Chapter 6: Settling of the Western Hemisphere (1491–1607)

Keyword

• Columbian Exchange: exchange of crops, animals, diseases, and ideas between Europe and colonies of the Western Hemisphere that developed in the aftermath of the voyages of Columbus.

Key Notes

• There were several reasons why Europeans became interested in the Americas during this period.

• Economic, political, and religious factors were most important.

• Originally, the Spanish saw the Americas as a barrier to a direct route to the Indies.

• They soon established a sizable empire in South and Central America, though, and saw these areas as having enormous wealth potential.

• Before the Europeans arrived, some Native American tribes had advanced complex civilizations.

• The impact of European settlement on the American ecosystem was profound.

• European interest in the Americas was sparked by a variety of factors, including the continent's economic problems, a desire for geographic knowledge, a desire to acquire lands, riches, and raw materials, and a desire to spread Christianity.

• Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, and other Spanish conquistadors conquered the Aztecs, Incas, and other Native American tribes in much of Central America, South America, the southeastern section of North America, and the area now known as Florida.

• Guns, horses, and diseases brought from Europe all aided the Spanish in their efforts to defeat the native tribes.

• Due to early Spanish and Portuguese exploration, the Western Hemisphere and Europe experienced the Columbian Exchange, which was the exchange of organisms, diseases, and ideas.

Key Timeline

• 2500 BCE: Migration of Asians to the Americas across the Bering Strait begins.

• 1492: Voyage of Columbus to the Americas

• 1488: Portuguese reach Cape of Good Hope

• 1489: Vasco da Gama leads expedition around the Cape of Good Hope and sails to India

• 1519: Cortes enters Mexico

• 1520–1530: Smallpox epidemic devastates Native American populations in many parts of South and Central America, virtually wiping out some tribes.

• 1542: Spanish explorers travel through southwestern United States

Chapter 7: Colonial America (1607–1650)

Keywords

• Puritans: A group of religious dissidents who came to the New World so they would have a location to establish a “purer” church than the one that existed in England.

• Separatists: A religious group that also opposed the Church of England; this group first went to Holland, and then some went on to the Americas.

• Indentured servants: Individuals who exchanged compulsory service for free passage to the American colonies.

Key Notes

• Spanish colonists in Canada were more repressive than the French.

• Thousands of Native Americans were converted to Christianity by Jesuit priests.

• Fur trading piqued the growing interest of French settlers.

• Puritans and other religious dissenters fled to America because they believed the Church of England was too close to Catholicism.

• Jamestown colony, established in 1607, was the first English settlement in North America.

• In Jamestown, tobacco became the primary crop.

• In 1619, the first slaves arrived.

• In 1620, a band of religious Separatists made their way to Plymouth, Massachusetts.

• These Pilgrims had a challenging first year of settlement and relied on assistance from the Native Americans to get by.

• In 1629, the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

• This settlement was built to be a "city upon a hill" where God's will could be made manifest.

• It was decided to create a limited representative government.

• Religious dissent was not tolerated in this colony; as a result, dissenters were expelled and started new colonies in Portsmouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

• The impact of European settlement on the American ecosystem was profound.

Key Timeline

• 1534–1535: French adventurers explore the St. Lawrence River

• 1607: The English settle in Jamestown

• 1619: Virginia establishes House of Burgesses (first colonial legislature)

• 1620: Plymouth colony founded

• 1629: Massachusetts Bay Colony founded

• 1634: Maryland colony founded

• 1636: Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony and settles in Providence, Rhode Island; Connecticut founded by John Hooker

• 1642: City of Montreal founded by the French

Chapter 8: British Empire in America: Growth and Conflict (1650–1750)

Keywords

• Mercantilism: An economic system practiced by European powers in the late seventeenth century stating that economic self-sufficiency was crucial; as a result, colonial empires were important for raw materials.

• Navigation Acts (1660): Acts passed by the British Parliament increasing the dependence of the colonies on the English for trade; these acts caused great resentment in the American colonies but were not strictly enforced.

• Triangular trade system: Complex trading system that developed in this era between Europe, Africa, and the colonies; Europeans purchased slaves in Africa and sold them to the colonies, raw materials from the colonies went to Europe, while European finished products were sold in the colonies.

• Middle Passage: Voyage taken by African slaves on horribly overcrowded ships from Africa to the Americas.

• Salem Witch Trials (1692): Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, after which 19 people were executed as witches; historians note the class nature of these trials.

• Salutary neglect: Early eighteenth-century British policy relaxing the strict enforcement of trade policies in the American colonies.

Key Notes

• Mercantilism was the dominant economic theory of the time, and British mercantilist policies like the Navigation Acts infuriated the American colonies.

• A number of southern colonies' continued economic expansion depended increasingly on the importation of African slaves.

• The Salem Witch Trials showed that there were problems between different groups of people in the American colonies.

• In the 1800s, wars between the British and the French in Europe spread to the Americas, where they were fought between British and French colonies.

• At the start of the 18th century, the colonial assemblies in a number of colonies, including Massachusetts, got stronger and more independent.

• Even during the time of "salutary neglect," the British tried to control the colonies' economies more.

• The Great Awakening was a religious revival that made some colonists question many of the religious, social, and political bases of colonial life.

Key Timeline

• 1651: First of several Navigation Acts approved by British parliament

• 1676: Bacon’s Rebellion takes place in Virginia

• 1682: Dutch monopoly on slave trade ends, greatly reducing the price of slaves coming to the Americas

• 1686: Creation of Dominion of New England

• 1688: Glorious Revolution in England; James II removed from the throne

• 1689: Beginning of the War of the League of Augsburg

• 1692: Witchcraft trials take place in Salem, Massachusetts

• 1702: Beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession

• 1733: Enactment of the Molasses Act

• 1739: Stono (slave) Rebellion in South Carolina

• 1740: George Whitefield tours the American colonies—the high point of the Great Awakening

Chapter 9: Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution (1750–1775)

Keywords

• French and Indian War (1756–1763): The Seven Years’ War.

  • A conflict between the British and the French also involved Native Americans and colonial forces.

  • French defeat in this war greatly decreased their influence in the colonies.

• Stamp Act (1765)

  • Imposed by the British, this act dictated that all legal documents in the colonies had to be issued on officially stamped paper.

  • This act created strong resentment in the colonies and was later repealed.

• Townshend Acts (1767)

  • British legislation that forced colonies to pay duties on most goods coming from England.

  • These duties were fiercely resisted and finally repealed in 1770.

• Boston Massacre (1770)

  • Conflict between British soldiers and Boston civilians on March 5, 1770.

  • Five colonists were killed and six wounded.

• Sons of Liberty

  • Radical group that organized resistance against British policies in Boston.

  • This was the group that organized the Boston Tea Party.

• Committees of Correspondence

  • Created first in Massachusetts.

  • These groups circulated grievances against the British to towns within their colonies.

• Boston Tea Party (1773)

  • In response to British taxes on tea, Boston radicals disguised as Native Americans threw 350 chests of tea into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.

  • The important symbolic act of resistance to British economic control of the colonies.

• First Continental Congress (1774): A meeting in Philadelphia at which colonists vowed to resist further efforts to tax them without their consent.

Key Notes

• In the 1740s, when land speculators from English colonies started buying up land in the Ohio Valley, tensions between the British and the French got worse.

• The Seven Years' War was between the English and colonial forces and the French. In American history books, it is called the French and Indian War.

• When the French were defeated in this war, they lost most of their power in the Americas.

  • After the war, the British tried to get the colonies to pay their fair share for the war effort.

• During this time, Parliament tried to get money for Great Britain by putting different taxes and duties on the colonies.

  • This caused a lot of trouble in the colonies.

• The Stamp Act had a big effect on the colonies.

  • Nine colonies got together at the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, and in Boston, the Sons of Liberty were formed.

• Boston stayed a major place where people opposed British policy.

  • The Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 helped people in other colonies turn against the Crown.

• Many people in the colonies were upset by the Intolerable Acts of 1774, which shut down the port of Boston and limited freedom of speech in Massachusetts.

• In 1774, the First Continental Congress passed a resolution saying that if the colonies were taxed without their permission, they would fight back hard.

  • At this meeting, it was also decided that each colony should start recruiting and training its own state militia.

Key Timeline

• 1754: Representatives of colonies meet at Albany Congress to coordinate further Western settlement

• 1756: Beginning of Seven Years’ War

• 1763: Signing of Treaty of Paris ending Seven Years’ War

• 1764: Parliament approves Sugar Act, Currency Act

• 1765: Stamp Act approved by Parliament;

  • Stamp Act Congress occurs and Sons of Liberty is formed.

• 1766: Stamp Act repealed, but in Declaratory Act.

  • Parliament affirms its right to tax the colonies

• 1767: Passage of the Townshend Acts

• 1770: Boston Massacre occurs

• 1773: Boston Tea Party takes place in December in opposition to the Tea Act

• 1774: Intolerable Acts adopted by Parliament First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia

Chapter 10: American Revolution and the New Nation (1775–1787)

Keywords

• Second Continental Congress (May 1775)

  • Meeting that authorized the creation of a Continental army.

  • Many delegates still hoped that conflict could be avoided with the British.

• Common Sense (1776)

  • Pamphlet written by Thomas Paine attacking the system of government by monarchy.

  • This document was very influential throughout the colonies.

• Battle of Yorktown (1781): The defeat of the British in Virginia, ending their hopes of winning the Revolutionary War.

• Treaty of Paris (1783)

  • The treaty that ended the Revolutionary War.

  • By this treaty, Great Britain recognized American independence and gave Americans territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.

• Articles of Confederation (ratified 1781)

  • Document establishing the first government of the United States.

  • The states retained much power and little power was given to the federal government.

• Northwest Ordinances (1784, 1785, 1787)

  • Bills authorizing the sale of lands in the Northwest Territory to raise money for the federal government.

  • Bills also laid out procedures for these territories to eventually attain statehood.

Key Notes

• At Lexington and Concord, the first armed fight against the British army took place.

• The Second Continental Congress started to get the American colonies ready for war with the British. However, when they passed the Olive Branch Petition, they tried to find a way to satisfy both the interests of the colonies and the interests of the Crown.

• Thomas Paine's Common Sense had a big effect on people all over the colonies with its message.

• At the start of the Revolutionary War, there were a lot of Loyalists living in the colonies. Many of them were wealthy, but people from all classes supported the British side.

• Black people and women did a lot to help the colonies win the war.

• As leader of the Continental forces, George Washington used defensive strategies that won the war. A longer war would have been bad for the British army.

