Contents

List of maps and tables xiList of illustrations xiiList of boxes xivList of Presidential profiles xviAcknowledgements xviiList of abbreviations and acronyms xviii

1 America at the turn of the twentieth century 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Population 31.3 Political system 31.4 The industrial economy 61.5 Geography and regional differences 71.6 Urban America 81.7 Urban living conditions 91.8 Immigration 10

Questions 12

2 The Progressive period, 1900–19 172.1 The origins of Progressivism 172.2 The Roosevelt Administration 202.3 Prohibition 242.4 Women’s suffrage 252.5 The Taft Administration 262.6 The Woodrow Wilson Administration 292.7 The end of the Progressive period 32

Questions 36

3 The United States and foreign affairs, 1898–1917 383.1 Overview 383.2 Isolationism 403.3 The Spanish–American War, 1898 403.4 Imperialism 433.5 The Panama Canal 443.6 The Far East and the ‘Open Door’ policy 453.7 The Western hemisphere 463.8 A ‘distant conflict’: the outbreak of war in Europe 473.9 President Wilson’s reactions to the war 483.10 Analysis of the policy of neutrality 493.11 Divided loyalties: American society and the First World War 503.12 The German submarine campaign 50

Contents v

3.13 Towards a declaration of war 503.14 The Election of 1916 533.15 America’s entry into the First World War 53

Questions 55

4 America at war and in peace, 1917–19 584.1 America’s impact on the First World War 584.2 The Home Front 604.3 The casualties of war 624.4 The Versailles Peace Treaty 634.5 Wilson, the Senate and the Versailles Treaty 65

Questions 67

5 The aftermath of war: American society in the 1920s 715.1 Overview 715.2 The ‘Red Scare’ 715.3 The case of Sacco and Vanzetti 725.4 The Election of 1920 735.5 The Ku Klux Klan 775.6 Prohibition 795.7 The Monkey Trial 825.8 Changing attitudes towards immigration 835.9 The Coolidge era 855.10 African Americans in the 1920s 865.11 Arts, popular culture and censorship 875.12 The Election of 1928 88

Questions 89

6 The American economy in the 1920s 956.1 Overview 956.2 Farmers and agriculture 966.3 Industrial workers 986.4 Women 996.5 African Americans 996.6 How widespread was the affluence of the 1920s? 1006.7 The recession of 1921–2 1016.8 American industry 1016.9 Henry Ford and the automobile industry 1026.10 Republican economic policy 1046.11 The Crash of 1929 1056.12 Recent interpretations of the Crash 109

Questions 110

7 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–41 1117.1 The nature of the Depression 1117.2 Hoover’s response to the Crash 1147.3 FDR’s background 1187.4 The Election of 1932 120

vi Contents

7.5 The Hundred Days and the First New Deal 1227.6 Critics of the New Deal 1247.7 The Second New Deal 1277.8 The Election of 1936 1297.9 The recession of 1937 1297.10 A New Deal for African Americans? 1307.11 A New Deal for women? 1327.12 The rural Depression 1337.13 Industrial relations during the New Deal era 1367.14 The final years of the New Deal 1377.15 The Election of 1940 138

Questions 138

8 American foreign policy, 1920–41 1428.1 Overview 1428.2 A return to isolationism? 1438.3 The Washington Conference 1438.4 The reparations issue 1448.5 The Kellogg–Briand Pact, 1928 1458.6 Roosevelt’s foreign policy: Latin America and the

‘Good Neighbor’ policy 1458.7 The road to war: the far East 1468.8 The road to war: Europe 1488.9 The Neutrality Acts, 1935–9 1518.10 The Lend Lease Program 1528.11 The Atlantic Charter 1548.12 Pearl Harbor: recent interpretations 1558.13 The declaration of war and the response of other nations 157

Questions 158

9 The United States and the Second World War, 1941–5 1619.1 Overview 1619.2 Mobilisation 1619.3 The Home Front 1629.4 Impact on the economy 1649.5 The war in Europe 1659.6 The war in the Mediterranean 1669.7 The war in the Pacific 1679.8 The Election of 1944 1719.9 The Manhattan Project 171

Questions 173

10 The Cold War 17510.1 The Grand Alliance 17510.2 The Yalta Conference 17510.3 The death of Roosevelt 17810.4 The succession of Truman 17910.5 The Potsdam Conference 179

Contents vii

10.6 The atomic bomb 18010.7 The Iron Curtain 18110.8 The Truman Doctrine 18210.9 Marshall Aid 18510.10 The Berlin blockade 18610.11 NATO 18710.12 National Security Council Resolution 68 18910.13 The hydrogen bomb 18910.14 Eastern Europe 19010.15 Relations with China, 1945–9 19110.16 Relations with Japan, 1945–52 19210.17 The Cold War: changing interpretations 192

Questions 193

11 ‘The forgotten war’: the war in Korea, 1950–3 19811.1 Overview: crisis in Korea 19811.2 Invasion 19911.3 Truman’s decision to intervene in Korea 20011.4 The role of the United Nations 20111.5 The initial campaigns 20211.6 The intervention of China 20411.7 Military deadlock 20511.8 Cease-fire negotiations 20611.9 Impact of the war on the Presidential campaign of 1952 207

Questions 207

12 President Truman and the post-war American economy 21112.1 America’s economic position in 1945 21112.2 The transition to a peacetime economy 21112.3 Truman’s domestic legislation 21212.4 Internal division and the Election of 1948 21412.5 The rise of McCarthyism 217

Questions 220

13 The Eisenhower era, 1953–61 22413.1 Dwight David Eisenhower 22413.2 Continuity and change between the Truman and

Eisenhower Administrations 22613.3 The decline of McCarthyism 22713.4 The rise of an affluent society 22813.5 Eisenhower’s domestic legislation 23013.6 Eisenhower’s leadership 23113.7 The Election of 1956 23213.8 Eisenhower’s relationship with Nixon 23313.9 Eisenhower and the civil rights campaign 23413.10 The military–industrial complex 240

