APUSH Review

Period 1 (1491-1607)

• begins in 1491 w/ study of Native American cultures BEFORE European contact

• Pre-Contact Natives: Unique cultures based on climate & geography

  1. Central & South America:

  • Aztec, Inca, Maya

  • Relied on Maize Cultivation

  • Intricate Trade Networks & Irrigation Systems

  2. North America:

  • Small, Semi-Nomadic Tribes

  • Plains Tribes: Buffalo, Teepees

  • Great Lakes Tribes: Agriculture, Longhouses

• Everything changed in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.

  • Columbian Exchange: exchange of plants, animals, people, ideas, and diseases between the Old World & New World.

  • Europe gained wealth & resources

  • Population growth in Europe (because of new food sources)

  • Native Americans gained horses for hunting

  • Native populations were devastated/rapidly decreasing by diseases like Smallpox

• Spanish Colonization:

  • Conquistadors sought Gold, God, & Glory

  • Hernan Cortes brutally conquered the Aztecs

  • Encomienda System: Spanish system of enslaving Native populations & forcing Catholic conversion.

• Casta System (or Caste System)

  • Racial Hierarchy in Spanish Colonies.

  • Top: Spaniards | Middle: Mestizos & Mulattoes | Bottom: Natives & Enslaved Africans

• Valladolid Debates:

  • Debates over harsh treatment of Natives

  • Later ended the Encomienda System → replaced with Asiento System (enslaved Africans)

• Bartolome de Las Casas:

  • Supported Catholic conversion of Natives

  • Opposed brutality & Encomienda System

• Juan Gines de Spulveda:

  • Believed that Natives were barbaric

  • Argued that the Spanish had the right to enslave Natives

• Mayflower Compact:

  • an attempt to establish a temporary, legally-binding form of self-government until such time as the Company could get formal permission from the Council of New England

• These debates later led to the end of the Encomienda System, but was replaced with Asiento System (enslaved Africans)

Period 2 (1607-1754) - Focuses on Colonization

1. French Colonization:

   • Small settlements

   • Quebec & New Orleans

   • Settled on the Great Lakes & Mississippi River

   • Friendly relations w/ the Natives → profit from trading

   • Jesuit missionaries converted Natives (peacefully)

   • Similar to Dutch & New Amsterdam

2. Jamestown (1607)

   • 1st permanent English colony in New World

   • Founded by Joint Stock Company to make profits

3. Chesapeake Colonies:

   • Virginia & Maryland

   • Tobacco plantations

   • Used indentured servants & enslaved Africans

   • Maryland founded for Catholics

4. Southern Colonies:

   • North Carolina, South Carolina, & Georgia

   • Cash Crops: Rice, Indigo, & Sugar

   • South Carolina: heaviest concentration of enslaved laborers → violent uprisings like the Stono Rebellion

   • Stono Rebellion: It was the largest slave rebellion in the Southern Colonial era, with 25 colonists and 35 to 50 African slaves killed.

   • Passage of strict slave codes

5. New England Colonies (established for Religious reasons):

   • Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire & Connecticut

   • Puritans founded Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629)

   • John Winthrop - “City Upon A Hill” Sermon

   • Strict religion societies were made up of close knit towns centered around the Church

   • had rocky soil (not suitable for plantation agriculture) → Economies were based on shipping & trade

   • Banished dissenters who went on to found Rhode Island

6. Middle Colonies (ethnically & economically diverse):

   • Pennsylvania, Delaware, N.Y, & N.J.

   • Ethnically/economically diverse

   • “Bread Basket” (capitalized off of grain farming)

   • Profited from shipping & lumbering

• Pennsylvania Colony:

  • founded by William Penn

  • Established for Quaker ideals like freedom/equality

  • Friendly relations w/ Natives

  • Generally opposed slavery

• Native Conflicts:

• Tensions mounted between colonists & indigenous tribes over land/resources.

