American Civilization

AMERICAN CIVILIZATION
Bastos-Melo Daniela
UPEC Faculté d’Administration et Echanges Internationaux
American Civilization
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Theme 1 – The Colonial Period

British arrival in North America
England was the European country that truly discovered and populated North America.
How do they come? For what purpose? There are several reasons and factors. First, the
accumulation of wealth in the 16th century stimulates exportation and colonization. There
are too many poor, beggars, unemployed people. The aristocracy felt threatened from
below and sending the poor to America was a good way to get rid of that threat.
A new Eldorado?
There is an appeal for America to all classes. The biggest English discovery is that tilling the
soil would bring wealth, not gold or trading. Huge lands were available, and a scale is not
thinkable in England. A land of wonder and opportunity, became a fantasy. In Virginia, land
free and scarce labor, in England scarce land and plenty labor.
Dimension and Puritanism

Elizabeth I, became Queen in 1558. Protestantism was the religion of the State, but because
Protestantism had built a democratic tendency (search the scripture for oneself) more and
more people refused to conform their conduct to the Queen’s views. Puritans also called the
separatists, conservation was the center of their beliefs soon their radicalism led them into
exile. They didn’t believe in any pastor or “prêtre” to celebrate religion.
I. The American Experience
First settlement: Jamestown, Virginia (1607)

The settlement was the first established by the British. The conditions for the first Virginians
were extremely harsh. Captain John Smith (1579-1631) sailed with the first settlers and
became their leader. It is partly thanks to him that the colony did not perished within a few
years. He knew how to negotiate with Indians. Introduction of tobacco saved the colony.
Second settlement: Plymouth Massachusetts (1620)

The puritans boarded the Mayflower in 1620 then settled their new home in Plymouth
Harbor, Massachusetts. The conditions were terrible until 1625, then improved.
The Mayflower compact

Far from England and the sanctions of a regular British government, it became necessary to
have an agreed constitution: The Mayflower Compact. Signed by all adult males (white).
Agreement that would be carried in each new colony for decades: enabled the new settlers
to feel that they had established themselves under the rule of law.
Massachusetts Bay company

1629: Massachusetts Bay Company. Group of puritan’s refugees led by John Winthrop.
Massachusetts, also called ‘New England’ became a little republic: each town had to elect 2
deputies, vote taxes… Trade became thriving: finally, the land of plenty was ready for the
settler. Lot of fish, sugar, cotton, tobacco. By 1640, Boston was a town of 3000 people.
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A thriving community
Soon, the little religious community became a plantation of trade, and land hunger was
always more prominent. In America, they were no longer members of a closely knitted
community, but individualist farmers, each seeking his and his family’s salvation
economically and spiritually. Soon it became clear that what the colonists created was not
“the city on a hill”, but a thriving society with a ‘New England character’ which would endure
even today. 1700-1770: 200.000 colonists to 2 million.
II. The colonists’ identity
Being a colonist
The British colonist understood to be part of a great civilization. When they looked to the
east, to Britain, they saw the height of civilization. Proud to be British, belonged to a
powerful nation. Seemed to be an Empire bound not by force but by love of liberty. The
colonists might have an inferiority complex. Compared to Europe hey considered themselves
as inferior and rough.
A middling society
Populated by middling folks, English poor or the lower ranks of the English gentry. People
went to the colonies to earn money, to improve their lives and to seek religious freedom.
Some families evidently held power but not in the same unquestionable way less absolute.
No aristocracy, no peasant class. The social hierarchy was blurrier than in Europe. More
flexible social norms.
A salutary neglect
The British left the colonies a lot of liberties. Before 1760’s: the success of the colonies due
to its lack of regulation and a policy called a ‘salutary neglect’. But by the mid-18th century:
British and colonial ideas became different and started to drift apart. The colonists identified
with the mother country but they were also radically different from the English.
American specificities
Several generation of colonist, so did not have an accurate sense of what it was to be British.
Different colonies felt like different countries: each had a distinctive character. The colonists
were risk takers, independent and ambitious people. Those characteristics shaped the
colonial American mentality. More people owned land than in Europe, so they had a more
independent life style. Living on the frontier developed a sense of community, healthier
community: more food and wide open spaces.
Political participation
Colonist were invested in their communities. There was a wider franchise than in England.
60% to 80% of white men had the right to vote compared to 20% in England. Direct
participation. Elections took during a few days (fairs, parties...) thus, the spectrum between
the poor and the gentry was less rigid.
The great awakening (1730-1760)

The great awakening had an influence on the American mindset. It suggests to people that
they had the personal ability to change the course of their lives. Preached spiritual equality
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(with women and African Americans), and was led by an un-established church. Quite
radical, but the colonist’s identities were also shaped by this religious revival. Idea of
freedom and independence.
Self-governing states
By the 1760’s the colonies were self-governing states, they had assemblies, a reservoir of
political leaders, and they did not want royal officials to govern them. Voiced their opinions,
active participation, independent spirit, relative tolerance of diversity. However, there was
no real colonial unity.
Albany Congress (1754)

It was the first time that the colonies met formally to discuss important matters, such as a
real political union between them. The goal was to create a unified level of colonial
government. This was not ratified by the colonies, but it provided the ‘first draft’ of the
American constitution that would be written a few decades later.
III. The beginning of the crisis
A different vision
Before the 1760’s the respect for Britain was extremely high. But for Britons all members of
the Empire were supposed to contribute to the prosperity of England. The colonies thus
existed for the sake of the mother country and could not have a purpose of their own (like
tenant to landlord).
The Seven Years’ War (1756-1793)

The French and English war cost a lot to Britain. It led to a budget crisis and a huge deficit.
When France and Britain signed the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France lost most of its land to
Great Britain. Great Britain began to take firmer control of its colonies since British leaders
needed to settle war debts and wanted to protect newly won lands. Many in England
thought the colonists should help pay those debts.
1764: The Sugar Act

The main problem in the colonies started when Britain decided to tax the colonies to keep
peace and order within the Empire (especially in the colonies). With the Sugar Act, first signs
that the era of ‘salutary neglect’ wad gone.
1765: The Stamp Act

The British Prime Minister Greenville decided to install a colonial stamp duty. On 22 March
1765, Stamp Act became law and revolt began. The colonists refused, saying that they were
not ‘represented’. They used to govern their lives by themselves not used to pay taxes.
‘No taxation without representation’

As we know colonists were independent minded, used to self-government, and came to
think that the right of a republic was beyond the powers of kings. The British response o ‘no
taxation without representation’ was that the colonists were virtually represented. This
helped to unite the colonies in a shared cause. When British officers came to collect taxes,
they met with violence.
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The Stamp Act Congress

The colonist founded an inter-colonial body, recognized by all colonies. They resisted the
British policies with a series of declarations, inspired by the ideas of the enlightenment. They
declared that they were entitled to the rights of British citizens and therefore should not be
treated unfairly.
Dissensions
The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766. But this had sparkled something: colonists, rich and
poor, had had enough of ‘British citizenship’. The British came to think that concessions to
the Americans came to mean their own ruin. Tensions continued to grow and in May 1773
the Tea Act was voted, which would tax the colonists on tea.
The Boston Tea Party

In December 1773, the first ship arrived in Boston, but the colonists agreed that the tea
should not be unloaded. They asked the governor to send back the boats to Britain but
refused. Dressed as Indians, 50 men climbed on the boat and threw their content directly
into the Bay- worth thousands of pounds.
1774: The coercive acts

As a response, London sent thousands of troops and in 1774: the coercive acts (the
intolerable acts) were voted. Elected assemblies and town meeting became prohibited.
Closed the port of Boston. Other colonies, out of solidarity, sent goods to Boston. This
shared sense of crisis led to unity between the different colonies.
The first continental Congress

Colonists fought back and created ‘the first continental congress’. People from different
colonies met each other. British goods would be destroyed. By this time war was inevitable
as no compromise could be found. But the interests of the colonists still greatly diverged and
war or revolution was seen as a last resort solution.
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Theme 2 – The American Revolution

Tensions are growing
After the vote of the Coercive Acts in 1774, British troops were everywhere in New England.
In April 1775, they tried to seize American munitions in the town of Concord.
They were met with fierce resistance (notably with the famous minutemen) and the firs
exchanges of gunfire happened in Lexington, Massachusetts.
The Second Continental Congress

As armed conflict became inevitable, the colonies decided to form the Second Continental
Congress (May 1775) to debate their next move.
The Second Continental Congress voted to raise an army and organize for battle under the
command of a Virginian named George Washington – a crucial character who would
determine the course of the war.
The Olive Branch Petition

In July 1775, the colonist tried one last time to reach an agreement with King George III.
They proposed a ceasefire in exchange for the recognition of the American rights and the
removal of the Coercive Acts.
The King rejected the proposal and a month later, he declared the colonies to be in open
rebellion.
Common Sense
In 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a very influential piece of colonial
propaganda. He called for independence 6 months before the second continental congress.
Paine sold more than one hundred thousand copies.
The colonists had asked for the same political rights as people in Britain, but the King had
stubbornly refused. Therefore, the colonists were justified in rebelling against a tyrant who
had broken the social contract.
The Declaration of Independence

In July 1776, the Declaration is written by Thomas Jefferson – among other famous colonists
such as Benjamin Franklin and John Adams – and would come to embody the American
democracy.
‘’We hold these truths to be self-evident’’, states the beginning of the Declaration, ‘’that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’’
Separation from the Crown

The Declaration of Independence included a long list of George III’s abuses. The document
ended by declaring the colonies’ separation from Britain. The colonies, the Declaration said,
‘’are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.’’
The British were not about to let their colonies leave without a fight.
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I. The War of Independence
The importance of George Washington

The presence of Washington was crucial in many ways. People trusted him with power in a
age where people were scared about tyranny.
The title ‘Father of the country’ was given to him as soon as 1778. He was given commands
of the army, but he was given power, he did not seek it.
Washington gave back power at the end of the war and that is why he became the first
president of the young United States. He represented moderation and virtue.
A difficult struggle
Washington’s poorly trained army faced the well-trained forces of the most powerful
country in the world. Even John Adams estimated that a third of the population was against
independence and a third was neutral.
Washington lost several cities during the war: New York in the summer of 1776, Philadelphia
in 1777.
Washington’s aides said that the army of colonists were as ‘’passive as sheep’’. Mutiny,
desertions were common.
How did the colonists win the war?

Several reasons explain the colonist’s success.
- Despite the desertions, the American’s motivation for fighting was much stronger than that
of the British, since their army was defending their homeland.
- The overconfident British generals made several mistakes.
- Time itself was on the side of the Americans.
The British could win battle after battle, as they did, and still lose the war. Fighting an
overseas war, 3 000 miles from London, was terribly expensive. After a few years, British
citizens called for peace.
Benjamin Franklin in Paris

Benjamin Franklin – an inventor, printer, statesman and diplomat – came to France in 1776
to convince the King to help the colonists.
His knowledge, amiability and eccentricity seduced the French court and helped the
American cause.
France enters the War

Louis XVI of France had little sympathy for the ideals of the American Revolution.
However, he was eager to weaken France’s rival, Britain, and had already started to help the
colonies as early as 1776.
French entry into the war in 1778 was decisive.
The colonists win the war

In 1781, combined forces of about 9 500 Americans and 7 800 French trapped a British army
commanded by Lord Cornwallis near Yorktown, Virginia. Unable to escape, Cornwallis
surrendered.
The peace negotiations with Britain could begin.
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Ratification of the consumption

As victory became certain, all 13 states ratified a constitution in 1781.
Americans created a republic shortly after declaring their independence, the 13 individual
states recognized the need for a national government. They were already thinking of new
ways of governance during the war.
The treaty of Paris

The treaty of Paris was signed between the English crown and the 13 former colonies, in
September 1783, formally recognizing the American Independence.
II. The political experiment
A weak government
To protect their authority, the 13 states created a confederation in which they held most of
the power.
Thus, the Articles of Confederation deliberately created a weak national government. There
were no executive or judicial branches.
Instead, the Articles established only one body of government, the Congress. Each state,
regardless of size, had one vote in Congress. Congress could declare war, enter treaties, and
coin money.
No federal budget
The Congress had no power, however, to collect taxes or regulated trade. No money for a
federal budget. Passing new laws was difficult because laws needed the approval of 9 of the
13 states.
These limits on the national government soon produced many problems.
A New Constitution
Colonial leader eventually recognized the need for a strong national government. In
February 1787, Congress approved a Constitutional Convention to revise the articles of
Confederation. The Constitutional Convention held its first session on May 25, 1787.
The 55 delegates were experienced statesmen who were familiar with the political theories
of Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Washington led the debates.
How to rebalance power?

