Chapter 16

Lincolns 10% plan

In December 1863, Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and

Reconstruction which enabled the southern states to rejoin the Union only
if at least 10% take an oath of allegiance to the Union and accept
emancipation before being able to create a loyal state government. The
plan excluded Confederate government officials, army, naval, military and
civil officers, who had to apply for presidential pardons. It also excluded
blacks. Lincoln wanted to win allegiance of southern Unionists and build a
southern Republican Party.
Radical Republicans envisioned a slower readmission process. Most
Republicans agreed Lincolns 10 percent plan was too weak, and passed
the Wade-Davis bill, which provided each ex-Confederate state with a
military governor. After 50% of eligible voters took an oath, delegates
could be elected to a state convention that would repeal secession and
abolish slavery. To qualify as a voter, a southerner would have to take a
second oath, swearing he never voluntarily supported the Confederacy.
This plan also did not include black suffrage.

Andrew Johnson

Johnson sought to destroy the planter aristocracy; he hoped that the fall of
slavery would injure southern aristocrats. Johnson announced a new plan
for the restoration of the South in May 1865: he promised pardons to
almost all southerners who pledged allegiance. Proposed by Congress early
in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in December and
abolished slavery. All seven Lower South states passed Black Codes to
replace the slave codes. Under the Thirteenth Amendment, blacks were
given basic rights. But they could not serve as jury, marry other races, or
testify against whites. Some states segregated blacks. All codes effectively
barred former slaves from leaving the plantation. Most states required
annual contracts between landowners and black agricultural workers, who
could be arrested without lawful employment and forced into labor. Many
codes clauses never took effect as the Union army and Freedmens Bureau
swiftly suspended the enforcement of racially discriminant provisions.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

The moderate Republicans supported two proposals drafted by Senator

Lyman Trumbull, to invalidate the black codes:
1. The first proposal, the Freedmens Bureau Bill, would continue the
Freedmens Bureau for 3 more years and expand its power: allow
special military courts, invalidate forced labor contracts (Johnson
vetoed the bill in Feb 1866)
2. Congress passed a second measure proposed by Trumbull, which would
give blacks the same civil rights as other citizens. The bill also allowed
federal intervention in the states to ensure black rights in court
(Johnson vetoed it because it would be in favor of the colored)
Civil Rights Act of 1866 became the first major law to have passed over a
presidential veto. Congress enacted the Supplementary Freedmens
Bureau Act over Johnsons veto as well. The president insisted that both
bills were illegitimate because southerners had been shut out of Congress.
Johnson alienated the majority Moderate Republicans and united them with
the Radicals.

The Fourteenth Amendment, 1866

Adopted by Congress in April, the Fourteenth Amendment declared:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the US as citizens of their nation and
state and no state could cut short rights or deny equal protection of law
to any citizens.
2. The amendment guaranteed a reduction in representation (in Congress)
to a state that denies suffrage to any males.
3. The amendment disqualified all prewar officeholders who had
supported the Confederacy from taking state and federal office.

The Amendment was denied by Johnson, Democrats, and southerners.

Republicans carried the congressional elections of 1866 in a landslide. They won
almost 2/3 of the house and 4/5 of the Senate. The Republicans could enact the
Fourteenth Amendment and also their own Reconstruction program.
Congressional Reconstruction, 1866-1867

Radical Republicans called for black suffrage, public schools, confiscation

of Confederate estates, and an extended military occupation of the South.
The Moderates adopted parts of the Radicals plans and passed the
Reconstruction Act of 1867 in February. On March 2, Congress passed the
act over Johnsons veto. The Reconstruction Act invalidated the state
governments formed under Lincoln/Johnson, accepting only TN back into
the Union. The law divided the other 10 Confederate states into 5
temporary military districts. Voters could elect delegates to a convention
that would write a state constitution granting black suffrage, which had to
be ratified by Congress and voters. For any state to be readmitted they
had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and once the amendment
became part of the federal Constitution, Congress would readmit the state
into the Union. The Act was quite radical as it enfranchised blacks and
disfranchised many ex-Confederates.

The Fifteenth Amendment

To enfranchise northern and border-state blacks and protect against repeal

of black suffrage in the South, Congress proposed the Fifteenth
Amendment, prohibiting the denial of suffrage because of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude. The South found loopholes that could be
used. Property requirements and literacy tests were used to deny blacks
their vote.

