Outline of U.S. History

OUTLINE OF U.S. History Early Settlement Colonial Period Road to Independence Forming a Government Westward Expansion Sectional Conflict Civil War Economic Growth Discontent and Reform War, Prosperity, and Depression The New Deal and World War II Postwar Prosperity Civil Rights and Social Change A New World Order Bridge to the 21st Century 2008 Presidential Election OUTLINEOUTLINE OFOF UU..SS.. HISTORYHISTORY

Bureau of International Information Programs U.S. Department of State 2011 CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION impossible to bring supplies from From the coast, Sherman marched Texas and Arkansas . northward; by February 1865, he The Northern victories at Vicks- had taken Charleston, South Caro- burg and Gettysburg in July 1863 lina, where the first shots of the Civil marked the turning point of the war, War had been fired . Sherman, more although the bloodshed continued than any other Union general, un- unabated for more than a year-and- derstood that destroying the will and a-half . morale of the South was as impor- Lincoln brought Grant east and tant as defeating its armies . made him commander-in-chief of Grant, meanwhile, lay siege to Pe- all Union forces . In May 1864 Grant tersburg, Virginia, for nine months, advanced deep into Virginia and before Lee, in March 1865, knew that met Lee’s Confederate Army in the he had to abandon both Petersburg three-day Battle of the Wilderness . and the Confederate capital of Rich- Losses on both sides were heavy, mond in an attempt to retreat south . but unlike other Union command- But it was too late . On April 9, 1865, ers, Grant refused to retreat . In- surrounded by huge Union armies, stead, he attempted to outflank Lee, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appo- stretching the Confederate lines and mattox Courthouse . Although scat- pounding away with artillery and tered fighting continued elsewhere infantry attacks . “I propose to fight it for several months, the Civil War out along this line if it takes all sum- was over . mer,” the Union commander said The terms of surrender at Ap- at Spotsylvania, during five days of pomattox were magnanimous, and bloody trench warfare that charac- on his return from his meeting with terized fighting on the eastern front Lee, Grant quieted the noisy dem- for almost a year . onstrations of his soldiers by re- In the West, Union forces gained minding them: “The rebels are our control of Tennessee in the fall of countrymen again ” . The war for 1863 with victories at Chattanoo- Southern independence had become ga and nearby Lookout Mountain, the “lost cause,” whose hero, Rob- opening the way for General Wil- ert E . Lee, had won wide admiration liam T . Sherman to invade Georgia . through the brilliance of his leader- Sherman outmaneuvered several ship and his greatness in defeat . smaller Confederate armies, occupied the state capital of Atlanta, then WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE marched to the Atlantic coast, sys- tematically destroying railroads, For the North, the war produced factories, warehouses, and other a still greater hero in Abraham Lin- facilities in his path . His men, cut coln — a man eager, above all else, off from their normal supply lines, to weld the Union together again, ravaged the countryside for food . not by force and repression but by

146 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY warmth and generosity . In 1864 he Never before that startled April had been elected for a second term morning did such multitudes of as president, defeating his Demo- men shed tears for the death of cratic opponent, George McClellan, one they had never seen, as if with the general he had dismissed after him a friendly presence had been Antietam . Lincoln’s second inaugu- taken from their lives, leaving ral address closed with these words: them colder and darker. Never With malice toward none; with was funeral panegyric so eloquent charity for all; with firmness in as the silent look of sympathy the right, as God gives us to see which strangers exchanged when the right, let us strive on to finish they met that day. Their common the work we are in; to bind up the manhood had lost a kinsman. nation’s wounds; to care for him The first great task confronting who shall have borne the battle, the victorious North — now under and for his widow, and his orphan the leadership of Lincoln’s vice presi- — to do all which may achieve dent, Andrew Johnson, a Southerner and cherish a just, and a lasting who remained loyal to the Union — peace, among ourselves, and with was to determine the status of the all nations. states that had seceded . Lincoln had Three weeks later, two days after already set the stage . In his view, Lee’s surrender, Lincoln delivered the people of the Southern states his last public address, in which he had never legally seceded; they had unfolded a generous reconstruction been misled by some disloyal citi- policy . On April 14, 1865, the presi- zens into a defiance of federal au- dent held what was to be his last thority . And since the war was the Cabinet meeting . That evening — act of individuals, the federal gov- with his wife and a young couple ernment would have to deal with who were his guests — he attended these individuals and not with a performance at Ford’s Theater . the states . Thus, in 1863 Lincoln There, as he sat in the presidential proclaimed that if in any state 10 box, he was assassinated by John percent of the voters of record in Wilkes Booth, a Virginia actor em- 1860 would form a government loyal bittered by the South’s defeat . Booth to the U S. . Constitution and would was killed in a shootout some days acknowledge obedience to the laws later in a barn in the Virginia coun- of the Congress and the proclama- tryside . His accomplices were cap- tions of the president, he would rec- tured and later executed . ognize the government so created as Lincoln died in a downstairs bed- the state’s legal government . room of a house across the street Congress rejected this plan . Many from Ford’s Theater on the morn- Republicans feared it would simply ing of April 15 . Poet James Russell entrench former rebels in power; Lowell wrote: they challenged Lincoln’s right

147 CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION to deal with the rebel states with- and ratify the 13th Amendment . out consultation . Some members of By the end of 1865, this process was Congress advocated severe punish- completed, with a few exceptions . ment for all the seceded states; others simply felt the war would have RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION been in vain if the old Southern establishment was restored to power . Both Lincoln and Johnson had Yet even before the war was wholly foreseen that the Congress would over, new governments had been set have the right to deny Southern leg- up in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, islators seats in the U S. . Senate or and Louisiana . House of Representatives, under the To deal with one of its major clause of the Constitution that says, concerns — the condition of for- “Each house shall be the judge of mer slaves — Congress established the . . qualifications of its own mem- the Freedmen’s Bureau in March bers ”. This came to pass when, under 1865 to act as guardian over African the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens, Americans and guide them toward those congressmen called “Radical self-support . And in December of Republicans,” who were wary of a that year, Congress ratified the 13th quick and easy “reconstruction,” re- Amendment to the U S. . Constitu- fused to seat newly elected Southern tion, which abolished slavery . senators and representatives . Within Throughout the summer of 1865 the next few months, Congress pro- Johnson proceeded to carry out Lin- ceeded to work out a plan for the coln’s reconstruction program, with reconstruction of the South quite minor modifications . By presidential different from the one Lincoln had proclamation he appointed a gover- started and Johnson had continued . nor for each of the former Confeder- Wide public support gradual- ate states and freely restored political ly developed for those members of rights to many Southerners through Congress who believed that African use of presidential pardons . Americans should be given full citi- In due time conventions were zenship . By July 1866, Congress had held in each of the former Confed- passed a civil rights bill and set up erate states to repeal the ordinances a new Freedmen’s Bureau — both of secession, repudiate the war debt, designed to prevent racial discrimi- and draft new state constitutions . nation by Southern legislatures . Fol- Eventually a native Unionist became lowing this, the Congress passed a governor in each state with authority 14th Amendment to the Constitu- to convoke a convention of loyal vot- tion, stating that “all persons born ers . Johnson called upon each con- or naturalized in the United States, vention to invalidate the secession, and subject to the jurisdiction there- abolish slavery, repudiate all debts of, are citizens of the United States that went to aid the Confederacy, and of the State wherein they reside ”.

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This repudiated the Dred Scott rul- that established civil governments, ing, which had denied slaves their ratified the 14th Amendment, and right of citizenship . adopted African-American suffrage . All the Southern state legisla- Supporters of the Confederacy who tures, with the exception of Tennes- had not taken oaths of loyalty to the see, refused to ratify the amendment, United States generally could not some voting against it unanimously . vote . The 14th Amendment was rati- In addition, Southern state legisla- fied in 1868 . The 15th Amendment, tures passed “codes” to regulate the passed by Congress the following African-American freedmen . The year and ratified in 1870 by state leg- codes differed from state to state, islatures, provided that “The right of but some provisions were common . citizens of the United States to vote African Americans were required shall not be denied or abridged by to enter into annual labor contracts, the United States or any state on ac- with penalties imposed in case of count of race, color, or previous con- violation; dependent children were dition of servitude ”. subject to compulsory apprentice- The Radical Republicans in ship and corporal punishments by Congress were infuriated by Presi- masters; vagrants could be sold into dent Johnson’s vetoes (even though private service if they could not pay they were overridden) of legisla- severe fines . tion protecting newly freed African Many Northerners interpreted Americans and punishing former the Southern response as an attempt Confederate leaders by depriving to reestablish slavery and repudi- them of the right to hold office . ate the hard-won Union victory in Congressional antipathy to Johnson the Civil War . It did not help that was so great that, for the first time Johnson, although a Unionist, was in American history, impeachment a Southern Democrat with an ad- proceedings were instituted to re- diction to intemperate rhetoric and move the president from office . an aversion to political compromise . Johnson’s main offense was his Republicans swept the congressional opposition to punitive congressional elections of 1866 . Firmly in power, policies and the violent language he the Radicals imposed their own vi- used in criticizing them . The most sion of Reconstruction . serious legal charge his enemies In the Reconstruction Act of could level against him was that, March 1867, Congress, ignoring the despite the Tenure of Office Act governments that had been estab- (which required Senate approval for lished in the Southern states, divided the removal of any officeholder the the South into five military districts, Senate had previously confirmed), each administered by a Union gener- he had removed from his Cabinet al . Escape from permanent military the secretary of war, a staunch sup- government was open to those states porter of the Congress . When the

149 CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION impeachment trial was held in the Klan became more and more fre- Senate, it was proved that Johnson quent . Increasing disorder led to was technically within his rights in the passage of Enforcement Acts in removing the Cabinet member . Even 1870 and 1871, severely punishing more important, it was pointed out those who attempted to deprive the that a dangerous precedent would be African-American freedmen of their set if the Congress were to remove a civil rights . president because he disagreed with the majority of its members . The fi- THE END OF nal vote was one short of the two- RECONSTRUCTION thirds required for conviction . Johnson continued in office until As time passed, it became more his term expired in 1869, but Con- and more obvious that the problems gress had established an ascendancy of the South were not being solved that would endure for the rest of the by harsh laws and continuing rancor century . The Republican victor in against former Confederates . More- the presidential election of 1868, for- over, some Southern Radical state mer Union general Ulysses S . Grant, governments with prominent Af- would enforce the reconstruction rican-American officials appeared policies the Radicals had initiated . corrupt and inefficient . The nation By June 1868, Congress had re- was quickly tiring of the attempt to admitted the majority of the for- impose racial democracy and liberal mer Confederate states back into values on the South with Union bay- the Union . In many of these re- onets . In May 1872, Congress passed constructed states, the majority of a general Amnesty Act, restoring full the governors, representatives, and political rights to all but about 500 senators were Northern men — so- former rebels . called carpetbaggers — who had Gradually Southern states began gone South after the war to make electing members of the Democratic their political fortunes, often in Party into office, ousting carpet- alliance with newly freed African bagger governments and intimidat- Americans . In the legislatures of ing African Americans from voting Louisiana and South Carolina, Af- or attempting to hold public office . rican Americans actually gained a By 1876 the Republicans remained majority of the seats . in power in only three Southern Many Southern whites, their po- states . As part of the bargaining that litical and social dominance threat- resolved the disputed presidential ened, turned to illegal means to elections that year in favor of Ruth- prevent African Americans from erford B . Hayes, the Republicans gaining equality . Violence against promised to withdraw federal troops African Americans by such extra- that had propped up the remaining legal organizations as the Ku Klux Republican governments . In 1877

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Hayes kept his promise, tacitly aban- ly failed to address their economic doning federal responsibility for en- needs . The Freedmen’s Bureau was forcing blacks’ civil rights . unable to provide former slaves The South was still a region dev- with political and economic oppor- astated by war, burdened by debt tunity . Union military occupiers caused by misgovernment, and de- often could not even protect them moralized by a decade of racial war- from violence and intimidation . fare . Unfortunately, the pendulum Indeed, federal army officers and of national racial policy swung from agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau one extreme to the other . A feder- were often racists themselves . With- al government that had supported out economic resources of their own, harsh penalties against Southern many Southern African Americans white leaders now tolerated new and were forced to become tenant farm- humiliating kinds of discrimina- ers on land owned by their former tion against African Americans . The masters, caught in a cycle of poverty last quarter of the 19th century saw that would continue well into the a profusion of “Jim Crow” laws in 20th century . Southern states that segregated pub- Reconstruction-era governments lic schools, forbade or limited Afri- did make genuine gains in rebuild- can-American access to many public ing Southern states devastated by facilities such as parks, restaurants, the war, and in expanding public and hotels, and denied most blacks services, notably in establishing the right to vote by imposing poll tax-supported, free public schools taxes and arbitrary literacy tests . for African Americans and whites . “Jim Crow” is a term derived from However, recalcitrant Southerners a song in an 1828 minstrel show seized upon instances of corruption where a white man first performed (hardly unique to the South in this in “blackface ”. era) and exploited them to bring Historians have tended to judge down radical regimes . The failure Reconstruction harshly, as a murky of Reconstruction meant that the period of political conflict, corrup- struggle of African Americans for tion, and regression that failed to equality and freedom was deferred achieve its original high-minded until the 20th century — when it goals and collapsed into a sinkhole would become a national, not just a of virulent racism . Slaves were grant- Southern issue . 9 ed freedom, but the North complete-

151 CHAPTER 7: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION THE CIVIL WAR AND NEW PATTERNS OF AMERICAN POLITICS

The controversies of the 1850s had destroyed the Whig Party, created the Republican Party, and divided the Democratic Party along regional lines. The Civil War demonstrated that the Whigs were gone beyond recall and the Republicans on the scene to stay. It also laid the basis for a reunited Democratic Party. The Republicans could seamlessly replace the Whigs throughout the North and West because they were far more than a free-soil/antislavery force. Most of their leaders had started as Whigs and continued the Whig interest in federally assisted national development. The need to manage a war did not deter them from also enacting a protective tariff (1861) to foster American manufacturing, the Homestead Act (1862) to encourage Western settlement, the Morrill Act (1862) to establish “land grant” agricultural and technical colleges, and a series of Pacific Railway Acts (1862-64) to underwrite a transcontinental railway line. These measures rallied support throughout the Union from groups to whom slavery was a secondary issue and ensured the party’s continuance as the latest manifestation of a political creed that had been advanced by Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay. The war also laid the basis for Democratic reunification because Northern opposition to it centered in the Democratic Party. As might be expected from the party of “popular sovereignty,” some Democrats believed that full-scale war to reinstate the Union was unjustified. This group came to be known as the Peace Democrats. Their more extreme elements were called “Copperheads.” Moreover, few Democrats, whether of the “war” or “peace” faction, believed the emancipation of the slaves was worth Northern blood. Opposition to emancipation had long been party policy. In 1862, for example, virtually every Democrat in Congress voted against eliminating slavery in the District of Columbia and prohibiting it in the territories. Much of this opposition came from the working poor, particularly Irish and German Catholic immigrants, who feared a massive migration of newly freed African Americans to the North. They also resented the establishment of a military draft (March 1863) that disproportionately affected them. Race riots erupted in several Northern cities. The worst of these occurred in New York, July 13-16, 1863, precipitated by Democratic Governor Horatio Seymour’s condemnation of military conscription. Federal troops, who just days earlier had been engaged at Gettysburg, were sent to restore order.

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The Republicans prosecuted the war with little regard for civil liberties. In September 1862, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imposed martial law on those who interfered with recruitment or gave aid and comfort to the rebels. This breech of civil law, although constitution- ally justified during times of crisis, gave the Democrats another opportunity to criticize Lincoln. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton enforced martial law vigorously, and many thousands — most of them Southern sympathizers or Democrats — were arrested. Despite the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863, Democratic “peace” candidates continued to play on the nation’s misfortunes and racial sensitivities. Indeed, the mood of the North was such that Lincoln was convinced he would lose his re-election bid in November 1864. Largely for that reason, the Republican Party renamed itself the Union Party and drafted the Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson to be Lincoln’s running mate. Sherman’s victories in the South sealed the election for them. Lincoln’s assassination, the rise of Radical Republicanism, and Johnson’s blundering leadership all played into a postwar pattern of politics in which the Republican Party suffered from overreaching in its efforts to remake the South, while the Democrats, through their criticism of Reconstruction, allied themselves with the neo-Confederate Southern white majority. Ulysses S. Grant’s status as a national hero carried the Republicans through two presidential elections, but as the South emerged from Reconstruction, it became apparent that the country was nearly evenly divided between the two parties. The Republicans would be dominant in the industrial Northeast until the 1930s and strong in most of the rest of the country outside the South. However, their appeal as the party of strong government and national development increasingly would be perceived as one of allegiance to big business and finance. When President Hayes ended Reconstruction, he hoped it would be possible to build the Republican Party in the South, using the old Whigs as a base and the appeal of regional development as a primary issue. By then, however, Republicanism as the South’s white majority perceived it was identified with a hated African-American supremacy. For the next three- quarters of a century, the South would be solidly Democratic. For much of that time, the national Democratic Party would pay solemn deference to states’ rights while ignoring civil rights. The group that would suffer the most as a legacy of Reconstruction was the African Americans. 

153 154 CHAPTER 8 GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION

Building the transcontinental railroad, 1868. CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION

“Upon the sacredness of property, civilization itself depends.”

Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, 1889

Between two great wars — the Civil of the country; it dramatized in a War and the First World War — the stroke the changes that had begun to United States of America came of take place during the preceding 20 age . In a period of less than 50 years or 30 years . . ”. War needs had enor- it was transformed from a rural re- mously stimulated manufacturing, public to an urban nation . The fron- speeding an economic process based tier vanished . Great factories and on the exploitation of iron, steam, steel mills, transcontinental railroad and electric power, as well as the for- lines, flourishing cities, and vast ward march of science and inven- agricultural holdings marked the tion . In the years before 1860, 36,000 land . With this economic growth patents were granted; in the next 30 and affluence came corresponding years, 440,000 patents were issued, problems . Nationwide, a few busi- and in the first quarter of the 20th nesses came to dominate whole in- century, the number reached nearly dustries, either independently or in a million . combination with others . Work- As early as 1844, Samuel F B. . ing conditions were often poor . Morse had perfected electrical te- Cities grew so quickly they could legraphy; soon afterward distant not properly house or govern their parts of the continent were linked growing populations . by a network of poles and wires . In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell exhib- TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE ited a telephone instrument; within “ half a century, 16 million telephones The Civil War,” says one writer, would quicken the social and eco- “cut a wide gash through the history nomic life of the nation . The growth

156 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY of business was hastened by the in- in a telegraph office, then to one on vention of the typewriter in 1867, the Pennsylvania Railroad . Before the adding machine in 1888, and he was 30 years old he had made the cash register in 1897 . The lino- shrewd and farsighted investments, type composing machine, invented which by 1865 were concentrated in in 1886, and rotary press and paper- iron . Within a few years, he had or- folding machinery made it possible ganized or had stock in companies to print 240,000 eight-page newspa- making iron bridges, rails, and lo- pers in an hour . Thomas Edison’s comotives . Ten years later, he built incandescent lamp eventually lit the nation’s largest steel mill on the millions of homes . The talking ma- Monongahela River in Pennsylvania . chine, or phonograph, was perfected He acquired control not only of new by Edison, who, in conjunction with mills, but also of coke and coal prop- George Eastman, also helped devel- erties, iron ore from Lake Superior, a op the motion picture . These and fleet of steamers on the Great Lakes, many other applications of science a port town on Lake Erie, and a con- and ingenuity resulted in a new level necting railroad . His business, allied of productivity in almost every field . with a dozen others, commanded Concurrently, the nation’s basic favorable terms from railroads and industry — iron and steel — forged shipping lines . Nothing comparable ahead, protected by a high tariff . The in industrial growth had ever been iron industry moved westward as ge- seen in America before . ologists discovered new ore depos- Though Carnegie long dominat- its, notably the great Mesabi range ed the industry, he never achieved at the head of Lake Superior, which a complete monopoly over the nat- became one of the largest produc- ural resources, transportation, and ers in the world . Easy and cheap to industrial plants involved in the mine, remarkably free of chemical making of steel . In the 1890s, new impurities, Mesabi ore could be pro- companies challenged his preemi- cessed into steel of superior quality nence . He would be persuaded to at about one-tenth the previously merge his holdings into a new cor- prevailing cost . poration that would embrace most of the important iron and steel proper- CARNEGIE AND THE ties in the nation . ERA OF STEEL CORPORATIONS AND CITIES Andrew Carnegie was largely responsible for the great advances in The United States Steel Corpora- steel production . Carnegie, who tion, which resulted from this merg- came to America from Scotland as er in 1901, illustrated a process under a child of 12, progressed from bob- way for 30 years: the combination of bin boy in a cotton factory to a job independent industrial enterprises

157 CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION into federated or centralized compa- cottonseed oil, lead, sugar, tobacco, nies . Started during the Civil War, and rubber . Soon aggressive indi- the trend gathered momentum after vidual businessmen began to mark the 1870s, as businessmen began to out industrial domains for them- fear that overproduction would lead selves . Four great meat packers, chief to declining prices and falling prof- among them Philip Armour and its . They realized that if they could Gustavus Swift, established a beef control both production and mar- trust . Cyrus McCormick achieved kets, they could bring competing preeminence in the reaper business . firms into a single organization . The A 1904 survey showed that more “corporation” and the “trust” were than 5,000 previously independent developed to achieve these ends . concerns had been consolidated into Corporations, making available a some 300 industrial trusts . deep reservoir of capital and giving The trend toward amalgamation business enterprises permanent life extended to other fields, particular- and continuity of control, attracted ly transportation and communica- investors both by their anticipated tions . Western Union, dominant in profits and by their limited liability telegraphy, was followed by the Bell in case of business failure . The trusts Telephone System and eventually by were in effect combinations of cor- the American Telephone and Tele- porations whereby the stockholders graph Company . In the 1860s, Cor- of each placed stocks in the hands nelius Vanderbilt had consolidated of trustees . (The “trust” as a method 13 separate railroads into a single of corporate consolidation soon gave 800-kilometer line connecting New way to the holding company, but the York City and Buffalo . During the term stuck ) . Trusts made possible next decade he acquired lines to Chi- large-scale combinations, central- cago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan, ized control and administration, and establishing the New York Central the pooling of patents . Their larger Railroad . Soon the major railroads capital resources provided power of the nation were organized into to expand, to compete with foreign trunk lines and systems directed by business organizations, and to drive a handful of men . hard bargains with labor, which was In this new industrial order, the beginning to organize effective- city was the nerve center, bringing ly . They could also exact favorable to a focus all the nation’s dynamic terms from railroads and exercise economic forces: vast accumulations influence in politics . of capital, business, and financial in- The Standard Oil Company, stitutions, spreading railroad yards, founded by John D . Rockefeller, smoky factories, armies of manual was one of the earliest and stron- and clerical workers . Villages, at- gest corporations, and was followed tracting people from the countryside rapidly by other combinations — in and from lands across the sea, grew

158 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY into towns and towns into cities al- meters from Chicago . Moreover, to most overnight . In 1830 only one of avoid competition rival companies every 15 Americans lived in commu- sometimes divided (“pooled”) the nities of 8,000 or more; in 1860 the freight business according to a pre- ratio was nearly one in every six; and arranged scheme that placed the to- in 1890 three in every 10 . No single tal earnings in a common fund for city had as many as a million in- distribution . habitants in 1860; but 30 years later Popular resentment at these prac- New York had a million and a half; tices stimulated state efforts at regu- Chicago, Illinois, and Philadelphia, lation, but the problem was national Pennsylvania, each had over a mil- in character . Shippers demanded lion . In these three decades, Phila- congressional action . In 1887 Presi- delphia and Baltimore, Maryland, dent Grover Cleveland signed the doubled in population; Kansas City, Interstate Commerce Act, which Missouri, and Detroit, Michigan, forbade excessive charges, pools, grew fourfold; Cleveland, Ohio, six- rebates, and rate discrimination . fold; Chicago, tenfold . Minneapolis, It created an Interstate Commerce Minnesota, and Omaha, Nebraska, Commission (ICC) to oversee the and many communities like them act, but gave it little enforcement — hamlets when the Civil War be- power . In the first decades of its ex- gan — increased 50 times or more in istence, virtually all the ICC’s efforts population . at regulation and rate reductions failed to pass judicial review . RAILROADS, REGULATIONS, President Cleveland also opposed AND THE TARIFF the protective tariff on foreign goods, which had come to be accepted as Railroads were especially impor- permanent national policy under the tant to the expanding nation, and Republican presidents who dominat- their practices were often criticized . ed the politics of the era . Cleveland, Rail lines extended cheaper freight a conservative Democrat, regarded rates to large shippers by rebating a tariff protection as an unwarranted portion of the charge, thus disadvan- subsidy to big business, giving the taging small shippers . Freight rates trusts pricing power to the disadvan- also frequently were not proportion- tage of ordinary Americans . Reflect- ate to distance traveled; competition ing the interests of their Southern usually held down charges between base, the Democrats had reverted cities with several rail connections . to their pre-Civil War opposition to Rates tended to be high between protection and advocacy of a “tariff points served by only one line . Thus for revenue only ”. it cost less to ship goods 1,280 kilo- Cleveland, narrowly elected in meters from Chicago to New York 1884, was unsuccessful in achieving than to places a few hundred kilo- tariff reform during his first term .

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He made the issue the keynote of his sistence to commercial agriculture . campaign for reelection, but Repub- Between 1860 and 1910, the number lican candidate Benjamin Harrison, of farms in the United States tripled, a defender of protectionism, won in increasing from two million to six a close race . In 1890, the Harrison million, while the area farmed more administration, fulfilling its cam- than doubled from 160 million to 352 paign promises, achieved passage of million hectares . the McKinley tariff, which increased Between 1860 and 1890, the pro- the already high rates . Blamed for duction of such basic commodities high retail prices, the McKinley du- as wheat, corn, and cotton out- ties triggered widespread dissatisfac- stripped all previous figures in the tion, led to Republican losses in the United States . In the same period, 1890 elections, and paved the way for the nation’s population more than Cleveland’s return to the presidency doubled, with the largest growth in in the 1892 election . the cities . But the American farmer During this period, public an- grew enough grain and cotton, tipathy toward the trusts increased . raised enough beef and pork, and The nation’s gigantic corpora- clipped enough wool not only to tions were subjected to bitter attack supply American workers and their through the 1880s by reformers such families but also to create ever-in- as Henry George and Edward Bel- creasing surpluses . lamy . The Sherman Antitrust Act, Several factors accounted for this passed in 1890, forbade all combina- extraordinary achievement . One was tions in restraint of interstate trade the expansion into the West . Anoth- and provided several methods of er was a technological revolution . enforcement with severe penalties . The farmer of 1800, using a hand Couched in vague generalities, the sickle, could hope to cut a fifth of law accomplished little immediately a hectare of wheat a day . With the after its passage . But a decade later, cradle, 30 years later, he might cut President Theodore Roosevelt would four-fifths . In 1840 Cyrus McCor- use it vigorously . mick performed a miracle by cutting from two to two-and-a-half hectares REVOLUTION IN a day with the reaper, a machine he AGRICULTURE had been developing for nearly 10 years . He headed west to the young Despite the great gains in industry, prairie town of Chicago, where he agriculture remained the nation’s set up a factory — and by 1860 sold a basic occupation . The revolution quarter of a million reapers . in agriculture — paralleling that in Other farm machines were de- manufacturing after the Civil War veloped in rapid succession: the — involved a shift from hand labor automatic wire binder, the threshing to machine farming, and from sub- (Continued on page 177.)

160 The silhouette of one of the United States’ most revered Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, stands in the shrine dedicated to his memory. “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

MONUMENTS AND

MEMORIALSA PICTURE PROFILE The monuments of American history span a continent in distance and centuries in time. They range from a massive serpent-shaped mound created by a long-gone Native-American culture to memorials in contemporary Washington, D.C., and New York City.

161 The snow-covered Old Granary cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, is burial ground for, among other leading American patriots, victims of the Boston Massacre, three signers of the Declaration of Independence, and six governors of Massachusetts. Originally founded by religious dissidents from England known as Puritans, Massachusetts was a leader in the struggle for independence against England. It was the setting for the Boston Tea Party and the first battles of the American Revolution — in Lexington and Concord. 163 The historic room in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where delegates drafted the Constitution of the United States in the summer of 1787. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It prescribes the form and authority of the federal government, and ensures the fundamental freedoms and rights of the citizens of the country through the Bill of Rights. 165 Statues guard the majestic façade of the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. The words engraved on the lintel over the Greek pillars embody one of America’s founding principles: “Equal Justice Under Law.”

166 The Statue of Liberty, one of the United States’ most beloved monuments, stands 151 feet high at the entrance to New York harbor. A gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States, it was intended to be an impressive symbol of human liberty. It was certainly that for the millions of immigrants who came to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, seeking freedom and a better life.

167 Aerial view of the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio. Carbon tests of the effigy revealed that the creators of this 1,330-foot monument were members of the Native-American Fort Ancient Culture (A.D. 1000-1550).

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an enduring symbol of American freedom. First rung on July 8, 1776, to celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it cracked in 1836 during the funeral of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

168 Two monuments to the central role Spain played in the exploration of what is now the United States. Top, the Castillo de San Marcos, built 1672-1695 to guard St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States. Above, fountain and mission remains of the San Juan Capistrano Mission, California, one of nine missions founded by Spanish Franciscan missionaries led by Fray Junípero Serra in the 1770s. Serra led the Spanish colonization of what is today the state of California. 170 The faces of four of the most admired American presidents were carved by Gutzon Borglum into the southeast face of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, beginning in 1927. From left to right, they are: George Washington, commander of the Revolutionary Army and first president of the young nation; Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence; Theodore Roosevelt, who led the country toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy; and Abraham Lincoln, who led the country through the Civil War and freed the slaves.

George Washington’s beloved home, Mount Vernon, by the Potomac River in Virginia, where he died on December 14, 1799, and is buried along with his wife Martha. Among other treasured items owned by the first president on display there, visitors can see one of the keys to the Bastille, a gift to Washington from the Marquis de Lafayette.

171 Six-year-old Mary Zheng straightens a flower placed at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2000. The names of more than 58,000 servicemen who died in the war or remain missing are etched on the “wall” part of the memorial, pictured here. This portion of the monument was designed by Maya Lin, then a student at Yale University.

172

An autumnal view of Arlington Cemetery, Virginia, America’s largest and best-known national burial grounds. More than 260,000 people are buried at Arlington Cemetery, including veterans from all the nation’s wars.

A mother and daughter viewing documents in the Exhibition Hall of the National Archives. The U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights are on display in this Washington, D.C., building. Fireworks celebrating the arrival of the Millennium illuminate two major monuments in Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Memorial on the left and the obelisk-shaped Washington Monument, center. The Lincoln Memorial’s north and south side chambers contain carved inscriptions of his Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg Address. The tallest structure in the nation’s capital, the Washington Monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885.

175 Top, the World War II Memorial, opened in 2004, is the most recent addition to the many national monuments in Washington, D.C. It honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces of the United States, the more than 400,000 who died, and all who supported the war effort from home. Above, the planned design for the World Trade Center Memorial in New York City is depicted in this photograph of a model unveiled in late 2004. “Reflecting Absence” will preserve not only the memory of those who died in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, but the visible remnants of the buildings destroyed that morning, too.

176 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY machine, and the reaper-thresher or produced scores of new fruits and combine . Mechanical planters, cut- vegetables; in Wisconsin, Stephen ters, huskers, and shellers appeared, Babcock devised a test for determin- as did cream separators, manure ing the butterfat content of milk; at spreaders, potato planters, hay dri- Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, the ers, poultry incubators, and a hun- African-American scientist George dred other inventions . Washington Carver found hundreds Scarcely less important than of new uses for the peanut, sweet po- machinery in the agricultural rev- tato, and soybean . olution was science . In 1862 the In varying degrees, the explosion Morrill Land Grant College Act al- in agricultural science and technol- lotted public land to each state for ogy affected farmers all over the the establishment of agricultural world, raising yields, squeezing out and industrial colleges . These were small producers, and driving migra- to serve both as educational institution to industrial cities . Railroads tions and as centers for research in and steamships, moreover, began to scientific farming . Congress subse- pull regional markets into one large quently appropriated funds for the world market with prices instantly creation of agricultural experiment communicated by trans-Atlantic ca- stations throughout the country and ble as well as ground wires . Good granted funds directly to the De- news for urban consumers, falling partment of Agriculture for research agricultural prices threatened the purposes . By the beginning of the livelihood of many American farm- new century, scientists throughout ers and touched off a wave of agrar- the United States were at work on a ian discontent . wide variety of agricultural projects . One of these scientists, Mark THE DIVIDED SOUTH Carleton, traveled for the Depart- ment of Agriculture to Russia . There After Reconstruction, Southern he found and exported to his home- leaders pushed hard to attract indus- land the rust- and drought-resistant try . States offered large inducements winter wheat that now accounts and cheap labor to investors to de- for more than half the U S. . wheat velop the steel, lumber, tobacco, and crop . Another scientist, Marion textile industries . Yet in 1900 the re- Dorset, conquered the dreaded hog gion’s percentage of the nation’s in- cholera, while still another, George dustrial base remained about what Mohler, helped prevent hoof-and- it had been in 1860 . Moreover, the mouth disease . From North Africa, price of this drive for industrializa- one researcher brought back Kaf- tion was high: Disease and child fir corn; from Turkestan, another labor proliferated in Southern mill imported the yellow-flowering al- towns . Thirty years after the Civil falfa . Luther Burbank in California War, the South was still poor, over-

177 CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION whelmingly agrarian, and economi- Faced with pervasive discrimina- cally dependent . Moreover, its race tion, many African Americans fol- relations reflected not just the legacy lowed Booker T . Washington, who of slavery, but what was emerging as counseled them to focus on modest the central theme of its history — a economic goals and to accept tem- determination to enforce white su- porary social discrimination . Oth- premacy at any cost . ers, led by the African-American Intransigent white Southerners intellectual W E. B. . DuBois, wanted found ways to assert state control to challenge segregation through to maintain white dominance . Sev- political action . But with both ma- eral Supreme Court decisions also jor parties uninterested in the is- bolstered their efforts by upholding sue and scientific theory of the time traditional Southern views of the ap- generally accepting black inferior- propriate balance between national ity, calls for racial justice attracted and state power . little support . In 1873 the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment (citi- THE LAST FRONTIER zenship rights not to be abridged) conferred no new privileges or im- In 1865 the frontier line generally munities to protect African Amer- followed the western limits of the icans from state power . In 1883, states bordering the Mississippi Riv- furthermore, it ruled that the 14th er, but bulged outward beyond the Amendment did not prevent indi- eastern sections of Texas, Kansas, viduals, as opposed to states, from and Nebraska . Then, running north practicing discrimination . And in and south for nearly 1,600 kilome- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court ters, loomed huge mountain ranges, found that “separate but equal” many rich in silver, gold, and other public accommodations for Afri- metals . To their west, plains and des- can Americans, such as trains and erts stretched to the wooded coastal restaurants, did not violate their ranges and the Pacific Ocean . Apart rights . Soon the principle of segre- from the settled districts in Cali- gation by race extended into every fornia and scattered outposts, the area of Southern life, from railroads vast inland region was populated to restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and by Native Americans: among them schools . Moreover, any area of life the Great Plains tribes — Sioux and that was not segregated by law was Blackfoot, Pawnee and Cheyenne — segregated by custom and practice . and the Indian cultures of the South- Further curtailment of the right to west, including Apache, Navajo, and vote followed . Periodic lynchings Hopi . by mobs underscored the region’s A mere quarter-century later, determination to subjugate its Afri- virtually all this country had been can-American population . carved into states and territories .

178 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Miners had ranged over the whole days . The continental rail network of the mountain country, tunnel- grew steadily; by 1884 four great ing into the earth, establishing little lines linked the central Mississippi communities in Nevada, Montana, Valley area with the Pacific . and Colorado . Cattle ranchers, tak- The first great rush of population ing advantage of the enormous to the Far West was drawn to the grasslands, had laid claim to the mountainous regions, where gold huge expanse stretching from Texas was found in California in 1848, in to the upper Missouri River . Sheep Colorado and Nevada 10 years lat- herders had found their way to the er, in Montana and Wyoming in the valleys and mountain slopes . Farm- 1860s, and in the Black Hills of the ers sank their plows into the plains Dakota country in the 1870s . Miners and closed the gap between the East opened up the country, established and West . By 1890 the frontier line communities, and laid the founda- had disappeared . tions for more permanent settle- Settlement was spurred by the ments . Eventually, however, though Homestead Act of 1862, which a few communities continued to be granted free farms of 64 hectares devoted almost exclusively to min- to citizens who would occupy and ing, the real wealth of Montana, improve the land . Unfortunately for Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and the would-be farmers, much of the California proved to be in the grass Great Plains was suited more for and soil . Cattle-raising, long an cattle ranching than farming, and important industry in Texas, flour- by 1880 nearly 22,400,000 hectares ished after the Civil War, when of “free” land were in the hands of enterprising men began to drive cattlemen or the railroads . their Texas longhorn cattle north In 1862 Congress also voted a across the open public land . Feed- charter to the Union Pacific Rail- ing as they went, the cattle arrived road, which pushed westward from at railway shipping points in Kan- Council Bluffs, Iowa, using mostly sas, larger and fatter than when the labor of ex-soldiers and Irish im- they started . The annual cattle drive migrants . At the same time, the Cen- became a regular event; for hundreds tral Pacific Railroad began to build of kilometers, trails were dotted with eastward from Sacramento, Cali- herds moving northward . fornia, relying heavily on Chinese Next, immense cattle ranches immigrant labor . The whole country appeared in Colorado, Wyoming, was stirred as the two lines steadily Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakota approached each other, finally meet- territory . Western cities flourished ing on May 10, 1869, at Promontory as centers for the slaughter of cat- Point in Utah . The months of labo- tle and dressing of meat . The cat- rious travel hitherto separating the tle boom peaked in the mid-1880s . two oceans was now cut to about six By then, not far behind the rancher

179 CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION creaked the covered wagons of the the Sioux were particularly skilled farmers bringing their families, their at high-speed mounted warfare . draft horses, cows, and pigs . Under The Apaches were equally adept and the Homestead Act they staked their highly elusive, fighting in their envi- claims and fenced them with a new rons of desert and canyons . invention, barbed wire . Ranchers Conflicts with the Plains Indians were ousted from lands they had worsened after an incident where the roamed without legal title . Dakota (part of the Sioux nation), Ranching and the cattle drives declaring war against the U S. . gov- gave American mythology its last ernment because of long-standing icon of frontier culture — the cow- grievances, killed five white settlers . boy . The reality of cowboy life was Rebellions and attacks continued one of grueling hardship . As de- through the Civil War . In 1876 the picted by writers like Zane Grey and last serious Sioux war erupted, when movie actors such as John Wayne, the Dakota gold rush penetrated the cowboy was a powerful mytho- the Black Hills . The Army was sup- logical figure, a bold, virtuous man posed to keep miners off Sioux hunt- of action . Not until the late 20th cen- ing grounds, but did little to protect tury did a reaction set in . Histori- the Sioux lands . When ordered to ans and filmmakers alike began to take action against bands of Sioux depict “the Wild West” as a sordid hunting on the range according to place, peopled by characters more their treaty rights, however, it moved apt to reflect the worst, rather than quickly and vigorously . the best, in human nature . In 1876, after several indecisive encounters, Colonel George Custer, THE PLIGHT OF leading a small detachment of cav- THE NATIVE AMERICANS alry encountered a vastly superior force of Sioux and their allies on the As in the East, expansion into the Little Bighorn River . Custer and his plains and mountains by miners, men were completely annihilated . ranchers, and settlers led to increas- Nonetheless the Native-American ing conflicts with the Native Amer- insurgency was soon suppressed . icans of the West . Many tribes of Later, in 1890, a ghost dance ritual Native Americans — from the Utes on the Northern Sioux reservation of the Great Basin to the Nez Perces at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, of Idaho — fought the whites at one led to an uprising and a last, tragic time or another . But the Sioux of encounter that ended in the death the Northern Plains and the Apache of nearly 300 Sioux men, women, of the Southwest provided the most and children . significant opposition to frontier ad- Long before this, however, the vance . Led by such resourceful lead- way of life of the Plains Indians ers as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, had been destroyed by an expand-

180 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY ing white population, the coming which time the owner won full title of the railroads, and the slaughter of and citizenship . Lands not thus dis- the buffalo, almost exterminated in tributed, however, were offered for the decade after 1870 by the settlers’ sale to settlers . This policy, however indiscriminate hunting . well-intentioned, proved disastrous, The Apache wars in the South- since it allowed more plundering of west dragged on until Geronimo, the Native-American lands . Moreover, last important chief, was captured in its assault on the communal orga- 1886 . nization of tribes caused further Government policy ever since the disruption of traditional culture . In Monroe administration had been 1934 U S. . policy was reversed yet to move the Native Americans be- again by the Indian Reorganiza- yond the reach of the white frontier . tion Act, which attempted to pro- But inevitably the reservations had tect tribal and communal life on the become smaller and more crowd- reservations . ed . Some Americans began to protest the government’s treatment of AMBIVALENT EMPIRE Native Americans . Helen Hunt Jack- son, for example, an Easterner liv- The last decades of the 19th century ing in the West, wrote A Century of were a period of imperial expansion Dishonor (1881), which dramatized for the United States . The American their plight and struck a chord in story took a different course from the nation’s conscience . Most re- that of its European rivals, however, formers believed the Native Ameri- because of the U S. . history of strug- can should be assimilated into the gle against European empires and its dominant culture . The federal gov- unique democratic development . ernment even set up a school in Car- The sources of American ex- lisle, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to pansionism in the late 19th century impose white values and beliefs on were varied . Internationally, the pe- Native-American youths . (It was at riod was one of imperialist frenzy, this school that Jim Thorpe, often as European powers raced to carve considered the best athlete the Unit- up Africa and competed, along with ed States has produced, gained fame Japan, for influence and trade in in the early 20th century ). Asia . Many Americans, including In 1887 the Dawes (General Al- influential figures such as Theodore lotment) Act reversed U S. . Native- Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and American policy, permitting the Elihu Root, felt that to safeguard its president to divide up tribal land own interests, the United States had and parcel out 65 hectares of land to stake out spheres of economic in- to each head of a family . Such al- fluence as well . That view was sec- lotments were to be held in trust by onded by a powerful naval lobby, the government for 25 years, after which called for an expanded fleet

181 CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION and network of overseas ports as es- United States exercising control or sential to the economic and political influence over islands in the Carib- security of the nation . More general- bean Sea and the Pacific . ly, the doctrine of “manifest destiny,” By the 1890s, Cuba and Puer- first used to justify America’s conti- to Rico were the only remnants of nental expansion, was now revived Spain’s once vast empire in the New to assert that the United States had World, and the Philippine Islands a right and duty to extend its influ- comprised the core of Spanish power ence and civilization in the Western in the Pacific . The outbreak of war Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as had three principal sources: popular well as across the Pacific . hostility to autocratic Spanish rule At the same time, voices of anti- in Cuba; U .S . sympathy with the Cu- imperialism from diverse coalitions ban fight for independence; and a of Northern Democrats and reform- new spirit of national assertiveness, minded Republicans remained loud stimulated in part by a nationalistic and constant . As a result, the acqui- and sensationalist press . sition of a U .S . empire was piecemeal By 1895 Cuba’s growing restive- and ambivalent . Colonial-minded ness had become a guerrilla war administrations were often more of independence . Most Americans concerned with trade and economic were sympathetic with the Cubans, issues than political control . but President Cleveland was deter- The United States’ first venture mined to preserve neutrality . Three beyond its continental borders was years later, however, during the ad- the purchase of Alaska — sparsely ministration of William McKinley, populated by Inuit and other native the U S. . warship Maine, sent to Ha- peoples — from Russia in 1867 . Most vana on a “courtesy visit” designed Americans were either indifferent to to remind the Spanish of American or indignant at this action by Secre- concern over the rough handling of tary of State William Seward, whose the insurrection, blew up in the har- critics called Alaska “Seward’s Folly” bor . More than 250 men were killed . and “Seward’s Icebox ”. But 30 years The Maine was probably destroyed later, when gold was discovered on by an accidental internal explosion, Alaska’s Klondike River, thousands but most Americans believed the of Americans headed north, and Spanish were responsible . Indigna- many of them settled in Alaska per- tion, intensified by sensationalized manently . When Alaska became the press coverage, swept across the 49th state in 1959, it replaced Texas country . McKinley tried to preserve as geographically the largest state in the peace, but within a few months, the Union . believing delay futile, he recom- The Spanish-American War, mended armed intervention . fought in 1898, marked a turn- The war with Spain was swift and ing point in U S. . history . It left the decisive . During the four months it

182 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY lasted, not a single American reverse democratic self-government, a po- of any importance occurred . A week litical system with which none of after the declaration of war, Com- them had any previous experience . modore George Dewey, commander In fact, the United States found itself of the six-warship Asiatic Squad- in a colonial role . It maintained for- ron then at Hong Kong, steamed to mal administrative control in Puer- the Philippines . Catching the entire to Rico and Guam, gave Cuba only Spanish fleet at anchor in Manila nominal independence, and harshly Bay, he destroyed it without losing suppressed an armed independence an American life . movement in the Philippines . (The Meanwhile, in Cuba, troops land- Philippines gained the right to elect ed near Santiago, where, after win- both houses of its legislature in ning a rapid series of engagements, 1916 . In 1936 a largely autonomous they fired on the port . Four armored Philippine Commonwealth was es- Spanish cruisers steamed out of San- tablished . In 1946, after World War tiago Bay to engage the American II, the islands finally attained full navy and were reduced to ruined independence ). hulks . U S. . involvement in the Pacific From Boston to San Francisco, area was not limited to the Philip- whistles blew and flags waved when pines . The year of the Spanish-Amer- word came that Santiago had fallen . ican War also saw the beginning of a Newspapers dispatched correspon- new relationship with the Hawaiian dents to Cuba and the Philippines, Islands . Earlier contact with Hawaii who trumpeted the renown of the had been mainly through missionar- nation’s new heroes . Chief among ies and traders . After 1865, however, them were Commodore Dewey and American investors began to devel- Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who op the islands’ resources — chiefly had resigned as assistant secretary of sugarcane and pineapples . the navy to lead his volunteer regi- When the government of Queen ment, the “Rough Riders,” to service Liliuokalani announced its inten- in Cuba . Spain soon sued for an end tion to end foreign influence in 1893, to the war . The peace treaty signed American businessmen joined with on December 10, 1898, transferred influential Hawaiians to depose her . Cuba to the United States for tem- Backed by the American ambassa- porary occupation preliminary to dor to Hawaii and U S. . troops sta- the island’s independence . In addi- tioned there, the new government tion, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and then asked to be annexed to the Guam in lieu of war indemnity, and United States . President Cleveland, the Philippines for a U .S . payment of just beginning his second term, re- $20 million . jected annexation, leaving Hawaii Officially, U .S . policy encouraged nominally independent until the the new territories to move toward Spanish-American War, when, with

183 CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION the backing of President McKinley, cans have settled on the mainland, Congress ratified an annexation to which they have free access and treaty . In 1959 Hawaii would be- where they enjoy all the political and come the 50th state . civil rights of any other citizen of the To some extent, in Hawaii espe- United States . cially, economic interests had a role in American expansion, but to influ- THE CANAL AND THE ential policy makers such as Roos- AMERICAS evelt, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and Secretary of State John Hay, The war with Spain revived U S. . and to influential strategists such interest in building a canal across as Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, the isthmus of Panama, uniting the the main impetus was geostrategic . two great oceans . The usefulness of For these people, the major dividend such a canal for sea trade had long of acquiring Hawaii was Pearl Har- been recognized by the major com- bor, which would become the major mercial nations of the world; the U .S . naval base in the central Pacific . French had begun digging one in The Philippines and Guam comple- the late 19th century but had been mented other Pacific bases — Wake unable to overcome the engineering Island, Midway, and American Sa- difficulties . Having become a power moa . Puerto Rico was an important in both the Caribbean Sea and the foothold in a Caribbean area that Pacific Ocean, the United States saw was becoming increasingly impor- a canal as both economically benefi- tant as the United States contemplat- cial and a way of providing speedier ed a Central American canal . transfer of warships from one ocean U S. . colonial policy tended to- to the other . ward democratic self-government . At the turn of the century, what As it had done with the Philippines, is now Panama was the rebellious in 1917 the U S. . Congress granted northern province of Colombia . Puerto Ricans the right to elect all When the Colombian legislature in of their legislators . The same law 1903 refused to ratify a treaty giv- also made the island officially a U .S . ing the United States the right to territory and gave its people Ameri- build and manage a canal, a group can citizenship . In 1950 Congress of impatient Panamanians, with the granted Puerto Rico complete free- support of U S. . Marines, rose in re- dom to decide its future . In 1952, bellion and declared Panamanian the citizens voted to reject either independence . The breakaway coun- statehood or total independence, try was immediately recognized by and chose instead a commonwealth President Theodore Roosevelt . Un- status that has endured despite the der the terms of a treaty signed that efforts of a vocal separatist move- November, Panama granted the ment . Large numbers of Puerto Ri- United States a perpetual lease to a

184 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

16-kilometer-wide strip of land (the ence the Mexican revolution and Panama Canal Zone) between the stop raids into American territory, Atlantic and the Pacific, in return President Woodrow Wilson sent for $10 million and a yearly fee of 11,000 troops into the northern part $250,000 . Colombia later received of the country in a futile effort to $25 million as partial compensation . capture the elusive rebel and outlaw Seventy-five years later, Panama and Francisco “Pancho” Villa . the United States negotiated a new Exercising its role as the most treaty . It provided for Panamanian powerful — and most liberal — of sovereignty in the Canal Zone and Western Hemisphere nations, the transfer of the canal to Panama on United States also worked to estab- December 31, 1999 . lish an institutional basis for coop- The completion of the Panama eration among the nations of the Canal in 1914, directed by Colonel Americas . In 1889 Secretary of State George W . Goethals, was a major James G . Blaine proposed that the 21 triumph of engineering . The simul- independent nations of the Western taneous conquest of malaria and yel- Hemisphere join in an organization low fever made it possible and was dedicated to the peaceful settlement one of the 20th century’s great feats of disputes and to closer econom- in preventive medicine . ic bonds . The result was the Pan- Elsewhere in Latin America, the American Union, founded in 1890 United States fell into a pattern of and known today as the Organiza- fitful intervention . Between 1900 tion of American States (OAS) . and 1920, the United States carried The later administrations of out sustained interventions in six Herbert Hoover (1929-33) and Western Hemispheric nations — Franklin D . Roosevelt (1933-45) re- most notably Haiti, the Dominican pudiated the right of U S. . interven- Republic, and Nicaragua . Washing- tion in Latin America . In particular, ton offered a variety of justifications Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy for these interventions: to establish of the 1930s, while not ending all political stability and democratic tensions between the United States government, to provide a favorable and Latin America, helped dissipate environment for U S. . investment much of the ill-will engendered by (often called dollar diplomacy), to earlier U .S . intervention and unilat- secure the sea lanes leading to the eral actions . Panama Canal, and even to prevent European countries from forcibly UNITED STATES AND ASIA collecting debts . The United States had pressured the French into re- Newly established in the Philip- moving troops from Mexico in 1867 . pines and firmly entrenched in Ha- Half a century later, however, as part waii at the turn of the century, the of an ill-starred campaign to influ- United States had high hopes for a

185 CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION vigorous trade with China . However, territorial or administrative rights Japan and various European nations and restated the Open Door policy . had acquired established spheres of Once the rebellion was quelled, Hay influence there in the form of naval protected China from crushing in- bases, leased territories, monopolis- demnities . Primarily for the sake of tic trade rights, and exclusive con- American goodwill, Great Britain, cessions for investing in railway Germany, and lesser colonial powers construction and mining . formally affirmed the Open Door Idealism in American foreign policy and Chinese independence . policy existed alongside the desire In practice, they consolidated their to compete with Europe’s imperi- privileged positions in the country . al powers in the Far East . The U S. . A few years later, President government thus insisted as a matter Theodore Roosevelt mediated the of principle upon equality of com- deadlocked Russo-Japanese War of mercial privileges for all nations . 1904-05, in many respects a strug- In September 1899, Secretary of gle for power and influence in the State John Hay advocated an “Open northern Chinese province of Man- Door” for all nations in China — churia . Roosevelt hoped the settle- that is, equality of trading opportu- ment would provide open-door nities (including equal tariffs, har- opportunities for American busi- bor duties, and railway rates) in the ness, but the former enemies and areas Europeans controlled . Despite other imperial powers succeeded in its idealistic component, the Open shutting the Americans out . Here Door, in essence, was a diplomatic as elsewhere, the United States was maneuver that sought the advantag- unwilling to deploy military force es of colonialism while avoiding the in the service of economic imperi- stigma of its frank practice . It had alism . The president could at least limited success . content himself with the award of With the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the Nobel Peace Prize (1906) . De- the Chinese struck out against for- spite gains for Japan, moreover, U S. . eigners . In June, insurgents seized relations with the proud and new- Beijing and attacked the foreign ly assertive island nation would be legations there . Hay promptly an- intermittently difficult through the nounced to the European powers and early decades of the 20th century . 9 Japan that the United States would oppose any disturbance of Chinese

186 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY J.P. MORGAN AND FINANCE CAPITALISM

The rise of American industry required more than great industrialists. Big industry required big amounts of capital; headlong economic growth required foreign investors. John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan was the most important of the American financiers who underwrote both requirements. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Morgan headed the nation’s largest investment banking firm. It brokered American securities to wealthy elites at home and abroad. Since foreigners needed assurance that their investments were in a stable currency, Morgan had a strong interest in keeping the dollar tied to its legal value in gold. In the absence of an official U.S. central bank, he became the de facto manager of the task. From the 1880s through the early 20th century, Morgan and Company not only managed the securities that underwrote many important corporate consolidations, it actually originated some of them. The most stunning of these was the U.S. Steel Corporation, which combined Carnegie Steel with several other companies. Its corporate stock and bonds were sold to investors at the then-unprecedented sum of $1.4 billion. Morgan originated, and made large profits from, numerous other mergers. Acting as primary banker to numerous railroads, moreover, he effectively muted competition among them. His organizational efforts brought stability to American industry by ending price wars to the disadvantage of farmers and small manufacturers, who saw him as an oppressor. In 1901, when he established the Northern Securities Company to control a group of major railroads, President Theodore Roosevelt authorized a successful Sherman Antitrust Act suit to break up the merger. Acting as an unofficial central banker, Morgan took the lead in supporting the dollar during the economic depression of the mid-1890s by marketing a large government bond issue that raised funds to replenish Treasury gold supplies. At the same time, his firm undertook a short-term guarantee of the nation’s gold reserves. In 1907, he took the lead in organizing the New York financial community to prevent a potentially ruinous string of bankruptcies. In the process, his own firm acquired a large independent steel company, which it amalgamated with U.S. Steel. President Roosevelt personally approved the action in order to avert a serious depression. By then, Morgan’s power was so great that most Americans instinctively distrusted and disliked him. With some exaggeration, reformers depicted him as the director of a “money trust” that controlled America. By the time of his death in 1913, the country was in the final stages of at last reestablishing a central bank, the Federal Reserve System, that would assume much of the responsibility he had exercised unofficially. 

187 188 CHAPTER 9 DISCONTENT AND REFORM

Suffragists march on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., March 3, 1913. CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM

“A great democracy will be neither great nor a democracy if it is not progressive.”

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, circa 1910

AGRARIAN DISTRESS AND Midwestern farmers were in- THE RISE OF POPULISM creasingly restive over what they considered excessive railroad In spite of their remarkable prog- freight rates to move their goods ress, late-19th century American to market . They believed that the farmers experienced recurring pe- protective tariff, a subsidy to big riods of hardship . Mechanical im- business, drove up the price of their provements greatly increased yield increasingly expensive equipment . per hectare . The amount of land un- Squeezed by low market prices der cultivation grew rapidly through- and high costs, they resented ever- out the second half of the century, heavier debt loads and the banks as the railroads and the gradual that held their mortgages . Even the displacement of the Plains Indians weather was hostile . During the late opened up new areas for western 1880s droughts devastated the west- settlement . A similar expansion of ern Great Plains and bankrupted agricultural lands in countries such thousands of settlers . as Canada, Argentina, and Australia In the South, the end of slavery compounded these problems in the brought major changes . Much ag- international market, where much ricultural land was now worked by of U S. . agricultural production was sharecroppers, tenants who gave now sold . Everywhere, heavy sup- up to half of their crop to a land- ply pushed the price of agricultural owner for rent, seed, and essential commodities downward . supplies . An estimated 80 percent

190 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY of the South’s African-American Colored Farmers National Alliance, farmers and 40 percent of its white claimed over a million members . ones lived under this debilitating Federating into two large North- system . Most were locked in a cycle ern and Southern blocs, the alli- of debt, from which the only hope of ances promoted elaborate economic escape was increased planting . This programs to “unite the farmers of led to the over-production of cotton America for their protection against and tobacco, and thus to declining class legislation and the encroach- prices and the further exhaustion ments of concentrated capital ”. of the soil . By 1890 the level of agrarian dis- The first organized effort to ad- tress, fueled by years of hardship and dress general agricultural problems hostility toward the McKinley tar- was by the Patrons of Husbandry, iff, was at an all-time high . Working a farmer’s group popularly known with sympathetic Democrats in the as the Grange Movement . Launched South or small third parties in the in 1867 by employees of the U S. . West, the Farmers’ Alliances made Department of Agriculture, the a push for political power . A third Granges focused initially on social political party, the People’s (or Pop- activities to counter the isolation ulist) Party, emerged . Never before most farm families encountered . in American politics had there been Women’s participation was actively anything like the Populist fervor encouraged . Spurred by the Panic that swept the prairies and cotton of 1873, the Grange soon grew to lands . The elections of 1890 brought 20,000 chapters and one-and-a-half the new party into power in a dozen million members . Southern and Western states, and The Granges set up their own sent a score of Populist senators and marketing systems, stores, process- representatives to Congress . ing plants, factories, and coopera- The first Populist convention tives, but most ultimately failed . The was in 1892 . Delegates from farm, movement also enjoyed some politi- labor, and reform organizations met cal success . During the 1870s, a few in Omaha, Nebraska, determined to states passed “Granger laws,” limit- overturn a U S. . political system they ing railroad and warehouse fees . viewed as hopelessly corrupted by By 1880 the Grange was in decline the industrial and financial trusts . and being replaced by the Farmers’ Their platform stated: Alliances, which were similar in We are met, in the midst of a many respects but more overtly po- nation brought to the verge of litical . By 1890 the alliances, initially moral, political, and material ruin. autonomous state organizations, Corruption dominates the ballot- had about 1 5 . million members box, the legislatures, the Congress, from New York to California . A par- and touches even the ermine of the allel African-American group, the bench [courts]. ... From the same

191 CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM

prolific womb of governmental The financial panic of 1893 injustice we breed the two great heightened the tension of this de- classes — tramps and millionaires. bate . Bank failures abounded in the South and Midwest; unemployment The pragmatic portion of their soared and crop prices fell badly . platform called for the national- The crisis and President Grover ization of the railroads; a low tar- Cleveland’s defense of the gold stan- iff; loans secured by non-perishable dard sharply divided the Democrat- crops stored in government-owned ic Party . Democrats who were silver warehouses; and, most explosively, supporters went over to the Popu- currency inflation through Treasury lists as the presidential elections of purchase and the unlimited coin- 1896 neared . age of silver at the “traditional” ratio The Democratic convention that of 16 ounces of silver to one ounce year was swayed by one of the most of gold . famous speeches in U S. . political The Populists showed impres- history . Pleading with the conven- sive strength in the West and South, tion not to “crucify mankind on a and their candidate for president cross of gold,” William Jennings polled more than a million votes . Bryan, the young Nebraskan cham- But the currency question soon over- pion of silver, won the Democrats’ shadowed all other issues . Agrar- presidential nomination . The Popu- ian spokesmen, convinced that their lists also endorsed Bryan . troubles stemmed from a shortage In the epic contest that followed, of money in circulation, argued Bryan carried almost all the South- that increasing the volume of mon- ern and Western states . But he lost ey would indirectly raise prices for the more populated, industrial farm products and drive up indus- North and East — and the election trial wages, thus allowing debts to — to Republican candidate William be paid with inflated currency . Con- McKinley . servative groups and the financial The following year the country’s classes, on the other hand, respond- finances began to improve, in part ed that the 16:1 price ratio was nearly owing to the discovery of gold in twice the market price for silver . A Alaska and the Yukon . This pro- policy of unlimited purchase would vided a basis for a conservative denude the U S. . Treasury of all its expansion of the money supply . In gold holdings, sharply devalue the 1898 the Spanish-American War dollar, and destroy the purchasing drew the nation’s attention further power of the working and middle from Populist issues . Populism and classes . Only the gold standard, they the silver issue were dead . Many of said, offered stability . the movement’s other reform ideas, however, lived on .

192 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

THE STRUGGLES OF LABOR 19th century and fostered huge con- centrations of wealth and power was The life of a 19th-century Ameri- backed by a judiciary that time and can industrial worker was hard . again ruled against those who chal- Even in good times wages were low, lenged the system . In this, they were hours long, and working conditions merely following the prevailing phi- hazardous . Little of the wealth that losophy of the times . Drawing on a the growth of the nation had gener- simplified understanding of Dar- ated went to its workers . Moreover, winian science, many social think- women and children made up a high ers believed that both the growth of percentage of the work force in some large business at the expense of small industries and often received but a enterprise and the wealth of a few fraction of the wages a man could alongside the poverty of many was earn . Periodic economic crises swept “survival of the fittest,” and an un- the nation, further eroding industri- avoidable by-product of progress . al wages and producing high levels American workers, especially the of unemployment . skilled among them, appear to have At the same time, technologi- lived at least as well as their coun- cal improvements, which added so terparts in industrial Europe . Still, much to the nation’s productivity, the social costs were high . As late continually reduced the demand for as the year 1900, the United States skilled labor . Yet the unskilled labor had the highest job-related fatality pool was constantly growing, as un- rate of any industrialized nation in precedented numbers of immigrants the world . Most industrial workers — 18 million between 1880 and 1910 still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours — entered the country, eager for in the steel industry), yet earned less work . than the minimum deemed neces- Before 1874, when Massachusetts sary for a decent life . The number of passed the nation’s first legislation children in the work force doubled limiting the number of hours wom- between 1870 and 1900 . en and child factory workers could The first major effort to orga- perform to 10 hours a day, virtually nize workers’ groups on a nation- no labor legislation existed in the wide basis appeared with the Noble country . It was not until the 1930s Order of the Knights of Labor in that the federal government would 1869 . Originally a secret, ritualistic become actively involved . Until society organized by Philadelphia then, the field was left to the state garment workers and advocating a and local authorities, few of whom cooperative program, it was open were as responsive to the workers as to all workers, including African they were to wealthy industrialists . Americans, women, and farmers . The laissez-faire capitalism that The Knights grew slowly until its dominated the second half of the railway workers’ unit won a strike

193 CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM against the great railroad baron, Jay policemen and at least four workers Gould, in 1885 . Within a year they were reported killed . Some 60 police added 500,000 workers to their rolls, officers were injured . but, not attuned to pragmatic trade In 1892, at Carnegie’s steel works unionism and unable to repeat this in Homestead, Pennsylvania, a success, the Knights soon fell into group of 300 Pinkerton detectives a decline . the company had hired to break a Their place in the labor move- bitter strike by the Amalgamated ment was gradually taken by the Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin American Federation of Labor Workers fought a fierce and losing (AFL) . Rather than open member- gun battle with strikers . The Na- ship to all, the AFL, under former ci- tional Guard was called in to protect gar union official Samuel Gompers, non-union workers and the strike was a group of unions focused on was broken . Unions were not let back skilled workers . Its objectives were into the plant until 1937 . “pure and simple” and apolitical: in- In 1894, wage cuts at the Pullman creasing wages, reducing hours, and Company just outside Chicago led to improving working conditions . It a strike, which, with the support of did much to turn the labor move- the American Railway Union, soon ment away from the socialist views tied up much of the country’s rail of most European labor movements . system . As the situation deteriorat- Nonetheless, both before the ed, U S. . Attorney General Richard founding of the AFL and after, Olney, himself a former railroad American labor history was violent . lawyer, deputized over 3,000 men in In the Great Rail Strike of 1877, rail an attempt to keep the rails open . workers across the nation went out This was followed by a federal court in response to a 10-percent pay cut . injunction against union interfer- Attempts to break the strike led to ri- ence with the trains . When rioting oting and wide-scale destruction in ensued, President Cleveland sent in several cities: Baltimore, Maryland; federal troops, and the strike was Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Penn- eventually broken . sylvania; Buffalo, New York; and San The most militant of the strike- Francisco, California . Federal troops favoring unions was the Industri- had to be sent to several locations al Workers of the World (IWW) . before the strike was ended . Formed from an amalgam of unions Nine years later, in Chicago’s fighting for better conditions in the Haymarket Square incident, some- West’s mining industry, the IWW, one threw a bomb at police about or “Wobblies” as they were com- to break up an anarchist rally in monly known, gained particular support of an ongoing strike at the prominence from the Colorado mine McCormick Harvester Company in clashes of 1903 and the singularly Chicago . In the ensuing melee, seven brutal fashion in which they were

194 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY put down . Influenced by militant country’s political foundations had anarchism and openly calling for endured the vicissitudes of foreign class warfare, the Wobblies gained and civil war, the tides of prosper- many adherents after they won a dif- ity and depression . Immense strides ficult strike battle in the textile mills had been made in agriculture and of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912 . industry . Free public education had Their call for work stoppages in the been largely realized and a free press midst of World War I, however, led maintained . The ideal of religious to a government crackdown in 1917 freedom had been sustained . The that virtually destroyed them . influence of big business was now more firmly entrenched than ever, THE REFORM IMPULSE however, and local and municipal government often was in the hands The presidential election of 1900 of corrupt politicians . gave the American people a chance In response to the excesses of to pass judgment on the Republican 19th-century capitalism and politi- administration of President McKin- cal corruption, a reform movement ley, especially its foreign policy . called “progressivism” arose, which Meeting at Philadelphia, the Repub- gave American politics and thought licans expressed jubilation over the its special character from approxi- successful outcome of the war with mately 1890 until the American en- Spain, the restoration of prosperity, try into World War I in 1917 . The and the effort to obtain new mar- Progressives had diverse objec- kets through the Open Door policy . tives . In general, however, they saw McKinley easily defeated his oppo- themselves as engaged in a demo- nent, once again William Jennings cratic crusade against the abuses of Bryan . But the president did not urban political bosses and the cor- live to enjoy his victory . In Septem- rupt “robber barons” of big business . ber 1901, while attending an expo- Their goals were greater democracy sition in Buffalo, New York, he was and social justice, honest govern- shot down by an assassin, the third ment, more effective regulation of president to be assassinated since the business, and a revived commitment Civil War . to public service . They believed that Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley’s expanding the scope of government vice president, assumed the presi- would ensure the progress of U .S . so- dency . Roosevelt’s accession coin- ciety and the welfare of its citizens . cided with a new epoch in American The years 1902 to 1908 marked political life and international rela- the era of greatest reform activity, tions . The continent was peopled; as writers and journalists strongly the frontier was disappearing . A protested practices and principles small, formerly struggling repub- inherited from the 18th-century lic had become a world power . The rural republic that were proving

195 CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM inadequate for a 20th-century ur- labor laws were strengthened and ban state . Years before, in 1873, the new ones adopted, raising age celebrated author Mark Twain had limits, shortening work hours, re- exposed American society to criti- stricting night work, and requiring cal scrutiny in The Gilded Age . Now, school attendance . trenchant articles dealing with trusts, high finance, impure foods, ROOSEVELT’S REFORMS and abusive railroad practices began to appear in the daily newspa- By the early 20th century, most pers and in such popular magazines of the larger cities and more than as McClure’s and Collier’s . Their au- half the states had established an thors, such as the journalist Ida M . eight-hour day on public works . Tarbell, who crusaded against the Equally important were the work- Standard Oil Trust, became known man’s compensation laws, which as “muckrakers ”. made employers legally responsible In his sensational novel, The for injuries sustained by employees Jungle, Upton Sinclair exposed un- at work . New revenue laws were also sanitary conditions in the great enacted, which, by taxing inheri- Chicago meat-packing houses and tances, incomes, and the property condemned the grip of the beef or earnings of corporations, sought trust on the nation’s meat supply . to place the burden of government Theodore Dreiser, in his novels The on those best able to pay . Financier and The Titan, made it It was clear to many people easy for laymen to understand the — notably President Theodore machinations of big business . Frank Roosevelt and Progressive leaders in Norris’s The Octopus assailed amor- the Congress (foremost among them al railroad management; his The Pit Wisconsin Senator Robert La Fol- depicted secret manipulations on lette) — that most of the problems the Chicago grain market . Lincoln reformers were concerned about Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities could be solved only if dealt with on bared local political corruption . a national scale . Roosevelt declared This “literature of exposure” roused his determination to give all the people to action . American people a “Square Deal ”. The hammering impact of un- During his first term, he initiated compromising writers and an in- a policy of increased government su- creasingly aroused public spurred pervision through the enforcement political leaders to take practical of antitrust laws . With his back- measures . Many states enacted laws ing, Congress passed the Elkins Act to improve the conditions under (1903), which greatly restricted the which people lived and worked . At railroad practice of giving rebates the urging of such prominent so- to favored shippers . The act made cial critics as Jane Addams, child published rates the lawful standard,

196 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY and shippers equally liable with Commission real authority in regu- railroads for rebates . Meanwhile, lating rates, extended the commis- Congress had created a new Cabi- sion’s jurisdiction, and forced the net Department of Commerce and railroads to surrender their inter- Labor, which included a Bureau of locking interests in steamship lines Corporations empowered to investi- and coal companies . gate the affairs of large business ag- Other congressional measures gregations . carried the principle of federal con- Roosevelt won acclaim as a trol still further . The Pure Food and “trust-buster,” but his actual atti- Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the use tude toward big business was com- of any “deleterious drug, chemical, plex . Economic concentration, he or preservative” in prepared medi- believed, was inevitable . Some trusts cines and foods . The Meat Inspec- were “good,” some “bad ”. The task of tion Act of the same year mandated government was to make reasonable federal inspection of all meat-pack- distinctions . When, for example, the ing establishments engaged in inter- Bureau of Corporations discovered state commerce . in 1907 that the American Sugar Re- Conservation of the nation’s nat- fining Company had evaded import ural resources, managed develop- duties, subsequent legal actions re- ment of the public domain, and the covered more than $4 million and reclamation of wide stretches of ne- convicted several company officials . glected land were among the other The Standard Oil Company was in- major achievements of the Roosevelt dicted for receiving secret rebates era . Roosevelt and his aides were from the Chicago and Alton Rail- more than conservationists, but giv- road, convicted, and fined a stagger- en the helter-skelter exploitation of ing $29 million . public resources that had preceded Roosevelt’s striking personality them, conservation loomed large on and his trust-busting activities cap- their agenda . Whereas his predeces- tured the imagination of the ordinary sors had set aside 18,800,000 hect- individual; approval of his progres- ares of timberland for preservation sive measures cut across party lines . and parks, Roosevelt increased the In addition, the abounding prosper- area to 59,200,000 hectares . They ity of the country at this time led also began systematic efforts to pre- people to feel satisfied with the party vent forest fires and to re-timber de- in office . He won an easy victory in nuded tracts . the 1904 presidential election . Emboldened by a sweeping elec- TAFT AND WILSON toral triumph, Roosevelt called for stronger railroad regulation . In June Roosevelt’s popularity was at its 1906 Congress passed the Hepburn peak as the campaign of 1908 neared, Act . It gave the Interstate Commerce but he was unwilling to break the

197 CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM tradition by which no president had Roosevelt who ran as the candidate held office for more than two terms . of a new Progressive Party . Wilson, Instead, he supported William How- in a spirited campaign, defeated both ard Taft, who had served under him rivals . as governor of the Philippines and During his first term, Wilson secretary of war . Taft, pledging to secured one of the most notable leg- continue Roosevelt’s programs, de- islative programs in American histo- feated Bryan, who was running for ry . The first task was tariff revision . the third and last time . “The tariff duties must be altered,” The new president continued the Wilson said . “We must abolish ev- prosecution of trusts with less dis- erything that bears any semblance crimination than Roosevelt, further of privilege ”. The Underwood Tariff, strengthened the Interstate Com- signed on October 3, 1913, provided merce Commission, established a substantial rate reductions on im- postal savings bank and a parcel post ported raw materials and foodstuffs, system, expanded the civil service, cotton and woolen goods, iron and and sponsored the enactment of two steel; it removed the duties from amendments to the Constitution, more than a hundred other items . both adopted in 1913 . Although the act retained many pro- The 16th Amendment, rati- tective features, it was a genuine at- fied just before Taft left office, au- tempt to lower the cost of living . To thorized a federal income tax; the compensate for lost revenues, it es- 17th Amendment, approved a few tablished a modest income tax . months later, mandated the direct The second item on the Demo- election of senators by the people, cratic program was a long overdue, instead of state legislatures . Yet bal- thorough reorganization of the ram- anced against these progressive mea- shackle banking and currency sys- sures was Taft’s acceptance of a new tem . “Control,” said Wilson, “must tariff with higher protective sched- be public, not private, must be vested ules; his opposition to the entry of in the government itself, so that the the state of Arizona into the Union banks may be the instruments, not because of its liberal constitution; the masters, of business and of indi- and his growing reliance on the con- vidual enterprise and initiative ”. servative wing of his party . The Federal Reserve Act of De- By 1910 Taft’s party was bitterly cember 23, 1913, was Wilson’s most divided . Democrats gained control enduring legislative accomplish- of Congress in the midterm elec- ment . Conservatives had favored tions . Two years later, Woodrow establishment of one powerful cen- Wilson, the Democratic, progressive tral bank . The new act, in line with governor of the state of New Jersey, the Democratic Party’s Jeffersonian campaigned against Taft, the Repub- sentiments, divided the country into lican candidate — and also against 12 districts, with a Federal Reserve

198 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Bank in each, all supervised by a na- of 1914 established an “extension tional Federal Reserve Board with system” of county agents to assist limited authority to set interest rates . farming throughout the country . The act assured greater flexibility in Subsequent acts made credit avail- the money supply and made provi- able to farmers at low rates of in- sion for issuing federal-reserve notes terest . The Seamen’s Act of 1915 to meet business demands . Greater improved living and working con- centralization of the system would ditions on board ships . The Fed- come in the 1930s . eral Workingman’s Compensation The next important task was Act in 1916 authorized allowances trust regulation and investigation of to civil service employees for dis- corporate abuses . Congress autho- abilities incurred at work and estab- rized a Federal Trade Commission lished a model for private enterprise . to issue orders prohibiting “unfair The Adamson Act of the same year methods of competition” by busi- established an eight-hour day for ness concerns in interstate trade . railroad labor . The Clayton Antitrust Act forbade This record of achievement won many corporate practices that had Wilson a firm place in American thus far escaped specific condem- history as one of the nation’s fore- nation: interlocking directorates, most progressive reformers . How- price discrimination among pur- ever, his domestic reputation would chasers, use of the injunction in soon be overshadowed by his record labor disputes, and ownership by as a wartime president who led his one corporation of stock in similar country to victory but could not enterprises . hold the support of his people for Farmers and other workers were the peace that followed . 9 not forgotten . The Smith-Lever Act

199 CHAPTER 9: DISCONTENT AND REFORM A NATION OF NATIONS

No country’s history has been more closely bound to immigration than that of the United States. During the first 15 years of the 20th century alone, over 13 million people came to the United States, many passing through Ellis Island, the federal immigration center that opened in New York harbor in 1892. (Though no longer in service, Ellis Island reopened in 1992 as a monument to the millions who crossed the nation’s threshold there.) The first official census in 1790 had numbered Americans at 3,929,214. Approximately half of the population of the original 13 states was of English origin; the rest were Scots-Irish, German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Welsh, and Finnish. These white Europeans were mostly Protestants. A fifth of the population was enslaved Africans. From early on, Americans viewed immigrants as a necessary resource for an expanding country. As a result, few official restrictions were placed upon immigration into the United States until the 1920s. As more and more immigrants arrived, however, some Americans became fearful that their culture was threatened. The Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, had been ambivalent over whether or not the United States ought to welcome arrivals from every corner of the globe. Jefferson wondered whether democracy could ever rest safely in the hands of men from countries that revered monarchs or replaced royalty with mob rule. However, few supported closing the gates to newcomers in a country desperate for labor. Immigration lagged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as wars dis- rupted trans-Atlantic travel and European governments restricted movement to retain young men of military age. Still, as European populations increased, more people on the same land constricted the size of farming lots to a point where families could barely survive. Moreover, cottage industries were falling victim to an Industrial Revolution that was mechanizing production. Thou- sands of artisans unwilling or unable to find jobs in factories were out of work in Europe. In the mid-1840s millions more made their way to the United States as a result of a potato blight in Ireland and continual revolution in the German homelands. Meanwhile, a trickle of Chinese immigrants, most from impoverished Southeastern China, began to make their way to the American West Coast. Almost 19 million people arrived in the United States between 1890 and 1921, the year Congress first passed severe restrictions. Most of these immi-

200 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY grants were from Italy, Russia, Poland, Greece, and the Balkans. Non-Euro- peans came, too: east from Japan, south from Canada, and north from Mexico. By the early 1920s, an alliance was forged between wage-conscious organized labor and those who called for restricted immigration on racial or religious grounds, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Immigration Restriction League. The Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 permanently curtailed the influx of newcomers with quotas calculated on nation of origin. The Great Depression of the 1930s dramatically slowed immigration still further. With public opinion generally opposed to immigration, even for per- secuted European minorities, relatively few refugees found sanctuary in the United States after Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933. Throughout the postwar decades, the United States continued to cling to nationally based quotas. Supporters of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 argued that quota relaxation might inundate the United States with Marxist subversives from Eastern Europe. In 1965 Congress replaced national quotas with hemispheric ones. Rela- tives of U.S. citizens received preference, as did immigrants with job skills in short supply in the United States. In 1978 the hemispheric quotas were replaced by a worldwide ceiling of 290,000, a limit reduced to 270,000 after passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. Since the mid-1970s, the United States has experienced a fresh wave of immigration, with arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Latin America transforming communities throughout the country. Current estimates suggest a total annual arrival of approximately 600,000 legal newcomers to the United States. Because immigrant and refugee quotas remain well under demand, however, illegal immigration is still a major problem. Mexicans and other Latin Americans daily cross the Southwestern U.S. borders to find work, higher wages, and improved education and health care for their families. Likewise, there is a substantial illegal migration from countries like China and other Asian nations. Estimates vary, but some suggest that as many as 600,000 illegals per year arrive in the United States. Large surges of immigration have historically created social strains along with economic and cultural dividends. Deeply ingrained in most Americans, however, is the conviction that the Statue of Liberty does, indeed, stand as a symbol for the United States as she lifts her lamp before the “golden door,” welcoming those “yearning to breathe free.” This belief, and the sure knowl- edge that their forebears were once immigrants, has kept the United States a nation of nations. 

201 202 CHAPTER 10 WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION

Depression era soup line, 1930s. CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION

“The chief business of the American people is business.”

President Calvin Coolidge, 1925

WAR AND NEUTRAL RIGHTS can carriers, confiscating “contra- band” bound for Germany . Germa- To the American public of 1914, ny employed its major naval weapon, the outbreak of war in Europe — the submarine, to sink shipping with Germany and Austria-Hun- bound for Britain or France . Presi- gary fighting Britain, France, and dent Wilson warned that the United Russia — came as a shock . At first States would not forsake its tradi- the encounter seemed remote, but tional right as a neutral to trade with its economic and political effects belligerent nations . He also declared were swift and deep . By 1915 U S. . that the nation would hold Germa- industry, which had been mildly deny to “strict accountability” for the pressed, was prospering again with loss of American vessels or lives . On munitions orders from the West- May 7, 1915, a German submarine ern Allies . Both sides used propa- sunk the British liner Lusitania, kill- ganda to arouse the public passions ing 1,198 people, 128 of them Amer- of Americans — a third of whom icans . Wilson, reflecting American were either foreign-born or had one outrage, demanded an immediate or two foreign-born parents . More- halt to attacks on liners and mer- over, Britain and Germany both act- chant ships . ed against U S. . shipping on the high Anxious to avoid war with the seas, bringing sharp protests from United States, Germany agreed to President Woodrow Wilson . give warning to commercial ves- Britain, which controlled the sels — even if they flew the enemy seas, stopped and searched Ameri- flag — before firing on them . But

204 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY after two more attacks — the sink- President Wilson contributed ing of the British steamer Arabic in greatly to an early end to the war August 1915, and the torpedoing of by defining American war aims that the French liner Sussex in March characterized the struggle as be- 1916 — Wilson issued an ultimatum ing waged not against the German threatening to break diplomatic re- people but against their autocratic lations unless Germany abandoned government . His Fourteen Points, submarine warfare . Germany agreed submitted to the Senate in January and refrained from further attacks 1918, called for: abandonment of se- through the end of the year . cret international agreements; free- Wilson won reelection in 1916, dom of the seas; free trade between partly on the slogan: “He kept us out nations; reductions in national ar- of war ”. Feeling he had a mandate maments; an adjustment of colonial to act as a peacemaker, he delivered claims in the interests of the inhabit- a speech to the Senate, January 22, ants affected; self-rule for subjugated 1917, urging the warring nations to European nationalities; and, most accept a “peace without victory ”. importantly, the establishment of an association of nations to afford UNITED STATES ENTERS “mutual guarantees of political inde- WORLD WAR I pendence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike ”. On January 31, 1917, however, the In October 1918, the German gov- German government resumed un- ernment, facing certain defeat, ap- restricted submarine warfare . After pealed to Wilson to negotiate on the five U S. . vessels were sunk, Wilson basis of the Fourteen Points . After on April 2, 1917, asked for a decla- a month of secret negotiations that ration of war . Congress quickly ap- gave Germany no firm guarantees, proved . The government rapidly an armistice (technically a truce, but mobilized military resources, indus- actually a surrender) was concluded try, labor, and agriculture . By Octo- on November 11 . ber 1918, on the eve of Allied victory, a U S. . army of over 1,750,000 had THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS been deployed in France . In the summer of 1918, fresh It was Wilson’s hope that the final American troops under the com- treaty, drafted by the victors, would mand of General John J . Pershing be even-handed, but the passion and played a decisive role in stopping a material sacrifice of more than four last-ditch German offensive . That years of war caused the European fall, Americans were key partici- Allies to make severe demands . Per- pants in the Meuse-Argonne of- suaded that his greatest hope for fensive, which cracked Germany’s peace, a League of Nations, would vaunted Hindenburg Line . never be realized unless he made

205 CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION concessions, Wilson compromised world order . Wilson’s defeat showed somewhat on the issues of self-de- that the American people were not termination, open diplomacy, and yet ready to play a commanding role other specifics . He successfully re- in world affairs . His utopian vision sisted French demands for the entire had briefly inspired the nation, but Rhineland, and somewhat moder- its collision with reality quickly led ated that country’s insistence upon to widespread disillusion with world charging Germany the whole cost of affairs . America reverted to its in- the war . The final agreement (the stinctive isolationism . Treaty of Versailles), however, provided for French occupation of the POSTWAR UNREST coal- and iron-rich Saar Basin, and a very heavy burden of reparations The transition from war to peace upon Germany . was tumultuous . A postwar eco- In the end, there was little left of nomic boom coexisted with rapid Wilson’s proposals for a generous increases in consumer prices . La- and lasting peace but the League of bor unions that had refrained from Nations itself, which he had made striking during the war engaged in an integral part of the treaty . Dis- several major job actions . During the playing poor judgment, however, the summer of 1919, several race riots oc- president had failed to involve lead- curred, reflecting apprehension over ing Republicans in the treaty nego- the emergence of a “New Negro” tiations . Returning with a partisan who had seen military service or gone document, he then refused to make north to work in the war industry . concessions necessary to satisfy Re- Reaction to these events merged publican concerns about protecting with a widespread national fear of American sovereignty . a new international revolutionary With the treaty stalled in a Senate movement . In 1917, the Bolsheviks committee, Wilson began a national had seized power in Russia; after the tour to appeal for support . On Sep- war, they attempted revolutions in tember 25, 1919, physically ravaged Germany and Hungary . By 1919, it by the rigors of peacemaking and seemed they had come to America . the pressures of the wartime presi- Excited by the Bolshevik example, dency, he suffered a crippling stroke . large numbers of militants split Critically ill for weeks, he never fully from the Socialist Party to found recovered . In two separate votes — what would become the Commu- November 1919 and March 1920 — nist Party of the United States . In the Senate once again rejected the April 1919, the postal service inter- Versailles Treaty and with it the cepted nearly 40 bombs addressed to League of Nations . prominent citizens . Attorney Gen- The League of Nations would eral A . Mitchell Palmer’s residence never be capable of maintaining in Washington was bombed . Palmer,

206 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY in turn, authorized federal roundups ment fostered private business, ben- of radicals and deported many who efits would radiate out to most of the were not citizens . Strikes were often rest of the population . blamed on radicals and depicted as Accordingly, the Republicans the opening shots of a revolution . tried to create the most favorable Palmer’s dire warnings fueled a conditions for U S. . industry . The “Red Scare” that subsided by mid- Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 1920 . Even a murderous bombing in and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of Wall Street in September failed to re- 1930 brought American trade barri- awaken it . From 1919 on, however, a ers to new heights, guaranteeing U .S . current of militant hostility toward manufacturers in one field after revolutionary communism would another a monopoly of the domes- simmer not far beneath the surface tic market, but blocking a healthy of American life . trade with Europe that would have reinvigorated the international THE BOOMING 1920s economy . Occurring at the beginning of the Great Depression, Haw- Wilson, distracted by the war, ley-Smoot triggered retaliation from then laid low by his stroke, had mis- other manufacturing nations and handled almost every postwar is- contributed greatly to a collapsing sue . The booming economy began cycle of world trade that intensified to collapse in mid-1920 . The Repub- world economic misery . lican candidates for president and The federal government also start- vice president, Warren G . Harding ed a program of tax cuts, reflecting and Calvin Coolidge, easily defeated Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s their Democratic opponents, James belief that high taxes on individual M . Cox and Franklin D . Roosevelt . incomes and corporations discour- Following ratification of the 19th aged investment in new industrial Amendment to the Constitution, enterprises . Congress, in laws passed women voted in a presidential elec- between 1921 and 1929, responded tion for the first time . favorably to his proposals . The first two years of Harding’s “The chief business of the Amer- administration saw a continuance ican people is business,” declared of the economic recession that had Calvin Coolidge, the Vermont-born begun under Wilson . By 1923, how- vice president who succeeded to the ever, prosperity was back . For the presidency in 1923 after Harding’s next six years the country enjoyed death, and was elected in his own the strongest economy in its history, right in 1924 . Coolidge hewed to the at least in urban areas . Governmen- conservative economic policies of tal economic policy during the 1920s the Republican Party, but he was a was eminently conservative . It was much abler administrator than the based upon the belief that if govern- hapless Harding, whose administra-

207 CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION tion was mired in charges of corrup- decade in which the ordinary fam- tion in the months before his death . ily purchased its first automobile, Throughout the 1920s, private obtained refrigerators and vacuum business received substantial en- cleaners, listened to the radio for en- couragement, including construc- tertainment, and went regularly to tion loans, profitable mail-carrying motion pictures . Prosperity was real contracts, and other indirect subsi- and broadly distributed . The Repub- dies . The Transportation Act of 1920, licans profited politically, as a result, for example, had already restored to by claiming credit for it . private management the nation’s railways, which had been under gov- TENSIONS OVER ernment control during the war . The IMMIGRATION Merchant Marine, which had been owned and largely operated by the During the 1920s, the United government, was sold to private op- States sharply restricted foreign im- erators . migration for the first time in its Republican policies in agri- history . Large inflows of foreigners culture, however, faced mounting long had created a certain amount criticism, for farmers shared least of social tension, but most had been in the prosperity of the 1920s . The of Northern European stock and, if period since 1900 had been one of not quickly assimilated, at least pos- rising farm prices . The unprece- sessed a certain commonality with dented wartime demand for U S. . most Americans . By the end of the farm products had provided a strong 19th century, however, the flow was stimulus to expansion . But by the predominantly from southern and close of 1920, with the abrupt end Eastern Europe . According to the of wartime demand, the commercial census of 1900, the population of the agriculture of staple crops such as United States was just over 76 mil- wheat and corn fell into sharp de- lion . Over the next 15 years, more cline . Many factors accounted for than 15 million immigrants entered the depression in American agri- the country . culture, but foremost was the loss of Around two-thirds of the inflow foreign markets . This was partly in consisted of “newer” nationalities reaction to American tariff policy, and ethnic groups — Russian Jews, but also because excess farm produc- Poles, Slavic peoples, Greeks, south- tion was a worldwide phenomenon . ern Italians . They were non-Prot- When the Great Depression struck estant, non-“Nordic,” and, many in the 1930s, it devastated an already Americans feared, nonassimilable . fragile farm economy . They did hard, often dangerous, The distress of agriculture aside, low-pay work — but were accused the Twenties brought the best life of driving down the wages of native- ever to most Americans . It was the born Americans . Settling in squalid

208 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY urban ethnic enclaves, the new im- CLASH OF CULTURES migrants were seen as maintaining Old World customs, getting along Some Americans expressed their with very little English, and sup- discontent with the character of porting unsavory political machines modern life in the 1920s by focus- that catered to their needs . Nativists ing on family and religion, as an wanted to send them back to Europe; increasingly urban, secular society social workers wanted to American- came into conflict with older rural ize them . Both agreed that they were traditions . Fundamentalist preach- a threat to American identity . ers such as Billy Sunday provided an Halted by World War I, mass outlet for many who yearned for a immigration resumed in 1919, but return to a simpler past . quickly ran into determined oppo- Perhaps the most dramatic dem- sition from groups as varied as the onstration of this yearning was the American Federation of Labor and religious fundamentalist crusade the reorganized Ku Klux Klan . Mil- that pitted Biblical texts against the lions of old-stock Americans who Darwinian theory of biological evo- belonged to neither organization ac- lution . In the 1920s, bills to prohibit cepted commonly held assumptions the teaching of evolution began ap- about the inferiority of non-Nordics pearing in Midwestern and South- and backed restrictions . Of course, ern state legislatures . Leading this there were also practical arguments crusade was the aging William Jen- in favor of a maturing nation putting nings Bryan, long a spokesman for some limits on new arrivals . the values of the countryside as well In 1921, Congress passed a sharp- as a progressive politician . Bryan ly restrictive emergency immigra- skillfully reconciled his anti-evo- tion act . It was supplanted in 1924 by lutionary activism with his earlier the Johnson-Reed National Origins economic radicalism, declaring that Act, which established an immigra- evolution “by denying the need or tion quota for each nationality . Those possibility of spiritual regeneration, quotas were pointedly based on the discourages all reforms ”. census of 1890, a year in which the The issue came to a head in 1925, newer immigration had not yet left when a young high school teacher, its mark . Bitterly resented by south- John Scopes, was prosecuted for vio- ern and Eastern European ethnic lating a Tennessee law that forbade groups, the new law reduced immi- the teaching of evolution in the pub- gration to a trickle . After 1929, the lic schools . The case became a nation- economic impact of the Great De- al spectacle, drawing intense news pression would reduce the trickle to coverage . The American Civil Lib- a reverse flow — until refugees from erties Union retained the renowned European fascism began to press for attorney Clarence Darrow to defend admission to the country . Scopes . Bryan wrangled an appoint-

209 CHAPTER 10: WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION ment as special prosecutor, then fool- manners and morals that caused ishly allowed Darrow to call him as the decade to be called the Jazz Age, a hostile witness . Bryan’s confused the Roaring Twenties, or the era of defense of Biblical passages as literal “flaming youth ”. World War I had rather than metaphorical truth drew overturned the Victorian social and widespread criticism . Scopes, nearly moral order . Mass prosperity en- forgotten in the fuss, was convicted, abled an open and hedonistic life but his fine was reversed on a tech- style for the young middle classes . nicality . Bryan died shortly after the The leading intellectuals were trial ended . The state wisely declined supportive . H L. . Mencken, the de- to retry Scopes . Urban sophisticates cade’s most important social critic, ridiculed fundamentalism, but it was unsparing in denouncing sham continued to be a powerful force in and venality in American life . He rural, small-town America . usually found these qualities in ru- Another example of a power- ral areas and among businessmen . ful clash of cultures — one with His counterparts of the progressive far greater national consequences movement had believed in “the peo- — was Prohibition . In 1919, after ple” and sought to extend democra- almost a century of agitation, the cy . Mencken, an elitist and admirer 18th Amendment to the Constitu- of Nietzsche, bluntly called demo- tion was enacted, prohibiting the cratic man a boob and characterized manufacture, sale, or transportation the American middle class as the of alcoholic beverages . Intended to “booboisie ”. eliminate the saloon and the drunk- Novelist F . Scott Fitzgerald cap- ard from American society, Prohi- tured the energy, turmoil, and disil- bition created thousands of illegal lusion of the decade in such works drinking places called “speakeasies,” as The Beautiful and the Damned made intoxication fashionable, and (1922) and The Great Gatsby (1925) . created a new form of criminal ac- Sinclair Lewis, the first American to tivity — the transportation of ille- win a Nobel Prize for literature, sati- gal liquor, or “bootlegging ”. Widely rized mainstream America in Main observed in rural America, openly Street (1920) and Babbitt (1922) . Er- evaded in urban America, Prohibi- nest Hemingway vividly portrayed tion was an emotional issue in the the malaise wrought by the war in prosperous Twenties . When the De- The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A pression hit, it seemed increasingly Farewell to Arms (1929) . Fitzgerald, irrelevant . The 18th Amendment Hemingway, and many other writ- would be repealed in 1933 . ers dramatized their alienation from Fundamentalism and Prohibition America by spending much of the were aspects of a larger reaction to decade in Paris . a modernist social and intellectual African-American culture flow- revolution most visible in changing ered . Between 1910 and 1930, huge

210 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY numbers of African Americans initial American recession became moved from the South to the North part of a worldwide depression . in search of jobs and personal free- Business houses closed their doors, dom . Most settled in urban areas, factories shut down, banks failed especially New York City’s Har- with the loss of depositors’ savings . lem, Detroit, and Chicago . In 1910 Farm income fell some 50 percent . By W E. B. . DuBois and other intel- November 1932, approximately one lectuals had founded the National of every five American workers was Association for the Advancement unemployed . of Colored People (NAACP), which The presidential campaign of helped African Americans gain a na- 1932 was chiefly a debate over the tional voice that would grow in im- causes and possible remedies of the portance with the passing years . Great Depression . President Her- An African-American literary bert Hoover, unlucky in entering and artistic movement, called the the White House only eight months “Harlem Renaissance,” emerged . before the stock market crash, had Like the “Lost Generation,” its tried harder than any other president writers, such as the poets Langs- before him to deal with economic ton Hughes and Countee Cullen, hard times . He had attempted to or- rejected middle-class values and ganize business, had sped up public conventional literary forms, even works schedules, established the Re- as they addressed the realities of construction Finance Corporation African-American experience . Af- to support businesses and financial rican-American musicians — Duke institutions, and had secured from a Ellington, King Oliver, Louis Arm- reluctant Congress an agency to un- strong — first made jazz a staple of derwrite home mortgages . Nonethe- American culture in the 1920s . less, his efforts had little impact, and he was a picture of defeat . THE GREAT DEPRESSION His Democratic opponent, Frank- lin D . Roosevelt, already popular as In October 1929 the booming stock the governor of New York during market crashed, wiping out many the developing crisis, radiated infec- investors . The collapse did not in tious optimism . Prepared to use the itself cause the Great Depression, federal government’s authority for although it reflected excessively easy even bolder experimental remedies, credit policies that had allowed the he scored a smashing victory — re- market to get out of hand . It also ag- ceiving 22,800,000 popular votes gravated fragile economies in Europe to Hoover’s 15,700,000 . The United that had relied heavily on American States was about to enter a new era loans . Over the next three years, an of economic and political change . 9

211 212 CHAPTER 11 THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

U.S. battleships West Virginia and Tennessee, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941

ROOSEVELT AND THE gressive era of Theodore Roosevelt NEW DEAL and Woodrow Wilson . What was truly novel about the In 1933 the new president, Franklin New Deal, however, was the speed D . Roosevelt, brought an air of con- with which it accomplished what fidence and optimism that quickly previously had taken generations . rallied the people to the banner of Many of its reforms were hastily his program, known as the New drawn and weakly administered; Deal . “The only thing we have to some actually contradicted others . fear is fear itself,” the president de- Moreover, it never succeeded in re- clared in his inaugural address to storing prosperity . Yet its actions the nation . provided tangible help for millions In one sense, the New Deal of Americans, laid the basis for a merely introduced social and eco- powerful new political coalition, nomic reforms familiar to many and brought to the individual cit- Europeans for more than a gen- izen a sharp revival of interest in eration . Moreover, the New Deal government . represented the culmination of a long-range trend toward abandon- THE FIRST NEW DEAL ment of “laissez-faire” capitalism, going back to the regulation of Banking and Finance. When Roose- the railroads in the 1880s, and the velt took the presidential oath, the flood of state and national reform banking and credit system of the na- legislation introduced in the Pro- tion was in a state of paralysis . With

214 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY astonishing rapidity the nation’s bird sanctuaries; and conserving banks were first closed — and then coal, petroleum, shale, gas, sodium, reopened only if they were solvent . and helium deposits . The administration adopted a policy A Public Works Administra- of moderate currency inflation to tion (PWA) provided employment start an upward movement in com- for skilled construction workers on modity prices and to afford some a wide variety of mostly medium- relief to debtors . New governmen- to large-sized projects . Among the tal agencies brought generous credit most memorable of its many accom- facilities to industry and agricul- plishments were the Bonneville and ture . The Federal Deposit Insurance Grand Coulee Dams in the Pacific Corporation (FDIC) insured sav- Northwest, a new Chicago sewer sys- ings-bank deposits up to $5,000 . tem, the Triborough Bridge in New Federal regulations were imposed York City, and two aircraft carriers upon the sale of securities on the (Yorktown and Enterprise) for the stock exchange . U S. . Navy . The Tennessee Valley Authority Unemployment. Roosevelt faced (TVA), both a work relief program unprecedented mass unemployment . and an exercise in public planning, By the time he took office, as many developed the impoverished Tennes- as 13 million Americans — more see River valley area through a se- than a quarter of the labor force ries of dams built for flood control — were out of work . Bread lines and hydroelectric power generation . were a common sight in most cit- Its provision of cheap electricity for ies . Hundreds of thousands roamed the area stimulated some economic the country in search of food, work, progress, but won it the enmity of and shelter . “Brother, can you spare private electric companies . New a dime?” was the refrain of a popu- Dealers hailed it as an example of lar song . “grassroots democracy ”. An early step for the unemployed The Federal Emergency Relief came in the form of the Civilian Administration (FERA), in opera- Conservation Corps (CCC), a pro- tion from 1933 to 1935, distributed gram that brought relief to young direct relief to hundreds of thou- men between 18 and 25 years of age . sands of people, usually in the form CCC enrollees worked in camps ad- of direct payments . Sometimes, it ministered by the army . About two assumed the salaries of schoolteach- million took part during the decade . ers and other local public service They participated in a variety of workers . It also developed numerous conservation projects: planting trees small-scale public works projects, as to combat soil erosion and maintain did the Civil Works Administra- national forests; eliminating stream tion (CWA) from late 1933 into the pollution; creating fish, game, and spring of 1934 . Criticized as “make

215 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II work,” the jobs funded ranged from and dust storms during the 1930s ditch digging to highway repairs created what became known as the to teaching . Roosevelt and his key “Dust Bowl ”. Crops were destroyed officials worried about costs but and farms ruined . continued to favor unemployment By 1940, 2 5. million people had programs based on work relief rath- moved out of the Plains states, the er than welfare . largest migration in American history . Of those, 200,000 moved to Cali- Agriculture. In the spring of 1933, fornia . The migrants were not only the agricultural sector of the econo- farmers, but also professionals, re- my was in a state of collapse . It there- tailers, and others whose livelihoods by provided a laboratory for the New were connected to the health of the Dealers’ belief that greater regulation farm communities . Many ended up would solve many of the country’s competing for seasonal jobs picking problems . In 1933, Congress passed crops at extremely low wages . the Agricultural Adjustment Act The government provided aid (AAA) to provide economic relief in the form of the Soil Conserva- to farmers . The AAA proposed to tion Service, established in 1935 . raise crop prices by paying farmers Farm practices that damaged the a subsidy to compensate for volun- soil had intensified the impact of the tary cutbacks in production . Funds drought . The service taught farmers for the payments would be generat- measures to reduce erosion . In ad- ed by a tax levied on industries that dition, almost 30,000 kilometers of processed crops . By the time the act trees were planted to break the force had become law, however, the grow- of winds . ing season was well under way, and Although the AAA had been the AAA paid farmers to plow under mostly successful, it was abandoned their abundant crops . Crop reduc- in 1936, when its tax on food pro- tion and further subsidies through cessors was ruled unconstitutional the Commodity Credit Corporation, by the Supreme Court . Congress which purchased commodities to be quickly passed a farm-relief act, kept in storage, drove output down which authorized the government to and farm prices up . make payments to farmers who took Between 1932 and 1935, farm land out of production for the pur- income increased by more than 50 pose of soil conservation . In 1938, percent, but only partly because of with a pro-New Deal majority on the federal programs . During the same Supreme Court, Congress reinstated years that farmers were being en- the AAA . couraged to take land out of pro- By 1940 nearly six million farm- duction — displacing tenants and ers were receiving federal subsidies . sharecroppers — a severe drought New Deal programs also provided hit the Plains states . Violent wind loans on surplus crops, insurance for

216 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY wheat, and a system of planned stor- not only in industry but also in poli- age to ensure a stable food supply . tics . Roosevelt’s Democratic Party Economic stability for the farmer benefited enormously from these was substantially achieved, albeit at developments . great expense and with extraordinary government oversight . THE SECOND NEW DEAL

Industry and Labor. The National In its early years, the New Deal Recovery Administration (NRA), sponsored a remarkable series of established in 1933 with the Nation- legislative initiatives and achieved al Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), significant increases in production attempted to end cutthroat competi- and prices — but it did not bring tion by setting codes of fair competi- an end to the Depression . As the tive practice to generate more jobs sense of immediate crisis eased, new and thus more buying . Although demands emerged . Businessmen welcomed initially, the NRA was mourned the end of “laissez-faire” soon criticized for over-regulation and chafed under the regulations and was unable to achieve industrial of the NIRA . Vocal attacks also recovery . It was declared unconstitu- mounted from the political left tional in 1935 . and right as dreamers, schemers, The NIRA had guaranteed to and politicians alike emerged with labor the right of collective bargain- economic panaceas that drew wide ing through labor unions repre- audiences . Dr . Francis E . Townsend senting individual workers, but the advocated generous old-age pensions . NRA had failed to overcome strong Father Charles Coughlin, the “radio business opposition to independent priest,” called for inflationary policies unionism . After its demise in 1935, and blamed international bankers Congress passed the National Labor in speeches increasingly peppered Relations Act, which restated that with anti-Semitic imagery . Most guarantee and prohibited employers formidably, Senator Huey P . Long from unfairly interfering with union of Louisiana, an eloquent and ruth- activities . It also created the Nation- less spokesman for the displaced, al Labor Relations Board (NLRB) advocated a radical redistribution to supervise collective bargaining, of wealth . (If he had not been administer elections, and ensure assassinated in September 1935, Long workers the right to choose the orga- very likely would have launched a nization that should represent them presidential challenge to Franklin in dealing with employers . Roosevelt in 1936 ). The great progress made in labor In the face of these pressures, organization brought working peo- President Roosevelt backed a new ple a growing sense of common in- set of economic and social mea- terests, and labor’s power increased sures . Prominent among them were

217 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II measures to fight poverty, create To these, Roosevelt added the more work for the unemployed, and National Labor Relations Act, the provide a social safety net . “Wealth Tax Act” that increased The Works Progress Adminis- taxes on the wealthy, the Public Util- tration (WPA), the principal relief ity Holding Company Act to break agency of the so-called second New up large electrical utility conglomer- Deal, was the biggest public works ates, and a Banking Act that greatly agency yet . It pursued small-scale expanded the power of the Federal projects throughout the country, Reserve Board over the large pri- constructing buildings, roads, air- vate banks . Also notable was the ports, and schools . Actors, painters, establishment of the Rural Electri- musicians, and writers were em- fication Administration, which ex- ployed through the Federal Theater tended electricity into farming areas Project, the Federal Art Project, throughout the country . and the Federal Writers Project . The National Youth Administra- A NEW COALITION tion gave part-time employment to students, established training In the 1936 election, Roosevelt programs, and provided aid to un- won a decisive victory over his Re- employed youth . The WPA only in- publican opponent, Alf Landon of cluded about three million jobless Kansas . He was personally popular, at a time; when it was abandoned and the economy seemed near re- in 1943, it had helped a total of nine covery . He took 60 percent of the million people . vote and carried all but two states . The New Deal’s cornerstone, ac- A broad new coalition aligned with cording to Roosevelt, was the Social the Democratic Party emerged, con- Security Act of 1935 . Social Security sisting of labor, most farmers, most created a system of state-adminis- urban ethnic groups, African Amer- tered welfare payments for the poor, icans, and the traditionally Demo- unemployed, and disabled based on cratic South . The Republican Party matching state and federal contribu- received the support of business as tions . It also established a national well as middle-class members of system of retirement benefits draw- small towns and suburbs . This po- ing on a “trust fund” created by em- litical alliance, with some variation ployer and employee contributions . and shifting, remained intact for Many other industrialized nations several decades . had already enacted such programs, Roosevelt’s second term was a but calls for such an initiative in the time of consolidation . The presi- United States had gone unheeded . dent made two serious political Social Security today is the largest missteps: an ill-advised, unsuccess- domestic program administered by ful attempt to enlarge the Supreme the U S. . government . Court and a failed effort to “purge”

218 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY increasingly recalcitrant Southern WAR AND UNEASY conservatives from the Democratic NEUTRALITY Party . When he cut high government spending, moreover, the econ- Before Roosevelt’s second term omy collapsed . These events led to was well under way, his domestic the rise of a conservative coalition program was overshadowed by the in Congress that was unreceptive to expansionist designs of totalitarian new initiatives . regimes in Japan, Italy, and Ger- From 1932 to 1938 there was many . In 1931 Japan had invaded widespread public debate on the Manchuria, crushed Chinese resis- meaning of New Deal policies to tance, and set up the puppet state the nation’s political and economic of Manchukuo . Italy, under Benito life . Americans clearly wanted the Mussolini, enlarged its boundar- government to take greater respon- ies in Libya and in 1935 conquered sibility for the welfare of ordinary Ethiopia . Germany, under Nazi people, however uneasy they might leader Adolf Hitler, militarized its be about big government in general . economy and reoccupied the Rhine- The New Deal established the foun- land (demilitarized by the Treaty of dations of the modern welfare state Versailles) in 1936 . In 1938, Hitler in the United States . Roosevelt, per- incorporated Austria into the Ger- haps the most imposing of the 20th- man Reich and demanded cession of century presidents, had established the German-speaking Sudetenland a new standard of mass leadership . from Czechoslovakia . By then, war No American leader, then or seemed imminent . since, used the radio so effectively . The United States, disillusioned In a radio address in 1938, Roose- by the failure of the crusade for velt declared: “Democracy has democracy in World War I, an- disappeared in several other great nounced that in no circumstances nations, not because the people of could any country involved in the those nations disliked democracy, conflict look to it for aid . Neutral- but because they had grown tired ity legislation, enacted piecemeal of unemployment and insecurity, of from 1935 to 1937, prohibited trade seeing their children hungry while in arms with any warring nations, they sat helpless in the face of gov- required cash for all other com- ernment confusion and government modities, and forbade American weakness through lack of leader- flag merchant ships from carrying ship ” . Americans, he concluded, those goods . The objective was to wanted to defend their liberties at prevent, at almost any cost, the in- any cost and understood that “the volvement of the United States in a first line of the defense lies in the foreign war . protection of economic security ”. With the Nazi conquest of Po- land in 1939 and the outbreak of

219 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

World War II, isolationist sentiment toward intervention . Thus the No- increased, even though Americans vember election yielded another clearly favored the victims of Hitler’s majority for the president, making aggression and supported the Allied Roosevelt the first, and last, U S. . democracies, Britain and France . chief executive to be elected to a Roosevelt could only wait until pub- third term . lic opinion regarding U S. . involve- In early 1941, Roosevelt got Con- ment was altered by events . gress to approve the Lend-Lease After the fall of France and the Program, which enabled him to beginning of the German air war transfer arms and equipment to against Britain in mid-1940, the de- any nation (notably Great Britain, bate intensified between those in the later the Soviet Union and China) United States who favored aiding the deemed vital to the defense of the democracies and the antiwar faction United States . Total Lend-Lease aid known as the isolationists . Roos- by war’s end would amount to more evelt did what he could to nudge than $50,000 million . public opinion toward intervention . Most remarkably, in August, he The United States joined Canada met with Prime Minister Churchill in a Mutual Board of Defense, and off the coast of Newfoundland . The aligned with the Latin American re- two leaders issued a “joint state- publics in extending collective pro- ment of war aims,” which they tection to the nations in the Western called the Atlantic Charter . Bearing Hemisphere . a remarkable resemblance to Wood- Congress, confronted with the row Wilson’s Fourteen Points, it mounting crisis, voted immense called for these objectives: no ter- sums for rearmament, and in Sep- ritorial aggrandizement; no territo- tember 1940 passed the first peace- rial changes without the consent of time conscription bill ever enacted the people concerned; the right of in the United States . In that month all people to choose their own form also, Roosevelt concluded a daring of government; the restoration of executive agreement with British self-government to those deprived Prime Minister Winston Churchill . of it; economic collaboration be- The United States gave the British tween all nations; freedom from Navy 50 “overage” destroyers in re- war, from fear, and from want for turn for British air and naval bases all peoples; freedom of the seas; in Newfoundland and the North and the abandonment of the use Atlantic . of force as an instrument of inter- The 1940 presidential election national policy . campaign demonstrated that the America was now neutral in isolationists, while vocal, were a name only . minority . Roosevelt’s Republican opponent, Wendell Wilkie, leaned

220 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

JAPAN, PEARL HARBOR, States release Japanese assets and AND WAR stop U S. . naval expansion in the Pacific . Hull countered with a pro- While most Americans anxiously posal for Japanese withdrawal from watched the course of the European all its conquests . The swift Japanese war, tension mounted in Asia . Tak- rejection on December 1 left the ing advantage of an opportunity to talks stalemated . improve its strategic position, Japan On the morning of December 7, boldly announced a “new order” in Japanese carrier-based planes ex- which it would exercise hegemony ecuted a devastating surprise attack over all of the Pacific . Battling for against the U S. . Pacific Fleet at Pearl survival against Nazi Germany, Brit- Harbor, Hawaii . ain was unable to resist, abandon- Twenty-one ships were destroyed ing its concession in Shanghai and or temporarily disabled; 323 aircraft temporarily closing the Chinese sup- were destroyed or damaged; 2,388 ply route from Burma . In the sum- soldiers, sailors, and civilians were mer of 1940, Japan won permission killed . However, the U S. . aircraft from the weak Vichy government carriers that would play such a criti- in France to use airfields in north- cal role in the ensuing naval war in ern Indochina (North Vietnam) . the Pacific were at sea and not an- That September the Japanese for- chored at Pearl Harbor . mally joined the Rome-Berlin Axis . American opinion, still divid- The United States countered with an ed about the war in Europe, was embargo on the export of scrap iron unified overnight by what Presi- to Japan . dent Roosevelt called “a day that In July 1941 the Japanese occu- will live in infamy ”. On December pied southern Indochina (South 8, Congress declared a state of war Vietnam), signaling a probable with Japan; three days later Ger- move southward toward the oil, tin, many and Italy declared war on the and rubber of British Malaya and United States . the Dutch East Indies . The United States, in response, froze Japanese MOBILIZATION FOR assets and initiated an embargo on TOTAL WAR the one commodity Japan needed above all others — oil . The nation rapidly geared itself General Hideki Tojo became for mobilization of its people and its prime minister of Japan that Oc- entire industrial capacity . Over the tober . In mid-November, he sent a next three-and-a-half years, war in- special envoy to the United States dustry achieved staggering produc- to meet with Secretary of State tion goals — 300,000 aircraft, 5,000 Cordell Hull . Among other things, cargo ships, 60,000 landing craft, Japan demanded that the United 86,000 tanks . Women workers, ex-

221 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II emplified by “Rosie the Riveter,” THE WAR IN NORTH AFRICA played a bigger part in industrial AND EUROPE production than ever before . Total strength of the U S. . armed forces at Soon after the United States en- the end of the war was more than tered the war, the United States, 12 million . All the nation’s activi- Britain, and the Soviet Union (at ties — farming, manufacturing, war with Germany since June 22, mining, trade, labor, investment, 1941) decided that their primary communications, even education military effort was to be concen- and cultural undertakings — were trated in Europe . in some fashion brought under new Throughout 1942, British and and enlarged controls . German forces fought inconclusive As a result of Pearl Harbor and back-and-forth battles across Libya the fear of Asian espionage, Ameri- and Egypt for control of the Suez cans also committed what was later Canal . But on October 23, Brit- recognized as an act of intolerance: ish forces commanded by General the internment of Japanese Ameri- Sir Bernard Montgomery struck cans . In February 1942, nearly at the Germans from El Alamein . 120,000 Japanese Americans resid- Equipped with a thousand tanks, ing in California were removed from many made in America, they defeat- their homes and interned behind ed General Erwin Rommel’s army barbed wire in 10 wretched tem- in a grinding two-week campaign . porary camps, later to be moved to On November 7, American and Brit- “relocation centers” outside isolated ish armed forces landed in French Southwestern towns . North Africa . Squeezed between Nearly 63 percent of these Japa- forces advancing from east and west, nese Americans were American-born the Germans were pushed back and, U S. . citizens . A few were Japanese after fierce resistance, surrendered sympathizers, but no evidence of es- in May 1943 . pionage ever surfaced . Others volun- The year 1942 was also the turn- teered for the U S. . Army and fought ing point on the Eastern Front . The with distinction and valor in two in- Soviet Union, suffering immense fantry units on the Italian front . Some losses, stopped the Nazi invasion at served as interpreters and translators the gates of Leningrad and Moscow . in the Pacific . In the winter of 1942-43, the Red In 1983 the U S. . government ac- Army defeated the Germans at Stal- knowledged the injustice of intern- ingrad (Volgograd) and began the ment with limited payments to those long offensive that would take them Japanese-Americans of that era who to Berlin in 1945 . were still living . In July 1943 British and Ameri- can forces invaded Sicily and won control of the island in a month .

222 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

During that time, Benito Mussolini sians advancing irresistibly from the fell from power in Italy . His suc- East . On May 7, Germany surren- cessors began negotiations with dered unconditionally . the Allies and surrendered immediately after the invasion of the THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC Italian mainland in September . However, the German Army had by U S. . troops were forced to surren- then taken control of the peninsula . der in the Philippines in early 1942, The fight against Nazi forces in Ita- but the Americans rallied in the ly was bitter and protracted . Rome following months . General James was not liberated until June 4, 1944 . “Jimmy” Doolittle led U S. . Army As the Allies slowly moved north, bombers on a raid over Tokyo in they built airfields from which they April; it had little actual military made devastating air raids against significance, but gave Americans an railroads, factories, and weapon em- immense psychological boost . placements in southern Germany In May, at the Battle of the Coral and central Europe, including the oil Sea — the first naval engagement installations at Ploesti, Romania . in history in which all the fighting Late in 1943 the Allies, after much was done by carrier-based planes — debate over strategy, decided to open a Japanese naval invasion fleet sent a front in France to compel the Ger- to strike at southern New Guinea mans to divert far larger forces from and Australia was turned back by a the Soviet Union . U .S . task force in a close battle . A few U S. . General Dwight D . Eisen- weeks later, the naval Battle of Mid- hower was appointed Supreme way in the central Pacific resulted in Commander of the Allied Forces the first major defeat of the Japanese in Europe . After immense prepara- Navy, which lost four aircraft car- tions, on June 6, 1944, a U .S ., British, riers . Ending the Japanese advance and Canadian invasion army, pro- across the central Pacific, Midway tected by a greatly superior air force, was the turning point . landed on five beaches in Norman- Other battles also contributed dy . With the beachheads established to Allied success . The six-month after heavy fighting, more troops land and sea battle for the island poured in, and pushed the Germans of Guadalcanal (August 1942-Feb- back in one bloody engagement af- ruary 1943) was the first major U S. . ter another . On August 25 Paris was ground victory in the Pacific . For liberated . most of the next two years, Ameri- The Allied offensive stalled that can and Australian troops fought fall, then suffered a setback in east- their way northward from the ern Belgium during the winter, but South Pacific and westward from in March, the Americans and British the Central Pacific, capturing the were across the Rhine and the Rus- Solomons, the Gilberts, the Mar-

223 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II shalls, and the Marianas in a series cretly agreed to enter the war against of amphibious assaults . Japan three months after the surrender of Germany . In return, the USSR THE POLITICS OF WAR would gain effective control of Man- churia and receive the Japanese Ku- Allied military efforts were ac- rile Islands as well as the southern companied by a series of important half of Sakhalin Island . The eastern international meetings on the politi- boundary of Poland was set roughly cal objectives of the war . In Janu- at the Curzon line of 1919, thus giv- ary 1943 at Casablanca, Morocco, ing the USSR half its prewar terri- an Anglo-American conference de- tory . Discussion of reparations to be cided that no peace would be con- collected from Germany — payment cluded with the Axis and its Balkan demanded by Stalin and opposed satellites except on the basis of “un- by Roosevelt and Churchill — was conditional surrender ”. This term, inconclusive . Specific arrangements insisted upon by Roosevelt, sought were made concerning Allied occu- to assure the people of all the fight- pation in Germany and the trial and ing nations that no separate peace punishment of war criminals . Also negotiations would be carried on at Yalta it was agreed that the great with representatives of Fascism and powers in the Security Council of Nazism and there would be no com- the proposed United Nations should promise of the war’s idealistic objec- have the right of veto in matters af- tives . Axis propagandists, of course, fecting their security . used it to assert that the Allies were Two months after his return engaged in a war of extermination . from Yalta, Franklin Roosevelt died At Cairo, in November 1943, of a cerebral hemorrhage while va- Roosevelt and Churchill met with cationing in Georgia . Few figures Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang in U S. . history have been so deeply Kai-shek to agree on terms for Ja- mourned, and for a time the Ameri- pan, including the relinquishment can people suffered from a numbing of gains from past aggression . At sense of irreparable loss . Vice Presi- Tehran, shortly afterward, Roose- dent Harry Truman, former senator velt, Churchill, and Soviet leader from Missouri, succeeded him . Joseph Stalin made basic agreements on the postwar occupation of WAR, VICTORY, AND Germany and the establishment of a THE BOMB new international organization, the United Nations . The final battles in the Pacific were In February 1945, the three Al- among the war’s bloodiest . In June lied leaders met again at Yalta (now 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea in Ukraine), with victory seemingly effectively destroyed Japanese naval secure . There, the Soviet Union se- air power, forcing the resignation of

224 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Japanese Prime Minister Tojo . Gen- view of what they would face in a eral Douglas MacArthur — who planned invasion of Japan . had reluctantly left the Philippines The heads of the U S. , . British, two years before to escape Japanese and Soviet governments met at Pots- capture — returned to the islands in dam, a suburb outside Berlin, from October . The accompanying Battle July 17 to August 2, 1945, to discuss of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval en- operations against Japan, the peace gagement ever fought, was the final settlement in Europe, and a policy decisive defeat of the Japanese Navy . for the future of Germany . Perhaps By February 1945, U S. . forces had presaging the coming end of the al- taken Manila . liance, they had no trouble on vague Next, the United States set its matters of principle or the practi- sight on the strategic island of Iwo cal issues of military occupation, but Jima in the Bonin Islands, about reached no agreement on many tan- halfway between the Marianas and gible issues, including reparations . Japan . The Japanese, trained to die The day before the Potsdam fighting for the Emperor, made Conference began, U S. . nuclear sci- suicidal use of natural caves and entists engaged in the secret Man- rocky terrain . U S. . forces took the hattan Project exploded an atomic island by mid-March, but not before bomb near Alamogordo, New Mex- losing the lives of some 6,000 U S. . ico . The test was the culmination of Marines . Nearly all the Japanese de- three years of intensive research in fenders perished . By now the United laboratories across the United States . States was undertaking extensive air It lay behind the Potsdam Declara- attacks on Japanese shipping and tion, issued on July 26 by the United airfields and wave after wave of in- States and Britain, promising that cendiary bombing attacks against Japan would neither be destroyed Japanese cities . nor enslaved if it surrendered . If At Okinawa (April 1-June 21, Japan continued the war, howev- 1945), the Americans met even fierc- er, it would meet “prompt and ut- er resistance . With few of the deter destruction ”. President Truman, fenders surrendering, the U .S . Army calculating that an atomic bomb and Marines were forced to wage a might be used to gain Japan’s sur- war of annihilation . Waves of Ka- render more quickly and with fewer mikaze suicide planes pounded the casualties than an invasion of the offshore Allied fleet, inflicting more mainland, ordered that the bomb be damage than at Leyte Gulf . Japan used if the Japanese did not surren- lost 90-100,000 troops and probably der by August 3 . as many Okinawan civilians . U S. . A committee of U .S . military and losses were more than 11,000 killed political officials and scientists had and nearly 34,000 wounded . Most considered the question of targets Americans saw the fighting as a pre- for the new weapon . Secretary of

225 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II

War Henry L . Stimson argued suc- tion they drafted outlined a world cessfully that Kyoto, Japan’s ancient organization in which internation- capital and a repository of many al differences could be discussed national and religious treasures, be peacefully and common cause made taken out of consideration . Hiroshi- against hunger and disease . In con- ma, a center of war industries and trast to its rejection of U S. . mem- military operations, became the first bership in the League of Nations objective . after World War I, the U S. . Senate On August 6, a U S. . plane, the promptly ratified the U N. . Charter Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb by an 89 to 2 vote . This action con- on the city of Hiroshima . On Au- firmed the end of the spirit of isola- gust 9, a second atomic bomb was tionism as a dominating element in dropped, this time on Nagasaki . American foreign policy . The bombs destroyed large sections In November 1945 at Nurem- of both cities, with massive loss of berg, Germany, the criminal trials life . On August 8, the USSR declared of 22 Nazi leaders, provided for at war on Japan and attacked Japanese Potsdam, took place . Before a group forces in Manchuria . On August 14, of distinguished jurists from Brit- Japan agreed to the terms set at Pots- ain, France, the Soviet Union, and dam . On September 2, 1945, Japan the United States, the Nazis were formally surrendered . Americans accused not only of plotting and were relieved that the bomb has- waging aggressive war but also of tened the end of the war . The re- violating the laws of war and of hu- alization of the full implications of manity in the systematic genocide, nuclear weapons’ awesome destruc- known as the Holocaust, of Europe- tiveness would come later . an Jews and other peoples . The trials Within a month, on October 24, lasted more than 10 months . Twenty- the United Nations came into exis- two defendants were convicted, 12 tence following the meeting of rep- of them sentenced to death . Similar resentatives of 50 nations in San proceedings would be held against Francisco, California . The constitu- Japanese war leaders . 9

226 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL UNIONS

While the 1920s were years of relative prosperity in the United States, the workers in industries such as steel, automobiles, rubber, and textiles benefited less than they would later in the years after World War II. Working conditions in many of these industries did improve. Some companies in the 1920s began to institute “welfare capitalism” by offering workers various pension, profit- sharing, stock option, and health plans to ensure their loyalty. Still, shop floor environments were often hard and authoritarian. The 1920s saw the mass production industries redouble their efforts to prevent the growth of unions, which under the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had enjoyed some success during World War I. They did so by using spies and armed strikebreakers and by firing those suspected of union sym- pathies. Independent unions were often accused of being Communist. At the same time, many companies formed their own compliant employee organizations, often called “company unions.” Traditionally, state legislatures, reflecting the views of the American middle class, supported the concept of the “open shop,” which prevented a union from being the exclusive representative of all workers. This made it easier for companies to deny unions the right to collective bargaining and block union- ization through court enforcement. Between 1920 and 1929, union membership in the United States dropped from about five million to three-and-a-half million. The large unskilled or semi-skilled industries remained unorganized. The onset of the Great Depression led to widespread unemployment. By 1933 there were over 12 million Americans out of work. In the automobile industry, for example, the work force was cut in half between 1929 and 1933. At the same time, wages dropped by two-thirds. The election of Franklin Roosevelt, however, was to change the status of the American industrial worker forever. The first indication that Roosevelt was interested in the well-being of workers came with the appointment of Frances Perkins, a prominent social welfare advocate, to be his secretary of labor. (Perkins was also the first woman to hold a Cabinet-level position.) The far- reaching National Industrial Recovery Act sought to raise industrial wages, limit the hours in a work week, and eliminate child labor. Most importantly, the law recognized the right of employees “to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.” John L. Lewis, the feisty and articulate head of the United Mine Workers (UMW), understood more than any other labor leader what the New Deal meant for workers. Stressing Roosevelt’s support, Lewis engineered a major

227 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II unionizing campaign, rebuilding the UMW’s declining membership from 150,000 to over 500,000 within a year. Lewis was eager to get the AFL, where he was a member of the Execu- tive Council, to launch a similar drive in the mass production industries. But the AFL, with its historic focus on the skilled trade worker, was unwilling to do so. After a bitter internal feud, Lewis and a few others broke with the AFL to set up the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), later the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935 and the friendly attitude of the National Labor Relations Board put the power and authority of the federal government behind the CIO. Its first targets were the notoriously anti-union auto and steel industries. In late 1936 a series of sit-down strikes, orchestrated by the fledgling United Auto Workers union under Walter Reuther, erupted at General Motors plants in Cleveland, Ohio, and Flint, Michigan. Soon 135,000 workers were involved and GM production ground to a halt. With the sympathetic governor of Michigan refusing to evict the strikers, a settlement was reached in early 1937. By September of that year, the United Auto Workers had contracts with 400 companies involved in the automobile industry, assuring workers a minimum wage of 75 cents per hour and a 40- hour work week. In the first six months of its existence, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), headed by Lewis lieutenant Philip Murray, picked up 125,000 members. The major American steel company, U.S. Steel, realizing that times had changed, also came to terms in 1937. That same year the Su- preme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRA. Subsequently, smaller companies, traditionally even more anti-union than the large corporations, gave in. One by one, other industries — rubber, oil, electronics, and textiles — also followed suit. The rise of big labor had two major long-term impacts. It became the organizational core of the national Democratic Party, and it gained material benefits for its members that all but erased the economic distinction between working-class and middle-class America. 

228 In the depths of the Great Depression, March 1933, anxious depositors line up outside of a New York bank. The new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had just temporarily closed the nation’s banks to end the drain on the banks’ reserves. Only those banks that were still solvent were permitted to reopen after a four-day “bank holiday.”

TURMOIL AND

CHANGEA PICTURE PROFILE For the United States, the 20th century was a period of extraordinary turmoil and change. In these decades, the nation endured the worst economic depression in its history; emerged triumphant, with the Allies, in World War II; assumed a role of global leadership in the century’s twilight conflict known as the Cold War; and underwent a remarkable social, economic, and political transition at home. Where once the United States transformed itself over the slow march of centuries, it now seemed to reinvent itself almost by decades.

229 Men and women strikers dance the time away on March 11, 1937, during a strike at the Chevrolet Fisher Body Plants in St. Louis, Missouri. Strikes such as these succeeded in winning union recognition for industrial workers throughout the country in the 1930s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs perhaps the most far-reaching legislation of the New Deal: the Social Security Act of 1935. Today, Social Security, one of the largest government programs in the United States, provides retirement and disability income to millions of Americans.

230 World War II in the Pacific was characterized by large-scale naval and air battles. Here, a Japanese plane plunges in flames during an attack on a U.S. carrier fleet in the Mariana Islands, June 1944. U.S. Army and Marine forces’ “island hopping” campaign began at Guadalcanal in August 1942 and ended with the assault on Okinawa in April 1945.

231 Top, General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander in Europe, talks with paratroopers shortly before the Normandy invasion, June 6, 1944. Above, General Douglas MacArthur (center) had declared, “I shall return,” when he escaped from advancing Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1942. Two years later, he made good on his promise and waded ashore at Leyte as American forces began the liberation of the Philippines.

232 Assembly line of P-38 Lightning fighter planes during World War II. With its massive output of war materiel, the United States became, in the words of President Roosevelt, “the arsenal of democracy.”

Japanese Americans await relocation to internment camps in the worst violation of human rights that occurred inside the United States during World War II.

233 Meeting of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin at Yalta in February 1945. Disagreements over the future of Europe anticipated the division of the European continent that remained a fixture of the Cold War.

U.S. troops witness a nuclear test in the Nevada desert in 1951. The threat of nuclear weapons remained a constant and ominous fact of life throughout the Cold War era.

234 In perhaps the most famous photograph in American political history, President Harry Truman holds aloft a newspaper wrongly announcing his defeat by Republican nominee Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election. Truman’s come-from-behind victory surprised all political experts that day.

U.S. infantry fire against North Korean forces invading South Korea in 1951, in a conflict that lasted three painful years. At a congressional hearing in 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy points to a map purportedly showing Communist Party influence in the United States in 1950. His chief antagonist at the hearing, lawyer Joseph Welch, sits at left. Welch successfully discredited McCarthy at these hearings, which were among the first to be televised across the country.

Portrait of President Dwight Eisenhower, whose genial, reassuring personality dominated the decade of the 1950s.

236 Jackie Robinson, sliding home in a 1948 baseball game. Robinson broke the color barrier against black professional baseball players when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and became one of the stars of the game.

237 America’s first star of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, performing on television’s “Ed Sullivan Show,” September 9, 1956. Today, years after his death, he is still revered by legions of his fans as “The King.”

238 Lucille Ball (second from left) with her supporting cast, including husband Desi Arnaz (standing), on one of the most popular television comedy shows of the 1950s, I Love Lucy. The show established many of the techniques and conventions shared by hundreds of the televised “situation comedies” that followed.

239 Above, Rosa Parks sits in one of the front seats of a city bus following the successful boycott of the bus system in 1955-56 by African- American citizens of Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott was organized to protest the practice of segregation in which African Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus. The Supreme Court agreed that this practice was a constitutional violation a year after the boycott began. The great leader of the civil rights movement in America, Martin Luther King Jr., gained national prominence through the Montgomery bus boycott.

Opposite page, right, Martin Luther King Jr. escorts children to a previously all-white public school in Grenada, Mississippi, in 1966. Although school segregation was outlawed in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of the Supreme Court in 1954, it took decades of protest, political pressure, and additional court decisions to enforce school desegregation across the country.

240 241 President John F. Kennedy addresses nearly a quarter of a million Germans in West Berlin in June 1963. Honoring the courage of those living in one of the flash points of the Cold War, he said, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ (I am a Berliner).”

242 Ratification document for the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, one of the first arms control agreements between the West and the Soviet bloc, which ended atmospheric nuclear testing. Thurgood Marshall, one of the champions of equal rights for all Americans. As a counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Marshall successfully argued the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court, which outlawed segregation in public schools. He later served a distinguished career as a justice of the Supreme Court.

244 President Lyndon B. Johnson, born in Texas, was Senate majority leader in the Eisenhower years and vice president under John F. Kennedy before becoming president. One of the most powerful political personalities to serve in Washington, Johnson engineered the most ambitious domestic legislative agenda through Congress since Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Vietnam War ended his presidency, however, since it divided the nation.

245

A U.S. Army unit searches for snipers while on patrol in South Vietnam in 1965. From 60,000 troops in 1965, U.S. forces grew to more than 540,000 by 1969, in a conflict that divided the nation more bitterly than any other in the 20th century. The last U.S. combat forces left Vietnam in 1973.

247 Antiwar demonstrators and police clash during violent protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Antiwar candidates at the convention lost the presidential nomination to Lyndon Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey.

Two of the leaders of the women’s movement in the 1960s: Kate Millett (left), author of a controversial book of the time, Sexual Politics, and journalist and activist Gloria Steinem.

248 The crest of the counterculture wave in the United States: the three-day 1969 outdoor rock concert and gathering known as Woodstock.

249 Mexican-American labor activist César Chávez (center) talking with grape pickers in the field in 1968. Head of the United Farm Workers Union in California, Chávez was a leading voice for the rights of migrant farm workers, focusing national attention on their terrible working conditions.

250 President Richard M. Nixon, with his wife Pat Nixon and Secretary of State William Rogers (far right), walks along a portion of the Great Wall of China. Nixon’s 1972 opening to the People’s Republic of China was a major diplomatic triumph at a time when U.S. forces were slowly withdrawing from South Vietnam.

251 Participant in a demonstration by Native Americans in Washington, D.C., in 1978. They also have sought to assert their rights and identity in recent decades.

Oil fires burn behind a destroyed Iraqi tank at the conclusion of the Gulf War in February 1991. The United States led a coalition of more than 30 nations in an air and ground campaign called Desert Storm that ended Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait.

252 Civil rights leader and political activist Jesse Jackson at a political rally in 1984. For more than four decades, Jackson has remained among the most prominent, politically active, and eloquent representatives of what he has termed a “Rainbow Coalition” of the poor, African Americans, and other minorities.

253 A launch of a space shuttle, the first reusable space vehicle. The versatile shuttle, which has been used to place satellites in orbit and conduct wide-ranging experiments, is indispensable in the assemblage (beginning June 1998) and running of the International Space Station.

254 President George H.W. Bush with Poland’s Lech Walesa (center) and First Lady Barbara Bush in Warsaw, July 1989. That remarkable year saw the end of the Cold War, as well as the end to the 40-year division of Europe into hostile East and West blocs.

President William (Bill) J. Clinton, delivering his inaugural address to the nation, January 21, 1993. During his administration, the United States enjoyed more peace and economic well-being than at any time in its history. He was the second U.S. president to be impeached and found not guilty.

255 256 CHAPTER 12 POSTWAR AMERICA

Moving day in a newly opened suburban community, 1953. CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA

“We must build a new world, a far better world — one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.”

President Harry S. Truman, 1945

CONSENSUS AND CHANGE the growth of government authority and accepted the outlines of the The United States dominated glob- rudimentary welfare state first for- al affairs in the years immediately mulated during the New Deal . They after World War II . Victorious in enjoyed a postwar prosperity that that great struggle, its homeland created new levels of affluence . undamaged from the ravages of But gradually some began to war, the nation was confident of its question dominant assumptions . mission at home and abroad . U S. . Challenges on a variety of fronts leaders wanted to maintain the dem- shattered the consensus . In the ocratic structure they had defended 1950s, African Americans launched at tremendous cost and to share the a crusade, joined later by other mi- benefits of prosperity as widely as nority groups and women, for a larg- possible . For them, as for publisher er share of the American dream . In Henry Luce of Time magazine, this the 1960s, politically active students was the “American Century ”. protested the nation’s role abroad, For 20 years most Americans re- particularly in the corrosive war in mained sure of this confident ap- Vietnam . A youth counterculture proach . They accepted the need emerged to challenge the status quo . for a strong stance against the So- Americans from many walks of life viet Union in the Cold War that sought to establish a new social and unfolded after 1945 . They endorsed political equilibrium .

258 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

COLD WAR AIMS (1929-40), America now advocated open trade for two reasons: to cre- The Cold War was the most im- ate markets for American agricul- portant political and diplomatic is- tural and industrial products, and sue of the early postwar period . It to ensure the ability of Western Eu- grew out of longstanding disagree- ropean nations to export as a means ments between the Soviet Union and of rebuilding their economies . Re- the United States that developed af- duced trade barriers, American ter the Russian Revolution of 1917 . policy makers believed, would pro- The Soviet Communist Party un- mote economic growth at home and der V I. . Lenin considered itself the abroad, bolstering U S. . friends and spearhead of an international move- allies in the process . ment that would replace the exist- The Soviet Union had its own ing political orders in the West, and agenda . The Russian historical tra- indeed throughout the world . In dition of centralized, autocratic 1918 American troops participated government contrasted with the in the Allied intervention in Russia American emphasis on democracy . on behalf of anti-Bolshevik forces . Marxist-Leninist ideology had been American diplomatic recognition of downplayed during the war but still the Soviet Union did not come until guided Soviet policy . Devastated by 1933 . Even then, suspicions persist- the struggle in which 20 million ed . During World War II, however, Soviet citizens had died, the Soviet the two countries found themselves Union was intent on rebuilding and allied and downplayed their differ- on protecting itself from another ences to counter the Nazi threat . such terrible conflict . The Soviets At the war’s end, antagonisms were particularly concerned about surfaced again . The United States another invasion of their territo- hoped to share with other countries ry from the west . Having repelled its conception of liberty, equality, Hitler’s thrust, they were determined and democracy . It sought also to to preclude another such attack . learn from the perceived mistakes of They demanded “defensible” bor- the post-WWI era, when American ders and “friendly” regimes in East- political disengagement and eco- ern Europe and seemingly equated nomic protectionism were thought both with the spread of Commu- to have contributed to the rise of dic- nism, regardless of the wishes of tatorships in Europe and elsewhere . native populations . However, the Faced again with a postwar world United States had declared that one of civil wars and disintegrating of its war aims was the restoration empires, the nation hoped to pro- of independence and self-govern- vide the stability to make peaceful ment to Poland, Czechoslovakia, reconstruction possible . Recalling and the other countries of Central the specter of the Great Depression and Eastern Europe .

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HARRY TRUMAN’S ment following the Western model . LEADERSHIP The Yalta Conference of February 1945 had produced an agreement on The nation’s new chief executive, Eastern Europe open to different in- Harry S . Truman, succeeded Frank- terpretations . It included a promise lin D . Roosevelt as president before of “free and unfettered” elections . the end of the war . An unpretentious Meeting with Soviet Minister man who had previously served as of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Mo- Democratic senator from Missouri, lotov less than two weeks after be- then as vice president, Truman ini- coming president, Truman stood tially felt ill-prepared to govern . firm on Polish self-determination, Roosevelt had not discussed com- lecturing the Soviet diplomat about plex postwar issues with him, and he the need to implement the Yalta ac- had little experience in international cords . When Molotov protested, “I affairs . “I’m not big enough for this have never been talked to like that job,” he told a former colleague . in my life,” Truman retorted, “Carry Still, Truman responded quickly out your agreements and you won’t to new challenges . Sometimes im- get talked to like that ”. Relations de- pulsive on small matters, he proved teriorated from that point onward . willing to make hard and carefully During the closing months of considered decisions on large ones . World War II, Soviet military forces A small sign on his White House occupied all of Central and Eastern desk declared, “The Buck Stops Europe . Moscow used its military Here ”. His judgments about how power to support the efforts of the to respond to the Soviet Union ulti- Communist parties in Eastern Eu- mately determined the shape of the rope and crush the democratic par- early Cold War . ties . Communists took over one nation after another . The process ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR concluded with a shocking coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia in 1948 . The Cold War developed as dif- Public statements defined the be- ferences about the shape of the ginning of the Cold War . In 1946 postwar world created suspicion and Stalin declared that international distrust between the United States peace was impossible “under the and the Soviet Union . The first — present capitalist development of and most difficult — test case was the world economy ”. Former British Poland, the eastern half of which had Prime Minister Winston Churchill been invaded and occupied by the delivered a dramatic speech in Ful- USSR in 1939 . Moscow demanded ton, Missouri, with Truman sitting a government subject to Soviet in- on the platform . “From Stettin in fluence; Washington wanted a more the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” independent, representative govern- Churchill said, “an iron curtain has

260 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY descended across the Continent ” . straits between the Black Sea and the Britain and the United States, he de- Mediterranean . In early 1947, Amer- clared, had to work together to coun- ican policy crystallized when Britain ter the Soviet threat . told the United States that it could no longer afford to support the gov- CONTAINMENT ernment of Greece against a strong Communist insurgency . Containment of the Soviet Union In a strongly worded speech to became American policy in the Congress, Truman declared, “I be- postwar years . George Kennan, a lieve that it must be the policy of the top official at the U S. . embassy in United States to support free peoples Moscow, defined the new approach who are resisting attempted subjuga- in the Long Telegram he sent to tion by armed minorities or by out- the State Department in 1946 . He side pressures ”. Journalists quickly extended his analysis in an arti- dubbed this statement the “Truman cle under the signature “X” in the Doctrine ” . The president asked prestigious journal Foreign Affairs . Congress to provide $400 million for Pointing to Russia’s traditional sense economic and military aid, mostly to of insecurity, Kennan argued that Greece but also to Turkey . After an the Soviet Union would not soften emotional debate that resembled the its stance under any circumstances . one between interventionists and Moscow, he wrote, was “committed isolationists before World War II, the fanatically to the belief that with the money was appropriated . United States there can be no perma- Critics from the left later charged nent modus vivendi, that it is desir- that to whip up American support able and necessary that the internal for the policy of containment, Tru- harmony of our society be disrupt- man overstated the Soviet threat to ed ”. Moscow’s pressure to expand the United States . In turn, his state- its power had to be stopped through ments inspired a wave of hysterical “firm and vigilant containment of anti-Communism throughout the Russian expansive tendencies . . ”. country . Perhaps so . Others, how- The first significant application ever, would counter that this argu- of the containment doctrine came in ment ignores the backlash that likely the Middle East and eastern Medi- would have occurred if Greece, Tur- terranean . In early 1946, the Unit- key, and other countries had fallen ed States demanded, and obtained, within the Soviet orbit with no op- a full Soviet withdrawal from Iran, position from the United States . the northern half of which it had oc- Containment also called for ex- cupied during the war . That sum- tensive economic aid to assist the re- mer, the United States pointedly covery of war-torn Western Europe . supported Turkey against Soviet With many of the region’s nations demands for control of the Turkish economically and politically unsta-

261 CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA ble, the United States feared that lo- American leaders feared that cal Communist parties, directed by losing Berlin would be a prelude to Moscow, would capitalize on their losing Germany and subsequently all wartime record of resistance to the of Europe . Therefore, in a successful Nazis and come to power . “The pa- demonstration of Western resolve tient is sinking while the doctors de- known as the Berlin Airlift, Allied air liberate,” declared Secretary of State forces took to the sky, flying supplies George C . Marshall . In mid-1947 into Berlin . U S. ,. French, and British Marshall asked troubled European planes delivered nearly 2,250,000 nations to draw up a program “di- tons of goods, including food and rected not against any country or coal . Stalin lifted the blockade after doctrine but against hunger, poverty, 231 days and 277,264 flights . desperation, and chaos ”. By then, Soviet domination of The Soviets participated in the Eastern Europe, and especially the first planning meeting, then depart- Czech coup, had alarmed the West- ed rather than share economic data ern Europeans . The result, initiated and submit to Western controls on by the Europeans, was a military al- the expenditure of the aid . The reliance to complement economic ef- maining 16 nations hammered out a forts at containment . The Norwegian request that finally came to $17,000 historian Geir Lundestad has called million for a four-year period . In it “empire by invitation ”. In 1949 the early 1948 Congress voted to fund United States and 11 other countries the “Marshall Plan,” which helped established the North Atlantic Trea- underwrite the economic resur- ty Organization (NATO) . An attack gence of Western Europe . It is gen- against one was to be considered an erally regarded as one of the most attack against all, to be met by ap- successful foreign policy initiatives propriate force . NATO was the first in U S. . history . peacetime “entangling alliance” with Postwar Germany was a special powers outside the Western hemi- problem . It had been divided into sphere in American history . U S. , . Soviet, British, and French The next year, the United States zones of occupation, with the for- defined its defense aims clearly . The mer German capital of Berlin (it- National Security Council (NSC) self divided into four zones), near — the forum where the President, the center of the Soviet zone . When Cabinet officers, and other execu- the Western powers announced tive branch members consider na- their intention to create a consoli- tional security and foreign affairs dated federal state from their zones, issues — undertook a full-fledged Stalin responded . On June 24, 1948, review of American foreign and Soviet forces blockaded Berlin, cut- defense policy . The resulting docu- ting off all road and rail access from ment, known as NSC-68, signaled a the West . new direction in American security

262 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY policy . Based on the assumption that control, at least in Asia . “the Soviet Union was engaged in The Korean War brought armed a fanatical effort to seize control of conflict between the United States all governments wherever possible,” and China . The United States and the document committed America the Soviet Union had divided Ko- to assist allied nations anywhere in rea along the 38th parallel after lib- the world that seemed threatened by erating it from Japan at the end of Soviet aggression . After the start of World War II . Originally a matter the Korean War, a reluctant Truman of military convenience, the divid- approved the document . The United ing line became more rigid as both States proceeded to increase defense major powers set up governments spending dramatically . in their respective occupation zones and continued to support them even THE COLD WAR IN ASIA AND after departing . THE MIDDLE EAST In June 1950, after consultations with and having obtained the assent While seeking to prevent Com- of the Soviet Union, North Korean munist ideology from gaining fur- leader Kim Il-sung dispatched his ther adherents in Europe, the United Soviet-supplied army across the 38th States also responded to challenges parallel and attacked southward, elsewhere . In China, Americans overrunning Seoul . Truman, per- worried about the advances of Mao ceiving the North Koreans as Soviet Zedong and his Communist Party . pawns in the global struggle, read- During World War II, the National- ied American forces and ordered ist government under Chiang Kai- World War II hero General Douglas shek and the Communist forces MacArthur to Korea . Meanwhile, waged a civil war even as they fought the United States was able to secure the Japanese . Chiang had been a a U N. . resolution branding North war-time ally, but his government Korea as an aggressor . (The Soviet was hopelessly inefficient and cor- Union, which could have vetoed any rupt . American policy makers had action had it been occupying its seat little hope of saving his regime and on the Security Council, was boycot- considered Europe vastly more im- ting the United Nations to protest portant . With most American aid a decision not to admit Mao’s new moving across the Atlantic, Mao’s Chinese regime ). forces seized power in 1949 . Chiang’s The war seesawed back and forth . government fled to the island of Tai- U S. . and Korean forces were initial- wan . When China’s new ruler an- ly pushed into an enclave far to the nounced that he would support the south around the city of Pusan . A Soviet Union against the “imperial- daring amphibious landing at In- ist” United States, it appeared that chon, the port for the city of Seoul, Communism was spreading out of drove the North Koreans back and

263 CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA threatened to occupy the entire States officially recognized the new peninsula . In November, China state of Israel 15 minutes after it was entered the war, sending massive proclaimed — a decision Truman forces across the Yalu River . U N. . made over strong resistance from forces, largely American, retreated Marshall and the State Department . once again in bitter fighting . Com- The result was an enduring dilemma manded by General Matthew B . — how to maintain ties with Israel Ridgway, they stopped the overex- while keeping good relations with tended Chinese, and slowly fought bitterly anti-Israeli (and oil-rich) their way back to the 38th parallel . Arab states . MacArthur meanwhile challenged Truman’s authority by attempting EISENHOWER AND THE to orchestrate public support for COLD WAR bombing China and assisting an invasion of the mainland by Chi- In 1953, Dwight D . Eisenhower be- ang Kai-shek’s forces . In April 1951, came the first Republican president Truman relieved him of his duties in 20 years . A war hero rather than and replaced him with Ridgway . a career politician, he had a natu- The Cold War stakes were high . ral, common touch that made him Mindful of the European prior- widely popular . “I like Ike” was the ity, the U S. . government decided campaign slogan of the time . After against sending more troops to Ko- serving as Supreme Commander rea and was ready to settle for the of Allied Forces in Western Europe prewar status quo . The result was during World War II, Eisenhower frustration among many Americans had been army chief of staff, presi- who could not understand the need dent of Columbia University, and for restraint . Truman’s popular- military head of NATO before seek- ity plunged to a 24-percent approval ing the Republican presidential rating, the lowest to that time of any nomination . Skillful at getting peo- president since pollsters had begun ple to work together, he functioned to measure presidential popularity . as a strong public spokesman and Truce talks began in July 1951 . The an executive manager somewhat re- two sides finally reached an agree- moved from detailed policy making . ment in July 1953, during the first Despite disagreements on detail, term of Truman’s successor, Dwight he shared Truman’s basic view of Eisenhower . American foreign policy . He, too, Cold War struggles also occurred perceived Communism as a mono- in the Middle East . The region’s stra- lithic force struggling for world tegic importance as a supplier of oil supremacy . In his first inaugural ad- had provided much of the impetus dress, he declared, “Forces of good for pushing the Soviets out of Iran in and evil are massed and armed and 1946 . But two years later, the United opposed as rarely before in history .

264 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Freedom is pitted against slavery, tian Sinai . The president exerted lightness against dark ”. heavy pressure on all three countries The new president and his secre- to withdraw . Still, the nuclear threat tary of state, John Foster Dulles, had may have been taken seriously by argued that containment did not go Communist China, which refrained far enough to stop Soviet expansion . not only from attacking Taiwan, but Rather, a more aggressive policy from occupying small islands held of liberation was necessary, to free by Nationalist Chinese just off the those subjugated by Communism . mainland . It may also have deterred But when a democratic rebellion Soviet occupation of Berlin, which broke out in Hungary in 1956, the reemerged as a festering problem United States stood back as Soviet during Eisenhower’s last two years forces suppressed it . in office . Eisenhower’s basic commitment to contain Communism remained, THE COLD WAR AT HOME and to that end he increased Ameri- can reliance on a nuclear shield . The Not only did the Cold War shape United States had created the first U S. . foreign policy, it also had a pro- atomic bombs . In 1950 Truman had found effect on domestic affairs . authorized the development of a new Americans had long feared radi- and more powerful hydrogen bomb . cal subversion . These fears could at Eisenhower, fearful that defense times be overdrawn, and used to jus- spending was out of control, re- tify otherwise unacceptable politi- versed Truman’s NSC-68 policy of a cal restrictions, but it also was true large conventional military buildup . that individuals under Communist Relying on what Dulles called “mas- Party discipline and many “fellow sive retaliation,” the administration traveler” hangers-on gave their po- signaled it would use nuclear weap- litical allegiance not to the United ons if the nation or its vital interests States, but to the international Com- were attacked . munist movement, or, practically In practice, however, the nuclear speaking, to Moscow . During the option could be used only against Red Scare of 1919-1920, the govern- extremely critical attacks . Real ment had attempted to remove per- Communist threats were generally ceived threats to American society . peripheral . Eisenhower rejected the After World War II, it made strong use of nuclear weapons in Indochi- efforts against Communism within na, when the French were ousted by the United States . Foreign events, Vietnamese Communist forces in espionage scandals, and politics cre- 1954 . In 1956, British and French ated an anti-Communist hysteria . forces attacked Egypt following When Republicans were victo- Egyptian nationalization of the Suez rious in the midterm congressio- Canal and Israel invaded the Egyp- nal elections of 1946 and appeared

265 CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA ready to investigate subversive activ- The most vigorous anti-Commu- ity, President Truman established a nist warrior was Senator Joseph R . Federal Employee Loyalty Program . McCarthy, a Republican from Wis- It had little impact on the lives of consin . He gained national attention most civil servants, but a few hun- in 1950 by claiming that he had a list dred were dismissed, some unfairly . of 205 known Communists in the In 1947 the House Committee State Department . Though McCar- on Un-American Activities investi- thy subsequently changed this figure gated the motion-picture industry several times and failed to substan- to determine whether Communist tiate any of his charges, he struck a sentiments were being reflected in responsive public chord . popular films . When some writers McCarthy gained power when (who happened to be secret mem- the Republican Party won control bers of the Communist Party) re- of the Senate in 1952 . As a commit- fused to testify, they were cited for tee chairman, he now had a forum contempt and sent to prison . After for his crusade . Relying on exten- that, the film companies refused to sive press and television coverage, hire anyone with a marginally ques- he continued to search for treachery tionable past . among second-level officials in the In 1948, Alger Hiss, who had Eisenhower administration . Enjoy- been an assistant secretary of state ing the role of a tough guy doing and an adviser to Roosevelt at Yal- dirty but necessary work, he pursued ta, was publicly accused of being presumed Communists with vigor . a Communist spy by Whittaker McCarthy overstepped himself Chambers, a former Soviet agent . by challenging the U S. . Army when Hiss denied the accusation, but in one of his assistants was drafted . 1950 he was convicted of perjury . Television brought the hearings into Subsequent evidence indicates that millions of homes . Many Ameri- he was indeed guilty . cans saw McCarthy’s savage tactics In 1949 the Soviet Union shocked for the first time, and public sup- Americans by testing its own atomic port began to wane . The Republican bomb . In 1950, the government un- Party, which had found McCarthy covered a British-American spy net- useful in challenging a Democratic work that transferred to the Soviet administration when Truman was Union materials about the develop- president, began to see him as an ment of the atomic bomb . Two of embarrassment . The Senate finally its operatives, Julius Rosenberg and condemned him for his conduct . his wife Ethel, were sentenced to McCarthy in many ways repre- death . Attorney General J . Howard sented the worst domestic excesses McGrath declared there were many of the Cold War . As Americans re- American Communists, each bear- pudiated him, it became natural ing “the germ of death for society ”. for many to assume that the Com-

266 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY munist threat at home and abroad 1950s another wave occurred . Fran- had been grossly overblown . As the chise operations like McDonald’s country moved into the 1960s, anti- fast-food restaurants allowed small Communism became increasingly entrepreneurs to make themselves suspect, especially among intellectu- part of large, efficient enterprises . als and opinion-shapers . Big American corporations also developed holdings overseas, where la- THE POSTWAR ECONOMY: bor costs were often lower . 1945-1960 Workers found their own lives changing as industrial America In the decade and a half after changed . Fewer workers produced World War II, the United States ex- goods; more provided services . As perienced phenomenal economic early as 1956 a majority of employ- growth and consolidated its position ees held white-collar jobs, working as the world’s richest country . Gross as managers, teachers, salesper- national product (GNP), a measure sons, and office operatives . Some of all goods and services produced firms granted a guaranteed annual in the United States, jumped from wage, long-term employment con- about $200,000-million in 1940 to tracts, and other benefits . With such $300,000-million in 1950 to more changes, labor militancy was under- than $500,000-million in 1960 . mined and some class distinctions More and more Americans now began to fade . considered themselves part of the Farmers — at least those with middle class . small operations — faced tough The growth had different sourc- times . Gains in productivity led es . The economic stimulus provided to agricultural consolidation, and by large-scale public spending for farming became a big business . World War II helped get it started . More and more family farmers left Two basic middle-class needs did the land . much to keep it going . The number Other Americans moved too . of automobiles produced annually The West and the Southwest grew quadrupled between 1946 and 1955 . with increasing rapidity, a trend that A housing boom, stimulated in part would continue through the end by easily affordable mortgages for of the century . Sun Belt cities like returning servicemen, fueled the Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; Al- expansion . The rise in defense buquerque, New Mexico; and Phoe- spending as the Cold War escalated nix, Arizona, expanded rapidly . Los also played a part . Angeles, California, moved ahead of After 1945 the major corporations Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the in America grew even larger . There third largest U S. . city and then sur- had been earlier waves of mergers in passed Chicago, metropolis of the the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the Midwest . The 1970 census showed

267 CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA that California had displaced New terns . Developed in the 1930s, it was York as the nation’s largest state . not widely marketed until after the By 2000, Texas had moved ahead of war . In 1946 the country had fewer New York into second place . than 17,000 television sets . Three An even more important form of years later consumers were buying movement led Americans out of in- 250,000 sets a month, and by 1960 ner cities into new suburbs, where three-quarters of all families owned they hoped to find affordable hous- at least one set . In the middle of the ing for the larger families spawned decade, the average family watched by the postwar baby boom . Develop- television four to five hours a day . ers like William J . Levitt built new Popular shows for children included communities — with homes that Howdy Doody Time and The Mickey all looked alike — using the tech- Mouse Club; older viewers preferred niques of mass production . Levitt’s situation comedies like I Love Lucy houses were prefabricated — partly and Father Knows Best . Ameri- assembled in a factory rather than cans of all ages became exposed to on the final location — and modest, increasingly sophisticated advertise- but Levitt’s methods cut costs and ments for products said to be neces- allowed new owners to possess a part sary for the good life . of the American dream . As suburbs grew, businesses THE FAIR DEAL moved into the new areas . Large shopping centers containing a great The Fair Deal was the name given variety of stores changed consumer to President Harry Truman’s domes- patterns . The number of these cen- tic program . Building on Roosevelt’s ters rose from eight at the end of New Deal, Truman believed that the World War II to 3,840 in 1960 . With federal government should guaran- easy parking and convenient eve- tee economic opportunity and social ning hours, customers could avoid stability . He struggled to achieve those city shopping entirely . An unfortu- ends in the face of fierce political op- nate by-product was the “hollowing- position from legislators determined out” of formerly busy urban cores . to reduce the role of government . New highways created better ac- Truman’s first priority in the cess to the suburbs and its shops . immediate postwar period was to The Highway Act of 1956 provided make the transition to a peacetime $26,000-million, the largest public economy . Servicemen wanted to works expenditure in U .S . history, to come home quickly, but once they build more than 64,000 kilometers arrived they faced competition for of limited access interstate highways housing and employment . The G I. . to link the country together . Bill, passed before the end of the war, Television, too, had a powerful helped ease servicemen back into ci- impact on social and economic pat- vilian life by providing benefits such

268 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY as guaranteed loans for home-buy- In 1948 he sought reelection, despite ing and financial aid for industrial polls indicating that he had little training and university education . chance . After a vigorous campaign, More troubling was labor unrest . Truman scored one of the great up- As war production ceased, many sets in American politics, defeating workers found themselves without the Republican nominee, Thomas jobs . Others wanted pay increases Dewey, governor of New York . Re- they felt were long overdue . In 1946, viving the old New Deal coalition, 4 6. million workers went on strike, Truman held on to labor, farmers, more than ever before in American and African-American voters . history . They challenged the automo- When Truman finally left of- bile, steel, and electrical industries . fice in 1953, his Fair Deal was but When they took on the railroads and a mixed success . In July 1948 he soft-coal mines, Truman intervened banned racial discrimination in fed- to stop union excesses, but in so do- eral government hiring practices and ing he alienated many workers . ordered an end to segregation in the While dealing with immediately military . The minimum wage had pressing issues, Truman also provid- risen, and social security programs ed a broader agenda for action . Less had expanded . A housing program than a week after the war ended, he brought some gains but left many presented Congress with a 21-point needs unmet . National health in- program, which provided for pro- surance, aid-to-education measures, tection against unfair employment reformed agricultural subsidies, and practices, a higher minimum wage, his legislative civil rights agenda greater unemployment compen- never made it through Congress . sation, and housing assistance . In The president’s pursuit of the Cold the next several months, he added War, ultimately his most important proposals for health insurance and objective, made it especially difficult atomic energy legislation . But this to develop support for social reform scattershot approach often left Tru- in the face of intense opposition . man’s priorities unclear . Republicans were quick to attack . EISENHOWER’S APPROACH In the 1946 congressional elections they asked, “Had enough?” and vot- When Dwight Eisenhower suc- ers responded that they had . Re- ceeded Truman as president, he publicans, with majorities in both accepted the basic framework of gov- houses of Congress for the first time ernment responsibility established since 1928, were determined to re- by the New Deal, but sought to hold verse the liberal direction of the the line on programs and expendi- Roosevelt years . tures . He termed his approach “dy- Truman fought with the Congress namic conservatism” or “modern as it cut spending and reduced taxes . Republicanism,” which meant, he ex-

269 CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA plained, “conservative when it comes THE CULTURE OF THE 1950s to money, liberal when it comes to human beings ”. A critic countered During the 1950s, many cul- that Eisenhower appeared to argue tural commentators pointed out that he would “strongly recommend that a sense of uniformity pervaded the building of a great many schools American society . Conformity, they . . but not provide the money ”. asserted, was numbingly common . Eisenhower’s first priority was Though men and women had been to balance the budget after years of forced into new employment pat- deficits . He wanted to cut spending terns during World War II, once the and taxes and maintain the value of war was over, traditional roles were the dollar . Republicans were willing reaffirmed . Men expected to be the to risk unemployment to keep infla- breadwinners in each family; wom- tion in check . Reluctant to stimulate en, even when they worked, assumed the economy too much, they saw their proper place was at home . In his the country suffer three economic influential book, The Lonely Crowd, recessions in the eight years of the sociologist David Riesman called Eisenhower presidency, but none this new society “other-directed,” was very severe . characterized by conformity, but In other areas, the administra- also by stability . Television, still very tion transferred control of offshore limited in the choices it gave its view- oil lands from the federal govern- ers, contributed to the homogenizing ment to the states . It also favored pri- cultural trend by providing young vate development of electrical power and old with a shared experience re- rather than the public approach the flecting accepted social patterns . Democrats had initiated . In general, Yet beneath this seemingly its orientation was sympathetic to bland surface, important segments business . of American society seethed with Compared to Truman, Eisen- rebellion . A number of writers, hower had only a modest domes- collectively known as the “Beat Gen- tic program . When he was active eration,” went out of their way to in promoting a bill, it likely was to challenge the patterns of respect- trim the New Deal legacy a bit — as ability and shock the rest of the in reducing agricultural subsidies culture . Stressing spontaneity and or placing mild restrictions on la- spirituality, they preferred intuition bor unions . His disinclination to over reason, Eastern mysticism over push fundamental change in either Western institutionalized religion . direction was in keeping with the The literary work of the beats spirit of the generally prosperous displayed their sense of alienation Fifties . He was one of the few presi- and quest for self-realization . Jack dents who left office as popular as Kerouac typed his best-selling novel when he entered it . On the Road on a 75-meter roll of

270 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY paper . Lacking traditional punctua- tary services and in the work force, tion and paragraph structure, the and they had made limited gains . book glorified the possibilities of the Millions of African Americans had free life . Poet Allen Ginsberg gained left Southern farms for Northern cit- similar notoriety for his poem ies, where they hoped to find better “Howl,” a scathing critique of mod- jobs . They found instead crowded ern, mechanized civilization . When conditions in urban slums . Now, police charged that it was obscene African-American servicemen re- and seized the published version, turned home, many intent on reject- Ginsberg successfully challenged ing second-class citizenship . the ruling in court . Jackie Robinson dramatized the Musicians and artists rebelled as racial question in 1947 when he well . Tennessee singer Elvis Presley broke baseball’s color line and be- was the most successful of several gan playing in the major leagues . A white performers who popularized member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a sensual and pulsating style of Af- he often faced trouble with oppo- rican-American music, which began nents and teammates as well . But an to be called “rock and roll ”. At first, outstanding first season led to his he outraged middle-class Ameri- acceptance and eased the way for cans with his ducktail haircut and other African-American players, undulating hips . But in a few years who now left the Negro leagues to his performances would seem rela- which they had been confined . tively tame alongside the antics of Government officials, and many later performers such as the British other Americans, discovered the Rolling Stones . Similarly, it was in connection between racial problems the 1950s that painters like Jackson and Cold War politics . As the leader Pollock discarded easels and laid out of the free world, the United States gigantic canvases on the floor, then sought support in Africa and Asia . applied paint, sand, and other mate- Discrimination at home impeded rials in wild splashes of color . All of the effort to win friends in other these artists and authors, whatever parts of the world . the medium, provided models for Harry Truman supported the the wider and more deeply felt social early civil rights movement . He per- revolution of the 1960s . sonally believed in political equality, though not in social equality, and ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL recognized the growing importance RIGHTS MOVEMENT of the African-American urban vote . When apprised in 1946 of a spate African Americans became in- of lynchings and anti-black violence creasingly restive in the postwar in the South, he appointed a com- years . During the war they had chal- mittee on civil rights to investigate lenged discrimination in the mili- discrimination . Its report, To Secure

271 CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA

These Rights, issued the next year, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, that seg- documented African Americans’ regation of African-American and second-class status in American life white students was constitutional if and recommended numerous fed- facilities were “separate but equal ”. eral measures to secure the rights That decree had been used for de- guaranteed to all citizens . cades to sanction rigid segregation Truman responded by sending in all aspects of Southern life, where a 10-point civil rights program to facilities were seldom, if ever, equal . Congress . Southern Democrats in African Americans achieved their Congress were able to block its en- goal of overturning Plessy in 1954 actment . A number of the angriest, when the Supreme Court — pre- led by Governor Strom Thurmond sided over by an Eisenhower ap- of South Carolina, formed a States pointee, Chief Justice Earl Warren Rights Party to oppose the president — handed down its Brown v. Board in 1948 . Truman thereupon issued of Education ruling . The Court de- an executive order barring discrim- clared unanimously that “separate ination in federal employment, or- facilities are inherently unequal,” dered equal treatment in the armed and decreed that the “separate but forces, and appointed a committee equal” doctrine could no longer be to work toward an end to military used in public schools . A year later, segregation, which was largely ended the Supreme Court demanded that during the Korean War . local school boards move “with all African Americans in the South deliberate speed” to implement the in the 1950s still enjoyed few, if any, decision . civil and political rights . In gener- Eisenhower, although sympathet- al, they could not vote . Those who ic to the needs of the South as it faced tried to register faced the likelihood a major transition, nonetheless act- of beatings, loss of job, loss of credit, ed to see that the law was upheld in or eviction from their land . Occa- the face of massive resistance from sional lynchings still occurred . Jim much of the South . He faced a ma- Crow laws enforced segregation of jor crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the races in streetcars, trains, hotels, 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus restaurants, hospitals, recreational attempted to block a desegregation facilities, and employment . plan calling for the admission of nine black students to the city’s previ- DESEGREGATION ously all-white Central High School . After futile efforts at negotiation, the The National Association for the president sent federal troops to Little Advancement of Colored People Rock to enforce the plan . (NAACP) took the lead in efforts to Governor Faubus responded by overturn the judicial doctrine, es- ordering the Little Rock high schools tablished in the Supreme Court case closed down for the 1958-59 school

272 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY year . However, a federal court powerful, thoughtful, and eloquent ordered them reopened the follow- leader in Martin Luther King Jr . ing year . They did so in a tense at- African Americans also sought to mosphere with a tiny number of secure their voting rights . Although African-American students . Thus, the 15th Amendment to the U S. . school desegregation proceeded at a Constitution guaranteed the right to slow and uncertain pace throughout vote, many states had found ways to much of the South . circumvent the law . The states would Another milestone in the civil impose a poll (“head”) tax or a lit- rights movement occurred in 1955 in eracy test — typically much more Montgomery, Alabama . Rosa Parks, stringently interpreted for African a 42-year-old African-American Americans — to prevent poor Afri- seamstress who was also secretary can Americans with little education of the state chapter of the NAACP, from voting . Eisenhower, working sat down in the front of a bus in a with Senate majority leader Lyn- section reserved by law and custom don B . Johnson, lent his support to for whites . Ordered to move to the a congressional effort to guarantee back, she refused . Police came and the vote . The Civil Rights Act of arrested her for violating the seg- 1957, the first such measure in 82 regation statutes . African-American years, marked a step forward, as it leaders, who had been waiting for authorized federal intervention in just such a case, organized a boycott cases where African Americans of the bus system . were denied the chance to vote . Yet Martin Luther King Jr ,. a young loopholes remained, and so activ- minister of the Baptist church ists pushed successfully for the Civil where the African Americans met, Rights Act of 1960, which provided became a spokesman for the pro- stiffer penalties for interfering with test . “There comes a time,” he said, voting, but still stopped short of au- “when people get tired . . of being thorizing federal officials to register kicked about by the brutal feet of op- African Americans . pression ”. King was arrested, as he Relying on the efforts of African would be again and again; a bomb Americans themselves, the civil damaged the front of his house . But rights movement gained momen- African Americans in Montgomery tum in the postwar years . Working sustained the boycott . About a year through the Supreme Court and later, the Supreme Court affirmed through Congress, civil rights sup- that bus segregation, like school porters had created the groundwork segregation, was unconstitutional . for a dramatic yet peaceful “revolu- The boycott ended . The civil rights tion” in American race relations in movement had won an important the 1960s . 9 victory — and discovered its most

273 274 CHAPTER 13 DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980

Module Pilot Edwin Aldrin Jr. on the moon, July 20, 1969. CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

By 1960, the United States was on politics, many of the offspring of the the verge of a major social change . World War II generation emerged as American society had always been advocates of a new America char- more open and fluid than that of acterized by a cultural and ethnic the nations in most of the rest of the pluralism that their parents often world . Still, it had been dominated viewed with unease . primarily by old-stock, white males . During the 1960s, groups that previ- THE CIVIL RIGHTS ously had been submerged or sub- MOVEMENT 1960-1980 ordinate began more forcefully and successfully to assert themselves: Af- The struggle of African Americans rican Americans, Native Americans, for equality reached its peak in the women, the white ethnic offspring of mid-1960s . After progressive vic- the “new immigration,” and Latinos . tories in the 1950s, African Ameri- Much of the support they received cans became even more committed came from a young population larg- to nonviolent direct action . Groups er than ever, making its way through like the Southern Christian Leader- a college and university system that ship Conference (SCLC), made up was expanding at an unprecedented of African-American clergy, and pace . Frequently embracing “coun- the Student Nonviolent Coordinat- tercultural” lifestyles and radical ing Committee (SNCC), composed

276 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY of younger activists, sought reform themselves, forced his hand . When through peaceful confrontation . James Meredith was denied admis- In 1960 African-American col- sion to the University of Mississippi lege students sat down at a segre- in 1962 because of his race, Kennedy gated Woolworth’s lunch counter in sent federal troops to uphold the law . North Carolina and refused to leave . After protests aimed at the deseg- Their sit-in captured media atten- regation of Birmingham, Alabama, tion and led to similar demonstra- prompted a violent response by the tions throughout the South . The next police, he sent Congress a new civil year, civil rights workers organized rights bill mandating the integration “freedom rides,” in which African of public places . Not even the March Americans and whites boarded bus- on Washington, however, could ex- es heading south toward segregated tricate the measure from a congres- terminals, where confrontations sional committee, where it was still might capture media attention and bottled up when Kennedy was assas- lead to change . sinated in 1963 . They also organized rallies, the President Lyndon B . Johnson largest of which was the “March on was more successful . Displaying Washington” in 1963 . More than negotiating skills he had so fre- 200,000 people gathered in the na- quently employed during his years tion’s capital to demonstrate their as Senate majority leader, Johnson commitment to equality for all . The persuaded the Senate to limit delay- high point of a day of songs and ing tactics preventing a final vote speeches came with the address of on the sweeping Civil Rights Act of Martin Luther King Jr , . who had 1964, which outlawed discrimina- emerged as the preeminent spokes- tion in all public accommodations . man for civil rights . “I have a dream The next year’s Voting Rights Act that one day on the red hills of Geor- of 1965 authorized the federal gov- gia the sons of former slaves and the ernment to register voters where sons of former slave owners will be local officials had prevented Afri- able to sit down together at the table can Americans from doing so . By of brotherhood,” King proclaimed . 1968 a million African Americans Each time he used the refrain “I have were registered in the deep South . a dream,” the crowd roared . Nationwide, the number of African- The level of progress initially American elected officials increased achieved did not match the rhetoric substantially . In 1968, the Congress of the civil rights movement . Presi- passed legislation banning discrimi- dent Kennedy was initially reluc- nation in housing . tant to press white Southerners for Once unleashed, however, the support on civil rights because he civil rights revolution produced needed their votes on other issues . leaders impatient with both the pace Events, driven by African Americans of change and the goal of channel-

277 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 ing African Americans into main- their neighborhoods to achieve ra- stream white society . Malcolm X, cial balance in metropolitan schools an eloquent activist, was the most or about the use of “affirmative ac- prominent figure arguing for Afri- tion ”. These policies and programs can-American separation from the were viewed by some as active mea- white race . Stokely Carmichael, a sures to ensure equal opportunity, as student leader, became similarly dis- in education and employment, and illusioned by the notions of nonvio- by others as reverse discrimination . lence and interracial cooperation . The courts worked their way He popularized the slogan “black through these problems with deci- power,” to be achieved by “whatever sions that were often inconsistent . In means necessary,” in the words of the meantime, the steady march of Malcolm X . African Americans into the ranks Violence accompanied militant of the middle class and once large- calls for reform . Riots broke out in ly white suburbs quietly reflected a several big cities in 1966 and 1967 . profound demographic change . In the spring of 1968, Martin Lu- ther King Jr . fell before an assassin’s THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT bullet . Several months later, Senator Robert Kennedy, a spokesman for During the 1950s and 1960s, in- the disadvantaged, an opponent of creasing numbers of married wom- the Vietnam War, and the brother en entered the labor force, but in of the slain president, met the same 1963 the average working woman fate . To many these two assassina- earned only 63 percent of what a tions marked the end of an era of in- man made . That year Betty Friedan nocence and idealism . The growing published The Feminine Mystique, militancy on the left, coupled with an explosive critique of middle- an inevitable conservative backlash, class living patterns that articulated opened a rift in the nation’s psyche a pervasive sense of discontent that that took years to heal . Friedan contended was felt by many By then, however, a civil rights women . Arguing that women often movement supported by court de- had no outlets for expression other cisions, congressional enactments, than “finding a husband and bear- and federal administrative regula- ing children,” Friedan encouraged tions was irreversibly woven into the her readers to seek new roles and re- fabric of American life . The major sponsibilities and to find their own issues were about implementation personal and professional identities, of equality and access, not about the rather than have them defined by a legality of segregation or disenfran- male-dominated society . chisement . The arguments of the The women’s movement of the 1970s and thereafter were over mat- 1960s and 1970s drew inspiration ters such as busing children out of from the civil rights movement . It

278 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY was made up mainly of members of al years, 35 of the necessary 38 states the middle class, and thus partook ratified it . The courts also moved to of the spirit of rebellion that affected expand women’s rights . In 1973 the large segments of middle-class youth Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade sanc- in the 1960s . tioned women’s right to obtain an Reform legislation also prompted abortion during the early months of change . During debate on the 1964 pregnancy — seen as a significant Civil Rights bill, opponents hoped victory for the women’s movement to defeat the entire measure by pro- — but Roe also spurred the growth posing an amendment to outlaw dis- of an anti-abortion movement . crimination on the basis of gender as In the mid- to late-1970s, how- well as race . First the amendment, ever, the women’s movement seemed then the bill itself, passed, giving to stagnate . It failed to broaden its women a valuable legal tool . appeal beyond the middle class . In 1966, 28 professional women, Divisions arose between moderate including Friedan, established the and radical feminists . Conservative National Organization for Wom- opponents mounted a campaign en (NOW) “to take action to bring against the Equal Rights Amend- American women into full partici- ment, and it died in 1982 without pation in the mainstream of Ameri- gaining the approval of the 38 states can society now ”. While NOW and needed for ratification . similar feminist organizations boast of substantial memberships today, THE LATINO MOVEMENT arguably they attained their greatest influence in the early 1970s, a time In post-World War II America, that also saw the journalist Gloria Americans of Mexican and Puerto Steinem and several other wom- Rican descent had faced discrimina- en found Ms . magazine . They also tion . New immigrants, coming from spurred the formation of counter- Cuba, Mexico, and Central Ameri- feminist groups, often led by women, ca — often unskilled and unable to including most prominently the po- speak English — suffered from dis- litical activist Phyllis Schlafly . These crimination as well . Some Hispanics groups typically argued for more worked as farm laborers and at times “traditional” gender roles and op- were cruelly exploited while harvest- posed the proposed “Equal Rights” ing crops; others gravitated to the constitutional amendment . cities, where, like earlier immigrant Passed by Congress in 1972, groups, they encountered difficulties that amendment declared in part, in their quest for a better life . “Equality of rights under the law Chicanos, or Mexican-Ameri- shall not be denied or abridged by cans, mobilized in organizations the United States or by any State on like the radical Asociación Nacio- account of sex ”. Over the next sever- nal Mexico-Americana, yet did

279 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 not become confrontational un- creased . Several prominent Hispan- til the 1960s . Hoping that Lyndon ics have served in the Bill Clinton Johnson’s poverty program would and George W . Bush cabinets . expand opportunities for them, they found that bureaucrats failed THE NATIVE-AMERICAN to respond to less vocal groups . MOVEMENT The example of black activism in particular taught Hispanics the im- In the 1950s, Native Americans portance of pressure politics in a struggled with the government’s pol- pluralistic society . icy of moving them off reservations The National Labor Relations Act and into cities where they might as- of 1935 had excluded agricultural similate into mainstream America . workers from its guarantee of the Many of the uprooted often had dif- right to organize and bargain col- ficulties adjusting to urban life . In lectively . But César Chávez, found- 1961, when the policy was discontin- er of the overwhelmingly Hispanic ued, the U S. . Commission on Civil United Farm Workers, demonstrat- Rights noted that, for Native Ameri- ed that direct action could achieve cans, “poverty and deprivation are employer recognition for his union . common .” California grape growers agreed to In the 1960s and 1970s, watch- bargain with the union after Chávez ing both the development of Third led a nationwide consumer boy- World nationalism and the progress cott . Similar boycotts of lettuce and of the civil rights movement, Native other products were also successful . Americans became more aggressive Though farm interests continued to in pressing for their own rights . A try to obstruct Chávez’s organiza- new generation of leaders went to tion, the legal foundation had been court to protect what was left of tribal laid for representation to secure lands or to recover those which had higher wages and improved working been taken, often illegally, in previ- conditions . ous times . In state after state, they Hispanics became political- challenged treaty violations, and in ly active as well . In 1961 Henry B . 1967 won the first of many victories González won election to Congress guaranteeing long-abused land and from Texas . Three years later Eligio water rights . The American Indian (“Kika”) de la Garza, another Texan, Movement (AIM), founded in 1968, followed him, and Joseph Montoya helped channel government funds to of New Mexico went to the Sen- Native-American-controlled organi- ate . Both González and de la Garza zations and assisted neglected Native later rose to positions of power as Americans in the cities . committee chairmen in the House . Confrontations became more In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of common . In 1969 a landing party Hispanic political involvement in- of 78 Native Americans seized Alca-

280 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY traz Island in San Francisco Bay and ger and beards became common . held it until federal officials removed Blue jeans and tee shirts took the them in 1971 . In 1973 AIM took over place of slacks, jackets, and ties . the South Dakota village of Wound- The use of illegal drugs increased . ed Knee, where soldiers in the late Rock and roll grew, proliferated, 19th century had massacred a Sioux and transformed into many musi- encampment . Militants hoped to cal variations . The Beatles, the Roll- dramatize the poverty and alcohol- ing Stones, and other British groups ism in the reservation surrounding took the country by storm . “Hard the town . The episode ended after rock” grew popular, and songs with one Native American was killed and a political or social commentary, another wounded, with a govern- such as those by singer-songwriter ment agreement to re-examine trea- Bob Dylan, became common . The ty rights . youth counterculture reached its Still, Native-American activ- apogee in August 1969 at Wood- ism brought results . Other Amer- stock, a three-day music festival in icans became more aware of rural New York State attended by Native-American needs . Govern- almost half-a-million persons . The ment officials responded with festival, mythologized in films and measures including the Education record albums, gave its name to the Assistance Act of 1975 and the 1996 era, the Woodstock Generation . Native-American Housing and Self- A parallel manifestation of the Determination Act . The Senate’s new sensibility of the young was first Native-American member, Ben the rise of the New Left, a group of Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, young, college-age radicals . The New was elected in 1992 . Leftists, who had close counterparts in Western Europe, were in many in- THE COUNTERCULTURE stances the children of the older generation of radicals . Nonetheless, they The agitation for equal opportuni- rejected old-style Marxist rhetoric . ty sparked other forms of upheaval . Instead, they depicted university Young people in particular rejected students as themselves an oppressed the stable patterns of middle-class class that possessed special insights life their parents had created in the into the struggle of other oppressed decades after World War II . Some groups in American society . plunged into radical political activ- New Leftists participated in the ity; many more embraced new stan- civil rights movement and the strug- dards of dress and sexual behavior . gle against poverty . Their greatest The visible signs of the coun- success — and the one instance in terculture spread through parts of which they developed a mass follow- American society in the late 1960s ing — was in opposing the Vietnam and early 1970s . Hair grew lon- War, an issue of emotional interest

281 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 to their draft-age contemporaries . provement Act, which assigned to By the late 1970s, the student New the polluter the responsibility of Left had disappeared, but many of its cleaning up off-shore oil spills . Also, activists made their way into main- in 1970, the Environmental Protec- stream politics . tion Agency (EPA) was created as an independent federal agency to ENVIRONMENTALISM spearhead the effort to bring abuses under control . During the next The energy and sensibility that fu- three decades, the EPA, bolstered by eled the civil rights movement, the legislation that increased its author- counterculture, and the New Left ity, became one of the most active also stimulated an environmental agencies in the government, issuing movement in the mid-1960s . Many strong regulations covering air and were aroused by the publication in water quality . 1962 of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, which alleged that chemical KENNEDY AND THE pesticides, particularly DDT, caused RESURGENCE OF BIG cancer, among other ills . Public GOVERNMENT LIBERALISM concern about the environment continued to increase throughout By 1960 government had become the 1960s as many became aware of an increasingly powerful force in other pollutants surrounding them people’s lives . During the Great De- — automobile emissions, industrial pression of the 1930s, new execu- wastes, oil spills — that threatened tive agencies were created to deal their health and the beauty of their with many aspects of American life . surroundings . On April 22, 1970, During World War II, the number schools and communities across the of civilians employed by the feder- United States celebrated Earth Day al government rose from one mil- for the first time . “Teach-ins” edu- lion to 3 8. million, then stabilized cated Americans about the dangers at 2 5. million in the 1950s . Federal of environmental pollution . expenditures, which had stood at Few denied that pollution was a $3,100-million in 1929, increased to problem, but the proposed solutions $75,000-million in 1953 and passed involved expense and inconve- $150,000-million in the 1960s . nience . Many believed these would Most Americans accepted gov- reduce the economic growth upon ernment’s expanded role, even which many Americans’ standard as they disagreed about how far of living depended . Nevertheless, in that expansion should continue . 1970, Congress amended the Clean Democrats generally wanted the Air Act of 1967 to develop uniform government to ensure growth and national air-quality standards . It stability . They wanted to extend also passed the Water Quality Im- federal benefits for education, health,

282 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY and welfare . Many Republicans derly, and create a new Department accepted a level of government of Urban Affairs . And so, despite responsibility, but hoped to cap his lofty rhetoric, Kennedy’s policies spending and restore a larger were often limited and restrained . measure of individual initiative . The One priority was to end the reces- presidential election of 1960 revealed sion, in progress when Kennedy took a nation almost evenly divided office, and restore economic growth . between these visions . But Kennedy lost the confidence of John F . Kennedy, the Democratic business leaders in 1962, when he victor by a narrow margin, was at succeeded in rolling back what the 43 the youngest man ever to win the administration regarded as an exces- presidency . On television, in a series sive price increase in the steel indus- of debates with opponent Richard try . Though the president achieved Nixon, he appeared able, articulate, his immediate goal, he alienated an and energetic . In the campaign, he important source of support . Per- spoke of moving aggressively into suaded by his economic advisers that the new decade, for “the New Fron- a large tax cut would stimulate the tier is here whether we seek it or economy, Kennedy backed a bill pro- not ”. In his first inaugural address, viding for one . Conservative opposi- he concluded with an eloquent plea: tion in Congress, however, appeared “Ask not what your country can do to destroy any hopes of passing a bill for you — ask what you can do for most congressmen thought would your country ”. Throughout his brief widen the budget deficit . presidency, Kennedy’s special com- The overall legislative record of the bination of grace, wit, and style — Kennedy administration was meager . far more than his specific legislative The president made some gestures agenda — sustained his popularity toward civil rights leaders but did not and influenced generations of politi- embrace the goals of the civil rights cians to come . movement until demonstrations led Kennedy wanted to exert strong by Martin Luther King Jr . forced leadership to extend economic ben- his hand in 1963 . Like Truman efits to all citizens, but a razor-thin before him, he could not secure margin of victory limited his man- congressional passage of federal aid date . Even though the Democrat- to public education or for a medical ic Party controlled both houses of care program limited to the elderly . Congress, conservative Southern He gained only a modest increase Democrats often sided with the Re- in the minimum wage . Still, he did publicans on issues involving the secure funding for a space program, scope of governmental intervention and established the Peace Corps to in the economy . They resisted plans send men and women overseas to to increase federal aid to education, assist developing countries in meeting provide health insurance for the el- their own needs .

283 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980

KENNEDY AND THE that Kennedy had risked nuclear di- COLD WAR saster when quiet diplomacy might have been effective . But most Ameri- President Kennedy came into of- cans and much of the non-Commu- fice pledging to carry on the Cold nist world applauded his decisiveness . War vigorously, but he also hoped The missile crisis made him for the for accommodation and was reluc- first time the acknowledged leader of tant to commit American power . the democratic West . During his first year-and-a-half In retrospect, the Cuban mis- in office, he rejected American in- sile crisis marked a turning point tervention after the CIA-guided in U S. -Soviet. relations . Both sides Cuban exile invasion at the Bay of saw the need to defuse tensions that Pigs failed, effectively ceded the could lead to direct military con- landlocked Southeast Asian nation flict . The following year, the United of Laos to Communist control, and States, the Soviet Union, and Great acquiesced in the building of the Britain signed a landmark Limited Berlin Wall . Kennedy’s decisions Test Ban Treaty prohibiting nuclear reinforced impressions of weakness weapons tests in the atmosphere . that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrush- Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cam- chev had formed in their only per- bodia), a French possession before sonal meeting, a summit meeting at World War II, was still another Cold Vienna in June 1961 . War battlefield . The French effort to It was against this backdrop that reassert colonial control there was Kennedy faced the most serious opposed by Ho Chi Minh, a Viet- event of the Cold War, the Cuban namese Communist, whose Viet missile crisis . Minh movement engaged in a guer- In the fall of 1962, the adminis- rilla war with the French army . tration learned that the Soviet Union Both Truman and Eisenhower, was secretly installing offensive nu- eager to maintain French support for clear missiles in Cuba . After con- the policy of containment in Europe, sidering different options, Kennedy provided France with economic aid decided on a quarantine to prevent that freed resources for the struggle Soviet ships from bringing addition- in Vietnam . But the French suffered al supplies to Cuba . He demanded a decisive defeat in Dien Bien Phu in publicly that the Soviets remove the May 1954 . At an international confer- weapons and warned that an attack ence in Geneva, Laos and Cambodia from that island would bring retali- were given their independence . Viet- ation against the USSR . After sever- nam was divided, with Ho in power al days of tension, during which the in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem, a world was closer than ever before to Roman Catholic anti-Communist in nuclear war, the Soviets agreed to a largely Buddhist population, head- remove the missiles . Critics charged ing the government in the South .

284 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Elections were to be held two years After Kennedy’s death, President later to unify the country . Persuaded Lyndon Johnson enthusiastically that the fall of Vietnam could lead to supported the space program . In the fall of Burma, Thailand, and In- the mid-1960s, U S. . scientists devel- donesia, Eisenhower backed Diem’s oped the two-person Gemini space- refusal to hold elections in 1956 and craft . Gemini achieved several firsts, effectively established South Viet- including an eight-day mission in nam as an American client state . August 1965 — the longest space Kennedy increased assistance, flight at that time — and in No- and sent small numbers of military vember 1966, the first automatically advisers, but a new guerrilla strug- controlled reentry into the Earth’s gle between North and South con- atmosphere . Gemini also accom- tinued . Diem’s unpopularity grew plished the first manned linkup of and the military situation wors- two spacecraft in flight as well as the ened . In late 1963, Kennedy secretly first U S. . walks in space . assented to a coup d’etat . To the The three-person Apollo space- president’s surprise, Diem and his craft achieved Kennedy’s goal and powerful brother-in-law, Ngo Dien demonstrated to the world that the Nu, were killed . It was at this uncer- United States had surpassed Soviet tain juncture that Kennedy’s presi- capabilities in space . On July 20, dency ended three weeks later . 1969, with hundreds of millions of television viewers watching around THE SPACE PROGRAM the world, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the sur- During Eisenhower’s second face of the moon . term, outer space had become an Other Apollo flights followed, but arena for U S. -Soviet. competition . many Americans began to question In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the value of manned space flight . In Sputnik — an artificial satellite — the early 1970s, as other priorities thereby demonstrating it could became more pressing, the United build more powerful rockets than States scaled down the space pro- the United States . The United States gram . Some Apollo missions were launched its first satellite, Explorer I, scrapped; only one of two proposed in 1958 . But three months after Ken- Skylab space stations was built . nedy became president, the USSR put the first man in orbit . Kennedy DEATH OF A PRESIDENT responded by committing the Unit- ed States to land a man on the moon John Kennedy had gained world and bring him back “before this de- prestige by his management of the cade is out ”. With Project Mercury Cuban missile crisis and had won in 1962, John Glenn became the first great popularity at home . Many be- U S. . astronaut to orbit the Earth . lieved he would win re-election eas-

285 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 ily in 1964 . But on November 22, and calling on the legislators’ respect 1963, he was assassinated while rid- for the slain president, Johnson suc- ing in an open car during a visit to ceeded in gaining passage of both Dallas, Texas . His death, amplified during his first year in office . The by television coverage, was a trau- tax cuts stimulated the economy . matic event, just as Roosevelt’s had The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the been 18 years earlier . most far-reaching such legislation In retrospect, it is clear that Ken- since Reconstruction . nedy’s reputation stems more from Johnson addressed other issues as his style and eloquently stated ideals well . By the spring of 1964, he had than from the implementation of his begun to use the name “Great Soci- policies . He had laid out an impres- ety” to describe his socio-economic sive agenda but at his death much re- program . That summer he secured mained blocked in Congress . It was passage of a federal jobs program for largely because of the political skill impoverished young people . It was and legislative victories of his suc- the first step in what he called the cessor that Kennedy would be seen “War on Poverty ”. In the presiden- as a force for progressive change . tial election that November, he won a landslide victory over conservative LYNDON JOHNSON AND Republican Barry Goldwater . Signif- THE GREAT SOCIETY icantly, the 1964 election gave liberal Democrats firm control of Congress Lyndon Johnson, a Texan who was for the first time since 1938 . This majority leader in the Senate before would enable them to pass legisla- becoming Kennedy’s vice president, tion over the combined opposition was a masterful politician . He had of Republicans and conservative been schooled in Congress, where Southern Democrats . he developed an extraordinary abil- The War on Poverty became the ity to get things done . He excelled centerpiece of the administration’s at pleading, cajoling, or threatening Great Society program . The Office as necessary to achieve his ends . His of Economic Opportunity, estab- liberal idealism was probably deep- lished in 1964, provided training er than Kennedy’s . As president, he for the poor and established vari- wanted to use his power aggressively ous community-action agencies, to eliminate poverty and spread the guided by an ethic of “participatory benefits of prosperity to all . democracy” that aimed to give the Johnson took office determined poor themselves a voice in housing, to secure the passage of Kennedy’s health, and education programs . legislative agenda . His immediate Medical care came next . Under priorities were his predecessor’s bills Johnson’s leadership, Congress en- to reduce taxes and guarantee civil acted Medicare, a health insurance rights . Using his skills of persuasion program for the elderly, and Med-

286 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY icaid, a program providing health- immigration quotas . This triggered care assistance for the poor . a new wave of immigration, much Johnson succeeded in the effort of it from South and East Asia and to provide more federal aid for el- Latin America . ementary and secondary schooling, The Great Society was the larg- traditionally a state and local func- est burst of legislative activity since tion . The measure that was enacted the New Deal . But support weakened gave money to the states based on as early as 1966 . Some of Johnson’s the number of their children from programs did not live up to expecta- low-income families . Funds could tions; many went underfunded . The be used to assist public- and private- urban crisis seemed, if anything, to school children alike . worsen . Still, whether because of the Convinced the United States con- Great Society spending or because of fronted an “urban crisis” character- a strong economic upsurge, poverty ized by declining inner cities, the did decline at least marginally dur- Great Society architects devised a ing the Johnson administration . new housing act that provided rent supplements for the poor and estab- THE WAR IN VIETNAM lished a Department of Housing and Urban Development . Dissatisfaction with the Great So- Other legislation had an im- ciety came to be more than matched pact on many aspects of American by unhappiness with the situation in life . Federal assistance went to art- Vietnam . A series of South Viet- ists and scholars to encourage their namese strong men proved little work . In September 1966, Johnson more successful than Diem in mobi- signed into law two transportation lizing their country . The Viet Cong, bills . The first provided funds to insurgents supplied and coordinated state and local governments for de- from North Vietnam, gained ground veloping safety programs, while the in the countryside . other set up federal safety standards Determined to halt Communist for cars and tires . The latter program advances in South Vietnam, Johnson reflected the efforts of a crusading made the Vietnam War his own . Af- young radical, Ralph Nader . In his ter a North Vietnamese naval attack 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The on two American destroyers, John- Designed-In Dangers of the Ameri- son won from Congress on August 7, can Automobile, Nader argued that 1964, passage of the Gulf of Tonkin automobile manufacturers were sac- Resolution, which allowed the presi- rificing safety features for style, and dent to “take all necessary measures charged that faulty engineering con- to repel any armed attack against tributed to highway fatalities . the forces of the United States and In 1965, Congress abolished the to prevent further aggression ”. After discriminatory 1924 national-origin his re-election in November 1964, he

287 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 embarked on a policy of escalation . rights measures of the 1960s galva- From 25,000 troops at the start of nized the third-party candidacy of 1965, the number of soldiers — both Alabama Governor George Wal- volunteers and draftees — rose to lace, a Democrat who captured his 500,000 by 1968 . A bombing cam- home state, Mississippi, and Arkan- paign wrought havoc in both North sas, Louisiana, and Georgia, states and South Vietnam . typically carried in that era by the Grisly television coverage with a Democratic nominee . Republican critical edge dampened support for Richard Nixon, who ran on a plan to the war . Some Americans thought it extricate the United States from the immoral; others watched in dismay war and to increase “law and order” as the massive military campaign at home, scored a narrow victory . seemed to be ineffective . Large protests, especially among the young, NIXON, VIETNAM, AND THE and a mounting general public dis- COLD WAR satisfaction pressured Johnson to begin negotiating for peace . Determined to achieve “peace with honor,” Nixon slowly withdrew THE ELECTION OF 1968 American troops while redoubling efforts to equip the South Vietnam- By 1968 the country was in tur- ese army to carry on the fight . He moil over both the Vietnam War also ordered strong American offen- and civil disorder, expressed in ur- sive actions . The most important of ban riots that reflected African- these was an invasion of Cambodia American anger . On March 31, 1968, in 1970 to cut off North Vietnam- the president renounced any inten- ese supply lines to South Vietnam . tion of seeking another term . Just This led to another round of protests a week later, Martin Luther King and demonstrations . Students in Jr . was shot and killed in Memphis, many universities took to the streets . Tennessee . John Kennedy’s younger At Kent State in Ohio, the National brother, Robert, made an emotional Guard troops who had been called in anti-war campaign for the Demo- to restore order panicked and killed cratic nomination, only to be assas- four students . sinated in June . By the fall of 1972, however, At the Democratic National Con- troop strength in Vietnam was be- vention in Chicago, Illinois, protest- low 50,000 and the military draft, ers fought street battles with police . which had caused so much cam- A divided Democratic Party nomi- pus discontent, was all but dead . A nated Vice President Hubert Hum- cease-fire, negotiated for the United phrey, once the hero of the liberals States by Nixon’s national security but now seen as a Johnson loyal- adviser, Henry Kissinger, was signed ist . White opposition to the civil in 1973 . Although American troops

288 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY departed, the war lingered on into Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the spring of 1975, when Congress which they agreed to limit stockpiles cut off assistance to South Vietnam of missiles, cooperate in space, and and North Vietnam consolidated its ease trading restrictions . The Stra- control over the entire country . tegic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) The war left Vietnam devastated, culminated in 1972 in an arms con- with millions maimed or killed . It trol agreement limiting the growth also left the United States trauma- of nuclear arsenals and restricting tized . The nation had spent over anti-ballistic missile systems . $150,000-million in a losing effort that cost more than 58,000 Ameri- NIXON’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS can lives . Americans were no longer AND DEFEATS united by a widely held Cold War consensus, and became wary of fur- Vice president under Eisenhower ther foreign entanglements . before his unsuccessful run for the Yet as Vietnam wound down, presidency in 1960, Nixon was seen the Nixon administration took his- as among the shrewdest of Ameri- toric steps toward closer ties with can politicians . Although Nixon the major Communist powers . The subscribed to the Republican value most dramatic move was a new rela- of fiscal responsibility, he accepted tionship with the People’s Republic a need for government’s expanded of China . In the two decades since role and did not oppose the ba- Mao Zedong’s victory, the United sic contours of the welfare state . States had argued that the Nation- He simply wanted to manage its alist government on Taiwan rep- programs better . Not opposed to resented all of China . In 1971 and African-American civil rights on 1972, Nixon softened the American principle, he was wary of large stance, eased trading restrictions, federal civil rights bureaucracies . and became the first U S. . president Nonetheless, his administration ever to visit Beijing . The “Shanghai vigorously enforced court orders Communique” signed during that on school desegregation even as it visit established a new U S. . policy: courted Southern white voters . that there was one China, that Tai- Perhaps his biggest domestic wan was a part of China, and that a problem was the economy . He in- peaceful settlement of the dispute of herited both a slowdown from its the question by the Chinese them- Vietnam peak under Johnson, and selves was a U S. . interest . a continuing inflationary surge that With the Soviet Union, Nixon was had been a by-product of the war . He equally successful in pursuing the dealt with the first by becoming the policy he and his Secretary of State first Republican president to endorse Henry Kissinger called détente . He deficit spending as a way to stim- held several cordial meetings with ulate the economy; the second by

289 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 imposing wage and price controls, Nixon’s rhetoric about the need a policy in which the Right had no for “law and order” in the face of ris- long-term faith, in 1971 . In the short ing crime rates, increased drug use, run, these decisions stabilized the and more permissive views about economy and established favorable sex resonated with more Americans conditions for Nixon’s re-election in than not . But this concern was in- 1972 . He won an overwhelming vic- sufficient to quell concerns about tory over peace-minded Democratic the Watergate break-in and the Senator George McGovern . economy . Seeking to energize and Things began to sour very quick- enlarge his own political constituen- ly into the president’s second term . cy, Nixon lashed out at demonstra- Very early on, he faced charges that tors, attacked the press for distorted his re-election committee had man- coverage, and sought to silence his aged a break-in at the Watergate opponents . Instead, he left an unfa- building headquarters of the Demo- vorable impression with many who cratic National Committee and that saw him on television and perceived he had participated in a cover-up . him as unstable . Adding to Nix- Special prosecutors and congressio- on’s troubles, Vice President Spiro nal committees dogged his presiden- Agnew, his outspoken point man cy thereafter . against the media and liberals, was Factors beyond Nixon’s control forced to resign in 1973, pleading undermined his economic policies . “no contest” to a criminal charge of In 1973 the war between Israel and tax evasion . Egypt and Syria prompted Saudi Nixon probably had not known Arabia to embargo oil shipments to in advance of the Watergate bur- Israel’s ally, the United States . Other glary, but he had tried to cover it up, member nations of the Organization and had lied to the American people of the Petroleum Exporting Coun- about it . Evidence of his involve- tries (OPEC) quadrupled their pric- ment mounted . On July 27, 1974, the es . Americans faced both shortages, House Judiciary Committee voted exacerbated in the view of many by to recommend his impeachment . over-regulation of distribution, and Facing certain ouster from office, he rapidly rising prices . Even when the resigned on August 9, 1974 . embargo ended the next year, prices remained high and affected all areas THE FORD INTERLUDE of American economic life: In 1974, inflation reached 12 percent, causing Nixon’s vice president, Gerald disruptions that led to even higher Ford (appointed to replace Agnew), unemployment rates . The unprec- was an unpretentious man who had edented economic boom America spent most of his public life in Con- had enjoyed since 1948 was grinding gress . His first priority was to restore to a halt . trust in the government . However,

290 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY feeling it necessary to head off the dency in 1976 . Portraying himself spectacle of a possible prosecution of during the campaign as an outsider Nixon, he issued a blanket pardon to to Washington politics, he promised his predecessor . Although it was per- a fresh approach to governing, but haps necessary, the move was none- his lack of experience at the national theless unpopular . level complicated his tenure from the In public policy, Ford followed start . A naval officer and engineer by the course Nixon had set . Economic training, he often appeared to be a problems remained serious, as infla- technocrat, when Americans want- tion and unemployment continued ed someone more visionary to lead to rise . Ford first tried to reassure them through troubled times . the public, much as Herbert Hoover In economic affairs, Carter at had done in 1929 . When that failed, first permitted a policy of defi- he imposed measures to curb in- cit spending . Inflation rose to flation, which sent unemployment 10 percent a year when the Federal above 8 percent . A tax cut, coupled Reserve Board, responsible for set- with higher unemployment ben- ting monetary policy, increased efits, helped a bit but the economy the money supply to cover deficits . remained weak . Carter responded by cutting the In foreign policy, Ford adopted budget, but cuts affected social pro- Nixon’s strategy of détente . Perhaps grams at the heart of Democratic its major manifestation was the domestic policy . In mid-1979, anger Helsinki Accords of 1975, in which in the financial community prac- the United States and Western Euro- tically forced him to appoint Paul pean nations effectively recognized Volcker as chairman of the Federal Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe Reserve . Volcker was an “inflation in return for Soviet affirmation hawk” who increased interest rates of human rights . The agreement in an attempt to halt price increases, had little immediate significance, at the cost of negative consequences but over the long run may have for the economy . made maintenance of the Sovi- Carter also faced criticism for his et empire more difficult . Western failure to secure passage of an ef- nations effectively used periodic fective energy policy . He presented “Helsinki review meetings” to call a comprehensive program, aimed attention to various abuses of hu- at reducing dependence on foreign man rights by Communist regimes oil, that he called the “moral equiv- of the Eastern bloc . alent of war ”. Opponents thwarted it in Congress . THE CARTER YEARS Though Carter called himself a populist, his political priorities were Jimmy Carter, former Democratic never wholly clear . He endorsed governor of Georgia, won the presi- government’s protective role, but

291 CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980 then began the process of dereg- But Carter enjoyed less success ulation, the removal of govern- with the Soviet Union . Though he mental controls in economic life . assumed office with détente at high Arguing that some restrictions over tide and declared that the United the course of the past century lim- States had escaped its “inordinate ited competition and increased con- fear of Communism,” his insistence sumer costs, he favored decontrol in that “our commitment to human the oil, airline, railroad, and truck- rights must be absolute” antagonized ing industries . the Soviet government . A SALT II Carter’s political efforts failed to agreement further limiting nuclear gain either public or congressional stockpiles was signed, but not rati- support . By the end of his term, his fied by the U S. . Senate, many of disapproval rating reached 77 per- whose members felt the treaty was cent, and Americans began to look unbalanced . The 1979 Soviet inva- toward the Republican Party again . sion of Afghanistan killed the treaty Carter’s greatest foreign policy and triggered a Carter defense build- accomplishment was the negotiation up that paved the way for the huge of a peace settlement between Egypt, expenditures of the 1980s . under President Anwar al-Sadat, and Carter’s most serious foreign pol- Israel, under Prime Minister Men- icy challenge came in Iran . After an achem Begin . Acting as both medi- Islamic fundamentalist revolution ator and participant, he persuaded led by Shiite Muslim leader Ayatol- the two leaders to end a 30-year state lah Ruhollah Khomeini replaced a of war . The subsequent peace treaty corrupt but friendly regime, Carter was signed at the White House in admitted the deposed shah to the March 1979 . United States for medical treatment . After protracted and often emo- Angry Iranian militants, supported tional debate, Carter also secured by the Islamic regime, seized the Senate ratification of treaties ced- American embassy in Tehran and ing the Panama Canal to Panama by held 53 American hostages for more the year 2000 . Going a step farther than a year . The long-running hos- than Nixon, he extended formal dip- tage crisis dominated the final year lomatic recognition to the People’s of his presidency and greatly dam- Republic of China . aged his chances for re-election . 9

292 304 CHAPTER 14 THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER

President Ronald Reagan and USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev after signing the Intermediate– Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, December 1987. CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER

“I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.”

California Governor Ronald Reagan, 1974

A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION software that could aggregate previously unimagined amounts of data Shifts in the structure of Ameri- about economic and social trends . can society, begun years or even de- The federal government had made cades earlier, had become apparent significant investments in computer by the time the 1980s arrived . The technology in the 1950s and 1960s composition of the population and for its military and space programs . the most important jobs and skills In 1976, two young California en- in American society had undergone trepreneurs, working out of a garage, major changes . assembled the first widely marketed The dominance of service jobs in computer for home use, named it the economy became undeniable . By the Apple, and ignited a revolution . the mid-1980s, nearly three-fourths By the early 1980s, millions of mi- of all employees worked in the ser- crocomputers had found their way vice sector, for instance, as retail into U S. . businesses and homes, and clerks, office workers, teachers, phy- in 1982, Time magazine dubbed the sicians, and government employees . computer its “Machine of the Year ”. Service-sector activity benefited Meanwhile, America’s “smoke- from the availability and increased stack industries” were in decline . use of the computer . The informa- The U S. . automobile industry reeled tion age arrived, with hardware and under competition from highly ef-

306 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY ficient Japanese carmakers . By 1980 1980, 808,000 immigrants arrived, Japanese companies already manu- the highest number in 60 years, as the factured a fifth of the vehicles sold country once more became a haven in the United States . American for people from around the world . manufacturers struggled with some Additional groups became active success to match the cost efficien- participants in the struggle for equal cies and engineering standards of opportunity . Homosexuals, using their Japanese rivals, but their for- the tactics and rhetoric of the civil mer dominance of the domestic car rights movement, depicted them- market was gone forever . The gi- selves as an oppressed group seeking ant old-line steel companies shrank recognition of basic rights . In 1975, to relative insignificance as foreign the U S. . Civil Service Commission steel makers adopted new technolo- lifted its ban on employment of ho- gies more readily . mosexuals . Many states enacted an- Consumers were the beneficiaries ti-discrimination laws . of this ferocious competition in the Then, in 1981, came the discov- manufacturing industries, but the ery of AIDS (Acquired Immune painful struggle to cut costs meant Deficiency Syndrome) . Transmitted the permanent loss of hundreds of sexually or through blood transfu- thousands of blue-collar jobs . Those sions, it struck homosexual men and who could made the switch to the intravenous drug users with par- service sector; others became unfor- ticular virulence, although the gen- tunate statistics . eral population proved vulnerable as Population patterns shifted as well . By 1992, over 220,000 Ameri- well . After the end of the postwar cans had died of AIDS . The AIDS ep- “baby boom” (1946 to 1964), the idemic has by no means been limited overall rate of population growth to the United States, and the effort declined and the population grew to treat the disease now encompasses older . Household composition also physicians and medical researchers changed . In 1980 the percentage of throughout the world . family households dropped; a quarter of all groups were now classi- CONSERVATISM AND THE fied as “nonfamily households,” in RISE OF RONALD REAGAN which two or more unrelated persons lived together . For many Americans, the eco- New immigrants changed the nomic, social, and political trends of character of American society in the previous two decades — crime other ways . The 1965 reform in im- and racial polarization in many ur- migration policy shifted the focus ban centers, challenges to traditional away from Western Europe, facilitat- values, the economic downturn and ing a dramatic increase in new arriv- inflation of the Carter years — en- als from Asia and Latin America . In gendered a mood of disillusionment .

307 CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER

It also strengthened a renewed sus- gelicals, most of whom regarded picion of government and its ability abortion under virtually any cir- to deal effectively with the country’s cumstances as tantamount to mur- social and political problems . der . Pro-choice and pro-life (that is, Conservatives, long out of power pro- and anti-abortion rights) dem- at the national level, were well po- onstrations became a fixture of the sitioned politically in the context of political landscape . this new mood . Many Americans Within the Republican Party, the were receptive to their message of conservative wing grew dominant limited government, strong national once again . They had briefly seized defense, and the protection of tradi- control of the Republican Party in tional values . 1964 with its presidential candidate, This conservative upsurge had Barry Goldwater, then faded from many sources . A large group of fun- the spotlight . By 1980, however, with damentalist Christians were partic- the apparent failure of liberalism un- ularly concerned about crime and der Carter, a “New Right” was poised sexual immorality . They hoped to to return to dominance . return religion or the moral precepts Using modern direct mail tech- often associated with it to a central niques as well as the power of mass place in American life . One of the communications to spread their most politically effective groups in message and raise funds, drawing on the early 1980s, the Moral Majority, the ideas of conservatives like econ- was led by a Baptist minister, Jerry omist Milton Friedman, journalists Falwell . Another, led by the Reverend William F . Buckley and George Will, Pat Robertson, built an organization, and research institutions like the the Christian Coalition, that by the Heritage Foundation, the New Right 1990s was a significant force in the played a significant role in defining Republican Party . Using television to the issues of the 1980s . spread their messages, Falwell, Rob- The “Old” Goldwater Right had ertson, and others like them devel- favored strict limits on government oped substantial followings . intervention in the economy . This Another galvanizing issue for tendency was reinforced by a signifi- conservatives was divisive and emo- cant group of “New Right” “liber- tional: abortion . Opposition to the tarian conservatives” who distrusted 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. government in general and opposed Wade, which upheld a woman’s right state interference in personal behav- to an abortion in the early months of ior . But the New Right also encom- pregnancy, brought together a wide passed a stronger, often evangelical array of organizations and individ- faction determined to wield state uals . They included, but were not power to encourage its views . The limited to, Catholics, political con- New Right favored tough measures servatives, and religious evan- against crime, a strong national de-

308 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY fense, a constitutional amendment program of deregulation begun by to permit prayer in public schools, Jimmy Carter . He sought to abol- and opposition to abortion . ish many regulations affecting the The figure that drew all these consumer, the workplace, and the disparate strands together was Ron- environment . These, he argued, were ald Reagan . Reagan, born in Illi- inefficient, expensive, and detrimen- nois, achieved stardom as an actor tal to economic growth . in Hollywood movies and television Reagan also reflected the belief before turning to politics . He first held by many conservatives that the achieved political prominence with a law should be strictly applied against nationwide televised speech in 1964 violators . Shortly after becoming in support of Barry Goldwater . In president, he faced a nationwide 1966 Reagan won the governorship strike by U S. . air transportation of California and served until 1975 . controllers . Although the job action He narrowly missed winning the Re- was forbidden by law, such strikes publican nomination for president in had been widely tolerated in the past . 1976 before succeeding in 1980 and When the air controllers refused to going on to win the presidency from return to work, he ordered them all the incumbent, Jimmy Carter . fired . Over the next few years the President Reagan’s unflagging system was rebuilt with new hires . optimism and his ability to celebrate the achievements and aspirations THE ECONOMY IN THE 1980s of the American people persisted throughout his two terms in office . President Reagan’s domestic pro- He was a figure of reassurance and gram was rooted in his belief that the stability for many Americans . Whol- nation would prosper if the power of ly at ease before the microphone and the private economic sector was un- the television camera, Reagan was leashed . The guiding theory behind called the “Great Communicator ”. it, “supply side” economics, held Taking a phrase from the 17th- that a greater supply of goods and century Puritan John Winthrop, he services, made possible by measures told the nation that the United States to increase business investment, was a “shining city on a hill,” invest- was the swiftest road to economic ed with a God-given mission to de- growth . Accordingly, the Reagan fend the world against the spread of administration argued that a large Communist totalitarianism . tax cut would increase capital in- Reagan believed that government vestment and corporate earnings, intruded too deeply into American so that even lower taxes on these life . He wanted to cut programs larger earnings would increase gov- he contended the country did not ernment revenues . need, and to eliminate “waste, fraud, Despite only a slim Republican and abuse ”. Reagan accelerated the majority in the Senate and a House

309 CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER of Representatives controlled by the rise in oil prices pushed up costs, Democrats, President Reagan suc- and a worldwide economic slump in ceeded during his first year in office 1980 reduced the demand for agri- in enacting the major components cultural products . Their numbers of his economic program, including declined, as production increasingly a 25-percent tax cut for individu- became concentrated in large opera- als to be phased in over three years . tions . Those small farmers who sur- The administration also sought and vived had major difficulties making won significant increases in defense ends meet . spending to modernize the nation’s The increased military budget — military and counter what it felt was combined with the tax cuts and the a continual and growing threat from growth in government health spend- the Soviet Union . ing — resulted in the federal gov- Under Paul Volcker, the Federal ernment spending far more than it Reserve’s draconian increases in in- received in revenues each year . Some terest rates squeezed the runaway analysts charged that the deficits inflation that had begun in the late were part of a deliberate adminis- 1970s . The recession hit bottom in tration strategy to prevent further 1982, with the prime interest rates increases in domestic spending approaching 20 percent and the sought by the Democrats . However, economy falling sharply . That year, both Democrats and Republicans in real gross domestic product (GDP) Congress refused to cut such spend- fell by 2 percent; the unemployment ing . From $74,000-million in 1980, rate rose to nearly 10 percent, and the deficit soared to $221,000-mil- almost one-third of America’s indus- lion in 1986 before falling back to trial plants lay idle . Throughout the $150,000-million in 1987 . Midwest, major firms like General The deep recession of the early Electric and International Harvester 1980s successfully curbed the run- released workers . Stubbornly high away inflation that had started dur- petroleum prices contributed to the ing the Carter years . Fuel prices, decline . Economic rivals like Ger- moreover, fell sharply, with at least many and Japan won a greater share part of the drop attributable to Rea- of world trade, and U S. . consump- gan’s decision to abolish controls tion of goods from other countries on the pricing and allocation of rose sharply . gasoline . Conditions began to im- Farmers also suffered hard times . prove in late 1983 . By early 1984, During the 1970s, American farm- the economy had rebounded . By ers had helped India, China, the the fall of 1984, the recovery was Soviet Union, and other countries well along, allowing Reagan to run suffering from crop shortages, and for re-election on the slogan, “It’s had borrowed heavily to buy land morning again in America ”. He de- and increase production . But the feated his Democratic opponent,

310 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY former Senator and Vice President voluntary quota on its automobile Walter Mondale, by an overwhelm- exports to the United States . ing margin . The economy was jolted on Octo- The United States entered one ber 19, 1987, “Black Monday,” when of the longest periods of sustained the stock market suffered the great- economic growth since World War est one-day crash in its history, 22 6. II . Consumer spending increased in percent . The causes of the crash in- response to the federal tax cut . The cluded the large U S. . international stock market climbed as it reflected trade and federal-budget deficits, the the optimistic buying spree . Over a high level of corporate and personal five-year period following the start debt, and new computerized stock of the recovery, gross national prod- trading techniques that allowed in- uct grew at an annual rate of 4 2. stantaneous selling of stocks and fu- percent . The annual inflation rate tures . Despite the memories of 1929 remained between 3 and 5 percent it evoked, however, the crash was a from 1983 to 1987, except in 1986 transitory event with little impact . when it fell to just under 2 percent, In fact, economic growth continued, the lowest level in decades . The na- with the unemployment rate drop- tion’s GNP grew substantially dur- ping to a 14-year low of 5 2. percent ing the 1980s; from 1982 to 1987, its in June 1988 . economy created more than 13 million new jobs . FOREIGN AFFAIRS Steadfast in his commitment to lower taxes, Reagan signed the In foreign policy, Reagan sought most sweeping federal tax-reform a more assertive role for the nation, measure in 75 years during his sec- and Central America provided an ond term . This measure, which had early test . The United States pro- widespread Democratic as well as vided El Salvador with a program of Republican support, lowered income economic aid and military training tax rates, simplified tax brackets, when a guerrilla insurgency threat- and closed loopholes . ened to topple its government . It also However, a significant percentage actively encouraged the transition to of this growth was based on defi- an elected democratic government, cit spending . Moreover, the national but efforts to curb active right-wing debt, far from being stabilized by death squads were only partly suc- strong economic growth, nearly tri- cessful . U S. . support helped stabi- pled . Much of the growth occurred lize the government, but the level of in skilled service and technical ar- violence there remained undimin- eas . Many poor and middle-class ished . A peace agreement was finally families did less well . The adminis- reached in early 1992 . tration, although an advocate of free U S . . policy toward Nicaragua trade, pressured Japan to agree to a was more controversial . In 1979

311 CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER revolutionaries calling themselves of Corazon Aquino overthrew the Sandinistas overthrew the repres- dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, sive right-wing Somoza regime and and elections in South Korea ended established a pro-Cuba, pro-Soviet decades of military rule . dictatorship . Regional peace efforts By contrast, South Africa re- ended in failure, and the focus of mained intransigent in the face of administration efforts shifted to U S. . efforts to encourage an end to support for the anti-Sandinista re- racial apartheid through the contro- sistance, known as the contras . versial policy of “constructive en- Following intense political debate gagement,” quiet diplomacy coupled over this policy, Congress ended all with public endorsement of reform . military aid to the contras in Oc- In 1986, frustrated at the lack of tober 1984, then, under administra- progress, the U .S . Congress overrode tion pressure, reversed itself in the Reagan’s veto and imposed a set of fall of 1986, and approved $100 mil- economic sanctions on South Afri- lion in military aid . However, a lack ca . In February 1990, South African of success on the battlefield, charges President F W. . de Klerk announced of human rights abuses, and the rev- Nelson Mandela’s release and began elation that funds from secret arms the slow dismantling of apartheid . sales to Iran (see below) had been di- Despite its outspoken anti-Com- verted to the contras undercut con- munist rhetoric, the Reagan ad- gressional support to continue this ministration’s direct use of military aid . force was restrained . On October 25, Subsequently, the administration 1983, U S. . forces landed on the Ca- of President George H W. . Bush, who ribbean island of Grenada after an succeeded Reagan as president in urgent appeal for help by neighbor- 1989, abandoned any effort to secure ing countries . The action followed military aid for the contras . The Bush the assassination of Grenada’s leftist administration also exerted pressure prime minister by members of his for free elections and supported an own Marxist-oriented party . After a opposition political coalition, which brief period of fighting, U S. . troops won an astonishing upset election in captured hundreds of Cuban mili- February 1990, ousting the Sandini- tary and construction personnel stas from power . and seized caches of Soviet-supplied The Reagan administration was arms . In December 1983, the last more fortunate in witnessing a re- American combat troops left Grena- turn to democracy throughout the da, which held democratic elections rest of Latin America, from Guate- a year later . mala to Argentina . The emergence of The Middle East, however, democratically elected governments presented a far more difficult situ- was not limited to Latin America; in ation . A military presence in Leb- Asia, the “people power” campaign anon, where the United States was

312 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY attempting to bolster a weak, but Central America . In a larger sense, moderate pro-Western government, the hearings were a constitutional ended tragically, when 241 U S. . Ma- debate about government secrecy rines were killed in a terrorist bomb- and presidential versus congressio- ing in October 1983 . In April 1986, nal authority in the conduct of for- U S. . Navy and Air Force planes eign relations . Unlike the celebrated struck targets in Tripoli and Beng- Senate Watergate hearings 14 years hazi, Libya, in retaliation for Libyan- earlier, they found no grounds for instigated terrorist attacks on U S. . impeaching the president and could military personnel in Europe . reach no definitive conclusion about In the Persian Gulf, the earlier these perennial issues . breakdown in U S. -Iranian. relations and the Iran-Iraq War set the stage U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS for U .S . naval activities in the region . Initially, the United States responded In relations with the Soviet Union, to a request from Kuwait for pro- President Reagan’s declared policy tection of its tanker fleet; but even- was one of peace through strength . tually the United States, along with He was determined to stand firm naval vessels from Western Europe, against the country he would in kept vital shipping lanes open by es- 1983 call an “evil empire ” . Two corting convoys of tankers and oth- early events increased U S. -Soviet. er neutral vessels traveling up and tensions: the suppression of the Soli- down the Gulf . darity labor movement in Poland in In late 1986 Americans learned December 1981, and the destruction that the administration had secretly with 269 fatalities of an off-course sold arms to Iran in an attempt to civilian airliner, Korean Airlines resume diplomatic relations with the Flight 007, by a Soviet jet fighter on hostile Islamic government and win September 1, 1983 . The United States freedom for American hostages held also condemned the continuing So- in Lebanon by radical organizations viet occupation of Afghanistan and that Iran controlled . Investigation continued aid begun by the Carter also revealed that funds from the administration to the mujahedeen arms sales had been diverted to the resistance there . Nicaraguan contras during a period During Reagan’s first term, the when Congress had prohibited such United States spent unprecedented military aid . sums for a massive defense build- The ensuing Iran-contra hearings up, including the placement of in- before a joint House-Senate commit- termediate-range nuclear missiles tee examined issues of possible ille- in Europe to counter Soviet deploy- gality as well as the broader question ments of similar missiles . And on of defining American foreign poli- March 23, 1983, in one of the most cy interests in the Middle East and hotly debated policy decisions of his

313 CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER presidency, Reagan announced the THE PRESIDENCY OF Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) re- GEORGE H. W. BUSH search program to explore advanced technologies, such as lasers and President Reagan enjoyed unusu- high-energy projectiles, to defend ally high popularity at the end of against intercontinental ballistic his second term in office, but under missiles . Although many scientists the terms of the U S. . Constitution questioned the technological feasi- he could not run again in 1988 . The bility of SDI and economists pointed Republican nomination went to Vice to the extraordinary sums of money President George Herbert Walker involved, the administration pressed Bush, who was elected the 41st presi- ahead with the project . dent of the United States . After re-election in 1984, Rea- Bush campaigned by promising gan softened his position on arms voters a continuation of the pros- control . Moscow was amenable to perity Reagan had brought . In ad- agreement, in part because its econ- dition, he argued that he would omy already expended a far greater support a strong defense for the proportion of national output on its United States more reliably than military than did the United States . the Democratic candidate, Michael Further increases, Soviet leader Dukakis . He also promised to work Mikhail Gorbachev felt, would crip- for “a kinder, gentler America ”. Du- ple his plans to liberalize the Soviet kakis, the governor of Massachu- economy . setts, claimed that less fortunate In November 1985, Reagan and Americans were hurting economi- Gorbachev agreed in principle to cally and that the government had seek 50-percent reductions in stra- to help them while simultaneously tegic offensive nuclear arms as well bringing the federal debt and de- as an interim agreement on inter- fense spending under control . The mediate-range nuclear forces . In public was much more engaged, December 1987, they signed the however, by Bush’s economic mes- Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces sage: No new taxes . In the balloting, (INF) Treaty providing for the de- Bush finished with a 54-to-46-per- struction of that entire category of cent popular vote margin . nuclear weapons . By then, the So- During his first year in office, viet Union seemed a less menac- Bush followed a conservative fiscal ing adversary . Reagan could take program, pursuing policies on taxes, much of the credit for a greatly di- spending, and debt that were faithful minished Cold War, but as his ad- to the Reagan administration’s eco- ministration ended, almost no one nomic program . But the new presi- realized just how shaky the USSR dent soon found himself squeezed had become . between a large budget deficit and a deficit-reduction law . Spending cuts

314 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY seemed necessary, and Bush pos- solvencies among these thrifts (the sessed little leeway to introduce new umbrella term for consumer-orient- budget items . ed institutions like savings and loan The Bush administration ad- associations and savings banks) . By vanced new policy initiatives in ar- 1993, the total cost of selling and eas not requiring major new federal shuttering failed thrifts was stagger- expenditures . Thus, in November ing, nearly $525,000-million . 1990, Bush signed sweeping legisla- In January 1990, President Bush tion imposing new federal standards presented his budget proposal to on urban smog, automobile exhaust, Congress . Democrats argued that toxic air pollution, and acid rain, administration budget projections but with industrial polluters bear- were far too optimistic, and that ing most of the costs . He accepted meeting the deficit-reduction law legislation requiring physical access would require tax increases and for the disabled, but with no fed- sharper cuts in defense spending . eral assumption of the expense of That June, after protracted negotia- modifying buildings to accommo- tions, the president agreed to a tax date wheelchairs and the like . The increase . All the same, the combi- president also launched a campaign nation of economic recession, losses to encourage volunteerism, which from the savings and loan indus- he called, in a memorable phrase, “a try rescue operation, and escalating thousand points of light ”. health care costs for Medicare and Medicaid offset all the deficit-reduc- BUDGETS AND DEFICITS tion measures and produced a short- fall in 1991 at least as large as the Bush administration efforts to previous year’s . gain control over the federal budget deficit, however, were more problem- END TO THE COLD WAR atic . One source of the difficulty was the savings and loan crisis . Savings When Bush became president, banks — formerly tightly regulated, the Soviet empire was on the verge low-interest safe havens for ordinary of collapse . Gorbachev’s efforts to people — had been deregulated, al- open up the USSR’s economy ap- lowing these institutions to com- peared to be floundering . In 1989, pete more aggressively by paying the Communist governments in higher interest rates and by making one Eastern European country af- riskier loans . Increases in the gov- ter another simply collapsed, after ernment’s deposit insurance guaran- it became clear that Russian troops teed reduced consumer incentive to would not be sent to prop them up . shun less-sound institutions . Fraud, In mid-1991, hard-liners attempted mismanagement, and the choppy a coup d’etat, only to be foiled by economy produced widespread in- Gorbachev rival Boris Yeltsin, presi-

315 CHAPTER 14: THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER dent of the Russian republic . At the changed the diplomatic calculation end of that year, Yeltsin, now domi- overnight . nant, forced the dissolution of the President Bush strongly con- Soviet Union . demned the Iraqi action, called for The Bush administration adeptly Iraq’s unconditional withdrawal, brokered the end of the Cold War, and sent a major deployment of U S. . working closely with Gorbachev and troops to the Middle East . He assem- Yeltsin . It led the negotiations that bled one of the most extraordinary brought the unification of East and military and political coalitions of West Germany (September 1990), modern times, with military forces agreement on large arms reductions from Asia, Europe, and Africa, as in Europe (November 1990), and well as the Middle East . large cuts in nuclear arsenals (July In the days and weeks follow- 1991) . After the liquidation of the ing the invasion, the U N. . Security Soviet Union, the United States and Council passed 12 resolutions con- the new Russian Federation agreed demning the Iraqi invasion and to phase out all multiple-warhead imposing wide-ranging economic missiles over a 10-year period . sanctions on Iraq . On November 29, The disposal of nuclear materi- it approved the use of force if Iraq als and the ever-present concerns did not withdraw from Kuwait by of nuclear proliferation now super- January 15, 1991 . Gorbachev’s Soviet seded the threat of nuclear conflict Union, once Iraq’s major arms sup- between Washington and Moscow . plier, made no effort to protect its former client . THE GULF WAR Bush also confronted a major constitutional issue . The U S. . Con- The euphoria caused by the draw- stitution gives the legislative branch ing down of the Cold War was the power to declare war . Yet in the dramatically overshadowed by the second half of the 20th century, the August 2, 1990, invasion of the small United States had become involved nation of Kuwait by Iraq . Iraq, under in Korea and Vietnam without an Saddam Hussein, and Iran, under its official declaration of war and with Islamic fundamentalist regime, had only murky legislative authoriza- emerged as the two major military tion . On January 12, 1991, three days powers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf before the U N. . deadline, Congress area . The two countries had fought a granted President Bush the author- long, inconclusive war in the 1980s . ity he sought in the most explicit and Less hostile to the United States than sweeping war-making power given Iran, Iraq had won some support a president in nearly half a century . from the Reagan and Bush adminis- The United States, in coalition trations . The occupation of Kuwait, with Great Britain, France, Italy, posing a threat to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other

316 BIBLIOGRAPHY

RECENT PRIZE-WINNING 2008 BOOKS The Cigarette Century: The Rise, The Bancroft Prize for Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the American History Product That Defined America Awarded by the Trustees By Allan M . Brandt of Columbia University Basic Books

2010 The Populist Vision Dorothea Lange: A Life By Charles Postel Beyond Limits Oxford University Press By Linda Gordon W W. . Norton & Company Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America Abigail Adams By Peter Silver By Woody Holton W W. . Norton & Company Free Press 2007 White Mother to a Dark Race: Mockingbird Song: Ecological Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, Landscapes of the South and the Removal of Indigenous By Jack Temple Kirby Children in the American West University of North Carolina Press and Australia, 1880-1940. By Margaret D . Jacobs William James: In the Maelstrom University of Nebraska Press of American Modernism By Robert D . Richardson 2009 Houghton Mifflin Company Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War 2006 By Thomas G . Andrews Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic Harvard University Press By Erskine Clarke Yale University Press This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War The Global Cold War: Third By Drew Gilpin Faust World Interventions and the Alfred A . Knopf Making of Our Times By Odd Arne Westad The Comanche Empire Cambridge University Press By Pekka Hämäläinen Yale University Press

346 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

The Rise of American Democracy: SELECTED INTERNET Jefferson to Lincoln RESOURCES By Sean Wilentz W W. . Norton & Company American Historical Association http://www historians. org. Pulitzer Prize for a distinguished book upon the history of the American History: A Documentary United States Record Awarded by Columbia University 1492–Present Graduate School of Journalism http://avalon .law yale. edu/subject_. menus/chrono .asp 2010 Lords of Finance: The Bankers The Avalon Project at the Yale Law Who Broke the World School: Major Collections By Liaquat Ahamed http://avalon .law yale. edu/subject_. The Penguin Press menus/major .asp

2009 Biography of America The Hemingses of Monticello: http://www .learner .org/ An American Family biographyofamerica/ By Annette Gordon-Reed W W. . Norton & Company Digital History http://www digitalhistory. uh. edu/. 2008 What God Hath Wrought: Documents for the Study of The Transformation of America, American History 1815-1848 http://www vlib. us/amdocs/. By Daniel Walker Howe Oxford University Press Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 2007 http://www gilderlehrman. org. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and Historicalstatistics org. the Awakening of a Nation http://www historicalstatistics. org/. By Gene Roberts and index2 html. Hank Klibanoff Alfred A . Knopf History Matters http://historymatters gmu. edu/. 2006 Polio: An American Story By David Oshinsky Oxford University Press

347 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Library of Congress National Atlas of the United States American Memory: Historical http://nationalatlas gov. Collections for the National Digital Library National Endowment for http://memory .loc gov/ammem/. the Humanities: We the People http://www wethepeople. gov. The Library of Congress American Memory: Timeline National Park Service: http://lcweb2 .loc gov/ammem/. Discover History ndlpedu/features/timeline/ http://www nps. gov/history/. index html. Organization of American National Archives and Records Historians Administration http://www .oah .org/ http://www nara. gov. Smithsonian National Archives and Records http://www .si edu/. Administration: Digital Classroom http://www .archives gov/digital_. The Historical Society classroom/ http://www bu. edu/historic/.

National Archives and Records U S. . Department of State Administration: Our Documents: Office of the Historian A National Initiative on American http://history .state gov/. History, Civics, and Service http://www .ourdocuments gov/. WWW Virtual Library index php?flash=true&. History: United States http://vlib iue. it/history/USA/. National Archives and Records Administration: Presidential Libraries http://www .archives gov/. presidential-libraries

The U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for the content and availability of the resources from other agencies and organizations listed above. All Internet links were active as of fall 2010.

348 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

INDEX

Page references in boldface type African Americans refer to illustrations. bus boycott (Montgomery, Alabama), 240 A civil rights movement, 240, 258, Abolition of slavery 271-272 Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry color barrier broken in sports, 237, (1859), 139 271 constitutional amendment Colored Farmers National Alliance, (13th), 148 191 Democratic Party and, 152 culture, 210-211 Douglass as abolitionist leader, 91 Freedmen’s Bureau and, 148, 151 Emancipation Proclamation, 144- “Harlem Renaissance,” 211 145 jazz musicians, 211 Freedmen’s Bureau, 148, 151 labor unions and, 193 Garrison and The Liberator on, 91, lynchings and violence against, 122, 133-134 150, 178, 271 Missouri Compromise (1820), 80, members of Congress, 96 114, 132, 135, 137 as sharecroppers and tenant Northwest Ordinance slavery ban, farmers, 190-191 71, 73, 113, 135 U .S . Colored Troops in Union religious social activism and, 87 Army, 145 as a sectional conflict/divided See also Abolition of slavery; nation, 128-139 Civil rights; Racial discrimination; as sharecroppers and tenant Slavery farmers, 190-191 Agnew, Spiro, 290 southern statesmen on, 113 Agricultural Adjustment Act Underground Railroad, 91, 134, 136 (AAA), 216 See also Slavery Agriculture Adams, John, 52, 64, 72, 82-83 farm-relief act, 216 Adams, John Quincy, 115, 116, 134 Farmers’ Alliances, 191 Adams, Samuel, 56-57 Grange movement, 191 Adamson Act, 199 land grant and technical colleges, Addams, Jane, 196 152, 177 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn New Deal programs, 216-217 (Twain), 97 Patrons of Husbandry (Grange), 191 Afghanistan, U .S . relations, 294, plantation settlements, 26, 28, 334, 345 113-114, 128-129 AFL . See American Federation of post-Revolutionary period, 70 Labor (AFL) Republican policy, 79, 208 scientific research, 177

349 INDEX

sharecroppers and tenant farmers, significance of, 65 190-191 Treaty of Paris (1783), 47, 64 small farmers and agricultural Yorktown, British surrender at, consolidation, 267 47-48, 64 technological revolution, 110-111, American Sugar Refining Company, 160, 177 197 westward expansion and, 125 American Telephone and Telegraph AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency (AT&T), 158 Syndrome) American Temperance Union, 121 epidemic, 307 Amity and Commerce, Treaty of quilt (Washington, D .C .), 299 (France-American colonies), 63 AIM . See American Indian Movement Amnesty Act (1872), 150 Alaska Anasazi, 8, 20 gold rush, 192 Andros, Sir Edmund, 31 purchase, known as “Seward’s Anthony, Susan B ., 90, 122 Folly,” 182 Antifederalists, 76 Albany Plan of Union, 33, 69 Antitrust legislation, 160, 187, Albright, Madeleine, 329 196-197, 199 Alien Act, 82, 117 Apache Indians, 180, 181 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Aquino, Corazon, 312 Steel, and Tin Workers, 194 Arafat, Yasser, 330 American Bible Society, 87 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 330 American Civil Liberties Union, 209 Arlington Cemetery (Virginia), 174 American Federation of Labor (AFL), Armour, Philip, 158 194, 209, 227 Arms control . See Nuclear weapons American Independent Party, 319 Armstrong, Louis, 211 American Indian Movement (AIM), 281 Armstrong, Neil, 285 American Philosophical Society, 28 Arnaz, Desi, 239 American Railway Union, 194 Arnold, Benedict, 62 American Revolution, 50-65 Articles of the Confederation, 69-70 Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57 Asia, Cold War, 263-264 British move through the South, Atlantic Charter (U .S .-Britain), 220 63-64 Automobile industry colonial declaration of war, 60 auto worker strikes, 228, 230 Concord and Lexington battles automobile safety crusade, 287 (1775), 59-60 environmental issues/traffic economic aftermath, 70 congestion, 282, 300-301 factors leading to, 50-59 unemployment, 227 first shots fired at Lexington, 44-45, 59 B Franco-American alliance, 62-63 Babcock, Stephen, 177 Long Island, battle of (1776), 61 Ball, Lucille, 239 Loyalists and, 60, 65 Banking Act, 218 Olive Branch Petition, 60

350 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Banking and finance Brown v. Board of Education (1954), currency question and gold 240, 244, 272 standard, 192 Bryan, William Jennings, 192, 195, Federal Reserve Board, 199, 218 198, 209-210 Federal Reserve System, 119, 187, Buchanan, Pat, 332 198-199 Buckley, William F ., 308 financial panic (1893), 192 Bull Moose Party, 318 First Bank of the United States, 79 Burbank, Luther, 177 insured savings (FDIC), 215 Burgoyne, John, 62 national bank, 79-80 Bush, George Herbert Walker, 255 New Deal program reforms, 214-215 budgets and deficits, 315 regional and local bank charters, 119 domestic policy, 314-315 Second Bank of the United States, end of Cold War, 315-316 118-119 foreign policy, 312, 316-317 state banking system, 119 presidential election (1998), 314; stock market crash (1929), 211 (1992), 322, 324 Baptists, 87, 88 “war on drugs,” 317 Barak, Ehud, 330 Bush, George W . Beard, Charles, 75 Afghanistan invasion, 334 “Beat Generation” (1950s), 270 with Barack Obama, 339 Begin, Menachim, 292 as a “compassionate conservative,” Bell, Alexander Graham, 107, 156 332 Bell, John C ., 139 domestic and foreign policy, 332- Bell Telephone System, 158 336 Bellamy, Edward, 160 on freedom, 322 Biddle, Nicholas, 119 Iraq War, 334-336 Biden, Joseph, 343 on peace, 322 Bill of Rights, 77 presidential elections (2000), 333; bin Laden, Osama, 331, 332, 334 (2004), 336-337 Blaine, James G ., 185 with Tony Blair, 294-295 Blair, Tony, 294-295, 330 Blix, Hans, 335 C Bolívar, Simon, 114 Cable News Network, 297 Booth, John Wilkes, 147 Cabot, John, 9 Borglum, Gutzon, 171 Cady Stanton, Elizabeth, 90, 122-123 Bosnia, 330 Calhoun, John C ., 112, 116, 117, 125 Boston Massacre (1770), 56 California Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57 as a free state, 136 Breckenridge, John C ., 139 gold rush, 131, 136, 179 Brezhnev, Leonid, 289 migrant farm workers’ unions, British colonization . See English 279-280 colonization territory, 135 Brooks, David, 322 Calvinism, 13, 29, 34, 65 Brown, John, 139 Campbell, Ben Nighthorse, 281

351 INDEX

Capitalism, 187, 193, 214 Coalition,” 253 Carleton, Mark, 177 Truman 10-point civil rights Carmichael, Stokely, 278 program, 271-272 Carnegie, Andrew, 97, 156-157, See also Civil rights movement; 187, 194 Individual rights; Racial Carson, Rachel, 282 discrimination Carter, Jimmy, 291-292 Civil Rights Act (1957), 273 Cartier, Jacques, 10 Civil Rights Act (1960), 273 Carver, George Washington, 177 Civil Rights Act (1964), 277, 286 Cattle ranching, 179-180 Civil rights movement (1960-80), Central Pacific Railroad, 179 276-278 A Century of Dishonor (Jackson), 181 “black power” activists, 277-278 Chambers, Whittaker, 266 “freedom rides,” 277 Charles I (British king), 12, 13, 15 “March on Washington” (1963), 277 Charles II (British king), 17, 18, 31 origins of the, 271-272 Chase, Salmon P ., 138 riots (1960s), 278 Chávez, César, 250, 280 sit-ins, 277 Cherokee Indians, 125 Civil Service Commission, 307 Chiang Kai-shek, 224, 263, 264 Civil War (1861-65) Chicanos . See Latino movement African Americans in U .S . Colored Child labor, 102-103, 177, 193, 196 Troops in Union Army, 145 China, People’s Republic of Alexandria, Union troop Boxer Rebellion (1900), 186 encampment, 94 Taiwan relations, 263, 265, 289 Antietam campaign (1862), 141, 144 U .S . diplomatic relations, 186, Bull Run (First Manassas), 143 289, 292 Bull Run (Second Manassas), 144 Christian Coalition, 308 casualties, 92, 144, 145 Churchill, Winston Chancellorsville campaign (1863), on the “iron curtain,” 260-261 92-93, 145 U .S . support for war effort, 220 Chattanooga and Lookout at Yalta, 224, 234 Mountain campaigns (1863), 146 CIO . See Committee for Industrial Gettysburg address, by Lincoln, Organization (CIO); Congress of 142, 145 Industrial Organizations (CIO) Gettysburg campaign (1863), 92, Citizenship, 82, 148-149, 178 145, 146 Civil rights Petersburg campaign (1865), 146 bus boycott (Montgomery, postwar politics, 152-153 Alabama), 240, 273 secession from the Union, 142-143 desegregation, 272-273 Sherman’s march through the desegregation of schools, 240, 241, South, 146 244, 272-273, 277 Shiloh campaign, 144 desegregation of the military, Spotsylvania (Battle of the 269, 272 Wilderness, 1864), 146 Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow surrender at Appomattox

352 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Courthouse, 146 origins of, 260-261 Vicksburg campaign (1863), 145, 146 Truman Administration, 261, 265 See also Reconstruction Era College of William and Mary, 27 Civil Works Administration Colonial period (CWA), 215-216 cultural developments, 27-29 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 215 Dutch colonies, 14, 15, 17, 24 Clark, William, 47 early settlements, 10-12, 24 Clay, Henry English settlers, 10-12, 13-15, 17, 24 compromise agreements, 114, 136 French and Indian Wars, 32-33 portrait of, 90 German settlers, 24, 25, 26 presidential elections, 116, 119 government of the colonies, 29-32 protective tariffs, 112, 117, 118 Jamestown colony (Virginia), 10, Whig Party statesman, 120, 152 12-13, 16 Clayton Antitrust Act, 199 Massachusetts colonies, 13-14, 24-25 Clean Air Act (1967), 282 middle colonies, 25-26 Clemenceau, Georges, 108 Native American relations, 15-17, Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 97, 196 18, 39 Cleveland, Grover, 159, 182, 183, New Amsterdam, 14, 15, 26 192, 194 New England colonies, 24-25 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 324, 325, New England Confederation, 17 328, 342 Pennsylvania colony, 18, 25, 27-28, Clinton, William “Bill” 30, 39, 69 Arkansas real estate rural country daily life, 26-27 investigation, 326 Scots and Scots-Irish settlers, 24, Cabinet appointments, 280 25, 26 domestic policy, 324-326 southern colonies, 26-27 foreign policy, 329-331 Swedish colonies, 15, 24 impeachment hearings/trial, Virginia colonies, 10, 12-13, 16, 26, 328, 329 28-30, 68-69 presidential election (1992), Colored Farmers National Alliance, 322-324; (1996), 328 191 presidential inaugural address Columbus, Christopher, 9 (1993), 255 Commission on Civil Rights, 280 sexual impropriety/intern scandal, Committee for Industrial Organization 326, 328 (CIO), 228 Coercive or Intolerable Acts (England), Committees of Correspondence, 57-59 56-57 Cold War, 258-267 Commodity Credit Corporation, 216 in Asia, 263-264 Common Sense (Paine), 60 Eisenhower Administration, Communism, 206-207 264-265 Cold War and, 258-267, 315-316 end of, 255, 315-316, 324 Eisenhower containment policy, in the Middle East, 264 264-265 Kennedy Administration, 284-285 Federal Employee Loyalty

353 INDEX

Program, 266 ratification, 75-76 House Committee on separation of powers principle, 74 Un-American Activities, 266 signing of, at Constitution Hall McCarthy Senate hearings on, (Philadelphia), 164 236, 266 Constitutional Convention Red Scare (1919-20), 207, 265 (Philadelphia, 1787), 66-67, 71-77 spread of, 263 Constitutional Union Party, 139 Truman Doctrine of containment, Continental Association, 58-59 261-263 Continental Congress, First (1774), 58 Communist Party, 206, 263, 265, 266 Continental Congress, Second (1775), Compromise of 1850, 90, 135-136 60, 61, 69, 71 Confederation Congress, 71 Coolidge, Calvin, 204, 207 Congress of Industrial Organizations Cornwallis, Lord Charles, 46-47, 64 (CIO), 228 Coronado, Francisco Vázquez de, 9 Congress, U .S . Corporations, 158-159 African-American members, 96 Coughlin, Charles, 217 first Native American member, 281 Counterculture (1960s), 281-282 Hispanic members, 280 New Leftists, 281-282 power to make laws, 75 Vietnam War demonstrations, 281 representation in House and “Woodstock Generation,” 249, 281 Senate, 73 Cox, James M ., 207 Conservatism, 307-309 Crawford, William, 116 Constitution, state constitutions, 68-69 Crazy Horse (Sioux chief), 180 Constitution, U .S . Creek Indians, 125 amendments Cromwell, Oliver, 12, 17, 31 1st thru 12th, 77 Cuba, Spanish-American War and, 13th (abolishing slavery), 148 182-183 14th (citizenship rights), 148- Cuban missile crisis (1962), 284 149, 178 Cullen, Countee, 211 15th (voting rights), 149, 273 Culture 16th (federal income tax), 198 of the 1950s, 270-271 17th (direct election of in the colonies, 27-29 senators), 198 counterculture of the 1960s, 281-282 18th (prohibition), 210 See also Libraries; Literary works; 19th (voting rights for women), Music, American 207 Currency Act (England, 1764), 53 amendments process, 74 Custer, George, 98-99, 180 Bill of Rights, 77 Congressional powers, 75 D debate and compromise, 73-75 Dakota Sioux, 98, 180, 281 declaration of war powers, 316-317 Darrow, Clarence, 209-210 on display at National Archives, Darwinian theory 174 Scopes trial, 209-210 motivations of Founding Fathers, 75 “survival of the fittest,” 193

354 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Davis, Jefferson, 142 E Dawes (General Allotment) Act East India Company, 57 (1887), 181 Eastman, George, 106, 157 De Soto, Hernando, 9 Economic crisis bailout, 344 Declaration of Independence, 61, 68 Edison, Thomas, 106, 157 burial site for three signers of, Education 162-163 in the colonies, 27-29 Declaratory Act (England), 55 computer technology and, 303 Delaware Indians, 18, 39 day care centers, 303 Democracy in America (Tocqueville), No Child Left Behind Act, 333 130 private schools, 27 Democratic Party, 116, 137, 152, 153, private tutors, 28 192, 218-219 public school systems, 121 Depression . See Great Depression school desegregation, 240, 244, Dewey, George, 183 272-273, 277 Dewey, Thomas, 235, 269 Edwards, Jonathan, 29 Dickens, Charles, 130-131 Eisenhower, Dwight David Dickinson, Emily, 96 civil rights supporter, 272, 273 Dickinson, John, 55, 69 Cold War and foreign policy, 264-265 Digital revolution, 293, 296 domestic policy of “dynamic e-mail communication, 327 conservatism,” 269-270 mobile phones, 327 portrait of, 236 personal computer (PC) growth, as president of U .S ., 264-265, 269-270 306, 327 as Supreme Commander of Allied Dix, Dorothea, 121 Forces, 223, 232, 264 Dixiecrats, 319 Electoral College, 116, 117 Dole, Robert, 328 Elkins Act (1903), 196 Doolittle, James “Jimmy,” 223 Ellington, Duke, 211 Dorset, Marion, 177 Ellis Island Monument, 102, 103, 200 Douglas, Stephen A ., 136, 137, 138-139 Emancipation Proclamation, 144-145 Douglass, Frederick, 91, 122, 134, 145 Embargo Act (1807), 84 Drake, Francis, 10 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 59 Dred Scott decision, 138, 149 Enforcement Acts (1870 and Dreiser, Theodore, 196 1871), 150 DuBois, W .E .B ., 178, 211 English Civil War (1642-49), 31 Dukakis, Michael, 314 English colonization Dulles, John Foster, 265 early settlements, 10-12 Dunmore, Lord, 60 French and Indian War and, 32-33 Dutch colonization, 14, 15, 17 map of, 36-37 patroon system, 14-15 in Maryland, 15 Dutch East India Company, 14 in Massachusetts, 13-14 Dylan, Bob, 281 New England Confederation, 17 English common law, 30 Enola Gay (U .S . bomber), attacks on

355 INDEX

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 226 Louisiana Territory sold to U .S ., Environmental movement, 282, 83-84 298, 344 New World exploration, 9-10 Environmental Protection Agency U .S . diplomatic relations, 82-83 (EPA), 282 XYZ Affair, 82 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 279 Franco-American Treaty of Alliance Erik the Red, 9 (1778), 62-63, 80, 82 Franklin, Benjamin, 28, 33, 43, 63, F 64, 72, 75 Falwell, Jerry, 308 Free Soil Party, 136, 137, 138 Farragut, David, 143 Freedmen’s Bureau, 148, 151 Faubus, Orval, 272 Fremont, John, 138 Federal Aid Road Act (1916), 113 French and Indian War, 32-33 Federal Artists Project, 218 French exploration, 10 Federal Deposit and Insurance French Huguenots, 24 Corporation (FDIC), 215, 343 French Revolution, 34, 79, 80, 81 Federal Emergency Relief Friedan, Betty, 278, 279 Administration (FERA), 215 Friedman, Milton, 308 Federal Employee Loyalty Program, Fugitive Slave Act, 136, 137 266 Fundamentalism, religious, 209, Federal Reserve Act (1913), 198 210, 308 Federal Reserve Board, 199, 218, 291, 310, 343 G Federal Reserve System, 119, 187, Gage, Thomas, 59 198-199 Gallatin, Albert, 83 Federal Theatre Project, 218 Garrison, William Lloyd, 91, 122, Federal Trade Commission, 199 133-134 Federal Workingman’s Compensation Garza, Eligio “Kika” de la, 280 Act (1916), 199 Gates, Bill, 296 Federal Writers Project, 218 Gates, Horatio, 62, 63-64 The Federalist Papers, 43, 76 Gay rights, 307, 324-325 Federalists, 76, 78, 81, 82, 86, 116 Genet, Edmond Charles, 80-81 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 278 George, Henry, 160 The Financier (Dreiser), 196 George III (British king), 55, 59 Finney, Charles, Grandison, 87 Georgia Firefighters, 321 colonial royal government, 31 “First universal nation,” 345 early settlement, 18 Fitzgerald, F . Scott, 210 Native American tribes relocated, Force Act, 118 118 Ford, Gerald, 290-291 German unification, 316 Ford, Henry, 109 Germany Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922), 207 Berlin Airlift, 262 Foreign policy . See U .S . foreign policy Kennedy speech in West Berlin, France 242-243

356 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

postwar period, 262 H reparations, World War I, 224 Haiti, political situation, 330 Germany in World War II Hamilton, Alexander Holocaust (Jewish genocide), 226 and Bank of the United States, Nazism, 219, 224, 226 79, 118 North African campaign, 222 Constitutional Convention Nuremberg war crime trials, 226 delegate, 71, 72 reparations, 206 Federalist Papers and, 43, 76 submarine warfare, 204-205 as first Secretary of the Treasury Geronimo (Apache chief), 181 (Department of the Treasury), 77 Gerry, Elbridge, 72, 73 portrait of, 48 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 85 and Republican Party, 152 Gilbert, Humphrey, 10 vs . Jefferson, 48, 78-80 The Gilded Age (Twain), 196 Hamilton, Andrew, 28 Ginsberg, Allen, 271 Harding, Warren G ., 207 Glenn, John, 285 Harrison, Benjamin, 160 Global warming, 344 Harrison, William Henry, 85, 120 Glorious Revolution (1688-89), 31, 32 Hartford Convention (1814), 117 Goethals, George W ., 185 Harvard College, 27 Goldwater, Barry, 286, 308, 309 Hawaii, statehood (1959), 184 Gompers, Samuel, 194 Hawaiian Islands, U .S . policy of González, Henry B ., 280 annexation, 183-184 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 304-305, 314, Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (1930), 207 315, 316 Hay, John, 184, 186 Gore, Al, 323, 332, 333 Hayes, Rutherford B ., 150-151, 153 Gould, Jay, 194 Haymarket Square incident, 194 Grange movement, 191 Health care, 344 Grant, Ulysses S . Health insurance, 344-345 as president of U .S ., 150, 153 Helsinki Accords (1975), 291 as Union Army general, 144, 145 Hemingway, Ernest, 109, 210 portrait of, 95 Henry, Patrick, 42, 54, 76, 77 Great Depression (1929-40) Hepburn Act (1906), 197 decline in immigration, 201 Hidalgo, Miguel de, 114 “Dust Bowl” migration, 216 Highway Act (1956), 268 New Deal programs, 214-218 Hispanics soup lines, 202-203 in politics, 280 stock market crash (1929), 211 See also Latino movement “Great Society,” 286-287 Hiss, Alger, 266 Greeley, Horace, 112, 124 Hitler, Adolf, 201, 219 Green Party, 332 Ho Chi Minh, 284 Greenspan, Alan, 327 Hohokam settlements, 7 Grey, Zane, 180 Holy Alliance, 115 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 135 Homeland Security Department, 334 Guam, U .S . relations, 184 Homestead Act (1862), 124, 152,

357 INDEX

179, 180 See also Civil rights Hoover, Herbert, 185, 211 Industrial development . See under Hopewellians, 7 names of industry Hopi Indians, 8 Industrial Workers of the World Housing and Urban Development (IWW), 194 Department, 287 Interstate Commerce Commission Houston, Sam, 134 (ICC), 159, 197, 198 Howe, William, 61-62 Inventions Hudson, Henry, 14 adding machine, 157 Hughes, Langston, 211 airplane, 107 Hull, Cordell, 221 cash register, 157 Humphrey, Hubert, 288 cotton gin, 114, 133 Hungary, rebellion (1956), 265 light bulb/incandescent lamp, Hutchinson, Anne, 14 106, 157 linotype machine, 157 I motion picture projector, 106, 157 Immigrants and immigration reaper (farm machine), 131, diversity of immigrants, 200-201 158, 160 Ellis Island Monument, 102, telegraph, 156 103, 200 telephone, 107, 156 illegal immigrants, 201 television, 268 immigration quotas, 201, 209 typewriter, 157 “Little Italy” in New York City, Iran, U .S . relations, 292 104-105 Axis of evil, 334 Nativists and, 209 Iraq policy reform, 307 elections (2005), 302 restrictions on immigration, provisional government, 335 208-209 U .N . weapons inspections, 329, Immigration Restriction League, 201 334-335 Imperialism, 181-182 U .S .-led invasion, 335 Indentured servants, 18-19 Iron and steel industry, 157, 187 Indian Removal Act (1830), 125 strikes, 194, 228 Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 181 Iroquois Indians, 14, 16-17, 33 Indian Wars Islam, 345 Apache wars, 180, 181 Isolationism, 78, 206, 220 Custer’s Last Stand at Little Israel Bighorn, 98-99, 180 Egypt invasion, 265 French and Indian War, 32-33 Palestinian relations, 330 Pequot War (1637), 16 U .S . policy, 264 and westward expansion, 124, 180-181 J Indians of North America . See Native Jacinto, Battle of, 134 Americans Jackson, Andrew Individual rights, 34, 65, 76-77 conflicts with Indians, 125

358 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

as general in War of 1812, 86 Jobs, Steve, 296 portrait of, 89 Johnson, Andrew as president of U .S ., 89, 117-118 impeachment trial, 149-150 presidential election (1824), 116 as president of U .S ., 147-149, 153 presidential election (1828), 117 Johnson, Lyndon B . Jackson, Helen Hunt, 181 civil rights supporter, 273, 277 Jackson, Jesse, 253 Great Society programs, 286-287 Jackson, Thomas J . (“Stonewall”), portrait of, 245 144, 145 space program, 285 James I (British king), 12 Vietnam War policy, 287-288 James II (British king), 31 “War on Poverty,” 286 Jamestown colony (Virginia), 10, Johnson-Reed National Origins Act 12-13, 16 (1924), 201, 209 Japan The Jungle (Sinclair), 196 attack on Pearl Harbor, 212-213, 221, 222 K Kamikaze suicide missions, 225 Kansas surrender (1945), 226 slavery issue and, 138 U .S . attacks on Hiroshima and territory (“bleeding Kansas”), 137, Nagasaki, 226 138 U .S . relations, 186 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 137 Japanese-Americans, internment Kennan, George, 261 camps, 222, 233 Kennedy, John F . Jay, John, 43, 64, 76, 81, 82 assassination of, 277, 286 Jay Treaty (Britain-U .S .), 81, 82 Bay of Pigs invasion, 284 Jazz Age, 210 civil rights policy, 277, 283 Jefferson Memorial (Wash ., D .C .), 161 Cold War and, 284-285 Jefferson, Thomas Cuban missile crisis, 284 on abolition of slavery, 114 as president of U .S ., 282-285 as drafter of Declaration of space program, 285-286 Independence, 61 Vietnam War policy, 284-285 face of (Mount Rushmore), West Berlin speech during Cold 170-171 War, 242-243 as first Secretary of State (U .S . Kennedy, Robert, assassination of, Department of State), 77 278, 288 portrait of, 46 Kentucky as president of U .S ., 83 Resolutions (1798), 117 on right of self-government, 68 statehood (1792), 7-8 on slavery, 114 Kerouac, Jack, 270 as U .S . minister to France, 72, 79-80 Kerry, John F ., 336-337 vs . Adams, 82 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 292 vs . Hamilton, 48, 78-80 Khrushchev, Nikita, 284 “Jim Crow” laws (separate but equal Kim Il-sung, 263 segregation), 151, 240, 272, 319 King, Martin Luther, Jr .

359 INDEX

assassination of, 278, 288 declines command of Union civil rights movement and, 240, Army, 143 241, 273, 283 portrait of, 95 “I have a dream” speech, 276, 277 surrender at Appomattox King, Rufus, 72 Courthouse, 146 Kissinger, Henry, 289 Leif (son of Erik the Red), 9 Know-Nothing Party, 120 Lenin, V .I ., 259 Korean War, 235, 263, 264 Levitt, William J ., 268 Kosciusko, Thaddeus, 65 Lewis and Clark expedition, Ku Klux Klan, 150, 201, 209 bicentennial commemorative stamp, 46 L Lewis, John L ., 227-228 La Follette, Robert, 196, 318-319 Lewis, Meriwether, 47 Labor unions, 121, 193-195 Lewis, Sinclair, 210 air controllers strike, 309 The Liberator, 91, 133 auto workers strikes, 228 Libraries collective bargaining, 217 American Philosophical Society Haymarket Square incident, 194 (Philadelphia), 28 membership in U .S ., 227-228 in the colonies, 27, 28 migrant farm workers, 250, 279-280 public libraries endowed by mine workers membership/strikes, Carnegie, 97 194-195, 227-228 subscription, 28 New Deal programs, 217 Lincoln, Abraham post-World War I strikes, 206 assassination of, 147, 153 post-World War II strikes, 269 at Civil War Union encampment, railway worker strikes, 193, 194 140-141 steel worker strikes, 194, 228 Emancipation Proclamation, textile worker strikes, 195 144-145 “Wobblies,” 194-195 face of (Mount Rushmore), 170-171 See also under names of specific Free-Soil Party and, 138 unions Gettysburg address, 142, 145 Lafayette, Marquis de, 65 on Grant, 95 Landon, Alf, 218 as president during Civil War, Latin America, U .S . intervention, 142-147 184-185 presidential election (1860), 139 Latin American Revolution, 114-116 presidential election (1864), Latino movement, 279-280 147, 153 League of Nations, 205-206, 226 presidential inaugural address, 142 Lee, Richard Henry, 61, 64 senatorial campaign (1858), Lee, Robert E . 138-139 capture of John Brown at Harper’s on slavery and the Union, 130, 138 Ferry, 139 Lincoln, Benjamin, 63, 70 commander of Confederate Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858), 138-139 Army, 144 Literary works

360 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

“Beat Generation” (1950s), 270-271 Marshall Plan, 262 colonial period, 28-29 Marshall, Thurgood, 244 “Harlem Renaissance,” 211 Martin, Josiah, 60 “Lost Generation” (1920s), 109, 211 Maryland New Deal programs and, 218 Calvert family charter, 15, 30 See also names of individual authors Catholic settlements, 15 or works St . Mary’s, first town in, 15 Lloyd George, David, 108 Toleration Act and religious Locke, John, 17, 32, 34, 61, 65, 73 freedom, 17 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 181, 184 Mason, George, 76 Logan, James, 28 Massachusetts The Lonely Crowd (Riesman), 270 Boston Massacre (1770), 56 Long, Huey P ., assassination of, 217 Boston Port Bill, 57 “Lost Generation” (1920s), 109, 211 Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57 Louis XVI (French king), 64, 80 colonial government charter, 30-31 Louisiana Purchase, 83-84 early settlements, 13-14 Lovejoy, Elijah P ., 134 Old Granary Cemetery (Boston), Lowell, James Russell, 147 162-163 Luce, Henry, 258 Salem witch trials, 35 Lundestad, Geir, 262 schools and education, 27 Shays Rebellion, 70 M trade and economic development, MacArthur, Douglas, 225, 232, 263 24-25 Macdonough, Thomas, 85 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 25, 31 Madison, James, 43, 72, 75, 76, Massachusetts Bay Company, 18 84-86, 113 Mather, Cotton, 28, 40 as “Father of the Constitution,” 72 Mayflower Compact, 13, 22-23, 30 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 184 Mayflower (ship), 13 Maine (U .S . warship) incident, 182 McCain, John Major, John, 330 (2008) presidential election 342-343 Malcolm X, 277 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 201 Manhattan . See Ne w York McCarthy, Joseph R ., 236, 266 Manhattan project (atomic bomb McClellan, George, 144, 147 development), 225 McCormick, Cyrus, 131, 158, 160 Mann, Horace, 121 McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), 113 Mao Zedong, 263, 289 McGovern, George, 290 Marbury v. Madison (1803), 113 McGrath, J . Howard, 266 Marcos, Ferdinand, 312 McKinley, William Marshall, George C ., 262 assassination of, 195 Marshall, John Hawaii annexation treaty, 184 as chief justice of the Supreme Maine (U .S . warship) incident, 182 Court, 49, 113 Open Door foreign policy, 195 funeral of, 168 as president of U .S ., 182, 184, portrait of, 49 192, 195

361 INDEX

McVeigh, Timothy, 331 Morris, Gouverneur, 72 Meat Inspection Act, 197 Morse, Samuel F .B ., 156 Meat-packing industry, 158, 196, 197 Mott, Lucretia, 122 Mellon, Andrew, 207 Mound builders, 7 Mencken, H .L ., 210 Mount Rushmore Monument (South Menéndez, Pedro, 10 Dakota), 170-171 Merchant Marine, 208 Mount Vernon (Virginia), Meredith, James, 277 Washington’s plantation home, 170-171 Methodists, 87, 88 Ms . (feminist magazine), 279 Mexican-Americans . See Latino MTV, 297 movement Murray-Philip, 228 Mexican War, 134-135 Music, American Mexico Beatles, 281 conquest of, 9 “hard rock,” 281 revolution, 185 Jazz Age (1920s), 210 Spanish colonization, 11 Jazz musicians, 211 Middle colonies, 25-26 rock and roll (1950s), 271, 281 Middle East Rolling Stones, 271, 281 Palestinians, 329-330 Woodstock (outdoor rock concert, peace negotiations, 329-330 1969), 249, 281 Persian Gulf War, 316-317 Muslims, 344, 345 U .S . policy, 264, 292, 313, 329-330 Mussolini, Benito, 219, 223 Millet, Kate, 248 Mutual Board of Defense (U .S .- Mining industry strikes, 194-195 Canada), 220 Miranda, Francisco, 114 Missouri Compromise (1820), 90, 114, N 132, 135, 137 NAACP . See National Association for Mohler, George, 177 the Advancement of Colored People Molasses Act (England, 1733), 53 (NAACP) Molotov, Vyacheslav, 260 Nader, Ralph, 287, 332, 336 Mondale, Walter, 311 NAFTA . See North American Free Monetary policy . See U .S . monetary Trade Agreement (NAFTA) policy Napoleon, 82, 83, 84 Monroe Doctrine, 114-116 National Association for the Monroe, James, 113, 115, 116 Advancement of Colored People Montgomery, Bernard, 222 (NAACP), 211, 244, 272, 273 Montoya, Joseph, 280 National health care system, 344-345 Monuments and memorials, 161-176 National Industrial Recovery Act See also under names of individual (NIRA), 217, 227 memorials National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), Moral Majority, 308 217, 218, 228, 280 Morgan, John Pierpoint (J .P .), 187 National Labor Relations Board Morrill Land Grant College Act (NLRB), 217 (1862), 152, 177 National Organization for Women

362 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

(NOW), 279 New Amsterdam . See under Ne w York National Recovery Administration New Deal programs, 214-218 (NRA), 217 New England colonies, 17, National Security Council (NSC), 24-25, 30-31 NSC-68 security report on Soviet New England Confederation, 17 Union, 262-263, 265 New Mexico territory, 136 National Woman Suffrage Association New World exploration, 9-11 (NWSA), 123 New World settlements . See Colonial National Youth Administration, 218 period Native-American movement, 280-281 Ne w York American Indian Movement colonial royal government, 31 (AIM), 281 Dutch settlers, 14, 15, 25-26 Wounded Knee (South Dakota) Manhattan, early settlement, 14, 15, incident, 180, 281 25-26 Native Americans New Amsterdam/New Netherland cultural groups, map of, 21 settlement, 14, 15, 26 demonstration in Washington polyglot of early settlers, 25-26 (1978), 252 New York Weekly Journal, 28 effect of European disease on, 8 Ngo Dien Nu, 285 European contact, 9-10 Ngo Dinh Diem, 285 Great Serpent Mound, Ohio, 168 Nichols, Terry, 331 Indian uprisings, 16-17, 180-181 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 345 Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, 4-5, 8 NIRA . See National Industrial migration across Beringia land Recovery Act (NIRA) bridge, 6 Nixon, Richard M . mound builders of Ohio, 7 China-U .S . diplomatic relations, Northwest Passage and, 9, 10 289 oral tradition, 8 at Great Wall of China, 250-251 Pacific Northwest potlatches, 8 impeachment and resignation, 290 population, 8 as president of U .S ., 288-290 Pueblo Indians, 8, 20 presidential elections (1960, 1968, relations with European settlers, 1972), 283, 288, 290 15-17, 18, 39 Soviet Union détente policy, 289 religious beliefs, 8 Watergate affair, 290 slave trade, 18 NLRA . See National Labor Relations Trail of Tears (Cherokee forced Act (NLRA) relocation), 125 No Child Left Behind Act, 333 U .S . policy, 181 Nobel Peace Prize, 344, 345 Westward expansion and, 178 Noble Order of the Knights of Labor See also Indian Wars; and see under (1869), 193 names of individual tribes Non-Intercourse Act (1809), 84 Nativists, 209 Noriega, Manuel Antonio, 317 Naturalization Act, 82 Norris, Frank, 196 Nebraska, territory, 137 North American Free Trade

363 INDEX

Agreement (NAFTA), 317, 325 as presidential candidate, 341 North Atlantic Treaty Organization presidential campaign (2008), 343 (NATO), 262 with George W . Bush, 339 North Carolina colony, 17, 30 with Michelle Obama, 295 Northern Securities Company, 187 The Octopus (Norris), 196 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 71, 73, Office of Economic Opportunity, 286 113, 135 Oglethorpe, James, 18 Northwest Passage, 9, 10 Oklahoma Territory, City, homestead Northwest Territory, 71, 113 claims, 101 NOW . See National Organization for Oliver, King, 211 Women (NOW) Olney, Richard, 194 Nuclear weapons On the Road (Kerouac), 270 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Organization of American States (INF) Treaty, 304-305, 314 (formerly Pan American Union), 185 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization of the Petroleum (1963), 243, 284 Exporting Countries (OPEC), 290 Manhattan Project (atomic bomb Organized labor . See Labor unions development), 225 Orlando, Vittorio, 108 SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), 289 P SALT II agreement, 292 Pacific Railway Acts (1862-64), 152 Soviet atomic bomb testing, 266 Paine, Thomas, 60 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Palin, Sarah, 342 313-314 Palmer, A . Mitchell, 206-207 test bans, 284 Panama, U .S . invasion, 317 U .S . attacks on Hiroshima and Panama Canal Nagasaki, 226 Gatun locks, 100-101 U .S . defense buildup, 314 treaties, 101, 184-185, 292 U .S . military defense buildup, 314 Paris Peace Conference (1919), 108 U .S . nuclear testing, 234 Paris, Treaty of (1783), 47, 64 U .S . policy during Cold War, 265 Parker, John, 59 Nullification doctrine, 83, 117-118 Parks, Rosa, 240, 273 Patroon system, 14-15 O Peace Democrats or “Copperheads,” 152 Oath of office, presidential, 77 Peace of Paris (1763), 33 Obama, Barack H . Penn, William, 18, 25, 30, 39 background, 342-343 Pennsylvania colony at Cairo University, 345 colonial government, 30 on democracies, 342 cultural developments, 27-28 financial crisis, 343-344 German settlers, 25 health care, 344-345 population, 25 inaugural address, 343-344 Quakers as early settlers, 18, 25, 27 Nobel Peace Prize, 344-345 relations with Native Americans, parents, 343 18, 39

364 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

schools and education, 27-28 Progressive, 318-319 state constitution, 69 Radical Republicans, 148-151 See also Philadelphia Reform Party, 319 Pequot Indian War (1637), 16 Republicans (or Democratic- Perkins, Frances, 227 Republicans), 78, 81, 138, 139, Perot, H . Ross, 319, 323, 328 152, 153, 218 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 85 Socialists, 206, 318 Pershing, John J ., 205 Southern Democrats, 139 Persian Gulf War, 316-317 States Rights, 272 Desert Storm campaign, 252-253 third-party and independent Philadelphia candidates, 318-319 American Philosophical Society, 28 Whigs, 119-121, 137-138, 152, 153 as “City of Brotherly Love,” 18 Polk, James K ., 134, 135 colonial period in, 18, 25 Ponce de Léon, Juan, 9 Friends Public School, 27 Population growth Independence Hall, 164-165 in cities and towns, 159 Liberty Bell, 168 household composition, 307 private schools, 27 postwar migrations, 267-268 subscription libraries, 28 Population, U .S . Philippine Islands in 1690, 24 elections, 312 in 1775, 24 MacArthur’s return, 232 1790 census, 200 U .S . relations, 183, 184 1812 to 1852, 124 World War II battles, 224-225, 232 1860 census, 132 Pierce, Franklin, 137 Populist Party, 191-192 Pilgrims, 13, 22-23, 30, 65 Powell, Colin, 294-295 Pinckney, Charles, 81 Presidency, U .S . The Pit (Norris), 196 Cabinet, 77-78, 280 Pitcairn, John, 59 impeachment, 149-150, 290, Pizarro, Francisco, 9 328, 329 Plains Indians, 10, 98, 180-181 oath of office, 77 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 178, 272 role of first lady, 324 Political parties See also names of individual American Independent, 319 presidents Bull Moose Party, 318 Presidential elections Constitutional Union Party, 139 1789 (Washington, first), 77 Democrats, 116, 137, 152, 153, 1797 (Adams), 82 192, 218-219 1800 (Jefferson), 83 Dixiecrats, 319 1824 (Jackson), 116 Federalists, 76, 78, 81, 82, 86, 116 1828 (Jackson), 117 Free Soil Party, 136, 137, 138 1860 (Lincoln), 139 Green Party, 332 1864 (Lincoln), 147, 153 Know-Nothings, 120 1868 (Grant), 150 Populists, 191-192 1884 (Cleveland), 159

365 INDEX

1892 (Cleveland), 160 Public Works Administration 1896 (McKinley), 192 (PWA), 215 1900 (McKinley), 195 Pueblo Indians, 8, 20 1904 (Roosevelt), 197 Puerto Rico 1908 (Taft), 197-198 ceded to U .S ., 182-183 1912 (Wilson), 318, 328 as U .S . commonwealth, 184 1916 (Wilson), 205, 328 Pulitzer Prize, 347 1920 (Harding), 207 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 197 1924 (Coolidge), 318-319 Puritans, 13-14, 40, 40, 65 1932 (Roosevelt), 211 1936 (Roosevelt), 218 Q 1940 (Roosevelt), 220 Quakers 1948 (Truman), 235, 269, 319 abolition movement and, 133 1960 (Kennedy), 283 and British government relations, 59 1964 (Johnson), 286, 308, 309 Pennsylvania settlements, 18, 25 1968 (Nixon), 288, 319 schools and education, 27 1972 (Nixon), 290 Quartering Act (England, 1765), 1976 (Carter), 291 53-54, 58 1980 (Reagan), 309 Quayle, Dan, 323 1984 (Reagan), 310-311 Quebec Act (England), 58 1988 (Bush), 314 Quotations, notable 1992 (Clinton), 319, 322-324 “Ask not what your country can do 1996 (Clinton), 328-329 for you — ask what you can do for 2000 (Bush), 332-333 your country” (Kennedy), 283 2004 (Bush), 336-337 “axis of evil” (Bush), 334 2008 (Obama), 342-343 “The Buck Stops Here,” 260 Presley, Elvis, 238, 271 “city upon a hill” (Winthrop), Press 13, 309 Cable News Network (CNN), 297 “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed first newspaper, 28 ahead” (Farragut), 143 first printing press in colonies, 27 “a day that will live in infamy” freedom of the, 28-29 (Roosevelt), 221 Progressive Party, 318-319 “Give me liberty, or give me death” Progressivism, 195, 196 (Henry), 42 Prohibition, 121, 210 “Go west, young man” (Greeley), Protestant religion 112, 124 Baptists, 87, 88 “A house divided against itself Great Awakening, 29 cannot stand” (Lincoln), 130, 138 Methodists, 87, 88 “I have a dream…” (King, Jr .), 276 revivals in “Burned-Over District,” 87 “I shall return” (MacArthur), 232 Second Great Awakening and, 87-88 “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a See also Pilgrims; Puritans Berliner) (Kennedy), 242 Public Utility Holding Company “iron curtain” (Churchill), 260-261 Act, 218 “shot heard round the world”

366 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

(Emerson), 59 as “Great Communicator,” 309 “thousand points of light” Grenada invasion, 312-313 (Bush), 315 Iran-Contra affair, 312-313 “tyranny over the mind of man” with Mikhail Gorbachev, 304-305 (Jefferson), 161 Reconstruction Act (1867), 148 “With malice towards none” Reconstruction Era, 148-151 (Lincoln), 147 African-American members in Congress during, 96 R Lincoln’s program, 147-148 Race riots, 152, 206 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Racial discrimination 211 bus segregation, 240, 273 Red Cloud (Sioux chief), 180 color barrier broken by Jackie Reform Party, 319 Robinson, 237, 271 Refugee Act (1980), 201 in federal government employment, Religion 269, 272 camp meetings and revivals, 87-88 “Jim Crow” laws (segregation), 151, Christian Coalition, 308 272, 319 Christian evangelicals, 332, 336 lynchings and violence against circuit riders, 88 African Americans, 150, 178, 271 fundamentalism, 209, 210, 308 military segregation, 269, 272 Great Awakening, 29 school segregation, 240, 244 Moral Majority, 308 separate but equal Salem witch trials, 35 accommodations, 178, 240, 272 Second Great Awakening, 87-88 South African apartheid, 312 Religious freedom white supremacy and belief in black Coercive or Intolerable Acts and, 58 inferiority, 178 freedom of worship, 32 Radical Republicans, 148-151 and tolerance, 17, 29, 32 Railroad industry, 131-132 “Remaking America,” 344 Great Rail Strike (1877), 194 Republicanism, 65, 68 nationalization of, 192 Republicans (or Democratic- Pullman Company, 194 Republicans), 78, 81, 138, 139, 152, regulation, 159, 197 153, 218 transcontinental link at Reuther, Walter, 228 Promontory Point (1869), 179 Revels, H .R ., 96 transcontinental railroad, 154-155 Revolution . See American Revolution; westward expansion and, 179 French Revolution; Latin American workers’ hours, 199 Revolution workers’ strikes, 193, 194 Revolutionary War . See American Raleigh, Walter, 10 Revolution Reagan, Ronald Rhode Island colony, 14, 31, 41 conservatism and, 307-309 Rice, Condoleeza, 295 economic policy, 309-311 Ridgway, Matthew B ., 264 foreign policy, 311-313 Riesman, David, 270

367 INDEX

“Roaring Twenties,” 109, 210 Royal Proclamation (England, 1763), 53 Robertson, Pat, 308 Rural Electrification Administration, 218 Robinson, Jackie, 237, 271 Russian Revolution (1917), 206, 259 Rochambeau, Comte Jean de, 64 Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), 186 Rockefeller, John D ., 158 Roe v. Wade (1973), 279, 308, 324 S Rogers, William, 251 Sadat, Anwar al-, 292 Rolfe, John, 12 Saddam Hussein, 316, 317, 329, Rommel, Erwin, 222 334-335 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 324 San Martin, José de, 114 Roosevelt, Franklin D . Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 134 death of, 224 Scopes, John, 209 on democracy, 214, 219 Scopes trial, 209-210 foreign policy, 185 Scott, Dred, 138 Good Neighbor Policy, 185 Scott, Winfield, 135 labor unions and, 227 Seamen’s Act (1915), 199 New Deal programs, 214-218 Second Treatise on Government presidential elections (1932, 1936, (Locke), 32, 61 1940), 207, 211, 218, 220 Sectionalism, and slavery issue, Social Security Act, signing of, 230 128-139 Social Security program, 218, 230 Sedition Act, 82, 117 World War II and, 219-220 Seminole Indians, 125 World War II peace Separation of church and state, 14 negotiations, 224 Separation of powers principle, 74 at Yalta (1945), 224, 234 Separatists, 13 Roosevelt, Theodore Seven Years’ War, 33, 63, 83 accession to the presidency, 195 Seventh Day Adventists, 87 on democracy, 190 Seward, William, 138, 182 face of (Mount Rushmore), Seymour, Horatio, 152 170-171 The Shame of the Cities (Steffens), 196 foreign policy, 181, 184, 186 Sharon, Ariel, 330 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shays, Daniel, 70 (1906), 186 Shays’s Rebellion (1787), 70, 73 Panama Canal treaty, 184-185 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), presidential election (1912), 318 160, 187 “Rough Riders” in the Spanish- Sherman, Roger, 72, 73 American War, 183 Sherman, William T ., 146 “Square Deal,” 196 Silent Spring (Carson), 282 as “trust-buster” and antitrust laws, Sinclair, Upton, 196 160, 187, 196-197 Sioux Indians, 98, 180, 281 Root, Elihu, 181 Sitting Bull (Sioux chief), 98 Rose, Ernestine, 122 Slave family, 128-129 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, 266 Slave owners, 132 “Rosie the Riveter,” 222 Slave population, 132

368 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Slave trade, 19, 25, 133, 136 268-269 Slavery War on Poverty, 286 African slaves, 19, 24 welfare state and, 219 constitutional amendment (13th) Social Security Act (1935), 218, 230 abolishing, 148 Socialist Party, 206, 318 Dred Scott decision, 138, 149 Society for the Promotion of Emancipation Proclamation, Temperance, 87, 121 144-145 Soil Conservation Service, 216 equal rights and, 69 Somalia, 331 extension of, 113-114 Sons of Liberty, 54 free vs . slave states, 114, 123 Soule, John, 124 Fugitive Slave Laws, 136, 137 South Africa, racial apartheid, 312 Indian slaves, 17-18 South Carolina Missouri Compromise (1820), 90, colonial government, 30 114, 132, 135, 137 during American Revolution, 63-64 Northwest Ordinance ban on, 71, early settlements, 17, 26 73, 113, 135 French Huguenots, 24 as the “peculiar institution,” 132 nullification crisis, 117-118 plantations in the south and, 113- protective tariffs, 117 114, 128-129 secession from the Union, 142 revolt in Haiti, 83 Southern Christian Leadership as a sectional conflict/divided Conference (SCLC), 276 nation, 128-139 Southern colonies, 26-27 in the territories, 71, 73, 113, 135, Southern Democrats, 139 136-138 Soviet Union See also Abolition of slavery Cold War, 258-265 Smith, Capt . John, 6, 12, 36 Sputnik and the space program, 285 Smith-Lever Act (1914), 199 U .S . containment doctrine, 261-263 Social activism, 87 U .S . détente policy, 289, 291, 292 Social-contract (theory of U .S . relations, 284, 313-314 government), 61 Space program, 254, 274-275, 285 Social liberalism, 34 Spain, and American Revolution, 63 Social reforms, 121-122, 195-196 Spanish-American War (1898), Great Society programs, 286-287 182, 183 Medicaid program, 287 Spanish exploration Medicare program, 286 European settlement, 9, 11, 169 mental health care, 121-122 missions in California, 169 New Deal programs, 214-218 Seven Cities of Cibola and, 9 prison reform, 121 St . Augustine (Florida), first St . progressivism, 195 John de Crèvecoeur, J . Hector, 24 prohibition and the temperance St . Mary’s (Maryland), 15 movement, 121, 210 Stalin, Joseph, at Yalta, 224, 234 Social Security, 218 Stamp Act (England), 54, 55 Truman Fair Deal programs, Standard Oil Company, 158, 196, 197

369 INDEX

Stanton, Edwin, 153 Tarbell, Ida M ., 196 State constitutions, 68-69 TARP, see Troubled Assets Relief Statehood, 78 Program States’ rights, 79, 80 Taxation nullification doctrine, 83, 117-118 Boston Tea Party (1773), 50-51, 57 States Rights Party, 272 British right to tax colonies Statue of Liberty (New York City), (Declaratory Act), 55 167, 201 colonial period, 33, 53-59 Steel industry . See Iron and steel Committees of Correspondence, industry 56-57 Steel Workers Organizing Committee “without representation,” 53, 54-55 (SWOC), 228 See also names of individual acts Steffens, Lincoln, 196 Taylor, Zachary, 135 Steinem, Gloria, 248, 279 Technology . See Inventions Steuben, Friedrich von, 65 Television Stevens, Thaddeus, 148 Cable News Network (CNN), 297 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 137 growth of, 268 Student Nonviolent Coordinating impact of, 268, 297 Committee (SNCC), 276 MTV, 297 Sugar Act (England, 1764), 53, 55 programming, 239, 268 Sunday, Billy, 209 Temperance movement, 87, 121 Supreme Court Building (Wash ., Tennessee, statehood (1796), 78 D .C .), 166 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 215 Supreme Court, U .S . Tenure of Office Act, 149 cases Terrorism Brown v. Board of Education, anthrax poisoning scare, 333-334 241, 244, 272 Cole (U .S . Navy destroyer) bombing Marbury v. Madison, 113 (Yemen), 332 McCulloch v. Maryland, 113 Khobar Towers U .S . military Plessy v. Ferguson, 178, 272 housing (Saudi Arabia, 1996), 331 Roe v. Wade, 279, 308, 324 Oklahoma City bombing (1995), decisions, 113 326, 331 Court’s right of judicial review, 49 Palestinian suicide bombings, 330 Dred Scott, 138, 149 September 11, 2001 attacks on U .S ., enlargement proposal, 218-219 320-321, 333 See also Marshall, John; Marshall, U .S . embassies (Kenya and Thurgood Tanzania, 1998), 331-332 Swedish colonization, 15, 200 World Trade Center bombings Swift, Gustavus, 158 (1993), 331 Texas T Alamo, battle of, 134 Taft, William Howard, 197-198, 318 Battle of San Jacinto, 134 Taiwan, 263, 265, 289 territory of, 134 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 82 and War with Mexico, 134-135

370 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

Textile industry strikes, 195 United Mine Workers (UMW), Thorpe, Jim, 181 227-228 Thurmond, Strom, 272, 319 United Nations, 224, 226 The Titan (Dreiser), 196 United States Steel Corporation, To Secure These Rights, 271-272 157-158, 187 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 126, 130 U .S . economy Tojo, Hideki, 221, 225 in the 1980s, 309-311 Toleration Act (England, 1689), 31 in the 1990s, 327-328 Toleration Act (Maryland), 17 in the 2000s, 344-345 Townsend, Francis E ., 217 “Black Monday” (stock market Townshend Acts (England), 55-56 crash, 1987), 311 Townshend, Charles, 55 federal budget deficits, 310-311, 315 Trade policy . See U .S . trade policy migration patterns in U .S ., 267 Transportation Act (1920), 208 post-World War II period, 267-268 Treaties . See under name of individual stock market crash (1929), 211 treaty suburban development and, 268 Troubled Assets Relief Program “supply side” economics, 309 (TARP), 343 unemployment, 215-216, 227, 327 Truman Doctrine, 261 See also Banking and finance; Great Truman, Harry S . Depression accession to the presidency, 224 U .S . foreign policy, 80-82, 181-186 civil rights program, 271-272 in Asia, 185-186 Fair Deal domestic program, Bush (George W .) Administration, 268-269 332-337 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic Clinton Administration, 328-331 bomb attacks, 226 Cold War and, 258-267 labor unions and, 269 imperialism and “Manifest NSC-68 defense policy, 262, 265 Destiny,” 181-182 as president of U .S ., 258, 260 Iran-Contra affair, 312-313 presidential election (1948), 235, 269 isolationism, 78, 206, 220 Trusts, 158 Jay Treaty with Britain, 81 Tubman, Harriet, 91 in Latin America, 185 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 126 Monroe Doctrine, 115-116 Twain, Mark . See Clemens, Samuel Obama administration, 345 Langhorne Open Door policy, 186, 195 Tyler, John, 120 in the Pacific area, 183-184 Panama Canal treaty, 184-185 U Reagan Administration, 313-314 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 137 Truman Doctrine of containment, Underground Railroad, 91, 134, 136 261-263 Unemployment, 344-345 XYZ Affair with France, 82 Union Army of the Potomac, 145 U .S . monetary policy, 79-80, 343 Union Pacific Railroad, 179 currency question, 192 United Auto Workers, 228 gold standard, 192

371 INDEX

See also Banking and finance; military draft, 288 Federal Reserve Board U .S . forces in, 246-247 U .S . trade policy Villa, Francisco “Pancho,” 185 economic impact of War of 1812, 86 Virginia Embargo Act (1807), 84 Antifederalists, 76 Fordney-McCumber Tariff colonial government, 29-30 (1922), 207 Declaration of Rights, 77 Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930), 207 education by private tutors, 28 Massachusetts Bay Company Jamestown colony, 10, 12-13, 16 “triangular U .S . trade policy,” 25 Resolutions (1798), 117 McKinley tariff, 160, 191 secession from the Union, 142-143 Native Americans with European state constitution, 68-69 settlers, 15-16 Tidewater region plantation Non-Intercourse Act (1809), 84 settlements, 26, 28 North American Free Trade Virginia Company, 12, 18, 29-30 Agreement, 317, 325 Volcker, Paul, 291, 310 protective tariffs, 112, 117, 152, 159 Voting rights slave trade, 19, 25, 133 for African Americans, 273, 277 Underwood Tariff (1913), 198 church membership requirement, 14 World Trade Organization Pennsylvania constitution, 69 (WTO), 325 for women, 122 U .S . Treasury (Department of), 343 Voting Rights Act (1965), 277 USA Patriot Act, 334 Utah territory, 136 W Wallace, George, 288, 319 V Wallace, Henry, 319 Van Buren, Martin, 120 Wampanoag Indians, 13 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 158 War of 1812, 85-86, 112 Vermont, statehood (1791), 78 War on terror, 345 Verrazano, Giovanni da, 10 Warren, Earl, 272 Versailles, Treaty of, 206 Washington, Booker T ., 178 Vespucci, Amerigo, 9 Washington, George Vietnam on abolition of slavery, 113 French involvement, 284-285 as commander in American U .S . involvement, 285 Revolution, 60-62 Viet Minh movement, 284 Constitutional Convention Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Wash ., presiding officer (1787), 66-67, 71 D .C .), 172-173 crossing the Delaware (1776), 62 Vietnam War face of (Mount Rushmore), 170- antiwar demonstrations, 248, 258, 171 281, 288-289 as first U .S . president, 77-78 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, 287 Long Island, battle of (1776), 61 Kent State (Ohio) student Mount Vernon plantation, home of, demonstration, 288 170-171

372 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

presidential oath of office, 77 as president of U .S ., 198-199, retirement from presidency, 82 204-206 at Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), 62 presidential elections (1912 and as Virginia militia commander, 33 1916), 205, 328 Yorktown, British surrender, 46-47 relations with Mexico, 185 Washington Monument (Wash ., D .C .), U .S . neutrality policy, 204-205 175 Winthrop, John, 13, 309 Water Quality Improvement Act, 282 “Witch hunt,” origin of the term, 35 Wattenberg, Ben, 337, 345 Women Webster, Daniel, 120, 136 constitutional council Welch, Joseph, 236 (Afghanistan) delegates, 294 Weld, Theodore Dwight, 134 education in the home arts, 27, 122 Welfare state . See Social reforms labor unions and, 193 Welles, Gideon, 143 no political rights, 69 “The West ”. See Westward expansion role of first lady, 324 West, Benjamin, 39 role of Native American, 8 Western Union, 158 workers in war production (“Rosie Westward expansion the Riveter”), 222 cowboy life and “The Wild West,” working conditions, 193 180 Women’s rights, 122-123 frontier settlers’ life, 123-124 abortion issue, 308 Homestead Act (1862), 124, 152, Equal Rights Amendment 179, 180 (ERA), 279 homesteading in the last frontier/ feminism and, 278-279 “The West,” 126, 179-180 Married Women’s Property Act, 122 Louisiana Purchase and, 83-84 in Pennsylvania colony, 18 map of, 127 state constitutions and, 69 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 71, Women’s rights movement, 90, 248, 73, 135 278-279 in Oklahoma Territory, 101 Women’s suffrage, 90, 122 problems of, 53, 70-71 march on Washington (1913), Whig Party, 119-121, 137-138, 152, 188-189 153 “Woodstock Generation” (1960s), Whitefield, George, 29 249, 281 Whitney, Eli, 114 Works Progress Administration Wigglesworth, Rev . Michael, 28 (WPA), 218 Will, George, 308 World Trade Center Memorial Williams, Roger, 14, 41 (New York City), 176 Wilson, James, 72 World Trade Organization Wilson, Woodrow (WTO), 325 Fourteen Points for WWI World War I armistice, 205 American infantry forces, 108 League of Nations and, 205-206 “Big Four” at Paris Peace portrait of, 108 Conference (1919), 108

373

INDEX

German submarine warfare, 204-205 U .S . neutrality policy, 219-220 postwar unrest, 206-207 World War II Memorial (Wash ., D .C .), U .S . involvement, 205 176 U .S . neutrality policy, 204-205 Wright, Frances, 122 Wilson’s Fourteen Points for Wright, Orville (and Wilbur), 107 armistice, 205 World War II X Atlantic Charter, 220 XYZ Affair, 82 Coral Sea, Battle of the (1942), 223 Doolittle’s Tokyo bombing raid, 223 Y Eastern Front, 222 Yale University (formerly Collegiate G .I . Bill (veterans benefits), School of Connecticut), 27 268-269 Yalta Conference (1945), 224, 234, 260 Guadalcanal, Battle of, 223, 231 Yeltsin, Boris, 315-316 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic Yorktown, British surrender at, 46-47, bomb attacks, 225, 226 64 Holocaust (Jewish genocide), 226 Yugoslavia, post-Cold War, 330 in the Pacific arena, 223-224, 224- 225, 231 Z Iwo Jima campaign, 225 Zenger, John Peter, 28 Japanese-American internment camps, 222, 233 Japanese Kamikaze suicide missions, 225 Lend-Lease Program, 220 Leyte Gulf, Battle of, 225 Manhattan Project, 225 Midway, Battle of, 223 Normandy allied invasion, 223, 232 North African campaign, 222-223 Nuremberg war crime trials, 226 Okinawa campaign, 225 peace-time conscription bill, 220 Pearl Harbor, Japanese attack on (1941), 212-213, 221 politics of, 224 postwar economy, 267-268 postwar period, 258 Potsdam Declaration, 225 Roosevelt call for “unconditional surrender,” 224 Russian defense of Leningrad and Moscow, 222 U .S . mobilization, 221-222

374 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Outline of U.S. History is a publication of the U S. . Department of State . The first edition (1949-50) was produced under the editorship of Francis Whitney, first of the State Department Office of International Information and later of the U S. . Information Agency . Richard Hofstadter, professor of history at Columbia University, and Wood Gray, professor of American history at The George Washington University, served as academic consultants . D . Steven Endsley of Berkeley, California, prepared additional material . It has been updated and revised extensively over the years by, among others, Keith W . Olsen, professor of American history at the University of Maryland, and Nathan Glick, writer and former editor of the USIA journal, Dialogue . Alan Winkler, professor of history at Miami University (Ohio), wrote the post-World War II chapters for previous editions .

This new edition was completely revised and updated by Alonzo L . Hamby, Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio University in 2005 . Chapter 16 was added in 2010-11 . Professor Hamby has written extensively on American politics and society . Among his books are Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman and For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s . He lives and works in Athens, Ohio .

Executive Editor: Michael Jay Friedman Editorial Director: Mary T. Chunko Managing Editor: Chandley McDonald Cover Design: Lisa Jusino Photo Research: Maggie Johnson Sliker Ann Monroe Jacobs

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