Who Are the Indian People?

Migration From Asia

Clovis: The First American Technology

Regional Cultures

Hunting Traditions

To Hunt Buffalo they invented Folsom pointes

Second Invasion from Asia

Third Invasion from Asia

Desert Culture in North America

Different crops, different areas

Technochitalan (not the Aztec City)

The Resisted Revolution

 

Social Complexity

Religion

 

Early Farmers in the South West

The Anasazis (Pueblo people)

Farming in Easter Woodlands (Hopewell community)

 

Mississippian Society

Warfare

Eve of Colonization

Population of America

 

The Southwest

The South

 

Other confederacies

 

The Northeast

Algonquians

Early Settlements

European Communities

The Merchant Class

 

Renaissance

 

The New Monarchies

Portuguese Explorations

Columbus

 

The Spanish in the Americas

 

Invasion of America

 

The Destruction of the Indians

Intercontinental Exchange

The First Americans in North America

The Spanish New World Empire

French and English Empires

Luther and the Reformation

The French Colony in Florida

Fish and Furs

Social Change in the 16th Century England

England Turns towards Colonization

 

The Spanish and French in North America

New Mexico

The 1st Communities of New France

The English in the Chesapeake

Jamestown & the Powhatan Confederacy

Tobacco, Expansion and Warfare

Maryland

Indentured Servants

Community Life on the Chesapeake

Values of Puritanism

Early Contacts in New England

Plymouth Colony and Mayflower Compact

The Massachusetts Bay Company

Indians and Puritans

New England Communities

Politics of Gender in Massachusetts

Dissent in North West Communities

The Restoration Colonies

New Netherlands and New York

Pennsylvania

Conflict and War

 

The Beginnings of African Slavery

Sugar and Slavery

Portuguese used slaves in Madera

Columbus had slaves in his colonies

Slave in Brazil

Model for efficiency

Dutch expanded sugar market = more slaves

British in Jamaica

French in Martinique

 

West Africans

Local community was important to blacks

Women had economic independence

Burned wild land to farm

Big population-Timbuktu

 

Slavery in Africa

More benevolent form of slavery

Incorporated into the family

Slave children were born free

 

The Demography of the Slave Trade

10 million slaves

Males were favored

Wanted young slaves

Slavers came from all countries in Europe

Actual raiders were black

 

The Middle Passage

Forts in Africa

Horrible ships

 

Arrival in the New World

Doctored up to look good so they would be sold

 

Political Effects in Africa

Losses of people = no more money in Africa

 

Slavery comes to North America

Indentured Servants were cheaper

However Europeans began to find out that they could become free in other colonies (Pennsylvania)

Virginia Slave Code

Can kill slaves

No freedom for slave children

Baptism doesn't matter

 

The Tobacco Colonies

The South soon became the tobacco colonies

Better conditions that the rest of North America

Lost of food

Slaves weren't killed because they were more useful alive and making more slaves

 

The Lower South

 

South Carolina

Started the FNP slave trade

Shipped FNP to other colonies to prevent rebellion

Rice and Indigo were grown

Both needed slaves and were very profitable

 

Georgia

Slavery was illegal but that was abandoned

Extension of the South Carolina system

 

Slavery in the Spanish colonies

Florida offered freedom to any escaped British slave

Escaped slaves had to help defend Florida and convert to Christianity

New Mexico used FNP slaves

 

French Louisiana

New Orleans

Defended the Mississippi

Not many slaves

 

Slavery in the North

Few but not concentrated

Quakers were the first to oppose slavery

Slaves gangs herded cattle

 

The Daily Life of Slaves

Creole-American born slaves

Slaves became specialized as plantations grew

Diet was sufficient

 

Families and Communities

Whites banned legal marriage of slaves

Family was important

Marriage was common but not legal

Community family

 

Afro-American Culture

Ethnic groups became one

Masters didn't want slaves to convert or they'd be equals

Own burial ceremonies (secret)

Music

 

The Africanization of the South

Black "doctors'

Whites became black

Black cooking

Black nurses taught children how to talk

Banjos

Violence

Slavery was based on fear

Escape among young males

Fugitive communities in swamps

Well fed and low survival rates in swamps = no revolts

 

Slavery and Empire

South had plantations and little industrialization

Slavery was big in the Empire

South took 95% of the exports

Slavery made British Empire a success

South crops were valuable

Empire was built on slaver

Merchant navy depended on slavery

 

The Politics of Mercantilism

All trade for Britain was made by Britain

Based on slavery

 

Wars for the Empire

King William's War, France vs. Britain

Queen Anne's War

Georgia invades Florida and destroys St. Augustine

Spanish bombard Charleston

Brits win = exclusive slavery rights to Spanish America

France lost Acadia and Newfoundland

War of Jenkin's Ear

British try to eradicate the Spanish colonies

Georgia invades Florida and Spain invades Georgia = both lose

King George's War

England battled France

France attacked border New York and New England

War ends in stalemate, and pre war borders are recognized

 

British Colonial Regulation

Casa de Contraction, HBC, Royal African Company

Navigation Acts

However any acts that hurt business were ignored by authorities

 

The Colonial Economy

Protected economy due to mercantilism

American were rich and had a huge merchant navy

Intercolonial trade boomed

South made the exports while the North shipped it

 

Social Structures of the Slave Colonies

Few wealthy planters = aristocracy

Large middle class

White Skin privilege

Virginia sponsored racism

Penalty for sexual relationships (does not apply to white man and women though)

Slaves inherited mother's status

Mulattos were no better than slaves

 

North American Regions

Impressive similarities between the Indian cultures: general adaptation to European culture

 

Indian America

Became more independent on European goods

During American Revolution they asserted independence

Played off each the powers, tried to be neutral

French had better relations as they had no expansion plans, however French could be just as ruthless

Most Indian alliances with French were result of British fear of expansion

Indians lost most of their people, Europeans didn't

Indians benefited from the horse

 

The Spanish Borderlands

New Spain was the must prosperous colony, however Spain in North America was poor

In Florida, competition for St. Augustine between Brits and Spanish=good relations with Indians in Florida

St. Augustine also had large black population as it was the destination for many slaves

In New Mexico, the population was poor but expanding, as was Louisiana

California was deadly

Religion played a big role in all the colonies

 

The French Crescent

In New France religion and state were the same

Thinly populated

New Orleans was the most profitable colony

French colony of inclusion=women get property rights, metis, and Indian clothes

 

New England

Puritan Government

All male churchgoers were voters=all laws were mad by religion

Not tolerable to other religions

Roger Williams (Rhode Island) argued for toleration

John Locke argued for toleration=Toleration Act=other religions in New England

French and Hurons in the north=no settlement up there

 

The Middle Colonies

New York was the most ethnically diverse

Rich landowners choose to rent versus sell=Pennsylvania more attractive

Quakers who ran Pennsylvania were tolerant vs. Puritans in New England

In Pennsylvania land was sold in individual lots vs. communal plots

In Pennsylvania people moved around more than in New England=settlement of the individual=basis for future expansion

 

The Backcountry

Modest lifestyle

Disdain for rank

 

The South

White, black, and Indians

Most of the population was black slaves

Plantation was the institution for social life in Charleston

Charleston grew rice

In the Chesapeake tobacco was grown=smaller plots=more diverse mosaic of farmers

Growing racial solidarity between whites

 

Traditional Culture in the New World

Due submission for the general good

Traditional farming vs. plantation farming

Traditional farms diversified (self sufficient) plantation or commercial farming wasn't

Guilds in cities

Few opportunities for women, however some did take on husbands work after their death

 

The Frontier Heritage

Labor was in short supply as people could own their own farms easily

In Spanish colonies people had Apache slaves

Quebec slaves worked with workers

Wages for free workers were very high=most unskilled work done by slaves

Half of the migrants to 13 colonies were slaves

Indentured servants common to

Convicts were also sent from Britain

Bad conditions

 

Diverging Social and Political Patterns

In the 18th century the three empires grew sharply away from each other

 

Population Growth

Big population boom

High fertility rate

Infant mortality down

Different immigration policies led to English boom

Everyone allowed into the colonies

 

Social Class

Attempts to establish the class structure failed in the New World

Land monopolies (New York) where large landowners owned the land were established, however people had access to cheap land for themselves (Pennsylvania) that few people settled on them

North America had an economic not aristocratic hierarchy

New France has the Seigneurs

New Spain rank is based on race

In Catholic cultures people of title were from European nobility, while Brits celebrated social mobility=people worked towards new class

 

Economic Growth and Increasing Inequality

In Catholic colonies bureaucracy stifled economic growth while in 13 colonies business boomed

British Colonies increasing economic inequality as all money in rich hands

Land became more expensive in British colonies

Less land, hemmed in by French and Indians

Land was divided up into parts for heirs=smaller plots=farm the land harder for $$=soil exhaustion=need more land

As a result more poor people

 

Contrasts in Colonial Politics

Catholic colonies were very centralized vs. British system

Local assemblies in British colonies (voted from freemen)

Assemblies controlled $$ therefore controlled colony

 

The Cultural Transformation of British North America

Marked with increasing ethnic diversity, economic growth and social tensions

Ideas of the Enlightenment reach BNA vs. Catholic suppression of new ideas in their colonies

 

The Enlightenment Challenge

People weren't born into position

Locke wanted rights for people vs. government

Enlightenment appealed to those who had bettered themselves in society

Enlightenment spread in BNA cause most people were literate vs. Catholic colonies had low literacy rates=Enlightenment didn't spread

Wealth led to the creation of a "cultured" class=thought about the enlightenment

 

A Decline in Religious Devotion

New ideas=decline in old ideas (religion)

Opposed Calvinism (church idea) that people were predestined liked Arminianism instead ( you worked your way to heaven)

 

The Great Awakening

Church began to favor rich merchants (they were the ones who were into enlightenment)

Edwards, preacher led emotional sermons to get poor people back to church

Preached purity, no decadence

One of the first national events in history

Children begin to attend church

 

Great Awakening Politics

Great Awakening applied more to those who weren't rich (therefore didn't believe in enlightenment as they had not bettered themselves"

 

The Seven Years War in America

Colonial leaders met to unite against France and Indians

 

The Albany Conference of 1754

Plan of Union

Indian affairs, western settlement be under authority of a grand council

 

The Colonial and Indian Interests

Ohio valley in French hands, British want valley for settlement=conflict

Indians tried to play French and Brits off

 

Frontier Warfare

George Washington forced to surrender his force to the French while trying to kick them out of the Ohio Valley=retaliation

Hard to unite the colonies to fight together=ineffective resistance

 

The Conquest of Canada

Pitt reversed the war by promising Indians to negotiate=co-operation and sending in British troops

England would pay for the war

Plains of Abraham, Montcalm vs. Wolfe=Quebec falls, Montreal follows

Treaty of Paris=Brits win

Brits get Florida and New France, French get Martinique and Guadeloupe and Spain get New Orleans from France

 

Indians and Europeans Struggle over the West

Europeans bought favor from Indian chiefs, but Brits stopped that in Ohio valley=anger

Neolim and Pontiac attack Brits to regain land

Conflict ends in stalemate=Appalachians become border for Indians

However without French to balance of the status quo Indians grow weaker and lose more land

 

The Imperial Crisis of North America

After Seven Years war Britain begins to reorganization

 

The Emergence of American Nationalism

Culture differences, British officers beat their soldiers=discipline

Colonial soldiers were lax

Mutual distrust led to American unity

Fighting in the Seven Years war allowed colonials to associate with each other=unity

Improved infrastructure=better communications

Newspapers began circulating

Peter Zenger tried for libel against the state=freedom of speech

 

Politics, Republicanism, and the Press

Influenced by Locke and others

Get rid of aristocracy

Wanted more power for assembly vs. strong state with king to keep masses in line

 

The Sugar Act

Only affected merchants

Seven Years war left Britain in debt, attempts to tax people at home were met with protests=tax the colonists!

Sugar Acts=tax on sugar

Bostonians boycotted British products

Offenders were tried at the Vice Admiralty Court in Halifax which was hated because mad no presumption of innocence and had no jury trial

 

The Stamp Act

Affected everyone unlike the sugar act

Mad no only cause of tax but because they had no say in the decision

Rich got richer and poor got poorer= tax hit the poor harder=mob unrest

Stamp Act Congress, passed a set of resolutions denying Parliaments right to tax colonists without representation

 

Repeal of the Stamp Act

Hurt by the colonial boycott, British merchants persuade Parliament to repeal the act

Parliament reserves the right to make all decisions in colonies=Declaratory Act

 

Save Your Money and Save Your Country

Stamp Act mostly affected people in the countryside but acts to come resulted everyone

 

The Townshend Revenue Acts

Import duties on lead, glass, paint, paper, and tea

Again argued that Parliament had no right to tax

Didn't want salaries of royal colonial officials to be paid by Britain otherwise they would be dependent on Britain, not the colonial government

New York resisted and had its assembly suspended=anger as that was unconstitutional

 

Nonimportation" An Early Political Boycott

Boycott in many American cities

Split opinion, boycott hurt merchants but helped craftsmen=use of force to subdue merchants

Argued that no importation stopped material decadence (like Protestantism)=appealed to the countryside

 

The Massachusetts Circular Letter

Written to try to get the colonies to come up with a united response to the Townshend Act=Britain dissolves all colonial assemblies

The dissolution of the assemblies sparked new protests

British troops go into Boston

 

The Politics of Revolt and the Boston Massacre

Small riots leading to the Boston Massacre

However Townshend Act also repealed due to boycott

 

The Resistance to Rebellion

Years before the Tea Act were laid out the groundwork for rebellion

 

Intercolonial Cooperation

All royal salaries were dependent of the state legislature

Intercolonial committee to gather intelligence on Brits

Conspiracy to undermine freedom in the colonies

 

The Boston Tea Party

East India Company had to much tea=low prices

Brits tax cheap tea, price is still cheaper that normal

Americans still revolt

When the first tea ship arrives in Boston, the people vow to not allow it to be unloaded in contradiction to Hutchison=Boston Tea Party

 

The Intolerable Acts

Meetings were allowed only once a year and the agenda was set by Brits

Boston Port Bill=no commerce in harbor until Boston Tea Party was paid for

Quartering Act=Quartering for British troops

Quebec Act=Ohio valley was given to Quebec which had no elected assembly=American suspicion that they were going to have their assemblies taken away

Also favored Catholics

 

The First Continental Congress

Wished to avoid war

Imposed sanctions on Brits until Intolerable acts were repealed

Unity

 

Lexington and Concord

Brits go after an ammo depot and but start fighting

Hopes start to dim for negotiations

 

The Second Continental Congress

Georgia, dependent on Britain did not attend first congress but eventually attended second one

Canadians refuse to join so Americans take Montreal but fail to take Quebec

George Washington attends in uniform-get command of the army

Try one last time to get King George to negotiate

 

Fighting in the North and the South

Battle of Bunker Hill lead King George to refuse to negotiate (large casualties at Bunker Hill)

Cannon bombard Boston from forcing Brits to evacuate

Brits are driven from the south

 

No Turning Back

Second Continental Congress was now government

Negotiated aid from Spain and France

Thomas Paine-Common Sense-attacked aristocracy and British traditions

 

The Declaration of Independence

Jefferson write it

Slavery allowed

New York boycotts

 

The War for Independence

Brits had the best army and navy but underestimated Americans

No center for Brits to capture

 

The Patriot Forces

Mostly militia defended

Short terms of enlistment, undisciplined officers

However Continental army fought the big battles

War had to be won with the Continental Army

Continental army was a rallying symbol

Women played a big role (would help them get rights later)

 

The Loyalists

1/5th of the people were loyalists

Went to Canada, Britain and the Caribbean

Many slaves and Indians were loyalists

Brits freed slaves-Americans would push aggressively into Indian territory

Or conservatives who don't like upheaval

Loyalists were not united-couldn't help Brit war effort

Did fight irregular warfare in the south

 

The Campaign for New York and New Jersey

Brits tried to cut off New England but failed=boast to shattered American morale

 

The Politics of Alliances

Wanted a weak American dependent on them

Gave money but reluctant to directly support a republican revolution

Saratoga convinced France to actively support America

Would be the first to recognize America

No peace with Britain without notification of the other

Spain also enters war-gives supplies from New Orleans

Spain wanted to take British possessions in Ohio valley-French were to make sure that Spanish got there before the Americans

Spanish and French navies meant that Britain had to pull troops out from New York to protect Caribbean colonies

 

Indians and the Revolution

Iroquois joined the Brits as the Americans would more aggressively take their land

Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws also joined Britain

However one Iroquois tribe supported America=Iroquois vs. Iroquois

 

The War in the South

Most important fighting

War here begun with slave uprising

Many blacks fought for Britain

New strategy-lobsters would take control step by step and then give the land to the loyalists who would run it

Cornwallis decides to abandon the Carolinas for Yorktown, Virginia=Carolinas fall back into American control

 

Yorktown

French land 5000 troops the north

French and Americans with French fleet surround Yorktown

In England, Lord North resigns, King George wants to carryon= end of the war

 

The United States Congress Assembled

Weak central government

Americans were trying to get rid of a central government in the first place

 

The Articles of Confederation

Wanted a loose union of the states

Majority of the states was needed for a decision-but nine states were needed for a major decision

Federal Government had no power to tax

 

Financing the War

States had their own currency

Continental currency was useless

Bank of North America-run by Robert Morris-stockpiled gold backed up new currency=stability

 

Negotiating the End to the War

French were able to blunt American demands (they had a lot of influence as they financed the American war)

Americans were aware of this and signed a secret treaty with Britain without the French

Therefore Americans only got East of the Mississippi, Canadian fishing rights, instead of all of Canada

But in truth the Mississippi was in Spanish hands

Spain also got Florida back

 

The Crisis of Demobilization

The Brits were leaving (slowly)

American officers were promised life pensions at the expense of half pay if they fought for the entire war, but with the war almost over and Congress still haven't decided on the amount the officers were worried that the issue would go unresolved.  They were able to convert the amount into a bonus and five years of full pay

 

The Problem of the West

Indians were betrayed by both sides

Brits abandoned their allies and Americans still took their allies land

Once population reached 20,000 the territory would get self-government and once it reached the population of the smallest state they would be given statehood.

The Land Ordinance would provide a survey dividing up the land into squares (independent settling)

However Congress was desperate for money and sold most of the land to the Ohio Company (company settling)

The Northwest Territory would be eventually carved up into five states until then it would be ruled by a court of judges and a governor

 

Revolutionary Politics in the States

Most People were loyal to their states

 

The Broadened Base of Politics

During the pre-revolution era more people were involved in politics

South Carolina had relaxed $$ requirements and universal male suffrage

Tory party was destroyed, Whig party was balanced=new left wingers

 

The First State Constitutions

Pennsylvania was radical, Maryland was conservative, New York in the middle

In Pennsylvania once a conservative states, the Tories were all loyalists=they left

Maryland had high $$ requirements for office

 

Declarations of Rights

All states had rights based on the Virginia Declarations of Rights

16 resolutions that said people are free

People had the right to abolish an oppressive government

 

The Spirit of Reform

Revolutionary atmosphere breed reform

Female suffrages in New Jersey

Women played a big role in revolution therefore could demand more a after

Jefferson repealed the Law of Entails (land couldn't be split up after death by heirs) this was a symbol that aristocratic England was gone

Jefferson: Establishing Religious Freedom

Anglicans were loyalists so they couldn't oppose

Enlightenment=people could chose religion

Jefferson wanted to also get public education, reduce crimes for capital punishment, and free slaves

 

African Americans and the Revolution

Most slaves fought for Brits

In the north slavery was abolished

Slaves freed did increase=black schools, churches community

 

Economic Problems

Big inflation from Congress printing paper money

Food riots due to high prices

Few exports vs. lots of imports

 

State Remedies

Manufacturing states introduced tariffs, however to be effective it had to be a national effort

Farmers wanted legal tender laws=allow debts to be paid in goods, or in the state currency regardless of its worth

In Rhode Island, people could pay their debts in the state currency

 

Shay's Rebellion

When merchants forced farmers to pay off debts in hard currency which the farmers didn't have, many were sent to jail=rebellion

Gave firepower to conservatives, clip the wings of mad democracy

 

Forming a New Government

Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion were the first signs that the federal government needed more powers for the USA to survive

 

Nationalist Sentiment

Alexander Hamilton, strong coercive union having control over economic, civil and military issues

Nationalists were from the elite

Merchants wanted to establish the credit for the United States in Europe=can get loans

Continental Army officers who saw with the Continental Congress the need for a strong central government.

Conservatives who wanted to restrain the radical democracy in the states

The economic crises after the Revolutionary war gave the Nationalists an opportunity to organize

Commercial conference in Annapolis to discuss strong federal government

Only five states sent nationalist delegations

All states agreed that they needed more federal control over commerce

 

The Constitutional Convention

In Philadelphia

Everyone but Rhode Island attended

Agreed to vote by states

Madison wanted:

Wanted to scrap the articles of Confederation in favor of a "consolidated government" having the power to tax and enforce its laws directly rather than through the states

Representation in the bicameral national legislature would be based on population

House of Representatives would be elected by popular vote but senators would be chosen by state legislators to insulate them from democratic pressure.

A national judiciary would have the power to veto both national and state legislation

William Peterson of New Jersey opposed= the New Jersey plan

Thought that Madison's plan would allow small states to be swallowed up by big ones

Wanted only a single house congress that equally represented the states

The Great Compromise was the result of the two sides

Proportional representation by population in the house vs. representation by states in the Senate

Small states would have never joined without the senate

3/5th's rule- 5 slaves= 3 whites

Reason why South joined

Slaves only counted in representation not taxes!

Georgia and Louisiana demanded and got protection for the international slave trade

South also legitimized capturing escaped slaves in the north.

Madison wanted a strong judiciary that could declare acts of Congress unconstitutional

Edmund Randolph opposed a strong executive- thought that it was the beginning of a monarchy

Wanted executive to be elected so that it was independent of congress, but thought the people weren't educated enough to choose-electoral college

Ratifying the New Constitution

Needed nine states approval

Supporters of the constitution adopted the name Federalists

Opposition wasn't unified

Opposition were localists=many different interests

Opposition thought the constitution gave the "national government" to much power

Thought that the state government would represent the people better

Political thinkers thought that a republican government could only exist in small countries as a big country had to many factions

Madison thought that a big country had more factions= no one group could have all the power

Federalists were urban vs. farming opposition

 

Shaping of the Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the constitution

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing an official religion

Other Amendments give the people the right to bear arms, limit the government's power to quarter troops in private homes, and restrain the government from unreasonable searches or seizures

The Bill of Rights is the most important legacy of the Anti-Federalists

 

The New Nation

Federal government was a first far away from the people but would soon change

 

The Washington Presidency

Washington's name calling represented another struggle- some wanted a strong executive while other wanted a strong congress

Set the norm-established a cabinet and didn't use veto unless congress had acted unconstitutionally

 

An Active Federal Judiciary

Congress provided that the Supreme Court would have six justices (later increased to nine) and established three circuit and thirteen district courts.

Federalists wanted an all powerful federal legal system vs. state systems

The Eleventh Amendment- declared that citizens from another state not sue another state.  (due to anti federalists)

 

Hamilton's Controversial Fiscal Program

Tariff of 1789- a compromise between people who wanted very high tariffs to make European goods to expensive= booming American industry or people who wanted tariffs to be a source of income

Hamilton proposed to tax whiskey to eliminate the federal debt

Brought confidence to investors by paying of the foreign debt

However this was brought to halt by the question of a capital

Southerners wanted the capital on the Potomac while northerners wanted Philadelphia

The capital would be on the Potomac in exchange for enough southern votes to pass Hamilton's fiscal plan

Hamilton also proposed the establishment of a Bank of the United States

Serve as a depository of government funds

Also wanted to use government money to invest in infant industries

Also circulated national money

 

The Beginnings of Foreign Policy

French Revolution divided the Americans

USA was a French ally but declared neutrality=trade $$$$$$$ from both sides

Jefferson supported France while Hamilton wanted to trade with Britain

Washington supported Hamilton= Jefferson leaves cabinet

 

The United States and the Indian Peoples

American attempts to treat FNP as defeated peoples resulted in violence

Washington declared they would be treated in good faith but this didn't work no one policed the west

The Indian Intercourse Act= treaties were the only way to get land from the FNP

However white's usually ignored this=small private armies invading FNP land

Little Turtle massacred General Arthur St. Clair's army

 

Spanish and British Hostility

King Carlos reformed the economy=boom in Mexico

Spain got French Louisiana and expanded into California

Spain controlled both sides of the Mississippi and blocked American trade

Supported immigration to Louisiana

In Canada Britain kept troops on both sides of the border

 

Domestic and International Crises

Washington faced unrest and threats to secede from in the West due his failure to get rid of Brits and Spanish, the Whiskey tax and failure to defeat the FNP

Whiskey Rebellion was met with federal militia= supremacy of national over local community

Also beat the FNP which in resulted in USA gaining Ohio, Indiana, Detroit and Chicago

 

Jay's and Pinckney's Treaties

Jay's Treaty- Brits wary of now strong American position agreed to remove troops from America, granted limited trade with British Indies and granted most favored nation status=victory for Hamilton

Pinckney's Treaty- Spain now was at war with Revolutionary France= wanted to mollify the Americans= Mississippi and New Orleans open to American trade

 

Washington's Farewell Address

Washington set basis in disinterest in European affairs

Urged unity

 

Federalists and Republicans

Framers of the constitution imagined a one party state in which factions would be muted by patriotism

Madison declared in the Federalist that parties would harm the republic yet he created an opposition to Washington-the Democratic Republican Party

 

The Rise of Political Parties

First arose over debate over Jay's treaty

Federalists supported the treaty while Democratic Republicans opposed it

Second election Adams vs. Jefferson (north vs. south)

Adams won, but back then runner up became vice-president= administration born divided

 

The Adams Presidency

Adam's sends over diplomats to try to calm the French who were angered over Jay's Treaty.  However they would only talk if given a bribe

Democratic Socialists demand to know whats happening and thus Adams publishes the dispatches replacing French names with XYZ= strong anti-French sentiment

 

The Alien and Sedition Acts

Congress with support from Adams pass four acts limiting freedom of speech and freedom of the press

The Alien Act allowed the president to imprison or deport suspected aliens during wartime

Sedition Act provided heavy fines or imprisonment for people convicted of writing or speaking against the government

Democratic Republicans considered the constitution nothing more than a pact between sovereign states therefore the states could go there own way Virginia and Kentucky Resolves.

 

The Revolution of 1800

Federalists were divided

France was beginning to cool off=offers peace which Adams was beginning to negotioate

Hamilton and other merchants still wanted war= Adams threatens to resign leaving Jefferson in power

Adams negotiate peace but gets scorned by Hamilton

Alien and Sedition Acts were overthrown by Democratic Republicans after the third election

Jefferson and Burr (Democratic Republicans) both were tied= who was the president?

12th Amendment would create separate ballots for president and VP

Competition between the parties resulted in the expansion of the franchise to all whie males

 

The Rising Glory of America

Beginnings of American art and culture

 

Art and Architecture

Artists were emerging

Washington DC was an epic architecturally project

 

The Liberty of the Press

More newspaper to the population than anywhere else= high literacy rate

Democratic Republicans were key to asserting the Freedom of the Press by repealing the Sedition Act

 

The Birth of American Literature

Most popular were political books such as Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Paine also wrote the Rights of Man defending the French Revolution

Webster's American Spelling Book which gave birth to American English

 

The Growth of American Communities From Coast to Coast

In 1800 most people lived on the East Coast, however in 50 years Americans would reach the Pacific

Roads were bad= slow travel

 

Russian American: Sitka

Russians destroy Aleutian society

Intermarriage-like HBC and FNP

Established Sitka as center of operations

Went as far south as California

 

Northern New Spain

Spain wanted the Pacific North but failed, Russians, Americans and British were in the area

Spain constructed missions in California to establish its presence

Claimed the Columbia River

 

The French Legacy, New Orleans and St. Louis

New Orleans was the key to Louisiana

Under French civil law blacks got equal legal status as whites

Most of the trade was American

American's were allowed into New Orleans as a result of Pinckney's Treaty but Americans were uncomfortable that a foreign power could control the trade

St. Louis was a small trading post 600 miles north

 

Trans-Appalachia: Cincinnati

West of the Appalachian Mountains experienced the greatest growth

Kentucky and Tennessee were the first Trans-Appalachian states

Many families migrated every year, moving farther west

Once FNP were defeated Cincinnati boomed

 

Atlantic Ports: From Charleston to Boston

Atlantic Ports dominated the country economically

Charleston was the center for cotton, rice indigo

Baltimore was the major port for tobacco

Philadelphia was the cultural, intellectual capital

New York was the only city to accept the British auction system

Offered goods in large lots at wholesale prices=no middleman

Most British trade passed through New York

Boston was the shipbuilding center

 

A National Economy

USA was a producer of raw materials

At the mercy for of world prices

 

The Economy of the Young Republic

94% of Americans lived in rural communities=agricultural economy

Mostly self-sufficient farmers in the West

North some commercial farming

South was wholly commercial

However prices for slaves went up while demand for tobacco, rice and indigo were steady

Cotton was in demand but it was inefficient needing lots of labor

This changed with the cotton gin

Britain was the USA largest trading partner but as an independent nation did not benefit from British mercantilist policy.

Both Britain and France taxed American vessels discriminatorily

 

Shipping and Economic Boom

French Revolution-European ships are converted into fighting ships=American boom

Neutrality led to re-exporting goods

Rapid growth in port cities=rapid growth in farms

Europeans were to busy to trade= Americans move into China and create a Pacific Trade Triangle

Rich trade led to creation of banks, insurance and other industries

 

The Jefferson Presidency

Jefferson renounced the "rags of royalty"- no speech to congress, walked to his inauguration

Led to the change of power from one party to the another peacefully

 

Republican Agrarianism

Factory system horrified Jefferson= opposed industrialization vs. Hamilton who encouraged it

Thought that the factory system would create the same extremes in wealth in American that was seen in Europe

Jefferson wanted small family farms- an agrarian public

Malthusian growth theory according to Jefferson was only applicable in Europe as the USA had plenty of room to grow

Jefferson's vision depended on constant expansion

 

Jefferson's Government

Proposed simplicity over Federalist complexity

Cut navy and army and government staff

Proposed that the federal government only stop men from injuring one another and stay out of their lives

Washington DC was uncompleted during Jefferson's years

 

An Independent Judiciary

Jefferson did not purge Federalist officials= led moderates to switch over

Did however purge the "midnight judges" as the new congress was Democratic Republican= got rid of the job

Adams before leaving appointed 16 new judgeships and six new circuit courts.

Democratic Republicans thought this was a ploy to extend Federal control over the people

One justice Marbury sued Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison over his lost position

The question was: Could the Judiciary be independent?

The ruling stated that the judiciary had the right to stay independent but the executive could not appoint someone to a position that did not exist

 

The Louisiana Purchase

Napoleon regained Louisiana from Spain and had the option of fighting the British in North America

Upon hearing the news the Spanish commander closed New Orleans to  Americans= trade disrupted

Federalists demanded military action

Jefferson bought Louisiana Territory for $15 Million

The constitution did not site that the president could buy territory and Jefferson was a strong supporter in that the president could only act to powers specifically given to him.  However Louisiana was to rich to give up and thus he argued that the new land was needed for his agrarian republic

 

Incorporating Louisiana

Louisiana got French civil law instead of English common law

 

Texas and the Struggle for Mexican Independence

Spain objected in vain to the sale of Louisiana as it left the northern border of Mexico buffered with only Texas, which was already settled by some Americans

When Napoleon invaded Spain and installed his brother on the thrown, fighting erupted= Spain's new world empire began to slip away

Republicans in Mexico battled with royalists

American and Mexican's invade Texas and declare it independent

 

Renewed Imperial Rivalry In North America

French and British Rivalry would cause problems for America both on the high seas and on the nations western borders

 

Problems with Neutral Rights

Britain frowned upon American merchants trying to trade with the French

British also practiced impressment and even conversion to an American citizen (naturalization papers) could not stop the impressment.

