tha history of usa (2003, 52 oldal)

7/29/2019 Tha History of USA (2003, 52 Oldal)

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Tha history of USA

1. The Colonial Period of American History (1607-1776)

Claiming that Europeans owned land could only be done by establishing settlements of their own.SirWalter Raleigh landed on Roanoke Island (now N. Carolina) and named Virginia in honor ofElizabeth but they gave up and sailed back. In 1587 he tried again. The colonists were led by JohnWhite (an artist and mapmaker). He returned to England and when he was able to return in 3years, nobody was there.

Virginian Beginnings

26 April 1607 VirginiaCaptain John Smith landed in 1607. (Pocahontas saved his life. In 1609 he returned to E.) Theynamed the river the James in honor of James I. On May 20, 1607, sailors reached the land they hadbeen searching for: Virginia. The 1st permanent E. town: Jamestown. He organized the 1st

The settlers were sent by the Virginia Company (it was a joint stock company, got a royal charter).

The Company's purpose was to set up colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America to makeprofit. The Jamestown settlers were employees of this company.

Jamestown colonists and forced them to work.

By April 1608 the two third of the English died. They were destroyed by diseases, heavy storms,starvation and wars. In 1610 it was the starving time. Of the 500 colonists living in the settlementin October 1609, only 60 were still alive in March 1610.So Virginia had a very bad reputation. Nobody wanted to go. The Virginia Company gatheredhomeless children from the streets of London and a hundred convicts from London's prisons andsent them out to the colony. However, some people sailed willingly. For many English peoplethese early years of the 17th

century were a time of hunger and suffering.

The background - Push and pull factors

Push factors:

:

-in E. not enough land (enclosures)-incomes were low and many people were without work, but the prices of food and clothing

climbed higher every year,-saturated /stritid/ markets need new markets, grow your exports but limit your imports

(mercantilism),-established the Church of England in 1534 (religious teaching of Calvin),

Pull factors:-huge land,-new business opportunities,-religious freedom,

In 1613 the 1st

Most of the workers were indentured servants from England. They promised to work for anagreed number of years (about 7) in exchange for food and clothes. Luckier ones were given apiece of land.

load of Virginia tobacco tobacco leaves marketable product most of thesettlers were growing it, exported to England. Big plantations were established, colonies wereestablished on tobacco. But it is a labor intensive product.

Life in Virginia continued to be hard. Not hunger was the only problem. Diseases like malaria andwars against the Amerindians continued to kill many settlers.

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The V. Company allowed a body calledthe House of Burgesses to be set up. The Burgesses wereelected representatives from the settlements (local area). People should have a say in decisionsabout matters that concern them. They met for the first time in August, 1619.

In that same month Virginia saw another important beginning. On a small Dutch warship blackAfricans arrived. The ship's captain sold them to the settlers as indentured servants (their indenturewas for life).The Virginia Company never made a profit. By 1624 it run out of money so the Englishgovernment put an end to the Company and made itself responsible for the Virginia colonists.

Pilgrims are people who make a journey for religious reasons. But for Americans it means asmall group of English men and women who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in the year 1620.They went to America to find religious freedom.

Puritan New England

A German monk named Martin Luther claimed that individual human beings did not need thePope or the priests of the Catholic Church to speak to God. A French lawyer named John Calvinput forward similar ideas. Because they protested against the teachings and customs of theCatholic Church, religious reformers were called: Protestants. In the 1530s the English king,Henry VIII, formed a national church with himself as its head. They disliked the power of itsbishops. People wanted the Church of England to become more plain and simple, or purePuritans. When James I became king of England in 1603 he warned the Puritans, his bishopsbegan fining the Puritans and putting them in prison. To escape the persecution, a small group ofthem left England and went to Holland. Holland was the only country in Europe whosegovernment allowed religious freedom at this time. Some of them - the Pilgrims - decided to go toAmerica.First they persuaded the Virginia Company to allow them to settle in the northern part of itsAmerican lands. On September 16, 1620, the Pilgrims left the English port of Plymouth. ThePilgrims ship was the Mayflower. On November 9, 1620, it reached Cape Cod, now the state ofMassachusetts.

Before landing at Plymouth they wrote out an agreement. In this document they agreed to worktogether for the good of all. (They did everything to survive) It became known as the MayflowerCompact. In the Compact the Plymouth settlers agreed to set up a government to make just andequal laws for their new settlement.

The Mayflower Compact

Before spring came, just 50 survived. They built better houses. They learned how to fish and hunt.Friendly Amerindians gave them seed corn and showed them how to plant it.

Every year on the 4th Thursday in November Americans celebrate Thanksgiving (celebrate

survival Am.). Eat together and to give thanks to God for enabling them to survive the hardshipsof their first year in America. Without the Amerindians they wouldnt have survived.

Thanksgiving

Other English Puritans followed the Pilgrims to America in the Boston area. These people leftEngland to escape the rule of a new king, Charles I. In 1691, it combined with the Plymouthcolony under the name of Massachusetts.John Winthrop a puritan minister. They should build an ideal community for the rest of mankindto learn from. (This is a mission to spread democracy and freedom on the world.) They passedlaws to force people to attend church and laws to punish drunks and adulterers.



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Roger Williams, a Puritan minister in a settlement called Salem objected to the fact that the samemen controlled both the church and the government. These should be separated and neither shouldinterfere with the other. The Puritans wanted to arrest him. But he escaped and went south to setup a new colony called Rhode Island. Rhode Island promised its citizens complete religiousfreedom and separation of church and state.

Colonial Life in AmericaBy the year 1733 the English owned thirteen separate colonies divided into 3 main groups alongthe Atlantic coast of North America.

the tidewater period of settlement

1.; In the far north was the New England group, centered on Massachusetts. (MA, NH, CT, RI)Most were farmers or craftsmen, governing themselves in small towns and villages (depended onthe sea: built ships, sailed to catch cod and to trade). Boston is the 2nd biggest city (afterPhiladelphia). Owned much of their prosperity to the profits ofthe transatlantic trade they carriedon with England.Triangular trade

Caribbean (molasses from sugar cane) Africa west coast (slaves): New England (made spirits Rum)

Very religious colonies, puritans,

Bicameral system:Upper House Lower House - local

governor council representativesappointed by the king of E. community elected

2.; The colonies to the south of New England were called the Middle Colonies (PA, NY, NJ,DE). The biggest were New York and Pennsylvania.Most of them lived by farming (cultivated the land, barley, rye, wheat).In NY and Phil. there were growing numbers of craftsmen and merchants so they earned theirliving by trade and manufacturing. (ports: trade activities).Transatlantic trade

: based exports of raw materials (animal fur, timber, cotton, tobacco) andbrought back industrial goods (tools, machines, clothes, furniture).

The inter-America trade

between the colonies in N.Am. helped to produce a feeling between thecities that they all belonged to each other. The people of the Middle Colonies were usually moretolerant of religious and other differences than the New Englanders. Ethnic composition: Eng.,Germans, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Jewish, Am. Ind., Black Slaves,

3.; The Southern Colonies of Virginia(VA, MD, NC, SC, GA)Monoculture: cotton and tobacco, rice (GA)Wealthy landowners farmed large plantations. Just the richest could afford to buy houses and had

expensive furniture from Europe. They imported the plantations crops to England.Most of the work in the fields was done by black slaves. Slavery was rare in the other Americancolonies.

In all three groups of colonies most people still lived less than fifty miles from the coast. This wascalled the tidewater period of settlement. During the fifty years after 1733 settlers moveddeeper into the continent. As they traveled inland they passed fewer and fewer farms and villages.At last there were none at all. This area, where European settlement came to an end and the foresthomelands of the Amerindians began, was called the frontier.



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Governors and assemblies

Each colony had its own government. At the head of this government was a governor chosen bythe English king. These governors depended upon the cooperation of assemblies elected by thecolonists. In most of the colonies, all white males who owned some land had the right to vote.This meant that far more people had the vote in America than in England or in any other Europeancountry.



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2. Causes of the War of Independence (1754-1776)

The Road to Revolution

In the 18th

In North America, France claimed to own Canada (New France) and Louisiana (named for LouisXIV). (It was based upon journeys by 2 famous explorers.) The French claim that Louisianabelonged to them worried both the British government and the American colonists, because theFrench would then be able to keep the colonists to the east of the Appalachian Mountains and stopthem from moving westwards.

c. Britain and France fought several major war, went on in Europe, Asia and NorthAmerica.