  • Caused by rapid population growth & competition for resources

  • 1622: Powhatan uprising in Virginia Colony

  • 1675: King Philip’s war in New England colonies

  • Conflicts often ended w/ loss of Natives lives & land

• Colonial Culture

  • Partially caused by geographic distance from England & unique landscape of America as well as the unique tradition of self-government

• Self-Government

  • Mayflower Compact

  • Virginia House of Burgesses

  • Fundamental orders of Connecticut

• Colonial Economics

  • Mercantilism: Nation gained wealth by exporting more than they imported.

  • In an attempt to control trade, British Crown passed Navigation Acts to control colonial trade

  • These Acts were rarely enforced under Salutary Neglect

• First Great Awakening (religious revival):

  • 1730s & 1740s

  • Religious Revival in the colonies

  • Baptist & Methodist

  • Led by Jonathan Edwards (used fear) & Georgie Whitefield (used emotional conversions in massive camp meetings)

  • The Colonists began to question Church Authority → question authority of British crown. (Example: Bacon’s Rebellion)

• Bacon’s Rebellion

  • Virginia Colony, 1676

  • Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt of poor farmers against Royal Governor William Berkeley

  • Protested unfair treatment & lack of protection from Natives on the frontier

  • Highlighted tensions between Colonists & Colonial leaders

  • Contributed to transition from indentured servants to enslaved labor

Period 3 (1754-1800) - Starts w/ French & Indian War

• French & Indian War

  • British expansion over Ohio River Valley

  • Controlled by French traders & Indigenous tribes vs. British & American colonists

  • Ended with Treaty of Paris 1763

  • Drastically altered the relationship between the colonists & the British crown

  • England gained all lands east of Mississippi River

• Effects of War

  • Pontiac’s Rebellion took place

  • Pontiac’s Rebellion led to the Proclamation of 1763 which banned settlement West of Appalachian Mountains (to prevent further Native conflicts)

  • British was left with large War Debt → caused the end of Salutary Neglect (angered the Colonists)

• Path to American Revolution:

• Tensions mounted in the colonies over new taxes like the Stamp Act in 1765

  • Stamp Act: First Direct Tax

  • Groups like the Sons & Daughters of Liberty protested and famously cried, “No Taxation w/o Representation!”

  • 1770 Boston Massacre angered the Colonists

  • 1773 Boston Tea Party angered the Crown

  • Leading to passage of the Intolerable/Coercive Acts (a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party. These acts aimed to punish the Massachusetts colony and assert British authority. The colonists viewed these acts as unjust and oppressive, further fueling their growing resistance to British rule.)

  • Despite attempts to maintain peace at the First Continental Congress, shots were fired at Lexington & Concord → led to 2nd Continental Congress

  • After Thomas Paine’s, “Common Sense” → Convinced Colonists that independence was the best route. → Decl. of Indepence was drafted on July 4th, 1776.

  • Both documents (Decl. of Ind. & Common Sense) were inspired by Enlightenment Ideals like Republicanism & Natural Rights

• Reasons for American Victory:

• Leadership of George Washington, use of Guerilla Warfare tactics, & support of allies like the French

  • Key Events:

  • Lexington & Concord

  • Saratoga

  • Yorktown

  • War ended with Treaty of Paris (1783), granted America its independence

• Articles of Confederation

  • Had all sorts of problems → mostly because leaders created an intentionally weak government called “The AoC”

  • Lacked power to tax or create a national currency.

  • Only a legislative branch, which allowed one vote per state

  • With 9 votes needed to pass a law & 13 to Amend the articles, the Federal Gov has little power.

  • Weaknesses highlighted by Shay’s Rebellion

• ^ Led to Constitutional Convention (1787):

  • Delegates proposed a series of compromises for the new government.

  • Great Compromise established a bi-cameral legislature and the controversial 3/5ths compromise appeased Southerners by partially counting enslaved people towards representation.

• Constitution:

  • Included ideas like Separation of Powers, Checks & Balances, Federalism, & 3 Branches of Government

• Federalists & Anti-Federalists debated ratification of the new constitution.

