Deck 16: Exploring Key Themes and Turning Points in American History

Question 1

How did the experience of World War II-on the home front and abroad-lay crucial groundwork for the civil rights movement and African Americans' greater access to "the American promise" in the 1950s and 1960s?

Answer 1

Answer would ideally include:
Access to Jobs: The conversion to a wartime economy in the United States created labor shortages that opened assembly-line jobs in defense to African Americans, causing black unemployment to drop by 80 percent during the war and giving new employment options to men and women who had previously been limited to agricultural and domestic labor. African Americans continued to earn only 50 percent of the average white worker's wages, but economic improvements made it possible for the black community to mount more visible and effective protests against racial discrimination.
Demographic Shifts: The war brought a major wave of migration as 5.5 million African Americans moved from the rural South to centers of industrial production in the North and West, making a majority of African Americans city dwellers for the first time. Blacks' migration intensified racial antagonisms in many cities, but it also created denser black communities and a substantial black voting bloc that made national politicians more attentive to racism and discrimination and other issues that concerned African Americans.
Emergence of Black Political Organizing: Black protest and organizations were as old as American racism but, until the 1940s, had limited visibility and influence. The growing black population in urban centers made higher levels of organizing possible. The Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper, called for a “Double V” campaign for African Americans to seek “victory over our enemies at home and victory over our enemies on the battlefields abroad.” Black organizations demanded that the federal government require companies receiving defense contracts to integrate their workforces and threatened to bring 100,000 African American marchers to Washington if the president did not comply. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People grew in this period and put more focus on court challenges to segregation. The Congress of Racial Equality formed in 1942 and organized pickets and sit-ins against Jim Crow restaurants and theaters. Groups like these formed the political basis for black organization in the 1950s and 1960s.
Greater Federal Government's Intervention: Owing in large part to the demands of African American activists, the federal government took on a greater role in preventing racial discrimination in some parts of the country in the 1940s. In mid-1941, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, authorizing the Committee on Fair Employment Practices to investigate and prevent racial discrimination in employment in businesses that had federal defense contracts. At the end of the war the federal government created the G.I. Bill, which provided numerous benefits to black and white veterans, including job training, education, and low-interest loans to purchase homes and businesses. These benefits were not always administered equally, especially in the South, but thousands of African Americans did benefit economically. After the war, President Harry S. Truman acted more boldly on civil rights than any previous president. His successes were limited, but he did desegregate the armed services and create important groundwork for later presidents—including Eisenhower and Kennedy—to continue to address civil rights.
Ideological/Cultural Shifts: The fight against Nazi Germany and its ideology of Aryan racial supremacy in the 1940s raised many whites' awareness of the extent and intensity of racial prejudice in the United States and broadened white sympathy for African Americans' struggles. The rhetoric of American freedom and democracy that was used during World War II and the Cold War also made white politicians and citizens more sensitive to racial issues. Political figures began to realize that racial segregation and discrimination in the United States endangered its claim that it was the leader of the free world. New awareness and sensitivity to racial issues created an opening for the civil rights movement to push more effectively for its goals and resulted in changes such as the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.
International: World War II effectively ended European empires in Asia and Africa and spurred anticolonial struggles around the world. Anticolonial struggles in Asia and Africa provided rhetoric and models for black activism in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

Question 2

One interpretation of American westward expansion in the nineteenth century posits that it "can best be understood in the global context of imperialism and colonialism." How did the rhetoric and practices of the federal government in conquering the American West shape its approach to its interactions with Cuba,China,and the Philippines between 1890 and 1900? To what extent did U.S.imperialism outside of continental North America mirror its actions in the West?