Leopard vs. Chesapeake= killing, 3 wounding 18 to get four deserters

 

The Embargo Act

The American navy could not challenge the Royal navy= Jefferson enacted a boycott of British goods in hopes that British manufacturers would pressure parliament to stop impressing Americans

In desperation Jefferson banns all foreign trade to deny France and Britain raw materials= American disastor= Federalist uprising as America couldn't challenge Britain due to Jefferson's cuts to the navy

No effect on Britain or France

France seized American ships

Britain developed new markets in South America

Jefferson ends his second term- followed by Madison

Congress repeals the Embargo Act

 

A Contradictory Indian Policy

Jefferson believed that the Indians would cede their lands and learn how to farm

Jefferson sent out missionaries= divided FNP between Christian and pagans

However most white settlers just barged in and when attacked called in for military help= a cycle

 

Indian Resistance

Black Hoof accepted missionaries

Tecumseh with his prophet brother, gave rebirth to the resistance

Tecumseh believed in common land, therefore no one group could sign a treaty to give it away as it believed to all FNP

Tippecanoe, non-conclusive fighting which led to FNP attacks in Michigan

Tecumseh signs formal alliance with British

 

The War of 1812

Settlers blamed British for Tecumseh's attacks

Upset of British aggression on the seas

 

The War Hawks

Democratic Republicans, hated all British intervention

Supported expansion

Federalists opposed war with Britain

 

The Campaign against Canada

Hull was repulsed by Canadian and FNP

British capture Detroit and Chicago

American's burn York

British lose Lake Erie= lose Detroit

British retreat from Detroit and our pursued by the Americans= Battle of Thames, Tecumseh dies, Americans win

New England refuse to help

 

War in the South

Red Sticks allied with Britain and Spain fought Americans and other FNP

Andrew Jackson, beat the Red Sticks but failed to take Florida

Andrew Jackson beat the British at New Orleans

 

The Naval War

British burn Washington

British supremacy

 

The Hartford Convention

Federalists from New England talk about seceding from the union (Hartford Convention)

The Hartford Convention in the end only listed grievances and stated that the state had the right to oppose unconstitutional federal authority (like the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts)

Ignored as war was about to end

 

The Treaty of Ghent

Impressment and neutral rights were not addressed

British agree to evacuate their western posts and abandon there insistence on a neutral Indian state

When British abandon the FNP they wither and die

 

Defining New Boundaries

After the war of 1812 Americans turn there attention to boundaries

This time period illustrates the sectional split

 

Another Westward Surges

In 1790 95% of the population lived on the seaboard in 1820 only 75% did

Population in 1800 was 5.3 million, in 1820 pop was 9.6 million

Tecumseh's alliance broken= westward expansion possible

The land ordinance priced western lands too high except for speculators

Reality forced Congress to enact land laws favorable to the small farmer

Squatters- people who settled unsold land, and then claimed pre-emption, the right to purchase the land at a lower price as they made improvements to the land

Due to the migration routes Northerners moved to the Old Northwest, and vice-versa

More than half the migrants in the south were slaves

 

The Second Great Awakening of the Frontier

Began in New England but spread

Most powerful in the west as the church there was weak

Camp meetings

Provided people to get to know each other

Women were majority as they found new moral and social consequence

 

The Election of 1816

James Monroe (Democratic Republican) won easily

Last time the Federalist's ran a candidate, but Democratic Republican values were know Federalist values.

Monroe's presidency was known as the "Era of Good Feelings"

Monroe took in both DM and FED into his cabinet

Monroe broke with traditional DM (Jefferson) values and started to promote industry, chartering a national bank and national network of roads and canals (Hamilton's vision)= Federalists were willing to join Monroe

In 1816 Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United States for twenty years.  (the DM"s had allowed the first bank's charter to expire in 1811)

To provide large scale financing that state banks couldn't

The fact that the DM allowed this was a sign that commercial interests now rivaled farming interests

TheTariff was to protect American industries as after the end of the Embargo Act British industries flooded the market with below priced products to stifle American industry

Madison and Monroe both supported interstate roads

Congressmen wanted federal funding for independent state roads- Monroe considered this unconstitutional

 

The Diplomacy of John Quincy Adams

JQA was Monroe's vice president

Signed treaties with Britain establishing the 49th parallel border

Agreed to jointly occupy Oregon

The Transcontinental Treaty was JQA's legacy

In 1818 General Andrew Jackson led a raid to crush the Seminole Indians who were raiding American settlements, however Jackson also invaded Florida

Showed that Spain was weak= able to negotiate Florida and remove Spanish claims to Louisiana, in return America renounces claims to texas and pays $5 million in claims US citizens had against Spain.

US was the first country outside Latin American to recognize the newly independent countries

When Spain, France, Austria, Russia and Prussia began to plot to re-conquer Spain's empire only Britain kept them from executing there plan, not the Monroe Doctrine

Also coninced Russia to accept 54,40 as a Pacific border

 

The Panic of 1819

When Napoleonic Wars ended Britain resumed trade= Americans shipping boom ended

European farms recovered= Less demand for American food

Speculators buying on credit borrowed excessively from state banks= Bank of United States forced state banks to foreclose on many bad loans

Many state banks ruined along with their creditors most blamed the Bank of the United States- Andrew Jackson would turn this sentiment into a political movement

Urban workers were hit by the decline in shipping and manufacturing and blamed their woes on merchants- Andrew Jackson would turn this to into a political movement

 

The Missouri Compromise

Land Ordinance banned slavery in the Old Northwest

As migration was lateral northerners didn't run into southerners= no conflict, until they ran into each other in Missouri

South wanted Missouri's vote in the senate as the North was more populated= control of congress

The balance of south and north was maintained with Maine coming into the union= Missouri stayed slave

Slavery was not allowed above 36,30 the southern border of Missouri

 

The New Democratic Politics

Had the USA still consisted only of the thirteen original states, the North-South compromises might well have broken down by the 1820's and split the nation into two parts.

Westward expansion was the unifying force

Westward expansion encouraged the democratic process

 

The Expansion and Limits of Suffrage

Before 1800 the original 13 states limited the vote to property owners= wealth held power

Mobility undermined the social structure

Western states extended the right to vote to all white males, forcing older states to follow

More factions = more concessions to get votes

Women didn't get the vote, neither did blacks

Could mob rule succeed?

 

The Election of 1824

The "Era of Good Feelings" ended with the Panic of 1819 and the Missouri Crises

Democratic Republican was fractured and as a result 4 candidates ran

Andrew Jackson

John Quincy Adams

William H. Crawford

Henry Clay

Adams and Clay were tied so Clay supported Adams= Clay became secretary of state= Jackson was pissed and had public support so he was poised to win next election

Election of 1824 spelled the end of elitist politics

 

Organizing Popular Politics

Van Buren had a vision of tightly organized, broad-0based political groups

Politics now appealed to popular enthusiasms

Beginnings of mass rallies

New politics were heavily based on party loyalty, politicians were loyal to the people and vice versa

The task of politicians was to emphasize those differences in ways that forged support not just for one election but for permanent national communities of political interest

 

The Election of 1828

The first election to demonstrate the power and effectiveness of the new party system

Andrew Jackson, with Van Buren as campaign manager rode the wave of the new democratic politics to the presidency beating JQA who formed the new National Republican party

Changed Democratic Republicans to Democrats

Jackson's running mate was Calhoun, JQA's vice president

That Calhoun could change factions so easily would end with the new party politics

Democrats were the first to create a coalition between North, South and West= Jackson victory

 

The Jackson Presidency

"The Age of the Common Man"

The first politician to respond to the ways in which westward expansion and the extension of the suffrage were changing politics

 

A Popular Figure

Represented the common man

A military hero

Antagonistic to British and FNP

Jackson's inauguration was packed with common people

 

The Spoils System and the New Politics

Rewarded party loyalists by giving them positions in the government

Strong difference between old and new politics

Old people switched side regularly, (Calhoun)

 

The Nation's Leader vs. Sectional Spokesmen

Jackson believed that he was a national figure

Jackson believed that the president represented everyone= strong executive

Believed that the majority should govern instead of the sectional past

Opponents were Calhoun (south), Clay (West) and Webster (north)

Calhoun was a defender of the slave system

Webster was advocate of tariffs. A national bank, and a strong judiciary

Clay was only one willing to forge political alliances

 

A Strong Executive

Jackson with Van Buren dominated government

Used veto more frequently

Gave power to the states (roads)

 

Internal Improvements: Building an Infrastructure

Despite arguments over who should fund infrastructure everyone agreed that it needed to be done

 

The Transportation Revolution

National Road- largest federal expense tying East and West= fostering a national community

 

Canals and Steamboats

Roads were unpractical for commercial purposes

Erie Canal

Yankee ingenuity

Imported Irish workers

Turned New York away from Europe to America

Success convinced other states to build their own canals= canal boom

Steam boat were more efficient and able to navigate inland rivers

Boom to river cities

 

Railroads

Forced America's iron industry to modernize

Labor intensive

At first steamboats and canals would be more efficient

No standard rail width= slow start

 

The Legal Infrastructure

Federal courts asserted broad federal powers over interstate commerce

Encouraged enterprise

Court prevented states from interfering with contracts

Court denied monopoly= competition

Fulton's steamboat invention was patented but the actual application wasn't

All this was to encourage the commercialization of rural areas by encouraging large-scale economic activity

 

Commercial Agriculture in the Old Northwest

Improvements in infrastructure made it easier for farmers to send their produce to market

Government policy strongly encouraged western settlement

Subsistence farming was being replaced with commercial farming as produce could get to market faster

Commercial farming lead to regional farming

Wheat center moved west of Appalachians= Eastern farmers had to find new crops

Farmers regarded their farms to be temporary waiting for the price to be right before moving

Economy became at the mercy of international prices, railroad and canal companies and the national economy= everyone's intertwined

 John Deere's steel plow an Cyrus McCormick's reaper made farms more efficient= more produce= more $$ and more risk

 

Effects of the Transportation Revolution

Canals and Railroads led to huge investment into America

Catalyst for invention, innovation and change

North made more infrastructure improvements to west= more influential than the south

 

Jackson and His Opponents: The Rise of the Whigs

New infrastructure improvements drove people closer together= national questions and national problems

Jackson's dealings with these new problems of nationalism vs. sectionalism gave rise to the Whig party

 

The Nullification Crisis

The protective tariff was the main sectional issue between North and South

Tariff were wanted in the North where they protected American industry

Tariffs mad luxury goods more expensive in the South and the South faced retaliatory tariff on cotton

With the emergence of new industries more tariffs were needed

Tariffs were also hated in the South as Jackson, in an attempt to win Northern votes supported them.  They claimed that the tariffs were represented sectional interests, helping the North but harming the South= unconstitutional

Slavery was also an issue especially in South Carolina where the state was in recession

Britain had planned to emancipate all slaves

South was alarmed; if Washington didn't mind bowing to sectional Northern interests (tariffs) then they wouldn't' hesitate to emancipate American slaves again bowing to sectional Northern interests

These fears led to talk of nullification, the ability of a state to declare a federal law null, in South Carolina, (Virginia & Kentucky Resolves), (Hartford Convention)

These fears were summed up in Exposition and Protest by Calhoun who wrote it anonymously so as to not offend Jackson

Calhoun of South Carolina used his influence as Jackson's vice-president to get support for nullification

Calhoun saw nullification as a safeguard to the right of the minority vs. Jackson who saw it as a threat to national unity= Calhoun resigns and Van Buren take over

Nullification was practiced in South Carolina in 1832 when Congress (in spite of Jackson's urging) retained high taxes on some manufactured items.  South Carolina called an Ordinance of Nullification and declared the tariff and refused to collect the taxes required.

South Carolina threatened to secede if Jackson used force against the state

Congress passed the Force Bill, the federal government would collect the taxes at gunpoint if necessary

Henry Clay saves the day

Tariffs would be lowered for 9 years gradually (although the tariffs would rise again)

The other Southern states intimidated by the Force Bill refuse to join South Carolina= South Carolina steps down

 

Indian Removal

Since Jefferson the government was to assimilate the FNP

Also given the choice of re-location

In the North the FNP signed all their land away

In the South the FNP still had pockets of self governance

The Cherokee's successfully assimilated and created a constitutional republic

Bowing down to land-hungry whites the legislatures of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi voted to ignore the federal treaties recognizing these pockets

Jackson agreed and thus a policy of wholesale removal of FNP was born

The Cherokee's used the law and won a supreme court case, but the verdict was ignored

Military used to move the FNP some forcibly to leave westwards

 

The Bank War

Jackson refused to renew the charter for the Second Bank of the United States= political consequences

Opposition was known as the Whigs

The Bank held the government money, sold government bonds, made commercial loans, and exercised control over state banks.

The Bank demanded that all repayments to it be made in coin, therefore it stopped state banks from printing to much paper money (no single currency then).  It also restricted speculative activist such as risky loans.

In recession the bank only demanded repayment partially in coin

Acted as a currency stabilizer

Westerners claimed that the bank was harmful to the expansion (speculators)

Many feared that the rich would use it to control the economy

The Bank decided to apply for a second charter early before election as they thought Jackson would not risk a veto on an election year they were wrong, congress approved but Jackson vetoed saying that it was unconstitutional and helped the rich

The Bank war aroused sectional feelings (West vs. North), (poor vs. rich)

 

Jackson's Reelection in 1832

Jackson's veto was a great success with the poor defeating Henry Clay with his popularity

A third party was present, the anti-Masonic Party that stood for the common people and against the Masonic cult (rich club)

First to hold a nominating convention

The Bank had not died yet, as the application of renewal was early, so Jackson killed it by moving all government accounts to (pet) state banks

 

Whigs, Van Buren, and the Election of 1836

Biddle (bank manager) in retaliation against Jackson withdrawing the governments deposits called in all l0oans= recession= everyone mad at Jackson

The Whigs until now loosely united became a strong opposition

The Whigs ran four sectional candidates in hopes that they would force the result into the House of Representatives= a Whig victory, they failed

Whig failure symbolized the weakness of sectional politics

 

The Panic of 1837

The recession of 1833-34 was followed a speculative boom= new state banks were chartered to give out loans

A government surplus of $37 million was distributed to the states causing inflation

More state banks= more paper money= more inflation= Jackson's Specie Circular (government would only accept payment for public lands in hard currency)

British banks hurt by world recession, called in their loans

This led to the collapse of 800 banks in 1837 with $150 million in deposits

Widespread depression= Van Buren gave opportunities to the Whigs

 

The Second American Party System

The First American Party System (DM vs. FEDS) was viewed as an unforunate factional squabble

The Second American Party System, rose out of dramatic social changes caused by expansion and economic growth

Two parties, each with at least some appeal among voters of all social classes in all sections of the country

 

Whigs and Democrats

Democrats represented Jefferson's yeoman farmers= widespread support in all areas

Hatred of bank intervention, monopolies (Bank of the United States) and independence

Disliked the change that came with the infrastrucuture revolution

Whigs were the beneficiaries of the economic change

Strong federal role

Supported the Bank system

Affiliated with the church

Democrats appealed to workers in the cities

Landowners liked the whig platform of a strong government in the control of the economy

 

The Campaign of 1840

The Whigs choose William Henry Harrison (West) of Henry Clay to be the Whig candidate

To balance Harrison they chose John Tyler (South) his running mate

Harrison won easily portraying Van Buren as an aristocrat

 

The Whig Victory Turns to Loss:

Harrison dies= Tyler becomes president

Tyler was a former Democrat who left as he disagreed with the Jackson

Tyler was as much anti-Jackson as he was anti-Whig, he was only chosen to run as he appealed to the sectional tastes of Southerners

 

 

King Cotton and Southern Expansion

-Slavery had long dominated southern life

-First slave boom was when indigo, tobacco or rice was grown

- Demand for these crops declined = slavery declined

- However with cotton gin = slavery boom

- Cotton was needed to clothe the newly industrial world

- Developed a distinctive regional culture different than in the North

 

The Cotton Gin and Expansion into the Old Southwest

- Short-staple cotton had long been recognized as a crop ideally suited to southern soils and growing conditions but it was hard to remove the seeds from the lint

- Cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney (interchangeable parts) = cotton boom

- Cotton exhausted the soil quickly = new land needed

- Cotton growing exploded on the "black belt" (western Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi) that had excellent soil

- The "Five Civilized Tribes", the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctawas, Creeks, and Seminoles were forced to give up land

- FNP were to be removed as they interfered with the social order

- Weren't black slaves, but weren't white masters = kicked out

 

The Question of Slavery

- Southern labor system shifted from white indentured servitude to African slavery during the colonial period because servants would not perform plantation work for others when they could farm their own land

- Britain outlaws slavery in 1807

- All southern states banned the importation of foreign slaves after the successful slave revolt in Haiti (1791)

- After the invention of the cotton gin slavery was needed again = smuggling in

- Smuggling was so bad that South Carolina made it legal again

- In 1808 USA bans American participation in the international slave trade - leads to internal slave trade

 

The Internal Slave Trade

- The cotton boom caused a huge increase in the domestic slave trade, plantation owners in the Upper South sold their slaves to meet the demand for labor in the new and expanding cotton-growing regions

 

The Economics of Slavery

- A series of inventions resulted in the mechanized spinning and weaving of cloth, combined with the invention of the cotton gin = British want cotton

- Cotton was profitable, accounting for almost 60% of American exports

- Southern slavery financed northern industrial development

Cotton Culture

- Northerners failed to recognize their economic connection to the South and increasingly regarded it as a backward region

- Concentration on Plantation agriculture diverted energy and resources from the South's cities

- Most of the South remained rural

- The South also lagged behind the North in industry, and in canals and railroads

- Exception would be the iron industry near Richmond

- Southerners didn't industrialize because they were ignorant but because they had enough money from plantations and railroads were risky

 

To Be a Slave

- Grew from 700,000 in 1790 to 4 million in 1808

 

The Maturing of the American Slave System

- Dependence on King Cotton meant dependence on slave labor

- All northern states had abolished slaveholding

- Most slaves were in the Lower South where cotton was grown

- Upper South owners sold their slaves to Lower South which needed them desperately

 

The Challenge to Survive

- Mortality rates for children under 5 were twice that of white children

- Horrific treatment of too frequently pregnant women

- Malaria, yellow fever, and cholera were endemic in the South

- Blacks died easily due to overwork, poor diet, poor housing, and poor sanitation

 

From Cradle to Grave

- Slavery was a lifelong labor system

- Southerners claimed that by clothing and housing slaves for life they were more benevolent than industrialists who fired and hired according to the market

- Masters clothed, housed and fed slaves

- Children learned life from parents

- Slaves sabotaged to slow work and flattered masters 

- masters thought slaves were dumb

- Frederick Douglass - educated slave who led abolitionist movement

 

House Servants

- House slaves were better clothed

- Masters thought that house slaves would be loyal but were wrong

 

Artisans and Skilled Workers

- A small number of slaves were skilled workers: weavers, seamstresses, carpenters, blacksmiths, mechanics

 

Field Work

- Most slaves were field workers

- Slaves took pride in their strength - indicated their worth

- Elderly slaves were given other tasks (caring for children)

 

The African American Community

- African Americans created an enduring culture of their own, that would influence white society

- Slaves had contacts with other slaves in different plantations - able to plot

- Whites knew that unhappy slaves were unproductive 

- menality was to let them have two things, family and church

 

Slave Families

- No southern state recognized slave marriages in law

- Masters liked marriage among slaves, believed it made men less rebellious

- Wanted children = more slaves

- Slave marriages were equal

- Parents made great efforts to teach children their roots

- Fear of separation was constant

- Led to the beginnings of a larger community family

 

African American Religion

- Slaves brought religions from Africa but were not allowed to practice them

- Whites feared religion might lead to bonds between slaves = rebellion

- Some aspects survived in the form of roots for medicinal use by conjurers

- 1700's - little effort to Christianize their slaves

- might take universal brotherhood and equality too literally

- The Great Awakening which swept the South after 1760's introduced many slaves to Christianity

- Free Blacks founded their own independent churches and the AME 

- African Methodist Episcopal denomination

- Blacks found in Christianity a powerful vehicle to express their longings for freedom and justice

- Evangelical religion of the early nineteenth century was also a powerful form of social control 

- Masters expected Christianity to make slaves peaceful

- Secret churches were outlawed, insisted blacks go to white churches

- Many blacks continued to go to secret churches 

- White churches only preached for the justification of slavery

 

Freedom and Resistance

- It was impossible for most slaves to escape

- Harriet Tubman helped free 300 slaves

- Most escapees were men

- Most slaves ran towards the forests, and swamps and were fed by other slaves for a few weeks before returning home (protest)

 

Slave Revolts

- Gabriel Prosser, a literate blacksmith gathered more than a thousand slaves for an assault on Richmond - later caught and hanged

- Denmark Vesey's (free black) conspiracy raised fears among whites concerning Black religion and the free black people

- Wanted to raise a rebellion in Charleston and sail to Haiti

- When some co-conspirators of the plot squealed, the slaves were able to convince their masters that they were dumb.  However the second time someone squealed they were hanged

- Charlestonians were panicking, blamed the free blacks and destroyed the AME, where radical ideas were hatched

- Nat Turner's revolt, his master treated him well but he still killed him

- Turner was literate and intelligent

 

Free African Americans

- Most free blacks in the South were freed in the early 1800's when anti-slavery was breeding in the South and before the cotton boom

- Most free blacks lived in the countryside of the Upper South, where they worked as tenant farmers of farm laborers

- Urban black women did menial jobs - laundry, peddling 

- Urban black men did blacksmithing and carpentering

- Formed their own churches

- Some were wealthy and even owned slaves (a small elite)

- Free blacks could not carry firearms, could not purchase slaves (unless they were members of their own family)

- Could not vote, serve in the militia, and be liable to whipping and summary judgments (court without jury)

 

Yeoman and Poor White People

- Most whites didn't own slaves

- Usually settled the depleted areas

- White men were always better than blacks no matter how poor

 

Yeomen

- A farmer who works his own land, although some had a few slaves

- Self sufficient, usually grew small amounts of cotton to supplement their living

- Economically independent yet tied to a larger but still very local group

- The local community was important

- Farmers depended on neighbors for assistance in large farm tasks

- Used the barter system

- Slaves were loaned to each other

- Other than slavery these farms were like the farms in the North

- Where slave plantations and yeomen co-existed (black belt) the plantations would buy their food form the yeomen

- Yeomen would also grind their corn, gin the cotton and have it transported to market by the plantation

- Only in the upcountry communities did yeomen feel truly independent

 

Poor White People

- 30 to 40% of white people were landless

- Many were tenant farmers, some sons of farmers working till the father dies

- Tenant farmers worked a landowners land, but still aspired to independence

- Relationships between poor whites and black slaves were complex

- Poor whites and blacks (both free and slave) worked side by side, were intimate

- Poor whites engaged in supplying liquor to slaves which the masters prohibited

- Poor whites sometimes insisted on their racial superiority

- Conditions posed a threat to the racial distinction between whites and blacks

 

Yeoman Values

- Overwhelmingly voted for Andrew Jackson

- Liked his outspoken policy of expansion, his appeals to the common man, and his rag-to-riches ascent from poor to rich

- Most yeomen wanted independence and self-sufficiency rather than wealth

- The freedom so prized by yeomen rested on slavery

- White people made slaves perform the hardest and worst labor

 

Planters

- While 36% owned slaves, only 2.5% owned more than 50

 

Small Slave Owners

- The largest group of slave owners were small yeomen taking the step from subsistence agriculture to commercial production - needed slaves

- Some had the slaves work the farm while they took on other jobs, or worked side by side or rented them to larger slave owners

- Downturns or poor crops could wipe out gains and force owners to sell slaves

- Middleclass doctors, lawyers, and merchants could easily pay for slaves 

- start up plantations

- By steady accumulation these were the new comers to the aristocracy

- This was the course Andrew Jackson took (he was a prosecutor)

 

The Old Planter Elite

- Enjoyed the prestige, the political leadership, and the lifestyle to which many white Southerners aspired

- Usually inherited the wealth

- Lost political influence as the middleclass gained power and the introduction of universal male suffrage

 

The Natchez "Nabobs"

- As Southerners and slave owning spread westward, the elite broadened to include the new wealth of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas

 

Plantation Life

- Worked to create a lifestyle that was modeled on that of the English aristocracy

- Plantations like yeomen farms aimed to be self sufficient, producing not only the cash crop but also food and clothing for both slaves and family

- Carpentering, blacksmithing, weaving, and sewing all done on the plantation

- Most plantation owners had overseers and black drivers to supervise but had direct financial control

- Although some absentee landlords were existent they usually played a big role 

- A paternalistic notion justified the plantation as the plantation was one big family, with the master as the father

- The master was to be good to the plantation and in turn the slaves were to be good to the master

 

The Plantation Mistress

- In the North, women came clearly to control the domestic "sphere" and to carry domestic concerns outside the family and into a wide range of activities that addressed various social reforms

 

Coercion and Violence

- Most slave masters believed in coercion to make slaves work harder

- Masters who killed slaves were sometimes brought to trial but usually acquitted

- Many masters had intimate relationships and children with slaves

- Very rare for owners to admit to having or free slave children

- The master's wife was equally silent (subordinate)

 

The Defense of Slavery

- Blacks outnumbered whites

- Justice vs. self-preservation

 

Developing Proslavery Arguments

- In the flush of freedom following the American Revolution, a number of slave owners in the Upper South freed their slaves

- Stopped by the cotton boom

- Southerners found justification for slavery in the Bible and in the histories of Rome and Greece

- The Constitution allowed slavery, with the recognization of it with the 3/5th rule

- Also stated an escaped slave in the North would be forced to be returned home

 

After Nat Turner

- Nat Turner's revolt caused many Southerners blame antislavery Northerners

- Garrison published the Liberator, a leading antislavery organ in 1831

- British free slaves in the West Indies

- Southerners began to defend the South from antislavery literature

- Every Southern state except for Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland made it illegal for slaves to read

- Slaves were forbidden to gather

- Most antislavery people in the South stayed silent

- James Henry Hammond claimed that slavery was the best organization of society that had existed

- Most Southerners were convinced that slaves were happy and free as their responsibility was borne by the masters

 

Changes in the South

- Most dissent came from up-country nonslaveholders

- In Virginia nonslaveholding delegates forced a two week debate on the merits of gradual abolition

- It became harder to become a slave holder as all slaves were "home grown" - Therefore they were becoming more expensive

- Extensive railway building in the up-country threatened the yeomen

 

Rural Life: The Springer Family

- Example of American lifestyle, lived in Delaware

- Delaware remained a slave state until the Civil War

- Slaves could buy their freedom

- Delaware was more liberal because climate could not grow cotton 

- Springer's sold wool, milk, and butter in local markets

- Planted and produced a diverse range of crops for their own use

- Neighboring farmers shared their labor

- Springer's produced goods for their own use

- Local barter system

 

The Family Labor System

- Most work was done at home

- Women did housework

- In New England where farm surpluses were rare, home produced items were cheaper to obtain than ones from Britain or even Boston

- Families developed skills such as shoemaking that they could do over the winter

- No fixed prices and money rarely changed hands - this would soon change

- Used barter system

- The "just price" was an agreement between neighbors, not by a market

- No fixed production schedule

- "Home" and "work" were the same

 

Urban Artisans and Workers

- In urban areas skilled craftsmen had controlled preindustrial production since colonial times

- The apprentice system

- A boy would go work for a master

- Journeymen were former apprentices and worked for wages saving up till they could buy their own shops

- Worked long hours

- No separation between work and leisure

- Some women worked, as seamstress, cooks, and housemaids, some women even took over dead husbands shop

 

Patriarchy in Family, Work and Society

- An entire urban household was commonly organized around one kind of work

- Family lived in the shop

- Men were the boss, had all legal and voting rights

 

The Social Order

- Everyone had a fixed place in the social order

- Importance was placed on rank and status

- While many artisans were property owners, voted and participated in politics they usually didn't challenge the domination of the rich

 

The Market Revolution

- The most fundamental change in American communities

- Rapid improvements in transportation, commercialization, and industrialization

- Allowed people and goods to move fast

- Commercialization involved the replacement of household self-sufficiency and barter with the production of goods for cash market

- Developments turned ordinary Americans into a commercial market with abundant supplies of cheap manufactured goods

 

The Accumulation of Capital

- In the northern states, the business community was composed largely of merchant in the seaboard cities

- Many had made their fortunes in the Great Shipping Boom of 1790-1897

- The Embargo Act made all foreign trade illegal - traders turn inward

- Most of the capital came from banks, some came from families, religious groups, etc.

Most capital came from shipping, cotton - Northern capital came from slaves

 

The Putting-Out System

- Before the development of factories there was the "putting-out" system

- People still worked at home, but a merchant would supply (put out) the materials and sold them at a distant market

- Before this system the entire family made an entire item - no unskilled workers - Now workers made only a part of the finished product in large quantities for low per-piece wagon

- In new factory system, family ties were severed

- Factory system let boss employ more labor but spend the same amount of money

- Moved production control from the hands of the poor to the rich entrepreneur

- Shoe styles could be made to serve different markets as a result of better infrastructure

- A national market could be formed as there were enough shoes being produced

- The labor force could be cut back or enlarged due to flexible market conditions

- Many workers liked this as they were paid in cash (new thing) and therefore could buy other goods instead of making themselves

 

British and Technology and American Industrialization

- Even more important than the "putting-out" system was industrialization

- New England had lots of swift rivers - very condusive for mills

-Rich merchants looking to spend capital

 

Slater's Mill

- British enacted laws banning machinery and skilled labor into the United States

- Some passed through - eg. Samuel Slater, former apprentice in Britain

- Slater built machines in USA with help of local merchants - Slater's mill

- Slater drew workforce among children and women who were cheaper than men

- The yarn spun at Slater's mill was then put out to local home weavers, who turned it into cloth on handlooms - weaving flourished in areas near the mill

- After War of 1812, the British flooded the American market with cheap goods

- Led to Tariffs which led to the Nullification crises

 

The Lowell Mills

- Lowell went to England and spied on machinery

- Improved English machine design and invented the power loom 

- Entire process from cleaning to making cloth could be done by machines in the same factory

- This needed more capital investment than a small factory such as Slater's Mill

- Size mattered in order to survive competition = Second Lowell Mill built the town of Lowell as a showcase (company town)

 

Family Mills

- Lowell was unique, no other textile Mill was such a showcase

- Small rural spinning mills, on the model of Slater's Mill were built near swiftly running streams near existing farm communities

- Smaller mills often hired entire families - became known as family mills

- Children were given unskilled work, while women did medial work and men did skilled work

- Needed an entire family's income to survive

- Relations between the town and mill were strained

- Argued over the placement of company schools, dams in the river and amount of company taxes

 

"The American System of Manufactures"

- American's pioneered the concept of the development of standard parts

- Seen in gun making, British called it "the American System of Manufactures"

- Standardized production soon became the norm

- Spread slowly

- That goods were uniform and available to everyone demonstrated that America was committed to democracy

 

Other Factories

- Other factories produced metal and iron

- Depended on natural water sources - rural areas

- Like mill factories, originally co-existed with the existing artisan system

- The rapid development of steamship industry in Cincinnati illustrates both the role of merchant capital and the coexistence of old and new production methods

- The foundries, engine factories and shipyards built the ships, while traditional artisans furnished the ship

- The new concepts of specialization and standardization and the increased production they brought about were basic to the system of industrials capitalism

 

Personal Relationships

- The putting-out system, with its division of each craft into separate tasks, effectively destroyed artisan production and the apprenticeship system

- Late apprenticeships no longer treated the apprentice as family and the apprentices family got money for the apprentice's work 

- Apprenticeships were being replaced by child labor

- Artisans who helped destroy the older system did so unwillingly, in response to harsh new competition made by new transportation

- Artisans specialized in luxury goods while factories served the masses, though they still had to accept the putting-out system

- Since women began working they could begin to challenge men for control of the household

- Early factories provided room and board as well as food vs. late factories

While conditions were harsh it was freer than the slave system, although it was often the freedom to starve

 

Mechanization and Women's Work

- Industrialization was a major threat to the status and independence of skilled male workers

- Most tasks could be performed without skilled labor

- Males began to oppose women in the workplace - threatened their jobs

- The industrialization of textiles, first in spinning, then in weaving relieved women of time-consuming home occupations

- Respectable women did not do factory work

- Stayed home working in the clothing industry, relied on the "putting-out" system

 

Time, Work, and Leisure

- Preindustrial work had a flexibility that factory work did not, and it took factory workers a while to get accustomed to the constant pace of work

- In preindustrial times work and leisure were mixed

- Factory system left less time for work and made a clear distinction

 

The Cash Economy

- The transformation of a largely barter system into a cash economy was another marked effect of the Market Revolution

- New cash economy changed the relationships among workers and management

- Workers were no longer part of a settle stable community - they could be fired

- Now free to labor wherever they could, at whatever wages avaliable

- Many artisans moved west and tried to re-create the atmosphere

 

Free Labor

-The heart of the industrializing economy was the notion of free labor = strikes

 

Early Strikes

- Rural women workers led some of the first strikes in American labor history

- Most strikes were unsuccessful as there was an inexhaustible pool of labor

- The preindustrial notion of a “community of interest” between owner and workers no longer existed

- Eventually were successful in getting a 10-hour-work-day

 

A New Social Order

- The market revolution reached into every aspect of life, down to the most personal family decisions.  It also fundamentally changed the social order, creating a new middle class with distinctive habits and beliefs

 

Wealth and Class

- Since the early colonial period, planters in the South and merchants in the North have comprised a wealthy elite

- Small middleclass made up of teachers, doctors etc

- Laboring poor were the majority

- Mostly fixed society

- The marker revolution ended the old social order, creating the dynamic and unstable one we recognize today: upper, middle, and working classes, whose members tried to go as high up as they could

- White collar jobs made by the new society filled by the old professional class

 

Religion and Personal Life

- Played a key role in the emergence of the new attitudes

- The Second Great Awakening had supplanted the orderly and intellectual Puritan religion of early New England 

- more democratic, preached salvation through personal faith

- New religion believed that a willingness to be saved was enough to ensure salvation

- Charles Finney, led sermons in Rochester for the new Evangelical religion

- Evangelicalism rapidly became the religion of the new middle class

- Men found that evangelism's stress on self-discipline and individual achievement helped them adjust to new business conditions

- Evangelism went with the new theory that a worker was responsible for making his own way

 

The New Middle-Class Family

- The market revolution and the new evangelism also affected women's roles.

