APUSH Unit 8 & 9

  • Cold war — battle of ideologies (could’ve erupted into actual fighting in any moment)

    • communism v capitalism (democratic vs authoritarian)

  • While US and Soviet Union worked tgt b4, there was still mistrust bc Stalin kept soviet union stationed in Eastern European nations (despite promising the US otherwise)

    • turned them into communist satellites

    • violated right of self-determination

  • Germany was supposed to divide into 4 states and Berlin too

    • Eastern section belonged to soviets became another communist state (soviets wanted to keep Germany weak and pay reparations while US wanted to rebuilt Germany)

  • CONTAINMENT

    • Truman established the Truman Doctrine which advocated for containment of communism by lending support to any country threatened by soviet communism

    • Martial Plan (2nd part of Truman doctrine by George Marshall) allcated 13 bil in financial aid to rebuild European countries (if nations had healthy econ, they’d be more democratic)

    • Stalin berlin blockade bc west kept berlin alive w/ hope of democracy (US organized berlin airlift in response & US carried supplies to western berlin to prevent soviets from taking city)

  • Truman formed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) military alliance

  • Soviets responded w/ Warsaw Pact

  • Nuclear proliferation arms race (us and su kept ++ powerful bombs so both sides never stopped producing them but never used it bc too powerful)

  • lots of proxy wars occured (vietnam war and kroean war)

    • Context — Korea was a japanese colony until end of wwii

    • su north, us south

    • north koreans invaded south korea using su supplies → US sent troops to south → China sent troops to repel troops (ended in a stalemate)

RED SCARE

  • 2nd red scare after ww2 (not to be confused w/ red scare in ww1)

  • massive push to root out communism AT HOME

  • taft-harley act 1947 — in response to massive waves of union strikes, made it more difficult for unions to get workers rights + made them pledge that they weren’t comies

  • federal employee loyalty and security program — executive order from truman (made employees swear they weren’t fascist) & invested fg

  • unamerican activities community (HUAC) searched for communist influence EVERYWHERE (esp in hollywood - thought commies could infiltrate film industry & spread msg)

    • 10 hollywood directors had to testify & were JAILED and blacklisted

  • joseph mccarthy — claimed to have names of 205 known communists that had infiltrated the state department and that hurled him into american prominence

    • red scare

    • mccarthyism

    • never produced those numbers but consequences alr in effect

  • rosenburg case — SU first atomic bomb & Americans believed they got intel on the inside (Julius, worked w/ SU, and Ethel Rosenburg were accused of giving the info— were commies — so were executed)

Culture 1945-1980

  • Homogeny and pressure to conform due to McCarthyism (ppl who didn’t conform — queer ppl and Jewish ppl— were labeled as communist)

  • 1950s — Television ++ consumption of mass culture

    • suburban sitcoms were popularized & portrayed ideal family and shared values

  • Advertisement industry ++ bc econ ++, Americans had more $ to spend (rise of consumerism) and ads appealed to emotions

    • → rise of credit cards so ppl can buy more money than they can afford & pay it off later

  • Rock n Roll music was v/ popular w/ the younger generation — black ppl were the backbone of rock, some did white face to appeal to a white audience, elvis presley popularized rock for white ppl

  • Beatnicks Aka Beat Generation — rebelled against conformity of culture (Jack Kerouac’s book “On the Road” emphasized spontaneity & freedom)

Civil Rights Movement 40s-50s

  • Truman 998 banned segregation in the military (but wasnt enforced until the Civil War)

    • pressured by Committee of Civil Rights (by Truman tasked to figure out solutions for civil rights)

  • Congress 24th amendment — abolished poll tax

  • Brown V Board supreme court overturned plessy v/ fergerson (said violated 14th amendment) and said schools had to integrate w/ “all deliberate speed” (many took 10 yrs) Southerners were vague

    • Southern Manifesto was created & said Supreme Court abused power & shut down schools

  • Orval Faubus governer who got national guards to prevent 9 black students from entering little rock high school

    • Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect these 9 students in response

LBJ’s great society

  • high point of american liberalism

  • v/ involved in vietnam war

  • great society — extension of FDR’s new deal policies

    • sought to eliminate poverty by implementing many wellfare programs

    • medicare — fed funded health insurfacne for 65+

    • medicaid — fed funded health insurance for impoverished ppl

    • abolished immigration quotas — provided new opportunities for America-seeking immigrants

  • liberalism united by comunism and belief that gov intervention necessary to fix society

  • warren court — expansion of liberalism

    • gideon v wainwrite (state must provide attorney if someone is too poor to afford attorney)

    • griswold v connetcticut (laws which forbade use of birth control were unconstitutional)

    • engel v vitale — prayer in schools r unconstitutional

    • district lines had to be redrawn

  • democratic congressional majority

  • office of economic opportunity — literacy training

  • fed funding sucked up by vietnam so not as much $ on domestic stuff

environmental and natural resources

  • Oil — most of oil came from middle east (high tensions)

    • arab nations strongly opposed israel but us backed up israel

    • arab nations formed opec (organization of petroleum exporting countries) to control prices of oil exporetd

    • raised prices of oil exported and reduced oil exported

    • shortage of oil and rise in price in US

    • alt sources of energy → nuclear energy !!

