APUSH Unit 7

Introduction to the age of empire

• In the late nineteenth century, the United States abandoned its century-long commitment to isolationism and became an imperial power

• After the Spanish-American War, the United States exercised significant control over Cuba, annexed Hawaii, and claimed Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as territories

• Both a desire for new markets for its industrial products and a belief in the racial and cultural superiority of Americans motivated the United States' imperial mission

The Spanish-American War

• The Cuban movement for independence from Spain in 1895 garnered considerable American support. When the USS Maine sank, the US believed the tragedy was the result of Spanish sabotage and declared war on Spain

• The Spanish-American War lasted only six weeks and resulted in a decisive victory for the US. Future US President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt rose to national prominence due to his role in the conflict

• Although the US promised it wouldn’t annex Cuba after victory, it did required Cuba to permit significant American intervention in Cuban affairs

• As a result of the war, the US acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as territories

The Progressive Era

• The period of US history from the 1890s to the 1920s is usually referred to as the Progressive Era, an era of intense social and political reform aimed at making progress toward a better society

• Progressive Era reformers sought to harness the power of the federal government to eliminate unethical and unfair business practices, reduce corruption, and counteract the negative social effects of industrialization

• During the Progressive Era, protections for workers and consumers were strengthened, and women finally achieved the right to vote

Muckrakers

• Muckrakers were journalists and novelists of the Progressive Era who sought to expose corruption in big business and government

• The work of muckrakers influenced the passage of key legislation that strengthened protections for workers and consumers

• Some of the most famous muckrakers were women, including Ida Tarbell and Ida B. Wells

The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt

• Theodore Roosevelt served as president from 1901-1909, ascending to the office after the assassination of William McKinley

• In foreign policy, Roosevelt advocated for a stronger army and navy, and increased American intervention in Latin America through declaring the ‘Roosevelt Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine and constructing the Panama Canal

• Roosevelt’s domestic program was known as the ‘Square Deal’, which promised protections for consumers, workers, and the environment

The Nineteenth Amendment

• The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920. It declares that ‘The right of citizens of the US to vote shall not be denied or abridged b the US or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation’

• The amendment, which granted women the right to vote, represented the pinnacle of the women’s suffrage movement, which was led by the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

• In their decades-long struggle for female enfranchisement, women’s rights advocates met with strong opposition from anti-suffrage activists

The Treaty of Versailles

• The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, and officially ended the war between Germany and the Allied Powers

• The controversial War Guilty clause blamed Germany for WWl and imposed heavy debt payments on Germany

• The Treaty of Versailles was a major contributing factor in the outbreak of the Second World War

The League of Nations

• The League of Nations was established at the end of WWl as an international peacekeeping organization

• Although US President Woodrow Wilson was an enthusiastic proponent of the League, the US didn’t officially join the League of Nations due to opposition from isolationists in Congress

• The League of Nations effectively resolved some international conflicts but failed to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War

The United States in World War l

• WWl was the deadliest conflict until that point in human history, claiming tens of millions of casualties on all sides

• Under President Woodrow Wilson, the US remained neutral until 1917 and then entered the war on the side of the Allied powers (the United Kingdom, France, and Russia)

• The experience of WWl had a major impact on US domestic politics, culture, and society. Women achieved the right to vote, while other groups of American citizens were subject to systematic repression

1920s consumption

• For many middle-class Americans, the 1920s was a decade of unprecedented prosperity. Rising earnings generated more disposable income for the purchase of consumer goods

• Henry Ford’s advances in assembly-line efficiency created a truly affordable automobile, making car ownership a possibility for many Americans

• Advertising became as big an industry as the manufactured goods that advertisers represented, and many families relied on new forms of credit to increase their consumption levels as they strived for a new American standard of living

American culture in the 1920s

• The Lost Generation refers to the generation of artists, writers, and intellectuals that came of age during the First World War (1914-1918) and the ‘Roaring Twenties’

• The utter carnage and uncertain outcome of the war was disillusioning, and many began to question the values and assumptions of Western civilization

• Economic, political, and technological developments heightened the popularity of jazz music in the 1920s, a decade of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in the US

• African Americans were highly influential in the music and literature of the 1920s

The reemergence of the KKK

• The Ku Klux Klan first arose in the South during the Reconstruction Era, but experienced a resurgence in the period immediately following the end of the First World War

• The KKK was a viciously racist organization that employed violence and acts of terror in order to assert white supremacy and maintain a strict racial hierarchy

• Although most of the KKK’s savagery was aimed at African Americans, their hatred extended to immigrants, Catholics, Jews, liberals, and progressives

• The revival of the KKK in the 1920s was demonstrative of a society coping with the effects of industrialization, urbanization, and immigration

Prohibition

• Prohibition was a nationwide ban on the sale and import of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933

• Protestants, Progressives, and women all spearheaded the drive to institute Prohibition

