Period 7

• seward's folly


  • Purchase of alaska in 1867; looked bad, then GOLD was discovered; very desirable;
• The Homestead Act (1862) offered free land to settlers who agreed to live there for five years and make improvements.
• Josiah Strong

  • argued that the white anglo saxon race was the pinnacle of human evolution; therefore was the fittest to survive. Also christian, and added a gloss of christian religiosity: the christian duty of the white race to expand itself abroad and bring the glories of christanity and western civilization to the dark and backward lands of the world Our Country: It’s possible future and present crisis 1885
• Alfred Thayer Mahan

  • argued that any country that was strong on the world stage got that way due to a robust navy. This was the only way to secure foreign markets (the industrialists wanted)
  • The Influence of Sea Power on history 1890

  Persuaded by mahan’s argument Congress approved the construction of a massive new steel fleet of ships
• Insular cases

  • 1901 - The Court ruled that inhabitants of overseas U.S. territories (e.g., those gained by the U.S. after the Spanish-American War) do not automatically have the same constitutional rights as Americans living in the continental United States
• Yellow journalism

  sensational stories, exaggerated atrocities committed by the spanish against cubans; ppl came to the conclusion that america must intervene in cuba because it was the only humanitarian thing to do

  • Pulitzer
  • Hearst

  led the US to establish a naval presence in cuba
• Explosion of the USS Maine

   yellow journalists claimed that the explosion was ignited by the spanish because of their resentment of US interference in region. 
• Platt Amendment

  • Inserted into cuban constitution; allowed the US to intervene militarily in cuba if american economic interests were threatened. 
  • Difficult for cuban gov to conduct own foreign policy and manage debts, etc
• emilio aguinaldo & Annexation of the philippines from spain

  • Navy sent to philippines and overthrew spain colonial rule
  • Allied with filipino nationalists
  • Did NOT help phillipinos achieve independence
  • Philippines aligned with emilio aguinaldo and tried to throw off US rule
  • Us held on to philippines until after wwii
• Annexation of Hawaii

  • Overthrew queen liliuokalani in 1893
  • Critical of treaties ceding power to US economic interests
  • Annexation of hawaii in 1898
• American Empire through Economics: Open Door Policy

  • China was taken over economically and carved up into european spheres of influence
  • America wanted economic opportunity in china; 
  • A claim put forth by US secretary of state john hay that all nations seeking to do business in china should have equal trade access. 
• Muckrakers -- progressive journalists

  • Upton Sinclair
  • The Jungle
  • Horrible situations of workers
  • Ppl aghast by the meat packing ways, led to passage of the
  • Pure Food and Drug Act
  • Ida Tarbell
  • Reveal of Rockerfeller’s standard oil company
  • Jacob Riis
  • Pioneered the use of photography
  • How the Other Half Lives
  • unsanitary conditions of those living in tenements
  • Hoped that such exposure would encourage the people to put pressure on the halls of power to make change
• Concern for The Expansion of Democracy

  • Push for the Secret Ballot
  • To cut off much of the power in the hands of urban political machines, who would force working class to vote for a certain person that benefited them
  • Push for Direct election of senators
  • Senators elected by state legislatures
  • Many senators got into pockets of millionaires
  • Senators were not in office because the people wanted them there, but because big business owners wanted them there

  Passage of the 17th amendment – transferred the responsibility of electing senators from the state legislatures into the hands of the people
• Constitutional Amendments

  • 17th amendment – direct election of senators;  transferred the responsibility of electing senators from the state legislatures into the hands of the people
  • 18th Amendment – established prohibition ; forbade the manufacture & sale of alcohol
  • Anti Saloon League
  • Women's Christian Temperance Union
  • American Temperance society

  19th Amendment – recognized women's right to vote
• Legislative Reforms – 

  • Initiative, referendum, recall – once politicians got elected, could ignore the will of the people
  • Initiative – voters could require legislators to consider a bill that they chose to ignore
  • Referendum – voters themselves could vote on the adoption of proposed laws
  • Recall – a way to remove corrupt politicians
• Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management

  • Wanted to make factory work more efficient
  • Increased productivity and increased profits
• Civil Rights

  Plessy v ferguson – separate but equal

  • Organizations to address inequalities
  • Niagara Movement
  • Led by WEB Dubois
  • Black intellectuals to form protests to secure rights for the black population
  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  • Abolish all forms of segregation
  • Education opportunities for blacks
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT - Square Deal program:

  • During gilded age, presidents consistently sided with the interests of big businesses
  • When the anthracite coal strike occurred in the beginning of Roosevelts presidency, he invited both the business leaders and the miners to the white house and proved that he would take neither side, rather worked for a square deal for both
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT - Trust buster

  • Enforced the sherman antitrust act – 1890
  • Broke up monopolies
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT - Consumer Protection

