CHAPTER 28
Postwar America: Cold War Politics, Civil Rights, and the Baby Boom, 1945-1961
Chapter Summary
After the Second World War, the United States experienced an uneasy and troubled transition to peace. The Truman administration was plagued by postwar economic problems, and the administration’s handling of those problems led to widespread public discontent, which in turn led to Republican victory in the 1946 congressional elections. However, the actions of the conservative Eightieth Congress worked to Truman’s political advantage; and, to the surprise of most analysts, he won the presidential election of 1948.
During Truman’s first elected term, he and the American people had to contend with the domestic consequences of the Korean War. Although the war brought prosperity, it also brought inflation and increased defense spending at the expense of the domestic programs of Truman’s Fair Deal. Furthermore, both the nature and length of the Korean War led to disillusionment and discontent on the part of many Americans. These factors, coupled with reports of influence peddling in the Truman administration, caused the President’s approval rating to plummet and led to a Republican triumph in the presidential and congressional elections of 1952.
After a discussion of the Truman legacy, the authors turn to a discussion of the “age of consensus”—a period in which Americans agreed on their stance against communism and their faith in economic progress. Believing in the rightness of the American system, many people viewed reform and reformers in a negative light and saw conflict as the product of psychologically disturbed individuals, not as the product of societal ills. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, sharing these beliefs, actively pursued policies designed to promote economic growth and to defeat communism at home and abroad.
In pursuit of economic growth, Eisenhower tried to reduce federal spending and the federal government’s role in regulating the forces of the marketplace. Eisenhower’s farm policies reflected these efforts, and his belief that government should actively promote economic development may be seen in the St. Lawrence Seaway project, the president’s tax reform program, the Atomic Energy Act, and the Highway Act of 1956. Furthermore, Eisenhower’s conservative fiscal policy, as well as his states’ rights philosophy, may be seen in the Indian termination policy adopted during his administration. The authors relate these programs to Eisenhower’s frame of reference and study their impact on American society.
Despite Eisenhower’s fiscal conservatism, the administration’s activist foreign policy and three domestic economic recessions caused increased federal expenditures, decreased tax revenues, and deficit spending. As a result, Eisenhower oversaw only three balanced budgets during his eight years in office. The Sherman Adams scandal and large Democratic gains in the congressional elections of 1958, meant that a beleaguered Eisenhower was on the defensive during his last two years in office.
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States also witnessed a wave of anti-Communist hysteria. The tracing of events from the Amerasia case to Truman’s loyalty probe, the Hiss trial, and the Klaus Fuchs case supports the view that (l) fear of communism, long present in American society, intensified during the postwar years; (2) the building of this fear in the late 1940s was in many ways a “top-down phenomenon”; (3) revelations gave people cause to be alarmed; and (4) McCarthy’s name has been given to a state of mind that existed before he entered the scene. Further discussion supports the characterization of McCarthy as a demagogue, the idea that McCarthyism was sustained by events, and the contention that anti-Communist measures received widespread support.
Eisenhower’s strong anti-Communist views are reflected in his broadening of the loyalty program, his actions in the Rosenberg case, and his support for the Communist Control Act of 1954. Furthermore, Eisenhower chose to avoid a direct confrontation with Senator Joe McCarthy. As a result, McCarthy proceeded to add more victims to his list of alleged subversives and continued to jeopardize freedom of speech and expression. Ultimately, McCarthyism did decline, with McCarthy himself being largely responsible for his own demise.
One group that challenged the consensus mood of the age was African Americans. Under Truman, the federal government, for the first time since Reconstruction, accepted responsibility for guaranteeing equality under the law—civil rights—to African Americans. Furthermore, work by the NAACP, aid by the Justice Department in the form of friend-of-the-court briefs, and decisions by the Supreme Court resulted in a slow erosion of the separate-but-equal doctrine and of black disfranchisement in the South. Then the Supreme Court’s historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka gave African Americans reason to believe that their long struggle against racism was beginning to pay off. However, white southerners reacted with hostility to that decision and actively resisted Court-ordered desegregation. This resistance led to the crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, a crisis in which Eisenhower felt compelled to use federal troops to prevent violence in the desegregation of the city’s public schools. But the Little Rock crisis was merely the tip of an emerging civil rights movement as can be seen through the discussion of the Montgomery bus boycott, the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the sit-in movement, and organization of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
After discussion of Cold War politics and the civil rights movement, we focus on the social and cultural development of American society between 1945 and 1961. This period is characterized by sustained economic growth and prosperity. One of the consequences of this prosperity was the “baby boom,” which fueled more economic growth. This increase in population was especially important to the automobile and construction industries, two of the cornerstones of the economic expansion during the period. The third cornerstone, military spending, was sustained by the government.
As many white middle-class Americans made more money, bought more goods, and created more waste, they also continued a mass migration to the Sunbelt that had begun during the war. In addition, Americans increasingly fled from the cities to the suburbs. Drawn to the suburbs by many factors, including a desire to be with like-minded people and the desire for “family togetherness,” life in suburbia was often made possible by government policies that extended economic aid to families making such a move. Federal, state, and local expenditures on highway construction also spurred the growth of suburbia and led to the development of the megalopolis. Although suburbia had its critics, most Americans seemed to prefer the lifestyle it offered.
Government aid also played a role in other developments that would have a momentous impact on American society. In the late 1940s, government aid to weapons research led to the development of the transistor, which brought the computer and technological revolution to American society. This revolution affected employment patterns, led to the third great merger wave (characterized by conglomerate mergers), and played a role in stabilizing union membership. Consolidation in industry was matched by consolidation in labor (the merging of the AFL and the CIO) and an acceleration of the trend toward bigness in American agriculture. As the cost of farm machinery, pesticides, fertilizer, and land soared, agribusiness presented more of a threat than ever to the family farm.
Economic growth inspired by government defense spending and by the growth of a more affluent population demanding more consumer goods and larger quantities of agricultural products had a negative impact on the environment. Automobiles and factories polluted the air. Human and industrial waste polluted rivers, lakes, and streams. Pesticides endangered wildlife and humans alike, as did the waste from nuclear processing plants. Disposable products marketed as conveniences made America a “throw-away society.”
As both education and religion gained importance in American life during the postwar years, Americans were also, paradoxically, caught up in the materialistic values and pleasures of the era. This fact is revealed through a discussion of the effects of television on American society during the postwar era. The postwar economic boom also affected the family. The changes it brought included the influence of Dr. Benjamin Spock on the parent-child relationship and the conflicting and changing roles of women as more entered the labor market.
After a discussion of the influence of the pioneering work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey in the late 1940s and early 1950s on American attitudes toward sexual behavior, we look at the emergence of a youth subculture, the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, the fads of the era, and the critique of American society offered by the Beat Generation of the 1950s.
Prosperity did not bring about a meaningful redistribution of income in American society during the period under study. Therefore, many Americans (about 25 percent in 1962) lived in poverty. The authors provide a statistical picture of America’s poor, who stood in decided contrast to the affluence around them. As before, the poor congregated in urban areas. African Americans, poor whites, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, and Native Americans continued their movement to low-income inner-city housing, while the more affluent city residents—mostly whites—continued their exodus to the suburbs.
Within the context of a rapidly changing American society, Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy became the standard-bearers for the Republican and Democratic Parties in the presidential election contest of 1960. The chapter ends with a discussion of this election and the reasons for Kennedy’s victory.
Learning Objectives
1. Examine the domestic economic problems that faced the Truman administration during the immediate postwar period; explain Truman’s actions concerning those problems; and discuss the consequences of those actions.
2. Explain the actions of the Eightieth Congress concerning major domestic issues; and discuss the consequences of those actions.
3. Examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1948 presidential election.
4. Examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1952 congressional and presidential elections.
5. Discuss the legacy of the Truman years, and assess the Truman presidency.
6. Discuss the 1950s as an age of consensus and conformity, and explain the beliefs associated with this consensus mood.
7. Discuss the domestic issues facing the Eisenhower administration; explain and evaluate the administration’s handling of those issues; and discuss the consequences of those actions.
8. Discuss the legacy of the Eisenhower years, and assess the Eisenhower presidency.
9. Discuss the combination of forces and incidents that caused the postwar wave of anti-Communist hysteria, and examine the various ways in which this hysteria manifested itself.
10. Explain Senator Joseph McCarthy’s rise to power and his ultimate decline, and discuss the impact of the postwar wave of anti-Communist hysteria on American society.
11. Discuss the gains of African Americans during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and examine the factors responsible for those gains.
12. Examine the reinvigoration of the civil rights movement during the 1950s; discuss the response of white southerners and of the federal government to the demands and actions of African Americans; and explain the extent to which African Americans were successful in achieving their goals.
13. Discuss the reasons for and indicate the extent of the postwar baby boom.
14. Examine the cornerstones of the postwar economic boom, and discuss the causes and consequences of the computer revolution.
15. Examine the forces that contributed to the growth of the Sunbelt, the growth of the suburbs, and the emergence of the megalopolis during the postwar period; indicate the characteristics associated with suburban life; and discuss the criticisms leveled against suburbia.
16. Discuss the concentration of ownership in industry, and explain how the merger wave of the 1950s and 1960s differed from previous merger waves.
17. Discuss the characteristics of and the trends within the labor movement and agriculture from 1945 to 1970.
18. Discuss the impact of the postwar economic boom on the environment.
19. Discuss American concepts about education and American attitudes about religion and sex during the 1950s.
20. Discuss changes in the American family, the role of women, and the concept of motherhood during the 1950s and 1960s.
21. Explain the characteristics of each of the following, and discuss their impact on American society in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s:
a. Television
b. Motion pictures
c. Popular music
d. Fads
e. the Beat writers
22. Examine the reasons for, extent of, and effects of poverty in America during the postwar era, and discuss the characteristics of the poor.
23. Examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1960 presidential election.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
During the 1940s and l950s, Americans shared a belief in anti-communism and in the importance of economic progress. This consensus lasted throughout the era despite growing social tensions.
II. Cold War Politics: The Truman Presidency
A. Postwar Job Layoffs
The war ended earlier than anticipated, preventing the government from developing an effective reconversion plan. Consequently, unemployment jumped markedly.
B. Beginnings of the Postwar Economic Boom
The economy rocketed on a 25 year boom.
C. Upsurges in Labor Strikes
Falling real income led many workers to go out on strike, particularly in 1946.
D. Consumer Discontent
Problems associated with lifting wartime price controls caused consumers to express discontent with Truman. However, the Republican-controlled Eightieth Congress offended many interest groups.
E. Truman’s Upset Victory
Republicans expressed great confidence during the election campaign, especially since the Democrats splintered at their convention. Nevertheless, Truman won.
F. Korean War Discontent on the Home Front
The Korean War sparked an inflationary spiral that led to a wage and price freeze in 1951. The war also led to an increase in draft calls and the size of the army.
G. Truman’s Historical Standing
Historians now recognize Truman as one of the nation’s greatest presidents.
III. Consensus and Conflict: the Eisenhower Presidency
A. The “Consensus Mood”
White Americans enjoyed a common optimism that the United States was the greatest nation on earth. Historians in the l950s saw conflict as an aberration, not a constant, in American history.
B. “Dynamic Conservatism”
Eisenhower pursued policies friendly to business, but he also recognized that dismantling New Deal and Fair Deal programs was politically impossible.
C. Termination Policy for Native Americans
Under Eisenhower, the federal government moved to limit its role in Indian affairs.
D. Election of 1956
Despite a heart attack in 1955, Eisenhower successfully ran for reelection.
E. Eisenhower Presidency Assessed
Eisenhower produced mixed results, but in recent years historians have judged him in a more favorable light.
F. The “Military Industrial Complex”
As he left the White House, Eisenhower warned the American people of the “military-industrial complex.”
IV. McCarthyism
A. Truman’s Loyalty Probe
In 1947, Truman ordered loyalty investigations of millions of federal workers.
B. Victims of Anti Communist Hysteria
Film personalities, homosexuals, and others suffered anti communist smears. Within many organizations, redbaiting was used by some to discredit the opposition.
C. Hiss Case
The House Committee on Un American Activities investigated a former State Department official, Alger Hiss, for his links to Communist spies.
D. McCarthy’s Attack on the State Department
When Senator Joseph McCarthy announced that Communists controlled the State Department, he started the hysteria that became known as McCarthyism.
E. Eisenhower’s Reluctance to Confront McCarthy
Eisenhower followed an indirect approach in dealing with McCarthyism.
F. Army McCarthy Hearings
McCarthy made a crucial error by accusing the Army of harboring Communists during televised Senate hearings.
V. The Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s and 1950s
A. AfricanAmericans Political “Balance of Power”
Black migrations to the North and West led to a shift in the political composition of those regions.
B. President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights
The report of Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights shaped government policy for 20 years.
C. Supreme Court Decisions on Civil Rights
African Americans benefited from court decisions in the late 1940s.
D. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
In 1954, the Supreme Court declared segregated public schools unconstitutional.
E. White Resistance to Civil Rights
Eisenhower objected to a federal role in civil rights, thereby tacitly encouraging resistance to integration.
F. Crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas
When Arkansas tried to block integration of a Little Rock high school, Eisenhower intervened to force compliance.
G. Montgomery Bus Boycott
African Americans protested segregated public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama, by staging a massive boycott of the bus system.
H. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., led the bus boycott, beginning his leadership of the civil rights movement.
I. Sit Ins
In 1960, young African Americans began sit in demonstrations that marked a shift in the movement.
J. Civil Rights and the 1960 Election
Support for the Civil Rights Movement earned Kennedy the AfricanAmerican vote.
VI. The Postwar Booms: Babies, Business, and Bigness
A. The Affluent Society
Americans’ appetites for consumer goods increased. Easy credit was the economic basis of the consumer culture that emerged.
B. Increased Purchasing Power
Real per capita income increased among Americans, creating a boom that seemed to vindicate capitalism.
C. Baby Boom
The baby boom was both a cause and effect of prosperity. The highest birth rate in American history increased demand for houses and schools.
D. Housing Boom
Along with the baby boom, American families became more suburbanized, creating a greater demand for houses. Low interest GI mortgages and Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance helped many people afford homes. Contractors erected rows of houses in record times to facilitate this housing demand.
E. Highway Construction
The Highway Act of 1956 appropriated billions of dollars for the construction of a modern highway system. Federal expenditures on highways made formerly isolated rural areas accessible to average Americans, a development that hastened suburbanization and promoted uniform lifestyles across the nation.
F. Growth of the Suburbs
People left cities and moved to the suburbs for a variety of reasons.
G. Growth of the Sunbelt
Millions of Americans sought affluence by moving to the “Sunbelt,” the southern third of the United States. This mass migration increased the political clout of the area.
H. Military Spending
Military spending also helped the postwar American economy. Defense spending produced rapid increases in the electronics and “high tech” industries.
I. Conglomerate Mergers
Corporate expansion in the l950s took the form of conglomerate mergers, resulting in unprecedented concentration of industry.
J. Labor Merger
The labor movement also underwent mergers of major labor organizations. Unionized blue collar workers gained wage increases after the war, and they could lead middle class lifestyles previously reserved for the white collar workers.
K. Agribusiness
Consolidation and improved technology also drew large investment into agriculture, which brought the decline of the traditional family farm.
L. Environmental Costs
Development led to damage to the environment, but most Americans remained oblivious to the problems. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring alerted Americans to the dangers of DDT, one of the most damaging pesticides used by Americans. The government banned DDT in 1972.
VII. Conformity and Consumerism
A. Pressures in Education
American families became preoccupied with education, seeing success in school as a prerequisite for economic and social success. When the Soviets launched Sputnik I, education became a matter of national security.
B. Growth of Religion
Membership in religious congregations grew steadily in the 1950s.
C. Television Togetherness
The newest luxury item, television, transformed family life in America.
D. Women’s Conflicting Roles and Dilemmas
Although women were expected to be full-time housewives, women continued to enter the labor force. Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care caused mothers to feel guilty if they did not always think of their children first.
E. Sexuality
Americans’ knowledge of their sexuality was not well advanced as demonstrated by the public outcry against Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.
