UNIT 52

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED

STATES OF AMERICA: FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT.
OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. Aims of the unit.
1.2. Notes on bibliography.

2. A HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1778-1865).
2.1. Personal information.
2.1.1. The first presidents of the United States (1789-1865).
2.1.2. Abraham Lincoln: a biography (1809-1865).
2.2. Historical account of events.
2.2.1.The aftermath of the War of Independence (1778-1860).
2.2.2. The election of Abraham Lincoln (1860).
2.2.3. The Civil War (1861-1865).

3. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM

ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1865-1933).
3.1. The presidents of the United States (1865-1933).
3.2. The aftermath of the Civil War (1865-1933).
3.2.1. Economic consequences.
3.2.2. Technological consequences
3.2.3. Social consequences.
3.2.4. Political consequences.
3.2.4.1. The Spanish-American War (1898).
3.2.4.2. The Caribbean domination policy.
3.2.4.3. The Mexican revolution.
3.2.4.4. The First World War (1914-1918).

4. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

UNDER THE FIGURE OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1933-1945).
4.1. Youth and early years (1882-1910).
4.2. Early political career (1910-1920).
4.3. Vice- Presidential Nomination (1920).
4.4. Governor of New York (1928).
4.5. President of the United States (1933).
4.6. The New Deal from 1935.
4.7. Foreign affairs: a prelude to war.
4.8. The World War II (1941-1945).

5. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.

6. CONCLUSION.
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1/31
1. INTRODUCTION.

1.1. Aims of the unit.

The present unit, Unit 52, aims to provide a useful introduction to the historical development of
the United States of America from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This
historical period has not been chosen arbitrarily since we aim at examining an important period
within the political history of the United States connected with the figures of Lincoln and
Rooselvelt. Both political figures have in common that many historians consider them to be the
greatest American presidents, together with George Washington, but differ in the time they
achieved their presidential post, since Lincoln was the sixteenth president and Roosevelt, the
thirty-second.

Hence, A. Lincoln shall mark the beginning of our study since he is the most representative
figure from the period which examines the events between the War of Independence (1778-
1783) and the Civil War (1861-1865) whereas F. D. Rooselvelt marks the end since he is the
last political figure from the aftermath of the war up to the Second World War (1945). In
between, we shall examine the political work of the other fifteen presidents which drove the
country in between.

This is reflected in the organization of the unit, which is divided into three main chapters which
correspond to the main tenets of this unit , that is, from the Presidential election of A. Lincoln to
the death of F.D. Roosevelt. Therefore, we shall analyse (1) the historical development of the
United States from the War of Independence to the figure of Abraham Lincoln as a president
(1778-1865); (2) the historical development of the United States between A. Lincoln and F. D.
Rooselvelt (1865-1933); and (3) the historical development of the United States under the figure
of F. D. Rooselvelt (1933-1945). Hence, shall present our study in five main chapters.

Chapter 2 shall examine the historical development of the United States from the War of
Independence to the death of Abraham Lincoln (1778-1865). Yet, we consider relevant to
organise this section into two different parts, in which we shall offer first (1) personal
information about (a) the list of the fifteen presidents who ruled before A. Lincoln, and (b) a
brief biography of Abraham Lincoln so as to relate it later to a historical account of events in
that period. Then we shall offer (2) a historical account of the main political events. Thus, we
shall review the previous years to 1860 under the heading (a) the aftermath of the War of
Independence (1778-1820) in terms of social, economical, and political consequences which

2/31
shall lead us (b) towards the election of Abraham Lincoln (1820-1860) as a president, and
finally, we shall analyse its main consequence, (c) the Civil War (1861-1865).

Chapter 3 shall examine the historical development of the United States from the death of
Abraham Lincoln to the introduction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the political field (1865-
1933). In doing so, we shall offer first (1) an account of the first presidents of the United States
from George Washington (1789) to A. Lincoln (1865) during this period in relation to the main
events which took place. Then we shall review the main historical events in (2) the aftermath of
the Civil War (1865-1933) regarding the (a) economic, (b) technological, (c) social, including
(i) the question of slavery, (ii) migrations to the West in the homeland, (iii) migrations from the
rest of the world, and the main changes in the (iv) distribution of social classes; and (d) political
consequences of the Civil war, which will be further developed into (i) the Spanish-American
War, (ii) the American domination policy in the Caribbean, (iii) the Mexican Revolution, and
(iv) the First World War.

Chapter 4 shall examine the historical development of the United States under the figure of
Franklin Delano Rooselvelt (1933-1945), who was a charismatic political figure. So, we shall
examine his life and, therefore, the history of the United States, regarding his (1) youth and
early years (1882-1910), his (2) early political career (1910-1920), his (3) Vice-Presidential
Nomination (1920), Roosevelt as (4) Governor of New York (1928), and as (5) President of the
United States (1933), his political reform reflected in (6) The New Deal from 1935, (7) foreign
affairs and a prelude to war, and finally, his participation in (8) the World War II (1941-1945).

Chapter 5 will be devoted to the main educational implications in language teaching regarding
the introduction of this issue in the classroom setting. Chapter 6 will offer a conclusion to
broadly overview our present study, and Chapter 7 will include all the bibliographical
references used to develop this account of the History of the United States from A. Lincoln to
F.D. Roosevelt.

1.2. Notes on bibliography.

An influential introduction to the historical background of the United States of America is based
on Thoorens, Panorama de las literaturas Daimon: Inglaterra y América del Norte. Gran
Bretaña y Estados Unidos de América (1969); Palmer, Historia Contemporánea (1980);
Bradbury & Temperley, Introduction to American Studies (1981); Musman, Background to the

3/31
USA (1982); and Brogan, The History of the United States of America (1985). Other sources are
Encyclopaedia Larousse 2000 (1998).

The background for educational implicatio ns is based on the theory of communicative

competence and communicative approaches to language teaching are provided by the most
complete record of current publications within the educational framework is provided by the
guidelines in B.O.E. (2004) for both E.S.O. and Bachillerato; and the Council of Europe,
Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European Framework of
reference (1998).

2. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1778-1865).

Chapter 2 shall examine the historical development of the United States from the War of
Independence to the death of Abraham Lincoln (1778-1865). Yet, we consider relevant to
organise this section into two different parts, in which we shall offer first (1) personal
information about (a) the list of the fifteen presidents who ruled before A. Lincoln, and (b) a
brief biography of Abraham Lincoln so as to relate it later to a historical account of events in
that period. Then we shall offer (2) a historical account of the main political events. Thus, we
shall review the previous years to 1860 under the heading (a) the aftermath of the War of
Independence (1778-1820) in terms of social, economical, and political consequences which
shall lead us (b) towards the election of Abraham Lincoln (1820-1860) as a president, and
finally, we shall analyse its main consequence, (c) the Civil War (1861-1865).

2.1. Personal information.

2.1.1. The first presidents of the United States (1789-1865).

According to Larousse 2000 (1998), the first presidents of the United States including Lincoln
are to be classified into three main groups. First, federal and republican presidents from 1789 to
1817; the presidents of the “era of good feelings” from 1817 and 1829; whigs and democrats
from 1829 and 1861; and finally, Abraham Lincoln within the list of republican and democrats
between 1861 and 1865.