  • Anti-Federalists opposed strong central government (feared it was too strong), demanded a bill of rights

  • Federalists published the Federalist Papers to argue for the new stronger government

  • Ratification: Constitution was ratified in 1789, Bill of Rights was added to protect civil liberties

• George Washington’s New Presidency:

  • George Washington was unanimously elected as America’s 1st president (1789-1797)

  • Used executive power to end the Whiskey Rebellion

• Presidential Precedents:

  • Establishment of the first presidential cabinet

  • Set the 2-term tradition by stepping down from office in 1796

  • Farewell Address: Stressed isolation from European Affairs & to avoid Political Parties (ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY)

  • One of the first Political Parties seen in period 3 (lol)

• Federalists:

  • Led by Alexander Hamilton

  • Wanted an economy based on Trade & Manufacturing

  • Supported National Bank

  • Favored a loose interpretation of constitution

• Democratic-Republicans

  • Led by Thomas Jefferson

  • Economy based on Agriculture (agrarian nation)

  • Opposed National Bank

  • Supported a strict interpretation of constitution

• Age of Revolution:

  • American Revolution inspired other revolutions across the globe

  • Inspired French Revolution (1789-1799) & Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

  • Major foreign policy argument for these political parties

• John Adams’ Presidency:

  • 1797-1801

  • America’s only Federalist President

  • Term was overshadowed by the Quasi War w/ France

  • Lost re-election, in part due to the Alien & Sedition Acts

Period 4 (1808-1848) - Starts w/ America’s first Democratic-Republican, Thomas Jefferson

• Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency:

  • 1801-1809

  • Democratic-Republican (believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution, limited federal power, & economy based on farming)

  • Approved the 1803 Louisiana Purchase: doubled the size of the nation

  • Foreign policy dominated much of Jefferson’s presidency, was forced to respond to Barbary Pirates & Chesapeake Leopard Affair

  • Plagued by ongoing conflicts between England & France → passage to 1807 Embargo Act (meant to protect American industry & maintain neutrality, but it hurt American Economy)

• James Madison’s Presidency:

  • Served 2 terms (1809-1817)

  • Democratic-Republican

  • Oversaw War of 1812

• War of 1812:

  • fought over British impressment of American Sailors & British troops in Western frontier

  • Burning of the White House

  • Creation of Star Sprangled Banner

  • Battle of New Orleans

  • Hartford Convention led by Federalists to oppose the war led to the party’s collapse

  • War ended in 1914 w/ Treaty of Ghent

• James Monroe’s Presidency:

  • 1817-1825

  • Democratic-Republican

  • served during a period prosperity & national unity that followed the War of 1812

  • known as “Era of Good Feelings” because there was only 1 political party (Dem-Republican)

  • Monroe Doctrine (1823): Warned Europeans to stay OUT of Western Hemisphere

  • Signed the Missouri Compromise (Maintain balance of free & slave states w/ est. of 36 30’ Line)

  • Era of Good Feelings ended with corrupt bargain election of John Q. Adams in 1824

• Andrew Jackson’s Presidency:

  • 1820-1837

  • Expansion of Democracy

  • Universal White Male Suffrage

  • First “common man” president (1828)

  • Jacksonian Democracy & Jeffersonian Democracy were similar because both supported an agrarian nation (agriculture) & states rights but opposed the National Bank

• Jackson’s Controversies:

  • Wars w/ National Bank

  • Indian Removal Act → Trail of Tears

  • Nullification Crisis (South Carolina’s John C Calhoun refused to comply w/ 1928 tariff which was known as Tariff of Abominations)

• Whig Party:

  • Anti-Jackson Party

  • Led by Henry Clay

  • Supported a strong central government

  • Supported economy based on trade & manufacturing

• ^ Promoted by Henry Clay’s American System:

  • Supported a high protective tariff & a second national bank

  • Internal improvements

• Market Revolution:

• North/New England:

  • Growth of Textile Mills like Lowell Mills

  • ^ grew because invention of power loom & spinning jenny

  • Factories hired women, children, & immigrants (unskilled workers)

  • Northern Factories adopted Eli Whitney’s interchangeable parts

• South:

  • Eli Whitney’s cotton gin to significantly increase cotton production & Slavery in the South

• West:

  • Used mechanized agriculture, steel plow, & mechanical reaper to tackle the tough soil

• Transportation:

  • connected regional economies (connected the nation)

  • Steam engine led to the creation of railroads

  • Robert Fulton’s Steamboat

  • Erie Canal & Cumberland Road further connected regional economies

• Second Great Awakening:

