Period 1: 1491-1607

1.1 Context: European Encounters in the Americas

Christopher Columbus Arrival

• Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492

• He was not the first European to reach North America, the Norse had arrived in modern Canada around 1000

• But his arrival marked the beginning of the Contact Period, during which Europe sustained contact with the Americas.

• The period ends in 1607 because that is the year of the first English settlement.

Bering Land Bridge

Bering Land Bridge (Connected Eurasia and North America)

• First people to inhabit North and South America came across Bering Land Bridge.

• Ancestors of the Native Americans could walk across the Bering land bridge from Siberia (in modern Russia) to Alaska.

• During this period, the planet was significantly colder.

• Much of the world's water was locked up in vast polar ice sheets, causing sea levels to drop.

• As the planet warmed, sea levels rose, and this bridge was submerged forming the Bering Strait.

Native Americans in Pre-Columbian North America

• The Pre-Columbian era refers to the period before Christopher Columbus' arrival in the "New World".

• North America was populated by Native Americans, not to be confused with native-born Americans.

Culture clash between European settlers and Native Americans

• European settlers brought different culture, religion, and technology.

• Native Americans had their own complex societies, cultures, and religions.

• Conflicts and misunderstandings occurred between the two groups.

Conflicts throughout American history

• Native Americans resisted European colonization and expansion.

• Many wars and battles between Native Americans and European settlers.

• Enslaved Africans by European settlers first arrived in 1501.

• Policies of forced relocation and assimilation were implemented by the US government.

• Native American populations were greatly reduced and their cultures were suppressed.

1.2 Native American Societies Before European Contact

• The marker of 1491 serves as a division between the Native American world and the world that came after European exploration, colonization, and invasion.

• North America was home to hundreds of tribes, cities and societies.

• Indigenous societies in North America before Europeans were definitely very complex.

Permanent Settlements

• The spread of maize cultivation from present-day Mexico northward into the present-day American Southwest and beyond supported economic development.

• Along Northwest coast and in California, tribes developed communities along ocean to hunt whales and salmon, totem poles, and canoes.

• In the northeast, the Mississippi river valley, and along the Atlantic seaboard, some indigenous societies developed.

Nomadic Hunting and Gathering Tribes

• Natives in the Great Plains and surrounding grasslands retained the nomadic lifestyles.

• In Southwest, people had fixed lifestyles.

• The Great Plains was more suitable for hunting and gathering food sources.

1.3 European Exploration in the Americas

Columbus Sails Circa 1492

• New ships, such as caravel allowed for longer exploratory voyages.

• In August of 1492, Colombus used three caravels, supplied and funded by the Spanish crown, to set sail toward India.

• After voyage, when reached land and found a group of people called the Taino and renamed their island San Salvador and claimed it for Spain.

The Age of Exploration

• Columbus voyage pleased the Spanish Monarchs.

• Other European explorers also set sail to the New World in search of gold, glory and spread the word of their God.

1.4 Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest

The Columbian Exchange

• Period of rapid exchange of plants, animals, foods, communicable diseases, and diseases.

• Europe had the resources and technology to establish colonies far from home.

Flow of Trade

• It’s between the Old world and the New world.

• Old world refers to Africa, Asia, and Europe.

• Old World to New World: horses, pigs, rice, wheat, grapes

• New World to Old World: corn, potatoes, chocolate, tomatoes, avocado, sweet potatoes.

• The introduction of new crops to Europe helped to increase food production and stimulate growth.

Colonization

• A colony is a territory settled and controlled by a foreign power.

• Columbus arrival initiated a long period of European expansion and colonialism in the Americas.

Spanish Colonial Power

• During the next century, Spain was the colonial power in the Americas.

• Spanish founded a number of coastal towns in Central and South America and in the West Indies

• Conquistadors collected and exported as much of the area's wealth as they could.

Native vs. European Views

1.5 Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System

Introduction of Slavery in the American Colonies

• Extensive use of enslaved Africans began when colonists from the Caribbean settled the Carolinas

• Until then, indentured servants and, in some situations, enslaved Native Americans had mostly satisfied labor requirements

Expansion of Labor Needs

• As tobacco-growing and, in South Carolina, rice-growing operations expanded, more laborers were needed than indenture could provide

• Events such as Bacon’s Rebellion showed landowners it was not in their best interest to have an abundance of landless, young, white males in their colonies either

Challenges with Enslaving Native Americans

• They knew the land, so they could easily escape and subsequently were difficult to find

• In some Native American tribes, cultivation was considered women’s work, so gender was another obstacle to enslaving the natives

• Europeans brought diseases that often decimated the Native Americans, wiping out 85 to 95 percent of the native population

Turn to Enslaved Africans

• Southern landowners turned increasingly to enslaved Africans for labor

• Unlike Native Americans, enslaved Africans did not know the land, so they were less likely to escape

• Removed from their homelands and communities, and often unable to communicate with one another because they were from different regions of Africa, enslaved Black people initially proved easier to control than Native Americans

• Dark skin of West Africans made it easier to identify enslaved people on sight

• English colonists associated dark skin with inferiority and rationalized Africans’ enslavement

The Slave Trade

• Majority of the slave trade, right up to the Revolution, was directed toward the Caribbean and South America

• More than 500,000 enslaved people were brought to the English colonies (of the over 10 million brought to the New World)

• By 1790, nearly 750,000 Black people were enslaved in England’s North American colonies

The Middle Passage

• Shipping route that brought enslaved people to the Americas

• Was the middle leg of the triangular trade route among the colonies, Europe, and Africa

• Conditions for the Africans aboard were brutally inhumane

• Some committed suicide, many died of sickness or during insurrections

• It was not unusual for one-fifth of the Africans to die on board

• Most reached the New World, where conditions were only slightly better

End of the Atlantic Slave Trade

• Mounting criticism (primarily in the North) of the horrors of the Middle Passage led Congress to end American participation in the Atlantic slave trade on January 1, 1808

• Slavery itself would not end in the United States until 1865

Slavery in the South

• Flourished in the South due to nature of land and short growing season

• Chesapeake and Carolinas farmed labor-intensive crops such as tobacco, rice, and indigo

• Plantation owners bought enslaved people for this arduous work

• Treatment at the hands of the owners was often vicious and at times sadistic

Slavery in the North

• Did not take hold in the North the same way it did in the South.

• Used on farms in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

• Used in shipping operations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

• Used as domestic servants in urban households, particularly in New York City

• Northern states would take steps to phase out slavery following the Revolution.

• Still enslaved people in New Jersey at the outbreak of the Civil War

Ownership of Slavery

• Only the very wealthy owned enslaved people.

• The vast majority of people remained at a subsistence level.

Slavery in the South

• Flourished in the South due to nature of land and short growing season.

• Chesapeake and Carolinas farmed labor-intensive crops such as tobacco, rice, and indigo.

• Plantation owners bought enslaved people for this arduous work.

• Treatment at the hands of the owners was often vicious and at times sadistic.

Slavery in the North

• Did not take hold in the North the same way it did in the South.

• Used on farms in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania

• Used in shipping operations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island

• Used as domestic servants in urban households, particularly in New York City

Efforts to end slavery

• Northern states would take steps to phase out slavery following the Revolution.

• Still enslaved people in New Jersey at the outbreak of the Civil War

Ownership of Slavery

• Only the very wealthy owned enslaved people

The vast majority of people remained at a subsistence level.

1.6 Cultural Interactions Between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

The Birth of a New Society

Spanish Colonial Power

• During the next century, Spain was the colonial power in the Americas.

• Spanish founded a number of coastal towns in Central and South America and in the West Indies

• Conquistadors collected and exported as much of the area's wealth as they could

Encomienda System

• Under Spain's encomienda system, the crown granted colonists authority over a specified number of natives

• Colonist was obliged to protect those natives and convert them to Catholicism

• In exchange, the colonist was entitled to those natives' labor for such enterprises as sugar harvesting and silver mining.

• This system sounds like a form of slavery because it was a form of slavery.

Competition for Global Dominance

New World Exploration

• Once Spain had colonized much of modern-day South America and the southern tier of North America, other European nations were inspired to try their hands at New World exploration

• They were motivated by a variety of factors such as desire for wealth and resources, clerical fervor to make new Christian converts, and the race to play a dominant role in geopolitics.

• The vast expanses of largely undeveloped North America and the fertile soils in many regions of this new land, opened up virtually endless potential for agricultural profits and mineral extraction

Navigational Advancements

• Improvements in navigation, such as the invention of the sextant in the early 1700s, made sailing across the Atlantic Ocean safer and more efficient.

Joint-Stock Companies

• Intercontinental trade became more organized with the creation of joint-stock companies, corporate businesses with shareholders whose mission was to settle and develop lands in North America

• The most famous ones were the British East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, and later, the Virginia Company, which settled Jamestown.

Conflict and Prejudice

• Increased trade and development in the New World also led to increased conflict and prejudice

• Europeans debated how Native Americans should be treated

• Spanish and Portuguese thinkers proposed wildly different approaches to the treatment of Native populations, ranging from peace and tolerance to dominance and enslavement

• The belief in European superiority was nearly universal

Native American Resistance and Adaptation

• Some Native Americans resisted European influence, while others accepted it

• Intermarriage was common between Spanish and French settlers and the natives in their colonized territories (though rare among English and Dutch settlers)

• Many Native Americans converted to Christianity

• Spain was particularly successful in converting much of Mesoamerica to Catholicism through the Spanish mission system

Enslavement and African Adaptation

• Explorers, such as Juan de Oñate, swept through the American Southwest, determined to create Christian converts by any means necessary—including violence

• As colonization spread, the use of enslaved Africans purchased from African traders from their home continent became more common

• Much of the Caribbean and Brazil became permanent settlements for plantations and their enslaved people

• Africans adapted to their new environment by blending the language and religion of their masters with the preserved traditions of their ancestors

• Religions such as voodoo are a blend of Christianity and tribal animism

• Enslaved people sang African songs in the fields as they worked and created art reminiscent of their homeland

• Some, such as the Maroon people, even managed to escape slavery and form cultural enclaves

• Slave uprisings were not uncommon, most notably the Haitian Revolution

The English Arrive

English Colonization

• Unlike other European colonizers, the English sent large numbers of men and women to the agriculturally fertile areas of the East

• Despite our vision of the perfect Thanksgiving table, relationships with local Native Americans were strained, at best.

Intermarriage and Ethnic Groups

• English intermarriage with Native Americans and Africans was rare

• So no new ethnic groups emerged, and social classes remained rigid and hierarchical.

English Attempts to Settle North America

• England’s first attempt to settle North America came a year prior to its victory over Spain, in 1587, when Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored a settlement on Roanoke Island (now part of North Carolina).

• The colony had disappeared by 1590, which is why it came to be known as the Lost Colony.

• The English did not try again until 1607, when they settled Jamestown.

Jamestown and the Virginia Company

• Jamestown was funded by a joint-stock company, a group of investors who bought the right to establish New World plantations from the king

• The company was called the Virginia Company—named for Elizabeth I, known as the Virgin Queen—from which the area around Jamestown took its name.

• The settlers, many of them English gentlemen, were ill-suited to the many adjustments life in the New World required of them, and they were much more interested in searching for gold than in planting crops.

Early Struggles

• Within three months, more than half the original settlers were dead of starvation or disease

• Jamestown survived only because ships kept arriving from England with new colonists.

• Captain John Smith decreed that “he who will not work shall not eat,” and things improved for a time, but after Smith was injured in a gunpowder explosion and sailed back

John Rolfe and the Development of Tobacco

• One of the survivors, John Rolfe, was notable in two ways. First, he married Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas, briefly easing the tension between the natives and the English settlers.

• Second, he pioneered the practice of growing tobacco, which had long been cultivated by Native Americans, as a cash crop to be exported back to England.

• The English public was soon hooked, so to speak, and the success of tobacco considerably brightened the prospects for English settlement in Virginia.

Development of Plantation Slavery

• Because the crop requires vast acreage and depletes the soil (and so requires farmers to constantly seek new fields), the prominent role of tobacco in Virginia’s economy resulted in rapid expansion.

• The introduction of tobacco would also lead to the development of plantation slavery.

Expansion in the Chesapeake

• As new settlements sprang up around Jamestown, the entire area came to be known as the Chesapeake (named after the bay).

• That area today comprises Virginia and Maryland.

• English colonies in North America, such as Jamestown, were largely motivated by financial reasons and the desire for wealth and resources

• Indentured servitude, in which individuals agreed to work for a period of time in exchange for passage to the colonies, was a common way for people to migrate to the Chesapeake

• Indentured servitude was difficult and many did not survive their term, but it provided a path to land ownership and voting rights for working-class men in Europe

• Over 75% of the 130,000 Englishmen who migrated to the Chesapeake during the 17th century were indentured servants

• The success of tobacco as a cash crop in the Chesapeake led to rapid expansion and the development of plantation slavery.

The Headright system

• In 1618, the Virginia Company introduced the headright system as a means of attracting new settlers to the region and addressing the labor shortage created by the emergence of tobacco farming.

• A "headright" was a tract of land, usually about 50 acres, that was granted to colonists and potential settlers.

House of Burgesses

• In 1619, Virginia established the House of Burgesses, in which any property-holding, white male could vote.

• Decisions made by the House of Burgesses, however, had to be approved by the Virginia Company.

• 1619 also marks the introduction of slavery to the English colonies.

French Colonization of North America

• French colonized Quebec City in 1608

• French Jesuit priests attempted to convert native peoples to Roman Catholicism but were more likely to spread diseases

• French colonists were fewer in number compared to Spanish and English and tended to be single men

• French settlers intermarried with native women and tended to stay on the move, especially if they were coureurs du bois (“runners in the woods”) who helped trade for furs

• French played a significant role in the French and Indian War (1754-1763) but overall had a much lighter impact on native peoples compared to Spanish and English

• French chances of shaping the region known as British North America were slim due to the Edict of Nantes in 1598

Impact of French Colonization

• Fewer French settlers in North America compared to Spanish and English

• French settlers intermarried with native women

• French settlers tended to stay on the move, especially if they were coureurs du bois

• French played a significant role in the French and Indian War (1754-1763) but overall had a much lighter impact on native peoples compared to Spanish and English

• French chances of shaping the region known as British North America were slim due to the Edict of Nantes in 1598

The Pilgrims and the Massachusetts Bay Company

• English Calvinists led a Protestant movement called Puritanism in the 16th century

• Puritans sought to purify the Anglican Church of Roman Catholic practices

• English monarchs of the early 17th century persecuted the Puritans

• Puritans began to look for a new place to practice their faith

• One group of Puritans, called Separatists, decided to leave England and start fresh in the New World

• In 1620, Separatists set sail for Virginia on the Mayflower, but went off course and landed in modern-day Massachusetts

• The group decided to settle where they had landed and named the settlement Plymouth.

The Pilgrims

• Led by William Bradford

• Signed the Mayflower Compact

• Created a legal authority and assembly

• Government's power derived from consent of governed, not God

• Received assistance from local Native Americans

The Mayflower Compact

• Important for creating legal system for colony

• Asserted government's power from consent of governed

Assistance from Native Americans

• Life-saving assistance

• Pilgrims landed at site of Patuxet village wiped out by disease

• Tisquantum/Squanto, an inhabitant of the village, was captured and brought to Europe as enslaved person

• Returned to homeland, found it depopulated

• Became Pilgrims' interpreter and taught them how to plant in new home.

The Great Puritan Migration

• 1629-1642

• Established by Congregationalists (Puritans who wanted to reform Anglican church from within)

• Led by Governor John Winthrop

Massachusetts Bay

• Developed along Puritan ideals

• Winthrop delivered famous sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity" urging colonists to be a "city upon a hill"

Puritan Philosophy

• Believed in covenant with God

• Concept of covenants central to entire philosophy (political and religious)

• Government as covenant among people

• Work served communal ideal

• Puritan church always to be served

Religious Tolerance

• Both Separatists and Congregationalists did not tolerate religious freedom in their colonies

• Both had experienced and fled religious persecution

Calvinist Principles

• Settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony were strict Calvinists

• Calvinist principles dictated their daily lives

• Protestant work ethic and relationship to market economy

• Roots of Civil War may be traced back to founding of Chesapeake and New England

Religious Intolerance

• Two major incidents during first half of 17th century

• Roger Williams, a minister in Salem Bay settlement, taught that church and state should be separate

• Banished and moved to Rhode Island, founded colony with charter allowing for free exercise of religion

• Anne Hutchinson, a prominent proponent of antinomianism, banished for challenging Puritan beliefs and authority of Puritan clergy

• Anne Hutchinson was a woman in a resolutely patriarchal society which turned many against her.

Economic and Social Differences

• Plantation economy dependent on slave labor developed in Chesapeake and southern colonies

• New England became commercial center.

Puritan Immigration

• Near halt between 1649 and 1660 during Oliver Cromwell's rule as Lord Protector of England

• Puritans had little motive to move to New World during Interregnum (between kings)

• With the restoration of the Stuarts, many English Puritans again immigrated to the New World, bringing with them republican ideals of revolution

Differences between New England and Chesapeake

• Entire families tended to immigrate to New England, but Chesapeake immigrants were often single males

• Climate in New England was more hospitable, leading to longer life expectancy and larger families

• Stronger sense of community and absence of tobacco as cash crop led New Englanders to settle in larger towns

• Chesapeake residents lived in smaller, more spread-out farming communities

• New Englanders were more religious, settling near meetinghouses

• Slavery was rare in New England, but farms in middle and southern colonies were much larger, requiring large numbers of enslaved Africans

• South Carolina had a larger proportion of enslaved Africans than European settlers

Period 2: 1607-1754

2.1 Colonization

British Treatment of the Colonies

• Period preceding the French and Indian War is often described as salutary neglect or benign neglect.

• England regulated trade and government in its colonies but interfered in colonial affairs as little as possible.

• England set up absentee customs officials and colonies were left to self-govern.

• England occasionally turned a blind eye to the colonies' violations of trade restrictions.

• Developed a large degree of autonomy.

• Helped fuel revolutionary sentiments when monarchy later attempted to gain greater control of the New World.

English Regulation of Colonial Trade

• Throughout the colonial period, Europeans used a theory called mercantilism.

• Mercantilists believed that economic power was rooted in a favorable balance of trade and control of specie

• Colonies were important mostly for economic reasons, which is why the British considered their colonies in the West Indies more important than their colonies on the North American continent

• Colonies on the North American continent were seen primarily as markets for British and West Indian goods, but also as sources of raw materials

British Control of Colonial Commerce

• British government encouraged manufacturing in England and placed protective tariffs on imports that might compete with English goods

• Navigation Acts passed between 1651 and 1673, required colonists to buy goods only from England, sell certain of their products only to England, and import non-English goods via English ports and pay a duty on those imports

• Navigation Acts also prohibited the colonies from manufacturing a number of goods that England already produced

• Wool Act of 1699, forbade both the export of wool from the American colonies and the importation of wool from other British colonies

• Molasses Act of 1733, imposed an exorbitant tax upon the importation of sugar from the French West Indies

• New Englanders frequently refused to pay the taxes imposed by these acts

Wool Act of 1699

• Forbade both the export of wool from the American colonies and the importation of wool from other British colonies

• Some colonists protested this law by dealing only in flax and hemp

Molasses Act of 1733

• Imposed an exorbitant tax upon the importation of sugar from the French West Indies

• New Englanders frequently refused to pay the tax, an early example of rebellion against the Crown.

Colonial Governments

• Despite trade regulations, colonists maintained a high degree of autonomy

• Each colony had a governor appointed by the king or proprietor

• Governor had powers similar to the king, but also dependent on colonial legislatures for money

• Governor's power relied on cooperation of colonists, most ruled accordingly

Legislatures:

• Except for Pennsylvania, all colonies had bicameral legislatures modeled after British Parliament

• Lower house functioned similar to House of Representatives, members directly elected by white, male property holders and had "power of the purse"

• Upper house made of appointees serving as advisors to governor, had some legislative and judicial powers

• Most upper house members chosen from local population and concerned with protecting interests of colonial landowners

British Central Government:

• British never established powerful central government in colonies

• Autonomy allowed eased transition to independence in following century

Colonial Efforts Toward Centralization:

• Small efforts made by colonists towards centralized government

• New England Confederation most prominent attempt

• No real power, but offered advice to northeastern colonies when disputes arose

• Provided opportunity for colonists from different settlements to meet and discuss mutual problems

2.2 The Regions of the British Colonies

Development of the Colonies

• Colonies "grew up," developing fledgling economies.

• Beginnings of an American culture, as opposed to a transplanted English culture, took root.