F. The Youth Subculture
The music industry catered to youth, and youngsters found subtle ways to rebel against social norms. Movies were successful because of the attendance of young Americans.
G. Beat Generation
Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg rejected many of the social mores of the period. They concentrated on freewheeling sexuality and taking drugs, influencing an entire generation in the 1960s.
VIII. The Other America
A. Women
Because of occupational segregation, women constituted a disproportionate share of the poor. Women had little protection, and divorce, desertion, or widowhood often meant that women slipped into poverty.
B. The Inner Cities
By the early 1960s, one out of every four Americans lived in poverty. Most of the poor settled in cities, and African Americans made up the bulk of the urban poor. Mexican Americans became the second largest group of urban poor. Many of them came into the United States illegally, and they created barrios in several large cities. Native Americans were the nation’s poorest people. Accustomed to reservation life, many had great difficulty adjusting to life in the cities.
C. Rural Poverty
Tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and migratory farm workers often lived in poverty.
IX. The Election of 1960 and the Dawning of a New Decade
Young and charismatic, John Kennedy won the Democratic nomination in 1960. Kennedy defused the question of his Catholicism, courted the black vote, and convinced Americans that the Republicans had hurt America’s international standing.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 27
The Second World War at Home and Abroad, 1941-1945
Chapter Summary
The first two sections of Chapter 27, “Winning the Second World War” and “The War in the Pacific,” trace the European and Pacific theater campaigns that led to Allied victory in World War II. The undercurrent of suspicion among the Allies, obvious in the second-front controversy, provides the theme for discussion of the European campaigns. Discussion of the war in the Pacific focuses on America’s wartime perception of Japan as the major enemy. The authors also consider the “island-hopping” strategy adopted by American forces after breaking the momentum of Japan’s offensive at the Battle of Midway, and the American goal of crippling Japan’s merchant marine. The success of these strategies led to the conventional bombing of Japan’s cities and ultimately to the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman’s rejection of suggested alternatives to the atomic bomb and the strategic, emotional, psychological, and diplomatic reasons for his decision to use it are explained at the end of the section on the war in the Pacific.
The focus of the chapter then shifts to a discussion of the impact of World War II on the home front. In the economic sphere the war brought (l) renewed government-business cooperation and an acceleration of corporate growth, (2) the growth of scientific research facilities through government incentives, (3) the growth of labor unions, and (4) increased mechanization of agriculture as part of a transition from family-owned farms to mechanized agribusiness. The Second World War, to an even greater extent than the First World War, was a total war, requiring not only military mobilization but mobilization of the home front as well. The responsibility for coordinating total mobilization fell on the federal government. As a result, the federal bureaucracy mushroomed in size.
Life in the military, life away from family, and the experience of war profoundly affected the men and women who served in the armed forces during the course of the Second World War. The frame of reference of many GIs was broadened by associations with fellow soldiers from backgrounds and cultures different from their own. Some men and women homosexuals found the freedom within the service to act upon their sexual feelings. As a consequence of the military’s technical schools, many soldiers returned home with new skills and ambitions. But as GIs returned to civilian life, they quickly realized that life at home had continued without them; thus, many felt a sense of loss and alienation.
The war had a special impact on Japanese Americans, nonwhites, and women. The authors note that the treatment of Japanese Americans was the “one enormous exception” to the nation’s generally creditable wartime civil liberties record; Japanese Americans were interned chiefly because of their ethnic origin. For African Americans, the war did provide some opportunities in the military and at home, but the Detroit riot of 1943 made clear that racism remained a shaping force in blacks’ lives. The zoot-suit riot in Los Angeles in 1943 demonstrated that the same was true for Mexican Americans.
For women, the war became a turning point. More women, including more married women and mothers, entered the labor force than ever before. As some of the negative attitudes toward women working in heavy industry began to change, women experienced more geographic and occupational mobility. Although they continued to receive lower pay than men and were still concentrated in sex-segregated occupations, more women than ever were deciding to remain in the labor market. But even with those changes, home and family responsibilities continued to fall on their shoulders. In many cases, the wartime absence of husbands and fathers made women fully responsible for the family. The combination of these factors and experiences meant that many women gained a new sense of independence.
The political impact of the war is the theme of “The Decline of Liberalism and the Election of 1944.” Then, in the last two sections of the chapter, the authors examine wartime foreign policy. The goals of the United States, embodied in the Atlantic Charter, were based to some extent on the memory of the post-First World War period. Continued suspicions among the Allies made cooperation to achieve these objectives difficult. Despite these suspicions and continued disagreement over Poland, Stalin and Churchill reached some agreements about Eastern Europe; and, though China’s role was not determined, the Allies agreed in most other respects on the charter for a United Nations Organization.
After a brief discussion of American policy toward Jewish refugees—a policy characterized by anti-Semitism and fear of economic competition—the authors turn to the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. The Yalta Conference was “the high point of the Grand Alliance.” The agreements reached there are explained in the context of the suspicions among the Allies, the goals of each of the Allies, and the positions of each of the Allied armies. The Potsdam Conference, on the other hand, revealed a crumbling alliance in which any sense of cooperation had given way to suspicions among competitive nation states. These suspicions, so obvious at Potsdam, were a portent concerning the post-war world.
Learning Objectives
1. Describe the military strategy and the major military operations undertaken by the Allies in the European theater; discuss the disagreements that arose concerning strategy; and explain the resolution of these disagreements.
2. Discuss United States military strategy and the major military operations in the Pacific theater that brought America to the verge of victory by 1945.
3. Explain and evaluate President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb.
4. Examine the impact of the Second World War on America’s economic institutions, organized labor, agriculture, and the federal government, and discuss and assess the role played by the federal government in the war effort.
5. Discuss the impact of military life and wartime experiences on the men and women in the United States armed forces during the Second World War.
6. Examine and evaluate the civil liberties record of the United States government during the Second World War, and discuss the government’s response to the Holocaust and to the plight of Jewish refugees.
7. Discuss the impact of the Second World War on African Americans, Mexican Americans, women, and the family.
8. Discuss the decline of political liberalism during the early 1940s, and examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1944 presidential election.
9. Examine the relations, the issues debated, and the agreements reached among the Allies from the second-front controversy through the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and discuss the issues left unresolved after Yalta and Potsdam.
10. Assess the impact of the Second World War on the world community of nations and on the world balance of power.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
World War II marked a watershed in American history. The immediate challenge of defeating the enemy directly affected thousands of men and women, while the new world the war created had ramifications for millions of people.
II. Winning the Second World War
A. Second Front Controversy
Americans strongly supported the war, but from the beginning Allied leaders had differences. In particular, difficulties arose over how the Americans and the English would carry the war into Europe.
B. Teheran Conference
This meeting managed to ease the strain and renew relations between the allies.
C. D Day
The second front offensive began with the Allied landings at Normandy in June 1944. Less than a year later, Germany surrendered.
D. The War in the Pacific
At first the war in the Pacific, largely the responsibility of the United States, did not go well.
E. Battle of Midway
The Japanese enjoyed early successes, but the Battle of Midway in June 1942 was the turning point in the war.
F. Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa
Facing intense fighting, American forces “island hopped” across the Pacific, bypassing a number of strongly held Japanese islands. The Japanese and Americans engaged in especially bloody combat on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
G. The Atomic Bomb
The Japanese surrendered after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
H. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
A variety of military, scientific, and political reasons motivated the U.S.
III. Mobilizing the American Home Front
A. Office of Price Administration
To control inflation, this agency was given the power to fix price ceilings on commodities and control rents in defense areas.
B. War Production Board and War Manpower Commission
The WPB succeeded in turning the civilian manufacturing economy into a powerhouse of military industrial might. The WMC recruited workers for the nation’s factories.
C. Government Incentives to Business
Wartime policy encouraged the growth of big business.
D. University Research and Weapons Development
Universities benefited from government grants to aid the war effort.
E. Unions and Wartime Labor Strikes
Despite a “no strike” agreement with the government, some workers staged walkouts during the war. Congress responded with a bill designed to place limits on labor.
F. Wartime Change in Agriculture
Agriculture mechanized to replace workers.
G. Growth in the Federal Government
The American economy expanded dramatically during the war. The national government also experienced remarkable growth.
IV. The Military Life
A. The Ordeal of Combat
Americans faced the stress of combat and struggled to cope.
B. Homosexuals on Active Duty
Many men and women in the armed forces who had a same-sex orientation found the freedom to act on their feelings.
C. Postwar Ambitions
The interaction of people from all over the U.S. facilitated an exchange of ideas. Soldiers returned home with new skills, and many took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights.
V. Enemy Aliens, Conscientious Objectors, and Japanese American Internees
A. “An Enemy Race”
Many in the U.S. saw the war against Japan as a struggle against the “Japanese race.” Despite anti-Japanese sentiment, Japanese Americans fought valiantly for the United States as evidenced by the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
B. Life in the Internment Camps
The camps were bleak and demoralizing.
VI. Jobs and Racism on the Home Front
A. African Americans in Combat
Almost a million African Americans served in the armed forces and distinguished themselves on the battlefield. However, there were a number of racist incidents during the war.
B. Civil Rights Movement
Blacks, more militant and more willing to protest, waged a “Double V” campaign. CORE, which advocated nonviolent direct action, was founded.
C. African American War Workers
When the government prohibited discrimination in defense jobs, thousands of blacks migrated to the North and West to find work.
D. Race Riots of 1943
Racial tensions began to develop in the North. Racial warfare broke out in Detroit in June 1943.
E. Bracero Program
The United States turned to Mexican laborers during the war. The “zoot-suit riot” in Los Angeles in 1943 involved attacks on young Mexican Americans.
VII. Women and Children in the War Effort
A. Women in War Production
Women participated in war production on an unprecedented scale.
B. Discrimination Against Women
Wartime needs made millions of jobs available, and many women went to work for the first time. They found that discrimination often characterized the workplace.
C. Children in Wartime
The government became involved in childcare as a result of wartime pressures. Children contributed to the war effort by buying war bonds. Many also dropped out of school to go to work.
D. Increase in Marriage, Divorce, and Birth Rates
During the war, the number of marriages, births, and divorces, rose markedly. The new social dynamic had long term consequences for women.
VIII. The Decline of Liberalism and the Election of 1944
A. Wartime Liberalism
As conservatives worked to limit or dismantle the New Deal, Republicans made gains in the election of 1942. However, in his Economic Bill of Rights Roosevelt pledged to provide jobs, food, shelter, clothing, and financial security to every American.
B. Roosevelt and Truman
The President chose a loyal New Deal trooper to aid him in his reelection.
C. Roosevelt’s Fourth-term Victory
In apparent ill health, Roosevelt defeated Thomas Dewey for a fourth term in 1944. Roosevelt died in April 1945, and Vice President Harry Truman became president.
IX. Planning for Peace
A. Allied Disagreement over Eastern Europe
The Allies shared a commitment to defeating the enemy, but they also had a number of differences. The fate of Eastern Europe posed the greatest problem.
B. Creation of the United Nations
In 1944, diplomats established the framework for the United Nations.
C. Jewish Refugees
Six million Jews died in concentration camps during the war, but the Allies took few steps to stop the killings.
D. The Holocaust
The U.S. did too little, too late, to greatly affect the Holocaust.
E. The Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference of February 1945 shaped the postwar world. As the meeting convened, each of the Allies had its own agenda. Russia wanted a friendly Poland to serve as a buffer state. The Allies agreed to accept a coalition government in Poland and to resolve disputed borders at a later date.
F. Potsdam Conference
At Potsdam, Truman, who knew the United States had achieved atomic capability, showed less deference to Stalin than had Roosevelt.
The Second World War at Home and Abroad, 1941-1945
Chapter Summary
The first two sections of Chapter 27, “Winning the Second World War” and “The War in the Pacific,” trace the European and Pacific theater campaigns that led to Allied victory in World War II. The undercurrent of suspicion among the Allies, obvious in the second-front controversy, provides the theme for discussion of the European campaigns. Discussion of the war in the Pacific focuses on America’s wartime perception of Japan as the major enemy. The authors also consider the “island-hopping” strategy adopted by American forces after breaking the momentum of Japan’s offensive at the Battle of Midway, and the American goal of crippling Japan’s merchant marine. The success of these strategies led to the conventional bombing of Japan’s cities and ultimately to the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman’s rejection of suggested alternatives to the atomic bomb and the strategic, emotional, psychological, and diplomatic reasons for his decision to use it are explained at the end of the section on the war in the Pacific.
The focus of the chapter then shifts to a discussion of the impact of World War II on the home front. In the economic sphere the war brought (l) renewed government-business cooperation and an acceleration of corporate growth, (2) the growth of scientific research facilities through government incentives, (3) the growth of labor unions, and (4) increased mechanization of agriculture as part of a transition from family-owned farms to mechanized agribusiness. The Second World War, to an even greater extent than the First World War, was a total war, requiring not only military mobilization but mobilization of the home front as well. The responsibility for coordinating total mobilization fell on the federal government. As a result, the federal bureaucracy mushroomed in size.
Life in the military, life away from family, and the experience of war profoundly affected the men and women who served in the armed forces during the course of the Second World War. The frame of reference of many GIs was broadened by associations with fellow soldiers from backgrounds and cultures different from their own. Some men and women homosexuals found the freedom within the service to act upon their sexual feelings. As a consequence of the military’s technical schools, many soldiers returned home with new skills and ambitions. But as GIs returned to civilian life, they quickly realized that life at home had continued without them; thus, many felt a sense of loss and alienation.
The war had a special impact on Japanese Americans, nonwhites, and women. The authors note that the treatment of Japanese Americans was the “one enormous exception” to the nation’s generally creditable wartime civil liberties record; Japanese Americans were interned chiefly because of their ethnic origin. For African Americans, the war did provide some opportunities in the military and at home, but the Detroit riot of 1943 made clear that racism remained a shaping force in blacks’ lives. The zoot-suit riot in Los Angeles in 1943 demonstrated that the same was true for Mexican Americans.
For women, the war became a turning point. More women, including more married women and mothers, entered the labor force than ever before. As some of the negative attitudes toward women working in heavy industry began to change, women experienced more geographic and occupational mobility. Although they continued to receive lower pay than men and were still concentrated in sex-segregated occupations, more women than ever were deciding to remain in the labor market. But even with those changes, home and family responsibilities continued to fall on their shoulders. In many cases, the wartime absence of husbands and fathers made women fully responsible for the family. The combination of these factors and experiences meant that many women gained a new sense of independence.
The political impact of the war is the theme of “The Decline of Liberalism and the Election of 1944.” Then, in the last two sections of the chapter, the authors examine wartime foreign policy. The goals of the United States, embodied in the Atlantic Charter, were based to some extent on the memory of the post-First World War period. Continued suspicions among the Allies made cooperation to achieve these objectives difficult. Despite these suspicions and continued disagreement over Poland, Stalin and Churchill reached some agreements about Eastern Europe; and, though China’s role was not determined, the Allies agreed in most other respects on the charter for a United Nations Organization.
After a brief discussion of American policy toward Jewish refugees—a policy characterized by anti-Semitism and fear of economic competition—the authors turn to the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. The Yalta Conference was “the high point of the Grand Alliance.” The agreements reached there are explained in the context of the suspicions among the Allies, the goals of each of the Allies, and the positions of each of the Allied armies. The Potsdam Conference, on the other hand, revealed a crumbling alliance in which any sense of cooperation had given way to suspicions among competitive nation states. These suspicions, so obvious at Potsdam, were a portent concerning the post-war world.
Learning Objectives
1. Describe the military strategy and the major military operations undertaken by the Allies in the European theater; discuss the disagreements that arose concerning strategy; and explain the resolution of these disagreements.
2. Discuss United States military strategy and the major military operations in the Pacific theater that brought America to the verge of victory by 1945.
3. Explain and evaluate President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb.
4. Examine the impact of the Second World War on America’s economic institutions, organized labor, agriculture, and the federal government, and discuss and assess the role played by the federal government in the war effort.