Questions 244

viii Contents

14 Eisenhower’s foreign policy, 1953–61 24814.1 Overview 24814.2 The end of the Korean War 24914.3 The foreign policy of John Foster Dulles 25014.4 The Cold War 25114.5 SEATO 25314.6 Formosa, Quemoy and Matsu 25314.7 The ‘New Look’ defence policy 25414.8 The Soviet invasion of Hungary 25514.9 Eisenhower and the Suez crisis, 1956 25714.10 Origins of the war in Vietnam 25714.11 The U-2 crisis 258

Questions 260

15 The Kennedy Presidency, 1961–3 26315.1 John F. Kennedy (JFK) 26315.2 The Election of 1960 26415.3 The New Frontier: Kennedy’s domestic legislation 26715.4 The civil rights issue 27015.5 Robert Kennedy and organised crime 27315.6 Problems with Congress 273

Questions 274

16 Kennedy’s foreign policy, 1961–3 27716.1 The inaugural address 27716.2 Latin America: the Alliance for Progress 27816.3 Berlin 27816.4 The Bay of Pigs 27916.5 The Cuban missile crisis 28116.6 The consequences of the Cuban missile crisis 28816.7 Southeast Asia 28916.8 The space race 29316.9 Historians’ analysis of Kennedy’s foreign policy 295

Questions 296

17 Johnson and the Great Society 30117.1 Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) 30117.2 The transition from Kennedy to Johnson 30217.3 The Election of 1964 30217.4 The launching of the Great Society 30417.5 The Great Society: education 30617.6 The Great Society: poverty 30817.7 The Great Society: the Medicare Act and the Medicaid Act 30817.8 The Great Society: voting rights 30917.9 The Civil Rights Act 31017.10 The Supreme Court 31117.11 Social upheaval 312

Questions 312

Contents ix

18 Johnson’s foreign policy, 1963–8 31518.1 Johnson’s views on foreign policy 31518.2 The Dominican Republic 31618.3 Johnson’s initial response to the problem of Vietnam 31718.4 The Gulf of Tonkin and military escalation 31818.5 Internal criticism: opposition in Congress 32118.6 The experience of American soldiers in Vietnam 32118.7 Vietnam and the media 32318.8 The role of McNamara Defense Secretary 1961–8 32618.9 The Tet offensive 326

Questions 327

19 The Nixon years 33719.1 Richard Milhous Nixon 33719.2 The Nixon Administration 33919.3 The Election of 1972 34019.4 Watergate 34119.5 President Ford 34619.6 The Election of 1976 348

Questions 349

20 Nixon’s foreign policy, 1968–74 35220.1 Overview 35220.2 Vietnam, Nixon and the Election of 1968 35220.3 Nixon’s aims in Vietnam 35520.4 Vietnamisation of the war 35520.5 Cambodia 35620.6 The ‘Pentagon Papers’ 35720.7 The peace process and the bombing of Vietnam 35820.8 The role of Kissinger 36020.9 Relations with the Soviet Union and the arms race,

détente and the SALT talks 36120.10 Communist China 36220.11 The Middle East 363

Questions 363

Further reading 366Index 369

x Contents

1 America at the turn of thetwentieth century

America in 1900 1

1.1 Introduction

The official census tells us that in 1790, shortly after the Founding Fathers haddrawn up the Constitution, the population of the United States was a mere 3 929214. The early inhabitants of the United States were blessed with considerablenatural advantages. They were able to farm particularly fertile land, raise anabundance of livestock, take advantage of rivers teeming with fish and mine ahost of mineral resources. To this favourable situation the American people,largely immigrants from Britain and Western Europe, brought hard work, energy,ingenuity and, not least in its importance, fertility. A rapid growth in populationwas at the centre of the rise of modern America. One hundred and ten years lateras the United States entered the twentieth century, the population had reached75 994 575. A nation which in the nineteenth century had been predominantlyrural in character was by the turn of the century hurtling at an exhilarating paceto its destiny as the industrial and financial powerhouse of the capitalist world.

Although agricultural output was plentiful the percentage of the labour workforce employed in agriculture had sharply declined from 53 per cent in 1870 to37.5 per cent in 1900. Cities such as New York, Boston and Chicago became theequal of the great European cities. The rapid growth of these great cities wasaccompanied by an influx of millions of immigrants, and the rapid rise of majorindustries (Illus. 1.1). The World’s Fair, which opened in Chicago in 1893, was a celebration of American technological progress. One English visitor in 1900 marvelled that ‘Life in the States is one perpetual whirl of telephones, telegrams,phonographs, electric bells, motors, lifts and automatic instruments.’ Althoughthere had been a serious depression in 1893 in which 15 000 businesses went to thewall and 500 banks failed, by 1900 virtually every aspect of the American economywas booming. America was now a modern, urban, industrial society, withimmense national wealth and enormous industrial production. One Harvard historian commented that ‘the new American – the child of incalculable coalpower, chemical power, electrical power, and radiating energy – must be a sort of God compared with any former creature of nature’.

For the nation as a whole the political and sectional turmoil of the Civil War,marked by the deaths of more than 600 000 people, had been left behind, as had the institution of slavery. The political system was intact and democracy waswell established. Two political parties, the Democratic Party dating back to thePresidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–37), and the Republican Party, which wasestablished in 1854, dominated the political scene. In the election of 1900, for

example, the Republican candidate William McKinley attracted 7 218 491 voteswhile the Democratic candidate William J. Bryan gained 6 356 734. In third placea Prohibition candidate received a mere 208 914 votes.

By the turn of the century, then, the American President was at the helm of one of the greatest nations on earth. The once small and vulnerable nation had reached the status of a world power. As Jefferson had once predicted, therepublic had moved on to ‘destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye’.