Puritan Immigration

• Near halt between 1649 and 1660 during Oliver Cromwell's rule as Lord Protector of England

• Puritans had little motive to move to New World during Interregnum (between kings)

• With the restoration of the Stuarts, many English Puritans again immigrated to the New World, bringing with them republican ideals of revolution

Differences between New England and Chesapeake

• Entire families tended to immigrate to New England, but Chesapeake immigrants were often single males

• Climate in New England was more hospitable, leading to longer life expectancy and larger families

• Stronger sense of community and absence of tobacco as cash crop led New Englanders to settle in larger towns

• Chesapeake residents lived in smaller, more spread-out farming communities

• New Englanders were more religious, settling near meetinghouses

• Slavery was rare in New England, but farms in middle and southern colonies were much larger, requiring large numbers of enslaved Africans

• South Carolina had a larger proportion of enslaved Africans than European settlers

Other Early Colonies

Proprietorships

• Several colonies were owned by one person, usually received land as gift from king

• Connecticut and Maryland were two such colonies

Connecticut

• Received charter in 1635

• Produced Fundamental Orders, considered first written constitution in British North America

Maryland

• Granted to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore

• Calvert intended to create haven colony for Catholics and make a profit growing tobacco

• Offered religious tolerance for all Christians but tension between faiths soon arose

• Act of Tolerance passed in 1649 to protect religious freedom but situation devolved into religious civil war

New York

• Royal gift to James, king's brother

• Dutch Republic was largest commercial power of the century and economic rival of the British

• Dutch had established initial settlement in 1614 near present-day Albany, which they called New Netherland

• In 1664, Charles II of England waged war against the Dutch Republic and captured New Netherland

• James became Duke of York, and when he became king in 1685, he proclaimed New York a royal colony

• Dutch were allowed to remain in colony on generous terms and made up large segment of population for many years

New Jersey

• Given to friends of Charles II, who sold it off to investors, many of whom were Quakers

Pennsylvania

• William Penn, a Quaker, received colony as a gift from King Charles II

• Charles had a friendship with William Penn and wanted to export Quakers to someplace far from England

• Penn established liberal policies towards religious freedom and civil liberties

• Pennsylvania had natural bounty and attracted settlers through advertising, making it one of the fastest growing colonies

• Penn attempted to treat Native Americans more fairly but had mixed results

• Penn made a treaty with the Delawares to take only as much land as could be walked by a man in three days. His son, however, renegotiated the treaty, hiring three marathon runners for the same task, thereby claiming considerably more land.

Carolina Colony

• Proprietary colony (English-owned)

• Split into North and South in 1729

North Carolina

• Settled by Virginians

South Carolina

• Settled by descendants of Englishmen who had colonized Barbados

• Barbados’ primary export: sugar

• Plantations worked by enslaved people

Slavery in the Colonies

• Existed in Virginia since 1619

• Arrival of settlers from Barbados marked the beginning of the slave era in the colonies

• First Englishmen in the New World to see widespread slavery at work

Formation of Georgia

• Formation of South Carolina and ongoing armed conflicts with Spanish Florida prompted British to support formation of Georgia by James Oglethorpe in 1732

• Georgia initially banned slavery

Slavery in Georgia

• Ban was soon overturned due to economic advantage and growth afforded to neighboring South Carolina due to slavery

Proprietary Colonies

• Most of the proprietary colonies were converted to royal colonies (owned by the king)

• Greater control over government

Royal Colonies

• By the time of the Revolution, only Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were not royal colonies.

2.3 Diversity in the Colonies

Population Growth in the Colonies

• Population in 1700 was 250,000 and by 1750 it was 1,250,000

• Substantial non-English European populations (Scotch-Irish, Scots, Germans) started arriving in large numbers during the 18th century

• English settlers continued to come to the New World as well

• Black population in 1750 was more than 200,000

• In a few colonies, Black population would outnumber whites by the time of the Revolution

• Over 90% of colonists lived in rural areas

Rural Life in the Colonies

• Labor divided along gender lines, men doing outdoor work and women doing indoor work

• Opportunities for social interaction outside the family were limited

• Patriarchy society, children and women were subordinate to men

• Children's education was secondary to their work schedules

• Women were not allowed to vote, draft a will, or testify in court

Black People in the Colonies

• Predominantly lived in the countryside and in the South

• Lives varied from region to region, with conditions being most difficult in the South

• Enslaved people who worked on large plantations and had specialized skills fared better than field hands

• Condition of servitude was demeaning

• Enslaved people often developed extended kinship ties and strong communal bonds to cope with the misery of servitude

• In the North, Black people often had trouble maintaining a sense of community and history.

Conditions in the Cities

• Often worse than in the countryside

• Immigrants settled in cities for work, but work paid too little and poverty was widespread

• Sanitary conditions were primitive, epidemics such as smallpox were common

• Cities offered residents wider contact with other people and the outside world

• Centers for progress and education

Education in the Colonies

• Citizens with anything above a rudimentary level of education were rare

• Nearly all colleges established during this period served primarily to train ministers

• Early colleges in the North include Harvard and Yale (established in 1636 and 1701, respectively)

• College of William and Mary was chartered in the South in 1693

Regional Differences in the Colonies

• New England society centered on trade, Boston was the colonies' major port city

• Population farmed for subsistence, subscribed to rigid Puritanism

• Middle colonies (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey) had more fertile land and focused primarily on farming

• Lower South (the Carolinas) concentrated on cash crops such as tobacco and rice

• Slavery played a major role on plantations, but majority of Southerners were subsistence farmers

• Blacks constituted up to half the population of some southern colonies

• Chesapeake colonies (Maryland and Virginia) combined features of the middle colonies and the lower South

• Slavery and tobacco played a larger role in the Chesapeake than in the middle colonies

• Chesapeake residents also farmed grain and diversified their economies

• Development of major cities in the Chesapeake region distinguished it from the lower South, which was almost entirely rural.

2.4 Major Events in the Period

Bacon's Rebellion:

• Took place on Virginia's western frontier in 1676

• Frontier farmers forced west into back country due to all coastal land being claimed

• Encroaching on land inhabited by Native Americans led to raids on frontier farmers

• Frontier settlers sought to band together and drive out native tribes

• Stymied by government in Jamestown, which did not want to risk full-scale war

• Class resentment grew as frontiersmen suspected eastern elites viewed them as expendable "human shields"

• Nathaniel Bacon, a recent immigrant, rallied the farmers and demanded Governor William Berkeley grant him authority to raise a militia and attack nearby tribes

• When Berkeley refused, Bacon and his men attacked the Susquehannock and Pamunkeys, who were actually allies of the English

• Rebels then turned their attention to Jamestown, sacking and burning the city

• Rebellion dissolved when Bacon died of dysentery, conflict between colonists and Native Americans averted with new treaty

• Often cited as early example of populist uprising in America

Stono Uprising:

• First and one of the most successful slave rebellions

• Took place in September 1739 near Stono River, outside of Charleston, South Carolina

• Approximately 20 enslaved people stole guns and ammunition, killed storekeepers and planters, and liberated a number of enslaved people

• Rebels fled to Florida, where they hoped the Spanish colonists would grant them their freedom

• Colonial militia caught up with them and attacked, killing some and capturing most of the others

• Those who were captured and returned were later executed

• As a result of the Stono Uprising, many colonies passed more restrictive laws to govern the behavior of enslaved people

• Fear of slave rebellions increased, and New York experienced a "witch hunt" period

Salem Witch Trials:

• Took place in 1692, not the first witch trials in New England

• During the first 70 years of English settlement in the region, 103 people (almost all women) had been tried on charges of witchcraft

• Never before had so many been accused at once, more than 130 "witches" were jailed or executed in Salem

• Historians have different explanations for why the mass hysteria started and ended so quickly

• Region had recently endured the autocratic control of the Dominion of New England

• In 1691, Massachusetts became a royal colony under new monarchs, suffrage was extended to all Protestants

• War against French and Native Americans on the Canadian border increased regional anxieties

Puritanism in America

• Feared that their religion was being undermined by commercialism in cities like Boston

• Many second and third generation Puritans lacked the fervor of the original settlers

• Led to the Halfway Covenant in 1662 which changed rules for Puritan baptisms

  • Prior to the Halfway Covenant, a Puritan had to experience God's grace for their children to be baptized

  • With many losing interest in the church, the Puritan clergy decided to baptize all children whose parents were baptized

  • However, those who had not experienced God's grace were not allowed to vote

• All of these factors (religious, economic, and gender) combined to create mass hysteria in Salem in 1692

  • Accusers were mostly teenage girls who accused prominent citizens of consorting with the Devil

  • Town leaders turned against the accusers and the hysteria ended

• Generations that followed original settlers were generally less religious

• By 1700, women constituted the majority of active church members

• First Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s

  • Wave of religious revivalism in the colonies and Europe

  • Led by Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards and Methodist preacher George Whitefield

  • Edwards preached severe, predeterministic doctrines of Calvinism

  • Whitefield preached a Christianity based on emotionalism and spirituality

  • Often described as a response to the Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement emphasizing rationalism over emotionalism or spirituality.

Benjamin Franklin

• Self-made, self-educated man who typified Enlightenment ideals in America

• Printer's apprentice who became a wealthy printer and respected intellectual

• Created Poor Richard's Almanack which remains influential to this day

• Did pioneering work in electricity, inventing bifocals, the lightning rod, and the Franklin stove

• Founded the colonies' first fire department, post office, and public library

• Espoused Enlightenment ideals about education, government, and religion

• Colonists' favorite son until George Washington came along

• Served as an ambassador in Europe and negotiated a crucial alliance with the French and peace treaty that ended the Revolutionary War.

Period 3: 1754-1800

3.1 The Seven Years’ War (1754–1763)

The Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)

• Also called the French and Indian War, it was actually one of several “wars for empire” fought between the British and the French.

• The war was the inevitable result of colonial expansion, where English settlers moved into the Ohio Valley, and the French tried to stop them by building fortified outposts.

• George Washington led a colonial contingent, which attacked a French outpost and lost.

• Washington surrendered and was allowed to return to Virginia, where he was welcomed as a hero.

• Most Native Americans in the region allied themselves with the French, who had traditionally had the best relations with Native Americans of any of the European powers.

• The war dragged on for years before the English finally gained the upper hand.

• When the war was over, England was the undisputed colonial power of the continent.

• The treaty gave England control of Canada and almost everything east of the Mississippi Valley.

• The French kept only a few small islands, underscoring the impact of mercantilism since the French prioritized two small but highly profitable islands over the large landmass of Canada.

The Seven Years' War: Consequences

• William Pitt, the English Prime Minister during the war, was supportive of the colonists and encouraged them to join the war effort.

• When the leadership in Britain changed after the war, that led to resentment by the colonists against the British rule.

• Native Americans had previously been able to use French and English disputes to their own advantage, but the English victory spelled trouble for them.

• The Native Americans particularly disliked the English, because English expansionism was more disruptive to their way of life.

• In the aftermath of the war, the English raised the price of goods sold to the Native Americans and ceased paying rent on their western forts.

• In response, Ottawa war chief Pontiac rallied a group of tribes in the Ohio Valley and attacked colonial outposts, which is known as Pontiac's Rebellion.

• In response to Pontiac's Rebellion, the Paxton Boys, a group of Scots-Irish frontiersmen in Pennsylvania murdered several in the Susquehannock tribe.

Albany Plan of Union

• Developed by Benjamin Franklin in 1754

• Proposed an intercolonial government and a system for collecting taxes for the colonies' defense

• Representatives from seven colonies met in Albany, New York to consider the plan

• Franklin also tried to negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois

• Plan was rejected by the colonies as they did not want to relinquish control of their right to tax themselves or unite under a single colonial legislature

• Franklin's frustration was well publicized in a political cartoon showing a snake broken into pieces with the words "Join or Die."

3.2 Taxation without Representation

British Laws and Policies

The Sugar Act, the Currency Act, and the Stamp Act

• Financing the war resulted in a huge debt for the British government

• King George III and Prime Minister George Grenville felt that colonists should help pay the debt

• Colonists believed they had fulfilled their obligation by providing soldiers

New Regulations and Taxes:

• Parliament imposed new regulations and taxes on colonists

• First was the Sugar Act of 1764, established new duties and provisions aimed at deterring molasses smugglers

• Prior to the decade leading up to the Revolutionary War, there was little colonial resistance to previous trade and manufacturing regulations

• The Sugar Act actually lowered the duty on molasses coming into the colonies from the West Indies

Colonial Response:

• Angry about the new regulations being more strictly enforced and the duties being collected

• Difficult for colonial shippers to avoid committing even minor violations of the Sugar Act

• Violators were to be arrested and tried in vice-admiralty courts without jury deliberation

• Suggested to some colonists that Parliament was overstepping its authority and violating their rights as Englishmen.

Colonial Discontent:

• Sugar Act, Currency Act, and Proclamation of 1763 caused a great deal of discontent in the colonies

• Colonists bristled at British attempts to exert greater control

• End of Britain's long-standing policy of salutary neglect

• Economic depression further exacerbated the situation

• Colonial protest was uncoordinated and ineffective

The Stamp Act:

• Passed in 1765 by Parliament

• Aimed at raising revenue specifically

• Awakened the colonists to the likelihood of more taxes to follow

• Demonstrated that colonies' tradition of self-taxation was being unjustly taken by Parliament

• Broad-based tax, covering all legal documents and licenses

• Affected almost everyone, particularly lawyers

• Tax on goods produced within the colonies

Reaction to the Stamp Act:

• Built on previous grievances and more forceful than any protest preceding it

• Pamphlet by James Otis, called The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, laid out the colonists’ argument against the taxes

• Otis put forward the “No taxation without representation” argument

• Argued for either representation in Parliament or a greater degree of self-government for the colonies

• British scoffed at the notion, arguing that colonists were already represented in Parliament through the theory of virtual representation

• Colonists knew that their representation would be too small to protect their interests

• Wanted the right to determine their own taxes.

Opposition to the Stamp Act:

• Opponents united in various colonies

• Virginia, Patrick Henry drafted the Virginia Stamp Act Resolves, asserting colonists’ right to self-government

• Boston, mobs burned customs officers in effigy, tore down a customs house, and nearly destroyed the governor’s mansion

• Protest groups formed throughout the colonies, called themselves Sons of Liberty

• Opposition was so effective that no duty collectors were willing to perform their job

Repeal of the Stamp Act:

• In 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act

• George III replaced Prime Minister Grenville with Lord Rockingham, who had opposed the Stamp Act

• Rockingham oversaw the repeal but also linked it to the passage of the Declaratory Act, which asserted British government's right to tax and legislate in all cases anywhere in the colonies

• Although the colonists had won the battle over the stamp tax, they had not yet gained any ground in the war of principles over Parliament's powers in the colonies

The Townshend Acts:

• Drafted by Charles Townshend, minister of the exchequer

• Taxed goods imported directly from Britain, the first such tax in the colonies

• Some of the tax collected was set aside for the payment of tax collectors, meaning that colonial assemblies could no longer withhold government officials’ wages in order to get their way

• Created even more vice-admiralty courts and several new government offices to enforce the Crown’s will in the colonies

• Suspended the New York legislature because it had refused to comply with a law requiring the colonists to supply British troops

• Instituted writs of assistance, licenses that gave the British the power to search any place they suspected of hiding smuggled goods

Colonial Response

• Stronger than previous protests

• Massachusetts Assembly sent letter (Massachusetts Circular Letter) to other assemblies asking that they protest the new measures in unison

• British fanned the flames of protest by ordering the assemblies not to discuss the Massachusetts letter

• Governors dissolved legislatures that discussed the letter, further infuriating colonists

• Colonists held numerous rallies and organized boycotts

• Sought support of “commoners” for the first time

• Boycotts were most successful because they affected British merchants, who then joined the protest

• Colonial women were essential in the effort to replace British imports with “American” (New England) products

• After two years, Parliament repealed the Townshend

The Quartering Act of 1765:

• Stationed large numbers of troops in America

• Made the colonists responsible for the cost of feeding and housing them

• Even after the Townshend duties were repealed, the soldiers remained, particularly in Boston

• Officially sent to keep the peace but heightened tensions

• Detachment was huge - 4,000 men in a city of only 16,000

• Soldiers sought off-hour employment and competed with colonists for jobs

The Boston Massacre:

• On March 5, 1770, a mob pelted a group of soldiers with rock-filled snowballs

• Soldiers fired on the crowd, killing five

• Propaganda campaign that followed suggested that the soldiers had shot into a crowd of innocent bystanders

• John Adams defended the soldiers in court, helping to establish a tradition of giving a fair trial to all who are accused

The Calm, and Then the Storm

• Boston Massacre shocks both sides into de-escalating rhetoric

• Uneasy status quo falls into place for next two years

• Colonial newspapers discuss ways to alter relationship between mother country and colonies

• Very few radicals suggest independence

• Things pick up in 1772 when British implement Townshend Acts (colonial administrators paid from customs revenues)

• Colonists respond cautiously, setting up Committees of Correspondence to trade ideas and inform one another of political mood

• Mercy Otis Warren and other writers call for revolution

• John Dickinson's "Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania" unites colonists against Townshend Acts

• British grant East India Tea Company monopoly on tea trade in colonies, colonists see new taxes imposed

• Boston Tea Party results in British response with Coercive/Intolerable Acts (closes Boston Harbor, tightens control over Massachusetts government, Quartering Act)

• Quebec Act (grants greater liberties to Catholics, extends boundaries of Quebec Territory) further impeding westward expansion, causing further dissatisfaction among colonists.

3.3 Congress

The First Continental Congress

• Convened in late 1774

• All colonies except Georgia sent delegates

• Represented diverse perspectives

• Goal: enumerate American grievances, develop strategy for addressing grievances, formulate colonial position on relationship between royal government and colonial governments

• Came up with list of laws colonists wanted repealed

• Agreed to impose boycott on British goods until grievances were redressed

• Formed Continental Association with towns setting up committees of observation to enforce boycott

• These committees became de facto governments

• Formulated limited set of parameters for acceptable Parliamentary interference in colonial affairs

Winter of 1774 and Spring of 1775

• Committees of observation expanded powers

• Replaced British-sanctioned assemblies in many colonies

• Led acts of insubordination (collecting taxes, disrupting court sessions, organizing militias and stockpiling weapons)

• John Adams later commented "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people"

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World

• The British Underestimated the Pro-Revolutionary Movement

• Government officials believed if they arrested ringleaders and confiscated weapons, violence could be averted

• Dispatched troops to confiscate weapons in Concord, Massachusetts in April 1775

• Troops had to pass through Lexington, where they confronted a small colonial militia (minutemen)

• Someone fired a shot, which drew British return fire

• Minutemen suffered 18 casualties (8 dead)

• British proceeded to Concord where they faced a larger militia

• Militia inflicted numerous casualties and forced British to retreat

• Battle of Concord referred to as "the shot heard 'round the world"

3.4 The Pre-Revolutionary War Era

• Colonists used time to rally citizens to the cause of independence

• Not all were convinced, Loyalists included government officials, devout Anglicans, merchants dependent on trade with England, religious and ethnic minorities who feared persecution by the rebels

• Many enslaved people believed their chances for liberty were better with the British than with the colonists

• Increase in slave insurrections dampened some Southerners' enthusiasm for revolution

• Patriots were mostly white Protestant property holders and gentry, as well as urban artisans, especially in New England

• Much of the rest of the population hoped the whole thing would blow over

• Quakers of Pennsylvania were pacifists and wanted to avoid war.

The Second Continental Congress

• Prepared for war by establishing a Continental Army, printing money, and creating government offices to supervise policy

• Chose George Washington to lead the army because he was well-liked and a Southerner

• John Dickinson and the Olive Branch Petition

• Many delegates followed John Dickinson who was pushing for reconciliation with Britain using the Olive Branch Petition

• Adopted by the Continental Congress on July 5, 1775

• Last-ditch attempt to avoid armed conflict

• King George III was not interested since he considered the colonists to be in open rebellion

• One year before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the colonial leaders were trying to reconcile with the mother country.

The Declaration of Independence

• Published in January 1776 by Thomas Paine, an English printer

• Advocated for colonial independence and republicanism over monarchy

• Sold more than 100,000 copies in its first three months

• Accessible to colonists who couldn't always understand the Enlightenment-speak of the Founding Fathers

• Helped swing support to the patriot cause among people who were unsure about attacking the mother country

Success of Common Sense

• Bigger success than James Otis's The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved

• Literacy rates in New England were higher due to the Puritan legacy of teaching children to read the Bible

• Nevertheless, Paine's pamphlet reached a wider audience, including those who couldn't read

• Proportional equivalent of selling 13 million downloads today

Role of Propaganda

• Rebels were looking for a masterpiece of propaganda to rally colonists to their cause

• Common Sense served as this masterpiece and helped swing support to the patriot cause.

Declaration of Independence

• Commissioned by the Congress in June 1776

• Written by Thomas Jefferson

• Enumerated the colonies' grievances against the Crown

• Articulated the principle of individual liberty and government's responsibility to serve the people

• Despite its flaws, it remains a powerful document

• Signed on July 4, 1776

The Significance of Declaration of Independence

• The Revolutionary War became a war for independence with the signing of the Declaration

• The Declaration not only set out the colonies' complaints against the British government but also laid out the philosophical underpinnings of the revolution, most notably the assertion that all men are created equal and have certain inalienable rights

• The Declaration has been considered as a seminal document in American history, and has been a source of inspiration for movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

The Battle of Yorktown

• Occurred on October 17, 1781

• Symbolic end to the American Revolution

• Major British general, Cornwallis, was surrounded by the French navy and George Washington’s troops, and surrendered

• Began a long period of negotiations between the American colonies and Great Britain, which would finally end the war in October of 1783

Other Facts about the War

• Continental Army had trouble recruiting good soldiers

• Congress eventually recruited Black people, and up to 5,000 fought on the side of the rebels

• Franco-American Alliance, negotiated by Ben Franklin in 1778, brought the French into the war on the side of the colonists

• Treaty of Paris, signed at the end of 1783, granted the United States independence and generous territorial rights

3.5 The Articles of Confederation

Articles of Confederation

• Sent to the colonies for ratification in 1777 by the Continental Congress

• The first national constitution of the United States

• Intentionally created little to no central government due to fear of creating a tyrannical government

Limitations of the Articles of Confederation

• Gave the federal government no power to raise an army

• Could not enforce state or individual taxation, or a military draft

• Could not regulate trade among the states or international trade

• Had no executive or judicial branch

• Legislative branch gave each state one vote, regardless of the state's population

• In order to pass a law, 9 of the 13 of the states had to agree

• In order to amend or change the Articles, unanimous approval was needed

Impact of the Limitations

• These limitations hurt the colonies during Shays's Rebellion.