4/31
 • Federal and republican presidents (1789-1817).

The first president was George Washington (1789-1793), who was followed by J.
Adams (1797), Jefferson (1801-1805) and Madison (1809-1813).

• The “era of good feelings” (1817-1829).

This era is represented by Monroe (1817-1821) and J.Q. Adams (1825).

• Whigs and democrats (1829-1861).

Among Whig presidents we find Harrison (1841), Tyler (1841), Taylor (1849) and
Filmore (1850) whereas among the democrats we include Jackson (1829-1833), Van
Buren (1837), Polk (1845), Pierce (1853) and Buchanan (1857).

• Republican and democrats (1861-1865).

Within this group we shall only mention the republican A. Lincoln (1861-1865).

2.1.2. Abraham Lincoln : a biography (1809-1865).

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was born on february 12 in Kentucky. His parents, both born in
Virginia in undistinguished families, were Thomas Lincoln, who was an uneducated, but skilled
carpenter, and a farmer, and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who had little or no schooling and could not
write. Little is known about Lincoln’s mother, except that she died when Abraham was ten. The
rest of the family were an older sister, Sarah, who died in childbirth in 1828, and a younger
brother, Thomas, who died in infancy.

In 1816 the Lincolns moved to Indiana where he grew up because land ownership was more
secure there. The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveys by the federal government and
also, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the area. The fact that Lincoln’s
parents belonged to a faction of the Baptist church that disapproved of slavery, and this
affiliation may account for Abraham’s later statement that he was naturally anti-slavery.

Indiana was a wild region in the woods and there was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for
education in Abraham. He attended some schools where, alike his mother, Abraham learnt to

5/31
read, write and cipher in his early years. In 1819, when he was eleven years old his father
married a Kentucky widow, Sarah Bush Johnston, who proved a good and kind mother. In later
years Abraham could fondly and poetically recall memories of his childhood. In 1828 he was
able to make a flatboat trip to New Orleans.

In 1830 the Lincolns left Indiana for Illinois. Abraham made a second flatboat trip to New
Orleans, and in 1831 he left home for New Salem, in Sangamon County near Springfield. The
separation may have been made easier by Abraham’s estrangement from his father, of whom he
spoke little in his mature life. In New Salem, Abraham tried various occupations and made
extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and
keeping store in Illinois. In 1832 he served briefly in the Black Hawk War, where he was
elected captain of his volunteer company, a distinction that gave him much satisfaction and
opened new avenues for his life.

In the same year, he joined the Illinois legislature and two years later (1834) he was elected to
the lower house for the first of four successive terms as a Whig (his membership in the Whig
Party was natural since his father was also a Whig). Abraham Lincoln saw in the party’s
ambitious program of national economic development the perfect solution to the problems he
had seen in his rural, hardscrabble Indiana past. He spent eight years in the Illinois legislature,
and rode the circuit of courts for many years. As a Whig, Lincoln supported the Second Bank of
the United States, the Illinois State Bank, government-sponsored internal improvements (roads,
canals, railroads, harbors), and protective tariffs.

Despite his Whig vision of the West, he remained conscious of his humble origins and was
therefore sympathetic to agricultural labor. He bore no antagonism to capital, but he admired the
American system of economic opportunity. Yet, slavery was the opposite of opportunity and
mobility, and A. Lincoln stated his political opposition to it. Then he became a lawyer in 1836,
and in 1837 he moved to Springfield, where he became the law partner of the Whig legislator
John Todd Stuart. With a succession of partners, including Stephen T. Logan and William H.
Herndon, Lincoln built a successful practice.

For the 4th and last time, Lincoln won election to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1840.
Meanwhile he courted Mary Todd Lincoln, a Kentuckian of genteel origins who was a
Presbyterian, though her husband was never a church member. After a brief postponement of
their engagement, and in the fall of the elections, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd and
they married on November 4, 1842. They had four sons, only one of whom lived to maturity
(the former one): Robert Todd (1843-1926), Edward Baker (1846-50), William Wallace (1850-
62), and Thomas “Tad” (1853-71).

6/31
In 1844 Lincoln visited his former home in Indiana while campaigning for Henry Clay, the
Whig candidate for President. In December Lincoln accepted William Herndon as his law
partner. On 3 August 1846 Lincoln was re-elected to the United States House of
Representatives, and between 1847 and 1849 Lincoln served as a member of the United States
House of Representatives, where he opposed the Mexican War since he considered it
unnecessary and unconstitutional.

This opposition was not a function of internationalist sympathy for Mexico, but of feeling that
the Democratic president, James Polk, had violated the Constitution. Lincoln had been
indifferent about the annexation of Texas, already a slave territory, but he opposed any
expansion that would allow slavery into new areas; hence, he supported the Wilmot Proviso,
which would have barred slavery from any territory gained as a result of the Mexican War. He
did not run for Congress again, returning instead to Springfield and the law.

In 1854 Lincoln was elected again to the Illinois legislature, but he declined the office on
November 27th to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate. His re-entry into politics was fueled
by his opposition to slavery and his support on democracy. In 1856 he helped organize the new
Republican Party in Illinois, and although he wasn't nominated, he received he was voted for
Vice-President at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Then in 1858 Lincoln
Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator, but he lost the election. However, in
debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination
for President in 1860.

The same year in February, Lincoln made his first major political appearance in the Northeast
when he addressed a rally at the Cooper Union in New York. He was now sufficiently well
known to be a presidential candidate. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861,
seven states had seceded from the Union. Then, despite the advice of a majority of his cabinet,
Lincoln decided to send provisions to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, a symbol of federal
authority. On April 12, 1861, South Carolina fired on the fort, and the Civil War began.

As President, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause, and January 1,
1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within
the Confederacy. Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end
to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, and tried to
convince Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.in the spirit that
guided and characterized him. Yet, on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at
Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was
helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln’s death, the possibility of peace
with magnanimity died.

7/31
2.2. Historical account of events.

2.2.1. The aftermath of the War of Independence (1778-1820).

The War of Independence (1778-1783), also known as the American Revolution, was first
regarded as a civil war against Britain, but when other countries entered the confrontation,
namely France (1778), Spain (1779) and the Netherlands (1780), it became an international war.
Initial confrontations were mixed (the British being successful at Brandywine but suffering
badly at Saratoga), but the situation improved for the colonists when these three countries
utilized the opportunity caused by the confrontation to declare war on Britain as well.
Eventually, by 1782, the British campaign was crumbling.

The British Parliament demanded an end to the war, largely due to its high expenses. The Prime
Minister, now Lord North, resigned and, on 3 September 1783, treaties were signed at
Versailles. Britain retained Canada and the West Indian Islands but the thirteen rebellious states
were formally recognised as the United States of America. On the other hand, France retained
their West Indian Islands and were given Tobago in addition, and Spain recovered Florida after
twenty years of British control (but later sold it to the Netherlands).

Therefore, the aftermath of the war was particularly felt in the national division of the states due
to the political struggle over slavery and the spread into new territories (the West). Hence, the
North representing the modern, industrial, and business-minded states versus the South, which
represented the cultures, colonial and aristocratic states. Yet, in general, the main consequences
following the loss of the American colonies were to be noticed at social, economic and namely
political consequences. Thus,

• Social consequences.

