History of the United States

American history redirects here. For the history of the lished by the Articles of Confederation proved ineeccontinents, see History of the Americas.
tual at providing stability, as it had no authority to collect taxes and had no executive ocer. Congress called
The date of the start of the history of the United States a convention to meet secretly in Philadelphia in 1787 to
revise the Articles of Confederation. It wrote a new Conis a subject of constant debate among historians. Older
textbooks start with the arrival of Christopher Columbus stitution, which was adopted in 1789. In 1791, a Bill of
was added to guarantee inalienable rights. With
in 1492 and emphasize the European background, or they Rights
Washington
as the Unions rst president and Alexander
start around 1600 and emphasize the American frontier.
Hamilton
his
chief political and nancial adviser, a strong
In recent decades American schools and universities typcentral
government
was created. When Thomas Jeerson
ically have shifted back in time to include more on the
became
president
he
purchased the Louisiana Territory
colonial period and much more on the prehistory of the
from
France,
doubling
the size of the United States. A
[1][2]
Native peoples.
second and nal war with Britain was fought in 1812.
Indigenous people lived in what is now the United States
for thousands of years before European colonists began to Encouraged by the notion of Manifest Destiny, federal
arrive, mostly from England, after 1600. The Spanish had territory expanded all the way to the Pacic. The U.S. alsmall settlements in Florida and the Southwest, and the ways was large in terms of area, but its population was
French along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast. small, only 4 million in 1790. Population growth was
By the 1770s, thirteen British colonies contained two and rapid, reaching 7.2 million in 1810, 32 million in 1860,
a half million people along the Atlantic coast east of the 76 million in 1900, 132 million in 1940, and 321 million
in 2015. Economic growth in terms of overall GDP was
Appalachian Mountains.
even faster. However the nations military strength was
In the 1760s the British government imposed a series quite limited in peacetime before 1940. The expansion
of new taxes while rejecting the American argument was driven by a quest for inexpensive land for yeoman
that any new taxes had to be approved by the peo- farmers and slave owners. The expansion of slavery was
ple (see Stamp Act 1765). Tax resistance, especially increasingly controversial and fueled political and conthe Boston Tea Party (1774), led to punitive laws (the stitutional battles, which were resolved by compromises.
Intolerable Acts) by Parliament designed to end self- Slavery was abolished in all states north of the Mason
government in Massachusetts. American Patriots (as they Dixon line by 1804, but the South continued to prot
called themselves) adhered to a political ideology called o the institution, producing high-value cotton exports to
republicanism that emphasized civic duty, virtue, and op- feed increasing high demand in Europe. The 1860 presposition to corruption, fancy luxuries and aristocracy.
idential election of Republican Abraham Lincoln was on
All thirteen colonies united in a Congress that called on a platform of ending the expansion of slavery and putting
them to write new state constitutions. After armed con- it on a path to extinction. Seven cotton-based deep South
ict began in Massachusetts, Patriots drove the royal of- slave states seceded and later founded the Confederacy
cials out of every colony and assembled in mass meet- months before Lincolns inauguration. No nation ever
ings and conventions. Those Patriot governments in recognized the Confederacy, but it opened the war by
the colonies unanimously empowered their delegates to attacking Fort Sumter in 1861. A surge of nationalist outCongress to declare independence. In 1776, Congress rage in the North fueled a long, intense American Civil
declared that there was a new, independent nation, the War (1861-1865). It was fought largely in the South as
United States of America, not just a collection of dis- the overwhelming material and manpower advantages of
parate colonies. With large-scale military and nancial the North proved decisive in a long war. The wars result
support from France and military leadership by Gen- was restoration of the Union, the impoverishment of the
eral George Washington, the American Patriots rebelled South, and the abolition of slavery. In the Reconstruction
against British rule and succeeded in the Revolutionary era (18631877), legal and voting rights were extended to
War. The peace treaty of 1783 gave the new nation the the freed slave. The national government emerged much
land east of the Mississippi River (except Florida and stronger, and because of the Fourteenth Amendment, it
Canada, and Spain disputed the Mississippi Territory un- gained the explicit duty to protect individual rights. Howtil 1795) and conrmed Great Britains recognition of the ever, when white Democrats regained their power in the
United States as a nation. The central government estab- South during the 1870s, often by paramilitary suppression of voting, they passed Jim Crow laws to maintain
1

2
white supremacy, and new disfranchising constitutions
that prevented most African Americans and many poor
whites from voting, a situation that continued for decades
until gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and
passage of federal legislation to enforce constitutional
rights.[3]
The United States became the worlds leading industrial
power at the turn of the 20th century due to an outburst
of entrepreneurship in the Northeast and Midwest and
the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers
from Europe. The national railroad network was completed with the work of Chinese immigrants and largescale mining and factories industrialized the Northeast
and Midwest. Mass dissatisfaction with corruption, inefciency and traditional politics stimulated the Progressive
movement, from the 1890s to 1920s, which led to many
social and political reforms. In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed womens surage
(right to vote). This followed the 16th and 17th amendments in 1913, which established the rst national income
tax and direct election of US senators to Congress. Initially neutral during World War I, the US declared war
on Germany in 1917 and later funded the Allied victory the following year. After a prosperous decade in
the 1920s, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the
onset of the decade-long world-wide Great Depression.
Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the
Republican dominance of the White House and implemented his New Deal programs for relief, recovery, and
reform. The New Deal, which dened modern American liberalism, included relief for the unemployed, support for farmers, Social Security and a minimum wage.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States later entered World War
II along with Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and the
smaller Allies. The U.S. nanced the Allied war eort
and helped defeat Nazi Germany in Europe and defeated
Imperial Japan in the Pacic War. The American use of
newly invented atomic bombs on Japanese cities remains
controversial into the 21st century.

1 PRE-COLUMBIAN ERA
centered around the Middle East following the September
11 attacks by Al-Qaeda on the United States in 2001.
In 2008, the United States had its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, which has been followed
by slower than usual rates of economic growth during the
2010s.

1 Pre-Columbian era
Main articles: Prehistory of the United States, History
of Native Americans in the United States and PreColumbian era
See also: Native Americans in the United States
It is not denitively known how or when the Native
Americans rst settled the Americas and the present-day
United States. The prevailing theory proposes that people
migrated from Eurasia across Beringia, a land bridge that
connected Siberia to present-day Alaska during the Ice
Age, and then spread southward throughout the Americas
and possibly going as far south as the Antarctic peninsula.
This migration may have begun as early as 30,000 years
ago[4] and continued through to about 10,000+ years ago,
when the land bridge became submerged by the rising sea
level caused by the ending of the last glacial period.[5]
These early inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversied into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations
and tribes.

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of signicant European inuences
on the American continents, spanning the time of the
original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to
European colonization during the Early Modern period.
While technically referring to the era before Christopher
Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term
usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until they were conquered or signicantly inuThe United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival enced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or
superpowers after World War II. During the Cold War, even centuries after Columbus initial landing.
the US and the USSR confronted each other indirectly
in the arms race, the Space Race, proxy wars, and propaganda campaigns. US foreign policy during the Cold
1.1 Native development prior to European
War was built around the support of Western Europe and
contact
Japan along with the policy of containment or stopping
the spread of communism. The US joined the wars in
Korea and Vietnam to try to stop its spread. In the 1960s, Native American cultures are not normally included
in large part due to the strength of the civil rights move- in characterizations of advanced stone age cultures as
ment, another wave of social reforms were enacted by "Neolithic, which is a category that more often includes
enforcing the constitutional rights of voting and freedom only the cultures in Eurasia, Africa, and other regions.
of movement to African-Americans and other racial mi- The archaeological periods used are the classications of
norities. Native American activism also rose. The Cold archaeological periods and cultures established in Gordon
War ended when the Soviet Union ocially dissolved in Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and The1991, leaving the United States as the worlds only super- ory in American Archaeology. They divided the archae[6]
power. As the 21st century began, international conict ological record in the Americas into ve phases; see
Archaeology of the Americas.

1.1

Native development prior to European contact

The Clovis culture, a megafauna hunting culture, is primarily identied by use of uted spear points. Artifacts
from this culture were rst excavated in 1932 near Clovis,
New Mexico. The Clovis culture ranged over much of
North America and also appeared in South America.
The culture is identied by the distinctive Clovis point,
a aked int spear-point with a notched ute, by which
it was inserted into a shaft. Dating of Clovis materials
has been by association with animal bones and by the
use of carbon dating methods. Recent reexaminations of
Clovis materials using improved carbon-dating methods
produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years
B.P. (roughly 9100 to 8850 BCE).
Numerous Paleoindian cultures occupied North America, with some arrayed around the Great Plains and
Great Lakes of the modern United States of America and
Canada, as well as adjacent areas to the West and Southwest. According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living
on this continent since their genesis, described by a wide
range of traditional creation stories. Other tribes have
stories that recount migrations across long tracts of land
and a great river, believed to be the Mississippi River.[7]
Genetic and linguistic data connect the indigenous people
of this continent with ancient northeast Asians. Archeological and linguistic data has enabled scholars to discover
some of the migrations within the Americas.
The Folsom Tradition was characterized by use of Folsom
points as projectile tips, and activities known from kill
sites, where slaughter and butchering of bison took place.
Folsom tools were left behind between 9000 BCE and
8000 BCE.[8]
A Folsom point for a spear.
Na-Den-speaking peoples entered North America starting around 8000 BCE, reaching the Pacic Northwest by
5000 BCE,[9] and from there migrating along the Pacic
gatherers rather than the settled agriculturalists believed
Coast and into the interior. Linguists, anthropologists and
necessary according to the theory of Neolithic Revolution
archeologists believe their ancestors comprised a separate
to sustain such large villages over long periods. The prime
migration into North America, later than the rst Paleoexample is Watson Brake in northern Louisiana, whose
Indians. They migrated into Alaska and northern Canada,
11-mound complex is dated to 3500 BCE, making it the
south along the Pacic Coast, into the interior of Canada,
oldest, dated site in the Americas for such complex conand south to the Great Plains and the American Southstruction. It is nearly 2,000 years older than the Poverty
west. They were the earliest ancestors of the AthabascanPoint site. Construction of the mounds went on for 500
speaking peoples, including the present-day and historiyears until was abandoned about 2800 BCE, probably due
cal Navajo and Apache. They constructed large multito changing environmental conditions.[11]
family dwellings in their villages, which were used seasonally. People did not live there year round, but for the Poverty Point culture is a Late Archaic archaeological
summer to hunt and sh, and to gather food supplies for culture that inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi
the winter.[10] The Oshara Tradition people lived from Valley and surrounding Gulf Coast. The culture thrived
5500 BCE to 600 CE. They were part of the Southwestern from 2200 BCE to 700 BCE, during the Late Archaic
[12]
Evidence of this culture has been found at
Archaic Tradition centered in north-central New Mex- period.
ico, the San Juan Basin, the Rio Grande Valley, southern more than 100 sites, from the major complex at Poverty
Point, Louisiana (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) across
Colorado, and southeastern Utah.
a 100-mile (160 km) range to the Jaketown Site near
Since the 1990s, archeologists have explored and dated
Belzoni, Mississippi.
eleven Middle Archaic sites in present-day Louisiana and
2
Florida at which early cultures built complexes with mul- Poverty Point is a 1 square mile (2.6 km ) complex of six
tiple earthwork mounds; they were societies of hunter- major earthwork concentric rings, with additional platform mounds at the site. Artifacts show the people traded

1 PRE-COLUMBIAN ERA

Cultural areas of pre-Columbian North America, according to

Alfred Kroeber.

with other Native Americans located from Georgia to the

Great Lakes region. This is one among numerous mound
sites of complex indigenous cultures throughout the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. They were one of several succeeding cultures often referred to as mound builders.

From left to right, the One-Legged Fisherman Totem pole, the

Raven Totem pole, and the Killer Whale Totem pole in Wrangell,
Alaska.

ern Canadian shores of Lake Ontario. Within this area,

societies participated in a high degree of exchange; most
activity was conducted along the waterways that served
as their major transportation routes. The Hopewell exchange system traded materials from all over the United
States.

The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian

cultures refers to the time period from roughly 1000 BCE
to 1,000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The
term Woodland was coined in the 1930s and refers to
prehistoric sites dated between the Archaic period and
the Mississippian cultures. The Hopewell tradition is the
term for the common aspects of the Native American cul- 1.2
ture that ourished along rivers in the northeastern and
midwestern United States from 200 BCE to 500 CE.[13]

Major Cultures

The indigenous peoples of the Pacic Northwest Coast

were of many nations and tribal aliations, each with
distinctive cultural and political identities, but they shared
certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol.
Their gift-giving feast, potlatch, is a highly complex event
where people gather in order to commemorate a special
events. These events, such as, the raising of a Totem pole
or the appointment or election of a new chief. The most
famous artistic feature of the culture is the Totem pole, Grave Creek Mound, located in Moundsville, West Virginia, is
with carvings of animals and other characters to com- one of the largest conical mounds in the United States. It was
built by the Adena culture.
memorate cultural beliefs, legends, and notable events.
The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations,
who were connected by a common network of trade
routes,[14] known as the Hopewell Exchange System. At
its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran
from the Southeastern United States into the southeast-

Adena culture: The Adena culture was a Native

American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC,
in a time known as the Early Woodland period. The
Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a

1.2

Major Cultures

burial complex and ceremonial system.