Woman Suffrage

A small group of abolitionists had sought to revive womens rights. Most

Radicals did not side with woman suffrage and only advocated black
suffrage. Some argued that black suffrage would pave the way for the
womens vote. Frederick Douglas stated that blacks deserved priority, for
this was the only chance they would get. Susan B. Anthony disagreed. With
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments using the word male and
failing to prohibit denial of suffrage on account of sex, Stanton contended
that an aristocracy of sex increased womens disadvantages. The
Fifteenth Amendment saw womens rights advocates split into the
American Woman Suffrage Association and the more radical National

Woman Suffrage Association. The American Association kept alliance

with male abolitionists, while the National Association denounced once
male allies and promoted a woman suffrage amendment. The two groups
vied for support, but failed to sway legislators.
Southern Republicans:
1. Northern carpetbaggers came south seeking wealth and power; they
include many former Union soldiers who hoped to buy land, open
factories, build railroads, or enjoy the warmer climate; they were
committed to the black suffrage and black rights
2. Southern scalawags poor and ignorant whites, who wanted to profit
from Republican rule; they included entrepreneurs who supported party
policies like the banking system and high protective tariffs; most of
them were small farmers from the mountain regions; unlike
carpetbaggers, they didnt commit to black right and black suffrage
because they came from places with small black population and didnt
care if blacks voted or not
3. Freedmen backbone of southern Republicanism; Republican rule
lasted longest in the states with largest black populations; freedmen
held one I five political offices; blacks served in all southern
legislatures; no black became governors; black officeholders formed a
political elite and they differed from black voters in background,
education, wealth, and they often had different priorities (most cared
about their economic future, acquiring land; officeholders cared about
attaining equal rights)
Ku Klux Klan

As soon as congressional Reconstruction took effect, former Confederates

began a troublesome campaign to undermine it. The Democrats remobilized after readmission into the Union, and then swung into action,
calling themselves Conservatives in order to attract former Whigs.
Vigilante efforts to reduce black votes also helped the Democrats
campaigns. Vigilante groups sprang up in all parts of the South. One group,
the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), rose to dominance. Begun by six Confederate war
veterans as a social club in TN, the Klan, distinguished by elaborate rituals,
costumes, and passwords, expanded throughout the south. By 1868,
Klansmen embarked on night raids, intimidating black voters. The KKK had
turned into a widespread terrorist movement that sought to suppress black
voting. Its members attacked blacks, white Republicans, Freedmens
Bureau officials, and more. KKK united southern whites of different classes
under vigilantism.
In May 1870, Congress passed the First Enforcement Act to protect black
voters, but witnesses, afraid of vigilantes, did not testify. Local juries
refused to convict. The Second Enforcement Act (Feb 1871) provided
federal supervision of elections. Then, in April, the Third Enforcement Act
(also known as Ku Klux Klan Act), strengthened punishments and
empowered the president to use federal troops. By 1872, the federal govt.
had suppressed the Klan, but vigilantism had served its purpose.

Sharecropping

Freedmen wanted to be landowners, but only some obtained land with the
help of the Union army or the Freedmens Bureau. The reason why they
couldnt obtain land is because most of them lacked the capital to buy land

and the equipment to work it; white southerners opposed selling land to
blacks, and planters wanted to preserve a black labor force.
Under labor contracts, freedmen received wages, housing, food and
clothing in exchange for field work and Freedmens Bureau urged freedmen
to sign labor contracts and tried to ensure adequate wages. Planters
competed for black workers but freedmen didnt intend to work as long or
as hard as they had under slavery; they had the right to enter or refuse to
enter into contracts.
Planters and freedmen came up with the new labor scheme, which divided
the plantation into small tenancies; under sharecropping system,
landowners divide large plantations into farms of 30-50 acres, which they
rent to freedmen under annual leases for a share of the crop, usually half.
For freedmen it represented a step toward independence. Planters had
power over tenants; they could expel undesirable tenants; planters
retained control of their land and in some cases extended their holdings.
By 1880, 80% of the land in cotton-producing states had been subdivided
into tenancies, most farmed by black and white sharecroppers.

Chapter 19
Immigrants

Immigrants came from England, Germany, and Wales, Scotland and Ireland
and the majority settled in cities. Cities were a symbol of opportunity for
newcomers, they promised good wages and bread range of jobs.
Immigrants came by crowded steamships which had poor food, lack of
privacy and sanitary facilities. There was a facility for admitting immigrants
at Castle Garden, on Manhattan Island, and Ellis Island in New York. Many
lived near people from the same region, near friends and relatives. They
were treated badly by the white native-born Americans show didnt like
their social customs and worried about their growing influence. Italians,
Mexicans, blacks, and Chinese lived mostly in ghettos, rundown slum
neighborhoods that were created when landlords created tenements and
packed too many people in. most stayed there until they could afford to
move but blacks, due to racial issues and prejudice, were trapped there.
Wealthy Americans lived in suburbs, far away from the slums; their houses
all looked alike.

Victorian View

Victorian view rested on 3 assumptions:

1. People could improve themselves many Americans wanted to reform
practice they saw as evil or undesirable
2. Work had social value hard work developed self-discipline and helped
advance the progress of the nation
3. It put importance on good manners and cultivation of literature and art
as marks of civilized society

Victorian code was used to increase the sense of class differences. Victorian view
gave women new role within the home as promotes of the so-called cult of
domesticity which idealized the home as the womens sphere. Women devoted
their time and energy to decorating their homes.
Salvation Army

One of the most effective agencies was the Salvation Army, a church
established along pseudo-military lines in 1865 by Methodist minister
General William Booth. The Salvation Army sent uniformed volunteers to
the US in 1880, provided shelter, food and temporary employment, and
carried the message of morality, hard work and self-discipline to the poor.

