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A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y
G I V E M E L I B E RT Y !
W . W . N O R T O N & C O M P A N Y
N E W Y O R K . L O N D O N
★ E R I C F O N E R ★
Bn
SEAGULL FIFTH EDITION
Volume 2: From 1865
Victoria
Vancouver
Spokane Tacoma
Seattle
Olympia
Eugene
Salem
Portland
Salinas
Reno
Fresno
Oakland
Sacramento
San Francisco
San Jose
Carson City
Tijuana
Bakersfield
Escondido
Lancaster
Oceanside
Oxnard Pasadena
Long Beach Los Angeles
San Diego
Las Vegas
Tucson
Phoenix
Salt Lake City
Boise
Helena
Calgary
Regina
Saskatoon
Winnipeg
Bismarck
Sioux Falls
Pierre
Lincoln
Omaha
Pueblo
Colorado Springs
Denver
Cheyenne
Albuquerque
El Paso Ciudad Juárez
Santa Fe
MatamorosMonterrey
Nuevo Laredo
Brownsville
Laredo Corpus Christi
Austin
San Antonio Houston
Abilene
Beaumont
Lubbock
Waco
Fort Worth Dallas
Amarillo
Baton Rouge
Lafayette
Shreveport Jackson
New Orleans
Little Rock
Wichita
Oklahoma City
Tulsa
Kansas City Topeka Independence
Jefferson City
Springfield
St. Louis
Peoria
Springfield
Cedar Rapids
Des Moines
Madison Milwaukee
Chicago
Gary
Minneapolis St. Paul
Green Bay
Lansing
Fort Wayne
Toledo
Detroit
Toronto
Akron
Erie
Buffalo
Cleveland
Cincinnati Indianapolis
Columbus
Lexington Louisville Frankfort
Mobile
Montgomery
Birmingham
Columbus
Macon
Atlanta
Miami Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
Tallahassee Jacksonville
Savannah
Columbia
Charlotte
Raleigh
Chattanooga
Knoxville
Memphis
Nashville
Norfolk
Richmond Charleston
Washington, D.C.
Baltimore Annapolis
Dover
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia Harrisburg
Trenton
Ottawa Montréal
Albany
Concord
Montpelier
Hartford New Haven
Providence
Newark
Boston
New York
Québec
Fredericton
Augusta
Nassau
Santa Barbara
Monterey
Walla Walla
Coeur d'Alene
Pocatello
Idaho Falls Jackson
St. George
Moab
Flagstaff
Missoula
Billings
Casper
Laramie
Steamboat Springs
Glenwood Springs
Odessa
Galveston
Huron
Williston
Fargo
International Falls
Duluth
Oshkosh
Sault Ste. Marie
Traverse City
Port Huron
Sioux City
Hannibal
Jonesboro
Texarkana
Natchitoches
Biloxi
Tupelo
Pensacola
Key West
Charleston
Wilmington
Asheville
Roanoke
Atlantic City
Watertown
Burlington
Portland
Bangor
Mulege
Hermosillo
Anchorage
Fairbanks
Juneau
Hilo
Honolulu
San Juan
WASHINGTON
OREGON
NEVADA
CALIFORNIA
ARIZONA
UTAH
COLORADO
IDAHO
MONTANA
WYOMING
NORTH DAKOTA
MINNESOTA
SOUTH DAKOTA
IOWA NEBRASKA
KANSAS
WISCONSIN
MICHIGAN
INDIANAILLINOIS
MISSOURI
KENTUCKY
OHIO
NEW YORK
CONNECTICUTPENNSYLVANIA
MARYLANDWEST VIRGINIA VIRGINIA
NEW JERSEY
DELAWARE
VT
MAINE
NH
MASS.
RHODE ISLAND
NEW MEXICO
OKLAHOMA
TEXAS
LOUISIANA
ARKANSAS
TENNESSEE
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA
GEORGIA
FLORIDA
SOUTH CAROLINA
NORTH CAROLINA
ALASKA
HAWAII
PUERTO RICO
CANADA
MEXICO
CANADA
BAHAMAS
C A
S C
A D
E
R A
N G
E
C O
A S
T
R A
N G
E S
S
I E
R R
A
N E
V A
D A
Death Valley MOJAVE
DESERT
SONORAN
DESERT
G R E A T
B A S I N
Great Salt Lake
Desert
C O L O R A D O
P L AT E A U
C O
L U
M B
I A
P
L
A T
E A
U
B i
t t
e r
r o
o t
B lack Hil ls
G R
E A
T
P L
A I
N S
R O
C K
Y
M O
U N
T A
I N
S
E d w a r d s
P l a t e a u C
O
A S
T A L
P
L
A
I N
C E N T R A L L O W L A N D
U p p e r P e n i n
s u l a
L o w e r P e n
i n s u
l a
O
z a
r k P
l a t e a
u
H i
g h
P
l a
i n
s
L l a n o
E s t a c a d o
Okefeno kee Swamp
F l o r i d
a Ke
ys
G reat Dismal Swamp
A P
P
A L
A C
H I
A N
M
O U
N T
A I
N S
A P
P
A L
A C
H I
A N
P
L A
T E
A U
Great Smoky Mountains
P I
E D
M O
N T
Ad i ro ndack M o unt a ins
Whi t e M t ns
Cape Co d
Lo ng I s land
Cape Canavera l
Cape Hat t eras
Cape Lo o ko ut
Cape Fear
Cape Sab le
Cape San B las
Channe l I s lands
Po int Concept ion
Po int Reyes
Cape Mendoc ino
Cape B lanco
Cape Disappo intment
Cape F lat te ry
Vancouver I s land
C A
N A
D I A N S
H I
E
L D
Niagara Fa l l s
L A
U R
E N
T I
D E
S
C A
R P
S
I E R
R A
M A
D R
E O
C C
I D E
N T
A L
S I E R
R A
M A
D R E O
R I E N TA L
B A
J A
C
A L
I F
O R
N I
A
I s l e Roya le
The Ev e rg lade sQueen
Charlotte Islands
Alexander Archipelago
A l a s k a
P e n
i n
s u l a
A L A
S K A R
A N G E
B R O O K S R A N G E
N o r t h S l o p e
Seward Pen insu l a
Ku sk
ok w
im M
ou nt
a i
ns
St . E l ias Mounta ins Kena i
Pen insu la
Kod iak I s land
St . La w r ence
I s la nd
Nun iva k I s land
Aleu t ian
I s lan d s
Hawaii
Maui
Molokai
Oahu
Kauai Nihau
Lanai
Kahoolawe
Mauna Kea
Mauna Loa
+
+
St. Croix
St. Thomas
St. John
Tortola
U.S. Virgin Islands
Colum bia R.
Sa cr
a m
en to
R .
G re
en R
.
C ol
ora do
R.
Platte R .
Lo up R.
N. Platte R.
S. P l a tte
R.
K la
math R.
W il la
m ette R
.
Salm o
n R.
C ol
um b
ia R
.
K ooten
a y
R .
M iss
our i R.
Milk R.
Yell owston e R
.
B ig
h orn
R .
O
wyhee R .
Snake R .
Snake R.
S. S
as katchewan R.
B ow
R . Qu'Appe lle R.
Sou ris R
. A
s s i n iboine R.
Li tt
le M
is so
u ri
R . Ja
m es R
.
Chey enne
R.
Be lle
Fo ur
ch e
R.
Niobrara R.
Georgian Ba y
Osage R .
M issou
ri R .
Des M oines R.
R ed
R . o f th
e N orth
M innesota R.
Mississippi R .
W isc
onsin
R .
Il
lin ois R.
W
ab
ash R.
C um
ber land R.
Ohio R.
O h
io R
.
St . L
aw re
nc e R
.
Ottawa R.
H u
d son
R .
C on
n ec t i cu
t R .
D elaw
are R .
St. John R
.
K e
n nebec R .
Penob scot R .
Al ba
ny R
.
M is
si na
ibi R.
Kansa
s R.
O uachita R
.
Red R.
W hit e R.
Arka
n s as R.
Can a d i a n R
.
M is
si ss
ip pi
R .
T om
bigb e e R
.
A la
ba m
a R.
Te nn
e s
se e
R .
R o anoke R .
Savannah R .
P e e D
ee R
.
A ltam aha R.
C ha
tt a
ho oc
he e
R .
S t. Joh
n ' s R .
R io
G ra
nd e
P ec
os R
.
R io G
rande
C olorado R .
Brazos R . Sabine R.
S a
n Joaqu
in
R .
G ila R .
Little C olorado R.
Yuk o n R
.
Lake Superior
L a
ke M
ic h
ig an
Lake H uron
La ke
Er ie
Lak e On
tari o
Lake Mead
Lake Tahoe
Great Salt Lake
Lake Powell
Lake of the Woods
Lake Winnebago
Lake St. Clair
Lake of the Ozarks
Lake Champlain
Monterey Bay
James Bay
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Okeechobee
Salton Sea
Iliamna Lake
Gulf of Mexico
G ul
f o f S
t. La
wr ence
G u
lf o
f M ai
ne
Delaware Bay
Breton Sound
Mississippi River Delta
Apalachee Bay
G u
lf of C a
liforn ia
Vizcaíno Bay
Str. of Juan de Fu c a
C h
esa p
ea k
e B ay
Galveston Bay Atchafala
ya Ba y
Gulf of Alaska
B erin
g S ea
Chukchi Sea
Beaufort Sea
Bristol Bay
Kuskokwim Bay
Norton Sound
Kotzebue Sound
C oo
k I
n le
t
A le
nu ih
ah a C
han nel
Ka iw
i C ha
nn el
K au
ai C
ha nn
el
K a
u la
k ahi C
hannel
Caribbean Sea
P a
cific O cea
n
A tl
an ti
c O
ce an
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
0
0
200
200
400 miles
400 kilometers
0
0
100 miles
100 kilometers
0
0
50 miles
50 kilometers
0
0
150
150
300 miles
300 kilometers
PHYSICAL/POLITICAL MAP OF THE
UNITED STATES
Victoria
Vancouver
Spokane Tacoma
Seattle
Olympia
Eugene
Salem
Portland
Salinas
Reno
Fresno
Oakland
Sacramento
San Francisco
San Jose
Carson City
Tijuana
Bakersfield
Escondido
Lancaster
Oceanside
Oxnard Pasadena
Long Beach Los Angeles
San Diego
Las Vegas
Tucson
Phoenix
Salt Lake City
Boise
Helena
Calgary
Regina
Saskatoon
Winnipeg
Bismarck
Sioux Falls
Pierre
Lincoln
Omaha
Pueblo
Colorado Springs
Denver
Cheyenne
Albuquerque
El Paso Ciudad Juárez
Santa Fe
MatamorosMonterrey
Nuevo Laredo
Brownsville
Laredo Corpus Christi
Austin
San Antonio Houston
Abilene
Beaumont
Lubbock
Waco
Fort Worth Dallas
Amarillo
Baton Rouge
Lafayette
Shreveport Jackson
New Orleans
Little Rock
Wichita
Oklahoma City
Tulsa
Kansas City Topeka Independence
Jefferson City
Springfield
St. Louis
Peoria
Springfield
Cedar Rapids
Des Moines
Madison Milwaukee
Chicago
Gary
Minneapolis St. Paul
Green Bay
Lansing
Fort Wayne
Toledo
Detroit
Toronto
Akron
Erie
Buffalo
Cleveland
Cincinnati Indianapolis
Columbus
Lexington Louisville Frankfort
Mobile
Montgomery
Birmingham
Columbus
Macon
Atlanta
Miami Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Orlando
Tallahassee Jacksonville
Savannah
Columbia
Charlotte
Raleigh
Chattanooga
Knoxville
Memphis
Nashville
Norfolk
Richmond Charleston
Washington, D.C.
Baltimore Annapolis
Dover
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia Harrisburg
Trenton
Ottawa Montréal
Albany
Concord
Montpelier
Hartford New Haven
Providence
Newark
Boston
New York
Québec
Fredericton
Augusta
Nassau
Santa Barbara
Monterey
Walla Walla
Coeur d'Alene
Pocatello
Idaho Falls Jackson
St. George
Moab
Flagstaff
Missoula
Billings
Casper
Laramie
Steamboat Springs
Glenwood Springs
Odessa
Galveston
Huron
Williston
Fargo
International Falls
Duluth
Oshkosh
Sault Ste. Marie
Traverse City
Port Huron
Sioux City
Hannibal
Jonesboro
Texarkana
Natchitoches
Biloxi
Tupelo
Pensacola
Key West
Charleston
Wilmington
Asheville
Roanoke
Atlantic City
Watertown
Burlington
Portland
Bangor
Mulege
Hermosillo
Anchorage
Fairbanks
Juneau
Hilo
Honolulu
San Juan
WASHINGTON
OREGON
NEVADA
CALIFORNIA
ARIZONA
UTAH
COLORADO
IDAHO
MONTANA
WYOMING
NORTH DAKOTA
MINNESOTA
SOUTH DAKOTA
IOWA NEBRASKA
KANSAS
WISCONSIN
MICHIGAN
INDIANAILLINOIS
MISSOURI
KENTUCKY
OHIO
NEW YORK
CONNECTICUTPENNSYLVANIA
MARYLANDWEST VIRGINIA VIRGINIA
NEW JERSEY
DELAWARE
VT
MAINE
NH
MASS.
RHODE ISLAND
NEW MEXICO
OKLAHOMA
TEXAS
LOUISIANA
ARKANSAS
TENNESSEE
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA
GEORGIA
FLORIDA
SOUTH CAROLINA
NORTH CAROLINA
ALASKA
HAWAII
PUERTO RICO
CANADA
MEXICO
CANADA
BAHAMAS
C A
S C
A D
E
R A
N G
E
C O
A S
T
R A
N G
E S
S I
E R
R A
N
E V
A D
A
Death Valley MOJAVE
DESERT
SONORAN
DESERT
G R E A T
B A S I N
Great Salt Lake
Desert
C O L O R A D O
P L AT E A U
C O
L U
M B
I A
P
L
A T
E A
U
B i
t t
e r
r o
o t
B lack Hil ls
G R
E A
T
P L
A I
N S
R O
C K
Y
M O
U N
T A
I N
S
E d w a r d s
P l a t e a u
C
O
A S
T A L
P
L
A
I N
C E N T R A L L O W L A N D
U p p e r P e n i n
s u l a
L o w e r P e n
i n s u
l a
O
z a
r k P
l a t e a
u
H i
g h
P
l a
i n
s
L l a n o
E s t a c a d o
O kefenokee Swamp
F l o r i d
a Ke
ys
G r eat Dis mal Swamp
A P
P
A L
A C
H I
A N
M
O U
N T
A I
N S
A P
P
A L
A C
H I
A N
P
L A
T E
A U
Great Smoky Mountains
P I
E D
M O
N T
Ad i r ondack Mounta ins
W h i te Mtns
Cap e Cod
Long I s land
Cap e Ca navera l
Ca p e Hattera s
Cap e Lookout
Cap e Fear
Cap e Sab le
Cape San B las
Channe l I s lands
Po int Concept ion
Po int Reyes
Ca p e Mendoc ino
Cape B lanco
Cape Disappo intment
Cape F lat te ry
Vancouver I s land
C A
N A
D I A N S
H I
E
L D
N iagara Fa l l s
L A
U R
E N
T I
D E
S
C A
R P
S I E
R R
A M
A D
R E
O C
C I D
E N
T A
L
S I E R
R A
M A
D R E O
R I E N TA L
B A
J A
C
A L
I F
O R
N I
A
I s l e Roya le
The Everg ladesQueen
Charlotte Islands
Alexander Archipelago
A l a s k a
P e n
i n
s u l a
A L A
S K A R
A N G E
B R O O K S R A N G E
N o r t h S l o p e
S eward Pen i n su la
Ku sk
ok w
im M
ou nt
a i
ns
St . E l ias Mounta ins Kena i
Pen insu la
Kod iak I s land
St . Lawrence
I s land
Nun ivak I s land
Aleu t ian
I s lan d s
Hawaii
Maui
Molokai
Oahu
Kauai Nihau
Lanai
Kahoolawe
Mauna Kea
Mauna Loa
+
+
St. Croix
St. Thomas
St. John
Tortola
U.S. Virgin Islands
Colum bia R.
Sa cr
a m
en to
R .
G re
en R
.
C ol
ora do
R.
Platte R .
Lo up R.
N. Platte R.
S. P l a tte
R.
K la
math R.
W il la
m ette R
.
Salm o
n R.
C ol
um b
ia R
.
K ooten
a y
R .
M iss
our i R.
Milk R.
Yell owston e R
.
B ig
h orn
R .
O
wyhee R .
Snake R .
Snake R.
S. S
as katchewan R.
B ow
R . Qu'Appe lle R.
Sou ris R
. A
s s i n iboine R.
Li tt
le M
is so
u ri
R . Ja
m es R
.
Chey enne
R.
Be lle
Fo ur
ch e
R.
Niobrara R.
Georgian Ba y
Osage R .
M issou
ri R .
Des M oines R.
R ed
R . o f th
e N orth
M innesota R.
Mississippi R .
W isc
onsin
R .
Il
lin ois R.
W
ab
ash R.
C um
ber land R.
Ohio R.
O h
io R
.
St . L
aw re
nc e R
.
Ottawa R.
H u
d son
R .
C on
n ec t i cu
t R .
D elaw
are R .
St. John R
.
K e
n nebec R .
Penob scot R .
Al ba
ny R
.
M is
si na
ibi R.
Kansa
s R.
O uachita R
.
Red R.
W hit e R.
Arka
n s as R.
Can a d i a n R
.
M is
si ss
ip pi
R .
T om
bigb e e R
.
A la
ba m
a R.
Te nn
e s
se e
R .
R o anoke R .
Savannah R .
P e e D
ee R
.
A ltam aha R.
C ha
tt a
ho oc
he e
R .
S t. Joh
n ' s R .
R io
G ra
nd e
P ec
os R
.
R io G
rande
C olorado R .
Brazos R . Sabine R.
S a
n Joaqu
in
R .
G ila R .
Little C olorado R.
Yuk o n R
.
Lake Superior L
a ke
M ic
h ig
an
Lake H uron
La ke
Er ie
Lak e On
tari o
Lake Mead
Lake Tahoe
Great Salt Lake
Lake Powell
Lake of the Woods
Lake Winnebago
Lake St. Clair
Lake of the Ozarks
Lake Champlain
Monterey Bay
James Bay
Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Okeechobee
Salton Sea
Iliamna Lake
Gulf of Mexico
G ul
f o f S
t. La
wr ence
G u
lf o
f M ai
ne
Delaware Bay
Breton Sound
Mississippi River Delta
Apalachee Bay
G u
lf of C a
liforn ia
Vizcaíno Bay
Str. of Juan de Fu c a
C h
esa p
ea k
e B ay
Galveston Bay Atchafala
ya Ba y
Gulf of Alaska
B erin
g S ea
Chukchi Sea
Beaufort Sea
Bristol Bay
Kuskokwim Bay
Norton Sound
Kotzebue Sound
C oo
k I
n le
t
A le
nu ih
ah a C
han nel
Ka iw
i C ha
nn el
K au
ai C
ha nn
el
K a
u la
k ahi C
hannel
Caribbean Sea
P a
cific O cea
n
A tl
an ti
c O
ce an
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
0
0
200
200
400 miles
400 kilometers
0
0
100 miles
100 kilometers
0
0
50 miles
50 kilometers
0
0
150
150
300 miles
300 kilometers
PHYSICAL/POLITICAL MAP OF THE
UNITED STATES
New York
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Toronto
Montréal
Dallas
Chicago Barcelona
Rio de Janeiro
Johannesburg
Sydney
Kabul
Algiers
Luanda
Buenos Aires Canberra, A.C.T.
Nassau Dhaka
Thimphu
Gaborone
Brasília
Ottawa
N’Djamena
Santiago
Beijing
Bogotá
Havana
Quito
Cairo
Reykjavik
New Delhi
Jakarta
Tehr ̄an Tokyo
Nairobi
Maseru
Tripoli
Antananarivo
Nouakchott Mexico City
Ulan Bator
Rabat
Windhoek
Kathmandu
Muscat
Islamabad
Asunción
Lima
Manila
Lisbon
Pretoria
Seoul
Mogadishu
Khartoum
Dar es Salaam
Nuku’alofa
Tunis
Washington, D.C.
Moscow
Caracas
Cape Town
Pago PagoApia
Papeete
Adamstown
Astana
Adis Ababa
La Paz
Sucre
Montevideo
London
Paris
Rome
Berlin
Oslo Stockholm
Madrid
BAHAMAS
BARBADOS
BELIZE
COSTA RICA
DOMINICA
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
ECUADOR
EL SALVADOR
French Guiana (Fr.)
GUATEMALA
GUYANA
HAITI
HONDURAS
JAMAICA
NICARAGUA
PANAMA
PARAGUAY
ST. LUCIA ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
SURINAME
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
URUGUAY
ST. KITTS AND NEVIS
BOTSWANA
TANZANIA
MADAGASCAR
MALAWI
CO NG
O
CAMEROON
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
BEN IN
TO G
O
BURKINA
G H
A N
A
DJIBOUTI GAMBIA
GABON
GUINEAGUINEA-BISSAU CÔTE
D’IVOIRE (Ivory Coast)
LESOTHO
LIBERIA
M OZ
AM BI
Q UE
NAMIBIA
SENEGAL
SIERRA LEONE
SWAZILAND
KENYA UGANDA
Western Sahara (Mor.)
COMOROS
TUNISIA
DEMOCRATIC REP. OF CONGO
RWANDA
BURUNDI
ZAMBIA
ZIMBABWE
CENTRAL AFRICAN
REP.
PAKISTAN
OM AN
SRI LANKA
MYANMAR
BANGLADESH
AFGHANISTAN
VIETNAM
LAOS
THAILAND
CAMBODIA
BRUNEI
TAIWAN
NORTH KOREA
SOUTH KOREA
NEPAL
BHUTAN
SOLOMON ISLANDS
FIJI
SINGAPORE MALDIVES
MAURITIUS
ICELAND
AUSTRIA
BEL. LUX.
GERMANY
ROMANIA MOLDOVA
GEORGIA
AZERBAIJAN
TURKMENISTAN
UZBEKISTAN KYRGYZSTAN
TAJIKISTAN ARMENIA
BELARUS
LITHUANIA LATVIA
ESTONIA
RUS.
PORTUGAL
DENMARK
GREECE
BULGARIA SERBIA
MONT.
B.H.
SL. CROATIA
NETH. IRELAND
SWITZ.
CZECH REP.
SLOVAKIA
HUNGARY
ALBANIA
CYPRUS
JORDAN
ISRAEL LEBANON
SYRIA
UNITED ARAB
EMIRATES
YEMEN
QATAR BAHRAIN
KUWAIT
SAMOA
VANUATU
PALAU FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
MAC.
ERITREA
TONGA
FIJI
TUVALU
NAURU
MARSHALL ISLANDS
SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE
CAPE VERDE
SEY CHE
LLES
ARGENTINA
BOLIVIA
CHILE
COLOMBIA
CUBA MEXICO
PERU
VENEZUELA
ALGERIA
ANGOLA
CHAD
EGYPT
ETHIOPIA
LIBYA MO
RO CC
O
NIGERIA
SO MA
LIA
SOUTH AFRICA
MAURITANIA
SUDAN
NIGERMALI
MONGOLIA
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
MALAYSIA
PHILIPPINES
JAPAN
NEW ZEALAND
FRANCE
SPAIN
NO RW
AY
SW ED
EN FINLAND
POLAND
UKRAINE KAZAKHSTAN
ITALY
UNITED KINGDOM
SAUDI ARABIA
TURKEY
IRAQ IRAN
KIRIBATI
KIRIBATI
RUSSIA
Greenland (Denmark)
BRAZIL
CANADA
UNITED STATES
INDIA
CHINA
AUSTRALIA
INDONESIA
RUSSIA
Alaska (U.S.)
Hawaii (U.S.)
ANTARCTICA
NORTH AMERICA
ASIA
EUROPE
SOUTH AMERICA
EAST TIMOR
Crozet I s land s
Kergué len I s lands
Pr ince Edward I s lands (So. Af r i ca)
Tr i s tan Da Cunha Group (U.K . )
St . He lena (U.K . )
Ascens ion (U.K . )
South Georg ia
South Sandwich I s lands
South Orkney I s lands
South Shet land I s lands
Juan Fernandez Arch ipe lago (Ch i l e)
Easte r I s land (Ch i l e)
Marquesas I s lands
(Fr. )
P hoen ix I s l ands
Jan Mayen (Nor way)
Kermadec I s lands (N .Z . )
Nor fo lk I s land (Aus . )
Wrange l I s land
Faroe I s lands (Denmark)
Puer to R ico (U.S . )
Bermuda (U.K . )
Canar y I s lands (Sp. )
Azores (Por. )
Made i ra I s lands (Por. )
Andaman Is lands ( Ind ia)
Guam (U.S . )
Northern Mar iana I s lands (U.S . )
New Ca ledon ia (Fr. )
Timor
Tasmania
Java
Sumatra
Borneo
Réun ion (Fr. )
Ga lapagos I s lands
(Ecuador)
K i r i t imat i (K i r ibat i )
P i tca i rn I s lands (U.K . )
North I s land
South I s land
Heard I s land and McDona ld I s lands (Aus . )
French Southern and Antarct ic Lands (Fr. )
Socot ra (Yemen)
Diego Garc ia
Chagos Arch ipe lago (U.K . )
Queen E l i zabeth I s lands
Severnaya Zemlya
New S iber ian I s lands
A leut ia n I s la
nds
Sva lbard (Norway)
No va
ya Z
em lya
Franz Jose f Land
Cook I s lands French Po lynes ia (Fr. )
Fa lk land I s lands (U.K . )
E l l e smere I s land
Baff in I s land
V ic tor ia I s land
Banks I s land
A l e u t i a n I s l a n d s
Ku r i l I
s l a nd
s
0° 30°
60° 90°
30°
60 °
90 °
180°
150°W
120°
150 °E
12 0°
75°S
60°S
0°
30°
60°
90 °
30°
60 °
90°
180° 150°E
120°
150 °W
12 0°
75°N
60°N
Great Australian
Bight
Hudson Strait
Foxe Basin
Gulf Of
Ad en
Lake Balkhash
Aral Sea
Baltic Sea
Celtic Sea
En glis
h C han
nel
Lake Baikal
Sea of Japan
South China
Sea
East China
Sea
Philippine Sea
Timor Sea
Yellow Sea
Coral Sea
Arafura Sea
Java Sea
Celebes Sea
Gulf of Thailand
De nm
ar k S
tra it
M oz
a m
bi qu
e C
ha nn
el
R ed Sea
Amundsen Gulf
Persian G u lf
C aspian
S ea
Chukchi Sea
Gulf of Alaska
Hudson Bay
Beaufort Sea
Bering Sea
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Scotia Sea
Gulf of Guinea
Norwegian Sea
North Sea
Labrador Sea
Baffin Bay Barents Sea
Kara Sea
Black Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Arabian Sea
Bay of Bengal
Sea of Okhotsk
Bering Sea
Tasman Sea
Laptev Sea
East Siberian Sea
South Pacific Ocean
North Atl a n t i c O cean
North Paci f ic O c e an
Ind ian Ocean
South Atl antic O cean
North Paci f ic O cean
S o u t h Paci f ic O c ean
Arc t i c O c e anArct ic Oce a n
Southern Ocea n
Southern O c e an
Indian Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Southern Ocean
Southern Ocean
Arctic Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
0
0
750
750
1,500 miles
1,500 kilometers
Scale at equator
0
0
1,500 miles
1,500 kilometers
POLITICAL MAP of the WORLD
THE POLES
New York
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Toronto
Montréal
Dallas
Chicago Barcelona
Rio de Janeiro
Johannesburg
Sydney
Kabul
Algiers
Luanda
Buenos Aires Canberra, A.C.T.
Nassau Dhaka
Thimphu
Gaborone
Brasília
Ottawa
N’Djamena
Santiago
Beijing
Bogotá
Havana
Quito
Cairo
Reykjavik
New Delhi
Jakarta
Tehr ̄an Tokyo
Nairobi
Maseru
Tripoli
Antananarivo
Nouakchott Mexico City
Ulan Bator
Rabat
Windhoek
Kathmandu
Muscat
Islamabad
Asunción
Lima
Manila
Lisbon
Pretoria
Seoul
Mogadishu
Khartoum
Dar es Salaam
Nuku’alofa
Tunis
Washington, D.C.
Moscow
Caracas
Cape Town
Pago PagoApia
Papeete
Adamstown
Astana
Adis Ababa
La Paz
Sucre
Montevideo
London
Paris
Rome
Berlin
Oslo Stockholm
Madrid
BAHAMAS
BARBADOS
BELIZE
COSTA RICA
DOMINICA
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
ECUADOR
EL SALVADOR
French Guiana (Fr.)
GUATEMALA
GUYANA
HAITI
HONDURAS
JAMAICA
NICARAGUA
PANAMA
PARAGUAY
ST. LUCIA ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
SURINAME
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
URUGUAY
ST. KITTS AND NEVIS
BOTSWANA
TANZANIA
MADAGASCAR
MALAWI
CO NG
O
CAMEROON
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
BEN IN
TO G
O
BURKINA
G H
A N
A
DJIBOUTI GAMBIA
GABON
GUINEAGUINEA-BISSAU CÔTE
D’IVOIRE (Ivory Coast)
LESOTHO
LIBERIA
M OZ
AM BI
Q UE
NAMIBIA
SENEGAL
SIERRA LEONE
SWAZILAND
KENYA UGANDA
Western Sahara (Mor.)
COMOROS
TUNISIA
DEMOCRATIC REP. OF CONGO
RWANDA
BURUNDI
ZAMBIA
ZIMBABWE
CENTRAL AFRICAN
REP.
PAKISTAN
OM AN
SRI LANKA
MYANMAR
BANGLADESH
AFGHANISTAN
VIETNAM
LAOS
THAILAND
CAMBODIA
BRUNEI
TAIWAN
NORTH KOREA
SOUTH KOREA
NEPAL
BHUTAN
SOLOMON ISLANDS
FIJI
SINGAPORE MALDIVES
MAURITIUS
ICELAND
AUSTRIA
BEL. LUX.
GERMANY
ROMANIA MOLDOVA
GEORGIA
AZERBAIJAN
TURKMENISTAN
UZBEKISTAN KYRGYZSTAN
TAJIKISTAN ARMENIA
BELARUS
LITHUANIA LATVIA
ESTONIA
RUS.
PORTUGAL
DENMARK
GREECE
BULGARIA SERBIA
MONT.
B.H.
SL. CROATIA
NETH. IRELAND
SWITZ.
CZECH REP.
SLOVAKIA
HUNGARY
ALBANIA
CYPRUS
JORDAN
ISRAEL LEBANON
SYRIA
UNITED ARAB
EMIRATES
YEMEN
QATAR BAHRAIN
KUWAIT
SAMOA
VANUATU
PALAU FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
MAC.
ERITREA
TONGA
FIJI
TUVALU
NAURU
MARSHALL ISLANDS
SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE
CAPE VERDE
SEY CHE
LLES
ARGENTINA
BOLIVIA
CHILE
COLOMBIA
CUBA MEXICO
PERU
VENEZUELA
ALGERIA
ANGOLA
CHAD
EGYPT
ETHIOPIA
LIBYA MO
RO CC
O
NIGERIA
SO MA
LIA
SOUTH AFRICA
MAURITANIA
SUDAN
NIGERMALI
MONGOLIA
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
MALAYSIA
PHILIPPINES
JAPAN
NEW ZEALAND
FRANCE
SPAIN
NO RW
AY
SW ED
EN FINLAND
POLAND
UKRAINE KAZAKHSTAN
ITALY
UNITED KINGDOM
SAUDI ARABIA
TURKEY
IRAQ IRAN
KIRIBATI
KIRIBATI
RUSSIA
Greenland (Denmark)
BRAZIL
CANADA
UNITED STATES
INDIA
CHINA
AUSTRALIA
INDONESIA
RUSSIA
Alaska (U.S.)
Hawaii (U.S.)
ANTARCTICA
NORTH AMERICA
ASIA
EUROPE
SOUTH AMERICA
EAST TIMOR
Crozet I s land s
Kergué len I s lands
Pr ince Edward I s lands (So. Af r i ca)
Tr i s t an D a Cu nha Group (U. K . )
St . He lena (U.K . )
Ascens ion (U. K . )
South Georg ia
South Sandwich I s lands
South Orkney I s lands
South Shet land I s lands
Juan Fernandez Arch ipe lago (Ch i l e)
Easte r I s land (Ch i l e)
Marquesas I s lands
(Fr. )
Phoen ix I s lands
Jan Mayen (N or way)
Kermadec I s lands (N .Z . )
Nor fo lk I s land (Aus . )
Wrange l I s land
Fa roe I s lands (Den m ark)
Puer to R ico (U.S . )
Bermuda (U.K . )
Canar y I s lands (Sp. )
Azores (Por. )
Made i ra I s lands (Por. )
Andaman Is lands ( Ind ia)
Guam (U.S . )
Northern Mar iana I s lands (U.S . )
New Ca ledon ia (Fr. )
Timor
Tasmania
Java
Sumatra
Borneo
Réun ion (Fr. )
Ga lapagos I s lands
(Ecuador)
K i r i t imat i (K i r ibat i )
P i tca i rn I s lands (U.K . )
North I s land
South I s land
Heard I s land and McDona ld I s lands (Aus . )
French Southern and Antarct ic Lands (Fr. )
Socot ra (Yemen)
Diego Garc ia
Chagos Arch ipe lago (U.K . )
Queen E l i zabeth I s lands
Severnaya Zemlya
New S iber ian I s lands
A leut ia n I s la
nds
Sva lbard (Norway)
No va
ya Z
em lya
Franz Jose f Land
Cook I s lands French Po lynes ia (Fr. )
Fa lk land I s lands (U.K . )
E l l e smere I s land
Baff in I s land
V ic tor ia I s land
Banks I s land
A l e u t i a n I s l a n d s
Ku r i l I
s l a nd
s
0° 30°
60° 90°
30°
60 °
90 °
180°
150°W
120°
150 °E
12 0°
75°S
60°S
0°
30°
60°
90 °
30°
60 °
90°
180° 150°E
120°
150 °W
12 0°
75°N
60°N
Great Australian
Bight
Hudson Strait
Foxe Basin
Gulf Of
Ad en
Lake Balkhash
Aral Sea
Baltic Sea
Celtic Sea
En glis
h C han
nel
Lake Baikal
Sea of Japan
South China
Sea
East China
Sea
Philippine Sea
Timor Sea
Yellow Sea
Coral Sea
Arafura Sea
Java Sea
Celebes Sea
Gulf of Thailand
De nm
ar k S
tra it
M oz
a m
bi qu
e C
ha nn
el
R ed Sea
Amundsen Gulf
Persian G u lf
C aspian
S ea
Chukchi Sea
Gulf of Alaska
Hudson Bay
Beaufort Sea
Bering Sea
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Scotia Sea
Gulf of Guinea
Norwegian Sea
North Sea
Labrador Sea
Baffin Bay Barents Sea
Kara Sea
Black Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Arabian Sea
Bay of Bengal
Sea of Okhotsk
Bering Sea
Tasman Sea
Laptev Sea
East Siberian Sea
South Pacific Ocean
North At l a n t i c O cean
North Paci f ic O c e an
Indian Oce a n
S outh Atl antic O cean
North Paci f ic O cean
South Paci f ic O ce a n
Arc t i c O c e anArct ic Ocean
S outhern Ocea n
Southern O c e an
Indian Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
Southern Ocean
Southern Ocean
Arctic Ocean
Pacific Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
0
0
750
750
1,500 miles
1,500 kilometers
Scale at equator
0
0
1,500 miles
1,500 kilometers
POLITICAL MAP of the WORLD
THE POLES
W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By midcentury, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program— trade books and college texts— were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today— with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year— W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.
Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011, 2008, 2005 by Eric Foner
All rights reserved Printed in Canada
Editor: Steve Forman Associate Editor: Scott Sugarman Project Editor: Jennifer Barnhardt Editorial Assistants: Travis Carr, Kelly Rafey Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Production Manager: Sean Mintus Media Editor: Laura Wilk Media Project Editor: Rachel Mayer Media Associate Editor: Michelle Smith Media Assistant Editor: Chris Hillyer Marketing Manager, History: Sarah England Bartley Associate Design Director: Hope Miller Goodell Designer: Lisa Buckley Photo Editor: Stephanie Romeo Permissions Manager: Megan Schindel Permissions Specialist: Bethany Salminen Composition: Jouve Illustrations: Mapping Specialists, Ltd. Manufacturing: Transcontinental
Permission to use copyrighted material is included on page A-81.
The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition as follows:
Names: Foner, Eric, 1943– author. Title: Give me liberty!: an American history / Eric Foner. Description: Fifth edition. | New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016018497 | ISBN 9780393283167 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: United States— History. | United States— Politics and government. | Democracy— United States— History. | Liberty— History. Classification: LCC E178 .F66 2016 | DDC 973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016018497
ISBN this edition: 978-0-393-61565-4
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017 wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
★
For my mother, Liza Foner (1909–2005),
an accomplished artist who lived through most of
the twentieth century and into the twenty- first
★
★ C O N T E N T S ★
List of Maps, Tables, and Figures xii
About the Author xv
Preface xvi
Acknowledgments xxiii
15 ★ “ W H AT I S F R E E D O M ? ” : R E C O N ST R U CT I O N , 1 8 6 5 – 1 8 7 7 564 The Meaning of Freedom 566 ★ Voices of Freedom From
Petition of Committee in Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson
(1865), and From A Sharecropping Contract (1866) ... 576 ★ The Making of Radical Reconstruction 579 ★ Radical Reconstruction
in the South 590 ★ The Overthrow of Reconstruction 594
16 ★ A M E R I C A ’ S G I L D E D A G E , 1 8 7 0 – 1 8 9 0 603 The Second Industrial Revolution 605 ★ The Transformation of
the West 613 ★ Voices of Freedom From Speech of Chief Joseph
of the Nez Percé Indians, in Washington, D.C. (1879), and From Letter
by Saum Song Bo, American Missionary (October 1885) ... 622 ★ Politics in a Gilded Age 629 ★ Freedom in the Gilded Age 634
★ Labor and the Republic 639
17 ★ F R E E D O M ’ S B O U N D A R I E S , AT H O M E A N D A B R O A D , 1 8 9 0 – 1 9 0 0 649 The Populist Challenge 651 ★ The Segregated South 659 ★
Redrawing the Boundaries 669 ★ Voices of Freedom From
Booker T. Washington, Address at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition (1895),
and From W. E. B. Du Bois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others”
(1903) ... 674 ★ Becoming a World Power 677
viii ★
18 ★ T H E P R O G R E S S I V E E R A , 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 1 6 691 An Urban Age and a Consumer Society 694 ★ Varieties of
Progressivism 703 ★ Voices of Freedom From Charlotte Perkins
Gilman, Women and Economics (1898), and From John Mitchell,
“The Workingman’s Conception of Industrial Liberty” (1910) ... 710 ★ The Politics of Progressivism 715 ★ The Progressive
Presidents 724
19 ★ S A F E F O R D E M O C R A CY : T H E U N I T E D STAT E S A N D W O R L D WA R I , 1 9 1 6 – 1 9 2 0 734 An Era of Intervention 737 ★ America and the Great War 742
★ The War at Home 746 ★ Who Is an American? 755 ★
Voices of Freedom From Woodrow Wilson, War Message to Congress
(1917), and From Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury before Sentencing
under the Espionage Act (1918) ... 756 ★ 1919 767
20 ★ F R O M B U S I N E S S C U LT U R E TO G R E AT D E P R E S S I O N : T H E T W E N T I E S , 1 9 2 0 – 1 9 3 2 779 The Business of America 782 ★ Business and
Government 789 ★ Voices of Freedom From Lucian W. Parrish,
Speech in Congress on Immigration (1921), and From Majority Opinion,
Justice James C. McReynolds, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) ... 792 ★ The Birth of Civil Liberties 795 ★ The Culture Wars 799 ★
The Great Depression 810
21 ★ T H E N E W D E A L , 1 9 3 2 – 1 9 4 0 818 The First New Deal 821 ★ The Grassroots Revolt 830 ★ The
Second New Deal 835 ★ A Reckoning with Liberty 838 ★
Voices of Freedom From Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat”
(1934), and From John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to
the Grapes of Wrath (1938) ... 842 ★ The Limits of Change 845 ★ A New Conception of America 852
22 ★ F I G H T I N G F O R T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S : W O R L D WA R I I , 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5 861 Fighting World War II 864 ★ The Home Front 873
Visions of Postwar Freedom 880 ★ The American
CONTENTS ★ ix
Dilemma 884 ★ Voices of Freedom From League of United Latin
American Citizens, “World War II and Mexican Americans” (1945), and
From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has Always Wanted the Four
Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants (1944) ... 888 ★ The End of the War 898
23 ★ T H E U N I T E D STAT E S A N D T H E C O L D WA R , 1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3 905 Origins of the Cold War 908 ★ The Cold War and the Idea
of Freedom 917 ★ The Truman Presidency 922 ★ The
Anticommunist Crusade 927 ★ Voices of Freedom From
Joseph R. McCarthy, Speech at Wheeling (1950), and From Margaret
Chase Smith, Speech in the Senate (1950) ... 936
24 ★ A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y, 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0 940 The Golden Age 942 ★ The Eisenhower Era 957 ★ The
Freedom Movement 968 ★ Voices of Freedom From Martin
Luther King Jr., Speech at Montgomery, Alabama (December 5, 1955),
and From The Southern Manifesto (1956) ... 970 ★ The Election of 1960 979
25 ★ T H E S I X T I E S , 1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8 983 The Civil Rights Revolution 985 ★ The Kennedy Years 989
★ Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency 992 ★ The Changing Black
Movement 999 ★ Vietnam and the New Left 1002 ★
Voices of Freedom From Barry Goldwater, Speech at Republican
National Convention (1964), and From Statement of Purpose, National
Organization for Women (1966) ... 1010 ★ The New Movements and the Rights Revolution 1014 ★ 1968 1024
26 ★ T H E T R I U M P H O F C O N S E R VAT I S M , 1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8 1030 President Nixon 1031 ★ Vietnam and Watergate 1039
★ The End of the Golden Age 1043 ★ The Rising Tide of
Conservatism 1052 ★ The Reagan Revolution 1058 ★ Voices
of Freedom From Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (1971), and
From Richard E. Blakemore, Report on the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979)
... 1060
x ★ CONTENTS
27 ★ F R O M T R I U M P H TO T R A G E D Y, 1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 1 1071 The Post– Cold War World 1073 ★ Globalization and Its
Discontents 1080 ★ Culture Wars 1086 ★ Voices of Freedom
From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA (1993), and From Global
Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for Global Democracy (December 1999)
... 1088 ★ Impeachment and the Election of 2000 1102 ★ The Attacks of September 11 1105
28 ★ A N E W C E N T U R Y A N D N E W C R I S E S 1109 The War on Terror 1110 ★ An American Empire? 1113 ★
The Aftermath of September 11 at Home 1117 ★ The Winds
of Change 1120 ★ Voices of Freedom From Opinion of the
Court in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), and From Barack Obama, Eulogy
at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (2015) ... 1130 ★ Obama in Office 1136 ★ The Obama Presidency 1141 ★
Freedom in the Twenty- First Century 1150
Suggested Reading A- 1
The Declaration of Independence (1776) A-23
The Constitution of the United States (1787) A-27
Glossary A-47
Credits A-81
Index A-83
CONTENTS ★ xi
M A P S
L I S T O F M A P S , TA B L E S , A N D F I G U R E S
★★
CHAPTER 15
The Barrow Plantation 570
Sharecropping in the South, 1880 575
Reconstruction in the South, 1867–1877 599
The Presidential Election of 1876 600
CHAPTER 16
The Railroad Network, 1880 607
U.S. Steel: A Vertically Integrated Corporation 610
The Industrial West 619
Indian Reservations, ca. 1890 626
Political Stalemate, 1876–1892 631
CHAPTER 17
Populist Strength, 1892 655
The Presidential Election of 1896 659
The Spanish- American War: The Pacific 682
The Spanish- American War: The Caribbean 682
American Empire, 1898 685
CHAPTER 18
Socialist Towns and Cities, 1900–1920 705
CHAPTER 19
The Panama Canal Zone 738
The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1941 740
Colonial Possessions, 1900 741
World War I: The Western Front 745
Prohibition, 1915: Counties and States That Banned Liquor before the Eighteenth Amendment (Ratified 1919, Repealed 1933) 751
Europe in 1914 773
Europe in 1919 774
CHAPTER 21
Columbia River Basin Project, 1949 819
The Tennessee Valley Authority 827
The Dust Bowl, 1935–1940 828
CHAPTER 22
World War II in the Pacific, 1941–1945 870
World War II in Europe, 1942–1945 872
Wartime Army and Navy Bases and Airfields 875
Japanese- American Internment, 1942–1945 891
xii ★
MAPS ★ xiii
CHAPTER 23
Cold War Europe, 1956 913
The Korean War, 1950–1953 915
CHAPTER 24
The Interstate Highway System 948
The Presidential Election of 1960 980
CHAPTER 25
The Vietnam War, 1964–1975 1007
CHAPTER 26
Center of Population, 1790–2010 1034
The Presidential Election of 1980 1058
The United States in the Caribbean and Central America, 1954–2004 1067
CHAPTER 27
Eastern Europe after the Cold War 1075
Immigrant Populations in Cities and States, 1900 and 2010 1090
Origin of Largest Immigrant Populations by State, 1910 and 2013 1093
The Presidential Election of 2000 1104
CHAPTER 28
U.S. Presence in the Middle East, 1967–2015 1115
Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip 1117
Percentage of Population Below the Poverty Line, 2014 1141
The Presidential Election of 2012 1150
xiv ★ TABLES AND FIGURES
TA B L E S A N D F I G U R E S CHAPTER 16
Table 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change, 1870–1920 606
CHAPTER 17
Table 17.1 States with over 200 Lynchings, 1889–1918 668
CHAPTER 18
Table 18.1 Immigrants and Their Children as Percentage of Population, Ten Major Cities, 1920 698
Table 18.2 Percentage of Women Workers in Various Occupations, 1900–1920 700
CHAPTER 19
Table 19.1 The Great Migration 765
CHAPTER 20
Table 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas under the 1924 Immigration Act 804
CHAPTER 21
Figure 21.1 Unemployment, 1925–1945 845
CHAPTER 25
Figure 25.1 Percentage of Population below Poverty Level, by Race, 1959–1969 998
CHAPTER 26
Table 26.1 The Misery Index, 1970–1980 1045
Figure 26.1 Real Average Weekly Wages, 1955–1990 1046
CHAPTER 27
Table 27.1 Immigration to the United States, 1961–2010 1091
Figure 27.1 Unemployment Rate by Sex and Race, 1954–2000 1095
Figure 27.2 Women in the Paid Workforce, 1940–2010 1101
CHAPTER 28
Figure 28.1 Portrait of a Recession 1132
ERIC FONER is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia Univer- sity, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth- century America. Professor Foner’s publications include Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War; Tom Paine and Revolu- tionary America; Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy; Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877; The Story of American Freedom; and Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. His history of Recon- struction won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize. He has served as president of the Organization of Amer- ican Historians and the American Historical Association. In 2006 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. His most recent books are The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slav- ery, winner of the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes and the Pulitzer Prize for His- tory, and Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, winner of the New York Historical Society Book Prize.
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Give Me Liberty! An American History is a survey of American history from the earliest days of European exploration and conquest of the New World to the first decades of the twenty- first century. It offers students a clear, concise narra- tive whose central theme is the changing contours of American freedom.
I am extremely gratified by the response to the first four editions of Give Me Liberty!, which have been used in survey courses at many hundreds of two- and four- year colleges and universities throughout the country. The comments I have received from instructors and students encourage me to think that Give Me Liberty! has worked well in their classrooms. Their comments have also included many valuable suggestions for revisions, which I greatly appreci- ate. These have ranged from corrections of typographical and factual errors to thoughts about subjects that needed more extensive treatment. In mak- ing revisions for this Fifth Edition, I have tried to take these suggestions into account. I have also incorporated the findings and insights of new scholarship that has appeared since the original edition was written.
The most significant changes in this Fifth Edition reflect my desire to integrate the history of the American West and especially the regions known as borderlands more fully into the narrative. In recent years these aspects of American history have been thriving areas of research and scholarship. Of course earlier editions of Give Me Liberty! have discussed these subjects, but in this edition their treatment has been deepened and expanded. I have also added notable works in these areas to many chapter bibliographies and lists of websites.
The definition of the West has changed enormously in the course of Amer- ican history. In the colonial period, the area beyond the Appalachians— present- day Kentucky, Tennessee, and western Pennsylvania and New York— constituted the West. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the term referred to Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, and Mississippi. After the Civil War, the West came to mean the area beyond the Mississippi River. Today, it is sometimes used to refer mainly to the Pacific coast. But whatever its geo- graphic locale, the West has been as much an idea as a place— an area beyond the frontier of settlement that promised newcomers new kinds of freedom, sometimes at the expense of the freedom of others, such as native inhabitants and migrant laborers. In this edition we follow Americans as they constructed their Wests, and debated the kinds of freedom they would enjoy there.
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xvi ★
Borderlands is a more complex idea that has influenced much recent histor- ical scholarship. Borders are lines dividing one country, region, or state from another. Crossing them often means becoming subject to different laws and customs, and enjoying different degrees of freedom. Borderlands are regions that exist on both sides of borders. They are fluid areas where people of differ- ent cultural and social backgrounds converge. At various points in American history, shifting borders have opened new opportunities and closed off others in the borderlands. Families living for decades or centuries in a region have suddenly found themselves divided by a newly created border but still living in a borderland that transcends the new division. This happened to Mexicans in modern- day California, Arizona, and New Mexico, for example, in 1848, when the treaty ending the Mexican- American War transferred the land that would become those states from Mexico to the United States.
Borderlands exist within the United States as well as at the boundaries with other countries. For example, in the period before the Civil War, the region straddling the Ohio River contained cultural commonalities that in some ways overrode the division there between free and slave states. The borderlands idea also challenges simple accounts of national development in which empires and colonies pave the way for territorial expansion and a future transcontinental nation. It enables us, for example, to move beyond the catego- ries of conquest and subjugation in understanding how Native Americans and Europeans interacted over the early centuries of contact. This approach also provides a way of understanding how the people of Mexico and the United States interact today in the borderland region of the American Southwest, where many families have members on both sides of the boundary between the two countries.
Small changes relating to these themes may be found throughout the book. The major additions seeking to illuminate the history of the West and of borderlands are as follows:
Chapter 1 now introduces the idea of borderlands with a discussion of the areas where European empires and Indian groups interacted and where authority was fluid and fragile. Chapter 4 contains expanded treatment of the part of the Spanish empire now comprising the borderlands United States (Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida) and how Spain endea- vored, with limited success, to consolidate its authority in these regions. In Chapter 6, a new subsection, “The American Revolution as a Borderlands Con- flict,” examines the impact on both Americans and Canadians of the creation, because of American independence, of a new national boundary separating what once had been two parts of the British empire. Chapter 8 continues this theme with a discussion of the borderlands aspects of the War of 1812. Chap- ter 9 discusses how a common culture came into being along the Ohio River
PREFACE ★ xvii
xviii ★ PREFACE
in the early nineteenth century despite the existence of slavery on one side and free labor on the other. Chapter 13 expands the treatment of Texan inde- pendence from Mexico by discussing its impact on both Anglo and Mexican residents of this borderland region. Chapter 14 contains a new examination of the Civil War in the American West.
In Chapter 16, I have expanded the section on the industrial west with new discussions of logging and mining, and added a new subsection on the dis- semination of a mythical image of the Wild West in the late nineteenth cen- tury. Chapter 17 contains an expanded discussion of Chinese immigrants in the West and the battle over exclusion and citizenship, a debate that centered on what kind of population should be allowed to inhabit the West and enjoy the opportunities the region offered. Chapter 18 examines Progressivism, countering conventional narratives that emphasize the origins of Progressive political reforms in eastern cities by relating how many, from woman suffrage to the initiative, referendum, and recall, emerged in Oregon, California, and other western states. Chapter 20 expands the treatment of western agriculture in the 1920s by highlighting the acceleration of agricultural mechanization in the region and the agricultural depression that preceded the general eco- nomic collapse of 1929 and after. In Chapter 22 we see the new employment opportunities for Mexican- American women in the war production factories that opened in the West. In Chapter 26, there is a new subsection on con- servatism in the West and the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s. Chapter 27 returns to the borderlands theme by discussing the consequences of the creation, in the 1990s, of a free trade zone connecting the two sides of the Mexican- American border. And Chapters 27 and 28 now include expanded discussions of the southwestern borderland as a site of an acrimonious battle over immigration— legal and undocumented— involving the federal and state governments, private vigilantes, and continuing waves of people trying to cross into the United States. The contested borderland now extends many miles into the United States north of the boundary between the two nations, and southward well into Mexico and even Central America.
I have also added a number of new selections to Voices of Freedom, the paired excerpts from primary documents in each chapter. Some of the new documents reflect the stronger emphasis on the West and borderlands; oth- ers seek to sharpen the juxtaposition of divergent concepts of freedom at par- ticular moments in American history. And this edition contains many new images— paintings, broadsides, photographs, and others— related to these themes, brought to life in a vibrant, full- color design.
Americans have always had a divided attitude toward history. On the one hand, they tend to be remarkably future- oriented, dismissing events of even
PREFACE ★ xix
the recent past as “ancient history” and sometimes seeing history as a burden to be overcome, a prison from which to escape. On the other hand, like many other peoples, Americans have always looked to history for a sense of personal or group identity and of national cohesiveness. This is why so many Americans devote time and energy to tracing their family trees and why they visit histori- cal museums and National Park Service historical sites in ever- increasing num- bers. My hope is that this book will convince readers with all degrees of interest that history does matter to them.
The novelist and essayist James Baldwin once observed that history “does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, [that] history is literally present in all that we do.” As Baldwin recognized, the force of history is evident in our own world. Especially in a political democracy like the United States, whose government is designed to rest on the consent of informed cit- izens, knowledge of the past is essential— not only for those of us whose pro- fession is the teaching and writing of history, but for everyone. History, to be sure, does not offer simple lessons or immediate answers to current questions. Knowing the history of immigration to the United States, and all of the ten- sions, turmoil, and aspirations associated with it, for example, does not tell us what current immigration policy ought to be. But without that knowledge, we have no way of understanding which approaches have worked and which have not— essential information for the formulation of future public policy.
History, it has been said, is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of interpretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is constantly changing. There is nothing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among themselves on basic ques- tions like the causes of the Civil War or the reasons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each generation asks different questions of the past, each generation formulates different answers. The past thirty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of the scope of historical study. The experiences of groups neglected by earlier scholars, including women, African- Americans, working people, and others, have received unprecedented attention from his- torians. New subfields— social history, cultural history, and family history among them— have taken their place alongside traditional political and dip- lomatic history.
Give Me Liberty! draws on this voluminous historical literature to pres- ent an up- to- date and inclusive account of the American past, paying due attention to the experience of diverse groups of Americans while in no way neglecting the events and processes Americans have experienced in common. It devotes serious attention to political, social, cultural, and economic history,
xx ★ PREFACE
and to their interconnections. The narrative brings together major events and prominent leaders with the many groups of ordinary people who make up American society. Give Me Liberty! has a rich cast of characters, from Thomas Jefferson to campaigners for woman suffrage, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to former slaves seeking to breathe meaning into emancipation during and after the Civil War.
Aimed at an audience of undergraduate students with little or no detailed knowledge of American history, Give Me Liberty! guides readers through the complexities of the subject without overwhelming them with excessive detail. The unifying theme of freedom that runs through the text gives shape to the narrative and integrates the numerous strands that make up the Amer- ican experience. This approach builds on that of my earlier book, The Story of American Freedom (1998), although Give Me Liberty! places events and personal- ities in the foreground and is more geared to the structure of the introductory survey course.
Freedom, and the battles to define its meaning, have long been central to my own scholarship and undergraduate teaching, which focuses on the nineteenth century and especially the era of the Civil War and Reconstruc- tion (1850–1877). This was a time when the future of slavery tore the nation apart and emancipation produced a national debate over what rights the for- mer slaves, and all Americans, should enjoy as free citizens. I have found that attention to clashing definitions of freedom and the struggles of different groups to achieve freedom as they understood it offers a way of making sense of the bitter battles and vast transformations of that pivotal era. I believe that the same is true for American history as a whole.
No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individ- uals and as a nation than freedom. The central term in our political language, freedom— or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably— is deeply embedded in the record of our history and the language of everyday life. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind’s inal- ienable rights; the Constitution announces its purpose as securing liberty’s blessings. The United States fought the Civil War to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the Four Freedoms, and the Cold War to defend the Free World. Americans’ love of liberty has been represented by liberty poles, liberty caps, and statues of liberty, and acted out by burning stamps and burn- ing draft cards, by running away from slavery, and by demonstrating for the right to vote. “Every man in the street, white, black, red, or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the cradle of liberty.’”
The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be misleading. Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging definition.
PREFACE ★ xxi
Indeed, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disa- greements, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So too have demands by various groups of Americans to enjoy greater freedom. The meaning of freedom has been constructed not only in congressional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and even bedrooms.
Over the course of our history, American freedom has been both a reality and a mythic ideal— a living truth for millions of Americans, a cruel mockery for others. For some, freedom has been what some scholars call a “habit of the heart,” an ideal so taken for granted that it is lived out but rarely analyzed. For others, freedom is not a birthright but a distant goal that has inspired great sacrifice.
Give Me Liberty! draws attention to three dimensions of freedom that have been critical in American history: (1) the meanings of freedom; (2) the social conditions that make freedom possible; and (3) the boundaries of freedom that determine who is entitled to enjoy freedom and who is not. All have changed over time.
In the era of the American Revolution, for example, freedom was primar- ily a set of rights enjoyed in public activity— the right of a community to be governed by laws to which its representatives had consented and of individu- als to engage in religious worship without governmental interference. In the nineteenth century, freedom came to be closely identified with each person’s opportunity to develop to the fullest his or her innate talents. In the twenti- eth, the “ability to choose,” in both public and private life, became perhaps the dominant understanding of freedom. This development was encouraged by the explosive growth of the consumer marketplace (a development that receives considerable attention in Give Me Liberty!), which offered Americans an unprecedented array of goods with which to satisfy their needs and desires. During the 1960s, a crucial chapter in the history of American freedom, the idea of personal freedom was extended into virtually every realm, from attire and “lifestyle” to relations between the sexes. Thus, over time, more and more areas of life have been drawn into Americans’ debates about the mean- ing of freedom.
A second important dimension of freedom focuses on the social conditions necessary to allow freedom to flourish. What kinds of economic institutions and relationships best encourage individual freedom? In the colonial era and for more than a century after independence, the answer centered on economic autonomy, enshrined in the glorification of the independent small producer— the farmer, skilled craftsman, or shopkeeper— who did not have to depend on another person for his livelihood. As the industrial economy matured, new
xxii ★ PREFACE
conceptions of economic freedom came to the fore: “liberty of contract” in the Gilded Age, “industrial freedom” (a say in corporate decision- making) in the Progressive era, economic security during the New Deal, and, more recently, the ability to enjoy mass consumption within a market economy.
The boundaries of freedom, the third dimension of this theme, have inspired some of the most intense struggles in American history. Although founded on the premise that liberty is an entitlement of all humanity, the United States for much of its history deprived many of its own people of free- dom. Non- whites have rarely enjoyed the same access to freedom as white Americans. The belief in equal opportunity as the birthright of all Americans has coexisted with persistent efforts to limit freedom by race, gender, and class and in other ways.
Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that one person’s freedom has frequently been linked to another’s servitude. In the colonial era and nineteenth century, expanding freedom for many Americans rested on the lack of freedom— slavery, indentured servitude, the subordinate position of women— for others. By the same token, it has been through battles at the boundaries— the efforts of racial minorities, women, and others to secure greater freedom— that the meaning and experience of freedom have been deepened and the concept extended into new realms.
Time and again in American history, freedom has been transformed by the demands of excluded groups for inclusion. The idea of freedom as a uni- versal birthright owes much both to abolitionists who sought to extend the blessings of liberty to blacks and to immigrant groups who insisted on full recognition as American citizens. The principle of equal protection of the law without regard to race, which became a central element of American freedom, arose from the antislavery struggle and the Civil War and was reinvigorated by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, which called itself the “freedom movement.” The battle for the right of free speech by labor radicals and birth- control advocates in the first part of the twentieth century helped to make civil liberties an essential element of freedom for all Americans.
Although concentrating on events within the United States, Give Me Lib- erty! also situates American history in the context of developments in other parts of the world. Many of the forces that shaped American history, including the international migration of peoples, the development of slavery, the spread of democracy, and the expansion of capitalism, were worldwide processes not confined to the United States. Today, American ideas, culture, and economic and military power exert unprecedented influence throughout the world. But beginning with the earliest days of settlement, when European empires com- peted to colonize North America and enrich themselves from its trade, Ameri- can history cannot be understood in isolation from its global setting.
Freedom is the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations. At var- ious times in our history, it has served as the rallying cry of the powerless and as a justification of the status quo. Freedom helps to bind our culture together and exposes the contradictions between what America claims to be and what it sometimes has been. American history is not a narrative of continual pro- gress toward greater and greater freedom. As the abolitionist Thomas Went- worth Higginson noted after the Civil War, “revolutions may go backward.” Though freedom can be achieved, it may also be taken away. This happened, for example, when the equal rights granted to former slaves immediately after the Civil War were essentially nullified during the era of segregation. As was said in the eighteenth century, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
In the early twenty- first century, freedom continues to play a central role in American political and social life and thought. It is invoked by individuals and groups of all kinds, from critics of economic globalization to those who seek to secure American freedom at home and export it abroad. I hope that Give Me Liberty! will offer beginning students a clear account of the course of American history, and of its central theme, freedom, which today remains as varied, contentious, and ever- changing as America itself.
A C K N O W L E D G M E N TS
All works of history are, to a considerable extent, collaborative books, in that every writer builds on the research and writing of previous scholars. This is especially true of a textbook that covers the entire American experience, over more than five centuries. My greatest debt is to the innumerable historians on whose work I have drawn in preparing this volume. The Suggested Reading list at the end of the book offers only a brief introduction to the vast body of histor- ical scholarship that has influenced and informed this book. More specifically, however, I wish to thank the following scholars, who generously read portions of this work and offered valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions:
Joel Benson, Northwest Missouri State University Lori Bramson, Clark College Tonia Compton, Columbia College Adam Costanzo, Texas A&M University Carl Creasman Jr., Valencia College Blake Ellis, Lone Star College– CyFair Carla Falkner, Northeast Mississippi Community College Van Forsyth, Clark College
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ★ xxiii
xxiv ★ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis Michael Harkins, Harper College Sandra Harvey, Lone Star College– CyFair Robert Hines, Palo Alto College Traci Hodgson, Chemeketa Community College Tamora Hoskisson, Salt Lake Community College William Jackson, Salt Lake Community College Alfred H. Jones, State College of Florida David Kiracofe, Tidewater Community College Brad Lookingbill, Columbia College Jennifer Macias, Salt Lake Community College Thomas Massey, Cape Fear Community College Derek Maxfield, Genesee Community College Marianne McKnight, Salt Lake Community College Jonson Miller, Drexel University Ted Moore, Salt Lake Community College Robert Pierce, Foothills College Ernst Pinjing, Minot State University Harvey N. Plaunt, El Paso Community College Steve Porter, University of Cincinnati John Putman, San Diego State University R. Lynn Rainard, Tidewater Community College Nicole Ribianszky, Georgia Gwinnett College Nancy Marie Robertson, Indiana University— Purdue University Indianapolis John Shaw, Portland Community College Danielle Swiontek, Santa Barbara Community College Richard Trimble, Ocean County College Alan Vangroll, Central Texas College Eddie Weller, San Jacinto College Andrew Wiese, San Diego State University Matthew Zembo, Hudson Valley Community College
I am particularly grateful to my colleagues in the Columbia University Department of History: Pablo Piccato, for his advice on Latin American his- tory; Evan Haefeli and Ellen Baker, who read and made many suggestions for improvements in their areas of expertise (colonial America and the history of the West, respectively); and Sarah Phillips, who offered advice on treating the history of the environment.
I am also deeply indebted to the graduate students at Columbia University’s Department of History who helped with this project. For this edition, Michael
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ★ xxv
“Mookie” Kidackel offered invaluable assistance in gathering material related to borderlands and Western history. For previous editions, Theresa Ventura assisted in locating material for new sections placing American history in a global context, April Holm did the same for new coverage of the history of American religion and debates over religious freedom, James Delbourgo con- ducted research for the chapters on the colonial era, and Beverly Gage did the same for the twentieth century. In addition, Daniel Freund provided all- around research assistance. Victoria Cain did a superb job of locating images. I also want to thank my colleagues Elizabeth Blackmar and Alan Brink ley for offer- ing advice and encouragement throughout the writing of this book. I am also grateful to students who, while using the textbook, pointed out to me errors or omissions that I have corrected in this edition: Jordan Farr, Chris Jendry, Rafi Metz, Samuel Phillips- Cooper, Richard Sereyko, and David Whittle.
Many thanks to Joshua Brown, director of the American Social History Project, whose website, History Matters, lists innumerable online resources for the study of American history. Thanks also to the instructors who helped build our robust digital resource and ancillary package. The new InQuizitive for History was developed by Tonia M. Compton (Columbia College), Matt Zembo (Hudson Valley Community College), Jodie Steeley (Merced Commu- nity College District), Bill Polasky (Stillman Valley High School), and Ken Adler (Spring Valley High School). Our new History Skills Tutorials were created by Geri Hastings. The Coursepack was thoroughly updated by Beth Hunter (University of Alabama at Birmingham). Allison Faber (Texas A&M University) and Ben Williams (Texas A&M University) revised the Lecture PowerPoint slides. And our Test Bank and Instructor’s Manual were revised to include new questions authored by Robert O’Brien (Lone Star College– CyFair and Tamora M. Hoskisson (Salt Lake Community College).
At W. W. Norton & Company, Steve Forman was an ideal editor— patient, encouraging, and always ready to offer sage advice. I would also like to thank Steve’s editorial assistants, Travis Carr and Kelly Rafey, and associate edi- tor, Scott Sugarman, for their indispensable and always cheerful help on all aspects of the project; Ellen Lohman and Bob Byrne for their careful copy- editing and proofreading work; Stephanie Romeo and Fay Torresyap for their resourceful attention to the illustrations program; Hope Miller Goodell and Chin- Yee Lai for their refinements of the book design; Leah Clark, Tiani Ken- nedy, and Debra Morton- Hoyt for splendid work on the covers for the Fifth Edi- tion; Jennifer Barnhardt for keeping the many threads of the project aligned and then tying them together; Sean Mintus for his efficiency and care in book production; Laura Wilk for orchestrating the rich media package that accom- panies the textbook; Jessica Brannon- Wranowsky for the terrific new web
xxvi ★ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
quizzes and outlines; Sarah England Bartley, Steve Dunn, and Mike Wright for their alert reads of the U.S. survey market and their hard work in helping establish Give Me Liberty! within it; and Drake McFeely, Roby Harrington, and Julia Reidhead for maintaining Norton as an independent, employee- owned publisher dedicated to excellence in its work.
Many students may have heard stories of how publishing companies alter the language and content of textbooks in an attempt to maximize sales and avoid alienating any potential reader. In this case, I can honestly say that W. W. Norton allowed me a free hand in writing the book and, apart from the usual editorial corrections, did not try to influence its content at all. For this I thank them, while I accept full responsibility for the interpretations pre- sented and for any errors the book may contain. Since no book of this length can be entirely free of mistakes, I welcome readers to send me corrections at [email protected].
My greatest debt, as always, is to my family— my wife, Lynn Garafola, for her good- natured support while I was preoccupied by a project that con- sumed more than its fair share of my time and energy, and my daughter, Daria, who while a ninth and tenth grader read every chapter as it was written and offered invaluable suggestions about improving the book’s clarity, logic, and grammar.
Eric Foner New York City July 2016
W. W. Norton offers a robust digital package to support teaching and learning with Give Me Liberty! These resources are designed to make students more effec- tive textbook readers, while at the same time developing their critical thinking and history skills.
R E S O U R C E S F O R S T U D E N T S All resources are available through digital.wwnorton.com/givemeliberty5sv2 with the access card at the front of this text.
N O RTO N I N Q U I Z I T I V E F O R H I STO R Y Norton InQuizitive for history is an adaptive quizzing tool that improves stu- dents’ understanding of the themes and objectives from each chapter, while honing their critical- analysis skills with primary source, image, and map anal- ysis questions. Students receive personalized quiz questions with detailed, guiding feedback on the topics in which they need the most help, while the engaging, gamelike elements motivate them as they learn.
G I V E M E L I B E R T Y ! D I G I TA L R E S O U R C E S F O R S T U D E N T S
A N D I N S T R U C T O R S
★★
H I STO R Y S K I L L S T U TO R I A L S The History Skills Tutorials feature three modules— Images, Documents, and Maps— to support students’ development of the key skills needed for the his- tory course. These tutorials feature videos of Eric Foner modeling the analysis process, followed by interactive questions that will challenge students to apply what they have learned.
ST U D E N T S I T E The free and easy- to- use Student Site offers additional resources for students to use outside of class. Resources include interactive iMaps from each chapter, author videos, and a comprehensive Online Reader with a collection of histori-
cal longer works, primary sources, novellas, and biographies.
E B O O K Free and included with new cop- ies of the text, the Norton Ebook Reader provides an enhanced reading experience that works on all computers and mobile devices.
Features include intuitive highlighting, note- taking, and bookmarking as well as pop- up definitions and enlargeable maps and art. Direct links to InQuizitive also appear in each chapter. Instructors can focus student reading by sharing notes with their classes, including embedded images and video. Reports on student and class- wide access and time on task allow instructors to monitor student reading and engagement.
R E S O U R C E S F O R I N S T R U C T O R S All resources are available through www.wwnorton.com/instructors.
N O RTO N C O U R S E PA C KS Easily add high- quality digital media to your online, hybrid, or lecture course— all at no cost to students. Norton’s Coursepacks work within your existing Learning Management System and are ready to use and easy to customize. The coursepack offers a diverse collection of assignable and assessable resources: Primary Source Exercises, Guided Reading Exercises, Review Quizzes, U.S. History Tours powered by Google Earth, Flashcards, Map Exercises, and all of the resources from the Student Site.
N O RTO N A M E R I C A N H I STO R Y D I G I TA L A R C H I V E The Digital Archive offers roughly 2,000 additional primary source images, audio, and video files spanning American history that can be used in assign- ments and lecture presentations.
T E ST B A N K The Test Bank is authored by Rob- ert O’Brien, Lone Star College– CyFair, and Tamora M. Hoskisson, Salt Lake City Community Col- lege, and contains more than 4,000 multiple- choice, true/false, short- answer, and essay questions.
I N ST R U CTO R ’ S M A N U A L The Instructor’s Manual contains detailed Chapter Summaries, Chapter Out- lines, Suggested Discussion Questions, and Supplemental Web, Visual, and Print Resources.
L E CT U R E A N D A RT P O W E R P O I N T S L I D E S The Lecture PowerPoint sets authored by Allison Faber, Texas A&M University, and Ben Williams, Texas A&M University, combine chapter review, art, and maps.
★ A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y ★
G I V E M E L I B E RT Y !
★ A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y ★
SEAGULL FIFTH EDITION
Volume 2: From 1865
“ W H A T I S F R E E D O M ? ” :
R E C O N S T R U C T I O N
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F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the
postwar South?
• What were the sources, goals, and competing visions for Reconstruction?
• What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the South?
• What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?
On the evening of January 12, 1865, less than a month after Union forces captured Savannah, Georgia, twenty leaders of the city’s black com-munity gathered for a discussion with General William T. Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Mostly Baptist and Methodist minis- ters, the group included several men who within a few years would assume prominent positions during the era of Reconstruction that followed the Civil War. Ulysses S. Houston, pastor of the city’s Third African Baptist Church, and James Porter, an episcopal religious leader who had operated a secret school for black children before the war, in a few years would win election to the Georgia
564 ★
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1865 Special Field Order 15
Freedmen’s Bureau established
Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president
1865– Presidential Reconstruction 1867 Black Codes
1866 Civil Rights Bill
Ku Klux Klan established
1867 Reconstruction Act of 1867
Tenure of Office Act
1867– Radical Reconstruction 1877 of 1867
1868 Impeachment and trial of President Johnson
Fourteenth Amendment ratified
1869 Inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant
Women’s rights organization splits into two groups
1870 Hiram Revels, first black U.S. senator
Fifteenth Amendment ratified
1870– Enforcement Acts 1871
1872 Liberal Republicans established
1873 Colfax Massacre
Slaughterhouse Cases
National economic depression begins
1876 United States v. Cruikshank
1877 Bargain of 1877
• •
legislature. James D. Lynch, who had been born free in Baltimore and educated in New Hampshire, went on to serve as secretary of state of Mississippi.
The conversation revealed that the black leaders brought out of slavery a clear defini- tion of freedom. Asked what he understood by slavery, Garrison Frazier, a Baptist minister chosen as the group’s spokesman, responded that it meant one person’s “receiving by irre- sistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.” Freedom he defined as “placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, and take care of ourselves.” The way to accomplish this was “to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor.” Frazier in- sisted that blacks possessed “sufficient intelli- gence” to maintain themselves in freedom and enjoy the equal protection of the laws.
Sherman’s meeting with the black leaders foreshadowed some of the radical changes that would take place during the era known as Reconstruction (meaning, literally, the re- building of the shattered nation). In the years following the Civil War, former slaves and their white allies, North and South, would seek to redefine the meaning and bound- aries of American freedom. Previously an entitlement of whites, freedom would be expanded to include black Americans. The laws and Constitution would be rewritten to guarantee African- Americans, for the first time in the nation’s history, recognition as citizens and equality before the law. Black men would be granted the right to vote, ushering in a period of interracial democ- racy throughout the South. Black schools, churches, and other institutions would flour- ish, laying the foundation for the modern African- American community. Many of the advances of Reconstruction would prove
“WHAT IS FREEDOM?”: RECONSTRUCTION ★ 565
566 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
temporary, swept away during a campaign of violence in the South and the North’s retreat from the ideal of equality. But Reconstruction laid the founda- tion for future struggles to extend freedom to all Americans.
All this, however, lay in the future in January 1865. Four days after the meet- ing, Sherman responded to the black delegation by issuing Special Field Order 15. This set aside the Sea Islands and a large area along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts for the settlement of black families on forty- acre plots of land. He also offered them broken- down mules that the army could no longer use. In Sherman’s order lay the origins of the phrase “forty acres and a mule,” that would reverberate across the South in the next few years. By June, some 40,000 freed slaves had been settled on “Sherman land.” Among the emancipated slaves, Sherman’s order raised hopes that the end of slavery would be accompa- nied by the economic independence that they, like other Americans, believed essential to genuine freedom.
T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M With the end of the Civil War, declared an Illinois congressman in 1865, the United States was a “new nation,” for the first time “wholly free.” The destruc- tion of slavery, however, made the definition of freedom the central question on the nation’s agenda. “What is freedom?” asked Congressman James A. Garfield in 1865. “Is it the bare privilege of not being chained? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion.” Did freedom mean simply the absence of slavery, or did it imply other rights for the former slaves, and if so, which ones: equal civil rights, the vote, ownership of property? During Reconstruc- tion, freedom became a terrain of conflict, its substance open to different, often contradictory interpretations. Out of the conflict over the meaning of freedom arose new kinds of relations between black and white southerners, and a new definition of the rights of all Americans.
Blacks and the Meaning of Freedom
African- Americans’ understanding of freedom was shaped by their experiences as slaves and their observation of the free society around them. To begin with, freedom meant escaping the numerous injustices of slavery— punishment by the lash, the separation of families, denial of access to education, the sexual exploitation of black women by their owners— and sharing in the rights and opportunities of American citizens. “If I cannot do like a white man,” Henry Adams, an emancipated slave in Louisiana, told his former master in 1865, “I am not free.”
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM ★ 567
Blacks relished the opportunity to demonstrate their liberation from the regulations, significant and trivial, associated with slavery. They openly held mass meetings and religious ser- vices free of white supervision, and they acquired dogs, guns, and liquor, all barred to them under slavery. No longer required to obtain a pass from their owners to travel, former slaves throughout the South left the planta- tions in search of better jobs, family members, or simply a taste of personal liberty. Many moved to southern towns and cities, where, it seemed, “freedom was free- er.”
Families in Freedom
With slavery dead, institutions that had existed before the war, like the black family, free blacks’ churches and schools, and the secret slave church, were strengthened, expanded, and freed from white supervision. The family was central to the postemancipation black community. Former slaves made remarkable efforts to locate loved ones from whom they had been separated under slavery. One northern reporter in 1865 encountered a freedman who had walked more than 600 miles from Georgia to North Carolina, searching for the wife and children from whom he had been sold away before the war. Meanwhile, widows of black soldiers successfully claimed survivors’ pensions, forcing the federal government to acknowledge the validity of prewar relation- ships that slavery had attempted to deny.
But while Reconstruction witnessed the stabilization of family life, free- dom subtly altered relationships within the family. Emancipation increased the power of black men and brought to many black families the nineteenth- century notion that men and women should inhabit separate “spheres.” Immediately after the Civil War, planters complained that freedwomen had “withdrawn” from field labor and work as house servants. Many black women preferred to devote more time to their families than had been possible under slavery, and men considered it a badge of honor to see their wives remain at home. Eventually, the dire poverty of the black community would compel a
What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?
Family Record, a lithograph marketed to former slaves after the Civil War, is an idealized portrait of a middle- class black family, with scenes of slavery and freedom.
568 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
far higher proportion of black women than white women to go to work for wages.
Church and School
At the same time, blacks abandoned white- controlled religious institutions to create churches of their own. On the eve of the Civil War, 42,000 black Method- ists worshiped in biracial South Carolina churches; by the end of Reconstruction, only 600 remained. The rise of the independent black church, with Methodists and Baptists commanding the largest followings, redrew the religious map of the South. As the major institution independent of white control, the church played a central role in the black community. A place of worship, it also housed schools, social events, and political gatherings. Black ministers came to play a major role in politics. Some 250 held public office during Reconstruction.
Another striking example of the freedpeople’s quest for individual and com- munity improvement was their desire for education. Education, declared a Mis- sissippi freedman, was “the next best thing to liberty.” The thirst for learning sprang from many sources— a desire to read the Bible, the need to prepare for the economic marketplace, and the opportunity, which arose in 1867, to take part in politics. Blacks of all ages flocked to the schools established by north- ern missionary societies, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and groups of ex- slaves them- selves. Northern journalist Sidney Andrews, who toured the South in 1865, was impressed by how much education also took place outside of the classroom: “I had occasion very frequently to notice that porters in stores and laboring men in warehouses, and cart drivers on the streets, had spelling books with them, and were studying them during the time they were not occupied with their work.” Reconstruction also witnessed the creation of the nation’s first black colleges, including Fisk University in Tennessee, Hampton Institute in Virginia, and How- ard University in the nation’s capital.
Political Freedom
In a society that had made political participation a core element of freedom, the right to vote inevitably became central to the former slaves’ desire for empow- erment and equality. As Frederick Douglass put it soon after the South’s surren- der in 1865, “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” In a “monarchial government,” Douglass explained, no “special” disgrace applied to those denied the right to vote. But in a democracy, “where universal suffrage is the rule,” excluding any group meant branding them with “the stigma of infe- riority.” As soon as the Civil War ended, and in some parts of the South even earlier, free blacks and emancipated slaves claimed a place in the public sphere.
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM ★ 569
They came together in conventions, parades, and petition drives to demand the right to vote and, on occasion, to organize their own “freedom ballots.”
Anything less than full citizenship, black spokesmen insisted, would betray the nation’s democratic promise and the war’s meaning. Speakers at black conventions reminded the nation of Crispus Attucks, who fell at the Boston Massacre, and of black soldiers’ contribution to the War of 1812 and during “the bloody struggle through which we have just passed.” To demonstrate their patriot ism, blacks throughout the South organized Fourth of July celebrations. For years after the Civil War, white southerners would “shut themselves within doors” on Independence Day, as a white resident of Charleston recorded in her diary, while former slaves commemorated the holiday themselves.
Land, Labor, and Freedom
Former slaves’ ideas of freedom, like those of rural people throughout the world, were directly related to landownership. Only land, wrote Merrimon Howard, a freedman from Mississippi, would enable “the poor class to enjoy the sweet boon of freedom.” On the land they would develop independent communities free of white control. Many former slaves insisted that through their unpaid labor, they had acquired a right to the land. “The property which they hold,” declared an Alabama black convention, “was nearly all earned by the sweat of our brows.” In some parts of the South, blacks in 1865 seized property, insisting that it belonged to them. On one Tennessee plantation, former slaves claimed to be “joint heirs” to the estate and, the owner complained, took up residence “in the rooms of my house.”
In its individual elements and much of its language, former slaves’ defini- tion of freedom resembled that of white Americans— self- ownership, family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic autonomy. But these elements combined to form a vision very much their own. For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For African- Americans, it was an open- ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place. Although the freedpeople failed to achieve full freedom as they understood it, their definition did much to shape national debate during the turbulent era of Reconstruction.
Masters without Slaves
Most white southerners reacted to military defeat and emancipation with dis- may, not only because of the widespread devastation but also because they must now submit to northern demands. “The demoralization is complete,” wrote a
What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?
570 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
Georgia girl. “We are whipped, there is no doubt about it.” The appalling loss of life, a disaster without parallel in the American experience, affected all classes of southerners. Nearly 260,000 men died for the Confederacy— more than one- fifth of the South’s adult male white population. The wholesale destruction of work animals, farm buildings, and machinery ensured that economic revival would be slow and painful. In 1870, the value of property in the South, not counting that represented by slaves, was 30 percent lower than before the war.
Planter families faced profound changes in the war’s aftermath. Many lost not only their slaves but also their life savings, which they had patriotically invested in now- worthless Confederate bonds. Some, whose slaves departed the plantation, for the first time found themselves compelled to do physical labor. General Braxton Bragg returned to his “once prosperous” Alabama home to find “all, all was lost, except my debts.” Bragg and his wife, a woman “raised in affluence,” lived for a time in a slave cabin.
Gin House
Slave Quarters
Gin House
Cane Pope
Nancy Pope
Jim ReidJoe Bug Frank Maxey
Lizzie Dalton
Sabrina Dalton
Tom Wright Ben Thomas
Lem Bryant
Willis Bryant
Gus Barrow
Lewis Watson Reuben Barrow
Peter Barrow
Omy Barrow
Milly Barrow
Church School
"Granny"
Landlord’s House
Handy Barrow Old Isaac
Calvin ParkerTom Tang
Beckton Barrow
Lem Douglas
Tom ThomasMaster'sHouse
Wright's Branch
Branch Cre
ek
Sy ll's F
ork
Wright's Branch
Bran ch C
reek
Sy ll's F
ork
Li ttl
e R iv
er
Li ttl
e R iv
er
18811860
T H E B A R R O W P L A N TAT I O N
Two maps of the Barrow plantation illustrate the effects of emancipation on rural life in the South. In 1860, slaves lived in communal quarters near the owner’s house. Twenty-one years later, former slaves working as sharecroppers lived scattered across the plantation and had their own church and school.
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM ★ 571
Southern planters sought to implement an understanding of freedom quite different from that of the former slaves. As they struggled to accept the reality of emancipation, most planters defined black freedom in the narrowest manner. As journalist Sidney Andrews discovered late in 1865, “The whites seem wholly unable to comprehend that freedom for the negro means the same thing as free- dom for them. They readily enough admit that the government has made him free, but appear to believe that they have the right to exercise the same old control.” Southern leaders sought to revive the antebellum definition of freedom as if noth- ing had changed. Freedom still meant hierarchy and mastery; it was a privilege not a right, a carefully defined legal status rather than an open- ended entitlement. Certainly, it implied neither economic autonomy nor civil and political equality. “A man may be free and yet not independent,” Mississippi planter Samuel Agnew observed in his diary in 1865. A Kentucky newspaper summed up the stance of much of the white South: the former slave was “free, but free only to labor.”
The Free Labor Vision
Along with former slaves and former masters, the victorious Republican North tried to implement its own vision of freedom. Central to its definition was the antebellum principle of free labor, now further strengthened as a defi- nition of the good society by the Union’s triumph. In the free labor vision of a reconstructed South, emancipated blacks, enjoying the same opportunities for advancement as northern workers, would labor more productively than they had as slaves. At the same time, northern capital and migrants would energize the economy. The South would eventually come to resemble the “free society” of the North, complete with public schools, small towns, and independent farmers. Unified on the basis of free labor, proclaimed Carl Schurz, a refugee from the failed German revolution of 1848 who rose to become a leader of the Republican Party, America would become “a republic, greater, more popu- lous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful” than any in history.
With planters seeking to establish a labor system as close to slavery as possible, and former slaves demanding economic autonomy and access to land, a long period of conflict over the organization and control of labor followed on plantations throughout the South. It fell to the Freedmen’s Bureau, an agency established by Congress in March 1865, to attempt to establish a working free labor system.
The Freedmen’s Bureau
Under the direction of O. O. Howard, a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine and a veteran of the Civil War, the Bureau took on responsibilities that can only be described as daunting. The Bureau was an experiment in
What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?
572 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
government social policy that seems to belong more comfortably to the New Deal of the 1930s or the Great Society of the 1960s (see Chapters 21 and 25, respectively) than to nineteenth- century America. Bureau agents were sup- posed to establish schools, provide aid to the poor and aged, settle disputes between whites and blacks and among the freedpeople, and secure for former slaves and white Unionists equal treatment before the courts. “It is not . . . in your power to fulfill one- tenth of the expectations of those who framed the Bureau,” General William T. Sherman wrote to Howard. “I fear you have Her- cules’ task.”
The Bureau lasted from 1865 to 1870. Even at its peak, there were fewer than 1,000 agents in the entire South. Nonetheless, the Bureau’s achievements in some areas, notably education and health care, were striking. While the Bureau did not establish schools itself, it coordinated and helped to finance the activities of northern societies committed to black education. By 1869, nearly 3,000 schools, serving more than 150,000 pupils in the South, reported to the Bureau. Bureau agents also assumed control of hospitals established by the army during the war, and expanded the system into new communities. They provided medical care and drugs to both black and white southerners. In eco- nomic relations, however, the Bureau’s activities proved far more problematic.
Winslow Homer’s 1876 painting The Cotton Pickers, one of a series of studies of rural life in Virginia, portrays two black women as dignified figures, without a trace of the stereotyping so common in the era’s representations of former slaves. The expressions on their faces are ambiguous, perhaps conveying disappointment that eleven years after the end of slavery they are still at work in the fields.
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM ★ 573
The Failure of Land Reform
The idea of free labor, wrote one Bureau agent, was “the noblest principle on earth.” All that was required to harmonize race relations in the South was fair wages, good working conditions, and the opportunity to improve the laborer’s situation in life. But blacks wanted land of their own, not jobs on plantations. One provision of the law establishing the Bureau gave it the authority to divide abandoned and confis- cated land into forty- acre plots for rental and eventual sale to the former slaves.
In the summer of 1865, however, President Andrew Johnson, who had suc- ceeded Lincoln, ordered nearly all land in federal hands returned to its former owners. A series of confrontations followed, notably in South Carolina and Georgia, where the army forcibly evicted blacks who had settled on “Sherman land.” When O. O. Howard, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, traveled to the Sea Islands to inform blacks of the new policy, he was greeted with disbelief and protest. A committee of former slaves drew up petitions to Howard and President Johnson. “We want Homesteads,” they declared, “we were promised Homesteads by the government.” Land, the freedmen insisted, was essential to the meaning of freedom. Without it, they declared, “we have not bettered our condition” from the days of slavery—“you will see, this is not the condition of really free men.”
Because no land distribution took place, the vast majority of rural freed- people remained poor and without property during Reconstruction. They had no alternative but to work on white- owned plantations, often for their former owners. Far from being able to rise in the social scale through hard work, black men were largely confined to farm work, unskilled labor, and service jobs, and black women to positions in private homes as cooks and maids. Their wages remained too low to allow for any accumulation. By the turn of the century, a significant number of southern African- Americans had managed to acquire small parcels of land. But the failure of land reform produced a deep sense of betrayal that survived among the former slaves and their descendants long after the end of Reconstruction. “No sir,” Mary Gaffney, an elderly ex- slave, recalled in the 1930s, “we were not given a thing but freedom.”
Toward a New South
Out of the conflict on the plantations, new systems of labor emerged in the different regions of the South. The task system, under which workers were assigned daily tasks, completion of which ended their responsibilities for that day, survived in the rice kingdom of South Carolina and Georgia. Closely super- vised wage labor predominated on the sugar plantations of southern Louisiana. Sharecropping came to dominate the Cotton Belt and much of the Tobacco Belt of Virginia and North Carolina.
What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?
574 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
Sharecropping initially arose as a compromise between blacks’ desire for land and planters’ demand for labor discipline. The system allowed each black family to rent a part of a plantation, with the crop divided between worker and owner at the end of the year. Sharecropping guaranteed the planters a stable resident labor force. Former slaves preferred it to gang labor because it offered them the prospect of working without day- to- day white supervision. But as the years went on, sharecropping became more and more oppressive. Share- croppers’ economic opportunities were severely limited by a world market in which the price of farm products suffered a prolonged decline.
The White Farmer
The plight of the small farmer was not confined to blacks in the postwar South. Wartime devastation set in motion a train of events that permanently altered the independent way of life of white yeomen, leading to what they considered a loss of freedom. Before the war, most small farmers had concentrated on raising food for their families and grew little cotton. With much of their property destroyed, many yeomen saw their economic condition worsened by successive crop failures after the war. To obtain supplies from merchants, farmers were forced to take up the growing of cotton and pledge a part of the crop as collateral (property the creditor can seize if a debt is not paid). This system became known as the crop lien. Since interest rates were extremely high and the price of cotton fell steadily, many farm- ers found themselves still in debt after marketing their portion of the crop at year’s end. They had no choice but to continue to plant cotton to obtain new loans. By the mid- 1870s, white farmers, who cultivated only 10 percent of the South’s cotton crop in 1860, were growing 40 percent, and many who had owned their land had fallen into dependency as sharecroppers, who now rented land owned by others.
Both black and white farmers found themselves caught in the sharecrop- ping and crop- lien systems. A far higher percentage of black than white farmers in the South rented land rather than owned it. But every census from 1880 to 1940 counted more white than black sharecroppers. The workings of share- cropping and the crop- lien system are illustrated by the case of Matt Brown, a Mississippi farmer who borrowed money each year from a local merchant. He began 1892 with a debt of $226 held over from the previous year. By 1893, although he produced cotton worth $171, Brown’s debt had increased to $402, because he had borrowed $33 for food, $29 for clothing, $173 for supplies, and $112 for other items. Brown never succeeded in getting out of debt. He died in 1905; the last entry under his name in the merchant’s account book is a coffin.
The Urban South
Even as the rural South stagnated economically, southern cities experienced remarkable growth after the Civil War. As railroads penetrated the interior, they
THE MEANING OF FREEDOM ★ 575
TEXAS
ARKANSAS
LOUISIANA
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA
FLORIDA
SOUTH CAROLINA
VIRGINIA
NORTH CAROLINATENNESSEE
Gulf of Mexico
Atla ntic O cea n
0
0
150
150
200 miles
200 kilometers
Percentage of farms sharecropped (by county)
35–80% 26–34% 20–25% 13–19% 0–12%
S H A R E C R O P P I N G I N T H E S O U T H , 1 8 8 0
By 1880, sharecropping had become the dominant form of agricultural labor in large parts of the South. The system involved both white and black farmers.
enabled merchants in market centers like Atlanta to trade directly with the North, bypassing coastal cities that had traditionally monopolized southern commerce. A new urban middle class of merchants, railroad promoters, and bankers reaped the benefits of the spread of cotton production in the postwar South.
Thus, Reconstruction brought about profound changes in the lives of southerners, black and white, rich and poor. In place of the prewar world of master, slave, and self- sufficient yeoman, the postwar South was peopled by new social classes— landowning employers, black and white sharecroppers, cotton- producing white farmers, wage- earning black laborers, and urban entre- preneurs. Each of these groups turned to Reconstruction politics in an attempt to shape to its own advantage the aftermath of emancipation.
Aftermath of Slavery
The United States, of course, was not the only society to confront the problem of the transition from slavery to freedom. Indeed, many parallels exist between the debates during Reconstruction and struggles that followed slavery in other parts
What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865)
In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson ordered land that had been dis- tributed to freed slaves in South Carolina and Georgia returned to its former owners. A committee of freedmen drafted a petition asking for the right to obtain land. John- son did not, however, change his policy.
We the freedmen of Edisto Island, South Carolina, have learned from you through Major General O. O. Howard . . . with deep sorrow and painful hearts of the possibility of [the] government restoring these lands to the former owners. We are well aware of the many perplexing and trying questions that burden your mind, and therefore pray to god (the preserver of all, and who has through our late and beloved President [Lincoln’s] proc- lamation and the war made us a free people) that he may guide you in making your decisions and give you that wisdom that cometh from above to settle these great and important questions for the best interests of the country and the colored race.
Here is where secession was born and nurtured. Here is where we have toiled nearly all our lives as slaves and treated like dumb driven cattle. This is our home, we have made these lands what they were, we are the only true and loyal people that were found in possession of these lands. We have been always ready to strike for liberty and humanity, yea to fight if need be to preserve this glorious Union. Shall not we who are freedmen and have always been true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by others? . . . Are not our rights as a free people and good citizens of these United States to be consid- ered before those who were found in rebellion against this good and just government? . . .
[Are] we who have been abused and oppressed for many long years not to be allowed the privilege of purchasing land but be subject to the will of these large land owners? God forbid. Land monopoly is injurious to the advancement of the course of freedom, and if government does not make some provision by which we as freedmen can obtain a homestead, we have not bettered our condition. . . .
We look to you . . . for protection and equal rights with the privilege of pur- chasing a homestead— a homestead right here in the heart of South Carolina.
From a Sharecropping Contract (1866)
Few former slaves were able to acquire land in the post– Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white- owned land for a share of the crop at the end of the growing season. This contract, typical of thousands of others, originated in Tennessee. The laborers signed with an X, as they were illiterate.
Thomas J. Ross agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation. . . . On the following Rules, Regulations and Remunerations.
576 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
The said Ross agrees to furnish the land to cultivate, and a sufficient number of mules & horses and feed them to make and house said crop and all necessary farming utensils to carry on the same and to give unto said Freedmen whose names appear below one half of all the cotton, corn and wheat that is raised on said place for the year 1866 after all the necessary expenses are deducted out that accrues on said crop. Outside of the Freedmen’s labor in harvesting, carrying to market and selling the same the said Freedmen . . . covenant and agrees to and with said Thomas J. Ross that for and in con- sideration of one half of the crop before mentioned that they will plant, cultivate, and raise under the management control and Superintendence of said Ross, in good faith, a cotton, corn and oat crop under his management for the year 1866. And we the said Freedmen agrees to furnish ourselves & families in provisions, clothing, medicine and medical bills and all, and every kind of other expenses that we may incur on said plan- tation for the year 1866 free of charge to said Ross. Should the said Ross furnish us any of the above supplies or any other kind of expenses, during said year, [we] are to settle and pay him out of the net proceeds of our part of the crop the retail price of the county at time of sale or any price we may agree upon— The said Ross shall keep a regular book account, against each and every one or the head of every family to be adjusted and set- tled at the end of the year.
We furthermore bind ourselves to and with said Ross that we will do good work and labor ten hours a day on an average, winter and summer. . . . We further agree that we will lose all lost time, or pay at the rate of one dollar per day, rainy days excepted. In sickness and women lying in childbed are to lose the time and account for it to the other hands out of his or her part of the crop. . . .
We furthermore bind ourselves that we will obey the orders of said Ross in all things in carrying out and managing said crop for said year and be docked for disobedience. All is responsible for all farming uten- sils that is on hand or may be placed in care of said Freedmen for the year 1866 to said Ross and are also respon- sible to said Ross if we carelessly, mali- ciously maltreat any of his stock for said year to said Ross for damages to be assessed out of our wages.
Samuel (X) Johnson, Thomas (X) Richard, Tinny (X) Fitch, Jessie (X) Simmons, Sophe (X) Pruden, Henry (X) Pruden, Frances (X) Pruden, Elijah (X) Smith
QUESTIONS
1. Why do the black petitioners believe that owning land is essential to the enjoyment of freedom?
2. In what ways does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers?
3. What do these documents suggest about competing definitions of black freedom in the aftermath of slavery?
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 577
578 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
of the Western Hemisphere over the same issues of land, control of labor, and polit- ical power. In every case, former planters (or, in Haiti, where the planter class had been destroyed, the government itself) tried to encourage or require former slaves to go back to work on plantations to grow the same crops as under slavery. Plant- ers elsewhere held the same stereotypical views of black laborers as were voiced by their counterparts in the United States— former slaves were supposedly lazy, were lacking in ambition, and thought that freedom meant an absence of labor.
For their part, former slaves throughout the hemisphere tried to carve out as much independence as possible, both in their daily lives and in their labor. They attempted to reconstruct family life by withdrawing women and children from field labor (in the West Indies, women turned to marketing their families’ crops to earn income). Wherever possible, former slaves acquired land of their own and devoted more time to growing food for their families than to growing crops for the international market. In many places, the plantations either fell to pieces, as in Haiti, or continued operating with a new labor force composed of inden- tured servants from India and China, as in Jamaica, Trinidad, and British Guiana. Southern planters in the United States brought in a few Chinese laborers in an attempt to replace freedmen, but since the federal government opposed such efforts, the Chinese remained only a tiny proportion of the southern workforce.
Chinese laborers at work on a Louisiana plantation during Reconstruction.
THE MAKING OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION ★ 579
But if struggles over land and labor united its postemancipation experience with that of other societies, in one respect the United States was unique. Only in the United States were former slaves, within two years of the end of slav- ery, granted the right to vote and, thus, given a major share of political power. Few anticipated this development when the Civil War ended. It came about as the result of one of the greatest political crises of American history— the battle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction. The struggle resulted in profound changes in the nature of citizenship, the struc- ture of constitutional authority, and the meaning of American freedom.
T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N
Andrew Johnson
To Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, fell the task of overseeing the res- toration of the Union. Born in poverty in North Carolina, as a youth Johnson worked as a tailor’s apprentice. After moving to Tennessee, he achieved success through politics. Beginning as an alderman (a town official), he rose to serve in the state legislature, the U.S. Congress, and for two terms as governor of Tennes- see. Johnson identified himself as the champion of his state’s “honest yeomen” and a foe of large planters, whom he described as a “bloated, corrupted aristoc- racy.” A strong defender of the Union, he became the only senator from a seced- ing state to remain at his post in Washington, D.C., when the Civil War began in 1861. When northern forces occupied Tennessee, Abraham Lincoln named him military governor. In 1864, Republicans nominated him to run for vice presi- dent as a symbol of the party’s hope of extending its organization into the South.
In personality and outlook, Johnson proved unsuited for the responsibili- ties he shouldered after Lincoln’s death. A lonely, stubborn man, he was intoler- ant of criticism and unable to compromise. He lacked Lincoln’s political skills and keen sense of public opinion. A fervent believer in states’ rights, Johnson insisted that since secession was illegal, the southern states had never actually left the Union or surrendered the right to govern their own affairs. Moreover, while Johnson had supported emancipation once Lincoln made it a goal of the war effort, he held deeply racist views. African- Americans, Johnson believed, had no role to play in Reconstruction.
The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction
A little over a month after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and with Congress out of session until December, Johnson in May 1865 outlined his plan for reuniting the nation. He issued a series of proclamations that began the period
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of Presidential Reconstruction (1865–1867). Johnson offered a pardon (which restored political and property rights, except for slaves) to nearly all white southerners who took an oath of allegiance to the Union. He excluded Con- federate leaders and wealthy planters whose prewar property had been valued at more than $20,000. This exemption suggested at first that Johnson planned a more punitive Reconstruction than Lincoln had intended. Most of those exempted, however, soon received individual pardons from the president. Johnson also appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions, elected by whites alone, that would establish loyal governments in the South. Apart from the requirement that they abolish slavery, repudiate secession, and refuse to pay the Confederate debt— all unavoidable conse- quences of southern defeat— he granted the new governments a free hand in managing local affairs.
At first, most northerners believed Johnson’s policy deserved a chance to succeed. The conduct of the southern governments elected under his program, however, turned most of the Republican North against the president. By and large, white voters returned prominent Confederates and members of the old elite to power. Reports of violence directed against former slaves and northern visitors in the South further alarmed Republicans.
The Black Codes
But what aroused the most opposition to Johnson’s Reconstruction policy were the Black Codes, laws passed by the new southern governments that attempted to regulate the lives of the former slaves. These laws granted blacks certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts. But they denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote. And in response to planters’ demands that the freedpeople be required to work on the plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners. Some states limited the occupations open to blacks and barred them from acquiring land, and others provided that judges could assign black children to work for their former owners without the con- sent of the parents. “We are not permitted to own the land whereon to build a schoolhouse or a church,” complained a black convention in Mississippi. “Where is justice? Where is freedom?”
Clearly, the death of slavery did not automatically mean the birth of free- dom. But the Black Codes so completely violated free labor principles that they called forth a vigorous response from the Republican North. Wars— especially civil wars— often generate hostility and bitterness. But few groups of rebels in history have been treated more leniently than the defeated Confederates. A handful of southern leaders were arrested but most were quickly released.
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Only one was executed— Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville prison, where thousands of Union prisoners of war had died. Most of the Union army was swiftly demobilized. What motivated the North’s turn against Johnson’s policies was not a desire to “punish” the white South, but the inability of the South’s political leaders to accept the reality of emancipation. “We must see to it,” announced Republican senator William Stewart of Nevada, “that the man made free by the Constitution of the United States is a freeman indeed.”
The Radical Republicans
When Congress assembled in December 1865, Johnson announced that with loyal governments functioning in all the southern states, the nation had been reunited. In response, Radical Republicans, who had grown increasingly disen- chanted with Johnson during the summer and fall, called for the dissolution of these governments and the establishment of new ones with “rebels” excluded from power and black men guaranteed the right to vote. Radicals tended to represent constituencies in New England and the “ burned- over” districts of the rural North that had been home to religious revivalism, abolitionism, and other reform movements. Although they differed on many issues, Radicals shared the conviction that Union victory created a golden opportunity to insti- tutionalize the principle of equal rights for all, regardless of race.
The Radicals fully embraced the expanded powers of the federal govern- ment born during the Civil War. Traditions of federalism and states’ rights, they insisted, must not obstruct a sweeping national effort to protect the rights of all Americans. The most prominent Radicals in Congress were Charles Sumner, a senator from Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens, a lawyer and iron manu- facturer who represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives. Before the Civil War, both had been outspoken foes of slavery and defenders of black rights. Early in the Civil War, both had urged Lincoln to free and arm the slaves, and both in 1865 favored black suffrage in the South. “The same national authority,” declared Sumner, “that destroyed slavery must see that this other pretension [racial inequality] is not permitted to survive.”
Thaddeus Stevens’s most cherished aim was to confiscate the land of dis- loyal planters and divide it among former slaves and northern migrants to the South. “The whole fabric of southern society,” he declared, “must be changed. Without this, this Government can never be, as it has never been, a true repub- lic.” But his plan to make “small independent landholders” of the former slaves proved too radical even for many of his Radical colleagues. Congress, to be sure, had already offered free land to settlers in the West in the Homestead Act of 1862. But this land had been in the possession of the federal government, not private individuals (although originally, of course, it had belonged to Indians). Most congressmen believed too deeply in the sanctity of property rights to be
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willing to take land from one group of owners and distribute it to others. Ste- vens’s proposal failed to pass.
The Origins of Civil Rights
With the South unrepresented, Republicans enjoyed an overwhelming major- ity in Congress. But the party was internally divided. Most Republicans were moderates, not Radicals. Moderates believed that Johnson’s plan was flawed, but they desired to work with the president to modify it. They feared that neither northern nor southern whites would accept black suffrage. Moderates and Radicals joined in refusing to seat the southerners recently elected to Con- gress, but moderates broke with the Radicals by leaving the Johnson govern- ments in place.
Early in 1866, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois proposed two bills, reflecting the moderates’ belief that Johnson’s policy required modification. The first extended the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which had originally been established for only one year. The second, the Civil Rights Bill of 1866, was described by one congressman as “one of the most important bills ever presented to the House for its action.” It defined all persons born in the United States as citizens and spelled out rights they were to enjoy without regard to race. Equality before the law was central to the measure— no longer could states enact laws like the Black Codes discriminating between white and black citizens. So were free labor values. According to the law, no state could deprive any citizen of the right to make contracts, bring lawsuits, or enjoy equal protection of one’s person and property. These, said Trumbull, were the “fundamental rights belonging to every man as a free man.” The bill made no mention of the right to vote for blacks. In constitutional terms, the Civil Rights Bill represented the first attempt to give concrete meaning to the Thirteenth Amendment, which had abolished slavery, to define in law the essence of freedom.
To the surprise of Congress, Johnson vetoed both bills. Both, he said, would centralize power in the national government and deprive the states of the authority to regulate their own affairs. Moreover, he argued, blacks did not deserve the rights of citizenship. By acting to secure their rights, Congress was discriminating “against the white race.” The vetoes made a breach between the president and nearly the entire Republican Party inevitable. Congress failed by a single vote to muster the two- thirds majority necessary to override the veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill (although later in 1866, it did extend the Bureau’s life to 1870). But in April 1866, the Civil Rights Bill became the first major law in American history to be passed over a presidential veto.
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Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the Radical Repub- licans in the House of Representatives during Reconstruction.
The Fourteenth Amendment
Congress now proceeded to adopt its own plan of Reconstruction. In June, it approved and sent to the states for rat- ification the Fourteenth Amendment, which placed in the Constitution the principle of citizenship for all persons born in the United States, and which empowered the federal government to protect the rights of all Americans. The amendment prohibited the states from abridging the “privileges or immuni- ties” of citizens or denying any person of the “equal protection of the laws.” This broad language opened the door for future Congresses and the federal courts to breathe meaning into the guarantee of legal equality.
In a compromise between the rad- ical and moderate positions on black suffrage, the amendment did not grant blacks the right to vote. But it did provide that if a state denied the vote to any group of men, that state’s representation in Congress would be reduced. (This provision did not apply when states barred women from voting.) The abolition of slavery threatened to increase southern political power, since now all blacks, not merely three- fifths as in the case of slaves, would be counted in determin- ing a state’s representation in Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment offered the leaders of the white South a choice— allow black men to vote and keep their state’s full representation in the House of Representatives, or limit the vote to whites and sacrifice part of their political power.
The Fourteenth Amendment produced an intense division between the parties. Not a single Democrat in Congress voted in its favor, and only 4 of 175 Republicans were opposed. Radicals, to be sure, expressed their disappointment that the amendment did not guarantee black suffrage. (It was far from perfect, Stevens told the House, but he intended to vote for it, “because I live among men and not among angels.”) Nonetheless, by writing into the Constitution the principle that equality before the law regardless of race is a fundamental right of all American citizens, the amendment made the most important change in that document since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
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The Reconstruction Act
The Fourteenth Amendment became the central issue of the political campaign of 1866. Johnson embarked on a speaking tour of the North, called by journalists the “swing around the circle,” to urge voters to elect members of Congress com- mitted to his own Reconstruction program. Denouncing his critics, the presi- dent made wild accusations that the Radicals were plotting to assassinate him. His behavior further undermined public support for his policies, as did riots that broke out in Memphis and New Orleans, in which white policemen and citizens killed dozens of blacks.
In the northern congressional elections that fall, Republicans opposed to Johnson’s policies won a sweeping victory. Nonetheless, at the president’s urging, every southern state but Tennessee refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The intransigence of Johnson and the bulk of the white South pushed moderate Republicans toward the Radicals. In March 1867, over John- son’s veto, Congress adopted the Reconstruction Act, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and called for the creation of new state governments, with black men given the right to vote. Thus began the period of Radical Reconstruction, which lasted until 1877.
A variety of motives combined to produce Radical Reconstruction— demands by former slaves for the right to vote, the Radicals’ commitment to the idea of equality, widespread disgust with Johnson’s policies, the desire to fortify the Republican Party in the South, and the determination to keep ex- Confederates from office. But the conflict between President Johnson and Con- gress did not end with the passage of the Reconstruction Act.
Impeachment and the Election of Grant
In March 1867, Congress adopted the Tenure of Office Act, barring the president from removing certain officeholders, including cabinet members, without the consent of the Senate. Johnson considered this an unconstitutional restriction on his authority. In February 1868, he removed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stan- ton, an ally of the Radicals. The House of Representatives responded by approv- ing articles of impeachment— that is, it presented charges against Johnson to the Senate, which had to decide whether to remove him from office.
That spring, for the first time in American history, a president was placed on trial before the Senate for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” By this point, virtually all Republicans considered Johnson a failure as president. But some moderates disliked Benjamin F. Wade, a Radical who, as temporary president of the Senate, would become president if Johnson were removed. Others feared that conviction would damage the constitutional separation of pow- ers between Congress and the executive. Johnson’s lawyers assured moderate
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Republicans that, if acquitted, he would stop interfering with Reconstruction policy. The final tally was 35–19 to con- vict Johnson, one vote short of the two- thirds necessary to remove him. Seven Republicans had joined the Democrats in voting to acquit the president.
A few days after the vote, Repub- licans nominated Ulysses S. Grant, the Union’s most prominent military hero, as their candidate for president. Grant’s Democratic opponent was Horatio Seymour, the former governor of New York. Reconstruction became the central issue of the bitterly fought 1868 campaign. Republicans identified their opponents with secession and treason, a tactic known as “waving the bloody shirt.” Democrats denounced Reconstruction as unconstitutional and condemned black suffrage as a vio- lation of America’s political traditions. They appealed openly to racism. Sey- mour’s running mate, Francis P. Blair Jr., charged Republicans with placing the South under the rule of “a semi- barbarous race” who longed to “subject the white women to their unbridled lust.”
The Fifteenth Amendment
Grant won the election of 1868, although by a margin— 300,000 of 6 million votes cast— that many Republicans found uncomfortably slim. The result led Congress to adopt the era’s third and final amendment to the Constitution. In February 1869, it approved the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited the federal and state governments from denying any citizen the right to vote because of race. Bitterly opposed by the Democratic Party, it was ratified in 1870.
Although the Fifteenth Amendment opened the door to suffrage restric- tions not explicitly based on race— literacy tests, property qualifications, and poll taxes— and did not extend the right to vote to women, it marked the cul- mination of four decades of abolitionist agitation. As late as 1868, even after Congress had enfranchised black men in the South, only eight northern states
A Republican campaign poster from 1868 depicts Ulysses S. Grant and his running mate Henry Wilson not as a celebrated general and U.S. senator but as ordinary workingmen, embodiments of the dignity of free labor.
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allowed African- American men to vote. With the Fifteenth Amendment, the American Anti- Slavery Society disbanded, its work, its members believed, now complete. “Nothing in all history,” exclaimed veteran abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, equaled “this wonderful, quiet, sudden transformation of four millions of human beings from . . . the auction- block to the ballot- box.”
The “Great Constitutional Revolution”
The laws and amendments of Reconstruction reflected the intersection of two products of the Civil War era— a newly empowered national state and the idea of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law. What Republican leader Carl Schurz called the “great Constitutional revolution” of Reconstruc- tion transformed the federal system and with it, the language of freedom so central to American political culture.
Before the Civil War, American citizenship had been closely linked to race. The first Congress, in 1790, had limited to whites the right to become a natural- ized citizen when immigrating from abroad. No black person, free or slave, the Supreme Court had declared in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, could be a citizen of the United States. The laws and amendments of Reconstruction repudiated the idea that citizenship was an entitlement of whites alone. The principle of equality before the law, moreover, did not apply only to the South. The Recon- struction amendments voided many northern laws discriminating on the basis of race. And, as one congressman noted, the amendments expanded the liberty of whites as well as blacks, including “the millions of people of foreign birth who will flock to our shores.”
The new amendments also transformed the relationship between the fed- eral government and the states. The Bill of Rights had linked civil liberties to the autonomy of the states. Its language—“Congress shall make no law”— reflected the belief that concentrated national power posed the greatest threat to freedom. The authors of the Reconstruction amendments assumed that rights required national power to enforce them. Rather than a threat to liberty, the federal government, in Charles Sumner’s words, had become “the custo- dian of freedom.”
The Reconstruction amendments transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal- state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could stake a claim to freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government. In the twentieth century, many of the Supreme Court’s most important decisions expanding the rights of American citizens were based on the Fourteenth Amendment, perhaps most notably the 1954 Brown ruling that outlawed school segregation (see Chapter 24).
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Boundaries of Freedom
Reconstruction redrew the boundaries of American freedom. Lines of exclu- sion that limited the privileges of citizenship to white men had long been central to the practice of American democracy. Only in an unparalleled crisis could they have been replaced, even temporarily, by the vision of a republic of equals embracing black Americans as well as white. That the United States was a “white man’s government” had been a widespread belief before the Civil War. It is not difficult to understand why Andrew Johnson, in one of his veto messages, claimed that federal protection of blacks’ civil rights violated “all our experience as a people.”
Another illustration of the new spirit of racial inclusiveness was the Burl- ingame Treaty, negotiated by Anson Burlingame, an antislavery congressman from Massachusetts before being named American envoy to China. Other trea- ties with China had been one- sided, securing trading and political advantages for European powers. The Burlingame Treaty reaffirmed China’s national sov- ereignty, and provided reciprocal protection for religious freedom and against discrimination for citizens of each country emigrating or visiting the other. When Burlingame died, Mark Twain wrote a eulogy that praised him for “out- grow[ing] the narrow citizenship of a state [to] become a citizen of the world.”
Reconstruction Republicans’ belief in universal rights had its limits. In his remarkable “Composite Nation” speech of 1869, Frederick Douglass con- demned prejudice against immigrants from China. America’s destiny, he declared, was to transcend race by serving as an asylum for people “gathered here from all corners of the globe by a common aspiration for national liberty.” A year later, Charles Sumner moved to strike the word “white” from natural- ization requirements. Senators from the western states objected. At their insis- tence, the naturalization law was amended to make Africans eligible to obtain citizenship when migrating from abroad. But Asians remained ineligible. The racial boundaries of nationality had been redrawn, but not eliminated. The jux- taposition of the amended naturalization law and the Fourteenth Amendment created a significant division in the Asian- American community. Well into the twentieth century, Asian immigrants could not become citizens, but their native- born children automatically did.
The Rights of Women
“The contest with the South that destroyed slavery,” wrote the Philadelphia lawyer Sidney George Fisher in his diary, “has caused an immense increase in the popular passion for liberty and equality.” But advocates of women’s rights encountered the limits of the Reconstruction commitment to equality. Women
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activists saw Reconstruction as the moment to claim their own emancipation. No less than blacks, proclaimed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women had arrived at a “transition period, from slavery to freedom.” The rewriting of the Constitu- tion, declared suffrage leader Olympia Brown, offered the opportunity to sever the blessings of freedom from sex as well as race and to “bury the black man and the woman in the citizen.”
The destruction of slavery led feminists to search for ways to make the prom- ise of free labor real for women. Every issue of the new women’s rights journal, The Agitator, edited by Mary Livermore, who had led fund- raising efforts for aid to Union soldiers during the war, carried stories complaining of the limited job opportunities and unequal pay for females who entered the labor market. Other feminists debated how to achieve “liberty for married women.” Demands for lib- eralizing divorce laws (which generally required evidence of adultery, desertion, or extreme abuse to terminate a marriage) and for recognizing “woman’s control over her own body” (including protection against domestic violence and access to what later generations would call birth control) moved to the center of many feminists’ concerns. “Our rotten marriage institution,” one Ohio woman wrote, “is the main obstacle in the way of woman’s freedom.”
Feminists and Radicals
In one place, women’s political rights did expand during Reconstruction— not, however, in a bastion of radicalism such as Massachusetts, but in the Wyoming territory. This had less to do with the era’s egalitarian impulse than with the desire to attract female emigrants to an area where men outnumbered women five to one. In 1869, Wyoming’s diminutive legislature (it consisted of fewer than twenty men) extended the right to vote to women, and the bill was then signed by the governor, a federal appointee. Wyoming entered the Union in 1890, becoming the first state since New Jersey in the late eighteenth century to allow women to vote.
In general, however, talk of woman suffrage and redesigning marriage found few sympathetic male listeners. Even Radical Republicans insisted that Reconstruction was the “Negro’s hour” (the hour, that is, of the black male). The Fourteenth Amendment for the first time introduced the word “male” into the Constitution, in its clause penalizing a state for denying any group of men the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment outlawed discrimination in vot- ing based on race but not gender. These measures produced a bitter split both between feminists and Radical Republicans, and within feminist circles.
Some leaders, like Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, opposed the Fifteenth Amendment because it did nothing to enfranchise women. They denounced their former abolitionist allies and moved to sever the women’s rights movement from its earlier moorings in the antislavery tradition. On occasion, they appealed
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to racial and ethnic prejudices, arguing that native- born white women deserved the vote more than non- whites and immigrants. “Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung, who do not know the difference between a monarchy and a republic,” declared Stanton, had no right to be “making laws for [feminist leader] Lucretia Mott.” But other abolitionist- feminists, like Abby Kelley and Lucy Stone, insisted that despite their limitations, the Reconstruction amendments repre- sented steps in the direction of truly universal suffrage and should be supported. The result was a split in the movement and the creation in 1869 of two hostile women’s rights organizations— the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Stanton, and the American Woman Suffrage Association, with Lucy Stone as president. They would not reunite until 1890.
Thus, even as it rejected the racial definition of freedom that had emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reconstruction left the gender boundary largely intact. When women tried to use the rewritten legal code and Constitu- tion to claim equal rights, they found the courts unreceptive. Myra Bradwell invoked the idea of free labor in challenging an Illinois statute limiting the practice of law to men, but the Supreme Court in 1873 rebuffed her claim. Free labor principles, the justices declared, did not apply to women, since “the law of the Creator” had assigned them to “the domestic sphere.”
A Delegation of Advocates of Woman Suffrage Addressing the House Judiciary Com- mittee, an engraving from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, February 4, 1871. The group includes Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated just to the right of the speaker, and Susan B. Anthony, at the table on the extreme right.
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Despite their limitations, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 marked a radical departure in American history. “We have cut loose from the whole dead past,” wrote Timothy Howe, a Repub- lican senator from Wisconsin, “and have cast our anchor out a hundred years” into the future. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 inaugurated America’s first real experiment in interracial democracy.
R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H
“The Tocsin of Freedom”
Among the former slaves, the passage of the Reconstruction Act inspired an outburst of political organization. At mass political meetings— community gatherings attended by men, women, and children— African- Americans staked their claim to equal citizenship. Blacks, declared an Alabama meeting, deserved “exactly the same rights, privileges and immunities as are enjoyed by white men. We ask for nothing more and will be content with nothing less.”
These gatherings inspired direct action to remedy long- standing griev- ances. Hundreds took part in sit- ins that integrated horse- drawn public street- cars in cities across the South. Plantation workers organized strikes for higher wages. Speakers, male and female, fanned out across the South. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a black veteran of the abolitionist movement, embarked on a two- year tour, lecturing on “Literacy, Land, and Liberation.” James D. Lynch, a member of the group that met with General Sherman in 1865, organized Republican meetings. He became known, in the words of a white contempo- rary, as “a great orator, fluid and graceful,” who “stirred the emotions” of his listeners “as no other man could do.”
Determined to exercise their new rights as citizens, thousands joined the Union League, an organization closely linked to the Republican Party, and the vast majority of eligible African- Americans registered to vote. James K. Green, a former slave in Hale County, Alabama, and a League organizer, went on to serve eight years in the Alabama legislature. In the 1880s, Green looked back on his political career. Before the war, he declared, “I was entirely ignorant; I knew noth- ing more than to obey my master; and there were thousands of us in the same attitude. . . . But the tocsin [warning bell] of freedom sounded and knocked at the door and we walked out like free men and shouldered the responsibilities.”
By 1870, all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to the Union, and in a region where the Republican Party had not existed before the war, nearly all were under Republican control. Their new state constitutions, drafted in 1868 and 1869 by the first public bodies in American history with substantial black representation, marked a considerable improvement over
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those they replaced. The constitutions greatly expanded public responsibili- ties. They established the region’s first state- funded systems of free public education, and they created new peni- tentiaries, orphan asylums, and homes for the insane. The constitutions guar- anteed equality of civil and political rights and abolished practices of the antebellum era such as whipping as a punishment for crime, property quali- fications for officeholding, and impris- onment for debt. A few states initially barred former Confederates from vot- ing, but this policy was quickly aban- doned by the new state governments.
The Black Officeholder
Throughout Reconstruction, black vot- ers provided the bulk of the Republican Party’s support. But African- Americans did not control Reconstruction politics, as their opponents frequently charged. The highest offices remained almost entirely in white hands, and only in South Carolina, where blacks made up 60 percent of the population, did they form a majority of the legislature. Nonetheless, the fact that some 2,000 African- Americans occupied public offices during Reconstruction represented a fundamental shift of power in the South and a radical departure in American government.
African- Americans were represented at every level of government. Four- teen were elected to the national House of Representatives. Two blacks served in the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction, both representing Mississippi. Hiram Revels, who had been born free in North Carolina, was educated in Illinois, and served as a chaplain in the wartime Union army, in 1870 became the first black senator in American history. The second, Blanche K. Bruce, a former slave, was elected in 1875. The next African- American elected to the Senate was Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, who served 1967–1978.
From the Plantation to the Senate, an 1883 litho- graph celebrating African- American progress during Reconstruction. Among the black leaders pictured at the top are Reconstruction congress- men Benjamin S. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, and Joseph H. Rainey; Hiram Revels of Mississippi, the first African- American senator; religious leader Richard Allen; and abolitionists Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown. At the center emancipated slaves work in the cotton fields, and below children attend school and a black family stands outside its home.
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Pinckney B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana, the Georgia- born son of a white planter and a free black woman, served briefly during the winter of 1872–1873 as America’s first black governor. More than a century would pass before L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, elected in 1989, became the second. Some 700 blacks sat in state legislatures during Reconstruction, and scores held local offices ranging from justice of the peace to sheriff, tax assessor, and policeman. The presence of black officeholders and their white allies made a real differ- ence in southern life, ensuring that blacks accused of crimes would be tried before juries of their peers and enforcing fairness in such aspects of local gov- ernment as road repair, tax assessment, and poor relief.
In South Carolina and Louisiana, homes of the South’s wealthiest and best- educated free black communities, most prominent Reconstruction office- holders had never experienced slavery. In addition, a number of black Recon- struction officials, like Pennsylvania- born Jonathan J. Wright, who served on the South Carolina Supreme Court, had come from the North after the Civil War. The majority, however, were former slaves who had established their lead- ership in the black community by serving in the Union army, working as min- isters, teachers, or skilled craftsmen, or engaging in Union League organizing. Among the most celebrated black officeholders was Robert Smalls, who had worked as a slave on the Charleston docks before the Civil War and who won national fame in 1862 by secretly guiding the Planter, a Confederate vessel, out of the harbor and delivering it to Union forces. Smalls became a powerful polit- ical leader on the South Carolina Sea Islands and was elected to five terms in Congress.
Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
The new southern governments also brought to power new groups of whites. Many Reconstruction officials were northerners who for one reason or another had made their homes in the South after the war. Their opponents dubbed them carpetbaggers, implying that they had packed all their belongings in a suitcase and left their homes in order to reap the spoils of office in the South. Some carpetbaggers were undoubtedly corrupt adventurers. The large major- ity, however, were former Union soldiers who decided to remain in the South when the war ended, before there was any prospect of going into politics. Others were investors in land and railroads who saw in the postwar South an opportunity to combine personal economic advancement with a role in help- ing to substitute, as one wrote, “the civilization of freedom for that of slavery.” Teachers, Freedmen’s Bureau officers, and others who came to the region gen- uinely hoping to assist the former slaves represented another large group of carpetbaggers.
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Most white Republicans had been born in the South. Former Confederates reserved their greatest scorn for these scalawags, whom they considered trai- tors to their race and region. Some southern- born Republicans were men of stature and wealth, like James L. Alcorn, the owner of one of Mississippi’s larg- est plantations and the state’s first Republican governor.
Most scalawags, however, were non- slaveholding white farmers from the southern upcountry. Many had been wartime Unionists, and they now cooper- ated with the Republicans in order to prevent “rebels” from returning to power. Others hoped Reconstruction governments would help them recover from wartime economic losses by suspending the collection of debts and enacting laws protecting small property holders from losing their homes to creditors. In states like North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, Republicans initially com- manded a significant minority of the white vote. Even in the Deep South, the small white Republican vote was important, because the population remained almost evenly divided between blacks (almost all of whom voted for the party of Lincoln) and whites (overwhelmingly Democratic).
Southern Republicans in Power
In view of the daunting challenges they faced, the remarkable thing is not that Reconstruction governments in many respects failed, but how much they did accomplish. Perhaps their greatest achievement lay in establishing the South’s first state- supported public schools. The new educational systems served both black and white children, although generally in schools segregated by race. Only in New Orleans were the public schools integrated during Reconstruc- tion, and only in South Carolina did the state university admit black students (elsewhere, separate colleges were established). By the 1870s, in a region whose prewar leaders had made it illegal for slaves to learn and had done little to provide education for poorer whites, more than half the children, black and white, were attending public schools. The new governments also pioneered civil rights legislation. Their laws made it illegal for railroads, hotels, and other institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. Enforcement varied consider- ably from locality to locality, but Reconstruction established for the first time at the state level a standard of equal citizenship and a recognition of blacks’ right to a share of public services.
Republican governments also took steps to strengthen the position of rural laborers and promote the South’s economic recovery. They passed laws to ensure that agricultural laborers and sharecroppers had the first claim on harvested crops, rather than merchants to whom the landowner owed money. South Carolina created a state Land Commission, which by 1876 had settled 14,000 black families and a few poor whites on their own farms.
What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the South?
594 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
The Quest for Prosperity
Rather than land distribution, however, the Reconstruction governments pinned their hopes for southern economic growth and opportunity for African- Americans and poor whites alike on regional economic development. Railroad construction, they believed, was the key to transforming the South into a soci- ety of booming factories, bustling towns, and diversified agriculture. “A free and living republic,” declared a Tennessee Republican, would “spring up in the track of the railroad.” Every state during Reconstruction helped to finance railroad construction, and through tax reductions and other incentives tried to attract northern manufacturers to invest in the region. The program had mixed results. Economic development in general remained weak. With abun- dant opportunities existing in the West, few northern investors ventured to the Reconstruction South.
To their supporters, the governments of Radical Reconstruction presented a complex pattern of disappointment and accomplishment. A revitalized south- ern economy failed to materialize, and most African- Americans remained locked in poverty. On the other hand, biracial democratic government, a thing unknown in American history, for the first time functioned effectively in many parts of the South. Public facilities were rebuilt and expanded, school systems established, and legal codes purged of racism. The conservative elite that had dominated southern government from colonial times to 1867 found itself excluded from political power, while poor whites, newcomers from the North, and former slaves cast ballots, sat on juries, and enacted and administered laws. “We have gone through one of the most remarkable changes in our relations to each other,” declared a white South Carolina lawyer in 1871, “that has been known, perhaps, in the history of the world.” It is a measure of how far change had progressed that the reaction against Reconstruction proved so extreme.
T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N
Reconstruction’s Opponents
The South’s traditional leaders— planters, merchants, and Democratic politicians— bitterly opposed the new governments. They denounced them as corrupt, inefficient, and examples of “black supremacy.” “Intelligence, vir- tue, and patriotism” in public life, declared a protest by prominent southern Democrats, had given way to “ignorance, stupidity, and vice.” Corruption did exist during Reconstruction, but it was confined to no race, region, or party. The rapid growth of state budgets and the benefits to be gained from public aid led
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION ★ 595
in some states to a scramble for influence that produced bribery, insider deal- ing, and a get- rich- quick atmosphere. Southern frauds, however, were dwarfed by those practiced in these years by the Whiskey Ring, which involved high officials of the Grant administration, and by New York’s Tweed Ring, controlled by the Democrats, whose thefts ran into the tens of millions of dollars. (These are discussed in the next chapter.) The rising taxes needed to pay for schools and other new public facilities and to assist railroad development were another cause of opposition to Reconstruction. Many poor whites who had initially supported the Republican Party turned against it when it became clear that their economic situation was not improving.
The most basic reason for opposition to Reconstruction, however, was that most white southerners could not accept the idea of former slaves voting, holding office, and enjoying equality before the law. In order to restore white supremacy in southern public life and to ensure planters a disciplined, reliable labor force, they believed, Reconstruction must be overthrown. Opponents launched a campaign of violence in an effort to end Republican rule. Their actions posed a fundamental challenge both for Reconstruction governments in the South and for policymakers in Washington, D.C.
“A Reign of Terror”
The Civil War ended in 1865, but violence remained widespread in large parts of the postwar South. In the early years of Reconstruction, violence was mostly local and unorganized. Blacks were assaulted and murdered for refusing to give way to whites on city sidewalks, using “insolent” language, challenging end- of- year contract settlements, and attempting to buy land. The violence that greeted the advent of Republican governments after 1867, however, was far more pervasive and more directly motivated by politics. In wide areas of the South, secret societies sprang up with the aim of preventing blacks from voting and destroying the organization of the Republican Party by assassinating local leaders and public officials.
The most notorious such organization was the Ku Klux Klan, which in effect served as a military arm of the Democratic Party in the South. From its founding in 1866 in Tennessee, the Klan was a terrorist organization. It quickly spread into nearly every southern state. Led by planters, merchants, and Dem- ocratic politicians, men who liked to style themselves the South’s “respectable citizens,” the Klan committed some of the most brutal criminal acts in Amer- ican history. In many counties, it launched what one victim called a “reign of terror” against Republican leaders, black and white.
The Klan’s victims included white Republicans, among them wartime Unionists and local officeholders, teachers, and party organizers. William Luke,
What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?
596 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
an Irish- born teacher in a black school, was lynched in 1870. But African- Americans— local political leaders, those who managed to acquire land, and others who in one way or another defied the norms of white supremacy— bore the brunt of the violence. In York County, South Carolina, where nearly the entire white male population joined the Klan (and women partici- pated by sewing the robes and hoods Klansmen wore as disguises), the orga- nization committed eleven murders and hundreds of whippings.
On occasion, violence escalated from assaults on individuals to mass terrorism and even local insurrections. In Meridian, Mississippi, in 1871, some thirty blacks were murdered in cold blood, along with a white Republican judge. The bloodiest act of violence during Reconstruction took place in Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, where armed whites assaulted the town with a small
cannon. Hundreds of former slaves were murdered, including fifty members of a black militia unit after they had surrendered.
Unable to suppress the Klan, the new southern governments appealed to Washington for help. In 1870 and 1871, Congress adopted three Enforce- ment Acts, outlawing terrorist societies and allowing the president to use the army against them. These laws continued the expansion of national author- ity during Reconstruction. They defined crimes that aimed to deprive citizens of their civil and political rights as federal offenses rather than violations of state law. In 1871, President Grant dispatched federal marshals, backed up by troops in some areas, to arrest hundreds of accused Klansmen. Many Klan lead- ers fled the South. After a series of well- publicized trials, the Klan went out of existence. In 1872, for the first time since before the Civil War, peace reigned in most of the former Confederacy.
The Liberal Republicans
Despite the Grant administration’s effective response to Klan terrorism, the North’s commitment to Reconstruction waned during the 1870s. Many Radicals,
A Tennessee member of the Ku Klux Klan, pho- tographed in his hooded disguise around 1870.
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION ★ 597
including Thaddeus Stevens, who died in 1868, had passed from the scene. Within the Republican Party, their place was taken by politicians less commit- ted to the ideal of equal rights for blacks. Northerners increasingly felt that the South should be able to solve its own problems without constant interference from Washington. The federal government had freed the slaves, made them cit- izens, and given them the right to vote. Now, blacks should rely on their own resources, not demand further assistance.
In 1872, an influential group of Republicans, alienated by corruption within the Grant administration and believing that the growth of federal power during and after the war needed to be curtailed, formed their own party. They included Republican founders like Lyman Trumbull and prominent editors and journal- ists such as E. L. Godkin of The Nation. Calling themselves Liberal Republicans, they nominated Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, for president.
The Liberals’ alienation from the Grant administration initially had little to do with Reconstruction. They claimed that corrupt politicians had come to power in the North by manipulating the votes of immigrants and work- ingmen, while men of talent and education like themselves had been pushed aside. Democratic criticisms of Reconstruction, however, found a receptive audience among the Liberals. As in the North, they became convinced, the “best men” of the South had been excluded from power while “ignorant” vot- ers controlled politics, producing corruption and misgovernment. Power in the South should be returned to the region’s “natural leaders.” During the cam- paign of 1872, Greeley repeatedly called on Americans to “clasp hands across the bloody chasm” by putting the Civil War and Reconstruction behind them.
Greeley had spent most of his career, first as a Whig and then as a Repub- lican, denouncing the Democratic Party. But with the Republican split pre- senting an opportunity to repair their political fortunes, Democratic leaders endorsed Greeley as their candidate. Many rank- and- file Democrats, unable to bring themselves to vote for Greeley, stayed at home on election day. As a result, Greeley suffered a devastating defeat by Grant, whose margin of more than 700,000 popular votes was the largest in a nineteenth- century presidential contest. But Greeley’s campaign placed on the northern agenda the one issue on which the Liberal reformers and the Democrats could agree— a new policy toward the South.
The North’s Retreat
The Liberal attack on Reconstruction, which continued after 1872, contributed to a resurgence of racism in the North. Journalist James S. Pike, a leading Gree- ley supporter, in 1874 published The Prostrate State, an influential account of a visit to South Carolina. The book depicted a state engulfed by political corrup- tion, drained by governmental extravagance, and under the control of “a mass
What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?
598 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
of black barbarism.” The South’s problems, Pike insisted, arose from “Negro government.” The solution was to restore leading whites to political power. Newspapers that had long supported Reconstruction now began to condemn black participation in southern government. They expressed their views visu- ally as well. Engravings depicting the former slaves as heroic Civil War veterans, upstanding citizens, or victims of violence were increasingly replaced by carica- tures presenting them as little more than unbridled animals. Resurgent racism offered a convenient explanation for the alleged “failure” of Reconstruction.
Other factors also weakened northern support for Reconstruction. In 1873, the country plunged into a severe economic depression. Distracted by eco- nomic problems, Republicans were in no mood to devote further attention to the South. The depression dealt the South a severe blow and further weakened the prospect that Republicans could revitalize the region’s economy. Demo- crats made substantial gains throughout the nation in the elections of 1874. For the first time since the Civil War, their party took control of the House of Rep- resentatives. Before the new Congress met, the old one enacted a final piece of Reconstruction legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation like hotels and theaters. But it was clear that the northern public was retreating from Reconstruction.
The Supreme Court whittled away at the guarantees of black rights Con- gress had adopted. In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), white butchers excluded from a state- sponsored monopoly in Louisiana went to court, claiming that their right to equality before the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated. The justices rejected their claim, ruling that the amendment had not altered traditional federalism. Most of the rights of citizens, it declared, remained under state control. Three years later, in United States v. Cruikshank, the Court gutted the Enforcement Acts by throwing out the convictions of some of those responsible for the Colfax Massacre of 1873.
The Triumph of the Redeemers
By the mid- 1870s, Reconstruction was clearly on the defensive. Democrats had already regained control of states with substantial white voting majorities such as Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas. The victorious Democrats called themselves Redeemers, since they claimed to have “redeemed” the white South from corruption, misgovernment, and northern and black control.
In those states where Reconstruction governments survived, violence again erupted. This time, the Grant administration showed no desire to intervene. In contrast to the Klan’s activities— conducted at night by disguised men— the violence of 1875 and 1876 took place in broad daylight, as if to underscore Democrats’ conviction that they had nothing to fear from Washington. In
THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION ★ 599
1870 (1873)
1868 (1876)
1868 (1874)
1870 (1875) 1868 (1874) 1870 (1871)
1868 (1876)
1868 (1876)
1866 (1870) 1868 (1876)
1870 (1873)
TEXAS
NEW MEXICO TERRITORY
COLORADO
KANSAS
INDIAN TERRITORY
LOUISIANA
ARKANSAS
MISSOURI
ILLINOIS INDIANA OHIO
KENTUCKY
TENNESSEE
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA
FLORIDA
SOUTH CAROLINA
NORTH CAROLINA
VIRGINIA
WEST VIRGINIA
PENNSYLVANIA
MARYLAND DELAWARE
Gulf of Mexico
Atlantic Ocean
0
0
150
150
300 miles
300 kilometers
Former Confederate states Date of readmission to the Union Date of election that produced Democratic control of legislature and governorship
1869 (1873)
R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H , 1 8 6 7 – 1 8 7 7
Mississippi, in 1875, white rifle clubs drilled in public and openly assaulted and murdered Republicans. When Governor Adelbert Ames, a Maine- born Union general, frantically appealed to the federal government for assistance, President Grant responded that the northern public was “tired out” by south- ern problems. On election day, armed Democrats destroyed ballot boxes and drove former slaves from the polls. The result was a Democratic landslide and the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. “A revolution has taken place,” wrote Ames, “and a race are disfranchised— they are to be returned to . . . an era of second slavery.”
Similar events took place in South Carolina in 1876. Democrats nominated for governor former Confederate general Wade Hampton. Hampton promised to respect the rights of all citizens of the state, but his supporters, inspired by Democratic tactics in Mississippi, launched a wave of intimidation. Democrats intended to carry the election, one planter told a black official, “if we have to wade in blood knee- deep.”
The Disputed Election and Bargain of 1877
Events in South Carolina directly affected the outcome of the presidential campaign of 1876. To succeed Grant, the Republicans nominated Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Democrats chose as his opponent New York’s
What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?
600 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
governor, Samuel J. Tilden. By this time, only South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained under Republican control. The election turned out to be so close that whoever captured these states— which both parties claimed to have carried— would become the next president.
Unable to resolve the impasse on its own, Congress in January 1877 appointed a fifteen- member Electoral Commission, composed of senators, representatives, and Supreme Court justices. Republicans enjoyed an 8–7 majority on the commission, and to no one’s surprise, the members decided by
that margin that Hayes had carried the disputed southern states and had been elected president. Even as the commission deliberated, however, behind- the- scenes negotiations took place between leaders of the two parties. Hayes’s rep- resentatives agreed to recognize Democratic control of the entire South and to avoid further intervention in local affairs. They also pledged that Hayes would place a southerner in the cabinet position of postmaster general and that he would work for federal aid to the Texas and Pacific railroad, a transcontinental line projected to follow a southern route. For their part, Democrats promised not to dispute Hayes’s right to office and to respect the civil and political rights of blacks.
Thus was concluded the Bargain of 1877. Not all of its parts were fulfilled. But Hayes became president, and he did appoint David M. Key of Tennessee as postmaster general. Hayes quickly ordered federal troops to stop guarding the state houses in Louisiana and South Carolina, allowing Democratic claimants to become governor. (Contrary to legend, Hayes did not remove the last sol- diers from the South— he simply ordered them to return to their barracks.) But the Texas and Pacific never did get its land grant. Of far more significance, the triumphant southern Democrats failed to live up to their pledge to recognize blacks as equal citizens.
The End of Reconstruction
As a historical process— the nation’s adjustment to the destruction of slavery— Reconstruction continued well after 1877. Blacks continued to vote and, in some states, hold office into the 1890s. But as a distinct era of national history— when
2 1
6
3 3
3
5
5 10
11 21
15
6
88 8 10 11
4
12 12
15
11
7 10 115
22 29
35
75 5
13 4
69 3
8
Non-voting territory
Republican Hayes Democrat Tilden Greenback Cooper Disputed (assigned to Hayes by electoral commission)
Party Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) Popular Vote
(Share) 185 (50%) 184 (50%)
0 (0%)
4,036,298 (48%) 4,300,590 (51%)
93,895 (1%)
T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N O F 1 8 7 6
Republicans controlled much of the South, blacks exercised significant political power, and the federal government accepted the responsibility for protecting the fundamental rights of all American citizens— Reconstruction had come to an end. Despite its limitations, Reconstruction was a remarkable chapter in the story of American freedom. Nearly a century would pass before the nation again tried to bring equal rights to the descendants of slaves. The civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s would sometimes be called the Second Reconstruction.
Even while it lasted, however, Reconstruction revealed some of the tensions inherent in nineteenth- century discussions of freedom. The policy of grant- ing black men the vote while denying them the benefits of land ownership strengthened the idea that the free citizen could be a poor, dependent laborer. Reconstruction placed on the national agenda a problem that would dominate political discussion for the next half- century— how, in a modern society, to define the economic essence of freedom.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. In 1865, former Confederate general Robert Richardson remarked that “the emanci- pated slaves own nothing, because nothing but freedom has been given to them.” Explain whether this would be an accurate assessment of Reconstruction twelve years later.
2. The women’s movement split into two separate national organizations in part because the Fifteenth Amendment did not give women the vote. Explain why the two groups split.
3. How did black families, churches, schools, and other institutions contribute to the develop- ment of African- American culture and political activism in this period?
4. Why did ownership of land and control of labor become major points of contention between former slaves and whites in the South?
5. By what methods did southern whites seek to limit African- American civil rights and lib- erties? How did the federal government respond?
6. How did the failure of land reform and continued poverty lead to new forms of servitude for both blacks and whites?
7. What caused the confrontation between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction policies?
8. What national issues and attitudes combined to bring an end to Reconstruction by 1877?
9. By 1877, how did the condition of former slaves in the United States compare with that of freedpeople around the globe?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 601
What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction?
602 ★ CHAPTER 15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction
KEY TERMS
the Freedmen’s Bureau (p. 571)
sharecropping (p. 574)
crop lien (p. 574)
Black Codes (p. 580)
Civil Rights Bill of 1866 (p. 582)
Fourteenth Amendment (p. 583)
Reconstruction Act (p. 584)
Tenure of Office Act (p. 584)
impeachment (p. 584)
Fifteenth Amendment (p. 585)
carpetbaggers (p. 592)
scalawags (p. 593)
Ku Klux Klan (p. 595)
Enforcement Acts (p. 596)
Civil Rights Act of 1875 (p. 598)
Redeemers (p. 598)
Bargain of 1877 (p. 600)
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1 8 7 0–1 8 9 0
A M E R I C A ’ S G I L D E D A G E
★ C H A P T E R 1 6 ★
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society
after the Civil War?
• How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?
• Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals?
• How did the economic development of the Gilded Age affect American freedom?
• How did reformers of the period approach the problems of an industrial society?
An immense crowd gathered in New York harbor on October 28, 1886, for the dedication of Liberty Enlightening the World, a fitting symbol for a nation now wholly free. The idea for the statue originated in 1865 with Édouard de Laboulaye, a French educator and the author of sev- eral books on the United States, as a response to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The statue, de Laboulaye hoped, would celebrate both the historic friendship between France and the United States and the triumph, through the Union’s victory in the Civil War, of American freedom. Measuring more than 150 feet from torch to toe and standing atop a huge pedestal, the edifice was the tallest man- made structure in the Western Hemisphere. It exceeded
★ 603
604 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1872 Crédit Mobilier scandal
1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s Gilded Age
1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn
1877 Reconstruction ends
Munn v. Illinois
Great Railroad Strike
1879 Henry George’s Progress and Poverty
1883 Civil Service Act
Railroads create time zones
William Graham Sumner’s What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
1884 Elk v. Wilkins
1886 Haymarket affair
Wabash v. Illinois
Standard national railroad gauge
1887 Interstate Commerce Commission created
Dawes Act
1888 Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward
1890 Sherman Antitrust Act
Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives
Massacre at Wounded Knee
1894 Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth against Commonwealth
1895 United States v. E. C. Knight Co.
in height, newspapers noted with pride, the Colossus of Rhodes, a wonder of the ancient world.
In time, the Statue of Liberty, as it came to be called, would become Americans’ most re- vered national icon. For over a century it has stood as a symbol of freedom. The statue has offered welcome to millions of immigrants— the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” celebrated in a poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on its base in 1903. In the years since its dedication, the statue’s familiar im- age has been reproduced by folk artists in ev- ery conceivable medium and has been used by advertisers to promote everything from cigarettes and lawn mowers to war bonds. As its use by Chinese students demanding de- mocracy in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 showed, it has become a powerful in- ternational symbol as well.
The year of the statue’s dedication, 1886, also witnessed the “great upheaval,” a wave of strikes and labor protests that touched every part of the nation. The 600 dignitaries (598 of them men) who gathered on what is now called Liberty Island for the dedication hoped the Statue of Liberty would inspire re- newed devotion to the nation’s political and economic system. But for all its grandeur, the statue could not conceal the deep social divisions and fears about the future of Amer- ican freedom that accompanied the country’s emergence as the world’s leading industrial power. Nor did the celebrations address the crucial questions that moved to the center stage of American public life during the 1870s and 1880s and remained there for decades to come: What are the social conditions that make freedom possible, and what role should the national government play in defining and protecting the liberty of its citizens?
THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ★ 605
T H E S E C O N D I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N Between the end of the Civil War and the early twentieth century, the United States under- went one of the most rapid and profound economic revolutions any country has ever experienced. There were numerous causes for this explosive economic growth. The country enjoyed abundant natural resources, a growing supply of labor, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment. In addition, the federal government actively promoted industrial and agricul- tural development. It enacted high tariffs that protected American industry from foreign competition, granted land to railroad companies to encourage construction, and used the army to remove Indians from western lands desired by farmers and mining companies.
The Industrial Economy
The rapid expansion of factory production, mining, and railroad construction in all parts of the country except the South signaled the transition from Lincoln’s America— a world centered on the small farm and artisan workshop— to a mature industrial society. Americans of the late nineteenth century marveled at the tri- umph of the new economy. “One can hardly believe,” wrote the philosopher John Dewey, “there has been a revolution in history so rapid, so extensive, so complete.”
By 1913, the United States produced one- third of the world’s industrial output— more than the total of Great Britain, France, and Germany com- bined. Half of all industrial workers now labored in plants with more than 250 employees. On the eve of the Civil War, the first industrial revolution, centered on the textile industry, had transformed New England into a center of manu- facturing. But otherwise, the United States was still primarily an agricultural nation. By 1880, for the first time, the Census Bureau found a majority of the workforce engaged in non- farming jobs. The traditional dream of economic independence seemed obsolete. By 1890, two- thirds of Americans worked for wages, rather than owning a farm, business, or craft shop. Drawn to factories by the promise of employment, a new working class emerged in these years. Between 1870 and 1920, almost 11 million Americans moved from farm to city, and another 25 million immigrants arrived from overseas.
Most manufacturing now took place in industrial cities. New York, with its new skyscrapers and hundreds of thousands of workers in all sorts of
1896 Utah gains statehood
1899 Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class
1905 Lochner v. New York
• •
What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society after the Civil War?
606 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
manufacturing establishments, symbolized dynamic urban growth. After merg- ing with Brooklyn in 1898, its population exceeded 3.4 million. The city financed industrialization and westward expansion, its banks and stock exchange fun- neling capital to railroads, mines, and factories. But the heartland of the second industrial revolution was the region around the Great Lakes, with its factories producing iron and steel, machinery, chemicals, and packaged foods. Pittsburgh had become the world’s center of iron and steel manufacturing. Chicago, by 1900 the nation’s second- largest city, with 1.7 million inhabitants, was home to facto- ries producing steel and farm machinery and giant stockyards where cattle were processed into meat products for shipment east in refrigerated rail cars. Smaller industrial cities also proliferated, often concentrating on a single industry— cast- iron stoves in Troy, New York, furniture in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Railroads and the National Market
The railroad made possible what is sometimes called the “second industrial revolution.” Spurred by private investment and massive grants of land and money by federal, state, and local governments, the number of miles of rail- road track in the United States tripled between 1860 and 1880 and tripled again
Table 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change, 1870–1920
1870 1900 1920
Farms (millions) Land in farms (million acres) Wheat grown (million bushels)
2.7 408 254
5.7 841 599
6.4 956 843
Employment (millions) In manufacturing (millions)
14 2.5
28.5 5.9
44.5 11.2
Percentage in workforcea Agricultural Industryb Trade, service, administrationc
52 29 20
38 31 31
27 44 27
Railroad track (thousands of miles) Steel produced (thousands of tons)
53 0.8
258 11.2
407 46
GNP (billions of dollars) Per capita (in 1920 dollars)
7.4 371
18.7 707
91.5 920
Life expectancy at birth (years) 42 47 54
a Percentages are rounded and do not total 100. b Includes manufacturing, transportation, mining, and construction. c Includes trade, finance, and public administration.
THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ★ 607
by 1920, opening vast new areas to commercial farming and creating a truly national market for manufactured goods. In 1886, the railroads adopted a stan- dard national gauge (the distance separating the two rails), making it possible for the first time for trains of one company to travel on any other company’s track. By the 1890s, five transcontinental lines transported the products of western mines, farms, ranches, and forests to eastern markets and carried man- ufactured goods to the West. The railroads reorganized time itself. In 1883, the major companies divided the nation into the four time zones still in use today.
The growing population formed an ever- expanding market for the mass production, mass distribution, and mass marketing of goods, essential elements of a modern industrial economy. The spread of national brands like Ivory soap and Quaker Oats symbolized the continuing integration of the economy. So did the growth of national chains, most prominently the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A & P grocery stores. Based in Chicago, the national mail- order firms Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold clothing, jewelry, farm equipment, and numerous other goods to rural families through- out the country.
New OrleansHouston
Mobile
El Paso Dallas
Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Buffalo
Pittsburgh
Detroit ClevelandChicago
St. Louis
Memphis Atlanta
Charleston
Norfolk
Washington, D.C.
St. Paul
Omaha
Kansas City Denver
Santa FePhoenix Los Angeles
Salt Lake City Reno
San Francisco
Boise
Portland
Seattle
Helena
Pacific Time Zone
Mountain Time Zone Central
Time Zone Eastern Time Zone Atlantic
Time Zone
Southern Pacific
Central P acific
Union Pacific
Northern Pacific
New York Central Pennsylvania
Baltimore and Ohio Illinois Central
CANADA
MEXICO Gulf of Mexico
At lantic Ocean
Paci f ic Ocean 0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers Major railroads in 1880 Time-zone boundaries
T H E R A I L R O A D N E T W O R K , 1 8 8 0
By 1880, the transnational rail network made possible the creation of a truly national market for goods.
What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society after the Civil War?
608 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
The Spirit of Innovation
A remarkable series of technological innovations spurred rapid communica- tion and economic growth. The opening of the Atlantic cable in 1866 made it possible to send electronic telegraph messages instantaneously between the United States and Europe. During the 1870s and 1880s, the telephone, type- writer, and handheld camera came into use.
Scientific breakthroughs poured forth from research laboratories in Menlo Park and West Orange, New Jersey, created by the era’s greatest inventor, Thomas A. Edison. During the course of his life, Edison helped to establish entirely new industries that transformed private life, public entertainment, and economic activity, including the phonograph, lightbulb, motion picture, and a system for generating and distributing electric power. He opened the first electric generating station in Manhattan in 1882 to provide power to street- cars, factories, and private homes, and he established, among other companies, the forerunner of General Electric to market electrical equipment. The spread of electricity was essential to industrial and urban growth, providing a more reliable and flexible source of power than water or steam. However, it was not Edison but another inventor, Nikola Tesla, an ethnic Serb born in modern- day Croatia who emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty- eight, who developed an electric motor using the system of alternating current that over- came many of the challenges of using electricity for commercial and industrial purposes.
Competition and Consolidation
Economic growth was dramatic but highly volatile. The combination of a mar- ket flooded with goods and the federal monetary policies (discussed later) that removed money from the national economy led to a relentless fall in prices. The world economy suffered prolonged downturns in the 1870s and 1890s. Indeed, before the 1930s, the years from 1873 to 1897 were known throughout the world as the Great Depression.
Businesses engaged in ruthless competition. Railroads and other compa nies tried various means of bringing order to the chaotic marketplace. They formed “pools” that divided up markets between supposedly competing firms and fixed prices. They established trusts— legal devices whereby the affairs of sev eral rival companies were managed by a single director. Such efforts to coordinate the economic activities of independent companies generally proved short- lived, disintegrating as individual firms continued their intense pursuit of profits.
To avoid cutthroat competition, more and more corporations battled to control entire industries. Many companies fell by the wayside or were gobbled up by others. The process of economic concentration culminated between
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1897 and 1904, when some 4,000 firms vanished into larger corporations that served national markets and exercised an unprecedented degree of control over the marketplace. By the time the wave of mergers had been completed, giant corporations like U.S. Steel (created by financier J. P. Morgan in 1901 by combining eight large steel companies into the first billion- dollar economic enterprise), Standard Oil, and International Harvester (a manufacturer of agri- cultural machinery) dominated major parts of the economy.
The Rise of Andrew Carnegie
In an era without personal or corporate income taxes, some business leaders accumulated enormous fortunes and economic power. Under the aggressive leadership of Thomas A. Scott, the Pennsylvania Railroad— for a time the nation’s largest corporation— forged an economic empire that stretched across the continent and included coal mines and oceangoing steamships. With an army of professional managers to oversee its far- flung activities, the railroad pioneered modern techniques of business organization.
Another industrial giant was Andrew Carnegie, who emigrated with his family from his native Scotland at the age of thirteen and as a teenager worked in a Pennsylvania textile factory. During the depression that began in 1873, Carnegie set out to establish a steel company that incorporated vertical integration— that is, one that controlled every phase of the business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution. By the 1890s, he dominated the steel industry and had accumulated a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Carnegie’s complex of steel factories at Homestead, Penn- sylvania, were the most technologically advanced in the world.
Carnegie’s father, an immigrant Scottish weaver who had taken part in pop- ular efforts to open the British political system to working- class participation, had instilled in his son a commitment to democracy and social equality. From his mother, Carnegie learned that life was a ceaseless struggle in which one must strive to get ahead or sink beneath the waves. His life reflected the tension between these elements of his upbringing. Believing that the rich had a moral obligation to promote the advancement of society, Carnegie denounced the “worship of money” and distributed much of his wealth to various philanthro- pies, especially the creation of public libraries in towns throughout the country. But he ran his companies with a dictatorial hand. His factories operated non- stop, with two twelve- hour shifts every day of the year except the Fourth of July.
The Triumph of John D. Rockefeller
If any single name became a byword for enormous wealth, it was John D. Roc kefeller, who began his working career as a clerk for a Cleveland merchant
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and rose to dominate the oil industry. He drove out rival firms through cutthroat competition, arranging secret deals with railroad companies, and fixing prices and production quotas. Rockefeller began with horizontal expansion— buying out competing oil refineries. But like Carnegie, he soon established a vertically integrated monopoly, which controlled the drilling, refining, storage, and dis- tribution of oil. By the 1880s, his Standard Oil Company controlled 90 percent of the nation’s oil industry. Like Carnegie, Rockefeller gave much of his fortune away, establishing foundations to promote education and medical research. And like Carnegie, he bitterly fought his employees’ efforts to organize unions.
These and other industrial leaders inspired among ordinary Americans a combination of awe, admiration, and hostility. Depending on one’s point of view,
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they were “captains of industry,” whose energy and vision pushed the economy forward, or “robber barons,” who wielded power without any accountability in an unregulated marketplace. Most rose from modest backgrounds and seemed examples of how inventive genius and business sense enabled Americans to seize opportunities for success. But their dictatorial attitudes, unscrupulous methods, repressive labor policies, and exercise of power without any demo- cratic control led to fears that they were undermining political and economic freedom. Concentrated wealth degraded the political process, declared Henry Demarest Lloyd in Wealth against Commonwealth (1894), an exposé of how Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company made a mockery of economic competition and political democracy by manipulating the market and bribing legislators. “Liberty and monopoly,” Lloyd concluded, “cannot live together.”
Workers’ Freedom in an Industrial Age
Remarkable as it was, the country’s economic growth distributed its benefits very unevenly. For a minority of workers, the rapidly expanding industrial system created new forms of freedom. In some industries, skilled workers commanded high wages and exercised considerable control over the produc- tion process. A worker’s economic independence now rested on technical skill rather than ownership of one’s own shop and tools as in earlier times. What was known as “the miner’s freedom” consisted of elaborate work rules that left skilled underground workers free of managerial supervision on the job. Through their union, skilled iron- and steelworkers fixed output quotas and controlled the training of apprentices in the technique of iron rolling. These workers often knew more about the details of production than their employers did.
Such “freedom,” however, applied only to a tiny portion of the industrial labor force and had little bearing on the lives of the growing army of semi- skilled workers who tended machines in the new factories. For most workers, economic insecurity remained a basic fact of life. During the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s, millions of workers lost their jobs or were forced to accept reductions of pay. The “tramp” became a familiar figure on the social landscape as thousands of men took to the roads in search of work. Many industrial work- ers labored sixty- hour weeks with no pensions, compensation for injuries, or protections against unemployment. Although American workers received higher wages than their counterparts in Europe, they also experienced more dangerous working conditions. Between 1880 and 1900, an average of 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accidents, the highest rate in the industrial world.
Much of the working class remained desperately poor and to survive needed income from all family members. In 1888, the Chicago Times published a series
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of articles by reporter Nell Cusack under the title “City Slave Girls,” exposing wretched conditions among the growing number of women working for wages in the city’s homes, factories, and sweatshops. The articles unleashed a flood of letters to the editor from women workers. One woman singled out domestic service— still the largest employment category for women— as “a slave’s life,” with “long hours, late and early, seven days in the week, bossed and ordered about as before the war.”
Sunshine and Shadow: Increasing Wealth and Poverty
At the other end of the economic spectrum, the era witnessed an unprecedented accumulation of wealth. Class divisions became more and more visible. In frontier days, all classes in San Francisco, for example, lived near the waterfront. In the late nineteenth century, upper- class families built mansions on Nob Hill and Van Ness Avenue (known as “millionaire’s row”). In eastern cities as well, the rich increasingly resided in their own exclusive neighborhoods and vacationed among members of their own class at exclusive resorts like Newport, Rhode Island. The growing urban middle class of professionals, office workers, and small businessmen moved to new urban and suburban neighborhoods linked to central business districts by streetcars and commuter railways. “Passion for money,” wrote the novelist Edith Wharton in The House of Mirth (1905), domi- nated society. Wharton’s book traced the difficulties of Lily Bart, a young woman of modest means pressured by her mother and New York high society to “bar- ter” her beauty for marriage to a rich husband in a world where “to be poor . . . amounted to disgrace.”
By 1890, the richest 1 percent of Americans received the same total income as the bottom half of the population and owned more property than the remaining 99 percent. Many of the wealthiest Americans consciously pursued an aristocratic lifestyle, building palatial homes, attending exclusive social clubs, schools, and colleges, holding fancy- dress balls, and marrying into each other’s families. In 1899, the economist and social historian Thorstein Veblen published The Theory of the Leisure Class, a devastating critique of an upper- class culture focused on “conspicuous consumption”—that is, spending money not on needed or even desired goods, but simply to demonstrate the possession of wealth. One of the era’s most widely publicized spectacles was an elaborate cos- tume ball organized in 1897 by Mrs. Bradley Martin, the daughter of a New York railroad financier. The theme was the royal court of prerevolutionary France. The Waldorf- Astoria Hotel was decorated to look like the palace of Versailles, the guests wore the dress of the French nobility, and the hostess bedecked her- self with the actual jewels of Queen Marie Antoinette.
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Not that far from the Waldorf, much of the working class lived in desperate conditions. Matthew Smith’s 1868 best- seller Sunshine and Shadow in New York opened with an engraving that con- trasted department store magnate Alex- ander T. Stewart’s two- million- dollar mansion with housing in the city’s slums. Two decades later, Jacob Riis, in How the Other Half Lives (1890), offered a shocking account of living conditions among the urban poor, complete with photographs of apartments in dark, air- less, overcrowded tenement houses.
T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T Nowhere did capitalism penetrate more rapidly or dramatically than in the trans- Mississippi West, whose “vast, trackless spaces,” as the poet Walt Whitman called them, were now absorbed into the expanding economy. At the close of the Civil War, the frontier of continuous white settlement did not extend very far beyond the Mississippi River. To the west lay millions of acres of fertile and mineral- rich land roamed by giant herds of buffalo whose meat and hides provided food, clothing, and shelter for a population of more than 250,000 Indians.
In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave a celebrated lecture, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in which he argued that on the western frontier the distinctive qualities of American culture were forged: individual freedom, political democracy, and economic mobility. The West, he added, acted as a “safety valve,” drawing off those dissatisfied with their situation in the East and therefore counteracting the threat of social unrest. Turner’s was one of the most influential interpretations of American history ever developed. But his lecture summarized attitudes toward the West that had been widely shared among Americans long before 1893. Ever since the beginning of colonial settlement in British North America, the West— a region whose definition shifted as the population expanded— had been seen as a place of opportunity for those seeking to improve their condition in life.
Baxter Street Court, 1890, one of numerous photographs by Jacob Riis depicting living conditions in New York City’s slums.
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Many Americans did indeed experience the westward movement in the way Turner described it. From farmers moving into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in the decades after the American Revolution to prospectors who struck it rich in the California gold rush of the mid- nineteenth century, millions of Americans and immigrants from abroad found in the westward movement a path to economic opportunity. But Turner seemed to portray the West as an empty space before the coming of white settlers. In fact, of course, it was already inhabited by Native Americans, whose dispossession was essential to the opening of land for settle- ment by others. Moreover, the West was hardly a uniform paradise of small, independent farmers. Landlords, railroads, and mining companies in the West also utilized Mexican migrant and indentured labor, Chinese working on long- term contracts, and, until the end of the Civil War, African- American slaves.
A Diverse Region
The West, of course, was hardly a single area. West of the Mississippi River lay a variety of regions, all marked by remarkable physical beauty— the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the desert of the Southwest, the Sierra Nevada, and the valleys and coastline of California and the Pacific Northwest. It would take many decades before individual settlers and corporate business enterprises penetrated all these areas. But the process was far advanced by the end of the nineteenth century.
The political and economic incorporation of the American West was part of a global process. In many parts of the world, indigenous inhabitants— the Mapuche in Chile, the Zulu in South Africa, Aboriginal peoples in Australia, American Indians— were pushed aside (often after fierce resistance) as cen- tralizing governments brought large interior regions under their control. In the United States, the incorporation of the West required the active interven- tion of the federal government, which acquired Indian land by war and treaty, administered land sales, regulated territorial politics, and distributed land and money to farmers, railroads, and mining companies. Western states used land donated by the federal government, in accordance with the Morrill Land- Grant Act passed during the Civil War, to establish public universities. And, of course, the abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment decided the long contest over whether the West would be a society based on free or slave labor.
Newly created western territories such as Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas remained under federal control far longer than had been the pat- tern in the East. Eastern territories had taken an average of thirteen years to achieve statehood; it took New Mexico sixty- two years to do so, Arizona forty- nine, and Utah forty- six. Many easterners were wary of granting statehood to
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the territories until white and non- Mormon settlers counterbalanced the large Latino and Mormon populations.
In the twentieth century, the con- struction of federally financed irriga- tion systems and dams would open large areas to commercial farming. Ironically, the West would become known (not least to its own inhabi- tants) as a place of rugged individu- alism and sturdy independence. But without active governmental assis- tance, the region could never have been settled and developed.
Farming on the Middle Border
Even as sporadic Indian wars raged, set- tlers poured into the West. Territorial and state governments eager for popu- lation, and railroad companies anxious to sell land they had acquired from the government, flooded European coun- tries and eastern cities with promo- tional literature promising easy access to land. More land came into cultivation in the thirty years after the Civil War than in the previous two and a half cen- turies of American history. Hundreds of thousands of families acquired farms under the Homestead Act, and even more purchased land from speculators and from railroad companies that had been granted immense tracts of public land by the federal government. A new agricultural empire producing wheat and corn for national and international markets arose on the Middle Border (Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas), whose population rose from 300,000 in 1860 to 5 million in 1900. The farmers were a diverse group, includ- ing native- born easterners, blacks escaping the post- Reconstruction South, and immigrants from Canada, Germany, Scandinavia, and Great Britain. Although ethnic diversity is generally associated with eastern cities, in the late nine- teenth century the most multicultural state in the Union was North Dakota.
Despite the promises of promotional pamphlets, farming on the Great Plains was not an easy task. Difficulties came in many forms— from the poisonous rat- tlesnakes that lived in the tall prairie grass to the blizzards and droughts that
Having been granted millions of acres of land by the federal and state governments, railroads sought to encourage emigration to the West so they could sell real estate to settlers. This is a post– Civil War advertisement by a Texas railroad.
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periodically afflicted the region. Much of the burden fell on women. Farm families generally invested in the kinds of labor- saving machinery that would bring in cash, not machines that would ease women’s burdens in the household (like the backbreaking task of doing laundry). While husbands and sons tended to devote their labor to cash crops, farm wives cared for animals, grew crops for food, and cooked and cleaned. A farm woman in Arizona described her morning chores in her diary: “Get up, turn out my chickens, draw a pail of water . . . make a fire, put potatoes to cook, brush and sweep half inch of dust off floor, feed three litters of chickens, then mix biscuits, get breakfast, milk, besides work in the house, and this morning had to go half mile after calves.” On far- flung homesteads, many miles from schools, medical care, and sources of entertainment, farm families suffered from loneliness and isolation— a problem especially severe for women when their husbands left, sometimes for weeks at a time, to market their crops.
Bonanza Farms
John Wesley Powell, the explorer and geologist who surveyed the Middle Bor- der in the 1870s, warned that because of the region’s arid land and limited rain- fall, development there required large- scale irrigation projects. The model of family farming envisioned by the Homestead Act of 1862 could not apply: no single family could do all the work required on irrigated farms— only coopera- tive, communal farming could succeed, Powell maintained.
Despite the emergence of a few bonanza farms that covered thousands of acres and employed large numbers of agricultural wage workers, family farms still dominated the trans- Mississippi West. Even small farmers, however, became increasingly oriented to national and international markets, special- izing in the production of single crops for sale in faraway places. At the same time, railroads brought factory- made goods to rural people, replacing items previously produced in farmers’ homes. Farm families became more and more dependent on loans to purchase land, machinery, and industrial products, and more and more vulnerable to the ups and downs of prices for agricultural goods in the world market. Agriculture reflected how the international economy was becoming more integrated. The combination of economic depressions and expanding agricultural production in places like Argentina, Australia, and the American West pushed prices of farm products steadily downward. From Italy and Ireland to China, India, and the American South, small farmers throughout the world suffered severe difficulties in the last quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury. Many joined the migration to cities within their countries or the increas- ing international migration of labor.
The future of western farming ultimately lay with giant agricultural enter- prises relying heavily on irrigation, chemicals, and machinery— investments far beyond the means of family farmers. A preview of the agricultural future
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was already evident in California, where, as far back as Spanish and Mexican days, landownership had been concentrated in large units. In the late nine- teenth century, California’s giant fruit and vegetable farms, owned by corpora- tions like the Southern Pacific Railroad, were tilled not by agricultural laborers who could expect to acquire land of their own, but by migrant laborers from China, the Philippines, Japan, and Mexico, who tramped from place to place following the ripening crops.
In the 1870s, California’s “wheat barons,” who owned ranches of 30,000 or more acres, shipped their grain from San Francisco all the way to Great Britain, while large- scale growers in the new “Orange Empire” of the southern part of the state sent fruit east by rail, packaged in crates bedecked with images of an Edenic landscape filled with lush orchards.
The Cowboy and the Corporate West
The two decades following the Civil War also witnessed the golden age of the cattle kingdom. The Kansas Pacific Railroad’s stations at Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, Kansas, became destinations for the fabled drives of mil- lions of cattle from Texas. A collection of white, Mexican, and black men who conducted the cattle drives, the cowboys became symbols of a life of freedom on the open range. Their exploits would later serve as the theme of many a Hollywood movie, and their clothing inspired fashions that remain popular today. But there was nothing romantic about the life of the cowboys, most of whom were low- paid wage workers. (Texas cowboys even went on strike for higher pay in 1883.) The days of the long- distance cattle drive ended in the mid- 1880s, as farmers enclosed more and more of the open range with barbed- wire fences, making it difficult to graze cattle on the grasslands of the Great Plains, and two terrible winters destroyed millions of cattle. When the industry recuperated, it was reorganized in large, enclosed ranches close to rail connections.
The West was more than a farming empire. By 1890, a higher percentage of its population lived in cities than was the case in other regions. The economic focus of California’s economy remained San Francisco, a major manufactur- ing center and one of the world’s great trading ports. The explosive growth of southern California began in the 1880s, first with tourism, heavily promoted by railroad companies, followed by the discovery of oil in Los Angeles in 1892. Large corporate enterprises appeared throughout the West. The lumber indus- try, dominated by small- scale producers in 1860, came under the control of cor- porations that acquired large tracts of forest and employed armies of loggers. Lumbermen had cut trees in the Far West’s vast forests since the days of Span- ish and Mexican rule. Now, with rising demand for wood for buildings in urban centers and with new railroads making it possible to send timber quickly to the
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East, production expanded rapidly. Sawmills sprang up near rail lines, and lum- ber companies acquired thousands of acres of timber land. Loggers who had migrated from the East and Midwest and were used to cutting pine trees had to develop new techniques for felling the far larger giant redwoods of northern California. Once they did, coastal forests were decimated, with the high- quality wood being used to construct many of the buildings in San Francisco and other communities. In the early twentieth century, the desire to save the remaining redwoods would become one inspiration for the conservation movement.
Western mining, from Michigan iron ore and copper to gold and silver in California, Nevada, and Colorado, fell under the sway of companies that mobi- lized eastern and European investment to introduce advanced technology. Gold and silver rushes took place in the Dakotas in 1876, Idaho in 1883, Col- orado in the 1890s, and Alaska at the end of the century. Railroad hubs like Albuquerque, Denver, El Paso, and Tucson flourished as gateways to the new mineral regions. But as in California after 1848, the independent prospector working a surface mine with his pick and shovel quickly gave way to deep- shaft corporate mining employing wage workers. As with other western indus- tries, the coming of the railroad greatly expanded the possibilities for mining, making it possible to ship minerals from previously inaccessible places. More- over, professionally trained engineers from the East and Europe introduced new scientific techniques of mining and smelting ore. For example, the town of Leadville, Colorado, which did not exist before the mid- 1870s, became one of the world’s great centers of lead production after August R. Meyer, a Euro- pean mining engineer, analyzed the precise content of silver and lead in the area’s minerals. The economic crosscurrents at work in post– Civil War min- ing were illustrated at Butte, Montana. In the 1880s, absentee owners from San Francisco poured millions of dollars into what they thought was a silver mine, only to learn that they had acquired one of the world’s richest deposits of cop- per. A new town, Anaconda, quickly arose, with a population of 2,000 miners, smelters, engineers, and others, from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. In the early twentieth century, the company would be acquired by bankers and other investors from the East.
A similar process occurred in New Mexico, where traditional life based on sheep farming on land owned in common by Mexican villagers had continued more or less unchanged after the United States acquired the area in the Mexican War. The existence of these Spanish and Mexican communal landholdings may have influenced John Wesley Powell’s recommendations concerning commu- nal farming. Railroads reached the area in the 1870s, bringing with them east- ern mining companies and commercial ranchers and farmers. Because courts only recognized Mexican- era land titles to individual plots of land, communal landholdings were increasingly made available for sale to newcomers. By 1880,
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three- quarters of New Mexico’s sheep belonged to just twenty families. Unable to continue as sheep raisers, more and more Hispanic residents went to work for the new mines and railroads.
The Chinese Presence
Chinese immigration, which had begun at the time of the California gold rush, continued in the postwar years. Before the Civil War, nearly all Chinese newcomers had been unattached men, brought in by labor contractors to
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work in western gold fields, railroad construction, and factories. In the early 1870s, entire Chinese families began to immigrate. By 1880, 105,000 persons of Chinese descent lived in the United States. Three- quarters lived in Califor- nia, where Chinese made up over half of the state’s farm workers. But Chinese immigrants were present throughout the West and in all sorts of jobs. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, many worked in con- struction on other railroad lines that sprang up throughout the region. Chinese could be found in mines in Idaho, Colorado, and Nevada, as domestic workers in urban households, and in factories producing cigars, clothing, and shoes in western cities. They built levees, drained agricultural fields, and worked on fishing boats. Many men had wives and children in China, and like members of other immigrant groups, they kept in touch by sending letters and money to their families at home and reading magazines aimed at emigrants that reported on local events in China. As will be related in the next chapter, their growing presence sparked an outpouring of anti- Chinese sentiment, leading to laws excluding virtually all Chinese from entering the country.
Conflict on the Mormon Frontier
The Mormons had moved to the Great Salt Lake Valley in the 1840s, hoping to practice their religion free of the persecution that they had encountered in the East. They envisioned their community in Utah as the foundation of a great empire they called Deseret. Given the widespread unpopularity of Mormon polygamy and the close connection of church and state in Mormon theology, conflict with both the federal government and the growing numbers of non- Mormons moving west became inevitable. In 1857, after receiving reports that the work of federal judges in Utah was being obstructed by the territorial gov- ernor, the Mormon leader Brigham Young, President James Buchanan removed Young and appointed a non- Mormon to replace him. Young refused to comply, and federal troops entered the Salt Lake Valley, where they remained until the beginning of the Civil War. During this time of tension, a group of Mormons attacked a wagon train of non- Mormon settlers traveling through Utah and intending to settle in California. What came to be called the Mountain Mead- ows Massacre resulted in the death of all the adults and older children in the wagon train— over 100 persons. Only a handful of young children survived. Nearly twenty years later, one leader of the assault was convicted of murder and executed.
After the Civil War, Mormon leaders sought to avoid further antagonizing the federal government. In the 1880s, Utah banned the practice of polygamy, a prohibition written into the state constitution as a requirement before Utah gained admission as a state in 1896.
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The Subjugation of the Plains Indians
The transcontinental railroad, a symbol of the reunited nation, brought tens of thousands of newcomers to the West and stimulated the expansion of farming, mining, and other enterprises. The incorporation of the West into the national economy spelled the doom of the Plains Indians and their world. Their lives had already undergone profound transformations. In the eighteenth century, the spread of horses, originally introduced by the Spanish, led to a wholesale shift from farming and hunting on foot to mounted hunting of buffalo. New Indian groups migrated to the Great Plains to take advantage of the horse, coalescing into the great tribes of the nineteenth century— the Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Kiowa, and Sioux. Persistent warfare took place between the more established tribes and newcomers, including Indians removed from the East, who sought access to their hunting grounds.
Most migrants on the Oregon and California Trails before the Civil War encountered little hostility from Indians, often trading with them for food and supplies. But as settlers encroached on Indian lands, bloody conflict between the army and Plains tribes began in the 1850s and continued for decades.
In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant announced a new “peace policy” in the West, but warfare soon resumed. Drawing on methods used to defeat the Confederacy, Civil War generals like Philip H. Sheridan set out to destroy the foundations of the Indian economy— villages, horses, and especially the buffalo. Hunting by mounted Indians had already reduced the buffalo population— estimated at 30 million in 1800—but it was army campaigns and the depredations of hunters seeking buffalo hides that rendered the vast herds all but extinct. By 1886, an expedition from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington had difficulty finding twenty- five “good specimens.” “A cold wind blew across the prairie when the last buffalo fell,” said the Sioux leader Sitting Bull, “a death- wind for my people.”
“Let Me Be a Free Man”
The army’s relentless attacks broke the power of one tribe after another. In 1877, troops commanded by former Freedmen’s Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard pursued the Nez Percé Indians on a 1,700-mile chase across the Far West. The Nez Percé (whose name was given them by Lewis and Clark in 1805 and means “pierced nose” in French) were seeking to escape to Canada after fights with settlers who had encroached on tribal lands in Oregon and Idaho. After four months, Howard forced the Indians to surrender, and they were removed to Oklahoma.
Two years later, the Nez Percé leader, Chief Joseph, delivered a speech in Washington to a distinguished audience that included President
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
622 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
From Speech of Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians, in Washington, D.C. (1879)
Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Percé Indians, led his people on a 1,700-mile trek through the Far West in 1877 in an unsuccessful effort to escape to Canada. Two years later, he addressed an audience in Washington, D.C., that included President Ruther- ford B. Hayes, appealing for the freedom and equal rights enshrined in the law after the Civil War.
I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. . . . Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the . . . broken promises. . . .
If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. . . .
When I think of our condition my heart is heavy. I see men of my race treated as outlaws and driven from country to country, or shot down like animals. I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. . . .
Let me be a free man— free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself— and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 623
From Letter by Saum Song Bo, American Missionary (October 1885)
During the 1880s, Chinese- Americans were subjected to discrimination in every phase of their lives. In 1882, Congress temporarily barred further immigration from China. In 1885, when funds were being raised to build a pedestal for the Statue of Lib- erty, Saum Song Bo, a Chinese- American writer, contrasted the celebration of liberty with the treatment of the Chinese.
A paper was presented to me yesterday for inspection, and I found it to be specially drawn up for subscription among my countrymen toward the Pedestal Fund of the . . . Statue of Liberty. . . . But the word liberty makes me think of the fact that this country is the land of liberty for men of all nations except the Chinese. I consider it as an insult to us Chinese to call on us to contribute toward building in this land a pedestal for a statue of Liberty. That statue represents Liberty holding a torch which lights the passage of those of all nations who come into this country. But are the Chinese allowed to come? As for the Chinese who are here, are they allowed to enjoy liberty as men of all other nationalities enjoy it? Are they allowed to go about everywhere free from the insults, abuses, assaults, wrongs, and injuries from which men of other nationalities are free? . . .
And this statue of Liberty is a gift from another people who do not love liberty for the Chinese. [To] the Annamese and Tonquinese Chinese [colonial subjects of the French empire in Indochina], . . . liberty is as dear as to the French. What right have the French to deprive them of their liberty?
Whether this statute against the Chi- nese or the statue to Liberty will be the most lasting monument to tell future ages of the liberty and greatness of this country, will be known only to future generations.
QUESTIONS
1. What are Chief Joseph’s complaints about the treatment of his people?
2. Why does Saum Song Bo believe that the Chi- nese do not enjoy liberty in the United States?
3. What are the similarities and differences in the definition of freedom in the two documents?
624 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
Rutherford B. Hayes. Condemning the policy of confining Indians to reserva- tions, Joseph adopted the language of freedom and equal rights before the law so powerfully reinforced by the Civil War and Reconstruction. “Treat all men alike,” he pleaded. “Give them the same law. . . . Let me be a free man— free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to . . . think and talk and act for myself.” The government eventually transported the sur- viving Nez Percé to another reservation in Washington Territory. Until his death in 1904, Joseph would unsuccessfully petition successive presidents for his people’s right to return to their beloved Oregon homeland.
Indians occasionally managed to inflict costly delay and even defeat on army units. The most famous Indian victory took place in June 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, when General George A. Custer and his entire command of 250 men perished. The Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Sit- ting Bull and Crazy Horse, were defending tribal land in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. Reserved for them in an 1868 treaty “for as long as the grass shall grow,” their lands had been invaded by whites after the discovery of gold. Eventually the Sioux were worn down, partly because of the decimation of the buffalo, and relinquished their claim to the Black Hills. In the Southwest, Cochise, Geronimo, and other leaders of the Apache, who had been relocated by the government a number of times, led bands that crossed and recrossed the border with Mexico, evading the army and occasionally killing civilians. They would not surrender until the mid- 1880s.
Another casualty was the Comanche empire, centered in modern- day New Mexico and Colorado. Beginning in the mid- eighteenth century, the Comanche dominated much of the Great Plains and Southwest. The Comanche subordi- nated local Indian groups to their power, imposed a toll on trade routes like the Santa Fe Trail, and dealt for a time as an equal with the Spanish, French, and American governments. Their power was not finally broken until the 1870s.
Remaking Indian Life
“The life my people want is a life of freedom,” Sitting Bull declared. The Indian idea of freedom, however, which centered on preserving their cultural and polit- ical autonomy and control of ancestral lands, conflicted with the interests and values of most white Americans. Nearly all officials believed that the federal gov- ernment should persuade or force the Plains Indians to surrender most of their land and to exchange their religion, communal property, nomadic way of life, and gender relations for Christian worship, private ownership, and small farm- ing on reservations with men tilling the fields and women working in the home.
In 1871, Congress eliminated the treaty system that dated back to the rev- olutionary era, by which the federal government negotiated agreements with
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WEST ★ 625
Indians as if they were independent nations. This step was supported by rail- road companies that found tribal sovereignty an obstacle to construction and by Republicans who believed that it contradicted the national unity born of the Civil War. The federal government pressed forward with its assault on Indian culture. The Bureau of Indian Affairs established boarding schools where Indian children, removed from the “negative” influences of their parents and tribes, were dressed in non- Indian clothes, given new names, and educated in white ways.
The Dawes Act
The crucial step in attacking “tribalism” came in 1887 with the passage of the Dawes Act, named for Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, chair of the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee. The Act broke up the land of nearly all tribes into small parcels to be distributed to Indian families, with the remainder auc- tioned off to white purchasers. Indians who accepted the farms and “adopted the habits of civilized life” would become full- fledged American citizens. The policy proved to be a disaster, leading to the loss of much tribal land and the erosion of Indian cultural traditions. Whites, however, benefited enormously. When the government made 2 million acres of Indian land available in Oklahoma, 50,000 white settlers poured into the territory to claim farms on the single day of April 22, 1889. Further land rushes followed in the 1890s. In the half century after the passage of the Dawes Act, Indians lost 86 million of the 138 million acres of land in their possession in 1887. Overall, according to one estimate, between 1776 and today, via the “right of discovery,” treaties, executive orders, court decisions, and outright theft, the United States has acquired over 1.5 bil- lion acres of land from Native Americans, an area twenty- five times as large as Great Britain.
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?
This pencil- and- crayon drawing by a Cheyenne Indian from the 1880s depicts a Native American fighting two black members of the U.S. military. After the Civil War, black soldiers, whose presence was resented by many whites, in the North as well as the South, were reassigned to the West.
626 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
Indian Citizenship
Many laws and treaties in the nineteenth century offered Indians the right to become American citizens if they left the tribal setting and assimilated into American society. But tribal identity was the one thing nearly every Indian wished to maintain, and very few took advantage of these offers. Thus, few Indians were recognized as American citizens. Western courts ruled that the rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not apply to them, and in Elk v. Wilkins (1884) the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, even though John Elk had left his tribe in Oklahoma and lived among white set- tlers in Nebraska. The Court questioned whether any Indian had achieved the degree of “civilization” required of American citizens.
By 1900, roughly 53,000 Indians had become American citizens by accept- ing land allotments under the Dawes Act. The following year, Congress granted citizenship to 100,000 residents of Indian Territory (in present- day Oklahoma). The remainder would have to wait until 1919 (for those who fought in World War I) and 1924, when Congress made all Indians American citizens.
WASHINGTON
OREGON IDAHO
MONTANA
WYOMING
NORTH DAKOTA
SOUTH DAKOTA
NEBRASKA
WISCONSIN
IOWA
MINNESOTA
ILLINOIS INDIANA
MICHIGAN
KENTUCKYMISSOURIKANSAS COLORADO
UTAH TERRITORY
NEVADA
CALIFORNIA
ARIZONA TERRITORY NEW MEXICO
TERRITORY
TEXAS
INDIAN TERRITORY
CANADA
MEXICO
COLVILLE SPOKAN
COEUR D'ALENE
NEZ PERCÉ
FLATHEAD
BLACKFEET
YAKIMA
UMATILLA WARM SPRING
KLAMATH
NO RTH
WE ST
C OA
ST AL
T RI
BE S
SHOSHONE & PAIUTE
SHOSHONE & BANNOCK
PAIUTE
PAIUTE
MOAPA RIVER
POMO
ROUND VALLEY
HOOPA VALLEY
KLAMATH RIVER
TULE RIVER
MISSION INDIANS
HOPI NAVAJO
HUALPAI MOHAVE
MOHAVE
SUPPAI
YUMA PAPAGO
PIMA
MARICOPA
APACHE
ZUÑI
PAPAGO
UTE JICARILLA APACHE
PUEBLO
MESCALERO APACHE
UTE
SHOSHONE & ARAPAHO
CROW NORTHERNCHEYENNE
SIOUX & ASSINIBOIN
MANDAN HIDATSA MINITARI
REE CHIPPEWA
SIOUX
SIOUX TRIBES
SIOUX SIOUX
CHIPPEWA TRIBES
PONCA WINNEBAGO OMAHA SAC& FOX
SAC & FOX KICKAPOO
POTTAWATOMI
MUNSEE CHIPPEWA
Paci f ic Ocean
Chilocco Kansas
Peoria Quapaw Modoc Shawnee Seneca
Ottawa Wyandotte
Cherokee
Choctaw
Creek
Osage Tonkawa
Ponca Otoe & Missouri
Cheyenne & Arapaho
Wichita Caddo
Comanche Kiowa
Apache Chickasaw
Pottawatomie Seminole
Kickapoo Iowa Pawnee
Sac & Fox
CHEROKEE OUTLET
0
0
200
200
400 miles
400 kilometersIndian reservations
I N D I A N R E S E RVAT I O N S , C A . 1 8 9 0
By 1890, the vast majority of the remaining Indian population had been removed to reservations scattered across the western states.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WEST ★ 627
The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee
Some Indians sought solace in the Ghost Dance, a religious revitalization campaign reminiscent of the pan- Indian movements led by earlier prophets like Neolin and Tenskwatawa (discussed in Chapters 4 and 8). Its leaders fore- told a day when whites would disappear, the buffalo would return, and Indians could once again practice their ancestral customs “free from misery, death, and disease.” Large numbers of Indians gathered for days of singing, dancing, and religious observances. Fearing a general uprising, the government sent troops to the reservations. On December 29, 1890, soldiers opened fire on Ghost Danc- ers encamped near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly women and children.
The Wounded Knee massacre was widely applauded in the press. An Army Court of Inquiry essentially exonerated the troops and their commander, and twenty soldiers were later awarded the Medal of Honor, a recognition of exceptional heroism in battle, for their actions at Wounded Knee. Like federal efforts to exert control over the Mormons in Utah, the suppression of the Ghost Dance revealed the limits on Americans’ efforts to seek in the West the freedom to practice nonmainstream religions.
The Wounded Knee massacre marked the end of four centuries of armed conflict between the continent’s native population and European settlers and their descendants. By 1900, the Indian population had fallen to 250,000, the lowest point in American history. A children’s book about Indians published around this time stated flatly, “The Indian pictured in these pages no longer exists.” Yet despite everything, Indians survived, and in the twentieth century their numbers once again would begin to grow.
Settler Societies and Global Wests
The conquest of the American West was part of a global process whereby settlers moved boldly into the interior of regions in temperate climates around the world, bringing their familiar crops and livestock and establishing mining and other industries. Countries such as Argentina, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as the United States, are often called “settler societies,” because immigrants from overseas quickly outnumbered and displaced the original inhabitants— unlike in India and most parts of colonial Africa, where fewer Europeans ven- tured and those who did relied on the labor of the indigenous inhabitants.
In the late nineteenth century, even as the population of the American West grew dramatically, Canada marked the completion of its first transcontinental railroad, although the more severe climate limited the number of western set- tlers to a much smaller population than in the American West (and as a result, the displacement of Indians did not produce as much conflict and bloodshed).
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?
628 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
In many settler societies, native peoples were subjected to cultural reconstruc- tion similar to policies in the United States. In Australia, the government gath- ered the Aboriginal populations— their numbers devastated by disease— in “reserves” reminiscent of American Indian reservations. Australia went further than the United States in the forced assimilation of surviving Aboriginal peo- ples. The government removed large numbers of children from their families to be adopted by whites— a policy only abandoned in the 1970s and for which the prime minister formally apologized in 2008 in a national moment of recon- ciliation called Sorry Day.
Myth, Reality, and the Wild West
The West has long played many roles in Americans’ national self- consciousness. It has been imagined as a place of individual freedom and unbridled opportu- nity for those dissatisfied with their lives in the East and as a future empire that would dominate the continent and the world. Even as farms, mines, and cities spread over the landscape in the post– Civil War years, a new image of the West began to circulate— the Wild West, a lawless place ruled by cowboys and
Boys from the Lakota tribe on their arrival (left) and during their stay at Carlisle, a boarding school that aimed to “civilize” Indians, by J. N. Choate, a local photographer.
