AM History Exam 2 Notes PDF

Seizing an American Empire Toward the New Imperialism - Imperialism involved the use of force, to expand a nation's political and economic power, and other parts of the world including colonies - It can be done through diplomatic or military means, or a combination of the two...

Seizing an American Empire Toward the New Imperialism - Imperialism involved the use of force, to expand a nation's political and economic power, and other parts of the world including colonies - It can be done through diplomatic or military means, or a combination of the two - Often includes assumptions about a nation’s racial or national superiority over another - The United States joined a pre-existing global competition for control among primarily European nations for a variety of reasons - The second industrial revolution had generated a desire for new markets in which American manufacturers could sell their wears, added to this was renewed European need to colonize. Asia and the pacific realm - Many of these nations pursue these colonies for economic, political, and religious reasons (the desire to bring Christianity to the new territories). - American agricultural products had long competed with other nations on the world market - Now the industrial base had expanded to a point where many believed that it could compete as well - At this time the sale power was dwindling and the steam power ship was rising - Admiral Alfred T. Mahan- a strong nation competing globally required a strong navy to protect its shipments - His book would spark a renaissance in how the world thought about their individual navies, and many countries began to modernize their fleet - Albert J. Beveridge, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt (prominent american imperialists) - Social Darwinism- advocates for expansion used the concepts of social darwinism - Viewed as a scientific theory built upon the underpinnings of biological Darwinian evolution - The claims of dominance of White Americans over Native Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans (they were now given a seemingly scientific basis) - They were expanded to justify US and European imperialism abroad and racist laws and practices domestically Expansion in the pacific: alaska and samoa - In the mid-to-late 1800s, American imperialists, like their European counterparts, turned their attention to Asia and the Pacific Ocean - Willian H. seward secured the purchase of alaska for 7.2 million from the Russians  - It was called “Sewward’s folly” by critics but the territory became a source of gold and later oil for the US - In 1878 the people of the Samoan islands granted the US a naval base at Pago Pago. This was in return for solving any disputes with other nations - When the civil war broke out in Samoa in 1887 similar deals were struck with Germany and Great Britain Expansion in the pacific: Hawaii - In 1795 the hawaiian islands were united - In 1875 Hawaiian royalty entered into agreement with the United States, to import sugar duty free as long as hawaii did not lease or grant any of its territory to another nation - This created a boom in the production of sugar, and soon White American planters (known as haoles in Hawaii) had flooded the island nation - Immigrant workers (especially those from China and Japan) also moved to the nation to work the sugar plantations - Queen Liliuokalani was hawaii's ruler, tried to limit growing US power starting in 1891. She recognized that the native hawaiian population had become overshadowed by the growing asian immigrant population and the white planter influence - 1893- the royal family was ousted by the planters with the help of the US marines. A new government was established with white planters in control. - The new government requested territory status and annexation by the United States - President Benjamin Harrison forwarded the treaty to the Senate - Incoming-President Grover Cleveland refused to accept the treaty because he did not want to reward the dishonorable actions of the planters - The white planters have declared that they had set up the republic of hawaii on july 4, 1894. - Openly stated their desire for the new republic to be annexed by the US - President Mckinley secured the ratification of the treaty in 1898 despite protests by native hawaiians. The spanish-american war (war of 1898) - In the latter half of the nineteenth century cubans had repeatedly revolted against their spanish colonizers - Each time insurrection broke out, it was put down bloodily - When another attempt broke out in 1895 the spanish commander put all cubans in spanish detention centers to prevent them from joining the cause - During the cuban movement for independence, about 95,000 cubans died of disease, starvation or combat wounds, many of them in detention camps - These actions were portrayed in Joseph Politzers New York World and William Randolph Hearst New York Journal. - The newspapers engaged in sensationalist stories about cuba that were dubbed “yellow Journalism” - Yellow journalism is journalism based on sensationalism and crude exaggeration - President Cleveland tried to protect American interests in Cuba and the United States was interested in Cuba for economic reasons due to the importance of american owned sugar plantations in the colony - Once Mckinley was inaugurated, issues in Cuba worsened. The battleship Maine was sent to Havana harbor to protect American citizens and interests. - Around the same time, a letter sent from Dupuy de Lome, the Spanish ambassador, to a friend in Havana and published in American papers denounced McKinley as a weak political - On february 15, 1898 the Maine exploded. It killed 266 sailors. At first the explosion was blamed on a mine in the harbor but a 1977 study revealed that it was an internal explosion - Spain and the united states declared war against each other on april 24 and 25, respectively - The US congress passed the Teller amendment which asserted that the us sought to insure cuban independence and not to annex the island - Although the united states denied the intention to take cuba, they left open the option of annexing other territories as part of the war - On april 30th, commodore george duey, destroyed the spanish flotilla in Manila Bay in the Philippines - Duey then relied on Emilio Aguinaldo and the Filipino nationalist fighting for independence from the Spanish to hold the island until american troops arrived - We know of the importance of the Philippines globally because of the presence of British and German naval fleets in the region, who are waiting to see if the Philippines are worth taking for their own empires - Once us reinforcements arrived, Duey and aguinaldo and their forces worked together to take control - Spain and the United States, however, excluded Aguinaldo from the Spanish surrender - When president Mckinley called for volunteers for the war, about 1 million men enlisted. 200,000 were accepted as recruits. Of these 200,000 about 10,000 were African Americans - Most of the black American volunteers were either from Northern or Western states. Those from the south viewed legal segregation and the treatment of black Americans as similar to the Spanish treatment of the cubans. - The war in Cuba was almost as quick as the Spanish surrender in the Philippines. The US Navy blockaded the Spanish Navy while the US Army was transported to Cuba. - One regiment led by former assistant secretary of the Navy, Theodore Rooselvelt, was dubbed the rough riders. They became famous for their role in the battle of San Wan Hill where they took kettle hill while a larger force that included many black soldiers to San Wan Hill.  - Modern Warfare techniques and technologies combined with the heat, unsanitary conditions, and disease made fighting in Cuba difficult. - By the end of the war, which lasted about 4 months, 379 US soldiers had died in battle while 5,462 died from disease or other causes. Spain lost about 60,000 soldiers and sailors also primarily to disease. US forces successfully blockaded Cuba and defeated the Spanish Navy stationed at Havana. The US took control of the former Spanish colony of Puerto Rico by the end of July. - Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris of 1898. They signed it on December 10th and it formally ended the war. - Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Philipinos were excluded from treaty negotiations. - In the treaty, Spain agreed to relinquish Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. - The US agreed to ensure Cuban independence, but they maintained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs - The location of the Philippines next to Asia provoked an expansionist spirit in many Americans. The proximity of the island to China, the availability of vast quantities of natural resources, and the opportunity to Christianize its inhabitants, marked it as a sure bet for colonization. - Riding a wave of evangelism many protestant ministers promoted the opportunity to begin the evangelization of the world - Many unabashedly promoted the benefits of the Anglo Saxon race and the Christian Religion - Many americans found themselves divided by a religious affiliation concerning the annexation of the former Spanish colonies - Protestants favored annexation, while Catholics warned that trying to convert the colonies to Protestantism would only make the problems worse The consequences of Victory - Eventually the peace treaty was ratified. The Treaty of Paris gave Spanish claims over the Philippines to the United States, but it did not specify if the nation would be a US colony, territory, or an independent nation. - So while the United States asserted Cubas right to self rule in the Teller Amendment, no such limitation existed on the US claims of the Philippines - Pro imperialist forces within the United States argued in favor of the US annexing the Philippines and making it a territory - Some thought that the Philippinos could eventually rule themselves, while others viewed them from a perspective of white superiority and argued that they were incapable of self governance - President McKinley's advisor, Mark Hanna, argued that annexing the Philippines would give the US strategic influence in Asia and its markets. Eventually McKinley came out in favor of annexing the Philippines - The four reasons he gave for his decision summarize the basic motivations of American imperialists.  - The first is national glory, the second is expanding commerce, the third is racial superiority, and the fourth is christian evangelism Further conflict - In 1899, Filipino nationalist declared the independence of the Philippine republic. - They chose Aguinaldo as their first president - A month later, an american soldier outside of manilla shot at a group of Filipino nationalists, and a new war erupted - It took three years for the United States to suppress the nationalist uprising that followed - The same Filipino nationalists forces that Duey had relied on to secure Manilla before the US Army could arrive now fought against US colonization or control in the Philippines - aguinaldo , representing the Filipino nationalists, officially recognized US claims over the Philippines in a ceremony in Manilla on April 1st, 1901 - This ended organized resistance but did not end guerilla fighting or the desire of many Filipinos for independence - The Filipino nationalist asserted that they were fighting for independence and the right to self government just like the United States had in the American revolutionary war - Over the course of the war, about 126,000 US troops participated and about 4,234 died - Many more Filipinos up to hundreds of thousands died of conflict, this included civilians - US tactics for suppressing resistance inclluded burning villages, using torture to extract information, executing or killing prisoners and unarmed civilians, and forcibly relocating civilians into concentration camps - The racist language used by many to discuss Filipinos makes it unlikely that the United States would have used similar methods against people that they viewed similar to themselves - Opinions within the United States were divided on the war and about the United States role on global affairs in general - In 1899, the American Anti-Imperialist league formed with funding from Andrew Carnagie and other prominent Americans who opposed US intervention in the Philippines and imperialism as a whole - Their motives were varied, but some highlighted the hypocrisy of the United States, suppressing an independence movement modeled after their own. Others argued political, moral, and religious issues against subjugating other people and taking their rights away - Many christians argued that imperialism was un-christian others viewed the annexation of the Philippines as an opportunity to share protestant christianity - Racism within the United States, especially in the Jim Crow South, further complicated these discussions by highlighting the hypocrisy of racism in the US US interest in the pacific - The philippines eventually was added as a territory of the United States - Its first US governor William Howard Taft - Later legislation provided for greater Filipino control of the islands which resulted in their independence in 1946.  - The 1902 Philippine Government Act determined that the Philippines were considered to be a colony rather than a territory with the feature of becoming a state - Puerto Rico, which had come under US control in the peace treaty with spain, was organized to become a stronghold from future European aggression and as a guard post for a future canal linking the atlantic and pacific oceans - The Foraker Act → passed April 12, 1900 - It stated that Puerto Rican citizens were not US citizens - Teddy Roosevelt and others argued that Puerto Ricans should be eligible for U.S. citizenship - 1917 the Jones Shafroth act set up a territorial government in Puerto Rico and gave US citizenship to those born on or after April 25th 1898 - As they had asserted in the Teller Amendment, the United States recognized the independence of Cuba - The newly independent nation drafted a constitution, but this constitution was limited in its freedom by the Platt Amendment, which placed restrictions on its rights - Samoa granted the United States a naval base and requested US intervention to settle disputes, if necessary. After the United States and Germany agreed to divide their claims over the island in 1899. - In Downes v. Bidwell (1901) the US Supreme Court declared that the former Spanish territories gained by the United States in the war were unincorporated territories. They were ineligible for full protections of the constitution that incorporated territories were due. Incorporated territories are those that have become US States. - This set up a hierarchy among US territories that has impacted statehood, government participation, and many other levels of self-government within the “unincorporated” territories such as Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Samoa. Imperial Rivalries in East Asia - In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry had sailed to Japan to force its acceptance of items from Western markets - 1895 Japan had become expanding by defeating China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) - Japan took several islands and more importantly revealed China's weakness against aggression. - Acting on this new revelation, Germany, France, Russia, and Great Britain began dividing China into markets for their expansion - As a result, Secretary of State John Hay issued the Open Door Note which proposed leaving China open for trade by all nations. - A group of Chinese nationalists known as the Boxers rebelled against the foreign encroachments into their country in the 1900s. They were eventually put down by intervention from a joint assault of British, German, Russian, Japanese, and American forces. Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Diplomacy - Theodore Roosevelt was considered the first modern president - It can be argued that he more than any other president shaped what americans expected of a president in this era - After his role in the Spanish-American War, he became governor of New York, and in 1900, he was elected vice president under McKinley - McKinley was assassinated on September 14, 1901 making Roosevelt the youngest president to ever hold office at the age of 42 - The Spanish-American War once again revealed the need for a canal between the two seas. - The United States was prepared to build one but they weren't sure where it should be located. Two paths were proposed, one through Panama, which was a province of Columbia, and the other through Nicaragua. Eventually Panama was chosen, and when Columbia refused to go along the Panaminians declared their independence. - Columbia was unable to respond due to US warships “conveniently” located in the way. - The canal was opened in 1914 - The Caribbean was ripe for armed intervention from European powers, or US banks, on the premise of collecting debts owed them by those nations - In 1902, Latin American nations attempted to limit this armed foreign intervention into their countries in the Drago Doctrine - In 1904, Roosevelt issued the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine - It stated that if a foreign nation had issues with a western nation, it should come to the US with its grievances and the US would take care of it Relations with Japan - Japanese immigrants arrive at the immigration station on Angel Island - It's a major immigration station in the San Francisco Bay - By the early 1900s, ethnic tensions on the West Coast were escalating to the point of policy intervention - Japan attacked Russia in 1904, when Japan felt that Russia’s ambitions counteracted its own. - In a brilliant attack on the Russian Navy, Japan destroyed its fleet. Roosevelt sponsored a meeting between the two nations which resulted in the treaty of Portsmouth of 1905 - While Roosevelt met with Russian and Japanese leaders to secure peace, he sent Taft to Tokyo to secure an agreement with Japan and which the Japanese disavowed any claims to the Philippines in return for US recognition of Japanese control on the Korean Peninsula - Distrust reigned on both sides and when the city of San Francisco ordered Asian students to attend separate schools, Japan protested the action vigorously  - Roosevelt forces the city to change its policy while securing a “Gentleman's agreement” with Japan and it stated that Japan would no longer issue Visas for its citizens to visit the united states - The capstone of Roosevelt's success as a president came in 1907 when he sent the entire Navy, dubbed the Great White Fleet, across the globe - It landed at every major port, illustrating the might of the United States Taft and Wilson - Republican president, William Howard Taft, followed many of Roosevelt’s policies. Especially the use of his so called “Dollar Diplomacy” - This was used to promote US interest in the Caribbean, Latin America, and East Asia. The concept of Dollar Diplomacy is that American economic strength could be used as a diplomatic tool by influencing foreign markets - Taft’s State Department sent foreign aid to support American companies in these regions. - He also intervened militarily to ensure political and economic stability in areas in which he believed US interests were threatened. - Most notably, Taft sent US marines to intervene in a revolution in Nicaragua starting in 1909. - Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1912 as a democrat. - He argued that dollar diplomacy was a form of economic imperialism. - He had promised to treat Latin American nations with honor, but wilson and his secretary of state, William Jennings Brian, sent US military forces to intervene in Latin America even more frequently than Roosevelt and Taft had combined - Wilson’s interventionism included sending troops to the Dominican Republic in 1915 Intervention in Mexico - The relationship between the US and Mexico became strained during Wilson’s presidency - In 1910, Mexico started going through a series of Revolutions that continued through the decade - Porfiro Diaz’s dictatorship was overthrown by revolutionaries and replaced first with Franciso Madero, then General Victoriano Huerta (who then ordered Madero and other opponents killed). - Other competing revolutionary leaders in Mexico continued to vie for control, including Francisco Pancho villa and Venustiano Carranza - Wilson reviewed Huerta’s government as illegitimate and after 9 US sailors were arrested in Mexico and quickly released Wilson sent US troops to intervene violating the nation’s sovereignty and worrying other Latin American nations that they might also become targets of US intervention - US general John Pershing let these 6,000 soldiers in chasing Villa through the mountains of northern Mexico for nearly a year  - By 1917, American troops were sent home as Wilson became distracted by the threat of the great war in Europe - In the US southwest the Mexican Revolution and other pressures erupted into racial and ethnic violence - When Basilio Ramos, Jr., a Mexican Revolutionary, was arrested in 1915, he had a document called the “Plan of San Diego” - The “Plan of San Diego” stated the Mexico Rebels intention to form an army to overthrow the US government, establish an independent republic, and kill anyone over 16 who was considered an enemy to the movement. - Ramos’s arrest tipped off federal authorities, who were more prepared than they otherwise would have been for the violence that broke out as these Mexican American revolutionaries led a series of raids in southern Texas - Armed forces both government based and others of white texans launched their own race based war against Mexicans in the area. They killed thousands of mexican americans without attempting to distinguish between the adherence the plan of san diego and peaceful mexican americans - The violent conflict ended by July 1916, but left with it the memory of this period of racial and cultural violence of the period The Progressive Era The progressive impulse - Progressives in the early twentieth century urged the government to play a greater role in regulating capitalism and protecting the citizens - They wanted reform, not revolution - Individual progressives did not always agree on what form reforms should take - The progressive impulse impacted both major political parties - Progressives came from a variety of social, religious, political, and economic backgrounds - The social unrest at the end of the nineteenth century bled over into the twentieth - Business owners were more interested in securing changes to avoid the problems they had experienced before hand - The progressive era is marked by growth in the middle and upper middle classes and populism is a catalyst of this era - Most progressives sought to reform capitalism and introduced humanitarian reform - A small group of progressives promoted a more radical version of progressivism, it was focused on socialism - They were mostly members of the Socialist Party of America and included militant farmers as well as German and Jewish immigrants Sources of Progressivism  - The economic depression of the 1890s fanned the flames of reform - Despite having the highest per capita income massive unemployment meant that high concentrations of people were in poverty and could not be hidden by urban reformers - Populism had spurred people into action in the late 1800s and they continued that trend while spreading their message to regions other than the Midwest and West - The socialist, radical wing of progressivism focused on working conditions, income, and taxation. - However the moderate majority of progressives preferred a regulated capitalism that practiced humanitarianism - These “gentlemen” reformers made “honest government”, an ideal of progressivism Muckraking Journalism - The publications of the mugwumps on reform of the civil service shifted the focus of society on improving the systems that affected them daily - Photographs and photojournalism of New York immigrants by Jacob Riis showed “how the other half lives” - Samuel S. McClure recruited Journalists to investigate and expose political and corporate corruption for his magazine - Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, and Ida Tarbell were among the most prominent of these muckrakers. Their goal was to inform people about the political and social corruption and problems through the news - Theodore Roosevelt used the muckrakers to increase support for his progressive policies - Roosevelt gave them their name when he said that they were “often indispensable