Settlement-house Movement

Jane Addams opened Hull House in 1889, the first experiment in the
settlement-house approach. She turned Hull House into an immigrant
social center. She invited them to plays, sponsored art projects, held
classes in English, cooking, dressmaking and encouraged them to preserve
their traditional crafts. She also set kindergarten, laundry, employment
bureau and day nursery.

Chapter 20
The Money Question

In the 1870s politicians confronted a tough economic problem: how to

create an adequate money supply without producing inflation. Many
believed the only trustworthy money was hard-money. In 1860, all
federally issued currency was gold, silver, or Treasury notes redeemable
for gold/silver. Creditors believed this economic stability was good,
whereas debtors wished for the money supply to be extended. The
Greenback Party, founded in 1877, advocated an expanded money supply
and other measures that would benefit workers and farmers. With the labor
unrest of 1877, they were able to gain 14 seats in Congress in the midterm
elections of 1878. As prosperity returned, the Greenback Party faded.
However, the money question remained. In 1873, Congress had
demonetized silver, rarely produced in the US. However, new silver
discoveries saw debtors demand the govt. to resume circulation of silver.
Silver advocates tried a new approach in the Sherman Silver Purchase Act
(1890), which instructed the Treasury to purchase, mint, and issue silver as
well as Treasury notes redeemable in gold/silver.

The Grunge Movement

Settling in the West proved far riskier than many anticipated, with horrible
grasshopper infestations and tumbling wheat prices. Panic struck in 1873.
When relief did not come, farmers set up a cooperative Grange or Patrons
of Husbandry. The Grange offered information, emotional support, and
social gatherings. Grangers endorsed the Jacksonian belief that farmers
formed the true backbone of society. The Grange negotiated discounts and
set up cash-only co-ops. They also tried to eliminate the middlemen who

made money at their expense and attacked railroads that gave discounts
to large shippers and charged higher rates for short runs. Grange soon
faltered as laws they had set were repealed and the cash-only co-ops
failed (farmers rarely had cash on their hands). When the prices briefly
revived in 1878, the Grange membership fell.
Southern Alliance leader Tom Watson urged blacks and whites to act
together. Mary Lease was a fiery alliance orator, and other women rallied
to the new movement, founding the National Womens Alliance in 1891.
The movement swelled. The Alliances loosely merged and gained several
seats and positions in the 1890 midterm elections. Their objective was to
provide for government action on behalf of farmers and workers by
lowering tariffs, a graduated income tax, public ownership of RRs, funding
for irrigation research, and coinage of silver. It also advocated direct
popular election of senators. In February 1892, alliance leaders organized
the Peoples Party of the US, known as the Populist Party.

Expansionist Sentiment

America is all about expansion. First European settlers colonized the

Atlantic coast, and by the 1840s were completing Manifest Destiny. The
impulse faded during the Civil War and Industrial years, but revived after
1880. Many business leaders believed that continues domestic prosperity
required overseas markets; foreign markets offered safety valve.
Alfred T. Mahan equated sea power with national greatness and urged a
U.S. naval buildup. A strong navy would require bases abroad, and
therefore naval advocates supported expanding, esp. into the Pacific
Islands.
Religious leaders proclaimed Americas mission to spread Christianity.
Expansionists like Roosevelt argued that war would test American
manhood, restore chivalry and honor and create a new generation of civicminded Americans.
The fishing rights dispute in the North Atlantic between Great Britain and
America was resolved in 1898, but by then attention had already shifted to
Latin America, where Venezuela and British Guiana underwent a border
dispute, which was worsened after discovery of gold.
The US navy focused on the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific, but so did
Great Britain and Germany. Ensuing negotiations established a 3-way
protectorate. Then attention shifted to Hawaiian Islands, which had
strategic and economic significance for the United States. Under an 1887
treaty, the US built a naval base at Pearl Harbor. In 1890, pressured by
domestic sugar growers, framers of the McKinley Tariff eliminated the dutyfree status of Hawaii. Planters proclaimed independence, and asked for
American annexation. Hawaii became a territory in 1898 with McKinley in
office, and 61 years later became the 50th state.
Expansionists turned their attention to the Spanish colony of Cuba. In
1895, an anti-Spanish rebellion broke out in Cuba, but this revolt gained
little attention from Washington or American businesses. However, spurred
by two competing newspapers - William Randolph Hearsts The Journals
yellow kid comic strip and Joseph Pulitzers World American sympathy
for Cubans in concentration camps grew. These irritations turned into
outrage on Feb 15, 1898 when the US battleship Maine exploded, killing
266. Reports grew of a Spanish mine, and despite concessions from
Spain, McKinley declared war on April 11.

