US political history

United States: from colony to world power

The American revolution (1776-1783)

America is heading into this next period, their revolution
People aren't obligated to a tax, and when taxes are implemented internally, people will object
- Why are they objecting? Enlightenment
English parliament hears a lot from the new world because the new world sent money, resources, and soldiers when they needed help
Stamp act- any internal tax of goods, just something England did for some more money
- Going down the street and buying something is going to be taxed
Creole elites are angry- resent British control/superiority
- Creole- European born in the new world
- Washington and Jefferson feel like they have no say in government and they don't like it
No agreement between the house of commons and the house of lords, they sign the Declaration of independence
- Reasons for revolution and beliefs of the new country
- Natural rights
- Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
  - Changed from “property” because of slavery
- Creole elites denied top social or political positions within British society
- Political revolution, not social
- White land owning men are all created equal
Recognize as an independent state in 1738, the constitution was created based on enlightenment ideals
POLITICAL REVOLUTION, NOT SOCIAL
No social equality is wanted, they don't want any social power

Expansion of rights for white men

Early America- only while land owning males can vote
Andrew Jackson- led universal white male suffrage
Natives, women, and enslaved people were not given these rights
- Seen as unequal in society

Attempts to expand rights for women

Mary Wollstonecraft- Inspired American women to fight for more rights, even though she herself is not American
- Her mother was mary shelley, author of Frankenstein
- Enlightenment principles, you can't exclude women from the constitution
Some women stay promoting the cult of domesticity
Catholics couldn't divorce, but protestants can, this has some influence
Seneca falls (1848)- people come together to fight for and talk about women’s rights
- First convention based on women's rights
- Wrote a document mirrored of the declaration that includes women
- Showed how easy it was to include women’s rights in the constitution
- Both men and women attended
- Similar to Olympe de Gouge in the french revolution
Seneca falls failed, nothing happened
- Land owning men did not want another group who would go against their priorities
- Put out fake science that a uterus makes a woman go crazy, they cannot be rational people able to decide political matters
- Also said that women’s brains are half the size of men
Middle and lower class women who feel the effects of industrialization are the ones who are standing up to fight for their rights and find men who
- Mostly done by middle class women
Women attempt to improve society through reform, new opportunities for education and employment outside
Education- women’s colleges
- The only thing you could major in was an education in one of the schools
- One of the schools only had nursing and another only had veterinary
Temperance movements to get people to put down the drink
- Leads to child abuse and
If a woman is called crazy, she could be put into an insane asylum
- Removed parts of their bodies and brains
- Women fight against this
- Uterus
- Getting rid of the hysteria, a hysterectomy is the removal of the uterus
- Doctors invent chainsaws to remove the uterus
- Lobotomy- taking out pieces of the brain to make you sane again, but it just made them disabled
- Women are treated like un human
- Temperance and other women’s movements fight against this along with their
Abolition- stopping the slave trade
- Sojourner truth writes “aint I a woman” to highlight how she is being treated because she is a black woman
- Most her 13 children are sold off to slavery
- She works as hard or even harder than men
- Becomes an important figure in the south for womens and black people rights

African americans

Causes of slavery

Tobacco is a huge industry for the US, everything is grown in the south where it is humid
Tobacco and cotton is grown and is put on carriages to go to the north, factory workers spin it into cloth and tobacco into cigarettes
Cheap labor for cash crops of the south is needed, leads to the perpetuation of slavery
Things are transferred from the south to the north
Slaves are take to the caribbean and then they are sold off to the north or to england

Resistance to slavery

They resisted coerced labor by running away and stealing boats
Break tools- waiting for their masters to get more tools
Act dumb- pretending to not hear or know what is going on
Work slow- time is money, the only available labor was human
Maroon communities- a hidden community of black people that escaped from their masters and lived in seclusion with other escaped slaves
- Some people had it better than others, it's easier to hide in a mountain area than a plain
Rebellion- nat turner
- Stealing weapons, and running away from their masters
Slave army, killed 50 white people, and 100 slaves were killed in response
Not many successful slave revolts

Abolition and the civil war (1862-1865)

The war between south and north over economics, slavery, south wants to secede
Inspired by enlightenment ideals, lower class wants to fight the upper class
- Poor southern farmers with the northern industry tycoons
The war only partially ends slavery
Emancipation proclamation- slaves are no longer in servitude and they are free, Abraham Lincoln
- Partially because there was a lot more that needs to be done, what does that look like? How to make sure they are successful in society?

