American Civilisation/History First Semester
First Lesson : Basic American Facts
Area: 9,826,630 square kilometers (3,794,083 square miles)
Population: 296,483,000
Flag/National Anthem: Old Glory or The Stars and Stripes. “The Star Spangled Banner”
Number of States:
Capital: Washington D.C
Independence Day: July 4th 1776
Motto: “In God We Trust”
National Bird: Bald Eagle
Largest State: Alaska
Smallest State: Rhode Island
The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920. Many immigrants came to America seeking greater economic opportunity, while some, such as the Pilgrims in the early 1600s, arrived in search of religious freedom.
From the 17th to 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of African slaves came to America against their will. (The first significant federal legislation restricting immigration was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.) Individual states regulated immigration prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island, the country’s first federal immigration station. New laws in 1965 ended the quota system that favored European immigrants, and today, the majority of the country’s immigrants hail from Asia and Latin America.
23 million people from all over the world, especially, southern and eastern Europe
There was hostility toward Jews, Catholics, Japanese and all « New Immigrants »
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
1892-1924 Ellis Island
1921 : quota limiting immigrants to 3 % of the foreign born people of that nationality who lived in the country in 1910
1924 : Immigration Act (percentages per country, more immigrants from northern and western Europe)
WW2 easing of the immigration laws (war brides act 1945, Chinese: allies, easing of the exclusion act)
1952 Immigration and Nationality Act quotas for Asian countries previously excluded
Illegal/Undocumented/unauthorized aliens/immigrants
There were 11.3 million unauthorised immagrants in the U.S in 2014
The population has remained essentially stable for five years, and currently makes up 3.5% of the nations population. The number of unauthorized immigrants peaked in 2007 at 12.2 million, when this group was 4% of the U.S population.
Six states alone account for 60% of unauthorized immigrants – California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jearsy, and Illinois.
Mexicans make up about half of all unauthorized immigrants (52%), though their numbers have been declining in recent years.
Unauthorized immigrants make up 5.4% of the U.S labor force (2015)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/456900/456958/html/nn4page1.stm
About 7% of K-2 students (from kindergarden to twelth grade/end of high school) had at least one unauthorized immigrant parent in 2012. Among thosestudents, about 8/10 (79%) were born in the U.S.
After 9/11 : Homeland of Security Act of 2002
Created the department of Homeland Security (took over many immigration service and enforcement functions
formerly preformed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Few modifications to the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act
Two ways of entering the US lawfully :
- Temporary (non-immigrant) admission visa : tourists, students, business travelers)
- Permanent (immigrant) admission : green car granting them eligibility to work in the United States and to eventually apply for citizenship. Green card lotteries.
Brain drain=The Term originated from around 1960. Many European scientists and intellectuals emigrated to the United States for a better working climate. Its meaning had broadened into: the departure of educated or professional people from one county.
Push (that pushed them to leave the country) and pull (to attract) factors →
The American dream
other push and pull factors in the world=
US Governement 3 powers + fourth power*
A Topical Subject in U.S Politics at the Moment:
November 2014
Obama announced plans to take executive action to prevent 4 million illegal immigrants from being deported and give them work permits.
Three Branches of Government
In 1787 leaders of the states gathered to write the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention Philadelphia Pennsylvania. It was a set of principles that told how the new nation would be governed.
The leaders of the states wanted a strong and fair national government. But they also wanted to protect individual freedoms and prevent the government from abusing its power. They believed they could do this by having three separate branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial.
Checks and Balances*
Each of the three branches of government can limit the powers of the others. This way, no one branch becomes too powerful. Each branch “checks” the power of the other branches to make sure that the power is balanced between them.* (See Notes)
Spring 2015
Texas leads a 26-state coalition against the proposed plan (court of appeals, agruing the states will incur expenses ( social security, driving licenses, etc…)
Legal procedures likely to take months…
Obama’s term drawing to a close.
He may not be able to implement it before leaving office.
Donald Trump, the billionaire turned politician, is running for the republican presidential nomination, placing immigration at the forefront of his campaign, claiming immigrants bring crime and other social evils with them.