• France's help in the war effort of the American colonies was very important. As the war went on, the French navy was especially important.

• The Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War. In this treaty, the British agreed to let the United States be independent, and a lot of land west of the Appalachians became American land.

• The Articles of Confederation made the national government weak, in part so that it wouldn't be like the "tyranny" of the English Crown.

• Shays' Rebellion showed many people in the colonies that they needed a stronger national government.

Key Timeline

• 1775: Battles of Lexington and Concord Meeting of Second Continental Congress

• 1776: Common Sense published by Thomas Paine

  • Declaration of Independence approved Surrender of British forces of General Burgoyne at Saratoga

• 1777: State constitutions written in 10 former colonies

• 1777–1778: Continental army encamped for the winter at Valley Forge French begin to assist American war efforts

• 1781: Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown Articles of Confederation ratified

• 1783: Signing of the Treaty of Paris

• 1786–1787: Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts

• 1787: Northwest Ordinance establishes regulations for settlement of territories west of the Appalachian Mountains

Chapter 11: Establishment of New Political Systems (1787–1800)

Keywords

• Virginia Plan: During debate over the Constitution, the plan proposing a bicameral legislature with representatives determined by proportional representation.

• New Jersey Plan: During debate over the Constitution, the plan proposing one legislative body for the country, with each state having one vote.

• Great Compromise: Connecticut plan stated that one house of Congress would be based on population while in the other house all states would have equal representation.

• Electoral College: Procedure for electing the president and vice-president of the United States as outlined in the Constitution; electors from each state, and not the popular vote, ultimately elect the president.

• Three-Fifths Compromise: As the Constitution was being created, the plan stated that slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a free person when determining a state’s population for tax purposes and electing members of the House of Representatives.

• Federalists: Party in the first years of the republic that favored a larger national government; was supported by commercial interests. Federalists were opposed by Jeffersonians, who wanted a smaller national government.

• Alien and Sedition Acts: Proposed by President John Adams, gave the president power to expel “dangerous” aliens and outlawed “scandalous” publications against the government.

Key Notes

• The 1787 meeting to amend the Articles of Confederation became a historic event when the United States Constitution was drafted.

• The importance of James Madison in the formulation of the Constitution cannot be overemphasized.

• The U.S. Constitution was a unique document for its time because it had a two-house legislature, branches of power at the federal level, and a way for the federal government and state governments to share power.

• The disagreement between Federalists and anti-Federalists showed that people in the United States at the time had very different ideas about America and the role of the federal government.

• The Bill of Rights enunciated the basic freedoms that Americans cherish today.

• During Washington's presidency, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had very different ideas about what America should be like.

  • The ideas of Alexander Hamilton helped the American economy grow.

• The United States experienced a great deal of trouble from the British and French during this era.

• Many people thought that John Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts were a huge abuse of the power that the Constitution gave to the federal government.

Key Timeline

• 1787: Constitutional Convention ratifies U.S. Constitution

• 1788: U.S. Constitution ratified by states

• 1789: Washington sworn in as first president

• 1790: Hamilton issues plans proposing to protect infant U.S. industries

• 1791: Establishment of First National Bank Ratification of the Bill of Rights

• 1793: Democratic-Republican clubs begin to meet

• 1794: Whiskey Rebellion begins

• 1795: Jay’s Treaty with England/Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain

• 1796: John Adams elected president, Thomas Jefferson, vice-president (each from a different political party)

• 1798: XYZ Affair Sedition Act of John Adams issued Kentucky and Virginia Resolves

• 1800: Convention of 1800 Thomas Jefferson elected president

Chapter 12: Jeffersonian Revolution (1800–1820)

Keywords

• Marbury v. Madison (1803): Critical Supreme Court decision established the principle of judicial review, stating that the Supreme Court has the right to review all federal laws and decisions and declare whether or not they are constitutional.

• Louisiana Purchase (1803): Massive land purchase from Emperor Napoleon of France that virtually doubled the size of the United States.

• Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804): Expedition that discovered much about the western part of the North American continent and the economic possibilities there.

• War of 1812: War between the British and the Americans over the British seizure of American ships, connections between the British and Native American tribes, and other tensions.

• American System: Plan proposed by Senator Henry Clay and others to make America economically independent by increasing industrial production in the United States and by the creation of a Second National Bank.

• Missouri Compromise (1820): Political solution devised to keep the number of slave states and free states equal; Missouri entered the Union as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state.

Key Notes

• The election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 is called the “Revolution of 1800,” as the new president had a completely different vision of America from the Federalists whom he replaced.

• Thomas Jefferson was one of the most brilliant men ever to serve as president, and he instituted many “Republican” policies during his eight years in office.

• The role of the federal courts was greatly strengthened during the tenure of John Marshall as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

• The Louisiana Purchase more than doubled the size of the United States and allowed the “empire of liberty” to continue to expand.

• The case of Aaron Burr showed the deep political divisions that existed in the United States during this period.

• The Napoleonic Wars greatly impacted the relationship between the United States, England, and France.

• America entered the War of 1812 because President Madison convinced the nation that America’s rights as a neutral power had been violated and because many in Congress felt that the British were encouraging the resistance by Native American tribes.

• The American System of Henry Clay and others was proposed after the War of 1812 and outlined a plan for broad economic growth for the United States.

• The Missouri Compromise temporarily solved the issue of the number of slave states versus the number of free states.

Key Timeline

• 1800: Thomas Jefferson elected president in “Revolution of 1800”

• 1801: John Marshall named chief justice of the Supreme Court

  • Alien and Sedition Acts not renewed

• 1803: Louisiana Purchase Marbury v. Madison established federal judicial review

• 1804: Alexander Hamilton killed in duel with Aaron Burr

  • Thomas Jefferson reelected

  • Twelfth Amendment ratified

  • Beginning of Lewis and Clark expedition

• 1807: Embargo Act greatly harms foreign trade

• 1808: James Madison elected president

  • Further importation of slaves into the United States made illegal

• 1812: Beginning of the War of 1812

• 1814: British army sacks Washington

  • Treaty of Ghent formally ends the War of 1812

  • Native American removal from Southern territories begins in earnest

• 1814–1815: Hartford Convention (meeting of Federalists)

• 1815: Victory of Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans

  • Henry Clay proposes the American System

• 1816: James Monroe elected president

• 1816–1823: Era of Good Feelings

• 1820: Missouri Compromise

Chapter 13: Rise of Manufacturing and the Age of Jackson (1820–1845)

Keywords

• Monroe Doctrine (1823): Proclamation that countries of the Western Hemisphere “are not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

• Removal Act of 1830: Congressional act that authorized the removal of all Native American tribes east of the Mississippi to the west.

  • The Trail of Tears and other forced migrations caused the deaths of thousands.

• The Liberator: Sbolitionist newspaper begun by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831.

• Spoils system: System used heavily during the presidency of Andrew Jackson whereby political supporters of the winning candidate are given jobs in the government.

• Nullification: In reaction to tariff legislation passed in 1828, the South Carolina legislature explored the possibility of nullification, by which individual states could rule on the constitutionality of federal laws.

• Whig Party: Political party that emerged in the 1830s in opposition to the Democratic Party.

  • Whigs favored policies that promoted commercial and industrial growth.

Key Notes

• A new production system developed in textile mills such as those that existed in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the early nineteenth century.

• The Monroe Doctrine boldly proclaimed that the Western Hemisphere was off limits to European intrusion.

• Beginning in 1824, it was official American policy to move Native American tribes west of the Mississippi; the horrors of many of these relocations are well documented.

• The Second Great Awakening influenced many to become involved in reform movements, including the Abolitionist movement.

• The presidency of Andrew Jackson is celebrated as an era when the “common man” reigned supreme, although Jackson greatly expanded the powers of the presidency.

• The Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson was the first highly organized political party in American history.

• Congress’s tariff policy caused a renewal of interest in the policy of nullification in several Southern state legislatures.

• In the 1830s, the Whig Party emerged as the major party opposing the Democratic Party of Jackson.

Key Timeline

• 1790s: Beginning of Second Great Awakening

• 1816: Second Bank of United States chartered

  • Tariff of 1816 imposes substantial import tariffs

  • Election of James Monroe

• 1819: Panic of 1819

• 1820: Missouri Compromise

  • Reelection of James Monroe

• 1820s: Growth of New England textile mills

• 1823: Monroe Doctrine

• 1824: Proposal by President Monroe to move Native Americans west of the Mississippi River

• 1825: John Quincy Adams elected president by House of Representatives

• 1828: Andrew Jackson elected president

• 1830: Passage of Indian Removal Act in Congress

  • Webster-Hayne Debate

• 1830s: Growth of the Whig Party

• 1831: Cherokee nation goes to court to defend tribal rights in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia First issue of William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator published

• 1832: Andrew Jackson reelected

  • Nullification crisis after nullification of tariffs by South Carolina

• 1834: First strike of women textile workers in Lowell, Massachusetts

• 1836: Democrat Martin Van Buren elected president

• 1840: Whig William Henry Harrison elected president

• 1841: William Henry Harrison dies after one month in office, and Vice President John Tyler becomes president.

Chapter 14: Union Expanded and Challenged (1835–1860)

Keywords

• Manifest Destiny: Concept popularized in the 1840s that the US's God-given mission was to expand westward.

• Mexican-American War: A war between Mexico and the United States over Texas gave the US the northern part of Texas and New Mexico and California.

• Compromise of 1850: This measure allowed California to join the Union as a free state but strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, temporarily easing North-South tensions.

• Fugitive Slave Act: Commissioners were given more money if the accused was found to be a runaway than if he/she was not.

  • Many northern state legislatures attempted to circumvent this law.

• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): Compromise that allowed Kansas and Nebraska settlers to vote on joining the Union as free or slave states.

  • Kansas was plagued by violence and confusion as "settlers" arrived months before the vote to influence it.

• Dred Scott case: Critical Supreme Court ruling that slaves were property and could not sue in court.

  • The ruling also stated that Congress had no legal right to ban slavery in any territory.

Key Notes

• The concept of Manifest Destiny spurred American expansion into Texas and the far West.

• American settlers much more loyal to the United States than to Mexico entered Texas in large numbers and encouraged Texas to break away from Mexico and eventually become an American state.

• The issue of slavery in the territories came to dominate American political debate more and more in the 1840s and 1850s.

• California entered the Union as a free state as a result of the Compromise of 1850.

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act created violence in the Kansas Territory as it “decided” on whether it would be slave or free; both Abolitionists and proslavery forces shipped in supporters to help sway the elections in this territory.

• The Dred Scott decision only intensified tensions between the North and the South.

