Download First Half of HIST 1302 - The University of Texas at Arlington

Lecture Chapter 18
The American West and The Creation of the Western Image
The American West played an increasingly significant role in United States' history
between 1865 and 1890. During this period, Anglo-Americans settled 430 million acres
of land and overwhelmed Native Americans in the so-called Indian Wars. Furthermore,
ten new states entered the Union, bringing the total number of states to forty-eight by
1912. Finally, over the course of just a few decades, three commercial "empires" rose
and fell: mining, especially gold and silver; farming; and cattle.
Some questions to keep in mind:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Where was the "Old West" between 1865 and 1890? Can you locate it on a map?
Who was Frederick Jackson Turner and why was he significant?
How did the United States deal with American Indians in the West?
What about those people that were already there can it be called a frontier if it was
already inhabited?
5. Is the West still appealing today? Why or why not?
Frederick Jackson Turner was a farm boy from out west writes his thesis and later
becomes a prof. at the University of Wisconsin and later sells out to Harvard.
Major points:
1. Turner conceived of the West not as a particular geographic place, but as a
frontier process - as a series of West on a receding frontier line - the point where
savagery meets civilization.
2. For Turner, American history was largely a tale of people leaving settled areas for
the frontier, and their struggle to survive in new lands. According to Turner, this
epic struggle explained American development.
3. The frontier reproduces American democracy and individualism - the frontier
requires Americans to develop new institutions and "free land makes free men."
4. Finally, Turner claimed that in 1890 the frontier had closed, ending the first stage
of American development. Turner believed that the closing of the frontier created
uncertainty, and he questioned how Americans could maintain their democratic
traditions and institutions without access to free land.
He is the fore father of American Exceptionalism.
Land gave individuals mobility----Free land was the American Dream
In the west democracy would prevail----Prior to the settling of the west the closest
democratic states were Kentucky and Tennessee why because they were egalitarian
states
Thus in the west we would have egalitarian communities.
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In sum, Turner argued that civilization is a process in which society becomes ever more
complex. As complexity increases, opportunities become more limited, and civilization
inevitably subordinates individuals to society
Other reasons why the west was so attractive
1. Space
There are three distinct environmental regions:
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Trans-Mississippi West ( Middle West to 98 parallel )
Far West (Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains to Pacific Ocean)
Great Basin (Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains.
A myth is created in the West of a garden of Eden Wilber described the trans-Mississippi
West as a lush paradise. He based this claim on "scientific" evidence that purportedly
proved that "rain follows the plow." The myth of the Garden undermined the idea that the
West was the "Great American Desert" and convinced many American farmers that they
could prosper on the Plains.
The credibility of the Garden myth was strengthened by the unusually high levels of
rainfall recorded throughout the 1870s and early 1880s, which further encouraged
settlement. But, by the mid 1880s, the Plains entered a period of low rainfall and massive
out-migration. Families began to leave with signs on their wagons, "In God we trusted, in
Kansas we busted."
The heyday of the "Old West" was from roughly 1865 to 1890. During this period,
American migrants drove Indians from their homelands, and settled more than 430
million acres of land, which doubled the size of the nation. Furthermore, these settlers
carved out ten new states. Finally, three western-based commercial "empires" rose and
fell between 1865 and 1890; mining, especially gold and silver; farming; and the cattle
industry.
The Images that arose form the western experience
Americans continue to associate with the "Old West" became a breeding ground for a
number of fictional characters who seem to embody rugged individualism and selfreliance, such as the yeoman farmer, the wealthy cattle baron, the lawless gunslinger, and
the hardy cowboy.
Wild Buffalo Bill Cody---Wild Bill Hickock---Wyatt Earp--Billy the Kid
The emergence of the Trans-Continental railroad represented what?
big business in the West.
Progress the rise of
So how deals with the Indians the federal government, so in essence the government the
railroads and big corporations settle the west.
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Some settlers do fight Indians but soon after Little Big Horn the feds get on it and
eradicate them. (Stagecoach scene is a myth)
One striking event was that at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 many folks were
shocked to know Indians still existed in the West.
Cowboys
The Civil War introduced more people to beef so after the war there was a great demand
for beef in the east Coast.
Historians say approximately 35,000 men worked as cowboys between 1864 and 1884.
Of those 35,000 men, approximately 25% were black, 12% Mexican, and 63% White.
Surprisingly enough cowboys work on cattle drives for only a 20 year period in this time
they than 5,000,000 head of cattle from breeding grounds in Texas to railheads in Kansas.
The railroads then allowed western ranchers to ship cattle to markets in the East and to
Europe.
The cowboy was the everyday laborer on the drives. The cowboy worked in close
cooperation with others during the drive and under the supervision of the trail boss.
He was hired by the owner and was under contract for the drive north.
Some of the trail drives were the.----Goodnight Loving that began near Weatherford.
Western Trail, Chisholm Trail, and Sedalia Baxter Trail.
Mention about the Spanish contributions in clothing and methods. Give a slight
history of the Mexican cattle men…
The fact of life in the West was not independence and self-reliance, but rather
cooperation and interdependence.
The Native Population
The end of the Civil War and the settling of the West ushered in a massive reduction in
the indigenous population of North America has been a defining factor in American
Indian history.
Historians estimate that the Indian population stood at 10 million during the 1600s.
By 1865, however, just 300,000 remained. Disease and near-constant warfare among
Indian tribes and between native peoples and the United States decimated indigenous
tribes during this period. Many Indians die of disease with out ever seeing a EuroAmerican
After the Civil War, the United States relocated most American Indians west of the
Mississippi River. Because they felt some of the land the land was useless (Oklahoma).
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In the West, the federal government maintained armed forts and other posts to protect
white settlers and travelers.
The federal government recalled most of these troops to fight in the Civil War. As a
result, there was an increase in Indian attacks against the posts.
Nevertheless after the Civil War the federal enforcement took its toll on the Indians.
Assimilation
The 1867 Peace Commission
The 1867 Peace Commission was a federal effort to "civilize" and "pacify" western
Indians by moving them to reservations.
Federal officials established major reservations in present day South Dakota, Oklahoma,
and Arizona.
Leaders of various tribes agreed to reservations in an attempt to preserve their way of life
and to ensure peace.
However, despite treaties and peace policy, white settlers continued to encroach on
Indian lands in direct violation of the treaties.
From 1870-1890, white settlers put extreme pressure on reservation lands, which
sometimes exploded in bloody conflict.
Carlisle School to educate the Indians.
Major goals of the U.S. government to defeat the Indians.
Federal agents formulated an Indian Policy that had several key elements during this
period.
First, they encouraged the destruction of the buffalo as a way to both weaken Indian
tribes and to attract tourists to the West.
In 1865, there were approximately 12 to 15 million buffalo on the Plains. By 1885,
however, this number had fallen to just a few hundred.
Reservation policy also led to rampant government corruption. Many Indian agents, for
example, stole supplies intended for American Indians and confined tribes to the poorest
reservation lands.
This corruption fueled angry Indian rebellion and, eventually, sparked open warfare. The
United States government attempted "pacification" of the Indian tribes in a number of
cases:
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Chivington Massacre (Sand Creek) 1864 The U.S. Army scalped men, women,
and children. Chief Black Kettle was killed there is a pretty disturbing photo of
him frozen in the snow.
Red River Way (1874) defeat of Comanche
1877 defeat of Chief Joseph and-the Nez Perce
Little Big Horn
1886 defeat of Geronimo and the Apache
1866-1890 Sioux battle government
Battle of Little Big Horn
In 1876, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse fled their federal reservation to protest Indian
agent corruption and white encroachment on reservation lands following the discover of
silver and gold in the Black Hills.
The United States ordered George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry to pursue
the two Indian leaders.
In the Battle of Little Big Horn, often known as "Custer's Last Stand," the Indian forces
overwhelmed and killed Custer and all of his soldiers.
They offered Custer a Gattling Gun.
This crushing defeat outraged many white Euro-Americans
Wounded Knee
During the 1880s, the Sioux Indians practiced a new religion called the "Ghost Dance."
Its followers believed that their faith would drive away white Americans and restore
Sioux society. In 1889, a group of Sioux warriors, women, and children, again left their
reservation and tried to flee to Canada. Government troops soon surrounded the Sioux at
Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Soldiers opened fire on the Indian camp using Gattling
(machine) guns. The attack left 300 innocent people dead (including 170 women and
children) and the American soldiers left the wounded to die in the snow.
The final nail on the Indian coffin….
Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
The Dawes Severalty Act (1887) was the major federal law that shaped Indian policy
until the 1930s.
Congress enacted the law in an attempt to transform Indians into independent farmers.
The federal government pledged to provide Indian families with farming tools and 160
acres of reservation land.
If Indians accepted this grant of (their own) land they could then become full American
citizens.
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To limit exploitation of Indians by unscrupulous whites, the government would act as a
trustee, insuring that Indians could not sell their land for 25 years.