From 1965
1965: end of quotas based on nationality
annual quotas instead: 170,000 from eastern hemisphere. 120,000 from western hemisphere, preference for relatives of US citizens and people with special skills
1978 one single annual world quota: 290,000
1986 amnesty to illegals who had lived in the US continuously since before
January 1st 1982 or worked at least 90 days at farm labor between May 1st 1985 and May 1st 1986.
1990’s ceilings of 7000,000 refugees not included
Asia, Africa, Latin America instead of Europe
From the colonists of the 1600’s to the revolutionary war 1775
Mostly colonists from England but not only
Merchants, persecuted people, adventurers, convictsn, indentured servants
1700: 250,000
17000-1775 + 450,000
by 1808 375,000 slaves
From the 1820’s to the 1870 depression*
7m people from northern and western Europe
(1/3 Irish escaping the potato famine in the mid-1840’s poor: 1/3 German-better-off)
1848 gold rush (Chinese)
Beginning of xenophobia (Americans party-Know Nothing Party)
1875: first restrictive immigration law no convicts, no prostitutes)
Hostility towards the Chinese (lower wages, unfair business competition)
From 1607 to 1775-81, the colonies were encouraged to develop as food and raw material producers for Britain, the mother country, (mostly tobacco, rice, sugar, timber products) but discouraged from developing manufactures not to compete with England. (expected to produce raw materials and food for the mother country then they rebelled and industrialized and then there was the 1812 war )
Difficulties for New England (no raw materials that England did not have, specialized in shipping and commerce)
Frustrations but also many economic benefits, an expanding market (growing British empire)
Revolution: Independent development (hard without the protections of Britain)
War of 1812 with Britain: provided the first real opportunity for the development of large-scale domestic industry (textiles and metal)
Between 1810 & 1815/ 94 new cotton mills in New England.
Post-war fierce competition: low prices and superior technology for British goods.
From the 1810’s to the 1840’s: King Cotton, the Cotton Kingdom Southern plantations: need food and supplies, agriculture developed West, manufactured goods needed as well.
(“West” is a very elastic term (west Mississippi, west Rockies, west pacific)*
Protective tariff in 1816 boosted industrialization need for agricultural machinery and frontier implements (too expensive for Britain with high tariff barriers and transport costs)
By 1860 cotton industry in the northeast almost entirely mechanized the US began to produce its own technologies.
The Development of Transports
Canals
1825 the Erie Canal (584 km, 83 locks
Allowed trade between the west or Lake Superior and the Atlantic Ocean expansion of NY at the expense of Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore)
The development of the canals was important especially for the trains. Boston Baltimore NY the major ports around 1825 the development of the canals boosted the spur of the railroads. There was some competition. The first railroads were in the northeast. The idea started at the same time the Erie canal was built, but money was lacking
Railroads
1830: Baltimore and Ohio (Maryland) 13 miles of track/ Charleston and Savannah (South Carolina) 6miles
End of 1830: 23 miles
1840: 2,818 miles
1850: 9,021 miles
1860: 36,626 miles
1869 Transcontinental railroad* completed, central Pacific (created by 4 California businessmen) = private enterprise then they l congress.
And Union Pacific (created by the government in 1862) meet at Promontory Point, Utah
People have been creating one esp in the west of California they hadn’t been able to convince congress to build it, but its became indispensable because it took along time to go west. After years of discussion in 1869 it was made. Before the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, it cost nearly $1,000 dollars to travel across the country. After the railroad was completed, the price dropped to $150 dollars.
http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-railroad
Inventions and Important Events
1763-65 Steam engine (James Watt, Scottish)
1794 Cotton gin (Eli Whitney), machines were created to separate the cotton seeds from the fibers. Boosts the cotton industry; cheaper cloth, more slaves needed. Textile industry in the North (New England)
Early 1800’s
Francis Lowell thinks of gathering spinning and weaving in the same factory, develops shareholding.
Shareholder = person who owns part of the company.
1807 Robert Fulton produces the first commercially successful steamboat (NY-Albany and back)
Commerce develops on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
1837 Steel plow (John Deere). Speeds up farming in the mid west, Reaper (Cyrus Mc Cormick) makes harvesting grain easy, quick and cheap
End of 1840’s
Sewing machine (Elias Howe and Issac Singer) Clothing made in factories instead of at home.