• Eventually, the limitations of the Articles of Confederation led to the drafting of the Constitution of the United States.

3.6 A New Constitution

By 1787,

• The federal government lacked sufficient authority under the Articles of Confederation.

• Alexander Hamilton was concerned about no uniform commercial policy and fear for the survival of the new republic.

Annapolis Convention

• Hamilton convened the meeting -Only five delegates showed up

Constitutional Convention

• Congress consented to a "meeting in Philadelphia" for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.

• Delegates from all states except Rhode Island attended the meeting.

• Meeting took place during the long, hot summer of 1787.

Delegates:

• 55 delegates

• All men

• All white

• Many wealthy lawyers or landowners

• Many owned enslaved people

• Came from different ideological backgrounds

New Jersey Plan:

• Called for modifications to Articles of Confederation

• Called for equal representation from each state

Virginia Plan:

• Proposed by James Madison

• Called for new government based on principle of checks and balances

• Number of representatives for each state based on population

Three-tiered federal government:

• Executive branch led by president

• Legislative branch composed of bicameral Congress

• Judicial branch composed of Supreme Court

Legislative Branch:

Expanded powers:

• Enforce federal taxation

• Regulate trade between states

• Regulate international trade

• Coin and borrow money

• Create postal service

• Authorize military draft

• Declare war

Presidential Election:

• Indirectly chosen by Electoral College

• College composed of political leaders representing popular vote of each state

• To win state's electoral votes, candidate must win majority of popular vote in that state

• State's electoral count is sum of senators and representatives (determined by population)

• Gives states with larger populations more power in presidential elections

Convention:

• Lasted 4 months

• Delegates hammered out compromises

• Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise) blended NJ and VA plans for bicameral legislature

Constitution established:

• House of Representatives elected by people

• Senate elected by state legislatures

• President and VP elected by Electoral College

• Three branches of government: executive, legislative, judicial

• Power of checks and balances

Three-Fifths Compromise:

• Method for counting enslaved people in southern states for "proportional" representation in Congress

• Enslaved people counted as 3/5 of a person

Signing of the Constitution:

• Only three of 42 remaining delegates refused to sign

• Two refused because it did not include a bill of rights.

Ratification of Constitution:

• Not guaranteed

• Opponents (Anti-Federalists) portrayed federal government as all-powerful beast

• Anti-Federalists came from backcountry and were particularly appalled by absence of bill of rights

• Position resonated in state legislatures where fate of Constitution lay

• Some held out for promise of immediate addition of Bill of Rights upon ratification

Federalist Position:

• Forcefully and persuasively argued in Federalist Papers

• Papers anonymously authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay

• Published in New York newspaper and later widely circulated

• Critical in swaying opinion in New York, a large and important state

• Other important states of the era: Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts

Constitution:

• Went into effect in 1789

• Bill of Rights added in 1791

3.7 The Washington Presidency

George Washington as First President:

• Unanimously chosen by Electoral College

• Not sought presidency, but most popular figure in colonies

• Accepted role out of sense of obligation

Washington's Presidency:

• Exercised authority with care and restraint

• Used veto only if convinced bill was unconstitutional

• Comfortable delegating responsibility, created government of best minds of his time

• Created a cabinet (not specifically granted in Constitution but every president since has had one)

• Cabinet is made up of heads of executive departments, functions as president's chief group of advisors

Cabinet Selections:

• Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state

• Alexander Hamilton as secretary of the treasury

• Disagreed on proper relationship between federal and state government

• Hamilton favored strong central government, weaker state governments

• Jefferson feared monarchy/tyranny, favored weaker federal government with main powers of defense and international commerce

National Bank Debate:

• Hamilton proposed National Bank to help regulate and strengthen economy

• Both houses of Congress approved but Washington uncertain of constitutionality

• Debate established two main schools of thought on constitutional law

• Strict constructionists (led by Jefferson and Madison) argued bank not necessary and thus beyond national government's powers

• Hamilton (broad constructionist) argued bank implied power of government and not explicitly forbidden by Constitution

• Washington agreed with Hamilton and signed bill

Hamilton's Treasury:

• Busy and successful tenure

• Handled national debt accrued during war

• Financial plan called for federal government to assume states' debts, repay by giving debt holders land on western frontier

• Plan favored northern banks and drew accusations of helping monied elite at expense of working classes

• Struck political deal to get most of plan implemented, concession was southern location for nation's capital

• Capital moved to Washington D.C. in 1800

French Revolution and Washington Administration:

• Took place during Washington's presidency

• Caused considerable debate between Jefferson and Hamilton

• Jefferson supported revolution and republican ideals

• Hamilton had aristocratic leanings, disliked revolutionaries

• Issue came to forefront when France and England resumed hostilities

U.S. Neutrality:

• British were primary trading partner after war, nudged U.S. toward neutrality in French-English conflict

• Jefferson agreed on neutrality as correct course to follow

• Washington declared U.S. intention to remain "friendly and impartial" (Neutrality Proclamation)

• Genêt's visit sparked rallies by American supporters of the revolution

3.8 Origins of Two-Party System:

Differences between Hamilton and Jefferson

• Federalists (favoring strong federal government)

• Republicans/Democratic-Republicans (followers of Jefferson)

• Development of political parties troubled framers of the Constitution, seen as factions dangerous to survival of Republic

Note:

• Federalists who supported ratification of the Constitution are often the same people as Federalists who favored strong federal government.

• Republican party created in 1850s is a very different group which still survives today.

Hamilton's Financial Program and Whiskey Rebellion:

• Implemented excise tax on whiskey to raise revenue

• Farmers in western Pennsylvania resisted, instigating Whiskey Rebellion

• Washington dispatched militia to disperse rebels, demonstrated new government's power to respond

• Rebellion highlighted class tensions between inland farmers and coastal elites

Jay's Treaty:

• Negotiated by John Jay to address British evacuation of NW and free trade violations

• Prevented war with Great Britain, but considered too many concessions towards British

• Congress attempted to withhold funding to enforce treaty

• Washington refused to submit documents, establishing precedent of executive privilege

• Considered low point of Washington's administration

Pinckney's Treaty:

• Negotiated by Thomas Pinckney with Spain, addressing use of Mississippi River, duty-free access to markets, and removal of Spanish forts on American soil

• Spain promised to try to prevent Native American attacks on Western settlers

• Ratified by U.S. Senate in 1796, considered high point of Washington's administration

Washington's Farewell Address:

• Declined to run for third term, set final precedent

• Composed in part by Alexander Hamilton

• Warned future presidents against "permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world"

• Promoted notion of friendly relationships with all nations, but avoiding permanent alliances

• Warning remained prominent part of American foreign policy through mid-20th century

3.9 Republican Motherhood

General

• During the 1790s, women’s roles in courtship, marriage, and motherhood were reevaluated in light of the new republic and its ideals

• Women were largely excluded from political activity but had an important civil role and responsibility

• Women were to be the teachers and producers of virtuous male citizens

Private Virtue

• Public virtue had been a strictly masculine quality in the past, private virtue emerged as a very important quality for women

• Women were given the task of inspiring and teaching men to be good citizens through romance and motherhood

• Women were to entertain only suitors with good morals, providing more incentive for men to be more ethical

Motherhood

• Women held a tremendous influence on their son

• Advocates for female education spoke out, arguing that educated women would be better mothers, who would produce better citizens

• Even though the obligations of women had grown to include this new political meaning, traditional gender roles were largely unchanged as the education of women was meant only in service to husbands and family

Republican Motherhood

• The idea of Republican Motherhood emerged in the early 1800s

• The role of the mother became more prominent in child-rearing

• Mothers were now expected to raise educated children who would contribute positively to the United States.

3.10 The Adams Presidency

General

• The Electoral College selected John Adams, a Federalist, as Washington’s successor

• Under the then-current rules, the second-place candidate became vice president, so Adams’s vice president was the Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson

Washington Era

• Following the Washington Era, Adams’s presidency was bound to be an anticlimax

• Adams, argumentative and elitist, was a difficult man to like

• He was also a hands-off administrator, often allowing Jefferson’s political rival Alexander Hamilton to take charge

• The animosity between Jefferson and Hamilton and the growing belligerence between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans set the ugly, divisive tone for Adams’s term

France

• Perhaps Adams’s greatest achievement was avoiding all-out war with France

• After the United States signed the Jay Treaty with Britain, France began seizing American ships on the open seas

• Adams sent three diplomats to Paris, where French officials demanded a huge bribe before they would allow negotiations even to begin

• The diplomats returned home, and Adams published their written report in the newspapers

• Because he deleted the French officials’ names and replaced them with the letters X, Y, and Z, the incident became known as the XYZ Affair

• As a result, popular sentiment did a complete turnaround; formerly pro-French, the public became vehemently anti-French to the point that a declaration of war seemed possible

• Aware of how small the American military was, Adams avoided the war (a war Hamilton wanted) and negotiated a settlement with a contrite France although he was not able to avoid the Naval skirmishes called the Quasi-War

Alien and Sedition Acts

• The low point of Adams’s tenure was the passage and enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts

• The acts allowed the government to forcibly expel foreigners and to jail newspaper editors for “scandalous and malicious writing”

• The acts were purely political, aimed at destroying new immigrants’—especially French immigrants’—support for the Democratic-Republicans

• Worst of all, the Sedition Act, which strictly regulated antigovernment speech, was a clear violation of the First Amendment

Opposition to Alien and Sedition Acts

• Vice President Jefferson led the opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts

• Together with Madison, he drafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (which were technically anonymous)

• The resolutions argued that the states had the right to judge the constitutionality of federal laws

• The resolutions went on to exercise this authority they claimed, later referred to as nullification, by declaring the Alien and Sedition Acts void

• Virginia and Kentucky, however, never prevented enforcement of the laws

• Rather, Jefferson used the laws and the resolutions as key issues in his 1800 campaign for the presidency

• Even today, states often pass resolutions similar to these to express their displeasure with the federal government.

Period 4: 1800-1848

4.1 The “Revolution of 1800”

General

• By 1800, the Federalist Party was split, clearing the way to the presidency for the Democratic-Republicans

• Two men ran for the party nomination: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr

Election Results

• Each received an equal number of votes in the Electoral College, which meant that the Federalist-dominated House of Representatives was required to choose a president from between the two

• It took 35 ballots, but Jefferson finally won

• Alexander Hamilton swallowed hard and campaigned for Jefferson, with whom he disagreed on most issues and whom he personally disliked, because he believed Burr to be “a most unfit and dangerous man.”

• Burr later proved Hamilton right by killing him.

Noteworthy Reasons

• The election was noteworthy for two reasons

• For the second time in as many elections, a president was saddled with a vice president he did not want.

• The other, more important reason the election was significant is that in America’s first transfer of power—from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans—no violence occurred, a feat practically unprecedented for the time.

Change-over

• Jefferson referred to his victory and the subsequent change-over as “the bloodless revolution.”

• The problem of the president being saddled with a vice president he did not want was remedied in 1804 with the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed electors to vote for a party ticket.

The Jeffersonian Republic (1800– 1823)

Jefferson’s First Term

General

• The transition of power from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans may have been a bloodless one, but it was not a friendly one

• Adams was so upset about the election that he left the capital before Jefferson took office in order to avoid attending the inauguration ceremony

Midnight Appointments

• Before he left town, Adams made a number of midnight appointments, filling as many government positions with Federalists as he could

• Jefferson’s response was to refuse to recognize those appointments

• He then set about replacing as many Federalist appointees as he could. He dismissed some, pressured others to retire, and waited out the rest

• By his second term, the majority of public appointees were Democratic-Republicans

Marbury v. Madison

• Jefferson’s refusal to accept Adams’s midnight appointments resulted in a number of lawsuits against the government

• One, the case of Marbury v. Madison reached the Supreme Court in 1803

• William Marbury, one of Adams’s last-minute appointees, had sued Secretary of State James Madison for refusing to certify his appointment to the federal bench

• Chief Justice John Marshall was a Federalist, and his sympathies were with Marbury, but Marshall was not certain that the court could force Jefferson to accept Marbury’s appointment

• Marshall’s decision in the case established one of the most important principles of the Supreme Court: judicial review

• The court ruled that Marbury did indeed have a right to his judgeship but that the court could not enforce his right.

Judicial Review

• The Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Supreme Court the authority to order federal appointees (such as Madison) to deliver appointments such as William Marbury’s

• Marshall believed that this act gave too much power to the Judicial Branch at the expense of Congress and the Presidency, and thus it was unconstitutional

• In one fell swoop, Marshall had handed Jefferson the victory he wanted while simultaneously claiming a major role for the Supreme Court

Louisiana Purchase

• The major accomplishment of Jefferson’s first term was the Louisiana Purchase

• When Spain gave New Orleans to the French in 1802, the government realized that a potentially troublesome situation was developing

• The French, they knew, were more likely to take advantage of New Orleans’ strategic location at the mouth of the Mississippi

General

• Thomas Jefferson faced with a dilemma with regards to the Constitution and the power of the federal government

• as secretary of state under Washington, he had argued for a strict interpretation of the Constitution

Dilemma

• Nowhere did the Constitution authorize the president to purchase land, yet clearly Jefferson could not pass up this opportunity to double the size of the United States

• Jefferson thought about trying to get a constitutional amendment added allowing him to buy land from other countries

• Ultimately, Jefferson resolved the issue by claiming his presidential power to negotiate treaties with foreign nations

Louisiana Purchase

• His decision to purchase Louisiana without Congressional approval was not unanimously applauded

• New England Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase because they feared (correctly) that more western states would be more Democratic states, and that they would lose political power.

• They formed a group called the Essex Junto, planning to secede from the United States (and asked Aaron Burr to be their leader), but the plan never fully materialized

• Some Republicans, led by John Randolph of Virginia, criticized Jefferson for violating Republican principles. This group became known as the Quids

Lewis and Clark Expedition

• Jefferson sent explorers, among them Lewis and Clark, to investigate the western territories, including much of what was included in the Louisiana territory

• This trip included Sacajawea as the Shoshoni guide who helped Lewis and Clark negotiate with other Native American tribes on the way up the Missouri River

• All returned with favorable reports, causing many pioneers to turn their attentions westward in search of land, riches, and economic opportunities

• Those early explorers also reported back to Jefferson on the presence of British and French forts that still dotted the territory, garrisoned with foreign troops that had been (deliberately?) slow to withdraw after the regime changes of the previous half-century

Election of 1804

• In 1804, Jefferson won reelection in a landslide victory

• During the 1804 elections, Aaron Burr ran for governor of New York

• Again, Alexander Hamilton campaigned against Burr

• When Burr lost, he accused Hamilton of sabotaging his political career and challenged him to a duel in which he killed Hamilton

• Afterward, Burr fled to the Southwest, where he plotted to start his own nation in parts of the Louisiana Territory. He was later captured and tried for treason but was acquitted due to lack of evidence

Jefferson’s Second Term

• French-English dispute leads to War of 1812

• British and French blockading trade routes

• American ships and sailors impressed by British

• Tensions mount, culminating in British frigate attack on American ship in American waters

• Jefferson unable to go to war, responds with boycott and increasing military appropriations

Embargo Act of 1807

• Shut down of American import and export business

• Disastrous economic results, especially in New England

• Smuggling becomes widespread

• New England states strongly opposed

• Led to loss of Democratic Republican Congressional seats in 1808 elections

Non-Intercourse Act of 1809

• Reopened trade with most nations

• Officially banned trade with Britain and France

• Jefferson chooses not to seek third term, endorses James Madison for presidency

4.2 Madison’s Presidency and the War of 1812

Macon's Bill No. 2

• Reopened trade with both France and England

• If either country interfered with American trade, the other would be cut off

• Napoleon promised to stop interference, leading to embargo on England

• France continued to harass American ships

• British stepped up attacks on American ships

Pro-War Sentiments

• Southern and Western War Hawks saw opportunity to gain new territories

• Strong desire to gain Canada from British

• Led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun

Madison and the Declaration of War

• Madison held out as long as he could

• Finally asked Congress to declare war in 1812.

War of 1812

• Native Americans aligned with British

• Tecumseh unified area tribes to stop American expansion

• British armed Native Americans in Western territories

• American forces ill-prepared for war, fighting went badly

• British captured Washington, D.C. and set White House on fire

• Most battles fought to a stalemate

• Treaty of Ghent signed, ending war

• Battle of New Orleans, clear-cut U.S. victory

• Federalists opposed war and met in Hartford Convention

• War spurred American manufacturing, led to self-sufficiency

The Hartford Convention

• Grievances including trade laws and presidential term limits

• Federalists considered traitors, party dissolved

Madison Administration

• Promoted national growth

• Cautious extension of federal power

• Championed protective tariffs, interstate road improvements, and rechartering of National Bank (American System/Nationalist Program)

• Henry Clay lobbied aggressively for American System, often referred to as "Henry Clay's American System"

Monroe’s Presidency

Era of Good Feelings

• Only one political party, briefly leaves United States with unity

• Chief Justice John Marshall's rulings strengthens federal government

• Panic of 1819 causes economic turmoil and nearly ends good feelings

• No nationally organized political opposition results from panic

Westward Expansion

• John Quincy Adams negotiated treaties to fix U.S. borders and open new territories

• Acquisition of Florida from Spanish through Adams-Onis Treaty in 1819

• International tensions caused by revolutions in Central and South America

• Monroe Doctrine: Policy of mutual non-interference and America's right to intervene in its own hemisphere

• Monroe Doctrine is first of several doctrines that will become foreign policy

Slavery Debate

• New period of expansion results in national debate over slavery

• Missouri is the first state carved out of Louisiana Purchase and slavery debate continues until Civil War.

4.3 Political Events and Social Developments

The Election of 1824 and John Quincy Adams’s Presidency

Election of 1824

• Prior to 1824, electors chosen by state legislatures or congressional caucuses

• By 1824, majority of states allowed voters to choose presidential electors directly

• Democratic-Republican caucus chose William H. Crawford, leading to opposition and demise of caucus system

• Andrew Jackson received the greatest number of popular votes and electoral votes but no one had a majority

• Election decided in the House of Representatives, with Speaker of the House Clay supporting Adams

Corrupt Bargain

• Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State, leading to allegations of a corrupt bargain between the two

• Adams and Clay both vowed to be removed in the election of 1828

• William Crawford suffered a stroke after the initial election and was not a real contender for the House vote

Constitution

• In cases where there is no majority winner in the Electoral College, the three top electoral winners go on to House election

The Jackson Presidency and Jacksonian Democracy

• Andrew Jackson's era as president is an important period in American history

• Jackson's campaign for presidency in 1824 was vicious, with surrogates accusing opponents of corruption and misconduct

• The campaign eventually led to the formation of the present-day Democratic Party

• In 1828, Jackson won the election by a large margin and became the first president who wasn't born in Virginia or named Adams

• Jackson was seen as the epitome of a self-made man and had the interests of the West in mind

• Among his first acts as president, Jackson dismissed numerous government officials and replaced them with political supporters

• This led to criticism of cronyism and the rise of the spoils system, in which jobs were traded for political favors

• Jackson's popularity ushered in the age of Jacksonian democracy, which replaced Jeffersonian republicanism

• Jacksonian democracy characterized by universal white manhood suffrage and a strong presidency

• Jackson used his popularity to challenge Congress and the Supreme Court in a way that none of his predecessors had

• However, Jacksonian democracy is not a coherent vision of how a government should function and Jackson was not as great a thinker as Jefferson.

• Jackson's treatment of the Cherokees with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 is one of the most criticized policies by modern scholars.

• The concept of treating Native Americans as "foreign nations" was established by the British, and the US government continued this policy after gaining independence.

• Some Americans, such as Thomas Jefferson, believed that assimilation into American culture could be a solution to the "Indian Problem."

• By the time of Jackson's presidency, there were "Five Civilized Tribes" living in the South, including the Cherokee nation. They had developed a written language, converted to Christianity, and embraced agriculture.

• The problem arose when gold was discovered on Cherokee land and citizens of Georgia demanded that the Cherokees comply with the Indian Removal Act, which demanded that they resettle in Oklahoma.

• Jackson argued that moving away from white society was the best way to protect themselves from white encroachment and maintain their traditional customs.

• The Cherokees refused and brought their case to the Supreme Court, which sided with them in two cases. However, Jackson refused to comply with the Court's decision and thousands of Cherokees were forced to walk to Oklahoma in what is known as the Trail of Tears. Thousands died of sickness and starvation along the way.

• Another issue during Jackson's presidency was the doctrine of nullification, where states believed they had the right to disobey federal laws if they found them unconstitutional.

• The Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations, was passed during the Adams administration but almost turned into a national crisis during Jackson's administration.

• In 1828, John C. Calhoun, Jackson's vice president, anonymously published "The South Carolina Exposition and Protest" arguing that states who felt the 50 percent tariff was unfairly high could nullify the law.

