Chapter 16: Big Business and Organized Labor, 1860-1900
1. Explain the primary factors that stimulated unprecedented industrial and agricultural growth in the late nineteenth century.
During the late nineteenth century, agricultural and industrial production increased sharply. The national railroad network increased to nearly 200,000 miles, the most of any nation in the world. Farmers and industrialists expanded their production for both national and international markets. The Second Industrial Revolution saw the expanded use of electrical power, the application of scientific research to industrial processes, and other commercial innovations that brought new products to market and improved methods for producing and distributing them.
2. Describe the entrepreneurs who pioneered the growth of Big Business, the goals they aimed to achieve, and the strategies they used to dominate their industries.
Many businesses transformed themselves into limited-liability corporations and grew to enormous size and power in this period, often ignoring ethics and the law in doing so. Leading entrepreneurs like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. Pierpont Morgan were extraordinarily skilled at organizing and gaining control of particular industries. Companies such as Rockefeller's Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel practiced both vertical integration, through which they controlled all the various enterprises needed to produce and distribute their products, and horizontal integration, in which they absorbed or eliminated their competitors. To consolidate their holdings and get around laws prohibiting monopolies, they created trusts and eventually holding companies in an effort to bring "order and stability" to the marketplace.
3. Evaluate the role of the federal government in the nation's economic development during this period.
The federal government encouraged economic growth after the Civil War by imposing high tariffs on imported products, granting public land to railroad companies and settlers in the West, establishing a stable currency, and encouraging the creation of "land grant" universities to spur technological innovation and research. Equally important, local, state, and federal governments made little effort to regulate the activities of businesses. This laissez-faire policy allowed entrepreneurs to experiment with new methods of organization, but also created the conditions for rampant corruption and abuses.
4. Analyze the ways in which the social class structure and the lives of women changed in the late nineteenth century.
The huge fortunes of the "Gilded Age" flowed to a few prominent families, and social class tensions worsened as productivity increased. While the business and financial elites showed off their new wealth with extravagant homes and parties, the urban and industrial workforce was largely composed of unskilled workers, including recent immigrants, former farmers, and growing numbers of women and children. Business owners and managers showed little concern for workplace safety, and accidents and work-related diseases were common. Industrialization and the rise of Big Business also increased the number of people considering themselves part of the middle class. Middle-class women increasingly went to college, took business and professional jobs, and participated in other public activities despite male resistance.
5. Evaluate the efforts of workers to organize unions to promote their interests during this era.
It was difficult for unskilled workers to organize effectively into unions, in part because of racial and ethnic tensions among laborers, language barriers, and the efforts of owners and supervisors to undermine unionizing efforts. Business owners oftehn hired "strikebreakers," usually immigrant workers who were willing to take jobs at the prevailing wage because they were so desparate for a job. Business owners often relied on the support of political leaders, who would mobilize state and local militias and federal troops against strikers. Nevertheless, several unions did organize and advocate for workers' rights at a national level, including the National Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. After the violence associated with the Haymarket Riot and the Homestead Steel Strike and Pullman Strike, many Americans grew fearful of unions and viewed them as politically radical. Craft unions made up solely of skilled workers became more successful at organizing, such as the American Federation of Labor.
Chapter 17: The South and the West Transformed, 1865-1900
1. Analyze the ways in which a "New South" emerged economically in the late nineteenth century AND describe the crop-lien system that emerged in the South and explain how it shaped the region after the Civil War.
Many Southerners embraced the vision of the New South promoted by Henry Grady and others, which called for a more diverse economy with greater industrialization, wider distribution of wealth, and more vocational training. The cotton textile industry grew to surpass that of New England, iron and steel manufacturing increased, and the American Tobacco Company became the world's largest manufacturer of cigarettes. But agriculture--and especially the growing of cotton--still dominated the southern economy, much as it had before the Civil War. Land remained concentrated in few hands, and the crop-lien system left much of the population, both black and white, with little choice but to cultivate cotton for these large landholders.
2. Explain how and why white southerners took away African Americans' right to vote and adopted "Jim Crow" segregation laws at the end of the nineteenth century.
During the 1890s, Southern states disenfranchised the vast majority of African American voters and instituted a series of policies known as Jim Crow laws segregating blacks and whites in all public facilities. Starting with the Mississippi Plan, state governments passed a series of comprehensive measures making it impossible for African Americans, and some poor whites, to vote through poll taxes, grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and residency requirements. Disenfranchisement was followed by legalized segregation, ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. African Americans who resisted were often the target of violence at the hands of whites, the worst form being organized lynching, or public torture, mutilation, and execution of African Americans, usually men. African Americans in the South responded by turning inward and strengthening their own social institutions, demanding the restoration of their civil rights.
3. Identify the various groups of migrants to the West after the Civil War and the reasons they went there.
Life in the West was often harsh and violent, but the promise of cheap land or wealth from mining drew settlers from the East. Although most westerners were white Protestant Americans or immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia, Mexicans, African Americans (the Exodusters), and Chinese, as well as many other nationalities, contributed to the West's diversity. About three fourths of those who moved to the West were men.
4. Describe the experiences of miners, farmers, ranchers, and women in the West in the late nineteenth century.
Many migrants to the West were attracted to opportunities to mine, ranch, fartm, or work on the railroads. Miners were drawn to the discovery of precious minerals such as silver at the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859. But most miners and cattle ranchers did not acquire wealth, because mining and raising cattle, particularly after the development of barbed wire and the end of the open range, became large-scale enterprises run by corporations. Because of the economic hardship and the rugged isolation of life in the West, women there achieved greater equality in everyday life, including voting rights, than did most women elsewhere in the country.