Although the delegates shared basic ideas on government, they sometimes disagreed on
how to put them into practice. For almost four months the delegates argued over important
questions. For instance, who should be represented in Congress?
The delegates’ deliberation produced not only compromises but also new approaches to
governing.
They created a new system of government.
Three Branches of power

Like Montesquieu, the delegates distrusted a powerful central government controlled by
one person or group.
They therefore established three separate branches – legislative, executive and judicial.
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Checks and Balances

This provided a system of checks and balances, with each branch checking the actions of the
other two. For example, the president received the power to veto legislation passed by
Congress. However, the Congress could bypass a presidential veto with the approval of two-
thirds of its members.
Although the Constitution created a strong central government, it did not eliminate local
governments. Instead, the Constitution set up a federal system in which power was divided
between national and state governments.
Federalists and Antifederalists

The delegates signed the new Constitution on September 1787. But to become law, the
Constitution required approval by conventions in at least 9 of 13 states.
Supporters of the Constitution were called Federalists. They argued that the new
government would provide a better balance between national and state powers. Their
opponents, the Antifederalists, feared that the Constitution gave the central government too
much power.
The Bill of Rights

The Antifederalists wanted a bill of rights to protect the rights of individual citizen. The Bill of
Rights was added to the Constitution.
It guarantees personal freedom and limits the government’s power on individual rights.
The influence of the Enlightenment

Many of these rights had been advocated by Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke. The constitution
and Bill of Rights marked a turning point in people’s ideas about government. Both
documents put Enlightenment ideas into practice. A government that put power in the
hands of the people.
Huge expectation: Is the promise of the revolution going to be fulfilled? They expressed an
optimistic view that reason and reform could prevail and that progress was inevitable.
A real democracy?
The issue of slavery was largely ignored. The declaration of independence, despite its claim
to universality, was only for white males.
Hug paradox (land of liberty and freedom / the most brutal enslavement) which would lead
to the Civil War.
What did the revolution mean?

A revolution always leads to a major shift in sovereignty and to a radical change of
governance. Deconstruction and reconstruction. Step in the unknown.
But eventually, the American people found their voice. They wanted a new government for a
new nation.
The French Revolution

The American Revolution inspired the growing number of French people who sought reform
in their own country. They saw the new government of the United States as the fulfillment
of Enlightenment ideals.
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The Declaration of Independence was widely circulated and admired in France. French
officers like the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought for American independence, captivated
his fellow citizens with accounts of the war.
Less than a decade after the American Revolution ended, the French revolution would start.
Independence: endless possibilities

Under British rule, the westward expansion of the Americans was complicated. The British
did not want the colonists to step into the wild because they feared losing control.
Now that the Americans were free, real exploration was possible.
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Theme 3 – The Westward Expansion

The Independence and the Louisiana Purchase
Without the British, the Americans could finally explore their immense territory.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French
government for 15$ million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to
the Rocky Mountains and doubled the size of the United States.
Expansion
To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health. He believed that a
republic depended on independent, virtuous citizens for its survival, and this went hand in
hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms. (‘’Those who labor in the
earth’’, he wrote, ‘’are the chosen people of God.’’)
To provide enough land to sustain this ideal population, the United States would have to
continue to expand.
The Westward Expansion: freedom and independence

Many of these pioneers associated westward migration, land ownership and farming with
freedom.
In Europe, large numbers of factory workers formed a dependent and, so it seemed
permanent working class.
By contrasts, in the United States, the western frontier offered the possibility of
independence and mobility for all.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition

In late 1802, Jefferson asked his private secretary and military advisor, captain Lewis, to plan
an expedition through the Louisiana Territory to survey its natural resources, look for a
practicable water communication across the continent and explore the Pacific Northwest.
In June 1803, Lewis selected William Clark to be joint commander of the expedition.
A new territory
Before settlers could immigrate in quantity:
- The newly discovered territories needed to be mapped more thoroughly.
- More contacts mode with the Indians.
The opening up of the West was also done by Commercial fur hunters and trappers between
1820 and the 1840’s.
The expedition
They assembled what they called the Corps of Discovery, a mixed group of soldiers and
skilled civilians.
They were joined and aided by a French trader and his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, who
served as an interpreter along the way.
This first transcontinental expedition took two years and a half.
The journey had been tough, but they had achieved their objectives, except for the discovery
of a passage via water to the Pacific.
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The Importance of the expedition

Their journey helped open the American west to further exploration and settlement,
providing valuable geographical and diplomatic information, giving the US a foothold in the
region’s fur trade and making contact with more than 72 Native American tribes.
The route that they took became part of the Oregon Trail.
The Oregon Trail

In the 1840s it was Oregon above all that attracted settlers.
It became a fantasy (reminder of the Virginia fantasy in the 17th century).
Thousands of families caught what was known as Oregon fever.
They sold up all their possessions to buy a wagon or ‘’prairie schooner’’ to make the long
journey from the starting point at Independence, Missouri.
A difficult Journey
The first part of the journey was easy, but later was very difficult.
They entered Indian territory and often met fierce resistance from the Great Plains
Confederation of the Sioux. Lastly, they had to cross the mountains. Thousands of new
settlers never reached Oregon.
The Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

Mexico had won her independence from Spain in the 1820s and owned California, Texas and
most of the Southwest of the present-day United States.
It didn’t have proper control of its large territories and was unable to stop large numbers of
North Americans settling in them.
Texas broke away in the 1830s and became a member of the Union in 1845. In the following
year, the United States declared war on Mexico. Soon, the Americans controlled all Mexican
territory north of the Rio Grande, including California.
The California Gold Rush (1849)

It was gold rather than land that caused the huge movement to the far west in 1849, when
gold was discovered in California.
Most of the 80 000 or so ‘’Forty-niners’’ who reached California did not find gold. They came
because of stories of those who had found gold dust in rivers.
But the gold rush brought about the very fast settlement of California, and by 1850 it could
become a state of the Union.
The search for gold

In the 1850s, Colorado saw a rush of prospectors, and in the 1860s it was Nevada, Montana
and Idaho. Frantic search for gold spread everywhere, even though very few became rich.
In 1891-1994, Colorado saw the last great gold rich.
By the 1860s the far west was full of settlers. Proper trails linked it to the departure points
on the Missouri in the East. Only the Great Plains between remained unsettled.
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The Homestead Act (1862)

The Homestead Act, signed by A. Lincoln, greatly accelerated the settlement of Western
territories.
It granted any US citizen the right to claim 160 acres (approximatively 64 hectares) at very
little cost.
The Act also claimed that after 5 years of residency, this land would be granted permanently.
The transcontinental railroad

Until the 1860s, the great central plains were an endless area of lands to be crossed as fast
as possible.
The coming of the railroads changed all this. By 1869 the first railroad stretched from the
Pacific all the way to the East Coast – the first transcontinental rail Road.
Men and goods would be carried cheaply and quickly across the continent.
It took one week to cross the continent and no longer six months.
Manifest Destiny
The term ‘manifest destiny’ was first coined by journalist John O’Sullivan in 1845.
It was the belief that the American people had a divine mission: to populate, to take control
and to improve this enormous land.
Sense of destiny of the American people that served to justify the removal of the Indians.
The American man was compared to a new Adam (Walt Whitman’s poem Leaves of Grass)
The destruction of the Plain Indians

At the end of the 19th century, the Indians tribes of the plains were broken and defeated.
The Indians had lived for centuries by hunting the 15 million or so buffalos of the plains.
White hunters began to hunt them to extinction.
The US government tried to force the Indians to give up their old hunting grounds in return
for barren (sterile) reservations, where they had to cohabitate with enemy tribes.
Sometimes the Indians managed to wipe out white soldiers, as when they destroyed General
Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876. But their struggle was doomed.
The Settlement of the Great Plain

Between 1870 and 1890, the biggest movement westward took place.
Hundreds of thousands of settlers move into the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
The last territory settled was Oklahoma in 1889.
A frantic rush took place to seize a last bit of land.
The frontier was closed. There was now no dividing line between wild and settled land.
Who were the settlers?

Where did all the new settlers come from? Part of the answer is the massive natural increase
in the population. There were just over 23 million Americans in 1850. By 1880, there were
50 million.
But also in those 30 years between 1850 and 1880, millions of immigrants arrived from
Europe and settled in the farmlands of the mid and far west.
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Westward Expansion and Immigration

Of all the immigrants, it was people from Northern Europe who took the largest part in the
westward surge.
After 1900, there was a new surge of immigrants from Europe, who came mostly to the
cities and factories of the east coast.
During this period, the cities grew rapidly. In the 1890’s, Chicago’s population increased by
600 000, to reach 2,2 million in 1910.
The expansion’s influence on American mentality

It helped to shape the American character. The frontier helped to make American out of the
millions of Europeans immigrants. Everyone had to live and work together to survive.
Also, in a world where shops were often out of reach, men learnt to rely on themselves and
to make much of what they needed, rather than buy it. Strong idea of self-reliance.
The land seemed limitless and it took a long time for people to realize that resources might
run out.
Distrust of central government

American attitudes to government were also influenced by the frontier. Many men who
went west didn’t like being ordered around by any government. The Congress in Washington
was a very long way off and it therefore made sense for people on the spot to make
decisions.
Out of this grew a distrust of central government and a very strong wish for things to be
controlled at local level.
Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis

Chapter I: ‘’… American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line,
but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new
development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning
over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion
westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive
society, furnish the forces dominating American character.’’
The End of the Frontier

The concept of the West is a flexible one, because the line separating ‘’civilization’’ from the
wilderness moved.
With no new land, available it became more important that the land was farmed well to
produce the increasing amount of food needed by the growing population.
The Legend of the Frontier

In a hundred years America turned an uncultivated land into a powerful, rich and free
nation. The frontier made America and influenced much of what has happened since.
Figures like cowboys and Indians have become almost mythical.
Issues with the Westward Movement

The westward movement and the settling of new regions had the effect of testing the
balance between northern, free states and southern, slave states.
This difficult balance of power would lead to the Civil War.
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Theme 4 – The Civil War

The Importance of the Civil War
The Confederate flag is visible in the South of the US and shows that the Civil War still has a
massive influence. Why doesn’t it go away? Is it because people love epic stories?
It was the first great racial reckoning. It was a struggle for emancipation. The union fought to
free the slaves and for a new definition of America.
It marks the transformation from a pre-modern to a more modern world.
A Land of Inconsistencies
The declaration of independence had declared that all men were created equal. But the
declaration didn’t apply to blacks.
They were considered 60% of a person for determining how many seats each state would
have in Congress (the 3/5th Compromise).
Thus, the clause gave the South a role in the national government far greater than
representation based on its free population alone would have allowed.
The Bill of rights didn’t apply to slaves.
Differences within the Union

Although slavery existed in all 13 colonies at the start of the American Revolution in 1775,
several Americans sensed the contradiction between the Declaration of Independence’s
claim of human equality and the existence of slavery.
Reacting to that contradiction, Northern states decided to phase out slavery following the
Revolution.
The future of slavery in the South was debated, and some held out the hope it would
eventually disappear there as well.
Tocqueville
Tocqueville travels in the US in 1831 and ‘’predicts’’ that slavery will lead the country to war.
He compares a free and a slave’s state (Ohio and Kentucky). Whereas the North is rich and
industrious, the south is stationary: ‘’society has gone to sleep’’ says Tocqueville.
Slavery brutalizes black people and debilitates the whites. He concludes: ‘’Man is not made
for slavery: that truth is perhaps even better proved by the master than by the slave’’. (see
Democracy in America).
The Northers States