Economic Policies

• Distrust of big government and northeastern power brokers

• Downsizing the federal government and strengthening the presidency through the use of veto

• Opposed reform movements that called for increased government activism

• Vetoed the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States (BUS) and withdrew federal funds to deposit in state "pet" banks

• Believed the BUS protected northeastern interests at the expense of the West

• Argued that the bank was an unconstitutional monopoly, but the Supreme Court ruled against him

• Preferred "hard currency" such as gold or silver

• Specie Circular, which ended the policy of selling government land on credit, caused a money shortage and a sharp decrease in the treasury, and helped trigger the Panic of 1837

• Congress overturned the circular in the last days of Jackson's final term

Slavery

• Grew to be an ever more controversial issue during the time of Jacksonian Democracy

• As the northern abolition movement grew stronger, the South experienced several slave revolts

• More brutal disciplinary measures by slaveholders

• Nat Turner's Rebellion, a slave rebellion where Nat Turner rallied a gang that killed and mutilated 60 whites.

• In retaliation, 200 enslaved people were executed, some with no connection at all to the rebellion

• Fearful that other enslaved people would emulate Turner's exploits, southern states passed a series of restrictive laws, known as slave codes, prohibiting Black people from congregating and learning to read

• Other state laws even prevented whites from questioning the legitimacy of slavery

• After Turner's Rebellion, Virginia's House of Burgesses debated ending bondage but did not pass a law.

4.4 The Election of 1836 and the Rise of the Whigs

Democratic Party and Whig Party

• Jackson's Democratic party unable to represent all constituencies (northern abolitionists, southern plantation owners, western pioneers)

• Whig party formed as opposition to Democratic party

• By 1834, almost as many congressmen supported Whig party as Democratic party

• Whigs were a loose coalition united by opposition to Democratic party policies

• Whigs believed in government activism, especially in social issues

• Many Whigs were religious and supported temperance movement and enforcement of the Sabbath

Whig Beliefs

• Similar to Federalists in support of manufacturing, opposition to new immigrants, and Westward Expansion

Election of 1836 and Panic of 1837

• Jackson supported Democrat Martin Van Buren for vice president

• Van Buren assumed presidency during economic crisis (Panic of 1837)

• Van Buren's policy of favoring hard currency made money hard to come by, worsening the crisis

• Economic downturn lasted through Van Buren's term, making re-election unlikely

William Henry Harrison and John Tyler

• Whig William Henry Harrison became president in 1841, but died a month later

• Vice president John Tyler, a former Democrat, assumed presidency

• Tyler championed states' rights, alienating Whig leadership

• Tyler vetoed numerous Whig bills, causing his cabinet to resign in protest

• Tyler referred to as "president without a party," and his presidency lasted only one term.

Economic History (1800–1860)

Economic Developments in 19th century US

• Economic developments played important role in political events leading to Civil War and determined characteristics of different regions

• Along with social developments, economic factors laid foundation for important issues in American society for following century (abolitionism, women's suffrage, temperance)

Beginnings of a Market Economy

• Before Revolutionary War, most settlers raised crops for subsistence, not market

• People made own clothing and built own furniture and homes, cash transactions were rare

• Developments in manufacturing and transportation led to market economy development

• Market economy favors those who specialize, but can also lead to overproduction and dependence on market

• Rapid transition from subsistence economy to market economy in first decades of 19th century

War of 1812 and National Economy

• War of 1812 and events leading up to it forced US to become less dependent on imports and develop stronger national economy

Cotton Gin and Interchangeable parts

• Cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, revolutionized southern agriculture and increased demand for cotton

• Spread of cotton as chief crop intensified South's dependence on slave labor

• Other notable inventions that revolutionized agriculture include steel plow and mechanical reaper

• Whitney's second innovation was use of interchangeable parts in manufacturing, which made mass production more efficient and cost-effective.

North and Textile Industry

• Textile industry in the North was developed by advances in machine technology and U.S. embargo on British goods prior to War of 1812

• Textile mills in New England produced thread and hired local women to weave thread into cloth at home

• Power loom in 1813 allowed manufacturers to produce both thread and finished fabric in own factories quickly and efficiently

• Shortage of labor in New England led to worker-enticement programs like Lowell system

• Other industries such as clothing manufacturers, retailers, brokers, and commercial banks grew around textile industry

Transportation Industry

• Prior to 1820s, travel and shipping along east-west routes was difficult and most trade centered on north-south routes

• Construction of National Road and completion of Erie Canal in 1825 made east-west travel and trade more accessible

• Northeast established itself as center of commerce due to success of Erie Canal

• Other regions attempted to duplicate success of Erie Canal with construction of thousands of miles of canals in the Northeast and Midwest, but most failed

• Railroads developed as convenient means of transporting goods and by 1850, the Canal Era had ended.

Transportation and Communication

• Inventions of steam engine and telegraph revolutionized travel and shipping, allowing for faster and more efficient transportation and communication

• Steamships replaced sailing ships for long sea voyages and railroads replaced land travel

• The Transportation Revolution by 1855, the cost to send things across America had fallen to one-twentieth of what it had cost in 1825, and they arrived in one-fifth the time.

• Telegraph allowed for immediate long-distance communication and widespread use followed its invention almost immediately

Farming

• Mechanization revolutionized farming in the first half of the 19th century, with many machines such as mechanical plow, sower, reaper, thresher, baler, and cotton gin coming into common use

• Growth of market economy changed farming as more food went to market

• Farming in the Northeast faced difficulties due to rocky, hilly terrain and over-farming of land, leading to some farmers switching to livestock and fruits/vegetables, or leaving for manufacturing jobs

• Midwest became America's chief source of grains and farms were larger and more adaptable to new technology, with banks providing capital for modern equipment and trade routes providing access to markets.

4.5 Westward Expansion

• Louisiana Purchase removed major obstacle to U.S. western settlement

• War of 1812 removed another obstacle by depriving Native Americans of British ally

• By 1820, U.S. had settled region east of Mississippi River and was quickly expanding west

• Americans believed in God-given right to western territories, known as America's Manifest Destiny

• Some argued for annexation of Canada, Mexico, and all of Americas

Dangerous Western Settlement

• Terrain and climate could be cold and unforgiving

• Settlers from East moving into areas belonging to Native Americans and Mexicans

Texas

• Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1821, included what is now Texas and Southwest

• Mexican government established liberal land policies to entice settlers

• Tens of thousands of Americans flooded the region, rarely becoming Mexican citizens

• Ignored Mexican law, including prohibition of slavery

• Mexican attempts to regain control led to rebellion and declaration of independence

• Texas was independent country called Republic of Texas

• Existence of slavery guaranteed Congressional battle over statehood, not admitted to Union until 1845

Oregon Territory

• Thousands of settlers traveled to Willamette Valley via the Oregon Trail in early 1840s

• Americans not first in area, large Native American population and British claiming for Canada

• Russians also staked claim, both British and Americans saw them as a threat

• Polk administration settled territorial dispute by signing treaty with England

• Late 1840s, destination shifted to California due to Gold Rush

• Discovery of gold in California mountains attracted over 100,000 people in 2 years

• Most did not strike it rich, but settled area due to hospitable agriculture and access to Pacific Ocean for trade centers like San Francisco.

Economic Reasons for Regional Differences

• Three different sections of the country- North, South, and West (including Midwest) developed in different directions

• North becoming industrialized, commercial center

• South remained agrarian, chief crops- tobacco and cotton, constantly looking west for more land

• Western economic interests varied but were largely rooted in commercial farming, fur trapping, and real-estate speculation

North

• Technological advances in communications, transportation, industry, and banking helped it become the nation's commercial center

• Farming played less of a role in northeastern economy than elsewhere in the country

• Legal slavery became increasingly uncommon in this region throughout the early 1800s

South

• Remained almost entirely agrarian

• Chief crops- tobacco and cotton required vast acreage

• Anxious to protect slavery, which the large landholders depended on, Southerners also looked for new slave territories to include in the Union

• To strengthen their position in Congress and protect slavery from northern legislators

West

• Westerners generally distrusted the North, which they regarded as the home of powerful banks that could take their land away

• They had little more use for the South, whose rigidly hierarchical society was at odds with the egalitarianism of the West

• Most Westerners wanted to avoid involvement in the slavery issue, which they regarded as irrelevant to their lives

• Ironically, western expansion was the core of the most important conflicts leading up to the Civil War.

4.6 Social History, 1800-1860

• Growth of American economy in early 19th century brought about numerous social changes

• Cotton gin and Industrial Revolution in England altered southern agriculture and increased reliance on slave labor

• Development of commerce led to larger middle class, especially in North but also in southern and midwestern cities

• Industrialization resulted in bigger cities with large (and often impoverished) migrant and immigrant neighborhoods

• Westward migration created new frontier culture as pioneers dealt with uniqueness of West's landscape and climate

• Each of these circumstances influenced people's attitudes and ambitions and set the scene for social and political events of the era

The North and American Cities

• North became the nation's industrial and commercial center during the first half of the 19th century

• Home to many of the nation's major cities

• Cities faced numerous problems, lack of powerful urban governments to oversee rapid expansion

• Modern waste disposal, plumbing, sewers, and incineration not yet developed, cities could be toxic environments

• Proximity in which people lived and worked, coupled with sanitation problems, made epidemics likely

• Cities meant jobs, many northern farmers moved to cities to work in new factories

• Cities offered more opportunities for social advancement

• Public schooling, labor unions, clubs and associations for middle and upper class to exert influence on government and society

• Cities provided a wide variety of leisure-time options, such as theater and sports

• Great disparity in distribution of wealth in northern cities, elite few controlled most of the personal wealth and led lives of power and comfort

• Beneath them was the middle class, made up of tradesmen, brokers, and other professionals

• Middle class often rose from the working class, who often worked in factories or at low-paying crafts, women often worked at home or as domestic servants

• Cult of domesticity, supported by popular magazines and novels that glorified home life

• Middle class also made up most of the market for luxury goods such as housewares and fine furniture

• Working-class families lived just above poverty level, any calamity could plunge them into debt

• Those in poverty were mostly recent immigrants, numbers swelled in the 1840s and 1850s

• Immigrants faced discrimination and prejudice, often lived in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions

• Westward migration brought new set of social problems, including issues of land ownership, displacement of Native Americans, and question of slavery.

• The majority of Southerners lived in rural areas in near isolation in the South.

• Family and church played a dominant role in social life, as there were few people around to support organized cultural and leisure events.

• The South had few centers of commerce and limited infrastructure compared to the North.

• The wealthiest Southern citizens formed an aristocracy of plantation owners who dominated southern society politically, socially, and economically.

• Plantation owners grew cotton and tobacco, and many convinced themselves that the slave system benefited all of its participants, including the enslaved people.

• Enslaved people lived in a state of subsistence poverty, often overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, and worked long hours at difficult and tedious labor.

• Enslaved people developed a unique culture that blended aspects of their African roots with elements of Christianity, and developed subtle methods of resistance to maintain their dignity.

• The majority of Southerners farmed small plots of land and were relatively poor, but they were generally self-sufficient.

The West and Frontier Living

• The West and Frontier Living in the 19th century saw the constant changing of the frontier's boundaries.

• In 1800, the frontier lay east of the Mississippi River, but by 1820, nearly all of this eastern territory had attained statehood and the frontier region consisted of much of the Louisiana Purchase.

• Settlers also moved to Texas and then to a part of Mexico in the late 1820s and 1830s and by the early 1840s, the frontier had expanded to include the Pacific Northwest.

• The US government actively encouraged settlers to move west by giving away or selling large tracts of land to war veterans and loaned money at reduced rates to civilians.

• Settlers in the Ohio Valley and points west found the area was hospitable to grain production and dairy farming due to the flat land and new farm implements.

• Transportation advances also made shipping produce easier and more profitable, leading to the Midwest becoming known as "the nation’s breadbasket."

• Fur trading was another common commercial enterprise on the frontiers, with fur traders often being the first pioneers in a region.

• Frontier life was rugged and settlers struggled against the climate, elements, and Native Americans.

• The frontier offered opportunities for wealth, freedom, and social advancement, making it a symbol of freedom and equality to many Americans.

• The 19th century saw the beginnings of true social reform in the United States, with many social reform movements growing out of the Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival.

• Women were particularly active in reform groups, particularly those of the middle and upper classes.

• The western and central regions of New York State were known as the Burned-over District for the spiritual fervor in the area.

Mormonism, Abolitionists

• Joseph Smith formed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 1830.

• Smith's preaching, particularly his acceptance of polygamy, drew strong opposition in the East and Midwest, culminating in his death by a mob while imprisoned in Illinois.

• The Mormons, realizing they would never be allowed to practice their faith in the East, made the long, difficult trek to the Salt Lake Valley led by Brigham Young.

• There, they settled and transformed the area from desert into farmland through extensive irrigation.

• The Mormons' success was largely attributable to the settlers' strong sense of community.

• The Second Great Awakening was only one source of the antebellum reform movements.

• By the 1820s and 1830s, most of the Founding Fathers were dead, but they left a legacy of freedom and equality, expressed in part in the Declaration of Independence as well as the Preamble to the Constitution.

• In the 1830s, "We, the People" still meant white males.

• Many women were active in the abolitionist movement, and it was their exclusion from participation at a worldwide antislavery convention held in London in 1840 that convinced women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott to hold the first women's rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls in upstate New York.

• Horace Mann was instrumental in pushing for public education and education reform in general. He lengthened the school year, established the first "normal school" for teacher training, and used the first standardized books in education.

• Before the 1830s, few whites fought aggressively for the liberation of the enslaved people.

• The Quakers believed slavery to be morally wrong and argued for its end.

• Most other antislavery whites sought gradual abolition, coupled with colonization, a movement to return Black people to Africa.

• The religious and moral fervor that accompanied the Second Great Awakening, however, persuaded more and more whites, particularly Northerners, that slavery was a great evil.

• White abolitionists divided into two groups: Moderates wanted emancipation to take place slowly and with the cooperation of slave owners, while immediatists wanted emancipation at once.

• Abolitionism is an important topic on every AP U.S. History Exam.

• But it is worth noting that, right up to the Civil War, abolitionists were widely considered extremists.

• Far and away the leading reform movement of the time was the temperance movement.

• Nearly all abolitionists believed in temperance; few supporters of temperance were abolitionists.

• The abolition movement succeeded, slavery is now illegal, but the success of the temperance movement was short-lived (Prohibition lasted only from 1920 to 1933).

Period 5: 1844-1877

5.1 Political and Judicial activity before the war

1844 U.S. Election

• Candidates: James Polk (Democrat) vs. Henry Clay (Whig)

Party Platforms

• Whigs:

  • Internal Improvements

    • Bridges

    • Harbors

    • Canals

  • Vision: Civilized lands with bustling towns and factories (e.g. New England)

• Democrats:

  • Expansionists

  • Borders pushed outward

  • Private ownership of newly added land (e.g. isolated plantations in the South)

  • No government involvement in newly added land

Election Results

• Close election

• Polk wins

The Polk Presidency

Goals

• Restore government funds in Treasury (vs. pet banks under Jackson)

• Reduce tariffs

• Accomplished by end of 1846

Texas and Oregon

• Proposed annexation by President Tyler (last days of administration)

• Northern congressmen alarmed (potential 5 slave states below Missouri Compromise line)

• Demanded annexation of entire Oregon Country

• "54°40´ or Fight" demands, but Polk recognizes possibility of two territorial wars

• Conceded on demands for expansion into Canada

• Negotiated reasonable American-Canadian border

• Oregon Treaty signed with Great Britain in 1846

  • Acquired peaceful ownership of Oregon, Washington, and parts of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana

  • Established current northern border of the region

Mexican-American War

• Efforts to claim Southwest from Mexico (failed attempt to buy territory)

• Challenged Mexican authorities on Texas border

• Mexican attack on American troops

• Used border attack to argue for declaration of war

• Declared war by Congress in 1846

• Whigs (e.g. Abraham Lincoln) questioned Polk's claim of Mexican first fire

• War began in 1846

Mexican-American War & Public Opinion

• Northerners: feared new states in West would be slave states, thus tipping balance in favor of proslavery forces

• Opponents: believed war was provoked by slaveholders, resulting in slave owners having control over government

• Referenced as "Slave Power" by suspicious Northerners

• Gag rule in 1836 raised suspicions of Slave Power

• Wilmot Proviso: Congressional bill to prohibit extension of slavery in territories gained from Mexico

  • House vote fell along sectional lines: Northern in favor, Southern opposed

  • Result in Free-Soil Party: regional, single-issue party opposed to slavery expansion (competition with slave labor)

• Mexican War: successful for American forces, resulted in Mexican Cession (Southwest land) for $15 million

• Gadsden Purchase ($10 million): southern regions of modern Arizona and New Mexico for transcontinental railroad

Slavery Expansion & Debates

• Addition of new territory increased nation's potential wealth, but posed problems regarding slavery status

• East of Mississippi: evenly divided between lands suited for plantation agriculture (slavery) and those not

• West of Mississippi: not suitable for traditional plantation crops

• Southerners: saw future where slavery was confined to southeast quarter and outvoted by free-soil advocates

• Tried to open up more areas to slavery through popular sovereignty

  • Territories decide by vote whether to allow slavery within borders.

5.2 The Compromise of 1850

• Background

  • Sectional strife over new territories started as the ink was drying on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

  • During the Gold Rush, settlers had flooded into California and it wanted statehood with a constitution prohibiting slavery, opposed by South

  • Debate grew hostile leading to discussion of secession among southern legislators

• Major Players

  • Henry Clay, Whig Senator from Kentucky

    • Drafted and proposed the Compromise of 1850

    • Clarified the final boundaries of Texas

    • Proposed banning slavery in the entire Mexican Cession and wanted stringent Fugitive Slave Act

  • John Calhoun, Democrat Senator from South Carolina

    • Defender of slavery and opposed the Compromise

    • Advocate for states’ rights and secession, popular sovereignty for Mexican Cession territories

  • Daniel Webster, Whig Senator from Massachusetts

    • Supported the Compromise to preserve the Union and avert Civil War

    • Characterized himself "as an American" in the Seventh of March speech

    • Risked offending abolitionist voter base by accepting the Compromise

  • Stephen Douglas, Democrat

    • Worked with Henry Clay to hammer out a workable solution, the Compromise of 1850

• The Compromise of 1850

  • Defeated in Congress when presented as a complete package

  • Douglas broke the package into separate bills and managed to get majority support for each

  • Admitted California as a free state and stronger fugitive slave law enacted

  • Created the territories of Utah and New Mexico, left status of slavery up to each territory to decide

  • Abolished slave trade, not slavery itself, in Washington, D.C.

• Issues with the Compromise

  • Definition of popular sovereignty was vague and different interpretations by Northerners and Southerners

  • Fugitive slave law made it easier to retrieve escaped enslaved people, but required cooperation from citizens of free states and seen as immoral

• Increase in Antislavery Sentiments

  • Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852

    • Sentimental novel depicting plantation life based on information from abolitionist friends

    • Sold over a million copies and adapted into popular plays that toured America and Europe

    • Powerful piece of propaganda awakening antislavery sentiment in millions who had never thought about the issue before

The Kansas-Nebraska Act and “Bleeding Kansas”

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted in 1854 to establish civil authority and secure land in the Kansas and Nebraska territories, where no civil authority existed.

• The act was promoted by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas to bring money and jobs to his home state through the termination of the transcontinental railway in Illinois.

• The act was passed despite objections from antislavery Whigs and Democrats, leading to the weakening of the Fugitive Slave Act through personal liberty laws in northern states.

• The act drove the final stake into the heart of the Whig Party and led to the formation of the Republican Party, which aimed to keep slavery out of the territories and appeal to a wider constituency through a range of issues.

• The American party (also known as the Know-Nothings) was formed around the issue of nativism, but the party self-destructed over disagreement about slavery.

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act led to violence in the territories, as abolitionists and proslavery groups rushed in and both antislavery and proslavery constitutions were sent to Washington.

• Kansas became known as "Bleeding Kansas" or "Bloody Kansas" due to the conflict between the two sides, which resulted in the deaths of over 200 people.

• The events in Kansas further polarized the nation, leading to the election of James Buchanan as the 1856 Democratic candidate. Buchanan won the election, carrying the South, while the Republicans carried the North.

Buchanan, Dred Scott, and the Election of 1860

• James Buchanan was US president from 1857-1861 and worked to maintain the status quo by enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and opposing abolitionist activism.

• Dred Scott v. Sandford was a case heard by the Supreme Court two days after Buchanan took office, where Scott, a former slave, sued for his freedom. The Court ruled that enslaved people were property, not citizens, and that Congress couldn't regulate slavery in the territories.

• The Dred Scott decision was a major victory for Southerners and a turning point in the decade of crisis, it was vehemently denounced in the North as further proof of a Slave Power.

• The 1858 Illinois Senate race between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas was nationally watched, with Lincoln delivering his "House Divided" speech and Douglas damaging his political career with his ambiguous stance on popular sovereignty.

• John Brown’s raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 and his subsequent execution sparked northern abolitionist support.

• The 1860 Democratic convention split between Northern Democrats supporting Douglas and Southerners supporting Breckinridge.

• The election of 1860 showed the nation was on the brink of fracture, with Lincoln and Douglas contesting the North, and Breckinridge representing the South.