Spanish-American War

Senator Henry Teller introduced the Teller Amendment, which promised

that the US would leave the island alone once it gained independence. The
war with Spain involved only a few days of combat. On July 1, American
troops seized El Caney Hill and San Juan Hill overlooking Santiago. Then,
on July 3, the Spanish failed to pierce through the American blockade,
costing many Spanish lives. In Spain-owned Philippines, George Dewey
destroyed the Spanish fleet on May 1, and took the capital, Manila, in Aug
13.
Many back home praised the splendid little war, but many who served in
Cuba were ill trained and poorly equipped.
Black troops, 15% of the troops in Cuba, faced segregation and
discrimination.
The battered Spanish sought armistice on July 17, and the peace treaty
signed in Paris that December ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and
Guam to the US.
Under the 1901 Platt Amendment, Cuba would agree not to make any
treaty with foreign powers that limited their independence and not borrow
beyond its means.

Chapter 22
Open Door and Boxer Rebellion

Europeans began forcibly securing Chinese trading rights. Russia won the
right to build a RR across Manchuria in 1896, while Germany secured a
lease on a Chinese port in 1897. The British also won various concessions.
In Sept 1899, US Secretary of State John Hay asked the European powers
not to interfere with American trading rights in China, and requested them
to open the ports in their spheres of influence to all countries. The six
major EU nations gave noncommittal answers, but Hay announced anyway
that they had accepted the Open Door policy. Hays policy showed
American commercial considerations in foreign policy, as the US did not
desire territory, but rather open markets where they could export goods.
Anti-foreign feeling was growing in China. In 1899, a secret anti-foreign
society known as the Harmonious Righteous Fists, Boxers, killed thousands
of foreigners and Chinese Christians. In June 1900, these so-called Boxers
took the Chinese capital and besieged foreign districts. This resulted in an
international army that marched on Beijing. The Boxers were driven back.
The defeat of the Boxers weakened the Chinese govt. further. This led to
US fears that EU powers would carve China up for themselves, and Hay
issued a second series of Open Door notes in 1900 in which America was
determined to preserve Chinas territory. In general, China remained open
to US business and religion.

WWI

Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy

Allies: Great Britain, Russia, France
Austria-Hungary took over Bosnia in 1908 which alarmed Russia and Serbia
who wanted to expand to Bosnia. Expansion, modernization and military
power were goals of Berlin.
When Franz Ferdinand of Austria was visiting Bosnia with his wife in June
1914 they were assassinated by a Bosnian Serb gunman. After that Austria
declared war on Serbia and Russia mobilized the war. Germany declared
war on Russia and France. Great Britain declared war on Germany.

America was neutral in 1914, but in 1917 America went to war because if
Germany dominated the world, international democracy and capitalism
would be impossible, to shape the peace America would have to enter the
war.
1914-1915 Britain declared the North Sea a war zone, planted explosive
mines, blockaded all German ports, chocking off Germanys imports.
In 1915, German U-boat san the British liner Lusitania and some of people
killed were Americans. Wilson demanded that Berlin stop unrestricted
submarine warfare and pay reparations for U.S. deaths, so Germany
ordered U-boats to spare passenger ships. In 1916, German submarine
sank a French passenger ship and America threatened to break diplomatic
relations.
In 1917, Germany continued unrestricted submarine warfare; Germanys
military leaders believed that even if America entered the war, full-scale Uboat warfare could bring victory.
Key factors that made America enter the war: German attacks on American
shipping, U.S. economic investment in the Allied cause, and American
cultural link to the Allies.
Selective Service Act, 1917, required all men between 21 and 30 years of
age to register with local draft boards. Recruits got their first taste of army
life in home-front training camps; they also underwent intelligence testing.
W.E.B. Du Bois urged African-Americans to support war.
The final Allied offensive began on July 18, 1918, when U.S. soldiers joined
the Allied drive to push Germans back from the Marne. Within 4 days, the
German salient was closed.
The wars last battle began on September 26 as Americans joined to drive
the Germans from Meuse River and the Argonne Forest. Americans
endured filth, vermin, etc. The AEF was assigned to cut a major German
supply route but in the way lay 3 German trenches, called Stellungen. But
the AEF overran the German trenches and in November the SedanMezieres Railroad was cut.
WW1 benefited the US economy, with work force expanding and prices as
well as wages rising. Samuel Gompers even urged workers not to strike
during the war. Cigarettes, which soldiers could carry readily, increased by
three times. Farmers saw a golden age as European farm production was
jeopardized. Agricultural prices more than doubled between 1913 and
1918.
Economic opportunity coupled with less intense racism swelled northern
cities. Blacks brought with them their social institutions, most notably the
church. The NAACP also doubled its membership during the war. WW1 also
provided women with more opportunity.
In 1919, pressured by pro-suffrage petitions, both House and Senate
passed the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote, in
1919. On the other hand, hopes that the war would better womens status
permanently failed. When males came back, women were fired and
replaced by men.
Wilson, in Jan 1918, summed up US war aims in 14 points. The first 8 dealt
with territorial settlements; the ninth insisted colonized peoples interests
are taken into account; the remaining 5 dealt with Wilsons larger post-war
vision: free navigation, trade, reduced arms, negotiated treaties, and the
League of Nations.
In Oct 1918, as Allied forces pushed Germans back, the new German
Republic proposed an armistice. The armistice was signed on Nov 11, 1918
and paved way for a peace conference.