To this day Indians are wards of the state, and arte still getting cheated… Mention
casinos…
On its face the Dawes Act was well-intentioned but impossible to enforce.
From the 1880s until the 1930s, Indians sold or lost nearly two-thirds of their total land
holdings (approx. 86 million acres).
Those that remained in their hands were not good for agricultural development. The
Dawes Act nearly destroyed the reservations.
Views on the demise of the “Indian Problem”
There are two differing ways to interpret incident at of Wounded Knee. It can be seen as
the final triumph over the "Indian Problem" or as the slaughter of innocent Native
Americans out of revenge for Little Big Horn and the continued resistance to assimilation
and land loss. Nevertheless, Wounded Knee was the last military confrontation between
the United States and the Indian tribes.
The Closing of the frontier and those who helped close it..
Where are the women-----Land for the taking----Homestead Act gave 160 acres to anyone who paid a 10.00 registration fee and promised
to live and cultivate it for five years…
The Timber Culture Act was an amendment to the Homestead Act it would give
farmers a extra 1600acres if they planted trees on ¼ of the land.
Desert Land Act provided 640 acres at 1.25 and acre provided they irrigate the land.
The Timber and Stone Act of 1878…. Allowed anyone in Nevada, California, Oregon,
and Washington to buy land that was unfit for civilization for 2.50 an acre
Technological Advancements
Also mention Glidden, barbed wire
The chilled smooth plow
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Agricultural planting techniques in low rainfall areas, that had been introduced by
Spaniards who had learned them from the Moors.
Modified wheat.
Large scale operations that included people and machines.
Nonetheless these large farms found it hard to compete with smaller diversified farms
during the times of low rainfall.
Mining techniques and mining attracted immigrants form Mexico, China, Peru, Germans,
and Chile. Mining techniques were brought to the U.S. form Mexico where mining had
been going on for over a century.
Sod Busters
A miserable life, a sod home could be built for as little as 2.75. Provided poor ventilation
and light. Hot in the summer cold in the winter.
Sodbusters, advanced farming techniques, the demise of the Indian, sheep raising, and
barbed wire ushered in the closing of the open range.
The Grange an organization formed by Oliver Kelly. The National Grange of Patrons of
Husbandry provided social, cultural, and educational activities for its members. They
had a membership of over 800,000 and set up cooperatives grain elevators, warehouses,
insurance companies, etc. They eventually became Populists.
The final land thrust the opening of the Oklahoma Territory by president Benjamin
Harrison on April 22, 1889. Tom Cruise movie….
In closing remember the points mentioned in the beginning who really settled the west…
1
2
3
4
5
Where was the "Old West" between 1865 and 1890? Can you locate it on
a map?
Who was Frederick Jackson Turner and why was he significant?
How did the United States deal with American Indians in the West?
What about those people that were already there can it be called a frontier
if it was already inhabited?
Is the West still appealing today? Why or why not?
And what was the lasting influence of the western perspective on national identity and
our culture today…
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Lectures 18-19
The Gilded Age, the Industrial Society, the Politics of Corruption, and the
Urban Society of 1870-1900
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. How did the federal government transform the American economy during the
Gilded Age?
2. Why was corruption so rampant in American politics during this period? Was it
worse than today? If so, why?
3. Was there really any difference between the Republican and Democratic parties at
this time? If so, what?
4. Who were some of the "new" businessmen of the era and how did they operate?
Is it best to refer to them as "Robber Barons" or "Captains of Industry? Why or
why not?
5. What was the corporation revolution? How did it transform the American
economy?
6. In your opinion, did Gilded Age businessmen make the United States better or
worse? Why?
The Gilded Age was a time of economic transformation in the United States.
Immediately following the Civil War, America's industrial output paled in comparison to
the mighty industrial powers of Western Europe, especially Great Britain. However, by
1900, only Great Britain's industrial production exceeded the total industrial production
of the United States. Two major factors precipitated the rise of industry:
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New Businessmen
New Ways of Doing Business
Two general themes caused tension during the Gilded Age:
1. Laissez-faire "1: a doctrine opposing government interference in economic affairs
beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property
rights." Source: Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1990).
2. Concentration of power in the hands of the government at all levels - local, state,
and federal. Government during this period assumed more authority and power,
especially expanding its bureaucratic control and authority. Major areas of
expansion of government power included land policy, railroad subsidies, tax/tariff
policy, immigration policy, and Indian policy.
New Businessmen
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Historians often describe nineteenth-century businessmen in two contradictory ways:
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"Captains of Industry"--some scholars describe nineteenth-century industrialists
as ingenious and industrious capitalists who transformed the American economy
with their business acumen. These "Captains" were the folk heroes of their day;
faces of men like Andrew Carnegie would have graced the boxes of Gilded Age
Wheaties© rather than Olympic gold medal winners. These men seemed to
embody the American dream of "Rags to Riches."
"Robber Barons"--other historians have viewed the Gilded Age industrialists as
immoral, greedy, and corrupt, and have mustered ample the evidence to support
such a view. Bribery, illegal business practices, and cruelty to workers were not
uncommon during this period, and many of the most respected industrialists were
also feared and hated.
James A. Garfield
(1831 - 1881) A Republican party leader during the nineteenth century who served as
president in 1881. His record was marred by his unorthodox acceptance of a fee in the
DeGolyer paving contract case and by suspicions of his complicity in the Credit Mobilier
scandal. Garfield was assassinated after only a few months in office by Charles J.Guiteau,
a disappointed office seeker, on July 2, 1881.
Grover Cleveland
Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey, on March 18, 1837. He was admitted to the
bar in Buffalo, New York, in 1859, and lived there as a lawyer and became active in
Democratic politics.
1. Key features of corporations
2. What was a corporation?
3.
4.
Corporations in the past
Combination of corporations
Key features of corporations
One of the key features of corporations and the Gilded Age, in general, was an increasing
concentration of power in large entities. Business and government became bigger while
their respective operations became intertwined. Ever since the federal government had
used its power and money to encourage businessmen to build railroads, all levels of
government had become more involved in the nation's economic welfare.
What was a corporation?
A corporation was formed when a group of people requested a charter from the state
legislature that provided them with a set of legal rights and (presumably) responsibilities.
State law treated the corporation as an individual. Unlike a partnership, in which liability
ran high for individual investors, the corporation involved limited liability. Limited
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liability makes individual investors legally liable only for their share of the investment.
In partnerships, if a partner skips town or dies, the other partners are liable for any
outstanding debts. In corporations, if an individual investor dies no other investors are
affected. If the corporation goes bankrupt, the law only required investors to foot the bill
for a percentage corresponding to the proportion of their investment.
Combinations of corporations
One of the most salient characteristics of the Gilded Age was the continual combination
of corporations. Small corporations began to merge with one another to increase
efficiency and profits. Americans soon knew these new "mega corporations" as trusts. In
such trusts, a small board of trustees managed the means of production and distribution.
Though trusts were certainly larger, more efficient, and more profitable than smaller
corporations, they also destroyed the healthy competition that often makes capitalism a
viable economic model.
Standard Oil of New Jersey
In 1879, John D. Rockefeller and a handful of associates founded Standard Oil of New
Jersey, the prototypical example of corporate consolidation and efficiency. Rockefeller
was so successful that at his death, his personal fortune was estimated at
$815,647,796.89, not to mention the $40 million in profits that the Standard Oil trust
averaged every year. Moreover, if buying stock proved too arduous, Rockefeller
sometimes hired armed Pinkerton Agents to "persuade" his competition to relinquish
control. The Pinkerton Agents were famed for their club-wielding ability, and many a
small business owner became familiar with the wrong end of those clubs.
The Social Philosophy of American Businessmen
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. What was Social Darwinism and why did so many American businessmen
find it appealing during the Gilded Age?
2. How did businessmen justify their actions between 1870 and 1900?
3. What did many Americans think about corporations?
A Threat to the Pursuit of Happiness
Why did so many Americans view the new corporations and trusts as evil entities that
destroyed the American dream of the "Pursuit of Happiness?"
Though we can provide many answers to this question, there are three important points
that can help us understand the logic of those who despised growing corporate power:
1. There was no analogy in the past
2. The corporation was an artificial creation
3. Corporations threatened free competition
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There was no analogy in the past a new invention…
Thomas Jefferson assumed America would become a land of independent yeoman
farmers when he authored the "Declaration of Independence" in 1776. He believed that
an agrarian lifestyle rooted in hard work would keep individual farmers and, ultimately,
the nation, strong and vibrant. Like the Democratic philosophy of F.J. Turner.
This ethos of individualism has permeated American culture since the days of the
Pilgrims.
One conspicuous symbol of the American attachment to romantic individualism is the
"American Cowboy" and the images of the "Wild West."
After the corporation revolution, many Americans struggled to adjust to a new form of
economic organization that seemed to emphasize cold-hearted acquisitiveness over more
compassionate business practices.