The Great House at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.

A map showing the extent of the Coles Creek cultural period and
some important sites

appeared, and inhumation burial replaced cremation. Trade included that of shells and other exotics.
Social and climatic factors led to a decline and abandonment of the area after 1400 A.D.

Coles Creek culture: The Coles Creek culture is

an indigenous development of the Lower Mississippi Valley that took place between the terminal
Woodland period and the later Plaquemine culture
period. The period is marked by the increased use of
at-topped platform mounds arranged around central plazas, more complex political institutions, and
a subsistence strategy still grounded in the Eastern
Agricultural Complex and hunting rather than on
the maize plant as would happen in the succeeding Plaquemine Mississippian period. The culture
was originally dened by the unique decoration on
grog-tempered ceramic ware by James A. Ford after his investigations at the Mazique Archeologi- Cli Palace, Mesa Verde National Park
cal Site. He had studied both the Mazique and
Coles Creek Sites, and almost went with the Maz Ancestral Puebloan culture: The Ancestral
ique culture, but decided on the less historically inPuebloan culture covered present-day Four Corners
volved sites name.[15] It is considered ancestral to the
region of the United States, comprising southern
Plaquemine culture.
Utah, northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico,
and southwestern Colorado.[17] It is believed that
the Ancestral Puebloans developed, at least in part,
Hohokam culture: The Hohokam was a culture
from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from
centered along American Southwest.[16] The early
the Picosa culture. They lived in a range of strucHohokam founded a series of small villages along
tures that included small family pit houses, larger
the middle Gila River. They raised corn, squash and
clan type structures, grand pueblos, and cli sited
beans. The communities were located near good
dwellings. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a
arable land, with dry farming common in the earcomplex network that stretched across the Colorado
lier years of this period.[16] They were known for
Plateau linking hundreds of communities and poputheir pottery, using the paddle-and-anvil technique.
lation centers. The culture is perhaps best known for
The Classical period of the culture saw the rise in
the stone and earth dwellings built along cli walls,
architecture and ceramics. Buildings were grouped
particularly during the Pueblo II and Pueblo III eras.
into walled compounds, as well as earthen platform
Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites located
mounds. Platform mounds were built along river
in the United States are credited to the Puebas well as irrigation canal systems, suggesting these
los: Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture
sites were administrative centers allocating water
National Historical Park and Taos Pueblo.
and coordinating canal labor. Polychrome pottery

2
The best-preserved examples of the stone
dwellings are in National Parks (USA), examples being, Navajo National Monument,
Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Mesa
Verde National Park, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, and
Canyon de Chelly National Monument.

COLONIAL PERIOD

complex culture was based on the peoples

adoption of maize agriculture, development
of greater population densities, and chiefdomlevel complex social organization from 1200
CE to 1650 CE.[18][19]
The Mississippian pottery are some of the
nest and most widely spread ceramics north
of Mexico. Cahokian pottery was espically
ne, with smooth surfaces, very thin walls, and
distinctive tempering, slips, and coloring.[20]
Iroquois Culture: The Iroquois League of Nations
or People of the Long House, based in present-day
upstate and western New York, had a confederacy
model from the mid-15th century. It has been
suggested that their culture contributed to political
thinking during the development of the later United
States government. Their system of aliation was
a kind of federation, dierent from the strong, centralized European monarchies.[21][22][23]

2 Colonial period
Monks Mound of Cahokia in summer. The concrete staircase
follows the approximate course of the ancient wooden stairs.

Mississippian culture: The Mississippian culture

which extended throughout the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys and built sites throughout the Southeast, created the largest earthworks in North America north
of Mexico, most notably at Cahokia, on a tributary
of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois.
The ten-story Monks Mound at Cahokia has
a larger circumference than the Pyramid of
the Sun at Teotihuacan or the Great Pyramid
of Egypt. The 6 square miles (16 km2 ) city
complex was based on the cultures cosmology; it included more than 100 mounds, positioned to support their sophisticated knowledge of astronomy, and built with knowledge
of varying soil types. The society began building at this site about 950 CE, and reached
its peak population in 1,250 CE of 20,000
30,000 people, which was not equalled by any
city in the present-day United States until after
1800.
Cahokia was a major regional chiefdom, with
trade and tributary chiefdoms located in a
range of areas from bordering the Great Lakes
to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Mississippian culture developed the
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, the name
which archeologists have given to the regional
stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography,
ceremonies and mythology. The rise of the

The Spanish conquistador Coronado explored parts of the

American Southwest from 1540 to 1542.

Main article: Colonial history of the United States

After a period of exploration sponsored by major European nations, the rst successful English settlement was
established in 1607. Europeans brought horses, cattle,
and hogs to the Americas and, in turn, took back to
Europe maize, turkeys, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and
squash. Many explorers and early settlers died after being exposed to new diseases in the Americas. The eects
of new Eurasian diseases carried by the colonists, especially smallpox and measles, were much worse for the Native Americans, as they had no immunity to them. They
suered epidemics and died in very large numbers, usually before large-scale European settlement began. Their
societies were disrupted and hollowed out by the scale of
deaths.[24][25]

2.1

2.1

Spanish, Dutch, and French colonization

Spanish, Dutch, and French colonization

European territorial claims in North America, c. 1750

France
Great Britain
Spain

life; this includes secular broad-mindedness and mercantile pragmatism in the city as well as rural traditionalism in the countryside (typied by the story of Rip Van
Winkle). Notable Americans of Dutch descent include
Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D.
Main articles: Spanish colonization of the Americas, Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Frelinghuysens.[30]
Dutch colonization of the Americas and French colo- New France was the area colonized by France from 1534
nization of the Americas
to 1763. There were few permanent settlers outside
Juan Ponce de Len (Santervs de Campos, Valladolid, Spain).
He was one of the rst Europeans to arrive to the current U.S.
because led the rst European expedition to Florida, which he
named.

Spanish explorers were the rst Europeans with

Christopher Columbus' second expedition, to reach
Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493; others reached
Florida in 1513.[26] Spanish expeditions quickly reached
the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River,
the Grand Canyon[27] and the Great Plains. In 1540,
Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration
of the Southeast. That same year, Francisco Vsquez de
Coronado explored from Arizona to central Kansas.[28]
Small Spanish settlements eventually grew to become important cities, such as San Antonio, Texas; Albuquerque,
New Mexico; Tucson, Arizona; Los Angeles, California;
and San Francisco, California. [29]
New Netherland was a 17th-century Dutch colony centered on present-day New York City and the Hudson
River Valley; the Dutch traded furs with the Native
Americans to the north. The colony served as a barrier
to expansion from New England. Despite being Calvinists and building the Reformed Church in America, the
Dutch were tolerant of other religions and cultures. The
colony, which was taken over by Britain in 1664, left
an enduring legacy on American cultural and political

Quebec and Acadia, but the French had far-reaching trading relationships with Native Americans throughout the
Great Lakes and Midwest. French villages along the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers were based in farming communities that served as a granary for Gulf Coast settlements. The French established plantations in Louisiana
along with settling New Orleans, Mobile and Biloxi.
The Wabanaki Confederacy were military allies of New
France through the four French and Indian Wars while
the British colonies were allied with the Iroquois Confederacy. During the French and Indian War the North
American theater of the Seven Years War New England fought successfully against French Acadia. The
British removed Acadians from Acadia (Nova Scotia) and
replaced them with New England Planters.[31] Eventually, some Acadians resettled in Louisiana, where they
developed a distinctive rural Cajun culture that still exists. They became American citizens in 1803 with the
Louisiana Purchase.[32] Other French villages along the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers were absorbed when the
Americans started arriving after 1770, or settlers moved
west to escape them.[33] French inuence and language in
New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast was more en-

COLONIAL PERIOD

during; New Orleans was notable for its large population

of free people of color before the Civil War.

2.2

British colonization

Further information: British colonization of the Americas

The strip of land along the eastern seacoast was set-

The massacre of Jamestown settlers in 1622. Soon the colonists

in the South feared all natives as enemies.

The colonies were characterized by religious diversity,

with many Congregationalists in New England, German
and Dutch Reformed in the Middle Colonies, Catholics
The Mayower, which transported Pilgrims to the New World. in Maryland, and Scots-Irish Presbyterians on the fronDuring the rst winter at Plymouth, about half of the Pilgrims tier. Sephardic Jews were among early settlers in cities of
New England and the South. Many immigrants arrived
died.[34]
as religious refugees: French Huguenots settled in New
tled primarily by English colonists in the 17th century York, Virginia and the Carolinas. Many royal ocials
along with much smaller numbers of Dutch and Swedes. and merchants were Anglicans.[41]
Colonial America was dened by a severe labor short- Religiosity expanded greatly after the First Great Awakage that employed forms of unfree labor such as slavery ening, a religious revival in the 1740s led by preachers
and indentured servitude and by a British policy of be- such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whiteeld. Amernign neglect (salutary neglect). Over half of all European ican Evangelicals aected by the Awakening added a new
immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured emphasis on divine outpourings of the Holy Spirit and
servants.[35] Salutary neglect permitted the development conversions that implanted within new believers an inof an American spirit distinct from that of its European tense love for God. Revivals encapsulated those hallfounders.[36]
marks and carried the newly created evangelicalism into
The rst successful English colony, Jamestown, was
established in 1607 on the James River in Virginia.
Jamestown languished for decades until a new wave of
settlers arrived in the late 17th century and established
commercial agriculture based on tobacco. Between the
late 1610s and the Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts to their American colonies.[37]
A severe instance of conict was the 1622 Powhatan uprising in Virginia in which Native Americans killed hundreds of English settlers. The largest conicts between
Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century were King Philips War in New England[38] and the
Yamasee War in South Carolina.[39]
New England was initially settled primarily by Puritans.
The Pilgrims established a settlement in 1620 at
Plymouth Colony, which was followed by the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were
characterized by a large degree of diversity. The rst
attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the
Province of Carolina, with Georgia Colony the last of
the Thirteen Colonies established in 1733.[40]

the early republic, setting the stage for the Second Great
Awakening beginning in the late 1790s.[42] In the early
stages, evangelicals in the South such as Methodists and
Baptists preached for religious freedom and abolition of
slavery; they converted many slaves and recognized some
as preachers.
Each of the 13 American colonies had a slightly different governmental structure. Typically, a colony was
ruled by a governor appointed from London who controlled the executive administration and relied upon a locally elected legislature to vote taxes and make laws. By
the 18th century, the American colonies were growing
very rapidly as a result of low death rates along with ample supplies of land and food. The colonies were richer
than most parts of Britain, and attracted a steady ow of
immigrants, especially teenagers who arrived as indentured servants. The tobacco and rice plantations imported
African slaves for labor from the British colonies in the
West Indies, and by the 1770s African slaves comprised
a fth of the American population. The question of independence from Britain did not arise as long as the colonies
needed British military support against the French and
Spanish powers; those threats were gone by 1765. Lon-

3.1

Political integration and autonomy

don regarded the American colonies as existing for the

benet of the mother country. This policy is known as
mercantilism.[43]

3
3.1

18th century
Political integration and autonomy

1846 painting of the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

Join, or Die: This 1756 political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin

urged the colonies to join together during the French and Indian
War.

The French and Indian War (175463) was a watershed

event in the political development of the colonies. It
was also part of the larger Seven Years War. The inuence of the main rivals of the British Crown in the
colonies and Canada, the French and North American
Indians, was signicantly reduced with the territory of
the Thirteen Colonies expanding into New France both
in Canada and the Louisiana Territory. Moreover, the
war eort resulted in greater political integration of the
colonies, as reected in the Albany Congress and symbolized by Benjamin Franklin's call for the colonies to Join
or Die. Franklin was a man of many inventions one
of which was the concept of a United States of America, which emerged after 1765 and was realized in July
1776.[44]
Following Britains acquisition of French territory in
North America, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 with the goal of organizing the new North
American empire and protecting the native Indians from
colonial expansion into western lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. In ensuing years, strains developed
in the relations between the colonists and the Crown. The
British Parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765, imposing a tax on the colonies without going through the colonial legislatures. The issue was drawn: did Parliament
have this right to tax Americans who were not represented
in it? Crying "No taxation without representation", the
colonists refused to pay the taxes as tensions escalated in
the late 1760s and early 1770s.[45]

tivists in the town of Boston to protest against the new

tax on tea. Parliament quickly responded the next year
with the Coercive Acts, stripping Massachusetts of its historic right of self-government and putting it under army
rule, which sparked outrage and resistance in all thirteen
colonies. Patriot leaders from all 13 colonies convened
the First Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance to the Coercive Acts. The Congress called for a
boycott of British trade, published a list of rights and
grievances, and petitioned the king for redress of those
grievances.[46] The appeal to the Crown had no eect,
and so the Second Continental Congress was convened in
1775 to organize the defense of the colonies against the
British Army.
Ordinary folk became insurgents against the British even
though they were unfamiliar with the ideological rationales being oered. They held very strongly a sense of
rights that they felt the British were deliberately violating rights that stressed local autonomy, fair dealing, and
government by consent. They were highly sensitive to the
issue of tyranny, which they saw manifested in the arrival
in Boston of the British Army to punish the Bostonians.
This heightened their sense of violated rights, leading to
rage and demands for revenge. They had faith that God
was on their side.[47]
The American Revolutionary War began at Concord and
Lexington in April 1775 when the British tried to seize
ammunition supplies and arrest the Patriot leaders.