• The election of 1860 was seen as an insult to many in the South, and after its results were announced, the secession of Southern states from the Union was inevitable.

Key Timeline

• 1836: Texas territory rebels against Mexico; independent republic of Texas created

• 1841: Beginning of expansion into Oregon territory

• 1844: James K. Polk elected president

• 1845: Texas becomes a state of the United States

• 1846: Oregon Treaty with Britain gives most of Oregon to United States

  • War with Mexico begins

  • Wilmot Proviso passed

• 1848: Gold discovered in California; beginning of California Gold Rush

  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

  • Formation of Free-Soil party

  • Zachary Taylor elected president

• 1850: Passage of Compromise

• 1852: Franklin Pierce elected president

  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe published

• 1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act passed

  • Formation of the Republican party

• 1856: Democrat James Buchanan elected president

  • “Bleeding Kansas”

• 1857: Dred Scott decision announced

• 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debates

  • Freeport Doctrine issued by Stephen Douglas

• 1859: Harper’s Ferry raid of John Brown

• 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected president

  • South Carolina secedes from the Union (December)

Chapter 15: Union Divided: The Civil War (1861– 1865)

Keywords

• First Battle of Bull Run (1861): Early Civil War engagement ending in defeat for the Union army; this battle convinced many in the North that victory over the Confederacy would not be as easy as they first thought it would be.

• Emancipation Proclamation: January 1, 1863, proclamation that freed slaves in Southern territories was controlled by the Union army.

• Battle of Gettysburg (1863): Bloodiest overall battle of the Civil War; many historians claim that the Southern defeat in this battle was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.

• Appomattox: Virginia courthouse where General Robert E. Lee surrendered Confederate forces on April 9, 1865.

Key Notes

• By 1861, various social, political, economic, and cultural factors made conflict between the North and the South inevitable.

• The North had numerous industrial, transportation, and financial advantages that they utilized throughout the Civil War.

• The Confederate States of America was created in February 1861; the fact that these states were organized as a confederacy had several disadvantages that would become obvious as the war progressed.

• Success for the Confederacy depended on European aid; Southerners overestimated the dependence of Europe on Southern crops.

• By late 1862, the war had produced severe effects on the home fronts; food shortages were occurring in the South, and President Lincoln imposed martial law in several locations and suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the cases of some of his political opponents.

• The Emancipation Proclamation provided a moral justification for Northerners to continue the war.

• The war shifted decisively in favor of the North in 1863, with the battles at Gettysburg and Vicksburg proving to be critical victories for the North.

• The surrender of the Confederacy in April 1865 was caused by a severe lack of morale, manpower, and economic stability in the South.

Key Timeline

• 1860: Lincoln elected president

  • South Carolina secedes from Union

• 1861: Confederate States of America created

  • Attack on Fort Sumter

  • First Battle of Bull Run

  • Union begins blockade of Southern ports

• 1862: New Orleans captured by Union navy

  • Battle of Shiloh Conscription begins in Confederate states

  • Emancipation of slaves in Southern states begins

  • Battle of Antietam

  • British announce they will not aid the Confederacy in any substantial way

• 1863: Emancipation Proclamation Conscription begins in the North; draftees may hire “replacements”

  • First black soldiers enlist in Union army

  • Crucial Union victory at Gettysburg

  • Crucial Union victory at Vicksburg

  • Draft riots in New York City

• 1864: Abraham Lincoln reelected

  • General Sherman carries out his “march to the sea”

  • Desertion becomes a major problem in the Confederate army

• 1865: General Lee surrenders at Appomattox

  • Abraham Lincoln assassinated

Chapter 16: Era of Reconstruction (1865–1877)

Keywords

• Reconstruction Era (1865–1877): Period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union;

  • Southern resentment of this era lasted well into the twentieth century

• Radical Republicans: Congressional group that wished to punish the South for its secession from the Union; pushed for measures that gave economic and political rights to newly freed blacks in the South and that made it difficult for former Confederate states to rejoin the Union.

• Reconstruction Act (1867): Act placing Southern states under military rule and barring former supporters of the Confederacy from voting.

• Carpetbaggers: Northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction Era; traditional elements of Southern society were deeply resentful of profits made by carpetbaggers during this period.

• Scalawags: A term of derision used in the South during the Reconstruction Era for white Southern Republicans.

• Ku Klux Klan: Group was founded in Tennessee in 1866; its oftentimes violent actions during the Reconstruction Era represented the resentments felt by many Southern whites toward the changing political, social, and economic conditions of the Reconstruction Era.

• Compromise of 1877: The political compromise ending the disputed presidential election of 1876.

  • By the terms of this compromise Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, thus giving him the presidency; in return, all federal troops were removed from the South.

Key Notes

• Any plan to assimilate the Southern states back into the Union after the Civil War would have major difficulties; a problem was determining the appropriate postwar status of former supporters of the Confederacy.

• The plans for Reconstruction proposed by Abraham Lincoln, the Radical Republicans, and Andrew Johnson all varied dramatically.

• Radical Republicans instituted policies to improve the political and economic status of former slaves; this created great resentment in other segments of Southern society.

• The impeachment of Andrew Johnson went forward because of major disagreements over policy between Johnson and the Radical Republicans in Congress.

• The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments outlawed slavery, established the rights of blacks, and established the framework by which Southern states could rejoin the union.

• Profits made by carpetbaggers and scalawags further angered the traditional elements of Southern society.

• Many in the South, including members of the Ku Klux Klan, felt great resentment toward the carpetbaggers and scalawags and toward the political and economic power now held by some Southern blacks.

• The Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction in the South; as Union troops left, blacks were again reduced to the status of second-class citizens.

Key Timeline

• 1865: Andrew Johnson institutes liberal

  • Reconstruction plan Whites in Southern legislatures pass Black Codes

  • Thirteenth Amendment ratified

• 1866: Civil Rights Act, Freedmen’s Bureau Act approved by Congress

  • Fourteenth Amendment passes Congress (fails to be ratified in Southern states)

  • Antiblack riots in New Orleans, Memphis

  • Republicans who favor Radical Reconstruction win congressional elections, in essence ending Johnson’s Reconstruction plan

  • Ku Klux Klan founded

• 1867: Tenure of Office Act approved by Congress (Congress had to approve presidential appointments, dismissals)

  • Reconstruction Act approved by Congress (Southern states placed under military rule)

  • Constitutional conventions called by former Confederate states

  • Johnson tries to remove Edwin Stanton as secretary of war, leading to cries for his impeachment

• 1868: Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Johnson impeached in the House of Representatives, not convicted in the Senate

  • Southern states return to Union under policies established by Radical Republicans

  • Final ratification of Fourteenth Amendment

  • Former Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant elected president

• 1870: Amendment ratified Many blacks elected in Southern state legislatures

• 1872: Confederates allowed to hold office Ulysses S. Grant reelected

• 1876: Disputed presidential election between Tilden, Hayes

• 1877: Compromise of 1877 awards election to Hayes, ends Reconstruction in the South

Chapter 17: Western Expansion and Its Impact on the American Character (1860–1895)

Keywords

• Homestead Act (1862): A bill that did much to encourage settlers to move west; 160 acres of land were given to any settler who was an American citizen or who had applied for citizenship, who was committed to farming the land for six months of the year, and who could pay the $10 registration fee for the land.

• Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890): A battle that was the last large-scale attempt by Native Americans to resist American settlement in the Great Plains region.

  • Federal soldiers opened fire on Native Americans, killing more than 200.

• Dawes Act (1887): An act designed to break up Native American tribes by offering individual Native Americans land to be used for either farming or grazing.

• Farmers’ Alliances: An organization that united farmers at the statewide and regional levels;

  • Policy goals of this organization included more readily available farm credits and federal regulation of the railroads.

• Populist party: Formed in 1892 by members of the Farmers’ Alliances, this party was designed to appeal to workers in all parts of the country.

  • Populists favored a larger role of government in American society, a progressive income tax, and more direct methods of democracy.

• Turner Thesis (1893): A thesis by Frederick Jackson Turner suggesting that the innovations practiced by western settlers gradually became ingrained into the fabric of American society

Key Notes

• The Homestead Act and the Morrill Land-Grant Act encouraged thousands to go westward to acquire land for farming.

• Farming on the Great Plains proved to be very difficult and was oftentimes accomplished by help from one’s neighbor; many farmers were not successful on the Great Plains.

• Bonanza farms were part of a transformation of agriculture that began in the late 1860s.

• Western states were the first states where women received the vote.

• Mining and lumbering also attracted many settlers to the West.

• Native American tribes were gradually forced off their lands because of American expansion to the West; some resistance to this by Native Americans did take place, such as at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and through the Ghost Dances.

• The 1887 Dawes Act did much to break up the remaining Native American tribal lands.

• American farmers organized beginning in the late 1860s through the Grange, through the Farmers’ Alliances, and eventually through the Populist party.

• Dime-store novels of the era and the Turner Thesis presented contrasting views of western settlement and its overall impact on American society.

Key Timeline

• 1859: Silver discovered in Comstock, Nevada

• 1862: Homestead Act, Morrill Land-Grant Act

  • Department of Agriculture created by Congress

• 1867: Founding of the Grange

• 1869: Transcontinental Railroad completed

• 1870s: Popularity of Deadwood Dick stories by Edward L. Wheeler and other dime-store novels on the West

• 1874: Barbed wire invented by Joseph Glidden

• 1876: Battle of the Little Bighorn

• 1879: Exoduster movement leaves the South for the Great Plains

• 1880s: Large movement of immigrants westward

• 1883: “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show” begins

• 1886: Beginnings of harsh weather that would help destroy the cattle industry

• 1887: Dawes Act

• 1889: Native American territories open for white settlement

• 1890: Massacre at Wounded Knee

  • Wyoming women get the vote

  • High point of political influence of the Farmers’ Alliances

• 1893: Beginning of great depression of the 1890s

  • Publication of the Turner Thesis

• 1896: William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech

Chapter 18: America Transformed into the Industrial Giant of the World (1870– 1910)

Keywords

• Taylorism: Following management practices of the industrial engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, the belief that factories should be managed in a scientific manner, utilizing techniques that would increase the efficiency of the individual workers and the factory process as a whole.

• Horizontal integration: Strategy of gaining as much control over a single industry as possible, often by creating trusts and holding companies; this strategy was utilized by John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil.

• Vertical integration: Strategy of gaining as much control over a single industry as possible by controlling the production, marketing, and distribution of the finished product.

  • Andrew Carnegie and United States Steel are the best examples from the era of this approach.

