History USA : A nation of contrast

• Groups that made up America's society

  • White Americans
  • Black Americans
  • Native Americans
  • Hispanics
  • Asians
• White Americans

  best jobs, the most money and political power
• Newer immigrant families from Southern and Eastern Europe

  • Many were Jews and Catholics
• Black Americans


  • Descendants of the millions of Africans who had been brought to America to work as slaves
• Native Americans


  • What remained of the people who originally lived across the whole of the continent, forced off their land during the 19th century and lived in reservations across America
• Hispanics


  • From central and southern America
• Asians


  • Especially from China and Japan
• Push factors to USA

  • Overcrowding
  • Lack of opportunity
  • Unemployment
  • Persecution
• Pull factors to USA

  • Space
  • Natural resources
  • Economic opportunity
  • Wages
  • Land of the free
• Why did people start feeling angry towards new immigrants?

  
  

  
  

  -poor

  -illiterate

  -different cultural and religious background
• The trauma of the First World War and the fear of Communism during the Red Scare in 1919, worried many Americans
• Government legislation to restrict immigration

  • Literacy tests 1917
  • Emergency quota act 1921
  • National origins act 1921
  • Processed and tested for disease
• Xenophobia


  The fear of immigrants/ dislike
• Political differences


  • Communism (left wing)
  • Anarchists
  • Capitalism (right wing)
• Red Scare


  Americans frightened by Communist Revolution in Russia in 1917, some believed a communist revolution was going to happen in America, immigrants in USA under suspicion of being involved in plotting revolution
• Palmer raids


  1. A Mitchell Palmer organised attacks against left wing organisations

  2. Palmer spread rumours saying that there were around 150,000 communists living in the country

  3. 6,000 were arrested and held in a prison without a hearing and hundreds were deported
• Sacco and Vanzetti


  Italian immigrants accused of armed-robbery during which two people were killed, despite defence evidence they were executed in 1927
• Bible Belt


  An area in the south of America, the people were Fundamentalists who believed strongly and literally in everything the Bible said, and condemned any other beliefs
• The Monkey Trial


  1. 6 states in the bible belt banned the teaching of the theory of evolution as it contradicted the story of creation in the bible

  2. John Scopes took the decision to teach his pupils about Darwin and evolution in his biology lessons in order to make a political point, he was arrested and fined $100
• Treatment of Native Americans

  • 19th C Native Americans restricted to living on federal government reservations
  • 1887 Dawes Act gave the President the power to divide up and give away Native American land
  • Native American sent to boarding schools to help them "assimilate" into American society, forced to convert to Christianity
• Jim Crow Laws and segregation

  • 'Jim Crow laws' from the 1890s said that black Americans had to be treated as "separate but equal", which became a way by which black Americans could be treated badly
  • Segregation made sure black Americans were poor, badly educated, lived in separate neighbourhoods in poor quality housing, were separated on public transport
• The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)


  • The movement was revived by a film made called 'the birth of a nation' which showed the Klan saving white families from groups of black gangs

  
• Migration to the north and west

  • Black people from the south started to migrate north and west to look for work, most moved to cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit
  • Relationship between black and white people deteriorated as people moved into the cities
  • Black areas developed within these cities which were called ghettos, such as Harlem in New York
• Reasons for migration


  • Escape discrimination, intimidation and poverty
  • Damage done to their farms by the boll weevil infestation
  • Take jobs in factories that needed more workers to meet increased demand because of the First World War
• The black renaissance


  • As black Americans moved north they brought jazz music with them and introduced it to young white Americans
  • The 'Harlem Renaissance', as it became known, saw many black American writers, artists, musicians, comedians and actors, move to the black district of Harlem in New York to write or make works of art about the suffering of black people in America
• Organisations set up


  • The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) - established in 1909 by William du Bois, focused on opposing racism and segregation through litigation and holding non-violent activities
  • The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) - established in 1914 by Marcus Garvey, members were more militant, Garvey encouraged black people to establish their own businesses and to employ black people only, and to return to their homeland, Africa
• Prohibition was the complete ban on the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol, clarified by the Volstead Act
• Reasons for prohibition

  • Religious morality
  • WW1
  • Lack of efficient workforce
  • Pressure on politicians
• Pressure groups for prohibition

  • The Women's Christian Temperance Union
  • The Anti-Saloon League
• Life under prohibition


  • Bootleggers
  • Moonshine
  • Speakeasies
• Enforcement of prohibition


  • Prohibition agents were on low salaries and easy to bribe
  • More corruption as gangsters bribed agents, judges and politicians to turn a blind eye to their illegal activities
• Reasons why Prohibition came to an end

  • Caused more crime than it solved and more alcohol was drunk by Americans during Prohibition than before it was alcohol banned
  • In the middle of the Great Depression after the Wall Street Crash America needed the extra jobs
  • The St Valentine's Day Massacre had sickened Americans and clearly violence had to stop
  • Ordinary people liked a drink- willing to make themselves criminals than give up drink
  • It was a very difficult law to enforce
• Organised crime


  • Money to be made from the illegal alcohol trade
  • Organised gangs of criminals supplied and distributed alcohol
  • Gangs ended up being run by ruthless leaders like Al Capone and Bugs Moran in Chicago
• Al Capone


  Well-known celebrity, responsible for more than 100 murders during 1926-7 in Chicago but no one was ever arrested because he bribed officials to keep himself and his gang safe
• The St Valentine's Day Massacre had sickened Americans and clearly violence had to stop; by the end of Prohibition 500 prohibition agents and 2000 civilians had been killed
• Ordinary people liked a drink- willing to make themselves criminals than give up drink
• It was a very difficult law to enforce
• Organised crime


  • Money to be made from the illegal alcohol trade
  • Organised gangs of criminals supplied and distributed alcohol
  • Gangs ended up being run by ruthless leaders like Al Capone and Bugs Moran in Chicago
  • There were gangsters in every city and during the 1920s groups would fight each other for control of specific areas
• Al Capone


  • Well-known celebrity and appeared on the front page of 'Time' Magazine
  • Capone said he was not a bootlegger, just a man providing a service to people who wanted a drink
  • Responsible for more than 100 murders during 1926-7 in Chicago but no one was ever arrested because he bribed officials to keep himself and his men out of trouble
  • By 1929 his 700-strong gang had killed over 300 people and not a single one of those murders had been solved
• St. Valentine's Day Massacre

  1. Capone's gang killed rival Bugs Moran gang on 14th February 1929

  2. 7 members of the Moran gang were gunned down by Capone's men who were dressed as policemen