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The Albany Congress was the very first meeting to propose a union between the British colonies of the New World. It was organized by Benjamin Franklin, who believed that all of the future states would be better off if they had one united military. If a foreign power attacked one colony, the others colonists could fight alongside those being invaded. Although most declined this proposal, the few that supported it would eventually become the founding fathers. -
The Molasses Act of 1733 taxed foreign sugar at a hefty rate in order to dissuade colonists from supporting countries like France, but smuggling foreign goods became common and much easier than paying the tax. George Grenville’s Sugar Act halved the tariff, thus making it profitable for merchants to buy foreign sugar, while tariff money went to the Crown. Unfortunately, smugglers were so established that the colonists would rather consume illegal goods than paying any tariff. -
Parliament passed the Quartering Act on behalf of George Grenville and Thomas Gage, and forced any American colonists to give British troops shelter and food if they asked for it. The act placed a standing army in the colonies after the Seven Years War, so they were not needed to defend the colonists. After the Revolution, Madison prevented this behavior with the Third Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed the quartering of military in homes. -
George Grenville proposed this tax on all printed items, so the rich colonists would pay most of it. Unstamped paper could simply be replaced with stamped paper, and it was predicted that 60,000 pounds would be raised each year. Many opposed the act, such as Benjamin Franklin, who wished for the colonists to be represented in Parliament it they were to be taxed. Nevertheless, the British government ignored the overseas voices, and the law passed 205 to 49 votes. -
Charles Townshend, who oversaw British rule in America, wanted Britain to gain revenue from the colonies. A tariff was added to tea, glass, lead paper, and paints that were imported into the colonies, which was expected to bring in 40 thousand pounds per year. This revenue paid royal governors and judges so that the appointees could execute British law without being swayed by the local population. The duties caused further conflict between the colonists and their rulers, leading to boycotts. -
This British act was made to support the East India Company, which was in debt. There was also a high tax on it, which caused colonists to drink foreign Dutch tea instead. The act removed the tax from the tea, making it cheaper than the smuggled tea, even with the Townshend tax. However, Americans accused Britain of imposing their tea upon them, and many feared a monopoly of tea. As a result, radical Patriots sunk millions of dollars worth of tea during the Boston Tea Party. -
As punishment for the 1.5 million dollars worth of tea wasted during the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which closed the port of Boston and prohibited most Massachusetts town meetings. Any British official accused of committing a crime could now be tried in British court, thanks to the act, making them more dangerous. Patriots labeled the acts “Intolerable”, and used Boston as the front of the independence movement, since it had been impacted so greatly. -
The Coercive Acts had done many harsh things to Americans, such as shutting down the valuable port of Boston. The Continental Congress was made up of representatives from twelve colonies. Southerners wished for sanctions, New England wished for independence from Britain, and other representatives wanted peaceful compromise. The final decision was to demand a repeal of the Coercive Acts, or else the colonies would cut off all trade to Britain. Meanwhile, Lord North rejected any compromise. -
At the head of the Ohio River, settlers relied on Fort Pitt for protection, but General Gage ordered British guards to leave in October 1772 due to loss of revenue. The now vulnerable region was claimed by both Pennsylvania and Virginia, but Pennsylvania did not use military control. Virginia’s royal governor, the Earl of Dunmore, defied the Crown’s orders and used the colony’s military to defeat the Shawnees in the region, then claim it as their own. Virginia had acted independent from Britain. -
In response to the armed conflicts at Lexington and Concord, the British army planned to control Boston Harbor. After learning about this, colonel William Prescott and one thousand colonial troops occupied them, and once the British took notice, they attacked the troops in one of the first Revolutionary battles. Although the British won in the end, they won with one thousand casualties, while the militiamen lost only half that number. The colonial armies were much better than expected. -
As conflict between the British and Patriots continued to escalate, some Americans were angry at him for oppressing the colonies, while others hoped he would make peace with them. Thomas Paine, a Revolutionary advocate, published Common Sense, a pamphlet in which he claimed that monarchy had ruined the world, and that the British mixed government had become corrupt. By using several analogies to antagonize Britain, Paine quickly swayed many to support independence and republicanism. -
Patriots were swayed by Thomas Paine, and thus wished to become independent from Britain. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote most of the document, marked King George III as a tyrant who was unfit to rule. Jefferson was inspired by the Enlightenment’s ideas to state that all people are equal and have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that they can overthrow an unjust government. The document explained that the new nation would be ultimately ruled by the people. -
British general Burgoyne’s army was able to advance quickly, but stalled as they entered places with little British support. Eventually, the 6,000 troops of Burgoyne were trapped near Saratoga waiting for help, while thousands of Patriots surrounded them, forcing them to surrender. A turning point of the war, the battle helped give the Americans many supplies to enrich the Continental Army. The victory also convinced the French to ally with the rebels, which helped them win the war. -