The peace conference took place in Versailles (near Paris). The Europeans
represented nations that had suffered greatly. Eventually, the peace treaty
was forced down Germanys throat. They lost an eighth of their territory,
tagged $56m in reparations, and was forced to admit full responsibility for
war.

Chapter 23

Assembly-line techniques originated at the Ford plants where workers

stood in place and performed repetitive tasks as chains conveyed the
partly assembled vehicles past them. Managers discouraged individual
initiative, even talking or laughter could distract the workers from their
task. Work became a routine.
Urbanization affected Americans in different ways. Blacks migrated toward
cities. Thanks to laborsaving appliances like gas stoves, electronic irons,
refrigerators, washing machines and vacuum cleaners, life for women who
had to take care of the house became easier.
Automobile had the biggest social impact. It brought families together
since family vacations became more common. Young people used it to go
to the movies, attend distant dances or park in lovers lane. Middle and
upper class women could now drive to work, attend mitting, visit friends.
For farm families it offered easier access to neighbors and cities. Cars
celebrated freedom.
In1922 radio fever griped America. In 1926 three corporations formed the
first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), The
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) followed in 1827. Americans laughed
at the same jokes, heard the same news and commercials.
The jazz age took many forms. Young people enjoyed freedom more. They
threw parties, drank liquor, flocked to jazz clubs and danced. Many young
women took up cigarettes. Young people talked about sex more freely. The
flapper was a term that originated with magazine illustration of fashionable
young woman; women had bobbed hair, lipstick, short skirt, signature
cigarette. Advertisers encouraged women to live a more glamorous
lifestyle by buying new fashion, cosmetics, etc.
Impulse to make America a nation of like-minded people revived in 1920s.
The National Origins Act of 1924 revised immigration law and restricted
annual immigration from any foreign country to 2% of the number of
persons of that national origin. But this law placed no limits on immigration
from Western Hemisphere. Immigrants from Latin America soared.
Mexican-Americans worked as migratory workers, or in automobile, steel,
railroad industry.
In 1920s there was a growing prestige of science. Many welcomed the
advance in science, some religious believer found it as a threat.
Fundamentalism was a movement started by evangelical believers and it
insisted on the Bibles literal truth, including Genesis account of creation.
They targeted Darwins theory of evolution as a threat to their faith. Many
states considered to bar public schools from teaching evolution.
Many Progressives had supported prohibition, and when the Eighteenth
Amendment took place in 1920, prohibitionists rejoiced. Saloons closed,
liquor advertising vanished and arrests for drunkenness declined. Although
it seemed to work at first, prohibition gradually lost support and in 1933 it
ended. Rum-runners smuggled liquor from Canada and the West Indies and

every city had speakeasies where customers could buy drinks, which were
controlled by Chicago gangster Al Capone

Chapter 24

The collapse of stock market happened on October 24, 1929 Black

Thursday and that was the onset of the great depression. Prices fell,
some stocks had no buyers at all, and unemployment was at 25%.
President Herbert Hoover urged business leaders to maintain wages and
employment; he advised cities to create public-works projects. Jobless
people were stood in breadlines, slept on park benches and were trying to
find work. Suicide rate rose. Birthrate fell. Families rediscovered traditional
skills like baking bread, canning fruit and vegetables , painted their own
houses and repaired their own cars
Most alarming protest came from WWI veterans. In 1924 congress voted
veterans a bonus that would be stretched over 20-year period, but when
depression struck, jobless veterans lobbied for immediate payment of their
bonuses but congress refused.
March June 1933 was a period labeled as the hundred days in which
congress enacted key measures:
1. Banking crisis Roosevelt ordered all banks to close for 4 days, at the
end of the bank holiday he proposed an Emergency Banking Act
which permitted healthy banks to reopen, set up procedures for
managing failed banks, increased government oversight of banking,
and required banks to separate saving deposits from investment funds.
2. Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) helped city-dwellers refinance
their mortgages
3. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) employed jobless youth in
government projects like reforestation, park maintenance, etc.
4. Federal Emergency Relief Act gave money to state and local relief
agencies that had exhausted their funds
5. Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) gave payments to
producers of major agricultural commodities in return for cutting
production. (government wanted to promote agricultural recovery by
paying farmers to plow under much of their crop and kill pigs; with
destroying of crops and killing pigs it would cause a widespread hunger)
6. Public Works Administration (PWA) provided money for large-scale
public-works project to provide jobs
7. National Recovery Administration (NRA) brought together business
leaders to come up with codes of fair competition for their industries.
Codes set production limits, prescribed wages and working conditions,
forbade price cutting and unfair competitive practices
8. Works Progress Administration (WPA) gave assistance directly to
jobless; it provided work, constructed or improved bridges, roads,
schools, post offices and public facilities. They also assisted writers,
performers, artists by employing them to design posters, paint murals
on public buildings, give concerts, and produce state and city guides.
9. Social Security Act drew upon Progressive Era ideas and social-welfare
programs; it established a mixed federal-state system of workers
pensions, unemployment insurance, survivors benefits for victims of
industrial accidents, and aid for disabled persons and depended
mothers of children
10.Farm Security Administration (FSA) gave low interest loans to help
tenant farmers and sharecroppers buy their own farms; it rejected the

poorest farmers loan application; the operated camps offering shelter

and medical services to migrant workers living in bad conditions.
11.Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) later named Congress of
Industrial Organization believed that through collective actions they
could pressure management to provide better wages and working
conditions; they welcomed all workers regardless of race, gender, or
degree of skills