to…society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.” Religious activism and social responsibility - By the end of the century religious groups were taking up the settlement house movement - Through the social gospel christians and jews provided a crucial source of energy for progressive reformers - The social gospel is the belief that religious institutions and individual christians should help bring the kingdom of God to everyday life - Relying on the teaching of their faith they worked to promote laws, like establishing a minimum wage and a shorter work day - The social gospel’s emphasis ons social service as a form of religious practice encouraged the establishment of organization, such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) the YWCA for women and YWHA for hebrews, as well as the salvation army - Such organizations offered young men and women a place to stay and exercise, along with access to libraries, classrooms, and kitchens. - The idea was that these services was to help people from rural communities or foreign countries  - The salvation army helped feed the poor and provided day nurseries where working mothers could bring their children - Many proponents of the social gospel rejected social darwinism, condemned racism, and nativism and sought to help the most vulnerable members of society - Washington Gladden was a principle reformer and a minister from Springfield Massachusetts. He argued that the greatest thing Christianity should emphasize - He argued that the greatest thing Chrrisitianity should emphasize is the teaching to love thy neighbor as thyself - His publications and teachings especially working people and their employers which came out in 1876 made him a leader of the reform movement - Walter Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) argued that christianity as revealed by Jesus included both personal salvation and a commitment to social justice - To combat the slums and tenement houses, workers such as Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr created residential community centers known as settlement houses - These facilities were mainly staffed by middle class college educated women who had few other outlets for meaningful work - They worked to improve the lives of their dwellers through meeting their practical needs this included arranging nurseries for working women, kindergartens, and neighborhood programs for children The Woman’s Suffrage Movement - San Francisco suffragists calling for a constitutional amendment marched across the country in 1915 to deliver a petition with over 500,000 signatures to congress in Washington D.C. - Along the way, they were warmly received by other suffragists - With the rise of industrialization women became more common in the workplace - By 1920, 7.8 million women worked outside the home - In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the national women's suffrage association. It was founded to secure nationally the right of females to vote - The same year, Julia Ward Howe and Lucy Stone formed the American Woman Suffrage Association or the AWSA that focused solely on suffrage for women - The two groups united to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1890 - That same year Wyoming gained statehood and became the first state to grant the full suffrage to women - Women in western states were more likely to become involved in populism - In addition, these less populated states sought to attract women to the region by granting them suffrage - By 1912, women had gained suffrage in 12 Western states  - Only in 1917 did New York become the first state East of the Mississippi River to grant all Women full suffrage - The woman’s suffrage movement would not be successful at a national level until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 Progressive’s Aims and Achievements - The selection of party candidates since Andrew Jackson’s era had been held at a national convention of party members - During the progressive era this system was supplanted by the direct primary system, in which every party member was allowed to vote for a candidate - Also during this time the initiative and referendum were introduced and in some states were allowed to directly pass laws or force the legislature to consider legislation - In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment changed the process of electing Senators by allowing for direct elections by the people rather than relying on votes from state legislatures - In 1911, the concept of “Taylorism” was introduced. It promoted efficiency in the workplace and allowed workers to accomplish more during less time. - After experiencing a devastating hurricane and tidal wave in 1901, Galveston, Texas became the first major city to adopt the commission system promoted by efficiency reformers - In this system, a board of commissioners had both legislative and executive powers that they used to lead city departments - Over sixty cities commissioned by 1911 - Staunton, Virginia adopted the even more popular city-manager plan in 1908, and many cities followed - In this plan an appointed city manager ran the city or a county government based on the policies that an elected city or county council and mayor adopted - In general, city government reform movements aimed to make the government more efficient and tried to reduce corruption - A potential unintended consequence of these reform efforts was a decrease in political participation at the local level by many working class voters - Before these changes the way many working class voters had participated was through party politics - Reform efforts, on the other hand often sought to give at large commissioners and non partisan specialists more control, making local government less tide to party politics - Wisconsin’s progressive Republican governor, “Fighting Bob” Robert M. La Follette, introduced the “Wisconsin idea,” - Efforts under the Sherman Antitrust act of 1890 to control big business had proven more symbolic than effective. Attempts to reestablish small firms in areas in which a trust had a monopoly had failed. - Attempts to secure social justice spread during this time  - Some of these efforts included regulating child labor, regulating the consumption of alcohol and creating more hygenic cities - Proponents of social justice advocated for better working conditions and living conditions and decreased hours for the working poor - They also sought to end child labor and campaigned for child care and the ability for the children to attend school. They argued that an education would make them better citizens - Middle-class women became involved in many social justice movements including the prohibition movement which sought to end the sale and consumption of alcohol - The WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) membership of 300,000 demonstrated the popularity of this movement - Some women advocated for temperance or prohibition because they viewed drinking alcohol as a mortal sin, others thought that ending alcohols grip on people would fix families, they thought it would end domestic violence, reduce public crime, promote social progress, and end the practice of party members buying votes by offering beer on election day - Frances Willard helped expand the objectives of the WCTU. During her time as president it was the nation’s largest women’s organization. (1879-1898) - The group still sought individual temperance and abstinence from alcohol and promoted prohibition - The WCTU also argued in favor of the 8 hour work day, women's suffrage, child labor regulations, food industry inspections, government funded kindergartens, and other social reforms that they viewed as important for helping working class families - The Anti-Saloon league was founded in 1893 and focused its efforts on closing saloons and promoting prohibition in local and state elections - In 1913 the anti-saloon league endorsed what became known as the 18th amendment which was ratified in 1917 Labor Legislation - Many progressives argued in favor of a reduced work day and work week for waged laborers. - They suggested that workers could do better work if they worked 8 hours rather than the approximate 12 hours they were working almost every day of the week - They also fought for regulations