The very first governing document of the new nation was the Articles of Confederation, which was used during the Revolutionary War. In opposition to the British government, it created a very weak federal power with no ability to create a standing army, enforce taxes, or have an executive leader. Although some good contributions were made under the Articles, such as the Northwest Ordinance, the initial government was bankrupt, created rampant inflation, and could not prevent mob rule. -
The skilled British General Cornwallis was leading George Washington’s army to Yorktown, and assumed that because it was safe for the British, the rebels would have to stay outside the whole winter in order to siege the city. However, Washington had learned that the French had arrived at Chesapeake Bay, so he followed Cornwallis. The British army becomes surrounded by the French on one side, and the Americans on the other, forcing them to surrender in the last major battle of the Revolution. -
In Massachusetts, many farmers had left their families to fight in the war. They came back to large debts due to unused farms, and the only way to pay was to sell the land. Daniel Shay led a group of rebels to overthrow the government in Boston. Since there was no national standing army, the rich elites had to fund their own private army to prevent the growing mob from reaching Boston. The rebellion highlighted many weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and weak federal government. -
55 delegates came from every state except Rhode Island to discuss an alternative to the Articles of Confederation, which had become problematic. Heated debates would proceed to take place in the coming days, as different states wished for different laws in the new governing document. Most of the delegates were rich nationalists, as there were no lower-class artisans and only one yeoman farmer. The nationalists would later be known as the Federalists, and their opposition the Antifederalists. -
The Great Compromise
In his Virginia Plan, James Madison proposed a government where a state’s number of federal representatives was based on its population, thus benefiting large states. In response, William Patterson’s New Jersey Plan proposed a government where each state had only one representative. Connecticut delegates resolved the debate with the Great Compromise, which created a population-controlled House of Representatives as well as a Senate with two members per state. -
Under the Articles of Confederation, this act managed the new Northwestern Territory that America now had. It was split into six smaller territories which had land allotted for public institutions such as schools and courthouses. Once a territory gained 60,000 people, it could become a Union state. Slavery was banned in the territories by Thomas Jefferson, which would begin the sectional conflict that caused the Civil War. The act was one of the Articles' few great contributions. -
Hamilton devised many fiscal policies to grow the national government as well as speculators. On the surface, this Report aimed to boost the credit of the new nation to obtain loans from foreign financiers. However, it greatly benefit financial speculators, who most Americans condemned. Hamilton also proposed to create a permanent national debt and make the government reliant on rich creditors, which angered people like Patrick Henry, who believed Hamilton would destroy liberty. -
During the war between Great Britain and France, this proclamation defined the United States as a neutral nation that could trade with any country. Washington believed that as a developing nation, America must not have any foreign allies. American merchants were allowed to trade with France despite Britain’s blocking of their ports, thus leading the new country to control the transatlantic sugar trade. Many new jobs were created to help the trade, such as shipwrights and sailmakers. -
Hamilton’s economic policies had taxed whiskey in order to pay for the Revolution War’s debt. Many farmers distilled their excess grains to make whiskey for a profit, and the tax had decreased the demand for whiskey, thus taking money from them. A rebel mob formed to protest the tax and attack collectors, but they were dispersed by George Washington’s standing army of 12,000 troops. The rebellion showed that the Constitution could stop mob uprisings, unlike the Articles of Confederation. -
Different Ohio Valley tribes formed an alliance called the Western Confederacy. Washington sent out General Wayne to the region in fear of an alliance between them and the British. Although the Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the defeat of the Confederacy, Native opposition continued, resulting in the compromise known as this treaty. Much of the Ohio Valley was ceded to America in return for payments to the tribes. As a result, Americans flocked to the Western territories. -
Many immigrants into America tended to be Antifederalist, so Federalist passed the Naturalization Act to lengthen the citizenship residency requirement greatly, thus preventing them from voting. The Alien Act let the President deport whoever he wished, and the Sedition Act prohibited the criticism of the current government, thus suppressing Republican opposition. These three laws became so controversial that the Virginia and Kentucky governments voided them, and John Adams was not reelected. -
Federalists scathingly attached Thomas Jefferson, the Republican candidate. Jefferson won very narrowly against John Adams because of his electoral majorities in large states. However, Republican candidate Aaron Burr got the same amount of votes. Alexander Hamilton, fearful of a coup, was able to persuade Federalists to support Jefferson in the election. Jefferson was successfully elected to president, and power changed ideologies in a nonviolent way for one of the very first times in history. -