Chapter 26

GI Bill of Rights, 1944 designed to forestall the expected recession by

easing veterans back into the work force and to reduce their fears of
female competition. It gave veterans priority for many jobs; it established
veterans hospitals and provided low-interest loans to returning GIs who
wanted to start businesses or buy homes or farms; government promised
to pay 4 years of further education or job training for veterans; many
colleges limited percentage of woman admitted so to make room for
veterans

Anticommunism

Stalin installed pro-Soviet governments in Bulgaria, Hungry, Romania, and

supported the establishment of communist regimes in Albania and
Yugoslavia. He also barred free elections in Poland and suppressed Polish
democratic parties.
Truman viewed this as a violation of national self-determination, betrayal of
democracy and a cover for communist aggression; he thought that only a
new world order based on self-determination of all nations working within
the United Nations could bring peace. He worried that Soviet stronghold on
Eastern Europe could hurt American businesses that depend on export.
Truman matched Stalins control in Poland with his own demands for Polish
free elections.
Soviet Union forced countries under its control to close their doors to
American trade influence; Stalin has drawn an iron curtain across the
eastern half of Europe. In 1946, Truman threatened to send in American
combat troops unless the Soviets withdraw from oil-rich Iran; in June he
submitted an atomic-energy control plan to the United Nations requiring
the Soviet Union to stop all work on the nuclear weapons and submit to UN
inspection. Soviets rejected. Soviets and Americans began to develop their
own doomsday weapons
On March 12, 1947, Truman asked for $400 million in military assistance to
Greece and Turkey since Great Britain was unable to assist Greece and
Turkey in their struggles against the Soviets and their pressure to access
the Mediterranean. Truman saw this matter as part of a global struggle
between freedom and liberty and oppression and terror. Congress passed
the National Security Act of 1947, unifying the armed forces under a single
Department of Defense, creating National Security Council (NSC) to
provide foreign-policy information and advise the president on strategic
matter; the also established Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather
information abroad and engage in activities in support of the nations
security. With European economies in ruins, Congress approved the
administrations proposal for massive US assistance in Europe. This was
called the Marshall plan. by 1952, the economic and social chaos that

communists had exploited had been overcome in 16 European nations that

shared $17b in aid. Industrial production had risen 200% and the region
became a major center of US trade and investment.
1945 Potsdam Agreement divided Germany into 4 separate zones
controlled by USA, France, G. Britain and the Soviet Union, and it created a
joint four-power administration for Berlin. Western powers wanted to unite
and create anti-Soviet West German state to help contain communism. In
1948, Stalin blocked all rail and highway routes through the Soviet zone
into Berlin. To resolve this, Truman ordered a massive airlift to provide
Berliners with the food and fuel necessary for survival which landed every
3 minutes around the clock bringing supplies. Berlin airlift was a lifeline to
blockaded city. In May 1949: Soviets ended the blockade; USA, France and
G. Britain ended their occupation of Germany and approved the creation of
Federal Republic of Germany. In July United States joined the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) marking the end of U.S. isolationism.
The Russians created a sphere of influence in Manchuria while American
occupied Japan and Philippines, and helped restore Indochina to France. In
China, Chiang Kai-shek had widely alienated the people, and Mao Zedong
and his communist support grew. Chiangs regime collapsed and he fled to
Taiwan. Maos establishment of the communist Peoples Republic of China
shocked Americans. Imagined as a counter-force to Asian communism and
a market for American goods, it had become Red China. The president
announced in Sept 1949 that USSR exploded its first atomic bomb, ending
US monopoly on nuclear weapons. Suddenly, American invincibility was
shattered; Schools began practicing drills and millions bought/constructed
bomb shelters. Truman ordered the development of the H-bomb in 1950. In
1952, Mike became the first H-Bomb. The H-Bomb was 10 times the
power of the nuclear bomb dropped in Hiroshima. But 9 months later,
USSR also detonated its first H-Bomb. National Security Council urged
increases in nuclear arms and defense budget, as well as a large standing
army and covert CIA actions.