In social terms, the United States exerted an irresistible attraction on visitors and therefore,
immigrants, namely from Germany and Ireland. Between the 1830s and 1840s, population grew
at an amazing rate attracted by an efficient network of economic and cultural richness in the
new land. The German did well whereas the Irish immigrants were not rich enough to buy land.
Hence they had to take the menial and unskilled labour needed by the expanding economy, and
as a result, they suffered discrimination in towns and cities (their discrimination is compared to
the free blacks in the North).

8/31
Another important issue to be highlighted is that of Northern blacks. Since they possessed
theoretical freedom, they suffered discrimination at all social levels (politics, employment,
education, religion, and even in cemeteries). Yet, their situation improved between the 1830s
and 1850s under the Age of Reform, where a great variety of ideals and movements flourished
in favor of women’ rights, pacifism, abolition of imprisonment, capital punishment, improving
working classes conditions, and a better education, among others. Yet, a vast majority of
Americans did not support these changes. The Reform reflected the sensibility of a small
number of people.

• Economic consequences.

Economically, after the War of Independence two different economic models towards
capitalism developed, thus represented by North and South ideals. On the one hand, the North,
supported by the Middle West, based its economy on industry and farming in order to set up
tariffs to protect themselves against rival European products; on the other hand, the South,
namely aristocratic, based its economy on cotton production in big plantations, and therefore,
free trade of slaves. Slavery did not exisst in the Northern states, so the North found it difficult
to accept the attitude of the South.

• Political consequences.

Political consequences were felt in Britain and in the American colonies. Let us examine the
most relevant events in both parts.

In in the British Empire, there was an increasing interest in the east. The East India Company
had long been the main agent of Imperial expansion in southern Asia and exercised many
governmental functions. Although the company maintained sole responsibility for trade and
patronage, in 1784 under the India Act, a Board of Control was established to oversee the
revenue, administration and diplomatic functions of the company as well as the aspects of its
military expansion.

Yet, the new target of Britain was not only the East, but also the colonisation of the Antipodes
so as to establish penal colonies (1788). The colonisation of Australia and New Zealand began
with the desire to find a place for penal settlement after the loss of the original American
colonies. The first shipload of British convicts landed in Australia in 1788, on the site of the
future city of Sydney.

9/31
Regarding the American colonies, the resolution on the settlement in the West was to be
realized by a Federal government, which was established according to the interests of the North
states. Until 1789, the United States was governed by the Articles of Confederation, which
created an extremely weak central government. The United States had no power to levy taxes;
for income, it relied essentially on money from the states. In addition, the government of the
United States had no central executive branch, making its already weak government further
divided and lacking strong leadership. The government of the United States under the Articles
was also weak with regards to foreign affairs, and during this period Britain and Spain treated
the United States like a third-rate power.

Therefore, since the South was afraid of a possible centralized government, they started to think
about the possibility of breaking with the Union and replaced the Articles of Confederation with
a stronger central government. Those who advocated the creation of such a government took the
name Federalists, and quickly gained supporters throughout the nation. The most well-known
Federalists include Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. These were the main
contributors to the Federalist Papers, a series of 85 essays which served in many ways as
seminal documents for the new United States that was to come.

The Constitution of the United States was adopted as a direct response to the Articles of
Confederation and as a result, a strong executive branch was created for the first time to give the
government the power to tax. After the first elections then the old nationalists (Federalists) took
the power. Moreover, the Federalists gained a great deal of prestige and advantage when George
Washington joined their cause.

2.2.2. Towards the election of Abraham Lincoln (1820-1860).

As we have seen, the Constitution in the aftermath of the war had been able to regulate conflicts
of interest and conflicting visions for the new, rapidly expanding nation. But from 1820 to 1860
many other factors had changed, thus the rise of mass democracy in the North, the breakdown of
the old two-party system, the increasingly virulent and hostile sectional ideologies (especially
that of “free labor” in the North), the acquisition of new lands in the West in the 1840s and
slavery in the south, which would catapult the nation into civil war. With the emergence of the
United States Republican Party, the nation became the first major sectional political party, by
the mid-1850s.

There is little question that the salient issue in the minds of the public and popular press of the
time, and the histories written since, was the issue of slavery. Slavery had been abolished in
most northern states, but was legal and important to the economy of the Confederacy, which

10/ 31
depended on cheap agricultural labor. State sovereignty (for the South) and preservation of the
Union (for the North) have both also been cited as issues, but both were reflections of the
slavery issue.

The political atmosphere before the Civil War was therefore, one of unremitting crisis. The
underlying problem was that the United States had been on the whole a country, but not a nation
and hence, the major functions of government (education, health, transport) were carried out at a
state or local level. Yet, an enduring manifestation of hostility toward the nationalizing
tendencies in American life was the reassertion of strong nationalistic feelings threatened by the
West.

There were several points of view from West, East, North and South. On the one hand, the West
developed a strong sectional feeling, blending its sense of uniqueness and the feeling of having
been exploited by the businessment of the East and, on the other hand, the East reasserted his
national feeling. Moreover, the South persisted on Negro slavery, which had already been
abolished or prohibited in all other parts of the United States. So, people from the South stated
an elaborate pro-slavery argument on defending their institutions on biblical, economic, and
sociological grounds. On the contrary, the North reaffirmed its position towards industry and
against slavery, and made a great effort to change the South’s point of view.

In fact, George Washington received every electoral vote and became president, and only a
handful of Anti-federalists were elected to Congress. When Washington determined not to
continue, president John Adams was elected president, and in turn, Jefferson (a republican) in
1800, and James Madison in 1809. Britain and France were forced by Madison to respect the
commercial restraints in the seas, but the efforts were futile. Britain periodically humiliated the
small American navy by seizing American ships.

By 1812, American relations with Britain did not improve. Rather, a popular clamour for war
began to arise, namely due to the frustration and desire to redeem the national honour, and
eventually, America declared the war against England in 1812. Two years later (1814), the
Americans defeated England in 1814 and peace was reestablished in the United States by James
Monroe (former secretary of state and president in 1816). This period was to be known as the
“Era of Good Feeling”.

By 1860, the American society underwent both a sectional confrontation and an economic
revolution, where depression was sharpened by economic and class divides, realigning the
interplay of race, class, and political ideology. In other words, the realignment of cleavages and

11/ 31
cooperation among geographical, social classes, and party affiliations in politics between the
depression of 1857 and the election of 1860 led to the election of a president so objectionable to
Southern slave-owing interests that it would trigger Southern secession, and consequently a war
to save the integrity of the Union.

Hence, in 1860 the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln took place in an atmosphere of
great tension and was not received in the same way in the North and South. In the South,
Lincoln’s election was taken as the signal for secession and South Carolina became the first
state to withdraw from the Union. This time they were determined and soon, other states
followed their proposal. In 1861, in February 4, six Southern states sent representatives to
establish a new independent government, but Lincoln was not in favour of the Union to be
divided. Then, in his inaugural address, his speech closed with a plea for restoration of the
bonds of union. The South, particularly South Carolina, ignored the plea, and on April 12, the
South fired upon the Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina
until the troops surrendered.