The midnight before Adams left office, he appointed several Federalists judges to the Supreme Court, including William Marbury. When James Madison refused to accept Marbury’s position, the Supreme Court settled the case by ruling that Madison had the right to the position due to Adams’ Judiciary Act of 1789. However, Chief Justice Marshall also ruled that this act was unconstitutional and repudiated it. This began the process of judicial review, which continues to this day. -
The British began to impress, or take hostage, thousands of American sailors. After the American Chesapeake was attacked, Jefferson decided to pass this embargo, which prohibited trading ships from leaving to foreign destinations. However, Britain and France did not rely much on American shipping, and merchants became very fearful of the act, causing the economy to greatly be weakened, and for cities to turn quiet. In 1809, the act was replaced with the less restrictive Non-Intercourse Act. -
By 1813, Britain was greatly asserting its power over America, and was seizing several ships involved in the country’s trade. One year later, a British fleet stormed into Washington, D.C., burning the Capitol, White House, and other buildings with three seized cannons. Near the Chesapeake Bay, the United States was at a stalemate with Britain, and the only victories came from Andrew Jackson in the south. The Star-Spangled Banner was composed shortly thereafter, when Fort McHenry was bombarded. -
The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Europe declaring peace without victory between America and Britain, but before it reached, Andrew Jackson gained a victory. British troops attacking New Orleans were massacred by bombs thrown from planned formations. 700 British soldiers were killed while only 13 Americans suffered the same fate, thus putting the war in the favor of the United States. The nation became prideful, and considered the whole war a victory due to Jackson, who later became president. -
After the cotton boom turned slavery back into a thriving industry, some Americans devised techniques for emancipation. The Society consisted of notable people such as Henry Clay, and sought gradual emancipation in the South. The plan was to deport the slaves to Africa, specifically to a region that would be known as Liberia, in the fear that civil war would exterminate either race. Most freed blacks saw themselves as American since they had worked America's soils, and thus opposed deportation. -
This law was a warning to foreign powers such as Spain to not attempt to colonize the New World. President James Monroe said that in return for the diplomacy of the United States, European countries would not attempt to colonize the Americas. James Monroe was persuaded by John Quincy Adams to deliver the message, and America’s borders became internationally accepted as a result. The era of James Monroe and his Secretary of State Adams was known as the Era of Good Feeling. -
During the Election of 1824, Andrew Jackson obtained the most popular and electoral votes, while John Quincy Adams was runner up. However, since Jackson did not have a majority of votes, the president had to be decided by the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay organized the House to appoint Adams as president, and in return, Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State, the stepping stone to president. Jackson’s supporters accused Clay and Adams of subverting democracy. -
This tariff sought to increase duties on imported materials to win the support of farmers. Many thought that this law was simply a device to get Northern farmers to vote for Adams in the election. In addition, Southern farmers were forced to buy either highly-priced Northern goods or taxed foreign goods, which cost them 100 million dollars each year. Although Andrew Jackson had supported the bill, many Southerners placed the blame on Adams, leading to them being loyal to Jackson in the election. -
Virginia slave Nat Turner rebelled against the plantation he was enslaved in by killing at least 55 whites. He hoped that hundreds of other slaves would also revolt after seeing his actions, but the white militia caught and executed him. Many innocent slaves were slaughtered to create fear, and they made it illegal for slaves to preach or question slavery. Southern legislators strongly opposed emancipation, indicating that it would be impossible for planters to end slavery without force. -
In 1832, the Tariff of Abominations was reenacted as the Tariff of 1832. South Carolina was panicked by this, because they would have to pay extra for goods outside the region. In response, they declared the tariff null and void within their borders, and threatened to secede if the law was enforced. John C. Calhoun explained this by accusing the act of operating unequally in different regions. President Jackson found a middle path by decreasing the tariff over the span of a decade. -
Taney was appointed by Andrew Jackson, and reversed many of the decisions made by the previous Federalist Marshall court, which had supported nationalism and property rights. In 1837, Taney ruled that legislative charters were not monopolies, in direct opposition to Marshall’s 1819 ruling. By letting New York inspect immigrants, Taney also gave more power to the states than Marshall had, and also allowed them to issue currency, despite a phrase in the Constitution forbidding such behavior. -
This was the very first political party against slavery. After William Lloyd Garrison championed women’s rights in the American Anti-Slavery Society, there were many dissenters. Some left to create a new organization named the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, while others founded the Liberty Party to try to spread the cause of abolition through politics. Although James G. Birney did not get many votes during the election, they paved the way for more antislavery political action. -
This treaty was signed by President James Polk to end the Mexican-American War. In return for 15 million dollars, Mexico would give America one third of its land, known as the Mexican session, which included the modern-day states of California, Utah, and Nevada. Legislators such as John C. Calhoun did not want more densely populated Mexican land, because it would have more former Mexican citizens which would have to be assimilated. Thus, America only took the sparsely populated parts of Mexico. -
