Period 7 Review Notes

Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis

• Published after the 1890 census.
• Declared the American frontier was closed.
• Argued American identity was based on conquering western lands.
• Led to Americans looking outward for raw materials and new markets due to the lack of a continental frontier.

American Imperialism

• Hawaiian Coup:
  • American sugar traders helped overthrow the Hawaiian monarch to allow the U.S. to annex Hawaii.
  • Hawaii provided a strategic location in the Pacific, offering a stepping stone to Asian markets, and had a lucrative sugar trade.
• Key Imperialists:
  • Alfred Mahan: Argued a strong navy was critical for American growth and power.
  • Josiah Strong: Believed Americans had a duty to spread their culture and religion.
• Spanish-American War:
  • Demonstrated a shift in American foreign policy.
  • Motivated by support for Cuban independence and yellow journalism (William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer).
  • The sinking of the USS Maine was attributed to Spanish mines, leading to the declaration of war.
  • The De Lôme Letter insulted President McKinley, increasing the tensions.
  • The war resulted in America gaining Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico from the Treaty of Paris.
  • The U.S. also purchased the Philippines, leading to the Philippine-American War.

Significant Foreign Policies

• John Hay's Open Door Policy: Provided America access to foreign markets in China, keeping it out of European control.
• Roosevelt Corollary: An extension of the Monroe Doctrine, asserting the U.S. right to intervene in Latin American affairs to protect economic interests and maintain stability.
• Dollar Diplomacy (Taft): Sought to secure order in Latin America through economic means like investment and loans.
• Moral Diplomacy (Wilson): The U.S. would support governments that emphasized democracy and free trade.

Progressive Era

• A period of social, economic, and political reform in America.
• Muckrakers:
  • Journalists who used expose journalism to fight corruption.
  • Lincoln Steffens: The Shame of the Cities to expose political corruption.
  • Ida Tarbell: Focused on John D. Rockefeller's tactics in growing Standard Oil.
  • Upton Sinclair: The Jungle exposed the meat packing industry's horrors, leading to the Meat Inspection Act and the Food and Drug Act.
• Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency:
  • Focused on reform, breaking up "bad" trusts and monopolies.
  • Square Deal: Focused on consumer protection, corporate control, and conservation.

Economic Reforms

• Clayton Antitrust Act: Strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act and limited the power of monopolies.
• Sixteenth Amendment: Instituted the federal income tax.
• Creation of the Federal Reserve.

Political Reforms

• Seventeenth Amendment: Allowed for the direct election of senators.
• Introduction of initiative, referendum, recall, and the secret ballot.

Women's Suffrage Movement

• Carrie Nation: Fought for temperance, leading to the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).
• Alice Paul & NAWSA: Contributed to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote after World War I.

World War I

• Began in Europe in 1914; President Wilson initially declared neutrality.
• The American economy benefited from selling supplies to the Allied powers.
• Reasons for US entry in 1917:
  • Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare on American merchant vessels.
  • The Zimmerman Telegram threatened American security.
• Impact at Home:
  • Women and minorities filled jobs in factories and farms.
  • Restrictions on American liberties through the Espionage and Sedition Acts.
• Wilson's 14 Points: Proposed to prevent future global crises, but mostly ignored in the Treaty of Versailles.
  • League of Nations: The only point incorporated, an international peacekeeping body.
• Treaty of Versailles:
  • Britain and France sought to punish Germany with the war guilt clause and heavy reparations.
  • Senate reservationists like Henry Cabot Lodge opposed Article X, fearing it would drag America into future conflicts.
  • Favored a return to isolationism.

African American Civil Rights

• NAACP (1909):
  • Founded by W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and Thurgood Marshall.
  • Fought for equality, justice, and rights.
  • Sought to tackle disenfranchisement in the South.
• Marcus Garvey:
  • Supported black nationalism, economic self-sufficiency, and a back-to-Africa movement.
• Great Migration:
  • Millions of African Americans left the Jim Crow South for jobs and freedoms in the North.
• Harlem Renaissance:
  • Flourished in Northern cities like Harlem after World War I.
  • Artists like Langston Hughes shared experiences of African Americans through poetry.
  • Musicians like Louis Armstrong ushered in the jazz age.
• A. Philip Randolph:
  • Fought for equality in employment practices.
  • Threatened a march on Washington D.C. to protest discrimination in defense industry jobs during WWII.
  • Forced FDR to create the Fair Employment Practices Committee.
  • Inspired future civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.
• Double V Campaign
  • Fought for victory abroad over fascism and victory at home for equality

Roaring Twenties

• Rapid economic growth and a culture of consumerism.
• Red Scare:
  • Fear of communists entering the country after the Russian Revolution.
  • Increased nativism leading to quota acts, which limited immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
• Prohibition:
  • A failed social experiment that led to the rise of organized crime (e.g., Al Capone).
• Flappers:
  • American women celebrated their contributions to World War I and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
  • Some adopted the flapper style, while others held onto traditional Victorian values.
• Scopes Monkey Trial (1925):
  • John T. Scopes arrested for teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school.
  • Represented the debate between modern values and fundamentalist ideas.

Great Depression

• Causes:
  • Expansion of consumer credit and unregulated banking practices.
  • Stock market speculation (buying stock on margin).
  • Overproduction in factories and farms led to falling prices.
  • Stock market crash on Black Tuesday.
  • Dust Bowl forced farmers to migrate.
• Hoover's Response:
  • Initially continued laissez-faire policies.
  • Created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but it was too late.
• FDR's New Deal:
  • Promised relief, reform, and recovery.
  • Instituted fireside chats to connect with the public.
• First New Deal:
  • Implemented within the first hundred days.
  • Included the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA).
• Second New Deal:
  • Included further reforms like the Social Security Act.
• Criticism:
  • Huey Long: New Deal did not do enough.
  • Business leaders: bordered on socialism.
    Critizied for court packing.

World War II

• Neutrality Acts: Passed as tensions mounted in Europe, but gradually became more involved with the Allied cause.
• Cash and Carry (1939):
• Lend-Lease Act (1941):
• Selective Service Act: America's first peacetime draft.
• Pearl Harbor (12/07/1941): Forced America to join the war.
  • Executive Order 9066 led to the internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, upheld in the Korematsu case.
• Minority Contributions:
  • Over 1 million African Americans served in segregated units.
  • Tuskegee Airmen: First African American pilots.
  • 45,000 Native Americans enlisted, including Navajo code talkers.
  • Women enlisted in noncombat positions (Women's Army Corps).

Wartime Developments

• Rosie the Riveter: Women filled positions vacated by men.
• Military Efforts:
  • American troops helped defeat Hitler in Europe (Dwight D. Eisenhower, D-Day).
  • Island hopping campaign in the Pacific.
• Manhattan Project: Developed the atomic bomb.
• End of the War:
  • President Truman demanded unconditional surrender from Japan.
  • Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to Japan's surrender in 1945.