- The softer more emotional aspects of the new religion appealed to women

- Men were more concentrated on making money while women were responsible for raising children

- Men were expected to be steady, industrious, responsible, and attentive to business

- Women were to be kind, moral and devoted to their families

- Now clearly defined gender roles became a matter of social importance

- Men were now at work more - losing control 

- Women were at home doing domestic chores, no longer directly contributed to income

 

Family Limitation

- Middle-class couples chose to have fewer children than their predecessors

- Children needed more care and would need schooling than working kids

- Abortion was new and widely used among the middle-class

- States soon made it illegal

 

Motherhood

- Child rearing had been shared in the preindustrial household

- Boys learning farming or craft skills from dad

- Girls learned domestic skills form mom

- New middle-class children needed an upbringing, one that involved a long period of nurturing in the beliefs and personal habits necessary for success

- Mothers were given the responsibility as fathers were to busy

- Women were considered more moral

- Children usually worked at age 15, but some were allowed to continue schooling

- Girls were trained to be the nurturing silent "support system"

- Women forged the distinctive social behavior of the new middle class

 

Sentimentalism

- Sentimentalism became a mark of middle - class status 

- Widows were to wear mourning clothes

 

Transcendentalism and Self Reliance

- Middle-class men needed to feel comfortable about their public assertions of individualism and self interest

- One source of reassurance was the philosophy of transcendentalism and its well- known spokesman, Ralph Waldo Emerson

- A famous writer, he popularized transcendentalism

- A romantic philosophical theory claiming that there was an ideal, intuitive reality transcending ordinary life

- Helped the middle class forge values that were appropriate to their social roles

 

The Preindustrial City

- Wealthy enjoyed unquestioned authority

- Merchants regulated public markets, set prices for foodstuffs

- Same wealthy men who established watch societies to prevent disorder

 

The Growth of Cities

- 1820-1860 - Population living in cities increased from 7% to 20%,

- NY grew from 60,000 in 1800 to 202,600 in 1830 and to more than 1 mil in 1860; emerged as nation’s largest port, financial center

- Erie Canal added commerce with interior to NY’s trade

- Philadelphia, countering the Erie Canal, financed the B&O railroad

- Boston, emerged as center of triangular trade:

- Boston ships carried cloth, shoes, to South, sent southern cotton to Europe, then returned to Boston with European manufactured goods

- 1850s - New Orleans handled about half the nation’s cotton exports

- Exports rose from 5 mil in 1815, to 107 mil

- Railroad transformed Chicago into a major junction of water and rail transport

 

Patterns of Immigration

- Surge in immigration to US began in 1820s accelerated dramatically after 1830

- By 1860 nearly half of New York’s population was foreign born

- Most immigrants from Ireland and Germany

- Political unrest, poor economic conditions in Germany

- Potato Famine in Ireland

- Clash btwn Catholic immigrants and Protestant Americans

 

Class Structure in Cities

- Benefits of market revolution were unequally distributed: by 1840s top 1% of pop owned about 40% of nation’s wealth; 1/3 of pop owned virtually nothing

 

Sanitation and Living Patterns

- Every American city suffered epidemics of sanitation-related diseases

- cholera, yellow fever, typhus

- Provision of municipal services forced residential segregation

- By 1850s middles class escaped cities, moving to ‘streetcar suburbs’

- Due to influx of European immigrants after 1830s, middle-class saw slums as homes of strange foreign people who deserved less than American born citizens

 

Ethnic Neighborhoods

- Slums represented family ties, familiar ways and community support to Irish

- Irish immigrants created their own communities in Boston and NY

- eg. parochial schools with Irish nuns

- Mutual aid societies based on kinship or town of origin in Ireland

- Boston American remarked “foreign population associating too exclusively with each other, living in groups together”

 

Urban Popular Culture

- 1820-1860, urban workers experienced:

- replacement of artisanal labor by wage work

- two serious depressions (1837-43, 1857)

- vastly increased competition from immigrant labor

- Taverns became frequent venues of riots, brawls; theaters provided another setting for violence

- “Bowery b’hoys”; deliberately provocative way they dressed was a way of thumbing their noses at more respectable classes

- “penny paper”, NY Post, NY Sun, (1833), fed popular appetite for scandal

- Concerns began to arise about civic order

 

Civic Order

- “frolics”, members of lower classes parade through streets playing drums, trumpets, whistles, etc

- NYC’s first response to increasing civic disorder was to hire more, watchmen, augmented by constables and marshals

- Opposition to idea of professional police force in US; infringed personal liberty

 

Urban Life of Free African Americans

- More than half of free African Americans in North compete with poor immigrants and poor native-born whites

- Residential segregation, job discrimination, civil rights limitations

- African Methodist Episcopal (AME), one of few places where blacks could express true feelings

 

The Labour Movement and Urban Politics

- Universal while manhood suffrage and mass politics changed urban politics

- Professional politicians and other changes spurred by working-class activism

 

The Tradition of Artisanal Politics

- Demonstration of strength and solidarity of workers’ organizations

- Artisanal system crumbling, undercut by competition btwn cities

- No unemployment or welfare

- Urban workers’ associations became active defenders of working class interests

 

 

The Union Movement

- Workingmen’s Party, Philadelphia, 1827

- Campaigned for the end of gov’t chartered monopolies, public school system, and cheap labor in West

- Many principles adopted by the Jacksonian Democrats

- Jackson against “monster” Bank of US

- Whigs - wooed workers by saying Clay’s American System & tariff protection would be good for economy and workers’ jobs

- Neither spoke for need of workers or for well paid, stable jobs

- General Trades Union, several GTUS, form National Trades Union

- Beginning of American labor movement

- Majority of workers (women, free blacks) excluded

 

Big-City Machines

- As American cities grew the electorate mushroomed

- Irish districts became Democrat strongholds

- Germans voted Republican in 1850s

- New York’s Tammany Society - key organisation of mass politics

- Became a political “machine” controlled by a politician who represented interest of group, delivered votes in exchange for patronage and favors

 

Social Reform Movements

- Middle class passion for reform was now focused on the problems of big cities

- Reformers joined organizations devoted to various causes

- Reform movements depended communities of like-minded people

 

Evangelism, Reform and Social Control

- Evangelical religion fundamental to social reform

- Middle class set agenda for reform

- Large cities needed to make large-scale provisions for social misfits - institutional rather than private efforts needed

- Belief in goodness of human nature 

- Moralistic dogmatism

- Temperance, uniformity in behavior rather than tolerance

- Beecher and the General Union wanted to prevent business on Sundays

- Workingmen angered with closure of taverns, quick to vote against Whigs

 

Education and Women Teachers

- Horace Mann was the Secretary of Mass. State Board of Education

- 1827 - Mass. pioneered compulsory education by legislating that public schools be supported by taxes

- Mann wanted friendly learning atmosphere - who better than women?

- Low pay, community supervision, made any marriage proposal appealing

 

 

Temperance

- 1826 - American Society for Promotion of Temperance - largest reform org.

- Panic of 1837, affected temperance movement

- Men’s groups involved in working-class, women’s stressed harm to homes

 

Moral Reform, Asylums, and Prisons

- Reformers would “rescue” prostitutes

- Offer salvation of religion, prayer, and temporary shelter

- 1843 - Dorothea Dix - described how poorly insane women were treated

 

Utopianism and Mormonism

- Prolonged depression with Panic of 1837, belief in imminent catastrophe

- Shakers - offshoot of Quakers

- called for the abolishment of family,

- union of brothers and sisters joined in equal fellowship

- Oneida - notorious for sexual freedom, rather than celibacy, “complex marriage”

- New Harmony, founded by Robert Owen

- Was a manufacturing community without unemployment or poverty

- 1830, Joseph Smith founded Church of Jesus Christ for Latter-day Saints

- Close cooperation, hard work made Mormons successful

- Outsiders intervened after dissention arose regarding Smith’s issue of polygamy

 

Antislavery and Abolitionism

- African Americans, Quakers, and militant white reformers wanted to end slavery

- African Americans needed white allies to succeed

- 1820 Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in Louisiana Purchase lands

 

The American Colonization Society

- First attempt to “solve” the problem of slavery by gradual emancipation

- Designed by American Colonization Society (ACS), 1817

- North religious reformers, south slave owners, Clay supporters

- Was ineffective, by 1830, only sent 1,400 black people to colony in Liberia

 

African Americans’ Fight Against Slavery

- Most free blacks rejected colonization, wanted commitment to end of slavery

- Black abolitionists Douglass, Tubman, Truth spoke at annual conventions

 

Abolitionists

- Led by William Lloyd Garrison, broke with gradualist persuaders of the ACS

- 1833 - Weld, formed American Anti-Slavery Society with Garrison

- Anti-Slavery reformers moved to Oberlin College in N. Ohio

- North abolitionists believed a full description of the evils of slavery would lead to south slave owners freeing their slaves

 

 

Abolitionism and Politics

- 1830s - Various petitions for abolition of slavery rebuffed by Congress

- 1836 - Jackson and Congress passed “gag” rule, prohibited antislavery petitions

- John Quincy Adams denounced gag rule, it was repealed in 1844

- Adams key in freeing of 53 slaves on Spanish ship Amistad

- Won case against American government

- Douglass and Garrison eventually parted ways

- Some Quaker meetings devoted to antislavery maintained segregated seating

- Many wanted civil equality, but not social equality

- Majority moved towards party politics and founded the Liberal Party

- Later becameRepublican in 1850s

 

The Women’s Rights Movement

- Middle-class women became involved in social reform movements

 

The Grimké Sisters

- Rejected slavery out of religious conviction

- Angelina Grimké - first woman to address meeting of Mass. State Legislature

- Sisters were criticized for speaking, because they were women

- Sarah Grimké wrote that men and women were created equal

 

Women’s Rights

- Seneca Falls Convention - 1848 - first women’s rights convention

- Women gained vote in Wyoming in 1869

- Women challenged notion of separate spheres, public for men, home and family for women

- Empowered by religious beliefs and activism, Seneca Falls reformers demanded end to unfair restrictions they suffered as women

 

Exploring the West

- By 1840 Americans had occupied all of the land East of the Mississippi River

- All were states except for Wisconsin and Florida

- < 60 yrs after independence, most of the population lived west of the Appalachians

 

The Fur Trade

- The Fur Trade spurred exploration on the continent

- Depended on goodwill of the FNP

- Traded in the jointly occupied Oregon Country with the Americans

- 1820’s - American companies first able to challenge British dominance of the trans-Mississippi fur trade

The rendezvous system:

- Instituted by William Henry Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company

- Trappers brought their catch of furs to trade fairs and traded them for goods transported by the fur companies from St. Louis, (guns, beads, etc) for which they traded with the FNP

- Traders lived deep in the mountains in some sort of relationship with the local FNP

- Many took FNP wives

 

Government-Sponsored Exploration

- Federal government played a major role in the exploration and development of the West

- Jefferson influenced American westward expansion with Louisiana Purchase (1803)

- Jefferson instructed Lewis and Clark to draw Western FNP away from British

- Lewis and Clark expedition set a precedent for many government-financed expeditions

- Many expeditions were quasi military aimed a scaring off British traders

- Government published the results of these expeditions - later publications had photos

- Fed public appetite for exploration

- Land Ordinance of 1785 - dictated how the Fed. Govt sold lands 

- extended all the way to the pacific = lots of government surveyors

- The Fed. Govt sold lands cheaply and gave away land to veterans of 1812

- Also paid for Indian removal and established forts which protected white settlers

 

Expansion and Indian Policy

- FNP were moved to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska)

- Regarded as unfarmable

- Jefferson’s said this would allow the FNP to live quietly and learn “civilized” ways

- He failed to predict the speed of settlement = encroachment of Indian Territory - Began with the establishment of the Santa Fe trail (1821)

- 1854 - Govt abolished the northern section on the Indian territory which became the Kansas and Nebraska Territories

- Northern FNP were given smaller reservations or allotments of land - pressured to sell

- FNP had no land

- Southern FNP fared better

- Established self-governing nations with schools and churches

- Brought slavery with them = plantations

- Settlers ignored the “Indian Problem” which dealt with Western tribes as the Western tribes had nowhere to go = Indian war = small reservations for Indians

 

The Politics of Expansion

- America’s rapid expansion had many consequences, but perhaps the most significant was that it reinforced Americans’ sense of themselves as pioneering people

- Instilled a pioneering, adventurous and optimistic attitude into the people

~ Frederick Jackson Turner”

 

Manifest Destiny, an Expansionist Ideology

- Newspaperman Sullivan argued it was America’s destiny to spread democracy

- After the panic of 1837 many politicians believed that the nation’s prosperity depended on expanded trade with Asia

- Manifest destiny was evangelical religion on a larger scale

- Democrats (Sullivan included) supported expansion

- Whigs opposed it as they feared it would lead to the extension of slavery

- Whigs supported Govt guidance in settling within the country’s existing limits

- Democrats despised the factory system and large cities - many moved west

 

The Overland Trails

- Land trip was cheaper than sea

- Settlers were drawn by success stories, and to escape the malaria prone mid-west

- “It was pioneer’s search for an ideal home”

- Wagon trains - groups of settlers forming a community for the trip

- Complete with informal elected leaders

- FNP attack was slim

- Most deaths were from whites attacking FNP

- Death toll was higher on the FNP side

- Chlorea killed thousands

- Wagon train members lent support to each other

- The transcontinental railroad ended the wagon train tradition

 

Oregon

- First contact with FNP was commercial (fur traders) 

- Relationships were generally good, often sexual

- Convention of 1818 - British and Americans agreed to jointly occupy the region

- HBC clearly dominated the region

- First settlement was the HBC fort, Fort Vancouver

- Fort Vancouver exemplified a “frontier of inclusion”

- First permanent settlers were retired fur trappers with their FNP wives

- Missionaries followed (but they generally failed)

- Second wave consisted of patriotic Americans which eventually numbered 5000

- Oregoners had their own constitution, banned blacks

- Blacks settled north of the Columbia as a result

- Polk campaigned on 54.40, but eventually compromised over 49th lat.

- British wound up their ailing fur trade and moved to Victoria

- Donation Land Claim Act - 320 acres of land to white males age 18+, 640 for couples

- The 2nd community was that of exclusion

 

The Santa Fe Trade

- Under Spanish control, Americans were not welcome - their explorers were captured

- After Mexican independence (1821) Americans were welcomed

- Trail from Santa Fe to Independence was dangerous

- Unlike Oregon trail FNP attack was frequent

- Early American traders of Santa Fe married local women = society of inclusion

- Communities were a hodgepodge or races

 

Mexican Texas

- Class structure = Spanish decent versus poor

- Comanches used the horse effectively to hunt buffalo and raid Mexico

 

Americans in Texas

- Mexican government created a buffer zone against the FNP by granting Texas to Austin

- In Santa Fe, whites settled on FNP land and in Oregon they settled on British land

- The settlement of Texas was actually legal

- Austin agreed that all settlers of Mexico would become Catholic and Mexican citizens

- Went against the American values of citizenship and Protestantism

- Instead of the usual free-for-all of Austin handpicked his settlers

- Soon Americans with black slaves outnumbered the Tejanos

- Economy was based on highly organized communities growing cotton

 - Most Americans ignored converting to Catholicism or becoming Mexican citizens

- Since they were on Mexican land they couldn’t set up American style governments like the settlers had done in Oregon

 

The Texas Revolt

- Centrists gained control of the govt in Mexico City 

- Dramatic change of policy - decided to take firm control over the N. province

- New govt restricted U.S. immigration, banned slavery, & levied customs duties & taxes

- Americans angry because: They couldn’t get land grants

- Were prone to restrictions on trade because of Mexican customs regulations

- Difficulties in understanding Hispanic law, as well as race

- War breaks out

- Santa Anna crushes Americans at the Alamo

- He is in turn defeated Houston 

= Treaty - stakes the border at the Rio Grande

- Mexican Congress refuses to acknowledge treaty 

- Turns down Andrew Jackson’s offer of purchase

 

The Republic of Texas

- Americans proclaimed the “Republic of Texas”

- Land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River remained disputed territory

- Mexicans saw American attempts to annex this territory as the first step in the conquest of New Mexico

- Northerners refused to accept the Republic of Texas as the 14th State

- Jackson supported Texas but didn’t have the power to quell the controversy 

- He could only extend diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Texas

- Rich Tejanos and Americans co-existed uneasily

- Comanche and Apache tribes raided with impunity

 

Texas Annexation and the Election of 1844

- Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson as president

- Too cautious to raise the Texas issue

- Texans sought Britain’s support and continued to press for annexation to the States

- Tyler (Whig) raised the issue of annexation in hopes to ensure his reelection

- Strategy backfired when Sec. of State John Calhoun woke up sectional fears by stating that the South needed to extend slavery into Texas for survival 

- Northerners refuse to support Tyler 

- Tyler ousted from Whig party

- Henry Clay becomes the presidential candidate

- Clay favored annexation but only if Mexico approved

- This would be ridiculous - Clay was seen as not alienating anyone

- In the Democrat party, Van Buren was replaced by James Polk for the candidate

- Polk won by a slim margin due to opposition vote splitting btwn Whig & Liberty parties

- One of Tyler’s last acts as president was to push through Congress a joint resolution (didn’t need Senate’s approval necessary for treaties) for the annexation of Texas

- 3 months later the Texas congress approved annexation 

- Texas becomes the 15th slave state (Florida had just joined the USA)

 

The Mexican-American War

- 1846 - Polk successfully added Oregon (South of the 49th) to the USA

- After the Mex-Amn War he gained Mexico’s provinces of California and New Mexico

 

Origins of the War

- After controversy in Oregon began dying down, things in Texas were heating up again

- USA supported the Texan claim that Texas extended all the way to the Rio Grande 

- Border dispute

- Polk sends Taylor with troops to “defend” Texas

- Also instructs Pacific Squadron to seize Californian ports if war breaks out

- John C Fremont  - federally commissioned explorer - arrived with a band of armed men

- Kicked out - went to Oregon

- Came back to Oregon in time for the Bear Flag Revolt 

- Fremont and American settlers in California declare independence from Mexico

- Polk also sends secret envoy to Mexico offering to buy disputed land in Texas, California and New Mexico for 30 million

- Envoyed is dismissed, Taylor is ordered South of the Rio Grande 

- Skirmish

- Polk tells Congress that Taylor was attacked = war

 

Mr. Polk’s War

- America was divisive

- Whigs (including Abraham Lincoln) questioned Polk’s account of the border incident

- Saw the border incident as a Southern plot to extend slavery

- Asked why Polk would settle for part of Oregon, but fight for a slave state

- Massachusetts legislature passed a resolution condemning the war as unconstitutional

- Polk took on the overall military strategy - later taken on by Lincoln

- Sent Taylor south into N.E. Mexico

- Colonel Kearny went to New Mexico and California

- Kearny had Santa Fe surrender

- At California he took California with the help of Fremont and the Navy

- Polk thought that his success up north would force Mexico to negotiate - WRONG

- Santa Anna is repulsed by Scott at Buena Vista

- Scott takes Veracruz easily, but then takes another 6 months to get to Mexico City

- Treaty of Guadalupe - Hidalgo ceded California and New Mexico, 

- Border of Texas = Rio Grande

- Mexico paid 15 million in retribution along with 2 million in personal claims

- Polk was furious with the terms, after Scott’s victory he wanted all of Mexico

- Whigs were already against the war

- Southerners opposed letting a large Mexican population join

- Gasden Purchase (1853) - added 30,000 more sq miles

 

The Press and Popular War Enthusiasm

- First war in which regular, on-the-scene reporting by representatives of the press caught the mass of ordinary citizens, thanks to the telegraph

- Reporters shaped the peoples attitudes, not politicians - beginnings of media influence

 

California and the Gold Rush

- Up until 1840 California was mostly made up of FNP and Spanish decedent settlers

- A few American traders and settlers even after the war

- Gold rush changed this

 

Russian-Californian Trade

- Russians were the first outsiders in Mexico

- Spanish officials insisted on isolation

- Evaded as trade flourished with New England traders, and the Russian American Fur Company

- Fort Ross was established by the Russians to better access this trade

- After Mexican Independence (1821) California was open to trade to everyone

Early American Settlement

- Johann Sutter - settled in California in 1839 - became Mexican citizen

- Held a land grant which centered at Sutter’s Fort

- Early pioneers who choose California over Oregon (the usual destination) settled near Sutter’s Fort, aware that they were interlopers in Mexican territory

- These Americans banded together at Sonoma in the Bear Flag Revolt with Fremont declaring independence in 1848

- California was seen as a backwoods, but Polk saw the potential of the great harbors to facilitate trade with Asia

 

Gold!

- First spotted by Sutter’s mill employees - GOLD RUSH!!!

- Word spread quickly - 1849 - Gold rush started in earnest

- 80% were Americans, the rest were Mexicans (13%), Europeans and Asians

- Chinese competition aroused hostility = taxes on Chinese

- San Francisco grew from 1,000 people in 1848 to 35,000 people in 1950

- Tons of money to be had in feeding, clothing and houses in the miners

- California was admitted as a state in 1850

 

Mining Camps

- Most mining camps were deserted when the gold was gone, not San Francisco

- Conditions were dreary

- Most men never made it rich 

- Became wage earners for large mining companies (could afford to go deeper)

- Women became prostitutes or domestic servants

 

The Politics of Manifest Destiny

- Between 1845 - 1848 the USA grew 70% territorially

- Manifest Destiny soon became the dominant issue in national politics

 

The “Young America” Movement

- Americans thought that their democracy would sweep the world

- 1848 - Italy, Germany, Hungary, France, Austria all had democratic revolutions

- President Franklin Pierce dispatched Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan to trade

- “Young American Movt” (Democrats) - wanted to expand south into Mexico

- Polk wanted to intervene in the 1848 Mexican Civil War - Rebuffed by Congress

- Rumoured to have offered Spain $100 million for Cuba

 

The Wilmot Proviso

- North wanted no more expansion as this would upset the norm of the slavery question - Although this was before the Mexican war, this attitude stayed the same after

- Wilmot, a Northern Democrat, proposed all new territories from Mexico would be free - Led to S. Democrats & Whigs voting against N. Democrats & Whigs in debate - Beakdown of the party system

- No party could stand up, as they were both fractured by sectional interests

The Free-Soil Movement

- Why did Wilmot propose his measure?

- Was a northern Democrat, not propelled by ideology but by the pressure of practical politics

- Liberty Party - 1846 - denied Henry Clay the from the White House by vote splitting 

- Many northerners were anti-slavery

- Liberty Party was not radical for most Northerners = Wilmot was trying to compromise

- The Liberty party proposed that only non-slave holders could hold office and that slaves would not be used in federal construction projects

- Liberty party was anti-black, not anti-slavery

- This sentiment was turned into the Free Soil Party

 

The Election of 1848

- California, New Mexico and Texas were all now part to the USA

- Would slavery be allowed in these new territories?

- Lewis Cass of Michigan became the Democratic nominee (Polk was sick)

- Cass proposed that the citizens of the new territories would decide 

- Echoed Jeffersonian faith that the common man could vote in his self interests

- This would be no different as the territorial legislatures were just as divisive

- Whigs turned to Zachary Taylor the war hero to be their candidate

- Taylor was from Louisiana and a slaveholder

- Refused to support the Wilmot Proviso

- Privately he opposed the expansion of slavery, publicly evaded the issue

- Vagueness of the two candidates led some Northerners to support the Free Soil Party

- Led by former president Martin Van Buren

- Van Buren was angry at the Democratic party for passing him over in 1844 

- Also displeased of the growing Southern dominance of the Democrat Party

- Ran as a spoiler, eventually causing Cass to lose

- Zachary Taylor won, but died shortly after

 

- Lincoln/Douglas debates showed the sectional divides that appeared in the mid 1800’s

- Lincoln - Abolition

- Douglas - Pro-Slavery

 

America in 1850

- Economically, culturally, and politically, Americans had a strong sense of identity

 

Expansion and Growth

- America is hugely expanding

- Through war / diplomacy, country triples in size from 890,000 to 3,000,000 mi2

- Population grows from 5.3 mil to 23 mil (4 mil Blacks, 2 mil Immigrants)

- Cotton still #1 export, but manufacturing has grown in the Northeast

- Railway systems opened the door for rich farmland

- As South’s share in the economy waned, so did it’s political importance

- Undermined the role of the slave South in national politics

 

Cultural and Social Issues

- Many forms of media availiable to the masses

- Increasingly becoming less Jacksonian

- This time period became known as the “American Revolution”

- Series of famous books and plays written 

- Includes Moby Dick (Melville) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Beecher Stowe)

- Cabin became an instant bestseller

- Called to action after Fugitive Slave Law (1850)

 

Political Parties and Slavery

- No solution to south because things were becoming increasingly sectional

- No more appealing to a nation with big sectional differences

- Sectional differences began to split apart Whigs and Democrats

- Slavery disagreements also began to split religious groups 

- Presbyterians (1837), Baptists (1845), Methodists (1844)

 

States’ Rights and Slavery

- John C. Calhoun argued that slaveowners, as a minority, should have full access to territories because territories are property of both the North and the South

 

Northern Fears of “The Slave Power”

- “The Slave Power” - a small oligarchy of slave owners who run the southern economy, politics, and society

- James Birney felt this was a conspiracy against the federal government

 

 

Two Communities, Two Perspectives

- Southerners wanted expansion into Cuba and supported the Mexican-American War because they were running out of land in which to expand the slave system

- Free Soilers - Believe in the liberty of all

- South - Believed in the freedom to own slaves as property and as a way of life

- Both groups wanted to expand

- South did not want exposure to abolitionist literature

- Accused the North of helping slaves escape and revolt

- Northern View - South: Blocked work for other whites because of plantations

- North: Freedom for all

- Southern View - South: Owning slaves was a right and a way of life

- North: Practiced “wage slavery” and were hypocrites

- These conflicted views brought questions of unity to the divided country

 

Compromise of 1850

- Question arose if new states admitted to the Union should be slave or free

 

Debate and Compromise

- Henry Clay (West), John C. Calhoun (South) and Daniel Webster (North) met in Congress to discuss a Compromise

- Stephen Douglas brought it all together and ended up pushing it through Congress

- The Compromise - California admitted as a Free State

- Former Mex. territories use pop. sovereignty (vote by inhabitants)

- Texas cedes land to New Mexico, govt assumes $10 mil debt

- Slave trade but not slavery ended in the District of Columbia

- Stronger Fugitive Slave Laws

- Union is saved for a while

- Sectional animosity grew and Southern Whigs and Northern Democrats lost popularity

 

The Fugitive Slave Act

- Northerners helped slaves escape from the South to freedom

- Free blacks were captured by Slave Catchers and taken into captivity

- Even free blacks had no rights

- Northerners upset

- Southerners upset because the Northerners were stealing their slaves

- New laws said slaves had the right to trial and it was illegal to help fugitives

- However, it was illegal for slaves to speak in their own defense

- Northerners still helped blacks escape when captured until Thomas Sims was escorted South in a federal ship

- 1850’s - 322 blacks send South to slavery, only 11 declared free

- Frederick Douglas - famous black anti-slavery writer and orator

- In effect, the Fugitive Slave Law made slavery a nationally accepted institution

 

 

 

Election of 1822

- Whigs elect a pro-North leader (William Seward) and lose their Southern friends

- Democrats choose Pierce, who appeals to Free-Soilers and Immigrants

- Used the platform “Faithful Execution” of all parts of the Fugitive Slave Law

- He ends up winning the election

 

“Young America”: The Politics of Expansion

- Many young politicians used “Manifest Destiny” as an excuse to try to conquer Central America and Cuba

- Filibusters - from the Spanish word for “adventurer” or “pirate”

- Invaded countries with the declared intention of extending slave territory

- Quickly lost favour

- It was Stephen Douglas, not the Young America expansionists, who eventually reignited the slavery expansion debate

 

The Crisis of the National Party System

- 1854 - Douglas introduces the Kansas-Nebraska Act

- Kansas was at the time just a large reservation

- Douglas advocated taking Indian land to construct a railway

- Ended up killing the Whigs and eventually the Democrats as well

 

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

- Douglas wanted to use the railway to expand American democracy and commerce

- Wanted the rail line to end in Chicago in his home state of Illinois instead of St. Louis

- Though he would appeal to the South by letting slavery be decided by pop. Sovereignty

- In effect, this bill repealed the Missouri Compromise (no slavery N of 36o30’)

- Bill passed but badly strained the political parties

 

Bleeding Kansas

- Kansas soon became a battleground where pro- and anti-slavery settlers were poured in so that they could affect the votes illegally

- Contrast of settlers, “Border Ruffians” and pure northerners

- John Brown - high-profile anti-slavery fighter

- Led a marauding band of fighters trying to free slaves and kill owners

 

The Politics of Nativism

- North = anti-immigration after Democrats received many of the Irish and Catholic votes

- New “American” Party represented these views

- Whigs felt that immigration brought poor people who drained the economy

- Party was made up of mostly white, blue-collar workers

- Soon became known as the “Know-Nothings”

- Republican party formed in 1854 from ex-Whigs, Free-Soilers and Know-Nothings

- Gained support from merchants and industrialists

 

 

The Republican Party and the Election of 1856

- James Buchanan was selected to run for the Democrats because he appealed to both the North and the South Democrats

- Republicans beat the American Party, but as they were a sectional party they still lost

- Voter turnout was 79%, one of the highest ever

- Buchanan failed as President and this led to the Civil War

- Election showed Americans’ interest for Nation over Section

- North opted for anti-Slavery over Nativism

 

The Differences Deepen

- Sectional arguments continued to rise more and more

- One Congressman even went so far as to beat another with his cane in Congress

- Each thought the other was ridiculous

 

The Dred Scott Decision

- Dred Scott - Slave to a field surgeon in the South

- While on an assignment in Illinois (free), he married and had a child

- Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that no black was a citizen and threw out the case

- Shows how the South controlled the courts

- Made the North question the laws

- An attempt was made to grant blacks suffrage, but this was shot down

- Lincoln and Seward accused Buchanan of conspiring with the southern Supreme Court

 

The Lecompton Constitution

- 1855 - Illegal voting gives a hugely lopsided pro-Slavery outcome

- Free-soilers protest and form their own government at Topeka

- Proslavery govt makes their own constitution, and Kansas seemes destined to join the Union as the 16th Slave State

- Stephen Douglas defies Buchanan and votes against the constitution

- Insisted that the vote must be determined by fair elections

- Kansas refused admission under the Lecompton constitution

 

The Panic of 1857

- Short but sharp economic depression in 1857 and 1858

- Britain temporarily turns down agricultural exports

 

John Brown’s Raid

- Though he would make a giant slave uprising at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia

- Didn’t tell any slaves so it failed miserable

- Ended up dying as a martyr for the cause

- Widely supported by the North, which led to the South to finally begin talk of leaving

 

The South Secedes

- By 1860 the Whigs had collapsed due to sectional differences

- William Seward called it an “irrepressible conflict”

 

The Election of 1860

- Republicans planned to carry all the states won by Frémont in 1856, plus PA, IL, and IN

- Leading candidates were Seward and Lincoln - Lincoln won

- 4 Candidates - clearly a sectional battle

- Lincoln = North / Breckenridge = South / Douglas = Middle / Bell = Vague

- Republicans claimed to represent freedom while not being radical

- Republicans won the German immigrants votes

- South was fell of rumours of Slave Revolts and passionate for secession

 

The South Leaves the Union

- After Lincoln won, the South seceded from the Union

- SC, Miss, Fla, Ala, Geo, Lou, and TX were the first to go

 

The North’s Political Opinions

- Lincoln agreed to be firm but not give in to slavery

- Should go free in peace

- Too many people valued the Union

- Lincoln waited for the South to strike the first blow

 

Establishment of the Confederacy

- South’s capital became Montgomery, Alabama

- Constitution was the same as the United States, but with some crucial exceptions

- Made the abolishment of slavery essentially impossible

- Montgomery Convention made Jefferson Davis as President, Alexander Stephens VP

 

Lincoln’s Inauguration

- Showed signs of moderation while remaining firm

- Resigned to the fact that while he did not want to fight, he would have to

 

- North and South blamed each other for the breakup of the Union

- Davis and Lincoln prayed for peace in their inaugural addresses but positioned for war

- Ft. Sumter was claimed by both North and South; was low on supplies

- Lincoln sent a food-only relief force but no military aid to the fort

- Davis sent Gen. Beauregard to demand a surrender or otherwise attack

- Confederates won

- South had no problem getting recruits, spoke passionately about resisting tyranny, etc

- North originally turned away many would-be recruits, including blacks

- 1st secession took 7 Deep South states out of the Union (Dec. 20, 1860)

- 1861 - VA, MD, TN, NC join the South

- Richmond and Washington (capitals) less than 100 mi apart

- Maryland was divided as to which side to support

- Riots, etc between the factions

- Lincoln declared martial law in Baltimore and stationed Union troops

- Lincoln justified unconstitutional acts as necessary for National security

- Battle of Bull Run @ Manassas Creek, VA

- 35,000 Union soldiers - confident of victory

- 25,000 Confederate soldiers led by Gen. Beauregard (from Ft. Sumter)

- 2,300 reinforcements arrived for confederates - won battle

- Civil War claimed more lives than WWI + WWII - 620,000 - 1/4 soldiers died

- North - 2.5 x South’s population (22 mil : 9 mil - includes 3.5 mil slaves)

- 9x industrial capacity

- 97% of America’s firearms, 71% of railways, 94% of cloth and 90% of footwear

- This proved decisive - final numbers = 2 mil soldiers (N) : 800,000 (S)

- South - was a defensive war, Southeners were fighting for their homes

- North had to invade South and then defeat guerilla opposition

- Better military leadership - eg. Robert E. Lee 

- Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army but was declined

- COTTON!