In terms of political values, the Americans were largely

united on a concept called Republicanism, that rejected
aristocracy and emphasized civic duty and a fear of corruption. For the Founding Fathers, according to one team
of historians, republicanism represented more than a
particular form of government. It was a way of life, a
core ideology, an uncompromising commitment to libThe Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a direct action by ac- erty, and a total rejection of aristocracy.[48]

10

5 EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC

Army. His biggest challenge was logistics, since neither Congress nor the states had the funding to provide
adequately for the equipment, munitions, clothing, paychecks, or even the food supply of the soldiers.
As a battleeld tactician, Washington was often outmaneuvered by his British counterparts. As a strategist, however, he had a better idea of how to win the war than they
did. The British sent four invasion armies. Washingtons
strategy forced the rst army out of Boston in 1776, and
was responsible for the surrender of the second and third
armies at Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781). He limited the British control to New York City and a few places
while keeping Patriot control of the great majority of the
population.[50]

The Loyalists, whom the British counted upon too heavily, comprised about 20% of the population but never
were well organized. As the war ended, Washington
watched proudly as the nal British army quietly sailed
out of New York City in November 1783, taking the LoyPopulation density in the American Colonies in 1775.
alist leadership with them. Washington astonished the
world when, instead of seizing power for himself, he retired quietly to his farm in Virginia.[50] Political scientist
4 American Revolution
Seymour Martin Lipset observes, The United States was
the rst major colony successfully to revolt against coloMain articles: American Revolution and History of the
nial rule. In this sense, it was the rst 'new nation'.[51]
United States (177689)
The Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British

Trumbulls Declaration of Independence

Washingtons surprise crossing of the Delaware River in Dec.
1776 was a major comeback after the loss of New York City;
his army defeated the British in two battles and recaptured New
Jersey.

rule in 1775 and proclaimed their independence in 1776

as the United States of America. In the American Revolutionary War (177583) the American captured the
British invasion army at Saratoga in 1777, secured the
Northeast and encouraged the French to make a military
alliance with the United States. France brought in Spain
and the Netherlands, thus balancing the military and naval
forces on each side as Britain had no allies.[49]

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of the
United States of America in the Declaration of Independence. July 4 is celebrated as the nations birthday. The
new nation was founded on Enlightenment ideals of liberalism in what Thomas Jeerson called the unalienable
rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and
dedicated strongly to republican principles. Republicanism emphasized the people are sovereign (not hereditary
kings), demanded civic duty, feared corruption, and rejected any aristocracy.[52]

General George Washington (173299) proved an excellent organizer and administrator, who worked success- 5 Early years of the republic
fully with Congress and the state governors, selecting
and mentoring his senior ocers, supporting and train- Main article: History of the United States (17891849)
ing his troops, and maintaining an idealistic Republican See also: First Party System and Second Party System

5.2

The new Chief Executive

11
practice, jury trials, and stated that citizens and states had
reserved rights (which were not specied).[54]

5.2 The new Chief Executive

George Washington a renowned hero of the American
Revolutionary War, commander-in-chief of the
Continental Army, and president of the Constitutional
Convention became the rst President of the United
States under the new Constitution in 1789. The national
capital moved from New York to Philadelphia and nally
settled in Washington DC in 1800.
The major accomplishments of the Washington Administration were creating a strong national government that
Economic growth in America per capita income; index with 1700 was recognized without question by all Americans.[55] His
set as 100
government, following the vigorous leadership of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, assumed the debts of
the states (the debt holders received federal bonds), created the Bank of the United States to stabilize the nan5.1 Confederation and Constitution
cial system, and set up a uniform system of taris (taxes
Further information: Articles of Confederation and on imports) and other taxes to pay o the debt and provide a nancial infrastructure. To support his programs
History of the United States Constitution
Hamilton created a new political party the rst in the
world based on voters the Federalist Party.
In the 1780s the national government was able to settle
the issue of the western territories, which were ceded by Thomas Jeerson and James Madison formed an oppothe states to Congress and became territories; with the sition Republican Party (usually called the Democraticmigration of settlers to the Northwest, soon they became Republican Party by political scientists). Hamilton and
states. Nationalists worried that the new nation was too Washington presented the country in 1794 with the Jay
fragile to withstand an international war, or even inter- Treaty that reestablished good relations with Britain.
nal revolts such as the Shays Rebellion of 1786 in Mas- The Jeersonians vehemently protested, and the voters
sachusetts. Nationalists most of them war veterans aligned behind one party or the other, thus setting up the
organized in every state and convinced Congress to call First Party System. Federalists promoted business, nanthe Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The delegates from cial and commercial interests and wanted more trade with
every state wrote a new Constitution that created a much Britain. Republicans accused the Federalists of plans to
and
more powerful and ecient central government, one with establish a monarchy, turn the rich into a ruling class,
[56]
making
the
United
States
a
pawn
of
the
British.
The
a strong president, and powers of taxation. The new
[57]
government reected the prevailing republican ideals of treaty passed, but politics became intensely heated.
guarantees of individual liberty and of constraining the The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when western settlers
power of government through a system of separation of protested against a federal tax on liquor, was the rst serious test of the federal government. Washington called
powers.[53]
out the state militia and personally led an army, as the inThe Congress was given authority to ban the international
of the national govslave trade after 20 years (which it did in 1807). A com- surgents melted away and the power
[58]
ernment
was
rmly
established.
promise gave the South Congressional apportionment out
of proportion to its free population by allowing it to include three-fths of the number of slaves in each states
total population. This provision increased the political
power of southern representatives in Congress, especially
as slavery was extended into the Deep South through removal of Native Americans and transportation of slaves
by an extensive domestic trade.
To assuage the Anti-Federalists who feared a toopowerful national government, the nation adopted the
United States Bill of Rights in 1791. Comprising the rst
ten amendments of the Constitution, it guaranteed individual liberties such as freedom of speech and religious

Washington refused to serve more than two terms setting a precedent and in his famous farewell address, he
extolled the benets of federal government and importance of ethics and morality while warning against foreign
alliances and the formation of political parties.[59]
John Adams, a Federalist, defeated Jeerson in the 1796
election. War loomed with France and the Federalists
used the opportunity to try to silence the Republicans
with the Alien and Sedition Acts, build up a large army
with Hamilton at the head, and prepare for a French invasion. However, the Federalists became divided after
Adams sent a successful peace mission to France that

12

6 19TH CENTURY

ended the Quasi-War of 1798.[56][60]

5.3

Slavery

Main article: Slavery in the United States

During the rst two decades after the Revolutionary War,
there were dramatic changes in the status of slavery
among the states and an increase in the number of freed
blacks. Inspired by revolutionary ideals of the equality
of men and inuenced by their lesser economic reliance
on slavery, northern states abolished slavery. Some had
gradual emancipation schemes.
States of the Upper South made manumission easier, resulting in an increase in the proportion of free blacks in
the Upper South (as a percentage of the total non-white
population) from less than one percent in 1792 to more
than 10 percent by 1810. By that date, a total of 13.5
percent of all blacks in the United States were free.[61]
After that date, with the demand for slaves on the rise
because of the Deep Souths expanding cotton cultivation, the number of manumissions declined sharply; and Jeerson saw himself as a man of the frontier and a scientist; he
an internal U.S. slave trade became an important source was keenly interested in expanding and exploring the West.
of wealth for many planters and traders.
In 1809, president James Madison severed the U.S.A.'s
involvement with the Atlantic slave trade.

6
6.1

19th century
Jeersonian Republican Era

Thomas Jeerson defeated Adams for the presidency in

the 1800 election. Jeersons major achievement as president was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which pro- Territorial expansion; Louisiana Purchase in white.
vided U.S. settlers with vast potential for expansion west
of the Mississippi River.[62]
Jeerson, a scientist himself, supported expeditions to
explore and map the new domain, most notably the Lewis
and Clark Expedition.[63] Jeerson believed deeply in
republicanism and argued it should be based on the independent yeoman farmer and planter; he distrusted cities,
factories and banks. He also distrusted the federal government and judges, and tried to weaken the judiciary.
However he met his match in John Marshall, a Federalist from Virginia. Although the Constitution specied a
Supreme Court, its functions were vague until Marshall,
the Chief Justice (180135), dened them, especially the
power to overturn acts of Congress or states that violated
the Constitution, rst enunciated in 1803 in Marbury v.
Madison.[64]

6.2 War of 1812

Main article: War of 1812

Americans were increasingly angry at the British violation of American ships neutral rights in order to hurt
France, the impressment (seizure) of 10,000 American
sailors needed by the Royal Navy to ght Napoleon, and
British support for hostile Indians attacking American
settlers in the Midwest. They may also have desired to annex all or part of British North America.[65][66][67][68][69]
Despite strong opposition from the Northeast, especially
from Federalists who did not want to disrupt trade with
Britain, Congress declared war in June 18, 1812.[70]

6.4

Indian removal

The war was frustrating for both sides. Both sides tried
to invade the other and were repulsed. The American
high command remained incompetent until the last year.
The American militia proved ineective because the soldiers were reluctant to leave home and eorts to invade
Canada repeatedly failed. The British blockade ruined
American commerce, bankrupted the Treasury, and further angered New Englanders, who smuggled supplies to
Britain. The Americans under General William Henry
Harrison nally gained naval control of Lake Erie and defeated the Indians under Tecumseh in Canada,[71] while
Andrew Jackson ended the Indian threat in the Southeast.
The Indian threat to expansion into the Midwest was permanently ended. The British invaded and occupied much
of Maine.

13
downplay partisanship, the nation entered an Era of Good
Feelings, with far less partisanship than before (or after),
and closed out the First Party System.[74][75]
The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the
United States opinion that European powers should no
longer colonize or interfere in the Americas. This was
a dening moment in the foreign policy of the United
States. The Monroe Doctrine was adopted in response
to American and British fears over Russian and French
expansion into the Western Hemisphere.[76]

In 1832, President Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the

United States, ran for a second term under the slogan
Jackson and no bank and didn't renew the charter of the
Second Bank of the United States of America.[77] Jackson was convinced that central banking was used by the
The British raided and burned Washington, but were re- elite to take advantage of the average American.[77]
pelled at Baltimore in 1814 where the Star Spangled Banner was written to celebrate the American success. In upstate New York a major British invasion of 6.4 Indian removal
New York State was turned back. Finally in early 1815
Andrew Jackson decisively defeated a major British inva- Main article: Indian removal
sion at the Battle of New Orleans, making him the most In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which
famous war hero.[72]
With Napoleon (apparently) gone, the causes of the war
had evaporated and both sides agreed to a peace that left
the prewar boundaries intact. Americans claimed victory
in February 18, 1815 as news came almost simultaneously of Jacksons victory of New Orleans and the peace
treaty that left the prewar boundaries in place. Americans
swelled with pride at success in the second war of independence"; the naysayers of the antiwar Federalist Party
were put to shame and it never recovered. The Indians
were the big losers; they never gained the independent
nationhood Britain had promised and no longer posed a
serious threat as settlers poured into the Midwest.[72]
Settlers crossing the Plains of Nebraska.

6.3

Era of Good Feelings

Main article: Era of Good Feelings

As strong opponents of the war, the Federalists held the
Hartford Convention in 1814 that hinted at disunion. National euphoria after the victory at New Orleans ruined
the prestige of the Federalists and they no longer played a
signicant role.[73] President Madison and most Republicans realized they were foolish to let the Bank of the
United States close down, for its absence greatly hindered
the nancing of the war. So, with the assistance of foreign
bankers, they chartered the Second Bank of the United
States in 1816.[74][75]

authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Native American tribal lands in the eastern states
for lands west of the Mississippi River.[78] Its goal was primarily to remove Native Americans, including the Five
Civilized Tribes, from the American Southeast; they occupied land that settlers wanted. Jacksonian Democrats
demanded the forcible removal of native populations who
refused to acknowledge state laws to reservations in the
West; Whigs and religious leaders opposed the move as
inhumane. Thousands of deaths resulted from the relocations, as seen in the Cherokee Trail of Tears.[79] Many
of the Seminole Indians in Florida refused to move west;
they fought the Army for years in the Seminole Wars.