1844
Samuel F.B Morse invents the telegraph
In 1860 it covers the US from the eastern seaboard to the Mississippi
1868 Transatlantic Cable (under the Atlantic ocean)
1876 Telephone (Graham Bell)
1879 Light bulb (Thomas Edison)
1908 Henry Ford develops the first assembly line, creates the Model T
- The Model T, also known as the “Tin Lizzie,” changed the way Americans live, work and travel. Henry Ford’s revolutionary advancements in assembly-line automobile manufacturing made the Model T the first car to be affordable for a majority of Americans. For the first time car ownership became a reality for average American workers, not just the wealthy.
Information based on following video:
The start of the American dream, people came from all over the world… Produced form 1908 to 1928
The American Dream was first publicly defined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams:
« The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. »
Other great industrialists, innovative captains of industry:
Andrew Carnegie
Steel tycoon and philanthropist vertical organization (ownership of the resources, the dilivery system and manufature of the product) an avid reader, funded public libraries, schools, a university
J.P Morgan
Investment banker, railroads & US Steel Corporation philanthropist and art collector (contributed to the collections of the Met, the American Museum of Natural History…)
J.D Rockefeller
Oil magnate (Standard Oil) realized drilling for oil was uncertain, decided to invest in refineries to make the kerosene needed to duel lamps philanthropist: higher education (also for African-American men and women, University of Chicago, medical research, health programs.
Some people criticized them and called them “robber barons” (late 19th American industrialists who became wealthy though the exploitation of the natural resources and/or the workforce)
True: most of them started from scratch, were self-made men who got rich; there were strikes in their factories the workers asking for higher wages…
philanthropists: made donations, created foundations to develop education, science, ect…
Urbanization: a uniting and dividing factor in American life
Rural and Urban areas.
Rural exodus *
1790 census
95% the American population lived in the countryside/in rural areas
5% lived in urban areas (places with more than 2,500 persons, mainly big villages)
Only New York, Boston and Philadelphia had more than 15,000 inhabitants
1890
35% lived in urban areas, mainly in the North, the South remaining rural
1920
Urban population > rural population: urban-dwellers/city-dwellers outnumbered rural ones
1990’s
75% lived in cities
2010 census (next in 2020)
American population: 80.7% urban
Reasons for the growth of cities
- Industrialization (factories created in urban centers)
- Most immigrants settle in cities (little money to travel farther, factory jobs, cheap housing)
- Improvements in farm technology (reaper, steel plow..) make farm jobs scarcer: rural exodus
- Many African-Americans lose their livelihood in the South, move North 1890-1910
Before (until the middle of the 19th century)
Cities were commercial centers for rural areas
Manufacturing took place outside the cities near power source (streams or natural resources (coal
eg Chicago was a railroad center, a shipping hub for lumber, meat and grain
wealthy people (merchants lawyers manufacturers) had a big townhouses built along the main avenues, within walking distance of their workplace.
Some poor people lived in the back alleys, but a lot lived in the suburban far from the urban amenities (water pumps garbage collection, town watches)
AFTER
Industry invaded the cities
By 1870 Chicago had become a leader in steel production and meat packaging
Improvement in transports led people to live father from their workplace and the city was subdivided into specialized districts (shopping, office manufacturing, residential areas)
As middle-class people left the city center immigration and country people moved in (subdivision of city houses for profit, building of tenements low -rent, poorly maintained, unsanitary apartment buildings)
Problems
Poverty, largely invisible to the rich living on the outskirts of the cities
Growth too rapid for city governments to be able to extend clean water, garbage collection and sewage systems to the poorer areas.. in the 1860’s cities have inadequate or no piped water, poor sanitation (manure, open gutters, factory smoke…), indoor plumbing is rare…
Fires (wood houses, limited access to water, candles, kerosene lamps and heaters; mostly volunteer firefighters, not always available)
Prostitution, crime, (theft, robbery)
Jacob Riis
(a Danish-American investigative reporter, photographer and social reformer)
How The Other Half Lives
(book illustrated with engravings of his photographs)
about life in the tenements (slums)
And Solutions
- Police departments
professional fire depart (1900), fire sprinklers, non-flammable building materials
sewer lines, sanitation departments 1908
- Volunteer groups teach “citizen skills” courses (English, US history, cooking…)
Ethnic minorities provide support
- Reform movements (settlement house movement -Jane Addams, Hull House 1889, Social Gospel Movement- Salvation though help to the poor, provide help, educational, cultural, social, medical services to immigrants)
- Park movement Frederick Law Olmsted Central Park, etc… City Beautiful Movement Daniel Burnham Chicago
Cities changed…
1852 Elisha Graves Otis developed the first modern lift/elevator
1856 invention of steel (Bessemer found how to turn iron into steel)
…the city could expand vertically
1885 first steel-framed skyscraper (10 floors/stories high) in Chicago
1913 Woolworth building NY (60 storied high)
1930 Chrysler Building (77 stories)
1931 Empire State Building (102 stories
From 1848 Development of department stores. No haggle (bargain), one-price policy
Satisfaction guaranteed policy (promise of exchange or refunds)
Advertising
1861 mail order catalog
1877 Macy’s big NY Store
Even if office complexes and corporate campuses followed in the suburbs, shops too (1950’s shopping malls in 1980’s and 1990’s large enclosed malls- consumption and entertainment)
Longer and longer commutes, heavy traffic (rush hour congestion/ traffic jams)
Less peace and security for suburbanites… trend toward gated communities (walled housing developments)
Counties lack money to maintain the huge road, water and sewer systems… move from older suburbs to new ones
Teetotaler = someone who never drinks alcohol.