  • Pure food and drug act
  • Meat inspection act
  • Minimum standard of sanitation
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT - conservation

  • Forest reserve act 1891
  • Reserve millions of acres of unspoiled lands
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT - Square Deal – theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 campaign platform, calling for regulation of corporations and protection of consumers and the environment
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT -

  • Hepburn Act – A 1906 antitrust law that empowered the federal ICC to set railroad shipment rates wherever it believed that railroads were unfairly colluding to set prices
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT -

  • Standard Oil Decision – a 1911 Supreme Court decision that directed the breakup of the standard oil company into smaller companies because its overwhelming market dominance and monopoly power violated antitrust laws
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT -

  • Newlands Reclamation Act – a 1902 law, supported by President Theodore Roosevelt, that allowed the federal government to sell public lands to raise money for irrigation projects that expanded agriculture on arid lands
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT -

  • Elkins Act – 1903; prohibited discriminatory railway rates that favored powerful customers
• THE CRAZY TEDDY ROOSEVELT -

  • Bureau of Corporations – Can investigate business practices and bolster the Justice Department’s capacity to mount antitrust suits
  • Led to demise of Northern Securities Company
• Standard Oil Decision

  •  a 1911 Supreme Court decision that directed the breakup of the standard oil company into smaller companies because its overwhelming market 
  • President TAFT oversaw this
• US wanted to be neutral, but these events made US get involved:

  Sinking of the Lusitania, 1915 – germans sank a ship containing US passengers

  Woody stays neutral

  Unrestricted Submarine Warfare – germans sunk all ship entered the war zone, some american ships

  Woody stays neutral

  Zimmerman Telegram – note sent to mexico where mexico would start a war with the US; when the conflict was done in europe germany would help mexico gain land last in mexican american war. Discovered germany’s hostile intention towards the US

  • President Woody says US must go to war to make the world ‘safe for democracy’
• Signing of the Treaty of Versailles – 1918

  Woodrow deeply involved; wanted world to be safe for democracy

  • Britain and france wanted germany to suffer for having started the war
  • Wilson could see that a stable europe required a robust germany, so harsh punishment would not do. Wilson laid out his:
  • 14 points – wilson's vision for a post world war
  • League of nations
  • Worldwide rep body where negotiations could negotiate problems instead of going to war
  • WAS CREATED
  • US congress REFUSED to ratify it
  • Feared that membership would drage US into war without congressional approval
• Mobilization – WWI Federal Agencies Overseeing the Wartime Economy

  • War Industries Board (WIB)
  • A federal board made in july 1917 to direct military production, including allocation of resources, conversion of factories to war production, and setting of prices.
  • National War Labor Board (NWLB)
  • federal agency,1918 that established eight hr workday for war workers, endorsed equal pay for women, and supported workers’ right to organize. 
  • Food administration – 1917
  • Herbert hoover = leader, Convinced farmers to nearly double their acreage of grain; Allowed for 3x rise in food exports
• WWI - Espionage (1917) & Sedition (1918) acts in conflict with

  SCHENK VS US

  • To silence dissenting speech; crime to oppose the war
  • SCHENK - Court held that the Espionage Act did not violate the First Amendment and was an appropriate exercise of Congress' wartime authority. -- Charles Schenck was charged under the Espionage Act for distributing phamphlets critical of the military draft
• • American protective league
  • Mobilized many ‘agents’ and trained them to spy on neighbors and coworkers.
  • Nativist group
• • President wilson wanted to suppress wartime dissent so he Formed the committee on public information(CPI)
  • Government propaganda agency led by journalist George Creel
  • Educated citizens about democracy, assimilating immigrants, ending isloation of rural life – wanted to mold american into ‘one white-hot mass’ or war patriotism
• • Schenck v US (1919) 
  • Schneck violated espionage act
  • Supreme court upheld the conviction of a socialist who was jailed for circulating pamphlets that urged army draftees to resist induction
  • When speech constituties a ‘clear and present danger’ constitutional for it to be silenced
• Abrams v US (1919) 

  • Ruling that authorities could prosecute speech they believed to pose ‘a clear and present danger to the saftey of the country’
  • Justice Olicer Wendell Holmes Jr & Louis Brandeis’s DISSENT to teh Abrams decision
  • Wanted to protect free speech and civil liberties during wartime 
• • Red Scare


  Fear of communism from russia

  • led to Palmer Raids led by J Edgar hoover
• Restrictions on immigration

  • Emergency Quota Act – 1921
  • National Origins Act – 1924
• • Great Migration
  • Huge portions of south black population migrated to industrial cities of north
  • Wanted to escape Jim Crow, Poll Taxes & literacy tests (limited voting)
  • Replaced immigrants from immigration quotas
• Race Riots

  • Tulsa Massacre - 1921
  • White woman claimed a black person assulted her; hundreds killed