• “Gospel of Wealth”: Philosophy of Andrew Carnegie who believed that wealthy industrialists had an obligation to help local communities and philanthropic organizations.

• Knights of Labor: Established in the 1880s, this was the major union of that decade.

  • It was made up of unions of many industries and accepted unskilled workers.

• American Federation of Labor: National labor union formed by Samuel Gompers in 1886; original goal was to organize skilled workers by craft.

• Industrial Workers of the World: More radical than the American Federation of Labor, this union was formed in 1905 and attempted to unionize unskilled workers not recruited by the AFL.

  • Members of this union were called “Wobblies.”

• Gilded Age: Depiction of late nineteenth-century America that emphasizes a surface of great prosperity hiding problems of social inequality and cultural shallowness.

• Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883): Federal act that established a civil service system at the federal level.

  • For the first time, not all government jobs would be political appointments.

• Tammany Hall: Political machine that ran New York City Democratic and city politics became a model for other urban political machines in the late 1800s.

Key Notes

• The industrial growth that occurred in the United States during this era made the United States the major industrial producer of the world.

• The industrial growth was largely based on the expansion of heavy industry; the availability of steel was critical to this expansion.

• Taylorism and the assembly line created major changes in the workplace for factory workers.

• Horizontal and vertical integration allowed businesses to expand dramatically during this era; Standard Oil (John D. Rockefeller) and United States Steel (Andrew Carnegie) are the best examples of this type of expansion.

• Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” proclaimed it was the duty of the wealthy to return large amounts of their wealth back to the community.

• American workers began to unionize in this era by joining the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, and the Industrial Workers of the World.

  • Because of intimidation by company bosses and the publicity that came from several unsuccessful strikes, union membership remained low, even into the twentieth century.

• The impact of the “new immigrants” from eastern and southern Europe on American cities and in the workplace was immense.

• The American city became transformed in this era, with new methods of transportation allowing many from the middle and upper classes to move to suburbia and still work in the city.

• Political life at the state and city levels during this era was dominated by various political machines, although reforms were instituted at the federal level and in some states to create a professional civil service system.

Key Timeline

• 1869: Knights of Labor founded in Philadelphia

• 1870: Beginning of Tammany Hall’s control over New York City politics

• 1877: Major strike of railroad workers; President Hayes sends in federal troops to break up strike in Pittsburgh

• 1879: Publication of Progress and Poverty by Henry George

• 1881: Assassination of President James Garfield

• 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act passed by Congress

• 1883: Pendleton Civil Service Act enacted

• 1885: Completion of Home Insurance Company building in Chicago, America’s first skyscraper

• 1886: Haymarket Square demonstration and bombing in Chicago

• 1887: Interstate Commerce Act enacted

• 1888: New Jersey passes legislation allowing holding companies

  • Publication of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

• 1890: Publication of How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

• 1892: Ellis Island opens to process immigrants on the East Coast

• 1893: Beginning of major depression in America

• 1894: March of Coxey’s Army on Washington, DC United States becomes world’s largest manufacturing producer

• 1896: Decisive victory of Republican William McKinley breaks decadeslong deadlock between Democrats and Republicans

  • America begins to recover from great depression of early 1890s

• 1897: America’s first subway begins regular service in Boston

• 1901: Assassination of President William McKinley

• 1903: Ford Motor Company established

• 1905: Industrial Workers of the World formed

• 1906: Publication of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

• 1909: Strike of International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York City

• 1910: Angel Island opens to process immigrants on West Coast Number of American children attending school nears 60 percent

• 1913: Webb Alien Land Law enacted, prohibiting aliens from owning farmland in California

  • Ford Motor Company begins to use assembly line techniques; 250,000 automobiles produced in one year

Chapter 19: Rise of American Imperialism (1890– 1913)

Keywords

• Open Door policy: Policy supported by the United States beginning in 1899 that stated that all major powers, including the United States, should have an equal right to trade with China.

• Social Darwinism: Philosophy that emerged from the writings of Charles Darwin on the “survival of the fittest”;

  • This was used to justify the vast differences between the rich and the poor in the late nineteenth century as well as American and European imperialistic ventures.

• Spanish-American War: War that began in 1898 against the Spanish over treatment of Cubans by Spanish troops that controlled the island.

  • As a result of this war, the United States annexed the Philippines, making America a major power in the Pacific.

• Yellow journalism: method of journalism that utilized sensationalized accounts of the news to sell newspapers.

  • This approach helped to whip up nationalistic impulses that led to the Spanish-American War.

• U.S.S. Maine: U.S. naval ship that sank in Havana harbor in February 1898 following an explosion. The incident was used to increase calls for war against Spain. It was never definitively determined why or how the ship was sunk.

• Panama Canal: Canal across the Panama isthmus that was begun in 1904 and completed in 1914;

  • Its opening enabled America to expand its economic and military influence.

• Roosevelt Corollary (1904): Policy that warned Europeans against intervening in the affairs of Latin America and that claimed the right of the United States to intervene in the affairs of Latin American nations if “chronic wrongdoing” was taking place.

• Dollar Diplomacy: Foreign policy supported by President William Howard Taft and others that favored increased American investment in the world as a way of increasing American influence.

Key Notes

• America became the economic and imperialistic equal of the major European powers by the beginning of the twentieth century.

• The United States acquired territory in the years immediately following the Civil War but then entered a period where little foreign expansion took place.

• Americans and natives friendly to America increased the economic and political control of Hawaii by the United States, signaling a new trend in foreign policy.

• America desired trade in China; these desires were represented in John Hay’s Open Door policy.

• Economic, political, and strategic motives pushed America to pursue imperialist goals in the 1890s.

• Many in this era also opposed imperialism, often on moral or humanitarian grounds.

• The Spanish-American War allowed American imperialistic impulses to flourish; religious figures also supported imperialism in this era.

• Spanish incompetence and the strength of the American navy were important factors in the American victory in the Spanish-American War.

• America was deeply conflicted but finally decided to annex the Philippines, with three years of fighting between Americans and Filipino rebels to follow.

• The Panama Canal was built by the United States for military, strategic, and economic reasons; its construction began in 1904 and was completed in 1914.

• The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine increased American control over Latin America.

Key Timeline

• 1867: United States purchases Alaska from Russia

  • United States annexes Midway Islands

• 1871: Beginning of European “Scramble for Africa”

• 1875: Trade agreement between United States and Hawaii signed

• 1885: Publication of Our Country by Josiah Strong; book discusses role of Anglo-Saxons in the world

• 1890: Captain Alfred T. Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History published

• 1893: Pro-American sugar planters overthrow Queen Liliuokalani in Hawaii

• 1895: Revolt against Spanish in Cuba; harsh Spanish reaction angers many in United States

• 1898: Explosion of U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor; beginning of Spanish-American War

  • Annexation of Hawaii receives final approval from Congress Anti-Imperialist League formed

• 1899: Secretary of State John Hay asks European leaders for an Open Door policy in China

  • First fighting between American army forces and Filipino rebels in Manila

• 1900: Naval Act of 1900 authorizes construction of offensive warships requested by navy

• 1901: Assassination of President McKinley; Theodore Roosevelt becomes president

• 1904: Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine announced

  • United States begins construction of Panama Canal

• 1905: In a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, conference, Roosevelt mediates conflict between Japan and Russia

• 1914: Completion of the Panama Canal

Chapter 20: Progressive Era (1895–1914)

Keywords

• Social Gospel movement: Movement originating in the Protestant church that aimed to help the urban poor; many Progressives were influenced by this movement.

• Muckrakers: Writers who exposed unethical practices in both government and business during this era; newspaper editors discovered that these types of stories increased circulation.

• Seventeenth Amendment (1913): U.S. Constitutional amendment that allowed voters instead of state legislatures to elect U.S. senators; this amendment had been championed by Progressives.

• Initiative process: This Progressive-supported process allowed any citizen to propose a law. If enough supporters’ signatures could be procured, the proposed law would appear on the next ballot.

• Referendum process: This process allowed citizens (instead of legislatures) to vote on proposed laws.

• Recall process: This process allowed voters to remove an elected official from office before his or her term expired.

• Direct primary: This process allowed party members to vote for prospective candidates; previously most had been chosen by party conventions.

• Hull House: Settlement house in Chicago founded by Jane Addams; it became a model for settlement houses around the country.

• National American Woman Suffrage Association: Created in 1890 by a merger of two women’s suffrage organizations and led in its early years by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was instrumental in demanding women’s right to vote.

• Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911): Fire in New York City that killed 146 female factory workers. It was later found that the workers had been locked in the factory; as a result, many factory reforms were enacted.

• The Jungle: Novel written by Upton Sinclair that highlighted numerous problems of the meatpacking industry and inspired the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

Key Notes

• Political, economic, and social inequities and problems existed in America in the late 1890s, and the Progressive movement developed to attempt to address some of those problems.

• The Progressive movement did not have a unifying set of goals or leaders.

• Progressives shared some of the same critiques of American society as the Socialists, but wished to reform and not attack the American system.

• Progressive reformers were closely tied to the Social Gospel movement of the Protestant church; progressivism and religious fervor often marched hand in hand.

• Muckraking magazines and newspapers of the era often created and published the Progressive agenda.

• Many Progressives were determined to reform city government and the services provided by city government.

• Progressive political reforms included the initiative, the referendum, and the recall processes, and the direct primary.

• Hull House was an example of a settlement house copied by reformers across the country.

• The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt was a high point of progressivism; Roosevelt’s “Square Deal” included many progressive measures.

• Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, was unable to keep the loyalty of ardent Progressives; the advent of World War I blunted the Progressive reform impulse for many.

• Progressivism succeeded in achieving some of its goals but fell short in aiding farmers and minorities in America.

Key Timeline

• 1879: Progress and Poverty by Henry George published

• 1888: Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy published

• 1889: Formation of National Consumers League

• 1890: National American Woman Suffrage Association founded

• 1901: Theodore Roosevelt becomes president after the assassination of William McKinley

  • Progressive Robert La Follette elected as governor of Wisconsin

  • Progressive Tom Johnson elected as mayor of Cleveland, Ohio

• 1903: Founding of Women’s Trade Union League

• 1904: The Shame of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens published

• 1905: IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) established

  • Establishment of U.S. Forest Service

• 1906: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair published Meat Inspection Act enacted

  • Pure Food and Drug Act enacted

• 1908: William Howard Taft elected president

• 1909: Foundation of the NAACP

• 1910: Ballinger-Pinchot controversy

• 1911: Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

• 1912: Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party) founded by Theodore Roosevelt Woodrow

  • Wilson elected president Establishment of Industrial Relations Committee

• 1913: Establishment of Federal Reserve System

  • Ratification of Sixteenth Amendment, authorizing federal income tax

  • Ratification of Seventeenth Amendment, authorizing direct election of senators

• 1914: Clayton Antitrust Act ratified

  • Outbreak of World War I in Europe

    • Federal Trade Commission Act ratified

• 1915: First showing of D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation

Chapter 21: United States and World War I (1914– 1921)

Keywords

• American Expeditionary Force: American military force that served in France in 1917 and 1918 under the command of General John J. Pershing.