5. Evaluate the impact on Native Americans of the federal government's policies in the West after the Civil War.
By 1900, Native Americans in the West were no longer free to roam the plains, as the influx of miners, ranchers, farmers, and soldiers had curtailed their traditional way of life. Instances of armed resistance, such as the Great Sioux War, were crushed. Initially, Indian tribes were forced to sign treaties and were confined to reservations. Beginning in 1887, with the Dawes Severalty Act, the American government's Indian policy shifted. It now forced Indians to relinquish their traditional culture and adopt the "American way" of individual land ownership.
6. Describe how the South and West had changed by 1900.
In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner, a prominent historian, declared that the frontier era was over. He argued that the western moving frontier of white settlement had been the nation's primary source of democratic politics and rugged individualism. To a certain extent, they were correct. By 1900, the West resembled the South where agricultural resources were concentrated in the hands of a few. In the 1890s, poor farmers in the West joined with tenant farmers in the South to support the People's Party or the Populist movement, which sought to wrest control of the political and economic system from the powerful East and return it to the "plain" folk. This contest would dominate the nation's politics in the 1890s and set its course for the twentieth century.
Chapter 18: Society and Politics in the Gilded Age, 1865-1900
1. Understand the effects of urban growth during the Gilded Age, including the problems it created.
America's cities grew in all directions during the Gilded Age. Electric elevators and new steel-frame construction allowed architects to extend buildings upward, and mass transit both above and below ground enabled the middle class to retreat to the suburbs. Crowded tenements bred disease and crime and created an opportunity for urban political party bosses to gain power, in part by distributing to the poor the only relief that existed.
2. Describe the "new immigrants" of the late nineteenth century and how they were viewed by American society.
By 1900, 30 percent of Americans living in major cities were foreign-born, with the majority of newcomers arriving from eastern and southern Europe rather than western and northern Europe, like most immigrants of generations past. Their languages, culture, and religion were quite different from those of native-born Americans. They tended to be Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Jewish rather than Protestant. Beginning in the 1880s, nativists advocated restrictive immigration laws and won passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
3. Explain how urban growth and the increasingly important role of science influenced leisure activities, cultural life, and social policy in the Gilded Age.
Many areas of American life underwent profound changes during the Gilded Age. The growth of large cities led to the popularity of vaudeville and Wild West shows and the emergence of football, baseball, and basketball as spectator sports. Saloons served as local social and political clubs for men, despite the disapproval of anti-liquor groups. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species shocked people who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible's account of creation. Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner were proponents of Social Darwinism, which applied Darwin's theory of evolution to human society by equating economic and social success with the "survival of the fittest."
4. Assess how the nature of politics during the Gilded Age contributed to political corruption and stalemate.
The politics of the time was dominated by huge corporations and the money they used to buy political influence. Political power was still concentrated at the state and local levels. Americans were intensely loyal to the two major parties, whose local "bosses" and "machines" won votes by distributing patronage jobs and contracts to members as well as charitable relief. Party loyalties reflected regional, ethnic, and religious differences. Though Republicans almost always held the presidency, the overall strength of the major parties was so closely balanced that neither party wanted to take bold stands for fear of alienating voters.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of politicians in developing responses to the major economic and social problems of the Gilded Age.
In addition to the "money question," national politics in this period focused on tariff reform, the regulation of corporations, and civil service reform. The passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883 began the professionalization of federal workers. In the 1884 presidential election, Republicans favoring reform, the Mugwumps, helped elect Democrat Grover Cleveland. Cleveland signed the 1887 act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), intended to regulate interstate railroads. In 1890, under President Benjamin Harrison, Republicans passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the McKinley Tariff Act.
6. Analyze why the money supply became a major political issue during the Gilded Age and describe its impact on American politics.
Over the course of the late nineteenth century, the "money question" had become a central political issue. The supply of money had not increased as the economy had grown. This deflationary trend increased the value of money, which was good for bankers and creditors who could charge higher interest rates on loans, but bad for farmers who faced both more expensive mortgages and declining prices for their products. Many farmers believed that the coinage of silver, rather than simply a gold standard system, would result in inflation which in turn would effectively increase the value of their products and reduce their debts. Farmers and others unsatisfied with the Republican and Democratic parties over a host of issues formed a series of political parties and alliances, one of which, the People's Party, briefly operated as a national third party.
Chapter 19: Seizing an American Empire, 1865-1913
1. Describe the factors that motivated America's new imperialism after the Civil War.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, the popular idea that America had a "manifest destiny" to expand its territory abroad and industrialists' desire for new markets for their goods helped to fuel America's "new imperialism." The ideology of Social Darwinism was used to justify the colonization of less developed nations. American evangelical Protestants also thought they had a duty to Christianize and "uplift" people throughout the world.
2. Explain why and how America expanded its influence in the Pacific before the Spanish-American War (War of 1898).
Business leaders hoped to extend America's commercial reach across the Pacific. The United States purchased the vast Alaska territory from Russia in 1867. American planters in the Kingdom of Hawaii developed a thriving sugar industry based on Asian immigrant labor. In 1894, Hawaii's minority white population, led by planters, overthrew the native Hawaiian queen, declared a republic, and requested that Hawaii be annexed by the United States.
3. Explain the causes of the Spanish-American War (War of 1898), and describe its major events.
When Cubans revolted against Spanish colonial rule in 1895, many Americans supported their demand for independence. Yellow Journalism publicizing the harsh Spanish suppression of the revolt, further aroused American's sympathy. Early in 1898, the publication of the de Lome letter, in which Spain's ambassador to the United States criticized President McKinley, followed by the mysterious explosion sinking the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, helped propel America into war with Spain. In its war resolution, Congress declared Cuba independent and, in the Teller Amendment, denied any plans to annex Cuba. Under the Treaty of Paris ending the war, Cuba became independent and the United States annexed Spain's other Caribbean possession, Puerto Rico, which it had occupied. In the Spanish colony of the Philippine Islads, America's Pacific naval fleet under Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in the Battle of Manila Bay at the beginning of the war and took control of the capital, Manila.