The North and South were very different in nature, and wanted different things from their
government. In the North, society was fast becoming industrial. Immigrants in search of
work were arriving by the thousands.
In addition, women began to leave the farms seeking opportunity in the cities. Immigrants
and women provided an abundant source of inexpensive labor to fuel the factories.
People started to buy manufactured goods (clothes, candles…)
The Northern Society

Fundamental alterations within society: consumerist mentality, social optimism, progress…
Wealth grows tremendously but inequalities as well.
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Women went to work, left the realm of domesticity for the first time. Child labor was
common: a child meant income.
Inequalities and injustice existed in the North as well.
Southern States
The South, on the other hand, remained a region of small towns and large plantations. The
great cotton empire depended on slave labor and cheap European imports.
Slave labor was the definition of labor in the South.
Southerners began to fear that if the North ever gained control in Congress, it would create
taxes on imports, known as tariffs, which could ruin the South. Southerner John C. Calhoun,
Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, was among the first to voice
this concern.
State’s sovereignty
Though he opposed secession, John Calhoun argued that a state could protect its interests
by simply nullifying any act by the federal government it considered unconstitutional and
unfair.
Southerners began to rely on the concept of states’ sovereignty as means of self-protection.
This notion of State Rights would be used by Southerners until the 1960’s to justify
segregation.
The Expansion of Slavery: A Heated Debate

The seeds of the Civil War lie in the expansion of slavery in the western territories.
The Missouri Compromise (1820)

The proposed admission of Missouri as a slave state in 1820 led to the Missouri
Compromise. Under its terms – a system called dual admission – Maine was admitted as a
free state, maintaining the balance between slave and free states.
Additionally, Congress prohibited slavery in all western territories lying above Missouri’s
southern boundary.
However, this debate between the North and the South was more about political power
sharing than about human rights.
The Mexican War: Expansionism

The Mexican war was a war of expansion. The US victory in 1848 brought the nation vast
new lands in the West. Once again, the status of slavery in the territories became a hot
issue.
The abolitionists feared that slavery as a system could control America’s future.
But among Southern leadership, people said that the destiny of the slave society was to
expand west. It was a necessity ‘’to expand or to die’’.
Abolitionism grows
In the North, abolitionism was growing and gaining political weight. Famous abolitionists
began to voice their concerns about slavery:
- William Lloyd Garrison (with his influential newspaper The Liberator).
- Frederick Douglass
- Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin).
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The Compromise of 1850

A new agreement, the Compromise of 1850, became necessary when California sought to
join the Union. The comprise had four parts:
- It admitted California as a free state,
- It included a stronger fugitive slave law,
- It assured Congress would not interfere with the interstate traffic in slaves’ trade in the
District of Columbia.
As is usually the case with compromises, neither side was pleased, but both accepted it,
hoping the law would finally settle the slavery issue.
The Fugitive Slave Act

The Fugitive Slave Act, which was part of the Compromise, incited great outrage. Under this
new law, federal commissioners received twice as much money for returning a slave to the
South than for freeing them.
This heightened Northern sympathy towards the runaway slaves and caused great
expansions in the existing vigilance and resistance movements.
Organizations held lectures and provided shelter, money, transportation, and services for
slaves to escape along the Underground Railroad.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854

The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise by ceding rights to
individuals states to decide whether to be free or slave-holding through the process of
Popular Sovereignty.
Slave-holders flocked into Kansas to secure their vote, and caused fights with northerners.
This episode, because of its violence, was called Bleeding Kansas.
The Birth of the Republican Party

In the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Republican party was created. The aim of
the new party was to avoid the new territories to become slave states.
It later fought for the abolition of slavery.
Abraham Lincoln’s Election (1860)

Though he didn’t receive most the popular vote, Lincoln, a republican, gained a solid
majority in the Electoral College.
He won the election by carrying most Northern states and western states of California and
Oregon, while failing to receive a single electoral vote in the Deep South.
The Secession Crisis

Spurred by South Carolina, the states of the Deep South concluded that a limitation on
slavery in the new territories was the first step toward a total abolition of its ‘’peculiar
institution.’’
Immediately upon seeing the results of the election, South Carolina called for a special state
convention, which voted for the state to secede from the Union.
One by one, six other states – Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas –
also left the Union, calling their new country the Confederate States of American and
appointing Jefferson Davis as its president.
18
Fort Sumter
Lincoln hoped desperately to achieve a peaceful solution, but when he decided to resupply
the US army troops at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in April 1861, Confederate forces
fired on the fort.
Lincoln’s call for 75 000 volunteers to put down the southern rebellion. This decision
prompted Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas to join the Confederacy.
Civil war had come.
The Shrinking South’s Theory

When Mississippi seceded, it asserted that: Our position is thoroughly identified with the
institution of slavery… Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer
to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to
degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money [the estimated total
market value of slaves], or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure
this as well as every other species of property.
The Southerners were arguing for white security and supremacy. They feared that this whole
way of life would be threatened.
A Glimpse of Hope
Slaves from the South fled to Union lines, some taking refuge in newly forming contraband
camps. In some of these camps, formerly enslaved people gained their first taste of freedom
and an opportunity for education.
By 1862, Lincoln was considering emancipating slaves under Confederate control as a
military strategy to win the war.
The Proclamation of Emancipation

The South had been using slaves to aid the war effort. Black men and women had been
forced to build fortifications, work as blacksmiths or nurses.
Meanwhile, the North was refusing to accept the services of black volunteers and freed
slaves – the people who most wanted to defeat the slaveholders.
After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, the Union army
accepted black soldiers into its ranks.
The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3 1863)

This battle is considered a turning point in the war. In the Summer of 1863, Confederate
General Robert E. Lee tried to launch an attack on the North, and invaded northern
territories.
He was defeated by Union forces. The battle resulted in huge causalities, killing nearly 50
000 confederate and union soldiers in just three days.
The North Wins the War

After the victory of Gettysburg, northern Generals such as Ulysses Grant and William
Sherman won battles after battles and used new war tactics against the southern army –
with devastating effects.
Entire cities of the Deep South were burnt to the ground and in April 9, 1865, General Lee
surrendered.
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Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

Just five days after the North’s victory, Lincoln was assassinated in Washington by a
southerner, John W. Booth.
Lincoln’s Vice President, Andrew Johnson, took power.
By the end of 1865, three amendments were passed by Congress: the 13 th, which ended
slavery, and the 14th and 15th, which granted blacks citizenship and the right to vote.
Reconstruction (1865-1877)
The era of ‘’Reconstruction’’ began, a period of military occupation of the South by Northern
forces. The aim was to force the defeated Confederacy to accept federal supremacy and
Washington’s decisions.
Blacks had new rights and they intended to use them – despite southern opposition.
Tired of military occupation, northern forces left the South in 1877.
Economic growth
The South needed to handle its own problems.
The Northerners now wanted to focus on one thing: getting rich and expand.
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Theme 5 – The Gilded Age and Progressive Era

The Dawn of a New Society
America as we know it today was being born. After the horrors of the Civil War, people were
witnessing the beginning of a new world order.
The Gilded age has come to symbolize unbridled industrialization, government corruption
and labor conflict whereas the Progressive Era is likely to carry more positive associations
with workers’ rights.
Enormous physical changes during that era, that changed how and where people lived.
The Gilded Age (1865-1898)

The term ‘’Gilded Age’’ was first coined by Mark Twain.
Why not the golden age? Gilded: thin lawyer of gold disguising the poor material
underneath.
The irony of the term shows that the era epitomizes uncontrolled capitalism and huge
inequalities.
An Era of Revolutions
Era of movement and mobility with prices of steamships plunging. It symbolizes the birth of
a global society, with a global moral consciousness.
Most visible sign of machine power was the railway grid: by 1890, it had surpassed the
trackage of all Europeans countries. The production of raw steel increased from 13 tons in
1860 to 5 thousand tons in 1890.
New extraordinary devices were invented: the telephone, the telegraph, the typewriter…
(Thomas Edison). Soon the first car (Henry Ford) and the first plane would be created.
The Industrial City

More people began to move to the city in the wake of industrialization.
Between 1870 and 1920, 11 million Americans moved from rural areas to cities and 25
million immigrants arrived in the US, mostly to cities.
The birth of the metropolis, which was nothing like the cities of the past, but had an
enormous and almost monstrous aspect, with unclear boundaries.
The first skyscrapers were elected, thanks to steel, and added to the fascination exerted by
the city.
The New Millionaires

The first extraordinary fortunes were being made.
Andrew Carnegie, who became the ‘’King of Steel’’ at a time where steel was used
everywhere (for railroads, skyscrapers…)
J. P. Morgan, a banker who became so rich that he lent money to the government…
J. D. Rockefeller, an oil giant, who created Standard Oil Corporation and came to control 90%
of the country’s refining capacity.
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The Robber Barons

At that time of experiment, there was no real government control over businesses.
Thus, big fortunes such as Rockefeller could create ‘’monopolies’’ where any competition
was prevented. They also bribed the government to keep their market for themselves. (The
Grant administration, for instance, was accused of corruption.)
They built unimaginable fortunes while employing thousands of people at very little cost,
hence their nicknames Robber Barons.
Working at the Factory

It also was the first time that people worked more for others than for themselves. Farmers
used to cultivate the land for their families’ own benefit. This changed towards the end of
the XIXème century. Work became centered around the factory.
Work at the factory was brutal: men had to work 52 hours per week on average, 6 days a
week. Thousands lost their lives in dangerous conditions, and in case of an accident no
money was given to the family.
The Labor Question

The labor question – that is, what role should the workers have in the new society? –
became crucial.
Because of bad living conditions and frequent wage cuts (in the 1880’s and 90’s, the market
was unpredictable and employers frequently cut wages to maximize profits) the workers
organized themselves and went on strike.
The Knights of Labor was founded in 1869 and was the first major labor organization. It
campaigned for an 8 hour work day.
Famous Strikes
The Homestead Strike occurred at the Carnegie Steel Company’s Homestead in a gun battle
between steelworkers and strike-breakers. The steelworkers ultimately lost.
The Pullman Strike: railroad workers went on strike in 1894, because of wage cuts that were
not followed by a decrease of their rents.
A clash of class
The dream of the self made man seemed more and more difficult to achieve in the age of big
business. The notion of free labor was a dear term to antebellum America. But the nobility of
productive work no longer held.
Lincoln said that ‘’The fact that some would be rich shows that others may become rich’’.
Before, there was a real fluidity between the worker and the employer but in the 1880’s, this
seem less and less likely.
Separation of the classes.
‘’Free Labor’’?
Free society was not so free. This society was controlled by a manufacturing aristocracy,
responsible for a lot of inequalities and a heightened individualism.
The workers experienced a loss of control at work that they called ‘’wage slavery’’. Individual
rights at the expense of community norms.
Employment relations subsumed into the master-to-servant relationship.
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Immigration on an unprecedented scale

Millions of immigrants arrived between the 1880’s and 1920’s
There were no longer differences between skilled laborers, women immigrants and blacks.
All represented a cheap, interchangeable workforce. To defend themselves, white male
workers put forward the ‘’male breadwinner’’ ideal.
Sexist and racist attacks were common because blacks, new immigrants and women
‘’cheapened’’ the work: they were paid less for the same job.
‘’How the other half lives’’

In the 1880’s, Jacob Riis, a police reporter, decided to research how the immigrants of New
York lived.
The result was a very influential book, with Riis’s own pictures.
Social Darwinism
Charles Darwin published On the Origins of the Species in 1859 and changed the landscape
of science. His theory of evolution was groundbreaking and verified, but some tried to apply
his theory to human society.
Social Darwinism – the belief that some were ‘’fit’’ to rule – helped to explain social
inequalities and the success of the successful.
It some don’t climb the social ladder, it is because of character ‘’If any continue through life
in the condition of hired laborer, it is not the fault of the system, but because either a
dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly or singular misfortune’’. (William
Graham Sumner).
Imperialist views
This belief in Social Darwinism, widespread during the gilded age, justifies the expansionist
views of the US: America was fit to rule, and had a duty to bring civilization to other
‘’backward’’ nations.
America was becoming a superpower and sensed it.
Expansion; The Spanish-America War (1898)