  • Both women and blacks served in the American army during the war, although black units were segregated and usually had white officers.

• War Industries Board: Board that regulated American industry during World War I

  • It attempted to stimulate war production by allocating raw materials to factories that aided the war effort.

• Committee on Public Information: Agency created during the war whose mission was to spread pro-Allied propaganda through the press and through newsreels

  • Newspapers were asked to print only articles that were helpful to the war effort.

• Fourteen Points: Plan for the postwar world that Woodrow Wilson brought to the Paris Peace Conference;

  • Wilson’s plan proposed open peace treaties, freedom of the seas, arms reductions, and a League of Nations.

  • Britain and France were openly suspicious of these plans, but they supported the creation of a League of Nations.

• League of Nations: World body proposed by Woodrow Wilson as part of his 14-point peace plan.

  • The League was created but without the participation of Germany, Bolshevik or Communist Russia, or the United States.

  • As a result, the League remained a relatively ineffective body throughout its existence.

Key Notes

• World War I greatly impacted the American mind-set and America’s role in world affairs; this was the first time that America became directly involved in affairs taking place on the European continent.

• Many Americans expressed support for the Allied Powers from the beginning of the war; German U-boat attacks solidified American support for Britain and France.

• The sinking of the Lusitania and the Zimmermann Telegram did much to intensify American anger against Germany.

• Germany’s decision to utilize unrestricted submarine warfare caused President Wilson to call for war in 1917; Wilson claimed that this policy violated America’s rights as a neutral power.

• The American Expeditionary Force did much to aid the Allied war effort, both militarily and psychologically.

• The federal government did much to mobilize the American population at home for the war effort; Liberty Bonds were sold, voluntary rationing took place, and propaganda was used to encourage Americans to oppose the “Hun” however possible.

• Many blacks moved to northern cities to work in factories during World War I; this migration would continue through the 1920s.

• Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points met with opposition from French and English leaders at the Paris Peace Conference; many of them had to be abandoned to secure the creation of the League of Nations.

• The Treaty of Versailles was opposed by U.S. senators who believed that it compromised American interests and the powers of Congress.

  • As a result, the treaty was never ratified by the United States and the United States never entered the League of Nations.

Key Timeline

• 1914: Outbreak of World War I in Europe

  • Woodrow Wilson officially proclaims American neutrality in World War I

  • National Security League founded to prepare America for war

• 1915: Sinking of the Lusitania by German U-boat

• 1916: Germany torpedoes Sussex, then promises to warn merchants ships if they are to be attacked

  • Woodrow Wilson reelected with campaign slogan of “He kept us out of war”

• 1917: Zimmermann Telegram

  • Germany declares unrestricted submarine warfare

  • United States enters World War I, stating that U.S. rights as a neutral had been violated

  • Russian Revolution; Russian-German peace talks

  • Conscription begins in United States

  • War Industries Board formed to create a war economy

  • Espionage Act passed

  • American Expeditionary Force lands in France

• 1918: Military success by American Expeditionary Force at Chateau-Thierry

  • Sedition Act passed; free speech limited (illegal to criticize government or American military forces)

  • Wilson announces the Fourteen Points

  • Armistice ends World War I (November 11)

• 1919: Paris Peace Conference creates Treaty of Versailles

  • Race riots in Chicago

  • Wilson suffers stroke during speaking tour promoting Treaty of Versailles

  • Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles; United States does not join the League of Nations

Chapter 22: Beginning of Modern America: The 1920s

Keywords

• Teapot Dome Scandal: Major scandal in the administration of President Warren Harding.

  • Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall had two oil deposits put under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior and leased them to private companies in return for large sums of money.

• Red Scare: After World War I, the fear of the spread of communism in the United States.

• Palmer Raids: As part of the Red Scare, in these 1919 to 1920 raids thousands of Americans not born in the United States were arrested, and hundreds were sent back to their countries of origin.

• National Origins Act (1924): Anti-immigration federal legislation that took the number of immigrants from each country in 1890 and stated that immigration from those countries could now be no more than 2 percent of that.

  • In addition, immigration from Asia was halted.

  • The act also severely limited further immigration from eastern and southern Europe.

• Scopes Trial (1925): Trial of teacher John Scopes of Dayton, Tennessee, for the teaching of evolution.

  • During this trial, lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan squared off on the teachings of Darwin versus the teachings of the Bible.

• Jazz Age: Image of the 1920s that emphasized the more relaxed social attitudes of the decade.

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is seen by many as the novel that best depicts this view.

• Flapper: “New woman” of the 1920s, who was pictured as having bobbed hair, a shorter skirt, makeup, a cigarette in her hand, and somewhat liberated sexual attitudes.

  • Flappers would have been somewhat hard to find in small-town and rural America.

• “Lost Generation”: Group of post–World War I writers who in their works expressed deep dissatisfaction with mainstream American culture.

  • A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is a novel that is representative of the works of these writers.

• Harlem Renaissance: 1920s black literary and cultural movement that produced many works depicting the role of blacks in contemporary American society.

  • Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were key members of this movement.

Key Notes

• A consumer economy was created in the 1920s on a level unprecedented in American history.

• Advertising, newspapers, radio, and motion pictures provided new forms of entertainment in the 1920s and helped create a uniform national culture.

• The changes of the 1920s were resisted by many in small-town/rural America, creating many of the cultural conflicts of the decade.

• Assembly line techniques and the ideas of scientific management of Frederick W. Taylor helped make industrial production in the 1920s quicker and more efficient, ultimately creating cheaper goods.

• Installment buying helped fuel consumer buying in the 1920s.

• The Republican Party controlled the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court in the 1920s, and claimed credit for the decade’s prosperity; the Republicans generally sponsored policies friendly to business.

• The scandals of the Harding administration tarnished Harding’s longterm reputation

• Resentment against blacks existed in both the American South and North in the years after World War I, resulting in race riots in the North and lynchings and the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.

• The Red Scare of 1919 and 1920 resulted in the suspension of civil liberties and deportation of hundreds of immigrants, the vast majority of whom had committed no crime.

• Nativist fears also resulted in restrictive quota legislation passed in the early 1920s.

• Cultural conflicts between urban and rural America also developed over the issues of Prohibition and the teaching of evolution in schools (resulting in the Scopes Trial).

• During the Jazz Age, many Americans rejected the prominent business values of the decade and turned to jazz, alcohol, and looser sexual mores for personal fulfillment.

• The flapper was the single most prominent image of the Jazz Age.

• Writers of the Lost Generation expressed extreme disillusionment with American society of the era; writers of the Harlem Renaissance expressed the opinions of American blacks concerning American culture.

Key Timeline

• 1917: Race riots in East St. Louis, Missouri

• 1918: Armistice ending World War I

• 1919: Race riots in Chicago

  • Major strikes in Seattle and Boston

  • Palmer Raids

• 1920: Warren Harding elected president

  • First broadcast of radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh

  • Publication of Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

  • Arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti

  • Prohibition takes effect

• 1921: Immigration Quota Law passed

  • Disarmament conference held

• 1922: Fordney-McCumber Tariff enacted

  • Publication of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

• 1923: Teapot Dome scandal

  • Death of Harding; Calvin Coolidge becomes president

  • Duke Ellington first performs in New York City

• 1924: Election of Calvin Coolidge

  • Immigration Quota Law enacted

  • Ku Klux Klan reaches highest membership in history

  • Women governors elected in Wyoming and Texas

• 1925: Publication of The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton

  • Publication of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • Scopes Trial held in Dayton, Tennessee

• 1926: Publication of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

• 1927: The Jazz Singer, first movie with sound, released

  • Charles Lindbergh makes New York to Paris flight

  • Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti

  • 15 millionth car produced by Ford Motor Company

  • $1.5 billion spent on advertising in United States

  • Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs

• 1928: Election of Herbert Hoover

• 1929: Nearly 30 million Americans have cars

  • Stock market crash

Chapter 23: Great Depression and the New Deal (1929–1939)

Keywords

• Hoovervilles: Settlements of shacks found on the outskirts of many American cities beginning in the early 1930s.

• Dust Bowl: Name given in the 1930s to regions of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Texas, where severe drought and poor farming practices caused massive dust storms.

  • By the end of the decade, nearly 60 percent of all farms there were either ruined or abandoned.

  • Many from the Dust Bowl ended up moving westward in search of jobs.

• Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930): Tariff act that imposed severe tariffs on all incoming goods; European countries responded with their own high tariffs.

  • Most historians say this tariff did little to help the American economy and probably deepened the depression.

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): Federal agency established during the “First Hundred Days” of the New Deal in 1933 in an effort to halt panic over bank closings.

  • The FDIC insures the bank deposits of individual citizens.

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): Also established in 1933, the CCC eventually provided jobs for 2.5 million young Americans in forest and conservation programs.

• National Industry Recovery Act: New Deal legislation requiring owners and labor unions in various industries to agree upon hours, wages, and prices;

  • As a result, wages did go up for many workers but so did prices.

• Tennessee Valley Authority: Agency created in the New Deal to oversee the construction of dams, providing electricity and flood control for many in the Tennessee River Valley; for many in the region, this was the first time their homes had electricity.

• Works Progress Administration (WPA): New Deal program that employed nearly 8 million Americans; WPA projects included the construction of schools and roads. Unemployed artists and musicians were also employed by the WPA.

• Wagner Act: Critical piece of New Deal legislation that protected the right of workers to form unions and utilize collective bargaining.

• Social Security Act (1935): New Deal legislation providing pensions for workers reaching retirement age.

  • Both workers and employers pay into the fund that provides this benefit. Initially, farm workers and domestic workers were not covered by Social Security.

• New Deal Coalition: The political coalition created by Franklin Roosevelt that, by and large, kept the Democratic Party in power from the 1930s through the 1960s.

  • This coalition consisted of workers in American cities, voters in the South, labor unions, and blacks.

• Scottsboro Boys: Nine black defendants in a famous 1931 case; they were accused of raping two white women on a train, and despite the lack of evidence, eight were sentenced to death.

  • The American Communist Party organized their defense.

Key Notes

• The Great Depression had numerous long-lasting effects on American society.

