slave Trade Compromise → Slave importation will end ini 1808.
• Commerce Compromise → US could tax imports, but not exports.
• Created a stronger central government.
• States could not have their own currency.
• States could not tax goods from other states.
• Ratified 1788

Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

• Federalists
  • Supporters of the new constitution.
  • Federalist Papers
  • John Jay
  • Constitution Ratified
  • Urban
• Anti-Federalists
  • Believed the central government should not have as much power.
  • Bill of Rights
  • Rural

Bill of Rights (1791)

• 10 amendments (James Madison)
• 1st Amendment: No national religion. Freedom of speech, free press, and right to petition.
• Others, right to bear arms, limit gov’s power to quarter troops
• Added to gain the support of anti-federalists.

Judiciary Act (1789): Set court system.

Hamilton’s Fiscal Plan (1790)

• Assuming state debts after war and creation of federal debt.
• Establishment of the Bank of the United States.
• Tariffs.
• Whiskey tax.

American revolution inspired:

• French Revolution (1789): US didn’t help French and declared Proclamation of Neutrality. Big debate about this since France had helped the US in the Revolutionary War.
• Latin American Revolution- many Spanish colonies gained independence in the early 19th century.
• Haitian Revolution - Toussaint L’Ouverture helped Haiti gain independence in 1804. There were so many slaves there that they were able to fight to liberate themselves against French colonial rule. (1791).

1791-1794 Whiskey Rebellion: Farmers protesting tax on distillation on whiskey. The tax was part of Hamilton’s fiscal plan.

Jay’s Treaty (1795)

• Sought to settle differences between British and US. Basically to avoid war with Britain.
• Assured American commercial prosperity and set the stage for them to build a strong economy.
• Granted Britain favored treaty status
• Opponents saw it as accommodation for British at the expense of France.
• Angered France and caused them to seize American merchant ships.
• Major cause of political parties.

1795: Pinckney’s Treaty → With Spain, US gained navigational rights of the Mississippi River

• Right of deposit in New Orleans (could store goods)

Washington’s Farewell Address: Expressed concern over political parties.

• Warned of foreign entanglements.

Federalists vs Democratic-Republicans

• Federalists (Alexander Hamilton)
  • Strong central government
  • Supported the British.
  • Alien sedition act
  • Yeoman farmers
  • Agriculture
  • Loose constitution
  • National Bank, tariffs
  • Hamilton’s fiscal plan
  • Urban, north, rich
• Democratic-Republicans (Jefferson)
  • Party of traditional agrarian purity, of liberty, of states’ rights
  • Supported the French.
  • Equal voting
  • Small government.
  • Strict constitution.
  • Pro-expansion
  • Louisiana Purchase
  • War of 1812

XYZ Affair

• John Adam’s presidency.
• Three American diplomats (X,Y,Z) went to negotiate with France’s foreign minister but before seeing him, other people made them pay a bribe and said that in return, France would stop attacking US ships. Americans got mad.
• Quasi-war with France started (1798-1800) at sea, was undeclared.
• Peace was restored through the Convention of 1800. Ended when Napoleon took French politics in a different direction.

Alien and Sedition Act

• Limited freedom of speeches and press.
• Alien Act: Authorized president to order imprisonment or deportation of suspected aliens during wartime.
• Sedition Act: Provided heavy fines and imprisonment for anyone convicted of writing, publishing, or speaking anything bad against gov.
• The Federalists believed that Democratic-Republican criticism of Federalist policies was disloyal and feared that aliens living in the United States would sympathize with the French during a war. As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
• Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions → measures passed by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky as a protest against the Federalist Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson’s principal arguments were that the national government was a compact between the states, that any exercise of undelegated authority on its part was invalid, and that the states had the right to decide when their powers had been infringed and to determine the mode of redress. The Kentucky resolutions thus declared the Alien and Sedition Acts to be “void and of no force.”

Abigail Adams - Wrote a letter to her husband called “Remember the Ladies,” when making the new government, don’t forget about the ladies.

Judith Sargent Murray advocated education for females.

Republican Motherhood: Women were now expected to raise their children to be patriotic, good American citizens. (So they themselves had to be educated in order to do this).

• Gave women access to education so they could teach their children.

Cotton

• Demand is growing because of the boom of industrial production of textiles.
• 1793: Invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney.

Period 4: 1800-1854

Agrarian Republic: Vision of Thomas Jefferson.

• Nation of small family farms clustered together in rural communities.
• Not depending on anyone else.
• Fostered constant mobility for more land.
• Bred ruthlessness toward Indian people.
• Also election of Jefferson ended Federalist era.

Marbury vs. Madison (1803): Established principle that only the federal judiciary could “say what the law is.”

• 1819: McCulloch v. Maryland → Bank of the United States is constitutional and states cannot tax federal agencies.
• 1824: Gibbons v. Ogden → congress has sole control over interstate trade, not states.

Louisiana Purchase (1803)

• Bought 187,000 acres of territory from Napoleon.
• Loose interpretation of the Constitution first time.
• Jefferson had conflicting views on it.
• First big expansion/imperialist grab.

Peaceful Coercion

• Non-Importation Act: Hoping boycotting British goods was effective.
• Embargo Act (1807): Forbid American ships from sailing to any foreign port. It was to try to punish Britain and France for interfering with American trade while the two countries were at war with each other.
  • Disaster for American trade.

Indian Intercourse Act (1790): US could not simply size Indian Land. Could only acquire when Indians ceded it by treaty.

The War of 1812

• Declaration of war against British due to British impressment of US ships.
• Hartford Convention (1814): Federalist representatives met to discuss their grievances over the War of 1812. Except Britain surrendered right after so they looked ridiculous. Helped break up the Federalists.
• Treaty of Ghent (1812): Treat inconclusive. Helped national morale.
• Propertyless men in militia questioned why they were eligible to fight, not vote.
• Helped with nationalism. Made them feel like a stronger power. Thought they won.

American System (Henry Clay)

• Second Bank of the United States: Sign that commercial interests had grown to rival that of farmers, whose distrust for central banks persisted.
• Tariff of 1816: First substantial protective tariff to help domestic industries.
• Internal Improvements: Ex. national roads.
• 3 parts of the basic infrastructure that the American economy needed in order to survive.

Monroe Doctrine (1823): Called for the end of colonization of the Western Hemisphere by European nations.

• British opposition to the Royal Navy kept Europeans out.
• Only worked because of British enforcement through their navy.
• Said US would stay out of European wars.
• Written by John Quincey Adams.

Era of Good Feelings (1815-1825) → Period where there was only one political party. No Federalists.

Panic of 1819: Delayed reaction to the end of the War of 1812 and Napoleonic Wars.

• Shipping boom ended as British merchant ships resumed trade.
• Americans began to come to terms with their economic place.

The Missouri Compromise (1820): Maintained balance between free and slave states.

• Maine as a free state and Missouri as slave.
• Slavery prohibited north of 36°30’ north latitude. Temporary solution.

Great Awakening (1760s): Introduced many slaves to Christianity.

• Helped slaves survive.

Nat Turner’s Revolt (1831): Slave started a rebellion in which a number of white people killed.

• Southern fears magnified.
• Linked with north in southern eyes.

Yeoman Farmers: Often applied to independent farmers of the south, most of whom lived on family-sized farms.

• Family mainstay of community and farmers relied on neighbors and relatives.
• Used a barter system.
• Still belief in white skin privilege.

Slave owners used paternalistic ideology to justify rigorous insistence on the master/slave relationship.

• Each plantation family is both black and white.
• Master is the head of the family, treating slaves with humanity in exchange for working properly.
• Expected benevolence and gratitude.
• One of greatest violations sexual abuse.

Justification for Slavery

• In the Bible and history of Greece and Rome.
• Constitution allowed slavery.

1830s: Southern states began to barricade themselves against “outside” antislavery propaganda.

• 1860: Only 5% of slaves could read.
• 1836: “gag rule” introduced by Southerners in Washington to prevent congressional consideration of abolitionist petitions.

Denial of women to vote came from patriarchal belief that men headed households and represented interests of all household members.

Print Revolution helped to democratize politics by spreading word far beyond cities.

1828: Jackson Presidency

• Strengthened executive branch at the expense of legislature and judiciary.
• “Negative activism” vetoed more than other presidents combined forcing Congress to consider his opinion.
• Expanded white male suffrage (nominating conventions started).
• Supported patronage (placing political supporters in office).
• Against Eastern elites.
• Internal improvements. Argued that federal funding for transportation measures unconstitutional because it infringed on powers of the constitution to the state.
  • States spent more money than the fed. gov.

Nullification Crisis: 1816 first substantial tariff. Southern assured tariff temporary but it wasn’t.

• Tariffs of 1824 and 1828 raised rates higher and protected more items.
• Tariff of 1828 (Tariff of Abominations): To increase northern support and southern opponents insisted not national measure and claimed unconstitutional.
• After the Tariff of 1832, South Carolina responded with an Ordinance of Nullification which rejected tariff and refused to collect taxes it required. Called for volunteer militia and threatened to secede.
• Most serious threat to national unity that the US experienced.
• 1833: Compromise Tariff and South Carolina relented.

1830: Indian Removal Act appropriated funds for relocation of Indians by force if necessary.

• Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832) fought removal but Jackson ignored the decision.
• 1838: Trail of Tears at least ¼ of Indians died.
• Jackson expressed opinions of Southerners and Westerners.

