Civil War and Reconstruction Era

Causes of the Civil War

  • Sectionalism: Loyalty to region over country.
    • North: Industrial.
    • South: Agricultural, reliant on slavery.
  • Slavery: Abolitionist movement in North vs. slavery in South.
  • Westward Expansion: Debates over free or slave states.
  • Breakdown of Compromise:
    • Missouri Compromise (1820): Established a line for free/slave territories.
    • Compromise of 1850: California as free state, popular sovereignty in Mexican Cession.
    • Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): Popular sovereignty leading to "Bleeding Kansas."
  • Interpretation of States' Rights: Disputes over Fugitive Slave Act and secession.
  • Dred Scott Decision (1857): Ruled slaves as property, not citizens.
  • John Brown's Raid: Attempt to arm slaves, failed rebellion.
  • Election of Abraham Lincoln (1860): Immediate cause for secession.

Main Events of the Civil War

  • Fort Sumter: Confederate attack, start of war.
  • Antietam: Bloodiest battle.
  • Emancipation Proclamation (1863): Freed slaves in the South.
  • Gettysburg: Turning point, Union victory.
  • Vicksburg: Union control of Mississippi River.
  • Sherman's March to the Sea: Destruction across Georgia.
  • Election of 1864: Lincoln's victory.
  • Amendment 13: Banned slavery.
  • Appomattox Court House: Confederate surrender (1865).
  • Anaconda Plan: Union strategy to blockade South and control Mississippi.

Reconstruction Era

  • Goal: Reconstruct South and expand rights of former slaves (Unfinished/failure).
  • Freedmen's Bureau: Aided freedmen's transition to society.
  • 13th Amendment: Abolished slavery.
  • Plans to Readmit Seceded States:
    • Lincoln's 10% Plan: Lenient, required 10% voter allegiance (failed).
    • Johnson's Plan: Individual pardons, ignored Black Codes (repealed).
    • Congressional Plan: Militarized South, required 14th Amendment ratification.
  • Black Codes: Restricted Freedmen's rights.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1866: Prohibited racial discrimination, overturned Black Codes.
  • 14th Amendment: Declared African Americans citizens; equal protection, due process.
  • 15th Amendment: Prohibited race-based voting restrictions.
  • Nadir of American Race Relations: Violence, voting restrictions (poll tax, literacy tests, grandfather clauses).
  • Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Clashes with Radical Republicans.
  • Reconstruction Act of 1867: Divided South into military zones.
  • Scalawags/Carpetbaggers: Opportunistic groups in the South.
  • Economics:
    • Sharecropping/Tenant Farming: Exploitative labor systems.
    • Debt Peonage: Trapped workers in debt.
  • Compromise of 1877: Ended Reconstruction, troops withdrawn.
  • Jim Crow Laws: Segregation laws.
  • Ku Klux Klan: Intimidation and violence.
  • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Upheld "separate but equal" segregation.

Western Expansion

  • Push and Pull Factors: Factors driving migration to the West.
  • Great Plains: Treeless plains
  • Pull Factors: cheap land, precious metals
  • Obstacles and Solutions on the Great Plains:
    • Remote markets: Transcontinental Railroad.
    • Lack of wood: Sod houses, barbed wire.
    • Lack of rainfall: Wells, dry farming techniques.
    • Tough soil: Steel plows.
    • Lack of fuel: Buffalo chips.
  • American Indian Experience:
    • Indian Wars: Conflicts leading to Native American relocation onto reservations.
    • Sand Creek Massacre, Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee.
    • Reservation System: Forced relocation to undesirable lands.
    • Dawes Act (1887): Attempt to "Americanize" Indians, led to land loss.

Farmers' Experience and Challenges

  • Economic Problems: Falling food prices, high costs, indebtedness, natural disasters, rural isolation.
  • Farmers Organize: Grange movement, Farmer's Alliances, Populist Party.
  • Interstate Commerce Act (1887): Regulated railroad rates.
  • Populist Platform of 1892: Direct election of senators, progressive income tax, 8-hour workday.
  • William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" Speech: Supported bimetallism.
  • Granger Laws: State regulation of grain elevators (Munn v. Illinois upheld).

The Triumph of Industry: Gilded Age

  • Factors Behind Economic Growth:
    • Abundant natural resources, growing population, free enterprise.
    • Technological innovation, government support (patents, tariffs, land grants).
  • 2nd Industrial Revolution: Railways, Bessemer process (steel).
  • Rise of Corporations: Limited liability, capital raising through stock sales.
  • Key Industries:
    • Steel (Carnegie, Bessemer process), communications (telegraph, telephone).
    • Electricity (Edison, Tesla), oil (Rockefeller).
    • Transportation (internal combustion engine, Ford, Wright brothers).
  • Advantages of Large Companies: Economies of scale, efficient management.
  • Vertical/Horizontal Integration.