2.2.3. The Civil War (1861-1865).

The Civil War has been also called the main American social revolution, a watershed in the rise
of modern industrial society in the United States and as the result of free-labor industrial
capitalism, and the resolution of sectional conflict in the North. This war was fought between
the northern states, popularly referred to as the “Union,” the “north,” or the “Yankees,” and the
seceding southern states, commonly referred to as the Confederate States of America, the
“Confederacy.” the “south,” or the “rebels.”

As stated above, the Civil War started with Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of
1860, which triggered South Carolina’s secession from the Union. By February 1, 1861, six
more Southern states had seceded. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional
constitution for the Confederate States of America. The remaining southern states as yet
remained in the Union, and less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was
sworn in as president of the United States.

Since then a march of Union troops under the command of the Confederate force was built up
by July 1861 at Manassas, Virginia . The first battle is known as the First Battle of Bull Run (or
First Manassas), whereupon they were forced back to Washington, DC by Confederate troops
under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard. Alarmed at the loss,

12/ 31
the United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year in
an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union. Also, it stated that the war was
being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.

Subsequent encounters took place and the first victory of the war was under the Union flag
under the figure of Ulysses S. Grant, who captured Fort Henry, Tennessee on February 6, 1862.
Later on in September 5, the Confederates made its first invasion of the North under the rule of
General Lee, who led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River at
White's Ford near Leesburg, Virginia into Maryland. Then, on September 17, 1862, Lee's army,
checked at last, returned to Virginia. Yet, the war’s turning point was made by George Meade,
who stopped Lee’s invasion of Union-held territory at the Battle of Gettysburg between 1-3 July
1863, inflicting 28,000 casualties on Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia , and again forcing it to
retreat to its state.

In general terms, while the Confederate forces had some success in the Eastern holding on to
their capital, fortune did not smile upon them in the West. Confederate forces were driven from
Missouri early in the war. The Union's key strategist and tactician Ulysses S. Grant, won
victories at Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga,
Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee. Grant’s aim was to defeat the
Confederate forces and bring an end to the war.

At the beginning of 1864, Grant was given command of all Union armies in the East, who
attempted to defeat Lee and fought several battles during that phase of the Eastern campaign:
the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor. Grant was tenacious
and kept pressing the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Robert E. Lee. He
extended the Confederate army, pinning it down in the Siege of Petersburg and, after two failed
attempts, he finally found a commander, Philip Sheridan, who could clear the threat to
Washington DC from the Shenandoah Valley.

Yet, the North superiority was in the air. The main advantage s widely believed to have
contributed to the Union’s success include the North’s strong, industrial economy; the North’s
strong compatible railroad links (and the South’s lack thereof); the North’s larger population;
the North’s possession of the United States’ merchant marine fleet and naval ships; the North’s
established government; the North’s moral cause given to the war by Abraham Lincoln (the
Emancipation Proclamation); and last but not least, the recruitment of black men, including
many freed slaves, into the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation was approved.

On 9 April 1865 Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court house.
The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865, in the far south of Texas was the last

13/ 31
land battle of the war and ended with a Confederate victory. All Confederate land forces had
surrendered by June 1865 whereas Confederate naval units surrendered as late as November of
1865.

3. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM

ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1865-1933).

Chapter 3 shall examine the historical development of the United States from the death of
Abraham Lincoln to the introduction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the political field (1865-
1933). In doing so, we shall offer first (1) an account of the first presidents of the United States
from George Washington (1789) to A. Lincoln (1865) during this period in relation to the main
events which took place. Then we shall review the main historical events in (2) the aftermath of
the Civil War (1865-1933) regarding the (a) economic , (b) technological, (c) social, including
(i) the question of slavery, (ii) migrations to the West in the homeland, (iii) migrations from the
rest of the world, and the main changes in the (iv) distribution of social classes; and (d) political
consequences of the Civil war, which will be further developed into (i) the Spanish-American
War, (ii) the American domination policy in the Caribbean, (iii) the Mexican Revolution, and
(iv) the First World War.

3.1. The presidents of the United States (1865-1933).

The presidents of the United States between the death of A. Lincoln (1865) up to the
Presidential election of F.D. Roosevelt (1933) are classified into republicans and democrats.
Thus, among the republicans we include A. Johnson (1865), Grant (1869-1873), Hayes (1877),
Garfield (1881), Arthur (1881), Harrison (1889), McKinley (1897-1901), Theodore Roosevelt
(1901-1905), Taft (1909), Harding (1921), Coolidge (1923-1925), and Hoover (1929-1953). On
the other hand, among democrat presidents we include Cleveland (1885-1893), and Wilson
(1913-1917), this latter to be followed by F.D. Roosevelt (1933-1945).

3.2. The aftermath of the Civil War (1865-1933).

The aftermath of the Civil War is namely represented by the events occurred within the
international and national field. Thus, though all the events are interrelated, we shall analyse

14/ 31
them in economic, technological, social and political terms for the sake of clarity, and not
chronologically. So, we shall classify the main events after the Civil war regarding (1) economic
consequences, which include the emergence of new industrialized fronts in the South and the
West as a result of the late consequences of international events, such as the Industrial
Revolution and the imperialist policy of powerful countries; moreover, the emergence of new
inventions are to be included in (2) technological consequences; also, these changes brought
about (3) social consequences reflected by the strong spirit of reform, reflected on important
social and cultural changes; finally, we shall analyse the main (4) political consequences in this
period.

3.2.1. Economic consequences.

First of all, following Musman (1982), “after the Civil War, American industry changed
dramatically.” On the one hand, “machines replaced hand labor as the main means of
manufacturing, thus increasing the production capacity of industry.” As a result, “a new
nationwide network of railroads enabled businessmen to distribute goods far and wide” and
promoted the rise of big business and the industrialization of the South and the West.

On the one hand, the rise of big business was the result of the increase in American industry
produced by the value of goods between 1870 and 1916, and several production developments.
Thus, the improvement of production methods favoured the use of machines in manufacturing.
This use made factories employ thousands of workers, which were assigned specific jobs. This
system of labor is known as the division of labor, which sped up production and had a
tremendous impact on economy. It also allowed prices to get lower and meant that more people
could afford more products.

On the other hand, the emergence of new industrialized fronts in the South and the West took
place when the South decided to rebuild its society since, in economic terms, it had been behind
the rest of the nation. Hence, though some industry developed in the region, the South remained
an agricultural area throughout the period of American industrialization. On the other hand, the
West industrialization started when the Congress passed the Homestead Act (1862) by means of
which public land was offered to people for free or at very low cost, which had a great impact in
social terms.

15/ 31
3.2.2. Technological consequences.

Closely connected to economic consequences are the technological developments, that is, the
technological inventions, such as the typewriter (1867), the telephone (1876), the phonograph
(1877), and Henry Ford’s gasoline automobile (1885), among others; the use of natural
resources, such as water, forests, coal and iron, copper, silver and namely, petroleum for the
mass production of cars; at a social level, a growing population, namely, due to the waves of
immigrants entered the country and provided the additional workers needed; economically
speaking, high investments and banking made the business boom increase, and as a result, new
banks and, therefore, economy, expanded their operations in and out the United States.