Vastly encouraged commercial enterprise by limiting regulatory power of states.

• Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) prevented states from interfering in contracts.
  • Also Gibbons v. Ogden (1924)
• The Supreme Court under Marshall's leadership weakened the power of state gov. and aided the growth of private enterprise.

1832: Jackson vetoed rechartering the national bank.

• Lasting economic and political consequences.
• A lot of inflation because money produced by smaller banks.
• Panic of 1837: Bank called in commercial loans. Sharp contraction of credit. Led to a 6 year recession.
• 1836: Species Circular announcing that the gov. would accept payment for public lands only in hard currency.

Democrats vs. Whigs

Democrats

• Inherited Jefferson’s belief in democratic rights of small independent Yeoman farmers.
• Appeal to south and west.
• Favored expansion, Indian removal, and freedom to do what they wanted to on the frontier.
• Opposed rapid social and economic changes.

Whigs

• Started because they were against Jackson.
• Often initiators and beneficiaries of economic change and more receptive to it.
• Importance of a strong fed role in the national economy.
• Supported Henry Clay’s American System
• Wanted to improve people as well as roads.
• Favored government intervention in both social and economic affairs. Called for reform.
• Greatest strength in New England, areas most affected by commercial agriculture and factory work.

1807 ish: Transportation Revolution

• 1808: Fed gov funded Cumberland (national) Road.
• Erie Canal provided easy passage and drew settlers, state funded. (1828)
• Steamboats transformed commerce. First one made in 1807 by Robert Fulton
• Railroads: Many investors rushed to profit.
• Fueled economic growth by making distant markets more accessible.
• Not much impact in South.

1800s-1840s: Market Revolution

• Movement from people producing stuff for themselves on independent farms toward producing goods to sell to others. Also wages started.
• Allowed because of new technology in transportation and communication. Telegraphs. Better roads, canals, steamboats, and railroads → transportation revolution.
• Factories → More than technological development, organizational innovation. Gathered workers in one place and split work, production faster and more efficient.
• Required much up front capital investment.
• States passed laws to help protect corporations, and the government helped.
• Much of capital came from banks/family connections.
• Development of northern industry paid for by southern cotton produced by enslaved African Americans.
• Willingness of American merchants to “think big” and risk their money in the development of a large domestic market was caused in part by American nationalism.
• Initially putting-out system. People produced goods at home but under direction of merchants.
  • On a piecework basis.
  • Production from the individual artisan households to the merchant capitalists.
  • Farm families moved from local barter into a larger market economy.
  • Eventually more people went to work instead of working from home.
• More women employed. Cheaper, assumed wouldn’t be families sole breadwinner.
• Cult of Domesticity: Instead of making stuff women were expected to enable their husbands to make stuff. Social system. Stated that respectable middle-class women should stay at home. Idealization of women as mothers and wives, started after the Revolutionary War.
  • Many joined reform movements because if women were supposed to be the moral center of the home, they could also be the moral conscience of the nation.
  • Often stayed out of politics and focused on domestic issues.
  • Women expected to live in a separate sphere.
• Work and leisure separated. Followed clock.
• Switch from subsistence farming to cash-crop farming.
• Because of manifest destiny, it was hard to find men to work in factories so began to use immigrants.
• Commercialization: Replacement of barter by a cash economy. Happened overtime.
• Commercial agriculture stimulated by transportation revolution and gov. Policy.
  • New tools like steel plow and reaper (increased harvesting efficiency).

Slavery lasted from 1619-1865.

• Slave based economy from the south connected to the market revolution.
• Without southern cotton, the north wouldn’t have been able to industrialize as quickly.
• ¾ of the world’s cotton came from the south.
• Cotton shipments overseas made northern merchants rich, northern bankers financed the purchase of land for plantations, northern insurance companies insured slaves. Northern manufacturers sold cloth back to the south to clothe the slaves.
• Profitability of slave based agriculture (king cotton). Kept south agricultural and rural. Little room for technological innovations like railroads.
• Even the poorest whites (yeoman farmers) had status over slaves because they were white.
• Used to argue that it was just a necessary evil. Some began to argue that slaves benefitted from slavery because they were fed, clothed, and taken care of.
• Paternalism allowed masters to see themselves as benevolent compared to cold, mercenary, capitalism of free labor north. Justified through the Bible, also that black people were inherently inferior to whites. Not to keep them enslaved would disrupt the natural order.
• Relied on brutality and dehumanization. Most from sunup to sundown and almost all had no pay.
• Slave resistance to dehumanization including forming families. Family refuge for slaves. Religion is also important. Many slaves learned to read and write illegally.
• Resistance often took form by running away. Often ran away temporarily.
• Also armed rebellions. Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831) with a group of 80 slaves marched from farm to farm killing inhabitants, mostly women and children. Captured and executed. Struck terror throughout American south. Virginia’s response made slavery worse by passing harsher laws (prohibited teaching and learning to read).

First Industrial Revolution: Due to demand for cotton, result of technological and social changes. New manufacturing processes in Europe and the US

• Industrialization required workers to concentrate in factories and pace themselves to the rhythms of power-driven machinery.
• Samuel Slater was credited with starting this in the US. Stole tech from Britain to make the first industrial mill.
• Strengthened the American economy, reduced dependence on imports. Strengthened domestic manufacturing and commercial agriculture.
• Caused greater wealth and greater population.
  • Sentimentalism and transcendentalism emerged in part as a response.
• Lowell Mills: First cotton mill.
  • Most of the labor force was women (young, unmarried) and children.
  • Worked for a short time and would save money.
  • Prior to the Civil War, Irish immigrants replaced the old workforce.
• Development of interchangeable parts. (Eli Whitney)
  • Substantial source of national pride.
• Mechanization: Meant more tasks could be performed by unskilled workers.
  • Work so simple children began working.
  • Male workers opposed females fearing it would lower their wages.
• Work and leisure separated.
• Free labor; the right of workers to move to another job.
• Taylorism: a factory management system developed in the late 19th century to increase efficiency by evaluating every step in a manufacturing process and breaking down production into specialized repetitive tasks.
• Robber Barons: Business leaders concentrating their wealth at expense of workers.

Second Great Awakening: New evangelical religious spirit stressed the achievement of salvation through personal faith, more democratic and more enthusiastic.

• No longer focused on predestination.
• Must reject rationalism that threatened beliefs.
• God’s grace could be obtained through faith and good deeds.

Sentimentalism: Emphasis on sincerity and feeling.

• Sprang from imagined trust and security of the familiar, face-to-face life of the preindustrial village.
• Became rigid code for etiquette.

Transcendentalism (Ralph Waldo Emerson): Theory claiming that there was an ideal, intuitive reality transcending ordinary life.

• Best way to achieve alone in the natural world.
• Argued that freedom resided in an individual’s power to make oneself and even the world.

1820s: Surge of immigration beginning.

• Most from Ireland and Germany.
• Not unwelcome to everyone because industries needed willing workers.
• Most changes in industry and transportation are impossible without immigrants.
• Irish: lacked money to go inland and began farming, so remained in the cities.
• Almost all preferred to live in ethnic communities.
• Sharpened class differences.

African Americans competed with immigrants and native-born poor white people for jobs as day laborers and domestic servants.

Reform Movements → Used the argument if women were responsible for raising virtuous children, women, they contended, should also play a role in helping those people who have become consumed by immoral acts redeem themselves.

Evangelical religion fundamental to social reform.

• Rose from the recognition that the traditional methods of small-scale social relief was no longer adequate.
• Belief in basic goodness of human nature.
• Moralistic Dogmatism → sure they know what was right and determined to see improvements enacted.

Dorothea Dix → Lead in building asylums.

1826: Largest reform org. of the period American Society for the Promotion of Temperance.

• Dominated by evangelicals.
• Drinking hurt families economically and led to violence and crime.
• Whigs favored it, Democrats opposed (many immigrants)

1834: Female Moral Reform Society for Prostitution

• Not very successful because domestic work was the alternative.
• Realized more of an economic issue than domestic issue.

Utopian Communities

• Oneida Community: Notorious for sexual freedom. Focused on equality and all members contributing to society.
• Mormonism: Close cooperation and hard work made it successful.
• Brook Farm: Small community in Massachusetts that focused on artistic creativity and education.

White Abolitionists

• Led by Willian Lloyd Garrison who published the Liberator condemming slavery and demanding immediate abolition.
• Joined with Weld to form the American Anti-Slavery Society
• Send anti-slavery literature to the south and southern legislatures banned it.
• The South reacted by toughening laws regarding emancipation, freedom of movement, and all aspects of slave behavior.
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe introduced millions of Americans to the idea that African American people were people. Humanized slaves. Banned throughout most of the south.

The Women’s Right Movement

• The Grimke Sisters: First well known female public speakers against slavery
  • Criticized because they were women.
• 1848: Seneca Falls Convention was the first woman's rights convention in American history. Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
  • To work for political, social, and legal equality.
  • Wrote the Declaration of Sentiments which took on the patriarchal structure. Said both men and women equal.
  • Things discussed:
    • Suffrage.
    • Equal education opportunities.
    • Divorce and child custody rights.
    • The right to retain property after marriage.

Indian Territory (Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska): Easter Indian tribes being removed here. Region regarded as unfarmable and known as the Great American Desert.