The corporation was an artificial creation
Corporations were essentially nothing more than a legal agreement between legislators
and businessmen. As we can see in our own era, Americans often mistrust lawyers,
legislators, and businesspeople.
Thus, it is not surprising that many Americans disapproved of a legislative process that
allowed a group of investors to create a money-making device that only existed on paper.
Corporations threatened to destroy competition
Perhaps the most convincing argument advanced against the corporations and trusts was
that they threatened to destroy the age-old concept of free trade and healthy competition.
Capitalism certainly has faults. One of its great advantages, however, is that healthy
commercial competition can benefit consumers by providing more economic choices and
lower prices.
As trusts and corporations grew larger and became more dominant during the Gilded
Age, people began to fear that corporations would destroy free competition and eliminate
the benefits of capitalism.
Pursuit of Property
Attempts to reconcile the "Pursuit of Happiness" with the "Pursuit of Property" were
unpersuasive to most Americans.
Many thought that corporations could mass-produce individual happiness, many
Americans disagreed.
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For this reason, businessmen resorted to another tactic to persuade Americans that
corporations offered the best way of doing business.
Three main themes of late-nineteenth-century thought provided American businessmen
with a set of terms and ideologies to justify their activities as "Robber Barons:"
1. Social Darwinism
2. Self-adjusting economy
3. Profit incentive as only human motive
Urban Working-Class Work Day
Many Americans continue to believe that hard work is good for the soul.
During the 1830s and the 1840s, textile mill workers labored an average of 16 to 18 hours
a day.
By 1865, the length of the average workday was between 11 and 12 hours per day.
Beginning in the early 1880s, workers demanded a reduction in the workday to 10 hours.
In a few cities, such as Chicago, organized labor began agitating for the now-standard 8
hour day. Some factory owners agreed with such reforms.
Most, however, continued to believe that workers benefited morally from the longer work
day.
Wages
Employers believed that workers should not earn much more than a subsistence income.
Why?
1. High wages hurt profits. Corporate capitalists believed that they needed profits to
open more factories and to hire more workers.
2. Moral reasons. Owners believed that a subsistence wage prevented working
people from wasting their money on alcohol, gambling, and prostitutes.
As a result, the bulk of the urban American population in 1890 was living below the
subsistence-level of income.
The average annual income for a family of four in 1890 was $380. That same year,
however, the Census Bureau estimated that a subsistence income was $530.
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was founded in 1869 as a secret order at a tailors' meeting called in
Philadelphia by Uriah S. Stephens (1821-1882). By far the most important of the early
labor groups, in 1879 under the leadership Terence V. Powderly it was organized as an
industrial (vertical) union on a national basis under central control, with membership
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open to all workers.
Source: The Oxford Companion to American History. Oxford University Press, 1966
Important Points:
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First significant national labor organization with local chapters in cities
throughout the United States.
Membership open to any worker except lawyers, bankers, gamblers, and liquor
dealers. Even management could to join.
African-Americans made up around ten percent of membership.
Sought to bring about reforms in working conditions and in society at-large.
The Knights of Labor "Tried to be all things to all people..." Perhaps this was the
cause of its decline. It was too inclusive and its goals were too broad for the
organization's resources.
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
(1886) founded by Samuel Gompers as a national organization of trade unions. By
promoting independent and autonomous trade groups (a reorganization of the Federation
of Organized Trade and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada formed in 1881) it
sought to compete with the centrally controlled unionism of the Knights of labor. In its
efforts to improve the economic status of wage earners the A.F. of L. used strikes and
boycotts to force collective bargaining.
Source: The Oxford Companion to American History, Oxford University Press, 1966
Important Points:
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The AFL remained the largest union in the country until 1955 when it merged
with the CIO
It became the "mainstream" voice of labor during much of this period. (In contrast
to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) which was more radical and tried
to organize unskilled laborers.)
The AFL stressed workplace issues: better wages, shorter work days and weeks,
worker safety. It was less concerned with reforming society.
It did not permit unskilled laborers to join. This was a union of skilled
craftsworkers.
Samuel Gompers was the first president of the AFL.
Foreign Immigrants in Industrial America
While conditions in nineteenth-century Europe worsened for millions of its inhabitants,
the United States entered a period of incredible prosperity. Millions of Europeans who
suffered through the Industrial Revolution, economic depressions, and crushing famines,
began to envision America as a land of unbounded opportunity.
Unfortunately, the unprecedented economic turmoil that periodically swept the United
States during the second half of the nineteenth century often dashed European dreams of
gold-paved streets and free land.
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Furthermore, many Americans who sought scapegoats for the nation's festering economic
and social problems pointed to the immigrants as the source of their problems.
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. Why did so many Europeans choose to migrate to the United States during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
2. How did immigration transform American society and culture?
3. How did Americans react to immigration?
The Nature of Nineteenth-Century Immigration
Although it took "native" Americans a bit of time to realize that immigrants from
southeastern Europe were "undesirable," politicians and community leaders were quick to
realize the "dangers" of actually allowing Chinese and Japanese immigrants into the
country.
The implicit racism of immigration restriction is most clear in the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act, which made immigration from China illegal, and the 1906 "Gentleman's
Agreement," which gave the United States the right to exclude Japanese immigrants.
Since the federal government excluded Asian immigrants during the late-nineteenth and
early-twentieth centuries, this lecture concentrates on European migrations to the United
States.
Exclusion Commissions
In 1907, the United States Senate, under intense pressure from groups like the
Immigration Restriction League, formed the Dillingham Commission to study the origins
and consequences of immigration.
Immigration Restriction League
"This organization was founded in 1894 by a group of Boston lawyers, professors, and
philanthropists who were alarmed by the large number of immigrants entering America
each year.
The league urged that immigrants be required to demonstrate literacy in some language.
In theory a literacy test would not discriminate against the people of any particular race,
creed, or color.
A literacy bill was passed by Congress in 1897, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it.
In 1917, however, as wartime hysteria fed American xenophobia, another literacy bill
was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
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Reasons for Immigration
Four major factors had altered their society in Europe:
1.
2.
3.
4.
A dramatic population increase.
The spread of commercial agriculture.
The rise of the factory system.
The proliferation of inexpensive means of transportation such as
steamships and railroads.
Why did immigrants settle in cities?
Many immigrants came to America with little money to buy farms or expensive farming
equipment.
Others settled in cities because U.S. American agriculture was far different from what
most had been accustomed to in Europe.
Some, including many Slavs, simply came to America too late to acquire free or cheap
land.
Others moved to cities for different reasons. They lived in tenements with privies.
Many Irish opted for an urban life because they associated farming with the with English
landlords who had persecuted Irish tenant farmers.
Immigrants, particularly Jews, settled in urban areas because their forebears had already
established vibrant cultural, religious, and educational institutions throughout many of the
nation's largest cities.
Nevertheless, they all formed networks of their own that resembled their country.
Political Machines in the city Tweed Ring. The Democratic political machine was
known as Tammany Hall. William M. Tweed who traded services for votes.
Reactions of "Native" Americans to Immigration
The term "native," in this context, refers not to American Indians, but rather to AngloAmericans who considered themselves "true Americans" even though their ancestors had
been migrated from Europe just a few generations before.
Increasingly, they and many other Americans blamed "radical" immigrants to for the
nation's labor problems.
Many of these upper class folks worked in the skyscrapers so they moved to the suburbs.
Justifications for excluding immigrants
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Anglo-Saxon Myth
During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, many college professors,
scientists, and other intellectuals, such as John Fiske, promoted the idea that human
evolution had culminated in the Anglo-Saxon race.
Such thinkers argued that more "primitive" races (any "race" that did not originate in
northwestern Europe) did not possess the mental, physical, or social capacities of AngloSaxons, who were responsible for the finer points of civilization.
"Scientific evidence" of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race was hardly evidence at
all. Some scientists believed, for example, that the slope of a person's forehead was a
reliable indicator of their intelligence.
As the logic went, Anglo-Saxons were more likely to have a high forehead; therefore,
"scientists" conjectured that Anglo-Saxons were necessarily more intelligent
Eugenics
The "science" of eugenics claimed that heredity determined cultural and social patterns
and, hence, that selective human breeding would advance civilization.
Many Americans seized on eugenics to rationalize "scientifically" their racism. Since
many Americans already assumed that southeastern Europeans, African-Americans,
Jews, Asians, Middle Easterners, and American Indians were of "inferior" blood,
eugenics simply gave them "scientific proof" that these "inferiors" were causing North
America’s social problems.
Scientists, politicians, and others relied upon the "evidence" of heredity to advocate such
drastic measures as sterilization, controlled breeding, institutionalization, and even
executions of the feeble.
People often associate such measures with Nazi Germany and Hitler's methods of "racial
purification." Yet, proponents of eugenics and "racial purity" also enjoyed a great deal of
popular support in the United States during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.