The Korean War

After WW2, the US and USSR temporarily divided Korea, The northern
Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea was backed by USSR, while the
southern Republic of Korea was backed by the US. Each claimed full rights
to rule all of Korea
In Jun 1950, North Korean troops swept across the 38th parallel and
attacked South Korea. Truman decided to fight back. Fortunately for
Truman, USSR was boycotting the UN for not allowing Maos China in,
allowing Truman to appoint Douglas MacArthur to lead troops into the war.
At first, North forces routed Southern troops, nearly pushing the UN and
southern forces into the water near Busan, but MacArthur brilliantly landed
at Incheon, pushed the North troops back across the 38th parallel in two
weeks. Seeking all-out victory, MacArthur persuaded Truman to let him
cross the border and take all of Korea. As MacArthur neared the Yalu River,
the Chinese declared a warning. MacArthur ignored this and moved further
north. Chinese forces countered, pushing MacArthur all the way back to
near the 38th parallel in two weeks.
Truman reversed course and wanted peace, but MacArthur continued to
insist there was no substitute for victory. Truman fired the general in Apr
1951. The Joint Chiefs supported Truman, but the public backed MacArthur.
After 2 more years of fighting, an armistice was reached in Jul 1853,
leaving Korea as divided as it had been at the start of the war. The war

accelerated the implementation of NSC-68. By wars end, containment and

anti-communism become a US world policy.
Anti-communism

In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black MLB player. Despite
racism, he won the Rookie of the year, MVP, and was in the Baseball Hall of
Fame. Robinsons example led to other franchises beginning racial
integration as well. Energized by such people and WW2, many blacks
pressed for an end to racial discrimination. Believing every citizen should
enjoy full rights, realizing racism undermined US campaign against USSR,
and knowing the importance of the growing black vote, Truman met with a
delegation of civil rights leaders in 1946 and established the first
Presidents Committee on Civil Rights.
The Cold War raised concerns about American security. No one knew how
many party members or secret communists occupied sensitive
government and military positions. Truman, in his Executive Order 9835,
established the Federal Employee Loyalty Program, barring members of
the Communist party and anyone guilty of association with communism
from federal employment. Those suspected were not allowed to face their
accusers nor require investigators to reveal sources. Mere criticism of
American policy could result in an accusation. People lost their jobs,
resigned and were intimidated. By the end of Trumans term, 39 states had
created loyalty programs.
Federal loyalty probe fed anticommunist hysteria and it promoted fears of
communist infiltrators. Schoolteachers, college professors and state city
employees had to sign loyalty oaths or lose their jobs. In 1947, the HUAC
began hearings to expose communist influence in American life. Their
distinctions between dissent, disloyalty, radicalism, and subversion were
blurry. Those called to testify could say yes and name others, say no and
be vulnerable, or refuse to answer (pleading First and Fifth Amendments)
and risk public sentiments. To gain publicity of it, HUAC also probed
Hollywood. A group of 10 dubbed the Hollywood Ten were convicted of
contempt and sent to prison. Hollywood, financially dependent on public
opinion, began a blacklist of anyone or any movie considered communist.
The HUAC also frightened labor movements, and most unions focused on
securing better pay and benefits.
The 1948 election saw Truman attacked by the Republicans as the reason
for growing communist conspiracy in the United States. Truman shot
back by prosecuting 11 top leaders of the US Communist Party under the
1940 Smith Act which outlawed any conspiracy advocating overthrow of
govt. In 1951, the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and jailing of
these communists, declaring that Congress could curtain freedom of
speech if national security required.
Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican), falsely claiming to be a wounded war
hero, won a Senate seat in 1946. He gained reputation for lying and heavy
drinking. To gain support, he turned to accusing Democrats as soft on
communism. He told audience in West Virginia that USA was impotent
because of traitorous actions of higher officials in the Truman
administration. A senate committee found his charges to be a fraud, but he
persisted. He was helped by fellow Republicans who encouraged him
(despite obviously being false) to keep talking. McCarthyism became a
synonym for personal attacks by means of allegations and unsubstantiated
charges. As the Korean War dragged on, McCarthyism escalated. Such
attacks appealed to most Republicans and the GOP became eager to turn

public fears into votes. McCarthy gained support from blue-collar workers
as well as laborers who praised his demand to fight the war with brass
knuckles.
McCarran Internal Security Act (1950) required organizations deemed
communist to register with the Department of Justice. It also authorized
the arrest and detention during a national emergency of any suspicious
persons.
McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) maintained the
quota system that severely restricted immigration from southern and
eastern Europe and from Asia, but ended the ban on Japanese immigration.