In 1898, President McKinley declared war on Spain for the dominion of Cuba. Within three
months, the war was over and the US gained control of Cuba and Puerto Rico in the
Caribbean, the Philippines in the Pacific and ‘’annexed’’ Hawaii.
Theodore Roosevelt, the war hero, became Vice President, but with McKinley’s assassination
in 1901, he became the youngest American President at age 42.
The Progressive Era (1898-1920)
A Desire for Moderation

The Roosevelt era symbolizes the beginning of the Progressive Era.
It was the belief, after the turmoil of the 1880’s and 90’s, that the economy should be
regulated by the state – to some extent – for the good of the nation.
The progressives wanted more transparency in politics and the creation of major reforms.
They believed those reforms would bring good men in politics which would benefit the
masses.
23
Theodore Roosevelt
The charisma and energy of Roosevelt shaped the first decade of the XXth century. With
expansionists ideas (aggressive foreign policy), one of Roosevelt’s central beliefs was
nevertheless that the government has the right to regulate big business to protect the
welfare of society. However, this idea was relatively untested.
Roosevelt’s Square Deal

The Square Deal worked to balance competing interests to create a fair deal for all sides:
labor and management, consumer and business, developer and conservationist.
Conservationism
Roosevelt was also radically ahead of his time when he started to advocate for conservation
of natural resources ‘’the forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal
problems of the United States’’.
Everywhere he went, he preached the need to preserve woodlands and mountain ranges as
places of refuge and retreat.
The Muckrakers
The emergence of a mass-circulation independent press changed the nature of print media
in the United States. Publications became more prone to denounce social injustices.
This era marked the beginning of investigative journalism, exemplified by Upton Sinclair’s
The Jungle. The book exposed the filthy conditions in the meat packing industry – where rats
and putrid meat were ground up into sausages or canned beef.
Roosevelt was so revolted after reading The Jungle, that he created the Pure Food and Drug
Act, the first consumer protection law (1906).
Americanizing the masses

The huge waves of immigration from many different countries led to a problem: how to
‘’Americanize’’ and integrate the new comers?
Many associations, founded by the progressives, spread at the time: the Women’s Trade
Union League, the Associated Jewish Charities, or the Juvenile Protection Association…
These centers or settlement houses were meant to ‘’purify’’ the public sphere by educating
the immigrants.
Woodrow Wilson
The election of Woodrow Wilson – a democrat – in 1913 represents both continuity and
change.
A progressive, he is considered as one of the most important president of the US: he
reformed the banking system to reduce inequalities and he transformed America’s foreign
policy from isolationism to internationalism.
However, he was believed to be against women’s emancipation and encouraged
segregation.
24
Women’s Emancipation
Even though Wilson was not favorable to their emancipation, women nevertheless changed
in that era.
They started to work and thus needed more convenient clothes – they changed the hated
‘’corset’’ to more comfortable clothing.
The birth of a new type of girl: the ‘’flapper’’ (a sophisticated, independent young lady).
The divorce rates started to increase, and birth control started as early as the 1910.
Margaret Sanger fought for birth control in working class neighborhoods.
Women gained the right to vote in 1920.
The US enters First World War

At the outset of the First World War, the progressive spirit turned from domestic issues to
international concerns. Extending their democratic sensibilities to the situation in Europe,
the pro-war progressives approached the conflict with the same moralizing impulse.
Under Woodrow Wilson’s leadership, America entered WWI to extend democracy and
spread its ideals beyond its own borders.
The end of the progressive Era

The failing health of Wilson and the excess of the coming decade would symbolize a new
era, the roaring 20’s.
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Theme 6 – The Roaring 1920’s and the Great Depression

America after WWI
With the end of WWI, isolationism came back with full strength: people feared foreigners
who could steal their jobs. Failure of the League of Nations envisioned by Wilson (the Senate
blocked the ratification of the Versailles Treaty, and the US was never part of the League of
Nations). There was a ‘’before and after’’ the war in the American mindset.
The Red Scare

In 1919, Russia established a new communist state, which deeply worried the Americans.
Fear of communists, anarchists, socialists or, put more simply, of everything foreign. The
‘’red scare’’ fed suspicion of immigrants and foreign born people.
A good example of that is the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian anarchists. They were
accused of murder, the tried and killed despite very little evidence. This episode shocked the
world as many believed they had been charged only because they were immigrants and
radicals.
Immigration quotas
The 1920’s are characterized by a greater isolationism. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921
established a maximum quota for each foreign country. In 1924, the Act was amended and
the quota for European countries became 2% of the number of people already living in the IS
in 1890. The goal was to sharply reduce European immigration (southern and eastern
Europe), while favorite immigration from Great Britain.
Immigration from Asia was banned. What the makers of the quotas didn’t plan: immigration
from Latin America started to swell.
A Nativist Attitude
Nativist attitude: ‘’Keep America for Americans’’. In the 1920’s, immigration decreased,
because there was less need for unskilled laborers after the war.
Racist attitudes developed, because many communists and radicals were believed to be
foreign born.
As a result, the KKK became even more powerful as it was said to be ‘’100% American’’. In
1924, it had 4,5 million members. Its criminal activity led to a decrease of its influence
towards the end of the decade.
The Prohibition
The prohibition was voted with the Eighteenth Amendment, in 1919.
Since the 19th century, the Prohibition Party of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
had campaigned against the sale of alcohol. The ‘’dry’’ movement gained weight during WWI
and in 1919, the ban on ‘’intoxicating beverages’’ was passed.
The failure of the Prohibition is famous: corruption and smuggling flourished, speakeasies
multiplied. The Eighteenth amendment was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in
1933.
26
The Harding Presidency: International Projects and Corruption

Warren Harding was elected in 1920. The vote expressed the need for ‘’normalcy’’ after the
war.
He invited the major powers of the time – The US, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy –
(Russia was left out because it was communist) to the Washington Conference in 1921-22. It
was declared that no more warships should be built for ten years. For the first time, there
was a desire to disarm.
At home however, the Harding presidency was fueled with scandals as several cabinet
members were accused of corruption and bribes. When Harding died in 1923, Calvin
Coolidge, the Vice President, took over and was elected President 1 year later.
Coolidge and the Business Boom

1920 to 1929: a prosperous era, when Americans owned around 40% of the world’s wealth.
The average annual income rose more than 35% during the period – from $522 to $705.
Dawn of electricity: electric households spread to the suburbs and this permitted a new
range of devices like the refrigerator of the washing machine. That meant people, especially
women, had more time for leisure. The market was flooded with new goods.
Henry Ford became the symbol of this new era.
The automobile
The automobile completely altered the American landscape and the way people lived. Richer
people moved to the suburbs as they did not have to live next to a train station. Now people
wanted more space.
It gave people a feeling of freedom: they could go anywhere and explore the world. It
allowed tourism in distant places, more independence for young people and women.
The construction of paved roads was needed to drive in all weather. One such road was the
legendary Route 66, which provided a way from Chicago all the way to California. The
industry drew people to such oil-producing states as California and Texas.
The car became a status symbol. Auto industry became the symbol of the 1920’s and of
Coolidge policy. At the end of the 1920’s, there was almost 1 car for 5 people in the US.
Business: a religion?
The new president, Calvin Coolidge, fit into the pro-business spirit of the 1920s very well. It
was he who said, ‘’the chief business of the American people is business (…) The man who
works their worships there.’’
Coolidge favored government policies that would help businesses. At the same time, he
imposed high tariffs on foreign imports… Wages and productivity were rising.
The Dawn of Advertisement

Brand names became familiar from coast to coast, and luxury items now seemed like
necessities. Advertisement encouraged Americans to buy more and more goods in the new
shopping centers of the cities. Consumer society.
27
An eternal prosperity?
During the 1920’s, most Americans believed prosperity would go on forever – the average
factory worker was producing 50% more at the end of the decade than at its start.
However, farms nationwide producing more food than was needed and this drove down
food prices. To make consumers buy the mountain of goods, credits – the Installment plans –
were installed.
Issues with Installment Plans

“Have you an automobile yet?"
"No, I talked with John and he felt that we could not afford one."
"Mr. Budge who lives in your town has one and they are not as well off as you are."
"Yes, I know. Their second installment came due, and they had no money to pay it."
"What did they do? Lose the car?"
"No, they got the money and paid the installment."
"How did they get the money?"
"They sold the cook stove."
"How could they get along without a cook stove?"
"They didn't. They bought another on the installment plan.
- a business owner quoted in In The Time of Silent Cal
Herbert Hoover
Coolidge didn’t seek re-election in 1928 and Herbert Hoover was elected.
Everyone started to buy on credit, even the investors. They used credit to buy stocks,
intending to pay back the stockbrokers when they sold their stocks.
Consumer purchasing fell and factories were filled with goods no one could buy.
Rumors of collapse
September 3rd, 1929: the gains stopped.
Thursday, October 24th, 1929: investors started to sell their shares and stock prices started
to plunge as everybody wanted to sell.
It became a speculative market. The boom was starting to bust.
Black Tuesday
October 29th, 1929. ‘’The most devastating day in the history of the New York Stock Market’’.
Within a few days, the market had dropped in value of $16 billion.
Until 1930, people wanted to believe that this was just a minor recession, a typical stock
market ‘’panic’’. But it was not.
To repay the loans, investors were forced to sell their stocks for far less than they had paid,
and some lost their entire savings making up the difference.
In the end, many investors owed enormous amounts of money to their brokers, with no
stocks or saving left to pay their debts.
A Vicious Circle Starts

Banks could no longer lend money to businesses and individuals. Because consumers cut
their spending dramatically, less goods were produced so companies had to lay off workers.
In 1930, 3 million people had lost their jobs. Henry Ford himself laid off 75 000 workers.
With no insurance money of safety nets for the unemployed, soup kitchens opened.
28
The Depression also an impact on Europe as the fragile European economies had borrowed
money from American banks.
Banks had little cash as depositors withdrew their money. As a result, many had to close.
An Agriculture in Crisis
If cities were booming in the 1920’s, farms and agriculture were depressed. Between 1925
and 1929, agricultural commodities fell in price. As European economies were recovering
from the war, they no longer needed American goods and they started to protect their
agriculture by establishing import quotas.
Thus, American farms overproduced goods that they could not sell.
The Impact on Farms

By 1933, with farmers unable to sell food they produced – as people had no money to buy it
– farm prices had sunk to 50% of their already low 1929 levels. Lower prices meant lower
income for farmers, and many borrowed money from banks to pay for land and equipment.
As incomes dropped, farmers couldn’t pay back their loans, and in the first five years of the
1930’s, hundreds of thousands of farms went bankrupt.
See the Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
Hoovervilles
Unemployment reached 25%. Things were worst for African-Americans. In Harlem, for
example, unemployment reached 50% in 1932.
The name of H. Hoover became associated with misery. All over the country, shantytowns,
known as Hoovervilles, spread. People no longer had real roof over their heads and thus
built slums with any material they could find.
How did people react to joblessness?