Answer 2

Answer would ideally include:
Federal Government's Approach to Western Conquest: The United States in the period 1860-1900 extended its authority and wealth by expanding its borders and culture into the West,conquering the Native Americans and Mexicans who already lived there and displacing and ruling over them.The U.S.government saw Native Americans in the West as an obstacle to westward expansion and a problem that needed a solution.Native Americans were viewed as inferior to whites and a group that needed to be civilized,Christianized,and assimilated in Indian schools and on reservations.The U.S.government also saw at least some Indians as hostiles who should be controlled and even attacked.Violent conflict between whites and Native Americans devastated Indian populations and cultures.Growth and expansion of industrialization-especially mining,railroads,and commercial farming-increased U.S.wealth,furthered urbanization,and improved quality of life for some whites.
The United States and China: U.S.Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Policy marked the beginning of the United States' explicit competition with the colonial powers of Europe for trade in the Eastern Hemisphere.Whereas in the early nineteenth century the United States had remained relatively isolated from Asia and removed from European efforts to colonize it,the Open Door Policy marked the beginning of American efforts to expand and defend its presence in Asia and the Pacific.Rather than staying out of Asia and Europe's domination of the region,the Open Door Policy declared that the United States,like Europe,had every right to trade with China and that it would do so.Unlike American expansion into the West,however,the nation's new role in China did not include the displacement of Chinese people or the establishment of a far-flung colonial empire.
The United States and Cuba: In Cuba,the United States was interested in "liberating" the country from Spanish colonial rule,in large part because American businesses wanted to protect their economic interests and trading partnerships there.The Spanish American War in Cuba ended almost as soon as it began and brought the United States the possessions of Cuba,Puerto Rico,Guam,and the Philippines.Cuba became free from Spanish rule,but the United States,which saw Cubans themselves as inferior to white Americans,dictated the Cuban constitution,which included the Platt Amendment.The amendment guaranteed the United States the right to intervene to protect Cuba's "independence," power to oversee Cuban debt,and a ninety-nine-year lease on the naval base at Guantanamo.The United States also implemented an extensive sanitation program to clean up the island to make it more attractive to investors.As in the West,racism,missionary zeal,and economic interest motivated U.S.involvement in Cuba.Unlike the West,Americans did not decimate the Cuban population,nor did they establish large American settlements there.
The United States and the Philippines: As in Cuba,the United States gained possession of the Philippines after it defeated Spanish colonial rulers on the islands.Emilio Aguinaldo's Filipino revolutionaries,who had fought along with U.S.troops against Spain,turned against Americans when it became clear that they planned to take control of the islands and use them as a stepping-stone to Asia.Fighting continued in the Philippines for seven more years,resulting in the deaths of 4,000 Americans and 20,000 Filipinos.Again,racism,economic interests,and missionary zeal played a substantial role in motivating American actions in the Philippines.There was violent conflict and American cultural infiltration,as was the case in the West,but no actual American settlement.

Question 3

Explain the economic,social,and labor differences between the North and South during the antebellum period.What accounted for these differences?

Answer 3

Answer would ideally include:
The Industrial North and the Agricultural South: During the nineteenth century,the economies of the North and South grew increasingly different.The North developed a mixed economy of agriculture,commerce,and manufacturing.Mechanization produced a huge growth in manufacturing.Manufacturers could produce more with less labor by using the principles of the "American system." New England led the nation in manufacturing,while Pennsylvania and Ohio produced coal for industrial fuel.The North and Midwest also benefited from the railroad,as nearly two-thirds of the nation's 9,000 miles of track ran through these regions.The South,on the other hand,remained agricultural,with its primary cash crops being tobacco,sugar,rice,and cotton.Its climate and geography were ideally suited for cotton.Southerners produced nearly five million bales of cotton in 1860,nearly three-fourths of the world's supply.This cotton fueled the growth of the textile industry in the North and served as a valuable export commodity.The South failed to diversify in part because planters saw no reason to do so.
The Urban North and the Rural South: Northern industry led to great urbanization.Nearly 37 percent of New Englanders lived in cities.Northern cities also attracted European immigrants,mostly Germans who settled in the middle stratum of society and poor Irish laborers looking for industrial jobs.With its emphasis on agriculture,the South developed few cities and,with fewer urban industrial jobs,attracted fewer immigrants.In 1860,only 12 percent of southerners lived in cities.
Free Labor and Slavery: Northern society was organized around the principle of free labor,which celebrated hard work,self-reliance,and independence.Proponents of free labor argued that success was open to anyone,not just those Americans born into wealth.The South was dominated by slave labor.By 1860,the South contained over four million slaves,workers who produced 75 percent of the cotton on southern plantations.Although white planters dominated southern politics,most slave owners owned fewer than five slaves,and most southerners held no slaves at all.Plantation-belt yeomen worked small farms in the upcountry,and most poor whites were hardworking,landholding small farmers.
Overall Class Structure: Free labor did not create equality in the North.In fact,its proponents argued that economic inequalities were a natural outgrowth of freedom: Some people worked harder than others,or luck fell their way.In reality,very few workers in the North ascended into the class of self-employed producers.Many more lived as landless wage laborers.African Americans and Irish immigrants tended to find themselves at the bottom of this social ladder.In the South,divisions were typically forged around race rather than class.The gentry cultivated friendly relationships with yeomen,and yeomen depended on the gentry for political favors and for economic assistance.Poor whites rarely staged class protest because they understood that their membership in the white race ensured that they would always rank higher than any African American,free or slave.