5. Discuss the impact of military life and wartime experiences on the men and women in the United States armed forces during the Second World War.
6. Examine and evaluate the civil liberties record of the United States government during the Second World War, and discuss the government’s response to the Holocaust and to the plight of Jewish refugees.
7. Discuss the impact of the Second World War on African Americans, Mexican Americans, women, and the family.
8. Discuss the decline of political liberalism during the early 1940s, and examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1944 presidential election.
9. Examine the relations, the issues debated, and the agreements reached among the Allies from the second-front controversy through the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and discuss the issues left unresolved after Yalta and Potsdam.
10. Assess the impact of the Second World War on the world community of nations and on the world balance of power.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
World War II marked a watershed in American history. The immediate challenge of defeating the enemy directly affected thousands of men and women, while the new world the war created had ramifications for millions of people.
II. Winning the Second World War
A. Second Front Controversy
Americans strongly supported the war, but from the beginning Allied leaders had differences. In particular, difficulties arose over how the Americans and the English would carry the war into Europe.
B. Teheran Conference
This meeting managed to ease the strain and renew relations between the allies.
C. D Day
The second front offensive began with the Allied landings at Normandy in June 1944. Less than a year later, Germany surrendered.
D. The War in the Pacific
At first the war in the Pacific, largely the responsibility of the United States, did not go well.
E. Battle of Midway
The Japanese enjoyed early successes, but the Battle of Midway in June 1942 was the turning point in the war.
F. Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa
Facing intense fighting, American forces “island hopped” across the Pacific, bypassing a number of strongly held Japanese islands. The Japanese and Americans engaged in especially bloody combat on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
G. The Atomic Bomb
The Japanese surrendered after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
H. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
A variety of military, scientific, and political reasons motivated the U.S.
III. Mobilizing the American Home Front
A. Office of Price Administration
To control inflation, this agency was given the power to fix price ceilings on commodities and control rents in defense areas.
B. War Production Board and War Manpower Commission
The WPB succeeded in turning the civilian manufacturing economy into a powerhouse of military industrial might. The WMC recruited workers for the nation’s factories.
C. Government Incentives to Business
Wartime policy encouraged the growth of big business.
D. University Research and Weapons Development
Universities benefited from government grants to aid the war effort.
E. Unions and Wartime Labor Strikes
Despite a “no strike” agreement with the government, some workers staged walkouts during the war. Congress responded with a bill designed to place limits on labor.
F. Wartime Change in Agriculture
Agriculture mechanized to replace workers.
G. Growth in the Federal Government
The American economy expanded dramatically during the war. The national government also experienced remarkable growth.
IV. The Military Life
A. The Ordeal of Combat
Americans faced the stress of combat and struggled to cope.
B. Homosexuals on Active Duty
Many men and women in the armed forces who had a same-sex orientation found the freedom to act on their feelings.
C. Postwar Ambitions
The interaction of people from all over the U.S. facilitated an exchange of ideas. Soldiers returned home with new skills, and many took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights.
V. Enemy Aliens, Conscientious Objectors, and Japanese American Internees
A. “An Enemy Race”
Many in the U.S. saw the war against Japan as a struggle against the “Japanese race.” Despite anti-Japanese sentiment, Japanese Americans fought valiantly for the United States as evidenced by the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
B. Life in the Internment Camps
The camps were bleak and demoralizing.
VI. Jobs and Racism on the Home Front
A. African Americans in Combat
Almost a million African Americans served in the armed forces and distinguished themselves on the battlefield. However, there were a number of racist incidents during the war.
B. Civil Rights Movement
Blacks, more militant and more willing to protest, waged a “Double V” campaign. CORE, which advocated nonviolent direct action, was founded.
C. African American War Workers
When the government prohibited discrimination in defense jobs, thousands of blacks migrated to the North and West to find work.
D. Race Riots of 1943
Racial tensions began to develop in the North. Racial warfare broke out in Detroit in June 1943.
E. Bracero Program
The United States turned to Mexican laborers during the war. The “zoot-suit riot” in Los Angeles in 1943 involved attacks on young Mexican Americans.
VII. Women and Children in the War Effort
A. Women in War Production
Women participated in war production on an unprecedented scale.
B. Discrimination Against Women
Wartime needs made millions of jobs available, and many women went to work for the first time. They found that discrimination often characterized the workplace.
C. Children in Wartime
The government became involved in childcare as a result of wartime pressures. Children contributed to the war effort by buying war bonds. Many also dropped out of school to go to work.
D. Increase in Marriage, Divorce, and Birth Rates
During the war, the number of marriages, births, and divorces, rose markedly. The new social dynamic had long term consequences for women.
VIII. The Decline of Liberalism and the Election of 1944
A. Wartime Liberalism
As conservatives worked to limit or dismantle the New Deal, Republicans made gains in the election of 1942. However, in his Economic Bill of Rights Roosevelt pledged to provide jobs, food, shelter, clothing, and financial security to every American.
B. Roosevelt and Truman
The President chose a loyal New Deal trooper to aid him in his reelection.
C. Roosevelt’s Fourth-term Victory
In apparent ill health, Roosevelt defeated Thomas Dewey for a fourth term in 1944. Roosevelt died in April 1945, and Vice President Harry Truman became president.
IX. Planning for Peace
A. Allied Disagreement over Eastern Europe
The Allies shared a commitment to defeating the enemy, but they also had a number of differences. The fate of Eastern Europe posed the greatest problem.
B. Creation of the United Nations
In 1944, diplomats established the framework for the United Nations.
C. Jewish Refugees
Six million Jews died in concentration camps during the war, but the Allies took few steps to stop the killings.
D. The Holocaust
The U.S. did too little, too late, to greatly affect the Holocaust.
E. The Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference of February 1945 shaped the postwar world. As the meeting convened, each of the Allies had its own agenda. Russia wanted a friendly Poland to serve as a buffer state. The Allies agreed to accept a coalition government in Poland and to resolve disputed borders at a later date.
F. Potsdam Conference
At Potsdam, Truman, who knew the United States had achieved atomic capability, showed less deference to Stalin than had Roosevelt.
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 25
The Great Depression and the New Deal,
1929-1941
Chapter Summary
Chapter 25 opens with a discussion of the Great Depression’s impact on people’s lives. The human story includes the increase in malnutrition and disease, the sufferings of drought- and debt-ridden farmers, descriptions of hobo towns, altered marital patterns, and changes to family life.
In the midst of the depression, few Americans thought in radical, revolutionary terms. Many accepted the traditional American belief in the self-made man and blamed themselves for the depression. The protests that emerged were relatively mild, the most spectacular being the Bonus March. Furthermore, in the case of the Bonus March, it was the government, not the people, that overreacted.
Hoover’s response to appeals from the people that the government extend aid was at first defensive. Hoover was convinced that self-help was the solution, not government aid. As the depression deepened, Hoover reluctantly began to energize the government. But at the same time he pursued policies that caused further deterioration of the economic situation.
An understanding of Franklin Roosevelt’s background, his perception of himself, his society, and American government is important to an understanding of his approach to the Great Depression. That background and Roosevelt’s frame of reference are outlined as part of the discussion of the presidential election of 1932. Moreover, the authors explain the reasons for Roosevelt’s victory and reveal that in spite of a deepening crisis Americans did not adopt radical solutions. Instead, they continued to follow tradition by peacefully exchanging one government for another.
With the aid of the “Brain Trust,” Roosevelt adopted a theoretical basis for the New Deal he promised to the American people. Roosevelt believed that government could act as a positive force in American society. In deciding how it should act, he was a pragmatist and thus willing to experiment. At first he accepted the idea that government could and should effectively regulate big business. He accepted the idea that centralized planning by the federal government could solve some of the problems associated with the depression, and he was willing to have government engage in direct relief to alleviate the distress of the nation’s citizens. Furthermore, the first New Deal was based on the assumption that overproduction was the underlying problem.
Roosevelt’s initial actions, outlined in “Launching the New Deal and Restoring Confidence,” demonstrate both the conservative nature of his approach and his realization that the psychology of pessimism within the country was as great an enemy as the depression itself. The legislation that was passed, as well as the fireside chats, provided a sense of movement that helped break the mood of pessimism.
An attempt to solve the problem of overproduction through centralized planning provided the theoretical framework for passage of the AAA, the NIRA, and the TVA. Belief in giving direct relief to states and to individuals may be seen in acts such as the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the CCC. The authors consider these and other measures passed during the Hundred Days, and they also discuss the concept of interest-group democracy, which is important for understanding the politics of the New Deal and the Democratic coalition that emerged.
The statistics provided show that the New Deal was not a cure-all and help explain the emergence of opposition to it. The range of criticism indicates that Roosevelt was a political moderate in the route that he chose. Furthermore, the kind of opposition from popular critics like Huey Long, as well as Supreme Court decisions against the AAA and the NIRA, help explain the launching of the Second New Deal.
The Second New Deal stemmed from the view that underconsumption was the nation’s basic problem, that business and banking interests had to be regulated more closely, and that the government had a responsibility to the aged and the needy in American society. These assumptions were behind the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act and five other major pieces of legislation passed during the Second Hundred Days.
The Second New Deal and the forging of the New Deal coalition carried Roosevelt to victory in the 1936 election. Mistakes and political reality meant that Roosevelt did not enjoy successes during his second term like those experienced in his first. He made a political and tactical mistake in his request for a restructuring of the Supreme Court. His dislike of deficit spending and desire for a balanced budget led to drastic cuts in federal spending, which in turn led to a new recession in 1937 and to a renewal of deficit spending. Such mistakes undercut some of Roosevelt’s charisma, and with the passage of a new Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, the last reforms of the New Deal were enacted.
Having discussed the reforms of the New Deal, the authors consider the impact of the New Deal era on organized labor, nonwhites, and women. Organized labor benefited from both Section 7(a) of the NIRA and the Wagner Act. Therefore, despite determined resistance by management and a division within the labor movement that led to the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the union movement made impressive gains during the 1930s.
Although passage of the Indian Reorganization Act indicates a more enlightened governmental approach to American Indians, the experience of African Americans and Mexican Americans demonstrates that racism continued as a force detrimental to the lives of nonwhites. The Scottsboro case serves as a symbol of the “ugliness of race relations in the depression era.” Furthermore, despite the presence of the Black Cabinet, President Roosevelt was never fully committed to civil rights for blacks, and some New Deal measures functioned in a discriminatory way. However, there were some indications that change was on the horizon.
First, in relation to cases arising out of the Scottsboro trial, the Supreme Court ruled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment made the criminal protection procedures (the right to adequate defense counsel and the right to an impartial jury) of the Sixth Amendment applicable to the states. Second, Roosevelt created the Black Cabinet and had within his administration people committed to racial equality. Furthermore, African Americans continued, as they had throughout their history, to work in their own behalf to overcome the injustices and abuses associated with white racism. The March on Washington Movement and Roosevelt’s subsequent issuance of Executive Order No. 8802 can be seen in this light.
Like blacks, women continued to suffer discrimination during the depression era. Although their contributions to the family increased, their status within the family remained unchanged. As more women entered the work force, they continued to face hostility, wage discrimination, and limited employment choices because of sex-typed occupations. Women participated in the shaping and execution of the New Deal through the “women’s network” and through formal appointment to governmental posts, but the fact remained that much New Deal legislation either discriminated against or excluded women.
The chapter ends with a discussion of the presidential election of 1940 and the way in which historians view the legacy of the New Deal.
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss the impact of the Great Depression on the American economic system and on city dwellers, farmers, marriage patterns, and family life.
2. Examine how and why Americans responded to the Great Depression as they did.
3. Explain and evaluate the Hoover administration’s attempts to deal with the economic and human crises posed by the Great Depression.
4. Examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1932 presidential and congressional elections.
5. Discuss the impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s personal and professional experiences prior to 1932 on his political, social, and economic views, and examine the relationship between his political, social, and economic views and his handling of the Great Depression.
6. Explain the practical and theoretical basis for the legislative enactments of the First New Deal (l933–1934), and evaluate the effectiveness of the First New Deal in solving the problems of the depression.
7. Examine the variety of criticisms leveled against the New Deal, and discuss the alternatives proposed.
8. Contrast the Supreme Court’s reaction to New Deal legislation before and after 1937, and explain the reasons for the shift.
9. Explain the practical and theoretical basis for the legislative enactments of the Second New Deal (1935–1939), and evaluate the effectiveness of the Second New Deal in solving the problems of the depression.
10. Identify the components of the New Deal coalition, and examine the impact of this coalition on the 1936 presidential election.
11. Examine the problems encountered by President Roosevelt during his second term.
12. Examine the power struggle between craft unions and industrial unions during the New Deal era; discuss the victories and defeats of organized labor during this period; and assess the overall impact of the New Deal era on organized labor in the United States.
13. Examine the impact of the Great Depression and the New Deal era on African Americans, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and women, and explain the responses of these groups to the obstacles they faced.
14. Discuss the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1940 presidential election.
15. Discuss the legacy of the New Deal.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
The stock market crash in 1929 touched off a crisis that left 13 million Americans unemployed by the time Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. The New Deal transformed the United States, but the Great Depression ended only with outbreak of World War II.
II. Hoover and Hard Times: 1929 1933
A. No Food, No Home
The deepening of the Great Depression left many Americans jobless and often homeless. Deteriorating diets left many vulnerable to disease. The crisis not only affected people in urban areas but caused great social disruption in the farm community as well.
B. Farmers’ Holiday Association
The Farmers’ Holiday Association encouraged farmers to keep products off the market to drive up prices.
C. Bonus Expeditionary Force
Fifteen thousand World War I veterans marched on Washington to support immediate payment of cash bonuses, but the Senate refused.
D. Communists and Socialists
Communists led numerous protests against conditions in America, but they gained few supporters. Although the Socialist Party fared somewhat better, they won few election victories.
E. Hoover’s Response
At first, Hoover expressed hostility at calls for direct government relief. As conditions worsened, however, he supported several federal responses to the Depression.
F. Reconstruction Finance Corporation
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation aided businesses and state and local governments. The effort to stimulate the economy from the top enjoyed little success.
G. Hawley Smoot Tariff
Hoover approved a tariff increase, believing it would protect American farmers and manufacturers. Instead, the tariff further weakened the economy.
H. Hoover’s Traditionalism
Hoover continued to believe in a balanced budget, and he vetoed a variety of relief bills.
III. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Election of 1932
A. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt appealed to a broad spectrum of Americans, who admired the optimism that he maintained despite his paralysis from polio.
B. Eleanor Roosevelt
Although shy as a young woman, Eleanor matured into a dynamic and influential advocate of social justice.
C. Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust”
As Governor of New York beginning in 1928, Roosevelt responded vigorously to the Great Depression. Roosevelt and his advisers believed in government regulation of big business and in the need to create scarcity to save the economy.
D. 1932 Election Results
Democrats carried the election handily in 1932. Economic troubles continued during the four-month period between Roosevelt’s election in November and his inauguration in March.
IV. Launching the New Deal and Restoring Confidence
A. Launching the New Deal
Congress convened in an emergency session, beginning the massive legislative output of the First New Deal.
B. First Fireside Chat
On March 12, Roosevelt addressed the nation by radio, reassuring the people that banks were again safe.
C. Beer-Wine Revenue Act
A deflationary measure, the Beer-Wine Revenue Act legalized the sale of low-alcohol wines and beers and imposed taxes on those products.
D. Agricultural Adjustment Act
The AAA paid farmers to reduce production in exchange for government subsidies.
E. Other Relief Measures
The CCC served as a jobs corps for young men; the Federal Emergency Relief Act extended aid to state and local governments; and the Public Works Administration was established.
F. National Recovery Administration
The National Industrial Recovery Act was the industrial cornerstone for the New Deal. The wide ranging law revealed the New Deal’s faith in national economic planning.
G. TVA
The goal of the TVA was economic revitalization of the entire Tennessee River Valley.
H. End of the First Hundred Days
Congress approved fifteen major laws by the time it adjourned in June 1933.
I. Other Legislation
Additional legislation was passed in late 1933 and in the spring and summer of 1934, which benefited farmers, the unemployed, investors, homeowners, workers, and the environment.