• Justification, a place where Indian people could live undisturbed by white people as they slowly adjusted to “civilized” ways.

Manifest Destiny

• Used it to justify their relentless expansion.
• 1845: John O’Sullivan argued that Americans had a God-given right to bring the benefits of American democracy to other, more backward people (Mexicans and Indians) by force if necessary.
• Missionary zeal and racist combo.
• Democrats supported, Whigs opposed.
• Made it hard for factory owners to find men to work in their factories. Began to be filled by immigrants.

Americans in Texas

• To increase the buffer zone between Mexico and Comanches, gov. granted Moses Austin land in Texas.
• Different from other settlements because it is fully legal.
• 1828: Centrists gained control of mex. gov. and dramatic shift of policy.
• 1835: Battle of the Alamo complete disaster.
• Eventually defeated Mexico.

Period 5: 1844-1877

Convention of 1818: Great Britain and US decided to occupy Oregon jointly.

• June 1846: Set line at 49th parallel.

Mexican-American War

• Polk wanted the continent clear to the Pacific Ocean.
• 1846: Brief skirmish between American and Mexican soldiers in disputed areas and Polk claimed that Mexican soldiers had shed blood on American soil.
• Whig critics questioned. Northern states protested.
• 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexico ceded northern provinces of CA and New Mexico and accepted Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas.

1848: California Gold Rush

• “Forty-niners”, thousands who rushed to California.
• Caused a booming population, thriving agriculture, and a corporate mining industry.

1846: Wilmot Proviso proposed slavery be banned in all territories acquired from Mexico.

Popular Sovereignty → Shifted decision of slavery from national politicians to members of territorial and state legislatures. Vague about when a territory would choose its status.

“Manifest Destiny” based on widespread belief among Americans in the superiority of their democracy.

• Growing sense of national identity.

The Compromise of 1850, five bills with three compromises.

• California is admitted as a free state.
• Former Mexican possessions left to be decided through popular sovereignty.
• Texas to cede land to New Mexico.
• Slave trade ended in the District of Columbia.
• Fugitive Slave Law: Dramatically increased power of slave owners to capture escaped slaves.
  • Forced people to help capture slaves or get fined/jailed.
• Many argue helped postpone the American civil war.

1848-54: Free Soil Party opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories.

1854: Ostend Manifesto document both convinced and threatened Spain for Cuba.

• Pierce administration. Declared unconstitutional.
• Pro-slavery people were for it as it would give them more territory to have slaves in. Anti-slavery people against it.

1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act proposed status of slavery in new territories to be governed based on the principle of popular soverignty.

• The North wanted to build a transcontinental railroad that would go through the north.
• Permitted expansion of slavery beyond southern colonies.
• Southern whigs and democrats voted in favor but northern whigs rejected creating a split in Whigs.
• Bleeding Kansas.
• 1857: Proslavery Lecompton Constitution written (boycotted by free-soilers) and then applied for admission to the US. President Buchanan, biggest mistake, endorsed the constitution but Congress voted to refuse.
• Sparked the start of the Republican party.

Former whigs, lots of nativism, creation of the new American Party (aka Know-Nothings)

• Many disapproved of new immigrants because they were poor, Catholic, and disdainful of the temperance movement.
• Held immigrants solely responsible for increases in crime and rising costs for relief for the poor.
• Many eventually shifted support to Republican party.
• Called for tough immigration and naturalization laws.

1857: Dred Scott v. Sandford → Court ruled that having lived in a free state and territory did not entitle a slave, Dred Scott, to his freedom. In essence, the decision argued that as a slave Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in a federal court

• Invalidated the Missouri Compromise. Was unconstitutional and Congress could not regulate slavery in the territories.
• Slaves were considered property.

The Panic of 1857: Failure of Ohio investment caused panic selling.

1859: John Brown’s Raid

• Believed discontent among Southern states so great that uprising only needed spark to get going.
• Raid on federal arsenal, death by hanging.
• Shocked South because it aroused fear of slave rebellion.

1860: South Carolina seceded.

• Weeks that followed, six other states followed.
• Lincoln clear that he wouldn’t compromise on slavery, because he got elected, they seceded.

1861: Montgomery Constitution created Confederate States of America

• Supported states’ rights and made abolition of slavery practically impossible.

Union had a commanding edge over Confederacy in population and production capacity.

• Able to feed, clothe, arm, and transport all the soldiers it chose.
• Short term, the south had assets. Defensive war, military disparity less extreme, slaves could do vital plantation work.
• Also border states were extremely valuable.

Union federal government expanded. Need for money.

• 1862: Legal Tender Act created national currency.
• 1863: National Bank Act prohibited banks from making their own currency.

Republican party was determined to fulfill it’s campaign pledge of a comprehensive program of economic development.

• 1861: Morrill Tariff Act, subsequent measures raised tariffs.
• 1862: Homestead Act gave 160 acres of public land to any citizen who agreed to live on the land for 5 years. Improved by building a house and cultivating land, paid a small fee.
  • Helped encourage settlement of Western frontier.
• 1862: Morrill Land Grant Act gave states public land that would allow them to finance land-grant colleges offering education to ordinary citizens in practical skills.

Britain and France didn’t recognize the confederacy.

• Greatest southern failure in the area of finance, governors refused to impose new taxes.
• Indians fought for the south because they were bitter and sympathized.

1863: Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in areas of rebellion.

• Wanted to meet the abolitionist demand while not losing the support of conservatives.
• Gave name to Southern slaves already fleeing to the Union lines or refusing to work for their master.
• Gave support to recruitment of black soldiers. Faced prejudice within the army and had to prove themselves in battle.

Hospital nursing previously considered a job only disreputable women could undertake, now became a suitable vocation for middle-class women.

• Southern women are also active in nursing and aiding soldiers.

1863: The New York City Draft Riots → Protests against the draft throughout the North.

• Civil War made urban problems worse and heightened contrast between rich and poor.

1864: Sherman’s March was an example of the new strategy of total war.

• Trying to make war so terrible for the south, told men to seize, burn, or destroy everything in their path except civilians.

1865: Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

1865: 13th Amendment banned slavery throughout the US.

Period 6: 1865-1868

1863: Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, trying to bring states back into Union as quickly as possible.

• Restoration of property (not including slaves) and the South needed to swear an oath of allegiance to the US and their laws.
• 10% Plan: Number of South voters who took oath were 10%, could establish state government.
• Angered radical republicans, they wanted harsher. Proposed Wade-Davis Bill which required 50% of the voters.

1865: Special Field Order 15 → “Forty acres and a mule”

• Freedmen's Bureau → Food, clothe, and fuel former slaves.

1866: 2 bills to aid blacks.

• Civil Rights Bill: Full citizenship to blacks. Overturned Dred Scott and black codes. Didn’t include Indians.
• Enlarged Freedmen's Bureau to build schools, pay teachers, establish courts.
• Johnson vetoed both bills but overruled by Congress.

Several African Americans held political office like Hiram Revels, a senator from Mississippi.

1866: 14th Amendment → Defined national citizenship to include former slaves. Basically civil rights for former slaves. Guaranteed citizenship to all males born in the US regardless of their race.

Congress passed several acts aimed to limit President Johnson’s power.

• Tenure of Office Act: Prevented President from removing officeholders without the Senate’s consent.
• 1867: Johnson suspended the secretary of war Stanton to General Grant.
• 1868: House of representatives voted to impeach the president. Based on his violation of the tenure of office act.
• Johnson agreed to abide by Reconstruction Acts, one vote away from being removed from office by the Senate.

15th Amendment → Right of black men to vote.

• The South could still use poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means.
• Grandfather clause: If your grandfather could vote, you could vote. No African Americans had grandfathers that could vote.

1866: American Equal Rights Association → Insisted that the causes of Africans to vote and women’s vote linked.

• 1869: Moderate American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) → Sought support of men.
• More radical all-female National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA)

Majority of African Americans hoped to become self-sufficient farmers.

• Sharecropping (paid slavery): Compromise between planters and slaves. Stabilized workforce. Sharecroppers needed to remain until harvest and employed all family members.
• Also tenant farming, renting land.
• A lot like slavery, created cycle of debt that prevented them from being independent.
• Those who ended up fleeing from the harsh violence of Reconstruction South were called exodusters, most of whom migrated to Kansas.

1867-1869: Republicans dominated 10 Southern constitutional conventions.

• New docs guaranteed political and civil rights of African Americans.
• Abolished property qualifications for office holding.
• First state-funded systems of education.

Southern government:

• Scalawags: Southern white Republicans, seen as betrayers. Many wanted economic advancement for the South.
• Carpetbaggers: Northerners that came to the South for money or to help slaves adjust.

Reconstruction Acts of 1867

• Divided the South into five military districts and could only join back into the US if they agreed to give basic rights to African Americans including the right to vote.
• But the plan was not carried out fully, couldn’t extend land ownership to African Americans or arrest former Confederates.

Segregation became a norm in schools.

• African American leaders accepted this because they feared the insistence on an integrated school would jeopardize funding for a new school system.
• Civil Rights laws were difficult to enforce in communities.

Ku Klux Klan emerged as an instrument of terror.

• Threatened, murdured, Republicans to prevent them from voting.

1870-71: 3 enforcement acts designed to counter racial terrorism.