This was one of the very first feminist gatherings in America. Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, this convention unveiled the Declaration of Sentiments, a document about women’s equality in the style of the American Declaration of Independence. It asserted that a woman would have the right to vote, and that she did not have to conform to a “sphere of influence”. The convention called for all to work towards gender equality, and would be a stepping stone to national suffrage. -
The Second Great Awakening sparked many new movements, such as temperance. Americans were drinking large amounts of alcoholic beverages, and many Protestants believed that this behavior was the cause of many problems in society. The American Temperance Society quickly grew to hundreds of thousands of members, and alcohol consumption quickly fell. Maine was the first state to ban the sale of alcohol. However, the working class saw beverages as a necessary distraction from their toiling. -
In this election, the Know Nothing party became very popular, with dozens of candidates being elected to Congress. The party had been founded in 1851 by nativist groups of people who opposed immigration. The fears of many Americans at the time were that wages would get lower thanks to immigrant competition, and that the immigrants were composed of Catholics. Many protestant nativists saw Catholics as inferior, and thus saw Catholic Irish and German immigrants negatively. -
Abraham Lincoln was running against Stephen Douglas for senator, so he challenged him to debates. Lincoln believed that change to the current slavery policy was inevitable, or that “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. Meanwhile, Douglas exposed his white supremacist views, stating that America was made by whites and for whites. Although the debates caught a lot of public attention due to Lincoln’s reputation as a speaker, Douglas won the election for senator due to his experience. -
Following Lincoln’s election to President, Alabama was the fourth state to secede. Although it was not Lincoln’s main intention to abolish slavery, the South was still very fearful of such a thing happening. “Fire-eaters”, or Southerners who had always wanted to secede from the Union, now began to call for such a thing to happen. After the Deep South seceded, supporters met in Montgomery to create the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as president. -
Many Americans in the Union believed that it would be very easy to win the Civil War. The South had a much smaller population, army, and resources, so they believed it could be defeated within a month. However, they underestimated the Confederacy, which was taking the battle very seriously to defend its territory. Confederate General Beauregard and his army fought with full effort against the Union, and won, surprising many civilians and foreshadowing a bloody, long-lasting ordeal. -
The Union had to find ways to fund its expensive military spending during the Civil War. The U.S. Treasury issued interest-paying bonds to account for 65 percent of the spending. The National Bank Acts of 1863 and 1864 forced banks to buy these bonds, and Treasury advertisements persuaded a million families to buy bonds as well. The government also used other strategies, such as printing greenbacks and issuing tariffs, to pay for the supplies needed for Union soldiers. -
Known as the Enrollment Act, this draft let the Union government select whoever they wanted to fight in the war. This caused immense controversy, as Northern Democrats criticized Lincoln for exploiting poor whites into war. Draft riots broke out in New York City, in which working-class men lynched African Americans and burnt down asylums and offices. Lincoln suppressed the rioters with Union troops from Gettysburg, and allowed military courts to handle any citizen who resisted the drafts. -
Five days before Lincoln was assassinated, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant. Both armies promised to never fight again, and the Confederate soldiers were allowed to take their goods and go home. The surrender was caused by poor Southerners disobeying the drafts, causing armies to shrink to the point where black soldiers were allowed to enlist in the Confederate army. However, it was too late, and Lee had suffered loss after loss. -
After Lincoln’s assassination, his vice president became the new president. Because he was originally a Democrat, Johnson would oppose the Reconstruction policies that the Republican Congress would try to bring up, and would veto many of their bills. He was also a white supremacist views who thought that America was a “country for white men”. In response, Republicans would gather a two-thirds majority in Congress, thus overriding the vetoes and establishing many acts that helped freedmen. -
This treaty guaranteed U.S. missionaries in China their rights, and set official terms for the emigration of Chinese laborers. William Seward persuaded Congress to go through with it, because had a plan for America to assert power in foreign territories through trade. Seward believed that Asia would eventually become the cultural center of the world, and that America would prosper by trading. There were already Chinese workers in America building railroads before the treaty passed. -
The average amount of children the average woman gave birth to steadily declined over the century. This was, in part, due to contraceptive methods that prevented birth, like condoms and diaphragms. However, speaking about contraceptives was highly frowned upon in this time, so during Reconstruction, Anthony Comstock helped pass a federal law to ban “obscenity” from U.S. mail. Comstock won support for the law by using parents’ fears that their young were receiving pornography and contraceptives. -
