7.

6
American Economic History

Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was appointed the 1st Secretary of Treasury by George Washington. He becomes the father of the American economy.

National Bank & Revolutionary War Debt

Hamilton assumed the debt National Bank 1789 of the states and created a line of credit for the national government. Hamilton believed the United States should pursue economic growth through shipping, manufacturing, and banking. He sought and achieved Congressional authority to create the First Bank of the United States in 1791; the charter lasted until 1811.

Henry Clays American System

Henry Clay

Congressman Henry Clay was the plan's foremost proponent and the first to refer to it as the American System.

The American System

The American System was an economic plan that played a major role in American policy during the first half of the 1800s. Rooted in the "American School" ideas of Alexander Hamilton, the plan "consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: 1. a tariff to protect and promote American industry 2. a national bank to promote trade and production 3. federal money for roads, canals, and other 'internal improvements' to develop profitable markets for agriculture."

Andrew Jackson and the 2nd National Bank

President Andrew Jackson (18291837) opposed the Second Bank of the United States, which he believed favored the interests of the rich. When he was elected for a second term, Jackson blocked the renewal of the bank's charter and removed federal government money from the bank. Jacksons campaign against the Bank had triumphed.
Andrew Jackson

Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the US built on selling property to make a profit. The end of the Second Bank of the United States had produced a period of runaway inflation, but on May 10, 1837, in New York City, every bank began to accept payment only in paper money, forcing a dramatic, deflationary backlash. This was based on the assumption by former president, Andrew Jackson, that the government was selling land for state bank notes of questionable value. The Panic was followed by a seven-year depression, with the failure of banks and then-record-high unemployment levels.

Civil War
By 1860, on the eve of Civil War, 16% of the people lived in cities and one third of the nation's income came from manufacturing. The Union grew rich fighting the war, as the Confederate economy was destroyed.

King Cotton
King Cotton was a slogan used by southerners to support secession from the USA by arguing cotton exports would make an independent Confederacy economically rich, and would force Great Britain and France to support the Confederacy in the Civil War because their economy depended on cotton. To demonstrate their economic power southerners spontaneously refused to sell or ship out their cotton in early 1861.

Plantation System

The strategy proved a failure for the ConfederacyKing Cotton did not help the new nation.

Reconstruction
The wartime devastation of the South Southern Discomfort was great and poverty ensued They were joined by many poor whites, as the population grew faster than the economy. The Northern victory sealed the destiny of the nation and its economic system. The slave-labor system was abolished; the world price of cotton plunged, making the large southern cotton plantations much less profitable. Northern industry, which had expanded rapidly before and during the war, surged ahead.

Tenant Farmers & Sharecroppers

Tenant Farmers After the Civil War, many freed slaves continued to work the fields that they worked prior to the war. Although free, tenant farming was a way to suppress free blacks. Plantation owners allowed freed slaves to live on the land in exchange for their labor. Sharecroppers Another way of suppressing free blacks after the Civil War was sharecropping. Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e.g., 50% of the crop).

Industrialization
Industrialization is the process in which a country transforms itself from a primarily agricultural society into one based on the manufacturing of goods and services. Individual manual labor is often replaced by mechanized mass production and craftsmen are replaced by assembly lines. Three major business figures emerged at the end of the 19th century. These "robber barons" were Andrew Carnegie in the steel industry, J.P. Morgan in the banking industry, and John Rockefeller in the oil industry.

The Gilded Age

In US history, the Gilded Age was the period following the Civil War, running from 1877 to 1893. The term was coined by writer Mark Twain, satirizing what they believed to be an era of serious social problems hidden by a thin layer of gold. The Gilded Age was a time of enormous growth that attracted millions from Europe. Railroads were the major industry, but the factory system, mining, and labor unions also gained in importance.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act is a law on competition passed by Congress in 1890. It prohibits monopolies, also known as trusts. It was the first Federal statute to limit monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust laws by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency.

Panic of 1893
The growth of the gilded age was interrupted by major nationwide depressions known as the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893. The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, it was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing, resulting in a series of bank failures. The Panic of '93 was the worst economic depression the United States had ever experienced at the time.

The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of social activism and political reform that flourished from the 1890s to the 1920s. The goals were to clean up government, assist the needy, and protect Americans.

Theodore Roosevelt Trustbuster

Teddy Roosevelt
Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. Owing to his charismatic personality, his extremely high energy levels and span of interests, and his reformist policies, which he called the "Square Deal", Roosevelt is considered one of the ablest presidents and an icon of the Progressive Era.

Trustbuster Roosevelt quickly gained the reputation as a trustbuster. A trustbuster aims to break up monopolies, aka trust. Roosevelt helped regulate steel, banking, railroads, and oil.