Yet the rapidity of economic growth and urban development brought with itserious social problems. A combination of brutal working conditions, squalidhousing, violent crime and an environment scarred by the consequences of rapid industrialisation left many Americans worried about the relentless tide of‘progress’. Mounting tensions of race, class and religion were the product of asociety torn between the traditional, comfortable values of rural America and the new values adopted by militant workers, liberated women, challenging artists and academic modernists. Put simply there were two Americas, the oldand the new.

In foreign affairs, those who regarded themselves as traditionalists were comforted by the thought that despite the burgeoning economic strength andwell-being of their country, the long-accepted premise that their nation should

2 Mastering Modern United States History

Illustration 1.1 The United States in 1900

scrupulously avoid foreign entanglements seemed intact. Yet within just seven-teen years the new century was to present all Americans with a challenge in thevery continent which most of them had originally left behind and whose prob-lems, they believed, could not touch them. By 1917, in the words of the Presidenthimself, ‘months of fiery trial and sacrifice lay ahead’. How well equipped was theUnited States to face this prospect?

1.2 Population

In 1890, the United States covered a total area of 3 021 295 square miles. In thatspace lived a population of 62 947 714; 87 per cent of that population was white,11.9 per cent African Americans. The average male life expectancy was 46.3 yearsand the average female life expectancy 48.3 years.

The average American family in the nineteenth century demonstrated a con-sistently high degree of fertility: the average family size throughout the centurywas 5 and as late as 1910 it stood at 4.5. This cultural tendency was the singlemost important factor behind the nation’s rapid population growth. Each of theclosing decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a rapid increase in popula-tion: between 1880 and 1890 the decennial increase was 25.5 per cent, in the lastdecade of the nineteenth century it was 20.7 per cent. In 1890 the population ofthe United States stood at 62.9 million; ten years later this had rapidly expandedto 75.9 million.

To put this in perspective, the population of Britain was 37.4 million in 1890and 41.1 million ten years later. Meanwhile the population of Russia was 116.8million in 1890 and 135.6 million ten years later. However, these raw figures donot necessarily accurately reflect the relative development of these powers. Oneneeds to consider the extent to which these populations were predominantlyurban or rural. In the case of Russia, for example, the population chiefly consistedof rural peasants. However, the modernisation which had taken place in theUnited States meant that the country had the dual strength of being both a pop-ulous and a highly industrialised society. The sheer size of the American popula-tion was a considerable strength in itself, but it was the fact that the populationwas part of a rapidly developing economy which really counted (see Table 1.1).

1.3 Political system

A number of important political developments preceded the drawing up of theConstitution in 1787.

The Continental Congress

In September 1774 delegates from twelve of the British colonies in North Americaconvened the First Continental Congress. Meeting in Philadelphia, they rejecteda Plan of Union for an imperial federation among them but they did accept thecreation of a Continental Association designed to co-ordinate a boycott of

America in 1900 3

economic links with Great Britain. Less than a year later they orchestrated themilitary defence of the colonies in the War of Independence against Britain. Thisled to the Declaration of the Continental Congress that the American colonieswere now free states independent of the British Crown. This Declaration of Independence was made on 4 July 1776 and contained the famous statement: ‘Wehold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal [and are equally entitled to] life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’

The Articles of Confederation

These were highly significant because they created the first system of governmentamong the original thirteen American states. In 1776 the Continental Congressset up a Committee of Thirteen which drafted the Articles of Confederation,proposing a national legislature with limited powers and without a central ex-ecutive or judiciary. However, the Articles failed to prevent disputes amongst themember states and were replaced in 1778 by the Constitution, which remains inplace today.

The Constitution

The fundamental principles of the American political process were set out in theConstitution drawn up by the Founding Fathers at a convention held in Philadel-phia over a four-month period in 1787. This placed the notion of the separationof powers between the President (the Executive branch) the Congress (the Legislative branch) and the Supreme Court (the judicial branch) at the centre of

4 Mastering Modern United States History

Table 1.1 Growth of the population of the UnitedStates, 1850–1950

Year Population

1850 23 191 8761860 31 443 3211870 39 818 4491880 50 155 7831890 62 947 7141900 75 994 5751910 91 972 2661920 105 710 6201930 122 775 0461940 131 669 2751950 150 697 361

Note: These figures represent the resident population andexclude members of the armed forces overseas. The populationsof Alaska and Hawaii are not included.Source: Adapted from C. Cook and D. Waller, The LongmanHistory of The United States (1998).

the system. A series of checks and balances meant that no single branch of thesystem could completely dominate the others.

The law-making branch, the Congress, was divided into two branches, theSenate and the House of Representatives. Each state, regardless of its size andpower, was allocated two Senators. This apparent concession to the smaller stateswas balanced by the fact that in the House of Representatives the number of Con-gressmen varied according to the population of the state, with one Representa-tive allocated for every 30 000 persons. The members of the lower house, theHouse of Representatives, were to be subject to popular election every two years.Senators would serve a six-year term and would not have to face a popular election. (This was reversed under the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913.)The chief function of the Congress was to formulate and pass legislation. Theconsent of both houses would be needed before a bill could become law.

The President would serve a four-year term. The Electoral College system meantthat technically the President and the voters chose their electors, who after theelection met in each state and cast their votes for the President and the Vice President. The President was commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of theUnited States. He was given the power to make treaties (subject to the consent ofthe Senate) and to make a wide range of appointments, subject to congressionalapproval.

The judicial authority of the United States was placed in the hands of theSupreme Court. The federal justices would be appointed rather than elected andwould serve a life term until their death, retirement or impeachment. The judgeswere given the function of defending the Constitution against abuse from theother two branches – so, for example, a President acting beyond the powers statedin the Constitution could be said to have acted unconstitutionally.

The Bill of Rights

In 1791 the first ten amendments to the Constitution were passed, in effectforming a Bill of Rights, which set out the limits to the powers of the governmentand safeguarded the basic rights of individual citizens. The amendments were thework of James Madison, a key figure in the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Examples include the First Amendment which stated that ‘Congress shall makeno law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercisethereof.’ The same article protected freedom of speech and the press and guar-anteed the right to peaceful assembly. The Second Amendment gave citizens theright to possess and bear arms. It is a measure of the skill of those who drew upthe original Constitution that these ten amendments have been followed by onlyseventeen others, as of the 27th Amendment which was ratified in 1992.