  • Rapid change following Industrialization

  • Leaders like Charles G. Finney held large camp meetings

  • Increased Church attendance

  • New denominations were also formed like the Mormon Church

  • Wave of religious enthusiasm inspired social & moral reform movements (antebellum reforms)

• Abolitionist Movement:

  • fought against institution of slavery

  • Fredrick Douglass, William L. Garrison

• Terrace Movement:

  • Groups like Women’s Christian Temperance Movement fought against Alcohol Use

• Women’s Rights Movement:

  • Fought for Women’s equality & suffrage

  • Seneca Falls Convention (drafted decl. of sentiments)

  • Spearheaded by women like Elizabeth C. Stanton & Lucretia Mott

• Other Antebellum Reforms:

  • Dorthea Dix’s Hospital, Prison, & Education Reform

Period 5 (1844-1877) - Starts w/ Election James K. Polk

• Manifest Destiny: Belief it was America’s God-Given Duty to Expand from Coast to Coast

• James K. Polk’s Presidency:

  • 1845-1849

  • Democrat

  • Supported Manifest Destiny

  • Campaigned on an expansionist slogan: “54‘40’ or Fight” for Oregon Territory

  • Approved the Annexation of Texas

• Mexican-American War:

  • 1846-1848

  • Boundary disputes near Rio Grande River, causing Mexican-American War

  • War ended in 1848 w/ Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

  • MEXICAN CESSION: America gained present-day Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, & California.

  • Shortly after, GOLD was discovered in California → California Gold Rush

• Compromise of 1850:

  • All of this new land led to debates over whether or not to allow Slavery in these new territories

  • Proposed by Henry Clay in attempt to ease these tensions

  • California admitted as free state

  • Popular Sovereignty for Utah & New Mexico

  • While it banned the Slave Trade in Washington, d.c., it strengthen the fugitive state laws (angered abolitionists)

• Debates over Slavery:

  • Major Focus of Period 5

• Abolitionists:

  • Harriet Tubman & the Underground Railroad. → Helped the enslaved escape

  • Harriet B. Stowe published “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” → brought awareness to horrors of enslavement

• Southern Defenders:

  • Responded w/ arguments defending Slavery

  • George Fitzhugh’s “Sociology for the South”

• South Intentions reached a boiling point in 1854 w/ Kanas-Nebraska Act

• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854):

  • Allowed for Popular Sovereignty in both Kansas & Nebraska Territories

  • Pro & Anti-Slavery groups flooded into these territories in hopes of swaying votes

  • Violence erupted, more than 50 people died (Bleeding Kansas)

  • Violence seen on the floor of the US Senate in a heated debate over Slavery → Southerner Preston Brooks attacked Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumer with his cane

• Dred Scott v. Sanford (1957)

  • Scott sued for his freedom after spending time in free state

  • Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled African-Americans weren’t citizens & had no constitutional rights

  • Overturned Missouri Compromise

• John Brown:

  • Led raid on harper’s ferry to start an armed Slave rebellion

  • Southerners viewed him as an extremist & feared rise of violent & radical abolition

  • Captured & executed

  • Considered martyr by Northerners

• Causes of Civil War:

  • Shots fired at Fort Sumter after Southern States were convinced that Lincoln would abolish slavery → Seceded from union, formed confederate states of America.

• These continued to increase tensions between the North & South:

  • Slavery vs. Abolition

  • Sectionalism

  • Protective Tariffs

  • States’ rights

  • Election of Abraham Lincoln (1860)

  • Southern states were convinced that Lincoln would abolish Slavery & began seceding from the Union → Forming confederate states of America

• Key Events of the Civil War:

  • Fort Sumter

  • Antietam

  • Gettysburg

  • Appomattox

• While many Northerners believed that the war would be quick, it dragged on for 4 long years

• Confederacy:

  • Superior Generals

  • Commitment to the cause

• Union:

  • North won the war because it had more $, infrastructure, higher population, & president Lincoln’s leadership.

• Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

  • 1861-1865

  • Republican

  • Civil War Military Draft Act

  • Suspended Habeas Corpus in Border States

  • Emancipation Proclamation → prevented South from gaining European support

• Reconstruction (After war ended in 1865)

  • America entered a period known as Reconstruction to “rebuild the country and..

  • aimed to bring former confederate states back into Union”

• Reconstruction Plans:

  • Lincoln’s lenient 10% plan

  • Johnson’s Plan

  • Radical Reconstruction

  • Military Reconstruction

• Successes of Reconstruction:

  • Freedmen’s bureau (one of the biggest successes) → provided necessities like food, shelter, & education to newly freed African Americans

  • Congress passed reconstruction amendments: 13th (abolished slavery), 14th (granted citizenship & equal protection), 15th (granted ALL MEN voting rights)

  • Election of African Americans to Congress for the first time

• Failures of Reconsutection:

  • Slavery was ended, but replaced by sharecropping & tenant farming → left African Americans working on plantations & in a cycle of debt

  • Southern states disenfranchised black voters by using poll taxes & literacy tests

  • Rise of black codes & Jim Crow Laws, white supremacy groups like the KKK hindered progress

• Period 5 ENDS w/ Compromise of 1877

  • Resolved disputed 1876 election

  • Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency in return from removing troops from the South

  • Ended Reconstruction

Period 6 (1865-1898)

• Gilded Age

  • Development of corporations like U.S. steel & standard oil

  • Rise of industrial capitalists/Robber Barons

  • Carnegie’s U.S. Steel built using Vertical Integration (supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company)

  • Rockefeller’s standard oil built using horizontal integration (process of a company increasing production of goods or services at the same level of the value chain in the same industry)

  • These businesses were run by wealthy industrial capitalists like Carnegie/Rockefeller

  • formation of trusts & vertical/horizontal integration enabled these companies to form monopolies → possible because a string of Republican presidents who supported Laissez-Faire Economic Policies

• Gilded Age Labor:

  • Workers endured long hours, low pay & dangerous conditions

  • Led to rise in Labor Unions like American Federation of Labor & Knights of Labor who used strikes & collective bargaining for change

• Labor Unrests:

  • Strikes like the Great Railroad Strike (1877), Haymarket Riot (1886) & Pullman Strike (1886) were unsuccessful because the gov. sided with businesses

  • Unions were also blamed for Haymarket’s Square Riot

  • During this time, there were SOME attempts to control businesses like Sherman Antitrust Act & Commerce Commission

• Gilded Age Philosophies

  • Social Darwinism: Economic Survival of the Fittest (Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest)

  • Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth: wealthy should use philanthropy to better society (duty of the wealthy to donate their wealth to fund libraries, schools, and community projects)

  • Social Gospel Movement: Christian duty to help the urban poor (aimed to apply Christian principles to the problems caused by industrialization and urbanization

• Rise of Immigration & Urbanization

  • Tenement housing & ethnic neighborhoods (tenement houses were built for the poor and for immigrants who often settled in ethnic neighborhoods)

  • New immigrants from Southern & Eastern Europe (old immigrants mostly from Germany & Ireland)

  • Political machines like Tammany Hall often took advantage of these immigrants (traded services for votes)

  • Increase in Nativism (support of anti-immigration & immigration-restriction measures), especially against the Chinese who arrived on the West Coast

  • Led to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

• Development of the West

  • As Americans moved West under the homestead act, corporations also looked west.

  • Transcontinental railroad completed in 1869, connecting the east and west coasts.

  • Expansion of Mining Industry

  • Mining and Ranching set up in Western territories

  • Rapid development of the West had devastating consequences for Native Americans who inhabited these lands, led to decimation of buffalo populations

• Plains Wars:

  • Tensions rose and the Plains wars which dominated the late 1800s

  • Tribes fought to maintain ancestral lands (Nez Perce, Comanche, Apache, Lakota-Sioux)

• Key Events:

  • Sand Creek Massacre

  • Battle of Little Bighorn

  • Ghost Dance Movement

  • Wounded Knee Movement

• Tribes were defeated

• Native Policies:

  • Decades of gov. injustices against Native Americans was exposed in Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Century of Dishonor”