5.3 The Civil War and Reconstruction (1860-1877)

Civil War Era

• Background

  • Slavery was the central issue, but not the only or explicitly stated reason for the Civil War

  • Four Border States (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware) were slave states that fought for the Union

  • Northerners fought to preserve the Union, while Southerners fought for states’ rights

  • Lincoln's views on slavery evolved

  • As late as 1862, Lincoln's primary goal was to save the Union, not necessarily abolish slavery

Battles

• Battle of Antietam

  • First battle fought in the East where the Union wasn't completely defeated

  • Union claimed victory and showed Britain and France that they weren't a lost cause

  • Gave Lincoln platform to announce the Emancipation Proclamation

• Battle of Gettysburg

  • Most northern point the Confederacy had reached at the time

  • Lee's troops suffered massive casualties and were forced to retreat

  • Boosted confidence for the Union

Gettysburg Address

• Delivered four months after Battle of Gettysburg

• Redefined the War as a struggle for human equality, not just preservation of Union

Influence of Political, Economic, and Social Factors

• The Civil War impacted not only the battlefields, but also the political, economic, and social realms

• Political and diplomatic consequences of battles like Antietam and Gettysburg

• Political, social, and economic conditions influenced the outcome of the war

The Civil War and the Confederacy

Central Control Under the Confederacy

• Confederate government brought southern states under greater central control

• Jefferson Davis took control of southern economy and imposed taxes

• Davis took control of transportation and created large bureaucracy to oversee economic developments

• Declared martial law and suspended habeas corpus to maintain control

• Lincoln was using similar steps in the North, causing chafing in the Confederacy

Economic Modernization and Challenges

• Davis tried to modernize the southern economy, but lagged behind in industrialization

• Rapid economic growth led to rapid inflation, causing poverty in the South

• Confederacy imposed conscription, causing further poverty and class conflict

• Wealthy were allowed to hire surrogates and were exempt from military service, causing increased tensions

Towards the End of the War

• Class tensions led to widespread desertions from the Confederate Army

• Southerners in small towns ignored the government and tried to carry on as if there was no war

• Many resisted when asked to support passing troops

The Civil War and the Union

I. Economic Impacts A. Northern economy

• Boosted by demand for war-related goods (uniforms, weapons)

• Loss of southern markets initially harmed economy

• War economy brought boom period

• Entrepreneurs became wealthy, some through war profiteering

• Corruption widespread, prompted congressional investigation B. Southern economy

• Accelerated inflation rate (over 300%)

II. Workers and Unions A. Workers concerned about job security, formed unions B. Businesses opposed unions, blacklisted members, broke strikes C. Republican Party supported business, opposed to regulation

III. Government Powers A. Increase in central government power B. Lincoln's actions

• Economic development programs without congressional approval

• Government loans and grants to businesses, raised tariffs

• Suspended writ of habeas corpus in border states

• Printed national currency C. Treasury Secretary: Salmon P. Chase

• Issued greenbacks, precursor to modern currency

Salmon P. Chase

• Initially, neither the Union nor the Confederacy declared the Civil War to be about slavery

• The Constitution protected slavery where it already existed, so many opponents were against extending slavery into new territories

• Lincoln argued for gradual emancipation, compensation to slaveholders, and colonization of freed enslaved people

• Radical Republicans in Congress wanted immediate emancipation and introduced confiscation acts in 1861 and 1862

• The second confiscation act allowed the government to liberate all enslaved people, but Lincoln refused to enforce it

• Lincoln's idea of gradual emancipation was based on a law in Pennsylvania passed in 1780

• Enslaved people supported the Southern war effort by growing crops and cooking meals, leading to their liberation becoming a side effect of Union victory

• Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 after the Union victory at Antietam

• The Emancipation Proclamation stated that the government would liberate all slaves in states "in rebellion" on January 1, 1863

• It did not free slaves in border states or those already under Union control, and allowed Southern states to rejoin the Union without giving up slavery

• The Proclamation declared the Civil War as a war against slavery and changed its purpose

• Lincoln supported complete emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment before his reelection campaign

• After his reelection, he tried to negotiate a settlement with Southern leaders for reentry into the Union and voting on the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Election of 1864 and the End of the Civil War

• General Opinion

  • North and South both favored end of the war

  • George McClellan lost due to opposing majority of Democrats

• Southern Population

  • Less than 1% owned over 100 enslaved people

  • Non-slaveholding farmers resented Confederacy and war

• Northern Opinion

  • War Democrats: war necessary to preserve Union

  • Copperheads: accused Lincoln of national social revolution

  • Most violent opposition in New York City

  • Draft riots in 1863

  • Irish immigrants resentful of being drafted

  • Feared competition with former slaves for low-paying jobs

• War Progress

  • Summer 1864 victories helped Lincoln's reelection

  • Union victory virtually assured by early spring 1865

  • Established Freedman's Bureau for newly liberated Black people

  • First federal, social welfare program in U.S. history

• End of War

  • Confederate leaders surrendered in April 1865

  • John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln five days later

  • Devastating consequences for reunited nation

• War Cost

  • Over 3 million men fought

  • Over 500,000 died

  • As many seriously wounded

  • Both governments ran up huge debts

  • South ravaged by Union soldiers

  • Sherman's March from Atlanta to sea in 1864

  • Union Army burned everything in its wake

  • Foreshadowed wide-scale warfare of 20th century

• Political Impact

  • War permanently expanded role of government

  • Government grew rapidly to manage economy and war

Reconstruction

• Reconstruction refers to the period of 1865-1877 and the process of readmitting southern states, rebuilding physical damage, and integrating newly freed Blacks into society

• Lincoln's Ten-Percent Plan was a plan to allow southern states back into the Union after 10% of voters took an oath of allegiance and accepted the Thirteenth Amendment, but was seen as too lenient by Republicans

• The Wade-Davis Bill provided for military rule in former Confederate states and required 50% of the electorate to swear an oath of allegiance, but was pocket vetoed by Lincoln and later died

• Lincoln's and the Wade-Davis Bill did not make provisions for Black suffrage

• With Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency and developed the Reconstruction Plan which required a loyalty oath but barred many former Confederate elite from taking it

• Johnson's Reconstruction Plan was met with resistance from Congress, leading to his impeachment trial

• Johnson's impeachment trial, the first of a U.S. President, was a result of political conflicts between Johnson and the Radical Republicans over Reconstruction policies.

The Failure of Reconstruction

General Overview:

• Reconstruction had successes and failures

• New state constitutions allowed all men to vote, elected government positions, public schools, and industrial development

• Failure was due to high tax rates, propaganda war, corruption, and political scandals

Successes:

• All southern men could vote

• Elected government positions replaced appointed positions

• Public schools and social institutions created

• Industrial and rail development stimulated

• Black people serving in southern governments

Failures:

• High tax rates and public opposition

• Propaganda war against Reconstruction

• Corruption of Northerners and Southerners

• Political scandals during Grant's administration

Political Scandals during Grant's Administration:

• Black Friday, 1869

• Credit Mobilier scandal, 1872

• New York Custom House ring, 1872

• Star Route frauds, 1872-1876

• Sanborn incident, 1874

• Pratt & Boyd scandal, 1875

• Whiskey Ring, 1875

• Delano affair, 1875

• Trading post scandal, 1876

• Alexander Cattell & Co. scandal, 1876

• Safe burglary, 1876

• Diverted public's attention from postwar conditions in the South

• Civil War officially ended but a war of intimidation began by insurgent groups (Ku Klux Klan, White League)

• Attorney General Amos Akerman declared the actions of these groups amount to war

• Federal troops were sent in to oppose the Klan under the Enforcement Acts

• Reconstruction did little to alter the South's power structure or redistribute wealth to freedmen

• Federal government signaled early on it would ease up restrictions and President Grant enforced the law loosely

• Supreme Court restricted the scope of the 14th and 15th Amendments, allowing for voting restrictions for Black people

• President Grant's administration was corrupt and tarnished Reconstruction

• 1872 election, Liberal Republicans abandoned coalition supporting Reconstruction due to corruption

• Grant moved closer to conciliation and several acts pardoned rebels

• Southern Democrats regained control by 1876 and called themselves Redeemers, intending to reverse Republican policies

• 1876 election was contested, Samuel J. Tilden won popular vote but needed electoral vote

• Compromise of 1877 was reached to resolve the election, Hayes won and ended military reconstruction, federal troops pulled out of Southern states

• Military reconstruction ended, life for Black people became worse and took nearly 100 years for the federal government to fulfill the ideal of equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

Southern Blacks During and After Reconstruction

• End of the Civil War

  • Ambiguous state of freedom

  • Most stayed on plantations as sharecroppers

  • Some searched for separated family members

  • Freedman’s Bureau assistance

    • Jobs and housing

    • Money and food for those in need

    • Schools established, including Fisk University and Howard University

    • Terribly underfunded with little impact once military reconstruction ended

• Lack of Redistributed Land

  • Freedman’s Bureau attempted to establish labor contracting system

  • Failed, Blacks preferred sharecropping

    • Traded portion of crop for right to work someone else’s land

    • System worked at first, but landowners eventually abused it

    • Widespread at end of Reconstruction

    • No court would fairly try cases of sharecroppers vs. landowners

    • Sharecropping existed until mid-20th century, included more whites than Blacks

• Progressive States

  • Mississippi had large Black population and was most progressive

    • Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce became first Black senators in 1870 and 1875

  • Robert Smalls founded Republican Party of South Carolina and served in U.S. House of Representatives in the 1880s

• Key Vocabulary

  • Freedman’s Bureau

  • Sharecropping

  • Hiram Revels

  • Blanche K. Bruce

  • Robert Smalls

Period 6: 1865-1898

6.1 The age of invention and economic growth

Thomas A. Edison's Workshop

• Built in 1876 in Menlo Park, New Jersey

• Produced important inventions of the century

• Edison's greatest invention was the light bulb

• Pioneer work in power plant development was immensely important

Light Bulb and Power Plants

• Allowed for the extension of the workday (previously ended at sundown)

• Wider availability of electricity

• Created new uses for electricity for industry and home

Age of Invention

• Last quarter of 19th century known as Age of Invention

• Many technological advances made (e.g. Edison's)

• Advances generated greater opportunities for mass production

Economic Growth

• Economy grew at a tremendous rate

• People known as "captains of industry" (or "robber barons") became extremely rich and powerful

• Owned and controlled new manufacturing enterprises

Industrialization: introduction of faster machines in manufacturing leading to economies of scale and decreased cost per unit.

• Assembly line production: employees performing repetitive tasks leading to increased efficiency but also dangerous working conditions and long working hours.

• Corporate Consolidation: large businesses resulting from economies of scale and lack of government regulations, leading to monopolies and holding companies.

• Horizontal Integration: combining smaller companies within the same industry to form a larger company through legal buyouts or illegal practices.

• Vertical Integration: one company buys out all the factors of production from raw materials to finished product, still allowing competition in the marketplace.

• Problems with Consolidation: required large amounts of money leading to financial panics and bank failures, public resentment, and government response in the form of antitrust legislation.

• Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890: law forbidding "restraint of trade" combination, ambiguous wording leading to pro-business Supreme Court interpretation.

• U.S. v. E. C. Knight Co. 1895: Court ruled that E. C. Knight, controlling 98% of the sugar refining plants, did not violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.

• Gospel of Wealth: idea that wealth should be used for the betterment of society and not just for personal gain, advocated by Andrew Carnegie.

Factories and City Life

• Factories were established in cities in the 19th century to reduce labor costs and maximize profits

• Women and children were hired, as well as newly arrived immigrants in search of work

• As a result, the cities suffered from poverty, crime, disease, and a lack of livable housing

• Factories were dangerous, and there was no insurance or workmen's compensation

• Middle class moved away to nicer neighborhoods, leaving mostly immigrants and migrants in the city

• Majority of immigrants arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe starting from 1880

• Ethnic neighborhoods, tenements were common, and minorities faced prejudice and limited job opportunities

• Municipal governments were practically nonexistent, and services for the poor were provided by churches, private charities, and ethnic communities, or by corrupt political bosses

• Bosses helped the poor find homes, jobs, apply for citizenship, and voting rights but at a high cost of criminal means

• William "Boss" Tweed of Tammany Hall in New York City was a notorious political boss who embezzled millions of dollars through corruption

• Widespread misery in cities led to the formation of labor unions to improve treatment of workers

• Labor unions were considered radical and faced opposition from the government, businesses, and the courts

• Knights of Labor was one of the first national labor unions, founded in 1869

• Goals of the Knights of Labor included an 8-hour workday, equal pay for equal work, child labor laws, safety and sanitary codes, federal income tax, and more.

Knights of Labor

• Advocated arbitration over strikes

• Became increasingly violent in efforts to achieve goals

• Popularity declined due to violence and association with political radicalism

• Terrence Powderly, failed strikes, and Haymarket Square Riot contributed to decline

• Public saw unions as subversive and violent

Homestead Steel Strike

• Workers protested wage cut, refusal to form a union

• Factory manager Henry Clay Frick locked out workers, hired replacements, and called in Pinkerton Detective force

• Clash between Pinkertons and workers led to deaths and retreat of Pinkertons

• Pennsylvania state militia ended strike, Frick hired new workers

Pullman Palace Car Factory Strike

• Workers faced wage cut, increased housing costs

• American Railway Union joined the strike, 250,000 railway workers walked off job, shutting down rail travel in 27 states

• ARU president Eugene Debs refused to end strike despite court order

• Debs convicted and jailed, became leader of American Socialist Party after release

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Samuel Gompers, focused on bread and butter issues, higher wages and shorter workdays

• Excluded unskilled workers, confederation of trade unions

• Refused to accept immigrants, Black people, women among membership

Charitable Middle-Class Organizations

• Lobbied local governments for building safety codes, better sanitation, public schools

• Founded and lived in settlement houses in poor neighborhoods

• Community centers providing schooling, childcare, cultural activities

• Jane Addams, Hull House in Chicago, awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1931

Improvement of Life

• Wealthy and middle class improved while poor suffered

• Access to luxuries, leisure time, popular diversions like sports, theater, vaudeville, movies

• Growth of newspaper industry with Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst

• Sensational reporting, yellow journalism became popular.

6.2 Jim Crow Laws and Other Developments in the South

Advances in the Machine Age

• Primarily affected northern cities

South During Machine Age

• Agriculture continued as main form of labor

• Textile mills and tobacco processing plants emerged

• Majority of Southerners remained farmers

Postwar Economics in the South

• Many farmers forced to sell land

• Wealthy landowners bought and consolidated into larger farms

• Landless farmers (Black & white) forced into sharecropping

• Crop lien system designed to keep poor in debt

• Unscrupulous landlords kept poor in virtual slavery

Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech

• Outlined hope for drawing near to white race

• Pledge for patient, sympathetic help of Black race

• Call for higher good (blotting out of racial animosities)

• Desire for absolute justice and law obedience

Jim Crow Laws

• Federal government exerting less influence

• Numerous discriminatory laws passed by towns and cities

• Supreme Court ruled Fourteenth Amendment did not protect Blacks from private discrimination

• 1883 - Court reversed Civil Rights Act of 1875

• 1896 - Supreme Court ruled “separate but equal” facilities were legal

Integration and Equal Rights

• A far-off dream for most Black people

• Booker T. Washington: Born into slavery, no illusions of white society accepting Blacks as equals

• Promoted economic independence as means to improve Black lot

• Founded Tuskegee Institute for vocational and industrial training for Black people

• Accused of being an accommodationist

• Refused to press for immediate equal rights

• Reality of his time set his goals

Booker T. Washington vs. W. E. B. Du Bois

• Washington's Atlanta Exposition speech

• Washington viewed as submissive by Du Bois

• Du Bois referred to speech as "The Atlanta Compromise"

The Railroads and Developments in the West

• Ranchers and miners were growing industries in the western frontier

• Ranchers drove their herds across the western plains and deserts, disregarding property rights and Native American rights to the land

• Miners prospected for rich mines and sold their rights to mining companies when found

• Lincoln challenged America to have a Transcontinental Railroad connecting the country within a decade (1863-1869)

• Railroad construction was paid for by the public but the rail proprietors resisted government control of their industry

• Railroad companies organized massive buffalo hunts, which nearly led to extinction of the species and caused conflict with Native Americans

• Rails transformed depot towns into cities and facilitated faster travel, contact with ideas and technological advances from the East, and contributed to the Industrial Revolution

• Rails also brought standardization of time telling through "railroad time" and time zones

• Statehood of North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho was achieved by 1889

• The result of the 1890 census prompted Turner's Frontier Thesis, which argued that the frontier shaped the American character, spirit, democracy, and provided a safety valve for urban areas

• In the Great Plains, farming and ranching were the main forms of employment, aided by new farm machinery and mail-order retail

• The Homestead Act and Morrill Land-Grant Act were passed by the federal government to attract settlers and develop the West

• Agricultural science became a large industry in the US

• The Nez Perce tribe in Oregon was forced to migrate to a reservation in Idaho, leading to resistance by Chief Joseph

• With families and corporations heading West, government and conservation groups sought added protection of natural resources

• U.S. Fish Commission was established to protect fish species, which led to the creation of National Parks and Forest Services.

National Politics

Gilded Age of American Politics:

• Era between Reconstruction and 1900

• Dubbed by Mark Twain

• America appeared prosperous but wealth built on poverty of many

• Shiny exterior of politics hiding corruption and patronage

• Political machines, not municipal governments, ran cities

• Big business bought votes in Congress and fleeced consumers

• Workers had little protection from employer greed

• Presidents were generally not corrupt but weak

• Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur focused on civil service reform

• Grover Cleveland believed in minimal government intervention

• Benjamin Harrison and allies passed major legislation (meat inspection act, banning lotteries, battleships)

• Activism led to public discomfort and return of Cleveland to White House

Regulating Business and Government:

• First attempts at regulation in response to widespread corruption

• States imposed railroad regulations due to price gouging

• 1877 Supreme Court upheld state law regulating railroads in Munn v. Illinois

• Precedent for regulation in public interest established

• 1887 Congress passed first federal regulatory law (Interstate Commerce Act)

• Set up the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to regulate railroad activities

• ICC was active until deregulated by Reagan administration in 1980s

Women's Suffrage:

• Became an important political issue

• Led by Susan B. Anthony

• Bill introduced to Congress every year

• Fight began in earnest

• American Suffrage Association fought for state suffrage amendments

• Partial successes achieved in gaining the vote on school issues

• Women gained right to vote with 19th Amendment in 1920 (50 years after male suffrage)

6.3 The Silver Issue and the Populist Movement

Post-Civil War Era:

• Increased production in both industrial and agricultural fronts

• Drop in prices due to greater supply

• Farmers faced trouble due to fixed payments in long-term debts

• Farmers supported increased money supply for easier payments and inflation

• Banks opposed the plan, preferring gold-backed money supply

• Farmers' plan called for liberal use of silver coins (supported by western miners and midwestern/southern farmers)

• Issue had elements of regionalism and class strife

Grange Movement and Farmers' Alliances:

• Grange Movement founded in 1867, with over a million members by 1875

• Cooperatives for farmers to buy machinery and sell crops as a group

• Political endorsement and lobbying for legislation

• Replaced by Farmers' Alliances, allowing women's political activism

• Grew into political party People's Party (political arm of Populist movement)

• Other groups formed by minority farmers (e.g. Las Gorras Blancas, Colored Farmers' Alliance)

People's Party:

• 1892 convention, with platform called the Omaha Platform

• Call for silver coinage, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs, graduated income tax, direct election of senators, shorter workdays

• 1892 presidential candidate James Weaver received over 1 million votes

• Populist goals gained popularity during the financial crisis of 1893-1897

Granger Laws:

• Granger laws regulated the railroads in the 1870s and 1880s

Populist Movement:

• 1896 Populists backed Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan

• Bryan ran on platform of free silver, loosening control of northern banking interests

• Republicans allied with big businesses, McKinley received huge contributions from large companies

• Bryan lost election, Populist movement declined with improved economy

6.4 Foreign Policy: The Tariff and Imperialism

Before the Civil War

• Most Americans earned their living through farming

• No federal income tax until 16th Amendment in 1913

• Tariff was a huge controversy

Tariff of Abominations & Nullification Crisis

• Tariff of Abominations (1828) caused Nullification Crisis during Jackson's first administration

Tariff after Civil War

• Tariff dominated national politics

• Industrialists demanded high tariffs to protect domestic industries

• Farmers and laborers hurt by high tariffs

• Democrats supported lower tariffs

• Republicans advocated high protective tariffs

Tariff Laws

• McKinley Tariff (1890) raised duties on imported goods almost 50%

• Wilson-Gorman Tariff (1894) resembled McKinley Tariff

• Tariff issue dominated congressional debate and had impact on foreign relations

Spanish-American War

• Wilson-Gorman Tariff considered one of the causes of the Spanish-American War

Theodore Roosevelt

• Assistant Secretary of Navy in 1898 during Spanish-American War

• Ordered U.S. Pacific Fleet to Philippines, then led volunteer regiment in Cuba

Machine Age and American Production

• American production capacity grew rapidly

• America looked overseas for new markets due to increased nationalism and search for new markets

Expansionism & Imperialism

• William H. Seward set precedent for increased American participation in Western Hemisphere

• American businesses developed markets and production in Latin America, gained political power in region

• Expansionism (business in regions) supported by most Americans, imperialism (control of another country) more controversial

Influence of Sea Power

• Book by Captain Alfred T. Mahan, "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" (1890) popularized idea of the New Navy

• Successful foreign trade relied on access to foreign ports, colonies, and strong navy

• After upgrading ships, U.S. turned attention to foreign acquisitions

U.S. Interest in Hawaii

• Search for port along trade route to Asia attracted U.S. to Hawaii

• American involvement began in 1870s with American sugar producers trading with Hawaiians

• Hawaii economy collapsed in 1890s due to U.S. tariffs and dependence on trade with U.S.