Reconstruction (1865-77)

13th amendment- abolished slavery-, this is the other part of what Lincoln did
- A period of time where people are unsure because, its wasn't a full law yet
14th amendment- due process of law
- Everyone (including former slave) has rights to life liberty and property
- Went from property to pursuit of happiness and back to property
- Enlightenment ideals
- People of color can do their own thing
- Natural rights can only be taken away if you do a crime
- A lot of charges on black people
15th amendment- right of citizens of the US to vote, regardless of race, or previous condition of servitude
- Brings it all together
- Official end to slavery
- Only male sufferage still
- Former slave owners are angry about this
All of these things are said and are put into law, but it is not easy for black people to go from slavery to a normal position in society
- Can't find a job, or houses, or food

Southern redemption -(1876-1900)

Overlaps a little with the reconstruction period
White people are trying to take back the south
- Rewinding the time
Worst time to be black in the south
Mass segregation of states-Jim crow laws
Lots of hate crimes, KKK
- When people did get
Cowardice of the KKK, white hoods
Hanging black people from trees to send a message
Literacy tests- you have to be able to read or write to vote
- Unfair because there was no schooling for southern slaves
- Stopping black voters, stomping on the 15th amendment
Sharecropping- was the only things you could actually do as a black person
- Freed slaves are taken back to servitude, a lot of them worked for their old slave owners
- Farm work in turn for a place to live and a little plot of land to feed your family
- Basically Indentured servitude
- Hard to get released from this because youre barely getting paid
Mess flood of people going to the north
Freed slaves were not set up to have economic success
Black codes- segregation, black southerners had to sign a labor contract
- White southerners need workers
- White northerners needed cotton to be grown for their textiles, so they turn a blind eye to this
- If they don't have people growing the cotton, there is no textile business
Jim crow laws- “separate but equal”
- Black people and white people can have separate facilities, but they had to be equal: schools, bathrooms,
- They were not equal.
- In reality, separate and unequal
- Lasted for 50 years until the law was repealed

US economy

Reasons for industrialization

Selling goods to England
When you don't have spare money for loans for businesses, limited industrialization
- This is how england wanted to keep us: limited
This is why we fought against
First industrial revolution- textile
Ports had the factories
Needed slaves to grow all the cotton and tobacco, and the railroads brought it up north
- Not very different from england
Slaves had no money so they couldn't buy finished goods from the north
- Only ⅓ of the people could afford to buy goods from the north, bad for the economy
Second industrial revolution
- Access to raw materials because of the transcontinental railroad
- Steel industry to build all the way across the country
Foreign people are coming in as a labor force to replace the slaves
People from china are coming over and this is what the transcontinental railroad was built on
Strong central government
- Pass tariffs to protect goods
- Starting businesses are encouraged
Natural resources
- Coal near the ohio river basin
Monopolies- US steel is benefitting from immigrant labor
NYSE, people are buying stocks in the railroad industry, seeing a lot of money come in

Immigration to the US

Push factors- things that push people out of their home land
- High texes
- Revolutions
- Lack of freedom
- Not enough jobs
- Pogroms- jews
- Tired of being a christian targett, more freedom in the new world
Pull factors- things that bring people to the US
- Industrial jobs
- Religion and political freedom
- Cheaper long distance transports
- Steam ships going across the atlantic
So many people were coming
- Mostly form asian countries
Migration transition theory- what type of people are typical to migrate
- Males, not socially acceptable for women to go and work
- Single because others don't want to leave their family behind
- Young and unskilled- people who are not inheriting things in the old world are trying things out in the new world
Settled in ethnic enclaves with other people because it makes them feel more at home and secure
- Turns into chinatown, little italy, german towns
- Ethnic exclaves

Effects of industrialization

Chinese exclusion act- the number of chinese immigrants doubled, act said no more chinese people are allowed to come over
- didn't really stop people because they can sneak, but after the immigrant numbers doubled, they halved
- Polytheistic, different language, different culture, hostilities grow
- White people thought chinese people would take over the US, too much chinese influence
Growth of nativism- assimilate natives into a white way of life, undermine native way of life
- Preserving white america
- Decreased the buffalo herds to decrease material cultural trait=edition
- Native clothing to white clothings
- Moving them off their land, held hostage on reservations and they had to relearn how to farm on this new land
- Took their children and put them into a white christian schools
- Muslims and slaves did this, but natives were not put into military
- Outlaw native dress and hairstyles
DTM- population is growing, mostly from all the immigrants
- Urbanization in a lot of cities
Disease, rise in cancer, water and air pollution, cholera, dysentery
- Because people are living in concentrated areas
Pollution- increased burning of fossil fuels
poverty-working poor living in overcrowded tenement factories with a lot of pigs and human waste
- Similar to the effects of industrialization in england
Crime
Business in America is booming !
- Businesses are fighting with one another and standard of living goes up
- Size and scope of businesses expanded dramatically
John d Rockefeller owned standard oil company and trust
- Vertical integration
Find ways to adjust, find things that the tycoon isn't going to manufacture so you can be the monopoly of that small things
Teddy Roosevelt was the trust buster, making sure other people can compete

