Unit 7 1900-1920

Unit 7 makes up 10-17% of the exam

AP Notes:

  • populists
    • farmers advocating radical reforms
    • Successes in local and national elections
    • Encouraged others to seek change through political action
  • Progressives
    • Built on Populism's achievements and adopted some of its goals
    • Urban, middle-class reformers seeking the government's role in reform
    • Members were educated and middle class, offended by corruption and urban poverty
    • Successes
    • local and national level changes
    • Campaigned for education and government regulation
    • New groups for fight against discrimination with mixed success
    • Women's suffrage movement gave birth to feminist movement
    • Work-class Progressives' victories: work day limitations, minimum wage, child labor laws, housing codes
  • Sherman Antitrust Act against monopolies
    • Encouraged Congress to pass Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act to protect workers and consumers
    • Created National Park Service and National Forest Service to conserve natural resources
  • Taft
    • Known for "dollar diplomacy"
    • securing favorable relationships with Latin American and East Asian countries by providing monetary loansā€™
  • Woodrow Wilson
    • federal government had to assume greater control over business to protect man's freedom
    • Committed to restoring competition through greater government regulation of the economy and lowering the tariff
  • When war broke out in Europe, Wilson declared US policy of neutrality, but it was complicated due to the close relationship with England and their effective blockade.
  • Germany attempted to counter the blockade with submarines, but the sinking of the Lusitania led to condemnation from the government and public.
  • Wilson's efforts to stay out of the war and the events that ultimately drew the US into the conflict
  • WWI
    • Government took control of telephone, telegraph, and rail industries
    • Curtailed individual civil liberties during the war
    • Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918 in response to opposition to U.S. involvement in the war
    • Sedition Act made it illegal to try to prevent the sale of war bonds or speak disparagingly of the government, military, or Constitution
  • Schenck v. United States
    • Schenck was arrested and convicted for violating the Espionage Act by printing and mailing leaflets urging men to resist the draft
    • ruled that freedom of speech and civil liberties could be curtailed if actions posed a ā€œclear and present dangerā€ to others or the nation
  • Wartime Opportunities for Women
    • Change in means of employment
    • Many women quit domestic work and started in factories
    • At one point, 20% of factory jobs were held by women
    • End of workplace advances with the return of veterans
  • Great Migration
    • Many joined army, encouraged by W. E. B. Du Bois for inroad to social equality
    • Army segregated and assigned Black people mostly to menial labor
  • End of World War I
    • America's participation tipped balance in Allies' favor
    • Wilson's Fourteen Points
    • Called for free trade, reduction of arms, self-determination, end of colonialism, League of Nations
    • Treaty of Versailles punished Germany
    • Created League of Nations
    • Senate debate over Article X curtailed America's independence in foreign affairs
    • US never joined League of Nations
  • Government increasingly pro-business, regulatory agencies assist business instead of regulating
  • Government increasingly pro-business, regulatory agencies assist business instead of regulating
  • The automobile was a major consumer product in the 1920s and typified the new spirit of the nation
    • Henry Ford's assembly line and mass production made cars more affordable
  • Radio also changed the nation's culture, with millions of families owning them and gathering to listen
  • Entertainment saw growth in movies, sports, and literature with world-class authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway
  • The Harlem Renaissance was a major cultural development in the largest Black neighborhood in New York City
    • marked by the growth of theaters, cultural clubs, and newspapers
  • Ku Klux Klan
    • Targeted Blacks, Jews, urbanites, and anyone whose behavior deviated from their narrow code of acceptable Christian behavior
  • Anti-immigration groups grew in strength
  • Scopes Monkey Trial
    • Tennessee law forbade teaching evolution
    • John Thomas Scopes broke the law
    • Encapsulated debate over sticking with tradition vs. progress
  • Prohibition repealed by 21st Amendment in 1933
    • liquor
  • Hoover predicts that poverty would soon be eradicated in America
  • stock market crash triggers the Great Depression 1929
    • Huge banks and corporations among the speculators, causing bankruptcy and unable to pay employees or guarantee bank deposits
    • Federal Emergency Relief Administration established to bail out large companies and banks
  • ==Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural address declared war on the Depression==
  • The New Deal was a result of a powerful presidency and public confidence in Roosevelt
  • Emergency Banking Relief Bill put poorly managed banks under control of Treasury Department
  • Banking Act of 1933 created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to guarantee bank deposits
  • Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) provided payments to farmers in return for cutting production
  • National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) consolidated businesses and coordinated activities to eliminate overproduction
  • Public Works Administration (PWA) set aside $3 billion to create jobs building roads, sewers, public housing units, etc.
  • Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided grants to states for their own PWA-like projects
  • second new deal
    • Conservatives
    • Higher tax rates
    • Increase in government power over business
    • Removal of incentive for the poor to lift themselves out of poverty
    • Borrowing to finance programs, anathema to conservatives
    • Leftists, like Huey Long:
    • AAA policy of paying farmers not to grow is immoral
    • Government policy toward businesses too favorable
    • Blamed corporate greed for Depression, calling for nationalization of businesses
  • 1937 recession caused by cuts in government programs and tightened credit supply
  • The Washington Conference was held in 1921-1922
    • treaty that limited armaments and reaffirmed the Open Door Policy toward China.
  • US foreign policy became increasingly less isolationist with the Lend-Lease Act
    • allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States
  • WWII
    • Grand Alliance between Soviet Union and West was tenuous
    • Manhattan Project of 1942 was research and development effort for atomic bombs
    • D-Day on June 6, 1944 was largest amphibious landing
    • Labor Disputes Act of 1943 allowed government takeover of businesses deemed necessary to national security
    • WW2 affected almost every aspect of daily life and created new opportunities and tensions in American society
    • Rosie the Riveter symbolized the millions of women who worked in war-related industrial jobs
    • Over 110,000 Asian Americans were imprisoned without charge based solely on ethnic background
  • Yalta conference held in February 1945 between Allies (US, UK, USSR) to discuss the fate of postwar Europe
    • Allies agreed on a number of issues concerning borders and settlements and to help create the United Nations
  • Potsdam Conference
    • Allies created the Potsdam Declaration to establish the terms for Japan's surrender (removal of emperor from power)
    • American-Soviet animosity led to US using atomic bombs against Japan
    • Fear of Soviet entry into Asian war and display of power, combined with tenacious Japanese resistance, influenced Truman's decision
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