• White minority overthrew native government, U.S. annexed Hawaii, angering Japan (40% of Hawaii's residents were Japanese descent)

• Cuban natives revolted against Spanish control, instigated by U.S. tampering with the Cuban economy

• Cuban civil war followed and reported in detail by the Hearst newspaper

• The explosion of American warship Maine in Havana harbor led to war with Spain

• U.S. drove Spain out of Cuba and Philippines in the Spanish-American War

• Spain ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris

• U.S. claimed it wouldn't annex Cuba through Teller Amendment, but troops stayed and made Cuba include Platt Amendment in its new constitution

• Platt Amendment granted U.S. control over Cuba's foreign affairs, U.S. troops eventually left in 1934 during FDR's administration

• Control of the Philippines raised the question of annexation or independence

• Arguments for annexation: Europe would conquer Philippines, U.S. moral obligation to "Christianize and civilize" Filipinos

• Arguments against annexation: promote independence and democracy, U.S. no better than British tyrants they overthrew

• Senate voted to annex the Philippines by a close margin, but Filipino nationalists responded with a guerrilla war

• U.S. used brutal tactics to subdue the revolt and inflicted casualties on the civilian population

• The U.S. granted the Philippines independence in 1946

• The question arose as to the legal status of the native population in newly acquired territories, "Does the Constitution follow the flag?"

• Supreme Court ruled through Insular Cases that the Constitution didn't follow the flag and Congress could administer each overseas possession as it chose

• America hoped to gain entry into Asian markets through McKinley's Open Door Policy

Period 7: 1890-1945

7.1 The Progressive Era and World War 1 (1900 - 1920)

The Populist and Progressive Movements

• Populists:

  • Aggrieved farmers advocating radical reforms

  • Raised possibility of reform through government

  • Successes in local and national elections

  • Encouraged others to seek change through political action

• Progressives:

  • Built on Populism's achievements and adopted some of its goals

  • Urban, middle-class reformers seeking government's role in reform

  • Greater success due to more economic and political power

  • Less intensification of regional and class differences compared to Populists

• Roots of Progressivism:

  • Growing number of associations and organizations

  • Members were educated and middle class, offended by corruption and urban poverty

  • Boost from muckrakers' exposés of corporate greed and misconduct

• Progressives' Successes:

  • Both local and national level changes

  • Campaigned for education and government regulation

  • New groups for fight against discrimination with mixed success

  • Women's suffrage movement gave birth to feminist movement

  • Wisconsin governor Robert La Follette led the way for Progressive state leaders

• The Progressive Movement:

  • Prominent leader: President Theodore Roosevelt

  • Progressive income taxes to redistribute nation's wealth

  • Work-class Progressives' victories: work day limitations, minimum wage, child labor laws, housing codes

  • Adoption of ballot initiative, referendum, and recall election

• President Theodore Roosevelt:

  • Prominent Progressive leader

  • Republican Party's choice for running mate in 1900 election

  • Succeeded McKinley after assassination in 1901.

Progressive Era

• Progressive Era marked increasing involvement of federal government in daily life

• Progressive presidents: Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson

• The Progressive Era resulted in many reforms, including conservation, regulation of monopolies and trusts, and the establishment of federal standards in food and drug industries.

Teddy Roosevelt

• Early on, showed liberal tendencies and was the first to use Sherman Antitrust Act against monopolies

• Nicknamed "Trustbuster" for his efforts to break up monopolies

• Encouraged Congress to pass Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act to protect workers and consumers

• Created National Park Service and National Forest Service to conserve natural resources

William Howard Taft

• Pursued monopolies even more aggressively than Roosevelt

• Known for "dollar diplomacy" - securing favorable relationships with Latin American and East Asian countries by providing monetary loans

• Became the only former president to serve on Supreme Court of the US as the 10th Chief Justice (1921-1930)

• Split from Roosevelt in the 1912 Republican primary due to opposing policies

Woodrow Wilson

• Distinguished himself from Teddy Roosevelt with his policies referred to as New Freedom

• Argued that federal government had to assume greater control over business to protect man's freedom

• Committed to restoring competition through greater government regulation of the economy and lowering the tariff

• Created Federal Trade Commission, enforced Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, and helped create Federal Reserve System

• Progressive movement ended after World War I, Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918, and a Red Scare

End of Progressive Era

• Achieved many of its goals, which resulted in loss of support from interest groups whose ends were met

• Some say the Progressive movement was brought to an end, in part, by its own success

7.2 Foreign Policy and U.S. Entry into World War I

• Roosevelt's domestic policy differed from his predecessor, but he concurred with his foreign policy.

• Roosevelt was an even more devout imperialist than McKinley, strongarming Cuba into accepting the Platt Amendment which committed Cuba to American control.

• The US occupied Cuba for 10 years (1906-1922), causing anti-American sentiments.

• Roosevelt's actions in Central America were equally interventionist, building a canal through the Central American isthmus and supporting the revolution in Panama for a better deal.

• The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, also known as the Big Stick Policy, was used to justify repeated military intervention in Latin America due to the assertion of a threat to American security.

• American foreign policy adhered to the Monroe Doctrine which asserted America's right to intervene in the Western Hemisphere to protect national security.

• Woodrow Wilson won the election of 1912 with a policy of neutrality, but it posed immediate problems due to close relationships with England and relatively distant relationship with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

• When war broke out in Europe, Wilson declared US policy of neutrality, but it was complicated due to the close relationship with England and their effective blockade.

• Germany attempted to counter the blockade with submarines, but the sinking of the Lusitania led to condemnation from the government and public.

• Wilson's efforts to stay out of the war and the events that ultimately drew the US into the conflict.

World War I and Its Aftermath

World War I and Government Expansion of Power

• Government took control of telephone, telegraph, and rail industries

• Created War Industry Board (WIB) to coordinate all aspects of industrial and agricultural production

• WIB had mixed success due to being slow and inefficient

• Curtailed individual civil liberties during the war

The Espionage Act and Sedition Act

• Congress passed the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918 in response to opposition to U.S. involvement in the war

• Espionage Act prohibited interference with the war effort or draft through the U.S. mail system

• Sedition Act made it illegal to try to prevent the sale of war bonds or speak disparagingly of the government, military, or Constitution

• Laws violated the spirit of the First Amendment but were vague, giving the courts great leeway in interpretation

Schenck v. United States

• Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act in 1919 in three separate cases, the most notable being Schenck v. United States

• Schenck was arrested and convicted for violating the Espionage Act by printing and mailing leaflets urging men to resist the draft

• Supreme Court ruled that freedom of speech and civil liberties could be curtailed if actions posed a “clear and present danger” to others or the nation

Suppression of Unpopular Ideas

• Laws soon became useful tools for suppression of anyone who voiced unpopular ideas

• Era of increased paranoia due to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and fear of communist takeover

• Radical labor unions and leaders branded enemies of the state and incarcerated

• New government agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, created to prevent radical takeover

Business and Labor Union Changes

• Business assumed greater power while unions lost power

• Strikebreakers and forceful tactics against unions increased under pretext of stamping out radicalism

The Palmer Raids

• In early 1920, government raided suspected radical groups around the country in the Palmer Raids

• Government abandoned all pretext of respecting civil liberties as agents raided union halls, pool halls, social clubs, and residences

• Over 10,000 arrested in over 30 cities, but few weapons or bombs were found

• 500 immigrants were eventually deported

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

• Government helped create frenzied atmosphere through its wartime propaganda arm, the Committee on Public Information (CPI)

• CPI messages grew more sensational as the war progressed

• Image of Germans as cold-blooded, baby-killing, power-hungry Huns created through lectures, movie theaters, newspapers, and magazines

• Americans rejected all things German, changed name of sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage”

• Acts of violence against German immigrants and Americans of German descent.

Wartime Opportunities for Women

• Change in means of employment

  • Many women quit domestic work and started in factories

  • At one point, 20% of factory jobs held by women

  • End of workplace advances with return of veterans

The Great Migration

• Black Southern people left for North for jobs in wartime manufacturing

• Over 500,000 Black people left South for work

• Many joined army, encouraged by W. E. B. Du Bois for inroad to social equality

  • Army segregated and assigned Black people mostly to menial labor

  • Fearful of integration, Black combat units assigned to French command

End of World War I

• America's participation tipped balance in Allies' favor

• Two years after America's entry, Germans ready to negotiate peace treaty

• Wilson's Fourteen Points served as basis for initial negotiations

  • Called for free trade, reduction of arms, self-determination, end of colonialism, League of Nations

• Treaty of Versailles punished Germany, left humiliated and in economic ruin

  • Created League of Nations, but much of Wilson's plan discarded

• Wilson's return home greeted with opposition over League of Nations

  • Senate debate over Article X curtailed America's independence in foreign affairs

  • Senate split into Democrats (pro-League), Irreconcilables (opposed), Reservationists (compromise)

  • Democrats and Irreconcilables defeated treaty with Lodge Reservations

  • US not signatory of Treaty of Versailles, never joined League of Nations

  • America retreating into period of isolationism

• Wilson attempted to muster popular support, suffered major stroke and treaty failed

Possible Success of League of Nations

• Many wonder if League would have prevented World War II had US been a member

7.3 The Jazz Age and The Great Depression (1920-1933)

After World War I

• Brief slump in American economy

• Rapid growth from 1922

• Electric motor drives prosperity

• New industries arise to serve middle class

Pro-Business Republican Administrations

• Increased comfort with large successful businesses

• Department stores and automobile industry offer convenience and status

• Government increasingly pro-business, regulatory agencies assist business instead of regulating

• Decreased favor for labor unions, strikes suppressed by federal troops

• Supreme Court nullified child labor restrictions and minimum wage law for women

Woodrow Wilson and Race

• Outspoken white supremacist

• Segregated federal government, wrote admiringly of KKK

• Told racist jokes at Cabinet meetings

• Presidents Harding, Coolidge, Hoover pursued pro-business policies

• Teapot Dome Scandal with corrupt cabinet members

• Harding liberal on civil liberty, Coolidge won election on "Coolidge prosperity" and continued conservative economic policies

Decline of Labor Unions

• Pro-business atmosphere led to decline in popularity of labor unions

• Drop in membership levels throughout decade

• Efforts by businesses to woo workers with pension plans, profit sharing, and company events

• Referred to as welfare capitalism.

Modern Culture

• The automobile was a major consumer product in the 1920s and typified the new spirit of the nation

• Henry Ford's assembly line and mass production made cars more affordable, leading to widespread ownership

• Automobiles allowed people to move to the suburbs and transformed into a necessity

• The impact of cars was tremendous, requiring the development of roadways and traffic enforcement

• Radio also changed the nation's culture, with millions of families owning them and gathering to listen

• Consumerism was fueled by the rise of household appliances and the advertising industry

• Single-earner households pushed more women to enter the workforce, although most still remained in traditional roles

• The flapper image emerged as a symbol of the Roaring Twenties and the new freedom for women

• Entertainment saw growth in movies, sports, and literature with world-class authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway

• Literature reflected disillusionment with the opulence and excess of the 1920s

• The Harlem Renaissance was a major cultural development in the largest Black neighborhood in New York City

• The Harlem Renaissance was marked by the growth of theaters, cultural clubs, and newspapers

• Jazz was popularized and became emblematic of the era, with Louis Armstrong as a major figure

Backlash Against Modern Culture

1920s America:

Backlash and Nativism:

• Ku Klux Klan grew to over 5 million members

  • Targeted Blacks, Jews, urbanites, and anyone whose behavior deviated from their narrow code of acceptable Christian behavior

• Anti-immigration groups grew in strength

  • Targeted southern and Eastern European immigrants

• Accusations of dangerous subversives intensified with Sacco and Vanzetti trial

• US started setting limits and quotas to restrict immigration

  • Emergency Quota Act of 1924 set immigration quotas based on national origins

  • Discriminated against southern and Eastern European "new immigrants"

Societal Tensions:

• Scopes Monkey Trial

  • Tennessee law forbade teaching evolution

  • John Thomas Scopes broke the law

  • Trial drew national attention with prominent attorneys Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan

  • Encapsulated debate over sticking with tradition vs. progress

Prohibition:

• Banned manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages

• Roots in reform campaigns of 1830s

• Mainstay of women's political agendas

• 18th Amendment outlawed American liquor industry

• Resentment of government intrusion in private matter

• Weakened by organized crime in producing and selling liquor

• Gangster Era inspired many movies and television series

• Prohibition repealed by 21st Amendment in 1933

Herbert Hoover and the Beginning of the Great Depression

• Republicans nominate Herbert Hoover in 1928

• Hoover predicts that poverty would soon be eradicated in America

• October 1929 stock market crash triggers the Great Depression

• Hoover and advisers underestimated the impact of the crash

• Hoover believed the economy was sound, reassured public that only speculators would be hurt

• Huge banks and corporations among the speculators, causing bankruptcy and unable to pay employees or guarantee bank deposits

• Factors contributing to the Great Depression: Europe's economy due to WWI and reparations, overproduction leading to lay offs and low market value, production outstripping ability to buy, concentration of wealth and power in a few businessmen, government laxity in regulation

• Depression had a calamitous effect on millions of Americans: job loss, savings loss, homeless and shantytowns, rural farmers struggled, drought and Dust Bowl, agrarian unrest, Farmers’ Holiday Association

• Hoover initially opposed federal relief efforts, but later initiated a few programs and campaigned for works projects

• Hawley-Smoot Tariff worsened the economy

• Hoover had the Federal Emergency Relief Administration established to bail out large companies and banks

• Hoover's most embarrassing moment: army attack on Bonus Expeditionary Force in 1932

• Hoover's efforts not enough to secure re-election, defeated by FDR in 1932 election

• FDR's interventionist government approach contrasted with Hoover's traditional conservative values.

7.4 The New Deal and World War II (1934 - 1945)

• Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural address declared war on the Depression

• He asked for the same broad powers that presidents exercise during wars against foreign nations

• Most famous line of the speech: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified fear."

• The New Deal was a result of a powerful presidency and public confidence in Roosevelt

• The First New Deal took place during the first hundred days of Roosevelt's administration

• The Emergency Banking Relief Bill put poorly managed banks under control of Treasury Department and granted government licenses to solvent banks

• The Banking Act of 1933 created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to guarantee bank deposits

• Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) provided payments to farmers in return for cutting production, funded by increased taxes on food processors

• Farm Credit Act provided loans to farmers in danger of foreclosure

• National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) consolidated businesses and coordinated activities to eliminate overproduction

• Public Works Administration (PWA) set aside $3 billion to create jobs building roads, sewers, public housing units, etc.

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided grants to states for their own PWA-like projects

• The government took over the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and expanded its operations for the economic recovery of the region

• Roosevelt's response to Great Depression was guided by Keynesian economics

• Keynesian economics argued that government should embark on a program of deliberate deficit spending to revive the economy

• Keynesian economics was successful during Roosevelt's administration and led to 30 years of economic expansion from 1945 to 1973

The Second New Deal

New Deal Criticisms

• Conservatives:

  • Higher tax rates

  • Increase in government power over business

  • Removal of incentive for the poor to lift themselves out of poverty

  • Borrowing to finance programs, anathema to conservatives

• Leftists, like Huey Long:

  • AAA policy of paying farmers not to grow is immoral

  • Government policy toward businesses too favorable

  • Blamed corporate greed for Depression, calling for nationalization of businesses

Huey Long Threat to FDR

• Senator and governor of Louisiana

• Promoted a plan similar to Social Security, gaining supporters

• Assassinated in 1935

Supreme Court Dismantles First New Deal

• Invalidated sections of NIRA in the "sick chicken case"

  • Codes were unconstitutional, executive legislation beyond limits of executive power

• FDR argued that crisis of Depression warranted expansion of executive branch

• Supreme Court struck down AAA in United States v. Butler

Roosevelt's Court-Packing Scheme

• Attempted to increase Supreme Court size from 9 justices to 15

• Wanted to pick justices who supported his policies

• Rejected by Congress

Second New Deal

• Emergency Relief Appropriation Act created WPA (later renamed Works Project Administration)

  • Generated over 8 million jobs, funded by government

  • Employed writers, photographers, and artists for public works and local/personal history projects

• Summer of 1935 is called Roosevelt's Second Hundred Days

  • Passed legislation broadening NLRB powers, democratizing unions, punishing anti-union businesses

  • Created Social Security Administration for retirement benefits for workers, disabled, and families

  • Increased taxes on wealthy individuals and business profits

New Deal Coalition

• Made up of union members, urbanites, underclass, and Black people (previously voted Republican)

• Swept FDR back into office in 1936 with landslide victory

• Held together until election of Reagan in 1980.

Roosevelt’s Troubled Second Term

Franklin Roosevelt's Second Term:

I. Judicial Reorganization Bill:

• Proposed allowing Roosevelt to appoint new federal judges

• Effort to pack courts with judges sympathetic to New Deal policies

• Defeated in Democratic Congress

• Intense criticism for trying to seize too much power

• Situation worked itself out with retirements and appointment of liberal judges

II. Economic Problems:

• 1937 recession caused by cuts in government programs and tightened credit supply

• Recession lasted for almost three years with increased unemployment rate

• Forced Roosevelt to withdraw money from New Deal programs to fund military buildup

III. New Deal:

• Debate among historians on whether New Deal worked or not

• Arguments for New Deal:

  • Provided relief and escaped poverty for many people

  • Reforms in banking, finance, management/union relations

  • Took bold chances in conservative political climate

• Arguments against New Deal:

  • Unemployment rate remained in double digits

  • Failed to solve unemployment problem

  • Too small and short-lived to have significant impact

  • Didn't benefit all equally, minorities particularly hurt by AAA and public works projects

IV. Accomplishments:

• Passed Second Agricultural Adjustment Act and Fair Labor Standards Act

• Remade America in banking, finance, management/union relations

• Social welfare system stems from New Deal

• Took bold chances in conservative political climate

7.5 Foreign Policy Leading up to World War II

• After World War I, American foreign policy focused on promoting peace and independent internationalism.

• The Washington Conference was held in 1921-1922 and resulted in a treaty that limited armaments and reaffirmed the Open Door Policy toward China.

• In 1928, 62 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which condemned war as a means of foreign policy.

• The US tried to adopt a Good Neighbor Policy in Latin America in 1934, but continued to promote American interests through economic coercion and support of pro-American leaders.

• The Platt Amendment was repealed during this time.

• In Asia, the US had limited influence and was unable to stop Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

• The US sold arms to China and called for an arms embargo on Japan when Japan went to war against China in 1937.

• The US maintained a high-tariff protectionist policy throughout the 1920s.

• The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act allowed the president to reduce tariffs for foreign policy goals.

• Most favored nation (MFN) trade status was granted to eligible countries for the lowest tariff rate set by the US.

• Isolationist sentiment grew due to the results of World War I and the findings of the Nye Commission.

• The Nye Commission revealed unethical activities by American arms manufacturers, leading to the passage of neutrality acts.

• Roosevelt poured money into the military and worked to assist the Allies within the limits of the neutrality acts.

• By the 1940s, US foreign policy became increasingly less isolationist with the Lend-Lease Act and Roosevelt's efforts to supply the Allies.

World War II

• Complicated military strategy and outcome of key battles played a significant role in WW2

• No need to know much about battles, but important to know about wartime conferences between Allies

• Grand Alliance between Soviet Union and West was tenuous

• Manhattan Project of 1942 was research and development effort for atomic bombs

• Soviet spies infiltrated the project

• First meeting of "big three" (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) took place in Tehran in 1943

• They planned Normandy invasion (D-Day) and division of defeated Germany into occupation zones

• Stalin agreed to enter war against Japan after Hitler's defeat

• Allies fought Germans primarily in Soviet Union and Mediterranean until D-Day invasion in France

• Soviet Union incurred huge losses and sought to recoup by occupying Eastern Europe

• Allies won war of attrition against Germans and accelerated victory in East by dropping atomic bombs on Japan

• D-Day on June 6, 1944 was largest amphibious landing

• Government acquired more power during WW2 through War Production Board and control over industry and labor

• Labor Disputes Act of 1943 allowed government takeover of businesses deemed necessary to national security

• Hollywood was enlisted to create propaganda films

• Government size more than tripled during war

• FDR signed Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, creating first peacetime draft in US history

• WW2 affected almost every aspect of daily life and created new opportunities and tensions in American society

• More than a million African Americans served in US military during WW2, but lived in segregated units

• US army was not desegregated until after the war in 1948

• Rosie the Riveter symbolized the millions of women who worked in war-related industrial jobs

• Most women were expected to go back to traditional roles after soldiers returned home

• Government restricted civil liberties, including internment of Japanese Americans from 1942 to end of war

• Over 110,000 Asian Americans were imprisoned without charge based solely on ethnic background

• Supreme Court upheld evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans as constitutional

The End of the War

Yalta and Potsdam Conferences

• Yalta conference held in February 1945 between Allies (US, UK, USSR) to discuss the fate of postwar Europe

• Soviet army occupied parts of Eastern Europe, and Stalin wanted to create a "buffer zone" with "friendly" nations

• Allies agreed on a number of issues concerning borders and settlements and to help create the United Nations

Potsdam Conference

• Held after the end of the war in Europe to decide on implementing the agreements of Yalta

• Harry S. Truman represented the US after Roosevelt's death

• Differences between US and USSR growing more pronounced

• Allies created the Potsdam Declaration to establish the terms for Japan's surrender (removal of emperor from power)

Outcome of Conferences

• USSR given a free hand in Eastern Europe with promise to hold "free and unfettered elections" after the war

• Descent of Iron Curtain (division of Eastern and Western Europe) and beginning of Cold War

• American-Soviet animosity led to US using atomic bombs against Japan

• Fear of Soviet entry into Asian war and display of power, combined with tenacious Japanese resistance, influenced Truman's decision.