The political parties

Two major political parties dominated the scene. The modern Democratic Party,as we saw above, dated back to the Presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–37). It

America in 1900 5

held its first Convention in Baltimore in 1832, when delegates from twenty-threestates came together to support a second term for Jackson. As it developed, theDemocratic Party came to be an advocate of states’ rights, and came to defendthe views of the slave-holding Southern states, in the face of the growing likeli-hood that the federal government in Washington, DC would attempt to prohibitslavery throughout the Union. When the Confederacy was defeated in the CivilWar (1861–5), the political ascendancy shifted to the party which had opposedslavery, the Republican Party. The modern Republican Party, as we saw above,was established in 1854. Initially it stood for the limitation of slavery and soughtto support the political independence of the white working class and the rapidlydeveloping capitalist society of the North. The Republican Party held their firstNational Convention in Philadelphia in 1856, when the delegates selected JohnC. Fremont as their Presidential nominee. A crucial point in the development ofthe modern Republican Party came with the election of their candidate, AbrahamLincoln, as President in 1860 and 1864. Under Lincoln, the party stood for thepreservation of the Union and eventually for the outright abolition of slavery.Victory in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery left the Republican Party todominate Presidential politics from 1868 until 1884, when the cycle was brokenwith the election of Grover Cleveland.

The Democratic Party now became the dominant party in the South. Whatbecame known as ‘the Solid South’ was a stronghold of conservative Democrats,and this was to remain an important feature of the American political landscapeuntil the 1980s.

1.4 The industrial economy

America’s economic performance at the turn of the century was, by any reckon-ing, outstanding. The natural advantages enjoyed by the nation were consider-able. Vast areas of fertile agricultural land enabled American farmers to increasewheat output by 256 per cent and corn by 222 per cent between 1865 and 1898.Output of refined sugar increased by 460 per cent in the same period. The sheerexpanse of agricultural land combined with up-to-date farming techniques andefficient transport systems made food supplies plentiful and cheap.

Industrial development was equally impressive. Coal production increased by800 per cent between the end of the Civil War and 1898. In the same period, newrailway track increased by 567 per cent. As early as 1869 construction workers onthe Union Pacific railroad and the Central Pacific came together at Promontory,Utah, to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. By 1893, fourrailroads joined the West Coast to the East, reducing the journey time to a matterof a few days; in 1883, the Northern Pacific became the first railroad to reach thePacific Northwest. Between 1880 and 1890, growth in railway mileage increasedby an average of 7000 miles per year. By 1914, America had 250 000 miles ofrailway, compared to Russia’s 46 000 miles over an area twice as large.

Performance in the newer industries reflected the general dynamism of theAmerican economy. In 1865, the production of crude petroleum stood at around3 million barrels; by 1898 this had reached 55 million barrels. Production of steel

6 Mastering Modern United States History

ingots and castings, which was at a very low level in 1865, had reached almost 9 million long tons by 1898. The cumulative effect of all of this was to placeAmerica’s national income and per capita income way above that of her com-petitors. In 1914 America’s national income stood at $37 billion compared toBritain’s $11 billion and Russia $7 billion. Per capita income in the United Stateswas $377 compared to Britain’s $244 and Russia’s $41. In summary, in the wordsof historian Paul Kennedy (1999), ‘the United States seemed to have all the economic advantages which some of the other nations possessed in part, butnone of their disadvantages’. In his study of Woodrow Wilson and the First WorldWar, historian Robert H. Ferrell (1985) makes this comment on the Americaneconomy:

For several decades America’s industry and agriculture had led the world. . . Every industrial gauge – railroad engines and cars, cement, textiles – toldthe same story. Trade magazines proclaimed American wares the best in theworld. As a necessary adjunct to industrialisation, American agriculture produced more than enough to feed the urban population.

1.5 Geography and regional differences

In his monumental portrayal of the United States, The American Century (1998),Harold Evans presents this summary of the regional variations which were so significant in 1900.

There were still huge regional differences, physical, political and psychological.The eastern seaboard, which had the money, and the Middle West, which hadthe muscle, contained nearly half the population on a sixth of the land spaceand most of the imaginative enterprise. Chicago, ‘hog butcher for the world,’was shouldering its way out of its boundaries, the paradigm of the new indus-trial metropolis. It had by 1889 come to surpass Philadelphia as America’ssecond most populous city . . . Only the eastern seaboard had the appearanceof a settled civilization in city and countryside. Twenty-four years after the CivilWar, the melancholy beauty of the South was in weedy ruins. The West hadmore animals than people and no political clout: the territories of Oklahoma,Arizona and New Mexico had no senators or congressmen in Washington.

The process of westward expansion was under way by 1850 and rapidly devel-oped after 1865; the Census Bureau reported in 1890 that it was complete. 30years of constant westward expansion had accelerated after the Civil War as gen-erations of Americans moved into the trans-Mississippi West, settled on the vasttreeless expanses of the Great Plains, the valleys of the Rockies and the drierregions of the Southwest. In a single generation the west had been wrested fromthe native Indians; the massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee, SouthDakota, in 1890 marked a particularly poignant end to the story of the subjuga-tion of the Indian culture. In place of the Indians and the buffalo came whitefarmers and cattle. In 1862, Congress had created a Department of Agricultureand passed the Homestead Act which gave individual settlers free title grants to

America in 1900 7

160 acres in return for five years’ residency. The consequences for the Indiantribes who had inhabited the plains for thousands of years were catastrophic. In1850 there were approximately a quarter of a million Indians farming and huntingin the western United States. By 1890, a combination of wars, treaties and thedestruction of the buffalo meant that they had been deprived of all but a tinysection of their former lands. Meanwhile, in the words of American historianSamuel Morison (1972):

The generation after the Civil War witnessed the most extensive movement ofpopulation in our history; a doubling of the settled area . . . the rise and fall of the mineral empire and of the cattle kingdom; the emergence of new typesof agriculture and of economic life articulated to the geography and climate ofthe High Plains and the Rocky Mountains and the organisation of a dozen newstates with a taste for political and social experiment.