Social Manners and Mores
The Victorian Era
Two constant goals of Victorian life were the rejection of sin and the practice of
responsibility, but many Americans at the time felt that women needed outside protection
in their constant struggle with temptation.
Supporters of the Cult of True Womanhood often referred to women and children as
"weaker vessels"--a as feeble beings who were susceptible to sin unless isolated from the
evils of society in the haven of domestic life.
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They viewed fathers as the rightful protector of families who should have unlimited
authority over his wife and children.
Women, Feminism and Sex in Progressive America
On May 9, 1908, the United States Senate rejected a bill that would have established
Mother's Day as a national holiday on the grounds that motherhood was too sacred to be
demeaned by a day in its honor.
Just 11 years later, in 1919, the Senate passed the 19th Amendment, giving women the
right to vote. At the dawn of the twentieth century, women activists and their male allies
were preaching a new day for women.
What was the relationship between the suffrage movement and other feminist campaigns,
and why did the women's movement quiet down in the 1920s after women got the vote?
The history of the women's movement in America, both the struggle of women to get the
vote, and the larger goals of feminism--social and economic equality with men.
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. "All feminists are suffragists, but not all suffragists are feminists" stated a
feminist in 1913. How did the goals of the early American feminist movement
sometimes differ from those of the suffrage movement?
2. Why did the women's movement quiet down in the 1920s. Was it simply
because women had won the vote?
3. How revolutionary was the so-called "sexual revolution" of the early
twentieth century?
"Cult of True Womanhood"
In the last half of the nineteenth century, Victorian ideals still held sway in American
society, at least among members of the middle and upper classes. Strict, hierarchical
Victorian thought promoted a so-called "cult of true Womanhood," which preached four
cardinal virtues for women:
1. Piety--Advocates believed that women were far more religious and spiritual in
nature than men.
2. Purity--America's women were supposed to be pure of heart, mind, and, of
course, body, not engaging in sexual intercourse until marriage, and even then not
enjoying it. A popular poem of the day
3. Submission--Women were supposed to live in a kind of perpetual childhood,
passively responding to the actions and decisions of men.
4. Domesticity--The Industrial Revolution had created a clear division between the
public sphere of work and the private sphere of home. Home and hearth,
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according to the Cult of True Womanhood, became the domain of woman and her
refuge from the temptations of everyday life.
Three areas of social change, in particular, alarmed members of Victorian-era American
society:
1. Dress Reform
2. Education of Women
3. Women Entering the Workforce
Restriction even in language
The arbiters of the English language stripped women, or, more properly, "ladies," of their
"arms and legs," words which seemed too sexually suggestive, and replaced them with
"limbs." At the dinner table, gentleman never offered a proper lady a chicken "breast,"
only "light meat." Not everyone went along passively with this the stifling conventions
of true womanhood.
The Women's Rights Movement
The Seneca Falls Convention met in Seneca Falls, New York, from July 19 to July 20,
1848. Organized by Quakers Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the convention
was the first public gathering in the United States to address the rights of women. One
result of the convention was the "Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments."
The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony was the more radical woman's suffrage group. It accepted only
women and opposed the Fifteenth Amendment since it only enfranchised AfricanAmerican men.
The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was more moderate in its views
than the NWSA. It allowed men to join and rallied behind the Fifteenth Amendment as a
step in the right direction toward greater civil rights for women. Leaders of the AWSA
included Julia Ward Howe and Lucy Stone.
Three main feminist movements: 1870s-1919
1. The Suffragists
After 1870, suffragists focused on winning for women the right to vote. Their arguments
were slightly different than those of suffragists before the Civil War. Early reformers had
argued that women, as human-beings, had a natural right to vote. From the 1870s on,
however, suffragists took their cues from the Cult of True Womanhood and argued that
women were different and, in some cases, better than men. Women, for example, were
more noble, more spiritual, and truer of heart then men. Granting women the right to
vote, they argued, would help purify political corruption in the United States.
18
2. The Social Feminists
Social feminists agreed with the suffragists that women should get the vote, but dedicated
themselves to social reforms other than suffrage. Prominent social feminists were often
leaders of the settlement movement, such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley. Florence
Kelley (1859-1932) was a prominent feminist and social reformer.
Part of that generation of women who first gained access to higher education, Kelley
graduated from Cornell University in 1882. However, like many women graduates of her
time, she had difficulty finding work that was worth her talents.
In 1891, she joined Jane Addams at Hull House. From 1898 until 1932, Kelley served
as the head of the National Consumers' League (NCL), a lobbying group for the rights of
working women and children.
3. The Radical Feminists
Radical feminists offered a much stronger critique of American society, economics, and
politics.
They condemned the Cult of True Womanhood. Thier chief arguments were quite radical
for America at the turn of the century. They argued that:



Common humanity shared by men and women was far more important than
sexual differences
Social environment, not biology, determined the roles of men and women in
society
In an industrial society, women would be released from the home, enabled to
make a broad human contribution rather than a narrow feminine contribution to
society
The Great Migration: Blacks in White America
Although chattel slavery had been illegal for three decades by the 1890s, southern blacks
often felt that a new kind of de facto slavery had taken its place.
Lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and economic hardship made southern blacks feel as if very
little had improved since emancipation.
Beginning in the 1890s and lasting well into the 1970s, a "Great Migration" of southern
blacks to the West and North changed the demographic structure of the nation.
African Americans turned to the "Promised Land" of the North in search of jobs and
greater racial toleration.
However, such basic demands fueled increasing debate over the place of blacks in
predominantly white U.S. in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries
19
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. Why did so many African-Americans migrate to the North during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
2. Who were some of the most significant African-American leaders during this
period? How did their visions for American society differ?
3. How did the "science" of the times shape perceptions of race in American
society?
The "Great Migration" increased dramatically in the years between about 1910 and the
early 1920s.
Between 300,000 and 1,000,000 African-Americans moved north during this period,
largely in response to an increased number of unskilled factory job openings as northern
manufacturers boosted production for World War I.
African American migration between 1916 and the 1960s remained strong, except during
the Great Depression. More than 6 million southern African Americans made the move to
the North during this period.
Booker T. Washington
The founding of Tuskegee Institute, a Negro normal and agricultural school in Tuskegee,
Alabama, in 1881, and the choice of Washington as its first principal, began his major
career.
A staunch believer in industrial training for African Americans rather than liberal arts
education, he was shunned by many black intellectuals, notably W. E. B. Du Bois, who
saw in his philosophy the guarantee of continued African American servility.
W. E. B. Du Bois
"Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1868, W. E. B. Du Bois was
of African, French, and Dutch ancestry.
He was educated at Fisk and Harvard universities and soon after obtaining his Ph.D. at
Harvard in 1895 joined the faculty of Atlanta University, where he taught economics and
history from 1897 to 1910 and edited the Atlanta University Studies, 1897-1911.
With his Souls of Black Folk in 1903 he announced the intellectual revolt against the
accomodationist principles of Booker T. Washington that crystallized two years later in
the founding, under Du Bois's leadership, of the Niagara Movement.
When this group was merged with the newly founded National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, Du Bois became editor of the
association's journal, Crisis, holding the post until 1932....
20
During the 1940s Du Bois began a move from nonideological radicalism toward a
Marxist and pro-Soviet viewpoint; this change culminated in his joining the Communist
party in 1961...."
The Racism Continues.
White Attitudes and "Scientific Racism"
All but the most staunchly racist whites were willing to accept Booker T. Washington's
plans to uplift African-Americans. Washington, after all, was essentially arguing that
blacks should work jobs that most white Americans did not really want. The way society
sees Mexicans now, right?
Du Bois's assertiveness and Marcus Garvey's veiled threats of racial violence, however,
frightened many Northern whites. Many whites, in fact, turned to late-nineteenth-century
"science" to justify segregation and racism.
Psychology
One of the lasting legacies of early psychology was the invention of I. Q. testing. Many
psychologists believed that they could discover just how smart people were and rank their
intelligence level on a comparative scale.
Life in the U.S. was changing dramatically in the years following the Civil War. Large
cities emerged across the continent, railroads made transportation cheaper and more
reliable, businessmen and laborers struggled to shape U.S. capitalism, and immigration
and migration forced U.S. Americans to reconsider their definition of who exactly was an
"American." This turmoil, however, was not simply confined to the East or North, or
even to urban centers.
Rural America, in fact, increasingly became a political and economic battleground at the
end of the century.
As technological, political, religious, and economic changes transformed rural life, many
small farmers began to fear that society was "going to hell in a hand basket."
The story of this swiftly-changing rural world is an extremely interesting aspect of U.S.
history; so interesting, in fact, that it is the topic of the next lecture
The Rise of Populism
Beginning in the 1870s, worsening conditions in rural America caused many people to
abandon their farms. At the same time, changes in farming practices and the agricultural
marketplace made farmers more dependent on commercial decisions made by big-city
21
businessmen. In reaction to these trends, farmers began to take political action that led to
the emergence of the national Populist movement in the 1890s.