• Interference with voting became a federal offense.
• 1871: Ku Klux Klan Act made violent infringement of civil and political rights a federal crime.

Civil Rights Act of 1875: Outlawed racial discrimination in theaters, hotels, railroads, and other public places.

• There wasn’t much enforcement and the north began to care less.
• Later deemed unconstitutional.

Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873: Several Supreme Court Rulings involving the 14th and 15th amendment effectively constrained the federal protection of African American rights.

• Restricted congressional power to enforce Ku Klux Klan act.

Railroad business symbolized and advanced new industrial order.

• Railroad growth → More production of coal, iron, stone, and lumber.

Republicans increasingly identified with interests of business rather than rights of freedmen.

• Liberal Republicans called for the return of limited government. Suspicious of expanding democracy and opposed federal intervention in the South.

Compromise of 1877: Hayes ascendance to presidency in exchange for more money to the south, internal improvements, a Southerner to Haye’s cabinet, “home rule.”

• Broke idea of the federal government protecting the rights of all American citizens.
• Ended reconstruction, end of federal interference in Southern affairs (troops removed)

White people had a demand for resources and land. The plan for a permanent Indian territory fell apart.

• Bureau of Indian Affairs → To provide guidance, US military forces ensured protection.
• Corrupt and routinely diverted funds.
• Put Native Americans in boarding schools, to assimilate and “civilize” them. Susceptible to deadly infections.
• Ex. Carlisle Indian School

Great Sioux War of 1865-87, the Oglala Sioux warrior Red Cloud fought the U.S. army to a stalemate.

• Because of invasion of miners and forts in buffalo range.
• 1868: Treaty of Fort Laramie restored temporary peace by giving Sioux the right to occupy the black hills.
• With the discovery of gold, prospectors overran land.
• 1876: Indians wiped out Custer at Custer’s Last Stand giving Indian haters emotional ammunition.

Majority of tribes: Poverty and misery despite their traditional ways of survival.

Indian Rights Association placed Protestant missionaries in the west to eradicate tribal customs as well as convert Indians to Christianity.

• Believed that the Indians needed to be raised out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of civilization.
• Wanted Indians to develop American “manners.”

1887: Dawes Severalty Act incorporated many measures and established federal Indian policy for many years to come.

• President would give land to individuals (160 acres), not the tribe.
• English language adoption.
• Got rid of national sovereignty.
• Indians who accepted land allotment and let the government sell unallotted land could petition to be a citizen.
• Undermined tribal sovereignty and offered little compensation.
• For tribes on reservations, assimilationist policies of the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) challenged their traditional ways.

Mining became the basis for the new economy in the west.

• Railroads made transportation easier.
  • Transcontinental Railroad constructed 1863-1869
  • Railroads were huge advantage to North in Civil War
• Shipping trade became an important industry.
• Boomtowns flourished.

1890: Closing of the Frontier (Census Bureau announced the end of the frontier, meaning there was no longer a discernible frontier line in the west, nor any large tracts of land yet unbroken by settlement.)

• Turner’s frontier thesis argued that frontier had played a key role in making America democratic, and had spurred American nationalism and individualism.
• Also argued that it was why the US was not aristocratic and land ownership based.

1846-47: Mormons migrated to Utah.

• 1879: United States v. Reynolds → Ruled against polygamy. Freedom of belief but not practice.
• 1882: Edmunds Act diffranchised those who believed in or practiced polygamy.
• 1887: Edmunds-Tucker Act destroyed temporal power of the Mormon church by confiscating all assets over $50,000.

Homestead Act: Gave 160 acres free to any settler who lived on it for 5 years and improved it or bought the land for $1.25 per acre after six months.

• Greatest success in central and upper midwest

Railroad promoted settlement, brought people to homes, and carried crops and cattle to eastern markets.

• Sponsored land companies to sell huge allotments of land from the federal government.
• Life in the Great Plains was hard but endurable.
• 1837: John Deere designed his “singing plow” which easily turned prairie grasses under.
• 1831: Invention of the reaper. Allowed farmers to harvest crops mechanically.

General Land Revision Act of 1891: Gave the President the power to protect watersheds against threats.

• Many farmers introduced exotic plants and species, diverted water to irrigate their crops.
• 1864: Yosemite Act
• 1872: Yellowstone became the first national park.
• Many Americans imagined the west as the land of promise and opportunity, excitement and adventure.

New technology was important in promoting economic growth.

• Machines, factory managers, workers = system of continuous growth.
• Mail-Order Houses helped get new products to customers.
• Advertising lured customers.
• New systems of mass production.

Business grew two ways →

• Vertical Integration: Firm gained control every step of the way.
  • Carnegie Steel → Andrew Carnegie
• Horizontal Integration: Firm gained control of the entire market for a single product.
  • Standard Oil → John D. Rockefeller
  • Owned 90% of the oil refineries in the US.
  • Had a virtual monopoly on the industry.

1870-1900: Gilded Age

• Era of industrialization and political corruption.
• Railroads, steel industry, and oil industry dominated both the economy and politics.
• Government followed policies favorable to big business. Laissez-faire economics.
• Termed by Mark Twain, gilded (anything that appears something it is not)

1887: The Interstate Commerce Act → Law created by Congress that allowed the federal government to regulate monopolies, particularly railroads.

1890: Sherman Antitrust Act → To restore competition and to encourage small businesses by outlawing restraint of commerce.

• Had little impact on regulating large corporations.
• Mostly ended up restraining trade unions.
• Would go against the prevailing idea of “laisse faire”

One version of the “Gospel of Wealth” justified the behavior of entrepreneurs who got wealth through shady deals and conspiracies.

• Jay Gould paid off legislators, pressured and tricked stockholders.
• Andrew Carnegie built an empire in steel, fair dealings. Argued that very wealthy men like him had a responsibility to use their wealth for the greater good of society.

Social Gospel → reform movement based on belief that Christians had responsibility to confront social problems.

• Religion compels to respond to poverty and poor conditions.
• Created reading rooms, nurseries, and other services for the needy.

“Social Darwinism” → “Survival of the fittest” was the ideal of modern society for the business community.

• Explained why some Americans are rich and others poor.
• To tamper with the natural order was bad, so no welfare societies.
• Also used to justify racism.

Horatio Alger Myth → Hard work = improvement, rags to riches.

• Ragged Dick: Boy goes from nothing to rich and successful through honest, hard work, and a little luck.

1882: Chinese Exclusion Act → Restricted Chinese immigration by barring laborers, limited civil rights, and banned their naturalization.

Knights of Labor → Largest labor organization.

• Led by Powderly.
• Sought to bring wage earners together, regardless of skill.
• Endorsed reforms.
• Sought to overthrow the wage system. Wanted producers’ cooperatives where workers collectively made decisions but overtime failed.
• For women, created a department to investigate abuses women were subjected to.
• Welcomed all but the Chinese.
• Haymarket Riot (strike for 8 hr work day, got turned into bombing) was unfairly blamed on them, they dissolved after this.

1886: American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Led by Gompers
• Accepted wage system.
• Sought recognition of union status to barter with employers for better working conditions, higher wages, shorter hours.
• Disregarded unskilled workers, racial minorities, and immigrants.
• Believed in the “family wage” where the wage was paid to the male head of the household and to keep women and children out of factories.

Outside of steel, iron, and textiles, the South industry mainly produced raw materials for the north.

• Advancement of Southern industry was still little improvement for the working lives of African Americans.
• Seasonal labor put families on the move, making formal education all but impossible.

Population of cities grew at two times the rate of the nation’s population. Downsides of urbanization.

• City Beautiful Movement
• Unrestricted burning of coal, air pollution.
• Noise levels high.
• Overcrowded conditions.

Rich created a style of conspicuous consumption.

• Showed off wealth, reached new levels of extravagance.

End of 1800s → Idea of universal schooling for white children took hold.

• Concentrated in urban industrial areas.
• Used to make immigrant children “Americanized.”

Ragtime music quickly became the staple of entertainment in the new cabarets and nightclubs.

• Vaudeville became the most popular form of commercial entertainment.
• Baseball became popular.

Chapter 20

After the Civil War, cities gradually introduced professional police and firefighting forces, and financed expanding school systems.

• Higher taxes.
• Aspects of the federal government trimmed by Congressional order.
• Army size reduced.
• The government expanded, more tasks and responsibilities.

Republican Party → Pointed at reuniting the nation and passing reform legislation.

• Democrats → Sought to reduce influence of the federal government and to protect states’ rights. Gathered support from white Southerners.

Major political issue was the tariff.

• Manufacturing regions favored protective policy.
• Southern and western agricultural regions opposed (democrats).
• McKinley Tariff of 1890 raised the tax rate on imported goods.

1867: Patrons of Husbandry (the Grange) formed by white farmers in the midwest.

• Encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture.
• Admitted women.
• Membership swelled due to hard times.
• Blamed hard times (railroads and banks) that charged exorbitant fees for their services.
• Mad at American manufacturers who sold equipment cheaper in Europe. Mad at banks for high interest.

1873: Illinois passed Warehouse Act establishing max rates for storing grains.

• 1877: Munn v. Illinois Supreme Court ruled states had the power to regulate privately owned businesses in public interests.

1880s: Southern Farmers’ Alliance established cooperative stores complemented by cooperative merchandising of crops.