Between 1850 and 1900 the population living in the west expanded from 179 000 to 4.3 million; by 1900 there were 1.5 million people living in California.The state of Colorado saw an increase from just 34 000 in 1860 to around 500 000by 1900. In the north west the years 1889 and 1890 saw the admission of NorthDakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington (1889) and Idaho and Wyoming(1890).

The southern economy prior to the Civil War was predominantly rural. It wasdominated by the cotton industry and by the institution of slavery. After the CivilWar the southern economy began to diversify. For example, in Birmingham,Alabama, there was a rapid rise in the iron and steel industry, and by 1900 thestate was enjoying the benefits of its steel, textile and timber output. Birming-ham’s population grew from 3000 in 1880 to over 130 000 in 1910. Similarly, inMemphis, the population grew from 23 000 before the end of the Civil War toaround 100 000 at the end of the century. The ‘New South’ was a region of cities,factories, steel mills and blast furnaces.

1.6 Urban America

The society engulfed by a bloody Civil War in 1861 was still predominantly rural.The census of 1860 listed five out of every six Americans as being ‘rural dwellers’.Within forty years this had been completely reversed, the country had becomepredominantly urban and industrial. In the words of American historian Ellis W.Hawley (1979):

By 1917 . . . the American nation had already passed through a remarkableperiod of economic change, an era that had witnessed the rapid transforma-tion of a land of farmers, villages, and small enterprises into one of factory production, burgeoning cities, and new and powerful masters of industry andfinance . . . By 1917 the rural population had grown, but that of the nation as awhole had expanded much more rapidly. Swelled both by natural increases andby a massive influx of immigrants it had reached a total of 103 000 000, approxi-mately half of whom were now living in urban places . . . On the eve of their

8 Mastering Modern United States History

participation in the Great War that had begun in 1914, Americans had becomea predominantly industrial and urban people.

In 1900, 90 per cent of the population of Rhode Island were town dwellers. Asection of New York City’s Eleventh Ward had a population of 986 per acre, makingit possibly the most densely populated area on earth. Between 1860 and 1900 the population of St Louis grew from 161 000 to 575 000. In the same period, thepopulation of Boston increased from 178 000 to 561 000. The same transforma-tion was taking place on the West Coast. The population of San Francisco was amere 56 000 in 1860 but by 1900 it had reached 342 000. By 1910, 50 Americancities had at least 100 000 inhabitants or more. In 1900 the three largest cities interms of population were New York City (3.4 million), Chicago (1.7 million) andPhiladelphia (1.2 million).

As the cities grew in size they became more diverse in their ethnic character.Within the cities, neighbourhoods reflected a wide variety of backgrounds, with differences of language, race and religion. Particular ethnic groups becameassociated with certain cities and trades. Historian John Bodnar (1987) has shownthat Italians were the major immigrant group in the construction industry of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. In Chicago, Polish women were predomi-nant in the catering industry. In Pennsylvania, the majority of coal miners wereSlovaks.

Much of the distinctive appearance and character of America’s cities wasshaped in the late nineteenth century. Central business districts, ethnic restau-rants, theatres, baseball fields and saloons were almost universal features. Theuse of steel frameworks and the invention of elevators enabled architects to buildincreasingly ambitious skyscrapers. This initiative stemmed largely from thevision of the Chicago architect Louis H. Sullivan who, with his partner DankmarAdler, was responsible for the Wainwright Building in St Louis (1891) and theGuaranty Building in Buffalo (1895). However it was in New York City that ‘skyscrapers’ really earned the name with the forty-seven-storey Singer Building(1908) and the sixty-storey Woolworth Building (1913). Traffic congestion becamesteadily worse and led to solutions such as the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) and theWilliamsburg Bridge (1903) in New York City. San Francisco’s cable car was intro-duced in 1873 and by the 1890s commuters in more than fifty cities were travel-ling to work by electric streetcar. Other developments included department storeslike those of Macy’s in New York, Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia and MarshallField’s in Chicago, and ‘five and ten cent’ stores such as F.W. Woolworth (1879).Large-scale amusement parks with penny arcades and mechanical rides wereopened such as those at Coney Island in Brooklyn and Venice Beach in LosAngeles.

1.7 Urban living conditions

The connection between urban congestion and problems of public health hadlong been apparent. As early as 1793 the authorities in Philadelphia respondedto a yellow fever epidemic with an attempt to improve sanitation and water pro-

America in 1900 9

vision. Permanent Health Boards were created in New York City in 1866 and Mass-achusetts in 1869. The American Public Health Association was created in 1872.Distinguished universities such as Johns Hopkins and Harvard opened medicaldepartments in 1907. However, these developments were not enough to deal withthe problems caused by rapid urban expansion. America’s great cities developedrapidly in the last four decades of the nineteenth century, and they were charac-terised by extremely high population density. This unparalleled growth led to theexistence of large-scale slums, which inevitably gave rise to serious health prob-lems, social deprivation, crime and vice. In response, many city authorities beganto build upwards. High-rise buildings were first constructed in Chicago in therebuilding process which followed the great fire of 1871. This solution was thenadopted in cities such as New York in the 1880s. This was not a panacea. Poorwater supply, insanitary accommodation and inadequate garbage disposal led tohigh rates of infectious diseases. In New York City, high rents caused poor workersto crowd together in the filth and squalor of the city’s notorious Lower East Side.The depravity of one section of New York’s West Side led to it becoming known asHell’s Kitchen, a place where in the words of one social reformer ‘one could hearhuman virtue cracking all around’.