3.2.3. Social consequences.

The main social consequences were to be felt since ancient times, such as (1) the question of
slavery, and also, due to the industrialization and expansion to the West regarding (2)
immigration movements to the West and (3) from different parts of the world, and the new (4)
distribution of social classes.

3.2.3.1. The question of slavery.

The question of slavery is closely related to the Emancipation Proclamation, which was
supposed to free all slaves who were in territory under Confederate control at the time of the
Proclamation. Yet, slaves were not freed in the remaining states and parts of the Confederacy
until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by third quarters of the states, which did not
occur until December of 1865. A good deal of ill will among the Southern survivors resulted
from the destruction inflicted on the South by the Union armies as the end of the war
approached, the resulting shift of political power to the North, and the Reconstruction program
instituted in the South by the Union after the end of the war.

3.2.3.2. Migrations to the West.

On the one hand, as a result, thousands of Americans and immigrants started farms in the West,
namely on the Great Plains. Mine and cattle industry also developed in that area, so after 1870,
settlement became so widespread in the West that it was no longer possible to draw a
continuous frontier line. This expansion to the West meant the end of native Indians since new

16/ 31
settlers occupied their la nd and slaughtered indiscriminately buffalo herds, namely their main
way of survival. Eventually, federal soldiers were sent by the government to crush the Indian
conflict, and pushed them onto reservations.

3.2.3.3. Migrations from the rest of the world.

Following Brogan (1985), another kind of immigration is the early twentieth-century one, which
was given at a higher scale. America had received immigrants from its colonial days due to its
attractive image, which was derived to a large extent from its dynamic economy, but in a low
number. Yet, immigration reached its highest point after the American economic recession in
the decade from 1901 to 1910, when millions of emigrants came from south-eastern Europe.
This movement is known as the Melting Pot of America due to the ethnic diversity.

In general terms, we can talk about immigration waves, which are classified into four main
periods: first, from the first British colony in America established by John Smith, Jamestown to
the Revolution (1607-1778), where people came namely from Ireland and Great Britain; from
the Revolution to 1896, where the American population was heterogeneous (homeland vs.
foreign, white vs. black), and immigrants were namely Mexicans, Scandinavians and Germans,
but less Negroes; from 1896 to 1921, where most immigrants came from Eastern and Southern
Europe (Italy, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Poland); and from 1921 to the present day, the United
States has imposed an annual limit upon those who come from abroad, except for immigrants
from Canada, Mexico, and the states of South America.

After obtaining its independence, the United States lacked a cultural pattern and was
continuously searching for an identity. In this sense, the mass immigration has helped the
United States define the national culture as politically egalitarian and democratic since the first
large-scale immigration occurred. Also, it has provided richness, color, cultural heritage and art
to American life. Yet, immingration also creates conflicts, such as those regarding housing,
sanitation, crime and, therefore, legal system due to problems of assimilation and adjustment.

3.2.3.4. Distribution of social classes.

On the other hand, the effects of the Industrial revolution on society made the spirit of reform be
stronger, and were to be felt name ly on the American people lives and, therefore, social classes
since thousand of people moved from farms to cities. Hence we can distinguish three main
social classes: a small percentage of high social class, who enjoyed wealth and luxury lives; a

17/ 31
larger percentage of middle class, who lived comfortably, but below the level of the former; and
a huge number of people who belonged to the low social class and lived in extreme poverty.

It is worth mentioning that during the early 1900’s the reformers wanted to reduce poverty by
improving the living conditions of the poor and regulating big business. Also, the government
aimed at putting an end to corruption, making government closer to the people, and obtaining
other goals such as the women suffrage. Yet, by 1917, since the reformers had achieved most of
their aims and some of them were called progressives, this period of American history is often
known as the Progressive Era (Palmer, 1980).

3.2.4. Political consequences.

The main political consequences of the Civil war are, for our purposes, the Spanish-American
War (1898), the American domination policy in the Caribbean area, the Mexican revolution, and
the First World War (1914-1918).

3.2.4.1. The Spanish-American War (1898).

The Spanish-American War (1898) was the principal event of the administration of President
William McKinley (1897-1901), who fought over the issue of the liberation of Cuba, though it
started under the rule of the previous President, Cleveland (1885-1893). Following Brogan
(1985), most Americans wanted their country remain away from European affairs and thought it
should offer an example of democracy and peace to the rest of the world. Actually , this war
made the United States come up into the world politics on a new road to imperialism.

Previously to the event, it is worth remembering that Spain ruled over Cuba, Puerto Rico, the
Philippines and other overseas possessions during the 1890’s. When Cuba rebelled against the
Spanish rule in 1895, the repression was hard. Yet, soon the rising public in America demanded
for intervention.Yet, on February 15, 1898, the American battleship Maine was blown up off the
coast of Havana, in Cuba and, although it is not clear enough who caused the explosion, many
Americans blamed Spain.

As a result, on April 25, 1898 McKinley gave way to the Congress to declare the war on Spain.
The war was officially ended by the Treaty of Paris in the same year. Militarily speaking, this
war was brief and relatively bloodless whereas its political and diplomatic consequences were
enormous. Actually, this event marked a turning point in the history of the United States foreign
policy since Spain relinquished Cuba (whose independence was recognized in 1902) and ceded
to the United States the Philippine Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

18/ 31
Expansion of the nation to include regions outside of the North American continent was
denounced as imperialism by the Democratic Party, and became the principal issue of the 1900
presidential campaign. The nation, however, supported the policy of expansion as carried out by
the McKinley administration. In September 1901 McKinley was assassinated by a crazed
anarchist, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president. His administrations
marked a new attitude held by a section of the Republican Party toward the important social,
political, and economic questions of the time, and led gradually to a sharp split in the party.

3.2.4.2. The Caribbean domination policy.

The next important political event was the American domination in the Caribbean, which ranges
approximately from the presidence of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1905) to that of Wilson (1913-
1917), though the latter coincides with the First World War. As we mentioned before, the era of
Th. Roosevelt is related to a period of progress and, therefore, his policy is known as
Progressivism. Actually, Roosevelt, like Jackson and Lincoln, believed that the president had
the duty of initiating and leading Congress to implement a policy of social and economic benefit
to the people at large. Among domestic questions, Roosevelt addressed those of federal
supervision and regulation of all interstate corporations; amendments of the Interstate
Commerce Act to prohibit railroads from giving special rates to shippers; the conservation of
natural resources; federal appropriations for irrigation of arid regions in the West; and the
extension of the merit system in civil service.

Yet, for our purposes, the most relevant domestic affair had to do with the desire of Eastern
business to have easy access to Pacific markets. An isthman canal was demanded to link the
Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, but the only obstacle was the government of Colombia, which
owned Panama. Then, both governments negotiated a treaty and the construction of the canal
began so soon that on August 15, 1914 it was opened to shipping. Hence when crisis appeared
in the Caribbean area, Wilson was determined to protect American security even with the use of
force. Therefore, a protectorate was established by force in Haiti in 1915 and also a military
occupation of the Dominican Republic in Nicaragua in 1916.