People felt ashamed of being jobless. They felt that, in some ways, it was their fault.
After several months of unemployment, some men lost ambition and pride. Some fell into
apathy and lethargy, some suffered depression. The suicide rate rose during the 1930’s as
certain people could not handle the crushing poverty. Birth rates decreased.
Dependency and welfare, in the American mindset, was thought to be a degrading
experience.
Dust bowl
To make things worse, a terrible drought started in 1931. There was no rain in the great
plain regions and the mid-west. This phenomenon was known as the dust bowl: huge storms
that covered everything of dust. (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico…). 2.5 million people were
displaced and had to leave their homes. Those migrants were called the ‘’Okies’’ and
exposed to scorn and discrimination.
A new type of travelling worker appeared, the hobo.
Hoover’s response
Hoover’s response was inadequate. He believed that voluntary co-operation would be
enough to save the situation. He rejected any direct governmental intervention, as he
thought this would go against American ethics. He remained optimistic after millions lost
their jobs
29
The Smoot-Hawley Act (1930), which imposed high tariffs on European importation to re-
launch the economy, made things worst. Europe responded with high tariffs on American
goods.
When he finally launched the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932, many wondered
why he gave millions of dollars to the banks and not to people.
The Marchers Bonus

It the summer of 1932, a large group of WWI veterans gathered in the capital. The Congress
had promised them a ‘’bonus’’ but they were still waiting for the money.
Thousands of jobless war heroes went to Washington and tried to pressure the government.
Soldiers then attacked the crowd to force them to leave the capital. This turned the opinion
against Hoover.
A permanent scar to the American psyche

Why did nobody rebel? People felt ashamed, bewildered. Within family life, the men could
experience a loss of dominance, a loss of prestige in the eyes of the children, and social
isolation. After the boom of the 1920’s, the Great Depression was a terrible blow.
See Hard Times – An oral History of the Great Depression, Studs Terkel.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Born in 1882, he was a state senator before WWI. In 1932, he was ready to run against
Herbert Hoover who had just attacked the war veterans.
In his campaign speech in July 1932, he said ‘’I pledge you, pledge myself, to a new deal for
the American people… This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me
your help – not to win votes alone – but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own
people’’.
The New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelts won 60% in the 1932 election. He was realistic about the
situation, unlike Hoover who always said things were good: ‘’only a foolish optimist could
deny the dark realities of the moment’’.
‘’We have nothing to fear by fear itself – nameless… unjustified terror which paralyzes
efforts…’’
He wanted the country to believe in its capacity to recover. His group of advisers and
himself, known as the Brain Trust, officially ended Prohibition, and started direct
government intervention, at least.
Radical Measures
Roosevelt passed a multitude of new laws: he first severely regulated banks through the
Emergency Banking Act. He allocated half a billion dollars to help the needy with the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration. His team established the Agricultural Adjustment
Administration, which subsidized farm prices when farmers ended ‘’over-production’’. Grain
and cattle were destroyed and killed. The scarcity of goods was supposed to guarantee
higher farm income.
The government created the National Industrial Recovery Administration, a national
economic planning: market prices were fixed and a minimum wage set for workers.
30
The Man of the Situation

Roosevelt had reassuring personality; during the New Deal, he established his ‘’fireside
chats’’ and talked on the radio to millions of Americans. He explained what had been done
and exerted the citizens to cooperation.
Those radical measures didn’t please members of the Supreme Court, who had all been
appointed by Republican presidents. The justices blocked several of Roosevelt’s measure by
saying they were unconstitutional.
The Wagner Act

In retaliation, from 1935 onwards, Roosevelt created even more radical measures: a job
program for the unemployed, an insurance for the disabled and the elderly who couldn’t
work. Most importantly he signed the Wagner Act, which authorized workers to organize
and to bargain collectively for better conditions.
Roosevelt easily won re-election in 1936, and is the only president to have been elected four
times (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944).
Consequences of the New Deal

However, the effects of the New Deal were not spectacular. The depression was still very
hard until the 1940’s. Even though the New Deal had very practical effects, it also had
tremendous psychological ones – as the New Deal gave back a certain confidence to millions
of Americans.
For most of the 1930’s, the Americans focused on problems at home. Now another threat
was on its way, but from abroad.
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Theme 7 – WWII and the Post-war Society

Problems Abroad
In the 1930’s, America had enormous internal tensions but abroad, the situation was also
tensed. The Great Depression had a massive impact on Germany’s economy, and Hitler
elected chancellor of Germany in 1933. Italy had fascist regime since 1922.
It became obvious that the democracies of Europe were in danger, but the USA didn’t want
to get involve, so it voted a series of Neutrality Acts. Each time countries declared a state of
war, the US forbade to sale weapons or ammunition in any of those states.
Towards the end of the 1930’s things got worse as Germany was being increasingly
aggressive: the Nazis illegally took control of the Ruhr Valley, they took a part of
Czechoslovakia.
Political isolationism
The Munich Accords were signed in 1938. Many thought this agreement would avoid war.
Chamberlain went back to England and said to the British that there would be peace for our
time. Indeed, the European nations were still traumatized by WWI and did everything they
could in the late 1930’s to avoid another war, despite obvious threat Germany represented.
(For more on this, see Stefan Zweig The world of yesterday).
The US was no exception and didn’t want to enter another war. Political isolationism in the
US was already advocated by George Washington.
But in September 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland and a British liner sunk. Among the
passengers, 28 Americans died. The government, without directly entering the war, started
to aid its democratic allies in Europe by sending weapons.
Pearl Harbor
By June 1940, most of Europe was under fascist or Nazi rule. Roosevelt launched the lend-
lease program to give Britain and the Soviet Union the help they needed. In total, 35
countries were given fifty billion dollars.
On 7th of December 1941 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Japanese air force bombed the
American military base. Thousands of American sailors died.
Why did this happen? Too concerned with their own domestic problems during the thirties
and this issues in Europe, the US had overlooked Japan’s increasing aggressively. In 1941,
Japan had invaded French Indochina. The US this prohibited any American war material in
Japan. Pearl Harbor happened during negotiations between Japan and US, so it was seen as
a deliberate tab in the back.
At War
On December 8th, the Americans entered the war. The war zone covered almost the whole
globe. Within day, 31 million men were in the army. WWII cost the lives of 400 000 men.
Financial expenditures amounted to 315 billion dollars: this was ten times much that all
previous wars combined.
During the war, the industrial production doubled and the whole country was transformed
into a mighty war machine. The food Administration oversaw sending food to the armed
forces and the Allies. In total, they shipped 3 million tons of food.
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Americans and the war effort

The average weekly earnings of American workers doubled and the workweek was
lengthened to 45 hours. They also constructed extremely efficient transportation facilities:
huge boats in enormous shipyards, and thousands of war planes (up to 5,500 a month…).
Women’s participation in the war effort reached more than 18 million, and they represented
35% of workforce by 45. The war got the US out of the Great Depression because
productivity dramatically increased during those years, and every sector of industry was
used to help the war effort.
The End of the War

In 1942, the third Reich controlled Norway to North Africa, and France to the outskirts of
Stalingrad. But in 1945, it would lose thanks to the combined efforts of 26 allied nations.
Victory in Europe: 8th May 1945. The three great powers, the US, Britain and the Soviet
Union met at the Conference of Yalta in February 1945 a couple of months before the end of
the war. However, it became obvious that communist Russia had a different and
expansionist agenda. Roosevelt died and Harry Truman became president.
I. The Cold War
The Iron Curtain

In July-August 1945, the Potsdam conference took place, which was much more tensed than
the Yalta Conference. President Atlee replaced Churchill and Truman replaced Roosevelt.
Stalin had started to invade Eastern Europe and to impose communist regimes.
In 6th August 1945, the Atomic bomb was launched on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and within 5
days, Japan surrendered. In 1945, Churchill denounced and Iron Curtain as many countries
from central Europe had fallen under communist control, with their liberties and rights
severely limited.
The Truman Doctrine

A policy of containment started, also called the Truman Doctrine, which aimed at limiting the
expansion of communism wherever it could. Indeed, the war left the traditional European
powers exhausted and this left the room for the new ones: namely the US and the USSR. The
USSR had an aura of prestige after the war because it bravely fought the Nazis and because
it had a very strong army. The Soviets felt surrounded and threatened by the West. They
accused the US of spearheading ‘’imperialist expansion’’. For their part, the Americans were
concerned at Communist expansion and accused Stalin of undermining people’s basic rights.
The Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan was launched from 1947 to 1953 to help European Reconstruction, as the
new international institutions – The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank – were
not enough. The World Bank gave $750 million to Europe but the US gave twenty times
more to Europe. This led European countries to stay in America’s camp even when there was
a string communist and socialist wave in France and Italy. The desire to give Europe massive
economic aid was also politically motivated.
The fear of Communist expansion in Western Europe was undoubtedly a decisive factor that
was just as important as that of conquering new markets. The Americans therefore decided
to fight poverty and hunger in Europe, factors which they felt encouraged the spread of
Communism.
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Two superpowers
12 countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 which guaranteed
reciprocal military alliance and a common defense in case of an attack. It became a major
international body which opposed communism throughout the 20 th century. Today, NATO
has 28 members.
In autumn 1949, China fell to communism. The ‘’domino theory’’ started to prevail. It was
the idea that communism would inevitably spread to neighboring countries.
Dwight Eisenhower
In 1952, General Eisenhower was elected. His glorious past as a war hero, his firm stance on
communism, got him elected.
His presidency ended twenty years of democratic rule. He was a moderate republican,
always seeking compromise and avoiding conflict. He represented an era of calm and
stability and conformity, at least on the surface.
The Red Scare

The Red Scare was visible in almost every area of American life. But it was primarily a
phenomenon of government and politics. It was produced and largely sustained by
government, even if it ultimately spread beyond government. Anti-communism became
official government policy not just in Washington, but at every level of government. People
tried to control Soviet influence abroad but also at home, with a paranoid atmosphere. The
US House of Representatives created the House of Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC). Senator Joseph McCarthy became the champion of anticommunism.
The Witch Hunt

Hollywood was seen as a bastion of radicals. So, the HUAC created the ‘’Screen Actor Guild’’
which controlled the activities of directors and actors (Ronald Reagan, the future Republican
President, was the President of the Screen Actor Guild).
In the late 1940’s, 324 people had been officially blacklisted. Hollywood 10 trial. Ten
important directors and screenwriters received jail sentences and were banned from
working in the industry of their alleged communist views, in 1947.
In 1950, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are arrested, tried and killed for high treason despite
proper evidence and despite public outrage.
McCarthy went too far when he started to accuse members of the armed forces. He led
‘’army hearing’’ which were followed live on TV, but his accusations were clearly
exaggerated. In December 1954, he was himself punished and removed from his political
responsibilities.
Cold War Effort

The 1957 launching of Sputnik, the Soviet satellite that was the first to be launched into orbit
(before the US had managed to do so), was a tremendous event in American politics and
culture. It too persuaded many Americans, and the government, to ask for massive social
investment to catch up – particularly in science, technology, and education. NASA was the
result of those efforts. In 1958, The National Defense Education Act was voted. It granted
$887 million to help college students: loans, fellowships were allocated to educate America
and to keep up with Russia. (The famous G.I Bill which allowed soldiers to get a college
education).
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II. The Affluent Society
The 1950’s boom

The performance of the American economy in the decades after WWII appeared to many
contemporaries to be, as the historian Harold Vatter wrote at the time, ‘’the crossing of a
great divide in the history of humanity’’. It was often described as an ‘’economic miracle’’.
The cumulative economic effect of all these changes was a radical change in the American
life: many Americans came to consider affluence a norm; the ability not just to subsist, but
to enhance the quality of one’s life came to seem a basic right. Material abundance became
one of the ways in which many Americans defined their world.
The Good Life

After almost two decades of privation (The Great Depression and the war) people wanted to
enjoy life and to consume. They had more time and money to do so.
Credit and credit cards were easier to obtain than ever before and they made acquiring
goods easy. Discount stores, shopping malls, and fast-food restaurants were now common.
The automobile was the symbol of the era. Cars came to symbolize the driver’s identity,
especially a sexual identity. As life in the suburbs was common, cars became compulsory.
The sale of televisions boomed on the 1950s and televisions and the consumer society went
hand in hand. Americans in the 1950s also enjoyed a new openness about sexuality.
Religious Revival
Americans in the 1950s-attended church more regularly. Church attendance revival of the
1950s can be explained in different ways. For some, church attendance was what one did
became everyone else was doing it (social conformity). But also, it was seen as an American
tradition (contrarily to the godless Soviet Union).
The words ‘’One nation under God’’ replaced the American motto ‘’E pluribus unum’’ during
the Eisenhower administration, as the phrase ‘’In God we trust’’ at the back of the dollar bill.
The Baby Boom