Captains of Industry or Robber Barons

  • Andrew Carnegie (Steel): Vertical integration, Gospel of Wealth.
  • John D. Rockefeller (Oil): Horizontal integration, Standard Oil.
  • J.P. Morgan (Finance): Formed General Electric, U.S. Steel.
  • Federal Laws: Interstate Commerce Act, Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
  • Dangers of Monopoly: Less competition, inflated consumer charges.
  • Forms of Business Consolidation: Pooling agreements, trusts, holding companies.
  • U.S. Supreme Court Cases: Munn v. Illinois, Wabash v. Illinois.

The Labor Movement

  • Ideologies: Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Social Darwinism.
  • Problems Faced by Industrial Workers: Poor conditions, long hours, low wages, child labor.
  • Labor Unions: Higher wages, better conditions, mutual aid, political pressure.
  • Tactics Used by Management: Lockouts, strikebreakers, blacklisting, yellow-dog contracts.
  • First National Labor Unions: Knights of Labor, American Federation of Labor (AFL).
  • Haymarket Riot: Association with anarchism and violence.
  • Homestead Strike: Defeat of union, ending unionization in steel mills.
  • Pullman Strike: Federal intervention to end strike.

Urban Growth and Immigration

  • Urbanization: Movement from countryside to cities.
  • Problems of Cities: Overcrowding, traffic, sanitation, vast differences in wealth.
  • Political Machines: Corruption.
  • Immigration:
    • Old vs. New Immigrants; nativism and discrimination.
    • Chinese Exclusion Act, Gentleman's Agreement.
  • Immigrant Experience: Ellis Island, Angel Island, ethnic ghettos, Americanization, nativism.

The Progressive Era -1890 TO WWI-

  • Aims of Progressivism: Address political and economic injustices.
  • Roots of Progressivism: Problems of industrial society; Populist Legacy.
  • Political Reforms: Initiative, referendum, recall, secret ballot, direct primary, 17th Amendment, women's suffrage.
  • Muckrakers: Journalists exposing abuses (Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair).
  • Social Reformers: Jane Addams, Settlement Houses, NAACP, Anti Defamation League.
  • Municipal Reformers: Eliminated political machines; hired professional city managers.
  • Progressive Presidents (Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson) & their respective policies & legislation.

American Imperialism

  • Imperialism: Policy of extending a country's power.
  • Spanish-American War (1898): Fueled by yellow journalism.
  • Annexation of Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam.
  • Hawaii: Annexation for strategic reasons.
  • Cuba: Platt Amendment established U.S. control.
  • Open Door Policy in China, Panama Canal creation.

The U.S. in World War I

  • Causes of WWI: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism.
  • Why Americans Went to War: Cultural ties, Allied propaganda.
  • German Submarine Warfare: Unrestricted submarine warfare.
  • America at War: Mobilization, Selective Service Act, propaganda.
  • Civil Rights: Espionage and Sedition Acts restricted individual rights.
  • The Fourteen Points: Self-determination, League of Nations.
  • Treaty of Versailles: Germany's punishment.
  • The U.S. Senate Rejects the Treaty of Versailles.

The Roaring Twenties

  • Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover favored business.
  • The Economy: Massive production of automobiles and electric appliances
  • The Red Scare led many Americans to fear a Communist revolution at home during the red scare of 1919.
    The writers of the "Lost Generation" expressed the feelings of many young Americans: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby"
    Minorities During the 1920s
    Immigration from Mexico was still unrestricted and
    increased. Many worked as migrant farm laborers.
    nAmerican Indians were declared citizens in 1924; they
    still suffered widespread poverty. The Seminoles of
    Florida increased interaction with tourists to survivechanges in the Everglades.

The Great Depression

  • Long-Term Causes: Overproduction, high tariffs, expansion of credit, stock market.

  • Effects of the Stock Market Crash: Economic downturn, bank failures, unemployment.

  • The economy was booming!

  • Herbert Hoover tried to end the Depression, cut taxes, increased Federal spending, and set up the Reconstruction FinanceCorporation (RFC), FAILED!

  • FDR's NEW DEAL was based on three goals: Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

World War II

  • The Rise of Nazism by Adolf Hitler.
    The League of Nations failed!
    Raimed at
    keeping the U.S. out of the war in Europe.

THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR

  • In Sept 1940, Japan allied with Germany and Italy.
    The war was not looking good for Britain.

  • To support the British President Roosevelt introduced the "Lend-Lease"Act,
    The U.S. could supply arms to
    the British; the British couldthen pay for them or even return them after the war.

  • In August of 1941 president Roosevelt meet with
    Churchill on a vessel
    off the Atlantic Coast to definee their goals for after the War also knows as The Atlantic Charter.

  • Nazi Invasion of Poland: France and Britain declared war but did not attack immediately.

  • Attack on Pearl Harbor.
    The Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The war took

  • The holocaust:
    place in Europe as well.
    In 1941: Jews had to wear a yellow star on their clothes.
    1942: Final Solution: Jews were taken to
    concenteation and extermination camps.

THE HOME FRONT

  • Opening all
    jobs with contractors to AfricanAmericans.