Lieutenant Custer went into the Black Hills of South Carolina and proclaimed the discovery of gold. The Sioux refused to sell the territory to the United States, and other tribes came to the village for safety, because they knew they would be attacked. Custer led 210 troops to attack the Sioux, which killed every last soldier. This victory was twisted in the media, which proclaimed that Custer was innocent and the Sioux were killing him for no reason, thus turning opinions against Natives. -
An economic depression had begun in 1873, which had caused wages to be cut drastically. To protest this, as well as fires due to lack of safety, thousands of railroad workers went on strike under leader Barney Donahue, who believed that railroad companies wanted to prevent workers from gaining mutual aid. The strike was nationwide, with people protesting in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, and commerce being brought to a halt. And at the end, there were 40 million dollars worth of damage. -
As part of the nativist sentiment in America at the time, this law kept Chinese workers from entering the United States altogether. The law was renewed every decade until 1943, when American and Chinese soldiers had to work together to fight the Japanese in World War II. The anti-Chinese sentiment began during the depression of the 1870s, during which people like Dennis Kearney wished for them to leave the Pacific coast. Chinatowns and massacres were rampant throughout the 1870s and 1880s. -
The pressure of rising farmer-labor coalitions caused President Grover Cleveland to pass the Interstate Commerce Act to create the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which would investigate interstate shipping and regulate unreasonable shipping rates. More radical leaders had wanted the government to create a direct set of rules under which railroads must operate, but the probusiness politicians in Congress made a compromise to make a commission to regulate the transit companies instead. -
This Protestant organization had more than two million members at its peak, and was extremely nativist. It was against Catholic schools and demanded that all teachers in Protestant public schools must be Protestant. The APA was created since Protestants felt threatened by the millions of working-class Americans who were Jewish or Catholic. Although sixty percent of Americans were still Protestant, Catholicism was increasing threateningly. The APA would lead to the 1920s revival of the KKK. -
The Nation Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association reunited to create NAWSA, and full ballot for women were won in Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. However, after these state victories, there were many defeats, and Congress refused to consider an amendment to let women vote, so the suffrage movement slowed down, and would gain momentum again in 1911. Some men and women organized against NAWSA and made organizations that delayed national women’s suffrage until after WWI. -
Booker T. Washington taught about self-help, and believed that students need to learn industrial education to be lifted out off poverty. The “Compromise” of Washington’s address was that the white organizers had allowed him to speak there at all. The address seemed to agree with racial segregation, as Washington said that African Americans should stand by whites and stay loyal to them. Washington hoped optimistically that through education and hard work, racial prejudice could be erased. -
President McKinley had demanded independence for Cuba from Spain, but Cubans feared that their previous rulers would be replaced with Americans, if the United States decided to annex the island. Colorado Senator Henry M. Teller amended the bill of the War of 1898 with the Teller Amendment, which said that America would respect the political independence of other nations. This made the Cubans more loyal, and the Americans more relieved, although McKinley himself had privately wished to take Cuba. -
In the South, Democrats found new ways to enforce white supremacy, and in 1890, the “understanding clause” was created, which would let local officials decide who met the standard for obtaining the vote. In Williams v. Mississippi, the Court ruled that poll taxes and literacy tests were constitutional, and every Southern state adopted these measures. Disfranchisement caused voter turnout to drop from 70 percent to 34 percent, as blacks and poor whites were restricted from voting. -
In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt announced that America would patrol all of the Caribbean. Although it was intended to be an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, it actually overturned it, because it did not protect the self-determination of countries in the Caribbean. For many decades, the United States would act on this statement, and intervene regularly in Caribbean affairs. President Wilson wished for a less aggressive foreign policy, the Mexican Revolution prompted him to abandon it. -
At the turn of the century, there was a wave of radical labor militancy. The Western Federation of Miners helped to create the IWW. They were Marxist syndicalists who believed in the class struggle, and that workers could overthrow capitalism by continuously resisting in the workplace, eventually creating a society run by its workers. The IWW peaked in 1916 with 100,000 members, and helped created many local protests, like rail car, textile, rubber, and mining strikes in various states. -
In 1906, Upton Sinclair showed extreme forms of worker exploitation in his book, The Jungle, which depicted very dirty conditions in meat processing. Although the book was meant to promote socialism, Americans looked more at the filthy packing conditions and rotten meat that was being sold from Chicago meatpacking plants. Due to this pressure, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, and created the Food and Drug Administration, to make sure factories complied with the new laws. -
After midnight, the Los Angeles Times headquarters exploded, killing twenty employees. John J. McNamara had planned the bombing, since he was a notable official of the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers Union, and the L.A. Times was extremely against trade unions. The bombing created a large press sensation, just as the previous Triangle Fire had. This event was part of a labor militancy movement, along with the Industrial Workers of the World, who wished to overthrow capitalism via strikes. -