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. How did agriculture change in the United States between 1870 and 1900?
2. How did farmers try and protect their economic interests and way of life
during this period? Were they successful? Why or why not?
3. Who were the Populists? Why were they so appealing to farmers? Did they
change American politics? If so, how?
Other Farmer Alliances
Farmers and Laborers' Union of America was a regional association in the
Southwest. By 1890, it had 3 million members.
Northwest Farmers' Alliance began in Chicago and spread throughout the
Midwest. By 1890, it had 2 million members.
Colored Farmers National Alliance addressed the needs of AfricanAmerican farmers in the South and in the Midwest. By 1890, it had between 1 and
1.5 million members.
These three groups held a convention in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1889, but they were
unable to overcome regional differences and form a national organization. In the
elections of 1890, however, southern farmers allied with local Democrats, while
Midwestern farmers formed their own local parties which became known as "People's
Parties." Mary Elizabeth Lease, a Kansas farmwoman, was one of the Populist orators
who traveled throughout rural America trying to whip up support for pro-farm candidates
in the election of 1890.
Main critiques made by Populists:





The American legal system placed too much emphasis on property rights
Monopolies were an economic and social evil
Social Darwinism & laissez-faire were bankrupt ideologies
Industrial society had turned individuals into economic commodities
Wealth was unevenly distributed
Populism and Presidential Elections
William Jennings Bryan was nominated for president by both the Democrats and the
Populists in 1896. At the 1896 Democratic national convention, Bryan delivered the
"Cross of Gold" speech, which called for unlimited coinage of silver.
He held that government should protect individuals and the democratic process
against the growing power of monopolies. Bryan lost to the Republican candidate,
William McKinley, who ran on a platform of "prosperity for all."
22
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Under Harrison, 1st federal attempt to regulate big business. Later became crippled in
U.S. vs. E.C. Knight and Co.
Sherman Silver Purchase Act
Under Harrison, Intended to put an end to the silver coinage problem by minting all the
silver presented to U.S. mints. This was a federal move to make the country bi-metallic.
Later causes the depression of 1893.
Grover Cleveland’s dilemma
Knew the problem behind the depression.
Became scapegoat for the Bank Panic of 1893 and the depression.
Made and attempt to curtail the depression by enacting Tariff reduction legislation.
Eventually caused the Democratic party to split.
In the election of 1894 the Republicans gain control of the house and the senate and
Cleveland will be the last Democratic president until the election of 1912 where Wilson
becomes president due to a republican split.
The Age of Progressivism
Historians often describe the Progressive movement as the urban counterpart to
Populism. Although the two movements shared some characteristics, they also had some
important differences.
Most important, Progressivism found support among small businessmen,
professionals, and middle-class urban reformers, in contrast to the disgruntled farmers
who fueled the Populist movement.
In the end, however, both Progressives and Populists left a lasting stamp on the
nation's history.
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. What social, economic, and political factors fostered the Progressive
movement?
2. Compare the goals and accomplishments of the Progressives and the
Populists. Which movement was more successful?
3. Why might some historians argue that Progressivism was the "Dawn of
Liberalism?"
23
Definition of Liberalism:
Although many historians speak of a Progressive "movement," we should really
think of Progressivism as an umbrella, under which a variety of reform groups
and champions of liberalism gathered. So, any discussion of Progressivism
should begin with the meaning of "Liberalism" at the beginning of the twentieth
century:



Government should be more active
Social problems are susceptible to government legislation and action
Throw money at the problem
"Definition" of Progressivism:
Progressives, themselves, were never a unified group with a single objective or set of
objectives. Instead, they had many different, and sometimes contradictory goals,
including:
1. End to "white slavery" (prostitution and the sweat shops)
2. Prohibition
3. "Americanization" of immigrants
4. Immigration restriction legislation
5. Anti-trust legislation
6. Rate regulation of private utilities
7. Full government ownership of private utilities
8. Women's suffrage
9. End to child labor
10. Destruction of urban political machines
11. Political reform
Types of Progressive Reform
There were four basic types of Progressive reform, and each reform corresponded to a
key word, repeated time and again in the rhetoric of Progressives:




Economic--"Monopoly"
Structural and Political--"Efficiency"
Social--"Democracy"
Moral--"Purity"
Basic Goals of Progressives
Even though they were not a unified group, Progressives shared five basic characteristics
or beliefs:
1. They were moralists
2. Government, once purified, must act
3. Believed in protecting the weakest members of society
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4. Never challenged capitalism's basic tenets
5. Paternalistic, moderate, soft-minded
Origins of Progressive Thought and Action:
"Discovery" of poverty
Poverty had always existed in American society, but a number of urban reformers began
to call for new legislation to help the poor in the late 1870s and early 1880s
Charity movement
Prior to the late 1870s, there was no systematic method for social welfare, just individual
charity groups funded by private donors. In 1877, however, reformers in Buffalo, New
York, organized a citywide effort to coordinate local charities. This type of system
eventually spread to other United States cities.
Emancipation of Women
The 1880s saw the first generation of women--mostly white and middle- or upper-class-to graduate from college in large numbers. These women left college full of enthusiasm,
but, for the most part, were shut out of professions in medicine, law, science, and
business. So, they often used their energies to battle social injustices.
Good Government movement
In the 1880s, reformers organized clubs in several American cities in an effort to
streamline government, to clean up corruption, and to turn municipalities into model
corporations.
The National Conference for Good City Government took place in Philadelphia in
1894. This was the starting point for many reformers who identified themselves with the
Progressive movement. The keynote speaker was future President Theodore Roosevelt,
who was the Chief of Police for New York City at the time.
End First Section here Exam I
Lecture 19
Acquisition of an Empire
Because the U.S. was too occupied in reunifying the north, concentrating on the
Industrial Revolution, and pacifying the West and dealing the Indians it lagged behind in
colonial expansion.
Until conquest of the North American continent was complete, industrialization
had made the United States wealthy and powerful, nonetheless the United States was
unprepared for overseas acquisition and imperialism at this time.
25
Some questions to keep in mind:
1. In the late-nineteenth century, was the United States essentially isolationist,
essentially expansionist, or a combination of both?
2. What were the economic and political consequences of religious missionary
work in the nineteenth century?
The Security Physical Isolation Afforded the United States
The United States was in part indifferent to and inactive in international relations
between 1860 and 1890 because, given the security afforded by the physical isolation of
the United States, no nation forced U.S. Americans to form foreign alliances to protect
themselves.
U.S. Americans did not have to play the diplomatic game in order to protect
themselves. No unfriendly nation posed a real threat to the United States.
The country was the strongest in the Western Hemisphere and could rest easy in that
position. Many U.S. Americans felt that if the United States allied itself with any
European power, the new country would soon become entangled in the perpetual power
struggles and military conflicts that characterized Europe.

The Relative Infancy of the United States
During its first hundred years as a nation, the United States, quite frankly, was simply
not large enough, strong enough, or financially capable of creating an empire for itself in
the distant regions of the world and asserting itself as the equal of Britain and other
global powers.
By the 1890s this was no longer true. By the 1890s the United States had
solidified its revolution and its independence, taken possession of all of North America,
become an industrial power of the first order, and was now ready for overseas territorial
acquisition and a policy of international involvement and leadership.
Factors Prompting International Expansion in the 1890s

Historic Territorial Expansionism
Territorial expansion had occurred unimpeded from colonial days forward. First the
U.S. had been limited to the Atlantic Seaboard but then it grew by leaps and bounds - the
Trans-Mississippi, the Louisiana Purchase, Florida, Texas, Oregon, the Mexican Cession,
etc.
By 1890, all of the middle portions of North America from the Atlantic to the
Pacific had come under American control but the desire for new land did not simply
vanish. That desire for growth remained a motivating factor for American action well into
the twentieth century.
26
U.S. politicians began to cast covetous eyes on land beyond the continental
boundaries of North America - to Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Isthmus of Panama, the
Philippines, etc. Territorial expansion would not be limited to North America.

The Concepts of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism
Manifest Destiny was a popular concept in the 1840s as both an encouragement to
and a rationalization for the spread of the United States across the entire continent.
Americans came to accept the ethnocentric idea that it was the divine mission of America
to bring the benefits of Christianity and civilization and progress to all areas of North
America.

The Influence of Naval Strategists
One of the most important reasons for the creation of an American empire in the
1890s and into the new century was the influence of naval strategists, and most
particularly Alfred Thayer Mahan. An admiral in the United States Navy, Mahan
authored three very important books during the crucial last decade of the nineteenth
century regarding the influence of naval power - The Influence of Sea Power Upon
History, 1660-1783 (1890), The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and
Empire, 1793-1812 (1892), and The Interest of America in Sea Power (1897). In these
three widely read books that had tremendous influence on American policy makers,
Mahan argued three primary points.