Period 8: 1945-1980

8.1 Truman and the beginning of The Cold War (1945 - 1953)

The end of World War II raised two major issues:

1. Survival of combatants and rebuilding of war-torn countries

2. Political and economic shape of the new world and formation of new political alliances

• The Cold War was a power struggle between the two leading political-economic systems, capitalism and communism

• The major powers, United States and Soviet Union, were the two new superpowers, but their ideologies made them enemies.

• Truman's Foreign Policy:

  1. Differences between Soviet and American goals became clearer after the war

  2. Truman Doctrine and Containment Policy to prevent spread of communism

  3. Marshall Plan - sent $12 billion to Europe to help rebuild its economy and promote economic growth

  4. Formed NATO with Canada and Western European countries in 1949.

• Berlin Crisis in 1948:

  1. Germany was divided into 4 sectors after the war

  2. Berlin was also divided into 4 sectors

  3. The three Western Allies merged their sectors and planned to bring the country into the Western economy

  4. Soviet response - imposed a blockade on Berlin

  5. Truman ordered airlifts to keep the Western portion supplied with food and fuel

  6. The blockade continued for close to a year and was a political liability for the Soviets, who eventually gave it up.

8.2 McCarthyism

Red Scare and Anti-Communism in America

• After World War I, anticommunism swept America during the Red Scare.

• Truman ordered investigations of 3 million federal employees in search of "security risks."

• Those found to have a potential Achilles’ heel (association with "known communists" or "moral" weaknesses) were dismissed without a hearing.

• Alger Hiss, former State Department official, was found guilty of consorting with a communist spy.

• Fear of the "enemy within" began to spread.

• The Screen Actors Guild attempted to purge its own communists.

Rise of Joseph McCarthy

• In 1950, McCarthy claimed to have a list of over 200 known communists working for the State Department.

• He led a campaign of innuendo that ruined the lives of thousands of innocent people.

• McCarthy held years of hearings with regard to subversion, not just in the government, but in education and the entertainment industry.

• Industries created lists of those tainted by these charges, called blacklists.

• Eisenhower was worried about McCarthy and refused to speak against him.

Downfall of McCarthy

• McCarthy accused the Army of harboring communists and finally chose too powerful a target.

• The Army fought back hard, with help from Edward R. Murrow’s television show, and made McCarthy look foolish in the Army-McCarthy hearings.

• The public turned its back on McCarthy, and the era of McCarthyism ended.

• Public distrust and fear of communism remained.

8.3 Truman’s Domestic Policy and the Election of 1948

The End of War and its Effects on the Economy

• The end of war led to the end of wartime production (Jeeps, airplanes, guns, bombs, and uniforms)

• Businesses started laying off employees, leading to a rise in unemployment levels

• People started spending more, causing prices to rise, with an inflation rate of 20% in 1946

• The poor and unemployed were hit the hardest

• Truman offered New Deal-style solutions but was met with conservatism in American politics

Deals offered by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman

• Square Deal: Theodore Roosevelt promised to regulate business and restore competition

• First New Deal: Franklin Roosevelt focused on immediate public relief and recovery of banks

• Second New Deal: Franklin Roosevelt addressed shortcomings of the First New Deal and responded to changing political climate

• Fair Deal: Harry Truman extended New Deal vision and provided provisions for WWII veteran reintegration into society (e.g. G.I. Bill)

The Rise of New Conservatism

• Antiunionism emerged

• Strike in essential industries (coal miners) led to layoffs, tensions rose

• Truman seized mines when settlement couldn't be reached, which alienated labor

• Threatened to draft railroad strikers, further alienating labor and one of the core constituencies of the Democratic coalition

Civil Rights and Truman's Alienation

• Truman pursued a civil rights agenda, but upset many voters (especially in the South)

• Convened President's Committee on Civil Rights, issued reports calling for end to segregation and poll taxes, more aggressive enforcement of antilynching laws

• Issued executive orders forbidding racial discrimination in federal hiring, desegregating Armed Forces

• Advances in civil rights provoked an outbreak of racism in the South

Anger among Core Democratic Constituencies

• Labor, consumers, Southerners all upset with Truman

• Republicans take control of 80th Congress in 1946 midterm elections

• Truman's popularity receives boost from conservative Republican-dominated Congress

• Passes anti-labor acts, Taft-Hartley Act restricts labor rights, gives government power to intervene in strikes

• Rebukes Truman's efforts to pass health care reform, aid schools, farmers, elderly, disabled, promote civil rights for Black people

Truman's Re-election Victory

• Truman trails chief opponent, Thomas Dewey, in election

• Makes brilliant political move by recalling the conservative Congress and challenging them to enact their platform

• Congress meets for two weeks and does not pass significant legislation

• Truman goes on grueling public appearance campaign deriding the "do-nothing" 80th Congress

• Wins re-election, coattails carry Democratic majority into Congress

8.4 The Korean War

Introduction:

• The Korean War began in June of 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea.

• The U.S. took swift countermeasures, intending to repel the invasion but later trying to reunify Korea.

• U.S. troops attacked North Korea under the umbrella of the United Nations, which led to China's entry into the war.

• U.S. Involvement:

  • Truman's Early Decisions: Truman decided to attempt a reunification of Korea after early military successes.

  • China's Entry: China entered the war, pushing American and South Korean troops back to near the original border.

  • MacArthur's Recommendation: U.S. commander Douglas MacArthur recommended an all-out confrontation with China.

  • Truman's Decision: Truman decided against MacArthur's recommendation, thinking a war with China would be imprudent.

  • MacArthur's Firing: MacArthur started criticizing the president publicly, which led to his firing for insubordination.

• Political Impact:

  • MacArthur's Popularity: MacArthur was very popular in the U.S., and his firing hurt Truman politically.

  • Peace Talks: Peace talks began soon after, but the war dragged on for two more years.

  • 1952 Presidential Election: The Republicans chose Dwight D. Eisenhower, a war hero, in the 1952 presidential election.

  • Truman's Unpopularity: Truman was unpopular, and America was ready for a change.

  • Eisenhower's Victory: Eisenhower easily beat Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson.

8.5 The Eisenhower years (1953 - 1961)

The 1950s: A Time of Conformity

Societal Values:

• Consensus of values across much of America

• Americans believed in the superiority of their country

• Communism was perceived as evil and a threat to be stopped

• The good life was defined as having a decent job, a suburban home, and access to modern conveniences (consumerism)

G.I. Bill of Rights:

• Serviceman's Readjustment Act enacted in 1944

• Provided allowance for educational and living expenses for returning soldiers and veterans

• Helped many Americans achieve the American dream

• Stimulated postwar economic growth by providing low-cost loans for homes, farms, or small businesses

Civil Rights Movement:

• Built on the advances of the 1940s

• Met violent resistance

Economic Recessions:

• Era plagued by frequent economic recessions

Spiritual Unrest:

• Emergence of Beat poetry and novels (e.g. "Howl," On the Road)

• Teen movies (e.g. Blackboard Jungle, The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause)

• Rock 'n' Roll music (Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry)

Domestic Politics in the 1950s

• Eisenhower took office with intentions of imposing conservative values on the expanding federal government

• Goals included balancing the budget, reducing federal spending and easing business regulation

• Military buildup for the Cold War prevented major cuts to the military budget

• Popularity of New Deal programs and circumstances required increasing Social Security recipients and benefits

• Started development of the Interstate Highway System, which promoted tourism and suburban development at high cost

• Only balanced the federal budget three times in eight years

• Domestic issues involving minorities:

  • Eisenhower's "termination" policy aimed to liquidate reservations and end federal support for Native Americans

  • Policy failed and was stopped in the 60s, leading to depletion and impoverishment of some tribes

• Civil rights movement had landmark events:

  • Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal"

  • Eisenhower personally disapproved of segregation but opposed rapid change, resulting in southern resistance

  • Supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, strengthening voting rights and punishments for crimes against Blacks

  • Montgomery bus boycott (1955) led to Martin Luther King Jr's national prominence and the integration of city buses

  • King encouraged peaceful protests, leading to the 1960 Greensboro sit-in movement against segregation

America Versus the Communists

Eisenhower Administration Cold War Policy

• Policy of Containment:

  • Rebranded as "Liberation" to sound more intimidating

  • Threat of freeing Eastern Europe from Soviet control

• Massive Retaliation:

  • Threat of nuclear attack if Soviets dared to challenge US

• Deterrence:

  • Soviet fear of massive retaliation prevents challenges to US

  • Leads to arms race

  • Knowledge of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevents deployment of nuclear weapons

• Brinksmanship:

  • Escalation of confrontations with Soviet Union towards war

• Domino Theory:

  • Spread of communism had to be checked in Southeast Asia

  • South Vietnam falling to communism would lead to quick fall of surrounding nations

Tensions During the Decade

• Cold War tensions remained high throughout the decade

• Death of Joseph Stalin:

  • Eisenhower hoped for improvement in American-Soviet relations

  • Initially, new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev offered hope

• Soviet Client States:

  • Khrushchev's "peaceful coexistence" message taken as sign of weakness

  • Rebellions in Poland and Hungary

  • Soviet crushing of uprisings returns US-Soviet relations to Stalin Era

• Heightened Anxieties:

  • Soviet advancements in nuclear arms and space flight

  • US creates and funds NASA in response to Soviet advancements

8.6 Third World Politics

World War II and the Third World

• Europe's overseas empires broke up after World War II

• Numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and South America gained independence from European domination and became known as the Third World

• America and the Soviet Union sought to bring Third World countries into their sphere of influence

• Both superpowers prized Third World countries with strategic locations and military bases

• Nationalism swept through most Third World nations, making it difficult for the superpowers to make major inroads

• Third World nations regarded both America and the Soviet Union with suspicion and distrust

America's Influence in the Third World

• America attempted to expand its influence through foreign aid (e.g. Aswan Dam in Egypt)

• Nationalist leader Gamal Nasser suspected Western motives and turned to the Soviet Union for aid

• President Eisenhower played a role in the Suez Canal crisis and pressured Britain and France to withdraw

• CIA used covert operations (disinformation, bribing politicians, influencing local business and politics) to increase American influence abroad

• CIA helped overthrow anti-American governments in Iran and Guatemala and tried (unsuccessfully) to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba

8.7 The 1960 Presidential Election

Election of 1960

• Richard Nixon (Republican) vs John F. Kennedy (Democrat)

• Both campaigned against communist menace and each other

• Kennedy won due to youth, good looks, choice of Lyndon Johnson as running mate, and television debate performance

• Nixon's campaign hurt by vice presidency and lack of endorsement from Eisenhower

• Close election, with possible voter fraud

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

• Warning against the military-industrial complex

• Combination of military and profitable arms industries created a powerful alliance

• Interests of this alliance did not align with general public

• Later seen as identification of those responsible for escalation of Vietnam War

The Turbulent Sixties

• 1960s started with hope and excitement, "Camelot" era

• Kennedy and his administration were seen as young, ambitious, and intellectual

• Dubbed as "the best and the brightest" by the press

• Kennedy's youth, good looks, and wit earned him the adoration of millions

• New Frontier program promised to conquer poverty, racism, and other contemporary issues

• By 1969, America was bitterly divided

• Conflicts centered around the Vietnam War and Black people's struggle for civil rights

• Kennedy perceived Soviet Union and communism as the major threats to US security

• Every major foreign policy issue related to Cold War concerns

• Two major events heightened American-Soviet tensions: Cuba and Berlin Wall

• Kennedy inherited the Cuban issue and attempted to solve it with the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion

• Invasion failed and led to diminished America's stature with allies

• Berlin Wall symbolized the repressive nature of communism and divide between democratic West and communist East

• JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" statement was not a grammatical error

• Cuban missile crisis in 1962 brought US and Soviet Union closest to military confrontation

• Kennedy imposed naval quarantine on Cuba to prevent further weapons shipments and demanded Soviet withdrawal

• Brinkmanship policy resulted in peaceful resolution of the crisis

8.8 Kennedy and Domestic Policy

President John F. Kennedy: The New Frontier and Civil Rights

• Kennedy's Presidency:

  • Began with a promise of conquering a New Frontier

  • Pushed through legislation to improve the country's welfare

  • Increased unemployment benefits

  • Expanded Social Security

  • Raised minimum wage

  • Aided distressed farmers

• Civil Rights Agenda:

  • Varied results

  • Supported women's rights

    • Established presidential commission to remove obstacles to women's participation in society

    • Congress passed the Equal Pay Act (1963) requiring equal pay for equal work

    • Employers still found ways to bypass the law

  • Embraced Black civil rights late in his presidency

    • Enforced desegregation at the University of Alabama and the University of Mississippi

    • Asked Congress to outlaw segregation in all public facilities

    • Assassination in November 1963

• JFK's Actions on Civil Rights:

  • Ordered Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to make public transportation integrated

  • Active period for the civil rights movement

    • Nongovernmental organizations mobilized to build on previous decade's gains

    • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) staged sit-ins and boycotts

    • Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized the Freedom Riders

    • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) did grassroots work for voter registration and antisegregationist activism

  • Civil rights groups faced resistance

    • Mississippi's NAACP director, Medgar Evers, was shot to death by an anti-integrationist

    • Demonstrators in Montgomery, Alabama, were assaulted by police and fire department using attack dogs and fire hoses

    • News reports of these events helped bolster the movement

    • JFK's assassination also had an impact on the civil rights movement

8.9 Lyndon Johnson’s Social Agenda

President Lyndon Johnson and Civil Rights Movement

• Unlike Kennedy, Johnson took immediate action to demonstrate his commitment to the civil rights movement

• Lobbied for the Civil Rights Act of 1964

  • Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, or gender

  • Most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation in U.S. history

  • Prohibited discrimination in employment and public facilities

• Established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce employment clause

• Signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965

  • Cracked down on states denying Black people the right to vote

• Signed another civil rights act banning discrimination in housing

• Extended voting rights to Native Americans living under tribal governments

• Believed social injustice stemmed from social inequality and advocated for civil rights in employment

• Lobbied for and won the Economic Opportunity Act

  • Appropriated nearly $1 billion for poverty relief

• Expanded antipoverty program after election victory

  • Project Head Start

  • Upward Bound

  • Job Corps

  • Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA)

  • Legal Services for the Poor

  • Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

  • Increased federal aid to low-income renters

  • Built more federal housing projects

  • Established Medicare and Medicaid

• Great Society - sweeping change to U.S. government since the New Deal

• Increased tax revenues from expanding economy funded the whole package

• Objections to increase in government activity

• Extension of civil rights met with bigoted opposition, especially in the South

• Huge coalition that gave Johnson victory and mandate for change started to fall apart due to successes and bitter national debate over Vietnam

The Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement in the Early 1960s

Legislative Successes:

• Passed under Johnson’s Great Society program

• Provided government support

Victories in the Courts:

• Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren

• Warren Court was extremely liberal

• Worked to enforce voting rights for Black people

• Forced states to redraw congressional districts for greater minority representation

• Prohibited school prayer

• Protected the right to privacy

• Rulings on rights of the accused: Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona

Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the Constitution:

• Ratified on January 23, 1964

• Banned the use of the poll tax in all elections

Resistance to Change:

• Strong opposition from state governments, police, and white citizens

• Examples of police violence: Selma, Birmingham

• Racists bombed Black churches and homes of civil rights activists

• Mississippi: three civil rights workers murdered by local police department

Growing Outrage in the Black Community:

• Activists abandon Martin Luther King's nonviolent strategy

• Malcolm X advocates "by any means necessary"

• SNCC and CORE expel white members and advocate Black Power

• Black Panthers at forefront of movement

Fragmentation of the Movement:

• 1968: King assassinated

• Some continue to advocate integration and peaceful change

• Others argue for empowerment through segregation and aggression

8.10 The New Left, Feminism, and the Counterculture

• Young whites, particularly college students, challenged the status quo of middle-class life in the 1960s

• The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was formed in 1962 with leftist political agenda

• New Left ideals included elimination of poverty and racism, and end to Cold War politics

• The Free Speech movement was formed at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964

• The Beat Movement started in the 1950s and challenged conservatism with works promoting bohemian lifestyles, drug use and non-traditional art

• The New Left groups were male-dominated and insensitive to women's rights

• Betty Friedan's book "The Feminine Mystique" challenged assumptions about women's place in society and restarted the women's movement

• National Organization for Women (NOW) was formed in 1966 to fight for legislative changes, including the Equal Rights Amendment

• The modern movement for gay rights began in the 1960s, with the first Gay Pride parades

• Feminists fought against discrimination in hiring, pay, college admissions, and financial aid, and control of reproductive rights

• The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) enabled women to obtain abortions in all 50 states within the first trimester

• The Supreme Court established a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

• Mario Savio's speech on December 3, 1964, spoke against "the operation of the machine"

• Rebellion against "the establishment" also took the form of nonconformity, typified by the counterculture of the hippies

• Counterculture of the hippies included long hair, tie-dyed shirts, ripped jeans, drug use, communal living, and "free love"

• Environmental issues rose to prominence with the publication of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring"

• Legislators responded to environmental concerns with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970

American Involvement in Vietnam, World War II–1963

U.S. Foreign Policy and Vietnam War

U.S. Policy on Communism

• Asserted right to intervene anywhere to stop spread of communism and protect American interests

Origins of U.S. Involvement in Vietnam

• Vietnam was French colony until World War II

• Exported resources for French consumption

• Nationalist Vietnamese resistance (Vietminh) led by Ho Chi Minh

• Ho asked Woodrow Wilson for help in expelling French, but was ignored

• Japan invaded and ended French control, but U.S. did not recognize Vietnamese independence or Ho's government

• U.S. recognized Bao Dai's government installed by French in South

• Vietnam fought war for independence against French (1946-1954)

• U.S. financed French war effort in Indochina (80%)

• Geneva Accords (1954) divided Vietnam at 17th parallel, temporarily

• U.S. sabotaged peace agreement by forming alliance with Ngo Dinh Diem and sabotaging elections

• Formed Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) for South Vietnam's defense

Downward Spiral of the Situation

• Diem was vicious leader, imprisoning political enemies, closing newspapers, and attracting Vietcong

• U.S. continued to support Diem and South Vietnam economically

• Kennedy increased involvement by sending in military advisors

• CIA staged a coup to overthrow Diem's government in 1963

• Diem and his brother killed during coup

• Kennedy appalled by outcome, assassinated a few weeks later

• Johnson took control of America's war efforts.

American Involvement in Vietnam, 1964–1968

Johnson Administration

• Opportunity to withdraw American forces, but Kennedy's advisers convinced Johnson to remain committed to total victory

• Supported second coup in South Vietnam; US not selective about who ran country as long as it wasn't Communist

• US Army started bombing Laos (North Vietnamese weapons shipment)

• Reports of North Vietnamese firing on American destroyer ships in Gulf of Tonkin (not confirmed)

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed, allowed president to take necessary measures to protect American interests

• First ground troops arrived in early 1965

• Flooded region with American troops, authorized massive bombing raids into North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder)

• Chemical agents like Agent Orange and Napalm used in bombing

• US took over war effort from South Vietnamese, resulting in Americanization of the war

• As the war ground on, opposition to the war grew, protests increased, and young men either ignored draft or fled to avoid service

Opposition to the War

• Johnson's advisers continued to assure him war was winnable until the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive in January 1968

• Tet Offensive was a major turning point in the war, North Vietnamese and Vietcong nearly captured American embassy in Saigon

• Tet Offensive made the American public believe they were being lied to and the war was not winnable

• The My Lai Massacre occurred in 1968, US soldiers abused, tortured, and murdered innocent civilians

• When story of massacre came to light in 1969, public was outraged, protests against the war grew angrier and more frequent

The Summer of 1968 and the 1968 Election

Johnson's Presidential Race Withdrawal

• Johnson's association with the Vietnam War turned many Americans and people within his own party against him

• Renomination would not have been easy, with challenges from McCarthy and Kennedy

• Withdrawal opened the field to Vice President Hubert Humphrey

Civil Unrest After King Assassination

• Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. sparked civil unrest and looting

• Police ordered to shoot arsonists in Chicago, where Democratic convention would be held

• King's assassination heightened tension surrounding race relations

• Kerner Commission report stated that nation was moving toward two separate, unequal societies

Robert Kennedy Assassination

• Robert Kennedy, front-runner for Democratic nomination, assassinated

• Kennedy represented hope for many Americans as an advocate for the poor and critic of Vietnam War

• Two assassinations convinced many that peaceful change from within political system was impossible

Democratic Convention Demonstrations

• Disenchanted young Americans demonstrated against government policy at the Democratic Convention

• Police ordered to break up crowds with tear gas, billy clubs, and rifles

• Images of police clubbing citizens reached millions, reminiscent of police states America fought against

• Convention chose pro-war Humphrey over antiwar McCarthy and refused to condemn war effort, alienating left-wing constituency

Republican and Third-Party Nominations

• Republicans handed nomination to former Vice President Richard Nixon at peaceful convention

• Alabama governor George Wallace ran segregationist third-party campaign, popular in the South

• Wallace siphoning Humphrey's potential support in the South

• Humphrey denounced Vietnam War late in campaign, but it was too little, too late

Election Result

• One of the closest elections in history

• Richard Nixon elected president

8.11 The Counter Counterculture

1960s & 1970s in America

• Rollicking party filled with free love, new social ideas, and worthy political causes for young people.

