Diplomacy and WWII (Amsco 559-569)

• U.S. had isolationist policy in the 30’s

  • Hoover pulled U.S. troops out of Nicaragua and Haiti

  • Neutrality Acts of 1935, 36, and 37 forbade selling of arms to belligerents and either side of the civil war in Spain

• Japan Set up a Puppet government in Manchuria called Manchukuo

  • Stimson Doctrine → The U.S. would not recognize aggressive regimes

• FDR Good Neighbor Policy

  • Reversed Roosevelt Corollary

  • Nullified Platt Amendment (U.S. had right to interfere with Cuba politics) and only kept rights to Guantanamo Bay

• FDR Economic Diplomacy

  • Recognized Soviet Union to boost trade

  • Tydings-McDuffie Act → Gradual independence and removal of U.S. troops from Philippines

  • Lowered tariffs

• Fascism Abroad

  • Mussolini in Italy attracted dissatisfied war veterans, nationalists, and those afraid of communists

  • Nazi Party in Germany grew from resentment over Treaty of Versailles

  • Nationalists in Japan persuaded emperor the best way to access materials was invading Asia

  • Franco won the Spanish Civil War and set up Fascist gov’t

• As Fascists gained power Britain and France adopted an appeasement policy

  • Let Mussolini invade Ethiopia

  • Let Hitler march troops into the Rhineland

  • Ignored U.S. gunboat in China getting sunk by Japan

  • Let Hitler take Sudetenland at Munich Conference

• Stalin and Hitler alliance and blitzkrieg Poland, starting the war

  • France and Britain became allied powers and went to war against Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, and Japan

• FDR felt it was necessary for the security of the U.S. to give Britain aid after France fell

  • Cash and Carry Policy → Britain could buy arms from the U.S. if they used their own ships and paid cash

  • Destroyers for bases deal → U.S. gave Britain destroyers and in exchange got rights to build military bases on Caribbean Islands

• FDR wanted the U.S. to be an arsenal of Democracy

  • Wanted to defend four freedoms: speech, religion, want, and from fear

  • Lend-Lease Act → U.S. could lend Britain arms

  • Navy was to attack all German submarines they encountered while escorting British ships

• Disputes with Japan

  • When Japan joined the axis and started conquering European colonies (Dutch East Indies, British Burma, French Indochina), the U.S. stopped selling oil and froze Japanese credits in U.S. markets

  • U.S. declared war on Japan after they bombed Pearl harbor

• Stalin joined the allies after Hitler ordered an invasion of the U.S.S.R.

Postwar Prosperity and the Affluent Society

• Bretton Woods

  • United Nations Monetary Conference that created World Bank which provided loans for reconstruction of Europe

  • Also made International Monetary Fund (IMF) which would stabilize national currencies

• Military-industrial complex → Dwight D. Eisenhower farewell address to warn against growth of military establishment and defense contractors, which he felt had too much power over the gov’t

• Sputnik → First satellite put into space, was made by Russians, Americans felt they had to catch up

• National Defense Education Act (1958) → Funded universities to become leading research centers in the world

• Large corporate firms grew greatly

  • Coca-Cola, Gillette, IBM, Mobil

  • Top 4 automakers produced 91% of vehicles

  • Sold products abroad to make extra profit

  • Replaced high wage manufacturing jobs with machines

    • “How are you going to sell cars to all of these machines

• Despite this, economic inequality was at an all time low, inflation was 2-3%, a 25% rise in income occurred in post WWII - 1960’s

• “The Affluent Society (1958) → argued that despite prosperous middle class, the poor were an afterthought

• “The Other America (1962) → Highlighted the persistence of poverty in the United States “economic underworld”

A suburban Nation

• William J. Levitt applied mass-production techniques to construction

• The FHA (Federal housing administration) reshaped home mortgage market making home ownership more accessible

  • Very little down payment and interest

• Minorities, blacks in particular, were barred from home ownership

• Shelly v. Kraemer → Outlawed restrictive covenants (can’t be racist when selling house)

• National Interstate and Defense Highways Act → Eisenhour authorized $26 Billion for a vast highway system

  • Needed for easy evacuation in case of nuclear attack

• Shopping malls and fast food rose

• Sunbelt → South and Southwest states which grew as a center of defense industries and non-unionized labor

• Automation of cotton farms sent millions of blacks to northern cities while northern white were moving to the suburbs

• Kerner Commission → National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders which investigated the 1967 Urban riots

• Mexicans came to the U.S. under the Bracero program to ease WWII work shortages and didn’t leave after their contracts ended

• Puerto Ricans came by air bc of mechanization of sugar farms

• Cubans came fleeing Fidel Castro