 

Lincoln’s Presidency

- Lincoln appointed other Republicans to his cabinet due to lack of national contacts

- Not easy because the Republicans were still made up of various factions

- Broke precedent when he called up militias, ordered naval blockades and expanded the military budget without Congressional support

- Took a moderate approach because he eventually wanted reconciliation with the South

- War Dept needed to feed, clothe, and arm 700,000 Union soldiers

- Complexity of this task linked battlefront with home front on a huge scale

- Lincoln believed Congress, not the President, should direct economic policy

- Turned to bankers, merchants etc for aid in financing the war

- In the end the US had borrowed $2.6 billion for the war effort

- 1st example of mass financing of a war

- Legal Tender Act - Feb 1862 - created paper money, or the “greenback”

- Morrill Tariff Act (1861) - along with other acts, raised tariffs by more than 2x previous

- Civil War resulted in the accumulation of strength by the Fed. Govt

- Britain and France would not recognise the South as a legitimate nation

- Britain disapproved of slavery, found other sources of cotton (Egypt, India, etc)

- Sec. of State William Steward had to make sure no one recognised the South

- Jefferson Davis needed to create a unified nation from the 11 loosely grouped states

- Appeal to each state’s equality - appointed reps from each state to cabinet, etc

- South withheld cotton from the market, British and French responded indignantly

- Once the Union naval blockade took effect, cotton was not so powerful after all

- South could not finance the war - printed too much money and had runaway inflation

- Many people purchased substitutes to serve in the war for them

- Many southerners were against tyranny, but more loyal to state than the confederation

 

- Anaconda Plan - Hoped to squeeze the South by blockading the Mississippi and the sea

- Hoped South would accept defeat and surrender

- Lincoln liked the basics of the plan 

- Public wanting a fight led to disaster at Bull Run

- Peninsular Campaign - 120,000 troops hoped to intimidate Richmond into surrender

- Seven Days Battles - Gen. Lee’s counterattack to the Peninsular campaign

- 2nd Bull Run @ Manassas (Aug 1862) - Lee routed Union army led by Gen. John Pope

- Maryland was stalemated - Union victory at Antietam (Sept 1862)

       - Confederate victory at Fredericksburg (Dec 1862)

- Each side too strong to lose, not strong enough to win

- Ulysses S. Grant established Union control of much of the west

- Shiloh (April 1862) - Although outnumbered, Grant forced a Confederate surrender

- Huge losses on both sides

- Davis was more concerned about Richmond’s defense; did not reinforce against Grant

- Led to Confederate losses at Memphis and eventually Vicksburg

- Far West was secured by the Union despite Confederate resistance

- Hostilities in the west between natives and paranoid whites showed that everyone was affected by the Civil War

 

-Naval blockade was intended to cut off trade between the South and the rest of the world

- Initially unsuccessful, Southern blockade runners evaded Union ships with ease

- As the war went on more and more ships were stopped

- Merrimac (renamed Virginia) vs Monitor - duel between ironclads - no clear winner

 

- Slaves began to seek refuge behind Union lines

- Effectively robbed the South of its workforce 

- By the end of the war, more than 1 million blacks had deserted to the Union

- Lincoln originally did not want to address the issue of slavery

- Eventually decided to issue an Emancipation Proclamation

- After Antietam he declared that unless the rebel states returned, their slaves were free

- Jan 1, 1863 - Lincoln freed all the rebel slaves, but kept it in the North

- These changes were already in action in the south

- 13th Amendment - Outlawed slavery throughout the United States

 

- As part of the Proclamation, Lincoln gave his support to black recruitment for the war

- All-black regiments were often led by whites

- Black performance in battle helped change the general perceptions about them

- Led to the abolishment of much of the segregation existing

- Southerners hated and feared black soldiers and treated them very poorly

 

- New equipment (Springfield & Enfield rifles) was more accurate and had longer range

- Generals were slow to adjust, rather, they relied on huge masses of soldiers

- Disease killed many of the soldiers 

- Both North and South were unprepared to handle the enormous need

- Many women became nurses in the Union army

- Although the South never had an organisation like the Sanitary Commission, women still helped with the war effort

- Most volunteer nurses were still men

- Unauthorized absense was a problem - cut Confederate army by 1/3 or 1/2 at Antietam

- During the war some factions wanted peace - eg. Copperheads, Peace Democrats

- Lincoln subjected the leaders to martial law and exiled one leader

 

- While some Northern industries suffered (textiles, shoes) others boomed during the war (ship building, bootmaking, woolen goods)

- During the war the North suffered an inflation rate of almost 80% - 3x normal

- Much social tension caused by conscription

- Very common to purchase substitutes

- “A rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight”

- Civil War made urban problems worse and increased the contrast between rich and poor

- Due to blockades and a poor transportation system, food prices in the South rose 9000%

- Riots broke out and much conflict ensued between the rich and the poor

- Even Davis’ vice-president Alexander Stephens wanted and suggested peace

 

- Chancellorsville ( May 1863) - Lee daringly divides his forces and catchs Union by suprise, a victory that moves him to begin an offensive at Gettysburg

- Gettysburg (July 1863) - Confederates are slaughtered but not pursued, Lincoln angry

- Vicksburg (Independance Day 1863) - Tightens North’s grip on the South, dissuaded Britain and France from getting involved, and checked the Northern peace movement

- Grant appointed general in chief of all Union forces

- He and Sherman wanted to inflict as much damage as possible on Southern life

- Sherman wanted to make the Southerners sick of war and demoralized

 

- In the Election of 1864, Northern candidates included Lincoln, Salmon P. Chase and George McClellan

- After Sherman captured Atlanta Lincoln’s popularity soared

- Grant’s strategy was to pound the South into submission

- By Spring 1865, public support for the war in the South was non-existent

- Lee surrendered to Grant at Appotamattox Court House

- April 14, 1865 - Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theater in Washington

 

The Politics of Reconstruction

- Civil War killed 600,000 + soldiers, wounded 470,000 +

- War destroyed slavery, but not racism

- New “United States” was now a singular, not plural, entity

- Federal govt took precedence over individual states

- Key issue of Reconstruction: how fed govt would relate with Confed and freed states

 

The Defeated South

- By 1865, the South’s most precious commodities, cotton & slaves, no longer valuable

- Took a generation for South’s economy to recover from the civil war

- 1860 - South = 25% of US’s wealth; 1870 - South = 12%

- White southerners hated the idea of emancipation - led to tons of racism in the South

 

Abraham Lincoln’s Plan

- Lincoln based his plan for Reconstruction on bringing seceded states back quickly

- Promised that when a Confed state’s voters reached 10% of those who had voted in 1860, they would be allowed to form a legitimate govt.

- 10% plan

- New govt had to negotiate the abolishment of slavery

- Not a plan for Reconstruction - a bid to gain white support for emancipation

- Wade-Davis bill - required 50% of white males in a state to take a loyalty oath before state’s constitution could be re-written

    - guaranteed equality before the law for former slaves

    - threatened Lincoln’s attempts to win Southern support - he vetoed it

- No one was quite sure how to redistribute Southern land among former slaves

- Gen. Benjamin F. Butler transformed slaves into paid labourers

- Gen. William T. Sherman set aside some land exclusively for freed peoples

- 40 acres of land + loaned army mules

- March 1885 - Freedmen’s Bureau made to look after matters pertaining to freed slaves

- Jan 1885 - 13th Amendment - promised no slavery would exist within the United States

- Lincoln’s assassination left the issue of reconstruction to a racist, Andrew Johnson

 

Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction

- Appointed by Lincoln because he was the only Southern senator to remain loyal

- nominated for VP in ‘64 to appear to Northern and border “War Democrats”

- Johnson believed Reconstruction was the responsibility of the executive, not legis.

- Granted ~ 100 pardons per day in Sept. 1865 - gratified him and reinforced class bias

- Used the term “Restoration” rather than “Reconstruction”

- Wanted to build coalition of N. Democrats, conservative Republicans, & S. Unionists

- Opposed political rights for freedmen

 

The Radical Republican Vision

- Radicals firmly believed in equality in rights/opportunities for everyone

- Felt reconstruction needed a strong federal govt

- Disliked discriminating laws like the “black codes” in SC, MS, and Louis.

- Black codes reflected the Southerners’ unwillingness to adapt

- Radicals gained support from other Republicans suspicious of the whites in the South

- 1865 - 39th Congress discovered old Confederates were back in power and that blacks needed new protections - Two Bills Passed as a result:

- Civil Rights Bill - granted blacks full citizenship

    - overturned Dred Scott decision

    - made everyone born in the US an American citizen

    - did not include Indians

    - gave equal legal rights

- Congress also promised to give the Freedmen’s Bureau more authority

- Johnson vetoed both bills because he was a racist bastard

- Denounced the use of national power to protect black civil rights

- Johnson denounced Radicals as “anti-Unionists”

- Moderate and Radical Republicans united to override the vetoes

- June 1866 - 14th Amendment - included former slaves as national citizens

- Republicans used this as their platform in the 1866 Congressional elections

- Huge Republican majorities led for an inevitable conflict - President vs. Congress

 

Congressional Reconstruction and the Impeachment Crisis

- Mar 1867 - 1st Reconstruct. Act - divided South into 5 military areas with martial law

- Several laws passed to limit Johnson’s power

- Tenure of Office Act - President could not remove officeholder w/o Senate approval

- Johnson tried to replace Edwin M. Stanton with Ulysses S. Grant

- Congress overruled this and Grant openly broke with Johnson

- Using the violation of the Tenure of Office Act, Congress voted to impeach Johnson

- 126-47; 11 counts of high crimes and misdemeanors

- Johnson was eventually aquitted by a vote of 35-19, one shy of the 2/3 majority needed

 

The Election of 1868

- Summer 1868 - Seven former Confed States had been readmitted

- Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant; Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour

- War Hero vs. Racist sectionalist

- KKK terrorized Southern voters

- 500,000 + blacks voted Republican

- Feb 1869 - 15th Amendment - Universal Male Suffrage granted

- Ratifed Feb 1870 - On the surface, Reconstruction was complete

 

Woman Suffrage and Reconstruction

- American Equal Rights Association (1866) - lobbied for no racial/sexual restrictions

- Radical groups led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cody Stanton pushed for a 16th Amendment guaranteeing woman’s suffrage

- Woman suffragists eventually split into two factions

- AWSA = more moderate; NWSA - more radical

- Defeated due to the failure of Radical Reconstruc. and the ideal of expanded citizenship

 

The Meaning of Freedom

- Slavery ended sooner in some areas than others

- Former slaves wanted to establish distinct African American culture

 

Moving About

- In attempts to test their freedom, many blacks began moving

- Many moved to predominately black communities

- Black went out of their way to reject the old subservience - wouldn’t tip hat, etc

 

The African American Family

- Freed People often reunited with long-lost family members

- Thousands of common-law black couples went to be legally married

- Black men played a more direct role than women due to their enhanced rights 

- Black families, not slave masters, decided where and when women and children worked

 

African American Churches and Schools

- Separate African American churches built to enhance the sense of community

- Many schools were built in black communities

- Reflected the strong passion for self improvement

- Rural communities organised makeshift classrooms

- Freedmen’s Bureau and the American Missionary Association helped in founding black colleges to train black teachers - Tougaloo, Hampton & Fisk

 

Land Labour after Slavery

- Black codes restricted what jobs blacks could pursue

- Made it so that many blacks had to remain on the plantation

- Majority of blacks hoped to become self-sufficient farmers

- Above all, blacks sought economic autonomy, gained through land ownership

- President Johnson ordered the eviction of thousands of freed people on confiscated land

- Alienated many blacks, who felt betrayed

- 3 distinct “systems of hire” - money wages, share wages, and share cropping

- money & share wage: planters worked in gangs, and were paid either in cash or with a share of the crop

- Both systems were reminiscent of the slavery system

- This led to share cropping, which became the main form of working the land

- Sharecropping - individual families became responsible for a specific plot

- Large plantations became divided into family-sized farms

- Sharecropper families got 1/3 of the crop if plantation gave them tools, or 1/2 if they provided their own

- Better than gang labour, but still not great

- By 1880, nearly 3/4 of black Southerners were sharecroppers

 

The Origins of African American Politics

- Although in many ways autonomyous, blacks still desired inclusion

- Many parades, petitions, etc in cities to demand equality

- 1st Reconstruction Act led to more African American political activity

- Union League - formerly a while patriotic club, was new political voice of former slaves

 

Southern Politics and Society

- For the readmission of the South to work, it needed to adopt the two-party system

- 1877 - Democrats controlled all former Confed states

 

Southern Republicans

- Made up of 3 major groups - Blacks

- White Northerners (carpet baggers) 

- usually well-educated and middle class

- Scalawags - whites with diverse motives & backgrounds

- Various divisions emerged between these groups

 

Reconstructing the States: A Mixed Record

- Former Confed leaders could not participate in politics; Republicans dominated

- Conventions produced more democratic constitutions and established new resources

- state funded education systems

- orphanages, jails, looney bins, etc

- Segregation became the norm in public school systems

- Blacks resisted segregation in other public spaces, but equality regulations were hard to enforce

- Republican leaders envisioned a more capitalist society in the South

- Also encouraged railroad production

- Btwn 1868 - 1872, 3000 + miles were added to the Southern rail system

- Advocated a “gospel of prosperity”

- Eventually unsuccessful

 

White Resistance and “Redemption”

- Democrats refused to acknowledge the Republican govts

- 1870-1872 - KKK fought against Reconstruction govts & local leaders

- Colfax, Louisiana - Nearly 100 Blacks killed on Easter Sunday 1873 by the Klan

- showed that the govts had no real power

- 1870/71 - 3 Enforcement Acts passed to reduce racial terrorism

- KKK Act of April 1871 - made infringement of civil rights a federal crime

- Civil Rights Act of 1875 - banned racial discrimination in theatres, hotels, railroads, etc

- Democrats eventually “redeemed” Southern states

- led to: obstacles to voting

- stringent controls on plantation labour

- deep cuts to social services

- US vs Reese / US vs Cruikshank - restricted Congressional power to enforce KKK Act

- 1883 Civil Rights Cases - declared Civil Rights Acts unconstitutional

- Ended attempts to protect Black rights until well into the next century

 

“King Cotton” and the Crop Lien System

- Republicans’ vision of revamped South never materialized

- South became one of the country’s poorest regions

- Depended solely on cotton

- Crop Lien system became the South’s main form of agricultural credit

- Local merchants/planters advanced loans in exchange for a lien (claim) on the year’s cotton crop

- Shady dealings resulted in huge debts for illiterate farmers

- Reinforced white-ruled class system

 

Reconstructing the North

- Lincoln used his own rags-to-riches story as proof of the superiority of “free labour”

 

The Age of Capital

- 1873 - US produced 75% more than it had in 1865

- 1869 - 1st transcontinental railway line completed at Promontory Point, Utah

- Railroads paved the way for rapid Western settlement

- Railroad companies became the nation’s first big businesses

- Some became very corrupt

- Industry as a whole flourished during this time

 

Liberal Republicans and the Election of 1872

- Lineral Republicans - emphasized the doctrines of classical economics

- stressed supply and demand, free trade, defense of property rights

- suspicious of expanding democracy

- 1872 - Democrats nominated Greely to run for President

- Easily defeated by Grant

 

The Depression of 1873

- Commercial overexpansion led to a deep economic depression in 1873

- Various banks and brokerage houses collapsed and the NYSE suspended operations

- 100 + banks and 18,000 + businessed closed

- Depression lasted 63 months

- Caused farmers to sink deeper and deeper into debt

 

The Electoral Crisis of 1876

- With the country in Depression, Democrats looked to capture the White House

- Scandals plagued the Grant administration - “Whiskey Ring” cheated govt, etc

- Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden - impeccable record, very honest, etc

- Tilden had exposed various scandals as governor of NY

- Rutherford B. Hayes, Republican candidate, also claimed to be a good man

- Tilden recieved 250,000 more votes than Hayes, and 184 uncontested electoral votes

- SC, Oregon, Fla, and Louis - each returned two sets of electoral votes

- These 20 votes would determine the outcome

- Committee voted 8-7 to award the votes to Hayes - resulted in his presidency

- In exchange for the presidency, Hayes promised to give the South more money and not to interfere in their affairs - “home rule”

- When Hayes withdrew from the South, it essentially nullified the 14th and 15th Amendments, and abandoned the free people there

 

Indian Peoples Under Siege

-Incorporation of the West into the US was keenly felt by natives living there

- Federal officials fought to bring them into the American mainstream

 

On the Eve of Conquest

- The surviving tribes adapted to changing conditions

- Plains Indians learned to ride horses and use guns

- Treaties with the federal government were often ignored by states

 

Reservations and the Slaughter of Buffalo

- Reservations intended that Indians learn English, convert to Christianity, start farming

- Tribes that moved to reservations often found federal policies inadequate to their needs

- Slaughter of buffalo encouraged in order to hopefully assimilate Indians

- Railway also killed buffalo

 

The Indian Wars

- Usually settlers (fresh from the Civil War) that started fights

- Colorado - governor terminated all treaties and ordered raids into Indian territory 

- This led to Indian retaliation

- The Sioux fought the US Army to a stalemate and had the Great Sioux Reservation created for them (although this did not mean peace)

- The discovery of gold forced the government to try to reclaim the land 

- Sioux and other tribes prepared for battle 

- Custer’s last stand at Little Bighorn

- The Apaches with Geronimo fought the US in the Red River War

- Were cut off from the buffalo and therefore lost

 

The Nez Percé

- In crushing the Plains tribes, the US government had conquered those peoples who had most actively resisted the advance of whites into the West. Even those who co-operated such as the Nez Percé, were ordered to sign a treaty giving away their gold rich land

- Tried to run for the border but failed 

- Eventually sent to other disease-ridden reservations

 

The Internal Empire

- Many Americans romantically imagined the West to be the last center of freedom

- West was in fact controlled by centers of power in the East

- Many peoples struggled to find places for themselves (Mormons, Indians, etc)

 

Mining Communities

- The gold rush (1848) fostered western expansion

- Big businesses - bought out smaller claims and started vertical integration

- Western labor movements began in these mining camps as a response to dangerous working conditions and soon became powerful forces

- Strictly white members 

- Eventually admitted Europeans, but never Chinese, Mexicans or Indians

- Caminetti Act - gave state the power to regulate mines

- Underground mining companies polluted a lot

 

Mormon Settlements

- Western expansion fostered the growth of new unstable commercial cities 

- Simultaneously placed new restriction on established communities

- The Mormons had fled New York and eventually formed an independent state in Utah

- The federal government declared the Mormons rebels and sent in the army

- Supreme Court v. Reynolds - granted freedom of belief but not freedom of practice

- Edmunds Act - disfranchised people who believed in polygamy 

- Edmunds-Tucker Act - confiscated Mormon property over the value of $50,000

 

The Southwest

- The majority of Mexicans in American kept Mexican identity

- Although promised all the liberties that go along with citizenship, these were abused

- Whites often used federal laws to their advantage

- In Arizona and New Mexico, elite Mexicans were able to prosper

- Most Mexicans did work outside the commercial economy working for subsistence 

- With the railroad and the arrival of big business they became the first migrant workers

- Mexicans were able to preserve their culture and religion

 

The Cattle Industry

- Buffalo slaughter eventually made way for the cattle industry

- Became one of the most profitable businesses in the West.

- Kansas Pacific Railroad - linked the slaughtering houses and the markets

- 1880 - Nearly 2 million cattle slaughtered in Chicago alone

 

Cowboys

- Rounded up herds of Texas cattle - very unhealthy and dangerous job

- Cowboys were ethnically diverse

- Many came to the south

- Paid in a lump sum which encouraged cowboys to go spend all the money gambling etc.

 

Cowgirls and Prostitutes

- Some women helped the men rounding up cattle

- Most women worked in kitchen or laundry industries

- Many were prostitutes against the law - eventually shut down at the end of the century

 

Community and Conflict on the Range

- Prostitution + gambling + drinking discouraged the formation of stable communities

- Personal violence and horse theft were notoriously high

- Son farmers and sheep herders were encroaching the cattle fields 

- This led to violence 

- President Hayes decided to send in troops

 

Farming Communities on the Plains

- Opening the Great Plains to agriculture took massive improvements 

- Transportation and farm technology, as well as unrelenting advertising

 

The Homestead Act

- Homestead Act - offered the first incentive to prospective white farmers

- Granted a quarter section (160 acres) of public land free to any settler who lived on the land and improved it for at least five years

- Greatest success achieved in the central and upper Midwest 

- rich soil vs. harsh Great Plains

- Instead of homesteading, many settlers paid state or land companies 

- Owned the most valuable land near railways

- Only 10% new farms were created by the Homestead Act

 

Populating the Plains

- The rapid settlement would not have taken place without the railroad

- Although the Homestead Act offered prospective farmers free land, it was the railroad that promoted settlement, brought people to their new homes, and carried crops and cattle to eastern markets

- Railway companies were in the business of bringing people West

- The National Land Company enticed Easterners and Europeans to immigrate

- People from the Old World tended to build cultural communities

 

Work, Dawn to Dusk

- Men farmed seasonally, women kept the house and children helped out

- Neighbors helped out one another through bartering due to lack of cash

 

The World’s Breadbasket

- New technologies allowed farmers to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency

- Western Agriculture became increasingly tied to international trade

 

New Production Techniques

- Drilled seeds down as tough soil broke iron plows

- McCormick’s reaper and later inventions drastically reduced the manpower needed

- Weather was harsh

 

Producing for the Market

- Farmers became more aimed at producing for the market

- New technology and scientific expertise favored the large farmer over the small one

- Most large farmers specialized in one or two crops, eg corn, rye, or barley

- Average farm sizes increased from around 64 acres to more than 100 acres

 

California

- End of the Mexican-American War in 1848 coincided with start of the gold rush

- The whites flooding the new territory wanted the land that had been occupied 

- Challenged Californians in the Supreme court

- Californians won but court cases bankrupted many 

- Whites took over and soon prosperous 500 acre farms showed up 

- Large scale production made California the leader in wheat production

- Fruit farmers used refrigeration cars on railways

- Californians were kicked off the land by big business

 

The Toll of the Land

- New plants were introduced - this led to an ecological disaster

- Grizzlies and wolves had their populations reduced

- Buffalo were replaced by cattle and sheep - this was disasterous for the land

- Buffalo tend to roam from place to place

- Less wear on the land vs. domestic animals who stayed in one place 

- Huge dust storms

- Timber Culture Act - gave homesteaders another 160 acres of land if they planted 40 acres of trees to reduce the ecological toll

- Commercial agriculture also took a toll on inland waters

- Rainfall used to drain naturally into lakes but now was diverted - lakes disappear etc.

- Newlands or National Reclamation Act - Irrigated even more of California 

- Helped big business

- The forest service was established to protect water sources and set the path for the government to play a bigger role in regulation

 

The Western Landscape

- The East was hungry for stories of the “Wild West”

 

Nature’s Majesty

- Beautiful scenery inspired many of the American writers and painters

- The Yosemite Act placed land under the management of the state of California 

- The federal government funded geological surveys which brought back surveys and visual proof of the lands beauty 

- Yellowstone, Yosemite etc. become national parks

 

The Legendary Wild West

- Roosevelt among others promoted the idea of the “wild west”

- Railways promoted these images

- Buffalo Bill brought the West to the East

- Books and comics immortalized cowboy figures

 

The “American Primitive”

- Painters like Remington illustrated the West

- Pictures of Indians were faked to make them look primitive

- These painters and photographers led the way for scholarly research on Indian societies

- Organisations like the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts used tribal lore to instill character

 

The Transformation of Indian Societies

- 1871 - federal government formally ended the treaty system, eclipsing without completely abolishing the sovereignty of Indian nations

- Indians both adapted and maintained

 

Reform Policy and Politics

- While many Indians had been resettled, few had adapted to White ways

- Helen Hunt Jackson formed WNIA to rally support for a program of assimilation

- Wanted to phase out the reservation system and send Indian kids to boarding school

- The Dawes Severalty Act passed by Congress incorporate these measure and allowed the President to distribute land not to tribes but to assimilated individuals

- Children fled the schools and the land available was poor

 

The Ghost Dance

- Ghost Dancers preached the day where Whites would be wiped off the Earth

- The army pursues the fleeing Ghost Dancers

- Could have ended peacefully, accidental shot from a deaf Indian starts battle

 

Endurance and Rejuvenation

- The most tenacious tribes were those occupying land rejected by white settlers of distant from their new communities

- Most tribes found it difficult to survive in proximity of white settlers

 

The Rise of Industry, The Triumph of Business

- Civil War - typical American business firm was a small enterprise, owned and managed by a single family and produced goods for a single market

- Mammoth firms could afford to mass produce goods for national and intl markets

 

A revolution in Technology

- Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park was the first devoted to industrial research

- Completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 was a catalyst for growth

- The nation’s first big business

- This led to industries moving west

 

Mechanization Takes Command

- Machines depended in turn on a coal which was more efficient

- New systems of mass production replaced wasteful and often chaotic practices and sped up the delivery of finished goods

 

The Expanding Market for Goods

- To distribute the growing volume of goods, businesses demanded new techniques of marketing and merchandising

- Mail-order houses replaced legions of sellers - Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward

- Chain stores produced similar economies of scale - largest was A&P

- Department stores could offer goods cheaper than small stores 

- Led to anti dept. store lobbying

- First advertising firms were founded

 

Integration, Combination, and Merger

- High tariffs of the Civil War + alternating business cycle = growth in US big business

- Economic setbacks in wiped out weaker competitors

- Two main methods of growth:

- Vertical integration - allowed a firm to control production at every step

- Horizontal combination, entailed gaining control of the market of a single product - Case in Point: Standard Oil

- Horizontal combinations secured unprecedented control over output and prices, led to a highly concentrated business economy over which a few very large firms prevailed.

- Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act - designed to promote trade

 

The Gospel of Wealth

- Most rich men were protestant; believed they had got rich through their own hard work

- Justified their shady business tactics

 

Labor in the Age of Big Business

- Workers believed that the laborer makes civilization possible

- The “gospel of work” affirmed the dignity of hard work, the virtue of thrift, etc

 

The Changing Status of Labor

- US became a nation of wage workers due to big business

- 1860 –1890 - 10 million people immigrated to the United States

- Teams of iron-workers had previously set the rules of production as well as their wages while the company supplied equipment and raw materials. Once steel replaced iron, most companies gradually introduced a new managerial structure. Workers now faced constant supervision, higher production quotas, and new, faster machinery.  

- Skilled carpenters replaced by immigrants with little training who could run machines

- Garment industry kept older systems of labor with the new systems of employment

- Young immigrant women manned the machines vs. the outwork system

- Large numbers of families working at home on sewing machines or by hand

- The business cycle affected the labor pool significantly

 

Mobilization Against the Wage System

- The National Labor Union was created to halt the spread of the wage system

- The Noble and Holy Order of Knights of Labor - a group of garment cutters which grew

- Endorsed more land set aside for homesteading, the abolition of contract and child labor, and a graduated income tax

- Worker-run factories, (co-ops) created much enthusiasm but were against big business - Failed

- Most unions were anti-immigration

 

The American Federation of Labor

- Unlike the NLU or the Knights, the AFL accepted the wage system

- Sought to gain recognition of its union status to bargain with employers

- Only would strike if employers did not bargain in good faith

- AFL declared war on the Knights by successfully limiting the job market 

- Excluded minorities and unskilled workers

- Unlike the Knights got political recognition

 

The Industrial City

- Manufacturing formerly centered in the countryside in factory towns (Lowell Mass.)