The Republicans also imposed taris designed to protect

the infant industries that had been created when Britain 6.5 Second Party System
was blockading the U.S. With the collapse of the Federalists as a party, the adoption of many Federalist prin- Main articles: Second Party System and Presidency of
ciples by the Republicans, and the systematic policy of Andrew Jackson
President James Monroe in his two terms (181725) to

14

6 19TH CENTURY

After the First Party System of Federalists and Republiberty by interfering with parental responsibillicans withered away in the 1820s, the stage was set for
ity and undermined freedom of religion by rethe emergence of a new party system based on very well
placing church schools. Nor did Jackson share
organized local parties that appealed for the votes of (alreformers humanitarian concerns. He had no
most) all adult white men. The former Jeersonian party
sympathy for American Indians, initiating the
split into factions. They split over the choice of a sucremoval of the Cherokees along the Trail of
cessor to President James Monroe, and the party faction
Tears.[81][82]
that supported many of the old Jeersonian principles,
led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became
the Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transfor- 6.6 Second Great Awakening
mation in 1828:
Main article: Second Great Awakening
Jacksonians believed the peoples will had nally prevailed. Through a lavishly nanced
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival
coalition of state parties, political leaders, and
movement that aected the entire nation during the early
newspaper editors, a popular movement had
19th century and led to rapid church growth. The moveelected the president. The Democrats bement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800,
came the nations rst well-organized national
and, after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Bapparty...and tight party organization became
tist and Methodist congregations, whose preachers led the
the hallmark of nineteenth-century American
movement. It was past its peak by the 1840s.[83]
politics.[80]
It enrolled millions of new members in existing evanOpposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the gelical denominations and led to the formation of new
Whig Party. The Democratic Party had a small but deci- denominations. Many converts believed that the Awaksive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the ening heralded a new millennial age. The Second Great
Awakening stimulated the establishment of many reform
Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery.
movements including abolitionism and temperance deBehind the platforms issued by state and national parties signed to remove the evils of society before the anticistood a widely shared political outlook that characterized pated Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[84]
the Democrats:
The Democrats represented a wide range of
views but shared a fundamental commitment to
the Jeersonian concept of an agrarian society.
They viewed the central government as the enemy of individual liberty. The 1824 corrupt
bargain had strengthened their suspicion of
Washington politics....Jacksonians feared the
concentration of economic and political power.
They believed that government intervention in
the economy beneted special-interest groups
and created corporate monopolies that favored
the rich. They sought to restore the independence of the individual--the artisan and the ordinary farmer--by ending federal support of
banks and corporations and restricting the use
of paper currency, which they distrusted. Their
denition of the proper role of government
tended to be negative, and Jacksons political
power was largely expressed in negative acts.
He exercised the veto more than all previous
presidents combined. Jackson and his supporters also opposed reform as a movement. Reformers eager to turn their programs into legislation called for a more active government.
But Democrats tended to oppose programs like
educational reform mid the establishment of a
public education system. They believed, for instance, that public schools restricted individual

6.7 Abolitionism
Main article: Abolitionism in the United States
After 1840 the growing abolitionist movement redened
itself as a crusade against the sin of slave ownership. It
mobilized support (especially among religious women in
the Northeast aected by the Second Great Awakening).
William Lloyd Garrison published the most inuential of
the many anti-slavery newspapers, The Liberator, while
Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave, began writing for that
newspaper around 1840 and started his own abolitionist
newspaper North Star in 1847.[85] The great majority of
anti-slavery activists, such as Abraham Lincoln, rejected
Garrisons theology and held that slavery was an unfortunate social evil, not a sin.[86][87]

6.8 Westward expansion and Manifest

Destiny
Main article: American frontier
The American colonies and the new nation grew very
rapidly in population and area, as pioneers pushed the
frontier of settlement west.[88] The process nally ended
around 18901912 as the last major farmlands and ranch

6.9

Divisions between North and South

lands were settled. Native American tribes in some places

resisted militarily, but they were overwhelmed by settlers
and the army and after 1830 were relocated to reservations in the west. The highly inuential "Frontier Thesis" argues that the frontier shaped the national character, with its boldness, violence, innovation, individualism,
and democracy.[89]
Recent historians have emphasized the multicultural nature of the frontier. Enormous popular attention in the
media focuses on the Wild West of the second half
of the 19th century. As dened by Hine and Faragher,
frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense
of communities, the use of the land, the development of
markets, and the formation of states. They explain, It
is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence,
and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth
and continuing life to America.[89]

15
Manifest Destiny was rejected by modernizers, especially
the Whigs like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln who
wanted to build cities and factories not more farms.[93]
However Democrats strongly favored expansion, and they
won the key election of 1844. After a bitter debate in
Congress the Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845,
which Mexico had warned meant war. War broke out
in 1846, with the homefront polarized as Whigs opposed
and Democrats supported the war. The U.S. army, using regulars and large numbers of volunteers, won the
MexicanAmerican War (184648). The 1848 Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo made peace; Mexico recognized the
annexation of Texas and ceded its claims in the Southwest
(especially California and New Mexico). The Hispanic
residents were given full citizenship and the Mexican Indians became American Indians. Simultaneously gold
was discovered, pulling over 100,000 men to northern
California in a matter of months in the California Gold
Rush. Not only did the then president James K. Polk expand Americas border to the Republic of Texas and a
fraction of Mexico but he also annexed the north western frontier known as the Oregon Country, which was renamed the Oregon Territory.[94]

Through wars and treaties, establishment of law and order, building farms, ranches, and towns, marking trails
and digging mines, and pulling in great migrations of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast
fullling the dreams of Manifest Destiny. As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the west
in ction and lm took rm hold in the imagination of
Americans and foreigners alike. America is exceptional 6.9 Divisions between North and South
in choosing its iconic self-image. No other nation, says
David Murdoch, has taken a time and place from its Main articles: Origins of the American Civil War and
past and produced a construct of the imagination equal American Civil War
to Americas creation of the West.[90]
The central issue after 1848 was the expansion of slavFrom the early 1830s to 1869, the Oregon Trail and its
many oshoots were used by over 300,000 settlers. '49ers
(in the California Gold Rush), ranchers, farmers, and entrepreneurs and their families headed to California, Oregon, and other points in the far west. Wagon-trains took
ve or six months on foot; after 1869, the trip took 6 days
by rail.[91]

Union states: navy blue (free) and yellow (slave[also known as

Border states])
Confederacy states: brown (slave)
U.S. territories: lighter shades of blue and brown

American occupation of Mexico City during the Mexican

American War.

Manifest Destiny was the belief that American settlers

were destined to expand across the continent. This concept was born out of A sense of mission to redeem the
Old World by high example ... generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven.[92]

ery, pitting the anti-slavery elements that were a majority

in the North, against the pro-slavery elements that overwhelmingly dominated the white South. A small number of very active Northerners were abolitionists who declared that ownership of slaves was a sin (in terms of
Protestant theology) and demanded its immediate abolition. Much larger numbers were against the expansion of
slavery, seeking to put it on the path to extinction so that
America would be committed to free land (as in low-cost
farms owned and cultivated by a family), free labor (no
slaves), and free speech (as opposed to censorship ram-

16
pant in the South). Southern whites insisted that slavery
was of economic, social, and cultural benet to all whites
(and even to the slaves themselves), and denounced all
anti-slavery spokesmen as abolitionists.[95]
Religious activists split on slavery, with the Methodists
and Baptists dividing into northern and southern denominations. In the North, the Methodists, Congregationalists, and Quakers included many abolitionists, especially among women activists. (The Catholic, Episcopal
and Lutheran denominations largely ignored the slavery
issue.)[96]
The issue of slavery in the new territories was seemingly
settled by the Compromise of 1850, brokered by Whig
Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas; the Compromise included the admission of California as a free
state. The point of contention was the Fugitive Slave Act,
which increased federal enforcement and required even
free states to cooperate in turning over fugitive slaves to
their owners. Abolitionists pounced on the Act to attack slavery, as in the best-selling anti-slavery novel Uncle
Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.[97]
The Compromise of 1820 was repealed in 1854 with the
KansasNebraska Act, promoted by Senator Douglas in
the name of "popular sovereignty" and democracy. It permitted voters to decide on slavery in each territory, and
allowed Douglas to say he was neutral on the slavery issue. Anti-slavery forces rose in anger and alarm, forming the new Republican Party. Pro- and anti- contingents
rushed to Kansas to vote slavery up or down, resulting in
a miniature civil war called Bleeding Kansas. By the late
1850s, the young Republican Party dominated nearly all
northern states and thus the electoral college. It insisted
that slavery would never be allowed to expand (and thus
would slowly die out).[98]

6 19TH CENTURY
they only involved dozens of people and all failed. They
caused fear in the white South, which imposed tighter
slave oversight and reduced the rights of free blacks. The
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required the states to cooperate with slave owners when attempting to recover escaped slaves, which outraged Northerners. Formerly,
an escaped slave, having reached a non-slave state, was
presumed to have attained sanctuary and freedom. The
Supreme Courts 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional; angry Republicans said this decision threatened
to make slavery a national institution.
After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, seven
Southern states seceded from the union and set up a new
nation, the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.), on
February 8, 1861. It attacked Fort Sumter, a U.S. Army
fort in South Carolina, thus igniting the war. When Lincoln called for troops to suppress the Confederacy in
April 1861, four more states seceded and joined the Confederacy. A few of the (northernmost) "slave states" did
not secede and became known as the border states; these
were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.
During the war, the northwestern portion of Virginia seceded from the C.S.A. and became the new Union state
of West Virginia.[100] West Virginia is usually grouped
with the border states.

6.10 Civil War

Main article: American Civil War
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when

The Southern slavery-based societies had become

wealthy based on their cotton and other agricultural
commodity production, and some particularly proted
from the internal slave trade. Northern cities such as
Boston and New York, and regional industries, were tied
economically to slavery by banking, shipping, and manufacturing, including textile mills. By 1860, there were
four million slaves in the South, nearly eight times as
many as there were nationwide in 1790. The plantations
were highly protable, because of the heavy European
demand for raw cotton. Most of the prots were invested
in new lands and in purchasing more slaves (largely drawn
from the declining tobacco regions).
For 50 of the nations rst 72 years, a slaveholder served
as President of the United States and, during that period,
only slaveholding presidents were re-elected to second
terms.[99] In addition, southern states beneted by their
increased apportionment in Congress due to the partial
counting of slaves in their populations.

The Union had large advantages in men and resources at the start
of the war; the ratio grew steadily in favor of the Union

Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation

at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In response to the attack, on April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send deSlave rebellions were planned or actually took place tachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, proincluding by Gabriel Prosser (1800), Denmark Vesey tect the capital, and preserve the Union, which in his
(1822), Nat Turner (1831), and John Brown (1859) but view still existed intact despite the actions of the seced-

6.10

Civil War

17

ing states. The two armies had their rst major clash at
the First Battle of Bull Run, ending in a Union defeat, but,
more importantly, proved to both the Union and Confederacy that the war would be much longer and bloodier
than originally anticipated.[101]

Irish anger at the draft led to the New York Draft Riots of 1863,
one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history

lorsville in May 1863, while losing his top aide, Stonewall

Jackson. But Lee pushed too hard and ignored the Union
threat in the west. Lee invaded Pennsylvania in search of
supplies and to cause war-weariness in the North. In perhaps the turning point of the war, Lees army was badly
Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton and Major General John Alexander beaten at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 13, 1863, and
McClernand at the Battle of Antietam.
barely made it back to Virginia.[104]
The war soon divided into two theaters: Eastern and
Western. In the western theater, the Union was quite successful, with major battles, such as Perryville and Shiloh,
producing strategic Union victories and destroying major
Confederate operations.[102]
Warfare in the Eastern theater started poorly for the
Union as the Confederates won at Manassas Junction
(Bull Run), just outside Washington. Major General
George B. McClellan was put in charge of the Union
armies. After reorganizing the new Army of the Potomac, McClellan failed to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia in his Peninsula Campaign and
retreated after attacks from newly appointed Confederate
Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864
General Robert E. Lee.[103]
Feeling condent in his army after defeating the Union
at Second Bull Run, Lee embarked on an invasion of the
north that was stopped by McClellan at the bloody Battle
of Antietam. Despite this, McClellan was relieved from
command for refusing to pursue Lees crippled army. The
next commander, General Ambrose Burnside, suered a
humiliating defeat by Lees smaller army at the Battle of
Fredericksburg late in 1862, causing yet another change
in commanders. Lee won again at the Battle of Chancel-

Simultaneously on July 4, 1863, Union forces under the

command of General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of
the Mississippi River at the Battle of Vicksburg, thereby
splitting the Confederacy. Lincoln made General Grant
commander of all Union armies.
The last two years of the war were bloody for both sides,
with Grant launching a war of attrition against General
Lees Army of Northern Virginia. This war of attrition

18

6 19TH CENTURY

was divided into three main campaigns. The rst of these,

the Overland Campaign forced Lee to retreat into the city
of Petersburg where Grant launched his second major
oensive, the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in which
he besieged Petersburg. After a near ten-month siege,
Petersburg surrendered. However, the defense of Fort
Gregg allowed Lee to move his army out of Petersburg.
Grant pursued and launched the nal, Appomattox Campaign which resulted in Lee surrendering his Army of
Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court
House. Other Confederate armies followed suit and the
war ended with no postwar insurgency.
Based on 1860 census gures, about 8% of all white
males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% from
the North and 18% from the South,[105] establishing the
American Civil War as the deadliest war in American
history. Its legacy includes ending slavery in the United
States, restoring the Union, and strengthening the role of
the federal government.

Freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867

ex-slaves (called Freedmen), the loyalty and civil rights

of ex-rebels, the status of the 11 ex-Confederate states,
the powers of the federal government needed to prevent
a future civil war, and the question of whether Congress
or the President would make the major decisions.