• Franklin Roosevelt was the first activist president of the twentieth century who used the power of the federal government to help those who could not help themselves.

• The Great Depression’s origins lay in economic problems of the late 1920s.

• The 1929 stock market crash was caused by, among other things, speculation on the part of investors and buying stocks “on the margin.”

• The stock market crash began to affect the economy almost immediately, and its effects were felt by almost all by 1931.

• Herbert Hoover did act to end the Depression, but believed that voluntary actions by both business and labor would lead America out of its economic difficulties.

• Franklin Roosevelt won the 1932 election by promising the New Deal to the American people and by promising to act in a decisive manner.

• Suffering was felt across American society; many in the Dust Bowl were forced to leave their farms.

• During the first Hundred Days, Roosevelt restored confidence in the banks, established the Civilian Conservation Corps, stabilized farm prices, and attempted to stabilize industry through the National Industrial Recovery Act.

• During the Second New Deal, the WPA was created and the Social Security Act was enacted; this was the most long-lasting piece of legislation from the New Deal.

• Roosevelt was able to craft a political coalition of urban whites, Southerners, union members, and African Americans that kept the Democratic Party dominant in national politics through the 1980s.

• The New Deal had opponents from the left who said it didn’t do enough to alleviate the effects of the Depression and opponents from the right who said that the New Deal was Socialist in nature.

• Roosevelt’s 1937 plan to pack the Supreme Court and the recession of 1937 demonstrated that New Deal programs were not entirely successful in ending the Great Depression.

• Many Americans turned to radio and the movies for relief during the Depression.

Key Timeline

• 1929: Stock market crash

• 1930: Hawley-Smoot Tariff enacted

• 1931: Ford plants in Detroit shut down

  • Initial trial of the Scottsboro Boys

• 1932: Glass-Steagall Banking Act enacted

  • Bonus marchers routed from Washington

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt elected president

  • Huey Long announces “Share Our Wealth” movement

• 1933: Emergency Banking Relief Act enacted

  • Prohibition ends

  • Agricultural Adjustment Act enacted

  • National Industrial Recovery Act enacted

  • Civilian Conservation Corps established

  • Tennessee Valley Authority formed

  • Public Works Administration established

• 1935: Beginning of the Second New Deal

  • Works Progress Administration established

  • Social Security Act enacted

  • Wagner Act enacted

  • Formation of Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO)

• 1936: Franklin Roosevelt reelected

  • Sit-down strike against GM begins

• 1937: Recession of 1937 begins

  • Roosevelt’s plan to expand the Supreme Court defeated

• 1939: Gone with the Wind published

  • The Grapes of Wrath published

Chapter 24: World War II (1933–1945)

Keywords

• Isolationism: American foreign policy of the 1920s and 1930s based on the belief that it was in the best interest of the United States not to become involved in foreign conflicts that did not directly threaten American interests.

• Yalta Conference: Meeting held at Yalta in the Soviet Union between President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin in February 1945;

  • At this meeting critical decisions on the future of postwar Europe were made.

  • At Yalta it was agreed that Germany would be divided into four zones, that free elections would take place after the war in Eastern Europe, and that the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.

• Bataan Death March: After the Japanese landed in the Philippines in May 1942, nearly 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners were forced to endure a 60-mile march;

  • During this ordeal, 10,000 prisoners died or were killed.

• Manhattan Project: Secret project to build an atomic bomb that began in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in August 1942;

  • The first successful test of a bomb took place on July 16, 1945.

• Rosie the Riveter: Figure that symbolized American working women during World War II.

  • After the war, women were expected to return to more traditional roles.

• Double V campaign: Campaign popularized by American black leaders during World War II emphasizing the need for a double victory: over Germany and Japan and also over racial prejudice in the United States.

  • Many blacks who fought in World War II were disappointed that the America they returned to still harbored racial hatreds.

• Internment camps: Mandatory resettlement camps for Japanese Americans from America’s West Coast, created in February 1942 during World War II by executive order of President Franklin Roosevelt.

  • In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled that the camps were legal.

Key Notes

• War production for World War II pulled America out of the Great Depression.

• World War II turned America into one of the two major world powers.

• America continued to pursue a foreign policy of isolationism throughout the 1930s.

• Lend-Lease and other measures by Franklin Roosevelt brought America into the war on the side of England one year before America actually entered the war.

• The Pearl Harbor attack was part of an overall Japanese strategy, and it mobilized American public opinion for war.

• Battles fought by American GIs in Africa, Italy, and Western Europe were crucial in creating a “second front” and important in the eventual defeat of Hitler.

• Decisions made at the Yalta Conference did much to influence the postwar world.

• Superior American air and sea power ultimately led to the defeat of the Japanese in the Pacific.

• The decision to drop the atomic bomb was based on the calculations of the human cost of an American invasion of Japan and as retaliation for Japanese actions during the war.

• Americans sacrificed greatly during the war and contributed to the Allied victory through rationing, extra work, and the purchase of war bonds.

• American women contributed greatly to the war effort, especially by taking industrial jobs that had been held by departed soldiers.

• African Americans continued to meet with discrimination both in and out of the armed services, as did the Japanese.

  • Japanese citizens from the West Coast were forced to move to internment camps.

  • The American government in 1988 issued a formal apology for these actions.

Key Timeline

• 1933: Hitler comes to power in Germany

• 1935: Neutrality Act

• 1938: Hitler annexes Austria and Sudetenland

• 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact

  • Germany invades Poland

  • Beginning of World War II

• 1940: Roosevelt reelected for third term

  • American Selective Service plan instituted

• 1941: Lend-Lease assistance begins for England

  • Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

  • United States officially enters World War II

  • Germany declares war on United States

• 1942: American troops engage in combat in Africa

  • Japanese interment camps opened

  • Battle of Coral Sea, Battle of Midway

  • Casablanca released

• 1943: Allied armies invade Sicily

  • United Mine Workers strike

• 1944: D-Day Invasion

  • Roosevelt defeats Thomas Dewey, elected for fourth term

  • Beginning of Battle of the Bulge

• 1945: Yalta Conference

  • Concentration camps discovered by Allied forces

  • FDR dies in Warm Springs, Georgia; Harry Truman becomes president

  • Germany surrenders unconditionally

  • Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  • Japan surrenders unconditionally

Chapter 25: Origins of the Cold War (1945–1960)

Keywords

• Satellite countries: Eastern European countries that came under the control of the Soviet Union after World War II

  • Tthe Soviets argued that they had liberated these countries from the Nazis and thus they had a right to continue to influence developments there.

• Iron Curtain: Term coined by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a March 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri;

  • Churchill forcefully proclaimed that the Soviet Union was establishing an “iron curtain” between the free countries of Western Europe and the Communistcontrolled countries of Eastern Europe.

• Containment Policy: Policy devised by American diplomat George F. Kennan

  • Kennan believed that the United States needed to implement longterm military, economic, and diplomatic strategies in order to “contain” the spread of communism.

  • Kennan’s ideas became official U.S. government policy in the late 1940s.

• Truman Doctrine: Articulated in 1947, this policy stated that the United States would support any democratic nation that resisted communism.

• Marshall Plan: American plan that spent $12 billion for the rebuilding of Western Europe after World War II; the plan helped produce an economic revival and helped stave off the growth of Communist influence.

• Berlin Airlift: American effort that flew in supplies to West Berlin after the Soviet Union and the East German governments blocked the roads to that city beginning in June 1948;

  • American airplanes flew in supplies for 15 months, causing the Soviet Union to call off the blockade.

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): A military alliance between the United States and Western European countries that was formed in April 1949.

• Warsaw Pact: military pact formed in 1955 between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite countries.

• House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC): In 1947 this committee began to investigate the entertainment industry for Communist influences.

• Blacklist: List created by HUAC and various private agencies indicating individuals in the entertainment industry who might be Communists or who might have been influenced by Communists in the past

  • Many individuals named in the blacklist could not find work in the industry until the 1960s.

• McCarthyism: Term used to describe the accusations by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his supporters in the early 1950s that certain people in government, academia, and the arts were secret Communists.

  • McCarthy’s charges were largely unsubstantiated.

• Domino theory: Theory that if one country in a region fell under Communist rule, then other countries in the region would follow

  • This theory would be used to justify American involvement in Vietnam.

• Sputnik: First artificial satellite, launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union

  • The fact that the Soviets launched a satellite before the United States shocked many in the American scientific community.

Key Notes

• Winning the cold war was the central goal of American policy for 45 years.

• Economic impact of the cold war on American industry was enormous; many plants continued making military hardware throughout the cold war era.

• Debate over who “started” the cold war has occupied the minds of historians since 1945.

• Decisions made at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences ushered in cold war tensions between the World War II victors.

• Concept of the “iron curtain” was first articulated by Winston Churchill in 1946.

• American strategy of containment motivated many foreign policy decisions in the cold war era.

• The Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO united America and Western Europe both militarily and economically against the Soviet Union and its satellites.

• America’s resolve to oppose communism was tested during the Berlin Crisis and the Korean War.

• 1949 was a critical year in the cold war, as the Soviet Union got the atomic bomb and mainland China turned Communist.

• Some Americans feared that Communists had infiltrated the American government and the entertainment industry; investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy were dedicated to “rooting out” Communists in America.

• Under President Dwight Eisenhower, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles formulated an aggressive foreign policy that would not just contain communism but also attempt to roll communism back whenever possible.

• During the Eisenhower administration, crises in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America further tested American resolve.

• Both the Soviet Union and the United States built up their nuclear arsenals to dangerous levels in this era.

Key Timeline

• 1945: Yalta Conference

  • Harry Truman becomes president

  • Potsdam Conference

• 1946: Winston Churchill gives “iron curtain” speech

  • Article by George Kennan on containment

• 1947: HUAC begins probe into movie industry

  • Introduction of Federal Employee Loyalty program

  • President Truman articulates Truman Doctrine

• 1948: Berlin Airlift

  • Implementation of Marshall Plan

  • Creation of nation of Israel

  • Alger Hiss implicated as a Communist

• 1949: NATO established

  • Soviet Union successfully tests atomic bomb

  • Mainland China turns Communist

• 1950: Joseph McCarthy gives speech on Communists in the State Department

  • Alger Hiss convicted of perjury

  • McCarran Internal Security Act enacted

  • Beginning of Korean War

• 1952: Dwight Eisenhower elected president

• 1953: CIA orchestrates return of Shah of Iran to power

  • Death of Joseph Stalin

  • Execution of the Rosenbergs

• 1954: Army-McCarthy hearings Government in Guatemala overthrown French defeated at Dien Bien Phu Geneva Conference

• 1955: Creation of the Warsaw Pact

• 1956: Hungarian Revolt suppressed by Soviet Union

  • Suez crisis

• 1957: Sputnik launched by Soviet Union

• 1959: Castro comes to power in Cuba; United States halts trade with Cuba

• 1960: U-2 incident

  • John Kennedy elected president

Chapter 26: Prosperity and Anxiety: The 1950s

Keywords

• Brown v. Board of Education (1954): Supreme Court decision stating that “separate but equal” schools for white and black students were unconstitutional and that school districts across America must desegregate with “all deliberate speed”

  • Controversy over enforcement of this decision was to last for more than a decade.