Bootleggers= people who sold alcohol illegally. (they hid the bottles between their boots and legs hence the name)
08/10/2015
Alphonse Gabriel = « Al » Capone an American gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit*
Speakeasy* an illicit or unlicensed establishment dispensing alcoholic beverages. The speakeasy had been part of the American scene since at least the 1890s, but it reached its heyday (peak) after the Eighteenth Amendment took effect in January 1920,ushering in the Prohibition era. Though alcohol was officially illegal during Prohibition, bootleggers and distributors of illicit alcohol enjoyed a thriving business serving a public still eager to drink.
At the height of their popularity (1924–1933), speakeasies were generally either bars or restaurants to which people gained admission by secret passwords, personal introduction or by presenting a card, usually informally.
Bathtub Gin* = (bathtub = bainoire) is mostly associated to homemade alcohol
Bread not booze, vote dry Nov. 6 1917*/ Vote Wet (advertisement)
Wets= against prohibition for alcohol Dry= for
Drinking had always been part of socializing in the US, the Mayflower transported beer etc… doctors encouraged people to drink alcohol rather than foul water. Grog bells.*
But the by the early 1800’s people started to grow grain that could be distilled into whiskey, with a much higher alcohol content than beer.
Consumption: the equivalent of 88 bottle of whiskey a year (over 15 years of age)
Prohibition laws: 1838 (Mass), 1846 (Main)
Temperance (alcohol abstinence) movements had arisen, part of a fervor for the improvement of society in the 1830’s and the 1840’s (with anti-slavery movements)
Led by protestant religious groups and women: alcohol seen as sin, as an evil as much as slavery
moderation > resisting temptation > banning alcohol at the local, then state, then national level
After the Civil War, German-American brewers increased production of beer to cater to the new immigrants coming from Ireland, Italy, or Germany
Many woman’s lives were ruined by their husband’s chronic drunkenness ((they were beaten and broke)
1870’s Women, inspired by Methodist and Baptist ministers, protested and organized politically
WCTU: Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, women’s branch of the Prohibition Party.
Carrie Nation, a radical member of the temperance movement known for attacking saloons with a hatchet.
Alliance with those fighting for the right to vote: the Suffragettes (e.g. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanon)
Right to vote for women: (prohibition of the denial of the right to vote based on sex)
Ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as woman suffrage.
At the time the U.S.’s female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote. It was not until 1848 that the movement for women’s rights launched on a national level with a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, organized by abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Following the convention, the demand for the vote became a centerpiece of the women’s rights movement. Stanton and Mott, along with Susan B. Anthony and other activists, formed organizations that raised public awareness and lobbied the government to grant voting rights to women.