6.11 Emancipation

The severe threats of starvation and displacement of the

unemployed Freedmen were met by the rst major fedSee also: Military history of African Americans in the eral relief agency, the Freedmens Bureau, operated by
American Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation
the Army.[109]
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order
issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.
In a single stroke it changed the legal status, as recognized by the U.S. government, of 3 million slaves in designated areas of the Confederacy from slave to free.
It had the practical eect that as soon as a slave escaped
the control of the Confederate government, by running
away or through advances of federal troops, the slave became legally and actually free. The owners were never
compensated. Plantation owners, realizing that emancipation would destroy their economic system, sometimes
moved their slaves as far as possible out of reach of the
Union army. By June 1865, the Union Army controlled
all of the Confederacy and liberated all of the designated
slaves.[106] Large numbers moved into camps run by the
Freedmens Bureau, where they were given food, shelter, medical care, and arrangements for their employment
were made.
The severe dislocations of war and Reconstruction had a
large negative impact on the black population, with a large
amount of sickness and death.[107]

6.12 Reconstruction
Main article: Reconstruction Era
See also: History of the United States (18651918)
Reconstruction lasted from Lincolns Emancipation
Proclamation of January 1, 1863 to the Compromise of
1877.[108]
The major issues faced by Lincoln were the status of the

Three "Reconstruction Amendments" were passed to expand civil rights for black Americans: the Thirteenth
Amendment outlawed slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal rights for all and citizenship for
blacks; the Fifteenth Amendment prevented race from
being used to disfranchise men.
Ex-Confederates remained in control of most Southern
states for over two years, but that changed when the
Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the
1866 elections. President Andrew Johnson, who sought
easy terms for reunions with ex-rebels, was virtually powerless; he escaped by one vote removal through impeachment. Congress enfranchised black men and temporarily stripped many ex-Confederate leaders of the
right to hold oce. New Republican governments came
to power based on a coalition of Freedmen made up
of Carpetbaggers (new arrivals from the North), and
Scalawags (native white Southerners). They were backed
by the US Army. Opponents said they were corrupt
and violated the rights of whites. State by state they
lost power to a conservative-Democratic coalition, which
gained control of the entire South by 1877. In response
to Radical Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
emerged in 1867 as a white-supremacist organization opposed to black civil rights and Republican rule. President
Ulysses Grants vigorous enforcement of the Ku Klux
Klan Act of 1870 shut down the Klan, and it disbanded.
Paramilitary groups, such as the White League and Red
Shirts emerged about 1874 that worked openly to use intimidation and violence to suppress black voting to regain
white political power in states across the South during the
1870s. Rable described them as the military arm of the

6.13

The West and the Gilded Age

19

Democratic Party.[110]
Reconstruction ended after the disputed 1876 election between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes
and Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden. With
a compromise Hayes won the White House, the federal government withdrew its troops from the South,
and Southern Democrats re-entered the national political
scene.[111] From 1890 to 1908, southern states eectively
disfranchised most black voters and many poor whites
by making voter registration more dicult through poll
taxes, literacy tests, and other arbitrary devices.[3] They
passed segregation laws and imposed second-class status
on blacks in a system known as Jim Crow that lasted until the successes of the Civil Rights movement in 1964Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (1869) at First
65.[112][113]
Transcontinental Railroad, by Andrew J. Russell.

Deeply religious Southerners saw the hand of God in history, which demonstrated His wrath at their sinfulness, or
His rewards for their suering. Historian Wilson Fallin States. Mining for silver and copper opened up the Mounhas examined the sermons of white and black Baptist tain West. The United States Army fought frequent smallpreachers after the War. Southern white preachers said: scale wars with Native Americans as settlers encroached
on their traditional lands. Gradually the US purchased
the Native American tribal lands and extinguished their
God had chastised them and given them a speclaims, forcing most tribes onto subsidized reservations.
cial mission to maintain orthodoxy, strict bibAccording to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), from
licism, personal piety, and traditional race re1789 to 1894:
lations. Slavery, they insisted, had not been
sinful. Rather, emancipation was a historical
The Indian wars under the government of
tragedy and the end of Reconstruction was a
the United States have been more than 40 in
clear sign of Gods favor.
number. They have cost the lives of about
19,000 white men, women and children, inIn sharp contrast, Black preachers interpreted the Civil
cluding those killed in individual combats, and
War as:
the lives of about 30,000 Indians. The actual
number of killed and wounded Indians must be
Gods gift of freedom. They appreciated opvery much higher than the given... Fifty perportunities to exercise their independence, to
cent additional would be a safe estimate...[115]
worship in their own way, to arm their worth
and dignity, and to proclaim the fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man. Most of all,
they could form their own churches, associations, and conventions. These institutions offered self-help and racial uplift, and provided
places where the gospel of liberation could be
proclaimed. As a result, black preachers continued to insist that God would protect and
help him; God would be their rock in a stormy
land.[114]

6.13 The West and the Gilded Age

Main article: Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a term that Mark Twain used to

describe the period of the late 19th century when there
had been a dramatic expansion of American wealth and
prosperity. Reform of the Age included the Civil Service Act, which mandated a competitive examination for
applicants for government jobs. Other important legislation included the Interstate Commerce Act, which ended
railroads discrimination against small shippers, and the
Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlawed monopolies in
business. Twain believed that this age was corrupted
by such elements as land speculators, scandalous politics, and unethical business practices.[116] Since the days
of Charles A. Beard and Matthew Josephson, some historians have argued that the United States was eectively plutocratic for at least part of the Gilded Age and
Progressive Era.[117][118][119][120][121] As nanciers and industrialists such as J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller
began to amass vast fortunes, many US observers were
concerned that the nation was losing its pioneering egalitarian spirit.[122]

The latter half of the nineteenth century was marked by

the rapid development and settlement of the far West, rst
by wagon trains and riverboats and then aided by the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Large numbers
of European immigrants (especially from Germany and
Scandinavia) took up low-cost or free farms in the Prairie By 1890 American industrial production and per capita

20
income exceeded those of all other world nations. In response to heavy debts and decreasing farm prices, wheat
and cotton farmers joined the Populist Party.[123] An unprecedented wave of immigration from Europe served to
both provide the labor for American industry and create diverse communities in previously undeveloped areas.
From 1880 to 1914, peak years of immigration, more
than 22 million people migrated to the United States.[124]
Most were unskilled workers who quickly found jobs in
mines, mills, factories. Many immigrants were craftsmen (especially from Britain and Germany) bringing human skills, and others were farmers (especially from Germany and Scandinavia) who purchased inexpensive land
on the Prairies from railroads who sent agents to Europe.
Poverty, growing inequality and dangerous working conditions, along with socialist and anarchist ideas diusing
from European immigrants, led to the rise of the labor
movement, which often included violent strikes.[125][126]

7 20TH CENTURY
wheat farmers, as well as coal miners, but was overtaken
by the even more popular Free Silver movement, which
demanded using silver to enlarge the money supply, leading to ination that the silverites promised would end the
depression.[129]
The nancial, railroad, and business communities fought
back hard, arguing that only the gold standard would save
the economy. In the most intense election in the nations history, conservative Republican William McKinley defeated silverite William Jennings Bryan, who ran
on the Democratic, Populist, and Silver Republican tickets. Bryan swept the South and West, but McKinley ran
up landslides among the middle class, industrial workers,
cities, and among upscale farmers in the Midwest.[130]

Prosperity returned under McKinley, the gold standard

was enacted, and the tari was raised. By 1900 the US
had the strongest economy on the globe. Apart from two
short recessions (in 1907 and 1920) the overall economy
Skilled workers banded together to control their crafts remained prosperous and growing until 1929. Republiand raise wages by forming labor unions in industrial ar- cans, citing McKinleys policies, took the credit.[131]
eas of the Northeast. Before the 1930s few factory workers joined the unions in the labor movement. Samuel
Gompers led the American Federation of Labor 18861924, coordinating multiple unions. Industrial growth 7 20th century
was very rapid, led by John D. Rockefeller in oil and
Andrew Carnegie in steel; both became leaders of philanthropy, giving away their fortunes to create the modern system of hospitals, universities, libraries, and foundations.

American children of many ethnic backgrounds celebrate noisily

in 1902 Puck cartoon

7.1 Progressive Era

Mulberry Street, along which Manhattans Little Italy is centered.
Lower East Side, circa 1900. Almost 97% of residents of the 10
largest American cities of 1900 were non-Hispanic whites.[127]

A severe nationwide depression broke out in 1893; it was

called the Panic of 1893 and impacted farmers, workers, and businessmen who saw prices, wages, and profits fall.[128] Many railroads went bankrupt. The resultant political reaction fell on the Democratic Party, whose
leader President Grover Cleveland shouldered much of
the blame. Labor unrest involved numerous strikes, most
notably the violent Pullman Strike of 1894, which was
shut down by federal troops under Clevelands orders.
The Populist Party gained strength among cotton and

Main article: Progressive Era

Dissatisfaction on the part of the growing middle class
with the corruption and ineciency of politics as usual,
and the failure to deal with increasingly important urban
and industrial problems, led to the dynamic Progressive
Movement starting in the 1890s. In every major city
and state, and at the national level as well, and in education, medicine, and industry, the progressives called
for the modernization and reform of decrepit institutions,
the elimination of corruption in politics, and the introduction of eciency as a criterion for change. Leading politicians from both parties, most notably Theodore

7.3

World War I

21

Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes, and Robert LaFol- 7.3 World War I
lette on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan
and Woodrow Wilson on the Democratic side, took up Main articles: American entry into World War I and
the cause of progressive reform. Women became espe- United States home front during World War I
cially involved in demands for woman surage, prohibi- As World War I raged in Europe from 1914, Presition, and better schools; their most prominent leader was
Jane Addams of Chicago. Muckraking journalists such
as Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steens and Jacob Riis exposed corruption in business and government along with
rampant inner city poverty. Progressives implemented
anti-trust laws and regulated such industries of meatpacking, drugs, and railroads. Four new constitutional
amendments the Sixteenth through Nineteenth resulted from progressive activism, bringing the federal income tax, direct election of Senators, prohibition, and
woman surage.[132] The Progressive Movement lasted
through the 1920s; the most active period was 1900
18.[133]

7.2

Imperialism

Further information: American imperialism

The United States emerged as a world economic and
military power after 1890. The main episode was the
SpanishAmerican War, which began when Spain refused American demands to reform its oppressive policies in Cuba.[134] The splendid little war, as one ocial
called it, involved a series of quick American victories on
land and at sea. At the Treaty of Paris peace conference
the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico,
and Guam.[135]
Cuba became an independent country, under close American tutelage. Although the war itself was widely popular, the peace terms proved controversial. William
Jennings Bryan led his Democratic Party in opposition
to control of the Philippines, which he denounced as
imperialism unbecoming to American democracy.[135]
President William McKinley defended the acquisition
and was riding high as the nation had returned to prosperity and felt triumphant in the war. McKinley easily
defeated Bryan in a rematch in the 1900 presidential election.[136]
After defeating an insurrection by Filipino nationalists,
the United States engaged in a large-scale program to
modernize the economy of the Philippines and dramatically upgrade the public health facilities.[137] By 1908,
however, Americans lost interest in an empire and turned
their international attention to the Caribbean, especially
the building of the Panama Canal. In 1912 when Arizona
became the nal mainland state, the American Frontier
came to an end. The canal opened in 1914 and increased
trade with Japan and the rest of the Far East. A key innovation was the Open Door Policy, whereby the imperial
powers were given equal access to Chinese business, with
not one of them allowed to take control of China.[138]

American Cemetery at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon

dent Woodrow Wilson took full control of foreign policy,

declaring neutrality but warning Germany that resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against American
ships supplying goods to Allied nations would mean war.
Germany decided to take the risk and try to win by cutting o supplies to Britain; the U.S. declared war in April
1917.[139] American money, food, and munitions arrived
quickly, but troops had to be drafted and trained; by summer 1918 American soldiers under General John J. Pershing arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, while Germany
was unable to replace its losses.[140]
The result was Allied victory in November 1918. President Wilson demanded Germany depose the Kaiser and
accept his terms, the Fourteen Points. Wilson dominated the 1919 Paris Peace Conference but Germany was
treated harshly by the Allies in the Treaty of Versailles
(1919) as Wilson put all his hopes in the new League
of Nations. Wilson refused to compromise with Senate Republicans over the issue of Congressional power to
declare war, and the Senate rejected the Treaty and the
League.[141]

7.4 Womens surage

Further information: Womens surage in the United
States
The womens surage movement began with the June
1848 National Convention of the Liberty Party. Presidential candidate Gerrit Smith argued for and established
womens surage as a party plank. One month later, his
cousin Elizabeth Cady Stanton joined with Lucretia Mott
and other women to organize the Seneca Falls Convention, featuring the Declaration of Sentiments demanding
equal rights for women, and the right to vote.[142] Many of
these activists became politically aware during the abo-

22

7 20TH CENTURY
The old anti-suragist argument that only men could ght
a war, and therefore only men deserve the right to vote,
was refuted by the enthusiastic participation of tens of
thousands of American women on the home front in
World War I. Across the world, grateful nations gave
women the right to vote. Furthermore, most of the Western states had already given the women the right to vote
in state and national elections, and the representatives
from those states, including the rst woman Jeannette
Rankin of Montana, demonstrated that woman surage
was a success. The main resistance came from the south,
where white leaders were worried about the threat of
black women voting. Congress passed the Nineteenth
Amendment in 1919, and women could vote in 1920.[147]