J. Interest Group Democracy
The New Deal seemed to promise something for everybody. As the economy began to improve, the president enjoyed great popularity.
V. Opposition to the New Deal
A. Conservative Critics of the New Deal
With the arrival of partial economic recovery, many businesspeople and conservatives sharply criticized the New Deal.
B. Farmers and Laborers
Criticism was leveled against codes established by the NRA. The AAA also came under attack.
C. The Dust Bowl
A drought and poor farming practices caused an ecological disaster in the southern plains.
D. Demagogic Attacks
The most notable critics included Father Charles Coughlin, Dr. Francis E. Townsend, and Senator Huey Long.
E. Left Wing Critics
As the Depression continued, some Americans gravitated toward left wing parties.
F. Supreme Court Decisions Against the New Deal
The Supreme Court ruled against the New Deal in several cases.
VI. The Second New Deal and Roosevelt’s Second Term
A. Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act allowed the president to establish massive public works programs for the unemployed.
B. The New Deal’s Cultural Programs
Cultural programs such as the Federal Theater Project and the Federal Writers Project provided employment for artists, musicians, writers, and actors.
C. Control of Business
Roosevelt decided that if business would not cooperate with government it should be “cut down to size” through antitrust suits and corporate taxes.
D. National Labor Relations Act
The Wagner Act granted workers the right to unionize and bargain collectively with management. It also created the NLRB.
E. Social Security Act
The Social Security Act established old age insurance for some Americans, a measure that acknowledged a greater social responsibility for the government.
F. Election of 1936 and the New Deal Coalition
Roosevelt won a landslide victory over Alf Landon. The New Deal appealed to farmers, urban voters, former Socialists, unions, African Americans, and southerners.
G. Roosevelt’s Court packing Plan
Roosevelt sought to gain control over the courts, but Congress refused to accept his Judiciary Reorganization Bill.
H. Recession of 1937 1939
The economy improved by 1937, but a recession ensued when Roosevelt ordered cutbacks in government spending.
VII. Industrial Workers and the Rise of the CIO
A. Rivalry Between Craft and Industrial Unions
Craft unions and industrial unions fought bitterly over control of the labor movement.
B. Sit Down Strikes
The United Auto Workers staged a successful sit down strike against GM, leading to wide use of the tactic.
C. Memorial Day Massacre
Violence at the Republic Steel Plant exemplified the intense animosity between labor and management.
VIII. Mixed Progress for People of Color
A. Hoover and African Americans
African Americans faced racism in the North as well as in the South. Under Hoover, the Republican Party followed discriminatory practices.
B. Scottsboro Trials
In 1931, eight African Americans were convicted of rape in Alabama, even though medical evidence revealed that the female witnesses had lied.
C. Organized Opposition
African American organizations emerged that actively fought for black rights.
D. Black Cabinet
In an unprecedented move, Roosevelt established a group of prominent AfricanAmerican advisers.
E. Racism in the New Deal
African Americans benefited from the New Deal, but the president never fully committed himself to civil rights. Some New Deal programs damaged African Americans.
F. March on Washington Movement
As a protest, many African Americans, under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, threatened to march on Washington. Roosevelt responded with Executive Order No. 8802, which established the Fair Employment Practices Committee.
G. A New Deal for Native Americans
New Deal legislation aided Native Americans by, among other things, reversing parts of the Dawes Severalty Act.
H. Depression Hardships of Mexican Americans
The New Deal did little to help Mexican Americans.
IX. Women, Work, and the Great Depression
A. Women at Work Outside the Home
Despite public attitudes against it, more women entered the labor force.
B. Job Discrimination Against Married Women
A significant number of employers had policies against hiring married women.
C. Wives and Husbands Face Hard Times
More married women entered the labor force, but this did not improve the status of women in American society.
D. Women in the New Deal
The New Deal made a number of historic appointments, including the first female cabinet member. Still, the New Deal provided only limited advances for women.
X. The Election of 1940 and the Legacy of the New Deal
A. Wendell Wilkie
Roosevelt ran for a historic third term in 1940, and the New Deal coalition handily defeated Wendell Wilkie.
B. Roosevelt and the New Deal Assessed
Assessments of Roosevelt vary widely, but scholars agree that he profoundly transformed the presidency.
C. Origins of America’s Welfare System
Under the New Deal, the federal government assumed new and far reaching responsibilities.
The Great Depression and the New Deal,
1929-1941
Chapter Summary
Chapter 25 opens with a discussion of the Great Depression’s impact on people’s lives. The human story includes the increase in malnutrition and disease, the sufferings of drought- and debt-ridden farmers, descriptions of hobo towns, altered marital patterns, and changes to family life.
In the midst of the depression, few Americans thought in radical, revolutionary terms. Many accepted the traditional American belief in the self-made man and blamed themselves for the depression. The protests that emerged were relatively mild, the most spectacular being the Bonus March. Furthermore, in the case of the Bonus March, it was the government, not the people, that overreacted.
Hoover’s response to appeals from the people that the government extend aid was at first defensive. Hoover was convinced that self-help was the solution, not government aid. As the depression deepened, Hoover reluctantly began to energize the government. But at the same time he pursued policies that caused further deterioration of the economic situation.
An understanding of Franklin Roosevelt’s background, his perception of himself, his society, and American government is important to an understanding of his approach to the Great Depression. That background and Roosevelt’s frame of reference are outlined as part of the discussion of the presidential election of 1932. Moreover, the authors explain the reasons for Roosevelt’s victory and reveal that in spite of a deepening crisis Americans did not adopt radical solutions. Instead, they continued to follow tradition by peacefully exchanging one government for another.
With the aid of the “Brain Trust,” Roosevelt adopted a theoretical basis for the New Deal he promised to the American people. Roosevelt believed that government could act as a positive force in American society. In deciding how it should act, he was a pragmatist and thus willing to experiment. At first he accepted the idea that government could and should effectively regulate big business. He accepted the idea that centralized planning by the federal government could solve some of the problems associated with the depression, and he was willing to have government engage in direct relief to alleviate the distress of the nation’s citizens. Furthermore, the first New Deal was based on the assumption that overproduction was the underlying problem.
Roosevelt’s initial actions, outlined in “Launching the New Deal and Restoring Confidence,” demonstrate both the conservative nature of his approach and his realization that the psychology of pessimism within the country was as great an enemy as the depression itself. The legislation that was passed, as well as the fireside chats, provided a sense of movement that helped break the mood of pessimism.
An attempt to solve the problem of overproduction through centralized planning provided the theoretical framework for passage of the AAA, the NIRA, and the TVA. Belief in giving direct relief to states and to individuals may be seen in acts such as the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the CCC. The authors consider these and other measures passed during the Hundred Days, and they also discuss the concept of interest-group democracy, which is important for understanding the politics of the New Deal and the Democratic coalition that emerged.
The statistics provided show that the New Deal was not a cure-all and help explain the emergence of opposition to it. The range of criticism indicates that Roosevelt was a political moderate in the route that he chose. Furthermore, the kind of opposition from popular critics like Huey Long, as well as Supreme Court decisions against the AAA and the NIRA, help explain the launching of the Second New Deal.
The Second New Deal stemmed from the view that underconsumption was the nation’s basic problem, that business and banking interests had to be regulated more closely, and that the government had a responsibility to the aged and the needy in American society. These assumptions were behind the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act and five other major pieces of legislation passed during the Second Hundred Days.
The Second New Deal and the forging of the New Deal coalition carried Roosevelt to victory in the 1936 election. Mistakes and political reality meant that Roosevelt did not enjoy successes during his second term like those experienced in his first. He made a political and tactical mistake in his request for a restructuring of the Supreme Court. His dislike of deficit spending and desire for a balanced budget led to drastic cuts in federal spending, which in turn led to a new recession in 1937 and to a renewal of deficit spending. Such mistakes undercut some of Roosevelt’s charisma, and with the passage of a new Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, the last reforms of the New Deal were enacted.
Having discussed the reforms of the New Deal, the authors consider the impact of the New Deal era on organized labor, nonwhites, and women. Organized labor benefited from both Section 7(a) of the NIRA and the Wagner Act. Therefore, despite determined resistance by management and a division within the labor movement that led to the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the union movement made impressive gains during the 1930s.
Although passage of the Indian Reorganization Act indicates a more enlightened governmental approach to American Indians, the experience of African Americans and Mexican Americans demonstrates that racism continued as a force detrimental to the lives of nonwhites. The Scottsboro case serves as a symbol of the “ugliness of race relations in the depression era.” Furthermore, despite the presence of the Black Cabinet, President Roosevelt was never fully committed to civil rights for blacks, and some New Deal measures functioned in a discriminatory way. However, there were some indications that change was on the horizon.
First, in relation to cases arising out of the Scottsboro trial, the Supreme Court ruled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment made the criminal protection procedures (the right to adequate defense counsel and the right to an impartial jury) of the Sixth Amendment applicable to the states. Second, Roosevelt created the Black Cabinet and had within his administration people committed to racial equality. Furthermore, African Americans continued, as they had throughout their history, to work in their own behalf to overcome the injustices and abuses associated with white racism. The March on Washington Movement and Roosevelt’s subsequent issuance of Executive Order No. 8802 can be seen in this light.
Like blacks, women continued to suffer discrimination during the depression era. Although their contributions to the family increased, their status within the family remained unchanged. As more women entered the work force, they continued to face hostility, wage discrimination, and limited employment choices because of sex-typed occupations. Women participated in the shaping and execution of the New Deal through the “women’s network” and through formal appointment to governmental posts, but the fact remained that much New Deal legislation either discriminated against or excluded women.
The chapter ends with a discussion of the presidential election of 1940 and the way in which historians view the legacy of the New Deal.
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss the impact of the Great Depression on the American economic system and on city dwellers, farmers, marriage patterns, and family life.
2. Examine how and why Americans responded to the Great Depression as they did.
3. Explain and evaluate the Hoover administration’s attempts to deal with the economic and human crises posed by the Great Depression.
4. Examine the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1932 presidential and congressional elections.
5. Discuss the impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s personal and professional experiences prior to 1932 on his political, social, and economic views, and examine the relationship between his political, social, and economic views and his handling of the Great Depression.
6. Explain the practical and theoretical basis for the legislative enactments of the First New Deal (l933–1934), and evaluate the effectiveness of the First New Deal in solving the problems of the depression.
7. Examine the variety of criticisms leveled against the New Deal, and discuss the alternatives proposed.
8. Contrast the Supreme Court’s reaction to New Deal legislation before and after 1937, and explain the reasons for the shift.
9. Explain the practical and theoretical basis for the legislative enactments of the Second New Deal (1935–1939), and evaluate the effectiveness of the Second New Deal in solving the problems of the depression.
10. Identify the components of the New Deal coalition, and examine the impact of this coalition on the 1936 presidential election.
11. Examine the problems encountered by President Roosevelt during his second term.
12. Examine the power struggle between craft unions and industrial unions during the New Deal era; discuss the victories and defeats of organized labor during this period; and assess the overall impact of the New Deal era on organized labor in the United States.
13. Examine the impact of the Great Depression and the New Deal era on African Americans, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and women, and explain the responses of these groups to the obstacles they faced.
14. Discuss the issues and personalities and explain the outcome of the 1940 presidential election.
15. Discuss the legacy of the New Deal.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
The stock market crash in 1929 touched off a crisis that left 13 million Americans unemployed by the time Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. The New Deal transformed the United States, but the Great Depression ended only with outbreak of World War II.
II. Hoover and Hard Times: 1929 1933
A. No Food, No Home
The deepening of the Great Depression left many Americans jobless and often homeless. Deteriorating diets left many vulnerable to disease. The crisis not only affected people in urban areas but caused great social disruption in the farm community as well.
B. Farmers’ Holiday Association
The Farmers’ Holiday Association encouraged farmers to keep products off the market to drive up prices.
C. Bonus Expeditionary Force
Fifteen thousand World War I veterans marched on Washington to support immediate payment of cash bonuses, but the Senate refused.
D. Communists and Socialists
Communists led numerous protests against conditions in America, but they gained few supporters. Although the Socialist Party fared somewhat better, they won few election victories.
E. Hoover’s Response
At first, Hoover expressed hostility at calls for direct government relief. As conditions worsened, however, he supported several federal responses to the Depression.
F. Reconstruction Finance Corporation
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation aided businesses and state and local governments. The effort to stimulate the economy from the top enjoyed little success.
G. Hawley Smoot Tariff
Hoover approved a tariff increase, believing it would protect American farmers and manufacturers. Instead, the tariff further weakened the economy.
H. Hoover’s Traditionalism
Hoover continued to believe in a balanced budget, and he vetoed a variety of relief bills.
III. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Election of 1932
A. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt appealed to a broad spectrum of Americans, who admired the optimism that he maintained despite his paralysis from polio.
B. Eleanor Roosevelt
Although shy as a young woman, Eleanor matured into a dynamic and influential advocate of social justice.
C. Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust”
As Governor of New York beginning in 1928, Roosevelt responded vigorously to the Great Depression. Roosevelt and his advisers believed in government regulation of big business and in the need to create scarcity to save the economy.
D. 1932 Election Results
Democrats carried the election handily in 1932. Economic troubles continued during the four-month period between Roosevelt’s election in November and his inauguration in March.
IV. Launching the New Deal and Restoring Confidence
A. Launching the New Deal
Congress convened in an emergency session, beginning the massive legislative output of the First New Deal.
B. First Fireside Chat
On March 12, Roosevelt addressed the nation by radio, reassuring the people that banks were again safe.
C. Beer-Wine Revenue Act
A deflationary measure, the Beer-Wine Revenue Act legalized the sale of low-alcohol wines and beers and imposed taxes on those products.
D. Agricultural Adjustment Act
The AAA paid farmers to reduce production in exchange for government subsidies.
E. Other Relief Measures
The CCC served as a jobs corps for young men; the Federal Emergency Relief Act extended aid to state and local governments; and the Public Works Administration was established.
F. National Recovery Administration
The National Industrial Recovery Act was the industrial cornerstone for the New Deal. The wide ranging law revealed the New Deal’s faith in national economic planning.
G. TVA
The goal of the TVA was economic revitalization of the entire Tennessee River Valley.
H. End of the First Hundred Days
Congress approved fifteen major laws by the time it adjourned in June 1933.
I. Other Legislation
Additional legislation was passed in late 1933 and in the spring and summer of 1934, which benefited farmers, the unemployed, investors, homeowners, workers, and the environment.
J. Interest Group Democracy
The New Deal seemed to promise something for everybody. As the economy began to improve, the president enjoyed great popularity.
V. Opposition to the New Deal
A. Conservative Critics of the New Deal
With the arrival of partial economic recovery, many businesspeople and conservatives sharply criticized the New Deal.
B. Farmers and Laborers
Criticism was leveled against codes established by the NRA. The AAA also came under attack.
C. The Dust Bowl
A drought and poor farming practices caused an ecological disaster in the southern plains.
D. Demagogic Attacks
The most notable critics included Father Charles Coughlin, Dr. Francis E. Townsend, and Senator Huey Long.
E. Left Wing Critics
As the Depression continued, some Americans gravitated toward left wing parties.
F. Supreme Court Decisions Against the New Deal
The Supreme Court ruled against the New Deal in several cases.
VI. The Second New Deal and Roosevelt’s Second Term
A. Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act allowed the president to establish massive public works programs for the unemployed.
B. The New Deal’s Cultural Programs
Cultural programs such as the Federal Theater Project and the Federal Writers Project provided employment for artists, musicians, writers, and actors.
C. Control of Business
Roosevelt decided that if business would not cooperate with government it should be “cut down to size” through antitrust suits and corporate taxes.
D. National Labor Relations Act
The Wagner Act granted workers the right to unionize and bargain collectively with management. It also created the NLRB.
E. Social Security Act
The Social Security Act established old age insurance for some Americans, a measure that acknowledged a greater social responsibility for the government.
F. Election of 1936 and the New Deal Coalition
Roosevelt won a landslide victory over Alf Landon. The New Deal appealed to farmers, urban voters, former Socialists, unions, African Americans, and southerners.