In 1754, in N-Am. over possession.

After several wars earlier in the 18th

In 1758 British and colonial forces captured the French strongholds of Louisburg on the Gulf ofSt. Lawrence and Fort Duquesne on the Ohio River.

century, in 1756 Britain and France began fighting the SevenYears War, French and Indian War. The British sent money and soldiers to North America.

In 1759 they took Quebec.In 1760 Montreal fell to them.The war was ended by the Peace of Paris, which was signed in 1763. France gave up its claimto Canada and to all of North America east of the Mississippi River. Britain won an Empire.

Its victory led to conflict with its American colonies.Colonists began to move over The App. Mnts. into the Ohio valley. The B. king didnt want tofight with Amerindian tribes, who lived in the area.The English king, George III, issued a proclamation in 1763. The king's proclamation angered thecolonists.

- It forbade colonists to settle westof the Appalachians until proper treaties had been made withthe Amerindians. (ban = westward movements)

- The war was over, the E. wanted to make money new economic policies new taxes onimports and that they must feed and shelter British soldiers in the colonies, because it hadcost a lot of money to defend the colonies during the war.

- But the merchants believed that taxes would make it difficult to trade at a profit and othersbelieved that would raise the costs of living. They also feared that if British troops stayed inAmerica they might be used to force them to obey the British government. (People shouldnot allow government to become too powerful.)

Until the 1760s the colonists felt that they needed the B. navy and soldiers to protect them.Another reason the colonists accepted B. rule was that the B. government rarely interfered incolonial affairs.

Navigation Acts (a century earlier) they were forbidden to export to any country except England.Robert Walpole Let sleeping dogs lie.In 1764 Sugar Act, Quartering Act taxes on (exported and imported) manufactured goods, thecolonies had to trade with the crown.In 1765 the British Parliament passed another new law called the Stamp Act, taxes on everydocument. The colonists had to buy special tax stamps.The colonists had claimed the right to elect representatives to decide the taxes they paid. Notaxation without representation became their demand.



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In 1765 representatives from nine colonies met in New York. They formed the Stamp ActCongress and organized opposition. All over the colonies merchants and shopkeepers refused tosell British goods forced the British government to withdraw the Stamp Act.

The Declaratory Act, Towshend Duties (was a minister). The B. government had full power andauthority over the colonies and people of Am. in all cases.

In 1767 new taxes on: tea, paper, paint, and various other goods that the colonies imported fromabroad. A special customs office was set up in Boston to collect the new duties. Again thecolonists refused to pay.Riots broke out in Boston and the British sent soldiers to keep order.In 1770, the British removed all the duties except for the one on tea. (But by this time, the B. Kingwithdraw the Townshend Duties.)

Samuel Adams was a politician and writer who organized opposition in Massachusetts to theBritish tax laws. On March 5, 1770, a Boston mob began to shout insults at a group of Britishsoldiers. One of the crowds tried to take a soldiers gun and the soldier shot him. More shots werefired and three more members of the crowd fell dead. Samuel Adams used this BostonMassacre to stir up American opinion against the British. He wrote and widely distributed aletter which inaccurately described the happening as an unprovoked attack on peaceful citizens.

In December 1773, a group of colonists in Massachusetts disguised themselves as MohawkAmerindians. They boarded British merchant ships in Boston harbor and threw tea into the sea.The British reply to this Boston Tea Party and passed a set of laws (Intolerable Acts) to punishMassachusetts. Boston harbor was closed.

On June 1, 1774, British warships took up position at the mouth of Boston harbor. A few monthslater, in September 1774, a group of colonial leaders came together in Philadelphia. They formedthe First Continental Congress. It claimed to be loyal to the B. king but it called upon allAmericans to refuse to buy British goods. (Boycott)

Fighting for Independence

(1775-1781)

On April 18, 1775, 700 British soldiers marched silently out of Boston to seize weapons andammunition that rebellious colonists had stored in Concord. But the colonists were warned.In Lexington the British found 70 American militiamen, farmers and tradesmen. They wereknown as Minutemen (because they promised to take up arms in a minute when needed). The B.commander ordered them to return home. They refused so 8 Minutemen were killed.Hundreds more Minutemen gathered, they shot down 273 British soldiers who were on their wayback to Boston. A ring of armed Americans surrounded the city. The B. closed all the ports (thecolonies were depended on import!).

The next month, May 1775, a 2nd

It set up an army of 17,000 men under the command of George Washington, who was a Virginialandowner and he had experience (French and Indian War).

Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and began to act asan American national government.

The Continental Congress also sent representatives to seek aid from friendly European nations especially from France. (Benjamin Franklin, Louis XVI)

By the following year the fighting had spread beyond Massachusetts. It had grown to a full-scale



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war.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress cut all political ties with Britain and declared thatthese United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.Two days later, on July 4, it issuedthe Declaration of Independence. It was written by ThomasJefferson (a member, a landowner and lawyer from Virginia) combined with John Lockes ideasand the settlers experiences. It officially named them the United States of America.

It was a new definition of democratic government. It also set out the ideas behind the change. Itclaimed that all men had a natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness andgovernments can only justly claim the right to rule of they have the agreement of those theygovern.Governments should consist of representatives elected by people. The main reason thatgovernment existed was to protect the rights of individual citizens. (revolutionary ideasmonarchies all over Europe).



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3. Consequences of the War of Independence (1783-1800s)

US was born but they had to fight for their independence, to defend the Dec. of Ind.Their soldiers werent well-qualified. Washington started to train his men. In September 1776,two months after the Declaration of Independence, the British capturedNew York City.

After 2 years, in 1777, the 1st

successful battle was at Saratoga on northern New York. The Britishwere put on ships and sent back to England.

Benjamin Franklin, the American ambassador to France used the victory at Saratoga to persuadethe French government to join in the struggle against Britain.In February 1778, the French king,Louis XVI, signed an alliance with the Americans. (ships, soldiers, money)

From 1778 onwards most of the fighting took place in the southern colonies. In September 1781,George Washington, leading a combined American and French army, surrounded 8,000 Britishtroops under General Cornwallis at Yorktown, on the coast of Virginia. On October 17, 1781,Cronwallis surrendered his army to Washington.

In the Treaty of Paris, which was signed in September 1783, Britain officially recognized herformer colonies as an independent nation. The treaty granted the United States all of NorthAmerica from Canada to Florida, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.

Forming the New Nation

In 1783 most Americans felt more loyalty to their own state than to the new United States. Eachindividual American state had its own government and behaved very much like an independentcountry. During the War of Independence the states had agreed to work together in a nationalCongress to which each state sent representatives. The agreement that set up this plan for thestates to cooperate with one another was called the Articles of Confederation. It had begun tooperate in 1781.

Under the Articles of Confederation the central government of the United States was very weak.Congress could vote to set up an army, but it could only obtain soldiers by asking the states forthem. It could vote to spend money, but it had no power to collect taxes to raise the money. When,for example, Congress needed money to pay debts owed to France, some states refused to pay.

When the War was over, individual states began to behave more and more like independentnations. Some set up tax barriers against others. In some places states even began fighting oneanother. The British felt that the American government was so weak it was not worth dealing with.Even France, the ally of the Americans during the War, refused to recognize Congress as a real

government.

It was clear that for the United States to survive there would have to be changes in the Articles ofConfederation. In February 1787, Congress asked each state to send delegates to a convention inPhiladelphia to talk about such changes. The smallest state, Rhode Island refused, but the othertwelve agreed. The meeting became known as the Constitutional Convention. It began in May1787.

The original purpose of the Constitutional Convention was simply to revise the Articles of



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Confederation. But the delegates did more than this. They started afresh and worked out acompletely new system of government for the United States. They set out the plan for thisgovernment in a document calledthe Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution gave the US a federal system of government. A federal system is one in whichthe power to rule is shared. The new Constitution still left the individual state governments with awide range of powers. But it made the federal government much stronger than before (to collecttaxes, to organized armed forces, to make treaties with foreign countries, to control trade of allkinds).

The Legislative Branch the Executive Branch(Makes the Countrys Laws) (Administers the Country)(Explains/interprets the Laws/theConstitution)

the Judicial Branch

House of Representatives Secretaries (app. by the President) (power of judicial reviews)and Senate (2/St.) Vice-President- elected with the President

CONGRESS THE PRESIDENT THE SUPREME COURT Elect THE PEOPLE 9 justices

Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate

In 1788 George Washington was elected as the first President of the US. (2 terms)

Before the new system of government set out in the Constitution could begin, it had to beapproved by a majority of the citizens in at least nine of the thirteen states. In June 1788, theassembly of the state of New Hampshire voted to accept, orratify the Constitution. It was theninth state to do so. The Constitution went into effect in March 1789.