After a 70-year battle, these groups finally emerged victorious with the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Adolphus Busch
“Emperor of Beer”
First to bottle beer for the shipment owned ice factories, railroads, bottling plants bribed legislators, paid poll taxes for African-American and Mexicans to vote German-American alliance criticized distillers and promoted beer as a healthy drink
(Video) D.W Griffith, What Drink Did (1909)
Anti Saloon League
Under the leadership of Wayne Wheeler
Sought any and every kind of support: Democrats/Republicans, NAACP/KuKluxKlan, the Big Five, …
Took advantage of two events:
1913 ratification of the income tax amendment: the state no longer depended solely on liquor taxes
1917 US entry into WW2 > anti-German sentiment > anti-brewers sentiment
Voting Wet= treason
Voting Dry= patriotism
VOTED IN 1917, ratified by the states in 13 months in effet at the beginning of 1920
The Amendment soon appeared as impossible to enforce:
Proliferation of Speakeasies (stores and nightclubs selling alcohol illegally)
Rise in gang violence and other crimes (Chicago gangster Al Capone* made 60$ m a year from bootlegging and running speakeasies.
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929)* Fourmen dressed as police officers enter gangster Bugs Moran’s headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, line seven of Moran’s henchmen against a wall, and shoot them to death. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it is now called, was the culmination of a gang war between arch rivals Al Capone and Bugs Moran.
Bribery (corruption): police and prohibition agents often accepted bribes =/= the Untouchables* = a group of eleven U.S federal law-enforcement agents, led by Eliot Ness, who, from 1929 to 1931, worked to end Al Capone’s illegal activities by aggressively enforcing Prohibition laws against Capone and his organization. In their conduct, they became legendary for being fearless and incorruptible, earning the nickname « Untouchables ».
Unexpected Consequences
Rents, consumption (clothes, household goods, soft drinks, entertainment…) Expected to rise… they did not. Instead restaurants closed down and theaters declined.
The elimination of thousands of jobs (closing of breweries, distilleries, saloons > waiters, truckers, barrel-makers lost their jobs)
At the government level: loss of 11$ billion (in tax revenue)
cost $300m to enforce. Number if pharmacies tripled (front for bootlegging; were allowed to prescribe whiskey for anxiety or flu!). Religious attendance rose, self-professed rabbis and priests (churches and synagogues could get wine)
Many Americans became experts on how to make wine at home (bathtub gin, moonshine)
Illegal liquor market turned many law-abiding citizens into criminals > number of arrests, trials soared
More people drank and they drank more lower quality of alcohol on the black market: 1,000 deaths a year
Inequalities: Poor and working-class people affected more than middle and upper-class (high price of illegal liquor) Prohibition enforced more strikingly in rural areas (more sympathetic) than in urban ones
1920 18th amendments in effect
Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and distribution of intoxicating liquors/alcoholic beverages/alcoholic drinks
1928 President Herbert Hoover
Prohibition= “a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far reaching in purpose”
>”the noble experiment”
1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected 32nd president of the U.S on a platform pledging (promising) to ban prohibition; Hoover, the incumbent was defeated.
21st amendment repealed the 18th. *
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA
1890 -1920
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1061.html
The aim of the progresssists:
to make American society a better and safer place by:
- Regulating Big Business
Last 3 decades of 19th century: to record productivity, investments and profits, it was a real industrial miracle thanks to:
- Massive exploitation of mineral resources,
- Growth (x2 between 1870 and 1800) of population (immigrants)
- Technological innovations (500,00 patents)
The US had displaced GB as the worlds economic leader. Britain was the workshop of the world at the time. There was a great sea change: a radical/ tremendous change, in the worlds
But domestic consumption only (would grow thanks to the growing pop and the opening of the west)
Disregard of foreign markets
(republicans in office almost uninterruptedly of 50 years 1860-1912: protectionist policies, high tariffs that hampered foreign trade)
- Overproduction (supply exceeding domestic demand)
- Fiercer competition big business means bigger companies and bigger business men.
- Mass production… fall in prices. Things were cheaper and cheaper.
- Consolidation (Fr: fusion) meaning several companies merging to be bigger
Excesses… as many warnings to the rest of the world about the risks of uncontrolled industrial developed
Paradoxically the captains of the industry destroyed competition by creating monopoly:
Standard Oil Trust, JD. Rockefeller 1882
15 trusts
“John D. Rockefeller had, in essence, created the first modern corporation by establishing the Standard Oil Trust (SOT) in 1882. Even before 1882, the Standard Oil Company controlled the production and distribution of oil, as well as determining its use by the consumer. The SOT was created in that Combinations (big consolidated businesses) couldn’t do business across state lines; Rockefeller wanted to consolidate even more power and influence in the oil industry.”