to make working conditions safer for workers and limit child labor - Most working families depended on the income of the husband, wife, and children in the late 19th century - Around 1.75 million children ages 10-15 worked outside the home in 1900 - The tragic 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York spurred calls for government regulations to make workplaces safer - The fire at this sweatshop resulted in the deaths of 146 workers and they were mostly young foreign born women  - The Supreme Court’s involvement with state labor laws sometimes complicated progressives’ attempts to promote shorter workweeks and safer working conditions - In Lochner v. New York (1905) the court ruled a New York law that limited bakers to a 60 hour work week unconstitutional. They argued that the workers had a right to work any job they accepted - In Muller v. Oregon (1908) the court upheld an Oregon law that restricted women to a 10 hour work day or lower. It considered evidence that longer working hours could result in health problems for women - It considered evidence that longer working hours could result in Health Problems for women The “Progressive” Income Tax - To raise awareness about labor reform everyday objects were displayed alongside descriptions of the poor working conditions and exploitation that went into their manufacture - Progressives asserted that using a Graduated or “progressive” income tax would equalize the distribution of wealth in the nation and help fund the federal government - The income tax level “progressed,” or rose, based on a person’s income so the rich would pay higher taxes and the poor would pay lower or no taxes - Taxes would also be used for services that would help the poor - The Supreme Court declared that the 1894 tax passed by congress unconstitutional - According to the justices, only states could levy income taxes - Progressives proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow the federal government to have a federal income tax - It was ratified as the 16th amendment in 1913 Progressivism under Roosevelt - In 1902 roosevelt embraced a “Square Deal” for americans - It included the “Three Cs” - 1. Greater government control of corporations - 2. Enhanced conservation of natural resources, and - 3. New regulations to protect consumers against contaminated food and medications - Roosevelt was willing to use confrontation and executive power to promote progressive ideas - Unlike his Gilded Age predecessors he shifted the balance of power away from congress and towards the executive branch - Roosevelt sought to uphold existing Anti-trust legislation and add more powerful enforcement powers to it - He often supported the regulation of trusts over their dissolution, as he viewed this to be more efficient - The Roosevelt administration initiated nearly 25 Anti-trust suits  - Through these cases the Interstate Commerce Commission which was created by the Sherman Anti-trust act of 1890 was further strengthened and made more relevant - When coal workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia went on strike until a 20 percent pay increase was granted Roosevelt did not follow in Reverent Hayes or Grover Cleveland’s footsteps. Hayes and Cleveland had immediately sent troops to restore the mines - Roosevelt attempted to broker a resolution between the two sides until the owners refused to accommodate. He then threatened to take over the mines which caused the owners to relent Roosevelt’s Duality and Reelection - Roosevelt managed to secure the Republican nomination - The democrats nominate Alton B. Parker who essentially was unknown - Because of this Roosevelt wins - In his second term Roosevelt committed himself even more to regulating corporations - He started with the railroads and then tackled food and drug production - An area that was dear to Roosevelt was Environmental Conservation - He endorsed the appointment of Gifford Pinchot to the department of Agriculture's division of forestry - They used the forests reserve act to protect 172 million acres of forest from being logged - He also set aside 234 million acres of federal land for conservation - One of his biggest failures was his record on confronting racism. - Progressives focused on empowering and helping the “people” but most of them excluded African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and other immigrant groups from their definition of people. Transition to Taft - After two terms Roosevelt decided not to run in 1904 - He urged the Republican party to nominate his friend William Howard Taft - Taft agreed to run and to follow Roosevelt’s policies - The problem was that Taft was an excellent administrator but not a reformer or a crusader and not as charismatic as Roosevelt - He angered the progressives because he was not a strong reformer - He further damaged his relationship with the progressives during the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy - Taft’s secretary of the interior, Richard Ballinger and allowed commercial development on federal lands - Gifford Pinchot complained publicly about Ballingers actions - This eventually got Pinchot fired and ignited a feud between Taft and Roosevelt Formation of the progressive party - Even though Taft attempted to get the Progressives’ support again by supporting a wide range of legislative acts, but none of it satisfied Roosevelt  - In 1910 Roosevelt announced that he was returning to the nation political stage with his program of “New Nationalism” - His idea of new nationalism would force corporations to promote social welfare and help working people - Roosevelt believed that he could get the Republican nomination over Taft, but Taft secured the nomination - In response delegates that supported Roosevelt launched a new political party called The Progressive Party - The Progressive Party supported a minimum wage, women’s suffrage, finance reform, and social insurance - At their first presidential convention a controversy develops over the role of African American Voters - Roosevelt’s decision was this: that in - Northern states African American voters could send a bi-racial delegate to the convention - but the segregated South could only send white delegates - This was a decision that many people believed to be hypocritical to progressive ideals 1912 election - The feud between Taft and Roosevelt split Republican votes - Taft was rendered irrelevant and most debates focused on Roosevelt and the democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson - Roosevelt had his new nationalism and Woodrow Wilson had his New Freedom - Woodrow's New Freedom favored small government, states rights, and eliminating trust to restore competition - The split Republican vote gave the election to Wilson - This election also changed the character of the Republican party by removing almost all of the Progressive elements - The Republicans would become more conservative Throughout the twentieth century - The socialist party’s emergence on the national stage - Eugene v. Debs promoted a flexible socialism that was christian, democratic, and transformative without being revolutionary - He gained support from coal miners, sharecroppers, lumberjacks, and sweatshop workers - While he did not get enough to support to seriously challenge the Republicans or Democrats, he garnered some national attention Woodrow Wilson - Woodrow Wilson favored small government and states’ rights - He aimed to restore economic competition by eliminating all trust rather than just those that operated illegally - When Wilson won in 1912, he had a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, which facilitated the passing reforms much easier  - He had a PhD in history and political science which made him an expert on the governmental processes - In his first two years he pushed more bills through congress than any other president before him Financial and Business Reforms - Wilson believed that U.S. corporations were misusing tariffs to create monopolies that kept consumer prices high - He worked to lover tariffs rates and by extension, consumer prices - Wilson summoned Congress to the longest special session in history which lasted 18 months - The Underwood-Simmons Act (1913) was passed and it lowered