G. Roosevelt’s Court packing Plan
Roosevelt sought to gain control over the courts, but Congress refused to accept his Judiciary Reorganization Bill.
H. Recession of 1937 1939
The economy improved by 1937, but a recession ensued when Roosevelt ordered cutbacks in government spending.
VII. Industrial Workers and the Rise of the CIO
A. Rivalry Between Craft and Industrial Unions
Craft unions and industrial unions fought bitterly over control of the labor movement.
B. Sit Down Strikes
The United Auto Workers staged a successful sit down strike against GM, leading to wide use of the tactic.
C. Memorial Day Massacre
Violence at the Republic Steel Plant exemplified the intense animosity between labor and management.
VIII. Mixed Progress for People of Color
A. Hoover and African Americans
African Americans faced racism in the North as well as in the South. Under Hoover, the Republican Party followed discriminatory practices.
B. Scottsboro Trials
In 1931, eight African Americans were convicted of rape in Alabama, even though medical evidence revealed that the female witnesses had lied.
C. Organized Opposition
African American organizations emerged that actively fought for black rights.
D. Black Cabinet
In an unprecedented move, Roosevelt established a group of prominent AfricanAmerican advisers.
E. Racism in the New Deal
African Americans benefited from the New Deal, but the president never fully committed himself to civil rights. Some New Deal programs damaged African Americans.
F. March on Washington Movement
As a protest, many African Americans, under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, threatened to march on Washington. Roosevelt responded with Executive Order No. 8802, which established the Fair Employment Practices Committee.
G. A New Deal for Native Americans
New Deal legislation aided Native Americans by, among other things, reversing parts of the Dawes Severalty Act.
H. Depression Hardships of Mexican Americans
The New Deal did little to help Mexican Americans.
IX. Women, Work, and the Great Depression
A. Women at Work Outside the Home
Despite public attitudes against it, more women entered the labor force.
B. Job Discrimination Against Married Women
A significant number of employers had policies against hiring married women.
C. Wives and Husbands Face Hard Times
More married women entered the labor force, but this did not improve the status of women in American society.
D. Women in the New Deal
The New Deal made a number of historic appointments, including the first female cabinet member. Still, the New Deal provided only limited advances for women.
X. The Election of 1940 and the Legacy of the New Deal
A. Wendell Wilkie
Roosevelt ran for a historic third term in 1940, and the New Deal coalition handily defeated Wendell Wilkie.
B. Roosevelt and the New Deal Assessed
Assessments of Roosevelt vary widely, but scholars agree that he profoundly transformed the presidency.
C. Origins of America’s Welfare System
Under the New Deal, the federal government assumed new and far reaching responsibilities.
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 23
Americans in the Great War, 1914 1920
Chapter Summary
In Chapter 23, we deal with the causes of the First World War, American entry into the war, and the political, social, and economic impact of the war on the United States and its people. The nation’s entry into the war is discussed in “Precarious Neutrality” and “Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War.” Although President Wilson proclaimed the United States to be neutral in the European conflict, three realities made neutrality practically impossible. Those realities confirm the interrelation of domestic and foreign policy (a dominant theme in Chapter 22). Furthermore, the discussion of the tenets of Wilsonianism and Wilson’s strict interpretation of international law reinforces the concept that a nation’s foreign policy is based on its perception of the world community of nations and of its relationship to those nations.
Besides the underlying reasons for American entry into the war, there were obvious and immediate reasons for that decision: the naval warfare between Great Britain and Germany, the use of the submarine by the Germans, and Wilson’s interpretation of international law as he attempted to protect the rights of the United States as a neutral nation. The authors’ inference that Americans got caught in the crossfire between the Allies and the Central Powers is supported through the tracing of United States policy from the sinking of the Lusitania to the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans. Therefore, the Zimmermann telegram, perceived as a direct threat to American security by American officials, the arming of American commercial ships, and additional sinkings of American ships by German submarines brought a declaration of war by Congress. Finally, America went to war because of a special sense of mission. The country went to war to reform world politics, war being the only means that guaranteed Wilson a seat and an insider’s voice at the peace table.
In spite of antiwar sentiment in the United States, the country began to prepare for war before the actual declaration, as can be seen in the passage of the National Defense Act, the Navy Act, and the Revenue Act. Once war was declared, the country turned to the draft (the Selective Service Act) to raise the necessary army. Even though American military and political leaders believed that American virtue could reshape the world, they feared that the world would reshape the virtue of American soldiers. To protect that virtue, the government created the Commission on Training Camp Activities. In spite of this, venereal disease became a serious problem within the army. Furthermore, American soldiers could not be shielded from the graver threat of influenza and pneumonia, and more soldiers died from disease than on the battlefield. Another serious problem in the American army—one that government and army officials did little to combat—was racism. Not only were African Americans segregated within the army, but they were also subjected to various forms of racial discrimination.
Mobilization of the nation for the war effort altered American life. Government power increased, especially in the economic sphere. Government-business cooperation became part of official government policy. Centralized governmental control and planning of the nation’s economy were largely successful, but there were mistakes and problems. Government policy caused inflation; government tax policies meant that only one-third of the war was financed through taxes; and, although organized labor made some gains, it usually took a back seat to the needs of corporations.
The war intensified the divisions within the pluralistic American society. Entry of more women into previously “male” jobs brought negative reactions by male workers. Increased northward migration of African Americans intensified racist fears and animosities in factories and neighborhoods. The government’s fear of dissent and of foreigners led to the trampling of civil liberties at the national, state, and local levels. In the immediate aftermath of the war, events both within and outside the country heightened these fears, culminating in the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids. The American effort to “make the world safe for democracy” brought actions on the home front that seemed to indicate a basic distrust of democracy.
Divisions also intensified on the political front, as the debate over the Treaty of Versailles indicates. In “The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World” Wilson’s Fourteen Points are contrasted with the actual terms of the treaty. The divergence was an issue used in the arguments of those opposed to the treaty and to American entry into the League of Nations. But the core of the problem lay in Article 10 of the League covenant. Critics charged that the collective-security provisions of this article would allow League members to call out the United States Army without congressional approval. The belief of many that this was true was at the heart of the debate against the League. Fear that the United States would be forced to forgo its traditional unilateralism in foreign affairs led the Senate to reject the treaty and American entry into the League of Nations.
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss Europe’s descent into the First World War.
2. Discuss both President Woodrow Wilson’s attempts and the attempts of antiwar activists to keep the United States out of the First World War, and explain the ultimate failure of those efforts.
3. Discuss the response of Americans to the First World War and to American entry into the war, and indicate the extent to which United States participation influenced the outcome of the conflict.
4. Describe the characteristics of draftees and volunteers in the American armed forces during the First World War and discuss their lives as soldiers.
5. Examine the impact of the First World War on the American home front, including its impact on the federal government, business, labor, women, and African Americans.
6. Explain and evaluate the record of government at the local, state, and national levels on civil-liberties questions during and after the war.
7. Explain the differences and similarities between Wilsonianism and the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
8. Examine the debate over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American entry into the League of Nations, and explain the Senate’s rejection of the treaty.
9. Examine the impact of the First World War on America’s role in world affairs.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
As the war began, America declared its neutrality. When events drew the nation into the contest, Woodrow Wilson announced that the country would fight to make the world safe for democracy.
II. Precarious Neutrality
A. Outbreak of the First World War
The war began following the assassination of the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne.
B. Taking Sides
Wilson sought to maintain neutrality, but objections came from German Americans and Irish Americans. Wilson’s administration had considerable sympathy for the Allies, providing another impediment to neutrality.
C. Trade and Loans
American economic ties to the Allies, especially commercially and financially, made neutrality difficult.
D. Wilsonianism
Wilson believed that the United States had become the only nation that could lead the world into a new, peaceful era. British victory seemed crucial to these principles.
E. British Violations of Neutral Rights
Britain used its navy in an effort to sever all neutral trade with Germany and cripple the German economy.
F. The German Submarine and International Law
German naval tactics relied on submarines. Wilson interpreted international law to insist that submarines surface before firing on ships. Germany disagreed.
III. Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War
A. Secretary Bryan’s Resignation
When 128 Americans died on the British passenger ship Lusitania, Wilson resisted calls for war. Still, he wanted Americans to be safe to travel on belligerent craft. When Wilson rejected Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s advice that Americans be prohibited from travel on belligerent ships, Bryan resigned.
B. Gore McLemore Resolution
A congressional resolution would have prohibited Americans from traveling on belligerent merchant ships, but Wilson’s pressure caused the resolution to fail.
C. Peace Advocates
A strong peace movement existed in the United States because many believed that business profited from war.
D. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
In February 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans hoped to defeat Britain before American troops could enter the war.
E. Zimmermann Telegram and Mexican Revolution
When British intelligence released the Zimmermann Telegram, Americans took the threat from Germany seriously because of deteriorating relations with Mexico.
F. War Message and War Declaration
Wilson asked for war because of German violations of freedom of the seas and assaults on human rights. He wanted to make the world “safe for democracy.”
IV. Taking Up Arms and Winning the War
A. The Draft and the Soldier
Congress passed the Selective Service Act that made all men between 20 and 30 subject to the draft. Most soldiers were draftees, in their early twenties, and poorly educated. Blacks, at the urging of the NAACP, joined in the U.S. war effort.
B. Indian Enlistees
Most of the 15,000 Native Americans who served sought to escape lives of poverty and prove their patriotism.
C. Commission on Training Camp Activities
A federal commission, established out of concern over saloons and brothels near training camps, coordinated efforts to provide alternative forms of entertainment.
D. Trench Warfare
The nature of World War I combat was marked by a futile stalemate in the trenches.
E. Problem of Venereal Disease
The high prostitution rates in France helped make venereal disease a serious problem for American troops.
F. AEF Battles in France
The American Expeditionary Force remained independent from the Allied forces, but when they entered the lines they tipped the balance of the war in favor of the Allies.
G. Casualties
About 16 million European soldiers and civilians died as a result of the war. Some 50,000 Americans died in battle and another 62,000 died from disease.
V. Mobilizing and Managing the Home Front
A. Business Government Cooperation
When the war began, government and industry had a strong partnership, with executives serving on war committees. Abuses, however, led to disbanding the committees and to the creation of the War Industries Board.
B. New Agencies for Economic Management
Government agencies were created to manage the task of shifting the nation’s resources to the Allies, the AEF, and war-related production. The largest such agency was the War Industries Board which coordinated the national economy.
C. Economic Performance
Despite mistakes, the mobilized economy delivered enough men and materiel to France to defeat the Central Powers.
D. Inflation
Government policy of liberal credit and setting high prices contributed to wartime inflation.
E. Paying for the War
The government financed one-third of the war through taxes. The other two-thirds came from loans.
F. Labor Unions and the War
Labor unions like the AFL advanced their cause and the cause of their members by entering into a partnership with government. The NWLB was created in 1928 to discourage strikes and urge management to negotiate with existing unions.
G. Women in the Work Force
With much of the work force in the military and with immigration interrupted, women filled many jobs. When the war ended, women lost many of the gains.
H. African American Migration North
Many African Americans moved north to work in industry. This migration changed the black community; it also led northerners to vent their anger on the emigrants.
I. Race Riots
Whites in northern cities reacted violently to the influx of black immigrants.
J. Influenza Pandemic
An influenza pandemic engulfed the world between 1918 and 1919, killing 700,000 Americans.
VI. Emergence of the Civil Liberties Issue
A. Committee on Public Information
Headed by journalist George Creel, the Committee on Public Information acted as a propaganda agency.
B. Espionage and Sedition Acts
The Espionage and Sedition Acts gave the government wide authority to crack down on dissenters. More than 2,000 people faced prosecution under these laws.
C. Imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs
Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs gave a speech extolling freedom of speech and criticizing Wilson. Federal agents arrested him; he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
D. Roger Baldwin and Free Speech
This activist advanced the idea that free speech should be aggressively defended.
VII. The Bolshevik Revolution, Labor Strikes, and the Red Scare
A. Intervention in Russia against Bolsheviks
Wilson sent 15,000 troops into Russia during the Russian Revolution. The United States also enacted an economic blockade in an effort to destroy the Bolsheviks.
B. Labor Strikes and the Red Scare
More than 4,000,000 workers went out on strike in 1919, sparking a Red Scare.
C. Palmer Raids
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer staged illegal raids on meeting halls and homes of alleged Communists. Four thousand went to jail, and many were deported.
VIII. The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World
A. Obstacles to a Wilsonian Peace
Wilson’s Fourteen Points provided a foundation for peace talks. They summarized Wilson’s international view of a stable world order based on American principles. However, in negotiating a treaty Wilson faced obstacles erected by his political enemies, by the Allies, and by himself.
B. Paris Peace Conference
Wilson underestimated his task in Paris. The victors demanded reparations from Germany, and most of Wilson’s Fourteen Points failed to gain Allied support.
C. League of Nations and Article 10
Wilson worked hardest on establishing the League of Nations to provide for collective security.
D. Critics of the Treaty
Henry Cabot Lodge led opposition to the treaty. Wilson campaigned for ratification of the treaty, but he suffered a stroke that ended any hope for a compromise.
E. Senate Rejection of the Treaty and League
The Senate rejected the Treaty of Paris and the United States refused to join the League of Nations.
F. Collective Security versus Unilateralism
Americans preferred the tradition of nonalignment and chose to act unilaterally in world affairs.
G. Unstable International System
The spread of Wilsonian ideals resulted in the rise of anticolonialism. Also, German resentment of the peace treaty increased the threat of international instability.
Americans in the Great War, 1914 1920
Chapter Summary
In Chapter 23, we deal with the causes of the First World War, American entry into the war, and the political, social, and economic impact of the war on the United States and its people. The nation’s entry into the war is discussed in “Precarious Neutrality” and “Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War.” Although President Wilson proclaimed the United States to be neutral in the European conflict, three realities made neutrality practically impossible. Those realities confirm the interrelation of domestic and foreign policy (a dominant theme in Chapter 22). Furthermore, the discussion of the tenets of Wilsonianism and Wilson’s strict interpretation of international law reinforces the concept that a nation’s foreign policy is based on its perception of the world community of nations and of its relationship to those nations.
Besides the underlying reasons for American entry into the war, there were obvious and immediate reasons for that decision: the naval warfare between Great Britain and Germany, the use of the submarine by the Germans, and Wilson’s interpretation of international law as he attempted to protect the rights of the United States as a neutral nation. The authors’ inference that Americans got caught in the crossfire between the Allies and the Central Powers is supported through the tracing of United States policy from the sinking of the Lusitania to the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans. Therefore, the Zimmermann telegram, perceived as a direct threat to American security by American officials, the arming of American commercial ships, and additional sinkings of American ships by German submarines brought a declaration of war by Congress. Finally, America went to war because of a special sense of mission. The country went to war to reform world politics, war being the only means that guaranteed Wilson a seat and an insider’s voice at the peace table.
In spite of antiwar sentiment in the United States, the country began to prepare for war before the actual declaration, as can be seen in the passage of the National Defense Act, the Navy Act, and the Revenue Act. Once war was declared, the country turned to the draft (the Selective Service Act) to raise the necessary army. Even though American military and political leaders believed that American virtue could reshape the world, they feared that the world would reshape the virtue of American soldiers. To protect that virtue, the government created the Commission on Training Camp Activities. In spite of this, venereal disease became a serious problem within the army. Furthermore, American soldiers could not be shielded from the graver threat of influenza and pneumonia, and more soldiers died from disease than on the battlefield. Another serious problem in the American army—one that government and army officials did little to combat—was racism. Not only were African Americans segregated within the army, but they were also subjected to various forms of racial discrimination.
Mobilization of the nation for the war effort altered American life. Government power increased, especially in the economic sphere. Government-business cooperation became part of official government policy. Centralized governmental control and planning of the nation’s economy were largely successful, but there were mistakes and problems. Government policy caused inflation; government tax policies meant that only one-third of the war was financed through taxes; and, although organized labor made some gains, it usually took a back seat to the needs of corporations.