4. Analyze the consequences of the Spanish-American War (War of 1898) for American foreign policy.
A vicious guerrilla war followed in the Philippines when Filipinos who favored independence rebelled against American control. The rebellion was suppressed, and President McKinley announced that the U.S. would annex the Philippines. This prompted a significant debate in which the Anti-Imperialist League and others argued that acquiring overseas territories violated American principles of self-determination and independence. But the imperialists won the debate, and Congress set up a government in the Philippines as well as in Puerto Rico. In Cuba, the United States imposed significant restrictions on the new government after U.S. forces left the island. In the Pacific region, the United States also annexed Hawaii, Guam, Wake Island, and some of the Samoa Islands during or shortly after the Spanish-American War. In East Asia, Secretary of State John Hay promoted the Open Door Policy of preserving China's territorial integrity and equal access by all nations to trade with China.
5. Describe the reasons for Theodore Roosevelt's rapid rise to the presidency, and evaluate the main elements of his foreign policies.
After succeeding to the presidency upon McKinley's assassination in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt pursued an imperialist foreign policy that confirmed the United States' new role as a world power. He helped negotiate the treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War, oversaw diplomatic and military actions leading to the U.S. construction and control of the Panama Canal, and sent the navy's fleet of new battleships around the world as a symbol of American might. He also proclaimed the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting that the United States would intervene in Latin America as necessary in order to prevent European intervention.
William H. Taft and Woodrow Wilson continued his pattern of intervening in the affairs of other nations. "Dollar Diplomacy" involved the U.S. government fostering American investments in less developed nations, and then using U.S. military force to protect those investments.
Chapter 20: The Progressive Era, 1890-1920
1. Explain the varied motives of progressive reformers.
Progressives believed that industrialization and urbanization eere negatively affecting American life. They were mostly middle-class idealists who promoted reform and government regulation in order to ensure social justice. They also called for legislation to end child labor, promote safety in the workplace, ban the sale of alcoholic beverages, regulate or eliminate trusts and other monopolies, and grant woman suffrage.
2. Explain the various sources of thought and activism that contributed to the progressive movement.
Progressivism grew out of many sources going back several decades. The depression in the 1890s led many urban middle-class people to pursue reforms to aid the working class and the poor. Many religious reformers, such as those involved in the social gospel movement, had urged their fellow Christians to reject social Darwinism and do more to promote a better life for the urban poor. The settlement house movement spread through urban America as educated middle-class women formed community centers in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Muckrakers--investigative journalists who exposed significant political and corporate corruption--further fueled the desire of progressive reformers to address abuses of power in American society.
3. Identify the specific goals of progressive reformers and the ways that they advanced these public goals.
To address corruption in politics, they implemented political reforms such as the direct primary; initiative; referendum, and recall at te state level; and the direct election of senators through the Seventeenth Amendment. They also focused on incorporating new modes of efficiency into government administration through Taylorism. Many middle-class women reformers targeted what they saw as the social evils of alcohol consumption, prostitution, and poor living and working conditions. Social justice reformers also fought successfully for a progressive income tax with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment.
4. Describe the contributions of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft to the progressive movement, and explain how and why the two men came to disagree.
The administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft increased the power of the president and the federal government to regulate corporate power. Roosevelt promoted his progressive Square Deal program, which included the arbitration of the 1902 coal strike, and Pure Food and Drug Acts. After severe criticism of his White House meeting with Booker T. Washington, he made no further gestures toward racial harmony or equality. Choosing not to seek reelection in 1908, Roosevelt endorsed Taft, who easily won the election. But Taft's inability to bring about major tariff reduction with the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, among other failings, led Roosevelt to run again for president, promoting his New Nationalism vision. Unable to defeat Taft for the Republican nomination, Roosevelt formed a Progressive party. This split the Republican vote, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson, another progressive reformer, to win the office.
5. Describe the progressive policies of President Woodrow Wilson, and explain why and how they differed from those of Presidents Roosevelt and Taft.
Wilson's New Freedom program promised less federal intervention in business and a return to traditional Democratic policies like low tariffs and anti-trust regulation. He followed through on his promises with the Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act, the Federal Reserve Act, ad to begin a rigorous anti-trust program with the passage of the Clayton Anti-Trust Act ad the creation of the Federal Trade Commission. To rally Republican progressives to his side for the 1916 reelection, he endorsed greater regulation of child labor and railroad corporations, particularly through the Adamson Act. He also successfully sponsored two bills to allow farmers to get federal loans, a longtime goal of the populist movement.
Chapter 21: America and the Great War (World War I), 1914-1920
1. Describe the outbreak of the Great War and the distinctive nature of the fighting on the Western Front, and explain why the United States was drawn into the war.
In 1914, a system of military alliances divided Europe in two. Britain, France, and the Russian Empire had formed the Triple Entente, later called the Allied Powers. The Triple Alliance, later called the Central Powers, comprised Germany and Austria-Hungary along with Italy (which in 1915 would switch sides and join the Allied Powers). In the summer of 1914, the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by a Serbian nationalist triggered a chain reaction involving these alliances that erupted into the Great War (World War I). On the Western Front, troops primarily engaged in trench warfare. New weapons such as machine guns, long-range artillery, and poison gas resulted in unprecedented casualties. The Wilson administration declared the nation neutral but allowed American businesses to extend loans to the Allies. Americans were outraged by the German U-boat warfare, especially after the 1915 sinking of the British passenger liner Lusitania. In 1917, the publication of the Zimmerman telegram led the United States to enter the Great War (World War I).
2. Explain how the Wilson administration mobilized the home front, and analyze how mobilization efforts shaped American society.