POLITICS IN A GILDED AGE ★ 629
Indians (two groups by this time vastly outnumbered by other westerners), and marked by gunfights, cattle drives, and stagecoach robberies.
This image of a violent yet romantic frontier world would later become a staple of Hollywood movies. In the late nineteenth century, it was disseminated in vaudeville shows that achieved immense popularity. Although not the first, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was the most important popularizer of this idea of the West. A former hunter and scout for the U.S. Army, Cody developed an elab- orate theatrical presentation that toured for decades across the United States and Europe. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show included reenactments of battles with Indians (including Custer’s Last Stand), buffalo hunts, Indian rituals, and feats by the sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Along with Cody, other persons who had actually participated in these events appeared in the show, including the Indian warrior Sitting Bull and a group of Sioux fighters. The image of the Wild West also circulated in cheap popular books known as dime novels and sensa- tional journalistic accounts.
Theater audiences and readers found fantasies of adventure in observing western violence from a safe distance and marveled at the skills of horseback riding, roping, and shooting on display. They imagined the West as a timeless place immune to the corruptions of civilization, which offered a striking con- trast to the increasingly sedentary lives of men in eastern cities. Indeed, despite the inclusion of Oakley, this West of the imagination was emphatically a male preserve. The real West— for example, the struggles of farm families— played no role in this depiction. Nor did pervasive labor conflict in mining centers, or the role of the federal government and eastern capital in the region’s devel- opment. The West’s multiracial, multiethnic population also disappeared, although different groups added their own elements to the mythical west. Mexican- Americans, for example, made a folk hero of Gregorio Cortez, a Texas outlaw renowned for his ability to outwit pursuers. The West Coast also had no place in the picture— the imagined West seemed to stop at the Rocky Mountains.
P O L I T I C S I N A G I L D E D A G E The era from 1870 to 1890 is the only period of American history commonly known by a derogatory name— the Gilded Age, after the title of an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. “Gilded” means covered with a layer of gold, but it also suggests that the glittering surface masks a core of little real value and is therefore deceptive. Twain and Warner were referring not only to the remarkable expansion of the economy in this period but also to the corruption caused by corporate dominance of politics and to the oppressive
Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals?
630 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
treatment of those left behind in the scramble for wealth. “Get rich, dishonestly if we can, honestly if we must,” was the era’s slogan, according to The Gilded Age.
The Corruption of Politics
As they had earlier in the nineteenth century, Americans during the Gilded Age saw their nation as an island of political democracy in a world still domi- nated by undemocratic governments. In Europe, only France and Switzerland enjoyed universal male suffrage. Even in Britain, which prided itself on its tra- dition of political liberty, most of the working class could not vote until the passage of the Reform Act of 1884.
Nonetheless, the power of the new corporations, seemingly immune to democratic control, raised disturbing questions for the American understand- ing of political freedom as popular self- government. Political corruption was rife. “The galleries and lobbies of every legislature,” observed an Illinois Repub- lican leader, “are thronged with men seeking to procure an advantage” for one corporation or another. In Pennsylvania’s legislature, the “third house” of rail- road lobbyists was said to enjoy as much influence as the elected chambers. In the West, many lawmakers held stock or directorships in lumber companies and railroads that received public aid.
Urban politics fell under the sway of corrupt political machines like New York’s Tweed Ring, which plundered the city of tens of millions of dollars. “Boss” William M. Tweed’s organization reached into every neighborhood. He forged close ties with railroad men and labor unions, and he won support from the city’s immigrant poor by fashioning a kind of private welfare system that provided food, fuel, and jobs in hard times. A combination of political reform- ers and businessmen tired of paying tribute to the ring ousted Tweed in the early 1870s, although he remained popular among the city’s poor, who consid- ered him an urban Robin Hood.
At the national level, many lawmakers supported bills aiding companies in which they had invested money or from which they received stock or sal- aries. The most notorious example of corruption came to light during Grant’s presidency. This was Crédit Mobilier, a corporation formed by an inner ring of Union Pacific Railroad stockholders to oversee the line’s government- assisted construction. Essentially, it enabled the participants to sign contracts with themselves, at an exorbitant profit, to build the new line. The arrangement was protected by the distribution of stock to influential politicians, including Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, who was elected vice president in 1868. In another example of corruption, the Whiskey Ring of the Grant administra- tion united Republican officials, tax collectors, and whiskey manufacturers in a massive scheme that defrauded the federal government of millions of tax dollars.
POLITICS IN A GILDED AGE ★ 631
The Politics of Dead Center
In national elections, party politics bore the powerful imprint of the Civil War. Republicans controlled the industrial North and Midwest and the agrarian West and were particularly strong among members of revival- ist churches, Protestant immigrants, and blacks. Organizations of Union veterans formed a bulwark of Repub- lican support. Every Republican can- didate for president from 1868 to 1900 except James G. Blaine had fought in the Union army. (In the 1880 cam- paign, all four candidates— Republican James A. Garfield, Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, Prohibitionist Neal Dow, and James B. Weaver of the Greenback- Labor Party, discussed later— had been Union generals during the war.) By 1893, a lavish system of pensions for Union soldiers and their widows and children consumed more than 40 percent of the federal budget. Democrats, after 1877, dominated the South and did well among Catholic voters, especially Irish- Americans, in the nation’s cities.
The parties were closely divided. In three of the five presidential elections between 1876 and 1892, the margin separating the major candidates was less than 1 percent of the popular vote. Twice, in 1876 and 1888, the candidate with an electoral- college majority trailed in the popular vote. The congressional elections of 1874, when Democrats won control of the House of Representa- tives, ushered in two decades of political stalemate. A succession of one- term presidencies followed: Rutherford B. Hayes (elected in 1876), James A. Garfield (succeeded, after his assassination in 1881, by Chester A. Arthur), Grover Cleve- land in 1884, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and Cleveland, elected for the sec- ond time, in 1892. Only for brief periods did the same party control the White House and both houses of Congress. More than once, Congress found itself paralyzed as important bills shuttled back and forth between the House and Senate, and special sessions to complete legislation became necessary. Gilded Age presidents made little effort to mobilize public opinion or exert executive leadership. Their staffs were quite small. Grover Cleveland himself answered the White House doorbell.
In some ways, American democracy in the Gilded Age seemed remark- ably healthy. Elections were closely contested, party loyalty was intense, and 80 percent or more of eligible voters turned out to cast ballots. It was an era of massive party rallies and spellbinding political oratory. James G. Blaine was
Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals?
Voted Democrat 4–5 times Voted Republican 4–5 times Voted more irregularly
Elections of 1876–1892
Non-voting territory
P O L I T I C A L S TA L E M AT E , 1 8 7 6 – 1 8 9 2
632 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
among the members of Congress tainted by the Crédit Mobilier scandal, but Robert G. Ingersoll’s speech before the Republican national convention of 1876 nearly secured Blaine’s nomination for president by depicting him as a “plumed knight” who had raised his “shining lance” against the country’s enemies.
Government and the Economy
The nation’s political structure, however, proved ill equipped to deal with the problems created by the economy’s rapid growth. Despite its expanded scope and powers arising from the Civil War, the federal government remained remarkably small by modern standards. Activities from education to medical care, business regulation, civil and criminal prosecutions, and many others were almost entirely under the control of local and state governments or pri- vate institutions. The federal workforce in 1880 numbered 100,000 (today, it exceeds 2.5 million).
Nationally, both parties came under the control of powerful political man- agers with close ties to business interests. Republicans strongly supported a high tariff to protect American industry, and throughout the 1870s they pur- sued a fiscal policy based on reducing federal spending, repaying much of the national debt, and withdrawing greenbacks— the paper money issued by the Union during the Civil War— from circulation. Democrats opposed the high tariff, but the party’s national leadership remained closely linked to New York bankers and financiers and resisted demands from debt- ridden agricultural areas for an increase in the money supply. In 1879, for the first time since the war, the United States returned to the gold standard— that is, paper currency became exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate.
By reducing competition from foreign manufactured goods and leaving the banks, not the government, in control of issuing money, Republican economic policies strongly favored the interests of eastern industrialists and bankers. These policies worked to the disadvantage of southern and western farmers, who had to pay a premium for manufactured goods while the prices they received for their produce steadily declined.
Reform Legislation
Gilded Age national politics did not entirely lack accomplishments. Inspired in part by President Garfield’s assassination by a disappointed office seeker, the Civil Service Act of 1883 created a merit system for federal employees, with appointment via competitive examinations rather than political influence. Although it applied at first to only 10 percent of government workers, the act marked the first step in establishing a professional civil service and removing
POLITICS IN A GILDED AGE ★ 633
officeholding from the hands of political machines. (However, since funds raised from political appointees had helped to finance the political parties, civil service reform had the unintended result of increasing politicians’ dependence on donations from business interests.)
In 1887, in response to public outcries against railroad practices, Congress established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to ensure that the rates railroads charged farmers and merchants to transport their goods were “reasonable” and did not offer more favorable treatment to some shippers. The ICC was the first federal agency intended to regulate economic activity, but since it lacked the power to establish rates on its own— it could only sue com- panies in court— it had little impact on railroad practices. Three years later, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which banned all combinations and practices that restrained free trade. The measure posed a significant threat to corporate efforts to dominate sectors of the economy. But the courts primar- ily used it as a way to suppress labor unions. Nonetheless, these laws helped to establish the precedent that the national government could regulate the econ- omy to promote the public good.
Political Conflict in the States
The nation had to weather the effects of drastic economic change and periodic economic crises without leadership from Washington. At the state and local levels, however, the Gilded Age was an era of political ferment and conflict over the proper uses of governmental authority. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, state governments in the North, like those in the Reconstruc- tion South, greatly expanded their responsibility for public health, welfare, and education, and cities invested heavily in public works such as park con- struction and improved water and gas services. Those who suffered from eco- nomic change called on the activist state created by the war to redress their own grievances.
Third parties enjoyed significant if short- lived success in local elec- tions. The Greenback- Labor Party proposed that the federal government stop taking “greenback” money out of circulation. This, it argued, would make more funds available for investment and give the government, not private bankers, control of the money supply. It also condemned the use of militias and private police against strikes. In the late 1870s, the party controlled local government in a number of industrial and mining communities and contributed to the election of twenty- one members of Congress independent of the two major parties.
The policies of railroad companies produced a growing chorus of protest, especially in the West. Farmers and local merchants complained of excessively
Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals?
634 ★ CHAPTER 16 America’s Gilded Age
high freight rates, discrimination in favor of large producers and shippers, and high fees charged by railroad- controlled grain warehouses. Critics of the railroads came together in the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange, which moved to establish cooperatives for storing and marketing farm output in the hope of forcing the carriers “to take our produce at a fair price.” Founded in 1867, the Grange claimed more than 700,000 members by the mid- 1870s. Its mem- bers called on state governments to establish fair freight rates and warehouse charges. In several states, the Grange succeeded in having commissions estab- lished to investigate— and, in some cases, regulate— railroad practices.
At the same time, the labor movement, revitalized during the Civil War, demanded laws establishing eight hours as a legal day’s work. Seven northern legislatures passed such laws, but since most lacked strong means of enforce- ment they remained dead letters. But the efforts of farmers and workers to use the power of the state to counteract the inequalities of the Gilded Age inspired a far- reaching debate on the relationship between political and economic free- dom in an industrial society.
F R E E D O M I N T H E G I L D E D A G E
The Social Problem
As the United States matured into an industrial economy, Americans struggled to make sense of the new social order. Debates over political economy engaged the attention of millions, reaching far beyond the tiny academic world into the public sphere inhabited by self- educated workingmen and farmers, reformers of all kinds, newspaper editors, and politicians. This broad public discussion produced thousands of books, pamphlets, and articles on such technical issues as land taxation and currency reform, as well as widespread debate over the social and ethical implications of economic change.
Many Americans sensed that something had gone wrong in the nation’s social development. Talk of “better classes,” “respectable classes,” and “danger- ous classes” dominated public discussion, and bitter labor strife seemed to have become the rule. During the Gilded Age, Congress and a number of states estab- lished investigating committees to inquire into the relations between labor and capital. Their hearings produced powerful evidence of distrust between employees and employers. In 1881, the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics reported that virtually every worker it interviewed in Fall River, the nation’s largest center of textile production, complained of overwork, poor housing, and tyrannical employers.
FREEDOM IN THE GILDED AGE ★ 635
Freedom, Inequality, and Democracy
The appearance of what Massachusetts cotton manufacturer Edward Atkinson called “a permanent factory population” living on the edge of poverty alongside a growing class of millionaires posed a sharp challenge to traditional defini- tions of freedom. “The great curse of the Old World— the division of society into classes,” declared The Nation, had come to America. It became increasingly difficult to view wage labor as a temporary resting place on the road to eco- nomic independence.
Given the vast expansion of the nation’s productive capacity, many Amer- icans viewed the concentration of wealth as inevitable, natural, and justified by progress. By the turn of the century, advanced economics taught that wages were determined by the iron law of supply and demand and that wealth rightly flowed not to those who worked the hardest but to men with business skills and access to money. The close link between freedom and equality, forged in the Revolution and reinforced during the Civil War, appeared increasingly out of date. The task of social science, wrote iron manufacturer Abram Hewitt, was to devise ways of making “men who are equal in liberty” content with the “inequality in . . . distribution” inevitable in modern society.
Among the first to take up this challenge were the self- styled “liberal” reformers. (Their beliefs were quite different from those called liberals in mod- ern America, who advocate that an activist government try to address social needs.) This group of editors and professionals broke with the Republican Party in 1872 and helped to bring about a change in northern opinion regard- ing Reconstruction. But their program was not confined to the South. Gilded Age liberals feared that with lower- class groups seeking to use government to advance their own interests, democracy was becoming a threat to individual liberty and the rights of property. Some urged a return to the long- abandoned principle that voting should be limited to property owners. During the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville had reported that opponents of democracy “hide their heads.” By the 1870s, wrote one observer, “expressions of doubt and distrust in regard to universal suffrage are heard constantly . . . [at] the top of our society.”
Social Darwinism in America
The idea of the natural superiority of some groups to others, which before the Civil War had been invoked to justify slavery in an otherwise free society, now reemerged in the vocabulary of modern science to explain the success and failure of individuals and social classes. In 1859, the British scientist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. One of the most influential works of science ever to appear, it expounded the theory of evolution whereby plant
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and animal species best suited to their environment took the place of those less able to adapt.
In a highly oversimplified form, language borrowed from Darwin or devel- oped by his followers, such as “natural selection,” “the struggle for existence,” and “the survival of the fittest,” entered public discussion of social problems in the Gilded Age. According to what came to be called Social Darwinism, evolu- tion was as natural a process in human society as in nature, and government must not interfere. Especially misguided, in this view, were efforts to uplift those at the bottom of the social order, such as laws regulating conditions of work or public assistance to the poor. The giant industrial corporation, Social Darwinists believed, had emerged because it was better adapted to its environ- ment than earlier forms of enterprise. To restrict its operations by legislation would reduce society to a more primitive level.
Even the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s did not shake the widespread view that the poor were essentially responsible for their own fate. Charity workers and local governments spent much time and energy distinguish- ing the “deserving” poor (those, like widows and orphans, destitute through no fault of their own) from the “undeserving,” a far larger number. Failure to advance in society was widely thought to indicate a lack of character, an absence of self- reliance and determination in the face of adversity. As late as 1900, half the nation’s largest cities offered virtually no public relief, except to persons living in poorhouses. To improve their lot, according to the philosophy of Social Darwinism, workers should practice personal economy, keep out of debt, and educate their children in the principles of the marketplace, not look to the government for aid.
The era’s most influential Social Darwinist was Yale professor William Graham Sumner. For Sumner, freedom meant “the security given to each man” that he can acquire, enjoy, and dispose of property “exclusively as he chooses,” without interference from other persons or from government. Freedom thus defined required frank acceptance of inequality. Society faced two and only two alternatives: “liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not- liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest.” In 1883, Sumner published What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. His answer, essentially, was nothing: “In a free state,” no one was entitled to claim “help from, and cannot be charged to [offer] help to, another.” Government, Sumner believed, existed only to protect “the property of men and the honor of women,” not to upset social arrangements decreed by nature.
Liberty of Contract
The growing influence of Social Darwinism helped to popularize an idea that would be embraced by the business and professional classes in the last quarter
FREEDOM IN THE GILDED AGE ★ 637
of the nineteenth century— a “negative” definition of freedom as limited gov- ernment and an unrestrained free market. Central to this social vision was the idea of contract. “The laws of contract,” wrote one reformer, “are the foundation of civilization.” Labor contracts reconciled freedom and authority in the work- place. So long as labor relations were governed by contracts freely arrived at by independent individuals, neither the government nor unions had a right to interfere with working conditions, and Americans had no grounds to complain of a loss of freedom.
Demands by workers that the government enforce an eight- hour day, pro- vide relief to the unemployed, or in other ways intervene in the economy struck liberals as an example of how the misuse of political power posed a threat to liberty. “The right of each man to labor as much or as little as he chooses, and to enjoy his own earnings, is the very foundation stone of . . . freedom,” wrote Chicago newspaper editor Horace White. The principle of free labor, which originated as a celebration of the independent small producer in a society of broad equality and social harmony, was transformed into a defense of the unre- strained operations of the capitalist marketplace.
The Ironworkers’ Noontime, painted in 1880–1881 by Thomas Anshutz, an artist born in West Virginia, whose family owned iron factories. Unlike artists who depicted factories and work- ers earlier in the century, Anshutz does not try to reconcile nature and industry (there are no reminders of the natural environment). Nor does he emphasize the dignity of labor. The work- ers seem dwarfed by the factory, and some seem exhausted.
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The Courts and Freedom
In elevating liberty of contract from one element of freedom to its very essence, the courts played a significant role. The Fourteenth Amendment had empow- ered the federal government to overturn state laws that violated citizens’ rights. By the 1880s, liberty of contract, not equality before the law for former slaves, came to be defined as the amendment’s true meaning. State and federal courts regularly struck down state laws regulating economic enterprise as an interfer- ence with the right of the free laborer to choose his employment and working conditions, and of the entrepreneur to utilize his property as he saw fit. For decades, the courts viewed state regulation of business— especially laws estab- lishing maximum hours of work and safe working conditions— as an insult to free labor.
At first, the Supreme Court was willing to accept laws regulating enterprises that represented a significant “public interest.” In Munn v. Illinois, an 1877 deci- sion, it upheld the constitutionality of an Illinois law that established a state board empowered to eliminate railroad rate discrimination and set maximum charges. Nine years later, however, in Wabash v. Illinois, the Court essentially reversed itself, ruling that only the federal government, not the states, could regulate railroads engaged in interstate commerce, as all important lines were. The decision led directly to the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. But on virtually every occasion when cases brought by the ICC against rail- roads made their way to the Supreme Court, the company emerged victorious.
The courts generally sided with business enterprises that complained of a loss of economic freedom. In 1885, the New York Court of Appeals invalidated a state law that prohibited the manufacture of cigars in tenement dwellings on the grounds that such legislation deprived the worker of the “liberty” to work “where he will.” Although women still lacked political rights, they were increas- ingly understood to possess the same economic “liberty,” defined in this way, as men. On the grounds that it violated women’s freedom, the Illinois Supreme Court in 1895 declared unconstitutional a state law that outlawed the produc- tion of garments in sweatshops and established a forty- eight- hour work week for women and children. In the same year, in United States v. E. C. Knight Co., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which barred combinations in restraint of trade, could not be used to break up a sugar refining monopoly, since the Constitution empowered Congress to regulate commerce, but not manufacturing. Their unwillingness to allow regulation of the economy, however, did not prevent the courts from acting to impede labor organization. The Sherman Act, intended to prevent business mergers that sti- fled competition, was used by judges primarily to issue injunctions prohibiting strikes on the grounds that they illegally interfered with the freedom of trade.
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In a 1905 case that became almost as notorious as Dred Scott and gave the name “Lochnerism” to the entire body of liberty of contract decisions, the Supreme Court in Lochner v. New York voided a state law establishing ten hours per day or sixty per week as the maximum hours of work for bakers. The law, wrote Associate Justice Rufus Peckham for the 5-4 majority, “interfered with the right of contract between employer and employee” and therefore infringed upon individual freedom. By this time, the Court was invoking “liberty” in ways that could easily seem absurd. In one case, it overturned as a violation of “personal liberty” a Kansas law prohibiting “ yellow- dog” contracts, which made nonmembership in a union a condition of employment. In another, it struck down state laws requiring payment of coal miners in money rather than paper usable only at company- owned stores. Workers, observed mine union leader John P. Mitchell, could not but feel that “they are being guaranteed the liberties they do not want and denied the liberty that is of real value to them.”
L A B O R A N D T H E R E P U B L I C
“The Overwhelming Labor Question”
As Mitchell’s remark suggests, public debate in the late nineteenth century more than at almost any other moment in American history divided along class lines. The shift from the slavery controversy to what one politician called “the overwhelming labor question” was dramatically illustrated in 1877, the year of both the end of Reconstruction and the first national labor walkout— the Great Railroad Strike. When workers protesting a pay cut paralyzed rail traffic in much of the country, militia units tried to force them back to work. After troops fired on strikers in Pittsburgh, killing twenty people, workers responded by burning the city’s railroad yards, destroying millions of dollars in property. General strikes paralyzed Chicago and St. Louis. The strike revealed both a strong sense of solidarity among workers and the close ties between the Repub- lican Party and the new class of industrialists. President Rutherford B. Hayes, who a few months earlier had ordered federal troops in the South to end their involvement in local politics, ordered the army into the North. The workers, the president wrote in his diary, were “put down by force.”
“The days are over,” declared the New York Times, “in which this country could rejoice in its freedom from the elements of social strife which have long abounded in the old countries.” In the aftermath of 1877, the federal government constructed armories in major cities to ensure that troops would be on hand in the event of further labor difficulties. Henceforth, national power would be used not to protect beleaguered former slaves, but to guarantee the rights of property.
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The Knights of Labor and the “Conditions Essential to Liberty”
The 1880s witnessed a new wave of labor organizing. At its center stood the Knights of Labor. The Knights were the first group to try to organize unskilled workers as well as skilled, women alongside men, and blacks as well as whites (although even the Knights excluded the despised Asian immigrants on the West Coast). The group reached a peak membership of nearly 800,000 in 1886 (making it the largest labor organization of the nineteenth century) and involved millions of workers in strikes, boycotts, political action, and educa- tional and social activities.
Labor reformers of the Gilded Age put forward a wide array of programs, from the eight- hour day to public employment in hard times, currency reform, anarchism, socialism, and the creation of a vaguely defined “cooperative com- monwealth.” All these ideas arose from the conviction that the social conditions of the 1880s needed drastic change. Americans, declared Terence V. Powderly, head of the Knights of Labor, were not “the free people that we imagine we are.”
The Strike, an 1886 painting by the German-born artist Robert Koehler, who had grown up in a working-class family in Milwaukee. Koehler depicts a confrontation between a factory owner, dressed in a silk top hat, and angry workers. A woman and her children, presum- ably members of a striker’s family, watch from the side while another woman, at the center, appears to plead for restraint. The threat of violence hangs in the air, and a striker in the lower right-hand corner reaches for a stone. The painting was inspired by events in Pitts- burgh during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
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The labor movement launched a sustained assault on the understanding of freedom grounded in Social Darwinism and liberty of contract. Because of unrestrained economic growth and political corruption, the Knights charged, ordinary Americans had lost control of their economic livelihoods and their own government. Reaching back across the divide of the Civil War, labor defined employers as a new “slave power.” Concentrated capital, warned George E. McNeill, a shoemaker and factory worker who became one of the movement’s most eloquent writers, was now “a greater power than that of the state.” “Extremes of wealth and poverty,” he warned, threatened the very existence of democratic government. The remedy was to “engraft republican principles into our industrial system” by guaranteeing a basic set of economic rights for all Americans.
Labor raised the question whether meaningful freedom could exist in a sit- uation of extreme economic inequality. On July 4, 1886, the Federated Trades of the Pacific Coast rewrote the Declaration of Independence. Workers, the new Declaration claimed, had been subjected not to oppressive government but to “the unjust domination of a special class.” It went on to list among mankind’s inalienable rights, “Life and the means of living, Liberty and the conditions essential to liberty.”
Middle- Class Reformers
Dissatisfaction with social conditions in the Gilded Age extended well beyond aggrieved workers. Supreme Court justice John Marshall Harlan in the late 1880s spoke of a “deep feeling of unease,” a widespread fear that the country “was in real danger of another kind of slavery that would result from the aggre- gation of capital in the hands of a few individuals.” Alarmed by fear of class warfare and the growing power of concentrated capital, social thinkers offered numerous plans for change. In the last quarter of the century, more than 150 utopian or cataclysmic novels appeared, predicting that social conflict would end either in a new, harmonious social order or in total catastrophe. One pop- ular novel of the era, Caesar’s Column (1891) by Ignatius Donnelly, ended with civilized society destroyed in a savage civil war between labor and capital.
Of the many books proposing more optimistic remedies for the unequal distribution of wealth, the most popular were Progress and Poverty (1879) by Henry George, The Cooperative Commonwealth (1884) by Laurence Gronlund, and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888). All three were among the century’s greatest best- sellers, their extraordinary success testifying to what George called “a wide- spread consciousness . . . that there is something radi- cally wrong in the present social organization.” All three writers, though in very different ways, sought to reclaim an imagined golden age of social harmony and American freedom.
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Progress and Poverty
Although it had no direct impact on government policy, Progress and Poverty probably commanded more public attention than any book on economics in American history. An antislavery newspaper editor in California in the 1850s and 1860s, Henry George had witnessed firsthand the rapid monopolization of land in the state. His book began with a famous statement of “the problem” suggested by its title— the growth of “squalor and misery” alongside material progress. His solution was the single tax, which would replace other taxes with a levy on increases in the value of real estate. The single tax would be so high that it would prevent speculation in both urban and rural land. No one knows how many of Henry George’s readers actually believed in this way of solving the nation’s ills. But millions responded to his clear explanation of economic relationships and his stirring account of how the “social distress” long thought to be confined to the Old World had made its appearance in the New.
Freedom lay at the heart of George’s analysis. The “proper name” for the political movement spawned by his book, he once wrote, was “freedom men,” who would “do for the question of industrial slavery” what the Republican Party had done for the slavery of blacks. George rejected the traditional equa- tion of liberty with ownership of land (since the single tax in effect made land the “common property” of the entire society). In other ways, however, his definition of freedom was thoroughly in keeping with mainstream thought. Despite calling for a single massive public intervention in the economy, George saw government as a “repressive power,” whose functions in the “ co- operative society” of the future would be limited to enhancing the quality of life— building “public baths, museums, libraries, gardens,” and the like.
The Cooperative Commonwealth
Quite different in outlook was The Cooperative Commonwealth, the first book to popularize socialist ideas for an American audience. Its author, Laurence Gron- lund, was a lawyer who had emigrated from Denmark in 1867. Socialism— the belief that private control of economic enterprises should be replaced by gov- ernment ownership in order to ensure a fairer distribution of the benefits of the wealth produced— became a major political force in western Europe in the late nineteenth century. In the United States, however, where access to pri- vate property was widely considered essential to individual freedom, socialist beliefs were largely confined to immigrants, whose writings, frequently in for- eign languages, attracted little attention.
Gronlund began the process of socialism’s Americanization. While Karl Marx, the nineteenth century’s most influential socialist theorist, had pre- dicted that socialism would come into being via a working- class revolution, Gronlund portrayed it as the end result of a process of peaceful evolution, not
LABOR AND THE REPUBLIC ★ 643
violent upheaval. He thus made socialism seem more acceptable to middle- class Americans who desired an end to class conflict and the restoration of social harmony.
Bellamy’s Utopia
Not until the early twentieth century would socialism become a significant presence in American public life. As Gronlund himself noted, the most import- ant result of The Cooperative Commonwealth was to prepare an audience for Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, which promoted socialist ideas while “ignoring that name” (Bellamy wrote of nationalism, not socialism). Bellamy lived virtually his entire life in the small industrial city of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. In Looking Backward, his main character falls asleep in the late nineteenth century only to awaken in the year 2000, in a world where coopera- tion has replaced class strife, “excessive individualism,” and cutthroat competi- tion. Inequality has been banished and with it the idea of liberty as a condition to be achieved through individual striving free of governmental restraint. Free- dom, Bellamy insisted, was a social condition, resting on interdependence, not autonomy.
From today’s vantage point, Bellamy’s utopia— with citizens obligated to labor for years in an Industrial Army controlled by a single Great Trust— seems a chilling social blueprint. Yet the book inspired the creation of hundreds of nation- alist clubs devoted to bringing into existence the world of 2000 and left a profound mark on a generation of reformers and intellectuals. Bellamy held out the hope of retaining the material abundance made possible by industrial capitalism while eliminating inequality. In proposing that the state guarantee economic security to all, Bellamy offered a far- reaching expansion of the idea of freedom.
Protestants and Moral Reform
Mainstream Protestants played a major role in seeking to stamp out sin during the Gilded Age. What one historian calls a “Christian lobby” promoted political solutions to what it saw as the moral problems raised by labor conflict and the growth of cities, and threats to religious faith by Darwinism and other scien- tific advances.
Unlike the pre– Civil War period, when “moral suasion” was the preferred approach of many reformers, powerful national organizations like the Wom- en’s Christian Temperance Union, National Reform Association, and Reform Bureau now campaigned for federal legislation that would “Christianize the government” by outlawing sinful behavior. Among the proposed targets were the consumption of alcohol, gambling, prostitution, polygamy, and birth con- trol. Most of these groups spoke less about improving society than stamping out the sins of individuals. In a striking departure from the prewar situation,
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southerners joined in the campaign for federal regulation of individual behav- ior, something whites in the region had previously strongly opposed, fearing it could lead to action against slavery. The key role played by the white South in the campaign for moral legislation helped earn the region a reputation as the Bible Belt— a place where political action revolved around religious principles. Although efforts to enact a national law requiring businesses to close on Sun- day failed, the Christian lobby’s efforts in the 1880s and 1890s set the stage for later legislation such as the Mann Act of 1910, banning the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes (an effort to suppress prostitu- tion), and Prohibition.
A Social Gospel
Most of the era’s Protestant preachers concentrated on attacking individual sins like drinking and Sabbath- breaking and saw nothing immoral about the pursuit of riches. But the outlines of what came to be called the Social Gospel were taking shape in the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist minis- ter in New York City, Washington Gladden, a Congregational clergyman in Columbus, Ohio, and others. They insisted that freedom and spiritual self- development required an equalization of wealth and power and that unbridled competition mocked the Christian ideal of brotherhood.
The Social Gospel movement originated as an effort to reform Protestant churches by expanding their appeal in poor urban neighborhoods and making them more attentive to the era’s social ills. The movement’s adherents estab- lished missions and relief programs in urban areas that attempted to alleviate poverty, combat child labor, and encourage the construction of better working- class housing. They worked with the Knights of Labor and other groups demanding health and safety laws. Some suggested that a more cooperative organization of the economy should replace competitive capitalism. Within American Catholicism, as well, a group of priests and bishops emerged who attempted to alter the church’s traditional hostility to movements for social reform and its isolation from contemporary currents of social thought. With most of its parishioners working men and women, they argued, the church should lend its support to the labor movement. These developments suggested the existence of widespread dissatisfaction with the “liberty of contract” under- standing of freedom.
The Haymarket Affair
The year of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, 1886, also witnessed an unprecedented upsurge in labor activity. Inspired by a successful strike by western railroad unions against lines controlled by the powerful financier Jay
LABOR AND THE REPUBLIC ★ 645
Gould, workers flooded into the Knights of Labor. Its membership, only 100,000 in 1885, rose more than sevenfold in the following year. On May 1, 1886, some 350,000 workers in cities across the country demonstrated for an eight- hour day. Having originated in the United States, May 1, or May Day as it came to be called, soon became an annual date of parades, picnics, and protests, celebrated around the world by organized labor.
The most dramatic events of 1886 took place in Chicago, a city with a large and vibrant labor movement that brought together native- born and immigrant workers, whose outlooks ranged from immigrant socialism and anarchism to American traditions of equality and anti- monopoly. In 1885, the iron moulders union— one of the most powerful organizations of skilled industrial workers in the country— had organized a strike against a wage reduction at the great McCormick plant that produced agricultural machin- ery. The company brought in strikebreakers and private police, who battled in the streets with the strikers. Fearing chaos, the mayor and prominent business leaders persuaded the company to settle on the union’s terms. But in Febru- ary 1886, after the company installed new machinery that reduced its depen- dence on the iron moulders’ traditional skills, it announced that henceforth the factory would operate on a nonunion basis. The result was a bitter, pro- longed strike.
This time, Chicago’s city government sided with the company. On May 3, 1886, four strikers were killed by police when they attempted to prevent strike- breakers from entering the factory. The next day, a rally was held in Haymarket Square to protest the killings. Near the end of the speeches, someone— whose identity has never been determined— threw a bomb into the crowd, killing a policeman. The panicked police opened fire, shooting several bystanders and a number of their own force. Soon after, police raided the offices of labor and radical groups and arrested their leaders. Employers took the opportunity pre- sented by the Haymarket Affair to paint the labor movement as a dangerous and un- American force, prone to violence and controlled by foreign- born radi- cals. Eight anarchists were charged with plotting and carrying out the bombing. Even though the evidence against them was extremely weak, a jury convicted the “Haymarket martyrs.” Four were hanged, one committed suicide in prison, and the remaining three were imprisoned until John Peter Altgeld, a pro- labor governor of Illinois, commuted their sentences in 1893.
Seven of the eight men accused of plotting the Haymarket bombing were foreign- born— six Germans and an English immigrant. The last was Albert Parsons, a native of Alabama who had served in the Confederate army in the Civil War and edited a Republican newspaper in Texas during Reconstruction. Fearing violence because of his political views and the fact that his wife, Lucy Parsons, was black, Albert Parsons moved to Chicago during the 1870s. Having
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survived the Ku Klux Klan in Recon- struction Texas, Parsons perished on the Illinois gallows for a crime that he, like the other “Haymarket martyrs,” did not commit.
Labor and Politics
The Haymarket affair took place amid an outburst of independent labor polit- ical activity. One study has identified more than 100 local political tickets associated with the Knights of Labor between 1886 and 1888, from Annis- ton, Alabama, to Whitewater, Wis- consin. Their major aim was to end the use of public and private police forces and court injunctions against strikes and labor organizations. At least sixty achieved some kind of electoral success. In Kansas City, a coalition of black and Irish- American workers and middle- class voters elected Tom Hanna as mayor. He proceeded to side with
unions rather than employers in industrial disputes. The most celebrated labor campaign took place in New York City, where
in 1886, somewhat to his own surprise, Henry George found himself thrust into the role of labor’s candidate for mayor. George’s aim in running was to bring attention to the single tax on land. The labor leaders who organized the United Labor Party had more immediate goals in mind, especially stop- ping the courts from barring strikes and jailing unionists for conspiracy. George ran a spirited campaign, speaking at factories, immigrant associations, and labor parades and rallies. A few days after the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, New Yorkers flocked to the polls to elect their mayor. Nearly 70,000 voted for George, who finished second, eclipsing the total of the Republican candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, and coming close to defeating Democrat Abram Hewitt.
In a political system that within living memory had witnessed the disap- pearance of the Whig Party, the rise and fall of the Know- Nothings, and the emergence of the Republicans, the events of 1886 suggested that labor might be on the verge of establishing itself as a permanent political force. In fact,
In a political cartoon from Frank Leslie’s Weekly, November 13, 1886, Uncle Sam congratulates a workingman for the defeat of Henry George’s candidacy for mayor of New York City on the United Labor Party ticket. A disappointed anar- chist fulminates in the background. Local labor parties did win many local victories in 1886.
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that year marked the high point of the Knights of Labor. Facing increasing employer hostility and linked by employers and the press to the violence and radicalism associated with the Haymarket events, the Knights soon declined. The major parties, moreover, proved remarkably resourceful in appealing to labor voters.
Thus, America’s Gilded Age witnessed deep and sometimes violent divi- sions over the definition of freedom in a rapidly industrializing society. The battle between upholders of Social Darwinism and laissez- faire, who saw free- dom as the right of individuals to pursue their economic interests without out- side restraint, and those who believed in collective efforts to create “industrial freedom” for ordinary Americans, would continue for many decades. In the early twentieth century, reformers would turn to new ways of addressing the social conditions of freedom and new means of increasing ordinary Americans’ political and economic liberty. But before this, in the 1890s, the nation would face its gravest crisis since the Civil War, and the boundaries of freedom would once again be redrawn.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. The American economy thrived because of federal involvement, not the lack of it. How did the federal government actively promote industrial and agricultural development in this period?
2. Why were railroads so important to America’s second industrial revolution? What events demonstrate their influence on society and politics as well as the economy?
3. Why did organized efforts of farmers, workers, and local reformers largely fail to achieve substantive change in the Gilded Age?
4. Describe the involvement of American family farmers in the global economy after 1870 and its effects on their independence.
5. According to The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, the era’s slo- gan was “Get rich, dishonestly if we can, honestly if we must.” Explain how this was true of the politics of the era.
6. How did American political leaders seek to remake Indians and change the ways they lived?
7. Explain how social thinkers misapplied Charles Darwin’s ideas to justify massive disparities in wealth and power and to deny government a role in equalizing opportunity.
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8. How did social reformers such as Edward Bellamy, Henry George, and advocates of the social gospel conceive of liberty and freedom differently than the proponents of the liberty of contract ideal and laissez faire?
9. In what ways did the West provide a “safety valve” for the problems in the industrial East? In what ways did it reveal some of the same problems?
trusts (p. 608)
vertical integration (p. 609)
horizontal expansion (p. 610)
robber barons (p. 611)
bonanza farms (p. 616)
Battle of the Little Bighorn (p. 624)
Dawes Act (p. 625)
Ghost Dance (p. 627)
Wounded Knee massacre (p. 627)
the Gilded Age (p. 629)
gold standard (p. 632)
Civil Service Act of 1883 (p. 632)
Interstate Commerce Commission (p. 633)
Sherman Antitrust Act (p. 633)
Social Darwinism (p. 636)
liberty of contract (p. 638)
Great Railroad Strike (p. 639)
Knights of Labor (p. 640)
single tax (p. 642)
Social Gospel (p. 644)
Haymarket Affair (p. 645)
KEY TERMS
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What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the origins and the significance of Populism?
• How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South?
• In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period?
• How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s?
F R E E D O M ’ S B O U N D A R I E S ,
A T H O M E A N D A B R O A D
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One of the most popular songs of 1892 bore the title “Father Was Killed by a Pinkerton Man.” It was inspired by an incident during a bitter strike at Andrew Carnegie’s steelworks at Homestead, Pennsylvania, the nineteenth century’s most widely publicized confrontation between labor and capital. The strike pitted one of the nation’s leading industrial corporations against a powerful union, the Amalgamated Association, which represented the skilled iron- and steelworkers among the complex’s 3,800 employees.
Homestead’s twelve steel mills were the most profitable and technologi- cally advanced in the world. The union contract gave the Amalgamated Asso- ciation a considerable say in their operation, including the right to approve
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the hiring of new workers and to regulate the pace of work. To Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, his partner and chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, the union’s power increasingly seemed an intolerable infringement on manage- ment’s rights. In 1892, they decided to operate the plant on a nonunion basis. Frick surrounded the factory with a fence topped by barbed wire, constructed barracks to house strikebreakers, and fired the entire workforce. Henceforth, only workers who agreed not to join the union could work at Homestead. In response, the workers, including the unskilled laborers not included in the Amalgamated Association, blockaded the steelworks and mobilized support from the local community. The battle memorialized in song took place on July 6, 1892, when armed strikers confronted 300 private policemen from the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Seven workers and three Pinkerton agents were killed, and the Pinkertons were forced to retreat. Four days later, the governor of Pennsylvania dispatched 8,000 militiamen to open the complex on manage- ment’s terms. The strikers held out until November, but the union’s defeat was now inevitable. In the end, the Amalgamated Association was destroyed.
The Carnegie corporation’s tactics and the workers’ solidarity won the strik- ers widespread national sympathy. “Ten thousand Carnegie libraries,” declared the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, “would not compensate the country for the evils resulting from Homestead.” The strike became an international cause célèbre as well. British newspapers pointed out that their country restricted the use of private police forces far more severely than the United States. Britons, they claimed, understood economic liberty better than Americans.
Homestead demonstrated that neither a powerful union nor public opin- ion could influence the conduct of the largest corporations. The writer Hamlin Garland, who visited Homestead two years after the strike, found the workforce sullen and bitter. He described a town “as squalid and unlovely as could be imagined,” with dingy houses over which hung dense clouds of black smoke. It was “American,” he wrote, “only in the sense in which [it] represents the Amer- ican idea of business.”
In fact, two American ideas of freedom collided at Homestead— the employ- ers’ definition, based on the idea that property rights, unrestrained by union rules or public regulation, sustained the public good, and the workers’ con- ception, which stressed economic security and independence from what they considered the “tyranny” of employers. The strife at Homestead also reflected broader battles over American freedom during the 1890s. Like the Homestead workers, many Americans came to believe that they were being denied eco- nomic independence and democratic self- government, long central to the pop- ular understanding of freedom.
During the 1890s, millions of farmers joined the Populist movement in an attempt to reverse their declining economic prospects and to rescue the
THE POPULIST CHALLENGE ★ 651
government from what they saw as control by powerful corporate interests. The 1890s witnessed the imposition of a new racial system in the South that locked African- Americans into the status of second- class citi- zenship, denying them many of the freedoms white Americans took for granted. Increasing immigration produced heated debates over whether the country should reconsider its traditional self- definition as a refuge for for- eigners seeking greater freedom on American shores. At the end of the 1890s, in the Spanish- American War, the United States for the first time acquired overseas possessions and found itself ruling over subject peoples from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. Was the democratic republic, many Americans wondered, becom- ing an empire like those of Europe? Rarely has the country experienced at one time so many debates over both the meaning of free- dom and freedom’s boundaries.
T H E P O P U L I S T C H A L L E N G E
The Farmers’ Revolt
Even as labor unrest crested, a different kind of uprising was ripening in the South and the trans- Mississippi West, a response to falling agricultural prices and growing economic dependency in rural areas. Like industrial workers, small farmers faced increasing eco- nomic insecurity. In the South, the share- cropping system, discussed in Chapter 15, locked millions of tenant farmers, white and black, into perpetual poverty. The interrup- tion of cotton exports during the Civil War had led to the rapid expansion of production in India, Egypt, and Brazil. The glut of cotton on the world market led to declining prices (from 11 cents a pound in 1881 to 4.6 cents
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1867 Alaska purchased
1874 Women’s Christian Temperance Union founded
1879– Kansas Exodus 1880
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
1883 Civil Rights Cases
1885 Josiah Strong’s Our Country
1886 AFL established
1890 National American Woman Suffrage Association organized
1891 Populist Party organized
1892 Homestead strike
1893 Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani overthrown
Economic depression begins
1894 Coxey’s Army marches to Washington
Pullman Strike
Immigration Restriction League established
1895 Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta speech
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
The National Associa- tion of Colored Women established
1897 William McKinley inaugu- rated president
1898 Spanish- American War
Anti- Imperialist League
1899– Philippine War 1903
1900 Gold Standard Act
1901– Insular Cases 1904
• •
What were the origins and the significance of Populism?
652 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
in 1894), throwing millions of small farmers deep into debt and threatening them with the loss of their land. In the West, farmers who had mortgaged their property to purchase seed, fertilizer, and equipment faced the prospect of losing their farms when unable to repay their bank loans. Farmers increas- ingly believed that their plight derived from the high freight rates charged by railroad companies, excessive interest rates for loans from merchants and bankers, and the fiscal policies of the federal government (discussed in the previous chapter) that reduced the supply of money and helped to push down farm prices.
Through the Farmers’ Alliance, the largest citizens’ movement of the nine- teenth century, farmers sought to remedy their condition. Founded in Texas in the late 1870s, the Alliance spread to forty- three states by 1890. The farmers’ alternatives, said J. D. Fields, a Texas Alliance leader, were “success and free- dom, or failure and servitude.” At first, the Alliance remained aloof from poli- tics, attempting to improve rural conditions by the cooperative financing and marketing of crops. Alliance “exchanges” would loan money to farmers and sell their produce. But it soon became clear that farmers on their own could not finance this plan, and banks refused to extend loans to the exchanges. The Alliance therefore proposed that the federal government establish warehouses where farmers could store their crops until they were sold. Using the crops as collateral, the government would then issue loans to farmers at low interest rates, thereby ending their dependence on bankers and merchants. Since it would have to be enacted by Congress, the “subtreasury plan,” as this proposal was called, led the Alliance into politics.
The People’s Party
In the early 1890s, the Alliance evolved into the People’s Party (or Populists), the era’s greatest political insurgency. The party did not just appeal to farmers. It sought to speak for all the “producing classes” and achieved some of its great- est successes in states like Colorado and Idaho, where it won the support of miners and industrial workers. But its major base lay in the cotton and wheat belts of the South and West.
Building on the Farmers’ Alliance network of local institutions, the Popu- lists embarked on a remarkable effort of community organization and educa- tion. To spread their message they published numerous pamphlets on political and economic questions, established more than 1,000 local newspapers, and sent traveling speakers throughout rural America. Wearing “a huge black som- brero and a black Prince Albert coat,” Texas Populist orator “Cyclone” Davis traveled the Great Plains accompanied by the writings of Thomas Jefferson, which he quoted to demonstrate the evils of banks and large corporations.
THE POPULIST CHALLENGE ★ 653
At great gatherings on the western plains, similar in some ways to religious revival meetings, and in small- town southern country stores, one observer wrote, “people commenced to think who had never thought before, and people talked who had seldom spoken. . . . Little by little they commenced to theorize upon their condition.”
Here was the last great political expression of the nineteenth- century vision of America as a commonwealth of small producers whose freedom rested on the ownership of productive property and respect for the dignity of labor. “Day by day,” declared the People’s Party Paper of Georgia in 1893, “the power of the individual sinks. Day by day the power of the classes, or the corporations, rises. . . . In all essential respects, the republic of our fathers is dead.”
But although the Populists used the familiar language of nineteenth- century radicalism, they were hardly a backward- looking movement. They embraced the modern technologies that made large- scale cooperative enter- prise possible— the railroad, the telegraph, and the national market— while looking to the federal government to regulate them in the public interest. They promoted agricultural education and believed farmers should adopt modern scientific methods of cultivation. They believed the federal government could move beyond partisan conflict to operate in a businesslike manner to promote the public good— a vision soon to be associated with the Progressive move- ment and, many years later, politicians like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.
The Populist Platform
The Populist platform of 1892, adopted at the party’s Omaha convention, remains a classic document of American reform (see the Appendix for the full text). Written by Ignatius Donnelly, a Minnesota editor and former Radical Republican congressman during Reconstruction, it spoke of a nation “brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin” by political corruption and economic inequality. “The fruits of the toil of millions,” the platform declared, “are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes . . . while their possessors despise the republic and endanger liberty.” The platform put forth a long list of proposals to restore democracy and economic opportunity, many of which would be adopted during the next half- century: the direct election of U.S. sen- ators, government control of the currency, a graduated income tax, a system of low- cost public financing to enable farmers to market their crops, and rec- ognition of the right of workers to form labor unions. In addition, Populists called for public ownership of the railroads to guarantee farmers inexpensive access to markets for their crops. A generation would pass before a major party offered so sweeping a plan for political action to create the social conditions of freedom.
What were the origins and the significance of Populism?
654 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
The Populist Coalition
In some southern states, the Populists made remarkable efforts to unite black and white small farmers on a common political and economic program. The obstacles to such an alliance were immense— not merely the heritage of racism and the political legacy of the Civil War, but the fact that many white Popu- lists were landowning farmers while most blacks were tenants and agricultural laborers. Unwelcome in the southern branches of the Farmers’ Alliance, black farmers formed their own organization, the Colored Farmers’ Alliance. In 1891, it tried to organize a strike of cotton pickers on plantations in South Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas. The action was violently suppressed by local authorities and landowners, some of them sympathetic to the white Alliance but unwill- ing to pay higher wages to their own laborers.
In general, southern white Populists’ racial attitudes did not differ signifi- cantly from those of their non- Populist neighbors. Nonetheless, recognizing the need for allies to break the Democratic Party’s stranglehold on power in the South, some white Populists insisted that black and white farmers shared common grievances and could unite for common goals. Tom Watson, Georgia’s
leading Populist, worked the hardest to forge a black- white alliance. “You are kept apart,” he told interracial audi- ences, “that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. . . . This race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.” While many blacks refused to abandon the party of Lincoln, others were attracted by the Populist appeal. In 1894, a coa- lition of white Populists and black Republicans won control of North Carolina, bringing to the state a “sec- ond Reconstruction” complete with increased spending on public educa- tion and a revival of black officehold- ing. In most of the South, however, Democrats fended off the Populist challenge by resorting to the tactics they had used to retain power since the 1870 s— mobilizing whites with warn- ings about “Negro supremacy,” intimi- dating black voters, and stuffing ballot boxes on election day.
In an 1891 cartoon from a Texas Populist news- paper, northern and southern Civil War veterans clasp hands across the “bloody chasm” (a phrase first used by the New York editor Horace Gree- ley during his campaign for president in 1872). Beneath each figure is an explanation of why voting alignments have previously been based on sectionalism— the North fears “rebel” rule, the white South “Negro supremacy.”
THE POPULIST CHALLENGE ★ 655
The Populist movement also engaged the energies of thousands of reform- minded women from farm and labor backgrounds. Some, like Mary Eliz- abeth Lease, a former homesteader and one of the first female lawyers in Kansas, became prominent organizers, campaigners, and strategists. Lease was famous for her speeches urging farmers to “raise less corn and more hell” (although she apparently never actually uttered those exact words, which would have been considered inappropriate for a woman in public). “We fought England for our liberty,” Lease declared, “and put chains on four mil- lion blacks. We wiped out slavery and . . . began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first.” During the 1890s, referendums in Colorado and Idaho approved extending the vote to women, while in Kansas and California the proposal went down in defeat. Populists in all these states endorsed women’s suffrage.
Populist presidential candidate James Weaver received more than 1 million votes in 1892. The party carried five western states, with twenty- two electoral votes, and elected three governors and fifteen members of Congress. In his inaugural address in 1893, Lorenzo Lewelling, the new Populist governor of Kansas, anticipated a phrase made famous seventy years later by Martin Luther King Jr.: “I have a dream. . . . In the beautiful vision of a coming time I behold the abolition of poverty. A time is foreshadowed when . . . liberty, equality, and justice shall have permanent abiding places in the republic.”
WASHINGTON
OREGON
IDAHO
MONTANA
WYOMING
NEVADA
CALIFORNIA
UTAH TERRITORY
ARIZONA TERRITORY NEW MEXICO
TERRITORY
COLORADO
OKLAHOMA TERRITORY
TEXAS LOUISIANA
ARKANSAS
NEBRASKA
KANSAS
SOUTH DAKOTA
NORTH DAKOTA MINNESOTA
WISCONSIN
IOWA
MISSOURI
ILLINOIS INDIANA
MICHIGAN
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA
FLORIDA
SOUTH CAROLINA
NORTH CAROLINATENNESSEE
KENTUCKY VIRGINIA
WEST VIRGINIA
OHIO PENNSYLVANIA
NEW YORK
VERMONT
NEW HAMPSHIRE
MASSACHUSETTS
MAINE
RHODE ISLAND
CONNECTICUT NEW JERSEY DELAWARE
MARYLAND
CANADA
MEXICO 0 0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
Populist share of the presidential vote, 1892
(percentage) Over 48 30–48 15–30 5–15 0–5 Not voting
P O P U L I S T S T R E N G T H , 1 8 9 2
What were the origins and the significance of Populism?
656 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
The Government and Labor
Were the Populists on the verge of replacing one of the two major parties? The severe depression that began in 1893 led to increased conflict between capital and labor and seemed to create an opportunity for expanding the Populist vote. Time and again, employers brought state or federal authority to bear to protect their own economic power or put down threats to public order. Even before the economic downturn, in 1892, the governor of Idaho declared martial law and sent militia units and federal troops into the mining region of Coeur d’Alene to break a strike. In May 1894, the federal government deployed soldiers to disperse Coxey’s Army— a band of several hundred unemployed men led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey, who marched to Washington demanding eco- nomic relief.
Also in 1894, workers in the company- owned town of Pullman, Illinois, where railroad sleeping cars were manufactured, called a strike to protest a reduction in wages. The American Railway Union, whose 150,000 members included both skilled and unskilled railroad laborers, announced that its members would refuse to handle trains with Pullman cars. When the boycott crippled national rail service, President Grover Cleveland’s attorney general, Richard Olney (himself on the board of several railroad companies), obtained a federal court injunction ordering the strikers back to work. Federal troops and U.S. marshals soon occupied railroad centers like Chicago and Sacramento.
The strike collapsed when the union’s leaders, including its charismatic president, Eugene V. Debs, were jailed for contempt of court for violating the judicial order. In the case of In re Debs, the Supreme Court unanimously con- firmed the sentences and approved the use of injunctions against striking labor unions. On his release from prison in November 1895, more than 100,000 per- sons greeted Debs at a Chicago railroad depot.
Populism and Labor
In 1894, Populists made determined efforts to appeal to industrial workers. Popu list senators supported the demand of Coxey’s Army for federal unem- ployment relief, and Governor Davis Waite of Colorado, who had edited a labor newspaper before his election, sent the militia to protect striking miners against company police. In the state and congressional elections of that year, as the economic depression deepened, voters by the millions abandoned the Democratic Party of President Cleveland.
In rural areas, the Populist vote increased in 1894. But urban workers did not rally to the Populists, whose core issues— the subtreasury plan and lower mortgage interest rates— had little meaning for them and whose demand for higher prices for farm goods would raise the cost of food and reduce the value
THE POPULIST CHALLENGE ★ 657
of workers’ wages. Moreover, the revivalist atmosphere of many Populist gath- erings and the biblical cadences of Populist speeches were alien to the largely immigrant and Catholic industrial working class. Urban working- class voters in 1894 instead shifted en masse to the Republicans, who claimed that raising tariff rates (which Democrats had recently reduced) would restore prosperity by protecting manufacturers and industrial workers from the competition of imported goods and cheap foreign labor. In one of the most decisive shifts in congressional power in American history, the Republicans gained 117 seats in the House of Representatives.
Bryan and Free Silver
In 1896, Democrats and Populists joined to support William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. A thirty- six- year- old congressman from Nebraska, Bryan won the Democratic nomination after delivering to the national convention an elec- trifying speech that crystallized the farmers’ pride and grievances. “Burn down your cities and leave our farms,” Bryan proclaimed, “and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” Bryan called for the “free coinage” of silver— the unrestricted minting of silver money. In language ringing with biblical imagery, Bryan condemned the gold standard: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
At various points in the nineteenth century, from debates over “hard” ver- sus “soft” money in the Jacksonian era to the greenback movement after the Civil War, the “money question” had played a central role in American poli- tics. Bryan’s demand for “free silver” was the latest expression of the view that increasing the amount of currency in circulation would raise the prices farm- ers received for their crops and make it easier to pay off their debts. His nom- ination wrested control of the Democratic Party from long- dominant leaders like President Grover Cleveland, who were closely tied to eastern businessmen.
There was more to Bryan’s appeal, however, than simply free silver. A devoutly religious man, he was strongly influenced by the Social Gospel move- ment (discussed in the previous chapter) and tried to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ to uplifting the “little people” of the United States. He championed a vision of the government helping ordinary Americans that anticipated provi- sions of the New Deal of the 1930s, including a progressive income tax, banking regulation, and the right of workers to form unions.
Many Populists were initially cool to Bryan’s campaign. Their party had been defrauded time and again by Democrats in the South. Veteran Populists feared that their broad program was in danger of being reduced to “free sil- ver.” But realizing that they could not secure victory alone, the party’s leaders
What were the origins and the significance of Populism?
658 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
endorsed Bryan’s candidacy. Bryan broke with tradition and embarked on a nationwide speaking tour, seeking to rally farmers and workers to his cause.
The Campaign of 1896
Republicans met the silverite challenge head on, insisting that gold was the only “honest” currency. Abandoning the gold standard, they insisted, would destroy business confidence and prevent recovery from the depression by mak- ing creditors unwilling to extend loans, since they could not be certain of the value of the money in which they would be repaid. The party nominated for president Ohio governor William McKinley, who as a congressman in 1890 had shepherded to passage the strongly protectionist McKinley Tariff.
The election of 1896 is sometimes called the first modern presidential campaign because of the amount of money spent by the Republicans and the efficiency of their national organization. Eastern bankers and industrialists, thoroughly alarmed by Bryan’s call for monetary inflation and his fiery speeches denouncing corporate arrogance, poured millions of dollars into Republi- can coffers. (McKinley’s campaign raised some $10 million; Bryan’s around $300,000.) While McKinley remained at his Ohio home, where he addressed crowds of supporters from his front porch, his political manager Mark Hanna created a powerful national machine that flooded the country with pamphlets, posters, and campaign buttons.
The results revealed a nation as divided along regional lines as in 1860. Bryan carried the South and West and received 6.5 million votes. McKinley swept the more populous industrial states of the Northeast and Midwest, attracting 7.1 million. The Republican candidate’s electoral margin was even greater: 271 to 176. The era’s bitter labor strife did not carry over into the elec- toral arena; indeed, party politics seemed to mute class conflict rather than to reinforce it. Industrial America, from financiers and managers to workers, now voted solidly Republican, a loyalty reinforced when prosperity returned after 1897.
According to some later critics, the popular children’s classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published by L. Frank Baum in 1900, offered a commentary on the election of 1896 and its aftermath. In this interpretation, the Emerald City (where everything is colored green, for money) represents Washington, D.C., and the Wizard of Oz, who remains invisible in his palace and rules by illusion, is President McKinley. The only way to get to the city is via a Yellow Brick Road (the color of gold). The Wicked Witches of the East and West represent oppres- sive industrialists and mine owners. In the much- beloved film version made in the 1930s, Dorothy, the all- American girl from the heartland state of Kansas, wears ruby slippers. But in the book her shoes are silver, supposedly represent- ing the money preferred by ordinary people.
THE SEGREGATED SOUTH ★ 659
Whatever Baum’s symbolism, one thing was clear. McKinley’s victory shattered the political stalemate that had persisted since 1876 and created one of the most enduring political majorities in American history. During McKinley’s presidency, Republicans placed their stamp on economic policy by passing the Dingley Tariff of 1897, raising rates to the highest level in his- tory, and the Gold Standard Act of 1900. Not until 1932, in the midst of another economic depression, would the Dem- ocrats become the nation’s majority party. The election of 1896 also proved to be the last presidential election with extremely high voter turnout (in some states, over 90 percent of those eligible). From then on, with the South solidly Democratic and the North overwhelmingly Republican, few states witnessed vigorous two- party campaigns. Voter participa- tion began a downhill trend, although it rose again from the mid- 1930s through the 1960s. Today, only around half the electorate casts ballots.
T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H
The Redeemers in Power
The failure of Populism in the South opened the door for the full imposition of a new racial order. The coalition of merchants, planters, and business entrepre- neurs who dominated the region’s politics after 1877, who called themselves Redeemers, had moved to undo as much as possible of Reconstruction. State budgets were slashed, taxes, especially on landed property, reduced, and public facilities like hospitals and asylums closed. Hardest hit were the new public school systems. Louisiana spent so little on education that it became the only state in the Union in which the percentage of whites unable to read and write actually increased between 1880 and 1900. Black schools, however, suffered the most, as the gap between expenditures for black and white pupils widened steadily. “What I want here is Negroes who can make cotton,” declared one planter, “and they don’t need education to help them make cotton.”
New laws authorized the arrest of virtually any person without employ- ment and greatly increased the penalties for petty crimes. “They send [a man] to the penitentiary if he steals a chicken,” complained a former slave in North
4
4
8
1
3 3 4
3 3
3 3
4
8
10
15
9 12
13 14
24 15 17
8
8 9 11 13
4
9 1112
12 1
23 32
36
4 4 6
15 4 6103
86 12
Non-voting territory
Republican Democrat Minor parties
Party McKinley Bryan
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 271 (61%) 176 (39%)
Popular Vote (Share)
7,104,779 (51%) 6,502,925 (47%)
315,398 (2%)
T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N O F 1 8 9 6
How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South?
660 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
Carolina. As the South’s prison population rose, the renting out of convicts became a profitable business. Every southern state placed at least a portion of its convicted criminals, the majority of them blacks imprisoned for minor offenses, in the hands of private businessmen. Railroads, mines, and lumber companies competed for this new form of cheap, involuntary labor. Conditions in labor camps were often barbaric, with disease rife and the death rates high. “One dies, get another” was the motto of the system’s architects. The Knights of Labor made convict labor a major issue in the South. In 1892, miners in Tennes- see burned the stockade where convict workers were housed and shipped them out of the region. Tennessee abolished the convict lease system three years later but replaced it with a state- owned coal mine using prison labor that reaped handsome profits for decades.
The Failure of the New South Dream
During the 1880s, Atlanta editor Henry Grady tirelessly promoted the promise of a New South, an era of prosperity based on industrial expansion and agri- cultural diversification. In fact, while planters, merchants, and industrialists prospered, the region as a whole sank deeper and deeper into poverty. Some industry did develop, including mining in the Appalachians, textile production in the Carolinas and Georgia, and furniture and cigarette manufacturing in cer- tain southern cities. The new upcountry cotton factories offered jobs to entire families of poor whites from the surrounding countryside. But since the main attractions for investors were the South’s low wages and taxes and the avail- ability of convict labor, these enterprises made little contribution to regional economic development. With the exception of Birmingham, Alabama, which by 1900 had developed into an important center for the manufacture of iron and steel, southern cities were mainly export centers for cotton, tobacco, and rice, with little industry or skilled labor. Overall, the region remained depen- dent on the North for capital and manufactured goods. In 1900, southern per capita income amounted to only 60 percent of the national average. As late as the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt would declare the South the nation’s “number one” economic problem.
Black Life in the South
As the most disadvantaged rural southerners, black farmers suffered the most from the region’s condition. In the Upper South, economic development offered some opportunities— mines, iron furnaces, and tobacco factories employed black laborers, and a good number of black farmers managed to acquire land. In the rice kingdom of coastal South Carolina and Georgia, planters found them- selves unable to acquire the capital necessary to repair irrigation systems and
THE SEGREGATED SOUTH ★ 661
machinery destroyed by the war. By the turn of the century, most of the great plantations had fallen to pieces, and many blacks acquired land and took up self- sufficient farming. In most of the Deep South, however, African- Americans owned a smaller percentage of the land in 1900 than they had at the end of Reconstruction.
In southern cities, the network of institutions created after the Civil War— schools and colleges, churches, businesses, women’s clubs, and the like— served as the foundation for increasingly diverse black urban communities. They sup- ported the growth of a black middle class, mostly professionals like teachers and physicians, or businessmen like undertakers and shopkeepers serving the needs of black customers. But the labor market was rigidly divided along racial lines. Black men were excluded from supervisory positions in factories and work- shops and white- collar jobs such as clerks in offices. A higher percentage of black women than white worked for wages, but mainly as domestic servants. They could not find employment among the growing numbers of secretaries, typists, and department store clerks.
The Kansas Exodus
Overall, one historian has written, the New South was “a miserable landscape dotted only by a few rich enclaves that cast little or no light upon the poverty surrounding them.” Trapped at the bottom of a stagnant economy, some blacks sought a way out through emigration from the South. In 1879 and 1880, an esti- mated 40,000 to 60,000 African- Americans migrated to Kansas, seeking political equality, freedom from violence, access to education, and economic opportu- nity. The name participants gave to this migration— the Exodus, derived from the biblical account of the Jews escaping slavery in Egypt— indicated that its roots lay in deep longings for the substance of freedom. Those promoting the Kansas Exodus, including former fugitive slave Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, the organizer of a real estate company, distributed flyers and lithographs picturing Kansas as an idyllic land of rural plenty. Lacking the capital to take up farming, however, most black migrants ended up as unskilled laborers in towns and cit- ies. But few chose to return to the South. In the words of one minister active in the movement, “We had rather suffer and be free.”
Despite deteriorating prospects in the South, most African- Americans had little alternative but to stay in the region. The real expansion of job opportuni- ties was taking place in northern cities. But most northern employers refused to offer jobs to blacks in the expanding industrial economy, preferring to hire white migrants from rural areas and immigrants from Europe. Not until the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914 cut off immigration did northern employers open industrial jobs to blacks, setting in motion the Great Migration
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662 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
discussed in Chapter 19. Until then, the vast majority of African- Americans remained in the South.
The Decline of Black Politics
Neither black voting nor black officeholding came to an abrupt end in 1877. Blacks continued to cast ballots in large numbers, although Democrats solidified their control of state and local affairs by redrawing district lines and substituting appointive for elective officials in counties with black majorities. A few blacks even served in Congress in the 1880s and 1890s. Nonetheless, political opportu- nities became more and more restricted. Not until the 1990s would the number of black legislators in the South approach the level seen during Reconstruction.
For black men of talent and ambition, other avenues— business, the law, the church— increasingly seemed to offer greater opportunities for personal advancement and community service than politics. The banner of political leadership passed to black women activists. The National Association of Col- ored Women, founded in 1896, brought together local and regional women’s clubs to press for both women’s rights and racial uplift. Most female activists emerged from the small urban black middle class and preached the necessity of
A photograph of townspeople in Nicodemus, a community established by members of the 1879–1880 “Exodus” of southern African- Americans to Kansas.
THE SEGREGATED SOUTH ★ 663
“respectable” behavior as part and parcel of the struggle for equal rights. They aided poor families, offered lessons in home life and childrearing, and bat- tled gambling and drinking in black communities. Some poor blacks resented middle- class efforts to instruct them in proper behavior. But by insisting on the right of black women to be considered as “respectable” as their white counter- parts, the women reformers challenged the racial ideology that consigned all blacks to the status of degraded second- class citizens.
For nearly a generation after the end of Reconstruction, despite fraud and violence, black southerners continued to cast ballots. In some states, the Repub- lican Party remained competitive. In Virginia, a coalition of mostly black Republicans and anti- Redeemer Democrats formed an alliance known as the Readjuster movement (the name derived from their plan to scale back, or “read- just,” the state debt). They governed the state between 1879 and 1883. Tennessee and Arkansas also witnessed the formation of biracial political coalitions that challenged Democratic Party rule. Despite the limits of the Populists’ interracial alliance, the threat of a biracial political insurgency frightened the ruling Dem- ocrats and contributed greatly to the disenfranchisement movement.
The Elimination of Black Voting
Between 1890 and 1906, every southern state enacted laws or constitutional provisions meant to eliminate the black vote. Since the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited the use of race as a qualification for the suffrage, how were such measures even possible? Southern legislatures drafted laws that on paper appeared color- blind, but that were actually designed to end black voting. The most popular devices were the poll tax (a fee that each citizen had to pay in order to retain the right to vote), literacy tests, and the requirement that a pro- spective voter demonstrate to election officials an “understanding” of the state constitution. Six southern states also adopted a grandfather clause, exempting from the new requirements descendants of persons eligible to vote before the Civil War (when only whites, of course, could cast ballots in the South). The racial intent of the grandfather clause was so clear that the Supreme Court in 1915 invalidated such laws for violating the Fifteenth Amendment. The other methods of limiting black voting, however, remained on the books.
Some white leaders presented disenfranchisement as a “good govern- ment” measure— a means of purifying politics by ending the fraud, violence, and manipulation of voting returns regularly used against Republicans and Populists. But ultimately, as a Charleston newspaper declared, the aim was to make clear that the white South “does not desire or intend ever to include black men among its citizens.” Although election officials often allowed whites who did not meet the new qualifications to register, numerous poor and illiterate
How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South?
664 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
whites also lost the right to vote, a result welcomed by many planters and urban reformers. Louisiana, for example, reduced the number of blacks registered to vote from 130,000 in 1894 to 1,342 a decade later. But 80,000 white voters also lost the right. Disenfranchisement led directly to the rise of a generation of southern “demagogues,” who mobilized white voters by extreme appeals to racism. Tom Watson, who as noted above had tried to forge an interracial Popu- list coalition in the 1890s, reemerged early in the twentieth century as a power in Georgia public life through vicious speeches whipping up prejudice against blacks, Jews, and Catholics.
As late as 1940, only 3 percent of adult black southerners were registered to vote. The elimination of black and many white voters, which reversed the nineteenth- century trend toward more inclusive suffrage, could not have been accomplished without the acquiescence of the North. In 1891, the Senate defeated a proposal for federal protection of black voting rights in the South. Apart from the grandfather clause, the Supreme Court gave its approval to dis- enfranchisement laws. According to the Fourteenth Amendment, any state that deprived male citizens of the franchise was supposed to lose part of its representation in Congress. But like much of the Constitution, this provision was consistently violated so far as African- Americans were concerned. As a result, southern congressmen wielded far greater power on the national scene than their tiny electorates warranted. As for blacks, for decades thereafter, they would regard “the loss of suffrage as being the loss of freedom.”
The Law of Segregation
Along with disenfranchisement, the 1890s saw the widespread imposition of segregation in the South. Laws and local customs requiring the separation of the races had numerous precedents. They had existed in many parts of the pre– Civil War North. Southern schools and many other institutions had been segregated during Reconstruction. In the 1880s, however, southern race rela- tions remained unsettled. Some railroads, theaters, and hotels admitted blacks and whites on an equal basis while others separated them by race or excluded blacks altogether.
In 1883, in the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had outlawed racial discrimination by hotels, the- aters, railroads, and other public facilities. The Fourteenth Amendment, the Court insisted, prohibited unequal treatment by state authorities, not private businesses. In 1896, in the landmark decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court gave its approval to state laws requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites. The case arose in Louisiana, where the legislature had required railroad com- panies to maintain a separate car or section for black passengers. A Citizens
THE SEGREGATED SOUTH ★ 665
Committee of black residents of New Orleans came together to challenge the law. To create a test case, Homer Plessy, a light- skinned African- American, refused a conductor’s order to move to the “colored only” part of his railroad car and was arrested.
To argue the case before the Supreme Court, the Citizens Committee hired Albion W. Tourgée, who as a judge in North Carolina during Reconstruction had waged a courageous battle against the Ku Klux Klan. “Citizenship is national and knows no color,” he insisted, and racial segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection before the law. But in a 7-1 decision, the Court upheld the Louisiana law, arguing that segregated facil- ities did not discriminate so long as they were “separate but equal.” The lone dissenter, John Marshall Harlan, reprimanded the majority with an oft- quoted comment: “Our constitution is color- blind.” Segregation, he insisted, sprang from whites’ conviction that they were the “dominant race” (a phrase used by the Court’s majority), and it violated the principle of equal liberty. To Harlan, freedom for the former slaves meant the right to participate fully and equally in American society.
Segregation and White Domination
As Harlan predicted, states reacted to the Plessy decision by passing laws mandating racial segregation in every aspect of southern life, from schools to hospitals, waiting rooms, toilets, and cemeteries. Some states forbade taxi drivers to carry members of different races at the same time. Despite the “thin disguise” (Harlan’s phrase) of equality required by the Court’s “separate
How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South?
In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws establishing racial segregation did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, so long as facilities were “separate but equal.” In fact, this was almost never the case, as illustrated by these photographs of the elementary schools for black and white children in South Boston, Virginia, in the early twen- tieth century.
666 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
but equal” doctrine, facilities for blacks were either nonexistent or markedly inferior. In 1900, no public high school for blacks existed in the entire South. Black elementary schools, one observer reported, occupied buildings “as bad as stables.”
More than a form of racial separation, segregation was one part of an all encompassing system of white domination, in which each component— disenfranchisement, unequal economic status, inferior education— reinforced the others. The point was not so much to keep the races apart as to ensure that when they came into contact with each other, whether in politics, labor relations, or social life, whites held the upper hand. For example, many blacks could be found in “ whites- only” railroad cars. But they entered as servants and nurses accompanying white passengers, not as paying customers entitled to equal treatment.
An elaborate social etiquette developed, with proper behavior differentiated by race. One sociologist who studied the turn- of- the- century South reported that in places of business, blacks had to stand back and wait until whites had been served. They could not raise their voices or in other ways act assertively in the presence of whites, and they had to “give way” on the streets. In shops, whites but not blacks were allowed to try on clothing.
Segregation affected other groups as well as blacks. In some parts of Missis- sippi where Chinese laborers had been brought in to work the fields after the Civil War, three separate school systems— white, black, and Chinese— were established. In California, black, Hispanic, and American Indian children were frequently educated alongside whites, but state law required separate schools for those of “mongolian or Chinese descent.” In Texas and California, although Mexicans were legally considered “white,” they found themselves barred from many restaurants, places of entertainment, and other public facilities.
The Rise of Lynching
Those blacks who sought to challenge the system, or who refused to accept the demeaning behavior that was a daily feature of southern life, faced not only overwhelming political and legal power but also the threat of violent repri- sal. In every year between 1883 and 1905, more than fifty persons, the vast majority of them black men, were lynched in the South— that is, murdered by a mob. Lynching continued well into the twentieth century. By mid- century, the total number of victims since 1880 had reached nearly 4,000. Some lynch- ings occurred secretly at night; others were advertised in advance and attracted large crowds of onlookers. Mobs engaged in activities that shocked the civi- lized world. In 1899, Sam Hose, a plantation laborer who killed his employer in self- defense, was brutally murdered near Newman, Georgia, before 2,000
THE SEGREGATED SOUTH ★ 667
onlookers, some of whom arrived on a special excursion train from Atlanta. A crowd including young children watched as his executioners cut off Hose’s ears, fingers, and genitals, burned him alive, and then fought over pieces of his bones as souvenirs. Law enforcement authorities made no effort to prevent the lynching or to bring those who committed the crime to justice.
Like many victims of lynchings, Hose was accused after his death of hav- ing raped a white woman. Many white southerners considered preserving the purity of white womanhood a justification for extralegal vengeance. Yet in nearly all cases, as activist Ida B. Wells argued in a newspaper editorial after a Memphis lynching in 1892, the charge of rape was a “bare lie.” Born a slave in Mississippi in 1862, Wells had become a schoolteacher and editor. Her essay condemning the lynching of three black men in Memphis led a mob to destroy her newspaper, the Memphis Free Press, while she was out of the city. Wells moved to the North, where she became the nation’s leading antilynching cru- sader. She bluntly insisted that given the conditions of southern blacks, the United States had no right to call itself the “land of the free.”
A crowd at the aftermath of the lynching of Laura Nelson and her teenage son L. D. Nelson, African- American residents of Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1911. They were accused of shoot- ing to death a deputy sheriff who had come to the Nelson home to investigate the theft of livestock. A week after being lodged in jail, they were removed by a mob and taken to the bridge. Members of the mob raped Mrs. Nelson before the lynching. The photograph was reproduced as a postcard, sold at local stores. As in most lynchings, no one was prosecuted for the crime.
How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South?
668 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
Although many countries have wit- nessed outbreaks of violence against minority racial, ethnic, or religious groups, widespread lynching of individ- uals over so long a period was a phenom- enon unknown elsewhere. Canada, for example, has experienced only one lynch- ing in its history— in 1884, when a mob from the United States crossed the border into British Columbia to lynch an Indian teenager who had fled after being accused of murder.
Years later, black writer Blyden Jackson recalled growing up in early- twentieth- century Louisville, Kentucky, a
city in many ways typical of the New South. It was a divided society. There was the world “where white folks lived . . . the Louisville of the downtown hotels, the lower floors of the big movie houses . . . the inner sanctums of offices where I could go only as a humble client or a menial custodian.” Then there was the black world, “the homes, the people, the churches, and the schools,” where “everything was black.” “I knew,” Jackson later recalled, “that there were two Louisvilles and . . . two Americas.”
Politics, Religion, and Memory
As the white North and South moved toward reconciliation in the 1880s and 1890s, one cost was the abandonment of the dream of racial equality written into the laws and Constitution during Reconstruction. In popular literature and memoirs by participants, at veterans’ reunions and in public memori- als, the Civil War came to be remembered as a tragic family quarrel among white Americans in which blacks had played no significant part. It was a war of “brother against brother” in which both sides fought gallantly for noble causes— local rights on the part of the South, preservation of the Union for the North. Slavery increasingly came to be viewed as a minor issue, not the war’s fundamental cause, and Reconstruction as a regrettable period of “Negro rule” when former slaves had power thrust upon them by a vindictive North. This outlook gave legitimacy to southern efforts to eliminate black voting, lest the region once again suffer the alleged “horrors” of Reconstruction.
Southern governments erected monuments to the Lost Cause, a romanti- cized version of slavery, the Old South, and the Confederate experience. Reli- gion was central to the development of Lost Cause mythology— it offered
Table 17.1 States with over 200 Lynchings, 1889–1918
State Number of Lynchings
Georgia 386
Mississippi 373
Texas 335
Louisiana 313
Alabama 276
Arkansas 214
REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES ★ 669
a way for white southerners to come to terms with defeat in the Civil War without abandoning white supremacy. The death of the Confederacy, in many sermons, was equated with the death of Christ, who gave his life for the sins of mankind.
Even as white northern Protestants abandoned concern for racial justice and embraced the idea of sectional reconciliation, southern churches played a key role in keeping the values of the Old South alive by refusing to reunite with northern counterparts. In the 1840s, the Methodist and Baptist churches had divided into northern and southern branches. Methodists would not reunite until well into the twentieth century; Baptists have yet to do so. In both North and South, school history textbooks emphasized happy slaves and the evils of Reconstruction, and the role of black soldiers in winning the war was all but forgotten. When a group of black veterans attempted to participate in a Florida ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1911, a white mob tore the military insignias off their jackets and drove them away.
R E D R A W I N G T H E B O U N D A R I E S The effective nullification of the laws and amendments of Reconstruction and the reduction of blacks to the position of second- class citizens reflected nation- wide patterns of thought and policy. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, American society seemed to be fracturing along lines of both class and race. The result, commented economist Simon Patten, was a widespread obsession with redrawing the boundary of freedom by identifying and excluding those unwor- thy of the blessings of liberty. “The South,” he wrote, “has its negro, the city has its slums. . . . The friends of American institutions fear the ignorant immigrant, and the workingman dislikes the Chinese.” As Patten suggested, many Ameri- cans embraced a more and more restricted definition of nationhood.
The New Immigration and the New Nativism
The 1890s witnessed a major shift in the sources of immigration to the United States. Despite the prolonged depression, 3.5 million newcomers entered the United States during the decade, seeking jobs in the industrial centers of the North and Midwest. Over half arrived not from Ireland, England, Germany, and Scandinavia, the traditional sources of immigration, but from southern and eastern Europe, especially Italy and the Russian and Austro- Hungarian empires. The new immigrants were widely described by native- born Ameri- cans as members of distinct “races,” whose lower level of civilization explained
In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period?
670 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
everything from their willingness to work for substandard wages to their sup- posed inborn tendency toward criminal behavior. They were “beaten men from beaten races,” wrote economist Francis Amasa Walker, representing “the worst failures in the struggle for existence.” American cities, said an Ohio newspaper, were being overrun by foreigners who “have no true appreciation of the mean- ing of liberty” and therefore posed a danger to democratic government.
Founded in 1894 by a group of Boston professionals, the Immigration Restriction League called for reducing immigration by barring the illiterate from entering the United States. Such a measure was adopted by Congress early in 1897 but was vetoed by President Cleveland. Like the South, northern and western states experimented with ways to eliminate undesirable voters. Nearly all the states during the 1890s adopted the secret or “Australian” ballot, meant both to protect voters’ privacy and to limit the participation of illiterates (who could no longer receive help from party officials at polling places). Several states ended the nineteenth- century practice of allowing immigrants to vote before becoming citizens and adopted stringent new residency and literacy requirements. None of these measures approached the scope of black disen- franchisement in the South or the continued denial of voting rights to women. But suffrage throughout the country was increasingly becoming a privilege, not a right.
Chinese Exclusion and Chinese Rights
The boundaries of nationhood, expanded so dramatically in the aftermath of the Civil War, slowly contracted. Leaders of both parties expressed vicious opinions regarding immigrants from China— they were “odious, abominable, dangerous, revolting,” declared Republican leader James G. Blaine. In 1875, Congress excluded Chinese women from entering the country. California congressman Horace Page, the bill’s author, insisted that it was intended to preserve the health of white citizens by barring Chinese prostitutes. But immi- gration authorities enforced the Page law so as to keep out as well the wives and daughters of arriving men and of those already in the country.
Beginning in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act, Congress abrogated the Burlingame Treaty ratified during Reconstruction and temporarily excluded all immigrants from China from entering the country. Although non- whites had long been barred from becoming naturalized citizens, this was the first time that race had been used to exclude an entire group of people. Congress renewed the restriction ten years later and made it permanent in 1902. Chinese in the United States were required to register with the government and carry identifi- cation papers or face deportation. Indeed, the use of photographs for personal identification first came into widespread use as a means of enforcing Chinese
REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES ★ 671
exclusion. One Chinese activist complained that the photos, which bore a strik- ing resemblance to “mug shots” of persons under arrest, criminalized people “innocent of any crime” and created a “national rogues’ gallery” of Chinese residents. In 2012, Congress passed a Resolution of Regret apologizing for the exclusion laws and acknowledging their role in exacerbating racial discrimina- tion. It was sponsored by Judy Chu, a Chinese- American member of the House of Representatives from California.
By 1930, because of exclusion, the number of Chinese had declined to 75,000. On the West Coast, the Chinese suffered intense discrimination and periodic mob violence. In the late- nineteenth- century West, thousands of Chinese immi- grants were expelled from towns and mining camps, and mobs assaulted Chi- nese residences and businesses.
Chinese fought these measures with methods both illegal and legal. Many refused to carry identification as a protest against what they called the “dog tag” law. Some obtained fraudulent documents that created “paper identities” showing them to be a family member of a U.S. resident, or a member of a group exempted from exclusion, and thus eligible to enter the country. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, some claimed their citizenship papers had been destroyed in the fire that devastated much of the city.
Drawing on the legislation of the Reconstruction era, Chinese victims sued local governments for redress when their rights were violated and petitioned Congress for indemnity. Their demands for equal rights forced the state and federal courts to define the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment. For example, between 1871 and 1885, San Francisco provided no public education for Chi- nese children. In 1885, the California Supreme Court, in Tape v. Hurley, ordered
In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period?
Beginning in 1909, as part of the enforcement of Chinese exclusion, all Chinese in the United States were required to carry a government- issued certificate, the first widespread use of photographs as proof of identity. This certificate, issued in 1924, belonged to Anna May Wong, an American- born movie star.
672 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
the city to admit Chinese students to public schools. The state legislature responded by passing a law authorizing segregated education, and the city established a school for Chinese. But Joseph and Mary Tape, who had lived in the United States since the 1860s, insisted that their daughter be allowed to attend her neighborhood school like other children. “Is it a disgrace to be born a Chinese?” Mary Tape wrote. “Didn’t God make us all!” But her protest failed. Not until 1947 did California repeal the law authorizing separate schools for the Chinese.
The U.S. Supreme Court also considered the legal status of Chinese- Americans. In Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the Court unanimously ordered San Francisco to grant licenses to Chinese- operated laundries, which the city gov- ernment had refused to do. To deny a person the opportunity to earn a living, the Court declared, was “intolerable in any country where freedom prevails.” Twelve years later, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment awarded citizenship to children of Chinese immi- grants born on American soil.
Yet the justices also affirmed the right of Congress to set racial restrictions on immigration. And in its decision in Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), the Court authorized the federal government to expel Chinese aliens without due process of law. In his dissent, Justice David J. Brewer acknowledged that the power was now directed against a people many Americans found “obnoxious.” But “who shall say,” he continued, “it will not be exercised tomorrow against other classes and other people?” Brewer proved to be an accurate prophet. In 1904, the Court cited Fong Yue Ting in upholding a law barring anarchists from entering the United States, demonstrating how restrictions on the rights of one group can become a precedent for infringing on the rights of others.
Exclusion profoundly shaped the experience of Chinese- Americans, long stigmatizing them as incapable of assimilation and justifying their isolation from mainstream society. Congress for the first time also barred groups of whites from entering the country, beginning in 1875 with prostitutes and con- victed felons, and in 1882 adding “lunatics” and those likely to become a “pub- lic charge.” “Are we still a [place of refuge] for the oppressed of all nations?” wondered James B. Weaver, the Populist candidate for president in 1892.
The Emergence of Booker T. Washington
The social movements that had helped to expand the nineteenth- century boundaries of freedom now redefined their objectives so that they might be real- ized within the new economic and intellectual framework. Prominent black leaders, for example, took to emphasizing economic self- help and individual advancement into the middle class as an alternative to political agitation.
REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES ★ 673
Symbolizing the change was the juxtaposition, in 1895, of the death of Frederick Douglass with Booker T. Washington’s widely praised speech, titled the “Atlanta Compro- mise,” at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition that urged blacks to adjust to segrega- tion and abandon agitation for civil and political rights. Born a slave in 1856, Washington had studied as a young man at Hampton Institute, Virginia. He adopted the outlook of Hampton’s founder, General Samuel Armstrong, who emphasized that obtaining farms or skilled jobs was far more important to African- Americans emerging from slavery than the rights of citizenship. Washington put this view into prac- tice when he became head of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a center for voca- tional education (education focused on training for a job rather than broad learning).
In his Atlanta speech, Washington repudiated the abolitionist tradition that stressed ceaseless agitation for full equality. He urged blacks not to try to combat segregation: “In all the things that are purely social we can be as sep- arate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual prog- ress.” Washington advised his people to seek the assistance of white employers who, in a land racked by labor turmoil, would prefer a docile, dependable black labor force to unionized whites. Washington’s ascendancy rested in large part on his success in channeling aid from wealthy northern whites to Tuskegee and to black politicians and newspapers who backed his program. But his sup- port in the black community also arose from a widespread sense that in the world of the late nineteenth century, frontal assaults on white power were impossible and that blacks should concentrate on building up their segregated communities.
The Rise of the AFL
Within the labor movement, the demise of the Knights of Labor and the ascen- dancy of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) during the 1890s reflected a similar shift away from a broadly reformist past to more limited goals. As
Booker T. Washington, advocate of industrial education and economic self- help.
In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
From Booker T. Washington, Address at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition (1895)
In 1895, the year of the death of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington deliv- ered a speech at an exposition in Atlanta advocating a new strategy for racial prog- ress. Blacks, he declared, should remain in the South, turn away from agitation for civil and political rights, adjust to segregation, and seek, with white cooperation, to improve their economic condition.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” . . . The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underes- timate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. . . . Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to free- dom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupa- tions of life. . . . No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. . . . Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes. . . . In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress. . . .
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized.
674 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 675
From W. E. B. Du Bois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (1903)
The most powerful critique of Washington’s program came from the pen of the black educator and activist W. E. B. Du Bois. In The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of essays on the state of American race relations, he sought to revive the tradition of agitation for basic civil, political, and educational rights.
Easily the most striking thing in the history of the American Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. . . . The time is come when one may speak in all sincerity and utter courtesy of the mistakes and shortcomings of Mr. Washington’s career, as well as of his triumphs. . . .
This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington’s programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life. . . . The reaction from the sentiment of wartime has given impetus to race prejudice against Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro’s tendency to self assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things,—First, political power, Second, insistence on civil rights, Third, higher educa- tion of Negro youth,—and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South. . . . The question then comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and rea- son give any distinct answer to these questions, it is an emphatic No. . . . [Blacks are] bound to ask of this nation three things. 1. The right to vote. 2. Civic equality. 3. The education of youth according to ability. . . .
Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys. . . . By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to men.
QUESTIONS
1. What does Washington believe are the main routes to black advancement?
2. Why does Du Bois think that Washington’s outlook reflects major elements of social thought in the 1890s?
3. How do the two men differ in their under- standing of what is required for blacks to enjoy genuine freedom?
676 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
the Homestead and Pullman strikes demonstrated, direct confrontations with the large corporations were likely to prove suicidal. Unions, declared Samuel Gompers, the AFL’s founder and longtime president, should not seek economic independence, pursue the Knights’ utopian dream of creating a “cooperative commonwealth,” or form independent parties with the aim of achieving power in government. Rather, the labor movement should devote itself to negotiat- ing with employers for higher wages and better working conditions for its members. Like Washington, Gompers spoke the language of the era’s business culture. Indeed, the AFL policies he pioneered were known as “business union- ism.” Gompers embraced the idea of “freedom of contract,” shrewdly turning it into an argument against interference by judges with workers’ right to orga- nize unions.
During the 1890s, union membership rebounded from its decline in the late 1880s. But at the same time, the labor movement became less and less inclu- sive. Abandoning the Knights’ ideal of labor solidarity, the AFL restricted mem- bership to skilled workers— a small minority of the labor force— effectively excluding the vast majority of unskilled workers and, therefore, nearly all blacks, women, and new European immigrants. AFL membership centered on sectors of the economy like printing and building construction that were dominated by small competitive businesses. AFL unions had little presence in basic industries like steel and rubber, or in the large- scale factories that now dominated the economy.
The Women’s Era
Changes in the women’s movement reflected the same combination of expand- ing activities and narrowing boundaries. The 1890s launched what would later be called the “women’s era”—three decades during which women, although still denied the vote, enjoyed larger opportunities than in the past for economic independence and played a greater and greater role in public life. By now, nearly every state had adopted laws giving married women control over their own wages and property and the right to sign separate contracts and make sep- arate wills. Nearly 5 million women worked for wages in 1900. Although most were young, unmarried, and concentrated in traditional jobs such as domestic service and the garment industry, a generation of college- educated women was beginning to take its place in better- paying clerical and professional positions.
Through a network of women’s clubs, temperance associations, and social reform organizations, women exerted a growing influence on public affairs. Founded in 1874, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) grew to become the era’s largest female organization, with a membership by 1890 of 150,000. Under the banner of Home Protection, it moved from demanding the
BECOMING A WORLD POWER ★ 677
prohibition of alcoholic beverages (blamed for leading men to squander their wages on drink and treat their wives abusively) to a comprehensive program of economic and political reform, including the right to vote. Women, insisted Frances Willard, the group’s president, must abandon the idea that “weakness” and dependence were their nature and join assertively in movements to change society. “A wider freedom is coming to the women of America,” she declared in an 1895 speech to male and female strikers in a Massachusetts shoe factory. “Too long has it been held that woman has no right to enter these movements. So much for the movements. Politics is the place for woman.”
At the same time, the center of gravity of feminism shifted toward an out- look more in keeping with prevailing racial and ethnic norms. The earlier “femi- nism of equal rights,” which claimed the ballot as part of a larger transformation of women’s status, was never fully repudiated. The movement continued to argue for women’s equality in employment, education, and politics. But with increasing frequency, the native- born, middle- class women who dominated the suffrage movement claimed the vote as educated members of a “superior race.”
A new generation of suffrage leaders suggested that educational and other voting qualifications did not conflict with the movement’s aims, so long as they applied equally to men and women. Immigrants and former slaves had been enfranchised with “ ill- advised haste,” declared Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (created in 1890 to reunite the rival suffrage organizations formed after the Civil War). Indeed, Catt sug- gested, extending the vote to native- born white women would help to counteract the growing power of the “ignorant foreign vote” in the North and the dangerous potential for a second Reconstruction in the South. Elitism within the movement was reinforced when many advocates of suffrage blamed the “slum vote” for the defeat of a women’s suffrage referendum in California. In 1895, the same year that Booker T. Washington delivered his Atlanta address, the National American Woman Suffrage Association held its annual convention in that segregated city. Eight years later, the association met in New Orleans, where the delegates sang “Dixie” and listened to speeches by former Confederate officers that denounced blacks as barbarians. Like other American institutions, the organized movement for women’s suffrage had made its peace with nativism and racism.
B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R
The New Imperialism
In the last years of the 1890s, the narrowed definition of nationhood was pro- jected abroad, as the United States took its place as an imperial power on the international stage. In world history, the last quarter of the nineteenth century
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is known as the age of imperialism, when rival European empires carved up large parts of the world among themselves. For most of this period, the United States remained a second- rate power. In 1880, the head of the Ottoman empire decided to close three foreign embassies to reduce expenses. He chose those in Sweden, Belgium, and the United States. In that year, the American navy was smaller than Denmark’s or Chile’s. When European powers met at the Berlin Congress of 1884–1885 to divide most of Africa among themselves, the United States attended because of its relationship with Liberia but did not sign the final agreement.
Throughout the nineteenth century, large empires dominated much of the globe. After 1870, a “new imperialism” arose, dominated by European powers and Japan. Belgium, Great Britain, and France consolidated their hold on colonies in Africa, and newly unified Germany acquired colonies there as well. The British and Russians sought to increase their influence in Central Asia, and all the European powers struggled to dominate parts of China. By the early twentieth century, most of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific had been divided among these empires. The justification for this expansion of imperial power was that it would bring modern “civilization” to the supposedly backward peoples of the non- European world. The natives, according to their colonial occupiers, would be instructed in Western values, labor practices, and the Christian religion. Eventually, they would be accorded the right of self- government, although no one could be sure how long this would take. In the meantime, “empire” was another word for “exploitation.”
American Expansionism
Territorial expansion, of course, had been a feature of American life from well before independence. But the 1890s marked a major turning point in Ameri- ca’s relationship with the rest of the world. Americans were increasingly aware of themselves as an emerging world power. “We are a great imperial Republic destined to exercise a controlling influence upon the actions of mankind and to affect the future of the world,” proclaimed Henry Watterson, an influential newspaper editor.
Until the 1890s, American expansion had taken place on the North American continent. Ever since the Monroe Doctrine (see Chapter 10), to be sure, many Americans had considered the Western Hemisphere an American sphere of influence. There was persistent talk of acquiring Cuba, and Presi- dent Grant had sought to annex the Dominican Republic, only to see the Sen- ate reject the idea. The last territorial acquisition before the 1890s had been Alaska, purchased from Russia by Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867, to much derision from those who could not see the purpose of American
BECOMING A WORLD POWER ★ 679
ownership of “Seward’s icebox.” Seward, however, was mostly interested in the Aleutian Islands, a part of Alaska that stretched much of the way to Asia (see the map on p. 685) and that, he believed, could be the site of coaling stations for merchant ships plying the Pacific.
Most Americans who looked overseas were interested in expanded trade, not territorial possessions. The country’s agricultural and industrial produc- tion could no longer be entirely absorbed at home. By 1890, companies like Singer Sewing Machines and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company aggressively marketed their products abroad. Especially during economic downturns, business leaders insisted on the necessity of greater access to for- eign customers. Middle- class American women, moreover, were becoming more and more desirous of clothing and food from abroad, and their demand for consumer goods such as “Oriental” fashions and exotic spices for cooking spurred the economic penetration of the Far East.
The Lure of Empire
One group of Americans who spread the nation’s influence overseas were reli- gious missionaries, thousands of whom ventured abroad in the late nineteenth century to spread Christianity, prepare the world for the second coming of Christ, and uplift the poor. Inspired by Dwight Moody, a Methodist evangelist, the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions sent more than 8,000 missionaries to “bring light to heathen worlds” across the globe. Missionary work offered employment to those with few opportunities at home, including blacks and women, who made up a majority of the total.
A small group of late- nineteenth- century thinkers actively promoted Amer- ican expansionism, warning that the country must not allow itself to be shut out of the scramble for empire. In Our Country (1885), Josiah Strong, a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, sought to update the idea of manifest destiny. Having demonstrated their special aptitude for liberty and self- government on the North American continent, Strong announced, Anglo- Saxons should now spread their institutions and values to “inferior races” throughout the world. The economy would benefit, he insisted, since one means of civilizing “sav- ages” was to turn them into consumers of American goods.
Naval officer Alfred T. Mahan, in The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), argued that no nation could prosper without a large fleet of ships engaged in international trade, protected by a powerful navy operating from overseas bases. Mahan published his book in the same year that the cen- sus bureau announced that there was no longer a clear line separating set- tled from unsettled land. Thus, the frontier no longer existed. “Americans,” wrote Mahan, “must now begin to look outward.” His arguments influenced
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the outlook of James G. Blaine, who served as secretary of state during Benja- min Harrison’s presidency (1889–1893). Blaine urged the president to try to acquire Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba as strategic naval bases.
Although independent, Hawaii was already closely tied to the United States through treaties that exempted imports of its sugar from tariff duties and provided for the establishment of an American naval base at Pearl Har- bor. Hawaii’s economy was dominated by American- owned sugar plantations that employed a workforce of native islanders and Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino laborers under long- term con- tracts. Early in 1893, a group of Ameri- can planters organized a rebellion that overthrew the Hawaii government of Queen Liliuokalani. On the eve of leav- ing office, Harrison submitted a treaty of annexation to the Senate. After determining that a majority of Hawai- ians did not favor the treaty, Harrison’s successor, Grover Cleveland, withdrew
it. In July 1898, in the midst of the Spanish- American War, the United States finally annexed the Hawaiian Islands. In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, a resolution expressing regret to native Hawai- ians for “the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii . . . with the participation of agents and citizens of the United States.”
The depression that began in 1893 heightened the belief that a more aggres- sive foreign policy was necessary to stimulate American exports. In the face of social conflict and the new immigration, government and private organizations promoted a unifying patriotism. These were the years when rituals like the Pledge of Allegiance and the practice of standing for the playing of “The Star- Spangled Banner” came into existence. Americans had long honored the Stars and Stripes, but the “cult of the flag,” including an official Flag Day, dates to the 1890s. New, mass- circulation newspapers also promoted nationalistic sentiments. By the late 1890s, papers like William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World— dubbed the “yellow press” by their critics after the
A cartoon in Puck, December 1, 1897, imagines the annexation of Hawaii by the United States as a shotgun wedding. The minister, President McKinley, reads from a book entitled Annexation Policy. The Hawaiian bride appears to be looking for a way to escape. Most Hawaiians did not support annexation.
BECOMING A WORLD POWER ★ 681
color in which Hearst printed a popular comic strip— were selling a million cop- ies each day by mixing sensational accounts of crime and political corruption with aggressive appeals to patriotic sentiments.
The “Splendid Little War”
All these factors contributed to America’s emergence as a world power in the Spanish- American War of 1898. But the immediate origins of the war lay not at home but in the long Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. Ten years of guerrilla war had followed a Cuban revolt in 1868. The movement for indepen- dence resumed in 1895. As reports circulated of widespread suffering caused by the Spanish policy of rounding up civilians and moving them into detention camps, the Cuban struggle won growing support in the United States.
Demands for intervention escalated after February 15, 1898, when an explosion— probably accidental, a later investigation concluded— destroyed the American battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor, with the loss of nearly 270 lives. The yellow press blamed Spain and insisted on retribution. After Spain rejected an American demand for a cease- fire on the island and eventual Cuban independence, President McKinley in April asked Congress for a decla- ration of war. The purpose, declared Senator Henry Teller of Colorado, was to aid Cuban patriots in their struggle for “liberty and freedom.” To underscore the government’s humanitarian intentions, Congress adopted the Teller Amend- ment, stating that the United States had no intention of annexing or dominat- ing the island.
Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish- American conflict a “splen- did little war.” It lasted only four months and resulted in fewer than 400 Amer- ican combat deaths. Having shown little interest in imperial expansion before 1898, McKinley now embraced the idea. The war’s most decisive engagement, in fact, took place not in Cuba but at Manila Bay, a strategic harbor in the Phil- ippine Islands in the distant Pacific Ocean. Here, on May 1, the American navy under Admiral George Dewey defeated a Spanish fleet. Soon afterward, soldiers went ashore, becoming the first American army units to engage in combat out- side the Western Hemisphere. July witnessed another naval victory off Santi- ago, Cuba, and the landing of American troops on Cuba and Puerto Rico.
Roosevelt at San Juan Hill
The most highly publicized land battle of the war took place in Cuba. This was the charge up San Juan Hill, outside Santiago, by Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. An ardent expansionist, Roosevelt had long believed that a war would reinvigorate the nation’s unity and sense of manhood, which had suf- fered, he felt, during the 1890s. A few months shy of his fortieth birthday when
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war broke out, Roosevelt resigned his post as assistant secretary of the navy to raise a volunteer cavalry unit, which rushed to Cuba to participate in the fighting. Roosevelt envisioned his unit as a cross section of American society and enrolled athletes from Ivy League colleges, western cowboys, representa- tives of various immigrant groups, and even some American Indians. But with the army still segregated, he excluded blacks from his regiment. Ironically, when the Rough Riders reached the top of San Juan Hill, they found that black units had preceded them— a fact Roosevelt omitted in his reports of the battle, which were widely reproduced in the popular press. His exploits made Roos- evelt a national hero. He was elected governor of New York that fall and in 1900 became McKinley’s vice president.
An American Empire
With the backing of the yellow press, the war quickly escalated from a crusade to aid the suffering Cubans to an imperial venture that ended with the United States in possession of a small overseas empire. McKinley became convinced
Hong Kong (British)
Manila
Dewey
FORMOSA (Taiwan)
(Japanese)
BRITISH NORTH BORNEO
SARAWAK (British)
CHINA
FRENCH INDOCHINA
NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
Hainan
Luz on
Mindanao
South China Sea
Sulu Sea
Paci f ic O cean
Spanish fleet
destroyed May 1, 1898
Manila surrenders August 13, 1898
Dewey
Manila
Bataan
Cor r e g idor
0
0
200
200
400 miles
400 kilometers
T H E S PA N I S H - A M E R I C A N WA R : T H E PA C I F I C
T H E S PA N I S H - A M E R I C A N WA R : T H E C A R I B B E A N
Havana
Santiago
Tampa
U.S.S. Maine sunk February 1898
PUERTO RICO
BAHAMAS
UNITED STATES
CUBA
JAMAICA (British)
HAITI
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Caribbean Sea
Atlant ic Oce an
Pac i f ic O c ean
San Juan Hill July 1, 1898
Spanish fleet destroyed July 3, 1898
Santiago
0
0
200
200
400 miles
400 kilometers
American victories American forces American naval blockade Spanish forces Spanish possessions
In both the Pacific and the Caribbean, the United States achieved swift victories over Spain in the Spanish- American War.
BECOMING A WORLD POWER ★ 683
that the United States could neither return the Philippines to Spain nor grant them independence, for which he believed the inhabitants unprepared. In an interview with a group of Methodist ministers, the president spoke of receiv- ing a divine revelation that Americans had a duty to “uplift and civilize” the Filipino people and to train them for self- government. In the treaty with Spain that ended the war, the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Pacific island of Guam. As for Cuba, before recognizing its independence, McKinley forced the island’s new government to approve the Platt Amend- ment to the new Cuban constitution (drafted by Senator Orville H. Platt of Con- necticut), which authorized the United States to intervene militarily whenever it saw fit. The United States also acquired a permanent lease on naval stations in Cuba, including what is now the facility at Guantánamo Bay.
The Platt Amendment passed the Cuban Congress by a single vote. Cuban patriots were terribly disappointed. José Martí had fomented revolution in Cuba from exile in the United States and then traveled to the island to take part in the uprising, only to be killed in a battle with Spanish soldiers in 1895. “To change masters is not to be free,” Martí had written. And the memory of the betrayal of 1898 would help to inspire another Cuban revolution half a century later.
American interest in its new possessions had more to do with trade than gaining wealth from natural resources or large- scale American settlement. Puerto Rico and Cuba were gateways to Latin America, strategic outposts from which American naval and commercial power could be projected through- out the hemisphere. The Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii lay astride shipping routes to the markets of Japan and China. In 1899, soon after the end of the Spanish- American War, Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy, demanding that European powers that had recently divided China into commercial spheres of influence grant equal access to American exports. The Open Door referred to the free movement of goods and money, not people. Even as the United States banned the immigration of Chinese into this country, it insisted on access to the markets and investment opportunities of Asia.
The Philippine War
Many Cubans, Filipinos, and Puerto Ricans had welcomed American interven- tion as a way of breaking Spain’s long hold on these colonies. Large planters looked forward to greater access to American markets, and local elites hoped that the American presence would fend off radical changes proposed by rebel- lious nationalist movements. Nationalists and labor leaders admired America’s democratic ideals and believed that American participation in the destruction of Spanish rule would lead to social reform and political self- government.
But the American determination to exercise continued control, direct or indirect, led to a rapid change in local opinion, nowhere more so than in the
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Philippines. Filipinos had been fighting a war against Spain since 1896. After Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay, their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, established a provisional government with a constitution modeled on that of the United States. But once McKinley decided to retain possession of the islands, the Fili- pino movement turned against the United States. The result was a second war, far longer (it lasted from 1899 to 1903) and bloodier (it cost the lives of more than 100,000 Filipinos and 4,200 Americans) than the Spanish- American con- flict. Today, the Philippine War is perhaps the least remembered of all Amer- ican wars. At the time, however, it was closely followed and widely debated in the United States. Both sides committed atrocities. Insurgents killed Filipinos who cooperated with the Americans. The U.S. Army burned villages and moved the inhabitants into camps where thousands perished of disease, and launched a widespread campaign of torture, including the infamous “water cure” or sim- ulated drowning, later revived in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars of the 21st cen- tury and known as waterboarding. Press reports of these practices tarnished the nation’s self- image as liberators. “We do not intend to free the people of the Philippines,” complained Mark Twain. “We have gone there to conquer.”
The McKinley administration justified its policies on the grounds that its aim was to “uplift and civilize and Christianize” the Filipinos (although most residents of the islands were already Roman Catholics). William Howard Taft, who became governor- general of the Philippines in 1901, believed it might take a century to raise Filipinos to the condition where they could appreciate “what Anglo- Saxon liberty is.”
Once in control of the Philippines, the colonial administration took seri- ously the idea of modernizing the islands. It expanded railroads and harbors, brought in American schoolteachers and public health officials, and sought to modernize agriculture (although efforts to persuade local farmers to substi- tute corn for rice ran afoul of the Filipino climate and cultural traditions). The United States, said President McKinley, had an obligation to its “little brown brothers.” Yet in all the new possessions, American policies tended to serve the interests of land- based local elites— native- born landowners in the Philip- pines, American sugar planters in Hawaii and Puerto Rico— and such policies bequeathed enduring poverty to the majority of the rural population. Under American rule, Puerto Rico, previously an island of diversified small farmers, became a low- wage plantation economy controlled by absentee corporations. By the 1920s, its residents were among the poorest in the entire Caribbean.
Citizens or Subjects?
American rule also brought with it American racial attitudes. In an 1899 poem, the British writer Rudyard Kipling urged the United States to take up the “white man’s burden” of imperialism. American proponents of empire agreed that the
BECOMING A WORLD POWER ★ 685
domination of non- white peoples by whites formed part of the progress of civ- ilization. Among the soldiers sent to the Philippines to fight Aguinaldo were a number of black regiments. Their letters from the front suggested that Ameri- can atrocities arose from white troops applying to the Filipino population the same “treatment for colored peoples” practiced at home.
America’s triumphant entry into the ranks of imperial powers sparked an intense debate over the relationship among political democracy, race, and American citizenship. The American system of government had no provision for permanent colonies. The right of every people to self- government was one of the main principles of the Declaration of Independence. The idea of an “empire of liberty” assumed that new territories would eventually be admitted as equal states and their residents would be American citizens. In the aftermath of the Spanish- American War, however, nationalism, democracy, and American free- dom emerged more closely identified than ever with notions of Anglo- Saxon superiority.
How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s?
Hawaiian Islands (annexed 1898)
American Samoa (annexed 1899)
Alaska (purchased from
Russia, 1867)
Aleutian Islands (1867)
Midway Islands (annexed 1867)
Wake Island (annexed 1898)
Guam (ceded by Spain after Spanish-American War, 1898)
Philippines (ceded by Spain after Spanish-American War, 1898)
Puerto Rico (ceded by Spain,
1898)
OUTER MONGOLIA
JAPANKOREA
CANADA
UNITED STATES
MEXICO
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
CHINA
Bering Strait
At lan t ic Ocean
Paci f ic Ocean
In d ia n O c e a n
0
0
1,000
1,000
2,000 miles
2,000 kilometers United States territory
A M E R I C A N E M P I R E , 1 8 9 8
As a result of the Spanish- American War, the United States became the ruler of a far- flung over- seas empire.
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Leaders of both parties, while determined to retain the new overseas pos- sessions, feared that people of what one congressman called “an alien race and foreign tongue” could not be incorporated into the Union. The Foraker Act of 1900 declared Puerto Rico an “insular territory,” different from previous territo- ries in the West. Its 1 million inhabitants were defined as citizens of Puerto Rico, not the United States, and denied a future path to statehood. Filipinos occupied a similar status. In a series of cases decided between 1901 and 1904 and known collectively as the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution did not fully apply to the territories recently acquired by the United States— a significant limitation of the scope of American freedom. Congress, the Court declared, must recognize the “fundamental” personal rights of residents of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. But otherwise it could govern them as it saw fit for an indefinite period of time. Thus, two principles central to American freedom since the War of Independence— no taxation without representation, and gov- ernment based on the consent of the governed— were abandoned when it came to the nation’s new possessions.
In the twentieth century, the territories acquired in 1898 would follow dif- ferent paths. Hawaii, which had a sizable population of American missionaries and planters, became a traditional territory. Its population, except for Asian immigrant laborers, became American citizens, and it was admitted as a state in 1959. After nearly a half- century of American rule, the Philippines achieved independence in 1946. Until 1950, the U.S. Navy administered Guam, which remains today an “unincor porated” territory. As for Puerto Rico, it is sometimes called “the world’s oldest colony,” because ever since the Spanish conquered the island in 1493 it has lacked full self- government. Congress extended Ameri- can citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917. Puerto Rico today remains in a kind of political limbo, poised on the brink of statehood or independence. The island has the status of a commonwealth. It elects its own government but lacks a voice in Congress (and in the election of the U.S. president), and key issues such as defense and environmental policy are controlled by the United States.
Whatever the end result, the Spanish- American War established a prece- dent for American intervention in the affairs of other countries, especially those in the Western Hemisphere. In the twentieth century, the United States would intervene in Latin America to change local governments, either by direct military action or via support for military coups, no fewer than forty times.
Drawing the Global Color Line
Just as American ideas about liberty and self- government had circulated around the world in the Age of Revolution, American racial attitudes had a global impact in the age of empire. The turn of the twentieth century was a
BECOMING A WORLD POWER ★ 687
time of worldwide concern about immigration, race relations, and the “white man’s burden,” all of which inspired a global sense of fraternity among “ Anglo- Saxon” nations. Chinese exclusion in the United States strongly influ- enced anti- Chinese laws adopted in Canada.
One “lesson” these countries learned from the United States was that the “failure” of Reconstruction demonstrated the impossibility of multiracial democracy. The extremely hostile account of Reconstruction by the Brit- ish writer James Bryce in his widely read book The American Commonwealth (published in London in 1888) circulated around the world. Bryce called African- Americans “children of nature” and insisted that giving them the right to vote had been a terrible mistake, which had produced all kinds of corruption and misgovernment. His book was frequently cited by the found- ers of the Australian Commonwealth (1901) to justify their “white Australia” policy, which barred the further immigration of Asians. The Union of South Africa, inaugurated in 1911, saw its own policy of racial separation— later known as apartheid— as following in the footsteps of segregation in the United States. Even American proposals that did not become law, such as the liter- acy test for immigrants vetoed by President Cleveland, influenced measures adopted overseas. The United States, too, learned from other countries. The Gentleman’s Agreement that limited Japanese immigration early in the twen- tieth century (see Chapter 19) followed a similar arrangement between Japan and Canada.
“Republic or Empire?”
The emergence of the United States as an imperial power sparked intense debate. Opponents formed the Anti- Imperialist League. It united writers and social reformers who believed American energies should be directed at home, businessmen fearful of the cost of maintaining overseas outposts, and rac- ists who did not wish to bring non- white populations into the United States. Among its prominent members were E. L. Godkin, the editor of The Nation, the novelist William Dean Howells, and the labor leader George E. McNeill. The league held meetings throughout the country and published pamphlets called Liberty Tracts, warning that empire was incompatible with democracy. Ameri- ca’s historic mission, the league declared, was to “help the world by an example of successful self- government,” not to conquer other peoples. A “republic of free men,” anti- imperialists proclaimed, should assist the people of Puerto Rico and the Philippines in their own “struggles for liberty,” rather than subjecting them to colonial rule.
In 1900, Democrats again nominated William Jennings Bryan to run against McKinley. The Democratic platform opposed the Philippine War for placing
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the United States in the “ un- American” position of “crushing with mili- tary force” another people’s desire for “liberty and self- government.” George S. Boutwell, president of the Anti- Imperialist League, declared that the most pressing question in the election was the nation’s future character—“republic or empire?”
But without any sense of contra- diction, proponents of an imperial for- eign policy also adopted the language of freedom. Anti- imperialists were the real “infidels to the gospel of lib- erty,” claimed Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana, because America ventured abroad not for material gain or national power, but to bring “a new day of free- dom” to the peoples of the world. Amer- ica’s was a “benevolent” imperialism, rooted in a national mission to uplift backward cultures and spread liberty across the globe. Beveridge did not, how- ever, neglect more practical consid- erations. American trade, he insisted, “henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. . . . Where shall we
turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. China is our natural customer.” And the Philippines held the key to “the commercial situation of the entire East.” Riding the wave of patriotic sentiment inspired by the war, and with the economy having recovered from the depression of 1893–1897, McKinley in 1900 repeated his 1896 triumph.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States seemed poised to take its place among the world’s great powers. Writers at home and over- seas confidently predicted that American influence would soon span the globe. In his 1902 book The New Empire, Brooks Adams, a grandson of John Quincy Adams, predicted that because of its economic power, the United States would soon “outweigh any single empire, if not all empires combined.” Years would pass before this prediction was fulfilled. But in 1900, many fea- tures that would mark American life for much of the twentieth century were already apparent. The United States led the world in industrial production.
An advertisement employs the idea of a White Man’s Burden (borrowed from a poem by Rud- yard Kipling) as a way of promoting the virtues of Pears’ Soap. Accompanying text claims that Pears’ is “the ideal toilet soap” for “the cultured of all nations,” and an agent of civilization in “the dark corners of the earth.”
The merger movement of 1897–1904 (discussed in the previous chapter) left broad sections of the economy under the control of giant corporations. The political system had stabilized. The white North and South had achieved reconciliation, while rigid lines of racial exclusion— the segregation of blacks, Chinese exclusion, Indian reservations— limited the boundaries of freedom and citizenship.
Yet the questions central to nineteenth- century debates over freedom— the relationship between political and economic liberty, the role of government in creating the conditions of freedom, and the definition of those entitled to enjoy the rights of citizens— had not been permanently answered. Nor had the dilemma of how to reconcile America’s role as an empire with traditional ideas of freedom been resolved. These were the challenges bequeathed by the nine- teenth century to the first generation of the twentieth.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What economic and political issues gave rise to the Populist Party, and what changes did the party advocate?
2. How did employers use state and federal forces to protect their own economic interests, and what were the results?
3. Compare and contrast the goals, strategies, and membership of the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor (you may want to refer back to Chapter 16).
4. Who were the Redeemers, and how did they change society and politics in the New South?
5. Explain how changes in the politics, economics, social factors, and spread of violence affected the situation of blacks in the New South.
6. How did religion and the idea of the Lost Cause give support to a new understanding of the Civil War?
7. What ideas and interests motivated the United States to create an empire in the late nine- teenth century?
8. Compare the arguments for and against U.S. imperialism. Be sure to consider the views of Josiah Strong and Emilio Aguinaldo.
9. What rights did Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans gain in these years, and what limitations did they experience? How did their experiences set the stage for other restrictions on immigration?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 689
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690 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
Populists (p. 652)
Coxey’s Army (p. 656)
New South (p. 660)
Kansas Exodus (p. 661)
grandfather clause (p. 663)
disenfranchisement (p. 663)
Plessy v. Ferguson (p. 664)
“separate but equal” (p. 665)
lynching (p. 666)
Lost Cause (p. 668)
new immigrants (p. 669)
Immigration Restriction League (p. 670)
Chinese Exclusion Act (p. 670)
Atlanta Compromise (p. 673)
American Federation of Labor (p. 673)
yellow press (p. 680)
U.S.S. Maine (p. 681)
Platt Amendment (p. 683)
Open Door Policy (p. 683)
Philippine War (p. 684)
Insular Cases (p. 686)
Anti- Imperialist League (p. 687)
KEY TERMS
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What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America?
• How did the labor and women’s movements challenge the nineteenth- century meanings of American freedom?
• In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?
• How did the Progressive presidents foster the rise of the nation- state?
T H E P R O G R E S S I V E E R A
★ C H A P T E R 1 8 ★
1 9 0 0 – 1 9 1 6
I t was late afternoon on March 25, 1911, when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The factory occupied the top three floors of a ten- story building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Here some 500 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immi- grant women, toiled at sewing machines producing ladies’ blouses, some earning as little as three dollars per week. Those who tried to escape the blaze discovered that the doors to the stairwell had been locked— the owners’ way, it was later charged, of discouraging theft and unauthorized bathroom breaks. The fire department rushed to the scene with high- pressure hoses. But their ladders reached only to the sixth floor. As the fire raged, onlookers watched in horror as girls leapt from the upper stories. By the time the blaze had been put out, 46 bodies lay on the street and 100 more were found inside the building.
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was typical of manufacturing in the nation’s largest city, a beehive of industrial production in small, crowded facto- ries. New York was home to 30,000 manufacturing establishments with more than 600,000 employees— more industrial workers than in the entire state of Massachusetts. Triangle had already played a key role in the era’s labor history. When 200 of its workers tried to join the International Ladies’ Garment Work- ers Union (ILGWU), the owners responded by firing them. This incident helped to spark a general walkout of female garment workers in 1909—the Uprising of the 20,000. Among the strikers’ demands was better safety in clothing factories. The impoverished immigrants forged an alliance with middle- and upper- class female supporters, including members of the Women’s Trade Union League, which had been founded in 1903 to help bring women workers into unions. Alva Belmont, the ex- wife of railroad magnate William Vanderbilt, contributed several of her cars to a parade in support of the striking workers. By the time the walkout ended early in 1911, the ILGWU had won union contracts with more than 300 firms. But the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was not among them.
The Triangle fire was not the worst fire disaster in American history (seven years earlier, over 1,000 people had died in a blaze on the General Slocum excur- sion boat in New York harbor). But it had an unrivaled impact on public con- sciousness. More than twenty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt would refer to it in a press conference as an example of why the government needed to regulate industry. In its wake, efforts to organize the city’s workers accelerated, and the state legislature passed new factory inspection laws and fire safety codes.
Triangle focused attention on the social divisions that plagued American society during the first two decades of the twentieth century, a period known as the Progressive era. These were years when economic expansion produced millions of new jobs and brought an unprecedented array of goods within reach of American consumers. Cities expanded rapidly— by 1920, for the first time, more Americans lived in towns and cities than in rural areas. Yet severe inequality remained the most visible feature of the urban landscape, and per- sistent labor strife raised anew the question of government’s role in combating it. The fire and its aftermath also highlighted how traditional gender roles were changing as women took on new responsibilities in the workplace and in the making of public policy.
The word “Progressive” came into common use around 1910 as a way of describing a broad, loosely defined political movement of individuals and groups who hoped to bring about significant change in American social and political life. Progressives included forward- looking businessmen who real- ized that workers must be accorded a voice in economic decision making, and labor activists bent on empowering industrial workers. Other major contrib- utors to Progressivism were members of female reform organizations who
hoped to protect women and children from exploitation, social scientists who believed that academic research would help to solve social problems, and members of an anxious middle class who feared that their status was threatened by the rise of big business.
Everywhere in early- twentieth- century America the signs of economic and political consolidation were apparent— in the power of a small directorate of Wall Street bankers and corporate executives, the manipulation of democracy by corrupt political machines, and the rise of new systems of managerial con- trol in workplaces. In these circumstances, wrote Benjamin P. DeWitt, in his 1915 book The Progressive Movement, “the individual could not hope to compete. . . . Slowly, Amer- icans realized that they were not free.”
As this and the following chapter will discuss, Progressive reformers responded to the perception of declining freedom in varied, contradictory ways. The era saw the expansion of political and economic freedom through the reinvigoration of the movement for woman suffrage, the use of political power to expand workers’ rights, and efforts to improve democratic government by weaken- ing the power of city bosses and giving ordi- nary citizens more influence on legislation. It witnessed the flowering of understandings of freedom based on individual fulfillment and personal self- determination— the abil- ity to participate fully in the ever- expanding consumer marketplace and, especially for women, to enjoy economic and sexual free- doms long considered the province of men. At the same time, many Progressives supported efforts to limit the full enjoyment of freedom to those deemed fit to exercise it properly. The new system of white supremacy born in the 1890s became fully consolidated in
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1889 Hull House founded
1898 Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Women and Economics
1901 Socialist Party founded in United States
President McKinley assassinated
1902 President Theodore Roose velt assists in coal strike
1903 Women’s Trade Union League founded
Ford Motor Company established
1904 Northern Securities dissolved
1905 Industrial Workers of the World established
1906 Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
Meat Inspection Act
Pure Food and Drug Act
Hepburn Act
1908 Muller v. Oregon
1909 Uprising of the 20,000
1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire
Society of American Indians founded
1912 Children’s Bureau established
Theodore Roosevelt orga nizes the Progressive Party
1913 Sixteenth Amendment
Seventeenth Amendment
THE PROGRESSIVE ERA ★ 693
694 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
the South. Growing numbers of native- born Americans demanded that immigrants aban- don their traditional cultures and become fully “Americanized.” And efforts were made at the local and national levels to place polit- ical decision making in the hands of experts who did not have to answer to the electorate. The idea of freedom remained as contested as ever in Progressive America.
A N U R B A N A G E A N D A C O N S U M E R S O C I E T Y
Farms and Cities
The Progressive era was a period of explosive economic growth, fueled by increasing industrial production, a rapid rise in population, and the contin- ued expansion of the consumer marketplace. In the first decade of the twen- tieth century, the economy’s total output rose by about 85 percent. For the last time in American history, farms and cities grew together. As farm prices recovered from their low point during the depression of the 1890s, American agriculture entered what would later be remembered as its “golden age.” The expansion of urban areas stimulated demand for farm goods. Farm families poured into the western Great Plains. More than 1 million claims for free gov- ernment land were filed under the Homestead Act of 1862—more than in the previous forty years combined. Between 1900 and 1910, the combined pop- ulation of Texas and Oklahoma rose by nearly 2 million people, and Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas added 800,000. Irrigation transformed the Impe- rial Valley of California and parts of Arizona into major areas of commercial farming.
But it was the city that became the focus of Progressive politics and of a new mass- consumer society. The United States counted twenty- one cities whose population exceeded 100,000 in 1910, the largest of them New York, with 4.7 million residents. The twenty- three square miles of Manhattan Island were home to over 2 million people, more than lived in thirty- three of the states. Fully a quarter of them inhabited the Lower East Side, an immigrant neighbor- hood more densely populated than Bombay or Calcutta in India.
The stark urban inequalities of the 1890s continued into the Progressive era. Immigrant families in New York’s downtown tenements often had no electricity or indoor toilets. Three miles to the north stood the mansions of Fifth Avenue’s Millionaire’s Row. According to one estimate, J. P. Morgan’s financial firm directly or indirectly controlled 40 percent of all financial and
Federal Reserve established
1914 Ludlow Massacre
Federal Trade Commission established
Clayton Act
• •
AN URBAN AGE AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY ★ 695
industrial capital in the United States. Alongside such wealth, reported the Commission on Indus- trial Relations, established by Con- gress in 1912, more than one- third of the country’s mining and manu- facturing workers lived in “actual poverty.”
The city captured the imagina- tion of artists, writers, and reformers. The glories of the American land- scape had been the focal point of nineteenth- century painters (exem- plified by the Hudson River school, which produced canvases celebrat- ing the wonders of nature). The city and its daily life now became their preoccupation. Painters like George W. Bellows and John Sloan and photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen cap- tured the electric lights, crowded bars and theaters, and soaring skyscrapers of the urban landscape. With its youthful, exuberant energies, the city seemed an expression of modernity itself.
The Muckrakers
Others saw the city as a place where corporate greed undermined traditional American values. At a time when more than 2 million children under the age of fifteen worked for wages, Lewis Hine photographed child laborers to draw attention to persistent social inequality. A new generation of journalists writ- ing for mass- circulation national magazines exposed the ills of industrial and urban life. The Shame of the Cities by Lincoln Steffens (published as a series in McClure’s Magazine in 1901–1902 and in book form in 1904) showed how party bosses and business leaders profited from political corruption. McClure’s also hired Ida Tarbell to expose the arrogance and economic machinations of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Published in two volumes in 1904, her History of the Standard Oil Company was the most substantial product of what Theodore Roosevelt disparaged as muckraking— the use of journalistic skills to expose the underside of American life.
Major novelists of the era took a similar unsparing approach to social ills. Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) traced a young woman’s moral
A colored photograph from around 1900 shows the teeming street life of Mulberry Street, on New York City’s densely populated Lower East Side. The massive immigration of the early twen- tieth century transformed the life of urban centers throughout the country and helped to spark the Progressive movement.
Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America?
696 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
corruption in Chicago’s harsh urban environment. Perhaps the era’s most influential novel was Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906), whose description of unsanitary slaughterhouses and the sale of rotten meat stirred public out- rage and led directly to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.
Immigration as a Global Process
If one thing characterized early- twentieth- century cities, it was their immigrant character. The “new immi- gration” from southern and eastern Europe (discussed in Chapter 17) had begun around 1890 but reached its peak during the Progressive era. Between 1901 and the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, some 13 million immigrants came to the United States, the majority from Italy, Russia, and the
Austro- Hungarian empire. In fact, Progressive- era immigration formed part of a larger process of worldwide migration set in motion by industrial expansion and the decline of traditional agriculture. Poles emigrated not only to Pitts- burgh and Chicago but to work in German factories and Scottish mines. Ital- ians sought jobs in Belgium, France, and Argentina as well as the United States. As many as 750,000 Chinese migrated to other countries each year.
During the years from 1840 to 1914 (when immigration to the United States would be virtually cut off, first by the outbreak of World War I and then by legislation), perhaps 40 million persons emigrated to the United States and another 20 million to other parts of the Western Hemisphere, including Can- ada, Argentina, Brazil, and the Caribbean. This population flow formed one part of a massive shifting of peoples throughout the world.
Numerous causes inspired this uprooting of population. Rural southern and eastern Europe and large parts of Asia were regions marked by widespread poverty and illiteracy, burdensome taxation, and declining economies. Politi- cal turmoil at home, like the revolution that engulfed Mexico after 1911, also inspired emigration. Not all of these immigrants could be classified as “free
A photograph by Lewis Hine, who used his cam- era to chronicle the plight of child laborers shown here: a young spinner in a Vermont cotton factory.
AN URBAN AGE AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY ★ 697
laborers,” however. Large numbers of Chinese, Mexican, and Italian migrants, including many who came to the United States, were bound to long- term labor contracts. These contracts were signed with labor agents, who then provided the workers to American employers. But all the areas attracting immigrants were frontiers of one kind or another— agricultural, mining, or industrial— with expanding job opportunities.
Most European immigrants to the United States entered through Ellis Island. Located in New York harbor, this became in 1892 the nation’s main facility for processing immigrants. Millions of Americans today trace their ancestry to an immigrant who passed through Ellis Island. The less fortunate, who failed a medical examination or were judged to be anarchists, prostitutes, or in other ways undesirable, were sent home.
At the same time, an influx of Asian and Mexican newcomers was taking place in the West. After the exclusion of immigrants from China in the late nineteenth century, a small number of Japanese arrived, primarily to work as agricultural laborers in California’s fruit and vegetable fields and on Hawaii’s sugar plantations. By 1910, the population of Japanese origin had grown to 72,000. Between 1910 and 1940, Angel Island in San Francisco Bay— the “Ellis Island of the West”—served as the main entry point for immigrants from Asia.
Far larger was Mexican immigra- tion. Between 1900 and 1930, some 1 million Mexicans (more than 10 per- cent of that country’s population) entered the United States— a num- ber exceeded by only a few European countries. Mexicans generally entered through El Paso, Texas, the main south- ern gateway into the United States. Many ended up in the San Gabriel Val- ley of California, where citrus grow- ers searching for cheap labor had earlier experimented with Native Amer- ican, South Asian, Chinese, and Filipino migrant workers.
By 1910, one- seventh of the Amer- ican population was foreign- born, the highest percentage in the coun- try’s history. More than 40 percent of New York City’s population had been born abroad. In Chicago and smaller
An illustration in the 1912 publication The New Immigration depicts the various “types” entering the United States.
Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America?
698 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
industrial cities like Providence, Mil- waukee, and San Francisco, the figure exceeded 30 percent. Although many newcomers moved west to take part in the expansion of farming, most clus- tered in industrial centers. By 1910, nearly three- fifths of the workers in the twenty leading manufacturing and mining industries were foreign- born.
The Immigrant Quest for Freedom
Like their nineteenth- century prede- cessors, the new immigrants arrived imagining the United States as a land of freedom, where all persons enjoyed equality before the law, could worship as they pleased, enjoyed economic opportunity, and had been emanci- pated from the oppressive social hier- archies of their homelands. “America is a free country,” one Polish immigrant
wrote home. “You don’t have to be a serf to anyone.” Agents sent abroad by the American government to investigate the reasons for large- scale immigration reported that the main impetus was a desire to share in the “freedom and pros- perity enjoyed by the people of the United States.” Freedom, they added, was largely an economic ambition— a desire to escape from “hopeless poverty” and achieve a standard of living impossible at home. While some of the new immi- grants, especially Jews fleeing religious persecution in the Russian empire, thought of themselves as permanent emigrants, the majority initially planned to earn enough money to return home and purchase land. Groups like Mexi- cans and Italians included many “birds of passage,” who remained only tempo- rarily in the United States. In 1908, a year of economic downturn in the United States, more Italians left the country than entered.
The new immigrants clustered in close- knit “ethnic” neighborhoods with their own shops, theaters, and community organizations, and often continued to speak their native tongues. As early as 1900, more than 1,000 foreign- language newspapers were published in the United States. Churches were pillars of these immigrant communities. In New York’s East Harlem, even anti- clerical Italian immigrants, who resented the close alliance in Italy
Table 18.1 Immigrants and Their Children as Percentage of Population, Ten Major Cities, 1920
City Percentage
New York City 76%
Cleveland 72
Boston 72
Chicago 71
Detroit 65
San Francisco 64
Minneapolis 63
Pittsburgh 59
Seattle 55
Los Angeles 45
AN URBAN AGE AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY ★ 699
between the Catholic Church and the oppressive state, participated eagerly in the annual festival of the Madonna of Mt. Carmel. After Italian- Americans scattered to the suburbs, they continued to return each year to reenact the festival.
Although most immigrants earned more than was possible in the impov- erished regions from which they came, they endured low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions. In the mines and factories of Pennsyl- vania and the Midwest, eastern European immigrants performed low- wage unskilled labor, while native- born workers dominated skilled and supervisory jobs. The vast majority of Mexican immigrants became poorly paid agricultural, mine, and railroad laborers, with little prospect of upward economic mobility. “My people are not in America,” remarked one Slavic priest, “they are under it.”
Consumer Freedom
Cities, however, were also the birthplace of a mass- consumption society that added new meaning to American freedom. There was, of course, nothing unusual in the idea that the promise of American life lay, in part, in the enjoy- ment by the masses of citizens of goods available in other countries only to the well- to- do. Not until the Progressive era, however, did the advent of large down- town department stores, chain stores in urban neighborhoods, and retail mail- order houses for farmers and small- town residents make available to consumers throughout the country the vast array of goods now pouring from the nation’s factories. By 1910, Americans could purchase, among many other items, elec- tric sewing machines, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and record players. Low wages, the unequal distribution of income, and the South’s persistent pov- erty limited the consumer economy, which would not fully come into its own until after World War II. But it was in Progressive America that the promise of mass consumption became the foundation for a new understanding of freedom as access to the cornucopia of goods made available by modern capitalism.
Leisure activities also took on the characteristics of mass consumption. Amusement parks, dance halls, and theaters attracted large crowds of city dwellers. The most popular form of mass entertainment at the turn of the cen- tury was vaudeville, a live theatrical entertainment consisting of numerous short acts typically including song and dance, comedy, acrobats, magicians, and trained animals. In the 1890s, brief motion pictures were already being intro- duced into vaudeville shows. As the movies became longer and involved more sophisticated plot narratives, separate theaters developed. By 1910, 25 million Americans per week, mostly working- class urban residents, were attending “nickelodeons”— motion- picture theaters whose five- cent admission charge was far lower than at vaudeville shows.
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The Working Woman
The new visibility of women in urban public places— at work, as shoppers, and in places of entertainment like cinemas and dance halls— indicated that traditional gender roles were changing dramatically in Progressive America. As the Triangle fire revealed, more and more women were working for wages. Black women still worked primarily as domestics or in southern cotton fields. Immigrant women were largely confined to low- paying factory employment. But for native- born white women, the kinds of jobs available expanded enormously. By 1920, around
25 percent of employed women were office workers or telephone operators, and only 15 percent worked in domestic service, the largest female job cate- gory of the nineteenth century. Female work was no longer confined to young, unmarried white women and adult black women. In 1920, of 8 million women working for wages, one- quarter were married and living with their husbands.
The working woman— immigrant and native, working- class and professional— became a symbol of female emancipation. Women faced special limitations on their economic freedom, including wage discrimination and exclusion from many jobs. Yet almost in spite of themselves, union leader Abra- ham Bisno remarked, young immigrant working women developed a sense of independence: “They acquired the right to a personality,” something alien to the highly patriarchal family structures of the old country. “We enjoy our indepen- dence and freedom” was the assertive statement of the Bachelor Girls Social Club, a group of female mail- order clerks in New York.
The growing number of younger women who desired a lifelong career, wrote Charlotte Perkins Gilman in her influential book Women and Eco- nomics (1898), offered evidence of a “spirit of personal independence” that pointed to a coming transformation of both economic and family life. Gil- man’s writings reinforced the claim that the road to woman’s freedom lay through the workplace. In the home, she argued, women experienced not fulfillment but oppression, and the housewife was an unproductive parasite, little more than a servant to her husband and children. By condemning women to a life of domestic drudgery, prevailing gender norms made them incapable of contributing to society or enjoying freedom in any meaningful sense of the word.
Table 18.2 Percentage of Women Workers in Various Occupations, 1900–1920
Occupation 1900 1920
Professional, technical
8.2% 11.7%
Clerical 4.0 18.7
Sales workers 4.3 6.2
Unskilled and semiskilled manufacturing
23.7
20.2
Household workers
28.7 15.7
AN URBAN AGE AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY ★ 701
The desire to participate in the consumer society produced remarkably similar battles within immigrant families of all nationalities between parents and their self- consciously “free” children, especially daughters. Contemporar- ies, native and immigrant, noted how “the novelties and frivolities of fashion” appealed to young working women, who spent part of their meager wages on clothing and makeup and at places of entertainment. Daughters considered parents who tried to impose curfews or to prevent them from going out alone to dances or movies as old- fashioned and not sufficiently “American.” Immi- grant parents found it very difficult to adapt to what one Mexican mother called “this terrible freedom in this United States.” “The Mexican girls,” she told a sociologist studying immigrant life in Los Angeles, “seeing American girls with freedom, they want it too.”
The Rise of Fordism
If any individual exemplified the new consumer society, it was Henry Ford. The son of an immigrant Irish farmer, Ford had worked as an apprentice in Michi- gan machine shops and later as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Com- pany. Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed the techniques of production and marketing that brought it within the reach of ordinary Amer- icans. In 1905, he established the Ford Motor Company, one of dozens of small automobile manufacturing firms that emerged in these years. Three years later,
Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America?
The assembly line at the Ford Motor Company factory in Highland Park, Michigan, around 1914.
702 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
he introduced the Model T, a simple, light vehicle sturdy enough to navigate the country’s poorly maintained roads. While early European models like the Mercedes aimed at an elite market and were superior in craftsmanship, Ford concentrated on standardizing output and lowering prices.
In 1913, Ford’s factory in Highland Park, Michigan, adopted the method of pro- duction known as the moving assembly line, in which car frames were brought to workers on a continuously moving conveyor belt. The process enabled Ford to expand output by greatly reducing the time it took to produce each car. In 1914, he raised wages at his factory to the unheard of level of five dollars per day (more than double the pay of most industrial workers), enabling him to attract a steady stream of skilled laborers. Labor conditions in the Ford plant were not as appealing as the wages, however: assembly- line work was monotonous (the worker repeated the same basic motions for the entire day), and Ford used spies and armed detec- tives to prevent unionization. When other businessmen criticized him for endan- gering profits by paying high wages, Ford replied that workers must be able to afford the goods being turned out by American factories. Ford’s output rose from 34,000 cars, priced at $700 each, in 1910, to 730,000 Model T’s that sold at a price of $316 (well within the reach of many workers) in 1916. The economic system based on mass production and mass consumption came to be called Fordism.
The Promise of Abundance
As economic production shifted from capital goods (steel, railroad equipment, etc.) to consumer products, the new advertising industry perfected ways of increasing sales, often by linking goods with the idea of freedom. Numerous products took “liberty” as a brand name or used an image of the Statue of Liberty as a sales device. The department- store magnate Edward Filene called consum- erism a “school of freedom,” since shoppers made individual choices on basic questions of living. Economic abundance would eventually come to define the “American way of life,” in which personal fulfillment was to be found through acquiring material goods.
The promise of abundance shifted the quest for freedom to the realm of private life, but it also inspired political activism. Exclusion from the world of mass consumption would come to seem almost as great a denial of the rights of citizenship as being barred from voting once had been. The desire for consumer goods led many workers to join unions and fight for higher wages. The argument that monopolistic corporations artificially raised prices at the expense of consumers became a weapon against the trusts. “Consumers’ con- sciousness,” wrote Walter Lippmann, who emerged in these years as one of the nation’s most influential social commentators, was growing rapidly, with the “high cost of living” as its rallying cry.
VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 703
An American Standard of Living
The maturation of the consumer economy gave rise to concepts— a “living wage” and an “American standard of living”—that offered a new language for criticizing the inequalities of wealth and power in Progressive America. Father John A. Ryan’s influential book A Living Wage (1906) described a decent standard of living (one that enabled a person to participate in the consumer economy) as a “natural and absolute” right of citizenship. Ryan had grown up in Minnesota in a family sympathetic to Henry George, the Knights of Labor, and the Populists. His book sought to translate into American terms Pope Leo XIII’s powerful statement of 1894, Rerum Novarum, which criticized the divorce of economic life from ethical considerations, endorsed the right of workers to organize unions, and repudiated competitive individualism in favor of a more cooperative vision of the good society. Ryan’s insistence that economic rela- tionships should be governed by moral standards had a powerful influence on social thought among American Catholics.
The popularity of the idea of an American standard of living reflected, in part, the emergence of a mass- consumption society during the Progressive era. For the first time in the nation’s history, mass consumption came to occupy a central place in descriptions of American society and its future. In the Gilded Age, social theorists like Henry George had wondered why economic progress produced both increased wealth and abject misery. The Progressive generation was strongly influenced by the more optimistic writings of Simon W. Patten, a prophet of prosperity. Patten announced the end of the “reign of want” and the advent of a society of abundance and leisure. In the dawning “new civilization,” he proclaimed, Americans would enjoy economic equality in a world in which “every one is independent and free.”
V A R I E T I E S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M For most Americans, however, Patten’s “new civilization” lay far in the future. The more immediate task, in the Progressives’ view, was to humanize indus- trial capitalism and find common ground in a society still racked by labor conflict and experiencing massive immigration from abroad. Some Progres- sives proposed to return to a competitive marketplace populated by small pro- ducers. Others accepted the permanence of the large corporation and looked to the government to reverse the growing concentration of wealth and to ensure social justice. Still others would relocate freedom from the economic and political worlds to a private realm of personal fulfillment and unimpeded self- expression. But nearly all Progressives agreed that freedom must be infused
How did the labor and women’s movements challenge the nineteenth- century meanings of American freedom?
704 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
with new meaning to deal with the economic and social conditions of the early twentieth century. The “old democracy,” wrote Walter Weyl, associate editor of The New Republic, a weekly magazine that became the “bible” of Progres- sive intellectuals, provided no answer to the problems of a world in which the “chief restrictions upon liberty” were economic, not political.
Industrial Freedom
In Progressive America, complaints of a loss of freedom came not only from the most poorly paid factory workers but from better- off employees as well. Large firms in the automobile, electrical, steel, and other industries sought to imple- ment greater control over the work process. Efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor pioneered what he called scientific management— a program that sought to streamline production and boost profits by systematically controlling costs and work practices. Through scientific study, the “one best way” of producing goods could be determined and implemented. The role of workers was to obey the detailed instructions of supervisors. Not surprisingly, many skilled workers saw the erosion of their traditional influence over the work process as a loss of freedom. “Men and women,” complained Samuel Gompers, whose Ameri- can Federation of Labor (AFL) represented such skilled workers, “cannot live during working hours under autocratic conditions, and instantly become sons and daughters of freedom as they step outside the shop gates.”
The great increase in the number of white- collar workers— the army of salespeople, bookkeepers, salaried professionals, and corporate managers that sprang up with the new system of management— also undermined the experi- ence of personal autonomy. For although they enjoyed far higher social status and incomes than manual workers, many, wrote one commentator, were the kind of individuals who “under former conditions, would have been . . . man- aging their own businesses,” not working for someone else.
These developments helped to place the ideas of “industrial freedom” and “industrial democracy,” which had entered the political vocabulary in the Gilded Age, at the center of political discussion during the Progressive era. Lack of “industrial freedom” was widely believed to lie at the root of the much- discussed “labor problem.” Since in an industrial age the prospect of managing one’s own business seemed increasingly remote, many Progressives believed that the key to increasing industrial freedom lay in empowering workers to par- ticipate in economic decision making via strong unions. Louis D. Brandeis, an active ally of the labor movement whom President Woodrow Wilson appointed to the Supreme Court in 1916, maintained that unions embodied an essential principle of freedom— the right of people to govern themselves. The contra- diction between “political liberty” and “industrial slavery,” Brandeis insisted, was America’s foremost social problem. Workers deserved a voice not only in
VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 705
establishing wages and working conditions but also in making such managerial decisions as the relocation of factories, layoffs, and the distribution of profits.
The Socialist Presence
Economic freedom was also a rallying cry of American socialism, which reached its greatest influence during the Progressive era. Founded in 1901, the Socialist Party brought together surviving late- nineteenth- century radicals such as Pop- ulists and followers of Edward Bellamy, with a portion of the labor movement. The party called for immediate reforms such as free college education, legisla- tion to improve the condition of laborers, and, as an ultimate goal, democratic control over the economy through public ownership of railroads and factories. It was the task of socialism, said western labor leader John O’Neill, to “gather together the shards of liberty”—the fragments of the American heritage of freedom— scattered by a government controlled by capitalist millionaires.
By 1912, the Socialist Party claimed 150,000 dues- paying members, pub- lished hundreds of newspapers, enjoyed substantial support in the American
How did the labor and women’s movements challenge the nineteenth- century meanings of American freedom?
Burlington Edmonds Tukwila
Camas
Coquille
Eureka
Berkeley Daly City
Watts
Cedar City
Grand Junction
Murray EurekaStockton
Mammoth
Hillyard Coeur d'Alene Beatrice
Butte Minden
Missoula (2 Commissioners)
Des Lacs
Minot (Commissioner)
Rugby
Sisseton Dawson
Red Cloud Wymore
Hillsboro
Longmont Nederland LafayetteEdgewater
Buena Vista Victor
Antlers
Frontenac Girard
Curranville Arma
Mindenmines Liberal
Winnfield
Chant Hartford
Winslow Cardwell Gibson
Birmingham (Commissioner)
Gulfport
Lake Worth
Brookneal
Barre
Naugatuck Haledon
Rockaway
Schenectady Buffalo
Gustin Harbor Springs
Traverse City S. FrankfortManitowoc
Sheboygan Milwaukee West Allis
Davis
Wilson W Salem
Minneapolis Eagle Bend
Pillager Brainerd Laporte
Tenstrike Cloquet
Duluth (Commissioner)
St. HilaireCrookston
Davenport Madrid Silvis
Torino Phelps Canton
LincolnRiverton Thayer
Grafton Jerseyville Granite City O'Fallon
Mascoutah Buckner Dorrisville
Buffalo
Hymera Clinton
WA
OR ID
MT
WY
NV
CA
UT
AZ NM
CO
OK
TX LA
AR
NE
KS
SD
ND
MN WI
IA
MO IL IN
MI
MS AL GA
FL
SC
NCTN
KY VA
WV
OH PA
NY
VTNH MA
ME
RI
CT NJ
DEMD
CANADA
Lackawanna
Miami
Adamston Hendricks
Star City
Garrett
Broad Top Twp.
Elwood
Gas City
Kalamazoo
FlintGreenville
Lorain Cleveland
Ashtabula Conneaut Union City Roulette
Wheatland New Castle Hazeldell
Pitcairn Toronto
Martins Ferry Byesville
Mineral Ridge
Salem Massillon
Osnaburg Amsterdam
Canal Dover
Barnhill
Mineral City
McKeesport (Controller)
Coshocton Sugar Grove
Mt. Vernon Linden
Heights
Hamilton
Piqua
Lima
Shelby Fostoria
St. Mary'sJenera
Williamsport (Commissioner)
WV VA
KY
OH IN
MI
PA
NY
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers Socialist mayor Major municipal officer other than mayor
S O C I A L I S T T O W N S A N D C I T I E S , 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 2 0
Although the Socialist Party never won more than 6 percent of the vote nationally, it gained control of numerous small and medium-sized cities between 1900 and 1920.
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Federation of Labor, and had elected scores of local officials. Socialism flour- ished in diverse communities throughout the country. On the Lower East Side of New York City, it arose from the economic exploitation of immigrant work- ers and Judaism’s tradition of social reform. Here, a vibrant socialist culture developed, complete with Yiddish- language newspapers and theaters, as well as large public meetings and street demonstrations. In 1914, the district elected socialist Meyer London to Congress. Another center of socialist strength was Milwaukee, where Victor Berger, a German- born teacher and newspaper edi- tor, mobilized local AFL unions into a potent political force that elected Emil Seidel mayor in 1910. Seidel’s administration provided aid to the unemployed, forced the police to recognize the rights of strikers, and won the respect of middle- class residents for its honesty and freedom from machine domination. Socialism also made inroads among tenant farmers in old Populist areas like Oklahoma, and in the mining regions of Idaho and Montana.
The Gospel of Debs
No one was more important in spreading the socialist gospel or linking it to ide- als of equality, self- government, and freedom than Eugene V. Debs, the railroad union leader who, as noted in the previous chapter, had been jailed during the Pullman Strike of 1894. For two decades, Debs criss- crossed the country preach- ing that control of the economy by a democratic government held out the hope of uniting “political equality and economic freedom.” As a champion of the downtrodden, Debs managed to bridge the cultural divide between New York’s Jewish immigrants, prairie socialists of the West, and native- born intellectuals attracted to the socialist ideal. “While there is a lower class,” proclaimed Debs, “I am in it. . . . While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
Throughout the Atlantic world of the early twentieth century, socialism was a rising presence. Debs would receive more than 900,000 votes for pres- ident (6 percent of the total) in 1912. In that year, the socialist Appeal to Rea- son, published in Girard, Kansas, with a circulation of 700,000, was the largest weekly newspaper in the country, and socialist Max Hayes polled one- third of the vote when he challenged Samuel Gompers for the presidency of the AFL. In western Europe, socialism experienced even more pronounced growth. In the last elections before the outbreak of World War I in 1914, socialists in France, Germany, and Scandinavia won between one- sixth and one- third of the vote. “Socialism is coming,” declared the Appeal to Reason. “It is coming like a prairie fire and nothing can stop it.”
AFL and IWW
Socialism was only one example of widespread discontent in Progressive America. The labor strife of the Gilded Age continued into the early twentieth
VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 707
century. Having survived the depression of the 1890s, the American Federation of Labor saw its membership triple to 1.6 million between 1900 and 1904. At the same time, it sought to forge closer ties with forward- looking corporate leaders willing to deal with unions as a way to stabilize employee relations. AFL pres- ident Gompers joined with George Perkins of the J. P. Morgan financial empire and Mark Hanna, who had engineered McKinley’s election in 1896, in the National Civic Federation, which accepted the right of collective bargaining for “responsible” unions. It helped to settle hundreds of industrial disputes and encouraged improvements in factory safety and the establishment of pension plans for long- term workers. Most employers nonetheless continued to view unions as an intolerable interference with their authority, and resisted them stubbornly.
The AFL mainly represented the most privileged American workers— skilled industrial and craft laborers, nearly all of them white, male, and native- born. In 1905, a group of unionists who rejected the AFL’s exclusionary policies formed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Part trade union, part advocate of a workers’ revolution that would seize the means of production and abolish the state, the IWW made solidarity its guiding principle, extending “a fraternal hand to every wage- worker, no matter what his religion, fatherland, or trade.” The organization sought to mobilize those excluded from the AFL— the immigrant factory- labor force, migrant timber and agricultural workers, women, blacks, and even the despised Chinese on the West Coast. The IWW’s most prominent leader was William “Big Bill” Haywood, who had worked in western mines as a youth. Dubbed by critics “the most dangerous man in Amer- ica,” Haywood became a national figure in 1906 when he was kidnapped and spirited off to Idaho, accused of instigating the murder of a former anti- union governor. Defended by labor lawyer Clarence Darrow, Haywood was found not guilty.
The New Immigrants on Strike
The Uprising of the 20,000 in New York’s garment industry, mentioned ear- lier, was one of a series of mass strikes among immigrant workers that placed labor’s demand for the right to bargain collectively at the forefront of the reform agenda. These strikes demonstrated that while ethnic divisions among workers impeded labor solidarity, ethnic cohesiveness could also be a basis of unity, so long as strikes were organized on a democratic basis. IWW organiz- ers printed leaflets, posters, and banners in multiple languages and insisted that each nationality enjoy representation on the committee coordinating a walkout. It drew on the sense of solidarity within immigrant communities to persuade local religious leaders, shopkeepers, and officeholders to support the strikes.
How did the labor and women’s movements challenge the nineteenth- century meanings of American freedom?
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The labor conflict that had the great- est impact on public consciousness took place in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The city’s huge woolen mills employed 32,000 men, women, and children repre- senting twenty- five nationalities. They worked six days per week and earned an average of sixteen cents per hour. When the state legislature in Janu- ary 1912 enacted a fifty- four- hour limit to the workweek, employers reduced the weekly take- home pay of those who had been laboring longer hours. Work- ers spontaneously went on strike, and called on the IWW for assistance.
In February, Haywood and a group of women strikers devised the idea of sending strikers’ children out of the city for the duration of the walkout. Social- ist families in New York City agreed to take them in. The sight of the children, many of whom appeared pale and half- starved, marching up Fifth Avenue from the train station led to a wave of sympathy for the strikers. “I have worked in the slums of New York,” wrote one observer, “but I have never found children who were so uniformly ill- nourished, ill- fed, and ill- clothed.” A few days later, city officials ordered that no more youngsters could leave Lawrence. When a group of mothers and children gathered at the railroad station in defiance of the order, club- wielding police drove them away, producing outraged head- lines around the world. The governor of Massachusetts soon intervened, and the strike was settled on the workers’ terms. A banner carried by the Lawrence strikers gave a new slogan to the labor movement: “We want bread and roses, too”—a declaration that workers sought not only higher wages but the oppor- tunity to enjoy the finer things of life.
Another highly publicized labor uprising took place in New Orleans, where a 1907 strike of 10,000 black and white dockworkers prevented employers’ efforts to eliminate their unions and reduce their wages. This was a remarkable expression of interracial solidarity at a time when segregation had become the norm throughout the South. Other strikes proved less successful. A six- month walkout of 25,000 silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1913 failed despite publicity generated by the Paterson pageant, in which the strikers reenacted highlights of their struggle before a sympathetic audience at New York’s Mad- ison Square Garden.
A strike against the Rockefeller- owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company was also unsuccessful. Mostly recent immigrants from Europe and Mexico, the
Striking New York City garment workers carrying signs in multiple languages, 1913.
VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 709
strikers demanded recognition of the United Mine Workers of America, wage increases, an eight- hour workday, and the right to shop and live in places not owned by the company. When the walkout began, in September 1913, the mine owners evicted 11,000 strikers and their families from company housing. They moved into tent colonies, which armed militia units soon surrounded. On April 20, 1914, the militia attacked the largest tent city, at Ludlow, and burned it to the ground, killing an estimated twenty to thirty men, women, and children. Seven months after the Ludlow Massacre, the strike was called off.
Labor and Civil Liberties
The fiery organizer Mary “Mother” Jones, who at the age of eighty- three had been jailed after addressing the Colorado strikers, later told a New York audi- ence that the union “had only the Constitution; the other side had the bayo- nets.” Yet the struggle of workers for the right to strike and of labor radicals against restraints on open- air speaking made free speech a significant public issue in the early twentieth century. By and large, the courts rejected their claims. But these battles laid the foundation for the rise of civil liberties as a central component of freedom in twentieth- century America.
State courts in the Progressive era regularly issued injunctions prohibiting strikers from speaking, picketing, or distributing literature during labor dis- putes. Like the abolitionists before them, the labor movement, in the name of freedom, demanded the right to assemble, organize, and spread their views. The investigations of the Commission on Industrial Relations revealed the absence of free speech in many factory communities, with labor organizers prohibited from speaking freely under threat of either violence from private police or sup- pression by local authorities. “I don’t think we live in a free country or enjoy civil liberties,” Clarence Darrow told the commission.
The IWW’s battle for civil liberties breathed new meaning into the idea of freedom of expression. Lacking union halls, its organizers relied on songs, street theater, impromptu organizing meetings, and street corner gatherings to spread their message and attract support. In response to IWW activities, officials in Los Angeles, Spokane, Denver, and more than a dozen other cities limited or prohib- ited outdoor meetings. To arouse popular support, the IWW filled the jails with members who defied local law by speaking in public. Sometimes, prisoners were brutally treated, as in Spokane, where three died and hundreds were hospitalized after being jailed for violating a local law requiring prior approval of the content of public speeches. In nearly all the free- speech fights, however, the IWW even- tually forced local officials to give way. “Whether they agree or disagree with its methods or aims,” wrote one journalist, “all lovers of liberty everywhere owe a debt to this organization for . . . [keeping] alight the fires of freedom.”
How did the labor and women’s movements challenge the nineteenth- century meanings of American freedom?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
From Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (1898)
Women and Economics, by the prolific feminist social critic and novelist Charlotte Per- kins Gilman, influenced the new generation of women aspiring to greater indepen- dence. It insisted that how people earned a living shaped their entire lives, and that therefore women must free themselves from the home to achieve genuine freedom.
It is not motherhood that keeps the housewife on her feet from dawn till dark; it is house service, not child service. Women work longer and harder than most men. . . . A truer spirit is the increasing desire of young girls to be independent, to have a career of their own, at least for a while, and the growing objection of countless wives to the pitiful asking for money, to the beggary of their position. More and more do fathers give their daughters, and husbands their wives, a definite allowance,—a separate bank account,— something . . . all their own.
The spirit of personal independence in the women of today is sure proof that a change has come. . . . The radical change in the economic position of women is advanc- ing upon us. . . . The growing individualization of democratic life brings inevitable change to our daughters as well as to our sons. . . . One of its most noticeable features is the demand in women not only for their own money, but for their own work for the sake of personal expression. Few girls today fail to manifest some signs of this desire for individual expression. . . .
Economic independence for women necessarily involves a change in the home and family relation. But, if that change is for the advantage of individual and race, we need not fear it. It does not involve a change in the marriage relation except in withdrawing the element of economic dependence, nor in the relation of mother to child save to improve it. But it does involve the exercise of human faculty in women, in social service and exchange rather than in domestic service solely. . . . [Today], when our still developing social needs call for an ever- increasing . . . freedom, the woman in marrying becomes the house- servant, or at least the housekeeper, of the man. . . . When women stand free as economic agents, they will [achieve a] much better fulfilment of their duties as wives and mothers and [contribute] to the vast improvement in health and happiness of the human race.
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VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 711
From John Mitchell, “The Workingman’s Conception of Industrial Liberty” (1910)
During the Progressive era, the idea of “indus trial liberty” moved to the center of political discussion. Progressive reformers and labor leaders like John Mitchell, head of the United Mine Workers, condemned the prevailing idea of liberty of contract in favor of a broader definition of economic freedom.
While the Declaration of Independence established civil and political liberty, it did not, as you all know, establish industrial liberty. . . . Liberty means more than the right to choose the field of one’s employment. He is not a free man whose family must buy food today with the money that is earned tomorrow. He is not really free who is forced to work unduly long hours and for wages so low that he can not provide the necessities of life for himself and his family; who must live in a crowded tenement and see his chil- dren go to work in the mills, the mines, and the factories before their bodies are devel- oped and their minds trained. To have freedom a man must be free from the harrowing fear of hunger and want; he must be in such a position that by the exercise of reasonable frugality he can provide his family with all of the necessities and the reasonable com- forts of life. He must be able to educate his children and to provide against sickness, accident, and old age. . . .
A number of years ago the legislatures of several coal producing States enacted laws requiring employers to pay the wages of their workmen in lawful money of the United States and to cease the practice of paying wages in merchandise. From time immemorial it had been the custom of coal companies to conduct general supply stores, and the work- ingmen were required, as a condition of employment, to accept products in lieu of money in return for services rendered. This system was a great hardship to the workmen. . . . The question of the constitutionality of this legislation was carried into the courts and by the highest tribunal it was declared to be an invasion of the workman’s liberty to deny him the right to accept merchandise in lieu of money as payment of his wages. . . . [This is] typical of hundreds of instances in which laws that have been enacted for the protection of the workingmen have been declared by the courts to be unconstitutional, on the grounds that they invaded the liberty of the working people. . . . Is it not natural that the workingmen should feel that they are being guaranteed the liberties they do not want and denied the liberty that is of real value to them? May they not exclaim, with Madame Roland [of the French Rev- olution], “O Liberty! Liberty! How many crimes are committed in thy name!”
QUESTIONS
1. What does Gilman see as the main obstacles to freedom for women?
2. What does Mitchell believe will be neces- sary to establish “industrial liberty”?
3. How do the authors differ in their view of the relationship of the family to individual freedom?
712 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
The New Feminism
During the Progressive era, the word “feminism” first entered the political vocabulary. Inspired by the writings of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the Feminist Alliance, a small organization of New York professional women, developed plans to build apartment houses with communal kitchens, cafeterias, and day- care centers, to free women from the constraints of the home. However, because they were unable to obtain a mortgage, the buildings were never constructed. In 1914, a mass meeting at New York’s Cooper Union debated the question “What is Feminism?” The meeting was sponsored by Heterodoxy, a women’s club located in Greenwich Village that brought together female professionals, academics, and reformers. Feminism, said one speaker, meant woman’s eman- cipation “both as a human being and a sex- being.” New feminism’s forthright attack on traditional rules of sexual behavior added a new dimension to the idea of personal freedom.
Heterodoxy was part of a new radical “bohemia” (a social circle of artists, writers, and others who reject conventional rules and practices). Its definition of feminism merged issues like the vote and greater economic opportunities with open discussion of sexuality. In New York’s Greenwich Village and coun- terparts in Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities, a “lyrical left” came into being in the prewar years. Its members formed discussion clubs, attended experimental theaters, and published magazines. They confidently expected to preside over the emancipation of the human spirit from the prejudices of the nineteenth century.
One symbol of the new era was Isadora Duncan, who brought from California a new, expressive dance based on the free movement of a body liber- ated from the constraints of traditional technique and costume. “I beheld the dance I had always dreamed of,” wrote the novelist Edith Wharton on seeing a Duncan performance, “satisfying every sense as a flower does, or a phrase of Mozart’s.” Another sign of artistic revolution was the Armory Show of 1913, an exhibition that exposed New Yorkers to new cubist paintings from Europe by artists previously unknown in the United States, like Pablo Picasso.
The lyrical left made freedom the key to its vision of society. At the famed salon in heiress Mabel Dodge’s New York living room, a remarkable array of talented radicals gathered to discuss with equal passion labor unrest, mod- ern trends in the arts, and sexual liberation. “What [women] are really after,” explained Crystal Eastman, is “freedom.” A graduate of New York University Law School, Eastman had taken a leading role both in the suffrage movement and in investigating industrial accidents. But her definition of freedom went beyond the vote, beyond “industrial democracy,” to encompass emotional and sexual self- determination.
VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 713
The Rise of Personal Freedom
During the Progressive era, as journalist William M. Reedy jested, it struck “sex o’clock” in America. The founder of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, lectured at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1909, and discovered that his writings on infantile sexuality, repression, and the irrational sources of human behavior were widely known “even in prudish America.” Issues of intimate per- sonal relations previously confined to private discussion blazed forth in popu- lar magazines and public debates.
For the generation of women who adopted the word “feminism” to express their demand for greater liberty, free sexual expression and reproductive choice emerged as critical definitions of women’s emancipation. Greenwich Village became a center of sexual experimentation. The aura of tolerance attracted many homosexuals to the area, and although organized demands for gay rights lay far in the future, the gay community became an important element of the Village’s lifestyle. But new sexual attitudes spread far beyond bohemia; they flourished among the young, unmarried, self- supporting women who made sexual freedom a hallmark of their oft- proclaimed personal independence.
The Birth- Control Movement
The growing presence of women in the labor market reinforced demands for access to birth control, an issue that gave political expression to changing sex- ual behavior. In the nineteenth century, the right to “control one’s body” gener- ally meant the ability to refuse sexual advances, including those of a woman’s husband. Now, it suggested the ability to enjoy an active sexual life without nec- essarily bearing children. Emma Goldman, who had emigrated to the United States from Lithuania at the age of sixteen, toured the country lecturing on sub- jects from anarchism to the need for more enlightened attitudes toward homo- sexuality. She regularly included the right to birth control in her speeches and distributed pamphlets with detailed information about various contraceptive devices. “I demand freedom for both sexes,” she proclaimed, “freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood.” Goldman constantly ran afoul of the law. By one count, she was arrested more than forty times for dangerous or “obscene” statements or simply to keep her from speaking.
By forthrightly challenging the laws banning contraceptive information and devices, Margaret Sanger, one of eleven children of an Irish- American working- class family, placed the birth control movement at the heart of the new feminism. In 1911, she began a column on sex education, “What Every Girl Should Know,” for The Call, a New York socialist newspaper. Postal officials barred one issue, containing a column on venereal disease, from the mails. The
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714 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
next issue of The Call included a blank page with the headline: “What Every Girl Should Know— Nothing; by order of the U. S. Post Office.”
By 1914, the intrepid Sanger was openly advertising birth- control devices in her own journal, The Woman Rebel. “No woman can call herself free,” she proclaimed, “who does not own and control her own body [and] can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” In 1916, Sanger opened a clinic in a working- class neighborhood of Brooklyn and began distributing
contraceptive devices to poor Jewish and Italian women, an action for which she was sentenced to a month in prison. Few Progressives rallied to her defense. But for a time, the birth- control issue became a crossroads where the paths of labor radicals, cultural modernists, and feminists intersected. The IWW and Socialist Party distributed Sanger’s writings. Like the IWW free- speech fights and Goldman’s persistent battle for the right to lecture, Sanger’s travail was part of a rich history of dissent in the Progressive era that helped to focus enlight- ened opinion on the ways local authorities and national obscenity legislation set rigid limits to Americans’ freedom of expression. Slowly, laws banning birth control began to change. But since access was determined by individual states, even when some liberalized their laws, birth control remained unavailable in many others.
Native American Progressivism
Many groups participated in the Progressive impulse. Founded in 1911, the Society of American Indians was a reform organization typical of the era. It brought together Indian intellectuals to promote discussion of the plight of Native Americans in the hope that public exposure would be the first step toward remedying injustice. Because many of the society’s leaders had been educated at government- sponsored boarding schools, the society united Indians of many tribal backgrounds. It created a pan- Indian public space inde- pendent of white control.
Many of these Indian intellectuals were not unsympathetic to the basic goals of federal Indian policy, including the transformation of communal landholdings on reservations into family farms. But Carlos Montezuma, a founder of the Society of American Indians, became an outspoken critic. Born in Arizona, he had been
Mothers with baby carriages wait outside Margaret Sanger’s birth- control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn, 1916.
THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 715
captured as a child by members of a neighboring tribe and sold to a traveling pho- tographer, who brought him to Chicago. There Montezuma attended school and eventually obtained a medical degree.
In 1916, Montezuma established a newsletter, Wassaja (meaning “signal- ing”), that condemned federal paternalism toward the Indians and called for the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Convinced that outsiders exerted too much power over life on the reservations, he insisted that self- determination was the only way for Indians to escape poverty and marginalization: “We must free ourselves. . . . We must be independent.” But he also demanded that Indi- ans be granted full citizenship and all the constitutional rights of other Amer- icans. Montezuma’s writings had little influence at the time on government policy, but Indian activists would later rediscover him as a forerunner of Indian radicalism.
T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M
Effective Freedom
Progressivism was an international movement. In the early twentieth century, cities throughout the world experienced similar social strains arising from rapid industrialization and urban growth. In 1850, London and Paris were the only cities whose population exceeded 1 million. By 1900, there were twelve— New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia in the United States, and others in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Facing similar social problems, reformers across the globe exchanged ideas and envisioned new social policies. Sun Yat- Sen, the Chinese leader, was influenced by the writings of Henry George and Edward Bellamy.
As governments in Britain, France, and Germany instituted old age pensions, minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and the regulation of work- place safety, American reformers came to believe they had much to learn from the Old World. The term “social legislation,” meaning governmental action to address urban problems and the insecurities of working- class life, originated in Germany but soon entered the political vocabulary of the United States.
Progressives believed that the modern era required a fundamental rethink- ing of the functions of political authority, whether the aim was to combat the power of the giant corporations, protect consumers, civilize the marketplace, or guarantee industrial freedom at the workplace. Drawing on the reform pro- grams of the Gilded Age and the example of European legislation, Progressives sought to reinvigorate the idea of an activist, socially conscious government. Even in South Carolina, with its strong tradition of belief in local autonomy, Governor Richard I. Manning urged his constituents to modify their view of
In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?
716 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
government as “a threat to individual liberty,” to see it instead as “a means for solving the ills of the body politic.”
Progressives could reject the tradi- tional assumption that powerful govern- ment posed a threat to freedom, because their understanding of freedom was itself in flux. “Effective freedom,” wrote the philosopher John Dewey, was a positive, not a negative, concept— the “power to do specific things.” As such, it depended on “the distribution of powers that exists at a given time.” Thus, freedom inevita- bly became a political question.
State and Local Reforms
Throughout the Western world, social legislation proliferated in the early twentieth century. In the United States, with a political structure more decen- tralized than in European countries, state and local governments enacted most of the era’s reform measures. In cities, Progressives worked to reform the struc- ture of government to reduce the power of political bosses, establish public control of “natural monopolies” like gas and water works, and improve public transportation. They raised property taxes in order to spend more money on schools, parks, and other public facilities.
Gilded Age mayors Hazen Pingree and Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones pio- neered urban Progressivism. A former factory worker who became a success- ful shoe manufacturer, Pingree served as mayor of Detroit from 1889 to 1897. He battled the business interests that had dominated city government, forcing gas and telephone companies to lower their rates, and established a municipal power plant. Jones had instituted an eight- hour day and paid vacations at his fac- tory that produced oil drilling equipment. As mayor of Toledo, Ohio, from 1897 to 1905, he founded night schools and free kindergartens, built new parks, and supported the right of workers to unionize. Since state legislatures defined the powers of city government, urban Progressives often carried their campaigns to the state level. Pingree became governor of Michigan in 1896, in which post he continued his battle against railroads and other corporate interests.
Progressivism in the West
Although often associated with eastern cities, Progressivism was also a major presence in the West. Former Populists and those who believed in the moral
A photograph from 1910 depicts needy constit- uents of New York political boss Timothy “Big Tim” Sullivan receiving free pairs of shoes. Each year, Sullivan distributed two thousand pairs on his mother’s birthday. Such largesse endeared political bosses to many voters, to the annoyance of municipal reformers.
THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 717
power of the frontier gravitated to Progressive programs to regulate the rail- roads and other large corporations, and to the idea that direct democracy could revitalize corrupt politics. Important Progressive leaders worked for reform in western states and municipalities, including Hiram Johnson of California and Robert La Follette of Wisconsin.
Oregon stood at the forefront of Progressive reform. The leading figure in that state was William U’Ren, a lawyer who had entered politics as a sup- porter of Henry George’s single- tax program. U’Ren concluded that without changes to the political system, entrenched interests would always be able to block reforms such as George’s. He was the founder of the Oregon System, which included such measures as the initiative and referendum (also known as direct legislature, which enabled voters to propose and vote on laws), direct primaries to choose candidates for office (an effort to weaken the power of political bosses), and the recall (by which officials could be removed from office by popular vote). Using the initiative, Progressives won the vote for women in the state. The Oregon system, studied and emulated in many other states, came into being via an alliance of the urban middle class with reform- minded farmers and workers. But fault lines appeared when labor- oriented Progressives tried to use the initiative and referendum to increase taxes on the well- to- do and require the state to provide jobs for the unemployed. Both measures failed. Moreover, the initiative system quickly became out of control. In the 1912 election, voters in Portland were asked to evaluate forty measures seeking to become law. Nonetheless, between 1910 and 1912, Oregon’s West Coast neigh- bors, Washington and California, also adopted the initiative and referendum and approved woman suffrage.
In California, where a Republican machine closely tied to the Southern Pacific Railroad had dominated politics for decades, Progressives took power under Governor Hiram Johnson, who held office from 1911 to 1917. As public prosecutor, Johnson had secured the conviction for bribery of San Francisco political boss Abraham Ruef. Having promised to “kick the Southern Pacific [Railroad] out of politics,” he secured passage of the Public Utilities Act, one of the country’s strongest railroad- regulation measures, as well as laws banning child labor and limiting the working hours of women.
The most influential Progressive administration at the state level was that of Robert M. La Follette, who made Wisconsin a “laboratory for democracy.” After serving as a Republican member of Congress, La Follette became con- vinced that an alliance of railroad and lumber companies controlled state pol- itics. Elected governor in 1900, he instituted a series of measures known as the Wisconsin Idea, including nominations of candidates for office through pri- mary elections rather than by political bosses, the taxation of corporate wealth, and state regulation of railroads and public utilities. Other measures created a
In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?
718 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Era
statewide system of insurance against illness, death, and accident, barred the sale to private companies of land, mineral rights, and other natural resources owned by the state, required safety devices on various forms of machinery, and prohibited child labor. To staff his administration, he drew on nonpartisan fac- ulty members from the University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin offered the most striking merger of the social and political impulses that went under the name of Progressivism.
Progressive Democracy
“We are far from free,” wrote Randolph Bourne in 1913, “but the new spirit of democracy is the angel that will free us.” Progressives hoped to reinvigorate democracy by restoring political power to the citizenry and civic harmony to a divided society. Alarmed by the upsurge in violent class conflict and the unrestricted power of corporations, they believed that political reforms could help to create a unified “people” devoted to greater democracy and social recon- ciliation. Yet increasing the responsibilities of government made it all the more important to identify who was entitled to political participation and who was not.
The Progressive era saw a host of changes implemented in the political process, many seemingly contradictory in purpose. The electorate was simul- taneously expanded and contracted, empowered and removed from direct influence on many functions of government. Democracy was enhanced by the Seventeenth Amendment— which provided that U.S. senators be chosen by popular vote rather than by state legislatures— by widespread adoption of the popular election of judges, and by the use of primary elections among party members to select candidates for office. The era culminated with a constitu- tional amendment enfranchising women— the largest expansion of democ- racy in American history.
But the Progressive era also witnessed numerous restrictions on demo- cratic participation, most strikingly the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, a process, as noted in Chapter 17, supported by many white southern Progressives as a way of ending election fraud. To make city government more honest and efficient, many localities replaced elected mayors with appointed nonpartisan commissions or city managers— a change that insulated officials from machine domination but also from popular control. New literacy tests and residency and registration requirements, common in northern as well as southern states, limited the right to vote among the poor. Taken as a whole, the electoral changes of the Progressive era represented a significant reversal of the idea that voting was an inherent right of American citizenship. In the eyes of many Progressives, the “fitness” of voters, not their absolute numbers, defined a functioning democracy.
THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 719
Government by Expert
“He didn’t believe in democracy; he believed simply in government.” The writer H. L. Mencken’s quip about Theodore Roosevelt came uncomfortably close to the mark for many Progressive advocates of an empowered state. Most Progres- sive thinkers were highly uncomfortable with the real world of politics, which seemed to revolve around the pursuit of narrow class, ethnic, and regional interests. Robert M. La Follette’s reliance on college professors to staff import- ant posts in his administration reflected a larger Progressive faith in expertise. The government could best exercise intelligent control over society through a democracy run by impartial experts who were in many respects unaccountable to the citizenry.
This impulse toward order, efficiency, and centralized management— all in the name of social justice— was an important theme of Progressive reform. The title of Walter Lippmann’s influential 1914 work of social commentary, Drift and Mastery, posed the stark alternatives facing the nation. “Drift” meant continuing to operate according to the outmoded belief in individual auton- omy. “Mastery” required applying scientific inquiry to modern social problems. The new generation of educated professionals, Lippmann believed, could be trusted more fully than ordinary citizens to solve America’s deep social prob- lems. Political freedom was less a matter of direct participation in government than of qualified persons devising the best public policies.
Jane Addams and Hull House
But alongside this elitist politics, Progressivism also included a more demo- cratic vision of the activist state. As much as any other group, organized women reformers spoke for the more democratic side of Progressivism. Still barred from voting and holding office in most states, women nonetheless became central to the political history of the Progressive era. Women challenged the barriers that excluded them from formal political participation and developed a democratic, grassroots vision of Progressive government. In so doing, they placed on the political agenda new understandings of female freedom. The immediate catalyst was a growing awareness among women reformers of the plight of poor immigrant communities and the emergence of the condition of women and child laborers as a major focus of public concern.
The era’s most prominent female reformer was Jane Addams, who had been born in 1860, the daughter of an Illinois businessman. After graduating from college, Addams, who never married, resented the prevailing expectation that a woman’s life should be governed by what she called the “family claim”—the obligation to devote herself to parents, husband, and children. In 1889, she founded Hull House in Chicago, a settlement house devoted to improving
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the lives of the immigrant poor. Hull House was modeled on Toynbee Hall, which Addams had visited after its establishment in a working- class neighbor- hood of London in 1884. Unlike previous reformers, who had aided the poor from afar, settlement- house workers moved into poor neighborhoods. They built kindergartens and playgrounds for children, established employment bureaus and health clinics, and showed female victims of domestic abuse how to gain legal protection. By 1910, more than 400 settlement houses had been established in cities throughout the country.
“Spearheads for Reform”
Addams was typical of the Progressive era’s “new woman.” By 1900, there were more than 80,000 college- educated women in the United States. Many found a calling in providing social services, nursing, and education to poor families in the growing cities. The efforts of middle- class women to uplift the poor, and of laboring women to uplift themselves, helped to shift the center of gravity of politics toward activist government. Women like Addams discovered that even well- organized social work was not enough to alleviate the problems of inadequate housing, income, and health. Government action was essential. Hull House instigated an array of reforms in Chicago, soon adopted elsewhere, including stronger building and sanitation codes, shorter working hours and safer labor conditions, and the right of labor to organize.
Female activism spread throughout the country. Ironically, the exclusion of blacks from jobs in southern textile mills strengthened the region’s move- ment against child labor. Reformers portrayed child labor as a menace to white supremacy, depriving white children of educations they would need as adult members of the dominant race. These reformers devoted little attention to the condition of black children. Women’s groups in Alabama were instrumental in the passage of a 1903 state law restricting child labor. By 1915, every south- ern state had followed suit. But with textile mill owners determined to employ children and many poor families dependent on their earnings, these laws were enforced only sporadically.
The settlement houses have been called “spearheads for reform.” They produced prominent Progressive figures like Julia Lathrop, the first woman to head a federal agency (the Children’s Bureau, established in 1912 to investi- gate the conditions of mothers and children and advocate their interests). Flor- ence Kelley, the daughter of Civil War– era Radical Republican congressman William D. Kelley and a veteran of Hull House, went on to mobilize women’s power as consumers as a force for social change. In the Gilded Age, the writer Helen Campbell had brilliantly exposed the contradiction of a market econ- omy in which fashionable women wore clothing produced by poor women in
THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 721
wretched sweatshops. “Emancipation on the one side,” she pointedly observed, “has meant no corresponding emancipation for the other.” A generation later, under Kelley’s leadership, the National Consumers’ League became the nation’s leading advocate of laws governing the working conditions of women and chil- dren. Freedom of choice in the marketplace, Kelley insisted, enabled socially conscious consumers to “unite with wage earners” by refusing to purchase goods produced under exploitative conditions.
The Campaign for Woman Suffrage
After 1900, the campaign for woman suffrage moved beyond the mostly elite membership of the 1890s to engage a broad coalition ranging from middle- class members of women’s clubs to unionists, socialists, and settlement- house workers. For the first time, it became a mass movement. Membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association grew from 13,000 in 1893 to more than 2 million by 1917. The group campaigned throughout the country for the right to vote and began to enjoy some success. By 1900, more than half the states allowed women to vote in local elections dealing with school issues, and Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah had adopted full woman suffrage. The West also led the way in women holding public office. The first women to become mayors of major cities, governors, and members of Congress hailed
In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?
Mayor Mary W. Howard (center) and the town council of Kanab, Utah. They served from 1912 to 1914, the first all- female municipal government in American history.
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from the West— Mayor Bertha Landes in Seattle (1926–1928), Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin of Montana (elected 1916 and 1940), and, in the 1920s, gover- nors Miriam “Ma” Ferguson of Texas and Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming.
Cynics charged that Wyoming legislators used suffrage to attract more female migrants to their predominantly male state, while Utah hoped to enhance the political power of husbands in polygamous marriages banned by law but still practiced by some Mormons. In Colorado and Idaho, however, the success of referendums in the 1890s reflected the power of the Populist Party, a strong supporter of votes for women. Between 1910 and 1914, seven more western states enfranchised women. In 1913, Illinois became the first state east of the Mississippi River to allow women to vote in presidential elections.
These campaigns, which brought women aggressively into the public sphere, were conducted with a new spirit of militancy. They also made effective use of the techniques of advertising, publicity, and mass entertainment characteristic of modern consumer society. California’s successful 1911 campaign utilized auto- mobile parades, numerous billboards and electric signs, and countless suffrage buttons and badges. Nonetheless, state campaigns were difficult, expensive, and usually unsuccessful. The movement increasingly focused its attention on secur- ing a national constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.
Maternalist Reform
Ironically, the desire to exalt women’s role within the home did much to inspire the reinvigoration of the suffrage movement. Many of the era’s experiments in public policy arose from the conviction that the state had an obligation to pro- tect women and children. Female reformers helped to launch a mass movement for direct government action to improve the living standards of poor mothers and children. Laws providing for mothers’ pensions (state aid to mothers of young children who lacked male support) spread rapidly after 1910. The pen- sions tended to be less than generous, and local eligibility requirements opened the door to unequal treatment (white widows benefited the most, single moth- ers were widely discriminated against, and black women were almost entirely excluded). Maternalist reforms like mothers’ pensions rested on the assump- tion that the government should encourage women’s capacity for bearing and raising children and enable them to be economically independent at the same time. Both feminists and believers in conventional domestic roles supported such measures. The former hoped that these laws would subvert women’s dependence on men, the latter that they would strengthen traditional families and the mother- child bond.
Other Progressive legislation recognized that large numbers of women did in fact work outside the home, but defined them as a dependent group (like
THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★ 723
children) in need of state protection in ways male workers were not. In 1908, in the landmark case of Muller v. Oregon, Louis D. Brandeis filed a brief cit- ing scientific and sociological studies to demonstrate that because women had less strength and endurance than men, long hours of labor were dangerous for women, while their unique ability to bear children gave the government a legitimate interest in their working conditions. Persuaded by Brandeis’s argu- ment, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of an Ore- gon law setting maximum working hours for women.
Thus, three years after the notorious Lochner decision invalidating a New York law limiting the working hours of male bakers (discussed in Chap- ter 16), the Court created the first large breach in “liberty of contract” doctrine. But the cost was high: at the very time that women in unprecedented numbers were entering the labor market and earning college degrees, Brandeis’s brief and the Court’s opinion solidified the view of women workers as weak, depen- dent, and incapable of enjoying the same economic rights as men. By 1917, thirty states had enacted laws limiting the hours of labor of female workers. Many women derived great benefit from these laws; others saw them as an infringement on their freedom.
While the maternalist agenda built gender inequality into the early foun- dations of the welfare state, the very use of government to regulate working
In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?
According to this cartoon, giving women the right to vote will clean up political corruption and misgovernment.
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conditions called into question basic assumptions concerning liberty of con- tract. Although not all reformers were willing to take the step, it was easy to extend the idea of protecting women and children to demand that govern- ment better the living and working conditions of men as well, by insuring them against the impact of unemployment, old age, ill health, and disability. Brandeis himself insisted that government should concern itself with the health, income, and future prospects of all its citizens.
The Idea of Economic Citizenship
Brandeis envisioned a different welfare state from that of the maternalist reformers, one rooted less in the idea of healthy motherhood than in the notion of universal economic entitlements, including the right to a decent income and protection against unemployment and work- related accidents. For him, the right to assistance derived from citizenship itself, not some special service to the nation (as in the case of mothers) or upstanding character (which had long differentiated the “deserving” from the “undeserving” poor).
This vision, too, enjoyed considerable support in the Progressive era. By 1913, twenty- two states had enacted workmen’s compensation laws to bene- fit workers, male or female, injured on the job. This legislation was the first wedge that opened the way for broader programs of social insurance. To avoid the stigma of depending on governmental assistance, contributions from work- ers’ own wages funded these programs in part, thus distinguishing them from charity dispensed by local authorities to the poor. But state minimum wage laws and most laws regulating working hours applied only to women. Women and children may have needed protection, but interference with the freedom of contract of adult male workers was still widely seen as degrading. The estab- lishment of a standard of living and working conditions beneath which no American, male or female, should be allowed to fall would await the coming of the New Deal.
T H E P R O G R E S S I V E P R E S I D E N T S Despite the ferment of Progressivism on the city and state levels, the most striking political development of the early twentieth century was the rise of the national state. The process of nationalization was occurring throughout American life. National corporations dominated the economy; national orga- nizations like the American Medical Association came into being to raise the incomes and respect of professions. The process was even reflected in the con- solidation of local baseball teams into the American and National Leagues and
THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS ★ 725
the advent in 1903 of the World Series. Only energetic national government, Progressives believed, could create the social conditions of freedom.
Despite creative experiments in social policy at the city and state levels, the tradition of localism seemed to most Progressives an impediment to a renewed sense of national purpose. Poverty, economic insecurity, and lack of industrial democracy were national problems that demanded national solutions. The democratic national state, wrote New Republic editor Herbert Croly, offered an alternative to control of Americans’ lives by narrow interests that manipulated politics or by the all- powerful corporations. Croly proposed a new synthesis of American political traditions. To achieve the “Jeffersonian ends” of democratic self- determination and individual freedom, he insisted, the country needed to employ the “Hamiltonian means” of government intervention in the economy. Each in his own way, the Progressive presidents— Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson— tried to address this challenge.
Theodore Roosevelt
In September 1901, the anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated William McKin- ley while the president visited the Pan- American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. At the age of forty- two, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest man ever to hold the office of president. Roosevelt was an impet- uous, energetic individual with a penchant for what he called the “strenuous life” of manly adventure. In many ways, he became the model for the twentieth- century president, an official actively and continuously engaged in domestic and foreign affairs. (The foreign policies of the Progressive presidents will be discussed in the next chapter.) Roosevelt regarded the president as “the steward of the public welfare.” He moved aggressively to set the political agenda.
Roosevelt’s program, which he called the Square Deal, attempted to confront the problems caused by economic consolidation by distinguishing between “good” and “bad” corporations. The former, among which he included U.S. Steel, served the public interest. The latter were run by greedy financiers interested only in profit, and had no right to exist.
Soon after assuming office, Roosevelt shocked the corporate world by announcing his intention to prosecute under the Sherman Antitrust Act the Northern Securities Company. Created by financier J. P. Morgan, this “holding company” owned the stock and directed the affairs of three major western rail- roads. It monopolized transportation between the Great Lakes and the Pacific. Morgan was outraged. “Wall Street is paralyzed,” quipped one newspaper, “at the thought that a President of the United States should sink to enforce the law.” In 1904, the Supreme Court ordered Northern Securities dissolved, a major victory for the antitrust movement.
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Roosevelt and Economic Regulation
Roosevelt also believed that the pres- ident should be an honest broker in labor disputes, rather than automati- cally siding with employers as his pre- decessors had usually done. When a strike paralyzed the West Virginia and Pennsylvania coalfields in 1902, he summoned union and management leaders to the White House. By threat- ening a federal takeover of the mines, he persuaded the owners to allow the dispute to be settled by a commission he himself would appoint.
Reelected in 1904, Roosevelt pushed for more direct federal regulation of the economy. Appealing to the public for support, he condemned the misuse of the “vast power conferred by vast
wealth.” He proposed to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Commission, which the Supreme Court had essentially limited to collecting economic statis- tics. By this time, journalistic exposés, labor unrest, and the agitation of Progres- sive reformers had created significant public support for Roosevelt’s regulatory program. In 1906, Congress passed the Hepburn Act, giving the ICC the power to examine railroads’ business records and to set reasonable rates, a significant step in the development of federal intervention in the corporate economy. That year, as has been noted, also saw the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which established a federal agency to police the quality and labeling of food and drugs, and the Meat Inspection Act. Many businessmen supported these measures, recognizing that they would benefit from greater public confidence in the quality and safety of their products. But even they were alarmed by Roo- sevelt’s calls for federal inheritance and income taxes and the regulation of all interstate businesses.
John Muir and the Spirituality of Nature
If the United States lagged behind Europe in many areas of social policy, it led the way in the conservation of natural resources. The first national park, Yellowstone in Wyoming, was created by Congress in 1872, partly to preserve
President Theodore Roosevelt addressing a crowd in 1902.
THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS ★ 727
an area of remarkable natural beauty and partly at the urging of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was anxious to promote western tourism. In the 1890s, the Scottish- born naturalist John Muir organized the Sierra Club to help pre- serve forests from uncontrolled logging by timber companies.
Muir’s love of nature stemmed from deep religious feelings. Nearly blinded in an accident in an Indianapolis machine shop where he worked in his twen- ties, he found in the restoration of his sight an inspiration to appreciate God’s creation. He called forests “God’s first temples.” In nature, he believed, men could experience directly the presence of God. Muir’s outlook blended evan- gelical Protestantism with a romantic view of nature inspired by the Transcen- dentalists of the pre– Civil War era— like Henry David Thoreau, he lamented the intrusions of civilization on the natural environment. But unlike the Tran- scendentalists, Muir developed a broad following. As more and more Ameri- cans lived in cities, they came to see nature less as something to conquer and more as a place for recreation and personal growth.
The Conservation Movement
In the 1890s, Congress authorized the president to withdraw “forest reserves” from economic development, a restriction on economic freedom in the name of a greater social good. But it was under Theodore Roosevelt that the conserva- tion movement became a concerted federal policy. A dedicated outdoorsman who built a ranch in North Dakota in the 1880s, Roosevelt moved to preserve parts of the natural environment from economic exploitation.
Relying for advice on Gifford Pinchot, the head of the U.S. Forest Service, he ordered that millions of acres be set aside as wildlife preserves and encouraged Con- gress to create new national parks. The creation of parks like Yellowstone, Yosem- ite, and Glacier required the removal of Indians who hunted and fished there as well as the reintroduction of animals that had previously disappeared. City dwell- ers who visited the national parks did not realize that these were to a considerable extent artificially created and managed environments, not primordial nature.
In some ways, conservation was a typical Progressive reform. Manned by experts, the government could stand above political and economic battles, serving the public good while preventing “special interests” from causing irreparable damage to the environment. The aim was less to end the economic utilization of natural resources than to develop responsible, scientific plans for their use. Pinchot halted timber companies’ reckless assault on the nation’s for- ests. But unlike Muir, he believed that development and conservation could go hand in hand and that logging, mining, and grazing on public lands should be controlled, not eliminated. Conservation also reflected the Progressive thrust toward efficiency and control— in this case, control of nature itself.