Alice Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment, whose passage

became an unachieved goal of the feminist movement in the
1970s

NAWSA became the League of Women Voters, and the

National Womans Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment, which would pass
Congress during the second wave of the womens movement in 1972. Politicians responded to the new electorate
by emphasizing issues of special interest to women, especially prohibition, child health, and world peace.[148][149]
The main surge of women voting came in 1928, when
the big-city machines realized they needed the support
of women to elect Al Smith, a Catholic from New
York City. Meanwhile, Protestants mobilized women
to support Prohibition and vote for Republican Herbert
Hoover.[150]

7.5 Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression

litionist movement. The womens rights campaign during "rst-wave feminism" was led by Stanton, Lucy Stone
Main article: History of the United States (191845)
and Susan B. Anthony, among many others. Stone and
Further information: Great Depression and New Deal
Paulina Wright Davis organized the prominent and inIn the 1920s the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an ecouential National Womens Rights Convention in 1850.
The movement reorganized after the Civil War, gaining
experienced campaigners, many of whom had worked for
prohibition in the Womens Christian Temperance Union.
By the end of the 19th century a few western states had
granted women full voting rights,[143] though women had
made signicant legal victories, gaining rights in areas
such as property and child custody.[144]
Around 1912 the feminist movement, which had grown
sluggish, began to reawaken, putting an emphasis on its
demands for equality and arguing that the corruption of
American politics demanded purication by women because men could not do that job.[145] Protests became increasingly common as suragette Alice Paul led parades
through the capital and major cities. Paul split from the
large National American Woman Surage Association
(NAWSA), which favored a more moderate approach and
supported the Democratic Party and Woodrow Wilson,
led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and formed the more militant National Womans Party. Suragists were arrested
during their "Silent Sentinels" pickets at the White House,
the rst time such a tactic was used, and were taken as
political prisoners.[146]

Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in Chicago, 1921

nomic and military world power. The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles imposed by its
Allies on the defeated Central Powers; instead, the United
States chose to pursue unilateralism.[151] The aftershock
of Russias October Revolution resulted in real fears of

7.6

World War II

23

Communism in the United States, leading to a Red Scare output plunged by one-third.
and the deportation of aliens considered subversive.
In 1932, Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D.
While public health facilities grew rapidly in the Pro- Roosevelt promised a New Deal for the American peogressive Era, and hospitals and medical schools were ple, coining the enduring label for his domestic polimodernized,[152] the nation in 1918 lost 675,000 lives to cies. The desperate economic situation, along with the
the Spanish u pandemic.[153]
substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 elections,
gave Roosevelt unusual inuence over Congress in the
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol were prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment, First Hundred Days of his administration. He used
Prohibition. The result was that in cities illegal alcohol his leverage to win rapid passage of a series of measures
became a big business, largely controlled by racketeers. to create welfare programs and regulate the banking sysThe second Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly in 1922-25, then tem, stock market, industry, and agriculture, along with
collapsed. Immigration laws were passed to strictly limit many other government eorts to end the Great Depresthe number of new entries. The 1920s were called the sion and reform the American economy. The New Deal
Roaring Twenties due to the great economic prosper- regulated much of the economy, especially the nancial
ity during this period. Jazz became popular among the sector. It provided relief to the unemployed through nuyounger generation, and thus the decade was also called merous programs, such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and (for young men) the Civilian Conthe Jazz Age.
servation Corps. Large scale spending projects designed
to provide high paying jobs and rebuild the infrastructure were under the purview of the Public Works Administration. Roosevelt turned left in 193536, building up labor unions through the Wagner Act. Unions
became a powerful element of the merging New Deal
Coalition, which won reelection for Roosevelt in 1936,
1940, and 1944 by mobilizing union members, blue collar workers, relief recipients, big city machines, ethnic,
and religious groups (especially Catholics and Jews) and
the white South, along with blacks in the North (where
they could vote). Some of the programs were dropped
in the 1940s when the conservatives regained power in
Congress through the Conservative Coalition. Of special importance is the Social Security program, begun in
1935.[156]

7.6 World War II

Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers

in California, centering on Florence Owens Thompson, a mother
of seven, age 32, in Nipomo, California, March 1936.

The Great Depression (192939) and the New Deal

(193336) were decisive moments in American political,
economic, and social history that reshaped the nation.[154]
During the 1920s, the nation enjoyed widespread prosperity, albeit with a weakness in agriculture. A nancial
bubble was fueled by an inated stock market, which later
led to the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929.[155]
This, along with many other economic factors, triggered
a worldwide depression known as the Great Depression.
During this time, the United States experienced deation
as prices fell, unemployment soared from 3% in 1929 to
25% in 1933, farm prices fell by half, and manufacturing

The Japanese crippled American naval power with the attack on

Pearl Harbor, knocking out all the battleships

Further information: World War II, Military history of

the United States during World War II and United States
home front during World War II

24

7 20TH CENTURY

In the Depression years, the United States remained focused on domestic concerns while democracy declined
across the world and many countries fell under the control of dictators. Imperial Japan asserted dominance in
East Asia and in the Pacic. Nazi Germany and Fascist
Italy militarized too and threatened conquests, while
Britain and France attempted appeasement to avert another war in Europe. US legislation in the Neutrality Acts
sought to avoid foreign conicts; however, policy clashed
with increasing anti-Nazi feelings following the German
invasion of Poland in September 1939 that started World
War II. Roosevelt positioned the US as the "Arsenal of
Democracy", pledging full-scale nancial and munitions
support for the Allies but no military personnel.[157]
Japan tried to neutralize Americas power in the Pacic American corpses sprawled on the beach of Tarawa, November
by attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which 1943.
catalyzed American support to enter the war and seek
revenge.[158]
meat, clothing, and gasoline were tightly rationed. In inThe main contributions of the US to the Allied war eort dustrial areas housing was in short supply as people doucomprised money, industrial output, food, petroleum, bled up and lived in cramped quarters. Prices and wages
technological innovation, and (especially 194445), mil- were controlled, and Americans saved a high portion of
itary personnel. Much of the focus in Washington was their incomes, which led to renewed growth after the war
maximizing the economic output of the nation. The over- instead of a return to depression.[159][160]
all result was a dramatic increase in GDP, the export of
The Allies the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union, China,
vast quantities of supplies to the Allies and to American
as well as Poland, Canada and other countries fought
forces overseas, the end of unemployment, and a rise in
the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Alcivilian consumption even as 40% of the GDP went to the
lies saw Germany as the main threat and gave highest
war eort. This was achieved by tens of millions of workpriority to Europe. The US dominated the war against
ers moving from low-productivity occupations to high efJapan and stopped Japanese expansion in the Pacic in
ciency jobs, improvements in productivity through bet1942. After losing Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines
ter technology and management, and the move into the
to the Japanese, and drawing the Battle of the Coral Sea
active labor force of students, retired people, housewives,
(May 1942), the American Navy inicted a decisive blow
and the unemployed, and an increase in hours worked.
at Midway (June 1942). American ground forces assisted
in the North African Campaign that eventually concluded
with the collapse of Mussolinis fascist government in
1943, as Italy switched to the Allied side. A more signicant European front was opened on D-Day, June 6,
1944, in which American and Allied forces invaded Nazioccupied France from Britain.
On the home front, mobilization of the US economy was
managed by Roosevelts War Production Board. The
wartime production boom led to full employment, wiping out this vestige of the Great Depression. Indeed, labor
shortages encouraged industry to look for new sources of
workers, nding new roles for women and blacks.[162]
However, the fervor also inspired anti-Japanese sentiment, which was handled by removing everyone of
Japanese descent from the West Coast war zone.[163]
Into the Jaws of Death: The Normandy landings began the Allied Research and development took ight as well, best seen in
march toward Germany from the west.
the Manhattan Project, a secret eort to harness nuclear
[164]
It was exhausting; leisure activities declined sharply. Peo- ssion to produce highly destructive atomic bombs.
ple tolerated the extra work because of patriotism, the The Allies pushed the Germans out of France but faced
pay, and the condence that it was only for the dura- an unexpected counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge in
tion, and life would return to normal as soon as the war December. The nal German eort failed, and, as Alwas won. Most durable goods became unavailable, and lied armies in East and West were converging on Berlin,

7.7

The Cold War, counterculture, and civil rights

25
foundation of the United Nations Security Council.[169]
Though the nation lost more than 400,000 military
personnel,[170] the mainland prospered untouched by the
devastation of war that inicted a heavy toll on Europe
and Asia.
Participation in postwar foreign aairs marked the end
of predominant American isolationism. The awesome
threat of nuclear weapons inspired both optimism and
fear. Nuclear weapons were never used after 1945,
as both sides drew back from the brink and a long
peace characterized the Cold War years, starting with
the Truman Doctrine in May 22, 1947. There were, however, regional wars in Korea and Vietnam.[171]

7.7 The Cold War, counterculture, and

civil rights
Main articles: History of the United States (194564),
History of the United States (196480) and United States
in the 1950s
Following World War II, the United States emerged as

Bronze statue of Eisenhower at Capitol rotunda.[161]

the Nazis hurriedly tried to kill the last remaining Jews.

The western front stopped short, leaving Berlin to the
Soviets as the Nazi regime formally capitulated in May
1945, ending the war in Europe.[165] Over in the Pacic,
the US implemented an island hopping strategy toward
Tokyo, establishing airelds for bombing runs against
mainland Japan from the Mariana Islands and achieving hard-fought victories at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in
1945.[166] Bloodied at Okinawa, the U.S. prepared to
invade Japans home islands when B-29s dropped atomic
bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
forcing the empires surrender in a matter of days and
thus ending World War II.[167] The US occupied Japan
(and part of Germany), sending Douglas MacArthur to
restructure the Japanese economy and political system
along American lines.[168] During the war, Roosevelt
coined the term "Four Powers" to refer four major Allies of World War II, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China, which later became the

President Kennedy's Civil Rights Address, June 11, 1963.

one of the two dominant superpowers, the USSR being

the other. The U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote approved
U.S. participation in the United Nations (UN), which
marked a turn away from the traditional isolationism of
the U.S. and toward increased international involvement.
The primary American goal of 194548 was to rescue
Europe from the devastation of World War II and to contain the expansion of Communism, represented by the
Soviet Union. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 provided

26
military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to counteract the threat of Communist expansion in the Balkans.
In 1948, the United States replaced piecemeal nancial
aid programs with a comprehensive Marshall Plan, which
pumped money into the economy of Western Europe, and
removed trade barriers, while modernizing the managerial practices of businesses and governments.[172]

7 20TH CENTURY
7.7.1 Climax of liberalism

The climax of liberalism came in the mid-1960s with

the success of President Lyndon B. Johnson (196369)
in securing congressional passage of his Great Society programs.[176] They included civil rights, the end of
segregation, Medicare, extension of welfare, federal aid
to education at all levels, subsidies for the arts and humanThe Plans $13 billion budget was in the context of a US
ities, environmental activism, and a series of programs
GDP of $258 billion in 1948 and was in addition to the
designed to wipe out poverty.[177][178] As recent histori$12 billion in American aid given to Europe between the
ans have explained:
end of the war and the start of the Marshall Plan. Soviet
head of state Joseph Stalin prevented his satellite states
Gradually, liberal intellectuals crafted a
from participating, and from that point on, Eastern Eunew
vision for achieving economic and social
rope, with inecient centralized economies, fell further
justice.
The liberalism of the early 1960s
and further behind Western Europe in terms of economic
contained
no hint of radicalism, little dispodevelopment and prosperity. In 1949, the United States,
sition
to
revive
new deal era crusades against
rejecting the long-standing policy of no military alliances
concentrated
economic
power, and no intenin peacetime, formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organition
to
fast
and
class
passions
or redistribute
zation (NATO) alliance, which continues into the 21st
wealth
or
restructure
existing
institutions.
Incentury. In response the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact
[172]
ternationally
it
was
strongly
anti-Communist.
of communist states.
It aimed to defend the free world, to encourIn August 1949 the Soviets tested their rst nuclear
age economic growth at home, and to enweapon, thereby escalating the risk of warfare. Indeed,
sure that the resulting plenty was fairly disthe threat of mutually assured destruction prevented both
tributed. Their agenda-much inuenced by
powers from going too far, and resulted in proxy wars,
Keynesian economic theory-envisioned masespecially in Korea and Vietnam, in which the two
sive public expenditure that would speed ecosides did not directly confront each other.[171] Within
nomic growth, thus providing the public rethe United States, the Cold War prompted concerns
sources to fund larger welfare, housing, health,
about Communist inuence. The unexpected leapfrogand educational programs.[179]
ging of American technology by the Soviets in 1957 with
Sputnik, the rst Earth satellite, began the Space Race,
won by the Americans as Apollo 11 landed astronauts on
the moon in 1969. The angst about the weaknesses of
American education led to large-scale federal support for
science education and research.[173]
In the decades after World War II, the United States
became a global inuence in economic, political, military, cultural, and technological aairs. Beginning in the
1950s, middle-class culture became obsessed with consumer goods. White Americans made up nearly 90% of
the population in 1950.[174]
In 1960, the charismatic politician John F. Kennedy was
elected as the rst and thus far only Roman Catholic
President of the United States. The Kennedy family
brought a new life and vigor to the atmosphere of the
White House. His time in oce was marked by such
notable events as the acceleration of the United States
role in the Space Race, escalation of the American role
in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of
Pigs Invasion, the jailing of Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Birmingham campaign, and the appointment of
his brother Robert F. Kennedy to his Cabinet as Attorney
General. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas,
on November 22, 1963, leaving the nation in profound
shock.[175]

Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., June 22, 1963,
Washington, D.C.