The Wilson Administration drafted millions of young men ad created new agencies, such as the War Industries Board and the Food Administration, to coordinate industrial and agricultural production. As white workers left their factory jobs to join the army, hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated from the rural South to the urban North, known as the Great Migration. Many southern whites and Mexican Americans also migrated to industrial centers. One million women worked in defense industries. The federal government severely curtailed civil liberties during the war. The Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918 criminalized public opposition to the war.
3. Describe the major events of the war after U.S. entry, and explain the U.S. contribution to the defeat of the Central Powers.
In 1918, the arrival of millions of fresh American troops turned the tide of the war, rolling back a final desparate German offensive. German leaders sued for peace, and an armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. Woodrow Wilson insisted that the war aim of the United States was the emergence of a new, democratic Europe. His Fourteen Points (1918) speech outlined his ideas for smaller, ethnically based nation-states to replace the empires. A League of Nations would promote peaceful resolutions to future conflicts.
4. Evaluate Wilson's efforts to promote his plans for a peaceful world order as outlined in his Fourteen Points.
At the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson was only partially successful in achieving his goals. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) did create the League of Nations but included a "war guilt" clause that forced Germany to pay massive reparations for war damages to France and Britain. In the United States, the fight for Senate ratification of the treaty pitted supporters and those who wanted certain revisions against those who feared that involvement in a league of nations would hinder domestic reforms and require U.S. participation in future wars. Wilson's refusal to compromise and alienation of Republican senators resulted in the failure of Senate ratification.
5. Analyze the consequences of the war at home and abroad.
The Bolsheviks established a Communist regime in the old Russian Empire in 1917. The German and Austro-Hungarian empires were dismantled and replaced by smaller nation-states. The "war-guilt" clause fostered German bitterness and contributed to the subsequent rise of the Nazis. The United States struggled with its new status as the leading world power and with changes at home. As wartime industries shifted to peacetime production, wartime wage and price controls were ended, and millions of former soldiers reentered the workforce. Unemployment roset and consumer pricets increased, provoking labor unrest in many cities. Many Americans believed the labor strikes were part of a Bolshevik plot to gain power in the United States. Several incidents of domestic terrorism fueled these fears and provoked the First Red Scare. Race riots broke out as resentful white mobs tried to stop African Americans from exercising their civil rights. The summer of 1919 also saw the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women throughout the country the right to vote.
Chapter 22: A Clash of Cultures, 1920-1929
1. Describe the consumer culture that emerged in America during the 1920s, and explain the factors that contributed to its growth.
During the 1920s, the American economy grew at the fastest rate inhistory, while consumer debt tripled. Innovations in production, advertising, and financing, combined with a jump in te use of electricity, enabled and encouraged millions of Americans to purchase automobiles, radios, and other electrical household appliances. The new consumer culture, valued leisure, self-expression, and self-indulgence. More and more Americans purchased national brand-name items from retail chain stores, listened to the same radio shows and watched the same movies.
2. Describe the other major new social and cultural trends and movements that became prominent during the twenties, and explain how they challenged traditional standards and customs.
New social and cultural movements challenged the traditional order. The carefree attitudes of the 1920s, perhaps best represented by the frantic rhythms of jazz music, led writer F. Scott Fitzgerald to call the decade the Jazz Age. Though flappers emerged to challenge gender norms, the majority of women remained full-time housewives or domestic servants. As the Great Migration continued, African Americans in northern cities felt freer to speak out against racial injustice and express pride in their race. The Harlem Renaissance gave voice to African American literature and arts. Racial separatism and black nationalism grew popular under Marcus Garvey, while the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) made efforts to undo racism through education and legislation.
3. Explain what "modernism" means in intellectual and artistic terms and how the modernist movement influenced American culture in the early twentieth century.
Many artists and intellectuals were attracted to modernism, which drew upon Einstein's theory of relativity and Freud's psychological explorations. For modernists, the world was no longer governed by reason, but rather something created and expressed through one's highly individual conciousness. To be "modern" meant to break free of tradition, to violate restrictions, and to shock and confuse the public.
4. Identify important examples of reactionary conservatism in the decade, and analyze their impact on government policies.
Retaliating against to these challenges to convention, various movements fought to uphold their traditional ideas of what America was and how it should remain. In reaction to a renewed surge of immigration after the Great War and the Red Scare, nativists persuaded Congress to restrict future immigration with the Immigration Act of 1924. A revived Ku Klux Klan gained a large membership and considerable political influence across the nation. Fundamentalist Protestants campaigned against teaching evolution in public schools, arguing instead for the literal truth of the Bible. Their efforts culminated in the 1925 Scopes Trial. Progressive reformers and conservative Protestants supported the nationwide Prohibition of alcoholic beverages that started in 1920. Union membership declined as businesses adopted new techniques like open shop.
5. Trace the Republican party's dominance of the federal government during the twenties, and analyze the extent to which its policies were a rejection of progressivism.
Disillusionment with the Great War turned the public against progresivism, and in favor of disarmament and isolationism. The Republican Party benefited from this shift in public mood. Warren G. Harding's call for a "return to normalcy" brought about his landslide presidential victory in 1920. His administration followed the Mellon Plan, which succeeded in reviving the economy. The progressive goal of efficiency through better management remained a part of many Republican initiatives, such as the Budget and Accounting Act.
Chapter 23: New Deal America, 1929-1939
1. Identify the major causes of the Great Depression.
The 1929 stock market crash revealed the structural flaws in the economy, but it was not the only cause of the Great Depression (1929-1941). During the twenties, business owners did not provide adequate wage increases for workers, resulting in the overproductiin of many goods by the end of the decade. The nation's agricultural sector also suffered from overproduction. Government policies--such as high tariffs and the reduction of the nation's money supply as a means of dealing with the financial panic--further reduced the nation's overall consumption and exacerbated the emerging economic depression.