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In the view of Progressive conservationists, the West’s scarcest resource— water— cried out for regulation. Governments at all levels moved to control the power of western rivers, building dams and irrigation projects to regular- ize their flow, prevent waste, and provide water for large- scale agriculture and urban development. With such projects came political conflict, as cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco battled with rural areas for access to water. After secretly buying up large tracts of land in the Owens Valley east of the city, for example, the city of Los Angeles constructed a major aqueduct between 1908 and 1913, over the vigorous objections of the valley’s residents. By the 1920s, so much water had been diverted to the city that the once thriving farming and ranching businesses of Owens Valley could no longer operate.
Taft in Office
Having served nearly eight years as president, Roosevelt did not run again in 1908. His chosen successor was William Howard Taft, a federal judge from Ohio who had served as governor of the Philippines after the Spanish- American War. Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan, making his third unsuccessful race for the White House. Taft’s inaugural address expressed the Progressive view of the state: “The scope of a modern government . . . has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old ‘ laissez- faire’ school of political writers.”
Although temperamentally more conservative than Roosevelt, Taft pur- sued antitrust policy even more aggressively. He persuaded the Supreme Court in 1911 to declare John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company (one of Roos- evelt’s “good” trusts) in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and to order its breakup into separate marketing, producing, and refining companies. The government also won a case against American Tobacco, which the Court ordered to end pricing policies that were driving smaller firms out of business. In these decisions, the justices announced a new standard for judging large corporations— the “rule of reason”—which in effect implemented Roosevelt’s old distinction between good and bad trusts. Big businesses were not, in and of themselves, antitrust violators, unless they engaged in policies that stifled competition.
Taft supported the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which authorized Congress to enact a graduated income tax (one whose rate of taxa- tion is higher for wealthier citizens). It was ratified shortly before he left office. A 2 percent tax on incomes over $4,000 had been included in a tariff enacted in 1894 but had been quickly declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court as a “communistic threat to property.” The movement to resurrect the income tax united southern and western farmers who wished to reduce government dependence on revenue from the tariff, which they believed discriminated
THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS ★ 729
against nonindustrial states, and Progressives who believed that taxation should be based on the ability to pay. A key step in the modernization of the federal government, the income tax provided a reliable and flexible source of revenue for a national state whose powers, responsibilities, and expenditures were growing rapidly.
Despite these accomplishments, Taft seemed to gravitate toward the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. Only a few months after taking office, he signed the Payne- Aldrich Tariff, which reduced rates on imported goods but not nearly as much as reformers wished. Taft’s rift with Progressives grew deeper when Richard A. Ballinger, the secretary of the interior, concluded that Roosevelt had exceeded his authority in placing land in forest reserves. Ballinger decided to return some of this land to the public domain, where mining and lumber companies would have access to it. Gifford Pinchot accused Ballinger of colluding with business interests and repudiat- ing the environmental goals of the Roosevelt administration. When Taft fired Pinchot in 1910, the breach with party Progressives became irreparable. In 1912, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination. Defeated, Roo- sevelt launched an independent campaign as the head of the new Progressive Party.
The Election of 1912
All the crosscurrents of Progressive- era thinking about what McClure’s Maga- zine called “the problem of the relation of the State and the corporation” came together in the presidential campaign of 1912. The four- way contest between Taft, Roosevelt, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs became a national debate on the relationship between political and economic freedom in the age of big business. At one end of the political spectrum stood Taft, who stressed that economic individualism could remain the foundation of the social order so long as government and private entrepreneurs cooper- ated in addressing social ills. At the other end was Debs. Relatively few Ameri- cans supported the Socialist Party’s goal of abolishing the “capitalistic system” altogether, but its immediate demands— including public ownership of the railroads and banking system, government aid to the unemployed, and laws establishing shorter working hours and a minimum wage— summarized forward- looking Progressive thought.
But it was the battle between Wilson and Roosevelt over the role of the federal government in securing economic freedom that galvanized public attention in 1912. The two represented competing strands of Progressivism. Both believed government action necessary to preserve individual freedom, but they differed over the dangers of increasing the government’s power and
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the inevitability of economic concen- tration. Though representing a party thoroughly steeped in states’ rights and laissez- faire ideology, Wilson was deeply imbued with Progressive ideas. “Freedom today,” he declared, “is some- thing more than being let alone. The program of a government of freedom must in these days be positive, not negative merely.” As governor of New Jersey, Wilson had presided over the implementation of a system of work- men’s compensation and state regula- tion of utilities and railroads.
New Freedom and New Nationalism
Strongly influenced by Louis D. Brandeis, with whom he consulted frequently during the campaign, Wilson insisted that democracy must be reinvigorated by restoring market competition and freeing government from domination by big business. Wilson feared big government as much as he feared the power of the corporations. The New Freedom, as he called his program, envisioned the federal government strengthening antitrust laws, protecting the right of workers to unionize, and actively encouraging small businesses— creating, in other words, the conditions for the renewal of economic competition without increasing government regulation of the economy. Wilson warned that corpo- rations were as likely to corrupt government as to be managed by it, a forecast that proved remarkably accurate.
To Roosevelt’s supporters, Wilson seemed a relic of a bygone era; his pro- gram, they argued, served the needs of small businessmen but ignored the inevitability of economic concentration and the interests of professionals, con- sumers, and labor. Wilson and Brandeis spoke of the “curse of bigness.” What the nation actually needed, Walter Lippmann countered, was frank acceptance of the benefits of bigness, coupled with the intervention of government to coun- teract its abuses. Lippmann was expressing the core of the New Nationalism, Roosevelt’s program of 1912. Only the “controlling and directing power of the government,” Roosevelt insisted, could restore “the liberty of the oppressed.” He called for heavy taxes on personal and corporate fortunes and federal regu- lation of industries, including railroads, mining, and oil.
The Progressive Party platform offered numerous proposals to promote social justice. Drafted by a group of settlement- house activists, labor reformers,
Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate, speaking in Chicago during the 1912 presidential campaign.
THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS ★ 731
and social scientists, the platform laid out a blueprint for a modern, democratic welfare state, complete with woman suffrage, federal supervision of corporate enterprise, national labor and health legislation for women and children, an eight- hour day and “living wage” for all workers, and a national system of social insurance covering unemployment, medical care, and old age. Described by Roosevelt as the “most important document” since the end of the Civil War, the platform brought together many of the streams of thought and political expe- riences that flowed into Progressivism. Roosevelt’s campaign helped to give freedom a modern social and economic content and established an agenda that would define political liberalism for much of the twentieth century.
Wilson’s First Term
The Republican split ensured a sweeping victory for Wilson, who won about 42 percent of the popular vote, although Roosevelt humiliated Taft by winning about 27 percent to the president’s 23 percent. In office, Wilson proved himself a strong executive leader. He established an office at the Capitol so that he could confer regularly with members of Congress about pending legislation, and he was the first president to hold regular press conferences in order to influence public opinion directly and continuously. He delivered messages personally to Congress rather than sending them in written form, as had all his predecessors since John Adams.
With Democrats in control of Congress, Wilson moved aggressively to implement his version of Progressivism. The first significant measure of his presidency was the Underwood Tariff, which substantially reduced duties on imports and, to make up for lost revenue, imposed a graduated income tax on the richest 5 percent of Americans. There followed the Clayton Act of 1914, which exempted labor unions from antitrust laws and barred courts from issu- ing injunctions curtailing the right to strike. In 1916 came the Keating- Owen Act outlawing child labor in the manufacture of goods sold in interstate com- merce (the Supreme Court would later declare it unconstitutional), the Adam- son Act establishing an eight- hour workday on the nation’s railroads, and the Warehouse Act, reminiscent of the Populist subtreasury plan, which extended credit to farmers when they stored their crops in federally licensed warehouses.
The Expanding Role of Government
Some of Wilson’s policies seemed more in tune with Roosevelt’s New Nation- alism than the New Freedom of 1912. He abandoned the idea of aggressive trust- busting in favor of greater government supervision of the economy. Wil- son presided over the creation of two powerful new public agencies. In 1913,
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Congress created the Federal Reserve System, consisting of twelve regional banks. They were overseen by a central board appointed by the president and empowered to handle the issuance of currency, aid banks in danger of failing, and influence interest rates so as to promote economic growth. The law was a delayed response to the Panic of 1907, when the failure of several financial companies threatened a general collapse of the banking system. With the fed- eral government lacking a modern central bank, it had been left to J. P. Morgan to assemble the funds to prop up threatened financial institutions. Morgan’s actions highlighted the fact that in the absence of federal regulation of bank- ing, power over finance rested entirely in private hands.
A second expansion of national power occurred in 1914, when Congress established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate and prohibit “unfair” business activities such as price- fixing and monopolistic practices. Both the Federal Reserve and FTC were welcomed by many business lead- ers as a means of restoring order to the economic marketplace and warding off more radical measures for curbing corporate power. But they reflected the remarkable expansion of the federal role in the economy during the Progressive era.
By 1916, the social ferment and political mobilizations of the Progressive era had given birth to a new American state. With new laws, administrative agencies, and independent commissions, government at the local, state, and national levels had assumed the authority to protect and advance “industrial freedom.” Government had established rules for labor relations, business behavior, and financial policy, protected citizens from market abuses, and acted as a broker among the groups whose conflicts threatened to destroy social har- mony. But a storm was already engulfing Europe that would test the Progres- sive faith in empowered government as the protector of American freedom.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Identify the main groups and ideas that drove the Progressive movement.
2. Explain how immigration to the United States in this period was part of a global move- ment of peoples.
3. Describe how Fordism transformed American industrial and consumer society.
4. Socialism was a rising force across the globe in the early twentieth century. How success- ful was the movement in the United States?
5. Explain why the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) grew so rapidly and aroused so much opposition.
6. How did immigrants adjust to life in America? What institutions or activities became important to their adjustment, and why?
7. What did Progressive- era feminists want to change in society, and how did their actions help to spearhead broader reforms?
8. How did ideas of women’s roles, shared by maternalist reformers, lead to an expansion of activism by and rights for women?
9. How did each Progressive- era president view the role of the federal government?
10. Pick a Progressive- era reform (a movement, specific legislation, and organization) and describe how it shows how Progressives could work for both the expansion of democracy and restrictions on it.
Progressivism (p. 692)
muckraking (p. 695)
Ellis Island (p. 697)
Fordism (p. 702)
“American standard of living” (p. 703)
scientific management (p. 704)
Socialist Party (p. 705)
collective bargaining (p. 707)
Industrial Workers of the World (p. 707)
new feminism (p. 712)
birth control movement (p. 713)
Society of American Indians (p. 714)
Seventeenth Amendment (p. 718)
settlement house (p. 719)
maternalist reforms (p. 722)
Muller v. Oregon (p. 723)
Pure Food and Drug Act (p. 726)
conservation movement (p. 727)
Sixteenth Amendment (p. 728)
Progressive Party (p. 729)
New Freedom (p. 730)
New Nationalism (p. 730)
Federal Trade Commission (p. 732)
KEY TERMS
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CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 733
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S A F E F O R D E M O C R A C Y :
T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S
A N D W O R L D W A R I
★ C H A P T E R 1 9 ★
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion
of American power overseas?
• How did the United States get involved in World War I?
• How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort?
• How did the war affect race relations in the United States?
• Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world?
I n 1902, W. T. Stead published a short volume with the arresting title The Americanization of the World; or, the Trend of the Twentieth Century. Stead was an English editor whose sensational writings included an exposé of London prostitution, Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. He would meet his death in 1912 as a passenger on the Titanic, the ocean liner that foundered after striking
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SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY: THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD WAR I ★ 735
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1903 United States secures the Panama Canal Zone
1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
1905 The Niagara movement established
1907 Gentleman’s Agreement with Japan
1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized
1910 Mexican Revolution begins
1914– World War I 1919
1915 Lusitania sinks
1916 Madison Grant’s The Pass- ing of the Great Race
Randolph Bourne’s “ Trans- National America”
1917 Zimmermann Telegram intercepted
United States enters the war
Espionage Act passed
Russian Revolution
1918 Woodrow Wilson’s “Four- teen Points” speech
Eugene V. Debs convicted under the Espionage Act
1918– Worldwide flu epidemic 1920
1919 Eighteenth Amendment
Treaty of Versailles signed
1919– Red Scare 1920
1920 Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles
Nineteenth Amendment
1921 Tulsa Riot
• •
an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Impressed by Americans’ “exuberant energies,” Stead predicted that the United States would soon emerge as “the greatest of world- powers.” But what was most striking about his work was that Stead located the source of American power less in the realm of military might or territorial acquisition than in the country’s single- minded commitment to the “pursuit of wealth” and the relentless international spread of American culture— art, music, jour- nalism, even ideas about religion and gender relations. He foresaw a future in which the United States promoted its interests and val- ues through an unending involvement in the affairs of other nations. Stead proved to be an accurate prophet.
The Spanish- American War had estab- lished the United States as an international empire. Despite the conquest of the Philip- pines and Puerto Rico, however, the country’s overseas holdings remained tiny compared to those of Britain, France, and Germany. And no more were added, except for a strip of land surrounding the Panama Canal, ac- quired in 1903, and the Virgin Islands, pur- chased from Denmark in 1917. In 1900, Great Britain ruled over more than 300 million people in possessions scattered across the globe, and France had nearly 50 million sub- jects in Asia and Africa. Compared with these, the American presence in the world seemed very small. As Stead suggested, America’s em- pire differed significantly from those of Euro- pean countries— it was economic, cultural, and intellectual, rather than territorial.
The world economy at the dawn of the twentieth century was already highly globalized. An ever- increasing stream of goods, investments, and people flowed from country to country. Although Britain still
736 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
dominated world banking and the British pound remained the major currency of international trade, the United States had become the leading industrial power. By 1914, it produced more than one- third of the world’s manufactured goods. Already, Europeans complained of an “American invasion” of steel, oil, agricultural equipment, and consumer goods. Spearheads of American culture like movies and popular music were not far behind.
Europeans were fascinated by American ingenuity and mass production techniques. Many feared American products and culture would overwhelm their own. “What are the chief new features of London life?” one British writer asked in 1901. “They are the telephone, the portable camera, the phonograph, the electric street car, the automobile, the typewriter. . . . In every one of these the American maker is supreme.” Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Amer- icans traveled abroad each year in the early twentieth century. And American racial and ethnic groups became heavily engaged in overseas politics. Through fraternal, religious, and political organizations based in their ethnic and racial communities, Irish- Americans supported Irish independence, American Jews protested the treatment of their co- religionists in Russia, and black Americans hoped to uplift Africa. American influence was growing throughout the world.
America’s burgeoning connections with the outside world led to increas- ing military and political involvement. In the two decades after 1900, many of the basic principles that would guide American foreign policy for the rest of the century were formulated. The “open door”—the free flow of trade, in- vestment, information, and culture— emerged as a key principle of American foreign relations. “Since the manufacturer insists on having the world as a mar- ket,” wrote Woodrow Wilson, “the flag of his nation must follow him and the doors of nations which are closed against him must be battered down.”
Americans in the twentieth century often discussed foreign policy in the language of freedom. At least in rhetoric, the United States ventured abroad— including intervening militarily in the affairs of other nations— not to pursue strategic goals or to make the world safe for American economic interests, but to promote liberty and democracy. A supreme faith in America’s historic desti- ny and in the righteousness of its ideals enabled the country’s leaders to think of the United States simultaneously as an emerging great power and as the worldwide embodiment of freedom.
More than any other individual, Woodrow Wilson articulated this vision of America’s relationship to the rest of the world. His foreign policy, called by his- torians liberal internationalism, rested on the conviction that economic and political progress went hand in hand. Thus, greater worldwide freedom would follow inevitably from increased American investment and trade abroad. Fre- quently during the twentieth century, this conviction would serve as a mask for American power and self- interest. It would also inspire sincere efforts to
AN ERA OF INTERVENTION ★ 737
bring freedom to other peoples. In either case, liberal internationalism repre- sented a shift from the nineteenth- century tradition of promoting freedom pri- marily by example, to active intervention to remake the world in the American image.
American involvement in World War I provided the first great test of Wil- son’s belief that American power could “make the world safe for democracy.” Most Progressives embraced the country’s participation in the war, believing that the United States could help to spread Progressive values throughout the world. The government quickly came to view critics of American involvement not simply as citizens with a different set of opinions, but as enemies of the very ideas of democracy and freedom. As a result, the war produced one of the most sweeping repressions of the right to dissent in all of American history. Rather than bringing Progressivism to other peoples, the war destroyed it at home.
A N E R A O F I N T E R V E N T I O N Just as they expanded the powers of the federal government in domestic affairs, the Progressive presidents were not reluctant to project American power out- side the country’s borders. At first, they confined their interventions to the Western Hemisphere, whose affairs the United States had claimed a special right to oversee ever since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Between 1901 and 1920, U.S. marines landed in Caribbean countries more than twenty times. Usu- ally, they were dispatched to create a welcoming economic environment for American companies that wanted stable access to raw materials like bananas and sugar, and for bankers nervous that their loans to local governments might not be repaid.
“I Took the Canal Zone”
Just as he distinguished between good and bad trusts, Theodore Roosevelt divided the world into “civilized” and “uncivilized” nations. The former, he believed, had an obligation to establish order in an unruly world. Roosevelt became far more active in international diplomacy than most of his prede- cessors, helping, for example, to negotiate a settlement of the Russo- Japanese War of 1905, a feat for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Closer to home, his policies were more aggressive. “I have always been fond of the West African proverb,” he wrote, “‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’” And although he declared that the United States “has not the slightest desire for territorial aggrandizement at the expense of its southern neighbors,” Roosevelt pursued a policy of intervention in Central America.
In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas?
738 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
In his first major action in the region, Roosevelt engineered the sepa- ration of Panama from Colombia in order to facilitate the construction of a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The idea of a canal across the fifty- one- mile- wide Isth- mus of Panama had a long history. In 1879–1881, the French engineer Ferdi- nand de Lesseps attempted to construct such a waterway but failed because of inadequate funding and the toll exacted on his workers by yellow fever and malaria. Roosevelt had long been a proponent of American naval devel- opment. He was convinced that a canal would facilitate the movement of naval and commercial vessels between the two oceans. In 1903, when Colombia, of which Panama was a part, refused to
cede land for the project, Roosevelt helped to set in motion an uprising by con- spirators led by Philippe Bunau- Varilla, a representative of the Panama Canal Company. An American gunboat prevented the Colombian army from sup- pressing the rebellion.
Upon establishing Panama’s independence, Bunau- Varilla signed a treaty giving the United States both the right to construct and operate a canal and sov- ereignty over the Panama Canal Zone, a ten- mile- wide strip of land through which the route would run. A remarkable feat of engineering, the canal was the largest construction project in American history to that date. Like the build- ing of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s and much construction work today, it involved the widespread use of immigrant labor. Most of the 60,000 workers came from the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Jamaica, but others hailed from Europe, Asia, and the United States. In keeping with American seg- regation policies, the best jobs were reserved for white Americans, who lived in their own communities complete with schools, churches, and libraries. The project also required a massive effort to eradicate the mosquitoes that carried the tropical diseases responsible, in part, for the failure of earlier efforts. When completed in 1914, the canal reduced the sea voyage between the East and West Coasts of the United States by 8,000 miles. “I took the Canal Zone,” Roosevelt exulted. But the manner in which the canal had been initiated, and the contin- ued American rule over the Canal Zone, would long remain a source of tension. In 1977, as a symbol of a new, noninterventionist U.S. attitude toward Latin
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T H E PA N A M A C A N A L Z O N E
Constructed in the first years of the twentieth century, after Theodore Roosevelt helped engi- neer Panama’s independence from Colombia, the Panama Canal drastically reduced the time it took for commercial and naval vessels to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
AN ERA OF INTERVENTION ★ 739
America, President Jimmy Carter negotiated treaties that led to turning over the canal’s operation and control of the Canal Zone to Panama in the year 2000 (see Chapter 26).
The Roosevelt Corollary
Roosevelt’s actions in Panama anticipated the full- fledged implementation of a principle that came to be called the Roo se velt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This held that the United States had the right to exercise “an inter- national police power” in the Western Hemisphere— a significant expansion of Monroe’s pledge to defend the hemisphere against European intervention. Early in Roosevelt’s administration, British, Italian, and German naval forces blockaded Venezuela to ensure the payment of debts to European bankers. Roosevelt persuaded them to withdraw, but the incident convinced him that financial instability in the New World would invite intervention from the Old. In 1904, Roosevelt ordered American forces to seize the customs houses of the Dominican Republic to ensure payment of that country’s debts to European and American investors. He soon arranged an “executive agreement” giving a group of American banks control over Dominican finances. In 1906, he dis- patched troops to Cuba to oversee a disputed election; they remained in the country until 1909. Roosevelt also encouraged investment by American corpo- rations like the United Fruit Company, whose huge banana plantations soon dominated the economies of Honduras and Costa Rica.
Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, landed marines in Nicaragua to protect a government friendly to American economic interests. In general, how- ever, Taft emphasized economic investment and loans from American banks, rather than direct military intervention, as the best way to spread American influence. As a result, his foreign policy became known as Dollar Diplomacy. In Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and even Liberia— the West African nation established in 1816 as a home for freed American slaves— Taft pressed for more efficient revenue collection, stable government, and access to land and labor by American companies.
Moral Imperialism
The son of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow Wilson brought to the presi- dency a missionary zeal and a sense of his own and the nation’s moral righ- teousness. He appointed as secretary of state William Jennings Bryan, a strong anti- imperialist. Wilson repudiated Dollar Diplomacy and promised a new for- eign policy that would respect Latin America’s independence and free it from foreign economic domination. But Wilson could not abandon the conviction that the United States had a responsibility to teach other peoples the lessons of democracy. Moreover, he believed, the export of American manufactured goods
In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas?
740 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
and investments went hand in hand with the spread of democratic ideals. To Wilson, expanding American economic influence served a higher purpose than mere profit. Americans, he told a group of businessmen in 1916, were “meant to carry liberty and justice” throughout the world. “Go out and sell goods,” he urged them, “that will make the world more comfortable and happy, and con- vert them to the principles of America.”
Wilson’s moral imperialism produced more military interventions in Latin America than the foreign policy of any president before or since. In 1915, he sent marines to occupy Haiti after the government refused to allow Amer- ican banks to oversee its financial dealings. In 1916, he established a military government in the Dominican Republic, with the United States controlling the country’s customs collections and paying its debts. American soldiers remained in the Dominican Republic until 1924 and in Haiti until 1934. They built roads and schools, but did little or nothing to promote democracy. Wilson’s foreign policy underscored a paradox of modern American history: the presidents who spoke the most about freedom were likely to intervene most frequently in the affairs of other countries.
Miami
Havana
Guantanamo
Tampico
Veracruz Mexico City
Parral
Columbus
Santa Ysabel Houston New Orleans
Caracas
Bogotá
U.S. possession after 1898
U.S. takes control of customs house, 1905 U.S. troops, 1916–1924 Financial supervision, 1905–1941
U.S. troops, 1915–1934 Financial supervision, 1916–1941
U.S. troops, 1898–1902, 1906–1909,
1912, 1917–1922 Platt Amendment, 1903–1934
U.S. naval base, 1903
U.S. seizure, 1914
U.S. Expeditionary Force, 1916–1917
U.S. troops, 1907, 1924–1925
U.S. troops, 1909–1910, 1912–1925, 1926–1933, Financial supervision, 1911–1924
U.S. leases Corn Island, 1914
U.S. acquires Canal Zone, 1904 Canal completed, 1914
Venezuela debt crisis, 1903–1904
UNITED STATES
MEXICO
GUATEMALA
BRITISH HONDURAS
HONDURAS EL SALVADOR
NICARAGUA COSTA RICA
PANAMA
CUBA HAITI
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR
VENEZUELA
BRAZIL
DUTCH GUIANA
BRITISH GUIANA
FRENCH GUIANA
PERU
Puer to R ico
Tr in idad ( B r. )
B ar bado s ( B r. ) M ar t in iqu e ( Fr. )
G u ade lo u p e ( Fr. )
V i rg in I s lan ds (p u r chase d f r o m De n mar k , 1917)
Jamaica (Br. )
Bahamas (Br. )
Atlantic Ocean
Pa ci f ic Oce a n
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S I N T H E C A R I B B E A N , 1 8 9 8 – 1 9 4 1
Between 1898 and 1941, the United States intervened militarily numerous times in Caribbean countries, generally to protect the economic interests of American banks and investors.
AN ERA OF INTERVENTION ★ 741
Wilson and Mexico
Wilson’s major preoccupation in Latin America was Mexico, where in 1911 a revolution led by Francisco Madero overthrew the government of dictator Por- firio Díaz. Two years later, without Wilson’s knowledge but with the backing of the U.S. ambassador and of American companies that controlled Mexico’s oil and mining industries, military commander Victoriano Huerta assassinated Madero and seized power.
Wilson was appalled. The United States, he announced, would not extend recognition to a “government of butchers.” He would “teach” Latin Americans, he added, “to elect good men.” When civil war broke out in Mexico, Wilson ordered American troops to land at Vera Cruz to prevent the arrival of weap- ons meant for Huerta’s forces. But to Wilson’s surprise, Mexicans greeted the marines as invaders rather than liberators. Vera Cruz, after all, was where the forces of the conquistador Hernán Cortés had landed in the sixteenth century and those of Winfield Scott during the Mexican War. More than 100 Mexicans and 19 Americans died in the fighting that followed.
Huerta resigned in 1914 and fled the country. Meanwhile, various Mexi- can factions turned on one another. A peasant uprising in the southern part of the country, led by Emiliano Zapata, demanded land reform. The Wilson
ARGENTINA
BRITISH HONDURAS
BOLIVIA BRAZIL
CANADA
CHILE
COLOMBIA COSTA RICA
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GREENLAND
GUATEMALA BRITISH GUIANA
HAITI
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DUTCH GUIANA
UNITED STATES
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ABYSSINIA
GAMBIA
LIBERIA
LIBYA MOROCCO
MOZAMBIQUE
GERMAN SOUTHWEST
AFRICA
GERMAN EAST AFRICA
NIGERIASIERRA LEONE ITALIAN
SOMALILAND
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA
UGANDA
RIO DE ORO
BELGIAN CONGO
ANGLO- EGYPTIAN
SUDAN
CHINA
BURMA FRENCH INDOCHINA
SIAM
AUSTRALIA
PAPUADUTCH EAST INDIES
MALAYA
TAIWAN (Japanese)
PHILIPPINES
JAPANKOREA
NEW ZEALAND
Alaska (U.S.)
Hawaii (U.S.)
Puerto Rico (U.S.)
SPAIN
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NORWAY SWEDEN RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
PORTUGAL
DENMARKGREAT BRITAIN
ERITREA
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FRENCH WEST
AFRICA
ARABIA
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PERSIA OTTOMAN
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A tla n tic Oc ea n
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C O L O N I A L P O S S E S S I O N S , 1 9 0 0
In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas?
742 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
administration offered support to Venustiano Carranza, a leader more devoted to economic modernization. In 1916, the war spilled over into the United States when several hundred men loyal to Francisco “Pancho” Villa, the leader of another peasant force, raided Columbus, New Mexico, a few miles north of the border, leading to the death of seventeen Americans. With Carran- za’s approval, Wilson ordered 10,000 troops under the command of General John J. Pershing on an expedition into Mexico that unsuccessfully sought to arrest Villa. Chaos in Mexico continued— within the next few years, Zapata, Carranza, and Villa all fell victim to assassination. Mexico was a warning that it might be more difficult than Wilson assumed to use American might to reorder the internal affairs of other nations, or to apply moral certainty to foreign policy.
A M E R I C A A N D T H E G R E A T W A R In June 1914, a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro- Hungarian empire, in Sarajevo. (Today, Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.) This deed set in motion a chain of events that plunged Europe into the most devastating war the world had ever seen. In the years before 1914, European nations had engaged in a scramble to obtain colonial possessions overseas and had constructed a shifting series of alliances seeking military domination within Europe. In the aftermath of the assassi- nation, Austria- Hungary, the major power in eastern Europe, declared war on Serbia. Within a little more than a month, because of the European powers’ interlocking military alliances, Britain, France, Russia, and Japan (the Allies) found themselves at war with the Central Powers— Germany, Austria- Hungary, and the Ottoman empire, whose holdings included modern- day Turkey and much of the Middle East.
German forces quickly overran Belgium and part of northern France. The war then settled into a prolonged stalemate, with bloody, indecisive battles succeeding one another. New military technologies— submarines, airplanes, machine guns, tanks, and poison gas— produced unprecedented slaughter. In one five- month battle at Verdun, in 1916, 600,000 French and German soldiers perished— nearly as many deaths as in the entire American Civil War. By the time the war ended, an estimated 10 million soldiers, and uncounted millions of civilians, had perished.
The Great War, or World War I as it came to be called, dealt a severe blow to the optimism and self- confidence of Western civilization. For decades, philoso- phers, reformers, and politicians had hailed the triumph of reason and human progress. Despite increasingly bitter rivalries between European powers,
AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR ★ 743
especially Germany and Britain, as they competed for political and military dominance at home and carved up Asia and Africa into rival empires, mankind seemed to have moved beyond the time when disputes were settled by war. The conflict was also a shock to European socialist and labor movements. Of the two great ideologies that had arisen in the nineteenth century, nationalism and socialism, the former proved more powerful. Karl Marx had called on the “workers of the world” to unite against their oppressors. Instead, they marched off to kill each other.
Neutrality and Preparedness
As war engulfed Europe, Americans found themselves sharply divided. British- Americans sided with their nation of origin, as did many other Amer- icans who associated Great Britain with liberty and democracy and Germany with repressive government. On the other hand, German- Americans identified with Germany. Irish- Americans bitterly opposed any aid to the British, a sen- timent reinforced in 1916 when authorities in London suppressed the Easter Rebellion, an uprising demanding Irish independence, and executed several of its leaders. Immigrants from the Russian empire, especially Jews, had no desire to see the United States aid the czar’s regime. Indeed, the presence of Russia, the world’s largest despotic state, as an ally of Britain and France made it difficult to see the war as a clear- cut battle between democracy and autoc- racy. Many feminists, pacifists, and social reformers, moreover, had become convinced that peace was essential to further efforts to enhance social justice at home. They lobbied vigorously against American involvement. So did large numbers of religious leaders, who viewed war as a barbaric throwback to a less Christian era.
When war broke out in 1914, President Wilson proclaimed American neu- trality. But as in the years preceding the War of 1812, naval warfare in Europe reverberated in the United States. Britain declared a naval blockade of Germany and began to stop American merchant vessels. Germany launched submarine warfare against ships entering and leaving British ports. In May 1915, a German submarine sank the British liner Lusitania (which was carrying a large cache of arms) off the coast of Ireland, causing the death of 1,198 passengers, includ- ing 124 Americans. Wilson composed a note of protest so strong that Bryan resigned as secretary of state, fearing that the president was laying the founda- tion for military intervention. Bryan had advocated warning Americans not to travel on the ships of belligerents, but Wilson felt this would represent a retreat from the principle of freedom of the seas.
The sinking of the Lusitania outraged American public opinion and strengthened the hand of those who believed that the United States must
How did the United States get involved in World War I?
744 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
prepare for possible entry into the war. These included longtime advocates of a stronger military establishment, like Theodore Roosevelt, and business- men with close economic ties to Britain, the country’s leading trading partner and the recipient of more than $2 billion in wartime loans from American banks. Wilson himself had strong pro- British sympathies and viewed Germany as “the natural foe of liberty.” By the end of 1915, he had embarked on a policy of “preparedness”—a crash program to expand the American army and navy.
The Road to War
In May 1916, Germany announced the suspension of submarine warfare against noncombatants. Wilson’s preparedness program seemed to have suc- ceeded in securing the right of Americans to travel freely on the high seas with- out committing American forces to the conflict. “He kept us out of war” became the slogan of his campaign for reelection. With the Republican Party reunited after its split in 1912, the election proved to be one of the closest in American history. Wilson defeated Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes by only twenty- three electoral votes and about 600,000 popular votes out of more than 18 million cast. Partly because he seemed to promise not to send American sol- diers to Europe, Wilson carried ten of the twelve states that had adopted woman suffrage. Without the votes of women, Wilson would not have been reelected.
On January 22, 1917, Wilson called for a “peace without victory” in Europe and outlined his vision for a world order including freedom of the seas, restric- tions on armaments, and self- determination for nations great and small. Almost immediately, however, Germany announced its intention to resume submarine warfare against ships sailing to or from the British Isles, and several American merchant vessels were sunk. The German government realized that its actions would probably lead Wilson to intervene, but German strategists gambled that the blockade would strangle Britain economically before the arrival of American troops.
In March 1917, British spies intercepted and made public the Zimmermann Telegram, a message by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann call- ing on Mexico to join in a coming war against the United States and promising to help it recover territory lost in the Mexican War of 1846–1848. A revolution in Russia that same month overthrew the czar and established a constitutional government, making it more plausible to believe that the United States would be fighting on the side of democracy. On April 2, Wilson went before Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany. “The world,” he proclaimed, “must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty.” The war resolution passed the Senate 82–6 and the House 373–50.
AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR ★ 745
The Fourteen Points
Not until the spring of 1918 did American forces arrive in Europe in large num- bers. By then, the world situation had taken a dramatic turn. In November 1917, a communist revolution headed by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian gov- ernment that had come to power the previous spring. Shortly thereafter, Lenin withdrew Russia from the war and published the secret treaties by which the Allies had agreed to divide up conquered territory after the war— an embarrass- ment for Wilson, who had promised a just peace.
Partly to assure the country that the war was being fought for a moral cause, Wilson in January 1918 issued the Fourteen Points, the clearest statement of American war aims and of his vision of a new international order. Among the key principles were self- determination for all nations, freedom of the seas, free trade, open diplomacy (an end to secret treaties), the readjustment of colonial
How did the United States get involved in World War I?
Ghent
Zeebrugge
Nieuport
Ypres Calais
Dover
Abbeville Arras
Amiens
Rouen
Paris
Chartres
Sens
Melun
Troyes
Toul
Épinal
Belfort Mulhouse
Strasbourg
Trier
Saarbrücken
Luxembourg
Soissons
Lens
Cambrai
Antwerp
Brussels Cologne
Düsseldorf
Liège
Dinant Frankfurt
Coblenz
Reims
Sedan
Meuse-Argonne September–
November 1918
Armistice Line
November 11, 1918
Somme Offensive August 19– November 11, 1918
Aisne-Marne Offensive July 18–August 6, 1918
Lys Offensive August 19– November 11, 1918
LORRAINE
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NETHERLANDS
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Rhine R.
St ra
it of
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0
0
25
25
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Allied victory U.S. offensives German offensives
Allies Central Powers Neutral nations
Armistice line Stabilized front, 1915–1917 Maximum advance of Central Powers, 1918
W O R L D WA R I : T H E W E S T E R N F R O N T
After years of stalemate on the western front in World War I, the arrival of American troops in 1917 and 1918 shifted the balance of power and made possible the Allied victory.
746 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
claims with colonized people given “equal weight” in deciding their futures, and the creation of a “general association of nations” to preserve the peace. Wil- son envisioned this last provision, which led to the establishment after the war of the League of Nations, as a kind of global counterpart to the regulatory com- missions Progressives had created at home to maintain social harmony and prevent the powerful from exploiting the weak. Although purely an American program, not endorsed by the other Allies, the Fourteen Points established the agenda for the peace conference that followed the war.
The United States threw its economic resources and manpower into the war. When American troops finally arrived in Europe, they turned the tide of battle. In the spring of 1918, they helped to repulse a German advance near Paris and by July were participating in a major Allied counteroffensive. In September, in the Meuse- Argonne campaign, American soldiers under the command of General John J. Pershing, fresh from his campaigns in Mexico, helped to push back the German army. With 1.2 million American soldiers taking part and well over 100,000 dead and wounded, Meuse- Argonne, which lasted a month and a half, was the main American engagement of the war and one of the most significant and deadliest battles in American history. It formed part of a massive Allied offensive involving British, French, and Belgian soldiers and those from overseas European possessions. With his forces in full retreat, the German kaiser abdicated on November 9. Two days later, Ger- many sued for peace. More than 100,000 Americans had died, a substantial number, but they were only 1 percent of the 10 million soldiers killed in the Great War.
T H E W A R A T H O M E
The Progressives’ War
Looking back on American participation in the European conflict, Randolph Bourne summed up one of its lessons: “War is the health of the state.” Bourne saw the expansion of government power as a danger, but it struck most Pro- gressives as a golden opportunity. To them, the war offered the possibility of reforming American society along scientific lines, instilling a sense of national unity and self- sacrifice, and expanding social justice. That American power could now disseminate Progressive values around the globe heightened the war’s appeal.
Almost without exception, Progressive intellectuals and reformers, joined by prominent labor leaders and native- born socialists, rallied to Wilson’s sup- port. The roster included intellectuals like John Dewey, journalists such as
THE WAR AT HOME ★ 747
Walter Lippmann and Herbert Croly, AFL head Samuel Gompers, socialist writ- ers like Upton Sinclair, and prominent reformers including Florence Kelley and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In The New Republic, Dewey urged Progressives to recognize the “social possibilities of war.” The crisis, he wrote, offered the pros- pect of attacking the “immense inequality of power” within the United States, thus laying the foundation for Americans to enjoy “effective freedom.”
The Wartime State
Like the Civil War, World War I created, albeit temporarily, a national state with unprecedented powers and a sharply increased presence in Americans’ every- day lives. Under the Selective Service Act of May 1917, 24 million men were required to register with the draft, and the army soon swelled from 120,000 to 5 million men. The war seemed to bring into being the New Nationalist state Theodore Roosevelt and so many Progressives had desired. New federal agencies moved to regulate industry, transportation, labor relations, and agri- culture. Headed by Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch, the War Industries Board presided over all elements of war production from the distribution of raw materials to the prices of manufactured goods. To spur efficiency, it estab- lished standardized specifications for everything from automobile tires to shoe colors (three were permitted— black, brown, and white). The Railroad Adminis- tration took control of the nation’s transportation system, and the Fuel Agency rationed coal and oil. The Food Administration instructed farmers on modern methods of cultivation and promoted the more efficient preparation of meals. Its director, Herbert Hoover, mobilized the shipment of American food to the war- devastated Allies, popularizing the slogan “Food will win the war.”
These agencies generally saw themselves as partners of business as much as regulators. They guaranteed government suppliers a high rate of profit and encouraged cooperation among former business rivals by suspending antitrust laws. At the same time, however, the War Labor Board, which included rep- resentatives of government, industry, and the American Federation of Labor, pressed for the establishment of a minimum wage, eight- hour workday, and the right to form unions. During the war, wages rose substantially, working conditions in many industries improved, and union membership doubled. To finance the war, corporate and individual income taxes rose enormously. By 1918, the wealthiest Americans were paying 60 percent of their income in taxes. Tens of millions of Americans answered the call to demonstrate their patriotism by purchasing Liberty bonds. Once peace arrived, the wartime state quickly with- ered away. But for a time, the federal government seemed well on its way to ful- filling the Progressive vision of promoting economic rationalization, industrial justice, and a sense of common national purpose.
How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort?
748 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
The Propaganda War
During the Civil War, it had been left to private agencies— Union Leagues, the Loyal Publication Society, and others— to mobilize prowar public opinion. But the Wilson administration decided that patriotism was too important to leave to the private sector. Many Americans were skeptical about whether democratic America should enter a struggle between rival empires. Some vehe- mently opposed American participation, notably the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the bulk of the Socialist Party, which in 1917 condemned the declaration of war as “a crime against the people of the United States” and called on “the workers of all countries” to refuse to fight. As the major national organization to oppose Wilson’s policy, the Socialist Party became a rallying point for antiwar sentiment. In mayoral elections across the country in the fall of 1917, the Socialist vote averaged 20 percent, far above the party’s previous total.
In April 1917, the Wilson administration created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to explain to Americans and the world, as its director, George Creel, put it, “the cause that compelled America to take arms in defense of its liberties and free institutions.” Enlisting academics, journalists, artists, and advertising men, the CPI flooded the country with prowar propaganda, using every available medium from pamphlets (of which it issued 75 million) to post- ers, newspaper advertisements, and motion pictures. It trained and dispatched across the country 75,000 Four- Minute Men, who delivered brief standardized talks (sometimes in Italian, Yiddish, and other immigrant languages) to audi- ences in movie theaters, schools, and other public venues.
Never before had an agency of the federal government attempted the “con- scious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses,” in the words of young Edward Bernays, a member of Creel’s staff who would later create the modern profession of public relations. The CPI’s activi- ties proved, one adman wrote, that it was possible to “sway the ideas of whole populations, change their habits of life, create belief, practically universal in any policy or idea.” In the 1920s, advertisers would use what they had learned to sell goods. But the CPI also set a precedent for governmental efforts to shape public opinion in later international conflicts, from World War II to the Cold War and Iraq.
“The Great Cause of Freedom”
The CPI couched its appeal in the Progressive language of social cooperation and expanded democracy. Abroad, this meant a peace based on the princi- ple of national self- determination. At home, it meant improving “industrial
THE WAR AT HOME ★ 749
democracy.” A Progressive journalist, Creel believed the war would acceler- ate the movement toward solving the “ age- old problems of poverty, inequal- ity, oppression, and unhappiness.” He took to heart a warning from historian Carl Becker that a simple contrast between German tyranny and American democracy would not seem plausible to the average worker: “You talk to him of our ideals of liberty and he thinks of the shameless exploitation of labor and of the ridiculous gulf between wealth and poverty.” CPI pamphlets fore- saw a postwar society complete with a “universal eight- hour day” and a living wage for all.
While “democracy” served as the key term of wartime mobilization, “free- dom” also took on new significance. The war, a CPI advertisement proclaimed, was being fought in “the great cause of freedom.” Thousands of persons, often draftees, were enlisted to pose in giant human tableaus representing symbols of liberty. One living representation of the Liberty Bell at Fort Dix, New Jersey, included 25,000 people. The most common visual image in wartime propa- ganda was the Statue of Liberty, employed especially to rally support among immigrants. “You came here seeking Freedom,” stated a caption on one Statue
How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort?
All combatants issued propaganda posters. The American poster uses an image of the Statue of Liberty to sell war bonds. The German one, satirically entitled We Are Barbarians, refutes the charge of barbarism hurled at Germans by the Allies. It relates that Germany outstrips England and France in Nobel Prizes, provision for the elderly, book publication, education, and literacy.
750 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
of Liberty poster. “You must now help preserve it.” Buying Liberty bonds became a demonstration of patriotism. Wilson’s speeches cast the United States as a land of liberty fighting alongside a “concert of free people” to secure self- determination for the oppressed peoples of the world. The idea of freedom, it seems, requires an antithesis, and the CPI found one in the German kaiser and, more generally, the German nation and people. Government propaganda whipped up hatred of the wartime foe by portraying it as a nation of barbaric Huns.
The Coming of Woman Suffrage
The enlistment of “democracy” and “freedom” as ideological war weapons inev- itably inspired demands for their expansion at home. In 1916, Wilson had cau- tiously endorsed votes for women. America’s entry into the war threatened to tear the suffrage movement apart, since many advocates had been associated with opposition to American involvement. Indeed, among those who voted against the declaration of war was the first woman member of Congress, the staunch pacifist Jeannette Rankin of Montana. “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war,” she said. Although defeated in her reelection bid in 1918, Rankin would return to Congress in 1940. She became the only member to oppose the declaration of war against Japan in 1941, which ended her polit- ical career. In 1968, at the age of eighty- five, Rankin took part in a giant march on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam.
As during the Civil War, however, most leaders of woman suffrage organiza- tions enthusiastically enlisted in the effort. Women sold war bonds, organized patriotic rallies, and went to work in war production jobs. Some 22,000 served as clerical workers and nurses with American forces in Europe. Many believed wartime service would earn them equal rights at home.
At the same time, a new generation of college- educated activists, organized in the National Woman’s Party, pressed for the right to vote with militant tac- tics many older suffrage advocates found scandalous. The party’s leader, Alice Paul, had studied in England between 1907 and 1910 when the British suffrage movement adopted a strategy that included arrests, imprisonments, and vigor- ous denunciations of a male- dominated political system. How could the coun- try fight for democracy abroad, Paul asked, while denying it to women at home? She compared Wilson to the kaiser, and a group of her followers chained them- selves to the White House fence, resulting in a seven- month prison sentence. When they began a hunger strike, the prisoners were force- fed.
The combination of women’s patriotic service and widespread outrage over the mistreatment of Paul and her fellow prisoners pushed the administration toward full- fledged support for woman suffrage. “We have made partners of the women in this war,” Wilson proclaimed. “Shall we admit them only to a partnership of
THE WAR AT HOME ★ 751
suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” In 1920, the long struggle ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment barring states from using sex as a qualification for the suffrage. The United States became the twenty- seventh country to allow women to vote.
Prohibition
The war gave a powerful impulse to other campaigns that had engaged the energies of many women in the Progressive era. Ironically, efforts to stamp out prostitution and protect soldiers from venereal disease led the government to distribute birth- control information and devices— the very action for which Margaret Sanger had recently been jailed, as noted in the previous chapter.
Prohibition, a movement inherited from the nineteenth century that had gained new strength and militancy in Progressive America, finally achieved national success during the war. Numerous impulses flowed into the renewed
How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort?
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In the early years of the twentieth century, many states and localities in the South and West banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. (“Wet” counties allowed alcoholic beverages, “dry” counties banned them.) Prohibition became national with the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919.
752 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
campaign to ban intoxicating liquor. Employers hoped it would create a more disciplined labor force. Urban reformers believed that it would promote a more orderly city environment and undermine urban political machines that used saloons as places to organize. Women reformers hoped Prohibition would protect wives and children from husbands who engaged in domestic violence when drunk or who squandered their wages at saloons. Many native- born Prot- estants saw Prohibition as a way of imposing “American” values on immigrants.
Like the suffrage movement, Prohibitionists first concentrated on state campaigns. By 1915, they had won victories in eighteen southern and midwest- ern states where the immigrant population was small and Protestant denom- inations like Baptists and Methodists strongly opposed drinking. But like the suffrage movement, Prohibitionists came to see national legislation as their best strategy. The war gave them added ammunition. Many prominent brew- eries were owned by German- Americans, making beer seem unpatriotic. The Food Administration insisted that grain must be used to produce food, not dis- tilled into beer and liquor. In December 1917, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor. It was ratified by the states in 1919 and went into effect at the beginning of 1920.
Liberty in Wartime
World War I raised questions already glimpsed during the Civil War that would trouble the nation again during the McCarthy era and in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001: What is the balance between security and freedom? Does the Constitution protect citizens’ rights during wartime? Should dissent be equated with lack of patriotism? The conflict demonstrated that during a war, traditional civil liberties are likely to come under severe pressure.
In 1917, Randolph Bourne ridiculed Progressives who believed they could mold the war according to their own “liberal purposes.” The conflict, he pre- dicted, would empower not reformers but the “least democratic forces in American life.” The accuracy of Bourne’s prediction soon become apparent. Despite the administration’s idealistic language of democracy and freedom, the war inaugurated the most intense repression of civil liberties the nation has ever known. Perhaps the very nobility of wartime rhetoric contributed to the massive suppression of dissent. For in the eyes of Wilson and many of his sup- porters, America’s goals were so virtuous that disagreement could only reflect treason to the country’s values.
The Espionage and Sedition Acts
For the first time since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the federal govern- ment enacted laws to restrict freedom of speech. The Espionage Act of 1917
THE WAR AT HOME ★ 753
prohibited not only spying and interfering with the draft but also “false state- ments” that might impede military success. The postmaster general barred from the mails numerous newspapers and magazines critical of the admin- istration. The victims ranged from virtually the entire socialist press and many foreign- language publications to The Jeffersonian, a newspaper owned by ex- Populist leader Tom Watson, which criticized the draft as a violation of states’ rights. In 1918, the Sedition Act made it a crime to make spoken or printed statements that intended to cast “contempt, scorn, or disrepute” on the “form of government,” or that advocated interference with the war effort. The government charged more than 2,000 persons with violating these laws. Over half were convicted. A court sentenced Ohio farmer John White to twenty- one months in prison for saying that the murder of innocent women and children by German soldiers was no worse than what the United States had done in the Philippines in the war of 1899–1903.
The most prominent victim was Eugene V. Debs, convicted in 1918 under the Espionage Act for delivering an antiwar speech. Before his sentencing, Debs gave the court a lesson in the history of American freedom, tracing the tradition of dissent from Thomas Paine to the abolitionists, and pointing out that the nation had never engaged in a war without internal opposition. Germany sent social- ist leader Karl Liebknecht to prison for four years for opposing the war; in the United States, Debs’s sentence was ten years. After the war’s end, Wilson rejected the advice of his attorney general that he commute Debs’s sentence. Debs ran for president while still in prison in 1920 and received 900,000 votes. It was left to Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding, to release Debs from prison in 1921.
Coercive Patriotism
Even more extreme repression took place at the hands of state governments and private groups. Americans had long displayed the flag (and used it in adver- tisements for everything from tobacco products to variety shows). But during World War I, attitudes toward the American flag became a test of patriotism. Persons suspected of disloyalty were forced to kiss the flag in public; those who made statements critical of the flag could be imprisoned. During the war, thirty- three states outlawed the possession or display of red or black flags (sym- bols, respectively, of communism and anarchism), and twenty- three outlawed a newly created offense, “criminal syndicalism,” the advocacy of unlawful acts to accomplish political change or “a change in industrial ownership.”
“Who is the real patriot?” Emma Goldman asked while on trial for conspir- ing to violate the Selective Service Act. She answered, those who “love America with open eyes,” who were not blind to “the wrongs committed in the name of patriotism.” But from the federal government to local authorities and private groups, patriotism came to be equated with support for the government, the
How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort?
754 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
war, and the American economic sys- tem, while antiwar sentiment, labor rad- icalism, and sympathy for the Russian Revolution became “ un- American.” Local authorities formally investigated residents who failed to subscribe to Lib- erty Loans. Throughout the country, schools revised their course offerings to ensure their patriotism and required teachers to sign loyalty oaths.
The 250,000 members of the newly formed American Protective League (APL) helped the Justice Department identify radicals and critics of the war by spying on their neighbors and carrying out “slacker raids” in which thousands of men were stopped on the streets of major cities and required to produce draft registration cards. Many private groups seized upon the atmosphere of repression as a weapon against domestic opponents. Employ- ers cooperated with the government in crushing the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a move long demanded
by business interests. In July 1917, vigilantes in Bisbee, Arizona, rounded up some 1,200 striking copper miners and their sympathizers, herded them into railroad boxcars, and transported them into the desert, where they were aban- doned. Few ever returned to Bisbee. In August, a crowd in Butte, Montana, lynched IWW leader Frank Little. The following month, operating under one of the broadest warrants in American history, federal agents swooped down on IWW offices throughout the country, arresting hundreds of leaders and seizing files and publications.
The war experience, commented Walter Lippmann, demonstrated “that the traditional liberties of speech and opinion rest on no solid foundation.” Yet while some Progressives protested individual excesses, most failed to speak out against the broad suppression of freedom of expression. Civil liberties, by and large, had never been a major concern of Progressives, who had always viewed the national state as the embodiment of democratic purpose and insisted that freedom flowed from participating in the life of society, not standing in opposi- tion. Strong believers in the use of national power to improve social conditions,
Florine Stettheimer’s New York/Liberty, painted in 1918, depicts the Statue of Liberty, war- ships, and airplanes in an exuberant tribute to New York City and to the idea of freedom in the wake of World War I.
WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★ 755
Progressives found themselves ill prepared to develop a defense of minority rights against majority or governmental tyranny. From the AFL to New Republic intellec- tuals, moreover, supporters of the war saw the elimination of socialists and alien radicals as a necessary prelude to the integration of labor and immigrants into an ordered society, an outcome they hoped would emerge from the war.
W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? In many respects, Progressivism was a precursor to major developments of the twentieth century— the New Deal, the Great Society, the socially active state. But in accepting the idea of “race” as a permanent, defining character- istic of individuals and social groups, Progressives bore more resemblance to nineteenth- century thinkers than to later twentieth- century liberals, with whom they are sometimes compared.
The “Race Problem”
Even before American participation in World War I, what contemporaries called the “race problem”—the tensions that arose from the country’s increas- ing ethnic diversity— had become a major subject of public concern. “Race” referred to far more than black- white relations. The Dictionary of Races of Peoples, published in 1911 by the U.S. Immigration Commission, listed no fewer than forty- five immigrant “races,” each supposedly with its own inborn character- istics. They ranged from Anglo- Saxons at the top down to Hebrews, Northern Italians, and, lowest of all, Southern Italians— supposedly violent, undisci- plined, and incapable of assimilation.
Popular best- sellers like The Passing of the Great Race, published in 1916 by Madison Grant, president of the New York Zoological Society, warned that the influx of new immigrants and the low birthrate of native white women threatened the foundations of American civilization. The new science of eugenics, which studied the alleged mental characteristics of different races, gave anti- immigrant sentiment an air of professional expertise. If democracy could not flourish in the face of vast inequalities of economic power, neither, most Progressives believed, could it survive in a nation permanently divided along racial and ethnic lines.
Americanization and Pluralism
Somehow, the very nationalization of politics and economic life served to heighten awareness of ethnic and racial difference and spurred demands for “Americanization”—the creation of a more homogeneous national culture. A
How did the war affect race relations in the United States?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
From Woodrow Wilson, War Message to Congress (1917)
More than any other individual in the early twentieth century, President Woodrow Wilson articulated a new vision of America’s relationship to the rest of the world. In his message to a special session of Congress on April 2, 1917, Wilson asked for a decla- ration of war. In his most celebrated sentence, Wilson declared, “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
Let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. . . . Our object . . . is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self- governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. . . . The menace to peace and free- dom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people.
A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of demo- cratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. . . . Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. . . .
We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peo- ples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the priv- ilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of polit- ical liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. . . . If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression. . . .
It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always car- ried nearest our hearts— for democracy, . . . for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
756 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
From Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury before Sentencing under the Espionage Act (1918)
Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs was arrested for delivering an antiwar speech and convicted of violating the Espionage Act. In his speech to the jury, he defended the right of dissent in wartime.
Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton [Ohio] on June 16, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant the charges set out in the indictment. . . . In what I had to say there my purpose was to have the people under- stand something about the social system in which we live and to prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy. . . . I have never advocated violence in any form. I have always believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment; and I have always made my appeal to the reason and to the conscience of the people.
In every age there have been a few heroic souls who have been in advance of their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, sometimes put to death. . . . Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, and their compeers were the rebels of their day. . . . But they had the moral courage to be true to their convictions. . . .
William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton . . . and other leaders of the abolition movement who were regarded as public enemies and treated accordingly, were true to their faith and stood their ground. . . . You are now teaching your children to revere their memories, while all of their detractors are in oblivion. . . .
The war of 1812 was opposed and condemned by some of the most influential citi- zens; the Mexican War was vehemently opposed and bitterly denounced, even after the war had been declared and was in progress, by Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Dan- iel Webster. . . . They were not indicted; they were not charged with treason. . . .
Isn’t it strange that we Socialists stand almost alone today in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers . . . understood that free speech, a free press and the right of free assemblage by the people were fundamental principles in democratic government. . . . I believe in the right of free speech, in war as well as in peace.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 757
QUESTIONS
1. What does Wilson think is the greatest threat to freedom in the world?
2. Why does Debs relate the history of war- time dissent in the United States?
3. Does anything in Wilson’s speech offer a harbinger of the extreme repression of free speech that occurred during World War I?
758 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
1908 play by the Jewish immigrant writer Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot, gave a popular name to the process by which newcomers were supposed to merge their identity into existing American nationality. Public and private groups of all kinds— including educators, employers, labor leaders, social reformers, and public officials— took up the task of Americanizing new immigrants. The Ford Motor Company’s famed sociological department entered the homes of immigrant workers to evaluate their clothing, furniture, and food preferences and enrolled them in English- language courses. Ford fired those who failed to adapt to American standards after a reasonable period of time. Americaniza- tion programs often targeted women as the bearers and transmitters of culture. In Los Angeles, teachers and religious missionaries worked to teach English to Mexican- American women so that they could then assimilate American val- ues. Fearful that adult newcomers remained too stuck in their Old World ways, public schools paid great attention to Americanizing immigrants’ children. The challenge facing schools, wrote one educator, was “to implant in their chil- dren, so far as can be done, the Anglo- Saxon conception of righteousness, law and order, and popular government.”
A minority of Progressives questioned Americanization efforts and insisted on respect for immigrant subcultures. At Hull House, teachers offered English- language instruction but also encouraged immigrants to value their European heritage. Probably the most penetrating critique issued from the pen of Randolph Bourne, whose 1916 essay “ Trans- National America” exposed the fundamental flaw in the Americanization model. “There is no distinctive American culture,” Bourne pointed out. Interaction between individuals and groups had produced the nation’s music, poetry, and other cultural expressions. Bourne envisioned a democratic, cosmopolitan society in which immigrants and natives alike submerged their group identities in a new “ trans- national” culture.
With President Wilson declaring that some Americans “born under for- eign flags” were guilty of “disloyalty . . . and must be absolutely crushed,” the federal and state governments demanded that immigrants demonstrate their unwavering devotion to the United States. The Committee on Public Informa- tion renamed the Fourth of July, 1918, Loyalty Day and asked ethnic groups to participate in patriotic pageants. New York City’s celebration included a pro- cession of 75,000 persons with dozens of floats and presentations linking immi- grants with the war effort and highlighting their contributions to American society. Leaders of ethnic groups that had suffered discrimination saw the war as an opportunity to gain greater rights. Prominent Jewish leaders promoted enlistment and expressions of loyalty. The Chinese- American press insisted that even those born abroad and barred from citizenship should register for the draft, to “bring honor to the people of our race.”
WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★ 759
The Anti- German Crusade
German- Americans bore the brunt of forced Americanization. The first wave of German immigrants had arrived before the Civil War. By 1914, German- Americans numbered nearly 9 million, including immigrants and persons of German parentage. They had created thriving ethnic institutions including clubs, sports associations, schools, and theaters. On the eve of the war, many Americans admired German traditions in literature, music, and phi- losophy, and one- quarter of all the high school students in the country studied the German language. But after American entry into the war, the use of German and expressions of German culture became a target of prowar organizations. In Iowa, Governor William L. Harding issued a proclamation requiring that all oral communication in schools, public places, and over the telephone be con- ducted in English. Freedom of speech, he declared, did not include “the right to use a language other than the language of the country.”
By 1919, the vast majority of the states had enacted laws restricting the teaching of foreign languages. Popular words of German origin were changed: “hamburger” became “liberty sandwich,” and “sauerkraut” “liberty cabbage.” Many communities banned the playing of German music. The government jailed Karl Muck, the director of the Boston Symphony and a Swiss citizen, as an enemy alien after he insisted on including the works of German composers like Beethoven in his concerts. The war dealt a crushing blow to German- American culture. By 1920, the number of German- language newspapers had been reduced to 276 ( one- third the number twenty years earlier), and only 1 per- cent of high school pupils still studied German. The Census of 1920 reported a 25 percent drop in the number of Americans admitting to having been born in Germany.
Toward Immigration Restriction
Even as Americanization programs sought to assimilate immigrants into American society, the war strengthened the conviction that certain kinds of undesirable persons ought to be excluded altogether. The new immigrants, one advocate of restriction declared, appreciated the values of democracy and freedom far less than “the Anglo- Saxon,” as evidenced by their attraction to “extreme political doctrines” like anarchism and socialism. Stanford Univer- sity psychologist Lewis Terman introduced the term “IQ” (intelligence quo- tient) in 1916, claiming that this single number could measure an individual’s mental capacity. Intelligence tests administered to recruits by the army seemed to confirm scientifically that blacks and the new immigrants stood far below native white Protestants on the IQ scale, further spurring demands for immi- gration restriction.
How did the war affect race relations in the United States?
760 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
In 1917, over Wilson’s veto, Congress required that immigrants be literate in English or another language. The war accelerated other efforts to upgrade the American population. Some were inspired by the idea of improving the human race by discouraging reproduction among less “desirable” persons. Indiana in 1907 had passed a law authorizing doctors to sterilize insane and “ feeble- minded” inmates in mental institutions so that they would not pass their “defective” genes on to children. Numerous other states now followed suit. In Buck v. Bell (1927), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these laws. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s opinion included the famous state- ment, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” By the time the practice ended in the 1960s, some 63,000 persons had been involuntarily sterilized.
Groups Apart: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Asian- Americans
No matter how coercive, Americanization programs assumed that European immigrants and especially their children could eventually adjust to the con- ditions of American life, embrace American ideals, and become productive citizens enjoying the full blessings of American freedom. This assumption did not apply to non- white immigrants or to blacks. Although the melting- pot idea envisioned that newcomers from Europe would leave their ethnic enclaves and join the American mainstream, non- whites confronted ever- present boundar- ies of exclusion.
The war led to further growth of the Southwest’s Mexican population. War- time demand for labor from the area’s mine owners and large farmers led the government to exempt Mexicans temporarily from the literacy test enacted in 1917. Mexicans were legally classified as white, and many Progressive reform- ers viewed the growing Mexican population as candidates for Americaniza- tion. Teachers and religious missionaries sought to instruct them in English, convert them to Protestantism, and in other ways promote their assimilation into the mainstream culture. Yet public officials in the Southwest treated them as a group apart. Segregation, by law and custom, was common in schools, hospitals, theaters, and other institutions in states with significant Mexican populations. By 1920, nearly all Mexican children in California and the South- west were educated in their own schools or classrooms. Phoenix, Arizona, established separate public schools for Indians, Mexicans, blacks, and whites. Although in far smaller numbers than blacks, Mexican- Americans also suffered lynchings— over 200 between 1880 and 1930. Discrimination led to the forma- tion of La Grán Liga Mexicanista de Beneficencia y Protección, which aimed to improve the conditions of Mexicans in the United States and “to strike back at the hatred of some bad sons of Uncle Sam who believe themselves better than the Mexicans.”
WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★ 761
Puerto Ricans also occupied an ambiguous position within American soci- ety. On the eve of American entry into World War I, Congress terminated the status “citizen of Puerto Rico” and conferred American citizenship on residents of the island. The aim was to dampen support for Puerto Rican independence and to strengthen the American hold on a strategic outpost in the Caribbean. The change did not grant islanders the right to vote for president, or representa- tion in Congress. Puerto Rican men, nonetheless, were subject to the draft and fought overseas. José de Diego, the Speaker of the House of the island’s legisla- ture, wrote the president in 1917 asking that Puerto Rico be granted the democ- racy the United States was fighting for in Europe.
Even more restrictive were policies toward Asian- Americans. In 1906, the San Francisco school board ordered all Asian students confined to a single public school. When the Japanese government protested, president Theodore Roosevelt persuaded the city to rescind the order. He then negotiated the Gen- tlemen’s Agreement of 1907 whereby Japan agreed to end migration to the United States except for the wives and children of men already in the country. In 1913, California barred all aliens incapable of becoming naturalized citizens (that is, all Asians) from owning or leasing land.
The Color Line
By far the largest non- white group, African- Americans were excluded from nearly every Progressive definition of freedom described in Chapter 18. After their disenfranchisement in the South, few could participate in American democracy. Barred from joining most unions and from skilled employment, black workers had little access to “industrial freedom.” A majority of adult black women worked outside the home, but for wages that offered no hope of independence. Predominantly domestic and agricultural workers, they remained unaffected by the era’s laws regulating the hours and conditions of female labor. Nor could blacks, the majority desperately poor, participate fully in the emerging consumer economy, either as employees in the new depart- ment stores (except as janitors and cleaning women) or as purchasers of the consumer goods now flooding the marketplace.
Progressive intellectuals, social scientists, labor reformers, and suffrage advocates displayed a remarkable indifference to the black condition. Israel Zangwill did not include blacks in the melting- pot idea popularized by his Broadway play. Walter Weyl waited until the last fifteen pages of The New Democracy to introduce the “race problem.” His comment, quoted in the pre- vious chapter, that the chief obstacles to freedom were economic, not politi- cal, revealed little appreciation of how the denial of voting rights underpinned the comprehensive system of inequality to which southern blacks were subjected.
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Most settlement- house reformers accepted segregation as natural and equitable, assuming there should be white settlements for white neighbor- hoods and black settlements for black. White leaders of the woman suffrage movement said little about black disenfranchisement. In the South, members of upper- class white women’s clubs sometimes raised funds for black schools and community centers. But suffrage leaders insisted that the vote was a racial entitlement, a “badge and synonym of freedom,” in the words of Rebecca Felton of Georgia, that should not be denied to “ free- born white women.” During Reconstruction, women had been denied constitutional recognition because it was “the Negro’s hour.” Now, World War I’s “woman’s hour” excluded blacks. The amendment that achieved woman suffrage left the states free to limit vot- ing by poll taxes and literacy tests. Living in the South, the vast majority of the country’s black women still could not vote.
Roosevelt, Wilson, and Race
The Progressive presidents shared prevailing attitudes concerning blacks. Theodore Roosevelt shocked white opinion by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine with him in the White House and by appointing a number of blacks to federal offices. But in 1906, when a small group of black soldiers shot off their guns in Brownsville, Texas, killing one resident, and none of their fel- lows would name them, Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge of three black companies— 156 men in all, including six winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Roosevelt’s ingrained belief in Anglo- Saxon racial destiny (he called Indians “savages” and blacks “wholly unfit for the suffrage”) did noth- ing to lessen Progressive intellectuals’ enthusiasm for his New Nationalism. Even Jane Addams, one of the few Progressives to take a strong interest in black rights and a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), went along when the Progressive Party convention of 1912 rejected a civil rights plank in its platform and barred black delegates from the South.
Woodrow Wilson, a native of Virginia, could speak without irony of the South’s “genuine representative government” and its exalted “standards of lib- erty.” His administration imposed racial segregation in federal departments in Washington, D.C., and dismissed numerous black federal employees. Wilson allowed D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan as the defender of white civilization during Reconstruction, to have its pre- miere at the White House in 1915. “Have you a ‘new freedom’ for white Amer- icans and a new slavery for your African- American fellow citizens?” William Monroe Trotter, the militant black editor of the Boston Guardian and founder of the all- black National Equal Rights League, asked the president.
WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★ 763
Blacks subject to disenfranchise- ment and segregation were under- standably skeptical of the nation’s claim to embody freedom and fully appreciated the ways the symbols of liberty could coexist with brutal racial violence. In one of hundreds of lynch- ings during the Progressive era, a white mob in Springfield, Missouri, in 1906 falsely accused three black men of rape, hanged them from an electric light pole, and burned their bodies in a pub- lic orgy of violence. Atop the pole stood a replica of the Statue of Liberty.
W. E. B. Du Bois and the Revival of Black Protest
Black leaders struggled to find a strat- egy to rekindle the national commit- ment to equality that had flickered brightly, if briefly, during Reconstruc- tion. No one thought more deeply, or over so long a period, about the black condition and the challenge it posed to American democracy than the scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, and educated at Fisk and Harvard universities, Du Bois lived to his ninety- fifth year. The unifying theme of his career was Du Bois’s effort to rec- oncile the contradiction between what he called “American freedom for whites and the continuing subjection of Negroes.” His book The Souls of Black Folk (1903) issued a clarion call for blacks dissatisfied with the accommodationist policies of Booker T. Washington to press for equal rights. Du Bois believed that educated African- Americans like himself— the “talented tenth” of the black community— must use their education and training to challenge inequality.
In some ways, Du Bois was a typical Progressive who believed that investi- gation, exposure, and education would lead to solutions for social problems. As a professor at Atlanta University, he projected a grandiose plan for decades of scholarly study of black life in order to make the country aware of racism and point the way toward its elimination. But he also understood the necessity of political action.
How did the war affect race relations in the United States?
A poster advertising the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which had its premiere at Wood- row Wilson’s White House. The movie glorified the Ku Klux Klan and depicted blacks during Reconstruction as unworthy of participation in government and a danger to white womanhood.
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In 1905, Du Bois gathered a group of black leaders at Niagara Falls (meet- ing on the Canadian side since no American hotel would provide accommoda- tions) and organized the Niagara movement, which sought to reinvigorate the abolitionist tradition. “We claim for ourselves,” Du Bois wrote in the group’s manifesto, “every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil, and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America.” The Declaration of Principles adopted at Niagara Falls called for restoring to blacks the right to vote, an end to racial segregation, and complete equality in economic and educational opportunity. These would remain the cornerstones of the black struggle for racial justice for decades to come. Four years later, Du Bois joined with a group of mostly white reformers, shocked by a lynching in Springfield, Illinois (Lincoln’s adult home), to cre- ate the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP, as it was known, launched a long struggle for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
The NAACP’s legal strategy won a few victories. In Bailey v. Alabama (1911), the Supreme Court overturned southern “peonage” laws that made it a crime for sharecroppers to break their labor contracts. Six years later, it ruled uncon- stitutional a Louisville zoning regulation excluding blacks from living in cer- tain parts of the city (primarily because it interfered with whites’ right to sell their property as they saw fit). Overall, however, the Progressive era witnessed virtually no progress toward racial justice.
Closing Ranks
Among black Americans, the wartime language of freedom inspired hopes for a radical change in the country’s racial system. With the notable exception of William Monroe Trotter, most black leaders saw American participation in the war as an opportunity to make real the promise of freedom. To Trotter, much- publicized German atrocities were no worse than American lynchings; rather than making the world safe for democracy, the government should worry about “making the South safe for the Negroes.” Yet the black press rallied to the war. Du Bois himself, in widely reprinted editorials, called on African- Americans to enlist in the army to help “make our own America a real land of the free.”
Black participation in the Civil War had helped to secure the destruction of slavery and the achievement of citizenship. But during World War I, closing ranks did not bring significant gains. The navy barred blacks entirely, and the segregated army confined most of the 400,000 blacks who served in the war to supply units rather than combat. Wilson feared, as he noted in his diary, that the overseas experience would “go to their heads.” And the U.S. Army campaigned
WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★ 765
strenuously to persuade the French not to treat black soldiers as equals— not to eat or socialize with them, or even shake their hands. Contact with African colonial soldiers fighting alongside the British and French did widen the hori- zons of black American soldiers. But while colonial troops marched in the vic- tory parade in Paris, the Wilson administration did not allow black Americans to participate.
The Great Migration and the “Promised Land”
Nonetheless, the war unleashed social changes that altered the contours of American race relations. The combination of increased wartime production and a drastic falloff in immigration from Europe once war broke out opened thousands of industrial jobs to black laborers for the first time, inspiring a large- scale migration from South to North. On the eve of World War I, 90 per- cent of the African- American population still lived in the South. Most northern cities had tiny black populations, and domestic and service work still predomi- nated among both black men and black women in the North. But between 1910 and 1920, half a million blacks left the South. The black population of Chicago more than doubled, New York City’s rose 66 percent, and smaller industrial cit- ies like Akron, Buffalo, and Trenton showed similar gains.
Many motives sustained the Great Migration— higher wages in northern factories than were available in the South (even if blacks remained confined to menial and unskilled positions), opportunities for educating their children, escape from the threat of lynching, and the prospect of exercising the right to vote. Migrants spoke of a Second Emancipation, of “crossing over Jordan,” and of leaving the realm of pharaoh for the Promised Land. One group from Mis- sissippi stopped to sing, “I am bound for the land of Canaan,” after their train crossed the Ohio River into the North.
The black migrants, mostly young men and women, carried with them “a new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom,” as Alain Locke explained in the preface to his influential book The New Negro (1925). Yet the migrants encountered vast disappointments— severely restricted employment opportunities, exclusion from unions, rigid housing segregation, and outbreaks of violence that made it
Table 19.1 The Great Migration
City
Black Population,
1910
Black Population,
1920
Percent Increase
New York 91,709 152,467 66.3%
Philadelphia 84,459 134,229 58.9
Chicago 44,103 109,458 148.2
St. Louis 43,960 69,854 58.9
Detroit 5,741 40,838 611.3
Pittsburgh 25,623 37,725 47.2
Cleveland 8,448 34,451 307.8
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clear that no region of the country was free from racial hostility. More white southerners than blacks moved north during the war, often with similar eco- nomic aspirations. But the new black presence, coupled with demands for change inspired by the war, created a racial tinderbox that needed only an inci- dent to trigger an explosion.
Racial Violence, North and South
Dozens of blacks were killed during a 1917 riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, where employers had recruited black workers in an attempt to weaken unions (most of which excluded blacks from membership). In 1919, more than 250 persons died in riots in the urban North. Most notable was the violence in Chicago, touched off by the drowning by white bathers of a black teen- ager who accidentally crossed the unofficial dividing line between black and white beaches on Lake Michigan. The riot that followed raged for five days and involved pitched battles between the races throughout the city. By the time the National Guard restored order, 38 persons had been killed and more than 500 injured.
One of a series of paintings by the black artist Jacob Lawrence called The Migration Series, inspired by the massive movement of African- Americans to the North during and after World War I. For each, Lawrence composed a brief title, in this case, “In the North the Negro had better educational facilities.”
1919 ★ 767
Violence was not confined to the North. In the year after the war ended, seventy- six persons were lynched in the South, including several returning black veterans wearing their uniforms. In Phillips County, Arkansas, attacks on striking black sharecroppers by armed white vigilantes left as many as 200 per- sons dead and required the intervention of the army to restore order. The worst race riot in American history occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, when more than 300 blacks were killed and over 10,000 left homeless after a white mob, including police and National Guardsmen, burned an all- black section of the city to the ground. The Tulsa riot erupted after a group of black veterans tried to prevent the lynching of a youth who had accidentally tripped and fallen on a white female elevator operator, causing rumors of rape to sweep the city.
The Rise of Garveyism
World War I kindled a new spirit of militancy. The East St. Louis riot of 1917 inspired a widely publicized Silent Protest Parade on New York’s Fifth Ave- nue in which 10,000 blacks silently carried placards reading, “Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe for Democracy?” In the new densely populated black ghettos of the North, widespread support emerged for the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a movement for African independence and black self- reliance launched by Marcus Garvey, a recent immigrant from Jamaica. Freedom for Garveyites meant national self- determination. Blacks, they insisted, should enjoy the same internationally recognized iden- tity enjoyed by other peoples in the aftermath of the war. “Everywhere we hear the cry of freedom,” Garvey proclaimed in 1921. “We desire a freedom that will lift us to the common standard of all men, . . . freedom that will give us a chance and opportunity to rise to the fullest of our ambition and that we cannot get in countries where other men rule and dominate.” Du Bois and other established black leaders viewed Garvey as little more than a demagogue. They applauded when the government deported him after a conviction for mail fraud. But the massive following his movement achieved testified to the sense of betrayal that had been kindled in black communities during and after the war.
1 9 1 9
A Worldwide Upsurge
The combination of militant hopes for social change and disappointment with the war’s outcome was evident far beyond the black community. In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (or Soviet Union), as Russia had been renamed
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after the revolution, Lenin’s government had nationalized landholdings, banks, and factories and proclaimed the socialist dream of a workers’ government. The Russian Revolution and the democratic aspirations unleashed by World War I sent tremors of hope and fear throughout the world. Like 1848 and, in the future, 1968, 1919 was a year of worldwide social and political upheaval. Inspired by Lenin’s call for revolution, communist- led governments came to power in Bavaria (a part of Germany) and Hungary. General strikes demand- ing the fulfillment of wartime promises of “industrial democracy” took place in Belfast, Glasgow, and Winnipeg. In Spain, anarchist peasants began seizing land. Crowds in India challenged British rule, and nationalist movements in other colonies demanded independence. “We are living and shall live all our lives in a revolutionary world,” wrote Walter Lippmann.
The worldwide revolutionary upsurge produced a countervailing mobi- lization by opponents of radical change. Even as they fought the Germans, the Allies viewed the Soviet government as a dire threat and attempted to overturn it. In the summer of 1918, Allied expeditionary forces— British, French, Japanese, and Americans— landed in Russia to aid Lenin’s opponents in the civil war that had engulfed the country. The last of them did not leave until 1920.
Wilson’s policies toward the Soviet Union revealed the contradictions within the liberal internationalist vision. On the one hand, in keeping with the principles of the Fourteen Points and its goal of a worldwide economic open door, Wilson hoped to foster trade with the new government. On the other, fear of communism as a source of international instability and a threat to private property inspired military intervention in Russia. The Allies did not invite the Soviet Union to the Versailles peace conference, and Wilson refused to extend diplomatic recognition to Lenin’s government. The Soviet regime survived, but in the rest of the world the tide of change receded. By the fall, the mass strikes had been suppressed and conservative governments had been installed in central Europe. Anticommunism would remain a pillar of twentieth- century American foreign policy.
Upheaval in America
In the United States, 1919 also brought unprecedented turmoil. It seemed all the more disorienting for occurring in the midst of a worldwide flu epidemic that killed over 20 million persons, including nearly 700,000 Americans. Racial vio- lence, as noted above, was widespread. In June, bombs exploded at the homes of prominent Americans, including the attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, who escaped uninjured. Among aggrieved American workers, wartime lan- guage linking patriotism with democracy and freedom inspired hopes that an
1919 ★ 769
era of social justice and economic empowerment was at hand. In 1917, Wilson had told the AFL, “While we are fighting for freedom, we must see to it among other things that labor is free.” Labor took him seriously— more seriously, it seems, than Wilson intended. The government, as one machinist put it, had “proclaimed to the World that the freedom and democracy we are fighting for shall be practiced in the industries of America.”
By the war’s end, many Americans believed that the country stood on the verge of what Herbert Hoover called “a new industrial order.” Sidney Hillman, leader of the garment workers’ union, was one of those caught up in the uto- pian dreams inspired by the war and reinforced by the Russian Revolution. “One can hear the footsteps of the Deliverer,” he wrote. “Labor will rule and the World will be free.” In 1919, more than 4 million workers engaged in strikes— the greatest wave of labor unrest in American history. There were walkouts, among many others, by textile workers, telephone operators, and Broadway actors. Throughout the country, workers appropriated the imagery and rhet- oric of the war, parading in army uniforms with Liberty buttons, denouncing their employers as “kaisers,” and demanding “freedom in the workplace.” They were met by an unprecedented mobilization of employers, government, and private patriotic organizations.
The strike wave began in January 1919 in Seattle, where a walkout of shipyard workers mushroomed into a general strike that for once united AFL unions and the IWW. For five days, a committee of labor leaders oversaw city services, until federal troops arrived to end the strike. In September, Boston policemen struck for higher wages and shorter working hours. Declaring “there is no right to strike against the public safety,” Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge called out the National Guard to patrol the city and fired the entire police force. In the nation’s coalfields, a company manager observed, wartime propaganda had raised unrealistic expectations among workers, who took the promise of “an actual emancipation” too “literally.” When the war ended, min- ers demanded an end to company absolutism. Their strike was ended by a court injunction obtained by Attorney General Palmer.
The Great Steel Strike
The wartime rhetoric of economic democracy and freedom helped to inspire the era’s greatest labor uprising, the 1919 steel strike. Centered in Chicago, it united some 365,000 mostly immigrant workers in demands for union recog- nition, higher wages, and an eight- hour workday. Before 1917, the steel mills were little autocracies where managers arbitrarily established wages and work- ing conditions and suppressed all efforts at union organizing. During the war, workers flooded into the Amalgamated Association, the union that had been nearly destroyed by its defeat at Homestead a generation earlier. By the end
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of 1918, they had won an eight- hour day. Employers’ anti- union activities resumed following the armistice that ended the fighting. “For why this war?” asked one Polish immigrant steel- worker at a union meeting. “For why we buy Liberty bonds? For the mills? No, for freedom and America— for every- body. No more [work like a] horse and wagon. For eight- hour day.”
In response to the strike, steel magnates launched a concerted counter attack. Employers appealed to anti- immigrant sentiment among native- born workers, many of whom returned to work, and conducted a pro- paganda campaign that associated the strikers with the IWW, communism, and disloyalty. “Americanism vs. Alien- ism” was the issue of the strike, declared the New York Tribune. With middle- class opinion having turned against the labor movement and the police in Pittsburgh assaulting workers on the streets, the strike collapsed in early 1920.
The Red Scare
Many Progressives hoped to see the wartime apparatus of economic planning continue after 1918. The Wilson administration, however, quickly disman- tled the agencies that had established controls over industrial production and the labor market, although during the 1930s they would serve as models for some policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Wartime repression of dis- sent, however, continued. It reached its peak with the Red Scare of 1919–1920, a short- lived but intense period of political intolerance inspired by the post- war strike wave and the social tensions and fears generated by the Russian Revolution.
Convinced that episodes like the steel strike were part of a worldwide communist conspiracy, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Novem- ber 1919 and January 1920 dispatched federal agents to raid the offices of radical and labor organizations throughout the country. They carried search warrants so broad that they reminded those with a sense of history of the
An advertisement placed by a steel company in a Pittsburgh newspaper announces, in several lan- guages, that the steel strike of 1919 “has failed.” The use of the figure of Uncle Sam illustrates how the companies clothed their anti- union stance in the language of patriotism.
1919 ★ 771
writs of assistance against which James Otis had eloquently protested as being destructive of liberty in 1761. The Palmer Raids were overseen by the twenty- four- year- old director of the Radical Division of the Justice Depart- ment, J. Edgar Hoover. More than 5,000 persons were arrested, most of them without warrants, and held for months without charge. The government deported hundreds of immigrant radicals, including Emma Goldman. Hoover also began compiling files on thousands of Americans suspected of holding radical political ideas, a practice he would later continue as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The abuse of civil liberties in early 1920 was so severe that Palmer came under heavy criticism from Congress and much of the press. Secretary of Labor Louis Post began releasing imprisoned immigrants, and the Red Scare col- lapsed. Even the explosion of a bomb outside the New York Stock Exchange in September 1920, which killed forty persons, failed to rekindle it. (The perpetra- tors of this terrorist explosion, the worst on American soil until the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, were never identified.) The reaction to the Palmer Raids planted the seeds for a new appreciation of the importance of civil liberties that would begin to flourish during the 1920s. But in their immediate impact, the events of 1919 and 1920 dealt a devastating setback to radical and labor organi- zations of all kinds and kindled an intense identification of patriotic American- ism with support for the political and economic status quo. The IWW had been effectively destroyed, and many moderate unions lay in disarray. The Socialist Party crumbled under the weight of governmental repression (the New York legislature expelled five Socialist members, and Congress denied Victor Berger the seat to which he had been elected from Wisconsin) and internal differences over the Russian Revolution.
Wilson at Versailles
The beating back of demands for fundamental social change was a severe rebuke to the hopes with which so many Progressives had enlisted in the war effort. Wilson’s inability to achieve a just peace based on the Fourteen Points compounded the sense of failure. Late in 1918, the president traveled to France to attend the Versailles peace conference. Greeted by ecstatic Paris crowds, he declared that American soldiers had come to Europe “as crusaders, not merely to win a war, but to win a cause . . . to lead the world on the way of liberty.” But he proved a less adept negotiator than his British and French counterparts, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau.
Although the Fourteen Points had called for “open covenants openly arrived at,” the negotiations were conducted in secret. The resulting Versailles Treaty did accomplish some of Wilson’s goals. It established the League of Nations, the body central to his vision of a new international order. It applied
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the principle of self- determination to eastern Europe and redrew the map of that region. From the ruins of the Austro- Hungarian empire and parts of Germany and czarist Russia, new European nations emerged from the war— Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Yugoslavia. Some enjoyed ethno- linguistic unity, while others comprised unstable combinations of diverse nationalities.
Despite Wilson’s pledge of a peace without territorial acquisitions or ven- geance, the Versailles Treaty was a harsh document that all but guaranteed future conflict in Europe. Clemenceau won for France the right to occupy the Saar Basin and Rhineland— iron- and coal- rich parts of Germany. The treaty placed strict limits on the size of Germany’s future army and navy. Lloyd George persuaded Wilson to agree to a clause declaring Germany morally responsible for the war and setting astronomical reparations payments (they were var- iously estimated at between $33 billion and $56 billion), which crippled the German economy.
The Wilsonian Moment
To many people around the world, the Great War destroyed European claims that theirs was a higher civilization, which gave them the right to rule over more barbaric peoples. In this sense, it helped to heighten the international prestige of the United States, a latecomer to the war. Like the ideals of the American Revolution, the Wilsonian rhetoric of self- determination reverberated across the globe, especially among colonial peoples seeking independence. In fact, they took Wilson’s rhetoric more seriously than he did. Despite his belief in self- determination, he believed that colonial peoples required a long period of tutelage before they were ready for independence.
Nonetheless, Wilsonian ideals quickly spread around the globe— not sim- ply the idea that government must rest on the consent of the governed, but also Wilson’s stress on the “equality of nations,” large and small, and that interna- tional disputes should be settled by peaceful means rather than armed conflict. These stood in sharp contrast to the imperial ideas and practices of Europe. In Eastern Europe, whose people sought to carve new, independent nations from the ruins of the Austro- Hungarian and Ottoman empires, many consid- ered Wilson a “popular saint.” The leading Arabic newspaper, Al- Ahram, pub- lished in Egypt, then under British rule, gave extensive coverage to Wilson’s speech asking Congress to declare war in the name of democracy, and to the Fourteen Points, and translated the Declaration of Independence into Arabic for its readers. In Beijing, students demanding that China free itself of foreign domination gathered at the American embassy shouting, “Long live Wilson.” Japan proposed to include in the charter of the new League of Nations a clause
1919 ★ 773
recognizing the equality of all people, regardless of race. Hundreds of letters, petitions, and declarations addressed to President Wilson made their way to the Paris headquarters of the American delegation to the peace conference. Few reached the president, as his private secretary, Gilbert Close, carefully screened his mail.
Outside of Europe, however, the idea of “ self- determination” was stillborn. When the peace conference opened, Secretary of State Robert Lansing warned that the phrase was “loaded with dynamite” and would “raise hopes which can never be realized.” Wilson’s language, he feared, had put “dangerous” ideas “into the minds of certain races” and would inspire “impossible demands, and cause trouble in many lands.” As Lansing anticipated, advocates of colonial inde- pendence descended on Paris to lobby the peace negotiators. Arabs demanded that a unified independent state be carved from the old Ottoman empire in the
Prague
Vienna
BerlinLondon
Paris
Rome
Sarajevo
Constantinople
Petrograd
Moscow
GREAT BRITAIN
FRANCE
BELGIUM
NETHERLANDS
DENMARK
NORWAY
SWEDEN
SPAIN PORTUGAL
ITALY
SWITZERLAND
GERMANY
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE
ROMANIA
BULGARIAMONTENEGRO SERBIA
ALBANIA
GREECE
TURKEY (OTTOMAN EMPIRE)
RUSSIA
LUXEMBOURG
S ic i l y
Cre te Cypru s
North Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Ba lti
c S ea
Black Sea
A tlantic O cean
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
Allies Central Powers Neutral nations
E U R O P E I N 1 9 1 4
World War I and the Versailles Treaty redrew the map of Europe and the Middle East. The Austro- Hungarian and Ottoman empires ceased to exist, and Germany and Russia were reduced in size. A group of new states emerged in eastern Europe, embodying the principle of self- determination, one of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
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Middle East. Nguyen That Thanh, a young Vietnamese patriot working in Paris, pressed his people’s claim for greater rights within the French empire. Citing the Declaration of Independence, he appealed unsuccessfully to Wilson to help bring an end to French rule in Vietnam. W. E. B. Du Bois organized a Pan- African Congress in Paris that put forward the idea of a self- governing nation to be carved out of Germany’s African colonies. Koreans, Indians, Irish, and others also pressed claims for self- determination.
The British and French, however, had no intention of applying this prin- ciple to their own empires. They rebuffed the pleas of colonial peoples for self- rule. During the war, the British had encouraged Arab nationalism as a weapon against the Ottoman empire and had also pledged to create a home- land in Palestine for the persecuted Jews of Europe. In fact, the victors of World War I divided Ottoman territory into a series of new territories, including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, controlled by the victorious Allies under League of Nations “mandates.” South Africa, Australia, and Japan acquired former German colonies in Africa and Asia. Nor did Ireland achieve its independence at Versailles. Only at the end of 1921 did Britain finally agree to the creation
Danzig (Free City)
Rhineland Saar
GREAT BRITAIN
FRANCE
BELGIUM
NETHERLANDS
DENMARK
NORWAY
FINLAND
SWEDEN
SPAIN PORTUGAL
ITALY
SWITZERLAND
GERMANY
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
ALBANIA
GREECE
TURKEY
RUSSIA
LUXEMBOURG
ESTONIA
LATVIA
LITHUANIA EAST PRUSSIA
(GERMANY)
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
AUSTRIA HUNGARY
POLAND
YUGOSLAVIA
S ic i l y
Cre te Cypru s
Lor ra i
ne
A l s ac
e
Sard in ia ( I t . )
Cors ica (F r . )
D ode can e s e I s . ( I ta l y )
North Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Ba lti
c S ea
Black Sea
Atlantic Ocean
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
New nations Demilitarized or Allied occupied zone
E U R O P E I N 1 9 1 9
1919 ★ 775
of the Irish Free State, while continuing to rule the northeastern corner of the island. As for the Japanese proposal to establish the principle of racial equality, Wilson, with the support of Great Britain and Australia, engineered its defeat.
The Seeds of Wars to Come
Du Bois, as noted above, hoped that black participation in the war effort would promote racial justice at home and self- government for colonies abroad. “We return,” he wrote in The Crisis in May 1919, “we return from fighting, we return fighting. Make way for Democracy!” But the war’s aftermath both in the United States and overseas left him bitterly disappointed. Du Bois concluded that Wilson had “never at any single moment meant to include in his democracy” black Americans or the colonial peoples of the world. “Most men today,” he complained, “cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.” In 1903, in The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois had made the memorable prediction that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color- line.” He now forecast a “fight for freedom” that would pit “black and brown and yellow men” through- out the world against racism and imperialism.
Disappointment at the failure to apply the Fourteen Points to the non- European world created a perva- sive cynicism about Western use of the language of freedom and democ- racy. Wilson’s apparent willingness to accede to the demands of the impe- rial powers helped to spark a series of popular protest movements across the Middle East and Asia, and the rise of a new anti- Western nationalism. It inspired the May 4 movement in China, a mass protest against the deci- sion at the Versailles peace conference to award certain German concessions (parts of China governed by foreign powers) to Japan. Some leaders, like Nguyen That Thanh, who took the name Ho Chi Minh, turned to commu- nism, in whose name he would lead Vietnam’s long and bloody struggle for independence. With the collapse of
Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world?
Mahatma Gandhi, pictured here in 1919, became the leader of the nonviolent movement for independence for India. He was among those disappointed by the failure of the Versailles peace conference to apply the principle of self- determination to the colonial world.
776 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
the Wilsonian moment, Lenin’s reputation in the colonial world began to eclipse that of the American president. But whether communist or not, these movements announced the emergence of anticolonial nationalism as a major force in world affairs, which it would remain for the rest of the twentieth century.
“Your liberalness,” one Egyptian leader remarked, speaking of Britain and America, “is only for yourselves.” Yet ironically, when colonial peoples demanded to be recognized as independent members of the international com- munity, they would invoke both the heritage of the American Revolution— the first colonial struggle that produced an independent nation— and the Wilso- nian language whereby the self- governing nation- state is the most legitimate political institution, and all nations deserve equal respect.
As Du Bois recognized, World War I sowed the seeds not of a lasting peace but of wars to come. German resentment over the peace terms would help to fuel the rise of Adolf Hitler and the coming of World War II. In the breakup of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, violence over the status of Northern Ire- land, and seemingly unending conflicts in the Middle East, the world was still haunted by the ghost of Versailles.
The Treaty Debate
One final disappointment awaited Wilson on his return from Europe. He viewed the new League of Nations as the war’s finest legacy. But many Ameri- cans feared that membership in the League would commit the United States to an open- ended involvement in the affairs of other countries. Wilson asserted that the United States could not save the world without being continually involved with it. His opponents, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massa- chusetts, argued that the League threatened to deprive the country of its free- dom of action.
A considerable majority of senators would have accepted the treaty with “reservations” ensuring that the obligation to assist League members against attack did not supersede the power of Congress to declare war. As governor of New Jersey and as president, Wilson had proved himself to be a skilled politi- cian capable of compromising with opponents. In this case, however, convinced that the treaty reflected “the hand of God,” Wilson refused to negotiate with con- gressional leaders. In October 1919, in the midst of the League debate, Wilson suffered a serious stroke. Although the extent of his illness was kept secret, he remained incapacitated for the rest of his presidency. In effect, his wife, Edith, headed the government for the next seventeen months. In November 1919 and again in March 1920, the Senate rejected the Versailles Treaty.
American involvement in World War I lasted barely nineteen months, but it cast a long shadow over the following decade— and, indeed, the rest of the century. In its immediate aftermath, the country retreated from international
involvements. But in the long run, Wilson’s combination of idealism and power politics had an enduring impact. His appeals to democracy, open markets, and a special American mission to instruct the world in freedom, coupled with a will- ingness to intervene abroad militarily to promote American interests and values, would create the model for twentieth- century American international relations.
On its own terms, the war to make the world safe for democracy failed. Even great powers cannot always bend the world to their purposes. The war brought neither stability nor democracy to most of the world, and it under- mined freedom in the United States. It also led to the eclipse of Progressivism. Republican candidate Warren G. Harding, who had no connection with the party’s Progressive wing, swept to victory in the presidential election of 1920. Harding’s campaign centered on a “return to normalcy” and a repudiation of what he called “Wilsonism.” He received 60 percent of the popular vote. Begun with idealistic goals and grand hopes for social change, American involvement in the Great War laid the foundation for one of the most conservative decades in the nation’s history.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Explain the role of the United States in the global economy by 1920.
2. What were the assumptions underlying the Roosevelt Corollary? How did the doctrine affect U.S. relations with European nations and those in the Western hemisphere?
3. What did President Wilson mean by “moral imperialism,” and what measures were taken to apply this to Latin America?
4. How did the ratification of both the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments suggest both the restrictive and democratizing nature of Progressivism?
5. Why did Progressives see in the expansion of governmental powers in wartime an oppor- tunity to reform American society?
6. What were the goals and methods of the Committee on Public Information during World War I?
7. What are governmental and private examples of coercive patriotism during the war? What were the effects of those efforts?
8. What were the major causes— both real and imaginary— of the Red Scare?
9. How did World War I and its aftermath provide African- Americans with opportunities?
10. Identify the goals of those pressing for global change in 1919, and of those who opposed them.
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 777
Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world?
778 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
liberal internationalism (p. 736)
Panama Canal Zone (p. 738)
Roosevelt Corollary (p. 739)
Dollar Diplomacy (p. 739)
moral imperialism (p. 740)
Lusitania (p. 743)
Zimmermann Telegram (p. 744)
Fourteen Points (p. 745)
Selective Service Act (p. 747)
War Industries Board (p. 747)
Eighteenth Amendment (p. 752)
Espionage Act (p. 752)
Sedition Act (p. 753)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (p. 764)
Great Migration (p. 765)
Tulsa riot (p. 767)
Marcus Garvey (p. 767)
Red Scare of 1919–1920 (p. 770)
Versailles Treaty (p. 771)
League of Nations (p. 771)
KEY TERMS
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
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What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s?
• In what ways did the government promote business interests in the 1920s?
• Why did the protection of civil liberties gain importance in the 1920s?
• What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s?
• What were the causes of the Great Depression, and how effective were the government’s responses by 1932?
F R O M B U S I N E S S C U L T U R E
T O G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N
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T H E T W E N T I E S , 1 9 2 0 –1 9 3 2
I n May 1920, at the height of the postwar Red Scare, police arrested two Italian immigrants accused of participating in a robbery at a South Brain-tree, Massachusetts, factory in which a security guard was killed. Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, an itinerant unskilled laborer, were anarchists who dreamed of a society in which government, churches, and private property had been abolished. They saw violence as an appropriate weapon of class warfare. But very little evidence linked them to this partic- ular crime. One man claimed to have seen Vanzetti at the wheel of the get- away car, but all the other eyewitnesses described the driver quite differently.
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780 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
Disputed tests on one of the six bullets in the dead man’s body suggested that it might have been fired from a gun owned by Sacco. Neither fingerprints nor possession of stolen money linked either to the crime. In the atmosphere of anti- radical and anti- immigrant fer- vor, however, their conviction was a certainty. “I have suffered,” Vanzetti wrote from prison, “for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian.”
Although their 1921 trial had aroused little public interest outside the Italian- American community, the
case of Sacco and Vanzetti attracted international attention during the lengthy appeals that followed. There were mass protests in Europe against their impend- ing execution. In the United States, the movement to save their lives attracted the support of an impressive array of intellectuals, including the novelist John Dos Passos, the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Felix Frankfurter, a professor at Harvard Law School and a future justice of the Supreme Court. In response to the mounting clamor, the governor of Massachusetts appointed a three- member commission to review the case, headed by Abbott Lawrence Lowell, the presi- dent of Harvard University (and for many years an official of the Immigration Restriction League). The commission upheld the verdict and death sentences, and on August 23, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti died in the electric chair. “It is not every prisoner,” remarked the journalist Heywood Broun, “who has a president of Harvard throw the switch for him.”
The Sacco- Vanzetti case laid bare some of the fault lines beneath the sur- face of American society during the 1920s. The case, the writer Edmund Wil- son commented, “revealed the whole anatomy of American life, with all its classes, professions and points of view and . . . it raised almost every fundamen- tal question of our political and social system.” It demonstrated how long the Red Scare extended into the 1920s and how powerfully it undermined basic American freedoms. It reflected the fierce cultural battles that raged in many communities during the decade. To many native- born Americans, the two men symbolized an alien threat to their way of life. To Italian- Americans, including respectable middle- class organizations like the Sons of Italy that raised money for the defense, the outcome symbolized the nativist prejudices and stereotypes
A 1927 photograph shows Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti outside the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts, surrounded by security agents and onlookers. They are about to enter the courthouse, where the judge will pronounce their death sentences.
that haunted immigrant communities. To Dos Passos, the executions underscored the success of the anti- radical crusade: “They are stronger. They are rich. They hire and fire the politicians, the old judges, . . . the college presidents.” Dos Passos’s lament was a bitter comment on the triumph of pro- business conservatism during the 1920s.
In popular memory, the decade that fol- lowed World War I is recalled as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties. With its flappers (young, sexually liberated women), speakeas- ies (nightclubs that sold liquor in violation of Prohibition), and a soaring stock market fueled by easy credit and a get- rich- quick outlook, it was a time of revolt against moral rules inherited from the nineteenth century. Observers from Europe, where class divi- sions were starkly visible in work, politics, and social relations, marveled at the unifor- mity of American life. Factories poured out standardized consumer goods, their sale pro- moted by national advertising campaigns. Conservatism dominated a political system from which radical alternatives seemed to have been purged. Radio and the movies spread mass culture throughout the nation. Americans seemed to dress alike, think alike, go to the same movies, and admire the same larger- than- life national celebrities.
Many Americans, however, did not wel- come the new secular, commercial culture. They resented and feared the ethnic and racial diversity of America’s cities and what they considered the lax moral standards of urban life. The 1920s was a decade of pro- found social tensions— between rural and urban Americans, traditional and “modern” Christianity, participants in the burgeoning consumer culture and those who did not fully share in the new prosperity.
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1915 Reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan
1919 Schenck v. United States
1920 American Civil Liberties Union established
1921 Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti
1922 Washington Naval Arms Conference
Cable Act
Herbert Hoover’s American Individualism
1923 Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
Meyer v. Nebraska
1924 Immigration Act of 1924
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
1925 Scopes trial
1927 Charles Lindbergh flies nonstop over the Atlantic
Sacco and Vanzetti executed
1927– President Coolidge vetoes 1928 McNary- Haugen farm
bill
1929 Sheppard- Towner Act repealed
Stock market crashes
1930 Hollywood adopts the Hays code
Smoot- Hawley Tariff
1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation established
Bonus march on W ashington
• •
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T H E B U S I N E S S O F A M E R I C A
A Decade of Prosperity
“The chief business of the American people,” said Calvin Coolidge, who became president after Warren G. Harding’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1923, “is business.” Rarely in American history had economic growth seemed more dramatic, cooperation between business and government so close, and business values so widely shared. After a sharp postwar recession that lasted into 1922, the 1920s was a decade of prosperity. Productivity and economic output rose dramatically as new industries— chemicals, aviation, electronics— flourished and older ones like food processing and the manufacture of household appli- ances adopted Henry Ford’s moving assembly line.
The automobile was the backbone of economic growth. The most cele- brated American factories now turned out cars, not textiles and steel as in the nineteenth century. Annual automobile production tripled during the 1920s, from 1.5 to 4.8 million. General Motors, which learned the secret of market- ing numerous individual models and stylish designs, surpassed Ford with its cheap, standardized Model T (replaced in 1927 by the Model A). By 1929, half of all American families owned a car (a figure not reached in England until 1980). The automobile industry stimulated the expansion of steel, rubber, and oil production, road construction, and other sectors of the economy. It promoted tourism and the growth of suburbs (already, some commuters were driving to work) and helped to reduce rural isolation.
During the 1920s, American multinational corporations extended their sway throughout the world. With Europe still recovering from the Great War, American investment overseas far exceeded that of other countries. The dollar replaced the British pound as the most important currency of international trade. American companies produced 85 percent of the world’s cars and 40 percent of its manufactured goods. General Electric and Interna- tional Telephone and Telegraph bought up companies in other countries. International Business Machines (IBM) was the world’s leader in office sup- plies. American oil companies built new refineries overseas. American com- panies took control of raw materials abroad, from rubber in Liberia to oil in Venezuela.
One unsuccessful example of the global spread of American corporations was Fordlandia, an effort by the auto manufacturer Henry Ford to create a town in the heart of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Ford hoped to secure a steady sup- ply of rubber for car tires. But as in the United States, where he had compelled immigrant workers to adopt American dress and diet, he wanted to bring local
THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA ★ 783
inhabitants up to what he considered the proper standard of life (this meant, for example, forbidding his workers from using alcohol and tobacco and try- ing to get them to stop eating traditional Brazilian foods). Eventually, the cli- mate and local insects destroyed the rubber trees that Ford’s engineers, lacking experience in tropical agriculture, had planted much too close together, while the workers rebelled against the long hours of labor and regimentation of the community.
A New Society
During the 1920s, consumer goods of all kinds proliferated, marketed by sales- men and advertisers who promoted them as ways of satisfying Americans’ psy- chological desires and everyday needs. Frequently purchased on credit through new installment buying plans, they rapidly altered daily life. Telephones made communication easier. Vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and refrigerators transformed work in the home and reduced the demand for domestic servants. Boosted by Prohibition and an aggressive advertising campaign that, according to the company’s sales director, made it “impossible for the consumer to escape” the product, Coca- Cola became a symbol of American life.
Americans spent more and more of their income on leisure activities like vacations, movies, and sporting events. By 1929, weekly movie attendance had reached 80 million, double the figure of 1922. Hollywood films now dominated the world movie market. Movies had been produced early in the century in several American cities, but shortly before World War I filmmakers gravitated to Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles, attracted by the open space, year- round sunshine for outdoor filming, and varied scenery. In 1910, two French com- panies, Pathé and Gaumont, had been the world’s leading film producers. By 1925, American releases outnumbered French by eight to one. In the 1920s, both companies abandoned film production for the more profitable business of distributing American films in Europe.
Radios and phonographs brought mass entertainment into Americans’ liv- ing rooms. The number of radios in Americans’ homes rose from 190,000 in 1923 to just under 5 million in 1929. These developments helped to create and spread a new celebrity culture, in which recording, film, and sports stars moved to the top of the list of American heroes. During the 1920s, more than 100 mil- lion records were sold each year. RCA Victor sold so many recordings of the great opera tenor Enrico Caruso that he is sometimes called the first modern celebrity. He was soon joined by the film actor Charlie Chaplin, baseball player Babe Ruth, and boxer Jack Dempsey. Ordinary Americans followed every detail of their lives. Perhaps the decade’s greatest celebrity, in terms of intensive press coverage, was the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who in 1927 made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.
Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s?
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André Siegfried, a Frenchman who visited the United States four times, commented in 1928 that a “new society” had come into being, in which Ameri- cans considered their “standard of living” a “sacred acquisition, which they will defend at any price.” In this new “mass civilization,” widespread acceptance of going into debt to purchase consumer goods had replaced the values of thrift and self- denial, central to nineteenth- century notions of upstanding character. Work, once seen as a source of pride in craft skill, now came to be valued as a path to individual fulfillment through consumption and entertainment.
The Limits of Prosperity
“Big business in America,” remarked the journalist Lincoln Steffens, “is produc- ing what the socialists held up as their goal— food, shelter, and clothing for all.” But signs of future trouble could be seen beneath the prosperity of the 1920s. The fruits of increased production were very unequally distributed. Real wages for industrial workers (wages adjusted to take account of inflation) rose by one- quarter between 1922 and 1929, but corporate profits rose at more than twice that rate. The process of economic concentration continued unabated. A handful of firms dominated numerous sectors of the economy. In 1929, 1 percent of the nation’s banks controlled half of its financial resources. Most of the small auto companies that had existed earlier in the century had fallen by the wayside. Gen- eral Motors, Ford, and Chrysler now controlled four- fifths of the industry.
At the beginning of 1929, the share of national income of the wealthiest 5 percent of American families exceeded that of the bottom 60 percent. A majority of families had no savings, and an estimated 40 percent of the popu- lation remained in poverty, unable to participate in the flourishing consumer economy. Improved productivity meant that goods could be produced with fewer workers. During the 1920s, more Americans worked in the professions, retailing, finance, and education, but the number of manufacturing workers declined by 5 percent, the first such drop in the nation’s history. Parts of New England were already experiencing the chronic unemployment caused by deindustrialization. Many of the region’s textile companies failed in the face of low- wage competition from southern factories, or shifted production to take advantage of the South’s cheap labor. Most advertisers directed their messages at businessmen and the middle class. At the end of the decade, 75 percent of American households still did not own a washing machine, and 60 percent had no radio.
The Farmers’ Plight
Nor did farmers share in the decade’s prosperity. The “golden age” of Ameri- can farming had reached its peak during World War I, when the need to feed war- torn Europe and government efforts to maintain high farm prices had
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raised farmers’ incomes and promoted the purchase of more land on credit. Thanks to mechanization and the increased use of fertilizer and insecti- cides, agricultural production continued to rise even when government subsidies ended and world demand stagnated. As a result, farm incomes declined steadily and banks foreclosed tens of thousands of farms whose owners were unable to meet mortgage payments.
For the first time in the nation’s his- tory, the number of farms and farmers declined during the 1920s. For example, half the farmers in Montana lost their land to foreclosure between 1921 and 1925. Extractive industries, like mining and lumber, also suffered as their products faced a glut on the world market. During the decade, some 3 million persons migrated out of rural areas. Many headed for southern California, whose rapidly growing economy needed new labor. The population of Los Angeles, the West’s leading industrial center, a producer of oil, automobiles, aircraft, and, of course, Hollywood movies, rose from 575,000 to 2.2 million during the decade, largely because of an influx of displaced farmers from the Midwest. Well before the 1930s, rural America was in an economic depression.
The 1920s, however, was not simply a period of decline on the farm but of significant technological change. The mechanization of agriculture had been taking place since the mid- nineteenth century, especially in the West, but it now accelerated dramatically. New inventions came into widespread use on the Great Plains, especially the steam tractor and the disk plow, which killed weeds, chopped up the sod, and left the surface layer much easier to plant. Mechanization encouraged an increase in the scale of agriculture. From farms growing wheat to California orange groves, the western states became home to modern “factory farms,” employing large numbers of migrant laborers. Mas- sive irrigation projects completed in the previous decades made the Far West much more suitable for farming. Farm output boomed in previously arid parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. With immigration from Asia barred and blacks unwanted, agribusinesses recruited workers from across the southern border, and immigrants from Mexico came to make up the vast majority of the West’s low- wage farm migrants. On the Great Plains, extensive plowing while ignoring environmental risks set the stage for the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
Kansas agricultural workers breaking new ground with disk plows, which eased the task of ready- ing the sod of the Great Plains for planting and encouraged the emergence of larger farms. Simon Fishman, a Jewish farmer known as the “wheat king,” in jacket and tie, is on the first tractor.
Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s?
786 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
The Image of Business
Hollywood films spread images of “the American way of life” across the globe. America, wrote the historian Charles Beard, was “boring its way” into the world’s consciousness. In high wages, efficient factories, and the mass produc- tion of consumer goods, Americans seemed to have discovered the secret of per- manent prosperity. Businessmen like Henry Ford and engineers like Herbert Hoover were cultural heroes. Photographers such as Lewis Hine and Marga- ret Bourke- White and painters like Charles Sheeler celebrated the beauty of machines and factories. The Man Nobody Knows, a 1925 best- seller by advertis- ing executive Bruce Barton, portrayed Jesus Christ as “the greatest advertiser of his day, . . . a virile go- getting he- man of business,” who “picked twelve men from the bottom ranks and forged a great organization.”
After the Ludlow Massacre of 1914, discussed in Chapter 18, John D. Rocke- feller himself hired a public relations firm to repair his tarnished image. Now, persuaded by the success of World War I’s Committee on Public Information, numerous firms established public relations departments to justify corporate practices to the public and counteract its long- standing distrust of big business.
They succeeded in changing popular attitudes toward Wall Street. Congres- sional hearings of 1912–1914 headed by Louisiana congressman Arsène Pujo had laid bare the manipulation of stock prices by a Wall Street “money trust.” The Pujo investigation had reinforced the widespread view of the stock market as a place where insiders fleeced small investors— as, indeed, they frequently did. But in the 1920s, as the steadily rising price of stocks made front- page news, the market attracted more investors. Many assumed that stock values would rise forever. By 1928, an estimated 1.5 million Americans owned stock— still a small minority of the country’s 28 million families, but far more than in the past.
The Decline of Labor
With the defeat of the labor upsurge of 1919 and the dismantling of the war- time regulatory state, business appropriated the rhetoric of Americanism and “industrial freedom” as weapons against labor unions. Some corporations during the 1920s implemented a new style of management. They provided their employees with private pensions and medical insurance plans, job security, and greater workplace safety. They established sports programs to occupy their employees’ leisure time. They spoke of “welfare capitalism,” a more socially conscious kind of business leadership, and trumpeted the fact that they now paid more attention to the “human factor” in employment.
At the same time, however, employers in the 1920s embraced the American Plan, at whose core stood the open shop— a workplace free of both government
THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA ★ 787
regulation and unions, except, in some cases, “company unions” created and controlled by management. Collective bargaining, declared one group of employers, represented “an infringement of personal liberty and a menace to the institutions of a free people.” Prosperity, they insisted, depended on giving business complete freedom of action. This message was reinforced in a propa- ganda campaign that linked unionism and socialism as examples of the sinister influence of foreigners on American life. Even the most forward- looking com- panies continued to employ strikebreakers, private detectives, and the black- listing of union organizers to prevent or defeat strikes.
During the 1920s, organized labor lost more than 2 million members, and unions agreed to demand after demand by employers in an effort to stave off complete elimination. In cities like Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Seattle, once centers of thriving labor movements, unions all but disappeared. Uprisings by the most downtrodden workers did occur sporadically throughout the decade. Southern textile mills witnessed desperate strikes by workers who charged employers with “making slaves out of the men and women” who labored there. Facing the combined opposition of business, local politicians, and the courts, as well as the threat of violence, such strikes were doomed to defeat.
The Equal Rights Amendment
The idealistic goals of World War I, wrote the young Protestant minister Rein- hold Niebuhr, seemingly had been abandoned: “We are rapidly becoming the most conservative nation on earth.” Like the labor movement, feminists struggled to adapt to the new political situation. The achievement of suffrage in 1920 eliminated the bond of unity between various activists, each “strug- gling for her own conception of freedom,” in the words of labor reformer Juliet Stuart Poyntz. Black feminists insisted that the movement must now demand enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment in the South, but they won little sup- port from white counterparts. A few prominent feminists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch, joined the rapidly diminish- ing Socialist Party, convinced that women should support an independent elec- toral force that promoted governmental protection of vulnerable workers.
The long- standing division between two competing conceptions of wom- an’s freedom— one based on motherhood, the other on individual autonomy and the right to work— now crystallized in the debate over an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution promoted by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. This amendment proposed to eliminate all legal dis- tinctions “on account of sex.” In Paul’s opinion, the ERA followed logically from winning the right to vote. Having gained political equality, she insisted, women no longer required special legal protection— they needed equal access
Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s?
788 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
to employment, education, and all the other opportunities of citizens. To supporters of mothers’ pensions and laws limiting women’s hours of labor, which the ERA would sweep away, the proposal represented a giant step back- ward. Apart from the National Woman’s Party, every major female organiza- tion, from the League of Women Voters to the Women’s Trade Union League, opposed the ERA.
In the end, none of these groups achieved success in the 1920s. The ERA campaign failed, as did a proposed constitutional amendment giving Congress the power to prohibit child labor, which farm groups and business organiza- tions opposed. In 1929, Congress repealed the Sheppard- Towner Act of 1921, a major achievement of the maternalist reformers that had provided federal assistance to programs for infant and child health.
Women’s Freedom
If political feminism faded, the prewar feminist demand for personal freedom survived in the vast consumer marketplace and in the actual behavior of the decade’s much- publicized liberated young women. Female liberation resur- faced as a lifestyle, the stuff of advertising and mass entertainment, stripped of any connection to political or economic radicalism. No longer one element in a broader program of social reform, sexual freedom now meant individual autonomy or personal rebellion. With her bobbed hair, short skirts, public smoking and drinking, and unapologetic use of birth- control methods such as the diaphragm, the young, single flapper epitomized the change in standards of sexual behavior, at least in large cities. She frequented dance halls and music clubs where white people now performed “wild” dances like the Charleston that had long been popular in black communities. She attended sexually charged Hollywood films featuring stars like Clara Bow, the provocative “‘It’ Girl,” and Rudolph Valentino, the original on- screen “Latin Lover.” When Val- entino died of a sudden illness in 1926, crowds of grieving women tried to storm the funeral home.
What had been scandalous a generation earlier— women’s self- conscious pursuit of personal pleasure— became a device to market goods from automo- biles to cigarettes. In 1904, a woman had been arrested for smoking in public in New York City. Two decades later, Edward Bernays, the “father” of modern public relations, masterminded a campaign to persuade women to smoke, dub- bing cigarettes women’s “torches of freedom.” The new freedom, however, was available only during one phase of a woman’s life. Once she married, what Jane Addams had called the “family claim” still ruled. And marriage, according to one advertisement, remained “the one pursuit that stands foremost in the mind of every girl and woman.” Having found a husband, women were expected to
BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT ★ 789
seek freedom within the confines of the home, finding “liberation,” according to the advertisements, in the use of new labor- saving appliances.
B U S I N E S S A N D G O V E R N M E N T
The Retreat from Progressivism
In 1924, a social scientist remarked that the United States had just passed through “one of the most critical ten- year periods” in its history. Among the changes was the disintegration of Progressivism as a political movement and body of thought. The government’s success in whipping up mass hyste- ria during the war seemed to undermine the very foundation of democratic thought— the idea of the rational, self- directed citizen. Followers of Sigmund Freud emphasized the unconscious, instinctual motivations of human behav- ior; scientists pointed to wartime IQ tests allegedly demonstrating that many Americans were mentally unfit for self- government. “The great bulk of people are stupid,” declared one advertising executive, explaining why advertisements played on the emotions rather than providing actual information.
In what ways did the government promote business interests in the 1920s?
(Left) Advertisers marketed cigarettes to women as symbols of female independence. The August 27, 1925 cover of Life magazine shows a young man and a young woman dressed identically at the beach in revealing bathing suits (by 1920s standards), both enjoying ciga- rettes. (Right) An ad for a washing machine promises to liberate women from the “slavery” of everyday laundering at home.
790 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
During the 1920s, Walter Lippmann published two of the most penetrat- ing indictments of democracy ever written, Public Opinion and The Phantom Pub- lic, which repudiated the Progressive hope of applying “intelligence” to social problems in a mass democracy. Instead of acting out of careful consideration of the issues or even individual self- interest, Lippmann claimed, the American voter was ill- informed and prone to fits of enthusiasm. Not only were modern problems beyond the understanding of ordinary men and women (a sentiment that had ear- lier led Lippmann to favor administration by experts), but the independent citizen was nothing but a myth. Like advertising copywriters and journalists, he contin- ued, the government had perfected the art of creating and manipulating public opinion— a process Lippmann called the “manufacture of consent.”
In 1929, the sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd published Middletown, a classic study of life in Muncie, Indiana, a typical community in the American heartland. The Lynds found that new leisure activities and a new emphasis on consumption had replaced politics as the focus of public concern. Elections were no longer “lively centers” of public attention as in the nineteenth century, and voter partici- pation had fallen dramatically. National statistics bore out their point; the turnout of eligible voters, over 80 percent in 1896, dropped to less than 50 percent in 1924. Many factors helped to explain this decline, including the consolidation of one- party politics in the South, the long period of Republican dominance in national elections, and the enfranchisement of women, who for many years voted in lower numbers than men. But the shift from public to private concerns also played a part. “The American citizen’s first importance to his country,” declared a Muncie newspaper, “is no longer that of a citizen but that of a consumer.”
The Republican Era
Government policies reflected the pro- business ethos of the 1920s. Recalling the era’s prosperity, one stockbroker later remarked, “God, J. P. Morgan and the Republican Party were going to keep everything going forever.” Business lob- byists dominated national conventions of the Republican Party. They called on the federal government to lower taxes on personal incomes and business profits, maintain high tariffs, and support employers’ continuing campaign against unions. The administrations of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge obliged. “Never before, here or anywhere else,” declared the Wall Street Journal, “has a government been so completely fused with business.” The two presi- dents appointed so many pro- business members of the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, and other Progressive- era agencies that, com- plained Nebraska senator George W. Norris, they in effect repealed the regula- tory system. The Harding administration did support Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover’s successful effort to persuade the steel industry to reduce the
BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT ★ 791
workday from twelve to eight hours. But it resumed the practice of obtaining court injunctions to suppress strikes, as in a 1922 walkout of 250,000 railroad workers protesting a wage cut.
Under William Howard Taft, appointed chief justice in 1921, the Supreme Court remained strongly conservative. A resurgence of laissez- faire jurispru- dence eclipsed the Progressive ideal of a socially active national state. The Court struck down a federal law that barred goods produced by child labor from inter- state commerce. It even repudiated Muller v. Oregon (see Chapter 18) in a 1923 decision (Adkins v. Children’s Hospital) overturning a minimum wage law for women in Washington, D.C. Now that women enjoyed the vote, the justices declared, they were entitled to the same workplace freedom as men. “This,” lamented Florence Kelley, “is a new Dred Scott decision,” which, in the name of liberty of contract, “fills those words with the bitterest and most cruel mockery.”
Corruption in Government
Warren G. Harding took office as president in 1921 promising a “return to nor- malcy” after an era of Progressive reform and world war. Reflecting the prevail- ing get- rich- quick ethos, his administration quickly became one of the most corrupt in American history. A likeable, somewhat ineffectual individual— he called himself “a man of limited talents from a small town”—Harding seemed to have little regard for either governmental issues or the dignity of the presidency. Prohibition did not cause him to curb his appetite for liquor. He continued a pre- vious illicit affair with a young Ohio woman, Nan Britton. The relationship did not become known until 1927, when Britton published The President’s Daughter, about their child to whom Harding had left nothing in his will.
Although his cabinet included men of integrity and talent, like Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, Hard- ing also surrounded himself with cronies who used their offices for private gain. Attorney General Harry Daugherty accepted payments not to prosecute accused criminals. The head of the Veterans’ Bureau, Charles Forbes, received kickbacks from the sale of government supplies. The most notorious scandal involved Sec- retary of the Interior Albert Fall, who accepted nearly $500,000 from private busi- nessmen to whom he leased government oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. Fall became the first cabinet member in history to be convicted of a felony.
The Election of 1924
Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge, who as governor of Massachusetts had won national fame for using state troops against striking Boston policemen in 1919, was a dour man of few words. But in contrast to his predecessor he
In what ways did the government promote business interests in the 1920s?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
792 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
From Lucian W. Parrish, Speech in Congress on Immigration (1921)
In the immediate aftermath of World War I, fears of foreign radicalism sparked by labor upheavals, and the increased concern with Americanizing immigrants, greatly strengthened demands to curtail immigration. During a debate in the House of Representatives in April 1921, Lucian W. Parrish, a Democrat from Texas, laid out the case for immigration restriction.
We should stop immigration entirely until such a time as we can amend our immigra- tion laws and so write them that hereafter no one shall be admitted except he be in full sympathy with our Constitution and laws, willing to declare himself obedient to our flag, and willing to release himself from any obligations he may owe to the flag of the country from which he came.
It is time that we act now, because within a few short years the damage will have been done. The endless tide of immigration will have filled our country with a foreign and unsympathetic element. Those who are out of sympathy with our Constitution and the spirit of our Government will be here in large numbers, and the true spirit of Americanism left us by our fathers will gradually become poisoned by this uncertain element.
The time once was when we welcomed to our shores the oppressed and downtrod- den people from all the world, but they came to us because of oppression at home and with the sincere purpose of making true and loyal American citizens, and in truth and in fact they did adapt themselves to our ways of thinking and contributed in a substan- tial sense to the progress and development that our civilization has made. But that time has passed now; new and strange conditions have arisen in the countries over there; new and strange doctrines are being taught. The governments of the Orient are being over- turned and destroyed, and anarchy and bolshevism are threatening the very foundation of many of them and no one can foretell what the future will bring to many of those countries of the Old World now struggling with these problems.
Our country is a self- sustaining country. It has taught the principles of real democ- racy to all the nations of the earth; its flag has been the synonym of progress, prosper- ity, and the preservation of the rights of the individual, and there can be nothing so dangerous as for us to allow the undesirable foreign element to poison our civilization and thereby threaten the safety of the institutions that our forefathers have estab- lished for us. . . .
We must hold this country true to the American thought and the American ideals.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 793
From Majority Opinion, Justice James C. McReynolds, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923)
A landmark in the development of civil liberties, the Supreme Court’s decision in Meyer v. Nebraska rebuked the coercive Americanization impulse of World War I, overturning a Nebraska law that required all school instruction to take place in English.
The problem for our determination is whether the statute [prohibiting instruction in a language other than English] as construed and applied unreasonably infringes the lib- erty guaranteed . . . by the Fourteenth Amendment. . . .
The American people have always regarded education and acquisition of knowl- edge as matters of supreme importance which should be diligently promoted. . . . The calling always has been regarded as useful and honorable, essential, indeed, to the pub- lic welfare. Mere knowledge of the German language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful. Heretofore it has been commonly looked upon as helpful and desirable. [Meyer] taught this language in school as part of his occupation. His right to teach and the right of parents to engage him so to instruct their children, we think, are within the liberty of the Amendment.
It is said the purpose of the legislation was to promote civil development by inhib- iting training and education of the immature in foreign tongues and ideals before they could learn English and acquire American ideals. . . . It is also affirmed that the foreign born population is very large, that certain communities commonly use foreign words, follow foreign leaders, move in a foreign atmosphere, and that the children are there- fore hindered from becoming citizens of the most useful type and the public safety is impaired.
That the State may do much, go very far, indeed, in order to improve the qual- ity of its citizens, physically, mentally, and morally, is clear; but the individual has certain fundamental rights which must be respected. The protection of the Consti- tution extends to all, to those who speak other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue. Perhaps it would be highly advantageous if all had ready understanding of our ordinary speech, but this cannot be coerced by methods which conflict with the Constitution. . . . No emer- gency has arisen which rendered knowledge by a child of some lan- guage other than English so clearly harmful as to justify its inhibition with the consequent infringement of rights long freely enjoyed.
QUESTIONS
1. Why does Parrish consider continued immigra- tion dangerous?
2. How does the decision in Meyer v. Nebraska expand the definition of liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment?
3. How do the two excerpts reflect deep divisions over the nature of American society during the 1920s?
794 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
seemed to exemplify Yankee honesty. The scandals subsided, but otherwise Coolidge continued his predecessor’s policies. He twice vetoed the McNary- Haugen bill, the top legislative priority of congressmen from farm states. This bill sought to have the government purchase agricultural products for sale overseas in order to raise farm prices. Coolidge denounced it as an unwar- ranted interference with the free mar- ket. In 1924, Coolidge was reelected in a landslide, defeating John W. Davis, a Wall Street lawyer nominated on the 103rd ballot by a badly divided Demo- cratic convention. (This was when the comedian Will Rogers made the quip, often repeated in future years, “I am a member of no organized political party; I am a Democrat.”)
One- sixth of the electorate in 1924 voted for Robert La Follette, running
as the candidate of a new Progressive Party, which called for greater taxation of wealth, the conservation of natural resources, public ownership of the rail- roads, farm relief, and the end of child labor. Although such ideas had been proposed many times before World War I, Coolidge described the platform as a blueprint for a “communistic and socialistic” America. Despite endorsements from veteran Progressives like Jane Addams and John Dewey and the American Federation of Labor, La Follette could raise no more than $250,000 for his cam- paign. He carried only his native Wisconsin. But his candidacy demonstrated the survival of some currents of dissent in a highly conservative decade.
Economic Diplomacy
Foreign affairs also reflected the close working relationship between business and government. “Any student of modern diplomacy,” declared Huntington Wil- son, a State Department official, “knows that in these days of competition, capital, trade, agriculture, labor and statecraft all go hand in hand if a country is to profit.” The 1920s marked a retreat from Wilson’s goal of internationalism in favor of unilateral American actions mainly designed to increase exports and investment opportunities overseas. Indeed, what is sometimes called the “isolationism” of
Progressive Optimism, a satirical comment on Robert La Follette’s campaign for president in 1924 as the candidate of the Progressive Party, has a disheveled westerner (labeled Wisconsin, La Follette’s state) tied to a stake in the desert while a goat dressed as a cowboy and labeled “Third Party” heads off to bring the party’s mes- sage to the “uneducated East.”
THE BIRTH OF CIVIL LIBERTIES ★ 795
the 1920s represented a reaction against the disappointing results of Wilson’s military and diplomatic pursuit of freedom and democracy abroad. The United States did play host to the Washington Naval Arms Conference of 1922 that negotiated reductions in the navies of Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and the United States. But the country remained outside the League of Nations. Even as Amer- ican diplomats continued to press for access to markets overseas, the Fordney- McCumber Tariff of 1922 raised taxes on imported goods to their highest levels in history, a repudiation of Wilson’s principle of promoting free trade.
Much foreign policy was conducted through private economic relation- ships rather than governmental action. The United States emerged from World War I as both the world’s foremost center of manufacturing and the major financial power, thanks to British and French debts for American loans that had funded their war efforts. During the 1920s, New York bankers, sometimes acting on their own and sometimes with the cooperation of the Harding and Coolidge administrations, solidified their international position by extending loans to European and Latin American governments. They advanced billions of dollars to Germany to enable the country to meet its World War I reparations payments. American industrial firms, especially in auto, agricultural machin- ery, and electrical equipment manufacturing, established plants overseas to supply the world market and take advantage of inexpensive labor. American investors gained control over raw materials such as copper in Chile and oil in Venezuela. In 1928, in the so- called Red Line Agreement, British, French, and American oil companies divided oil- producing regions in the Middle East and Latin America among themselves.
As before World War I, the government dispatched soldiers when a change in government in the Caribbean threatened American economic interests. Having been stationed in Nicaragua since 1912, American marines with- drew in 1925. But the troops soon returned in an effort to suppress a nation- alist revolt headed by General Augusto César Sandino. Having created a National Guard headed by General Anastasio Somoza, the marines finally departed in 1933. A year later, Somoza assassinated Sandino and seized power. For the next forty- five years, he and his family ruled and plundered Nicaragua. Somoza’s son was overthrown in 1979 by a popular movement calling itself the Sandinistas (see Chapter 26).
T H E B I R T H O F C I V I L L I B E R T I E S Among the casualties of World War I and the 1920s was Progressivism’s faith that an active federal government embodied the national purpose and enhanced the enjoyment of freedom. Wartime and postwar repression,
Why did the protection of civil liberties gain importance in the 1920s?
796 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
Prohibition, and the pro- business policies of the 1920s all illustrated, in the eyes of many Progressives, how public power could go grievously wrong.
This lesson opened the door to a new appreciation of civil liberties— rights an individual may assert even against democratic majorities— as essential elements of American freedom. Building on prewar struggles for freedom of expression by labor unions, socialists, and birth- control advocates, some reformers now developed a greater appreciation of the necessity of vibrant, unrestricted political debate. In the name of a “new freedom for the individ- ual,” the 1920s saw the birth of a coherent concept of civil liberties and the beginnings of significant legal protection for freedom of speech against the government.
The “Free Mob”
Wartime repression continued into the 1920s. Under the heading “Sweet Land of Liberty,” The Nation magazine in 1923 detailed recent examples of the deg- radation of American freedom— lynchings in Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida; the beating by Columbia University students of an undergraduate who had written a letter defending freedom of speech and the press; the arrest of a union leader in New Jersey and 400 members of the IWW in California; a refusal to allow a socialist to speak in Pennsylvania. Throughout the 1920s, artistic works with sexual themes were subjected to rigorous censorship. The Postal Service removed from the mails books it deemed obscene. The Customs Service barred works by the sixteenth- century French satirist Rabelais, the modern novel- ist James Joyce, and many others from entering the country. A local crusade against indecency made the phrase “Banned in Boston” a term of ridicule among upholders of artistic freedom. Boston’s Watch and Ward Committee excluded sixty- five books from the city’s bookstores, including works by the novelists Upton Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser, and Ernest Hemingway.
Hollywood producers feared that publicity over actress Mary Pickford’s divorce, actor Wallace Reid’s death from a drug overdose, and a murder trial involving actor Fatty Arbuckle would reinforce the belief that movies pro- moted immorality. In 1930, the film industry adopted the Hays code, a sporad- ically enforced set of guidelines that prohibited movies from depicting nudity, long kisses, and adultery, and barred scripts that portrayed clergymen in a nega- tive light or criminals sympathetically. Filmmakers hoped that self- censorship would prevent censorship by local governments, a not uncommon occurrence since the courts deemed movies a business subject to regulation, not a form of expression. Not until 1951, in a case involving The Miracle, a film many Catho- lics found offensive, would the Supreme Court declare movies an artistic form protected by the First Amendment.
THE BIRTH OF CIVIL LIBERTIES ★ 797
Even as Europeans turned in increasing numbers to American popular culture and consumer goods, some came to view the country as a repressive cultural wasteland. Americans, commented the British novelist D. H. Law- rence, who lived for a time in the United States, prided themselves on being the “land of the free,” but “the free mob” had destroyed the right to dissent. “I have never been in any country,” he wrote, “where the individual has such an abject fear of his fellow countrymen.” Disillusionment with the conservatism of American politics and the materialism of the culture inspired some Amer- ican artists and writers to emigrate to Paris. The Lost Generation of cultural exiles included novelists and poets like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Europe, they felt, valued art and culture, and appreci- ated unrestrained freedom of expression (and, of course, allowed individuals to drink legally).
A “Clear and Present Danger”
During World War I, the Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes later recalled, “there suddenly came to the fore in our nation’s life the new issue of civil lib- erties.” The arrest of antiwar dissenters under the Espionage and Sedition Acts inspired the formation in 1917 of the Civil Liberties Bureau, which in 1920 became the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). For the rest of the cen- tury, the ACLU would take part in most of the landmark cases that helped to bring about a “rights revolution.” Its efforts helped to give meaning to tradi- tional civil liberties like freedom of speech and invented new ones, like the right to privacy. When it began, however, the ACLU was a small, beleaguered organization. A coalition of pacifists, Progressives shocked by wartime repres- sion, and lawyers outraged at what they considered violations of Americans’ legal rights, it saw its own pamphlets defending free speech barred from the mails by postal inspectors.
Prior to World War I, the Supreme Court had done almost nothing to pro- tect the rights of unpopular minorities. Now, it was forced to address the ques- tion of the permissible limits on political and economic dissent. In its initial decisions, it dealt the concept of civil liberties a series of devastating blows. In 1919, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act and the conviction of Charles T. Schenck, a socialist who had distributed antidraft leaf- lets through the mails. Speaking for the Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that the First Amendment did not prevent Congress from prohibiting speech that presented a “clear and present danger” of inspiring illegal actions. Free speech, he observed, “would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”
Why did the protection of civil liberties gain importance in the 1920s?
798 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
For the next half- century, Holmes’s doctrine would remain the basic test in First Amendment cases. Since the Court usually allowed public officials to decide what speech was in fact “dangerous,” it hardly provided a stable basis for the defense of free expression in times of crisis. A week after Schenck v. United States, the Court unanimously upheld the conviction of Eugene V. Debs for a speech condemning the war. It also affirmed the wartime jailing of the editor of a German- language newspaper whose editorials had questioned the draft’s constitutionality.
The Court and Civil Liberties
Also in 1919, the Court upheld the conviction of Jacob Abrams and five other men for distributing pamphlets critical of American intervention in Russia after the Russian revolution. This time, however, Holmes and Louis Brandeis dissented, marking the emergence of a court minority committed to a broader defense of free speech. Six years after Abrams, the two again dissented when the major- ity upheld the conviction of Benjamin Gitlow, a communist whose Left- wing Manifesto calling for revolution led to his conviction under a New York law pro- hibiting “criminal anarchy.” “The only meaning of free speech,” Holmes now declared, was that advocates of every set of beliefs, even “proletarian dictator- ship,” should have the right to convert the public to their views in the great “marketplace of ideas” (an apt metaphor for a consumer society). In approving Gitlow’s conviction, the Court majority observed that the Fourteenth Amend- ment obligated the states to refrain from unreasonable restraints on freedom of speech and the press. The comment marked a major step in the long process by which the Bill of Rights was transformed from an ineffective statement of prin- ciple into a significant protection of Americans’ freedoms.
The tide of civil- liberties decision making slowly began to turn. By the end of the 1920s, the Supreme Court had voided a Kansas law that made it a crime to advocate unlawful acts to change the political or economic system, and one from Minnesota authorizing censorship of the press. The new regard for free speech went beyond political expression. In 1930, the Court threw out the con- viction of Mary Ware Dennett for sending a sex- education pamphlet, The Sex Side of Life, through the mails. Three years later, a federal court overturned the Customs Service’s ban on James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, a turning point in the battle against the censorship of works of literature.
Meanwhile, Brandeis was crafting an intellectual defense of civil liberties on grounds somewhat different from Holmes’s model of a competitive mar- ket in ideas. In 1927, the Court upheld the conviction of the prominent Cal- ifornia socialist and women’s rights activist Anita Whitney for attending a convention of the Communist Labor Party where speakers advocated violent
THE CULTURE WARS ★ 799
revolution. Brandeis voted with the majority on technical grounds. But he issued a powerful defense of freedom of speech as essential to active citizen- ship in a democracy: “Those who won our independence believed . . . that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth. . . . The greatest menace to free- dom is an inert people.” A month after the decision, the governor of California pardoned Whitney, terming freedom of speech the “indispensable birthright of every free American.” The intrepid Mrs. Whitney was soon back in court for violating a California law making it a crime to display a red flag. In 1931, the Supreme Court overturned the law as “repugnant to the guaranty of liberty contained in the Fourteenth Amend- ment.” A judicial defense of civil liber- ties was slowly being born.
T H E C U L T U R E W A R S
The Fundamentalist Revolt
Although many Americans embraced modern urban culture with its religious and ethnic pluralism, mass entertainment, and liberated sexual rules, others found it alarming. Many evangelical Protestants felt threatened by the decline of traditional values and the increased visibility of Catholicism and Judaism because of immigration. They also resented the growing presence within main- stream Protestant denominations of “modernists” who sought to integrate sci- ence and religion and adapt Christianity to the new secular culture. “The day is past,” declared Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of New York’s First Presbyte- rian Church and a prominent modernist, “when you can ask thoughtful men to hold religion in one compartment of their minds and their modern world view in another.”
Convinced that the literal truth of the Bible formed the basis of Christian belief, fundamentalists launched a campaign to rid Protestant denominations
What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s?
The defendants in U.S. v. Abrams, on the day of their deportation to Russia in 1921. Jacob Abrams is on the right. They were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1918 for impeding the war effort by distributing pamphlets critical of the American intervention in Russia after the Russian revolution.
800 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
of modernism and to combat the new individual freedoms that seemed to con- tradict traditional morality. Their most flamboyant apostle was Billy Sunday, a talented professional baseball player who became a revivalist preacher. Between 1900 and 1930, Sunday drew huge crowds with a highly theatrical preaching style and a message denouncing sins ranging from Darwinism to alcohol. He was said to have preached to 100 million people during his lifetime— more than any other individual in history.
Much of the press portrayed fundamentalism as a movement of back- woods bigots. In fact, it was a national phenomenon. Even in New York City, the center of the new modern culture, Fosdick was removed from his minis- try in 1924 (whereupon John D. Rockefeller Jr. built the interdenominational Riverside Church for him). Fundamentalism remained an important strain of 1920s culture and politics.
Prohibition, which fundamentalists strongly supported, succeeded in reducing the consumption of alcohol as well as public drunkenness and drink- related diseases. Often portrayed (especially in Hollywood movies) as a glam- orous episode of gangland battles and drinkers easily outwitting the police, Prohibition in fact was effectively enforced, albeit selectively. While wealthy Americans continued to enjoy access to liquor, many poor, black, and immi- grant communities suffered large- scale arrests and jailings, often accompanied by police violence. Later deemed an unmitigated failure, enforcement of Prohi- bition in fact led to the building of new federal prisons and laid the foundation for powerful national action against crime and immorality, a precursor to the more recent federal war on drugs.
A 1923 lithograph by George Bellows captures the dynamic style of the most prominent evangelical preacher of the 1920s, Billy Sunday.
THE CULTURE WARS ★ 801
Prohibition, however, remained a deeply divisive issue. The greatest expan- sion of national authority since Reconstruction, it raised major questions of local rights, individual freedom, and the wisdom of attempting to impose reli- gious and moral values on the entire society through legislation. It divided the Democratic Party into “wet” and “dry” wings, leading to bitter battles at the par- ty’s 1924 and 1928 national conventions. Too many Americans deemed Prohi- bition a violation of individual freedom for the flow of illegal liquor to stop. In urban areas, Prohibition led to large profits for the owners of illegal speakeasies and the “bootleggers” who supplied them. It produced widespread corruption as police and public officials accepted bribes to turn a blind eye to violations of the law. These developments reinforced fundamentalists’ identification of urban life and modern notions of freedom with immorality and a decline of Christian liberty.
The Scopes Trial
In 1925, a trial in Tennessee threw into sharp relief the division between tra- ditional values and modern, secular culture. John Scopes, a teacher in a Ten- nessee public school, was arrested for violating a state law that prohibited the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. His trial became a national sensation. The proceedings were even carried live on national radio.
The Scopes trial reflected the enduring tension between two American definitions of freedom. Fundamentalist Christians, strongest in rural areas of the South and West, clung to the traditional idea of “moral” liberty— voluntary adherence to time- honored religious beliefs. The theory that man had evolved over millions of years from ancestors like apes contradicted the biblical account of creation. Those who upheld the Tennessee law identified evolutionists with feminists, socialists, and religious modernists, all of whom, they claimed, sub- stituted human judgment for the word of God. To Scopes’s defenders, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which had persuaded him to violate the law in order to test its constitutionality, freedom meant above all the right to independent thought and individual self- expression. To them, the Tennessee law offered a lesson in the dangers of religious intolerance and the merger of church and state.
The renowned labor lawyer Clarence Darrow defended Scopes. The trial’s highlight came when Darrow called William Jennings Bryan to the stand as an “expert witness” on the Bible. Viewing the trial as a “duel to the death” between science and Christianity, he accepted Darrow’s challenge. But Bryan revealed an almost complete ignorance of modern science and proved unable to respond effectively to Darrow’s sarcastic questioning. Does the serpent really crawl on its belly as punishment for having tempted Eve in the Garden of Evil? When Bryan
What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s?
802 ★ CHAPTER 20 From Business Culture to Great Depression
answered “yes,” Darrow inquired how it got around before being cursed— on its tail? Asked whether God had actu- ally created the world in six days, Bryan replied that these should be understood as ages, “not six days of twenty- four hours”—thus opening the door to the very nonliteral interpretation of the Bible fundamentalists rejected.
The jury found Scopes guilty, although the Tennessee Supreme Court later overturned the decision on a technicality. Shortly after the trial ended, Bryan died and the movement for anti- evolution laws disintegrated. Fundamentalists retreated for many
years from battles over public education, preferring to build their own schools and colleges where teaching could be done as they saw fit and preachers were trained to spread their interpretation of Christianity. The battle would be rejoined, however, toward the end of the twentieth century, when fundamen- talism reemerged as an important force in politics. To this day, the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools arouses intense debate in parts of the United States.
The Second Klan
Few features of urban life seemed more alien to rural and small- town native- born Protestants than their immigrant populations and cultures. The war- time obsession with “100 percent Americanism” continued into the 1920s, a decade of citizenship education programs in public schools, legally sanctioned visits to immigrants’ homes to investigate their household arrangements, and vigorous efforts by employers to instill appreciation for “American values.” Only “an agile and determined immigrant,” commented the Chicago Tribune, could “hope to escape Americanization by at least one of the many processes now being prepared for his special benefit.” In 1922, Oregon became the only state ever to require all students to attend public schools— a measure aimed, said the state’s attorney general, at abolishing parochial education and pre- venting “bolshevists, syndicalists and communists” from organizing their own schools.
Perhaps the most menacing expression of the idea that enjoyment of American freedom should be limited on religious and ethnic grounds was the
A Ku Klux Klan gathering in Seattle, Washington, in 1923. The unrobed members of the audience are covering their faces to avoid identification. Unlike the Klan of the Reconstruction era, the second Ku Klux Klan was more powerful in the North and West than in the South.
THE CULTURE WARS ★ 803
resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had been reborn in Atlanta in 1915 after the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager accused of killing a teenage girl. By the mid- 1920s, it claimed more than 3 million members, nearly all white, native- born Protestants, many of whom held respected positions in their communities. Unlike the Klan of Reconstruction, the organization now sank deep roots in parts of the North and West. It became the largest private organization in Indiana, and for a time controlled the state Republican Party. It was partly responsible for the Oregon law banning private schools. In southern California, its large marches and auto parades made the Klan a visible presence. The new Klan attacked a far broader array of targets than during Reconstruc- tion. American civilization, it insisted, was endangered not only by blacks but by immigrants (especially Jews and Catholics) and all the forces (feminism, unions, immorality, even, on occasion, the giant corporations) that endangered “individual liberty.”
Closing the Golden Door
The Klan’s influence faded after 1925, when its leader in Indiana was convicted of assaulting a young woman. But the Klan’s attacks on modern secular culture and political radicalism and its demand that control of the nation be returned to “citizens of the old stock” reflected sentiments widely shared in the 1920s. The decade witnessed a flurry of legislation that offered a new answer to the venerable question “Who is an American?” In 1924, Congress declared all Native Americans born in the United States to be American citizens, although many western states continued to deny the vote to those living on reservations.
Far more sweeping was a fundamental change in immigration policy. Immigration restriction had a long history. The Naturalization Act of 1790 had barred blacks and Asians from naturalization, with the ban lifted for the former in 1870. Beginning in 1875, various classes of immigrants had been excluded, among them prostitutes, the mentally retarded, and those with contagious dis- eases. Nonetheless, prior to World War I virtually all the white persons who wished to pass through the “golden door” into the United States and become citizens were able to do so. During the 1920s, however, the pressure for whole- sale immigration restriction became irresistible. One index of the changing political climate was that large employers dropped their traditional opposition. Fears of immigrant radicalism now outweighed the desire for cheap unskilled labor, especially since mechanization had halted the growth of the industrial labor force and the Great Migration of World War I had accustomed industrial- ists to employing African- Americans.
In 1921, a temporary measure restricted immigration from Europe to 357,000 per year ( one- third of the annual average before the war). Three years
What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s?
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later, Congress permanently limited European immigration to 150,000 per year, distributed according to a series of national quotas that severely restricted the numbers from southern and eastern Europe. The Johnson- Reed, or Immi- gration, Act aimed to ensure that descendants of the old immigrants forever outnumbered the children of the new. However, to satisfy the demands of large farmers in California who relied heavily on seasonal Mexican labor, the 1924 law established no limits on immigration from the Western Hemisphere.
The 1924 law also barred the entry of all those ineligible for naturalized citizenship— that is, the entire population of Asia, even though Japan had fought on the American side in World War I. The only Asians still able to enter the United States were residents of the Philippines, who were deemed to be “American nationals” (although not citizens) because the islands had been U.S. territory since the Spanish- American War. Largely to bar further Phil- ippine immigration, Congress in 1934 established a timetable for the islands’
Table 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas under the 1924 Immigration Act
Country Quota Immigrants in 1914
Northern and Western Europe: Great Britain and Northern Ireland
65,721
48,729 (Great Britain only)
Germany 25,957 35,734
Ireland 17,853 24,688 (includes Northern Ireland)
Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland)
7,241 29,391
Southern and Eastern Europe: Poland
6,524
(Not an independent state; included in Germany, Russia, and Austria- Hungary)
Italy 5,802 283,738
Russia 2,784 255,660
Other: Africa (total of various colonies and countries)
1,000 1,539
Western Hemisphere No quota limit 122,695
Asia (China, India, Japan, Korea)
0 11,652
THE CULTURE WARS ★ 805
independence, which was finally achieved in 1946. The 1934 law established an immigration quota of fifty Filipinos a year to the mainland United States, but allowed their continued entry into the Hawaiian Islands to work as plantation laborers.
The law of 1924 established, in effect, for the first time a new category— the illegal alien. With it came a new enforcement mechanism, the Border Patrol, charged with policing the land boundaries of the United States and empowered to arrest and deport persons who entered the country in violation of the new nationality quotas or other restrictions. Later associated almost exclusively with Latinos, “illegal aliens” at first referred mainly to southern and eastern Europeans who tried to sneak across the border from Mexico or Canada.
Race and the Law
The new immigration law reflected the heightened emphasis on “race” as a determinant of public policy. By the early 1920s, political leaders of both North and South agreed upon the relegation of blacks to second- class citi- zenship. In a speech in Alabama in 1921, President Harding unconsciously echoed W. E. B. Du Bois by affirming that the “problem” of race was a global one, not confined to the South. Unlike Du Bois, he believed the South showed the way to the problem’s solution. “It would be helpful,” he added, “to have that word ‘equality’ eliminated from this consideration.” Clearly, the Republican Party of the Civil War era was dead.
But “race policy” meant far more than black- white relations. “America must be kept American,” declared President Coolidge in his annual message to Congress in 1923. His secretary of labor, James J. Davis, commented that immi- gration policy, once based on the need for labor and the notion of the United States as an asylum of liberty, must now rest on a biological definition of the ideal population. Although enacted by a highly conservative Congress strongly influenced by nativism, the 1924 immigration law also reflected the Progres- sive desire to improve the “quality” of democratic citizenship and to employ scientific methods to set public policy. It revealed how these aims were over- laid with pseudo- scientific assumptions about the superiority and inferiority of particular “races.”
The seemingly “scientific” calculation of the new quotas— based on the “national origins” of the American population dating back to 1790—involved a highly speculative analysis of past census returns, with the results altered to increase allowable immigration by politically influential groups like Irish- Americans. Non- whites ( one- fifth of the population in 1790) were excluded altogether when calculating quotas— otherwise, Africa would have received a far higher quota than the tiny number allotted to it. But then, the entire con- cept of race as a basis for public policy lacked any rational foundation. The
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Supreme Court admitted as much in 1923 when it rejected the claim of Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian- born World War I veteran, who asserted that as a “pure Aryan,” he was actually white and could therefore become an American cit- izen. “White,” the Court declared, was not a scientific concept at all, but part of “common speech, to be interpreted with the understanding of the common man” (a forthright statement of what later scholars would call the “social con- struction” of race).
Pluralism and Liberty
During the 1920s, some Americans challenged the idea that southern and eastern Europeans were unfit to become citizens, or could only do so by aban- doning their traditions in favor of Anglo- Saxon ways. Horace Kallen, himself of German- Jewish origin, in 1924 coined the phrase “cultural pluralism” to describe a society that gloried in ethnic diversity rather than attempting to suppress it. Toleration of difference was part of the “American Idea,” Kallen wrote. Anthropologists like Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, and Ruth Benedict insisted that no scientific basis existed for theories of racial superiority or for the notion that societies and races could be ranked on a fixed scale running from “primitive” to “civilized.”
These writings, however, had little immediate impact on public policy. In the 1920s, the most potent defense of a pluralist vision of American society came from the new immigrants themselves. Every major city still contained ethnic enclaves with their own civic institutions, theaters, churches, and foreign- language newspapers. Their sense of separate identity had been height- ened by the emergence of independent nation- states in eastern Europe after the war. It would be wrong, to be sure, to view ethnic communities as united in opposition to Americanization. In a society increasingly knit together by mass culture and a consumer economy, few could escape the pull of assimilation. The department store, dance hall, and motion picture theater were as much agents of Americanization as the school and workplace. From the perspec- tive of many immigrant women, moreover, assimilation often seemed not so much the loss of an inherited culture as a loosening of patriarchal bonds and an expansion of freedom. But most immigrants resented the coercive aspects of Americanization programs, so often based on the idea of the superiority of Protestant mainstream culture.
Promoting Tolerance
In the face of immigration restriction, Prohibition, a revived Ku Klux Klan, and widespread anti- Semitism and anti- Catholicism, immigrant groups asserted the validity of cultural diversity and identified toleration of
THE CULTURE WARS ★ 807
difference— religious, cultural, and individual— as the essence of American freedom. In effect, they reinvented themselves as “ethnic” Americans, claiming an equal share in the nation’s life but, in addition, the right to remain in many respects culturally distinct. The Roman Catholic Church urged immigrants to learn English and embrace “American principles,” but it continued to maintain separate schools and other institutions. In 1924, the Catholic Holy Name Soci- ety brought 10,000 marchers to Washington to challenge the Klan and to affirm Catholics’ loyalty to the nation. Throughout the country, organizations like the Anti- Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (founded in 1916 to combat anti- Semitism) and the National Catholic Welfare Council lobbied, in the name of “personal liberty,” for laws prohibiting discrimination against immigrants by employers, colleges, and government agencies. The Americanization move- ment, declared a Polish newspaper in Chicago, had “not the smallest particle of the true American spirit, the spirit of freedom, the brightest virtue of which is the broadest possible tolerance.”
The efforts of immigrant communities to resist coerced Americanization and of the Catholic Church to defend its school system broadened the defini- tion of liberty for all Americans. In landmark decisions, the Supreme Court struck down Oregon’s law, mentioned earlier, requiring all students to attend public schools and Nebraska’s prohibiting teaching in a language other than English— one of the anti- German measures of World War I. “The protection of the Constitution,” the decision in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) declared, “extends to all, to those who speak other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue,” a startling rebuke to enforced Americanization. The decision expanded the freedom of all immigrant groups. In its aftermath, federal courts overturned various Hawaii laws imposing special taxes and regulations on private Japanese- language schools. In these cases, the Court also interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal liberty to include the right to “marry, establish a home and bring up children” and to practice religion as one chose, “without interference from the state.” The decisions gave pluralism a constitutional foundation and paved the way for the Court’s elaboration, two generations later, of a constitutional right to privacy.
The Emergence of Harlem
The 1920s also witnessed an upsurge of self- consciousness among black Amer- icans, especially in the North’s urban ghettos. With European immigration all but halted, the Great Migration of World War I continued apace. Nearly 1 million blacks left the South during the 1920s, and the black population of New York, Chicago, and other urban centers more than doubled. New York’s Harlem gained an international reputation as the “capital” of black America,
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a mecca for migrants from the South and immigrants from the West Indies, 150,000 of whom entered the United States between 1900 and 1930. Unlike the southern newcomers, most of whom had been agricultural workers, the West Indians included a large number of well- educated professional and white- collar workers. Their encounter with American racism appalled them. “I had heard of prejudice in America,” wrote the poet and novelist Claude McKay, who emi- grated from Jamaica in 1912, “but never dreamed of it being so intensely bitter.”
The 1920s became famous for “slumming,” as groups of whites visited Har- lem’s dance halls, jazz clubs, and speakeasies in search of exotic adventure. The Harlem of the white imagination was a place of primitive passions, free from the puritanical restraints of mainstream American culture. The real Harlem was a community of widespread poverty, its residents confined to low- wage jobs and, because housing discrimination barred them from other neighbor- hoods, forced to pay exorbitant rents. Most Harlem businesses were owned by whites; even the famed Cotton Club excluded black customers and employed only light- skinned dancers in its renowned chorus line. Few blacks, North or South, shared in the prosperity of the 1920s.
A black family arriving in Chicago in 1922, as part of the Great Migration from the rural South.
THE CULTURE WARS ★ 809
The Harlem Renaissance
But Harlem also contained a vibrant black cultural community that estab- lished links with New York’s artistic mainstream. Poets and novelists like Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay were befriended and sponsored by white intellectuals and published by white presses. Broadway for the first time presented black actors in serious dramatic roles, as well as shows like Dixie to Broadway and Blackbirds that featured great entertainers including the singers Florence Mills and Ethel Waters and the tap dancer Bill Robinson. At the same time, the theater flourished in Harlem, freeing black writers and actors from the constraints imposed by white producers.
The term “New Negro,” associated in politics with pan- Africanism and the militancy of the Garvey movement, in art meant the rejection of established stereotypes and a search for black values to put in their place. This quest led the writers of what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance to the roots of the black experience— Africa, the rural South’s folk traditions, and the life of the urban ghetto. Claude McKay made the major character of his novel Home to Harlem (1928) a free spirit who wandered from one scene of exotic life to another in search of a beautiful girl he had known. W. E. B. Du Bois feared that a novel like McKay’s, with its graphic sex and violence, actually reinforced white prejudices about black life. Harlem Renaissance writings, however, also contained a strong element of protest. This mood was exemplified by McKay’s poem “If We Must Die,” a response to the race riots of 1919. The poem affirmed that blacks would no longer allow themselves to be murdered defenselessly by whites:
If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. . . . Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Winston Churchill would invoke McKay’s words to inspire the British public during World War II.
The celebrated case of Ossian Sweet, a black physician who moved into a previously all- white Detroit neighborhood in 1925, reflected the new spirit of assertiveness among many African- Americans. When a white mob attacked his home, someone (probably Sweet’s brother) fired into the crowd, killing a man. Indicted for murder along with his two brothers, Sweet was defended by Clarence Darrow, fresh from his participation in the Scopes trial. The jury proved unable to agree on a verdict. A second prosecution, of Sweet’s brother, ended in acquittal.
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T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N
The Election of 1928
Few men elected as president have seemed destined for a more successful term in office than Herbert Hoover. Born in Iowa in 1874, the son of a black- smith and his schoolteacher wife, Hoover accumulated a fortune as a mining engineer working for firms in Asia, Africa, and Europe. During and immedi- ately after World War I, he gained international fame by coordinating over- seas food relief. The British economist John Maynard Keynes, a severe critic of the 1919 Versailles Treaty, called Hoover “the only man” to emerge from the peace conference “with an enhanced reputation.” He “had never known fail- ure,” wrote the novelist Sherwood Anderson. Hoover seemed to exemplify what was widely called the “new era” of American capitalism. In 1922, while serving as secretary of commerce, he published American Individualism, which condemned government regulation as an interference with the economic opportunities of ordinary Americans, but also insisted that self- interest should be subordinated to public service. Hoover considered himself a Progressive, although he preferred what he called “associational action,” in which private agencies directed regulatory and welfare policies, to government intervention in the economy.
After “silent Cal” Coolidge in 1927 handed a piece of paper to a group of reporters that stated, “I do not choose to run for president in 1928,” Hoover quickly emerged as his successor. Accepting the Republican nomina- tion, Hoover celebrated the decade’s prosperity and promised that poverty would “soon be banished from this earth.” His Democratic opponent was Alfred E. Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated by a major party. Born into poverty on New York’s Lower East Side, Smith had become a fixture in Tam- many Hall politics. Although he had no family connection with the new immi- grants from southern and eastern Europe (his grandparents had emigrated from Ireland), Smith became their symbolic spokesman. The Triangle fire of 1911 made him an advocate of Progressive social legislation. He served three terms as governor of New York, securing passage of laws limiting the hours of working women and children and establishing widows’ pensions. Smith denounced the Red Scare and called for the repeal of Prohibition. His bid for the Democratic nomination in 1924 had been blocked by delegates beholden to nativists and Klansmen, but he secured the nod four years later.
Given the prevailing prosperity and his own sterling reputation, Hoover’s victory was inevitable. Other than on Prohibition, moreover, the Demo- cratic platform did not differ much from the Republican one, leaving little to discuss except the candidates’ personalities and religions. Smith’s Cathol- icism became the focus of the race. Many Protestant ministers and religious
THE GREAT DEPRESSION ★ 811
publications denounced him for his faith. For the first time since Reconstruc- tion, Republicans carried several southern states, reflecting the strength of anti- Catholicism and nativism among religious fundamentalists. “Hoover,” wrote one previously Democratic southern newspaper editor, “is sprung from Amer- ican soil and stock,” while Smith represented “the aliens.” On the other hand, Smith carried the nation’s twelve largest cities and won significant support in economically struggling farm areas. With more than 58 percent of the vote, Hoover was elected by a landslide. But Smith’s campaign helped to lay the foun- dation for the triumphant Democratic coalition of the 1930s, based on urban ethnic voters, farmers, and the South.
The Coming of the Depression
On October 21, 1929, President Hoover traveled to Michigan to take part in the Golden Anniversary of the Festival of Light, organized by Henry Ford to com- memorate the invention of the lightbulb by Thomas Edison fifty years earlier. Hoover’s speech was a tribute to progress, and especially to the businessmen and scientists from whose efforts “we gain constantly in better standards of liv- ing, more stability of employment . . . and decreased suffering.” Eight days later, on Black Tuesday, the stock market crashed. As panic selling set in, more than $10 billion in market value (equivalent to more than ten times that amount in today’s money) vanished in five hours. Soon, the United States and, indeed, the entire world found themselves in the grip of the Great Depression, the greatest economic disaster in modern history.
The stock market crash did not, by itself, cause the Depression. Even before 1929, signs of economic trouble had become evident. Southern Califor- nia and Florida experienced frenzied real- estate speculation and then spectac- ular busts, with banks failing, land remaining undeveloped, and mortgages foreclosed. The highly unequal distribution of income and the prolonged depression in farm regions reduced American purchasing power. Sales of new autos and household consumer goods stagnated after 1926. European demand for American goods also declined, partly because industry there had recovered from wartime destruction.
A fall in the bloated stock market, driven ever higher during the 1920s by speculators, was inevitable. But it came with such severity that it destroyed many of the investment companies that had been created to buy and sell stock, wiping out thousands of investors, and it greatly reduced business and con- sumer confidence. Around 26,000 businesses failed in 1930. Those that sur- vived cut back on further investment and began laying off workers. The global financial system, which was based on the gold standard, was ill equipped to deal with the downturn. Germany defaulted on reparations payments to France and
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Britain, leading these governments to stop repaying debts to American banks. Throughout the industrial world, banks failed as depositors withdrew money, fearful that they could no longer count on the promise to redeem paper money in gold. Millions of families lost their life savings.
Although stocks recovered somewhat in 1930, they soon resumed their relentless downward slide. Between 1929 and 1932, the price of a share of U.S. Steel fell from $262 to $22, and General Motors from $73 to $8. Four- fifths of the Rockefeller family fortune disappeared. William C. Durant, one of the founders of General Motors, lost all his money and ended up running a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan. In 1932, the economy hit rock bottom. Since 1929, the gross national product (the value of all the goods and services in the country) had fallen by one- third, prices by nearly 40 percent, and more than 11 million Americans— 25 percent of the labor force— could not find work. U.S. Steel, which had employed 225,000 full- time workers in 1929, had none at the end of 1932, when it was operating at only 12 percent of capacity. Those who retained their jobs confronted reduced hours and dramatically reduced wages. Every industrial economy suffered, but the United States, which had led the way in prosperity in the 1920s, was hit hardest of all.
Americans and the Depression
The Depression transformed American life. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the road in search of work. Hungry men and women lined the streets of major cities. In Detroit, 4,000 children stood in bread lines each day seeking food. Thousands of families, evicted from their homes, moved into ramshackle shantytowns, dubbed Hoovervilles, that sprang up in parks and on abandoned land. Cities quickly spent the little money they had available for poor relief. In Chicago, where half the working population was unemployed at the beginning of 1932, Mayor Anton Cermak telephoned people individually, begging them to pay their taxes. “We saw want and despair walking the streets,” wrote a Chi- cago social worker, “and our friends, sensible, thrifty families, reduced to pov- erty.” When the Soviet Union advertised its need for skilled workers, it received more than 100,000 applications from the United States.
The Depression actually reversed the long- standing movement of popula- tion from farms to cities. Many Americans left cities to try to grow food for their families. In 1935, 33 million people lived on farms— more than at any previous point in American history. But rural areas, already poor, saw families reduce the number of meals per day and children go barefoot. With the future shrouded in uncertainty, the American suicide rate rose to the highest level in the nation’s history, and the birthrate fell to the lowest.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION ★ 813
“The American way of life,” the con- fident slogan of the consumer culture, and common sayings like “safe as a bank” took on a hollow ring. The image of big business, carefully cultivated during the 1920s, collapsed as congres- sional investigations revealed massive irregularities committed by bankers and stockbrokers. Banks had know- ingly sold worthless bonds. Prominent Wall Streeters had unloaded their own portfolios while advising small inves- tors to maintain their holdings. Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, was convicted of steal- ing from customers, including from a fund to aid widows and orphans. He ended up in jail.
Resignation and Protest
Many Americans reacted to the Depres- sion with resignation or blamed themselves for economic misfortune. Others responded with protests that were at first spontaneous and uncoordinated, since unions, socialist organizations, and other groups that might have pro- vided disciplined leadership had been decimated during the 1920s. In the spring of 1932, 20,000 unemployed World War I veterans descended on Wash- ington to demand early payment of a bonus due in 1945, only to be driven away by federal soldiers led by the army’s chief of staff, Douglas MacArthur. Throughout the country, the unemployed demonstrated for jobs and public relief. That summer, led by the charismatic Milo Reno, a former Iowa Populist, the National Farmers’ Holiday Association protested low prices by temporarily blocking roads in the Midwest to prevent farm goods from getting to market.
Only the minuscule Communist Party seemed able to give a political focus to the anger and despair. “The most fully employed persons I met during the Depression,” one labor leader later recalled, “were the Communists.” They “brought misery out of hiding,” forming unemployed councils, sponsoring marches and demonstrations for public assistance, and protesting the eviction of unemployed families from their homes. The press discussed the idea that the United States was on the verge of a revolution. The insurance firm Lloyd’s of London reported an upsurge in American requests for riot insurance. The
What were the causes of the Great Depression, and how effective were the government’s responses by 1932?
The celebrated photographer Dorothea Lange took this photograph of an unemployed man on a San Francisco breadline in 1933.
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Hoover administration in 1931 opposed efforts to save money by reducing the size of the army, warning that this would “lessen our means of maintain- ing domestic peace and order.”
Hoover’s Response
In the eyes of many Americans, President Hoover’s response to the Depression seemed inadequate and uncaring. Lead- ing advisers, including Andrew Mellon, the wealthy secretary of the treasury, told Hoover that economic downturns were a normal part of capitalism, which weeded out unproductive firms and encouraged moral virtue among the less fortunate. Businessmen strongly opposed fed- eral aid to the unemployed, and many publications called for individual “ belt- tightening” as the road to recovery. Some initially saw a silver lining in the Depres-
sion. Wages had fallen so sharply, reported Fortune magazine, that “you can have your garden taken care of in Los Angeles for $1 a week” or hire an “affable Negro to fry your chicken and do your washing for $8 a month in Virginia.”
The federal government had never faced an economic crisis as severe as the Great Depression. Few political leaders understood how important consumer spending had become in the American economy. Most held to the conventional view that government intervention to aid those who had lost their jobs would do little to spur economic recovery and would encourage Americans to rely on gov- ernment charity to address misfortune. In 1931, Hoover quoted former president Grover Cleveland from four decades earlier: “The Government should not support the people. . . . Federal aid . . . weakens the sturdiness of our national character.”
Strongly opposed on principle to direct federal intervention in the econ- omy, Hoover remained committed to “associational action.” He put his faith in voluntary steps by business to maintain investment and employment— something few found it possible to do— and efforts by local charity organiza- tions to assist needy neighbors. He called numerous conferences of business and labor leaders and established commissions to encourage firms to cooper- ate in maintaining prices and wages without governmental dictation. Hoover attempted to restore public confidence, making frequent public statements that “the tide had turned.” But these made him increasingly seem out of touch
Communist Party headquarters in New York City, 1932. The banners illustrate the variety of activi- ties the party organized in the early 1930s.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION ★ 815
with reality. About the unemployed men who appeared on city streets offering apples at five cents apiece, Hoover would later write, “Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples.”
The Worsening Economic Outlook
Some administration remedies, like the Smoot- Hawley Tariff, which Hoover signed with some reluctance in 1930, made the economic situation worse. Raising the already high taxes on imported goods, it inspired similar increases abroad, further reducing international trade. A tax increase Hoover pushed through Congress in 1932 in an attempt to balance the federal budget further reduced Americans’ purchasing power. Other initiatives inspired ridicule. When he approved funds to provide food for livestock, one observer remarked that the president would feed “jackasses but . . . not starving babies.”
By 1932, Hoover had to admit that voluntary action had failed to stem the Depression. He signed laws creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which loaned money to failing banks, railroads, and other businesses, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System, which offered aid to homeowners threatened with foreclosure. Having vetoed previous bills to create employment through public- works projects like road and bridge construction, he now approved a measure appropriating nearly $2 billion for such initiatives and helping to fund local relief efforts. These were dramatic departures from previous federal economic policy. But further than this, Hoover would not go. He adamantly opposed offering direct relief to the unemployed— it would do them a “disser- vice,” he told Congress.
Freedom in the Modern World
In 1927, the New School for Social Research in New York City organized a series of lectures on the theme of Freedom in the Modern World. Founded eight years earlier as a place where “free thought and intellectual integrity” could flourish in the wake of wartime repression, the school’s distinguished faculty included the philosopher John Dewey and historian Charles Beard (who had resigned from Columbia University in 1917 to protest the dismissal of antiwar professors). The lectures painted a depressing portrait of American freedom on the eve of the Great Depression. “The idea of freedom,” declared economist Walton H. Hamilton, had become “an intellectual instrument for looking back- ward. . . . Liberty of contract has been made the be- all and end- all of personal freedom; . . . the domain of business has been defended against control from without in the name of freedom.” The free exchange of ideas, moreover, had not recovered from the crisis of World War I. The “sacred dogmas of patriotism and Big Business,” said the educator Horace Kallen, dominated teaching, the press,
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and public debate. A definition of freedom reigned supreme that celebrated the unimpeded reign of economic enterprise yet tolerated the surveillance of pri- vate life and individual conscience.
The prosperity of the 1920s had reinforced this definition of freedom. With the economic crash, compounded by the ineffectiveness of the Hoover adminis- tration’s response, it would be discredited. By 1932, the seeds had already been planted for a new conception of freedom that combined two different elements in a sometimes uneasy synthesis. One was the Progressive belief in a socially conscious state making what Dewey called “positive and constructive changes” in economic arrangements. The other, which arose in the 1920s, centered on respect for civil liberties and cultural pluralism and declared that realms of life like group identity, personal behavior, and the free expression of ideas lay outside legitimate state concern. These two principles would become the hallmarks of modern liberalism, which during the 1930s would redefine American freedom.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did consumerism and the idea of the “American way of life” affect people’s under- standing of American values, including the meaning of freedom, in the 1920s?
2. Which groups did not share in the prosperity of the 1920s and why?
3. How did business practices and policies lead to a decline in union membership in the 1920s?
4. President Calvin Coolidge said that “the chief business of the American people is business.” How did the federal government’s policies and practices in the 1920s reflect this under- standing of the importance of business interests?
5. Who supported restricting immigration in the 1920s and why? Why were they more suc- cessful in gaining federal legislation to limit immigration in these years?
6. Did U.S. society in the 1920s reflect the concept of cultural pluralism as explained by Horace Kallen? Why or why not?
7. Identify the causes of the Great Depression.
8. What principles guided President Hoover’s response to the Great Depression, and how did this restrict his ability to help the American people?
9. What issues were of particular concern to religious fundamentalists in these years and why?
10. In what ways did the ideas about (and the reality of) proper roles for women change in these years?
Sacco- Vanzetti case (p. 780)
Equal Rights Amendment (p. 787)
flappers (p. 788)
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (p. 791)
Teapot Dome (p. 791)
McNary- Haugen bill (p. 794)
American Civil Liberties Union (p. 797)
Schenck v. United States (p. 798)
fundamentalism (p. 800)
Scopes trial (p. 801)
illegal alien (p. 805)
New Negro (p. 809)
Harlem Renaissance (p. 809)
Great Depression (p. 811)
stock market crash (p. 811)
Smoot- Hawley Tariff (p. 815)
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (p. 815)
KEY TERMS
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CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 817
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred
Days?
• Who were the main proponents of economic justice in the 1930s, and what measures did they advocate?
• What were the major initiatives of the Second New Deal, and how did they differ from the First New Deal?
• How did the New Deal recast the meaning of American freedom?
• How did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities?
• How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s?
T H E N E W D E A L
★ C H A P T E R 2 1 ★
1 9 3 2 – 1 9 4 0
Early in 1941, the unemployed Woody Guthrie, soon to become one of the country’s most popular songwriters and folk singers, brought his family to Portland, Oregon. He hoped to star in a film about the great public-works projects under way on the Columbia River. Given a temporary job by the Bonneville Power Authority, the public agency that controlled the Columbia dams, Guthrie produced a song every day for the next month. One, “Roll on, Columbia,” became a popular statement of the benefits that resulted when government took the lead in improving the lot of ordinary citizens:
818 ★
And on up the river is Grand Coulee Dam, The mightiest thing ever built by a man, To run the great factories and water the land, It’s, roll on, Columbia, roll on. . . . Your power is turning our darkness to dawn. So, roll on, Columbia, roll on. ©
The Columbia River winds its way on a 1,200-mile course from Canada through Washington and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. Because of its steep descent from uplands to sea level, it produces an immense amount of energy. Residents of the economically underdeveloped Pacific Northwest had long dreamed of tapping this unused energy for electricity and irrigation. But not until the 1930s did the federal government launch the program of dam
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Albeni Falls Dam (proposed)
Hungry Horse Dam (building)
Glacier View Dam (proposed)
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A 1949 map of the Columbia River project, showing its numerous dams, including the Grand Coulee, the largest man-made structure in the world at the time of its opening in 1941.
THE NEW DEAL ★ 819
820 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
construction that transformed the region. The project created thousands of jobs for the unemployed, and the network of dams pro- duced abundant cheap power.
When the Grand Coulee Dam went into operation in 1941, it was the largest man- made structure in world history. It eventually produced more than 40 percent of the nation’s hydroelectric power. The dam provided the cheapest electricity in the country for towns that sprang up out of nowhere, farms on what had once been deserts in eastern Wash- ington and Oregon, and factories that would soon be producing aluminum for World War II airplanes. The project also had less appeal- ing consequences. From time immemorial, the Columbia River had been filled with salmon. But the Grand Coulee Dam made no provision for the passage of fish, and the salmon all but vanished. This caused little concern during the Depression but became a source of controversy later in the century as Americans became more attuned to preserv- ing the natural environment.
The Grand Coulee Dam was part of what one scholar has called a “public works rev- olution” that transformed the American economy and landscape during the 1930s. The Roosevelt administration spent far more money on building roads, dams, air- ports, bridges, and housing than on any other activity.
Franklin D. Roosevelt believed regional economic development like that in the Northwest would promote economic growth, ease the domestic and working lives of ordi- nary Americans, and keep control of key nat- ural resources in public rather than private hands. “It promises,” one supporter wrote, “a world replete with more freedom and happi- ness than mankind has ever known.”
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1931 Scottsboro case
1933 Franklin Roosevelt inaugu- rated president
Bank holiday
The Hundred Days and the First New Deal
21st Amendment ratified
1934 Huey Long launches the Share Our Wealth movement
American Liberty League established
Herbert Hoover’s The Challenge to Liberty
1934– Height of the Dust Bowl 1940
1935 Second New Deal launched
Supreme Court rules the National Recovery Associa- tion unconstitutional
John L. Lewis organizes the Congress of Industrial Organizations
1936 Supreme Court rules the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional
New Deal coalition leads to Democratic landslide
John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
1936– United Auto Workers sit- 1937 down strike
1938 House Un-American Activi- ties Committee established
Fair Labor Standards Act passed
1939 John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
• •
THE FIRST NEW DEAL ★ 821
The Columbia River project reflected broader changes in American life and thought during the New Deal of the 1930s. Roosevelt oversaw the transformation of the Democratic Party into a coalition of farmers, industrial workers, the reform- minded urban middle class, liberal intellectuals, northern African- Americans, and, somewhat incongruously, the white supremacist South, united by the belief that the federal government must provide Americans with protection against the dislocations caused by modern capitalism. “Liberalism,” traditionally under- stood as limited government and free-market economics, took on its modern meaning. Thanks to the New Deal, it now referred to active efforts by the national government to modernize and regulate the market economy and to uplift less fortunate members of society.
Freedom, too, underwent a transformation during the 1930s. The Depres- sion had discredited the ideas that social progress rests on the unrestrained pursuit of wealth and that, apart from unfortunates like widows and orphans, most poverty is self-inflicted. The New Deal elevated a public guarantee of economic security to the forefront of American discussions of freedom. The 1930s were a decade of dramatic social upheaval. Social and political activists, most notably a revitalized labor movement, placed new issues on the political agenda. When one writer in 1941 published a survey of democratic thought beginning in the ancient world, he concluded that what distinguished his own time was its awareness of “the social conditions of freedom.” Thanks to the New Deal, he wrote, “economic security” had “at last been recognized as a political condition of personal freedom.” Regional economic development like that in the Northwest reflected this understanding of freedom. So did other New Deal measures, including the Social Security Act, which offered aid to the unemployed and aged, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which estab- lished a national minimum wage.
Yet while the New Deal significantly expanded the meaning of freedom, it did not erase freedom’s boundaries. Its benefits flowed to industrial workers but not tenant farmers, to men far more fully than women, and to white Amer- icans more than blacks, who, in the South, still were deprived of the basic rights of citizenship.
T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L
FDR and the Election of 1932
It is indeed paradoxical that Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been raised in privilege on a New York country estate, came to be beloved as the symbolic representative of ordinary citizens. But like Lincoln, with whom he is often
What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days?
822 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
compared, Roosevelt’s greatness lay in his willingness to throw off the “dogmas of the quiet past” (Lincoln’s words) to confront an unprecedented national cri- sis. FDR, as he liked to be called, was born in 1882, a fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt. He graduated from Harvard in 1904 and six years later won election to the New York legislature from Duchess County, site of his family’s home at Hyde Park. After serving as undersecretary of the navy during World War I, he ran for vice president on the ill-fated Democratic ticket of 1920 headed by James M. Cox. In 1921, he contracted polio and lost the use of his legs, a fact carefully concealed from the public in that pre-television era. Very few Ameri- cans realized that the president who projected an image of vigorous leadership during the 1930s and World War II was confined to a wheelchair.
In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president in 1932, Roosevelt promised a “new deal” for the American people. But his campaign offered only vague hints of what this might entail. Roosevelt spoke of the gov- ernment’s responsibility to guarantee “every man . . . a right to make a comfort- able living.” But he also advocated a balanced federal budget and criticized his opponent, President Hoover, for excessive government spending. The biggest difference between the parties during the campaign was the Democrats’ call for the repeal of Prohibition, although Roosevelt certainly suggested a greater awareness of the plight of ordinary Americans and a willingness to embark on new ways to address the Great Depression. Battered by the economic cri- sis, Americans in 1932 were desperate for new leadership, and Roosevelt won a resounding victory. He received 57 percent of the popular vote, and Democrats swept to a commanding majority in Congress.
The Coming of the New Deal
The Depression did not produce a single pattern of international public response. For nearly the entire decade of the 1930s, conservative governments ruled Britain and France. They were more interested in preserving public order than relieving suffering or embarking on policy innovations. In Germany, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, established one of the most brutal dicta- torships in human history. Hitler banned all political opposition and launched a reign of terror against Jews and others deemed to be “un-German.” In the Soviet Union, another tyrant, Joseph Stalin, embarked on successive five-year plans that at great social cost produced rapid industrialization and claimed to have eliminated unemployment.
Roosevelt conceived of the New Deal as an alternative to socialism on the left, Nazism on the right, and the inaction of upholders of unregulated capital- ism. He hoped to reconcile democracy, individual liberty, and economic recov- ery and development. “You have made yourself,” the British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote to FDR, “the trustee for those in every country who
THE FIRST NEW DEAL ★ 823
seek to mend the evils of our condition by reasoned experiment within the framework of the existing social system.” If Roosevelt failed, Keynes added, the only remaining choice would be between “orthodoxy” (that is, doing nothing) and “revolution.”
Roosevelt did not enter office with a blueprint for dealing with the Depression. At first, he relied heavily for advice on a group of intellectuals and social workers who took up key positions in his administration. They included Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, a veteran of Hull House and the New York Consumers’ League who had been among the eyewitnesses to the Triangle fire of 1911; Harry Hopkins, who had headed emergency relief efforts during Roosevelt’s term as governor of New York; Secretary of the Inte- rior Harold Ickes, a veteran of Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive campaign of 1912; and Louis Brandeis, who had advised Woodrow Wilson during the 1912 campaign and now offered political advice to FDR while serving on the Supreme Court.
The presence of these individuals reflected how Roosevelt drew on the reform traditions of the Progressive era. But Progressivism, as noted in Chapter 18, was hardly a unified movement, and Roosevelt’s advisers did not speak with one voice. Brandeis believed that large corporations not only wielded excessive power but also had contributed to the Depression by keeping prices artificially high and failing to increase workers’ purchasing power. They should be broken up, he insisted, not regulated. But the “brains trust”—a group of academics that included a number of Columbia University professors—saw bigness as inevi- table in a modern economy. The competitive marketplace, they argued, was a thing of the past, and large firms needed to be managed and directed by the gov- ernment, not dismantled. Their view prevailed during what came to be called the First New Deal.
The Banking Crisis
“This nation asks for action and action now,” Roosevelt announced on taking office on March 4, 1933. The country, wrote the journalist and political com- mentator Walter Lippmann, “was in such a state of confused desperation that it would have followed almost any leader anywhere he chose to go.” FDR spent much of 1933 trying to reassure the public. In his inaugural address, he declared that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” (See the Appendix for the full text.)
Roosevelt confronted a banking system on the verge of collapse. As bank funds invested in the stock market and corporate bonds lost their value and panicked depositors withdrew their savings, bank after bank had closed its doors. By March 1933, banking had been suspended in a majority of the states— that is, people could not gain access to money in their bank accounts. Roosevelt
What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days?
824 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
declared a “bank holiday,” temporarily halting all bank operations, and called Congress into special session. On March 9, it rushed to pass the Emergency Banking Act, which provided funds to shore up threatened institutions.
Further measures soon followed that transformed the American finan- cial system. The Glass-Steagall Act barred commercial banks from becoming involved in the buying and selling of stocks. Until its repeal in the 1990s, the law prevented many of the irresponsible practices that had contributed to the stock market crash. The same law established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a government system that insured the accounts of indi- vidual depositors. And Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard— that is, he severed the link between the country’s currency and its gold reserves, thus making possible the issuance of more money in the hope of stimulating business activity. Together, these measures rescued the financial system and greatly increased the government’s power over it. About 5,000 banks—one- third of the nation’s total—had failed between 1929 and 1933, representing a loss of tens of millions of dollars to depositors. In 1936, not a single bank failed in the United States.
The NRA
The Emergency Banking Act was the first of an unprecedented flurry of leg- islation during the first three months of Roosevelt’s administration, a period known as the Hundred Days. Seizing on the sense of crisis and the momentum of his electoral victory, Roosevelt won rapid passage of laws he hoped would promote economic recovery. He persuaded Congress to create a host of new agencies, whose initials soon became part of the language of politics—NRA, AAA, CCC. Never in American history had a president exercised such power in peacetime or so rapidly expanded the role of the federal government in peo- ple’s lives.
The centerpiece of Roosevelt’s plan for combating the Depression, the National Industrial Recovery Act, was to a large extent modeled on the government– business partnership established by the War Industries Board of World War I, although in keeping with FDR’s nondogmatic approach, it also owed something to Herbert Hoover’s efforts to build stronger government– business cooperation. Roosevelt called it “the most important and far-reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress.” The act established the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which would work with groups of business leaders to establish industry codes that set standards for output, prices, and working conditions. Thus, “cutthroat” competition (in which com- panies took losses to drive competitors out of business) would be ended. These industry-wide arrangements would be exempt from antitrust laws.
THE FIRST NEW DEAL ★ 825
The NRA reflected how even in its early days, the New Deal reshaped understandings of freedom. In effect, FDR had repudiated the older idea of liberty based on the idea that the best way to encourage economic activity and ensure a fair distribution of wealth was to allow market competition to oper- ate, unrestrained by the government. And to win support from labor, section 7a of the new law recognized the workers’ right to organize unions—a departure from the “open shop” policies of the 1920s and a step toward government support for what workers called “industrial freedom.”
Headed by Hugh S. Johnson, a retired general and businessman, the NRA quickly established codes that set standards for production, prices, and wages in the textile, steel, mining, and auto industries. Johnson launched a publicity campaign to promote the NRA and its symbol, the Blue Eagle, which stores and factories that abided by the codes displayed. But after initial public enthusi- asm, the NRA became mired in controversy. Large companies dominated the code-writing process. An inquiry conducted by the labor lawyer Clarence Dar- row in 1934 concluded that they used the NRA to drive up prices, limit produc- tion, lay off workers, and divide markets among themselves at the expense of smaller competitors. Many anti-union employers ignored section 7a. The gov- ernment lacked the manpower to police the 750 codes in effect by 1935. The NRA produced neither economic recovery nor peace between employers and workers. It did, however, help to undercut the pervasive sense that the federal government was doing nothing to deal with the economic crisis.
Government Jobs
The Hundred Days also brought the government into providing relief to those in need. Roosevelt and most of his advisers shared the widespread fear that direct government payments to the unemployed would undermine individual self-reliance. Indeed, one of the first measures of the Hundred Days had been the Economy Act, which reduced federal spending in an attempt to win the confidence of the business community. But with nearly a quarter of the work- force unemployed, spending on relief was unavoidable. In May 1933, Congress created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, to make grants to local agencies that aided those impoverished by the Depression. FDR, however, much preferred to create temporary jobs, thereby combating unemployment while improving the nation’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, public build- ings, and parks.
In March 1933, Congress established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which set unemployed young men to work on projects like forest preservation, flood control, and the improvement of national parks and wild- life preserves. By the time the program ended in 1942, more than 3 million
What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days?
826 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
persons had passed through CCC camps, where they received government wages of $30 per month. The CCC made a major contribution to the enhance- ment of the American environment.
Public-Works Projects
One section of the National Industrial Recovery Act created the Public Works Administration (PWA), with an appropriation of $3.3 billion. Directed by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, it contracted with private construction companies to build roads, schools, hospitals, and other public facilities, includ- ing New York City’s Triborough Bridge and the Overseas Highway between Miami and Key West, Florida. In November 1933, yet another agency, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), was launched. Unlike the PWA, it directly hired workers for construction projects. By January 1934, it employed more than 4 million persons in the construction of highways, tunnels, courthouses, and airports. But as the cost spiraled upward and complaints multiplied that the New Deal was creating a class of Americans permanently dependent on gov- ernment jobs, Roosevelt ordered the CWA dissolved.
Some New Deal public-works initiatives looked to government-planned economic transformation as much as economic relief. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), another product of the Hundred Days, built a series of dams to prevent floods and deforestation along the Tennessee River and to provide cheap electric power for homes and factories in a seven-state region where many families still lived in isolated log cabins. The TVA put the federal gov- ernment, for the first time, in the business of selling electricity in competition with private companies. It significantly improved the lives of many southern- ers and offered a preview of the program of regional planning that spurred the economic development of the West.
The New Deal and Agriculture
Another policy initiative of the Hundred Days addressed the disastrous plight of American farmers. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) authorized the federal government to set production quotas for major crops and pay farmers to plant less in an attempt to raise farm prices. Many crops already in the field were destroyed. In 1933, the government ordered more than 6 million pigs slaughtered as part of the policy, a step critics found strange at a time of wide- spread hunger.
The AAA succeeded in significantly raising farm prices and incomes. But not all farmers benefited. Money flowed to property-owning farmers, ignoring the large number who worked on land owned by others. The AAA policy of paying
THE FIRST NEW DEAL ★ 827
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T H E T E N N E S S E E VA L L E Y A U T H O R I T Y
A map showing the reach of the Tennessee Valley Authority, covering all or parts of seven southeastern states. Numerous reservoirs and power plants dot the landscape.
landowning farmers not to grow crops encouraged the eviction of thousands of poor tenants and sharecroppers. Many joined the rural exodus to cities or to the farms of the West Coast.
The onset in 1930 of a period of unusually dry weather in the nation’s heartland worsened the Depression’s impact on rural America. By mid- decade, the region suffered from the century’s most severe drought. Mechanized agri- culture in this semiarid region had pulverized the topsoil and killed native grasses that prevented erosion. Winds now blew much of the soil away, creating the Dust Bowl, as the affected areas of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Colorado were called. A local newspaper described the situation in Cimarron County, Oklahoma: “Not a blade of wheat; cattle dying on the range, ninety percent of the poultry dead because of the sand storms, milk cows gone dry.” One storm in 1934 carried dust as far as Washington, D.C. The drought and dust storms displaced more than 1 million farmers. John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of
What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days?
828 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
Wrath (1939) and a popular film based on the book captured their plight, trac- ing a dispossessed family’s trek from Oklahoma to California.
Another New Deal initiative, the Resettlement Administration, estab- lished in 1934, sought to relocate rural and urban families suffering from the Depression to communities planned by the federal government. Headed by Columbia University economist Rexford G. Tugwell, one of Roosevelt’s advisers, it set up relief camps for migrant workers in California (many of whom had been displaced by the dust storms) and built several new commu- nities, including Greenbelt just outside Washington, D.C.
The New Deal and Housing
Owning one’s home had long been a widely shared American ambition. “A man is not a whole and complete man,” Walt Whitman had written in the 1850s, “unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on.” For many members of the middle class, home ownership had become a mark of respectability. For work- ers, it offered economic security at a time of low wages, erratic employment, and limited occupational mobility. On the eve of World War I, a considerably higher percentage of immigrant workers than the native-born middle class owned their homes.
The Depression devastated the American housing industry. The construc- tion of new residences all but ceased, and banks and savings and loan asso- ciations that had financed home ownership collapsed or, to remain afloat, foreclosed on many homes (a quarter of a million in 1932 alone). In 1931, President Hoover convened a Conference on Home Building and Home Own- ership to review the housing crisis. The president called owning a home an American “birthright,” the embodiment of the spirit of “enterprise, of inde- pendence, and of . . . freedom.” Rented apartments, he pointed out, did not inspire “immortal ballads” like Home, Sweet Home or The Little Gray Home in the West. Papers presented at the conference revealed that millions of Amer- icans lived in overcrowded, unhealthy urban slums or in ramshackle rural dwellings. Private enterprise alone, it seemed clear, was unlikely to solve the nation’s housing crisis.
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THE FIRST NEW DEAL ★ 829
Hoover’s administration established a federally sponsored bank to issue home loans. Not until the New Deal, however, did the government systemat- ically enter the housing market. Roosevelt spoke of “the security of the home” as a fundamental right akin to “the security of livelihood, and the security of social insurance.” In 1933 and 1934, his administration moved energetically to protect home owners from foreclosure and to stimulate new construction. The Home Owners Loan Corporation and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured millions of long-term mortgages issued by private banks. At the same time, the federal government itself built thousands of units of low-rent housing. New Deal housing policy represented a remarkable departure from previous government practice. Thanks to the FHA and, later, the Veterans’ Administration, home ownership came within the reach of tens of millions of families. It became cheaper for most Americans to buy single-family homes than to rent apartments.