  • Carlisle School → erase native culture, conversion to Christianity

  • 1887 Dawes Severalty Act broke up tribal lands offering citizenship to Natives who agreed to assimilate

• The New South:

  • Industry expanded in the South

  • Coined by Henry Grady

  • Promoted economic diversity in the South

  • Southern cities like Birmingham and Memphis built steel mills and lumber plants while Georgia and the Carolinas built textile factories, Virginia established manufacturing plants

• Populist Movement:

  • Mostly farmers who struggled with low crop prices and debt

• Omaha Platform:

  • coinage of silver

  • graduated income tax

  • direct election of senators

• William Jennings Bryan:

  • Adopted the Omaha Platform

  • Democratic Candidate 1896, lost to Republican William McKinley

  • Supported bimetallism (fixed rate of exchange between gold & silver) in “Cross of Gold” speech

Period 7 (1890-1945)

• Frontier Thesis:

  • In 1980, Fredrick Jackson Turner wrote his Frontier Thesis → Argued that the frontier was officially closed

  • Positioned America from Manifest Destiny into the Age of Imperialism

• William McKinley’s Presidency

  • 1897-1901

  • Republican

  • First Imperialist president

  • annexed Hawaii and brought America into the Spanish-American war after the sinking of the USS Maine and publication of the delhom letter

  • The war ended w/ Treaty of Paris → US gained access to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam, & the Philippines (LED TO PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR)

• Arguments in favor of Imperialism:

  • Pro-Imperialists: some believed it was necessary to compete w/ Europe while others argued that it was White Man’s burden to spread American Culture.

  • Anti-Imperialists: Contradicted American values like freedom & equality

• Roosevelt Corollary:

  • Theodore Roosevelt = Imperialist

  • Justified American intervention in Latin America to maintain peace and stability

  • His foreign policy was called “Big Stick Diplomacy”

  • Ex: When he supported the Panamanian independence movement to build the Panama Canal

• Progressive Movement (Social Activism & Political Reform):

  • Muckrackers: inspired reform by exposing social problems & political corruption. (Ida Tarbell exposed Standard Oil & Ida B. Wells exposed Lynch Laws in America. Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” exposed the meat-packing industry while Jacob Riis photographed poor living conditions in cities)

  • Roosevelt was the first progressive president

• Teddy Roosevelt:

  • 1901-1909

  • Square Deal promoted consumer protection, controlling corporations, and conservation of resources → did this by breaking up trust, creating national parks, and establishing Food & Drug Administration

• William Howard Taft:

  • 1909-1913

  • Oversaw Progressive Reforms

  • 16th Amendment

• Woodrow Wilson:

  • 1913-1919

  • Oversaw Progressive Reforms

  • 17th-19th Amendment

  • Economic Reform achieved with the Clayton Antitrust Act & the Federal Reserve

• Joining WWI:

  • President Wilson maintained neutrality, but the nation turned to wartime production to support the allied cause.

  • After years of German Unrestricted Submarine Warfare & publication of the Zimmerman Telegram, the US joined the war in 1917

• War at home:

  • during the war, liberties were restricted w/ espionage & sedition acts

  • Expansion of government power like war industries board

• 14 Points:

  • President Wilson created a plan to end WWI & avoid future conflicts

  • Open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, & self-determination

  • He hoped it’d be added to the Treaty of Versailles, but the Senate refused to ratify the treaty mostly because of the controversial League of Nations

  • Reservationists like Henry K. Lodge opposed the League of Nations because they feared it’d interfere w/ American autonomy

• Roaring 20s

  • WWI was followed by the Roaring 20s (period of prosperity and social change)

  • During this time, Americans bought cars & new appliances

  • Women who recently gained the right to vote also expressed themselves in the new “Flapper Style”

  • Mass exodus of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South to the North (Known as the Great Migration) → led to Harlem Renaissance (Black culture w/ jazz, art, and poetry)

  • Young Americans danced to that music in clubs and speakeasies (secret underground clubs that served Alcohol since the 18th Amendment created a period known as prohibition)

• Challenges of the 1920s:

  • Nativism increased → immigration quota laws & the first Red Scare

  • Racial tensions sparked several race riots like the Tulsa Race Massacre

  • Religious fundamentalism opposed the teaching of evolution (Scopes “Monkey” Trial)