Johnson was rewarded with an electoral landslide in 1964

against conservative Barry Goldwater, which broke the
decades-long control of Congress by the Conservative
coalition. However, the Republicans bounced back in
1966 and elected Richard Nixon in 1968. Nixon largely
continued the New Deal and Great Society programs

7.7

The Cold War, counterculture, and civil rights

27

he inherited; conservative reaction would come with the

election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.[180] Meanwhile, the
American people completed a great migration from farms
into the cities and experienced a period of sustained economic expansion.

ure to honor treaties. One of the most outspoken Native American groups was the American Indian Movement (AIM). In the 1960s, Cesar Chavez began organizing poorly paid Mexican-American farm workers in California. He led a ve-year-long strike by grape pickers.
Then Chvez formed the nations rst successful union
of farm workers. His United Farm Workers of America
7.7.2 Civil Rights Movement
(UFW) faltered after a few years but after Chavez died
in 1993 he became an iconic folk saint in the pantheon
Main article: African-American Civil Rights Movement of Mexican Americans.[184]
(195568)
Starting in the late 1950s, institutionalized racism across
7.7.3 The Womens Movement
Further information: Second-wave feminism
A new consciousness of the inequality of American

Duncan West speaking with Cesar Chavez. The Delano UFW

rally. Duncan represented the Teamsters who were supporiting
the UFW and condeming their IBT leadership for working as
thugs against a fellow union. Duncan and his wife Mary were
the branch organizers of the LA IS.

the United States, but especially in the South, was increasingly challenged by the growing Civil Rights movement. The activism of African-American leaders Rosa
Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. led to the Montgomery
Bus Boycott, which launched the movement. For years
African Americans would struggle with violence against
them[181] but would achieve great steps toward equality
with Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v. Board
of Education and Loving v. Virginia, the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the
Fair Housing Act of 1968, which ended the Jim Crow
laws that legalized racial segregation between whites and
blacks.[182]
Martin Luther King, Jr., who had won the Nobel Peace
Prize for his eorts to achieve equality of the races,
was assassinated in 1968. Following his death others
led the movement, most notably Kings widow, Coretta
Scott King, who was also active, like her husband, in
the Opposition to the Vietnam War, and in the Womens
Liberation Movement. There were 164 riots in 128
American cities in the rst nine months of 1967.[183]
Black Power emerged during the late 1960s and early
1970s. The decade would ultimately bring about positive
strides toward integration, especially in government service, sports, and entertainment. Native Americans turned
to the federal courts to ght for their land rights. They
held protests highlighting the federal governments fail-

Gloria Steinem at a meeting of the Womens Action Alliance,

1972.

women began sweeping the nation, starting with the 1963

publication of Betty Friedan's best-seller, The Feminine
Mystique, which explained how many housewives felt
trapped and unfullled, assaulted American culture for its
creation of the notion that women could only nd fulllment through their roles as wives, mothers, and keepers
of the home, and argued that women were just as able as
men to do every type of job. In 1966 Friedan and others established the National Organization for Women, or
NOW, to act for women as the NAACP did for African
Americans.[144][185]

28

7 20TH CENTURY

Protests began, and the new Womens Liberation Movement grew in size and power, gained much media attention, and, by 1968, had replaced the Civil Rights Movement as the USs main social revolution. Marches, parades, rallies, boycotts, and pickets brought out thousands, sometimes millions. There were striking gains
for women in medicine, law, and business, while only
a few were elected to oce. The Movement was split
into factions by political ideology early on, however (with
NOW on the left, the Womens Equity Action League
(WEAL) on the right, the National Womens Political
Caucus (NWPC) in the center, and more radical groups
formed by younger women on the far left). The proposed United States Navy F-4 Phantom II shadows a Soviet Tu-95 Bear
D aircraft in the early 1970s
Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, passed by
Congress in 1972 was defeated by a conservative coalition mobilized by Phyllis Schlay. They argued that it
degraded the position of the housewife and made young
women susceptible to the military draft.[186][187]
However, many federal laws (i.e., those equalizing pay,
employment, education, employment opportunities, and
credit; ending pregnancy discrimination; and requiring
NASA, the Military Academies, and other organizations
to admit women), state laws (i.e., those ending spousal
abuse and marital rape), Supreme Court rulings (i.e. ruling that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment applied to women), and state ERAs established womens equal status under the law, and social
custom and consciousness began to change, accepting
womens equality. The controversial issue of abortion,
deemed by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right in
Roe v. Wade (1973), is still a point of debate today.[188]

the lives of 58,000 American troops. Nixon manipulated

the erce distrust between the Soviet Union and China
to the advantage of the United States, achieving dtente
(relaxation; ease of tension) with both parties.[190]

The Watergate scandal, involving Nixons cover-up of his

operatives break-in into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate oce complex destroyed his political base, sent many aides to prison, and
forced Nixons resignation on August 9, 1974. He was
succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford. The Fall of
Saigon ended the Vietnam War and resulted in North and
South Vietnam being reunited. Communist victories in
neighboring Cambodia and Laos occurred in the same
7.7.4 The Counterculture Revolution and Cold War year.[190]
Dtente
The OPEC oil embargo marked a long-term economic
transition since, for the rst time, energy prices skyrockMain article: History of the United States (196480)
eted, and American factories faced serious competition
from foreign automobiles, clothing, electronics, and conAmid the Cold War, the United States entered the sumer goods. By the late 1970s the economy suered
Vietnam War, whose growing unpopularity fed al- an energy crisis, slow economic growth, high unemployready existing social movements, including those among ment, and very high ination coupled with high interest
women, minorities, and young people. President Lyndon rates (the term stagation was coined). Since economists
B. Johnson's Great Society social programs and numerous agreed on the wisdom of deregulation, many of the New
rulings by the Warren Court added to the wide range of Deal era regulations were ended, such as in transportasocial reform during the 1960s and 1970s. Feminism and tion, banking, and telecommunications.[191]
the environmental movement became political forces, Jimmy Carter, running as someone who was not a part of
and progress continued toward civil rights for all Amer- the Washington political establishment, was elected presiicans. The Counterculture Revolution swept through the dent in 1976.[192] On the world stage, Carter brokered the
nation and much of the western world in the late sixties Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. In 1979,
and early seventies, further dividing Americans in a cul- Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and
ture war but also bringing forth more liberated social took 66 Americans hostage, resulting in the Iran hostage
views.[189]
crisis. With the hostage crisis and continuing stagation,
Johnson was succeeded in 1969 by Republican Richard
Nixon, who attempted to gradually turn the war over to
the South Vietnamese forces. He negotiated the peace
treaty in 1973 which secured the release of POWs and
led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The war had cost

Carter lost the 1980 election to the Republican Ronald

Reagan.[193] On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carters
term in oce ended, the remaining U.S. captives held at
the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444day hostage crisis.[194]

7.8

7.8

Close of the 20th century

29

Close of the 20th century

Reagans Invasion of Grenada and bombing of Libya were

popular in the US, though his backing of the Contras
rebels was mired in the controversy over the IranContra
Main article: History of the United States (198091)
[201]
Ronald Reagan produced a major realignment with his aair that revealed Reagans poor management style.
Reagan met four times with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who ascended to power in 1985, and their summit
conferences led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty. Gorbachev tried to save Communism in the Soviet Union rst by ending the expensive
arms race with America,[202] then by shedding the East
European empire in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed on
Christmas Day 1991, ending the USSoviet Cold War.
5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate challenges Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall in 1987,
shortly before the end of the Cold War.

1980 and 1984 landslide elections. Reagans economic

policies (dubbed "Reaganomics") and the implementation of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 lowered income taxes from 70% to 28% over the course of
seven years.[195] Reagan continued to downsize government taxation and regulation.[196] The US experienced a
recession in 1982, but the negative indicators reversed,
with the ination rate decreasing from 11% to 2%, the
unemployment rate decreasing from 10.8% in December
1982 to 7.5% in November 1984,[197] and the economic
growth rate increasing from 4.5% to 7.2%.[198]

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

The NASDAQ Composite index swelled with the dot-com bubble

in the optimistic "New Economy". The bubble burst in 2000.

The United States emerged as the worlds sole remaining superpower and continued to intervene in international aairs during the 1990s, including the 1991 Gulf
War against Iraq. Following his election in 1992, President Bill Clinton oversaw one of the longest periods of
economic expansion and unprecedented gains in securities values, a side eect of the digital revolution and new
business opportunities created by the Internet. He also
worked with the Republican Congress to pass the rst balReagan ordered a buildup of the US military, incurring anced federal budget in 30 years.[203]
additional budget decits. Reagan introduced a complicated missile defense system known as the Strategic De- In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Reprefense Initiative (SDI) (dubbed Star Wars by opponents) sentatives on charges of lying about a sexual relationship
in which, theoretically, the U.S. could shoot down mis- with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He was acsiles with laser systems in space. The Soviets reacted quitted by the Senate. The failure of impeachment and
harshly because they thought it violated the 1972 Anti- the Democratic gains in the 1998 election forced House
Gingrich, a Republican, to resign from
Ballistic Missile Treaty, and would upset the balance of Speaker Newt
[203]
Congress.
power by giving the U.S. a major military advantage.
For years Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev argued vehe- The GOP expanded its base throughout the South afmently against SDI. However, by the late 1980s he de- ter 1968 (excepting 1976), largely due to its strength
cided the system would never work and should not be among socially conservative white Evangelical Protesused to block disarmament deals with the U.S.[199] His- tants and traditionalist Roman Catholics, added to its tratorians argue how great an impact the SDI threat had on ditional strength in the business community and suburbs.
the Soviets whether it was enough to force Gorbachev As white Democrats in the South lost dominance of the
to initiate radical reforms, or whether the deterioration Democratic Party in the 1990s, the region took on the
of the Soviet economy alone forced the reforms. There two-party apparatus which characterized most of the nais agreement that the Soviets realized they were well be- tion. The Republican Partys central leader by 1980 was
hind the Americans in military technology, that to try to Ronald Reagan, whose conservative policies called for recatch up would be very expensive, and that the military duced government spending and regulation, lower taxes,
expenses were already a very heavy burden slowing down and a strong anti-Soviet foreign policy. His iconic status in the party persists into the 21st century, as practheir economy.[200]

30

tically all GOP leaders acknowledge his stature. Social

scientists Theodore Caplow et al. argue, The Republican party, nationally, moved from right-center toward the
center in 1940s and 1950s, then moved right again in the
1970s and 1980s. They add: The Democratic party, nationally, moved from left-center toward the center in the
1940s and 1950s, then moved further toward the rightcenter in the 1970s and 1980s.[204]
The presidential election in 2000 between George W.
Bush and Al Gore was one of the closest in US history
and helped lay the seeds for political polarization to come.
The vote in the decisive state of Florida was extremely
close and produced a dramatic dispute over the counting of votes. The US Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore
ended the recount with a 54 vote. That meant Bush,
then in the lead, carried Florida and the election.[205] Including 2000, the Democrats outpolled the Republicans
in the national vote in every election from 1992 to 2012,
except for 2004.