• Joined forces with Northern Farmers’ Alliance to create National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union
• African Americans excluded from all white chapters.
• Demanded state ownership or railroads, graduated income tax, lower taxes, restriction of land ownership to citizens, and easier access to money.

Women helped build labor and agrarian protest movements while campaigning for their own rights as citizens.

• Francis E. Willard → Argued that women who guarded their families’ physical and spiritual welfare should play a similar role outside their home. Presided over Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
• WCTU became one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the US.

1887: American Protective Association (APA) sought to limit immigrants and keep Catholics from holding office.

1892: Farmers’ Alliance created the People’s Party (populist party).

• Response to the growth or corporate power and economic stability.
• Called for government ownership of railroads, banks, and telegraph lines, prohibition of large landowning companies, graduated income tax, 8-hour workday, restriction of immigration, direct election of senators, free silver
• Populists quickly became a major factor in American politics.
• Ended up supporting the Democrats candidate, William Jennings Bryan. (Who lost).
• Failed because racism split them up, Western and Southern farmers did not agree on politics, but mostly because Democratic party absorbed.
• Many of the ideas and goals of the Populist party later came to fruition.
  • 16th Amendment - Income Tax
  • 17th Amendment - Direct Election of Senators

1890s: Three major strikes dramatized the extent of collision between the corporations and the government.

• 1892: Wage cuts throughout the Coeur d’Alene. Unionists tried peaceful protests but after 3 months, blew up a mine. Governor declared martial law and deployed troops.
• 1892: At Homestead, when Amalgamated Iron’s contract expired, Frick announced drastic wage cuts. City government refused to assign police to disperse strikers. Frick dispatched a private army and the national guard was sent in.
• 1894: After Pullman cut wages and fired members of the committee with a list of grievances, workers struck. Delegates of ARU voted to support a nationwide boycott of Pullman cars. Started off peaceful but accused of something they didn’t do. Strike ended when marshals arrested Deb and other leaders.

Farmers approved the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 which increased the treasury currency coined from silver mined in the west.

• Farmers wanted it to boost the economy and cause inflation so they could more easily pay off their debts.

1897: McKinley president

• Strengthened executive branch and actively promoted a mixture of probusiness and expansionist measures.
• Supported Dingley Tariff of 1897 which raised import duties to an alltime high.
• 1897: Encourage Congress to create the US Industrial Commission which planned business regulations.
• 1898: Proposed bankruptcy act that eased the financial situation of small businesses.
• Proposed Erdman Act which established a system of arbitration to avoid rail strikes.
• 1900: Oversaw passage of the Gold Standard Act
• His triumphs ended the popular challenge to the nation’s governing system.

Escalation of racism and nativism throughout the nation.

• Southern governments passed Jim Crow laws, discriminatory and segregationist legislation.
• Black codes used to restore the pre-emancipation system of race relations.
• To guarantee a system of labor without slavery.

Supreme Court cases upheld discriminatory legislation.

• Civil Rights Cases (1883) overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) “Separate but equal”
• Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education (1899) allowed for separate schools.

1885: Josiah Strong linked economic and spiritual expansion, advocating for “imperialism of righteousness.”

• White Americans are the best agents for Christianizing and civilizing other ethnicities.
• Push for overseas expansion.
• Missionaries had an important role in preparing the way for American economic expansion.

Causes of Imperialism:

• Industrial Revolution (needed new sources of raw materials, new markets for manufactured goods, new places to invest surplus capital)
• Close of the Frontier (need for new economic opportunities, recognition that American resources were finite)
• European Example (Europeans entered a 2nd wave of colonialism, competing for military power, nationalism, and industrial resources)
• American nationalism
• White man’s burden and social darwinism (belief in duty to civilize world, moralism, strong dominates weak, missionaries wanted to break Christianity to “heathens”)

1867: Negotiated purchase of Alaska from Russia.

Causes of Spanish-American War

• Jingoism - extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy.
• Cuban revolt
• Yellow journalism (the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation.) Aroused public sympathy for Cuba.

1898: Spanish-American War: Declaration of war against Spain to help Cuba.

• backed Cuban revolutionaries against Spain, resulted in US temporarily having control of Cuba, gained Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines through the Treaty of Paris
  • Anti-Imperialist League against annexation of Philippines (thought US should be based on self-determination and anti-colonialism principles)
• Cuba gained independence but not its own sovereignty.
• Platt of Connecticut in 1901 (Platt Amendment) required Cuba to give land for American bases. Paved way for American domination of the sugar industry and contributed to anit-American sentiment.
• US was recognized as a global power.

Americans dispatched the Spanish from the Philippines.

• When it ended and it was perceived that the American troops weren’t leaving, rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo turned on former allies and attacked.
• Americans bought up the best land and invested heavily in the sugar economy.
• Also got Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam.
• Marked US as a global colonial power.

The Open Door Policy

• China’s Qing dynasty weakened, European powers tried to get influence (spheres of influence)
• US Secretary of State John Hay wanted to protect American missionaries and commercial interests so wanted open access to China for American investment, at first it worked well.
• Underscored America’s commitment to free trade, eventually leading to tensions with China.

Period 7: 1890-1945

Three unifying themes for the various progressive movements.

• Anger over the excesses of industrial capitalism and urban growth.
• Emphasized social cohesion and common bonds.
• Believed that citizens needed to intervene actively both politically and morally, to improve social conditions.
  • Primarily middle class people, rejected Social Darwinism

Lillian Wald and allies convinced the New York Board of Health to assign a nurse to every public school in the city.

• Wald national figure → Outspoken advocate of child labor legislation and women suffrage.
• Florence Kelley helped direct support of the settlement house movement. Wrote a report on the dismal conditions in sweatshop. Basis for the landmark legislation in Illinois that limited women to an 8-hour workday, banned children under 14 from working.
• Kelly, Wald, and other women used their power as women to reshape politics in the progressive era.

Jane Addams founded Hull House (a settlement house) in Chicago.

• These settlement houses were centers of women’s activism and reform effort to help the urban poor.
• What did they do?
  • They taught classes on cooking and dressmaking.
  • They published reports on the horrible conditions of housing.
  • Offered literacy and language classes for immigrants.
  • Established day nurseries for working moms.
  • Helped immigrants assimilate to society.

1900s: Democratic political machines controlled the political life of mose large American cities.

• In exchange for votes, machine politicians offered a variety of services including municipal jobs.
• Staying on the good side of the machine’s just another business expense.
• Timothy D “Big Tim” Sullivan embodied the popular machine style. He informally taxed saloons, theaters, restaurants, in the district to pay for charitable events.
• Often allied with progressives.

Muckrakers:

• Investigative reporters who promoted social and political reform by exposing problems and corruption in urban areas.
• Jacob Riis wrote How the Other Half Lives, about poverty and immigrants.
• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle which helped pass acts pertaining to food inspection. Specifically the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.
• Ida B Wells: main woman involved, spoke out against lynching.
  • Was also an African American civil rights advocate and early women’s rights advocate.

Idea of the “New Women” - Educated white middle class women who believed they could help in the public sphere - challenged the traditional Victorian notion of woman.

• Increased higher education for middle and upper class women.
• Dominated occupations of social work, public health nursing, home economics, and teaching.
• These progressive women helped pass child labor legislation at the state level and campaigned to limit the working hours of women and children.

Political progressivism originated in cities.

• “Good government” movement fought to make the city management a non-partisan process by bringing administrative techniques of large corporations to cities.

Statehouse Progressives looked to make politics more open and accessible by pushing through procedural reforms.

• Direct primary promised to take electoral candidates from party bosses to the hands of party voters.
• California and other states established a recall which gave the power to remove elected officials from office.
• 1913: 17th Amendment → Shifted the selection of US senators from state legislatures to direct election by voters.

Western Progressives targeted railroads, mining, and timber companies, and public utilities to reform.

Southern Progressives organized to control both greedy corporations and “unruly” citizens.

• Most states moved to regulate railroads by mandating lower passenger and freight rates.
• Supported the push towards a fully segregated public sphere.

The Prohibition Movement

• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) appealed to women angered by men with alcohol. Also convinced many women that they had a moral responsibility to improve society by working towards prohibition. Focused on many issues
• 1893: Anti-Saloon League. Just focused on banning alcohol.
• Believed it would lower crime, strengthen families, and help improve the national character.

1895-1920: New level of intensity against “the social evil” (prostitution)

• Reformers had trouble believing women would choose to be a prostitute.
• Rational choice for women because they had limited opportunities.
• Mann Act: Federal offense to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes.

Standardizing Education

• Public School → Agent of “Americanization” used to make immigrants American.
• Horace Mann: “Father of American Education”
  • Caused state sponsored public education, statewide curriculum, local property tax to finance it.
• Ellwood Cubberley called for increased efficiency in schools. (1910s).
• Children began school earlier and stayed in school longer.

1909: Uprising of the 2,000 women struck from 2 garment manufacturers. Gained the support of Women’s Trade Union League.

• Demanded union recognition, better wages, and safer and more sanitary conditions.
• 3 months later returned without union recognition.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire killed 146 women.

• The tragedy led to fire-prevention legislation, factory inspection laws, and the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
• Dramatically improved safety conditions.

1913: United mine workers went on strike.

• Ludlow Massacre: 14 killed by private troops from coal companies.