Roosevelt gained worldwide importance through his dramatic speeches and actions as president,
his inauguration of the building of the Panama Canal, and his activities in ending the Russo-
Japanese War (1904-1905). Roosevelt declined to run for reelection in 1908 and the
Republicans nominated his secretary of war, William Howard Taft in 1909, based on
Roosevelt’s recommendation. He was followed by Woodrow Wilson who, like Roosevelt,
believed that the presidency should be used for initiating and guiding national legislation in
accordance with the chief executive’s interpretation of the will of the people.

19/ 31
3.2.4.3. The Mexican revolution.

Woodrow Wilson succeeded in carrying out notable revisions and reforms in the laws governing
the tariff, the banking system, trusts, labor, and agriculture. One of his main achievements in
domestic affairs was to deal with an uprising in Mexico in 1913 started by a Victoriano Huerta,
a military usurper who murdered the preceding president Francisco Madero. Wilson tried to
persuade the dictator to step down from office and allow free elections for a new democratic
government. Then Wilson gave open support to Madero’s successor, Venustiano Carranza. Yet,
when Civil War appeared, Wilson refused to interfere. It is at this point that the figure of Pancho
Villa comes to the scene, seeking to provoke war between the United States and Mexico.
Wilson then sent a punitve expedition which was a failure. Relations between the two
government were greatly improved when Wilson extended recognition to Carranza’s new
constitutional regime in 1917.

Wilson also achieved a victory in domestic affairs when the 19th Amendment to the United
States Constitution, which legalized women’s voting rights, was passed in 1919 and ratified in
1920, hence the so-called Woman Suffrage. Yet, the most important issues of Wilson’s
presidence were those arising from the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, the entrance
of the United States into the war in 1917, and the making of peace in 1919.

3.2.4.4. The First World War (1914-1918).

The First World War (1914-1918) brought a period of diplomatic conflict between the United
States and Great Britain and between the United States and Germany since it was an outgrowth
of European territorial problems and nationalism. Following Palmer (1980), the great majority
of Americans were firmly neutral and determined to avoid intervention unless American rights
and interests were violated, and in 1915 an official proclamation of neutrality was proclamated.
This proclamation appealed the Americans to be impartial both in thought and action. Yet, in
April 6, 1917 the United States was finally drawn into the war against Germany and its allies
due to the unrestricted German submarine warfare on Atlantic shipping.

The United States contribution was decisive in the outcome because of its military superiority
both in armament and people. Hence it provided Britain with the ships to overcome the
submarine threat and also, with the American Expeditionary Force on September 1918 to
France. As a result, this military power inclined the balance on the western front and helped to
end the war in November 1918. Next year, the United States was also influential in the writing
of the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the war in 1919.

20/ 31
The Senate of the United States rejected the treaty and the United States membership in the
League of Nations (the covenant for which formed part of the treaty) which temporarily
reversed the tendency toward U.S. involvement in world affairs. Actually, a separate treaty of
peace was signed by the U.S. and Germany in Berlin in August 25, 1921.

Although the early 1920s brought improvements in architecture, education, technology, these
years also saw the rising of mass law-breaking and the rise of organized crime. Therefore,
several acts were passed, such as the ‘Volstead Act’, which prohibited the manufacture, sale or
transportation of intoxicating liquors (the Prohibition Amendment). Yet, the late years of the
1920s witnessed the cease of this prohibition due to the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the turn
of the decade saw the Great Depression which was an unparallelled economic disaster in the
history of the United States.

During the 1930s all social classes were affected by this crash. Actually, millions of workers
lost their jobs in the cities and large numbers of farmers were forced to abandon their farms.
Also, thousands of banks failed during the depression and foreign trade decreased very quickly.
The nation’s economy was paralyzed and poverty swept through on a scale never experienced
under Hoover’s presidence (1929). In addition, the depression deepened as the elections of 1932
approached.

Both republicans and democrats nominated their political figures, Herbert Clark Hoover and
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New York governor, respectively. After promoting their
campaigns, in which both promised government action to end the Great Depression, Roosevelt
won due to his program for recovery and reform called the New Deal (472 vs. 59 votes).

4. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

UNDER THE FIGURE OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (1933-1945).

Chapter 4 shall examine the historical development of the United States under the figure of
Franklin Delano Rooselvelt (1933-1945) , who was a charismatic political figure. In general
terms, it is worth remembering that he became the 32nd president of the United States in March
1933 at the depth of the Great Depression, was reelected for an unprecedented three more terms,
and died in office in April 1945, less than a month before the surrender of Germany in the
World War II. Despite an attack of poliomyelitis, which paralyzed his legs in 1921, he was an
optimistic person whose confidence helped sustain the American people during the strains of
economic crisis and world war.

21/ 31
But let us remember why he was so popular among the American population at that time. In
doing so we shall review his biography in more detail so as to make it coincide with the main
political, social and economic events which took place under his ruling. So, we shall examine
his life regarding his (1) youth and early years (1882-1910), his (2) early political career (1910-
1920), his (3) Vice-Presidential Nomination (1920), Roosevelt as (4) Governor of New York
(1928), and as (5) President of the United States (1933), his political reform reflected in (6) The
New Deal from 1935, (7) foreign affairs and a prelude to war, and finally, his participation in
(8) the World War II (1941-1945).

4.1. Youth and early years (1882-1910).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) was born at the family estate in Hyde Park, New York
on January 30. He was the son of James Roosevelt 1 and Sara Delano Roosevelt, who provided
him with almost all his formative education. He attended Groton (1896-1900), a prestigious
preparatory school in Massachusetts. His record at Harvard, which he attended between 1900
and 1904, was only slightly more impressive. Thanks to his excellent preparation at Groton, he
was able to complete his course of study for his B.A. in 1903, in only three years. During his
fourth year he served as editor of the Crimson, the college newspaper.

In 1905, he had married a distant cousin, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the niece of
President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had six children, five of whom survived infancy:
Anna (1906), James (1907), Elliott (1910), Franklin, Jr. (1914) and John (1916). Meanwhile,
Roosevelt attended New York’s Columbia University, where he studied law; practised law with
a prominent New York City law firm; and entered politics in 1910.

4.2. Early political career (1910-1920).

His early political career is characterized by his post as Senator of New York and Assistant
Secretary of the Navy. First of all, he was elected to the New York State Senate in 1912 as a
Democrat from his traditionally Republican home district. Since he supported Woodrow
Wilson’s candidacy at the Democratic National Convention, he was rewarded for his support,
and Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, a position he held until

1
His father, James (1828-1900), was descended from Nicholas Roosevelt, whose father had emigrated
from Holland to New Amsterdam in the 1640’’s. One of Nicholas’ two sons, Johannes, fathered the line
that ultimately produced President Theodore Roosevelt. The other son, Jacobus, was James’ great-great-
grandfather.

22/ 31
1920. He was an energetic and efficient administrator, specializing in the business side of naval
administration. This experience prepared him for his future role as Commander-in-Chief during
World War II.

