Unit 7: 1890-1945, imperialism, WW1, depression, WW2

• Reasons of US Expansion Overseas


  • Economic motives to make money
  • Racial theories, white man's burden
  • Responsibility of white civilization to spread around the world
• Impacts of US expansion overseas

  • US gained Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines (for 20 million) after Spanish-American War
  • Philippines wanted freedom but didn't receive it right away
• Debates between imperialists and anti-imperialists


  imperialists claimed imperialism was good to spread democracy

  
  

  anti-imperialists argued that imperialism threatened democratic foundations and rejected the idea of "liberty for all" by denying liberty to the natives of newly acquired territories.
• Progressive Era (1890-1920)


  • Progressives tended to be urban, middle class, and women
  • sought to regulate private industry, strengthen protections for workers and consumers, expose corruption in both government and big business, and generally improve society
• Initiative


  Permitted voters to propose new laws
• Referendum


  Enabled voters to accept or reject a law
• Recall


  Allowed voters to remove offending officials/judges from office before their term expired
• 17th Amendment


  Direct election of senators
• 19th Amendment


  Women's suffrage
• WW1 1914-1918


  • US initially neutral, entered to make the world safe for democracy
  • Started b/c sinking of the Lusitania which had many Americans on board + Zimmerman Telegram which basically pinned Mexico against the United States
• Domestic life under WWI


  • Restriction of civil liberties, Eugene V Debs arrested for criticizing the war effort
  • Increased opportunities for women and African Americans, especially economic
• Great Migration


  Wave of African Americans moving from the south to the north to work in factories for economic opportunities
• Treaty of Versailles


  • Ends WW1, creates League of Nations (Wilson's idea)
  • Wilson's 14 points heavily influenced the treaty besides punishment of Germany
• League of Nations


  • Provide a forum for resolving international disputes
  • US eventually doesn't join, due to Washington's Farewell Address and warning against entanglement of alliances
• Causes of 1st Red Scare (1919-1920)


  • Russian Revolution
  • Labor unrest (lots of strikes after WWI)
  • Immigrants, many suspected of being communists and anarchists
• Effects of 1st Red Scare (1919-1920)


  • Suppression of radicals, rights of individuals go down
  • Deportations
• Immigration Quotas (1921-1924)


  Severely restricted immigration from Europe
• Technology impact

  • Improved standard of living, personal mobility, and communication
• Conflicts in the 1920s

  • Fundamentalist Christianity vs. Scientific Modernism
  • Native born vs. new immigrants
• Fundamentalist Christianity


  • Religious beliefs are absolute truths, not subject to change or reinterpretation
  • Rejects scientific theories that conflict with religious teachings, such as evolution
  • Science = threat to faith
• Scientific Modernism


  • Prioritizes empirical evidence and the scientific method for understanding the natural world
  • Values critical thinking, rational analysis, and the revision of theories based on new evidence
• Scopes Trial


  First highly publicized trial concerning the teaching of evolution, clash between traditional and modern values in America
• Great Depression


  • Worst economic crisis of United States history
  • Led to stronger financial regulatory system
  • Became common practice to borrow money to buy stocks, which caused the stock market crash when stock prices decreased
• Hoovervilles


  • People building little huts and tents in parks because they sold their properties
  • Criticism of Hoover's laissez faire economic policies at the beginning of the Great Depression
• New Deal


  • Focused on relief, recovery, and reform
  • Used earlier progressive ideas
  • Challenges were the Supreme Court and radicals who criticized FDR for not going far enough
• Relief


  Short term, providing jobs
• Recovery


  Trying to fix the economy
• Reform


  Make changes to the economy to make sure Great Depression never happens again
• Impacts of the New Deal


  • Legacy of reforms and agencies, social security, FDIC (government insures your money in case a business goes out of business)
  • Political realignment - AAs and unions began to vote Democratic
• WW2


  • US was neutral until Pearl Harbor
  • Mass mobilization of economy → ended Great Depression → opportunities for women and minorities
• Wartime experiences of WW2

  • Japanese internment camps - >100,000 Japanese sent to internment camps, many were actually US citizens
  • Atomic bomb would save American lives, end the war quickly, some argue that it would also show the power of the US to the Soviet Union
• Why did US and allies win WW2

  • Commitment to democracy, technological advancements (Trinity test, detonation of the first atomic bomb), industrial production because most fighting happening in Europe, easier to produce at home
• War ends with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• US emerged as the most powerful nation after WW2, while Europe was in ruins
• yellow journalism


  reporting sensational stories (both true and untrue) to cause a mass reaction out of the general public
• Spanish-American War - 1898


  Cubans rose in rebellion against Spain, in control of the island since the 1500s.

  attempted to quell uprising by rounding up Cubans and forced them into reconcentration camps, poor sanitation and disease killed thousands
• Teller Amendment


  United States would help the Cuban people gain their freedom from Spain but would not annex the island after victory
• Platt Amendment


  Cuba agreed to permit American diplomatic, economic, and military intervention and to lease Guantánamo Bay for American use.
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914


  sought to curb business practices aimed at stifling competition
• Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906


  created the Food and Drug Administration to guarantee the safety and purity of all food products and pharmaceuticals