In 1791ten amendments, or additions, were made to it. Together these ten amendments are calledthe Bill of Rights. The reason for the Bill of Rights was that the original Constitution had saidnothing about the rights and freedoms of the individual citizens. It promised all Americansfreedom of religion, a free press, free speech, the right to carry arms, the right to a fair trial byjury, and protection against cruel and unusual punishments.

In 1801 John Adams, who in 1797 had succeeded George Washington as president of the UnitedStates, appointed a new head of the Supreme Court. The Courts new Chief Justice was JohnMarshall. In an 1803 legal case known asMar bury v. Madison, Marshall stated that the SupremeCourt has the power to decide whether particular American laws are according to the Constitution.If the Supreme Court decides that any law is repugnant to the Constitution that is, does notagree with it the Court can declare the law illegal. This power became known as the power ofjudicial review.

1787 Parties system:

The first political parties

Ideas:Strong central government individual rights and states

Constitution Bill of Rights1st Federalist Party

Anti-Federalist Pr.

Dem-Rep. Pr.(just its name changed)Alexander Hamilton Thomas Jefferson

John Adams James Madison



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James MonroeThe Federalist Party appealed to rich people, who believed that a strong central government wouldmake their property safer. The Democratic Republican Party attracted the less wealthy. This wasbecause it supported the rights of the individual states.

Presidents:G. Washington 1789-1797J. Adams 1797-1801

Th. Jefferson 1801-1809J. Madison 1809-1817J. Monroe 1817-1827

(his cabinet from both parties The Era of Good Feelings



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4. Americas Manifest Destiny: The Westward Movement (1730s-1890s)

Tidewater period: people were living on the coastsDuring the 50 years after 1733 settlers moved deeper into the continent. They spread westward

along the river valleys, and north from NY.Where the forest homelands of the Amerindians began was called the frontier. Settlers pushed the

frontier westwards in their search for fertile soil. The frontier way of life helped democratic ideasto flourish in Am.

In 1775 Daniel Boone led settlers into the App. Mts. He cut a track called the Wilderness Road, anatural pass in the App. Mts. to move with horses, wagons, and cattle into the fertile lands.Now there are KY and TN. Cumberland Gap (need new fertile land, to find new land,expansionism the market and the economy grew)

Proclamation of 1763, 1781, 1783What to do with the new territories? How to deal with Indians?

Years of Growth

After 1783 more and more people set off for the new territories between the AppalachianMountains and the Mississippi River that the Treaty of Paris had granted to the United States.Many of new settlers moved to lands north of the Ohio River. Amerindians who already lived onthese lands saw the settlers as thieves who had come to steal their hunting grounds. The newgovernment of the United States tried at first to keep the peace by making treaties with theAmerindians.

A law of1787 calledthe Northwest Ordinance said that the Amerindians lands and propertyshall never be taken from them without their consent.These arrangements for governing new territories the federal government began to organize thenew western lands for settlement. It ordered:

-the lands should be divided into square units calledtownships. (six miles by six miles in sizeand each was to be further divided into smaller square units, one mile by one mile, calledsections.

-When the number of white males living in a territory reached 5,000 it could elect its own lawmaking body. It could also send a representative to give its point of view in Congress.

-When the population of a territory reached 60,000 it became a new state, with the same rightsand powers as the original 13 states.

So USA was growing but it remained equal states.

1801 Secret TreatyBetween the Miss. and Rocky Mnts the territories belonged to Spain. New Orleans was controlledby French.

1803 Louisiana Purchase

In 1800 the western boundary of the United States was the Mississippi River. In 1800 Louisianabelonged to France. In 1803 Napoleon was about to go to war with Britain and needed money. For15 million dollars he sold it to the US. Louisiana stretched north from the Gulf of Mexico to theCanadian border and west from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. US doubled its territoriesThe Louisiana Purchase was authorizedby President Thomas Jefferson. Even before this Jeffersonhad been planning to send an expedition to explore Louisiana. The expedition was led byMerriwether Lewis and William Clark. They carried goods to trade with Amerindians along the



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way. Lewis and Clark arrived back in St. Louis in September 1806. They brought back muchuseful information about both Louisiana and the western lands that lay beyond it. These landswere known as Oregon.

War of 1812Between 1803 and 1815 Britain and France were at war. Both countries warships interfered withAmerican trade. They stopped American merchant ships and sometimes seized their cargoes. InJune 1812, Congress declared war on Britain. The British navy blockaded American ports.American attempts to invade British-ruled Canada ended in disaster. British forces captured andburned Washington, their new capital city.

( - 1814)

In December1814, the United States and Britain signed a treaty of peace in Europe.

1819 Florida (belonged to Spain)The US didnt have any ports faced to Gulf of Mexico.Spain was week and unable to control Florida 1819 Adams Onis Treaty (the Americans notclaimed Texas)1830s 35,000 Americans living in Texas.1836 They began to fight a war of independence. When the war was over, it applied to be in theUS. But the US govern refused. In 1845 it became part of the US.

1846-48 Mexican and American War:1830s Texas was ruled by Mexico. Thousands of Americans had settled in Texas. The TexasAmericans, or Texans, came to dislike Mexican rule. In October 1835, they rebelled. Led byGeneral Sam Houston, they defeated a much larger Mexican army in 1836, at the Battle of SanJacinto and made Texas an independent republic. 1836-45: A lonely state. Texans wanted theircountry to join the US. Eventually, the two countries reached an agreement and in 1845 Texasbecame part of the US.

James Knox Polk (US President 1845-49) an expansionist (manifest destiny).President Polk saw an opportunity to take land from Mexico and he declared war in 1846.American soldiers invaded Mexico and defeated the Mexican army. By September 1847, they hadoccupied Mexico City, the country's capital.The Mexican American War was ended by a peace treaty signed in February 1848, the Treatyof Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Mexico lost half of its territories and in the US. 6 states were borne:today these lands form the states California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.

In 1805 4 countries claimed Oregon. In Oregon, the British and the Americans were in thestrongest position. American political leaders persuaded Americans to start farms in Oregon.Settlers began traveling to Oregon by land in 1832. This overland route to the Pacific coastbecame known as the Oregon Trail. In 1843, Oregon fever came to many parts of the US.

People left their worn-out farms in the east, packed their possessions on wagons and set off for thewest. American settlers soon outnumbered the British in Oregon. American newspapers andpolitical leaders began to express an idea called: manifest destiny (clear intention of fate).But by 1846 the US was at war with Mexico so Polk agreed to divide Oregon with Britain in twoalmost equal sections. The US and Britain specified the northern borders. The dividing line wasthe 49th

parallel of latitude.

5., Alaska was part of the Russia1867 - $ 7.2 Mi / Midway islands



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Since the Northwest Ordinance, in 1817, the American government changed its ideas by PresidentJames Monroe.

Indian policies

In 1830 the United States government passed a law calledIndian Removal Act. The law said thatall Indians living east of the Mississippi River would be moved west to a place called IndianTerritory.

The Cherokees were Amerindian people who suffered greatly from the Indian Removal policy.Their lands lay between the state of Georgia and the Mississippi River. They had becomeChristians and attended church and sent their children to school. They had a written language andpublished their own newspaper in both Cherokee and English. They even wrote for themselves aConstitution.In the 1830s Congress declared that their lands belonged to the state of Georgia and they weredivided up for sale to white settlers. The Cherokees were driven from their homes and forced tomarch hundreds of miles overland to what is now the state of Oklahoma. The worst year was1838. American soldiers drove them west. The nightmare journey lasted almost five months. Bythe time it was over, a quarter of the whole Cherokee nation were dead. This episode came to becalledThe Trail of Tears.

Samuel Slater imports the Industrial Revolution

At the end of the War of Independence the United States was mainly a land of farmers. Yet asearly as the 1790s Americas first factory opened. In 1789 an English mechanic namedSamuelSlater took the Industrial Revolution across the Atlantic to America. Before leaving England,Slater memorized the details of the latest English cotton spinning machines. He carried them in hismemory because it was against the law to take plans of the machines out of England. The successofSlaters cotton mill in Rhode Island began a process of change in the United States.

