US History (Part III)
Gilded age (1865-1898) 
Political parties
The period saw massive political corruption until the assassination of President James Garfield by an unhappy supporter in 1881 inspired reform.
Chester Arthur (1881-1885) took power after Garfield, and created the Civil Service Commission to weaken the spoils system.
The Republicans dominated US politics in this period, advocating for infrastructure and protective tariffs, while the Democrats, who often had Senate, advocated for small government.
Political machines worked as local spoils systems for the poor, the most famous being the Tammany Hall.
The Populist Party (1891-1908) represented farmers that were hurt by industrialization. They wanted silver coins in order to increase inflation and make loans easier to pay (Free silver).
The party began to lose support in 1896, when Democrats start advocating for populist ideas.
Capitalism
Wild West
Urbanization and a growing the middle class resulted in the urban population finally surpassing the rural in 1920.
As a result of railroads, the Gold Rush, the Homestead act, and the Indian Wars, the population of the West skyrocketed, with the creation of 8 new states.
Asians and Mexicans also came to America, and just like non-anglo saxon Europeans, they would live in ethnic communities due to discrimination.
Steel production through the Bessemer process made the US one of the giants of the Second Industrial Revolution, and the first billionaires rose during this time.
The boom in steel production allowed for the construction of the first skyscrapers, such as the Home Insurance building.
Laissez-faire was popular, and its advocates were often Social Darwinists.
The Knights of Labor (1869-1886) were the first major labor union in the US, but became unpopular after the Haymarket square root (1886) ended in violence.
The Panic of 1873 was what caused farmers to band together into the Populist party.
The American Federation of Labor replaced the Knights, but unlike them, it didn't accept unskilled workers.
Other notable strikes were the Homestead Strike (1892) and the Pullman Strike (1894).
After Reconstruction, the "New South" was supposed to be industrialized, but failed because no one had capital to invest.
Many immigrants running away from the political turmoil in Europe had to work and live under terrible conditions, such as tenements.
The Dawes act (1887) ended the Indian reservation system and forced natives to assimilate, while the Curtis Act (1898) forced the "five civilized tribes" to take part in the Dawes act.
The Ghost Dance was a ritual meant to unite the native American against the white settlers, but after the Massacre of Wounded Knee (1890) native resistance was over.
Around this time, buffalos were hunted to extinction, making life even harder for natives.
The reservation system was restored by FDR in 1930 with the US Indian Reorganization Act.
The Morrill Land Grant Act (1862) gave Federal land for the construction of universities, giving the lower classes access to higher education.
The term Gilded Age was coined by Mark Twain to ironize how the wealth produced at the time was extremely concentrated.
Created in the 1870's, Jim Crow laws (named after a popular term for racist portrayals of African Americans in theater, often with blackface) would segregate the US until the 1960's
In 1892, Homer Plessy sparked and lost a debate on the constitutionality of the laws (Plessy v. Ferguson). The counterargument was that “separate but equal” was not unconstitutional.
The Homestead act of 1862 made it easier to acquire land and the newly obtained West.
Golden age (1948-1973)
Events
Rise as world power (1898-1945)
Presidents
Post-war boom
The GI Bill (1944-1956) helped millions of veterans get higher education, along with many social benefits.
The Bill also helped veterans sustain families after the end of the Great Depression, being a major cause of the Baby Boom (1946-1964).
To house new families, Levitt and Sons mass produced houses in New York (Levittown), which were easily affordable by veterans.
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
Membership of the KKK once again declined in the 20's.
To build the Panama Canal, Roosevelt helped Panama gain its independence from Colombia in 1903.
The Roosevelt Corollary (1904) said that the US would intervene in the economic affairs of Latin America when necessary, to protect them from the influence of Europe.
In 1913, he ran for president after his successor disappointed him, representing the Bull Moose Party (1912-1920). With Republicans split, Woodrow Wilson won by landslide.
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
An advocate of Progressive ideas, he took many measures to help the working class.
A Southerner, Wilson was deeply racist and segregated the government, inspiring a revival of the KKK.
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)
The First New Deal (1933-1934) focused of relief for the unemployed, economic recovery and financial reforms.
The Second New Deal (1935-1938) focused on increasing worker protections and building long-lasting financial security.
Fairly progressive, he advocated for cooperation between the government and corporations (voluntarism).
Assuming after the death of Warren Harding (1921-1923), he continued his policies of returning America to its isolationism and Laissez-faire policies.