• Causes of Great Depression:

  • Excessive spending on Credit

  • buying stocks on margin

  • farming crisis

  • Americans lost savings, jobs, & homes under the poor leadership of president Herbert Hoover who failed to take action

• FDR’s New Deal

  • Promised Americans relief, recovery, & reform w/ his new New Deal

  • Relief for the unemployed included programs like the Works Programs Administration, introduced reforms like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation & Social Security (Alphabet Soup)

  • New Deal was criticized for being an overreach of federal power especially by the Supreme Court

• Great Depression ended w/ outbreak of WWII

• WWII:

  • FDR attempted to stay neutral, but approved the cash & carry and lend-lease programs (provide aid to allied forces)

  • instituted America’s first peacetime draft

  • Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941) forced America to join the war

  • Led to discrimination against Japanese Americans → Japanese internment

• America’s War Effort

  • Like WWI, Women took on male-dominated jobs like in factories to make ammunition and airplanes but could also serve in the Women‘s Army Corps

  • Other groups like the Tuskegee Airmen & the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in American Victory as well.

  • War ended in Europe w/ German defeat. Not long after D-Day, the war in the pacific continued.

  • Using the research and development from the Manhattan Project, president Harry Truman decided to use the atomic bomb to force the Japanese to surrender (casualties from Hiroshima & Nagasaki)

• End of WWII, formation of the United Nations. Both had significant effects on American foreign policy moving forward.

Period 8 (1945-1980)

• Post-WWII Culture:

  • With the passage of the G.I. Bill of Rights (law that provided benefits for some of returning WWII veterans), families grew (baby boom) and moved into suburbs like Levit Town

  • Conformity & Consumerism were the norms w/ husbands who commuted to work on Eisenhower’s interstate system while wives bought the latest consumer appliances & cared for the family

  • Young Americans rebelled against conformity like the Beats

• Beginning of the Cold War

  • Coincided w/ developing Cold War (Period of tension) between the US & Soviet Union

  • 2nd Red Scare: Americans feared Communism. This hysteria was driven by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) & Senator Joseph McCarty (McCarthyism)

  • Espionage Cases → Convictions of Alger Hiss & the Rosenbergs

• Cold War Policies:

  • centered on containing the spread of Communism → first proposed in George Kennan’s long telegram

  • this was seen through the Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, & the Eisenhower Doctrine

  • Eisenhower Administration also used brinkmanship to deter Soviet aggression

  • Later policies include Kennedy’s less aggressive flexible responsible

  • Nixon’s Détente sought to ease tensions

• Cold War Conflicts:

  • Berlin Blockade & Berlin Airlift in 1948

  • America responded to the Soviet airlift blockade of Berlin by airlifting supplies to the West berliners

  • Korean War (1950-1953), first proxy war of the Cold War → Showed that both sides were willing to go to war over their ideals even if it was indirect

  • Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) → Closest America and the Soviet Union were to an allotted nuclear war after Americans discovered the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Kennedy & Kruschev were able to negotiate a diplomatic solution which helped thaw tensions

• Vietnam War

  • Out of fear of a Domino Effect in Asia, Eisenhower & Kennedy first sent military advisers but both refused to send combat troops. This changed after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution when president Johnson sent 500,000 American troops within 4 years

• Vietnam War Backlash:

  • Met w/ heavy opposition at home. Counterculture movement protested the draft & families saw the war from their televisions

  • Events like the My Lai massacre & publishing of Pentagon papers also increased Americans distrust in the government

• Civil Rights Movement:

  • Saw early victories like Brown v. Board of Education (1954) & Montgomery Bus Boycott

  • March On Washington

  • Tactics were successful & led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act & 1965 Voting Rights Act

• Civil Rights Activists:

  • MLK Jr.