2. Describe the impact of the Great Depression on the American people.
Thousands of banks and businesses closed, while millions of homes and jobs were lost. By the early 1930s, many people were homeless and hopeless. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s compounded the hardship for rural Americans living on the southern Great Plains. Many state laws and business practices discouraged the employment of married women. Discrimination against African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans in hiring was widespread.
3. Explain the response of the Hoover administration to the Great Depression.
The first phase of federal response to the Great Depression included President Hoover's attempts at increasing public works and exhorting unions, businesses, and farmers to revive economic growth. His philosophy of voluntary self-reliance prevented him from using federal intervention to relieve the human suffering. In March 1933, the economy was shattered. Millions more Americans were without jobs, basic necessities, and hope.
4. Assess the goals and accomplishments of the early New Deal.
During his early months in office, Congress and President Roosevelt enacted the FIrst New Deal (1933-1935), which propped up the banking industry with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (1933), provided short-term emergency work relief, promoted industrial recovery with the National Recovery Administration (1933), and raised agricultural prices with the Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933). In this second phase of federal response, most of the early New Deal programs helped end the economy's downward spiral but still left millions unemployed and mired in poverty.
5. Analyze the major criticisms of the early New Deal.
The Supreme Court ruled that several of the First New Deal programs were unconstitutional violations of private propety and states' rights. Many conservatives criticized the New Deal for expanding the scope and reach of the federal government so much that it was steering the nation toward socialism. By contrast, other critics did not think the New Deal went far enough. African American critics decried the widespread discrimination in New Deal policies and agencies.
6. Evaluate the ways the New Deal evolved and how it transformed the role of federal government.
Roosevelt responded to the criticism and the continuing economic hardship with a third phase, the Second New Deal (1935-1938), which sought to reshape the nation's social structure by expanding the role of the federal goverment. Many of its programs, such as the Works Progress Administration (1935), Social Security (1935), and the Wagner Act (1935), aimed to achieve greater social justice by establishing new regulatory agencies and laying the foundation of a federal social welfare system. The Second New Deal reformed business, industry, and banking with provisions such as unemployment pay, a minimum hourly wage, old-age pensions, and bank-deposit insurance. The NEw Deal established the idea that the federal government should provide a baseline quality of life for all Americans.
Chapter 24: The Second World War, 1933-1945
1. Assess how German and Japanese actions led to the outbreak of war in Europe and in Asia.
In Italy, Benito Mussolini assumed control by promising law and order. Adolf Hitler rearmed Germany in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and aimed to unite all German speakers in a "Greater Germany." Civil War in Spain and the growth of the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin contributed to a precarious balance of power in Europe. By March 1939, Nazi Germany had annexed Austria and seized Czechoslovakia. Hitler then sent troops to invade Poland with the blitzkrieg strategy in September 1939, after signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. At last, the British and French governments declared war.
2. Evaluate how President Roosevelt and Congress responded to the outbreak of wars in Europe and Asia between 1933 and 1941.
The United States issued "neutrality laws" to keep it out of war, but with the fall of France, Roosevelt accelerated military aid to Great Britain through the Lend-Lease Bill. In 1941, the United States and Great Britain signed the Atlantic Charter, announcing their aims in the war. After Japan joined with Germany and Italy to form the "Axis" alliance and Japan announced its intention to take control of French Indochina, President Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States and restricted oil exports to Japan. The frustrated Japanese decided to launch a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in hopes of destroying the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
3. Analyze the effects of the Second World War on American society.
The war had profound effects on American society. Americans migrated west to take jobs in defense factories, making unemployment a thing of the past. Farmers, too, recovered from hard times, supported by Mexican labor through the bracero program. The federal government, through agencies like the War Production Board, took control of managing the economy for the war effort. Many women took nontraditional jobs, some in the Women's Army Corps. About 1 million African Americans served in the military in segregated units such as the Tuskegee Airmen. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly interned in "war relocation camps."
4. Explain the major factors that enabled the United States and its allies to win the war in Europe.
By 1943, the Allies had defeated the German and Italian armies occupying North Africa and then launched attacks on Sicily and the mainland of Italy. Stalin demanded an Allied attack on the Atlantic coast of France, but Operation Overlord was delayed until 1944. Invaded from the west and the east, German resistance slowly crumbled. Allied leaders Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, where they decided to divide a conquered Germany into four occupation zones. In May, Soviet forces captured Berlin and Germany surrendered. After the war, Allied forces discovered the extent of the Holocaust--the Nazis' systematic attempt to exterminate the Jews.
5. Describe how the Japanese were defeated in the war in the Pacific.
The Japanes advance across the Pacific was halted in June 1942 when the U.S. Navy destroyed much of the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway. The United States fought costly battles in New Guinea and Guadalcanal before dislodging the Japanese from the Philippines in 1944. FIerce Japanese resistance at Iwo Jima and Okinawa and refusal to surrender led the new president, Harry S. Truman, to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
6. Evaluate the efforts of President Roosevelt and the Allies to shape the postwar world.
The Soviet Union and the United States emerged from the war as global superpowers. The United States possessed the world's strongest economy. Military production had brought America out of the Great Depression, and new military technologies changed industrial and private life. The opportunities for women and minorities during the war also increased their aspirations and would contribute to the emergence of the civil rights and feminist movements.
Chapter 25: The Cold War and the Fair Deal, 1945-1952
1. Explain why and how the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union developed after the Second World War.
The cold war was an ideological contest between the Western democracies (especially the United States) and the Communist countries (especially the Soviet Union). At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union established "friendly" governments in the Eastern European countries it occupied behind an iron curtain, violating promises that Stalin had made at the Yalta Conference. The United States and the Soviet Union, former allies, came to differ openly on issues of human rights, individual liberties, self-determination, and religious freedoms. As mutual hostility emerged, the two nations and their allies competed to shape the postwar order around the globe.