As member of the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in framing the US Constitution.He helped to found the Democratic-Republican Party; served President Jefferson as Secretary ofState; and became the fourth US President (1809-17). During his presidency war broke outbetween America and Great Britain.

James Madison 1751-1836

It taught Americans an important lesson. The British navys wartime blockade of United Statesports had cut off the imported European manufactured goods on which the country relied. Thisforced Americans to begin making goods of their own and so gave a start to Americanmanufacturing industry. Thomas Jefferson saw how important it was.



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5. Causes of the Civil War

North and South

In the year 1810 there were 7.2 Mi people in the US. 1.2 Mi of them was black and they wereslaves.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves himself. So did George Washington and other leaders of themovement for American independence and freedom. Big landowners in southern states such asVirginia defended slavery. How could they cultivate their fields of tobacco, rice and cottonwithout slave workers?

In the north of the US farms were smaller and the climate was cooler. Farmers there did not needslaves to work the land for them. Some northerners opposed slavery for moral and religiousreasons. Many were abolitionists that is, people who wanted to end or abolish slavery by law. Bythe early 19th

century many northern states had passed laws abolishing slavery. In 1808 they alsopersuaded Congress to make it illegal for ships to bring any new slaves from Africa.

By the 1820s southern and northern politicians were arguing about whether slavery should bepermitted in the new territories in the West. Eventually the two sides agreed on a compromise.Slavery would be permitted in the Missouri and Arkansas territories but banned in lands to thewest and north of Missouri. The Missouri Compromise did not end the disputes between Northand South.

By the early 1830s another angry argument was going on over important duties. A southernpolitical leader namedJohn C. Calhoun claimed that a state had the right to disobey any federallaw if the state believed that the law would harm its interest. It became known as the statesrights doctrine. Calhouns claim was strongly denied by Senator Daniel Webster ofMassachusetts. The power to decide whether the federal authorities were acting rightly or wronglybelonged to the Supreme Court said Webster.

In the next 20 years the US grew much bigger. In 1846 it divided the Oregon territory withBritain. In 1848 it took areas of the Southwest from Mexico. Obtaining these new lands raisedagain the question: should slavery be allowed on new American territory? Once again southernersanswered yes and northerners said no.

In 1850 Congress voted in favor of another compromise. To persuade southerners to agree to thesearrangements, Congress passed a new Fugitive Slave Act. This was a law to make it easier forsoutherners to recapture slaves who escaped from their masters. Slave owners offered rewards (orbounties) for the return of runaway slaves. This had created groups of men called bounty

hunters. These men made their living by hunting down fugitive slaves in order to collect therewards on them.

Some northern judges refused to enforce it. Other people provided food, money, and hiding placesfor fugitives. The final stop on these escape routes was Canada, where fugitives could be followedby neither American laws nor bounty hunters. Because railroads were the most modern form oftransport at this time, this carefully organized system was called the Underground Railroad.Guides who led the fugitives to freedom were calledconductors, and hiding places were calleddepots.



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In 1854 a Senator namedStephen Douglas persuaded Congress to end the Missouri Compromise.West of Missouri was a western territory called Kansas. In 1854 Congress voted to let its peopledecide for themselves whether to permit slavery there. A race began to win control of Kansas.Soon fighting and killing began.A slave namedDred Scotthad been taken by his owner to live in a free state. Scott asked theSupreme Court to declare that this had made him legally free. But the Court refused. It said theblack slaves had no rights as American citizens. The Dred Scott decision caused great excitementin the US.

A few years earlier opponents of slavery had formed a new political group calledthe RepublicanParty. A Republican namedAbraham Lincoln said that the spread of slavery must be stopped. Hewas willing to accept slavery in the states where it existed already, but that was all. In 1860 theRepublicans chose him as their candidate in that years presidential election.

By now relations between North and South were close to breaking point. In 1859 John Browntried to start a slave rebellion in Virginia. The attack failed and Brown was captured tried fortreason and hanged.

In the presidential election of1860 the southerners put forward a candidate of their own to opposeLincoln. But voters in the North supported him and he won the election. A few weeks later, inDecember 1860, the state ofSouth Carolina voted tosecede from the US. It was soon joined by 10more southern states. In February 1861 these eleven states announced that they were now anindependent nation, the Confederate States of America, known as the Confederacy.

On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln became the President of the US. Lincoln appealed to thesouthern states to stay in the Union. But on April 12 Confederate guns opened fire on FortSumter, a fortress in the harbor of Charlestown, South Carolina was occupied by US troops.

The Civil War

Lincoln Jefferson Davis, the newly elected President of the Confederate States

Union warships blockaded the ports of the South. They did this to prevent the Confederacy fromselling its cotton abroad and from obtaining foreign supplies.The North was much stronger than the South. It had a population of 22 million people. The Southhad only 9 million people and 3.5 million of them were slaves. The only way it could win the warwas to invade the South and occupy its land. The South had no such problem. It did not need toconquer the North to win independence. The Confederate soldiers were defending their ownhomes.

In April 1862 they captured New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy.By spring 1863, the Union armies were closing in on an important Confederate stronghold on theMississippi calledVicksburg. On July 4, Vicksburg surrendered to a Union army. Union forcesnow controlled the whole length of the Mississippi. It became impossible for western Confederatestates like Texas to send any more men and supplies to the east.

In the last week of June 1863, Lee marched his army north into Pennsylvania. At a small townnamedGettysburg a Union army blocked his way. In three days of fighting more than 50,000 menwere killed or wounded. The Confederate army had suffered a defeat.



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The Gettysburg Address is a speech that Abraham Lincoln made a few month later.

By 1864 the Confederacy was running out of almost everything.Richmond, the Confederate capital was in danger. Lee was trapped. On April 9, 1865, he metGrant in Appomattox and surrendered his army. Grant treated the defeated Confederate soldiersgenerously. After they had given up their weapons and promised never again to fight against theUS, he allowed them to go home.

The Civil War gave final answers to 2 questions:-put an end to slavery, in 1865 this was abolished everywhere in the US by the 13th-it decided that the US was one nation, whose parts could not be separated.

Amendmentto the Constitution.

The Civil War caused terrible destruction at home. All over the South cities and farms laid inruins. And more Americans died in this war than before. By the time Lee surrendered to Grant atAppomattox, the dead on both sides totaled 635,000.



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6. Rebirth of the Nation: Consequences of the Civil War (1860s-1890s)

On the night ofApril 13, 1865, crowds of people were celebrating Lees surrender. The next daywas Good Friday. In the evening President Lincoln and his wife went to Ford's Theater inWashington. At exactly 10:13, John Wilkes Booth killed him.

Reconstruction

Lincoln was succeeded by his Vice President, Andrew Johnson. The biggest problem he faced washow to deal with the defeated South. He began to introduce plans to reunite the South with the restof the nation. When a state voted to accept the 13th

Amendment to the Constitution (thatcompletely abolished slavery) Johnson intended that it should be accepted back in the Union asfull and equal member.

But they were horrified at the idea of giving equal rights to their former black slaves. FormerConfederate states assemblies passed laws to keep blacks in an inferior position. Such laws werecalledBlack Codes (refused black the vote, said that they could not serve on juries, forbadethem to give evidence in courts against a white man). In Mississippi blacks were not allowed tobuy or rent farm land. With no land, no money and no protection from the law, it was almost as ifblacks were still slaves.

A group in Congress called Radical Republicans believed that the most important reason forfighting the Civil War had been to free blacks.

In July 1866, despite opposition from the President, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act. It alsoset up an organization calledthe Freedmens Bureau to ensure that blacks in the South were notcheated of their rights. Congress then introducedthe 14th

Amendment to the Constitution. It gaveblacks full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote.

All the former Confederate states except Tennessee refused to accept the 14 th Amendment. InMarch 1867, Congress replied by passing the Reconstruction Act. This dismissed the whitegovernments of the southern states and placed them under military rule. They were told that theycould again have elected governments when the accepted the 14th

Amendment.

By 1870 all the southern states had new Reconstructiongovernments.

Most white southerners supportedthe Democratic political party. These southern Democrats hatedthe Reconstruction because it aimed to give blacks the same rights that whites had.They organized terrorist groups to frighten black people and prevent them from claiming theirrights. The largest and most feared terrorist group was the Ku Klux Klan. (in white sheets andwore hoods to hide their faces) Their sign was a burning wooden cross.

This use of violence and fear helped white racists to win back control of state governments allover the South. By 1876 Republican supporters of Reconstruction held power in only threesouthern states. When Congress withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877, white Democratswon control of these, too. Reconstruction was over.