- The expanding railway system promoted growth in the cities 

- Industry moves to the cities

- The city soon dominated the nation’s social, economic, and cultural life

 

Populating the City

- Most blacks which moved north were young women 

- Men could hope to inherit the family farm

- Immigrants before the Civil War moved to the countryside, this changed afterwards

- Men usually outnumbered women

 

The Urban Landscape

- Cities encouraged the creating of many buildings

- Included commercial offices and efficient public services

- “Dumbbell” buildings in New York were cramped quarters

- Fires allowed city planners to start from fresh - this led to the skyscraper

- Mass transportation allowed cities to grow bigger in acreage

 

The City and the Environment

- Electric trolley eliminated the tons of waste from horse cars

- Modern water and sewer systems were introduced

- 1880s - many middle-class homes had bathrooms with showers and flush toilets

 

The New South

- Devastated by the war, South had little investment capital and few banks to manage it

- Held back by dependence on northern finance capital, continued reliance on cotton production, and the legacy of slavery

 

Industrialization

- The “New South” would invite modern textile mills using the cotton fields to its advantage and welcomed Northern investors

- Soon the North owned most of the railroads, forests and coal deposits

- Vertical integration helped South’s economy - managers wanted to control everything

- For the most part, southern enterprises mainly produced raw materials for consumption or use in the North

 

Southern Labor

- “Red Shirts” tried to curtail the political influence of Blacks and established a whites-only policy for employment

- Blacks did not benefit from the industrialization of the South

- While some Blacks found work in railways etc. most were unskilled workers

- Factories were usually segregated

- Once the Knights were able to unite both races 

- Led to big concessions from managers

- Workers in the South were paid less than Northern workers

- Industrial Age saw a huge increase in child labour

 

The Transformation of Piedmont Communities

- Plantations gave way to railroads, textile factories and cities

- As the cotton agricultural crises deepened more families moved into the factories

- Mill villages were controlled by the company

- Workers had no private life

 

Culture and Society in the Gilded Age

- Real wages rose as did the standard of living - improved nutrition, clothing, and housing

 

Conspicuous Consumption

- Labeled the “Gilded Age” by Mark Twain

- A new class united in its pursuit of money and leisure

- New class was defined by country clubs and extravagant sports

 

Gentility and the Middle Class

- Older middle class - owners / superintendents of small businesses, doctors, lawyers etc.  - New middle class included these professionals; also salaried employees, managers etc

- Mostly white, anglo-saxon, and Protestant 

- Not aimed at conspicuous consumption but self improvement

- Status symbols: bikes, pianos

 

Life in the Streets

- Immigrants weighed US’s material abundance against memories of the Old Country

- Immigrants established close-knit ethnic communities

- YMCA / YWCA - established to house young people who left their families behind

- The home was a second workplace for women who brought work home

- In such close quarters Old World culture survived

- Coney Island was the first large scale entertainment complex catering to everyone

 

Cultures in Conflict, Cultures in Common

- Cultures blended while at the same time clashed

 

Education

- Business and civic leaders realized that the welfare of society now depended on an educated population 

- The concept of universal schooling took hold

- Schools geared towards college – not practical skills = only middle class children went

- Agricultural colleges developed into institutes of technology

- Morrill Federal Land Grant Act 

- Funded a system of state colleges for teaching agriculture and mechanics

- Female colleges and co-ed colleges were also beginning to take hold

- Specialized schools also took root

- Business leaders also promoted manual training for working class boys

- Opposed by craft unionist which preferred the apprenticeships to outside training

- Blacks founded their own colleges and went for industrial training

 

Leisure and Public Space

- Cities originally banned sports, picnics (working class stuff) in favor of band shells etc.

- Rules eventually relaxed

 

National Pastimes

- Vaudeville bridged middle and working classes and was the movie theaters of the day

- Sports created a sense of national identity

- Rowdy behavior gave the game a working-class ambience 

- Many team owners also owned breweries

- National League - raised admission prices and banned beer to appeal to the middle class - American League - continued as before

- Sports soon became big business

- 1920s - Negro Leagues formed

 

Toward A National Governing Class

- As the economy grew, so did government = new responsibilities for regulating society

- New governments campaigned extensively and began desperately trying to secure votes

 

The Growth of Government

- Many new services became publically-owned - eg: police, water supply, school systems

- In large cities such as Boston and New York, taxes soared

- New departments, bureaus, and cabinets were formed to help organise the country

- Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) - 1st independant regulatory agency

- Created in 1887 to organise state laws concerning railroads

- Marked a shift in the balance of power from the states to the federal government

 

The Machinery of Politics

- Republicans - still ran on Civil War record and promised new reforms

- Democrats - desired to give the states more powers and repeal legislation

- Nearly all the elections in the last quarter-century were decided by around 1%

- Democrats usually had a majority in the House; Republicans usually held the Senate - Neither party could govern effectively - little legislation passed before 1890

- Tariff - Major Political Issue - imposed a fee on imported goods, esp manufactured ones

- North - liked it as it protected and encouraged domestic industrial growth

- South - disliked it as it forced poor farmers to pay high prices on necessities

- Politicians urged voters to support their party and appealed to party loyalty

- Republicans - elephants          - Democrats = donkeys

- In attempts to gain funds for campaigning, winners took “spoils” of office

- Politicians would organize sporting events or give loyal voters municipal jobs

 

One Politician’s Story

- James Garfield - began as a humble Ohio resident, briefly worked as a canal boat driver

- Civil War hero

- denounced his own party for corruption under Ulysses S. Grant

- traded favours and manuvered shrewedly to win 1880 nomination

- won Presidency by less than 40,000 votes out of more than 9,000,000

- was shot by a frustrated patronage seeker 200 days after inauguration

- like others, assumed the President served as his party’s titular leader and played a mainly ceremonial role in office

 

The Spoils System and Civil Service Reform

- For decades, reformers desired to introduce legislation to improve the quality of govt

- Jan 1883 - Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act - allowed the president to make a three-person commission to draw up a set of guidelines for exec and legislative appointments

- Made a fair system to select federal workers

- Although many reforms were made, many observers felt govt was still controlled by “insiders” not interested in the needs of ordinary people

 

Farmers and Workers Organise Their Communities

- Late 1860’s - farmers and workers began organising what became the populist movt.

 

The Grange

- 1867 - farmers on the Great Plains formed the Patrons of Husbandry

- Much like the secretive Masonic order

- Grange - HQ of the local chapter - center of social activity

- Main crop on Great Plains was grains (wheat and corn)

- Competition from other countries as well as environmental disasters hurt farmers

- Farmers hoped to improve their condition through collective action - joined P of H

- Grangers protested against railroads for charging high shipping prices

- “Granger laws” established maximum shipping rates

- Grangers began to set up co-operatives in the interests of “buying less, producing more”

 

The Farmers’ Alliance

- Newspapers advised to move out of cotton and into other crops and to cut expenses

- With budgets as low as $10 per year, farmers had no room to cut expenses

- Shipping costs for perishable crops made diversification nearly impossible

- Both African American and white farmers formed unions in attempts to create reforms

- Hard conditions led many farmers to join the Alliances

- 1890 - Alliances controlled Nebraska legislature and had power in Minn and SD

 

Workers Search for Power

- Tompkins Square Riot - Police hit protesters demanding living wages and steady jobs

- Great Uprising of 1877 - 1st nationwide strike - all rail workers rioted against pay cuts

- Began in Martinsburg, West Virginia

- Ended when President Hayes called in the Army to suppress the workers

- Led to the creation of the National Guard

- Labour parties began fielding candidates in elections

 

Women Help Build Alliances

- Many women felt that “government based on caste and class privilidge cannot stand.”

- Women were represented in the Knights of Labor and the Patrons of Husbandry

- Frances E. Willard - presided over the WCTU from 1878 - 1897

- Most famous woman of the 19th Century

- Most political parties refused to endorse woman suffrage

 

Farmer-Labor Unity

- Dec 1890 - Farmers’ Alliance met at Ocala, Florida to press for a third-party movt

- Joined with workers and other reformers to form the People’s Party

- Called themselves “Populists”

- Nominated James Baird Weaver for President and James Field for VP

- 1892 - Grover Cleveland (Democrat) regained the Presidency, but Populists elected three governors, ten Congressmen, and five Senators, and won 22 electoral college votes

 

The Crisis of the 1890s

- Populist Ignatius Donnely felt that the poor and the rich would eventually come to war

- During the depression many hoped or feared that the political system would topple

 

Financial Collapse and Depression

- Railroads represented the center of the economic growth of the late 19th Century

- When railroads went bankrupt, the entire country’s economy halted

- 1893 - Philadelphia and Reading Railroad collapsed, sent country into panic

- Unemployment reached as high as 25%

- Populist Jacob Sechler Coxey attempted to lead the masses to Washington to demand a public works program from Congress

 

Strikes and Labour Solidarity

- Wage cuts and poor working conditions led to numerous strikes and protests

- 1892 - leaders of the Carnegie steel company decided to break the union

- Hired a personal army to fight off the strikers

- After four months the union admitted defeat and accepted reduced wages

- George Pullman - leader of the Pullman Palace Car Company - made rail cars

- Supported the industrial community of Pullman, Mass

- During hard times, workers’ wages were cut by as much as one-half, but prices remained the same

- May 1894 - workers voted to strike after Pullman disregarded a list of grivances

- Eugene V. Debs - recently formed the American Railway Union (ARU)

- Delegates to an ARU convention voted to boycott all Pullman cars

- Debs advised peaceful protest and banned any non-railway interference

- President Cleveland ordered the Army to break up the strike - 13 dead, 50+ wounded

- July 17 - strike ended when Debs was arrested and sentenced to six months in jail

- Debs believed that the labour movt could not regain dignity under the present system

- Came out of jail a committed socialist, tried to form a utopian colony

- Ran for president as a socialist in five elections

 

The Social Gospel

- Many people saw a discrepancy btwn Christian ideals and attitudes towards the poor

- Clergy began to envision a cooperative order based on the principles of Christ’s gospels

- People across the country began trying to apply religious ideas to their everyday life

- New literature questioned social inequalities

- If Christ Came to Chicago (1894 - W.T. Stead)

- If Jesus Came to Boston (1894 - Edward Everett Hale)

- In His Steps (1896 - Charles M. Sheldon)

- Asked the question, “What Would Jesus Do?”

- Many women’s groups joined to form the YWCA, offered cheap hotels, etc

 

Politics of Reform, Politics of Order

- Election of 1896 was a turning point in American politics

- Hardships of the 1890s had led to a crisis in the two-party system

- Populists managed to break down some of the long-standing party lines

 

The Free Silver Issue

- When the economy collapsed, Cleveland was sure that the economic crisis was the result of financial policy, and called a special session of Congress to reform the currency

- “soft currency” - an increase in the money supply that would:

- loosen credit

- accelerate economic development

- allow farmers to repay loans with “cheaper” money than they had borrowed

- Civil War - govt replaced old notes with a common national currency - “greenbacks”

- 1873 - President Grant signed a Coinage Act that added silver to gold as the precious metal base of the currency

- 1876 - Peter Cooper ran for President as an independant on a soft money campaign

- Sherman Silver Purchase Act - 1873 

- Directed the Treasury to print currency backed by silver

- Cleveland felt that only the gold standard could pull the country out of depression

- 1894 - Midterm elections brought a huge shift 

- Republicans gained 117 seats, Democrats lost 113

 

Populism’s Last Campaigns

- Although Populists made significant gains, they were still a very small party

- Democrat William Jennings Bryan became increasingly popular

- Jumped on the increasing popularity of Free Silver

- Bryan’s popularity pushed the Silver Democrats to the forefront

- Bryan said mankind would not be “crucified upon a cross of gold”

- Democrats nominated Bryan for the Presidency

- Populists decided to support Bryan, with one of their own as Vice President

- Democrats ignored the Populists, Bryan’s running mate being Arthur Sewall

 

The Republican Triumph

- Republicans nominated William McKinley, another Civil War veteran

- Mark Hanna ran a well-financed, efficient campaign 

- After the 1896 election, Democrats only dominated the South

- Republican victories seemed inevitable, and voter participation spiraled downward

- McKinley brought new tariffs and favored the passage of the Gold Standard Act (1900)

 

The Limits of Democracy

- Both Brian and McKinley were very similar in many aspects

- Neither addressed the escalating racism and nativism in the US

- More and more, “foreigners” were blamed for hard times

- Jim Crow Laws - discriminatory and segregationist legislation

- Plessy v. Ferguson - US Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana state law formally segregating street cars - “separate but equal”

- New restrictions essentially disenfranchised blacks

- Ida B. Wells - denounced the lynching that occurred throughout the South

- Argued that lynching was essentially a way of eliminating successful blacks

 

Tom Watson

- Campaigned to restore the civil rights of Southern African Americans

- Wanted to overturn Democratic rule by building up black support for the People’s Party

- Watson stirred the only truly interracial movement the South had yet seen

- After McKinley’s victory, Watson retired to Georgia

- Later returned to public life, but now blamed blacks for attacks on poor whites

 

Imperialism of Righteousness

- Some saw an overbuilt economy and an insufficient market for goods as causes for the crisis of 1893-97

- Americans needed a “new frontier” to settle

 

The White Man’s Burden

- Chicago’s World Fair - showcased American business ingenuity

- Foreign displays tried to lure Americans to their countries as “tourists”

- The fair was organised in a way to promote white American superiority

- Various clergy members argued that God had chosen America to lead in the regeneration of the world

 

Foreign Missions

- As early as the 1820s, missionaries had travelled to Hawaii

- 1915 - More than 3 million women were members of missionary societies

- “Rice Christians” - feigned conversion to get food from missionaries

- Missions prepared the way for American economic expansion

 

An Overseas Empire

- Political leaders began to look overseas for trade sources

- Many Americans considered neighbouring countries to be destined to become American

- 1867 - Seward purchases Alaska for 7.2 million dollars - known as “Seward’s Icebox”

- “Good Neighbour Policy” - would secure Americans all the trade from Latin America

- Wanted to annex various islands and colonies

- July 7, 1898 - Hawaii annexed to the States

- After the Hawaiian queen tried to limit American power, she was deposed by troops

- Open Door Policy - said that the US had the right to advance its commercial interests anywhere in the world

- President McKinley contributed 5000 American troops to the international army that put down the boxer rebellion

 

The Spanish-American War

- McKinley was firmly committed to economic expansion

 

A “Splendid Little War” in Cuba

- José Marti declared that Cuba must be free from Spain and the US

- Marti was ambushed and killed by Spanish troops

- Cleveland did not want war with Spain, therefore he refused to back the revolutionaries

- McKinley asked Congress for a declaration of war against Spain

- Fewer than 400 Americans died in battle, and Spain quickly surrendered

- Americans established their economy in Cuba and involved themselves in its industry

 

War in the Philippines

- After war was declared with Spain, McKinley sent troops to occupy the Philippines

- McKinley refused to sign the armistice unless Spain revoked all claims to its islands

- After Spain was beaten, the Filipinos attacked the Americans in attempts to evict them

- Filipinos refused to give in, and fighting continued on some islands until 1935

- Americans refused to leave, and controlled the government

- The Philippines remained a US territory until 1946

 

Critics of Empire

- Many public figures voiced their disapproval of expansion loudly

- Anti-Imperialist League - organised to protest military action

- 1899 - The League had more than 500,000 members

- Emphasized Republic over Empire

- Supporters were either democratic or racist

- Foreigners should either govern themselves or were not fit to be American

 

The Currents of Progressivism

- Progressives could be found in all classes, regions, and races

- Felt that America needed a new social consciousness to cope with problems

- Several key issues behind progressivism:

- Ending political corruption

- More businesslike governing methods

- More compassionate leglislative response to the excesses of industrialism

- Many feel this term is exceedingly vague

 

Unifying Themes

- Three basic attitudes behind progressive movements:

- Anger over the excesses of industrial capitalism and urban growth

- Emphasized social cohesion and common bonds to understand modern society

- Against social Darwinism

- Felt citizens needed to intervene to improve social conditions

- Progressives offered a combination of social justice and social control

 

Women Spearhead Reform

- Many middle class women supported the settlement house movement

- Reformers such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley promoted female education

 

The Urban Machine

- Women had to work outside existing political institutions

- City politics had become a closed and corrupt system

- Machine politics - well organised, dominant political parties catering to specific voters

- Viewed their work as a business, served people who needed assistance

- “Honest Graft” - Making money from inside information on public improvements

- Timothy “Big Tim” Sullivan - embodied the machine politics style

- Gained votes by helping pass reforming legislature, eg. child labour laws, etc

 

Political Progressives and Urban Reform

- Political progressivism originated in the cities to challenge machine politics

- Governments hardly seemed capable of providing basic essential services

- “Good Government Movement” - led by the National Municipal League

- Fought to make city management a non-partisan process, like a large corporation

- Progressive politicans focused on changing policies, not the political structure

 

Progressive in the Statehouse

- “Wisconsin Idea” - The application of academic scholarship and theory to public needs

- Adopted by many states

- Western progressives displayed the greatest enthusiasm for institutional political reform

- The Initiative - allowed direct vote on an issue raised by petition

- The Referendum - allowed voters to decide on bills referred to them by the legislature

- These and other measures intentionally weakened political parties

- Southern populism = biracial policies         - Southern progressivism = whites only

- Southern progressives supported black disfranchisement as a reform

- “Grandfather clauses” - uneducated whites could vote if their grandfather was able to

- Southern progressives pushed for fully segregated public areas

 

New Journalism: Muckraking

- Jacob Riis - How the Other Half Lives - first real exposé detailing poor living conditions

- Journals such as McClure’s began uncovering the bad side of American life

- Journalists included Lincoln Steffen (The Shame of the Cities) and Ida Tarbell (History of the Standard Oil Company)

- Exposure Journalism, as it was called, paid handsomely

- President Theodore Roosevelt coined the term “muckrakers” for these journalists

 

Intellectual Trends Promoting Reform

- Intellectual thinkers began challenging several core American ideas - this led to reforms

- L. F. Ward - Dynamic Sociology - said applying Soc. Darwinism to society was wrong

- Legal, educational and industrial reformers began speaking out against their fields

- Lochner v. New York - Judge Holmes ruled that a 10-hour day for bankers was wrong

- Holmes affected a new group of lawyers known as the “social jurisprudence”

- Edward A. Ross - Social Control - became a key phrase in progressive thought

- Argued that society needed an elite with the best interests of society at heart

 

Social Control and Its Limits

- Some progressives felt they were acting for the common good, but were actually racists

- Extreme side of these views supported eugenics (making a supreme race)

 

The Prohibition Movement

- WCTU provided women with their first political forum to voice their protests

- Core supporteres were generally small-town, Protestant, native-born Americans

- Some “ritualists” protested against prohibition - usually working-class immigrants

 

The Social Evil

- New movements arose to reform society in general - prostitution, gambling, etc

- Portrayed religious minorities as the cause of these vices

- Huge crackdowns in prostitution districts only led to the transformation of the sex trade

 

The Redemption of Leisure

- Progressives felt that “commercialised leisure” must be closely watched

- 1909 - NYC movie producers joined to make the National Board of Censorship (NBC)

- 1914 - The NBC reviewed 95% of the nation’s film output

 

Standardizing Education

- Public schools were seen primarily as agents of “Americanization” - huge melting pot

- 1930 - 47% of kids aged 14-17 were in school

- Progressives led the way in developing specialized fields of study

 

Working-Class Communities and Protest

- Industrial Rev reached its peak in the early 19th century

- Differences between workers in skill, ethnicity and race proved to be powerful barriers

- Industrial workers began calling for increased social justice

 

The New Immigrants

- Untrained foreign immigrants became the bottom rank of the American workforce

- Certain industries became dominated by particular ethnicities

- Most immigrants came from Europe, although some came from Asia

- Barrios - Southern communities dominated by Mexican immigrants

 

Urban Ghettos

- Immigrants moved to ghettos filled with their countrymen, densely packed poor areas

- NYC became the center of the garment trade, which employed many Jews

- Huge work force united as one to strike against the garment manufacturers

- Known as the Uprising of the 20,000

- March 25th, 1911 - huge fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company

- Workers couldn’t escape due to the locked doors, many jumped to their deaths

 

Company Towns

- Many workers lived in company towns (Hershey, PA, etc) but had no influence there

- Immigrants had higher death rates because they did not understand safety instructions

- Women added to the family income by taking boarders, sewing, doing laundry, etc

- Women struggled with longer hours than the men and the latters’ excessive drinking

- Companies hired “efficency experts” to make sure the workers did as much as possible

- Strikers were met with opposition from the companies as well as the “neutral” army

- In 1913-14, the Colorado coal workers went on a major strike

- State sent in National Guard, who proceeded to side with the company

 

The AFL: “Unions, Pure and Simple”

- After the 1890’s, the American Federation of Labor emerged as the strongest union

- Unions’ strength gave rise to descrimination from whites against other workers

- Although members of one union, the various industries disliked each other

- National Association of Manufacturers launched a campaign to eradicate unions 

- Only in the 1930’s could unions count on legal support

 

The IWW: “One Big Union”

- Tensions grew between unions and the employers; many strikes turned violent

- Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) formed in Chicago to facilitate the “workers struggle to unite as a class, take possession of the earth, and abolish the wage system”

- Briefly became a force against the AFL

- Some violent union demonstrations ended up hindering the IWW’s progress

- McNamara brothers bombing the Los Angeles Times’ offices

 

Rebels in Bohemia

- Reformers gathered in NYC’s Greenwich Village

- Sympathized with labour struggles, liked modern art, were open to socialism

- “Village bohemians”, especially women, challenged social double standards

- Pre-hippie Hippies

- “Bohemian” - anyone who had artistic / intellectual dreams and disregarded social rules

- Bohemian views displayed in the monthly socialist magazine The Masses

- Bohemians organised a reproduction of a NJ silk workers strike displayed at MSG 

- Viewed as an artistic triumph

- Village bohemia lasted a few years, but Greenwich Village is still a gathering place for artsy types looking for experimentation

 

Women’s Movements and Black Awakening

- New women’s associations gave women a place in public life and more civil influence

- Black progressives fought to preserve rights they had gained during Reconstruction

 

The New Woman

- 1900 - 7% of Americans went to high schoool - 60% of these were women

- 1890 - General Fed. of Women’s Clubs brought together 200 local clubs of women

- Club activity led members to participate in other reform ventures

- Included “child-saving” reforms, eg. child labour laws, mother’s pensions, etc

- Women’s reform movements introduced quality control

 

Birth Control

- Margaret Sanger

- Coined the phrase “birth control” in 1913

- Threw herself into the bohemian society and became an organizer for the IWW

- Began her own magazine, the Woman Rebel

- After persecution for her views, she fled to Europe in Oct. 1914

- After Sanger was jailed, she gained lots of publicity for her crusade

 

Racism and Accomodation

- 1900 - 4/5ths of the US’s 10 million blacks still lived in the South

- Most worked in agriculture

- Some whites believed that blacks were genetically predisposed to the evils of society

- Used evolutionary theory to argue blacks could not improve = racial Darwinism

- Thomas Dixon - The Clansman - described the typical black as half man, half animal

 

Booker T. Washington

- The most influential black leader of his time

- Born a slave in 1856, educated at Hampton Institute

- 1881 - Founded Tuskegee Institute, a black school in Alabama

- Accomodationist philosophy - blacks and whites can work together for mutual benefit while remaining distinct from each other

- Up from Slavery - Washington’s widely-read biography

- Founded the National Negro Business League with Andrew Carnegie to help develop black business in black communities

- Consulted by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft on some issues

 

Racial Justice and the NAACP

- W.E.B. Du Bois offered an alternative to Washington’s leadership

- Did not fully accept the values of the dominant white society

- Du Bois criticized Washington for accepting the “alleged inferiority of the Negro”

- Niagara movement - protested the denial of black rights and other descrimination

- Held at Niagara Falls, Canada

- Failed to generate much change

- National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People - NAACP

- Led struggles to overturn legal and economic barriers to equal opportunity

 

National Progressivism

- Both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson called themselves “progressives”

- National level progressivism animated many perspectives

 

Theodore Roosevelt and Presidential Activism

- 1901 - Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president in US History

- Roosevelt won national fame during the Spanish-American war

- Follows the pattern of war heros being elected to office

- Roosevelt felt that administrative agencies run by experts could satisfy everyone

 

Trustbusting and Regulation

- Roosevelt began breaking up monopolies under the Sherman Antitrust Act

- Included the Northern Securities Co, a railroad merger under J.P. Morgan

- Also included Standard Oil, owned by John D. Rockefeller 

- During Roosevelt’s two terms, the government filed 43 cases under the Sherman Act

- After Roosevelt was re-elected, he felt more comfortable pushing for regulations

- Pure Food and Drug Act - established the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

- Tested drugs before they went on the market

- Journalism exposés warned consumers about false meat products, etc

- Some big businesses supported reforms because they drove small companies bankrupt

 

Conservation, Preservation, and the Environment

- Roosevelt worried about the environment, and created the U.S. Forest Service in 1905

- Headed by Gifford Pinchot, a conservationist

- Pinchot believed in the “wise use” of America’s resources by the govt

- Some radicals such as John Muir wanted much more land preserved

- Many disagreements between conservationists and preservationists

- 1916 - National Park Service created - gave preservationists a voice in Washington

- Newlands Act - established a new federal presence in managing water resources

 

Republican Split

- 1908 - Roosevelt kept his promise to retire after a second term

- Named Taft as his successor, who easily defeated William Jennings Bryan

- During Taft’s presidency, the gap between Republicans widened

- Taft’s indecisive nature alienated Roosevelt and many other progressives

- When the old guard Republicans would not nominate Roosevelt in 1912, he and his supporters formed the Progressive Party, where he ran along with Hiram Johnson

 

 

 

The Election of 1912: A Four-Way Race

- The Democrats took advantage of the divisions among Republicans 

- Nominated Woodrow Wilson, who had the support of many of the party’s progressives

- Wilson contrasted his New Freedom campaign with Roosevelt’s New Nationalism

- 4th candidate was Eugene V. Debs, a Socialist

- Due to the Republican split, Wilson easily won, with an incredible 435 electoral votes

- Considered the first “modern election”

- Direct Primaries (switching parties)

- Challenging traditional party loyalties

- Issue-oriented campaigns

- A high degree of interest group activity

 

Woodrow Wilson’s First Term

- Wilson pushed for a greater federal role in regulating business and the economy

- By 1916, Wilson’s reform program looked more like New Nationalism

- 1913 - Underwood-Simmons Act reduced certain tariffs

- Took advantage of new 16th Amendment by imposing the first graduated federal income tax - up to 6%

- By creating federal reserve banks, the power of private banks was weakened

- Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) - replaced the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

- Exempted unions as illegal combinations

- Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - Gave govt regulation control over corporations

 

Becoming a World Power

- Early 1900s - US had a more vigorous and agressive foreign policy

- “Progressive Diplomacy” - led to the US becoming a large world power

 

Roosevelt: The Big Stick

- Roosevelt believed in superiority of Protestant Anglo-Americans

- Felt that US must be militarily strong

- “Speak softly and carry a big stick”

- “Planned” revolt against Columbia after turned down on Panama Canal building

- US gets control of Canal Zone & gains immense strategic & commercial advantage

- Sends in an “international police” force to keep Europeans out

- 1899 - John Hay gets open door trading in China

- Roosevelt gets Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating Russo-Japanese war in 1905

 

Taft: Dollar Diplomacy

- “Substitute dollars for bullets” - Taft wanted to limit the military’s involvement

- Ended up needing military support in Honduras & Nicaragua

- Taft gained more investment opportunities for the US in China

- Tried to “neutralize” Chinese industry, but this backfired = closed door in China

 

Wilson: Moralism & Realism

- Wilson felt foreign investments & industrial exports =  keys to national prosperity

- Remove trade barriers

- Mexican Revolution (1911) brings fear to US investors of democratic leader F. Madero

- Madero murdered & militarist govt. takes over

- US supports nationalists & invade 

- Carranza (nationalist) takes over govt.

-“Pancho” Villa attempts to overthrow govt but fails; wants to get US into Mexican war

- US attempts to capture him after raids into the US

- Attempts fail

 

The Great War

- Both sides predicted a quick victory

- Americans entered the war reluctantly, and played a supportive role

 

The Guns of August

- Two teams:

- Triple Alliance (Germany, Austro-Hungary & Italy) 

- Triple Entente (Britain, France & Russia)

- Archduke Ferdinand of Austria killed & war breaks out 

- Germany invades Belgium & prepares to invade France

- 5,000,000 ppl + killed over 2 and a half years in N. France

 

American Neutrality

- Impossible to stay neutral, due to too many interest groups - immigrants, etc

- Began trade ‘solely’ with the allies

- British blockade Germany & US doesn’t complain

- US economic boom from all the trade with the Allies

 

Preparedness and Peace

- Feb 1915 - Germans begin sinking all boats around Britain with submarines

- May 1915 - German U-Boat sinks British Liner Lusitania & kills 128 Americans

- Germans temporarily cease their attacks after Wilson threatens to break off relations

- US passes National Defence Act to increase army size

- Met with much opposition (Women’s World Peace Movt.)