Popular protest
1890 Sherman Antitrust Act*: it was against abusive business practices, the monopolization of one sector by one person or group of people.
The legislators sided- prudently- with the people against Big Business, sought to curb the power of industrial corporations.
That is what it outlawed. (=prohibit, Fr: Contre la loi)
“Every contract, combination in the form of the trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade… among the several States or with foreign nations”
But in practice:
Business concentration almost entirely escaped federal control:
The structure of the companies was the State’s’ job (the Supreme Court defended State prerogatives – New Jersey, Delaware: permissive laws encouraging combinations – against government interventionism)
1895: The Supreme Court ruled against the government in the sugar trust case US vs E.C Knight & Co brought bu the Department of Justice against the American Sugar Refining Company for the acquisition of E.C. Knight stock with a view to monopolizing the sugar refining industry.
Federal government left with regulation of price-fixing agreements that could affect interstate commerce.
A Pool: group of companies that decide together on a price
Basically, It gave a lot of power to the federal gov to regulate trade (permit trade ith the states) but it didn’t give any power to the federal gov concerning the ….
Anti-trust action poorly enforced (maximum fines of $5,00 and/or imprisonment for up to one year – ridiculous for industrial moguls/tycoons/magnates)
Consequence: wave of mergers + a new form pf combination, the holding company (one company buying at least 50% of the stock of other firms to gain a majority control over them)
Late 1890’s: prosperity and power again after the depression of the early 1890’s Election of Republican President William McKinley* 1896 Defeat of the populist party (William Jennings Bryan*); the farmers and workers still protested but were no longer listened to
Golden years of trusts and holdings, close ties between the president, his part and Big Business.
- Cleaning up Corrupt City Governments
- improving working conditions in factories
- bettering living conditions in slums
- conserving resources
Growth and Expansion
1890 Census marked the end of the continental frontier, looking for new opportunities overseas, protecting American economic interest in the New World.
No part had not been civilized in 1890. 2 inhabitants per square kilometer.
The country then started looking for new opportunities elsewhere. Protect their economy and to find new markets. They thought that the west would help develop their industry then suddenly the US is not “wiled” anymore. New outlets were sought out. = expansion was reactivated. Especially though the Monroe Doctrine. (James M. = Louisiana Purchase*)
The reactivation of the Monroe Doctrine* ( On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe used his annual message to Congress for a bold assertion: ‘The American continents … are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.’ Along with such other statements this ‘Monroe Doctrine’ became a cornerstone of American foreign policy.)
2 spheres of influence, 2 hemispheres (the Western one being the American continent)
2 different sub-parts
- Non interference: The US did not wish to take part in the politics or wars of Europe
- The US would regard any attempt by a European power to interfere with the politics or gain control of territory on the American continent – by settlement, purchase or aggression – as an unfriendly act towards itself.
Spanish-American War: April December 1898 -1899
The Spanish-American War (1898) was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America.
The war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in February 1895.
http://www.history.com/topics/spanish-american-war
In Cuba it ws a Spanish colony.* After a drop in sugar exports caused a deep economic crisis Cuba had revolted against Spain 1985. Cuba also wanted to get independence.
Spain wanted to stop the revolt, but the US said beware we have American citizens on the island so if there is one death of an American or loss of American property; Spain would be guilty.
Madrid sent troops to crush the rebellion and placed prisoners in concentration camps. Anti-Spanish Sentiment in the US
The press and some radicals called for war; President Mc Kinley resisted.
In February 2 events precipitated US involvement:
- Letter from the Spanish Minister to Washington to a Cuban friend criticizing the president’s weakness and eagerness to please the people was intercepted and published in a sensational paper
- the battleship Maine, which McKinley had ordered to be moored in Havana to protest US residents, was blown up by a mine: “Remember the Maine!” became a pro-war slogan.
- Ultimatums… Spain refused to negotiate Cuba’s independence
- Mc Kinley was irresolute, Congress was left to decide and recognized Cuba’s independence.