Poor living conditions were reflected in alarmingly high rates of infectious dis-eases. Statistics from the National Center for Health between 1900 and 1904 showa high incidence of typhoid fever and diptheria, although these diseases were lesscommon than tuberculosis. These problems were so intense that the Britishobserver, Lord Bryce, remarked in 1893 that ‘the government of cities is the oneconspicuous failure of the United States’. The average life expectancy at birth forAmericans born in 1900 was only 47.3; the death rate per 1000 of the populationin 1900 was 17.2.

1.8 Immigration

When a German makes his first trip across the Atlantic, he can go into almostany large city between southern Pennsylvania and the Great Lakes, and onacross the prairie into the small towns of Kansas, and he will find himselfamong people whose physique is familiar, who share many of his values andhis tastes in food and drink. The Scandinavian will be very much at home withthe landscape and farming of Minnesota . . . A Polish Catholic would easily passas a native among the sandy potato fields, the lumbering wooden churches,and the Doroskis and Stepnoskis of eastern Long Island. For three quarters ofthe population that hears itself so often hailed as ‘the American People’ are thedescendants of immigrants from Asia and Africa and, most of all, from the continent of Europe. They brought over with them their religions and folkwaysand their national foods. (Cooke, 1973)

It has been calculated that between 1820 and 1930, 37 762 012 immigrants enteredthe United States. Of this total, 32 121 210 came from Europe. A further 4 241 429entered from the Americas, while 1 058 331 came from Asia.

10 Mastering Modern United States History

America in 1900 11

The original American settlers were predominantly Protestant, and largely ofEnglish, Scottish, Welsh or Irish descent. The first immigration commencedaround 1820 and lasted into the 1880s; this wave of immigrants came chiefly fromGermany, Italy, Ireland and Scandinavia. The largest single group came fromGermany (5 908 000) followed by 4 651 000 from Italy and 4 579 000 from Ireland.

This was then superseded by a fresh wave largely from eastern and southernEurope. Between 1881 and 1920 more than 20 million immigrants entered theUnited States and in the busiest year (1907) 1.2 million immigrants arrived. After1890, the majority of immigrants came from Russia, Italy and Austria–Hungary.The vast majority of these newcomers headed straight for the largest cities. At theturn of the century outbreaks of persecution in eastern Europe drove a large pro-portion of Poles and Jews to flee their homeland in the hope that the United Stateswould provide them with a safer haven. As they sailed into New York they passedthe Statue of Liberty with its inspiring inscription:

Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuge of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, the tempest-toss’d to me.I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

However, the massive volume of immigrants began to make many Americansquestion the tradition of unconditional asylum. Anti-immigrant sentiment hadseveral different strands. One recurring feature was the hostility of the Americanwork force against what they saw as cheap foreign labour. This sentiment was ini-tially directed most strongly against immigrants from China; many immigrantsfrom Asia tended to settle in California and it was there that the California Work-ingmen’s Party, led by Denis Kearney, began to agitate against Chinese immi-grants. The first specific piece of anti-immigrant legislation came in 1882 with thepassing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which placed a ten-year embargo on theadmission of immigrants from China. Further pressure from American workersled to the exclusion in 1885 of ‘pauper labour’ – that is, immigrants who werebeing brought in as workers under contract.

In 1900, the government responded to a new wave of immigration by takingsteps to restrict entry from Japan. Meanwhile the American Protective Associa-tion was agitating for controls against the entry of Catholics. In 1902 the ChineseExclusion Act became permanent and six years later Japanese immigrants facedfurther restrictions. The rise of the theory of Social Darwinism (see Section 3.4)led many scientists to contend that the purity and well-being of the Americanrace was being increasingly undermined by the wholesale admission of theflotsam and jetsam of European society. Racialist theories were put forward ininfluential books such as Madison Grant’s Passing of the Great Race (1915).

To many observers, the development of the seething cities, with their immi-grant makeup and varying culture, seemed to constitute a direct threat to theAnglo–Saxon Protestant culture. In the words of one outspoken nativist, ‘the cityis the nerve center of our civilisation. It is also the storm center . . . the city hasbecome a serious menace to our civilisation.’ As wave after wave of immigrants

12 Mastering Modern United States History

entered the country many Americans contended that their own culture was beingswamped. Until 1892, they were cleared for entry at Castle Garden at the Batteryin New York City, but such was the sheer volume of immigrants that a larger andmore isolated processing station had to be found. From 1892, the immigrants’first port of call before they even set foot on American soil was switched to EllisIsland in New York.

Meanwhile traditional interpretations of the immigrant experience have beensignificantly modified since the 1970s. In the words of one historian:

Contrary to the well-established sterotype of the ‘huddled masses,’ the major-ity of the new immigrants, while poor, came not from the poorest classes butfrom the lower and lower-middle level of their societies. These were not dispir-ited impoverished people, but typically strong, ambitious young men andwomen from overcrowded peasant villages. Similarly, the illiteracy of the newimmigrants has been overstated . . . Although the literacy rate was highestamong people from northern and western European nations, there were onlya few groups among the immigrants from southern and eastern Europe thatwere illiterate.

QUESTIONS

Living and working conditions in the United States at the turn of the centuryStudy Sources A–C below and then answer the questions which follow.

.

Description of the New York Triangle fire of 1911

The sight was more than New York could bear: Young women jumping totheir deaths from the ninth-floor windows of the blazing TriangleShirtwaist Company. Sometimes they join hands for their leap. A girljumps with hair ablaze streaming around her head. Another sails herbroad-brimmed hat over the crowds below, flings a few bills and coins ofher pay after it and hits the pavement just after the coins. A man is seengently handing girls onto a windowsill, ‘as if he were helping them onto astreetcar instead of into eternity.’

One of the girls turns to embrace him and she kisses him before sheleaps. Then he climbs out and follows her in her fall to the pavement.