Other important measures of Roosevelt’s first two years in office included the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed Prohibition; the establishment of the Federal Communications Commission to oversee the nation’s broadcast airwaves and telephone com- munications; and the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock and bond markets.
Taken together, the First New Deal was a series of experiments, some of which succeeded and some of which did not. They transformed the role of the federal government, constructed numerous public facilities, and pro- vided relief to millions of needy persons. Public employment rescued millions of Americans from the ravages of the Depression. But while the economy improved somewhat, sustained recovery had not been achieved. Some 10 mil- lion Americans—more than 20 percent of the workforce—remained unem- ployed when 1934 came to an end.
The Court and the New Deal
In 1935, the Supreme Court, still controlled by conservative Republican judges who held to the nineteenth-century understanding of freedom as liberty of contract, began to invalidate key New Deal laws. First came the NRA, declared unconstitutional in May in a case brought by the Schechter Poultry Company of Brooklyn, which had been charged with violating the code adopted by the chicken industry. In a unanimous decision, the Court declared the NRA unlaw- ful because in its codes and other regulations it delegated legislative powers to the president and attempted to regulate local businesses that did not engage in interstate commerce. In January 1936, the AAA fell in United States v. Butler, which declared it an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power over
What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days?
830 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
local economic activities. In June, by a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled that New York could not establish a minimum wage for women and children.
Having failed to end the Depression or win judicial approval, the First New Deal ground to a halt. Meanwhile, pressures were mounting outside Washing- ton that propelled the administration toward more radical departures in policy.
T H E G R A S S R O O T S R E V O L T
Labor’s Great Upheaval
The most striking development of the mid-1930s was the mobilization of mil- lions of workers in mass-production industries that had successfully resisted unionization. “Labor’s great upheaval,” as this era of unprecedented militancy was called, came as a great surprise. Unlike in the past, however, the federal government now seemed to be on the side of labor, a commitment embodied in the National Industrial Recovery Act and in the Wagner Act (discussed later) of 1935, which granted workers the legal right to form unions. With the severe reduction of European immigration, ethnic differences among workers had diminished in importance. American-born children of the new immigrants now dominated the industrial labor force, and organizers no longer had to dis- tribute materials in numerous languages as the IWW had done. And a cadre of militant labor leaders, many of them socialists and communists with long experience in organization, had survived the repression of the 1920s. They pro- vided leadership to the labor upsurge.
American factories at the outset of the New Deal were miniature dicta- torships in which unions were rare, workers could be beaten by supervisors and fired at will, and management determined the length of the workday and speed of the assembly line. In industrial communities scattered across the country, local government firmly supported the companies. “Jesus Christ couldn’t speak in Duquesne for the union,” declared the mayor of that Penn- sylvania steel town. Workers’ demands during the 1930s went beyond better wages. They included an end to employers’ arbitrary power in the workplace, and basic civil liberties for workers, including the rights to picket, distribute literature, and meet to discuss their grievances. All these goals required union recognition.
Roosevelt’s election as president did much to rekindle hope among those who called themselves, in the words of a worker writing to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, “slaves of the depression.” His inauguration unleashed a flood of poignant letters to the federal government describing what a Louisiana sugar laborer called the “terrible and inhuman condition” of many workers. Labor
THE GRASSROOTS REVOLT ★ 831
organizers spread the message that the “political liberty for which our forefa- thers fought” had been “made mean- ingless by economic inequality” and “industrial despotism.” “We are free Americans,” declared the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. “We shall exer- cise our inalienable rights to organize into a great industrial union.”
Labor’s great upheaval exploded in 1934, a year that witnessed no fewer than 2,000 strikes. Many produced vio- lent confrontations between workers and the local police. In Toledo, Ohio, 10,000 striking auto workers sur- rounded the Electric Auto-Lite factory, where managers had brought strikebreakers to take their jobs, leading to a seven-hour fight with police and the National Guard. In Minneapolis, where an organization of businessmen known as the Citizens Alliance controlled the city government, a four-month strike by truck drivers led to pitched battles in the streets and the governor declaring martial law. San Francisco experienced the country’s first general strike since 1919. It began with a walkout of dock- workers led by the fiery communist Harry Bridges. Workers demanded rec- ognition of the International Longshoremen’s Association and an end to the hated “shape up” system in which they had to gather en masse each day to wait for work assignments. The year 1934 also witnessed a strike of 400,000 textile workers in states from New England to the Deep South, demanding recogni- tion of the United Textile Workers. Many of these walkouts, including those in Toledo, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, won at least some of the workers’ demands. But the textile strike failed.
The Rise of the CIO
The labor upheaval posed a challenge to the American Federation of Labor’s traditional policy of organizing workers by craft—welders or machine repair- ers, for example—rather than seeking to mobilize all the workers in a given industry, such as steel manufacturing. In 1934, thirty AFL leaders called for the creation of unions of industrial workers. When the AFL convention of 1935 refused, the head of the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis, led a walkout that produced a new labor organization, the Congress of Industrial Organi- zations (CIO). It set out to create unions in the main bastions of the American
Signs carried by striking cotton mill workers in Lumberton, North Carolina, in 1937 illustrate how the labor movement revived the nineteenth- century language of “wage slavery” to demand union recognition.
Who were the main proponents of economic justice in the 1930s, and what measures did they advocate?
832 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
economy. It aimed, said Lewis, at nothing less than to secure “economic free- dom and industrial democracy” for American workers—a fair share in the wealth produced by their labor, and a voice in determining the conditions under which they worked.
In December 1936, unions, most notably the United Auto Workers (UAW), a fledgling CIO union, unveiled the sit-down, a strikingly effective tactic that the IWW had pioneered three decades earlier. Rather than walking out of a plant, thus enabling management to bring in strikebreakers, workers halted production but remained inside. In the UAW’s first sit-down strike, 7,000 General Motors workers seized control of the Fisher Body Plant in Cleve- land. Sit-downs soon spread to GM plants in Flint, Michigan, the nerve center of automobile production. When local police tried to storm the Flint plants, workers fought them off. Democratic governor Frank Murphy, who had been elected with strong support from the CIO, declared his unwillingness to use force to dislodge the strikers. The strikers demonstrated a remarkable spirit of unity. They cleaned the plant, oiled the idle machinery, settled disputes among themselves, prepared meals, and held concerts of labor songs. Workers’ wives shuttled food into the plant. “They made a palace out of what had been their prison,” wrote one reporter. On February 11, General Motors agreed to negotiate with the UAW. Not until 1941 would the bitterly anti-union Henry Ford sign a labor contract. But by the end of 1937, the UAW claimed 400,000 members.
The victory in the auto industry reverberated throughout industrial Amer- ica. Steelworkers had suffered memorable defeats in the struggle for unioniza- tion, notably at Homestead in 1892 and in the Great Steel Strike of 1919. U.S. Steel, the country’s single most important business firm, owner of an industrial empire that stretched across several states and employed more than 200,000 workers, had been among the strongest opponents of unionization. But in March 1937, fearing a sit-down campaign and aware that it could no longer count on the aid of state and federal authorities, the company agreed to rec- ognize the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (forerunner of the United Steelworkers of America). Smaller steel firms, however, refused to follow suit. On Memorial Day, 1937, company guards and Chicago police fired on a picnic of striking Republic Steel workers, killing ten persons. Not until 1942 would Republic sign a labor contract.
Union membership reached 9 million by 1940, more than double the num- ber in 1930. The coming of the union, said a member of New York City’s transit workers’ organization, enabled workers “to go to our bosses and talk to them like men, instead of . . . like slaves.” Unions demanded and won a say in workplace management, including the right to contest the amount and pace of work and the introduction of new technology. They gained new grievance procedures and seniority systems governing hiring, firing, and promotions. The CIO unions
THE GRASSROOTS REVOLT ★ 833
helped to stabilize a chaotic employment situation and offered members a sense of dignity and freedom.
Labor and Politics
Throughout the industrial heartland, the labor upsurge altered the balance of economic power and propelled to the forefront of politics labor’s goal of a fairer, freer, more equal America. Unlike the AFL, traditionally hostile to gov- ernment intervention in labor-management relations, the CIO put forward an ambitious program for federal action to shield Americans from economic and social insecurity, including public housing, universal health care, and unem- ployment and old age insurance.
Building on the idea, so prominent in the 1920s, that the key to prosperity lay in an American standard of living based on mass consumption, CIO leaders explained the Depression as the result of an imbalance of wealth and income. The role of unions, in cooperation with the government, they argued, was to “create a consumer’s demand” by raising wages and redistributing wealth. Only in this way could society absorb the products that rolled off modern assembly lines. The pathbreaking 1937 agreement between the UAW and General Motors spoke of a “rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living.” By mid-decade, many New Dealers accepted the “underconsumptionist” explana- tion of the Depression, which saw lack of sufficient consumer demand as its underlying cause. They concluded that the government must act to raise dra- matically wage earners’ share of the national income.
Voices of Protest
Other popular movements of the mid-1930s also placed the question of eco- nomic justice on the political agenda. In California, the novelist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1934 as the head of the End Poverty in California movement. Sinclair called for the state to use idle factories and land in cooperative ventures that would provide jobs for the unemployed. He lost the election after being subjected to one of the first modern “negative” media campaigns. Sinclair’s opponents circulated false newsreels showing armies of unemployed men marching to California to support his candidacy and a fake endorsement from the Communist Party.
The rise to national prominence of Huey Long offered another sign of pop- ular dissatisfaction with the slow pace of economic recovery. Long’s career embodied both Louisiana’s Populist and Socialist traditions (Winn Parish, his home, had voted for both of these third parties) and the state’s heritage of undemocratic politics. Driven by intense ambition and the desire to help uplift the state’s “common people,” Long won election as governor in 1928 and in 1930 took a seat in the U.S. Senate. From Washington, he dominated every branch of
Who were the main proponents of economic justice in the 1930s, and what measures did they advocate?
834 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
state government. He used his dictato- rial power to build roads, schools, and hospitals and to increase the tax bur- den on Louisiana’s oil companies.
One of the most colorful characters in twentieth-century American politics, Long was referred to by both admirers and critics as the “Kingfish.” In 1934, he launched the Share Our Wealth move- ment, with the slogan “Every Man a King.” He called for the confiscation of most of the wealth of the richest Amer- icans in order to finance an immediate grant of $5,000 and a guaranteed job and annual income for all citizens. In his inimitable style, Long explained his goal: “Let’s pull down these huge piles of gold until there shall be a real job, not a little old sow-belly, black-eyed pea job but a real spending money, beefsteak and gravy . . . Ford in the garage . . . red, white, and blue job for every man.” Long claimed a following of 5 million. He was on the verge of announcing a
run for president when the son of a defeated political rival assassinated him in 1935.
Dr. Francis Townsend, a California physician, meanwhile won wide sup- port for a plan by which the government would make a monthly payment of $200 to older Americans, with the requirement that they spend it immediately. This, he argued, would boost the economy. By the end of 1934, Townsend Clubs claimed more than 2 million members. Along with the rise of the CIO, these signs of popular discontent helped to spark the Second New Deal.
Religion on the Radio
Also in the mid-1930s, the “radio priest,” Father Charles E. Coughlin, attracted millions of listeners with weekly broadcasts attacking Wall Street bankers and greedy capitalists, and calling for government ownership of key industries as a way of combating the Depression. Initially a strong supporter of FDR, Cough- lin became increasingly critical of the president for what he considered the failure of the New Deal to promote social justice. His crusade would later shift to anti-Semitism and support for European fascism.
Huey Long, the “Kingfish” of Louisiana politics, in full rhetorical flight. The photo was probably taken in 1934, when Long was in the U.S. Senate but still running the state government.
THE SECOND NEW DEAL ★ 835
Other religious leaders of various denominations took advantage of the mass media to spread their beliefs. Ironically, many fundamentalists used the most modern techniques of communication, including the radio and popular entertainment, to promote their anti-modernist message. They found in the radio a way of bringing their views directly to ordinary Americans, bypass- ing established churches and their leaders. During the 1920s, Aimee Semple McPherson, a Los Angeles revivalist, had her own radio station, which broad- cast sermons from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel she had founded. McPherson also traveled the country as a revivalist preacher. Her sermons used elaborate sets, costumes, and special effects borrowed from the movie industry. By the 1940s, national religious broadcast networks emerged, with a reliable and dedicated listening audience. In later decades, fundamental- ist Christians would take advantage of television and the Internet to dissemi- nate their religious and political views.
T H E S E C O N D N E W D E A L In 1935, President Roosevelt sent a message to 100,000 American clergy- men asking about economic and social conditions in their communities. The responses indicated that their financially hard-pressed churches could not respond effectively via traditional charity to the massive needs of their congregations.
Spurred by the failure of his initial policies to pull the country out of the Depression and the growing popular clamor for greater economic equality, and buoyed by Democratic gains in the midterm elections of 1934, Roosevelt in 1935 launched the Second New Deal. The first had focused on economic recovery. The emphasis of the second was economic security—a guarantee that Americans would be protected against unemployment and poverty. “Boys,” Roosevelt’s relief administrator, Harry Hopkins, told his staff, “this is our hour. We’ve got to get everything we want—a [public] works program, social secu- rity, wages and hours, everything—now or never.”
The idea that lack of consumer demand caused the Depression had been popularized by Huey Long, Francis Townsend, and the CIO. More and more New Dealers concluded that the government should no longer try to plan business recovery but should try to redistribute the national income so as to sustain mass purchasing power in the consumer economy. A series of mea- sures in 1935 attacked head-on the problem of weak demand and economic inequality. Congress levied a highly publicized tax on large fortunes and cor- porate profits—a direct response to the popularity of Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth campaign. It created the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to bring
What were the major initiatives of the Second New Deal, and how did they differ from the First New Deal?
836 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
electric power to homes that lacked it—80 percent of farms were still without electricity in 1934—in part to enable more Americans to purchase household appliances.
The REA proved to be one of the Second New Deal’s most successful pro- grams. By 1950, 90 percent of the nation’s farms had been wired for electric- ity, and almost all now possessed radios, electric stoves, refrigerators, and mechanical equipment to milk cows. In addition, the federal government under the Second New Deal tried to promote soil conservation and family farming. This effort resulted from the belief that the country would never achieve prosperity so long as farmers’ standard of living lagged well behind that of city dwellers, and that rural poverty resulted mainly from the poor use of natural resources. Thus, farmers received federal assistance in reduc- ing soil loss in their fields. The federal government also purchased significant amounts of marginal and eroded land and converted these areas from farms into national grasslands and parks. It encouraged more environmentally conscious agricultural techniques. These measures (like those of the AAA) mainly benefited landowners, not sharecroppers, tenants, or migrant work- ers. In the long run, the Second New Deal failed to arrest the trend toward larger farms and fewer farmers.
The WPA and the Wagner Act
In 1934, Roosevelt had severely curtailed federal employment for those in need. Now, he approved the establishment of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which hired some 3 million Americans, in virtually every walk of life, each year until it ended in 1943. Under Harry Hopkins’s direction, the WPA changed the physical face of the United States. It constructed thousands of pub- lic buildings and bridges, more than 500,000 miles of roads, and 600 airports. It built stadiums, swimming pools, and sewage treatment plants. Unlike previ- ous work relief programs, the WPA employed many out-of-work white-collar workers and professionals, even doctors and dentists.
Perhaps the most famous WPA projects were in the arts. The WPA set hun- dreds of artists to work decorating public buildings with murals. It hired writ- ers to produce local histories and guidebooks to the forty-eight states and to record the recollections of ordinary Americans, including hundreds of former slaves. Its Federal Theater Project put on plays, including an all-black produc- tion of Macbeth and Sinclair Lewis’s drama It Can’t Happen Here, about fascism coming to the United States. The Federal Music Project established orchestras and choral groups, and the Federal Dance Project sponsored ballet and mod- ern dance programs. Thanks to the WPA, audiences across the country enjoyed their first glimpse of live musical and theatrical performances and their first
THE SECOND NEW DEAL ★ 837
opportunity to view exhibitions of American art. Also in 1935, Congress created the National Youth Administration to provide relief to American teenagers and young adults.
Another major initiative of the Second New Deal, the Wagner Act, was known at the time as “Labor’s Magna Carta” (a reference to an early landmark in the history of freedom). This brought democracy into the American work- place by empowering the National Labor Relations Board to supervise elections in which employees voted on union representation. It also outlawed “unfair labor practices,” including the firing and blacklisting of union organizers. The bill’s main sponsor, Robert Wagner of New York, told the Senate that the abil- ity of workers to pool their strength through collective bargaining represented the “next step” in “the evolution of American freedom.” He also promised that unionization and higher wages would aid economic recovery by boosting the purchasing power of ordinary Americans.
The American Welfare State
The centerpiece of the Second New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935. It embodied Roosevelt’s conviction that the national government had a respon- sibility to ensure the material well-being of ordinary Americans. It created a system of unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and aid to the disabled, the elderly poor, and families with dependent children.
None of these were original ideas. The Progressive platform of 1912 had called for old age pensions. Assistance to poor families with dependent children descended from the mothers’ pensions promoted by maternalist reformers. Many European countries had already adopted national unemployment insur- ance plans. What was new, however, was that in the name of economic security, the American government would now supervise not simply temporary relief but a permanent system of social insurance.
The Social Security Act launched the American version of the welfare state—a term that originated in Britain during World War II to refer to a system of income assistance, health coverage, and social services for all cit- izens. The act illustrated both the extent and the limits of the changes ush- ered in by the Second New Deal. The American welfare state marked a radical departure from previous government policies, but compared with similar programs in Europe, it has always been far more decentralized, involved lower levels of public spending, and covered fewer citizens. The original Social Security bill, for example, envisioned a national system of health insurance. But Congress dropped this after ferocious opposition from the American Medical Association, which feared government regulation of doctors’ activ- ities and incomes.
What were the major initiatives of the Second New Deal, and how did they differ from the First New Deal?
838 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
The Social Security System
Some New Dealers desired a program funded by the federal government’s general tax revenues, and with a single set of eligibility standards administered by national officials. But Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, along with power- ful members of Congress, wished to keep relief in the hands of state and local authorities and believed that workers should contribute directly to the cost of their own benefits. Roosevelt himself preferred to fund Social Security by taxes on employers and workers, rather than out of general government revenues. He wanted to ensure that Social Security did not add to the federal deficit and believed that paying such taxes gave contributors “a legal, moral, and political right” to collect their old age pensions and unemployment benefits, which no future Congress could rescind.
As a result, Social Security emerged as a hybrid of national and local funding, control, and eligibility standards. Old age pensions were administered nationally but paid for by taxes on employers and employees. Such taxes also funded pay- ments to the unemployed, but this program was highly decentralized, with the states retaining considerable control over the level of benefits. The states paid most of the cost of direct poor relief, under the program called Aid to Depen- dent Children, and eligibility and the level of payments varied enormously from place to place. As will be discussed later, the combination of local administra- tion and the fact that domestic and agricultural workers were not covered by unemployment and old age benefits meant that Social Security at first excluded large numbers of Americans, especially unmarried women and non-whites.
Nonetheless, Social Security represented a dramatic departure from the traditional functions of government. The Second New Deal transformed the relationship between the federal government and American citizens. Before the 1930s, national political debate often revolved around the question of whether the federal government should intervene in the economy. After the New Deal, debate rested on how it should intervene. In addition, the govern- ment assumed a responsibility, which it has never wholly relinquished, for guaranteeing Americans a living wage and protecting them against economic and personal misfortune. “Laissez-faire is dead,” wrote Walter Lippmann, “and the modern state has become responsible for the modern economy [and] the task of insuring . . . the standard of life for its people.”
A R E C K O N I N G W I T H L I B E R T Y The Depression made inevitable, in the words of one writer, a “reckoning with liberty.” For too many Americans, Roosevelt proclaimed, “life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
A RECKONING WITH LIBERTY ★ 839
happiness.” The 1930s produced an outpouring of books and essays on free- dom. The large majority took for granted the need for a new definition. In a volume entitled Land of the Free (1938), the poet Archibald MacLeish used pho- tographs of impoverished migrants and sharecroppers to question the reality of freedom in desperate times. “We told ourselves we were free,” he wrote. Now, “we wonder if the liberty is done . . . or if there’s something different men can mean by Liberty.”
Like the Civil War, the New Deal recast the idea of freedom by linking it to the expanding power of the national state. “Our democracy,” wrote Father John A. Ryan, a prominent Catholic social critic, “finds itself . . . in a new age where not political freedom but social and industrial freedom is the most insistent cry.” Influenced by Ryan, the National Catholic Welfare Conference in 1935 declared that “social justice” required a government guarantee of continuous employment and a “decent livelihood and adequate security” for all Americans.
FDR and the Idea of Freedom
Along with being a superb politician, Roosevelt was a master of political communication. At a time when his political opponents controlled most newspapers, he harnessed radio’s power to bring his message directly into American homes. By the mid-1930s, more than two-thirds of American families owned radios. They listened avidly to Roosevelt’s radio addresses, known as “fireside chats.”
Roosevelt adeptly appealed to traditional values in support of new policies. He gave the term “liberalism” its modern meaning. In the nineteenth century, liberalism had been a shorthand for limited government and free-market eco- nomics. Roosevelt consciously chose to employ it to describe a large, active, socially conscious state. He reclaimed the word “freedom” from conservatives and made it a rallying cry for the New Deal. In his second fireside chat, Roos- evelt juxtaposed his own definition of liberty as “greater security for the aver- age man” to the older notion of liberty of contract, which served the interests of “the privileged few.” Henceforth, he would consistently link freedom with economic security and identify entrenched economic inequality as its greatest enemy. “The liberty of a democracy,” he declared in 1938, was not safe if citizens could not “sustain an acceptable standard of living.”
Even as Roosevelt invoked the word to uphold the New Deal, “liberty”— in the sense of freedom from powerful government—became the fighting slogan of his opponents. Their principal critique of the New Deal was that its “reckless spending” undermined fiscal responsibility and its new govern- ment regulations restricted American freedom. When conservative business- men and politicians in 1934 formed an organization to mobilize opposition
How did the New Deal recast the meaning of American freedom?
840 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
to Roosevelt’s policies, they called it the American Liberty League. Robert Taft of Ohio, leader of the Republi- cans in Congress, accused Roosevelt of sacrificing “individual freedom” in a misguided effort to “improve the con- ditions of the poor.”
As the 1930s progressed, opponents of the New Deal invoked the language of liberty with greater and greater pas- sion. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce charged FDR with attempting to “Sovi- etize” America. Even though his own administration had abandoned lais- sez-faire in the face of economic disas- ter, former president Hoover launched strident attacks on his successor for endangering “fundamental American liberties.” In The Challenge to Liberty (1934), Hoover called the New Deal “the most stupendous invasion of the whole spirit of liberty” the nation had ever seen.
The Election of 1936
By 1936, with working-class voters providing massive majorities for the Dem- ocratic Party and businesses large and small bitterly estranged from the New Deal, politics reflected class divisions more completely than at any other time in American history. Conceptions of freedom divided sharply as well. Ameri- cans, wrote George Soule, editor of The New Republic, confronted “two oppos- ing systems of concepts about liberty,” reflecting “the needs and purposes of two opposing [parts] of the population.” One was the idea of “freedom for pri- vate enterprise,” the other “socialized liberty” based on “an equitably shared abundance.”
A fight for the possession of “the ideal of freedom,” reported the New York Times, emerged as the central issue of the presidential campaign of 1936. The Democratic platform insisted that in a modern economy the government has an obligation to establish a “democracy of opportunity for all the people.” In his speech accepting renomination, Roosevelt launched a blistering attack against “economic royalists” who, he charged, sought to establish a new tyranny over
FDR delivering one of his “fireside chats” in 1938. Roosevelt was the first president to make effective use of the radio to promote his policies.
A RECKONING WITH LIBERTY ★ 841
the “average man.” Economic rights, he went on, were the precondition of liberty—poor men “are not free men.” Throughout the campaign, FDR would insist that the threat posed to economic freedom by the “new despotism” of large corporations was the main issue of the election.
As Roosevelt’s opponent, Republicans chose Kansas governor Alfred Landon, a former Theodore Roosevelt Progressive. Landon denounced Social Security and other measures as threats to individual liberty. Opposition to the New Deal planted the seeds for the later flowering of an antigovernment con- servatism bent on upholding the free market and dismantling the welfare state. But in 1936 Roosevelt won a landslide reelection, with more than 60 percent of the popular vote. He carried every state except Maine and Vermont. Roos- evelt’s victory was all the more remarkable in view of the heavy support most of the nation’s newspapers and nearly the entire business community gave to the Republicans. His success stemmed from strong backing from organized labor and his ability to unite southern white and northern black voters, Prot- estant farmers and urban Catholic and Jewish ethnics, industrial workers and middle-class home owners. These groups made up the so-called New Deal coali- tion, which would dominate American politics for nearly half a century.
The Court Fight
Roosevelt’s second inaugural address was the first to be delivered on January 20. In order to lessen a newly elected president’s wait before taking office, the recently ratified Twentieth Amendment had moved inauguration day from March 4. FDR called on the nation to redouble its efforts to aid those “who have too little.” The Depression, he admitted, had not been conquered: “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished.” Emboldened by his electoral triumph, Roosevelt now made what many considered a serious political miscalculation. On the pretense that several members of the Supreme Court were too old to perform their functions, he proposed that the president be allowed to appoint a new justice for each one who remained on the Court past age seventy (an age that six of the nine had already surpassed). FDR’s aim, of course, was to change the balance of power on a Court that, he feared, might well invalidate Social Security, the Wagner Act, and other measures of the Second New Deal.
The plan aroused cries that the president was an aspiring dictator. Congress rejected it. But Roosevelt accomplished his underlying purpose. The Supreme Court, it is sometimes said, follows the election returns. Coming soon after Roosevelt’s landslide victory of 1936, the threat of “Court packing” inspired an astonishing about-face on the part of key justices. Beginning in March 1937, the Court suddenly revealed a new willingness to support economic regulation
How did the New Deal recast the meaning of American freedom?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
842 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
From Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat” (1934)
President Roosevelt pioneered the use of the new mass medium of radio to speak directly to Americans in their homes. He used his “fireside chats” to mobilize sup- port for New Deal programs, link them with American traditions, and outline his definition of freedom.
To those who say that our expenditures for public works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. Some people try to tell me that we must make up our minds that in the future we shall per- manently have millions of unemployed just as other countries have had them for over a decade. What may be necessary for those countries is not my responsibility to deter- mine. But as for this country, I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary con- dition of our future a permanent army of unemployed. . . .
In our efforts for recovery we have avoided, on the one hand, the theory that business should and must be taken over into an all-embracing Government. We have avoided, on the other hand, the equally untenable theory that it is an interference with liberty to offer reasonable help when private enterprise is in need of help. The course we have followed fits the American practice of Government, a practice of taking action step by step, of regulating only to meet concrete needs, a practice of courageous recognition of change. I believe with Abraham Lincoln, that “the legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.”
I am not for a return to that definition of liberty under which for many years a free people were being gradually regimented into the service of the privileged few. I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.
From John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath (1938)
John Steinbeck’s popular novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and the film version that followed shortly thereafter, focused national attention on the plight of homeless migrants displaced from their farms as a result of the Great Depression. Before that book appeared, Steinbeck had published a series of newspaper articles based on eye- witness accounts of the migrants, which became the basis for his novel.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 843
In California, we find a curious attitude toward a group that makes our agriculture suc- cessful. The migrants are needed, and they are hated. . . . The migrants are hated for the following reasons, that they are ignorant and dirty people, that they are carriers of dis- ease, that they increase the necessity for police and the tax bill for schooling in a com- munity, and that if they are allowed to organize they can, simply by refusing to work, wipe out the season’s crops. . . .
Let us see what kind of people they are, where they come from, and the routes of their wanderings. In the past they have been of several races, encouraged to come and often imported as cheap labor. Chinese in the early period, then Filipinos, Japanese and Mexi- cans. These were foreigners, and as such they were ostracized and segregated and herded about. . . . But in recent years the foreign migrants have begun to organize, and at this danger they have been deported in great numbers, for there was a new reservoir from which a great quantity of cheap labor could be obtained.
The drought in the middle west has driven the agricultural populations of Okla- homa, Nebraska and parts of Kansas and Texas westward. . . . Thousands of them are crossing the borders in ancient rattling automobiles, destitute and hungry and home- less, ready to accept any pay so that they may eat and feed their children. . . .
The earlier foreign migrants have invariably been drawn from a peon class. This is not the case with the new migrants. They are small farmers who have lost their farms, or farm hands who have lived with the family in the old American way. . . . They have come from the little farm districts where democracy was not only possible but inevita- ble, where popular government, whether practiced in the Grange, in church organization or in local government, was the responsibility of every man. And they have come into the country where, because of the movement necessary to make a living, they are not allowed any vote whatever, but are rather considered a properly unprivileged class. . . .
As one little boy in a squatter’s camp said, “When they need us they call us migrants, and when we’ve picked their crop, we’re bums and we got to get out.”
QUESTIONS
1. What does Roosevelt mean by the difference between the definition of liberty that has existed in the past and his own “broader definition of liberty”?
2. According to Steinbeck, how do Depression-era migrant workers differ from those in earlier periods?
3. Do the migrant workers described by Stein- beck enjoy liberty as Roosevelt understands it?
844 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
by both the federal government and the states. It upheld a minimum wage law of the state of Washington similar to the New York measure it had declared unconstitutional a year earlier. It turned aside challenges to Social Security and the Wagner Act. In subsequent cases, the Court affirmed federal power to reg- ulate wages, hours, child labor, agricultural production, and numerous other aspects of economic life.
Announcing a new judicial philosophy, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes pointed out that the words “freedom of contract” did not appear in the Consti- tution. “Liberty,” however, did, and this, Hughes continued, required “the pro- tection of law against the evils which menace the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people.” The Court’s new willingness to accept the New Deal marked a permanent change in judicial policy. Having declared dozens of eco- nomic laws unconstitutional in the decades leading up to 1937, the justices have rarely done so since.
The End of the Second New Deal
Even as the Court made its peace with Roosevelt’s policies, the momentum of the Second New Deal slowed. The landmark United States Housing Act did pass in 1937, initiating the first major national effort to build homes for the poorest Americans. But the Fair Labor Standards bill failed to reach the floor for over a year. When it finally passed in 1938, it banned goods produced by child labor from interstate commerce, set forty cents as the minimum hourly wage, and required overtime pay for hours of work exceeding forty per week. This last major piece of New Deal legislation established the practice of federal regulation of wages and working conditions, another radical departure from pre- Depression policies.
The year 1937 also witnessed a sharp downturn of the economy. With eco- nomic conditions improving in 1936, Roosevelt had reduced federal funding for farm subsidies and WPA work relief. The result was disastrous. As government spending fell, so did business investment, industrial production, and the stock market. Unemployment, still 14 percent at the beginning of 1937, rose to nearly 20 percent by year’s end.
In 1936, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John May- nard Keynes had challenged economists’ traditional belief in the sanctity of bal- anced budgets. Large-scale government spending, he insisted, was necessary to sustain purchasing power and stimulate economic activity during downturns. Such spending should be enacted even at the cost of a budget deficit (a situa- tion in which the government spends more money than it takes in). By 1938, Roosevelt was ready to follow this prescription, which would later be known as
THE LIMITS OF CHANGE ★ 845
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The New Deal did not really solve the problem of unemployment, which fell below 10 percent only in 1941, as the United States prepared to enter World War II.
FIGURE 21.1 UNEMPLOYMENT, 1925–1945
Keynesian economics. In April, he asked Congress for billions more for work relief and farm aid. By the end of the year, the immediate crisis had passed. But the events of 1937–1938 marked a major shift in New Deal philosophy. Rather than economic planning, as in 1933–1934, or economic redistribu- tion, as in 1935–1936, public spending would now be the government’s major tool for combating unemployment and stimulating economic growth. The Sec- ond New Deal had come to an end.
T H E L I M I T S O F C H A N G E Roosevelt conceived of the Second New Deal, and especially Social Security, as expanding the meaning of freedom by extending assistance to broad groups of needy Americans—the unemployed, elderly, and dependent—as a right of citizenship, not charity or special privilege. But political realities, especially the power of inherited ideas about gender and black disenfranchisement in the South, powerfully affected the drafting of legislation. New Deal programs were justified as ways of bringing economic security to “the people” rather than to specific disadvantaged groups. But different Americans experienced the New Deal in radically different ways.
The New Deal and American Women
The New Deal brought more women into government than ever before in American history. A number of talented women, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, advised the president and shaped public policy. Most promi- nent of all was Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s distant cousin whom he had married in 1905. She transformed the role of First Lady, turning a position with no for- mal responsibilities into a base for political action. She traveled widely, spoke out on public issues, wrote a regular newspaper column that sometimes dis- agreed openly with her husband’s policies, and worked to enlarge the scope of the New Deal in areas like civil rights, labor legislation, and work relief.
How did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities?
846 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
But even as the New Deal increased women’s visibility in national politics, organized feminism, already in disarray during the 1920s, disappeared as a political force. Indeed, the Depression inspired widespread demands for women to remove themselves from the labor market to make room for unem- ployed men. Because the Depression hit industrial employment harder than low-wage clerical and service jobs where women predominated, the proportion of the workforce made up of women rose. The government tried to reverse this trend. The Economy Act of 1933 prohibited both members of a married cou- ple from holding federal jobs. Until its repeal in 1937, it led to the dismissal of numerous female civil service employees whose husbands worked for the government. Many states and localities prohibited the hiring of women whose husbands earned a “living wage,” and employers from banks to public school systems barred married women from jobs. Although the CIO organized female workers, it, too, adhered to the idea that women should be supported by men. “The working wife whose husband is employed,” said a vice president of the United Auto Workers, “should be barred from industry.”
Most New Deal programs did not exclude women from benefits (although the CCC restricted its camps to men). But the ideal of the male-headed house- hold powerfully shaped social policy. Since paying taxes on one’s wages made one eligible for the most generous Social Security programs—old age pensions and unemployment insurance—they left most women uncovered, since they did not work outside the home. The program excluded the 3 million mostly female domestic workers altogether. “Those who need protection most are completely overlooked,” the sister of a household worker complained to Secre- tary of Labor Perkins. “What about the poor domestics, both in private homes and private institutions. What have you done for them? Nothing.”
The Southern Veto
Roosevelt made the federal government the symbolic representative of all the people, including racial and ethnic groups generally ignored by previous administrations. Yet the power of the Solid South helped to mold the New Deal welfare state into an entitlement of white Americans. After the South’s blacks lost the right to vote around the turn of the century, Democrats enjoyed a political monopoly in the region. Democratic members of Congress were elected again and again. With results predetermined, many whites did not bother to vote (only about 20 percent of eligible southern voters cast ballots in the election of 1920). But this tiny electorate had an enormous impact on national policy. Committee chairmanships in Congress rest on seniority— how many years a member has served in office. Beginning in 1933, when Democrats took control of Congress, southerners assumed the key leadership
THE LIMITS OF CHANGE ★ 847
positions. Despite his personal pop- ularity, Roosevelt felt he could not challenge the power of southern Dem- ocrats if he wished legislation to pass. At their insistence, the Social Security law excluded agricultural and domes- tic workers, the largest categories of black employment.
Roosevelt spoke of Social Securi- ty’s universality, but the demand for truly comprehensive coverage came from the political left and black orga- nizations. Congressman Ernest Lun- deen of Minnesota in 1935 introduced a bill establishing a federally con- trolled system of old age, unemploy- ment, and health benefits for all wage workers, plus support for female heads of households with dependents. Black organizations like the Urban League and the NAACP supported the Lundeen bill and lobbied strenuously for a system that enabled agricultural and domestic workers to receive unemploy- ment and old age benefits and that established national relief standards. The Social Security Act, however, not Lundeen’s proposal, became law. Its lim- itations, complained the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, reflected the power of “reactionary elements in the South who cannot bear the thought of Negroes getting pensions and compensations” and who feared that the inclu- sion of black workers would disrupt the region’s low-wage, racially divided labor system.
The Stigma of Welfare
Because of the “southern veto,” the majority of black workers found themselves confined to the least generous and most vulnerable wing of the new welfare state. The public assistance programs established by Social Security, notably aid to dependent children and to the poor elderly, were open to all Americans who could demonstrate financial need. But they set benefits at extremely low levels and authorized the states to determine eligibility standards, including “moral” behavior as defined by local authorities. As a result, public assistance programs allowed for widespread discrimination in the distribution of bene- fits. Because recipients did not pay Social Security taxes, they came to bear the
A 1936 photograph shows a black farmer, with his son, repaying a loan from the Farm Security Administration, which sought to improve the conditions of poor landowning farmers and sharecroppers. The client wears what is probably his nicest attire to meet with the government official.
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848 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
humiliating stigma of dependency on government handouts, which would soon come to be known as “welfare.”
In 1942, the National Resources Planning Board noted that because of their exclusion from programs “which give aid under relatively favorable conditions,” blacks were becoming disproportionately dependent on welfare, a program widely viewed with popular disfavor. The situation, the report concluded, seemed certain to stigmatize blacks as recipients of unearned gov- ernment assistance, and welfare as a program for minorities, thus dooming it forever to inadequate “standards of aid.” Over time, this is precisely what hap- pened, until the federal government abolished its responsibility for welfare in 1996 entirely, during the presidency of Bill Clinton.
The Indian New Deal
Overall, the Depression and New Deal had a contradictory impact on America’s racial minorities. Under Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, the administration launched an Indian New Deal. Collier ended the policy of forced assimilation and allowed Indians unprecedented cultural autonomy. He replaced boarding schools meant to eradicate the tribal heritage of Indian children with schools on reservations, and dramatically increased spending on Indian health. He secured passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, ending the policy, dating back to the Dawes Act of 1887, of dividing Indian lands into small plots for individual families and selling off the rest. Federal authorities once again recognized Indians’ right to govern their own affairs, except where specifically limited by national laws. Such limitations, however, could weigh heavily on Indian tribes. The Navajos, the nation’s largest tribe, refused to cooperate with the Reorganization Act as a protest against a federal soil conservation program that required them to reduce their herds of livestock.
The New Deal marked the most radical shift in Indian policy in the nation’s history. But living conditions on the desperately poor reservations did not significantly improve, and New Deal programs often ignored Indians’ inter- ests. The building of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River flooded thousands of acres where Indians had hunted and fished for centuries. But the government did not make any of the irrigation water available to the region’s reservations.
The New Deal and Mexican-Americans
For Mexican-Americans, the Depression was a wrenching experience. With demand for their labor plummeting, more than 400,000 (one-fifth of the pop- ulation of Mexican origin) returned to Mexico, some voluntarily, others at the
THE LIMITS OF CHANGE ★ 849
strong urging of local authorities in the Southwest. A majority of those “encour- aged” to leave the country were recent immigrants, but they included perhaps 200,000 Mexican-American children who had been born in the United States and were therefore citizens. Those who remained mostly worked in grim con- ditions in California’s vegetable and fruit fields, whose corporate farms benefited enormously from New Deal dam construction that provided them with cheap electricity and water for irrigation. The Wagner and Social Secu- rity Acts did not apply to agricultural laborers. When the workers tried to organize a union as part of the decade’s labor upsurge, they were brutally sup- pressed. In his 1939 book Factories in the Field, the writer Carey McWilliams exposed the low wages, inadequate hous- ing, and political repression under which the migrant laborers suffered, which the New Deal did nothing to alleviate.
Mexican-American leaders struggled to develop a consistent strategy for their people. They sought greater rights by claiming to be white Americans— in order to not suffer the same discrimination as African-Americans—but also sought the backing of the Mexican government and promoted a mystical sense of pride and identification with Mexican heritage later given the name la raza.
Last Hired, First Fired
As the “last hired and first fired,” African-Americans were hit hardest by the Depression. Even those who retained their jobs now faced competition from unemployed whites who had previously considered positions like waiter and porter beneath them. With an unemployment rate double that of whites, blacks benefited disproportionately from direct government relief and, espe- cially in northern cities, jobs on New Deal public-works projects. Half of the families in Harlem received public assistance during the 1930s.
The Depression propelled economic survival to the top of the black agenda. Demonstrations in Harlem demanded jobs in the neighborhood’s white-owned stores, with the slogan “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work.” W. E. B. Du Bois
The Farm Security Administration hired noted photographers to document American life. This image by Dorothea Lange, from 1938, shows Hispanic women packing apricots in Brentwood, California.
How did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities?
850 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
abandoned his earlier goal of racial integration as unrealistic for the foresee- able future. Blacks, he wrote, must recognize themselves as “a nation within a nation.” He called on blacks to organize for economic survival by building an independent, cooperative economy within their segregated communities, and to gain control of their own separate schools (a position reminiscent of that of Booker T. Washington, whom he had earlier condemned).
A New Deal for Blacks
Although Roosevelt seems to have had little personal interest in race relations or civil rights, he appointed Mary McLeod Bethune, a prominent black edu- cator, as a special adviser on minority affairs and a number of other blacks to important federal positions. Key members of his administration, including his wife, Eleanor, and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a former president of the Chicago chapter of the NAACP, directed national attention to the injustices of segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching. In 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when the organiza- tion refused to allow the black singer Marian Anderson to present a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington. The president’s wife arranged for Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and for the concert to be broadcast nationally on the radio.
Thanks to the New Deal, the decade witnessed a historic shift in black voting patterns. In the North and West, where they enjoyed the right to vote, blacks in 1934 and 1936 abandoned their allegiance to the party of Lincoln and emancipation in favor of Democrats and the New Deal. But their hopes for broad changes in the nation’s race system were disappointed. Despite a massive lobbying campaign, southern congressmen prevented passage of a federal antilynching law. FDR offered little support. “I did not choose the tools with which I must work,” he told Walter White of the NAACP; he could not jeopardize his economic programs by alienating powerful members of Con- gress. The CCC established segregated work camps. Because of the exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers, Social Security’s old age pensions and unemployment benefits and the minimum wages established by the Fair Labor Standards Act left uncovered 60 percent of all employed blacks and 85 percent of black women.
Federal Discrimination
Federal housing policy, which powerfully reinforced residential segregation, revealed the limits of New Deal freedom. As in the case of Social Security, local officials put national housing policy into practice in a way that reinforced
THE LIMITS OF CHANGE ★ 851
existing racial boundaries. Nearly all municipalities, North as well as South, insisted that housing built or finan- cially aided by the federal government be racially segregated. (In Texas, some communities financed three sets of housing projects—for whites, blacks, and Mexicans.) The Federal Housing Administration, moreover, had no hes- itation about insuring mortgages that contained clauses barring future sales to non-white buyers, and it refused to channel money into integrated neigh- borhoods. In some cases, the presence of a single black family led the agency to declare an entire block off-limits for federal mortgage insurance. Along with discriminatory practices by private banks and real-estate companies, federal policy became a major factor in further entrenching housing segregation in the United States.
Federal employment practices also discriminated on the basis of race. As late as 1940, of the 150,000 blacks holding federal jobs, only 2 percent occupied positions other than clerk or custodian. In the South, many New Deal construc- tion projects refused to hire blacks at all. “They give all the work to white peo- ple and give us nothing,” a black resident of Mississippi wrote to FDR in 1935. The New Deal began the process of modernizing southern agriculture, but ten- ants, black and white, footed much of the bill. Tens of thousands of sharecrop- pers, as noted earlier, were driven off the land as a result of the AAA policy of raising crop prices by paying landowners to reduce cotton acreage.
Support for civil rights would eventually become a test of liberal creden- tials. But in the 1930s, one could advocate Roosevelt’s economic program and oppose antilynching legislation and moves to incorporate black workers within Social Security. Theodore Bilbo, the notoriously racist senator from Mississippi, was one of the New Deal’s most loyal backers. Not until the Great Society of the 1960s would those left out of Social Security and other New Deal programs—racial minorities, many women, migrants and other less privileged workers—win inclusion in the American welfare state.
Nonetheless, in a society in which virtually all institutions, public and private, created and reinforced patterns of discrimination, the New Deal helped to create an atmosphere that made possible challenges to the racial and ethnic status quo and the rise of a new, more inclusive vision of American freedom.
During the 1930s, the South remained rigidly segregated. This 1939 photograph by Dorthea Lange depicts a “colored” movie theater in the Mississippi Delta.
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852 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
A N E W C O N C E P T I O N O F A M E R I C A If the New Deal failed to dismantle the barriers that barred non-whites from full participation in American life, the 1930s witnessed the absorption of other groups into the social mainstream. With Catholics and Jews occupying promi- nent posts in the Roosevelt administration and new immigrant voters forming an important part of its electoral support, the New Deal made ethnic plural- ism a living reality in American politics. One of Roosevelt’s first acts on taking office had been to sign the Beer and Wine Revenue Act, an anticipation of the constitutional amendment repealing prohibition. While promoted as a way to revive employment in the liquor industry and boost tax revenues, it also rep- resented a repudiation of the linkage of politics and Protestant morality. The election of the Italian-American Fiorello La Guardia as mayor of New York City in 1933 symbolized the coming to power of the new immigrants. Although a Republican, La Guardia worked closely with FDR and launched his own pro- gram of spending on housing, parks, and public works. La Guardia’s was one of numerous “little New Deals” that brought ethnic working-class voters to power in communities throughout the industrial heartland.
Thanks to the virtual cutoff of southern and eastern European immigration in 1924, the increasing penetration of movies, chain stores, and mass advertis- ing into ethnic communities, and the common experience of economic crisis, the 1930s witnessed an acceleration of cultural assimilation. But the process had a different content from the corporate-sponsored Americanization plans of the preceding years. For the children of the new immigrants, labor and political activism became agents of a new kind of Americanization. One could partici- pate fully in the broader society without surrendering one’s ideals and ethnic identity. “Unionism is Americanism” became a CIO rallying cry. “The Mesabi Range,” a Minnesota miner wrote to Secretary of Labor Perkins, complaining of low wages and management hostility to unions in the iron-rich region, “isn’t Americanized yet.”
The Heyday of American Communism
In the mid-1930s, for the first time in American history, the left—an umbrella term for socialists, communists, labor radicals, and many New Deal liberals— enjoyed a shaping influence on the nation’s politics and culture. The CIO and Communist Party became focal points for a broad social and intellectual impulse that helped to redraw the boundaries of American freedom. An obscure, faction-ridden organization when the Depression began, the Communist Party experienced remarkable growth during the 1930s. The party’s membership never exceeded 100,000, but several times that number passed through its ranks.
A NEW CONCEPTION OF AMERICA ★ 853
The party’s commitment to socialism resonated with a widespread belief that the Depression had demonstrated the bankruptcy of capitalism. But it was not so much the party’s ideology as its vitality—its involvement in a mind-boggling array of activities, including demonstrations of the unem- ployed, struggles for industrial unionism, and a renewed movement for black civil rights—that for a time made it the center of gravity for a broad democratic upsurge. At the height of the Popular Front—a period during the mid-1930s when the Communist Party sought to ally itself with socialists and New Deal- ers in movements for social change, urging reform of the capitalist system rather than revolution—Communists gained an unprecedented respectability. Earl Browder, the party’s leader, even appeared on the cover of Time magazine. It is one of the era’s ironies that an organization with an undemocratic struc- ture and closely tied to Stalin’s dictatorial regime in Russia should have con- tributed to the expansion of freedom in the United States. But the Communist Party helped to imbue New Deal liberalism with a militant spirit and a more pluralistic understanding of Americanism.
Redefining the People
In theater, film, and dance, the Popular Front vision of American society sank deep roots and survived much longer than the political moment from which it sprang. In this broad left-wing culture, social and economic radicalism, not support for the status quo, defined true Americanism, ethnic and racial diver- sity was the glory of American society, and the “American way of life” meant unionism and social citizenship, not the unbridled pursuit of wealth. The Amer- ican “people,” viewed by many intellectuals in the 1920s as representing mean- spirited fundamentalism and crass commercialism, were suddenly rediscovered as embodiments of democratic virtue.
The “common man,” Roosevelt proclaimed, embodied “the heart and soul of our country.” During the 1930s, artists and writers who strove to create socially meaningful works eagerly took up the task of depicting the daily lives of ordi- nary farmers and city dwellers. Art about the people—such as Dorothea Lange’s photographs of migrant workers and sharecroppers—and art created by the people—such as black spirituals—came to be seen as expressions of genuine Americanism. The Federal Music Project dispatched collectors with tape record- ers to help preserve American folk music. Films celebrated populist figures who challenged and defeated corrupt businessmen and politicians, as in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). New immigrants, especially Jews and Italians, played a prominent role in producing and directing Hollywood films of the 1930s. Their movies, however, glorified not urban ethnic communities but ordinary small-town middle-class Americans.
How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s?
854 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
Promoting Diversity
“A new conception of America is necessary,” wrote the immigrant labor radi- cal Louis Adamic in 1938. Despite bringing ethnic and northern black voters into its political coalition, the Democratic Party said little about ethno-cultural issues, fearful of rekindling the divisive battles of the 1920s. But the Popular Front forthrightly sought to promote the idea that the country’s strength lay in diversity, tolerance, and the rejection of ethnic prejudice and class privilege. The CIO avidly promoted the idea of ethnic and racial inclusiveness. It broke decisively with the AFL’s tradition of exclusionary unionism. “We are the only Americans who take them into our organization as equals,” wrote labor orga- nizer Rose Pesotta, referring to the Mexican-Americans who flocked to the Can- nery and Agricultural Workers union.
Popular Front culture presented a heroic but not uncritical picture of the country’s past. Martha Graham’s modern dance masterpiece American Document (1938), an embodiment of Popular Front aesthetics with its emphasis on Ameri- ca’s folk traditions and multi-ethnic heritage, centered its account of history on the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. Yet Graham did not neglect what her narrator called “things we are ashamed of,” including the dispossession of the Indians and the plight of the unemployed. Graham’s answer to Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s old question, “What, then, is the American, this new man?” was that Americans were not only middle-class Anglo- Saxons but also blacks, immigrants, and the working class. Earl Robinson’s song “Ballad for Americans,” a typical expression of Popular Front culture that celebrated the religious, racial, and ethnic diversity of American society, became a national hit and was performed in 1940 at the Republican national convention.
Challenging the Color Line
It was fitting that “Ballad for Americans” reached the top of the charts in a ver- sion performed by the magnificent black singer Paul Robeson. Popular Front culture moved well beyond New Deal liberalism in condemning racism as incompatible with true Americanism. In the 1930s, groups like the American Jewish Committee and the National Conference of Christians and Jews actively promoted ethnic and religious tolerance, defining pluralism as “the American way.” But whether in Harlem or East Los Angeles, the Communist Party was the era’s only predominantly white organization to make fighting racism a top priority. “The communists,” declared Charles H. Houston, the NAACP’s chief lawyer, “made it impossible for any aspirant to Negro leadership to advo- cate less than full economic, political and social equality.”
Communist influence spread even to the South. The Communist- dominated International Labor Defense mobilized popular support for black
A NEW CONCEPTION OF AMERICA ★ 855
defendants victimized by a racist criminal justice system. It helped to make the Scottsboro case an international cause célèbre. The case revolved around nine young black men arrested for the rape of two white women in Alabama in 1931. Despite the weakness of the evidence against the “Scottsboro boys” and the fact that one of the two accusers recanted, Alabama authorities three times put them on trial and three times won convictions. Landmark Supreme Court decisions overturned the first two verdicts and established legal principles that greatly expanded the definition of civil liberties—that defendants have a constitutional right to effective legal representation, and that states cannot systematically exclude blacks from juries. But the Court allowed the third set of convictions to stand, which led to prison sentences for five of the defendants. In 1937, a defense lawyer worked out a deal whereby Alabama authorities released nearly all the defendants on parole, although the last of the “Scottsboro boys” did not leave prison until thirteen years had passed.
Despite considerable resistance from white workers determined to pre- serve their monopoly of skilled positions and access to promotions, the CIO welcomed black members and advocated the passage of antilynching laws and the return of voting rights to southern blacks. The CIO brought large numbers of black industrial workers into the labor movement for the first time and ran extensive educational campaigns to persuade white workers to recognize the interests they shared with their black counterparts. Black workers, many of them traditionally hostile to unions because of their long experience of exclu- sion, responded with enthusiasm to CIO organizing efforts. The union offered the promise of higher wages, dignity in the workplace, and an end to the arbi- trary power of often racist foremen. Ed McRea, a white CIO organizer in Mem- phis, Tennessee, reported that he had little difficulty persuading black workers of the value of unionization: “You didn’t have any trouble explaining this to blacks, with the kinds of oppression and conditions they had. It was a question of freedom.”
Labor and Civil Liberties
Another central element of Popular Front public culture was its mobiliza- tion for civil liberties, especially the right of labor to organize. The strug- gle to launch industrial unions encountered sweeping local restrictions on freedom of speech as well as repression by private and public police forces. Nationwide publicity about the wave of violence directed against the South- ern Tenant Farmers Union in the South and the CIO in industrial communi- ties in the North elevated the rights of labor to a central place in discussions of civil liberties. The American Civil Liberties Union, primarily concerned in the
How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s?
856 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
1920s with governmental repression, by 1934 concluded that “the masters of property” posed as great a danger to freedom of speech and assembly as politi- cal authorities.
Beginning in 1936, a Senate subcommittee headed by Robert M. La Follette Jr. exposed the methods employers used to combat unionization, including spies and private police forces. Workers had “no liberties at all,” an employee of Gen- eral Motors wrote to the committee from Saginaw, Michigan. The extensive violence unleashed against strikers in California’s cotton and lettuce fields made that state, the committee report concluded, seem more like a “European dictatorship” than part of the United States.
Labor militancy helped to produce an important shift in the understand- ing of civil liberties. Previously conceived of as individual rights that must be protected against infringement by the government, the concept now expanded to include violations of free speech and assembly by powerful private groups. As a result, just as the federal government emerged as a guarantor of economic security, it also became a protector of freedom of expression.
By the eve of World War II, civil liberties had assumed a central place in the New Deal understanding of freedom. In 1939, Attorney General Frank Murphy established a Civil Liberties Unit in the Department of Justice. “For the first time in our history,” Murphy wrote the president, “the full weight of the Department will be thrown behind the effort to preserve in this country the blessings of liberty.” Meanwhile, the same Supreme Court that in 1937 relinquished its role as a judge of economic legislation moved to expand its authority over civil lib- erties. The justices insisted that constitutional guarantees of free thought and expression were essential to “nearly every other form of freedom” and therefore deserved special protection by the courts. Thus, civil liberties replaced liberty of contract as the judicial foundation of freedom. In 1937, the Court over- turned on free speech grounds the conviction of Angelo Herndon, a Commu- nist organizer jailed in Georgia for “inciting insurrection.” Three years later, it invalidated an Alabama law that prohibited picketing in labor disputes. Since 1937, the large majority of state and national laws overturned by the courts have been those that infringe on civil liberties, not on the property rights of business.
The new appreciation of free expression was hardly universal. In 1938, the House of Representatives established the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate disloyalty. Its expansive definition of “un- American” included communists, labor radicals, and the left of the Democratic Party, and its hearings led to the dismissal of dozens of federal employees on charges of subversion. Two years later, Congress enacted the Smith Act, which made it a federal crime to “teach, advocate, or encourage” the overthrow of the govern- ment. A similar pursuit of radical views took place at the state level. The New
A NEW CONCEPTION OF AMERICA ★ 857
York legislature’s Rapp-Coudert Committee held sweeping hearings investi- gating “subversive” influences in New York City’s public colleges, resulting in the firing in 1941 of some sixty faculty members charged with communist sympathies.
The End of the New Deal
By then the New Deal, as an era of far-reaching social reform, had already begun to recede. One reason was that more and more southern Democrats were find- ing themselves at odds with Roosevelt’s policies. In 1938, the administration released a “Report on Economic Conditions in the South,” along with a letter by the president referring to the region as “the nation’s No. 1 economic prob- lem.” The document revealed that the South lagged far behind other parts of the country in industrialization and investment in education and public
How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s?
Isaac Soyer’s painting of dispirited men and women at an employment agency in 1937 illustrates that despite its many accomplishments, the New Deal failed to solve the problem of mass joblessness.
858 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
health. Its per capita income stood at half that of the rest of the nation. Also in 1938, a new generation of homegrown radicals—southern New Dealers, black activists, labor leaders, communists, even a few elected officials—founded the Southern Conference for Human Welfare to work for unionization, unemploy- ment relief, and racial justice.
Until the late 1930s, prominent southern Democrats had been strong supporters of the New Deal, while at the same time working to shape legisla- tion to allow for the local administration of relief and the exclusion of most black workers. Now, southern business and political leaders feared that con- tinuing federal intervention in their region would encourage unionization and upset race relations. Roosevelt concluded that the enactment of future New Deal measures required a liberalization of the southern Democratic Party. In 1938, he tried to persuade the region’s voters to replace conservative congressmen with ones who would support his policies. The South’s small electorate dealt him a stinging rebuke. In the North, where the economic downturn, the “Court-packing” plan, and the upsurge of CIO militancy alarmed many middle-class voters, Republicans increased their congressio- nal representation.
A period of political stalemate followed the congressional election of 1938. For many years, a conservative coalition of southern Democrats and northern Republicans dominated Congress. Further reform initiatives became almost impossible, and Congress moved to abolish existing ones, beginning with the Federal Theater Project, which had alarmed conservatives because of the pres- ence of radicals and homosexuals on its payroll. Congress repealed an earlier tax on corporate profits and rejected a proposed program of national medical insurance. The administration, moreover, increasingly focused its attention on the storm gathering in Europe. Even before December 1941, when the United States entered World War II, “Dr. Win the War,” as Roosevelt put it, had replaced “Dr. New Deal.”
The New Deal in American History
Given the scope of the economic calamity it tried to counter, the New Deal seems in many ways quite limited. Compared to later European welfare states, Social Security remained restricted in scope and modest in cost. The New Deal failed to address the problem of racial inequality, which in some ways it actu- ally worsened.
Yet even as the New Deal receded, its substantial accomplishments remained. It greatly expanded the federal government’s role in the American economy and made it an independent force in relations between industry and labor. The government influenced what farmers could and could not plant,
required employers to deal with unions, insured bank deposits, regulated the stock market, loaned money to home owners, and provided payments to a majority of the elderly and unemployed. It transformed the physical envi- ronment through hydroelectric dams, reforestation projects, rural electrifica- tion, and the construction of innumerable public facilities. It restored faith in democracy and made the government an institution directly experienced in Americans’ daily lives and directly concerned with their welfare. It redrew the map of American politics. It helped to inspire, and was powerfully influenced by, a popular upsurge that recast the idea of freedom to include a public guar- antee of economic security for ordinary citizens and that identified economic inequality as the greatest threat to American freedom.
The New Deal certainly improved economic conditions in the United States. But it did not generate sustained prosperity. More than 15 percent of the workforce remained unemployed in 1940. Only the mobilization of the nation’s resources to fight World War II would finally end the Great Depression.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Discuss how regional planning such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Columbia River project reflected broader changes in American life during the New Deal.
2. What actions did President Roosevelt and Congress take to help the banking system recover as well as to reform how it operated in the long run?
3. How did the actions of the AAA benefit many farmers, injure others, and provoke attacks by conservatives?
4. Explain what labor did in the 1930s to rise from being “slaves of the depression” to secure “economic freedom and industrial democracy” for American workers.
5. How did the emphasis of the Second New Deal differ from the First New Deal?
6. How did the entrenched power of southern white conservatives limit African-Americans’ ability to enjoy the full benefits of the New Deal and eliminate racial violence and discrimination? Why did African-Americans still support the Democratic Party?
7. Analyze the effects of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 on Native Americans.
8. Explain how New Deal programs contributed to the stigma of blacks as welfare-dependent.
9. How did the New Deal build on traditional ideas about the importance of home ownership to Americans, and how did it change Americans’ ability to own their own homes?
10. What were the major characteristics of liberalism by 1939?
How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 859
860 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
New Deal (p. 821)
Emergency Banking Act (p. 824)
Hundred Days (p. 824)
National Industrial Recovery Act (p. 824)
National Recovery Administration (p. 824)
Civilian Conservation Corps (p. 825)
Public Works Administration (p. 826)
Tennessee Valley Authority (p. 826)
Agricultural Adjustment Act (p. 826)
Dust Bowl (p. 827)
Federal Housing Administration (p. 829)
Congress of Industrial Organizations (p. 831)
sit-down strike (p. 832)
Share Our Wealth movement (p. 834)
Works Progress Administration (p. 836)
Wagner Act (p. 837)
Social Security Act (p. 837)
welfare state (p. 837)
Court packing (p. 841)
Indian New Deal (p. 848)
Popular Front (p. 853)
Scottsboro case (p. 855)
House Un-American Activities Committee (p. 856)
KEY TERMS
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
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What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What steps led to American participation in World War II?
• How did the United States mobilize economic resources and promote popular support for the war effort?
• What visions of America’s postwar role began to emerge during the war?
• How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad during World War II?
• How did the end of the war begin to shape the postwar world?
F I G H T I N G F O R T H E F O U R
F R E E D O M S : W O R L D W A R I I
★ C H A P T E R 2 2 ★
1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5
By far the most popular works of art produced during World War II were paintings of the Four Freedoms by the magazine illustrator Norman Rockwell. In his State of the Union Address, delivered before Congress on January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt spoke eloquently of a future world order founded on the “essential human freedoms”: freedom of speech, free- dom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The Four Free- doms became Roosevelt’s favorite statement of Allied aims. At various times, he compared them with the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, and the
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862 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
Emancipation Proclamation. They embodied, Roosevelt declared in a 1942 radio address, the “rights of men of every creed and every race, wherever they live,” and made clear “the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today.”
Rockwell’s paintings succeeded in linking the Four Freedoms with the defense of traditional American values. “Words like freedom or liberty,” declared one wartime advertisement, “draw close to us only when we break them down into the homely fragments of daily life.” This insight helps to explain Rockwell’s astonishing popularity. Born in New York City in 1894, Rockwell had lived in the New York area until 1939, when he and his family moved to Arlington, Vermont, where they could enjoy, as he put it, “the clean, simple country life, as opposed to the complicated world of the city.” Drawing on the lives of his Vermont neighbors, Rockwell translated the Four Freedoms into images of real people situated in small-town America. Each of the paint- ings focuses on an instantly recognizable situation. An ordinary citizen rises to speak at a town meeting; members of different religious groups are seen at prayer; a family enjoys a Thanksgiving dinner; a mother and father stand over a sleeping child.
The Four Freedoms paintings first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post early in 1943. Letters of praise poured in to the magazine’s editors. The govern- ment produced and sold millions of reprints. The paintings toured the country as the centerpiece of the Four Freedoms Show, which included theatrical pre- sentations, parades, and other events aimed at persuading Americans to pur- chase war bonds. By the end of its tour, the Four Freedoms Show had raised $133 million.
Even as Rockwell invoked images of small-town life to rally Americans to the war effort, however, the country experienced changes as deep as at any time in its history. Many of the economic trends and social movements that we associate with the last half of the twentieth century had their roots in the war years. As during World War I, but on a far larger scale, wartime mobilization expanded the size and scope of government and energized the economy. The gross national product more than doubled and unemploy- ment disappeared as war production finally conquered the Depression. The demand for labor drew millions of women into the workforce and sent a tide of migrants from rural America to the industrial cities of the North and West, permanently altering the nation’s social geography. Some 30 million Ameri- cans moved during the war, half going into military service and half taking up new jobs.
World War II gave the country a new and lasting international role and greatly strengthened the idea that American security was global in scope and could only be protected by the worldwide triumph of core American values.
FIGHTING FOR THE FOUR FREEDOMS: WORLD WAR II ★ 863
Government military spending sparked the economic development of the South and West, laying the foundation for the rise of the modern Sunbelt. The war created a close link between big business and a mil- itarized federal government—a “military- industrial complex,” as President Dwight D. Eisenhower would later call it—that long survived the end of fighting.
World War II also redrew the boundaries of American nationality. In contrast to World War I, the government recognized the “new immigrants” of the early twentieth century and their children as loyal Americans. Black Americans’ second-class status assumed, for the first time since Reconstruction, a prom- inent place on the nation’s political agenda. But toleration had its limits. With the United States at war with Japan, the federal govern- ment removed more than 110,000 Japanese- Americans, the majority of them American citizens, from their homes and placed them in internment camps.
As a means of generating support for the struggle, the Four Freedoms provided a cru- cial language of national unity. But this unity obscured divisions within American society that the war in some ways intensified, divi- sions reflected in debates over freedom. While some Americans looked forward to a world- wide New Deal, others envisioned “free enter- prise” replacing government inter vention in the economy. The war gave birth to the mod- ern civil rights movement but strengthened the commitment of many white Americans to maintain the existing racial order. The move- ment of women into the labor force chal- lenged traditional gender relations, but most men and not a few women longed for the res- toration of family life with a male breadwin- ner and a wife responsible for the home.
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1931 Japan invades Manchuria
1933 U.S. recognizes Soviet Union
1935– Congress passes 1939 Neutrality Acts
1937 Sino-Japanese War begins
1938 Munich agreement
1939 Germany invades Poland
1940 Draft established
1941 Four Freedoms speech
Henry Luce’s The American Century
Lend-Lease Act
Executive Order 8802
Atlantic Charter
Pearl Harbor attacked
1942 Executive Order 9066
Battle of Midway Island
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) formed
1943 Zoot suit riots
Detroit race riot
Congress lifts Chinese Exclusion Act
1944 Smith v. Allwright
D-Day
GI Bill of Rights
Bretton Woods conference
Korematsu v. United States
Battle of the Bulge
1945 Yalta conference
Roosevelt dies; Harry Tru- man becomes president
V-E Day (May)
Atomic bombs dropped on Japan
End of war in Pacific
• •
864 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
Even Rockwell’s popular paintings suggested some of the ambiguities within the idea of freedom. With the exception of Freedom of Speech, which depicts civic democracy in action, the paintings emphasized private situa- tions. The message seemed to be that Americans were fighting to preserve freedoms enjoyed individually or within the family rather than in the larger public world. This emphasis on freedom as an element of private life would become more and more promi- nent in postwar America.
F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I
Good Neighbors
During the 1930s, with Americans pre- occupied by the economic crisis, inter- national relations played only a minor role in public affairs. From the outset
of his administration, nonetheless, FDR embarked on a number of departures in foreign policy. In 1933, hoping to stimulate American trade, he exchanged ambassadors with the Soviet Union, whose government his Republican prede- cessors had stubbornly refused to recognize.
Roosevelt also formalized a policy initiated by Herbert Hoover by which the United States repudiated the right to intervene militarily in the internal affairs of Latin American countries. This Good Neighbor Policy, as it was called, had mixed results. During the 1930s, the United States withdrew its troops from Haiti and Nicaragua. FDR accepted Cuba’s repeal of the Platt Amendment (dis- cussed in Chapter 17), which had authorized American military interventions on that island. These steps offered a belated recognition of the sovereignty of America’s neighbors. But while Roosevelt condemned “economic royalists” (wealthy businessmen) at home, like previous presidents he felt comfort- able dealing with undemocratic governments friendly to American business interests abroad. The United States lent its support to dictators like Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Rafael Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic, and
The immensely popular Office of War Information poster reproducing Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the Four Freedoms, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s shorthand for American purposes in World War II.
FIGHTING WORLD WAR II ★ 865
Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” FDR said of Somoza.
However, as the international crisis deepened in the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration took steps to counter German influence in Latin America by expanding hemispheric trade and promoting respect for American culture. Nel- son Rockefeller, the head of an office that hoped to expand cultural relations in the hemisphere, sent the artists of the American Ballet Caravan and the NBC Symphony Orchestra on Latin American tours. This was a far different approach to relations with Central and South America than the military interventions of the first decades of the century.
The Road to War
Ominous developments in Asia and Europe quickly overshadowed events in Latin America. By the mid-1930s, it seemed clear that the rule of law was disin- tegrating in international relations and that war was on the horizon. In 1931, seeking to expand its military and economic power in Asia, Japan invaded Man- churia, a province of northern China. Six years later, its troops moved farther into China. When the Japanese overran the city of Nanjing, they massacred an estimated 300,000 Chinese prisoners of war and civilians.
An aggressive power threatened Europe as well. After brutally consolidating his rule in Germany, Adolf Hitler embarked on a campaign to control the entire continent. In violation of the Versailles Treaty, he feverishly pursued German rearmament. In 1936, he sent troops to occupy the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone between France and Germany established after World War I. The failure of Britain, France, and the United States to oppose this action convinced Hitler that the democracies could not muster the will to halt his aggressive plans. Italian leader Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism, a movement similar to Hitler’s Nazism, invaded and conquered Ethiopia. When General Francisco Franco in 1936 led an uprising against the democratically elected government of Spain, Hitler poured in arms, seeing the conflict as a testing ground for new weap- onry. In 1939, Franco emerged victorious from a bitter civil war, establishing yet another fascist government in Europe. As part of a campaign to unite all Europe- ans of German origin in a single empire, Hitler in 1938 annexed Austria and the Sudetenland, an ethnically German part of Czechoslovakia. Shortly thereafter, he gobbled up all of that country.
As the 1930s progressed, Roosevelt became more and more alarmed at Hit- ler’s aggression as well as his accelerating campaign against Germany’s Jews, whom the Nazis stripped of citizenship and property and began to deport to concentration camps. In a 1937 speech in Chicago, FDR called for international action to “quarantine” aggressors. But no further steps followed. Roosevelt had
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866 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
little choice but to follow the policy of “appeasement” adopted by Britain and France, who hoped that agreeing to Hitler’s demands would prevent war. Brit- ish prime minister Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich conference of 1938, which awarded Hitler the Sudetenland, proclaiming that he had guar- anteed “peace in our time.”
Isolationism
To most Americans, the threat arising from Japanese and German aggres- sion seemed very distant. Moreover, Hitler had more than a few admirers in the United States. Obsessed with the threat of communism, some Americans approved of his expansion of German power as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Businessmen did not wish to give up profitable overseas markets. Henry Ford did business with Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s. Indeed, Ford plants there employed slave labor provided by the German government. Trade with Japan also continued, including shipments of American trucks and aircraft and considerable amounts of oil. Until 1941, 80 percent of Japan’s oil supply came from the United States.
Many Americans remained convinced that involvement in World War I had been a mistake. Senate hearings in 1934–1935 headed by Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota revealed that international bankers and arms exporters had pressed the Wilson administration to enter that war and had profited handsomely from it. Pacifism spread on college campuses, where tens of thousands of students took part in a “strike for peace” in 1935. Ethnic allegiances reinforced Americans’ tra- ditional reluctance to enter foreign conflicts. Many Americans of German and Italian descent celebrated the expansion of national power in their countries of origin, even when they disdained their dictatorial governments. Irish-Americans remained strongly anti-British.
Isolationism—the 1930s version of Americans’ long-standing desire to avoid foreign entanglements—dominated Congress. Beginning in 1935, lawmakers passed a series of Neutrality Acts that banned travel on belliger- ents’ ships and the sale of arms to countries at war. These policies, Congress hoped, would allow the United States to avoid the conflicts over freedom of the seas that had contributed to involvement in World War I. Despite the fact that the Spanish Civil War pitted a democratic government against an aspir- ing fascist dictator, the Western democracies, including the United States, imposed an embargo on arms shipments to both sides. Some 3,000 Americans volunteered to fight in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the side of the Spanish republic. But with Germany supplying the forces of Franco, the decision by dem- ocratic countries to abide by the arms embargo contributed substantially to his victory.
FIGHTING WORLD WAR II ★ 867
War in Europe
In the Munich agreement of 1938, Britain and France had caved in to Hitler’s aggression. In 1939, the Soviet Union proposed an international agreement to oppose further German demands for territory. Britain and France, who distrusted Stalin and saw Germany as a bulwark against the spread of communist influence in Europe, refused. Stalin then astonished the world by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler, his former sworn enemy. On September 1, immediately after the signing of the Nazi–Soviet pact, Germany invaded Poland. This time, Britain and France, who had pledged to protect Poland against aggression, declared war. But Germany appeared unstoppable. Within a year, the Nazi blitzkrieg (lightning war) had overrun Poland and much of Scandinavia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. On June 14, 1940, German troops occupied Paris. Hitler now dominated nearly all of Europe, as well as North Africa. In September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan cre- ated a military alliance known as the Axis.
For one critical year, Britain stood virtually alone in fighting Germany. Winston Churchill, who became prime minister in 1940, vowed to resist a threatened Nazi invasion. In the Battle of Britain of 1940–1941, German planes launched devastating attacks on London and other cities. The Royal Air Force eventually turned back the air assault. But Churchill pointedly called on the “new world, with all its power and might,” to step forward to rescue the old.
Toward Intervention
Roosevelt viewed Hitler as a mad gangster whose victories posed a direct threat to the United States. But most Americans remained desperate to remain out of the conflict. “What worries me, especially,” FDR wrote to Kansas editor Wil- liam Allen White, “is that public opinion over here is patting itself on the back every morning and thanking God for the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.” After a tumultuous debate, Congress in 1940 agreed to allow the sale of arms to Britain on a “cash and carry” basis—that is, they had to be paid for in cash and transported in British ships. It also approved plans for military rearmament. But with a presidential election looming, Roosevelt was reluctant to go further. Opponents of involvement in Europe organized the America First Committee, with hundreds of thousands of members and a leadership that included such well-known figures as Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, and Charles A. Lindbergh.
In 1940, breaking with a tradition that dated back to George Washington, Roosevelt announced his candidacy for a third term as president. The inter- national situation was too dangerous and domestic recovery too fragile, he insisted, for him to leave office. Republicans chose as his opponent a political amateur, Wall Street businessman and lawyer Wendell Willkie. Differences between the candidates were far more muted than in 1936. Both supported the
What steps led to American participation in World War II?
868 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
law, enacted in September 1940, that established the nation’s first peacetime draft. Willkie endorsed New Deal social legislation. He captured more votes than Roosevelt’s previous opponents, but FDR still emerged with a decisive victory. Soon after his victory, in a fireside chat in December 1940, Roosevelt announced that the United States would become the “great arsenal of democ- racy,” providing Britain and China with military supplies in their fight against Germany and Japan.
During 1941, the United States became more and more closely allied with those fighting Germany and Japan. But with Britain virtually bankrupt, it could no longer pay for supplies. At Roosevelt’s urging, Congress passed the Lend- Lease Act, which authorized military aid so long as countries promised some- how to return it all after the war. Under the law’s provisions, the United States funneled billions of dollars’ worth of arms to Britain and China, as well as the Soviet Union, after Hitler renounced his nonaggression pact and invaded that country in June 1941. FDR also froze Japanese assets in the United States, halt- ing virtually all trade between the countries, including the sale of oil vital to Japan.
Those who believed that the United States must intervene to stem the rising tide of fascism tried to awaken a reluctant country to prepare for war. Interventionists popularized slogans that would become central to wartime mobilization. In June 1941, refugees from Germany and the occupied countries of Europe joined with Americans to form the Free World Association, which sought to bring the United States into the war against Hitler. The same year saw the formation of Freedom House. With a prestigious membership that included university presidents, ministers, businessmen, and labor leaders, Freedom House described the war raging in Europe as an ideological struggle between dictatorship and the “free world.” In October 1941, it sponsored a “Fight for Freedom” rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, complete with a patri- otic variety show entitled “It’s Fun to Be Free.” The rally ended by demanding an immediate declaration of war against Germany.
Pearl Harbor
Until November 1941, the administration’s attention focused on Europe. But at the end of that month, intercepted Japanese messages revealed that an assault in the Pacific was imminent. No one, however, knew where it would come. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes, launched from aircraft carriers, bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the first attack by a foreign power on American soil since the War of 1812. Japan launched the attack in the hope of crippling American naval power in the Pacific. With a free hand in its campaign of conquest in East Asia, Japan would gain access to supplies of oil
FIGHTING WORLD WAR II ★ 869
and other resources it could no longer obtain from the United States. It hoped that destroying the American fleet would establish Japan for years to come as the dominant power in the region.
Pearl Harbor was a complete and devastating surprise. In a few hours, more than 2,000 American servicemen were killed, and 187 aircraft and 18 naval ves- sels, including 8 battleships, destroyed or damaged. By a stroke of fortune, no aircraft carriers—which would prove decisive in the Pacific war—happened to be docked at Pearl Harbor on December 7.
To this day, conspiracy theories abound suggesting that FDR knew of the attack and did nothing to prevent it so as to bring the United States into the war. No credible evidence supports this charge. Indeed, with the country drawing ever closer to intervention in Europe, Roosevelt hoped to keep the peace in the Pacific. But Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, who saw the president after the attack, remarked that he seemed calm—“his terrible moral problem had been resolved.” Terming December 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. The combined vote in Congress was 388 in favor and 1 against—pacifist Jeanette Rankin of Montana, who had also voted against American entry into World War I. The next day, Ger- many declared war on the United States. America had finally joined the largest war in human history.
The War in the Pacific
World War II has been called a “gross national product war,” meaning that its out- come turned on which coalition of combatants could outproduce the other. In ret- rospect, it appears inevitable that the entry of the United States, with its superior industrial might, would ensure the defeat of the Axis powers. But the first few months of American involvement witnessed an unbroken string of military disas- ters. Having earlier occupied substantial portions of French Indochina (now Viet- nam, Laos, and Cambodia), Japan in early 1942 conquered Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand). Japan also took control of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), whose extensive oil fields could replace supplies from the United States. And it occupied Guam, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands. At Bataan, in the Philippines, the Japanese forced 78,000 American and Filipino troops to lay down their arms—the largest surrender in American military history. Thousands perished on the ensuing “death march” to a prisoner-of-war camp, and thousands more died of disease and starvation after they arrived. At the same time, German submarines sank hundreds of Allied merchant and naval vessels during the Battle of the Atlantic.
Soon, however, the tide of battle began to turn. In May 1942, in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the American navy turned back a Japanese fleet intent on attacking Australia. The following month, it inflicted devastating losses on
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870 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
the Japanese navy in the Battle of Midway Island. American codebreakers had managed to decipher the Japanese communications code, so the navy was fore- warned about the timing of the assault at Midway and prepared an ambush for the attacking fleet. In the battle, four Japanese aircraft carriers, along with other vessels, were destroyed. Midway was the turning point of the Pacific naval war. The victories there and in the Coral Sea allowed American forces to launch the bloody campaigns that one by one drove the Japanese from fortified islands like Guadalcanal and the Solomons in the western Pacific and brought American troops ever closer to Japan.
The War in Europe
The “Grand Alliance” of World War II in Europe brought together the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, each led by an iron-willed,
Tokyo
Peking
Hong Kong
Canton
Shanghai Nanking
Saigon
Manila Bangkok
Rangoon
Singapore
Port Moresby
Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941
Midway June 3–6, 1942
Guadalcanal August 1942–February 1943
Coral Sea May 7–8,
1942
Leyte Gulf October 23–26, 1944
Hiroshima August 6, 1945
Nagasaki August 9, 1945
Guam July 21, 1944
PHILIPPINES FRENCH
INDOCHINA SIAM
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DUTCH EAST INDIES
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Kur i l I s la nd s
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Manila Bangkok
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Port Moresby
Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941
Midway June 3–6, 1942
Guadalcanal August 1942–February 1943
Coral Sea May 7–8,
1942
Leyte Gulf October 23–26, 1944
Hiroshima August 6, 1945
Nagasaki August 9, 1945
Guam July 21, 1944
PHILIPPINES FRENCH
INDOCHINA SIAM
MALAYA
BURMA
MANCHURIA
KOREA
AUSTRALIA
CHINA
DUTCH EAST INDIES
SOVIET UNION
MONGOLIA
JAPAN
Sakha l in I s land
Kur i l I s la nd s
Hawai ian I s lands (U.S . )
Caro l ine I s lands
Gi lber t I s landsSo lomon
Is lands
Marsha l l I s lands
Mar ia na I s lands
Bor neo
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Sum atra
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W O R L D WA R I I I N T H E PA C I F I C , 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5
Although the Japanese navy never fully recovered from its defeats at the Coral Sea and Midway in 1942, it took three more years for American forces to near the Japanese homeland.
FIGHTING WORLD WAR II ★ 871
larger-than-life figure: Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. United in their determination to defeat Nazi Germany, they differed not only in terms of the societies they represented but also in their long-range goals. Stalin was set on establishing enough control over eastern Europe that his country would never again be invaded from the west. Churchill hoped to ensure that the British Empire emerged intact from the war. Roosevelt, like Woodrow Wilson before him, hoped to establish a new international order so that world wars would never again take place.
Facing wars in two hemispheres, Roosevelt had to determine how best to deploy American manpower and resources. Bearing the brunt of the fighting after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin demanded an early Allied attack across the English Channel to confront German forces in occupied France and relieve pressure on his beleaguered army. Churchill’s strategy was to attack the “soft underbelly” of Axis power through Allied operations in the Mediterranean, starting with an invasion of North Africa. Churchill’s approach prevailed, and the cross-Channel invasion did not come until 1944.
In November 1942, British and American forces invaded North Africa and by May 1943 forced the surrender of the German army commanded by General Erwin Rommel. By the spring of 1943, the Allies also gained the upper hand in the Atlantic, as British and American destroyers and planes devastated the German submarine fleet. But even though Roosevelt was committed to liber- ating Europe from Nazi control, American troops did not immediately become involved on the European continent. As late as the end of 1944, more American military personnel were deployed in the Pacific than against Germany. In July 1943, American and British forces invaded Sicily, beginning the liberation of Italy. A popular uprising in Rome overthrew the Mussolini government, where- upon Germany occupied most of the country. Fighting there raged throughout 1944.
The major involvement of American troops in Europe did not begin until June 6, 1944. On that date, known as D-Day, nearly 200,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in Normandy in northwestern France. More than a million troops fol- lowed them ashore in the next few weeks, in the most massive sea–land oper- ation in history. After fierce fighting, German armies retreated eastward. By August, Paris had been liberated.
The crucial fighting in Europe, however, took place on the eastern front, the scene of an epic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million German soldiers took part in the 1941 invasion. After sweep- ing through western Russia, German armies in August 1942 launched a siege of Stalingrad, a city located deep inside Russia on the Volga River. This proved to be a catastrophic mistake. Bolstered by an influx of military supplies from
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872 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
the United States, the Russians surrounded the German troops and forced them to surrender. Some 800,000 Germans and 1.2 million Russians perished in the fighting. The German surrender at Stalingrad in January 1943 marked the turn- ing point of the European war. Combined with a Russian victory at Kursk six months later in the greatest tank battle in history, the campaign in the east dev- astated Hitler’s forces and sent surviving units on a long retreat back toward Germany.
Of 13.6 million German casualties in World War II, 10 million came on the Russian front. They represented only part of the war’s vast toll in
Casablanca Oran Algiers
Rome
Vichy
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London Berlin Warsaw
Leningrad
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Kasserine Pass February 1943
El Alamein October–
November 1942
D-Day June 1944 Battle of the BulgeDecember 1944
Stalingrad August 1942– February 1943
Kursk July 1943
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LATVIA LITHUANIA
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W O R L D WA R I I I N E U R O P E , 1 9 4 2 – 1 9 4 5
Most of the land fighting in Europe during World War II took place on the eastern front between the German and Soviet armies.
THE HOME FRONT ★ 873
human lives. Millions of Poles and at least 20 million Russians, probably many more, perished—not only soldiers but civilian victims of starvation, disease, and massacres by German soldiers. After his armies had penetrated eastern Europe in 1941, moreover, Hitler embarked on the “final solution”— the mass extermination of “undesirable” peoples—Slavs, gypsies, homo- sexuals, and, above all, Jews. By 1945, 6 million Jewish men, women, and children had died in Nazi death camps. What came to be called the Holo- caust was the horrifying culmination of the Nazi belief that Germans con- stituted a “master race” destined to rule the world.
T H E H O M E F R O N T
Mobilizing for War
By the end of World War II, some 50 million American men had registered for the draft and 10 million had been inducted into the military. The army exemplified how the war united American society in new ways. Military ser- vice threw together Americans from every region and walk of life, and almost every racial and ethnic background (African-Americans continued to serve in segregated units). It brought into contact young men who would never have encountered each other in peacetime. Many were the children of immigrants who now emerged from urban ethnic communities to fight alongside Amer- icans from rural regions with very different cultures and outlooks. The fed- eral government ended voluntary enlistment in 1942, relying entirely on the draft for manpower. This ensured that wartime sacrifice was widely shared throughout American society. By contrast, in the decades following the Viet- nam War, the armed forces have been composed entirely of volunteers and the military includes very few men and women from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.
World War II also transformed the role of the national government. FDR created federal agencies like the War Production Board, the War Manpower Commission, and the Office of Price Administration to regulate the allocation of labor, control the shipping industry, establish manufacturing quotas, and fix wages, prices, and rents. The number of federal workers rose from 1 million to 4 million, part of a tremendous growth in new jobs that pushed the unemploy- ment rate down from 14 percent in 1940 to 2 percent three years later.
The government built housing for war workers and forced civilian indus- tries to retool for war production. Michigan’s auto factories now turned out trucks, tanks, and jeeps for the army. By 1944, American factories produced a ship every day and a plane every five minutes. The gross national product rose
How did the United States mobilize economic resources and promote popular support for the war effort?
874 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
from $91 billion to $214 billion during the war, and the federal government’s expenditures amounted to twice the combined total of the previous 150 years. The government marketed billions of dollars’ worth of war bonds, increased taxes, and began the practice of withholding income tax directly from weekly paychecks. Before the war, only the 4 million wealthiest Americans paid income taxes; by 1945, more than 40 million did so. The government, one his- torian writes, moved during the war from “class taxation” to “mass taxation.”
Business and the War
The relationship between the federal government and big business changed dramat ically from the days of the Second New Deal. “If you are going to go to war in a capitalist country,” observed Secretary of War Henry Stimson, “you had bet- ter let business make money out of the process.” As corporate executives flooded into federal agencies concerned with war production, Roosevelt offered incen- tives to spur production—low-interest loans, tax concessions, and contracts with guaranteed profits. The great bulk of federal spending went to the largest corporations, furthering the long-term trend toward economic concentration. By the end of the war, the 200 biggest industrial companies accounted for almost half of all corporate assets in the United States.
Americans marveled at the achievements of wartime manufacturing. Thousands of aircraft, 100,000 armored vehicles, and 2.5 million trucks rolled off American assembly lines, and entirely new products like synthetic rubber replaced natural resources now controlled by Japan. Government-sponsored scientific research perfected inventions like radar, jet engines, and early com- puters that helped to win the war and would have a large impact on postwar life. These accomplishments not only made it possible to win a two-front war but also helped to restore the reputation of business and businessmen, which had reached a low point during the Depression.
Federal funds reinvigorated established manufacturing areas and created entirely new industrial centers. World War II saw the West Coast emerge as a focus of military-industrial production. The government invested billions of dollars in the shipyards of Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco and in the steel plants and aircraft factories of southern California. By the war’s end, California had received one-tenth of all federal spending, and Los Angeles had become the nation’s second largest manufacturing center. Nearly 2 million Americans moved to California for jobs in defense-related industries, and millions more passed through for military training and embarkation to the Pacific war.
In the South, the combination of rural out-migration and government invest- ment in military-related factories and shipyards hastened a shift from agricul- tural to industrial employment. During the war, southern per capita income rose
THE HOME FRONT ★ 875
from 60 percent to 70 percent of the national average. But the South remained very poor when the war ended. Much of its rural population still lived in small wooden shacks with no indoor plumbing. The region had only two cities— Houston and New Orleans—with populations exceeding 500,000. Despite the expansion of war production, the South’s economy still relied on agriculture and extractive industries—mining, lumber, oil—or manufacturing linked to farm- ing, like the production of cotton textiles.
Labor in Wartime
Organized labor repeatedly described World War II as a crusade for freedom that would expand economic and political democracy at home and abroad and win for unions a major voice in politics and industrial management. During the war, labor entered a three-sided arrangement with government and business that allowed union membership to soar to unprecedented levels. In order to secure industrial peace and stabilize war production, the
How did the United States mobilize economic resources and promote popular support for the war effort?
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WA RT I M E A R M Y A N D N AV Y B A S E S A N D A I R F I E L D S
As this map indicates, the military and naval facilities built by the federal government during World War II were concentrated in the South and West, sparking the economic development of these regions.
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federal government forced reluctant employers to recognize unions. In 1944, when Montgomery Ward, the large mail-order company, defied a pro-union order, the army seized its headquarters and physically evicted its president. For their part, union leaders agreed not to strike and conceded employers’ right to “managerial prerogatives” and a “fair profit.”
Despite the gains produced by labor militancy during the 1930s, unions only became firmly established in many sectors of the economy during World War II. By 1945, union membership stood at nearly 15 million, one-third of the non-farm labor force and the highest proportion in American history. But if labor became a partner in government, it was very much a junior partner. The decline of the New Deal, already evident in the late 1930s, proceeded during the war. Congress continued to be dominated by a conservative alliance of Republicans and southern Democrats. They left intact core New Deal pro- grams like Social Security but eliminated agencies thought to be controlled by leftists, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, National Youth Adminis- tration, and Works Progress Administration. Congress rejected Roosevelt’s call for a cap on personal incomes and set taxes on corporate profits at a level far lower than FDR requested. Despite the “no-strike” pledge, 1943 and 1944 wit- nessed numerous brief walkouts in which workers protested the increasing speed of assembly-line production and the disparity between wages frozen by government order and expanding corporate profits.
Fighting for the Four Freedoms
Previous conflicts, including the Mexican War and World War I, had deeply divided American society. In contrast, World War II came to be remembered as the Good War, a time of national unity in pursuit of indisputably noble goals. But all wars require the mobilization of patriotic public opinion. By 1940, “To sell goods, we must sell words” had become a motto of advertisers. Foremost among the words that helped to “sell” World War II was “freedom.”
Talk of freedom pervaded wartime America. To Roosevelt, the Four Free- doms expressed deeply held American values worthy of being spread world- wide. Freedom from fear meant not only a longing for peace but also a more general desire for security in a world that appeared to be out of control. Freedom of speech and religion scarcely required detailed explanation. But their prom- inent place among the Four Freedoms accelerated the process by which First Amendment protections of free expression moved to the center of Americans’ definition of liberty. In 1941, the administration celebrated with considerable fanfare the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution). FDR described their protections against tyrannical govern- ment as defining characteristics of American life, central to the rights of “free
THE HOME FRONT ★ 877
men and free women.” In 1943, the Supreme Court reversed a 1940 ruling and, on First Amendment grounds, upheld the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to refuse to salute the American flag in public schools. The decision stood in sharp con- trast to the coercive patriotism of World War I, and it affirmed the sanctity of individual conscience as a bedrock of freedom, even in times of crisis. The jus- tices contrasted the American system of constitutional protection for unpopu- lar minorities with Nazi tyranny.
Freedom from Want
The “most ambiguous” of the Four Freedoms, Fortune magazine remarked, was freedom from want. Yet this “great inspiring phrase,” as a Pennsylvania steel- worker put it in a letter to the president, seemed to strike the deepest chord in a nation just emerging from the Depression. Roosevelt initially meant it to refer to the elimination of barriers to international trade. But he quickly came to link freedom from want to an economic goal more relevant to the average citizen— protecting the future “standard of living of the American worker and farmer” by guaranteeing that the Depression would not resume after the war. This, he declared, would bring “real freedom for the common man.”
When Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the Four Freedoms first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, each was accompanied by a brief essay. Three of these essays, by the celebrated authors Stephen Vincent Benét, Booth Tarkington, and Will Durant, emphasized that the values Rockwell depicted were essentially American and the opposite of those of the Axis powers. For Freedom from Want, the editors chose an unknown Filipino poet, Carlos Bulosan, who had emigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen. Bulosan’s essay showed how the Four Freedoms could inspire hopes for a better future as well as nostalgia for Rock- well’s imagined small-town past. Bulosan wrote of those Americans still out- side the social mainstream—migrant workers, cannery laborers, black victims of segregation—for whom freedom meant having enough to eat, sending their children to school, and being able to “share the promise and fruits of American life.”
The Office of War Information
The history of the Office of War Information (OWI), created in 1942 to mobi- lize public opinion, illustrates how the political divisions generated by the New Deal affected efforts to promote the Four Freedoms. The liberal Dem- ocrats who dominated the OWI’s writing staff sought to make the conflict “a ‘people’s war’ for freedom.” The OWI feared that Americans had only a vague understanding of the war’s purposes and that the populace seemed more fervently committed to paying back the Japanese for their attack on
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Pearl Harbor than ridding the world of fascism. They utilized radio, film, the press, and other media to give the con- flict an ideological meaning, while seeking to avoid the nationalist hyste- ria of World War I.
Wartime mobilization drew on deep-seated American traditions. The portrait of the United States holding aloft the torch of liberty in a world overrun by oppression reached back at least as far as the American Revolution. The description of a world half slave and half free recalled the Great Emanci- pator. But critics charged that the OWI seemed most interested in promoting the definition of freedom Roosevelt had emphasized during the 1930s. One of its first pamphlets listed as elements of freedom the right to a job at fair pay and to adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Concerned that the OWI was devoting as much time to promot- ing New Deal social programs as to the war effort, Congress eliminated most of its funding.
The Fifth Freedom
After Congress curtailed the OWI, the “selling of America” became overwhelm- ingly a private affair. Under the watchful eye of the War Advertising Council, private companies joined in the campaign to promote wartime patriotism, while positioning themselves and their brand names for the postwar world. Alongside advertisements urging Americans to purchase war bonds, guard against revealing military secrets, and grow “victory gardens” to allow food to be sent to the army, the war witnessed a burst of messages marketing advertisers’ definition of freedom. Without directly criticizing Roosevelt, they repeatedly sug- gested that he had overlooked a fifth freedom. The National Association of Man- ufacturers and individual companies bombarded Americans with press releases, radio programs, and advertisements attributing the amazing feats of wartime pro- duction to “free enterprise.”
Each side in World War II invoked history to rally support for its cause. The poster issued by the Office of War Information in the United States links the words of Abraham Lincoln to the strug- gle against Nazi tyranny.
THE HOME FRONT ★ 879
Americans on the home front enjoyed a prosperity many could scarcely remember. Despite the rationing of scarce consumer items like coffee, meat, and gasoline, consumers found more goods available in 1944 than when the war began. With the memory of the Depression still very much alive, business- men predicted a postwar world filled with consumer goods, with “freedom of choice” among abundant possibilities assured if only private enterprise were liberated from government controls. One advertisement for Royal typewriters, entitled “What This War Is All About,” explained that victory would “hasten the day when you . . . can once more walk into any store in the land and buy anything you want.” Certainly, ads suggested, the war did not imply any alter- ation in American institutions. “I’m fighting for freedom,” said a soldier in an ad by the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation. “So don’t anybody tell me I’ll find America changed.”
Women at Work
During the war, the nation engaged in an unprecedented mobilization of “woman power” to fill industrial jobs vacated by men. OWI publications encouraged women to go to work, Hollywood films glorified the independent woman, and private advertising celebrated the achievements of Rosie the Riv- eter, the female industrial laborer depicted as muscular and self-reliant in Nor- man Rockwell’s famous magazine cover. With 15 million men in the armed forces, women in 1944 made up more than one-third of the civilian labor force, and 350,000 served in auxiliary military units.
Even though most women workers still labored in clerical and service jobs, new opportunities suddenly opened in industrial, professional, and govern- ment positions previously restricted to men. On the West Coast, one-third of the workers in aircraft manufacturing and shipbuilding were women. For the first time in history, married women in their thirties outnumbered the young and single among female workers. Women forced unions like the United Auto Workers to confront issues like equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, and childcare facilities for working mothers. Defense companies sponsored swing bands and dances to boost worker morale and arranged dates between male and female workers. Having enjoyed what one wartime worker called “a taste of freedom”—doing “men’s” jobs for men’s wages and, sometimes, engaging in sexual activity while unmarried—many women hoped to remain in the labor force once peace returned.
The Pull of Tradition
“We as a nation,” proclaimed one magazine article, “must change our basic atti- tude toward the work of women.” But change proved difficult. The government,
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employers, and unions depicted work as a temporary necessity, not an expansion of women’s freedom. Advertisements assured women laboring in factories that they, too, were “fighting for free- dom.” But their language spoke of sac- rifice and military victory, not rights, independence, or self-determination. One union publication even declared, “There should be a law requiring the women who have taken over men’s jobs to be laid off after the war.” When the war ended, most female war workers, especially those in better-paying indus- trial employment, did indeed lose their jobs.
Despite the upsurge in the num- ber of working women, the advertisers’ “world of tomorrow” rested on a vision of family-centered prosperity. Like Nor- man Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paint-
ings, these wartime discussions of freedom simultaneously looked forward to a day of material abundance and back to a time when the family stood as the bed- rock of society. The “American way of life” celebrated during the war centered on the woman with “a husband to meet every night at the door,” and a home stocked with household appliances and consumer goods. Advertisements portrayed working women dreaming of their boyfriends in the army and emphasized that with the proper makeup, women could labor in a factory and remain attractive to men. Men in the army seem to have assumed that they would return home to resume traditional family life. In one wartime radio program, a young man described his goal for peacetime: “Havin’ a home and some kids, and breathin’ fresh air out in the suburbs . . . livin’ and workin’ decent, like free people.”
V I S I O N S O F P O S T W A R F R E E D O M
Toward an American Century
The prospect of an affluent future provided a point of unity between New Deal- ers and conservatives, business and labor. And the promise of prosperity to some extent united two of the most celebrated blueprints for the postwar world. One was The American Century, publisher Henry Luce’s 1941 effort to mobilize
This photograph captures the enthusiasm of three “fly girls”—female pilots employed by the air force to deliver cargo and passengers and test military aircraft. Known as WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots), they eventually num- bered over 1,000 aviators, who trained at an all-female base at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. They did not take part in combat, but thirty-eight died in service.
VISIONS OF POSTWAR FREEDOM ★ 881
the American people both for the coming war and for an era of postwar world leadership. Americans, Luce’s book insisted, must embrace the role history had thrust upon them as the “dominant power in the world.” They must seize the opportunity to share with “all peoples” their “magnificent industrial products” and the “great American ideals,” foremost among which stood “love of freedom.” After the war, American power and American values would underpin a previ- ously unimaginable prosperity—“the abundant life,” Luce called it—produced by “free economic enterprise.”
The idea of an American mission to spread democracy and freedom goes back to the Revolution. But traditionally, it had envisioned the country as an example, not an active agent imposing the American model throughout the globe. Luce’s essay anticipated important aspects of the postwar world. But its bombastic rhetoric and a title easily interpreted as a call for an American imperialism aroused immediate opposition among liberals and the left. Henry Wallace offered their response in “The Price of Free World Victory,” an address delivered in May 1942 to the Free World Association.
Wallace, secretary of agriculture during the 1930s and one of the more liberal New Dealers, had replaced Vice President John Nance Garner as Roos- evelt’s running mate in 1940. In contrast to Luce’s American Century, a world of business dominance no less than of American power, Wallace predicted that the war would usher in a “century of the common man.” The “march of free- dom,” said Wallace, would continue in the postwar world. That world, how- ever, would be marked by international cooperation, not any single power’s rule. Governments acting to “humanize” capitalism and redistribute economic resources would eliminate hunger, illiteracy, and poverty.
Luce and Wallace both spoke the language of freedom. Luce offered a con- fident vision of worldwide free enterprise, while Wallace anticipated a global New Deal. But they had one thing in common—a new conception of America’s role in the world, tied to continued international involvement, the promise of economic abundance, and the idea that the American experience should serve as a model for all other nations. Neither took into account the ideas that other countries might have developed as to how to proceed once the war had ended.
“The Way of Life of Free Men”
Even as Congress moved to dismantle parts of the New Deal, liberal Democrats and their left-wing allies unveiled plans for a postwar economic policy that would allow all Americans to enjoy freedom from want. In 1942 and 1943, the reports of the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB) offered a blueprint for a peacetime economy based on full employment, an expanded welfare state, and a widely shared American standard of living. Economic security and full
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employment were the board’s watchwords. It called for a “new bill of rights” that would include all Americans in an expanded Social Security system and guarantee access to education, health care, adequate housing, and jobs for able-bodied adults. The NRPB’s plan for a “full-employment economy” with a “fair distribution of income,” said The Nation, embodied “the way of life of free men.”
The reports continued a shift in liberals’ outlook that dated from the late 1930s. Rather than seeking to reform the institutions of capitalism, liberals would henceforth rely on government spending to secure full employment, social welfare, and mass consumption, while leaving the operation of the economy in private hands. The reports appeared to reflect the views of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who, as noted in the previous chapter, had identified government spending as the best way to promote economic growth, even if it caused budget deficits. The war had, in effect, ended the Depression by implementing a military version of Keynesianism. In calling for massive spending on job creation and public works—urban redevelopment, rural elec- trification, an overhaul of the transportation system, and the like—the NRPB proposed the continuation of Keynesian spending in peacetime. But this went so far beyond what Congress was willing to support that it eliminated the NRPB’s funding.
An Economic Bill of Rights
Mindful that public-opinion polls showed a large majority of Americans favor- ing a guarantee of employment for those who could not find work, the presi- dent in 1944 called for an “Economic Bill of Rights.” The original Bill of Rights restricted the power of government in the name of liberty. FDR proposed to expand its power in order to secure full employment, an adequate income, medical care, education, and a decent home for all Americans.
Already ill and preoccupied with the war, Roosevelt spoke only occasion- ally of the Economic Bill of Rights during the 1944 presidential campaign. The replacement of Vice President Henry Wallace by Harry S. Truman, then a little-known senator from Missouri, suggested that the president did not intend to do battle with Congress over social policy. Congress did not enact the Eco- nomic Bill of Rights. But in 1944, it extended to the millions of returning veter- ans an array of benefits, including unemployment pay, scholarships for further education, low-cost mortgage loans, pensions, and job training. The Service- men’s Readjustment Act, or GI Bill of Rights, was one of the most far-reaching pieces of social legislation in American history. Aimed at rewarding members of the armed forces for their service and preventing the widespread unemploy- ment and economic disruption that had followed World War I, it profoundly
VISIONS OF POSTWAR FREEDOM ★ 883
shaped postwar society. By 1946, more than 1 million veterans were attend- ing college under its provisions, making up half of total college enrollment. Almost 4 million would receive home mortgages, spurring the postwar subur- ban housing boom.
During 1945, unions, civil rights organizations, and religious groups urged Congress to enact the Full Employment Bill, which tried to do for the entire economy what the GI Bill promised veterans. The measure established a “right to employment” for all Americans and required the federal government to increase its level of spending to create enough jobs in case the economy failed to do so. The target of an intense business lobbying campaign, the bill only passed in 1946 with the word “Full” removed from its title and after its commit- ment to governmental job creation had been eliminated. But as the war drew to a close, most Americans embraced the idea that the government must continue to play a major role in maintaining employment and a high standard of living.
The Road to Serfdom
The failure of the Full Employment Bill confirmed the political stalemate that had begun with the elections of 1938. It also revealed the renewed intel- lectual respectability of fears that economic planning represented a threat to liberty. When the New Republic spoke of full employment as the “road to freedom,” it subtly acknowledged the impact of The Road to Serfdom (1944), a surprise best-seller by Friedrich A. Hayek, a previously obscure Austrian-born economist. Hayek claimed that even the best-intentioned government efforts to direct the economy posed a threat to individual liberty. He offered a simple message—“Planning leads to dictatorship.”
Coming at a time when the miracles of war production had reinvigorated belief in the virtues of capitalism, and with the confrontation with Nazism highlighting the danger of merging economic and political power, Hayek offered a new intellectual justification for opponents of active government. In a complex economy, he insisted, no single person or group of experts could possi- bly possess enough knowledge to direct economic activity intelligently. A free market, he wrote, mobilizes the fragmented and partial knowledge scattered throughout society far more effectively than a planned economy.
Unlike many of his disciples, Hayek was not a doctrinaire advocate of laissez-faire. His book endorsed measures that later conservatives would denounce as forms of socialism—minimum wage and maximum hours laws, antitrust enforcement, and a social safety net guaranteeing all citizens a basic minimum of food, shelter, and clothing. Hayek, moreover, criticized traditional conservatives for fondness for social hierarchy and authoritarian govern- ment. “I am not a conservative,” he would later write. But by equating fascism,
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socialism, and the New Deal and by identifying economic planning with a loss of freedom, he helped lay the foundation for the rise of modern conservatism and a revival of laissez-faire economic thought. As the war drew to a close, the stage was set for a renewed battle over the government’s proper role in society and the economy, and the social conditions of American freedom.
T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A The unprecedented attention to freedom as the defining characteristic of American life had implications that went far beyond wartime mobilization. World War II reshaped Americans’ understanding of themselves as a people. The struggle against Nazi tyranny and its theory of a master race discred- ited ethnic and racial inequality. Originally promoted by religious and eth- nic minorities in the 1920s and the Popular Front in the 1930s, a pluralist vision of American society now became part of official rhetoric. What set the United States apart from its wartime foes, the government insisted, was not only dedication to the ideals of the Four Freedoms but also the principle that Americans of all races, religions, and national origins could enjoy those freedoms equally. Racism was the enemy’s philosophy; Americanism rested on toleration of diversity and equality for all. By the end of the war, the new immigrant groups had been fully accepted as loyal ethnic Americans, rather than members of distinct and inferior “races.” And the contradiction between the principle of equal freedom and the actual status of blacks had come to the forefront of national life.
Patriotic Assimilation
Among other things, World War II created a vast melting pot, especially for European immigrants and their children. Millions of Americans moved out of urban ethnic neighborhoods and isolated rural enclaves into the army and industrial plants where they came into contact with people of very different backgrounds. What one historian has called their “patriotic assimilation” differed sharply from the forced Americanization of World War I. While the Wilson administration had established Anglo-Saxon culture as a national norm, Roosevelt promoted pluralism as the only source of harmony in a diverse society. The American way of life, wrote the novelist Pearl Buck in an OWI pamphlet, rested on brotherhood—the principle that “persons of many lands can live together . . . and if they believe in freedom they can become a united people.”
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ★ 885
Government and private agencies eagerly promoted equality as the defini- tion of Americanism and a counterpoint to Nazism. Officials rewrote history to establish racial and ethnic tolerance as the American way. To be an American, FDR declared, had always been a “matter of mind and heart,” and “never . . . a matter of race or ancestry”—a statement more effective in mobilizing support for the war than in accurately describing the nation’s past. Mindful of the intol- erance spawned by World War I, the OWI highlighted nearly every group’s contributions to American life and celebrated the strength of a people united in respect for diversity. One OWI pamphlet described prejudice as a foreign import rather than a homegrown product and declared bigots more dangerous than spies—they were “fighting for the enemy.”
Horrified by the uses to which the Nazis put the idea of inborn racial differ- ence, biological and social scientists abandoned belief in a link among race, culture, and intelligence, an idea only recently central to their disciplines. Ruth Benedict’s Races and Racism (1942) described racism as “a travesty of scientific knowledge.” In the same year, Ashley Montagu’s Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race became a best-seller. By the war’s end, racism and nativism had been stripped of intellectual respectability, at least outside the South, and were viewed as psychological disorders.
Hollywood, too, did its part, portraying fighting units whose members, rep- resenting various regional, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, put aside group loyalties and prejudices for the common cause. Air Force featured a bomber crew that included an Anglo-Saxon officer, a Jewish sergeant, and a Polish-American gunner. In the film Bataan, the ethnically balanced platoon included a black sol- dier, even though the real army was racially segregated. The war’s most popular motion picture, This Is the Army, starring, among others, future president Ronald Reagan, offered a vision of postwar society that celebrated the ethnic diversity of the American people.
Intolerance, of course, hardly disappeared from American life. One cor- respondent complained to Norman Rockwell that he included too many “foreign-looking” faces in his Freedom of Worship painting. Many business and government circles still excluded Jews. Along with the fact that early reports of the Holocaust were too terrible to be believed, anti-Semitism contributed to the government’s unwillingness to allow more than a handful of European Jews (21,000 during the course of the war) to find refuge in the United States. Roos- evelt himself learned during the war of the extent of Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jewish presence in Europe. But he failed to authorize air strikes that might have destroyed German death camps.
Nonetheless, the war made millions of ethnic Americans, especially the children of the new immigrants, feel fully American for the first time. During the war, one New York “ethnic” recalled, “the Italo-Americans stopped being
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Italo and started becoming Americans.” But the event that inspired this com- ment, the Harlem race riot of 1943, suggested that patriotic assimilation stopped at the color line.
The Bracero Program
The war had a far more ambiguous meaning for non-white groups than for whites. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, racial barriers remained deeply entrenched in American life. Southern blacks were still trapped in a rigid system of segre- gation. Asians could not emigrate to the United States or become natural- ized citizens. As noted in the previous chapter, more than 400,000 Mexican- Americans had been “voluntarily” repatriated by local authorities in the Southwest during the Depression. Most American Indians still lived on reserva- tions, in dismal poverty.
The war set in motion changes that would reverberate in the postwar years. Under the bracero program agreed to by the Mexican and American governments
in 1942 (the name derives from brazo, the Spanish word for arm), tens of thousands of contract laborers crossed into the United States to take up jobs as domestic and agricultural workers. Initially designed as a temporary response to the wartime labor shortage, the program lasted until 1964. During the period of the bracero pro- gram, more than 4.5 million Mexicans entered the United States under govern- ment labor contracts (while a slightly larger number were arrested for illegal entry by the Border Patrol). Braceros were supposed to receive decent housing and wages. But since they could not become citizens and could be deported at any time, they found it almost impossible to form unions or secure better working conditions.
Although the bracero program reinforced the status of immigrants from Mexico as an unskilled labor force, wartime employment opened new oppor- tunities for second-generation Mexican-Americans. Hundreds of thousands of men and women emerged from ethnic neighborhoods, or barrios, to work in defense industries and serve in the army (where, unlike blacks, they fought
One series of posters issued by the Office of War Information to mobilize support for the war effort emphasized respect for the country’s racial and ethnic diversity. This one, directed at Hispanics, suggests that there is no contradiction between pride in ethnic heritage and loyalty to the United States.
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ★ 887
alongside whites). For Mexican-American women in particular, the war afforded new opportunities for public participation and higher incomes. “Ros- ita the Riveter” took her place alongside “Rosie” in the West Coast’s multiethnic war production factories. Government publications and newspaper accounts celebrated their role as patriotic mothers who encouraged their sons to enlist in the army and offered moral support while they were away at war. A new “Chi- cano” culture—a fusion of Mexican heritage and American experience—was being born. Contact with other groups led many to learn English and sparked a rise in interethnic marriages.
Mexican-American Rights
The zoot suit riots of 1943, in which club-wielding sailors and policemen attacked Mexican-American youths wearing flamboyant clothing on the streets of Los Angeles, illustrated the limits of wartime tolerance. But the con- trast between the war’s rhetoric of freedom and pluralism and the reality of continued discrimination inspired a heightened consciousness of civil rights. Mexican-Americans brought complaints of discrimination before the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to fight the practice in the South- west of confining them to the lowest-paid work or paying them lower wages than white workers doing the same jobs.
Perhaps half a million Mexican-American men and women served in the armed forces. And with discrimination against Mexicans an increasing embar- rassment in view of Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy, Texas (the state with the largest population of Mexican descent) in 1943 unanimously passed the oddly-named Caucasian Race—Equal Privileges resolution. It stated that since “all the nations of the North and South American continents” were united in the struggle against Nazism, “all persons of the Caucasian race” were entitled to equal treatment in places of public accommodation. Since Texas law had long defined Mexicans as white, the measure applied to them while not challenging the segregation of blacks. The resolution lacked an enforcement mechanism. Indeed, because of continued discrimination in Texas, the Mexican govern- ment for a time prohibited the state from receiving laborers under the bracero program.
Indians during the War
The war also brought many American Indians closer to the mainstream of American life. Some 25,000 served in the army (including the famous Navajo “code-talkers,” who transmitted messages in their complex native language, which the Japanese could not decipher). Insisting that the United States lacked the authority to draft Indian men into the army, the Iroquois issued their own
How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad during World War II?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
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From League of United Latin American Citizens, “World War II and Mexican Americans” (1945)
Founded in 1929, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) campaigned for equal treatment for Americans of Latino descent and their full integration into American life. Soon after the war ended, an editorial in its publication LULAC News condemned continuing discrimination, reflecting how the war sparked a rising demand for equal rights among many minority groups.
“We do not serve Mexicans here.” “You will have to get out as no Mexicans are allowed.” “Your uniform and service ribbons mean nothing here. We still do not allow Mexicans.”
These, and many other stronger-worded ones, are the embarrassing and humiliating retorts given our returning veterans of Latin American descent and their families. They may all be worded differently, and whereas some are toned with hate and loathness while others are toned with sympathy and remorse, still the implication remains that these so-called “Mexicans” are considered unworthy of equality, regardless of birthright
or service. . . . Why this hate, this prejudice, this tendency to discriminate against a people whose
only fault seems to be that they are heirs of a culture older than any known “American Culture,” to find themselves a part of a land and people they have helped to build and to defend, to find themselves a part of a minority group whose acquired passive nature keeps them from boldly demanding those rights and privileges which are rightfully theirs? Can it be the result of difference in race, nationality, language, loyalty, or ability?
There is no difference in race. Latin Americans, or so-called “Mexicans,” are Cau- casian or white. . . . There is no difference in nationality. These “Mexicans” were born and bred in this country and are just as American as Jones or Smith. . . . Difference in language? No, these “Mexicans” speak English. Accented, perhaps, in some cases, but English all over the United States seems to be accented. . . . Difference in loyalty? How can that be when all revere the same stars and stripes, when they don the same service uniforms for the same principles? Difference in intelligence and ability? Impossible. . . .
This condition is not a case of difference; it is a case of ignorance. . . . An ignorance of the cultural contributions of Americans of Latin American descent to the still young American Culture; . . . an ignorance of a sense of appreciation for a long, profitable, and loyal association with a group of Americans whose voice cries out in desperate suppli- cation: “We have proved ourselves true and loyal Americans . . . now give us social, polit- ical, and economic equality.”
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 889
From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has Always Wanted the Four Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants (1944)
In 1944, the University of North Carolina Press published What the Negro Wants, a book of essays by fourteen prominent black leaders. Virtually every contributor called for the right to vote in the South, the dismantling of segregation, and access to the “American standard of living.” Several essays also linked the black struggle for racial justice with movements against European imperialism in Africa and Asia. When he read the manuscript, W. T. Couch, the director of the press, was stunned. “If this is what the Negro wants,” he told the book’s editor, “nothing could be clearer than what he needs, and needs most urgently, is to revise his wants.” In this excerpt, the historian Charles H. Wesley explains that blacks are denied each of the Four Free- doms, and also illustrates how the war strengthened black internationalism.
[Negroes] have wanted what other citizens of the United States have wanted. They have wanted freedom and opportunity. They have wanted the pursuit of the life vouchsafed to all citizens of the United States by our own liberty documents. They have wanted freedom of speech, [but] they were supposed to be silently acquiescent in all aspects of their life. . . . They have wanted freedom of religion, for they had been compelled to “steal away to Jesus” . . . in order to worship God as they desired. . . . They have wanted freedom from want. . . . However, the Negro has remained a marginal worker and the competition with white workers has left him in want in many localities of an econom- ically sufficient nation. They have wanted freedom from fear. They have been cowed, browbeaten or beaten, as they have marched through the years of American life. . . .
The Negro wants democracy to begin at home. . . . The future of our democratic life is insecure so long as the hatred, disdain and disparagement of Americans of African ancestry exist. . . .
The Negro wants not only to win the war but also to win the peace. . . . He wants the peace to be free of race and color restrictions, of imperialism and exploitation, and inclu- sive of the participation of minorities all over the world in their own govern- ments. When it is said that we are fight- ing for freedom, the Negro asks, “Whose freedom?” Is it the freedom of a peace to exploit, suppress, exclude, debase and restrict colored peoples in India, China, Africa, Malaya in the usual ways? . . . Will Great Britain and the United States specifically omit from the Four Freedoms their minorities and subject peoples? The Negro does not want such a peace.
QUESTIONS
1. What evidence does the editorial offer that Latinos are deserving of equality?
2. Why does Wesley believe that black Ameri- cans are denied the Four Freedoms?
3. What differences and what commonalities exist between these two claims for greater rights in American society?
890 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
declaration of war against the Axis powers. Tens of thousands of Indians left reservations for jobs in war industries. Exposed for the first time to urban life and industrial society, many chose not to return to the reservations after the war ended (indeed, the reservations did not share in wartime prosperity). Some Indian veterans took advantage of the GI Bill to attend college after the war, an opportunity that had been available to very few Indians previously.
Asian-Americans in Wartime
Asian-Americans’ war experience was paradoxical. More than 50,000—the children and grandchildren of immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines—fought in the army, mostly in all-Asian units. With China an ally in the Pacific war, Congress in 1943 ended decades of complete exclusion by establishing a nationality quota for Chinese immigrants. The annual limit of 105 hardly suggested a desire for a large-scale influx. But the image of the Chinese as gallant fighters defending their country against Japanese aggres- sion called into question long-standing racial stereotypes. As in the case of Mexican-Americans, large numbers of Chinese-Americans moved out of ethnic ghettos to work alongside whites in jobs on the home front.
The experience of Japanese-Americans was far different. Many Americans viewed the war against Germany as an ideological struggle. But both sides saw the Pacific war as a race war. Japanese propaganda depicted Americans as a self-indulgent people contaminated by ethnic and racial diversity as opposed to the racially “pure” Japanese. In the United States, long-standing prejudices and the shocking attack on Pearl Harbor combined to produce an unprece- dented hatred of Japan. “In all our history,” according to one historian, “no foe has been detested as were the Japanese.” Government propaganda and war films portrayed the Japanese foe as rats, dogs, gorillas, and snakes—bestial and subhuman. They blamed Japanese aggression on a violent racial or national character, not, as in the case of Germany and Italy, on tyrannical rulers.
About 70 percent of Japanese-Americans in the continental United States lived in California, where they dominated vegetable farming in the Los Ange- les area. One-third were first-generation immigrants, or issei, but a substantial majority were nisei—American-born, and therefore citizens. Many of the lat- ter spoke only English, had never been to Japan, and had tried to assimilate despite prevailing prejudice. But the Japanese-American community could not remain unaffected by the rising tide of hatred. The government bent over back- ward to include German-Americans and Italian-Americans in the war effort. It ordered the arrest of only a handful of the more than 800,000 German and Italian nationals in the United States when the war began. But it viewed every person of Japanese ethnicity as a potential spy.
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ★ 891
Japanese-American Internment
California, as discussed in Chapter 19, had a long history of hostility toward the Japanese. Now, inspired by exaggerated fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast and pressured by whites who saw an opportunity to gain posses- sion of Japanese-American property, the military persuaded FDR to issue Exec- utive Order 9066. Promulgated in February 1942, this ordered the relocation of all persons of Japanese descent from the West Coast. That spring and summer, authorities removed more than 110,000 men, women, and children—nearly two-thirds of them American citizens—to camps far from their homes. The order did not apply to persons of Japanese descent living in Hawaii, where they represented nearly 40 percent of the population. Despite Hawaii’s vulnera- bility, its economy could not function without Japanese-American labor. But Japanese-American internment provided ammunition for Japan’s claim that its aggressions in Asia were intended to defend the rights of non-white peoples against colonial rule and a racist United States.
How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad during World War II?
San Francisco
San Diego
Portland
Seattle
Klamath Falls
Twin Falls
Los Angeles
Bakersfield
Fresno Lone Pine
Sacramento
Cody
Nephi
Gila Bend
Lamar
Pine Bluff
Heart Mountain 10,767
Minidoka 9,397
Tule Lake 18,789
Manzanar 10,046
Poston 17,814
Gila River 13,348
Topaz 8,310
Amache 7,318
Rohwer 8,475
Jerome 8,497
M ILITARY AREA
MICHIGAN
ILLINOIS
WISCONSIN
INDIANA OHIO
MISSOURI KENTUCKY
TENNESSEE
ARKANSAS
LOUISIANA
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA
TEXAS
MINNESOTA
IOWA
NORTH DAKOTA
SOUTH DAKOTA
NEBRASKA
KANSAS
OKLAHOMA
MONTANA
WYOMING
COLORADO
IDAHO
UTAH NEVADA
OREGON
WASHINGTON
CALIFORNIA
ARIZONA NEW MEXICO
MEXICO Gulf of Mexico
Paci f ic Ocean
0
0
200
200
400 miles
400 kilometers
Internment camps Figures show highest number interned at each camp. Demarcates area from which Japanese-Americans were excluded
J A PA N E S E - A M E R I C A N I N T E R N M E N T, 1 9 4 2 – 1 9 4 5
More than 100,000 Japanese-Americans—the majority American citizens—were forcibly moved from their homes to internment camps during World War II.
892 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
The internees were subjected to a quasi-military discipline in the camps. Living in former horse stables, makeshift shacks, or barracks behind barbed wire fences, they were awakened for roll call at 6:45 each morning and ate their meals (which rarely included the Japanese cooking to which they were accustomed) in giant mess halls. Armed guards patrolled the camps, and searchlights shone all night. Privacy was difficult to come by, and medical facilities were often nonexistent. Nonetheless, the internees did their best to create an atmosphere of home, decorating their accommodations with pic- tures, flowers, and curtains, planting vegetable gardens, and setting up activi- ties like sports clubs and art classes for themselves.
Internment revealed how easily war can undermine basic freedoms. There were no court hearings, no due process, and no writs of habeas corpus. One searches the wartime record in vain for public protests among non-Japanese against the gravest violation of civil liberties since the end of slavery. The press supported the policy almost unanimously. In Congress, only Senator Robert Taft of Ohio spoke out against it. Groups publicly committed to fighting dis- crimination, from the Communist Party to the NAACP and the American Jew- ish Committee, either defended the policy or remained silent.
The courts refused to intervene. In 1944, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court denied the appeal of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American citizen who had been arrested for refusing to present himself for internment. Speaking for a 6-3 majority, Justice Hugo Black, usually an avid defender of civil liberties, upheld the legality of the internment policy, insisting that an order applying only to persons of Japanese descent was not based on race. The Court has never overturned the Korematsu decision. As Justice Robert H. Jack- son warned in his dissent, it “lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim” of national security.
The government marketed war bonds to the internees. It established a loy- alty oath program, expecting Japanese-Americans to swear allegiance to the government that had imprisoned them and to enlist in the army. Some young men refused, and about 200 were sent to prison for resisting the draft. “Let us out and then maybe I’ll think about risking my skin for ‘the land of the free,’ ” one of the resisters remarked. But 20,000 Japanese-Americans joined the armed forces from the camps, along with another 13,000 from Hawaii. Contradictions abounded in the wartime experiences of Japanese-Americans. In 1944, Sono Isato danced the role of an American beauty queen in the musical On the Town on Broadway, and her brother fought for the U.S. Army in the Pacific theater, while the government interned their father because he had been born in Japan.
A long campaign for acknowledgment of the injustice done to Japanese-Americans followed the end of the war. In 1988, Congress apolo- gized for internment and provided $20,000 in compensation to each surviving
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ★ 893
victim. President Bill Clinton subsequently awarded Fred Korematsu the Presi- dential Medal of Freedom.
Blacks and the War
Although the treatment of Japanese-Americans revealed the stubborn hold of racism in American life, the wartime message of freedom portended a major transformation in the status of blacks. “There never has been, there isn’t now, and there never will be,” Roosevelt declared, “any race of people on the earth fit to serve as masters over their fellow men.” Yet Nazi Germany cited American practices as proof of its own race policies. Washington remained a rigidly seg- regated city, and the Red Cross refused to mix blood from blacks and whites in its blood banks (thereby, critics charged, in effect accepting Nazi race theories). Charles Drew, the black scientist who pioneered the techniques of storing and shipping blood plasma—a development of immense importance to the treat- ment of wounded soldiers—protested bitterly against this policy, pointing out that it had no scientific basis. In 1940 and 1941, even as Roosevelt called for aid to the free peoples of Europe, thirteen lynchings took place in the United States.
The war spurred a movement of black population from the rural South to the cities of the North and West that dwarfed the Great Migration of World War I and the 1920s. In the second Great Migration, about 700,000 black migrants poured out of the South on what they called “liberty trains,” seeking jobs in the industrial heartland. They encountered sometimes violent hostility. In 1943, a fight at a Detroit city park spiraled into a race riot that left thirty-four persons dead, and a “hate strike” of 20,000 workers protested the upgrading of black employees in a plant manufacturing aircraft engines. The war failed to end lynching. Isaac Simmons, a black minister, was murdered in 1944 for refusing to sell his land to a white man who believed it might contain oil. The criminals went unpunished. This took place in Liberty, Mississippi.
Blacks and Military Service
When World War II began, the air force and marines had no black members. The army restricted the number of black enlistees and contained only five black officers, three of them chaplains. The navy accepted blacks only as wait- ers and cooks.
During the war, more than 1 million blacks served in the armed forces. They did so in segregated units, largely confined to construction, transport, and other noncombat tasks. Many northern black draftees were sent to the South for military training, where they found themselves excluded from movie theaters and servicemen’s clubs on military bases and abused when they ventured into local towns. Black soldiers sometimes had to give up their
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seats on railroad cars to accommodate Nazi prisoners of war. “Nothing so low- ers Negro morale,” wrote the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, “as the frequent preferential treatment of Axis prisoners of war in contrast with Army policy toward American troops who happen to be Negro.”
When southern black veterans returned home and sought benefits through the GI Bill, they encountered even more evidence of racial discrimination. On the surface, the GI Bill contained no racial differentiation in offering benefits like health care, college tuition assistance, job training, and loans to start a busi- ness or purchase a farm. But local authorities who administered its provisions allowed southern black veterans to use its education benefits only at segregated colleges, limited their job training to unskilled work and low-wage service jobs, and restricted loans for farm purchase to white veterans.
Birth of the Civil Rights Movement
In 1942, a public-opinion survey sponsored by the army’s Bureau of Intelli- gence found that the vast majority of white Americans were “unaware that there is any such thing as a ‘Negro problem’” and were convinced that blacks were satisfied with their social and economic conditions. They would soon discover their mistake.
The war years witnessed the birth of the modern civil rights movement. Angered by the almost complete exclusion of African-Americans from jobs in the rapidly expanding war industries (of 100,000 aircraft workers in 1940, fewer than 300 were blacks), the black labor leader A. Philip Randolph in July 1941 called for a March on Washington. His demands included access to defense employment, an end to segregation, and a national antilynching law. Randolph, who as founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters had long battled racism among both employers and unions, hurled Roosevelt’s rhetoric back at the president. Randolph declared racial discrimination “undemocratic, un-American, and pro-Hitler.”
The prospect of thousands of angry blacks descending on Washington, remarked one official, “scared the government half to death.” To persuade Randolph to call off the march, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense jobs and established a Fair Employment Prac- tices Commission (FEPC) to monitor compliance. The black press hailed the order as a new Emancipation Proclamation.
Essentially an investigative agency, the FEPC lacked enforcement pow- ers. But its very existence marked a significant shift in public policy. Its hear- ings exposed patterns of racial exclusion so ingrained that firms at first freely admitted that their want ads asked for “colored” applicants for positions as por- ters and janitors and “white” ones for skilled jobs, and that they allowed black women to work only as laundresses and cooks. The first federal agency since
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ★ 895
Reconstruction to campaign for equal opportunity for black Americans, the FEPC played an important role in obtaining jobs for black workers in industrial plants and shipyards. In southern California, the aircraft manufacturer Lock- heed ran special buses into black neighborhoods to bring workers to its plants. By 1944, more than 1 million blacks, 300,000 of them women, held manufac- turing jobs. (“My sister always said that Hitler was the one that got us out of the white folks’ kitchen,” recalled one black woman.)
The Double-V
When the president “said that we should have the Four Freedoms,” a black steelworker declared, he meant to include “all races.” During the war, NAACP membership grew from 50,000 to nearly 500,000. The Congress of Racial Equal- ity (CORE), founded by an interracial group of pacifists in 1942, held sit-ins in northern cities to integrate restaurants and theaters. After a Firestone tire fac- tory in Memphis fired a black woman for trying to enter a city bus before white passengers had been seated, black workers at the plant went on strike until she was reinstated.
In February 1942, the Pittsburgh Courier coined the phrase that came to sym- bolize black attitudes during the war—the double-V. Victory over Germany and Japan, it insisted, must be accompanied by victory over segregation at home. While the Roosevelt administration and the white press saw the war as an expression of American ideals, black newspapers pointed to the gap between those ideals and reality. Side by side with ads for war bonds, The Crisis insisted that a segregated army “cannot fight for a free world.”
Surveying wartime public opinion, a political scientist concluded that “symbols of national solidarity” had very different meanings to white and black Americans. To blacks, freedom from fear meant, among other things, an end to lynching, and freedom from want included doing away with “discrimination in getting jobs.” If, in whites’ eyes, freedom was a “possession to be defended,” he observed, to blacks and other racial minorities it remained a “goal to be achieved.” “Our fight for freedom,” said a returning black veteran of the Pacific war, “begins when we get to San Francisco.”
What the Negro Wants
During the war, a broad political coalition centered on the left but reaching well beyond it called for an end to racial inequality in America. The NAACP and Amer- ican Jewish Congress cooperated closely in advocating laws to ban discrimination in employment and housing. Despite considerable resistance from rank-and-file white workers, CIO unions, especially those with strong left-liberal and commu- nist influence, made significant efforts to organize black workers and win them
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access to skilled positions. AFL craft unions by and large continued their long tradition of excluding black workers. But during World War II, the CIO was prob- ably more racially integrated than any labor organization since the Knights of Labor in the 1880s.
As blacks demanded an end to seg- regation, southern politicians took up the cry of protecting white supremacy. The latter also spoke the language of freedom. Defenders of the racial status quo interpreted freedom to mean the right to shape their region’s institutions without outside interference. The “war emergency,” insisted Governor Frank
Dixon of Alabama, “should not be used as a pretext to bring about the abolition of the color line.” Even as the war gave birth to the modern civil rights move- ment, it also planted the seeds for the South’s “massive resistance” to desegre- gation during the 1950s.
In the rest of the country, however, the status of black Americans assumed a place at the forefront of enlightened liberalism. Far more than in the 1930s, fed- eral officials spoke openly of the need for a dramatic change in race relations. American democracy, noted Secretary of War Stimson, had not yet addressed “the persistent legacy of the original crime of slavery.” Progress came slowly. But the National War Labor Board banned racial wage differentials. In Smith v. Allwright (1944), the Supreme Court outlawed all-white primaries, one of the mechanisms by which southern states deprived blacks of political rights. In the same year, the navy began assigning small numbers of black sailors to previously all-white ships. In the final months of the war, it ended segregation altogether, and the army established a few combat units that included black and white soldiers.
After a world tour in 1942 to rally support for the Allies, Wendell Willkie, Roosevelt’s opponent of 1940, published One World. It sold 1 million copies, faster than any nonfiction work in American history. Willkie’s travels per- suaded him that Asia, Africa, and Latin America would play a pivotal role in the postwar era. But the book’s great surprise came in Willkie’s attack on “our impe- rialisms at home.” Unless the United States addressed the “mocking paradox” of racism, he insisted, its claim to world leadership would lack moral authority. “If we want to talk about freedom,” Willkie wrote, “we must mean freedom for everyone inside our frontiers.”
A sign displayed opposite a Detroit housing proj- ect in 1942 symbolizes one aspect of what Gun- nar Myrdal called “the American Dilemma”—the persistence of racism in the midst of a worldwide struggle for freedom.
THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ★ 897
An American Dilemma
No event reflected the new concern with the status of black Americans more than the publication in 1944 of An American Dilemma, a sprawling account of the country’s racial past, present, and future written by the Swedish social sci- entist Gunnar Myrdal. The book offered an uncompromising portrait of how deeply racism was entrenched in law, politics, economics, and social behavior. But Myrdal combined this sobering analysis with admiration for what he called the American Creed—belief in equality, justice, equal opportunity, and freedom. The war, he argued, had made Americans more aware than ever of the contra- diction between this creed and the reality of racial inequality. He concluded that “there is bound to be a redefinition of the Negro’s status as a result of this War.”
Myrdal’s notion of a conflict between American values and American racial policies was hardly new—Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois had said much the same thing. But in the context of a worldwide struggle against Nazism and rising black demands for equality at home, his book struck a chord. It identified a serious national problem and seemed to offer an almost painless path to peaceful change, in which the federal government would take the lead in outlawing discrimination. This coupling of an appeal to American princi- ples with federal social engineering established a liberal position on race rela- tions that would survive for many years.
By 1945, support for racial justice had finally taken its place on the liberal-left agenda alongside full employment, civil liberties, and the expansion of the New Deal welfare state. Roosevelt himself rarely spoke out on racial issues. But many liberals insisted that racial discrimination must be confronted head-on through federal antilynching legislation, equal opportunity in the workplace, an end to segregated housing and schools, and the expansion of Social Security programs to cover agricultural and domestic workers. This wartime vision of a racially integrated full employment economy formed a bridge between the New Deal and the Great Society of the 1960s (see Chapter 25).
Black Internationalism
In the nineteenth century, black radicals like David Walker and Martin Delany had sought to link the fate of African-Americans with that of peoples of African descent in other parts of the world, especially the Caribbean and Africa. In the first decades of the twentieth century, this kind of international consciousness was reinvigorated. Garveyism (discussed in Chapter 19) was one example; another was reflected in the five Pan-African Congresses that met between 1919 and 1945. Attended by black intellectuals from the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa, these gatherings denounced the colonial rule of Africa and sought to establish a sense of unity among all people in the African diaspora (a term used to
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describe the scattering of a people who share a single national, religious, or racial identity). At the home of George Padmore, a West Indian labor organizer and edi- tor living in London, black American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robe- son came into contact with future leaders of African independence movements such as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), and Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria). “I discovered Africa in London,” Robeson remarked.
Through these gatherings, Du Bois, Robeson, and others developed an out- look that linked the plight of black Americans with that of people of color worldwide. Racism, they came to believe, originated not in irrational hatred but in the slave trade and slavery. In the modern age, it was perpetuated by colonialism. Thus, freeing Africa from colonial rule would encourage greater equality at home.
World War II stimulated among African-Americans an even greater aware- ness of the links between racism in the United States and colonialism abroad. In 1942, the Pittsburgh Courier, a major black newspaper, began publishing reg- ular columns on events in India (where the British had imprisoned leaders of the movement for national independence) and China. In the same year, Robe- son founded the Council on African Affairs, which tried to place colonial liber- ation at the top of the black American agenda.
T H E E N D O F T H E W A R As 1945 opened, Allied victory was assured. In December 1944, in a desperate gamble, Hitler launched a surprise counterattack in France that pushed Allied forces back fifty miles, creating a large bulge in their lines. The largest single battle ever fought by the U.S. Army, the Battle of the Bulge produced more than 70,000 American casualties. But by early 1945 the assault had failed.
In March, American troops crossed the Rhine River and entered the indus- trial heartland of Germany. Hitler took his own life, and shortly afterward Soviet forces occupied Berlin. On May 8, known as V-E Day (for victory in Europe), came the formal end to the war against Germany. In the Pacific, Amer- ican forces moved ever closer to Japan. They reconquered Guam in August 1944 and landed in the Philippines two months later, where they destroyed most of the remainder of the enemy fleet in the naval battle of Leyte Gulf.
“The Most Terrible Weapon”
Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, the gov- ernor of New York, to win an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. But FDR did not live to see the Allied victory. He succumbed to a stroke on April 12, 1945. To his successor, Harry S. Truman, fell one of the most momentous decisions ever confronted by an American president—whether to use the atomic bomb
THE END OF THE WAR ★ 899
against Japan. Truman did not know about the bomb until after he became pres- ident. Then, Secretary of War Stimson informed him that the United States had secretly developed “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.”
The bomb was a practical realization of the theory of relativity, a rethinking of the laws of physics developed early in the twentieth century by the German scientist Albert Einstein. Energy and matter, Einstein showed, represented two forms of the same phenomenon. According to his famous equation E = mc2, the energy contained in matter equals its mass times the speed of light squared— an enormous amount. By using certain forms of uranium, or the man-made element plutonium, an atomic reaction could be created that transformed part of the mass into energy. This energy could be harnessed to provide a form of controlled power, or it could be unleashed in a tremendous explosion.
Having fled to the United States from Hitler’s Germany, Einstein in 1939 warned Roosevelt that Nazi scientists were trying to develop an atomic weapon and urged the president to do likewise. In the following year, FDR authorized what came to be known as the Manhattan Project, a top-secret program in which American scientists developed an atomic bomb during World War II. The weapon was tested successfully in the New Mexico desert in July 1945.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
On August 6, 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, Japan—a target chosen because almost alone among major Jap- anese cities, it had not yet suffered damage. In an instant, nearly every building in the city was destroyed. Of the city’s population of 280,000 civilians and 40,000 soldiers, approximately 70,000 died immediately. Because atomic bombs release deadly radiation, the death toll kept rising in the months that followed. By the end of the year, it reached at least 140,000. Thousands more perished over the next five years. On August 9, the United States exploded a second bomb over Nagasaki, killing 70,000 persons. On the same day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. Within a week, Japan surrendered.
Because of the enormous cost in civilian lives—more than twice Ameri- ca’s military fatalities in the entire Pacific war—the use of the bomb remains controversial. The Japanese had fought ferociously while being driven from one Pacific island after another. An American invasion of Japan, some advis- ers warned Truman, might cost as many as 250,000 American lives. No such invasion was planned, however, until the following year, and considerable evi- dence had accumulated that Japan was nearing surrender. Already some of its officials had communicated a willingness to end the war if Emperor Hirohito could remain on his throne. This fell short of the Allies’ demand for “uncondi- tional surrender,” but the victors would, in the end, agree to Hirohito’s survival. Japan’s economy had been crippled and its fleet destroyed, and it would now
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900 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
have to fight the Soviet Union as well as the United States. Some of the scien- tists who had worked on the bomb urged Truman to demonstrate its power to international observers. But Truman did not hesitate. The bomb was a weapon, he reasoned, and weapons are created to be used.
The Nature of the War
The dropping of the atomic bombs was the logical culmination of the way World War II had been fought. All wars inflict suffering on noncombatants. But never before had civilian populations been so ruthlessly targeted. Military personnel represented 90 percent of those who died in World War I. But of the estimated 50 million persons who perished during World War II (including 400,000 American soldiers), perhaps 20 million were civilians. Germany had killed millions of members of “inferior races.” It had repeatedly bombed Lon- don and other cities. The Allies carried out even more deadly air assaults on civilian populations. Early in 1945, the firebombing of Dresden killed some 100,000 people, mostly women, children, and elderly men. On March 9, nearly the same number died in an inferno caused by the bombing of Tokyo.
Four years of war propaganda had dehumanized the Japanese in Americans’ eyes, and few persons criticized Truman’s decision in 1945. But public doubts began to surface, especially after John Hersey published Hiroshima (1946), a graphic account of the horrors suffered by the civilian population. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who thought the use of the bomb unnecessary, later wrote, “I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”
Planning the Postwar World
Even as the war raged, a series of meetings between Allied leaders formulated plans for the postwar world. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met at Tehran, Iran, in 1943, and at Yalta, in the southern Soviet Union, early in 1945, to hammer out agreements. The final “Big Three” conference took place at Potsdam, near Berlin, in July 1945. It involved Stalin, Truman, and Churchill (replaced midway in the talks by Clement Attlee, who became prime minister when his Labour Party swept the British elections). At the Potsdam conference, the Allied leaders established a military administration for Germany and agreed to place top Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes.
Relations among the three Allies were often uneasy, as each maneuvered to maximize its postwar power. Neither Britain nor the United States trusted Sta- lin. The delay in the Allied invasion of France until 1944, which left the Soviets to do the bulk of the fighting against Germany, angered the Russians. But since Stalin’s troops had won the war on the eastern front, it was difficult to resist his demand that eastern Europe become a Soviet sphere of influence (a region whose governments can be counted on to do a great power’s bidding).
THE END OF THE WAR ★ 901
The Big Three—Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill—at their first meeting, in Tehran, Iran, in 1943, where they discussed the opening of a second front against Germany in western Europe.
Yalta and Bretton Woods
At the Yalta conference, Roosevelt and Churchill entered only a mild protest against Soviet plans to retain control of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and a large part of east- ern Poland, in effect restoring Russia’s pre–World War I western borders. Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan later in 1945, to include non- communists in the pro-Soviet govern- ment of Poland, and to allow “free and unfettered elections” there. But he was intent on establishing communism in eastern Europe. He believed, as he put it to Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz (“Tito”), that in modern war, “whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.” Yalta saw the high-water mark of wartime American– Soviet cooperation. But it planted seeds of conflict, since the participants soon disagreed over the fate of eastern Europe.
Tension also existed between Britain and the United States. Churchill rejected American pressure to place India and other British colonies on the road to independence. He concluded private deals with Stalin to divide south- ern and eastern Europe into British and Soviet spheres of influence.
Britain also resisted, unsuccessfully, American efforts to reshape and dom- inate the postwar economic order. A meeting of representatives of forty-five nations at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944 replaced the British pound with the dollar as the main currency for international transactions. During the 1930s, as noted in the previous chapter, FDR had taken the United States off the gold standard, allowing the government to issue more money in the hope of stimulating business activity. The Bretton Woods conference re- established the link between the dollar and gold. It set the dollar’s value at $35 per ounce of gold and gave other currencies a fixed relationship to the dollar. The conference also created two American-dominated financial institutions. The World Bank would provide money to developing countries and to help rebuild Europe. The International Monetary Fund would work to prevent governments from devaluing their currencies to gain an advantage in interna- tional trade, as many had done during the Depression.
Although the details took many years to emerge, Bretton Woods created the framework for the postwar capitalist economic system, based on a freer inter- national flow of goods and investment and a recognition of the United States as the world’s financial leader. Determined to avoid a recurrence of the Great
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Depression, American leaders believed that the removal of barriers to free trade would encourage the growth of the world economy, an emphasis that remains central to American foreign policy to this day.
The United Nations
Early in the war, the Allies also agreed to establish a successor to the League of Nations. In a 1944 conference at Dumbarton Oaks, near Washington, D.C., they developed the structure of the United Nations (UN). There would be a General Assembly—essentially a forum for discussion where each member enjoyed an equal voice—and a Security Council responsible for maintaining world peace. Along with ten rotating members, the council would have five permanent ones—Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—each with the power to veto resolutions. In June 1945, representatives of fifty-one countries met in San Francisco to adopt the UN Charter, which outlawed force or the threat of force as a means of settling international disputes. In July, the U.S. Senate endorsed the charter. In contrast to the bitter dispute over member- ship in the League of Nations after World War I, only two members of the U.S. Senate voted against joining the UN. At the conclusion of the San Francisco con- ference that established the United Nations, President Truman urged Americans to recognize that “no matter how great our strength, we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please. This is the price which each nation will have to pay for world peace. . . . And what a reasonable price that is.”
Peace, but Not Harmony
World War II produced a radical redistribution of world power. Japan and Ger- many, the two dominant military powers in their regions before the war, were utterly defeated. Britain and France, though victorious, were substantially weak- ened. Only the United States and the Soviet Union were able to project signifi- cant influence beyond their national borders.
Overall, however, the United States was clearly the dominant world power. “What Rome was to the ancient world,” wrote the journalist Walter Lippmann, “America is to be to the world of tomorrow.” But peace did not usher in an era of international harmony. The Soviet occupation of eastern Europe created a divi- sion soon to be solidified in the Cold War. The dropping of the atomic bombs left a worldwide legacy of fear.
It remained to be seen how seriously the victorious Allies took their war- time rhetoric of freedom. In August 1941, four months before the United States entered the war, FDR and British prime minister Winston Churchill had met for a conference, on warships anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, and issued the Atlantic Charter. The charter promised that “the final destruction of Nazi tyranny” would be followed by open access to markets, the right of “all peoples”
to choose their form of government, and a global extension of the New Deal so that people everywhere would enjoy “improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security.” It referred specifically to two of Roos- evelt’s Four Freedoms—freedom from want and freedom from fear. But free- dom of speech and of worship had been left out because of British reluctance to apply them to its colonial possessions, especially India.
The Four Freedoms speech and the Atlantic Charter had been primarily intended to highlight the differences between Anglo-American ideals and Nazism. Nonetheless, they had unanticipated consequences. As one of Roo- sevelt’s speechwriters remarked, “when you state a moral principle, you are stuck with it, no matter how many fingers you have kept crossed at the moment.” The language with which World War II was fought helped to lay the foundation for postwar ideals of human rights that extend to all mankind.
During the war, Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader, wrote to Roosevelt that the idea “that the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for freedom of the individual and for democracy seems hollow, so long as India, and for that matter, Africa, are exploited by Great Britain, and America has the Negro problem in her own home.” Allied victory saved mankind from a living nightmare—a worldwide system of dictatorial rule and slave labor in which peoples deemed inferior suffered the fate of European Jews and the victims of Japanese outrages in Asia. But disputes over the freedom of colo- nial peoples overseas and non-whites in the United States foretold wars and social upheavals to come.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why did most Americans support isolationism in the 1930s?
2. What factors after 1939 led to U.S. involvement in World War II?
3. How did government, business, and labor work together to promote wartime production, and how did the war affect each group?
4. How did different groups understand or experience the Four Freedoms differently?
A member of the U.S. Navy plays “Goin’ Home” on the accordian as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s body is carried from the Warm Springs Foundation where he died suddenly on April 12, 1945.
How did the end of the war begin to shape the postwar world?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 903
904 ★ CHAPTER 22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II
5. Explain how conservatives in Congress and business used the war effort to attack the goals and legacy of the New Deal.
6. How did the war alter the lives of women on the home front, and what did different groups think would happen to the status of women after the war?
7. How did a war fought to bring “essential human freedoms” to the world fail to protect the home-front liberties of blacks, Indians, Japanese-Americans, and Mexican-Americans?
8. Explain how World War II promoted an awareness of the links between racism in the United States and colonialism around the world.
9. What was the impact of the GI Bill of Rights on American society, including minorities?
10. Describe how the decisions made at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 created the framework for postwar U.S. economic and foreign policy.
Four Freedoms (p. 861)
Good Neighbor Policy (p. 864)
isolationism (p. 866)
Neutrality Acts (p. 866)
Lend-Lease Act (p. 868)
Axis powers (p. 869)
D-Day (p. 871)
Holocaust (p. 873)
GI Bill of Rights (p. 882)
bracero program (p. 886)
zoot suit riots (p. 887)
Japanese-American internment (p. 891)
Korematsu v. United States (p. 892)
second Great Migration (p. 893)
double-V (p. 895)
V-E Day (p. 898)
Manhattan Project (p. 899)
Potsdam conference (p. 900)
Yalta conference (p. 901)
Bretton Woods conference (p. 901)
United Nations (p. 902)
Atlantic Charter (p. 902)
KEY TERMS
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
Visit the Give Me Liberty! Student Site for primary source documents and images, interactive maps, author videos featuring Eric Foner, and more.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War?
• How did the Cold War reshape ideas of American freedom?
• What major domestic policy initiatives did Truman undertake?
• What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture?
T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S
A N D T H E C O L D W A R
★ C H A P T E R 2 3 ★
1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3
On September 16, 1947, the 160th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, the Freedom Train opened to the public in Philadelphia. A traveling exhibition of 133 historical documents, the train, bedecked in red, white, and blue, soon embarked on a sixteen- month tour that took it to more than 300 American cities. Never before or since have so many cherished pieces of Americana— among them the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address— been assembled in one place. After leaving the train, visitors were encouraged to rededicate themselves to American values by taking the Freedom Pledge and adding their names to a Freedom Scroll.
The idea for the Freedom Train, perhaps the most elaborate peace- time patriotic campaign in American history, originated in 1946 with the
★ 905
906 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
Department of Justice. President Harry S. Truman endorsed it as a way of contrasting American freedom with “the destruction of liberty by the Hitler tyranny.” Since direct govern- ment funding raised fears of propa- ganda, however, the administration turned the project over to a nonprofit group, the American Heritage Founda- tion, headed by Winthrop W. Aldrich, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank.
By any measure, the Freedom Train was an enormous success. It attracted more than 3.5 million visitors, and mil- lions more took part in the civic activities that accompanied its journey, including labor- management forums, educational programs, and patriotic parades. The powerful grassroots response to the train, wrote The New Republic, revealed a popular hunger for “tangible evidence of American freedom.” Behind the scenes, however, the Freedom Train demon- strated that the meaning of freedom remained as controversial as ever.
The liberal staff members at the National Archives who proposed the ini- tial list of documents had included the Wagner Act of 1935, which guaranteed workers the right to form unions, as well as President Roosevelt’s Four Free- doms speech of 1941, with its promise to fight “freedom from want.” The more conservative American Heritage Foundation removed these documents. They also deleted from the original list the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which had established the principle of equal civil and political rights regard- less of race after the Civil War, and FDR’s 1941 order establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission, which Congress had recently allowed to expire. In the end, nothing on the train referred to organized labor or any twentieth- century social legislation. The only documents relating to blacks were the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, and a 1776 letter by South Carolina patriot Henry Laurens criticizing slavery.
Many black Americans initially voiced doubts regarding the exhibit. On the eve of the train’s unveiling, the poet Langston Hughes wondered whether there would be “Jim Crow on the Freedom Train.” “When it stops in Mississippi,”
The cover of a comic book promoting the Freedom Train in 1948. The image links the train to Paul Revere’s ride and, more broadly, the revolutionary era.
THE UNITED STATES AND THE COLD WAR ★ 907
Hughes asked, “will it be made plain / Every- body’s got a right to board the Freedom Train?” In fact, with the Truman administra- tion about to make civil rights a major pri- ority, the train’s organizers announced that they would not permit segregated viewing. In an unprecedented move, the American Heritage Foundation canceled visits to Mem- phis, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, when local authorities insisted on separating visitors by race. The Freedom Train visited forty- seven other southern cities without incident and was hailed in the black press for breaching, if only temporarily, the walls of segregation.
Even as the Freedom Train reflected a new sense of national unease about expressions of racial inequality, its journey also revealed the growing impact of the Cold War. Origi- nally intended to contrast American freedom with Nazi tyranny, the train quickly became caught up in the emerging struggle with communism. In the spring of 1947, a few months before the train was dedicated, Pres- ident Truman committed the United States to the worldwide containment of Soviet power and inaugurated a program to root out “disloyal” persons from government employ- ment. Soon, Attorney General Tom C. Clark was praising the Freedom Train as a means of preventing “foreign ideologies” from infil- trating the United States and of “aiding the country in its internal war against subversive elements.” The Federal Bureau of Investiga- tion began compiling reports on those who found the train objectionable. The Freedom Train revealed how the Cold War helped to reshape freedom’s meaning, identifying it ever more closely with anticommunism, “free enterprise,” and the defense of the social and economic status quo.
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1945 Yalta conference
1946 Philippines granted independence
1947 Truman Doctrine
Federal Employee Loyalty program
Jackie Robinson integrates major league baseball
Marshall Plan
Taft- Hartley Act
Freedom Train exhibition
House Un- American Activities Committee investigates Hollywood
1948 UN adopts Universal Dec- laration of Human Rights
Truman desegregates military
1948– Berlin blockade and airlift 1949
1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization established
Soviet Union tests atomic bomb
People’s Republic of China established
1950 McCarthy’s Wheeling, W.V., speech
NSC- 68 issued
McCarran Internal Security Act
1950– Korean War 1953
1951 Dennis v. United States
1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for spying
1954 Army- McCarthy hearings
1955 Warsaw Pact organized
• •
908 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R
The Two Powers
The United States emerged from World War II as by far the world’s great- est power. Although most of the army was quickly demobilized, the coun- try boasted the world’s most powerful navy and air force. The United States accounted for half the world’s manufacturing capacity. It alone possessed the atomic bomb. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Roosevelt admin- istration was determined to avoid a retreat to isolationism like the one that followed World War I. It believed that the United States could lead the rest of the world to a future of international cooperation, expanding democracy, and ever- increasing living standards. New institutions like the United Nations and World Bank had been created to promote these goals. American leaders also believed that the nation’s security depended on the security of Europe and Asia, and that American prosperity required global economic reconstruction.
The only power that in any way could rival the United States was the Soviet Union, whose armies now occupied most of eastern Europe, including the east- ern part of Germany. Its crucial role in defeating Hitler and its claim that com- munism had wrested a vast backward nation into modernity gave the Soviet Union considerable prestige in Europe and among colonial peoples struggling for independence. Like the United States, the Soviets looked forward to a world order modeled on their own society and values. Having lost more than 20 mil- lion dead and suffered vast devastation during the war, however, Stalin’s gov- ernment was in no position to embark on new military adventures. “Unless they were completely out of their minds,” said American undersecretary of state Dean Acheson, the Russians were hardly likely to go to war with the far more powerful United States. But having done the largest amount of fighting in the defeat of Hitler, the Soviet government remained determined to establish a sphere of influence in eastern Europe, through which Germany had twice invaded Russia in the past thirty years.
The Roots of Containment
FDR seems to have believed that the United States could maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union once World War II ended. In retrospect, how- ever, it seems all but inevitable that the two major powers to emerge from the war would come into conflict. Born of a common foe rather than common long- term interests, values, or history, their wartime alliance began to unravel almost from the day that peace was declared.
The first confrontation of the Cold War took place in the Middle East. At the end of World War II, Soviet troops had occupied parts of northern Iran, hoping
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR ★ 909
to pressure that country to grant it access to its rich oil fields. Under British and American pressure, however, Stalin quickly withdrew Soviet forces. At the same time, the Soviets installed procommunist governments in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, a step they claimed was no different from American domination of Latin America or Britain’s determination to maintain its own empire. But many Americans became convinced that Stalin was violating the promise of free elec- tions in Poland that had been agreed to at the Yalta conference of 1945.
Early in 1946, in his famous Long Telegram from Moscow, American diplo- mat George Kennan advised the Truman administration that the Soviets could not be dealt with as a normal government. Communist ideology drove them to try to expand their power throughout the world, he claimed, and only the United States had the ability to stop them. While Kennan believed that the Russians could not be dislodged from control of eastern Europe, his telegram laid the foundation for what became known as the policy of “containment,” according to which the United States committed itself to preventing any fur- ther expansion of Soviet power.
The Iron Curtain
Shortly afterward, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, Britain’s former war- time prime minister Winston Churchill declared that an iron curtain had descended across Europe, partitioning the free West from the communist East. Churchill’s speech helped to popularize the idea of an impending long- term struggle between the United States and the Soviets. But not until March 1947, in a speech announcing what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, did the president officially embrace the Cold War as the foundation of American for- eign policy and describe it as a worldwide struggle over the future of freedom.
The Truman Doctrine
Harry S. Truman never expected to become president. Until Democratic party leaders chose him to replace Henry Wallace as Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944, he was an undistinguished senator from Missouri who had risen in poli- tics through his connection with the boss of the Kansas City political machine, Tom Pendergast. When he assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Truman found himself forced to decide foreign policy debates in which he had previously played virtually no role.
Convinced that Stalin could not be trusted and that the United States had a responsibility to provide leadership to a world that he tended to view in stark, black- and- white terms, Truman soon determined to put the policy of contain- ment into effect. The immediate occasion for this epochal decision came early in 1947 when Britain informed the United States that because its economy had
What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War?
910 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
been shattered by the war, it could no longer afford its traditional international role. Britain had no choice but to end military and financial aid to two crucial governments— Greece, a monarchy threatened by a communist- led rebellion, and Turkey, from which the Soviets were demanding joint control of the straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Britain asked the United States to fill the vacuum.
The Soviet Union had little to do with the internal problems of Greece and Turkey, where opposition to corrupt, undemocratic regimes was largely home- grown. Neither had held truly free elections. But they occupied strategically important sites at the gateway to southeastern Europe and the oil- rich Middle East. Truman had been told by Senate leader Arthur Vandenberg that the only way a reluctant public and Congress would support aid to these governments was for the president to “scare hell” out of the American people. To rally popu- lar backing, Truman rolled out the heaviest weapon in his rhetorical arsenal— the defense of freedom. As the leader of the “free world,” the United States must now shoulder the responsibility of supporting “ freedom- loving peoples” wher- ever communism threatened them. Twenty- four times in the eighteen- minute speech, Truman used the words “free” and “freedom.”
Building on the wartime division of the globe into free and enslaved worlds, and invoking a far older vision of an American mission to defend liberty against the forces of darkness, the Truman Doctrine created the language through which most Americans came to understand the postwar world. More than any other statement, a prominent senator would write, this speech established “the guiding spirit of American foreign policy.” Truman succeeded in persuading both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to support his policy, beginning a long period of bipartisan support for the containment of communism. As Tru- man’s speech to Congress suggested, the Cold War was, in part, an ideological conflict. Both sides claimed to be promoting freedom and social justice while defending their own security, and each offered its social system as a model the rest of the world should follow.
While his request to Congress was limited to $400 million in military aid to two governments (aid that enabled both Greece and Turkey to defeat their domestic foes), Truman’s rhetoric suggested that the United States had assumed a permanent global responsibility. The speech set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union. There soon followed the creation of new national security bodies immune from democratic oversight, such as the Atomic Energy Commission, National Security Council, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the last established in 1947 to gather intelligence and conduct secret military operations abroad.
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR ★ 911
The Marshall Plan
The language of the Truman Doctrine and the future it sketched of open- ended worldwide responsibilities for the United States alarmed many Americans. “Are we to shoulder the mantle of nineteenth- century British imperialism?” asked the San Francisco Chronicle. “Are we asking for a third world war?” But the threat of Amer ican military action overseas formed only one pillar of contain- ment. Secretary of State George C. Marshall spelled out the other in a speech at Harvard University in June 1947. Marshall pledged the United States to contrib- ute billions of dollars to finance the economic recovery of Europe. Two years after the end of the war, much of the continent still lay in ruins. Food shortages were widespread, and inflation rampant. The economic chaos, exacerbated by the unusually severe winter of 1946–1947, had strengthened the communist parties of France and Italy. American policymakers feared that these countries might fall into the Soviet orbit.
The Marshall Plan offered a positive vision to go along with containment. It aimed to combat the idea, widespread since the Great Depression, that cap- italism was in decline and communism the wave of the future. It defined the threat to American security not so much as Soviet military power but as eco- nomic and political instability, which could be breeding grounds for commu- nism. Avoiding Truman’s language of a world divided between free and unfree blocs, Marshall insisted, “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.” Freedom meant more than simply anticommunism— it required the emergence of the “polit- ical and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.” In effect, the Marshall Plan envisioned a New Deal for Europe, an extension to that conti- nent of Roosevelt’s wartime Four Freedoms. As a booklet explaining the idea to Europeans put it, the aim was “a higher standard of living for the entire nation; maximum employment for workers and farmers; greater production.” Or, in the words of a slogan used to popularize the Marshall Plan, “Prosperity Makes You Free.”
The Marshall Plan proved to be one of the most successful foreign aid pro- grams in history. By 1950, western European production exceeded prewar lev- els and the region was poised to follow the United States down the road to a mass- consumption society. Since the Soviet Union refused to participate, fear- ing American control over the economies of eastern Europe, the Marshall Plan further solidified the division of the continent. At the same time, the United States worked out with twenty- three other Western nations the General Agree- ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which proposed to stimulate freer trade among the participants, creating an enormous market for American goods and investment.
What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War?
912 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
The Reconstruction of Japan
Under the guidance of General Douglas MacArthur, the “supreme commander” in Japan until 1948, that country adopted a new, democratic constitution and eliminated absentee landlordism so that most tenant farmers became owners of land. Thanks to American insistence, and against the wishes of most Japa- nese leaders, the new constitution gave women the right to vote for the first time in Japan’s history. (A century after the Seneca Falls convention, women’s suffrage had become an intrinsic part of American understandings of free- dom.) Furthermore, Article 9 of the new constitution stated that Japan would renounce forever the policy of war and armed aggression, and would maintain only a modest self- defense force.
The United States also oversaw the economic reconstruction of Japan. Ini- tially, the United States proposed to dissolve Japan’s giant industrial corpora- tions, which had contributed so much to the nation’s war effort. But this plan was abandoned in 1948 in favor of an effort to rebuild Japan’s industrial base as a bastion of anticommunist strength in Asia. By the 1950s, thanks to American economic assistance, the adoption of new technologies, and low spending on the military, Japan’s economic recovery was in full swing.
The Berlin Blockade and NATO
Meanwhile, the Cold War intensified and, despite the Marshall Plan, increas- ingly took a militaristic turn. At the end of World War II, each of the four victo- rious powers assumed control of a section of occupied Germany, and of Berlin, located deep in the Soviet zone. In June 1948, the United States, Britain, and France introduced a separate currency in their zones, a prelude to the creation of a new West German government that would be aligned with them in the Cold War. In response, the Soviets cut off road and rail traffic from the Ameri- can, British, and French zones of occupied Germany to Berlin.
An eleven- month airlift followed, with Western planes supplying fuel and food to their zones of the city. When Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949, the Truman administration had won a major victory. Soon, two new nations emerged, East and West Germany, each allied with a side in the Cold War. Berlin itself remained divided. The city’s western part survived as an isolated enclave within East Germany. Not until 1991 would Germany be reunified.
Also in 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American monopoly of the weapon. In the same year, the United States, Can- ada, and ten western European nations established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), pledging mutual defense against any future Soviet attack. Soon, West Germany became a crucial part of NATO. Many Europeans
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR ★ 913
feared German rearmament. But France and other victims of Nazi aggression saw NATO as a kind of “double containment,” in which West Germany would serve as a bulwark against the Soviets while integration into the Western alli- ance tamed and “civilized” German power. The North Atlantic Treaty was the first long- term military alliance between the United States and Europe since the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France during the American Revolu- tion. The Soviets formalized their own eastern European alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.
C O L D WA R E U R O P E , 1 9 5 6
The division of Europe between communist and noncommunist nations, solidified by the early 1950s, would last for nearly forty years.
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What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War?
914 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
The Growing Communist Challenge
In 1949, communists led by Mao Zedong emerged victorious in the long Chi- nese civil war— a serious setback for the policy of containment. Assailed by Republicans for having “lost” China (which, of course, the United States never “had” in the first place), the Truman administration refused to recognize the new government— the People’s Republic of China— and blocked it from occu- pying China’s seat at the United Nations. Until the 1970s, the United States insisted that the ousted regime, which had been forced into exile on the island of Taiwan, remained the legitimate government of China.
In the wake of Soviet- American confrontations over southern and east- ern Europe and Berlin, the communist victory in China, and Soviet success in developing an atomic bomb, the National Security Council approved a call for a permanent military build- up to enable the United States to pursue a global crusade against communism. Known as NSC- 68, this 1950 manifesto described the Cold War as an epic struggle between “the idea of freedom” and the “idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the Kremlin.” At stake in the world conflict, it insisted, was nothing less than “the survival of the free world.” One of the most important policy statements of the early Cold War, NSC- 68 helped to spur a dramatic increase in American military spending.
The Korean War
Initially, American postwar policy focused on Europe. But it was in Asia that the Cold War suddenly turned hot. Occupied by Japan during World War II, Korea had been divided in 1945 into Soviet and American zones. These soon evolved into two governments: communist North Korea, and anticommunist South Korea, undemocratic but aligned with the United States. In June 1950, the North Korean army invaded the south, hoping to reunify the country under communist control. North Korean soldiers soon occupied most of the penin- sula. Viewing Korea as a clear test of the policy of containment, the Truman administration persuaded the United Nations Security Council to authorize the use of force to repel the invasion. (The Soviets, who could have vetoed the resolution, were boycotting Security Council meetings to protest the refusal to seat communist China.)
American troops did the bulk of the fighting on this first battlefield of the Cold War. In September 1950, General Douglas MacArthur launched a dar- ing counterattack at Inchon, behind North Korean lines. The invading forces retreated northward, and MacArthur’s army soon occupied most of North Korea. Truman now hoped to unite Korea under a pro- American government. But in October 1950, when UN forces neared the Chinese border, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops intervened, driving them back in bloody fighting.
ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR ★ 915
MacArthur demanded the right to push north again and possibly even invade China and use nuclear weapons against it. But Truman, fearing an all- out war on the Asian mainland, refused. MacArthur did not fully accept the principle of civilian control of the military. When he went public with criticism of the president, Truman removed him from command. The war then settled into a stalemate around the thirty- eighth parallel, the original boundary between the two Koreas. Not until 1953 was an armistice agreed to, essentially restoring the prewar status quo. There has never been a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War.
More than 33,000 Americans died in Korea. The Asian death toll reached an estimated 1 million Korean soldiers and 2 million civilians (many of them
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T H E K O R E A N WA R , 1 9 5 0 – 1 9 5 3
As this map indicates, when General Douglas MacArthur launched his surprise landing at Inchon, North Korean forces controlled nearly the entire Korean peninsula.
What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War?
916 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
victims of starvation after American bombing destroyed irrigation systems essential to rice cultivation), along with hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops. Korea made it clear that the Cold War, which began in Europe, had become a global conflict.
Taken together, the events of 1947–1953 showed that the world had moved very far from the hopes for global harmony symbolized by the founding of the United Nations in 1945. No longer did the United States speak of One World (the title of Wendell Willkie’s influential wartime book). Instead, the world had been divided in two. The United States now stood as the undisputed leader of what was increasingly known as the West (although it included Japan, where permanent American military bases were established), or the Free World. NATO was soon followed by SEATO in Southeast Asia and CENTO in the Middle East, forming a web of military alliances that ringed the Soviet Union and China.
Cold War Critics
In the Soviet Union, Stalin had consolidated a brutal dictatorship that jailed or murdered millions of Soviet citizens. With its one- party rule, stringent state control of the arts and intellectual life, and government- controlled economy, the Soviet Union presented a stark opposite of democracy and “free enterprise.” As a number of contemporary critics, few of them sympathetic to Soviet communism, pointed out, however, casting the Cold War in terms of a worldwide battle between freedom and slavery had unfortunate consequences. George Kennan, whose Long Telegram had inspired the policy of containment, observed that such language made it impossible to view international crises on a case- by- case basis, or to determine which genuinely involved either freedom or American interests.
In a penetrating critique of Truman’s policies, Walter Lippmann, one of the nation’s most prominent journalists, objected to turning foreign policy into an “ideological crusade.” To view every challenge to the status quo as part of a con- test with the Soviet Union, Lippmann correctly predicted, would require the United States to recruit and subsidize an “array of satellites, clients, dependents and puppets.” It would have to intervene continuously in the affairs of nations whose political problems did not arise from Moscow and could not be easily understood in terms of the battle between freedom and slavery. World War II, he went on, had shaken the foundations of European empires. In the tide of revolutionary nationalism now sweeping the world, communists were certain to play an important role. It would be a serious mistake, Lippmann warned, for the United States to align itself against the movement for colonial indepen- dence in the name of anticommunism.
THE COLD WAR AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM ★ 917
Imperialism and Decolonization
World War II had increased awareness in the United States of the problem of imperialism and had led many African- Americans to identify their own struggle for equality with the strivings of non- white colonial peoples overseas. Many movements for colonial independence borrowed the language of the American Declaration of Independence in demanding the right to self- government. Lib- eral Democrats and black leaders urged the Truman administration to take the lead in promoting worldwide decolonization, insisting that a Free World wor- thy of the name should not include colonies and empires. In 1946, the United States granted independence to the Philippines, a move hailed by nationalist movements in other colonies. But as the Cold War developed, the United States backed away from pressuring its European allies to move toward granting self- government to colonies like French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and Brit- ish possessions like the Gold Coast and Nigeria in Africa and Malaya in Asia. Even after granting independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, Britain was determined to retain much of its empire.
In practice, geopolitical and economic interests shaped American foreign policy as powerfully as the idea of freedom. But American policymakers used the language of a crusade for freedom to justify actions around the world that had little to do with freedom by almost any definition. No matter how repres- sive to its own people, if a nation joined the worldwide anticommunist alliance led by the United States, it was counted as a member of the Free World. The Republic of South Africa, for example, was considered a part of the Free World even though its white minority had deprived the black population of nearly all their rights. Was there not some way, one critic asked, that the United States could accept “the aid of tyrants” on practical grounds “without corrupting our speeches by identifying tyranny with freedom”?
T H E C O L D W A R A N D T H E I D E A O F F R E E D O M Among other things, the Cold War was an ideological struggle, a battle, in a popular phrase of the 1950s, for the “hearts and minds” of people throughout the world. Like other wars, it required popular mobilization, in which the idea of freedom played a central role. During the 1950s, freedom became an inescap- able theme of academic research, popular journalism, mass culture, and official pronouncements. Henry Luce, who had popularized the idea of an American Century, explained that “freedom” was the “one word out of the whole human vocabulary” through which Time magazine could best explain America to the
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rest of the world. In many ways, the Cold War established the framework for the discussion of freedom.
The Cultural Cold War
One of the more unusual Cold War battlefields involved American history and culture. Many scholars read the American Creed of pluralism, tolerance, and equality back into the past as a timeless definition of Americanism, ignoring the powerful ethnic and racial strains with which it had always coexisted. Under the code name “Militant Liberty,” national security agencies encouraged Hollywood to produce anticommunist movies, such as The Red Menace (1949) and I Married a Communist (1950), and urged that film scripts be changed to remove references to less- than- praiseworthy aspects of American history, such as Indian removal and racial discrimination.
The Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Department emerged as unlikely patrons of the arts. As noted in Chapter 21, the federal government had openly financed all sorts of artistic works during the 1930s. But Cold War fund- ing for the arts remained top- secret— in part because Congress proved reluctant to spend money for this purpose, in part because Americans charged commu- nist governments with imposing artistic conformity. In an effort to influence public opinion abroad, the Soviet Union sponsored tours of its world- famous ballet companies, folk dance troupes, and symphony orchestras. To counteract the widespread European view of the United States as a cultural backwater, the CIA secretly funded an array of overseas publications, conferences, publishing houses, concerts, and art exhibits. And to try to improve the international image of American race relations, the government sent jazz musicians and other black performers abroad, especially to Africa and Asia.
Works produced by artists who considered themselves thoroughly non- political became weapons in the cultural Cold War. The CIA promoted the so- called New York school of painters, led by Jackson Pollock. For Pollock, the essence of art lay in the process of creation, not the final product. His “action” paintings, made by spontaneously dripping and pouring paint over large canvases, produced works of vivid color and energy but without any recog- nizable subject matter. Many members of Congress much preferred Norman Rockwell’s readily understandable illustrations of small- town life to Pollock’s “abstract expressionism.” Some called Pollock’s works un- American and won- dered aloud if they were part of a communist plot. In 1946, for example, the State Department assembled a stylistically diverse exhibition of contemporary American paintings that it displayed in Europe and Latin America to demon- strate “the freedom of expression enjoyed by artists in America.” But criticism emerged in Congress. Representative Fred Busbey of Illinois said the exhibit gave the impression that “the American people are despondent, broke down
THE COLD WAR AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM ★ 919
or of hideous shape.” The State Depart- ment abandoned the project and sold the works at auction. In 2013, for the first time in half a century, they were exhibited, at Indiana University, with the overall title Art Interrupted.
The CIA, however, funded the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which championed the New York school, and helped arrange for exhi- bitions overseas. It hoped to persuade Europeans not only that these paint- ings demonstrated that the United States represented artistic leadership as well as military power, but that such art embodied the free, individual expression denied to artists in commu- nist countries. Pollock’s paintings, John Cage’s musical compositions, which incorporated chance sounds rather than a fixed score, and the “graceful freedom” of George Balanchine’s bal- let choreography were all described as artistic reflections of the essence of American life.
Freedom and Totalitarianism
Along with freedom, the Cold War’s other great mobilizing concept was totalitarianism. The term origi- nated in Europe between the world wars to describe fascist Italy and Nazi Germany— aggressive, ideologically driven states that sought to subdue all of civil society, including churches, unions, and other voluntary associations, to their control. Such states, accord- ing to the theory of totalitarianism, left no room for individual rights or alterna- tive values and therefore could never change from within. By 1950, the year the McCarran Internal Security Act barred “totalitarians” from entering the United
A poster for The Red Menace, one of numerous anticommunist films produced by Hollywood during the 1950s.
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States, the term had become a shorthand way of describing those on the other side in the Cold War. As the eventual collapse of communist governments in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would demonstrate, the idea of totalitari- anism greatly exaggerated the totality of government control of private life and thought in these countries. But its widespread use reinforced the view that the greatest danger to freedom lay in an overly powerful government.
Just as the conflict over slavery redefined American freedom in the nine- teenth century and the confrontation with the Nazis shaped understandings of freedom during World War II, the Cold War reshaped them once again. Rus- sia had already conquered America, the poet Archibald MacLeish complained in 1949, since politics was conducted “under a kind of upside- down Russian veto.” Whatever Moscow stood for was by definition the opposite of freedom, including anything to which the word “socialized” could be attached. In the largest public relations campaign in American history, the American Medical Association raised the specter of “socialized medicine” to discredit and defeat Truman’s proposal for national health insurance. The real- estate industry like- wise mobilized against public housing, terming it “socialized housing,” similar to policies undertaken by Moscow.
The Rise of Human Rights
The Cold War also affected the emerging concept of human rights. The atroci- ties committed during World War II, as well as the global language of the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter, forcefully raised the issue of human rights in the postwar world. After the war, the victorious Allies put numerous Ger- man officials on trial before special courts at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. For the first time, individuals were held directly accountable to the international community for violations of human rights. The trials resulted in prison terms for many Nazi officials and the execution of ten leaders.
The United Nations Charter includes strong language prohibiting discrim- ination on the basis of race, sex, or religion. In 1948, the UN General Assembly approved a far more sweeping document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. It identified a broad range of rights to be enjoyed by people everywhere, including freedom of speech, religious toleration, and protection against arbitrary government, as well as social and economic entitlements like the right to an adequate standard of living and access to housing, education, and medical care. The document had no enforcement mechanism. Some considered it an exercise in empty rhetoric. But the core principle— that a nation’s treatment of its own citizens should be subject to outside evaluation— slowly became part of the language in which freedom was discussed.
THE COLD WAR AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM ★ 921
Ambiguities of Human Rights
The American and French Revolutions of the late eighteenth century had intro- duced into international relations the idea of basic rights belonging to all per- sons simply because they are human. In a sense, this was the origin of the idea of “human rights”—principles so fundamental that no government has a right to violate them. The antislavery movement had turned this idea into a power- ful weapon against the legitimacy of slavery. Yet the debates over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights revealed the tensions inherent in the idea, ten- sions that persist to the present day. To what extent do human rights supersede national sovereignty? Who has the authority to enforce human rights that a government is violating? The United Nations? Regional bodies like the Orga- nization of American States and the European Union? A single country (as the United States would claim to be doing in the Iraq War that began in 2003)? The Covenant of the League of Nations— the predecessor of the United Nations created after World War I— had contained a clause allowing the league to inter- vene when a government violated the rights of its own citizens.
One reason for the lack of an enforcement mechanism in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was that both the United States and the Soviet Union refused to accept outside interference in their internal affairs. John Foster Dulles, an American delegate to the conference that created the UN, opposed any statement affirming human rights out of fear that it would lead to an international investigation of “the Negro question in this country.” In 1947, the NAACP did file a petition with the United Nations asking it to inves- tigate racism in the United States as a violation of human rights. Conditions in states like Mississippi should be of concern to all mankind, it argued, because if democracy failed to function in “the leading democracy in the world,” the prospects for democracy were weakened everywhere. But the UN decided that it lacked jurisdiction. Nonetheless, since the end of World War II, the enjoy- ment of human rights has increasingly taken its place in definitions of freedom across the globe, especially where such rights are flagrantly violated.
After the Cold War ended, the idea of human rights would play an increas- ingly prominent role in world affairs. But during the 1950s, Cold War impera- tives shaped the concept. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could resist emphasizing certain provisions of the Universal Declaration while ignor- ing others. The Soviets claimed to provide all citizens with social and economic rights, but violated democratic rights and civil liberties. Many Americans con- demned the nonpolitical rights as a step toward socialism.
Eleanor Roosevelt saw the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an integrated body of principles, a combination of traditional civil and political liberties with the social conditions of freedom outlined in her husband’s Eco- nomic Bill of Rights of 1944. But to make it easier for member states to ratify the
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document, the UN divided it into two “covenants”—Civil and Political Rights, and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. It took until 1992 for the U.S. Con- gress to ratify the first. It has never approved the second.
T H E T R U M A N P R E S I D E N C Y
The Fair Deal
With the end of World War II, President Truman’s first domestic task was to preside over the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy. More than 12 million men remained in uniform in August 1945. Most wanted nothing more than to return home to their families. Demobilization proceeded at a rapid pace. Within a year, the armed forces had been reduced to 3 million. Some returning soldiers found the adjustment to civilian life difficult. The divorce rate in 1945 rose to double its prewar level. Others took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights (discussed in the previous chapter) to obtain home mortgages, set up small businesses, and embark on college educations. The majority of returning soldiers entered the labor force— one reason why more than 2 million women workers lost their jobs. The government abolished wartime agencies that reg- ulated industrial production and labor relations, and it dismantled wartime price controls, leading to a sharp rise in prices.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, President Truman, backed by party liberals and organized labor, moved to revive the stalled momentum of the New Deal. Truman’s program, which he announced in September 1945 and would later call the Fair Deal, focused on improving the social safety net and raising the standard of living of ordinary Americans. He called on Congress to increase the minimum wage, enact a program of national health insurance, and expand public housing, Social Security, and aid to education. Truman, complained one Republican leader, was “ out– New Dealing the New Deal.”
The Postwar Strike Wave
In 1946, a new wave of labor militancy swept the country. The AFL and CIO launched Operation Dixie, a campaign to bring unionization to the South and, by so doing, shatter the hold of anti- labor conservatives on the region’s politics. More than 200 labor organizers entered the region, seeking support especially in the southern textile industry, the steel industry in the Birmingham region, and agriculture. With war production at an end, overtime work diminished even as inflation soared following the removal of price controls. The result- ing drop in workers’ real income sparked the largest strike wave in American history. Nearly 5 million workers— including those in the steel, auto, coal, and
THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY ★ 923
other key industries— walked off their jobs, demanding wage increases. The strike of 750,000 steelworkers represented the largest single walkout in Ameri- can history to that date. Even Hollywood studios shut down because of a strike of actors and other employees of the movie industry that lasted for the better part of a year. One historian calls this period “the closest thing to a national general strike in industry in the twentieth century.”
President Truman feared the strikes would seriously disrupt the economy. When railroad workers stopped work and set up picket lines, the infuriated president prepared a speech in which he threatened to draft them all into the army and “hang a few traitors”—language toned down by his advisers. The walkout soon ended, as did a coal strike after the Truman administration secured a court order requiring the miners to return to work. To resolve other strikes, Truman appointed federal “ fact- finding boards,” which generally rec- ommended wage increases, although not enough to restore workers’ purchas- ing power to wartime levels.
The Republican Resurgence
In the congressional elections of 1946, large numbers of middle- class voters, alarmed by the labor turmoil, voted Republican. Many workers, disappointed by Truman’s policies, stayed at home. This was a lethal combination for the Democratic Party. For the first time since the 1920s, Republicans swept to con- trol of both houses of Congress. Meanwhile, in the face of vigorous opposition from southern employers and public officials and the reluctance of many white workers to join interracial labor unions, Operation Dixie failed to unionize the South or dent the political control of conservative Democrats in the region. The election of 1946 ensured that a conservative coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats would continue to dominate Congress.
Congress turned aside Truman’s Fair Deal program. It enacted tax cuts for wealthy Americans and, over the president’s veto, in 1947 passed the Taft- Hartley Act, which sought to reverse some of the gains made by organized labor in the past decade. The measure authorized the president to suspend strikes by ordering an eighty- day “ cooling- off period,” and it banned sympathy strikes and secondary boycotts (labor actions directed not at an employer but at those who did business with him). It outlawed the closed shop, which required a worker to be a union member when taking up a job, and authorized states to pass “ right- to- work” laws, prohibiting other forms of compulsory union mem- bership. It also forced union officials to swear that they were not communists. While hardly a “ slave- labor bill,” as the AFL and CIO called it, the Taft- Hartley Act made it considerably more difficult to bring unorganized workers into unions. Over time, as population and capital investment shifted to states with
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“ right- to- work” laws like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, Taft- Hartley con- tributed to the decline of organized labor’s share of the nation’s workforce.
Postwar Civil Rights
During his first term, Truman reached out in unprecedented ways to the nation’s black community. The war, as noted in the previous chapter, had inspired a new black militancy and led many whites to reject American racial practices as rem- iniscent of Hitler’s theory of a master race. In the years immediately following World War II, the status of black Americans enjoyed a prominence in national affairs unmatched since Reconstruction.
Between 1945 and 1951, eleven states from New York to New Mexico established fair employment practices commissions, and numerous cities passed laws against discrimination in access to jobs and public accommoda- tions. (Some of these measures addressed other racial groups besides blacks: for example, California in 1947 repealed its laws permitting local school dis- tricts to provide segregated education for children of Chinese descent and those barring aliens from owning land.) A broad civil rights coalition involv- ing labor, religious groups, and black organizations supported these measures. The NAACP, its ranks swollen during the war, launched a voter registration campaign in the South. By 1952, 20 percent of black southerners were regis- tered to vote, nearly a seven- fold increase since 1940. (Most of the gains took place in the Upper South— in Alabama and Mississippi, the heartland of white supremacy, the numbers barely budged.) Law enforcement agencies finally took the crime of lynching seriously. In 1952, for the first time since record keeping began seventy years earlier, no lynchings took place in the United States. In 1946, the Superman radio show devoted several episodes to the man of steel fighting the Ku Klux Klan, a sign of changing race relations in the wake of World War II.
In another indication that race relations were in flux, the Brooklyn Dodg- ers in 1947 challenged the long- standing exclusion of black players from major league baseball by adding Jackie Robinson to their team. Robinson, who pos- sessed both remarkable athletic ability and a passion for equality, had been tried and acquitted for insubordination in 1944 when he refused to move to the back of a bus at Fort Hood, Texas, while serving in the army. But he prom- ised Dodger owner Branch Rickey that he would not retaliate when subjected to racist taunts by opposing fans and players. His dignity in the face of con- stant verbal abuse won Robinson nationwide respect, and his baseball prowess earned him the Rookie of the Year award. His success opened the door to the integration of baseball and led to the demise of the Negro Leagues, to which black players had previously been confined.
THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY ★ 925
To Secure These Rights
In October 1947, a Commission on Civil Rights appointed by the president issued To Secure These Rights, one of the most devastating indictments ever published of racial inequality in Amer- ica. It called on the federal government to assume the responsibility for abol- ishing segregation and ensuring equal treatment in housing, employment, education, and the criminal justice system. Truman hailed the report as “an American charter of human free- dom.” The impact of America’s race system on the nation’s ability to con- duct the Cold War was not far from his mind. Truman noted that if the United States were to offer the “peoples of the world” a “choice of freedom or enslave- ment,” it must “correct the remain- ing imperfections in our practice of democracy.”
In February 1948, Truman presented an ambitious civil rights program to Congress, calling for a permanent federal civil rights commission, national laws against lynching and the poll tax, and action to ensure equal access to jobs and education. Congress, as Truman anticipated, approved none of his propos- als. But in July 1948, just as the presidential campaign was getting under way, Truman issued an executive order desegregating the armed forces. The armed services became the first large institution in American life to promote racial integration actively and to attempt to root out long- standing racist practices. The Korean War would be the first American conflict fought by an integrated army since the War of Independence.
Truman genuinely despised racial discrimination. But his focus on civil rights also formed part of a strategy to win reelection by reinvigorating and expanding the political coalition Roosevelt had created. With calls for federal health insurance, the repeal of the Taft- Hartley Act, and aid to public educa- tion, the Democratic platform of 1948 was the most progressive in the party’s history. Led by Hubert Humphrey, the young mayor of Minneapolis, party lib- erals overcame southern resistance and added a strong civil rights plank to the platform.
Part of a series of giant murals painted for the lobby of the Rincon Center (formerly a post office, now a shopping mall in San Francisco), this work by the artist Anton Refregier links the Four Freedoms of World War II to a multicultural vision of American society. (In Norman Rock- well’s celebrated paintings, shown in Chapter 22, all the figures depicted are white.)
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The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts
“I say the time has come,” Humphrey told the Democratic national convention, “to walk out of the shadow of states’ rights and into the sunlight of human rights.” Whereupon numerous southern delegates— dubbed Dixiecrats by the press— walked out of the gathering. They soon formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party and nominated for president Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Although his platform called for the “complete segregation of the races” and his campaign drew most of its support from those alarmed by Truman’s civil rights initiatives, Thurmond denied charges of racism. The real issue of the election, Thurmond insisted, was freedom— the States’ Rights Democratic Party, he declared, stood for “individual liberty and freedom, the right of people to govern themselves.” Truman’s plans for extending federal power into the South to enforce civil rights, Thurmond charged, would “con- vert America into a Hitler state.”
Also in 1948, a group of left- wing critics of Truman’s foreign policy formed the Progressive Party and nominated former vice president Henry A. Wallace for president. Wallace advocated an expansion of social welfare programs at home and denounced racial segregation even more vigorously than Truman. When he campaigned in the South, angry white crowds attacked him. But his real difference with the president concerned the Cold War. Wallace called for international control of nuclear weapons and a renewed effort to develop a relationship with the Soviet Union based on economic cooperation rather than military confrontation. He announced his willingness to accept support from all Americans who agreed with him, including socialists and communists. The influence of the now much- reduced Communist Party in Wallace’s campaign led to an exodus of New Deal liberals and severe attacks on his candidacy. A vote for Wallace, Truman declared, was in effect a vote for Stalin.
The 1948 Campaign
Wallace threatened to draw votes from Truman on the left, and Thurmond to undermine the president’s support in the South, where whites had voted solidly for the Democrats throughout the twentieth century. But Truman’s main opponent, fortunately for the president, was the colorless Republican Thomas A. Dewey. Certain of victory and an ineffective speaker and cam- paigner, Dewey seemed unwilling to commit himself on controversial issues. His speeches, wrote one hostile newspaper, amounted to nothing more than clichés: “Agriculture is important. Our rivers are full of fish. You cannot have freedom without liberty. Our future lies ahead.” Truman, by contrast, ran an aggressive campaign. He crisscrossed the country by train, delivering fiery
THE ANTICOMMUNIST CRUSADE ★ 927
attacks on the Republican- controlled “ do- nothing Congress.” Truman revived New Deal rhetoric denouncing Wall Street and charged his opponent with threatening to undermine Social Security and other New Deal benefits. “Don’t let them take it away,” he repeated over and over.
The four- way 1948 campaign was the last before television put a premium on brief political advertisements and entertaining slogans rather than substan- tive debate, and the last in which a full spectrum of ideologies was presented to the American public. Virtually every public- opinion poll and newspaper report predicted a Dewey victory. Truman’s success— by 303 to 189 electoral votes— represented one of the greatest upsets in American political history. For the first time since 1868, blacks (in the North, where they enjoyed the right to vote) played a decisive role in the outcome. Thurmond carried four Deep South states, demonstrating that the race issue, couched in terms of individual free- dom, had the potential of leading traditionally Democratic white voters to des- ert their party. In retrospect, the States’ Rights campaign offered a preview of the political transformation that by the end of the twentieth century would leave every southern state in the Republican column. As for Wallace, he suffered the humiliation of polling fewer popular votes (1.16 million) than Thurmond (1.17 million). His crushing defeat inaugurated an era in which public criticism of the foundations of American foreign policy became all but impossible.
T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E For nearly half a century, the Cold War profoundly affected American life. There would be no return to “normalcy” as after World War I. The military- industrial establishment created during World War II would be permanent, not temporary. The United States retained a large and active federal government and poured money into weapons development and overseas bases. National security became the stated reason for a host of government projects, including aid to higher education and the building of a new national highway system (justified by the need to speed the evacuation of major cities in the event of nuclear war). The Cold War encouraged a culture of secrecy and dishonesty. Not until decades later was it revealed that during the 1950s and 1960s both the Soviet and American governments conducted experiments in which unwitting soldiers were exposed to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. American nuclear tests, conducted on Pacific islands and in Nevada, exposed thousands of civilians to radiation that caused cancer and birth defects.
Cold War military spending helped to fuel economic growth and support scientific research that not only perfected weaponry but also led to improved
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aircraft, computers, medicines, and other products with a large impact on civil- ian life. Since much of this research took place at universities, the Cold War promoted the rapid expansion of American higher education. The Cold War reshaped immigration policy, with refugees from communism being allowed to enter the United States regardless of national- origin quotas. The inter- national embarrassment caused by American racial policies contributed to the dismantling of segregation. And like other wars, the Cold War encouraged the drawing of a sharp line between patriotic Americans and those accused of being disloyal. Containment— not only of communism but of unorthodox opinions of all kinds— took place at home as well as abroad. At precisely the moment when the United States celebrated freedom as the foundation of American life, the right to dissent came under attack.