tariffs on almost 1,000 imported products - As compensation, the first income tax under the Sixteenth Amendment was included in the bill - The Federal Reserve Act was the first major banking reform since the Civil War - The act created a national banking system with 12 regional districts - The purpose of the system was to adjust national currency supply to promote economic growth - This system would become the most significant program in Wilson’s administration - It was Wilson’s creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would define what was considered unfair trade practices and it would enforce their regulations Progressive Disappointments and Resurgence - In 1914 Wilson declared that his new freedom was complete - He believed it had achieved all it had set out to do. Many progressive did not agree, however. - Progressives had been advocating for more Federal social-justice legislation but Wilson argued that liberty met a limitation on governmental power - African American Progressives were disappointed in Wilson’s racial record - He did little to address the discrimination and violence faced by African Americans and Mexican Americans - Wilson also failed to support women’s suffrage arguing that it was up to the states to deal with the issue - Suffragists such as Alice Paul changed their tactics. They picketed the White House, and protested Wilson’s inauguration. Paul and others would form the National Women’s Party - With the 1916 election upcoming, Wilson returned to reform. - A wide range of legislation was passed to help farmers, this included the Federal Farm Loan Act and Board, Warehouse Act, Smith-Lever Act, Smith Hughes Act - They also passed reforms to help laborers, such as the Keating-Owen Act. The act prohibited employers from hiring workers under the age of 14  - The Adamson Act required time and a half pay for overtime which was anything over 8 hours - In the end, progressivism reached its peak under Wilson, but it still fell short of the hopes and ideals of its supporters America and the Great War (1914-1920) The Great War in Europe, 1914 - The buildup of national armies, the creation of alliances, and legacies of imperialism all created a combustible situation in Europe - World War I (known at the time as the “Great War”) erupted in 1914 when a Serbian terrorist group called the Black Hand assassinated the crown prince of Austria - When Austria demanded that the terrorists be turned over Russia mobilized the army to what it considered a sister nation - This triggered a series of alliances that pitted The Allies of Great Britain, Russia and France against The Central Powers of Germany, Austria Hungary, and Italy An Uneasy Neutrality - As nations entered the war they pulled their global empires in with them - The powers expected their resources both economic and human to help with the war effort - In the decades preceding this war, the spread of militarization, industrialization, and a global competition for economic and imperial control had led to the development of technologies that contributed to the scale of human suffering and destructiveness of the Great War - It was not long before the war deteriorated into Trench Warfare with both sides in a bloody stalemate - Both sides used a vast amount of resources and large militaries to try to wear down the enemy and exhaust enemy resources - The horrors of the trenches impacted soldiers both physically and psychologically Initial American Reactions - At the time the Great War erupted, 30% of all Americans were no more than two generations away from their mother countries, with 8 million being of German descent - The prevailing opinion was that the United States should remain neutral but most American leaders were pro British from the onset - Both the Central Powers and the Allies looked to the United States for food and War material - To finance their needs France and Great Britain requested loans from the United States - Although this violated the neutrality of the United States, Wilson approved loans to the Allies - By the time the war ended over 2 billion had been given to the Allies and only 27 million had been given to Germany  - Numerous Americans volunteered for the Allied military forces or joined volunteer medical groups - Although these men and women did not officially serve with the still-neutral United States, they served an important role in the war effort Peace with Honor - Germany declared the area around the British isles a war zone and warned that any ship entering the area could be attacked by their submarines without prior warning - When a British passenger ship, the Lusitania, was sunk on its way from New York to London 128 American lives were lost. - As a result Americans demanded a war, but Wilson refused to yield - To cool American passions Germany ordered its submarines to avoid sinking passenger ships - In December 1914, Wilson requested the Army and Navy prepare themselves for War - Wilson had no intention yet of asking for a declaration he chose to be ready if the need arose - To finance this, Congress raised the income tax to 2% in The Revenue Act of 1916 - In 1916 Congress also passed the National Defense Act which allowed the U.S. Army to expand from 90,000 to 223,000 over 5 years. This was in response to continued German aggression - Teddy Roosevelt desired to be the Republican candidate in the 1916 election, but because of his action in 1912, the party chose Charles Hughes - The Democrats again nominate Wilson - Running on the slogan “He kept us out the waR” and promising “peace, prosperity, and progressivism,” Wilson won a second term - Following his reelection Wilson yet again tried to broker a peace but to no avail - When Germany broke its pledge to wage only restricted submarine warfare Wilson countered by arming merchant ships America Goes To War - In February 1917, the Zimmerman telegram was revealed - Zimmerman, the German foreign minister, had instructed his ambassador to Mexico to have him request that the Mexican government join with the Central Powers - In return, Mexico would receive back all of the land that had been taken away by the United States in the Mexican American War of the 1840s and possibly Texas - The Mexican government asserted that the country would remain neutral in the war but many Americans called for entry into the war against Germany - In March 1917, German U boats sank five U.S. merchant ships - Wilson asked Congress on April 2, 1917 to recognize that a state of war existed between the two nations - Congress passed the declaration of war against Germany followed by declaration against other central powers Mobilizing a Nation - Although the armed forces had begun preparing for war, the U.S. army at the time was the 17th largest in the world - Forces needed to be recruited, equipped, and trained before they were transported across the Atlantic to fight in Europe - The Navy’s first role was to protect shipping convoys from the U.S. to Great Britain - By providing loans for the allies the U.S. re-invigorated the allies in Europe - An early group of troops led by John Pershing reached Paris in July 1917 - The Selective Service Act was passed on May 18th 1917 and sought to increase the size of U.S. forces - Many servicemen however enlisted without being drafted - About 20 percent of the recruits were immigrants - In order to mobilize the nation, it became necessary to coordinate different industries under government bureaucracies - These organizations helped Americans raise the needed funds and conserve necessary items and they promoted the growing of their own crops to prevent shortages - Raising taxes and selling “Liberty bonds” and other war bonds helped the U.S. government raise 30 billion dollars for the war effort - For perspective, this was over 30 times the U.S. federal budget in 1917 - Children including the boy scouts and girl scouts got to sell these bonds - The suspension of immigration and the realecation of the 4 million men to the war effort caused a shortage of workers - To find replacements recruiters went to the South and brought back 400,000 African Americans (we also see women entering the workforce in record numbers) - Their contribution was so moving to Wilson - Immigrants and temporary