Some Southern states prevented blacks from voting by saying that only people who paid a tax onvoter a poll tax could do so. So they made the tax high.Grandfather clauses allowed the vote only to people whose grandfathers had been qualified to



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vote in 1865.All the southern states passed laws to enforce strict racial separation, orsegregation which wasenforced on trains, in parks, in schools, in restaurants, in theaters, even in cemeteries. In the1890s an average of 150 blacks was killed illegally by white mobs.In the 1890s 150 blacks a year were killed illegally lynched by white mobs.In 1896 the Supreme Court announced its decision in a case called Plessy v. Ferguson. It ruledthat the Constitution allowedseparate facilities and services for black and white people, so longas the facilities and services were of equal quality. This decision made racial segregation a legalpart of the American way of life (until 1954).



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7. The Fate of the Amerindians

Indians:Before the War of Independence, the Indians living west of the Appalachian didnt have anyproblems since the settlers couldnt move there. However, after the war, when the migrationbegan, there were more and more clashes between the Indians and the settlers.

The new government at the beginning wanted to and tried to keep peace with the Indians.According to the Northwest Ordinance, they wanted to reserve the Indian culture and wanted torespect the Indians rights.

This idea soon changed.-the settlers needed new land for their tobacco plantations.-the Americans had a very deep racial thinking. Their racism was very important for them. As a

result, soon anti-Indian thoughts were born.-the different thinking about land ownership developed into a central problem,In 1817 James Monroe made a speech about this issue and said that the Indian culture had to andshould survive however, not mixed with the white culture. So, they had to be moved to those partsof the US where nobody else lived.To enforce this idea, in 1830 they issued the so calledIndian Removal Act. It clarified that thoseIndians who lived to the east of the Mississippi had to move to the west of it. An Indian territorywas named for them (it is Oklahoma today). With this act the aim on the surface was to save theIndians, however, the real aim was to get hold of more land.The Indians werent very happy about this act.

Of course, the Cherokees werent the only ones to resist. The Seminal Indians resisted, as well. Asa result, a war broke out in 1835, called the 2nd

Seminal War. At the end, they were removed, too.There were also smaller wars. These were dominant till the 1880s.

In the 1840s wagon trains heading for Oregon and California began to cross the Great Plains. TheAmerindians usually let them pass without trouble. But some white people stayed on the prairiesand began to plough them. At first the Aminds tried to drive the newcomers away from theirhunting grounds. So they made treaties with the government in Washington, giving up largepieces of their land.

In 1851 the Pawnee people signed away an area which now Nebraska.In 1858 the Sioux gave up an area.In the 1860s the Comanche and the Kiowa gave up lands in Kansas, Colorado and Texas.In return the government promised to leave them in peace on the lands that remained theirs.

The Fort Laramie treaty of 1868. Between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mnts belonged tothe Sioux. It promised that it remained Sioux property. 6 years later the government wanted to buythe Black Hills because of the gold. The Sioux refused to sell so the American government brokethe F. L. treaty.

By this time the Amerindian peoples of the Great Plains were facing another serious problem. Thebuffalo was beginning to disappear. White hunters were shooting down them for their hides or forsport.



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As more settlers claimed homesteads in the West the American government needed more land forthem. So they decided to force the Aminds to give up their wandering way of life. It sent soldiersto dive them onto reservations. These were areas of land that were usually so dry or rocky thatthe government thought white settlers were never likely to want them. They fought back. (SittingBull of the Sioux) The Aminds were outnumbered and outgunned. They won their best knownvictory at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June 1876, Custers Last Stand. More soldiers

were sent west to hunt down Custers killers.

By 1890 most of the American West was occupied by cattle ranchers, farmers, or miners. TheAminds had nothing left except the reservations. There was great suffering on the reservation.Epidemic diseases swept through them, killing them.The Ghost Dance movement was peaceful but the movements leaders were arrested.On December in 1890 a group of 350 Sioux left their reservation lead by a chief named Big Foot.But soldiers stopped them on the way and marched them to an army post at Wounded KneeCreek and they were ordered to give up their guns. A shot rang out and most of the Sioux weredead.

But the Sioux, like other Aminds survived. In 1924 Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act.This recognized them as full citizens of the US and gave them the right to vote.In 1934 this act encouraged them to set up their own councils to run the affairs of theirreservations.In the 1970s Aminds from all over the US joined together to try to improve their position. Theyformed the American Indian Movement and in 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties in Washington.The Sioux demanded the return of the Black Hills. $122.5 Mi in compensation for the loss of theirland. But they wanted the sacred land itself.



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8. The Gilded Age: Economy and Society at the turn of the 19th

-20th

c. (1860s-1910s)

In March 1848 a group of workmen found gold in a stream in California. By the middle of thesummer, gold rush begun. By the spring of 1849, people from all over the world were rushing toCalifornia to look for gold. In 1848 its population was 15,000 people. By 1852 the population wasmore than 250,000.By the late 1850s they were mining in the mountains of Nevada and Colorado, by the 1860s theymoved into Montana and Wyoming and by the 1870s they were digging in the Black Hills of theDakota country. ("mining settlements")

By 1890 the separate areas of settlement on the Pacific Coast and along the Mississippi Rivermoved together. Thefrontier disappeared.Railroads played an important part in this closing of the frontier. During the Civil War,Congress had become anxious to join the gold-rich settlements along the Pacific Coast moreclosely to the rest of the US. In 1862 it granted land and money to the Union Pacific RailroadCompany to build a railroad west from the Mississippi towards the Pacific. At the same time itgave a similar grant to the Central Pacific Railroad Company to buildeastwards from California.Most of the workers of the Union Pacific were Irishmen or other recent immigrants from Europe.The Central Pacific workers were mainly Chinese, who had been brought to America undercontract especially to do the job.Finally, on May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific lines met at Promontory Pointin Utah. A golden spike fixed the last rail into position. The new railroad was quickly joined byothers. By 1844 four more major lines had crossed the continent.

In 1862 Union and Confederate armies were fighting some of the bloodiest battles of the CivilWar. But the same year Congress found time to pass a law that was calledthe Homestead Act,which offered free farms (homesteads) in the West to settlers. Any head of a family who was atleast 21 years of age and anAmerican citizen could claim one. So could immigrants who intendedto become citizens. All that homesteaders had to do was to move onto a piece of land, live on it for5 years and the land became theirs (or they could by it cheap after 6 months). Transcontinentalrailroad companies such as the Union Pacific also provided settlers with cheap land.

Farming the Great Plains

Settlers faced many difficulties (no trees, no water, hard to cultivate the land, drought, andinsects). But machines and metal tools helped them overcome the difficulties. These aids weremanufactured in big new factories in cities like Chicago. From Chicago the railroads carried themto the Plains. The railroads also carried away the farmers crops.

In the last 30 years of the 19th

Farmers formedpolitical action groups to try to improve their position. They were trying to forcerailroad companies to reduce the high prices that they charged to transport farmers crops. Theyincluded the Patrons of Husbandry, which was formed in the 1870s, and the Populist Party ofthe 1890s. Members of the Patrons of Husbandry were also known as Grangers. The voting

century over-production became a big problem of Americanfarmers. Its cause was not only that farmers were cultivating more land. Improved agriculturalmachines were also making their farms more productive.



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power of the Grangers caused many western states to pass Granger laws. Grangers also joinedtogether in cooperative societies. Some survive even today.

In 1876 President Ulysses S. Grant traveled to Philadelphia to open a special exhibition. Theexhibition was called the Centennial Exposition. It had been organized to celebrate the USs100

Inventors and Industries

th

The main attraction of the Centennial Exposition was the Machinery Hall. Inside it visitors couldsee such recent American inventions as the typewriter and the telephone as well as machines forcountless other uses - for sewing, screwing, printing, pumping, etc.

birthday by showing some of its achievements.

At the time of the Exposition the US was still mainly a farming country. But in the years thatfollowed, American industries grew quickly. The production ofcoal and iron grew especially fast.By 1900 ten times more coal was being produced in the US than in 1860. Railroads were veryimportant in this growth of manufacturing. Vast amounts of coal and iron were used to make steelfor their rails, locomotives, wagons, etc. The railroads also linked together buyers and sellers allover the country. Without them big centers of industry like Pittsburgh and Chicago could not havedeveloped.

By 1890 the industries of the US were earning the country more than its farmlands. By 1913 morethan one third of the whole worlds industrial production came from the US.