Loyalty and Disloyalty
Dividing the world between liberty and slavery automatically made those who could be linked to communism enemies of freedom. Although the assault on civil liberties came to be known as McCarthyism, it began before Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin burst onto the national scene in 1950. In
A postcard promoting tourism to Las Vegas highlights as one attraction the city’s proximity to a nuclear test site. Witnessing nearby atomic explosions became a popular pastime in the city. The government failed to issue warnings of the dangers of nuclear fallout, and only years later did it admit that many onlookers had contracted diseases from radiation.
THE ANTICOMMUNIST CRUSADE ★ 929
1947, less than two weeks after announcing the Truman Doctrine, the president established a loyalty review system that required government employees to demonstrate their patriotism without being allowed to confront accusers or, in some cases, knowing the charges against them. Along with persons suspected of disloyalty, the new national security system also targeted homosexuals who worked for the government. They were deemed particularly susceptible to blackmail by Soviet agents as well as supposedly lacking in the manly quali- ties needed to maintain the country’s resolve in the fight against communism. Ironically, the government conducted an anti- gay campaign at the very time that gay men enjoyed a powerful presence in realms of culture and commercial life being promoted as expressions of American freedom— modern art and bal- let, fashion, and advertising. The loyalty program failed to uncover any cases of espionage. But the federal government dismissed several hundred persons from their jobs, and thousands resigned rather than submit to investigation.
Also in 1947, the House Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched a series of hearings about communist influence in Hollywood. Call- ing well- known screenwriters, directors, and actors to appear before the com- mittee ensured itself a wave of national publicity, which its members relished. Celebrities like producer Walt Disney and actors Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan testified that the movie industry harbored numerous communists. But ten “unfriendly witnesses” refused to answer the committee’s questions about their political beliefs or to “name names” (identify individual communists) on the grounds that the hearings violated the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and political association. The committee charged the Hollywood Ten, who included the prominent screenwriters Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo, with contempt of Congress, and they served jail terms of six months to a year. Hollywood studios blacklisted them (denied them employ- ment), along with more than 200 others who were accused of communist sympathies or who refused to name names.
The Spy Trials
A series of highly publicized legal cases followed, which fueled the growing anticommunist hysteria. Whittaker Chambers, an editor at Time magazine, testified before HUAC that during the 1930s, Alger Hiss, a high- ranking State Department official, had given him secret government documents to pass to agents of the Soviet Union. Hiss vehemently denied the charge, but a jury con- victed him of perjury and he served five years in prison. A young congressman from California and a member of HUAC, Richard Nixon, achieved national prominence because of his dogged pursuit of Hiss. In another celebrated case, the Truman administration put the leaders of the Communist Party on trial
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for advocating the overthrow of the government. In 1951, eleven of them were sentenced to five years in prison.
The most sensational trial involved Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a working- class Jewish communist couple from New York City (quite different from Hiss, a member of the eastern Protestant “establishment”). In 1951, a jury convicted the Rosenbergs of conspiracy to pass secrets concerning the atomic bomb to Soviet agents during World War II (when the Soviets were American allies). Their chief accuser was David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, who had worked at the Los Alamos nuclear research center.
The case against Julius Rosenberg rested on highly secret documents that could not be revealed in court. (When they were released many years later, the sci- entific information they contained seemed too crude to justify the government’s charge that Julius had passed along the “secret of the atomic bomb,” although he may have helped the Soviets speed up their atomic program.) The government had almost no evidence against Ethel Rosenberg, and Greenglass later admitted that he had lied in some of his testimony about her. Indeed, prosecutors seem to have indicted her in the hope of pressuring Julius to confess and implicate others. But in the atmosphere of hysteria, their conviction was certain. Even though they had been convicted of conspiracy, a far weaker charge than spying or treason, Judge Irving Kaufman called their crime “worse than murder.” They had helped, he declared, to “cause” the Korean War. Despite an international outcry, the death sentence was carried out in 1953. Controversy still surrounds the degree of guilt of both Hiss and the Rosenbergs, although almost no one today defends the Rosenbergs’ execution. But these trials powerfully reinforced the idea that an army of Soviet spies was at work in the United States.
McCarthy and McCarthyism
In this atmosphere, a little- known senator from Wisconsin suddenly emerged as the chief national pursuer of subversives and gave a new name to the anti- communist crusade. Joseph R. McCarthy had won election to the Senate in 1946, partly on the basis of a fictional war record (he falsely claimed to have flown combat missions in the Pacific). In a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, in Feb- ruary 1950, McCarthy announced that he had a list of 205 communists working for the State Department. The charge was preposterous, the numbers constantly changed, and McCarthy never identified a single person guilty of genuine dis- loyalty. But with a genius for self- promotion, McCarthy used the Senate sub- committee he chaired to hold hearings and level wild charges against numerous individuals as well as the Defense Department, the Voice of America, and other government agencies. Although many Republicans initially supported his rampage as a weapon against the Truman administration, McCarthy became
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an embarrassment to the party after the election of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower as president in 1952. But McCarthy did not halt his campaign. He even questioned Eisenhower’s anticommunism.
Few political figures had the courage to speak up against McCarthy’s cru- sade. One who did was Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the Senate’s only woman member. On June 1, 1950, soon after McCarthy’s Wheeling speech, Smith addressed the Senate with what she called a “declaration of conscience.” She did not name McCarthy, but few could mistake the target of her condemna- tion of a “campaign of hate and character assassination.” Most of her colleagues, however, remained silent.
McCarthy’s downfall came in 1954, when a Senate committee investi- gated his charges that the army had harbored and “coddled” communists. The nationally televised Army- McCarthy hearings revealed McCarthy as a bully who browbeat witnesses and made sweeping accusations with no basis in fact. The dramatic high point came when McCarthy attacked the loyalty of a young attorney in the firm of Joseph Welch, the army’s chief lawyer. “Let us not assas- sinate this lad further,” Welch pleaded. “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir?” After the hearings ended, the Republican- controlled Sen- ate voted to “condemn” McCarthy for his behavior. He died three years later. But the word “McCarthyism” had entered the political vocabulary, a shorthand for character assassination, guilt by association, and abuse of power in the name of anticommunism.
An Atmosphere of Fear
By the early 1950s, the anticommunist crusade had created a pervasive atmo- sphere of fear. One commentator described Washington, D.C., as a city rife with “spying, suspicion, [and] defamation by rumor,” with “democratic freedoms” at risk as power slipped into the hands of those “whose values are the values of dictatorship and whose methods are the methods of the police state.” But anticommunism was as much a local as a national phenomenon. States cre- ated their own committees, modeled on HUAC, that investigated suspected communists and other dissenters. States and localities required loyalty oaths of teachers, pharmacists, and members of other professions, and they banned communists from fishing, holding a driver’s license, and, in Indiana, working as a professional wrestler.
Private organizations like the American Legion, National Association of Manufacturers, and Daughters of the American Revolution also persecuted individuals for their beliefs. The Better America League of southern Califor- nia gathered the names of nearly 2 million alleged subversives in the region. Previous membership in organizations with communist influence or even participation in campaigns in which communists had taken part, such as the
What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture?
932 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
defense of the government of Spain during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, suddenly took on sinister impli- cations. Throughout the country in the late 1940s and 1950s, those who failed to testify about their past and pres- ent political beliefs and to inform on possible communists frequently lost their jobs.
Local anticommunist groups forced public libraries to remove from their shelves “ un- American” books like the tales of Robin Hood, who took from the rich to give to the poor. Universities refused to allow left- wing speakers to appear on campus and fired teachers who refused to sign loyalty oaths or to testify against others.
As during World War I, the courts did nothing to halt the political repres- sion, demonstrating once again James Madison’s warning that popular hys-
teria could override “parchment barriers” like the Bill of Rights that sought to prevent infringements on freedom. In 1951, in Dennis v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld the jailing of Communist Party leaders even though the charges concerned their beliefs, not any actions they had taken. Even many lib- erals retreated from the idea that freedom of expression was a birthright of all Americans. The American Civil Liberties Union condemned McCarthy’s tactics but refused to defend the indicted Communist Party leaders.
The Uses of Anticommunism
There undoubtedly were Soviet spies in the United States. Yet the tiny Com- munist Party hardly posed a threat to American security. And the vast majority of those jailed or deprived of their livelihoods during the McCarthy era were guilty of nothing more than holding unpopular beliefs and engaging in lawful political activities.
Anticommunism had many faces and purposes. A popular mass move- ment, it grew especially strong among ethnic groups like Polish- Americans, with roots in eastern European countries now dominated by the Soviet Union, and among American Catholics in general, who resented and feared commu- nists’ hostility to religion. Government agencies like the Federal Bureau of
“Fire!” Cartoonist Herbert Block, known as “Herblock,” offered this comment in 1949 on the danger to American freedom posed by the anticommunist crusade.
THE ANTICOMMUNIST CRUSADE ★ 933
Investigation (FBI) used anticommunism to expand their power. Under direc- tor J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI developed files on thousands of American citizens, including political dissenters, homosexuals, and others, most of whom had no connection to communism.
Anticommunism also served as a weapon wielded by individuals and groups in battles unrelated to defending the United States against subversion. McCarthy and his Republican followers often seemed to target not so much Sta- lin as the legacy of Roosevelt and the New Deal. For many Democrats, aggres- sive anticommunism became a form of self- defense against Republican charges of disloyalty and a weapon in a struggle for the party’s future. The campaign against subversion redrew the boundaries of acceptable Democratic liberal- ism to exclude both communists and those willing to cooperate with them as in the days of the Popular Front. Indeed, “sympathetic association” with communists— past or present— became grounds for dismissal from one’s job under the government’s loyalty program.
As the historian Henry Steele Commager argued in a 1947 magazine article, the anticommunist crusade promoted a new definition of loyalty— conformity. Anything other than “uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of America as it is,” wrote Commager, could now be labeled unpatriotic. For business, anticom- munism became part of a campaign to identify government intervention in the economy with socialism. White supremacists employed anticommunism against black civil rights, business used it against unions, and upholders of sex- ual morality and traditional gender roles raised the cry of subversion against feminism and homosexuality, both supposedly responsible for eroding the country’s fighting spirit.
Anticommunist Politics
At its height, from the late 1940s to around 1960, the anticommunist cru- sade powerfully structured American politics and culture. Especially after their unexpected defeat in 1948, Republicans in Congress used a drumbeat of charges of subversion to block Truman’s political program. The most import- ant actions of Congress were ones the president opposed. After launching the government’s loyalty program in 1947, Truman had become increas- ingly alarmed at the excesses of the anticommunist crusade. He vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Bill of 1950, which required “subversive” groups to register with the government, allowed the denial of passports to their mem- bers, and authorized their deportation or detention on presidential order. But Congress quickly gave the measure the two- thirds majority necessary for it to become law.
The McCarran- Walter Act of 1952, the first major piece of immigration leg- islation since 1924, also passed over the president’s veto. Truman had appointed
What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture?
934 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
a Commission on Immigration, whose report, Whom Shall We Welcome?, called for replacing the quotas based on national origins with a more flexible system taking into account family reunion, labor needs, and political asylum. But the McCarran- Walter Act kept the quotas in place. It also authorized the deporta- tion of immigrants identified as communists, even if they had become citizens. But the renewed fear of aliens sparked by the anticommunist crusade went far beyond communists. In 1954, the federal government launched Operation Wetback, which employed the military to invade Mexican- American neighbor- hoods and round up and deport illegal aliens. Within a year, some 1 million Mexicans had been deported.
Truman did secure passage of a 1950 law that added previously excluded self- employed and domestic workers to Social Security. Otherwise, however, the idea of expanding the New Deal welfare state faded. In its place, private welfare arrangements proliferated. The labor contracts of unionized workers established health insurance plans, automatic cost of living wage increases, paid vacations, and pension plans that supplemented Social Security. West- ern European governments provided these benefits to all citizens. In the United States, union members in major industries enjoyed them, but not the nonunionized majority of the population, a situation that created increasing inequality among laboring Americans.
The Cold War and Organized Labor
Every political and social organization had to cooperate with the anticommu- nist crusade or face destruction, a wrenching experience for movements like labor and civil rights, in which communists had been some of the most militant organizers. After the passage of the Taft- Hartley Act of 1947, which withdrew bargaining rights and legal protection from unions whose leaders failed to swear that they were not communists, the CIO expelled numerous left- wing officials and eleven communist- led unions, representing nearly 1 million workers. Orga- nized labor emerged as a major supporter of the foreign policy of the Cold War. Internal battles over the role of communists and their allies led to the purging of some of the most militant union leaders, often the ones most committed to advancing equal rights to women and racial minorities in the workplace.
Cold War Civil Rights
The civil rights movement also underwent a transformation. At first, main- stream black organizations like the NAACP and Urban League protested the Truman administration’s loyalty program. They wondered aloud why the pro- gram and congressional committees defined communism as “ un- American,”
THE ANTICOMMUNIST CRUSADE ★ 935
but not racism. Anticommunist investigators often cited attendance at interracial gatherings as evidence of disloyalty. But while a few prominent black leaders, notably the singer and actor Paul Robeson and the veteran cru- sader for equality W. E. B. Du Bois, became outspoken critics of the Cold War, most felt they had no choice but to go along. The NAACP purged communists from local branches. When the government deprived Robeson of his passport and indicted Du Bois for failing to register as an agent of the Soviet Union, few prominent Americans, white or black, protested. (The charge against Du Bois was so absurd that even at the height of McCarthyism, the judge dismissed it.)
The Cold War caused a shift in thinking and tactics among civil rights groups. Organizations like the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, in which communists and noncommunists had cooperated in linking racial equality with labor organizing and economic reform, had been crucial to the struggles of the 1930s and war years. Their demise left a gaping hole that the NAACP, with its narrowly legalistic strategy, could not fill. Black organizations embraced the language of the Cold War and used it for their own purposes. They insisted that by damaging the American image abroad, racial inequality played into the Russians’ hands. Thus, they helped to cement Cold War ideol- ogy as the foundation of the political culture, while complicating the idea of American freedom.
President Truman, as noted above, had called for greater attention to civil rights in part to improve the American image abroad. All in all, however, the height of the Cold War was an unfavorable time to raise questions about the imperfections of American society. In 1947, two months after the Truman Doc- trine speech, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a major address defending the president’s pledge to aid “free peoples” seeking to preserve their “democratic institutions.” Acheson chose as his audience the Delta Council, an organization of Mississippi planters, bankers, and merchants. He seemed unaware that to make the case for the Cold War, he had ventured into what one historian has called the “American Siberia,” a place of grinding poverty whose black population (70 percent of the total) enjoyed neither genuine freedom nor democracy. Most of the Delta’s citizens were denied the very liberties suppos- edly endangered by communism.
After 1948, little came of the Truman administration’s civil rights flurry. State and local laws banning discrimination in employment and housing remained largely unenforced. In 1952, the Democrats showed how quickly the issue had faded by nominating for president Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, a candi- date with little interest in civil rights, with southern segregationist John Spark- man as his running mate. The following year, Hortense Gabel, director of the eminently respectable New York State Committee Against Discrimination in
What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
936 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
From Joseph R. McCarthy, Speech at Wheeling (1950)
During the 1950s, the demagogic pursuit of supposed communists in govern- ment and other places of influence became known as McCarthyism, after Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin. In a speech in West Virginia in Feb- ruary 1950, McCarthy claimed to have a list of 205 communists working for the State Department. When he entered the speech into the Congressional Record a few days later, he reduced the number to fifty- seven. He never named any of them.
Today we are engaged in a final, all- out battle between communistic atheism and Chris- tianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down— they are truly down.
Six years ago, at the time of the first conference to map out peace . . . there was within the Soviet orbit 180 million people. Lined up on the antitotalitarian side there were in the world at that time roughly 1.625 billion people. Today, only six years later, there are 800 million people under the absolute domination of Soviet Russia— an increase of over 400 percent. On our side, the figure has shrunk to around 500 million. . . .
The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful, potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this nation. It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer— the finest homes, the finest college education, and the finest jobs in government we can give.
This is glaringly true in the State Department. There the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been worst. . . . In my opinion the State Department, which is one of the most important government depart- ments, is thoroughly infested with communists.
I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carry- ing members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy. . . . One thing to remember in discussing the com- munists in our government is that we are not dealing with spies who get 30 pieces of silver to steal the blueprints of new weapons. We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity because it permits the enemy to guide and shape our policy.
From Margaret Chase Smith, Speech in the Senate (1950)
Most of McCarthy’s colleagues were cowed by his tactics. One who was not was Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the Senate’s only female member. On June 1, she delivered a brief speech, along with a Declaration of Conscience, signed by six other Republican senators.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 937
The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity. . . .
I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some soul searching— for us to weigh our consciences— on the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America— on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges. . . . I think that it is high time that we remembered; that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassi- nations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—
The right to criticize; The right to hold unpopular beliefs; The right to protest; The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his repu- tation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.
The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as “Communists” or “Fascists” by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.
The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny— Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear. . . .
As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism. . . . I don’t like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity.
QUESTIONS
1. What kind of social resentments are evident in McCarthy’s speech?
2. What does Smith believe is the essence of freedom of speech?
3. What do these documents suggest about how the Cold War affected discussions of freedom in the early 1950s?
938 ★ CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War
Housing, reported that the shadow of fear hung over the civil rights movement. Given the persecution of dissent and the widespread sentiment that equated any criticism of American society with disloyalty, “a great many people are shy- ing away from all activity in the civil liberties and civil rights fronts.”
Time would reveal that the waning of the civil rights impulse was only tem- porary. But it came at a crucial moment, the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the United States experienced the greatest economic boom in its history. The rise of an “affluent society” transformed American life, opening new opportu- nities for tens of millions of white Americans in rapidly expanding suburbs. But it left blacks trapped in the declining rural areas of the South and urban ghettos of the North. The contrast between new opportunities and wide- spread prosperity for whites and continued discrimination for blacks would soon inspire a civil rights revolution and, with it, yet another redefinition of American freedom.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What major ideological conflicts, security interests, and events brought about the Cold War?
2. President Truman referred to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan as “two halves of the same walnut.” Explain the similarities and differences between these two aspects of containment.
3. How did the tendency of both the United States and the Soviet Union to see all international events through the lens of the Cold War lessen each country’s ability to understand what was happening in other countries around the world?
4. Why did the United States not support movements for colonial independence around the world?
5. How did the government attempt to shape public opinion during the Cold War?
6. Explain the differences between the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s application of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
7. How did the anticommunist crusade affect organized labor in the postwar period?
8. What accounts for the Republican resurgence in these years?
9. What were the major components of Truman’s Fair Deal? Which ones were implemented and which ones not?
10. How did the Cold War affect civil liberties in the United States?
KEY TERMS
Cold War (p. 907)
containment (p. 907)
Long Telegram (p. 909)
iron curtain (p. 909)
Truman Doctrine (p. 909)
Marshall Plan (p. 911)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (p. 912)
NSC- 68 (p. 914)
Korean War (p. 915)
decolonization (p. 917)
totalitarianism (p. 919)
Fair Deal (p. 922)
Operation Dixie (p. 922)
Taft- Hartley Act (p. 923)
Dixiecrats (p. 926)
McCarthyism (p. 928)
Hollywood Ten (p. 929)
Army- McCarthy hearings (p. 931)
McCarran- Walter Act (p. 933)
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CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 939
1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0
A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y
★ C H A P T E R 2 4 ★
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s?
• How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs?
• What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period?
• What was the significance of the presidential election of 1960?
In 1958, during a “thaw” in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to exchange national exhibitions in order to allow citizens of each “superpower” to become acquainted with life in the other. The Soviet Exhibition, unveiled in New York City in June 1959, featured factory machinery, scientific advances, and other illustrations of how communism had modern- ized a backward country. The following month, the American National Exhibi- tion opened in Moscow. A showcase of consumer goods and leisure equipment, complete with stereo sets, a movie theater, home appliances, and twenty-two different cars, the exhibit, Newsweek observed, hoped to demonstrate the supe- riority of “modern capitalism with its ideology of political and economic free- dom.” Yet the exhibit’s real message was not freedom but consumption—or, to be more precise, the equating of the two.
940 ★
AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY ★ 941
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1946 Mendez v. Westminster
1947 Levittown development starts
1950 David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd
1952 United States detonates first hydrogen bomb
1953 Soviet Union detonates hydrogen bomb
CIA-led Iranian coup
1954 Brown v. Board of Education
CIA-led Guatemalan coup
Geneva Accords for Vietnam
1955 AFL and CIO merge
Allen Ginsberg’s Howl
1955– Montgomery bus boycott 1956
1956 “Southern Manifesto”
Federal-Aid Highway Act
Suez crisis
1957 Eisenhower Doctrine
Southern Christian Leader- ship Conference organized
Integration of Little Rock’s Central High School
Sputnik launched
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
1958 National Defense Education Act
1959 Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate”
1960 John F. Kennedy elected president
1962 Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom
• •
When Vice President Richard Nixon prepared for his trip to Moscow to launch the exhibition, a former ambassador to Russia urged him to emphasize American values: “We are idealists; they are materialists.” But the events of the opening day seemed to re- verse these roles. Nixon devoted his address, entitled “What Freedom Means to Us,” not to freedom of expression or differing forms of government, but to the “extraordinarily high standard of living” in the United States, with its 56 million cars and 50 million tele- vision sets. The United States, he declared, had achieved what Soviets could only dream of—“prosperity for all in a classless society.”
The Moscow exhibition became the site of a classic Cold War confrontation over the meaning of freedom—the “kitchen debate” between Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Twice during the first day Nix- on and Khrushchev engaged in unscripted debate about the merits of capitalism and communism. The first took place in the kitchen of a model suburban ranch house, the second in a futuristic “miracle kitchen” complete with a mobile robot that swept the floors. Supposedly the home of an av- erage steelworker, the ranch house was the exhibition’s centerpiece. It represented, Nix- on declared, the mass enjoyment of Ameri- can freedom within a suburban setting— freedom of choice among products, colors, styles, and prices. It also implied a particular role for women. Throughout his exchanges with Khrushchev, Nixon used the words “women” and “housewives” interchangeably. Pointing to the automatic floor sweeper, the vice president remarked that in the United States “you don’t need a wife.”
Nixon’s decision to make a stand for American values in the setting of a suburban
942 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
kitchen was a brilliant stroke. Nixon recognized that “soft power”—the penetration across the globe of Amer- ican goods and popular culture—was an even more potent form of influ- ence than military might. Indeed, his stance reflected the triumph during the 1950s of a conception of freedom centered on economic abundance and consumer choice within the context of traditional family life—a vision that seemed to offer far more opportunities for the “pursuit of happiness” to men than women. In reply, Khrushchev ridiculed consumer culture and the American obsession with household gadgets. “Don’t you have a machine,”
he quipped, “that puts food in the mouth and pushes it down?” Many of the items on display, he continued, served “no useful purpose.” Yet, in a sense, the Soviet leader conceded the debate when he predicted—quite incorrectly— that within seven years his country would surpass the United States in the production of consumer goods. For if material abundance was a battleground in the Cold War, American victory was certain.
T H E G O L D E N A G E The end of World War II was followed by what one scholar has called the “golden age” of capitalism, a period of economic expansion, stable prices, low unem- ployment, and rising standards of living that continued until 1973. Between 1946 and 1960, the American gross national product more than doubled and much of the benefit flowed to ordinary citizens in rising wages. In every mea- surable way—diet, housing, income, education, recreation—most Americans lived better than their parents and grandparents had. By 1960, an estimated 60 percent of Americans enjoyed what the government defined as a middle-class standard of living. The official poverty rate, 30 percent of all families in 1950, had declined to 22 percent a decade later (still, to be sure, representing more than one in five Americans).
Numerous innovations came into widespread use in these years, transform- ing Americans’ daily lives. They included television, home air-conditioning,
Vice President Richard Nixon, with hands folded, and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during the “kitchen debate,” a discussion, among other things, of the meaning of freedom, which took place in 1959 at the American National Exposi- tion in Moscow. Khru shchev makes a point while a woman demonstrates a washing machine.
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 943
automatic dishwashers, inexpensive long-distance telephone calls, and jet air travel. Services like electricity, central heating, and indoor plumbing that within living memory had been enjoyed only by the rich and solidly middle class now became features of common life.
Between 1950 and 1973, the average real wages of manufacturing workers doubled. Wages rose faster for low-income than high-income Americans, less- ening economic inequality. Significant numbers of blue-collar men were able to earn enough at an early age to marry and support a family. At the time, wide- spread affluence, the improving economic status of working-class men and women, and the narrowing gap between rich and poor seemed to have become a permanent feature of American society, a model for other countries to fol- low. History would show that this was, in fact, an exceptional moment, made possible by government policies, a strong union movement, and the country’s global economic dominance in the wake of World War II. When the long post- war boom ended in 1973 it would be succeeded by an even longer period of stagnant incomes for most Americans and increasing inequality.
A Changing Economy
Despite the economic recovery of western Europe and Japan after World War II, the United States remained the world’s predominant industrial power. Major industries like steel, automobiles, and aircraft dominated the domestic and world markets for their products. Like other wars, the Cold War fueled indus- trial production and promoted a redistribution of the nation’s population and economic resources. The West, especially the Seattle area, southern California, and the Rocky Mountain states, benefited enormously from government con- tracts for aircraft, guided missiles, and radar systems. The South became the home of numerous military bases and government-funded shipyards. Growth in the construction of aircraft engines and submarines counterbalanced the decline of New England’s old textile and machinery industries, many of which relocated in the South to take advantage of low-cost nonunion labor.
In retrospect, the 1950s appear as the last decade of the industrial age in the United States. Since then, the American economy has shifted rapidly toward services, education, information, finance, and entertainment, while employ- ment in manufacturing has declined. Even during the 1950s, the number of fac- tory laborers fell slightly while clerical workers grew by nearly 25 percent and salaried employees in large corporate enterprises rose by 60 percent. Unions’ very success in raising wages inspired employers to mechanize more and more elements of manufacturing in order to reduce labor costs. In 1956, for the first time in American history, white-collar workers outnumbered blue-collar fac- tory and manual laborers.
What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s?
944 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
The long-term trend toward fewer and larger farms continued. During the 1950s, the farm population fell from 23 million to 15 million, yet agri- cultural production rose by 50 percent, thanks to more efficient machin- ery, the application of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, increased use of irrigation to open land to cultivation in the West, and the development of new crop strains. The decade witnessed an acceleration of the transformation of southern life that had begun during World War II. New tractors and harvest- ing machinery and a continuing shift from cotton production to less labor- intensive soybean and poultry raising reduced the need for farm workers. More than 3 million black and white hired hands and sharecroppers migrated out of the region. The center of gravity of American farming shifted decisively to Texas, Arizona, and especially California. The large corporate farms of California, worked by Latino and Filipino migrant laborers, poured forth an endless supply of fruits and vegetables for the domestic and world markets. Items like oranges and orange juice, once luxuries, became an essential part of the American diet.
A Suburban Nation
The main engines of economic growth during the 1950s, however, were residential construction and spending on consumer goods. The postwar baby boom (discussed later) and the shift of population from cities to suburbs created an enormous demand for housing, television sets, home appliances, and cars. By 1960, suburban residents of single-family homes outnumbered urban dwellers and those living in rural areas. (Today, they outnumber both combined.)
During the 1950s, the number of houses in the United States doubled, nearly all of them built in the suburbs that sprang up across the landscape. The dream of home ownership, the physical embodiment of hopes for a better life, came within reach of the majority of Americans. Developers pioneered inex- pensive mass-building techniques, and government-backed low-interest loans to returning veterans allowed working-class men and women in large numbers to purchase homes. William and Alfred Levitt, who shortly after the war built the first Levittown on 1,200 acres of potato fields on Long Island near New York City, became the most famous suburban developers. Levittown’s more than 10,000 houses were assembled quickly from prefabricated parts and priced well within the reach of most Americans. Levittown was soon home to 40,000 people. At the same time, suburbs required a new form of shopping center— the mall—to which people drove in their cars. In contrast to traditional mixed- use city centers crowded with pedestrians, malls existed solely for shopping and had virtually no public space.
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 945
The Growth of the West
The modern West emerged in the postwar years. Unlike the 1930s, when most migrants to the West came from the South and the Dust Bowl states, all parts of the country now contributed to the region’s growth. Federal spending on dams, highways, and military installations helped to fuel the flow of people. So did the pleasant climate of many parts of the region, and the diffusion of air condi- tioning in warmer places such as Arizona and southern California. The rapid expansion of oil production (a result of the tremendous increase in automobile ownership) led to the explosive growth of urban centers connected to the oil industry such as Denver, Dallas, and Houston.
But it was California that became the most prominent symbol of the post- war suburban boom. Between World War II and 1975, more than 30 million Americans moved west of the Mississippi River. One-fifth of the population growth of the 1950s occurred in California alone. In 1963, it surpassed New York to become the nation’s most populous state.
Most western growth took place in metropolitan areas, not on farms. But “centerless” western cities like Houston, Phoenix, and Los Angeles differed
What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s?
Ernst Haas’s 1969 photograph of Albuquerque, New Mexico, could have been taken in any one of scores of American communities. As cities spread out, “strips,” consisting of motels, gas stations, and nationally franchised businesses, became common. Meanwhile, older downtown business sections stagnated.
946 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
greatly from traditional urban centers in the East. Rather than consisting of downtown business districts linked to residential neighborhoods by public transportation, western cities were decentralized clusters of single-family homes and businesses united by a web of highways. The Los Angeles basin, the largest western suburban region, had once had an extensive system of trains, trolleys, and buses. But local governments dismantled these lines after World War II, and the state and federal governments replaced them with freeways for cars and trucks. Suburban growth spilled into farm regions like the San Fernando and San Bernardino valleys. By one estimate, one-third of southern California’s land area (presumably not including mountains and deserts) was paved over with roads and parking lots. Life centered around the car; people drove to and from work and did their shopping at malls reachable only by driv- ing. In other sections of the country as well, shopping shifted to suburban cen- ters, and old downtown business districts stagnated. The spread of suburban homes created millions of new lawns. Today, more land is cultivated in grass than any agricultural crop in the United States.
A Consumer Culture
“The consumer is the key to our economy,” declared Jack Straus, chairman of the board of Macy’s, New York City’s leading department store. “Our ability to consume is endless. The luxuries of today are the necessities of tomorrow.” The roots of the consumer culture of the 1950s date back to the 1920s and even earlier. But never before had affluence, or consumerism, been so widespread. In a consumer culture, the measure of freedom became the ability to gratify market desires. Modern society, wrote Clark Kerr, president of the University of California, may well have reduced freedom “in the workplace” by subjecting workers to stringent discipline on the job, but it offered a far greater range of “goods and services,” and therefore “a greater scope of freedom” in Americans’ “personal lives.”
In a sense, the 1950s represented the culmination of the long-term trend in which consumerism replaced economic independence and democratic par- ticipation as central definitions of American freedom. Attitudes toward debt changed as well. Low interest rates and the spread of credit cards encouraged Americans to borrow money to purchase consumer goods. Americans became comfortable living in never-ending debt, once seen as a loss of economic freedom.
Consumer culture demonstrated the superiority of the American way of life to communism. From Coca-Cola to Levi’s jeans, American consumer goods, once a status symbol for the rich in other countries, were now marketed to customers around the globe. The country’s most powerful weapon in the Cold
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 947
War, insisted a reporter for House Beautiful magazine, was “the freedom offered by washing machines and dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, automobiles, and refrigerators.”
The TV World
Thanks to television, images of middle-class life and advertisements for consumer goods blanketed the country. By the end of the 1950s, nearly nine of ten American families owned a TV set. Television replaced newspapers as the most common source of information about public events, and TV watching became the nation’s leading leisure activity. Television changed Americans’ eating habits (the frozen TV dinner, heated and eaten while watching a program, went on sale in 1954).
With a few exceptions, like the Army-McCarthy hearings mentioned in the previous chapter, TV avoided controversy and projected a bland image of middle-class life. Popular shows of the early 1950s, such as The Goldbergs (with Jewish immigrants as the central characters) and The Honeymooners (in which Jackie Gleason played a bus driver), featured working-class families living in urban apartments. By the end of the decade, they had been replaced as the dom- inant programs by quiz shows, westerns, and comedies set in suburban homes like Leave It to Beaver and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Television also became the most effective advertising medium ever invented. To polish their image, large corporations sponsored popular programs—The General Electric Theater (hosted for several years by Ronald Reagan), Alcoa Presents, and others. TV ads, aimed primarily at middle-class suburban viewers, conveyed images of the good life based on endless consumption.
A New Ford
“The concept of freedom,” wrote one commentator in 1959, “has become as familiar to us as an old hat or a new Ford.” And a new Ford—or Chrysler or Chevrolet—now seemed essential to the enjoyment of freedom’s benefits. Along with a home and television set, the car became part of what sociologists called “the standard consumer package” of the 1950s. By 1960, 80 percent of American families owned at least one car, and 14 percent had two or more, nearly all manufactured in the United States. Most were designed to go out of style within a year or two, promoting further purchases.
Auto manufacturers and oil companies vaulted to the top ranks of corpo- rate America. Detroit and its environs were home to immense auto factories. The River Rouge complex had 62,000 employees, Willow Run 42,000. Since the military increasingly needed high-technology goods rather than the trucks and
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948 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
tanks that had rolled off assembly lines in World War II, the region around the Great Lakes lagged in defense contracts. In the long term, the continued funnel- ing of federal dollars from the North and Midwest to the Sunbelt would prove devastating to the old industrial heartland. But during the 1950s, the boom- ing automobile industry, with its demand for steel, rubber, and other products, assured the region’s continued prosperity.
The automobile, the pivot on which suburban life turned, transformed the nation’s daily life, just as the interstate highway system (discussed later) trans- formed Americans’ travel habits, making possible long-distance vacationing by car and commuting to work from ever-increasing distances. The result was an altered American landscape, leading to the construction of motels, drive-in movie theaters, and roadside eating establishments. The first McDonald’s fast food restaurant opened in Illinois in 1954. Within ten years, having been fran- chised by California businessman Ray Kroc, approximately 700 McDonald’s stands had been built, which had sold over 400 million hamburgers. The car symbolized the identification of freedom with individual mobility and private
T H E I N T E R S TAT E H I G H WAY S Y S T E M
5
5
82 90
90
90
94
29
29
94
15
15
15
15
25
25
40
40 44
40 40
44
10
10
10
10
10 75
7524
75
16
4 95
95
95
95
20 20
30
35
35
37
45 49 55
55
59
27
17
8
19
84
84 86
80 80
80
90
70 76
70
95
35
35
80
43
75
69
69
96 94
88
74 57
70
65
8565
81
81
81
20
64 64
77
7771
79
80
90
76
88
87
78
91
9389
84
26 75
KS
Portland
Seattle
San Francisco
Los Angeles
San Diego
Tucson El Paso
Albuquerque
Salt Lake City
Butte Billings
Cheyenne
Sioux Falls
Omaha
Kansas City
Oklahoma City
San Antonio Houston
Fort Worth Dallas
Little Rock
New Orleans
Mobile
Montgomery
Birmingham
Jacksonville
Tampa
Miami
Savannah
Atlanta Charleston
Nashville Charlotte
St. Louis
Minneapolis
Detroit Chicago
Indianapolis
Louisville Cincinnati
Columbus Washington, DC
New York
Boston
OR
CA
ID
WY
MT
NV
UT
AZ
NM OK
CO
AR
MO
IA
MN
WI
IL
OH
MS AL GA
SC
NC
FL
LA
MI
IN
PA
ME
NHVT
MA
RI CT
DE MD
WA
TX
KS
NE
SD
ND
WV VA
TN
KY
NJ
NY
H1 H2
H3 Honolulu
HI
AK no
interstate highways
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
0
0
150 miles
150 kilometers
0
0
500 miles
500 kilometers
Begun in 1956 and completed in 1993, the interstate highway system dramatically altered the American landscape and Americans’ daily lives. It made possible more rapid travel by car and stimulated the growth of suburbs along its many routes.
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 949
choice. On the road, Americans were constantly reminded in advertising, television shows, and popular songs, they truly enjoyed freedom. They could imagine themselves as modern versions of western pioneers, able to leave behind urban crowds and workplace pressures for the “open road.”
Women at Work and at Home
The emergence of suburbia as a chief site of what was increasingly called the “American way of life” placed pressure on the family—and especially women— to live up to freedom’s promise. After 1945, women lost most of the industrial jobs they had performed during the war. As during most of American history, women who worked outside the home remained concentrated in low-salary, nonunion jobs, such as clerical, sales, and service labor, rather than better- paying manufacturing positions. After a sharp postwar drop in female employ- ment, the number of women at work soon began to rise. By 1955, it exceeded the level of World War II. But the nature and aims of women’s work had changed. The modern woman, said Look magazine, worked part-time, to help support the family’s middle-class lifestyle, not to help pull it out of poverty or to pursue personal fulfillment or an independent career. Working women in 1960 earned, on average, only 60 percent of the income of men.
Despite the increasing numbers of wage-earning women, the suburban family’s breadwinner was assumed to be male, while the wife remained at home. Films, TV shows, and advertisements portrayed marriage as the most important goal of American women. And during the 1950s, men and women reaffirmed the virtues of family life. They married younger (at an average age of twenty-two for men and twenty for women), divorced less frequently than in the past, and had more children (3.2 per family). A baby boom that lasted into the mid-1960s followed the end of the war. At a time of low immigration, the American population rose by nearly 30 million (almost 20 percent) during the 1950s. The increase arose mostly from the large number of births, but it also reflected the fact that Americans now lived longer than in the past, thanks to the wide availability of “miracle drugs” like penicillin that had been developed during World War II to combat bacterial infections.
The family also became a weapon in the Cold War. The ability of women to remain at home, declared a government official, “separates us from the Com- munist world,” where a high percentage of women worked. To be sure, the family life exalted during the 1950s differed from the patriarchal household of old. It was a modernized relationship, in which both partners reconciled family obligations with personal fulfillment through shared consumption, leisure activities, and sexual pleasure. Thanks to modern conveniences, the personal freedom once associated with work could now be found at home.
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Frozen and prepared meals, exulted one writer in 1953, offered housewives “freedom from tedium, space, work, and their own inexperience”—quite a change from the Four Freedoms of World War II.
Like other forms of dissent, femi- nism seemed to have disappeared from American life or was widely dismissed as evidence of mental disorder. Prom- inent psychologists insisted that the unhappiness of individual women or even the desire to work for wages stemmed from a failure to accept the “maternal instinct.” “The independent woman,” declared the book Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (1947), “is a contra-
diction in terms.” The idea of domestic life as a refuge and of full-time moth- erhood as a woman’s “sphere” had a long history in the United States. But in the postwar suburbs, where family life was physically separated from work, relatives, and the web of social organizations typical of cities, it came close to realization.
A Segregated Landscape
For millions of city dwellers, the suburban utopia fulfilled the dream, post- poned by depression and war, of home ownership and middle-class incomes. For beneficiaries of postwar prosperity, in the words of a Boston worker who made heroic sacrifices to move his family to the suburbs, the home became “the center of freedom.” The move to the suburbs also promoted Americaniza- tion, cutting residents off from urban ethnic communities and bringing them fully into the world of mass consumption. But if the suburbs offered a new site for the enjoyment of American freedom, they retained at least one familiar characteristic—rigid racial boundaries.
Suburbia has never been as uniform as either its celebrants or its critics claimed. There are upper-class suburbs, working-class suburbs, industrial sub- urbs, and “suburban” neighborhoods within city limits. But if the class unifor- mity of suburbia has been exaggerated, its racial uniformity was all too real. As late as the 1990s, nearly 90 percent of suburban whites lived in communities with non-white populations of less than 1 percent—the legacy of decisions by government, real-estate developers, banks, and residents.
Advertisers during the 1950s sought to convey the idea that women would enjoy their roles as suburban homemakers, as in this ad, which equates housework with a game of golf.
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 951
During the postwar suburban boom, federal agencies continued to insure mortgages that barred resale of houses to non-whites, thereby financing hous- ing segregation. Even after the Supreme Court in 1948 declared such provisions legally unenforceable, banks and private developers barred non-whites from the suburbs and the government refused to subsidize their mortgages except in segregated enclaves. In 1960, blacks represented less than 3 percent of the population of Chicago’s suburbs. The vast new communities built by William Levitt refused to allow blacks, including army veterans, to rent or purchase homes. “If we sell one house to a Negro family,” Levitt explained, “then 90 or 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community.” After a law- suit, Levitt finally agreed during the 1960s to sell homes to non-whites, but at a pace that can only be described as glacial. In 1990, his Long Island community, with a population of 53,000, included 127 black residents.
Public Housing and Urban Renewal
A Housing Act passed by Congress in 1949 authorized the construction of more than 800,000 units of public housing in order to provide a “decent home for every American family.” But the law set an extremely low ceiling on the income of residents—a rule demanded by private contractors seeking to avoid compe- tition from the government in building homes for the middle class. This regula- tion limited housing projects to the very poor. Since white urban and suburban neighborhoods successfully opposed the construction of public housing, it was increasingly confined to segregated neighborhoods in inner cities, rein- forcing the concentration of poverty in urban non-white neighborhoods. At the same time, under programs of urban renewal, cities demolished poor neighborhoods in city centers that occupied potentially valuable real estate. In their place, developers constructed retail centers and all-white middle-income housing complexes, and states built urban public universities like Wayne State in Detroit and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Los Angeles displaced a neighborhood of mixed ethnic groups in Chavez Ravine in order to build a sta- dium for the Dodgers, whose move in 1958 after sixty-eight years in Brooklyn seemed to symbolize the growing importance of California on the national scene. White residents displaced by urban renewal often moved to the suburbs. Non-whites, unable to do so, found housing in run-down city neighborhoods.
The Divided Society
Suburbanization hardened the racial lines of division in American life. Between 1950 and 1970, about 7 million white Americans left cities for the suburbs. Meanwhile, nearly 3 million blacks moved from the South to
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the North, greatly increasing the size of existing urban ghettos and creating entirely new ones. And half a million Puerto Ricans, mostly small coffee and tobacco farmers and agricultural laborers forced off the land when American sugar companies expanded their landholdings on the island, moved to the mainland. Most ended up in New York City’s East Harlem, until then an Italian-American community. Although set in a different part of New York, the popular Broadway musical West Side Story dramatized the tensions between Puerto Rican newcomers and longtime urban residents. By the late 1960s, more Puerto Ricans lived in New York City than San Juan, the island’s capital.
The process of racial exclusion became self-reinforcing. Non-whites remained concentrated in manual and unskilled jobs, the result of employ- ment discrimination and their virtual exclusion from educational opportu- nities at public and private universities, including those outside the South. In 1950, only 12 percent of employed blacks held white-collar positions, com- pared with 45 percent of whites. As the white population and industrial jobs fled the old city centers for the suburbs, poorer blacks and Latinos remained trapped in urban ghettos, seen by many whites as places of crime, poverty, and welfare.
Suburbanites, for whom the home represented not only an emblem of free- dom but the family’s major investment, became increasingly fearful that any non-white presence would lower the quality of life and destroy property val- ues. Life magazine quoted a white suburbanite discussing a prospective black neighbor: “He’s probably a nice guy, but every time I see him, I see $2,000 drop off the value of my house.” Residential segregation was reinforced by “block- busting”—a tactic of real-estate brokers who circulated exaggerated warnings of an impending influx of non-whites, to persuade alarmed white residents to sell their homes hastily. Because of this practice, some all-white neighborhoods quickly became all-minority enclaves rather than places where members of different races lived side by side.
“Freedom is equal housing too” became a slogan in the campaign for res- idential integration. But suburban home ownership long remained a white entitlement, with the freedom of non-whites to rent or purchase a home where they desired overridden by the claims of private property and “freedom of asso- ciation.” Even as the old divisions between white ethnic Americans faded in the suburban melting pot, racial barriers in housing, and therefore in public education and jobs, were reinforced.
Cold War affluence coexisted with urban decay and racism, the seeds from which protest would soon flower. Yet to many observers in the 1950s it seemed that the ills of American society had been solved. Scholars celebrated the “end of ideology” and the triumph of a democratic, capitalist “consensus” in which all
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 953
Americans except the maladjusted and fanatics shared the same liberal values of individualism, respect for private prop- erty, and belief in equal opportunity. If problems remained, their solutions required technical adjustments, not structural change or aggressive political intervention.
Religion and Anticommunism
Both Protestant and Roman Catholic religious leaders played crucial roles in the spread of anticommunism and Cold War culture. Official American values celebrated the nation’s religi- osity as opposed to “godless” commu- nism. During the 1950s, a majority of Americans—the highest percentage in the nation’s history—were affiliated with a church or synagogue. In 1954, to “strengthen our national resistance to communism,” Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1957, “In God We Trust” was included on paper money. Big- budget Hollywood films like The Ten Com- mandments and Ben Hur celebrated early Judaism and Christianity. As noted in the previous chapter, Soviet domination of strongly Catholic eastern Europe inspired powerful currents of anticommunism among Catholic ethnic groups in the United States. Leading clerics like Bishop Fulton J. Sheen of the Catho- lic Church and Protestant evangelist Billy Graham used radio and television to spread to millions a religious message heavily imbued with anticommu- nism. Communism, Graham declared, was not only an economic and political outlook but a religion—one “inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself.”
As for religious differences, the source of persistent tension in American history, these were absorbed within a common “Judeo-Christian” heritage, a notion that became central to the cultural and political dialogue of the 1950s. This newly invented tradition sought to demonstrate that Catholics, Protes- tants, and Jews shared the same history and values and had all contributed
An image from a booklet issued by the American Economic Foundation illustrates the linkage of anticommunism and religious faith during the Cold War. The hairy hand in the bottom half of the drawing represents the communist threat, which endangers religious freedom in the United States.
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954 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
to the evolution of American society. The idea of a unified Judeo-Christian tradition overlooked the long history of hostility among religious denomina- tions. But it reflected the decline of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism in the wake of World War II, as well as the ongoing secularization of American life. As Will Herberg argued in his influential book Protestant-Catholic-Jew (1955), religion now had less to do with spiritual activities or sacred values than with personal identity, group assimilation, and the promotion of traditional moral- ity. In an affluent suburban society, Herberg argued, the “common religion” was the American way of life, a marriage of democratic values and economic prosperity—in a phrase, “free enterprise.”
Selling Free Enterprise
The economic content of Cold War freedom increasingly came to focus on consumer capitalism, or, as it was now universally known, “free enterprise.” More than political democracy or freedom of speech, which many allies of the United States outside western Europe lacked, an economic system resting on private ownership united the nations of the Free World. A week before his Truman Doctrine speech, in a major address on economic policy, the president reduced Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms to three. Freedom of speech and worship remained, but freedom from want and fear had been replaced by freedom of enterprise, “part and parcel,” said Truman, of the American way of life.
Even more than during World War II, what one historian calls the “selling of free enterprise” became a major industry, involving corporate advertising, school programs, newspaper editorials, and civic activities. Convinced that ads represented “a new weapon in the world-wide fight for freedom,” the Adver- tising Council invoked cherished symbols like the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell in the service of “competitive free enterprise.” To be sure, the free enterprise campaigners did not agree on every issue. Some businessmen believed that defending free enterprise required rolling back much of the power that labor unions had gained in the past decade, dismantling New Deal regulations, and restricting the economic role of government. Representing what might be called business’s more liberal wing, the Advertising Council, in its “American Economic System” ad campaign of 1949, reaffirmed labor’s right to collective bargaining and the importance of government–business coopera- tion. Indeed, despite talk of the glories of the free market, government policies played a crucial role in the postwar boom. The rapid expansion of the subur- ban middle class owed much to federal tax subsidies, mortgage guarantees for home purchases, dam and highway construction, military contracts, and benefits under the GI Bill.
THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 955
People’s Capitalism
Free enterprise seemed an odd way of describing an economy in which a few large corporations dominated key sectors. Until well into the twentieth cen- tury, most ordinary Americans had been deeply suspicious of big business, associating it with images of robber barons who manipulated politics, sup- pressed economic competition, and treated their workers unfairly. Americans, wrote David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, must abandon their traditional fear that concentrated economic power endangered “our very liberties.” Large-scale production was not only necessary to fighting the Cold War, but it enhanced freedom by multiplying consumer goods. “By freedom,” wrote Lilienthal, “I mean essentially freedom to choose. . . . It means a maximum range of choice for the consumer when he spends his dollar.” By the end of the 1950s, public-opinion surveys revealed that more than 80 percent of Americans believed that “our freedom depends on the free enterprise system.”
A sharp jump in the number of individuals investing in Wall Street inspired talk of a new “people’s capitalism.” In 1953, 4.5 million Americans—only slightly more than in 1928—owned shares of stock. By the mid-1960s, the num- ber had grown to 25 million. In the face of widespread abundance, who could deny that the capitalist marketplace embodied individual freedom or that pov- erty would soon be a thing of the past? “It was American Freedom,” proclaimed Life magazine, “by which and through which this amazing achievement of wealth and power was fashioned.”
The Libertarian Conservatives
During the 1950s, a group of thinkers began the task of reviving conservatism and reclaiming the idea of freedom from liberals. Although largely ignored outside their own immediate circle, they developed ideas that would define conservative thought for the next half-century. One was opposition to a strong national government, an outlook that had been given new political life in conservatives’ bitter reaction against the New Deal. To these “libertarian” con- servatives, freedom meant individual autonomy, limited government, and unregulated capitalism.
These ideas had great appeal to conservative entrepreneurs, especially in the rapidly growing South and West. Many businessmen who desired to pursue their economic fortunes free of government regulation, high taxes, and labor unions found intellectual reinforcement in the writings of the young economist Milton Friedman. In 1962, Friedman published Capitalism and Freedom, which identified the free market as the necessary foundation for individual liberty. This was not an uncommon idea during the Cold War, but Friedman pushed it
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to extreme conclusions. He called for turning over to the private sector virtually all government functions and the repeal of minimum wage laws, the graduated income tax, and the Social Security system. Friedman extended the idea of unre- stricted free choice into virtually every realm of life. Government, he insisted, should seek to regulate neither the economy nor individual conduct.
The New Conservatism
Friedman was indirectly criticizing not only liberalism but also the “new conservatism,” a second strand of thought that became increasingly prominent in the 1950s. Convinced that the Free World needed to arm itself morally and intellectually, not just militarily, for the battle against communism, “new con- servatives” like writers Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver insisted that toleration of difference—a central belief of modern liberalism—offered no substitute for the search for absolute truth. Weaver’s book, Ideas Have Consequences (1948), a rambling philosophical treatise that surprisingly became the most influential statement of this new traditionalism, warned that the West was suffering from moral decay and called for a return to a civilization based on values grounded in the Christian tradition and in timeless notions of good and evil.
The “new conservatives” understood freedom as first and foremost a moral condition. It required a decision by independent men and women to lead virtu- ous lives, or governmental action to force them to do so. Although they wanted government expelled from the economy, new conservatives trusted it to reg- ulate personal behavior, to restore a Christian morality they saw as growing weaker and weaker in American society.
Here lay the origins of a division in conservative ranks that would persist into the twenty-first century. Unrestrained individual choice and moral virtue are radically different starting points from which to discuss freedom. Was the purpose of conservatism, one writer wondered, to create the “free man” or the “good man”? Libertarian conservatives spoke the language of progress and personal autonomy; the “new conservatives” emphasized tradition, com- munity, and moral commitment. The former believed that too many barriers existed to the pursuit of individual liberty. The latter condemned an excess of individualism and a breakdown of common values.
Fortunately for conservatives, political unity often depends less on intel- lectual coherence than on the existence of a common foe. And two powerful enemies became focal points for the conservative revival—the Soviet Union abroad and the federal government at home. Anticommunism, however, did not clearly distinguish conservatives from liberals, who also supported the Cold War. What made conservatism distinct was its antagonism to “big government” in America, at least so long as it was controlled by liberals who, conservatives
THE EISENHOWER ERA ★ 957
believed, tolerated or encouraged immorality. Republican control of the presi- dency did not lessen conservatives’ hostility to the federal government, partly because they did not consider President Eisenhower one of their own.
T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A
Ike and Nixon
Dwight D. Eisenhower, or “Ike,” as he was affectionately called, emerged from World War II as the military leader with the greatest political appeal, partly because his public image of fatherly warmth set him apart from other success- ful generals like the arrogant Douglas MacArthur. Eisenhower’s party affilia- tion was unknown. In 1948, he voted for Truman, and he accepted Truman’s invitation to return to Europe as Supreme Commander of NATO forces. Both parties wanted him as their candidate in 1952. But Eisenhower became con- vinced that Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, a leading contender for the Repub- lican nomination, would lead the United States back toward isolationism. Eisenhower entered the contest and won the Republican nomination.
As his running mate, Eisenhower chose Richard Nixon of California, a World War II veteran who had made a name for himself by vigorous anticommunism. In his first campaign for Congress, in 1946, Nixon attacked his opponent as an advocate of “state socialism.” He gained greater fame by his pursuit of Alger Hiss while a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Nixon won election to the U.S. Senate in 1950 in a campaign in which he suggested that the Democratic candidate, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, had commu- nist sympathies.
These tactics gave Nixon a lifelong reputation for opportunism and dishon- esty. But Nixon was also a shrewd politician, who pioneered efforts to trans- form the Republican Party’s image from defender of business to champion of the “forgotten man”—the hardworking citizen burdened by heavy taxation and unresponsive government bureaucracies. In using populist language to promote free market economics, Nixon helped to lay the foundation for the triumph of conservatism a generation later.
The 1952 Campaign
Almost as soon as he won the vice-presidential nomination, Nixon ran into trou- ble over press reports that wealthy Californians had created a private fund for his family. Eisenhower considered dropping him from the ticket. But in an emo- tional nationally televised thirty-minute address in which he drew attention to
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his ordinary upbringing, war service, and close-knit family, Nixon denied the accusations. The “Checkers speech,” named after the family dog—the one gift Nixon acknowledged receiving, but insisted he would not return—rescued his political career. It illustrated how television was beginning to transform politics by allowing candidates to bring a carefully crafted image directly into Americans’ living rooms. The 1952 campaign became the first to make extensive use of TV ads. Parties, one observer complained, were “selling the president like toothpaste.”
More important to the election’s outcome, however, was Eisenhower’s popularity (invoked in the Republican campaign slogan “I Like Ike”) and the public’s weariness with the Korean War. Ike’s pledge to “go to Korea” in search of peace signaled his intention to bring the conflict to an end. He won
a resounding victory over the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson. Four years later, Eisenhower again defeated Stevenson, by an even wider margin. His popularity, however, did not extend to his party. Republicans won a razor- thin majority in Congress in 1952, but Democrats regained control in 1954 and retained it for the rest of the decade. In 1956, Eisenhower became the first presi- dent to be elected without his party controlling either house of Congress.
In his two campaigns for president, the Texas-born Eisenhower made remarkable inroads in the Democratic South, a harbinger of the region’s later political realignment. In 1952, he carried eight former slave states and won 48 percent of the votes cast in the states of the Confederacy. He ran strongly among moderate whites living in metropolitan and suburban areas of the upper South and border states. But his personal appeal did not translate into a “coattail” effect. For the time being, Democrats continued to control almost all southern state and local offices.
During the 1950s, voters at home and abroad seemed to find reassurance in selecting familiar, elderly leaders to govern them. At age sixty-two, Eisenhower was one of the oldest men ever elected president. But he seemed positively youthful compared with Winston Churchill, who returned to office as prime
A poster for Adlai Stevenson, Democratic candidate for president in 1952. The party’s main argument, it seems, was that Republican victory would usher in a return of the Great Depression. Stevenson was soundly defeated by Dwight D. Eisenhower.
THE EISENHOWER ERA ★ 959
minister of Great Britain at age seventy-seven, Charles DeGaulle, who assumed the presidency of France at sixty-eight, and Konrad Adenauer, who served as chancellor of West Germany from age seventy-three until well into his eight- ies. In retrospect, Eisenhower’s presidency seems almost uneventful, at least in domestic affairs—an interlude between the bitter party battles of the Truman administration and the social upheavals of the 1960s.
Modern Republicanism
With a Republican serving as president for the first time in twenty years, the tone in Washington changed. Wealthy businessmen dominated Eisenhower’s cabinet. Defense Secretary Charles Wilson, the former president of General Motors, made the widely publicized statement: “What is good for the coun- try is good for General Motors, and vice versa.” A champion of the business community and a fiscal conservative, Ike worked to scale back government spending, including the military budget. But while right-wing Republicans saw his victory as an invitation to roll back the New Deal, Eisenhower realized that such a course would be disastrous. “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs,” he declared, “you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”
Eisenhower called his domestic agenda Modern Republicanism. It aimed to sever his party’s identification in the minds of many Americans with Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and indifference to the economic conditions of ordinary citizens. The core New Deal programs not only remained in place, but expanded. In 1955, millions of agricultural workers became eligible for the first time for Social Security. Nor did Ike reduce the size and scope of government. Despite the use of “free enterprise” as a weapon in the Cold War, the idea of a “mixed economy” in which the government played a major role in planning economic activity was widely accepted throughout the Western world. Amer- ica’s European allies like Britain and France expanded their welfare states and nationalized key industries like steel, shipbuilding, and transportation (that is, the government bought them from private owners and operated and subsi- dized them).
The United States had a more limited welfare state than western Europe and left the main pillars of the economy in private hands. But it too used government spending to promote productivity and boost employment. Eisenhower presided over the largest public-works enterprise in American history, the building of the 41,000-mile interstate highway system. As noted in the previous chapter, Cold War arguments—especially the need to pro- vide rapid exit routes from cities in the event of nuclear war—justified this
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multibillion-dollar project. But automobile manufacturers, oil companies, suburban builders, and construction unions had very practical reasons for supporting highway construction regardless of any Soviet threat. When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite, in 1957, the admin- istration responded with the National Defense Education Act, which for the first time offered direct federal funding to higher education.
All in all, rather than dismantling the New Deal, Eisenhower’s Modern Republicanism consolidated and legitimized it. By accepting its basic premises, he ensured that its continuation no longer depended on Democratic control of the presidency.
The Social Contract
The 1950s also witnessed an easing of the labor conflict of the two previous decades. The passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 (discussed in the previous chapter) had reduced labor militancy. In 1955, the AFL and CIO merged to form a single organization representing 35 percent of all nonagricultural workers. In leading industries, labor and management hammered out what has been called a new social contract. Unions signed long-term agreements that left decisions regarding capital investment, plant location, and output in management’s hands, and agreed to try to prevent unauthorized “wildcat” strikes. Employers stopped trying to eliminate existing unions and granted wage increases and fringe benefits such as private pension plans, health insurance, and automatic adjustments to pay to reflect rises in the cost of living.
Unionized workers shared fully in 1950s prosperity. Although the social contract did not apply to the majority of workers, who did not belong to unions, it did bring benefits to those who labored in nonunion jobs. For example, trade unions in the 1950s and 1960s were able to use their political power to win a steady increase in the minimum wage, which was earned mostly by non- union workers at the bottom of the employment pyramid. But these “spillover effects” were limited. The majority of workers did not enjoy anything close to the wages, benefits, and job security of unionized workers in such industries as automobiles and steel.
Indeed, nonunion employers continued to fight vehemently against labor organization, and groups like the National Association of Manufacturers still viewed unions as an unacceptable infringement on the power of employers. Some firms continued to shift jobs to the less-unionized suburbs and South. By the end of the 1950s, the social contract was weakening. In 1959, the steel indus- try sought to tighten work rules and limit wage increases in an attempt to boost profits battered by a recession that hit two years earlier. The plan sparked a strike of 500,000 steelworkers, which successfully beat back the proposed changes.
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Massive Retaliation
Soon after he entered office, Eisenhower approved an armistice that ended fighting in Korea. But this failed to ease international tensions. Ike took office at a time when the Cold War had entered an extremely dangerous phase. In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb—a weapon far more powerful than those that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The follow- ing year, the Soviets matched this achievement. Both sides feverishly devel- oped long-range bombers capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction around the world.
A professional soldier, Ike hated war, which he viewed as a tragic waste. “Every gun that is made,” he said in 1953, “every warship launched . . . signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.” But his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, was a grim Cold Warrior. In 1954, Dulles announced an updated version of the doctrine of containment. Massive retaliation, as it was called, declared that any Soviet attack on an American ally would be countered by a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union itself. In some ways, this reliance on the nuclear threat was a way to enable the budget-conscious Eisenhower to reduce spending on conventional military forces. During his presidency, the size of the armed services fell by nearly half. But the number of American nuclear warheads rose from 1,000 in 1953 to 18,000 in 1960.
Massive retaliation ran the risk that any small conflict, or even a miscal- culation, could escalate into a war that would destroy both the United States and the Soviet Union. Critics called the doctrine “brinksmanship,” warning of the danger of Dulles’s apparent willingness to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. The reality that all-out war would result in “mutual assured destruction” (or MAD, in military shorthand) did succeed in making both great powers cautious in their direct dealings with one another. But it also inspired widespread fear of impending nuclear war. Government programs encour- aging Americans to build bomb shelters in their backyards, and school drills that trained children to hide under their desks in the event of an atomic attack, aimed to convince Americans that nuclear war was survivable. But these mea- sures only increased the atmosphere of fear.
Ike and the Russians
In his inaugural address, Eisenhower repeated the familiar Cold War formula: “Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against dark.” But the end of the Korean War and the death of Stalin, both of which occurred in 1953, con- vinced him that rather than being blind zealots, the Soviets were reasonable and could be dealt with in conventional diplomatic terms. In 1955, Ike met in
How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs?
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Geneva, Switzerland, with Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet leader, at the first “summit” conference since Potsdam a decade earlier. The following year, Khrushchev delivered a speech to the Communist Party Congress in Moscow that detailed Stalin’s crimes, including purges of political opponents number- ing in the millions. The revelations created a crisis of belief among communists throughout the world. In the United States, three-quarters of the remaining Communist Party members abandoned the organization, realizing that they had been blind to the nature of Stalin’s rule.
Khrushchev’s call in the same 1956 speech for “peaceful coexistence” with the United States raised the possibility of an easing of the Cold War. The “thaw” was abruptly shaken that fall, however, when Soviet troops put down an anti- communist uprising in Hungary. Many conservative Republicans had urged eastern Europeans to resist communist rule, and Secretary of State Dulles him- self had declared “liberation,” rather than containment, to be the goal of Amer- ican policy. But Eisenhower refused to extend aid to the Hungarian rebels, an indication that he believed it impossible to “roll back” Soviet domination of eastern Europe.
In 1958, the two superpowers agreed to a voluntary halt to the testing of nuclear weapons. The pause lasted until 1961. It had been demanded by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, which publicized the danger to public health posed by radioactive fallout from nuclear tests. In 1959, Khrush- chev toured the United States and had a friendly meeting with Eisenhower at Camp David. But the spirit of cooperation ended abruptly in 1960, when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane over their territory. Eisenhower first denied that the plane had been involved in espionage and refused to apol- ogize even after the Russians produced the captured pilot. The incident torpe- doed another planned summit meeting.
The Emergence of the Third World
Even as Europe, where the Cold War began, settled into what appeared to be a permanent division between a communist East and a capitalist West, an intense rivalry, which sometimes took a military form, persisted in what came to be called the Third World. The term was invented to describe developing countries aligned with neither of the two Cold War powers and desirous of finding their own model of development between Soviet centralized economic planning and free market capitalism. The Bandung Conference, which brought leaders of twenty-nine Asian and African nations together in Indonesia in 1955, seemed to announce the emergence of a new force in global affairs, representing a majority of the world’s population. But none of these countries could avoid being strongly affected by the political, military, and economic contest of the Cold War.
THE EISENHOWER ERA ★ 963
The post–World War II era witnessed the crumbling of European empires. The “winds of change,” said British prime minister Harold Macmillan, were sweeping Africa and Asia. Decolonization began when India and Pakistan (the latter carved out of India to give Muslims their own nation) achieved independence in 1947. Ten years later, Britain’s Gold Coast colony in West Africa emerged as the independent nation of Ghana. Other new nations— including Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania—soon followed. In 1975, Portugal, which five centuries earlier had created the first modern overseas empire, granted independence to its African colonies of Mozambique and Angola.
Decolonization presented the United States with a complex set of choices. It created power vacuums in the former colonies into which, Americans feared, communists would move. The Soviet Union strongly supported the dissolution of Europe’s overseas empires, and communists participated in movements for colonial independence. Many noncommunist leaders, like Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, saw socialism of one sort or another as the best route to achieving economic independence and narrowing the social inequalities fostered by imperialism. Most of the new Third World nations resisted alignment with either major power bloc, hoping to remain neutral in the Cold War. On the other hand, many nationalists sincerely admired the United States and, indeed, saw the American struggle for independence as a model for their own struggles. Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of the Viet- namese movement against rule by France, modeled his 1945 proclamation of nationhood on the American Declaration of Independence. He even requested that President Truman establish a protectorate over Vietnam to guarantee its independence.
The Cold War in the Third World
By the end of the 1950s, the division of Europe appeared to be set in stone. Much of the focus of the Cold War shifted to the Third World. The policy of contain- ment easily slid over into opposition to any government, whether communist or not, that seemed to threaten American strategic or economic interests. Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala and Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran were elected, homegrown nationalists, not agents of Moscow. But they were determined to reduce foreign corporations’ control over their countries’ economies. Arbenz embarked on a sweeping land-reform policy that threatened the domination of Guatemala’s economy by the American-owned United Fruit Company. Mossa- degh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, whose refinery in Iran was Britain’s largest remaining overseas asset. Their foes quickly branded both as communists. In 1953 and 1954, the Central Intelligence Agency organized the
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ouster of both governments—a clear violation of the UN Charter, which barred a member state from taking mil- itary action against another except in self-defense.
In 1956, Israel, France, and Britain— without prior consultation with the United States—invaded Egypt after the country’s nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal, jointly owned by Britain and France. A furious Eisenhower forced them to abandon the invasion. After the Suez fiasco, the United States moved to replace Britain as the major Western power in the Middle East, and American companies increasingly dominated the region’s oil fields. In 1957, Eisenhower extended the principle of containment to the region, issuing the Eisenhower
Doctrine, which pledged the United States to defend Middle Eastern govern- ments threatened by communism or Arab nationalism. A year later, Ike dis- patched 5,000 American troops to Lebanon to protect a government dominated by pro-Western Christians against Nasser’s effort to bring all Arab states into a single regime under his rule.
Origins of the Vietnam War
In Vietnam, the expulsion of the Japanese in 1945 led not to independence but to a French military effort to preserve their Asian empire, which dated to the late nineteenth century, against Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist forces. Anticommu- nism led the United States into deeper and deeper involvement. Following a policy initiated by Truman, the Eisenhower administration funneled billions of dollars in aid to bolster French efforts. By the early 1950s, the United States was paying four-fifths of the cost of the war. Wary of becoming bogged down in another land war in Asia immediately after Korea, however, Ike declined to send in American troops when France requested them to avert defeat in 1954. He also rejected the National Security Council’s advice to use nuclear weapons, leaving France no alternative but to agree to Vietnamese independence.
Issued from a peace conference in 1954, the Geneva Accords divided Viet- nam temporarily into northern and southern districts, with elections scheduled
The military junta installed in Guatemala by the CIA in 1954 enters Guatemala City in a Jeep driven by CIA agent Carlos Castillo Armas. Although hailed by the Eisenhower administration as a triumph for freedom, the new government suppressed democracy in Guatemala and embarked on a murderous campaign to stamp out opposition.
THE EISENHOWER ERA ★ 965
for 1956 to unify the country. But the staunchly anticommunist southern leader Ngo Dinh Diem, urged on by the United States, refused to hold elections, which would almost certainly have resulted in a victory for Ho Chi Minh’s commu- nists. Diem’s close ties to wealthy Catholic families—in predominantly Bud- dhist South Vietnam—and to landlords in a society dominated by small farmers who had been promised land by Ho alienated an increasing number of his sub- jects. American aid poured into South Vietnam in order to bolster the Diem regime. By the time Eisenhower left office in 1960, Diem nevertheless faced a full-scale guerrilla revolt by the communist-led National Liberation Front.
Events in Guatemala, Iran, and Vietnam, considered great successes at the time by American policymakers, cast a long shadow over American for- eign relations. Little by little, the United States was becoming accustomed to intervention, both open and secret, in far-flung corners of the world. Despite the Cold War rhetoric of freedom, American leaders seemed more comfortable dealing with reliable military regimes than democratic govern- ments. A series of military governments succeeded Arbenz. The shah of Iran replaced Mossadegh and agreed to give British and American oil companies 40 percent of his nation’s oil revenues. He remained in office until 1979 as one of the world’s most tyrannical rulers, until his overthrow in a revolution led by the fiercely anti-American radical Islamist Ayatollah Khomeini. In Viet- nam, the American decision to prop up Diem’s regime laid the groundwork for what would soon become the most disastrous military involvement in American history.
Mass Society and Its Critics
The fatherly Eisenhower seemed the perfect leader for the placid society of the 1950s. Consensus was the dominant ideal in an era in which McCarthy- ism had defined criticism of the social and economic order as disloyalty and most Americans located the enjoyment of freedom in private pleasures rather than the public sphere. With the mainstreams of both parties embracing the Cold War, political debate took place within extremely narrow limits. Even Life magazine commented that American freedom might be in greater danger from “disuse” than from communist subversion.
Dissenting voices could be heard. Some intellectuals wondered whether the celebration of affluence and the either-or mentality of the Cold War obscured the extent to which the United States itself fell short of the ideal of freedom. The sociologist C. Wright Mills challenged the self-satisfied vision of democratic pluralism that dominated mainstream social science in the 1950s. Mills wrote of a “power elite”—an interlocking directorate of corporate leaders, politicians, and military men whose domination of government and society
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had made political democracy obsolete. Freedom, Mills insisted, meant more than “the chance to do as one pleases.” It rested on the ability “to formulate the available choices,” and this most Americans were effectively denied.
Even as the government and media portrayed the United States as a beacon of liberty locked in a titanic struggle with its opposite, one strand of social anal- ysis in the 1950s contended that Americans did not enjoy genuine freedom. These critics identified as the culprit not the unequal structure of power crit- icized by Mills, but the modern age itself, with its psychological and cultural discontents. Modern mass society, some writers worried, inevitably produced loneliness and anxiety, causing mankind to yearn for stability and authority, not freedom. In The Lonely Crowd (1950), the decade’s most influential work of social analysis, the sociologist David Riesman described Americans as “other- directed” conformists who lacked the inner resources to lead truly independent lives. Other social critics charged that corporate bureaucracies had transformed employees into “organization men” incapable of independent thought.
Some commentators feared that the Russians had demonstrated a greater ability to sacrifice for common public goals than Americans. What kind of nation, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith asked in The Affluent Society (1958), neglected investment in schools, parks, and public services, while producing ever more goods to fulfill desires created by advertising? Was the spectacle of millions of educated middle-class women seeking happiness in suburban dream houses a reason for celebration or a waste of precious “woman power” at a time when the Soviets trumpeted the accomplishments of their female scientists, physicians, and engineers? Books like Galbraith’s, along with William Whyte’s The Organization Man (1956) and Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders (1957), which criticized the monotony of modern work, the empti- ness of suburban life, and the pervasive influence of advertising, created the vocabulary for an assault on the nation’s social values that lay just over the horizon. In the 1950s, however, while criticism of mass society became a minor industry among intellectuals, it failed to dent widespread complacency about the American way.
Rebels without a Cause
The social critics did not offer a political alternative or have any real impact on the parties or government. Nor did other stirrings of dissent. With teen- agers a growing part of the population thanks to the baby boom, the emer- gence of a popular culture geared to the emerging youth market suggested that significant generational tensions lay beneath the bland surface of 1950s life. J. D. Salinger’s 1951 novel Catcher in the Rye and the 1955 films Blackboard Jungle and Rebel without a Cause (the latter starring James Dean as an aimlessly
THE EISENHOWER ERA ★ 967
rebellious youth) highlighted the alienation of at least some young people from the world of adult respectability. These works helped to spur a mid-1950s panic about “juvenile delinquency.” Time magazine devoted a cover story to “Teenagers on the Rampage,” and a Senate committee held hearings in 1954 on whether violent comic books caused criminal behavior among young people. (One witness even criticized Superman comics for arousing violent emotions among its readers.) To head off federal regulation, publishers—like movie pro- ducers earlier—adopted a code of conduct for their industry that strictly lim- ited the portrayal of crime and violence in comic books.
Cultural life during the 1950s seemed far more daring than politics. Indeed, many adults found the emergence of a mass-marketed teenage culture that rejected middle-class norms more alarming than the actual increase in juve- nile arrests. Teenagers wore leather jackets and danced to rock-and-roll music that brought the hard-driving rhythms and sexually provocative movements of black musicians and dancers to enthusiastic young white audiences. They made Elvis Presley, a rock-and-roll singer with an openly sexual performance style, an immensely popular entertainment celebrity.
Challenges of various kinds also arose to the family-centered image of personal fulfillment. Playboy magazine, which began publication in 1953, reached a circulation of more than 1 million copies per month by 1960. It extended the consumer culture into the most intimate realms of life, offer- ing men a fantasy world of sexual gratification outside the family’s confines. Although considered sick or deviant by the larger society and subject to con- stant police harassment, gay men and lesbians created their own subcultures in major cities.
The Beats
In New York City and San Francisco, as well as college towns like Madison, Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Beats, a small group of poets and writers, railed against mainstream culture. The novelist Jack Kerouac coined the term “beat”—a play on “beaten down” and “beatified” (or saintlike). His On the Road, written in the early 1950s but not published until 1957, recounted in a seemingly spontaneous rush of sights, sounds, and images its main character’s aimless wanderings across the American landscape. The book became a bible for a generation of young people who rejected the era’s middle-class culture but had little to put in its place.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” wrote the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl (1955), a bril- liant protest against materialism and conformism written while the author was under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Ginsberg became nationally
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known when San Francisco police in 1956 confiscated his book and arrested bookstore owners for selling an obscene work. (A judge later overturned the ban on the grounds that Howl possessed redeeming social value.) Rejecting the work ethic, the “desperate materialism” of the suburban middle class, and the militarization of American life by the Cold War, the Beats celebrated impul- sive action, immediate pleasure (often enhanced by drugs), and sexual exper- imentation. Despite Cold War slogans, they insisted, personal and political repression, not freedom, were the hallmarks of American society.
T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T Not until the 1960s would young white rebels find their cause, as the seeds of dissent planted by the social critics and Beats flowered in an outpouring of political activism, new attitudes toward sexuality, and a full-fledged genera- tional rebellion. A more immediate challenge to the complacency of the 1950s arose from the twentieth century’s greatest citizens’ movement—the black struggle for equality.
A poetry meeting at a Beat coffeehouse in New York City, photographed in 1959, where poets, artists, and others who rejected 1950s mainstream culture gathered.
THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT ★ 969
Origins of the Movement
Today, with the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday and the struggles of Montgomery, Little Rock, Birmingham, and Selma celebrated as heroic episodes in the history of freedom, it is easy to forget that at the time, the civil rights revolution came as a great surprise. Looking back, its causes seem clear: the destabilization of the racial system during World War II; the mass migration out of the segregated South that made black voters an increasingly important part of the Democratic Party coalition; and the Cold War and rise of independent states in the Third World, both of which made the gap between America’s rhetoric and its racial reality an international embarrassment. Yet few predicted the emergence of the southern mass movement for civil rights.
With blacks’ traditional allies on the left decimated by McCarthyism, most union leaders unwilling to challenge racial inequalities within their own ranks, and the NAACP concentrating on court battles, new constituencies and new tactics were sorely needed. The movement found in the southern black church the organizing power for a militant, nonviolent assault on segregation.
The United States in the 1950s was still a segregated, unequal society. Half of the nation’s black families lived in poverty. Because of labor contracts that linked promotions and firings to seniority, non-white workers, who had joined the industrial labor force later than whites, lost their jobs first in times of economic downturn. In the South, evidence of Jim Crow abounded—in sep- arate public institutions and the signs “white” and “colored” at entrances to buildings, train carriages, drinking fountains, restrooms, and the like. In the North and West, the law did not require segregation, but custom barred blacks from many colleges, hotels, and restaurants, and from most suburban hous- ing. Las Vegas, Nevada, for example, was as strictly segregated as any southern city. Hotels and casinos did not admit blacks except in the most menial jobs. Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, and other black entertainers played the hotel-casinos on the “strip” but could not stay as guests where they performed.
In 1950, seventeen southern and border states and Washington, D.C., had laws requiring the racial segregation of public schools, and several others per- mitted local districts to impose it. Around 40 percent of the nation’s 28 mil- lion schoolchildren studied in legally segregated schools, and millions more attended classes in northern communities where housing patterns and school district lines created de facto segregation—separation in fact if not in law. Few white Americans felt any urgency about confronting racial inequality. “Segre- gation,” the white writer John Egerton later recalled, “didn’t restrict me in any way, so it was easy to accept things the way they were, to take my freedom for granted and not worry about anyone else’s.”
What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
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From Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Montgomery, Alabama (December 5, 1955)
On the evening of Rosa Parks’s arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger, a mass rally of local African-Americans decided to boy- cott city buses in pro test. In his speech to the gathering, the young Baptist minis- ter Martin Luther King Jr. invoked Christian and American ideals of justice and democracy—themes he would strike again and again during his career as the lead- ing national symbol of the civil rights struggle.
We are here this evening . . . because first and foremost we are American citizens, and we are determined to apply our citizenship to the fullness of its means. We are here also because of our love for democracy. . . . Just the other day . . . one of the finest citizens in Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens but one of the finest citizens in Montgomery—was taken from a bus and carried to jail and arrested because she refused to give her seat to a white person. . . .
Mrs. Rosa Parks is a fine person. And since it had to happen I’m happy that it hap- pened to a person like Mrs. Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity! Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt that depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus. And I’m happy since it had to happen, it happened to a person that nobody can call a disturbing factor in the community. Mrs. Parks is a fine Christian person, unassuming, and yet there is integrity and character there. And just because she refused to get up, she was arrested.
I want to say, that we are not here advocating violence. We have never done that. . . . We believe in the teachings of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. . . . There will be no white persons pulled out of their homes and taken out to some distant road and lynched. . . .
We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, then the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. . . . If we are wrong, justice is a lie. . . .
We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality. . . . Right here in Montgomery when the history books are written in the future, somebody will have to say, “There lived a race of people, a black people, . . . a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights. And thereby they injected a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization.”
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 971
From The Southern Manifesto (1956)
Drawn up early in 1956 and signed by 96 southern members of the Senate and House of Representatives, the Southern Manifesto repudiated the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and offered support to the campaign of resistance in the South.
The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school cases is now bear- ing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law. . . .
We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation [violation] of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.
The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the States.
In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 the Supreme Court expressly declared that under the 14th Amendment no person was denied any of his rights if the States pro- vided separate but equal facilities. This decision . . . restated time and again, became a part of the life of the people of many of the States and confirmed their habits, traditions, and way of life. It is founded on elemental humanity and commonsense, for parents should not be deprived by Government of the right to direct the lives and education of their own children.
Though there has been no constitutional amendment or act of Congress changing this established legal principle almost a century old, the Supreme Court of the United States, with no legal basis for such action, undertook to exercise their naked judicial power and substituted their personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land.
This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.
With the gravest concern for the explosive and dangerous condition created by this decision and inflamed by outside meddlers: . . . we commend the motives of those States which have declared the intention to resist forced integration by any lawful means. . . .
QUESTIONS
1. How do religious convictions shape King’s definition of freedom?
2. Why does the Southern Manifesto claim that the Supreme Court decision is a threat to constitutional government?
3. How do these documents illustrate contrast- ing understandings of freedom in the wake of the civil rights movement?
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The Legal Assault on Segregation
With Truman’s civil rights initiative having faded and the Eisenhower admin- istration reluctant to address the issue, it fell to the courts to confront the problem of racial segregation. In the Southwest, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the equivalent of the NAACP, challenged restric- tive housing, employment discrimination, and the segregation of Latino stu- dents. It won an important victory in 1946 in the case of Mendez v. Westminster, when a federal court ordered the schools of Orange County desegregated. In response, the state legislature repealed all school laws requiring racial segre- gation. The governor who signed the measure, Earl Warren, had presided over the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as the state’s attor- ney general. After the war, he became convinced that racial inequality had no place in American life. When Chief Justice Fred Vinson died in 1953, Eisen- hower appointed Earl Warren to replace him. Warren would play the key role in deciding Brown v. Board of Education, the momentous case that outlawed school segregation.
For years, the NAACP, under the leadership of attorneys Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, had pressed legal challenges to the “sepa- rate but equal” doctrine laid down by the Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson (see Chapter 17). At first, the NAACP sought to gain admission to white insti- tutions of higher learning for which no black equivalent existed. In 1938, the Supreme Court ordered the University of Missouri Law School to admit Lloyd Gaines, a black student, because the state had no such school for blacks. Mis- souri responded by setting up a segregated law school, satisfying the courts. But in 1950, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered Heman Sweatt admitted to the University of Texas Law School even though the state had established a “school” for him in a basement containing three classrooms and no library. There was no way, the Court declared, that this hastily constructed law school could be “equal” to the prestigious all-white institution.
The Brown Case
Marshall now launched a frontal assault on segregation itself. He brought the NAACP’s support to local cases that had arisen when black parents challenged unfair school policies. To do so required remarkable courage. In Clarendon County, South Carolina, Levi Pearson, a black farmer who brought a lawsuit on behalf of his children, saw his house burned to the ground. The Clarendon case attacked not segregation itself but the unequal funding of schools. The local school board spent $179 per white child and $43 per black, and unlike white pupils, black children attended class in buildings with no running water
THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT ★ 973
or indoor toilets and were not provided with buses to transport them to classes. Five such cases from four states and the District of Columbia were combined in a single appeal that reached the Supreme Court late in 1952.
When cases are united, they are listed alphabetically and the first case gives the entire decision its name. In this instance, the first case arose from a state outside the old Confederacy. Oliver Brown went to court because his daughter, a third grader, was forced to walk across dangerous railroad tracks each morn- ing rather than being allowed to attend a nearby school restricted to whites. His lawsuit became Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
Thurgood Marshall decided that the time had come to attack not the unfair applications of the “separate but equal” principle but the doctrine itself. Even with the same funding and facilities, he insisted, segregation was inherently unequal since it stigmatized one group of citizens as unfit to associate with others. Drawing on studies by New York psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, Marshall argued that segregation did lifelong damage to black children, undermining their self-esteem. In its legal brief, the Eisenhower administra- tion did not directly support Marshall’s position, but it urged the justices to consider “the problem of racial discrimination . . . in the context of the present world struggle between freedom and tyranny.” Other peoples, it noted, “cannot understand how such a practice can exist in a country which professes to be a staunch supporter of freedom, justice, and democracy.”
The new chief justice, Earl Warren, managed to create unanimity on a divided Court, some of whose members disliked segregation but feared that a decision to outlaw it would spark widespread violence. On May 17, 1954, Warren himself read aloud the decision, only eleven pages long. Segregation in public education, he concluded, violated the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. “In the field of education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
The black press hailed the Brown decision as a “second Emancipation Proclamation.” And like its predecessor it was in many ways a limited doc- ument. The decision did not address segregation in institutions other than public schools or ban all racial classifications in the law, such as statutes pro- hibiting interracial marriage. It did not address the de facto school segregation of the North, which rested on housing patterns rather than state law. It did not order immediate implementation but instead called for hearings as to how seg- regated schooling should be dismantled. But Brown marked the emergence of the “Warren Court” as an active agent of social change. And it inspired a wave of optimism that discrimination would soon disappear. “What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children,” wrote the black novelist Ralph Ellison.
What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period?
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Brown did not cause the modern civil rights movement, which, as noted in the previous two chapters, began during World War II and continued in cities like New York after the war. But the decision did ensure that when the movement resumed after waning in the early 1950s, it would have the backing of the fed- eral courts. Mass action against Jim Crow soon reappeared. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black tailor’s assistant who had just completed her day’s work in a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, refused to surrender her seat on a city bus to a white rider, as required by local law. Parks’s arrest sparked a yearlong Montgomery bus boycott, the beginning of the mass phase of the civil rights movement in the South. Within a decade, the civil rights revolution had overturned the structure of legal segregation and regained the right to vote for black southerners. In 2000, Time magazine named Rosa Parks one of the 100 most significant persons of the twentieth century.
Parks is widely remembered today as a “seamstress with tired feet,” a symbol of ordinary blacks’ determination to resist the daily injustices and indignities of the Jim Crow South. In fact, her life makes clear that the civil rights revolu- tion built on earlier struggles. Parks was a veteran of black politics. During the 1930s, she took part in meetings protesting the conviction of the Scottsboro Boys. She served for many years as secretary to E. D. Nixon, the local leader of the NAACP. In 1943, she tried to register to vote, only to be turned away because she supposedly failed a literacy test. After two more attempts, Parks succeeded in becoming one of the few blacks in Montgomery able to cast a ballot. In 1954, she attended a training session for political activists at the Highlander School in Tennessee, a meeting ground for labor and civil rights radicals.
For years, civil rights activists in Montgomery had been strategizing over how best to confront the city ordinance that required bus segregation. An ear- lier challenge had been abandoned because the person who refused to move was an unmarried pregnant teenager. The dignified, accomplished Parks was the ideal person to become a symbol of the fight. The date may have been cho- sen because an all-white jury in Mississippi had just acquitted the murderers of Emmett Till, a black teenager who had allegedly whistled at a white woman. Till’s murder and the judicial outcome shocked the nation. When his body was returned to Chicago, his parents insisted that the casket remain open at the funeral, so people could see his severely bruised and disfigured body— dramatic witness to why the racial status quo desperately needed to change.
Jo Ann Robinson, a professor at the all-black Alabama State University, had been calling for a boycott of public transportation since 1954. When news of Parks’s arrest spread, hundreds of blacks gathered in a local church
THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT ★ 975
The mug shot of Rosa Parks taken in December 1955 at a Montgomery, Alabama, police station after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger.
and vowed to refuse to ride the buses until accorded equal treatment. For 381 days, despite legal harassment and occasional violence, black maids, jan- itors, teachers, and students walked to their destinations or rode an informal network of taxis. Finally, in November 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segrega- tion in public transportation unconsti- tutional. The boycott ended in triumph.
The Daybreak of Freedom
The Montgomery bus boycott marked a turning point in postwar American history. It launched the movement for racial justice as a nonviolent cru- sade based in the black churches of the South. It gained the support of northern liberals and focused unprec- edented and unwelcome international attention on the country’s racial pol- icies. And it marked the emergence of twenty-six-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., who had recently arrived in Mont- gomery to become pastor of a Baptist church, as the movement’s national sym- bol. On the night of the first protest meeting, King’s call to action electrified the audience: “We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.”
From the beginning, the language of freedom pervaded the black move- ment. It resonated in the speeches of civil rights leaders and in the hand- lettered placards of the struggle’s foot soldiers. On the day of Rosa Parks’s court appearance in December 1955, even before the bus boycott had officially been announced, a torn piece of cardboard appeared on a bus shelter in Montgom- ery’s Court Square, advising passengers: “Don’t ride the buses today. Don’t ride it for freedom.” During the summer of 1964, when civil rights activists estab- lished “freedom schools” for black children across Mississippi, lessons began with students being asked to define the word. Some gave specific answers (“going to public libraries”), some more abstract (“standing up for your rights”). Some insisted that freedom meant legal equality, others saw it as liberation
What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period?
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from years of deference to and fear of whites. “Freedom of the mind,” wrote one, was the greatest freedom of all.
For adults as well, freedom had many meanings. It meant enjoying the political rights and economic opportunities taken for granted by whites. It required eradicating historic wrongs such as segregation, disenfranchisement, confinement to low-wage jobs, and the ever-present threat of violence. It meant the right to be served at lunch counters and downtown department stores, cen- tral locations in the consumer culture, and to be addressed as “Mr.,” “Miss,” and “Mrs.,” rather than “boy” and “auntie.”
The Leadership of King
In King’s soaring oratory, the protesters’ understandings of freedom fused into a coherent whole. For the title of his first book, relating the boycott’s history, King chose the title Stride Toward Freedom. His most celebrated oration, the “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963, began by invoking the unfulfilled promise of emancipation (“one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free”) and closed with a cry borrowed from a black spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
A master at appealing to the deep sense of injustice among blacks and to the conscience of white America, King presented the case for black rights in a vocabulary that merged the black experience with that of the nation. Having studied the writings on peaceful civil disobedience of Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, as well as the nonviolent protests the Congress of Racial Equality had organized in the 1940s, King outlined a philosophy of struggle in which evil must be met with good, hate with Christian love, and violence with peaceful demands for change. “There will be no white persons pulled out of their homes and taken out to some distant road and lynched,” he declared in his speech at the launching of the Montgomery bus boycott.
Echoing Christian themes derived from his training in the black church, King’s speeches resonated deeply in both black communities and the broader culture. He repeatedly invoked the Bible to preach justice and forgiveness. Like Frederick Douglass before him, King appealed to white America by stressing the protesters’ love of country and devotion to national values. The “daybreak of freedom,” King made clear, meant a new dawn for the whole of American society. And like W. E. B. Du Bois, he linked the American “color line” with the degradation of non-white peoples overseas. “The great struggle of the Twentieth Century,” he declared in a 1956 sermon, “has been between the exploited masses questing for freedom and the colonial powers seeking to maintain their domination.” If Africa was gaining its freedom, he asked, why must black America lag behind?
THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT ★ 977
Massive Resistance
Buoyed by success in Montgomery, King in 1956 took the lead in forming the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a coalition of black ministers and civil rights activists, to press for desegregation. But despite the move- ment’s success in popular mobilization, the fact that Montgomery’s city fathers agreed to the boycott’s demands only after a Supreme Court ruling indicated that without national backing, local action might not be enough to overturn Jim Crow. The white South’s refusal to accept the Brown decision reinforced the conviction that black citizens could not gain their constitu- tional rights without Washington’s intervention. This was not immediately forthcoming. When the Supreme Court finally issued its implementation ruling in 1955, the justices declared that desegregation should proceed “with all deliberate speed.” This vague formulation unintentionally encouraged a campaign of “massive resistance” that paralyzed civil rights progress in much of the South.
In 1956, 96 of 106 southern congressmen—and every southern senator except Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas and Albert Gore and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee—signed a Southern Manifesto, denouncing the Brown decision as a “clear abuse of judicial power,” and calling for resistance to “forced integration” by “any lawful means.” State after state passed laws to block desegregation. Some made it illegal for the NAACP to operate within their borders. Virginia pioneered the strategy of closing any public schools ordered to desegregate and offering funds to enable white pupils, but not black, to attend private institutions. Prince Edward County, Virginia, shut its schools entirely in 1959; not until 1964 did the Supreme Court order them reopened. Many states adopted “freedom of choice” plans that allowed white students to opt out of integrated schools. As a symbol of defiance, Georgia’s legislature incorporated the Confederate battle flag into its state flag in 1956, and Ala- bama and South Carolina soon began flying the battle flag over their state capitol buildings.
Eisenhower and Civil Rights
The federal government tried to remain aloof from the black struggle. Thanks to the efforts of Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who hoped to win liberal support for a run for president in 1960, Congress in 1957 passed the first national civil rights law since Reconstruction. It targeted the denial of black voting rights in the South, but with weak enforcement provisions it added few voters to the rolls. President Eisenhower failed to provide moral leadership. He called for Americans to abide by the law, but he made it clear that he found the
What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period?
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whole civil rights issue distasteful. He privately told aides that he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s reasoning. Ike failed to act in 1956 when a federal court ordered that Autherine Lucy be admitted to the University of Alabama; a mob prevented her from registering and the board of trustees expelled her. The university remained all white into the 1960s.
In 1957, however, after Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas used the National Guard to prevent the court- ordered integration of Little Rock’s Central High School, Eisenhower dis- patched federal troops to the city. In the face of a howling mob, soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division escorted
nine black children into the school. Events in Little Rock showed that in the last instance, the federal government would not allow the flagrant violation of court orders. But because of massive resistance, the pace of the movement slowed in the final years of the 1950s. When Eisenhower left office, fewer than 2 percent of black students attended desegregated schools in the states of the old Confederacy.
The World Views the United States
Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, American leaders had worried about the impact of segregation on the country’s international reputation. President Truman had promoted his civil rights initiative, in part, by remind- ing Americans that they could not afford to “ignore what the world thinks of our record.” The State Department filed a brief in the Brown case noting the damage segregation was doing to the country’s image overseas.
Foreign nations and colonies paid close attention to the unfolding of the American civil rights movement. The global reaction to the Brown decision was overwhelmingly positive. “At Last! Whites and Blacks in the United States on the same school benches!” proclaimed a newspaper in Senegal, West Africa. But the slow pace of change led to criticism that embarrassed American diplomats seeking to win the loyalty of people in the non-white world. In a public forum in India, the American ambassador was peppered with questions about American race relations. Was it true that the Haitian ambassador to the United States had
A photograph by Gordon Parks shows a well-dressed black woman and her daughter at the “colored” entrance to a Mobile, Alabama, department store in 1956.
THE ELECTION OF 1960 ★ 979
to live in a black ghetto in Washington? Why did no black person hold a high public office? Of course, the Soviet Union played up American race relations as part of the global “battle for hearts and minds of men” that was a key part of the Cold War.
T H E E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 6 0
Kennedy and Nixon
The presidential campaign of 1960 turned out to be one of the closest in American history. Republicans chose Vice President Richard Nixon as their candidate to succeed Eisenhower. Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy, a senator from Massachusetts and a Roman Catholic, whose father, a millionaire Irish-American businessman, had served as ambassador to Great Britain during the 1930s. Kennedy’s chief rivals for the nomination were Hubert Humphrey, leader of the party’s liberal wing, and Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, the Senate majority leader, who accepted Kennedy’s offer to run for vice president.
The atmosphere of tolerance promoted by World War II had weak- ened traditional anti-Catholicism. But as recently as 1949, Paul Blanshard’s American Freedom and Catholic Power, which accused the church of being anti- democratic, morally repressive, and essentially un-American, had become a national best-seller. Many Protestants remained reluctant to vote for a Catholic, fearing that Kennedy would be required to support church doctrine on controversial public issues or, in a more extreme version, take orders from the pope. Kennedy addressed the question directly. “I do not speak for my church on public matters,” he insisted, and “the church does not speak for me.” His defeat of Humphrey in the Democratic primary in overwhelmingly Protestant West Virginia put the issue of his religion to rest. At age forty-three, Kennedy became the youngest major-party nominee for president in the nation’s history.
Both Kennedy and Nixon were ardent Cold Warriors. But Kennedy pointed to Soviet success in putting Sputnik, the first earth satellite, into orbit and subsequently testing the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as evi- dence that the United States had lost the sense of national purpose necessary to fight the Cold War. He warned that Republicans had allowed a missile gap to develop in which the Soviets had achieved technological and military supe- riority over the United States. In fact, as both Kennedy and Nixon well knew, American economic and military capacity far exceeded that of the Soviets. But the charge persuaded many Americans that the time had come for new lead- ership. The stylishness of Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, which stood in sharp
What was the significance of the presidential election of 1960?
980 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
contrast to the more dowdy public appearance of Mamie Eisenhower and Pat Nixon, reinforced the impression that Kennedy would conduct a more youthful, vigorous presidency.
In the first televised debate between presidential candidates, judging by viewer response, the handsome Ken- nedy bested Nixon, who was suffering from a cold and appeared tired and ner- vous. Those who heard the encounter on the radio thought Nixon had won, but, on TV, image counted for more than substance. In November, Kennedy eked out a narrow victory, winning the
popular vote by only 120,000 out of 69 million votes cast (and, Republicans charged, benefiting from a fraudulent vote count by the notoriously corrupt Chicago Democratic machine).
The End of the 1950s
In January 1961, shortly before leaving office, Eisenhower delivered a televised Farewell Address, modeled to some extent on George Washington’s address of 1796. Knowing that the missile gap was a myth, Ike warned against the drum- beat of calls for a new military buildup. He urged Americans to think about the dangerous power of what he called the military- industrial complex— the conjunction of “an immense military establishment” with a “permanent arms industry”—with an influence felt in “every office” in the land. “We must never let the weight of this combination,” he advised his countrymen, “endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” Few Americans shared Ike’s concern—far more saw the alliance of the Defense Department and pri- vate industry as a source of jobs and national security rather than a threat to democracy. A few years later, however, with the United States locked in an increasingly unpopular war, Eisenhower’s warning would come to seem prophetic.
By then, other underpinnings of 1950s life were also in disarray. The tens of millions of cars that made suburban life possible were spewing toxic lead, an additive to make gasoline more efficient, into the atmosphere. Penned in to the east by mountains that kept automobile emissions from being dispersed by the wind, Los Angeles had become synonymous with smog, a type of air pollution produced by cars. Chlorofluorocarbons, used in air conditioners, deodorants,
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Democrat Republican Independent
Party Kennedy Nixon Byrd
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 303 (56%) 219 (41%)
15 (3%)
Popular Vote (Share)
34,227,096 (49.7%) 34,107,646 (49.6%)
501,643 (0.7%)
T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 6 0
and aerosol hair sprays, were releasing chemicals into the atmosphere that trapped heat and damaged the ozone layer, producing global warming and an increase in skin cancer. (Both leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons had been invented by General Motors research scientist Thomas Midgley. He “had more impact on the atmosphere,” writes one historian, “than any other single organism” in the history of the world.) The chemical insecticides that enabled agricultural conglomerates to produce the country’s remarkable abundance of food were poisoning farm workers, consumers, and the water supply. Housewives were rebelling against a life centered in suburban dream houses. Blacks were increasingly impatient with the slow progress of racial change. The United States, in other words, had entered that most turbulent of decades, the 1960s.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Explain the meaning of the “American standard of living” during the 1950s.
2. Describe how the automobile transformed American communities and culture in the 1950s.
3. Identify the prescribed roles and aspirations for women during the social conformity of the 1950s.
4. How did governmental policies, business practices, and individual choices contribute to racially segregated suburbs?
5. Explain the ideological rifts between conservatives in the 1950s. Why did many view Presi- dent Eisenhower as “not one of them”?
6. What was the new “social contract” between labor and management, and how did it benefit both sides as well as the nation as a whole?
7. How did the United States and Soviet Union shift the focus of the Cold War to the Third World?
8. What were the most significant factors that contributed to the growing momentum of the civil rights movement in the 1950s?
9. How did many southern whites, led by their elected officials, resist desegregation and civil rights in the name of “freedom”?
10. How and why did the federal government’s concern with U.S. relations overseas shape its involvement with the Brown v. Board of Education case?
What was the significance of the presidential election of 1960?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 981
982 ★ CHAPTER 24 An Affluent Society
Levittown (p. 944)
baby boom (p. 949)
urban renewal (p. 951)
“In God We Trust” (p. 953)
interstate highway system (p. 959)
Sputnik (p. 960)
National Defense Education Act (p. 960)
social contract (p. 960)
massive retaliation (p. 961)
Geneva Accords (p. 964)
the Beats (p. 967)
League of United Latin American Citizens (p. 972)
Brown v. Board of Education (p. 972)
Montgomery bus boycott (p. 974)
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (p. 977)
Southern Manifesto (p. 977)
missile gap (p. 979)
military-industrial complex (p. 980)
KEY TERMS
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
Visit the Give Me Liberty! Student Site for primary source documents and images, interactive maps, author videos featuring Eric Foner, and more.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the major events in the civil rights movement of the early
1960s?
• What were the major crises and policy initiatives of the Kennedy presidency?
• What were the purposes and strategies of Johnson’s Great Society programs?
• How did the civil rights movement change in the mid- 1960s?
• How did the Vietnam War transform American politics and culture?
• What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s?
• In what ways was 1968 a climactic year for the Sixties?
T H E S I X T I E S
★ C H A P T E R 2 5 ★
1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8
On the afternoon of February 1, 1960, four students from North Caro-lina Agricultural and Technical State University, a black college in Greensboro, North Carolina, entered the local Woolworth’s depart- ment store. After making a few purchases, they sat down at the lunch counter, an area reserved for whites. Told that they could not be served, they remained in their seats until the store closed. They returned the next morning and the next. As the protest continued, other students, including a few local whites, joined in. Demonstrations spread across the country. After resisting for five
★ 983
984 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
months, Woolworth’s in July agreed to serve black customers at its lunch counters.
The sit- in reflected mounting frustration at the slow pace of racial change. White Greensboro prided itself on being free of prejudice. In 1954, the city had been the first in the South to declare its intention of complying with the Brown decision. But by 1960 only a handful of black students had been admit- ted to all- white schools, the economic gap between blacks and whites had not narrowed, and Greensboro was still segregated.
More than any other event, the Greensboro sit- in launched the 1960s: a decade of political activism and social change. Sit- ins had occurred before, but never had they sparked so massive a response. Similar demonstra- tions soon took place throughout the South, demanding the integration not only of lunch counters but of parks, pools, restaurants, bowling alleys, libraries, and other facilities as well. By the end of 1960, some 70,000 dem- onstrators had taken part in sit- ins. Angry whites often assaulted them. But having been trained in nonviolent resistance, the protesters did not strike back.
Even more than elevating blacks to full citizenship, declared the writer James Baldwin, the civil rights movement challenged the United States to rethink “what it really means by freedom”—including whether freedom applied to all Americans or only to part of the population. With their freedom rides, freedom schools, freedom marches, and the insistent cry “Freedom now,” black Americans and their white allies made freedom once again the rallying cry of the dispossessed. Thousands of ordinary men and women— maids and laborers alongside students, teachers, businessmen, and ministers— risked physical and economic retribution to lay claim to freedom. Their courage inspired a host of other challenges to the status quo, including a student move- ment known as the New Left, the “second wave” of feminism, and activism among other minorities.
By the time the decade ended, these movements had challenged the 1950s’ understanding of freedom linked to the Cold War abroad and consumer choice at home. They exposed the limitations of traditional New Deal liberalism. They forced a reconsideration of the nation’s foreign policy and extended claims to freedom into the most intimate areas of life. They made American society confront the fact that certain groups, including students, women, members of racial minorities, and homosexuals, felt themselves excluded from full enjoy- ment of American freedom.
Reflecting back years later on the struggles of the 1960s, one black organizer in Memphis remarked, “All I wanted to do was to live in a free country.” Of the movement’s accomplishments, he added, “You had to fight for every inch of it. Nobody gave you anything. Nothing.”
THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 985
T H E C I V I L R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N
The Rising Tide of Protest
With the sit- ins, college students for the first time stepped onto the stage of American his- tory as the leading force for social change. In April 1960, Ella Baker, a longtime civil rights organizer, called a meeting of young activists in Raleigh, North Carolina. About 200 black students and a few whites attended. Out of the gathering came the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), dedicated to replacing the culture of segregation with a “beloved community” of racial justice and to empowering ordinary blacks to take control of the decisions that affected their lives. “We can’t count on adults,” declared SNCC orga- nizer Robert Moses. “Very few . . . are not afraid of the tremendous pressure they will face. This leaves the young people to be the organizers, the agents of social and political change.”
Other forms of direct action soon fol- lowed the sit- ins. Blacks in Biloxi and Gulf- port, Mississippi, engaged in “ wade- ins,” demanding access to segregated public beaches. Scores were arrested and two black teenagers were killed. In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Free- dom Rides. Integrated groups traveled by bus into the Deep South to test compliance with court orders banning segregation on interstate buses and trains and in terminal facilities. Violent mobs assaulted them. Near Anniston, Alabama, a firebomb was thrown into the vehicle and the passengers beaten as they escaped. In Birmingham, Klansmen attacked riders with bats and chains, while police refused to intervene. Many of the Free- dom Riders were arrested. But their actions
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1960 Greensboro, N.C., sit- in
Young Americans for Free- dom founded
1961 Bay of Pigs
Freedom Rides
Berlin Wall constructed
1962 Port Huron Statement
University of Mississippi desegregated
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
Cuban missile crisis
1963 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
March on Washington
Kennedy assassinated
1964 Freedom Summer
Civil Rights Act passed
Gulf of Tonkin resolution
1965– Great Society
1967
1965 Voting Rights Act
Watts uprising
Hart- Celler Act
1966 National Organization for Women organized
1968 Tet offensive
Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
American Indian movement founded
Richard Nixon elected
What were the major events in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s?
986 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
led the Interstate Commerce Commission to order buses and terminals desegregated.
As protests escalated, so did the resistance of local authorities. Late in 1961, SNCC and other groups launched a campaign of nonvi- olent protests against racial discrimination in Albany, Georgia. The protests lasted a year, but despite filling the jails with demonstrators— a tactic adopted by the movement to gain
national sympathy— they failed to achieve their goals. In September 1962, a court ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, a black student. The state police stood aside as a mob, encouraged by Governor Ross Barnett, rampaged through the streets of Oxford, where the university is located. Two bystanders lost their lives in the riot. President Kennedy was forced to dis- patch the army to restore order.
Birmingham
The high point of protest came in the spring of 1963, when demonstrations took place in towns and cities across the South, dramatizing black discontent
over inequality in education, employ- ment, and housing. In one week in June, there were more than 15,000 arrests in 186 cities. The dramatic cul- mination came in Birmingham, Ala- bama, a citadel of segregation. Even for the Deep South, Birmingham was a violent city— there had been over fifty bombings of black homes and institutions since World War II. Local blacks had been demonstrating, with no result, for greater economic oppor- tunities and an end to segregation by local businesses.
With the movement flagging, some of its leaders invited Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Birmingham. While serving a nine- day prison term in April 1963 for violating a ban on demonstrations, King composed one of his most eloquent pleas for racial
1969 Police raid on Stonewall Inn
Woodstock festival
1973 Roe v. Wade
• •
Civil rights demonstrators in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in 1960.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 987
justice, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Responding to local clergymen who counseled patience, King related the litany of abuses faced by black southern- ers, from police brutality to the daily humiliation of having to explain to their children why they could not enter amusement parks or public swimming pools. The “white moderate,” King declared, must put aside fear of disorder and commit himself to racial justice.
In May, King made the bold decision to send black schoolchildren into the streets of Birmingham. Police chief Eugene “Bull” Connor unleashed his forces against the thousands of young marchers. The images, broadcast on television, of children being assaulted with nightsticks, high- pressure fire hoses, and attack dogs produced a wave of revulsion throughout the world and turned the Bir- mingham campaign into a triumph for the civil rights movement. It led Presi- dent Kennedy, as will be related later, to endorse the movement’s goals. Leading businessmen, fearing that the city was becoming an international symbol of brutality, brokered an end to the demonstrations that desegregated downtown stores and restaurants and promised that black salespeople would be hired.
A fireman assaulting young African- American demonstrators with a high- pressure hose during the climactic demonstrations in Birmingham. Broadcast on television, such pictures proved a serious problem for the United States in its battle for the “hearts and minds” of people around the world and forced the Kennedy administration to confront the contradic- tion between the rhetoric of freedom and the reality of racism.
What were the major events in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s?
988 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
But more than these modest gains, the events in Birmingham forced white Americans to decide whether they had more in common with fellow citizens demanding their basic rights or with violent segregationists. The question became more insistent in the following weeks. In June 1963, a sniper killed Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. In September, a bomb exploded at a black Baptist church in Birmingham, killing four young girls. (Not until 2002 was the last of those who committed this act of domestic terrorism tried and convicted.)
The March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, two weeks before the Birmingham church bombing, 250,000 black and white Americans converged on the nation’s capital for the March on Washington, often considered the high point of the nonviolent civil rights movement. Organized by a coalition of civil rights, labor, and church organizations led by A. Philip Randolph, the black unionist who had threatened a similar march in 1941, it was the largest public demonstration in the nation’s history to that time. Calls for the passage of a civil rights bill pending before Con- gress took center stage. But the march’s goals also included a public- works pro- gram to reduce unemployment, an increase in the minimum wage, and a law barring discrimination in employment. These demands, and the marchers’ slo- gan, “Jobs and Freedom,” revealed how the black movement had, for the moment, forged an alliance with white liberal groups. On the steps of the Lincoln Memo- rial, King delivered his most famous speech, including the words, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal.’”
The March on Washington reflected an unprecedented degree of black- white cooperation in support of racial and economic justice. But it also revealed some of the movement’s limitations, and the tensions within it. Even though female activists like Jo Ann Robinson and Ella Baker had played crucial roles in civil rights organizing, every speaker at the Lincoln Memorial was male. The organizers ordered SNCC leader John Lewis (later a congressman from Georgia) to tone down his speech, the original text of which called on blacks to “free ourselves of the chains of political and economic slavery” and march “through the heart of Dixie the way Sherman did . . . and burn Jim Crow to the ground.” Lewis’s rhetoric forecast the more militant turn many in the movement would soon be taking.
“Seek the freedom in 1963 promised in 1863,” read one banner at the March on Washington. And civil rights activists resurrected the Civil War– era vision of national authority as the custodian of American freedom. Despite the fact that the federal government had for many decades promoted segregation,
THE KENNEDY YEARS ★ 989
blacks’ historical experience suggested that they had more hope for justice from national power than from local governments or civic institutions— home owners’ associations, businesses, private clubs— still riddled with rac- ism. It remained unclear whether the federal government would take up this responsibility.
T H E K E N N E D Y Y E A R S John F. Kennedy served as president for less than three years and, in domestic affairs, had few tangible accomplishments. But his administration is widely viewed today as a moment of youthful glamour, soaring hopes, and dynamic leadership at home and abroad. Later revelations of the sexual liaisons Ken- nedy obsessively pursued while in the White House have not significantly damaged his reputation among the general public.
Kennedy’s inaugural address of January 1961 announced a watershed in American politics: “The torch has been passed,” he declared, “to a new genera- tion of Americans” who would “pay any price, bear any burden,” to “assure the survival and success of liberty.” The speech seemed to urge Americans to move beyond the self- centered consumer culture of the 1950s: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” But while the sit- ins were by now a year old, the speech said nothing about segregation or race. At the outset of his presidency, Kennedy regarded civil rights as a distraction from his main concern— vigorous conduct of the Cold War.
Kennedy and the World
Kennedy’s agenda envisioned new initiatives aimed at countering communist influence in the world. One of his administration’s first acts was to establish the Peace Corps, which sent young Americans abroad to aid in the economic and educational progress of developing countries and to improve the image of the United States there. By 1966, more than 15,000 young men and women were serving as Peace Corps volunteers. When the Soviets in April 1961 launched a satellite carrying the first man into orbit around the earth, Kennedy announced that the United States would mobilize its resources to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The goal seemed almost impossible when announced, but it was stunningly accomplished in 1969.
Kennedy also formulated a new policy toward Latin America, the Alliance for Progress. A kind of Marshall Plan for the Western Hemisphere, although involving far smaller sums of money, it aimed, Kennedy said, to promote both “political” and “material freedom.” Begun in 1961 with much fanfare about
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alleviating poverty and counteracting the appeal of communism, the Alliance for Progress failed. Unlike the Marshall Plan, military regimes and local elites controlled Alliance for Progress aid. They enriched themselves while the poor saw little benefit.
Like his predecessors, Kennedy viewed the entire world through the lens of the Cold War. This outlook shaped his dealings with Fidel Castro, who had led a revolution that in 1959 ousted Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Until Castro took power, Cuba was an economic dependency of the United States. When his government began nationalizing American landholdings and other investments and signed an agreement to sell sugar to the Soviet Union, the Eisenhower administration suspended trade and diplomatic relations with the island. The CIA began training anti- Castro exiles for an invasion of Cuba.
In April 1961, Kennedy allowed the CIA to launch its invasion, at a site known as the Bay of Pigs. Military advisers predicted a popular uprising that would quickly topple the Castro government. But the Bay of Pigs invasion proved to be a total failure. Of 1,400 invaders, more than 100 were killed and 1,100 captured. Cuba became ever more closely tied to the Soviet Union. The Kennedy administration tried other methods, including assassination attempts, to get rid of Castro’s government.
The Missile Crisis
Meanwhile, relations between the two “superpowers” deteriorated. In August 1961, in order to stem a growing tide of emigrants fleeing from East to West Berlin, the Soviets constructed a wall separating the two parts of the city. Until its demolition in 1989, the Berlin Wall would stand as a tangible symbol of the Cold War and the division of Europe.
The most dangerous crisis of the Kennedy administration, and in many ways of the entire Cold War, came in October 1962, when American spy planes discovered that the Soviet Union was installing missiles in Cuba capable of reaching the United States with nuclear weapons. Rejecting advice from mili- tary leaders that he authorize an attack on Cuba, which would almost certainly have triggered a Soviet response in Berlin and perhaps a nuclear war, Kennedy imposed a blockade, or “quarantine,” of the island and demanded the missiles’ removal. After tense behind- the- scenes negotiations, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles; Kennedy pledged that the United States would not invade Cuba and secretly agreed to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey, from which they could reach the Soviet Union.
For thirteen days, the world teetered on the brink of all- out nuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis seems to have lessened Kennedy’s passion for the Cold War. Indeed, he appears to have been shocked by the casual way military leaders
THE KENNEDY YEARS ★ 991
spoke of “winning” a nuclear exchange in which tens of millions of Americans and Russians were certain to die. In 1963, Kennedy moved to reduce Cold War tensions. In a speech at American University, he called for greater cooperation with the Soviets. That summer, the two countries agreed to a treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and in space. In announcing the agreement, Kennedy paid tribute to the small movement against nuclear weapons that had been urging such a ban for several years. He even sent word to Castro through a journalist that he desired a more constructive relationship with Cuba.
Kennedy and Civil Rights
In his first two years in office, Kennedy was preoccupied with foreign policy. But in 1963, the crisis over civil rights eclipsed other concerns. Until then, Ken- nedy had been reluctant to take a forceful stand on black demands. He seemed to share FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s fear that the movement was inspired by communism. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s brother, approved FBI wiretaps on King. Despite promising during the 1960 campaign to ban discrimination in federally assisted housing, Kennedy waited until the end of 1962 to issue the order. He used federal force when obstruction of the law became acute, as at the University of Mississippi. But he failed to protect civil rights workers from violence, insisting that law enforcement was a local matter.
Events in Birmingham in May 1963 forced Kennedy’s hand. Kennedy realized that the United States simply could not declare itself the champion of freedom throughout the world while maintaining a system of racial inequal- ity at home. In June, he went on national television to call for the passage of a law banning discrimination in all places of public accommodation, a major goal of the civil rights move- ment. The nation, he asserted, faced a moral crisis: “We preach freedom around the world, . . . but are we to say to the world, and much more impor- tantly, to each other, that this is a land of the free except for Negroes?”
Kennedy did not live to see his civil rights bill enacted. On November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, he was shot and killed. Most likely, the assassin
What were the major crises and policy initiatives of the Kennedy presidency?
New York City train passengers reading the news of President Kennedy’s assassination, Novem- ber 22, 1963.
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was Lee Harvey Oswald, a troubled former marine. Partly because Oswald was murdered two days later by a local nightclub owner while in police custody, speculation about a possible conspiracy continues to this day. In any event, Kennedy’s death brought an abrupt and utterly unexpected end to his presi- dency. As with Pearl Harbor or September 11, 2001, an entire generation would always recall the moment when they first heard the news of Kennedy’s death. It fell to his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, to secure passage of the civil rights bill and to launch a program of domestic liberalism far more ambitious than anything Kennedy had envisioned.
L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y Unlike John F. Kennedy, raised in a wealthy and powerful family, Lyndon John- son grew up in one of the poorest parts of the United States, the central Texas hill country. Kennedy seemed to view success as his birthright; Johnson had to struggle ferociously to achieve wealth and power. By the 1950s, he had risen to become majority leader of the U.S. Senate. But Johnson never forgot the poor Mexican and white children he had taught in a Texas school in the early 1930s. Far more interested than Kennedy in domestic reform, he continued to hold the New Deal view that government had an obligation to assist less- fortunate members of society.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
When he became president, nobody expected that Johnson would make the passage of civil rights legislation his first order of business or that he would come to identify himself with the black movement more passionately than any previous president. Just five days after Kennedy’s assassination, however, John- son called on Congress to enact the civil rights bill as the most fitting memorial to his slain predecessor. “We have talked long enough about equal rights in this country,” he declared. “It is now time to write the next chapter and write it in the books of law.”
In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment, institutions like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public accommodations such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters. It also banned discrimination on the grounds of sex— a provision added by opponents of civil rights in an effort to derail the entire bill and embraced by liberal and female members of Congress as a way to broaden its scope. Johnson knew that many whites opposed the new law. After signing it, he turned to an aide and remarked, “I think we delivered the South to the Republican Party.”
LYNDON JOHNSON’S PRESIDENCY ★ 993
Freedom Summer
The 1964 law did not address a major concern of the civil rights movement— the right to vote in the South. That summer, a coalition of civil rights groups, including SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP, launched a voter registration drive in Mississippi. Hundreds of white college students from the North traveled to the state to take part in Freedom Summer. An outpouring of violence greeted the campaign, including thirty- five bombings and numerous beatings of civil rights workers. In June, three young activists— Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, white students from the North, and James Chaney, a local black youth—were kidnapped by a group headed by a deputy sheriff and mur- dered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Between 1961 and 1965, an estimated twenty- five black civil rights workers paid with their lives. But the deaths of the two white students focused unprecedented attention on Mississippi and on the apparent inability of the federal government to protect citizens seeking to enjoy their constitutional rights. (In June 2005, forty- one years after Freedom Summer, a Mississippi jury convicted a member of the Ku Klux Klan of man- slaughter in the deaths of the three civil rights workers.)
Freedom Summer led directly to one of the most dramatic confrontations of the civil rights era— the campaign by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to take the seats of the state’s all- white official party at the 1964 Democratic national convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. With blacks unable to participate in the activities of the Democratic Party or register to vote, the civil rights movement in Mississippi had created the MFDP, open to all residents of the state. At televised hearings before the credentials commit- tee, Fannie Lou Hamer of the MFDP held a national audience spellbound with her account of growing up in poverty in the Yazoo- Mississippi Delta and of the savage beatings she had endured at the hands of police. Like many other black activists, Hamer was a deeply religious person who believed that Christian- ity rested on the idea of freedom and that the movement had been divinely inspired. “Is this America,” she asked, “the land of the free and home of the brave, where . . . we [are] threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings?” Johnson feared a southern walkout, as had happened at the 1948 party convention, if the MFDP were seated. Party liberals, including John- son’s running mate, Hubert Humphrey, pressed for a compromise in which two black delegates would be granted seats. But the MFDP rejected the proposal.
The 1964 Election
The events at Atlantic City severely weakened black activists’ faith in the responsiveness of the political system and forecast the impending breakup of the coalition between the civil rights movement and the liberal wing of the
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Democratic Party. For the moment, however, the movement rallied behind Johnson’s campaign for reelection. Johnson’s opponent, Senator Barry Goldwa- ter of Arizona, had published The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), which sold more than 3 million copies. The book demanded a more aggressive conduct of the Cold War (he even suggested that nuclear war might be “the price of free- dom”). But Goldwater directed most of his critique against “internal” dangers to freedom, especially the New Deal welfare state, which he believed stifled indi- vidual initiative and independence. He called for the substitution of private charity for public welfare programs and Social Security, and the abolition of the graduated income tax. Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His acceptance speech at the Republican national convention contained the explosive statement, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
Stigmatized by the Democrats as an extremist who would repeal Social Security and risk nuclear war, Goldwater went down to a disastrous defeat. Johnson received almost 43 million votes to Goldwater’s 27 million. Demo- crats swept to two- to- one majorities in both houses of Congress. But although few realized it, the 1964 campaign marked a milestone in the resurgence of American conservatism. Goldwater’s success in the Deep South, where he car- ried five states, coupled with the surprisingly strong showing of segregationist governor George Wallace of Alabama in Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland, suggested that politicians could strike electoral gold by appealing to white opposition to the civil rights movement.
One indication of problems for the Democrats came in California, with the passage by popular referendum of Proposition 14, which repealed a 1963 law banning racial discrimination in the sale of real estate. Backed by the state’s realtors and developers, California conservatives made the “freedom” of home owners to control their property the rallying cry of the campaign against the fair housing law. Although Johnson carried California by more than 1 million votes, Proposition 14 received a considerable majority, winning three- fourths of the votes cast by whites.
The Conservative Sixties
The 1960s, today recalled as a decade of radicalism, clearly had a conserva- tive side as well. With the founding in 1960 of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), conservative students emerged as a force in politics. There were strik- ing parallels between the Sharon Statement, issued by ninety young people who gathered at the estate of conservative intellectual William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut, to establish YAF, and the Port Huron Statement of SDS of 1962 (discussed later in this chapter). Both manifestos portrayed youth as the cutting edge of a new radicalism, and both claimed to offer a route to greater
LYNDON JOHNSON’S PRESIDENCY ★ 995
freedom. The Sharon Statement summarized beliefs that had circulated among conservatives during the past decade— the free market underpinned “personal freedom,” government must be strictly limited, and “international commu- nism,” the gravest threat to liberty, must be destroyed.
YAF aimed initially to take control of the Republican Party from leaders who had made their peace with the New Deal and seemed willing to coexist with communism. YAF members became Barry Goldwater’s shock troops in 1964. Despite his landslide defeat in the general election, Goldwater’s nomina- tion was a remarkable triumph for a movement widely viewed as composed of fanatics out to “repeal the twentieth century.”
Goldwater also brought new constituencies to the conservative cause. His campaign aroused enthusiasm in the rapidly expanding suburbs of southern California and the Southwest. Orange County, California, many of whose resi- dents had recently arrived from the East and Midwest and worked in defense- related industries, became a nationally known center of grassroots conservative activism. The funds that poured into the Goldwater campaign from the Sun- belt’s oilmen and aerospace entrepreneurs established a new financial base for conservatism. And by carrying five states of the Deep South, Goldwater showed that the civil rights revolution had redrawn the nation’s political map, opening the door to a “southern strategy” that would eventually lead the entire region into the Republican Party.
Well before the rise of Black Power, a reaction against civil rights gains offered conservatives new opportunities and threatened the stability of the Democratic coalition. During the 1950s, many conservatives had responded favorably to south- ern whites’ condemnation of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision as an invasion of states’ rights. The National Review, an influential conservative magazine, referred to whites as “the advanced race” and defended black disen- franchisement on the grounds that “the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.” In 1962, YAF bestowed its Freedom Award on Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, one of the country’s most prominent segregation- ists. During the 1960s, most conservatives abandoned talk of racial superiority and inferiority. But conservative appeals to law and order, “freedom of association,” and the evils of welfare often had strong racial overtones. Racial divisions would prove to be a political gold mine for conservatives.
The Voting Rights Act
One last legislative triumph, however, lay ahead for the civil rights movement. In January 1965, King launched a voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, a city where only 355 of 15,000 black residents had been allowed to register to vote. In March, defying a ban by Governor Wallace, King attempted to lead a march from
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Selma to the state capital, Montgomery. When the marchers reached the bridge leading out of the city, state police assaulted them with cattle prods, whips, and tear gas.
Once again, violence against nonvi- olent demonstrators flashed across tele- vision screens throughout the world, compelling the federal government to take action. Calling Selma a milestone in “man’s unending search for freedom,” Johnson asked Congress to enact a law securing the right to vote. He closed his speech by quoting the demonstra- tors’ song, “We Shall Overcome.” Never before had the movement received so powerful an endorsement from the fed-
eral government. Congress quickly passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed federal officials to register voters. Black southerners finally regained the suffrage that had been stripped from them at the turn of the twentieth century. In addition, the Twenty- fourth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed the poll tax, which had long prevented poor blacks (and some whites) from voting in the South.
Immigration Reform
By 1965, the civil rights movement had succeeded in eradicating the legal bases of second- class citizenship. The belief that racism should no longer serve as a foundation of public policy spilled over into other realms. In 1965, the Hart- Celler Act abandoned the national- origins quota system of immigra- tion, which had excluded Asians and severely restricted southern and eastern Europeans. The law established new, racially neutral criteria for immigration, notably family reunification and possession of skills in demand in the United States. On the other hand, because of growing hostility in the Southwest to Mexican immigration, the law established the first limit, 120,000, on newcom- ers from the Western Hemisphere. This created, for the first time, the category of “illegal aliens” from the Americas. Indeed, since the act set a maximum annual immigration quota of 20,000 persons for every country in the world, it guaranteed that a large part of Mexican immigration would be unauthorized, since labor demand for Mexican immigrants in the United States far exceeded that number. Establishing the same quota for Mexico and, say, Belgium or New Zealand made no sense. The act set the quota for the rest of the world at 170,000.
A sharecropper’s shack alongside Jefferson Davis Highway, the route followed from Selma to Mont- gomery, Alabama, in 1965, by marchers demanding voting rights. The photograph, by James “Spider” Martin, who chronicled the march, suggests the deep- seated inequalities that persisted a century after the end of the Civil War.
LYNDON JOHNSON’S PRESIDENCY ★ 997
However, because of special provisions for refugees from communist countries, immigration soon exceeded these caps.
The new law had many unexpected results. At the time, immigrants rep- resented only 5 percent of the American population— the lowest proportion since the 1830s. No one anticipated that the new quotas not only would lead to an explosive rise in immigration but also would spark a dramatic shift in which newcomers from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia came to outnumber those from Europe. Taken together, the civil rights revolution and immigration reform marked the triumph of a pluralist conception of Americanism. By 1976, 85 percent of respondents to a public- opinion survey agreed with the state- ment, “The United States was meant to be . . . a country made up of many races, religions, and nationalities.”
The Great Society
After his landslide victory of 1964, Johnson outlined the most sweeping pro- posal for governmental action to promote the general welfare since the New Deal. Johnson’s initiatives of 1965–1967, known collectively as the Great Soci- ety, provided health services to the poor and elderly in the new Medicaid and Medicare programs and poured federal funds into education and urban develop- ment. New cabinet offices— the Departments of Transportation and of Housing and Urban Development— and new agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Endowments for the Humanities and for the Arts, and a national public broadcasting network, were created. These measures greatly expanded the powers of the federal government, and they completed and extended the social agenda (with the exception of national health insurance) that had been stalled in Congress since 1938.
Unlike the New Deal, however, the Great Society was a response to pros- perity, not depression. The mid- 1960s was a time of rapid economic expan- sion, fueled by increased government spending and a tax cut on individuals and businesses initially proposed by Kennedy and enacted in 1964. Johnson and Democratic liberals believed that economic growth made it possible to fund ambitious new government programs and to improve the quality of life.
The War on Poverty
The centerpiece of the Great Society, however, was the crusade to eradicate pov- erty, launched by Johnson early in 1964. After the talk of universal affluence during the 1950s, economic deprivation had been rediscovered by political leaders, thanks in part to Michael Harrington’s 1962 book The Other America. Harrington revealed that 40 to 50 million Americans lived in poverty, often in isolated rural areas or urban slums “invisible” to the middle class. The civil
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rights movement heightened the urgency of the issue, even though, as Harrington made clear, whites made up a majority of the nation’s poor.
During the 1930s, Democrats had attributed poverty to an imbalance of economic power and flawed economic institutions. In the 1960s, the admin- istration attributed it to an absence of skills and a lack of proper attitudes and work habits. Thus, the War on Poverty did not consider the most direct ways of eliminating poverty— guaranteeing an annual income for all Americans, creating jobs for the unemployed, promoting the spread of unioniza- tion, or making it more difficult for businesses to shift production to the low- wage South or overseas. Nor did it address the economic changes that were reducing the number of well- paid manufacturing jobs and leaving poor families in rural areas like Appalachia and decaying urban ghettos with little hope of economic advancement.
One of the Great Society’s most popular and successful components, food stamps, offered direct aid to the poor. But, in general, the War on Poverty con- centrated on equipping the poor with skills and rebuilding their spirit and moti- vation. The new Office of Economic Opportunity oversaw a series of initiatives designed to lift the poor into the social and economic mainstream. It provided Head Start (an early childhood education program), job training, legal services, and scholarships for poor college students. It also created VISTA, a domestic version of the Peace Corps for the inner cities. In an echo of SNCC’s philosophy of empowering ordinary individuals to take control of their lives, the War on Poverty required that poor people play a leading part in the design and imple- mentation of local policies, a recipe for continuing conflict with local political leaders accustomed to controlling the flow of federal dollars.
Freedom and Equality
Johnson defended the Great Society in a vocabulary of freedom derived from the New Deal, when his own political career began, and reinforced by the civil
F I G U R E 2 5 . 1 P E R C E N TA G E O F P O P U L AT I O N B E L O W
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During the 1960s, an expanding economy and government programs assisting the poor pro- duced a steady decrease in the percentage of Americans living in poverty.
THE CHANGING BLACK MOVEMENT ★ 999
rights movement. Soon after assuming office in 1963, he resurrected the phrase “freedom from want,” all but forgotten during the 1950s. Echoing FDR, Johnson told the 1964 Democratic convention, “The man who is hungry, who cannot find work or educate his children, who is bowed by want, that man is not fully free.” Recognizing that black poverty was fundamentally different from white, since its roots lay in “past injustice and present prejudice,” Johnson sought to redefine the relationship between freedom and equality. Economic liberty, he insisted, meant more than equal opportunity: “You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. . . . We seek . . . not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.”
Johnson’s Great Society may not have achieved equality “as a fact.” But it rep- resented the most expansive effort in the nation’s history to mobilize the powers of the national government to address the needs of the least- advantaged Ameri- cans, especially those, like blacks, largely excluded from the original New Deal entitlements such as Social Security.
Coupled with the decade’s high rate of economic growth, the War on Pov- erty succeeded in reducing the incidence of poverty from 22 percent to 13 per- cent of American families during the 1960s. It has fluctuated around the latter figure ever since. The sum spent, however, was too low to end poverty alto- gether or to transform conditions of life in poor urban neighborhoods. Today, thanks to the civil rights movement and the Great Society, the historic gap between whites and blacks in education, income, and access to skilled employ- ment has narrowed considerably. But with deindustrialization and urban decay affecting numerous families, the median wealth of white households remains ten times greater than that of blacks, and nearly a quarter of all black children still lives in poverty.
T H E C H A N G I N G B L A C K M O V E M E N T Even at its moment of triumph, the civil rights movement confronted a cri- sis as it sought to move from access to schools, public accommodations, and the voting booth to the economic divide separating blacks from other Ameri- cans. In the mid- 1960s, economic issues rose to the forefront of the civil rights agenda. Violent outbreaks in black ghettos outside the South drew attention to the national scope of racial injustice and to inequalities in jobs, education, and housing that the dismantling of legal segregation left intact. Much of the ani- mosity that came to characterize race relations arose from the belief of many whites that the legislation of 1964 and 1965 had fulfilled the nation’s obligation
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to assure blacks equality before the law, while blacks pushed for more govern- ment action, sparking charges of “reverse discrimination.”
The Ghetto Uprisings
The first riots— really, battles between angry blacks and the predominantly white police (widely seen by many ghetto residents as an occupying army)— erupted in Harlem in 1964. Far larger was the Watts uprising of 1965, which took place in the black ghetto of Los Angeles only days after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. An estimated 50,000 persons took part in this “rebellion,” attacking police and firemen, looting white- owned businesses, and burning buildings. It required 15,000 police and National Guardsmen to restore order, by which time thirty- five people lay dead, 900 were injured, and $30 million worth of property had been destroyed.
By the summer of 1967, violence had become so widespread that some feared racial civil war. Urban uprisings in that year left twenty- three dead in Newark and forty- three in Detroit, where entire blocks went up in flames and property damage ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The violence led Johnson to appoint a commission headed by Illinois governor Otto Kerner to study the causes of urban rioting. Released in 1968, the Kerner Report blamed the violence on “segregation and poverty” and offered a powerful indictment of “white racism.” It depicted a country in danger of being torn apart by racial antagonism: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white— separate and unequal.” But the report failed to offer any clear proposals for change.
With black unemployment twice that of whites and the average black family income little more than half the white norm, the movement looked for ways to “make freedom real” for black Americans. In 1964, King called for a “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged” to mobilize the nation’s resources to abolish economic deprivation. His proposal was directed against poverty in general, but King also insisted that after “doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years,” the United States had an obligation to “do some- thing special for him now”—an early call for what would come to be known as “affirmative action.” A. Philip Randolph and civil rights veteran Bayard Rustin proposed a Freedom Budget, which envisioned spending $100 billion over ten years on a federal program of job creation and urban redevelopment.
In 1966, King launched the Chicago Freedom movement, with demands quite different from its predecessors in the South— an end to discrimination by employers and unions, equal access to mortgages, the integration of public housing, and the construction of low- income housing scattered throughout the region. Confronting the entrenched power of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political
THE CHANGING BLACK MOVEMENT ★ 1001
machine and the ferocious opposition of white home owners, the movement failed. King’s tactics— marches, sit- ins, mass arrests— proved ineffective in the face of the North’s less pervasive but still powerful system of racial inequality. King’s language became more and more radical. He called for nothing less than a “revolution in values” that would create a “better distribution of wealth” for “all God’s children.”
Malcolm X
The civil rights movement’s first phase had produced a clear set of objectives, far- reaching accomplishments, and a series of coherent if sometimes compet- itive organizations. The second witnessed political fragmentation and few significant victories. Even during the heyday of the integration struggle, the fiery orator Malcolm X had insisted that blacks must control the political and economic resources of their communities and rely on their own efforts rather than working with whites. Having committed a string of crimes as a youth, Malcolm Little was converted in jail to the teachings of the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, who preached a message of white evil and black self- discipline. Malcolm dropped his “slave surname” in favor of “X,” symbolizing blacks’ sep- aration from their African ancestry. On his release from prison he became a spokesman for the Muslims and a sharp critic of the ideas of integration and nonviolence, and of King’s practice of appealing to American values. “I don’t see any American dream,” he proclaimed. “I see an American nightmare.”
On a 1964 trip to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Islam’s spiritual home, Malcolm X witnessed harmony among Muslims of all races. He now began to speak of the possibility of interracial cooperation for radical change in the United States. But when members of the Nation of Islam assassinated him in February 1965 after he had formed his own Organization of Afro- American Unity, Malcolm X left neither a consistent ideology nor a coherent movement. Most whites con- sidered him an apostle of racial violence. However, his call for blacks to rely on their own resources struck a chord among the urban poor and younger civil rights activists. His Autobiography, published in 1966, became a great best- seller. Today, streets, parks, and schools are named after him.
The Rise of Black Power
Malcolm X was the intellectual father of Black Power, a slogan that came to national attention in 1966 when SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael used it during a civil rights march in Mississippi. Black Power immediately became a rallying cry for those bitter over the federal government’s failure to stop
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violence against civil rights workers, white attempts to determine movement strategy (as at the Democratic convention of 1964), and the civil rights move- ment’s failure to have any impact on the economic problems of black ghettos.
A highly imprecise idea, Black Power suggested everything from the election of more black officials (hardly a radical notion) to the belief that black Americans were a colonized people whose freedom could be won only through a revolu- tionary struggle for self- determination. In many communities where black par- ents felt that the local public education system failed to educate their children adequately, it inspired the establishment of black- operated local schools that combined traditional learning with an emphasis on pride in African- American history and identity. But however employed, the idea reflected the radical- ization of young civil rights activists and sparked an explosion of racial self- assertion, reflected in the slogan “Black is Beautiful.” The abandonment of the word “Negro” in favor of “ Afro- American” and the popularity of black beauty pageants, African styles of dress, and the “natural,” or “Afro,” hairdo among both men and women signified much more than a change in language and fashion. They reflected a new sense of racial pride and a rejection of white norms.
Inspired by the idea of black self- determination, SNCC and CORE repudi- ated their previous interracialism, and new militant groups sprang into exis- tence. Most prominent of the new groups, in terms of publicity, if not numbers, was the Black Panther Party. Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, it became notorious for advocating armed self- defense in response to police brutality. It demanded the release of black prisoners because of racism in the criminal jus- tice system. The party’s youthful members alarmed whites by wearing military garb, although they also ran health clinics, schools, and children’s breakfast programs. But internal disputes and a campaign against the Black Panthers by police and the FBI, which left several leaders dead in shootouts, destroyed the organization.
By 1967, with the escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, the War on Poverty ground to a halt. By then, with ghetto uprisings punctuating the urban landscape, the antiwar movement assuming massive proportions, and millions of young people ostentatiously rejecting mainstream values, Ameri- can society faced its greatest crisis since the Depression.
V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T
Old and New Lefts
To most Americans, the rise of a protest movement among white youth came as a complete surprise. For most of the century, colleges had been conserva- tive institutions that drew their students from a privileged segment of the
VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT ★ 1003
population. During the 1950s, young people had been called a “silent gener- ation.” If blacks’ grievances appeared self- evident, those of white college stu- dents were difficult to understand. What persuaded large numbers of children of affluence to reject the values and institutions of their society? In part, the answer lay in a redefinition of the meaning of freedom by what came to be called the New Left.
What made the New Left new was its rejection of the intellectual and politi- cal categories that had shaped radicalism and liberalism for most of the twentieth century. It challenged not only mainstream America but also what it dismissively called the Old Left. Unlike the Communist Party, it did not take the Soviet Union as a model or see the working class as the main agent of social change. Instead of economic equality and social citizenship, the language of New Deal liberals, the New Left spoke of loneliness, isolation, and alienation, of powerlessness in the face of bureaucratic institutions and a hunger for authenticity that afflu- ence could not provide. These discontents galvanized a mass movement among what was rapidly becoming a major sector of the American population. By 1968, thanks to the coming of age of the baby- boom generation and the growing num- ber of jobs that required post– high school skills, more than 7 million students attended college, more than the number of farmers or steelworkers.
The New Left was not as new as it claimed. Its call for a democracy of citizen participation harked back to the American Revolution, and its critique of the contrast between American values and American reality, to the abolitionists. Its emphasis on authenticity in the face of conformity recalled the bohemians of the years before World War I, and its critique of consumer culture drew inspi- ration from 1950s writers on mass society. But the New Left’s greatest inspira- tion was the black freedom movement. More than any other event, the sit- ins catalyzed white student activism.
Here was the unlikely combination that created the upheaval known as the Sixties— the convergence of society’s most excluded members demand- ing full access to all its benefits, with the children of the middle class rejecting the social mainstream. The black movement and white New Left shared basic assumptions— that the evils to be corrected were deeply embedded in social institutions and that only direct confrontation could persuade Americans of the urgency of far- reaching change.
The Fading Consensus
The years 1962 and 1963 witnessed the appearance of several pathbreaking books that challenged one or another aspect of the 1950s consensus. James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time gave angry voice to the black revolution. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring exposed the environmental costs of economic growth.
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Michael Harrington’s The Other America revealed the persistence of poverty amid plenty. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, criticized urban renewal, the removal of the poor from city centers, and the destruction of neighborhoods to build highways, accommodating cities to the needs of drivers rather than pedestrians. What made cities alive, she insisted, was den- sity and diversity, the social interaction of people of different backgrounds encountering each other on urban streets.
Yet in some ways the most influential critique of all arose in 1962 from Stu- dents for a Democratic Society (SDS), an offshoot of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy. Meeting at Port Huron, Michigan, some sixty college stu- dents adopted a document that captured the mood and summarized the beliefs of this generation of student protesters.
The Port Huron Statement devoted four- fifths of its text to criticism of institutions ranging from political parties to corporations, unions, and the military- industrial complex. But what made the document the guiding spirit of a new radicalism was the remainder, which offered a new vision of social change. “We seek the establishment,” it proclaimed, of “a democracy of indi- vidual participation, [in which] the individual shares in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life.” Freedom, for the New Left,
Members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in a University of Delaware yearbook photo. Despite their raised fists, they appear eminently respectable compared to radicals who emerged later in the decade. The group is entirely white.
VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT ★ 1005
meant “participatory democracy.” Although rarely defined with precision, this became a standard by which students judged existing social arrangements— workplaces, schools, government— and found them wanting.
The Rise of SDS
By the end of 1962, SDS had grown to 8,000 members. Then, in 1964, events at the University of California at Berkeley revealed the possibility for a far broader mobilization of students in the name of participatory democracy. A Cold War “multi versity,” Berkeley was an immense, impersonal institution where enrollments in many classes approached 1,000 students. The spark that set student protests alight was a new rule prohibiting political groups from using a central area of the campus to spread their ideas. Students— including con- servatives outraged at being barred from distributing their own literature— responded by creating the Free Speech movement. Freedom of expression, declared Mario Savio, a student leader, “represents the very dignity of what a human being is. . . . That’s what marks us off from the stones and the stars. You can speak freely.” Likening the university to a factory, Savio called on students to “throw our body against the machines.”
Thousands of Berkeley students became involved in the protests in the months that followed. Their program moved from demanding a repeal of the new rule to a critique of the entire structure of the university and of an edu- cation geared toward preparing graduates for corporate jobs. When the uni- versity gave in on the speech ban early in 1965, one activist exulted that the students had succeeded in reversing “the world- wide drift from freedom.”
America and Vietnam
By 1965 the black movement and the emergence of the New Left had shat- tered the climate of consensus of the 1950s. But what transformed protest into a full- fledged generational rebellion was the war in Vietnam. The war tragi- cally revealed the danger that Walter Lippmann had warned of at the outset of the Cold War— viewing the entire world and every local situation within it through the either- or lens of an anticommunist crusade. A Vietnam special- ist in the State Department who attended a policy meeting in August 1963 later recalled “the abysmal ignorance around the table of the particular facts of Vietnam. . . . They made absolutely no distinctions between countries with completely different historical experiences. . . . They [believed] that we could manipulate other states and build nations; that we knew all the answers.”
Few Americans had any knowledge of Vietnam’s history and culture. View- ing Asia through the lens of Cold War geopolitics, successive administrations
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reduced a complex struggle for national independence, led by homegrown com- munists who enjoyed widespread support throughout their country in addition to Soviet backing, to a test of “containment.” As noted in the previous chapter, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations cast their lot with French colonial- ism in the region. After the French defeat, they financed the creation of a pro- American South Vietnamese government, in violation of the Geneva Accords of 1954 that had promised elections to unify Vietnam. By the 1960s, the United States was committed to the survival of this corrupt regime.
Fear that voters would not forgive them for “losing” Vietnam made it impossible for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to remove the United States from an increasingly untenable situation. Kennedy’s foreign policy advisers saw Vietnam as a test of whether the United States could, through “counterinsurgency”— intervention to counter internal uprisings in noncom- munist countries— halt the spread of Third World revolutions. Despite the dispatch of increased American aid and numerous military advisers, South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem lost control of the countryside to the communist- led Viet Cong. Diem resisted American advice to broaden his gov- ernment’s base of support. In October 1963, after large Buddhist demonstra- tions against his regime, the United States approved a military coup that led to Diem’s death. When Kennedy was assassinated the following month, there were 17,000 American military advisers in South Vietnam. Shortly before his death, according to the notes of a White House meeting, Kennedy questioned “the wisdom of involvement in Vietnam.” But he took no action to end the American presence.
Lyndon Johnson’s War
Lyndon B. Johnson came to the presidency with little experience in foreign rela- tions. Johnson had misgivings about sending American troops to Vietnam. But he was an adept politician and knew that Republicans had used the “loss” of China as a weapon against Truman. “I am not going to be the president,” he vowed, “who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.”
In August 1964, North Vietnamese vessels encountered an American ship on a spy mission off its coast. When North Vietnamese patrol boats fired on the American vessel, Johnson proclaimed that the United States was a victim of “aggression.” In response, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, authorizing the president to take “all necessary measures to repel armed attack” in Vietnam. Only two members— Senators Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon— voted against giving Johnson this blank check. The nearest the United States ever came to a formal declaration of war, the resolu- tion passed without any discussion of American goals and strategy in Vietnam.
VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT ★ 1007
During the 1964 campaign, Johnson insisted that he had no intention of sending American troops to Vietnam. But immediately after Johnson’s reelec- tion, the National Security Council recommended that the United States begin air strikes against North Vietnam and introduce American ground troops in the south. When the Viet Cong in February 1965 attacked an American air base in South Vietnam, Johnson put the plan into effect. At almost the same time, he intervened in the Dominican Republic. Here, military leaders in 1963 had over- thrown the left- wing but noncommunist Juan Bosch, the country’s first elected president since 1924. In April 1965, another group of military men attempted
How did the Vietnam War transform American politics and culture?
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Candidate Electoral Vote
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A war of aerial bombing and small guerrilla skirmishes rather than fixed land battles, at the time it was fought, Vietnam was among the longest wars in American history and the only one the United States has lost.
1008 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
to restore Bosch to power but were defeated by the ruling junta. Fearing the unrest would lead to “another Cuba,” Johnson dispatched 22,000 American troops. The intervention outraged many Latin Americans. But the operation’s success seemed to bolster Johnson’s determination in Vietnam.
By 1968, the number of American troops in Vietnam exceeded half a mil- lion, and the conduct of the war had become more and more brutal. The North Vietnamese mistreated American prisoners of war held in a camp known sardonically by the inmates as the Hanoi Hilton. (One prisoner of war, John McCain, who spent six years there, courageously refused to be exchanged unless his companions were freed with him. McCain later became a senator from Arizona and the Republican candidate for president in 2008.) American planes dropped more tons of bombs on the small countries of North and South Vietnam than both sides used in all of World War II. They spread chemicals that destroyed forests to deprive the Viet Cong of hiding places and dropped incendiary bombs filled with napalm, a gelatinous form of gasoline that clings to the skin of anyone exposed to it as it burns. The army pursued Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in “search and destroy” missions that often did not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Weekly reports of enemy losses or “body counts” became a fixation of the administration. But the United States could not break its opponents’ ability to fight or make the South Vietnamese government any more able to survive on its own.
The Antiwar Movement
As casualties mounted and American bombs poured down on North and South Vietnam, the Cold War foreign policy consensus began to unravel. By 1968, the war had sidetracked much of the Great Society and had torn families, uni- versities, and the Democratic Party apart. With the entire political leadership, liberal no less than conservative, committed to the war for most of the 1960s, young activists lost all confidence in “the system.”
Opposition to the war became the organizing theme that united people with all kinds of doubts and discontents. “We recoil with horror,” said a SNCC position paper, “at the inconsistency of a supposedly ‘free’ society where responsibility to freedom is equated with the responsibility to lend oneself to military aggression.” With college students exempted from the draft, the bur- den of fighting fell on the working class and the poor. In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. condemned the administration’s Vietnam policy as an unconscionable use of violence and for draining resources from needs at home. At this point, King was the most prominent American to speak out against the war.
As for SDS, the war seemed the opposite of participatory democracy, since American involvement had come through secret commitments and decisions
VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT ★ 1009
made by political elites, with no real public debate. In April 1965, SDS invited opponents of American policy in Vietnam to assemble in Washington, D.C. The turnout of 25,000 amazed the organizers, offering the first hint that the anti- war movement would soon enjoy a mass constituency. At the next antiwar rally, in November 1965, SDS leader Carl Ogelsby openly challenged the foun- dations of Cold War thinking. He linked Vietnam to a critique of American interventions in Guatemala and Iran, support for South African apartheid, and Johnson’s dispatch of troops to the Dominican Republic, all rooted in obsessive anticommunism. Some might feel, Ogelsby concluded, “that I sound mighty anti- American. To these, I say: ‘Don’t blame me for that! Blame those who mouthed my liberal values and broke my American heart.’” The speech, observed one reporter, marked a “declaration of independence” for the New Left.
By 1967, young men were burning their draft cards or fleeing to Canada to avoid fighting in what they considered an unjust war. In October of that year, 100,000 antiwar protesters assembled at the Lincoln Memorial in Wash- ington, D.C. Many marched across the Potomac River to the Pentagon, where photographers captured them placing flowers in the rifle barrels of soldiers guarding the nerve center of the American military.
The Counterculture
The New Left’s definition of freedom initially centered on participatory democracy, a political concept. But as the 1960s progressed, young Americans’ understanding of freedom increasingly expanded to include cultural freedom as well. Although many streams flowed into the generational rebellion known as the counterculture, the youth revolt was inconceivable without the war’s destruction of young Americans’ belief in authority. By the late 1960s, mil- lions of young people openly rejected the values and behavior of their elders. Their ranks included not only college students but also numerous young workers, even though most unions strongly opposed antiwar demonstrations and countercultural displays (a reaction that further separated young radi- cals from former allies on the traditional left). For the first time in American history, the flamboyant rejection of respectable norms in clothing, language, sexual behavior, and drug use, previously confined to artists and bohemians, became the basis of a mass movement. Its rallying cry was “liberation.”
Here was John Winthrop’s nightmare of three centuries earlier come to pass— a massive redefinition of freedom as a rejection of all authority. “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,” Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A- Changin’” bluntly informed mainstream America. To be sure, the counterculture in some ways represented not rebellion but the ful- fillment of the consumer marketplace. It extended into every realm of life the
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V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
From Barry Goldwater, Speech at Republican National Convention (1964)
In his speech accepting the Republican nom ination for president in 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona outlined a political vision rooted in the conservatism of the Southwest and California. Charged with being an extremist, Goldwater responded, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” an explosive statement that enabled President Lyndon Johnson to portray him as a dangerous radical.
My fellow Americans, the tide has been running against freedom. Our people have followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to proven ways— not because they are old, but because they are true. We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom— freedom made orderly for this Nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature’s God; freedom— balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the slavery of the prison cell; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle.
Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom’s model in a searching world. We can be freedom’s missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom’s mission in our own hearts and in our own homes. . . .
Tonight there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimless- ness among our youth, anxiety among our elders and there is a virtual despair among the many who look beyond material success for the inner meaning of their lives. . . .
We Republicans seek a government that attends to its inherent responsibilities of maintaining a stable monetary and fiscal climate, encouraging a free and a competitive economy and enforcing law and order. . . .
Our towns and our cities, then our counties, then our states, then our regional con- tacts and only then, the national government. That, let me remind you, is the ladder of liberty, built by decentralized power. On it also we must have balance between the branches of government at every level. . . .
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
From Statement of Purpose, National Organization for Women (1966)
Founded in 1966, the National Organization for Women gave voice to the move- ment for equality for women known as the “second wave” of feminism. Written by
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 1011
Betty Friedan, and adopted at the group’s organizing meeting in Washington, D.C., the statement of purpose outlined a wide range of areas, public and private, where women continued to be denied full freedom.
The time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the worldwide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders.
The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men. . . .
We organize to initiate or support action, nationally, or in any part of this nation, by individuals or organizations, to break through the silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women in government, industry, and professions, the churches, the political parties, the judiciary, the labor unions, in education, science, medicine, law, religion and every other field of importance in American society. . . .
The actual position of women in the United States has declined, and is declining, to an alarming degree throughout the 1950’s and ’60s. . . . Working women are becom- ing increasingly— not less— concentrated on the bottom of the job ladder. . . . Today, women earn only one in three of the B.A.’s and M.A.’s granted, and one in ten of the Ph.D.’s. In all the professions considered of importance to society, and in the executive ranks of industry and government, women are losing ground. Where they are present it is only a token handful. Women comprise less than 1% of federal judges; less than 4% of all lawyers; 7% of doctors. . . .
We do not accept the traditional assumption that a woman has to choose between marriage and motherhood, on the one hand, and serious participation in industry or the professions on the other. . . . True equality of opportunity and freedom of choice for women requires such practical, and possible innovations as a nationwide network of child- care centers, which will make it unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown. . . .
We believe that a true partnership between the sexes demands a differ- ent concept of marriage and equitable sharing of the responsibilities of home and children and of the economic bur- dens of their support. We believe that proper recognition should be given to the economic and social value of homemaking and childcare. . . .
QUESTIONS
1. Why does Goldwater stress the interconnec- tion of order and liberty?
2. What social changes does NOW believe necessary to enable women to enjoy equal- ity and freedom?
3. How do the two documents differ in assess- ing the dangers to American freedom?
1012 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
definition of freedom as the right to individual choice. Given the purchasing power of students and young adults, countercultural emblems— colorful clothing, rock music, images of sexual freedom, even symbols of black revo- lution and Native American resistance— were soon being mass- marketed as fashions of the day. Self- indulgence and self- destructive behavior were built into the counterculture. To followers of Timothy Leary, the Harvard scientist turned prophet of mind- expansion, the psychedelic drug LSD embodied a new freedom—“the freedom to expand your own consciousness.” In 1967, Leary organized a Human Be- In in San Francisco, where he urged a crowd of 20,000 to “turn on, tune in, drop out.”
Personal Liberation and the Free Individual
But there was far more to the counterculture than new consumer styles or the famed trio of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. To young dissenters, personal liberation represented a spirit of creative experimentation, a search for a way of life in which friendship and pleasure eclipsed the single- minded pursuit of wealth. It meant a release from bureaucratized education and work, repressive rules of personal behavior, and, above all, a militarized state that, in the name of freedom, rained destruction on a faraway people. It also encouraged new
Timothy Leary, promoter of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, at the Human Be- In in San Francisco in 1967.
VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT ★ 1013
forms of radical action. “Underground” newspapers pioneered a personal and politically committed style of journalism. The Youth International Party, or “yippies,” introduced humor and theatricality as elements of protest. From the visitors’ gallery of the New York Stock Exchange, yippie founder Abbie Hoff- man showered dollar bills onto the floor, bringing trading to a halt as brokers scrambled to retrieve the money.
The counterculture emphasized the ideal of community, establishing quasi- independent neighborhoods in New York City’s East Village and San Francis- co’s Haight- Ashbury district and, in an echo of nineteenth- century utopian communities like New Harmony, some 2,000 communes nationwide. Rock fes- tivals, like Woodstock in upstate New York in 1969, brought together hundreds of thousands of young people to celebrate their alternative lifestyle and inde- pendence from adult authority. The opening song at Woodstock, performed by Richie Havens, began with eight repetitions of the single word “freedom.”
Faith and the Counterculture
Religious conviction, as has been noted, helped to inspire the civil rights move- ment. A different religious development, the sweeping reforms initiated in Roman Catholic practice (such as the delivery of the Mass in local languages, not Latin) by the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965, led many priests, nuns, and lay Catholics to become involved in social justice movements. This pro- duced a growing split in the church between liberals and conservatives. “Liber- ation theology,” a movement that swept across parts of Latin America in which priests helped to mobilize rural peasants to combat economic inequality, also reverberated among some Catholics in the United States. Many members of the New Left were motivated by a quest for a new sense of brotherhood and social responsibility, which often sprang from Christian roots. Like adherents of the Social Gospel of the late nineteenth century, many young people came to see a commitment to social change as a fulfillment of Christian values.
The quest for personal authenticity, a feature of the counterculture, led to a flowering of religious and spiritual creativity and experimentation. The Jesus People (called by their detractors Jesus Freaks) saw the hippy lifestyle, with its long hair, unconventional attire, and quest for universal love, as an authentic expression of the outlook of the early church. The Sixties also witnessed a bur- geoning interest in eastern religions. The Beats of the 1950s had been attracted to Buddhism as a religion that rejected violence and materialism— the antithe- sis of what they saw as key features of American society. Now, practices derived from Hinduism like yoga and meditation became popular with members of the counterculture and even in the suburban mainstream as a way of promoting spiritual and physical well- being. Some Americans traveled to Tibet and India to seek spiritual guidance from “gurus” (religious teachers) there.
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More sinister was the emergence of religious cults based on single- minded devotion to a charismatic leader. The one with the most tragic outcome was the People’s Temple, founded by Jim Jones, whose religious outlook combined intense spiritual commitment with strong criticism of racism. He attracted a racially mixed community of devout followers, whom he led from Indianapo- lis to San Francisco and finally to Guyana. There, in 1978 over 900 men, women, and children perished in a mass suicide/murder ordered by Jones.
T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N The civil rights revolution, soon followed by the rise of the New Left, inspired other Americans to voice their grievances and claim their rights. Many bor- rowed the confrontational tactics of the black movement and activist students, adopting their language of “power” and “liberation” and their rejection of tradi- tional organizations and approaches. By the late 1960s, new social movements dotted the political landscape.
The counterculture’s notion of liberation centered on the free individual. Nowhere was this more evident than in the place occupied by sexual freedom in the generational rebellion. Starting in 1960, the mass marketing of birth- control pills made possible what “free lovers” had long demanded— the sepa- ration of sex from procreation. By the late 1960s, sexual freedom had become as much an element of the youth rebellion as long hair and drugs. Rock music celebrated the free expression of sexuality. The musical Hair, which gave voice to the youth rebellion, flaunted nudity on Broadway. The sexual revolution was central to another mass movement that emerged in the 1960 s— the “second wave” of feminism.
The Feminine Mystique
The achievement of the vote had not seemed to affect women’s lack of power and opportunity. When the 1960s began, only a handful of women held polit- ical office, newspapers divided job ads into “male” and “female” sections, with the latter limited to low- wage clerical positions, and major universities limited the number of female students they accepted. In many states, husbands still controlled their wives’ earnings. As late as 1970, the Ohio Supreme Court held that a wife was “at most a superior servant to her husband,” without “legally recognized feelings or rights.”
During the 1950s, some commentators had worried that the country was wasting its “woman power,” a potential weapon in the Cold War. But the public
THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 1015
reawakening of feminist consciousness did not get its start until the publi- cation in 1963 of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Friedan had written pioneering articles during the 1940s on pay discrimination against women workers and racism in the workplace for the newspaper of the United Electri- cal Workers’ union. But, like other social critics, she now took as her themes the emptiness of consumer culture and the discontents of the middle class. Her opening chapter, “The Problem That Has No Name,” painted a devastating pic- ture of talented, educated women trapped in a world that viewed marriage and motherhood as their primary goals. Somehow, after more than a century of agi- tation for access to the public sphere, women’s lives still centered on the home. In Moscow in 1959, Richard Nixon had made the suburban home an emblem of American freedom. For Friedan, invoking the era’s most powerful symbol of evil, it was a “comfortable concentration camp.”
Few books have had the impact of The Feminine Mystique. Friedan was del- uged by desperate letters from female readers relating how the suburban dream had become a nightmare. “Freedom,” wrote an Atlanta woman, “was a word I had always taken for granted. [I now realized that] I had voluntarily enslaved myself.” To be sure, a few of Friedan’s correspondents insisted that for a woman to create “a comfortable, happy home for her family” was “what God intended.” But the immediate result of The Feminine Mystique was to focus attention on yet another gap between American rhetoric and American reality.
The law slowly began to address feminist concerns. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, barring sex discrimination among holders of the same jobs. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as noted earlier, prohibited inequalities based on sex as well as race. Deluged with complaints of discrimination by working women, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission established by the law became a major force in breaking down barriers to female employment. The year 1966 saw the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW), with Friedan as president. Modeled on civil rights organizations, it demanded equal opportunity in jobs, education, and political participation and attacked the “false image of women” spread by the mass media.
Women’s Liberation
If NOW grew out of a resurgence of middle- class feminism, a different female revolt was brewing within the civil rights and student movements. As in the days of abolitionism, young women who had embraced an ideology of social equality and personal freedom and learned methods of political organizing encountered inequality and sexual exploitation. Women like Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer had played major roles in grassroots civil rights organiz- ing. But many women in the movement found themselves relegated to typing,
What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s?
1016 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
cooking, and cleaning for male cowork- ers. Some were pressured to engage in sexual liaisons. Echoing the words of Abby Kelley a century earlier, a group of female SNCC activists concluded in a 1965 memorandum that “there seem to be many parallels that can be drawn between the treatment of Negroes and the treatment of women in our society as a whole.” What bothered them most was the status of women within the movement, where assumptions of male supremacy seemed as deeply rooted as in society at large.
The same complaints arose in SDS. “The Movement is supposed to be for human liberation,” wrote one stu- dent leader. “How come the condition of women inside it is no better than outside?” The rapidly growing num- ber of women in college provided a ready- made constituency for the
new feminism. By 1967, women throughout the country were establishing “ consciousness- raising” groups to discuss the sources of their discontent. The time, many concluded, had come to establish a movement of their own, more radical than NOW. The new feminism burst onto the national scene at the Miss America beauty pageant of 1968, when protesters filled a “freedom trash can” with objects of “oppression”—girdles, brassieres, high- heeled shoes, and copies of Playboy and Cosmopolitan. (Contrary to legend, they did not set the contents on fire, which would have been highly dangerous on the wooden boardwalk. But the media quickly invented a new label for radical women—“bra burners.”) Inside the hall, demonstrators unfurled banners carrying the slogans “Freedom for Women” and “Women’s Liberation.”
Personal Freedom
The women’s liberation movement inspired a major expansion of the idea of freedom by insisting that it should be applied to the most intimate realms of life. Introducing the terms “sexism” and “sexual politics” and the phrase “the personal is political” into public debate, it insisted that sexual relations, condi- tions of marriage, and standards of beauty were as much “political” questions
In 1967, in a celebrated incident arising from the new feminism, a race official tried to eject Kathrine Switzer from the Boston Marathon, only to be pushed aside by other runners. Consid- ered too fragile for the marathon (whose course covers more than twenty- six miles), women were prohibited from running. Switzer completed the race, and today hundreds of thousands of women around the world compete in marathons each year.
THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 1017
as the war, civil rights, and the class tensions that had traditionally inspired the left to action. The idea that family life is not off- limits to considerations of power and justice repudiated the family- oriented public culture of the 1950s, and it permanently changed Americans’ definition of freedom.
Radical feminists’ first public campaign demanded the repeal of state laws that underscored women’s lack of self- determination by banning abortions or leaving it up to physicians to decide whether a pregnancy could be termi- nated. Without the right to control her own reproduction, wrote one activist, “woman’s other ‘freedoms’ are tantalizing mockeries that cannot be exercised.” In 1969, a group of feminists disrupted legislative hearings on New York’s law banning abortions, where the experts scheduled to testify consisted of fourteen men and a Roman Catholic nun.
The call for legalized abortions merged the nineteenth- century demand that a woman control her own body with the Sixties emphasis on sexual free- dom. But the concerns of women’s liberation went far beyond sexuality. Sister- hood Is Powerful, an influential collection of essays, manifestos, and personal accounts published in 1970, touched on a remarkable array of issues, from violence against women to inequalities in the law, churches, workplaces, and family life. By this time, feminist ideas had entered the mainstream. In 1962, a poll showed that two- thirds of American women did not feel themselves to be victims of discrimination. By 1974, two- thirds did.
Gay Liberation
In a decade full of surprises, perhaps the greatest of all was the emergence of the movement for gay liberation. Efforts of one kind or another for greater rights for racial minorities and women had a long history. Homosexuals, wrote Harry Hay, who in 1951 founded the Mattachine Society, the first gay rights organi- zation, were “the one group of disadvantaged people who didn’t even think of themselves as a group.” Gay men and lesbians had long been stigmatized as sinful or mentally disordered. Most states made homosexual acts illegal, and police regularly harassed the gay subcultures that existed in major cities like San Francisco and New York. McCarthyism, which viewed homosexuality as a source of national weakness, made the discrimination to which gays were subjected even worse. Although homosexuals had achieved considerable suc- cess in the arts and fashion, most kept their sexual orientation secret, or “in the closet.”
The Mattachine Society had worked to persuade the public that apart from their sexual orientation, gays were average Americans who ought not to be persecuted. But as with other groups, the Sixties transformed the gay move- ment. If one moment marked the advent of “gay liberation,” it was a 1969
What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s?
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police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village, a gath- ering place for homosexuals. Rather than bowing to police harassment, as in the past, gays fought back. Five days of rioting followed, and a militant move- ment was born. Gay men and lesbians stepped out of the “closet” to insist that sexual orientation is a matter of rights, power, and identity. Prejudice against homosexuals persisted. But within a few years, “gay pride” marches were being held in numerous cities.
Latino Activism
As in the case of blacks, a movement for legal rights had long flourished among Mexican- Americans. But the mid- 1960s saw the flowering of a new militancy challenging the group’s second- class economic status. Like Black Power advocates, the movement empha-
sized pride in both the Mexican past and the new Chicano culture that had arisen in the United States. Unlike the Black Power movement and SDS, it was closely linked to labor struggles. Beginning in 1965, César Chavez, the son of migrant farm workers and a disciple of King, led a series of nonviolent protests, including marches, fasts, and a national boycott of California grapes, to pres- sure growers to agree to labor contracts with the United Farm Workers union (UFW). The UFW was as much a mass movement for civil rights as a campaign for economic betterment. The boycott mobilized Latino communities through- out the Southwest and drew national attention to the pitifully low wages and oppressive working conditions of migrant laborers. In 1970, the major growers agreed to contracts with the UFW.
In New York City, the Young Lords Organization, modeled on the Black Panthers, staged street demonstrations to protest the high unemployment rate among the city’s Puerto Ricans and the lack of city services in Latino neigh- borhoods. (In one protest, they dumped garbage on city streets to draw atten- tion to the city’s failure to collect refuse in poor areas.) Like SNCC and SDS, the Latino movement gave rise to feminist dissent. Many Chicano and Puerto
A 1970 poster urging male and female homosex- uals to join the Gay Liberation Front, one of the numerous movements that sprang to life in the late 1960s.
THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 1019
A scene in Denver in the mid- 1960s. Rodolfo Corky Gonzáles, center, a former professional boxer who headed the city’s War on Poverty program, greets demonstrators whose sign jux- taposes Latino inequality with Mexican- American service in the army in Vietnam.
Rican men regarded feminist demands as incompatible with the Latino heri- tage of machismo (an exaggerated sense of manliness, including the right to dominate women). Young female activ- ists, however, viewed the sexual double standard and the inequality of women as incompatible with freedom for all members of la raza (the race, or people).
Red Power
The 1960s also witnessed an upsurge of Indian militancy. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations had sought to dismantle the reservation system and integrate Indians into the American mainstream— a policy known as “termination,” since it meant ending recogni- tion of the remaining elements of Indian sovereignty. Many Indian leaders pro- tested vigorously against this policy, and it was abandoned by President Kennedy. Johnson’s War on Poverty channeled increased federal funds to reservations. But like other minority groups, Indian activists compared their own status to that of underdeveloped countries overseas. They demanded not simply economic aid but self- determination, like the emerging nations of the Third World. Using lan- guage typical of the late 1960s, Clyde Warrior, president of the National Indian Youth Council, declared, “We are not free in the most basic sense of the word. We are not allowed to make those basic human choices about our personal life and the destiny of our communities.”
Founded in 1968, the American Indian movement staged protests demanding greater tribal self- government and the restoration of economic resources guaranteed in treaties. In 1969, a group calling itself “Indians of All Tribes” occupied (or from their point of view, re- occupied) Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, claiming that it had been illegally seized from its original inhabitants. The protest, which lasted into 1971, launched the Red Power movement. In the years that followed, many Indian tribes would win greater control over education and economic development on the reservations. Indian activists would bring land claims suits, demanding and receiving monetary set- tlements for past dispossession. As a result of a rising sense of self- respect, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Indians doubled between 1970 and 1990.
What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s?
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Silent Spring
Liberation movements among racial minorities, women, and gays challenged long- standing social inequalities. Another movement, environmentalism, called into question different pillars of American life— the equation of progress with endless increases in consumption and the faith that science, technology, and economic growth would advance the social welfare. Concern for preserv- ing the natural environment dated back to the creation of national parks and other conservation efforts during the Progressive era. But in keeping with the spirit of the Sixties, the new environmentalism was more activist and youth- oriented, and it spoke the language of empowering citizens to participate in decisions that affected their lives. Its emergence reflected the very affluence cel- ebrated by proponents of the American Way. As the “quality of life”—including physical fitness, health, and opportunities to enjoy leisure activities— occupied a greater role in the lives of middle- class Americans, the environmental con- sequences of economic growth received increased attention. When the 1960s began, complaints were already being heard about the bulldozing of forests for suburban development and the contamination produced by laundry deter- gents and chemical lawn fertilizers seeping into drinking supplies.
The publication in 1962 of Silent Spring by the marine biologist Rachel Carson brought home to millions of readers the effects of DDT, an insecticide widely used by home owners and farmers against mosquitoes, gypsy moths, and other insects. In chilling detail, Carson related how DDT killed birds and animals and caused sickness among humans. Chemical and pesticide compa- nies launched a campaign to discredit her— some critics called the book part of a communist plot. Time magazine even condemned Carson as “hysterical” and “emotional”—words typically used by men to discredit women.
The New Environmentalism
Carson’s work launched the modern environmental movement. The Sierra Club, founded in the 1890s to preserve forests, saw its membership more than triple, and other groups sprang into existence to alert the country to the dangers of water contamination, air pollution, lead in paint, and the extinction of animal species. Nearly every state quickly banned the use of DDT. In 1969, television brought home to a national audience the death of birds and fish and the despoil- ing of beaches caused by a major oil spill off the coast of California, exposing the environmental dangers of oil transportation and ocean drilling for oil.
The postwar economic boom, with its seemingly limitless demand for resources like land, energy, and building materials, placed enormous stress on the natural environment. As highways and suburbs paved over the landscape,
THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 1021
more and more Americans became committed to the survival of places of nat- ural beauty.
Despite vigorous opposition from business groups that considered its pro- posals a violation of property rights, environmentalism attracted the broad- est bipartisan support of any of the new social movements. Under Republican president Richard Nixon, Congress during the late 1960s and early 1970s passed a series of measures to protect the environment, including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the Endangered Species Act. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, some 20 million people, most of them under the age of thirty, participated in rallies, concerts, and teach- ins.
Closely related to environmentalism was the consumer movement, spearheaded by the lawyer Ralph Nader. His book Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) exposed how auto manufacturers produced highly dangerous vehicles. Gen- eral Motors, whose Chevrolet Corvair Nader singled out for its tendency to roll over in certain driving situations, hired private investigators to discredit him. When their campaign was exposed, General Motors paid Nader a handsome settlement, which he used to fund investigations of other dangerous products and of misleading advertising.
Nader’s campaigns laid the groundwork for the numerous new consumer protection laws and regulations of the 1970s. Unlike 1960s movements that emphasized personal liberation, environmentalism and the consumer move- ment called for limiting some kinds of freedom— especially the right to use pri- vate property in any way the owner desired— in the name of a greater common good.
The Rights Revolution
It is one of the more striking ironies of the 1960s that although the “rights rev- olution” began in the streets, it achieved constitutional legitimacy through the Supreme Court, historically the most conservative branch of government. Under the guidance of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court vastly expanded the rights enjoyed by all Americans and placed them beyond the reach of legisla- tive and local majorities.
As noted in Chapter 21, the Court’s emergence as a vigorous guardian of civil liberties had been foreshadowed in 1937, when it abandoned its commit- ment to freedom of contract while declaring that the right of free expression deserved added protection. The McCarthy era halted progress toward a broader conception of civil liberties. It resumed on June 17, 1957, known as “Red Mon- day” by conservatives, when the Court moved to rein in the anticommunist crusade. The justices overturned convictions of individuals for advocating the overthrow of the government, failing to answer questions before the House
What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s?
1022 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
Un- American Activities Committee, and refusing to disclose their political beliefs to state officials. The govern- ment, Warren declared, could prosecute illegal actions, but not “unorthodoxy or dissent.” By the time Warren retired in 1969, the Court had reaffirmed the right of even the most unpopular view- points to First Amendment protection and had dismantled the Cold War loy- alty security system.
Civil liberties had gained strength in the 1930s because of association with the rights of labor; in the 1950s and 1960s, they became intertwined with
civil rights. Beginning with NAACP v. Alabama in 1958, the Court struck down southern laws that sought to destroy civil rights organizations by forcing them to make public their membership lists. In addition, in the landmark ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), it overturned a libel judgment by an Alabama jury against the nation’s leading newspaper for carrying an advertisement crit- ical of how local officials treated civil rights demonstrators. The “central mean- ing of the First Amendment,” the justices declared, lay in the right of citizens to criticize their government. For good measure, they declared the Sedition Act of 1798 unconstitutional over a century and a half after it had expired. Before the 1960s, few Supreme Court cases had dealt with newspaper publishing. Sullivan created the modern constitutional law of freedom of the press.
The Court in the 1960s continued the push toward racial equality, over- turning numerous local Jim Crow laws. In Loving v. Virginia (1967), it declared unconstitutional the laws still on the books in sixteen states that prohibited interracial marriage. This aptly named case arose from the interracial marriage of Richard and Mildred Loving. Barred by Virginia law from marrying, they did so in Washington, D.C., and later returned to their home state. Two weeks after their arrival, the local sheriff entered their home in the middle of the night, roused the couple from bed, and arrested them. The Lovings were sentenced to five years in prison, although the judge gave them the option of leaving Vir- ginia instead. They departed for Washington, but five years later, wishing to return, they sued in federal court, claiming that their rights had been violated. In 1968, in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., the Court forbade discrimination in the rental or sale of housing. Eliminating “badges of slavery,” such as unequal access to housing, the ruling suggested, was essential to fulfilling at long last the promise of emancipation.
Richard and Mildred Loving with their children in a 1965 photograph by Grey Villet. Their desire to live in Virginia as man and wife led to a Supreme Court decision declaring unconstitutional state laws that barred interracial marriages.
THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION ★ 1023
Policing the States
The Court simultaneously pushed forward the process of imposing upon the states the obligation to respect the liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights. It required states to abide by protections against illegal search and seizure, the right of a defendant to a speedy trial, the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and the right of poor persons accused of a crime to receive coun- sel from publicly supplied attorneys. Among the most important of these decisions was the 5-4 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona (1966). This held that an individual in police custody must be informed of the rights to remain silent and to confer with a lawyer before answering questions and must be told that any statements might be used in court. The decision made “Miranda warnings” standard police practice.
The Court also assumed the power to oversee the fairness of democratic pro- cedures at the state and local levels. Baker v. Carr (1962) established the principle that districts electing members of state legislatures must be equal in popula- tion. This “one man, one vote” principle overturned apportionment systems in numerous states that had allowed individuals in sparsely inhabited rural areas to enjoy the same representation as residents of populous city districts.
The justices also moved to reinforce the “wall of separation” between church and state. In 1961, they unanimously declared unconstitutional a clause in Maryland’s constitution requiring that public officials declare their belief “in the existence of God.” In the following year, in Engel v. Vitale, they decreed that prayers and Bible readings in public schools also violated the First Amendment. President Kennedy pointed out that Americans remained per- fectly free to pray at home or in church, but these rulings proved to be the most unpopular of all the Warren Court’s decisions. Polls showed that 80 percent of Americans favored allowing prayer in public schools.
The Right to Privacy
The Warren Court not only expanded existing liberties but also outlined entirely new rights in response to the rapidly changing contours of American society. Most dramatic was its assertion of a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Con- necticut (1965), which overturned a state law prohibiting the use of contracep- tives. Justice William O. Douglas, who wrote the decision, had once declared, “The right to be let alone is the beginning of all freedom.” Apart from decisions of the 1920s that affirmed the right to marry and raise children without gov- ernment interference, however, few legal precedents existed regarding privacy. The Constitution does not mention the word. Nonetheless, Douglas argued that a constitutionally protected “zone of privacy” within marriage could be inferred from the “penumbras” (shadows) of the Bill of Rights.
What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s?
1024 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
Griswold linked privacy to the sanctity of marriage. But the Court soon transformed it into a right of individuals. It extended access to birth control to unmarried adults and ultimately to minors— an admission by the Court that law could not reverse the sexual revolution. These decisions led directly to the most controversial decision that built on the rulings of the Warren Court (even though it occurred in 1973, four years after Warren’s retirement). This was Roe v. Wade, which created a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. The Court declared access to abortion a fundamental freedom protected by the Constitution, a fulfillment of radical feminists’ earliest demand. Roe provoked vigorous opposition, which has continued to this day. Only two states banned contraception when Griswold was decided; Roe invalidated the laws of no fewer than forty- six.
Griswold and Roe unleashed a flood of rulings and laws that seemed to accept the feminist view of the family as a collection of sovereign individu- als rather than a unit with a single head. The legal rights of women within the domestic sphere expanded dramatically. Law enforcement authorities for the first time began to prosecute crimes like rape and assault by hus- bands against their wives. Today, some notion of privacy is central to most Americans’ conception of freedom.
The rights revolution completed the transformation of American freedom from a set of entitlements enjoyed mainly by white men into an open- ended claim to equality, recognition, and self- determination. For the rest of the cen- tury, the government and legal system would be inundated by demands by aggrieved groups of all kinds, and the Supreme Court would devote much of its time to defining the rights of Americans.
1 9 6 8
A Year of Turmoil
The Sixties reached their climax in 1968, a year when momentous events suc- ceeded each other so rapidly that the foundations of society seemed to be dis- solving. Late January 1968 saw the Tet offensive, in which Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops launched well- organized uprisings in cities throughout South Vietnam, completely surprising American military leaders. The United States drove back the offensive and inflicted heavy losses. But the intensity of the fighting, brought into America’s homes on television, shattered public confidence in the Johnson administration, which had repeatedly proclaimed victory to be “just around the corner.” Leading members of the press and politi- cal establishment joined the chorus criticizing American involvement. Eugene McCarthy, an antiwar senator from Minnesota, announced that he would seek
1968 ★ 1025
the Democratic nomination for President. Aided by a small army of student volunteers, McCarthy received more than 40 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. With public support dissolving, Johnson rejected the mil- itary’s request to send 200,000 more troops to Vietnam. Johnson then stunned the nation by announcing that he had decided not to seek reelection. Peace talks soon opened in Paris.
Meanwhile, Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing a Poor People’s March, hoping to bring thousands of demonstrators to Washington to demand increased anti- poverty efforts. On April 4, having traveled to Memphis to support a strike of the city’s grossly underpaid black garbage collectors, King was killed by a white assassin. The greatest outbreak of urban violence in the nation’s history followed in ghettos across the country. Washington, D.C., had to be occupied by soldiers before order was restored. As a gesture to King’s memory, Congress passed its last major civil rights law, the Open Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in the sale and rental of homes and apart- ments, although with weak enforcement mechanisms.
At the end of April, students protesting Columbia University’s involvement in defense research and its plan to build a gymnasium in a public park occupied seven campus buildings. New York police removed them in an assault that left hundreds of protesters and bystanders injured and led to a strike that closed the campus. In June, a young Palestinian nationalist assassinated Robert F. Ken- nedy, who was seeking the Democratic nomination as an opponent of the war.
In what ways was 1968 a climactic year for the Sixties?
Striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. As their signs suggest, they demanded respect as well as higher wages. Having traveled to Memphis to support the strikers, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
1026 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
In August, tens of thousands of antiwar activists descended on Chicago for pro- tests at the Democratic national convention, where the delegates nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey as their presidential candidate. The city’s police, never known for restraint, assaulted the marchers with nightsticks, pro- ducing hundreds of injuries outside the convention hall and pandemonium inside it.
A later investigation called the event a “police riot.” Nonetheless, the gov- ernment indicted eight political radicals for conspiring to incite the violence. They included Tom Hayden of SDS, yippie leader Abbie Hoffman, and Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers. Five were found guilty after a tumultuous trial. But an appeals court overturned the convictions because Judge Julius Hoffman (no relation to Abbie Hoffman) had been flagrantly biased against the defendants.
The Global 1968
Like 1848 and 1919, 1968 was a year of worldwide upheaval. In many coun- tries, young radicals challenged existing power structures, often borrowing language and strategies from the decade’s social movements in the United States and adapting them to their own circumstances. Television carried events in one country instantaneously across the globe.
Massive antiwar demonstrations took place in London, Rome, Paris, Munich, and Tokyo, leading to clashes with police and scores of injuries. In Italy, students occupied university buildings, bringing education to a halt. In Paris, a nationwide student uprising began in May 1968 that echoed American demands for educational reform and personal liberation. Unlike in the United States, millions of French workers soon joined the protest, adding their own demands for higher wages and greater democracy in the workplace. The result was a general strike that paralyzed the country and nearly led to the collapse of the government before it ended. In communist Czechoslovakia, leaders bent on reform came to power by promising to institute “socialism with a human face,” only to be ousted by a Soviet invasion. Soldiers fired on students demonstrating for greater democracy on the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games in Mex- ico City, leading to more than 500 deaths. In Northern Ireland, which remained part of Great Britain after the rest of Ireland achieved independence, the police attacked a peaceful march of Catholics demanding an end to religious discrim- ination who were inspired by the American civil rights movement. This event marked the beginning of The Troubles, a period of both peaceful protest and violent conflict in the region that did not end until the turn of the twenty- first century.
And throughout the world, the second wave of American feminism found echoes among women who resented being relegated to unequal citizenship. As in the United States, personal liberation, including a woman’s right to control
her own body, became a rallying cry. In Catholic European countries like France and Italy, women’s movements won significant legal changes, making it easier to obtain divorces and decriminalizing abortion. Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book originally published in 1973 by a group of Boston women, dealt frankly with widely misunderstood aspects of women’s health, including pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, birth control, and sexually transmitted diseases. It was quickly translated into twenty languages.
Nixon’s Comeback
In the United States, instead of radical change, the year’s events opened the door for a conservative reaction. Turmoil in the streets produced a demand for public order. Black militancy produced white “backlash,” which played an increasing role in politics. The fact that the unelected Supreme Court was inventing and protecting “rights” fed the argument that faraway bureaucrats rode roughshod over local traditions.
In August, Richard Nixon capped a remarkable political comeback by winning the Republican nomination. He campaigned as the champion of the “silent majority”—ordinary Americans who believed that change had gone too far— and called for a renewed commitment to “law and order.” Humphrey could not overcome the deep divide in his party. With 43 percent of the vote, Nixon had only a razor- thin margin over his Democratic rival. But George Wal- lace, running as an independent and appealing to resentments against blacks’ gains, Great Society programs, and the Warren Court, received an additional 13 percent. Taken together, the Nixon and Wallace totals, which included a considerable number of former Democratic voters, indicated that four years after Johnson’s landslide election ushered in the Great Society, liberalism was on the defensive.
The year 1968 did not mark the end of the 1960s. The Great Society would achieve an unlikely culmination during the Nixon administration. The second wave of feminism achieved its largest following during the 1970s. Nixon’s elec- tion did, however, inaugurate a period of growing conservatism in American politics. The conservative ascendancy would usher in yet another chapter in the story of American freedom.
The Legacy of the Sixties
The 1960s transformed American life in ways unimaginable when the decade began. It produced new rights and new understandings of freedom. It made possible the entrance of numerous members of racial minorities into the mainstream of American life, while leaving unsolved the problem of urban poverty. It set in motion a transformation of the status of women. It changed
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In what ways was 1968 a climactic year for the Sixties?
1028 ★ CHAPTER 25 The Sixties
what Americans expected from government— from clean air and water to med- ical coverage in old age. At the same time, it undermined public confidence in national leaders. Relations between young and old, men and women, and white and non- white, along with every institution in society, changed as a result.
Just as the Civil War and New Deal established the framework for future political debates, so, it seemed, Americans were condemned to refight the bat- tles of the 1960s long after the decade ended. Race relations, feminism, social policy, the nation’s proper role in world affairs— these issues hardly origi- nated in the 1960s. But the events of those years made them more pressing and more divisive. As the country became more conservative, the Sixties would be blamed for every imaginable social ill, from crime and drug abuse to a decline of respect for authority. Yet during the 1960s, the United States became a more open, more tolerant— in a word, a freer— country.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did the idea of a “zone of privacy” build on or change earlier notions of rights and freedom?
2. In what ways were President Kennedy’s foreign policy decisions shaped by Cold War ideology?
3. How did immigration policies change in these years, and what were the consequences for the composition of the population in the United States?
4. Explain why many blacks, especially in the North, did not believe that the civil rights legis- lation went far enough in promoting black freedom.
5. What were the effects of President Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty programs?
6. In what ways was the New Left not as new as it claimed?
7. How did the goals and actions of the United States in Vietnam cause controversy at home and abroad?
8. Discuss the impact of the Civil Rights movement on other movements for social change in the 1960s.
9. Identify the origins, goals, and composition of the feminist, or women’s liberation, movement.
10. Describe how the social movements of the 1960s in the United States became part of global movements for change by 1968. How did those connections affect the United States’ position in the world?
11. How did the counterculture expand the meaning of freedom in these years?
KEY TERMS
sit- ins (p. 984)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (p. 985)
Freedom Rides (p. 985)
March on Washington (p. 988)
Bay of Pigs invasion (p. 990)
Cuban missile crisis (p. 990)
Civil Rights Act (p. 992)
Voting Rights Act (p. 996)
Hart- Celler Act (p. 996)
Great Society (p. 997)
War on Poverty (p. 998)
Black Power (p. 1001)
New Left (p. 1003)
Students for a Democratic Society (p. 1004)
Port Huron Statement (p. 1004)
Gulf of Tonkin resolution (p. 1006)
counterculture (p. 1009)
The Feminine Mystique (p. 1015)
National Organization for Women (p. 1015)
Stonewall Inn (p. 1018)
American Indian movement (p. 1019)
Silent Spring (p. 1020)
Griswold v. Connecticut (p. 1023)
Roe v. Wade (p. 1024)
Tet offensive (p. 1024)
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
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CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 1029
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and
economic issues?
• How did Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affect popular trust in the government?
• In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
• What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s?
• How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?
T H E T R I U M P H O F
C O N S E R V A T I S M
★ C H A P T E R 2 6 ★
1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8
Beginning with the dramatic 1960 contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the journalist Theodore White published best- selling accounts of four successive races for the presidency. Covering the 1964 election, White attended civil rights demonstrations and rallies for Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. White noticed something that struck him as odd: “The dominant word of these two groups, which loathe each other, is ‘freedom.’ Both demand either Freedom Now or Freedom for All. The word has such emotive power behind it that . . . a reporter is instantly denounced for questioning what they mean by the word ‘freedom.’” The United
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• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1968 Oil discovered in Alaska
My Lai massacre
1970 U.S. invades Cambodia
1971 Pentagon Papers published
U.S. goes off gold standard
1972 Nixon travels to the People’s Republic of China
Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment for ratification
SALT is signed
Congress approves Title IX
1973 Paris Peace Accords end U.S. involvement in Vietnam War
CIA- aided Chilean coup
War Powers Act
1974 Nixon resigns in Watergate scandal
1975 Collapse of South Vietnam- ese government
1976 Jimmy Carter elected
1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Camp David Accords signed between Israel and Egypt
1979 Three Mile Island accident
Sagebrush Rebellion
Sixty- six Americans taken hostage in Iran
1980 Ronald Reagan elected
1981 Air traffic controllers’ strike
1983 Strategic Defense Initiative
1985– Iran- Contra affair 1987
1986 Bowers v. Hardwick
• •
States, White concluded, sorely needed “a commonly agreed- on concept of freedom.”
White had observed firsthand the struggle over the meaning of freedom that emerged in the 1960s, as well as the revival of conservatism in the midst of an era known for radicalism. Goldwater’s campaign helped to crystallize and popularize ideas that would remain the bedrock of conservatism for years to come. To intense anticommunism, Gold- water added a critique of the welfare state for destroying “the dignity of the individual.” He demanded a reduction in taxes and gov- ernmental regulations. Goldwater showed that with liberals in control in Washington, conservatives could claim for themselves the tradition of antigovernment populism, thus broadening their electoral base and counter- ing their image as upper- crust elitists.
The second half of the 1960s and the 1970s witnessed pivotal develop ments that reshaped American politics— the breakup of the political coalition forged by Frank- lin D. Roosevelt; an economic crisis that traditional liberal remedies seemed unable to solve; a shift of population and economic resources to conservative strongholds in the Sunbelt of the South and West; the growth of an activist, conservative Christianity increas- ingly aligned with the Republican Party; and a series of setbacks for the United States over- seas. Together, they led to growing popular- ity for conservatives’ ideas, including their understanding of freedom.
P R E S I D E N T N I X O N From the vantage point of the early twenty- first century, it is difficult to recall how marginal conservatism seemed at the end
PRESIDENT NIXON ★ 1031
1032 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
of World War II. Associated in many minds with conspiracy theories, anti- Semitism, and preference for social hierarchy over democracy and equality, conservatism seemed a relic of a discredited past. When conservative ideas did begin to spread, liberals explained them as a rejection of the modern world by the alienated or psychologically disturbed.
Nonetheless, as noted in the previous two chapters, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed a conservative rebirth. And in 1968, a “backlash” among formerly Democratic voters against both black assertiveness and antiwar demonstra- tions helped to propel Richard Nixon into the White House. But conservatives found Nixon no more to their liking than his predecessors. Nixon echoed con- servative language, especially in his condemnation of student protesters and his calls for law and order, but in office he expanded the welfare state and moved to improve American relations with the Soviet Union and China. During his pres- idency, the social changes set in motion by the 1960 s— seen by conservatives as forces of moral decay— continued apace.
Nixon’s Domestic Policies
Having won the presidency by a very narrow margin, Nixon moved toward the political center on many issues. A shrewd politician, he worked to solidify his support among Republicans while reaching out to disaffected elements of the Democratic coalition. It is difficult to characterize Nixon’s domestic agenda according to the traditional categories of liberal and conservative. Mostly interested in foreign policy, he had no desire to battle Congress, still under Democratic control, on domestic issues. Just as Eisenhower had helped to insti- tutionalize the New Deal, Nixon accepted and even expanded many elements of the Great Society.