- Wilson wins next election (1916) on Anti-War Premise

- Democrats win using the slogan “He kept us out of War”

 

Safe for Democracy

- More sinking of US ships by U-Boats leads to US entrance into war & proposed 

- US intercepts a German note suggesting an alliance with Mexico against the US

- Leads to hugely increased war support

- Apr 2, 1917: Congress approves declaration of war

 

American Mobilization

- Although newspapers, religious leaders, and state legislatures were enthusiastic, Wilson was still unsure how ordinary Americans would react

 

Selling the War

- Committee of Public Information (CPI) formed to promote the war

- Employed more than 150,000 people

- Created more than 100 million pieces of Pro-war literature

- CPI recruited popular movie stars to make the war attractive

- CPI used three main themes in their pro-war pitches:

- America as a unified moral community

- War was an idealistic crusade for peace and freedom

- Displayed the image of a despicable enemy

- CPI urged ethnic Americans to lose their ties to the Old World - be “unhyphenated”

 

Fading Opposition to the War

- The War effort gained support among progressives and reformers

- Saw the potential for positive social change

- Selective Service Act: the ‘draft’ is introduced without much resistance

- War was popular among most middle-class women - gave them a chance to work

- Many hoped that through the war they would gain suffrage

 

“You’re in the Army Now”

- June 5, 1917 - almost 10 million men registered for the draft

- Age restrictions were loosened, and by the end of the war, 24 million had signed up

- 2 million volunteers took part in various armed services

- Standardized tests were given to recruits

- Illiteracy was as high as 25%

 

Racism in the Military

- Segregated units for blacks (ie: 369th US Infantry in French Army)

- Thousands of black soldiers endured humiliating treatment from white officers

- Barred from marines & coast guard

- August 1917 - Houston - black infantrymen kill 17 civilians due to racism

- Blacks were amazed to find that their treatment overseas was better than at home

 

Americans in Battle

- American support began by escorting convoys to safety and attacking U-Boats

- Gen. John Pershing appointed commander of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force)

- Wanted to be separate from British and French army

- Much like Ulysses S. Grant, he believed in total destruction of the enemy

- Spring 1918 - AEF soldiers help stop Germans at Chateau-Thierry & Belleau Wood

- Germans made it to within 50 miles of Paris

- Sept. 1918 - AEF takes 200 mile front in Meuse-Argonne offensive

- War ends November 11, 1918, after Germans begins to fall back

 

Over Here

- WWI saw the federal government play a huge role in regulating the economy

- Although much was temporary, the war started many trends in American life

 

Organizing the Economy

- War Industries Board (WIB) created by Wilson in 1917

- Clearinghouse for industrial mobilization to support the war effort

- Handed out $14.5 billion in payment contracts

- Food & Fuel act: President can regulate the production & distribution of food

- Food administration led by Herbert Hoover, a millionaire engineer

- Hoover put price controls on pork, sugar, wheat, and other agricultural commodities

- Bought by govt. & sold through dealers

- Hoover refused to impose mandatory rationings

- Many Americans cut back on wheat and meat, began growing own veggies, etc

- Graduated Income Tax was lowered to pay off the $30 billion + war cost

- Federal Debt jumped from $1 billion in 1915 to $20 billion in 1920

 

The Business of War

- War increases industrial production & job availability

- Most important long-lasting economic legacy: shift towards corporationism

- Radios used in battle immensely - this small industry soon gained ground

- Radio Corporation of America (RCA) formed (1919)

 

Labor and the War

- Increase in industrial labour due to the war - more jobs, and higher wages

- American Fed. Of Labour increases its membership

- Most members were skilled white males

- During the war, strict immigration guidelines were eased 

- Immigration Act of 1917 - reduces illiterate Mexican immigration 

- Must be literate & pay $8 head tax

- Suspended for the war’s duration because of labour shortage

- The war ended many more radical factions of the US labor movt

- Industrial Workers of the World got shut down under the Espionage Act

- Marked the beginning of a wave of political repression

 

Women at Work

- During the war, women filled jobs traditionally held by men who were off fighting

- Women in Industrial Service (WIS) - created by the Labor Dept

- Showed a practical stand by the govt to improve womens’ working conditions

- Womens’ wages were approximately half of what mens’ were in the same job

 

Woman Suffrage

- Women play a key role in war effort & want a reward

- Some Western areas adopted forms of woman suffrage earlier

- Lacked the harsh Catholic / Protestant divisions present in the east

- Nat. American Woman Suffrage Assoc. supports war effort & increasingly is supported

- Pursued their goals through moderate action - lobbying for constitutional reform

- National Woman’s Party - led by Alice Paul - radical group of reformers

- Picketed the White House and publicly burned some of Wilson’s speeches

- Aug 1920 - Women are granted the vote nation-wide

 

Prohibition

- Drinking was seen as the source of many working-class problems

- Women’s Christian Temperance Union - major supporter of prohibition

- Prohibition granted in 1919 - becomes source for increased organized crime

 

Public Health

- Govt educated soldiers in personal health & distributed condoms

- Established 5-mile “pure zones” around military bases (no hookers)

- 1918 - Division of Venereal Diseases created to educate the public, give free treatment

- Children’s Bureau created to report on special problems due to the war

- Institutionalized federal aid to protect mothers & children

- Led to the Maternity & Infancy Act (1921)

- 1918-1919 - Huge epidemic of Spanish Influenza (combination of flu and pneumonia)

- Killed 550,000 Americans in 10 months

- $1 million to the Public Health Service to combat the epidemic, but no $ to cure it

 

Repression & Reaction

- WWI exposed and intensified many of the deepest social tensions in American life

- Bolsheviks accomplished the first successful revolution against a capitalist state

 

Muzzling Dissent: The Espionage and Sedition Acts

- The Espionage Act: June 1917

- Suppression of antiwar sentiment

- Up to 20 years & $10,000 fine for aiding the enemy or causing insubordination in the armed forces

- Postmaster General could exclude any publication he considered treasonous

- After the war, the Bureau of Investigation was created to handle civilian intelligence

- The Sedition Act - Amendment to the Espionage act

- Outlawed any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language…” to the govt constitution or the flag

- Eugene Debs arrested for publicly declaring his hatred of war

- Scheneck vs. United States - decided that Supreme Court can restrict freedom of speech

- Abrams vs. United States - Supreme Court upheld sedition act convictions of 4 Russians

 

The Great Migration & Racial Tensions

- Post-war economic opportunities create widespread black migration to northern cities

- News of jobs & urban residential districts spread throughout community groups 

- Racism in the South also contributed to the migration, but was not limited to the South

- July 2, 1917: mob of Whites in St. Louis, Illinois kill 200 blacks

- July 27, 1919: Antiblack rioting on Lake Michigan beach in Chicago

- African Americans held responsible for the violence

- Crisis - Journal for the NAACP - concluded that an increase in racial hatred was an integral part of wartime intolerance

- Sought to end the widespread lynchings

 

Labour Strife

- After the War, “strike wave” hits - 3600 strikes in 1919, involving 4 million + people

- Return of servicemen creates job security issues

- 1919 - Seattle - a shipyard strike turns into a citywide, 60,000 ppl + strike

- Ended when the mayor asked troops to occupy the city

 

An Uneasy Peace

- Treaty of Versailles - formally ended World War I

- Dominated by Britain, France, Italy and the United States

 

The Fourteen Points

- Wilson’s blueprint for peace - Contained three main aspects:

1) Detailed post-war boundaries in Europe, addressed splitting up Austro-Hungary

2) General principles for international conduct 

- Includes free seas, free trade, and open covenants

- Also addresses mediating conflicting colonial claims

3) Wilson called for the creation of a League of Nations to enforce the 14 points

- The 14 Points reflected Wilson’s long-held liberal progressive feelings

- The most controversial issue was the League of Nations

- Article X in the charter of the League called for collective security to keep peace

- This violated the American system of declaring war through Congress

 

Wilson in Paris

- Conference initally accepts the 14 points

- Austria, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia & Czechoslovakia made out of the beaten powers

- Compromise mandate gave British & French control of German / Turkish colonies

- Japan controls German China

- Wilson opposes war guilt, but it is still imposed on Germany

- $33 billion in reparations

- Final treaty signed on June 28, 1919 - Germans had no choice but to accept the terms

 

The Treaty Fight

- Wilson had neglected domestic issues & concentrated on foreign policies

- Republicans capture majority in House & Senate (1918)

- Wilson’s opponents in Senate included: “Irreconcilables” opposed to any form of treaty

      Senators who had opposed entry into the war

      Racist xenophobes against him as well

- Many senators dislike the League of Nations idea

- Sept 1919 - Wilson goes on a US speaking tour, but it didn’t help him politically

- Republican Henry Lodge reccommended fourteen changes to Wilson’s treaty

- Wilson instructs Democrats to vote against the Lodge version of the treaty

- Lodge version wins but not ratified

- United States never signed the Versailles Treaty or joined the League of Nations

 

Russian Revolution

- Bolsheviks take control of Russian govt & negotiate separate peace with Germany

- Wilson doesn’t acknowledge the Bolshevik govt

- They are a threat to liberal-capitalism, the foundation of America’s moral basis

- Aug 1918 - US troops sent to Northern Russia to keep the Russian Revolution in control

 

The Red Scare

- Strikes, racism, and other disturbances were increasingly blamed on Bolshevism

- 1918 - Alien Act - Enabled the government to deport anyone found to be a revolutionary

- Attorney General A. Mitchell Parker was like the first Sen. McCarthy

- Marked a huge hostility towards radicalism

 

Election of 1920

- Americans wanted to retreat from the social tensions and reforms having to do with war

- Wilson doesn’t run for re-election

- Warren G. Harding wins landslide

- Not a suitable president, but he called for a retreat from “Wilson Idealism”

- Voters wanted a return to normalcy from the war era; restoration, not revolution

- Eugene Debs gets 900,000 votes from jail.

 

Postwar Prosperity & Its Price

The Second Industrial Revolution

Prosperity in the 1920s with increased technology creation & greater output without expanding the work force

Most machinery could be operated by unskilled workers

Lower pay ( more profit

Manufacturing of electrical machines becomes the nations fastest growing industry

Increased production leads to a housing boom

Mortgage debt rises from $8 billion to $27 billion in 10 yrs

The Modern Corporation

John D. Rockefeller (oil) & Andrew Carnegie (steel) provides a model for success in business

Both had ownership & control (management) of their companies

The new wave in business saw the owners separate from the managers

General Motors & Radio Corporation of America

New elite class of businessmen

Most successful businesses in the 1920s controlled:

Integration of production & distribution of their product

Product diversification

Expansion of industrial research

By 1929: the 200 largest companies owned ½ of the nations corporate wealth

Created an economic oligopoly

A few large producers controlled the economy

Welfare Capitalism

Corporate leaders troubled by the increase in power to the trade unions

National War Labour Board gains support during WWI

The management of large companies created company employee benefits to outweigh the benefits of belonging to a union

Insurance policies & stock benefits

Personnel depts to oversee employee health & satisfaction

“The America Plan” by corporations to eradicate trade unions

Company Unions to have symbolic representation of the employees in management meetings

American Federation of Labour unwilling to go out of their way to organize the manufacturing workers

Supreme Court also unsympathetic towards unions

The Auto Age

By 1929 the auto industry was the largest in the USA

4.8 million new cars per yr

Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line which increased production

1914: Ford starts a new wage scale: $5 for an 8 hr day

Double the going rate in industrial labour

Realized that workers were consumers as well

More car sales

General Motors begins to challenge Ford

Cadillac for high end, Chevrolet for low end

Auto industry provides a large market for steel, rubber, glass & petroleum products

Cities & Suburbs

1920 census: first where more than ½ of the population lived in urban areas

Job opportunity, cultural richness & personal freedom

1.5 million African Americans move to Northern cities

Most cities begin to have large downtown cores (skyscrapers)

Exceptions: Agriculture, Ailing Industries

1920s: ¼ of Americans employed in the agriculture industry

No huge prosperity as 1914-1919

Land values drop & prices drop

Stiff competition from Europe, Canada & Australia

Wheat farmers on the Great Plains thrive due to methods of industrial capitalism

Fruits benefit from improved transportation & chain supermarkets

McNary-Haugen bills: complicated measures to prop-up & stabilize farm prices

Govt purchases farm surpluses & stores them until they are needed

Coal mines also drop in prosperity

New techniques, strikes & lower demand shrinks the coal labour force by ¼

Railroads & textiles also experience a significant drop

The New Mass Culture

Movie-Made America

Early movie industry brings flocks of people (mainly NYC) to the Nickleodeons

Most of the production companies started by immigrants who owned movie theatres first

Each now controlled production, distribution & owned many theatres

WB produces “The Jazz Singer”

The first feature film with sound

Star system & cult of celebrity at the heart of the movie industry

Sexual themes & youthful athleticism in most movies

Many elegant “movie palaces” to attract higher class viewers

Radio Broadcasting

Westinghouse takes an amateur garage-made radio broadcast & makes it into a nightly event called KDKA radio

Dominant radio corporation agree that the advertising pays for the programming

AT&T provides its telephone wires to link radio stations

“The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show” was the first radio national hit

“Blackface” minstrel entertainment

Radio overcomes sectional boundaries between prople

New Forms of Journalism

Tabloids become increasingly popular

The New York Daily News emphasizes sex, scandal & sports

Half-fold page makes it easy to read on buses & subways

Gossip column becomes a reader favourite

Advertising Modernity

Large advertising agencies use psychology in their ads

Focus on the needs & desires of the consumer instead of the quality of the product

Listerine turned from a general antiseptic to a cure for halitosis (bad breath) through advertising

The Phonograph & the Recording Industry

Success of records changes the popular music & dance

Fox trot, tango & grizzly bear done to ragtime & latin songs

Radio begins to take away sales from the record industry at the end of the 1920s

Sports & Celebrity

Sports begin to take on a commercial aspect

Athletes: rich famous & rebellious attract many fans

Major League Baseball was the nations biggest sport

“Babe” Ruth was the ultimate celebrity athlete

Actively sought after for endorsements

“Black sox” gambling scandal hurts the MLB’s credibility

Negro Leagues started along with many other semi-pro leagues

All-black teams usually win games against all-white pros

College football also gains popularity as radio broadcasts their games frequently

A New Morality?

Celebrities become the new societal elite

Models for achievement in the new age

Media turns them into world giants

The “Flapper” women becomes a popular ideal of the 20s

A fun, sexually charged women that rarely existed

Increased sexual openness in the 1920s

US troops take part in sex education classes

New psychologists (Freud etc.) stress the importance of sex in the human experience

Advertisers use sexual appeal to sell products

The State, the Economy, and Business

Harding & Coolidge

Warren Harding could talk the talk of a president but not walk the walk

“The Ohio Gang” were his chief advisors & administrators

Lots of corruption in his presidency

His Attorney General had taken bribes from Prohibition violators

Teapot Dome scandal

Interior Secretary Allan Fall taken money to lease away navy oil reserves to private oil developers

Became the first cabinet minister to go to jail

Andrew Mellon (Oil tycoon) was his chief economic advisor

Stressed conservative views on the economy

Run it like a corporation

Cut taxes & trim the budget

Dies in office in August 1923

Calvin Coolidge takes over & puts complete trust (& awe) into the hands of wealthy businessmen like Andrew Mellon

Gets re-elected in 1924 due to the prosperity he brought in contrast to Harding

Showed most interest in cutting federal spending & lowering taxes

Herbert Hoover & the “Associative State”

Secretary of Commerce for Harding & Coolidge

Became president in 1929

Believed that enlightened business would act in the public interest

Govt encourages voluntary co-operation among corporations, consumers & workers

Central occupation of the Dept. of Commerce

Encouraged the creation of national trade associations

All of his ideals provided a perfect climate for the increase of corporate wealth

War Debts, Reparations, Keeping the Peace

WWI turns the US from the worlds greatest debtor to the greatest creditor

NYC replaces London as the centre of the economic world

War Debts & Reparations became the most divisive international issue in the 1920s

France & Britain think the US is just a loan shark in disguise

US Foreign Dept Commission agrees to a settlement of $11.5 billion over 62 yrs

Germans feel the $33 billion reparations is too high

Dawes Plan to reduce Germany’s debt & reconstruct the country

Calls for military downscaling & 5 Power Treaty is signed

Scaling down of navies & respect for China’s territory

Italians & Japanese complain & treaty is scrapped

US joined the League of Nations sponsored World Court 

Pact of Paris to renounce WWI

Commerce & Foreign Policy

Secretary of State Charles Hughes pushed for increased American economic activity abroad

Focused on friendly nations & expanding their markets

Used their post-war power to do what they wanted

American products flood the world markets & take them over

Maximum freedom for private enterprise boosts the profits of US overseas investors

Especially in Latin America (staple foods grown)

Resistance to Modernity

Prohibition

January 1920: 18th Amendment prohibits alcohol

Volstead Act (1919) creates the Federal Prohibition Bureau

Public demand for alcohol leads to widespread lawbreaking

Bootlegging becomes a large business

Many “speakeasies” for drinking & music

Increase in organized crime due to prohibition

Mobsters like Al Capone become celebrities

Make successful inroads to big businesses, govts & unions

Immigration Restriction

Anti-immigration sentiment grows after WWI

“New Immigrants” were mostly Catholic & Jewish

More exotic & foreign to Americans thus less accepted

Darwinian ideals turned around to state that genetic inferiority was the reason for crime etc.

Theory of Evolution shot down repeatedly by fundamentalists

Darwin writes “The Origin of Species”

John T. Scopes teaches evolution in Tennessee to deliberately challenge the courts

Fundamentalism vs. Modernity 

Promises Postponed

Feminism in Transition

Womens activists split into two categories

Emphasize female-male differences

Emphasize female-male similarities

1920: League of Women Voters established

Represented the historical mainstream of the suffrage movt

Smaller & more militant group: National Women’s Party

Downplayed suffrage & argued that women were subordinate to men

Opposed protective legislation saying that it was degrading 

Wanted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) & got it in 1923

Still not happy with the bill because they didn’t think it did enough

A few women made great leaps in real estate, banking & journalism

1921: Sheppard-Towner Act

Established the first federally funded health-care program

Helps rural communities immensely

Mexican Immigration

Economic boom brings many Mexican Immigrants

Huge agricultural expansion in the Southwest brings job opportunities

Wave of immigration appeared more permanent than previous waves

Kids go to US schools & wives work alongside their husbands in the fields

Racism confines most Mexicans to barrios

Poor housing, few luxuries & inadequate health-care

“Cheap Mexican labour” blamed for local unemployment

“Mutualistas” (mutual aid societies) became the centre of Mexican-American society

The “New Negro”

Harlem is the centre black society after WWI

Real estate speculators want to make it an all-black neighbourhood

Most Harlemites hold low-wage jobs

Overcrowded apartments & unsanitary conditions

Harlem Renaissance

New spirit of black intellectuals embody an optimistic faith

Enocourage African Americans to embrace & celebrate their culture

Political side to the New Negro was beginning to grow

New movts alongside established ones like the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People

Universal Negro Improvement Assoc.

Black Star Line

Black owned & operated fleet of ships to link people of African decent from around the world

Failed due to lack of capital

Harlem becomes a popular site for “slumming” whites

Nightclubs with bootleg liquor, floor shows & live jazz

Intellectuals & Alienation

Many Intellectuals of the “Lost” WWI generation write about their experiences

Wrote about what they wanted to happen with American society

Hemmingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald

Many sharp attacks on American small-town values

Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt & Main Street

Some critical of the industrial progress & new mass culture

“The Fugitives” write “I’ll Take My Stand”

The Election of 1928

National Referendum on the Republican new era

Revealed how important the ethnic & cultural differences in American politics were

Al Smith (East New Yorker) vs. Herbert Hoover

Smith was of immigrant background & had the support of many easterners

Promised the repeal of prohibition

Tried to outdo Hoover in his praise for business

Hoover was a successful and forward looking westerner

All Hoover had to do to win was take credit for the current prosperity

Hoover even takes 5 states from the Democratic South

Shows the changes waiting to happen

 

Hard Times

- No even of the 20th Century had a greater effect on Americans than the Depression

- “The invisible scar” - the emotional and psychological toll of the Depression years

 

The Bull Market

- Following stock trading in the late 20s became as popular as following sports stars

- Prices in the late 20s far outran the real rate of industrial production

- On paper, people were very successful, but in reality, there was no real value

- Many people bought on margin (only pay for a small % of the cost now, rest later)

 

The Crash

- Bull market peaked in September of 1929

- Oct 23 - Dow Jones lost 21 points in one hour - many investors felt the boom was over

- Oct 29 - “Black Tuesday” - more than 16 million shares were traded as panic took over

- Hardly anyone predicted a Depression would follow - many saw potential benefits

 

Underlying Weaknesses

- Production had been accelerated to the extent that it was hard to adjust to the drop off

- Most of the wealth in the US was clustered at the top

- This spiral could have been stopped by mass consumer spending, but everyone saved $

- Many banks failed because of mass withdrawls - thousands lost their savings

 

Mass Unemployment

- 1930 - Roughly 9% of the labor work force was out of work

- 1933 - More than 25% of the labor work force was unemployed

- Unemployment left many with feelings of guilt and emotional stress

- Many contemplated suicide

- Even if people hated their jobs, they hung onto them for fear of losing them

 

Hoover’s Failure

- In large urban centers, unemployment neared 50%

- Although Hoover aided large-scale humanitarian projects in WWI, he did little now

- 1931 - Hoover claimed Americans were responding well to the Depression

- Declined to help out the unemployed - “It would be doing them a disservice”

- Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) - 1932

- Managed to save many banks by extending credit

 

Protest and the Election of 1932

- Many Americans turned to violent protests - eg: Commie-led march at Ford factory

- Detroit police used tear gas and bullets - 4 killed, 50 wounded

- “Bonus Army” of WWI vets gathered at Washington, DC

- Wanted immediate payments of $1,000 bonus bonds due for payment in 1945

- Eventually evicted y Douglas MacArthur, who claimed they were revolutionaries

- Democrats nominated New York senator FDR

- Pledged to give Americans a “new deal”

- Democrats won huge majorities in the House and the Senate as well

 

FDR and the First New Deal

- Of all the century’s presidents, FDR had the greatest impact

- FDR controlled American policy through the Depression and the Second World War

 

FDR the Man

- FDR’s family had long-standing aristocratic values - educated at Harvard and Columbia

- Born 1882 in Dutchess County, New York

- 1905 - Married Eleanor Roosevelt, his distant cousin - EEEEWWWW!

- Nominated for VP in the losing 1920 campaign

- Stricken with polio in 1921 - Strengthened his resolve to continue in politics

- Won a national reputation as a reformer as governor of New York in the late 20s

- Built a “brain trust” around him who believed in using experts to sort out the economy

 

Restoring Confidence

- FDR’s inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

- Called a four-day “bank holiday” to clear up the nation’s failing bank system

- FDR began a series of “fireside chats” to let the nation know what he was doing

- Became enormously successful

- Emergency Banking Act - allowed successful banks to reopen only with permission

- By mid-March, 1933, 50% of banks held about 90% of the nation’s deposits

 

The Hundred Days

- From March to June 1933 FDR pushed through various acts to combat the Depression

- The “New Deal”, as it was called, was not one unified program but many acts

- Focused on reviving industrial and agricultural sectors - Five main aspects:

- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) - gave young men work conserving the nation’s natural resources, building roads, reforesting, etc

- Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) - gave federal grants directly to the states and local governments for relief

- Led by Harry Hopkins, who became the most important New Deal figure

- Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) - gave relief to farmers by establishing parity prices for products, and also gave grants for reducing production surpluses

- Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) - economic development and cheap electricity for Tennessee Valley, also gave cheap fertilizer to farmers

- National Industrial Recovery Act - made up of two main parts:

- National Recovery Administration (NRA) - regulated businesses through codes regulating prices, output, and trade practices

- Public Works Administration (PWA) - Gave more than $3 billion for public works; wanted to increase the number of jobs and also raise consumer spending

 

Left Turn and the Second New Deal

- FDR’s active spirit in Washington brought reassurance that the nation was on track

- Some felt Roosevelt had done too much, others felt not enough

 

Roosevelt’s Critics

- American Liberty League held FDR responsible for the decline of personal liberty

- Democrats managed to increase their majorities in the mid-term elections - unusual

- Father Charles E. Coughlin - originally supported FDR, but then turned against him

- Coughlin felt he did not have enough influence on national policies

- Eventually founded the National Union for Social Justice - Anti-FDR

- Nominated a candidate for the Union Party in 1936

- Many left-wing Democrats felt the New Deal did not go far enough

- Huey Long originally supported FDR but aspired to the presidency

- Assassinated in 1935 by a disgruntled political enemy

- Although workers tried to strike to gain reforms, they were usually met by police

 

The Second Hundred Days

- 1935 - Roosevelt focused on new programs of social reform

- Strengthen national committment to creating jobs

- Provide security against old age, unemployment and illness

- Improve housing conditions and cleaning slums

- Emergency Relief Appropriation Act

- Allocated $5 billion for large-scale public works programs for the jobless

- Social Security Act (1935) - Provided old-age pensions and unemployment insurance

- Resettlement Administration (RA) - designed to move families to better areas

- Due to lack of funds, only about 1% of the intended group was actually moved

 

Labor’s Upsurge: Rise of the CIO

- Between 1932 and 1942 union membership rose by more than 4 times

- Committee for Industrial Organization - wanted to group workers by industry, not craft

- Wanted to include blacks and women

- Sit-down strikes: Workers refused to work, but stayed in the factory

- CIO membership grew to nearly 4 million people

- Became the Congress of Industrial Organizations

 

The New Deal Coalition at High Tide

- Very few political observers predicted the 1936 election’s lopsided outcome

- FDR’s opponents called the New Deal “socialistic” and criticized his central power

- On election day, FDR carried every state except Maine and Vermont

- Very popular among blue-collar workers and farmers

- FDR had managed to turn the Depression around

 

The New Deal and the West

- Westerners recieved more from the New Deal than any other area, per capita

- The New Deal helped to propel the west into the modern era

 

The Dust Bowl

- Overcropping stripped the soil in the plains of its nutrients, and it dried up and died

- As wheat prices fell, farmers needed to harvest more and more land

- Unable to rotate crops effectively

- Winds blew up the dried soil and left many areas unsuitable for farming

- Resettlement Administration gave many families relief aid

- When rains came, farmers began to pursue commercial agriculture with wild abandon

- Many victims of the Dust Bowl migrated to California

- Sand and dust vs. Sun and hot chicks? Which would you choose?

- Many poor whites competed with Mexican immigrants for jobs - led to much racism

 

Water Policy

- The New Deal provided many projects aimed at increasing irrigation in the west

- Boulder Dam - Later renamed the Hoover Dam - built to harness the Colorado River

- Roosevelt’s support of power projects in the west led to his large support in elections

- 1935 - Central Valley Project - designed to bring water to arid lands in the south

- Grand Coulee Dam - 1941 - designed to help irrigate the Pacific Northwest

 

A New Deal for Indians

- Bureau of Indian Affairs had a long history of corruption and mismanagement

- John Collier appointed by FDR to bring reform to Indian Affairs

- Led the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) - gave surplus land to tribal ownership

- Very difficult to get the Indians to agree to the IRA - language barriers made it tough

- Rejected by the Navajos and other groups

 

Depression-Era Culture

- During the Depression, sentiments of protest and celebration both existed

- Movies, radio broadcasting and big-band jazz achieved a central place in US life

 

A New Deal for the Arts

- Federal Project No. 1 - Offered work to artisans and intellectuals

- Federal Writers Project - Employed 5,000 writers on various projects

- Federal Theatre Project - Sought to expand the traditional audience of theatre

- Tickets were cheap and put on a variety of plays

- Federal Music Project and Federal Art Project did the same thing

 

The Documentary Impulse

- Many documentaries were produced with a view to creating social change

- Some aimed at overthrowing capitalism in a revolutionary way

- Photographers helped document working conditions, etc

- Poor people were portrayed as resilient and determined to overcome adversity

Waiting for Lefty

- Although few Americans actually became Communist, Marxist writings affected the era

- Some Americans saw the Russian system as an alternative to the failing American one

- Many intellectuals briefly flirted with the idea of becoming Communist

- Communists tended to be strong supporters of the New Deal

 

Hollywood in the 1930s

- The advent of “talkies” towards the end of the 20s made movies popular

- Gangster films did very well in the early depression years

- Little Caesar and Public Enemy showed criminals being brought to justice, but also gave audiences exposure to lawbreaking, wealth, and power

- By and large, Hollywood avoided confronting dangerous social issues

 

The Golden Age of Radio

- By the end of the 30s, radios could be found in 90% of American homes

- NBC and CBS dominated radio broadcasting - controlled nearly 90%

- Dramas such as Fall of the City and War of the Worlds showed radios persuasive power

- 1939 - 70% of Americans relied on the radio as their prime source of news

 

The Swing Era

- The radio led to the widespread acceptance of jazz music

- Benny Goodman became the key figure in the “swing era”

- Inspired by black musicians, and created big band arrangements

- Swing music was perfect for young fans to dance to

- The mass culture industry was formed during the Depression

 

The Limits of Freedom

- FDR emphasized that much still had to be done to fix the Depression

- By 1937 the New Deal was in retreat and social reforms were suffering setbacks

 

Court Packing

- Several Supreme Court decisions found the New Deal to be unconstitutional

- FDR introduced a bill to allow him to appoint new judges when older ones reached 70

- Many newspapers denounced FDR’s “court-packing bill”

- Roosevelt compromised and made his bill reform lower courts only

- This battle lost him valuable support in Congress

 

The Women’s Network

- 1940 - More than a quarter of the workforce was female

- Eleanor Roosevelt actively used her influence as First Lady to fight for reforms

- Saw herself as a guardian of “human values” within the administration

- Eleanor Roosevelt’s chief political ally was Molly Dewson

- Head of the Women’s Division of the National Democratic Party

- FDR appointed the first cabinet woman in history - Frances Perkins

 

A New Deal for Minorities?

- During the depression, black workers were often the “last hired, first fired”

- FDR made little effort to combat this racism - worried about losing valuable votes

- Refused to introduce legislation making lynching a federal crime

- FDR appointed many blacks to second-level cabinet positions

- By 1936, many blacks had shifted to the Democrats - supported the New Deal

 

The Roosevelt Recession

- By 1937, the economy had improved significantly

- When Roosevelt called for cutbacks in government spending, it caused a steep recession

- Republican gains in the mid-term elections made it harder to push bills through

- By 1938 the reform whirlwind that was the New Deal was all but over

 

The Coming of World War II

- During the Depression, production dropped by as much as 40%

- FDR and most Americans did not want to concern themselves with foreign conflicts

- More concerned about fixing their own country

 

The Shadows of War

- War began with Japan seizing Manchuria, then withdrawing from the League of Nations

- By 1937 Japan owned much of China and threatened the rest of Asia

- Economic hardships, Authoritarian leadership, and German resentment over the Versailles Treaty led to the rise of angry nationalistic movements in Italy and Germans

- Hitler began to rebuild Germany’s armies with no protest from Britain or France

- 1936 - Italy and Germany become allies - Rome-Berlin Axis

- 1937 - Hitler announced plans to obtain Lebensraum - living / farming for Germans

- In return for allowing Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia, he agreed to stop advancing - Less than six months later he took the rest of Czechoslovakia

- Nov 6, 1938 - German stormtroopers kill thousands of Jews - Night of the Broken Glass

 

Isolationism

- 1937 - Almost 70% of American polled said they felt involvement in WWI was wrong

- 1935/36/37 - Neutrality Acts - Allowed President to deny US companies the right to sell arms to hostile nations

- Many politicians argued that war would hurt the economy, harm democracy, etc

- America First - A group founded to keep the US out of wars, included some famous ppl

 

Roosevelt Readies for War

- Although most people were against it, FDR enlarged the Navy and prepared for war

- Sept 1, 1939 - Germany invades Poland, then agrees to split it with the Soviet Union

- Germany swept through most of Europe, then pounded the UK in the Battle of Britain

- Britain held out against all odds

- FDR began to permit the sale of weapons to Britain, France and China

- May 1940 - 1st Peacetime Military draft - 1.4 million men sent to training camps

- FDR still did not want to get involved, only defend his own nation

- July 1940 - As part of his campaign, Roosevelt promised not to send troops to the war

- March 1941 - Lend-Lease Act - Allowed Roosevelt to sell or exchange arms with ppl

- Hitler set aside his alliance with the Soviets and in June 1941 invaded Russia

- This pushed the US closer to intervention

 

Pearl Harbor

- Sept 27, 1940 - Japan formally joins Italy and Germany as a partner in the Axis

- The US thought Japan planned to attack in the Phillipines

- Dec 7, 1941 - Japanese dive bombers attack Pearl Harbor (Oahu, Hawaii) killing 2400+

- Dec 8, 1941 - US declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy declare war on the US

- Start of WWII for Americans

 

Arsenal of Democracy

- Between 1940-1943, the govt poured resources into the war effort, which pulled the country out of the Great Depression

 

Mobilizing for War

- War Powers Act - allowed the president to essentially do what he wanted

- Reorganize government, create new agencies

- Abridge civil liberties, seize property owned by foreigners

- Award government contracts without competitive bidding

- Roosevelt created many new agencies to deal with problems arising from the war

- OWI - Office of War Information - essentially propaganda created by Roosevelt  to make the war popular; also tried to subvert the enemy

- FBI used wiretapping extensively and illegally to spy domestically

- These activities saw the govt grow massively in size, far more than the New Deal level

- It cost roughly $250 million a day to fight the war

- At the end of the war, there were nearly 4 million government employees

- Now, Roosevelt shifted his focus from getting out of the Depression to winning the war

- Most New Deal agencies eventually vanished as the US supported the war effort

 

Economic Conversion

- Many felt the US’s ability to win the war would be based on capability of production

- The war created the largest economic boom in the history of any country

- Defense production made a huge impact in the West

- Textiles became a large industry 

- Army required 520 million pairs of socks, 230 million pairs of pants

- Rural areas decreased in population, many small farmers would never return

 

New Workers

- Bracero program - allowed Mexicans to work in jobs previously forbidden

- Female labour force grew by over 50%, reaching 19.5 million in 1945

- Even advertisments that promoted female labour stressed it was temporary

- WWII still managed to break down many of the stereotypes held about women

 

Wartime Strikes

- Economic gains during the war were uneven, which led to many labour disputes

- Many high-ranking authorities including the President tried to break strikes

- Many white workers resisted the many African Americans being hired during the war

- Blacks usually refused to back down

- Antistrike Bill - gave President power to penalize strikers, even to draft them

- Strikes still grew in size and number

 

 

The Home Front

- Although the war brought prosperity, it also brought food rationing, long workdays, and other hard conditions

- Most Americans were happy and proud to do what they could to help the Allies

 

Families in Wartime

- War rushed many people into marriage

- As the number of marriages grew, so to did the number of divorces

- Federal govt began creating programs in response to the lack of public housing

- Often, both parents worked, leaving a growing number of “latchkey” children

- During the war the number of juvenile delinquents rose dramatically

- 1944 - Office of Education began a “back-to-school” campaign to reduce dropouts

- Schools became the center of the community war effort

- New economic prosperity led to a huge increase in public health, rise in life expectancy

 

The Internment of Japanese Americans

- After Pearl Harbor, many Americans feared that the Japanese would remain loyal to their homeland

- Media and cartoons began to make racist statements, calling them “Japs” etc

- 1942 - Roosevelt authorised the removal of approx. 110,000 Japanese people to camps

- Japanese Americans were given one week to close up their homes and businesses before being transported to one of the ten internment camps

- Korematsu v. US - Supreme Court upheld the legality of the internments - Nat. Security

- 1988 - US Congress gave $20,000 and a public apology to the surviving victims

 

Civil Rights and Race Riots

- African Americans fought not only for victory, but also for their civil rights

- Roosevelt supported advances that would not disrupt the war effort

- Black movements planned a huge rally to take place in Washington

- Roosevelt met with black leaders, which led to an order banning discrimination

- Many other racial equality movements gained ground during the war

- Some whites wanted to keep blacks out of the best jobs and neighbourhoods

- Riots and other race-based uprisings were widespread

 