1905: Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) - Wobblies

• Made of Western Federation of Miners, socialist party, other radical groups.
• The goal of the IWW was to organize all of the workers of the nation into the single union and then work to abolish the capitalist system.
• Supported strikes and embraced class conflict.
• Believed that the working class and the employing class had nothing in common.
• Dissolved after WW1, too radical, wouldn’t work and struck.

1890: General Federation of Women’s Clubs brought 200 clubs together.

• Combined focus on self-improvement and intellectual pursuits with benevolent efforts of working women and children.
• Provided a new kind of female centered community.

1913: “birth control” (Margaret Sanger) described her campaign to provide contraceptive info and devices for women.

Booker T. Washington → Influential black leader.

• Spokesman for racial accommodation.
• Urged blacks to focus on economic improvement and self-reliance, as opposed to political and civil rights.
• Founded National Negro business League to preach the virtue of black business development in black communities.

1900s: W.E.B Du Bois alternative to Washington

• Argued African Americans would always feel tension between black heritage and the desire to assimilate as Americans.
• Argued that they must fight for the right to vote for civic equality and higher education.
• 1905: Founded the Niagara Movement dedicated to social and political change for African Americans. Little impact
• 1909: Founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), civil rights organization
  • 1915: In Guinn v. United States, the supreme court declared grandfather clauses unconstitutional.

Theodore Roosevelt viewed the presidency as a platform he could extort Americans to reform their society.

• Believed educated and wealthy Americans had a responsibility to serve, guide, and inspire those less fortunate.
• Reputation as a trustbuster. Directed the Justice Department to begin a series of prosecutions under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
• The Hepburn Act strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) which was the first independent regulatory agency.
• Pure Food and Drug Act established the food and drug administration (FDA) which tested and approved drugs.
• Meat Inspection Act empowered the department of agriculture to inspect and label meat products.
  • Both of these were brought about by The Jungle by Upton Sinclair as well.

Roosevelt’s successor William Taft alienated Roosevelt and many other progressives.

• The election of 1912, Woodrow Wilson won.

Woodrow Wilson’s First Term

• Expanded activist dimensions of office. Responsive to pressure for a greater federal role in regulating business and economy.
• Underwood-Simmons Act of 1913 revised tariff duties on raw materials and manufactured goods.
• Federal Reserve Act restructured the nation’s banking and currency systems, making 12 district banks coordinated by a central board.
• Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 replaced the old Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 exempting unions from being constructed as illegal combinations in restraint of trade. The act defines unethical business practices, such as price-fixing and monopolies, and upholds various rights of labor.
• 16th Amendment: Income Tax

Republicans (Roosevelt) vs. Democrats

Republicans (Taft and Teddy Roosevelt)

• Laissez Faire (minimal government interference).
  • Hands off economics. Came to light during the Gilded Age. Against labor unions and reformer’s beliefs.
• Tariffs
• Gold standard
• Pro-imperialism
• Dollar Diplomacy (Buying the loyalty of latin America countries)
• Roosevelt Corollary (said America could intervene in Latin America to “help” them and be an international police power, made to forestall European intervention)
• Big Stick Policy (threatening to use military)
• Against the League of Nations (worried going to influence ability to do stuff on own)
• Deregulation of Wall Street
• Supporters mostly from North, African Americans from south (party of Lincoln)

Roosevelt (Republican) - economics different

• Pro-union
• Antitrust
• Leaves Republican party because he thinks policies are too pro-business.
• Creates the Progressive Party (aka Bull Moose)

Democrats (Wilson)

• Government regulation of the economy.
• Old populist party beliefs
• Income tax
• Regulation for banks and stock market.
• Free silver
• Anti-imperialism (did support Spanish-American war just not keeping the places after)
• Moral diplomacy
• Mostly for League of Nations
• Supporters from South except African Americans. Farmers (western and southern). Urban immigrants.
• Segregationists

Theodore Roosevelt wanted to increase the economic and political stature, and needed the US to be militarily strong.

• “Big Stick” Approach
• Took this approach in Panama. The Panama canal gave the US tremendous strategic and commercial advantage in the Western Hemisphere.
• 1904: Roosevelt Corollary used to prevent armed intervention by the Europeans. Stated that chronic wrongdoing justified the exercise of an international police power.

William Taft believed they could replace the militarism of the big stick approach with business investment.

• Dollar Diplomacy → Assumed that political influence would follow increased US trade and investment.
• American investment in Central America went up.
• Ended up requiring military support.
• Taft ended up alienating most of his Republican/progressive allies, and Wilson won the next presidential election.

Republican Blaine was determined to work out a Good Neighbor policy

• Bilateral policies with Latin America allowed American businesses to dominate local economies.
• Basically reaction to Dollar Diplomacy (which kinda failed), looking to treat Latin America as equal.
• Often American investors took over principal industries through trade agreements.
• Roosevelt administration formally renounced US armed intervention in Latin America.
• Primarily to develop a hemispheric front against fascism.

1913: Woodrow Wilson believed American economic expansion with Democratic principles and Christinanity as a civilizing force in the world.

• Emphasized foreign investments and industrial exports = nation’s prosperity.
• Championed Open Door (made to protect US commercial interests in China) principles, advocating strong diplomatic and military measures, free trade for international commerce.

1914: World War I started.

• President Wilson issued a formal proclamation of neutrality.
• Economic ties between the US and the Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia was the greatest barrier to true neutrality.
• Wilson wanted to avoid antagonizing Britain and disrupting trade between the US and the Allies. Insisted on American neutral rights on seas.
• Nation enjoyed a great economic boom.

Selling the War:

• Liberty bonds: war bond to support the allied cause, symbol of patriotic duty, introduced idea of financial security for many for the first time.
• Victory gardens: people grew vegetables, fruits, herbs for themselves. (During WW2 too).

Feb. 1915: Germany declared the waters around the British Isles to be a warzone.

• May 7, 1915: A German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania and 128 American citizens were killed.
• Wilson threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Germany unless it abandoned submarine warfare.
• June 1916: National Defense Act doubled the size of the army.

Feb 1, 1917: Germany declared unlimited submarine warfare.

• Intercepted Zimmermann Note which suggested an alliance between Germany and Mexico if the US entered the war.
• April 6, 1917: Declaration of war.

Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to organize public opinion and sell the war.

• Negative campaign against all things German.
• Declared war as a great moral crusade and convinced many Americans. Saw war as an idealistic crusade to defend democracy, spread liberal principles, and redeem European decadence and militarism.
• War work was popular among activist middle-class women, giving them a leading role in their communities.
• American contribution to winning the war was substantial because the prospect of facing seemingly unlimited quantities of Americans and supplies convinced the exhausted German army to surrender.

1918: Wilson outlined American war aims as the Fourteen Points

• Had specific proposals for setting postwar boundaries in Europe. The right of all people to “national self-determination.”
• Listed the general principles for governing international conduct (freedom of the seas, free trade, open covenants instead of secret treaties, reduced armaments, mediation for competing colonial claims.
• Called for a League of Nations to help implement the principles and resolve future disputes.

1918: World War I ended.

Wilson believed peacemaking meant an opportunity for the US to lead the rest of the world toward a vision of international relations.

• League of Nations controversial
• The US never signed the Versailles treaty or joined the League of Nations because the Senate was against it and didn't want to get entangled in more foreign affairs.

The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

• Wholesale violations of constitutional rights, deportations of 100s of innocent people, fuel for fires of nativism and intolerance.
• Palmer Raids: raids against suspected communists/anarchists. No regard for civil rights.

Most important, longest lasting economic legacy was the organizational shift toward corporatism in American business.

• There was a greater reliance on the productive and marketing power of large corporations.
• Never before had the federal government and business worked so closely.

Immigration Act of 1917 cut down Mexican immigration (literacy test, $8 head tax)

• The southwest depended on unskilled Mexican labor (shortage of labor because of the war).
• June 1917: Department of Labor suspended the act.

18th Amendment: Prohibition

• Women’s Christian Temperance Union single largest women’s organization in the early 20th century.

19th Amendment: Women’s Suffrage

• Many women wageworkers and highly visible volunteer work.
• National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) threw support behind the war effort and doubled membership.

1912: Children’s Bureau created.

• 1921: Maternity and Infancy Act institutionalized federal aid to states for protection of mothers and children.

June 1917: Espionage Act was the key tool for suppression and antiwar sentiment.

• Severe penalties for people found guilty of aiding the enemy, obstructing recruitment, or causing insubordination in the armed forces.
• May 1918: Sedition Act outlawed any disloyal language to scorn the government, Constitution, or flag. Used for striking out against people who resisted the patriotic side.
• 1919: Supreme Court upheld constitutionality of these acts. Schenck v. United States, Debs v. United States, Abrams v. United States.

Because of the economic opportunity from war prosperity, there was a migration of rural black southerners to northern cities.

• Known as the Great Migration

1919: Strike Wave → Several causes: Modest wartime wage gains wiped out by spiraling inflation, high prices for food, fuel, and housing.

• Public turned against strikers out of fear of communism.
• Many employers withdrew recognition of unions.

The Second Industrial Revolution was a period when advances in steel production, electricity and petroleum caused a series of innovations that changed society.

• With the production of cost effective steel, railroads were expanded and more industrial machines were built.
• Technological innovations made it possible to increase industrial output without expanding the labor force.
• More mass-production techniques.
• Manufactured more producer-durable goods.
• Oligopoly: Control of the market by a few large producers → became the norm.