workers from Mexico, in addition to Mexican Americans, also helped fill American jobs during the war - Once the war ended these various groups often faced discrimination or job loss as white men who had served in the military had returned to the domestic labor force On the Home Front - War propaganda ranged from encouraging people to volunteer to producing and not wasting food to security and support for the war - Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover to the newly created Food Administration, its purpose was to increase agricultural production while reducing civilian consumption to help feed Great Britain and France - The Food Administration promoted wheatless mondays, meatless tuesdays, and porkless thursdays and saturdays - The war generated a need for soldiers and millions of minorities answered the call - The 77th “Melting Pot” Division from New York City had draftees of 50 nationalities, most of them immigrants - More than 400,000 Black Americans joined the Army and Navy where they served in separate segregated units led by white officers  - A month before entering the war congress passed the law granting citizenship to Puerto Ricans and 20,000 served - Mexican Americans hoped to improve their status in the United States by serving in the war effort Maintaining Public Support - Due to the increased demands on civilians in this war the United States sought to mobilize public opinion in support of the war - Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) it was charged with conveying the allies war aims to the American people and to the enemy as well in an attempt to sap them around - This included the making of Hollywood movies as well as sending men charged with delivering four-minute speeches across the nation to make their case - The war effort soon turned into a Witch hunt against German Americans - Anything German was considered bad so they renamed a couple of things - Sour Crought became Liberty Cabbage, German measles were called liberty measles, and Doxins were called liberty puffs - The Espionage and Sedition Acts resulted in over 1,000 convictions of disloyalty to the United States - Some Americans against the efforts to limit free speech for the sake of the war, from a variety of political persuasions - The supreme court upheld the Espionage and Sedition acts in Schenck v. United States (1919) and Abrams v. United States (1919) - Overall, over 1,055 people were convicted under the Espionage act including socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs - Debs was a pacifist and criticized the war, asserting that it was another example of the exploitation of the working class by the ruling elite - Even while Debs was a prisoner the socialist party nominated him for the 5th time as their presidential candidate in 1920 - He received over 900,000 votes from prison Immigration, Labor, and The War - Forces such as pseudoscience, fear, and racism convinced many Americans that immigration, especially from Southern and Eastern Europeans threatened the nation - They feared the impact of the increase of immigrants from the enemy nations - While some worried about the rise of the radical political views among immigrants others feared the immigrants simply because they saw them as different - The Immigration Act of 1917 restricted immigration in many cases - It required that Immigrants over 16 years of age demonstrate basic literacy in any language and it increased the cost of immigration  - In addition, it denied entry to “idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, paupers, beggars, warrants, alcoholics, prostitutes, persons afflicted with disease, criminals, polygamists, and anarchists.” - The act excluded immigration by any Asian immigrants except for Japanese and Filipino immigrants - In the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” made by then-President Roosevelt in 1907, Japan’s government had voluntarily limited Japanese immigration to the U.S. - Filipinos, as members of a U.S. colony, were U.S. nationals so they could move within the United States and its territories - Immigrants and their recent descendants were not the only Americans whose loyalties were under suspicion - The U.S. government viewed both the industrial workers of the world (IWW) and the Socialist Party as potentially dangerous entities during the war - Members of the IWW argued that they needed to focus their efforts on the battle between labor and management in the U.S. - Members of the Socialist party were pacifists The American Role in the War - At the beginning of the war, Russia was part of the Allies but in 1917 Russia became consumed in its own revolution - After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on March 2, 1917, the Allies thought that Alexander Kernsky and other pro-democracy revolutionaries would help democratize and perhaps even “Westernize” Russia - Germans helped exile Marxist Vladimir Lenin they helped him return to Russia in an attempt to undermine the Allied war effort - The Bolsheviks emerged as the majority revolutionary party under Lenin's leadership, and Lenin presided over a more radical and ruthless revolution - Lenin negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, with the Germans ending the Soviets part in the war and after this the Eastern front fell silent - The leaders of the Allied Powers, including Wilson attempted to support an anti-Bolshevik white army during the Civil War in Russia that the revolution had triggered - Wilson’s efforts against the Bolsheviks were not productive, and led to deeper mistrust in Russia of the motives of the Americans and the Allies - Russian Communists believed that American expeditions were attempts to hinder the Russian Revolution - The American forces did not play a major role until 1918 - At the Battles of Belleau Wood and Vaux Americans gained limited ground but it made significant improvements to Allied morale - At the Second Battle of the Marne a German attack was rolled back all the way to Belgium - Soon the Germans were in defeat. The American efforts had allied the Allies to break the stalemate that had existed up till then. The Great War, The Western Front, 1918 - Wilson hoped to impose on the victorious Allies and the defeated Central Powers a series of agreements designed to prevent such an occurrence again - These are known as Wilson’s 14 points - The German government desired to adopt the Fourteen Points as part of the peace treaty, but the victors viewed them only as a foundation on which to begin negotiations - While this was occuring, the war was still being waged, but Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria Hungary, and Italy have all dropped out of the war, although the end was in sight Chapter 22- A clash of cultures 1920-1929 - The United States in the 20s was a nation in transition. - Modern science and technology versus traditional beliefs and morals - Rural american life vs urban life - New technology was facilitating the industrial boom which was making life easier for Americans, it also provided the economic growth that made access to these new technologies easier - After the war the demand for agricultural products diminished so more americans were moving to the urban centers to gain access to new economic opportunities - The influx of different ethnic and ideological groups brought with it changes to politics, including the decline of progressive popularity - The 20s saw incredible economic changes in the United States, inflation was low and employment was high - Wealth grew and the United States had the highest standard of living in the world - The post war economy differed substantially from the one that preceded it, new products swept the markets and prices dropped considerably - Things that had once been only obtainable to the wealthy were now purchased by the middle class - With the growing focus on consumption, two new innovations emerged, marketing and advertising - As national brands and mass advertising grew more people sought the same goods, brands, and forms of entertainment - Movie making and movie going grew in popularity in the 20s with an average of 80 million people attending the movies each week - In 1927, the first movie came out with sound and talkies, as they