      • required uranium but 3 mile island melted down tons of raidoactive waste was released

      • cherynobl made ppl scared of nuclear energy

    • rise of env movement (silent spring bk — modern society poisoning earth ddt agricutlure_

  • Nixon created EPA

  • rivers on fire!!

  • clean air act

1945-1980

  • streetprotests of vietnam

  • changes to fam structure bc of womens liberation movement

  • young americans for freedom group — campaign for barry goldwater

    • openly populist, religious values, new right

  • john birch society —adovcated for limited government

  • wliliam f. buckley — denounced john birch soicety (more moderate conservatives)

  • rise of religious right (Christians were pissed ab roe v wade and protestsant and catholic christians unified against roe v wade)

    • jerry falwell founded the moral majority — made christianity and conservatism almost synnonymous

    • argued that seperation of church vs tate was cuase of moral decay

  • economic turmoil — stagflation (inflation + and econ stagnant employment down)

    • nixon wanted to cut down gov spending but amde stuff worse

  • watergate scandal — attempted to bug headquarters and steal docs

    • lied ab multiple times

    • loss of trust in gov

  • equal rights amendment — meant to legally state women as equal to men but phyllis schlafly pushed it down

  • affirmative action — white conservatives got pissed and argued that they wer being discriminated for being white bc there were quoates for minorities and violated equal protection clause

    • courts said race sohuldnt be determinig factor but can be a factor

iron-curtain speech — marked a turning point in post-WWII foreign policy by highlighting the growing ideological divide between the Soviet Union and the West, effectively launching the Cold War. The speech, delivered at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, used the metaphor of an "iron curtain" to describe the Soviet Union's influence over Eastern Europe

Unit 9

Reagan

  • under carter’s administration — staglflation, ranian hostage crisis, and energy crisis bc OPEC cut off supply to US

  • 1980 election — reagan was a former actor and was savvy w media

    • aligned w/ new right values

      • cold war conservatism — desire to resist spread of communism abroad

      • economically pro-businesses and less corporate taxes

      • moral and religious conservatism (counterculture movement, gay liberation, womens rights, conservatives felt attacked)

    • reagan’s election was a rejection of stuff

    • reaganomics — supply-side eocnomics american prosperity achieved through less fed spending and tax cuts (rejection of liberal keynsenian economics which said gov spending allowedecon to flourish

      • econ recovery act — lowered taxes and wealthy were disproportionately wealthy

      • trickle down economics

    • cut welfare programs (food stamps), but spent bunch of money on the us military (fed gov ran a deficit)

    • deregulation

      • lowered standards on car and safety administration

      • rolled back env regulations

  • appointed conservative judges scaled back on affirmative action and roe v wade

end of cold war + legacy

  • speeches — spoke globally and said soviet union ready to fall “ash heap of history” and said SU evil empire

  • diplomatic efforts — cooled tensions btwn us and soviet union

  • gorbachev — glasnost was an attempt to bring more political freedom to soviet citizens; perestroika was the introduction of limited free-market practices to soviet economy

  • common ground so eased tensions — INF agreement agreed to destroy missiles and gorvachev pulled out troops from afghanistan

  • reagan doctrine — US will support any regime that was anticomunist

    • nicaragua became communist under sandinista as a result of a coup and reagan doctrine so US funded military group: Contras to overthrow sandinistas

    • Contras became hella abusive of human rights (deathsquads/ right wing militas)

  • iran contra affair — iran and iraq sold to war us secretly sold missles to iranian contras & reagan then used those funds to aid contras in nicaragua (illegal bc congress has budgetary authority and not president)

  • declared tha treagan took no part

  • us saw expansion of navy adn stuff

    • SDI — strategic defense initiative — bid mulitary satellites shoot lasers from space (known as star wars) 300 bill cost

  • SU fell apart bc gorvachev less soviet military and ppl tore down berlin wall and once su fell cold war over

  • both countries decided to reduce nulcear arms

1980 to present

  • digital revolution — computers were made smaller and apple made comp that cought be put in home

  • 90s made internet more accessible

    • email was replaced, files sharing replaced

  • not a major raise in standard of living

    • manufacturing outsourced overseas

    • decline of labor unions

  • reagan got air traffic controllers fire— supply side

  • service sector riseT

  • real wages stagnated (rise of low wage service sector jobs) mostly cause of reagan lolz!!