• Prohibition led directly to the rise of organized crime

• The Twenty-first Amendment, ratified in December 1933, repealed Prohibition

Republican ascendancy: politics in the 1920s

• After WWl, Americans were ready for ‘a return to normalcy’. Republican President Warren Harding offered them just that

• Under the guidance of his big-business backers, Harding’s policies supported businesses at home and isolation from foreign affairs

• After Harding’s death in 1923, Calvin Coolidge continued his policy legacy in much the same vein

• The Teapot Dome scandal was the bribery scandal involving Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall in 1923

The presidency of Calvin Coolidge

• Calvin Coolidge became the 30th president of the US in 1923, after the death of Warren G. Harding. He was elected president in 1924 and served until 1929

• Although Coolidge was a fiscally conservative Republican who believed that the size and scope of the federal government should be limited, he held some progressive beliefs and supported women’s suffrage

• Coolidge is known for being one of the very few US presidents who left office with a federal debt and budget deficit that was smaller than when he entered office

The presidency of Herbert Hoover

• Herbert Hoover was the 31st president of the US. He served one term, from 1929 to 1933

• Before becoming president, Hoover directed relief efforts to supply war-torn Europe and Russia during and after the First World War

• After the 1929 stock market crash, the Hoover administration attempted to mitigate the negative effects of the Great Depression but was unable to significantly improve the economy

The Great Depression

• The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in US history. It began in 1929 and didn't abate until the end of the 1930s

• The stock market crash of October 1929 signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. By 1933, unemployment was at 25% and more than 5,000 banks had gone out of business

• Although President Herbert Hoover attempted to spark growth in the economy through measures like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, these measures did little to solve the crisis

• Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in November 1932. Inaugurated as president in March 1933, Roosevelt's New Deal offered a new approach to the Great Depression

FDR & the Great Depression

• Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the nation through the Great Depression

• His signature domestic legislation, the New Deal, expanded the role of the federal government in the nation’s economy in an effort to address the challenges of the Great Depression

• He was elected to the presidency four times, serving from March 1933 until his death in office in April 1945

The New Deal

• The New Deal was a set of domestic policies enacted under President Franklin D. Roosevelt that dramatically expanded the federal government’s role in the economy in response to the Great Depression

• Historians commonly speak of a First New Deal (1933-1934), with the “alphabet soup” of relief, recovery, and reform agencies it created, and a Second New Deal (1935-1938) that offered further legislative reforms and created the groundwork for today’s modern social welfare system

• It was the massive military expenditures of World War II, not the New Deal, that eventually pulled the United States out of the Great Depression

Pearl Harbor

• On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

• The surprise attack by some 350 Japanese aircraft sunk or badly damaged eighteen US naval vessels, including eight battleships, destroyed or damaged 300 US aircraft, and killed 2,403 men

• Across the nation, Americans were stunned, shocked, and angered. The attack turned US public opinion in favor of entering the Second World War. The United States declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941

• Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States on December 11. The United States responded in kind, and therefore entered World War II

FDR & WWll

• Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the nation through the Second World War

• Roosevelt built a powerful wartime coalition with Britain and the Soviet Union, and led the nation to victory against Nazi Germany

• His wartime efforts prepared the path for his successor, Harry Truman, to win the war against Japan four months after his death

• He was elected to the presidency four times, serving from March 1933 until his death in office in April 1945

Japanese Interment

• President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 resulted in the relocation of 112,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast into internment camps during the Second World War

• Japanese Americans sold their businesses and houses for a fraction of their value before being sent to the camps. In the process, they lost their livelihoods and much of their lifesavings

• In Korematsu v. United States (1944) the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of internment. In 1988, the United States issued an official apology for internment and compensated survivors

American women & WWll

• World War II provided unprecedented opportunities for American women to enter into jobs that had never before been open to women, particularly in the defense industry

• Women faced challenges in overcoming cultural stereotypes against working women, as well as finding adequate childcare during working hours. Minority women also endured discrimination and dislocation during the war years

• 350,000 women served in the armed forces during World War II.

• After the war, many women were fired from factory jobs. Nevertheless, within a few years, about a third of women older than 14 worked outside the home

The Manhattan Project & the atomic bomb

• The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, killing 210,000 people—children, women, and men

• President Truman authorized the use of the atom bombs in an effort to bring about Japan’s surrender in the Second World War. In the days following the bombings Japan surrendered

• The Manhattan Project was the US government program during World War II that developed and built these first atomic bombs.

• Detonation of these first nuclear bombs signaled arrival of a frightening new Atomic Age

The United Nations

• The United Nations (UN) was created at the end of World War II as an international peacekeeping organization and a forum for resolving conflicts between nations

• The UN replaced the ineffective League of Nations, which had failed to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War

• The UN was established on October 24, 1945, with headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, and reflected the rise of the United States to global leadership in the postwar period