Workers

Specialization of workers leads to low wages, long hours, and unsafe conditions
Workers are for uninos
- This movements fight against communist take overs with this too
Unions emerge with business, rather than them coming later on
- Does not mean companies have to recognize or follow unions
Strikes become violence
Great railroad strike-1877
- Railroad workers activley took out rail tracks
- Disrupted the
- Catalyst for unions getting stronger, we van have civil conversation about what you want
- Government sided with the owners again
- Military gets involved
Workers become more radical just like new ideas came into Europe
socialism - led by Eugene Debs
- Gets the idea from Karl Marx’s book which he read in prison
The people realize they have to come together and fight the owners
Haymarket square riot-anarchist attack that came from a union meeting
- Violence and unionization went hand in hand, factory owners didn't want to give them all tha t
- Happened in europe and the united states

Reforrms

Causes

Lower classes face more radicalism and class warfare
The have and have nots are really separating

Reforms

People agree that corporate america is bad
Teddy roosevelt broke up big corporations and monopolies
It can't be one company having all vertical and horizontal integration, there has
If people have money, they will spend it so he wants to give the people more money to get them to spend it
- Lets spend some money to get some money
Temperance movement is now fighting not only alcohol but aslo a lot of drugs
Limit child labor and promot public schools
- An educated society is better
- Not just kidss working minimum wage jobs, we want them going to college and learning

US Expansion

Louisiana purchase

Quadruples the area of farmland
Frances only land in the new world is a little island called Hati

Manifest destiny

US citizen destined to expand across and ebyond continental US
We have to invision what we want to do, the urge
We are destined to expand, because we deserve it
Justifies imperialism

Mexican american war

Getting involved with land in the southwest, even if it isnt good
Moving the natives out of their land because theirs is good, and htye
- Reservations are set up in dry places
Texas is independent from mexico in 1836
- We payed 15$ millions dollars for mexicos territory
- All of a sudden people are a part of the US
- They arent the same culture, don't speak the same language, mexicans are catholic and americans are protestant
  - Mexican nationalism and anger
- Lays some seeds for the animosity between the americans and mexicans
- Imperialism does not stop

Spanish american war

European countries
- They are producing a lot of good sand the economy is good
- Looking for new markets and raw materials goods
National darwinism- survival of the fittest, our way of life is the best and should replace lesser societies/cultures
- Whichever country is the strongest
- Going to war with spain after the spanish because they sank one of the ships
- The americans
The western hemisphere is being viewed as belonging to the US
Spain is the only other country that still has a big influence on the western hemisphere, so the US goes after them
- Labor force, raw materials
Philippines, puerto Rico, Guan
- Nationalism- pride in the way of life and culture and language
- These people were promised freedom from the spanish just to be taken over by the US
We gained a lot of things through this and we are now a colonial master
Philippines are the first stop into getting into asia, US is late to getting into CHina

Resistance to US expansion

Especially from the native americans
- Have been living in relative peace for a long time
Forced migration of the natives form the suitable farm land
Native american reservcaaitons are in the west and it was horrible for farming
Indian wars- resistance agasitn the US government movements against
- They showed up to a gun fight with spears
Trail of tears- thousands of people have to walk 8,000 miles over mountains and deserts
Violence ensues after US forces their way of life
Ghost dance movement
- Religous beleif that messiag will come and wipe out the white influenceand the land will be restored to the natives
- Similar to Christianity, but it was focused on
- Peaceful movement that freaked out the govenrment, if there a ritual that is bad
- Native nationalism is seen as an ultimate threat
- A native man accidentally shot a gun and with overreaction leads to 200 natives being killed with machine guns

US involvement with latin america

If we want to survive in a darwin world we have to show that we are better than everyone else
Europe has a monopoly over Afro Eurasia, and the western hemisphere should belong to the
Showing latin americans whos boss
Monroe doctrine- the western hemisphere is belongin ot th eUS
- Protects US influence in latin america
- Europe get out
- Justifies mexican american war and spanish american war
- Purchase land alaska from Russia and get the eurpean influence out fro good
Cowboy diplomacy-1903
- Supports a rebellion of Panama against Columbia, they had control over panama for a long time
- Promises to help panama if they let US use their land and build and control the panama canal
- Most important trade chokepoint, take out weeks of resources by cutting throught the canal
Roosevelt corollary 1904
- US has the right to intervene in domestic affairs with nations int he Western Hemisphere
- Extension of the monroe doctrine
Dollar diplomacy
- President Taft said we should substitute dollars for bullets
- Develop foreign markets through peaceful commerce and avoid military intervention
- Replacing european investments with US ones, then US will always be there
- Instead of going with guns and fighting all the poeple, throw money at it
- Taking contro laway from Europe in the Western HEmisphere for 100 years
United fruit company- harvesting bananas
- Buy the rights to Latin dancer to make sure people think latin american people are loving making bananas for Americans
Ownd 160k acers of land in caribbean
- The treatment of the latin americans on the banana plantations are really bad, they are beaten and not treated well