Every world power had a large merchant marine capable of carrying trade the
world over and that if the United States wished to initiate a profitable trading
relationship with Asia, Europe, Africa, etc., it would have to quickly enlarge and
modernize its merchant marine.

Every world power had a large military navy enabling it to make its influence felt
in all of the disparate, distant areas of the globe. If the United States wished to
become a global power, it would have to enlarge and modernize the United States
Navy.
If the United States wished to become a world power, it would have to quickly
acquire certain possessions of strategic naval importance.

Mahan pointed out how Great Britain’s control of the Straits of Gibraltar, the Straits
of Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and a canal it built across the Isthmus of Suez made the
Mediterranean Sea a virtual British lake. It cut travel time and costs from the British Isles
to Asia and gave the British a tremendous military and commercial advantage.
It is hard to overemphasize Mahan’s influence. By 1905 the United States had made
Hawaii and the Philippines part of an American empire, had obtained a naval base on the
27
island of Cuba as well as the rights to construct and operate a canal across the Isthmus of
Panama. Further, American naval forces had been greatly expanded and modernized.

Jingoism
One final reason for the American emergence onto the world scene and the creation
of an empire was a new martial or warlike spirit which swept the United States in the
1890s and into the new century known as jingoism.
Jingoists were U.S. leaders such as Mahan, Beveridge, Henry Cabot Lodge, and
Theodore Roosevelt who were most eager to demonstrate the maturity and power of the
United States by military force.
For instance, listen to the following statement by Roosevelt during the VenezuelaBritish Guiana boundary dispute: "Let the fight (with Great Britain) come if it must. I
rather hope that the fight will come soon. The clamor of the peace faction has convinced
me that this country needs a war."
"A Splendid Little War"
The event that first brought the United States to the stage of world power was the
Spanish-American War of 1898. Proponents of this brief incursion called it the "splendid
little war." Kindled by a crisis in Spanish-American relations, the war began as an
intervention by the United States on behalf of Cuba.
By some accounts, nearly 100,000 Cuban civilians had died under the brutal rule
of the Spanish military between 1896 and 1898. Accounts of Spanish mistreatment of
Cuban natives in the nation's so-called "yellow press," especially in newspapers owned
by William Randolph Hearst, stirred American resentment of Spain.
Taken together with America's growing imperialist tendencies and fervent antiSpanish sentiment, the event which provoked the war was the explosion of the battleship
U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, "the consequence, it now seems, of spontaneous
combustion in one of its magazines, not because of a Spanish or Cuban mine
Nonetheless, many Americans blamed Spain for the loss of its battleship and were
more than happy when the nation went to war against the Spanish. The war itself lasted
only four months, from mid-April to mid-August 1898.
Some of its memorable events include the charge of the Rough Riders in Cuba
and the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines, when Admiral George Dewey allegedly
gave the command: "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley."
In the end the U.S. resorted to the same tactics the Spanish did because of
guerrilla warfare.
Results of the Spanish-American War
28
The United States easily and swiftly won the war and this outcome left a lasting legacy
on both domestic and foreign policy.
1. The United States became more like European countries
2. The nation was no longer a republic equal in all of its parts
3. America's quick victory had lasting psychological effects on many people
United States became more like European countries
In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, the United States became a world
power, acquiring the territories of Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and
Puerto Rico.
Suddenly, the nation, a former British colony, had colonies of its own, which
sparked criticism from anti-imperialists. President McKinley had to find some way,
some moral argument, to justify to the American public why the United States had
taken foreign territories.
Historians believe that McKinley thought long and hard about these new
acquisitions and that he recognized that the nation had four choices:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Return the islands to Spain
Sell the islands to a European power
Leave them to govern themselves
Keep them under American control
Having weighed these four possibilities, McKinley rejected the first three on moral
grounds; he felt that any of these options would just lead to more upheaval and bloodshed
in the newly-freed territories. Ultimately, he justified his decision to exercise the fourth
option with the following logic:
"There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the
Filipinos, and to uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace to
do the very best we could by them as our fellow men for whom Christ also died."
Of course, the new territories also had great strategic and economic value. They
provided key outposts for the United States navy, new markets for American goods, and
access to Asia for trade with China. President McKinley, however, played down these
reasons in favor of the moral justifications.
Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He
was a moralist at heart, but, at the same time, he was a realist and a masterful politician
who understood what the American people would and would not accept from their
political leaders.
We can make two generalizations about the basis of Roosevelt's foreign policy:
29
1. Sought in international affairs the same goals he sought in domestic American
affairs
2. Constantly stressed two related principles:
o A quest for order and efficiency
o A faith in power
Roosevelt was fond of quoting a West African proverb: "Walk softly and carry a
big stick, and you will go far." This sums up his quest for order and efficiency and his
faith in government power to back up this order and efficiency. Roosevelt's practices led
to the term "Big Stick Diplomacy"--international negotiations backed by the threat of
force.
Order and Efficiency
In domestic social problems, Roosevelt sought orderly, well-defined relationships among
various segments of society. These included:
1. The maximum degree of personal freedom for the individual
2. Competitive opportunities for businessmen and industrialists
3. Federal government setting the tone and direction of national life
Roosevelt viewed the presidency as a "bully pulpit" from which he could preach these
three points. He also saw a clearly defined hierarchy in the government and an almost
organic unity in society. Society was a body made up of arms, legs, and other parts. The
President of the United States, according to Roosevelt, was the brain. In a 1903 speech,
he talked about this national unity, about the interdependence of the various parts of the
American "body:"
Roosevelt's quest for order and efficiency in domestic affairs extended to his foreign
policy. He viewed the nations of the world divided into three groups:
1. A few great and wealthy powers (the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and
Japan)
2. The smaller civilized states of Europe (the Scandinavian countries and Italy)
3. Lesser nations and states (those of Asia, Africa, and Latin America)
According to T. R., there was a constant struggle within this hierarchy and force set
apart the successful nations from the unsuccessful. The great powers were the upholders
of order. While it may be regrettable that the great powers had to flex their military
muscle to dominate smaller powers, such action was necessary to uphold the world order
through their "international police duty."
Roosevelt repeatedly found it necessary to use military force in Latin America to
restore what he considered efficiency and order in those countries and to keep European
nations out of the region.
30
His foreign interventions included Venezuela (1902), Panama (1903), Santo Domingo
(1904-1907), and Cuba (1906). Roosevelt also acted as mediator in the Russo-Japanese
War in 1904.
Teller and Platt Amendments
In April 1898 Senator Henry M. Teller (Colorado) proposed an amendment to the U.S.
declaration of war against Spain which proclaimed that the United States would not
establish permanent control over Cuba. It stated that the United States "hereby disclaims
any disposition of intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said
island except for pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is
accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people." The
Senate passed the amendment on April 19. True to the letter of the Teller Amendment,
after Spanish troops left the island in 1898, the United States occupied Cuba until 1902.
The Teller Amendment was succeeded by the Platt Amendment introduced by Senator
Orville Platt (R-Connecticut) in February 1901. It allowed the United States "the right to
intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government
adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty..." The Platt
Amendment was finally abrogated on May 29, 1934.
Lecture 20
The Home Front, WWI, Versailles, and the 14 Point Plan
WWI
Mobilization
In May of 1917 the U.S. passed the Selective Service Act and inducted 2.8 million men.
The U.S. lost 48,909 soldiers that were killed with losses to disease the dead totaled more
than 230,00 wounded.
“Over There”
The U.S. sent expeditionary forces to fight in the trenches that were infested by mud, rats,
fleas, lice, were cold and rapid fire machine gun batteries kept men pinned down for
days. New weapons such as poison gas, machineguns, grenades, airplanes, and modified
artillery shook the earth and many soldiers experienced shell shock.
Over Here
The Domestic Problems Brought on by the War
31
Committee on Public Information (CPI) Led by George Creel who was an outspoken
progressive journalist. It included patriotic recruiting techniques via newspaper,
film,posters, and provided a system of voluntary censorship with the press.
Anti-German sentiment in the U.S. “liberty cabbage” quit listening to Bach,
Beethoven, and Brahms.
Vigilantism among German-American spread at an alarming rate
Espionage Act of 1917: which authorized sentences of up to 20 years for aiding the
enemy, obstructing recruitment, or encouraging disloyalty, it also allowed the censoring
of U.S. mail.
Sedition Act 1918: imposed harsh penalties to anyone who was disloyal, profane,
scurrilous or abusive language against the U.S. government.
The harassment and eventual Arrest of Socialist party leaders Eugene V. Debs gave a
speech and was indicted and jailed on the Espionage Act.
Bureaucrats, Labor, and the war.
The War Industries Board prioritized, price fixed and oversaw and allocated raw
materials to satisfy wartime production and was led by Bernard M. Baruch.
Future President Herbert Hoover headed a Food Administration that encouraged folks
to cut down on their eating and plant more gardens “victory gardens” at home, it also
rationed and distributed foodstuffs.