During a Saturday afternoon, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and spread rapidly through the top three floors of the building. The emergency doors were locked despite fire safety laws in order to prevent theft, and to the dismay of the workers, 146 of whom died in the event. New Yorkers were very angry at the negligence, which led New York State to appoint a factory commission to create a labor reform program of 56 laws that looked at fire hazards and working conditions. -
Porfirio Diaz, the dictator of Mexico, was friendly to American businesses that purchased property there, but at the turn of the century, he feared their power, and began to nationalize key industries. American investors backed Francisco Madero, but he was murdered by a general in 1913. Wilson demanded the occupation of Veracruz to intervene in the Mexican Revolution, and 126 Mexicans were killed so that Venustiano Carranza, Wilson’s favorite revolutionary leader, could be helped. -
Wilson had campaigned as the president that kept America out of World War I, but he slowly got closer to entering it. A telegram from the German foreign secretary to his minister in Mexico was intercepted by the United States, and urged Mexico to join the Central Powers. They tried persuasion by promising that if America joined the Allies, Germany would help Mexico recover the territory America had taken from it. This, along with U-Boats targeting U.S. ships, prompted Wilson to declare war. -
Government powers expanded during wartime in order to make America more capable to win World War I. The economy became more like a command economy due to the WIB, which oversaw military production and was headed by Bernard Baruch, a Wall Street expert. The board allocated resources amongst industries, set prices, and ordered factories to convert to war production. Baruch preferred to win voluntary cooperation with companies, which he often won due to his charisma, than forcing compliance. -
During World War I, Congress decided to suppress opposition to the government’s actions by passing the Sedition Act to prohibit any behavior that could encourage resistance to America. “Treason” was defined loosely, letting anyone be targeted, and leading to more than a thousand people being convicted. Members of the IWW were opposed to militarism and thus war production, so they were prosecuted, and Eugene V. Debs was arrested for saying that the wealthy had forced workers to fight. -
The Great Migration, in which millions of black people left the South to seek opportunity in the North, caused racial tensions to deepen, as blacks and whites had to compete for jobs and housing. After WWI, African Americans were determined to get citizenship rights, which caused the Red Summer of 1919, with there being race riots in major cities. In Chicago, after a black teen was stoned to death, the bloodiest race riot began, killing 23 black and 15 white people as well as hundreds of houses. -
General Electric helped created RCA to expand the presence of America in foreign radio markets, which were growing in the 1920s. It became a large provider of radio transmission in Latin America and East Asia. RCA, which was already the largest radio firm upon its founding, was supported greatly by the government, which supported its creation because politicians saw the potential for international radio and film to change foreign relations. Eventually, RCA also began to produce televisions. -
After women gained the right to vote, they looked for ways to use this new power. The Women’s Joint Congressional Committee, based in Washington, D.C., was able to pass the first federal funding for healthcare, in the Sheppard-Towner Act. This act gave federal funds to prenatal education programs, nurses, and medical clinics, and led to improved working-class healthcare and drastically lower infant mortality. It was the first time Congress gave funds to states for social welfare. -
Some Protestant Americans thought that Immigration was the cause of decline in morality, since more than 24 million immigrants had come to the United States over the past 40 years. The rising anti-immigrant sentiment led Congress to ban Chinese immigration in 1882, and limit Japanese immigration in 1907. Nativists now complained of European immigrants taking anarchism and socialism along with them, so this act limited European influx to 2 percent of those nationalities in the 1890 census. -
The urban part of the Democratic Party gained control when Al Smith of New York was nominated, who reflected the wishes of the urban working class. Smith was criticized for being affiliated with Tammany Hall, and for being a Catholic. The Republican nominee was Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover had become famous during WWI for managing large relief projects, so he was much more popular, especially due to an 8-year period of Republican rule. Hoover got 444 votes, while Smith got only 87. -
President Herbert Hoover believed what had been the standard in the previous years of America: that economic success went to those that worked hard, and that business could recover from the economy without the government meddling. When Hoover realized this was not sufficient, he created the RFC program to give loans to businesses such as railroads and banks. However, it did not lend out enough funds fast enough, though it would become more prominent with President Roosevelt and the New Deal. -
By the time Roosevelt got elected, the public had lost its faith in banking, due to the Great Depression and the closing of countless banks. A national bank holiday was declared on March 5 to close all banks, and Congress only reopened banks that had enough cash to be stable. The Glass-Steagall Act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to guarantee that deposits above $2,500 would be stable. Banking was arguably saved by FDR, since in 1934, only sixty-one banks closed. -