At least 46 died that way on the afternoon of March 25, 1911. Another100 charred bodies were recovered from the building, mainly youngJewish and Italian women who sewed tailored blouses on a pieceworkbasis. The tallest fire ladders reached only to the sixth floor, and thefactory was on floors eight through ten. Altogether in New York, more than 300 000 people worked in lofts higher than ladders could reach.

Source: Harold Evans, The American Century (1998).

Source A

America in 1900 13

Statistics relating to the tenement population

Population of tenements in New York (1888) (Census) 1 093 701Population of Eleventh Ward (1880) 68 778Density of population to the square mile (1880) 224 576Eleventh WardNumber of persons to a dwelling in New York (1880) (Census) 16.37Number of persons to a dwelling in London (1881) (Census) 7.9Number of persons to a dwelling in Philadelphia (1880) (Census) 5.79Number of persons to a dwelling in Boston (1880) (Census) 8.26Death rate of New York (1889) 25.19Death rate of London (1889) 17.4Death rate of Philadelphia (1889) 19.7Death rate of Boston (1889) 24.42

Source: Jacob Riis, Description of Immigrant Life in the New York City Tenements (1890).

Source C

Description of immigrant life in the New York City tenements

The staircase is too often a dark well in the centre of the house, and nodirect through ventilation is possible, each family being separated fromthe other by partitions . . . When once I asked the agent of a notoriousFourth Ward alley how many people might be living in it I was told: Onehundred and forty families, one hundred Irish, thirty-eight Italian, andtwo that spoke the German tongue. Barring the agent herself, there wasnot a native-born individual in the court. The answer was characteristicof the cosmopolitan character of lower New York, very nearly so of thewhole of it, wherever it runs to alleys and courts . . .

Life in the tenements in July and August spells death to an army of littleones whom the doctor’s skill is powerless to save . . . sleepless motherswalk the streets in the gray of the early dawn, trying to stir a coolingbreeze to fan the brow of the sick baby. There is no sadder sight than thispatient devotion striving against fearfully helpless odds . . . Turn and twistit as we may, over against every bulwark for decency and morality whichsociety erects, the saloon projects its colossal shadow, omen of evilwherever it falls into the lives of the poor . . .

The sea of a mighty population, held in galling fetters, heaves uneasilyin the tenements.

Source: Jacob Riis, Description of Immigrant Life in the New York City Tenements (1890).

Source B

1 Source A was written in the 1990s and describes a traumatic event which tookplace in 1911. As an historian, would you be happy to accept all of its detailsas accurate? (3 marks)

2 What can you infer from Source A about the type of problems faced by theurban work force in New York City at the turn of the century? (3 marks)

3 What problems are described in Source B? (3 marks)4 To what extent does the material in Source B support the impression of

New York life given in Source A? (3 marks)5 Define the ‘tenements’ type of housing, as described in Sources B and C.

(3 marks)6 Use Sources A–C and your own knowledge to answer the following question

essay:

‘To what extent was the ideal of a new life in the United States realised byimmigrants who arrived there at the end of the nineteenth century?’ (10marks)

.

A Snapshot of American Society at the Turn of the Nineteenth CenturyThe events listed in Source A all took place in the United States in 1900. Puttogether, they present a picture of this diverse and rapidly developing society.

14 Mastering Modern United States History

• An elevator, similar in design to the one patented by American CharlesA. Wheeler in 1892, installed in the prestigious Bloomingdale’sdepartment store in New York City.

• L. Frank Baum published his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

• Eastman Kodak introduced the Brownie Box camera at a cost of 1dollar.

• The trademark ‘His Master’s Voice’ first appeared on record labels.

• The drama ‘Sappho’ closed by the authorities in New York City on thegrounds of public decency.

• Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show opened at Madison Square Garden inNew York City.

• Railroad engineer Casey Jones killed as he attempts to jam the brakeson a train moments before it crashes.

• Boston Symphony Hall opened.

• Writer Mark Twain returned to the United States after nine yearsabroad.

• Creation of the Philadelphia Academy of Music.

• Opening of the Harvard Theater Collection, the oldest dance andtheatre collection in the world.

• Congress passed the Gold Standard Act to support the nation’scurrency.

• The first advertisement for an automobile appeared in The SaturdayEvening Post.

Source A

Continued

America in 1900 15

• The last horse-car to be used in the United States made its final run inthe nation’s capital.

• More than 200 miners died in an explosion in Scofield, Utah.

• The newly created United Mine Workers called its first strike inPennsylvania, with the support of almost 100 000 miners.

• The first US National Automobile Show opened in New York City.

• Republican candidate William McKinley won re-election as President,using the image of a ‘full dinner pail’ to symbolise the prosperity of thecountry at large.

• Business leader and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie created theCarnegie Institute of Technology.

• The New York City Board of Education planned to introduce baths forsome of its school students.

• A group of colleges and preparatory schools set up the CollegeEntrance Examination Board.

• In Atlanta, Georgia, 400 students turned away from school on thegrounds of lack of space.

• At Stanford University in California a Professor dismissed for making‘radical’ political statements which antagonised the University’s mainbenefactor Jane Lathrop Stanford, raising issues of academic freedomof speech.

• The White Sewing Machine Company produced the ‘IncomparableWhite’, a steam engine automobile. This became the first officialPresidential car when it was used by the Taft Administration.

• The Social Democratic Party held its national convention inIndianapolis, Indiana, nominating Eugene V. Debs as its Presidentialcandidate.

• The House of Representatives put forward a constitutional amendmentfor the election of United States Senators by direct vote instead of bystate legislatures. The Senate did not lend its support to this proposaluntil 1911.

• Hawaii granted the same status as Alaska, Oklahoma, New Mexico andArizona when it became an American territory.

• A severe hurricane killed 6000 people in Galveston, Texas. In theaftermath, chaos ensued, leading to the introduction of a citygovernment, a model which was subsequently adopted nationwide.

• Fervent Prohibitionist Carry Nation started a series of violent, single-handed attacks on saloons in Kansas.

• Formation of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Theirmembers received average pay of 30 cents per day for a 70-hour week.