• Montgomery bus boycott (1955): Effort by blacks in Montgomery, Alabama, to have the local bus company end discriminatory seating and hiring policies.

  • The movement started with the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man; the boycott was later led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Baby boom: From 1947 to 1962 Americans married and had children at a record pace; the “high point” of the baby boom was 1957.

• The Feminine Mystique: Book written by Betty Friedan describing the frustration felt by suburban women in the 1950s; this book was a landmark for feminists of the 1960s and 1970s.

• James Dean: Young actor whose character in the film Rebel Without a Cause inspired many rebellious young people of the 1950s.

• Beat Generation: Literary movement of the 1950s; writers of this movement rejected the materialistic American culture of the decade.

  • Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs were key writers of this movement.

Key Notes

• The 1950s is viewed by some as a decade of complacency and by others as a decade of growing ferment.

• Large-scale economic growth continued throughout the 1950s, spurred by cold war defense needs, automobile sales, housing sales, and the sale of appliances.

• The advertising industry did much to shape consumer desires in the 1950s.

• The GI Bill gave many veterans low-income mortgages and the possibility of a college education after World War II.

• Many families moved to suburbia in the 1950s; critics maintain that this increased the conformity of American society.

• During the baby boom, the birthrate drastically increased; the baby boom lasted from 1945 to 1962.

• Presidents Truman and Eisenhower were both dwarfed by the memory of the personality and the policies of Franklin Roosevelt.

• Jackie Robinson did much to advance the cause of rights in the postwar era.

• Brown v. Board of Education was a tremendous victory for those pushing for school integration in the 1950s.

• The Montgomery bus boycott and the events at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, demonstrated the techniques that would prove to be successful in defeating segregation.

• Many men and many women felt great frustration with suburban family life of the 1950s.

• 1950s teenagers are often called the “silent generation,” although James Dean, the Beat Generation writers, and Elvis Presley attracted followers among young people who did rebel in the 1950s

Key Timeline

• 1944: GI Bill enacted

• 1947: Taft-Hartley Act enacted Jackie Robinson first plays for Brooklyn Dodgers

• 1948: Truman elected president in stunning upset Truman orders desegregation of armed forces

• 1950: Diner’s Club credit card offered

• 1951: Publication of The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

• 1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president

• 1953: Defense budget at $47 billion Alan Freed begins to play rock ‘n’ roll on the radio in Cleveland, Ohio

• 1954: Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision

• 1955: First McDonald’s opens Rebel Without a Cause released Bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama

• 1956: Interstate Highway Act enacted Majority of U.S. workers hold whitecollar jobs Howl by Allen Ginsberg first read

• 1957: Baby boom peaks Publication of On the Road by Jack Kerouac Resistance to school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas

• 1960: Three-quarters of all American homes have a TV set

Chapter 27: America in an Era of Turmoil (1960– 1975)

Keywords

• New Frontier: Group of domestic policies proposed by John Kennedy that included Medicare and aid to education and urban renewal

  • Many of these policies were not enacted until the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

• Great Society: Overarching plan by President Lyndon Johnson to assist the underprivileged in American society

  • It included the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Head Start and Medicare programs.

  • Some Great Society programs were later reduced because of the cost of the Vietnam War.

• Civil Rights Act of 1964: Major civil rights legislation that outlawed racial discrimination in public facilities, in employment, and in voter registration.

• Black power: Philosophy of some younger blacks in the 1960s who were impatient with the slow pace of desegregation; its advocates believed that blacks should create and control their own political and cultural institutions rather than seeking integration into white-dominated society.

• Roe v. Wade (1973): Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal (with some restrictions).

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: Congressional resolution passed in August 1964 following reports that U.S. Navy ships had been fired on by North Vietnamese gunboats off the Vietnam coast

  • In essence it gave the president the power to fight the Vietnam War without approval from Congress.

• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS): Radical, activist student organization created in 1960 that advocated a more democratic, participatory society.

  • SDS was one of the major student organizations opposing the Vietnam War

• Counterculture: Movement by young people in the 1960s who rejected political involvement and emphasized the need for personal instead of political revolution.

  • Many members of the counterculture wore long hair and experimented with various drugs, with sex, and with unconventional living arrangements.

• Kent State University: Campus in Ohio where four students who were part of a 1970 protest against U.S. involvement in Cambodia were shot and killed by National Guardsmen.

Key Notes

• The events that dramatically altered America including protests and cultural rebellion in the 1960s are seen by some in a positive light and others in a negative light.

• John Kennedy projected a new image of presidential leadership, although few of his domestic programs were actually passed by Congress.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis was the critical foreign policy crisis of the Kennedy administration, and may have brought the world close to world war.

• After Kennedy’s death, Lyndon Johnson was able to get Congress to pass his Great Society domestic programs, which included Head Start and Medicare.

• Nonviolence remained the major tactic of the civil rights movement throughout the 1960s, although some black leaders began to advocate “black power.”

• Women strove to achieve equal rights in the 1960s through the National Organization for Women (NOW) and consciousness-raising groups.

• Lyndon Johnson determined early in his presidency that an escalation of the war in Vietnam would be necessary, and more materials and men went to Vietnam from 1965 to 1968.

• The military in Vietnam was frustrated by the military tactics of the enemy and by faltering support at home.

• The media portrayal of the Tet Offensive did much to turn American public opinion against the war.

• Student protesters held increasingly large demonstrations against the war; SDS was the main organization of student activists.

• Members of the counterculture advocated a personal and not a political rebellion in this era.

• Richard Nixon removed American troops from Vietnam through the policy of Vietnamization; the South Vietnamese government fell two years after American troops departed.

Key Timeline

• 1960: John Kennedy elected president

  • Sit-ins began Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) formed

  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed

• 1961: Freedom Rides

  • Bay of Pigs invasion

  • Construction of Berlin Wall

  • First American travels in space

• 1962: James Meredith enters University of Mississippi

  • SDS issues Port Huron Statement

  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson published

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

  • The Other America by Michael Harrington published

• 1963: John Kennedy assassinated; Lyndon Johnson becomes president

  • Civil rights march on Washington

  • The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan published

  • President Diem assassinated in South Vietnam

• 1964: Beginning of Johnson’s War on Poverty programs

  • Civil Rights Act enacted

  • Free Speech Movement at Berkeley begins

  • Tonkin Gulf Resolution

  • Johnson reelected

• 1965: Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed

  • Johnson sends more troops to Vietnam

  • Voting Rights Act passed

  • Murder of Malcolm X

  • Watts riots burn sections of Los Angeles

  • Medicare passed

• 1966: Stokely Carmichael calls for “black power”

  • Formation of Black Panther party

  • Formation of National Organization for Women (NOW)

• 1967: Riots in many American cities

  • Antiwar demonstrations intensify

• 1968: Martin Luther King assassinated

  • Robert Kennedy assassinated

  • Student protests at Columbia University

  • Battle between police and protesters at Democratic National Convention

  • Richard Nixon elected president

  • American Indian Movement (AIM) founded

  • Tet Offensive

  • My Lai Massacre

• 1969: Woodstock Music Festival

• 1970: United States invades Cambodia

  • Killings at Kent State, Jackson State

• 1971: Pentagon Papers published by the New York Times

• 1972: Nixon reelected

• 1973: Vietnam cease-fire announced; American troops leave Vietnam Roe v. Wade decision

• 1975: South Vietnam falls to North Vietnam, ending the Vietnam War

Chapter 28: Decline and Rebirth (1968–1988)

Keywords

• Southern Strategy: Political strategy implemented by President Richard Nixon to win over Southern whites to the Republican party; the strategy succeeded through administration policies such as delaying school desegregation plans.

• Détente: Foreign policy of decreasing tensions with the Soviet Union; this began in the first term of the Nixon administration.

• Watergate: Series of events beginning with the break-in at the Democratic party headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC, that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon; Nixon resigned as the House of Representatives was preparing for an impeachment hearing.

• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): The group of 14 countries that produce most of the world’s oil and, by determining production quantities, influence worldwide oil prices.

• Camp David Accords (1978): Peace agreement between Israel and Egypt that was mediated by President Jimmy Carter; many consider this the highlight of the Carter presidency.

• Iranian Hostage Crisis: Diplomatic crisis triggered on November 4, 1979, when Iranian protesters seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 66 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. President Carter was unable to free the hostages despite several attempts; to many this event symbolized the paralysis of American power in the late 1970s.

• Religious right: Right-leaning evangelical Christians who increasingly supported Republican candidates beginning with Ronald Reagan.

• Iran-Contra Affair: Scandal that erupted during the Reagan administration when it was revealed that U.S. government agents had secretly sold arms to Iran in order to raise money to fund anti-Communist “Contra” forces in Nicaragua.

  • Those acts directly contravened an ongoing U.S. trade embargo with Iran as well as federal legislation limiting aid to the Contras. Several Reagan administration officials were convicted of federal crimes as a result.

Key Notes

• One of the low points of American political life in the twentieth century was the Watergate Affair.

• Richard Nixon’s greatest accomplishments were in the field of foreign policy, as he crafted new relationships with both China and the Soviet Union.

• The Watergate Affair developed from the paranoid view of American politics held by Richard Nixon and several of his top aides.

• Gerald Ford’s presidency was hurt from the beginning by his pardoning of Richard Nixon.

• Ford faced huge economic problems as president; during his presidency, America suffered from both inflation and unemployment.

• Jimmy Carter and many politicians of the post-Watergate era emerged victorious by campaigning as outsiders.

• President Carter’s outsider status hurt him, especially in terms of getting legislation passed in Congress.

• Carter demonstrated his diplomatic skills by helping Egypt and Israel bridge their differences through the Camp David Accords; he was unable to negotiate a release of the American hostages in Iran, and this may have cost him the presidency.

• Ronald Reagan was elected as a conservative and restored the pride of many Americans in America.

• Reagan practiced “supply-side” economics, which benefited the American economy but which also helped create large deficits.