The 1950s were also the decade of the family. The nuclear family was celebrated as the
ideal. This was the ‘baby boom’ (more than 4 million new babies between 1946 and 1964).
American culture had become child-centered and child rearing had changed along with the
times. After the war, people wanted to go back to a ‘normal’ life and to settle down. They
were also confident in America’s future as a new superpower. The suburban boom goes
hand in hand with the baby boom as people were moving to the outskirts of cities.
Gender Rigidity
The baby boom heightened pressure on men and women to conform to traditional gender
roles. The stereotype was at odds with reality and American men and women sometimes
struggled to deal with the contradictions. However, they did receive warnings not to deviate
from gender stereotypes.
Work place inequalities, such as pay, were the norm and were to be expected. Those who
varied from the stereotypic norm faced condemnation.
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The Importance of the Family

To an extent, the family was seen as the nucleus of the national defence during the cold war,
so independently minded adolescents were seen as outsiders and dissenters. The family was
supposed to be the key to the nation’s future. There was a political demand for national
unity in the face of communism and the family was responsible for it. Thus, there was a real
panic over juvenile delinquency.
This was the first symptom of the growing fissure between youth and the mainstream
American society. It threatened the American self-celebration of the post war years.
Conformity
No dissension authorised in the 1950’s: homogeneous society. Those who did not want
marriage or rejected family life were seen as misfits or deviant.
For many observers, the fifties seemed haunted because the public culture of the time was
so resolutely self-congratulatory and suspicious of alternative views. The problems and
injustices of the time often seemed hidden under the bright and cheerful images of a
prosperous middle-class nation.
A New Kind of Man?

Corporate workers, critics argued, faced constant pressures to be what they were excepted
to be. The sociologist David Riesman wrote in his influential book, The Lonely Crowd (1950),
that modern society was giving birth to a new kind of man. In earlier eras, most men and
women had been ‘inner-directed’ people, mostly defining themselves in terms of their own
values and goals, their own sense of their worth.
Now, the dominant personality was coming to be ‘other-directed’, defining itself in terms of
the opinions and goals of others, or in terms of the bureaucratically established goals of the
company.
The First Cracks Appear

The new threat of instant annihilation, of impersonal power and destruction on an
imaginable scale, undermined parental authority: sense of helplessness. Signs of political
discontent: sit ins, civil rights movements.
But paradoxically, those young people were also the produce of what they were rebelling
against: America. Why and how? – belief in freedom and individual rights, a sense of
confidence, a commitment to change and faith in the justness of one’s cause, an impulse to
proletize. Those ideals of the cold war needed to be realised at home.
Birth of a Rebellious Popular Culture

Rock and Roll music was celebrating young love and rebellion against parents and authority.
White musicians were inspired by African-American music and brought it to the mainstream.
Thus, the barriers between blacks and whites started to crumble as black artists such as
Chuck Berry were greatly admired among young people.
Many adults considered Rock as a threat to American values.
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The Beat Generation

The Rockabilly wave was still in some ways conventional. The real rebels and revolutionaries
were the men and women who called themselves ‘the Beats’. They openly challenged the
conventional values of middle-class American society: material success, social values,
political habits.
Many of them adopted an alternative lifestyle for themselves that emphasized anti-
materialism, drugs, antagonism to technology and organization, sexual freedom. They
deeply admired African-American culture and despaired about the nature of modern society.
The Three Beats

Jack Kerouac: probably the most famous of the Beats, with his book On the Road.
Allen Ginsberg: and his poem Howl, one of the greatest poem in American history.
‘‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel
headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the
machinery of night, (…)’’. William Burroughs with his book Naked Lunch.
Civil Rights Movements

The 1950’s were of course the era of the Civil Rights movement. Brown vs Board of
Education in 1954 finally legally desegregated America (in schools) but the road to full
equality was only beginning.
Many young people - blacks, whites, men and women - started to fight for some deep
changes within society.
The 1950’s: A homogenous decade?

Even if the 1950’s celebrated conformity and homogeneity as the ideal American lifestyle,
things were not completely smooth and young people wanted something more out of life.
This aspiration would be clear in the 1960’s, the tumultuous decade.
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Theme 8 – The 1960’s and 1970’s

The 1960’s: A Paradoxical Decade
The 1960’s can be defined as paradoxical years because they were deeply violent – full of
social unrest and riots – but at the same time, full of possibilities and hope. In many ways,
those two aspects – violence and peace – are closely intertwined.
John Kennedy
1960: the election of Kennedy. He was elected because he represented change and hope, he
was a young, handsome President with progressive views (more rights, less poverty…)
The black vote was decisive in this election as many African-Americans thought Kennedy
would help their cause. Before his election, Kennedy showed his support to the plight of
African-Americans when he helped liberating Martin Luther King.
Once he was elected however, Kennedy was cautious not to upset southerners and did not
push civil rights legislation.
The Cold Was Escalates

The beginning of the 1960’s is also characterized by and escalation of the cold war.
Cuban missiles crisis. (October 1962) Nikita Khrushchev installed missiles in Cuba. The CIA
discovered it and Kennedy blocked Cuba – to prevent the Soviets from installing more
weapons. The Soviets eventually agreed to clear away the ships carrying the missiles.
In 1963, a treaty was signed against atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons. This was hugely
popular with the American public who had enough of the nuclear threat and Kennedy’s re-
election seemed secured for 1964.
Kennedy’s Death
November 1963: Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas by a military psychotic, Lee Harvey
Oswald. This was a huge shock and many despaired. Kennedy had charmed millions of
people and had got people moving again, as he had promised.
But now, people feared things would move out of control.
The Johnson Era

Vice President Johnson didn’t have Kennedy’s charm or wit. But he was a seasoned
politician. He was strongly influenced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had an idealistic
view of the presidency. He wanted to establish himself as the legitimate heir of both
Roosevelt and Kennedy.
His greatest domestic success certainly was the Civil Rights Bill (1964), which passed a even
stronger version of the original one. This outlawed segregation in all public places and
protected citizens’ rights.
During the 1964’s presidential election, Johnson was easily elected and crushed his
Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater.
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Violence
This did not mean that things were suddenly fine: southerner were furious and many
lynching happened in the 1960’s, two dozen black churches were burned in the long summer
of 1964.
After the Montgomery March in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was signed, which punished
anyone trying to prevent blacks from voting. This really had a massive effect.
Black Riots
Desegregation did not mean economic equality: most blacks were not participating in the
great boom of the 1960’s, even if Johnson had declared a ‘’war on poverty’’. Blacks poured
onto the inner cities as whites had left for the suburbs. Affluent suburbs spread, as did black
slums of the inner cities.
Lots of black riots during the sixties. In 1965: The Watts ghetto revolted in L.A Eighty
thousand people were packed there, with unemployment reaching 30%.
The Great Society?

Some advanced the idea of a ‘’Black Marshall Plan’’ with 1$ billon a year allocated for ten
years, but the congress, even though liberal, never agreed to such a sum for such a purpose
(even if the same time, it was spending much more money for the war in Vietnam).
Peaceful protest was starting to lose against more radical worldviews (Nation of Islam, Black
Panthers).
Economic Affluence
The post-war economic boom continued throughout the sixties. More and more people had
houses in the suburbs. Many Americans were now living ‘’the good life’’. War ownership
reached 1 in 2 people.
Eventually the car, which had been the author of America’s wealth, would also lead to its
ruin: the constant need for petrol put crucial amounts of wealth and power in foreign hands
(namely, the Middle East).
But for now, things were good: many baby-boomers were college-educated and expected a
comfortable life.
The white middle class

Those who helped the plight of blacks were the educated Americans of the white middle
class, believing in equality and in the principles of the Founding Fathers.
The economic prosperity and the baby boom of the forties and the fifties had greatly
expanded that class.
Vietnam: The Quagmire

The tragedy of Johnson was his foreign policy: he did not understand that it needed a radical
overhaul. His biggest mistake was Vietnam. Obsessed with the Cold was, America’s policy
makers imagined that the rest of the world was also obsessed with it.
In 1961, Soviet Russia and communist China were perceived as huge threats: Ho Chi Min had
invaded Indochina. For the US, this was threatening enough as Ho Chi Min was a communist,
a ‘’tool of the Kremlin’’.
North Vietnam was communist, South Vietnam, anti-communist.
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A New American Colony?

The War in Vietnam was completely opposed to American isolationism and anti-colonialism.
But the Cold War context changed this status quo.
The roots of the conflict: Indochina was a French colony. The French wanted their former
empire back and wanted America’s help to keep the communists at bay. America sent
weapons to the French, but in 1954, the French experienced a humiliating defeat in Diên
Biên Phu.
The Americans could have withdrawn, but they did not and instead replace the French.
The Turning Point

Both Eisenhower and Kennedy had been involved in the war. But the president who really
increased the stakes in Vietnam was Johnson. He wanted to follow the lead of Kennedy who
seemed concerned about Vietnam before his death. He also personally wanted to ‘’save
Vietnam’’ from communist’s hands.
In 1964, it was clear that the communists were on the verge of victory and that he needed
either to increase the stakes or to renounce.
The Red Plague

Many believed that in such a context, to renounce would be a proof of America’s weakness.
Moreover, the ‘’domino theory’’ prevailed at the time: if Vietnam became communist, all
South-East Asia would quickly be ‘’contaminated’’.
In August 1964, two North Vietnamese patrol boats reportedly fired on American ships
operating in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson used the incident to persuade Congress to act.
Through the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 1964), the president was authorized to take
any action necessary and 5000 soldiers were sent to Vietnam.
The Effects of the War in Vietnam

The war destroyed Vietnam’s agriculture, one of its only source of income. Vietnam shortly
passed from a rice exporting country to a rice importing country.
The war also destroyed the middle class. Girls were often led to prostitution, boys to crime.
To eradicate the communists’ cover in the jungle, Americans sprayed it with defoliant, a
toxic gas that poisoned Vietnam’s soil.
Effects on Soldiers and Americans

Drugs and addiction became major problems in the army. Many were killed or sent to
mental hospitals upon their return. Although the clack population, a quarter of the soldiers
in Vietnam were blacks.
Television, the new device of the fifties, covered the atrocities. Americans and the whole
world could see how awful things were. American was universally condemned for the first
time.
1968: Foreign issues

The Tet Offensive began on January 30th, 1968. North Vietnamese forces took advantage of
the lunar New Year (Tet) truce to launch a month-long attack against military bases in South
Vietnam. Although the campaign proved to be a military disaster for the North, it had a great
psychological impact in the US.
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The My Lai massacre in March 1968: hundreds of civilians were brutally killed. All too often,
the people Americans were supposed to protect (the South Vietnamese) were killed. Public
opinion shifted against the war as many Americans became convinces that it could not be
won in the traditional sense.
1968: Domestic issues

April 1968: Martin Luther King and other SCLC members were called to Memphis, to support
a corker’s strike. On the night of April 3rd, King gave a historic speech at the Mason Temple
Church in Memphis: ‘’I have seen the promised land…’’. He was shot the following day.
June 1968: Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother, was perceived by many to be the only
person capable of uniting the people. He was beloved by the minority community for his
integrity and devotion to the civil rights cause. He was shot in Los Angeles, just after winning
California’s primaries.
The Anti-War movement

A rebellious movement had been growing in the fifties, but now it was vocal. The effects of
prosperity heightened the sense of alienation on many young people, especially college
students who were the first to rebel. Several universities were occupied by students, like
Berkley or Columbia.
Meanwhile, Johnson started to send members of this generation as conscripts to the war.
Most of the time, poor people were drafted, and richer people didn’t (with the college
deferment).
Ten of thousands of draftees went missing, many deserted, some fled to other countries.
The Generation Gap