Clayton Antitrust Act & FTC (1914)

The FTC is the Along with the government agency Sherman Antitrust that promotes Act of 1890, consumer protection Clayton Antitrust Act and the elimination helped outlaw and prevention of practices considered anti-competitive harmful to business practices, consumers such as a monopoly. (monopolies, Today, it helps cartels, and trusts) promote fair in 1914. business.

The Roarin 20s

After WWI, the US saw a period of great prosperity. The economy saw a 10 year boom that sparked progressive reform, indulgent lifestyles and American culture.

Boom Economy
A boom economy is period of time during which sales of a product or business activity increases very rapidly. In the stock market, booms are associated with bull markets, whereas busts are associated with bear markets. The Roaring 20s was one of the largest booms in American history.

The Great Depression

After the boom of the 1920s, the US and most of the world experienced an economic depression like none before or after. It lasted from 19291939. This period was also known as a bust economy.

Rugged Individualism
Rugged individualism was the phrase used often by Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. It refers to the idea that each individual should be able to help themselves out, and that the government does not need to involve itself in people's economic lives or in national economics in general. Many battling their economic situation during the depression obviously did not react well to this perceived indifference by Hoover and the government.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 was a severe downturn in the prices of stock that occurred in October of 1929 in the United States, and which marked the end of the "Roaring Twenties." The crash of 1929 did not occur in one day, but was spread out over a twoweek period beginning in mid-October. Despite a few attempts at recovery, the stock market continued to languish, eventually falling almost 90% from its peak in 1929. This crash kick started a full-blown depression.

The New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs enacted in the US between 1933 and 1936. They involved presidential executive orders passed during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were in response to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) Works Progress Act (WPA)

FERA was the first relief operation under the New Deal. Basically, it gave grants and loans to states. FERA's main goal was alleviating household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government. The WPA replaced FERA in 1935. Of all of Roosevelts New Deal programs, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) is the most famous, because it affected so many peoples lives. Roosevelts vision of a workrelief program employed more than 8.5 million people. WPA employees built bridges, roads, public buildings, public parks and airports.

Public Works Administration (PWA) Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

The PWAs goals were to spend $3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, and help revive the economy by creating public projects.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 1728.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the US created May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. TVA's service area covers most of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small slices of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Social Security and FDIC

Social Security FDIC

Social security is a government retirement and disability program created in 1935 during the depression by FDR.

FDIC Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation federal corporation that insure individual deposits for up to $250,000. Because of many bank failures during the depression, the government tried to restore faith in banks by providing insurance.

The Great Society

The Great Society was a set of American programs President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice.

Reaganomics
Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by the President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are commonly associated with supply-side economics or trickle-down economics. The plan was to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce government regulation of economy, and control money supply to reduce inflation.

Dot Coms
While the term can refer to presentday companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with this business model that came into being during the late 1990s. Many were launched with very thin business plans, sometimes with nothing more than an idea and a catchy name. The exit strategy usually included a large payoff for the founders. With the stock market crash around the year 2000 that ended the dot-com bubble, many failed and failing dotcom companies were referred to punningly as dot-bombs, dot-cons, or dot-gones.

A dot-com company is a company that does most of its business on the Internet.

Bushonomics
The economic policies associated with the presidency of George W. Bush, 2001-2009.
The Great Recession The Housing Bubble Bailout

The Great Recession

The 20082012 global recession is a marked global economic decline that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The global recession affected the entire world economy, with higher costs in some countries than others. It is a major global recession characterized by various systemic imbalances and was sparked by the outbreak of the Financial crisis of 20072008.

The Housing Bubble

The United States housing bubble is an economic bubble affecting many parts of the housing market in over half of American states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012. On December 30, 2008 the Case-Shiller home price index reported its largest price drop in its history. In October 2007, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury called the bursting housing bubble "the most significant risk to our economy."

Bailouts
A bailout is a term for giving a government loan to a company which faces serious financial difficulty or bankruptcy. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)

Bank Bailout
Bank Bailout - One of the biggest bailouts is the one proposed by the U.S. government in 2008 that will see $700 billion put toward bailing out various financial organizations and those affected by the credit crisis.

Auto Bailout
The Big 3 Auto companies received a large loan from the federal government in order to keep them in business.
Ford General Motors Chrysler/Dodge

Obamanomics
Change American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Tea Partiers Obamacare

Change
Change was a campaign slogan used by President Barrack Obama in 2008. The slogan was vague and attempted to change the financial path the country was heading down.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

ARRA, commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package. To respond to the late2000s recession, the primary objective for ARRA was to save and create jobs almost immediately.

Tea Party
The Tea Party movement is an American political movement that believes in a strict interpretation United States Constitution, reducing government spending and taxes, and reduction of the U.S. national debt The movement is generally considered to be partly conservative. Tea Partiers have been highly critical of President Obama.

Obamacare
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), is commonly called Obamacare. PPACA is aimed primarily at decreasing the number of uninsured Americans and reducing the overall costs of health care.