Conservatives applauded Nixon’s New Federalism, which offered federal “block grants” to the states to spend as they saw fit, rather than for specific pur- poses dictated by Washington. On the other hand, the Nixon administration created a host of new federal agencies. The Environmental Protection Agency oversaw programs to combat water and air pollution, cleaned up hazardous wastes, and required “environmental impact” statements from any project that received federal funding. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent inspectors into the nation’s workplaces. The National Transportation Safety Board instructed automobile makers on how to make their cars safer.
Nixon spent lavishly on social services and environmental initiatives. He abolished the Office of Economic Opportunity, which had coordinated John- son’s War on Poverty. But he signed congressional measures that expanded the food stamp program and indexed Social Security benefits to inflation— meaning that they would rise automatically as the cost of living increased. The
PRESIDENT NIXON ★ 1033
Endangered Species Act prohibited spending federal funds on any project that might extinguish an animal species. The Clean Air Act set air quality standards for carbon monoxide and other chemicals released by cars and factories and led to a dramatic decline in air pollution.
Nixon and Welfare
Perhaps Nixon’s most startling initiative was his proposal for a Family Assis- tance Plan, or “negative income tax,” that would replace Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) by having the federal government guarantee a minimum income for all Americans. Universally known as “welfare,” AFDC provided assistance, often quite limited, to poor families who met local eligibil- ity requirements. Originally a New Deal program that mainly served the white poor, welfare had come to be associated with blacks, who by 1970 accounted for nearly half the recipients. The AFDC rolls expanded rapidly during the 1960s, partly because the federal government relaxed eligibility standards. This arose from an increase in births to unmarried women, which produced a sharp rise in the number of poor female- headed households, and from an aggressive campaign by welfare rights groups to encourage people to apply for benefits. Conservative politicians now attacked recipients of welfare as people who preferred to live at the expense of honest taxpayers rather than by working.
A striking example of Nixon’s willingness to break the political mold, his plan to replace welfare with a guaranteed annual income failed to win approval by Congress. It proved too radical for conservatives, who saw it as a reward for laziness, while liberals denounced the proposed level of $1,600 per year for a needy family of four as inadequate.
Nixon and Race
Nixon’s racial policies offer a similarly mixed picture. To consolidate support in the white South, he nominated to the Supreme Court Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, conservative southern jurists with records of support for segregation. Both were rejected by the Senate. On the other hand, because the courts finally lost patience with southern delaying tactics, extensive racial integration at last came to public schools in the South. In Nixon’s first three years in office, the proportion of southern black students attending integrated schools rose from 32 percent to 77 percent.
For a time, the Nixon administration also pursued affirmative action pro- grams to upgrade minority employment. The Philadelphia Plan required that con struction contractors on federal projects hire specific numbers of minority workers. Secretary of Labor George Shultz, who initiated the idea, sincerely hoped to open more jobs for black workers. Nixon seems to have viewed the
What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues?
1034 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
plan mainly as a way of fighting inflation by weakening the power of the build- ing trades unions. Their control over the labor market, he believed, pushed wages to unreasonably high levels, raising the cost of construction. And, he cal- culated, if the plan caused dissension between blacks and labor unions— two pillars of the Democratic coalition— Republicans could only benefit.
Trade unions of skilled workers like plumbers and electricians, which had virtually no black members, strongly opposed the Philadelphia Plan. After a widely publicized incident in May 1970, when a group of construction work- ers assaulted antiwar demonstrators in New York City, Nixon suddenly decided that he might be able to woo blue- collar workers in preparation for his 1972 reelection campaign. He soon abandoned the Philadelphia Plan in favor of an ineffective one that stressed voluntary local efforts toward minority hiring instead of federal requirements.
The Burger Court
When Earl Warren retired as chief justice in 1969, Nixon appointed Warren Burger, a federal court- of- appeals judge, to succeed him. An outspoken critic of the “judicial activism” of the Warren Court— its willingness to expand old
1990 2010
1950 1900 1850
1790
WASHINGTON
OREGON
IDAHO
MONTANA
WYOMING
NEVADA
CALIFORNIA UTAH
ARIZONA NEW MEXICO
COLORADO
OKLAHOMA
TEXAS LOUISIANA
ARKANSAS
NEBRASKA
KANSAS
SOUTH DAKOTA
NORTH DAKOTA MINNESOTA
WISCONSIN
IOWA
MISSOURI ILLINOIS
INDIANA
MICHIGAN
MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA
FLORIDA
SOUTH CAROLINA
NORTH CAROLINATENNESSEE
KENTUCKY VIRGINIA WEST
VIRGINIA
OHIO PENNSYLVANIA
NEW YORK
VERMONT
NEW HAMPSHIRE
MASSACHUSETTS
MAINE
RHODE ISLAND
CONNECTICUT NEW JERSEY DELAWARE
MARYLAND
CANADA
HAWAII
ALASKA Center of Population, 1790–2010
200+% 100–199% 50–99% 25–49% 11–24% 1–10%
Population Growth (1940–1990)
C E N T E R O F P O P U L AT I O N , 1 7 9 0 – 2 0 1 0
PRESIDENT NIXON ★ 1035
rights and create new ones by overturning acts of Congress and the states— Burger was expected to lead the justices in a conservative direction. But like Nixon, he surprised many of his supporters. While the pace of change slowed, the Burger Court, at least initially, consolidated and expanded many of the judi- cial innovations of the 1960s.
In 1971, in Swann v. Charlotte- Mecklenburg Board of Education, which arose from North Carolina, the justices unanimously approved a lower court’s plan that required the extensive transportation of students to achieve school inte- gration. The decision led to hundreds of cases in which judges throughout the country ordered the use of busing as a tool to achieve integration. With many white parents determined to keep their children in neighborhood schools and others willing to move to the suburbs or enroll them in private academies to avoid integration, busing became a lightning rod for protests. One of the most bitter fights took place in Boston in the mid- 1970s. Residents of the tightly knit Irish- American community of South Boston demonstrated vociferously and sometimes violently against a busing plan decreed by a local judge.
The Supreme Court soon abandoned the idea of overturning local control of schools, or moving students great distances to achieve integration. In 1973, it rebuffed a group of Texas Latinos who sued to overturn the use of property taxes to finance public education. Because of the great disparity in wealth between districts, spending on predominantly Mexican- American schools stood far below that for white ones. But in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodri- guez, a 5-4 Court majority ruled that the Constitution did not require equal- ity of school funding. In the following year, in Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the justices overturned a lower court order that required Detroit’s predominantly white suburbs to enter into a regional desegregation plan with the city’s heav- ily minority school system. By absolving suburban districts of responsibility for assisting in integrating urban schools, the decision guaranteed that hous- ing segregation would be mirrored in public education. Indeed, by the 1990s, public schools in the North were considerably more segregated than those in the South.
The Court and Affirmative Action
Efforts to promote greater employment opportunities for minorities also spawned politically divisive legal issues. Many whites came to view affirmative action programs as a form of reverse discrimination. Even as such programs quickly spread from blacks to encompass women, Latinos, Asian- Americans, and Native Americans, conservatives demanded that the Supreme Court inval- idate them all. The justices refused, but they found it difficult to devise a consis- tent approach to this politically charged issue.
What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues?
1036 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
In Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), the Court ruled that even racially neutral job requirements such as a written examination were illegal if they oper- ated to exclude a disproportionate number of non- white applicants and were not directly related to job performance. Later in the decade, in United Steelworkers of America v. Weber (1979), it upheld a program devised by the Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation and its union that set quotas for training and hiring non- white workers in skilled jobs. Since this private, voluntary agreement did not involve government action, the Court ruled, it did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s ban on state policies that discriminated among citizens.
The justices, however, proved increasingly hostile to governmental affir- mative action policies. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Court overturned an admissions program of the University of California at Davis, a public university, which set aside 16 of 100 places in the entering medi- cal school class for minority students. Justice Lewis F. Powell, a Nixon appointee who cast the deciding vote in the 5-4 decision, rejected the idea of fixed affir- mative action quotas. He added, however, that race could be used as one factor among many in admissions decisions, so affirmative action continued at most colleges and universities. Bakke continues to be the standard by which affirma- tive action programs are judged today.
The Continuing Sexual Revolution
As noted in the previous chapter, the social activism associated with the 1960s continued in the following decade. Both right and left took part in grassroots movements, ranging from campaigns against nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants and struggles to aid migrant workers to battles to stop the court- ordered bus- ing of public school children and movements against abortion rights. But the most profound changes in American life arose from the continuing sexual revolution.
To the alarm of conservatives, during the 1970s the sexual revolution passed from the counterculture into the social mainstream. The number of Ameri- cans who told public- opinion polls that premarital sex was wrong plummeted. The number of divorces soared, reaching more than 1 million in 1975, double the number ten years earlier. The age at which both men and women married rose dramatically. The figure for divorces in 1975 exceeded the number of first- time marriages. A popular 1978 film, An Unmarried Woman, portrayed the dis- solution of a marriage as a triumph for the wife, who discovered her potential for individual growth only after being abandoned by her husband. As a result of women’s changing aspirations and the availability of birth control and legal abor- tions, the American birthrate declined dramatically. By 1976, the average woman was bearing 1.7 children during her lifetime, less than half the figure of 1957 and below the level at which a population reproduces itself. A 1971 survey of the
PRESIDENT NIXON ★ 1037
last five graduating classes at Bryn Mawr, an elite women’s college, reported the birth of more than seventy children. A similar survey covering the classes of 1971 through 1975 found that only three had been born. (Of course, many of these women eventually did marry and have children. But unlike their mothers of the “ baby- boom” generation, they postponed these decisions to pursue careers.)
During the Nixon years, women made inroads into areas from which they had long been excluded. In 1972, Congress approved Title IX, which banned gen- der discrimination in higher education, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which required that married women be given access to credit in their own name. The giant corporation American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) entered into a landmark agreement in which it agreed to pay millions of dollars to workers who had suffered gender discrimination and to upgrade employment opportuni- ties for women. The number of women at work continued its upward climb. In 1960, only 20 percent of women with young children had been in the workforce. The figure reached 40 percent in 1980, and 55 percent in 1990. Working women were motivated by varied aims. Some sought careers in professions and skilled jobs previously open only to men. Others, spurred by the need to bolster family income as the economy faltered, flooded into the traditional, low- wage, “ pink- collar” sector, working as cashiers, secretaries, and telephone operators.
In addition, the gay and lesbian movement, born at the end of the 1960s, expanded greatly during the 1970s and became a major concern of the right. In 1969, there had been about fifty local gay rights groups in the United States; ten years later, their numbers reached into the thousands. They began to elect local officials, persuaded many states to decriminalize homosexual relations, and succeeded in convincing cities with large gay populations to pass antidis- crimination laws. They actively encouraged gay men and lesbians to “come out of the closet”—that is, to reveal their sexual orientation. During the 1970s, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of men- tal diseases.
As pre– World War I bohemians saw many of their ideas absorbed into the mass culture of the 1920s, values and styles of the 1960s became part of 1970s America, dubbed by the writer Tom Wolfe the “Me Decade.” The demand of student protesters that individuals be empowered to determine their own “lifestyle” emerged in depoliticized form in Americans’ obsession with self- improvement through fitness programs, health food diets, and new forms of psychological therapy.
Nixon and Détente
Just as domestic policies and social trends under Nixon disappointed conserva- tives, they viewed his foreign policy as dangerously “soft” on communism. To
What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues?
1038 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
be sure, in the Third World, Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser and secretary of state, continued their predecessors’ policy of attempt- ing to undermine governments deemed dangerous to American strategic or economic interests. Nixon funneled arms to dictatorial pro- American regimes in Iran, the Philippines, and South Africa. After Chile in 1970 elected socialist Salvador Allende as president, the CIA worked with his domestic opponents to destabilize the regime. On September 11, 1973, Allende was overthrown and killed in a military coup, which installed a bloody dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of Allende backers, including a few Americans then in Chile, were tortured and murdered, and many others fled the country. The Nixon administration knew of the coup plans in advance but failed to warn Allende, and it continued to back Pinochet despite his brutal policies. Democracy did not return to Chile until the end of the 1980s.
In his relations with the major communist powers, however, Nixon funda- mentally altered Cold War policies. Nixon had launched his political career as a fierce and, critics charged, unscrupulous anticommunist. But in the language of foreign relations, he and Kissinger were “realists.” They had more interest in power than ideology and preferred international stability to relentless conflict. Nixon also hoped that if relations with the Soviet Union improved, the Russians would influ- ence North Vietnam to agree to an end to the Vietnam War on terms acceptable to the United States.
Nixon realized that far from being part of a unified communist bloc, China had its own interests, different from those of the Soviet Union, and was destined to play a major role on the world stage. The policy of refusing to recognize Chi- na’s communist government had reached a dead end. In 1971, Kissinger flew secretly to China, paving the way for Nixon’s own astonishing public visit of February 1972. The trip led to the Beijing government’s taking up China’s seat at the United Nations, previously occupied by the exiled regime on Taiwan. Full diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China were not established until 1979. But Nixon’s visit sparked a dramatic increase in trade between the two countries.
Three months after his trip to Beijing, Nixon became the first Cold War American president to visit the Soviet Union, where he engaged in intense nego- tiations with his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev. Out of this “summit” meeting came agreements for increased trade and two landmark arms- control treaties. SALT (named for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks under way since 1969) froze each country’s arsenal of intercontinental missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The Anti– Ballistic Missile Treaty banned the devel- opment of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles, so that neither side would be tempted to attack the other without fearing devastating retaliation. Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of “peaceful coexistence,” in which détente (cooperation) would replace the hostility of the Cold War.
VIETNAM AND WATERGATE ★ 1039
V I E T N A M A N D W A T E R G A T E
Nixon and Vietnam
Despite Nixon’s foreign policy triumphs, one issue would not go away— Vietnam. Nixon ran for president in 1968 declar- ing that he had a “secret plan” to end the war. On taking office, he announced a new policy, Vietnamization. Under this plan, American troops would gradually be withdrawn while South Vietnamese soldiers, backed by continued Ameri- can bombing, did more and more of the fighting. But Vietnamization neither limited the war nor ended the antiwar movement. Hoping to cut North Viet- namese supply lines, Nixon in 1970 ordered American troops into neutral Cambodia. The invasion did not achieve its military goals, but it destabilized the Cambodian government and set in motion a chain of events that eventually brought to power the Khmer Rouge. Before being ousted by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, this local communist movement attempted to force virtually all Cambodians into rural communes and committed widespread massacres in that unfortunate country.
As the war escalated, protests again spread on college campuses, partly because the policy of exempting students from the draft had ended. In the wake of the killing of four antiwar protesters at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard and two by police at Jackson State University in Mississippi, the student movement reached its high- water mark. In the spring of 1970, more than 350 colleges and universities experienced strikes, and troops occupied 21 cam- puses. The protests at Kent State, a public university with a largely working- class student body, and Jackson State, a black institution, demonstrated how antiwar sentiment had spread far beyond elite campuses like Berkeley and Columbia.
At the same time, troop morale in Vietnam plummeted. For most of the war, college students had received exemptions. As a result, the army was predomi- nantly composed of working- class whites and members of racial minorities. Of the 2.5 million Americans who served in the military during the war, around 80 percent came from poor and working- class families. African- Americans accounted for one- eighth of American casualties in Vietnam.
Tear gas envelops the campus as members of the Ohio National Guard prepare to fire on student demonstrators at Kent State University. Shortly after this photo was taken, four students lay dead.
How did Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affect popular trust in the government?
1040 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
The same social changes sweeping the home front were evident among troops in Vietnam. Soldiers experimented with drugs, openly wore peace and black- power symbols, refused orders, and even assaulted unpopular officers. In 1971, thousands deserted the army, while at home Vietnam veterans held antiwar demonstrations. The decline of discipline within the army convinced increasing numbers of high- ranking officers that the United States must extri- cate itself from Vietnam.
Public support for the war was rapidly waning. In 1969, the New York Times published details of the My Lai massacre of 1968, in which a company of American troops killed some 350 South Vietnamese civilians. After a mil- itary investigation, one soldier, Lieutenant William Calley, was found guilty of directing the atrocity. (The courts released him from prison in 1974.) While hardly typical of the behavior of most servicemen, My Lai further undermined public support for the war.
In 1971, the Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers, a classified report prepared by the Defense Department that traced American involve- ment in Vietnam back to World War II and revealed how successive presidents had misled the American people about it. In a landmark freedom- of- the- press decision, the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s request for an injunction to halt publication. In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act. The most vigorous assertion of congressional control over foreign policy in the nation’s history, it required the president to seek congressional approval for the commitment of American troops overseas.
The End of the Vietnam War
Early in 1973, Nixon achieved what had eluded his predecessors— a negotiated settlement in Vietnam. The Paris peace agreement, the result of five years of talks, made possible the final withdrawal of American troops. The compromise left in place the government of South Vietnam, but it also left North Vietnam- ese and Viet Cong soldiers in control of parts of the South. American bombing ceased, and the military draft came to an end. Henceforth, volunteers would make up the armed forces. But the agreement did not solve the basic issue of the war— whether Vietnam would be one country or two. That question was answered in the spring of 1975, when the North Vietnamese launched a final military offensive. The government of South Vietnam collapsed; the United States did not intervene except to evacuate the American embassy, and Viet- nam was reunified under communist rule.
The only war the United States has ever lost, Vietnam was a military, politi- cal, and social disaster. By the time it ended, 58,000 Americans had been killed, along with 3 million to 4 million Vietnamese. The war cost the United States
VIETNAM AND WATERGATE ★ 1041
many hundreds of millions of dollars and diverted funds from needs at home. But the nonmonetary price was far higher. Vietnam undermined Americans’ confidence in their own institutions and challenged long- standing beliefs about the country and its purposes. The divisions caused by the war continued in debates over its legacy that persisted for many years. The war’s supporters blamed critics at home for undermining a successful and winnable military effort. Others took the lesson that the United States should be extremely reluc- tant to commit its armed forces overseas— an outlook sometimes called the Vietnam Syndrome.
Two decades after the war ended, former secretary of defense Robert McNamara published a memoir in which he admitted that the policy he had helped to shape had been “terribly wrong.” Ignorance of the history and cul- ture of Vietnam and a misguided belief that every communist movement in the world was a puppet of Moscow, he wrote, had led the country into a war that he now profoundly regretted. The New York Times rejected McNamara’s apology. The “ghosts of those unlived lives,” the young men sent to their death “for no purpose,” it declared, could not so easily be wished away. But the Times itself, like the rest of the political establishment, had supported the war for most of its duration. For far too long, they had accepted its basic premise— that the United States had the right to decide the fate of a faraway people about whom it knew almost nothing.
Watergate
By the time the war ended, Richard Nixon was no longer president. His domestic policies and foreign policy successes had contributed greatly to his reelection in 1972. He won a landslide victory over liberal Democrat George McGovern, receiv- ing 60 percent of the popular vote. Nixon made deep inroads into former Demo- cratic strongholds in the South and among working- class white northerners. He carried every state but Massachusetts. But his triumph soon turned into disaster.
Nixon was obsessed with secrecy and could not accept honest difference of opinion. He viewed every critic as a threat to national security and developed an “enemies list” that included reporters, politicians, and celebrities unfriendly to the administration. When the Pentagon Papers were published, Nixon cre- ated a special investigative unit known as the “plumbers” to gather informa- tion about Daniel Ellsberg, the former government official who had leaked them to the press. The plumbers raided the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in search of incriminating records. In June 1972, five former employees of Nixon’s reelection committee took part in a break- in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C. A security guard called police, who arrested the intruders.
How did Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affect popular trust in the government?
1042 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
No one knows precisely what the Watergate burglars were looking for (perhaps they intended to install listening devices), and the botched rob- bery played little role in the 1972 presidential campaign. But in 1973, Judge John J. Sirica, before whom the burglars were tried, determined to find out who had sponsored the break- in. A pair of Washington Post journalists began publish- ing investigative stories that made it clear that persons close to the president had ordered the burglary and then tried to “cover up” White House involve- ment. Congressional hearings followed that revealed a wider pattern of wiretap- ping, break- ins, and attempts to sabotage political opposition. When it became known that Nixon had made tape recordings of conversations in his office, Archibald Cox, a special prosecutor the president had reluctantly appointed to investigate the Watergate affair, demanded copies. In October 1973, Nixon pro- posed to allow Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi to review the tapes, rather than release them. When Cox refused, Nixon fired him, whereupon Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned in protest. These events, known as the Sat- urday Night Massacre, further undermined Nixon’s standing. The Supreme Court unanimously ordered Nixon to provide the tapes— a decision that reaf- firmed the principle that the president is not above the law.
Nixon’s Fall
Week after week, revelations about the scandal unfolded. By mid- 1974, it had become clear that whether or not Nixon knew in advance of the Watergate break- in, he had become involved immediately afterward in authorizing pay- ments to the burglars to remain silent or commit perjury, and he had ordered the FBI to halt its investigation of the crime. In August 1974, the House Judi- ciary Committee voted to recommend that Nixon be impeached for conspiracy to obstruct justice. His political support having evaporated, Nixon became the only president in history to resign.
Nixon’s presidency remains a classic example of the abuse of political power. In 1973, his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned after revelations that he had accepted bribes from construction firms while serving as gover- nor of Maryland. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, and White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, were convicted of obstruction of justice in the Watergate affair and went to jail. As for the president, he insisted that he had done nothing wrong— or at any rate, that previous presidents had also been guilty of lying and illegality.
Although it hardly excused his behavior, Nixon had a point. His departure from office was followed by Senate hearings headed by Frank Church of Idaho that laid bare a history of abusive actions that involved every administration since the beginning of the Cold War. In violation of the law, the FBI had spied
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 1043
on millions of Americans and had tried to disrupt the civil rights movement. The CIA had conducted secret operations to overthrow foreign governments and had tried to assassinate foreign leaders. It had even recruited a secret army to fight in Laos, a neighbor of Vietnam. Abuses of power, in other words, went far beyond the misdeeds of a single president.
Along with Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and the Vietnam War itself, the Church Committee revelations seriously undermined Americans’ confidence in their own government. They led Congress to enact new restrictions on the power of the FBI and CIA to spy on American citizens or conduct operations abroad without the knowledge of lawmakers. Congress also strengthened the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), initially enacted in 1966. Since 1974, the FOIA has allowed scholars, journalists, and ordinary citizens to gain access to millions of pages of records of federal agencies.
Liberals, who had despised Nixon throughout his career, celebrated his downfall. They did not realize that the revulsion against Watergate under- mined the foundations of liberalism itself, already weakened by the divisions of the 1960s. For liberalism rests, in part, on belief in the ability of government, especially the federal government, to solve social problems and promote both the public good and individual freedom. Nixon’s fall and the revelations of years of governmental misconduct helped to convince many Americans that conservatives were correct when they argued that to protect liberty it was nec- essary to limit Washington’s power over Americans’ lives. The Watergate crisis also distracted attention from the economic crisis that began in the fall of 1973. Its inability to fashion a response to this crisis, which gripped the United States for much of the 1970s, dealt liberalism yet another blow.
T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E
The Decline of Manufacturing
During the 1970s, the long period of postwar economic expansion and con- sumer prosperity came to an end, succeeded by slow growth and high inflation. For the only time in the twentieth century, other than the 1930s, the average American ended the 1970s poorer than when the decade began. There were many reasons for the end of capitalism’s “golden age.” With American pros- perity seemingly unassailable and the military- industrial complex thriving, successive administrations had devoted little attention to the less positive eco- nomic consequences of the Cold War. To strengthen its anticommunist allies, the United States promoted the industrial reconstruction of Japan and Ger- many and the emergence of new centers of manufacturing in places like South
In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
1044 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
Korea and Taiwan. It encouraged American companies to invest in overseas plants and did not complain when allies protected their own industries while seeking unrestricted access to the American market. Imports of foreign steel, for example, led to growing problems for this key industry at home. The strong dollar, linked to gold by the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, made it harder to sell American goods overseas (discussed in Chapter 22).
In 1971, for the first time in the twentieth century, the United States expe- rienced a merchandise trade deficit— that is, it imported more goods than it exported. By 1980, nearly three- quarters of goods produced in the United States were competing with foreign- made products and the number of manufacturing workers, 38 percent of the American workforce in 1960, had fallen to 28 percent.
In 1971, Nixon announced the most radical change in economic policy since the Great Depression. He took the United States off the gold standard, ending the Bretton Woods agreement that fixed the value of the dollar and other currencies in terms of gold. Henceforth, the world’s currencies would “float” in relation to one another, their worth determined not by treaty but by international currency markets. Nixon hoped that lowering the dollar’s value in terms of the German mark and Japanese yen would promote exports by making American goods cheaper overseas and reduce imports since foreign products would be more expensive in the United States. But the end of fixed currency rates injected a new element of instability into the world economy. Nixon also ordered wages and prices frozen for ninety days.
Stagflation
These policies temporarily curtailed inflation and reduced imports. But in 1973, a brief war broke out between Israel and its neighbors Egypt and Syria. Middle Eastern Arab states retaliated for Western support of Israel by quadrupling the price of oil and suspending the export of oil to the United States for several months. During the oil embargo, long lines of cars appeared at American gas stations, which either ran out of fuel or limited how much a customer could buy. A second “oil shock” occurred in 1979 as a result of the revolution that overthrew the shah of Iran, discussed later.
Because the rapidly growing demand for fuel by cars and factories out- stripped domestic supplies, by 1973 the United States imported one- third of its oil. Europe and Japan depended even more heavily on oil imports. To promote energy conservation, Congress lowered the speed limit on interstate highways to fifty- five miles per hour, and many public buildings reduced heat and lighting.
The energy crisis of the 1970s drew increased attention to domestic energy resources like oil, coal, and natural gas. While the rest of the economy stag- nated, western energy production grew apace. Oil was discovered in Alaska in 1968, and in 1977 a pipeline opened to facilitate its shipment to the rest of the
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 1045
country. Coal production in Wyoming boomed. Western energy companies benefited from the high oil prices set by OPEC— the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
But rising oil prices rippled through the world economy, contributing to the combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation known as stag- flation. Between 1973 and 1981, the rate of inflation in developed countries was 10 percent per year, and the rate of economic growth only 2.4 percent, a sharp deterioration from the economic conditions of the 1960s. The so- called misery index— the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates— stood at 10.8 percent when the decade began. By 1980, it had almost doubled. As oil prices rose, many Americans shifted from large domestically produced cars, known for high gasoline consumption, to smaller, more fuel- efficient imports. By the end of the decade, Japan had become the world’s leading automobile producer, and imports accounted for nearly 25 percent of car sales in the United States.
The Beleaguered Social Compact
The economic crisis contributed to a breakdown of the postwar social com- pact. Faced with declining profits and rising overseas competition, corpora- tions stepped up the trend, already under way before 1970, toward eliminating well- paid manufacturing jobs through automation and shifting production to
Table 26.1 The Misery Index, 1970–1980
Year Rate of Inflation (%) Rate of Unemployment (%) Misery Index (%)
1970 5.9 4.9 10.8
1971 4.3 5.9 10.2
1972 3.3 5.6 8.9
1973 6.2 4.9 11.1
1974 11.0 5.6 16.6
1975 9.1 8.5 17.6
1976 5.8 7.7 13.5
1977 6.5 7.1 13.6
1978 7.7 6.1 13.8
1979 11.3 5.8 17.1
1980 13.5 7.1 20.6
In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
1046 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
low- wage areas of the United States and overseas. The effects on older industrial cities were devastating. By 1980, Detroit and Chicago had lost more than half the manufacturing jobs that had existed three decades earlier.
Smaller industrial cities suffered even sharper declines. As their tax bases shriveled, many found themselves unable to maintain public services. In Paterson, New Jersey, where great silk factories had arisen in the early twen- tieth century, deindustrialization left a landscape of abandoned manufac- turing plants. The poverty rate reached 20 percent, the city sold off public library buildings to raise cash, and the schools became so run down and over- crowded that the state government took control. The accelerating flow of jobs, investment, and population to the nonunion, low- wage states of the Sun- belt increased the political influence of this conservative region. Of popula-
tion growth in metropolitan areas, during the 1970s, 96 percent occurred in the South and West. San Jose and Phoenix, with populations around 100,000 in 1950, neared 1 million by 1990.
In some manufacturing centers, political and economic leaders welcomed the opportunity to remake their cities as finance, information, and enter- tainment hubs. In New York, the construction of the World Trade Center, completed in 1977, symbolized this shift in the economy. Until destroyed by terrorists twenty- four years later, the 110-story “twin towers” stood as a symbol of New York’s grandeur. But to make way for the World Trade Center, the city displaced hundreds of small electronics, printing, and other firms, causing the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
Labor on the Defensive
Always a junior partner in the Democratic coalition, the labor movement found itself forced onto the defensive. It has remained there ever since. One example of the weakening of unions’ power came in 1975 with the New York City fiscal
Because of economic dislocations and dein- dustrialization, Americans’ real wages (wages adjusted to take account of inflation) peaked in the early 1970s and then began a sharp, pro- longed decline.
F I G U R E 2 6 . 1 R E A L AV E R A G E W E E K LY WA G E S , 1 9 5 5 – 1 9 9 0
Year 1947 1951 1957 1961 1967 1971 1977 1981
24.0
23.5
23.0
22.5
22.0
21.5
21.0
20.5
20.0
A ge
Male
Female
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 1047
crisis. Deeply in debt and unable to market its bonds, the city faced the pros- pect of bankruptcy. The solution to the crisis required a reduction of the city’s workforce, severe cuts in the budgets of schools, parks, and the subway system, and an end to the century- old policy of free tuition at the City University. Even in this center of unionism, working- class New Yorkers had no choice but to absorb job losses and a drastic decline in public services.
The weakening of unions and the continuation of the economy’s long- term shift from manufacturing to service employment had an adverse impact on ordinary Americans. Between 1953 and 1973, median family income had doubled. But in 1973, real wages began to fall. The popular song “The River,” by Bruce Springsteen, captured the woes of blue- collar workers: “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / Or is it something worse?”
Ford as President
Economic problems dogged the presidencies of Nixon’s successors. Gerald Ford, who had been appointed to replace Vice President Agnew, succeeded to the White House when Nixon resigned. Ford named Nelson Rockefeller of New York as his own vice president. Thus, for the only time in American history, both offices were occupied by persons for whom no one had actually voted. Among his first acts as president, Ford pardoned Nixon, shielding him from prosecution for obstruction of justice. Ford claimed that he wanted the country to put the Watergate scandal behind it. But the pardon proved to be widely unpopular.
In domestic policy, Ford’s presidency lacked significant accomplishment. Ford and his chief economic adviser, Alan Greenspan, believed that Americans spent too much on consumption and saved too little, leaving business with insufficient money for investment. They called for cutting taxes on business and lessening government regulation of the economy. But the Democratic majority in Congress was in no mood to accept these traditional Republican policies. To combat inflation, Ford urged Americans to shop wisely, reduce expenditures, and wear WIN buttons (for “Whip Inflation Now”). Although inflation fell, job- lessness continued to rise. During the steep recession of 1974–1975 unemploy- ment exceeded 9 percent, the highest level since the Depression.
In the international arena, 1975 witnessed the major achievement of Ford’s presidency. In a continuation of Nixon’s policy of détente, the United States and Soviet Union signed an agreement at Helsinki, Finland, that recognized the per- manence of Europe’s post– World War II boundaries (including the division of Germany). In addition, both superpowers agreed to respect the basic liberties of their citizens. Secretary of State Kissinger and his Soviet counterpart, Andrey Gromyko, assumed that this latter pledge would have little practical effect. But over time, the Helsinki Accords inspired movements for greater freedom within the communist countries of eastern Europe.
In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
1048 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
The Carter Administration
In the presidential election of 1976, Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Geor- gia, narrowly defeated Ford. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who later became a peanut farmer, Carter was virtually unknown outside his state when he launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination. But realizing that Watergate and Vietnam had produced a crisis in confidence in the federal gov- ernment, he turned his obscurity into an advantage. Carter ran for president as an “outsider,” making a virtue of the fact that he had never held federal office. A devout “ born- again” Baptist, he spoke openly of his religious convictions. His promise, “I’ll never lie to you,” resonated with an electorate tired of official dishonesty.
Carter had much in common with Progressives of the early twentieth century. His passions were making government more efficient, protecting the environment, and raising the moral tone of politics. Unlike the Progres- sives, however, he embraced the aspirations of black Americans. As president, Carter appointed an unprecedented number of blacks to important positions, including Andrew Young, a former lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr., as ambassador to the United Nations.
Carter and the Economic Crisis
The Democratic Party found itself ill- equipped to deal with the economic cri- sis. The social upheavals of the 1960s had led to the emergence of politicians known as the New Democrats. Representing affluent urban and suburban districts, they viewed issues like race relations, gender equality, the environ- ment, and improving the political process as more central than traditional economic matters. Although his party controlled both houses, Carter often found himself at odds with Congress. He viewed inflation, not unemployment, as the country’s main economic problem, and to combat it he promoted cuts in spending on domestic programs. In the hope that increased competition would reduce prices, his administration enacted deregulation in the trucking and airline industries. Anticipating what would come to be called the supply- side economics of the Reagan administration, Carter in 1978 inaugurated tax cuts for wealthier Americans in the hope that this would stimulate investment and encourage economic growth. In 1980, with Carter’s approval, Congress repealed usury laws— laws that limit how much interest lenders can charge— allowing credit card companies to push their interest rates up to 20 percent or even higher. Carter supported the Federal Reserve Bank’s decision to raise inter- est rates to curtail economic activity until both wages and prices fell, tradition- ally a Republican policy. But oil prices kept rising, thanks to the overthrow of the shah of Iran, discussed later, and inflation did not decline.
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 1049
Carter also believed that expanded use of nuclear energy could help reduce dependence on imported oil. For years, proponents of nuclear power had hailed it as an inexpensive way of meeting the country’s energy needs. By the time Carter took office, more than 200 nuclear plants were operating or on order. But in 1979 the industry suffered a near- fatal blow when an accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania released a large amount of radioactive steam into the atmosphere. The rise of the environmental movement had promoted public skepticism about scientific experts who touted the miraculous promise of technological innovations without concern for their social consequences. The Three Mile Island mishap reinforced fears about the environmental haz- ards associated with nuclear energy and put a halt to the industry’s expansion.
Since the New Deal, Democrats had presented themselves as the party of affluence and economic growth. But Carter seemed to be presiding over a period of national decline. It did not help his popularity when, in a speech in 1979, he spoke of a national “crisis of confidence” and seemed to blame it on the American people themselves and their “mistaken idea of freedom” as “ self- indulgence and consumption.”
The Emergence of Human Rights Politics
Under Carter, a commitment to promoting human rights became a centerpiece of American foreign policy for the first time. He was influenced by the prolifer- ation of information about global denials of human rights spread by nongov- ernmental agencies like Amnesty International and the International League for Human Rights. The American membership of Amnesty International, a London- based organization, grew from 6,000 to 35,000 between 1970 and 1976. Its reports marked a significant break with dominant ideas about international affairs since World War II, which had viewed the basic division in the world as between communist and noncommunist countries. Such reports, along with congressional hearings, fact- finding missions, and academic studies of human rights, exposed misdeeds not only by communist countries but also by American allies, especially the death squads of Latin American dictatorships. Amnesty International pressured the United States to try to do something to promote human rights abroad. In 1977, Amnesty International received the Nobel Peace Prize, an indication of the rapid emergence of human rights as an international issue.
In 1978, Carter cut off aid to the brutal military dictatorship governing Argentina, which in the name of anticommunism had launched a “dirty war” against its own citizens, kidnapping off the streets and secretly murdering an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 persons. Carter’s action was a dramatic gesture, as Argentina was one of the most important powers in Latin America and
In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
1050 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
previous American administrations had turned a blind eye to human rights abuses by Cold War allies. By the end of his presidency, the phrase “human rights” had acquired political potency. Its very vagueness was both a weakness and a strength. It was difficult to define exactly what rights should and should not be considered universally applicable, but various groups could and did unite under the umbrella of global human rights.
Carter believed that in the post- Vietnam era, American foreign policy should de- emphasize Cold War thinking. Combating poverty in the Third World, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, and promoting human rights should take priority over what he called “the inordinate fear of commu- nism that once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear.” In one of his first acts as president, he offered an unconditional pardon to Vietnam- era draft resisters.
Carter’s emphasis on pursuing peaceful solutions to international problems and his willingness to think outside the Cold War framework yielded import- ant results. In 1979, he brought the leaders of Egypt and Israel to the presiden- tial retreat at Camp David and brokered a historic peace agreement, the Camp David Accords, between the two countries. He improved American relations with Latin America by agreeing to a treaty, ratified by the Senate in 1978, that provided for the transfer of the Panama Canal to local control by the year 2000. In 1979, he resisted calls for intervention when a popular revolution led by the left- wing Sandinista movement overthrew Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, a longtime ally of the United States. Carter attempted to curb the murderous violence of death squads allied to the right- wing government of El Salvador, and in 1980 he suspended military aid after the murder of four American nuns by members of the country’s army. He signed the SALT II agreement with the Sovi- ets, which reduced the number of missiles, bombers, and nuclear warheads.
Both conservative Cold Warriors and foreign policy “realists” severely crit- icized Carter’s emphasis on human rights. He himself found it impossible to translate rhetoric into action. He criticized American arms sales to the rest of the world. But with thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in corporate profits at stake, he did nothing to curtail them. The United States continued its support of allies with records of serious human rights violations such as the governments of Guatemala, the Philippines, South Korea, and Iran. Indeed, the American connection with the shah of Iran, whose secret police regularly jailed and tortured political opponents, proved to be Carter’s undoing.
The Iran Crisis and Afghanistan
Occupying a strategic location on the southern border of the Soviet Union, Iran was a major supplier of oil and an importer of American military equipment. At
THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ★ 1051
the end of 1977, Carter traveled there to help celebrate the shah’s rule, causing the internal opposition to become more and more anti- American. Early in 1979, a popular revolution inspired by the exiled Muslim cleric Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the shah and declared Iran an Islamic republic.
The Iranian revolution marked an ideological shift in opposition move- ments in the Middle East from social- ism and Arab nationalism to religious fundamentalism. This would have important long- term consequences for the United States. More immedi- ately, when Carter in November 1979 allowed the deposed shah to seek medical treatment in the United States, Kho- meini’s followers invaded the American embassy in Tehran and seized sixty- six hostages. Fourteen people (women, African- American men, and a white man in ill health) were soon released, leaving fifty- two captives. They did not regain their freedom until January 1981, on the day Carter’s term as president ended. Events in Iran made Carter seem helpless and inept and led to a rapid fall in his popularity.
Another crisis that began in 1979 undermined American relations with Moscow. At the end of that year, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan to support a friendly government threatened by an Islamic rebellion. In the long run, Afghanistan became the Soviet Vietnam, an unwin- nable conflict whose mounting casualties seriously weakened the government at home. Initially, however, it seemed another example of declining American power.
Declaring the invasion the greatest crisis since World War II (a considerable exaggeration), the president announced the Carter Doctrine, declaring that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf. He placed an embargo on grain exports to the Soviet Union and organized a Western boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which took place in Moscow. He withdrew the SALT II treaty from consideration by the Senate and dramatically increased American military spending. In a reversion to the Cold War principle that any opponent of the Soviet Union deserved American sup- port, the United States funneled aid to fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan who fought a decade- long guerrilla war against the Soviets. The alliance had unforeseen consequences. A faction of Islamic fundamentalists known as the
American hostages being paraded by their Ira- nian captors on the first day of the occupation of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Televi- sion gave extensive coverage to the plight of the hostages, leading many Americans to view the Carter administration as weak and inept.
In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s?
1052 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
Taliban eventually came to power in Afghanistan. Tragically, they would prove as hostile to the United States as to Moscow.
In an unsuccessful attempt to bring down inflation, Carter had aban- doned the Keynesian economic policy of increased government spending to combat recession in favor of high interest rates. He had cut back on social spending and the federal government’s economic regulations, while pro- jecting a major increase in the military budget. By 1980, détente had been eclipsed and the Cold War reinvigorated. Thus, many of the conservative policies associated with his successor, Ronald Reagan, were already in place when Carter’s presidency ended.
T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M The combination of domestic and international dislocations during the 1970s created a widespread sense of anxiety among Americans and offered conserva- tives new political opportunities. Economic problems heightened the appeal of lower taxes, reduced government regulation, and cuts in social spending to spur business investment. Fears about a decline of American power in the world led to calls for a renewal of the Cold War. The civil rights and sexual revolutions produced resentments that undermined the Democratic coalition. Rising urban crime rates reinforced demands for law and order and attacks on courts considered too lenient toward criminals. These issues brought new con- verts to the conservative cause.
As the 1970s went on, conservatives abandoned overt opposition to the black struggle for racial justice. The fiery rhetoric and direct confrontation tactics of Bull Connor, George Wallace, and other proponents of massive resis- tance were succeeded by appeals to freedom of association, local control, and resistance to the power of the federal government. This language of individual freedom resonated throughout the country, appealing especially to the grow- ing, predominantly white, suburban population that was fleeing the cities and their urban problems. The suburbs would become one of the bastions of mod- ern conservatism.
Like predecessors as diverse as the civil rights and labor movements, conser- vatives organized at the grass roots. In order to spread conservative doctrines, they ran candidates for office even when they had little chance of winning, and worked to change the policies of local institutions like school boards, town councils, and planning commissions.
One set of recruits was the neoconservatives, a group of intellectuals who charged that the 1960s had produced a decline in moral standards and respect
THE RISING TIDE OF CONSERVATISM ★ 1053
for authority. Once supporters of liberalism, they had come to believe that even well- intentioned government social programs did more harm than good. Wel- fare, for example, not only failed to alleviate poverty but also encouraged single motherhood and undermined the work ethic. High taxes and expensive gov- ernment regulations drained resources from productive enterprises, stifling economic growth. Neoconservatives repudiated the attempts by Nixon, Ford, and Carter to reorient foreign policy away from the Cold War. Carter’s focus on human rights and alleged blindness to the Soviet threat, they argued, endan- gered the “survival of freedom.” Conservative “think tanks” created during the 1970s, like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, refined and spread these ideas.
The Religious Right
The rise of religious fundamentalism during the 1970s expanded conservatism’s popular base. Challenged by the secular and material concerns of American soci- ety, some denominations tried to bring religion into harmony with these inter- ests; others reasserted more traditional religious values. The latter approach seemed to appeal to growing numbers of Americans. Even as membership in mainstream denominations like Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism declined, evangelical Protestantism flourished. Some observers spoke of a Third Great Awakening (like those of the 1740s and early nineteenth century). The election of Carter, the first “ born- again” Christian to become president, highlighted the growing influence of evangelical religion. But unlike Carter, most fundamental- ists who entered politics did so as conservatives.
Of course, there was nothing new about the involvement of churches in political life. There is a long tradition in American history of moral stewardship— devout Christians taking on responsibility for social reform and using political means to combat what they perceive as individual or collective sins. During the 1960s, many members of the burgeoning evangelical churches of the suburbs, South, and West had become more and more alienated from a culture that seemed to them to trivialize religion and promote immorality. Evangelicals of different denominations increasingly came to feel that they had more in common with each other than with more liberal coreligionists. They demanded the reversal of Supreme Court decisions banning prayer in public schools, protecting pornography as free speech, and legalizing abortion. Although it spoke of restoring traditional values, the Religious Right proved remarkably adept at using modern technology, including mass mailings and televised religious programming, to raise funds for their crusade and spread their message. In 1979, Jerry Falwell, a Virginia minister, created the self- styled Moral Majority, devoted to waging a “war against sin” and electing “ pro- life,
What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s?
1054 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
pro- family, pro- America” candidates to office. Falwell identified supporters of abortion rights, easy divorce, and “military unpreparedness” as the forces of Satan.
Christian conservatives seemed most agitated by the ongoing sexual rev- olution, which they saw as undermining the traditional family and promot- ing immorality. As a result of the 1960s, they believed, American freedom was out of control. The growing assertiveness of the new gay movement spurred an espe- cially fierce reaction. In 1977, after a campaign led by the popular singer Anita Bryant, a familiar fixture in televised orange juice commercials, Dade County, Florida, passed an anti- gay ordinance under the banner “Save Our Children.”
The Battle over the Equal Rights Amendment
During the 1970s, “family values” moved to the center of conservative politics, nowhere more so than in the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Originally proposed during the 1920s by Alice Paul and the Woman’s Party, the ERA had been revived by second- wave feminists. In the wake of the rights rev- olution, the amendment’s affirmation that “equality of rights under the law” could not be abridged “on account of sex” hardly seemed controversial. In 1972, with broad bipartisan support, Congress approved the ERA and sent it to the states for ratification. Designed to eliminate obstacles to the full participation of women in public life, it aroused unexpected protest from those who claimed it would discredit the role of wife and homemaker.
The ERA debate reflected a division among women as much as a battle of the sexes. To its supporters, the amendment offered a guarantee of women’s freedom in the public sphere. To its foes, freedom for women still resided in the divinely appointed roles of wife and mother. Phyllis Schlafly, who helped to organize opposition to the ERA, insisted that the “free enterprise sys- tem” was the “real liberator of women,” since labor- saving home appliances offered more genuine freedom than “whining about past injustices” or seek- ing fulfillment outside the home. Opponents claimed that the ERA would let men “off the hook” by denying their responsibility to provide for their wives and children. Polls consistently showed that a majority of Americans, male and female, favored the ERA. But thanks to the mobilization of conservative women, the amendment failed to achieve ratification by the required thirty- eight states.
The Abortion Controversy
An even more acrimonious battle emerged in the 1970s over abortion rights, another example, to conservatives, of how liberals in office promoted sexual immorality at the expense of moral values. The movement to reverse the 1973
THE RISING TIDE OF CONSERVATISM ★ 1055
Roe v. Wade decision began among Roman Catholics, whose church condemned abortion under any circumstances. But it soon enlisted evangelical Protestants and social conservatives more generally. Life, the movement insisted, begins at conception, and abortion is nothing less than murder. Between this position and the feminist insistence that a woman’s right to control her body includes the right to a safe, legal abortion, compromise was impossible. Ironically, both sides showed how the rights revolution had reshaped the language of politics. Defenders of abortion exalted “the right to choose” as the essence of freedom. Opponents called themselves the “right to life” movement and claimed to rep- resent the rights of the “unborn child.”
The abortion issue drew a bitter, sometimes violent line through Ameri- can politics. It affected battles over nominees to judicial positions and led to demonstrations at family- planning and abortion clinics. The anti- abortion movement won its first victory in 1976 when Congress, over President Ford’s veto, ended federal funding for abortions for poor women through the Med- icaid program. By the 1990s, a few fringe anti- abortion activists were placing bombs at medical clinics and murdering doctors who terminated pregnancies. Today, most women continue to have the legal right of access to abortion. But in many areas the procedure became more and more difficult to obtain as hos- pitals and doctors stopped providing it.
A women’s liberation march in Detroit in 1970 highlights the issue of equal pay for equal work. At the time, women earned less than men in virtually every category of employment.
What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s?
1056 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
The Tax Revolt
With liberals unable to devise an effective policy to counteract deindustrial- ization and declining real wages, economic anxieties also created a growing constituency for conservative economics. Unlike during the Great Depression, economic distress inspired a critique of government rather than of business. New environmental regulations led to calls for less government intervention in the economy. The descent from affluence to stagflation increased the appeal of the con servative argument that government regulation raised business costs and eliminated jobs.
Economic decline also broadened the constituency receptive to demands for lower taxes. To conservatives, tax reductions served the dual purpose of enhancing business profits and reducing the resources available to govern- ment, thus making new social programs financially impossible.
Conservatism in the West
The West has always both reflected and contributed to national political trends. In the 1970s and 1980s it offered fertile soil for various strands of conservatism. The population movements of previous decades stimulated this development. Many southerners had left their homes for southern California, bringing with them their distinctive form of evangelical Christianity. Increasingly alienated from a Democratic Party that embraced the rights revolution and with it, evan- gelicals felt, the decline of traditional values, they gravitated to the California Republican Party, from which emerged national Republican leaders such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. California conservatives also embraced the new anti- tax mood.
In 1978, conservatives sponsored and California voters approved Proposi- tion 13, a ban on further increases in property taxes. The vote demonstrated that the level of taxation could be a powerful political issue. Proposition 13 proved to be a windfall for businesses and home owners, while reducing funds available for schools, libraries, and other public services. Many voters, however, proved willing to accept this result of lower taxes. As anti- tax sentiment flour- ished throughout the country, many states followed California’s lead.
There have always been voices in the West insisting that the region has a colonial relationship with the rest of the country. They point to federal own- ership of large swaths of western land, and the dependence of western devel- opment on investment from the East. In the late nineteenth century, this view helped give rise to western Populism, when the targets of protest were east- ern banks and railroad companies, as well as a national economic policy that favored these corporations. Nearly a century later it became associated with a conservative upsurge known as the Sagebrush Rebellion (the name given to a
THE RISING TIDE OF CONSERVATISM ★ 1057
bill passed by the Nevada legislature in 1979) directed at the federal govern- ment. The roots of this “rebellion” lie as far back as the 1920s, when the U.S. For- est Service announced plans to increase grazing fees and mineral rights in national forests and other public lands. Nevada’s ranchers went to court to block these fees but were rebuffed by the Supreme Court. In the 1970s, new environmental regulations won fresh recruits to the movement. The Clean Air Act alarmed western coal operators. Westerners who believed the environ- mental policies of the Carter administration were closing the public domain to exploitation eagerly supported Ronald Reagan’s presidential candidacy.
Using the language of freedom from government tyranny, leaders in west- ern states insisted that the states themselves be given decision- making power over issues like grazing rights, mining development, and whether public lands should be closed to fishing and hunting. With the federal government reluc- tant to give up control over public lands in the West, the Sagebrush Rebellion had few concrete accomplishments, but it underscored the rising tide of anti- government sentiment.
The Election of 1980
By 1980, Carter’s approval rating had fallen to 21 percent— lower than Nixon’s at the time of his resignation. A conservative tide seemed to be rising through- out the Western world. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of Great Britain. She promised to restore economic competitiveness by curtailing the power of unions, reducing taxes, selling state- owned industries to private owners, and cutting back the welfare state. In the United States, Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign for the presidency brought together the many strands of 1970s conservatism. He pledged to end stagflation and restore the country’s dominant role in the world and its confidence in itself. “Let’s make America great again,” he proclaimed. “The era of self- doubt is over.”
Reagan also appealed skillfully to “white backlash.” He kicked off his cam- paign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964, with a speech emphasizing his belief in states’ rights. Many white southerners understood this doctrine as including opposition to federal intervention on behalf of civil rights. During the campaign, Reagan repeatedly condemned welfare “cheats,” school busing, and affirmative action. The Repub- lican platform reversed the party’s long- standing support for the Equal Rights Amendment and condemned moral permissiveness. Although not personally religious and the first divorced man to run for president, Reagan won the sup- port of the Religious Right and conservative upholders of “family values.”
Riding a wave of dissatisfaction with the country’s condition, Reagan swept into the White House. He carried such Democratic strongholds as Illinois, Texas, and New York. Because moderate Republican John Anderson, running for
What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s?
1058 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
president as an independent, received about 7 percent of the popular vote, Rea- gan won only a bare majority, although he commanded an over whelming margin in the electoral college. Car- ter received 41 percent, a humiliating defeat for a sitting president.
Jimmy Carter’s reputation improved after he left the White House. He went to work for Habitat for Humanity, an organization that constructs homes for poor families. In the 1990s, he nego- tiated a cease- fire between warring Muslim and Serb forces in Bosnia and arranged a peaceful transfer of power from the military to an elected govern-
ment in Haiti. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His presi- dency, however, is almost universally considered a failure. And his defeat in 1980 launched the Reagan Revolution, which completed the transformation of freedom from the rallying cry of the left to a possession of the right.
T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N Ronald Reagan followed a most unusual path to the presidency. Originally a New Deal Democrat and head of the Screen Actors Guild (the only union leader ever to reach the White House), he emerged in the 1950s as a spokesman for the General Electric Corporation, preaching the virtues of unregulated capital- ism. His nominating speech for Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican con- vention brought Reagan to national attention. Two years later, California voters elected Reagan as governor. In 1976, he challenged President Ford for the Repub- lican nomination and came close to winning it. His victory in 1980 brought to power a diverse coalition of old and new conservatives: Sunbelt suburbanites and urban working- class ethnics; antigovernment crusaders and advocates of a more aggressive foreign policy; libertarians who believed in freeing the individ- ual from restraint and the Christian Right, which sought to restore what they considered traditional moral values to American life.
Reagan and American Freedom
Reagan’s opponents often underestimated him. By the time he left office at the age of seventy- seven, he had become the oldest man ever to serve as president.
8 1
6
45 3
4
4
3
4 7
6 4
3
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7
8
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6
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8
17
10 13 9 12
26 13 25
6
27
41
3 4 4
14 4 8173
10 3
3 4
Democrat Republican Other candidates
Party Carter Ford
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 297 (55%) 240 (45%)
1
Popular Vote (Share)
40,825,839 (50%) 39,147,770 (48%)
1,577,333 (2%)
T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 8 0
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION ★ 1059
He “rose at the crack of noon,” as one reporter put it, and relied on his wife to arrange his official schedule. Unlike most modern presidents, he was content to outline broad policy themes and leave their implementation to others.
Reagan, however, was hardly a political novice, having governed California during the turbulent 1960s. He was an excellent public speaker, and his opti- mism and affability appealed to large numbers of Americans. Reagan made conservatism seem progressive, rather than an attempt to turn back the tide of progress. He frequently quoted Thomas Paine: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Reagan repeatedly invoked the idea that America has a divinely appointed mission as a “beacon of liberty and freedom.” Free- dom, indeed, became the watchword of the Reagan Revolution. In his public appearances and state papers, Reagan used the word more often than any pres- ident before him.
Reagan reshaped the nation’s agenda and political language more effec- tively than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Like FDR, he seized on the vocabulary of his opponents and gave it new meaning. Reagan promised to free government from control by “special interests,” but these were racial minorities, unionists, and others hoping to use Washington’s power to attack social inequalities, not businessmen seeking political favors, the traditional tar- get of liberals. His Justice Department made the principle that the Constitution must be “ color- blind”—a remark hurled at the Supreme Court majority by Jus- tice John Marshall Harlan in 1896 to challenge a system of legal segregation— a justification for gutting civil rights enforcement.
Overall, Reagan proved remarkably successful at seizing control of the terms of public debate. On issues ranging from taxes to government spending, national security, crime, welfare, and “traditional values,” he put Democrats on the defensive. But he also proved to be a pragmatist, recognizing when to com- promise so as not to fragment his diverse coalition of supporters.
Reagan’s Economic Policies
Like Roosevelt and Johnson before him, Reagan spoke of “economic freedom” and proposed an “economic Bill of Rights.” But in contrast to his predecessors, who used these phrases to support combating poverty and strengthening eco- nomic security, economic freedom for Reagan meant curtailing the power of unions, dismantling regulations, and radically reducing taxes. Taxation, he declared, violated the principle that “the right to earn your own keep and keep what you earn” was “what it means to be free.”
In 1981, Reagan persuaded Congress to reduce the top tax rate from 70 per- cent to 50 percent and to index tax brackets to take inflation into account. Five years later, the Tax Reform Act reduced the rate on the wealthiest Americans to
How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
1060 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
From Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (1971)
Environmentalism, a movement born in the 1960s, expanded rapidly in the follow- ing decade. In The Closing Circle, Barry Commoner, a biologist later called the Paul Revere of the movement, warned that technological development and the pursuit of economic growth regardless of consequences were creating an environmental crisis. He called on Americans to alter their lifestyles to bring them into harmony with the “ecosphere”—the natural environment within which people live.
The environment has just been rediscovered by the people who live in it. In the United States the event was celebrated in April 1970, during Earth Week. It was a sudden, noisy awakening. School children cleaned up rubbish; college students organized new demonstrations; determined citizens recaptured the streets from the automobile, at least for a day. Everyone seemed to be aroused to the environmental danger and eager to do something about it.
They were offered lots of advice. Almost every writer, almost every speaker, on the college campuses, in the streets and on television and radio broadcasts, was ready to fix the blame and pronounce a cure for the environmental crisis.
Some blamed pollution on the rising population. . . . Some blamed man’s innate aggressiveness. . . . Having spent some years in the effort simply to detect and describe the growing list of environmental problems— radioactive fallout, air and water pollu- tion, the deterioration of the soil— and in tracing some of their links to social and polit- ical processes, the identification of a single cause and cure seemed a rather bold step. . . .
Any living thing that hopes to live on the earth must fit into the ecosphere or perish. The environmental crisis is a sign that the finely sculpted fit between life and its sur- roundings has begun to corrode. As the links between one living thing and another, and between all of them and their surroundings, begin to break down, the dynamic interac- tions that sustain the whole have begun to falter and, in some places, stop. . . .
We have broken out of the circle of life, converting its endless cycles into man- made, linear events; oil is taken from the ground, distilled into fuel, burned in an engine, converted thereby into noxious fumes, which are emitted into the air. At the end of the line is smog. Other man- made breaks in the ecosphere’s cycle spew out toxic chemicals, sewage, heaps of rubbish— the testimony to our power to tear the ecological fabric that has, for millions of years, sustained the planet’s life.
From Richard E. Blakemore, Report on the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979)
The rapid growth of the environmentalist movement sparked a conservative reaction, especially in the western states. What came to be called the Sagebrush Rebellion denounced federal control of large areas of western land as well as new
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 1061
environmental regulations that, the “rebels” claimed, threatened energy production and long- standing grazing rights. Richard E. Blakemore, a member of the Nevada state senate, offered this explanation of the outlook of many westerners.
The “sagebrush rebellion” is a catchy but somewhat misleading term used to describe the western states’ demands for a greater role in determining the future of the west. Unlike the dictionary definition, in this rebellion there is no armed or unlawful resis- tance to government. Neither is western land desolate or worthless as the term “sage- brush” connoted. Moreover, if much of the land in the west ever was considered of little worth, the need for energy has changed that.
Statistics show that much of the west is controlled by the federal government. . . . On average, the federal government controls 52.6 percent of the land in the 12 western states. . . . For many years, the public domain was open to ranching, mining, and out- door recreation. But a number of federal acts, passed to protect and conserve the envi- ronment, have closed great parts of the public domain to traditional uses. . . .
The west today is at the confluence of two major movements— that for protection of the environment and that for production of energy. To a great extent, the success of the attempt for U.S. energy independence depends on resources of the west. In addition, the west is looked to for increased agricultural production and for its reserves of minerals necessary to modern industry. The environmental movement prompted the passage of federal legislation aimed at protecting the environment and maintaining great portions of the country in a natural state. Among the major environmental acts of the past 15 years are the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, the Federal Land Policy Management Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the National Forest Management Act.
The genesis of the sagebrush rebellion can be found in the conflict between the desires to protect and preserve the environment and the demands for food, minerals, and energy from the west. . . .
While the particular issues on which the sagebrush rebellion are based are more common in the west, the principles behind the movement are national in scope. . . .
Because of the federal omnipresence in the west, westerners have reached the crisis first. But reversing the trend towards centralization that threatens the economy, our lands, and our freedoms is of concern to all Americans.
QUESTIONS
1. How and why does Commoner ask Americans to rethink their definition of freedom?
2. What elements of environmental policy does Blakemore see as a threat to “our freedoms”?
3. How do the two writers differ in their visions of the future of American society?
1062 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
28 percent. These measures marked a sharp retreat from the principle of pro- gressivity (the idea that the wealthy should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than other citizens), one of the ways twentieth- century societ- ies tried to address the unequal distribution of wealth. Reagan also appointed conservative heads of regulatory agencies, who cut back on environmental protection and workplace safety rules about which business had complained for years.
Since the New Deal, liberals had tried to promote economic growth by using the power of the government to bolster ordinary Americans’ purchasing power. Reagan’s economic program, known as “ supply- side economics” by pro- ponents and “ trickle- down economics” by critics, relied on high interest rates to curb inflation and lower tax rates, especially for businesses and high- income Americans, to stimulate private investment. The policy assumed that cutting taxes would inspire Americans at all income levels to work harder, since they would keep more of the money they earned. Everyone would benefit from increased business profits, and because of a growing economy, government receipts would rise despite lower tax rates.
Reagan and Labor
Reagan inaugurated an era of hostility between the federal government and orga- nized labor. In August 1981, when 13,000 members of PATCO, the union of air traffic controllers, began a strike in violation of federal law, Reagan fired them all. He used the military to oversee the nation’s air traffic system until new control- lers could be trained. Reagan’s action inspired many private employers to launch anti- union offensives. The hiring of workers to replace permanently those who had gone on strike, a rare occurrence before 1980, became widespread. Manufac- turing employment, where union membership was concentrated, meanwhile continued its long- term decline. By the mid- 1990s, the steel industry employed only 170,000 persons— down from 600,000 in 1973. When Reagan left office, both the service and retail sectors employed more Americans than manufacturing, and only 11 percent of workers with non- government jobs were union members.
Reaganomics, as critics dubbed the administration’s policies, initially pro- duced the most severe recession since the 1930s. A long period of economic expansion, however, followed the downturn of 1981–1982. As companies “downsized” their workforces, shifted production overseas, and took advantage of new technologies such as satellite communications, they became more prof- itable. At the same time, the rate of inflation, 13.5 percent at the beginning of 1981, declined to 3.5 percent in 1988, partly because a period of expanded oil production that drove down prices succeeded the shortages of the 1970s. By the end of Reagan’s presidency in 1989, the real gross domestic product had risen by
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION ★ 1063
25 percent and unemployment was down to 5.5 percent. These were significant accomplishments.
The Problem of Inequality
Together, Reagan’s policies, rising stock prices, and deindustrialization resulted in a considerable rise in economic inequality. By the mid- 1990s, the richest 1 per- cent of Americans owned 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, twice their share twenty years earlier. Most spent their income not on productive investments and charity as supply- side economists had promised, but on luxury goods, real- estate speculation, and corporate buyouts that often led to plant closings as operations were consolidated. The income of middle- class families, especially those with a wife who did not work outside the home, stagnated while that of the poorest one- fifth of the population declined. Because of falling investment in public housing, the release of mental patients from state hospitals, and cuts in welfare, homeless persons became a visible fixture on the streets of cities from New York to Los Angeles.
Deindustrialization and the decline of the labor movement had a particu- larly devastating impact on minority workers, who had only recently gained a foothold in better- paying manufacturing jobs. Thanks to the opening of col- leges and professional schools to minority students as a result of the civil rights movement and affirmative action programs, the black middle class expanded considerably. But black workers, traditionally the last hired and first fired, were hard hit by economic changes.
During the 1970s, Jim Crow had finally ended in many workplaces and unions. But just as decades of painful efforts to obtain better jobs bore fruit, hundreds of thousands of black workers lost their jobs when factories closed their doors. In South Gate, a working- class suburb of Los Angeles, for example, the giant Firestone tire factory shut down in 1980, only a few years after black and Latino workers made their first breakthroughs in employment. When the national unemployment rate reached 8.9 percent at the end of 1981, the figure for blacks exceeded 20 percent. Nor did black workers share fully in the recov- ery that followed. Few had the education to take advantage of job openings in growing “ knowledge- based” industries like technology and information ser- vices. Overall, during the 1980s black males fell farther than any other group in the population in terms of wages and jobs.
The Second Gilded Age
In retrospect, the 1980s, like the 1890s, would be widely remembered as a decade of misplaced values. Buying out companies generated more prof- its than running them; making deals, not making products, became the way
How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?
1064 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
to get rich. The merger of Nabisco and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1988 produced close to $1 billion in fees for lawyers, economic advisers, and stockbrokers. “Greed is healthy,” declared Wall Street financier Ivan Boe- sky (who ended up in prison for insider stock trading). “Yuppie”—the young urban professional who earned a high income working in a bank or stock brokerage firm and spent lavishly on designer clothing and other trappings of the good life— became a household word.
Taxpayers footed the bill for some of the consequences. The deregulation of savings and loan associations— banks that had generally confined them- selves to financing home mortgages— allowed these institutions to invest in unsound real- estate ventures and cor- porate mergers. Losses piled up, and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which insured depositors’ accounts, faced bankruptcy. After Rea- gan left office, the federal government bailed out the savings and loan institu- tions, at a cost to taxpayers estimated at $250 billion.
Supply- side advocates insisted that lowering taxes would enlarge govern- ment revenue by stimulating economic activity. But spurred by large increases in funds for the military, federal spending far outstripped income, producing large budget deficits, despite assurances by supply- siders that this would not happen. During Reagan’s presidency, the national debt tripled to $2.7 tril- lion. Nonetheless, Reagan remained immensely popular. He took credit for economic expansion while blaming congressional leaders for the ballooning federal deficit. He won a triumphant reelection in 1984. His opponent, Walter Mondale (best remembered for choosing Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate, the first woman candidate on a major- party presidential ticket), carried only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.
Loosely modeled on the French artist Eugène Delacroix’s famous 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People (reproduced at the lower left), this campaign poster from 1984 depicts Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman nominated for vice pres- ident by a major party, as a modern- day rebel. She overshadows the Democratic presidential candidate, Walter Mondale, shown carrying a rifle emblazoned with “ERA,” for the Equal Rights Amendment.
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION ★ 1065
Conservatives and Reagan
While he implemented their economic policies, Reagan in some ways disap- pointed ardent conservatives. The administration sharply reduced funding for Great Society antipoverty programs such as food stamps, school lunches, and federal financing of low- income housing. But it left intact core elements of the welfare state, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which many conservatives wished to curtail significantly or repeal. The Reagan era did little to advance the social agenda of the Christian Right. Abortion remained legal, women continued to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers, and Rea- gan even appointed the first female member of the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor. In 1986, in Bowers v. Hardwick, in a rare victory for cultural conserva- tives, the Supreme Court did uphold the constitutionality of state laws outlaw- ing homosexual acts. (In 2003, the justices would reverse the Bowers decision, declaring laws that criminalized homosexuality unconstitutional.)
Reagan gave verbal support to a proposed constitutional amendment restoring prayer in public schools but did little to promote its passage. The administration launched a “Just Say No” campaign against illegal drug use. But this failed to halt the spread in urban areas of crack, a potent, inexpensive form of cocaine that produced an upsurge of street crime and family breakdown. Reagan’s Justice Department cut back on civil rights enforcement and worked to curtail affirmative action programs. But to the end of Reagan’s presidency, the Supreme Court continued to approve plans by private employers and city and state governments to upgrade minority employment.
Reagan and the Cold War
In foreign policy, Reagan breathed new life into the rhetorical division of the world into a free West and unfree East. He resumed vigorous denunciation of the Soviet Union— calling it an “evil empire”—and sponsored the largest military buildup in American history, including new long- range bombers and missiles. In 1983, he proposed an entirely new strategy, the Strategic Defense Initiative, based on developing a space- based system to intercept and destroy enemy mis- siles. The idea was not remotely feasible technologically, and, if deployed, it would violate the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. But it appealed to Rea- gan’s desire to reassert America’s worldwide power. He persuaded NATO, over much opposition, to introduce short- range nuclear weapons into Europe to counter Soviet forces. But the renewed arms race and Reagan’s casual talk of winning a nuclear war caused widespread alarm at home and abroad. In the early 1980s, a movement for a nuclear freeze— a halt to the development of nuclear weapons— attracted millions of supporters in the United States and Europe. In 1983, half of the American population watched The Day After, a
How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?
1066 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
television program that unflinchingly depicted the devastation that would be caused by a nuclear war.
Reagan came into office determined to overturn the “Vietnam syndrome”— as widespread public reluctance to commit American forces overseas was called. He sent American troops to the Caribbean island of Grenada to oust a pro- Cuban government. In 1982, Reagan dispatched marines as a peacekeeping force to Lebanon, where a civil war raged between the Christian government, supported by Israeli forces, and Muslim insurgents. But he quickly withdrew them after a bomb exploded at their barracks, killing 241 Americans. The public, Reagan realized, would support minor operations like Grenada but remained unwilling to sustain heavy casualties abroad.
Reagan generally relied on military aid rather than American troops to pursue his foreign policy objectives. Abandoning the Carter administration’s emphasis on human rights, Reagan embraced the idea, advanced in 1979 by neoconservative writer Jeane Kirkpatrick, that the United States should oppose “totalitarian” communists but assist “authoritarian” noncommunist regimes. Kirkpatrick became the American ambassador to the United Nations, and the United States stepped up its alliances with Third World anticommunist dicta- torships like the governments of Chile and South Africa. The administration poured in funds to combat insurgencies against the governments of El Salva- dor and Guatemala, whose armies and associated death squads committed fla- grant abuses against their own citizens. When El Salvador’s army massacred hundreds of civilians in the town of El Mozote in 1981, the State Department denied that the event, widely reported in the press, had taken place.
The Iran- Contra Affair
American involvement in Central America produced the greatest scandal of Reagan’s presidency, the Iran- Contra affair. In 1984, Congress banned military aid to the Contras (derived from the Spanish word for “against”) fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which, as noted earlier, had ousted the American- backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. In 1985, Reagan secretly authorized the sale of arms to Iran— now involved in a war with its neighbor, Iraq— in order to secure the release of a number of American hostages held by Islamic groups in the Middle East. CIA director William Casey and Lieu- tenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council set up a system that diverted some of the proceeds to buy military supplies for the Contras in defiance of the congressional ban. The scheme continued for nearly two years.
In 1987, after a Middle Eastern newspaper leaked the story, Congress held televised hearings that revealed a pattern of official duplicity and violation of the law reminiscent of the Nixon era. Eleven members of the administration
THE REAGAN REVOLUTION ★ 1067
9
6 4
3 45
4
3
4 7
6 4
26
3
4
5
7
8
10
8
12
6
10
11
26
21
13 25
9 12
10 13
7 9 12 8
17
6
27
41
3 4 4
14 4 8173
10 3
3 4
Republican Democrat Independent Other candidates
Party Reagan Carter Anderson
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 489 (91%)
49 (9%)
Popular Vote (Share)
43,901,812 (51%) 35,483,820 (41%)
5,720,437 (7%) 1,155,593 (1%)
T H E U N I T E D S TAT E S I N T H E C A R I B B E A N A N D C E N T R A L A M E R I C A , 1 9 5 4 – 2 0 0 4
As in the first part of the twentieth century, the United States intervened frequently in Caribbean and Central American countries during and immediately after the Cold War.
eventually were convicted of perjury or destroying documents, or pleaded guilty before being tried. Reagan denied knowledge of the illegal proceedings, but the Iran- Contra affair undermined confidence that he controlled his own administration.
Reagan and Gorbachev
In his second term, to the surprise of both his foes and supporters, Reagan soft- ened his anticommunist rhetoric and established good relations with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev had come to power in 1985, bent on reforming the Soviet Union’s repressive political system and reinvigorating its economy. The country had fallen further and further behind the United States in the production and distribution of consumer goods, and it relied increas- ingly on agricultural imports to feed itself. Gorbachev inaugurated policies known as glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (economic reform).
How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?
1068 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
Gorbachev realized that significant change would be impossible without reducing his country’s military budget. Reagan was ready to negotiate. A series of talks between 1985 and 1987 yielded more progress on arms control than in the entire postwar period to that point, including an agreement to eliminate intermediate- and short- range nuclear missiles in Europe. In 1988, Gorbachev began pulling Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. Having entered office as an ardent Cold Warrior, Reagan left with hostilities between the super- powers much diminished. He even repudiated his earlier comment that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire,” saying that it referred to “another era.”
Reagan’s Legacy
Reagan’s presidency revealed the contra- dictions at the heart of modern con- servatism. In some ways, the Reagan
Revolution undermined the very values and institutions conservatives held dear. Intended to discourage reliance on government handouts by rewarding honest work and business initiative, Reagan’s policies inspired a speculative frenzy that enriched architects of corporate takeovers and investors in the stock market while leaving in their wake plant closings, job losses, and devastated communities. Nothing proved more threatening to local traditions or family stability than deindustrialization, insecurity about employment, and the relent- less downward pressure on wages. Nothing did more to undermine a sense of common national purpose than the widening gap between rich and poor.
Because of the Iran- Contra scandal and the enormous deficits the govern- ment had accumulated, Reagan left the presidency with his reputation some- what tarnished. Nonetheless, few figures have so successfully changed the landscape and language of politics. Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, defeated Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, in the 1988 election partly because Dukakis could not respond effectively to the charge that he was a “liberal”—now a term of political abuse. Conservative assumptions about the virtues of the free market and the evils of “big government” dominated the
President Reagan visited Moscow in 1988, cementing his close relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They were photo- graphed in Red Square.
mass media and political debates. Those receiving public assistance had come to be seen not as citizens entitled to help in coping with economic misfortune, but as a drain on taxes. During the 1990s, these and other conservative ideas would be embraced almost as fully by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, as by Reagan and the Republicans.
The Election of 1988
The 1988 election seemed to show politics sinking to new lows. Television adver- tisements and media exposés now dominated political campaigns. The race for the Democratic nomination had hardly begun before the front- runner, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, withdrew after a newspaper reported that he had spent the night at his Washington town house with a woman other than his wife. Both parties ran negative campaigns. Democrats ridiculed the Republican vice- presidential nominee, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, for factual and linguistic mistakes. Republicans spread unfounded rumors that Michael Dukakis’s wife had burned an American flag during the 1960s. The low point of the campaign came in a Republican television ad depicting the threatening image of Wil- lie Horton, a black murderer and rapist who had been furloughed from prison during Dukakis’s term as governor of Massachusetts. Rarely in the modern era had a major party appealed so blatantly to racial fears.
Although he did not match Reagan’s landslide victory of 1984, Bush achieved a substantial majority, winning 54 percent of the popular vote. Dem- ocratic success in retaining control of Congress suggested that an electoral base existed for a comeback. But this would occur only if the party fashioned a new appeal to replace traditional liberalism, which had been eclipsed by the triumph of conservatism.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why were social issues associated with the sexual revolution so contested by all sides?
2. What were continuing challenges to the cohesiveness of the Democratic (New Deal) coali- tion? What were the consequences of those divisions?
3. What were the main features of Nixon’s policy of “realism” in dealing with China and the Soviet Union?
4. Describe the basic events and the larger significance of the Watergate scandal.
How did the Reagan presidency affect American aims at home and abroad?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 1069
1070 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism
5. What were the major causes for the decline of the U.S. economy in the 1970s?
6. What were the causes and consequences of the public’s disillusionment with the federal government in the 1970s and 1980s?
7. Identify the groups and their agendas that combined to create the new conservative base in the 1970s and 1980s.
8. What impact did Ronald Reagan have on the American political scene?
9. Why was there growth in economic inequality in the 1980s?
10. How did various groups see the relationship between women’s rights and freedom differently?
KEY TERMS
affirmative action (p. 1033)
busing (p. 1035)
reverse discrimination (p. 1035)
Title IX (p. 1037)
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (p. 1038)
détente (p. 1038)
My Lai massacre (p. 1040)
Pentagon Papers (p. 1040)
War Powers Act (p. 1040)
Vietnam Syndrome (p. 1041)
Watergate (p. 1041)
oil embargo (p. 1044)
stagflation (p. 1045)
deindustrialization (p. 1046)
Sunbelt (p. 1046)
Helsinki Accords (p. 1047)
deregulation (p. 1048)
Three Mile Island (p. 1049)
Camp David Accords (p. 1050)
neoconservatives (p. 1052)
Reagan Revolution (p. 1058)
Reaganomics (p. 1062)
Iran- Contra affair (p. 1066)
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
Visit the Give Me Liberty! Student Site for primary source documents and images, interactive maps, author videos featuring Eric Foner, and more.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the major international initiatives of the Clinton administration
in the aftermath of the Cold War?
• What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s?
• What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
• How did a divisive political partisanship affect the election of 2000?
• Why did Al Qaeda attack the United States on September 11, 2001?
F R O M T R I U M P H
T O T R A G E D Y
★ C H A P T E R 2 7 ★
1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 1
The year 1989 was one of the most momentous of the twentieth century. In April, tens of thousands of student demonstrators occupied Tianan-men Square in the heart of Beijing, demanding greater democracy in China. Workers, teachers, and even some government officials joined them, until their numbers swelled to nearly 1 million. Both the reforms Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced in the Soviet Union and the example of American institutions inspired the protesters. The students erected a figure reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, calling it “The Goddess of Democracy and Freedom.” In June, Chinese troops crushed the protest, killing an unknown number of people, possibly thousands.
In the fall of 1989, pro- democracy demonstrations spread across eastern Europe. Gorbachev made it clear that unlike in the past, the Soviet Union
★ 1071
1072 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
would not intervene. The climactic event took place on November 9 when crowds breached the Berlin Wall, which since 1961 had stood as the Cold War’s most prominent symbol. One by one, the region’s communist govern- ments agreed to give up power. In 1990, a reunified German nation absorbed East Germany. The remarkably swift and almost entirely peaceful collapse of communism in eastern Europe became known as the “velvet revolution.”
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union itself slipped deeper and deeper into crisis. Gorbachev’s attempts at economic reform produced only chaos, and his policy of political openness allowed long- suppressed national and eth- nic tensions to rise to the surface. In August 1991, a group of military lead- ers attempted to seize power to over- turn the government’s plan to give greater autonomy to the various parts of the Soviet Union. Russian president Boris Yeltsin mobilized crowds in Mos- cow that restored Gorbachev to office. Gorbachev then resigned from the Communist Party, ending its eighty-
four- year rule. One after another, the republics of the Soviet Union declared themselves sovereign states. At the end of 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist; in its place were fifteen new independent nations.
The sudden and unexpected collapse of communism marked the end of the Cold War and a stunning triumph for the United States and its allies. For the first time since 1917, there existed a truly worldwide capitalist system. Even China, while remaining under Communist Party rule, had already embarked on market reforms and rushed to attract foreign investment. Other events sug- gested that the 1990s would also be a “decade of democracy.” In 1990, South Africa released Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress, from prison. Four years later, as a result of the first democratic elections in the coun- try’s history, Mandela became president, ending the system of state- sponsored racial inequality, known as “apartheid,” and white minority government.
The Goddess of Democracy and Freedom, a statue reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, was displayed by pro- democracy advocates during the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. After allowing it to continue for two months, the Chinese government sent troops to crush the peaceful occupation of the square.
THE POST– COLD WAR WORLD ★ 1073
Throughout Latin America and Africa, civil- ian governments replaced military rule.
The sudden shift from a bipolar world to one of unquestioned American predominance promised to redefine the country’s global role. President George H. W. Bush spoke of the com- ing of a new world order. But no one knew what its characteristics would be and what new challenges to American power might arise.
T H E P O S T– C O L D W A R W O R L D
A New World Order?
Bush’s first major foreign policy action was a throwback to the days of American interven- tionism in the Western Hemisphere. At the end of 1989, he dispatched troops to Panama to overthrow the government of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, a former ally of the United States who had become involved in the international drug trade. The United States installed a new government and flew Noriega to Florida, where he was tried and convicted on drug charges.
The Gulf War
A far more serious crisis arose in 1990 when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait, an oil- rich sheikdom on the Persian Gulf. Fearing that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein might next attack Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally that supplied more oil to the United States than any other country, Bush rushed troops to defend Kuwait and warned Iraq to with- draw from the country or face war. His policy aroused intense debate in the United States. But the Iraqi invasion so flagrantly violated
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
1989 Communism falls in eastern Europe
U.S.-led Panamanian coup
1990 Americans with Disabilities Act
Germany reunifies
1991 Gulf War
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
1992 Los Angeles riots
Casey v. Planned Parent- hood of Pennsylvania
Clinton elected president
1993 Israel and Palestine Liber- ation Organization sign the Oslo Accords
North American Free Trade Agreement approved
1994 Republicans win Congress; Contract with America
Rwandan genocide
1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombed
1996 Clinton eliminates Aid to Families with Dependent Children
Defense of Marriage Act
1998– Clinton impeachment 1989 proceedings
Kosovo War
1999 Protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization
Glass- Steagall Act repealed
2000 Bush v. Gore
2001 9/11 attacks
• •
What were the major international initiatives of the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the Cold War?
1074 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
international law that Bush succeeded in building a forty- nation coalition com- mitted to restoring Kuwait’s independence, secured the support of the United Nations, and sent half a million American troops along with a naval armada to the region.
In February 1991, the United States launched Operation Desert Storm, which quickly drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait. Tens of thousands of Iraqis and 184 Americans died in the conflict. The United Nations ordered Iraq to disarm and imposed economic sanctions that produced widespread civilian suffering for the rest of the decade. But Hussein remained in place. So did a large American military establishment in Saudi Arabia, to the outrage of Islamic fundamental- ists who deemed its presence an affront to their faith.
The Gulf War was the first post– Cold War international crisis. Relying on high- tech weaponry like cruise missiles that reached Iraq from bases and aircraft carriers hundreds of miles away, the United States was able to prevail quickly and avoid the prolonged involvement and high casualties of Vietnam. The Soviet Union, in the process of disintegration, remained on the sidelines. In the war’s immediate aftermath, Bush’s public approval rating rose to an unprecedented 89 percent.
Visions of America’s Role
In a speech to Congress, President Bush identified the Gulf War as the first step in the struggle to create a world rooted in democracy and global free trade. But it remained unclear how this broad vision would be translated into policy. Soon after the end of the war, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Dick Cheney, the secretary of defense, outlined different visions of the future. Powell predicted that the post– Cold War world would be a dangerous environment with conflicts popping up in unexpected places. To avoid being drawn into an unending role as global policeman, he insisted, the United States should not commit its troops abroad without clear objectives and a timetable for withdrawal. Cheney argued that with the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States possessed the power to reshape the world and prevent hostile states from achieving regional power. It must be willing to use force, independently if necessary, to maintain its strategic dominance. For the rest of the 1990s, it was not certain which definition of the American role in the post– Cold War world would predominate.
The Election of Clinton
Had a presidential election been held in 1991, Bush would undoubtedly have been victorious. But in that year the economy slipped into recession. Despite
THE POST– COLD WAR WORLD ★ 1075
Tiranë Sofia
Prague
Berlin
Helsinki
Athens
Budapest
Rome
Warsaw
Bucharest
Ankara
Belgrade
Minsk
Sarajevo
Podgorica
Zagreb
Tallinn
Riga
Vilnius
Skopje
Bratislava
Ljubljana
Kiev Vienna
Copenhagen
Oslo
Stockholm
Moscow
¸Chisinau˘
Yerevan Baku
Tbilisi
Ashgabat
ITALY
GERMANY
CZECH REPUBLIC
SLOVAKIA AUSTRIA
HUNGARYSLOVENIA CROATIA
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
MONTENEGRO SERBIA
ALBANIA MACEDONIA
GREECE TURKEY
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
MOLDOVA
UKRAINE
POLAND
RUS. LITHUANIA
LATVIA
ESTONIA
BELARUS
NORWAY
SWEDEN
FINLAND
DENMARK RUSSIA
KAZAKHSTAN
UZBEKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN GEORGIA
AZERBAIJANARMENIA
Black Sea
Caspian Sea
Aral Sea
Ba ltic
Se a
North Sea
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
E A S T E R N E U R O P E A F T E R T H E C O L D WA R
The end of the Cold War and breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia redrew the map of eastern Europe (compare this map with the map of Cold War Europe in Chapter 23). Two additional nations that emerged from the Soviet Union lie to the east and are not indicated here: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
victory in the Cold War and the Gulf, more and more Americans believed the country was on the wrong track. No one seized more effectively on the widespread sense of unease than Bill Clinton, a former governor of Arkansas. In 1992, Clinton won the Democratic nomination by combining social liberal- ism (he supported abortion rights, gay rights, and affirmative action for racial
What were the major international initiatives of the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the Cold War?
1076 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
minorities) with elements of conservatism (he pledged to reduce government bureaucracy and, borrowing a page from Republicans, promised to “end wel- fare as we know it”). A charismatic campaigner, Clinton conveyed sincere con- cern for voters’ economic anxieties.
Bush, by contrast, seemed out of touch with the day- to- day lives of ordi- nary Americans. On the wall of Democratic headquarters, Clinton’s campaign director posted the slogan, “It’s the Economy, Stupid”—a reminder that the eco- nomic downturn was the Democrats’ strongest card. Bush was further weak- ened when conservative leader Pat Buchanan delivered a fiery televised speech at the Republican national convention that declared cultural war against gays, feminists, and supporters of abortion rights. This seemed to confirm the Demo- cratic portrait of Republicans as intolerant and divisive.
A third candidate, the eccentric Texas billionaire Ross Perot, also entered the fray. He attacked Bush and Clinton as lacking the economic know- how to deal with the recession and the ever- increasing national debt. That millions of Americans considered Perot a credible candidate— at one point, polls showed him leading both Clinton and Bush— testified to widespread dissatisfaction with the major parties. Perot’s support faded as election day approached, but he still received 19 percent of the popular vote, the best result for a third- party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Clinton won by a substan- tial margin, a humiliating outcome for Bush, given his earlier popularity.
Clinton in Office
In his first two years in office, Clinton turned away from some of the social and economic policies of the Reagan and Bush years. He appointed several blacks and women to his cabinet, including Janet Reno, the first female attorney gen- eral, and named two supporters of abortion rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, to the Supreme Court. He modified the military’s strict ban on gay soldiers, instituting a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy by which officers would not seek out gays for dismissal from the armed forces. His first budget raised taxes on the wealthy and significantly expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—a cash payment for low- income workers begun during the Ford administration. The most effective antipoverty policy since the Great Society, the EITC raised more than 4 million Americans, half of them children, above the poverty line during Clinton’s presidency.
Clinton shared his predecessor’s passion for free trade. Despite strong oppo- sition from unions and environmentalists, he obtained congressional approval in 1993 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a treaty nego- tiated by Bush that created a free- trade zone consisting of Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
THE POST– COLD WAR WORLD ★ 1077
The major policy initiative of Clinton’s first term was a plan devised by a panel headed by his wife, Hillary, a lawyer who had pursued an indepen- dent career after their marriage, to address the rising cost of health care and the increasing number of Americans who lacked health insurance. In Can- ada and western Europe, governments provided universal medical coverage. The United States had the world’s most advanced medical technology and a woefully incomplete system of health insurance. The Great Society had pro- vided coverage for the elderly and poor through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Many employers offered health insurance to their workers. But tens of millions of Americans lacked any coverage at all.
Announced with great fanfare by Hillary Rodham Clinton at congressio- nal hearings in 1993, Clinton’s plan would have provided universal cover- age through large groupings of medical care businesses. Doctors and health insurance and drug companies attacked it vehemently, fearing government regulations that would limit reimbursement for medical procedures and the price of drugs. Too complex to be easily understood by most voters, and vulner- able to criticism for further expanding the unpopular federal bureaucracy, the plan died in 1994.
The “Freedom Revolution”
With the economy recovering slowly from the recession and Clinton’s first two years in office seemingly lacking in significant accomplishments, voters in 1994 turned against the administration. For the first time since the 1950s, Republicans won control of both houses of Congress. They proclaimed their tri- umph the “Freedom Revolution.” Newt Gingrich, a conservative congressman from Georgia who became the new Speaker of the House, masterminded their campaign. Gingrich had devised a platform called the Contract with America, which promised to curtail the scope of government, cut back on taxes and eco- nomic and environmental regulations, overhaul the welfare system, and end affirmative action.
Viewing their electoral triumph as an endorsement of the contract, Repub- licans moved swiftly to implement its provisions. The House approved deep cuts in social, educational, and environmental programs, including the popular Medicare system. With the president and Congress unable to reach agreement on a budget, the government in December 1995 shut down all nonessential operations, including Washington, D.C., museums and national parks.
Gingrich had assumed that the public shared his intense ideological con- victions. He discovered that in 1994 they had voted against Clinton, not for the full implementation of the Contract with America. Most Americans blamed Congress for the impasse, and Congress soon retreated.
What were the major international initiatives of the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the Cold War?
1078 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
Clinton’s Political Strategy
Like Truman after the Republican sweep of 1946, Clinton rebuilt his popularity by campaigning against a radical Congress. He opposed the most extreme parts of his opponents’ program, while adopting others. In his state of the union address of January 1996, he announced that “the era of big government is over,” in effect turning his back on the tradition of Democratic Party liberalism and embracing the antigovernment outlook associated with Republicans since the days of Barry Goldwater.
In 1996, ignoring the protests of most Democrats, Clinton signed into law a Republican bill that abolished the program of Aid to Families with Depen- dent Children (AFDC), commonly known as “welfare.” Grants of money to the states, with strict limits on how long recipients could receive payments, replaced it. At the time of its abolition, AFDC assisted 14 million individuals, 9 million of them children. Thanks to stringent new eligibility requirements imposed by the states and the economic boom of the late 1990s, welfare rolls plummeted. But the number of children living in poverty remained essentially unchanged. Nonetheless, Clinton had succeeded in one of his primary goals: by the late 1990s, welfare, a hotly contested issue for twenty years or more, had disappeared from political debate.
Commentators called Clinton’s political strategy “triangulation.” This meant embracing the most popular Republican policies, like welfare reform, while leaving his opponents with extreme positions unpopular among middle- class voters, such as hostility to abortion rights and environmental protection. Clinton’s strategy enabled him to neutralize Republican claims that Democrats were the party of high taxes and lavish spending on persons who preferred dependency to honest labor. Clinton’s passion for free trade alienated many working- class Democrats but convinced much of the middle class that the party was not beholden to the unions.
Clinton easily defeated Republican Bob Dole in the presidential contest of 1996, becoming the first Democrat elected to two terms since FDR. Clinton had accomplished for Reaganism what Eisenhower had done for the New Deal, and Nixon for the Great Society— consolidating a basic shift in American politics by accepting many of the premises of his opponents.
Clinton and World Affairs
Like Jimmy Carter before him, Clinton’s primary political interests concerned domestic, not international, affairs. But with the United States now indisput- ably the world’s dominant power, Clinton, like Carter, took steps to encour- age the settlement of long- standing international conflicts and tried to elevate
THE POST– COLD WAR WORLD ★ 1079
support for human rights to a central place in international relations. He achieved only mixed success.
Clinton strongly supported a 1993 agreement, negotiated at Oslo, Norway, in which Israel for the first time recognized the legitimacy of the Palestine Lib- eration Organization. The Oslo Accords seemed to outline a road to Mideast peace. But neither side proved willing to implement them fully. Israeli govern- ments continued to build Jewish settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank— a part of Jordan that Israel had occupied during the 1967 Six- Day War. The new Palestinian Authority, which shared in governing parts of the West Bank as a stepping- stone to full statehood, proved to be corrupt, powerless, and unable to curb the growth of groups bent on violence against Israel. At the end of his presidency, Clinton brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Camp David to try to work out a final peace treaty. But the meeting failed, and vio- lence soon resumed.
Like Carter, Clinton found it difficult to balance concern for human rights with strategic and economic interests and to formulate clear guidelines for humanitarian interventions overseas. For example, the United States did noth- ing in 1994 when tribal massacres racked Rwanda, in central Africa. More than 800,000 people were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide, and 2 million ref- ugees fled the country.
The Balkan Crisis
The most complex foreign policy crisis of the Clinton years arose from the dis- integration of Yugoslavia, a multiethnic state in southeastern Europe that had been carved from the old Austro- Hungarian empire after World War I. As in the rest of eastern Europe, the communist government that had ruled Yugo- slavia since the 1940s collapsed in 1989. Within a few years, the country’s six provinces dissolved into five new states. Ethnic conflict plagued several of these new nations. Ethnic cleansing— a terrible new term meaning the forcible expulsion from an area of a particular ethnic group— now entered the inter- national vocabulary. By the end of 1993, more than 100,000 Bosnians, nearly all of them civilians, had perished in the Balkan crisis.
With the Cold War over, protec- tion of human rights in the Balkans gave NATO a new purpose. After
What were the major international initiatives of the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the Cold War?
Serbian refugees fleeing a Croat offensive during the 1990s. By the fall of 1995, the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia and accom- panying “ethnic cleansing” had displaced over 3 million people.
1080 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
considerable indecision, NATO launched air strikes against Bosnian Serb forces, with American planes contributing. UN troops, including 20,000 Americans, arrived as peacekeepers. In 1998, ethnic cleansing again surfaced, this time by Yugoslavian troops and local Serbs against the Albanian population of Kosovo, a province of Serbia. More than 800,000 Albanians fled the region. To halt the bloodshed, NATO launched a two- month war in 1999 against Yugoslavia that led to the deployment of American and UN forces in Kosovo.
Human Rights
During Clinton’s presidency, human rights played an increasingly important role in international affairs. Hundreds of nongovernmental agencies through- out the world defined themselves as protectors of human rights. During the 1990s, the agenda of international human rights organizations expanded to include access to health care, women’s rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples like the Aborigines of Australia and the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Americas. Human rights emerged as a justification for inter- ventions in matters once considered to be the internal affairs of sovereign nations. The United States dispatched the military to distant parts of the world to assist in international missions to protect civilians.
New institutions emerged that sought to punish violations of human rights. The Rwandan genocide produced a UN- sponsored war crimes court that sentenced the country’s former prime minister to life in prison. An interna- tional tribunal put Yugoslav president Slobodan Miloševič on trial for sponsor- ing the massacre of civilians. It remained to be seen whether these initiatives would grow into an effective international system of protecting human rights across national boundaries. Despite adopting human rights as a slogan, many governments continued to violate them in practice.
G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D I T S D I S C O N T E N T S In December 1999, delegates from around the world gathered in Seattle for a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a 135-nation group created five years earlier to reduce barriers to international commerce and settle trade disputes. To the astonishment of residents of the city, more than 30,000 persons gathered to protest the meeting. Their marches and rallies brought together factory workers, who claimed that global free trade encouraged corporations to shift production to low- wage centers overseas, and “ tree- huggers,” as some reporters called environmentalists, who complained about the impact on the earth’s ecology of unregulated economic development.
Some of the latter dressed in costumes representing endangered species— monarch butterflies whose habitats were disappearing because of the widespread
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS ★ 1081
destruction of forests by lumber companies, and sea turtles threatened by unrestricted ocean fishing. Protesters drew attention to the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere, which shields the earth from harmful solar radiation. The heightened use of aerosol sprays and refrigerants containing damaging chem- icals had caused a large hole in the ozone layer. A handful of self- proclaimed anarchists embarked on a window- breaking spree at local stores. The police sealed off the downtown and made hundreds of arrests, and the WTO gather- ing disbanded.
Once a center of labor radicalism, the Seattle area in 1999 was best known as the home of Microsoft, developer of the Windows operating system used in most of the world’s computers. The company’s worldwide reach symbolized globalization, the process by which people, investment, goods, information, and culture increasingly flowed across national boundaries. Globalization has been called “the concept of the 1990s.” During that decade, the media resounded with announcements that a new era in human history had opened, with a borderless economy and a “global civilization” that would soon replace traditional cultures.
Globalization, of course, was hardly a new phenomenon. The internation- alization of commerce and culture and the reshuffling of the world’s peoples had been going on since the explorations of the fifteenth century. But the scale and scope of late- twentieth- century globalization was unprecedented. Thanks to satellites and the Internet, information and popular culture flowed instanta- neously to every corner of the world. Manufacturers and financial institutions scoured the world for profitable investment opportunities.
Perhaps most important, the collapse of communism between 1989 and 1991 opened the entire world to the spread of market capitalism and to the idea that government should interfere as little as possible with economic activity. Amer- ican politicians and social commentators increasingly criticized the regulation of wages and working conditions, assistance to the less fortunate, and environ- mental protections as burdens on international competitiveness. During the 1990s, presidents Bush, a Republican, and Clinton, a Democrat, both spoke of an American mission to create a single global free market as the path to rising living standards, the spread of democracy, and greater worldwide freedom.
The media called the loose coalition of groups who organized the Seattle protests the “antiglobalization” movement. In fact, they challenged not glo- balization itself but its social consequences. Globalization, the demonstra- tors claimed, accelerated the worldwide creation of wealth but widened gaps between rich and poor countries and between haves and have- nots within societies. Decisions affecting the day- to- day lives of millions of people were made by institutions— the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and multinational corporations— that operated without any democratic input. Demonstrators demanded not an end to global trade and capital flows, but the establishment of international standards for wages,
What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s?
1082 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
labor conditions, and the environment, and greater investment in health and education in poor countries. The Battle of Seattle placed on the national and international agendas a question that promises to be among the most pressing concerns of the twenty- first century— the relationship between globalization, economic justice, and freedom.
The economy’s performance in the 1990s at first seemed to justify the claims of globalization’s advocates. After recovery from the recession of 1990–1991, economic expansion continued for the rest of the decade. By 2000, unemployment stood below 4 percent, a figure not seen since the 1960s. The boom became the longest uninterrupted period of economic expansion in the nation’s history. Because Reagan and Bush had left behind massive budget defi- cits, Clinton worked hard to balance the federal budget— a goal traditionally associated with fiscal conservatives. Since economic growth produced rising tax revenues, Clinton during his second term not only balanced the budget but actually produced budget surpluses.
The Computer Revolution
Many commentators spoke of the 1990s as the dawn of a “new economy,” in which computers and the Internet would produce vast new efficiencies and the production and sale of information would occupy the central place once held by the manufacture of goods. Computers had first been developed during and after World War II to solve scientific problems and do calculations involving enormous amounts of data. The early ones were extremely large, expensive, and, by modern standards, slow. Research for the space program of the 1960s spurred the development of improved computer technology, notably the min- iaturization of parts thanks to the development of the microchip on which cir- cuits could be imprinted.
Microchips made possible the development of entirely new consumer prod- ucts. Videocassette recorders, handheld video games, cellular phones, and dig- ital cameras were mass- produced at affordable prices during the 1990s, mostly in Asia and Latin America rather than the United States. But it was the com- puter that transformed American life. Beginning in the 1980s, companies like Apple and IBM marketed computers for business and home use. As computers became smaller, faster, and less expensive, they found a place in businesses of every kind. In occupations as diverse as clerical work, banking, architectural design, medical diagnosis, and even factory production, they transformed the American workplace. They also changed private life. By the year 2000, nearly half of all American households owned a personal computer, used for enter- tainment, shopping, and sending and receiving electronic mail. Centers of com- puter technology, such as Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, the Seattle and Austin metropolitan areas, and lower Manhattan, boomed during the 1990s.
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS ★ 1083
The Internet, first developed as a high- speed military communications network, was simplified and opened to commercial and individual use through personal computers. The Internet expanded the flow of information and com- munications more radically than any invention since the printing press. At a time when the ownership of newspapers, television stations, and publishing houses was becoming concentrated in the hands of a few giant media con- glomerates, the fact that anyone with a computer could post his or her ideas for worldwide circulation led “netizens” (“citizens” of the Internet) to hail the advent of a new, democratic public sphere in cyberspace.
The Stock Market Boom and Bust
Economic growth and talk of a new economy sparked a frenzied boom in the stock market that was reminiscent of the 1920s. Investors, large and small, poured funds into stocks, spurred by the rise of discount and online firms that advertised aggressively and charged lower fees than traditional brokers. By 2000, a majority of American households owned stocks directly or through investment in mutual funds and pension and retirement accounts.
Investors were especially attracted to the new “dot coms”—companies that conducted business via the Internet and seemed to symbolize the promise of
Two architects of the computer revolution, Steve Jobs (on the left), the head of Apple Com- puter, and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, which makes the operating system used in most of the world’s computers.
What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s?
1084 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
the new economy. The NASDAQ, a stock exchange dominated by new technol- ogy companies, rose more than 500 percent from 1998 to 1999. Many of these “ high- tech” companies never turned a profit. But economic journalists and stock brokers explained that the new economy had so revolutionized business that traditional methods of assessing a company’s value no longer applied.
Inevitably, the bubble burst. On April 14, 2000, stocks suffered their larg- est one- day point drop in history. For the first time since the Depression, stock prices declined for three successive years (2000–2002), wiping out billions of dollars in Americans’ net worth and pension funds. The value of NASDAQ stocks fell by nearly 80 percent between 2000 and 2002. By 2001, the American economy had fallen into a recession. Talk of a new economy, it appeared, had been premature.
The Enron Syndrome
Only after the market dropped did it become apparent that the stock boom of the 1990s had been fueled in part by fraud. For a time in 2001 and 2002, Ameri- cans were treated almost daily to revelations of incredible greed and corruption on the part of respected brokerage firms, accountants, and company executives. During the late 1990s, accounting firms like Arthur Andersen, giant banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, and corporate lawyers pocketed extravagant fees for devising complex schemes to help push up companies’ stock prices by hiding their true financial condition. Enron, a Houston- based energy company that epitomized the new economy— it bought and sold electricity rather than actually producing it— reported as profits billions of dollars in operating losses.
In the early twenty- first century, the bill came due for many corporate criminals. The founder of Adelphia Communications was convicted of misuse of company funds. A jury found the chairman of Tyco International guilty of looting the company of millions of dollars. A number of former chief execu- tives faced long prison terms. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, chief officers of Enron, were convicted by a Texas jury of multiple counts of fraud.
Fruits of Deregulation
At the height of the 1990s boom, with globalization in full swing, stocks ris- ing, and the economy expanding, the economic model of free trade and dereg- ulation appeared unassailable. But the retreat from government economic regulation, a policy embraced by both the Republican Congress and President Clinton, left no one to represent the public interest.
The sectors of the economy most affected by the scandals— energy, telecom- munications, and stock trading— had all been subjects of deregulation. Enron could manipulate energy prices because Congress had granted it an exemption from laws regulating the price of natural gas and electricity.
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS ★ 1085
Many stock frauds stemmed from the repeal in 1999 of the Glass- Steagall Act, a New Deal measure that separated commercial banks, which accept depos- its and make loans, from investment banks, which invest in stocks and real estate and take larger risks. The repeal made possible the emergence of “super- banks” that combined these two functions. Phil Gramm, the Texas congress- man who wrote the repeal bill, which Clinton signed, explained his thinking in this way: “ Glass- Steagall came at a time when the thinking was that govern- ment was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have decided that freedom is the answer.”
But banks took their new freedom as an invitation to engage in all sorts of misdeeds, knowing that they had become so big that if anything happened, the federal government would have no choice but to rescue them. Banks poured money into risky mortgages. When the housing bubble collapsed in 2007–2008, the banks suffered losses that threatened to bring down the entire financial system. The Bush and Obama administrations felt they had no choice but to expend hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to save the banks from their own misconduct.
Rising Inequality
The boom that began in 1995 benefited nearly all Americans. For the first time since the early 1970s, average real wages and family incomes began to grow sig- nificantly. Economic expansion at a time of low unemployment brought rapid increases in wages for families at all income levels. It aided low- skilled work- ers, especially non- whites, who had been left out of previous periods of growth. Yet, despite these gains, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, the poor and the middle class became worse off while the rich became significantly richer. The wealth of the richest Americans exploded during the 1990s. Sales of luxury goods like yachts and mansions boomed. Bill Gates, head of Microsoft and the country’s richest person, owned as much wealth as the bottom 40 per- cent of the American population put together.
Dot- com millionaires and well- paid computer designers and programmers received much publicity. But companies continued to shift manufacturing jobs overseas. Thanks to NAFTA, a thriving industrial zone emerged just across the southern border of the United States, where American manufacturers built plants to take advantage of cheap labor and weak environmental and safety regulations. Business, moreover, increasingly relied for profits on financial operations rather than making things. The financial sector of the economy accounted for around 10 percent of total profits in 1950; by 2000 the figure was up to 40 percent. Com- panies like Ford and General Electric made more money from interest on loans to customers and other financial operations than from selling their products.
What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s?
1086 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
The outsourcing of jobs soon moved from manufacturing to other areas, including accounting, legal services, banking, and other skilled jobs where companies could employ workers overseas for a fraction of their cost in the United States. All this lowered prices for consumers, but also threw millions of American workers into competition with those around the globe, producing a relentless downward pressure on American wages.
Overall, between 1990 and 2008, companies that did business in global markets contributed almost nothing to job growth in the United States. Microsoft, symbol of the new economy, employed only 30,000 people. Apple, another highly success- ful company, whose computers, iPads, and iPhones were among the most ubiqui- tous consumer products of the early twenty- first century, in 2010 employed some 43,000 persons in the United States (the large majority a low- wage sales force in the company’s stores). Its contractors, who made these products, had more than 700,000 employees, almost all of them overseas. In 1970, General Motors had been the country’s largest corporate employer. In the early twenty- first century, it had been replaced by Wal- Mart, a giant discount retail chain that paid most of its 1.6 million workers slightly more than the minimum wage. Wal- Mart aggressively opposed efforts at collective bargaining. Not a single one of its employees belonged to a union. Thanks to NAFTA, which enabled American companies to expand their business in Mexico, by 2010 Wal- Mart was also the largest employer in that country.
C U L T U R E W A R S The end of the Cold War ushered in hopes for a new era of global harmony. Instead, what one observer called a “rebellion of particularisms”—renewed emphasis on group identity and insistent demands for group recognition and power— has racked the international arena. In the nineteenth and twen- tieth centuries, socialism and nationalism had united people of different backgrounds in pursuit of common goals. Now, in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe, the waning of movements based on socialism and the declining power of nation- states arising from globalization seemed to unleash long- simmering ethnic and religious antagonisms. Partly in reac- tion to the global spread of a secular culture based on consumption and mass entertainment, intense religious movements attracted increasing numbers of followers— Hindu nationalism in India, orthodox Judaism in Israel, Islamic fundamentalism in much of the Muslim world, and evangelical Christianity in the United States. Like other nations, although in a far less extreme way and with little accompanying violence, the United States has experienced divisions arising from the intensification of ethnic and racial identities and religious fundamentalism.
CULTURE WARS ★ 1087
The Newest Immigrants
Because of shifts in immigration, cul- tural and racial diversity have become increasingly visible in the United States. Until the immigration law of 1965, the vast majority of twentieth- century newcomers hailed from Europe. That measure, as noted in Chapter 25, sparked a wholesale shift in immigrants’ origins. Between 1965 and 2010, nearly 38 million immi- grants entered the United States, a number larger than the 27 million during the peak period of immigra- tion between 1880 and 1924. About 50 percent came from Latin America and the Caribbean, 35 percent from Asia, and smaller numbers from the Middle East and Africa. Only 10 per- cent arrived from Europe, mostly from the war- torn Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
In 2010, the number of foreign- born persons living in the United States stood at more than 40 million, or 13 percent of the population. Although less than the peak proportion of 14 percent in 1910, in absolute numbers this repre- sented the largest immigrant total in the nation’s history. The immigrant influx changed the country’s religious and racial map. By 2010, more than 4 million Muslims resided in the United States, and the combined population of Bud- dhists and Hindus exceeded 1 million.
As in the past, many immigrants became urban residents, with New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami the most common destinations. New eth- nic communities emerged, with homes, shops, restaurants, foreign- language newspapers, radio and television stations, and ethnic professionals like busi- nessmen and lawyers. Unlike in the past, rather than being concentrated in one or two parts of city centers, immigrants quickly moved into outlying neigh- borhoods and older suburbs. The immigrant influx revitalized neighborhoods like New York City’s Washington Heights (a Dominican enclave) and Flush- ing (a center for Asian newcomers). By the turn of the century, more than half of all Latinos lived in suburbs. Orange County, California, which had been a stronghold of suburban conservatism between 1960 and 1990, elected a Latina Democrat to Congress in the late 1990s. While most immigrants settled on the East and West Coasts, some moved to other parts of the country. They brought
Erected on U.S. 5, an interstate highway running from the Mexican to Canadian borders along the Pacific Coast, this sign warns motorists to be on the lookout for people (i.e., undocumented immigrant families) crossing the road on foot. The sign’s placement north of San Diego, about thirty miles north of Mexico, illustrates how the “bor- der” had become an entire region, not simply a geographical boundary.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
1088 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA (1993)
The North American Free Trade Agreement was signed by President Bill Clinton early in his first term. It created a free- trade zone (an area where goods can travel freely without paying import duties) composed of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Clinton asked Americans to accept economic globalization as an inevitable form of progress and the path to future prosperity. “There will be no job loss,” he promised. Things did not entirely work out that way.
As President, it is my duty to speak frankly to the American people about the world in which we now live. Fifty years ago, at the end of World War II, an unchallenged America was protected by the oceans and by our technological superiority and, very frankly, by the economic devastation of the people who could otherwise have been our competi- tors. We chose then to try to help rebuild our former enemies and to create a world of free trade supported by institutions which would facilitate it. . . . As a result, jobs were created, and opportunity thrived all across the world. . . .
For the last 20 years, in all the wealthy countries of the world— because of changes in the global environment, because of the growth of technology, because of increasing competition— the middle class that was created and enlarged by the wise policies of expanding trade at the end of World War II has been under severe stress. Most Ameri- cans are working harder for less. They are vulnerable to the fear tactics and the averse- ness to change that are behind much of the opposition to NAFTA. But I want to say to my fellow Americans: When you live in a time of change, the only way to recover your security and to broaden your horizons is to adapt to the change— to embrace, to move forward. . . . The only way we can recover the fortunes of the middle class in this coun- try so that people who work harder and smarter can, at least, prosper more, the only way we can pass on the American dream of the last 40 years to our children and their children for the next 40, is to adapt to the changes which are occurring.
In a fundamental sense, this debate about NAFTA is a debate about whether we will embrace these changes and create the jobs of tomorrow or try to resist these changes, hoping we can preserve the economic structures of yesterday. . . . I believe that NAFTA will create 1 million jobs in the first 5 years of its impact. . . . NAFTA will generate these jobs by fostering an export boom to Mexico by tearing down tariff walls. . . . There will be no job loss.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 1089
From Global Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for Global Democracy
(December 1999)
The demonstrations that disrupted the December 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle brought to public attention a widespread dissatis- faction with the effects of economic “globalization.” In this declaration, organiz- ers of the protest offered their critique.
As citizens of global society, recognizing that the World Trade Organization is unjustly dominated by corporate interests and run for the enrichment of the few at the expense of all others, we demand:
Representatives from all sectors of society must be included in all levels of trade policy formulations. All global citizens must be democratically represented in the for- mulation, implementation, and evaluation of all global social and economic policies.
Global trade and investment must not be ends in themselves, but rather the instru- ments for achieving equitable and sustainable development including protection for workers and the environment.
Global trade agreements must not undermine the ability of each nation- state or local community to meet its cit- izens’ social, environmental, cultural or economic needs.
The World Trade Organization must be replaced by a democratic and trans- parent body accountable to citizens— not to corporations.
No globalization without repre- senta tion!
QUESTIONS
1. Why does Clinton feel that free trade is necessary to American prosperity?
2. Why do the Seattle protesters feel that the World Trade Organization is a threat to democracy?
3. How do these documents reflect contradic- tory arguments about the impact of global- ization in the United States?
1090 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
54
11
7
4
3
8
58
5
4 3
3
3
5
6
8
32
10
7
11
6
9
11 18
22 12 21
8 13
11 14
7 9 13 8
25
5
23
33
3 4 4
12 4 8153
10 3
3 4
Democrat Republican Independent
Party Clinton Bush Perot
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 370 (69%) 168 (31%)
Popular Vote (Share)
44,908,254 (43%) 39,102,343 (38%) 19,741,065 (19%)
I M M I G R A N T P O P U L AT I O N S I N C I T I E S A N D S TAT E S , 1 9 0 0 A N D 2 0 1 0
Maps illustrating states’ foreign-born populations and the twenty metropolitan areas with the most immigrants in 1900 and 2010. In 1900 nearly all went to the Northeast and Upper Midwest, the heartland of the industrial economy. In 2010 the largest number headed for cities in the South and West, especially California, although major cities of the Northeast also attracted many newcomers.
CULTURE WARS ★ 1091
Table 27.1 Immigration to the United States, 1961–2010
Decade Total Europe Asia Western
Hemisphere Other Areas
1961–1970 3,321,584 1,123,492 427,642 1,716,374 54,076
1971–1980 4,493,302 800,368 1,588,178 1,982,735 122,021
1981–1990 7,336,940 761,550 2,738,157 3,615,225 222,008
1991–2000 9,042,999 1,359,737 2,795,672 4,486,806 400,784
2001–2010 14,974,975 1,165,176 4,088,455 8,582,601 1,138,743
cultural and racial diversity to once- homogeneous communities in the Amer- ican heartland.
Post- 1965 immigration formed part of the worldwide uprooting of labor arising from globalization. Those who migrated to the United States came from a wide variety of backgrounds. They included poor, illiterate refugees from places of economic and political crisis— Central Americans escaping the region’s civil wars and poverty, Haitians and Cambodians fleeing repressive governments. But many immigrants were well- educated professionals from countries like India and South Korea, where the availability of skilled jobs had not kept pace with the spread of higher education. In the year 2000, more than 40 percent of all immigrants to the United States had a college education.
For the first time in American history, women made up the majority of new- comers, reflecting the decline of manufacturing jobs that had previously absorbed immigrant men, as well as the spread of employment opportunities in tradition- ally female fields like care of children and the elderly and retail sales. Thanks to cheap global communications and jet travel, modern- day immigrants retain strong ties with their countries of origin, frequently phoning and visiting home.
The New Diversity
Latinos formed the largest single immigrant group. This term was invented in the United States and includes people from quite different origins— Mexicans, Central and South Americans, and migrants from Spanish- speaking Carib- bean islands like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico (although the last group, of course, are American citizens, not immigrants). With 95 mil- lion people, Mexico in 2000 had become the world’s largest Spanish- speaking nation. Its poverty, high birthrate, and proximity to the United States made it a source of massive legal and illegal immigration. In 2000, Mexican- Americans made up a majority of the Hispanic population of the United States and nearly half the residents of Los Angeles. But almost every state witnessed an influx
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
1092 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
of Mexican immigrants. In 1930, 90 percent of the Mexican population of the United States lived in states that had once been part of Mexico. Today, there is a significant Mexican- American presence in almost every state, including such places as Kansas, Minnesota, and Georgia, with very little experience, until recently, with ethnic diversity.
Numbering around 50 million in 2010, Latinos had become the largest minority group in the United States. Between 1990 and 2010, 30 million His- panics were added to the American population, half its total growth. Latinos were highly visible in entertainment, sports, and politics. Indeed, the Hispanic presence transformed American life. José was now the most common name for baby boys in Texas and the third most popular in California. Smith remained the most common American surname, but Garcia, Rodriguez, Gonzales, and other Hispanic names were all in the top fifty.
Latino communities remained far poorer than the rest of the country. A flourishing middle class developed in Los Angeles, Miami, and other cities with large Spanish- speaking populations. But most immigrants from Mexico and Central America competed at the lowest levels of the job market. The influx of legal and illegal immigrants swelled the ranks of low- wage urban workers and agricultural laborers. Latinos lagged far behind other Americans in edu- cation. In 2010, their poverty rate stood at nearly double the national figure of 15 percent. Living and working conditions among predominantly Latino farm workers in the West fell back to levels as dire as when César Chavez established the United Farm Workers union in the 1960s.
Asian- Americans also became increasingly visible. There had long been a small population of Asian ancestry in California and New York City, but only after 1965 did immigration from Asia assume large proportions. Like Latinos, Asian- Americans were a highly diverse population, including well- educated Koreans, Indians, and Japanese, as well as poor refugees from Cambodia, Viet- nam, and China. Growing up in tight- knit communities that placed great emphasis on education, young Asian- Americans poured into American colleges and universities. Once subjected to harsh discrimination, Asian- Americans now achieved remarkable success. White Americans hailed them as a “model minority.” By 2007, the median family income of Asian- Americans, $66,000, surpassed that of whites. But more than any other group, Asian- Americans clustered at opposite ends of the income spectrum. Large numbers earned either more than $75,000 per year (doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs) or under $5,000 (unskilled laborers in sweatshops and restaurants).
The United States, of course, had long been a multiracial society. But for centu- ries race relations had been shaped by the black- white divide and the experience of slavery and segregation. The growing visibility of Latinos and Asians suggested that a two- race system no longer adequately described American life. Multiracial
CULTURE WARS ★ 1093
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Maps depicting the birthplace of each state’s largest immigrant population in 1910 and 2013. A century ago, most immigrants hailed from Europe, and the leading country of origin varied among the states. Today, in almost every state outside the Northeast, those born in Mexico constitute the largest number of immigrants.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
1094 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
imagery filled television, films, and advertising. Interracial marriage, at one time banned in forty- two states, became more common and acceptable. Among Asian- Americans, half of all marriages involved a non- Asian partner. The figure for Latinos was 30 percent. Some commentators spoke of the “end of racism” and the emergence of a truly color- blind society. Others argued that while Asians and some Latinos were being absorbed into an expanded category of “white” Ameri- cans, the black- white divide remained almost as impenetrable as ever.
One thing, however, seemed clear at the dawn of the twenty- first century: diversity was here to stay. Because the birthrate of racial minorities is higher than that of whites, the Census Bureau projected that by 2050, less than 50 per- cent of the American population would be white.
The Changing Face of Black America
Compared with the situation in 1900 or 1950, the most dramatic change in American life at the turn of the century was the absence of legal segregation and the presence of blacks in areas of American life from which they had once been almost entirely excluded. Thanks to the decline in overt discrimination and the effectiveness of many affirmative action programs, blacks now worked in unprecedented numbers alongside whites in corporate board rooms, offices, and factories. The number of black policemen, for example, rose from 24,000 to 65,000 between 1970 and 2000, and in the latter year, 37 percent of the black population reported having attended college. The economic boom of the late 1990s aided black Americans enormously; the average income of black families rose more rapidly than that of whites.
One major change in black life was the growing visibility of Africans among the nation’s immigrants. Between 1970 and 2010, more than twice as many Africans immigrated to the United States as had entered during the entire period of the Atlantic slave trade. For the first time, all the elements of the African diaspora— natives of Africa, Caribbeans, Central and South Amer- icans of African descent, Europeans with African roots— could be found in the United States alongside the descendants of American slaves.
Nigeria, Ghana, and Ethiopia provided the largest number of African immi- grants, and they settled overwhelmingly in urban areas, primarily in New York, California, Texas, and the District of Columbia. Some were impoverished refu- gees fleeing civil wars in Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia, but many more were professionals— more than half the African newcomers had college educations, the highest percentage for any immigrant group. Indeed, some African coun- tries complained of a “brain drain” as physicians, teachers, and other highly skilled persons sought opportunities in the United States that did not exist in their own underdeveloped countries. While some prospered, others found it
CULTURE WARS ★ 1095
difficult to transfer their credentials to the United States and found jobs driv- ing taxis and selling African crafts at street fairs.
Most African- Americans, nonethe- less, remained in a more precarious situation than whites or many recent immigrants. In the early twenty- first century, the black unemployment rate remained double that of whites. Half of all black children lived in poverty, two- thirds were born out of wedlock, and in every index of social well- being from health to quality of housing, blacks continued to lag. Despite the continued expansion of the black middle class, a far lower per- centage of blacks than whites owned their homes or held professional and managerial jobs. Housing segregation remained pervasive. In 2010, more than one- third of the black population lived in suburbs, but mostly in predominantly black communities.
Despite the nation’s growing racial diversity, school segregation— now result- ing from housing patterns and the divide between urban and suburban school districts rather than laws requiring racial separation— was on the rise. Most city public school systems consisted overwhelmingly of minority students, large numbers of whom failed to receive an adequate education. The courts released more and more districts from desegregation orders. By 2000, the nation’s black and Latino students were more isolated from white pupils than in 1970. Nearly 80 percent of white students attended schools where they encountered few if any pupils of another race. Since school funding rested on property taxes, poor com- munities continued to have less to spend on education than wealthy ones.
The Spread of Imprisonment
During the 1960s, the nation’s prison population declined. But in the 1970s, with urban crime rates rising, politicians of both parties sought to convey the image of being “tough on crime.” They insisted that the judicial system should focus on locking up criminals for long periods rather than rehabilitating them. They treated drug addiction as a violation of the law rather than as a disease. State governments greatly increased the penalties for crime and reduced the possibility of parole. Successive presidents launched “wars” on the use of illegal
Despite the ups and downs of unemployment, the rate for non-whites remains persistently higher than that for whites.
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What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
1096 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
drugs. As a result, the number of Americans in prison rose dramatically, most of them incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.
During the 1990s, thanks to the waning of the crack epidemic and more effective urban police tactics, crime rates dropped dramatically across the country. But because of the sentencing laws of the previous two decades, this did nothing to stem the increase of the prison population. In 2011, it reached 2.3 million, ten times the figure of 1970. Several million more individuals were on parole, on probation, or under some other kind of criminal supervision. These figures dwarfed those of every other Western society.
As the prison population grew, a “ prison- industrial complex” emerged. Struggling communities battered by deindustrialization saw prisons as a source of jobs and income. Between 1990 and 1995, the federal government and the states constructed more than 200 new prisons. In 2008, five states spent more money on their prison systems than on higher education. Convict labor, a practice the labor movement had managed to curtail in the late nineteenth century, revived in the late twentieth. Private companies in Oregon “leased” prisoners for three dollars per day. A call to Trans World Airlines for a flight reservation was likely to be answered by a California inmate.
The Burden of Imprisonment
Members of racial minorities experienced most strongly the paradox of grow- ing islands of unfreedom in a nation that prided itself on liberty. In 1950, whites accounted for 70 percent of the nation’s prison population and non- whites 30 percent. By 2010, these figures had been reversed. One reason was that severe penalties faced those convicted of using or selling crack, a particularly potent form of cocaine concentrated among the urban poor, while the use of powder cocaine, the drug of choice in suburban America, led to far lighter sentences.
The percentage of the black population in prison stood five times higher than the proportion for white Americans. More than one- quarter of all black men could expect to serve time in prison at some time during their lives. A crim- inal record made it very difficult for ex- prisoners to find jobs. Partly because so many young men were in prison, blacks had a significantly lower rate of mar- riage than other Americans. Their children became “prison orphans,” forced to live with relatives or in foster homes.
Blacks convicted of crimes were also more likely than whites to receive the death penalty. In 1972, the Supreme Court had temporarily suspended states’ use of this punishment. But the Court soon allowed it to resume, despite evidence of racial disparities in its application. Even as western Europe and other countries abolished the death penalty, the United States executed over 1,400 persons between 1977 and 2015. In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville had
CULTURE WARS ★ 1097
described executions as common in Europe but rare in America. By the early twenty- first century, the United States ranked with China, Iran, and Saudi Ara- bia as the nations that most often executed their citizens. The 2.2 million Amer- icans in prison in 2015 represented one- fifth of the entire world’s inmates and far exceeded the number in any other country.
The continuing frustration of urban blacks exploded in 1992 when an all- white suburban jury found four Los Angeles police officers not guilty in the beating of black motorist Rodney King, even though an onlooker had captured their assault on videotape. The deadliest urban uprising since the New York draft riots of 1863 followed. Some fifty- two people died, and property damage approached $1 billion. Many Latino youths, who shared blacks’ resentment over mistreatment by the police, joined in the violence. The uprising suggested that despite the civil rights revolution, the nation had failed to address the plight of the urban poor.
The Continuing Rights Revolution
Reflecting the continued power of the rights revolution, in 1990, newly orga- nized disabled Americans won passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This far- reaching measure prohibited discrimination in hiring and pro- motion against persons with disabilities and required that entrances to public buildings be redesigned so as to ensure access for the disabled.
Some movements that were descended from the late 1960s achieved great visibility in the 1990s. Prominent among these was the campaign for gay rights, which in the last two decades of the century increasingly turned its attention to combating acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a fatal disease spread by sexual contact, drug use, and transfusions of contaminated blood. AIDS first emerged in the early 1980s. It quickly became epidemic among homosexual men. The gay movement mobilized to promote “safe sex,” prevent discrimina- tion against people suffering from AIDS, and press the federal government to devote greater resources to fighting the disease. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis organized educational programs and assistance to those affected by the dis- ease, and demanded that drug companies put AZT, a drug with some success in treating AIDS, on the market. A more radical group, ACT UP, disrupted a mass at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral to protest what it called the Catho- lic Church’s prejudices against gays. By 2000, even though more than 400,000 Americans had died of AIDS, its spread among gays had been sharply curtailed. But in other parts of the world, such as Africa, the AIDS epidemic remained out of control.
Gay groups also played an increasing role in politics. In cities with large gay populations, such as New York and San Francisco, politicians vied to attract their votes. Overall, the growth of public tolerance of homosexuality was
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
1098 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
among the most striking changes in American social attitudes in the last two decades of the century. In the second decade of the twenty- first century, this would lead to the remarkably rapid acceptance of the right of gay Americans to form legal marriages.
Native Americans in the New Century
Another social movement spawned by the 1960s that continued to flourish was the American Indian movement. The Indian population reached over 5 million (including people choosing more than one race) in the 2010 census, a sign not only of population growth but also of a renewed sense of pride that led many Indians for the first time to identify themselves as such to census enumerators. Meanwhile, with the assistance of the Native American Rights Fund, estab- lished in 1971, some tribes embarked on a campaign for restitution for past injustices. In 2001, for example, a New York court awarded the Cayuga Nation $248 million for illegal land seizures two centuries earlier.
The legal position of Indians as American citizens who enjoy a kind of quasi- sovereignty still survives in some cases. Notable examples are the lucra- tive Indian casinos now operating in states that otherwise prohibit gambling. In 2011, Indian casinos took in over $27 billion, making some tribes very rich. One such group is the Pequot tribe of Connecticut. In 1637, as the result of a brief, bloody war, Puritan New Englanders exterminated or sold into slavery most of the tribe’s members. The treaty that restored peace decreed that the tribe’s name should be wiped from the historical record. Today, the few hun- dred members of the Pequot tribe operate Foxwoods, reputedly the world’s larg- est casino. However, because of the recession that began in 2007, Foxwoods’ receipts plummeted and its survival remains uncertain.
Half of today’s Indians live in five western states (California, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington). Although some tribes have reinvested casino profits in improved housing and health care and college scholarships for Native American students, most Indian casinos are marginal operations whose low- wage jobs as cashiers, waitresses, and the like have done little to relieve Indian poverty. Native Americans continue to occupy the lowest rung on the economic ladder. At least half of those living on reservations have incomes below the poverty line.
Multiculturalism
The new face of American society went hand in hand with one of the most striking developments of the 1990 s— the celebration of group difference and demands for group recognition. Multiculturalism became the term for a new awareness of the diversity of American society, past and present, and for
CULTURE WARS ★ 1099
vocal demands that jobs, education, and politics reflect that diversity. As the numbers of minority and female stu- dents at the nation’s colleges and uni- versities rose, these institutions moved aggressively to diversify their faculties and revise the traditional curriculum.
One sign of multiculturalism could be seen in the spread of academic pro- grams dealing with the experience of specific groups— Black Studies, Latino Studies, Women’s Studies, and the like. Literature departments added the writ- ings of female and minority authors to those of white men. Numerous scholars now taught and wrote history in ways that stressed the experiences of diverse groups of Americans, rather than a com- mon national narrative.
The Identity Debate
Among some Americans, the height- ened visibility of immigrants, racial minorities, and inheritors of the sexual revolution inspired not celebration of pluralism but alarm over perceived cultural fragmentation. Conservatives, and some traditional liberals as well, decried “identity politics” and multicultural- ism for undermining a common sense of nationhood.
Increased cultural diversity and changes in educational policy inspired harsh debates over whether immigrant children should be required to learn English and whether further immigration should be discouraged. These issues entered politics most dramatically in California, whose voters in 1994 approved Proposi- tion 187, which denied undocumented immigrants and their children access to welfare, education, and most health services. A federal judge soon barred imple- mentation of the measure on the grounds that control over immigration policy rests with the federal government. By 2000, twenty- three states had passed laws establishing English as their official language (similar to measures enacted in the aftermath of World War I). The 1996 law that abolished welfare also barred most immigrants who had not become citizens from receiving food stamps.
But efforts to appeal to prejudice for political gain often backfired. In Cali- fornia, Republicans’ anti- immigrant campaigns inspired minorities to mobilize
This work by the contemporary Eastern Band Cherokee artist Shan Goshorn, entitled Unin- tended Legacy, reproduces historical docu- ments that are woven into a basket (a traditional Native American craft) such as the names and images of Indian children and adults at a typical boarding school. That history, she suggests, still affects Indian life today.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
1100 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
politically and offended many white Americans. In 2000, Republican presiden- tial candidate George W. Bush emphasized that his brand of conservatism was multicultural, not exclusionary.
Cultural Conservatism
Immigration occupied only one front in what came to be called the Culture Wars— battles over moral values that raged throughout the 1990s. The Chris- tian Coalition, founded by evangelical minister Pat Robertson, became a major force in Republican politics. It launched crusades against gay rights, abortion, secularism in public schools, and government aid to the arts. Pat Buchanan’s Republican convention speech of 1992 calling for a “religious war for the soul of America,” mentioned earlier, alarmed many voters. But cultural conserva- tives hailed it as their new rallying cry.
It sometimes appeared during the 1990s that the country was refighting old battles between traditional religion and modern secular culture. In an echo of the 1920s, a number of localities required the teaching of creationism, a religious alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The battles of the 1960s seemed to be forever unresolved. Many conservatives railed against the erosion of the nuclear family, the changing racial landscape produced by immigration, and what they considered a general decline of traditional values. Cultural conservatives were not satisfied with a few victories over what they considered immorality, such as the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which barred gay couples from spou- sal benefits provided by federal law. (The Supreme Court would declare the law unconstitutional in 2013.)
Family Values in Retreat
The censuses of 2000 and 2010 showed family values increasingly in disarray. Half of all marriages ended in divorce (70 percent on the West Coast). In 2010, more than 40 percent of births were to unmarried women, not only sexually active teenagers, but growing numbers of professional women in their thirties and forties as well. For the first time, fewer than half of all households consisted of married couples, and only one- fifth were “traditional” families— a wife, hus- band, and their children. More than half of all adults were single or divorced. Two- thirds of married women worked outside the home. The pay gap between men and women, although narrowing, persisted. In 2010, the weekly earn- ings of women with full- time jobs stood at 82 percent of those of men— up from 63 percent in 1980. In only two occupational categories did women earn more than men— postal service clerks and special education teachers.
Although dominated by conservatives, the Supreme Court, in Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania (1992), reaffirmed a woman’s right to
CULTURE WARS ★ 1101
terminate a pregnancy. The decision allowed states to enact mandatory waiting periods and anti- abortion counseling, but it overturned a requirement that the husband be given notification before the proce- dure was undertaken. “At the heart of liberty,” said the Court, “is the right to . . . make the most intimate and per- sonal choices” without outside inter- ference. In effect, Casey repudiated the centuries- old doctrine that a husband has a legal claim to control the body of his wife.
The Antigovernment Extreme
At the radical fringe of conservatism, the belief that the federal government posed a threat to American freedom led to the creation of private mili- tias who armed themselves to fend off oppressive authority. Groups like Aryan Nation, Posse Comitatus, and other self- proclaimed “Christian patri- ots” spread a mixture of racist, anti- Semitic, and antigovernment ideas. Private armies, like the Militia of Montana, vowed to resist enforcement of fed- eral gun control laws. For millions of Americans, owning a gun became a prime symbol of liberty. “We’re here because we love freedom,” declared a participant in a 1995 Washington rally against proposed legislation banning semiauto- matic assault weapons.
Many militia groups employed the symbolism and language of the American Revolution, sprinkling their appeals with warnings about the dangers of government tyranny drawn from the writings of Thomas Jef- ferson, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine. They warned that leaders of both major parties formed part of a conspiracy to surrender American sover- eignty to the United Nations, or to some shadowy international conspiracy. Although such organizations had been growing for years, they burst into the national spotlight in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh, a member of the militant
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What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
1102 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
anti government movement, exploded a bomb at a federal office building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 persons, including numerous children at a day- care center. McVeigh was captured, convicted, and executed. The bombing alerted the nation to the danger of violent antigovernment right- wing groups.
I M P E A C H M E N T A N D T H E E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 0 0 The unusually intense partisanship of the 1990s seemed ironic, given Clinton’s move toward the political center. Republicans’ intense dislike of Clinton could only be explained by the fact that he seemed to symbolize everything conser- vatives hated about the 1960s. As a college student, the president had smoked marijuana and participated in antiwar demonstrations. He had married a fem- inist, made a point of leading a multicultural administration, and supported gay rights. Clinton’s popularity puzzled and frustrated conservatives, rein- forcing their conviction that something was deeply amiss in American life. From the very outset of his administration, Clinton’s political opponents and scandal- hungry media stood ready to pounce. Clinton himself provided the ammunition.
The Impeachment of Clinton
Sexual misconduct by public officials had a long history. But in the 1980s and 1990s, scrutiny of politicians’ private lives became far more intense than in the past. Gary Hart, as noted in the previous chapter, had been driven from the 1988 campaign because of an extramarital liaison. In 1991, Senate hearings on the nomination to the Supreme Court of Clarence Thomas, a black conservative, became embroiled in dramatic charges of sexual harassment leveled against Thomas by law professor Anita Hill. To the outrage of feminists, the Senate narrowly confirmed him. Nonetheless, because of her testimony, Americans became more aware of the problem of sexual harassment in and out of the workplace, and complaints shot up across the country.
From the day Clinton took office, charges of misconduct bedeviled him. In 1998, it became known that Clinton had carried on an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Kenneth Starr, the special counsel who had been appointed to investigate a previous scandal, shifted his focus to Lewinsky. He issued a lengthy report containing almost pornographic details of Clinton’s sexual acts with the young woman and accused the president of lying when he denied the affair under oath. In December 1998, the Republican- controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton for perjury and obstruction
IMPEACHMENT AND THE ELECTION OF 2000 ★ 1103
of justice. He became the second president to be tried before the Senate. Early in 1999, the vote took place. Neither charge mustered a simple majority, much less than the two- thirds required to remove Clinton from office.
Karl Marx once wrote that historical events occur twice— first as trag- edy, the second time as farce. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868 had revolved around some of the most momentous questions in American history— the Reconstruction of the South, the rights of the former slaves, rela- tions between the federal government and the states. Clinton’s impeachment had to do with what many considered to be a juvenile escapade. Polls suggested that the obsession of Kenneth Starr and members of Congress with Clinton’s sexual acts appalled Americans far more than the president’s irresponsible behavior. Clinton’s continuing popularity throughout the impeachment con- troversy demonstrated how profoundly traditional attitudes toward sexual morality had changed.
The Disputed Election
Had Clinton been eligible to run for reelection in 2000, he would probably have won. But after the death of FDR, the Constitution had been amended to limit presidents to two terms in office. Democrats nominated Vice President Al Gore to succeed Clinton (pairing him with Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Jewish vice- presidential nominee). Republicans chose George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and son of Clinton’s predecessor, as their candidate, with former secretary of defense Dick Cheney as his running mate.
The election proved to be one of the closest in the nation’s history. The out- come remained uncertain until a month after the ballots had been cast. Gore won the popular vote by a tiny margin— 540,000 of 100 million cast, or one- half of 1 percent. Victory in the electoral college hinged on which candidate had carried Florida. There, amid widespread confusion at the polls and claims of irregularities in counting the ballots, Bush claimed a margin of a few hundred votes. In the days after the election, Democrats demanded a hand recount of the Florida ballots for which machines could not determine a voter’s intent. The Florida Supreme Court ordered the recount to proceed.
As in the disputed election that ended Reconstruction (a contest in which Florida had also played a crucial role), it fell to Supreme Court justices to decide the outcome. On December 12, 2000, by a 5-4 vote, the Court ordered a halt to the recounting of Florida ballots, allowing the state’s governor Jeb Bush (George W. Bush’s brother) to certify that the Republican candidate had carried the state and had therefore won the presidency.
The decision in Bush v. Gore was one of the oddest in Supreme Court his- tory. In the late 1990s, the Court had reasserted the powers of the states within
How did a divisive political partisanship affect the election of 2000?
1104 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
the federal system. Now, however, it overturned a decision of the Florida Supreme Court interpreting the state’s election laws. The majority justified their decision by insisting that the “equal protection” clause of the Four- teenth Amendment required that all ballots within a state be counted in accordance with a single standard, something impossible given the wide variety of machines and paper ballots used in Florida. Perhaps recognizing that this new constitutional princi- ple threatened to throw into question results throughout the country— since
many states had voting systems as complex as Florida’ s— the Court added that it applied only in this single case.
The most remarkable thing about the election of 2000 was not so much its controversial ending as the even division of the country it revealed. Bush and Gore each received essentially half of the popular vote. The final count in the electoral college stood at 271-266, the narrowest margin since 1876. The Senate ended up divided 50-50 between the two parties. But these figures concealed deep political and social fissures. Bush carried the entire South and nearly all the states of the trans- Mississippi farm belt and Rockies. Gore won almost all the states of the Northeast, Old Northwest, and West Coast. Res- idents of urban areas voted overwhelmingly for Gore. Rural areas went just as solidly for Bush. Members of racial minorities gave Gore large majorities, while white voters preferred Bush. The results also revealed a significant “gender gap.” Until the 1960s, women had tended to vote disproportionately Republi- can. In 2000, women favored Gore by 11 percent, while men preferred Bush by the same margin.
A Challenged Democracy
Coming at the end of the “decade of democracy,” the 2000 election revealed troubling features of the American political system at the close of the twenti- eth century. The electoral college, devised by the founders to enable the coun- try’s prominent men rather than ordinary voters to choose the president, gave the White House to a candidate who did not receive the most votes— an odd result in a political democracy. A country that prided itself on modern tech- nology had a voting system in which citizens’ choices could not be reliably
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THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11 ★ 1105
determined. Counting both congressional and presidential races, the campaign cost more than $1.5 billion, mostly raised from wealthy individuals and corpo- rate donors. This reinforced the widespread belief that money dominated the political system. The implications for democracy of the ever- closer connection between power in the economic marketplace and power in the marketplace of politics and ideas would be widely debated in the early twenty- first century.
Evidence abounded of a broad dis engagement from public life. As govern- ments at all levels competed to turn their activities over to private contractors, and millions of Americans walled themselves off from their fellow citizens by taking up residence in socially homogeneous gated communities, the very idea of a shared public sphere seemed to dissolve. Nearly half the eligible voters did not bother to go to the polls, and in state and local elections, turnouts typi- cally ranged between only 20 and 30 percent. More people watched the tele- vised Nixon- Kennedy debates of 1960 than the Bush- Gore debates of 2000, even though the population had risen by 100 million. Both candidates sought to occupy the political center and relied on public- opinion polls and media con- sultants to shape their messages. Major issues like health care, race relations, and economic inequality went virtually unmentioned during the campaign. And no one discussed the issue that would soon come to dominate Bush’s presidency— the threat of international terrorism.
T H E A T T A C K S O F S E P T E M B E R 1 1 September 11, 2001, a beautiful late- summer morning, began with the sun rising over the East Coast of the United States in a crystal- clear sky. But Septem- ber 11 soon became one of the most tragic dates in American history.
Around 8 am, hijackers seized control of four jet airliners filled with passen- gers. They crashed two into the World Trade Center in New York City, igniting infernos that soon caused these buildings, which dominated the lower Manhat- tan skyline, to collapse. A third plane hit a wing of the Pentagon, the country’s military headquarters, in Washington, D.C. On the fourth aircraft, passengers who had learned of these events via their cell phones overpowered the hijack- ers. The plane crashed in a field near Pittsburgh, killing all aboard. Counting the nineteen hijackers, more than 200 passengers, pilots, and flight attendants, and victims on the ground, around 3,000 people died on September 11. The vic- tims included nearly 400 police and firefighters who had rushed to the World Trade Center in a rescue effort and perished when the “twin towers” collapsed. Relatives and friends desperately seeking information about the fate of those lost in the attacks printed thousands of “missing” posters. These remained in
Why did Al Qaeda attack the United States on September 11, 2001?
1106 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
public places in New York and Wash- ington for weeks, grim reminders of the lives extinguished on September 11.
The Bush administration quickly blamed Al Qaeda, a shadowy terror- ist organization headed by Osama bin Laden, for the attacks. A wealthy Islamic fundamentalist from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden had joined the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He had developed a relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency and received American funds to help build his mountain bases. But after the Gulf War of 1991, his anger increasingly turned against the United States. Bin Laden was especially outraged by the presence of American military bases in Saudi Arabia and by American support for Israel in its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. More generally, bin Laden and his followers saw the United States, with its religious pluralism, consumer culture, and open sexual mores, as the antithesis of the rigid values in which they believed. He feared that American influence was corrupting Saudi Arabia,
Islam’s spiritual home, and helping to keep the Saudi royal family, which failed to oppose this development, in power.
In the last three decades of the twentieth century, terrorist groups who held the United States and other Western countries responsible for the plight of the Palestinians had engaged in hijackings and murders. After the Gulf War, Osama bin Laden declared “war” on the United States. Terrorists associated with Al Qaeda exploded a truck- bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six per- sons, and set off blasts in 1998 at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which more than 200 persons, mostly African embassy workers, died. Thus, a ris- ing terrorist threat was visible before September 11. Nonetheless, the attack came as a complete surprise. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, most Americans felt more secure, especially within their own borders, than they had for decades.
The attacks of September 11, 2001, gave new prominence to ideas deeply embedded in the American past— that freedom was the central quality of
The twin towers of the World Trade Center after being struck by hijacked airplanes on Septem- ber 11, 2001. Shortly after this photograph was taken, the towers collapsed.
American life, and that the United States had a mission to spread freedom throughout the world and to fight those it saw as freedom’s enemies. The attacks and events that followed also lent new urgency to questions that had recurred many times in American history: Should the United States act in the world as a republic or an empire? What is the proper balance between liberty and security? Who deserves the full enjoyment of American freedom? None had an easy answer.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why was the year 1989 one of the most momentous in the twentieth century?
2. Describe the different visions of the U.S. role in the post– Cold War world as identified by President George H. W. Bush and President Clinton.
3. Explain Clinton’s political strategy of combining social liberalism with conservative economic ideas.
4. What are the causes and consequences of the growing “ prison- industrial complex”?
5. Identify the factors that, in the midst of 1990s prosperity, increased the levels of inequality in the United States.
6. What are the similarities and differences between immigration patterns of the 1990s and earlier?
7. What main issues gave rise to the Culture Wars of the 1990s?
8. Assess the role of the Supreme Court in the presidential election of 2000.
9. What is globalization, and how did it affect the United States in the 1990s?
KEY TERMS
new world order (p. 1073)
Gulf War (p. 1074)
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” (p. 1076)
North American Free Trade Agreement (p. 1076)
Contract with America (p. 1077)
Oslo Accords (p. 1079)
Rwandan genocide (p. 1079)
ethnic cleansing (p. 1079)
Balkan crisis (p. 1079)
globalization (p. 1081)
Americans with Disabilities Act (p. 1097)
multiculturalism (p. 1098)
Culture Wars (p. 1100)
Defense of Marriage Act (p. 1100)
family values (p. 1100)
Bush v. Gore (p. 1103)
Why did Al Qaeda attack the United States on September 11, 2001?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 1107
1108 ★ CHAPTER 27 From Triumph to Tragedy
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
Visit the Give Me Liberty! Student Site for primary source documents and images, interactive maps, author videos featuring Eric Foner, and more.
What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s?
F O C U S Q U E S T I O N S • What were the major policy elements of the war on terror in the wake of
September 11, 2001?
• How did the war in Iraq unfold in the wake of 9/11?
• How did the war on terror affect the economy and American liberties?
• What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
• What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama?
• What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?
• What were the prevailing ideas of American freedom at the beginning of the 21st century?
A N E W C E N T U R Y
A N D N E W C R I S E S
★ C H A P T E R 2 8 ★
The presidential election of 2008 produced not only a great political sur-prise but a historic moment in American history. Whatever one’s opin-ion of Barack Obama’s policies, there is no question that in view of the nation’s racial history, the election of the first African- American president was an enormously important symbolic turning point.
A little- known forty- seven- year- old senator from Illinois when the campaign began in 2007, Obama owed his success both to his own exceptional skills as a speaker and campaigner and to the evolution of American politics and society.
★ 1109
1110 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
Obama’s life story exemplified the enormous changes the United States had undergone since 1960. Without the civil rights movement, his election would have been inconceivable. He was the product of an interracial marriage, which ended in divorce when he was two years old, between a Kenyan immigrant and a white American woman. When Obama was born in 1961, their marriage was still illegal in many states. He attended Harvard Law School, and worked in Chicago as a community organizer before going into politics. He also wrote two best- selling books about his upbringing in Indonesia (where his mother worked as an anthropologist) and Hawaii (where his maternal grandparents helped to raise him) and his search for a sense of identity given his complex background. Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and first gained national attention with an eloquent speech at the Democratic national con- vention that year. His early opposition to the Iraq War won the support of the Democratic Party’s large antiwar element; his race galvanized the support of black voters; and his youth and promise of change appealed to the young.
Obama recognized how the Internet had changed politics. He established an email list containing the names of millions of voters with whom he could communicate instantaneously, and used web- based networks to raise enor- mous sums of money in small donations. His campaign put out videos on popular Internet sites. With its widespread use of modern technology and mas- sive mobilization of new voters, Obama’s was the first political campaign of the twenty- first century. But his election also rested on the deep unpopularity of his predecessor, George W. Bush, because of the seemingly endless war he launched in Iraq and the collapse of the American economy in 2008.
T H E W A R O N T E R R O R
Bush before September 11
Before becoming president, George W. Bush had been an executive in the oil industry and had served as governor of Texas. He had worked to dissociate the Republican Party from the harsh anti- immigrant rhetoric of the mid- 1990s and had proven himself an effective proponent of what he called “compassionate con- servatism.” Nonetheless, from the outset Bush pursued a strongly conservative agenda. In 2001, he persuaded Congress to enact the largest tax cut in American his- tory. With the economy slowing, he promoted the plan as a way of stimulating renewed growth. In keeping with the “ supply- side” economic outlook embraced twenty years earlier by Ronald Reagan, most of the tax cuts were directed toward the wealthiest Americans, on the assumption that they would invest the money they saved in taxes in economically productive activities.
THE WAR ON TERROR ★ 1111
In foreign policy, Bush emphasized American freedom of action, unrestrained by international treaties and institutions. To great controversy, the Bush administra- tion announced that it would not abide by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which sought to combat global warming— a slow rise in the earth’s temperature that scientists warned could have disastrous effects on the world’s climate. Global warming is caused when gases released by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil remain in the upper atmosphere, trapping heat reflected from the earth. Evi- dence of this development first surfaced in the 1990s, when scientists studying layers of ice in Greenland concluded that the earth’s temperature had risen significantly during the past century.
Today, most scientists consider global warming a serious situation. Climate change threatens to disrupt long- established patterns of agriculture, and the melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps because of rising tempera- tures may raise ocean levels and flood coastal cities. Since, at the time, the United States burned far more fossil fuel than any other nation, Bush’s repudiation of the treaty, on the grounds that it would weaken the Amer- ican economy, infuriated much of the world, as well as environmentalists at home.
“They Hate Freedom”
September 11 transformed the international situation, the domestic political environ- ment, and the Bush presidency. An outpour- ing of popular patriotism followed the attacks, all the more impressive because it was spontaneous, not orchestrated by the government or private organizations. Throughout the country, people demonstrated their sense of resolve and their sympathy for the victims by dis- playing the American flag. Public trust in government rose dramatically, and
• C H R O N O L O G Y •
2001 U.S. enters war in Afghanistan
USA Patriot Act
2002 Bush identifies “axis of evil”
Department of Homeland Security established
2003 Iraq War begins
2005 Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast
2007 Great Recession begins
2008 Federal bailout of banks and companies
Barack Obama elected
2009 Federal stimulus package
Tea Party movement develops
Sonia Sotomayor named to Supreme Court
2010 Affordable Care Act
Gulf oil spill
2011 Arab Spring
Osama bin Laden killed
Occupy Wall Street movement
2012 Obama reelected
2013 Edward Snowden revelations
2015 Supreme Court declares constitutional right to gay marriage
U.S. reestablishes relations with Cuba
• •
What were the major policy elements of the war on terror in the wake of September 11, 2001?
1112 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
public servants like firemen and police- men became national heroes. After two decades in which the dominant language of American politics centered on deregulation and individualism, the country experienced a renewed feeling of common social purpose.
The Bush administration benefited from this patriotism and identification with government. The president’s pop- ularity soared. Bush seized the oppor- tunity to give his administration a new direction and purpose. Like presidents before him, he made freedom the rally- ing cry for a nation at war.
On September 20, 2001, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and a national television audience. His speech echoed the words of FDR, Tru- man, and Reagan: “Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human free- dom . . . now depends on us.” The coun- try’s antagonists, Bush went on, “hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion,
our freedom of speech, our freedom to assemble and disagree with each other.” In later speeches, he repeated this theme. Why did terrorists attack the United States? the president repeatedly asked. His answer: “Because we love freedom, that’s why. And they hate freedom.”
The Bush Doctrine
Bush’s speech announced a new foreign policy principle, which quickly became known as the Bush Doctrine. The United States would launch a war on ter- rorism. Unlike previous wars, this one had a vaguely defined enemy— terrorist groups around the world that might threaten the United States or its allies— and no predictable timetable for victory. The American administration would recog- nize no middle ground in the new war: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Bush demanded that Afghanistan, ruled by a group of Islamic fun- damentalists called the Taliban, surrender Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 attacks, who had established a base in the country. When the Taliban refused, the United States on October 7, 2001, launched air strikes against its strongholds.
“Is This the End?” by the artist Owen Freeman, offers a warning about global warming, one of whose consequences in coming decades will be a rise in sea levels, flooding many low- lying coastal communities.
AN AMERICAN EMPIRE? ★ 1113
Bush gave the war in Afghanistan the name “Enduring Freedom.” By the end of the year, the combination of American bombing and ground com- bat by the Northern Alliance (Afghans who had been fighting the Taliban for years) had driven the regime from power. A new government, friendly to and dependent on the United States, took its place. It repealed Taliban laws deny- ing women the right to attend school and banning movies, music, and other expressions of Western culture but found it difficult to establish full control over the country. U.S. forces would remain in Afghanistan at least into 2017, making the war the longest in American history.
The “Axis of Evil”
Like the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, September 11 not only plunged the United States into war but also transformed American foreign pol- icy, inspiring a determination to reshape the world in terms of American ideals and interests. To facilitate further military action in the Middle East, the United States established military bases in Central Asia, including former republics of the Soviet Union like Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Such an action would have been inconceivable before the end of the Cold War.
The toppling of the Taliban, Bush repeatedly insisted, marked only the beginning of the war on terrorism. In his State of the Union address of Janu- ary 2002, the president accused Iraq, Iran, and North Korea of harboring ter- rorists and developing “weapons of mass destruction”—nuclear, chemical, and biological— that posed a potential threat to the United States. He called the three countries an “axis of evil,” even though no evidence connected them with the attacks of September 11 and they had never cooperated with one another (Iraq and Iran, in fact, had fought a long and bloody war in the 1980s).
A N A M E R I C A N E M P I R E ? The “axis of evil” speech and National Security Strategy sent shock waves around the world. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, a wave of sym- pathy for the United States had swept across the globe. Most of the world sup- ported the war in Afghanistan as a legitimate response to the terrorist attacks. By late 2002, however, many persons overseas feared that the United States was claiming the right to act as a world policeman in violation of international law.
Critics, including leaders of close American allies, wondered whether divid- ing the world into friends and enemies of freedom ran the danger of repeat- ing some of the mistakes of the Cold War. Anti- Americanism in the Middle East, they argued, reached far beyond bin Laden’s organization and stemmed not simply from dislike of American freedom but, rightly or wrongly, from
How did the war in Iraq unfold in the wake of 9/11?
1114 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
opposition to specific American policies— toward Israel, the Palestinians, and the region’s corrupt and undemocratic regimes.
Charges quickly arose that the United States was bent on establishing itself as a new global empire. Indeed, September 11 and its aftermath highlighted not only the vulnerability of the United States but also its overwhelming strength. In every index of power— military, economic, cultural— the United States far outpaced the rest of the world. Its defense budget exceeded that of the next twenty powers combined. The United States was the only country that maintained military bases throughout the world and deployed its navy on every ocean. It was not surprising that in such circumstances many American policymakers felt that the country had a responsibility to impose order in a dangerous world, even if this meant establishing its own rules of international conduct.
Confronting Iraq
These tensions became starkly evident in the Bush administration’s next ini- tiative. The Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein had survived its defeat in the Gulf War of 1991. Hussein’s opponents charged that he had flouted United Nations resolutions barring the regime from developing new weapons.
From the outset of the Bush administration, a group of conservative policy- makers including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz were determined to oust Hussein from power. They insisted that the oppressed Iraqi people would welcome an American army as liberators and quickly establish a democratic government, allowing for the early departure of American soldiers. This group seized on the opportunity presented by the attacks of September 11 to press their case, and President Bush adopted their outlook. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who believed the conquest and stabilization of Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and should not be undertaken without the support of America’s allies, found himself marginalized in the administration.
Even though Hussein was not an Islamic fundamentalist, and no known evidence linked him to the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Bush admin- istration in 2002 announced a goal of “regime change” in Iraq. Hussein, administration spokesmen insisted, must be ousted from power because he had developed an arsenal of chemical and bacterial “weapons of mass destruction” and was seeking to acquire nuclear arms. American newspaper and television journalists repeated these claims with almost no independent investigation. Early in 2003, despite his original misgivings, Secretary of State Powell deliv- ered a speech before the UN outlining the administration’s case. He claimed
AN AMERICAN EMPIRE? ★ 1115
that Hussein possessed a mobile chemical weapons laboratory, had hidden weapons of mass destruction in his many palaces, and was seeking to acquire uranium in Africa to build nuclear weapons. (Every one of these assertions later turned out to be false.)
The Iraq War
Foreign policy “realists,” including members of previous Republican adminis- trations like Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under the first Presi- dent Bush, warned that the administration’s preoccupation with Iraq deflected
Khartoum
Asmara
Addis Ababa
Djibouti
Masqat
Abu Dhabi Doha
Manama
Kuwait
Baghdad
Basra
Palmyra
Al-Raqqah Mosul
Damascus
Tel Aviv Amman
Beirut Nicosia
Ankara
Sofia
Tehran Kabul Islamabad
Athens
Bucharest
Kiev
Ashgabat
Dushanbe
Tashkent
Yerevan Baku
Tbilisi
Sanaa
Cairo
Bishkek
Riyadh
Kandahar
Istanbul
Karachi
¸ Chisinau
˘
-Gulf War, 1990 -Iraq War, 2003–
-Civil war, 2011– -War against Taliban and Terrorists, 2001–
-Osama bin Laden killed, 2011
-American embassy occupied, 1979–1981
-Recognition, 1948 -Camp David Accords, 1978 -Wye Memorandum, concerning peace with the Palestinians, 1998
-Suez crisis, 1956 -Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, 1974–1975 -Camp David accords, 1978
KAZAKHSTAN
UZBEKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN
AFGHANISTAN
IRAN
RUSSIA
TURKEY
IRAQ
SAUDI ARABIA
PAKISTAN INDIA
TAJIKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN
CHINA
UKRAINE MOLDOVA
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
GREECE GEORGIA
ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN
SYRIA
JORDAN
ISRAEL LEBANON
CYPRUS
EGYPT
SUDAN ERITREA
ETHIOPIA DJIBOUTI
SOMALIA
YEMEN
OMAN
UNITED ARAB
EMIRATES
QATAR BAHRAIN
KUWAIT
Red Sea
Arabian Sea
Caspian Sea
Aral Sea
Black Sea
Mediterranean Sea
0
0
250
250
500 miles
500 kilometers
Oil fields Air bases Naval bases Territory controlled by ISIS
Jerusalem
Nablus
Ramallah
Bethlehem
Hebron
1950 Armis t i ce l ine
1949 Armis t i ce l ine
1967 Cease-F i re l i ne
ISRAEL
West Bank
Gaza St r ip
Jo rd
an R
iv er
Dead Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Territory under full Palestinian control Palestinian Authority responsible for social and civil services only Gaza Strip and West Bank territory under full Israeli control Jewish settlements Israeli military bases
U . S . P R E S E N C E I N T H E M I D D L E E A S T, 1 9 6 7 – 2 0 1 5
Since World War II, the United States has become more and more deeply involved in the affairs of the Middle East, whose countries are together the world’s largest exporter of oil. Note that the ISIS- controlled territory shown here is as of the end of 2015.
How did the war in Iraq unfold in the wake of 9/11?
1116 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
attention from its real foe, Al Qaeda, which remained capable of launching terrorist attacks. They insisted that the United States could not unilaterally transform the Middle East into a bastion of democracy, as the administration claimed was its long- term aim.
The decision to begin the Iraq War split the Western alliance and inspired a massive antiwar movement throughout the world. In February 2003, between 10 million and 15 million people across the globe demonstrated against the impending war. There were large- scale protests in the United States, which brought together veterans of the antiwar movement during the Vietnam era and a diverse group of young activists united in the belief that launching a war against a nation because it might pose a security threat in the future violated international law and the UN Charter.
Both traditional foes of the United States like Russia and China and tradi- tional allies like Germany and France refused to support a “preemptive” strike against Iraq. Unable to obtain approval from the United Nations for attacking Iraq, the United States went to war anyway in March 2003, with Great Britain as its sole significant ally. President Bush called the war “Operation Iraqi Free- dom.” Its purpose, he declared, was to “defend our freedom” and “bring freedom to others.” The Hussein regime proved no match for the American armed forces, with their precision bombing, satellite- guided missiles, and well- trained soldiers. Within a month, American troops occupied Baghdad. After hiding out for several months, Hussein was captured by American forces and subse- quently put on trial before an Iraqi court. Late in 2006, he was found guilty of ordering the killing of many Iraqis during his reign, and was sentenced to death and executed.
Another Vietnam?
Soon after the fall of Baghdad, a triumphant President Bush appeared on the deck of an aircraft carrier beneath a banner reading “Mission Accomplished.” But after the fall of Hussein, everything seemed to go wrong. Rather than parades welcoming American liberators, looting and chaos followed the fall of the Iraqi regime. An insurgency quickly developed that targeted Ameri- can soldiers and Iraqis cooperating with them. Sectarian violence soon swept throughout Iraq, with militias of Shiite and Sunni Muslims fighting each other. (Under Hussein, Sunnis, a minority of Iraq’s population, had dominated the government and army; now, the Shiite majority sought to exercise power and exact revenge.) Despite holding a number of elections in Iraq, the United States found it impossible to create an Iraqi government strong enough to impose order on the country.
With no end in sight to the conflict, comparisons with the American expe- rience in Vietnam became commonplace. In both wars, American policy was
THE AFTERMATH OF SEPTEMBER 11 AT HOME ★ 1117
made by officials who had little or no knowledge of the countries to which they were sending troops and dis- trusted State Department experts on these regions, who tended to be skep- tical about the possibility of achieving quick military and long- term political success.
The World and the War
The war marked a new departure in American foreign policy. The United States had frequently intervened uni- laterally in the affairs of Latin Ameri- can countries. But outside the Western Hemisphere it had previously been reluctant to use force except as part of an international coalition. And while the United States had exerted enor- mous influence in the Middle East since World War II, never before had it occupied a nation in the center of the world’s most volatile region.
Rarely in its history had the United States found itself so isolated from world public opinion. Initially, the war in Iraq proved to be popular in the United States. Many Americans believed the administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein had something to do with September 11 and had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. The realiza- tion that in fact Hussein had no such weapons discredited the administration’s rationale for the war. By early 2007, polls showed that a large majority of Amer- icans considered the invasion of Iraq a mistake, and the war a lost cause.
T H E A F T E R M A T H O F S E P T E M B E R 1 1 A T H O M E
Security and Liberty
Like earlier wars, the war on terrorism raised anew the problem of balancing security and liberty. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Congress rushed to pass the USA Patriot Act, a mammoth bill (it ran to more than 300 pages) that
11
7
55 5
4
3
3
5 9
10 5
34
3
3
14
6
7
10
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11
6
9
10
21 11 20
8 5
11
6 9 15 8 15
27
13
21
31
3 4 4
12 4 7
153
3 10
17
3 4
Democrat Republican
Party Obama McCain
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 365 (67.8%) 173 (32.2%)
Popular Vote (Share)
66,882,230 (53%) 58,343,671 (46%)
I S R A E L , T H E W E S T B A N K , A N D G A Z A S T R I P
How did the war on terror affect the economy and American liberties?
1118 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
few members of the House or Senate had actually read. It conferred unprece- dented powers on law- enforcement agencies charged with preventing the new, vaguely defined crime of “domestic terrorism,” including the power to wire- tap, spy on citizens, open letters, read e- mail, and obtain personal records from third parties like universities and libraries without the knowledge of a suspect. Unlike during World Wars I and II, with their campaigns of hatred against German- Americans and Japanese- Americans, the Bush administration made a point of discouraging anti- Arab and anti- Muslim sentiment. Nonetheless, at least 5,000 foreigners with Middle Eastern connections were rounded up, and more than 1,200 arrested. Many with no link to terrorism were held for months, without either a formal charge or a public notice of their fate. The administra- tion also set up a detention camp at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for persons captured in Afghanistan or otherwise accused of terrorism. More than 700 persons, the nationals of many foreign countries, were detained there.
In November 2001, the Bush administration issued an executive order authorizing the holding of secret military tribunals for noncitizens deemed to have assisted terrorism. In such trials, traditional constitutional protec- tions, such as the right of the accused to choose a lawyer and see all the evidence, would not apply. A few months later, the Justice Department declared that American citizens could be held indefinitely without charge and not allowed to see a lawyer, if the government declared them to be “enemy combatants.” Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that criti- cism of administration policies aided the country’s terrorist enemies.
The Power of the President
In the new atmosphere of heightened security, numerous court orders and reg- ulations of the 1970s, inspired by abuses of the CIA, FBI, and local police forces, were rescinded, allowing these agencies to resume surveillance of Americans without evidence that a crime had been committed. Some of these measures were authorized by Congress, but the president implemented many of them unilaterally, claiming the authority to ignore laws that restricted his power as commander- in- chief in wartime. Thus, soon after September 11, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Ameri- cans’ telephone conversations without a court warrant, a clear violation of a law limiting the NSA to foreign intelligence gathering.
The majority of Americans seemed willing to accept the administration’s contention that restraints on time- honored liberties were necessary to fight terrorism. Others recalled previous times when wars produced limitations on civil liberties and public officials equated political dissent with lack of
THE AFTERMATH OF SEPTEMBER 11 AT HOME ★ 1119
patriotism: the Alien and Sedition Acts during the “ quasi- war” with France in 1798, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the severe repression of free speech and persecution of German- Americans during World War I, Japanese- American internment in World War II, and McCarthy- ism during the Cold War. These episodes underscored the fragility of principles most Americans have learned to take for granted— civil liberties and the ideal of equality before the law, regardless of race and ethnicity. The debate over lib- erty and security seemed certain to last as long as the war on terrorism itself.
The Torture Controversy
Officials of the Bush administration also insisted in the aftermath of Septem- ber 11 that the United States need not be bound by international law in pur- suing the war on terrorism. They were especially eager to sidestep the Geneva Conventions and the International Convention against Torture, which regu- late the treatment of prisoners of war and prohibit torture and other forms of physical and mental coercion. In January 2002, the Justice Department pro- duced a memorandum stating that these rules did not apply to captured mem- bers of Al Qaeda as they were “unlawful combatants,” not members of regularly constituted armies.
Amid strong protests from Secretary of State Powell and senior military offi- cers who feared that the new policy would encourage the retaliatory mistreat- ment of American prisoners of war, in April 2003 the president prohibited the use of torture except where special permission had been granted. Nonetheless, the Defense Department approved methods of interrogation that most observ- ers considered torture. In addition, the CIA set up a series of jails in foreign countries outside the traditional chain of military command and took part in the “rendition” of suspects— that is, kidnapping them and spiriting them to prisons in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and former communist states of eastern Europe, where torture is practiced.
In this atmosphere and lacking clear rules of behavior, some military personnel— in Afghanistan, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and at Guantánamo— beat prisoners who were being held for interrogation, subjected them to elec- tric shocks, let them be attacked by dogs, and forced them to strip naked and lie atop other prisoners. Photographs of the maltreatment of prisoners, cir- culated by e- mail, became public. Their exposure around the world in news- papers, on television, and on the Internet undermined the reputation of the United States as a country that adheres to standards of civilized behavior and the rule of law.
The full extent of the torture policy did not become known until 2014, when a Senate committee released a scathing report stemming from a long
How did the war on terror affect the economy and American liberties?
1120 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
investigation. It revealed a pattern of brutality and deception, while conclud- ing that no useful information had been obtained from tortured prisoners. It detailed how doctors and psychologists, in violation of their professions’ ethics, had supervised instances of torture and how the CIA had lied to President Bush and Congress about the extent of the program. Torture, it concluded, did not arise from the actions of a few “bad apples” but was systematically employed at secret U.S. prisons around the world.
The Economy under Bush
During 2001, the economy slipped into a recession— that is, it contracted rather than grew. Growth resumed at the end of the year, but, with businesses reluc- tant to make new investments after the overexpansion of the 1990s, it failed to generate new jobs. The sectors that had expanded the most in the previous decade contracted rapidly. The computer industry slashed more than 40 per- cent of its jobs during the first two years of the Bush presidency. But 90 percent of the jobs lost during the recession of 2001–2002 were in manufacturing. Despite the renewed spirit of patriotism, deindustrialization continued. Textile firms closed southern plants and shifted production to cheap- labor factories in China and India. Maytag, a manufacturer of washing machines, refrigerators, and other home appliances, announced plans to close its factory in Galesburg, Illinois, where wages averaged fifteen dollars per hour, to open a new one in Mexico, where workers earned less than one- seventh that amount.
Even after economic recovery began, the problems of traditional industries continued. Employment in steel— 520,000 in 1970—dropped to 120,000 by 2004. Late in 2005, facing declining profits and sales, major companies moved to eliminate the remnants of the post– World War II “social contract,” in which industries provided manufacturing workers with both high- paying jobs and the promise that they would be provided for in old age. Many eliminated or sharply reduced pensions and health benefits for retired workers. Bush became the first president since Herbert Hoover to see the economy lose jobs over the course of a four- year term.
T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E
The 2004 Election
With Bush’s popularity sliding because of the war in Iraq and a widespread sense that many Americans were not benefiting from economic growth, Democrats in 2004 sensed a golden opportunity to retake the White House. They nominated
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as their candidate John Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts and the first Cath- olic to run for president since John F. Kennedy in 1960. A decorated combat veteran in Vietnam, Kerry had joined the antiwar movement after leaving the army. The party hoped that Kerry’s military experience would insulate him from Republican charges that Democrats were too weak- willed to be trusted to protect the United States from further terrorist attacks, while his antiwar cre- dentials in Vietnam would appeal to voters opposed to the invasion of Iraq.
Kerry proved a surprisingly ineffective candidate. An aloof man who lacked the common touch, he failed to generate the same degree of enthusiasm among his supporters as Bush did among his. Bush won a narrow victory, with a margin of 2 percent of the popular vote and thirty- four electoral votes. The results revealed a remarkable electoral stability. Both sides spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising and mobilized new voters— nearly 20 million since 2000. But in the end, only three states voted differently than four years earlier— New Hampshire, which Kerry carried, and Iowa and New Mexico, which swung to Bush.
Bush’s Second Term
In his second inaugural address, in January 2005, Bush outlined a new Ameri- can goal—“ending tyranny in the world.” Striking a more conciliatory tone than during his first administration, he promised that the United States would not try to impose “our style of government” on others and that it would in the future seek the advice of allies. He said nothing specific about Iraq but tried to shore up falling support for the war by invoking the ideal of freedom. In his first inau- gural, in January 2001, Bush had used the words “freedom,” “free,” or “liberty” seven times. In his second, they appeared forty- nine times. Again and again, Bush insisted that the United States stands for the worldwide triumph of freedom.
But the ongoing chaos in Iraq, coupled with a spate of corruption scandals surrounding Republicans in Congress and the White House, eroded Bush’s stand- ing. Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff was convicted of perjury in connection with an investigation of the illegal “leak” to the press of the name of a CIA oper- ative whose husband had criticized the manipulation of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq. He was the first White House official to be indicted while hold- ing office since Orville Babcock, Grant’s chief of staff, in 1875. Bush’s popularity continued to decline. At one point in 2006, his approval rating fell to 31 percent.
Hurricane Katrina
A further blow to the Bush administration’s standing came in August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore near New Orleans. Situated below sea level between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans has always been vulnerable to flooding. For years, scientists had predicted a
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
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catastrophe if a hurricane hit the city. But the federal government ignored requests to strengthen its levee system. When the storm hit on August 29 the levees broke, and nearly the entire city, with a population of half a million, was inundated. Nearby areas of the Loui- siana and Mississippi Gulf Coast were also hard hit.
The natural disaster quickly became a man- made one, with inept- itude evident from local government to the White House. The mayor of New Orleans had been slow to order an evac- uation, fearing this would damage the city’s tourist trade. When he finally instructed residents to leave, a day before the storm’s arrival, he neglected to provide for the thousands who did not own automobiles and were too poor to find other means of transpor- tation. The Federal Emergency Man- agement Agency (FEMA) had done almost no preparation. When the pres- ident finally visited the city, he seemed unaware of the scope of devastation. If
the Bush administration had prided itself on anything, it was competence in dealing with disaster. Katrina shattered that image.
The New Orleans Disaster
For days, vast numbers of people, most of them poor African- Americans, remained abandoned amid the floodwaters. Bodies floated in the streets and people died in city hospitals and nursing homes. By the time aid began to arrive, damage stood at $80 billion, the death toll was around 1,500, and two- thirds of the city’s population had been displaced. The televised images of misery in the streets of New Orleans shocked the world and shamed the country.
Hurricane Katrina shone a bright light on both the heroic and the less praiseworthy sides of American life. Where government failed, individual cit- izens stepped into the breach. People with boats rescued countless survivors from rooftops and attics, private donations flowed in to aid the victims, and neighboring states like Texas opened their doors to thousands of refugees.
Residents of New Orleans, stranded on a rooftop days after flood waters engulfed the city, fran- tically attempt to attract the attention of rescue helicopters.
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Like the publication of Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890) and Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962), the hurricane’s aftermath alerted Amer- icans to the extent of poverty in the world’s richest country. Generations of state and local policies pursuing economic growth via low- wage, nonunion employment and low investment in education, health, and social welfare had produced a large impoverished population in the South. Nearly 30 percent of New Orleans’s population lived in poverty.
Battle over the Border
The attacks of September 11 and subsequent war on terror threw into sharp relief the status of American borders and borderlands, especially in the South- west. The existence of the borderland embracing parts of the United States and Mexico, with people enjoying well- developed connections with communities in both countries, has always been a source of tension and insecurity in the eyes of many Americans. Fears of terrorists crossing the border merged with older worries about undocumented immigration and the growth of Hispanic culture in the Southwest. When the Swedish vodka- maker Absolut posted an advertise- ment in Mexico showing the pre- 1848 map of Mexico and the United States, the ad angered enough Americans (who saw it on the Internet) that the company withdrew it.
The Bush and Obama administrations greatly accelerated efforts to police the border. By 2013, the number of U.S. Border Patrol officers stood at 20,000, making it the nation’s second largest police force after the New York City Police Department, and 400,000 undocumented immigrants were being deported annually, far more than in the past. Latino communities experi- enced the southwestern borderlands as increasingly militarized, since the “bor- der” stretched far inland and persons accused of having entered the coun- try illegally— almost all of them from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—could be apprehended many miles north of Mexico. None- theless, some Americans in the region, claiming that the federal government was not doing enough to enforce the border’s status as a dividing line, set up unofficial militias to police the area. Ironically, a major result of tighter con- trols over border crossing was to reduce
In 2015, the artist JR took photographs of immi- grants and affixed them to the walls of New York City buildings and to other public places. This image is of Kamola Akilova, from Uzbekistan. The purpose, according to the artist, is to take immigrants out of the shadows and make people aware of their presence in the city.
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
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back- and- forth migration. Given the diminishing chance of aliens, legal or not, visiting their original homes and then returning, more and more simply stayed put after entering the United States.
In the continuing political debate over immigration, as in other issues of the day, long- standing political divi- sions continue to simmer. Who has the right to determine the status of millions of undocumented workers— the president, Congress, the states, the courts, or private employers?
In the spring of 2006, the immigra- tion issue suddenly burst again onto
the center stage of politics. As we have seen, the Hart- Celler Act of 1965 led to a radical shift in the origins of those entering the United States, and espe- cially the rapid growth of the Hispanic population. Many of these newcomers bypassed traditional immigrant destinations and headed for areas in the Mid- west, small- town New England, and the Upper South. Racial and ethnic diver- sity was now a fact of life in the American heartland.
Alongside legal immigrants, undocumented newcomers made their way to the United States, mostly from Mexico. At the end of 2005, it was estimated, there were 11 million illegal aliens in the United States, 7 million of them members of the workforce. Economists disagree about their impact. It seems clear that the presence of large numbers of uneducated, low- skilled workers pushes down wages at the bottom of the economic ladder, especially affect- ing African- Americans. On the other hand, immigrants both legal and illegal receive regular paychecks, spend money, and pay taxes. They fill jobs for which American workers seem to be unavailable because the wages are so low. It is estimated that more than one- fifth of construction workers, domestic workers, and agricultural workers are in the United States illegally.
In 1986, the Reagan administration granted amnesty— that is, the right to remain in the United States and become citizens— to 3 million illegal immi- grants. During the 1990s, conservatives in states with significant populations of illegal immigrants, especially California, called for a tough crackdown on their entry and rights within the United States. As governor of Texas, by contrast, George W. Bush managed to win Hispanic support and downplayed the immi- gration issue. But in 2006, with many Americans convinced that the United States had lost control of its borders and that immigration was in part responsi- ble for the stagnation of real wages, the House of Representatives approved a bill
Members of the Texas Minutemen patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border. Claiming that the federal government was failing to prevent undocu- mented immigrants from entering the United States, vigilantes tried to do so on their own.
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making it a felony to be in the country illegally and a crime to offer aid to illegal immigrants.
The response was utterly unexpected: a series of massive demonstrations in the spring of 2006 by immigrants— legal and illegal— and their support- ers, demanding the right to remain in the country as citizens. In cities from New York to Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Dallas, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. Nashville experienced the largest public demon- stration in its history, a march of more than 10,000 mostly Hispanic immigrants. All Congress could agree on, however, was a measure to build a 700-mile wall along part of the U.S.-Mexico border. The immigration issue was at a stalemate, where it remains today, its ultimate resolution impossible to predict.
Islam, America, and the “Clash of Civilizations”
The events of September 11, 2001 placed new pressures on religious liberty. Even before the terrorist attacks, the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington had published a widely noted book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996), which argued that with the Cold War over, a new global conflict impended between Western and Islamic “civilizations.”
Many readers, including politicians, interpreted Huntington, not entirely correctly, as reducing politics and culture to a single characteristic— in this case, religion— forever static, divorced from historical development. (“Islam,” in fact, consists of well over a billion people, in very different countries ranging from South Asia to the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.) None- theless, in the aftermath of September 11, the formula that pitted a freedom- loving United States against militant, authoritarian Muslims became widely popular as a way of making sense of the terrorist attacks.
What did this mean for the nearly 5 million Americans who practiced the Muslim religion? President Bush insisted that the war on terror was not a war against Islam. But many Americans found it difficult to separate the two, even though most American Muslims were as appalled by the terrorist attacks as their fellow countrymen. Some critics claimed that Islam was fundamentally incompatible with American life— a position reminiscent of prejudice in the nineteenth century against Catholics and Mormons.
The Constitution and Liberty
As in the 1980s and 1990s, conservatives proved far more successful in imple- menting their views in economic and foreign policy than in the ongoing cul- ture wars. Two significant Supreme Court decisions in June 2003 revealed how the largely conservative justices had come to accept that the social revolution that began during the 1960s could not be undone.
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
1126 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
In two cases arising from challenges to the admissions policies of the Uni- versity of Michigan, the Supreme Court issued its most important rulings on affirmative action since the Bakke case twenty- five years earlier. A 5-4 majority upheld the right of colleges and universities to take race into account in admis- sions decisions. Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor argued that such institutions have a legitimate interest in creating a “diverse” student body to enhance education. O’Connor was strongly influenced by briefs filed by corporate executives and retired military officers. In today’s world, they argued, the United States cannot compete in the global economy or maintain effective armed services without drawing its college- trained business and mili- tary leaders from a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds.
In the second decision, in Lawrence v. Texas, a 6-3 majority declared uncon- stitutional a Texas law making homosexual acts a crime. The majority opinion overturned the Court’s 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, which had upheld a similar Georgia law. The Lawrence decision paved the way for an even more momentous Supreme Court ruling in 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges, which over- turned state laws barring marriages for same- sex couples. Public opinion on this question had evolved with remarkable rapidity, especially among younger Americans. In 2003, two- thirds of Americans opposed legalizing such mar- riages; by the time of the 2015 ruling, over 60 percent were in favor.
Both decisions relating to gay Americans, written by Justice Anthony Ken- nedy, repudiated the conservative view that constitutional interpretation must rest either on the “original intent” of the founders and authors of constitutional amendments or on a narrow reading of the document’s text. Instead, Kennedy, generally a conservative, reaffirmed the liberal view of the Constitution as a living document whose protections expand as society changes. “The nature of injustice is such,” he wrote in Obergefell, “that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protect- ing the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
The Court and the President
Nor did the Supreme Court prove receptive to President Bush’s claim of author- ity to disregard laws and treaties and to suspend constitutional protections of individual liberties. In a series of decisions, the Court reaffirmed the rule of law both for American citizens and for foreigners held prisoner by the United States.
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in 2004, the Court considered the lawsuit of Yasir Hamdi, an American citizen who had moved to Saudi Arabia and been captured in Afghanistan. Hamdi was imprisoned in a military jail in South Carolina
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without charge or the right to see a lawyer. The Court ruled that he had a right to a judicial hearing. “A state of war,” wrote Sandra Day O’Connor for the 8-1 majority, “is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.” Even Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court’s most promi- nent conservative, rejected the president’s claim of authority to imprison a cit- izen at will as antithetical to “the very core of liberty.” After claiming in court that Hamdi was so dangerous that he could not even be allowed a hearing, the administration allowed him to return to Saudi Arabia on condition that he relinquish his American citizenship.
By the time the next significant case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, came before the Court in 2006, President Bush had appointed two new justices— Chief Justice John Roberts, to replace William Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and Samuel Alito Jr., who succeeded the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor. The Court was clearly becoming more conservative. But in June 2006, by a 5-3 margin (with Roberts not participating because he had ruled on the case while serving on an appeals court), the justices offered a stinging rebuke to the key presumptions of the Bush administration— that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to pris- oners captured in the war on terrorism, that the president can unilaterally set up secret military tribunals in which defendants have very few if any rights, and that the Constitution does not apply at Guantánamo prison. Congress, the majority noted, had never authorized such tribunals, and they clearly violated the protections afforded to prisoners of war by the Geneva Conventions, which, the Court declared, was the law of the land.
In June 2008, the Supreme Court rebuffed the Bush administration’s strat- egy of denying detainees at Guantánamo Bay the normal protections guaran- teed by the Constitution. Written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush affirmed the detainees’ right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. “The laws and Constitution are designed,” Kennedy wrote, “to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” Security, he added, con- sists not simply in military might, but “in fidelity to freedom’s first principles,” including freedom from arbitrary arrest and the right of a person to go to court to challenge his or her imprisonment.
The Midterm Elections of 2006
With President Bush’s popularity having plummeted because of the war in Iraq and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Congress beset by scandal after scan- dal, and public- opinion polls revealing that a majority of Americans believed the country to be “on the wrong track,” Democrats expected to reap major gains in the congressional elections of 2006. They were not disappointed. In a sweeping repudiation of the administration, voters gave Democrats control of
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
1128 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
both houses of Congress for the first time since 1994. In January 2007, Demo- crat Nancy Pelosi of California became the first female Speaker of the House in American history.
In January 2009, as Bush’s presidency came to an end, only 22 percent of Americans approved of his performance in office— the lowest figure since such polls began in the mid- twentieth century. Indeed, it was difficult to think of many substantive achievements during Bush’s eight years in office. His foreign policy alienated most of the world, leaving the United States militarily weak- ened and diplomatically isolated. Because of the tax cuts for the wealthy that he pushed through Congress during his first term, as well as the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the large budget surplus he had inherited was trans- formed into an immense deficit. The percentage of Americans living in poverty and those without health insurance rose substantially during Bush’s presidency.
The Housing Bubble
At one point in his administration, Bush might have pointed to the economic recovery that began in 2001 as a major success. But late in 2007, the economy entered a recession. And in 2008, the American banking system suddenly found itself on the brink of collapse, threatening to drag the national and world econ- omies into a repeat of the Great Depression.
The roots of the crisis of 2008 lay in a combination of public and private policies that favored economic speculation, free- wheeling spending, and get- rich- quick schemes over more traditional avenues to economic growth and personal advancement. For years, the Federal Reserve Bank kept interest rates at unprecedented low levels, first to help the economy recover from the burst- ing of the technology bubble in 2000 and then to enable more Americans to borrow money to purchase homes. The result was a new bubble, as housing prices rose rapidly. Consumer indebtedness also rose dramatically as people who owned houses took out second mortgages, or simply spent to the limits on their credit cards. In mid- 2008, when the median family income was around $50,000, the average American family owed an $84,000 home mortgage, $14,000 in auto and student loans, $8,500 to credit card companies, and $10,000 in home equity loans.
All this borrowing fueled increased spending. An immense influx of cheap goods from China accelerated the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States (which continued their decline despite the overall economic recovery) but also enabled Americans to keep buying, even though for most, household income stagnated during the Bush years. Indeed, China helped to finance the American spending spree by buying up hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of federal bonds— in effect loaning money to the United States so that it could pur- chase Chinese- made goods. Banks and other lending institutions issued more
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and more “subprime” mortgages— risky loans to people who lacked the income to meet their monthly payments. The initially low interest rates on these loans were set to rise dramatically after a year or two. Banks assumed that home prices would keep rising, and if they had to foreclose, they could easily resell the prop- erty at a profit.
Wall Street bankers developed complex new ways of repackaging and sell- ing these mortgages to investors. Insurance companies, including the world’s largest, American International Group (AIG), insured these new financial prod- ucts against future default. Credit rating agencies gave these securities their highest ratings, even though they were based on loans that clearly would never be repaid. Believing that the market must be left to regulate itself, the Federal Reserve Bank and other regulatory agencies did nothing to slow the speculative frenzy. Banks and investment firms reported billions of dollars in profits, and rewarded their executives with unheard- of bonuses.
The Great Recession
In 2006 and 2007, overbuilding had reached the point where home prices began to fall. More and more home owners found themselves owing more money than their homes were worth. As mortgage rates reset, increasing num- bers of borrowers defaulted— that is, they could no longer meet their monthly mortgage payments. The value of the new mortgage- based securities fell pre- cipitously. Banks suddenly found themselves with billions of dollars of worth- less investments on their books. In 2008, the situation became a full- fledged crisis, as banks stopped making loans, business dried up, and the stock mar- ket collapsed. Once above 14,000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged to around 8,000—the worst percentage decline since 1931. Lehman Brothers, a venerable investment house, recorded a $2.3 billion loss and went out of exis- tence, in history’s biggest bankruptcy. Leading banks seemed to be on the verge of failure. With the value of their homes and stock market accounts in free fall, Americans cut back on spending, leading to business failures and a rapid rise in unemployment. By the end of 2008, 2.5 million jobs had been lost— the most in any year since the end of World War II.
In the last three months of 2008, and again in the first three of 2009, the gross domestic product of the United States decreased by 6 percent— a remarkably steep contraction. Even worse than the economic meltdown was the meltdown of con- fidence as millions of Americans lost their jobs and/or their homes and saw their retirement savings and pensions, if invested in the stock market, disappear. In April 2009, the recession that began in December 2007 became the longest since the Great Depression.
In the Great Recession, the mortgage crisis affected minorities the most. Many had been steered by banks into subprime mortgages even when they had
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M
1130 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
From Opinion of the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
In 2015, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment establishes a constitutional right to marriage for gay Americans. The ruling reflected a remarkably rapid shift in public opinion regarding gay marriage in the previous few years. Written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the majority opinion included a powerful exposition of the meaning of freedom in the early twenty- first century.
From their beginning to their most recent page, annals of human history reveal the tran- scendent importance of marriage. . . . Rising from the most basic human needs, mar- riage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations. . . .
The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. That institution— even as confined to opposite- sex relations— has evolved over time. For example, mar- riage was once viewed as an arrangement by the couple’s parents based on political, religious, and financial concerns; but by the time of the Nation’s founding it was under- stood to be a voluntary contract between a man and a woman. . . . As the role and status of women changed, the institution further evolved. Under the centuries- old doctrine of coverture, a married man and woman were treated by the State as a single, male- dominated legal entity. As women gained legal, political, and property rights, and as society began to understand that women have their own equal dignity, the law of cover- ture was abandoned. . . .
New dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas of protests. . . .
This dynamic can be seen in the Nation’s experiences with the rights of gays and lesbians. Until the mid- 20th century, same- sex intimacy long had been condemned as immoral by the state itself in most Western nations. . . . Only in recent years have psy- chiatrists and others recognized that sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality and immutable. . . .
The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to interpret the Constitution. . . . The nature of injustice is such that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal structure, a claim to liberty must be addressed. . . .
The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and . . . couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.
VOICES OF FREEDOM ★ 1131
From Barack Obama, Eulogy at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (2015)
In the summer of 2015, the nation was shocked by the murder of nine black parish- ioners in a black church in Charleston by a white supremacist gunman. President Obama traveled to the city to deliver a eulogy for one of the victims, Clementa Pinck- ney, the church’s pastor and a member of the South Carolina Senate. His speech reflected on the history of race relations and the condition of black America fifty years after the height of the civil rights revolution.
The church is and always has been the center of African American life . . . a place to call our own in a too- often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships. . . .
There’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel, . . . a church built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founders sought to end slav- ery only to rise up again, a phoenix from these ashes. . . . A sacred place, this church, not just for blacks, not just for Christians but for every American who cares about the steady expansion. . . . of human rights and human dignity in this country, a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all. . . .
We do not know whether the killer of Reverend Pinckney and eight others knew all of this history, but he surely sensed the meaning of his violent act. It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches, not random but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress . . . , an act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin. . . .
For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the pres- ent. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty . . . or attend dilapidated schools or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal-justice system and leads us to make sure that that system’s not infected with bias. . . .
None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. . . . Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allow ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. . . . That’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prej- udice that still infects our society. . . . What is true in the South is true for America. Clem understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other; that my liberty depends on you being free, too.
QUESTIONS
1. How does Justice Kennedy believe we should understand the meaning of freedom?
2. Why does President Obama believe that the freedom of some Americans is intercon- nected with the freedom of others?
3. What do these documents suggest about how much has changed in American life in the past half- century and how much has not changed?
1132 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
the assets and income to qualify for more traditional, lower- cost loans. As a result, foreclosures were highest in minority areas, and the gains blacks, Asians, and Hispanics had made in home ownership between 1995 and 2004 now eroded. In 2012, Wells Fargo Bank, the nation’s largest home mort- gage lender, agreed to pay $175 mil- lion to settle claims that its brokers had charged higher fees to blacks and Hispanics who borrowed money to purchase homes during the housing bubble than to whites with compara- ble incomes, and pushed the minori- ties into risky subprime mortgages.
“A Conspiracy against the Public”
In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith wrote: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the
conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.” This certainly seemed an apt description of the behavior of leading bankers and investment houses whose greed helped to bring down the American economy. Like the scandals of the 1920s and 1990s, those of the Bush era damaged confidence in the eth- ics of corporate leaders. Indeed, striking parallels existed between these three decades— the get- rich- quick ethos, the close connection between business and government, the passion for deregulation, and widespread corruption.
Damaged by revelations of corporate misdeeds, the reputation of stockbro- kers and bankers fell to lows last seen during the Great Depression. One poll showed that of various social groups, bankers ranked third from the bottom in public esteem— just above prostitutes and convicted felons. Resentment was fueled by the fact that Wall Street had long since abandoned the idea that pay should be linked to results. By the end of 2008, the worst year for the stock market since the Depression, Wall Street firms had fired 240,000 employees. But they also paid out $20 billion in bonuses to top executives. Even the exec- utives of Lehman Brothers, a company that went bankrupt (and, it later turned out, had shortchanged New York City by hundreds of millions of dollars in
These graphs offer a vivid visual illustration of the steep decline in the American economy in 2008 and the first part of 2009, and the slow recovery to 2012.
