APUSH: Period 7 (1890-1945)

Progressive Era (1895 – 1920)

• Change in mindset: in the Gilded Age it was “survival of the fittest” but now it is “society is

responsible for individuals and should help them”

• End Abuses of Power – Trust-busting, consumers’ rights, good government

• Build New Institutions – schools, hospitals, sanitation, etc.

• Achieve Perfection – help make institutions less corrupt and more safe

• Progressive Reformers – HAVE TO KNOW!!!

• Upton Sinclair: author of The Jungle which focused on nasty conditions of meat industry

• Ida Tarbell: spoke out against Standard Oil Trust (Rockefeller) – trust-busting

• Jacob Riis: photographer who showed the horrors of tenement housing

• Booker T. Washington VS. WEB Du Bois – racial inequality

  • BTW: rural mindset – through “self help” blacks could eventually acquire social and political rights. However, for now, they should compromise with whites

  • WEBDB: urban mindset – blacks should NOT have to tolerate white domination and should immediately fight for social and political rights – formed NAACP

• Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt: Trust-buster, Meat Inspection Act (1906), Food and Drug Act (1906), Hepburn Act (1906), supported unions rights, and conservation of environmentilism.

American Imperialism (1865 – 1914) – Think back to Imperialism Chart

• Economic Reasons: foreign trade, search for new markets, military superiority (Alfred Mahan)

• Ideological and Cultural Motivations / Justifications: American expansionism/Manifest Destiny,

racism, Social Darwinism, Nationalism, Missionary, and White Man’s Burden

• William H. Seward: bought Alaska from Russia – AKA Seward’s Folly, but turned out positive

• Spanish-American War (April 1898 – August 1898)

• US took the Philippians from Spain as well as blockaded Cuba in order to push out Spain

• Treaty of Paris (1898): Cuba is independent, cession of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and

• Guam are US territories –US pays Spain for territories

• American Involvement in Asia

• Open Door Policy (1899): originally by John Hay, promoted equal trade opportunity for all

• countries in China in order to help economic and religious (Christianity) interests

• Dollar Diplomacy: Taft’s policy, which required use of private funds or investments to

• further diplomatic goals – attempted to stop Japanese imperialism of China

• Roosevelt Corollary (1904): Added to the Monroe Doctrine to make the US an international

police power – US can now intervene in Latin America whenever they want

World War I (1914 – 1920)

• Neutrality: US did not want to pick a side during the war, but that changed after German use of

unrestricted submarine warfare – sinking of Lusitania, British ship with 100+ Americans

• Zimmerman Telegram (Feb. 1917): telegram from Germany to Mexico asking Mexico to join an

alliance against the US in exchange for territory lost in Mexican American War – intercepted by

Great Britain and was the final straw for Wilson to enter war on April 6, 1917

• Selective Service Act (1917): requires all males between ages 21 to 30 to register for the draft

• Boom Years for Farmers and Industries: allowed farmers to get mechanized due to high demand and higher prices, which led to the growth of many industries – War Industries Board

• Women in the Workforce: women take male dominated jobs, but return to home after war

• Revenue Act (1916): raised taxes on high incomes and corporate profits, which allowed more $ to war effort – Liberty Bonds: buy stock in the war effort and would get return later on.

• Espionage (1917): forbade “false statements” against draft/military, banned anti-war propaganda

• Sedition Acts (1918): illegal to obstruct the sale of war bonds and speak out against government – most famous case involved Eugene V. Debs who did not support the war effort – was imprisoned for his outspoken opposition, highlighting the tension between civil liberties and national security during wartime.

• Wilson’s Fourteen Points (1919): freedom of the seas, arms reduction, open diplomacy, and the creation of the League of Nations – issue for US Senators because it was too much like an alliance which caused WWI – US never joined and eventually it dissolved and turned into United Nations.

• Red Scare after WWI: fear of communism across the US that started with Bolshevik Revolution and high levels of unemployment – led to labor strikes and other communist like-actions

Roaring 1920’s (1920 – 1929)

• Initial recession after WWI, but followed by quick recovery (roaring 20’s) as new inventions, AKA the radio, got mass produced, but farmers never fully recovered - adds to Great Depression later

• Consumer Culture: New products created such as the radio, cars, advertising – more purchasing power for the average American and benefitted the lower classes – electricity, indoor plumbing, clothing and food more affordable – All Positive!

• Nineteenth Amendment (1920): gave women the right to vote – Alice Paul and Lucy Burns

• Social Trends: flappers, jazz, speakeasies, F. Scott Fitzgerald – Great Gatsby, Harlem Renaissance

• Harlem Renaissance: the Great Migration had blacks moving from Jim Crow South to new jobs in the north during WWI – led to the creation of their own culture that celebrated their diversity – Langston Hughes (poet), Louis Armstrong (jazz), and Jacob Lawrence (artist)

• Prohibition (18th Amendment): prohibited the use, sale, or manufacturing of alcohol, but quickly led to the creation of the speakeasy as well as allowed gangsters like Al Capone to gain more social and later political power – later overturned by 21st Amendment

Great Depression (1929 – 1941)

• Black Thursday (October 24, 1929) was the initial panic, but the Stock Market officially crashed on Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929) – causes of this are listed below...

• Over-production / Under-consumption: companies increased production, but decreased worker wages which reduced people’s purchasing power – extra product lying around.

• Bank Failures: As people panicked and withdrew their money, thousands of banks collapsed, leading to a loss of savings and further deepening the economic crisis.

• Corporate Debt: Companies lied about assets to get more loans to produce more product Buying on Margin: People buying stocks on credit, but they do not have $ to pay back

• Lack of Recovery in Farming: farmers did not recover from post WWI recession

• Government Policies: government followed laissez-faire policies with easy credit and low discount rates which allowed many to buying on credit and margin

• Hoover’s Response was not as aggressive as many people would have liked – Hoovervilles

(shanty towns) were named after him as a bash to his lack of government support in hard times

New Deal (Franklin Delano Roosevelt – 1933) – Think back to the New Deal Chart

• Bank Holiday, Public Works like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Tennessee Valley

Authority (TVA), Public Works Administration (PWA), etc., Fireside Chats – kept public informed

and urged them to return their savings to the banks, 21st Amendment passed, helped farmers

with Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) – subsidized farming, FDIC created to insure banks

World War II (1941 – 1945) – Pulls the United States out of the Great Depression

• Neutrality Acts (1935): prohibited shipments of arms to either side in a war-US is neutral/isolated

• Selective Training and Service Act (1940): first peacetime draft – US could help Britain if need be

• Lend Lease Act (1941): British and Soviets could borrow money to buy weapons from the US

• Atlantic Charter (1941): FDR and Churchill sign agreement of alliance with Great Britain

• Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941): “A day that will live in infamy”, Public opinion invested in war

• Home Front: thousands sign up for draft, rationing, women in workforce and military

• (nurses, secretaries, etc.), Japanese Internment Camps, more opportunities for blacks

• Conferences to Know: Tehran (1943), YALTA (1945), - BIGGIE and Potsdam (1945)

• Truman Presidency: Truman decides to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki –

produced through the Manhattan Project and later integrates the armed forces.