The government also regulated items such as fuel, railroads, shipping, foreign trade, and
telephones.
Labor
The war mobilized labor unions that created a partnership with the government. Samuel
Gompers eventually served on Wilson’s Council of National Defense that unified labor
and promoted peace and unity in the workforce. At the same time Wilson adopted many
of the work related social-reforms.
The War Labor Board standardized wages, hours and protected the right of collective
bargaining. It also demanded that equal wages to blacks, Mexicans, and women.
Mexicans were used to fill the labor gap by participating in the Bracero Program.
African-Americans Migrated north in search for jobs ads well but were met with stiff
resistance In 1919 alone 40 African Americans were killed in race riots. Over 200,000
Africa-Americans served in the war and deserved better treatment after the war. W.E.B.
Du Bois spoke of the “New Negro” a prouder more militant African-American.
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A.
The Great Migration and White Reactions
1.
Until World War I, 90 percent of African Americans lived in the
South and 75 percent lived in rural areas.
2.
By 1920, perhaps as many as 500,000 had moved north during the
Great Migration, with the largest proportional increases in the
midwestern industrial cities.
3.
Reasons for the Great Migration included lynchings, economic
disaster, and a sharp decline in European immigration caused by
the war.
In the Southwest immigration laws were eased and between 1917 and 1920 more than
100,000 Mexicans were allowed into the U.S. many later settled up north and never
returned to Mexico. The too were discriminated upon they lived in similar
neighborhoods called barrios that mirrored Chinatown and Little Italy.
The War and the Treaty of Versailles
I.
Wilson and the Peace Conference
A. Bolshevism, the Secret Treaties, and the Fourteen Points
1.
In March 1917, war-weary, hungry Russians overthrew their czar
and the Bolsheviks seized power.
2.
Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, immediately began peace
negotiations.
3.
Wilson spoke to Congress in January 1918 about his war aims,
known as the Fourteen Points, which emphasized lasting peace and
a League of Nations.
a.
The major allies reluctantly accepted Wilson’s Fourteen
Points as a basis for discussion but expressed little
enthusiasm for them.
B.
Wilson at Versailles
1.
Major decisions were made by the Big Four - Wilson, David Lloyd
George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Vittorio
Orlando of Italy.
2.
Terms of peace were to be imposed, not negotiated, and Wilson
learned at the outset that the European leaders were more
interested in pursuing their own national interests than in
implementing his Fourteen Points.
a.
Wilson did secure the creation of a League of Nations, but
the War Guilt clause forced Germany to accept the blame
for starting the war.
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II.
C.
The Senate and the Treaty
1.
The Senate, controlled by Republicans since the 1918 election, had
to approve any treaty, and Wilson had failed to include any
prominent Republicans in his delegation to Versailles.
2.
Faced with the treaty, the Senate split into three groups - the
reservationists, the irreconcilables, and those who supported the
president.
3.
Wilson decided to take his case directly to the people but suffered
a serious stroke and still refused to compromise with the Senate.
4.
The Senate’s defeat of the treaty meant that the United States
would not join the League of Nations.
D.
Legacies of the Great War
1.
The war to end war spun off several wars in its wake, and, in the
end, the war and its peace conference left unresolved many
problems.
2.
Above all, the war and the treaty helped to produce economic and
political instability in much of Europe, making it a breeding
ground for totalitarian and nationalistic movements that were
eventually to bring another world war.
Trauma in the Wake of War
A. Inflation and Strikes
1.
Inflation, described in newspapers as "HCL" for "High Cost of
Living," was the most pressing single problem Americans faced
after the war, and such inflation contributed to labor unrest.
2.
Unions made wage demands to maintain wartime gains and keep
up with the soaring cost of living, but management was ready for a
fight.
a.
The largest and most dramatic labor conflict in 1919 was
against the U.S. Steel Corporation.
B.
The Red Scare
1.
The Red Scare, led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer,
frightened Americans into believing the Bolsheviks were going to
take over the nation, and thousands of radicals were arrested.
C.
The Election of 1920
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1.
2.
The Republicans confidently expected to regain the White House
in the 1920 election and the reaction against Wilson almost
guaranteed election of any competent Republican nominee.
Warren G. Harding won a Republican landslide with thirty-seven
of forty-eight states and 60 percent of the popular votethe largest
popular majority up to that time.
Lecture 21
The 1920s, 1920-1932
I.
Prosperity Decade
A. The Economics of Prosperity
1.
Declining prices for agricultural products brought lower prices for
food and clothing.
2.
Persuading Americans to consume an array of products
became crucial to keeping the economy healthy.
a.
The marketing of Listerine demonstrates the rising
importance of creative advertising.
b.
Cigarettes became more fashionable after World War I, as
soldiers had found them easier to carry and smoke than
pipes or cigars.
3.
Technological advances contributed in other ways to the growth
of consumer-oriented manufacturing.
a.
As the number of residences with electricity increased,
advertisers stressed the time and labor that housewives
could save by using electrical appliances.
4.
Increased consumption contributed to a change in people’s
spending habits.
a.
In the 1920s, many retailers adopted the installment plan:
"Buy now, pay later."
B.
The Automobile: Driving the Economy
1.
The automobile, more than any other single product epitomized
the consumer-oriented economy of the 1920s.
2.
Henry Ford scored the greatest success by developing a massproduction system that drove down production costs.
a.
By the late 1920s, America’s roadways sported nearly one
automobile for every five people.
3.
Ford’s company also provides an example of efforts by American
businesses to reduce labor costs by improving labor efficiency.
4.
The automobile industry in the 1920s often led the way in
promoting new sales techniques.
a.
By 1927, two-thirds of all American automobiles were
sold on credit.
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II.
C.
"Get Rich Quick": The Speculative Mania
1.
Stock market speculating - buying a stock and expecting to make
money by selling it at a higher price - ran rampant as more people
saw the stock market as a certain route to riches.
2.
Just as Americans bought their cars and radios on the installment
plan, some also bought stock on credit - this was called buying
on the margin.
3.
Driven partly by real economic growth and partly by speculation,
stock prices rose higher and higher.
D.
Agriculture: Depression in the Midst of Prosperity
1.
Prosperity never extended to agriculture, since many farmers
did not recover from the postwar recession and struggled to survive
financially throughout the 1920s.
2.
Many had expanded their operations during the war in response
to government demands for more food.
3.
After the war, as European farmers resumed production and
American production increased, the glut of agricultural goods on
world markets caused prices to fall.
a.
Prices fell as a consequence of this overproduction; corn
and wheat sold for about half their wartime prices.
4.
Throughout the 1920s, farmers pressed the government for help.
a.
A congressional Farm Bloc promoted legislation to assist
farmers.
The Roaring Twenties
A. The Automobile and American Life
1.
During the 1920s, the automobile profoundly changed American
patterns of living.
a.
Highways significantly shortened the traveling time from
cities to rural areas, thereby reducing the isolation of farm
life.
b.
Trucks allowed farmers to take more products to market
more quickly and conveniently than ever before.
c.
The spread of gasoline-powered farm vehicles also reduced
the need for human farm labor and so stimulated
migration to urban areas.
d.
If the automobile changed rural life, it had an even more
profound impact on life in the cities; suburbs mushroomed.
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B.
A Homogenized Culture Searches for Heroes
1.
Together with the new technologies of radio and film, the
automobile and restrictive immigration laws began to homogenize
the culture.
2.
Radio and film joined newspapers and magazines - the media - in
prompting national trends and fashions as Americans pursued
one fad after another.
a.
Such fads, in turn, created markets for newfangled
consumer goods.
3.
The media also contributed to the development of national sports
heroes.
4.
The rapid spread of movie theaters created a new category of fame
- the movie star.
5.
Restrictive immigration laws were closing the door to
immigrants from abroad.
6.
Laws designed to restrict immigration resulted in major part from
nativist antagonism against immigrants, especially those who did
not appear to assimilate as readily as earlier immigrants had.
7.
The National Origins Act of 1924 limited total immigration to
150,000 people each year, with quotas for each country in an
attempt to freeze the ethnic composition of the nation.
C.
Alienated Intellectuals
1.
Some Americans went to Paris and other European cities in the
1920s to escape what they considered America’s dull
conventionalism and dangerous materialism.
2.
American writers bemoaned what they saw as the shallowness,
greed, and homogenization of American life.
D.
Renaissance Among African-Americans
1.
There was a striking outpouring of literature, music, and art by
African Americans in the 1920s.
2.
Harlem emerged as a large, predominantly black neighborhood in
New York City and quickly became a symbol of the new, urban
life of African Americans.
3.
The term Harlem Renaissance describes a literary and artistic
movement in which black artists and writers insisted on the value
of black culture and used African and African-American traditions
to shape an abundance of literature, painting, and sculpture.
a.
Among the movement’s poets, Langston Hughes became
the best-known.
4.
The Renaissance included jazz, which was becoming a central
element in distinctly American music.
5.
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E.
“Flaming Youth”
1.