2. Analyze the impact of American efforts to contain the Soviet Union and the expansion of communism during Truman's presidency.
President Truman responded to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe with containment, a policy to halt the spread of communism by opposing it wherever it emerged around the world. With the Truman Doctrine (1947), he proposed giving economic and military aid to countries facing Communist insurgencies, such as Greece and Turkey. The National Security Act reorganized the U.S. armed forces and created the Central Intelligence Agency. The Marshall Plan offered postwar redevelopment aid to all European nations. In 1948, the United States withstood a Soviet blockade of supplies to West Berlin with the Berlin airlift and, in 1949, became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
3. Describe Truman's efforts to expand the New Deal, and evaluate the effectiveness of his own "Fair Deal" agenda.
The Fair Deal proposed to preserve and expand the New Deal in the face of intense Republican opposition in Congress. While he could not stop the Republican-backed, anti-union Taft-Hartley Labor Act. Truman successfully expanded Social Security, desegregated the military, and banned racial discrimination in the hiring of federal employees. In his second term, he proposed new laws such as a civil rights bill, national health insurance, federal aid to education, and new farm subsidies. However, conservative majorities of Republicans and southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) were able to defeat these initiatives in domestic policy.
4. Assess the major international developments during 1940-1950, including the outbreak of the Korean War, and explain how they altered U.S. foreign policy.
While containment policies halted Soviet expansion in Europe, they proved less effective in East Asia as Communists won a long civil war in China in 1949 and ignited a war in Korea. In response, Truman authorized NSC-68, which called for a dramatic increase in military spending and nuclear arms. When North Korean troops invaded South Korea in June 1950, Truman considered this an attempt by the Soviet Union to distract the U.S. from Western Europe, so he quickly decided to go to war under the auspices of the United Nations, thus bypassing Congress's authority to declare war. After three years of war, a truce established a demilitarized zone in Korea on either side of the 38th parallel. Truman also began assisting French efforts to subdue a Communist insurgency in its Southeast Asian colony of Indochina.
5. Examine the emergence of the Red Scare, after the Second World War, and explain its impact on American politics and society.
The onset of the cold war inflamed another Red Scare. After the Second World War, investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) sought to find "subversives" within the federal government. Starting in 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy exploited American fears of Soviet infiltration of the U.S. government. McCarthyism flourished in the short term because the threat of a world dominated by Communist governments seemed all too real to many Americans.
Chapter 26: Affluence and Anxiety in the Atomic Age, 1950-1959
1. Explain President Eisenhower's political philosophy and priorities.
As President, Dwight Eisenhower promoted what he called moderate Republicanism or "dynamic conservatism." While critical of excessive government spending on social programs, he also expanded Social Security coverage and launched ambitious public works programs, such as the Federal-Aid Highway Act that constructed the Interstate Highway System. He opposed large budget deficits, however, and cut spending on national defense and an array of domestic programs.
2. Identify the factors that contributed to postwar prosperity, and analyze to what extent all Americans benefited from it.
High levels of federal government spending, begun before the war, continued during the postwar period. The GI Bill of Rights boosted home buying and helped many veterans attend college and enter the middle class. Consumer demand for homes, cars, and household goods that had been unavailable during the war fueled the economy, as did buying with new credit cards as well as demand created by the baby boom. After the Second World War, with the the growth of suburbia, corporations, and advertising, America's mass culture displayed what critics called a bland sameness. A large majority of Americans, including many in the working class, experienced unprecedented rising living standards during the 1950s. But discrimination in the work force continued against African Americans, Hispanics, and women who were relegated to lower paying jobs. African Americans were largely excluded from the new suburbs, and women experienced enormous social pressure to marry and raise children as opposed to pursuing careers.
3. Examine the criticism of postwar American society and culture, and describe the various forms of dissent and anxiety.
The Beats rebelled against what they claimed was the suffering conformity of middle-class life in the fifties, as did many other writers and artists. Adolescents rebelled through acts of juvenile delinquency and a new form of sexually provocative music called rock 'n' roll. Pockets of chronic poverty persisted despite record-breaking economic growth, and minorities did not prosper to the extent that white Americans did.
4. Evaluate the goals, strategies, and impact of the civil rights movement that emerged in the 1950s.
During the early 1950s, the NAACP mounted legal challenges in federal courts to states requiring racially segregated public schools. In the most significant case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the separate-but-equal doctrine. Many white southerners adopted a strategy of massive resistance against court-ordered desegregation. In response, civil rights activists, both blacks and whites, used nonviolent civil disobedience to force local and state officials to allow integration, as demonstrated in the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama and the forced desegregation of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Martin Luther King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to rally civil rights opposition after white violence against activists in Little Rock. In 1957, the U.S. Congress passed a Civil Rights Act intended to stop discrimination against black voters in the South, but it was rarely enforced.
5. Assess President Eisenhower's priorities in conducting the nation's foreign policy and his influence on global affairs.
Eisenhower's first major foreign-policy accomplishment was to end the fighting in Korea. Thereafter, Eisenhower kept the nation out of war. Instead, he relied on secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervention, financial and military aid, and threats of massive retaliation to stem the spread of communism. Though American aid was not enough to save the French at Diem Bien Phu, Eisenhower's belief in the falling domino theory deepened U.S. support for the government in South Vietnam in its war with North Vietnam and the communist Viet Cong insurgents. He came closest to ordering military intervention in the Suez crisis, but was able to mediate a solution. Closer to home, however, he approved a secret CIA operation to overthrow Fidel Castro, Cuba's communist leader.
Chapter 27: New Frontiers, 1960-1968
1. Assess President John F. Kennedy's efforts to contain communism abroad and pursue civil rights and other social programs at home.