F I G U R E 2 8 . 1 P O RT R A I T O F A R E C E S S I O N
200
150
100
50
2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
250 FLA.
U.S.
$300 thousands
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corporate and other taxes), received $5.7 billion in bonuses in 2007 and 2008. In 2010, Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street banking and investment firm, paid a fine of half a billion dollars to settle charges that it had knowingly marketed to clients mortgage- based securities it knew were bound to fail, and then in effect bet on their failure. (This was like a real- estate agency selling an unsuspecting customer a house with faulty wiring and then taking out insurance so that the agency would be paid when the house burned down.)
Overall, during the next few years, an incredible litany of malfeasance by the world’s largest banks became public. Between 2009 and 2015, major banks, American and foreign, were forced by their respective governments to pay fines totaling in excess of $100 billion for such actions as facilitating tax evasion by wealthy clients, fixing foreign currency exchange rates and international inter- est rates to boost their own profits, often at the expense of their customers, and misleading regulators about their activities. Yet bank profits are so large that the institutions accepted these fines as simply a minor cost of doing business. Even when J. P. Morgan Chase and Citibank pleaded guilty to felony conspir- acy charges, no meaningful punishment followed. No individual executive was charged with a crime, and the Securities and Exchange Commission granted waivers from penalties that are supposed to punish criminal behavior, such as being barred from certain kinds of financial transactions.
It was also revealed that Bernard Madoff, a Wall Street investor who claimed to have made enormous profits for his clients, had in fact run a Ponzi scheme in which investors who wanted to retrieve their money were paid with funds from new participants. Madoff sent fictitious monthly financial statements to his clients but he never actually made stock purchases for them. When the scheme collapsed, Madoff’s investors suffered losses amounting to around $50 billion. In 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. In some ways, Madoff’s scheme was a metaphor for the Amer- ican economy at large over the previous decade. Its growth had been based on borrowing from others and spending money people did not have. The popular musical group Coldplay related what had happened:
I used to rule the world. . . . I discovered that my castles stand On pillars of salt and pillars of sand.
The Collapse of Market Fundamentalism
The crisis exposed the dark side of market fundamentalism— the ethos of dereg- ulation that had dominated world affairs for the preceding thirty years. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1987 to 2006, had steered
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
1134 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
the American economy through crises ranging from the stock market collapse of 1987 to the terrorist attacks of 2001. Greenspan had presided over much of the era of deregulation, artificially low interest rates, and excessive borrowing and spending. He and his successors had promoted the housing bubble and saw all sorts of speculative behavior flourish with no governmental intervention. In effect, they allowed securities firms to regulate themselves.
In 2008, Greenspan admitted to Congress that there had been a “flaw” in his long- held conviction that free markets would automatically produce the best results for all and that regulation would damage banks, Wall Street, and the mortgage market. He himself, he said, was in a state of “shocked disbelief,” as the crisis turned out to be “much broader than anything I could have imag- ined.” Greenspan’s testimony seemed to mark the end of an era. Every president from Ronald Reagan onward had lectured the rest of the world on the need to adopt the American model of unregulated economic competition, and berated countries like Japan and Germany for assisting failing businesses. Now, the American model lay in ruins and a new role for government in regulating eco- nomic activity seemed inevitable.
Bush and the Crisis
In the fall of 2008, with the presidential election campaign in full swing, the Bush administration seemed unable to come up with a response to the crisis. In keeping with the free market ethos, it allowed Lehman Brothers to fail. But this immediately created a domino effect, with the stock prices of other banks and investment houses collapsing, and the administration quickly reversed course. It persuaded a reluctant Congress to appropriate $700 billion to bail out other floundering firms. Insurance companies like AIG, banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, and giant financial companies like the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (popularly known as Freddie Mac) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which insured most mortgages in the country, were so interconnected with other institutions that their col- lapse would drive the economy into a full- fledged depression. Through the federal bailout, taxpayers in effect took temporary ownership of these compa- nies, absorbing the massive losses created by their previous malfeasance. Giant banks and investment houses that received public money redirected some of it to enormous bonuses to top employees. But despite the bailout, the health of the banking system remained fragile.
The crisis also revealed the limits of the American “safety net” compared with other industrialized countries. In western Europe, workers who lose their jobs typically receive many months of unemployment insurance amounting to a significant percentage of their lost wages. In the United States, only one- third
THE WINDS OF CHANGE ★ 1135
of out- of- work persons even qualify for unemployment insurance, and it runs out after a few months. The abolition of “welfare” (the national obligation to assist the neediest Americans) during the Clinton administration left the American safety net a patchwork of a few national programs like food stamps, supplemented by locally administered aid. The poor were dependent on aid from the states, which found their budgets collapsing as revenues from prop- erty and sales taxes dried up. Hard- pressed for cash, states used their ability to turn away applicants, greatly enhanced by the welfare reform of the 1990s, to save money. In 2012, only one in five poor children received cash aid, the lowest percentage in half a century.
The 2008 Campaign
In 2008, Barack Obama faced Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, in the general election. At age seventy- two, McCain was the oldest man ever to run for president. He surprised virtually everyone by choosing as his running mate Sarah Palin, the little- known governor of Alaska, in part as an attempt to woo Democratic women disappointed at their party’s rejection of Hillary Clinton, who had sought the Democratic nomination. Palin quickly went on the attack, accusing Democrats of being unpatriotic, lacking traditional values, and not representing the “real America.” This proved extremely popular with the Republican Party’s conservative base. But her performances in speeches and interviews soon made it clear that she lacked familiarity with many of the domestic and foreign issues a new administration would confront. Her selec- tion raised questions among many Americans about McCain’s judgment.
But the main obstacles for the McCain campaign were President Bush’s low popularity and the financial crisis that reached bottom in September and Octo- ber. Obama’s promise of change seemed more appealing than ever. On elec- tion day, he swept to victory with 53 percent of the popular vote and a large majority in the electoral college. His election redrew the nation’s political map. Obama carried not only Democratic strongholds in New England, the mid- Atlantic states, the industrial Midwest, and the West Coast but also states that had been reliably Republican for years. He cracked the solid South, winning Vir- ginia, North Carolina, and Florida. He did extremely well in suburbs through- out the country. He even carried Indiana, where Bush had garnered 60 percent of the vote in 2004, but which now was hard hit by unemployment. Obama put together a real “rainbow” coalition, winning nearly the entire black vote and a large majority of Hispanics (who helped him to carry Colorado, Nevada, and Florida). He did exceptionally well among young voters. Obama carried every age group except persons over sixty- five. Thus, he was elected even though he received only 43 percent of the nation’s white vote.
What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term?
1136 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
Obama’s victory seemed to mark the end of a political era that began with Richard Nixon and his “southern strategy.” In the wake of the Iraq War, the eco- nomic meltdown, and the enthusiasm aroused by Obama’s candidacy, Republi- can appeals to patriotism, low taxes, and resentment against the social changes sparked by the 1960s seemed oddly out of date. Democrats not only regained the presidency but also ended up with 60 of the 100 seats in the Senate and a large majority in the House. In an increasingly multiethnic, multiracial nation, winning a majority of the white vote no longer translated into national vic- tory. Republicans would have to find a way to appeal to the voters of the new America.
Obama’s First Inauguration
Few presidents have come into office facing as serious a set of problems as Barack Obama. The economy was in crisis and the country involved in two wars. But Americans, including many who had not voted for him, viewed Obama’s election as a cause for optimism. Two days after his victory, a poll found two- thirds of Americans describing themselves as proud of the result, and 60 percent excited at the prospect of an Obama administration.
On January 20, 2009, a day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and more than forty- five years after King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Obama was inaugu- rated as president. More than 1 million people traveled to Washington to view the historic event. In his inaugural address (see the full text in the Appendix), Obama offered a stark rebuke to eight years of Bush policies and, more broadly, to the premises that had shaped government policy since the election of Reagan. He promised a foreign policy based on diplomacy rather than unilateral force, pledged to protect the environment, spoke of the need to combat income inequal- ity and lack of access to health care, and blamed a culture of “greed and irresponsi- bility” for helping to bring on the economic crisis. He promised to renew respect for the Constitution. Unlike Bush, Obama said little about freedom in his speech, other than to note that the country could enjoy liberty and security at the same time rather than having to choose between them. Instead of freedom, he spoke of community and responsibility. His address harked back to the revolutionary- era ideal of putting the common good before individual self- interest.
O B A M A I N O F F I C E In many ways, Obama’s first policy initiatives lived up to the promise of change. In his first three months, he announced plans to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, barred the use of torture, launched a diplomatic initiative to repair relations with the Muslim world, reversed the previous
OBAMA IN OFFICE ★ 1137
A cartoon in the Boston Globe suggests the progress that has been made since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.
administration’s executive orders lim- iting women’s reproductive rights, and abandoned Bush’s rhetoric about a God- given American mission to spread freedom throughout the world. When Supreme Court justice David Souter announced his retirement, Obama named Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman in the Court’s history, to replace him. He also appointed his rival for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state.
Obama’s first budget recalled the New Deal and Great Society. Break- ing with the Reagan- era motto, “Gov- ernment is the problem, not the solution,” it anticipated active government support for health- care reform, clean energy, and public education, paid for in part by allowing Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy to expire in 2010. He pushed through Congress a “stimulus” package amounting to nearly $800 billion in new government spending— for construction projects, the extension of unem- ployment benefits, and aid to the states to enable them to balance their bud- gets. The largest single spending appropriation in American history, the bill was meant to pump money into the economy in order to save and create jobs and to ignite a resumption of economic activity.
A year into his presidency, in the spring of 2010, Obama had to deal with one of the worst environmental disasters in American history. An oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico owned by British Petroleum (BP) exploded, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the sea. The oil washed up on the beaches of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, killing marine life, birds, and other animals and devastating the Gulf tourist industry. It took months to stop the oil from rushing into the Gulf, and much longer to restore the beaches.
The Gulf oil spill illustrated some of the downsides of globalization and deregulation. The government agency charged with inspections was so cozy with the oil industry that it allowed the companies to set their own safety stan- dards and looked the other way in the face of BP’s long record of cutting corners, safety violations, and accidents. The rig that exploded had been built in South Korea and was operated by a Swiss company under contract to BP. Primary responsibility for safety rested not with the United States but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean, where the rig was registered. Thus, BP enjoyed freedom from the effective oversight that might have prevented the disaster.
What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama?
1138 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
The Health Care Debate
For most of Obama’s first year in office, congressional debate revolved around a plan to restructure the nation’s health- care system so as to provide insur- ance coverage to the millions of Americans who lacked it, and to end abusive practices by insurance companies, such as their refusal to cover patients with existing illnesses. After months of increasingly bitter debate, in March 2010, Congress passed a sweeping health- care bill that required all Americans to purchase health insurance and most businesses to provide it to their employ- ees. It also offered subsidies to persons of modest incomes so they could afford insurance, and required insurance companies to accept all applicants. The measure aroused strong partisan opposition. Claiming that it amounted to a “government takeover” of the health- care industry (even though plans for a government- run insurance program had been dropped from the bill), every Republican in Congress voted against the bill.
Throughout Obama’s presidency, Republicans remained bitterly opposed to the new law, and vowed to repeal it when they could. Indeed, in Octo- ber 2013, in an effort to get the president to abandon the health- care law, the Republican- dominated Congress shut down the federal government— a tactic that, as during the Clinton administration, backfired. By 2015, what came to be known as Obamacare proved to be a remarkably successful pol- icy. Sixteen million uninsured Americans had obtained medical coverage under its provisions, most of them less affluent Americans who received some sort of government subsidy. The number of uninsured would have been even lower except that twenty- three Republican- controlled states refused to expand Medicaid coverage for their poorest residents, as the new law made possible, even though nearly all the cost would have been covered by the fed- eral government. Moreover, despite a general conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the justices twice rejected challenges to the constitutionality of Obamacare.
Financial Reform
Another significant measure, enacted in July 2010, was a financial regulatory reform law that sought to place under increased federal oversight many of the transactions that had helped create the economic crisis. Although the details remained to be worked out through specific regulations, the law represented a reversal of the policies of the past fifty years that had given banks a free hand in their operations. But it did not require a breakup of banks deemed “too big to fail,” and left open the possibility of future taxpayer bailouts of these institu- tions. Moreover, officials responsible for issuing new regulations watered them down when banks complained.
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Taken together, the measures of Obama’s first year and a half in office saw the most dramatic domestic reform legislation since the Great Society of the 1960s. “Change”—the slogan of his election campaign— was significant, but did not go far enough for many of his supporters. The health- care bill failed to include a “public option,” in which the government itself would offer medical insurance to those who desired it (much like Medicare for elderly Americans). Obama chose his economic advisers from Wall Street, who underestimated the depth of the crisis and continued the Bush administration policy of pouring taxpayer money into the banks and assuming responsibility for many of their debts. Little was done to help home owners facing foreclosure. During 2008 and 2009, the economy lost 8 million jobs. It would take a long time to recover them.
The Problem of Inequality
In 2014 and 2015, the economic recovery finally gathered momentum, although growth remained weak by historic standards. Nonetheless, consumer spending and confidence were on the rise, unemployment was falling, home sales were rising, and the stock market reached record highs. The one exception to these favorable trends, however, was a significant one— Americans’ wages remained stagnant. In fact, because of the growing number of low- paid jobs, the continuing decline in the power of unions, and the rising value of stocks, owned primarily by upper- income Americans, virtually the entire benefit of the recovery that began in 2009 went to the top 1 percent of earners, while the real incomes of most families declined, deepening the long- term trend toward greater and greater economic inequality. In 2013, the top 10 percent of Amer- icans received nearly half the total income. Meanwhile, the percentage of families in the middle class continued to shrink while those living in poverty continued to grow.
At the bottom of the social scale, Americans employed by some of the coun- try’s largest corporations, including McDonald’s and Wal- Mart, received piti- ably low wages, at or just slightly above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (a figure lower, in income adjusted for inflation, than fifty years before). Many of these workers were assigned to “flexible” schedules, which means that they did not even know the number of hours they would work each week until a few days prior, making planning for child care and other obligations almost impossible. Nearly three- quarters of people helped by programs designed for the poor, such as food stamps and Medicaid, include a working member, so in effect taxpayers are subsidizing the low- wage policies of highly profitable cor- porations by enabling their employees to survive. McDonald’s had a helpful website to assist its workers in making ends meet. It urged them to try to have two full- time jobs, spend no more than twenty dollars per month on health insurance, and break food into small pieces so that it would seem to go further.
What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama?
1140 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
The Occupy Movement
The problem of inequality burst into public discussion in 2011. On Septem- ber 17, a few dozen young protesters unrolled sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, in the heart of New York City’s financial district. They vowed to remain— to Occupy Wall Street as they put it— as a protest against growing economic inequality, declining opportunity, and malfeasance by the banks.
Over the next few weeks, hundreds of people camped out in the park and thousands took part in rallies organized by the Occupy movement. Similar encampments sprang up in cities across the country. Using social media and the Internet, the Occupy movement spread its message far and wide. Although the technology was new, the movement bore some resemblance to previous efforts at social change, including the sit- down strikes of the 1930s and the civil disobedience of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. In the spring of 2012, public authorities began to evict the protesters and the movement seemed to dissipate. But its language, especially the charge that “the 1 per- cent” (the very richest Americans) dominated political and economic life, had entered the political vocabulary. The Occupy movement tapped into a wide- spread feeling of alienation, especially among the young, a sense that society’s rules have been fixed in favor of those at the top.
And it spurred a movement among low- paid workers, especially in fast- food establishments, demanding a rise in the hourly minimum wage. States and cities are allowed to establish higher minimum- wage rates than the fed- eral government and many do so, although some large states, including Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania, make no such provision. In 2014, Seattle and Los Angeles raised their minimums to $15 per hour. New York State followed in 2015 by announcing a $15 minimum for workers in fast- food restaurants. The vast University of California system also adopted $15 as the minimum wage for all nonacademic workers on its campuses. What began as a quixotic movement of the least empowered workers against some of the country’s most prominent corporations had achieved some remarkable successes.
Rising inequality had profound social consequences. The United States was by far the world’s most unequal developed economy. In a variety of social sta- tistics, it was falling further and further behind other advanced countries. More than one- fifth of American children lived in poverty in 2015, the highest figure in the industrialized world. In 1980, the United States ranked thirteenth among advanced countries in life expectancy at birth; in 2015 it ranked twenty- ninth. In a reversal of the historic pattern, the size of the American middle class con- tinued to shrink, average family income and the number of low- income stu- dents graduating from college trailed that of several other countries, and social mobility— the opportunity for people to move up the economic ladder— stood at a lower level in the United States than in western Europe.
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY ★ 1141
T H E O B A M A P R E S I D E N C Y
The Continuing Economic Crisis
Although the recession officially ended in mid- 2009, economic growth was so anemic that unemployment remained stubbornly high throughout Obama’s first term in office.
The deep recession and feeble recovery exacerbated structural trends long under way. Manufacturing employment, which once offered a route into the middle class for those (mostly men) with limited educations, rebounded from its low point of 2009 but remained several million jobs lower than in 2000. Job growth was concentrated at either the high or low end of the pay scale. The financial sector laid off hundreds of thousands of workers, but the incomes of
What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?
40% 30% 20% 10%
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A map showing the distribution of poverty in the United States. The darker the color, the higher the percentage of families living below the poverty line. Areas with concentrations of African- Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, along with portions of Appalachia inhab- ited by whites, have the highest poverty rates.
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those who kept their jobs remained extremely high. The fastest- growing job cat- egories, however, were those that paid low wages. Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2012 projected that over the next decade, the largest areas of job growth would be in office work, sales, food preparation and service, child care, home health aides, and janitors— every one of which paid less than the median annual wage. The median income of a male full- time worker in 2010 was lower, adjusted for inflation, than in 1973. Rising income inequality afflicted coun- tries across the globe, but among industrialized nations the United States had the highest rate of all.
African- Americans suffered most severely from the recession. Unlike other Americans, blacks tended to own few if any stocks, so did not benefit when the stock market recovered many of its recession losses. All their family wealth was in their homes, and so the collapse of the housing bubble devastated their economic status. In 2012, the median family wealth of white families was $110,000, that of black only $6,300. Black unemployment remained nearly double that of whites, as did the poverty rate. Two- thirds of all black children lived in low- income families. While the civil rights movement had produced a dramatic increase in the number of well- paid black professionals (like Obama himself, a lawyer), ordinary African- Americans had achieved economic gains by moving into jobs in manufacturing and government (the latter account- ing for 20 percent of black employment), the two sectors hardest hit by the recession.
Postracial America?
Despite this grim reality, Obama’s election spurred discussions among politi- cal commentators and ordinary Americans that the nation had finally put the legacy of racial inequality behind it. Talk proliferated of a new, “postracial” America, in which racial differences no longer affected public policy or pri- vate attitudes. In 2013, the Supreme Court employed this very logic in a 5-4 decision that invalidated the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a mile- stone of the civil rights era. Since states identified in the law, most of them in the Old South, no longer discriminated on the basis of race, the majority declared, they should no longer be required to gain permission from the Jus- tice Department before changing their election laws. The decision unleashed a flood of laws, such as limits on early voting and requiring voters to possess state- issued identification. These measures were intended to limit the right to vote for poor people of all races, many of whom do not possess driver’s licenses or other official IDs.
A series of events involving the death of unarmed black men at the hands of police or other authorities also suggested that any self- congratulation about the
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY ★ 1143
end of racial inequality was premature. In 2012, Trayvon Martin, a black teen- ager walking through a Florida neighborhood to visit his father, was accosted by George Zimmerman, a white member of the “neighborhood watch.” An altercation followed in which Zimmerman shot and killed Martin. Subse- quently, a jury acquitted Zimmerman of all charges related to the incident. In 2014, Eric Garner, a forty- four- year- old black man selling cigarettes on the street in Staten Island, a borough of New York City, died after being wrestled to the ground and choked by police. Although “choke holds” were illegal, a grand jury declined to bring charges. In ensuing months other such incidents followed including the shooting death by a Cleveland police officer of a twelve- year- old black child who was playing with a toy pistol in a park, the death of a twenty- five- year- old black man in Baltimore while in a police van after being arrested for carrying a small knife (legal in Maryland), and the fatal shooting in the back of a black man who ran from police after a traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina. In Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Michael Brown, an unarmed black eighteen- year- old, was shot in disputed circumstances by a white police officer, whom a grand jury subsequently cleared of potential charges. In Baltimore and North Charleston, by contrast, local district attorneys moved to indict the police implicated in these cities’ deaths.
This cascade of events spurred the emergence of a national movement, Black Lives Matter, which demanded that police practices be changed and
What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?
Heavily armed police confront a resident of Ferguson, Missouri, during demonstrations there.
1144 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
officers who used excessive force be held accountable. It gave public voice to the countless African- Americans who had experienced disrespect, harassment, or violence at the hands of police. The movement used social media and current technology to organize protests and disseminate videos of encounters between black persons and the police. The impact of these images had precedents, notably in the role of television in bringing the war in Vietnam and violent reactions to civil rights demonstrators to national awareness in the 1960s. But the creation of such images was now democratized— most of the videos that spurred outrage were taken by bystanders with cell phones. The Black Lives Matter movement was less an articulation of specific policy demands than a broad claim to black humanity. In this sense, it had historical precedents in abolitionism, with its slogan “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” and in “I Am a Man,” the defiant claim of Memphis refuse collectors during their 1968 strike, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
In Ferguson, Missouri, Brown’s death inspired weeks of sometimes violent street demonstrations. These led to the deployment of state police and National Guardsmen dressed in battle gear and armed with assault rifles and armored personnel carriers, as if equipped for a war zone overseas— a sign of how polic- ing had become increasingly militarized since the 1960s. The death of Brown and the others, at the very least, suggested that half a century after the ghetto uprisings of the 1960s, many police departments still relied on excessive force in dealing with black men, and that the criminal justice system remained mired in racism. In Ferguson, investigations after the death of Michael Brown revealed that the almost entirely white police, city government, and local judiciary reg- ularly preyed on black residents, seeing them not as citizens to be served and protected but as a source of revenue to balance the local budget. Blacks were hauled into court to pay fines for non- existent driving violations, jaywalking, even walking on the sidewalks too close to the street. Sometimes jail terms ensued for those unable to pay the fine. Over ninety percent of such arrests in Ferguson—which were entirely discretionary—were of black men and women. Nationally, public reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement revealed a sharp divide between white and black Americans. In public opinion polls, over eighty percent of blacks but just thirty percent of whites agreed with the state- ment that blacks are victims of discriminatory treatment by the police.
Obama and the World
The most dramatic achievement of Obama’s presidency in foreign affairs was fulfillment of his campaign promise to end American involvement in the Iraq War. At the end of 2011, the last American combat soldiers came home, although a few hundred advisers remained. Nearly 5,000 Americans and, according to
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY ★ 1145
the estimates of U.S. and Iraqi analysts, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians, had died during this eight- year conflict. The war had cost the United States nearly $2 trillion, an almost unimaginable sum. Whether it would produce a stable, democratic Iraq remained to be seen.
At the same time, Obama contin- ued many of the policies of the Bush administration. Obama dramatically increased the American troop presence in Afghanistan, while pledging to with- draw American forces by the end of 2014 although he failed to meet this deadline. Here again, the long- term outcome remained uncertain, given the Taliban’s resurgence and the unpopularity of the corruption- plagued American- backed Afghan government. Indeed, by 2012, polls showed that a large majority of Americans felt the war was a mistake and wanted it to end.
Like many of his predecessors, Obama found that criticizing presidential power from outside is one thing, dismantling it another. He reversed his pre- vious promise to abolish the military tribunals Bush had established and to close the military prison at Guantánamo, Cuba. And in 2011 he signed a four- year extension of key provisions of the USA Patriot Act originally passed under Bush. In May 2011, to wide acclaim in the United States, Obama authorized an armed raid into Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, who had been hiding there for years. More controversially, Obama claimed the right to order the assassination of American citizens in foreign countries if evidence indicated their connection with terrorism. And in 2011 he sent the air force to participate in a NATO campaign that assisted rebels who overthrew Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. But an endless civil war followed, not the restoration of democracy. Obama did not seek congressional approval of the action, deeming it unnecessary. In fact, throughout Obama’s presidency, Amer- ican troops or planes were involved in combat as part of an expanded war on terror not only in Afghanistan but also in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Amer- ican Special Forces were involved in efforts to suppress the drug trade in Hon- duras and Colombia.
In 2014, Obama abandoned the half- century- old policy of isolating Cuba, and moved to resume diplomatic relations with the island nation. The policy of isolation had long outlived its Cold War origins and had made the United
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other members of Obama’s national security team receiving an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden at the White House on May 1, 2011.
What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?
1146 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
States seem petty and vindictive in the eyes of Latin Americans. In the follow- ing year, the administration, in conjunction with the European Union, Russia, and China, worked out an arrangement with Iran to ensure that that nation’s nuclear energy program was confined to peaceful purposes and did not lead to the manufacture of nuclear weapons. This was a remarkable achievement in view of the decades of hostility between the United States and Iran dating back to the hostage crisis of 1979–1981. Also in 2015, the United States played a major role in the forging of an agreement committing every country in the world to reduce emissions (notably from the burning of coal and oil) that con- tributed to global warming. All told, Obama’s conduct of foreign affairs proved to be considerably more bellicose than both his supporters and opponents had expected.
Events overseas presented new challenges and opportunities for the Obama administration. Beginning in 2011, to the surprise of almost everyone, popular revolts swept the Middle East. The uprisings brought millions of people into the streets, and toppled long- serving dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Freedom emerged as the rallying cry of those challenging autocratic govern- ments. “I’m in Tahrir Square,” one demonstrator yelled into his cellphone while standing at the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution. “In freedom, in freedom, in freedom.” Once again, the tension between the ideals of freedom and democracy and American strategic interests posed a difficult challenge for policymakers. After some hesitation, the United States sided with those seek- ing the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s long- serving dictator and a staunch American ally. It then stood on the sidelines throughout 2011 and 2012 as Egypt lurched from popular uprising to military rule, to electoral victory by the Muslim Brotherhood, a previously illegal Islamic group, with the final outcome of the revolution always in doubt. When a military coup in 2014 ousted the elected president and instituted a regime even more repressive than Mubarak’s, the Obama administration suspended shipments of military equip- ment to Egypt, but soon resumed them. In general, like his predecessors during the Cold War, Obama used “human rights” as a political weapon, condemning abuses by adversaries like China while remaining largely silent in the face of serious abuses by allies in the “war on terror” such as Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia.
The Rise of ISIS
In his second term, Obama faced a new crisis when the self- proclaimed Islamic State took control of parts of Iraq, Syria, and Libya. ISIS, as it was called, con- ducted campaigns of exceptional brutality, beheading prisoners of war and driving religious minorities out of territory it conquered. The videos of these
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acts posted by ISIS on social media horrified most of the world but also attracted recruits to the organization. ISIS also sponsored terror attacks out- side the Middle East. In 2015 over 100 persons were killed in a series of coor- dinated attacks in Paris. A few weeks later, two followers of ISIS in the United States killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, California. As 2015 ended, fear of terrorism in the United States reached a point not seen since the attacks of September 11, 2001. It remained to be seen whether the rampages of ISIS would draw the United States into further combat in the Middle East.
Another area in which Obama continued the policies initiated during the Bush administration’s war on terror was governmental surveillance, both domestic and overseas. The extent of such activity became known in 2013 when Edward Snowden, a former employee of the National Security Agency, released documents online that detailed NSA programs that monitored virtu- ally all telephone, instant messaging, and email traffic in the United States, tracked the location of numerous American cellphones, and spied on the pri- vate communications of world leaders, including close allies of the United States such as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and French president François Hollande. The government also secretly worked with major Internet and communications companies like AT&T and Verizon to gain access to the private data of their users. Of course, the overwhelming majority of the people subject to government surveillance had no connection to terrorism or to any crime at all. The Obama administration responded by charging Snowden with violating the Espionage Act of 1917—a law passed during the height of World War I hysteria over security. To avoid prosecution, Snowden took up residence in Russia. But his revelations rekindled the age- old debate over the balance between national security and Americans’ civil liberties and offered another example of how, whichever party is in power, the balance always seems to shift in favor of the former. In 2015, Congress approved a measure curtailing the government’s sweeping surveillance of phone records. But much of the gov- ernment’s prying into Americans’ communications continued.
The Republican Resurgence
In nearly all midterm elections in American history, the party in power has lost seats in Congress. But Democrats faced more serious difficulties than usual in the midterm elections of 2010. Grassroots Republicans were ener- gized by hostility to Obama’s sweeping legislative enactments. The Tea Party, named for the Boston Tea Party of the 1770s and inspired by its opposition to taxation by a far- away government, mobilized grassroots opposition to the administration. The Tea Party appealed to a long- established American fear of overbearing federal power, as well as to more recent anxieties, especially about
What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?
1148 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
immigration. Some supporters advocated repealing the provision of the Four- teenth Amendment granting automatic citizenship to all persons born in the United States. For a time, some activists denied that Obama was legally presi- dent at all, claiming that he had been born in Africa, not in the United States. (In fact, he was born in Hawaii.) With their opponents energized and their own supporters demoralized by the slow pace of economic recovery, Democrats suf- fered a severe reversal. Republicans swept to control of the House of Represen- tatives and substantially reduced the Democratic majority in the Senate. The outcome at the national level was political gridlock that lasted for the remain- der of Obama’s presidency. Obama could no longer get significant legislation through Congress.
Tea Party– inspired conservative gains at the state level in 2010 unleashed a rash of new legislation. Several states moved to curtail abortion rights. In Wisconsin, the legislature and Governor Scott Walker rescinded most of the bargaining rights of unions representing public employees. Workers and their supporters responded by occupying the state Capitol building for weeks, and then gathering petitions to force a recall election for Governor Walker in 2012, in which he succeeded in winning reelection. In Ohio, however, a similar anti- union law was repealed in a popular referendum.
New conservative legislatures also took aim at undocumented immigrants. Alabama, which has no land border with a foreign country and a small popula- tion of immigrants compared with other states, enacted the harshest measure, making it a crime for illegal immigrants to apply for a job, and for anyone to transport them, even to a church or hospital. During the contest for the Repub- lican presidential nomination in early 2012, candidates vied with each other to demonstrate their determination to drive illegal immigrants from the coun- try. Oddly, all this took place at a time when illegal immigration from Mexico, the largest source of undocumented workers, had ceased almost completely because of stricter controls at the border and the drying up of available jobs because of the recession. Despite the fact that the Obama administration had deported far more illegal immigrants than its predecessor, these measures asso- ciated the Republican Party with intense nativism in the minds of many His- panic voters.
The 2012 Campaign
Despite the continuing economic crisis, sociocultural issues played a major role in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, as candi- dates vied to win the support of the evangelical Christians who formed a major part of the party’s base. The front- runner was Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Romney had made a fortune directing Bain Capital, a firm that
THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY ★ 1149
specialized in buying up other companies and then reselling them at a profit after restructuring them, which often involved firing large numbers of employ- ees. But the party’s powerful conservative wing disliked Romney because of his moderate record (as governor he had instituted a state health- care plan remark- ably similar to Obama’s 2011 legislation) and a distrust of his Mormon faith among many evangelical Christians.
Romney spent the primary season attempting to demonstrate his conser- vative views and reaffirming his adherence to Christian beliefs. Issues long thought settled such as women’s access to birth control suddenly roiled Amer- ican politics. Eventually, using his personal fortune to outspend his rivals by an enormous amount, Romney emerged as the Republican candidate, the first Mormon to win a major party’s nomination— a significant moment in the his- tory of religious toleration in the United States. He chose as his running mate Congressman Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a favorite of the Tea Party and a Roman Catholic. For the first time in its history, the Republican Party’s ticket did not contain a traditional Protestant.
President Obama began the 2012 campaign with numerous liabilities. The enthusiasm that greeted his election had long since faded as the worst economic slump since the Great Depression dragged on, and voters became fed up with both the president and Congress because of the intensity of partisanship and legislative gridlock in Washington. The war in Afghanistan was increasingly unpopular and Obama’s signature health- care law under ferocious assault by Republicans.
Nonetheless, after a heated campaign, Obama emerged victorious, win- ning 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206, and 51 percent of the popular vote to his opponent’s 47 percent. At the same time, while Democrats gained a few seats in the House and Senate, the balance of power in Washington remained unchanged. This set the stage for continued partisan infighting and political gridlock during Obama’s second term.
Obama’s victory stemmed from many causes, including an extremely effi- cient “get out the vote” organization on election day, and Romney’s weaknesses as a campaigner. Romney never managed to shed the image of a millionaire who used loopholes to avoid paying taxes (his federal tax rate of 14 percent was lower than that of most working- class Americans) and who held ordinary people in contempt (an off- the- cuff remark that 47 percent of the people would not vote for him because they were “victims” dependent on government pay- ments like Medicare and Social Security severely weakened his campaign). But more important, as in 2008, the result reflected the new diversity of the American population in the twenty- first century. Romney won 60 percent of the white vote, which in previous elections would have guaranteed victory. But Obama carried over 90 percent of the black vote and over 70 percent of Asians
What were the major challenges of Obama’s first term?
1150 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
and Hispanics. Nonetheless, as fre- quently happens in midterm elections, the party that did not hold the White House, in this case the Republicans, made significant gains, strengthening its hold on the House in 2014 and tak- ing control of the Senate.
The 2012 election reflected the new diversity in other ways as well. Hawaii elected Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu to serve in Congress, and the first Bud- dhist, Mazie K. Hirono, to the Senate. And for the first time, popular referen- dums in Maine and Maryland registered approval of gay marriage, bringing to nine the number of states where such marriages were now lawful.
But perhaps the most striking feature of the 2012 election was the unprec- edented amount of money spent on the campaign. In 2010, in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court had overturned federal restrictions on political contributions by corporations. At the same time, “political action committees” were allowed to spend as much money as they wished supporting or denigrating candidates for office so long as they did not coordinate their activities with the candidates’ campaigns. Meanwhile, the Rom- ney and Obama campaigns themselves raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars from individual donors. All this resulted in an election that cost, for presi- dential and congressional races combined, some $6 billion.
F R E E D O M I N T H E T W E N T Y- F I R S T C E N T U R Y The century that ended in 2000 witnessed vast human progress and unimag- inable human tragedy. It saw the decolonization of Asia and Africa, the emer- gence of women into full citizenship in most parts of the world, and amazing advances in science, medicine, and technology. Thanks to the spread of new products, available at ever- cheaper prices, it brought more improvement in the daily conditions of life to more human beings than any other century in history. Worldwide life expectancy in the twentieth century rose from forty to sixty- seven years, and the literacy rate increased from 25 percent to 80 percent. This was the first century in which the primary economic activity for most of mankind moved beyond the acquisition of basic food, clothing, and shelter. But
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Democrat Republican
Party Obama Romney
Candidate Electoral Vote
(Share) 332 (61.7%) 206 (38.3%)
Popular Vote (Share)
65,899,660 (51%) 60,932,152 (47%)
T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 1 2
FREEDOM IN THE TWENTY- FIRST CENTURY ★ 1151
the twentieth century also witnessed the death of uncounted millions in wars and genocides and the widespread degradation of the natural environment, the underside of progress.
Exceptional America
In the early twenty- first century, people in the United States lived longer and healthier lives compared with previous generations, and they enjoyed a level of material comfort unimagined a century before. In 1900, the average annual income was $3,000 in today’s dollars. The typical American had no indoor plumbing, had no telephone or car, and had not graduated from high school. As late as 1940, one- third of American households did not have running water. In 2013, health conditions had improved so much that the average life expectancy for men had risen to seventy- six and for women to eighty- one (from forty- six and forty- eight in 1900). More than 21 million Americans attended college in 2014, more than three times the figure for 1960.
In 2010, more than one American in seven was older than sixty- five. Cer- tain to continue rising in the twenty- first century, this figure sparked worries about the future cost of health care and the economic stability of the Social Security system. But it also suggested that people would enjoy far longer and more productive periods of retirement than in the past. On the other hand, poverty, income inequality, and infant mortality in the United States consider- ably exceeded that of other economically advanced countries, and fewer than 10 percent of workers in private firms belonged to unions, a figure not seen since the nineteenth century.
Many of the changes affecting American life, such as the transformed role of women, the better health and longer lifespan of the population, the spread of suburbanization, and the decline of industrial employment, have taken place in all economically advanced societies. In other ways, however, the United States at the dawn of the twenty- first century differed sharply from other devel- oped countries. Prevailing ideas of freedom in the United States seemed more attuned to individual advancement than to broad social welfare. In 2003, when asked whether it was more important for the government to guarantee freedom from want or freedom to pursue individual goals, only 35 percent of Americans selected freedom from want, as opposed to 58 percent in Germany, 62 percent in France and Great Britain, and 65 percent in Italy. The United States was a far more religious country. Sixty percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “Religion plays a very important part in my life,” while the comparable figure was 32 percent in Britain, 26 percent in Italy, and only 11 percent in France. One in three Americans said he or she believed in the literal truth of the Bible, and half that the United States enjoys “special protection from God.” Religion and
What were the prevailing ideas of American freedom at the beginning of the 21st century?
1152 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
nationalism reinforced one another far more powerfully in the United States than in the more secular nations of western Europe.
Other forms of American exceptionalism had a darker side. Among advanced countries, the United States has by far the highest rate of murder using guns. In 2012, the last year for which comparative statistics are available, there were 9,146 murders with guns in the United States, as opposed to 158 in Germany, 173 in Canada, and 11 in Japan.
Indeed, in the last years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty- first, the United States was the scene of a horrifying number of mass murders, often committed at schools. In 1999, two students killed twelve stu- dents and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado. In 2007, a student at Virginia Tech University shot and killed thirty- two people. Five years later, a lone gunman killed twenty children aged five and six, and seven adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In the 1950s, schools across the country had conducted drills to enable students to survive a nuclear attack. Now they trained pupils in seeking shelter if a gunman entered the building. There were also mass killings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo- rado, and at the Washington Navy Yard. In 2015, a gunman influenced by racist Internet sites murdered nine black participants in a Bible study group, includ- ing the minister, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charles- ton. Other countries also experienced instances of mass violence, but not with the frequency of the United States. While each of these events led to calls for stricter regulations on the purchase of firearms, the strong commitment of many Americans to the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms, coupled with the remarkable power of the National Rifle Association, one of the country’s most influential lobbies, ensured that no new regulations were enacted.
The United States continued to lag behind other countries in providing social rights to its citizens. In Europe, workers are guaranteed by law a paid vacation each year and a number of paid sick days. American employers are not required to offer either to their workers. Only four countries in the world have no national provision for paid maternity leave after a woman gives birth to a child: Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Suriname, and the United States. And as noted in the previous chapter, the United States has by far the world’s highest rate of imprisonment.
Varieties of Freedom
In the early twenty- first century, Americans were increasingly tolerant of diver- gent personal lifestyles, cultural backgrounds, and religious persuasions. They enjoyed a degree of freedom of expression unmatched in virtually any country in the world. Thanks to the rights revolution and the political ascendancy of
FREEDOM IN THE TWENTY- FIRST CENTURY ★ 1153
antigovernment conservatives, the dominant definition of freedom stressed the capacity of individuals to realize their desires and fulfill their potential unrestricted by authority. Other American traditions— freedom as economic security, freedom as active participation in democratic government, freedom as social justice for those long disadvantaged— seemed to be in eclipse. Amer- icans sought freedom within themselves, not through social institutions or public engagement.
It was an irony of early twenty- first- century life that Americans enjoyed more personal freedom than ever before but less of what earlier generations called “industrial freedom.” Globalization— which treated workers at home and abroad as interchangeable factors of production, capable of being uprooted or dismissed without warning— seemed to render individual and even national sovereignty all but meaningless. Since economic liberty has long been associ- ated with economic security, and rights have historically been linked to dem- ocratic participation and membership in a nation- state, these processes had ominous implications for traditional understandings of freedom. It remained to be seen whether a conception of freedom grounded in access to the consumer marketplace and the glorification of individual self- fulfillment unrestrained by government, social citizenship, or a common public culture could provide an adequate way of comprehending the world of the twenty- first century.
Learning from History
“The owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk.” Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom, and this saying suggests that the meaning of events only becomes clear once they are over. It is still far too soon to assess the full impact of September 11 on American life and the long- term consequences of the changes at home and abroad it inspired.
As of the end of 2015, the world seemed far more unstable than anyone could have predicted when the Cold War ended. An end to the war on terror seemed as remote as ever. The future of Iraq, Afghanistan, and, indeed, the entire Middle East, remained uncertain, and Pakistan, traditionally the closest ally of the United States in that volatile region, experienced serious political insta- bility. No settlement of the long- standing conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors seemed in sight. Other regions of the world also presented daunting problems for American policymakers. North Korea had acquired nuclear weap- ons and refused international pressure to give them up. China’s rapidly grow- ing economic power posed a challenge to American predominance. Relations with Russia, which was supporting a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, were at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.
No one could predict how any of these crises, or others yet unimagined, would be resolved. But the United States, it seemed clear, would remain
What were the prevailing ideas of American freedom at the beginning of the 21st century?
1154 ★ CHAPTER 28 A New Century and New Crises
involved in the affairs of every region of the world. The country had more than 1,000 military bases of one kind or another around the globe, with at least some American soldiers stationed in 175 countries. A study by Amer- ican intelligence agencies predicted that by 2025 the United States would remain the world’s most powerful nation, but that its economic and military predominance would have declined significantly. A “multipolar world,” with countries like China and India emerging as major powers, would succeed the era of unquestioned American dominance. The consequences of these changes remain to be seen.
What is clear is that as in the past, freedom remains central to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation. Americans continue to debate contemporary issues in a political landscape shaped by ideas of free- dom. Indeed, freedom remains, as it has always been, an evolving concept, its definition open to disagreement, its boundaries never fixed or final. Freedom is neither self- enforcing nor self- correcting. It cannot be taken for granted, and its preservation requires eternal vigilance, especially in times of crisis.
More than half a century ago, the African- American poet Langston Hughes urged Americans both to celebrate the freedoms they enjoy and to remember that freedom has always been incomplete:
There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday.
There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.
C H A P T E R R E V I E W
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How did the foreign policy initiatives of the George W. Bush administration depart from the policies of other presidents since World War II?
2. How did the September 11 attacks transform Americans’ understanding of their security? How did the response compare with that after Pearl Harbor?
3. What are the similarities and differences between America’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001?
CHAPTER REVIEW ★ 1155
4. In what ways did American leaders and citizens draw lessons from Vietnam when considering U.S. involvement in Iraq?
5. What does the war on terrorism suggest about the tension between freedom and security as priorities of the United States?
6. What were the goals and impact of the Bush Administration’s economic policies?
7. How did Supreme Court decisions since 2001 indicate that the rights revolution was here to stay?
8. What were the political and social effects of Hurricane Katrina? Which were lasting?
9. In what ways did the Obama Administration diverge from the policies of other recent administrations? In what ways was it similar?
10. How did the 2012 election reveal changes in American political and social practices? How did it represent continuities?
11. What is meant by “American exceptionalism”? In what ways is the United States different from the rest of the world and how is it similar?
KEY TERMS
Kyoto Protocol (p. 1111)
Bush Doctrine (p. 1112)
war on terrorism (p. 1112)
war in Afghanistan (p. 1113)
Iraq War (p. 1116)
USA Patriot Act (p. 1117)
Guantánamo Bay (p. 1118)
Hurricane Katrina (p. 1121)
Obergefell v. Hodges (p. 1126)
Great Recession (p. 1129)
Sonia Sotomayor (p. 1137)
Gulf oil spill (p. 1137)
Occupy Wall Street (p. 1140)
Black Lives Matter (p. 1143)
ISIS (p. 1146)
Edward Snowden (p. 1147)
Tea Party (p. 1147)
American exceptionalism (p. 1152)
Go to QIJK To see what you know— and learn what you’ve missed— with personalized feedback along the way.
Visit the Give Me Liberty! Student Site for primary source documents and images, interactive maps, author videos featuring Eric Foner, and more.
S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G
C H A P T E R 1 5 BOOKS
Bottoms, D. Michael. An Aristocracy of Color: Race and Reconstruction in Califor- nia and the West, 1850–1890 (2013). A study of changing race relations, and definitions of race, in the western states.
Butchart, Ronald E. Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning, and the Struggle for Black Freedom (2010). Relates the efforts of black and white teachers to educate the former slaves and some of the conflicts that arose over the purposes of such education.
Downs, Gregory. Declarations of Dependence: The Long Reconstruction of Popular Politics in the South, 1861–1908 (2011). Traces the changing ways black and white southerners sought aid and protection from the government during and after the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Downs, James. Sick from Freedom: The Deadly Consequences of Emancipation (2012). How disease shaped the experience of freedom and how the Freed- men’s Bureau and other agencies sought to cope with widespread illness among former slaves.
DuBois, Ellen C. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women’s Movement in America, 1848–1869 (1978). Explores how the split over the exclusion of women from the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- ments gave rise to a movement for woman suffrage no longer tied to the abolitionist tradition.
Edwards, Laura. Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruc- tion (1997). Considers how issues relating to gender relations affected the course of southern Reconstruction.
Fields, Barbara J. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century (1985). A study of slavery and emancipation in a key border state.
Foner, Eric. Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983). Includes a comparison of the emancipation experience in different parts of the Western Hemisphere.
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988). A comprehensive account of the Reconstruction era.
★ A-1
A-2 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003). A detailed study of black political activism, stressing nationalist consciousness and emigration movements.
Hyman, Harold M. A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Recon- struction on the Constitution (1973). Analyzes how the laws and constitu- tional amendments of Reconstruction changed the Constitution and the rights of all Americans.
Jung, Moon- Ho. Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipa- tion (2006). Tells the story of Chinese laborers brought to work in the sugar fields after the end of slavery.
Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (1979). A detailed look at the immediate aftermath of the end of slavery and the vari- ety of black and white responses to emancipation.
Rable, George C. But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (1984). The only full- scale study of violence in the Recon- struction South.
Richardson, Heather C. West from Appomattox (2007). An account that fully integrates the West into the history of the Reconstruction era.
Rodrigue, John C. Reconstruction in the Cane Fields: From Slavery to Free Labor in Louisiana’s Sugar Parishes, 1862–1880 (2001). A study of how an often- neglected part of the South experienced the aftermath of slavery.
Summers, Mark W. Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity: Aid under the Radical Republicans, 1865–1877 (1984). A detailed look at southern governments’ efforts to promote economic development, and the political corruption that sometimes accompanied it.
WEBSITES
After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post- Emancipation Carolinas: www.afterslavery.com
America’s Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War: www .digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/reconstruction/index.html
The Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty /projects/ftrials/impeach/impeachmt.htm
Freedmen and Southern Society Project: www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/ Freedmen’s Bureau Online: http://www.freedmensbureau.com/
C H A P T E R 16 BOOKS
Bensel, Richard F. The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877–1900 (2000). A study of the policies and political divisions that contributed to and resulted from the second industrial revolution.
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-3
Blackhawk, Ned. Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early Amer- ican West (2006). A history of the long conflict between Native Americans and the federal government for control of the trans- Mississippi West.
Deutsch, Sarah. No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on the Anglo- Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880–1940 (1987). A careful analysis of the changing experience of people of Hispanic origin in the Southwest during these years.
Fink, Leon. Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (1983). Examines the rise of the Knights of Labor and their forays into local politics in the mid- 1880s.
Foster, Gaines. Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legis- lation of Morality, 1865–1920 (2002). Traces the rise of efforts to use the federal government to promote Protestant notions of moral behavior.
Freeberg, Ernest. The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America (2013). Explores the numerous ways electricity altered Americans’ lives.
Hamalainen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire (2008). The rise and fall of Coman- che domination over much of the southwestern United States.
Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944). A classic study of a major tendency in American thought during the Gilded Age.
Jeffrey, Julie R. Frontier Women: “Civilizing” the West? 1840–1880 (rev. ed., 1998). A study, based on letters and diaries, of the experience of women on the western frontier.
Kasson, Joy S. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History (2000). An account of the popular theatrical production that helped to fix an image of the Wild West in the American imagination.
Morgan, H. Wayne. From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896 (1969). The standard narrative of national politics during these years.
Shannon, Fred A. The Farmer’s Last Frontier: Agriculture 1860–1897 (1945). Remains an excellent introduction to the experience of farmers in the last four decades of the nineteenth century.
Sproat, John G. “The Best Men”: Liberal Reformers in the Gilded Age (1968). Traces the origins, outlook, and political impact of reformers dissatisfied with the corruption of national politics.
Thomas, John L. Alternative Americas: Henry George, Edward Bellamy, Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Adversary Tradition (1983). A thorough exposition of the thought of three critics of Gilded Age society.
Trachtenberg, Alan. The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (1982). An influential survey of how economic change affected American life during the Gilded Age.
White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2011). A careful study of the building of the transcontinental
A-4 ★ SUGGESTED READING
railroad and how it epitomized the political corruption and financial mis- management so widespread in the Gilded Age.
WEBSITES
First- hand Accounts of California 1849–1900: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem /cbhtml/cbhome.html
Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains: http://arc.lib.montana.edu /indian-great-plains
The Dramas of Haymarket: www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
C H A P T E R 1 7 BOOKS
Aleinikoff, Alexander. Semblances of Sovereignty: The Constitution, the State, and American Citizenship (2002). Includes a careful discussion of the citizenship status of American minorities and residents of overseas possessions.
Blight, David. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001). Examines how a memory of the Civil War that downplayed the issue of slavery played a part in sectional reconciliation and the rise of segregation.
Blum, Edward. Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nation- alism, 1865–1898 (2005). Explores the development of a shared religious culture that united northern and southern Protestants in support of white supremacy and overseas expansion.
Factor, Robert L. The Black Response to America: Men, Ideals, and Organization from Frederick Douglass to the NAACP (1970). Discusses black social and political thought, including that of Booker T. Washington and his critics.
Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (1978). A sympathetic account of the rise and fall of Populism.
Higginbotham, Evelyn. Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (1993). Explains how black women developed ways of exerting their influence in public life even as black men were losing the right to vote.
Hoganson, Kristin L. Consumers’ Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865–1920 (2007). Shows how the consumer desires of middle- class women helped to spur the consolidation of an American empire.
Hsu, Madeline. Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1934 (2000).
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-5
Examines the enduring connections between Chinese immigrants in the United States and their home communities.
Krause, Paul. The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892: Politics, Culture, and Steel (1992). An account of the era’s most celebrated conflict between capital and labor.
LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (1963). A classic examination of the forces that led the United States to acquire an overseas empire.
Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds. Drawing the Global Color Line (2008). Traces the global transmission of ideas about white supremacy in the late nineteenth century.
Linn, Brian M. The Philippine War, 1899–1902 (2000). A detailed history of America’s “forgotten war.”
McClain, Charles J. In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle against Discrimina- tion in Nineteenth- Century America (1994). Explores how Chinese- Americans worked to combat the discrimination to which they were subjected and to assert their rights.
McMillen, Neil R. Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow (1989). A powerful account of black life in the segregation era and the boundaries within which it operated.
Perez, Louis A. The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and His- toriography (1998). Presents the Cuban side of the Spanish- American War, including a detailed discussion of the Cuban movement for independence and how American intervention affected it.
Postel, Charles. The Populist Vision (2007). A history of the Populist movement that stresses how it anticipated many public policies of the twentieth century.
Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877–1917 (1999). Emphasizes the role of farmers’ movements in putting forth many of the proposals associated with political reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (1951). A classic treatment of the New South, emphasizing how its rulers failed to meet the needs of most southerners, white as well as black.
WEBSITES
1896: The Presidential Campaign: http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/1896home.html The Chinese in California, 1850–1920: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu
/collections/chineseinca The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow The World of 1898: The Spanish- American War: www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898
A-6 ★ SUGGESTED READING
C H A P T E R 18 BOOKS
Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (1985). A comprehensive account of American immigration.
Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism (1987). A careful study of feminist ideas in the Progressive era.
Dawley, Alan. Struggles for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State (1991). Examines the varieties of Progressive reform and various efforts to use the power of government for social betterment.
Diner, Steven. A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (1998). A survey of the main trends of the Progressive period.
Glickman, Lawrence B. A Living Wage: Workers and the Making of American Con- sumer Society (1997). Traces the origins and development of the idea that workers are entitled to a “living wage.”
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (1955). A classic account of the ideas of reformers from Populism to the New Deal.
Johnston, Robert D. The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Ques- tion of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland (2003). Analyzes how Progres- sivism operated in one important city.
Lears, Jackson. Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920 (2009). A comprehensive history of the Gilded Age and Progressive era, stressing the extent of social and cultural change.
Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865–1925 (1987). An account of the labor battles of the era and the gradual decline of labor’s power, especially at the workplace.
Orsi, Robert A. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950 (1985). An influential study of a single immigrant community and the role of religion in binding it together.
Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn- of- the- Century New York (1986). Explores the rise of mass entertainment and how it affected women’s lives in Progressive America.
Recchiuti, John L. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive- Era Reform in New York City (2006). Examines the influence of a group of reform- minded scholars on the politics of the Progressive era.
Rodgers, Daniel T. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998). A comprehensive study of the flow of Progressive ideas and policies back and forth across the Atlantic.
Stansell, Christine. American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century (2000). A colorful account of the Greenwich Village
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-7
radicals who expanded the idea of personal freedom in the Progressive era.
Stromquist, Shelton. Re- Inventing “The People”: The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism (2006). Discusses how the desire to re- create social harmony in an age of labor conflict shaped Progressivism.
Tichi, Cecelia. Civic Passions: Seven Who Launched Progressive America (2009). An exploration of the careers of some of the most prominent leaders of Progressive reform.
WEBSITES
Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1860–1920: http://lcweb2.loc.gov /ammem/amrvhtml/conshome.html
Immigration to the United States, 1789–1930: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu /immigration/
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull House and Its Neighborhoods: http://
hullhouse.uic.edu/hull/urbanexp Votes for Women: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html
C H A P T E R 19 BOOKS
Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Race and Gender in the United States, 1880–1917 (1995). Explores how ideas concerning civi- lization and gender affected American foreign policy.
Capozzola, Christopher. Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (2008). A careful study of public and private efforts to enforce patriotic ideas and actions during World War I.
Dawley, Alan. Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution (2003). Presents the war as a fulfillment and betrayal of the Progressive impulse.
Gilmore, Glenda E. Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896–1920 (1996). A careful study of how black and white women negotiated the boundaries of segregation in a southern state.
Green, Elna C. Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question (1997). Describes how southern women campaigned
A-8 ★ SUGGESTED READING
for the vote without challenging the subordinate status of African- Americans.
Greene, Julie. The Canal Builders: Making American Empire at the Panama Canal (2009). Tells the story of the construction of the Panama Canal and the tens of thousands of workers who did the work.
Grossman, James R. Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (1989). An in- depth study of the migration of blacks to one American city.
Healy, David. Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1917 (1988). Examines American foreign policy in the Caribbean from McKinley to Wilson.
Jensen, Kimberly. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War (2008). Examines the participation of women in the war effort and its impact on gender relations.
Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980). A comprehensive account of how the war affected domestic life in the United States.
Manela, Erez. The Wilsonian Moment (2007). Details how the Wilsonian ideal of self- determination was received around the world, with results Wilson did not anticipate.
Meier, August. Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (1966). A pioneering study of the ideas of black leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois.
Mitchell, David J. 1919: Red Mirage (1970). A global account of the upheavals of 1919.
Preston, William, Jr. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933 (1963). An influential study of the federal government’s efforts to suppress dissenting ideas, especially during and immediately after World War I.
Renda, Mary A. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Impe- rialism, 1915–1940 (2001). Examines the causes and consequences of the American occupation of Haiti.
Stein, Judith. The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (1986). Places the Garvey movement in an Atlantic perspective linking Africa, the United States, and the West Indies.
Sullivan, Patricia. Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement (2009). A sweeping history of the country’s preeminent civil rights organization, from its founding to the 1950s.
Tuttle, William. Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (1970). A vivid account of the most violent racial upheaval of the era.
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-9
WEBSITES
Red Scare: http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/redscare/ The Bisbee Deportation of 1917: www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/ The U.S.A. and Latin America: www.casahistoria.net/uslatam.htm
C H A P T E R 2 0 BOOKS
Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (2004). A history of the Sweet case, placing it in the context of postwar Detroit and the nation.
Cohen, Warren I. Empire without Tears: America’s Foreign Relations, 1921–1933 (1987). A careful examination of American foreign policy between the presidencies of Wilson and Roosevelt.
Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: America in the Twenties (1995). A brief survey of the main political and cultural trends of the decade.
Garraty, John A. The Great Depression (1986). Places the Depression in a global context and compares various governments’ responses to it.
Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (2002). A sweeping survey of how changing ideas of race have affected the concept of American nationality, with a strong account of the debates of the 1920s.
Grandin, Greg. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (2009). Tells the fascinating story of Ford’s effort to create a planned com- munity in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest.
Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (1955). A classic account of American hostility to immigrants, concluding with the immigration restriction of 1924.
Larson, Edward. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion (1998). A history of the famous trial and the enduring debate over evolution.
Lewis, David L. When Harlem Was in Vogue (1981). A lively account of the Har- lem Renaissance of the 1920s.
Maclean, Nancy. Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (1994). A careful analysis of the membership and motivations of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.
Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (1985). Examines how advertisers responded to and helped to shape changes in American life between the two world wars.
A-10 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth- Century Evangelicism, 1870–1925 (1980). Traces the ups and downs of American fundamentalism, culminating in the Scopes trial.
McGirr, Lisa. The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State (2015). A penetrating analysis of Prohibition’s impact on American society and government.
Murphy, Paul L. World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (1979). An analysis of how the repression of free speech during World War I paved the way for a heightened awareness of the importance of civil liberties.
Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004). An influential examination of immigration policy toward Mexicans and Asians, and the development of the legal category of “illegal alien.”
Ross, William G. Forging New Freedoms: Nativism, Education, and the Constitution, 1917–1927 (1994). Discusses battles over cultural pluralism in the 1920s and how they laid the groundwork for an expanded definition of personal liberty.
WEBSITES
Chicago and the Great Migration: www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam011 .html
Emergence of Advertising in America: http://library.duke.edu /digitalcollections/eaa/
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy: http:// memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html
Scopes Trial: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm
C H A P T E R 2 1 BOOKS
Blackwelder, Julia Kirk. Women of the Depression (1998). Examines how female members of three communities— Anglo, Mexican- American, and black— coped with the Great Depression.
Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depres- sion (1982). An account of the political careers of two key figures of the New Deal era and their influence on national events.
Carpenter, Joel A. Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamental- ism (1999). Shows how evangelicals adapted to the Depression and used mass communications to spread their message.
Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (1990). Describes how the assimilation of immigrants and their children paved the way for the creation of the New Deal political coalition.
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-11
Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (1996). A comprehensive account of the rise of cultural activity associated with the political left and the New Deal.
Egan, Timothy. The Worst Hard Time (2006). A social history of the Dust Bowl during the Depression, including the stories of victims and survivors.
Katznelson, Ira. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013). Examines the shaping of New Deal policy and especially the compromises Roosevelt had to make to get measures through a Congress dominated by segregationist members from the South.
Kessler- Harris, Alice. In Pursuit of Equity: Men, Women, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20 th- Century America (2001). Explores how assumptions regarding the proper roles of men and women helped to shape New Deal measures such as Social Security.
Kirby, Jack T. Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920–1960 (1987). Traces the transformation of the South in these four decades, with emphasis on how the New Deal affected the southern states.
Leuchtenberg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (1963). Still the standard one- volume account of Roosevelt’s first two terms as president.
Naison, Mark. Communists in Harlem during the Depression (1983). Examines the rise and decline of the Communist Party in a center of black life, and its impact on the movement for racial justice.
Phillips, Sarah T. The Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the New Deal (2007). Examines New Deal policies regarding agricultural development, rural conservation, and land use, and its attempt to modern- ize and uplift rural life.
Sanchez, George. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (1995). A careful study of Mexican- Americans in Los Angeles, including their participation in the social unrest of the 1930s and the movement for deporting them during that decade.
Smith, Jason B. Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works (2006). Places the great construction projects of the 1930s at the center of New Deal economic policy.
Sullivan, Patricia. Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era (1996). Analyzes how the New Deal inspired the emergence of a biracial move- ment for civil rights in the South.
Williams, Mason B. City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York (2014). An illuminating study of the most prominent “little New Deal” and its long- term results.
Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935–1955 (1995). A comprehensive history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the major labor group to emerge during the New Deal.
A-12 ★ SUGGESTED READING
WEBSITES
America from the Great Depression to World War II: http://memory.loc.gov /ammem/fsowhome.html
FDR Cartoon Archive: www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr/FDRcartoons.html Flint Sit- Down Strike: www.historicalvoices.org/flint/ New Deal Network: http://newdeal.feri.org
C H A P T E R 2 2 BOOKS
Ambrose, Stephen E. Citizen Soldiers (1997). Discusses the experience of American soldiers fighting in Europe from D- Day to the end of the war.
Anderson, Karen. Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women during World War II (1981). Explores how the experience of World War II opened new opportunities for women and challenged existing gender conventions.
Blum, John M. V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (1976). A comprehensive account of the home front during World War II.
Borgwardt, Elizabeth. A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (2005). The emergence during the war of the idea of human rights as an international entitlement.
Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (1995). Describes how liberals’ ideas and policies moved away, during the late New Deal and the war, from combating inequalities of economic power.
Daniels, Rogers. Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (1993). A brief history of the internment of Japanese- Americans during the war.
Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1986). Explores how racial fears and antagonisms motivated both sides in the Pacific theater.
Escobedo, Elizabeth R. From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican Ameri- can Women on the World War II Home Front (2013). Examines how the rise of racial liberalism during World War II and the opening of new jobs affected Mexican- American women.
Frydl, Kathleen. The G.I. Bill (2009). How this important piece of legislation changed American society.
Isserman, Maurice. Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party during World War II (1982). Traces the Communist Party’s changing political positions during World War II.
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-13
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (1999). A detailed and lively account of American history from the Great Depression through the end of World War II.
Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II (1982). Examines the war’s impact on workers and the labor movement.
Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986). A dramatic account of how the atomic bomb was created.
Von Eschen, Penny. Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (1997). Examines how black Americans responded to the rise of movements for colonial independence overseas during and after World War II.
Zelizer, Julian E. Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security— From World War II to the War on Terrorism (2009). Traces the origins of the national security state from Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” speech of 1940 to the present, stressing the tension between the two elements, arsenal and democracy.
WEBSITES
A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution: http:// amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/experience/
A People at War: www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/a_people_at _war.html
Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942–1964: http://americanhistory .si.edu/exhibitions/bittersweet-harvest-bracero-program-1942-1964
Remembering Nagasaki: www.exploratorium.edu/nagasaki/
C H A P T E R 2 3 BOOKS
Biondi, Martha. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (2003). A comprehensive account of the broad coalition that battled for racial justice in New York City, in areas such as jobs, education, and housing.
Canaday, Margot. The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth- Century America (2009). Details the federal government’s efforts to stigma- tize and punish homosexuality.
Cullather, Nick. The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia (2010). Explores how divergent approaches to combating world poverty became a battleground in the Cold War.
Donovan, Robert. Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945– 1948 (1977). A careful account of Truman’s first administration and his surprising election victory in 1948.
A-14 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Dudziak, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democ- racy (2000). Analyzes how the Cold War influenced and in some ways encouraged the civil rights movement at home.
Gaddis, John. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Analysis of Postwar American National Security (1982). An influential analysis of the development of the containment policy central to American foreign policy during the Cold War.
Glendon, Mary Ann. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2001). Relates the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the response of governments around the world, including the United States.
Hogan, Michael. The Marhsall Plan (1987). A detailed look at a pillar of early Cold War policy.
Hunt, Michael. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (1987). Discusses how ideas, including the idea of freedom, have shaped America’s interactions with the rest of the world.
Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Admin- istration, and the Cold War (1992). An influential account of the origins of the Cold War.
Lipsitz, George. Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s (1994). Examines the labor movement and its role in American life in the decade of perhaps its greatest influence.
Saunders, Frances S. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (2000). Describes how the CIA and other government agencies secretly funded artists and writers as part of the larger Cold War.
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998). A full account of the anticommunist crusade at home and its impact on Ameri- can intellectual and social life.
Stueck, William. The Korean War: An International History (1995). Studies the Korean War in its full global context.
Sugrue, Thomas. Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (1996). Explores race relations in a key industrial city after World War II and how they set the stage for the upheavals of the 1960s.
WEBSITES
Cold War International History Project: www.wilsoncenter.org/program / cold- war- international- history- project
The Korean War and its Origins, 1945–1953: www.trumanlibrary.org/korea/
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-15
C H A P T E R 2 4 BOOKS
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (1988). A comprehensive account of the civil rights movement from the Brown decision to the early 1960s.
Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Post- war America (2003). Considers how the glorification of consumer freedom shaped American public policy and the physical landscape.
De Grazia, Victoria. Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth- Century Europe (2005). An examination of American “soft power” and its triumphant penetration of twentieth- century Europe.
Fones- Wolf, Elizabeth A. Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945–1960 (1994). Examines the carefully developed campaign whereby business leaders associated capitalism and a union- free workplace with freedom.
Freeman, Joshua B. Working- Class New York: Life and Labor since World War II (2000). An account of the lives of laborers in the nation’s largest city, trac- ing the rise and decline of the labor movement.
Inboden, William. Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment (2008). How religious groups influenced American diplomacy at the height of the Cold War.
Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of America (1985). The standard account of the development of American suburbia.
Jacobs, Meg. Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth- Century Amer- ica (2005). Discusses how consumer freedom became central to Americans’ national identity after World War II.
Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2004). A full study of Supreme Court cases deal- ing with civil rights, and how they both reflected and helped to stimulate social change.
Klein, Jennifer. For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America’s Public- Private Welfare State (2003). Examines the development of the “social contract” of the 1950s whereby many workers received social benefits from their employers rather than the government.
May, Elaine T. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988). Studies the nuclear family as a bastion of American freedom during the Cold War, at least according to official propaganda.
A-16 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Nicolaides, Becky M. My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working- Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (2002). Traces the transformation of Southgate, an industrial neighborhood of Los Angeles, into an all- white suburb, and the political results.
Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (1996). A comprehensive account of American history over the three decades following World War II.
Pells, Richard. The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (1984). Examines how American writers and artists responded to the Cold War.
Phillips- Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (2009). Relates how a group of economic think- ers and businessmen worked to fashion a conservative movement in an attempt to reverse many of the policies of the New Deal.
Wall, Wendy L. Inventing the “American Way”: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement (2008). A careful examination of the political and ideological world of the Cold War era.
Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War (2005). A wide- ranging analysis of how the Cold War played out in the Third World.
WEBSITES
Brown v. Board of Education: www.lib.umich.edu/ brown- versus- board - education/
Herblock’s History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium: www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/
C H A P T E R 2 5 BOOKS
Anderson, John A., III. The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (1997). Considers conservative students of the 1960s and how they laid the groundwork for the later growth of their movement.
Appy, Christian G. Working- Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam (1993). A careful account of how the draft operated to place the burden of fighting on working- class Americans.
Brick, Howard. Age of Contradiction: American Thought and Culture in the 1960s (1998). A careful examination of the complex currents of thought that circulated during the decade.
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-17
Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (1981). A study of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and its impact on the 1960s.
D’Emilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970 (1983). Explores the status of gay men and lesbians in mid- twentieth- century America and the rise of the gay movement.
Dierenfield, Bruce. The Battle over School Prayer: How Engel v. Vitale Changed America (2007). One controversial Supreme Court decision of the 1960s and its long- term consequences.
Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (1994). Traces the civil rights movement in one state, looked at from the experi- ence of grassroots activists.
Horwitz, Morton J. The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice (1998). Analyzes how the Supreme Court redefined the rights of Americans under Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (2000). A comprehensive account of the social movements and polit- ical debates of the 1960s.
Joseph, Peniel E. Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (2007). Demonstrates how the rise of Black Power reconfigured both African- American identity and race relations in the late 1960s.
Logevall, Frederik. Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (2012). An international account of the origins of American military intervention in Vietnam.
McCartin, James P. Prayers of the Faithful: The Shifting Spiritual Life of American Catholics (2010). Examines the impact of the 1960s on the Catholic Church.
Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (2000). Considers how the “second wave” of feminism trans- formed the lives of American women and men.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–1992 (1993). A brief history of one of the most significant move- ments to emerge from the 1960s.
Skretny, John. The Minority Rights Revolution (2002). An account of the rights revolution and how it affected American society and its understanding of the rights of citizens.
WEBSITES
A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law, 1965–1971: http://american history.si.edu/lisalaw/1.htm
A-18 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Free Speech Movement Digital Archive: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/ Freedom Now!: http://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/FreedomNow
C H A P T E R 2 6 BOOKS
Adler, William M. Mollie’s Job: A Story of Life and Work on the Global Assembly Line (2000). Tracks how a manufacturing job moved from the North to the South and eventually out of the country, and what happened to the workers who held it.
Allitt, Patrick. Religion in America since 1945 (2003). A survey of the main trends of religious development since World War II.
Anderson, Terry H. The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action (2004). A careful study of the origins and development of affirmative action policies.
Busch, Andrew E. Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom (2001). Discusses how Ronald Reagan interpreted the idea of freedom and how it influenced his presidency.
Foley, Michael S. Front Porch Politics: The Forgotten Heyday of American Activism in the 1970s and 1980s (2013). A lively account of the grassroots move- ments, of both left and right, that followed the 1960s.
Greenberg, David. Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (2003). Explores how Nixon’s supporters and enemies thought about him during his long political career.
Kruse, Kevin. White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2005). Explores how conservative politics took root in the predominantly white suburbs of Atlanta, with implications for similar communities across the country.
Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (1990). The most thorough analysis of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.
Luker, Kristin. Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (1984). Describes how the abortion issue affected American politics and the ideas about gender relations that lay behind the debate.
Mathews, Donald G., and Jane S. De Hart. Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA (1990). An in- depth examination of the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment and why its opponents were successful.
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-19
McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (2001). An influential study of the rise of conservatism in Orange County, Califor- nia, once one of its more powerful centers.
Moreton, Bethany. To Serve God and Wal- Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (2009). Explores how the nation’s largest employer drew on evangelical Christianity to justify its often- criticized labor policies.
Moyn, Samuel. The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010). Traces the development of human rights consciousness, with special emphasis on the 1970s.
Schulman, Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (2001). A survey of the numerous political, social, and economic changes that took place during the 1970s.
Self, Robert. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s (2013). Identifies changes in the role of women and the structure of the family as key issues in the rise of modern conservative politics.
Stein, Judith. Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (2010). A careful analysis of the economic transformations of the 1970s.
Wilentz, Sean. The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (2008). Explores how Ronald Reagan set the terms of public debate during and after his presidency.
WEBSITES
National Security Archive: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu Watergate: http://watergate.info/
C H A P T E R 2 7 BOOKS
Ash, Timothy Garton. History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s (2009). An account of the decade by a perceptive Euro- pean commentator.
Brands, H. W. The Strange Death of American Liberalism (2001). Explores how liberals’ discrediting of the federal government through their criticisms of the Vietnam War and Watergate paved the way for the triumph of antigov- ernment conservatism.
Cassidy, John. Dot.con (2002). Describes the rise and fall of the “new economy.”
A-20 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Christianson, Scott. With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America (1998). A full- scale study of the history of imprisonment in the United States and its recent dramatic expansion.
Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immi- gration (2000). Studies the new immigration of the 1980s and 1990s and considers how it does and does not differ from earlier waves of newcomers.
Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999). An influential account of globalization and its economic promise.
Hodgson, Godfrey. More Equal than Others: America from Nixon to the New Cen- tury (2004). A survey of recent American history that identifies growing inequality as a major trend of these years.
Johnson, Haynes. The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years (2001). A sympa- thetic account of Clinton’s presidency.
Katz, Michael B. The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State (2001). Presents the history of welfare policy, with attention to the origins and impact of Clinton’s welfare reform.
Levitas, Daniel. The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right (2003). A careful study of right- wing extremism of the 1990s.
Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Retail Revolution: How Wal- Mart Created a Brave New World of Business (2009). How Wal- Mart became the largest employer in the United States and one of the most profitable.
Phillips, Kevin. Wealth and Democracy (2002). A critique of the influence of money on American politics.
Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2002). Discusses genocides of the 1990s and the problem of the appropriate American response.
Roberts, Sam. Who We Are Now: The Changing Face of America in the Twenty- First Century (2004). A social portrait of the American people based on the 2000 Census.
Smelser, Neil J., and Jeffrey C. Alexander. Diversity and Its Discontents: Cultural Conflict and Common Ground in Contemporary American Society (1999). Describes the new social diversity of the 1990s and the cultural and politi- cal tensions arising from it.
Spence, Michael. The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World (2011). A Nobel Prize– winning economist examines the impact of globalization on jobs and incomes in the United States.
WEBSITES
The Aids Crisis: http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/ hiv-and-aids-thirty -years-ago
SUGGESTED READING ★ A-21
September 11: http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitons/ september- 11 - remembrance- and- reflection
Global Exchange: www.globalexchange.org Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon Valley: http://
library.stanford.edu/mac/
C H A P T E R 2 8 BOOKS
Bacevich, Andrew. American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplo- macy (2003). Examines how the idea of an American empire reemerged after September 11, and some of the results.
Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006). A scathing account of how government at all levels failed the people of New Orleans.
Cherlin, Andrew J. Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working- Class Family in America (2015). Studies how class differences affect family life and opportunities for social mobility in today’s America.
Cole, David. Terrorism and the Constitution (rev. ed., 2006). Explores the constitu- tional issues raised by the war on terrorism.
Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence (2015). A comparison of the late nine- teenth century with the current era, exploring why protest against inequality was stronger in the former.
Gardner, Lloyd C. The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present (2008). A careful study of recent American foreign policy and the origins of the Iraq War.
Krugman, Paul. The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (2009). A leading economist explains the origins of the Great Recession.
Lakoff, George. Whose Freedom? The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea (2006). Describes how conservatives and liberals continue to interpret freedom in very different ways.
Lansley, Stewart. Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising (2011). A prominent economist explains the reasons for rising economic inequality.
Levitas, Mitchell, ed. A Nation Challenged: A Visual History of 9/11 and Its After- math (2002). Presents striking photographs of the terrorist attacks and the days that followed.
Little, Douglas. American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (2003). A careful study of American relations with a volatile region since World War II.
A-22 ★ SUGGESTED READING
Nye, Joseph S., Jr. The Paradox of American Power (2002). An argument that despite its overwhelming power, the United States cannot do as it pleases in international affairs.
Zakaria, Fareed. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003). A foreign policy analyst discusses how the United States should respond to threats to freedom in the world.
WEBSITES
September 11 Digital Archive: http://911digitalarchive.org The White House: www.whitehouse.gov
T H E D E C L A R A T I O N O F I N D E P E N D E N C E ( 1 7 7 6 )
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Govern- ments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usur- pations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The his- tory of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyr- anny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
★ A-23
A-24 ★ THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776)
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Offi- cers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Con- sent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us of many cases, of the benefits of Trial by jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776) ★ A-25
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and alter- ing fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to com- pleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circum- stances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circum- stances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably inter- rupt our connections and correspondence. They too must have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
WE, THEREFORE, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMER- ICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they
Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several assemblies, conventions, and committees, or councils of safety, and to the several com- manding officers of the continental troops; that it be proclaimed in each of the United States, at the head of the army.
have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Com- merce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
The foregoing Declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members:
John Hancock
NEW JERSEY Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark
PENNSYLVANIA Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross
DELAWARE Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas M’Kean
MARYLAND Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll, of Carrollton
VIRGINIA George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton
NORTH CAROLINA William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn
SOUTH CAROLINA Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton
GEORGIA Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton
NEW HAMPSHIRE Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Matthew Thornton
MASSACHUSETTS BAY Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry
RHODE ISLAND Stephen Hopkins William Ellery
CONNECTICUT Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott
NEW YORK William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris
A-26 ★ THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776)
★ A-27
T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S ( 1 7 8 7 ) We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, estab- lish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, pro- mote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
ARTICLE. I .
Section. 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section. 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Repre- sentative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hamp- shire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode- Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any state, the Execu- tive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
A-28 ★ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787)
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section. 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Sena- tor shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Elec- tion, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make tempo- rary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tem- pore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
Section. 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787) ★ A-29
Section. 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifi- cations of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Mem- bers for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, not to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
Section. 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.
Section. 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Represen- tatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall
likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be deter- mined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjourn- ment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.
Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,
and with the Indian Tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the
subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the
Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current
Coin of the United States; To establish Post Offices and Post Roads; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writ- ings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and
Offences against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules con-
cerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use
shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy;
A-30 ★ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787)
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock- Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitu- tion in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Section. 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the
Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to
the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appro- priations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787) ★ A-31
Section. 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for exe- cuting its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
ARTICLE. I I .
Section. 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Repre- sentatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the Pres- ident of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Pur- pose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and
A-32 ★ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787)
a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resigna- tion, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Offi- cer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compen- sation, which shall neither be encreased or diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.
Before he enters on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Section. 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787) ★ A-33
herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law; but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section. 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other pub- lic Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
Section. 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
ARTICLE. I I I .
Section. 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section. 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, aris- ing under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambas- sadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—the Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States;—between Cit- izens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall
A-34 ★ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787)
have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.
Section. 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Wit- nesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
ARTICLE. IV.
Section. 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Pro- ceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
Section. 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immu- nities of Citizens in the several States.
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Section. 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular States.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787) ★ A-35
Section. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Inva- sion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Leg- islature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
ARTICLE. V.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for pro- posing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Pro- vided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
ARTICLE. VI .
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Consti- tution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
ARTICLE. VI I .
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hun- dred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In witness thereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,
Go. WASHINGTON— Presdt. and deputy from Virginia
A-36 ★ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787)
PENNSYLVANIA B Franklin Thomas Mifflin Robt Morris Geo. Clymer Thos FitzSimons Jared Ingersoll James Wilson Gouv Morris
DELAWARE Geo: Read Gunning Bedford jun John Dickinson Richard Bassett Jaco: Broom
MARYLAND James McHenry Dan of St Thos Jenifer Dan1 Carroll
VIRGINIA John Blair— James Madison Jr.
NORTH CAROLINA Wm Blount Richd Dobbs Spaight Hu Williamson
SOUTH CAROLINA J. Rutledge Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Charles Pinckney Pierce Butler
GEORGIA William Few Abr Baldwin
NEW HAMPSHIRE John Langdon Nicholas Gilman
MASSACHUSETTS Nathaniel Gorham Rufus King
CONNECTICUT Wm Sam1 Johnson Roger Sherman
NEW YORK Alexander Hamilton
NEW JERSEY Wil: Livingston David A. Brearley Wm Paterson Jona: Dayton
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787) ★ A-37
A M E N D M E N T S T O T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N
Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
AMENDMENT I .*
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro- hibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
AMENDMENT I I .
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
AMENDMENT I I I .
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the con- sent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
AMENDMENT IV.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no War- rants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
AMENDMENT V.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
A-38 ★ AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
*The first ten Amendments (the Bill of Rights) were ratified in 1791.
AMENDMENT VI.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be con- fronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtain- ing witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
AMENDMENT VI I .
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re- examined in any Court of the United States, than accord- ing to the rules of the common law.
AMENDMENT VI I I .
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
AMENDMENT IX.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
AMENDMENT X.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohib- ited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
AMENDMENT XI.
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. [January 8, 1798]
AMENDMENT XI I .
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for Presi- dent and Vice- President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice- President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;— The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION ★ A-39
Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;— The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the Pres- ident, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the high- est numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the represen- tation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two- thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice- President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice- President, shall be the Vice- President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two high- est numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice- President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two- thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no per- son constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice- President of the United States. [September 25, 1804]
AMENDMENT XI I I .
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legis- lation. [December 18, 1865]
AMENDMENT XIV.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States accord- ing to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election
A-40 ★ AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty- one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty- one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two- thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by ap propriate legislation, the provisions of this article. [July 28, 1868]
AMENDMENT XV.
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. [March 30, 1870]
AMENDMENT XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from what- ever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. [February 25, 1913]
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION ★ A-41
AMENDMENT XVI I .
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the execu- tive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacan- cies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. [May 31, 1913]
AMENDMENT XVI I I .
After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as pro- vided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission thereof to the States by Congress. [January 29, 1919]
AMENDMENT XIX.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
The Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to enforce the provisions of this article. [August 26, 1920]
AMENDMENT XX.
Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice- President shall end at noon on the twentieth day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the third day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.
Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the third day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
A-42 ★ AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President- elect shall have died, the Vice- President- elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President- elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice- President- elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President- elect nor a Vice- President- elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as Presi- dent, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice- President shall have qualified.
Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice- President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.
Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.
Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three- fourths of the sev- eral States within seven years from the date of its submission. [February 6, 1933]
AMENDMENT XXI.
Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory or posses- sion of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by convention in the several States, as pro- vided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission thereof to the States by the Congress. [December 5, 1933]
AMENDMENT XXI I .
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected Pres- ident shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION ★ A-43
Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of Presi- dent or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three- fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress. [February 27, 1951]
AMENDMENT XXI I I .
Section 1. The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice- President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice- President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and per- form such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropri- ate legislation. [March 29, 1961]
AMENDMENT XXIV.
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. [January 23, 1964]
AMENDMENT XXV.
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of Vice President, the Presi- dent shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
A-44 ★ AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the Pres- ident is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice Pres- ident shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written dec- laration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law pro- vide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty- eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty- one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty- one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two- thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice- President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office. [February 10, 1967]
AMENDMENT XXVI.
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. [June 30, 1971]
AMENDMENT XXVII .
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Repre- sentatives shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have inter- vened. [May 8, 1992]
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION ★ A-45
★ A-47
G L O S S A R Y
abolition Social movement of the pre– Civil War era that advocated the immedi- ate emancipation of the slaves and their incorporation into American society as equal citizens.
Act Concerning Religion (or Maryland Toleration Act) 1649 law that granted free exercise of religion to all Christian denominations in colonial Maryland.
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital 1923 Supreme Court case that reversed Muller v. Oregon, the 1908 case that permitted states to set maximum hours to protect working women. Justices ruled in Adkins that women no longer deserved special treatment because they could vote.
affirmative action Policy efforts to pro- mote greater employment opportunities for minorities.
Agricultural Adjustment Act New Deal legislation passed in 1933 that established the Agricultural Adjustment Administra- tion (AAA) to improve agricultural prices by limiting market supplies; declared unconstitutional in United States v. Butler (1936).
Albany Plan of Union A failed 1754 proposal by the seven northern colonies in anticipation of the French and Indian War, urging the unification of the colonies under one crown- appointed president.
Alien and Sedition Acts Four measures passed in 1798 during the undeclared war with France that limited the freedoms of speech and press and restricted the liberty of noncitizens.
American Anti- Slavery Society Founded in 1833, the organization that sought an immediate end to slavery and the estab- lishment of equality for black Americans.
It split in 1840 after disputes about the role of women within the organization and other issues.
American Civil Liberties Union Orga- nization founded during World War I to protest the suppression of freedom of expression in wartime; played a major role in court cases that achieved judicial recognition of Americans’ civil liberties.
American Colonization Society Orga- nized in 1816 to encourage colonization of free blacks to Africa; West African nation of Liberia founded in 1822 to serve as a homeland for them.
American exceptionalism The belief that the United States has a special mis- sion to serve as a refuge from tyranny, a symbol of freedom, and a model for the rest of the world.
American Federation of Labor A fed- eration of trade unions founded in 1881, composed mostly of skilled, white, native- born workers; its long- term president was Samuel Gompers.
American Indian Movement (AIM) Movement founded in 1963 by Native Americans who were fed up with the poor conditions on Indian reservations and the federal government’s unwillingness to help. In 1973, AIM led 200 Sioux in the occupation of Wounded Knee. After a ten- week standoff with the federal author- ities, the government agreed to reexamine Indian treaty rights and the occupation ended.
“American standard of living” The Progressive- era idea that American work- ers were entitled to a wage high enough to allow them full participation in the nation’s mass consumption economy.
A-48 ★ GLOSSARY
protest American territorial expansion, especially in the Philippine Islands; its membership included prominent poli- ticians, industrialists, labor leaders, and social reformers.
Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia Site of the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee to Union general Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, marking the end of the Civil War.
Army- McCarthy hearings Televised U.S. Senate hearings in 1954 on Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges of disloyalty in the army; his tactics contributed to his censure by the Senate.
Arnold, Benedict A traitorous American commander who planned to sell out the American garrison at West Point to the British. His plot was discovered before it could be executed and he joined the Brit- ish army.
Articles of Confederation First frame of government for the United States; in effect from 1781 to 1788, it provided for a weak central authority and was soon replaced by the Constitution.
Atlanta Compromise Speech to the Cotton States and International Exposi- tion in 1895 by educator Booker T. Wash- ington, the leading black spokesman of the day; black scholar W. E. B. Du Bois gave the speech its derisive name and criticized Washington for encouraging blacks to accommodate segregation and disenfranchisement.
Atlantic Charter Agreement issued August 12, 1941, following meetings in Newfoundland between President Frank- lin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minis- ter Winston Churchill, that signaled the Allies’ cooperation and stated their war aims.
Atlantic slave trade The systematic importation of African slaves from their native continent across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, largely fueled by
American System Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs pro- moted by Speaker of the House Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824; his proposals formed the core of Whig ide- ology in the 1830s and 1840s.
American system of manufactures A system of production that relied on the mass production of interchangeable parts that could be rapidly assembled into stan- dardized finished products. First perfected in Connecticut by clockmaker Eli Terry and by small- arms producer Eli Whitney in the 1840s and 50s.
Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 law that prohibited the discrimination against persons with disabilities in both hiring and promotion. It also mandated accessible entrances for public buildings.
the Amistad Ship that transported slaves from one port in Cuba to another, seized by the slaves in 1839. They made their way northward to the United States, where the status of the slaves became the subject of a celebrated court case; eventually most were able to return to Africa.
Anglican Church The established state church of England, formed by Henry VIII after the pope refused to annul his mar- riage to Catherine of Aragon.
annuity system System of yearly pay- ments to Native American tribes by which the federal government justified and insti- tutionalized its interference in Indian tribal affairs.
Antietam, Battle of One of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, fought to a stand- off on September 17, 1862, in western Maryland.
Anti- Federalists Opponents of the Con- stitution who saw it as a limitation on individual and states’ rights; their demands led to the addition of a Bill of Rights to the document.
Anti- Imperialist League Coalition of anti- imperialist groups united in 1899 to
GLOSSARY ★ A-49
Bank War Political struggle in the early 1830s between President Jackson and financier Nicholas Biddle over the renew- ing of the Second Bank’s charter.
Barbary Wars The first wars fought by the United States, and the nation’s first encounter with the Islamic world. The wars were fought from 1801 to 1805 against plundering pirates off the Medi- terranean coast of Africa after President Thomas Jefferson’s refusal to pay them tribute to protect American ships.
Bargain of 1877 Deal made by a Republi- can and Democratic special congressional commission to resolve the disputed presi- dential election of 1876; Republican Ruth- erford B. Hayes, who had lost the popular vote, was declared the winner in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from involvement in politics in the South, marking the end of Reconstruction.
Bay of Pigs Invasion U.S. mission in which the CIA, hoping to inspire a revolt against Fidel Castro, sent 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade their homeland on April 17, 1961; the mission was a spectac- ular failure.
the Beats A term coined by Jack Kerouac for a small group of poets and writers who railed against 1950s mainstream culture.
Bill for Establishing Religious Free- dom A Virginia law, drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777 and enacted in 1786, that guarantees freedom of, and from, religion.
Bill of Rights First ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1791 to guarantee individual rights against infringement by the federal government.
birth control movement An offshoot of the early twentieth- century feminist movement that saw access to birth control and “voluntary motherhood” as essential to women’s freedom. The birth- control movement was led by Margaret Sanger.
Black Codes Laws passed from 1865 to 1866 in southern states to restrict the
rising demand for sugar, rice, coffee, and tobacco.
Attucks, Crispus During the Boston Massacre, the individual who was suppos- edly at the head of the crowd of hecklers and who baited the British troops. He was killed when the British troops fired on the crowd.
Axis powers In World War II, the nations of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Aztec Mesoamerican people who were conquered by the Spanish under Hernan Cortes, 1519–1528.
baby boom Markedly higher birthrate in the years following World War II; led to the biggest demographic “bubble” in American history.
backcountry In colonial America, the area stretching from central Pennsylvania southward through the Shenandoah Val- ley of Virginia and into upland North and South Carolina.
Bacon’s Rebellion Unsuccessful 1676 revolt led by planter Nathaniel Bacon against Virginia governor William Berke- ley’s administration because of govern- mental corruption and because Berkeley had failed to protect settlers from Indian raids and did not allow them to occupy Indian lands.
Balkan crisis A series of ethnic and polit- ical crises that arose following the disso- lution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Many atrocities were committed during the conflict, and NATO, the United Nations, and the United States intervened several times.
Bank of the United States Proposed by the first secretary of the treasury, Alex- ander Hamilton, the bank that opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue a uniform currency, make business loans, and collect tax monies. The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816 but President Andrew Jackson vetoed the recharter bill in 1832.
A-50 ★ GLOSSARY
workers since braceros could be deported at any time.
Brant, Joseph The Mohawk leader who led the Iroquois against the Americans in the Revolutionary War.
Bretton Woods conference Interna- tional meeting held in the town of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 in which participants agreed that the American dollar would replace the British pound as the most important international cur- rency. The conference also created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to promote rebuilding after World War II and to ensure that countries did not devalue their currencies.
Brook Farm Transcendentalist com- mune in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, populated from 1841 to 1847 principally by writers (Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one) and other intellectuals.
Brown v. Board of Education 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public edu- cation and declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional.
Bull Run, first Battle of The first land engagement of the Civil War, which took place on July 21, 1861, at Manassas Junc- tion, Virginia, and at which Union troops quickly retreated.
Bull Run, second Battle of Civil War engagement that took place one year after the first Battle of Bull Run, on August 29–30, during which Confeder- ates captured the federal supply depot at Manassas Junction, Virginia, and forced Union troops back to Washington.
Bunker Hill, Battle of First major battle of the Revolutionary War; it actually took place at nearby Breed’s Hill, Massachu- setts, on June 17, 1775.
the Bush Doctrine President George W. Bush’s foreign policy principle wherein the United States would launch a war on terrorism.
rights of former slaves; to nullify the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Black Legend Idea that the Spanish New World empire was more oppressive toward the Indians than other European empires; was used as a justification for English imperial expansion.
Black Lives Matter Civil rights move- ment sparked by a series of incidents of police brutality and lethal force against people of color.
Black Power Post- 1966 rallying cry of a more militant civil rights movement.
“Bleeding Kansas” Violence between pro- and antislavery settlers in the Kansas Territory, 1856.
bonanza farms Large farms that covered thousands of acres and employed hun- dreds of wage laborers in the West in the late nineteenth century.
borderland A place between or near rec- ognized borders where no group of people has complete political control or cultural dominance.
Boston Massacre Clash between British soldiers and a Boston mob, March 5, 1770, in which five colonists were killed.
Boston Tea Party The incident on Decem- ber 16, 1773, in which the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Indians, dumped hundreds of chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act of 1773. Under the Tea Act, the British exported to the colonies millions of pounds of cheap— but still taxed— tea, thereby undercutting the price of smug- gled tea and forcing payment of the tea duty.
bracero program System agreed to by Mexican and American governments in 1942 under which tens of thousands of Mexicans entered the United States to work temporarily in agricultural jobs in the Southwest; lasted until 1964 and inhibited labor organization among farm
GLOSSARY ★ A-51
guaranteed the rights of citizenship to for- mer slaves.
Civil Service Act of 1883 Law that estab- lished the Civil Service Commission and marked the end of the spoils system.
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 1933 New Deal public work relief program that provided outdoor manual work for unem- ployed men, rebuilding infrastructure and implementing conservation programs. The program cut the unemployment rate, partic- ularly among young men.
Cold War Term for tensions, 1945–1989, between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two major world powers after World War II.
collective bargaining The process of negotiations between an employer and a group of employees to regulate working conditions.
Columbian Exchange The transatlantic flow of goods and people that began with Columbus’s voyages in 1492.
Committee of Correspondence Group organized by Samuel Adams in retaliation for the Gaspée incident to address Amer- ican grievances, assert American rights, and form a network of rebellion.
common school Tax- supported state schools of the early nineteenth century open to all children.
Common Sense A pamphlet anonymously written by Thomas Paine in January 1776 that attacked the English principles of hereditary rule and monarchical government.
Commonwealth v. Hunt Landmark 1842 ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court establishing the legality of labor unions.
communitarianism Social reform move- ment of the nineteenth century driven by the belief that by establishing small com- munities based on common ownership of property, a less competitive and individu- alistic society could be developed.
Bush v. Gore U.S. Supreme Court case that determined the winner of the disputed 2000 presidential election.
busing The means of transporting stu- dents via buses to achieve school integra- tion in the 1970s.
Camp David Accords Peace agreement between the leaders of Israel and Egypt, brokered by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.
captivity narratives Accounts written by colonists after their time in Indian captivity, often stressing the captive’s reli- gious convictions.
caravel A fifteenth- century European ship capable of long- distance travel.
carpetbaggers Derisive term for north- ern emigrants who participated in the Republican governments of the Recon- struction South.
checks and balances A systematic bal- ance to prevent any one branch of the national government from dominating the other two.
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 law that halted Chinese immigration to the United States.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints Religious sect founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith; it was a product of the intense revivalism of the “ burned- over district” of New York. Smith’s successor Brigham Young led 15,000 followers to Utah in 1847 to escape persecution.
Civil Rights Act (1964) Law that out- lawed discrimination in public accommo- dations and employment.
Civil Rights Act of 1875 The last piece of Reconstruction legislation, which out- lawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation such as hotels and theaters. Many parts of it were ruled uncon- stitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.
Civil Rights Bill of 1866 Along with the Fourteenth Amendment, legislation that
A-52 ★ GLOSSARY
lived in areas of the Confederacy under Union control.
Contract with America A list of con- servatives’ promises in response to the supposed liberalism of the Clinton admin- istration that was drafted by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and other con- gressional Republicans as the GOP plat- form for the 1994 midterm elections. It was more a campaign tactic than a prac- tical program; few of its proposed items ever became law.
cotton gin Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the machine that separated cotton seed from cotton fiber, speeding cotton processing and making profitable the cul- tivation of the more hardy, but difficult to clean, short- staple cotton; led directly to the dramatic nineteenth- century expan- sion of slavery in the South.
“Cotton Is King” Phrase from Senator James Henry Hammond’s speech extolling the virtues of cotton, and, implicitly, the slave system of production that led to its bounty for the South. “King Cotton” became a shorthand for Southern political and economic power.
Cotton Kingdom Cotton- producing region, relying predominantly on slave labor, that spanned from North Carolina west to Louisiana and reached as far north as southern Illinois.
counterculture “Hippie” youth culture of the 1960s, which rejected the values of the dominant culture in favor of illicit drugs, communes, free sex, and rock music.
Court packing President Franklin D. Roo- sevelt’s failed 1937 attempt to increase the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices from nine to fifteen in order to save his Second New Deal programs from consti- tutional challenges.
Covenant Chain Alliance formed in the 1670s between the English and the Iro- quois nations.
coverture Principle in English and Amer- ican law that a married woman lost her
Compromise of 1850 Complex com- promise devised by Senator Henry Clay that admitted California as a free state, included a stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.
Congress of Industrial Organiza- tions Umbrella organization of semi- skilled industrial unions, formed in 1935 as the Committee for Industrial Organiza- tion and renamed in 1938.
conquistadores Spanish term for “con- querors,” applied to Spanish and Portu- guese soldiers who conquered lands held by indigenous peoples in central and southern America as well as the current states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
conservation movement A progressive reform movement focused on the preser- vation and sustainable management of the nation’s natural resources.
Constitutional Convention Meeting in Philadelphia, May 25–September 17, 1787, of representatives from twelve colonies— excepting Rhode Island— to revise the existing Articles of Confederation; the convention soon resolved to produce an entirely new constitution.
containment General U.S. strategy in the Cold War that called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised by U.S. dip- lomat George F. Kennan.
Continental army Army authorized by the Continental Congress in 1775 to fight the British; commanded by General George Washington.
Continental Congress First meeting of representatives of the colonies, held in Philadelphia in 1774 to formulate actions against British policies; in the Second Con- tinental Congress (1775–1789), the colo- nial representatives conducted the war and adopted the Declaration of Indepen- dence and the Articles of Confederation.
“the contrabands” Slaves who sought refuge in Union military camps or who
GLOSSARY ★ A-53
into small farms for Indian families, with the remainder sold to white purchasers.
D- Day June 6, 1944, when an Allied amphibious assault landed on the Nor- mandy coast and established a foothold in Europe, leading to the liberation of France from German occupation.
Declaration of Independence Docu- ment adopted on July 4, 1776, that made the break with Britain official; drafted by a committee of the Second Continen- tal Congress, including principal writer Thomas Jefferson.
decolonization The process by which African and Asian colonies of European empires became independent in the years following World War II.
Defense of Marriage Act 1996 law that barred gay couples from receiving federal benefits. Ruled unconstitutional in 2013.
deindustrialization Term describing decline of manufacturing in old industrial areas in the late twentieth century as compa- nies shifted production to low- wage centers in the South and West or in other countries.
Deism Enlightenment thought applied to religion; emphasized reason, morality, and natural law.
Democracy in America Two works, pub- lished in 1835 and 1840, by the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville on the sub- ject of American democracy. Tocqueville stressed the cultural nature of American democracy, and the importance and prev- alence of equality in American life.
Democratic- Republican societies Orga- nizations created in the mid- 1790s by opponents of the policies of the Washing- ton administration and supporters of the French Revolution.
Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy An 1822 failed slave uprising in Charleston, South Carolina, purported to have been led by Denmark Vesey, a free black man.
deregulation Reagan- Clinton era legisla- tion that removed regulations on many
legal identity, which became “covered” by that of her husband, who therefore con- trolled her person and the family’s eco- nomic resources.
Coxey’s Army A march on Washing- ton organized by Jacob Coxey, an Ohio member of the People’s Party. Coxey believed in abandoning the gold stan- dard and printing enough legal tender to reinvigorate the economy. The marchers demanded that Congress create jobs and pay workers in paper currency not backed by gold.
creoles Persons born in the New World of European ancestry.
crop lien Credit extended by merchants to tenants based on their future crops; under this system, high interest rates and the uncertainties of farming often led to inescapable debts.
Cuban missile crisis Tense confron- tation caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in October 1962; the U.S.-Soviet confrontation was the Cold War’s closest brush with nuclear war.
cult of domesticity The nineteenth- century ideology of “virtue” and “mod- esty” as the qualities that were essential to proper womanhood.
Culture Wars Battles over moral val- ues that occurred throughout the 1990s. The Culture Wars touched many areas of American life— from popular culture to academia. Flashpoints included the future of the nuclear family and the teaching of evolution.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward 1819 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the original charter of the college against New Hampshire’s attempt to alter the board of trustees; set the prec- edent of support of contracts against state interference.
Dawes Act Law passed in 1887 meant to encourage adoption of white norms among Indians; broke up tribal holdings
A-54 ★ GLOSSARY
reverted to individual colonial govern- ments three years later.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” President Clin- ton’s compromise measure that allowed gay people to serve in the military incog- nito, as officers could no longer seek them out for dismissal but they could not openly express their identity. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was ended under the Obama administration, when gay military service was allowed.
the Dorr War A movement in Rhode Island against property qualifications for voting. The movement formed an extra- legal constitutional convention for the state and elected Thomas Dorr as a gov- ernor, but was quashed by federal troops dispatched by President John Tyler.
double- V Led by The Pittsburgh Courier, the movement that pressed for victory over fascism abroad and over racism at home. It argued that since African- Americans were risking their lives abroad, they should receive full civil rights at home.
dower rights In colonial America, the right of a widowed woman to inherit one- third of her deceased husband’s property.
Dred Scott v. Sandford 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders, and that no black person could be a citizen of the United States.
Dust Bowl Great Plains counties where millions of tons of topsoil were blown away from parched farmland in the 1930s; mas- sive migration of farm families followed.
Eighteenth Amendment Prohibition amendment passed in 1919 that made illegal the manufacture, sale, or transpor- tation of alcoholic beverages; repealed in 1933.
Ellis Island Reception center in New York Harbor through which most European
industries, including finance and air travel.
détente Period of improving relations between the United States and Com- munist nations, particularly China and the Soviet Union, during the Nixon administration.
disenfranchisement To deprive of the right to vote; in the United States, exclu- sionary policies were used to deny groups, especially African- Americans and women, their voting rights.
Dissenters Protestants who belonged to denominations outside of the established Anglican Church.
division of powers The division of polit- ical power between the state and federal governments under the U.S. Constitution (also known as federalism).
Dix, Dorothea An important figure in increasing the public’s awareness of the plight of the mentally ill. After a two- year investigation of the treatment of the men- tally ill in Massachusetts, she presented her findings and won the support of lead- ing reformers. She eventually convinced twenty states to reform their treatment of the mentally ill.
Dixiecrats Deep South delegates who walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in protest of the party’s support for civil rights legislation and later formed the States’ Rights Demo- cratic (Dixiecrat) Party, which nominated Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president.
Dollar Diplomacy A foreign policy ini- tiative under President William Howard Taft that promoted the spread of Amer- ican influence through loans and eco- nomic investments from American banks.
Dominion of New England Consoli- dation into a single colony of the New England colonies— and later New York and New Jersey— by royal governor Edmund Andros in 1686; dominion
GLOSSARY ★ A-55
English liberty The idea that English people were entitled to certain liberties, including trial by jury, habeas corpus, and the right to face one’s accuser in court. These rights meant that even the English king was subject to the rule of law.
English Toleration Act A 1690 act of Parliament that allowed all English Prot- estants to worship freely.
Enlightenment Revolution in thought in the eighteenth century that empha- sized reason and science over the author- ity of traditional religion.
Equal Rights Amendment Amendment to guarantee equal rights for women, introduced in 1923 but not passed by Con- gress until 1972; it failed to be ratified by the states.
Era of Good Feelings Contemporary characterization of the administration of popular Republican president James Mon- roe, 1817–1825.
Erie Canal Most important and prof- itable of the canals of the 1820s and 1830s; stretched from Buffalo to Albany, New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast and making New York City the nation’s largest port.
Espionage Act 1917 law that prohibited spying and interfering with the draft as well as making “false statements” that hurt the war effort.
ethnic cleansing The systematic removal of an ethnic group from a terri- tory through violence or intimidation in order to create a homogeneous society; the term was popularized by the Yugoslav policy brutally targeting Albanian Mus- lims in Kosovo.
Ex parte Milligan 1866 Supreme Court case that declared it unconstitutional to bring accused persons before military tri- bunals where civil courts were operating.
Exposition and Protest Document written in 1828 by Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina to protest the so- called
immigrants to America were processed from 1892 to 1954.
Emancipation Proclamation Declara- tion issued by President Abraham Lincoln; the preliminary proclamation on Sep- tember 22, 1862, freed the slaves in areas under Confederate control as of January 1, 1863, the date of the final proclamation, which also authorized the enrollment of black soldiers into the Union army.
Embargo Act Attempt in 1807 to exert economic pressure by prohibiting all exports from the United States, instead of waging war in reaction to continued British impressment of American sail- ors; smugglers easily circumvented the embargo, and it was repealed two years later.
Emergency Banking Act Passed in 1933, the First New Deal measure that provided for reopening the banks under strict con- ditions and took the United States off the gold standard.
empire of liberty The idea, expressed by Jefferson, that the United States would not rule its new territories as colonies, but rather would eventually admit them as full member states.
enclosure movement A legal process that divided large farm fields in England that were previously collectively owned by groups of peasants into smaller, indi- vidually owned plots. The enclosure movement took place over several cen- turies, and resulted in eviction for many peasants.
Enforcement Acts Three laws passed in 1870 and 1871 that tried to eliminate the Ku Klux Klan by outlawing it and other such terrorist societies; the laws allowed the president to deploy the army for that purpose.
English Bill of Rights A series of laws enacted in 1689 that inscribed the rights of Englishmen into law and enumerated parliamentary powers such as taxation.
A-56 ★ GLOSSARY
that appeared in Congress by the mid- 1790s. The Federalists, led by George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central gov- ernment. The Republicans, first identi- fied during the early nineteenth century, supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which they believed would safeguard individual freedoms and states’ rights from the threats posed by a strong central government.
The Feminine Mystique The book widely credited with sparking second- wave femi- nism in the United States. Author Betty Frie- dan focused on college- educated women, arguing that they would find fulfillment by engaging in paid labor outside the home.
feminism Term that entered the lexicon in the early twentieth century to describe the movement for full equality for women, in political, social, and personal life.
Fifteenth Amendment Constitutional amendment ratified in 1870, which pro- hibited states from discriminating in vot- ing privileges on the basis of race.
flappers Young women of the 1920s whose rebellion against prewar standards of femininity included wearing shorter dresses, bobbing their hair, dancing to jazz music, driving cars, smoking cigarettes, and indulging in illegal drinking and gambling.
Force Act 1833 legislation, sparked by the nullification crisis in South Carolina, that authorized the president’s use of the army to compel states to comply with federal law.
Fordism Early twentieth- century term describing the economic system pio- neered by Ford Motor Company based on high wages and mass consumption.
Fort McHenry Fort in Baltimore Harbor unsuccessfully bombarded by the British in September 1814; Francis Scott Key, a witness to the battle, was moved to write the words to “The Star- Spangled Banner.”
Tariff of Abominations, which seemed to favor northern industry; introduced the concept of state interposition and became the basis for South Carolina’s Nullifica- tion Doctrine of 1833.
Fair Deal Domestic reform proposals of the Truman administration; included civil rights legislation, national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft- Hartley Act, but only extensions of some New Deal programs were enacted.
family values Set of beliefs usually asso- ciated with conservatism that stressed the superiority of nuclear family, heterosex- ual marriage, and traditional gender roles.
family wage Idea that male workers should earn a wage sufficient to enable them to support their entire family with- out their wives’ having to work outside the home.
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) A government agency created during the New Deal to guarantee mort- gages, allowing lenders to offer long- term (usually thirty- year) loans with low down payments (usually 10 percent of the asking price). The FHA seldom under- wrote loans in racially mixed or minority neighborhoods.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Inde- pendent agency created by the Wilson administration that replaced the Bureau of Corporations as an even more powerful tool to combat unfair trade practices and monopolies.
federalism A system of government in which power is divided between the cen- tral government and the states.
The Federalist Collection of eighty- five essays that appeared in the New York press in 1787–1788 in support of the Con- stitution; written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay and pub- lished under the pseudonym “Publius.”
Federalists and Republicans The two increasingly coherent political parties
GLOSSARY ★ A-57
Freedom Rides Bus journeys challenging racial segregation in the South in 1961.
French and Indian War The last— and most important— of four colonial wars fought between England and France for control of North America east of the Mis- sissippi River.
Fugitive Slave Act 1850 law that gave the federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves; aroused consid- erable opposition in the North.
fugitive slaves Slaves who escaped from their owners.
fundamentalism Anti- modernist Protes- tant movement started in the early twen- tieth century that proclaimed the literal truth of the Bible; the name came from The Fundamentals, published by conserva- tive leaders.
Gabriel’s Rebellion An 1800 uprising planned by Virginian slaves to gain their freedom. The plot was led by a blacksmith named Gabriel, but was discovered and quashed.
Gadsden Purchase Thirty thousand square miles in present- day Arizona and New Mexico bought by Congress from Mexico in 1853 primarily for the Southern Pacific Railroad’s transcontinental route.
gag rule Rule adopted by House of Repre- sentatives in 1836 prohibiting consideration of abolitionist petitions; opposition, led by former president John Quincy Adams, suc- ceeded in having it repealed in 1844.
Garvey, Marcus The leading spokesman for Negro Nationalism, which exalted blackness, black cultural expression, and black exclusiveness. He called upon African- Americans to liberate themselves from the surrounding white culture and create their own businesses, cultural centers, and newspapers. He was also the founder of the Universal Negro Improve- ment Association.
Geneva Accords A 1954 document that had promised elections to unify Vietnam
Fort Sumter First battle of the Civil War, in which the federal fort in Charleston (South Carolina) Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14, 1861, after two days of shelling.
Four Freedoms Freedom of speech, free- dom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, as described by Presi- dent Franklin D. Roosevelt during his Jan- uary 6, 1941, State of the Union Address.
Fourteen Points President Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 plan for peace after World War I; at the Versailles peace conference, however, he failed to incorporate all of the points into the treaty.
Fourteenth Amendment 1868 constitu- tional amendment that guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
franchise The right to vote. free blacks African- American persons not held in slavery; immediately before the Civil War, there were nearly a half million in the United States, split almost evenly between North and South.
Free Soil Party Political organization formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848. By 1854 most of the par- ty’s members had joined the Republican Party.
free trade The belief that economic devel- opment arises from the exchange of goods between different countries without gov- ernmental interference.
the Freedmen’s Bureau Reconstruction agency established in 1865 to protect the legal rights of former slaves and to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and landowning.
freedom petitions Arguments for liberty presented to New England’s courts and legislatures in the early 1770s by enslaved African- Americans.
A-58 ★ GLOSSARY
gold rush The massive migration of Americans into California territory in the late 1840s and 1850s in pursuit of gold, which was discovered there in 1848.
gold standard Policy at various points in American history by which the value of a dollar is set at a fixed price in terms of gold (in the post– World War II era, for example, $35 per ounce of gold).
Good Neighbor Policy Policy proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in 1933 that sought improved diplomatic relations between the United States and its Latin American neighbors.
gradual emancipation A series of acts passed in state legislatures throughout the North in the years following the Revolution that freed slaves after they reached a certain age, following lengthy “apprenticeships.”
grandfather clause Loophole created by southern disenfranchising legislatures of the 1890s for illiterate white males whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote before the Civil War.
Great Awakening Fervent religious revival movement in the 1720s through the 1740s that was spread throughout the colonies by ministers like New England Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards and English revivalist George Whitefield.
Great Depression Worst economic depression in American history; it was spurred by the stock market crash of 1929 and lasted until World War II.
Great League of Peace An alliance of the Iroquois tribes, originally formed some- time between 1450 and 1600, that used their combined strength to pressure Euro- peans to work with them in the fur trade and to wage war across what is today east- ern North America.
Great Migration Large- scale migration of southern blacks during and after World War I to the North, where jobs had become
and established the Seventeenth Parallel demarcation line that divided North and South Vietnam.
“gentlemen of property and stand- ing” Well- to- do merchants who often had commercial ties to the South and resisted abolitionism, occasionally inciting vio- lence against its adherents.
Gettysburg, Battle of Battle fought in southern Pennsylvania, July 1–3, 1863; the Confederate defeat and the simultaneous loss at Vicksburg marked the military turning point of the Civil War.
Ghost Dance A spiritual and political movement among Native Americans whose followers performed a ceremonial “ghost dance” intended to connect the liv- ing with the dead and make the Indians bulletproof in battles intended to restore their homelands.
GI Bill of Rights The 1944 legislation that provided money for education and other benefits to military personnel returning from World War II.
Gibbons v. Ogden 1824 U.S. Supreme Court decision reinforcing the “com- merce clause” (the federal government’s right to regulate interstate commerce) of the Constitution; Chief Justice John Mar- shall ruled against the State of New York’s granting of steamboat monopolies.
the Gilded Age The popular but derogatory name for the period from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the century, after the title of the 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.
globalization Term that became prom- inent in the 1990s to describe the rapid acceleration of international flows of commerce, financial resources, labor, and cultural products.
Glorious Revolution A coup in 1688 engineered by a small group of aristocrats that led to William of Orange taking the British throne in place of James II.
GLOSSARY ★ A-59
of millions of gallons of oil were spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in one of the largest environmental calamities in human history.
Gulf War Military action in 1991 in which an international coalition led by the United States drove Iraq from Kuwait, which it had occupied the previous year.
hacienda Large- scale farm in the Span- ish New World empire worked by Indian laborers.
Haitian Revolution A slave uprising that led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent country in 1804.
Half- Way Covenant A 1662 religious compromise that allowed baptism and partial church membership to colonial New Englanders whose parents were not among the Puritan elect.
Harlem Renaissance African- American literary and artistic movement of the 1920s centered in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood; writers Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen were among those active in the movement.
Harpers Ferry, Virginia Site of aboli- tionist John Brown’s failed raid on the fed- eral arsenal, October 16–17, 1859; Brown became a martyr to his cause after his cap- ture and execution.
Hart- Celler Act 1965 law that eliminated the national origins quota system for immigration established by laws in 1921 and 1924; led to radical change in the ori- gins of immigrants to the United States, with Asians and Latin Americans out- numbering Europeans.
Hartford Convention Meeting of New England Federalists on December 15, 1814, to protest the War of 1812; proposed seven constitutional amendments (lim- iting embargoes and changing require- ments for officeholding, declaration of war, and admission of new states), but the war ended before Congress could respond.
available during the labor shortage of the war years.
Great Migration (1630s) The migration of approximately 21,000 English Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Great Railroad Strike A series of demon- strations, some violent, held nationwide in support of striking railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, who refused to work due to wage cuts.
Great Recession A period of major eco- nomic stagnation across the United States and western Europe, characterized by rising unemployment and inflation and a 37 percent decline in the stock market between March and December 1974.
Great Society Term coined by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1965 State of the Union address, in which he proposed legislation to address problems of voting rights, poverty, diseases, education, immi- gration, and the environment.
Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court decision that, in overturning Connecti- cut law prohibiting the use of contracep- tives, established a constitutional right to privacy.
Guantánamo Bay A detention center at the American naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where beginning in 2002 sus- pected terrorists and war prisoners were held indefinitely and tried by extrajudi- cial military tribunals. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama pledged to close the prison, but as of 2015 it remained open.
Gulf of Tonkin resolution Legislation passed by Congress in 1964 in reaction to supposedly unprovoked attacks on American warships off the coast of North Vietnam; it gave the president unlimited authority to defend U.S. forces and mem- bers of SEATO.
Gulf oil spill Environmental disaster that occurred in 2010 after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Hundreds
A-60 ★ GLOSSARY
House of Burgesses The first elected assembly in colonial America, established in 1619 in Virginia. Only wealthy land- owners could vote in its elections.
House Un- American Activities Com- mittee (HUAC) Committee formed in 1938 to investigate subversives in the government and holders of radical ideas more generally; best- known investiga- tions were of Hollywood notables and of former State Department official Alger Hiss, who was accused in 1948 of espio- nage and Communist Party membership. Abolished in 1975.
Hundred Days Extraordinarily produc- tive first three months of President Frank- lin D. Roosevelt’s administration in which a special session of Congress enacted fif- teen of his New Deal proposals.
Hurricane Katrina 2005 hurricane that devastated much of the Gulf Coast, espe- cially New Orleans. The Bush administra- tion’s response was widely criticized as inadequate.
illegal alien A new category established by the Immigration Act of 1924 that referred to immigrants crossing U.S. bor- ders in excess of the new immigration quotas.
Immigration Restriction League A political organization founded in 1894 that called for reducing immigration to the United States by requiring a literacy test for immigrants.
impeachment Bringing charges against a public official; for example, the House of Representatives can impeach a president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” by majority vote, and after the trial the Senate can remove the president by a vote of two- thirds. Two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clin- ton, have been impeached and tried before the Senate; neither was convicted.
impressment The British navy’s practice of using press- gangs to kidnap men in
Haymarket Affair Violence during an anarchist protest at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886; the deaths of eight, including seven policemen, led to the trial of eight anarchist leaders for con- spiracy to commit murder.
Haynes, Lemuel A black member of the Massachusetts militia and celebrated min- ister who urged that Americans extend their conception of freedom to enslaved Africans during the Revolutionary Era.
headright system A land- grant policy that promised fifty acres to any colonist who could afford passage to Virginia, as well as fifty more for any accompa- nying servants. The headright policy was eventually expanded to include any colonists— and was also adopted in other colonies.
Helsinki Accords 1975 agreement between the USSR and the United States that recognized the post– World War II boundaries of Europe and guaranteed the basic liberties of each nation’s citizens.
Hessians German soldiers, most from Hesse- Cassel principality (hence, the name), paid to fight for the British in the Revolutionary War.
Hollywood Ten A group called before the House Un- American Activities Commit- tee who refused to speak about their polit- ical leanings or “name names”—that is, identify communists in Hollywood. Some were imprisoned as a result.
Holocaust Systematic racist attempt by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews of Europe, resulting in the murder of over 6 million Jews and more than a million other “undesirables.”
Homestead Act 1862 law that authorized Congress to grant 160 acres of public land to a western settler, who had to live on the land for five years to establish title.
horizontal expansion The process by which a corporation acquires or merges with its competitors.
GLOSSARY ★ A-61
residents of “insular” territories acquired by the United States in the Spanish- American War, such as Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
Interstate Commerce Commission Organization established by Congress, in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rul- ing in Wabash Railroad v. Illinois (1886), in order to curb abuses in the railroad indus- try by regulating rates.
interstate highway system National network of interstate superhighways; its construction began in the late 1950s for the purpose of commerce and defense. The interstate highways would enable the rapid movement of military convoys and the evacuation of cities after a nuclear attack.
Intolerable Acts Four parliamentary measures in reaction to the Boston Tea Party that forced payment for the tea, dis- allowed colonial trials of British soldiers, forced their quartering in private homes, and reduced the number of elected offi- cials in Massachusetts.
Iran- Contra Affair Scandal of the second Reagan administration involving sales of arms to Iran in partial exchange for release of hostages in Lebanon and use of the arms money to aid the Contras in Nic- aragua, which had been expressly forbid- den by Congress.
Iraq War Military campaign in 2003 in which the United States, unable to gain approval by the United Nations, unilater- ally occupied Iraq and removed dictator Saddam Hussein from power.
iron curtain Term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the Cold War divide between western Europe and the Soviet Union’s eastern European satellites.
ISIS An insurgency that emerged from the sectarian civil wars that destabilized Syria and post– Saddam Hussein Iraq. Beginning in 2014, ISIS forces attacked towns and cities in Iraq, Syria, and Lybia,
British and colonial ports who were then forced to serve in the British navy.
“In God We Trust” Phrase placed on all new U.S. currency as of 1954.
indentured servants Settlers who signed on for a temporary period of servitude to a master in exchange for passage to the New World; Virginia and Pennsylvania were largely peopled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by English and German indentured servants.
Indian New Deal Phrase that refers to the reforms implemented for Native Americans during the New Deal era. John Collier, the commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), increased the access Native Americans had to relief programs and employed more Native Americans at the BIA. He worked to pass the Indian Reorganization Act. However, the ver- sion of the act passed by Congress was a much diluted version of Collier’s original proposal and did not greatly improve the lives of Native Americans.
Indian Removal Act 1830 law signed by President Andrew Jackson that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain the Indians’ lands in exchange for their relo- cation to what would become Oklahoma.
individualism Term that entered the lan- guage in the 1820s to describe the increas- ing emphasis on the pursuit of personal advancement and private fulfillment free of outside interference.
Industrial Workers of the World Rad- ical union organized in Chicago in 1905 and nicknamed the Wobblies; its opposi- tion to World War I led to its destruction by the federal government under the Espi- onage Act.
inflation An economic condition in which prices rise continuously.
Insular Cases Series of cases between 1901 and 1904 in which the Supreme Court ruled that constitutional protection of individual rights did not fully apply to
A-62 ★ GLOSSARY
Englanders and the dispossession of the region’s Indians.
Knights of Labor Founded in 1869, the first national union; lasted, under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly, only into the 1890s; supplanted by the Ameri- can Federation of Labor.
Know- Nothing Party Nativist, anti- Catholic third party organized in 1854 in reaction to large- scale German and Irish immigration; the party’s only presidential candidate was Millard Fillmore in 1856.
Korean War Conflict touched off in 1950 when Communist North Korea invaded South Korea; fighting, largely by U.S. forces, continued until 1953.
Korematsu v. United States 1944 Supreme Court case that found Execu- tive Order 9066 to be constitutional. Fred Korematsu, an American- born citizen of Japanese descent, defied the military order that banned all persons of Japanese ances- try from designated western coastal areas. The Court upheld Korematsu’s arrest and internment.
Ku Klux Klan Group organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 to terrorize former slaves who voted and held political offices during Reconstruction; a revived organization in the 1910s and 1920s that stressed white, Anglo- Saxon, fundamen- talist Protestant supremacy; revived a third time to fight the civil rights move- ment of the 1950s and 1960s in the South.
Kyoto Protocol A 1997 international agreement that sought to combat global warming. To great controversy, the Bush administration announced in 2001 that it would not abide by the Kyoto Protocol.
Las Casas, Bartolomé de A Catholic mis- sionary who renounced the Spanish prac- tice of coercively converting Indians and advocated their better treatment. In 1552, he wrote A Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indies, which described the Spanish’s cruel treatment of the Indians.
systematically murdering members of ethnic and religious minorities.
isolationism The desire to avoid for- eign entanglements that dominated the U.S. Congress in the 1930s; begin- ning in 1935, lawmakers passed a series of Neutrality Acts that banned travel on belligerents’ ships and the sale of arms to countries at war.
Japanese- American internment Policy adopted by the Roosevelt administration in 1942 under which 110,000 persons of Japanese descent, most of them Ameri- can citizens, were removed from the West Coast and forced to spend most of World War II in internment camps; it was the largest violation of American civil liber- ties in the twentieth century.
Jay’s Treaty Treaty with Britain nego- tiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay; Britain agreed to vacate forts in the North- west Territories, and festering disagree- ments (border with Canada, prewar debts, shipping claims) would be settled by commission.
Kansas Exodus A migration in 1879 and 1880 by some 40,000–60,000 blacks to Kansas to escape the oppressive environ- ment of the New South.
Kansas- Nebraska Act 1854 law spon- sored by Illinois senator Stephen A. Doug- las to allow settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the resulting repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican Party.
“King Cotton diplomacy” An attempt during the Civil War by the South to encourage British intervention by ban- ning cotton exports.
King Philip’s War A multiyear conflict that began in 1675 with an Indian upris- ing against white colonists. Its end result was broadened freedoms for white New
GLOSSARY ★ A-63
erty by limiting the power of government to interfere with the natural rights of cit- izens; in the twentieth century, belief in an activist government promoting greater social and economic equality.
liberty of contract A judicial concept of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whereby the courts overturned laws regulating labor conditions as vio- lations of the economic freedom of both employers and employees.
Liberty Party Abolitionist political party that nominated James G. Birney for pres- ident in 1840 and 1844; merged with the Free Soil Party in 1848.
Lincoln- Douglas debates Series of sena- torial campaign debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slavery in the territories; held in Illinois between Republican Abra- ham Lincoln, who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, who managed to hold on to his seat.
the Little Bighorn, Battle of Most famous battle of the Great Sioux War; took place in 1876 in the Montana Territory; combined Sioux and Cheyenne warriors massacred a vastly outnumbered U.S. Cav- alry commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
Long Telegram A telegram by Amer- ican diplomat George Kennan in 1946 outlining his views of the Soviet Union that eventually inspired the policy of containment.
Lord Dunmore’s proclamation A proc- lamation issued in 1775 by the earl of Dunmore, the British governor of Vir- ginia, that offered freedom to any slave who fought for the king against the rebel- ling colonists.
Lords of Trade An English regulatory board established to oversee colonial affairs in 1675.
the Lost Cause A romanticized view of slavery, the Old South, and the
League of Nations Organization of nations to mediate disputes and avoid war established after World War I as part of the Treaty of Versailles; President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” speech to Con- gress in 1918 proposed the formation of the league, which the United States never joined.
League of United Latin American Cit- izens Often called LULAC, an organiza- tion that challenged restrictive housing, employment discrimination, and other inequalities faced by Latino Americans.
Lend- Lease Act 1941 law that permitted the United States to lend or lease arms and other supplies to the Allies, signify- ing increasing likelihood of American involvement in World War II.
Letters from an American Farmer 1782 book by Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur that popularized the notion that the United States was a “melting pot” while excluding people of color from the pro- cess of assimilation.
Levittown Low- cost, mass- produced developments of suburban tract housing built by William Levitt after World War II on Long Island and elsewhere.
Lewis and Clark expedition Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a mission to the Pacific coast commissioned for the purposes of scientific and geo- graphical exploration.
Lexington and Concord, Battles of The first shots fired in the Revolutionary War, on April 19, 1775, near Boston; approxi- mately 100 minutemen and 250 British soldiers were killed.
liberal internationalism Woodrow Wil- son’s foreign policy theory, which rested on the idea that economic and political freedom went hand in hand, and encour- aged American intervention abroad in order to secure these freedoms globally.
liberalism Originally, political philoso- phy that emphasized the protection of lib-
A-64 ★ GLOSSARY
the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Marshall Plan U.S. program for the reconstruction of post– World War II Europe through massive aid to former enemy nations as well as allies; proposed by General George C. Marshall in 1947.
massive retaliation Strategy that used the threat of nuclear warfare as a means of combating the global spread of communism.
maternalist reforms Progressive- era reforms that sought to encourage women’s child- bearing and -rearing abilities and to promote their economic independence.
Mayflower Compact Document signed in 1620 aboard the Mayflower before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth; the docu- ment committed the group to majority- rule government.
McCarran- Walter Act Immigration legislation passed in 1952 that allowed the government to deport immigrants who had been identified as communists, regardless of whether or not they were citizens.
McCarthyism Post– World War II Red Scare focused on the fear of Communists in U.S. government positions; peaked during the Korean War; most closely associated with Joseph McCarthy, a major instigator of the hysteria.
McCulloch v. Maryland 1819 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice John Marshall, holding that Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of the United States, supported the authority of the federal government versus the states.
McNary- Haugen bill Vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927 and 1928, the bill to aid farmers that would have artificially raised agricultural prices by selling sur- pluses overseas for low prices and selling the reduced supply in the United States for higher prices.
Confederacy that arose in the decades fol- lowing the Civil War.
Louisiana Purchase President Thomas Jefferson’s 1803 purchase from France of the important port of New Orleans and 828,000 square miles west of the Missis- sippi River to the Rocky Mountains; it more than doubled the territory of the United States at a cost of only $15 million.
Loyalists Colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the War of Independence.
Lusitania British passenger liner sunk by a German U- boat, May 7, 1915, creating a diplomatic crisis and public outrage at the loss of 128 Americans (roughly 10 per- cent of the total aboard); Germany agreed to pay reparations, and the United States waited two more years to enter World War I.
lynching Practice, particularly wide- spread in the South between 1890 and 1940, in which persons (usually black) accused of a crime were murdered by mobs before standing trial. Lynchings often took place before large crowds, with law enforcement authorities not intervening.
Manhattan Project Secret American pro- gram during World War II to develop an atomic bomb; J. Robert Oppenheimer led the team of physicists at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
manifest destiny Phrase first used in 1845 to urge annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage American settle- ment of European colonial and Indian lands in the Great Plains and the West and, more generally, as a justification for American empire.
Marbury v. Madison First U.S. Supreme Court decision to declare a federal law— the Judiciary Act of 1801— unconstitutional.
March on Washington Civil rights demonstration on August 28, 1963, where
GLOSSARY ★ A-65
mill girls Women who worked at textile mills during the Industrial Revolution who enjoyed new freedoms and indepen- dence not seen before.
missile gap The claim, raised by John F. Kennedy during his campaign for president in 1960, that the Soviet Union had developed a technological and mil- itary advantage during Eisenhower’s presidency.
Missouri Compromise Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay in 1820 to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missou- ri’s admission as a slave state; Maine’s admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remain- der of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri.
Monroe Doctrine President James Mon- roe’s declaration to Congress on Decem- ber 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs.
Montgomery bus boycott Sparked by Rosa Parks’s arrest on December 1, 1955, for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger, a successful year- long boycott protesting segregation on city buses; led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
moral imperialism The Wilsonian belief that U.S. foreign policy should be guided by morality, and should teach other peo- ples about democracy. Wilson used this belief to both repudiate Dollar Diplomacy and justify frequent military interven- tions in Latin America.
moral suasion The abolitionist strategy that sought to end slavery by persuading both slaveowners and complicit northern- ers that the institution was evil.
muckraking Writing that exposed cor- ruption and abuses in politics, business, meatpacking, child labor, and more,
mercantilism Policy of Great Britain and other imperial powers of regulating the economies of colonies to benefit the mother country.
mestizos Spanish word for persons of mixed Native American and European ancestry.
Metacom The chief of the Wampanoags, whom the colonists called King Philip. He resented English efforts to convert Indians to Christianity and waged a war against the English colonists, one in which he was killed.
métis Children of marriages between Indian women and French traders and officials.
Mexican War Controversial war with Mexico for control of California and New Mexico, 1846–1848; the Treaty of Guada- lupe Hidalgo fixed the border at the Rio Grande and extended the United States to the Pacific coast, annexing more than a half- million square miles of Mexican territory.
middle ground A borderland between European empires and Indian sovereignty where various native peoples and Europe- ans lived side by side in relative harmony.
Middle Passage The hellish and often deadly middle leg of the transatlantic “Tri- angular Trade” in which European ships carried manufactured goods to Africa, then transported enslaved Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean, and finally conveyed American agricultural products back to Europe; from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, some 12 million Africans were transported via the Middle Passage, unknown millions more dying en route.
military- industrial complex The con- cept of “an immense military establish- ment” combined with a “permanent arms industry,” which President Eisenhower warned against in his 1961 Farewell Address.
A-66 ★ GLOSSARY
National Defense Education Act 1958 law passed in reaction to America’s perceived inferiority in the space race; encouraged education in science and modern languages through student loans, university research grants, and aid to pub- lic schools.
National Industrial Recovery Act 1933 law passed on the last of the Hundred Days; it created public- works jobs through the Federal Emergency Relief Admin- istration and established a system of self- regulation for industry through the National Recovery Administration, which was ruled unconstitutional in 1935.
National Organization for Women Organization founded in 1966 by writer Betty Friedan and other feminists; it pushed for abortion rights, nondiscrimi- nation in the workplace, and other forms of equality for women.
National Recovery Administration (NRA) Controversial federal agency cre- ated in 1933 that brought together busi- ness and labor leaders to create “codes of fair competition” and “fair labor” policies, including a national minimum wage.
nativism Anti- immigrant and anti- Catholic feeling especially prominent in the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group of its proponents was New York’s Order of the Star- Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American ( Know- Nothing) Party in 1854.
Navajo’s Long Walk The forced removal of 8,000 Navajos from their lands by Union forces to a reservation in the 1860s.
Navigation Act Law passed by the English Parliament to control colonial trade and bolster the mercantile system, 1650–1775; enforcement of the act led to growing resentment by colonists.
neoconservatives The leaders of the con- servative insurgency of the early 1980s. Their brand of conservatism was person- ified in Ronald Reagan, who believed in
primarily in the first decade of the twen- tieth century; included popular books and magazine articles that spurred public interest in reform.
Muller v. Oregon 1908 Supreme Court decision that held that state interest in protecting women could override liberty of contract. Louis D. Brandeis, with help from his sister- in- law Josephine Gold- mark of the National Consumers League, filed a brief in Muller that used statistics about women’s health to argue for their protection.
multiculturalism Term that became prominent in the 1990s to describe a growing emphasis on group racial and ethnic identity and demands that jobs, education, and politics reflect the increasingly diverse nature of American society.
Murray, Judith Sargent A writer and early feminist thinker prominent in the years following the American Revolution.
My Lai massacre Massacre of 347 Viet- namese civilians in the village of My Lai by Lieutenant William Calley and troops under his command. U.S. army officers covered up the massacre for a year until an investigation uncovered the events. Eventually twenty- five army officers were charged with complicity in the massacre and its cover- up, but only Calley was con- victed. He served little time for his crimes.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion Most import- ant slave uprising in nineteenth- century America, led by a slave preacher who, with his followers, killed about sixty white persons in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.
National Association for the Advance- ment of Colored People Founded in 1910, the civil rights organization that brought lawsuits against discrimina- tory practices and published The Crisis, a journal edited by African- American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois.
GLOSSARY ★ A-67
for one legislative body with equal repre- sentation for each state.
New Left Radical youth protest move- ment of the 1960s, named by leader Tom Hayden to distinguish it from the Old ( Marxist- Leninist) Left of the 1930s.
New Nationalism Platform of the Pro- gressive Party and slogan of former president Theodore Roosevelt in the pres- idential campaign of 1912; stressed gov- ernment activism, including regulation of trusts, conservation, and recall of state court decisions that had nullified progres- sive programs.
New Negro Term used in the 1920s, in reference to a slow and steady growth of black political influence that occurred in northern cities, where African- Americans were freer to speak and act. This political activity created a spirit of protest that expressed itself culturally in the Har- lem Renaissance and politically in “new Negro” nationalism.
New Orleans, Battle of Last battle of the War of 1812, fought on January 8, 1815, weeks after the peace treaty was signed but prior to the news’ reaching America; General Andrew Jackson led the victori- ous American troops.
New South Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady’s 1886 term for the pros- perous post– Civil War South he envi- sioned: democratic, industrial, urban, and free of nostalgia for the defeated planta- tion South.
new world order President George H. W. Bush’s term for the post– Cold War world.
Ninety- Five Theses The list of moral griev- ances against the Catholic Church by Mar- tin Luther, a German priest, in 1517.
“no taxation without representa- tion” The rallying cry of opponents to the 1765 Stamp Act. The slogan decried the colonists’ lack of representation in Parliament.
less government, supply- side economics, and “family values.”
Neolin A Native American religious prophet who, by preaching pan- Indian unity and rejection of European technol- ogy and commerce, helped inspire Ponti- ac’s Rebellion.
Neutrality Acts Series of laws passed between 1935 and 1939 to keep the United States from becoming involved in war by prohibiting American trade and travel to warring nations.
New Deal Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cam- paign promise, in his speech to the Dem- ocratic National Convention of 1932, to combat the Great Depression with a “new deal for the American people”; the phrase became a catchword for his ambitious plan of economic programs.
new feminism A new aspect of the wom- en’s rights movement that arose in the early part of the twentieth century. New feminism added a focus on individual and sexual freedom to the movement, and introduced the word “feminism” into American life.
New Freedom Democrat Woodrow Wil- son’s political slogan in the presidential campaign of 1912; Wilson wanted to improve the banking system, lower tar- iffs, and, by breaking up monopolies, give small businesses freedom to compete.
New Harmony Community founded in Indiana by British industrialist Robert Owen in 1825; the short- lived New Har- mony Community of Equality was one of the few nineteenth- century commu- nal experiments not based on religious ideology.
new immigrants Wave of newcom- ers from southern and eastern Europe, including many Jews, who became a majority among immigrants to America after 1890.
New Jersey Plan New Jersey’s delegation to the Constitutional Convention’s plan
A-68 ★ GLOSSARY
by Middle Eastern producers, in Octo- ber 1973 in response to U.S. and western European support for Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The rise in gas prices and fuel shortages resulted in a global eco- nomic recession and profoundly affected the American economy.
Oneida Utopian community founded in 1848; the Perfectionist religious group practiced “complex marriage” under leader John Humphrey Noyes.
Open Door Policy Demand in 1899 by Secretary of State John Hay, in hopes of protecting the Chinese market for U.S. exports, that Chinese trade be open to all nations.
open immigration American immigra- tion laws under which nearly all white people could immigrate to the United States and become naturalized citizens.
Operation Dixie CIO’s largely ineffective post– World War II campaign to unionize southern workers.
Ordinance of 1784 A law drafted by Thomas Jefferson that regulated land ownership and defined the terms by which western land would be marketed and settled; it established stages of self- government for the West. First Congress would govern a territory; then the terri- tory would be admitted to the Union as a full state.
Ordinance of 1785 A law that regulated land sales in the Old Northwest. The land surveyed was divided into 640-acre plots and sold at $1 per acre.
Oslo Accords 1993 roadmap for peace between Israel and the newly created Pal- estinian Authority, negotiated under the Clinton administration.
Panama Canal Zone The small strip of land on either side of the Panama Canal. The Canal Zone was under U.S. control from 1903 to 1979 as a result of Theodore Roosevelt’s assistance in engineering a
North American Free Trade Agree- ment (NAFTA) Approved in 1993, the agreement with Canada and Mexico that allowed goods to travel across their bor- ders free of tariffs. Critics of the agreement argued that American workers would lose their jobs to cheaper Mexican labor.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance founded in 1949 by ten western European nations, the United States, and Canada to deter Soviet expan- sion in Europe.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787 Law that created the Northwest Territory (area north of the Ohio River and west of Penn- sylvania), established conditions for self- government and statehood, included a Bill of Rights, and permanently prohibited slavery.
Notes on the State of Virginia Thomas Jefferson’s 1785 book that claimed, among other things, that black people were inca- pable of becoming citizens and living in harmony alongside white people due to the legacy of slavery and what Jefferson believed were the “real distinctions that nature has made” between races.
NSC- 68 Top- secret policy paper approved by President Truman in 1950 that out- lined a militaristic approach to combating the spread of global communism.
nullification crisis The 1832 attempt by the State of South Carolina to nul- lify, or invalidate within its borders, the 1832 federal tariff law. President Jackson responded with the Force Act of 1833.
Obergefell v. Hodges 2015 Supreme Court decision that allowed same- sex couples to marry throughout the United States.
Occupy Wall Street A grassroots move- ment in 2011 against growing economic inequality, declining opportunity, and the depredations of Wall Street banks.
oil embargo Prohibition on trade in oil declared by the Organization of Petro- leum Exporting Countries, dominated
GLOSSARY ★ A-69
Philippine War American military cam- paign that suppressed the movement for Philippine independence after the Spanish- American War; America’s death toll was over 4,000 and the Philippines’ was far higher.
Pilgrims Puritan separatists who broke completely with the Church of England and sailed to the New World aboard the Mayflower, founding Plymouth Colony on Cape Cod in 1620.
plantation An early word for a colony, a settlement “planted” from abroad among an alien population in Ireland or the New World. Later, a large agricultural enter- prise that used unfree labor to produce a crop for the world market.
Platt Amendment 1901 amendment to the Cuban constitution that reserved the United States’ right to intervene in Cuban affairs and forced newly independent Cuba to host American naval bases on the island.
Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting the legality of Jim Crow laws that permitted or required “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites.
Pontiac’s Rebellion An Indian attack on British forts and settlements after France ceded to the British its territory east of the Mississippi River, as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, without consulting France’s Indian allies.
Popular Front A period during the mid- 1930s when the Communist Party sought to ally itself with socialists and New Deal- ers in movements for social change, urg- ing reform of the capitalist system rather than revolution.
popular sovereignty Program that allowed settlers in a disputed territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves; most closely associated with Senator Ste- phen A. Douglas of Illinois.
Populists Founded in 1892, a group that advocated a variety of reform issues,
coup in Colombia that established Pana- ma’s independence.
Panic of 1819 Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declin- ing demand for American exports, and reckless western land speculation.
Panic of 1837 Beginning of major eco- nomic depression lasting about six years; touched off by a British financial crisis and made worse by falling cotton prices, credit and currency problems, and specu- lation in land, canals, and railroads.
paternalism A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century that claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own “good.” Such a rationalization was adopted by some slaveowners to justify slavery.
the “peculiar institution” A phrase used by whites in the antebellum South to refer to slavery without using the word “slavery.”
Pentagon Papers Informal name for the Defense Department’s secret history of the Vietnam conflict; leaked to the press by former official Daniel Ellsberg and published in the New York Times in 1971.
Pequot War An armed conflict in 1637 that led to the destruction of one of New England’s most powerful Indian groups.
perfectionism The idea that social ills once considered incurable could in fact be eliminated, popularized by the religious revivalism of the nineteenth century.
Perry, Commodore Matthew U.S. naval officer who negotiated the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854. That treaty was the first step in starting a political and com- mercial relationship between the United States and Japan.
pet banks Local banks that received deposits while the charter of the Bank of the United States was about to expire in 1836. The choice of these banks was influenced by political and personal connections.
A-70 ★ GLOSSARY
ently inferior to white people, as well as the belief that slavery, in creating a perma- nent underclass of laborers, made freedom possible for whites. Other elements of the argument included biblical citations.
Public Works Administration A New Deal agency that contracted with private construction companies to build roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and other pub- lic facilities.
Pueblo Revolt Uprising in 1680 in which Pueblo Indians temporarily drove Spanish colonists out of modern- day New Mexico.
Pure Food and Drug Act Passed in 1906, the first law to regulate manufacturing of food and medicines; prohibited dangerous additives and inaccurate labeling.
Puritans English religious group that sought to purify the Church of England; founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop in 1630.
Radical Republicans Group within the Republican Party in the 1850s and 1860s that advocated strong resistance to the expansion of slavery, opposition to com- promise with the South in the secession crisis of 1860–1861, emancipation and arming of black soldiers during the Civil War, and equal civil and political rights for blacks during Reconstruction.
Reagan Revolution The rightward turn of American politics following the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan Revolution made individual “freedom” a rallying cry for the right.
Reaganomics Popular name for President Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of “supply side” economics, which combined tax cuts with an unregulated marketplace.
reconquista The “reconquest” of Spain from the Moors completed by King Ferdi- nand and Queen Isabella in 1492.
Reconstruction Act 1867 law that estab- lished temporary military governments in ten Confederate states— excepting Tennessee— and required that the states
including free coinage of silver, income tax, postal savings, regulation of railroads, and direct election of U.S. senators.
Porkopolis Nickname of Cincinnati, coined in the mid- nineteenth century, after its numerous slaughter houses.
Port Huron Statement A manifesto by Students for a Democratic Society that criticized institutions ranging from polit- ical parties to corporations, unions, and the military- industrial complex, while offering a new vision of social change.
Potsdam conference Last meeting of the major Allied powers; the conference that took place outside Berlin from July 17 to August 2, 1945, at which U.S. president Harry Truman, Soviet dictator Joseph Sta- lin, and British prime minister Clement Attlee finalized plans begun at Yalta.
Proclamation of 1763 Royal directive issued after the French and Indian War prohibiting settlement, surveys, and land grants west of the Appalachian Moun- tains; caused considerable resentment among colonists hoping to move west.
Progressive Party Political party created when former president Theodore Roo- sevelt broke away from the Republican Party to run for president again in 1912; the party supported progressive reforms similar to those of the Democrats but stopped short of seeking to eliminate trusts. Also the name of the party backing Robert La Follette for president in 1924.
Progressivism Broad- based reform movement, 1900–1917, that sought gov- ernmental action in solving problems in many areas of American life, including education, public health, the economy, the environment, labor, transportation, and politics.
proslavery argument The series of argu- ments defending the institution of slavery in the South as a positive good, not a nec- essary evil. The arguments included the racist belief that black people were inher-
GLOSSARY ★ A-71
Revolution of 1800 First time that an American political party surrendered power to the opposition party; Jefferson, a Republican, had defeated incumbent Adams, a Federalist, for president.
Roanoke colony English expedition of 117 settlers, including Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World; the colony disappeared from Roa- noke Island in the Outer Banks sometime between 1587 and 1590.
robber barons Also known as “captains of industry”; Gilded- Age industrial figures who inspired both admiration, for their economic leadership and innovation, and hostility and fear, due to their unscrupu- lous business methods, repressive labor practices, and unprecedented economic control over entire industries.
Roe v. Wade 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring states to permit first- trimester abortions.
Roosevelt Corollary 1904 Announce- ment by President Theodore Roosevelt, essentially a corollary to the Monroe Doc- trine, that the United States could inter- vene militarily to prevent interference from European powers in the Western Hemisphere.
Rwandan genocide 1994 Genocide con- ducted by the Hutu ethnic group upon the Tutsi minority in Rwanda.
Sacco- Vanzetti case A case held during the 1920s in which two Italian- American anarchists were found guilty and exe- cuted for a crime in which there was very little evidence linking them to the partic- ular crime.
Salem witch trials A crisis of trials and executions in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 that resulted from anxiety over witchcraft.
salutary neglect Informal British pol- icy during the first half of the eighteenth century that allowed the American col- onies considerable freedom to pursue
ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and permit freedmen to vote.
Reconstruction Finance Corpora- tion Federal program established in 1932 under President Herbert Hoover to loan money to banks and other institutions to help them avert bankruptcy.
Red Scare of 1919–1920 Fear among many Americans after World War I of Communists in particular and nonciti- zens in general, a reaction to the Russian Revolution, mail bombs, strikes, and riots.
Redeemers Post– Civil War Democratic leaders who supposedly saved the South from Yankee domination and preserved the primarily rural economy.
redemptioners Indentured families or persons who received passage to the New World in exchange for a promise to work off their debt in America.
Regulators Groups of backcountry Car- olina settlers who protested colonial policies.
repartimiento system Spanish labor sys- tem under which Indians were legally free and able to earn wages but were also required to perform a fixed amount of labor yearly. Replaced the encomienda system.
republic Representative political system in which citizens govern themselves by electing representatives, or legislators, to make key decisions on the citizens’ behalf.
republican motherhood The ideology that emerged as a result of American inde- pendence where women played an indis- pensable role by training future citizens.
republicanism Political theory in eighteenth- century England and Amer- ica that celebrated active participation in public life by economically independent citizens as central to freedom.
reverse discrimination Belief that affir- mative action programs discriminate against white people.
A-72 ★ GLOSSARY
Scottsboro case Case in which nine black youths were convicted of raping two white women; in overturning the verdicts of this case, the Court established precedents in Powell v. Alabama (1932) that adequate counsel must be appointed in capital cases, and in Norris v. Alabama (1935) that African- Americans cannot be excluded from juries.
Sea Islands experiment The 1861 pre- Reconstruction social experiment that involved converting slave plantations into places where former slaves could work for wages or own land. Former slaves also received education and access to improved shelter and food.
Second American Revolution The trans- formation of American government and society brought about by the Civil War.
Second Great Awakening Religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction to the growth of secularism and rationalist reli- gion; began the predominance of the Bap- tist and Methodist Churches.
second Great Migration The move- ment of black migrants from the rural South to the cities of the North and West, which occurred from 1941 through World War II, that dwarfed the Great Migration of World War I.
Second Middle Passage The massive trade of slaves from the upper South (Vir- ginia and the Chesapeake) to the lower South (the Gulf states) that took place between 1820 and 1860.
Sedition Act 1918 law that made it a crime to make spoken or printed state- ments that criticized the U.S. government or encouraged interference with the war effort.
Selective Service Act Law passed in 1917 to quickly increase enlistment in the army for the United States’ entry into World War I; required men to register with the draft.
their economic and political interests in exchange for colonial obedience.
Sanitary Fairs Fund- raising bazaars led by women on behalf of Civil War soldiers. The fairs offered items such as uniforms and banners, as well as other emblems of war.
Santa Anna, Antonio López de The mil- itary leader who, in 1834, seized political power in Mexico and became a dictator. In 1835, Texans rebelled against him, and he led his army to Texas to crush their rebel- lion. He captured the missionary called the Alamo and killed all of its defenders, which inspired Texans to continue their resistance and Americans to volunteer to fight for Texas. The Texans captured Santa Anna during a surprise attack, and he bought his freedom by signing a treaty recognizing Texas’s independence.
Saratoga, Battle of Major defeat of Brit- ish general John Burgoyne and more than 5,000 British troops at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777.
scalawags Southern white Republicans— some former Unionists— who supported Reconstruction governments.
Schenck v. United States 1919 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the wartime Espionage and Sedition Acts; in the opinion he wrote for the case, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes set the now- familiar “clear and present danger” standard.
scientific management Management campaign to improve worker efficiency using measurements like “time and motion” studies to achieve greater produc- tivity; introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911.
Scopes trial 1925 trial of John Scopes, Tennessee teacher accused of violating state law prohibiting teaching of the theory of evolution; it became a nationally celebrated confrontation between reli- gious fundamentalism and civil liberties.
GLOSSARY ★ A-73
worker an annual income of $2,500. It also promised to provide pensions, reduce working hours, and pay veterans’ bonuses and ensured a college education to every qualified student.
sharecropping Type of farm tenancy that developed after the Civil War in which landless workers— often former slaves— farmed land in exchange for farm supplies and a share of the crop.
Shays’s Rebellion Attempt by Massa- chusetts farmer Daniel Shays and 1,200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, to prevent courts from seizing prop- erty from indebted farmers.
Sherman Antitrust Act Passed in 1890, first law to restrict monopolistic trusts and business combinations; extended by the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914.
Silent Spring A 1962 book by biologist Rachel Carson about the destructive impact of the widely used insecticide DDT that launched the modern environmen- talist movement.
single tax Concept of taxing only land- owners as a remedy for poverty, promul- gated by Henry George in Progress and Poverty (1879).
sit- down strike Tactic adopted by labor unions in the mid- and late 1930s, whereby striking workers refused to leave factories, making production impossible; proved highly effective in the organizing drive of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
sit- ins Tactic adopted by young civil rights activists, beginning in 1960, of demanding service at lunch counters or public accom- modations and refusing to leave if denied access; marked the beginning of the most militant phase of the civil rights struggle.
Sixteenth Amendment Constitutional amendment passed in 1913 that legalized the federal income tax.
“separate but equal” Principle under- lying legal racial segregation, upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and struck down in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
separation of powers Feature of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes called “checks and balances,” in which power is divided between executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the national gov- ernment so that no one can dominate the other two and endanger citizens’ liberties.
Serra, Father Junípero Missionary who began and directed the California mission system in the 1770s and 1780s. Serra pre- sided over the conversion of many Indians to Christianity, but also engaged them in forced labor.
settlement house Late- nineteenth- century movement to offer a broad array of social services in urban immigrant neighborhoods; Chicago’s Hull House was one of hundreds of settlement houses that operated by the early twentieth century.
Seven Years’ War The last— and most important— of four colonial wars fought between England and France for control of North America east of the Mississippi River.
Seventeenth Amendment Progressive reform passed in 1913 that required U.S. senators to be elected directly by voters; previously, senators were chosen by state legislatures.
Shakers Religious sect founded by Mother Ann Lee in England. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing settled in Watervliet, New York, in 1774, and subsequently established eighteen additional communes in the Northeast, Indiana, and Kentucky.
Share Our Wealth movement Program offered by Huey Long as an alternative to the New Deal. The program proposed to confiscate large personal fortunes, which would be used to guarantee every poor family a cash grant of $5,000 and every
A-74 ★ GLOSSARY
influence in 1912 when presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs received over 900,000 votes.
Society of American Indians Orga- nization founded in 1911 that brought together Native American intellectuals of many tribal backgrounds to promote discussion of the plight of Indian peoples.
Society of Friends (Quakers) Religious group in England and America whose members believed all persons possessed the “inner light” or spirit of God; they were early proponents of abolition of slav- ery and equal rights for women.
soft money and hard money In the 1830s, “soft money” referred to paper currency issued by banks. “Hard money” referred to gold and silver currency— also called specie.
Sons of Liberty Organizations formed by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radicals in response to the Stamp Act.
Sotomayor, Sonia First Supreme Court Justice of Hispanic descent. Justice Soto- mayor was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009.
Southern Christian Leadership Con- ference (SCLC) Civil rights organization founded in 1957 by the Reverend Mar- tin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.
Southern Manifesto A document writ- ten in 1956 that repudiated the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Educa- tion and supported the campaign against racial integration in public places.
spoils system The term meaning the fill- ing of federal government jobs with per- sons loyal to the party of the president; originated in Andrew Jackson’s first term.
Sputnik First artificial satellite to orbit the earth; launched October 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union.
stagflation A combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation pres- ent during the 1970s.
the Slave Power The Republican and abo- litionist term for proslavery dominance of southern and national governments.
Smith, John A swashbuckling soldier of fortune with rare powers of leadership and self- promotion who was appointed to the resident council to manage Jamestown.
Smoot- Hawley Tariff 1930 act that raised tariffs to an unprecedented level and wors- ened the Great Depression by raising prices and discouraging foreign trade.
Snowden, Edward An NSA contractor turned whistleblower, who released clas- sified information relating to the United States’ intelligence gathering both at home and abroad.
social contract Agreement hammered out between labor and management in leading industries; called a new “social contract.” Unions signed long- term agree- ments that left decisions regarding capital investment, plant location, and output in management’s hands, and they agreed to try to prevent unauthorized “wildcat” strikes.
Social Darwinism Application of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selec- tion to society; used the concept of the “survival of the fittest” to justify class dis- tinctions and to explain poverty.
Social Gospel Ideals preached by liberal Protestant clergymen in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries; advocated the application of Christian principles to social problems generated by industrialization.
Social Security Act 1935 law that created the Social Security system with provi- sions for a retirement pension, unemploy- ment insurance, disability insurance, and public assistance (welfare).
Socialist Party Political party demand- ing public ownership of major economic enterprises in the United States as well as reforms like recognition of labor unions and women’s suffrage; reached peak of
GLOSSARY ★ A-75
founded at the University of Michigan in 1960 by Tom Hayden and Al Haber.
suffrage The right to vote.
Sugar Act 1764 decision by Parliament to tax refined sugar and many other colonial products.
Sunbelt The label for an arc that stretched from the Carolinas to California. During the postwar era, much of the urban popu- lation growth occurred in this area.
Taft- Hartley Act 1947 law passed over President Harry Truman’s veto; the law contained a number of provisions to weaken labor unions, including the ban- ning of closed shops.
tariff of abominations Tariff passed in 1828 by Parliament that taxed imported goods at a very high rate; aroused strong opposition in the South.
Tariff of 1816 First true protective tar- iff, intended to protect certain American goods against foreign competition.
Tea Party A grassroots Republican move- ment that emerged in 2009 named for the Boston Tea Party of the 1770s. The Tea Party opposed the Obama adminis- tration’s sweeping legislative enactments and advocated for a more stringent immi- gration policy.
Teapot Dome Harding administration scandal in which Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall profited from secret leasing to private oil companies of government oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.
Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa Tecumseh— a leader of the Shawnee tribe who tried to unite all Indians into a con- federation to resist white encroachment on their lands. His beliefs and leader- ship made him seem dangerous to the American government. He was killed at the Battle of the Thames. His brother, Tenskwatawa— a religious prophet who called for complete separation from
Stamp Act Parliament’s 1765 require- ment that revenue stamps be affixed to all colonial printed matter, documents, and playing cards; the Stamp Act Congress met to formulate a response, and the act was repealed the following year.
staple crops Important cash crops; for example, cotton or tobacco.
steamboats Paddlewheelers that could travel both up- and down- river in deep or shallow waters; they became commer- cially viable early in the nineteenth cen- tury and soon developed into America’s first inland freight and passenger service network.
stock market crash Also known as Black Tuesday, a stock market panic in 1929 that resulted in the loss of more than $10 bil- lion in market value (worth approxi- mately ten times more today). One among many causes of the Great Depression.
Stonewall Inn A gathering place for New York’s gay community, the site of the 1969 police raids and resulting riots that launched the modern gay rights movement.
Stono Rebellion A slave uprising in 1739 in South Carolina that led to a severe tightening of the slave code and the tem- porary imposition of a prohibitive tax on imported slaves.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks 1972 talks between President Nixon and Sec- retary Brezhnev that resulted in the Stra- tegic Arms Limitation Treaty (or SALT), which limited the quantity of nuclear warheads each nation could possess, and prohibited the development of missile defense systems.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Organization founded in 1960 to coordinate civil rights sit- ins and other forms of grassroots protest.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Major organization of the New Left,
A-76 ★ GLOSSARY
irrevocably abolished slavery throughout the United States.
Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, site of 1979 accident that released radioactive steam into the air; public reaction ended the nuclear power industry’s expansion.
three- fifths clause A provision signed into the Constitution in 1787 that three- fifths of the slave population would be counted in determining each state’s repre- sentation in the House of Representatives and its electoral votes for president.
Title IX Part of the Educational Amend- ments Act of 1972 that banned gender dis- crimination in higher education.
totalitarianism The term that describes aggressive, ideologically driven states that seek to subdue all of civil society to their control, thus leaving no room for individ- ual rights or alternative values.
Townshend Acts 1767 parliamentary measures (named for the chancellor of the Exchequer) that taxed tea and other commodities, and established a Board of Customs Commissioners and colonial vice- admiralty courts.
Trail of Tears Cherokees’ own term for their forced removal, 1838–1839, from the Southeast to Indian lands (later Okla- homa); of 15,000 forced to march, 4,000 died on the way.
transcendentalists Philosophy of a small group of mid- nineteenth- century New England writers and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Tho- reau, and Margaret Fuller; they stressed personal and intellectual self- reliance.
transcontinental railroad First line across the continent from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, established in 1869 with the linkage of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads at Promontory, Utah.
Treaty of Greenville 1795 treaty under which twelve Indian tribes ceded most
whites, the revival of traditional Indian culture, and resistance to federal policies.
Tejanos Texas settlers of Spanish or Mexi- can descent.
temperance movement A widespread reform movement, led by militant Chris- tians, focused on reducing the use of alco- holic beverages.
Tennessee Valley Authority Administra- tive body created in 1933 to control flood- ing in the Tennessee River valley, provide work for the region’s unemployed, and produce inexpensive electric power for the region.
Tenochtitlán The capital city of the Aztec Empire. The city was built on marshy islands on the western side of Lake Tetz- coco, which is the site of present- day Mex- ico City.
Ten- Percent Plan of Reconstruc- tion President Lincoln’s proposal for reconstruction, issued in 1863, in which southern states would rejoin the Union if 10 percent of the 1860 electorate signed loyalty pledges, accepted emancipation, and had received presidential pardons.
Tenure of Office Act 1867 law that required the president to obtain Sen- ate approval to remove any official whose appointment had also required Senate approval; President Andrew John- son’s violation of the law by firing Secre- tary of War Edwin Stanton led to Johnson’s impeachment.
Tet offensive Surprise attack by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese during the Vietnamese New Year of 1968; turned American public opinion strongly against the war in Vietnam.
the Texas Revolt The 1830s rebellion of residents of the territory of Texas— many of them Americans emigrants— against Mexican control of the region.
Thirteenth Amendment Constitu- tional amendment adopted in 1865 that
GLOSSARY ★ A-77
allowed local governments and housing authorities to demolish so- called blighted areas in urban centers to replace them with more valuable real estate usually reserved for white people.
USA Patriot Act A 2001 mammoth bill that conferred unprecedented powers on law- enforcement agencies charged with preventing domestic terrorism, including the power to wiretap, read private mes- sages, and spy on citizens.
U.S.S. Maine Battleship that exploded in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, resulting in 266 deaths; the American public, assuming that the Spanish had mined the ship, clamored for war, and the Spanish- American War was declared two months later.
utopian communities Ideal communi- ties that offered innovative social and eco- nomic relationships to those who were interested in achieving salvation.
V- E Day May 8, 1945, the day World War II officially ended in Europe.
Versailles Treaty The treaty signed at the Versailles peace conference after World War I that established President Wood- row Wilson’s vision of an international regulating body, redrew parts of Europe and the Middle East, and assigned eco- nomically crippling war reparations to Germany, but failed to incorporate all of Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
vertical integration Company’s avoid- ance of middlemen by producing its own supplies and providing for distribution of its product.
Vicksburg, Battle of The fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, to General Ulysses S. Grant’s army on July 4, 1863, after two months of siege; a turning point in the war because it gave the Union con- trol of the Mississippi River.
Vietnam Syndrome The belief that the United States should be extremely cautious in deploying its military forces
of Ohio and Indiana to the federal gov- ernment, and which also established the “annuity” system.
Treaty of Paris Signed on September 3, 1783, the treaty that ended the Revolu- tionary War, recognized American inde- pendence from Britain, established the border between Canada and the United States, fixed the western border at the Mis- sissippi River, and ceded Florida to Spain.
Truman Doctrine President Harry S. Tru- man’s program announced in 1947 of aid to European countries— particularly Greece and Turkey— threatened by communism.
trusts Companies combined to limit competition.
Tubman, Harriet Abolitionist who was born a slave, escaped to the North, and then returned to the South nineteen times and guided 300 slaves to freedom.
Tulsa riot A race riot in 1921—the worst in American history— that occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after a group of black veterans tried to prevent a lynching. Over 300 African-Americans were killed, and 10,000 lost their homes in fires set by white mobs.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 antislavery novel that popu- larized the abolitionist position.
Underground Railroad Operating in the decades before the Civil War, a clan- destine system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the North.
United Nations Organization of nations to maintain world peace, established in 1945 and headquartered in New York.
Uprising of 1622 Unsuccessful uprising of Virginia Native Americans that wiped out one- quarter of the settler population, but ultimately led to the settlers gaining supremacy.
urban renewal A series of policies sup- ported by all levels of government that
A-78 ★ GLOSSARY
facilitated unionization by regulating employment and bargaining practices.
Walking Purchase An infamous 1737 purchase of Indian land in which Pennsyl- vanian colonists tricked the Lenni Lanape Indians. The Lanape agreed to cede land equivalent to the distance a man could walk in thirty- six hours, but the colo- nists marked out an area using a team of runners.
war in Afghanistan War fought against the Taliban and Al- Qaeda in Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11, 2001. It remains the longest war in Amer- ican history.
War Industries Board Board run by financier Bernard Baruch that planned production and allocation of war mate- riel, supervised purchasing, and fixed prices, 1917–1919.
War of 1812 War fought with Britain, 1812–1814, over issues that included impressment of American sailors, inter- ference with shipping, and collusion with Northwest Territory Indians; settled by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814.
War on Poverty Plan announced by Pres- ident Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 State of the Union address; under the Economic Opportunity Bill signed later that year, Head Start, VISTA, and the Jobs Corps were created, and programs were created for students, farmers, and businesses in efforts to eliminate poverty.
war on terrorism Global crusade to root out anti- American, anti- Western Islamist terrorist cells; launched by President George W. Bush as a response to the 9/11 attacks.
War Powers Act Law passed in 1973, reflecting growing opposition to Amer- ican involvement in the Vietnam War; required congressional approval before the president sent troops abroad.
Watergate Washington office and apartment complex that lent its name
overseas that emerged after the end of the Vietnam War.
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions Legislation passed in 1798 and 1799 by the Virginia and the Kentucky legislatures; written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the resolutions advanced the state- compact theory of the Consti- tution. Virginia’s resolution called on the federal courts to protect free speech. Jefferson’s draft for Kentucky stated that a state could nullify federal law, but this was deleted.
Virginia Company A joint- stock enter- prise that King James I chartered in 1606. The company was to spread Christianity in the New World as well as find ways to make a profit in it.
Virginia Plan Virginia’s delegation to the Constitutional Convention’s plan for a strong central government and a two- house legislature apportioned by population.
virtual representation The idea that the American colonies, although they had no actual representative in Parliament, were “virtually” represented by all members of Parliament.
Voting Rights Act Law passed in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Selma- to- Montgomery March in 1965; it autho- rized federal protection of the right to vote and permitted federal enforcement of minority voting rights in individual counties, mostly in the South.
Wade- Davis Bill Radical Republicans’ 1864 plan for reconstruction that required loyalty oaths, abolition of slavery, repudi- ation of war debts, and denial of political rights to high- ranking Confederate offi- cials; President Lincoln refused to sign the bill.
Wagner Act (National Labor Rela- tions Act of 1935) Law that established the National Labor Relations Board and
GLOSSARY ★ A-79
them. President Jackson refused to enforce the ruling.
Works Progress Administration (WPA) Part of the Second New Deal; it provided jobs for millions of the unem- ployed on construction and arts projects.
Wounded Knee massacre Last incident of the Indian Wars; it took place in 1890 in the Dakota Territory, where the U.S. Cav- alry killed over 200 Sioux men, women, and children.
writs of assistance One of the colonies’ main complaints against Britain; the writs allowed unlimited search warrants without cause to look for evidence of smuggling.
XYZ affair Affair in which French for- eign minister Talleyrand’s three anony- mous agents demanded payments to stop French plundering of American ships in 1797; refusal to pay the bribe was followed by two years of undeclared sea war with France (1798–1800).
Yalta conference Meeting of Frank- lin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin at a Crimean resort to dis- cuss the postwar world on February 4–11, 1945; Joseph Stalin claimed large areas in eastern Europe for Soviet domination.
Yamasee uprising Revolt of Yamasee and Creek Indians, aggravated by rising debts and slave traders’ raids, against Car- olina settlers. Resulted in the expulsion of many Indians to Florida.
yellow press Sensationalism in newspa- per publishing that reached a peak in the circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal in the 1890s; the papers’ accounts of events in Havana Harbor in 1898 led directly to the Spanish- American War.
yeoman farmers Small landowners (the majority of white families in the Old South) who farmed their own land and usually did not own slaves.
to the 1972–1974 scandal of the Nixon administration; when his knowledge of the break- in at the Watergate and sub- sequent cover- up were revealed, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment.
The Wealth of Nations The 1776 work by economist Adam Smith that argued that the “invisible hand” of the free mar- ket directed economic life more effec- tively and fairly than governmental intervention.
Webster- Hayne debate U.S. Senate debate of January 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina over nullifica- tion and states’ rights.
welfare state A term that originated in Britain during World War II to refer to a system of income assistance, health cover- age, and social services for all citizens.
Whiskey Rebellion Violent protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on whiskey, 1794.
Wilmot Proviso Proposal to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mex- ican War; defeated by southern senators, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, in 1846 and 1847.
Winthrop, John Puritan leader and gov- ernor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who resolved to use the colony as a refuge for persecuted Puritans and as an instru- ment of building a “wilderness Zion” in America.
woman suffrage Movement to give women the right to vote through a con- stitutional amendment, spearheaded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s National Woman Suffrage Association.
Worcester v. Georgia 1832 Supreme Court case that held that the Indian nations were distinct peoples who could not be dealt with by the states— instead, only the federal government could negotiate with
A-80 ★ GLOSSARY
instructing the minister to offer to recover Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona for Mex- ico if it would fight the United States to divert attention from Germany in the event that the United States joined the war.
zoot suit riots 1943 riots in which sail- ors on leave attacked Mexican- American youths.
Yorktown, Battle of Last battle of the Revolutionary War; General Lord Charles Cornwallis along with over 7,000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 17, 1781.
Zimmerman Telegram Telegram from the German foreign secretary to the Ger- man minister in Mexico, February 1917,
★ A-81
C R E D I T S
PHOTOS
Author photo: Flynn Larsen
Chapter 15: p. 567: Library of Congress; p. 572:
Digital Image © [year] Museum Associates
/ LACMA. Licensed by Art Resource, NY; p. 578: Kem-
per Leila Williams Foundation / The Historic New
Orleans Collection; p. 583: Library of Congress; p. 585:
Library of Congress; p. 589: Library of Congress;
p. 591: Library of Congress; p. 596: Niday Picture
Library / Alamy. Chapter 16: p. 613: Jacob A. (Jacob
August) Riis (1849-1914) / Museum of the City of
New York. 90.13.4.111A; p. 615: Bullock Texas State
History Museum, Austin TX; p. 625: Image copyright
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art
Resource, NY; p. 628 (both): Smithsonian Institution,
National Anthropological Archives; p. 637: Thomas
Pollock Anshutz, The Ironworker’s Noontime, 1880, oil on
canvas 17 x 23 7/8 (43.2 x 60.6 cm), © Fine Arts Museum
of San Francisco, Gift of Mr. And Mrs. John D. Rockefel-
ler 3rd, 1979.7.4; p. 640: bpk, Berlin / Art Resource,
NY; p. 646: L1987-06_2, 19th and Early 20th Cen-
tury Labor Prints, Southern Labor Archives. Special
Collections and Archives, Georgia State University
Library. Chapter 17: p. 654: Park, Milton, editor. The
Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 36, Ed.
1 Thursday, September 3, 1891, Newspaper, Septem-
ber 3, 1891; http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/
metapth185428/: accessed October 08, 2015), Univer-
sity of North Texas Library; p. 662: Library of Con-
gress; p. 665 (both): Library of Congress; p. 667:
Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society;
p. 671: National Archives; p. 680: Courtesy of the Ber-
nice Pauahi Bishop Museum Archives; p. 688: North
Wind Picture Archives / Alamy. Chapter 18: p. 695:
Library of Congress; p. 696: Library of Congress;
p. 697: Peter Roberts The New Immigrants, 1921, public
domain; p. 701: The Art Archive at Art Resource,
NY; p. 708: Brown Brothers; p. 714: Reprinted with
permission from Planned Parenthood ® Federation
of America, Inc. © 2004 PPFA. All rights reserved;
p. 716: Library of Congress; p. 721: Utah State Histor-
ical Society; p. 723: Courtesy of the Bancroft Library.
University of California, Berkeley; p. 726: Roosevelt
560.51 1903-115, Houghton Library, Harvard Uni-
versity; p. 730: Fotosearch / Getty Images. Chap-
ter 19: p. 749 (left): Library of Congress; (right): ©
Imperial War Museum (Art.IWM PST 6921); p. 754:
Jerry L. Thompson / Art Resource, NY; p. 763: Paris
Pierce / Alamy Stock Photo; p. 766: © 2016 The Jacob
and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle
/ Artist Rights Society (ARS) New York. Digital Image
© The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA /
Art Resource, NY; p. 770 (top): Courtesy of the author;
p. 775: Bettmann Corbis. Chapter 20: p. 780: Library
of Congress; p. 785: www.kansasmemory.org Kan-
sas State Historical Society, Copy and Reuse Restric-
tions Apply; p. 789 (both): Granger Collection; p. 794:
Library of Congress; p. 799: Paul Avrich Anarchism
Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division,
Library of Congress; p. 800: San Diego Museum of
Art / Bridgeman Images; p. 802: Washington State
Historical Society; p. 808: Photographs and Prints
Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Cul-
ture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and
Tilden Foundations. Art Resource, NY; p. 813: National
Archives; p. 814: John Tresilian / NY Daily News
Archive via Getty Images. Chapter 21: p. 831: High-
lander Research and Education Center, Tennessee;
p. 834: Library of Congress; p. 840: Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt Library; p. 847: Library of Congress; p. 849:
Library of Congress; p. 851: Library of Congress;
p. 857: Isaac Soyer, 1907-1981 Employment Agency, (1937)
Oil on canvas, 34 1/8 x 45 1/8in. (86.7 x 114.36 cm Whit-
ney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase
37.44 Digital image © Whitney Museum of American
Art, NY. Chapter 22: p. 864: Library of Congress;
p. 878: Courtesy Northwestern University Library;
p. 880: Courtesy of The WASP Archive, The TWU
Libraries Woman’s Collection, Texas Woman’s Uni-
versity, Denton, Texas; p. 886: Eileen Tweedy / The
Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; p. 896: Library of
Congress; p. 901: Library of Congress; p. 903: Ed
Clark / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images.
Chapter 23: p. 906: The Lincoln Highway National
Museum & Archives; p. 919: Michael Barson Collec-
tion; p. 925: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of Califor-
nia Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America
Project, Library of Congress; p. 928: Lake County Illi-
nois Discovery Museum, Curt Teich Postcard Archives;
p. 932: A H 1949 Herblock Cartoon, © The Herb Block
A-82 ★ CREDITS
Exchange: “Declaration for Global Democracy,” from
Global Exchange, Seattle, December 1999. Reprinted by
permission. Barry Goldwater: “Acceptance Speech to
the Republican National Convention (1964)”, from the
Barry M. Goldwater Papers, Arizona Historical Foun-
dation Collection, Arizona State University Libraries.
Reprinted by permission. Woody Guthrie: 6 lines from
“Roll On, Columbia,” Words by Woody Guthrie, Music
based on “Goodnight, Irene” by Huddie Ledbetter and
John Lomax. WGP/TRO @ Copyright 1936, 1957, 1963
(copyrights renewed). Woody Guthrie Publications,
Inc. & Ludlow Music, Inc. Reprinted by permission of
the publisher, TRO Essex Music Group. Martin Luther
King Jr.: “Meeting at Holt Street Church”, Reprinted by
arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin
Luther King Jr., c/o Writers house as agent for the pro-
prietor, New York, NY. Copyright © 1963 Martin Luther
King Jr.; Copyright © renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King.
Henry R. Luce: “The American Century,” Life Mag-
azine, February 17, 1941, pp. 22-31. Copyright © 1941
Time Inc. Reprinted from LIFE and published with
permission of Time Inc. Reproduction in any manner
in any language in whole or in part without written
permission is prohibited. LULAC News: “Editorial on
World War II and Mexican- Americans (1945)” from
LULAC News, Volume 12, October 1945. Reprinted by
permission of LULAC News. National Organization
for Women: Excerpts from “The National Organiza-
tion for Women’s 1966 Statement of Purpose,” by Betty
Friedan. Reprinted with permission of National Orga-
nization for Women. This is a historical document and
may not reflect the current language or priorities of the
organization. John Steinbeck: Excerpt from The Har-
vest Gypsies by John Steinbeck. Copyright © 1936 by The
San Francisco News. Reprinted by permission of Heyday
Books, Berkeley, California.
TABLES AND FIGURES Map 27.2: Map 1 from “Contemporary Immigrant
Gateways in Historical Perspective,” by Audrey
Singer. Daedalus, Summer 2013, Vol. 142, No. 3: 76–91.
Reprinted by permission of the author. Map 27.3: Map:
Where Each State’s Largest Immigrant Population Was
Born, from “From Germany to Mexico: How America’s
source of immigrants has changed over a century,”
by Jens Manuel Krogstad and Michael Keegan. Pew
Research Center, October 7, 2015. Reprinted by permis-
sion of Pew Research Center.
Foundation. Chapter 24: p. 942: Howard Sochurek
/ Time Life Pictures / Getty Images; p. 945: Hulton
Archive / Getty Images; p. 950: Advertising Archive;
p. 953: American Economic Foundation, “Man’s Belief
in God is Personal,” CU Libraries Exhibitions, accessed
February 22, 2013, https://exhibitions.cul.columbia.
edu/items/show/2829; p. 958: Library of Congress;
p. 964: AP Photo; p. 968: Burt Glinn / Magnum
Photos; p. 975: AP Photo; p. 978: © Gordon Parks
Foundation. Chapter 25: p. 986: (c) Cecil Williams;
p. 987: Bettmann / Corbis; p. 991: Photo by Carl
Mydans / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images; p. 996: ©
1965 Spider Martin; p. 1004: Courtesy of the Univer-
sity of Delaware Archives and Records Management;
p. 1012: Photograph by Gene Anthony. © Wolfgang’s
Vault, all rights reserved; p. 1016: Boston Globe via
Getty Images; p. 1018: Peter Hujar Archive, Alexan-
der Turbull Library, New Zealand; p. 1019: Denver
Public Library; p. 1022: © Grey Villet; p. 1025: ©
Dr. Ernest C. Withers, Sr. courtesy of the WITHERS
Family TRUST. Chapter 26: p. 1039: May 4 Collection.
Kent State University Libraries. Special Collections and
Archives; p. 1051: Bettmann / Corbis; p. 1055: Bett-
mann / Corbis; p. 1064: Library of Congress; p. 1068:
AP Photo / Ira Schwartz. Chapter 27: p. 1072: Peter
Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images; p. 1079:
Peter Turnley / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images;
p. 1083: Photo by Joi Ito; http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/2.0/deed.en; p. 1087: AP Photo / Damian
Dovarganes; p. 1099: Shan Goshorn Unintended Leg-
acy 2014, 10 x 9 1/2 x 91/2” Fred Jones Jr. Museum
of Art, The University of Oklahoma, Norman; The
James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection,
2014.001.089; p. 1106: Steve Ludlum / The New York
Times / Redux. Chapter 28: p. 1112: Owen Freeman;
p. 1122: AP Photo; p. 1123: jr- art.net; p. 1124: AP Photo
/ Khampha Bouaphanh; p. 1137 © Tribune Media Ser-
vices, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permis-
sion; p. 1143: Whitney Curtis, The New York Times,
Redux; p. 1145: Official White House Photo by Pete
Souza.