The war intensified the divisions within the pluralistic American society. Entry of more women into previously “male” jobs brought negative reactions by male workers. Increased northward migration of African Americans intensified racist fears and animosities in factories and neighborhoods. The government’s fear of dissent and of foreigners led to the trampling of civil liberties at the national, state, and local levels. In the immediate aftermath of the war, events both within and outside the country heightened these fears, culminating in the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids. The American effort to “make the world safe for democracy” brought actions on the home front that seemed to indicate a basic distrust of democracy.
Divisions also intensified on the political front, as the debate over the Treaty of Versailles indicates. In “The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World” Wilson’s Fourteen Points are contrasted with the actual terms of the treaty. The divergence was an issue used in the arguments of those opposed to the treaty and to American entry into the League of Nations. But the core of the problem lay in Article 10 of the League covenant. Critics charged that the collective-security provisions of this article would allow League members to call out the United States Army without congressional approval. The belief of many that this was true was at the heart of the debate against the League. Fear that the United States would be forced to forgo its traditional unilateralism in foreign affairs led the Senate to reject the treaty and American entry into the League of Nations.
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss Europe’s descent into the First World War.
2. Discuss both President Woodrow Wilson’s attempts and the attempts of antiwar activists to keep the United States out of the First World War, and explain the ultimate failure of those efforts.
3. Discuss the response of Americans to the First World War and to American entry into the war, and indicate the extent to which United States participation influenced the outcome of the conflict.
4. Describe the characteristics of draftees and volunteers in the American armed forces during the First World War and discuss their lives as soldiers.
5. Examine the impact of the First World War on the American home front, including its impact on the federal government, business, labor, women, and African Americans.
6. Explain and evaluate the record of government at the local, state, and national levels on civil-liberties questions during and after the war.
7. Explain the differences and similarities between Wilsonianism and the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
8. Examine the debate over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American entry into the League of Nations, and explain the Senate’s rejection of the treaty.
9. Examine the impact of the First World War on America’s role in world affairs.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
As the war began, America declared its neutrality. When events drew the nation into the contest, Woodrow Wilson announced that the country would fight to make the world safe for democracy.
II. Precarious Neutrality
A. Outbreak of the First World War
The war began following the assassination of the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne.
B. Taking Sides
Wilson sought to maintain neutrality, but objections came from German Americans and Irish Americans. Wilson’s administration had considerable sympathy for the Allies, providing another impediment to neutrality.
C. Trade and Loans
American economic ties to the Allies, especially commercially and financially, made neutrality difficult.
D. Wilsonianism
Wilson believed that the United States had become the only nation that could lead the world into a new, peaceful era. British victory seemed crucial to these principles.
E. British Violations of Neutral Rights
Britain used its navy in an effort to sever all neutral trade with Germany and cripple the German economy.
F. The German Submarine and International Law
German naval tactics relied on submarines. Wilson interpreted international law to insist that submarines surface before firing on ships. Germany disagreed.
III. Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War
A. Secretary Bryan’s Resignation
When 128 Americans died on the British passenger ship Lusitania, Wilson resisted calls for war. Still, he wanted Americans to be safe to travel on belligerent craft. When Wilson rejected Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s advice that Americans be prohibited from travel on belligerent ships, Bryan resigned.
B. Gore McLemore Resolution
A congressional resolution would have prohibited Americans from traveling on belligerent merchant ships, but Wilson’s pressure caused the resolution to fail.
C. Peace Advocates
A strong peace movement existed in the United States because many believed that business profited from war.
D. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
In February 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans hoped to defeat Britain before American troops could enter the war.
E. Zimmermann Telegram and Mexican Revolution
When British intelligence released the Zimmermann Telegram, Americans took the threat from Germany seriously because of deteriorating relations with Mexico.
F. War Message and War Declaration
Wilson asked for war because of German violations of freedom of the seas and assaults on human rights. He wanted to make the world “safe for democracy.”
IV. Taking Up Arms and Winning the War
A. The Draft and the Soldier
Congress passed the Selective Service Act that made all men between 20 and 30 subject to the draft. Most soldiers were draftees, in their early twenties, and poorly educated. Blacks, at the urging of the NAACP, joined in the U.S. war effort.
B. Indian Enlistees
Most of the 15,000 Native Americans who served sought to escape lives of poverty and prove their patriotism.
C. Commission on Training Camp Activities
A federal commission, established out of concern over saloons and brothels near training camps, coordinated efforts to provide alternative forms of entertainment.
D. Trench Warfare
The nature of World War I combat was marked by a futile stalemate in the trenches.
E. Problem of Venereal Disease
The high prostitution rates in France helped make venereal disease a serious problem for American troops.
F. AEF Battles in France
The American Expeditionary Force remained independent from the Allied forces, but when they entered the lines they tipped the balance of the war in favor of the Allies.
G. Casualties
About 16 million European soldiers and civilians died as a result of the war. Some 50,000 Americans died in battle and another 62,000 died from disease.
V. Mobilizing and Managing the Home Front
A. Business Government Cooperation
When the war began, government and industry had a strong partnership, with executives serving on war committees. Abuses, however, led to disbanding the committees and to the creation of the War Industries Board.
B. New Agencies for Economic Management
Government agencies were created to manage the task of shifting the nation’s resources to the Allies, the AEF, and war-related production. The largest such agency was the War Industries Board which coordinated the national economy.
C. Economic Performance
Despite mistakes, the mobilized economy delivered enough men and materiel to France to defeat the Central Powers.
D. Inflation
Government policy of liberal credit and setting high prices contributed to wartime inflation.
E. Paying for the War
The government financed one-third of the war through taxes. The other two-thirds came from loans.
F. Labor Unions and the War
Labor unions like the AFL advanced their cause and the cause of their members by entering into a partnership with government. The NWLB was created in 1928 to discourage strikes and urge management to negotiate with existing unions.
G. Women in the Work Force
With much of the work force in the military and with immigration interrupted, women filled many jobs. When the war ended, women lost many of the gains.
H. African American Migration North
Many African Americans moved north to work in industry. This migration changed the black community; it also led northerners to vent their anger on the emigrants.
I. Race Riots
Whites in northern cities reacted violently to the influx of black immigrants.
J. Influenza Pandemic
An influenza pandemic engulfed the world between 1918 and 1919, killing 700,000 Americans.
VI. Emergence of the Civil Liberties Issue
A. Committee on Public Information
Headed by journalist George Creel, the Committee on Public Information acted as a propaganda agency.
B. Espionage and Sedition Acts
The Espionage and Sedition Acts gave the government wide authority to crack down on dissenters. More than 2,000 people faced prosecution under these laws.
C. Imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs
Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs gave a speech extolling freedom of speech and criticizing Wilson. Federal agents arrested him; he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
D. Roger Baldwin and Free Speech
This activist advanced the idea that free speech should be aggressively defended.
VII. The Bolshevik Revolution, Labor Strikes, and the Red Scare
A. Intervention in Russia against Bolsheviks
Wilson sent 15,000 troops into Russia during the Russian Revolution. The United States also enacted an economic blockade in an effort to destroy the Bolsheviks.
B. Labor Strikes and the Red Scare
More than 4,000,000 workers went out on strike in 1919, sparking a Red Scare.
C. Palmer Raids
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer staged illegal raids on meeting halls and homes of alleged Communists. Four thousand went to jail, and many were deported.
VIII. The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World
A. Obstacles to a Wilsonian Peace
Wilson’s Fourteen Points provided a foundation for peace talks. They summarized Wilson’s international view of a stable world order based on American principles. However, in negotiating a treaty Wilson faced obstacles erected by his political enemies, by the Allies, and by himself.
B. Paris Peace Conference
Wilson underestimated his task in Paris. The victors demanded reparations from Germany, and most of Wilson’s Fourteen Points failed to gain Allied support.
C. League of Nations and Article 10
Wilson worked hardest on establishing the League of Nations to provide for collective security.
D. Critics of the Treaty
Henry Cabot Lodge led opposition to the treaty. Wilson campaigned for ratification of the treaty, but he suffered a stroke that ended any hope for a compromise.
E. Senate Rejection of the Treaty and League
The Senate rejected the Treaty of Paris and the United States refused to join the League of Nations.
F. Collective Security versus Unilateralism
Americans preferred the tradition of nonalignment and chose to act unilaterally in world affairs.
G. Unstable International System
The spread of Wilsonian ideals resulted in the rise of anticolonialism. Also, German resentment of the peace treaty increased the threat of international instability.
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 23
Americans in the Great War, 1914 1920
Chapter Summary
In Chapter 23, we deal with the causes of the First World War, American entry into the war, and the political, social, and economic impact of the war on the United States and its people. The nation’s entry into the war is discussed in “Precarious Neutrality” and “Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War.” Although President Wilson proclaimed the United States to be neutral in the European conflict, three realities made neutrality practically impossible. Those realities confirm the interrelation of domestic and foreign policy (a dominant theme in Chapter 22). Furthermore, the discussion of the tenets of Wilsonianism and Wilson’s strict interpretation of international law reinforces the concept that a nation’s foreign policy is based on its perception of the world community of nations and of its relationship to those nations.
Besides the underlying reasons for American entry into the war, there were obvious and immediate reasons for that decision: the naval warfare between Great Britain and Germany, the use of the submarine by the Germans, and Wilson’s interpretation of international law as he attempted to protect the rights of the United States as a neutral nation. The authors’ inference that Americans got caught in the crossfire between the Allies and the Central Powers is supported through the tracing of United States policy from the sinking of the Lusitania to the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans. Therefore, the Zimmermann telegram, perceived as a direct threat to American security by American officials, the arming of American commercial ships, and additional sinkings of American ships by German submarines brought a declaration of war by Congress. Finally, America went to war because of a special sense of mission. The country went to war to reform world politics, war being the only means that guaranteed Wilson a seat and an insider’s voice at the peace table.
In spite of antiwar sentiment in the United States, the country began to prepare for war before the actual declaration, as can be seen in the passage of the National Defense Act, the Navy Act, and the Revenue Act. Once war was declared, the country turned to the draft (the Selective Service Act) to raise the necessary army. Even though American military and political leaders believed that American virtue could reshape the world, they feared that the world would reshape the virtue of American soldiers. To protect that virtue, the government created the Commission on Training Camp Activities. In spite of this, venereal disease became a serious problem within the army. Furthermore, American soldiers could not be shielded from the graver threat of influenza and pneumonia, and more soldiers died from disease than on the battlefield. Another serious problem in the American army—one that government and army officials did little to combat—was racism. Not only were African Americans segregated within the army, but they were also subjected to various forms of racial discrimination.
Mobilization of the nation for the war effort altered American life. Government power increased, especially in the economic sphere. Government-business cooperation became part of official government policy. Centralized governmental control and planning of the nation’s economy were largely successful, but there were mistakes and problems. Government policy caused inflation; government tax policies meant that only one-third of the war was financed through taxes; and, although organized labor made some gains, it usually took a back seat to the needs of corporations.
The war intensified the divisions within the pluralistic American society. Entry of more women into previously “male” jobs brought negative reactions by male workers. Increased northward migration of African Americans intensified racist fears and animosities in factories and neighborhoods. The government’s fear of dissent and of foreigners led to the trampling of civil liberties at the national, state, and local levels. In the immediate aftermath of the war, events both within and outside the country heightened these fears, culminating in the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids. The American effort to “make the world safe for democracy” brought actions on the home front that seemed to indicate a basic distrust of democracy.
Divisions also intensified on the political front, as the debate over the Treaty of Versailles indicates. In “The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World” Wilson’s Fourteen Points are contrasted with the actual terms of the treaty. The divergence was an issue used in the arguments of those opposed to the treaty and to American entry into the League of Nations. But the core of the problem lay in Article 10 of the League covenant. Critics charged that the collective-security provisions of this article would allow League members to call out the United States Army without congressional approval. The belief of many that this was true was at the heart of the debate against the League. Fear that the United States would be forced to forgo its traditional unilateralism in foreign affairs led the Senate to reject the treaty and American entry into the League of Nations.
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss Europe’s descent into the First World War.
2. Discuss both President Woodrow Wilson’s attempts and the attempts of antiwar activists to keep the United States out of the First World War, and explain the ultimate failure of those efforts.
3. Discuss the response of Americans to the First World War and to American entry into the war, and indicate the extent to which United States participation influenced the outcome of the conflict.
4. Describe the characteristics of draftees and volunteers in the American armed forces during the First World War and discuss their lives as soldiers.
5. Examine the impact of the First World War on the American home front, including its impact on the federal government, business, labor, women, and African Americans.
6. Explain and evaluate the record of government at the local, state, and national levels on civil-liberties questions during and after the war.
7. Explain the differences and similarities between Wilsonianism and the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
8. Examine the debate over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American entry into the League of Nations, and explain the Senate’s rejection of the treaty.
9. Examine the impact of the First World War on America’s role in world affairs.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
As the war began, America declared its neutrality. When events drew the nation into the contest, Woodrow Wilson announced that the country would fight to make the world safe for democracy.
II. Precarious Neutrality
A. Outbreak of the First World War
The war began following the assassination of the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne.
B. Taking Sides
Wilson sought to maintain neutrality, but objections came from German Americans and Irish Americans. Wilson’s administration had considerable sympathy for the Allies, providing another impediment to neutrality.
C. Trade and Loans
American economic ties to the Allies, especially commercially and financially, made neutrality difficult.
D. Wilsonianism
Wilson believed that the United States had become the only nation that could lead the world into a new, peaceful era. British victory seemed crucial to these principles.
E. British Violations of Neutral Rights
Britain used its navy in an effort to sever all neutral trade with Germany and cripple the German economy.
F. The German Submarine and International Law
German naval tactics relied on submarines. Wilson interpreted international law to insist that submarines surface before firing on ships. Germany disagreed.
III. Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War
A. Secretary Bryan’s Resignation
When 128 Americans died on the British passenger ship Lusitania, Wilson resisted calls for war. Still, he wanted Americans to be safe to travel on belligerent craft. When Wilson rejected Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s advice that Americans be prohibited from travel on belligerent ships, Bryan resigned.
B. Gore McLemore Resolution
A congressional resolution would have prohibited Americans from traveling on belligerent merchant ships, but Wilson’s pressure caused the resolution to fail.
C. Peace Advocates
A strong peace movement existed in the United States because many believed that business profited from war.
D. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
In February 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans hoped to defeat Britain before American troops could enter the war.
E. Zimmermann Telegram and Mexican Revolution
When British intelligence released the Zimmermann Telegram, Americans took the threat from Germany seriously because of deteriorating relations with Mexico.
F. War Message and War Declaration
Wilson asked for war because of German violations of freedom of the seas and assaults on human rights. He wanted to make the world “safe for democracy.”
IV. Taking Up Arms and Winning the War
A. The Draft and the Soldier
Congress passed the Selective Service Act that made all men between 20 and 30 subject to the draft. Most soldiers were draftees, in their early twenties, and poorly educated. Blacks, at the urging of the NAACP, joined in the U.S. war effort.
B. Indian Enlistees
Most of the 15,000 Native Americans who served sought to escape lives of poverty and prove their patriotism.
C. Commission on Training Camp Activities
A federal commission, established out of concern over saloons and brothels near training camps, coordinated efforts to provide alternative forms of entertainment.
D. Trench Warfare
The nature of World War I combat was marked by a futile stalemate in the trenches.
E. Problem of Venereal Disease
The high prostitution rates in France helped make venereal disease a serious problem for American troops.
F. AEF Battles in France
The American Expeditionary Force remained independent from the Allied forces, but when they entered the lines they tipped the balance of the war in favor of the Allies.
G. Casualties
About 16 million European soldiers and civilians died as a result of the war. Some 50,000 Americans died in battle and another 62,000 died from disease.
V. Mobilizing and Managing the Home Front
A. Business Government Cooperation
When the war began, government and industry had a strong partnership, with executives serving on war committees. Abuses, however, led to disbanding the committees and to the creation of the War Industries Board.