He was socially progressive, often advocating for women’s rights.
The Teapot Dome scandal during Harding’s presidency was the first time a government official was arrested for taking bribes.
Hoovervilles were the nicknames of slums created by those who became homeless during the crisis.
With the 1929 crisis, he launched massive public works, such as the Hoover Dam, and the Glass-Steagall Act (1933), which limited activities of commercial banks, in an attempt to stabilise the economy.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act imposed higher tariffs on imported goods and started a trade war with Europe, making the crisis worse.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) finally intervened in the economy, but it didn't save his presidency.
Events
World War II
The Great Depression
It was the massive military expenditures of World War II, not the New Deal, that eventually pulled the United States out of the Great Depression.
Farmers were hit very hard by the crisis, due to devalued crops plus a Southern drought that brought dust storms (Dust Bowl).
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) led to an American declaration of war the following day.
Although he said the US fought for freedom, Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 interned over 100.000 Japanese Americans during the war, taking away their livelihoods.
Women entered factory and office jobs en masse during the war. Those who joined the airforce flew planes from the factories to the battlefield. Rosie the Riveter was created for propaganda.
The Battle of Midway (1942) destroyed the Japanese navy and gave the US naval dominance for the remainder of the war.
After the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered and was occupied by the forces of Douglas MacArthur, who started rebuilding it in case of war against the soviets.
Imperialism
In 1893, American sugar plantation owners engineered a coup to dethrone Hawaii's Queen, but Hawaii was only annexed in 1898, due to fears of Japanese annexation.
With the Spanish American war (1898), the US ended its policy of isolationism and entered the imperialist race, making Cuba a puppet and acquiring Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as territories, not states.
Their excuse was the idea of "White man's burden", something that people such as Andrew Carnegie disapproved.
In Cuba, future president Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough riders to victory, becoming a celebrity at home.
Progressive era (1896-1920)
Progressives were social groups dedicated to improving the rights of minorities and combating corruption though government intervention. Despite this, many agreed with the ideas of imperialism and eugenics.
Roosevelts Square Deal, focused on consumer protection, control of corporations, and conservation, greatly helping the small people. He also created many national parks to preserve nature.
Muckrakers were journalists and novelists of the Progressive Era who sought to expose corruption in big business and government, such as Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis and Ida B. Wells.
In 1907, the US became the first country to pass a compulsory sterilization law, sterilizing 60000 people by the end of WW2.
World War I
Although president Wilson wanted neutrality, the sinking of the Lusitania (1915) plus the German unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram (1917) forced the US to enter WWI.
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points (1918) advocated for a united world after the war, but Congress never let the US join the League of Nations.
Roaring twenties
After the war, many were disillusioned with western values. This group, the "Lost generation" started the Roaring 20's to cope with it.
Banks would often refuse loans to POC and people in suburbs would refuse to sell their houses to them, thus suburbs were mostly white.
Some of the most famous Lost Generation writers were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and John Steinbeck. They often wrote about moral degeneracy, corruption and poverty.
Due to their war contribution, women achieved the right to vote with the 19th amendment (1920).
Groups such as the Anti-saloon League made Congress pass the 18th amendment in 1920. As a consequence, crime skyrocketed and criminals such as Al Capone became celebrities.
The need for money during the Great Depression led to the 21th amendment, once again allowing alcohol production.
Economic prosperity led to a rise in leisure spending, such as parties, movies, radio. For example, the Harlem Renaissance was a flourishing of African American art, music, literature, and poetry.
Rural settlers and immigrants didn’t enjoy the prosperity of the time that much. The Sacco and Vanzetti trial (1921) plus Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 were proof of that.
The Scopes Monkey Trial was a clash between fundamentalist and evolutionist values, showing how not everyone was happy with the modernization of the US.
It was in this period that Hollywood, California became what it is today.
Presidents
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969)
Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
Eisenhower (1952-1960)
Due to his role in passing the Civil Rights act of 64, Johnson won re-election by landslide. His Great Society package also started a War on Poverty.
Increased the role of the Federal government and funds to social programs, and his Federal-Aid Highway Act was the largest public project in US history.
His national security policy was, New Look, relied more on nuclear weapons than conventional armies. His idea was to keep the soviet at bay with the threat of a nuclear war, brinkmanship.
Eisenhower ended the Korean war in 1954 and kept the US out of Vietnam for the time, despite supplying weapons to guerrillas.