TEXT Barry Commoner: Excerpts from “Chapter 1: The
Environmental Crisis” from The Closing Circle: Nature,
Man, and Technology by Barry Commoner. Copyright
© 1971 by Barry Commoner. Used by permission
of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Global
★ A-83
I N D E X
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
AAA, see Agricultural Adjustment Act Abilene, Kans., 617 abolition movement, 673, 753, 757, 921,
1003, 1015, 1144 Aboriginal peoples, 614, 628, 1080 abortion, 1036, 1053, 1078, 1100–1101
Clinton and, 1075 conservatism and, 1053, 1054–55 feminists and, 1017, 1026–27, 1054–55 religious right and, 1053, 1065, 1100 Supreme Court and, 1024, 1053 Tea Party and, 1148
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 866 Abrams, Jacob (1886–1953), 798, 799 Absolut vodka, 1123 abstract expressionism, 918 Abu Ghraib (prison), 1119 abuse, domestic, 720, 752 Acheson, Dean (1893–1971), 908, 935 ACLU, see American Civil Liberties Union acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
(AIDS), 1097–98 activism, in “The Sixties,” 1014–28 ACT UP, 1097 Adamic, Louis (1899–1951), 854 Adams, Brooks (1848–1927), 688 Adams, Henry (b. 1843), 566 Adams, John (1735–1826), 731 Adams, John Quincy (1767–1848), 688 Adamson Act (1916), 731 Addams, Jane (1860–1935), 719–20, 762,
788, 794 Adelphia Communications, 1084 Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967), 959 Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 791 Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, The (TV
show), 947 advertising, 783, 786, 788, 789, 877–78,
880, 966, 1094 consumerism and, 781, 947 corporate, 954 family life in, 949, 950 political, 926, 1069 television and, 947, 958 women and, 789
Advertising Council, 954 AFDC, see Aid to Families with Dependent
Children affirmative action, 1000, 1033, 1035–36,
1057, 1063, 1065, 1075, 1077, 1094, 1126
Affluent Society, The (Galbraith), 966 Afghanistan, 1051, 1068, 1106, 1112, 1113,
1118, 1119, 1126, 1128, 1153 U.S. presence increased in, 1145 U.S. war on, 1112–13 war on terror in, 1145
AFL, see American Federation of Labor Africa, 736, 774, 889, 896, 897, 903, 918,
962–63, 1073, 1086, 1087 AIDS and, 1097 decolonization of, 1150 immigrants from, 1094–95 Islam in, 1125
African-Americans, 645, 646, 676, 689, 853, 854, 858, 903, 952, 981, 1092, 1094, 1135, 1154
as Afro-Americans, 1002 in arts, 809 barred from Progressive Party conven-
tion, 762 Birmingham campaign and, 986–88, 987 and Black Codes, 580–81, 582 black internationalism and, 889, 897–98 Booker T. Washington and, 673 Carter and, 1048 citizenship and, 588, 590, 805 civil rights and, 855, 894–98, 983–89,
986, 999–1002 in Clinton administration, 1076 as cowboys, 617 decolonization and, 917 as Democrats, 821 education and, 659, 661 entertainment of, 788 as excluded from Rough Riders, 682 and FDR, 841 feminists and, 787 Freedom Train and, 905–7 ghetto uprisings and, 999–1001, 1144 Great Society and, 998–99 Hurricane Katrina and, 1122–23
A-84 ★ INDEX
agriculture, 615–16, 632, 694, 699, 731, 849, 851, 874, 875, 886, 1060–61
African-Americans and, 761, 847 bonanza farms and, 616–17 Democratic Party and, 811 Eisenhower and, 959 and farm populations, 944 and foreclosures, 784–85, 811 Great Depression and, 811, 813 industrial revolution and, 604 mechanization of, 785 migrant workers and, 698, 842–43, 849,
854, 1018 New Deal and, 820, 826–28, 836, 838,
841, 847, 858, 959 in 1920s, 784–85 Populists and, 651–52, 653 post-World War II, 944 in Progressive era, 696 railroads and, 652 Southern expansion of, 660
Aguinaldo, Emilio (1869–1964), 684, 685 AIDS, see acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome Aid to Dependent Children, 838 Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC), 1033, 1078 aircraft, see aviation and aircraft Air Force, U.S., segregation in, 893 Air Force (movie), 885 airplanes, 754 Akilova, Kamola, 1123 Alabama, 855, 856, 978, 1022, 1148
black voting in, 924 BP oil spill and, 1137 Confederate flag and, 977 lynchings in, 796 women’s groups in, 720
Alabama, University of, segregation at, 978 Alabama State University, 974 Al-Ahram, 772 Alaska, 1006, 1044
corporate mining in, 618 pipeline, 1044–45 purchase of, 678
Albania, 1080 Albany, Ga., 986 Albuquerque, N.Mex., 945 Alcatraz Island, 1019 Alcoa Presents (TV show), 947 alcohol, banning of, see Prohibition Alcorn, James L. (1816–1894), 593 Aldrich, Winthrop W. (1885–1974), 906
African-Americans (continued) IQ tests and, 759 juries and, 855 Knights of Labor and, 640 and Ku Klux Klan, see Ku Klux Klan labor and, 855, 969, 988 LBJ and, 992–93 loss of voting rights of, 663–64, 718,
764, 765, 846, 850, 889, 977, 993, 995, 999
March on Washington and, 894, 988–89 naturalization of, 803 New Deal and, 846–47, 847, 849 Nixon and, 1034 northern migration of, 661–62, 765–66,
766, 803, 808, 893, 969 Plessy v. Ferguson and, 664–65, 665 police brutality against, 1142–44 in politics, 590–92, 662–63 population of, 807 prison population of, 1096 Progressives and, 762 progressivism and, 763–65 Reagan and, 1063 recession and, 1142 in Reconstruction, 575–78, 582, 585–87,
590–92, 659, 664–66, 762, 863, 924 and segregation, see segregation Selma campaign and, 969, 995–96, 996 sit-ins and, 983–84 in South, 651, 660–61, 764, 889, 893–94 in suburbs, 950–53 as troops in Philippines, 685 Truman and, 924–26 unemployment and, 849, 1000, 1095,
1142 voting rights of, 657, 896 wages and, 761, 808, 1063, 1124 welfare and, 1033 women, 661, 662–63, 700, 761, 894 women’s movement neglect of, 762 World War I and, 764–65, 766 World War II and, 863, 873, 884, 885,
887, 893–98 see also civil rights movement;
Great Migration; slavery; slaves, emancipated
African National Congress, 1071 Agitator, 588 Agnew, Samuel (1833–1902), 571 Agnew, Spiro T. (1918–1996), 1042, 1047 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), 826–27,
829–30, 851
INDEX ★ A-85
American Missionary, 623 American National Exhibition, 940, 942 American Party, see Know-Nothing Party American Protective League (APL), 754 American Psychiatric Association, 1037 American Railway Union, 656 American Revolution, 635, 878, 881, 906,
913, 921, 925, 1003, 1101 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1097 American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T),
1037 American Tobacco, 728 American University, 991 American Way, 1020 American Woman Suffrage Association,
589 Ames, Adelbert (1835–1933), 599 Amnesty International, 1049 anarchism, 640, 645, 753, 759, 779 Anderson, John (1922–), 1057–58 Anderson, Marian (1897–1993), 850 Anderson, Sherwood (1876–1941), 810 Andersonville, Ga., Confederate prison at,
581 Andrews, Sidney (1837–1880), 568, 571 Angel Island, 697 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 963 Angola, 963 Ann Arbor, Mich., Beats in, 967 Anniston, Ala., 985 Anshutz, Thomas (1891–1912), 637 Anthony, Susan B. (1820–1906), 588, 589 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), 1038,
1065 anti-Catholicism, 954, 979 Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 807 Anti-Imperialist League, 687, 688 anti-Semitism, 806, 807, 834, 885, 954,
1032, 1101 see also Jews
antiwar movement, Vietnam era, 1008–9, 1024–26, 1039, 1116, 1121
Apaches, 624 apartheid, 687, 1009, 1071 Appalachia, 998
poverty rates in, 1141 Appeal to Reason, 706 appeasement, 866 Apple Computers, 1082, 1083, 1086 appliances, household, see consumerism,
and household appliances Appomattox Courthouse, 579 aqueducts, 728
Alien Act (1798), 752, 1119 Alito, Samuel, Jr. (1950–), 1127 Allen, Richard (1760–1831), 591 Allende, Salvador (1908–1973), 1038 Alliance for Progress, 989–90 Allies:
in World War I, 742, 745, 745, 749, 768, 774
in World War II, 871, 896, 898, 900–903, 920
Al Qaeda, 1106, 1116, 1119 Altgeld, John Peter (1847–1902), 645 Amalgamated Association, 649–50, 769 America First Committee, 867 American Anti-Slavery Society, 586 American Ballet Caravan, 865 American Century, The (Luce), 880, 917 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 797,
801, 855–56, 932 American Commonwealth, The (Bryce), 687 American Creed, 897, 918 American Dilemma, An (Myrdal), 896, 897 American Document, 854 American Economic Foundation, 953 “American Economic System,” 954 American Enterprise Institute, 1053 American Federation of Labor (AFL),
673–76, 704, 705–7, 747, 755, 769, 794, 831, 833, 854, 896, 922, 923, 960
American Freedom and Catholic Power (Blanshard), 979
American Heritage Foundation, 906–7 American identity, 755–67 American Indian Movement, 1019, 1098 American Individualism (Hoover), 810 American International Group (AIG), 1129,
1134 Americanism, 802, 852, 853, 854, 918, 997
vs. racism, 854, 884 Americanization, 793, 802–6, 950
Catholics and, 807 of immigrants, 755–58, 802–3, 852,
884–86 see also assimilation
Americanization of the World, The; or, the Trend of the Twentieth Century (Stead), 734
American Jewish Committee, 854, 892, 895 American League, 724 American Legion, 931 American Liberty League, 840 American Medical Association, 724, 837,
920
A-86 ★ INDEX
Atlantic, Battle of the, 869 Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, 607 Atlantic cable, 608 Atlantic Charter, 902–3, 920 Atlantic City, N.J., 993 atomic bomb, 898–900, 902, 908, 930, 961
of Soviet Union, 912, 914 see also hydrogen bomb; nuclear
weapons Atomic Energy Commission, 910, 955 Attlee, Clement (1883–1967), 900 Attucks, Crispus (ca. 1723–1770), 569 Aurora, Colo., 1152 Austin, Tex., 1082 Australia, 616, 627–28, 774, 775
in World War II, 869 Austria, 772, 865 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 742, 772, 773,
1079 immigrants from, 669, 696
Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm X), 1001
automobiles, 704, 782, 784, 788, 795, 812, 873, 940, 943, 944, 946, 947
Detroit and, 947 Ford and, 701, 701 highways and, 960 Japanese production of, 1045 in Los Angeles, 785 manufacturers of, 947–49 pollution and, 980, 1033
aviation and aircraft, 783, 785, 874, 879, 895, 928, 943, 1048
Axis of Evil, 1113 Axis powers, 867, 869, 877, 890, 894 Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996), 898 AZT, 1097
Babcock, Orville (1835–1884), 1121 baby boom, 944, 949 Baby Boomers, 1003 Bachelor Girls Social Club, 700 Baghdad, 1116 Bailey v. Alabama, 764 Bain Capital, Mitt Romney and, 1148 Baker, Ella (1903–1986), 985, 988, 1015 Baker v. Carr, 1023 Balanchine, George (1904–1983), 919 Baldwin, James (1924–1987), 984, 1003 Balkans, 1079 “Ballad for Americans,” 854 Ballinger, Richard A. (1858–1922), 729 Baltimore, Md., 1143
Arabs, 773–74, 1044 nationalism and, 964, 1051
Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo (1913–1971), 963, 965
Arbuckle, Fatty (1887–1933), 796 Argentina, 616, 627, 1049–50 Arizona, 1008, 1098
agriculture in, 694, 785, 944 Arizona territory, 614 Arkansas, 663, 1075
lynchings in, 796 Arlington, Vt., 862 armed forces, U.S., see military, U.S. armistice, Korean War, 915 Armory show, 712 Armstrong, Louis, 969 Armstrong, Samuel (1839–1893), 673 Army, U.S., 898
desegregation in, 896 Army-McCarthy hearings, 931, 947 Arthur, Chester A. (1829–1886), 631 Arthur Andersen Company, 1084 Art Interrupted, 919 artisans:
Second New Deal and, 836–37 arts:
African-Americans in, 809 during Cold War, 918 Second New Deal and, 836–37
Aryan Nation, 1101 Aryans, 806
as “master race,” 884, 924 Ashcroft, John (1942–), 1118 Asia, 683, 736, 774, 775, 896, 908, 918,
962–63, 964, 1082, 1086, 1087 decolonization of, 1150 pre-World War II, 865
Asian immigrants, 696, 760, 761, 803, 886, 996, 1092–94
affirmative action and, 1035 naturalization of, 803 World War II and, 890–93
assembly lines, 702, 831, 876 assimilation, 806, 852, 884–86, 954 associational action, 810, 814 asylum of liberty, U.S. as, 805 asylums, 659, 760 AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph),
1037, 1147 Atkinson, Edward (1827–1905), 635 “Atlanta Compromise” speech, 673 Atlanta Cotton Exposition, 673, 674 Atlanta University, 763
INDEX ★ A-87
Ben Hur (movie), 953 Berger, Victor (1860–1929), 706, 771 Berlin, 912
airlift, 912 blockade, 912–13 occupation of, 912–13
Berlin Congress of 1884–1885, 678 Berlin Wall, 990, 1072 Bernays, Edward (1891–1995), 748, 788 Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955), 850 Better America League, 931 Beveridge, Albert (1862–1927), 688 Bible, 799, 976, 1023, 1151
Book of Exodus of, 661 interpretation of, 801–2
Bible Belt, 644 Biden, Joe, and Osama bin Laden’s death,
1145 Bilbo, Theodore (1877–1947), 851 bilingual education, 1099 Bill of Rights (American), 583, 586, 798,
876, 932, 1023, 1126, 1130 “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged,” 1000 Biloxi, Miss., 985 bin Laden, Osama (1957–2011), 1106,
1112, 1113 death of, 1145, 1145
Birmingham, Ala., 907, 969 church bombing in, 988 civil rights campaign in, 986–88, 987 Freedom Rides in, 985 manufacturing in, 660, 922
birth control, 713–14, 714, 751, 788, 796, 1014, 1023–24, 1036
in 2012 election and campaign, 1149 Birth of a Nation (movie), 762, 763 birthrate:
decline in U.S., 812 in Mexico, 1091 minority, 1094
Bisbee, Ariz., strikes in, 754 Bisno, Abraham (1866–1929), 700 Black, Hugo (1886–1971), 892 black Americans, see African-Americans Blackbirds (Broadway show), 809 Blackboard Jungle (movie), 966 Black Codes, 580–81, 582 Black Hills, 624 black internationalism, 889, 897–98 blacklisting:
in Hollywood, 929 of union organizers, 837
Black Lives Matter, 1143–44
Bandung Conference, 962 Bank of America, 1134 banks, 632, 633, 652, 658, 732, 738, 739,
740, 784, 795, 834, 935, 1064, 1085 British, 735–36 failure of, 812, 823–24 in financial crisis of 2008, 1128–29,
1134, 1138 and foreclosures, 785, 811, 815, 829 in Great Depression, 812, 813, 815,
823–24, 846 New Deal and, 859 Socialist party and, 729 in Soviet Union, 768 suburbs and, 950 2008 financial crisis and, 1085 World War I and, 744, 866
“Banned in Boston,” 796 Baptists, 975, 1048
African-American, 568 Prohibition and, 752 racial division among, 669
Barbados, 738 Bargain of 1877, 600 Barnett, Ross (1898–1987), 986 Barrow plantation, maps of, 570 Bart, Lily (char.), 612 Barton, Bruce (1886–1967), 786 Baruch, Bernard (1870–1965), 747 baseball, 724
integration of, 924 Bataan, 869
death march in, 869 Bataan (movie), 885 Batista, Fulgencio (1901–1973), 865, 990 Baum, L. Frank (1856–1919), 658–59 Bavaria, 768 Baxter Street Court, 613 Bay of Pigs invasion, 990 Beard, Charles (1874–1948), 786, 815 Beats, 967–68, 968
Buddhism and, 1013 Becker, Carl (1873–1945), 749 Beer and Wine Revenue Act, 852 Beijing, 1038, 1071 Belfast, 768 Belgium, 742, 867 Bellamy, Edward (1850–1898), 641, 643,
705, 715 Bellows, George (1882–1925), 695, 800 Belmont, Alva (1853–1933), 692 Benedict, Ruth (1887–1948), 806, 885 Benét, Stephen Vincent (1898–1943), 877
A-88 ★ INDEX
Bretton Woods, N.H., conference at, 901–2, 1044
Brewer, David J. (1837–1910), 672 Breyer, Stephen (1938–), 1076 Brezhnev, Leonid (1906–1982), 1038 Bridges, Harry (1901–1990), 831 brinksmanship, 961 Britain, Battle of, 867 British Americans, World War I and, 743 British Empire, 678, 735, 768, 772, 773,
901, 909, 911, 917 British Petroleum (BP), and Gulf of Mexico
oil spill, 1137 Britton, Nan (1896–1991), 791 Broadway theater, 809 Brooke, Edward W. (1919–), 591 Brooklyn, N.Y., 606, 714, 714, 829 Brooklyn Dodgers, 924 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 894 Broun, Heywood (1888–1939), 780 Browder, Earl (1891–1973), 853 Brown, Matt, 574 Brown, Michael, 1143, 1144 Brown, Oliver (1918–1961), 973 Brown, Olympia, 588 Brown, William Wells, 591 Brown v. Board of Education, 586, 971,
972–73, 977, 978, 984, 995 Broz, Josip (Tito; 1892–1980), 901 Bruce, Blanche K. (1841–1898), 591 Bryan, William Jennings (1860–1925),
657–58, 687, 728, 739, 743, 801–2 “cross of gold” speech of, 657
Bryant, Anita (1940–), 1054 Bryce, James, 687 Bryn Mawr, 1037 Buchanan, James (1791–1868), and Mor-
mons, 620 Buchanan, Pat (1938–), 1076, 1100 Buck, Pearl (1892–1973), 884 Buckley, William F. (1925–), 994 Buck v. Bell, 760 Buddhism, Buddhists:
Beats and, 1013 as immigrants, 1087 Mazie k. Hirono and, 1150 in Vietnam, 965, 1006
buffalo, 627 hunting of, 621
Buffalo, N.Y., 725 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 629 Bulgaria, 909 Bulge, Battle of the, 898 Bulosan, Carlos (1913–1956), 877
Black Muslims, 1001 Black Panther Party, 1002, 1018, 1026 Black Power, 995, 1001–2, 1018 Black Sea, 910 Black Studies, 1099 “black supremacy,” 594 Black Tuesday, 811 Blaine, James G. (1830–1893), 631–32,
670, 680 Blair, Francis P., Jr. (1821–1875), 585 Blakemore, Richard E., 1060–61 Blanshard, Paul (1892–1980), 979 Blatch, Harriot Stanton (1856–1940), 787 blitzkrieg, 867 Block, Herbert (1909–2001), 932 “blockbusting,” 952 Blue Eagle, 825 Bo, Saum Song, 623 Boas, Franz (1858–1942), 806 Boesky, Ivan (1937–), 1064 bohemians, 712, 1003, 1009, 1037 bomb shelters, 961 bonanza farms, 616–17 Bonneville Power Authority, 818 bootleggers, 801 Border Patrol, U.S., 805, 886, 1123 Bosch, Juan (1909–2001), 1007–8 Bosnia, 1058, 1079 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 742 Boston, Mass.:
integration in, 1035 police strike in, 769
Boston Globe, 1137 Boston Guardian, 762 Boston Marathon, 1016 Boston Massacre, 569 Boston Tea Party, 1147 Boumediene v. Bush, 1127 Bourke-White, Margaret (1906–1971),
786 Bourne, Randolph (1886–1918), 718, 746,
752, 758 Boutwell, George S. (1818–1905), 688 Bow, Clara (1905–1965), 788 Bowers v. Hardwick, 1065, 1126 boycotts, 721, 923, 974–75, 976, 1018 bracero program, 886–87 Bradwell, Myra (1831–1894), 589 Bragg, Braxton (1817–1876), 570 “brains trust,” 823 Brandeis, Louis D. (1856–1941), 704,
723–24, 730, 798–99, 823 Brazil, 651 Brentwood, Calif., 849
INDEX ★ A-89
agriculture in, 694, 785, 944 Asian-Americans in, 761, 1092 boycott of grapes from, 1018 Chinese immigrants in, 619–20 conservatism in, 1056 gold rush in, 614 immigrants in, 1099, 1124 Japanese-Americans in, 891 lumber industry in, 617–18 migration to, 785 1934 election in, 833 1964 election in, 994 oil spill off coast of, 1020 Reagan as governor of, 1058, 1059 suburbs in, 945–46 tax law in, 1056 woman suffrage in, 655, 717
California, University of, 946, 1140 at Berkeley, 1005, 1039 at Davis, 1036
California House of Representatives, 657
California Supreme Court, 671–72 segregation and, 972
California Trail, 621 Call, The, 713–14 Calley, William (1943–), 1040 Cambodia, 869, 1039, 1093
immigrants from, 1091 camera, handheld, 607 Campbell, Helen, 720 Camp David, 962, 1050, 1079 Canada, 627, 805, 819, 1087, 1088, 1152
D-Day and, 871 draft dodgers’ flight to, 1009 lynching in, 668 NAFTA and, 1076 U.S. border with, 1130
Canadians, Canadian immigrants, 615 Canal Zone, 737–39 cancer, skin, 981 Cannery and Agricultural Workers union,
854 capitalism, 810, 822, 880, 881–82, 883,
911, 955 consumerism and, 699 free market, 962 “golden age” of, 942–57 industrial, 704 international, 1072 labor vs., 634, 639–47 modern, 940, 942 people’s, 955 revolution vs. reform of, 853
Bunau-Varilla, Philippe (1859–1940), 738 Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S., 625, 715 Bureau of Intelligence, U.S., 894 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1142 Burger, Warren (1907–1995), 1034–35 Burger Court, 1034–36 Burlingame, Anson, 587 Burlingame Treaty, 587, 670 Burma, 869 Busbey, Fred, 918 Bush, George H. W. (1924–), 1068, 1073,
1081, 1082, 1115 in election of 1992, 1076 Gulf War and, 1073–74 NAFTA and, 1076
Bush, George W. (1946–), 1100, 1110–14, 1120, 1135
affirmative action and, 1126 background of, 1110–11 civil liberties and, 1117–20 debates with Gore, 1105 economy under, 1120, 1127–32,
1134–35 in election of 2000, 1103–4 foreign policy of, 1111–13, 1117–18,
1120, 1128 and Hurricane Katrina, 1121–22, 1127 Iraq War and, 1115–16, 1127 Islam and, 1125 and Latinos, 1124 and Supreme Court, 1126–27 unemployment and, 1120
Bush, Jeb (1953–), 1103 Bush (George W.) administration, 1106,
1112, 1114, 1118, 1119, 1120, 1121, 1123, 1126–27, 1134–35, 1137, 1139, 1145, 1147
2008 financial crisis and, 1085 Bush Doctrine, 1112–13 Bush v. Gore, 1103–4 business:
and government, 789–95, 880 horizontal expansion of, 610 rise of, 608–9 vertically integrated, 609, 610 see also corporations
busing, desegregation of schools and, 1035 Butte, Mont., 618, 754
Caesar’s Column (Donnelly), 641 Cage, John (1912–1992), 919 California, 617, 697, 717, 722, 796, 798–99,
804, 811, 828, 849, 856, 874, 931, 943, 1090, 1091, 1094, 1098, 1099
A-90 ★ INDEX
Catt, Carrie Chapman (1859–1947), 677 cattle drives, 617, 629 Caucasian Race–Equal Privileges resolu-
tion, 887 Cayugas, 1098 CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), 825,
846, 850, 876 censorship, 798
anticommunism and, 930–31 Hollywood and, 796 sex and, 796, 798
census, federal, 759, 1094, 1098 Census Bureau, 605 CENTO, 916 Central America, 865, 1066, 1067, 1073
immigrants from, 1091, 1092, 1094 Theodore Roosevelt’s policies in, 737–38
Central High School, Ark., segregation at, 978
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 910, 963–64, 964, 1038, 1043, 1106, 1118, 1119–20, 1121
Bay of Pigs Invasion and, 990 support of arts by, 918
Central Powers (World War I), 742 Cermak, Anton (1873–1933), 812 Challenge to Liberty, The (Hoover), 840 Chamberlain, Neville (1869–1940), 866 Chamber of Commerce, U.S., 840 Chambers, Whittaker (1901–1961), 929 Chaney, James (1943–1964), 993 Chaplin, Charlie (1889–1977), 783 Charleston, S.C., 1152 Charleston (dance), 788 Chase Manhattan Bank, 906 Chavez, César (1927–1993), 1018, 1092 Chavez Ravine, 951 Checkers speech, 958 Cheney, Dick (1941–), 1074, 1103, 1114,
1121 Cherokees, Eastern Band, 1099 Chevrolet, 947 Chevrolet Corvair, 1021 Cheyennes, 621, 624, 625 Chicago, Ill., 719–20, 808, 1046, 1087, 1110
African-Americans in, 807, 951 alleged voter fraud in, 980 in Great Depression, 812 Haymarket affair in, 644–46 immigrants to, 697–98 “lyrical left” in, 712 manufacturing in, 606 1968 Democratic convention in, 1026
capitalism (continued) Ronald Reagan and, 1058 Socialist Party vs., 729, 853 as “welfare capitalism,” 786
Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman), 955 “captains of industry,” 609–11 Caribbean, 740, 761, 897, 997, 1066, 1067
immigrants from, 1091, 1094 U.S. troops in, 737 see also West Indies
Carlisle, 628 Carmichael, Stokely (1941–1998), 1001 Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919), 609, 649 carpetbaggers, 592–93 Carranza, Venustiano, 742 Carson, Rachel (1907–1964), 1003, 1020 Carswell, G. Harold (1920–1992), 1033 Carter, Jimmy (1924–), 739, 1048, 1057,
1078 economic crisis and, 1048–49 in election of 1980, 1058 human rights and, 1049–50, 1053, 1066 Iran hostage crisis and, 1050–52 Nobel Peace Prize of, 1058
Carter administration, 1048–52, 1051, 1057, 1066
Carter Doctrine, 1051 Caruso, Enrico (1873–1921), 783 Casey, William (1913–1987), 1066 Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylva-
nia, 1100–1101 casinos, gambling, Native Americans and,
1098 Castillo Armas, Carlos (1914–1957), 964 Castro, Fidel (1926–), 990 Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), 966 Catholic Holy Name Society, 807 Catholics, Catholicism, 631, 644, 657,
664, 684, 703, 796, 799, 810–11, 841, 953–54, 1026
and abortion, 1017, 1027, 1055 and Americanization, 807 anticommunism of, 932 counterculture and, 1013 in FDR administration, 852 immigrants and, 699 JFK as, 979, 1121 John Kerry as, 1121 Ku Klux Klan and, 803 in 1960 campaign, 979 Paul D. Ryan and, 1149 prejudice against, 806, 1125 in Vietnam, 965
INDEX ★ A-91
Christian Right, 1058, 1065 see also religious right
Chrysler, 784, 947 Chu, Judy, 671 Church, Frank (1924–1984), 1042 church and state, separation of, 801, 1023 Church Committee, 1043 Churchill, Winston (1871–1947), 809, 867,
900, 901, 901, 902, 909, 958 World War II strategy of, 871
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, see Mormons
Church of Latter-Day Saints, see Mormons CIA, see Central Intelligence Agency cigarettes, marketing to women of, 788, 789 CIO, see Congress of Industrial
Organizations Citibank, 1133 Citigroup, 1084, 1134 Citizens Alliance, 831 Citizens Committee, 664–65 citizenship, 582, 583, 586, 590, 665,
684–86, 849 of African-Americans, 590, 805, 821 of Asian-Americans, 587 Chinese immigrants and, 672 economic, 724 expansion of, 803 Fourteenth Amendment and, 587, 588 Hawaii and, 686 Native Americans and, 625–26 Puerto Rico and, 686, 761 second-class, see segregation social, 1003 voting rights and, 718 welfare state and, 724
Citizens United v. Federal Elections Com- mission, 1150
“City Slave Girls” (Cusack), 612 City University of New York, 1047 Civil and Political Rights, 922 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 825,
846, 850, 876 Civil Liberties Bureau, see American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) Civil Rights Act (1875), 598, 664 Civil Rights Act (1964), 988, 992, 994, 1015 civil rights and liberties, 752, 754–55, 771,
795–99, 816, 851, 855, 897, 907, 934–38, 968–79, 1021–22, 1052, 1059, 1065, 1097–98, 1117–20, 1144
Adlai Stevenson and, 935 A. Mitchell Palmer and, 771
population of, 606 race riot in, 766
Chicago Freedom Movement, 1000 Chicago Times, 611–12 Chicago Tribune, 802 Chicanos, 1018–19
culture of, 887 see also Latinos
child labor, 695, 696, 717, 718, 719, 720, 731, 788, 791, 794, 844
Children’s Bureau, 720 Chile, 795, 1038, 1066 China, 616, 683, 772, 865, 898, 914, 1006,
1032, 1038, 1092, 1097, 1128, 1153, 1154
Burlingame Treat and, 587 Iran and, 1146 Iraq War and, 1116 jobs exported to, 1120 Korean War and, 914–16 Lend-Lease and, 868 loss of U.S. jobs to, 1120 market reforms in, 1071 rise of communists in, 914 Tiananmen Square protest in, 604, 1071 in U.N., 902
Chinese, Chinese immigrants, 578, 578, 587, 614, 617, 623, 666, 670–72, 689, 696, 697, 758, 924
in Hawaii, 680 in IWW, 707 population of, 620 World War II and, 890 see also Asian immigrants
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 670, 671 chlorofluorocarbons, 980 Choate, J. H. (1848–1902), 628 Christian Coalition, 1100 Christianity, 643–44, 781, 956, 976, 993,
1053–54, 1086 “Christian lobby” and, 643 “Christian patriots” and, 1101 evangelical, 1056 Filipinos and, 684 fundamentalism and, 799–801, 1053–54 imperialism and, 678, 679 media and, 834–35 modernism in, 800–801 Native Americans and, 624 and Republican Party (modern), 1031, 1100 in 2012 election and campaign, 1148 see also specific denominations
“Christian lobby,” 643
A-92 ★ INDEX
654, 742, 748, 752, 805, 839, 906, 1028, 1119
black soldiers in, 625 casualties in, 570 emancipation and, 566–74
Civil Works Administration (CWA), 826 Clarendon County, S.C., 972 Clark, Kenneth (1914–2005), 973 Clark, Mamie (1917–1983), 973 Clark, Tom C. (1899–1977), 907 Clark, William (1770–1838), 621 Clark University, 713 Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order, The (Huntington), 1125 class:
in American Society, 634, 635 see also middle class
Clayton Act (1914), 731 Clean Air Act (1970), 1021, 1033 Clean Water Act (1972), 1021 Clemenceau, Georges (1841–1929), 771, 772 Cleveland, Grover (1837–1908), 631, 656,
657, 670, 680, 687, 814 Cleveland, Ohio, 1143 climate change, see global warming Clinton, Bill (1946–), 680, 848, 893, 1069,
1076–80, 1081, 1084, 1085, 1088, 1102–3, 1135
Balkan crisis and, 1079 budget and, 1082 Contract with America and, 1078 in election of 1992, 1074–76 foreign policy of, 1078–80 impeachment of, 1102–3 national health care plan of, 1077 sexual misconduct and, 1102–3
Clinton, Hillary Rodham (1947–), 1077, 1135, 1137
as feminist, 1102 and Osama bin Laden’s death, 1145
Clinton administration, 1076–80, 1135 women in, 1076
Close, Gilbert (1906–1952), 773 closed shops, 923 Closing Circle, The (Commoner), 1060 coal, 922, 1044–45, 1111
mining, 726, 769 strikes, 726
Coca-Cola, 783, 946 Cochise, 624 “code-talkers,” 887 Cody, William “Buffalo Bill,” 629 Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 656
civil rights and liberties (continued) anticommunism and, 930–31, 933–34 Baldwin on, 984 Bush administration and, 1117–20,
1125–26 Cold War and, 934–38 Eleanor Roosevelt and, 845 FDR and, 850 in Great Depression, 816, 853 and Japanese-Americans, 891–93 Japanese internment and, 891–93 labor and, 709, 855–57 legislation on, 593 New Deal and, 856 new movements in, 1014–28 post-World War II, 883, 924–25 revolution in, 1021–22 Scottsboro case and, 855 September 11 terrorist attacks and,
1117–20 in Soviet Union, 920, 921 suspension of, 1126–27 Truman and, 924–25 violations as federal offenses, 596 Woodrow Wilson and, 753 World War II and, 863, 887, 969, 974 see also Bill of Rights (American); civil
rights movement; constitutional amendments, U.S.; freedom; McCar- thy era; women’s rights
Civil Rights Bill (1866), 582 Civil Rights Cases, 664 civil rights movement, 968–79, 997–98,
999–1002, 1052, 1063, 1110, 1142 backlash against, 995, 1057 Birmingham campaign and, 986–88, 987 birth of, 894–98 FBI and, 1042–43 freedom and, 975–76 JFK and, 991–92 LBJ and, 992–93 March on Washington and, 988–89 Montgomery bus boycott and, 974–75 1964 election and, 993–94 radicalization of, 1001–2 Selma campaign and, 995–96 in South, 983–89, 986, 987 television and, 987, 987, 996 “wade-ins” and, 985 women and, 1014–16
Civil Service Act (1883), 632 Civil War, U.S., 564, 565, 567, 603, 604,
624, 631, 633, 634, 635, 645, 651,
INDEX ★ A-93
Columbine High School, 1152 Columbus, N.Mex., 742 Comanches, 621, 624 Commager, Henry Steele (1902–1998), 933 Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 848 Commission on Civil Rights, 925 Commission on Immigration, 934 Commission on Industrial Relations, 695, 709 Committee on Public Information (CPI),
748, 758, 786 Commoner, Barry, 1060 communism, 586, 587, 588, 728, 794, 798,
802, 830, 852–53, 866, 867, 901, 907, 909, 910, 911, 913, 914, 919, 923, 928, 963, 964, 989–90, 995, 1020, 1025, 1037–38, 1040, 1047, 1049, 1050, 1066, 1079
capitalism vs., 963 in China, 914 civil rights movement and, 991 collapse of, 1072, 1081 crusade against, 927–28, 932, 953–54,
953, 956, 1005, 1021 flag of, 753 Henry Wallace and, 926 immigration and, 997 refugees from, 928 rise of, 745 in Soviet Union, 941 Truman Doctrine and, 911 in Vietnam, 1006 women and, 949
Communist Labor Party, 798 Communist Party, 813, 814, 833, 852–53, 854,
856, 892, 926, 929–30, 932, 962, 1003 in China, 1072
Communist Party Congress, 962 company unions, 787 “Composite Nation” (Douglass), 587 computers, 874, 928, 1082–83, 1086, 1120
see also Internet concentration camps, 865, 873, 885
see also Japanese immigrants, Japanese Americans, World War II internment of
Confederate States of America, 621, 645 Conference on Home Building and Home
Ownership, 828 Congregationalists, 679 Congress, U.S., 631, 681, 756, 824, 838,
882, 883, 958, 1035, 1043, 1047, 1118, 1127–28
acquisition of Hawaii and, 680 African-Americans in, 662
Coldplay, 1133 Cold War, 748, 902, 905–39, 913, 955,
1005, 1008, 1014, 1038, 1042, 1050, 1051–52, 1067, 1113, 1119, 1145, 1146, 1153
Beats and, 968 Berlin blockade in, 912–13 big business and, 954 Carter and, 1050 consumerism and, 940–42 cultural, 918–19 Eisenhower and, 961–62 end of, 1071, 1073, 1075, 1079, 1086 end of ideology and, 952 family life and, 949–50 freedom and, 916, 917–22, 928, 932,
952, 965 free enterprise and, 959, 965 highways and, 927, 960 human rights and, 920–22 Iran and, 908–9 JFK and, 989 Khrushchev and, 962 Korean War and, 914–16 and Middle East oil, 909, 910 “missile gap,” 979 national exhibitions and, 940–42 in 1960 election, 979 organized labor and, 934 origins of, 908–17 political debate and, 965–66 Reagan and, 1065–66, 1068 religion and, 953–54 September 11 attacks and, 1106 in Third World, 962–63
Colfax, La., massacre in, 596, 598 Colfax, Schuyler (1823–1885), 630 collective bargaining, 707 Collier, John (1789–1883), 848 Colombia, 738, 738
drug trade in, 1145 colonialization:
decolonization and, 917, 963 international, 677–78
Colorado, 722, 827, 1135, 1152 woman suffrage in, 655, 721
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 708 Colored Farmers’ Alliance, 654
see also Farmers’ Alliance Colossus of Rhodes, 604 Columbia River, 818–21, 848 Columbia University, 796, 815, 823, 828,
1025, 1039
A-94 ★ INDEX
New Deal and, 880 Nixon and, 1027, 1032–33 radical, 994–95, 1101–2 Reagan and, 1065 tax reductions and, 1056 Tea Party and, 1148
“conspicuous consumption,” 612 Constitution, U.S., 709, 752, 757, 787,
793, 844, 905, 971, 1021, 1022, 1023, 1035, 1059, 1103, 1125–26, 1127, 1136
African-Americans and, 565, 586, 587 and territories acquired, 686 women’s rights and, 588
constitutional amendments, U.S.: First, 796, 797–98, 876, 929, 1022, 1023 Second, 1152 Thirteenth, 582, 614, 906 Fourteenth, 583, 586, 587, 588, 590,
598, 626, 638, 664–65, 665, 671, 672, 764, 793, 798, 799, 807, 906, 971, 973, 1036, 1104, 1126, 1130
Fifteenth, 585–86, 588, 590, 626, 663, 764, 787, 906
Sixteenth, 728 Seventeenth, 718 Eighteenth, 751, 752 Nineteenth, 751 Twentieth, 841 Twenty-first, 829 Twenty-fourth, 996
Constitution Hall, 850 consumerism, 699, 946–47, 1021, 1106
advertising and, 781, 947 in American National Exhibition, 940–42 automobiles and, 947–49 capitalism and, 699 economy and, 784, 786 and household appliances, 783, 789,
880, 940, 942, 944, 1054 suburbia and, 950 television and, 947 unionization and, 702 wages and, 700, 703, 720–21, 786
containment, 908–9, 910, 913, 914, 916, 928, 962, 963, 964, 1006
double, 913 contracts, labor, 636–37, 639, 676
“yellow dog,” 639 contracts, “liberty of contract” doctrine
and, 724 “Contract with America,” 1077 Contras, 1066, 1068
Congress, U.S., (continued) anticommunism and, 933–34 apologizes for Japanese-American
internment, 892–93 Civil Rights Act (1964) and, 988 civil rights and, 977 in elections of 1946, 923 Equal Pay Act and, 1015 FDR and, 841 federal bailouts and, 1134 government surveillance and, 1147 Greenspan’s testimony to, 1134 health care bill passed by, 1138 immigration and, 792 immigration restriction and, 670–72, 760,
803–5, 890 isolationism and, 866 and League of Nations, 776 and Native American treaty system, 624 New Deal and, 824, 825, 881 presidential veto and, 582, 923, 933 Reagan’s defiance of, 1066 Reconstruction policies of, 579 Republican control of, 1077 and Resolution of Regret, 671 “stimulus” package passed by, 1137 Truman Doctrine and, 910 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and, 922 Voting Rights Act passed by, 996 World War II and, 869 see also House of Representatives, U.S.;
Senate, U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor, 762 Congressional Record, 936 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO),
831–33, 835, 846, 852, 854, 855–56, 858, 895–96, 922, 923, 934, 960
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 895, 976, 985, 993, 1002
Connor, Eugene “Bull” (1897–1973), 987, 1052
Conscience of a Conservative, The (Gold- water), 994
conservationism, 618, 727–28, 1020, 1052 conservatism, 883, 884, 955–57, 962,
994–95, 1021, 1030–70, 1100, 1125 abortion and, 1053, 1054–55 anti-Semitism and, 1032 Clinton and, 1076 colleges and, 1002 libertarians and, 955–56 neoconservatism and, 1052–53
INDEX ★ A-95
cotton industry and strikes, 831 Cotton Pickers, The (Homer), 572 Couch, W. T. (1901–1988), 889 Coughlin, Charles E. (1891–1979), 834, 867 Council on African Affairs, 898 counterculture, 1009–12, 1036
Catholics and, 1013 cults and, 1014 Hinduism and, 1013 religion and, 1013–14 yoga and, 1013
“court packing,” 841, 858 cowboys, 617
in Wild West, 628–29 Cox, Archibald (1912–2004), 1042 Cox, James (1870–1957), 822 Coxey, Jacob (1854–1951), 656 Coxey’s Army, 656 crack cocaine, 1065, 1096 Crazy Horse (1842?-1877), 624 creationism, 801, 1100
see also fundamentalism Crédit Mobilier, 630, 632 Creel, George (1876–1953), 748–49 Crèvecoeur, Hector St. John de (1735–
1813), 854 crime, 1095–96 crimes against humanity, 920 Crisis, The, 775, 894, 895 Croatia, 1079 Croly, Herbert (1869–1930), 725, 747 crop-lien system, 574 “cross of gold” speech, 657 Crow Indians, 621 Cruikshank, U.S. v., 598 Cuba, 678, 680, 681–82, 864, 865, 1118
Bay of Pigs invasion in, 990 diplomatic relations resumed with,
1145–46 Guantánamo Bay, 1118, 1119, 1127,
1136, 1145 immigrants from, 1091 Missile Crisis in, 990–91 U.S. intervention in, 739
Cullen, Countee (1903?-1946), 809 cultural pluralism, 806 Culture Wars, 1100 currency, 632, 657
Federal Reserve System and, 732 for international trade, 901 reform, 640
Cusack, Nell, 612 Custer, George A. (1839–1876), 624
Coolidge, Calvin (1872–1933), 769, 782, 790, 791, 805, 810
Coolidge administration, 795 cooling off periods, 923 Cooper, Gary (1901–1961), 929 Cooperative Commonwealth, The (Gron-
lund), 641, 642–43 Cooper Union, 712 copper, 618, 795 Coral Sea, Battle of, 869, 870, 870 CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), 895,
976, 985, 993, 1002 corporations, 652, 676, 717, 718, 725, 823,
943, 954, 955, 1004, 1084 absentee, 684 automobile, 947 Bush era scandals in, 1132 and conformity, 965 corporate advertising and, 954 corruption of, 629–30 economic control of countries by, 963 farms owned by, 849, 981 Federal Trade Commission and, 732 free enterprise and, 954 Ku Klux Klan and, 803 multinational, 1081 “new despotism” of, 841 in 1920s, 786 power and, 717, 963 and profits, 784, 835, 858, 874, 876,
1045, 1056, 1059, 1063 and public relations, 787 and rise of West, 617–19 Social Darwinist view of, 635–36 states and, 729 taxes on, 835 television sponsorship and, 947 Theodore Roosevelt and, 725 and white collar jobs, 943 in World War II, 874 see also specific corporations
corruption: of corporations, 629–30 of politics, 630
Cortés, Hernán (1485–1547), 741 Cortez, Gregorio, 629 Cosmopolitan, 1016 Costa Rica, 739 cost of living wage increases, 934, 960 cotton, 573, 574, 591, 651–52, 660, 700,
851, 856, 944 Cotton Belt, 573 Cotton Club, 808
A-96 ★ INDEX
deficit, federal, see national debt de Gaulle, Charles (1890–1970), 959 deindustrialization, 1062, 1063, 1068 Delacroix, Eugène, 1064 Delany, Martin, 897 Delaware, University of, 1004 Delegation of Advocates of Women’s Suf-
frage Addressing the House Judiciary Committee, A, 589
de Lesseps, Ferdinand (1805–1894), 738 Delta Council, 935 demobilization, of U.S. military, 908, 922 Democratic National Convention, 1110 Democratic Party, 631, 632, 654, 656, 659,
729, 731, 792, 801, 810–11, 833, 840, 854, 876, 877, 909, 933, 935, 958, 959, 994, 995, 999, 1002, 1008, 1025, 1026, 1048, 1052, 1056, 1058, 1059, 1064, 1069, 1078, 1081, 1120–21, 1127, 1135, 1148
African-Americans and, 850, 968 anti-Redeemers in, 663 in campaign of 1960, 979 civil rights movement and, 993 decolonization and, 917 economic policies of, 881, 1047 in election of 1900, 687 in election of 1920, 822 in election of 1924, 791–94, 810 in election of 1928, 810–11 in election of 1932, 822 in election of 1946, 923 in election of 1948, 925–27 in election of 1952, 958, 958 in election of 1954, 958 in election of 1972, 1041 in election of 1992, 1075 in election of 2000, 1103 FDR’s transformation of, 821 Fifteenth amendment and, 585 Great Society and, 997, 999 high tariff opposed by, 632 HUAC and, 856 left wing of, 856 liberalism and, 933 and New Deal coalition, 841, 1032, 1034,
1052 1964 national convention of, 993 Nixon and, 1032 in Reconstruction, 583, 593, 594–95,
597–98 South and, 659, 661, 846, 857 Truman Doctrine and, 910
Custer’s Last Stand, 629 Customs Service, 796 CWA (Civil Works Administration), 826 Czechoslovakia, 772, 776, 865, 1026, 1075 Czolgosz, Leon (1873–1901), 725
Dade County, Fla., 1054 Dakota Territory, 624
gold in, 618, 624 Daley, Richard J. (1902–1976), 1000–1001 Dallas, Tex., 945, 991 dams, 848
Columbia River, 819–21 Darrow, Clarence (1857–1938), 707, 709,
801–2, 809, 825 Darwin, Charles (1809–1882), 635, 801,
1100 Darwinism, see evolution Daugherty, Harry (1860–1941), 791 Daughters of the American Revolution, 850,
931 Davis, “Cyclone” (1854–1940), 652 Davis, James J. (1873–1947), 805 Davis, John W. (1873–1955), 794 Davis, Sammy, Jr. (1925–1990), 969 Dawes, Henry L. (1816–1903), 625 Dawes Act (1887), 625, 848 Day After, The (movie), 1065–66 D-Day, 871 DDT, 1020 Dean, James (1931–1955), 966–67 Death and Life of Great American Cities,
The (Jacobs), 1004 death march, in Bataan, 869 death penalty, 1096 Debs, Eugene V. (1855–1926), 656, 706,
729, 730, 753, 756, 798 Declaration of Conscience (Smith), 931,
936 Declaration for Global Democracy, 1089 Declaration of Independence (1776), 685,
711, 854, 905, 917, 963 rewritten by Federated Trades of the
Pacific Coast, 641 Declaration of Principles (1905), 764 decolonization, African-Americans and, 917 Dedham, Mass., 780 de Diego, José (1866–1918), 761 Deep South, 593, 661, 985, 994, 995 Defense Department, U.S., 918, 980, 1040,
1119 McCarthy and, 930
Defense of Marriage Act, 1100
INDEX ★ A-97
Dodge City, Kans., 617 Dole, Bob (1923–), 1078 Dollar Diplomacy, 739 domestic abuse, 720, 752 domestic terrorism, 1118 Dominican Republic, 678, 739, 740, 864,
1007 immigrants from, 1087, 1091
Donnelly, Ignatius (1831–1901), 641, 653 “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” cam-
paign, 849 Dos Passos, John (1896–1970), 780–81 dot coms, 1083–84, 1085 double-V, 895 Douglas, Helen Gahagan (1900–1980), 957 Douglas, William O. (1898–1980), 1023 Douglass, Frederick (1817–1895), 591, 897,
976 on abolition, 568 “Composite Nation” speech of, 587 death of, 673, 674
Dow, Neal (1804–1897), 631 Dow Jones Industrial Average, 1129 draft:
Puerto Ricans and, 761 in Vietnam War, 1008, 1039, 1040, 1050 in World War I, 747, 754, 759 in World War II, 868, 873, 892
Dred Scott case, 586, 639 Dreiser, Theodore (1871–1945), 695, 796 Dresden, 900 Drew, Charles, 893 Drift and Mastery (Lippmann), 719 drugs, 967, 1009, 1012, 1014, 1065, 1095,
1145 Noriega and, 1073 Vietnam War and, 1040 war on, 800 see also crack cocaine
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868–1963), 675, 763–64, 767, 774, 775–76, 805, 809, 849–50, 897, 898, 935, 976
Duchess County, N.Y., 822 Dukakis, Michael (1933–), 1068 Dulles, John Foster (1888–1959), 921, 961,
962 Dumbarton Oaks, conference at, 902 Duncan, Isadora (1877?-1927), 712 Duquesne, Pa., 830 Durant, Will (author; 1885–1981), 877 Durant, William C. (GM founder; 1861–
1947), 812 Dust Bowl, 785, 827, 828, 945
welfare and, 1078 see also specific elections and
campaigns Dempsey, Jack (1895–1983), 783 Denmark, 735 Dennett, Mary Ware (1872–1947), 798 Dennis v. United States, 932 Denver, Colo., 945, 1019 deportation, of undocumented immigrants,
1123 depression, economic:
of 1873, 581, 598, 608, 609, 611, 636 of 1893, 608, 611, 636, 656, 680, 694 of 1929, see Great Depression agricultural, 785
deregulation, 1048, 1064, 1078, 1084–85, 1112, 1137
financial crisis of 2008 and, 1132, 1133 Deseret, Mormons and, 620 détente, 1037–38, 1047, 1052 Detroit, Mich., 716, 809, 893, 896, 947,
1046, 1055 riot in, 1000
Dewey, George (1837–1917), 681, 684 Dewey, John (1859–1952), 605, 716, 746,
794, 815 Dewey, Thomas E. (1902–1917), 898, 926 De Witt, Benjamin P., 693 Díaz, Porfirio (1830–1915), 741 dictators, dictatorships, 864–65, 883, 916,
990, 1038, 1049 FDR and, 864–65 U.S. support of, 1066 see also Hitler, Adolf; Mussolini, Benito;
Saddam Hussein; Stalin, Joseph; totalitarianism
Dictionary of Races of People, 755 Dingley Tariff (1897), 659 direct legislature, 717 direct primaries, 717 discrimination:
reverse, 1000, 1035 see also segregation
Disney, Walt (1901–1966), 929 diversity, 806, 854, 885, 886, 1091–94,
1098–99, 1102 see also pluralism
divorce, 1036, 1054, 1100 Dix, Fort, 749 Dixiecrats, 926 Dixie to Broadway (Broadway show), 809 Dixon, Frank (1892–1965), 896 Dodge, Mabel (1879–1962), 712
A-98 ★ INDEX
Ehrlichman, John (1925–1999), 1042 Eighteenth Amendment, 751, 752 Einstein, Albert (1879–1955), 899 Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1890–1960), 964,
972, 978, 979, 1032, 1078 atomic bomb and, 900 civil rights and, 972, 977–78 Cold War and, 961–62 D-Day and, 871 Farewell Address of, 980 inaugural address of, 961 Little Rock and, 978 “military-industrial complex” and, 863 Modern Republicanism and, 959 1952 campaign and, 931, 957 Suez fiasco and, 964
Eisenhower, Mamie (1896–1979), 980 Eisenhower administration, 957–68, 964,
972, 973, 1006 and Cuba, 990 Native Americans and, 1019
Eisenhower Doctrine, 964 EITC, see Earned Income Tax Credit elections and campaigns:
of 1868, 585, 585, 630 of 1872, 597 of 1874, 598 of 1876, 599–600, 600, 631 of 1880, 631 of 1884, 631 of 1888, 631 of 1892, 631, 655, 655 of 1896, 657–59, 659 of 1900, 687–88 of 1912, 729–30, 730, 823 of 1916, 744 of 1920, 822 of 1924, 794 of 1928, 810–11 of 1932, 821–22 of 1934, 835 of 1936, 840–41 of 1938, 883 of 1940, 867, 896 of 1944, 882, 898, 909 of 1946, 923 of 1948, 926–27, 993 of 1952, 957–59, 958 of 1960, 979–81, 980, 991, 1030 of 1964, 993–94, 1030 of 1972, 1042 of 1976, 1048 of 1980, 1057–58, 1058 of 1984, 1064, 1064
Dutch East Indies, 869, 917 see also Indonesia
Dylan, Bob (1941–), 1009
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), 1076 Earth Day, 1021 Earth Week, 1060 Eastern Band Cherokees, 1099 Eastern Europe, collapse of communism in,
1071–72 Easter Rebellion, 743 East Germany:
absorption of, 1072 creation of, 912
East Harlem, 952 Eastman, Crystal (1881–1928), 712 East St. Louis, Ill., race riot in, 766, 767 East Village, N.Y., 1013 Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 922 Economic Bill of Rights, 882–83, 921 economic citizenship, 724 economy:
Clinton and, 1082 financial crisis of 2008 and, 1127–32,
1132, 1135, 1138 growth of, 630, 632, 782 growth of, in South, 874–75, 875 G. W. Bush and, 1120, 1127–32 housing bubble crisis and, 1127–28,
1134 indicators of change in, 606 rise of corporations in, 608–9 see also depression, economic; mar-
ket economy; market revolution; recessions
Economy Act (1932), 825, 846 Edison, Thomas A. (1847–1931), 608, 811 Edison Illuminating Company, 701 Edisto Island, S.C., 576 education:
civil rights and, 986, 999 of freed slaves, 568, 570, 572 higher, 927–28, 960, 1014, 1016, 1037,
1091, 1151 Native Americans and, 1019 public, 591, 591, 593, 633, 665, 705,
716, 720, 802, 834, 857, 882, 883, 922, 925, 943, 952, 1099, 1137
Redeemers and, 659 women and, 720, 723, 750
Egerton, John (1935–), 969 Egypt, 651, 772, 1044, 1050, 1119
in Suez fiasco, 964 uprising in, 1146
INDEX ★ A-99
Estonia, 772, 901 Ethiopia, 865, 1094, 1146 ethnic cleansing, 1079, 1079 eugenics, 755 Europe, European powers, 771–75, 773,
806, 908, 911, 914, 916, 1044, 1086 immigration from, 996, 1087, 1093 Islam in, 1125 post-World War II, 943 pre-World War II, 865 see also specific countries
European Union, Iran and, 1146 Evers, Medgar (1925–1963), 988 evolution, 635–36, 801, 1100 Executive Order 8802, 894 Executive Order 9066, 891 Exodus, book of, 661, 662 extremism, Goldwater and, 1010
factories, 700, 781, 785, 943, 1080 automobile, 782 New Deal and, 820 pollution and, 1033 in Soviet Exhibition, 940 during World War II, 876
Factories in the Field (McWilliams), 849 “factory farms,” 785 Fair Deal, 922 Fair Employment Practices Commission
(FEPC), 887, 894–95, 906 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 821, 850 Fair Labor Standards Bill, 844 Fall, Albert (1861–1944), 791 Falwell, Jerry (1933–2007), 1053–54 Family Assistance Plan, 1033 family life, 1017, 1024
Cold War and, 949–50 “family values” and, 1100–1101 and nuclear family, 1100
Family Record, 567 family values, 1057 Farmers’ Alliance, 652
Colored, 654 farms see agriculture Farm Security Administration, 847, 849 fascism, 834, 836, 866, 868, 878, 883–87,
919 Mussolini as founder of, 865
“Father Was Killed by a Pinkerton Man” (song), 649
Faubus, Orval (1910–1994), 978 FBI, see Federal Bureau of Investigation FCC, see Federal Communications
Commission
of 1988, 1069 of 1992, 1074–76 of 1996, 1078 of 2000, 1103–4, 1104 of 2004, 1120–21 of 2006, 1127–28 of 2008, 1109, 1135–36 of 2012, 1148–50, 1150 third parties in, 633
Electoral College, 631, 744, 1058, 1103, 1104, 1121
Electoral Commission (1877), 600 electrical industry, 704, 795 Electric Auto-Lite, 831 electricity, 608, 819–20, 859, 943, 1084 Elk, John, 626 Elk v. Wilkins, 626 Ellis Island, 697 Ellison, Ralph (1914–1994), 973 Ellsberg, Daniel (1931–), 1041 El Mozote, El Salvador, massacre in, 1066 El Salvador, 1050, 1066, 1123 e-mail, 1082 Emancipation Proclamation (1862), 576,
862, 906 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church, massacre in, 1131, 1152 Emergency Banking Act (1933), 824 empire, U.S., 682–83, 684–86, 685 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1021, 1033 End Poverty in California, 833 Enforcement Acts (1870–71), 596, 598 Engel v. Vitale, 1023 England, 782
see also British Empire; Great Britain English, as official language, 1099 Enron, 1084 environmental degradation, 1151 environmentalism, 1003, 1020–21, 1049,
1057, 1060–61, 1062, 1076, 1077, 1078, 1080–82, 1111
Obama and, 1146 see also pollution
Environmental Protection Agency, 1032 Episcopalians, 1053 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1972), 1037 Equal Employment Opportunity Commis-
sion, 997, 1015 Equal Pay Act (1963), 1015 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 787–88,
1054, 1057, 1064 ERA, see Equal Rights Amendment Espionage Act (1917), 752–53, 756, 797,
799, 1147
A-100 ★ INDEX
Feminist Alliance, 712 FEPC, see Fair Employment Practices
Commission Ferguson, Miriam “Ma,” 722 Ferguson, Mo., 1143, 1143, 1144 Ferraro, Geraldine (1935–), 1064, 1064 FHA, see Federal Housing Administration Fields, J. D., 652 Fifteenth Amendment, 585–86, 588, 590,
663, 764, 787, 906 Native Americans and, 626
Fifth Freedom, 878–79 Fight for Freedom rally, 868 Filene, Edward (1860–1937), 702 Filipinos, 683–85, 869, 877, 944
atrocities by U.S. against, 684 Christianity and, 684 immigration quota on, 804–5 see also Philippines
financial crisis of 2008, 1128–32, 1132, 1135
Finland, 772 firearms:
lack of regulation for, 1152 used in mass murders, 1152
Fire Next Time, The (Baldwin), 1003 fireside chats, 839, 868 Firestone, 895, 1063 First Amendment, 796, 797–98, 876, 929,
1022, 1023 Holmes doctrine and, 798
Fisher, Sidney George, 587 Fisher Body Plant, 832 Fishman, Simon, 785 Fisk University, 568, 763 Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896–1940), 797 Flag Day, 680 flappers, 781, 788 Flint, Michigan, 812, 832 Florida, 811, 924, 1135, 1140, 1143
BP oil spill and, 1137 in election of 2000, 1103–4, 1104 lynchings in, 796 Noriega in, 1073 Supreme Court of, 1104
Flushing, N.Y., 1087 FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) (1966),
1043 Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 672 Food Administration, 747, 752 food stamps, 998, 1032, 1065, 1099, 1139 Foraker Act (1900), 686 Forbes, Charles (1880–1954), 791
FDIC, see Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 771, 907, 932–33, 991, 1002, 1042–44, 1118
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 829
Federal Dance Project, 836 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC), 824 Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), 1122 Federal Emergency Relief Administration,
825 Federal Home Loan Bank System, 815 Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation
(Freddie Mac), 1134 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 829,
851 Federal Land Policy Management Act,
1060–61 Federal Music Project, 836, 853 Federal National Mortgage Association
(Fannie Mae), 1134 Federal Reserve Bank, 1128, 1129,
1133–34 Federal Reserve Board, 790 Federal Reserve System, 732, 1048 Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Cor-
poration, 1064 Federal Theater Project, 836, 858 Federal Trade Commission, 732, 790 Federated Trades of the Pacific Coast, 641 Felton, Rebecca, 762 FEMA, see Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), 1014–15 feminism, 801, 933, 950, 984, 1014–16,
1016, 1076, 1102 African-Americans and, 787 Hillary Clinton and, 1102 Ku Klux Klan and, 803 Latino activism vs., 1019 in middle class, 1015 new, 712 radical, 1017 reproductive rights and, 1017, 1024,
1026–27 second wave of, 1010–11, 1014,
1026–27, 1054 World War I and, 743 see also gender relations; women; wom-
en’s rights
INDEX ★ A-101
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 589 Frank Leslie’s Weekly, 646 Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790), 756 Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria
(1863–1914), 742 Frazier, Garrison (b. 1797), 565 Freedmen’s Bureau, 568, 571–72, 582, 592,
621 Freedmen’s Bureau Bill (1866), 582 freedom, 689, 896, 896, 906, 919, 1024,
1119, 1127, 1130, 1137 American National Exhibition and, 940 of assembly, 856 Bellamy’s view of, 643 Chief Joseph on, 621–24 civil rights movement and, 935, 968–79 Cold War and, 916, 917–22, 928, 952,
965, 984 conservatism and, 956–57 consumerism and, 699, 946–47, 948–49 counterculture and, 1009–12 degradation of, 796 employer vs. employee, 650 of expression, 709, 712–13, 752, 754,
756, 796, 797–99, 801, 855–57, 861, 876, 889, 903, 920, 929, 932, 941, 954, 1005, 1112, 1119, 1152
FDR and, 839–40 from want, 877, 881 frozen meals and, 950 in Gilded Age, 634–39 in Great Depression, 815–16 Great Society and, 998–99 guns and, 1101 immigration and, 698–99 Indians and, 624–27 Iraq War and, 1116, 1121 left wing groups and, 853 Marshall Plan and, 911 New Deal and, 824, 838–45 New Left’s definition of, 997 in 1964 election, 1030–31 post-World War II, 880–84 of the press, 756, 796, 1022, 1040 Prohibition and, 801 Reagan and, 1058–59 in Reconstruction, 566–67 Red Scare and, 780 religious, see religious freedom September 11 terrorist attacks and, 1153 Social Darwinists view of, 636 Statue of Liberty and, 603–4 suburbia and, 950
Ford, Gerald (1913–2006), 1047, 1053, 1055, 1058
Nixon pardoned by, 1047 Ford, Henry (1863–1947), 701, 782–83,
786, 832, 866, 867 Ford administration, 1076 Fordism, 701–2 Ford Motor Company, 701–2, 701, 758,
782, 784, 866, 947, 1085 assembly lines and, 702 and German slave labor, 866
Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922), 795 Forest Service, U.S., 727, 1057 Fort Dix, 749 Fort Hood, 924 Fortune, 814, 877 “47 percent” remark, in 2012 election and
campaign, 1149 Fosdick, Harry Emerson (1878–1969),
799–800 Four Freedoms, 861, 864, 876–77, 880,
884, 889, 895, 903, 906, 911, 920, 925, 954
Four Freedoms Show, 862 Fourteen Points, 745–46, 768, 771, 772,
773 Fourteenth Amendment, 583, 586, 587,
588, 590, 598, 638, 664–65, 665, 671, 672, 764, 793, 798, 799, 807, 906, 971, 973, 1036, 1104, 1126, 1130
Native Americans and, 626 Tea Party and, 1148
Foxwoods casino, 1098 France, 603, 749, 768, 795, 865–67, 898,
900, 902, 912, 959, 964, 1119, 1151 communist party in, 911 declares war on Germany, 867 in Great Depression, 811, 822 industry in, 605 Iraq War and, 1116 male suffrage in, 630 1968 strike in, 1026 occupation of Germany by, 912 progressivism in, 715 socialism in, 706 in Suez fiasco, 964 in U.N., 902 welfare state and, 959 in World War I, 742 see also French Empire
Franco, Francisco (1892–1975), 865, 866 Frank, Leo (1884–1915), 803 Frankfurter, Felix (1882–1965), 780
A-102 ★ INDEX
Islamic, 1051, 1074, 1086, 1112, 1114 radio broadcasts and, 834–35 religious freedom vs., 801 Saddam Hussein and, 1114 see also creationism
Gabbard, Tulsi (1981–), 1150 Gabel, Hortense (1912–1990), 935 Gadhafi, Muammar (1942–2011), overthrow
of, 1145 Gaffney, Mary (b. 1846), 573 Gaines, Lloyd (1913?-1939), 972 Galbraith, John Kenneth (1908–2006), 966 Galesburg, Ill., Maytag factory in, 1120 Gandhi, Mohandas (Mahatma; 1869–1948),
775, 903, 976 Garfield, James A. (1831–1881), 566, 631
assassination of, 631, 632 Garland, Hamlin (1860–1940), 650 Garner, Eric, 1143 Garner, John Nance (1868–1967), 881 Garrison, William Lloyd (1805–1879), 586,
756 Garvey, Marcus (1887–1940), 767 Garveyism, 767, 897 Garvey movement, 809 Gates, Bill (1955–), 1083, 1085 GATT, see General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade Gaumont film company, 783 Gay Liberation Front, 1018 Gay Men’s Health Crisis, 1097 gay rights, 713, 929, 933, 984, 1017–18,
1037, 1054, 1065, 1075, 1097–98, 1100, 1102, 1126, 1130
gay marriage and, 1150 McCarthyism and, 929, 1017 military and, 1076 see also homosexuals, homosexuality
Gaza Strip, 1117 GE, see General Electric “gender gap”, electoral, 1104 gender relations:
World War II and, 863 see also women; women’s rights
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 911
General Assembly, U.N., 902, 920 General Electric (GE), 608, 1058, 1085 General Electric Theater, The (TV show),
947 General Motors, 782, 784, 812, 832, 833,
856, 959, 981, 1021, 1086
freedom (continued) Thurmond and, 926, 927 Truman Doctrine and, 910 in twenty-first century, 1150–54 U.S. foreign policy and, 736 war on terror and, 1106–7, 1112–13 women and, 700–701, 710, 787–89, 789,
879, 1014–16 of workers, 611–12 World War I and, 748–50, 752 World War II and, 863, 864, 876–77, 903 see also Four Freedoms; religious
freedom Freedom Award, 995 Freedom Budget, 1000 Freedom House, 868 Freedom in the Modern World, 815–16 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (1966),
1043 Freedom of Speech (Rockwell), 864 Freedom of Worship (Rockwell), 885 Freedom Pledge, 905 Freedom Revolution, 1077 Freedom Rides, 984, 985–86 Freedom Scroll, 905 Freedom Summer, 993 Freedom Train, 905–7, 906 free enterprise, 878, 916, 954–55, 959, 965,
1054 Freeman, Owen, 1112 Free Speech Movement, 1005 free trade, 795, 1074, 1076, 1078, 1084,
1088 see also NAFTA (North American Free
Trade Agreement) freeways, 946 Free World, 916, 917, 954, 956
U.S. president as leader of, 910 Free World Association, 868, 881 French Empire, 678, 735, 774
Vietnam and, 964–65 French Indochina, 869, 917, 1006 French Revolution, 921 Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939), 713, 789 Frick, Henry Clay (1849–1919), 650 Friedan, Betty (1921–2006), 1010–11, 1015 Friedman, Milton (1912–2006), 955–56 From the Plantation to the Senate, 591 Fuel Agency, 747 Full Employment Bill, 883 Fulton, Mo., “iron curtain” speech at, 909 fundamentalism, 799–801, 1051, 1053–54,
1086
INDEX ★ A-103
freedom in, 634–39 labor in, 639–47 liberty of contract in, 636–37 political parties in, 631 politics in, 629–34 Social Darwinism, 635–36 social reform in, 643–44 state governments in, 624
Gilded Age, The (Twain and Warner), 630 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860–1935),
700, 710, 712, 747 Gingrich, Newt (1943–), 1077 Ginsberg, Allen (1926–1997), 967–68 Ginsburg, Ruth Bader (1933–), 1076 Gitlow, Benjamin (1891–1965), 798 Glacier Point, Calif., 727 Gladden, Washington (1836–1918), 644 Glasgow, 768 glasnost, 1067 Glass-Steagall Act (1932), 824, 1085 Gleason, Jackie (1916–1987), 947 globalization, 1072, 1074, 1080–86, 1088,
1089, 1091, 1133, 1137, 1153 global warming, 981, 1111, 1112, 1146 GNP, see gross national product Goddess of Democracy and Freedom, 1071 Godkin, E. L. (1831–1902), 597, 687 gold, 1044
corporate mining of, 618 Goldbergs, The (TV show), 947 Gold Coast, 917, 963 Golden Anniversary of the Festival of
Lights, 811 “golden door,” 803 Goldman, Emma (1869–1940), 713, 714,
753, 771 Goldman Sachs, 1133 gold rush, California, 614 gold standard, 632, 657, 811, 824, 901, 1044 Gold Standard Act (1900), 659 Goldwater, Barry (1909–1998), 994–95,
1010, 1030–31, 1058, 1078 Gompers, Samuel (1850–1924), 676, 704,
706, 707, 747 Gonzáles, Rodolfo Corky, 1019 Goodman, Andrew (1949–1964), 993 Good Neighbor Policy, 864, 887 Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931–), 1067–68,
1068, 1071 Gore, Albert (1907–1998), 977 Gore, Albert, Jr. (1948–), 1103–4
debates with Bush, 1105 Goshorn, Shan, 1099
General Slocum, 692 General Theory of Employment, Interest,
and Money (Keynes), 844 Geneva:
summit conference in, 962 Vietnam peace conference in, 964
Geneva Accords (1954), 964, 1006 Geneva Conventions, First, 1119, 1127 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 761 George, Henry (1839–1897), 641, 642, 646,
646, 703, 715, 717 Georgia, 576, 660, 856, 1048, 1126
Confederate flag and, 977 textiles in, 660
German-Americans, 615, 669, 706, 806 Prohibition and, 752 World War I and, 743, 759, 1119 World War II and, 866, 890
Germany, 749, 772, 773, 774, 775, 795, 871–73, 898, 902, 919, 1043, 1047, 1134, 1151, 1152
aggression by, 866 D-Day and, 871 declaration of war against U.S. of, 869 division of, 910, 912 empire of, 735 in Great Depression, 811 industry in, 605 invasion of Soviet Union by, 868, 908 Iraq War and, 1116 occupation of, 912–13 post-Cold War, 1072 progressivism in, 715 rise of Hitler in, 822, 865 socialism in, 706 Soviet Union invasion of, 898 submarine war and, 869, 871 Venezuela crisis and, 739 in World War I, 742 in World War II, 890, 898, 900, 901 see also East Germany; West Germany
Geronimo (1829–1909), 624 Gettysburg Address, The, 854, 905 Ghana, 963, 1094 Ghost Dance, 627 GI Bill of Rights (1944), 882–83, 890, 894,
922, 954 Gilded Age, 603–48, 703, 704, 706, 715,
720 corruption of politics in, 629–30 courts in, 638–39 economy in, 632 elections in, 631
A-104 ★ INDEX
Great Depression, 811–16, 820, 822, 833, 834, 835, 842–43, 874, 877, 879, 882, 886, 901–2, 911, 958, 1044, 1084, 1128, 1132, 1149
Dust Bowl and, 827 Eisenhower and, 959 homelessness and, 812, 842–43 housing and, 828–29 minorities and, 846–51 socialist view of, 852 wages in, 812, 814 women and, 846 World War II and, 858, 862 see also New Deal
Great Migration, 661–62, 765–66, 765, 803, 807, 808, 893
Great Plains, 614, 615, 617, 652, 694 agriculture in, 785, 785 women in, 616
Great Railroad Strike of 1877, 639, 640 Great Salt Lake Valley, Mormons in, 620 Great Society, 572, 755, 851, 897, 997–99,
1008, 1027, 1032, 1065, 1076, 1077, 1078, 1137, 1139
see also Johnson, Lyndon Great Steel Strike, 769, 770, 832 Great War, see World War I Greece, rebellion in, 910 Greeley, Horace (1811–1872), 597, 654 Green, James K. (1823–1891), 590 Greenback-Labor Party, 631, 633 Greenglass, David (1922–), 930 Greenland, 1111 Greensboro, N.C., 983
sit-in at, 983–84 Greenspan, Alan (1926–), 1047, 1133–34 Greenwich Village, N.Y., 712
Stonewall Bar raid in, 1018 Grenada, 1066 Griffith, D. W. (1875–1948), 762 Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 1036 Griswold v. Connecticut, 1023–24 Gromyko, Andrey (1909–1989), 1047 Gronlund, Laurence (1846–1899), 641,
642–43 gross national product (GNP), 862, 869,
873–74, 942 Gruening, Ernest (1887–1974), 1006 Guadalcanal, 870 Guam, 683, 686
in World War II, 869, 898 Guantánamo Bay, 683, 1118, 1119, 1127,
1136, 1145
Gould, Jay (1836–1892), 644–45 government, U.S.:
business and, 789–95, 880 corruption in, 791 debt of, see national debt employment discrimination, 851 housing discrimination by, 850–51 labor and, 656 regulatory powers of, 726, 790, 824,
841–44, 858, 997 in Second New Deal, 837 workforce size of, 632 see also specific branches
Grady, Henry (1850–1889), 660 Graham, Billy (1918–), 953 Graham, Martha (1894–1991), 854 Gramm, Phil, 1085 Grand Coulee Dam, 820, 848 grandfather clause, voting rights and, 663,
664 Grand Rapids, Mich., manufacturing in, 606 Grange, 634 Grant, Madison (1865–1932), 755 Grant, Ulysses S. (1822–1885), 596, 597,
630, 678 in election of 1868, 585, 585 Indian policy of, 621 Ku Klux Klan and, 596 scandals under, 595 Southern violence and, 598
Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck), 827–28, 842–43
Great Awakening, Third, 1053 Great Britain, 768, 795, 837, 865–68,
909–10, 959, 979, 1026, 1057, 1151 D-Day and, 871 empire of, see British Empire in Great Depression, 812, 823 immigrants from, 615 industry in, 605 Iraq War and, 1116 Lend-Lease and, 868 occupation of Germany by, 912 progressivism in, 715 submarine war and, 871 in Suez fiasco, 964 suffrage in, 630, 750 and Third World, 963 in U.N., 902 Venezuela and, 739 welfare state and, 959 in World War I, 742 see also British Empire; England
INDEX ★ A-105
Havana Harbor, 681 Havens, Richie (1941–), 1013 Hawaii, 684, 686, 697, 805, 807, 1110
acquisition of, 680, 683 Hay, Harry (1912–2002), 1017 Hay, John (1838–1905), 681, 683 Hayden, Tom (1939–), 1026 Hayek, Friedrich A. (1899–1992), 883 Hayes, Max (1866–1945), 706 Hayes, Rutherford B. (1822–1893),
599–600, 622, 624, 631, 639 Haymarket affair, 644–46 Haynsworth, Clement (1912–1989), 1033 Hays code, 796 Haywood, William “Big Bill” (1869–1928),
707, 708 Head Start, 998 health care, national, 882, 920, 922, 925,
934, 1077 health care, rising costs of, 1151 Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs),
1077 Hearst, William Randolph (1863–1951),
680–81 Helsinki Accords, 1047 Hemingway, Ernest (1899–1961), 796, 797 Henry, Patrick (1736–1799), 1101 Hepburn Act (1906), 726 Herberg, Will (1901–1977), 954 Heritage Foundation, 1053 Herndon, Angelo (1913–1997), 856 Hersey, John (1914–1993), 900 Heterodoxy, 712 Hewitt, Abram (1822–1903), 635, 646 Hidden Persuaders, The (Packard), 966 Highlander School, 974 Highland Park, Mich., Ford plant at, 701,
702 highways, 946, 954
building of, 927, 948, 959 Hill, Anita (1956–), 1102 Hillman, Sidney (1887–1946), 769 Hinduism:
counterculture and, 1013 Tulsi Gabbard and, 1150
Hindus, 1086, 1087 as immigrants, 1087
Hine, Lewis (1874–1940), 695, 696, 786 Hirohito, emperor of Japan (1901–1989),
899 Hirono, Mazie K. (1947–), 1150 Hiroshima, atomic bombing of, 899, 961 Hiroshima (Hersey), 900
Guatemala, 963, 964, 965, 1009, 1050, 1066, 1123
Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina and, 1121–22 Gulf of Mexico, BP oil spill in, 1137 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1006 Gulfport, Miss., 985 Gulf War, 1073–74, 1106, 1114
casualties in, 1074 guns, and gun control, 1101 Guthrie, Woody (1912–1967), 818 Guyana, 1014 gypsies, Nazi extermination of, 873
Haas, Ernst (1921–1986), 945 “habeas corpus,” 892, 1119 Habitat for Humanity, 1058 Haight-Ashbury, Calif., 1013 Hair (musical), 1014 Haiti, 740, 864, 978, 1058
immigrants from, 1091 Haldeman, H. R. (1926–1993), 1042 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 1127 Hamdi, Yasir, 1126 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 1126–27 Hamer, Fannie Lou (1917–1977), 993, 1015 Hamilton, Walton H. (1881–1998), 815 Hampton, Wade (1818–1902), 599 Hampton Institute, 568, 673 Hancock, Winfield Scott (1824–1886), 631 Hanna, Mark (1837–1904), 658, 707 Hanna, Tom, 646 Harding, Warren G. (1865–1923), 753, 777,
790, 791, 795, 805 death of, 782
Harding, William L. (1877–1934), 759 Harlan, John Marshall (1833–1911), 641,
665, 1059 Harlem, N.Y., 807–9, 849, 854
race riots in, 886, 1000 Harlem Renaissance, 809 Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins (1825–1911),
590 Harrington, Michael (1928–1989), 997–98,
1004, 1123 Harrison, Benjamin (1833–1901), 631, 680 Harrison administration, 680 Hart, Gary (1936–), 1069, 1102 Hart-Celler Act (1965), 996, 1124 Harvard Law School, 1110 Harvard University, 763, 780, 822, 1012
Marshall Plan announced at, 911 Harvest Gypsies, The: On the Road to the
Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), 842–43
A-106 ★ INDEX
Honeymooners, The (TV show), 947 Hoover, Herbert (1874–1964), 769, 786,
810–11, 822, 828–29, 864, 1120 background of, 810 Depression and, 814–15 Eisenhower and, 959 in election of 1928, 810–11 as Food Administration director, 747 New Deal and, 840 as Secretary of Commerce, 790, 791
Hoover, J. Edgar (1895–1972), 771, 933, 991
Hooverville, 812 Hopkins, Harry (1890–1946), 823, 835, 836 Horne, Lena (1917–2010), 969 horses, 621 Horton, Willie, 1069 Hose, Sam (d. 1899), 666 hospitals, 1063 House Beautiful, 947 House of Mirth, The (Wharton), 612 House of Representatives, U.S., 583, 583,
598, 631, 657, 792, 971, 1077, 1118, 1124–25, 1128, 1148
African-Americans in, 591 Clinton’s impeachment and, 1102–3 Johnson’s impeachment and, 584 Judiciary Committee of, 1042 Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) of, 856, 929, 931, 957, 1021–22
World War I and, 745 Housing Act (1949), 951 Housing and Urban Development Depart-
ment, U.S., 997 housing bubble, 1128–29, 1134, 1142 Houston, Charles Hamilton (1895–1950),
854, 972 Houston, Tex., 945
population of, 875 Houston, Ulysses S. (b. 1825), 564 Howard, Mary W., 721 Howard, Merrimon (b. 1821), 569 Howard, O. O. (1830–1909), 571–72, 573,
576, 621–24 Howard University, 568 Howe, Timothy (1816–1883), 590 Howells, William Dean (1837–1920), 687 Howl (Ginsberg), 967–68 How the Other Half Lives (Riis), 613, 1123 HUAC, see House of Representatives, U.S.,
Un-American Activities Committee of Hudson River school, 695
Hispanics, see Latinos Hiss, Alger (1904–1996), 929, 930, 957 History of the Standard Oil Company (Tar-
bell), 695 Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945), 776, 822, 865,
868, 898, 899, 906, 908, 924, 926 “final solution” of, 873, 885 and nonaggression pact, 867, 868
HMOs, see Health Maintenance Organizations
Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), 774, 775, 963, 965
Hoffman, Abbie (1936–1989), 1013, 1026 Hoffman, Julius (1896–1983), 1026 Holland, see Netherlands Hollande, François, 1147 Hollywood, 785, 796, 800
blacklisting in, 929 communism and, 918, 919, 929 image of America and, 786 racism and, 918 rise of, 783 sexually charged films from, 788 strikes in, 923 World War II and, 879, 885 see also motion pictures
Hollywood Ten, 929 Holmes, John Hayes (1879–1964), 797 Holmes, Oliver Wendell (1841–1935), 760,
797–98 Holmes doctrine, 798 Holocaust, 873, 885 Home, Sweet Home (song), 828 homelessness, 1063
Great Depression and, 812, 842–43 home ownership, 1128, 1129–32
middle class and, 828, 841 post-World War II, 883, 922
Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, 829 Home Protection movement, 676–77 Homer, Winslow (1836–1910), 572 Homestead, Pa., Carnegie’s factories in,
609, 676, 769, 832 Homestead Act (1862), 581, 615, 616, 694 Home to Harlem (McKay), 809 homosexuals, homosexuality, 713, 858,
929, 933, 967, 984, 1037, 1065, 1100, 1126, 1130
and AIDS, 1097–98 Nazi extermination of, 873 see also gay rights
Honduras, 739, 1123 drug trade in, 1145
INDEX ★ A-107
freedom and, 698–99, 701 from Germany, 706 global, 696–98 “golden door” and, 803 illegal, 1123–25 from India, 1087, 1091, 1092 IQ tests and, 759 from Japan, 617 Ku Klux Klan, 802–3 from Latin America, 997, 1087, 1091,
1094 from Mexico, 614, 708, 804, 849, 849,
886–87, 996, 1087, 1091–92, 1093, 1123–24, 1148
from Middle East, 1118 to New York, 694 prejudice and, 780 progressivism and, 719–20 quotas, 996 reform of 1965, 996–97 religion and, 799 Republicans as anti-immigration,
1099–1100, 1148 restrictions on, 669–70, 759–60, 792,
803–7, 804, 852, 885, 890 rights, 1125 from Russia, 743 Tea Party and, 1148 Texas and, 1124 undocumented, 1123 volume of, 696–98, 698 wages and, 699 and West, 614, 615 from Western Hemisphere, 804 women and, 699, 1091 World War I and, 661, 765 World War II and, 863 see also specific nationalities
Immigration Act (1924), 804 Immigration Commission, U.S., 755 Immigration Restriction League, 670, 780 impeachment:
of Andrew Johnson, 584–85 of Clinton, 1102–3
imperialism, 889, 911 Christianity and, 678 decolonization and, 917, 963 international, 677–78 moral, 739–40 as “New Imperialism,” 678 U.S., 677–89, 881
Inchon, South Korea, 914, 915 income, inequality in, 1139, 1141, 1142
Huerta, Victoriano (1854–1916), 741 Hughes, Charles Evans (1862–1948), 744,
791, 844 Hughes, Langston (1902–1967), 809,
906–7, 1154 Hull House, 719–20, 758, 823 Human Be-In, 1012, 1012 human rights, 1066, 1079, 1080, 1131
ambiguities of, 921–22 rise of, 920–22, 925
Humphrey, Hubert (1911–1978), 925, 979, 993, 1026, 1027
Hundred Days, 824, 825, 826 Hungary, 768, 772, 962 Huntington, Samuel P. (1927–2008), 1125 Hyde Park, 822 hydrogen bomb, 961
see also atomic bomb; nuclear weapons
IBM, 1082 ICBMs, see intercontinental ballistic
missiles Ickes, Harold (1874–1952), 823, 826, 850 Idaho, 621, 722, 1042
corporate mining in, 618 socialism in, 706 woman suffrage in, 655, 721
Idaho territory, 614 Ideas Have Consequences (Weaver), 956 identity politics, 1099–1100 “If We Must Die” (McKay), 809 “I Have a Dream” (King), 976 “illegal aliens,” 805 Illinois, 948, 1057, 1109
woman suffrage in, 722 Illinois, University of, 951 Illinois Supreme Court, 638 I Married a Communist (movie), 918 immigrants, immigration, 604, 605, 614,
651, 680, 687, 694, 695, 697, 755–58, 828, 842–43, 852, 853, 885, 1087–94, 1087, 1090, 1091, 1093, 1099, 1100, 1110, 1123–25
AFL and, 676 from Africa, 1094–95 Americanization and, 755–58, 792,
802–3, 852, 885 Asian, 696, 761, 803, 804, 886, 996,
1092–94 from China, 617, 670–72 to cities, 696–98 Cold War and, 928 Congress and, 933–34
A-108 ★ INDEX
influenza, 768 Ingersoll, Robert G. (1833–1899), 632 initiative and referendum, 717 innovations, technological, 608 In re Debs, 656 Insular Cases, 686 insurance:
national health, 837, 858, 882, 920, 922, 925, 934, 997, 1077, 1120, 1136, 1138
unemployment, 837, 846, 847, 850, 959, 1134–35
unions and, 934, 960 integration, see race, racism, integration
and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs),
979 Interior Department, U.S., 826 International Church of the Foresquare
Gospel, 835 International Convention Against Torture,
1119 International Harvester, 609 internationalism, black, 889, 897–98 International Labor Defense, 854–55 International Ladies’ Garment Workers
Union, 692 International League for Human Rights,
1049 International Longshoremen’s Association,
831 International Monetary Fund, 901, 1081 Internet, 835, 1081, 1082–83, 1119, 1147
in elections of, 2008, 1110 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 638 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC),
633, 726, 986 Interstate Highway System, 948 intervention, era of U.S., 737–42 Iowa, 759, 810, 1121 IQ tests, 759, 789 Iran, 908–9, 963, 965, 1009, 1038, 1044,
1048, 1050, 1066, 1097, 1113 American hostages in, 1050–52, 1051,
1146 nuclear energy program of, 1146 television and American hostages in,
1051 Iran-Contra affair, 1066–67, 1068 Iraq, 774, 1066, 1113, 1114–15, 1153
economic sanctions on, 1074 in Gulf War, 1073–74 ISIS in, 1146 militias in, 1116
income inequality, 1151 income taxes, see taxes, income India, 616, 651, 768, 774, 898, 901, 903,
917, 963, 978, 1013, 1086, 1154 immigrants from, 1087, 1091, 1092 jobs exported to, 1120 loss of U.S. jobs to, 1120
Indiana, 994, 1135 anticommunist law in, 931 Ku Klux Klan, 803
Indian Affairs Committee, 625 Indiana University, 919 Indian New Deal, 848 Indian radicalism, 715 Indian removal, 614
see also Native Americans Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 848 “Indians of All Tribes,” 1019 individualism, 643, 703, 953, 955, 956, 1112 Indonesia, 869, 962, 963, 1110 industrial production, 846 industrial revolution, 605
“second,” 605–13 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW),
706–8, 709, 714, 748, 754, 769, 770, 771, 796, 830, 832
industry, 887, 890 African-Americans in, 855–56, 895 in California, 785 child labor and, 695 decline in, 1046 Depression and, 846–47 Fordism and, 702 freedom and, 704–5 immigration and, 698 New Deal and, 858 in New York, 692 Populists and, 656 post-World War I, 769–70 post-World War II, 943, 947 in Progressive era, 692–93, 695, 716 rise of, 736 scientific management in, 704 in South, 660, 846–47, 874–75, 960 women in, 879–80 World War II and, 873, 874–75, 878–79 see also manufacturing; market revolu-
tion; specific industries infant mortality, 1151 inflation, 911, 1043, 1045, 1046, 1048,
1052, 1062, 1063 Influence of Sea Power Upon History, The
(McMahon), 679
INDEX ★ A-109
Jackson State University, 1039 Jacobs, Jane, 1004 Jamaica, 808 Japan, 683, 761, 768, 772–73, 774,
775, 795, 804, 866, 869, 870, 874, 898–900, 902, 914, 916, 1043–44, 1134, 1152
as Axis power, 867 economic reconstruction of, 912 expulsion from Vietnam of, 964 immigrants from, 617, 697 invasion of Manchuria by, 865 trade with, 866, 868 U.S. declaration of war against, 869 U.S. oil and, 866, 868 in World War I, 742 in World War II, 867, 877–78, 878,
890–93, 895, 898–900 World War II surrender of, 899
Japanese immigrants, Japanese-Ameri- cans, 890–93, 1092, 1118
in Hawaii, 680 World War II internment of, 863, 891–93,
891, 972, 1119 jazz, 808, 918 Jazz Age, 781 Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), 652, 756,
1101 Jeffersonian, 753 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 877 Jesus, 657, 669, 786, 830 Jesus People, 1013 Jews, 664, 706, 755, 758, 774, 799, 803,
806, 834, 841, 885, 903, 930, 953, 1086, 1103
Book of Exodus and, 661 in FDR administration, 852 in flight from Russia, 698 in Hollywood, 853, 885 Holocaust and, 873, 885 Ku Klux Klan and, 803 lynching of, 803 in Nazi Germany, 822, 865 prejudice against, 806, 807 on television, 947 World War I and, 743 see also anti-Semitism
Jim Crow, 906, 969, 974, 977, 988, 1022, 1063
Jobs, Steve (1955–2011), 1083 Johnson, Andrew (1808–1875), 576, 1103
background of, 579 emancipation and, 579
Iraq War, 748, 1114–17, 1120, 1127, 1128, 1136
casualties in, 1144–45 Obama and end of, 1144
Ireland, 616, 774, 776 Irish, Irish immigrants, 631, 646, 669, 701,
743, 805 integration and, 1035 World War II and, 866
Irish Free State, 775 “iron curtain,” 909 iron industry, 618, 660 Ironworkers’ Noontime, The (Anshutz), 637 Iroquois, in World War II, 887–90 Isato, Sono, 892 ISIS (Islamic State), 1115, 1146–47 Islam:
in America today, 1125 and fundamentalism, 1086, 1112, 1114 Gulf War and, 1074 Iran and, 1050–52 Middle East, 1066 Nation of, 1001 Obama’s speech to repair relations with,
1136 radicals and, 965 Saudi Arabia and, 1001, 1106
isolationism, 794–95, 866, 908, 957 Israel, 964, 1044, 1050, 1066, 1079, 1086,
1106, 1114, 1117, 1153 issei, 890 “Is This the End?” (Freeman), 1112 Italians, Italian-Americans, 696, 697,
698–99, 755, 779–80, 852 in East Harlem, 952 in Hollywood, 853 World War II and, 866, 885–86, 890
Italy, 616, 795, 890, 919, 1026, 1151 as Axis power, 867 communist party in, 911 immigrants from, 669 liberation of, 871 rise of Mussolini in, 865 Venezuela and, 739
It Can’t Happen Here (Lewis), 836 “It’s Fun to be Free,” 868 Ivory soap, 607 IWW, see Industrial Workers of the World
Jackson, Andrew (1767–1845), veto power and, 582
Jackson, Blyden (1910–2000), 668 Jackson, Robert H. (1892–1954), 892
A-110 ★ INDEX
Kaufman, Irving (1910–1992), 930 Keating-Owen Act (1916), 731 Kefauver, Estes (1903–1963), 977 Kelley, Abby (1810–1887), 589, 1016 Kelley, Florence (1859–1932), 720–21, 747,
791 Kelley, William D. (1814–1890), 720 Kennan, George (1904–2005), 909, 916 Kennedy, Anthony (1936–), 1126, 1127,
1130 Kennedy, Jacqueline (1929–1994), 979–80 Kennedy, John F. (1917–1963), 989, 997,
1023, 1121 assassination of, 991–92, 991, 1006 in campaign of 1960, 979–80, 1030 civil rights and, 991–92 Cuban Missile Crisis and, 990–91 in debates with Nixon, 980, 1105 desegregation and, 986, 987 inaugural address of, 989 Native Americans and, 1019 space race and, 979 Vietnam and, 1006
Kennedy, Robert F. (1925–1968), 991 assassination of, 1025
Kennedy administration, 987, 989–92 Kent State University, 1039, 1039 Kenya, 963
terrorist attack in, 1106 Kenyatta, Jomo (1894–1978), 898 Kerner, Otto (1908–1976), 1000 Kerner Report, 1000 Kerouac, Jack (1922–1969), 967 Kerr, Clark (1911–2003), 946 Kerry, John (1943–), 1121 Key, David M. (1824–1900), 600 Keynes, John Maynard (1883–1946), 810,
822–23, 844–45, 882 Keynesian economics, 845, 882, 1052 Khmer Rouge, 1039 Khomeini, Ayatollah (1900–1989), 965,
1051–52 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894–1971), 941–42,
942, 962, 990 King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968), 655,
969, 970, 975–76, 1000–1001, 1008, 1018, 1048, 1136, 1140, 1144
assassination of, 1025, 1025 Birmingham campaign and, 986–87 FBI wiretaps on, 991 Malcolm X and, 1001 March on Washington and, 988 Montgomery boycott and, 975
Johnson, Andrew (1808–1875) (continued) impeachment of, 584–85 Reconstruction policies of, 573, 576,
579–84, 587 Johnson, Hiram (1866–1945), 717 Johnson, Hugh S. (1871–1938), 825 Johnson, Lyndon (1908–1973), 977,
992–99, 1010, 1024, 1059 in campaign of 1960, 979 civil rights and, 992–93, 997–98, 1000 Dominican Republic and, 1007–8, 1009 in election of 1964, 993–94 Great Society and, 997–99 Native Americans and, 1019 Vietnam and, 1006–8
Johnson-Reed Act, see Immigration Act (1924) Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1074 Jones, Jim (1931–1978), People’s Temple
and, 1014 Jones, Mary “Mother” (1830–1930), 709 Jones, Samuel “Golden Rule” (1846–1904),
716 Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 1022 Joseph, Chief (1840–1904), 621–24 Joyce, James (1882–1941), 796, 798 JPMorgan Chase, 1084, 1133 JR, 1123 Judeo-Christian heritage, 953–54 Jungle, The (Sinclair), 696 juries, African-Americans and, 855 Justice Department, U.S., 754, 906, 1059,
1119, 1142 Civil Liberties Unit, 856 civil rights and, 1065 Radical Division of, 771
Just Say No campaign, 1065 juvenile delinquency, 967
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation, 1036
Kallen, Horace (1882–1974), 806, 815 Kanab, Utah, 721 Kansas, 615
agriculture in, 785 black migration to, 661–62, 662 in Dust Bowl, 827 population of, 694 woman suffrage in, 655
Kansas City, Mo., 646 Kansas Pacific Railroad, 617 Katrina, Hurricane, 1122–23, 1122, 1127
and African-Americans, 1122–23 death toll from, 1122
INDEX ★ A-111
prisoners as, 660 and Prohibition, 752 racially integrated, 640 radicals, 852, 854, 856 railroads and, 656 Reagan and, 1062–63 reform, 730–31 segregation and, 661 unemployment and, 729, 731, 812, 814,
815, 822, 825, 833, 836, 837, 841, 845, 846, 849, 850, 858, 942, 1000, 1045, 1095, 1095, 1120, 1129
women and, 640, 717, 723–24, 761, 862, 1100, 1101
and work hours, 611, 634, 637, 699, 716, 723–24, 749, 761, 830, 844, 883
working conditions and, 704, 719–20, 723–24, 747, 761, 786
and working hours, 618 workmen’s compensation and, 724 and World War II, 873, 875–76, 922–23 see also child labor; unions
Labor Department, U.S., 830, 845, 846, 852, 1033
labor movement, 704, 821 decline of, 1062 World War I and, 743 see also unions
Laboulaye, Édouard de (1811–1883), 603 Labour Party (Great Britain), 900 La Follette, Robert M. (1855–1925), 717,
719, 794, 794, 856 La Guardia, Fiorello (1882–1947), 852 laissez-faire economics, 647, 728, 840,
883 Lakotas, 628 Land Commission, 593 Landes, Bertha, 722 Land of the Free (MacLeish), 839 Landon, Alfred (1887–1987), 841 Lange, Dorothea (1895–1965), 813, 849,
851, 853 Lansing, Robert (1864–1928), 773 Laos, 869, 1043 Lardner, Ring, Jr. (1915–2000), 929 Las Vegas, Nev.:
nuclear tests in, 928 segregation in, 969
Lathrop, Julia (1858–1932), 720 Latin America, 795, 864, 896, 909, 1007–8,
1049, 1072, 1082, 1117 JFK and, 989–90 Liberation theology and, 1013
Poor People’s March and, 1025 Selma campaign of, 995–96
King, Rodney (1965–), 1097 Kiowas, 621 Kipling, Rudyard (1865–1936), 684, 688 Kirk, Russell (1918–1994), 956 Kirkpatrick, Jeane (1926–2006), 1066 Kissinger, Henry (1923–), 1038, 1047 kitchen debate, 941, 942 Knights of Labor, 640–41, 644, 645, 646,
660, 673, 703, 896 Know-Nothing (American) Party, 646 Koehler, Robert (1850–1917), 640 Korea:
immigrants from, 890, 1092 see also North Korea; South Korea
Korean War, 914–16, 915, 925, 930, 958, 964
armistice in, 961 casualties in, 915–16
Korematsu, Fred (1919–2005), 892–93 Korematsu v. United States, 892–93 Kosovo, 1080 Kremlin, 914 Kroc, Ray (1902–1984), 948 Kroeber, Alfred (1876–1960), 806 Ku Klux Klan, 595–96, 596, 598, 646, 664,
763, 802, 806, 807, 810, 924, 985, 993 reemergence of, 802–3
Kursk, Russia, 872 Kuwait, 1073 Kyoto Protocol (1997), 1111 Kyrgyzstan, 1075, 1113
labor, 637–47, 830–33, 906, 960 African-Americans and, 855–56, 969,
988 agricultural, 848–49 capitalism vs., 639–47 capital vs., 634 civil liberties and, 709, 855–57 contracts, 636–37, 641, 960, 969 “cross of gold” speech and, 657 decline of, 787 dignity of, 637 Fordism and, 702 in Gilded Age, 639–47 globalization and, 1091 government and, 656 migrant, 785 New Deal and, 825, 880 and politics, 833 Populist Party and, 653
A-112 ★ INDEX
Lewis, Sinclair (1885–1951), 836 Leyte Gulf, 898 liberalism, 816, 821, 852, 854, 881–82,
895, 897, 922, 932, 933, 956, 993–94, 1003, 1027, 1032, 1041, 1053, 1059, 1068, 1099
Clinton and, 1075, 1078 Democratic Party and, 933 FDR and, 839 New Deal and, 926, 984 New Left and, 1003, 1009 1968 election and, 1027 Nixon’s welfare plan and, 1033 Watergate and, 1043
Liberal Republican Party, 596–97, 635 Liberation theology, 1013 Liberia, 739, 1152 libertarianism, 955, 1058 Liberty, Miss., 893 Liberty Bell, 749, 954 Liberty Bonds, 747, 750, 770 Liberty Enlightening the World, 603 Liberty Island, 604 Liberty Leading the People (Delacroix),
1064 Liberty Loans, 754 liberty of contract, 723–24, 829, 839, 844,
856 Liberty Tracts, 687 Libya:
ISIS in, 1146 uprising in, 1146
Lieberman, Joseph (1942–), 1103 Liebknecht, Karl (1871–1919), 753 Life, 789, 952, 955, 965 life expectancy, 1140
in U.S., 1151, 1152 worldwide, 1150
light bulb, 608, 811 Lilienthal, David E. (1899–1981), 955 Liliuokalani, queen of Hawaii (1838–1917),
680 Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865), 579, 603,
756, 821–22, 842, 850, 878 see also Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln Memorial, 850, 1009 King’s speech in front of, 988
Lindbergh, Charles (1902–1974), 783, 867 Lippmann, Walter (1889–1974), 702, 719,
730, 747, 754, 768, 790, 823, 838, 902, 1005
on Cold War, 916 literacy, in U.S., 1150
Latin-Americans: post-World War II prejudice against, 888 World War II and, 888
Latinos, 944, 952, 1035, 1063, 1087, 1095, 1097, 1135
activism among, 1018–19, 1019 affirmative action and, 1035 and feminism, 1018–19 G. W. Bush and, 1124 immigrant rights movement and, 1125 as immigrants, 996, 1087, 1091,
1092–94 nativism and, 1148 population growth, 1123 poverty rates of, 1141 in 2012 election and campaign, 1150
Latino Studies, 1099 Latvia, 772, 901 Laurens, Henry (1724–1792), 906 Lawrence, D. H. (1885–1930), 797 Lawrence, Jacob, 766 Lawrence, Mass., strike in, 708 Lawrence v. Texas, 1126 Lay, Kenneth (1942–2006), 1084 Lazarus, Emma (1849–1887), 604 lead, mining of, 618 League for Industrial Democracy, 1004 League of Nations, 746, 771, 773, 774,
776, 795, 902, 921 Congress and, 776
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), 888, 972
League of Women Voters, 788 Leary, Timothy (1920–1996), 1012, 1012 Lease, Mary Elizabeth (1853–1933), 655 Leave It to Beaver (TV show), 947 Lebanon, 774, 964, 1066 Left-wing Manifesto (Gitlow), 798 legislature, direct, 717 Lehman Brothers, 1129, 1132–33, 1134 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 868 Lenin, Vladimir I. (1870–1924), 745, 768,
776 Leo XIII, Pope (1810–1903), 703 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (King), 987 Levi’s, 947 Levitt, Alfred (1912–1966), 944 Levitt, William (1907–1994), 944, 951 Levittown, N.Y., 944 Lewelling, Lorenzo, 655 Lewinsky, Monica (1973–), 1102 Lewis, John L. (1880–1969), 831–32, 988 Lewis, Meriwether (1774–1809), 621
INDEX ★ A-113
loyalty: oaths, 754, 892, 931, 932 program (review system), 928–29, 933, 934
Loyalty Day, 758 LSD, 1012, 1012 Luce, Henry (1898–1967), 880–81, 917 Lucy, Autherine, 978 Ludlow, Colo., strike in, 708–9 Ludlow Massacre, 708–9, 786 Luke, William (1831–1870), 595–96 LULAC (League of United Latin American
Citizens), 972 LULAC News, 888 lumber, 617–18, 717, 727, 729, 785, 875,
1081 Lumberton, N.C., 831 Lundeen, Ernest (1878–1940), 847 Lusitania, 743–44 Lynch, James D. (1839–1872), 565, 590 lynchings, 666–68, 667, 754, 763, 764, 765,
767, 796, 803, 850, 893, 895, 924, 925, 976
antilynching legislation and, 850, 851, 855, 894, 897, 924, 925
in Canada, 668 of Jews, 803
Lynd, Helen (1896–1982), 790 Lynd, Robert (1892–1970), 790 lyrical left, 712
MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964), 813, 912, 915–16, 915, 957
Macbeth (Shakespeare), 836 McCain, John (1936–), 1008, 1135 McCarran Internal Security Act (1950), 919,
933–34 McCarran Internal Security Bill, 933 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 933 McCarthy, Eugene (1916–2005),
1024–25 McCarthy, Joseph R. (1908–1957), 928,
930, 933, 936 McCarthy era, 752, 928–29, 930–31, 935,
965, 969, 1021 McCarthyism, 928–29, 930–31, 935, 965,
969, 1119 and homosexuality, 929, 1017
McClure’s Magazine, 695, 729 McCormick Company, 645 McDonald’s, 948, 1139 McGovern, George (1922–), 1041 machismo, 1019 McKay, Claude (1890–1948), 808, 809
“Literacy, Land, and Liberation,” 590 Lithuania, 772, 901 Little, Frank (1880–1917), 754 Little, Malcolm, see Malcolm X Little Bighorn, Battle of, 624 Little Gray Home in the West, The (song),
828 Little Rock, Ark., integration in, 969, 978 Livermore, Mary (1820–1905), 588 Living Wage, A (Ryan), 703 Lloyd, Henry Demarest (1847–1903), 611 Lloyd George, David (1863–1945), 771, 772 Lloyd’s of London, 813 lobbies:
business, 790, 883 special interest, 630
Lochner v. New York, 639, 723 Locke, Alain (1885–1954), 765 Lockheed, 895 Lodge, Henry Cabot (1902–1985), 776 London, 898, 900 London, Meyer (1871–1926), 706 Lonely Crowd, The (Riesman), 966 Long, Huey (1893–1935), 833–34, 834, 835 Long Island, N.Y., 944, 951 Long Telegram, 909, 916 Look, 949 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 641, 643 Los Alamos, N.Mex., 930 Los Angeles, Calif., 854, 874, 945–46,
1087 homelessness in, 1063 Mexicans in, 1091, 1092 1992 riots in, 1097 oil discovered in, 617 pollution in, 980–81 population of, 785 water needs of, 727 Watts riot in, 1000 zoot suit riots in, 887
Los Angeles Dodgers, 951 Lost Cause mythology, 668–69 Lost Generation, 797 Louisiana, 834, 834
BP oil spill and, 1137 Gulf Coast of, 1122 illiteracy in, 659 Plessy v. Ferguson and, 664–65, 665 voting rights in, 664
Loving, Richard and Mildred, 1022, 1022 Loving v. Virginia, 1022, 1022 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence (1856–1943), 780 Loyal Publication Society, 748
A-114 ★ INDEX
Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 914 Mapuche, 614 March on Washington, 894, 988–89 Marie Antoinette, queen of France (1755–
1793), 612 Marine Corps, U.S., segregation in, 893 market economy:
capitalism and, 1081 and “captains of industry,” 609–11 competition in, 608–9 expansion of, 607 rich and poor in, 612–13 workers’ freedom and, 611–12
market fundamentalism, 1133–34 marriage, 1020, 1037, 1101, 1101
see also Defense of Marriage Act; divorce; gay rights
Marshall, George C. (1880–1959), 911 Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993), 972–73 Marshall Island, and BP oil rig, 1137 Marshall Plan, 911, 989–90 Martí, José (1853–1895), 683 Martin, James “Spider,” 996 Martin, Mrs. Bradley (1841–1913), 612 Martin, Trayvon, 1143 Marx, Karl (1818–1883), 642, 743, 1103 Maryland, 994, 1023, 1042
gay marriage in, 1150 Massachusetts, 791, 1041, 1149 Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics,
634 “massive retaliation,” 961 mass murders, in U.S., 1152 “master race,” 884, 924 maternalist reform, 722–24, 787, 837 maternity leave, paid, 1152 Mattachine Society, 1017 May Day, 645 Mayflower Compact (1620), 905 Maytag, 1120 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 696, 726 Mecca, 1001 Medicaid, 997, 1055, 1065, 1077, 1138,
1139 Medicare, 997, 1065, 1077 Mediterranean Sea, 910 Mellon, Andrew (1855–1937), 814 Melting Pot, The (Zangwill), 758 “melting pot”, U.S. as, 758, 761, 884, 952 Memphis, Tenn., 855, 907, 984, 1025, 1025
Reconstruction riot in, 584 Memphis Free Press, 667 Mencken, H. L. (1880–1956), 719
McKinley, William (1843–1901), 658–59, 680, 681, 682, 687, 707
assassination of, 725 Philippines and, 682–83, 684
McKinley administration, 684 McKinley Tariff (1890), 658 MacLeish, Archibald (1892–1982), 839, 920 Macmillan, Harold (1894–1986), 963 McNamara, Robert (1916–), 1041 McNary-Haugen Bill, 794 McNeill, George E. (1837–1906), 641, 687 McPherson, Aimee Semple (1890–1944), 835 McRea, Ed, 855 McReynolds, James C. (1862–1946), 793 McVeigh, Timothy (1968–2001), 1101–2 McWilliams, Carey (1905–1980), 849 Macy’s, 946 MAD (mutual assured destruction), 961 Madero, Francisco (1873–1913), 741 Madison, James (1751–1836), 932 Madison, Wis., Beats in, 967 Madison Square Garden, 868 Madoff, Bernard (1938–), 1133 Magna Carta (1215), 861 Mahan, Alfred T. (1840–1914), 679–80 Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (Stead),
734 Maine, 841
gay marriage in, 1150 Maine, USS, 681 malaria, 738 Malaya, 917 Malaysia, 963 Malcolm X (1925–1965), 1001 Manchuria, 865, 899 Mandela, Nelson (1918–), 1071 Manhattan Project, 899 manifest destiny, 679 Manila Bay, 681, 684 Mann Act (1910), 644 Manning, Richard I. (1859–1931), 715–16 Man Nobody Knows, The (Sheeler), 786 Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of
Race (Montagu), 885 “manufacture of consent,” 790 manufacturing, 695, 698, 943, 949, 999,
1045–46, 1081, 1091, 1120 decline of, 1043–44, 1062, 1068, 1086,
1120, 1128, 1151 in Mexico, 1085 rebound in, 1141, 1144 unions and, 1062 see also industry
INDEX ★ A-115
ISIS and, 1146–47 Islam and, 1066, 1125 uprisings in, 1146 U.S. presence in, 1115, 1116 see also Gulf War; Iraq War; Israel
Middletown (Lynd and Lynd), 790 Midgley, Thomas (1889–1944), 981 Midway Island, Battle of, 870, 870 migrant farm workers, 697, 842–43,
848–49, 851, 853, 944, 1018 Migration Series, The (Lawrence), 766 Militant Liberty, 918 military, U.S.:
desegregation of, 925 gays in, 1076 and Operation Wetback, 934 post-World War II demobilization of, 908,
922 prisons, 1119, 1126, 1127, 1136 Reagan and build-up of, 1065 segregation in, 764–65, 893 spending on, 959, 961, 1114 tribunals, 1118, 1127, 1145
military bases, 875 military-industrial complex, 863, 874–75,
980, 1004, 1043 military spending, 959, 961 Militia of Montana, 1101 militias:
in Iraq, 1116 radical conservative, 1101
Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892–1950), 780
Milliken v. Bradley, 1035 Millionaire’s Row, 694 Mills, C. Wright (1916–1962), 965–66 Mills, Florence (1895–1927), 809 Milosevic, Slobodan (1941–2006), 1080 Milwaukee, Wis., 698 minimum wage, 724, 729, 747, 791, 830,
844, 850, 883, 922, 956, 960, 988, 1086, 1139, 1140
mining, 618–19, 698, 699, 730, 785, 875 coal, 660, 726, 769 in national parks, 727, 729 strikes and, 656, 754 United Mine Workers and, 711
Minneapolis, Minn., 787, 831, 925 Minnesota, 615, 847, 1024, 1064 minorities:
home ownership and, 1129–32 “subprime” mortgages and, 1129–32
Miracle, The (movie), 796
Mendez v. Westminster, 972 Mercedes, 702 Meredith, James (1933–), 986 Meridian, Miss., 596 Merkel, Angela, 1147 Methodists, 679, 683
African-American, 568 Prohibition and, 752 racial division among, 669
Meuse-Argonne campaign, 746 Mexican-Americans, 629 Mexicans, Mexican immigrants, 614, 617,
696, 697, 701, 760, 804, 854, 993, 996, 1035, 1091–92, 1093, 1123
activism among, 1018–19, 1019 as cowboys, 617 immigrant labor forces, 785 New Deal and, 848–49 Operation Wetback and, 934 and wages, 1124 World War II and, 886
Mexican War, 618, 741–42, 744, 756, 876 Mexico, 624, 744, 805, 849, 886, 1087, 1123
border wall with, 1125 immigration from, 1148 jobs exported to, 1120 loss of U.S. jobs to, 1120 NAFTA and, 1076, 1086, 1088 Wilson and, 741–42
Mexico City, Mexico, Olympics at, 1026 Meyer, August R., 618 Meyer v. Nebraska, 793, 807 MFDP, see Mississippi Freedom Demo-
cratic Party Miami, Fla., 1087, 1092 Michigan, 701, 702, 873 Michigan, University of, affirmative action
and, 1126 microchip, 1082 Microsoft, 1081, 1083, 1085, 1086 Middle Border, 615–16 middle class, 942, 947, 949, 950, 1063,
1085, 1088, 1095, 1139, 1140, 1141 feminism in, 1015 home ownership and, 828, 841 materialism of, 967–68 poverty invisible to, 997 reformers, 641 socialism and, 643 women in, 966
Middle East, 742, 773, 775, 776, 910, 916, 964, 1044, 1050–52, 1086, 1087, 1113, 1115, 1116, 1118, 1153
A-116 ★ INDEX
Mormons, 615, 722 Deseret and, 620 in Great Salt Lake Valley, 620 and James Buchanan, 620 Mitt Romney and, 1149 Mountain Meadows Massacre and, 620 polygamy and, 620 prejudice against, 1125 in Utah, 620 see also Christianity
Morrill Land-Grant Act, 614 Morse, Wayne (1900–1974), 1006 Moscow, 916, 920, 962, 963, 1041, 1051,
1068, 1072 Nixon and Khrushchev in, 941, 942, 1015
Moses, Robert (1888–1981), 985 Mossadegh, Mohammed (1882–1967), 963,
965 motion pictures, 608, 736, 781, 783, 785,
788, 796, 800, 806, 851, 852, 853, 878, 885, 940, 1094
family life in, 949 in World War I, 748 see also Hollywood
Mott, Lucretia (1793–1880), 589 Mountain Meadows Massacre, 620 Mozambique, 963 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (movie), 853 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (movie),
853 Mubarak, Hosni (1928–), uprising against,
1146 Muck, Karl, 759 muckrakers, 695–96 Muir, John (1838–1914), 726–27 Muller v. Oregon, 723, 791 multiculturalism, 1098–99
see also diversity; pluralism Muncie, Ind., 790 Munich conference, 866 Munn v. Illinois, 638 Murphy, Frank (1890–1949), 832, 856 Museum of Modern Art, 919 music, 853 Muslim Brotherhood, 1146 Muslims, 963, 1051, 1066, 1086, 1087,
1106, 1136 in Afghanistan, 1051, 1112 Black, 1001 in Bosnia, 1058 fundamentalism and, 1051, 1074 Gulf War and, 1074 Malcolm X and, 1001
Miranda v. Arizona, 1023 misery index, 1045, 1045 Miss America pageant, protest at, 1016 missiles, 1065, 1068
and Cold War “missile gap,” 979 cruise, 1074 and Cuba, 990–91 Jupiter, 990 see also nuclear weapons
missionaries, 760 in Hawaii, 686
Mississippi, 851, 921, 935, 1001 black voting in, 924 BP oil spill and, 1137 “freedom schools” in, 975 Gulf Coast of, 1122 voter registration drive in, 993
Mississippi, University of, 986, 991 Mississippi Delta, segregation in, 851 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(MFDP), 993 Mississippi River, 1121 Missouri, University of, segregation at,
972 Mitchell, John N. (1913–1988), 1042 Mitchell, John P. (1870–1919), 639, 711 Mobile, Ala., 978 Model A, 782 Model T, 702, 782 modernism, 800–801 Modern Republicanism, 959–60 Modern Woman: The Lost Sex, 950 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, 965 Mondale, Walter (1928–), 1064, 1064 monopolies, 611, 645
Federal Trade Commission and, 732 “natural,” 716 Theodore Roosevelt and, 725 see also trusts, business
Monroe Doctrine, 678, 737, 739 Montagu, Ashley (1905–1999), 885 Montana, 785, 1101
socialism in, 706 Montana territory, 614 Montezuma, Carlos, 714–15 Montgomery, Ala., 974, 975, 996, 996
bus boycott in, 969, 970, 974–75, 976 Montgomery Ward, 607, 876 Moody, Dwight, 679 moon landing, 989 Moral Majority, 1053–54 Morgan, J. P. (1837–1913), 609, 694–95,
707, 725, 732, 790
INDEX ★ A-117
National Equal Rights League, 762 National Farmer’s Holiday Association, 813 National Forest Management Act, 1060–61 National Guard, 766, 767, 769, 831, 978,
1000, 1039, 1039, 1144 National Indian Youth Council, 1019 National Industrial Recovery Act (1935),
824, 830 nationalists, nationalism, 1086
Arab, 964, 1051 and “New Nationalism,” 730–31, 747 religion and, 1151–52 R.F.K. assassination and Palestinian, 1025 socialism as, 643 World War I and, 743
National Labor Relations Board, 837 National League, 724 National Liberation Front, 965 National Organization for Women (NOW),
1010–11, 1015 national parks, 726–28, 1020 National Recovery Administration (NRA),
824–25, 829 National Reform Association, 643 National Resources Planning Board
(NRPB), 848, 881–82 National Review, 995 National Rifle Association (NRA), 1152 National Security Agency (NSA), 1118
domestic surveillance program of, 1147 National Security Council, 910, 914, 964,
1007, 1066 National Security Strategy of the United
States (2002), 1113 National Transportation Safety Board, 1032 National War Labor Board, 896 National Woman Suffrage Association, 589 National Women’s Party, 750, 787 National Youth Administration, 837 Nation of Islam, 1001 Native American Rights Fund, 1098 Native Americans, 624–27, 689, 1098, 1099
affirmative action and, 1035 buffalo and, 613, 621 in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 629 as casino operators, 1098 Christianity and, 624 citizenship (U.S.) and, 625–26, 803, 1098 civil rights movement and, 1019 Constitution and, 615 government treatment of, 624–27 land lost by, 625 New Deal and, 848
Obama’s speech to repair relations with, 1136
prejudice against, 1125 September 11 and, 1118 Shiite, 1116 Sunni, 1116
Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945), 865, 871 mutual assured destruction (MAD), 961 Myanmar, see Burma My Lai massacre, 1040 Myrdal, Gunnar, 896, 897
NAACP, see National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NAACP v. Alabama, 1022 Nabisco, 1064 Nader, Ralph (1934–), 1021 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agree-
ment), 1076, 1085, 1086, 1088 Nagasaki, atomic bombing of, 899, 961 Nanjing, 865 napalm, 1008 NASDAQ, 1084 Nash-Kelvinator Corporation, 879 Nashville, Tenn., 1125 Nasser, Gamal Abdel (1918–1970), 964 Nation, The, 597, 635, 687, 796, 882 National American Woman Suffrage Asso-
ciation, 677, 721 National Archives, 906 National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP), 762, 764, 847, 850, 854, 892, 894, 895, 921, 924, 934–35, 969, 970, 972, 974, 977, 988, 992
National Association of Colored Women, The, 662
National Association of Manufacturers, 878, 931, 960
National Catholic Welfare Conference, 839 National Catholic Welfare Council, 807 National Civic Federation, 707 National Committee for a Sane Nuclear
Policy, 962 National Conference of Christians and
Jews, 854 National Consumer’s League, 721 national debt, 632, 1064, 1076 National Defense Education Act, 960 National Endowment for the Arts, 997 National Endowment for the Humanities, 997 National Environmental Protectioin Act,
1060–61
A-118 ★ INDEX
Goldwater and, 994 Great Society and, 997, 998 housing and, 828–29 Johnson and, 991 legacy of, 821, 858–59 libertarians and, 955 McCarthyism and, 933 Mexican immigrants and, 848–49, 849 OWI and, 877–78 Popular Front and, 853, 854 Progressivism and, 755 Reagan and, 1058 roads in, 826 Second, 835–38, 841, 874 in South, 846–47 Supreme Court and, 829–30, 841 Theodore Bilbo and, 851 Truman and, 922, 933 wages and, 833 West and, 826, 827, 849 women and, 845–46 work projects in, 821, 826, 858
“New Deal coalition,” 841, 1032, 1034, 1052
New Democracy, The (Weyl), 761 New Democrats, 1048 New Empire, The (Brooks Adams), 688 New England:
deindustrialization in, 784 industrial revolution in, 605 Puritan emigration to, 1098 strikes in, 831
New Federalism, 1032 New Freedom, 730–31 New Hampshire, 1025, 1121 New Harmony, Ind., 1013 New Immigration, The, 697 New Jersey, 730 New Left, 984, 1003, 1009, 1013, 1014 New Mexico, 618, 899, 1098, 1121
agriculture in, 785 New Mexico territory, 614 New Nationalism, 730–31, 747, 762 “New Negro,” 809 New Negro, The (Locke), 765 New Orleans, La., 593, 787, 875
dockworkers strike in, 708 and Hurricane Katrina, 1121–22, 1122 population of, 875 Reconstruction riot in, 584
Newport, R.I., 612 New Republic, 704, 725, 747, 755, 840,
883, 906
Native Americans (continued) population of, 613 poverty and, 1098 poverty rates of, 1141 progressivism and, 714–15 Puritans and, 1098 removal of, 605, 727, 854, 918 as Rough Riders, 682 slavery and, 1098 “termination” and, 1019 treaty system and, 624 tribalism attacked, 625–27 westward expansion of U.S. and, 613–14 World War II and, 886, 887–90 see also Indian removal
nativism, 805, 810, 885, 1148 NATO, see North Atlantic Treaty
Organization Naturalization Act (1790), 803 Navajos, 848
“code-talkers” of, 887 Naval Academy, U.S., 1048 Navy, U.S., 903
African-Americans in, 896 segregation, 764, 893
Nazi Party, 822, 865, 867, 877, 878, 883, 885, 887, 893, 894, 897, 899, 900, 903, 907, 919, 920
NBC Symphony Orchestra, 865 Nebraska, 615, 626, 790, 793, 807
population of, 694 Negro Leagues, 924 Nehru, Jawaharlal (1889–1964), 963 Nelson, Laura, 667 Nelson, L. D., 667 neoconservatives, 1052–53 Neolin, 627 Netherlands, 867 Neutrality Acts, 866 Nevada, 927, 1135
Sagebrush Rebellion and, 1057, 1060–61 Newark, N.J., riot in, 1000 New Deal, 572, 657, 724, 770, 818–60,
863, 868, 880, 881, 884, 897, 903, 926, 927, 954, 959, 984, 995, 1003, 1028, 1049, 1085, 1137
African-Americans and, 846–47, 849, 998 agriculture and, 826–28, 847, 848–49,
851 Eisenhower and, 959, 960, 1032, 1078 end of, 857–59, 876 Father Coughlin and, 834 First, 825–30
INDEX ★ A-119
Nigeria, 917, 963, 1094 Nineteenth Amendment, 751 nisei, 890 Nixon, E. D. (1899–1987), 974 Nixon, Pat (1912–1993), 980 Nixon, Richard (1913–1994), 929, 1021,
1031–43, 1053, 1056, 1057, 1066, 1078, 1136
African-Americans and, 1033–34 in China, 1038 in debates with JFK, 980, 1105 détente and, 1037–38, 1047 in election of 1968, 1027 in Moscow, 941–42, 942, 1015 New Federalism of, 1032 in 1952 campaign, 957 in 1960 campaign, 979–80, 1030 pardoned by Ford, 1047 Pentagon Papers and, 1041 resignation of, 1042–43 Supreme Court and, 1033 Vietnam War and, 1039–41 Watergate scandal and, 1041–42 welfare and, 1032, 1033
Nixon administration, 1027, 1031–43 Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972), 898, 963 Nobel Peace Prize, 737 Nobel Prize, 749 nonaggression pact, 867 Noriega, Manuel Antonio (1934–), 1073 Normandy, France, 871 Norris, George T. (1861–1944), 790 North, Oliver (1943–), 1066 North Africa, 867, 871 North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), 1076, 1085, 1086, 1088 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
912–13, 916, 957, 1065, 1079–80 Muammar Gadhafi overthrow and, 1145
North Carolina, 924, 1035, 1135 “second Reconstruction” in, 654 textiles in, 660
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, 983
North Charleston, N.C., 1143 North Dakota, 615
corporate mining in, 618 population of, 694
North Dakota territory, 614 Northern Alliance, 1113 Northern Ireland, 776, 1026 Northern Pacific Railroad, 727 Northern Securities Company, 725
New School for Social Research, 815 New South, 660, 661, 668–69 newspapers, see press Newsweek, 940 Newtown, Conn., 1152 New York, 716, 844, 944, 1017, 1018,
1057, 1094, 1140 Al Smith as governor of, 810 homelessness in, 1063 Theodore Roosevelt as governor of, 682
New York, N.Y., 646, 754, 758, 788, 800, 814, 826, 832, 837, 857, 862, 868, 946, 991, 1017–18, 1082, 1087, 1092, 1097–98, 1106, 1123, 1132–33, 1143
African-Americans in, 807 antiwar demonstration in, 1034 Beats in, 967, 968 fiscal crisis in, 1046–47 garment strike in, 692, 707–9, 708 Gay Liberation Day in, 1018 immigration to, 695, 697, 706 “lyrical left” in, 712 manufacturing in, 606, 692 Occupy Movement in, 1140 Puerto Ricans in, 952 September 11 attacks in, 1105–7, 1106 socialism and, 706 Statue of Liberty in, 603–4 World Trade Center in, 1046
New York City Police Department, 1123 New York Consumers’ League, 823 New York Court of Appeals, 638 New York Journal, 680 New York/Liberty (Stettheimer), 754 New York school (of painting), 918, 919 New York State Committee Against Dis-
crimination in Housing, 935–38 New York Stock Exchange, 813, 1013
explosion at, 771 New York Times, 639, 840, 1040, 1041 New York Times v. Sullivan, 1022 New York Tribune, 597, 770 New York University Law School, 712 New York World, 680 New York Zoological Society, 755 New Zealand, 627 Nez Percés, 621–24 Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963), 965, 1006 Nguyen That Thanh, see Ho Chi Minh Niagara Falls, 764 Nicaragua, 739, 795, 864, 1050, 1066 Nicodemus, Kans., 662 Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971), 787
A-120 ★ INDEX
Ohio, 1148 Supreme Court of, 1014
oil, 609–11, 617, 730, 736, 782, 785, 795, 834, 869, 875, 945, 963, 964, 1048, 1060, 1062, 1111
Arab embargo on, 1044 BP Gulf of Mexico spill, 1137 Cold War and, 909, 910 environment and, 1020 Gulf War and, 1073 G. W. Bush and, 1110 highways and, 947, 960 Japan and U.S., 866, 868 -producing regions, 795, 1115 and Teapot Dome scandal, 791 see also Standard Oil Company
Oklahoma, 621, 625, 626, 1098 in Dust Bowl, 827 Indians removed to, 621 population of, 694 socialism in, 706
Oklahoma City, Okla., terrorist attack in, 771, 1101–2
Old Left, 1003 Old South, 1142 Olney, Richard (1835–1917), 656 Olympic Games, 1026, 1051 O’Neill, John, 705 “one percent, the”, power of, 1140 One World (Willkie), 896, 916 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 635 On the Road (Kerouac), 967 On the Town, 892 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries), 1045 Open Door policy, 683 Open Housing Act (1968), 1025 Operation Desert Storm, 1074 Operation Dixie, 922, 923 Operation Iraqi Freedom, 1116
see also Iraq War Operation Wetback, 934 Orangeburg, S.C., 986 Orange County, Calif., 972, 995, 1087 oranges, 944 Oregon, 621, 802, 807, 818, 820, 1006
Ku Klux Klan in, 803 woman suffrage in, 717 women’s rights in, 723
Oregon System, 717 Oregon Trail, 621 Organization Man, The (White), 966 Organization of Afro American Unity,
1001
North Korea, 914, 1113, 1153 creation of, 914
North Vietnam, 1006, 1007, 1008, 1024, 1038, 1039
NOW, see National Organization for Women NRA, see National Recovery Administration NRPB, see National Resources Planning
Board NSC-68, 914 nuclear energy, 1049 nuclear weapons, 961, 1050, 1065, 1068,
1113, 1114, 1115, 1153 cessation of tests of, 962, 991 proposed international control of, 926 Reagan and, 1065 tests of, 927, 928 U.S. arsenal of, 961 U.S.-Soviet treaty on, 991 see also atomic bomb; hydrogen bomb;
missiles Nuremberg, Nazi trials at, 920 Nye, Gerald P. (1892–1971), 866
Oakland, Calif., 1002 Oakley, Annie, 629 Obama, Barack (1961–), 1136–50, 1137
campaign spending of, 1150 diplomatic relations with Cuba resumed
by, 1145–46 first term of, 1141–46 foreign policy of, 1144–46 health-care law and, 1149 Iraq War end and, 1144 and Osama bin Laden’s death, 1145,
1145 in 2008 election and campaign, 1109–10,
1135–36 Obama administration, 1123, 1136–40
and Afghanistan, 1145, 1149 Snowden and, 1147 and Taliban, 1145 2008 financial crisis and, 1085
Obamacare, opposition to, 1149 Obergfell v. Hodges, 1126, 1130 Occupational Safety and Health Adminis-
tration, 1032 Occupy Movement, 1140 O’Connor, Sandra Day (1930–), 1065, 1126,
1127 Office of Economic Opportunity, 998, 1032 Office of Price Administration, 873 Office of War Information (OWI), 864,
877–78, 878, 879, 884, 886 Oglesby, Carl (1935–), 1009
INDEX ★ A-121
Parrish, Lucian W., 792 Parsons, Albert (1849–1887), 645–46 Parsons, Lucy (1853?-1942), 645 Passing of Great Race, The (Grant), 755 PATCO, 1062 Paterson, N.J.:
manufacturing in, 1046 strike in, 708
Pathé film company, 783 Patrons of Husbandry, see Grange Patten, Simon (1852–1922), 669, 703 Paul, Alice (1885–1977), 750, 787–88, 1054 Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909), 729 Peace Corps, 989, 998 Pearl Harbor, 680
Japanese attack on, 868–69, 878, 886, 890, 992, 1113
Pearson, Levi, 972 Peckham, Rufus (1838–1909), 639 Pelosi, Nancy, 1128 Pendergast, Tom (1872–1945), 909 penicillin, 949 Pennsylvania, 630, 1049, 1140 Pennsylvania Railroad, 609 Pentagon, 1009
September 11 attack on, 1105 Pentagon Papers, 1040, 1041, 1043 “peonage” laws, 764 People’s Party, see Populist Party People’s Party Paper, 653 People’s Temple cult, 1014 Pequot Indians, 1098 perestroika, 1067 Perkins, Frances (1882–1965), 823, 830,
838, 845, 846, 852, 869 Perkins, George (1862–1920), 707 Perot, Ross (1930–), 1076 Pershing, John J. (1860–1948), 742, 746 Persian Gulf, 1072
Carter Doctrine and, 1051 Pesotta, Rose (1896–1965), 854 Phantom Public, The (Lippmann), 790 Philadelphia, Miss., 993, 1057 Philadelphia, Pa., Freedom Train in, 905 Philadelphia Plan, 1033–34 Philippines, 681, 685–86, 687, 688, 728,
1038, 1050 immigrants from, 617, 680, 804, 890 independence of, 917 U.S. acquisition of, 651, 683–84, 735 in World War II, 869, 898 see also Filipinos
Philippine War, 683–84, 687, 753 Phillips, Wendell (1811–1884), 756
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Coun- tries (OPEC), 1045
Oslo, Norway, accords in, 1079 Oswald, Lee Harvey (1939–1963), 992 Other America, The (Harrington), 997, 1004,
1123 Otis, James (1725–1783), 771 Ottoman Empire, in World War I, 742, 772,
773–74, 775 Our Bodies, Ourselves, 1027 Our Country (Strong), 679 Overseas Highway, 826 overtime pay, 844 Owens Valley, Calif., aqueduct at, 727 Oxford, Miss., 986 ozone layer, 981
depletion of, 1081
Pacific islands, 927 Pacific Northwest, 820 pacifism:
World War I and, 743 World War II and, 866
Packard, Vance (1914–1996), 966 PACs (political action committees), 1150 Padmore, George (1903–1959), 898 Page, Horace (1833–1890), 670 Paine, Thomas (1737–1809), 753, 756,
1059, 1101 Pakistan, 917, 963, 1153
Osama bin Laden killed in, 1145 war on terror in, 1145
Palestine, 774, 1025, 1079, 1106, 1114 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 1079 Palestinian Authority, 1079 Palin, Sarah (1964–), 1135 Palmer, A. Mitchell (1872–1936), 768, 770 Palmer Raids, 770–71 Pan-African Congress, 774, 897 Panama, 738–39, 738, 1073 Panama Canal, 735, 737–39, 738, 1050
construction of, 738 Panama Canal Company, 738 Pan-American Exposition, 725 Panic of 1907, 732 Papua New guinea, 1152 Paris, 1025, 1026
German occupation of, 867 liberation of, 871 terrorist attacks in, 1147 Vietnam peace agreement in, 1040
Parks, Gordon, 978 Parks, Rosa (1913–2005), 970, 974–75,
975, 1137
A-122 ★ INDEX
Popular Front, 853, 854, 884, 933 population:
of African-Americans, 807 in agriculture, 944 of buffalo, 621 of Chicago, 606 growth of, 1046 of Hiroshima, 899 of Houston, 875 of Los Angeles, 785 of Middle Border, 615 of Native Americans, 613 of New Orleans, 875 rise of, 693 of United States, 949, 1034
Populism, western, 1056 Populist movement, 650, 651–59, 703, 813,
833 agriculture and, 652
Populist (People’s) Party, 652–59, 654, 655, 662, 672, 705, 716–17
Bryan in, 657 depression of 1893 and, 656 election of 1892 and, 655 election of 1896 and, 658 industrial workers and, 652, 656 labor and, 653 platform of 1892 of, 653 Pullman strike and, 656 racial alliances of, 654 supporters of, 652 woman suffrage and, 722 women in, 655
Porter, James (b. 1828), 564 Port Huron, Mich., 1004 Port Huron Statement, 994, 1004 Portland, Oreg., 818, 874 Portugal, 963 Posse Comitatus, 1101 Post, Louis (1849–1928), 771 Postal Service, U.S., 796 “postracial” America, 1142–44 Potomac River, 1009 Potsdam conference, 900, 962 poultry, 944 poverty rate, 942, 998, 1046
of African-Americans, 1141, 1142 of Native Americans, 1098 in twenty-first century, 1151
Powderly, Terence V. (1849–1924), 640 Powell, Colin (1937–), 1074, 1114–15, 1119 Powell, John Wesley, 616, 618 Powell, Lewis F. (1907–1998), 1036 Poyntz, Juliet Stuart (1886–1937?), 787
Phillips County, Ark., race riot in, 767 Phoenix, Ariz., 945, 1046 phonograph, 608, 783 photography, in Great Depression, 853 Picasso, Pablo (1881–1973), 712 Pickford, Mary (1893–1979), 796 Pike, James S. (1811–1882), 597 Pinchback, Pinckney B. S. (1837–1921),
592 Pinchot, Gifford (1865–1946), 727, 729 Pinckney, Clementa, 1131 Pingree, Hazen (1840–1901), 716 Pinkerton Detective Agency, 650 Pinochet, Augusto (1915–2006), 1038 Pittsburgh, Pa.:
manufacturing in, 606 September 11 terrorist attack in, 1105
Pittsburgh Courier, 847, 895, 898 Plains Indians, 621, 624 Planter, 592 planters, plantations, 590, 593, 660, 661
in California, 617 in Caribbean, 683, 684 emancipated slaves and, 570 in Hawaii, 686, 805 post-Civil War, 570–71, 573–74 sugar, 697
Platt, Orville H. (1827–1905), 683 Platt Amendment (1901), 683, 864 Playboy, 967, 1016 Pledge of Allegiance, 680, 953 Plessy, Homer (1858?-1925), 665 Plessy v. Ferguson, 664–65, 665, 971, 972 PLO, see Palestine Liberation Organization “plumbers” unit, Nixon’s, 1041 plumbing, indoor, 943 pluralism, 854, 884, 918, 997
see also diversity Poland, 772, 901, 909
German invasion of, 867 immigrants from, 696
police: African-Americans killed by, 1142–44 militarization of, 1142–44, 1143
Polish-Americans, 698, 770, 807, 885, 932 political action committee (PACs), 1150 Pollock, Jackson (1912–1956), 918, 919 pollution, 1032, 1060
see also environmentalism polygamy, in Utah, 620, 722 Pontchartrain, Lake, 1121 Ponzi schemes, 1133 Poor People’s March, 1025 “popery,” see Catholics, Catholicism
INDEX ★ A-123
progressivism, 692–93, 816, 1020, 1062 ACLU and, 797 and African-Americans, 763–65 Alfred Landon and, 841 civil liberties and, 754–55 consumerism and, 699 disintegration of, 789–91 FDR and, 823 Harding and, 777, 791 Herbert Hoover and, 810 immigration and, 694, 695, 696, 757,
758, 760, 805 as international movement, 715 Native Americans and, 714–15 politics in, 715–24 presidents in, 724–32 Prohibition and, 751–52 race and, 755 Simon Patten and, 703 socialism and, 705–7 varieties of, 703–4 women’s rights in, 712 World War I and, 746–52, 771, 777
Prohibition, 643, 751–52, 751, 781, 783, 791, 800–801, 806, 810, 822, 829, 852
see also temperance propaganda, in World War I, 748 Proposition 13 (California), 1056 Proposition 14 (California), 994 Proposition 187 (California), 1099 Prostrate State, The (Pike), 597 Protestant-Catholic-Jew (Herberg), 954 Protestants, 644, 727, 759, 802, 806, 841,
930, 953, 979, 1053, 1055 and Al Smith, 810–11 evangelical, 1053, 1055 fundamentalist, 799–801 modernism and, 800–801 Prohibition and, 752 social reform and, 643–44 see also Christianity; specific
denominations Providence, R.I., 698 public housing, 951 public opinion, opinion polls, 1036, 1054,
1103, 1105, 1117, 1127, 1128, 1130, 1132
public relations and, 790, 877, 894, 895
Public Opinion (Lippmann), 790 public relations, 748, 758, 787
and public opinion, 790, 877, 894, 895 see also Bernays, Edward
Public Utilities Act, California, 717
Presbyterians, 799, 1053 Presidential Medal of Freedom, 893 Presidential Reconstruction, 579–80 presidents, presidency, U.S.:
expansion of powers of, 824–25, 829, 1118–19
as “Free World” leader, 910 veto power of, 582, 923, 933 see also specific presidents
President’s Daughter, The (Britton), 791 Presley, Elvis (1935–1977), 967 press, 571, 790, 876, 878, 894, 907, 926,
1022, 1069, 1083, 1119 African-American, 847, 894, 898, 907,
973 in election of 1936, 841 and FDR, 841 in Great Depression, 814 Iraq War and, 1114 Knights of Labor and, 647 Philippine War and, 684 during Reconstruction, 597 Sedition Act and, 753 as sexist, 1014 on tolerance, 807 Underground, 1013 in World War I, 748 as “yellow press,” 680, 681, 682 see also freedom, of the press
“Price of Free World Victory, The” (Wallace), 881
primaries, direct, 717 Prince Edwards County, Va., desegregation
in, 977 prisoners of war, treatment of, 1119 prison industrial complex, 1096 prisons, 1095–97
African-Americans in, 1096 labor from, 660 population of, 1096 U.S. population in, 1152
privacy, right to, 797, 807, 1023–24 profits, see corporations, and profits Progress and Poverty (George), 641–42 Progressive era, 691–733
West in, 716–18 women in, 751–52
Progressive Movement, The (DeWitt), 693 Progressive Optimism, 794 Progressive Party, 729, 794, 794, 837,
926 African-Americans barred from conven-
tion by, 762 social agenda of, 730–31
A-124 ★ INDEX
railroads, 574–75, 606–7, 608, 615, 630, 699, 702, 705, 706, 716–17, 730, 731, 794
agriculture and, 616, 652 Great Depression and, 815 Indians and, 625–27 labor and, 656 land granted to, 605, 614, 615 lobbyists of, 630 network of, 607 Populists and, 653 prison labor and, 660 protests against, 633–34 rate discrimination and, 638 rates regulated, 726 in Reconstruction, 593 segregation and, 664–65 Socialist party and, 729 strikes, 639, 640, 644–45, 791, 923 transcontinental, 600, 607, 621 trusts, 608, 725 westward expansion and, 617, 625–26
Rainey, Joseph H., 591 Raleigh, N.C., 985 Randolph, A. Philip (1889–1979), 894, 988,
1000 Rankin, Jeanette (1880–1973), 722, 750,
869 Rapp-Coudert Committee, 857 Rauschenbusch, Walter (1861–1918),
644 RCA Victor, 783 Readjustor movement, 663 Reagan, Nancy (1921–2016), 1059 Reagan, Ronald (1911–2004), 885, 929,
1052, 1056, 1057–69, 1076, 1082, 1110, 1112, 1124, 1136
background of, 1058 Cold War and, 1065–66, 1068 conservatives and, 1065 in election of 1980, 1057–58 Gorbachev and, 1067–68, 1068 as host of General Electric Theater, 947 inequality under, 1063–64, 1068 Iran-Contra affair and, 1067, 1068 labor and, 1062–63 legacy of, 1068–69
Reaganomics, 1059–62 Reagan Revolution, 1058–69 real estate:
deals, 1063 speculation, 1063
Rebel without a Cause (movie), 966–67 recall, 717
Public Works Administration (PWA), 826 Puck, 680 Puerto Rico, 681, 684, 686, 687, 760–61,
1018 as commonwealth, 686 migration from, 952, 1091 U.S. acquisition of, 651, 680, 683, 735
Pujo, Arsène (1861–1939), 786 Pulitzer, Joseph (1847–1911), 680 Pullman, Ill., strike in, 656, 676, 706 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 696, 726 Puritans, Puritanism:
Indians and, 1098 slavery and, 1098
PWA, see Public Works Administration
Quaker Oats Company, 607 Quayle, Dan (1947–), 1069 Quicksilver Messenger Service, 1012
Rabelais, François (ca. 1494–1553?), 796 race, racism, 854–55, 884, 886, 893–94,
896, 918, 921, 925, 928, 987, 989, 995–96, 1002, 1015, 1069, 1101
Americanism vs., 854, 884, 997 Andrew Johnson and, 579 Hollywood and, 918 integration and, 640, 924, 969, 978,
1035 and Japanese-Americans, 890–93 law and, 805–6 Nixon and, 1033 and post-World War II civil rights, 924 progressivism and, 755 as “race problem,” 755, 761 Reconstruction and, 595 riots and, 886, 893, 999–1001, 1097,
1144 social construction of, 806 in South Africa, 917 by U.S. government, 851 see also segregation
Races and Racism (Benedict), 885 radar, 874, 943 radiation, 899, 927, 928, 962 Radical Division, Justice Department, 771 Radical Reconstruction, 579–94 Radical Republicans, 581–82, 583, 583,
597, 653 radio, 781, 783, 784, 801, 878
FDR and, 839, 840 fundamentalism on, 834–35 religion and, 834–35, 953
Railroad Administration, 747
INDEX ★ A-125
Reform Bureau, 643 Refregier, Anton, 925 Regents of the University of California v.
Bakke, 1036, 1126 regulatory power, 790
rise of U.S. government, 726, 824, 841–44, 858, 997, 998
Rehnquist, William (1924–2005), 1127 Reid, Wallace (1892–1923), 796 religion, 735, 1100, 1106
of African-Americans, rise in, 568, 570 Cold War and, 953–54 as conflict source, 1125 counterculture and, 1013–14 divisiveness of, 1125 fundamentalist, 799–801 media and, 834–35 nationalism and, 1151–52 and Prohibition, 752 radio and, 834–35 social reform and, 643–44 temperance and, 643 see also specific denominations
religious freedom, 889 communism and, 953–54 Four Freedoms and, 862, 876, 903 Fourteenth Amendment and, 807 fundamentalism vs., 801 September 11 terrorist attacks and, 1112 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and, 920 see also diversity; pluralism
religious right, 1053–54, 1057 see also Christian Right
rendition, Bush administration and, 1119 Reno, Janet (1938–), 1076 Reno, Milo, 813 “Report on Economic Conditions in the
South,” 857 reproductive rights, 1017, 1024, 1026–27,
1137 Republican Party (modern), 630, 631, 642,
654, 657–58, 790–91, 805, 852, 854, 858, 867, 876, 914, 926, 927, 930, 933, 936, 957, 959–60, 992, 995, 1006, 1008, 1010, 1032, 1048, 1056, 1069, 1078, 1081, 1084, 1121, 1135, 1136, 1138, 1147–48
as anti-immigrant, 1099–1100, 1110 black members of, 663 black voters and, 590 in campaign of 1960, 979 Christianity aligned with, 1031, 1100 Clinton and, 1076
recessions, economic: of 1974–75, 1047 of 1991, 1074, 1082 of 2001, 1084, 1120 of 2007, 1128, 1129, 1132, 1141 of 2008–9, 1141 African-Americans and, 1142 Reaganomics and, 1062
Reconstruction, 564–602, 578, 599, 624, 635, 653, 763, 1103
African-Americans in, 566–74, 575–78, 582, 585–87, 590–92, 659, 661, 662, 664–66, 762, 863, 924
battle over, 579–80 black officeholders during, 591–92 “black supremacy” during, 594 Johnson’s policies in, 573, 579–84 Ku Klux Klan in, 665, 762, 802 overthrow of, 594–601 public schools in, 593 radical, 579–94 railroads built in, 594 Redeemers and, 659 segregation in, 664–66 violence in, 595–96 white farmers in, 574 women’s rights and, 587–88 see also Presidential Reconstruction;
Radical Reconstruction; Second Reconstruction
Reconstruction Act (1867), 584, 590 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 815 Red Cross, 893 Redeemers, 598–99, 659–60 Red Line Agreement, 795 Red Menace, The (movie), 918, 919 Red Monday, 1021 Red Power, 1019 Red Scare, 770–71, 779, 780, 810 Red Square, 1068 Reedy, William M., 713 referendum, initiative and, 717 reform, 581, 720–21, 730–31, 858
in Gilded Age, 632–36, 643–44 and immigrants, 758 maternalist, 722–24, 837 middle class and, 641 and Prohibition, 751–52 Protestants and, 643–44 religion and, 643–44 segregation and, 763 sexual freedom and, 788 temperance and, 643
Reform Act, British (1884), 630
A-126 ★ INDEX
riots: race, 766, 886, 893, 999–1001, 1097,
1144 Reconstruction, 584 zoot suit, 887
“River, The,” 1047 River Rouge auto plant, 947 Riverside Church, 800 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, 1064 roads, 782, 826, 834, 836 Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek), 883 Roaring Twenties, 781 robber barons, 611, 955 Roberts, John (1955–), 1127 Robertson, Pat (1930–), 1100 Robeson, Paul (1898–1976), 854, 898, 935 Robin Hood, 932 Robinson, Bill, 809 Robinson, Earl (1910–1991), 854 Robinson, Jackie (1919–1972), 924 Robinson, Jo Ann (1912–1992), 974, 988 rock-and-roll, 967, 1012, 1013 Rockefeller, John D. (1839–1937), 609–11,
679, 695, 708, 728, 786, 800 Rockefeller, Nelson (1908–1979), 865, 1047 Rockwell, Norman (1894–1978), 861, 862,
864, 864, 877, 879, 880, 885, 918, 925 Roe v. Wade, 1024, 1055 Rogers, Will (1879–1935), 794 “Roll on, Columbia” (Guthrie), 818 Romania, 909 Rommel, Erwin (1891–1944), 871 Romney, Mitt (1947–):
“47 percent” remark by, 1149 Bain Capital and, 1148–49 Massachusetts health-care plan and,
1149 in 2012 election and campaign, 1148–50
Romney campaign spending, 1150 Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884–1962), 845, 850,
920, 921 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1882–1945), 660,
692, 770, 834, 840, 842, 846, 851, 864, 869, 873, 874, 894, 897, 900, 901, 908, 909, 925, 933, 999, 1031, 1059, 1078, 1103, 1112
antilynching law and, 850, 851 Atlantic Charter and, 902–3 background of, 821–22 black voters and, 841 “court packing” by, 841, 858 death of, 898, 903 Economic Bill of Rights and, 882–83
Republican Party (modern) (continued) conservatives in, 962 Contract with America, 1077 corruption in, 630 Eisenhower and, 957–59 in election of 1896, 657 in election of 1916, 744 in election of 1928, 810 in election of 1936, 841 in election of 1946, 923 in election of 1952, 957–59, 958 in election of 1968, 1027 in election of 1972, 1042 in election of 1992, 1076 in election of 2000, 1103 and Equal Rights Amendment, 1057 high tariff supported by, 632 industrialists and, 639 Johnson’s impeachment and, 584–85 Liberal, 596–97, 635 liberal reformers’ split from, 635 in 1920s, 790–91 1964 convention of, 994, 1058 1992 convention of, 1076, 1100 North and, 658 in Reconstruction, 571, 579–84, 590,
593, 594–95, 597–98 rise of, 646 South and, 663 Soviet Union and, 864 and Supreme Court, 829 Taft and, 729 Truman Doctrine and, 910 YAF and, 995 see also Radical Republicans; specific
elections and campaigns Republic Steel, 832 Rerum Novarum, 703 reservations, Indian, 624–27, 626, 715, 803,
848, 890, 1019 Resettlement Administration, 828 Resolution of Regret (2012), 671 Revels, Hiram (1822–1901), 591, 591 reverse discrimination, 1000, 1035 Rhineland, 772, 865 Rhine River, 898 rice, 660 Richardson, Elliot (1920–1999), 1042 Rickey, Branch (1881–1965), 924 Riesman, David (1909–2002), 966 right to work laws, 924 Riis, Jacob (1849–1914), 613, 613, 1123 Rincon Center, 925
INDEX ★ A-127
Ryan, John A. (1869–1945), 703, 839 Ryan, Paul D. (1970–), 1149
Saar Basin, 772 Sacco, Nicola (1891–1927), 779–80, 780 Saddam Hussein (1937–2006), 1073–74,
1114, 1117 and weapons of mass destruction,
1114–15, 1117 Sagebrush Rebellion, 1056–57, 1060–61 Saginaw, Mich., 856 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 650 Salinger, J. D. (1919–), 966 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks),
1038, 1050, 1051 San Antonio Independent School District v.
Rodriguez, 1035 San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack in,
1147 San Bernardino Valley, Calif, 946 San Diego, Calif., 1087 Sandinistas, 795, 1050, 1066 Sandino, Augusto César (1895–1934), 795 Sandy Hook Elementary School, 1152 San Fernando Valley, Calif., 946 San Francisco, Calif., 612, 717, 874, 895,
1012, 1012, 1017, 1082, 1097–98 Beats in, 967, 968 bread lines in, 813 immigration to, 697, 698 manufacturing and trading in, 617 strike in, 831 U.N. conference in, 902 water needs of, 727
San Francisco Bay, 1019 San Francisco Chronicle, 911 Sanger, Margaret (1883–1966), 713–14,
714, 751 San Jose, Calif., 1046 San Juan, P.R., 952 San Juan Hill, 681–82 Santiago, Cuba, 681 Sarajevo, Serbia, 742 Saturday Evening Post, 862, 877 Saturday Night Massacre, 1042 Saudi Arabia, 1001, 1073, 1074, 1097,
1106, 1127, 1146 savings and loans associations, 1064 Savio, Mario (1942–1996), 1005 scalawags, 593 Scalia, Antonin (1936–), 1127 Scandinavia, 867
socialism in, 706
First New Deal and, 822–30 Four Freedoms and, 861–62, 864,
876–77, 903, 954 freedom and, 839–40, 861–62, 864, 893,
906 Hitler and, 865, 867, 886 on housing, 829 Japanese American internment and, 891 pluralism and, 884 and polio, 822 Second New Deal and, 835–38 and South, 858 U.S.-Soviet relations and, 908 and West, 820 World War II strategy of, 871 see also New Deal
Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919), 646, 719, 726, 738, 747, 822, 841, 1076
African-Americans and, 762 Asian-Americans and, 761 as conservationist, 729 and corporations, 725 Panama Canal and, 737–39 as Progressive candidate, 729, 823 as Progressive president, 725–28 as Rough Rider, 681–82 U.S. government regulatory power and,
726 World War I and, 744
Roosevelt Corollary, 739 Rosenberg, Ethel (1915–1953), 930 Rosenberg, Julius (1918–1953), 930 Rosie the Riveter, 879 Ross, Nellie Taylor, 722 Ross, Thomas J., 576–77 Rough Riders, 681–82 Royal Air Force, 867 rubber, 676, 782, 874, 948 Ruef, Abraham (1864–1936), 717 Rumsfeld, Donald, 1114 Rural Electrification Agency, 835–36 Russia, 698, 773
Iran and, 1146 Iraq War and, 1116 in World War I, 742, 743 see also Soviet Union
Russian immigrants, 669, 696 Russian Revolution, 744, 754, 768, 769,
770, 771, 799 Russo-Japanese War, 737 Rustin, Bayard (1910–1987), 1000 Ruth, Babe (1895–1948), 783 Rwanda, genocide in, 1079, 1080
A-128 ★ INDEX
dismantling of, 971, 973, 978, 996, 1000, 1033–35
diversity vs., 854 education and, 671–72, 1033–35 federal government and, 988 in federal housing, 850–51 in Greensboro, N.C., 983–84 labor and, 661 laws, 664–66 railroads and, 664–65 reformers and, 763 “separate but equal” principle and, 665,
665, 971, 972–73 South and, 659–69, 851 in Southwest, 760 in Spanish-American War, 682 suburbia and, 950–53 in U.S. military, 764–65, 893 see also race, racism; South, segrega-
tion in Seidel, Emil (1864–1947), 706 Selective Service Act (1917), 747 Selma, Ala., 969, 995–96, 996 Senate, U.S., 631, 678, 680, 833, 834, 837,
902, 971, 1102, 1110, 1118, 1119–20, 1148
African-Americans in, 591 comic book hearings of, 967 and Johnson’s impeachment, 584–85 LBJ in, 992 McCarthy and, 930–31 popular vote and, 718 Smith’s speech in, 931, 936 World War I and, 745
Seneca Falls Convention, 912 Senegal, 978 “separate but equal” principle, 665, 665,
971, 972–73 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of,
752, 992, 1046, 1105–7, 1106, 1110, 1111, 1113, 1114, 1117, 1125, 1134, 1153
Cold War and, 1106 Serbia, 742, 1058, 1079, 1080 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, 882–83 settlement houses, 719, 730 settler societies, 627–28 Seventeenth Amendment, 718 Seward, William H. (1801–1872), 678 “Seward’s icebox,” 679 sex:
Beats and, 967 censorship and, 796, 798
Scandinavian immigrants, 615, 669 Schechter Poultry Company, 829 Schenck, Charles T., 797–98 Schlafly, Phyllis (1924–), 1054 school prayer, 1023
proposed amendment regarding, 1065 schools, public, 1035, 1095 school shootings, 1152 Schultz, George (1920–), 1033 Schurz, Carl (1829–1906), 571, 586 Schwerner, Michael (1939–1964), 993 scientific management, 704 Scopes, John (1900–1970), 801–2 Scopes Trial, 801–2 Scott, Thomas A. (1823–1881), 609 Scott, Winfield (1786–1866), 741 Scottsboro, Ala., trial in, 855, 974 Scowcroft, Brent (1925–), 1115–16 Screen Actors Guild, 1058 SDS, see Students for a Democratic Society Sea Islands, 573, 592
Special Field Order 15 and, 566 Seale, Bobby (1936–), 1026 Sears, Roebuck & Co., 607 SEATO, 916 Seattle, Wash., 787, 874, 1082, 1089
government contracts and, 943 Ku Klux Klan in, 802 strike in, 769 WTO meeting in, 1080–82
Second Amendment, 1152 Second Emancipation, 765 “second industrial revolution,” see indus-
trial revolution, “second” Second New Deal, see New Deal, Second Second Reconstruction, 654, 677
civil rights movement as, 601 Second Vatican Council, social activism
and, 1013 sectionalism, post-Civil War, 654 Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), 829, 1133 Security Council, U.N., 902, 914 Sedition Act (1798), 752, 1022, 1119 Sedition Act (1918), 752–53, 797 segregation, 593, 664–66, 689, 761,
762, 764, 850, 877, 885, 886, 889, 894, 895, 896, 907, 925, 928, 935, 950, 969–76, 978, 978, 986, 1000, 1033–35, 1059, 1092, 1095
Birmingham campaign and, 988 Booker T. Washington on, 673 courts and, 972–76, 977
INDEX ★ A-129
Sioux, 621, 624 in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 629
Sirica, John J. (1904–1992), 1042 Sister Carrie (Dreiser), 695–96 Sisterhood is Powerful!, 1017 sit-down strike, 832 sit-ins, 983–84, 985, 1001 Sitting Bull (ca. 1831–1890), 621, 624
in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 629 Six-Day War, 1079 Sixteenth Amendment, 728 “Sixties, The,” 1003, 1017, 1019, 1020,
1024 activism in, 1014–16 legacy of, 1027–28
Skilling, Jeffrey, 1084 slacker raids, 754 Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), 598 slavery, 896, 898, 921, 1092, 1131
arguments in favor of, 635 Indians and, 1098 South as affected by, 668 in West, 614 see also abolition movement
slaves, emancipated, 564–74, 567, 591 Andrew Johnson and, 579 Second New Deal and, 836 suffrage and, 565, 568–69, 583, 585
slave trade, 898 Slavs, Nazi extermination of, 873 Sloan, John (1871–1951), 695 Smalls, Robert (1837–1915), 591 Smith, Adam (1723–1790), 1132 Smith, Alfred E. (1873–1974), 810
Protestants and, 810–11 Smith, Margaret Chase, McCarthy and,
931, 936–37 Smith, Matthew (1810–1879), 613 Smith Act (1940), 856 Smithsonian Institution, 621 Smith v. Allwright, 896 Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930), 815 SNCC, see Student Non-Violent Coordinat-
ing Committee Snowden, Edward, 1147 Social Darwinism, 635–36, 641, 647 Social Gospel, 644, 657, 1013 socialism, 705–7, 708, 714, 794, 796, 798,
801, 813, 822, 830, 833, 921, 933, 963, 1004, 1026, 1086
capitalism vs., 729, 853 in Chicago, 645 Communist Party and, 853
and public officials, 1102–3 women’s rights and, 712–13, 787–89,
949, 1014, 1016 sexism, 1016 Sex Side of Life, The (Dennett), 798 sexual harassment, 1102 sexual politics, 1016 sexual revolution, 1009, 1012, 1024,
1036–37, 1052, 1099 Seymour, Horatio (1810–1886), 585 Shame of the Cities, The (Steffens), 695 “shape up” system, 831 sharecropping, 574, 575, 576–77, 593, 651,
767, 839, 847, 851, 853, 944 in Great Depression, 827 New Deal and, 836
Share Our Wealth, 834, 835 Sharon, Conn., 994 Sharon Statement, 994 Sheeler, Charles (1883–1965), 786 Sheen, Fulton J. (1895–1979), 953 sheep farming, 618–19 Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 788 Sheridan, Philip H. (1831–1888), 621 Sherman, William T. (1820–1891), 564–65,
566, 572, 590, 988 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 633, 638,
725, 728 see also monopolies; trusts, business
Shiite Muslims, 1116 shipbuilding:
European, 959 in South, 943 in World War II, 879
shopping, 946 Siam, see Thailand Sicily, invasion of, 871 Siegfried, André (1875–1959), 784 Sierra Club, 727, 1020 “Significance of the Frontier in American
History, The” (F.J. Turner), 613 Silent Protest Parade, 767 Silent Spring (Carson), 1003, 1020 Silicon Valley, 1082 silver:
corporate mining of, 618 as currency, 657
Simmons, Isaac (d. 1944), 893 Sinclair, Upton (1878–1968), 696, 747, 796,
833 Singer Sewing Machines, 679 Singleton, Benjamin “Pap” (1809–1892),
661
A-130 ★ INDEX
desegregation in, 896, 971, 973, 977, 978, 1000
in election of 1948, 926 in election of 1964, 994 Freedom Rides in, 985 fundamentalists in, 801 industry in, 846–47, 874–75, 943, 960 Jim Crow and, 969 libertarianism in, 955 New, see New South New Deal and, 846–47 Nixon and, 1033–34 Operation Dixie in, 922, 923 People’s Party in, 652 population growth and, 1046 poverty in, 858, 1123 segregation in, 651, 659–69, 851, 886,
889, 972, 978, 983–84, 986–87, 1033–35
sit-ins in, 983–84 strikes in, 831 urban areas of, 574–75 voting in, 790, 924, 993 see also Confederate States of America
South Africa, 774, 917, 1038, 1066, 1071 apartheid in, 1009
South America, 865 immigrants from, 1091, 1094
South Asia, Islam in, 1125 South Braintree, Mass., Sacco and Vanzetti
in, 779–80 South Carolina, 576, 660, 715, 1126
Confederate flag and, 977 Reconstruction in, 593, 597–98 textiles in, 660
South Carolina Senate, 1131 South Dakota, 615
corporate mining in, 618 population of, 694 Wounded Knee massacre in, 627
South Dakota territory, 614 Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
977 Southern Conference for Human Welfare,
858, 935 Southern Manifesto, 971, 977 Southern Pacific Railroad, 617, 717 Southern Tenant Farmers Union, 855 Southern veto, 846–47 South Gate, Calif., 1063 South Korea, 1043–44, 1050
and BP oil rig, 1137 creation of, 914 immigrants from, 1091
socialism (continued) Espionage Act and, 753 European vs. American view of, 642 Friedrich Hayek and, 883, 884 in Gilded Age, 640, 642 Henry Wallace and, 926 immigrants and, 759, 787 middle class and, 643 as nationalism, 643 woman suffrage and, 721 World War I and, 743, 755
Socialist Party, 705–6, 705, 714, 729, 730, 748, 756, 771, 787
capitalism vs., 729, 853 “social legislation,” 715 social media:
Black Lives Matter and, 1144 ISIS and, 1147
social rights, in U.S., 1152 Social Security, 841, 846, 858, 897, 956,
994, 1032, 1065, 1151 African-Americans and, 847, 850, 999 creation of, 837 Eisenhower and, 959 freedom and, 845 NRPB and, 882 taxes support for, 838, 846, 847 Truman and, 922, 927, 934 in World War II, 876
Social Security Act (1935), 821, 837, 847, 849
Social Security Bill, 837 Society of American Indians, 714 Solomon Islands, 870 Somalia, 1094
war on terror in, 1145 Somoza, Anastasio (1925–1980), 795, 864,
1050, 1066 Sons of Italy, 780 Sorry Day, 628 Sotomayor, Sonia (1954–), 1137 Soule, George (1887–1970), 840 Souls of Black Folk, The (Du Bois), 675,
763, 775 Souter, David (1939–), 1137 South, 632, 751, 764, 784, 863, 875, 893,
986–87, 1031, 1041, 1104, 1135 African-Americans in, 660–61, 764, 765,
787, 807, 808, 886, 889, 893–94, 935, 993, 1000
agriculture in, 944 black migration from, 951–52, 969 convict labor in, 660 Democratic Party and, 659, 811
INDEX ★ A-131
special interests, 727 lobbying by, 630, 790, 883
Spokane, Wash., 709 Springfield, Mo., 763 Springsteen, Bruce (1949–), 1047 Sputnik, 960, 979 Square Deal, 725 stagflation, 1044–45, 1057 Stalin, Joseph (1879–1953), 822, 853, 867,
900, 901, 908, 909, 912, 916, 926, 933, 962
death of, 961 and nonaggression pact, 867 World War II strategy of, 871
Stalingrad, 871 Standard Oil Company, 609, 610, 679, 695,
728 Stanford University, 759 Stanton, Edwin M. (1814–1869), 564, 584 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (1815–1902), 588,
589, 756, 787 Starr, Kenneth (1947–), 1102–3 “Star-Spangled Banner, The” (Key), 680 state-church separation, 801, 1023 State Department, U.S., 908, 918–19, 929,
961, 978, 1005, 1066, 1114, 1117 McCarthy and, 929, 930, 936
Staten Island, N.Y., 1143 State of the Union Address (1941), 861 State of the Union Address (1996), 1078 State of the Union Address (2002), 1113 states’ rights, 926, 1057
Andrew Johnson’s views of, 579 States’ Rights Democratic Party, 926, 927 Statue of Liberty, 603–4, 623, 644, 646,
702, 749–50, 749, 754, 763, 932, 954 Stead, W. T. (1849–1912), 734–35 steamships, 609 steel industry, 609, 649–51, 660, 676, 702,
704, 736, 769–70, 782, 790–91, 830, 832, 874, 922–23, 943, 948, 959, 960, 1062, 1120
Steel Workers Organizing Committee, 831, 832
Steffens, Lincoln (1866–1936), 695, 784 Steichen, Edward (1879–1973), 695 Stein, Gertrude (1874–1946), 797 Steinbeck, John (1902–1968), 827,
842–43 Stennis, John C. (1901–1995), 1042 sterilization, involuntary, 760 Stettheimer, Florine, 754 Stevens, Thaddeus (1792–1868), 581–82,
583, 583, 596–97
South Vietnam, 1006, 1008, 1024, 1039 Southwest, 1123 Soviet Exhibition, 940 Soviet Union, 767–68, 812, 822, 853, 864,
866, 867, 871, 900, 907, 910, 920, 921, 926, 929, 935, 956, 966, 1003, 1032, 1038, 1050, 1067–68
Afghanistan invasion by, 1051–52 American National Exhibition and, 940,
942 atomic bomb of, 912 Berlin occupation by, 912–13 breakup of, 1072, 1074, 1075 Cold War and, 916 collapse of communism in, 1072 Cuban Missile Crisis and, 990–91 Czechoslovakia invasion by, 1026 Eastern Europe occupation by, 901, 902,
908, 912 Eisenhower and, 961–62 European empires and, 962 German invasion of, 868, 871, 872, 908 Gulf War and, 1074 hydrogen bomb and, 961 invasion of Germany by, 898 Korean War and, 914–16 Lend-Lease and, 868 Manchuria invasion by, 899 Reagan and, 1065 space exploration and, 960, 979, 989 spying of, 932 support of the arts by, 918 in U.N., 902 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and, 921 Vietnam and, 1006, 1038 weapons tests of, 927 see also Cold War
soybean, 944 Spain, 681, 768, 932
rise of Franco in, 865 Spanish-American War, 680, 681, 682, 683,
685, 685, 686, 728, 804 acquisition of empire and, 735 Battle of San Juan Hill in, 681–82 casualties in, 681 causes of, 681 naval battle at Manila Bay in, 681 see also Philippine War
Spanish Civil War, 866, 932 Sparkman, John (1899–1985), 935 speakeasies, 781, 801, 808 Special Field Order 15, 566 Special Forces, U.S., 1145
A-132 ★ INDEX
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 679
submarines: construction of, 943 in World War I, 742, 744 in World War II, 869, 871
“subprime” mortgages, 1129, 1132 minorities and, 1129–32
subtreasury plan, 652, 656 suburbs, 966, 981, 1015, 1035, 1052, 1058,
1087, 1135, 1151 “blockbusting” and, 952 highways and, 948, 960 Latinos in, 1087 rise of, 782, 944, 948–49, 948 as segregated, 950–53, 969
Sudan, 1094 Sudetenland, 865 Suez Canal, 964 suffrage, see voting rights sugar:
in Cuba, 990 in Hawaii, 680 plantations, see planters, plantations,
sugar in Puerto Rico, 952
suicide rate, Great Depression and, 812 Sullivan, Timothy “Big Tim,” 716 Sumner, Charles (1811–1874), 581, 586,
587, 756 Sumner, William Graham (1840–1910),
636 Sunday, Billy (1862–1935), 800, 800 Sunni Muslims, 1116 Sunshine and Shadow in New York (Smith),
613 Sun Yat-Sen, 715 Superman, 967 supply and demand, law of, 635 supply-side economics, 1048, 1064, 1110 Supreme Court, U.S., 586, 589, 598, 600,
626, 638–39, 656, 665, 672, 686, 704, 723, 725, 726, 728, 780, 791, 793, 797, 798, 806, 807, 932, 1022, 1042, 1053, 1057, 1059, 1065, 1096, 1125–26
abortion and, 1024, 1055, 1100–1101 affirmative action and, 1035–36 African-American rights and, 764, 896 Brown v. Board of Education and, 971,
972–73, 977 and campaign contributions, 1150 civil liberties and, 797–99, 856, 977
Stevenson, Adlai (1900–1965), 935, 958, 958 Stewart, Alexander T. (1803–1876), 613 Stewart, William (1827–1909), 581 Stieglitz, Alfred (1864–1946), 695 Stimson, Henry (1867–1950), 874, 896, 899 stock market, 781, 786, 811, 824, 1063,
1083–84, 1129, 1134, 1142 Stone, Lucy (1818–1893), 589 Stonewall Inn, police raid on, 1018 Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT),
1038 Strategic Defense Initiative, 1065 Straus, Jack (1900–1985), 946 Stride Toward Freedom (King), 976 Strike, The (Koehler), 640 strikes, 590, 633, 638, 706, 707–9, 768–69,
787, 922–23, 1025, 1025, 1062 of air traffic controllers, 1062 in Arizona, 754 in Boston, Mass., 769, 791 in colleges, 1039 of cowboys, 617 in Depression, 831–33, 831 in Detroit, Mich., 893 in France, 1026 in Homestead, Pa., 649–50, 676 in Lawrence, Mass., 708 in Ludlow, Colo., 708–9 McCormick Company and, 645 mining and, 656, 754 in New Orleans, La., 708 in New York, N.Y., 692, 707–9, 708 in 1934, 831 in Paterson, N.J., 708 in Pennsylvania, 726 Pullman, 656, 676 railroad, 639, 640, 644, 791 rights and, 731 in Seattle, Wash., 769 sit-down, 832 steel, 769–70, 770, 960 suppression of, 791 wildcat, 960 in World War II, 876 in W.Va., 726
Strong, Josiah (1847–1916), 679 Student Non-Violent Coordinating Commit-
tee (SNCC), 985, 986, 988, 993, 998, 1001, 1002, 1008, 1016, 1018
students, as activists, 986 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS),
1004–5, 1004, 1008–9, 1016, 1018, 1026
INDEX ★ A-133
Tape v. Hurley, 671–72 Tarbell, Ida (1857–1944), 695 tariffs, 605, 632, 657, 658, 659, 680, 728,
729, 731, 790, 815 Tarkington, Booth (1869–1946), 877 tax, single, 717 taxes, 730, 795, 834, 923, 954, 955, 956,
1052, 1053, 1059, 1064, 1077, 1095 corporate, 876 on corporations, 835 demands for lowering, 1056 Gingrich and, 1077 in Great Britain, 1057 Great Depression and, 815 G. W. Bush’s cuts in, 1110, 1128, 1137 income, 653, 726, 728–29, 731, 747,
790, 874, 994, 997 inheritance, 726 New Deal and, 846, 848 poll, 663, 925, 996 property, 716, 1035 single, 642, 717 Social Security, 838, 846, 847 World War I and, 747 World War II and, 874
Tax Reform Act (1986), 1059–62 Taylor, Frederick W. (1856–1915), 704 Tea Party:
agenda of, 1147–48 Paul D. Ryan and, 1149
Teapot Dome scandal, 791 technology:
innovations in, 608 in World War I, 742
teenagers, 966–67 Tehran, 900, 901, 1051 telegraph, transatlantic, 608 telephones, 608, 783 television, 940, 942, 944, 947, 1026, 1066,
1083, 1094, 1119, 1144 civil rights movement and, 987, 987, 996 family life on, 947, 949 Iran hostage crisis and, 1051 in 1960 campaign, 980 politics and, 958, 1069 religion and, 835, 953 religious programing and, 1053 Vietnam War and, 1024
Teller, Henry (1830–1914), 681 Teller Amendment, 681 temperance, 643, 676–77
see also Prohibition Ten Commandments, 861
civil rights and, 1021–22, 1022, 1027, 1033–35
Clinton’s appointments to, 1076 “court packing” and, 841 Defense of Marriage Act and, 1100 Dred Scott decision of, 586 FDR and, 823, 841–44, 858 First Amendment and, 877 G. W. Bush and, 1126–27 homosexuals and, 1065 housing segregation and, 951 Japanese-American internment and, 892 New Deal and, 829–30 Obama and, 1137 Pentagon Papers and, 1040 Plessy v. Ferguson and, 664–65, 665,
971, 972 right to privacy and, 1023–24 sanctions involuntary sterilization, 760 Scottsboro case and, 855 “separate but equal” ruling of, 665, 665 and 2000 election, 1103–4, 1104 Voting Rights Act repealed by, 1142 see also Burger Court; Warren Court
Suriname, 1152 surveillance, government, 1147 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of
Education, 1035 sweatshops, 691–92, 721 Sweatt, Heman (1912–1982), 972 Sweet, Henry O. (ca. 1905–1940), 809 Sweet, Ossian, 809 Sweetwater, Tex., 880 Switzer, Katharine, 1016 Switzerland, male suffrage in, 630 Syria, 774, 1044, 1119
ISIS in, 1146
Taft, Robert A. (1889–1953), 840, 892, 957 Taft, William Howard (1857–1930), 684,
725, 728–29, 731, 791 inaugural address of, 728 Latin America and, 739
Taft-Hartley Act (1947), 923–24, 925, 934, 960
Taiwan, 914, 1038, 1044 Tajikistan, 1075, 1113 Taliban, 1052, 1112–13, 1145 Tammany Hall, 810 tanks (military), 873 Tanzania, 963
terrorist attack in, 1106 Tape, Joseph and Mary, 672
A-134 ★ INDEX
Thoreau, Henry David (1817–1862), 727, 976, 1140
Three Mile Island, 1049 Thurmond, Strom (1902–2003), 926, 995 Tiananmen Square, protests in, 604, 1071 Tibet, 1013 Tilden, Samuel J. (1814–1886), 600 Till, Emmett (1941–1955), 974 Time, 853, 917–18, 929, 967, 974, 1020 “Times They Are A-Changin’, The” (Dylan),
1009 Titanic, 734 Title IX, 1037 Tito, see Broz, Josip tobacco, 573, 660 Tobacco Belt, 573 Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859), 635,
1096–97 Tokyo, Japan, 900 Toledo, Ohio, 716, 831 “too big to fail”, financial institutions, 1138 torture, 1119–20, 1136 To Secure These Rights, 925 totalitarianism, 919–20, 1066
see also dictators, dictatorships Tourgée, Albion W. (1838–1905), 665 Townsend, Francis (1867–1960), 834, 835 Townsend Clubs, 834 Toynbee Hall, 720 trade:
expansion of, 865 in World War II, 866, 877 see also free trade; slave trade
transcendentalism, 727 “Trans-National America” (Bourne), 758 transportation, 716
in Europe, 959 public, 946 see also railroads
Transportation Department, U.S., 997 Trans World Airline, 1096 Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1778), 913 treaty system, elimination of, 624 Triangle Shirtwaist Company, fire at,
691–92, 700, 810, 823 “triangulation,” 1078 tribalism, attack on Native American,
625–27 Triborough Bridge, 826 trickle-down economics, see supply-side
economics Trotter, William Monroe (1872–1934), 762,
764
Ten Commandments, The (movie), 953 Tennessee, 663
Ku Klux Klan founded in, 595 prison labor in, 660 Scopes trial in, 801–2
Tennessee River, 826 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 826, 827 Tenskwatawa (1775–1836), 627 Tenure of Office Act (1867), 584 Terman, Lewis (1877–1956), 759 “termination”, and Native Americans, 1019 terrorism, 1066, 1105–7
domestic, 1118 in Oklahoma City, 771, 1101–2 September 11 attacks, 752, 992, 1046,
1105–7, 1106, 1110, 1111, 1113, 1114, 1117, 1125, 1134, 1153
war on, 1112, 1117–20, 1125, 1127, 1146, 1147
Tesla, Nikola (1856–1943), 608 Tet offensive, 1024 Texas, 887, 924, 1057, 1092, 1094, 1126,
1140 agriculture in, 785, 944 in Dust Bowl, 827 G. W. Bush and, 1110 Hurricane Katrina victims and, 1122 immigration and, 1124 population of, 694 Populist Party in, 652 segregation in, 851
Texas, University of, segregation at, 972 Texas and Pacific Railroad, 600 Texas Minutemen, 1124 textile industry:
and child labor, 720 decline of, 943 plant closings in, 1120 in South, 660 strikes in, 787, 831, 922
Thailand, 869 Thatcher, Margaret (1925–), 1057 Theory of the Leisure Class, The (Veblen),
612 Thind, Bhagat Singh (1892–1967), 806 Third Great Awakening, 1053 third parties, in U.S. elections, 633 Third World, 962–63, 969, 1006, 1019,
1038, 1050, 1066 Cold War in, 963–64
Thirteenth Amendment, 582, 614, 906 This Is the Army (movie), 885 Thomas, Clarence (1948–), 1102
INDEX ★ A-135
Ulysses (Joyce), 798 Uncle Sam, 646, 770 Underwood Tariff (1913), 731 unemployment, 706, 729, 731, 846, 854,
862, 873, 942, 988, 998, 1045, 1048, 1063, 1085, 1095, 1129, 1135, 1139, 1141, 1142
of African-Americans, 1000, 1142 African-Americans and, 849, 1095 Great Depression and, 812, 813, 814,
815, 825–26, 833, 842 insurance, 837, 846, 847, 850, 1134–35 of Latinos, 1018 in 1990s, 1082 public spending to combat, 844, 845 Second New Deal and, 835, 837, 845,
858, 859 in Soviet Union, 822 in 2001, 1120
Unintended Legacy (Goshorn), 1099 Union League, 590, 592, 748 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, see
Soviet Union Union Pacific Railroad, 630 unions, 645, 657, 676, 708–9, 769, 770,
787, 790, 796, 813, 830–33, 852, 854, 855, 894, 906, 933, 943, 954, 955, 1004, 1046–47, 1062, 1086, 1139, 1151
African-Americans and, 761, 765, 766, 855, 894, 896, 969, 988
blacklisting organizers of, 837 Brandeis and, 704 Clinton and, 1078 company unions vs., 787 consumerism and, 703 counterculture and, 1009 discrimination by, 1015 in election of 1936, 841 emergence of, 831 Ford and, 702 in Great Britain, 1057 in Great Depression, 830–33, 831 highways and, 960 Homestead strike and, 649–50 industrialism and, 610 Ku Klux Klan and, 803 Latinos and, 1018 membership in, 832, 875–76, 1086 NAFTA and, 1076 New Deal and, 825, 858, 859 in 1950s, 960 Nixon and, 1034
Troubles, The, 1026 Troy, N.Y., manufacturing in, 606 Trujillo Molina, Rafael (1891–1961), 864 Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972), 882,
898–99, 900, 902, 906, 907, 909–10, 1078, 1112
African-Americans and, 924–26 anticommunism and, 933, 935 Berlin airlift and, 912 in campaign of 1948, 926–27 civil rights and, 924–25, 972, 978 communist China and, 914 decolonization and, 917 Fair Deal and, 922 Korean War and, 914 national health car and, 920 presidency of, 922–27, 957 strikes and, 923–24 Vietnam and, 963, 964
Truman administration, 907, 909, 914–15, 916, 922–27, 929, 930, 934, 935, 959, 1006
Native Americans and, 1019 Truman Doctrine, 909–10, 929, 935, 954 Trumbo, Dalton (1905–1976), 929 Trumbull, Lyman (1813–1896), 582, 597 trusts, business, 608, 725, 728, 731, 747,
786, 883 and antitrust laws, 731, 883 see also monopolies; Sherman Antitrust
Act (1890) Tugwell, Rexford G., 828 Tulsa, Okla., race riot in, 767 Tunisia, uprising in, 1146 Turkey, 678, 742, 910, 990
missiles removed from, 990 Turner, Benjamin S., 591 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 613–14 Tuskegee Institute, 673 TVA, see Tennessee Valley Authority TV dinner, 947 Twain, Mark (1835–1910), 587, 629–30, 684 Tweed, “Boss” William M. (1823–1878), 630 Tweed Ring, 595, 630 Twentieth Amendment, 841 Twenty-first Amendment, 829 Twenty-fourth Amendment, 996 Tyco International, 1084 typewriter, 608
U-2 spy plane, 962 UAW, see United Auto Workers UFW, see United Farm Workers
A-136 ★ INDEX
Urban League, 847, 934 urban renewal, 951 U’Ren, William, 717 USA Patriot Act, 1117–18
extension of, 1145 U.S. Steel, 609, 610, 725, 812, 832 U.S. v. Abrams, 799 Utah:
Mormons in, 620 polygamy in, 620, 722 woman suffrage in, 721
Utah territory, 614 utilities, 716, 730 Uzbekistan, 1113
Valentino, Rudolph (1895–1926), 788 Vanderberg, Arthur (1884–1951), 910 Vanderbilt, William (1821–1885), 692 Vanzetti, Bartolomeo (1888–1927), 779–80,
780 vaudeville, 699 Veblen, Thorstein (1857–1929), 612 V-E Day, 898 velvet revolution, 1072 Venezuela, 739, 795 Veracruz, Mexico, 741 Verdun, Battle of, 742 Verizon, 1147 Vermont, 841 Versailles conference, 768 Versailles Treaty, 771–72, 773, 774, 775,
776, 810, 865 Senate debate on, 776
vertical integration, 609, 610, 610 Veterans’ Administration, 829 Veterans’ Bureau, 791 veto, presidential, 582, 923, 933 veto, Southern, 846 Viet Cong, 1006, 1007, 1008, 1024, 1040 Vietnam, 774, 869, 963, 1092, 1116
see also North Vietnam; South Vietnam Vietnamization, 1039 Vietnam War, 750, 873, 980, 1002, 1007,
1019, 1038, 1043, 1074, 1121 and antiwar movement, 1008–9,
1024–25, 1039 casualties in, 1040 draft resisters of, 1009, 1050 end of, 1144 My Lai massacre in, 1040 Nixon and, 1039–41 origins of, 964–65, 1005–6 Paris peace agreement and, 1040
unions (continued) open shop policies and, 825 Operation Dixie and, 922, 923 Reagan and, 1058, 1059, 1062 restrictions on, 1148 supported by left, 852 Supreme Court and, 639 Taft-Hartley Act and, 923–24, 934 Tweed and, 630 Wal-Mart and, 1086 War Labor Board and, 747 War on Poverty and, 998 women and, 880 in World War II, 875–76 see also labor; labor movement; specific
unions United Auto Workers (UAW), 832, 833, 846,
879 United Electric Worker’s union, 1015 United Farm Workers (UFW), 1018, 1092 United Fruit Company, 739, 963 United Labor Party, 646, 646 United Mine Workers of America, 709, 711,
831 United Nations, 908, 914, 916, 920, 1038,
1048, 1066, 1074, 1080, 1101, 1114, 1116
in Balkans, 1080 Charter of, 964 creation of, 902 Iraq War and, 1116 see also General Assembly, U.N.; Secu-
rity Council, U.N.. United States Housing Act, 844 United States v. Butler, 829–30 United States v. Cruikshank, 598 United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 638 United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 672 United Steelworkers of America, 832 United Steelworkers of America v. Weber,
1036 United Textile Workers, 831 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
920–21 Universal Negro Improvement Association,
767 universal suffrage, 589 University of North Carolina Press, 889 Unmarried Woman, An (movie), 1036 Unsafe at Any Speed (Nader), 1021 Uprising of the 20,000, 692, 707 urbanization, 694–703
rise of cities, 698
INDEX ★ A-137
hourly, 1086 immigrants and, 699 inflation and increasing, 784 international standards for, 1081 “living wage” and, 731, 749, 838, 846 and Mexican immigrants, 1018, 1124 migrant farm workers and, 1018 minimum, 724, 729, 791, 830, 844, 960,
1086, 1139, 1140 New Deal and, 833 overtime and, 844 rising, 942 Social Security tax on, 838, 846, 848 stagnation of, 1124 strike for higher, 590, 617 tax brackets and, 1059 in U.S. compared with Europe, 611 women and, 676, 761, 879, 1015, 1054,
1055, 1100 in World War I, 747 in World War II, 873, 876, 879
Wagner, Robert (1877–1953), 837 Wagner Act (1935), 830, 836–37, 844, 849,
906 Waite, Davis (1825–1901), 656 Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 612 Walker, David, 897 Walker, Francis Amasa (1840–1897), 670 Walker, Scott (1967–), 1148 Wallace, George (1919–1998), 994, 995,
1027, 1052 Wallace, Henry (1888–1965), 881, 882, 909,
926, 927 Walls, Josiah T., 591 Wall Street, 693, 786, 794, 834, 867, 927,
955, 1064, 1129, 1132–33, 1134, 1139 in depression, 813 Occupy Movement and, 1140
Wall Street Journal, 790 Wal-Mart, 1086
and owners’ wealth, 1139 War Advertising Council, 878 war bonds, 749, 874, 878, 892 War Department, U.S., 896, 899 Warehouse Act (1916), 731 War Industries Board, 747, 824 War Labor Board, 747 War Manpower Commission, 873 Warm Springs Foundation, 903 Warner, Charles Dudley (1829–1900), 629–30 War of 1812, 569, 756, 868 War of Independence, see American
Revolution
protests against, 1008–9, 1032, 1116 television and, 1024 Tet offensive in, 1024 troop numbers in, 1008, 1025
Villa, Francisco “Pancho” (1878–1923), 742 Vinson, Fred (1890–1953), 972 Virginia, 1022, 1022, 1135
desegregation in, 977 Virginia Tech University, 1152 Virgin Islands, 735 VISTA, 998 Voice of America, McCarthy and, 930 Volga River, 871 voting rights, 702, 718, 974
African-American loss of, 663–64, 718, 764, 765, 846, 850, 889, 977, 993, 995, 999
for African-Americans, 583, 585, 587, 896
citizenship and, 718 emancipated slaves and, 565, 568–69,
583, 585 grandfather clause and, 663, 664 for Japanese women, 912 literacy tests and, 663, 718 of Native Americans, 803 Puerto Ricans and, 761 registration and black, 663–64, 718 universal, 589 Voting Rights Act and, 995–96 for women, 585, 587–88, 655, 670, 677,
693, 717, 721–22, 723, 744, 749–51, 787, 791
Voting Rights Act (1965), 994, 995–96, 1142
Wabash v. Illinois, 638 Wade, Benjamin F., 584 “wade-ins,” 985 wages, 769, 852, 1139
African-Americans and, 761, 808, 1063, 1123
agricultural work for, 616 consumerism and, 700, 703, 720–21,
786 cost of living increases in, 934, 960 cowboys and, 617 decline in real, 1046, 1047, 1048, 1068,
1086 equal pay for equal work and, 1054,
1055 Fordism and, 702 Great Depression and, 812, 814
A-138 ★ INDEX
We Are Barbarians, 749 Weaver, James B. (1833–1912), 631, 655,
672 Weaver, Richard (1910–1963), 956 Webster, Daniel (1782–1852), 756 Welch, Joseph (1805–1891), 931 welfare, 724, 731, 837, 841, 848, 851, 858,
897, 926, 934, 959, 994, 995, 1053, 1057, 1065, 1076, 1077, 1078, 1099, 1135, 1151
expansion of, 881 Nixon and, 1032, 1033 Reagan and, 1057, 1059, 1065 stigma of, 847–48
“welfare capitalism,” 786 Wells, Ida B. (1862–1931), 667 Wells Fargo Bank, 1132 “We Shall Overcome,” 996 Wesley, Charles H., 889 West, 616, 620, 632, 633, 652, 751, 862,
863, 875, 879, 1031, 1056–57 African-Americans in, 850, 893 cattle drives in, 617 economic development of, 826, 828 fundamentalists in, 801 government contracts and, 943 immigrants and, 614, 615 industrial, 619 libertarianism in, 955 New Deal and, 826, 827, 849 People’s Party in, 652 political corruption in, 630 population growth in, 1046 progressivism in, 716–18 as “safety valve,” 613 slavery in, 614 transformation of, 613–29 war production in, 874
West, Wild, myth vs. reality of, 628–29 West Bank, 1079, 1117 West Germany, 959
creation of, 912 West Indies, 808 West Side Story (musical), 952 West Virginia:
coal strike in, 726 in 1960 election, 979
westward expansion of U.S., 606, 615 Weyl, Walter (1873–1919), 704, 761 Wharton, Edith (1862–1937), 612, 712 “What Every Girl Should Know,” 713–14 “What Freedom Means to Us” (Nixon),
941
war on drugs, 800 War on Poverty, 997–98, 1002, 1019, 1019,
1032 War on Terrorism, 1112, 1117–20, 1127,
1146, 1147, 1153 War Powers Act (1973), 1040 War Production Board, 873 Warren, Earl (1891–1974), 972, 973,
1021–22, 1024, 1034 Warren Court, 972, 1021–22, 1027 Warrior, Clyde (1939–1968), 1019 Warsaw Pact, 913 washing machines, 783, 784, 789, 947 Washington, 819, 820, 844, 1098
woman suffrage in, 717 Washington, Booker T. (1856?-1915),
672–73, 673, 674, 675, 676, 677, 762, 763, 850
Washington, D.C., 850, 931, 1009, 1010– 11, 1025, 1064, 1094, 1136
march on, 988–89 September 11 attacks on, 1105 Vietnam protests in, 1009
Washington, George (1732–1799), 756, 867, 980
Washington Heights, N.Y., 1087 Washington Naval Arms Conference, 795 Washington Navy Yard, 1152 Washington Post, 1042 WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots), in
World War II, 880 Wassaja newspaper, 715 Watch and Ward Committee, 796 water:
conservation of, 728 needs of Los Angeles and San Fran-
cisco, 727 Owens Valley and, 727
“water cure” (waterboarding), 684 Watergate scandal, 1041–42, 1047 Waters, Ethel (1896–1977), 809 Watson, Tom (1854–1934), 654, 664, 753 Watterson, Henry, 678 Watts, Calif., riot in, 1000 Wayne State University, 951 WCTU, see Women’s Christian Temperance
Union Wealth Against Commonwealth (Lloyd), 611 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 1132 weapons of mass destruction, 1113
long-range bombers and, 961 Saddam Hussein and, 1114–15, 1117 tests of, 928, 991
INDEX ★ A-139
at Versailles, 771–72 war message to Congress of, 756 woman suffrage and, 750–51 World War I and, 744, 746, 866
Wilson administration, 748, 750, 753, 765, 770, 866, 884
Wilsonism, 777 Winnipeg, 768 Winthrop, John (1588–1649), 1009 Wirz, Henry (1823–1865), 581 Wisconsin, 717, 794, 794, 928, 930, 936,
994, 1148 Wisconsin, University of, 718 Wisconsin Idea, 717 Wolfe, Tom (1931–), 1037 Wolfowitz, Paul D. (1943–), 1114 Woman Rebel, 714 woman suffrage, 717 women, 692, 966
advertising and, 789, 880 affirmative action and, 1037 African-American, 661, 662–63, 700,
761, 894 changing role of, 700–701, 787–89, 879 and Civil War, 750 in Clinton administration, 1076 education and, 720, 723, 750 freedom and, 700, 710, 712, 787–89,
789, 879 in Great Plains, 616 Great Society and, 851 as immigrants, 1091 in kitchen debate, 941 Knights of Labor and, 640 labor and, 640 maternalist reform and, 722–24, 787, 837 middle class, 966 minimum wage and, 791, 830 New Deal and, 845–46 politics and, 720, 721–22, 721 in Populist Party, 655 in Progressive era, 751–52 rights of, 1150, 1151 right to vote for Japanese, 912 rise of feminism and, 676–77 and traditional homemaker role, 941,
949–50, 950, 981, 1054, 1100 voting rights for, 717 and wages, 676, 761, 879, 1015, 1100 in the work force, 612, 640, 700–701,
700, 710, 712, 717, 719–20, 862, 879, 949–50, 1037, 1064, 1065, 1100
working hours and, 723–24, 761
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (Sumner), 636
What the Negro Wants, 889 wheat, 615 Wheeling, W.Va., McCarthy speech at, 930,
936 Whig Party, 597, 646 Whiskey Ring, 595, 630 White, Horace (1834–1916), 637 White, John, 753 White, Theodore (1915–1986), 1030–31 White, Walter (1893–1955), 850 White, William Allen (1868–1944), 867 white-collar jobs:
corporations and, 943 minorities and, 952
“white man’s burden,” 684, 687, 688 Whitman, Walt (1819–1892), 613, 828 Whitney, Anita (1867–1955), 798 Whitney, Richard (1888–1974), 813 Whom Shall We Welcome?, 934 Whyte, William (1917–1999), 966 Wichita, Kans., 617 wildcat strikes, 960 Wilder, L. Douglas (b. 1931), 592 Wilderness Act, 1060–61 Wild West, myth vs. reality of, 628–29 Wilhelm II, emperor of Germany (1859–
1941), 746, 750 Willard, Frances (1839–1898), 677 Willkie, Wendell (1892–1944), 867–68, 896,
916 Willow Run factory, 947 Wilson, Charles (1890–1961), 959 Wilson, Edith (1872–1961), 776 Wilson, Edmund (1895–1972), 780 Wilson, Henry, in election of 1868, 585 Wilson, Huntington, 794 Wilson, Woodrow (1856–1924), 704, 725,
729–32, 739–40, 763, 769, 771–75, 823
African-Americans and, 762, 764–65 civil liberties and, 752 Debs and, 753 first term of, 731 foreign policy of, 736, 740–41 Fourteen Points and, 745–46 immigrants and, 758, 760 and League of Nations, 776 Mexican policy of, 741–42 New Freedom of, 730–31 Soviet Union and, 768 stroke of, 776
A-140 ★ INDEX
Hoover’s relief program in, 810 idealism and, 787 immigration and, 661, 765, 863 Jeanette Rankin and, 750, 869 Meuse-Argonne campaign in, 746 mobilization in, 862 Nye and, 866 patriotism in, 753–55 Progressives and, 746–52 propaganda in, 748 revolutions and, 768 technology in, 742 U.S. and, 734–78 U.S. view of, 737, 743 western front, 745 Wilson and, 756 woman suffrage and, 750–51 women and, 743
World War II, 699, 748, 820, 822, 861–904, 864, 872, 884, 896, 916, 925, 957, 1082, 1115, 1117
African-Americans and, 863, 884, 886, 887, 893–98, 896, 969
British welfare state and, 837 casualties in, 869, 872, 898, 899, 908 causes of, 865–66 civil rights and, 863, 887, 969, 974 effects of, 902–3, 908 European theater of, 872, 872 freedom and, 863, 864, 877–78, 903 as Good War, 876 “Grand Alliance” of, 870–71 Great Depression and, 859 home front during, 873–80, 875 industry and, 873–75, 878–80 Japanese-Americans and, 863, 890–93,
972, 1118, 1119 Pearl Harbor and, 868–69 and post-war freedom, 880–84 Rosenbergs and, 930 unions in, 875–76 U.S. entry into, 858, 869 women and, 863, 879 see also Four Freedoms
Wounded Knee Creek, Indian massacre at, 627
Wright, Jonathan (1840–1887), 592 WTO see World Trade Organization Wyoming, 1045
woman suffrage in, 721 Yellowstone in, 726–27
Wyoming territory, woman suffrage in, 588
women (continued) and World War I, 743 and World War II, 862, 863, 879 see also gender relations; women’s rights
Women and Economics (Gilman), 710, 712 Women and Economics (Perkins), 700 Women’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU), 643, 676–77 Home Protection movement of, 677
Women’s Party, 1054 women’s rights, 662–63, 676–77, 717,
787–89, 912, 984, 1014–16, 1016, 1018–19, 1026–28, 1137
and education, 720, 723, 750 Latinos and, 1018–19 post-World War II, 950 in Progressive era, 712, 721–24 Prohibition and, 751–52 Reconstruction and, 585, 587–88 sex and, 712–13, 787–89 and suffrage, 585, 588, 589, 655, 670,
677, 693, 712, 717, 720–22, 723, 744, 750–51, 787, 791
see also abortion; gender relations; women
Women’s Studies, 1099 Women’s Trade Union League, 692, 788 Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The (Baum), 658 Wong, Anna May, 671 Woodstock, 1013 Woolworth’s, sit-in at, 983–84 Workingman’s Conception of Industrial
Liberty, The (J.P. Mitchell), 711 workmen’s compensation, 724, 730 Works Progress Administration (WPA),
836–37, 844, 876 World Bank, 901, 908, 1081 World Series, 725 World Trade Center, 1046, 1105, 1106,
1106 World Trade Organization (WTO), 1080,
1081, 1089 World War I, 742–55, 754, 773, 786, 792,
795, 797, 803, 806, 807, 815, 824, 878, 1147
African-Americans and, 764, 893 agriculture in, 784 casualties in, 742, 746 causes of, 742 divisiveness of, 877 effects of, 776–77, 795, 882 freedom and, 748–50, 752
INDEX ★ A-141
Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), 994–95
Young Lords Organization, 1018 Youth International Party, 1013 Yugoslavia, 772, 776, 901, 1075, 1079,
1079 yuppies, 1064
Zangwill, Israel, 758, 761 Zapata, Emiliano, 741–42 Zimmerman, George, 1143 Zimmermann, Arthur (1864–1940), 744 Zimmermann Telegram, 744 “zoot suit” riots, 887 Zuccotti Park, 1140 Zulu, 614
YAF see Young Americans for Freedom Yalta, conference at, 900, 909 Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 993 yellow fever, 738 yellow press, 680–81, 682 Yellowstone National Park, 726–27 Yeltsin, Boris (1931–2007), 1072 Yemen, 1119
war on terror in, 1145 Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 672 yippies, 1013 yoga, counterculture and, 1013 Yom Kippur War, 1044 Yosemite National Park, 727 Young, Andrew (1932–), 1048 Young, Brigham (1801–1877), 620
- Give Me Liberty! An American History, Seagull 5E Vol 2
- Title Page
- Maps
- Copyright Information
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Maps, Tables, and Figures
- About the Author
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Give Me Liberty! Digital Resources for Students and Instructors
- Resources for Students
- Resources for Instructors
- 15. “WHAT IS FREEDOM?”: RECONSTRUCTION,1865–1877
- The Meaning of Freedom
- Voices of Freedom: From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865), and From A Sharecropping Contract (1866)
- The Making of Radical Reconstruction
- Radical Reconstruction in the South
- The Overthrow of Reconstruction
- 16. AMERICA’S GILDED AGE, 1870–1890
- The Second Industrial Revolution
- The Transformation of the West
- Voices of Freedom: From Speech of Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians, in Washington, D.C. (1879), and From Letter by Saum Song Bo, American Missionary (October 1885)
- Politics in a Gilded Age
- Freedom in the Gilded Age
- Labor and the Republic
- 17. FREEDOM’S BOUNDARIES, AT HOME AND ABROAD, 1890–1900
- The Populist Challenge
- The Segregated South
- Redrawing the Boundaries
- Voices of Freedom: From Booker T. Washington, Address at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition (1895), and From W. E. B. Du Bois, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (1903)
- Becoming a World Power
- 18. THE PROGRESSIVE ERA, 1900–1916
- An Urban Age and a Consumer Society
- Varieties of Progressivism
- Voices of Freedom: From Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (1898), and From John Mitchell, “The Workingman’s Conception of Industrial Liberty” (1910)
- The Politics of Progressivism
- The Progressive Presidents
- 19. SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY: THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD WAR I, 1916–1920
- An Era of Intervention
- America and the Great War
- The War at Home
- Who Is an American?
- Voices of Freedom: From Woodrow Wilson, War Message to Congress (1917), and From Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury before Sentencing under the Espionage Act (1918)
- 1919
- 20. FROM BUSINESS CULTURE TO GREAT DEPRESSION: THE TWENTIES, 1920–1932
- The Business of America
- Business and Government
- Voices of Freedom: From Lucian W. Parrish, Speech in Congress on Immigration (1921), and From Majority Opinion, Justice James C. McReynolds, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923)
- The Birth of Civil Liberties
- The Culture Wars
- The Great Depression
- 21. THE NEW DEAL, 1932–1940
- The First New Deal
- The Grassroots Revolt
- The Second New Deal
- A Reckoning with Liberty
- Voices of Freedom: From Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat” (1934), and From John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath (1938)
- The Limits of Change
- A New Conception of America
- 22. FIGHTING FOR THE FOUR FREEDOMS: WORLD WAR II,1941–1945
- Fighting World War II
- The Home Front
- Visions of Postwar Freedom
- The American Dilemma
- Voices of Freedom: From League of United Latin American Citizens, “World War II and Mexican Americans” (1945), and From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has Always Wanted the Four Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants (1944)
- The End of the War
- 23. THE UNITED STATES AND THE COLD WAR, 1945–1953
- Origins of the Cold War
- The Cold War and the Idea of Freedom
- The Truman Presidency
- The Anticommunist Crusade
- Voices of Freedom: From Joseph R. McCarthy, Speech at Wheeling (1950), and From Margaret Chase Smith, Speech in the Senate (1950)
- 24. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY, 1953–1960
- The Golden Age
- The Eisenhower Era
- The Freedom Movement
- Voices of Freedom: From Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Montgomery, Alabama (December 5, 1955), and From The Southern Manifesto (1956)
- The Election of 1960
- 25. THE SIXTIES, 1960–1968
- The Civil Rights Revolution
- The Kennedy Years
- Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency
- The Changing Black Movement
- Vietnam and the New Left
- Voices of Freedom: From Barry Goldwater, Speech at Republican National Convention (1964), and From Statement of Purpose, National Organization for Women (1966)
- The New Movements and the Rights Revolution
- 1968
- 26. THE TRIUMPH OF CONSERVATISM, 1969–1988
- President Nixon
- Vietnam and Watergate
- The End of the Golden Age
- The Rising Tide of Conservatism
- The Reagan Revolution
- Voices of Freedom: From Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (1971), and From Richard E. Blakemore, Report on the Sagebrush Rebellion (1979)
- 27. FROM TRIUMPH TO TRAGEDY, 1989–2001
- The PostCold War World
- Globalization and Its Discontents
- Culture Wars
- Voices of Freedom: From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA (1993), and From Global Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for Global Democracy (December 1999)
- Impeachment and the Election of 2000
- The Attacks of September 11
- 28. A NEW CENTURY AND NEW CRISES
- The War on Terror
- An American Empire?
- The Aftermath of September 11 at Home
- The Winds of Change
- Voices of Freedom: From Opinion of the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), and From Barack Obama, Eulogy at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (2015)
- Obama in Office
- The Obama Presidency
- Freedom in the Twenty-First Century
- Suggested Reading
- The Declaration of Independence (1776)
- The Constitution of the United States (1787)
- Glossary
- Credits
- Index
-
- 2016-12-20T18:27:12+0000
- Preflight Ticket Signature