The stereotype of flaming youth reflected striking changes among
many white college-age youths of middle- and upper-class
backgrounds.
2.
The prosperity of the 1920s allowed many middle-class families to
send their children to college.
3.
Some young women, called flappers, scandalized their elders by
skirts that stopped at the knee, short hair, and generous amounts of
rouge and lipstick.
a.
Women’s sexual activity outside marriage had begun to
increase before the war, especially among working-class
women and radicals.
b.
Such changes in behavior were often linked to the
automobile.
III.
Traditional America Roars Back
A. Prohibition
1.
Prohibition came to epitomize the cultural struggle to preserve
white, old-stock Protestant values in the face of challenge.
2.
In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the
manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.
Volstead Act
3.
Prohibition did reduce drinking, and it apparently produced a
decline in drunkenness and in the number of deaths from
alcoholism, but it also produced unintended consequences such as
speakeasies and bootlegging.
a.
In the cities, the high demand for alcohol provided
criminals with a fresh and lucrative source of income,
part of which they used to buy influence in city politics,
protection from police, fast cars, and submachine guns.
IV.
Race, Class, and Gender in the 1920s
A. Race Relations: North, South, and West
1.
Race relations changed little during the 1920s, and terror against
African America continued, as well as discrimination against other
minority groups.
B.
Beginnings of Change in Federal Indian Policy
1.
Resistance to the previous allotment and assimilationist policies
laid the basis for a significant shift in federal policy in the 1920s.
a.
John Collier and the American Indian Defense
Association led the way.
C. Mexicans in California and the Southwest
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1.
D.
E.
F.
V.
Revolution in Mexico increased the number of Mexicans moving
north across the border, especially in southern California and
Texas.
2.
Efforts to organize and strike for better pay and working conditions
often sparked violent opposition.
Labor on the Defensive
1.
There were difficulties in establishing unions among workers
during the 1920s, especially in the face of many companies’ antiunion drives.
Changes in Women’s Lives
1.
Significant changes occurred in two areas of women’s lives during
the 1920s: the size and structure of the family and politics.
a.
Birth control became more widely recognized and
available among the poorer classes of society.
b.
The Nineteenth Amendment enfranchised women over
twenty-one.
Development of Gay and Lesbian Subcultures
1.
Identifiable gay and lesbian subcultures emerged, especially in
cities.
The Politics of Prosperity
A. Harding’s Failed Presidency
1.
Harding gave hundreds of government jobs to his cronies and
political supporters, who betrayed his trust and turned his
administration into one of the most corrupt in history, including the
Teapot Dome scandal.
Lecture 22
From Good Times to Hard Times to the New Deal,
1920-1932
I.
The Diplomacy of Prosperity
1.
President Harding dismissed any U.S. role in the League of
Nations and refused the Treaty of Versailles.
a.
Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes concluded
separate peace treaties to end the U.S. role in World War I.
2.
American banks and corporations begin to expand as a result of
international economic changes caused by World War I.
a.
American businesses had become the world’s major
producers.
b.
American business shaped the global economy by lending
money.
3.
Neither President Harding nor President Coolidge had any
expertise or interest in foreign affairs and deferred making and
implementing policy to their secretaries of state.
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a.
b.
c.
B.
Their secretaries supported "independent internationalism":
avoiding political and international responsibilities while
expanding economic opportunities overseas.
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover also promoted
American business abroad.
While successes in Asia and the Middle East were limited,
efforts in Latin America and Europe were quite successful.
The United States and Latin America
1.
The U.S. role in Latin America, especially Central America and
the Caribbean, was influenced by the Monroe Doctrine, direct
American investments, and control of the Panama Canal.
2.
When necessary, the United States used direct armed intervention
in the region.
a.
In 1921, the U.S. had troops in Panama, Haiti, the
Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua to ensure continued
U.S. influence and order.
b.
U.S. forces had not advanced the educational systems,
national economies, or standards of living for most people.
3.
C.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the 1920s saw U.S. commercial
intervention in the region.
a.
U.S. firms like the United Fruit Company purchased land in
Central America.
b.
U.S. oil companies obtained drilling rights in Venezuela
and Colombia.
4.
Oil also played a key role in U.S. relations with Mexico, since the
1917 Mexican Constitution nationalized Mexico’s subsurface
resources.
a.
Coolidge sent Dwight W. Morrow as U.S. ambassador "to
keep us out of war" since Morrow understood Mexican
nationalism and pride.
b.
Morrow reached a compromise with the Mexican
government that reduced tensions and delayed
nationalization.
c.
America and the European Economy
1.
World War I shattered most of Europe physically and
economically, and the U.S. had become the world’s leading
creditor nation.
a.
The U.S. sought to expand its exports and reduce its
imports.
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b.
D.
High tariffs inched higher throughout the 1920s, including
the 1922 Fordney-McCumber Tariff, which set high
protective rates for industrial goods.
c.
Through the Dawes Plan, U.S. bankers loaned $2.5 million
to Germany so that it could repay the other European
nations and they could repay the U.S.
2.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact (1929) renounced war "as an instrument
of national policy."
Origins of the Depression
1.
The prosperity of the 1920s depended on a few major industries construction, automobiles, and consumer goods - since other
sectors of the economy barely made a profit.
a.
Farmers watched demand for their goods shrink while
income and property values declined.
2.
Other problems included the misdistribution of wealth and the
overproduction of goods.
3.
Upon assuming office, President Hoover tried to stimulate trade by
lowering tariffs up to 50 percent, but most Republicans disagreed.
E.
II.
The Stock Market Plunge
1.
The desire to invest in the stock market fed a speculative fever that
pushed stock prices higher and higher.
a.
By 1929, stock prices had little relationship to a company’s
worth.
b.
Finally, in 1929, the realities of wages, credit, inflated
stock prices, and the slowing American economy collided.
c.
Despite a lack of public concern, events on Black
Thursday affected everyone as the selling price and value
of stocks plummeted.
2.
The stock market crash undermined economic confidence.
3.
The effects of the stock market crash and the declining American
economy had an international impact.
4.
Government and Economic Crisis
A. Hoover’s Final Efforts
1.
Over the next two years, Hoover greatly expanded the role of
government in responding to the Depression.
a.
By December 1931, Hoover promoted more direct federal
involvement and asked Congress for support through
banking reforms and financial support for home mortgages.
b.
Hoover also intended to pump money into the economy
through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
c.
All this represented an unprecedented effort by the federal
government to intervene directly in the nation’s economy.
2.
Hoover opposed direct federal relief, the "dole," as too
burdensome for the federal budget.
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a.
b.
c.
III.
He believed that relief should be distributed by private
organizations and local government and the "dole" would
erode the work ethic.
Hoover eventually agreed to create the Emergency Relief
Division within the RFC.
But, by the end of the summer of 1932, Americans,
especially the Bonus Army, were becoming impatient with
Hoover.
Depression in the U.S.
A. Families in the Depression
1.
The average annual income dropped 35 percent between 1929 and
1933.
a.
Although income rose after 1933, nagging fears of wage
cuts or loss of work remained, and many people worried
about basic survival.
b.
The vast majority clung to traditional family values, and
church attendance rose, while the number of divorces and
percentage of people getting married declined.
c.
Economic necessity kept families at home playing board
games, reading, and listening to the radio.
2.
Not all families remained stable and united since unemployed
males often felt shame for the economic problems and suicides
increased.
B.
The Middle and Working Class and Hard Times
1.
The most common fear was economic insecurity.
2.
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" was a motto
adopted by nearly everybody.
3.
Working-class Americans more often faced the prospect of losing
a job and eviction.
4.
Unable to find jobs or support their families, many people took to
the road.
C. Discrimination in the Depression
1.
As the 1930s began, most African Americans lived in the rural
South, but many migrated north looking for better opportunities.
a.
They found, however, that jobs grew scarce even in the
North.
b.
Whites used violence and intimidation to drive blacks from
jobs and maintain social dominance.
2.
The Depression aggravated white hostility toward Mexican
Americans and made life harder for them.
a.
Most filled menial jobs, worked in the fields, and farmed
small plots of land.
b.
Many were fired so that whites could have jobs, and they
were encouraged to return to Mexico.
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c.
D.
E.
F.
Relief programs were of little help since Latinos avoided
government agencies.
Women in the Depression
1.
Some women were discovering new opportunities during the
Depression, but employment patterns were uneven.
a.
Public opinion was especially hostile toward married
women who worked, and many companies made it a policy
not to employ them.
b.
For many rural women, the Depression took away a major
avenue to status: migration to the city.
c.
Among women who did enter the work force, few found
that bringing home a paycheck changed their status or their
role within the family.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1.
Roosevelt campaigned on concern for the "forgotten man," who
was a victim of the Great Depression.
The 1932 Election
1.
FDR promised a "new deal for the American people," and the
election was a huge success for the Democratic party and for
Roosevelt
TAKE EXAM II HERE
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