• Not everyone embraced the changes of the 1960s

• Conservative resurgence began in the 1970s at grassroots level

• Focus on single issues: ending abortion, criticizing affirmative action, emphasizing traditional gender roles and nuclear family

• Older people suspicious of young questioning values of parents/grandparents

• Religious people distrusted rejection of traditional morals and beliefs

• Southern segregationists resisted civil rights movement

• Some Americans tired of marches and protests, wanted return to peaceful way of life

Opposition to the Changes of the 1960s

• Dismayed with civil rights movement, counterculture, and feminism

• Alarmed by rising cost of social welfare programs created by New Deal and Johnson's Great Society

Phyllis Schlafly

• Notable leader in Conservative reaction to the changes of the 1960s

• Most well known for lobbying against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution

• ERA passed Congress, but never fully ratified due to efforts to quell it by Schlafly and supporters

Opposition to the ERA

• Could lead to conscription of women into war, negatively affect women in divorce cases, allow men entry to women-only colleges and clubs

• Influenced the opinions of many Americans, ERA was never fully ratified

Richard Nixon

• Sought to appeal to Americans who did not fully embrace cultural and political changes of the 1960s and 1970s

• Conservatives voted for Nixon in large numbers, hoping he would reverse trend of encroaching federal power

• Some Southern Democrats voted for Nixon, distrusted newer liberal social policies of their party

Nixon, “Vietnamization,” and Détente

Nixon Administration and Vietnam War

• Promised to end American involvement in Vietnam through "Vietnamization"

• Began withdrawing troops but increased air strikes

• Believed in winning the war and ordered bombing raids and troops into Cambodia

• American involvement lasted until 1973, peace treaty negotiated with North Vietnam

Outcome of the War

• Negotiated peace crumbled, Saigon fell in 1975 and Vietnam united under communism

• War Powers Resolution passed in 1973 to prevent future presidents from undeclared wars

Success in Foreign Policy

• Increased trade with USSR and negotiated arms treaties

• Improved relations with China through secret negotiations and opening trade

• Used friendship with China as leverage against USSR

Contributions to Foreign Policy Vocabulary

• Détente: policy of "openness" and cooperation among countries

• Brief period of relaxed tensions between superpowers

• Détente ended with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979

• Nixon Doctrine: United States would withdraw from overseas commitments, rely on local government alliances to check communism.

Nixon’s Domestic Policy

Domestic Issues During Nixon's Presidency

Economic Woes

• Period of stagflation (recession-inflation)

• Nixon tried to combat with interventionist measures (price-and-wage freeze, increased federal spending)

• Efforts failed to produce intended results

Political Tensions

• Divided society between haves and have-nots, conservatives and progressives

• Political rhetoric painted opposition as enemies of the "American way"

• Confrontations on college campuses heightened tensions (Kent State University, Jackson State University)

• Urban crime levels rose

1972 Election

• Nixon won re-election in a landslide victory

• Both houses of Congress remained under Democratic control

• Indication of mixed feelings towards political leaders

Watergate and Nixon’s Resignation

Pentagon Papers

• Top-secret government study of US involvement in Vietnam from World War II to 1968

• Published by two major newspapers in the summer of 1971

• Documents revealed numerous military miscalculations and lies told to the public

• Nixon fought to prevent publication, concerned about effect on secret negotiations with North Vietnam, USSR, and China

• Nixon lost the fight and increased his paranoia

The Plumbers

• Created by Nixon to prevent leaks of classified documents

• Undertook disgraceful projects such as burglarizing a psychiatrist's office

• Sabotaged Democratic campaigns and botched a burglary of Democratic headquarters in Watergate Hotel

Watergate Scandal

• White House effort to cover up the Watergate burglary

• Senate hearing began in early 1973 and lasted for 1.5 years

• Close advisers resigned, tried and convicted of felonies

• Nixon secretly recorded all conversations in the White House

• Legal battle over tapes lasted a year, with Supreme Court ordering Nixon to turn them over

• Tapes revealed unsavory aspects of Nixon's character

• Nixon resigned in August 1974 instead of facing impeachment proceedings

• Vice President Gerald Ford took office and granted Nixon a presidential pardon

People

• Henry Kissinger: Secretary of State under Nixon

• Daniel Ellsberg: Government official who turned the Pentagon Papers over to the press

• Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: Investigative journalists for The Washington Post

• Gerald Ford: Vice President and later President who granted Nixon a presidential pardon

Gerald Ford

President Gerald Ford

• Became president after Nixon resigned

• Replaced first vice president Spiro Agnew who resigned due to corruption charges

• Selected Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President

• First time neither President nor Vice President elected by public

Pardon of Nixon

• Brought Watergate era to a close

• Cost Ford politically

• Raised suspicions of a deal with Nixon

Economic Challenges

• Weak economy

• Oil embargo by Arab nations (OPEC) causing fuel price hikes

• Inflation and increasing unemployment rate

• Damaged credibility due to media, especially parodies by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live

Defeat in 1976 Election

• Defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

Economic Problems during Jimmy Carter's Presidency

• Weakening economy inherited by Carter

• Inflation exceeded 10%

• Interest rates approached 20%

• Slow economic growth combined with inflation worsened stagflation

• Failed to balance the federal budget

• Increased cost of OPEC petroleum caused many economic problems

Efforts to Address Economic Problems

• Increased funding for research into alternative sources of power

• Created the Department of Energy to oversee these efforts

• Many saw nuclear power as a solution to the energy crisis

• Fears about nuclear power reinforced after failure of Three Mile Island

Foreign Policy Accomplishments

• Brokered peace agreement between Israel and Egypt

• Concluded arms agreement with the USSR

Foreign Policy Setbacks

• Failed to force USSR withdrawal from Afghanistan

• Flip-flopped in Nicaragua

• Worst crisis was the Iran Hostage Crisis

Promotion of Human Rights

• Made promotion of human rights a cornerstone of foreign policy

• Negotiated treaty between US and Panama

• Ratified the treaty in the Senate

Retirement and Legacy

• Spent retirement working with organizations like Habitat for Humanity.

Period 9: 1980-Present

9.1 Ronald Reagan

The Reagan Candidacy

Late 1970s in America:

• Many Americans grew tired of conflicts from previous decade

• Uncomfortable with growing cynicism towards political leaders

• Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech (referred to as "malaise speech") disturbed many Americans

Ronald Reagan:

• Saw nation was ready for change

• 1980 presidential campaign: presented himself as Washington "outsider" & Carter's opposite

• Emphasized positive aspects of America vs. Carter blaming American self-indulgence and consumerism

• Many voted for Reagan because of his "can-do" attitude, regardless of politics

1980 Election:

• Reagan won by landslide

• John Anderson's third-party candidacy attracted "protest vote" that might have gone to Carter

Supply-Side Economics

Ronald Reagan's Economic Policies:

• Applied theory of supply-side economics

• Believed reducing corporate taxes would lead to greater profits, job creation, and wealth trickle down

• Large-scale deregulation in banking, industry, and environment

• Across-the-board tax cut for all Americans

Effects of Reagan's Policies:

• Little effect initially, country continued in recession for two years

• Results mixed: inflation subsided, but criticism that rich getting richer and poor getting poorer

• Rich used money saved on taxes to buy luxury items, rather than reinvesting in economy as suggested by supply-side economics

Military Spending and Budget Deficits

Ronald Reagan Administration

• New Federalism Plan

  • Shift power from national government to states

  • States take complete responsibility for welfare, food stamps, and other social welfare programs

  • National government would assume entire cost of Medicaid

  • Goal was never accomplished

  • States feared increase in cost of state government

• Military Spending Increase

  • Funded research into space-based missile shield system (Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI)

  • Escalated arms race with USSR

  • Historians debate contribution to end of Cold War

• Increased Deficit

  • Tax cuts, increased military spending, and failure of New Federalism led to increase in federal budget deficit

  • Government spending increased, government revenues shrank

  • Government had to borrow money

  • Congress blamed deficit on tax cuts

  • Reagan blamed Congress for refusing to decrease funding for social welfare programs

  • Federal deficit reached record heights during Reagan administration

Foreign Policy Under Reagan

• Ending the Cold War

  • Supported repressive regimes and right-wing insurgents

  • U.S. military led international invasion of Grenada

  • Priority: support for Contras in Nicaragua

    • Contras known for torturing and murdering civilians

    • Congress cut off aid, Reagan administration funded through other channels (Iran-Contra affair)

    • Constitutional crisis, debate over power of the purse and checks and balances

  • Marines sent to Lebanon as part of UN peacekeeping force

    • Suicide bomb killed 240 servicemen

    • Eventual pullout of troops

• U.S.-Soviet Relations

  • Reagan's hard-line anticommunism initially led to deterioration in relations

  • Rhetorical war and escalated arms race

  • Adversaries eventually brought to bargaining table due to high cost

  • Gorbachev rose to power in Soviet Union

    • Economic policy of perestroika, social reforms of glasnost

    • Loosened Soviet control of Eastern Europe, increased personal liberties, allowed free-market commerce

    • Reagan and Gorbachev negotiated withdrawal of nuclear warheads from Europe

9.2 George H.W. Bush

Election of 1988

• George Bush defeats Michael Dukakis

• Bush calls for "kinder, gentler nation"

• "Read my lips: No new taxes"

• Progressive liberalism destroyed

• "Liberalism" becomes "L word"

• Feminism becomes "F word"

• Conventional wisdom holds Americans returned to traditional values

• Moral majority appeared to have spoken

Presidency of George Bush

• End of Cold War

• Berlin Wall dismantled, Soviet Union breakup

• Bush sets course for US foreign policy into 21st century

• Persian Gulf War

Persian Gulf War

• Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait

• Washington reacts immediately

• Bush builds consensus in Congress and assembles international coalition

• Operation Desert Storm - massive air strikes against Iraqi targets

• War ends quickly, few American casualties

• Iraq required to submit to UN inspectors for WMD and chemical warfare production

• Saddam Hussein remains in power

• U.S. foreign policy focus on political stability in Middle East and human rights

9.3 Changing Demographics

Immigration in America

• Immigration has significantly affected the shape and tenor of American society

• From the 1970s to today, the fastest-growing ethnic minorities are Hispanics and Asians

• Hispanics now outnumber African Americans as the largest minority in the US

• Growth of Asians and Hispanics fueled by immigration

• The Immigration Act of 1965 contributed to the increase of immigration by relaxing restrictions on non-European immigration

Who are the Immigrants?

• Hispanics: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua

• Asians: Philippines, China, South Korea, India

• Settled mostly in California, Texas, Florida, Southwest

Reasons for Immigration

• Reuniting families

• Employment of skilled workers (scientists) and political refugees

• Employment of Cuban and Southeast Asian refugees from Fidel Castro’s revolution and the Vietnam War

Statistics

• Number of foreign-born people living in the US went from 10 million to 31 million from 1970 to 2000

• 51% of foreign-born people were from Latin America, 27% from Asia

Impact on American Society

• Heated debates on immigration policy, bilingual education, affirmative action

• Discussions centered on illegal immigration, impact on the economy, reshaping society by new cultures, attitudes, and ideas

• Tensions have led to measures to curb illegal immigration, abolish bilingual education, allow low-skilled and high-skilled workers on a temporary basis

• The Simpson-Mazzoli Act in 1986 outlawed the employment of illegal immigrants and granted legal status to some illegal aliens

• Guest worker programs like the Bracero program (1942-1964) aimed to curb illegal immigration by offering temporary employment to migrant farm workers

Unresolved Problems

• Issues persist with illegal immigration

• Guest worker programs face pressure to end from organized labor frustrated at decrease in wages

Diversity, Asset, or Liability?

Demographic Changes in the US

• Major demographic changes underway in the US

• New waves of immigration leading to ethnic enclaves

  • Examples: Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Havana, Little Saigon

• Increase in multilingual services and media catering to specific ethnic groups

  • Specifically, Hispanics and Asians

• Political parties targeting Hispanics for potential political influence

Impact of Demographic Changes

• Impact will be felt for generations to come

Ethnic Enclaves in the US

• Little Italy in New York City

• Chinatown in San Francisco

• Little Havana in Miami, Florida

• Little Saigon in Orange County, California

Services Catering to Ethnic Groups

• Multilingual services

• Media catering to Hispanics and Asians

9.4 The Clinton Presidency (1993–2001)

• William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States and the first Democrat to be elected after Jimmy Carter.

• During his two terms, significant changes occurred in the way Americans do business due to the impact of globalization and advancements in digital technology.

• The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law by Clinton in 1993, which aimed to eliminate trade barriers among the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

• The 1994 Congressional Election saw the Republicans take back control of Congress, but their power was limited by Clinton's executive power.

• The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal resulted in Clinton's impeachment, but he was acquitted by the Senate and remained in office to finish his second term.

• Clinton's foreign policy aimed to protect human rights around the world, although he faced criticism for defending capitalism over democracy and turning a blind eye to human rights violations in China.

• In 1999, Clinton supported a NATO bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia against Slobodan Milosevic, who was eventually tried and convicted for crimes against humanity.

• Other events that took place during Clinton's presidency include his "Don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays in the military, appointments of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court, and the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

9.5 The 2000 Election

2000 Presidential Election

• A candidate must win a majority of electoral votes to win the presidency according to the Constitution

• "Winner-take-all" system in most states

• Possibility of winning popular vote nationwide but losing the presidency

• Mishaps with voting procedure in Florida

• Al Gore challenged the results

• Supreme Court prevented a formal recount of the vote

• George W. Bush elected

George W. Bush Administration

• Rise in neoconservatism

• Sharp opposition to paleoconservatism

• Spread democracy and put American corporate interests first through military actions abroad

• Global trade and open immigration seen as net positive

• Criticized by both staunch liberals and paleoconservatives

• Staunch liberals: excessive corporate power and global imperialism

• Traditional conservatives: cost of military adventures, loss of domestic jobs, and unrestricted immigration

• Loss of faith in the ability of the federal government to solve social and economic problems

Key Players

• George W. Bush

• Al Gore

• John Quincy Adams

• Samuel J. Tilden

• Rutherford B. Hayes

• Dick Cheney

• Donald Rumsfeld

• Paul Wolfowitz

• Patrick J. Buchanan

African Americans in Politics

• Voting Rights Act and Amendment Ban Measures

• Voting rights for African Americans improved dramatically

• Increase from 20% registered to vote in 1960 to 62% by 1971

• Elected Officials

  • African American mayors elected in cities in the 80s

  • Virginia elects first African American governor in 1990

  • First African American governor: P.B.S. Pinchback (LA, 15 days in 1872)

• African American Representation in Congress

  • Shirley Chisholm was first African American woman elected to Congress in 1968

  • First African American to run for president: Shirley Chisholm (1972)

  • Jesse Jackson ran for Democratic nomination in 1984 and 1988

  • In 2000, 1,540 African American legislators (10% of total)

• Powerful African American Political Figures

  • Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Secretaries of State under George W. Bush

  • Thurgood Marshall appointed to Supreme Court by Lyndon Johnson in 1960s

• Historic Election: Barack Obama as President

  • Elected in 2008 as first African American president of the United States

Urban Problems

Urban Migration and Trends in the 1950s and 1960s

• People moved to cities for employment and cheaper housing

• African Americans moved to northern and western cities, like during WWI and II

• Other minorities, including Latin American immigrants, drawn to cities for similar reasons

• Urban problems like overcrowding, high crime, inadequate housing and commercial areas

White Flight in the 1970s and 1980s

• Trend of mostly white, middle-class Americans leaving cities for suburbs

• Attracted by open spaces, shopping malls, and better-funded schools

• Businesses and industries followed, leading to insufficient funds for cities

• Poor people and racial minorities remained in cities

Urban Riots and Racial Tensions

• Televised urban riots in the 1960s heightened racial tensions (LA, Chicago, NY after MLK Jr. assassination)

• Worst urban riot occurred in 1992 in South Central LA after acquittal of white police officers in beating of Rodney King

• Tensions between urban and suburban areas highlighted racial and class animosity

• Forced busing of students in 1974-1975 resulted in violence in South Boston

Contemporary Urban Trends

• Both violent crime and property crime have plunged since early 1990s

• Crime reached lowest level in 40 years in 2010

• Drop in crime even more pronounced in large urban areas

• Affluent young professionals have returned to city centers

Debate on Crime Reduction Causes

• Active debate over what caused drop in crime

• One theory credits falling levels of lead in environment due to legislation in early 1970s

• Lead poisoning linked to criminal activity

Revitalization of American Cities

• Dramatic drop in crime has led to revitalization of American cities over past 20 years

America and the War on Terror

Foreign Policy Shift after 9/11

• 9/11 Attacks

  • Al Qaeda (Osama bin Laden) attacks World Trade Center and Pentagon

  • Fourth plane crashes in Pennsylvania

  • Almost 3,000 civilian casualties

• Response to 9/11

  • Support from NATO allies for attack on Taliban government in Afghanistan

  • Removal of Taliban and restoration of democracy in Afghanistan

• Invasion of Iraq

  • Allegations of Saddam Hussein's involvement in 9/11

  • Human rights violations and rumors of weapons of mass destruction

  • Quick seizure of Baghdad and power vacuum

  • Establishment of provisional government

  • Prolonged American occupation due to tensions between political and religious factions

The Conservative Resurgence

Evangelical Christians in Politics

• Right-wing Evangelical Christians were instrumental in energizing conservatives during the 1970s and 1980s

• Evangelicalism became increasingly prominent in political life from the 1970s through the 1990s

  • Fundamentalist sects emphasized a “born-again” religious experience and strict standards of moral behavior from the Bible

  • Fundamentalists denounced moral relativism of liberals and believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible

  • Evangelical groups became increasingly political

Key Figures in the New Right

• Conservative Evangelicals and fundamentalists such as Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson helped to mobilize like-minded citizens to support the Republican Party

• The strength of the New Right was evident in the key role it played in electing Ronald Reagan in 1980 and recapturing control of Congress under Bill Clinton in 1994

Evangelical Support for Republicans

• Evangelical Christians continued to support Republicans with the election and re-election of George W. Bush

Digital Revolution

• Increased access to digital technology like personal computers and cellular phones

• Increased data storage in new devices

• Exponential increase in the use of technology for personal and business purposes

Dot-Com Bubble

• Speculation on the value of internet-based companies in the late 1990s

• Created first wave of Internet millionaires

• Bubble burst by 2001

Employment Changes in the US

• Decreased manufacturing jobs (by a third) from 1990 to 2010

• Replaced by retail jobs around the turn of the century

• 2008-2009 recession reduced retail employment

• Many Americans found new work in the booming healthcare industry

Decline of Unions

• Unions faced decline throughout the second half of the 20th century, particularly in its final three decades

• Factors contributing to decline:

  • The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 restricted the ability to strike and preferential hiring of union members

  • Union busting, exemplified by President Reagan's firing of 3,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981

  • Generational divide, with younger generations not experiencing the struggles and benefits of unions

Effects of Decline

• Income inequality has grown, with consolidation of wealth in the upper echelon of American earners

• Stagnation of wages, due to decrease in collective bargaining power

• Union membership decreased from 34% in 1979 to 10% in 2010

9.6 Repeal of Glass-Steagall

Background: signed by President Roosevelt in 1933, response to bank instability leading up to Great Depression

• Provisions: banks forced to choose between commercial or investment operations, prohibited from participating in both

• Glass-Steagall repealed: Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 did away with provisions

• Consequences: Critics argue that repeal of Glass-Steagall contributed to the 2008 recession, caused by banks offering speculative home loans

• Key Players: Joseph Stiglitz, among economists, is critical of the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

Gender Roles

Women's Role in Professional Settings

• Increased role in 21st century

• Glass ceiling remains a concern

• Average age for first marriage increased, women prioritizing careers

• 2008 recession affected jobs held by men more

• Women as primary breadwinner for families

• Increase in women elected to political office

  • Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016

  • Geraldine Ferraro in 1984

  • Sarah Palin in 2008

  • Historic levels of women elected to Congress

Changes in Family Structures

• Decrease in two-parent households (87% in 1960 to 69% today)

• Increase in one-parent households (9% in 1960 to 26% today)

Recent Trends

Elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump

• unlikely to be tested on these elections

Financial Crash of 2008

• Bush and Obama administrations responded by providing financial assistance to major banks (banker bailout)

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

• most important piece of legislation under Obama's tenure

• aimed to regulate the medical industry and provide subsidies to uninsured Americans

2016 Election

• marked by ideological divisions within the Republican Party and a rivalry between Trump and Clinton

• Trump won the Electoral College, Clinton won the national popular vote

• emergence of a new populism of skepticism for established institutions and optimism for political outsiders

Trump Presidency

• marked by increased division between Democrats and Republicans

• claims of "fake media" and partisan politics

2020 Election

• Joe Biden vs. incumbent Trump

• greatest population turnout in U.S. history

• driven by political polarization and economic collapse (COVID-19 pandemic)

Impact on U.S. History

• long-term social and political implications of the Trump administration and pandemic remain unclear.