became known, took over silent films - Movies drove americans to desire to talk the same, dress the same, and experience the same lifestyles they saw on the big screen - Radio broadcasting and ownership boomed in the 20s and further influenced this mass culture - Through radio americans were introduced to musical genres such as Jazz and Country  - Henry Ford's innovative assembly line technique cut the cost of his model T substantially and made it affordable for the americans who had more money due to the postwar economy and consumer boom - Mass produced automobiles significantly impacted travel as well as the economic and social development characterizing the 1920s - Cars opened up new possibilities by allowing people to live farther away from their workplaces and creating a new demand for construction work - Americas car centered culture quickly became an important symbol of modernity and for many freedom - The new car culture changed where and how people lived and work and aided the economic boom by providing jobs in related industries, like steel rubber and gas as well as new types of businesses like motels and tourism - The increase in transportation and modes of income - Baseball, football, and prized fights became common weekend destinations - Babe ruth and Lue Garring became famous as baseball players for the New York Yankees, but baseball was a segregated sport and the negro leagues for the African American players became another popular form of the spectator sport - College football attracted crowds in the 20s and professional football began to emerge as a competitor to baseball after Harold Edward Red Grange of the university of Illinois went professional in 1926. He signed with the Chicago Bears - Boxing continued to be a popular spectator sport - William Harrison Jack Dempsey attracted the attention of working class men and became a boxing champion - F Scott Fitzgerald dubbed the post war era the Jazz Age, because young people were more willing to embrace new experiences like Jazz - Many Famous African American musicians combined ragtime and the blues to create the form of music that became known as Jazz - They blended African, European, and other musical forms into a distinctive and highly popular musical form - Among the more famous of these musicians, were jelly roll morton, duke ellington, louis armstrong, and bessie smith, who was known as the empress of blues - Jazz appealed to people of many different backgrounds and spread from city to city. From New Orleans to Memphis, St Louis, Kansas City and to Chicago South Side and Harlem of New York A Sexual Revolution - Many young people, especially those on college campuses expressed a different view on sexuality than that been held by their victorian parents  - Margaret Sanger fought for birth control, her efforts to promote the use of birth control grew out of her work as a nurse and midwife in working class tenements in New York City - She argued that if a women could plan her pregnancy and she could better prepare for the fewer children they would have which would lead to smaller and healthier families - Sangers American birth control would later become known as planned parenthood in 1942 its goal was to inform the public about various forms of contraception - These efforts gained much hostility but in 1955 the US court ruled in favor of a woman's right to contraceptives in Griswold v. Connecticut The “New Women” - A relatively small group of young women known as Flappers sought to rebel against the traditional social roles for women and embraced new less confining fashions - Their rejection of such conventions shocked many Americans, who viewed them as self-indulgent and dangerous to society The Harlem Renaissance - The influx of African Americans in Harlem, in Northern Manhattan, spurred a literary and artistic movement that became known as the Harlem Renaissance - This was the first large scale movement of its kind among African American artists and writers - Zora Neale Hurston and other women writers and artists played an important role - Hurston sought to help give a voice to poor African Americans and to speak out against white bigotry and violence - She was the first African American to enroll in Barnard college and became an anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist Garveyism - During this time, a period of Negro nationalism would develop with an emphasis on their culture - Their greatest supporter was Marcus Garvey - Garvey created the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) which promoted the relocation of black americans back to Africa - Garvey insisted that blacks had nothing in common with whites and he supported the KKKs opposition to racial mixing - Some black leaders did not agree with Garvey and believed that the relocation of blacks to Africa was just another form of colonization Reactionary Conservatism and Immigrant Restriction - The growing middle class of America, which was primarily made up of white, native-born American families, tended to embrace the decade’s prosperity and consumerism - By the 1920s over half of the white men and a third of white women working in industries were immigrants mostly from eastern europe  - Socialism and anarchism also came from these areas which led those with nativist tendencies to view immigrants as suspect and nativism once again swept the nation - This trend led to demands to limit immigration into the United States, and a series of laws were adopted that limited the number of immigrants per country per year - The Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 limited immigration overall to 150,000 people per year - It set up a system in which only up to 3 percent of each European nationality in the 1910 census could be approved for immigration to the United States per year The New Ku Klux Klan - The KKK found new life in this nativist surge and we get what's called of the second iteration of the clan - No longer limited to the South, the Klan was a reaction of shifting moral standards, the rise in the number of immigrants, and the declining influence of churches - The many groups that were targeted by the 1920s KKK understandably feared the group’s popularity and power - As the KKK moved to different regions, they focused their anger on the minority group of that region (Mexicans in Texas, Japanese Americans in California, and Jews and Catholics in New York) - The group’s membership started to crumble, however, when its influential leader, “Grand Dragon of Indiana” David C. Stephenson was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnapping, rape, and mutilation of a 28-year-old female KKK staff member - By 1930, the group’s membership which peaked at 4 million in 1924, fell to 100,000 Fundamentalism - In the 1920s, progressive and liberal protestants and fundamentalist conservative protestants argued over the interpretation and application of the Bible - Fundamentalism is the belief that the Bible should be read and interpreted literally by the word of God - This movement largely grew out of conservative protestant fear that progressive protestant groups were watering down, or teaching heresy, by reconsidering their interpretation of scripture in light of Darwin and other biological scientists theories of evolution - In 1925, Tennessee outlawed the teaching of evolution in schools and colleges - This was part of a larger movement across the nation, especially in the south, in which states passed laws banning the teaching of Darwinism in school - A young substitute science teacher named John T. Scoped agreed to work with civic leaders in Dayton, Tennessee to attract attention to the town by disobeying the new law - The jury found Scoped guilty, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the $100 fine on a technicality, while leaving the anti-evolution law in place - Following the conclusion to the Great War most american retired to return to their isolationist days before the war - The Red Scare, the return to a high tariff rate, and immigration restriction were all examples of these desires - Although the United States would never join the League of Nations, it was not long before they sent unofficial observers to the league to combine forces to fight international crime -