Grayson Kirk, the president of Columbia, denounced the younger generation’s disrespect for
established authority: Our young people, in disturbing numbers, appear to reject all forms of
authority, from whatever source derived, and they have taken refuge in a turbulent and
inchoate nihilism whose sole objectives are destructive. I know of no time in our history when
the gap between the generations has been wider or more potentially dangerous.
Counterculture
The Hippies were mostly middle-class whites. Their hallmarks were a style of dress and a
lifestyle that embraces sexual promiscuity and recreational drugs, including marijuana and
the hallucinogenic LSD.
This specific culture was reflected in the rock music of the time (Jefferson Airplane, Jim
Morrison, Janis Joplin…). Although some young people established ‘’communes’’ in the
countryside, hippies were primarily an urban phenomenon.
A landmark counterculture event was the Woodstock Festival, held in upstate New York in
August 1969.
Minorities rights
The 1960’s and the early 1970’s were shaped by the plight of African-Americans, of course,
but many other ‘’minorities’’ claimed their rights too: women, with the Women’s Liberation
Movement, Native Americans, with the American Indian Movement and homosexuals.
In the late 1960’s: the gay liberation movement. In June 1969, the NY police decided to
‘’raid’’ a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. For the 1st time, gay costumers decided to fight back.
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Nixon
Nixon was elected in 1968. He appealed to the ‘’silent majority’’ and said before he got
elected that he had a secret plan to end the war.
Instead, he secretly attacked Cambodia without the congress or the American people
knowing.
It failed, and the communists started to invade Cambodia and Laos. The US had a larger area
to defend than ever, with fewer recruits.
More bombs were dropped during the Vietnam war than during WWII.
Détente
People from Cambodia probably suffered the most. Student protests increased.
What guaranteed Nixon’s re-election in 1972 was Henry Kissinger, a brilliant diplomat.
Thanks to his efforts, the détente began, Nixon gave a state visit to China in 1972 and a
peace treaty to end the war in Vietnam was negotiated the same year.
The Watergate
In June 1972, several burglars were arrested inside the headquarters of the Democratic
party, located in the Watergate building in Washington. The burglars had been caught while
attempting to wiretap phones and steal secret documents to facilitate Nixon’s re-election.
Facing impeachment by the Senate, the President resigned on August 8, 1974.
Gerald Ford – the Vice President, replaced Nixon. Six weeks after the new president Ford
was sworn in, he pardoned Nixon for any crimes he had committed while in office.
Crisis of confidence
This decision outraged the public. Nixon himself never admitted or recognized any crime. His
abuse of presidential power created an atmosphere of cynicism and distrust.
The war in Vietnam and the Watergate were huge turning points: now America was not so
sure of itself. For a lot of people, the 1960’s represented a world full of possibilities and the
1970’s symbolized a harsh return to reality.
The oil crisis and the end of the War

In 1973, the OPEC dramatically raised the price of oil barrels, which caused ‘’stagflation’’: a
combination of low growth and high inflation. The value of the dollar dropped and the
economic boom ended.
In 1975, the communists won and invaded all the countries of South East Asia. Saigon was
renamed Hi Chi Mon and Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, exterminated people by the
million.
Carter’s Presidency
1976: Jimmy Carter wins the presidential election. The rest of the decade was characterized
by a loss of confidence and the uncertainty of America’s role in the world.
Confidence would only be regained after the election of the charismatic president Ronald
Reagan in 1980.
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Theme 9 – The 1980’s and 1990’s

Confidence Regained
The end of the seventies was characterized by a loss of confidence embodied by the
inaugural speech of Jimmy Carter: ‘’our great nation has its limits… we cannot afford to do
everything so together, in a spirit of individual sacrifice for the common good, we must
simply do our best’’.
The Americans wanted to hear something else… And Reagan was ready to deliver that
optimistic discourse.
Ronald Reagan
If Kennedy epitomized the beginning of the 1960’s, Reagan symbolized the eighties.
His good looks and charisma led him to career in Hollywood in the forties. He became
governor of California in 1966. In the mid-seventies, he decided to devote himself to the
pursuit of the presidency.
He was 69 on Inauguration Day. He was a conservative influenced by Democrats: he deeply
admired Roosevelt and modelled his style on him. Reagan knew how to explain complex
issues to ordinary citizens with nice anecdotes.
Neo-conservatism
The populates conservative movement known as the New Right enjoyed unprecedented
growth in the late 1970’s early 1980’s and led Reagan to power. It appealed evangelical
Christians; anti-tax crusaders; advocates on deregulation and defenders of an unrestricted
free market.
Very liberal economically, but very conservative on social issues; anti-feminist, anti-
homosexual… and very religious.
It is a mixture of right-wing republicanism and fundamentalist Christianity
The Christian Rights

The Christian Rights and its emphasis on morality was a direct response to the excesses of
the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Even though there is no official religion in the US, no other western country (except Ireland)
has such a high level of religiosity. A large majority of Americans identified as Christians, and
millions were attracted by new forms of religious communication with the televangelists.
The number of born-again Christians, who defined themselves in opposition to the
permissive Christian, increased.
ERA
Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist, fought against the Equal Rights Amendment, which
was abandoned in 1982.
The ‘’Moral Majority’’ had rallied behind such issues as opposition to abortion, gay rights,
gun control and the ERA.
The revival of a Cold War mentality and a ‘’crusading moralism’’ have combined to create
pressure for conformity to conservative ideas and attitudes.
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The Big Money Era

Reagan famously said: ‘’Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the
problem.’’ He wanted to get the government ‘’off the backs of people’’.
Era of big money. Reagan wanted to give power back to the states from the federal
government (which had increased) way too much in the last twenty years). Transfer of
responsibility for welfare to the states.
Cut of taxes to free the ‘’entrepreneurial spirit’’, massive increase of the defense budget.
Reaganomics
He was optimistic and cheerful: just what America needed at the time. ‘’We will not return
to the days of hand wringing, defeating, decline and despair’’ he said un 1984.
The 8 years of Reagan’s administration were shaped by the ‘’3C’s’’: The Chicago School of
Economics, Anti-Communism and Christianity. This Chicago School was opposed to the ideas
of Keynes… Milton Friedman was the new man of the situation and helped to establish
‘’Reaganomics’’.
Poverty Rises
The result was polarization and poverty. Unemployment and homeless skyrocketed. Million
no longer had the money to pay for basic needs. Workers were out of jobs, farmers were
losing their farms and soup kitchens were opening again to feed the poor.
In the inner-city ghettoes, drugs decimated the black population. Crack-cocaine led
thousands to prison or to death.
At the same time, a new popular culture, Jip-Hop, was being born. The goal was to express a
lifestyle and to denounce injustice and police brutality.
The Yuppies
At the other side of the spectrum: the traders and yuppies (see Bret Easton Ellis’s American
Psycho).
For many people, the symbol of the decade was the ‘’yuppie’’: the young urban professional
with a college education, a well-paying job and expensive taste. Many people derided
yuppies for being self-centered and materialistic, and indeed they were more concerned
with making money and buying consumer goods than their parents and grandparents had
been.
People were going out more than ever, in restaurants, nights clubs…
Popular Culture and Celebrity

Often remembered for its materialism and consumerism, the decade also saw an explosion
of blockbuster movies and the emergence of cable networks like MTV, which introduced the
music video and launched the careers of many iconic artists.
The lyrics and the music videos of this era show a desire to attain ‘’the American Dream’’.
Artists no longer sang about peace and happiness but about money and fun.
AIDS
In the summer of 1981, a health report described a rare cancer found in homosexual men
living in big cities. It soon came to be known as AIDS. At first, people believed it was a ‘’gay
disease’’ but they quickly realized that it could be contracted by heterosexuals.
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In the 1980’s, fear of HIV/AIDS spread, and discrimination against people living with AIDS
was common. For the Religious Right, this was a ‘’punishment from God’’… The disease
became a public issue and Reagan had to act.
In October 1987, during a march on Washington for gay rights, a giant AIDS quilt was
displayed on the National Mall as a memorial to those who had died. By 1995, half a million
cases of AIDS had been reported in the US.
A Rich Decade?
In 1981, because of massive deregulation, a new recession began, but Reagan, unlike Carter,
was lucky and had faith in himself and America.
In 1982: the price of oil collapsed. This contributed to establish a strong collar: millions of
new jobs (mostly low paid ones) were created. At the same time unemployment rose but
America in the eighties exulted an air of prosperity.
Deficit soared from $58 billon during Carter’s presidency to $221 billion in 1986.
The Iran-Contra Affair

Reagan was deeply anti-communist and famously said the Soviet Union was ‘’the great evil’’.
Iran-Contra Affair: The White House secretly sold weapons to Iran – a sworn enemy – to
liberate US hostages held in Lebanon. The money was used to help the ‘’Contras’’, a
Nicaraguan anti-government right-wing group. This was against a new legislation that
prohibited assistance to the anti-leftists’ insurgents.
But Reagan was lucky and got away with it.
Mikhail Gorbachaev
Mikhail Gorbachaev, the new President of the USSR, was a different kind of leader.
Gorbachaev priority was not the arm race as the country could no longer afford it. Instead,
he wanted to transfer wealth into the civilian economy. Gorbachaev reached out to Reagan
and it worked.
In 1987, a treaty was signed between Moscow and Washington to eliminate missiles and in
1988, Reagan visited Moscow.
The two leaders famously got along and the American public liked ‘’Gorby’’.
The Reagan’s years and the end of the Cold War

1991: the year Gorbachaev left office was an epochal event. Eastern European countries
regained complete freedom of action. Russia was no longer a superpower.
What came out of those year? The US economy was so big that even if it was ill-managed at
times, it created stability in the world’s economy from which the US benefited.
With the fall of the USSR, it seemed like the US was the sole superpower and that it was
invincible. Because of its economic and cultural supremacy, it made enemies, especially in
the Middle East.
George Bush
Reagan could not seek a third mandate but he left office a popular president, despite
massive inequalities within American society and a huge budget deficit.
In 1888, Bush was elected. He represented a more moderate republicanism. He was elected
on the promise that he would not raise new taxes. But because of the big deficit left by
Reagan, this soon proved impossible.
45
The Gulf War

In January 1991: operation ‘’Desert Storm’’ is launched after Iraqi forces, led by Saddam
Hussein, had invaded Kuwait. The massive air assault devastated Iraq’s infrastructure.
Victory was swift: In March, Iraq agreed to a ceasefire.
This quick victory put the trauma of Vietnam behind. In this binary vision of the world, only
the ‘’bad guys’’ had been harmed.
Bush’s approval rating rose. But his inability to handle the economic depression led his
democratic opponent, Bill Clinton, to victory.
The Clinton Years

Clinton was a young governor from Arkansas with progressive and liberal ideas, who
understood that cash needed to be injected in the moribund economy.
His measures, though criticized, led the country to a decade of growth and he is the only
president to have a left office with a surplus budget.
Commercial Success
Clinton’s success can be found in commercial activity: free trade with Israel, Canada and
Mexico (NAFTA – North American Free Trade Agreement).
Paradoxical because those measures were in some ways, more republican: many feared that
jobs would be de-located to Mexico. And indeed, there was a delocalization of jobs, which
undermined environmental and social policies.
Many average Americans became very skeptical of NAFTA, but because the economy was
going well, Clinton was re-elected in 1996.
The Monica gate

The Monica Lewinski case is the political scandal of the 1990’s. Clinton lied under oath about
his affair with a young intern working at the White House. He was impeached but eventually
‘’acquitted’’. Despite this, Clinton still enjoyed a high popularity rating.
People did not trust him personally but they thought he was good ‘’for the country’’. After
years of deficit and recession (during the Reagan years), the country had balanced its budget
and even had a surplus.
Unemployment: only 4% and poverty rate gad declined.
Globalization
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the world
became more interconnected. The communist bloc countries which had been isolated for
decades from the capitalist West, began to integrate into the global market economy.
Trade and investment increased, while barriers to migration and to cultural exchange were
lowered.
The Internet
Technological advances, including mobile phones and especially the internet, have
contributed to globalization by connecting people all over the globe.
The Internet is a revolution as it connects billions of people and devices, providing endless
opportunities for the exchange of goods, services, cultural products, knowledge and ideas.
46
Globalization’s dark side