President FDR, seeing that so many Americans were jobless, funded the Works Progress Administration, which employed 8.5 million people. These workers constructed and repaired very large quantities of roads, bridges, public buildings, airports, and parks. A division of the WPA hired thousands of writers, painters, and muralists to create works of art, since unneeded art was the first thing that vanished in the Depression. Programs like the WPA helped Roosevelt win reelection in 1936. -
After interventionists such as William Allen White became increasingly vocal for America to join World War II, leading to the isolationist America First Committee emerging. It had 800 thousand members at its peak, including journalists, publishers, and senator like Gerald Nye. It held rallies and created posters, brochures, and other forms of propaganda to warn against America joining World War II. This organization caused FDR to not declare war immediately, but instead inch slowly towards it. -
A movement of racial equality became prominent during World War I. A. Phillip Randolph, the head of America’s largest black labor union, protested that a very small minority of civil defense workers were black, and announced a march on Washington, D.C. To counter this, Roosevelt passed executive order 8802, which prohibited discrimination during employment in government industries, and created the Fair Employment Practice Committee to enforce this order. As a result, Randolph canceled the march. -
America had promised the USSR to invade France to ease the Eastern Front, and this day finally came in 1944, after extensive planning. Under General Eisenhower, American, Canadian, and British soldiers assembled and moved across the English Channel to storm Normandy. Although there were large amounts of deaths, the soldiers were able to fight back against Nazi Germany, and never faced more than one-third of the Wehrmacht. This day led to the Allies liberating Paris in August. -
During World War II, anti-Japanese tensions were rising, so FDR passed Executive Order 9066 to send them to relocation camps, with the Army only gave them a few days to sell their property. The internees were kept in quickly-built camps near the West Coast. Gordon Hirabayashi resisted incarceration, and instead turns himself into the FBI. He appealed his case to the Supreme Court, which decided in the subsequent case that the relocation of the Japanese was constitutional due to "necessity". -
When Truman took over role of president, he learned about the Manhattan Project, which had its first atomic bomb successfully tested on July 16. Before ordering Japan to be bombed, Truman considered other options to make the nation surrender and end WWII. It was thought that demonstrating the bomb on a remote island might do the job, but Americans believed that only force could stop Japan, due to their fighting in the Pacific. This led to Truman ordering the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -
Britain told America in February 1947 that because of it losing its Empire, it could not afford to help fight the communists in the Greek civil war. Because Truman feared that Greece becoming communist could cause nearby countries to fall to it as well, so he announced the Truman doctrine in a speech. He said that it was America’s responsibility to support free groups against armed aggressors, and proposed financial aid for Greece and Turkey, which were funded hundreds of millions of dollars. -
After launching a large campaign and winning election for president, Truman proposed the Fair Deal during his State of the Union speech. This set of legislation would include national health insurance, legislation for civil rights, a housing program, and a higher minimum wage. The Fair Deal showed how the influence of African Americans was growing in the Democratic Party. The Republican-controlled Congress, however, blocked Truman’s initiatives, causing civil rights legislation to be blocked”. -
During the Great Depression, parts of the Great Plains had their native plants replaced with staple crops, which caused the erosion of its topsoil. This erosion turned into devastating dust storms in the Dust Bowl, causing hundreds of thousands of farmers to lose their property. These Americans were forced to migrate west to California, where they tried to start new lives. The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, told the story of these difficulties, and became a famous book nationwide. -
Up to the 1930s, U.S. immigration policy had wished to restrict flow into the country, due to the nativist sentiment of many Americans. However, during and after World War II, the country slowly changed its stance on immigration to be more open, with one of the first of these actions being the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, due to China being an Ally in WWII. The ensuing McCarran-Walter Act ended the exclusion of the Koreans, Japanese, and Southeast Asians, a big departure from nativism. -
In order to advance civil rights and cause desegregation, the NAACP chose this case because it involved Linda Brown, a young black girl who could only be seen as innocent. She had been forced to go to a black school far away, instead of a nearby white school. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued that this was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court overturned the “separate but equal” rule, thus beginning an integration movement. -
As part of the New Deal, FDR signed the Federal Housing Act, which created the FHA because it was very difficult to afford rent during the Great Depression. However, in the post-war era, it became very prevalent, when communities such as Levittown had mass-produced houses that were $8,000. Even at this low price, most could not afford them, but combined with the FHA’s thirty-year mortgages and the Veterans Administration, home ownership increased from 45 percent to 60 percent by 1960. -
The Beats were a counterculture of the 1950s that liked experimenting with music (especially the bebop genre), writing, drugs, and sex, and did not like the traditional middle-class optimism. Many Beats were writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, who was the spokesperson of the group and wrote the poem "Howl" that became their manifesto. Jack Kerouac wrote a book "On the Road" about the Beats and what they valued. The beats would end up inspiring other subcultures later in time, such as the Hippies. -