Struggle for Black Equality

In spring 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized a

freedom ride through the Deep South in order to show the widespread
violation of the Brown court ruling. It succeeded as it aroused white
violence and gained national attention. Many of the freedom riders were
members of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC). SNCC
stressed Martin Luther King, Jr.s nonviolent strategy and the need to
stimulate grass-roots activism and leadership.
Civil-rights leaders applied increasing pressure on JFK to act decisively. To
do so, they would need to ignite another crisis. Determined to show the
violent extremism of southern racism, King and his advisers selected the
very segregated Birmingham. It was so segregated and hostile that it was
dubbed Bombingham. In April, King initiated a series of nonviolent
marches and sit-ins. King himself was arrested, during which time he wrote
his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in which he shows humiliations of
racial discrimination and justifies civil disobedience to protest unjust laws.
By May, some six-year olds had even joined Kings crusade. Eugene Bull
Connor tried to crush the movement with overwhelming force. The world
watched in shock. The combination of mounting support for equal rights
from whites and black activism convinced JFK to endorse the civil rights

movement. In June, he went on TV to define civil rights as a moral issue

that has no place in American life or law.
King and other leaders decided on a march to Washington on August 28,
1963. The idea was first proposed in 1941 by A. Philip Randolph. 250k
people, including whites, converged on Washington in the largest political
assembly to date. It was here that Kings famous I have a Dream speech
was given. He reminded Americans that the hopes generated by the
Emancipation Proclamation had not been fulfilled. Kings speech had not
sped the progress of the civil-rights bill nor did it end racism or prevented
ghetto riots, but it had turned political rally into a historical event, recalling
America to the ideals of justice and equality.
It was JFKs assassination that encouraged Lyndon B. Johnson, a
southerner, to prove himself a liberal by giving every effort for a civil rights
bill. He did exactly that in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning racial
discrimination and segregation in public places as well as outlawing bias in
federally funded programs. The Act also created the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce the ban on job discrimination.
Civil Rights Act failed to address the right to vote in state and local
elections. CORE and SNCC mounted a major campaign to register black
voters with the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project (1964) to focus on
state most hostile to black rights. Harassed by Mississippi law enforcement
officials and the KKK, activism endured firebombing of black churches and
civil-rights headquarters, arrests and murders. Civil-rights workers enrolled
60,000 disfranchised blacks in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(MFDP)
Determined to win a strong voting-rights law, the SCLC organized mass
protests in Selma, Alabama in March 1965 where only 1% of blacks voted.
Martin Luther King, Jr. again had to create a crisis to pressure Congress to
act so he provoked county sheriff, Jim Clerk. Civil rights activists were
clubbed, tear-gassed, and all was showcased on TV which provoked
national outrage.
Signed by the president in August 1965, the Voting Rights Act invalidated
the use of any test or device to deny the vote and authorized federal
examiners to register voters in states that had disfranchised blacks. The
law expanded black suffrage.
Civil-rights movement ended legal segregations and galvanized a new
black sense of self-esteem but it didnt bring African-Americans economic
equality or material well-being and the anger soon boiled over. On August
11, 1965, scuffle between white police and blacks in Watts brought the
most destructive race riot; blacks looted shops, firebombs white-owned
businesses and sniped at police officers and fire fighters. Extensive poverty
and the unequal distribution of income and wealth in the nation had
intensified all the racial problems of the inner cities. Frustrated by empty
promise of civil-right law, black mobs caused chaos.
In 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. black
uprisings flared in the ghettos of a hundred cities. The 1964-1968 riot toll
would include some 200 dead, many injured, arrests, properties would be
destroyed. Blacks saw the uprising as revolutionary violence to overthrow
a racist, reactionary society.

Black power

Demand for Black Power sounded in 1966 paralleled the fury of the urban
riots; it expressed eagerness of militant activists for militant self-defense
and rapid social changes. The slogan showed both their bitterness toward

a white society that blocked their aspiration and rejection of Kings

commitment to nonviolence, racial integration and alliances with white
liberals
Black Power owed much vision of Malcolm X. Malcolm Little pimped and
sold drugs before jailed in 1946, he converted to the Nation of Islam, the
Black Muslim group founded by Wallace Fard and led by Elijah Muhammad.
In 1952 renamed Malcolm X, he became the Black Muslims street orator,
bringing Black Nationalism to public attention. Malcolm X called on blacks
to stand up to achieve true independence. He urged them to recapture
their identity. He ridiculed King for emphasizing desegregation instead of
the social and economic problem, so he insisted that blacks seize their
freedom by any means necessary. In 1965, after he broke with the Nation
of Islam he was murdered by three Black Muslim gunmen. His The
Autobiography of Malcolm X became main text of rising Black Power
movement.
After winning the world heavyweight championship in 1964, Cassius Clay
shocked the sports world by announcing his conversion to the Nation of
Islam and his new name, Muhammad Ali. Inspired by Ali and Malcolm X,
young urban African-Americans abandoned civil disobedience and
reformist strategies. In 1966, CORE and SNCC changed from interracial
organizations committed to achieving integration nonviolently to all-black
groups advocating racial separatism and Black Power by any means
necessary.
Champion of self-determination for African-American communities was the
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Founded in Oakland, CA in 1966 by
Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, it urged black men to become panthers,
smiling, cunning, scientific, striking by night and sparing no one. Black
Power exerted a significant influence. Its origins lay in the racial pride and
spirit of resistance bred by generations of white oppression. Empowerment
was the key to its meaning. Scores of new community self-help groups and
self-reliant black institutions exemplified it, as did the establishment of
black studies programs at colleges, the mobilization of black voters to elect
black candidates, and the encouragement of racial pride and self-esteem
black is beautiful.