President John F. Kennedy promised a "New Frontier" in 1961, but many of his domestic policies stalled in Congress. He inherited a CIA plan to topple Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba that resulted in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev tested American resolve by erecting the Berlin Wall and installing missiles in Cuba, provoking the Cuban Missile Crisis. Determined to stand up to the Soviet Union, Kennedy ordered a naval "quarantine" of Cuba and succeeded in forcing Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles. During his presidency, Kennedy also deepened America's anticommunist commitment in Vietnam.
2. Describe the strategies and achievements of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and explain the divisions that emerged among its activists during the decade.
At the beginningof the decade, growing numbers of African Americans and whites staged acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to protest discrimination in the South. In 1960, student activists formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to intensify efforts to dismantle segregation. In 1961, courageous Freedom Riders attempted to integrate Southern bus and train stations. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington (1963). But King and other leaders did little to address the concerns of the inner cities, where 70 percent of the nation's African American population lived and experienced frequent discrimination in housing, education, and employment. The black power movement emphasized militancy, black nationalism, separatism, and often, violence.
3. Analyze Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty and Great Society initiatives, and evaluate their impact on American society.
Early in his presidency, Johnson shepherded the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and, as part of his "war" on poverty, the Economic Opportunity Act through Congress. After his resounding presidential victory in 1964, he pushed his vision for a Great Society through Congress-hundreds of initiatives that expanded federal social welfare programs, such as the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. It also ended national quotas in immigration law through the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965.
4. Explain Presidents Kennedy and Johnson's motivations for deepening America's military involvement in the Vietnam War and appraise their efforts to preserve a noncommunist South Vietnam.
5. Examine the presidential election of 1968 and explain the issues that propelled Richard Nixon to victory.
Johnson shockingly chose not to seek reelection in early 1968. Anti-war Democrats rallied around Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, setting off a series of violent riots in urban ghettos across the country. Robert Kennejdy himself was assassinated in June. Ultimately, the Democrats selected Johnson's loyal vice president, Hubert Humphrey, as their nominee, provoking angry protests by anti-war demonstrators at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Party Convention. The Republicans nominated former candidate Richard Nixon who claimed to represent the "silent majority." The segregationist former governor of Alabama, George Wallace, ran as an independent candidate and also appealed to the "silent majority." In the end, Nixon narrowly beat Humphrey and Wallace who made one of the best showings ever by a third-party candidate.
Chapter 28: Rebellion and Reaction, The 1960s and 1970s
1. Analyze the origins of the youth revolt, and compare the responses of the New Left and the counterculture.
Civil rights activism inspired a heightened interest in a number of social causes during the sixties, especially among the youth. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) embodied the New Left ideology, and helped spure the free-speech movement (FSM) starting at the University of California, Berkeley, and spreading to many campuses across the nation. By 1970, a distinctive counterculture also emerged among disaffected youth and attracted hippies, many of whom used mind-altering drugs, lived on rural communes, and refused conventional life, which they viewed as corrupt and constricting.
2. Assess the influence of the youth revolt and the early civil rights movement on other protest movements and how new protest movements affected social attitudes and public policy.
The energy, ideals, tactics, and courage of the civil rights movement inspired many other social reform movements, including the women's movement, the "Red Power" movement, and the United Farm Workers (UFW). The 1969 Stonewall riots marked a militant new era in the crusade for gay rights.
3. Analyze how Richard Nixon's election strategy and domestic policies were affected by the political environment of the late sixties.
Richard Nixon took advantage of the backlash against these liberal politics and cultural movements to win election in 1968. His "southern strategy" drew large numbers of conservative southern white Democrats into the Republican party for the first time. As president, he sought to slow the momentum of the civil rights movement with affirmative action programs and vetoed the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1968, though with no success. Nixon did grudgingly support important new federal environmental policies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both the Nixon and Ford administrations were unable to overcome stagflation.
4. Analyze how and why Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger changed military and political strategies to end America's involvement in the Vietnam War.
In his 1968 campaign, Nixon pledged to secure "peace with honor" in Vietnam, but years would pass before the war ended. He did change the military strategy in Vietnam by implementing Vietnamization: increasing aid to South Vietnam and aggressively bombing North Vietnam, while attempting to negotiate a cease-fire with North Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers and the intense bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972 sparked worldwide protests. But a month into the bombing, North and South Vietnam agreed to a cease-fire called the Paris Peace Accords. In 1975, the South Vietnamese government collapsed after a massive North Vietnamese invasion. The Communist victors forcibly reunited the North and the South.
5. Examine the world order that evolved after the Vietnam War from Richard Nixon's and Henry Kissinger's diplomacy and foreign policies.
Nixon's greatest accomplishments were in foreign policy. As an aggressive anti-Communist, he shocked the world by opening diplomatic relations with Communist China and pursuing detente with the Soviet Union, focusing on areas of shared agreement with SALT I. He and Henry Kissinger eased tensions in the Middle East, while aggravating anti-American feelings in countries like Chile with covert CIA operatiogns to overthrow governments with Communist ties.
6. Explain how the Watergate scandal unfolded, and assess its political significance.
During the 1972 presidential campaign, the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) was implicated in a break-in of the Democratic campaign's Watergate headquarters. In United States v. Richard M. Nixon (1974), the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon had to surrender the recordings of White House meetings dealing with the scandal. Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid impeachment. He was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, whose presidency was undermined by continued economic struggles, international incidents, and his controversial decision to pardon Nixon.
Chapter 29:Conservative Revival, 1977-1990
1. Analyze why Jimmy Carter had such limited success as America's thirty-ninth president.
Jimmy Carter had notable achievements, such as the Camp David Accords. Yet, his administration suffered from legislative inexperience, a deepening economic recession, soaring inflation, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. His sermonizing about the need for Americans to lead simpler lives compounded the public's loss of faith in his presidency.