21ST CENTURY

On September 11, 2001 (9/11), the United States was

struck by a terrorist attack when 19 al-Qaeda hijackers
commandeered four airliners to be used in suicide attacks and intentionally crashed two into both twin towers
of the World Trade Center and the third into the Pentagon, killing 2,937 victims 206 aboard the three airliners, 2,606 who were in the World Trade Center and on
the ground, and 125 who were in the Pentagon.[206] The
fourth plane was re-taken by the passengers and crew of
the aircraft. While they were not able to land the plane
safely, they were able to re-take control of the aircraft and
crash it into an empty eld in Pennsylvania, killing all 44
people including the four terrorists on board, thereby saving whatever target the terrorists were aiming for. All in
all, a total of 2,977 victims perished in the attacks. In response, President George W. Bush on September 20 announced a War on Terror. On October 7, 2001, the
United States and NATO then invaded Afghanistan to
oust the Taliban regime, which had provided safe haven
to al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.[207]

21st century

The federal government established new domestic eorts

to prevent future attacks. The controversial USA PATRIOT Act increased the governments power to moniMain article: History of the United States (1991present)
tor communications and removed legal restrictions on information sharing between federal law enforcement and
intelligence services. A cabinet-level agency called the
Department of Homeland Security was created to lead
8.1 9/11 and the War on Terror
and coordinate federal counter-terrorism activities.[208]
Some of these anti-terrorism eorts, particularly the
Main articles: September 11 attacks, War on Terror and US governments handling of detainees at the prison at
Nuclear 9/11
Guantanamo Bay, led to allegations against the US government of human rights violations.[209][210]
In 2003, from March 19 to May 1, the United States
launched an invasion of Iraq, which led to the collapse
of the Iraq government and the eventual capture of Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein, with whom the US had longstanding tense relations. The reasons for the invasion
cited by the Bush administration included the spreading
of democracy, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction[211] (a key demand of the UN as well, though
later investigations found parts of the intelligence reports
to be inaccurate),[212] and the liberation of the Iraqi peoThe former World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan ple. Despite some initial successes early in the invaduring September 11 attacks in 2001
sion, the continued Iraq War fueled international protests
and gradually saw domestic support decline as many people began to question whether or not the invasion was
worth the cost.[213][214] In 2007, after years of violence
by the Iraqi insurgency, President Bush deployed more
troops in a strategy dubbed "the surge". While the death
toll decreased, the political stability of Iraq remained in
doubt.[215]
In 2008, the unpopularity of President Bush and the Iraq
war, along with the 2008 nancial crisis, led to the election of Barack Obama, the rst African-American President of the United States.[216] After his election, Obama
One World Trade Center, built in its place

8.3

Recent events

31

reluctantly continued the war eort in Iraq until August

31, 2010, when he declared that combat operations had
ended. However, 50,000 American soldiers and military personnel were kept in Iraq to assist Iraqi forces,
help protect withdrawing forces, and work on counterterrorism until December 15, 2011, when the war was
declared formally over and the last troops left the country.[217] At the same time, Obama increased American
involvement in Afghanistan, starting a surge strategy using an additional 30,000 troops, while proposing to begin
withdrawing troops sometime in December 2014. With
regards to Guantanamo Bay, President Obama forbade
torture but in general retained Bushs policy regarding
the Guantanamo detainees, while also proposing that the
prison eventually be closed.[218][219]
In May 2011, after nearly a decade in hiding, the founder
and leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was killed in
Pakistan in a raid conducted by US naval special forces
acting under President Obamas direct orders. While Al
Qaeda was near collapse in Afghanistan, aliated organizations continued to operate in Yemen and other remote
areas as the CIA used drones to hunt down and remove
its leadership.[220][221]
The Boston Marathon Bombing was a bombing incident,
followed by subsequent related shootings, that occurred
when two pressure cooker bombs exploded during the
Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. The bombs exploded about 12 seconds and 210 yards (190 m) apart at
2:49 pm EDT, near the marathons nish line on Boylston
Street. They killed 3 people and injured an estimated 264
others.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - formerly known
as Al-Qaeda in Iraq - rose to prominence in September
2014. In addition to taking control of much of Western
Iraq and Eastern Syria, ISIS also beheaded three journalists, two American and one British. These events lead to
a major military oensive by the USA and its allies in the
region.

Lehman Brothers (headquarters pictured) led for bankruptcy in

September 2008 at the height of the U.S. nancial crisis.

danger.[225] Starting in October the federal government

lent $245 billion to nancial institutions through the
Troubled Asset Relief Program[226] which was passed by
bipartisan majorities and signed by Bush.[227]

Following his election victory by a wide electoral margin

in November 2008, Bushs successor - Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009, which was a $787 billion economic stimulus
aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening recession. Obama, like Bush, took steps to rescue the
auto industry and prevent future economic meltdowns.
On December 28, 2014, President Obama ocially These included a bailout of General Motors and Chrysler,
ended the combat mission in Afghanistan and promised putting ownership temporarily in the hands of the governprogram which tema withdrawal of all remaining troops at the end of 2016 ment, and the "cash for clunkers"
[228]
porarily
boosted
new
car
sales.
with the exception of the embassy guards.[222]
The recession ocially ended in June 2009, and the economy slowly began to expand once again.[229] The unem8.2 The Great Recession
ployment rate peaked at 10.1% in October 2009 after
surging from 4.7% in November 2007, and returned to
Main article: Great Recession
5.0% as of October 2015. However, overall economic
In September 2008, the United States, and most of Eu- growth has remained weaker in the 2010s compared to
rope, entered the longest postWorld War II recession, expansions in previous decades.[230][231][232]
often called the Great Recession.[223][224] Multiple
overlapping crises were involved, especially the housing
market crisis, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil 8.3 Recent events
prices, an automotive industry crisis, rising unemployment, and the worst nancial crisis since the Great De- From 2009 to 2010, the 111th Congress passed mapression. The nancial crisis threatened the stability of jor legislation such as the Patient Protection and Afthe entire economy in September 2008 when Lehman fordable Care Act, the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform
Brothers failed and other giant banks were in grave and Consumer Protection Act[233] and the Don't Ask,

32

9 SEE ALSO
unions. In June 2015, the United States Supreme Court
legalized gay marriage nationally in the case of Obergefell
v. Hodges.
Political debate has continued over issues such as tax
reform, immigration reform, income inequality and US
foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly with regards to global terrorism, the rise of the Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant, and an accompanying climate of
Islamophobia.[239]

President Barack Obama signs the Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act.

Don't Tell Repeal Act, which were signed into law by

President Obama.[234] Following the 2010 midterm elections, which resulted in a Republican-controlled House of
Representatives and a Democratic-controlled Senate,[235]
Senate and
Congress presided over a period of elevated gridlock and Historical graph of political party control of the[240][241][242]
House of Representatives as well as the Presidency
heated debates over whether or not raise the debt ceiling, extend tax cuts for citizens making over $250,000
annually, and many other key issues.[236] These ongoing debates led to President Obama signing the Budget
Control Act of 2011. In the Fall of 2012, Mitt Romney 9 See also
challenged Barack Obama for the Presidency. Following
Obamas reelection in November 2012, Congress passed
American urban history
the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 - which resulted in an increase in taxes primarily on those earn Colonial history of the United States
ing the most money. Congressional gridlock continued
as Congressional Republicans call for the repeal of the
History of agriculture in the United States
Patient Protection and Aordable Care Act - popularly
known as Obamacare - along with other various de History of education in the United States
mands, resulted in the rst government shutdown since
the Clinton administration and almost led to the rst de History of immigration to the United States
fault on U.S. debt since the 19th century. As a result of
growing public frustration with both parties in Congress
History of religion in the United States
since the beginning of the decade, Congressional approval ratings fell to record lows, with only 11% of Amer History of the Southern United States
icans approving as of October 2013.[237]
History of women in the United States
Other major events that have occurred during the 2010s
include the rise of new political movements, such as the
conservative Tea Party movement and the liberal Occupy
movement. There was also unusually severe weather during the early part of the decade. In 2012, over half the
country experienced record drought and Hurricane Sandy
caused massive damage to coastal areas of New York and
New Jersey.
The ongoing debate over the issue of rights for the LGBT
community, most notably that of same-sex marriage, began to shift in favor of same-sex couples, and has been reected in dozens of polls released in the early part of the
decade.[238] In 2012, President Obama becoming the rst
president to openly support same-sex marriage, and the
2013 Supreme Court decision in the case of United States
v. Windsor provided for federal recognition of same-sex

List of historians, inclusive of most major historians

List of history journals#United States and Canada
List of Presidents of the United States
Military history of the United States
Outline of United States history
Politics of the United States
Territorial evolution of the United States
Territories of the United States

33

10

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11

Textbooks

Alexander, Ruth M. and Mary Beth Norton, Major Problems in American Womens History (4th ed.
2006)
Carnes, Mark C., and John A. Garraty, The American Nation: A History of the United States (14th ed.
2011); university and AP textbook
Hamby, Alonzo L. (2010). Outline of U.S. History.
U.S. Department of State.
Divine, Robert A. et al. America Past and Present
(8th ed. 2011), university textbook
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History
(3rd ed. 2011), university textbook

Gerber, David A. American Immigration: A Very

Short Introduction (2011)
Goldeld, David. ed. Encyclopedia of American
Urban History (2 vol 2006); 1056pp;
Gray, Edward G. ed. The Oxford Handbook of the
American Revolution (2012)
Holloway, Vanessa. Getting Away With Murder: The
Twentieth-Century Struggle for Civil Rights in the
U.S. Senate (2014)
Holloway, Vanessa. In Search of Federal Enforcement: The Moral Authority of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Integrity of the Black Ballot, 1870-1965
(2015)

Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of American

History (2010)

Horton, James Oliver and Lois E. Horton. Hard

Road to Freedom, Volume 2: The Story of African
America (2 vol. 2002)

Kennedy, David M.; Cohen, Lizabeth (2012). The

American Pageant: A History of the Republic (15th
ed.). Boston: Houghton Miin., university textbook

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought:

The Transformation of America, 18151848 (Oxford History of the United States) (2009), Pulitzer
Prize

Schweikart, Larry, and Dave Dougherty. A Patriots

History of the Modern World, Vol. I: From Americas
Exceptional Ascent to the Atomic Bomb: 1898-1945;
Vol. II: From the Cold War to the Age of Entitlement,
1945-2012 (2 vol. 2013), a view from the right

Hornsby Jr., Alton. A Companion to African American History (2008)

Tindall, George B., and David E. Shi. America: A

Narrative History (9th ed. 2012), university textbook

Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 19291945 (Oxford History of the United States) (2001), Pulitzer
Prize

Zinn, Howard (2003). A Peoples History of the

United States. HarperPerennial Modern Classics., a
view from the left

12

Further reading

Agnew, Jean-Christophe, and Roy Rosenzweig, eds.

A Companion to Post-1945 America (2006)
Anderson, Fred, ed. The Oxford Companion to
American Military History (2000)
Boehm, Lisa Krisso, and Steven Hunt Corey.
Americas Urban History (2014); University textbook; see website
Diner, Hasia, ed. Encyclopedia of American
Womens History (2010)
Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of
Women in America (1997) excerpt and text search
Fiege, Mark. The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States (2012) 584 pages

Kazin, Michael, et al. eds. The Concise Princeton

Encyclopedia of American Political History (2011)

Kirkendall, Richard S. A Global Power: America

Since the Age of Roosevelt (2nd ed. 1980) university textbook 194580 full text online free
Lancaster, Bruce, Bruce Catton, and Thomas Fleming. The American Heritage History of the American
Revolution (2004), very well illustrated
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The
Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)
(2003), Pulitzer Prize
Middleton, Richard, and Anne Lombard. Colonial
America: A History to 1763 (4th ed. 2011)
Milner, Clyde A., Carol A. O'Connor, and Martha
A. Sandweiss, eds. The Oxford History of the American West (1996)
Nugent, Walter. Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction (2009)
Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United
States, 19451974 (Oxford History of the United
States) (1997)

40

13

Patterson, James T. Restless Giant: The United States

from Watergate to Bush v. Gore (Oxford History of
the United States) (2007)
Perry, Elisabeth Israels, and Karen Manners Smith,
eds. The Gilded Age & Progressive Era: A Student
Companion (2006)
Pole, Jack P. and J.R. Pole. A Companion to the
American Revolution (2003)
Resch, John, ed. Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the Homefront (4 vol 2004)
Shlaes, Amity (2008). The Forgotten Man: A New
History of the Great Depression. New York City,
U.S.: HarperPerennial. ISBN 978-0-06-093642-6.
Slotten, Hugh Richard, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine,
and Technology (2014), 1456 pp
Taylor, Alan. Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction (2012) 168pp
Thernstrom, Stephan, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of
American Ethnic Groups (1980)
Troy, Gil, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., eds. History of American Presidential Elections, 17892008
(2011) 3 vol; detailed analysis of each election, with
primary documents
Vickers, Daniel, ed.
America (2006)

A Companion to Colonial

Wilentz, Sean (2008). The Age of Reagan: A History, 19742008.

Wood, Gordon S. Empire of Liberty: A History of
the Early Republic, 17891815 (Oxford History of
the United States) (2009)
Zophy, Angela Howard, ed. Handbook of American
Womens History. (2nd ed. 2000). 763 pp. articles
by experts

12.1

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Commager, Henry Steele and Milton Cantor. Documents of American History Since 1898 (8th ed. 2
vol 1988)
Engel, Jerey A. et al. eds. America in the World:
A History in Documents from the War with Spain to
the War on Terror (2014) 416pp with 200 primary
sources, 1890s-2013
Troy, Gil, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., eds. History of American Presidential Elections, 17892008
(2011) 3 vol; detailed analysis of each election, with
primary documents

EXTERNAL LINKS

13 External links
US History map animation Animated map of the
US, showing territorial expansion and statehood by
year (Quick Maps, Theodora.com).
US History map animation Animated map of the
US, showing territorial expansion and statehood by
year (Houston Institute for Culture).
Edsitement, History & Social Studies, lesson plans
from the National Endowment for the Humanities
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History,
includes curriculum modules covering the Revolution to the present
BackStory, American history public radio show
hosted by Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh, and Peter Onuf
Early 20th century USA High Quality photographs
Shapell Manuscript Foundation, Digitalized Primary Sources including Ocial and Personal Correspondence of Presidents, Public Figures, and U.S.
Soldiers from 1786
Historical Hunt: US History - Learning and Research
America Invades: How We've Invaded Or Been
Militarily Involved With Almost Every County On
Earth

41

14
14.1

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Text

History of the United States Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States?oldid=701902800 Contributors: Fredbauder, Fredbauder, Eloquence, Mav, Taw, Jeronimo, Alex.tan, Andre Engels, Eclecticology, Scipius, Fredbauder, Rmhermen, Enchanter,
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Images

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Images

File:1622_massacre_jamestown_de_Bry.jpg Source:
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jamestown_de_Bry.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.virginiaplaces.org/graphics/1622attack.jpg Original artist:
Matthus Merian the Elder
File:Advantages.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Advantages.jpg License: PD Contributors:
Own work
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