B. New Agencies for Economic Management
Government agencies were created to manage the task of shifting the nation’s resources to the Allies, the AEF, and war-related production. The largest such agency was the War Industries Board which coordinated the national economy.
C. Economic Performance
Despite mistakes, the mobilized economy delivered enough men and materiel to France to defeat the Central Powers.
D. Inflation
Government policy of liberal credit and setting high prices contributed to wartime inflation.
E. Paying for the War
The government financed one-third of the war through taxes. The other two-thirds came from loans.
F. Labor Unions and the War
Labor unions like the AFL advanced their cause and the cause of their members by entering into a partnership with government. The NWLB was created in 1928 to discourage strikes and urge management to negotiate with existing unions.
G. Women in the Work Force
With much of the work force in the military and with immigration interrupted, women filled many jobs. When the war ended, women lost many of the gains.
H. African American Migration North
Many African Americans moved north to work in industry. This migration changed the black community; it also led northerners to vent their anger on the emigrants.
I. Race Riots
Whites in northern cities reacted violently to the influx of black immigrants.
J. Influenza Pandemic
An influenza pandemic engulfed the world between 1918 and 1919, killing 700,000 Americans.
VI. Emergence of the Civil Liberties Issue
A. Committee on Public Information
Headed by journalist George Creel, the Committee on Public Information acted as a propaganda agency.
B. Espionage and Sedition Acts
The Espionage and Sedition Acts gave the government wide authority to crack down on dissenters. More than 2,000 people faced prosecution under these laws.
C. Imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs
Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs gave a speech extolling freedom of speech and criticizing Wilson. Federal agents arrested him; he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
D. Roger Baldwin and Free Speech
This activist advanced the idea that free speech should be aggressively defended.
VII. The Bolshevik Revolution, Labor Strikes, and the Red Scare
A. Intervention in Russia against Bolsheviks
Wilson sent 15,000 troops into Russia during the Russian Revolution. The United States also enacted an economic blockade in an effort to destroy the Bolsheviks.
B. Labor Strikes and the Red Scare
More than 4,000,000 workers went out on strike in 1919, sparking a Red Scare.
C. Palmer Raids
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer staged illegal raids on meeting halls and homes of alleged Communists. Four thousand went to jail, and many were deported.
VIII. The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World
A. Obstacles to a Wilsonian Peace
Wilson’s Fourteen Points provided a foundation for peace talks. They summarized Wilson’s international view of a stable world order based on American principles. However, in negotiating a treaty Wilson faced obstacles erected by his political enemies, by the Allies, and by himself.
B. Paris Peace Conference
Wilson underestimated his task in Paris. The victors demanded reparations from Germany, and most of Wilson’s Fourteen Points failed to gain Allied support.
C. League of Nations and Article 10
Wilson worked hardest on establishing the League of Nations to provide for collective security.
D. Critics of the Treaty
Henry Cabot Lodge led opposition to the treaty. Wilson campaigned for ratification of the treaty, but he suffered a stroke that ended any hope for a compromise.
E. Senate Rejection of the Treaty and League
The Senate rejected the Treaty of Paris and the United States refused to join the League of Nations.
F. Collective Security versus Unilateralism
Americans preferred the tradition of nonalignment and chose to act unilaterally in world affairs.
G. Unstable International System
The spread of Wilsonian ideals resulted in the rise of anticolonialism. Also, German resentment of the peace treaty increased the threat of international instability.
Americans in the Great War, 1914 1920
Chapter Summary
In Chapter 23, we deal with the causes of the First World War, American entry into the war, and the political, social, and economic impact of the war on the United States and its people. The nation’s entry into the war is discussed in “Precarious Neutrality” and “Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War.” Although President Wilson proclaimed the United States to be neutral in the European conflict, three realities made neutrality practically impossible. Those realities confirm the interrelation of domestic and foreign policy (a dominant theme in Chapter 22). Furthermore, the discussion of the tenets of Wilsonianism and Wilson’s strict interpretation of international law reinforces the concept that a nation’s foreign policy is based on its perception of the world community of nations and of its relationship to those nations.
Besides the underlying reasons for American entry into the war, there were obvious and immediate reasons for that decision: the naval warfare between Great Britain and Germany, the use of the submarine by the Germans, and Wilson’s interpretation of international law as he attempted to protect the rights of the United States as a neutral nation. The authors’ inference that Americans got caught in the crossfire between the Allies and the Central Powers is supported through the tracing of United States policy from the sinking of the Lusitania to the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans. Therefore, the Zimmermann telegram, perceived as a direct threat to American security by American officials, the arming of American commercial ships, and additional sinkings of American ships by German submarines brought a declaration of war by Congress. Finally, America went to war because of a special sense of mission. The country went to war to reform world politics, war being the only means that guaranteed Wilson a seat and an insider’s voice at the peace table.
In spite of antiwar sentiment in the United States, the country began to prepare for war before the actual declaration, as can be seen in the passage of the National Defense Act, the Navy Act, and the Revenue Act. Once war was declared, the country turned to the draft (the Selective Service Act) to raise the necessary army. Even though American military and political leaders believed that American virtue could reshape the world, they feared that the world would reshape the virtue of American soldiers. To protect that virtue, the government created the Commission on Training Camp Activities. In spite of this, venereal disease became a serious problem within the army. Furthermore, American soldiers could not be shielded from the graver threat of influenza and pneumonia, and more soldiers died from disease than on the battlefield. Another serious problem in the American army—one that government and army officials did little to combat—was racism. Not only were African Americans segregated within the army, but they were also subjected to various forms of racial discrimination.
Mobilization of the nation for the war effort altered American life. Government power increased, especially in the economic sphere. Government-business cooperation became part of official government policy. Centralized governmental control and planning of the nation’s economy were largely successful, but there were mistakes and problems. Government policy caused inflation; government tax policies meant that only one-third of the war was financed through taxes; and, although organized labor made some gains, it usually took a back seat to the needs of corporations.
The war intensified the divisions within the pluralistic American society. Entry of more women into previously “male” jobs brought negative reactions by male workers. Increased northward migration of African Americans intensified racist fears and animosities in factories and neighborhoods. The government’s fear of dissent and of foreigners led to the trampling of civil liberties at the national, state, and local levels. In the immediate aftermath of the war, events both within and outside the country heightened these fears, culminating in the Red Scare and the Palmer Raids. The American effort to “make the world safe for democracy” brought actions on the home front that seemed to indicate a basic distrust of democracy.
Divisions also intensified on the political front, as the debate over the Treaty of Versailles indicates. In “The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World” Wilson’s Fourteen Points are contrasted with the actual terms of the treaty. The divergence was an issue used in the arguments of those opposed to the treaty and to American entry into the League of Nations. But the core of the problem lay in Article 10 of the League covenant. Critics charged that the collective-security provisions of this article would allow League members to call out the United States Army without congressional approval. The belief of many that this was true was at the heart of the debate against the League. Fear that the United States would be forced to forgo its traditional unilateralism in foreign affairs led the Senate to reject the treaty and American entry into the League of Nations.
Learning Objectives
1. Discuss Europe’s descent into the First World War.
2. Discuss both President Woodrow Wilson’s attempts and the attempts of antiwar activists to keep the United States out of the First World War, and explain the ultimate failure of those efforts.
3. Discuss the response of Americans to the First World War and to American entry into the war, and indicate the extent to which United States participation influenced the outcome of the conflict.
4. Describe the characteristics of draftees and volunteers in the American armed forces during the First World War and discuss their lives as soldiers.
5. Examine the impact of the First World War on the American home front, including its impact on the federal government, business, labor, women, and African Americans.
6. Explain and evaluate the record of government at the local, state, and national levels on civil-liberties questions during and after the war.
7. Explain the differences and similarities between Wilsonianism and the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
8. Examine the debate over ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American entry into the League of Nations, and explain the Senate’s rejection of the treaty.
9. Examine the impact of the First World War on America’s role in world affairs.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
As the war began, America declared its neutrality. When events drew the nation into the contest, Woodrow Wilson announced that the country would fight to make the world safe for democracy.
II. Precarious Neutrality
A. Outbreak of the First World War
The war began following the assassination of the heir to the Austro Hungarian throne.
B. Taking Sides
Wilson sought to maintain neutrality, but objections came from German Americans and Irish Americans. Wilson’s administration had considerable sympathy for the Allies, providing another impediment to neutrality.
C. Trade and Loans
American economic ties to the Allies, especially commercially and financially, made neutrality difficult.
D. Wilsonianism
Wilson believed that the United States had become the only nation that could lead the world into a new, peaceful era. British victory seemed crucial to these principles.
E. British Violations of Neutral Rights
Britain used its navy in an effort to sever all neutral trade with Germany and cripple the German economy.
F. The German Submarine and International Law
German naval tactics relied on submarines. Wilson interpreted international law to insist that submarines surface before firing on ships. Germany disagreed.
III. Submarine Warfare and Wilson’s Decision for War
A. Secretary Bryan’s Resignation
When 128 Americans died on the British passenger ship Lusitania, Wilson resisted calls for war. Still, he wanted Americans to be safe to travel on belligerent craft. When Wilson rejected Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan’s advice that Americans be prohibited from travel on belligerent ships, Bryan resigned.
B. Gore McLemore Resolution
A congressional resolution would have prohibited Americans from traveling on belligerent merchant ships, but Wilson’s pressure caused the resolution to fail.
C. Peace Advocates
A strong peace movement existed in the United States because many believed that business profited from war.
D. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
In February 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans hoped to defeat Britain before American troops could enter the war.
E. Zimmermann Telegram and Mexican Revolution
When British intelligence released the Zimmermann Telegram, Americans took the threat from Germany seriously because of deteriorating relations with Mexico.
F. War Message and War Declaration
Wilson asked for war because of German violations of freedom of the seas and assaults on human rights. He wanted to make the world “safe for democracy.”
IV. Taking Up Arms and Winning the War
A. The Draft and the Soldier
Congress passed the Selective Service Act that made all men between 20 and 30 subject to the draft. Most soldiers were draftees, in their early twenties, and poorly educated. Blacks, at the urging of the NAACP, joined in the U.S. war effort.
B. Indian Enlistees
Most of the 15,000 Native Americans who served sought to escape lives of poverty and prove their patriotism.
C. Commission on Training Camp Activities
A federal commission, established out of concern over saloons and brothels near training camps, coordinated efforts to provide alternative forms of entertainment.
D. Trench Warfare
The nature of World War I combat was marked by a futile stalemate in the trenches.
E. Problem of Venereal Disease
The high prostitution rates in France helped make venereal disease a serious problem for American troops.
F. AEF Battles in France
The American Expeditionary Force remained independent from the Allied forces, but when they entered the lines they tipped the balance of the war in favor of the Allies.
G. Casualties
About 16 million European soldiers and civilians died as a result of the war. Some 50,000 Americans died in battle and another 62,000 died from disease.
V. Mobilizing and Managing the Home Front
A. Business Government Cooperation
When the war began, government and industry had a strong partnership, with executives serving on war committees. Abuses, however, led to disbanding the committees and to the creation of the War Industries Board.
B. New Agencies for Economic Management
Government agencies were created to manage the task of shifting the nation’s resources to the Allies, the AEF, and war-related production. The largest such agency was the War Industries Board which coordinated the national economy.
C. Economic Performance
Despite mistakes, the mobilized economy delivered enough men and materiel to France to defeat the Central Powers.
D. Inflation
Government policy of liberal credit and setting high prices contributed to wartime inflation.
E. Paying for the War
The government financed one-third of the war through taxes. The other two-thirds came from loans.
F. Labor Unions and the War
Labor unions like the AFL advanced their cause and the cause of their members by entering into a partnership with government. The NWLB was created in 1928 to discourage strikes and urge management to negotiate with existing unions.
G. Women in the Work Force
With much of the work force in the military and with immigration interrupted, women filled many jobs. When the war ended, women lost many of the gains.
H. African American Migration North
Many African Americans moved north to work in industry. This migration changed the black community; it also led northerners to vent their anger on the emigrants.
I. Race Riots
Whites in northern cities reacted violently to the influx of black immigrants.
J. Influenza Pandemic
An influenza pandemic engulfed the world between 1918 and 1919, killing 700,000 Americans.
VI. Emergence of the Civil Liberties Issue
A. Committee on Public Information
Headed by journalist George Creel, the Committee on Public Information acted as a propaganda agency.
B. Espionage and Sedition Acts
The Espionage and Sedition Acts gave the government wide authority to crack down on dissenters. More than 2,000 people faced prosecution under these laws.
C. Imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs
Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs gave a speech extolling freedom of speech and criticizing Wilson. Federal agents arrested him; he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
D. Roger Baldwin and Free Speech
This activist advanced the idea that free speech should be aggressively defended.
VII. The Bolshevik Revolution, Labor Strikes, and the Red Scare
A. Intervention in Russia against Bolsheviks
Wilson sent 15,000 troops into Russia during the Russian Revolution. The United States also enacted an economic blockade in an effort to destroy the Bolsheviks.
B. Labor Strikes and the Red Scare
More than 4,000,000 workers went out on strike in 1919, sparking a Red Scare.
C. Palmer Raids
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer staged illegal raids on meeting halls and homes of alleged Communists. Four thousand went to jail, and many were deported.
VIII. The Peace Conference, League Fight, and Postwar World
A. Obstacles to a Wilsonian Peace
Wilson’s Fourteen Points provided a foundation for peace talks. They summarized Wilson’s international view of a stable world order based on American principles. However, in negotiating a treaty Wilson faced obstacles erected by his political enemies, by the Allies, and by himself.
B. Paris Peace Conference
Wilson underestimated his task in Paris. The victors demanded reparations from Germany, and most of Wilson’s Fourteen Points failed to gain Allied support.
C. League of Nations and Article 10
Wilson worked hardest on establishing the League of Nations to provide for collective security.
D. Critics of the Treaty
Henry Cabot Lodge led opposition to the treaty. Wilson campaigned for ratification of the treaty, but he suffered a stroke that ended any hope for a compromise.
E. Senate Rejection of the Treaty and League
The Senate rejected the Treaty of Paris and the United States refused to join the League of Nations.
F. Collective Security versus Unilateralism
Americans preferred the tradition of nonalignment and chose to act unilaterally in world affairs.
G. Unstable International System
The spread of Wilsonian ideals resulted in the rise of anticolonialism. Also, German resentment of the peace treaty increased the threat of international instability.
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 22
The Quest for Empire, 1865-1914
Chapter Summary
The expansionist and eventually imperialistic orientation of United States foreign policy after 1865 stemmed from the country’s domestic situation. Those who led the internal expansion of the United States after the Civil War were also the architects of the nation’s foreign policy. These national leaders, known collectively as the foreign policy elite, believed that extending American influence abroad would foster American prosperity, and they sought to use American foreign policy to open and safeguard foreign markets.
Many Americans harbored fears of the wider world, but the foreign policy elite realized that those fears could be alleviated if the world could be remade in the American image. Therefore, after the Civil War, these leaders advocated a nationalism based on the idea that Americans were a special people favored by God. Race-based arguments, gender-based arguments, and Social Darwinism were used to support the idea of American superiority and further the idea of expansion, and American missionaries went forth to convert the “heathen.” Furthermore, a combination of political, economic, and cultural factors in the 1890s prompted the foreign policy elite to move beyond support of mere economic expansion toward advocacy of an imperialistic course for the United States—an imperialism characterized by a belief in the rightness of American society and American solutions.
The analysis of American expansionism serves as a backdrop for scrutiny of the American empire from the end of the Civil War to 1914. William H. Seward, as secretary of state from 1861 to 1869 and as a member of the foreign policy elite, was one of the chief architects of this empire. In examining Seward’s expansionist vision and the extent to which it was realized by the late 1880s, we again see the relationship between domestic and foreign policy.
Acquisition of territories and markets abroad led the United States to heed the urgings of Captain Alfred T. Mahan and to embark on the building of the New Navy. The fleet gave the nation the means to protect America’s international interests and to become more assertive, as in the Hawaiian, Venezuelan, and Cuban crises of the 1890s. The varied motives that led the United States into the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War offer another striking example of the complex links between domestic and foreign policy. In these crises of the 1890s, the American frame of reference toward peoples of other nations became more noticeable in the shaping of foreign policy. In the Cuban crisis, as in the Venezuelan crisis, Americans insisted that the United States would establish the rules for nations in the Western Hemisphere.
The Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War, sparked a debate between imperialists and anti-imperialists over the course of American foreign policy. We examine the arguments of the two groups and the reasons for the defeat of the anti-imperialists.
In the last two sections of the chapter, we turn to the American empire in Asia and Latin America. The American frame of reference with regard to other ethnic groups, along with American political, economic, and social interests, shaped the Open Door policy as well as relations with Japan and led to U.S. oppression of the Filipinos. The same factors determined American relations with Latin America. But in Latin America the United States used its power to impose its will and, through the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, assumed the role of “an international police power.”
Learning Objectives
1. Examine the late-nineteenth-century sources of American expansionism and imperialism.
2. Discuss the role of ideology and culture in American expansionism and imperialism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
3. Describe the expansionist vision of William H. Seward, and indicate the extent to which this vision was realized by the late 1880s.
4. Examine and evaluate relations between the United States and the following nations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
a. Great Britain
b. Canada
5. Discuss the modernization of the United States Navy in the late nineteenth century.
6. Discuss the causes and consequences of the Hawaiian and Venezuelan crises.
7. Examine the causes (both underlying and immediate) and discuss the conduct of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War, and indicate the provisions of the Treaty of Paris.
8. Outline the arguments presented by both the anti-imperialists and the imperialists in the debate over acquisition of an empire, and explain why the imperialists prevailed.
9. Examine and evaluate late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American policy toward Asia in general and toward China, the Philippines, and Japan, specifically.
10. Examine and evaluate United States policy toward the countries of Latin America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
Between 1865 and 1914, America grew increasingly expansionist. As expansion became imperialism, the United States became involved in crises and wars around the world.
II. Imperial Promoters: The Foreign Policy Elite and Economic Expansion
A. Foreign Policy Elite
An elite group of Americans shaped foreign policy.
B. Foreign Trade Expansion
Foreign trade proved important in the post Civil War economic growth. Agriculture accounted for most exports, but businessmen also sought foreign markets.
III. Ideology, Culture, and Empire
A. Race Thinking
Supporters of expansion used theories on race as a justification. The stereotypical manner in which foreigners were portrayed in popular magazines, school textbooks, and world’s fairs reflected an ethnocentric American attitude.
B. Male Ethos
U.S. leaders used gendered language to place weaker nations in the low ranks of the hierarchy of power, thus justifying U.S. hegemony.
C. Missionaries
Missionaries contributed to American expansionism by spreading American religion, and influence, abroad.
D. The “Civilizing” Impulse
When they intervened in other lands, Americans justified it on the grounds that the United States offered these societies the blessings of liberty and prosperity.
IV. Ambitions Abroad, 1860s 1880s
A. William H. Seward’s Quest for Empire
William Seward believed that the nation would eventually establish an empire as the result of a natural process of gravitation toward the United States. To accelerate this process he favored U.S. trade expansion, a Central American canal, a transcontinental American railroad, and improved communications systems.
B. International Communications
In 1866, a transatlantic cable linked the United States to Europe. This innovation made effective international communications a primary goal of American diplomacy.
C. Anglo-Canadian-American Relations
Improved relations between America and England began with the Washington Treaty of 1871, and other events revealed a rapprochement between the powers.
D. Sino American Troubles
Anti-Chinese riots in the American West and Congress’ suspension of Chinese immigration caused a deterioration of relations with China.
E. Pan American Conference
The Pan American Conference demonstrated growing U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.
F. Alfred T. Mahan, Navalism, and the New Navy
Alfred T. Mahan’ s Influence of Sea Power Upon History convinced expansionists of the need for a modern navy.
V. Crises in the 1890s: Hawaii, Venezuela, and Cuba
A. Annexation of Hawai’i
Americans overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani and asked for annexation to the U.S. in 1893. Annexation was delayed, but McKinley maneuvered it through Congress in 1898.
B. Venezuelan Boundary Dispute
A border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana led the United States to declare its right to intervene. The British accepted the American position to keep the United States friendly in light of an expansive Germany.
C. U.S. Interests and Revolution in Cuba
The United States had extensive economic interests in Cuba, and cultural ties existed because nearly a hundred thousand Cubans had migrated to the United States. When a revolution against Spanish rule broke out in Cuba in 1895, rebel leader José Martà obtained funds, supplies, and support in the United States.
D. Sinking of the Maine
To protect American interests in Cuba, McKinley ordered the U.S.S. Maine to Havana. In February 1898, the ship blew up, killing 266 sailors.
E. McKinley’s Ultimatum and War Decision
McKinley asked for a declaration of war in order to advance the cause of humanity and to protect American interests. Congress concurred on April 19, 1898.
VI. The Spanish American Cuban Filipino War and the Debate over Empire
A. Motives for War
Complex political, economic, social, and military motives led to war.
B. The U.S. Military at War
Of the 263,000 men who served in the war, most never left the United States. Thousands of black troops stationed in the South had to deal with violent racism.
C. Dewey in the Philippines
The first fighting took place in May, when Admiral Dewey’s squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila.
D. Treaty of Paris
In December 1898, American and Spanish negotiators agreed on terms that granted Cuban independence. America gained the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
E. Anti Imperialist Arguments
Many critics denounced imperialism as counter to American principles. Others argued that the nation could expand its markets without subjugating other countries. Labor leaders feared that imperialism was bad for American workers.
F. Imperialist Arguments
Imperialists successfully answered their critics by appealing to patriotism, destiny, and commerce.
VII. Asian Encounters: Open Door in China, Philippine Insurrection, and Japan
A. Open Door Policy
Secretary of State John Hay issued the Open Door Note in 1899, asking all nations to guarantee free trade in China. Following the Boxer Rebellion, Hay issued a second note promising to protect the integrity of China.
B. Philippine Insurrection and Pacification
Emilio Aguinaldo declared an independent Philippines in 1899, starting the Philippine Insurrection that lasted until 1902.
C. Japanese Expansion
As the Japanese became the dominant power in Asia, tensions between the United States and Japan increased—especially regarding China.
D. Anti Japanese Bias in California
West Coast Americans exhibited anti Asian bias in a number of ways.
VIII. Latin America, Europe, and International Rivalry
A. Economic Hegemony in Latin America
Latin America became a primary target of American economic expansion. Some American companies gained considerable political power in Latin America.
B. Cuba and the Platt Amendment
The Platt Amendment required American approval of all Cuban treaties and assumed for the United States the right to intervene in Cuba.
C. Panama Canal
After settling prior agreements with Britain and supporting a revolution against Colombia, the United States signed a treaty with Panama to build a canal.
D. Roosevelt Corollary
To prevent European intervention in Latin America, Theodore Roosevelt announced a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that led to American intervention in the region.
E. U.S.Mexico Relations Under Diaz
Porfirio Diaz invited U.S. investment in Mexico, but revolutionaries reversed the trend.
F. Anglo-American Rapprochement
Rivalry with Germany caused Britain to seek friendship with the U.S. British-American trade and U.S. investment in Britain also helped secure ties between the two countries.
The Quest for Empire, 1865-1914
Chapter Summary
The expansionist and eventually imperialistic orientation of United States foreign policy after 1865 stemmed from the country’s domestic situation. Those who led the internal expansion of the United States after the Civil War were also the architects of the nation’s foreign policy. These national leaders, known collectively as the foreign policy elite, believed that extending American influence abroad would foster American prosperity, and they sought to use American foreign policy to open and safeguard foreign markets.
Many Americans harbored fears of the wider world, but the foreign policy elite realized that those fears could be alleviated if the world could be remade in the American image. Therefore, after the Civil War, these leaders advocated a nationalism based on the idea that Americans were a special people favored by God. Race-based arguments, gender-based arguments, and Social Darwinism were used to support the idea of American superiority and further the idea of expansion, and American missionaries went forth to convert the “heathen.” Furthermore, a combination of political, economic, and cultural factors in the 1890s prompted the foreign policy elite to move beyond support of mere economic expansion toward advocacy of an imperialistic course for the United States—an imperialism characterized by a belief in the rightness of American society and American solutions.
The analysis of American expansionism serves as a backdrop for scrutiny of the American empire from the end of the Civil War to 1914. William H. Seward, as secretary of state from 1861 to 1869 and as a member of the foreign policy elite, was one of the chief architects of this empire. In examining Seward’s expansionist vision and the extent to which it was realized by the late 1880s, we again see the relationship between domestic and foreign policy.
Acquisition of territories and markets abroad led the United States to heed the urgings of Captain Alfred T. Mahan and to embark on the building of the New Navy. The fleet gave the nation the means to protect America’s international interests and to become more assertive, as in the Hawaiian, Venezuelan, and Cuban crises of the 1890s. The varied motives that led the United States into the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War offer another striking example of the complex links between domestic and foreign policy. In these crises of the 1890s, the American frame of reference toward peoples of other nations became more noticeable in the shaping of foreign policy. In the Cuban crisis, as in the Venezuelan crisis, Americans insisted that the United States would establish the rules for nations in the Western Hemisphere.
The Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War, sparked a debate between imperialists and anti-imperialists over the course of American foreign policy. We examine the arguments of the two groups and the reasons for the defeat of the anti-imperialists.
In the last two sections of the chapter, we turn to the American empire in Asia and Latin America. The American frame of reference with regard to other ethnic groups, along with American political, economic, and social interests, shaped the Open Door policy as well as relations with Japan and led to U.S. oppression of the Filipinos. The same factors determined American relations with Latin America. But in Latin America the United States used its power to impose its will and, through the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, assumed the role of “an international police power.”
Learning Objectives
1. Examine the late-nineteenth-century sources of American expansionism and imperialism.
2. Discuss the role of ideology and culture in American expansionism and imperialism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
3. Describe the expansionist vision of William H. Seward, and indicate the extent to which this vision was realized by the late 1880s.
4. Examine and evaluate relations between the United States and the following nations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
a. Great Britain
b. Canada
5. Discuss the modernization of the United States Navy in the late nineteenth century.
6. Discuss the causes and consequences of the Hawaiian and Venezuelan crises.
7. Examine the causes (both underlying and immediate) and discuss the conduct of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War, and indicate the provisions of the Treaty of Paris.
8. Outline the arguments presented by both the anti-imperialists and the imperialists in the debate over acquisition of an empire, and explain why the imperialists prevailed.
9. Examine and evaluate late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American policy toward Asia in general and toward China, the Philippines, and Japan, specifically.
10. Examine and evaluate United States policy toward the countries of Latin America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Chapter Outline
I. Introduction
Between 1865 and 1914, America grew increasingly expansionist. As expansion became imperialism, the United States became involved in crises and wars around the world.
II. Imperial Promoters: The Foreign Policy Elite and Economic Expansion
A. Foreign Policy Elite
An elite group of Americans shaped foreign policy.
B. Foreign Trade Expansion
Foreign trade proved important in the post Civil War economic growth. Agriculture accounted for most exports, but businessmen also sought foreign markets.
III. Ideology, Culture, and Empire
A. Race Thinking
Supporters of expansion used theories on race as a justification. The stereotypical manner in which foreigners were portrayed in popular magazines, school textbooks, and world’s fairs reflected an ethnocentric American attitude.
B. Male Ethos
U.S. leaders used gendered language to place weaker nations in the low ranks of the hierarchy of power, thus justifying U.S. hegemony.
C. Missionaries
Missionaries contributed to American expansionism by spreading American religion, and influence, abroad.
D. The “Civilizing” Impulse
When they intervened in other lands, Americans justified it on the grounds that the United States offered these societies the blessings of liberty and prosperity.
IV. Ambitions Abroad, 1860s 1880s
A. William H. Seward’s Quest for Empire
William Seward believed that the nation would eventually establish an empire as the result of a natural process of gravitation toward the United States. To accelerate this process he favored U.S. trade expansion, a Central American canal, a transcontinental American railroad, and improved communications systems.
B. International Communications
In 1866, a transatlantic cable linked the United States to Europe. This innovation made effective international communications a primary goal of American diplomacy.
C. Anglo-Canadian-American Relations
Improved relations between America and England began with the Washington Treaty of 1871, and other events revealed a rapprochement between the powers.
D. Sino American Troubles
Anti-Chinese riots in the American West and Congress’ suspension of Chinese immigration caused a deterioration of relations with China.
E. Pan American Conference
The Pan American Conference demonstrated growing U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.
F. Alfred T. Mahan, Navalism, and the New Navy
Alfred T. Mahan’ s Influence of Sea Power Upon History convinced expansionists of the need for a modern navy.
V. Crises in the 1890s: Hawaii, Venezuela, and Cuba
A. Annexation of Hawai’i
Americans overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani and asked for annexation to the U.S. in 1893. Annexation was delayed, but McKinley maneuvered it through Congress in 1898.
B. Venezuelan Boundary Dispute
A border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana led the United States to declare its right to intervene. The British accepted the American position to keep the United States friendly in light of an expansive Germany.
C. U.S. Interests and Revolution in Cuba
The United States had extensive economic interests in Cuba, and cultural ties existed because nearly a hundred thousand Cubans had migrated to the United States. When a revolution against Spanish rule broke out in Cuba in 1895, rebel leader José Martà obtained funds, supplies, and support in the United States.
D. Sinking of the Maine
To protect American interests in Cuba, McKinley ordered the U.S.S. Maine to Havana. In February 1898, the ship blew up, killing 266 sailors.
E. McKinley’s Ultimatum and War Decision
McKinley asked for a declaration of war in order to advance the cause of humanity and to protect American interests. Congress concurred on April 19, 1898.
VI. The Spanish American Cuban Filipino War and the Debate over Empire
A. Motives for War
Complex political, economic, social, and military motives led to war.
B. The U.S. Military at War
Of the 263,000 men who served in the war, most never left the United States. Thousands of black troops stationed in the South had to deal with violent racism.
C. Dewey in the Philippines
The first fighting took place in May, when Admiral Dewey’s squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila.
D. Treaty of Paris
In December 1898, American and Spanish negotiators agreed on terms that granted Cuban independence. America gained the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
E. Anti Imperialist Arguments
Many critics denounced imperialism as counter to American principles. Others argued that the nation could expand its markets without subjugating other countries. Labor leaders feared that imperialism was bad for American workers.
F. Imperialist Arguments
Imperialists successfully answered their critics by appealing to patriotism, destiny, and commerce.
VII. Asian Encounters: Open Door in China, Philippine Insurrection, and Japan
A. Open Door Policy
Secretary of State John Hay issued the Open Door Note in 1899, asking all nations to guarantee free trade in China. Following the Boxer Rebellion, Hay issued a second note promising to protect the integrity of China.
B. Philippine Insurrection and Pacification
Emilio Aguinaldo declared an independent Philippines in 1899, starting the Philippine Insurrection that lasted until 1902.
C. Japanese Expansion
As the Japanese became the dominant power in Asia, tensions between the United States and Japan increased—especially regarding China.
D. Anti Japanese Bias in California
West Coast Americans exhibited anti Asian bias in a number of ways.
VIII. Latin America, Europe, and International Rivalry
A. Economic Hegemony in Latin America
Latin America became a primary target of American economic expansion. Some American companies gained considerable political power in Latin America.
B. Cuba and the Platt Amendment
The Platt Amendment required American approval of all Cuban treaties and assumed for the United States the right to intervene in Cuba.
C. Panama Canal
After settling prior agreements with Britain and supporting a revolution against Colombia, the United States signed a treaty with Panama to build a canal.
D. Roosevelt Corollary
To prevent European intervention in Latin America, Theodore Roosevelt announced a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that led to American intervention in the region.
E. U.S.Mexico Relations Under Diaz
Porfirio Diaz invited U.S. investment in Mexico, but revolutionaries reversed the trend.
F. Anglo-American Rapprochement
Rivalry with Germany caused Britain to seek friendship with the U.S. British-American trade and U.S. investment in Britain also helped secure ties between the two countries.
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