The growth of American industry was organized and controlled by businessmen. By a mixture ofhard work and ability and by ignoring the rights of others they made themselves wealthy andpowerful. Their admirers called such men captains of industry. Their critics called themrobber barons or worse.

Andrew Carnegie was one of the best known of these men. Carnegie concentrated his investmentsin the iron and steel business. By 1900, his annual income was 20,000 times more than the incomeof the average American. Businessmen like Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, the king of theoil industry, realized that they could greatly increase their profits by swallowing up rival firms ordriving them out of business. (The railroad king2 was William Vanderbilt.)

The giant industrial organizations that such men created were known as corporations. As theygrew bigger, they often became trusts. By the early 20th

century, trusts controlled large parts ofAmerican industry. The biggest trusts were richer than most nations. By their power to decidewages and prices controlled the lives of millions of people.

It seemed that the country was coming under the control of a handful of rich and powerful menwho were able to do more or less anything they wished. Some bribed politicians to pass laws

which favored them. Others hired private armies to crush any attempt by their workers to obtainbetter conditions.

Many people came to see this matter as the most important problem facing the US in the earlyyears of the 20th

century.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) He made more than a thousand original inventions. In 1878 heformedthe Edison Electric Light Company. (electric light bulb, developed dynamos to producethe electricity, underground cables to carry it, fuse boxes to make it safe to use).



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Eli Whitney

, the man who had invented the cotton gin (a cotton processing machine) began tomake guns in about 1800. In his factory they made parts that were exactly alike, so that any partwould fit any gun. Whitney had worked out the main ideas of a way of manufacturing that wouldlater become known as the American system. Later this became known as mass production.Henry Ford made automobiles. Model T. like Whitneys guns. The use of identical parts inmanufacturing is calledstandardization.

The Statue of Liberty was presented to the US in 1886. It was given by the people of France tomark the 100

The Golden Door

th

anniversary of the War of Independence. For millions of immigrants it was the firstsight of America.

Between 1840 and 1860 more immigrants than ever before arrived. Most came from Europe.During the Civil War in the 1860s the federal government encouraged emigration from Europe byoffering land to immigrants who would serve as soldiers in the Union armies.In 1889, 1890 the Union (U.S.) admitted six North Western states. With the admission of them,the number of states grew 48 by 1912.Then there was a big change: more people began to arrive from the south and east of Europe.Between 1880 and 1925 about 2 Mi Jews entered the US. To control the situation, the governmentopened a special place of entry in New York harbor in 1892, calledEllis Island. For mostimmigrants this new life was a hard one. Only the hardest and lowest paid jobs were open to them.They had to work long hours in dangerous conditions and to live in overcrowded slums, places ofdisease and misery.



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By 1900 the US was the richest and most productive industrial country in the world. Men, womenand children labored for long hours in factories, mines and workshops. The workers homes weredirty and overcrowded. Wages were often low. The work was often unhealthy or dangerous.

Reformers and Progressives

Workers tried to form trade, or labor, unions to improve the conditions of their lives. Theseattempts often failed. National Labor Union 1866One reason for this was the competition for jobs between American-born and immigrant workers.Another was the violent opposition unions faced from employers. Employers would dismiss unionmembers and put their names on a blacklist. If a workers name appeared on a blacklist, otheremployers would not give him a job. Employers sometimes persuaded politicians to send soldiersto break up strikes. At other times they hired private armies to control their workers.Employers and the government were not the only enemies labor unions faced. The general publicwas usually against them. Americans had always seen their country as a land where individualsshould be free to become rich. Such people were unlikely to favor organizations which aimed tolimit businessmen's freedom.

In the early years of the 20th

People began to demand that the nations leaders should deal with other scandals exposed by themuckrakers. This pressure brought about an important change in American economic and politicallife.

century a stream of books and magazine articles drew peoplesattention to a large number of national problems. Some dealt with conditions of life, some withbribery and corruption in government, other with the dishonesty of wealthy businessmen. One ofthe best-known muckrakers was Upton Sinclair. In 1906 he attacked the meat-packingindustry in his novel The Jungle. This gave a horrifying description of life among immigrantworkers in the slaughter houses of Chicago.

Before 1900 most Americans had believed in laissez faire - the idea that governments shouldinterfere with business and with peoples lives as little as possible. After 1900 many Americansbecame Progressives. A Progressive was someone who believed that, where necessary, thegovernment should take action to deal with the problems of society.The Progressive movement found a leader in the Republican Theodore Roosevelt. Rooseveltbecame President in 1901. He was particularly concerned about the power of the trusts. He wantedto allow businessmen enough freedom, but at the same time to prevent them from taking unfairadvantage of other people.Congress listened to Roosevelts advice and passedconservation laws.Theodore Roosevelt retired as President in 1909. In 1912 he tried to regain the position, but hewas defeated by Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. Wilson, too, supported the Progressivemovement. He introduced reforms such as laws to give workers compensation for injuries at work.

Despite Roosevelts attempts to control the trusts, they were even more powerful in 1913 than in1900. Real equality of opportunity seemed in danger of disappearing in the US. Wilson believedthat only action by the federal government could halt this process.Wilson called his policies The New Freedom. They were put into effect by a series of lawspassedbetween 1913 and 1917.One of Wilsons first steps was to reduce custom duties in order to encourage trade.Then he reformed the banking system and introduced federal taxes on high incomes.Other laws reduced the power of the trusts, gave more rights to labor unions and made it easier forfarmers to borrow money to develop their land.



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Many individual states also passed progressive laws. They forbade factories to employ children,introduced secret voting, improved safety at work, and protected natural resources.But not all of Wilsons reforms were accepted. A law stopping child labor in factories everywherewas declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.



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9, A Nation of Immigrants: The Role of Immigration in U.S. History (1820s-2000)

John Kennedy named America the nation of immigrants. People also say that the history ofAmerica means the history of immigration.

Immigration has been and is still playing an important role in American history. Without

immigration the population of America would be decreasing. America, the Golden Door, asEmma Lazarus called it in her poem that we can read in the Statue of Liberty today.

PUSH FACTORS:-in the 19th

-The other problem was a political one. There were revolutions all over the continent.

century Europe there were economic and political reasons forced people to leave. Itwas the time ofindustrialization. Peasants were replaced; their lands had to be sold. They hadto move to the cities, urbanization, where not everybody could find a job. Unemploymentappeared and grew through the years. There was lack of labor and lack of opportunities. Theoverpopulation led to all the difficulties.

-The 3rdPULL FACTORS:

reason was connected with nature. Natural catastrophes like the Great Famine, floods,volcanic irruption happened all over.

-in America there was still plenty of landavailable for people and there were huge numbers ofjobs waiting for the newcomers.

-Besides land and opportunities, there was religious freedom which was also very important.Within the history of the USA there were three waves of immigration.The three periods in American immigration history differed from each other both in volume(number) and composition (nations). We call this mass immigration. We talk about massimmigration when more than 100,000 people arrive in a country per year. So, the three waves arethe following.

Old Immigration:Nobody knew exactly how many people went to the USA

(1820-1890)

-northern and western Europeans (Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Switzerland,France) arrived in the biggest number.

-The root of the first immigration wave was the population boom that followed the NapoleonWars. With the growth of the population and the intense industrialization the economychanged and people had to leave.

-the natural catastrophes and the political reasons that made people emigrate from Europe.-The first mass immigrant group to leave was the Irish. This was mainly caused by the Great

Famine which made the potatoes rot and with it starvation became a very serious problem.They settled down in the north in the big cities. They were the ones who formed the urban

proletariat of these cities.-the second biggest group of people arriving to America was the Germans. This was dominant

till the 1890s, because of political and economic reasons. Within this group farmers andintellectuals were the most. They settled down in the Mid-West or in Pennsylvania andcontinued farming.

New Immigration:In the 1890s there were drastic changes in the immigration. During the first period ofimmigration mostly homogenous groups arrived. Although they came from different countries,

(1890-1924)



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they were mostly protestant Anglo-Saxon groups. This way the assimilation was easy. It wasalmost like in the colonial times.-The second wave of immigrants was totally different. They were bigger in number (in the peak

year, 1907, more than 1.8 million people arrived just in one year) and were totally different asfar as their cultural base was concerned.

-These people were arriving from the eastern and southern part of Europe. The culturaldifference between the two groups was huge. The newly arrived were mostly Catholics orOrthodox.