The increasing interconnectedness of the world economy has heightened the risk of global
economic catastrophe. This is because banking or financial failure in one country will lead to
crises in other countries, and thus will become internationalized rather than remaining
isolated.
This was the case with the Great Recession of 2008-2009, during which the financial crisis in
the US subprime mortgage market led to a global economic meltdown. The United States
has recovered from the crisis, but not Europe.
New Concern for the Environment

Mass consumption and the increase of the world’s population led to a growing concern for
the ecology. The first ‘’environmentalist’’ measures were taken in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and
had led to cleaner air and water.
But the nation was still unwilling to address long-term threats to the environment such as
global warming population growth, and the exhaustion of fossil fuel resources.
Neither Reagan, who was not concern with the environment, nor Clinton, took serious
measures to protect the Earth.
Rise of terrorism
Global terrorist networks – while denouncing globalization – have used globalization to
enhance their own influence and to promote a culture of intolerance and hate. The Al-Qaeda
members who perpetrated the attack on September 11th used mobile phone technology and
the internet to coordinate their plans.
They were also easily able to move from one country to another because of lowered barriers
to international travail and mobility.
The Height of America’s Power

In many ways, the Reagan and Clinton years epitomize the acme of America’s power, wealth
and influence. As the sole world leader, it massively exported its values and culture.
This status only changed with 9/11.
47
Theme 10 – America since 9/11
George W. Bush
George Bush was elected in 2000 with a ‘’moderate’’ agenda – he described himself as a
moderate Republican.
Some of his ideas were taken from the Democrats – more money for education (with the
NCLB program), support for a new federal program that subsidized the cost of prescription
drugs for the elderly.
9/11
On September 11Th, 2001, 19 terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda hijacked and crashed 4
airplanes into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon
in Washington DC (the fourth plane crashed in a field in central Pennsylvania).
3000 people died on that day and more than 6000 were wounded.
This event traumatized the nation and shattered the myth of ‘’invincibility’’.
Origins
This epochal can be linked to the US involvement in Afghanistan in 1979, Osama Bin Laden,
the son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian family, went to Afghanistan and organized the
mujahedeen (warriors) resistance to the godless Soviet occupation.
The United Soviet mujahedeen, providing them with weapons and training.
A Shift of Alliance
At this time, the mujahedeen were still called ‘’freedom fighters’’ in America, not
‘’terrorists’’.
However, after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Bin Laden turned on the United
States, as he condemned US support for Israel and criticized the presence of US troops in
Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War.
He took years to plot the massive attack on the Twin Towers.
War on Terror
Shortly after 9/11, the Bush administration declared a Global War on Terror. The first front
in this war was Afghanistan, where the governing Taliban regime had protected and trained
members of Al-Qaeda.
In 2003, the US went to war with Iraq, claiming that it possessed weapons of mass
destruction and linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Though US forces dragged on four years.
No WMD were ever found during the war or in its aftermath.
A Binary World
After the attacks, a binary world was shaped by the administration. ‘’They’’ attacked ‘’Us’’.
Unity and obedience to the administration became compulsory.
America’s New War: no longer the Cold War with the Soviets. The Muslim World was the
new enemy.
Bush capitalized on this atmosphere of fear to install a single narrative with clear-cut heroes
and evildoers. ‘’Either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorist’s’’.
48
The War on Terror, At Home

A key component of the Global War on Terror was the USA Patriot Act (2001) which sought
to protect the nation by expanding domestic surveillance programs and permitting the use
of ‘’enhance interrogation techniques’’ (torture) to extract information from detainees.
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security ti
centralize the collection and analysis of intelligence and to coordinate US efforts to prevent
future terrorist attacks.
The Question of Individual Freedom

Those new measures subverted valuable individual freedoms, and violated the Geneva
Convention by allowing what they considered torture.
Evidence of torture at the Aby Ghraib prison in Iraq led to investigations of US human rights
abuses. Former detainees reported that they had been beaten, starved, sexually assaulted
and subjected to routine humiliations.
A Media Paralysis?
In the aftermath of the catastrophe, the press and the media passively followed ‘’orders’’
from the White House in a respect of unity. No longer did their real jobs and promoted the
administration’s point of view.
The media did little to provide a balance perspective when Bush decided to go to war in Iraq.
This played a role in Bush’s re-election.
The War in Iraq

Not answering questions or answering just the questions that are unthreatening is not new
and asking questions (Is the war justified?) were labelled as ‘’dangerous’’ and ‘’unpatriotic’’
by Bush’s administration.
After 9/11, a new terminology appeared in the media: words such as ‘’liberators’’, not
occupiers; or ‘’collateral damage’’ to minimize the deaths of civilians.
Linguistic anaesthesia.
Anti-Americanism
After the war in Iraq and after Bush was elected a second time, people no longer felt sorry
for Americans.
A statement from the Pew Research Center in 2005: Anti-Americanism is deeper and
broader now than at any time in American history.
The ‘’war on terror’’ was deeply criticized. Is it possible to go to war with a concept?
War on Terrorism?
‘’A war on terrorism is a war without an end in sight, without an exit strategy, with enemies
specified not by their aims but by their tactics. Relying principally on military means is like
trying to eliminate a crowd of mosquitos with a machine gun. Terrorism by its nature can’t
and won’t be eradicated or abolished as long as they are grievance that the aggrieved
believe cannot be resolve non-violently. (Ronald Spiers, American diplomat, in No question
asked, Lisa Finnegan).
49
Domestic policies
The Bush administration increased funding for many federal programs and agencies, while
implementing some of the largest tax cuts in history. Meanwhile, the war In Afghanistan and
Iraq were huge financial effort.
Critics of the ‘’Bush Tax Cuts’’ argued that they contributed to increase income inequality by
unfairly benefiting the upper class and impoverishing the middle class.
Hurricane Katrina
A sad example of this blatant inequality was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a massive storm that
devastated New Orleans.
On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. The
storm itself did a great deal of damage, but its aftermath was catastrophic as it led to
massive flooding. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama
were displaced from their homes.
An inadequate Response
The federal government seemed unprepared for the disaster and even President Bush
seemed unaware of the situation’s gravity.
It reopened old wounds as the clear majority of those who had lost everything in the storm
were poor and black. Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2 000 and experts estimate that Katrina
caused more than $100 billion in damage.
This event led to a growing dissatisfaction with Bush.
The Great Recession

In September 2008, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a major Wall Street investment firm,
ushered in the worst banking crisis the country had experienced since the Great Depression.
Both the boom-and-bust dynamic associated with free-market capitalism and the monetary
policies enacted by the Federal Reserve played a role in creating the crisis.
Excessive home building, combined with the loosening of credit served to create a Housing
Bubble.
Response
President Bush, who had proceeded to massive tax cuts since 2000, was forces to inject
billions of dollars to save the country’s economy.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 included $700 billion.
Bush left office a highly unpopular president.
Obama’s election
Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of a white American mother from
Kansas and a black African father from Kenya.
He made history as the 1st African-American to be elected President. Obama’s 2008
presidential campaign prominently featured the themes of hope and change. He radically
differed from Bush.
He worked as a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree at Harvard.
He won the Democratic Party Presidential primary against Hillary Clinton in 2008.
50
Progressive Measures
Obama’s accession to power during the Recession echoes Roosevelt’s victory during the
Great Depression.
He established new progressive reforms: health care, financial reform, no interventionism,
expansion of gay rights, measures for climate change and immigration reform.
Even though Obama had progressive views on many subjects, he didn’t push too much for
some of those measures: the congress blocked him and he did not want to be seen as
pursuing a ‘’black agenda’’…
Emblematic Measures
The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, is his most emblematic measure.
Other domestic achievements of the Obama administration include the extension of civil
rights to the LGBTQ community. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeat Act of 2010 made it legal
for openly homosexual men and women to serve in the Us armed forces. The Obama
administration also legalized same-sex marriage.
Foreign Policies
Drone strikes targeting suspected terrorists in countries like Pakistan and Yemen, continued
and even escalated.
President Obama withdrew US forces from Iraq in August 2010. After the US withdrawal, the
insurgency intensified and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) captured majors
cities in Iraq.
In May 2011, the US Navy Seals of the Obama administration captured and killed Osama Bin
Laden in Pakistan.
A New Perspective
Barack Obama’s 8-year presidency changed the United States and gave a voice to those with
progressive views. The young generation of important cities is now more open-minded than
ever.
This why the election of Donald Trump in 2016 came as shock to many.
Donald Trump: A New Populism?

The American businessman launched his campaign in June 2015 and won the presidential
election on November 8th, 2016.
As a former reality TV persona, Trump has been able to wash in on his media power. What
he’s selling is his name and reputation. He blurs the lines between politics, business and
entertainment.
He transforms himself and his image into surplus value: visible with his constant use of
superlatives (uses hyperbolic self-inflated language).
The Era of ‘’Fake News’’

Trump’s use of social medial (Twitter) and his bypassing of traditional media is a ‘’proof’’
that what he says is ‘’real’’: he does not talk from a script and has no filter (anti-
establishment).
He promotes a culture of closure: ‘’don’t believe the liberal media…’’
51
Donald Trump and the polarization of America

Are we entering ‘’a culture war’’? That is, a confrontation between orthodoxy and
progressivism for domination and power?
We are witnessing a struggle to define reality. The media and the America people have
never been so polarized on so many issues.
Trump’s culture war in fundamentally the people versus the elite, national sovereignty
versus cosmopolitanism, and patriotism versus multiculturalism.
White Backlash?
Trump’s slogan ‘’Make American Great Again’’ – and his rejection of ‘’political correctness’’ –
appeals nostalgically to a mythical ‘’golden past’’, especially for older white men.
Back then American society was less diverse, US leadership was unrivalled among Western
powers during the Cold War era, threats of terrorism pre-9/11 were in distant lands but not
at home, and conventional sex roles for women and men reflected patrimonial power
relationships within the family and workforce.
Overview
It is too early to assess Trump’s measures but it is obvious that the American democracy
works: he was never able to pass his ‘’Muslim Ban’’, despite trying twice.
Likewise, he has not been able to repeal Obamacare.
These events show that the American system of checks and balances is still strong.
52

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AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

Theme 1 – The Colonial Period

Dimension and Puritanism

I. The American Experience

First settlement: Jamestown, Virginia (1607)

Second settlement: Plymouth Massachusetts (1620)

The Mayflower compact

Massachusetts Bay company

II. The colonists’ identity

The great awakening (1730-1760)

Albany Congress (1754)

III. The beginning of the crisis

The Seven Years’ War (1756-1793)

1764: The Sugar Act

1765: The Stamp Act

‘No taxation without representation’

The Stamp Act Congress

The Boston Tea Party

1774: The coercive acts

The first continental Congress

Theme 2 – The American Revolution

The Second Continental Congress

The Olive Branch Petition

The Declaration of Independence

Separation from the Crown

I. The War of Independence

The importance of George Washington

How did the colonists win the war?

Benjamin Franklin in Paris

France enters the War

The colonists win the war

Ratification of the consumption

The treaty of Paris

II. The political experiment

How to rebalance power?

Three Branches of power

Checks and Balances

Federalists and Antifederalists

The Bill of Rights

The influence of the Enlightenment

What did the revolution mean?

The French Revolution

Independence: endless possibilities

Theme 3 – The Westward Expansion

The Westward Expansion: freedom and independence

The Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Importance of the expedition

The Oregon Trail

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

The California Gold Rush (1849)

The search for gold

The Homestead Act (1862)

The transcontinental railroad

The destruction of the Plain Indians

The Settlement of the Great Plain

Who were the settlers?

Westward Expansion and Immigration

The expansion’s influence on American mentality

Distrust of central government

Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis

The End of the Frontier

The Legend of the Frontier

Issues with the Westward Movement

Theme 4 – The Civil War