SCLC official Ella Baker helped created the SNCC to organize more student protests for civil rights. For the first time, black and white college students were pulled into the movement in large numbers, and in 160, there were protests of 50 thousand people in 126 cities. Baker wished for ordinary people to stand up for their rights, and not follow what one leader says. CORE and SNCC organized Freedom Rides to test whether public facilities near the interstate would serve both blacks and whites. -
The environmentalist movement had previously been prevalent in the late nineteenth century and during the New Deal, with the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, and Natural Resources Council. This movement was revived in the 60s when Silent Spring was published by muckraker Rachel Carson, who investigated how pesticides poisoned plants and animals. The book shocked Americans and caused the Sierra Club to regain momentum, and Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency to be established. -
Betty Friedan published this hit book in order to criticize the idyllic image of women created in the 1950s. In the post-war era, it was encouraged for women to stay at home and buy convenience items because the television told them to do, but many were annoyed by this lifestyle at this point. Many women realized that they should get education and jobs. The book led to a resurgence of feminism, with the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and the National Organization of Women. -
Lyndon B. Johnson believed that America would have to interfere in Vietnam to keep South Vietnam from collapsing. In the summer of 1964, the president learned of attacks by North Vietnam torpedo boats on the American Maddox, although it turned out that this was not actually the case. Johnson believed that a larger war in the region was inevitable, and wished to have Congress’s power of regulating military funding, which was given to him, with only two senators voting against this resolution. -
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, black leaders still wanted to be able to vote. In Southern states, poll taxes and literacy tests were used to stop black people from voting. In March 1965, the SCLC’s James Bevel organized a march from Selma to Montgomery to protest voting rights, but Alabama troopers attacked the march. This event provoked the federal government to pass the Voting Rights Act and Twenty-Fourth Amendment to block poll taxes and other forms of voting discrimination. -
On January 30, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese coordinated a massive attack across South Vietnam, and struct five major cities, including Saigon. Although the Vietcong suffered extreme losses during these attacks, the news showed Americans live images of the U.S. embassy under siege and the Saigon police chief shooting a Vietcong suspect. Inside of America, this attack was a contrast to the government’s announcements that it was winning the war, since the offensive was so coordinated. -
Due to the Vietnam War, thousands of protesters went into Chicago during the Convention, with the Yippies making pranks to give themselves maximum coverage by the media, and a much larger group of antiwar activists who would demonstrate in the Siege of Chicago. Mayor Richard J. Daley ordered to police to stop the demonstrations, causing there to be violent attacks between both groups. The media broadcasted the warlike chaos, thus painting the Democrats as the party of uncertainty. -
Due to flourishing activism in the 70s, a fight was revived to amend the Constitution with an Equal Rights Amendment to give equality to both men and women. There were both Democrat and Republican allies of this amendment, causing it to be passed. All but four necessary states ratified it, when Phyllis Schlafly, who defended traditional roles for women, organized the STOP ERA campaign in the same year. The message resonated with those against activism, causing the ERA to never be ratified. -
At this time, there was a growing sentiment against liberalism, and rising discontent over “law and order”. Many Democrats instead voted for the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, who was running for reelection, in the largest electoral upheaval since FDR. George McGovern was running for the Democrats, and he was against war and for feminism. However, he was not able to appease the AFL-CIO, who refused to endorse him. Nixon was a much stronger candidate than McGovern, and won in a landslide. -
In every state, abortion was illegal in the early 1960s, but by the next decade, some new states made it easier to abort legally, due to intense lobbying by women’s organizations. In the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down on a state law that had prohibited contraception, since it violated right to privacy. This case led to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, in which women were given the right to have abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, due to the right of privacy. -
Due to the Watergate scandal, President Nixon’s approval rates dropped, leading Congress to seek reform to limit the executive branch’s power. The War Powers Act took away the power of the president to deploy the military without Congress's approval, the Freedom of Information Act was amended to help citizens access federal records, and the Ethics in Government Act mandated officials in government too disclose their financial and employment history, while limiting the lobbying of past officials. -
After the Iranian Revolution, Iran held Americans in the country hostage, a crisis that President Carter had to deal with throughout the last 14 months of his presidency. Carter was not feared by Ayatollah Khomeini, and an attempted rescue in April of 1980 had to be aborted. The crisis and Ronald Reagan’s charisma led to him being elected over Carter. Since Reagan appeared formidable, Iran decided to free the hostages, but only when Carter had left office, so that he would be given no credit.