-There were plenty of jobs available; it was not the land that attracted people anymore.-The other reason was the transportation revolution. (steam ships, round-way tickets possible

to work for only a couple of seasons to save some money and then return to their families.This was also called the job migration.

-The Italians (more than 5 million) settled down in New Jersey and along the Eastern Coast.They created their own settlements; Little Italy was settled.

-The Austro-Hungarians (more than 4 million) settled down in the Mid-West and in theNortheast. Hungarians became famous of their works in the mines and in the constructionarea. They were also called the hunkies because they liked drinking and having affairs withthe prettiest ladies and women. Permanent Hungarian settlings appeared only after the WWI.

-The third group was the Jews. They were mainly Russian and Polish Jews. There were about 2million of them migrating at that time. The only difference was though; that they arrived withtheir families and once settled did not want to leave. They mainly settled around the area ofNew York City.

-The railroad company made contract with Chinese workers and imported them to the U.S, asthey were cheap. Severe conflicts developed between Chinese and American workers, andChinese were attacked and killed. The massacre resulted in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act:ban on Chinese immigration, it gave the quota less than 2000 Chinese a year. It introducedquota restriction. In 1920s Congress passed laws to limit all kinds of immigration.Immigration Act of 1920 (Quota Laws):

-The end of this period is signaled by a strict Immigration Act of Reed-Johnson 1924, whichlimits the number of immigrants from any country to 150.000.)

(It started after the WWII, and lasts till now. This period means a change of composition, mostimmigrants arrive form Latin American. Important changes in the control of immigration:Lyndon B. Johnson (1976) - eliminated the strict quota system, limited only the annual overallnumber (not the composition) Immigration Act of 1990 passed by the Bush administration Mostsweeping changes it increased the total number of annual limit of the immigrants (700.000people). Increased competition for green cards, also gave an 18 months permit for Asianrefugees.)

Newest Immigration:

The twenty years between the new immigration wave and the newest immigration wave wascharacterized by the Great Depression and the World War.In 1929 in New York a very sad and serious economic problem started, called the GreatDepression. America was not a popular destination anymore.Even the 1930s were characterized by the stop of immigration. The solution for the economicproblems came with the World War II. With the preparation for the war the production grew andit led to the end of Great Depression.However, during the war traveling became very difficult and of course dangerous, so people didnot move much. During this period of time immigration was very low.



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-The newest wave was no longer white or European.-immigrants from Latin-America and Asia. 60% of the immigrants came from these two

countries. Their reasons were the same: economy and politics.-After the World War II the USA was a different nation. It was more open to different races, and

the Civil Rights Movements ensured that even colored people should have the same rightsas white people.

-The Latin-American immigrants looked at themselves as Americans because they lived on thesame continent; it was the same cultural area. The Hispanic culture and language are and were

also supported by the fact that there were and still are numerous TV and radio stations inSpanish language on the American continent.

Assimilation theory: Israel Zangwill wrote a play with the title: Melting pot. It is the place where allthe race of Europe are melting and reforming. It was comforting for Americans to be told that theircountry could turn the newcomers into Americans. But the US turned out to be more of a salad bowl.Ethnic groups stayed together to keep their old identities alive. Multiculturalism, cultural pluralism: thesociety was not homogenous.



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10. U.S. Foreign Policy at the Turn of the 19th

-20th

The US first appeared on the global stage between 1890 and 1920. Diplomacy in Europe has longtradition. In the USA the revolution wouldnt have succeeded without French and Spanish help, soAmericans owed a lot to foreign policy, they were committed to these and at the end of the 18thcentury.1976 Washingtons Farewell Address

: Americans fulfilled their commitments, so hecomposed the idea of isolationism. The USA wanted to expand commercial relations, but notpolitical connections. It meant isolation from Europe. Isolationism was helped by real physicaldistance and separation; and the belief of the original settlers that they would build a better world.Foreign policy existed in the American continent, not with Europe.

President Roosevelt warned people in 1937. Most Americans ignored Roosevelts warning. Theybelieved that the best thing to do was to let foreigners solve their problemsthemselves.(=Isolationists) Their ideas were very strong in Congress during the 1930s. ( passed anumber of laws called Neutrality Acts. (American citizens would not be allowed to sell militaryequipment or lend money, to any nations at war.

American diplomats coined 3 phrases: Manifest Destiny, the Frontier and Monroe-doctrine(1823)Monroe was a President who modified the message of Washingtons Farewell Address. It meantthat the USA would stay out from European affairs, but he warned the European powers againstfurther colonization in North and South America.

Social Darwinism: after Darwins theory of evolution Social Darwinism was developed byHerbert Spencer. Natural selection is applied to human society. Weak, unfit failed strong,talented succeeded. Struggle was a natural phenomenon in human society competitive spirit.This theory was handy to industrialists. Law of nature + law of God

The 2nd industrial revolution brought economic extension. In 1890 the Frontier was closed.Politicians realized if they wanted to keep industrial growth, they needed to join the Europeanpowers foroverseas markets.The US faced a two-fold task: they had to explain the people why they wanted to expand; theyneeded a strong army and a strong navy.

The 1st

test came with Cuba. From 1895 onwards feelings of this kind were focused more andmore upon Cuba. But at this time Cuba was a Spanish colony. In 1895 the people of Cuba rose inrebellion against their Spanish rulers. By 1898 many Americans felt that the US should dosomething to help the Cubans. In April President McKinley demanded that Spain should withdrawfrom Cuba, and a few days later Spain and the US went to war.

In 1898 Spanish-American War (The Loss of Innocence) broke out, it was the 1st event of thenew foreign policy. After long years of isolation this was the 1st

In the end of the 19

time that USA interfered inforeign affairs. It started with the explosion of the warship:Maine.

th

The Spanish-American war was fought in two parts of the world. One was Cuba; the other was thePhilippines. The first battle was fought in the Philippines. A few weeks later American soldiersoccupied Manila, the chief city. American soldiers also landed in Cuba. Other American soldiers

century Cuba belonged to Spain. Cuba was important for American business,because of sugar production. There were revolutions against Spanish authority in Cuba.



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occupied Puerto Rico.

Spain gave most of its overseas empire to the US - Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and a smallPacific island called Guam. At the same time the US also annexed Hawaii.In less than a year the US had become a colonial power. Some Americans were worried by this.How could Americans fight against such people without being unfaithful to the most importanttraditions and values of their own country? Most Americans answered this question by claimingthat they were preparing underdeveloped nations for civilization and democracy.It was a short and victorious war. The Philippines and Puerto Rico became part of the US. In 1903the Americans withdrew their army from Cuba, but signed the Platt Amendment: The US couldsend troops to take control of Cuba any time it believed that American interests were in danger.Before the Americans took away their soldiers in 1902 they made the Cuban government givethem land at Guantanamo Bay. They built a big American naval base there.

Jingo Press new type of journalism (Hearst, Pulitzer) convinced people about the necessity ofinterfering in Cuba. They published sensational articles about the fights in Cuba. (=active rolehelping the government policy.) Good means for the government to persuade the public aboutmilitary interference.

1904 Roosevelt Corollary: In 1904 President Theodore Roosevelt made an addition orcorollary to the original Monroe Doctrine. He said that the US would intervene in LatinAmerica, whenever it thought necessary. Roosevelt believed that by doing this the US would beable to ensure the internal stability of its Latin American neighbors and so remove any excuse forEuropeans to interfere in their affairs.In the next 20 years American soldiers landed in countries like Nicaragua, Haiti and theDominican Republic, and took over their governments for years.

The Panama Channel: In the early 1990s the American government wanted to build a passage atwhere North and South America join. It was necessary for American ships to travel quicklybetween east and west coast instead of making long journey around South America. The territorywas owned by Colombia and the Columbian government refused to give permission. The solutionwas a local upraise: Roosevelt sent armed forces to help the revolution and Panama becameseparate state and let the US to build the Channel (1907-1914). Roosevelts policy was called theBig Stick Policy: He said that in order to achieve what you want, you have to speak softly andcarry a big stick in case you need to defend yourself.In the early 1900s President Taft favored a policy which encouraged Americans to invest in areasthat were strategically important to the United States, such as Latin America. It was called: DollarDiplomacy. Through economic power it is easy to gain political power.



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11. The U.S. in World War I and in the Peace-making Process (1914-1920)

In 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy declared war on Serbia, Germany declared war onRussia and France while Britain declared war on Germany, as well. The two fighting powers ofthis war were the Allies (Great Britain, France, and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germanyand the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy).