- Spain declared war on April 24th
- Military operations in Cuba lasted 25 days, a “splendid little war”
- But confrontation earlier: April 30th in Manila Bay, Philippine Islands (Spanish fleet disabled)
- May: Another Spanish fleet headed from the Cape Verde Islands to Santiago, navel blockade of Santiago by US fleet
- US troops on Cuban soil (June), encircled the city, strong resistance (even if the Americans outnumbered the Spaniards 10 to 1 (bloody battles including San Juan*), Santiago was besieged and surrendered.
-Spain asked for peace, peace talks in Paris, treaty signed in December (Spain abandoned sovereignty over Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam and sold the Philippines to the US for $20m)
– No annexation (Teller amendment to war resolution), supervision of Cuba’s independence (1900)*
– Pacification war in the Philippines (3 years)
Brought into the limelight Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Nicknamed Teddy Roosevelt
Teddy Bear = stuffed animal
Roosevelt resigned his post to become a lieutenant colonel in the First US Volunteer Calvary (the “Rough Riders”) He became a national hero when the exploits of the cavalry unit he had led to victory were reported home. Then he was immediately elected Governor of New York.
Roosevelt experienced the tremendous power of the Republican Party political machine and of the business connections they controlled; he was against the invasion of politics by private interests… Reelection at the time was improbable but highly popular: couldn’t be eliminated from the political scene. He thus became Vice president (thought to be a political graveyard, a dead-end) YET
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
26th president, the youngest one (42)
The rising young Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley.
Exceptional charisma, an expert at publicizing his actions, posing as a reformer, promoter of progress and defender of the public good.
Reputation of trust-buster* at home and global policeman abroad (Big Stick* policy)
The Big Stick Policy most referred to his diplomatic and military action in the Caribbean area during his first term.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S FOREIGN POLICY
Like McKinley, Roosevelt sought to bring the United States out of its isolationism and fulfill its responsibility as a world power. He believed that America should “speak softly and carry a big stick” in the realm of international affairs and that its president should be willing to use force to back up his diplomatic negotiations. Roosevelt followed this big-stick policy most conspicuously in his dealings in Latin America. In 1903, he helped Panama secede from Colombia in order to facilitate the beginning of construction on the Panama Canal, which he later claimed as his greatest accomplishment as president. The following year, after several European nations had attempted to forcibly collect on debts owed to them by Latin American nations, Roosevelt issued a “corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine stating that the United States would bar foreign intervention in Latin America and act to police the hemisphere, ensuring that countries paid their international debts.
http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/theodore-roosevelt
Trust Buster (“global policeman”)
- 1904 dismantling of JP Morgan and James J. Hill’s railroad holding, the Northern Securities Company
- Judicial actions against two other great trusts: Standard Oil of New Jersey and the American Tobacco Company
- Symbolic victories to reestablish the preeminence of the government over business in public affairs.
His successor William Howard Taft would be more pugnacious efficacious
His Rough Rider image reinforced the US position as guardian of order on the American continent (North and South) and as an umpire in foreign conflicts.
Intended to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, extend the US domination over the American continent and raise his country to the rank of world power.
- Boundary dispute with Canada over Alaska (1903)
- The US Army supported the anti-Colombian revolt in Panama (1903), which led to US-guaranteed independence in the isthmus and permitted the construction of the Dominican republic 1904*
Most notable diplomatic achievements:
- Meditation in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 (organized the Portsmouth Conference that ended the conflict)
- Persuaded the French to attend the Algeciras Peace Conference (1906) in the first Moroccan crisis.
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T.R fought against corruption yet condemned the “muckrakers” exposure of corruption in administration and business as an exercise dangerous for public peace and as a detonator of social unrest.
“muckraking” movement: sensational newspaper articles and books about the evils of capitalism and big business: not empty propaganda, carefully documented studies, presenting undeniable evidence that great fortunes had been built on unethical practices.
How could this man form the east get interested in the west?
Conservation of resources
T.R often considered as “the conservationist president”
A staunch of utilizing the country’s resources, Roosevelt wanted to insure the sustainability of those resources. (=/= preservationists)
First trip West (Dakota badlands) 1883 then returned to live after his mother’s wife’s deaths on the same day. Became a rancher, a big game hunter, many hunting trips (narrated in books) but lamented the loss of species and habitat
A visionary: country to most of his contemporaries, he did not consider natural resources as inexhaustible:
Constitution….