4.3. Vice-Presidential Nomination (1920).

Roosevelt’s popularity and success in naval affairs made him a popular choice for the
Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1920. Running with the governor of Ohio, James M.
Cox, he supported progressive ideals and American participation in the League of Nations.
Although he proved an energetic and well-received campaigner, the popular sentiment against
Wilson’s plan for U.S. partic ipation in the League of Nations propelled Republican Warren
Harding into the presidency, and Roosevelt returned to private life.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, he was stricken with poliomyelitis. He formed a law
firm in New York City and became vice president of Fidelity and Deposit Company of
Maryland, a surety bonding firm. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the
use of his legs, particularly through swimming. In 1924 he dramatically appeared at the
Democratic Convention on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as “the Happy Warrior” and,
in the same year he became president of the American Construction Council, a trade association
that attempted vainly to bring order into the building business.

4.4. Governor of New York (1928).

In the early 1928 Smith became the Democratic candidate for president and arranged for
Roosevelt’s nomination to succeed him as governor of New York. Since Roosevelt’s primary
interest was still in politics, he became Governor of New York in 1928. Followin g his reelection
as governor in 1930, Roosevelt began to campaign for the presidency. While the economic
depression damaged Hoover and the Republicans, Roosevelt’s bold efforts to combat it in New
York enhanced his reputation.

In Chicago in 1932, Roosevelt won the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for
president. He broke with tradition and flew to Chicago to accept the nomination in person. He
then campaigned energetically calling for government intervention in the economy to provide
relief, recovery, and reform. His activist approach and persona l charm helped to defeat Hoover
by seven million votes.

23/ 31
4.5. President of the United States (1933).

In November 1932 Roosevelt was elected President and in the months preceding Roosevelt’s
inauguration presidency, the Depression worsened. By March 4, 1933 factory closings, farm
foreclosures, and bank failures increased, while unemployment soared. Actually, there were
13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. Roosevelt faced the greatest crisis
in American history since the Civil War. He undertook immediate actions to initiate a sweeping
program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in
danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the
Tennessee Valley Authority. This program, proposed by Roosevelt and enacted by Congress
was known as the New Deal.

To stop depositor panics, he closed the banks temporarily. Then he worked with a special
session of Congress during the first ‘100 days’ to pass recovery legislation which set up
alphabet agencies such as the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) to support farm
prices and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) to employ young men. Other agencies
assisted business and labor, insured bank deposits, regulated the stock market, subsidized home
and farm mortgage payments, and aided the unemployed.

These measures revived confidence in the economy and results were soon to be felt since banks
reopened and direct relief saved millions from starvation. But the New Deal measures also
involved government directly in areas of social and economic life as never before and resulted
in greatly increased spending and unbalanced budgets which led to criticisms of Roosevelt’s
programs. However, the nation-at-large supported Roosevelt, elected additional Democrats to
state legislatures and governorships in the mid-term elections.

4.6. The New Deal from 1935.

By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were
turning more and more against Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Actually, Roosevelt applied his
reform through sponsored bills that aimed at abolishing public -utility holding companies, at
raising taxes on the wealthy, and at shifting control of monetary policy from Wall Street bankers
to Washington. Businessmen feared his experiments and were also appalled because he had
taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the
concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security,
heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous
work relief program for the unemployed.

24/ 31
In 1936 he was re-elected by a a smashing victory. Feeling he was armed with a popular
mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key
New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional
law took place. Thereafter the Government could lega lly regulate the economy. Controversy
disrupted the president’s second term and his troubles began in February 1937, when he called
for a court reform plan. In the fall of 1937 a sharp recession, caused in large part by cuts in
federal spending earlier in the year, staggered the country. Taken aback, Roosevelt waited until
the spring of 1938 before calling for increased federal spending to recharge purchasing power.
His procrastination revealed again his reluctance to resort to deficit spending.

These developments in 1937 and 1938 severely damaged his standing in Congress, which had
grown restive under his strong leadership as early as 1935. After Republican gains in the 1938
elections, a predominantly rural conservative coalition in Congress proved still more hostile.
Henceforth it rejected most of the urban and welfare measures of Roosevelt’s administrations.

4.7. Foreign affairs: a prelude to war.

Following Palmer (1980), by the mid-1930’s dictatorial regimes in Germany, Japan, and Italy
were casting their shadows over a good neighbor policy. By 1938, Roosevelt was spending
increasing amounts of time on international affairs to pledge for arrangements of mutual action
against aggressors, that is, neutrality acts designed to keep the United States out of another
world war. Yet at the same time he sought to strengthen nations threatened or attacked.

Germany’s aggressiveness in 1939 forced Roosevelt to take a tougher stance. When Hitler
overran Poland in September and triggered the formal beginning of World War II, Roosevelt
tried again for repeal of the embargo, and succeeded. Thus, when France fell and England came
under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military
involvement. He negotiated an unneutral deal with Britain whereby the British leased their bases
in the Western Hemisphere to the United States in return for 50 overaged American destroyers.
Roosevelt also secured vastly increased defense expenditures, but he remained cautious. Yet,
when campaigning for reelection in 1940 against Wendell Willkie, a relatively progressive
Republican who agreed with some of his policies, Roosevelt’s margin fell sharply from his
previous reelection.

However, safely reelected, Roosevelt increased the flow of supplies to Britain. After Germany
attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, help went to the Russians as well. To protect the
supplies against German submarines, U.S. destroyers began escorting convoys of Allied ships
part way across the Atlantic. In the process when a German submarine fired a torpedo at the

25/ 31
American destroyer Greer in September 1941, he feigned surprise and outrage and ordered U.
S. warships to shoot on sight at hostile German ships. By December the United States and
Germany were engaged in an undeclared war on the Atlantic.

4.8. The World War II (1941-1945).

America, though a neutral in the war and still at peace, was becoming the heart of democracy, as
its factories began producing as they had in the years before the Depression. However, when the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the
Nation’s manpower and resources for global war. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
followed four days later by Germany’s and Italy’s declarations of war against the United States,
brought the nation irrevocably into the war.

Roosevelt became the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a role he actively carried out.
He worked with and through his military advisers, overriding them when necessary, and took an
active role in choosing the principle field commanders and in making decisions regarding
wartime strategy. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations
between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United
Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.

He moved to create a great alliance against the Axis powers through “The Declaration of the
United Nations” on January 1, 1942, in which all nations fighting the Axis agreed not to make a
separate peace and pledged themselves to a peacekeeping organization (now the United
Nations) on victory. The United States and its allies invaded North Africa in November 1942
and Sicily and Italy in 1943. The D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches in France on June
6, 1944, were followed by the allied invasion of Germany six months later. By April 1945
victory in Europe was certain.

As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt’s health was seriously deteriorated. By early 1944 a full
medical examination disclosed serious heart and circulatory problems and although his
physicians placed him on a strict regime of diet and medication, the pressures of war and
domestic politics weighed heavily on him. On April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia,
he suffered a massive stroke and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 63 years old and his
death came on the eve of complete military victory in Europe and within months of victory over
Japan in the Pacific. President Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of his estate at Hyde
Park, New York.

26/ 31
5. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.

History, as well as literature, is a crucial aspect of educational activit y and therefore, handling
historical accounts and, in particular, American History, makes relevant a comparison of the
main political, social and economic works with the ones in our country up to 1945. Hence, it
makes sense to examine relevant figures in the political field such as the presidents of the
United States or other relevant European figures such as Hitler. American history is so close to
our culture that most of our students know about it through TV, films, books, and magazines,
among others.