2. Identify the factors that led to the election of Ronald Reagan, the rise of the conservative movement, and the resurgence of the Republican Party.
Ronald Reagan's charm, coupled with the public's disillusionment over Carter's presidency, won Reagan the election in 1980. The Republican insurgency, characterized in part by a cultural backlash against the feminist movement, was dominated by the religious right. Sunbelt voters, many of whom were older transplants to southern and western states, were socially conservative and favored lower taxes and a smaller, less intrusive federal government. California passed a property-tax lowering referendum, Proposition 13, which led to a nationwide tax revolt.
3. Define "Reaganomics" and evaluate its effects on American society and economy.
Reagan introduced a "supply-side" economic philosophy, commonly called Reaganomics, that championed tax cuts for the rich, reduced government regulation, cuts to social-welfare programs, and increased defense spending. In practice, however, Reagan was unable to cut domestic spending significantly, and the tax cuts failed to pay for themselves as promised. The result was a dramatic increase in the national debt. Reagan also did much to weaken unions and the feminist movement, and to shift the political landscape away from the New Deal liberalism that had dominated American politics since 1932.
4. Explain how Reagan's Soviet strategy helped end the Cold War.
Reagan's massive military buildup, including preliminary development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, brought the Soviets to agreement on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty-the beginning of the end of the Cold War. But Reagan's foreign policy was badly tarnished by the Iran-Contra Affair: members of his administration had illegally sold U.S. armaments to Iran to secure the release of American hostages. The proceeds were then secretly funneled to Nicaraguan Contras (despite a congressional ban on such aid). Reagan's loose management style, an independent commission determined, had allowed these illegal activities to flourish.
5. Characterize the social and economic issues and innovations that emerged during the 1980s.
The eighties brought not only unprecedented prosperity but also rising poverty and homelessness. The prevailing conservative mood condemned HIV/AIDS as a "gay" disease. The microprocessor ignited the computer revolution, which dramatically increased productivity and communications while generating new industries. Consumerism flourished all too well, resulting in massive public and private debt as well as the stock market collapse of 1987.
6. Appraise the impact of the end of the Cold War and the efforts of President George H.W. Bush to create a post-Cold War foreign policy.
In the late 1980s, democratic political movements erupted, failing in Communist China but succeeding in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev's steps to restructure the Soviet Union's economy (perestroika) and promote more open policies (glasnost) ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet empire. Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait in 1990. The U.S. led allied forces in Operation Desert Storm; the Iraqis soon surrendered. Despite the success of the first Gulf War, the sluggish economy led to Bush's defeat by the "New Democrats" under Bill Clinton.
Chapter 30: Twenty-First Century America, 1993-Present
1. Describe the major population trends (demographics) in the United States during the twenty-first century, and assess their impact on the nation's politics.
From 1980 to 2010, the U.S. population grew by 25 percent, to 306 million, and was more racially and ethnically diverse. Because of a wave of immigration from Latin America, Hispanics surpassed African Americans as the nation's largest minority. The rate at which the nonwhite population increased had quadrupled since the 1970s. By 2012, the U.S. population included more foreign-born and first-generation residents than ever before.
2. Evaluate the accomplishments and setbacks of Bill Clinton's presidency.
Just two years into the presidency of "New Democrat" Bill Clinton, Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich crafted his Contract with America against the "corrupt liberal welfare state" and achieved a Republican landslide in the 1994 midterm electiojns. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1994) and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 were bipartisan successes. The prosperous high-tech "new economy" thriving on the globalization of commerce helped Clinton balance the federal budget. Yet, Clinton's personal scandals tarnished his presidency even though he was ultimately acquitted. He later intervened in the Balkans to stop ethnic cleansing and brokered the Wye River Accords in the Middle East.
3. Summarize the impact of global terrorism on the United States during the presidency of George W. Bush, and evaluate the effectiveness of his "war on terror."
The 9/11 terrorist attacks led President George W. Bush to declare a war on terror. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) to capture the 9/11 attack's mastermind, Osama bin Laden, destroy his terror organization, Al Qaeda, and oust the Islamist Taliban government that harbored it. Congress also authorized the Office of Homeland Security and the USA Patriot Act. In 2003, the Bush administration invoked the Bush Doctrine against Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq. The Second Iraq War succeeded in removing Hussein from power but turned up no weapons of mass destruction. The administration was unprepared to establish order in postwar Iraq, which was soon wracked by sectarian violence. Americans became bitterly divided over the war and whether the Bush Doctrine enhanced U.S. security.
4. Assess the issues and developments during Bush's second term that helped lead to Barack Obama's historic victory in the 2008 presidential election.
The 2008 presidential election featured Democrats Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, the first female and African American candidates respectively; The Republicans nominated Senator John McCain, the oldest candidate in history. Obama won the popular vote and a landslide victory in the electoral college, becoming the nation's first African American presidetnt. His victory resulted from public dismay about the Great Recession and weariness with Bush's policies. His Internet-and grassroots-based campaign excelled at fundraising and voter turnout. He won much of the nonwhite vote, a rapidly increasing share of the electorate.
5. Identify President Obama's priorities at home and abroad, and assess his efforts to pursue them.
Obama's first priority was shoring up the failing economy through controversial Wall Street bailouts and a huge economic stimulus package: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Economic recovery remained sluggish and unequal, widening the economic divide and spawning the Occupy Wall Street movement. Obama's legacy legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), incited bitter opposition from the Tea Party, which leveraged its control over the House of Representatives to shut down the federal government for sixteen days. Obama reduced U.S. military abroad, removing all combat troops from Iraq in 2011, downsizing their presence in Afghanistan, refusing to make broad military commitments in the Arab Awakening. Obama also endorsed same-sex marriage and a path to citizenship for undocumented residents.