The president of the US was Woodrow Wilson who was a democrat. He called on the Americansto stay neutral according to the isolationist idea. Being impartial wasnt very difficult sincepeople themselves wanted to stay out of this war, so the majority of the Americans agreed withWilson.However, it was quite difficult to maintain complete neutrality not only because of theireconomic interests in the area, but also because many people felt they had to express theirsympathy for their mother country or for the fighting powers.Commercially, the US tried to take advantage of the war to strengthen their commercial tides. By1915 American factories were working on full speed. (weapons, munitions, accommodates andother products) The American banks also provided loans to European countries. These changesresulted in a huge economical boom in the US.

German leaders were determined to stop the huge influx of American products into Europe andintroduced the so calledSubmarine Warfare. They said that they would sink all the merchantships of the Allies around Britain.The USA only gave up its isolationist idea when the first passenger ship, the Lusitana wassunk with 2000 people on board. It was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine. All of thepassengers, including 126 American citizens, died. As a result, a huge scandal broke out inAmerica. Americans protested and Wilson sent a strongly worded message to Germany.However, the German submarine attacks continued and 2 other passenger ships, the Sussex andthe Arabic were sunk.The Germans decided to stop the submarine warfare if the US decreased its commercial activitytoward Europe.In November of 1916 Wilson was reelected, America continued its commercial activity withEurope.As an answer, the Germans resumed the submarine warfare, but this time they would attacked notonly British or French but neutral ships (like American ones) as well.Wilson sent a final message on January 22nd

, 1917. He asked the parties to sign a peace treaty, apeace without victory and to get to an agreement about European matters. Wilson was tooidealistic. Obviously, none of the parties accepted his idea.

In March 1917, the English secret agents intercepted the secret telegram of Arthur Zimmermann(the German secretary of state) which was sent to the Mexicans and the Germans offered analliance to Mexico against the Allies and the US. They promised foreign aid and German allianceto the Mexicans in case of attacking the Southern part of US when America enters the war. Theyalso would have helped them to get back their territories, lost in the Mexican-American war.Besides the German alliance, the Mexican minister should have asked the Japanese to alsobecome a German ally.The telegram was given to Wilson who gave it to the newspapers. Sensational stories were madeand even the Southern states had to realize that this war is not totally out of their lives. TheZimmermann Telegram along with the Submarine Warfare was the turning point of the WWI.



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from Americas point of view. The public turned pro-war and on April 6, 1917 the USA declaredwar on Germany.

Wilsons aim was to defeat Germany and put an end to this war. By June 1917 more than amillion soldiers were trained and shipped to Europe. The AEF (American Expeditionary Force)fought under the leadership ofJohn J. Pershing who was the commander in chief. Later they

joined the French troops led by General Foch. In the spring of 1918 they stopped the Germans 40miles from Paris and only six weeks later they pushed back the Germans behind the Germanborders. (In the meantime Russia stepped out of the war because of their own Civil War).In November, 1918 the so calledArmistice Treaty (cease-fire) was signed.The peacemaking process was extremely important for Wilson, he made great efforts to preventthe world from getting involved in further wars. He even traveled to Europe to participate in thepeacemaking process. When he arrived in Europe he took a list of ideas about postwar settlement.He called this list the Wilsonian Fourteen Points. He introduced them in January, 1918 in theform of a speech in front of the Congress. In Europe the Germans accepted the 14 points as thebasis of peace making.

The 14 points aimed at two major objectives:- To replace (economically and politically free world, a world without colonization - the Us had

already promised freedom to its dependencies).- To offer an alternative to Bolshevism because it would have meant a threat for the Christian

traditions of the Western World.

The most important points were:- He wanted the occupied territories to decide their future, where they want to belong to, by

referendum. He wanted a national self-determination, but it wasnt accepted by the Allies(catastrophe for Hungary).

- He demanded the adjustment of colonial claims- He demanded freedom of the seas- He required nations to stop making secret treaties- He suggested the reduction of armed forces (disarmament) in every country- He wanted to achieve free trade with one another and wanted to abolish the protective tariffs- He called for the establishment of an international forum to settle disputes between the countries

through negotiations and not through wars. He called this establishment the League of Nations.

Before the negotiations started, he sent his ideas to the Germans who accepted them. However,when the Paris Peace-conference started in January 1919, he was outmaneuvered by the PrimeMinisters of Britain (David Lloyd George) and France (Georges Clemenceau). They did notagree with Wilsons ideas. They couldnt accept the 14 points because Clemenceau and Wilsonhad totally different ideas about the punishment of the Germans and about the future peace.

Wilson only wanted to punish the leaders of Germany and not the people. He said that Germansshouldnt be treated unfairly because then they would like to take a revenge which would lead toanother war.

Clemenceau, on the other hand, believed that the only way to solve the future problems was todevastate Germany. To humiliate people as much as possible to destroy their industry. So, theywould not be able to finance another fight again.Lloyd George agreed with Clemenceau and since they were on home grounds, Wilsons ideaswere almost totally rejected. The peace treaty in Versailles was not a real discussion. Wilson



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and the US delegation did not sign it. The US signedbilateral treaties separately with theloosing countries later, in 1921 in the Treaty of Berlin (US - Germany, US - Austria, US -Hungary).

The only point that caught the attention of the European leaders was the organization of theLeague of Nations. When Wilson went back to the US he wanted to make people understand that

the League of Nations was necessary. The American Senate refused it saying that the USwouldnt like to participate in it. As a result, in 1919 the League of Nations was established inEurope, but without the USA.



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12. The Great Depression: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the new Deal

This decade was also known as the New Era. The time of the twenties was a quite noisydecade. It was the time of a new societys birth.

The roaring twenties

The country found itself in a very favorable position after the. The US was on its way to become

a predominantly urban nation. In 1920 the number of those living in towns and cities exceededthe number of those living in rural areas. Soon, the society became characterized by theconsumers. America became a consumer society.The technological innovation also contributed to the growth of the national wealth. (chemistry,electricity, telecommunication, automobiles, etc.) Electrical household devices like therefrigerator, the vacuum cleaner, the iron, the stove, or the radio also appeared.Thefirst silent films were created at that time and Hollywood was born then, too.Jazz became widespread.People bought a lot of things since it was very easy. Citizens could buy almost anything theywanted on installment plans, on credit. A new kind of slavery was formed starting the longway of mass production. The world was on its way to be Americanized.

The political and social life of the roaring twenties showed a mixture of conservatism andradicalism. Conservatives, of course, were against all these changes.

- Red Scare: the fear of bolshevism. They were afraid of the radical movements, that bolshevistswould invade the country. To protect America they persecuted radicals. A typical example ofthis was the so-calledSacco-Vanzetti case, when two Italians were arrested and executedfor bank robbery, although there were evidences against their guiltiness.

- Ku-Klux Clan: This organization revived at that time as an anti-colored, anti-foreigner, anti-Catholic organization with a peak membership of about 5 million in the early 1920s.

- Religious Fundamentalism: The movement invaded everyday life, education and other areasof peoples lives. The best example of religious fundamentalism was the so called Scopes

trial, when a teacher was took to court because he taught Darwinist theory instead ofChristian beliefs.

- Restrictions: The quota-laws have been introduced that time to stop the immigration waves.

- Prohibition Laws: These laws even became the 18th

At the same time there were some radical changes.

Constitutional Amendment in 1919Prohibition laws prohibited the manufacturing, transporting and sale of alcoholic products inthe USA. The movement itself started in the 1870s, some states even declared themselves asdry states. It became a federal act in 1919 meaning that nowhere in the USA couldalcohol be sold or manufactured. Illegal drinking places opened, called the Speak Easy.The bootleggers made huge profit. The twenties was also characterized by the gangster warsand famous gangsters like Al Capone.

- New Women: The emergence of a woman organization. They were the first ones who got theright to vote. With the spread of birth control many of the women got employed.Unfortunately, only middle class and white women had the possibilities for these changes,the others remained in the traditional role of women.

- New Negro: The emergence of New Negroes. Urbanization affected the black communitiesas well. There was a steady migration from the rural areas into the cities and from the Southto the North. Urbanization did not go hand in hand with higher living standards; blacks stillmostly lived in ghettos such as Harlem in New York City.



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The Great Depression had many warning signs. It all started at the New York Stock Exchange onWall Street.

The Great Depression

The happenings preceding the depression were th

tha history of usa (2003, 52 oldal)

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