Active sympathy to trade unions by government agencies troubled most corporate leaders.

• To challenge trade unions, large employees aggressively promoted programs to improve workers well-being and morale while fending off unionization.
• Known as welfare capitalism.
• “The American Plan” was an effective antiunion plan offered as an alternative to trade unionism. Called for “open shop” where no known union member would be hired.
• Lowered the ranks of organized labor.

The auto industry clearest example of the rise to prominence of consumer durables.

• Largest impact on the way Americans worked, lived, and played.
• Henry Ford revolutionized the factory shop floor with new, custom-built machinery and a more effective layout. Assembly line. More pay, but less hours. New wage scale.
• Understood that workers were consumers as well as producers and the new wage scale helped boost sales of Ford cars.
• Ford and General Motors pushed the idea of buying cars on credit making installment buying the underpinning of the new consumer culture.
• Cars promoted suburban and urban growth.

Cities promised business opportunities, good jobs, cultural richness, and personal freedom.

• Suburban communities grew.

Warren Harding looked like a President, didn’t act like one.

• Teapot Dome Scandal: Bribery scandal involving interior secretary Albert Fall who received hundreds of thousands of dollars when he secretly leased navy oil reserves.

1924: Calvin Coolidge elected President.

• Believed in the least amount of government as possible.
• Saw his primary function as clearing the way for American businessmen.

Herbert Hoover believed that the government needed only to advise private citizens’ groups about which national or international policies to pursue.

• Wanted to create a favorable climate for businesses and help the business community.
• Spoke of creating an “associative state” in which the government would encourage voluntary cooperation among corporations, consumers, workers, farmers, and small businessmen.
• Encouraged the creation and expansion of national trade associations to improve efficiency by reducing competition but resulted in the concentration of wealth and power.

The US emerged from WWI as the strongest economic power in the world.

• Policy of protectionism → High tariffs on both farm products and manufactured goods made it more difficult for debtor nations to repay by selling exports.
• Many concluded the US was a loan shark in disguise.
• 1924: Dawes Plan reduced Germany’s debt, stretched out the repayment period, and arranged for American bankers to lend funds.
• Helped stabilize Germany’s currency to repay France and Britain who could in turn pay off their debts to the US.

1928: (Kellogg-Briand Pact) Pact of Paris → US and 62 other nations signed it which grandly and naively renounced the war in principle.

1920s: Republican leaders pursued policies designed to expand American economic activity abroad.

• American oils, autos, farm machinery, and electrical equipment supplied the growing world market.
• The strategy of maximum freedom for private enterprises with limited government boosted the power and profits of American overseas investors.
• Investments in central and Latin America fostered chronically underdeveloped economies. Also hampered growth of democratic policies by favoring autocratic, military regimes that could be counted on to protect American investments.

Advances in real income and improvements in the standard of living for workers and farmers were uneven at best.

• Farm sector failed to share in the general prosperity.
• McNary-Haugen bills were a series of measures designed to prop up and stabilize farm prices. But Coolidge vetoed the bill because it was seen as unwarranted federal interference.

Culture in the 20s:

• Lost Generation of the 1920s: writers who felt disillusioned with American society, criticized middle class materialism and conformity.
• Jazz became big.
• Harlem Renaissance: outpouring of Black artistic and literary creativity. Showed pride in African American culture and supported full social and political equality for them.
  • Key figures: Zora Neale Hurston, Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker

Moviegoing became a regular pastime.

• Flocked to cheap, storefront theaters called nickelodeons.
• Many Americans worried about Hollywood's impact on traditional sexual morality.
• Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of American → Lobbied against censorship laws, set guidelines for what could and could not be seen on the screen.

Radio Mania was the response to new possibilities offered by broadcasting.

• Created a national community of listeners.

Thriving advertising industry reflected and encouraged the growing importance of consumer goods in American life.

• Began focusing on the needs, desires, and anxieties of the consumer rather than the quality of the products.
• Celebrated consumption itself as a positive good.

Spectator sports had more profitability and popularity.

• Major league baseball had more fans than any other sport.
• African Americans excluded so 1920, Negro National League.

The 18th amendment banned alcoholic beverages.

• Prohibition was the culmination of a long campaign that associated drinking with the degradation of working class families and the worst evils of urban politics.
• Volstead Act of 1919 established a federal Prohibition Bureau which was severely understaffed.
• Led to organized crime.
• 1933: 21st Amendment repealed prohibition. Hurt the economy. People dying due to tainted alcohol. More organized crime.

1894: Immigration Restriction League provided an influential forum for the fears of the nation’s elite.

• Argued that people find it difficult to assimilate and do not promise well for the standard of civilization.
• 1921: Immigration Act set a maximum of 357,000 new immigrants each year.
• National Origins Act of 1924: using quotas to restrict the amount of immigrants from South and East Europe. Caused Mexican and Puerto Rican immigration to go up since they were not affected by the act.
• Ozawa v. US (1922) and US v. Thind (1923) held Japanese and Asian Indians as assimilable aliens and racially ineligible for US citizenship.

Revised Ku Klux Klan was the most effective anti-immigrant mass movement.

• Advocated “100% Americanism” and white supremacy.
• They were hostile to immigrants, Catholics, Jews, African Americans.

Religious fundamentalism: belief that Darwin’s theory of evolution was not real.

• Scopes Trial: John T Scopes indicted for teaching evolution.

Women, flappers, independence but actually decline of feminism during the 1920s (inability of women’s groups to agree on goals and decline of reform movement in general).

• Very few women actually lived the flapper lifestyle.
• However they symbolized new freedom by challenging traditional attitudes towards women.
• Showed decline of the feminist movement since there was now changing manners and morality which divided the movement.

Mexican immigration went up.

• Primary pull was the tremendous agricultural expansion occurring in the Southwest.

Weaknesses of the 1920s economy:

• Workers and consumers received too little of the share in the enormous increases in labor productivity.
• Gains in wages were uneven.
• Economic insecurity for millions.

Bull Market of the 1920s, stock prices increased at twice the rate of industrial production.

• Wall Street Crash of 1929 → The expectations of the endless boom melted and the market declined. Panic selling took place.
• Massive unemployment, loss of jobs meant an economic catastrophe for many workers.

Hoover’s Failure

• Sources of relief lacked money, resources, and staff to deal with the worsening situation.
• Was more worried about undermining individual initiative than providing actual relief for the victims.
• The plan for recovery centered on restoring business confidence.
• He assumed that the problem was from the supply (business) rather than the demand (consumers)

Two federal actions worsened the situation.

• Federal reserve helped fuel a speculative boom in stock buying. Tightened credit. Caused interest rates to spike.
• 1930: Smoot-Hawley Tariff raised import duties. Other nations responded by raising their own tariffs.

Causes of the Great Depression:

• Drop in farm prices
• Massively uneven distribution of income.
• “Get rich quick” schemes in real estate and especially in stocks.
• Overextension of credit.
• Increased inventories of goods
• October 1929: Stock market crash.

FDR used radio broadcasts to help restore confidence.

• Emergency Banking Act gave the President broad discretionary powers over all banking transactions and foreign exchanges. Caused the banking crisis to be over.

The Hundred Days → FDR pushed through Congress an extraordinary amount of depression fighting legislation.

• The New Deal was not a unified program to end depression but an improvised series of reform and relief measures, some of which contradicted each other.

5 measures particularly important and innovative.

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was an unemployment relief effort. It provided work in conserving the nation’s natural resources.
  • Put young men (18-24) to work.
  • Worked in segregated camps.
• 500 million for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), half of the money for direct relief federal grants. Establishment of work relief projects left to state and local governments.
• Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) set to provide relief for farmers. Established the new federal role on agricultural planning and price setting.
  • Paid farmers not to grow crops to limit the production of crops.
  • Declared unconstitutional in United States v. Butler
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was one of the most unique and controversial. They built dams and power plants, produced cheap fertilizer for farmers and low-cost electricity to 1000s in 5 states.
• National Industrial Recovery Act: In theory, each industry would be self-governed by a code hammered out by representatives of business, labor, and consumers. Once improved by the NRA, the codes would have the force of law. Wasn’t that effective.
  • Declared unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry v. US
• 1924: National Housing Act aimed at stimulating residential construction and making home financing more affordable. Set up the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

New Deal critics on the right complained that FDR had overstepped traditional boundaries of federal action which on the left, they argued that Roosevelt hadn’t done enough.

• For example William Z. Foster, head of the communist party.
• 1934: Liberty League founded by prominent political leaders and wealthy Americans who opposed the New Deals as unconstitutional and communistic. Helped fund the court challenges to the New Deal programs.

Second Hundred Days → Trying to strengthen the national commitment to creating jobs; provide security against old age, unemployment, and illness; and improving housing and cleaning slums.

• 1934: Indian Reorganization Act reversed the Dawes act and sought to have tribes collectively own land.
• 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which sought to protect the stock market from fraud.
  • Still here today.
• 1935: Emergency Relief Appropriation Act allocated $5 billion for large-scale public works programs for the jobless.
• Landmark Social Security Act of 1935 provided for old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. Established the crucial principle of the federal responsibility to help America’s most vulnerable citizens.
  • Still here today.
• 1935: Wagner Act/National Labor Relations Act gave the federal government a guaranteed right to join/form labor unions and to bargain collectively.
  • Increased union membership.