Zoot-suit Riots

June 4, 1943 - Sailors chased Mexican Americans wearing zoot suits through Los Angeles, stripping them and beating them 

- Sailors saw these suits as wasteful and unpatriotic

- Zoot-suiters only made up about 10% of Mexican American youth

- Eventually Los Angeles made wearing a zoot-suit in public a criminal offence

 

Popular Culture and “The Good War”

- Even with the war on, Americans were prosperous and enjoyed themselves

- Popular culture developed and was able to bridge racial divisions

- Pop culture began to depict a “good war,” complete with personal sacrifice, etc

- Movie stars called on people to buy war bonds and made combat films

- Comics and other popular forms of media began promoting the war

- Americans associated with the war with phrases such as “Loose Lips Sink Ships”

 

Men and Women in Uniform

- Only 34% of the army saw combat

- Severe military regime uprooted men from their lives and reshaped them

 

Creating the Armed Forces

- With the exception of the Marine Corps, the military was not prepared for a large war

- Oct 16, 1940 - All men ages 21-36 eligible for military service

- Once the US joined the war, this was lowered to 18

- US army was the best-educated in the world

- Eisenhower was more of a “fair” general than the old-school officers, eg. MacArthur

- GI = Government Issue - vast majority of draftees

- Wanted to fight for democracy and hoped to return soon to families, etc

 

Women Enter the Military

- Women originally served as nurses and clerical workers

- WAC = Women’s Army Corps     - Waves = Womens divison of the navy

- As a group, these women were better educated and more skilled than soldiers

- Women were banned from combat, but still assisted at home and abroad

- Many women were discriminated against - no lesbians, no “homosexual tendencies” etc

- Racial segregation was also widespread among women

 

Old Practices and New Horizons

- 1944 - ~10% of the army’s troops were black

- Many black divisions earned distinction in battle

- Many minorities consider their time in the army to be an “Americanizing” experience

- WWII brought together people from across the country and formed bonds btwn them

 

Overseas Occupation

- American GIs overseas were at times rowdy and somewhat oppressive

- American soldiers had an unusually high standard of living - made other troops jealous

- “Liberating” US soldiers in France were often drunk and raped and pillaged

 

Prisoners of War

- In German POW camps, Americans were treated well; Russians were starved and killed

- In the Pacific, conditions for POWs were terrible

- Starved, beaten, killed, diseased, etc

- As retaliation, GIs treated Japanese prisoners very badly

 

The World at War

- For 1st year of the war, the Allies were on the defensive (read: getting slapped around)

- Just 2 hrs after Pearl Harbour, the Japanese hit the main US base in the Philippines

- Allies still had several important advantages:

- Skilled workforce with the ability to accelerate production

- Soviets could endure huge losses without surrendering

 

Soviets Halt Nazi Drive

- WWII was more mobile than WWI, and instead of soldiers, it featured tanks and planes

- WWII had huge improvements in communications, eg 2-way radio transmission, etc

- Hitler used these methods to create terror among the defeated Europeans

- RAF fought the Luftwaffe to a stalemate; Hitler could not invade Britain

- Invasion of Russia did not happen until June 22, six weeks later than planned

- Hitler had to help Mussolini, who got his ass kicked in N. Africa and Greece

- Although the Nazis beat the Soviet army, the civilians rallied and cut of supply lines

- When the winter set in, the Soviets launched a counterattack

- 1st time the German war machine had been stopped

- Hitler turned south, and decided to attack Stalingrad

- Soviets lost more people in these battles than the US did in the entire war

- Intense fighting decimated the Soviets, but eventually stopped the Germans

- Feb. 1943 - German Sixth Army surrendered

- Final German offensive against the Soviets came at Kursk, Ukraine - July 1943

- Largest land battle in history - 2 million troops + and 6000 tanks

- After another German defeat, the only option was to defend Germany

- Soviets began to recover from their losses with the help of the US’s lend-lease program

- Their victories turned the tide of the war - Hitler was suddenly vulnerable

 

The Allied Offensive

- 1942 - Although the Nazis controlled most of the world, the Americans were far more productive and the momentum had shifted

- German troops were still on foot, while Allied troops had jeeps

- Oct 23-24, 1942 - British stop a major offensive under Gen. Rommel (The Desert Fox) at El Alamein

- Destroyed the Italian N. African Army and most of the German Afrika Corps

- Operation Torch - British and US troops secured a position in the Mediterranean 

- May 1943

- Churchill and Roosevelt would only accept an unconditional surrender

- Critics argued that this would only prolong the war

- B-17 Flying Fortress - believed to be the mightiest bomber ever built

- Described as a “humane” weapon, capable of hitting specific targets

- Americans bombed during the day, British preferred at night

- In an attempt to break German resistance, the RAF launched raids on cities

- Hamburg and Dresden were each practically levelled

- These attacks lowered German morale and gave the Allies an upper hand

 

The Allied Invasion of Europe

- After the Allies stormed southern Italy in 1943, the King dismissed Mussolini

- Civilians rose up against their Nazi captors, such as in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto

- Partisan resistance helped weaken Nazis and pave the way for Allied attacks

- As Stalin kept pushing for a second front, the Allies prepared for Operation Overlord

- Wanted to retake the continent by pushing through France

- Began on June 6, 1944 with the Normandy invasion (D-Day)

- At Omaha Beach, the Nazis prepared the defense perfectly, killing thousands of troops

- As the Allies pushed towards Paris, the Germans retreated quickly

- August 25 - Charles de Gaulle proclaimed president of the French Republic

 

The High Cost of European Victory

- Allies chose not to move into Berlin, but instead pushed North

- Germans at Arnhem cut the Allied armies to pieces - 6000 Americans captured

- Battle of the Bulge - Germans suprised Allies, driving them back 50 miles

- Bloodiest campaign involving Americans since the battle of Gettysburg

- By the time the Allies took the Ruhr valley, the German defense seemed hopeless

- May 8th, 1945 - Germans surrendered

- By this time Hitler had already committed suicide

 

The War in Asia and the Pacific

- After Pearl Harbour, the Japanese continued their early victories

- Japanese empire proved to be cruel and the conquered people did not like them

- Midway Island - Americans defeated Japanese and ended the threat to the US coast

- Japanese felt that high casualties on both sides would eventually wear down the US

- Americans devised plans to recapture many of the small islands in the Pacific

- Battle of Leyte Gulf - largest naval battle in history - US tried to recapture Philippines

- Under MacArthur, the US regained control of the Pacific

- After Guam was captured, the Americans could reach Tokyo and other cities

- Japan had no significant air force or navy, and could not transport necessary supplies

- US did not the Soviets to take any territory after the war was over

- This led to the use of their secret weapon: the atomic bomb

 

The Last Stages of the War

- During the war, Roosevelt focused on military strategy, but when the German defeat seemed imminent, he began planning for peace

- Wanted to make sure another world war never happened

 

The Holocaust

- During the war, Hitler systematically murdered Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals

- US government did not release this information until after the war

- US army would not waste resources rescuing civilians unless it was part of an objective

- The Holocaust claimed more than 6,000,000 Jews, 250,000 Gypsies, and 60,000 gays

 

The Yalta Conference

- Feb. 1945 - Roosevelt met for the last time with Churchill and Stalin

- Russia wanted: the Baltic states and part of Poland as a buffer zone

- Britain wanted: to reclaim its empire in Asia

- The US wanted: to hold several Pacific islands to keep an eye on Japan

- Although Roosevelt claimed the meeting was a success, he realised that at the end of the war nothing would keep the Allies together

- 1944 - Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term in office

- April 12, 1945 - Roosevelt died of a stroke

- His death cast a large shadow over the peace process

 

The Atomic Bomb

- After Roosevelt’s death, cooperation among the Allies was difficult

- Truman had no intentions of making concessoins to the Soviets

- Once Truman found out about the atomic bomb, he knew he did not need the Soviets

- Truman warned the Japanese to surrender immediately, or face “complete destruction”

- Aug 3, 1945 - Japan refused to surrender

- Aug 6, 1945 - The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima

- Aug 9, 1945 - A second atomic bomb destroys Nagasaki

- The decision to drop the bomb remains one of the most controversial aspects of the war

- Atomic power strengthened the US’s diplomatic power

 

Global Insecurities at War’s End

- WWII created an international interdependance - one country’s actions affected others

- Opposing national interests made a continuing Soviet-US alliance impossible

 

“The American Century”

- Many economists feared an economic downturn similar to the one following WWI

- 1944 - Reps from 44 Allied countries met to create the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to help rebuild Europe

- As US was main contributor to both agencies, they could control the world economy

- When the Soviet Union refused to join the World Bank or the IMF, it isolated itself

 

The United Nations and Hopes for Collective Security

- US wanted to join the UN, because they did not join the League of Nations (mistake)

- Designed to promote collective security

- Eleanor Roosevelt - one of the first US delegates to the UN

- Nuremburg Trials - Nazi leaders tried for their war crimes and atrocities

- Nuremburg Principle - no human should follow orders that conflict with human rights

- Could not be enforced

 

The Division of Europe

- Atlantic Charter (1941) - made Allies renounce new territories claimed by war

- Violated by Allied leaders before the war had even ended (spheres of influence)

- Western powers wanted to rebuild Germany as a trade partner, Soviets didn’t

- West Germany became capitalist; much like the US - E. Germany was like Sov. Union

- Fulton, Missouri - 1946 - Churchill states that “an iron curtain has fallen across Europe”

 

The Policy of Containment

- Many feel that FDR would have been able to help in US-Soviet relations

- Truman lacked FDR’s diplomacy and desire for peace

- Under Truman, Containment became the key facet of US foreign policy

- Remained this way for several decades

 

The Truman Doctrine

- 1947 - Mediterranean crisis - Truman decides to take over area before Soviets can

- Convinces US that personal freedoms rely on the containment of communism

- Became known as the Truman doctrine

 

The Marshall Plan

- Common name for the European Recovery Program

- Began a series of US attempts to use economic policy to contain communism

- Began in 1947 by chief of staff George C. Marshall

- Under this plan, most of the nations of Western Europe became capitalist and open to trading with US markets

- Stalin denounced the plan as an attempt to make West Germany into an anti-Soviet bloc

- Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan worked hand-in-hand

 

The Berlin Crisis and the Formation of NATO

- When Stalin saw the allies uniting their sectors of West Germany, he blockaded West Berlin, which although controlled by the allies, was located deep in East Germany

- Allies began Operation Vittles, airlifted 2,000,000 tonnes of supplies to the West Berliners

- May 1949 - Soviets lifted blockade

- NATO was formed to strengthen economic ties between allies and to keep Soviets out

- Huge step away from isolationism

- Soviets and homies form the Warsaw Pact in May 1955 - essentially an anti-NATO

- Completed the division of the East and the West

 

The Cold War in Asia

- In exchange for economic help, US was allowed to keep military supplies in Japan

- Let the US keep a close eye on the Soviets

- US gave lots of money to leaders they supported, allowing them to crush rebellions, etc

- MacArthur saw the US as “a bulwark of Christianity in the Far East”

- US supported Chiang Kai-Shek, who ignored advice to step aside and fought commies

- Mao destroyed the nationalists, and China “fell” to Communists

- Republicans were enraged at Truman for “losing” China

 

Atomic Diplomacy

- After the bombs had been used, they could no longer remain a secret from the world

- 1946 - Atomic Energy Act - Gave Atomic Evergy Commission control over production

- 1950 - The US’s atomic arsenal could reproduce far more than WWII in a single day

- 1949 - Soviets tested their first atomic bomb

- New hydrogen bombs were more than 1000x more powerful than the ones in WWII

 

The Truman Presidency

- Truman saw the conflict with the Soviets as a need for a strong president

- Truman tried to make himself as a strong president while remaining loyal to Roosevelt

 

“To Err is Truman”

- Within a year of assuming office, Truman’s popularity was lower than any presidents except Hoover, who was blamed for the Depression

- Truman refused to let many military people return home after WWII

- He relented after there was a huge public outcry

- Post-war demand for supplies created rampant inflation - prices rose

- This let to boycotts of stores and strikes

- Truman wanted to induct striking workers into the army - Congress defeated this plan

- 1946 - Truman’s popularity drops to 32%

- In the wake of anti-Democrat sentiment, Republicans pushed to turn back the New Deal

- Republicans also set a limit of two terms in office for a president

- Even Democrats began to suggest that Truman resign

 

The 1948 Election

- Americans for Democratic Action - Liberal group formed by Eleanor Roosevelt and others; became an important liberal lobbying group supporting the Democrats

- Truman fired most of the popular people who worked under FDR

- The deepening Cold War made people more supportive of Truman, due to his sternness

- Americans wanted someone who would stand up to the Russians

- Truman’s actions in desegregating the military lost him many Southern votes

- In the end, Truman won because of people who supported FDR’s ideas

 

The Fair Deal

- Truman said that everyone had the right to a “fair deal” from the government

- As the Cold War took increasing priority, Truman lost interest in liberal policies

- By the end of Truman’s second term, defense costs made up 10% of the GNP

- This was made possible by intense anti-commie campaigning at home

 

The Cold War at Home

- 1946 - Attn. Gen. Tom C. Clark announced that the US was part of a commie plot

- 1950 - Sen. McCarthy claimed to have a list of communists serving in government

- These fears led the nation’s leaders to become obsessed with national security

 

The National Security State

- More and more resources were poured into national defense

- Central Intelligence Agency - formerly the Office of Strategic Services - spy network

- Estimates are that budget and employees were more than State Dept

- 1947 - Federal Employees Loyalty and Security Program 

- Banned communists, fascists, and gays from federal employment

- Employees could be fired for belief that they were disloyal

- Clark published a list of potentially subversive organisations

- Effectively outlawed these groups, even if they had done nothing wrong

- Many catered to the interests of minorities

- Internal Security Act - severely limited freedoms of speech and press

- Made Comm. organisations register with Subversive Activities Control Board

- Banned people deemed “subversive” or “homosexual” from visiting the US

 

The Red Scare in Hollywood

- Fears arose that there was a communist plot centered around Hollywood

- House Un-American Activities Committee - investigated the entertainment industry

- Many people were interrogated and asked to give info regarding potential threats

- “Unfriendly Witnesses” - people who would not cooperate with investigators

- Many anti-communist films were released, however, few became popular

 

Spy Cases

- Whittaker Chamers - editor of Time magazine, former columnist

- Confessed to spying for the Soviet Union in the 1930s

- Named Alger Hiss (former Roosevelt aide) as an accomplice

- Many Democrats dismissed the allegations as a Republican ploy to make them look bad

- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - accused of stealing and trying to convey atomic secrets

- 1951 - found guilty of espionage; 1953 - died in the electric chair

- Many world figures pleaded for their release (Einstein, pope, etc)

 

McCarthyism

- 1950 - Joseph R. McCarthy declared that there was a conspiracy against the US

- Accused more than 200 State Dept employees of being communists

- McCarthy had no names of communists and no one in the State Dept was convicted

- McCarthy was against New Deal Democrats and silenced all critics of the Cold War

- Encouraged “patriots” to prepare themselves for atomic war

- McCarthyism targeted minority groups such as blacks, Jews, and gays, not the elite

- Huge anxieties arose about “abnormalities” such as homosexuality, and “perversions”

- McCarthy used smear tactics to win support in his elections

- When McCarthy failed to produce any substantial evidence, he appeared deranged

- Even in the wake of McCarthyism, any dissent was now dangerous

 

Age of Anxiety

- After WWII, Americans had a lot of the world’s wealth; many were middle-class

- WWIII seemed imminent, fears fueled by politicians such as Truman & McCarthy

- Fallout shelters - Many families built bunkers attached to their homes in case of war

 

The Two-Income Family

- Because of all the anxieties of the times, Americans focused on their own lives more

- People began to be more thankful of what they had and not to take it for granted

- Baby boom

- Many couples got married

- New appliances became very popular - T.V.s, automatic washers, cameras, etc

- Baby boom + high rate of consumer spending = many families with a working mother

- Some people tried to stop women working because Soviet women were known workers

- Dr. Spock - Published a parenting book which told parents to essentially spoil their kids

- After the war, women lost their high wages and prominence in colleges

 

Religion and Education

- Billy Graham - first “televangelist” - led revivals of Christianity

- Elementary school teachers re-worked the curriculum to promote US, boo Soviets

- Kids were taught to value the virtues of capitalism - private property, etc

 

The Cultural Noir

- New movies dealt with the current worries felt, and the emotions of returning from war

- Called “noir” films because of their sombre mood

- Many were banned from Hollywood

- Many UFO sightings and new movies about commie subversion emphasized fears

 

End of the Democratic Era

- Truman’s career was killed by the Korean War

- He took a tough line with the Cold War, but the Korean War was not easily winnable

 

The Korean War

- June 1950 - N. Korea attacked S. Korea

- Truman had to live up to his talk about being “tough on communists”

- Truman got approval from the Security Council to send in troops under MacArthur

- Although the UN quickly regained South Korea, Truman wanted to take all of it

- MacArthur miscalculated the Chinese potential to aid the N. Koreans

- White House debated using the atomic bomb

- MacArthur pressed for a war against China

- 1951 - Truman dumped him for insubordination

 

The Legacy of “The Sour Little War”

- Truman’s actions in the Korean War bypassed Congress and were widely criticized

- Truman justified this using NSC-68, a bill devoted to repelling communists

- The Korean War set up the US and China as enemies for the next twenty years

- Many Americans became disillusioned after the stalemate in Korea

 

Truman’s Downfall

- Polls indicated Americans were frustrated with Truman’s handling of the war

- After Truman dismissed MacArthur, many people sought his impeachment

- A short-lived “MacArthur for President” campaign followed his dismissal

- Truman announced in 1952 that he would not run for reelection

- When Eisenhower refused the Democratic nomination, they asked Adlai E. Stevenson

- “Ike” Eisenhower decided to run for the Republicans

- Eisenhower told voters that he wanted peace, and wouldn’t get into another war

- Richard Nixon used television to his and Eisenhower’s advantage during the campaign

- Appealed to voter’s emotions and spread their message widely

- The Republican victory was more a sign of Eisenhower’s popularity than anything else

 

American Society at Mid-century

- Americans needed to spend more time & money on the community, not personal stuff

- Medical care, schools, etc

- Many tensions felt due to the Cold War - these shaped American life

 

The Eisenhower Presidency

- First 2 term Republican president since Grant

- Eisenhower had a very conservative vision of community

- Saw the US as corporate commonwealth, similar to Hoover’s “associative state”

- Wanted to run the govt. in a businesslike manner

- Appointed 9 businessmen to his first cabinet

- 3 of these had contacts with GM

- Submerged Land Act: gave $40 billion in Oil back to the Gulf States

- Lax government regulations lead to harming the environment in Florida & Louisiana

- Accepted the New Deal legacy of greater federal responsibility for social welfare

- Refused to stop the Social Security system

- Created Dept of Health, Education & Welfare

- Eisenhower continued agricultural payments to sustain farming prices

 

Subsidizing Prosperity

- Many people gain middle class status after WWII thanks to financial aid

- 1934 - Federal Housing Administration (FHA) subsidized the housing industry

- Mainly concentrated on the suburbs - as a result, inner city suffers

- Discourages multi-unit housing

- Discriminated against racially mixed communities

- Stability could only be achieved through same race and same lifestyles

- Suburbs: planned communities

- One of the first: Levittown, Long Island

- 1947 - built on what was formerly 1500 acres of potato fields

- Called the “perfect planned community”

- Prefabricated housing

- 1960 - Still no black residents

- 1944 - GI Bill of Rights: gave returning vets low interest mortgage & business loans

- Paid for some higher education

- 1956 - Federal Highway Act: $32 billion in National Interstate Highway System

- After Sputnik, US government worries the country’s education system is lagging behind

- Strengthens support for teaching math, science & technology

- National Defence Education Act: $280 million in grants for state universities to upgrade science facilities & $300 million for college student loans

- NDEA represented a new agreement that high-quality education was important

 

Suburban Life

- The “perfect housewife” was efficient, patient & charming

- Dominant image in the media

- Becoming a housewife was seen as a woman’s only path to happiness & fulfillment

- The Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedan) tries to change these stereotypes

- Strong religious resurgence in 1940s & 1950s

- Cars became the centre of the suburban lifestyle

- Necessary for commuting & recreation

- California has most drive-in facilities in nation

- “Centreless city” - lives became very spread out and cars became a necessity

 

Lonely Crowds & Organisation Men

- 1950 - The Lonely Crowd (David Riesman): introduced the “other-directed man”

- Peer oriented instead of self-oriented

- 1956 - Organisation Men (W.H. Whyte): 

- Study of Chicago suburb: people obsess with fitting into community and at work

- Middle-class suburbanites want a comfortable secure niche

- 1951- White Collar: C. Wright Mills analyzes white collar workers

- Analyzed middle-class salaried & office workers

- Get jobs through skills & personalities - need to change to fit expectations

 

Expansion of Higher Education

- 800,000 more college students between 1950-60

- This number more than doubled to 7.2 million in 1970

- GI Bill & National Defence Education Act helped to make school accessible

- Many major in business & commerce

- Gateway to the middle-class

- College life became like a business style work

- Administrators adopted business language, quality control, etc

 

Health & Medicine

- Improvements allowed Americans to enjoy a longer and healthier life

- Lots of money pumped into the health system

- Armed forces immunized against diseases from syphilis to tuberculosis

- Penicillin manufactured & mass distributed

- 1949 - National Institute of Mental Health created

- Epidemic diseases eradicated (tuberculosis, diphtheria & measles)

- Poliomyelitis eradicated through immunization after discovery in 1955 of vaccine

- Many expensive treatments not available to the poor

- Many small towns didn’t have a hospital

- Decline of General Practitioner stops most house calls

- American Medical Assoc. does nothing to increase the flow of doctors

- Truman and Eisenhower made plans to offer assistance to private health care

- AMA denounced proposals as “socialized medicine”

 

Youth Culture

- “Teenager” began being used to describe someone between the ages of 13 and 19

- Lots of media and social pressure to grow up quickly

 

The Youth Market

- High birth rates in the 1930s + post war baby boom = lots of teenagers during the 1950s

- Kids obsessed with popular clothes & fads - eg getting a Cadillac

- More teens in school

- Books: How to Live with Your Teenager & Understanding Teenagers

- Educate adults on how to handle teens

- Traditional sources of adult authority - marketplace, schools, child-rearing manuals, the mass media -- all reinforced the notion of teenagers as a special community

 

Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll 

- Transistor & car radios become common & youths want their own defining music

- Small independent record labels begin producing black rhythm & blues artists

- Black music such as “Doowop” & Little Richard crossover & attract white teens

- Large record labels produce covers of “nigger music” by whites

- Alan Freed, white DJ in Cleveland refuses to play white covers. 

- Coins phrase: “Rock ‘n’ Roll” - came from black slang for having sex

- Billboard magazine is started & pushes more teens to Rock ‘n’ Roll

- Elvis Presley crosses the colour border & creates his own ‘black music’

- Eases tensions of adults over their teens listening to black music

- Presley was a symbol of rebellious youth & sexuality, but he wasn’t black

 

Almost Grown

- Record sales triple from 1954 to 1959 - everyone becomes attracted to music

- Teenagers begin to want to grown up faster

- More 16 yr olds driving & dating

- Puberty age goes down & girls discover their sexuality at an earlier age

- Junior high schools become popular after 1945

- Late 1950’s - most Americans marry at age 18

 

Deviance & Delinquency

- Adults hold Rock ‘n’ Roll responsible for the increasing teenage rebelliousness

- Juvenile delinquency becoming a problem but an exaggerated one

- Adults tend to blow things out of proportion

- Teenagers seem to be more loyal to their friends than to their parents

- The Wild One & Rebel Without a Cause - depict rebellious and emotional youths

- Movies enforce the teenage delinquency stereotype

 

Mass Culture & its Discontents

- TV achieved more than any form of mass media ever had before it

- Basic technology developed in the 1930s

- 1960 - Nearly 90% of American families owned a TV

- The ideas of the media would strongly affect American views and cause upheaval

 

Television: Tube of Plenty

- NBC, CBS & ABC grow directly from radio organisations

- Advertising becomes an integral part of TV

- TV transforms the advertising industry into a cutthroat business

- Various programs show the lives of the different classes:

- I Remember Mama & The Life of Riley show working class family struggles

- Leave it to Beaver & Ozzie and Harriet show middle-class suburban family life

- Happy & prosperous

- TV creates overnight fads

- The images shown on TV were rarely the case of what real families were like

- Elvis Presley appears on several shows & becomes a national symbol

 

Television & Politics

- Prime-time shows carefully avoided references to the political climate of the day

- Communism alleged to “run rampant” in the film industry

- Red Channels - 151 well known TV & movie writers branded as communists

- Cold War fears prevent much political discussion on TV shows

- Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now - a short lived political discussion show

- TV begins to have effects politically

- Promoted Estes Kefauver of Tennessee to a national figure

- Contributed to Senator McCarthy’s downfall when it showed his bullying tactics

- Nixon uses TV to promote himself to voters through the “Checkers” speech

 

Culture Crisis

- Mass culture - described as  “a parasite... on high culture” ~ Dwight MacDonald

- Media becomes capable of manipulating audiences through advertising

- Mad magazine etc. met with much criticism

 

The Beats

- Led by Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg

- Shared a distrust of the American virtues of progress, power & material gain

- Kerouac coined the term “beat” - meant weary and tired of the modern industrial state

- Identified with black music & culture

- Kerouac believed in “spontaneous writing” - one’s first thought was the best

- Similar in music, language & dress to black jazz musicians

- Beatnik - a derrogatory term for hippie-like, rebellious, alienated people

 

The Cold War Continued

- Eisenhower had lots of experience in foreign affairs - WWII commander, etc

- Introduced a greater reliance on nuclear weapons and more agressive use of the CIA

- Didn’t want an all-out nuclear war

- Eisenhower’s promotion of weaponry led to a military-industrial complex

 

The “New Look” in Foreign Affairs

- Promised to reduce the military budget by exploiting the US’s air & atomic superiority

- “More bang for the buck”

- Between 1954-1961: govt spending only raises $800 million

- Military spending as a % of total dropped from 66% to 49%

- John Foster Dulles - 

- Believes in US responsibility to preserve the “free world” from communism

- wanted a “rollback” of communist powers & reliance on US nuclear superiority 

- This “new look” conflicted with Eisenhower’s personal sense of caution

- Hard to rely on nuclear arms and not want to start a nuclear conflict

- 1953: East Berlin residents revolt against Soviets

- Eisenhower doesn’t respond 

- Couldn’t start the “rollback” without starting an all out war

- Stalin dies in 1953 

- Kruschev & Eisenhower agree to suspend nuclear testing

- Kruschev visits US & talks with Eisenhower

- Paris summit planned to discuss reunification of Germany

- Soviets shoot down Francis Gary Powers in his U2 spy plane

- Eisenhower refuses to apologize to the Soviets & summit collapses

- Sputnik launched - Arms race begins 

- Military spending raised $10.5 billion by 1958

 

Covert Action

- CIA relied on to produce info on the Soviets

- These paramilitary operations becomes a key facet of US foreign policy

- Used to destabilize emerging 3rd world governments deemed to radical or too friendly with the Soviets, or anti-capitalist

- Head of CIA = Alan Dulles (JFD’s brother)

- Former head of Office of Strategic Services (CIA precursor)

 

Intervening Around the World

- CIA produces swift victory in Iran in 1953 after the Iranian president nationalized a UK oil company (Anglo-Iranian Oil)

- CIA created opposition from inside the military & wins the civil war

- Replaced Mossadegh with the Shah

- Arab-Israeli rivalry -

- Arabs attack Israel in 1948 

- US & USSR already recognized the independence of Israel

- Israel wins & forces hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes

- US supports Israel because most Americans feel sorry for the Jews

- Egypt wants a dam of the Nile to create good farming land & cheap electricity

- Nasser is turned down for foreign aid, decides to nationalize the Suez Canal

- Turns to Soviet Union for help

- UK, France & Israel invades - US gets a ceasefire & troop withdrawal

- Guatemala - 

- Jacobo Arbenz threatens to expropriate land from the United Fruit Co. 

- US Navy decides to blockade Guatemala 

- CIA director Dulles sat on the board of directors for United Fruit Co.

- US bombing stops Guatemalan invasions into United Fruit buildings

- CIA overthrows Arbenz & Carlos Castillo Armas becomes a dictatorial ruler

- Armas later assassinated & civil war ensues

- Eisenhower denies all knowledge of CIA action in Guatemala

- Indochina - 

- US provides France with military aid & CIA cooperation 

- Trying to suppress the communist Vietminh forces 

- Led by Ho Chi Minh at Dien Ben Phu

- France defeated; Eisenhower declines all out US intervention

- Geneva Accord separates Vietnam into North & South sectors

- Ngo Dinh Diem takes control as a Catholic in a 90% Buddhist state

- CIA keeps him in power in South Vietnam & represses elections agreed to in Geneva

- Both Diem and the US know that Ho Chi Minh would have won

- US fears loss of one country to communism will force it to spread

- Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation:

- Includes US, UK, France, Australia, NZ, Thailand, Philippines & Pakistan

- “Anti-communist league” 

 

Ike’s Warning: The Military-Industrial Complex

- 1950s - Peace advocates want full nuclear disarmament 

- Eisenhower begins to see their point 

- Uurges the country to avoid the military-industrial complex

- The conjunction of a large military & large arms industry

- Devoted his farewell address to warning against the military-industrial complex

 

John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier

- JFK embodied youth, sophistication, and excitement

- Early in his presidency, he followed the already-set Cold War precepts

- At the time of his assassination, he was beginning to veer away from them

 

The Election of 1960

- Nixon (faithfully served Eisenhower as VP) vs. Kennedy (youthful war hero)

- Featured the first televised presidential debates

- Supporters promoted Kennedy’s intellect - won Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage

- Kennedy looks more confident in front of the cameras & stresses the elimination of the arms gap between the US & USSR

- Kennedy wins by 100,000 votes out of 69 million

- Becomes the first celebrity president

- Kennedy’s administration promised to be a modern-day Camelot

- Inaugural Address: “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”

- Inspired a whole generation of young Americans

 

New Frontier Libralism

- Kennedy promises to revive the liberal domestic agenda

- New Frontier advocated higher minimum wage, greater federal education aid, increased Social Security & medical care for the elderly

- Most blocked by Southern Democrats in Congress

- Congress did pass a slight improvement in minimum wage - up to $1.25

- Area Redevelopment Act - redeveloped urban slums

- Manpower Retraining Act to train the unemployed

- Higher Education Act offers aid to universities to upgrade their facilities

- Peace Corps created to give aid in 3rd world countries

- Creates Commission on the Status of Women led by E. Roosevelt

- Leads to Equal Pay Act (1963) & calls for full equality

- Kennedy focused on stimulating economic growth & creating new jobs 

- Depended on the Council of Economic Advisors  (CEA)

- Targets tax cuts & defecit spending

- 1962 - Revenue Act lowers business taxes

- The Space Program - 

- Creates NASA & pumps $33 billion into it by 1969

- JFK’s greatest achievement was the strengthening of the executive branch

- Direct presidential control over details usually left to advisors 

- White House staff take over many responsibilities of Cabinet Ministers

 

Kennedy and the Cold War

- Kennedy attempts to ease US-Soviet tensions

- JFK builds up military spending & increases covert operations

- Supplements CIA with Army Special Forces

- The Kennedy-supported militant regime in Laos is defeated by the Soviet-backed group

- Kennedy supports Diem’s militant govt in Vietnam

- Diem defeated & the Vietcong take over govt with Ho Chi Minh

- Latin America -

- 1961 - Alliance of Progress: $100 billion plan to aid Latin nations in rebuilding their economy & spur economic growth

- Introduced as a kind of Marshall Plan to benefit the poor and middle classes

 

The Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs

- Corrupt US puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista faces heated rebellion from Fidel Castro & his peasant-based revolutionary movement

- Castro defeats Batista & begins land reform programs 

- Frightened Eisenhower; the US withdraws aid

- Castro turns to the Soviets for aid

- Sells sugar to the USSR & seizes US oil interests

- CIA leads invasion of counterrevolutionaries at the Bay of Pigs 

- Is defeated when Kennedy pulls the Air Force support

- Turns into a highly embarrassing situation

- Kennedy still remains committed to getting rid of Castro

The Missile Crisis

- Castro is frightened by US & asks Kruschev for military aid

- USSR ships sophisticated weapons to Cuba 

- US discovers the hidden missile silos through reconnaissance missions

- US cities now increasingly vulnerable to Soviet based ICBMs

- Many call for an invasion of Cuba

- Kennedy demands the removal of the missiles 

- Puts a blockade on Cuba of all military equipment

- Threatens full retaliation on USSR if any Cuban missiles are fired

- Khrushchev offers to remove all missiles if US promises not to invade Cuba, and to dismantle the US missiles in Turkey

- Kennedy agrees but USSR start a weapons buildup

 

The Assassination of President Kennedy

- Killed Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald

- Becomes a martyr for the US cause for world peace

- He is the perfect American, and the US public sees their frailty

- At the time of Kennedy’s death, Soviet-US relations were better than they had ever been

 

Origins of the Movement

- Nearly 1 million black men and women served in the armed forces in WWII

- After the war ended, these people began to push for political and social equality

 

Civil Rights after World War II

- WWII boom brings many blacks north

- 1940s - 43 northern and western cities double their black population

- Less discrimination in the northern cities

- Gained significant political influence

- Biracial unity helped press for better wages and working conditions

- Black voters continue the switch to Democrats that started during the New Deal

- Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights:

- Wanted to end racial inequality

- Created a permanent civil rights division in the Justice dept

- Voting rights protection

- Anti lynching & anti-housing segregation

- Although he publicly endorsed these suggestions, he never made them into law

- Truman ends segregation in the armed forces before 1948 election - wins on black votes

- National Assoc. for the Advancement of Coloured People gains 450,000 members

- Morgan v Virginia (1946) - bus segregation = undue burden on interstate commerce

- “Freedom Ride” through the Upper South to celebrate

- Some riders arrested in North Carolina for refusing to leave

- Two major black accomplishments:

- Jackie Robinson wins the MLB rookie of the year (1947)

- Black UN diplomat wins Nobel Peace Prize

- Black musicians move away from traditional big-band jazz into new “bebop”

- Hard for whites to copy

- “Boppers” not the typical black entertainers (rebels) - did not fit white stereotypes

 

The Segregated South

- Segregation in the South still was very bad

- Schools, restaurants, libraries, hotels, hospitals, cemeteries etc still apart

- Black facilities not as good as white ones

- 1940s - Only about 10% of blacks voted

- Various legal & extra-legal ways to keep most disenfranchised

- Poll taxes & discriminatory registration, etc

 

Brown v. Board of Education

- NAACP did not try to outlaw segregation, but rather, to make it so expensive that the government could not afford continue it

- Began pushing for everything to be separate and fully equal

- The war on schools:

- Missouri v. ex.rel. Gaines (1939):

- U. of Missouri must admit black law students or build another school for them

- McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950):

- Black students cannot be forced to study & eat in different places than whites

- Brown v. Board of Education (1952)

- Separate facilities deny blacks of basic American rights

- Segregation reduces children’s self-esteem

- Chief Justice Earl Warren convinces Court to approve of desegregation

- Plessy v. Ferguson ruling overturned

 

Crisis in Little Rock

- 1956 - 101 congressmen sign Southern Manifesto 

- Wanted to refuse to comply with desegregation laws

- Eisenhower wouldn’t publicly endorse the Brown decision

- Was actually against it

- Little Rock, Arkansas - Fed. court orders school board to begin desegregation

- Gov. Orval Faubus decided to make his reelection campaign based on defying the order

- Faubus sends National Guard to prevent blacks into Central High School

- Eventually pulls out NG & leaves the 9 black students at the mob’s mercy

- Eisenhower puts the NG under fed. control & send troops in to escort the students 

- Proves that the federal government can enforce civil rights

 

No Easy Road to Freedom, 1957-1962

- Brown demonstrated the ability to use courts as a weapon against descrimination

- Black communities would still have to help themselves before anyone else would

 

Martin Luther King and the SCLC

- Montgomery bus boycott makes MLK a national figure

- Admired Mohandas Ghandi - wanted a peaceful fight

- King called this passive resistance “A new & powerful weapon”

- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

- 100 black ministers gathered to preach non-violent protesting

- Next wave of protest came from an unlikely source: college students

 

Sit Ins: Greensboro, Nashville, Atlanta

- Feb 1, 1960: 4 black freshmen sat down at a whites-only table in Woolworths

- Stayed all day & returned in the following days with more people

- Apr. 21 - 45 students arrested for trespassing

- Blacks boycott store; Greensboro finally gives in

- Spring 1960: 150 black students arrested during a sit in

- Morehouse, Spelman & other all-black colleges in Atlanta University organize 200 people to sit in at city hall

- 76 arrested

- Sit ins continue & Atlanta desegregates in Sept. 1961

 

SNCC & the “Beloved Community”

- Well-established blacks frown on sit ins

- Ruins their status quo

- Southern University forces all 5,000 black students to reapply to screen out agitators

- SNCC - Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee

- 120 black students in N.C.

- Established to fight through mass confrontation & civil disobedience

 

Election of 1960 & Civil Rights

- Nixon v. Kennedy

- Nixon - originally pro-Civil Rights, but stopped promoting it to gain Southern votes

- Kennedy praises sit ins as “American tradition of standing up for one’s rights”

- After MLK was jailed, the Kennedys told the judge not to violate MLK’s civil rights

- Kennedy wins on strength of black votes

- Kennedy promoted “minimum legislation, maximum executive action”

- 40 African Americans appointed to high federal positions

- Created the Committee of Equal Employment Opportunity to fight discrimination

- Invigorated the Civil Rights Division of Justice Dept

 

Freedom Rides

- 1961 - James Farmer starts plans for an interracial Freedom Ride through the South

- 7 blacks & 6 whites split up & go from Washington

- Freedom riders were harrassed and nearly beated to death

- Police & FBI do nothing

- Freedom Rides continue until Fed. Govt petitions the Interstate Commerce Commission to issue clear rules prohibiting segregation on interstate carriers

 

The Albany Movement: The Limits of Protest

- Coalition of SNCC & NAACP activists

- Oct. 1961 - Albany Movt - Starts sit ins, boycotts & protests 

- MLK joins the movt & turns it into a national problem

- Police meet non-violence with non-violence

- No national pity for demonstrators

- Fails in summer of 1962 - Albany remains as segregated as ever - couldn’t fill up jails

- U. of Mississippi integrated when James Meredith registered as a full time student

- Gov. Ross Barnett blocks his entrance; Kennedy sends 500 fed. marshals to protect him

- Mob injures 160 marshals & kills 2 rioters

- 5,000 army troops sent in until JM graduates

 

The Movement at High Tide, 1963-65

- 1960-62 told people that civil rights could not be established because of court rules

 

Birmingham

- 1962 - MLK targets Birmingham for next protest (US’s largest segregated city)

- Wanted to fill jails, boycott downtown stores & anger Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor

- MLK writes “Letter From Birmingham Jail”

- “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor”

- “justice too long delayed is justice denied”

- Children’s Crusade organized to fill jails with students

- Police use water cannons, billy clubs & attack dogs to break up protests

- SCLC negotiates treaty & Birmingham is desegregated

- Racial harmony was still a long way off

 

JFK & the March on Washington

- June 1963 - Alabama Governor George Wallace threatens to block 2 black students from entering the state university

- National Guard Troops escort them into & around the University

- June 11, 1963: JFK endorses civil rights activism

- JFK proposes in Congress a law to ensure voting rights and outlaw segregation

- Uses federal funds to support the CR cause

- Civil Rights activists plan a non-violent march on Washington

- August 28, 1963 - 250,000+ people gather at the Lincoln Memorial

- “Jobs & Freedom” rally

 

LBJ & the Civil Rights Act of 1964

- Nov. 22, 1963 - JFK assassinated in Dallas - many Southerners are glad of his death

- Succeeded by Lyndon Baines Johnson

- Never a strong Civil Rights supporter

- Promised to continue JFK’s work; threw his support behind the Civil Rights Bill

- Passed in the House by 290-130 vote

- Passed in the Senate after a Southern filibuster collapses

- July 2, 1964: Civil Rights bill passed

- Prohibited discrimination in work & in public

- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission established

 

Mississippi Freedom Summer

- SNCC campaign to register black voters & directly challenge segregation

- Recruited white volunteers because  “the death of a white student would have more effect than the death of a black student”

- 6 die violently, 1000 arrests, 35 shootings, and 30 bombings

- Freedom Schools & Freedom party to be established

- 60,000 black voters sign up as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)

- Sent reps to Democratic national convention 

- LBJ was against MFDP because he didn’t want a divisive floor fight

 

Malcolm X & Black Consciousness

- Many young activists drawn to the militant vision of Malcolm X

- “X” to symbolize the loss of his original African name

- Converted to Islam while in prison

- Main speaker for the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) & black freedom “fighter”

- Followed Elijah Muhammad

- Created all black communities to show black self reliance

- Was very Anti-White - the “blue-eyed devils” are the cause of this world’s evil

- Encouraged ending white domination by “any means necessary”

- “Black Muslims don’t want to integrate the society, we want to be separate from it.”

- Separates from Elijah Muhammad & the NOI after scandals involving Muhammad

- Makes his pilgrimage to Mecca & returns as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

- Abandons his seperationist views & creates the Organisation of Afro-American Unity

- Feb 21, 1965 - assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom

 

Selma & the Voting Rights Act of 1965

- LBJ gets re-elected in 1964, capturing 94% of the 6 million black votes

- Wants to pass a strong voting rights act: MLK & SCLC support him

- MLK wants to create another national crisis, and chooses Selma, Alabama

- Prevents blacks from voting (only a couple hundred out of 15,000 voted)

- Despite attacks, not nearly enough attention given to the demonstrations

- Selma march organised

- 600 marchers beaten after crossing the Pettus Bridge to Montgomery

- “Bloody Sunday” gets attention of the media & fed. Intevention demanded

- MLK agrees for a shortened march 

- White racist violence calls LBJ to propose a voters rights bill 

- Lets MLK lead a full march to Montgomery

- Mar 21: MLK leads 3000 black & white marchers from Selma to Montgomery

- 30,000 join in the next 4 days 

- Aug 1965 - LBJ signs Voting Rights Act

- Federal supervision in states & counties where fewer than ½ of the voting-aged residents were registered

- 1964-1968: southern black voters triple

 

Forgotten Minorities

- Although the Civil Rights movement revolved around blacks, other minorities had been denied their rights for some time

- Black successes inspired these groups to push for their rights

 

Mexican Americans

- 1928 - League of United Latin American Citizens founded in Texas

- Pushed two cases through to set a precedent for Brown v. Board of Education

- Mendez v. Westminster & Delgado case: (1947/48)

- Supreme Court upheld rulings making Mex. Amer. segregation unconstitutional

- Hernandez case: ends exclusion of Mexican Americans from Texas jury lists

- Bracero program brings 300,000 Mexicans to the US during WWII

- Cheap farm labour to stimulate the agriculture industries

- “Operation Wetback” started to stop the flow of illegal immigrants to the US

- 3.7 illegal immigrants sent back to Mexico, but many legal citizens as well

 

Puerto Ricans

- Jones Act of 1917 makes Puerto Rico part of the US

- US citizenship to all Puerto Ricans

- US takes control of most arable land in PR & its sugar industry

- Many Puerto Rican communities in NYC by 1920s

- El barrio in East Harlem was the largest

- “Great Migration” - 1945-1964 - due to direct air travel

- 1970 - about 800,000 Puerto Ricans in NYC

- 1970s - urban PR families poorer on average than other Latino groups

- Steep decline in garment industry in NYC

 

Indian Peoples

- “Termination” to cancel all Native treaties

- 1953 - Govt can terminate a tribe as a political entity

- Bureau of Indian Affairs encouraged relocation from reservations to urban areas

- Many return to reservations or go to the margins of city life - poverty & alcoholism

- National Congress of American Indians calls for a review of federal policies

- Termination ends in 1960

- US v. Wheeler reasserts the principle of “unique & limited” sovereignty

 

Asian Americans

- Japanese American Citizens League pushes contributions of the Nisei (2nd generation)

- Supreme Court declares segregation of Japnse Amrcans “outright racial discrimination”

- 1954 - Immigration and Nationality Act

- Removes ban against Japanese immigration

- Allows immigration from the “Asian Pacific Triangle”

- 1965 - New Immigration & Nationality act

- Abolishes national quotas & allows for the immigration of 170,000 from the Eastern Hemisphere & 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere

- In the next 20 years, the Asian American population goes from 1 to 5 million

 

Vietnam: America’s Longest War

Johnson’s War

Kennedy had sent in many military advisors

Lyndon B. Johnson makes the decision to engage in a major war

Hoped to stay the course in Vietnam

Realised that a loss or stalemate would cripple his re-election chances

The Tonkin Gulf resolution passed to give Pres the authority to take “all necessary measure” to defend US armed forces

A “functional equivalent” to a declaration of war

Johnson campaigns under a non-interference policy

“Don’t send in US boys to do what Asian boys should be”

govt in Saigon near collapse & Vietcong still pushing hard despite bombing

Deeper into the Quagmire

Feb 1965: Vietcong fire at a US base

Johnson uses this to rationalize the war on North Vietnam

Air strikes & Operation Rolling Thunder

Up to 431,000 US troops in Vietnam at one time

War of attrition

Bombing would destroy the Vietcong

US troops destroy South Vietnam’s society

Trying to root out Vietcong support

Operation Ranch Hand

1965-1971

3.6 million acres of land sprayed with Agent Orange

The Credibility Gap

Johnson’s popularity rises rapidly during Tonkin Gulf resolution

Wanes as war drags on & body count told on every news show every day

Badgered at press conference in 1967 for creating the credibility gap

News networks begin to show human suffering in Vietnam

J. William Fullbright of Arkansas= most vocal congressional critic of the war

Arrogance of Power: proposes a negotiated withdrawal from a neutralized Southeast Asia

Persuaded many congressman & 1967: Congress appeals to UN to try to negotiate a war end

War cost $21 billion per year

10% surcharge on taxes to cover this debt

tapped the Social Security Fund

Generation in Conflict

“The Times They Are A-Changin”

First protest at U Cal Berkley for free speech in 1964

Civil rights activists return from Mississippi Freedom Summer

Picketed San Francisco stores that practiced discrimination in hiring

Tried to recruit students & administration said no

“Students from Goldwater” say that this restricts their free speech

University breaks up protests and presses charges

Sit in against charges and more arrests

Free Speech movt spreads across college students

Demand a curriculum restructuring & treat students as “adults not children”

“In loco parentis” rules allow for more student freedom

1967 “Summer of Love” brings 75,000 “hippies” form a ‘counterculture’ in San Francisco

“Just be” there (ie: drugs, music & sex)

Sexual revolution causes adult-hippie friction

1970: 75% of college seniors weren’t virgins

The “pill” becomes widely available

Sex more widely discussed

“Sexual communities” created

Share child care & sex partners

Drugs play a large role in this counterculture

Marijuana & rock become intertwined

Bob Dylan: “Everybody must get Stoned”

Folk to rock

Woodstock (August 1969)

400,000 people gather for 3 day rock concert

sex & drugs run rampant while police stand by

counterculture= “Woodstock Nation” (WN)

From Campus Protests to Mass Mobilization

After Operation Rolling Thunder starts, students have a day long class boycott

War related research boycotted on campus

Dow Chemical Company (manufacturers of napalm) tried to recruit at the University of Wisconsin

Sit in starts to prevent them & police violently break it up

Students chant “Sieg Heil”

Protests spread from colleges

Sheep Meadow Protest in Central Park draws 300,000 people

Protests draw pro-war response from democrats & conservatives

Veterans of Foreign Wars have a “Loyalty Parade” in NYC to support Vietnam

“One Country, One Flag, Love it or Leave it”

Draft Dodging becomes a federal offence with 5 yr jail term & $10,000 fine

Sheep Meadow Protest has 200 men tear up draft cards

Jesuit Priests raid the draft office in Catonsville Maryland & burn the draft records

Teenage Soldiers

Average age of Vietnam Soldiers is 19

Many young Latino & Black men sign up for vocal training and a chance to move up the social ladder

They bore the brunt of the combat

Only 12 percent of soldiers were college students

GIs not isolated from the “WN”

Smoked marijuana & listened to music

But most condemned antiwar protests

As the war wore on, GIs got frustrated & became peace advocates 

RITA (resistance in the army)

Many began to condemn combat operations

Some even “fragged” their commanders

Black Power resents the war as a “White mans war”

US soldiers hated by Vietnamese citizens as intruders

Wars on Poverty

The Great Society

Johnson’s ambitious reform program

1964: Economic Opportunity Act to abolish poverty

Establishes the Office of Economic Opportunity

Network of programs to increase education & employment opportunities

Job corps trains in vocation mostly urban black youths 

Community Action Program

Empower the poor by giving them a direct say in the war on poverty

National emphasis programs

Legal Services Program

Gives poor people pro-bono legal rep.

Early education to poor kids through Head Start

Drop in Community Health Centers

Root cause of poverty was the unequal distribution of wealth

16% of the GNP in 1974 was for social welfare spending

Most to Medicare etc., not to the poor

More money gradually given to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

Crisis in the Cities

The nations poorest communities were in the deep south & Appalachian mountains

Since WWII, urban areas increasingly get worse

“White Flight” to the suburbs

Federal Housing Administration urges people to take out loans & buy houses in the suburbs

Also “redlining” to prevent the poor from maintaining loans

Military Spending for the Vietnam War creates an unemployment rate drop to 4%

Most of these jobs to whites

Pollution becomes a major problem in urban areas

Despite all these negatives, millions of people came to the cities

Mostly blacks from the deep south & whites from the appalacians & latinos from Puerto Rico

Urban Uprisings

“Long hot summers” of 1964-68 brought over 100 uprisings

1964: Harlem, Rochester & Philadelphia blacks became increasingly angry

Watts section of LA

1965: one minor arrest startrs a riot for 50 miles

50,000 troops & 20,000 national guardsmen sent to stop the uprising

1966:L major uprisings in San Francisco, Milwaukee, Dayton & Cleveland

July 13, 1967: Newark NT, huge house shortages have blacks angry

Beating of a black taxi driver by a white policeman provokes widespread protest

5 day riot & 25 killed by national guard

July 20, 1967: Detroit’s “Great Rebellion”

Police raid a bar & arrest 4 people

Week long riot breaks out & paratroopers & national guard called in

34 dead & 7,000 under arrest

Urban uprisings force Johnson to create a task force to allocate funds for urban antipoverty programs

Found that the rioters weren’t the poorest or the dumbest in the urban communities

Said that “white racism” was the main cause & suggested public housing programs, intergrated schools, 2 million new jobs & a national income supplementation program

Ignored & forgotten by congress

1968

The Tet Offensive 

January 30: Vietnamese launch the Tet Offensive

Pushed far into South Vietnam & into the US embassy in Saigon

US troops push them back

1600 dead US troops

40,000 dead Vietcong troops

US brutality & casualties show discredit the American leadership to the public

News shots of American troops showed their malicious behaviour

Polls show that 49% of Americans think the war is wrong

Johnson announces that he won’t run for re-election on March 31 after seeing the hopelessness of the next election

Declared a bombing halt & called Hanoi for peace talks

King, the War, and the Assassination

By 1968, civil rights leaders were against the war

MLK calls the govt “the greatest purveyer of violence in the world today”

Memphis: MLK gives his “I have a dream” speech to the Poor People’s Campaign for peace and justice

April 4, 1968: MLK shot by James Earl Ray

Riots broke out in 100 + cities

27,000 blacks jailed in 1 week

The Democratic Campaign

Robert Kennedy= Candidate of popular choice

Liberals dissatisfied with Johnson’s handling of Vietnam & blacks who have just lost their leader

Insisted that the citizens be told the truth about the war

Eugene McCarthy (opponent) agrees with him

Bobby Kennedy wins all but the Oregon primary & is shot right after the California primary

Shot by Jordinian Sirhan Sirhan

Hubert Humphrey (Vice Pres.) now the only suitable candidate

Supports the war fully

Lined up his loyal followers & gained the Democratic nomination before the convention started

“The Whole World is Watching!”

Anti-war activists organize a huge demonstration outside the convention

Youth International Party calls for big counter-culture celebration

Parade permit turned down & police riot starts

Police savagely beat demonstrators

Humphrey gains momentum from this as he praises the war & gains support from most of the pro-war democrats

The Politics of Identity

Black Power

Failure of the Poverty War & disproportionate amount of black deaths in Vietnam starts collapse of faith in the govt.

Black Power adopted by Stokely Carmichael as a way for blacks to take control of their future

Self-determination & self-sufficiency

Adopted separatist ideas (separate the US into black & white nations)

Black Panther Party for Self Defense

Black extremist group headed byHuey B. Newton & Bobby Seale

Armed heavily & dressed in black leather & berets

Ruined by long jail terms of their members

Jesse Jackson turns black power into a peaceful protest

“Operation Breadbasket”

Black students strike on San Francisco State University campus for black studies dept.

Win with the help of the Panthers

Sisterhood is Powerful

Middle class white women unhappy with their role in society

National Organization for Women established

Spearheaded campaigns to end sex discrimination

Women’s liberation movts talk of separatist ideals

Many radical women’s activists split off with male civil rights & anti-war activists

Most in the women’s rights movt were not radical, just trying to get equality

Women’s rights begin to show up in literature

“Sexual Politics” by Kate Milett

By 1975: 150 women’s studies programs created

Gay Liberation

Mattachine Society & the Daughters of Bilitis campaign to reduce homophobic discrimination in employment & the armed forces

Many gay activists live in Greenwich Village & the San Francisco Bay Area

“Stonewall Riot” when police raid a Greenwich Village Gay Bar & Gay Power starts

Gay Liberation Front formed

Against the war & supported the Black Panthers

1973: American Psychiatric Assoc. takes homosexuality of the list of treatable mental illnesses

The Chicano Rebellion

Young Mexican Americans form a collectivist group to resist white domination

La raza= Aztecs (root of their language & heritage)

1969: Chicano high school students in the Southwest skipped school to celebrate the Mexican Independence Day

Brown Berets formed to encourage teenagers to express Chinanismo (Mexican pride)

Texas-based La Raza Unida party increased Mexican-American Representation in local governments

Red Power

Seek to restore the legitimacy of tribal laws

Achieved in the Civil Rights Act of 1968

American Indian Movt (AIM) founded by the Chippewas

Organized for Self Defence & challenge the Bureau of Indian affairs

Occupied the deserted Alcatraz Island penitentiary to get govt funds for a cultural centre & University

Govt doesn’t respond

Nov 1972: AIM occupies the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 1 week

The Asian American Movt (yellow power)

1968: Asian students at U Cal Berkley formed the Asian American Political Alliance

Against the war in Vietnam

1968: Asian Americans give the San Francisco city council a list of grievances over the condition of Chinatown & attempted to save a low-income housing area mainly for Chinese & Filipino men

Both failed

The Nixon Presidency

The Southern Strategy

Builds support from the “silent majority”

Tax paying normal citizens

Republicans organize around the importance of the Sunbelt

Conservative region of high tech industry & retirement communities

Nixon appeals to them by promising to appoint federal judges who would undercut liberal interpretations of civil rights & be tough on crime

Running mate of Nixon= Spiro T. Agnew

Good orator

3rd Party nominee George Wallace from Alabama

Wins Alabama governorship on a segregation platform

Nixon wins with 43.4% of the popular vote to 42.7% by Hubert Humphries

Nixon’s War

Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council wouldn’t let the US pull out

Don’t appear weak to our enemies

Nixon followed a “Vietnamization” policy in public

Give their fighting to the South Vietnamese

In private, Nixon & Kissinger debated giving the “final blow” to the North Vietnamese

April 30, 1970: Nixon adds Cambodia to th ewar zone without congressional approval

Much unexpected protest

Kent State University: National Guardsmen panicked & shot into an unarmed crowd of 200 students

Killed 4 & wounded 9

The Senate adopts a resolution to disallow the use of US funds for the war in Cambodia

Rejected by the House of Representatives but showed Nixon that nobody wanted the war

Feb 1971: Nixon orders the South Vietnamese to cut the Vietcong’s supply lines in Laos

April 1972: Nixon orders the bombing & mining of North Vietnamese & Cambodian targets

Kissinger negotiates the cease-fire with North Vietnam 

Nixon bombs one last time for a better negotiating position

Paris Peace Agreement signed in 1973 differed little from the one Nixon could have signed in 1969

April 1975: N. Vietnamese troops take Saigon & communist led Democratic Republic of Vietnam unifies the country

The war costs the US 58,000 troops & $150 billion

“The China Card”

Nixon could have formed an alliance with the People’s Republic of China against the USSR

“Ping Pong” diplomacy starts in 1971 when a US ping pong team visits China

Feb 1972: Richard & Pat Nixon fly to China & the US-Chinese diplomacy begins

Nixon uses this alliance against the USSR & they agree to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty

First success of strategic arms control in the cold war

Domestic Policy

Nixon wanted to restore order in the American society

Stop drugs, crime, racial discord & draft resistance

Supported the new social security benefits in 1972 to allow for re-election

Creation of the Environmental Protection Agency & the Occupational Safety & Health Administration

Family Assitance Plan to provide minimal income to the poor instead of welfare benefits

Turned down by Congress

Embraced fiscal liberatism

Accepted deficit spending& took the nation off the Gold Standard

Watergate

Foreign Policy as Conspiracy

Issued a tough mandate against info leaks by govt personnel, media & politicians

Accelerated the delivery of arms to foreign dictators 

Shah of Iran & Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines

Provided monetary aid to Latin-American dictators

Somoza of Nicaragua

Tried to overthrow the illegally elected socialist govt in Chile

Used the Chilean military to overthrow the govt

The Age of Dirty Tricks

Nixon tightens his inner circle as he neared the 1972 election

“The plumbers” to halt info leaks

First hit against Daniel Ellsberg

Turned over military documents outlining the military history in Vietnam

Nixon attempts to stop the NY Times from printing these “Pentagon Papers”

Supreme Court rules in favour of the Times

Nixon attempts to prosecute Ellsberg on espionage charges

Again failed after Nixon charged with misconduct

Ran a successful negative campaign against George McGovern

He supported “Abortion, acid, and amnesty”

The Committee to Re-Elect the President

Wiretaps the Democratic National Committee headquarters

June 17, 1972: security team finds the intruders & arrests them

Attempting to wiretap the conference room in the Watergate hotel

Nixon said he had nothing to do with it

Nixon aid forced to tell of the secret Oval Office tapes of Nixon

The tapes were partially erased when they were handed over

Fall of the Executive

Watergate tapes full of Nixon swearing & racial slurs

Proved that he knew about the wiretaps

July 1974: House Judiciary Committee adopts 3 articles of impeachment

Obstructing justice

Nixon’s govt had been clouded with disgrace when his VP, Spiro Agnew, admitted to taking kickbacks when he was the govnr of Maryland

Resigned in disgrace & Gerald Ford takes over

Nixon sees his impending impeachment & resigns on August 9, 1974

 

Stagflation

- Rising prices, more unemployment and low economic growth = stagflation

- 1975 - Unemployment reached nearly 9 percent - highest since Depression

- US fell behind W. Europe and Japan, Americans felt that these trends would continue

 

The Oil Crisis

- Oct 1973 - Gas prices nearly doubled

- US used about 70% of all the oil in the world, by 1973 1/3 of total oil was imported

- Arab nations became increasingly hostile towards the US after the Six-Day war

- Oct 17 - OPEC launches an embargo on oil shipments to Israel’s allies - US, Japan, etc

- Many Americans blamed Arabs and accused the government of lying to raise prices

- Worst downturn since the Depression

 

The Bill Comes Due

- Nixon responded to the embargo by appointing an “energy czar” 

- 1977 - Dept of Energy created

- Many conservation measures imposed to reduce the use of energy

- Conservation measures resulted in a 23% reduction of highway deaths

- As a result of the embargo, prices in general rose dramatically

 

Falling Productivity

- Oil embargo hit home so hard because US economy was not as efficient as overseas

- Unable to produce many goods at low cost

- Foreign markets offered better alternatives to US production

- American companies turned to foreign countries for cheap labour

- Many factories became highly automated

- American employers did not buy into the Japanese idea of providing rewards for quality

- Farmers could not capitalize on overseas shortages in grain - needed oil for their tools

 

Blue-Collar Blues

- 1970s - National Labor Relations Board began ruling in favour of managements

- Congress routinely denied labor-backed movements in Congress

- Public employees such as teachers made some gains during this period

- Although many women joined the workforce, many were in low paying clerical jobs

- Many organizations pushed for antidiscrimination and more opportunities for women

 

Sunbelt/Snowbelt

- 1970s - Snowbelt slumped, Sunbelt prospered and grew

- Due to a huge influx of immigrants, the Sunbelt grew in population

- Many blacks began migrating back to southern cities that used to be segregated

- Certain areas became extremely focused on producing single products

- Certain valleys produced strawberries, lima beans, or artichokes

- Silicon Valley became known for computer producing

- The Sunbelt’s ecomonic assets were very unevenly distributed

- Philadelphia lost many jobs and crime rates soared

 

“Lean Years” Presidents

- Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter oversaw the time when the economy was in distress

- Voters became disillusioned with the government - thought they didn’t care about them

 

“I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln”

- Although Ford promised that the “national nightmare” (Nixon) was over, he soon after pardoned Nixon for all the crimes he may have committed - many suspected a deal

- Ford wanted to cut govt spending, maintain interest rates, and slowly build up economy

- Ford vetoed more major bills than any modern president, but Congress overrode most

- Many times, Ford would mix up words or muddle his thoughts - seen as rather simple

- Betty Ford became admired by many Americans - very open and had modern ideas

 

The 1976 Election

- Ford’s only competition for the Republican ticket was Ronald Reagan

- Ford was nominated because Reagan was seen as too conservative

- Chose Bob Dole (Kansas) as his running mate

- Jimmy Carter depicted himself as an unfamiliar outsider - acted like a country bumpkin

- Told Americans “I will never lie to you”

- Americans remembered Watergate all too well, and chose to go with a Democrat

- Senator Walter Mondale became Vice President

- 46.7 percent of eligible voters did not vote

 

The Carter Presidency

- Carter was very hesitant and undecisive, and shifted more and more towards the right

- Took very little initiative to boost the economy and make radical changes

- Media exposés helped reveal rampant govt spending and to portray Carter as uncaring

- Like Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter tried to get involved, but many felt she did too much

 

The New Poverty

- Although many of the income separations between blacks and whites declined in the 60s, these positive trends reversed during the 70s

 

A Two-tired Society

- In the 70s, Americans as a whole were healthier than ever before

- The rich were becoming richer, and the poor were becoming poorer

- More than 10% of the population lived in poverty

- Far more minority groups were impoverished than whites

- Although the govt introduced affirmative action, there was a growing split in incomes

- School Busing - Govt forced kids to bus to school to achieve racial equality

- Racism dwindled because of a white push to the suburbs

- Inner cities were left to minorities - 1980 - 50% of black teenagers drop out

- 1978 - US Court ruling stated that affirmative action could only be used when it could be proved that a “legacy of unequal treatment” had occurred

 

The Feminization of Poverty

- Although more and more women entered the work force, their wages declined

- Divorce settlements highly favoured men - womens’ living standard declined by 73%

- Single mothers had an extremely hard time not being impoverished

- National Welfare Rights Organization aided many single, poor women

 

“The Underclass”

- “The Underclass” became a metaphor for the deteriorating conditions in urban America

- “Blacks were no closer to catching up with whites than they were before”

- Black families tended to be matriarchial

- Indian people remained the poorest of anyone

- Federal govt did little to help the Indians integrate

 

Communities and Grass-Roots Policies

- As people had children, they became more involved in their communities

- Mass demonstrations in the 60s led to localized protests in the 70s

 

The New Urban Politics

- Many college towns became politically active

- African American candidates began to reach political positions