He was a moderate supporter of civil rights, and signed a few acts protecting civil liberties. Despite this, he helped stablish many dictatorships in soviet aligned countries.
In the first post party switch election, Kennedy narrowly won against Nixon, running on civil rights.
Kennedy focused on Keynesian economics to combat the recession. Johnson's Great Society was a successor of this.
On the military side, there was the Bay of Pigs, Cuban missile crisis and the Alliance for Progress to help Latin America.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized the US to directly send troops to Vietnam, and the stalemate that followed led to Anti-war sentiment.
Blacks faced major difficulties accessing such benefits, and thus didn't enjoy the post war economic boom, another cause for Civil Rights.
Red scare
When the Soviets got the atomic bomb through espionage, the US became paranoid and many people lost their jobs for being “suspicious”, such as actors.
Senator Joseph McCarthy used this to his advantage, accusing many rivals of being communists without any proof, thus creating the term “McCarthyism.”
The US development of the hydrogen bomb in 52 started an armed race with the USSR, with legislation such as NSC-68 (which tripled American defense budget) only making things escalate.
When the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, the space race began, with NASA being created in 58 and Kennedy’s Apollo Program succeeded in putting Neil Armstrong on the moon in 69.
Youth
Despite gender roles, the 60’s brought the pill, the sexual revolution and an increasing demand among women to play a bigger role in the workforce.
Things such as Rock and Roll expressed boomers’ desire to rebel against authorities, and people such as Elvis Presly and even some African Americans rose to stardom.
This was the time of the boom of television, and by 1955, half of all American homes had TVs.
Civil rights
The Brown v. Board of education of Topeka (1954) was a lawsuit that ended with the Supreme Court deeming segregated public schools to be unconstitutional.
The violent attack of civil rights advocates on “Bloody Sunday (1965)”, convinced President Johnson to propose the Voting Rights Act.
"Massive Resistance" was organized by whites to oppose Southern desegregation, and Eisenhower had to send Federal troops to intervene.
CORE and SNCC, two major civil rights groups, became disillusioned with the slow progress of the movement and non-violent policies, thus joining Black Power.
The trial of the murder of Emmett Till (1955) was the first major media event of the civil rights movement, bringing attention to the brutality of racism.
Two months later, this case inspired Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her bus seat, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott, of which MLK emerged as leader.
The "Little Rock Nine" were the first black students to attempt to enter a Southern school, but they were barred by authorities.
Democrat support for Civil Rights led to many white southerners joining the Republican, which would be accelerated by Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
Malcolm X and the Black panthers were major figures of “Black Power”, which advocated for self-reliance and racial pride among African Americans. The Black panthers even wrote guidelines in their “Ten Point Program”.
During the March on Washington (1963), MLK delivered his “I have a dream” speech. The march helped pass the Civil Rights Act (1964), ending segregation and offering assistance to black communities, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Although he ended the US draft for Vietnam, Nixon allowed the FBI to spy on anti war groups, and the Kent State massacre (1970) killed 4 protesters.
He reopened relations with China and signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) with the USSR.
The Watergate scandal, in which he set the FBI to spy on political rivals, ended his chances of winning a second term.
Second wave feminism, fought over the right to use the pill and equal rights in the workplace.
Nilton employed the "Southern strategy" to appeal to conservatives resentful of civil rights. He also took advantage of a divide in the Democratic party.
Stagflation
Expenses from Vietnam and social problems, plus competition from Japan caused wages to stagnate and inflation to rise.
The Nixon Shock (1971) was a series of austerity measures to attempt to improve the economy, but without any long term success.
Due to US support of Israel, the Middle East declared an Oil embargo (1973), ending the American golden age
The 70's saw the rise of identity politics, such as native americans, LGBT,
The Pentagon papers showed that Johnson and Nixon had lied to the public about US involvement in the war, undermining public trust in the government. A ceasefire was negotiated in 73, and the Communists won in 75.
Returning the Panama canal to Panama, halting the construction of nukes, and convincing Egypt to recognize Israel (Camp David Accord), Carter alienated both Republicans and Democrats.
Relations with the soviets worsened after their invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the Iranian revolution plus the Iran hostage crisis made him increasingly unpopular.
Although Carter's years in office were rocky, his post-presidential career as a diplomat and human-rights advocate earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Carter failed to improve the economy in any significant, and thus lost to Ronald Reagan in 81.
The Roe v. Wade case (1973) ruled that the Constitution protects a woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.