• Under Reagan, the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest Americans increased.

• Reagan reinstituted cold war rhetoric, but he later created cordial relations with leaders of the Soviet Union.

• Reagan’s lack of direct control over the implementation of some presidential policies was demonstrated by the Iran-Contra Affair.

Key Timeline

• 1968: Richard Nixon elected president

• 1971: Nixon imposes wage and price controls

  • Pentagon Papers released

• 1972: Nixon visits China and Soviet Union

  • Nixon reelected

  • SALT I signed

  • Watergate break-in

• 1973: Watergate hearings in Congress

  • Spiro Agnew resigns as vice president

  • “Saturday Night Massacre”

• 1974: Inflation peaks at 11 percent

  • Nixon resigns; Gerald Ford becomes president

  • Ford pardons Richard Nixon

  • WIN economic program introduced

• 1975: South Vietnam falls to North Vietnam, ending Vietnam War

• 1976: Jimmy Carter elected president

• 1977: Carter signs Panama Canal treaty

  • Carter issues Vietnam-era draft amnesty

• 1978: Camp David Accords

• 1979: Americans taken hostage in Iran

• 1980: Ronald Reagan elected president

• 1981–1982: Major recession

  • Assassination attempt on Reagan

• 1981–1983: Major tax cuts instituted

• 1983: Reagan proposes “Star Wars”

  • Americans victorious in Grenada

• 1984: Reagan reelected

• 1985: Gorbachev assumes power in Soviet Union

• 1986: Additional tax reform measures passed

  • Iran-Contra Affair

• 1987: “Black Monday”

• 1988: George H. W. Bush elected president

Chapter 29: Prosperity and a New World Order (1988–2000)

Keywords

• New Right: Conservative movement that began in the 1960s and supported Republican candidates into the twenty-first century

  • Many voters from the South and from the middle class were attracted by the New Right’s emphasis on patriotism and strict moral values.

• Operation Desert Storm (1991): Military action by the United States and a coalition of Allied nations against Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein after Iraq had invaded Kuwait.

  • This operation was a resounding success, although the decision was made not to force Saddam Hussein from power.

• Whitewater: Series of real estate dealings in Arkansas involving Bill Clinton long before he became president.

  • Republicans accused Clinton of financial improprieties in the Whitewater affair; a number of his former associates went to jail, but no charges against the president were ever proven.

  • The Whitewater affair was one of several accusations that eventually led to Clinton being impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted by the Senate.

• Contract with America: List of conservative measures proposed by Republicans after winning control of the House of Representatives in 1994.

  • It included term limits and promises to balance the federal budget and to reduce the size of the federal government.

  • Republican supporters of the Contract were led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

Key Notes

• The ability to manage domestic issues were critical for a president’s political success in the post-cold war era.

• George H. W. Bush alienated many conservatives, especially when he broke his “no new taxes” pledge.

• The end of the cold war can be attributed to American policy decisions and to weaknesses in the infrastructure of the Soviet Union.

• George H. W. Bush skillfully managed the Desert Storm operation against Iraq.

• Bill Clinton presented himself as a “New Democrat” and focused on economic issues in the 1992 presidential campaign; these were important factors in his victory.

• Clinton’s failure on national health insurance helped pave the way for large Republican gains in the 1994 congressional elections.

• Clinton and Newt Gingrich were formidable opponents in the budget battles of the mid-1990s.

• The Whitewater scandal and investigations of the personal life of Bill Clinton were the defining political events of the second term of Clinton’s presidency.

• George W. Bush’s election demonstrated the difficulties of arriving at a “final tally” in any election and was finally secured by the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Key Timeline

• 1988: George H. W. Bush elected president

  • Solidarity replaces Communist government in Poland

• 1989: Berlin Wall opened, Communist governments fall in Eastern Europe

• 1991: Persian Gulf War Breakup of the Soviet Union Beginnings of economic recession

• 1992: Election of Bill Clinton

• 1993: NAFTA ratified by Senate

  • Terrorist bombings at World Trade Center

  • American troops killed in Somalia

• 1994: Republicans sweep congressional elections

  • U.S. military enters Haiti

  • Kenneth Starr becomes Whitewater independent counsel

• 1996: Clinton reelected

• 1998: Federal budget surplus announced

  • Articles of impeachment passed in House of Representatives

• 1999: Clinton acquitted in impeachment trial in U.S. Senate

• 2000: George W. Bush elected president

Chapter 30: Threat of Terrorism, Increase of Presidential Power, and Economic Crisis (2001–2016)

Key Notes

• The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center had a huge impact on America and its perceived role in the world, and it affected policy decisions.

• “Winning” the war in Iraq proved to be much more difficult than many of the supporters of the war initially imagined.

• The failure to find many weapons of mass destruction led many to question the overall purpose of American efforts in Iraq.

• Several conservative policy positions concerning social issues and taxation were enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush.

• Criticisms of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina weakened political support for the Bush administration.

• Continued dissatisfaction with Republican policies and a desire for new leadership helped lead to the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

• President Obama worked to promote a liberal legislative agenda, most notably the Affordable Care Act that reformed American healthcare.

• The Obama administration intervened militarily in Syria and Iraq to counter the expansion of the terrorist Islamic State.

• The Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2014 after a police shooting of an African-American youth in Ferguson, Missouri.

• In the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.

• In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency by promising to take the country in a new direction.

Key Timeline

• 2001: Terrorist attack on World Trade Center and the Pentagon

  • American and British troops invade Afghanistan

  • Planning for military operations against Iraq begins

• 2002: President George W. Bush terms Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the “Axis of Evil”

  • Creation of Department of Homeland Security

  • Homeland Security Act signed into law

• 2003: President George W. Bush warns of possible war with Iraq in State of the Union address

  • Operation Iraqi Freedom: U.S. and British invasion of Iraq

  • “Outing” of CIA agent Valerie Plame

  • Violence in Iraq between Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni factions

  • Controversy develops as weapons of mass destruction are not found in Iraq

• 2004: President George W. Bush proposes budget with $521 billion deficit

  • Photographs show American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison

  • Provisional government with limited authority comes into power in Iraq

  • George W. Bush defeats John Kerry in presidential elections; Republicans increase their control of the House and the Senate

• 2005: Violence between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq increases dramatically

  • John Roberts becomes Supreme Court chief justice

  • Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans

  • Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, indicted on obstruction of justice concerning the Valerie Plame case

  • Samuel Alito becomes Supreme Court justice

• 2006: Controversy develops over secret wiretapping program by the federal government

  • Under investigation regarding his connections with a lobbyist, Tom DeLay, Republican majority leader of the House of Representatives, resigns

• 2007: Nancy Pelosi of California becomes first female Speaker of the House

  • President George W. Bush orders a surge of 20,000 more troops to Iraq

• 2008: Barack Obama becomes first African American elected to the U.S. presidency

  • Severe economic downturn affects U.S. financial institutions

• 2009: Unemployment in the United States remains near 10 percent

  • President Obama announces “troop surge” in Afghanistan

• 2010: BP oil spill clogs Gulf of Mexico

  • Healthcare legislation passes

  • Tea Party candidates win some seats in midterm elections

• 2012: President Obama elected to a second term

  • Gunman murders 20 children and 6 staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut

  • Supreme Court upholds the legality of most provisions of the Affordable Care Act

• 2013: Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaks information about NSA surveillance practices

  • Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited federal benefits to marriages between a man and a woman

  • Two Islamic terrorist brothers bomb the Boston Marathon

  • Budget dispute between Congressional Republicans and President Obama leads to a partial shutdown of government for 16 days

  • Healthcare.gov website for purchasing Affordable Care Act health plans starts up but suffers many glitches

• 2014: U.S.-Russia relations deteriorate because of Russian takeover of Crimea

  • Supreme Court strikes down limits on biennial donations to politicians by individuals

  • Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) makes great gains in the Middle East

  • Riots take place in Ferguson, Missouri, after a white police officer shoots and kills an African American teen during a confrontation on a street

  • Republicans take control of the Senate in the 2014 elections

• 2015: The Obama administration negotiates a controversial nuclear deal with Iran

  • Supreme Court upholds Affordable Care Act subsidies

  • Islamic terror attacks take place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and San Bernardino, California

  • The Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of gay marriage

  • The United States resumes diplomatic relations with Cuba

• 2016: Islamic terrorist attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida

  • Hillary Clinton becomes the first female presidential nominee of a major political party

  • Donald Trump wins the presidential election

Chapter 31: A Tumultuous Presidency: The Trump Years (2017–2021)

Key Notes

• President Trump found himself embroiled in contentious political wrangling with Democrats who questioned the legitimacy of his presidency.

• In foreign affairs, President Trump pursued a nationalistic approach that he believed put American interests first.

• President Trump reversed many policies of President Obama, including the JCPOA Agreement with Iran.

• President Trump worked to diplomatically isolate Iran, successfully encouraging better relations between Israel and several Arab states.

• The Trump administration cut many regulations and worked with Congress to cut taxes.

• The economy prospered until the COVID-19 pandemic.

• President Trump negotiated what he believed were better and fairer trade deals, replacing NAFTA with the USMCA Agreement and signing a new trade deal with China.

• President Trump survived a Democratic attempt to impeach him for abuse of power.

• President Trump profoundly affected the American judiciary, appointing over 230 federal judges, including three Supreme Court Justices.

• The Trump administration began a diplomatic process to end American involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

• The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the deaths of over 300,000 Americans and had profound social, economic, and political effects.

• The death of George Floyd in police custody led to unrest in many cities during the summer of 2020.

• Former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the 2020 election.

• President Trump blamed his loss on electoral fraud.

Key Timeline

• 2017: Neil Gorsuch appointed to the Supreme Court

  • Hurricanes cause devastation to the Gulf Coast and Puerto Rico

• 2018: President Trump withdraws from the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran

  • The United States, Mexico, and Canada lay the foundation for the USMCA trade agreement to replace NAFTA

  • Hurricanes cause severe damage in the Carolinas and the Florida Panhandle

  • The Democrats recapture control of the House of Representatives

• 2019: Robert Mueller releases a report that finds no conclusive evidence that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with the Russians

  • House Democrats launch an impeachment inquiry over President Trump’s dealings with the Ukraine

• 2020: President Trump is acquitted by a Senate impeachment trial

  • The COVID-19 pandemic spreads to the United States

  • The death of George Floyd leads to antipolice riots

  • Amy Coney Barrett appointed to the Supreme Court

  • Joe Biden wins the 2020 presidential election

• 2021: A mob of Trump supporters storms the Capitol building to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory