7.2: Imperialism: Debates

Context

After the 1790s, US foreign policy had centered on expanding westward, protecting the US interests abroad and limiting foreign influences in America.

After the Civil War, the US had a booming industrial economy and showed increasing interest in overseas trade and establishing bases and territories in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. After 1890, the US had debates over whether it should join the competition for overseas territories with imperialist nations of the world or remain true to its anti-colonial traditions.

Era of “New Imperialism” (Pro-Imperialism)

The conquest and division of part of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands by more industrialized nations during the 19th cent. marked a renewed interest in imperialism. Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and other nations such as Belgium gained control by arms or economic dominance. The US also participated in this competition as US advocates for expansionism hoped to succeed in expansion through economic/diplomatic means, without resorting to military action.

Economic Interests: The US’ growing industries were strong supporters of expanding US economic interests around the world as foreign countries offered both:

• valuable raw materials (minerals, oil, rubber)

• provided markets for products

Many in the Republican Party were closed with business leaders and therefore endorsed imperialist foreign policy. Farmers were also eager to sell overseas as they saw growing populations of cities (both in the US and internationally) as potential markets for wheat, corn, and livestock.

Political & Military Power: Pro-Imperialists believed that the US needed to compete with imperialistic nations in order to become and stay as a dominant power in world affairs.

• Alfred Thayer Mahan: US Navy Captain that shaped the debate over the need for naval bases in his book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890) where he argued that a strong navy was crucial to a country’s ambitions of securing foreign markets and becoming a world power

Social Fears: The Panic of 1893, the violence of labor-management conflicts, and the perception that the country no longer had a frontier in the 1890s caused fear of increasing social turmoil. Overseas territories offered the US a possibly safety for dissatisfied urban workers and farmers.

Social Darwinism & Religion: Pro-Imperialists saw expansion overseas as an extension of Manifest Destiny. Additionally, they also applied the idea of Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) to competition in business and among countries. To demonstrate the strength of international expansion, pro-imperialists wanted to acquire territories overseas.

• Josiah Strong’s book, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Present Crisis (1885) wrote that Anglo-Saxons were the “fittest to survive”.

  • Strong believed that Protestant Americans had a religious duty to colonize other lands in order to spread Christianity and the benefits of their “superior” civilization (i.e. medicine, science, and technology) to the “less fortunate” peoples of the world.

• Many missionaries that traveled to Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands believed in racial superiority of White people.

Popular Press: Newspaper and magazine editors found that they could increase circulation by printing adventure stories about distant places exotic to their readers. Stories in the popular press increased public interest and stimulated demands for a larger US role in world affairs

Opposition to Imperialism (Anti-Imperialism)

Many people in the US strongly opposed imperialism due to a combination of reasons:

• Anti-Imperialists believed in self determination; one of the founding principles of the US was that the people should govern themselves.

  • They believed that this principle applied to people everywhere, not just in the US and they felt that imperialism was morally wrong

• Anti-Imperialists rejected imperialist racial theories.

  • Some denied that Whites were biologically superior to people of Asia or Africa, and so Whites had no right to rule others. However, many Americans feared adding nonwhite people to the country.

• Anti-Imperialists supported isolationism.

  • They wanted to follow George Washington’s advice that the country should avoid involvement in foreign affairs and Anti-Imperialists argued that this was still good advice

• Anti-Imperialists opposed the expense of imperialism.

  • Building a large navy and controlling foreign territories would cost more than they were worth.

Latin America

Beginning with the Monroe Doctrine in the 1820s, the US had taken a special interest in problems of the Western Hemisphere and had assumed the role of protector of Latin America from European ambitions. Secretary of State of Maine, James G. Blaine played a crucial role in extending this tradition.

Pan-American Diplomacy: Blaine’s repetitive efforts to establish closer ties between the US and its southern neighbors being to show result in 1889 in the first Pan-American Conference.

Pan-American Conference: Representatives from nations in the Western Hemisphere devided to create a permanent organization to promote cooperation on trade and other issues. Blaine had hoped to reduce tariff rates.

• The goal was not achieved but the foundation was established for the larger goal of hemispheric cooperation on both economic and political issues.

Cleveland, Olney, & The Monroe Doctrine: One of the most important uses of the Monroe Doctrine in the late 19th cent was in a boundary dispute between Venezuela and the British colony of Guiana. In 1895 & 1896, President Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney insisted that Great Britain agree to arbitrate (reach an authoritative judgment or settlement) the dispute. The British initially said the matter was not the US’ business but the US argued that the Monroe Doctrine applied to the situation and if the British did not arbitrate, the US would use military force.

The British agreed to US demands, deciding that US friendship was more important to British long-term interests than a boundary dispute in South America. It turned out that the arbitrators ruled mainly in favor of Britain, not Venezuela and even so, Latin American nations appreciated US efforts to protect them from European domination.

• The Venezuela Boundary Dispute marked a turning point in US-British relations. From 1895 onward, the US and Britain cultivated a friendship instead of continuing former rivalry and would prove vital for both nations later on.

Growing Conflict over Imperialism: The precedent of the Monroe Doctrine provided expansionists (Pro-Imperialists) an invitation to interfere in the other nations of the Americas, marking the beginning of a political battle over the future of the country.

• Anti-Imperialists represented anti-colonial and self-government traditions of the nations rooted in the struggle for independence from Great Britain

• Pro-Imperialists expressed the interests of those committed to economic and global power.

• The conflict between pro-imperialists and anti-imperialists over controlling overseas territories grew in the debate over the Spanish-American War and the colonization of the Philippines.

7.3: The Spanish-American War & U.S. Foreign Policy to 1917

Spanish-American War

In the 1890s, American public opinion was swept by a growing wave of jingoism: an intense form of nationalism calling for an aggressive foreign policy.

Expansionists demanded that the US take its place with the imperialist nations of Europe as a world power but not everyone favored such a policy. President Cleveland and Mckinley, among other Anti-imperialists thought that military action abroad was both morally wrong and economically unsound. Nevertheless, specific events + background pressures led to overwhelming popular demand for war against Spain.

Causes of the Spanish American War: A combination of jingoism, economic interests, and moral concerns made the US more willing to go to war than it had been.

Cuban Revolt: Cuban nationalists formed a rebellion against the Spanish, which began to sabotage and laying waste to Cuban plantations.

Yellow Press: Yellow journalism promoted war sentiment in the US through the use of exaggerated or falsified news stories aimed at increasing circulation of newspapers

• often associated with the newspaper wars between Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (New York Journal)

• These newspapers often printed exaggerated and false accounts of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. This led many Americans to urge Congress and the president to intervene in Cuba for humanitarian reasons and put a stop to the atrocities and suffering.

De Lome Letter (1898): A Spanish diplomat’s letter got leaked to the press and printed in William Randolph Hearst’s Journal.

• Dupuy de Lome, the Spanish minister to the US, wrote a letter highly criticizing President McKinley. Many Americans considered it an official Spanish insult against the US national honor.

Sinking of the Maine: Less than one week after the De Lome Letter, on February 15, 1898, the US battleship, USS Maine suddenly exploded on the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing 260 Americans on board.

• Yellow press accused Spain of deliberately blowing up the ship. (It was later concluded that the explosion was on accident)

McKinley’s Declares War: Following the sinking of the USS Maine, President McKinley issued an ultimatum to Spain demanding that it agree to a ceasefire in Cuba. Spain agreed to this demand, but US newspapers and a majority in Congress kept pushing for war.

• McKinley yielded to the public pressure in April by sending a war message to Congress. He offered 4 reasons why the US should support Cuban rebels:

  1. “Put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries” in Cuba

  2. Protect the lives and property of US citizens living in Cuba

  3. End “the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people”

  4. End “the constant menace to our peace” arising from disorder in Cuba

Teller Amendment: Responding the president’s message, Congress passed a joint resolution on April 20, 1898, authorizing war.

• Part of the resolution, the Teller Amendment, declared that the US had no intention of taking political control of Cuba and that, once peace was restored to the island, the Cuban people would control their own government.

  • guaranteed US respect for Cuba’s sovereignty as an independent nation

Fighting The Spanish-American War:

The Philippines: Theodore Roosevelt, McKinley’s assistant secretary of the navy, was an expansionist who was eager to show off the power of his country’s new, all-steel navy. Anticipating war and recognizing the strategic value of Spain’s territories in the Pacific, Roosevelt ordered a fleet commanded by Commodore George Dewey to go to the Philippines, who had been under Spanish control since the 1500s.

• On May 1, shortly after the war was declared, Commodore Dewey’s fleet fired on the Spanish ships in Manila Bay. The Spanish fleet was put into submission by US naval guns. Allied with Filipino rebels, US troops captured the city of Manila on August 13.

Invasion of Cuba: An underprepared, mostly volunteer US force landed in Cuba in June. Fewer than 500 US soldiers died in battle, but at least 5000 died of malaria, typhoid, and dysentery.

Attacks by both American and Cuban forces succeeded in defeating the much larger, but poorly led, Spanish army. The Taking of San Juan Hill was the success of the US Navy in destroying the Spanish fleet at Santiago Bay on July 3. Without a navy, Spain realized that it could not continue fighting, and in early August 1898 asked the US for terms of peace.

Annexation of Hawaii: The outbreak of war in the Philippines gave Congress and President McKinley the pretext to complete the annexation of Hawaii in July 1898. The Hawaiian Islands became a US territory in 1900 and the 50th state in August 1959.

Controversy over the Treaty of Peace

The Treaty of Peace signed in Paris on December 10, 1898 was controversial. It provided for:

1. Recognition of Cuban independence

2. US acquisition of 2 Spanish Islands - Puerto Rico (in the Caribbean) & Guam (in the Pacific)

3. US control of the Philippines in return for a $20 million payment to Spain.

Since the promised purpose of the US war effort was to liberate Cuba, Americans accepted this provision of the treaty. However, many opposed taking over the Philippines as a colony.

The Philippine Question: Controversy over the Philippines took much longer to resolve than the war with Spain. Opinion both in Congress and with the public at large became sharply divided betwen imperialists who favored annexing the Philippines and anti-imperialists who opposed it.

In the Senate, where a 2/3 vote was required to ratify the Treaty of Paris, anti-imperialists were determined to defeat the treaty because of its provision for acquiring the Philippines.

• Anti-imperialists argued that the US would be taking possession of a heavily populated territory whose people were of a different race and culture.

• They believed that taking possession of the Philippines violated the principles of the Declaration of Independence by depriving Filipinos of the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and that annexation would entangle the US in the political conflicts of Asia

On February 6, 1899, the Treaty of Paris (with Philippine annexation) came to a vote in Congress and was approved 57 to 27. The anti-imperialists fell just two votes short of defeating the treaty.

The people of the Philippines were outraged that their hopes for national independence from Spain were now being denied by the US. Filipino nationalist leader, Emilio Aguinaldo who had fought alongside US troops during the Spanish-American War now led an army against US control.

It took US troops 3 years to defeat the insurrection and the conflict resulted in about 5000 deaths of people from the US and several hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians.

Other Results of the War: Imperialism remained a major issue in the US even after ratification of the Treaty of Paris. The American Anti-Imperialist League led by William Jennings Bryan rallied opposition to further act of expansion in the Pacific.

Insular Cases: Question on whether the provisions of the US Constitution apply to whatever territories fell under US control

• Anti-Imperialists argued that it should while Imperialists didn’t

• Issue was resolved in favor of the imperialists; the Court ruled that constitutional rights were not automatically extended to territorial positions and the power should decide whether or not to grant Constitution rights

Cuba & The Platt Amendment (1901): US troops still remained in Cuba, despite the Teller Amendment. In 1901, Congress withdrew all troops on the condition that Cuba accepted the terms of the Platt Amendment.

• Cuban nationalists hated this because it required Cuba to:

  1. Agree to never sign a treaty with a foreign power that impaired its independence

  2. allow the US to intervene in Cuba’s affairs to maintain its independence/law and order

  3. allow the US to keep naval bases in Cuba

Cuba reluctantly accepted the Platt Amendment, resulting in Cuban foreign policy being under US control.

Spanish-American War changed how Americans/Europeans viewed US power. It gave Americans a sense of national pride while other European nations started to recognize that the US was a dominant power with a strong navy and will to act in international affairs.

Open Door Policy in China

US Secretary of State, John Hay didn’t like how the Chinese empire which was weakened by political corruption & poverty + failing to modernize, was falling under the control of other global powers.

• Other powers such as Russia, Japan, Great Britain, Francy, and Germany had started to establish their spheres of influence in China, which gave them the upper hand in trades/investment

• In order to prevent the US from losing access to Chinese trade, Hay sent out a note to other nations in China to establish an Open Door Policy, where he asked other nations in China to accept the idea of having an “open door” meaning all nations would have equal trading privileges in China and none of them rejected it.

Boxer Rebellion (1900): Nationalism + xenophobia (hate/fear of foreigners) was growing in China. A secret society of Chinese nationalists (Society of Harmonious Fists aka Boxers) attacked foreign settlements and murdered Christian missionaries.

In order to protect US property/lives, US troops joined a force in Beijing and crushed the rebellion. The countries involved in the force forced China to pay reparations, weakening the Chinese imperial regime.

Hay’s Second Round of Notes: Hay feared that the expeditionary force in China might try to occupy it and destroy its independence. In 1900, he wrote a second note to the imperialist nations stating US’ commitment to

1. preserve China’s territorial integrity

2. Maintain “equal & impartial trade” with all parts of the Chinese empire

Theodore Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Policy

Motto: “Speak softly and carry a big stick”; had an aggressive (“big stick”) foreign policy

• built a reputation of the US as a world power and imperialists really liked him

Roosevelt really wanted to build a canal thru Panama but he didn’t like Colombia’s control of the canal zone and how they refused to agree to US terms for digging a canal through its territory so he orchestrated a revolt for Panama’s independence in 1903. The rebellion suceeded.

• Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty: The new government of Panama had to sign this treaty which granted the US rights over the Panama Canal Zone to keep US protection

Panama Canal: Most Americans liked Roosevelt’s determination to build the Panama Canal but many were unhappy with the way he obtained the Canal Zone, especially Latin Americans.

• To compensate, Congress voted in 1921 to pay Colombia an indemnity of $25 million for its loss of Panama.

Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: stated that not only should Europe stay out of the Western Hemisphere, but also the US had the right to intervene if countries misbehaved as a way to prevent European intervention from becoming necessary

• European powers were ready to intervene in Latin Americans nations that could not pay their debts to European creditors. Instead of letting Europeans intervene in Latin America (a blatant violation of the Monroe Doctrine), Roosevelt declared that the US would intervene instead, but only when necessary.

  • Ex: US would send gunboats to the Latin American country that wasn’t paying its debts and US sailors and marine would occupy that country’s major ports to manage collecting customs taxes until European debts were paid.

Great White Fleet: Roosevelt went on world tour cruise to demonstrate US naval power to other nations

Root-Takahira Agreement (1908): The US Secretary of State, Elihu Root and Japanese Ambassador, Takahira made an agreement where they pledged mutual respect for each nation’s Pacific possessions and support for the Open Door Policy in China.

William Howard Taft & Dollar Diplomacy

Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft did not continue “big stick” diplomacy. Instead, he adopted a foreign policy that was somewhat expansionist but depended on investor dollars than navy powers aka promoting US trade by supporting American enterprises abroad (dollar diplomacy)

Taft believed that private American investment in China/Central America would lead to more stability while promoting US business interests. However, anti-imperialists didn’t like that.

Railroads in China: Taft wanted US bankers to be included in European plan to invest in railroads in China and succeeded in securing American participation through an agreement signed in 1911

Woodrow Wilson & Moral Diplomacy

In his campaign in the Election of 1912, Woodrow Wilson promised a New Freedom for the US and a moral approach to foreign affairs. Wilson opposed imperialism, big stick diplomacy and dollar diplomacy. He believed in a principled, ethical world where militarism, colonialism, and war were brought under control.

He attempted apply high morals to foreign relations and to show that the US respected other nations’ rights & the spread of democracy. Wilson hoped to show that his presidency was against self-interested imperialism and tried to correct past policies.

Jones Act (1916): Wilson passed the Jones Act in 1916 which granted full territorial status to the Philippines, guaranteed a bill of rights and universal male suffrage to Filipino citizens, and promised independence for the Philippines as soon as a stable government was established

Puerto Rico: An act of Congress in 1917 granted US citizenship to all Puerto Ricans and provided for limited self-government

7.4: The Progressives

Origins of Progressivism

Rapid industrialization/ the Gilded Age led to many issues that alarmed middle class Americans such as: big business monopolies, economic uncertainties, increasing gap btwn the rich & poor, corrupt political machines, labor exploitation, discrimination of minorities, etc.

The Progressive Movement was based off of the work of Populist reformers and union activists in the Gilded Age. Progressives advocated for larger role for government and greater democracy.

Who Were The Progressives?

Progressive reformers came from diverse groups and each fought for various specific reforms. However, progressive reformers shared characteristics in their beliefs:

• society really needs changes that limit the power of big business, improve democracy, and strengthen social justice

• Government (local, state, and federal) was the proper agency to make such changes

• Moderate reform was better than radical reform

• Progressives were committed to democratic values and shared the belief that honest government and just laws could improve peoples’ lives

Urban Middle Class: Most Progressives were middle class men and women who lived in urban areas (cities). It also included doctors, lawyers, ministers, storekeepers, and white-collar office workers and managers who worked in banks, manufacturing firms, and businesses.

• Professional Class: Members of this urban middle class/business and professional middle class were highly educated in scientific methods and social sciences. The business and professional associations they were a part of gave them platforms to address corrupt business and government practices and urban social/economic problems.

• Religion: Religious spirit also influenced the ideas of middle-class reformers.

  • Protestant churches advocated social responsibility, which emphasized caring for the less fortunate and promoting honesty in public life.

  • Social Gospel (popularized by Walter Rauschenbusch) was crucial in influencing Protestant Christians’ responses to urban poverty.

  • Most Protestants were native-born Americans who were from older elite families who felt that their central role in society had been replaced by wealthy industrialists and political machines.

• Leadership: Dedicated Progressive leaders entered politics to challenge status quo. Theodore Roosevelt & Robert La Follette (Republican Party) and Woodrow Wilson & William Jennings Bryan (Democratic Party) demonstrated political leadership that would change society.

  Pragmatism: advocated by William James & John Dewey, argued that “truth” should be able to pass the public test of observable results in an open, democratic society

  • In a democracy, citizens and institutions should experiment with ideas and laws and test them in action until they find something that would produce a well-functioning democratic society.

  • Progressives adopted pragmatism because it allowed them to challenges traditional ideas and beliefs that stood in the way of reform

Scientific Management: came from the studies of Frederick W. Taylor

• Using a stopwatch, Taylor timed the tasks performed by factory workers and discovered ways of organizing people in the most efficient manner (the scientific management system aka Taylorism)

• Many Progressives believed that the government could also be made more efficient if it was placed in the hands of experts and scientific managers.

  • They were against corruption because it was anti-democratic and inefficient.

Muckrakers: journalists during the Progressive Era who exposed established institutions and leaders as corrupt and sought to expose the areas that needed reforming via magazines and newspapers. Middle-class readers were interested in reports about corruption, businesses, and politics.

• Muckrakers had a significant impact on public opinion and society.

  • Magazines: magazines ran muckraker articles that set the standard for muckraking by combining careful research and sensationalism. Magazines competed to outdo their rivals in exposing political and economic corruption

  • Books: the most popular and influential series of muckraking articles were published in books

Political Reforms

Political Changes: Progressives used pragmatism to created a more efficient and democratic government.

• Secret Ballots: Before, political parties could manipulate/intimidate voters on election by watching voters at the ballot box and printing their own lists/tickets

  • States began to adopt a system of issuing ballots printed by the state and requiring voters to vote in private booths

• Direct Primaries: introduced by Progressive Wisconsin governor, Robert La Follette, a new system for bypassing politicians and placing the nominating process directly in the hands of the voters

  • Before direct primaries, parties typically nominated candidates for state/federal offices in state conventions that were controlled by party bosses

• Direct Election of US Senators: Gave voters the opportunity to elect US senators directly

  • Before, US senators had been chosen by the state legislatures rather than by direct vote of the people.

  • Progressives believed this was a principal reason that the Senate had become a millionaires’ club dominated by big business.

  • ratification of 17th Amendment required that all US senators be elected by popular vote

• Intiative: a method by which voters could compel the legislature to consider a bill

• Referendum: a method that allowed citizens to vote on proposed laws printed on their ballots

• Recall: enabled voters to remove a corrupt/unsatisfactory politician from office by majority vote before that official’s term expires

Municipal Reforms

• Controlling Public Utilities: By 1915, 2/3 of the nation’s cities owned their own water systems. As a result of Progressives’ efforts, many cities also came to own and operate gas lines, electric power plants, and urban transportation systems

  • Reformers sought to take utilities out of the hands of private companies

• Commissions & City Managers:

  • Commision Plan: voters elect the heads of city departments, not just the mayor

  • Manager-council plan: an elected city council hires an expert manager to direct the work of various departments of city government

State Level Reforms

• “Wisconsin Idea”: Robert La Follette established strong following as a governor and won passage of the “Wisconsin Idea”:

  • a series of Progressive measures that included a direct primary law, tax reform, and state regulatory commissions to monitor railroads, utilities, and businesses (such as insurance)

• Temperance & Prohibition: Progressives pushed for prohibition and persuaded legislatures to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages

• Social Welfare: Progressive leader of the social justice movement pushed for better schools, juvenile courts, better divorce laws, and safety regulations for tenements and factories

  • Believed that criminals could become effective citizens of society and fought for a system of parole, separate reformatories for juveniles, and limits on the death penalty

• Child/Women’s Labor Laws: Progressives did not agree with the treatment of children in industry labor

  • National Child Labor Committee: proposed a model for state child labor laws

    National Consumers’ League: organized by Florence Kelley, passed state laws to protect women from long working hours

    • Lochner v. New York (1905): the Supreme Court ruled against a state law limiting workers to a 10 hr workday

    • Muller v. Oregon(1908): ruled that the health of women needed special protection from long hours

    • Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911): sparked greater women’s activism and pushed states to pass laws to improve safety and working conditions in factories

National Level Reforms

Roosevelt’s Presidency

• Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal: domestic policy proposed by President Theodore Roosevelt that aimed to provide fair treatment for all workers, consumers, and businesses. It focused on 3 main areas:

  • conservation of natural resources

  • business and labor regulation (control of corporations)

  • consumer protection

• Trust-Busting: Roosevelt further increased his popularity by being the first president since the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 to enforce the poorly written law. On February 18, 1902 he instructed the Justice Dept. to bring suit against the Northern Securities Company for violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

  • This holding company controlled the massive rail networks of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern and Chicago. J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller, and a bunch of other wealthy people were behind the company. The Supreme Court upheld the suit against Northern Securities and ordered the company dissolved.

  • Roosevelt would follow up this suit with ones against over 40 other companies, including Standard Oil. Roosevelt did make a distinction between breaking up “bad trusts” which harmed the public and stifled competition, and regulating “good trusts” which though efficiency and low prices dominated the market (these are also called natural monopolies.

• Railroad Regulation: Roosevelt took initiative in persuading Republicans in Congress to pass 2 laws that significantly strengthened the regulatory powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

  • Elkins Act (1903): the ICC has greater authority to stop railroads from granting rebates to favored customers

  • Hepburn Act (1906): the ICC can fix reasonable rates for railroads

  • Mann-Elkins Act (1910): gave the ICC the power to suspend new railroad rates and to oversee telephone/telegraph companies

• Consumer Protection: Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle, exposed the conditions of the meatpacking industry, leading to public outcry that caused Congress to pass:

  • Pure Food and Drug Act: banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of adulterated and mislabeled foods and drugs

  • Meat Inspection Act: provided that federal inspectors visit meatpacking plants to ensure that they met minimum standards of sanitation

• Conservation: Roosevelt wanted government experts to use their expertise to use the nation’s natural resources responsibly

Taft’s Presidency

Taft built on Roosevelt’s accomplishments. As a trust-buster, he ordered the prosecution of almost twice the number of antitrust cases as Roosevelt. Taft, unlike Roosevelt didn’t differentiate between “good” and “bad” trusts. Among these cases was one against US Steel which included a merger approved by President Roosevelt, who viewed this as an attack on his integrity.

The Election of 1912

Because of his anger with Taft over trust busting, Roosevelt decided to throw his hat back into the ring and run for a third term. Democrats were delighted that Taft and Roosevelt would fight for the nomination. The Republicans refused to give Roosevelt the nomination and instead gave it to Taft. 

Some anti-Taft and progressive Republicans came together to form the Progressive Party and nominated Roosevelt. The party would soon be known as the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt campaigned strenuously and even completed one speech after being shot in the chest. He said “I have a message to deliver and I will deliver it as long as there is life in my body”

The Democrats nominated Woodrow Wilson. On election day, Wilson won by 2 million votes over Roosevelt (largely because the Republican vote was divided). The Democrats also won control of both houses of Congress.

Woodrow Wilson’s Progressive Program

Wilson set forth a program called the New Freedom. It emphasized: 

• business competition and small government

• reining in federal authority

• echoed the Progressive party’s social justice objectives

Other Reforms:

Banking Reform:

• Clayton Anti-Trust Act: targetted monopolies and explicitly protected unions and workers’ rights; aided in trust busting; strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to break up monopolies

• Federal Trade Commission: protected consumers by investigating and taking action against any “unfair trade practice” in any industry except banking and transportation

• Federal Farm Loan Act: created 12 regional federal farm loan banks established to provide farm loans at low interest rates

• Child Labor Act: favored by settlement house workers and labor unions, prohibited the shipment in interstate commerce of products manufactured by children under 14 yrs old

African Americans in Progressive Era

The Progressives were also deeply two-faced when it came to several aspects of democracy. Some Progressives supported Southern segregation of African Americans. Other Progressives ignored it. Some fought against it like Ida B. Wells and her anti-lynching muckraking.

Some Progressives offered help to immigrants (see Jane Addams above), but other favored racist immigration restrictions or literacy tests. The literacy tests were designed to make sure less educated people or people less proficient in English—usually racial minorities and recent immigrants, respectively—could not vote so that the government would be controlled by “experts,” in this case more Anglo-Saxon native-born Americans.

Two Contrasting Approaches to Race:

• Booker T. Washington: argued that African Americans should strive for education and economic progress first and wait for social equality because he believed that only after establishing secure economic base could African Americans hope to realize their goals of political and social equality (Atlanta Compromise)

  • born into an enslaved family and leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama

• WEB Du Bois: In his book, The Souls of Black People (1903), Du Bois criticized Booker T. Washington’s approach and demanded equal rights for African Americans. He argued that political and social rights were a prerequisite for economic independence. He called for a Talented Tenth of the African American community to rise up and show White people what African Americans are capable of accomplishing

  • the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and became a distinguished scholar/wrote and was a northerner from a free family

Washington’s focus on economic advancement and accomodation for White racism contrasted with Du Bois’ more confrontational demands for equal civil rights.

Du Bois helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) whose mission was to abolish all forms of segregation and to increase educational opportunities for African Americans.

Women in Progressive Era

The Progressive Era saw a new push for women’s voting rights from feminists.

Carrie Chapman Catt: president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA); argued for the vote as a way to broaden democracy that would empower women, thus enabling them to more actively care for their families in an industrial society

• Drove to win votes for women at the state level and later sought amendment to the Constitution for women’s suffrage

Militant Suffragists: Alice Paul led the National Woman’s Party; more assertive approach to gaining women’s suffrage; focused on winning support of Congress and the president for an amendment to the Constitution

Margaret Sanger: advocated birth control education

• Sanger’s movement developed over time into the Planned Parenthood Organization and women made progress in securing educational equality, liberalizing marriage and divorce laws, reducing gender discrimination in the professional world, and recognizing women’s rights to property

19th Amendment (1920): guaranteed women’s right to vote in all elections at the local, state, and national levels

• efforts of women on the Home Front in WW1 persuaded 2/3 majority in Congress to support the women’s suffrage movement

7.5: WW1 - Military & Diplomacy

Causes of US War Involvement

World War One (WWI) broke out in Europe in 1914 and quickly involved much of the world thanks to European colonies and alliances that reached all of the globe. While it might not be completely necessary to know all about the war and its origins, a quick acronym can help you remember the causes of the war:

Militarism - countries building up militaries in an arms race

Alliances - each country had friends, so any conflict could easily spread

Nationalism - each country thought they were the best and others were evil

Imperialism - European countries competed for territory and spread out

Assassination - a Serbian nationalist killed Austria-Hungary’s archduke Franz Ferdinand, which sparked the war because of underlying tensions

Neutrality: Adhering to the tradition of Washington and Jefferson, the US, under Woodrow Wilson, initially tried to stay neutral and out of foreign alliances. However, Wilson found it difficult to remain neutral and still protect US trading rights. The neutrality started to fail because of these factors:

• Loaning of Money

  • The US was loaning way more money to the Allies than to the Central Powers. This diplomatic action placed American interests primarily in the Allies and created a political rift between the US & Germany.

• German U-Boats

  • Having a strong navy, Great Britain issued a naval blockade against Germany and attempted to seize US ships trying to trade with Central Powers. Wilson protested British seizure of US ships as violating a neutral nation’s right to freedom of the seas.

  • Germany challenged British naval ships with U-Boats (submarines) and responded to the British blockade by announcing its own blockade and warned that ships entering their “war zone” would risk being sunk, targetting British-bound goods.

• Sinking of the Lusitania

  • On May 7, 1915, German torpedoes hit and sank the British ship, the HMS Lusitania, killing 128 Americans. In response, Wilson sent Germany a diplomatic message warning that Germany would be held accountable if it continued its policy of sinking unarmed ships.

• Other Sinkings

  • German submarines attacked other ships, the Arabic and the Sussex. Wilson threatened to cut off US diplomatic relations with Germany and Germany backed down, rather than risking US entry into the war on British side. In response, Germany issued the Sussex Pledge, promising not to sink merchant or passenger ships without giving a warning.

• Zimmerman Telegram

  • the Zimmerman Telegram and resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 tipped the scales and the US joined the war. The Zimmerman telegram was a message from Germany to Mexico—decoded and shared by the British—that urged Mexico to invade the US to keep the US occupied in exchange for German support for Mexico taking back parts of the Mexican Cession (1848). This outraged the US. In that telegram, the Germans also announced they would be going back on their pledge not to sink US ships. They gambled that they could starve Great Britain into peace talks before the ticked-off US had time to mobilize and react. They were almost right. 

    • Finally, Woodrow Wilson, who had initially won reelection in 1916 with the slogan “He kept us out of war!”, framed the war in humanitarian terms and with democratic values.

    • He said we needed to help Europe resist German despotism/tyranny and to “make the world safe for democracy” by allowing each country to rule itself without outside interference. He meant without German militarism taking over, but failed to see the hypocrisy when it came to imperialism/colonialism 

The War Debate

Preparedness: Many recognized that the US military was extremely unprepared for a major war and advocated for “preparedness” (greater defense expenditures). Wilson urged Congress to approve an ambitious expansion of armed force. After a nationwide tour on preparedness, Wilson finally convinced Congress to pass the National Defense Act (June 1916), which increased the regular army to a force of nearly 175,000. Congress would also approve the construction of more than 50 warships in just one year.

Opposition to War: Many Americas, were opposed to preparedness, fearing tha tit would lead to US involvement in the War. Antiwar activists (Populists, Progressives, & Socialists) campaigned against war.

US in Combat

Although not a huge deal in APUSH, it helps to know a bit about what warfare was like during WWI. WWI is considered by some the first truly industrialized war, with all kinds of nasty inventions being used to kill humans for the first time on a massive scale: trenches, fully-automatic machine guns, air planes, poison gas, and tanks made the war truly horrific, especially when paired with the initial, outdated tactics used by both sides that resulted in terribly costly charges against entrenched enemies. 

The US eventually registered 9.5 million men for the draft after the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1917. Most of the American Expeditionary Force, commanded by General John K. (Blackjack) Pershing, got to France and saw combat by early 1918. The AEF saw significant victories in Chatteau-Thierry and Belleau Wood on the Western Front.

For the first time US troops were shipped oversea in late 1917, millions of European soldiers on both sides had already died in trench warfare made more murderous in the industrial age by heavy artillery, machine guns, poison gas, tanks, and airplanes.

The exhausted Germans had tried to break the exhausted British and French before the US could arrive—they got to within 50 miles of Paris—but they failed to win before the sheer number of American soldiers tipped the scales in favor of the Allies.

Battles like Meuse-Argonne between the US and Germany helped to force Germany into an armistice, or truce, while they ironed out the details of a peace treaty, eventually called the Treaty of Versailles.

After only a few months of fighting, US combat deaths totaled nearly 49,000. Many more thousands died of disease, including a flu epidemic in the training camps, bringing the total US fatalities in WWI to 112,432.

Fourteen Points

Even though Woodrow Wilson and the US were a large part of the war and of the peace settlement— Wilson traveled over to France for the peace conference. This was the first time in American history that a president had personally traveled outside of the US for peace negotiations. He upset the Senate when his delegation to the conference did not include a Senator and only one Republican, which would end up being a politically fatal mistake for him.

In his hands, he would carry his Fourteen Points, which he envisioned as a part of the treaty. Some of the points included:

• Recognition of freedom of the seas

• An end to the practice of making secret treaties

• Self-determination for the various nationalities

• Removal of trade barriers

• A general association of nations (the League of Nations) for the purpose of affording mutual guar ,,,antees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. This was the point that Wilson valued the most and would soon be named the League of Nations. It formed the political basis for the eventual United Nations in the modern day

Treaty of Versailles

Other heads of state at Versailles made it clear that their nations wanted both revenge against Germany and compensation in the form of indemnities and territory

France and Great Britain agreed to form the League of Nations, but insisted on blaming Germany for the war and making Germany pay for the cost of the war. This would eventually backfire. The Treaty of Versailles included the following (use the handy acronym BRAT to remember it): 

• B - Germany had to accept the sole blame for the war.

• R - Germany was forced to pay billions of dollars in reparations (financial damages) to the Allies. This ended up breaking the back of the German economy. 

• A - Germany had to give up most of its army. 

• T - Germany lost all of its colonial territory as well as some of its territory in Europe. In addition, the League of Nations was established.

• Peace Terms When the peace conference adjourned in June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles included the following terms:

  1. To punish Germany, Germany was disarmed and stripped of its colonies in Asia and Africa. It was also forced to admit guilt for the war, accept French occupation of the Rhineland for 15 years, and pay a huge sum of money in reparations to Great Britain and France.

  2. To apply the principle of self-determination, territories once controlled by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia were taken by the Allies; independence was granted to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland; and the new nations of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were established.

  3. To maintain peace, signers of the treaty joined an international peacekeeping organization, the League of Nations. Article X of the covenant (charter) of the League called on each member nation to stand ready to protect the independence and territorial integrity of other nations.

Senate Debate on Treaty

The US Senate, constitutionally in charge of approving treaties, rejected both the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. Senators, especially traditionally isolationists ones in the Midwest, objected to Article X of the treaty, which would have denied Congress its right to declare war by mandating military involvement in any war against aggressor nations. 

Wilson refused to accept the denial of the Senate, so he took his appeal directly to the American people. He traveled all across the US giving speeches to Americans to get them to support the treaty. 

When Wilson returned to the White House he felt ill. That night Mrs. Wilson found him unconscious on the floor of the White House. He had a massive stroke that paralyzed his left side. After the stroke, he could not work more than an hour or two at a time. No one was allowed to see him except family, his secretary and his physician. For over 7 months he did not meet with the cabinet. His wife, Edith Wilson ran the government. 

Democrats told Wilson they could not pass the treaty without reservations. Wilson refused to compromise, so the treaty failed in the Senate. 

The US then entered a period of isolationism or unilateralism in the 1920s...

7.6: WW1 - Home Front

Anti-German Sentiment

Like most conflicts in US history, WWI caused questions about civil liberties, immigration, and opposition (think Alien & Sedition Acts during the Quasi War or Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War). Because the US had experienced such high immigration in the decades before WWI, some Americans questioned the loyalty of recent immigrants, especially if they were from Central Powers countries like Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Anti-German sentiment spread quickly:

• Many schools stopped offering instruction in German.

• Sauerkraut become known as “liberty cabbage”

• Saloon keepers removed pretzels from the bar.

• Orchestra pieces by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms vanished from symphonic programs. 

American anti-war figures were beaten in and some cases killed. Frank Little, an antiwar official of the Industrial Workers of the World in Butte, Montana was taken from his boardinghouse, tied to the rear of an automobile, and dragged through the streets until his kneecaps were scraped off. He was then hanged from a railroad trestle. 

A Missouri mob seized Robert Prager, whose only crime was being born in Germany. They bound him with an American flag, paraded him through town and then lynched him. 

Limits on Immigration: More generally, the Barred Zone Act (the Immigration Act of 1917) prohibited anyone residing in a region from the Middle East to southeast Asia from entering the United States. It also included a literacy test designed to prevent immigration from southern and eastern Europe. This act set the stage for sharp restrictions on immigration in the 1920s.

Freedom of Speech

Socialists, pacifists, and others who opposed the war were often arrested and punished: socialist leader Eugene V. Debs was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for outspoken opposition to the war. 

One related case you should know is Schenck v. United States, when the Supreme Court ruled against a socialist passing out anti-draft leaflets. The majority opinion famously limited first amendment free speech by saying “The most stringent [strong] protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger…” This ruling would eventually be overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969.

Espionage and Sedition Acts: A number of socialists and pacifists bravely criticized the government's war policy even as Congress passed laws restricting free speech. The Espionage Act (1917) provided for imprisonment of up to 20 years for persons who tried to incite rebellion in the armed forces or obstructed the draft. The Sedition Act (1918) went much further by prohibiting anyone from making "disloyal" or "abusive" remarks about the U.S. government. Approximately 2,000 people were prosecuted under these laws, half of whom were convicted and jailed. Among them was the Socialist leader Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for speaking against the war.

Schenck v. United States (1919): The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act in a case involving a man who had been imprisoned for distributing pamphlets against the draft. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes concluded that the right to free speech could be limited when it represented a "clear and present danger" to public safety.

Espionage & Sedition Acts

Instead of curbing the repression, Wilson encouraged it.

• Espionage Act of 1917 which imposed sentences of up to 20 years for persons found guilty of aiding the enemy, obstructing recruitment of soldiers or encouraging disloyalty.

• Sedition Act, imposing harsh penalties on anyone use “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the government, flag or armed forces uniforms.

Eugene V. Debs delivered a speech denouncing capitalism and the war. He was convicted for violation of the Espionage Act and spent the war in a penitentiary in Atlanta. He was nominated as the Socialist Party candidate for President in 1920 and ran from prison, and still got a million votes. 

Propaganda

In contrast, the US government cranked out propaganda, informational material designed to push a certain perspective (which is almost always pro-government), through organizations like CPI (Committee on Public Information) that produced propaganda posters like the one shown to the right and through patriotic speeches by “Four-Minute Men”.  Propaganda was one of the most important ways the public interfaced with the war. Propaganda pieces were especially visual and direct in their message of a pro-US and anti-German sentiment.

Homefront Changes in Work & Migration

WWI caused an increase in demand for war production, so factories started looking for more workers, especially in northern, urban cities that were centers of heavy industrial production. Urbanization thus increased during WWI, continuing the trend that would result in more Americans living in urban areas than in rural areas by the 1920 census. 

The Wilson administration, created hundreds of temporary wartime agencies and commissions staffed by experts from business and government.

More Jobs for Women: As men were drafted into the military,thejobsthey vacated were often taken by women, thousands of whom entered the workforce for the first time. Women's contributions to the war effort, both as volunteers and wage earners, finally convinced Wilson and Congress to support the 19th Amendment, which protected the right of women to vote.

African Americans: Since some of the workers were drafted and the plants needed to expand, these factories turned to new sources of labor, namely women and African Americans. African Americans, partly fleeing racial terrorism down South and partly seeking new job opportunities, moved to northern cities in large numbers during WWI in a process known as the Great Migration. In the North, African Americans found more jobs and less formal, Jim Crow segregation, but they still suffered discrimination. 

The largest movement of people consisted of African Americans who migrated north in the Great Migration (a term also used for 17th century movement of Puritans). At the close of the 19th century, about 90 percent of African Americans lived in southern states. This internal migration began in earnest between 1910 and 1930 when about 1 million people traveled north to seek jobs in the cities. Motivating their decision to leave the south were

• (1) deteriorating race relations marked by segregation and racial violence

• (2) destruction of their cotton crops by the boll weevil

• (3) limited economic opportunities.

  In the face of these problems, job in northern factories were a tremendous attraction.

Migration slowed down in the 1930s because of the economic collapse known as the Great Depression, but it resumed during World War II (1941-1945). Between 1940 and 1970, over 4 million African Americans moved north. Although many succeeded in improving their economic conditions, the newcomers to northern cities also faced racial tension and discrimination.

Immigration & Nativism

Due to recent large numbers of immigration before WWI and other events like the Bolshevik Revolution that resulted in the communist takeover of Russia in 1917, Americans began to fear communist, socialism, anarchists, and immigrants—and often failed to distinguish between those four categories—more during and immediately after WWI.

The Red Scare In 1919, the country suffered from a volatile combination of unhappiness with the peace process, fears of communism fueled by the Communist takeover in Russia, and worries about labor unrest at home. The anti-German hysteria of the war years turned quickly into anti-Communist hysteria known as the Red Scare. These anti-Communist fears also fueled xenophobia that resulted in restrictions on immigration in the 1920s.

Palmer Raids: A series of unexplained bombings caused Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to establish a special office under J.Edgar Hoover to gather information on radicals. Palmer also ordered mass arrests of anarchists, socialists, and labor agitators. From November 1919 through January 1920, more than 6,000 peoplewere arrested based on limited criminal evidence. Most of the suspects were foreign born, and 500 of them, including the outspoken radical Emma Goldman, were deported. The scare faded almost as quickly as it arose. Palmer warned of huge riots on May Day, 1920, but they never took place. His loss of credibility, coupled with rising concerns about civil liberties, caused the hysteria to recede.

7.7: 1920s - Innovations in Communication & Technology

Causes of Economic Prosperity

Increased Productivity: The Assembly Line and Scientific Management helped revolutionize production and management during the 20th cent.

• Assembly Line: invented by Henry Ford, involved breaking down the production process into smaller, specialized tasks performed by individual workers

  • allows for the mass production of goods at a faster rate and lower cost

  • became a dominant method of production in many industries and led to more jobs in manufacturing

• Scientific Management: developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows and focuses on improving economic efficiency and labor productivity through the use of scientific methods and standardization of work.

However, the introduction of these methods also had negative consequences for workers. The Assembly Line required workers to perform repetitive tasks for long periods of time, leading to physical and mental strain. Additionally, the emphasis on efficiency and productivity often led to the exploitation of workers, as employers sought to maximize profits by minimizing wages and working conditions. The paternalistic attitudes of many industrialists, including Henry Ford, also led to the establishment of company towns and other forms of control over the lives of workers. Overall, the Assembly Line and Scientific Management had a profound impact on American society in the 1920s and continue to shape the way we work and produce goods to this day.

Consumer Economy & Goods: The range of consumer goods available for purchase in the home expanded significantly in the 1920s. Consumer appliances (ex: refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, radios) with electricity in homes allowed Americans to spend more on such goods. Automobiles (such as the Ford Model T) became more affordable and thus, more widely available.

New advertising and sales techniques expanded as businesses found that they could increase consumers’ demand for new products by appealing to their desire for status/popularity. Stores increased sales by allowing customers to buy on credit.

Growing consumer culture of the 1920s also saw the emergence of new forms of leisure and entertainment, such as movie theaters and amusement parks, which were also heavily advertised.

The rise of consumerism in the 1920s had a significant impact on the economy and society. The increased production and consumption of consumer goods led to economic growth and the creation of new jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors. However, it also contributed to the increasing materialism and focus on material possessions in American society, as people were encouraged to buy more and more goods to improve their standard of living.

• Paying for Goods: In the 1920s, many Americans who wanted to purchase new consumer goods but couldn't afford to pay for them upfront relied on credit to make the purchases. This trend of using credit to live beyond one's means grew significantly in the 1920s as more and more people sought to improve their standard of living and keep up with their neighbors by purchasing new goods. While this system worked well as long as the economy was strong and people were able to make their loan payments, it became a problem when the economy slowed down or experienced a downturn. If people were unable to make their loan payments, they could end up in debt and potentially face financial difficulties. This was especially true if they had taken out multiple loans and had a high level of outstanding debt. Luckily the economy is strong and stable...for now.

Energy Technologies: Another cause of economic growth was the increased use of oil and electricity. Oil was used to power factories and to provide gas for increasing use of automobiles.

Government Policy: Government favored the growth of big businesses by offering corporate tax cuts and doing nothing to enforce antitrust laws. Large tax cuts for higher income Americans contributed to the income gap and increased speculation in markets.

The Federal Reserve contributed to the overheated economic boom thru low interest rates and relaxed regulation of banks. It began tightening the money supply as the economy began to decline.

Technology & Culture

The growth of the national consumer culture in the 1920s had a number of effects on American society, including the growth of a more unified national culture. With the proliferation of new forms of media such as radio and movies, people across the country were exposed to the same cultural influences and shared common experiences. This included listening to the same radio shows, wearing the same fashions, reading the same stories, and following the same celebrities, such as Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth.

• Architecture/Industrial Design: Art Deco style emerged influenced designs of functional products and buildings, which captured the modernist simplification of forms while using machine age materials

• Mass Media: The increasing popularity of radio allowed networks to broadcast music, news, and entertainment; enabled people from coast to coast to listen broadcasted programs from their homes and provided national exposure to regional cultures

• Movie Business: New leisure activities such as movies created a big business in Hollywood in the movie industry

• Popular Music: high school/college youth rebelled against the elders’ culture by dancing to jazz music which was brought by African American musicians. Jazz became a symbol of the “new” and “modern” culture of cities

  • Phonographs made music like jazz more widely available to audiences

• Aviation: improving technology of airplanes in the 1920s created the opportunity for aviators to set new records

  • Charles Lindbergh: young aviator who thrilled the entire world by flying across the Atlantic

• Popular Heroes: In the new age of radio and movies, Americans shifted their viewpoint from admiring politicians as heroes to admiring role-models in celebrated sports pages and movies

  • Sports had their own superstars (ex: Babe Ruth etc)

However, the spread of culture also had a dark side, as it often served to reinforce and spread harmful attitudes and beliefs. For example, racist films like Birth of a Nation (1915) and The Jazz Singer (1927) portrayed racist attitudes and stereotypes and had a significant impact on American culture. Birth of a Nation, in particular, was a deeply racist film that argued the Ku Klux Klan were the heroes of Reconstruction and depicted Black people as predatory and dangerous. This film had a huge influence on American culture and left a false and harmful history in its wake.

The prosperity and technological developments of the 1920s accompanies growing conflicts over cultural and political issues such as immigration.

Overall, the growth of the national consumer culture in the 1920s had both positive and negative effects on American society. While it contributed to a greater sense of unity and shared cultural experiences, it also reinforced harmful attitudes and beliefs that had a lasting impact on the country.

7.8: 1920s - Cultural & Political Controversies

First Red Scare

Due to recent large numbers of immigration before WWI and other events like the Bolshevik Revolution that resulted in the communist takeover of Russia in 1917, Americans began to fear communist, socialism, anarchists, and immigrants—and often failed to distinguish between those four categories—more during and immediately after WWI.

The Red Scare In 1919, the country suffered from a volatile combination of unhappiness with the peace process, fears of communism fueled by the Communist takeover in Russia, and worries about labor unrest at home. The anti-German hysteria of the war years turned quickly into anti-Communist hysteria known as the Red Scare. These anti-Communist fears also fueled xenophobia that resulted in restrictions on immigration in the 1920s.

Palmer Raids: A series of unexplained bombings caused Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to establish a special office under J.Edgar Hoover to gather information on radicals. Palmer also ordered mass arrests of anarchists, socialists, and labor agitators. From November 1919 through January 1920, more than 6,000 peoplewere arrested based on limited criminal evidence. Most of the suspects were foreign born, and 500 of them, including the outspoken radical Emma Goldman, were deported. The scare faded almost as quickly as it arose. Palmer warned of huge riots on May Day, 1920, but they never took place. His loss of credibility, coupled with rising concerns about civil liberties, caused the hysteria to recede.

Religion, Science, Politics

Modernism: A range of influences, including the changing role of women, the Social Gospel movement, and scientific knowledge, caused large numbers of Protestants to define their faith in new ways. Modernists took a historical and critical view of certain passages in the Bible and believed they could accept Darwin's theory of evolution without abandoning their religious faith.

Fundamentalism: A key fundamentalist doctrine was that creationism (the belief that God had created the universe in seven days, as stated in the Bible) explained the origin of all life. Fundamentalists blamed modernists for causing a decline in morals.

Revivalists on the Radio: Ever since the Great Awakening of the early 1700s, religious revivals periodically swept through America. Revivalists of the 1920s preached a fundamentalist message but did so for the first time making full use of the new tool of mass communication, the radio.

The Scopes Trial

Another oft-debated aspect of modernism was its emphasis on rational explanations over and against religious ones. In one of the most famous events of the 1920s, the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee was seen as a showdown between science (defended by Clarence Darrow) and religion (defended by William Jennings Bryan) over the issue of teaching evolution in public schools. In the trial, Darrow put Bryan himself on the stand as an expert on the Bible and called out his hypocrisy in taking the Bible literally in this case, but not all around

Prohibition

In 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. The Volstead Act, which implemented prohibition, banned most commercial production and distribution of beverages containing more than one half of 1 percent of alcohol by volume. (exceptions for medicinal and religious uses. Production for private use was also allowed)

Rural areas became totally dry and there was a sharp drop in drinking among the lower classes in the cities who could not afford the cost of the bootleg liquor.  Among the middle class and wealthy, drinking became fashionable. Bootleggers supplied whiskey, which was quickly replaced with lighter spirits such as beer and wine. They smuggled them from Canada or made them in their garages or basements. 

Rival groups of gangsters including a Chicago gang headed by Al Capone fought for control of the lucrative bootlegging trade.Organized crime became big business. The millions made from the sale of illegal booze allowed the gangs to expand other illegal activities: prostitution, gambling and narcotics. 

In 1933, the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th was ratified and millions celebrated the new year by toasting the end of Prohibition.

Nativism & Opposition to Immigration

This fear of immigrants would eventually lead to laws restricting immigration into the US. Immigration to America had peaked before and around WWI, with roughly 20 million immigrants coming between 1890 and 1924. In response and because of nativism, the US government passed the Emergency Quota Act (1922), which, for the first time in US history, established numerical limits on US immigration. 

The number of immigrants allowed in from non-Western Hemisphere countries annually was limited to 3% of the number of residents from that same country living in the United States in 1910. This was clearly intended to reduce immigration from newer sources of immigration like Southern and Eastern Europe, especially Jews. 

This act was then made permanent and much stricter in 1924 with the National Origins Act of 1924 that reduced the percentage to 2% and moved back the reference date to 1890, when the US was even more Anglo-Saxon and full of white, Protestant immigrants from Northern and Western countries. Both laws were thus designed to keep out so-called undesirable immigrants from places in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Keep in mind that pretty much all Asians were still excluded from immigration because of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), the Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan (1907), and the Immigration Act of 1917 that established the Asiatic Barred Zone and literacy tests for new immigrants. None of the above laws applied to Latin America; however, which continued to be a source of important manpower through the 1920s. 

Another famous example of this nativist hysteria was the trial of Sacco & Vanzetti, Italian anarchists who were convicted during a highly problematic trial of murder during a robbery and then killed via the electric chair. Many people all over the world at the time protested their executions and saw the case as an example of xenophobia and nativism gone too far. 

Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: Although liberal American artists and intellectuals were few in number, they loudly protested against racist and nativist prejudices. They rallied to the support of two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who in 1921 had been convicted in a Massachusetts court of committing robbery and murder. Liberals protested that the two men had not received a fair trial and that they had been accused, convicted, and sentenced to die simply because they were poor Italians and anarchists (who rejected all government). After six years of appeals and national and international debates over the conduct of their trial, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in 1927.

Film

During the early 20th century, a wave of immigration and migration brought a diversity of cultures and traditions to the United States. This influx of people from various ethnic and regional backgrounds had a significant impact on the arts and literature of the time. One notable example is the film industry, which saw the rise of immigrant movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and the involvement of Jewish Americans in early film production studios. African American pioneers like Oscar Micheaux and Lon Chaney Sr. made significant contributions to the development of cinema, as did Latino pioneers like Carmen Miranda and Dolores del Río, and Asian American pioneers like Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa.

his period also saw the emergence of new forms of art and literature that celebrated ethnic and regional identities, such as the film "The Kid" (1921), which depicts the diversity of American society. The diversity of cultures and experiences represented in the arts during this time period reflects the rich tapestry of American society.

Arts & Literature

The trial demonstrated the variety of ways the US was growing and fracturing since it showed a divide between cosmopolitan urban people who embraced new ideas and traditionalist rural people who sought to preserve traditional values. 

Some writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) and Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises) famously rebelled against the consumerism and optimism of the time, especially since some of them had served in WWI and were thus pessimistic about human progress. Others left the US altogether and joined other writers in Paris searching for meaning in a modern world in what was called the Lost Generation. 

Scorning religion as hypocritical and bitterly condemning the sacrifices of wartime as fraud perpetrated by money interests were two dominant themes of the leading writers of the postwar decade. This disillusionment caused the writer Gertrude Stein to call these writers a "lost generation." The novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis; the poems of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot; and the plays of Eugene O'Neill expressed disillusionment with the ideals of an earlier time and with the materialism of a business-oriented culture. Fitzgerald and O'Neill took to a life of drinking, while Eliot and Hemingway expressed their unhappiness by moving into exile in Europe.

Painters such as Edward Hopper were inspired by the architecture of American cities to explore loneliness and isolation of urban life. Regional artists such as Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton celebrated the rural people and scenes of the heartland of America.

Musical theater changed in the 1920s with th:e Broadway premiere of Show Boat. It proved a radical departure in musical storytelling with a serious treatment of prejudice and race. Jewish immigrants played a major role in the development of the American musical theatre during this era. For example, composer George Gershwin, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, blended jazz and classical music in his symphonic Rhapsody in Blue and the folk opera Porgy and Bess.

African Americans: Jazz & Harlem Renaissance

On the musical front, jazz and the blues spread from New Orleans and became popular throughout the country during the 1920s with performers such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Okies moving from drought-stricken farms in the West brought country music to California. 

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that took place in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was a crucial moment in the history of African American art, literature, and culture. At the time, many African Americans were moving from the rural south to the urban north, and the Harlem neighborhood of New York City became a center of this cultural flowering.

One of the most prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes, who was a poet, novelist, and playwright. Hughes' work was characterized by its focus on the African American experience and its use of jazz and blues rhythms. He wrote about the struggles of African Americans living in a society that was deeply racist, but also about the resilience and strength of the African American community.

Another important figure in the Harlem Renaissance was Zora Neale Hurston, who was a novelist and anthropologist. Hurston's work was notable for its focus on the African American folk tradition and for its celebration of African American culture. She is perhaps best known for her novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God," which tells the story of a strong and independent African American woman named Janie Crawford.

In the world of music, the Harlem Renaissance saw the emergence of jazz and blues, which were both forms of music that had their roots in African American culture. Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong became famous for their contributions to the genre, and blues musicians such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey also made their mark during this time.

In the world of dance, Josephine Baker became a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Baker was an African American dancer and actress who rose to fame in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. She was known for her energetic and sensuous performances, and she was one of the first African American women to become a major international star.

Finally, Paul Robeson was a major figure in the world of drama during the Harlem Renaissance. Robeson was an actor, singer, and civil rights activist who was known for his powerful performances in plays such as "Othello" and "The Emperor Jones." He was also an outspoken advocate for the rights of African Americans, and he used his platform to speak out against racial injustice.

Overall, the Harlem Renaissance was a crucial moment in the history of African American culture, and it produced some of the most significant and enduring works of art, literature, and music of the 20th century. The movement was a celebration of African American heritage and a call to resist racial oppression, and it continues to inspire artists and activists to this day.

The 1920s were a period of immense technological and social change, and this did not happen without controversy, of course. Americans argued about the roles of women, the merits of the modern lifestyle, science vs. religion, and race, all in addition to the previously mentioned issues of immigration. Plus, prohibition was technically in place, although widely ignored.

Changes for Women

First, and driven partly by changes in women’s ability to work outside the home and the effects of Progressivism (see the 19th Amendment), women were asserting themselves in new ways in the 1920s. They were voting, smoking, dancing, drinking, dressing how they wanted, and controlling more of their sex lives.

• Alice Paul, who had helped to pass the 19th Amendment with her picketing and hunger strikes, pushed for the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution. This new, modern woman was exemplified by the flapper, who wore short hair, short skirts, and challenged societal norms about dance, sex, and smoking. 

Ratification of the 19th Amendment gavewomen the right to vote,but it did not change either women's lives or U.S. politics as much as reformers had hoped. Voting patterns in the election of 1920 showed that women did not vote as a bloc but usually shared the party preferences of their husbands or fathers.

Women at Home: The traditional separation of labor between men and women continued into the 1920s. Most middle-class women expected to spend their lives as homemakers and mothers. The introduction into the home of such labor-saving devices as the washing machine and vacuum cleaner eased but did not substantially change the daily routines of the homemaker.

Women in the Labor Force: Participation of women in the workforce remained about the same as before the war. Employed women usually lived in the cities; were limited to certain categories of jobs as clerks, nurses, teachers, and domestics; and received lower wages than men.

The KKK

Race relations—beyond the previously mentioned immigration issues—continued to be an issue in the 1920s. Before the 1920s, the KKK had been largely eliminated, especially due to actions taken during the Grant Administration. However, Jim Crow racism down South and the success of the film Birth of a Nation resulted in the Second KKK, which, much like the first KKK, targeted African Americans for racial terrorism. The KKK of the 1920s also targeted Jewish people, immigrants, and Catholics. 

In response to this racism and Jim Crow segregation, some African Americans sought to leave the US altogether and return “Back to Africa” in the words of Marcus Garvey, who celebrated Black culture and advocated for Black separatism by moving African Americans to Africa (often Liberia). Awkwardly enough, this intersected with KKK notions of segregation, and Garvey controversially worked with the KKK on occasion. 

Presidency of Warren Harding

Harding basically signed every law that the Republican Congress passed

• a reduction in the income tax

• an increase in tariff rates.

• establishment of the Bureau of the Budget with procedures for all government expenditures to be placed in a single budget for Congress to review and vote on. 

Harding ran on a platform of a "Return to Normalcy," appealing to Americans who wanted a return to pre-war America. This included deregulation, civic engagement, and isolationism.

His presidency was marked by scandals and corruption similar to those that had occurred under an earlier postwar president, Ulysses S. Grant.

• In 1924, Congress discovered that his Secretary of the Interior had accepted bribes for granting oil leases near Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

• His attorney general took bribes for agreeing not to prosecute certain criminal subjects. 

Shortly before the scandals were uncovered publicly, Harding died suddenly while traveling in the West. 

Presidency of Calvin Coolidge

Coolidge believed that it was his job to preside benignly and not govern the nation. He was nicknamed “Silent Cal”. Coolidge believed in limited government that stood aside while business conducted its own affairs. Little was accomplished in the White House except keeping a close watch on the budget. He chose not to run for a second term.

7.9: The Great Depression

Causes of the Great Depression

Uneven Distribution of Income: Wages had risen very little compared to the large increases in production and corporate profits. Economic success was not shared by all (top 5% of the richest Americans recieved over 33% of all income). Once demand for their products declined, businesses laid off workers, contributing to a downward spiral in demand and increased layoffs.

Stock Market Speculation: many people in all economic classes believed that they could get rich by “playing the market”. Instead of investing money in order to share in the earnings of a company, people speculated that the price of stock would go up and that they could sell it for a quick profit.

• Therefore, when stock prices dropped, the market collapsed, and many investors lost everything they had borrowed and invested.

• Unregulated credit led people to buy more than they could afford, propping the US’ economy up on borrowed money and loans. This got worse when people borrowed money to invest in the ever-growing stock market bubble, aka margin buying

  • Buying on margin allowed people to borrow most of the cost of the stock, making down payments as low as 10%. Investors depended on the price of the stock increasing so that they could repay the loan.

Excessive Use of Credit: Low interest rates and the belief of both consumers and businesses that the economic boom was permanent led to increased borrowing and installment buying.

• This over-indebtedness resulted in defaults on loans and bank failures.

Overproduction of Consumer Goods: Business growth, aided by increased productivity and use of credit, had produced a volume of goods that worked with low, stagnant wages could not continue to purchase. Consumers began a purchasing reduction —> consumers weren’t buying at the rate that companies were producing.

Weak Farm Economy: The prosperity of the roaring 20s never reached farmers, who had suffered from overproduction, high debt, and low prices since the end of WW1. As the depression continued through the 1930s, severe weather and droughts would add to farmers’ difficulties.

Government Policies: During the 1920s, the government had complete faith in business and did little to control or regulate it. Congress enacted high tariffs that protected US industries but hurt farmers and international trade.

• The Federal Reserve’s tight money policies would played a role in mass bank failures. Instead of trying to stabilize banks, money supply, and prices, the Federal Reserve tried to preserve the gold standard. Without depositors’ insurance, people panicked and sought to get their money out of the banks, causing more bank failures.

• Tightened money supply and raised interest rates made it harder for businesses to produce goods/services and harder for consumers to spend money.

Global Economic Problems: Nations had become more interdependent because of international banking, manufacturing, and trade. Europe had never recovered from WW1, but the US failed to recognize Europe’s postwar problems. Instead, US’ insistence on loan repayment in full and high tariff policies weakened Europe and contributed to the worldwide depression.

The 1929 Stock Market Crash: The depression of the 1930s lasted far longer, causing business failures and unemployment, and affected more people (both middle and working class) compared to past depressions.

Wall Street Crash: Rising stock prices became a symbol and source of wealth during the 1920s. An economic boom was also in full force in the US and the world economy during the 1920s.
Stock exchange on Wall Street had kept going up from March 1928 to September 1929. On September 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of major stocks had reached an all-time high. Millions of people invested in the booming market of 1928 and would end up losing their money about a year later (October 1929), when it collapsed.

Black Thursday and Black Tuesday: Although stock prices fluctuated greatly for several weeks before the crash, the true panic did not begin until Black Thursday. On October 24, 1929 (Black Thursday), there was an unprecented amount of selling on Wall Street and stock prices plunged. In hopes of stabilizing prices, bankers bought millions of dollars in stocks but the strategy only worked for one day and the following Monday, high volumes of selling resumed.

On October 29 (Black Tuesday), the bottom fell out as millions of panicking investors ordered their brokers to sell but no buyers were found.

• Prices on Wall Street steadily decreased and by late November, the Dow Jones index had fallen from its all time high. 3 years later, stock prices would hit rock bottom.

Effects of the Great Depression

• US Gross National Product (the value of all good and services produced by the nation in one year) dropped from $104 billion to $56 billion in only 4 years (1929 to 1932)

• The nation’s income declined by over 50%

• Approximately 20% of all banks closed, wiping out 10 million savings accounts

• Money supply contract by 30%

• By 1933, the number of unemployed had reached 13 million (25% of the workforce), not including farmers.

Social Effects: Social effects of Depression affected all economic classes.

• Those who never fully shared prosperity of the 1920s (ex: farmers and African Americans) had increase difficulties.

• Poverty and homelessness increased and stress on families increased as people searched for employment.

• People continued to move from rural areas to urban areas, hoping that jobs would more abundant in cities.

• Mortgage foreclosures and evictions became common.

• Homeless people traveled in “Hoovervilles”

Hoover’s Response

Hoover believed that the nation could get through difficult times if people took his advice about exercising voluntary action and restraint.

Hoover urged businesses to not cut wages, unions not to strike, and private charities to increase their efforts for those in need and the unemployed. He took the traditional view that public relief should come from state/local governments, not the federal government. He hesitated to ask Congress for legislative action on the economy, afraid that government assistance to individuals would destroy their self-reliance.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930): raised taxes on imported goods in an attempt to save US industries. European nations responded with higher tariffs of their own against US goods.

• This led to an increased decline in international trade as economic activity was slowing down in most countries, and the higher tariffs made the decline sharper, sinking economies around the world into further depression.

Debt Moratorium: By 1931, conditions became so bad in Europe and the US that the Dawes Plan for collecting war debts could no longer continue. Hoover proposed a moratorium (suspension) on the payment of international debts. The international economy suffered from massive loan defaults, and banks scrambled to meet the demands of the depositors withdrawing their money.

Domestic Programs: President Hoover believed that federal action was needed to bring the US economy back into shape and supported and signed into law programs that offered assistance to indebted farmers and struggling businesses.

• Federal Farm Board: authorized to help farmers stabilize prices by temporarily holding surplus grain & cotton in storage. Didn’t work because there was too much of an overproduction of goods

• Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC): Federally funded government-owned corporation created by Congress as a measure for fixing up failing railroads, banks, life insurance companies, and other financial institutions.

  • Hoover believed that emergency loans from the RFC would help stabilize important businesses and that the benefits would “trickle down” to smaller businesses, ultimately bringing recovery.

Protest & Despair

Bonus March: Hoover refused to give WW1 veterans their promised bonuses a few years early. In desparation, unemployed WW1 veterans marched to Washington DC in 1932 to demand immediate payment of the bonuses that were going to be due to them in 1945.

They were eventually joined by thousands of other veterans and their families and camped in improvised shacks near the Capitol. Senate rejected the bill and Congress failed to pass it. Later, after clashes with police, General Douglas MacArthur, the army’s chief of staff, and his troops drove them out by using tanks and tear gas to destroy the shantytown. The incident caused many Americans to regard Hoover as heartless and uncaring.

Election of 1932

The Great Depression had a long-term influence on American thinking/policies. People accepted dramatic changes in policies and the expansion of the federal government but the Great Depression ended Republican domination of government.

Growing discontent over the Depression and Hoover’s administration led to a Democratic victory, nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) for president.

FDR began to address the Great Depression immediately by proposing numerous pieces of legislation during his First Hundred Days in office in 1933 aka the New Deal.

7.10: The New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the 32nd president of the United States, sought to fight the worst parts of the Great Depression through his legislative agenda, nicknamed the New Deal. This changed the role of the federal government in new ways (mostly by expanding it) and changed the alignment of political parties (this is one of two major time periods when the Democrats and Republicans began to morph into the parties we recognize today).

In FDR’s acceptance speech, he promised in his campaign to help the “forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid and his New Deal Programs were to serve three R’s: relief for the people out of work, recover for business and the economy as a whole, and reform of American economic institutions

First Hundred Days (FDR, 3 R’s, and Alphabet Soup)

Bank Holiday: In early 1933, banks were failing at a frightening rate, as depositors flocked to withdraw funds. FDR’s first priority was supporting the failing bank systems. To restore confidence in banks that could still be salvaged, he quickly declared a Banking Holiday backed by the Emergency Banking Relief Act, where the banks would close and then the federal government would allow those it had inspected and found to be safe to reopen. This helped to restore public confidence in the banks and reversed the runs on the bank once they reopened.

Repeal of Prohibition: Second, in order to increase tax revenue and increase public morale, the country passed the Beer-Wine Revenue Act, which legalized the sale of beer and wine, as a means of raising needed tax money and the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment and its prohibition against alcohol (brought Prohibition to an end)

Fireside Chats: Third, in order to personally communicate with citizens and to help restore their faith in banking (and government), FDR began a series of Fireside Chats (🔥+📻=👍🏦), or presidential radio addresses. 

Finally, FDR and Congress started a legislative spree where they passed law after law creating new programs and agencies in effect to address the Great Depression, altogether known as the New Deal. There are two ways to characterize the New Deal: the first way is the “3 Rs” of Relief (stop people from starving right now), Recovery (help the economy get back on track and people employed again), and Reform (change the economic system to ensure this never happens again).

Relief for the Unemployed: A number of programs created during the Hundred Days addressed the needs of the millions of unemployed workers. These plans created jobs with government stimulus dollars to provide both relief and create more demand for goods and services. FDR hoped that this would create more jobs in the private sector:

• Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA): offered outright grants of federal money to states and local govs that were operating soup kitchens and other forms of relief for the jobless and homeless

• Public Works Administration (PWA): allotted money to the state and local govs for building roads, bridges, dams, and other public works; created a source for a lot of jobs

• Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): employed young men on projects on federal lands and paid their families small monthly sums

• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): huge experiment in regional development and public planning. As a gov. corporation, it hired thousands of people in one of the nation’s poorest regions, Tennessee Valley, to build dams, operate electric power plants, control flooding and erosion, and manufacture fertilizer

Financial Recovery and Reform Programs: As the financial part of his New Deal, FDR persuaded Congress to enact the following measures:

• Emergency Banking Relief Act: authorized the government to examine the finances of banks closed during the bank holiday and reopen those deemed to be sound

• Glass-Steagall Act: increased regulation of the banks and limited how banks could invest customers’ money

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): guaranteed individual bank deposits

Industrial Recovery Programs: The key measure in 1933 to combine immediate relief and long-term reform was the National Recovery Administration (NRA) which was an attempt to guarantee reasonable profits for business and fair wages and hours for labor.

• Temporarily suspended antitrust laws to help each industry set codes for wages, hours of work, levels of production, and prices of finished goods

• Gave workers the right to organize and bargain collectively

• Operated with limited success until it was later declared unconstitutional in Schechter v. US in 1935

Farm Production Control Program: farmers were offered a program similar in concept to what the NRA did for industry. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) encouraged farmers to reduce production (and thereby boost prices) by offering to pay government subsidies for every acre they plowed under.

• Was also declared unconstitutional later in a 1935 Supreme Court decision

Other Programs of the First New Deal:

• Civil Works Administration (CWA): added to the PWA and other programs for creating jobs. This agency hired laborers for temporary construction projects sponsored by the federal go

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): created to regulate the stock market and to place strict limits on the kind of speculative practices that had led to the Wall Street Crash in 1929.

  • The SEC required full audits of, and financial disclosure by, corporations to protect investors from fraud and insider trading

• Federal Housing Administration (FHA): gave both the building industry and homeowners a boost by insuring bank loans for building, repairing, and purchasing houses.

Key New Deal Programs “Alphabet Soup”

The second is to talk about the First New Deal (1933-1935) and the Second New Deal (1935+). Let’s look at some notable examples of the 3Rs in action:

^**(Remember, you don’t have to memorize all of these; just be able to recognize them if they came on in a document on the exam and to be able to use a few of them to describe how the US changed because of the New Deal) 

Second New Deal

Reform primarily occured as part of the Second New Deal. The First New Deal focused primarily on establishing the "alphabet agencies" that covering the first R: recovery whereas the Second New Deal was focused on the other two R’s: relief & reform. Two major reforms also came about as a part of the Second New Deal.

Relief:

• Works Progress Administration (WPA): hired people to build infrastructure (dams, airports, roads, bridges, etc)

• Resettlement Administration (RA): provided loans to sharecroppers, tenants, and small farmers and established federal camps where migrant workers could find decent housing

Reform: reform legislation of the second New Deal reflected Roosevelt’s belief that industrial workers and farmers needed to recieve more government help than members of business/privileged classes

• National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act (1935): created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to preside over labor-management relations and enable unions to engage in collective bargaining with federal support

  • outlawed businesses practices that were unfair to labor

  • guaranteed workers’ right to join a union

  • said that whenever a majority of the company’s workers voted for a union to represent them, management would be compelled to negotiate with the union on all matters of wages, hours, and working conditions

• Social Security Act: created a federal insurance program based upon the automatic collection of payments from employees and employers throughout people’s working careers.

  • It provided for old-age pensions financed equally by tax on employers and worker, without government contributions. It gave states federal matching funds to provide modest pensions for destitute elderly. The Social Security trust fund would then be used to make monthly payments to retired persons over the age of 65

  • It set up a system of unemployment compensation on a federal-state basis, with employers paying a payroll tax and with each state setting benefit levels and administering the program locally.

  • It provided direct federal grants to the state on a matching basis for welfare payments to the blind, handicapped, needy elderly and dependent. 

Critics of the New Deal

Not everyone agreed with FDR’s proposals, and he received opposition and criticism from people on his left (more progressive and liberal) and on his right (more conservative and traditional).

Critics from the Left: Socialists, some unions, and more liberal members of the Democratic Party criticized the New Deal (especially thefirst New Deal of 1933- 1934) for doing too much for business and too little for theunemployed and the working poor.

• They charged that the president failed to address the problems of ethnic minorities, women, and the elderly.

Critics from the Right: More numerous were conservatives in Congress and on the Supreme Court. Many Republicans and some Democrats attacked the New Deal for givingthefederal government too much power.

• These critics charged that relief programs such as the WPA and labor laws such as the Wagner Act bordered on socialism or even communism. Business leaders were alarmed by (1) increased regulations, (2) the second New Deal's pro-union stance, and (3) the financing of government programs by means of borrowed money- a practice known as deficit financing.

Huey Long: For some liberals, the New Deal didn’t go far enough or addressed the problems of the rich businessmen more than poor people, minorities, or women.

• They had a point: the New Deal was only possible with the support of conservative Southern Democrats who were deeply racist and oversaw the Jim Crow-fixation of the New Deal.

• People like Huey Long and his Share Our Wealth Society called for a 100% tax rate for all incomes over a million dollars and the redistribution of those funds to poor people. Huey Long was a left wing populist who's primary focus was ending the Depression for the people, as opposed to businesses. He felt that the New Deal primarily bailed out failing businesses and was insufficiently radical.

Father Charles Coughlin: In a nationwide radio show, Father Coughlin appealed to the discontent. He called the New Deal the Pagan Deal, appealing to Christian conservative Americans who were already against the New Deal.

• When his show became increasingly Fascist and anti-Semitic, his superiors in the Catholic Church ordered him to stop his broadcasts. Coughlin is primarily known for his racist and anti-Semitic viewpoints, although he had over 30 million listeners during the 1930s, amounting to roughly a quarter of the country at the time. As World War II began to rear its head, Coughlin supported policies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

He called the Great Depression a "cash famine" and called for the nationalization of the Federal Reserve, also calling for free silver.

Dr. Francis Townsend: Dr. Francis Townsend was a physician who came forward with a plan to assist the elderly, who were suffering greatly during the depression. The Townsend Plan proposed giving everyone over the age of 60 a monthly pension of $200 with a provison that it must be spent in 30 days. Townsend was less of a critic of the New Deal and more of a believer that it needed to go broader with direct payments towards the public as opposed to financing federal projects.

Court Packing Plan

Conservatives were shocked at the new levels of government intrusion and spending and the New Deal’s pro-union stances. They too had a point: the New Deal was a radical increase in government spending and oversight. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) invalidated several New Deal programs, such as the AAA.

FDR planned to add more justices to the Supreme Court to get his agenda through, but received outraged opposition, even from within his own party. Ultimately the Supreme Court upheld most of the New Deal and FDR backed down from the court-packing plan. 

After that failure and when the economy started to slow in 1937, FDR’s legislative agenda began to slow.

Effects of the New Deal

The New Deal did not entirely end the Great Depression (that would be WWII), it did leave a lasting impact on the United States.

First, its programs fundamentally and (so-far) permanently changed the relationship between citizens and their government. The US federal government had grown under the New Deal, and many programs (e.g., Social Security, FDIC, etc.) are still very much a part of the US today.

Second, FDR’s policies created the so-called New Deal Coalition, a group of people who usually vote for Democrats and which, with some changes, remains the core of the Democratic Party to this day. This group includes African Americans, Jewish people, working-class families, and those on the lower end of the economic spectrum.

While the New Deal did little to hurt the economy of the United States on paper, it did not do significant good either. In fact, in 1937 when Roosevelt scaled back the programs he had created, the economy suffered another, more mild, recession. This was called the Roosevelt Recession. This has also been blamed on contractionary monetary policy by the Federal Reserve.

The Great Depression continued through the entirety of the 1930s, only being fully dissolved during World War II, when large amounts of government spending for the war effort stimulated the economy.

7.11: Interwar Foreign Policy

In the famous words of Warren G. Harding, president from 1921 to 1923, the United States after WWI wanted a return to normalcy. This meant stepping back from so much engagement with Europe. 

This did not mean that the US did not engage with the world altogether: the US still had colonies overseas, wanted increased trade with the rest of the world, and sought to limit the possibility of future wars through mediation and treaties.

For example, the Washington Conference of 1921 tried to stop naval arms races by establishing a ratio of battleships with the US and UK at the top, followed by Japan and then France and Italy (The US’ secret agenda was also to stop growing Japanese naval power in the Pacific). The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) was a promise by countries never to resort to war, but since it had no enforcement provisions, it was largely useless. 

Finally, in a bit of foreshadowing, the US was a crucial part of setting up the Dawes Plan where US banks made loans to Germany, who then paid their reparations (penalty payments for WWI) to the UK and France, who then repaid American banks for WWI loans, and then the whole cycle repeated itself. This would work well until the 1930s and the Great Depression, of course. Once the US economy crashed, this had rippling effects across the entire world, since now there were few US banks, even fewer of which were able to keep loaning money to Germany.

American Isolation

As the Great Depression worsened and took hold in other countries, some of those countries turned to radical leaders who embraced nationalism, militarism, and expansion as a cure for their countries’ economic woes.

Germany elected the fascist leader Hitler, Italy had Mussolini, the Soviet Union (USSR) had Stalin, and Japan had Tojo. All four leaders were examples of totalitarianism where the state/government took over all aspects of life, and all began to expand their territories in the 1930s. 

While the United States was nervous about the rise of these dictators and their militaries, most continued to support isolationism. This was true even through the late 1930s when Japan invaded China and Germany invaded Poland to start World War Two (WWII). 

Good Neighbor Policy

Roosevelt promised a “policy of the good neighbor” toward other nations of the Western Hemisphere. The US delegation at the 7th Pan-American Conference in Uruguay in 1933, pledged never again to intervene in the internal affairs of a Latin American country.

FDR pledged to submit future disputes to arbitration and also warned that if a European power, such as Germany, attempted “to commit acts of aggression against us” it would find “a hemisphere wholly prepared to consult together for our personal safety and our mutual good.”

Neutrality Acts

FDR suspected that war would come to the US too, so he began to pressure the US to prepare, even amidst public opposition to US involvement. He thus moved slowly and in a piece-by-piece fashion. The Neutrality Acts passed in the 1930s made it difficult for the US to trade with nations involved in the war to avoid similar economic entanglements to WWI. 

US Assistance to the Allies

The interwar period, between the end of World War I and the start of World War II, was marked by a series of policies implemented by the United States government in an attempt to navigate the complex political landscape of the time. One of the most significant of these policies was the Cash and Carry program, which allowed the British to purchase war materials from the United States as long as they paid in cash and transported the materials themselves. This policy was implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a way to support the British without fully committing the United States to military involvement in the war.

However, as the conflict continued to escalate, the United States eventually had to take more direct action. The Lend-Lease Act, also implemented by FDR, allowed the British (and later, the Chinese and the Soviet Union) to borrow money and material from the United States in order to continue fighting against the Axis powers. In addition, the Selective Service Act of 1940 established the first peacetime draft in United States history, as the country began to mobilize for war.

These policies were not without their opponents. Many Americans, including Charles Lindbergh and the America First organization, were opposed to any involvement in the war and advocated for traditional American isolationism. Despite these objections, however, the United States eventually entered World War II, with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 serving as the catalyst for full-scale American involvement in the conflict.

Nazism & the US

During the interwar period, the United States saw the growth of Nazism and fascist ideologies within its own borders. One group that was active during this time was the American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization that sought to promote fascist ideology in the United States. Led by Fritz Julius Kuhn, the group held large public rallies and sought to recruit members from the German-American community.

While the American Bund was eventually disbanded or suppressed, its activities during the interwar period highlight the presence of extreme and hateful ideologies within the United States. The growth of such ideologies was a concern for many Americans, as the country struggled to navigate the political landscape of the time and the threat of foreign aggression. Despite this, however, the United States ultimately entered World War II in 1941 and played a key role in the defeat of the Axis powers.

The US is Pushed Into War

Through the first few years of World War II, financial assistance for the Allies was the main involvement of the United States. It wasn't until the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 that the United States declared war. The attack was called a "day of infamy" by FDR and soon after, the United States went to war with Japan, Italy, and Germany.

7.12: WW2 Mobilization

The Federal Government Takes Action

The success of US and Allied armed forces depended on mobilizing America’s people, industries, and creative/scientific communities. The role of the federal gov expanded well beyond anything in WW1 or the New Deal.

The US government mobilized economic and military resources for the wartime crisis, creating a number of special agencies to deal with such matters.

• War Production Board (WPB): established to manage war industries

• Office of War Mobilization (OWM): set production priorities and controlled raw materials

  • The government used cost-plus system where it paid war contractors the costs of production plus a certain percentage for profit.

• Office of Price Administration (OPA): regulated almost every aspect of civilians’ lives by freezing prices, wages, and rents, and by rationing commodities (i.e. meat, sugar, gas, auto tires) to fight wartime inflation.

Business & Industry

The US entrance into WW2 ended the Depression since the US became an Arsenal of Democracy (phrase used by FDR to describe the US turning into a supplier of war materials to Allied nations and fighting against Axis powers)

US industries became booming businesses stimulated by government contracts and wartime demand. Profits and productions exceeded that of the 1920s, causing depression to be over. Due to labor shortages because of those off fighting in the armed services, unemployment virtually disappeared.

The US turned its production capacity toward war-related industrial output/wartime manufacturing, producing an astonishing quantity of weapons and goods during the war.

Research & Development

The government also worked with universities and research labs to create and improve wartime technologies.

• Office of Research and Development: established to contract scientists and universities to help in the development of electronics (i.e. radar & sonar), medicines (penicillin), and military goods (i.e. jet engines, rockets)

• Manhattan Project: top-secret government project that produced the first atomic weapons, under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Workers and Unions

Labor unions and large corporations agreed to not have any strikes while the war lasted. Workers became disgruntled as their wages were frozen while large corporations were making profit.

• Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act (1943): empowered the government to take over war-related businesses whose operations were threatened by strikes.

Financing the War

The government paid for its dramatic increase in spending by:

1. increasing the income tax

   • For the 1st time, Americans were required to pay an income tax.

2. selling war bonds

   • Borrowing money by selling $135 billion in war bonds supplemented the tax increase.

   • Shortage of consumer goods made it easier for Americans to save money

Wartime Propaganda

The government’s propaganda campaign of posters, songs, and news bulletins was primarily to keep up public morale, to encourage people to conserve resources, and to increase war production.

• Office of War Information: controlled news about troop movements and battles.

• Movies, radio, and pop music supported and reflected a cheerful, patriotic view of the war.

The War’s Impact on Society

The US population adjusted to the unique circumstances of wartime. Increased factory jobs caused millions to leave rural areas for industrial jobs.

African Americans: Over 1.5 million African Americans left the South, attracted by jobs in the North and West. Additionally, a million young African American men left to serve in the armed forces.

African Americans still faced continued discrimination and segregation, whether at home or in the armed forces. Segregation was a reflection of Jim Crow Laws and practices in place in the US at the time which institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination against Black Americans.

• Dozens died in race riots resulting from White resentment of Black families moving into their cities

• Despite segregation/discrimination, African Americans soldiers fought with distinction, such as the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots who served in the US Army Air Corps that became one of the most highly decorated units in WW2. Their bravery and determination inspired other African Americans to fight against racism abroad and at home.

Civil rights leaders encourage African Americans to adopt the “Double V” campaign, which sought victory over fascism abroad and the victory of equality at home.

• A. Philip Randolph, a prominent Black leader and civil rights activist, played a significant role in the Double V campaign. Him and other Black leaders threatened a protest march on Washington to pressure the Roosevelt Administration to an executive order to prohibit discrimination (Executive Order 8802) which prohibited racial discrimination in defense industries such as government and businesses that received federal contracts.

Smith V. Allwright (1944): A judicial victory was won for African Americans as the Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny membership in political parties to African Americans as a way of excluding them from voting in primaries.

Mexican Americans: Over 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the military and many other worked in the defense industries.

To help address labor shortages during the war, the US government implemented the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican farmworkers to temporarily enter the US to work in agriculture during the harvest season without going through formal immigration procedures.

• The Bracero Program provided much needed labor to fill in for missing white workers who were serving in the military but also led to further tension and resentment between White & Latinx communities.

WW2 also saw significant racial tension between White & Latinx people on the West Coast. One notable incident was the Zoot Suit Riots which occured in the 1943, when White servicemen roamed Mexican neighborhoods, attacking Latinx people. The violence and discrimination faced by Latinx individuals at the time was a reflection of the prevalent racism/prejudice in society at the time.

American Indians: American Indians contributed to the war efforts through serving in the military or working in defense industries. American Indians discovered new opportunities off their reservations, more than half never returning.

• Navajo Code Talkers: Native Americans who were recruited by the US military to serve as communication experts. They used their fluency in the Navajo language to transmit secret messages that were indecipherable to the enemy. This proved to be an extremely effective tactic and they played a huge role in war effort.

Japanese Americans: Japanese Americans faced discrimination due to WW2. After the attack on Pearl Habor, many people suspect that Japanese Americans were spies/saboteurs and that Japan would soon invade the West Coast.

in 1942, fears of espionage and racism prompted the US government to order more than 100,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast to leave their homes and move to internment camps.

• Executive Order 9066: issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, authorized the internment of over 110,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast

  • Most of these individuals were US citizens.

  • The internment was motivated by a combination of war paranoia and longstanding discrimination against Asian Americans

    • Internment camps were a form of mass detention, with Japanese Americans being forcibly removed from their homes and placed in camps for the duration of the war.

    • Many lost their homes, businesses, and personal possessions as a results.

• Korematsu v. United States: Supreme Court upheld the government’s internment policy as justified in wartime

  • Despite this discriminatory treatment, almost 20,000 Japanese Americans served in the military.

Women: Labor shortages led to new opportunities for women and minorities to enter the workforce, taking industrial jobs to replace enlisted men.

• Women also joined the military as nurses or joined the military’s non-combat units; some also worked at home on assembly lines

• Rosie the Riveter: song used to encourage women to take defense jobs

  • Women received much lower pay compared to their male counterparts

  • Women also became more independent as the head of their households and chief income earners while men served overseas

7.13: WW2 Military

Pre-War Japanese Aggression: US relations with Japan were becoming increasingly strained as a result of Japan’s invasion of China and ambitions to extend its conquests to Southeast Asia.

When Japan joined the Axis, FDR responded by prohibiting the export of steel and scrap iron to all countries except Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere. When Japan invaded French Indochina, FDR froze all Japanese credits in the US and also cut off Japanese access to vital materials, including US oil.

The Naval intelligence experts had broken the Japanese diplomatic code and were intercepting and reading all messages between Tokyo and the Japanese embassy in Washington. To mask war preparations, Japan sent another envoy to Washington with new peace proposals. Code breaking allowed American diplomats to know that Japanese terms were unacceptable even before they were formally presented. 

Attack on Pearl Harbor: Upon the breakdown of negotiations with the Japanese, officials in Washington immediately sent warning messages to American bases in the Pacific, but they failed to arrive in time. 

At 7:55AM, just before 1PM in Washington, squadrons of Japanese carrier-based planes caught the American fleet at Pearl Harbor totally by surprise. In little more than an hour, they crippled the American Pacific fleet and its major base, sinking 20 warships and killing more than 2400 American sailors and wounding 1200. 

Roosevelt spoke before Congress the next day, calling December 7th “a date which will live in infamy” and asked for a declaration of war on Japan.  Congress acted immediately by declaring war, with only one dissenting vote. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war against the US, and the nation was now fully involved in WWII.

As the war dragged on, the US learned more and more about the evils perpetrated by the Japanese and Nazis. Americans were horrified to learn about Japanese war crimes of mass rape and murder of civilians in places like Nanjing, China.

America and the Holocaust: In Europe, the US began to learn about Nazi concentration camps, where the Nazis imprisoned and killed those the state considered undesirable, including Jews, Roma people, those with disabilities, LGBTQ people, and others. The Holocaust or Shoah was the systematic killing of Jewish people in Europe by the Nazis, and by the end of the war in 1945, over 6 million Jews and 11 million overall were dead at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. 

During the Holocaust, the United States government was aware of the systematic persecution and extermination of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazi regime in Europe. However, the United States did not take significant action to intervene or to provide assistance to those who were being targeted by the Nazis.

One major factor that contributed to the lack of action by the United States was the isolationist sentiment that was prevalent in the country during the 1930s. Many Americans believed that the country should stay out of the conflict and not become involved in the affairs of other nations. This sentiment was reflected in the policies of the government, which prioritized neutrality and non-interference.

Another factor was the limited immigration policies of the United States, which made it difficult for refugees, including Jews, to enter the country. Despite efforts by some organizations and individuals to help refugees, the United States government largely resisted calls to increase the number of refugees allowed into the country.

Overall, the United States' lack of action during the Holocaust was a significant failure. The inability of the United States to provide assistance and protection to those who were being targeted by the Nazi regime contributed to the tragedy of the Holocaust and the loss of millions of lives.

The European Theater: The US and Britain achieved a complete wartime partnership. The cooperation between Roosevelt and Churchill ensured a common strategy. They decided from the outset that Germany posed a greater danger and thus gave priority to the European theater. 

From the outset, the US favored invasion across the English Channel. Army planners led by Chief of Staff George C. Marshall and his protégé, Dwight D. Eisenhower, were convinced that, that would be the quickest way to win the war. The British, remembering trench warfare and hoping to protect India, their most important colony, preferred a perimeter approach with air and navy attacks around the continent. As a result, they began by taking back Africa and then moving into Europe via Italy. 

General George Patton quickly rallied the troops and by May of 1943, Germany was driven from Africa.

The long awaited second front finally came on June 6, 1944. For two years, the US and England had focused on building up an invasion force of nearly 3 million troops and a vast armada of ships and landing craft to carry them across the English Channel. Eisenhower hoped to catch Hitler by surprise and chose the Normandy peninsula, where an absence of good harbors led to lighter German fortifications. 

D-Day was originally set for June 5, but bad weather forced delay. On June 6, the invasion began.

• The night before, three divisions parachuted down behind the German defenses.

• At dawn, the British and American troops fought their way ashore.

• By the end of the day, Eisenhower had won his beachhead. 

American tanks raced across the countryside and liberated Paris by the end of August. 

The end came quickly with a massive Russian offensive began and swept towards Berlin and the Americans and British came from the west. 

The Allied air force began firebombing German cities, such as Hamburg and Dresden as well as Tokyo in Japan. This was done with high explosive, incendiary, phosphorous and napalm bombs. The resulting firestorm was so powerful that buildings would have flames reaching over 20 feet high. With hurricane force, 150 mile per-hour winds were sucked into the oxygen vacuum created by the fire, ripping trees out by their roots, collapsing buildings, pulling children out of their mothers' arms.

Twenty square miles of the city centre burned in an inferno that would rage for nine full days... The temperature in the firestorm reached 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit. There was no oxygen to breathe; whatever was flammable burst spontaneously into flame

By April, the armies had surrounded Berlin. Hitler refused to call for a retreat or surrender. He ordered all men, toddlers all the way to old men to fight or be shot on the spot. Hitler committed suicide on April 30. A week later, on May 7, Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of German forces. 

The Pacific Theater: The war in the Pacific was dominated by naval forces battling over vast areas. After taking back Midway, the US conducted amphibious “island-hopping” (basically retaking one island to the next, getting closer and closer to Japan) campaigns rather than attempting to reconquer the Dutch East Indies, Southeast Asia and China.

In early 1942, the Japanese conquered the Philippines. The American-Filipino forces on the main island fell back toward the Bataan Peninsula and were ultimately besieged and surrendered in May 1942. When General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of army units in the South Pacific, was driven from the islands, he famously vowed, “I shall return”. Japanese atrocities began at the very beginning of the occupation. The captured Americans and Filipinos were marched from Bataan to the main island with little food, water, or rest; coupled with rampant acts of violence, between 7,000 and 10,000 died on what was to be named the Bataan Death March.

Kamikaze (Japanese suicide planes) inflicted major damaged in the colossal Battle of Okinawa. Before finally succeeding in taking this island near Japan, US forces suffered 50,000 Success in the Pacific depended on control of the sea. 

Atomic Bomb: The defeat of Japan was now only a matter of time. The US had three possible ways to proceed. The decision would now be up to Harry S. Truman, as FDR died only a few short months into his unprecedented fourth term in office, just prior to the end of the war:

• The military favored a full scale invasion. Causalities would have run into the hundreds of thousands. 

• Diplomats suggested a negotiated peace, urging the US to modify the unconditional surrender formula to permit Japan to retain their emperor.

• The third involved using the highly secret Manhattan Project

Since 1939, the US had spent $2 billion to develop and atomic bomb based on the fission of radioactive uranium and plutonium. Scientists, many of them refugees from Europe, worked to perfect this this deadly new weapon at the University of Chicago; Oak Ridge, TN; and Los Alamos, NM. 

In the New Mexico desert at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945, they successfully tested the first atomic bomb, creating a fireball brighter than several suns and a telltale mushroom cloud that rose some 40,000 feet. The desert sand turned to glass. 

Truman decided to utilize this new atomic bomb as viewed it as a way to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Weather on the morning of August 6 dictated the choice of Hiroshima as the bombs target. Other sites were considered, but virtually the rest of Japan had been destroyed by American bombing campaigns. Hiroshima was an industrial city. The explosion incinerated 4 square miles and instantly killed 60,000 Truman called on Japan to unconditionally surrender or face “utter destruction”. 

Two days later with no response, the US dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki. What the Japanese didn’t know was that, that was the last atomic bomb the US had.

Three weeks later on the desk of the battleship Missouri with General MacArthur, the Japanese surrendered.

7.14: WW2 & Postwar Diplomacy

Wartime Conferences

Casablanca: In January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on the grand strategy to win the war, including to invade Sicily and Italy and to demand “unconditional surrender” from the Axis powers.

Tehran: The first wartime Big Three conference brought together Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at Tehran, Iran in 1943. They agreed that Britain and America would begin their drive to liberate France and the Soviets would invade Germany and eventually join the war against Japan. 

Yalta: The Big Three met again in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference. There agreement at Yalta would prove the most historic of the three meetings. After victory in Europe was achieved, they agreed that:

• The Allies would divide Germany into occupation zones

• Liberated countries of Eastern Europe would hold free elections

• Soviets would enter the war against Japan, which they did on August 8, 1945 *just as Japan surrendered

• Countries would hold a conference in San Francisco to form a new world peace organizations (the future United Nations)

Potsdam: In late July, after Germany’s surrender, only Stalin remained as one of the Big Three. Truman was the US president and Clement Attlee had just been elected the new British prime minister. The three leaders met in Potsdam, Germany and agreed:

1. demand Japan to surrender unconditionally

2. Germany and Berlin would be divided into 4 Allied occupation zones controlled by the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union

The War’s Legacy

Human and Economic Costs: After defeating the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) in WWII the United States was on top of the world. It was the only major war power to not have suffered fighting on its land, plus it had lost a relatively smaller number of soldiers (418,000) compared to some of its allies. On the other hand, The USSR probably lost around 10,000,000 soldiers and an equal number of civilians. The war left the US in huge national debt.

Postwar Agreements: The United States dominated war-ravaged Asia and Europe politically and economically and used this power to shape much of the post-war world and agreements. 

The Paris Peace Treaties were a series of international agreements signed in the French capital, Paris, in 1947 and 1948, that officially ended World War II and established the post-war order in Europe. The Treaty of Peace with Italy stripped Italy of its colonies, its empire, and its territories, and reduced its military capabilities. The Treaty of Peace with Japan imposed restrictions on Japan's military and territorial holdings and required reparations to be paid to the countries that had been occupied by Japan during the war. In some countries, these agreements were seen as harsh and punitive, and they did not bring the peace and stability that was expected.

One of the most important agreements was the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals meant to prosecute prominent leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. The trials included representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France, Many were found guilty of systematically killing Jews - known as the Holocaust.

The United Nations: Unlike its rejection of the League of Nations following WW1, the US accepted and joined the United Nations. The UN was established after WW2, in the wake of the atrocities of the Holocaust and the devastation of the war.

The UN Charter, which was signed by 51 nations in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, sets out the organization’s purposes and principles, including the promotion of human rights, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the provision of humanitarian assistance.

The UN also adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which set out the fundamental rights and freedoms that are entitled to all human beings, regardless of race, gender, religion, or any other status.

Expectations: Americans had concerns about what world order might emerge after WW2, but they also shared hopes that life would be more prosperous. The US had emerged as a dominant global power in 1945 and people looked forward with some optimism in both a more peaceful and more democratic world.

However, the spectors of the Soviet Union dominating Eastern Europe and gaining the A-bomb would soon dim expectations for cooperation. In 1946, the US presented a plan to the United Nations for the control of atomic weapons and disarmament, but the Soviet Union vetoed the plan and developed its own atomic weapons. The breakdown in cooperation with the Soviet Union ushered in a period of Cold War between the democracies and capitalist economies of the West and the Communist political and economic ideologies of the East.