Question 4

How did the issue of slavery complicate territorial expansion? How did American officials attempt to solve the problem of slavery in the territories?

Question 5

Compare and contrast the goals and achievements of the Populists,progressives,and Franklin Roosevelt's New Dealers,making sure to consider each group's efforts on behalf of those who experienced discrimination.Which issues raised by Populists in the 1890s persisted into the 1930s and which did not,and why? How did ideas that seemed so radical when Populists proposed them in the 1890s become the basis for federal policies by the 1930s? Explain your answer.

Question 6

How did the United States use international diplomacy and military might to expand its western border to the Pacific Ocean in less than a century? What were its motives?

Question 7

Assess the importance of religion in early American history.How were the Massachusetts Bay and Virginia colonies different in terms of their commitment to religion? What trends contributed to the First and Second Great Awakenings? Why was religious fervor greater at some times but not others?

Question 8

The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 and the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 represented two major victories for women activists who had worked since the mid-nineteenth century for temperance and suffrage.Why did women work for these changes,and what did they hope they would accomplish? What did women's activism and political power look like in the 1920s and 1930s,and what does it reveal about the extent to which these constitutional amendments brought about real change in women's political status?

Question 9

How did African Americans take advantage of the social upheaval that occurred during and after the American Revolution and the Civil War to make a case for their equality and their freedom?

Question 10

How did the experience of World War I influence the American response to the outbreak of World War II and shape the country's decision to get involved? Be sure to distinguish between the federal government's response and public opinion in your answer.

Question 11

How did the Spanish and the British differ in their treatment of Native Americans? How were their methods similar? Which method formed the model for the United States' relations with Indians after the Revolutionary War?

Question 12

American workers struggled between the 1870s and the 1930s to improve their wages and working conditions,increase their control over the work process,and reduce their working hours.By the late 1930s,many American workers saw significant improvements in their work lives and standards of living.How did these changes come about? How did workers' actions and government mandates interact to bring about improvements in the status of working Americans?

Question 13

How did the right to vote and the benefits of citizenship become accessible to more people from the American Revolution through Reconstruction? Who was left out of this trend toward political democratization?

Question 14

How did Richard M.Nixon's political approach to the 1968 election and his conduct during his one-and-a-half terms as president influence the U.S.presidency between 1968 and the present?

Question 15

The Civil War brought significant changes to the South during the 1860s,and Reconstruction promised many more.What impact did these events have on the direction of the economic and political development of the nation as a whole between 1865 and the 1890s? Which groups in the United States were the war's real losers,and which were its victors?

Question 16

President Harry Truman's Fair Deal,an ambitious program of social welfare legislation proposed in 1946 to extend the New Deal,floundered badly in the late 1940s,and most of it went down to defeat.Why did Truman's plan fail,and what changed to make it possible for Lyndon B.Johnson's Great Society programs-which adopted many of the same aims-to alter American society twenty years later?

Question 17

How did the dominant system of labor change during the colonial era in the Chesapeake? What factors caused these changes? How did labor changes reshape social class in the South?

Question 18

After the American Revolution,white Americans pushed the federal government to remove Indians in order to clear the West for white settlement.How did the government accomplish its goal of Indian removal in Ohio,New York,Indiana,and Georgia from 1776 to 1840?

Question 19

Before 2001,the history of American international relations from 1945 to the end of the twentieth century was framed primarily in terms of the Cold War.The events of September 11,2001,require us to look at post-1945 American foreign relations in a new way.How does U.S.foreign policy since World War II help to explain the creation of a world in which the September 11 attacks could happen?
Answer Key