Didn’t help African Americans.

• Segregation with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
• Roosevelt didn’t push to make lynching a federal crime or end poll taxes.
• Relief agencies paid African Americans and other minority groups less than whites.

Depression → Growth in size and power of the labor movement.

• 1935: AFL convention formed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) and set about organizing mass production workers by industry.
• Called for the inclusion of black and women workers.
• Perils of union organizing → 1937 Memorial Day Massacre where police fired into a crowd of union supporters in Chicago killing 10.

New Deal policies destroyed the sharecropper and tenant systems.

• Farmers given access to government funds were able to diversify their crops, consolidate holdings, and work land more efficiently with labor saving machinery.
• Greatest impact was electricity because REA (Rural Electrification administration) made electricity available for the first time and TVA (Tennessee Valley authority) lowered consumer electric rates.

Dust Bowl → Dust storms were the consequences of stripping the landscape of its natural vegetation

• Department of Agriculture sought to change farming practices through the Soil Conservation Service (SCS).

1933: Indians were the nation’s poorest people with an infant mortality rate 2x of whites.

• John Collier appointed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• Reversed the Dawes Severalty Act
• Became more sensitive in Indian cultural and religious freedom.
• Most important legacy was the reassertion of the status of Indian tribes as semi-sovereign nations.
• Still meddle, especially in money matters.

New Deal brought a temporary increase in women’s political influence.

• “Women’s network” had roots in the progressive era.
• Eleanor Roosevelt revolutionized the political wife by turning it into a base of independent political action.
• She worked for antilyncing legislation, compulsory health insurance, and fought racial discrimination.
• Francis Perkins became the first woman to become a cabinet member in US history.

Little effort to combat racism and segregation entrenched in American life.

Roosevelt was uneasy about the increase in national debt so he called for a decrease in federal spending.

• Caused increase in unemployment, the New Deal had not brought about economic recovery.

1938: Fair Labor Standards Act established the 1st federal minimum wage, the max workweek.

• National Housing Act of 1937 funded public housing construction and slum clearance, provided rent subsidies for low-income families.

Some writers joined the Communist party as an alternate to the American system which was mired in exploitation, racial inequality, and human misery.

• Waiting for lefty (Odet, 1935) offered the most celebrated example of radical, politically engaged art.
• During the “Popular Front” period, left-wing influence reached its height.

Movies were very popular but American filmmakers had to work within the parameters of what was acceptable to display on screen.

• Gangster films did well.
• Radio Broadcasting emerged as the most powerful means of communication in the home.

1929: Stock market crash.

Chapter 25:

Start of Foreign Insecurity:

• Japan wanted to be imperialist, quit League of Nations, invaded China (no one did anything, failure of US and other European countries for collective security)

Europe:

• In Germany, Nazi party started because resentment against Treaty of Versailles, Hitler became chancellor (1933)
• Berlin Axis Italy (Mussolini) and Germany became allies
• 1938: Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia to capture, Britain and France were supposed to assist Czechoslovakia but agreed to let Germany take parts of it and Hitler said he wouldn’t take anymore territory but soon he did and everyone knew for sure that he was BAD
• November 9 1938: Night of Broken Glass Nazis rounded up Jews and beat and murdered them
• September 27th 1940: Germany-Italy-Japan signed Anti-Communist Tripartite Pact for next 10 years
• War broke out in Europe in August 1938 when Germany and Soviet Union (former enemies) signed a pact and Germany invaded Poland
  • Great Britain and France were Poland’s allies, declared war on Germany

US:

• FDR wanted to stand for anti-communist stuff but Congress and the public were isolationist
  • A lot of nativism.
• 1935: Congress passed 5 Neutrality Acts to deter entanglement in future wars. Isolationists drew support from Washington’s Farewell Address.
  • 1935: All arms shipments prohibited, no US citizens can travel on ships of belligerent nations.
  • 1836: No loans or credit to be extended to belligerent nations.
  • 1937: No arms shipped to the opposing sides in the Spanish Civil War.
  • Still FDR enlarged navy, prepared for military contact
• US invoked Neutrality Act, sold weapons to Allies
• Election: FDR’s popularity was waning but said wouldn’t send army, was elected
• Lend-Lease Act allowed president to sell, exchange, lease arms to any country they thought vital to defend US security (also allowed the ships to be armed while sending supplies)
• Met with Winston Churchill who asked FDR to join war, but he refused, instead made Atlantic Charter (post war plan to stay in freedom, peace)

Foreign stuff:

• Japan informally signed Germany-Soviet alliance
• Germany broke pact, invaded Soviet Union June 1941
• 1941: Lend-Lease Act allowed lending of goods to any nation whose defense is necessary for the defense of the United States.
  • Lend-lease supplies sent to Soviet Union
  • Military spending brought economy out of the Great Depression

Japan:

• War escalating in Asia, FDR thought there’d be stuff in the Pacific so sent armies to Pearl Harbor
• FDR first economic sanctions then was freezing sale of supplies to Japan, Japan’s economy was suffering
• Pearl Harbor: American intelligence broke code, found out attack would be in Philippines but was caught off guard still on December 7th 1941 when they attacked
  • Also attacked Guam, Philippines, Wake Island, British fleets and colonies in East Asia

Now US war against Japan, eventually against Germany too

• War Powers Act passed: established precedent for executive authority that would endure long after the war’s end
  • Now president could reorganize the federal government, create new agencies, censor all news and information, abridge civil liberties, seize foreign owned properties and award government contracts without competition

Using this made a bunch of offices and stuff for war and to sell the war

• Promoted racism against Japanese to sell war domestically
• Domestic surveillance as well, wire-tapping
• Scientific research expanded
• Now labor shortages, New Deal coalition weakened, factory output went way up
  • South and West economic boom
  • Farmers had production and income raise but small farms went down
  • Big biz did well, small biz closed
    • Still black market went up
    • New workers: African Americans found more variety of jobs, Sioux and Navajo hired, Mexican immigrants, women became wage earners (but still in traditional workplaces for women “Rosie the Riveter”)
    • Lots of “Wildcat” strikes, wages didn’t go up as fast as prices or profits
      • First anti-strike bill got made

WAR

• Women entered the war.
  • Formation of Women’s Army Corps (WAAC), Women’s Division of the navy WAVES, women’s air force service pilots, and the marine corps women’s reserve. SPARS, coast guard.
  • They were more educated and more skilled than the average man but paid less.
• Black people segregated in the war, were in poorly equipped units, heavy discrimination
  • Fairer treatment that WWI.
• Japanese Americans also, some served as translators if they knew Japanese
• Eisenhower was general
• Many soldiers discharged because of “Battle fatigue”(PTSD)
• WW2 was mostly surprise attacks and offensive maneuvers
• Battle at Kursk July 1943 Germany lost
  • Now bombed and raided Germany, gained air superiority
• D-Day June 6 1949 was start of Allied invasion in Normandy
• January 1945 got Hitler

War in Asia:

• US and Britain wanted unconditional surrender.
• Atomic bomb built, no longer needed Soviet Union to fight Japan.
  • When no unconditional surrender still, bombed Japan.
    • Forced caution on Stalin.

Holocaust:

• Anyone deemed undesirable, mentally/physically disabled, racial “enemies”, gay people murdered or performed experiments on.
  • America allowed refugees to come in but didn’t rescue.
  • Public started figuring out horrors of war.

Yalta Conference:

• FDR elected fourth term.
• Reassessed Atlantic Charter, Britain and Soviet Union had no intentions to abide by it
  • Stalin demanded Balkan states, Churchill wanted empire in Asia again, US wanted Pacific Islands and wanted to make UN.
  • But FDR died.
• Truman wasn’t as good at foreign policy, gave order for atomic bomb being dropped

Domestic Stuff

Women in the workforce:

• Hard for women to keep job and raise kids.
• Although there were more jobs, women in the workforce declined from 1920-30.
• Women didn’t receive equal pay, faced workplace discrimination.
• Most married women did not seek employment outside the home before WW2.
• WW2 caused many to go into factory work. Rosie the Riveter symbolized women working in factories during WW2.
• Marriage rates peaked at this time.
• Juvenile delinquency went up.
• Public health went up since now there was actually money to pay for health care.
  • South still doing bad though.

Japanese American Internment:

• Called for all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to be relocated for duration of the war.
  • 1942: Executive Order 9066 banned 120,000+ Japanese Americans from designated military areas.
  • Only in 1988, Congress awarded each surviving victim of internment (about 60,000) $20,000.

Civil Rights/People of Color

• A. Philip Randolph, black labor leader planned a mob at the Lincoln Memorial, FDR didn’t want that so met with him and made Executive Order 8802 which banned discrimination in defense industry and government.
• Selective Service Act specified no discrimination against African Americans.
  • Still the majority were segregated, serving mainly in construction or servitude work.
• Smith v Albright 1924 overturned legality of excluding black voters.
  • Still racial violence peaked.
• Zoot suit riots Mexican American youth were assaulted by sailors (as their zoot suits were deemed unpatriotic), riots broke out.

Period 8: 1945-1980

PLEASE NOTE THAT PERIODS 8 AND 9 ARE NOT INCLUDED BECAUSE I TOOK APUSH DURING COVID AND WE DIDN’T HAVE THOSE UNITS

Here are some resources you can use:

Period 8 Notes

Period 9 Notes