Learning involves a process of transformation of participation itself which has far reaching
implications on the role of the teacher in the teaching-learning relationship. This means that
historical accounts are an essential analytic tool to identify the potential contributions and
potential limitations of our students’ knowledge of the world. We must bear in mind that most
students will continue their studies at university and there, they will have to handle successfully
all kind of information regarding interdisciplinary subjects, such as History, literature, language,
science, technology, computers, and so on.

But how do American History tie in with the new curriculum? American history may be
approached in linguistic terms, by comparing American vs. British language, thus form and
function (morphology, lexis, structure, form) and also from a cross-curricular perspective
(Sociology, History, Language, Literature, Technology, Science). Spanish students are expected
to know about the American culture and its influence on Europe since students are required to
know about the world culture and history.

In addition, one of the objectives of teaching the English language is to provide good models of
almost any kind of literary productions for future studies, history books for our purposes
(contemporary history). Following van Ek & Trim (2001), ‘the learners can perform, within the
limits of the resources available to them, those writing (and oral) tasks which adult citizens in
general may wish, or be called upon, to carry out in their private capacity or as members of the
general public’ when dealing with their future regarding personal and professional life.

Moreover, nowadays new technologies may provide a new direction to language teaching as
they set more appropriate context for students to experience the target culture. Present-day
approaches deal with a communicative competence model in which first, there is an emphasis
on significance over form, and secondly, motivation and involvement are enhanced by means of
new technologies. Hence historical events may be approched in terms of films and drama

27/ 31
representations in class, among others, and also, by means of books (novels: historical, terror),
papers (political essays), among others.

Actually, the influence of the United States of America upon 20th-century history was wide
since most of his works have been approached in terms of literature or films. For instance, such
events as the American Civil War, the question of slavery, massive migrations from Europe
(Italy, Austria) to America in the nineteenth century, life during the industrial era, or the World
War II have been reflected in films like “North and South”, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, “Titanic”,
“The Godfather”, “Hard Times”, “Pearl Harbor” respectively, as well as those events directly
related to Spanish History such as the Spanish-American War (1898) and its main consequence,
the loss of Cuba.

The success partly lies in the way the language becomes real to the users, feeling themselves
really in the language. Some of this motivational force is brought about by intervening in
authentic communicative events. Otherwise, we have to recreate as much as possible the whole
cultural environment in the classroom. This is to be achieved within the framework of the
European Council (1998) and, in particular, the Spanish Educational System which establishes a
common reference framework for the teaching of foreign languages where students are intended
to carry out several communication tasks with specific communicative goals, for instance,
acting out in a theatre play, representing a film scene orally, writing a summary of some
historical events, a biography of a political figure, among others.

The knowledge about American history and culture should become part of every literary
student’s basic competence (B.O.E., 2004). There are hidden influences at work beneath the
textual surface: these may be sociocultural, inter and intratextual. The student has to discover
these, and wherever necessary apply them in further examination. The main aims that our
currently educational system focuses on are mostly sociocultural, to facilitate the study of
cultural themes, as our students must be aware of their current social reality within the European
and American framework.

6. CONCLUSION.

Since historical events reflect the main concerns of a nation at all levels, it is extremely
important for students to be aware of the close relationship between the History of the United
States, Great Britain, Spain and the rest of countries all over the world. In this unit, we have
particularly approached the historical development of the United States of America from

28/ 31
Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a time of great changes, with an atmosphere
of well-fare and conflicts, wealth and depression, right and wrong decisions up to 1945.

So the unit has aimed to provide a useful introduction to this historical period in three main
chapters which analysed (1) the historical development of the United States from the War of
Independence to the figure of Abraham Lincoln as a president (1778-1865); (2) the historical
development of the United States between A. Lincoln and F. D. Rooselvelt (1865-1933); and (3)
the historical development of the United States under the figure of F. D. Rooselvelt (1933-
1945).

The first part has examined the historical development of the United States from the War of
Independence to the death of Abraham Lincoln (1778-1865), first, by offering personal
information about the list of the fifteen presidents who ruled before A. Lincoln, and a brief
biography of him so as to relate the main historical accounts in that period to his figure. For
students it is relevant to know what he did, how he did it and why he died, and also it is
essential for them to establish a parallelism between the historical account of the main political
events in America and in Europe.

The second part, Chapter 3, has reviewed the historical development of the United States from
the death of Abraham Lincoln to the introduction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the political
field (1865-1933). In doing so, we considered relevant to offer an account of the first presidents
of the United States from George Washington (1789) to A. Lincoln (1865) for students to relate
them to the main events in the aftermath of the Civil War (1865-1933) regarding the economic,
technological, social, and political consequences of the Civil war. At this point it is important to
make students aware of how the cinema, the novel or a magazine may bring up certain historical
events to the most up-to-date reality, for instance, films such as “Titanic”, “The Godfather” or
“El Zorro” which correspond respectively to mass migration of Europeans to America, the
Italian mafias in America in the 1920s, or the Civil War in Mexico with the brave ‘Zorro’. In
this way, students will not forget about important historical dates.

Finally, Chapter 4 has examined the historical development of the United States under the
figure of Franklin Delano Rooselvelt (1933-1945), a charismatic political figure worth studying
since he partly drove America’s political life in the first half of the twentieth century. On
examining his life, we have reviewed the main historical events in history of the United States
worth remembering such as the attack of Japan on Pearl Harbor in 1941 which was the trigger
for the World War II. Students have the opportunity to bring F.D. Roosevelt to life in the film
“Pearl Harbor” and become aware of some details of his personal life, like his legs physical

29/ 31
handicap due to the polio. Actually, in one of the scenes of the film, he tries to stand up by
himself during a meeting after the Japanese attack to show he is still able to handle the situation
despite his inability to walk.

Finally, we have presented the main educational implications in language teaching regarding the
introduction of this issue in the classroom setting, and we are already in the conclusion where
we have broadly overviewed our study. Next, we shall briefly present all the bibliographical
references used to develop this study since they were already commented at the beginning.

So far, we have attempted to provide the reader with a relevant historica account of the political
development of the United States up to 1945. This information is relevant for language learners,
even 2nd year Bachillerato students, who do not automatically establish similiarities between
British, Spanish and other worldwide countries So, learners need to have these associations
brought to their attention in cross-curricular settings. As we have seen, understanding how
history developed and is reflected in our world today is important to students, who are expected
to be aware of the richness of English history, not only in Great Britain but also in other English
and non-English speaking countries.

30/ 31
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

B.O.E. 2004. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 116/2004, de 23 de enero. Currículo de la
Educación Secundaria Obligatoria en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia.

B.O.E. 2004. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 117/2004, de 23 de enero. Currículo de
Bachillerato en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia.

Bradbury, M. and H. Temperley. 1981. Introduction to American Studies, Longman.

Brogan, H. 1985. The History of the United States of America, Penguin Books, New York.

Council of Europe (1998) Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European
Framework of reference.

Musman, R. 1982. Background to the USA, Macmillan Press, London.

Palmer, R. 1980. Historia Contemporánea, Akal ed., Madrid.

Thoorens, Léon. 1969. Panorama de las literaturas Daimon: Inglaterra y América del Norte. Gran
Bretaña y Estados Unidos de América. Ediciones Daimon.

31/ 31