  • Rosa Parks

  • Malcom X - opposed slow-pace of the movement who supported more direct confrontation & Black nationalism

• Civil Rights Groups:

  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference

  • Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

  • These groups fought for equality through marches, demonstrations & sit-ins

  • Black Panthers - opposed slow-pace of the movement who supported more direct confrontation & Black nationalism

• After being arrested in 1963, MLK wrote the famous letters from a jail cell where he stressed the importance of Civil Disobedience, these tactics were successful & led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act/1965 Voting Rights Act

• Johnson’s Great Society:

  • Oversaw new Civil Rights Legislation

  • Implemented new programs to combat poverty “War on Poverty”

  • Established Medicare & Medicaid, Project Head Start, & other programs for low income families like Dept. of Housing & Urban Development

  • Like the New Deal, Johnson’s Great Society met resistance over increased government spending & providing welfare

• Civil Rights Movement inspired other groups to fight for change.

• Women’s Movement:

  • Betty Friedan: “Feminine Mystique” → Inspire women to challenge traditional gender norms. Also helped establish the National Organization for Women & pushed for Equal Rights Amendment

  • Some conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly opposed the bill & fought to maintain traditional gender roles

• Civil Rights Expands:

  • Chicano Movement

  • Cesar Chavez w/ the United Farm Workers Association

  • American Indian Movement

  • Gay Liberation Front for safety/equality → Saw little changes as demonstrated by Stonewall Riots

• Environmental Movement:

  • Inspired by Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” → exposed the use of damaging pollutants/chemicals like DDT

  • This inspired the creation of Environmental Protection Agency & passage of Clean Air & Water Acts

  • Led to celebration of Earth Day

• Jimmy Carter’s Presidency

  • 1977-1981

  • Democrat

  • Successfully negotiated Camp David Accords

  • Criticized for weak economy because of continued stagflation & failure to negotiate the release of American hostages in Iran

Period 9 (1980-Present)

• Election of Ronald Reagan

  • 1981-1989

  • Republican

  • Rise of Conservatism

• Ronald Reagan’s Presidency:

  • Campaign was focused on shrinking the size of the federal government, decreasing spending & supply side economics (Reaganomics)

  • While Reagan decreased spending by cutting Great Society programs, he increased Defense Spending

  • Ex: he supported the Strategic Defense Initiative (star wars) in ongoing arms race w/ the Soviet Union

  • Reaganomics was criticized because corporations & the wealthy benefited from his tax cuts while many argued these benefits failed to trickle down to the working class

  • Reagan was also criticized for his role in the Iran Contra Affair. But, most of his foreign policy was focused on ending the Cold War

  • He & Gorbachev focused on more diplomatic solutions, including his famous speech at the Berlin Wall

• Foreign Policy in Period 9

  • Cold war ended in 1991 under President George H.W. Bush w/ the fall of the Berlin Wall & collapse of the Soviet Union

  • Remainder of Period 9: foreign policy is focused on the growing crisis in the Middle East

  • Persian Gulf War: Ex: President Bush sent American forces into Kuwait during the Gulf War (or Operation Desert Storm) → Goal: prevent further aggression from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein

  • September 11th Attack: in 2001, president George W. Bush announced a war on terror following the 9/11/2001 attacks on the World Trade Center

  • American forces were dispatched in operation Iraqi freedom & operation enduring freedom to combat terrorism, remove Saddam Hussein from power, and to capture Osama Bin Laden

• Political Polarization:

  • domestic policy in period 9 is dominated by increasing political polarization

  • Since 1980, the Democrat & Republican parties have intensely debated issues like federal spending & immigration policies as well social issues like abortion & gay marriage

  • Parties argued over how the federal government should respond to National Crisis like the COVID-19 Pandemic & the Great Recession

• Migration & Immigration

  • Big part of Period 9

  • Midwest (once known as the Steel Belt) transformed into the Rust Belt because of the decline in manufacturing & overseas competition

  • International migration from Latin America and from Asia increased dramatically which led to political debated & an increase in Nativism

  • New immigrants influenced American culture & supplied the economy w/ an important labor force

• Globalization

  • With new tech like PC’s, the Internet, cell phones, & social media, the world is more interconnected than ever

  • Economies are also connected through groups like the World Trade Organization & the North American Free Trade Agreement

  • Globalization is like the Colombian Exchange, brings people, goods, & ideas closer together. It aims to grow Global economies through increased trade, new industries, & new markets.