Preservationist vs conservationist (use resources but not spoil or waste them)
- during his presidency, TR created the US Forest Service (1905) , he established 150 national forests, 51 bird reserves, 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks
TR’s Legacy
Major unpredictable changes in American politics, after him nothing was ever the same, in the presidency and the congress. The executive power increased and that of congress diminished and they had less influence.
The use of the executive power increased, which turned the president office into a command post from which he issued orders to the whole nation (and the rest of the world too)
- reenforced the president’s role as leader, policy-maker and steward (guardian) of the people.
- influenced all subsequent presidential programs fro Wilson’s “New Freedom” to Franklin Delano Roo ‘s “New Deal” to Kennedy’s “New Frontier”
the role of Congress declined greatly (especially in the shaping of foreign policy)
nothing was viciously done, everything was for the sake and good of the people
World War One
A small introduction.
« The Great War« , « The War to End All Wars«
The first global war, it involved 30 countries and 65 million soldiers. It all began when a young Serbian nationalist assassinated Austria-Hungarian Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Alliances formed in Europe in the previous decades started to fight.
The means of weaponry: machine guns, tanks, flying aircraft, aircraft carriers, chemical weapons etc.
It was the first blood bank (= the storage of blood ), and the first time women enlisted in the army.
The war ended on November 11th 1918. 9 Million soldiers dead and 5 million civilians, due to disease, starvation, and exposure.
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Woodrow Wilson thought Germany should be punished but he wanted those in power punished , not the people.
He was considered to be naive as he thought that if the losing side as not treated too harshly, another war could be avoided.
But the Treaty of Versailles differed from the 14 points:
Germany had to pay for the total cost of WW1, was disarmed (no U-boats, no aircraft, no tanks…) , had to reduce the size of its army to 100,000, its colonies were divided among the allies, Austria-Hungary, was divided into four countries)
Though the treaty did create the League of Nations, Germany was not allowed to join the organization.
The resentment that followed allowed the seeds of WW2 to take root in Germany.
Even the US did not join the LN (the new Republican Congress refused… which weakened the forerunner of the UNO and made American inward-looking again.
Wall street shares of stocks are exchanged. People no longer trusted stocks, everyone sold their shares, the market plunges and brings with it the banks. =Market Crash
What was the situation like?
Economy= the great prosperity* the industry was producing a lot, technologies approved, mass consumption of mass production, wide spread advertisement, the beginning of the consumer society.* Easy on credit.* prosperity was based on this kind of mechanism.
Speculation*
Before 1929: widespread economic boom (an American worker earned about twice as much a British one and three times as much as a French one)
Mass production, consumption, advertising and easy credit: prosperity was expected to go on indefinitely.
October 24th, 1929: Black Thursday, The Great Crash
The tremendous increase in stock market prices during the 1920s was largely based upon value. This was especially true of such issues as communications and the automobile industry where companies were profitable and worker productivity steadily increased. Many Americans were convinced that everyone, regardless of one`s station in life, could become rich.
12.9 m shares sold the day (panic selling/market fever)
Black Tuesday (October 29th) even worse: 16.4m shares sold
- 3,600 banks went bankrupt in 2 years
- prices of wheat, cotton, wool corn and tobacco went down between 53 and 66%
- massive layoffs, 25% unemployment in 1933
Free fall until July 1932 hence the Dow Jones was at its lowest
Nobody knew how to handle the situation
President Herbert Hoover: business liberation, “laissez-faire”, Protestant ethic of hard work and personal achievement
“you will succeed if you work hard and you will work hole” = rugged individualism* (self-made man rhetoric), persuaded that government intervention (state paternalism or socialism) was bad (government as umpire, not as player), that it would stifle the Americans’ entrepreneurial spirit, that “rugged individualism” was the key to success. “a passing incident in our national lives” that would only last 60 days…
“Hoover flags”, “Hoover blankets”, “Hoovervilles”:
Hoover was blamed for the Great Depression and widely ridiculed
The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear.
“The shanty towns/slums that developed in the cities, where all these poor people gathered.
Democratic majority in Congress at the mid-term elections of 1930: more innovative measures expected.
He did do a few things: Hoover granted extensive federal loans to ailing industries, banks, farms (Reconstruction Finance Corporation, January 19*32)
But it was his successor who designed the most sweeping reforms: FDR
Over plowing, over grazing, the soil had been over exploited in decades, and this contributed to this drought and natural disaster.