• The official census recorded a population of 75 994 575.

• The divorce rate rose to one in twelve marriages.

• Illiteracy in the United States estimated at 10.7 per cent of the totalpopulation.

• Cocaine removed from the ingredients that made up the Coca Coladrink.

Continued

16 Mastering Modern United States History

• 8000 automobiles registered in the United States.

• The number of telephones in use reached 1 335 911.

• Total mileage of paved roads in the country estimated at ten miles.

• The Good Roads Campaign launched to replace dirt tracks withmacadamised roads.

• Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst launched the ChicagoAmerican newspaper.

• The first volume of Who’s Who published.

• The US Army Yellow Fever Commission identified the mosquito as thecarrier of the disease.

• A four-year-long outbreak of bubonic plague began with the discoverythat a Chinese labourer in San Francisco had died from the disease.

• The House of Representatives voted to unseat Congressman BrighamRoberts of Utah because he had three wives.

• Thomas Edison invented the nickel-alkaline storage battery.

• In baseball, Byron Johnson formed the American League as a rival tothe dominant National League.

• James Caffrey won the 4th annual Boston marathon with a time of 2hours 39 minutes.

• In horse racing, the 26th Kentucky Derby took place.

• The United States defeated Great Britain in the first Davis Cup tennistournament.

• Harry Vardon of Great Britain won the sixth annual US Open GolfTournament at the Chicago Golf Club.

1 Which of the events listed in Source A do you think are of the greatest significance? (5 marks)

AAbbet, Leon 30Acheson, Dean 183, 200–1, 205Adams, Sherman 232Adamson Act 35Adler, Dankmor 9Agnew, Spiro 338, 343, 353Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

125, 130Aguinaldo, Emilio 43Alamagordo Air Force Base 173Aldrich–Vreeland Act 25Aldrin, Buzz 295Allen, Frederick 121Alliance for Progress 278Amendments to Constitution 5, 28,

33, 62Amendment, 1st 5, 62Amendment, 16th 28, 33Amendment, 17th 33Amendment, 18th 80Amendment, 24th 310Amendment, 27th 5

American Civil Liberties Union83

American Expeditionary Force (AEF)58

American Federation of Labor 136American Liberty League 126American Protective Association

11American Public Health association

10American Socialist Party 72American Women’s Suffrage

Association 25Anthony, Susan 25Anthratic Coal Commission 22Anti-Saloon League 25, 79Area Redevelopment Administration

(ARA) 270Armstrong, Neil 295Army of the Republic of Vietnam

(ARVN) 291Arthur, Chester 231Atlantic Charter 154, 175Attlee, Clement 181

B‘Baby Boom’ 229Badoglio, Marshall 167Ballinger, Richard 28Bankhead–Jones Farm Tenancy Act

136Barkley, Alben 178Baseball 16, 87Batista, Fulgencio 279Battle of Manila Bay 42Battle of San Juan Hill 42Baum, L. Frank 14Benson, A.L. 53Berger, Victor 18Berlin Blockade 186–8Bermuda Conference 252Bernstorff 50Beveridge, Albert 44Bible Belt 82Big Three 64–5, 176Bill of Rights 5Birth of a Nation 77Bissell, Richard 280Bliss, General Tasker H. 64Bloomingdales 14Bohlen, Charles E. 249Borah, William E. 65, 66Boston Police Strike 72, 73Bradley, General Omar 249Brandeis, Louis 34–5, 37Brezhnev, Leonid 361Briand, Aristide 145Bricker, John 171Bring Home the Soldier Dead League

62Brookings Institution 344Brooklyn Bridge 9Brown v. Board of Education 234,

236, 240Bryan, William J. 2, 20, 27, 49,

82Bryce, Lord 10Buenos Aires Conference 145Bulge, Battle of the 163Bull Moose 31Bundy, McGeorge 315–16Burger, Warren 340

Index

Index 369

370 Index

Bush, Vannevar 172Byrnes, James E. 182–3

CCalifornia Working Men’s Party 11Calley, William 358Cannon, Joseph 28Capone, Al 81Captive People’s Resolution 251Carnegie, Andrew 15, 21Carter, James Earl 348Casablanca Conference 166, 175Cash and Carry clause 152Castle Garden 12Castro, Fidel 279–87Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 188,

205, 244Chafin, Eugene W. 31Chamberlain, Neville 149–51Chapin, Roy 105Checks and balances 5Chinese Civil War 147Chinese Exclusion Act 11Chrsyler 95, 104, 213, 230Churchill, Winston 151–6, 166, 185,

193Civil Rights Act 235, 310–12Civil War 1, 6, 40Civilian Conservation Corps 124, 126,

131Clarke, Edward Young 78Clayton, Bill 34Clayton, Henry 34Clayton, Will 185Clemenceau, Georges 65Cleveland, Grove 6Clifford, Clark 188Coca Cola 15Committee on Industrial Organization

(CIO) 136Committee on Public Information 61,

71Congress 4, 5Connor, Eugene 272Connor, Fox 224Constitution of the United States

1, 4Continental Army 58Continental Congress 3, 4Coolidge, Calvin 73, 77, 85, 86, 88Coughlin, Charles 127Coulsen, Charles 342Cox, Archibald 343–4Cox, James 73Creel, George 61Cronkite, Walter 298–9, 323

Curtis, Charles 88Czolgosz, Leon 19

DDaley, Richard 354Darrow, Clarence 83, 94Darwin, Charles 82Daugherty, Harry M. 76Davies, Joesph 179Dawes, Charles 117Dawes, Plan 144Dean, John 343Debs, Eugene V. 15, 18, 31, 61, 74, 75Declaration of Independence 4, 84Deep South 236Dempsey, Jack 87Department of Agriculture 7Détente 361Dewey, Thomas E. 138, 171, 216, 225Diem, Ngo Dinh 258, 292, 317Dien Bien Phu 241, 258, 261Doheny, Edward L. 77Dole, Robert 348–9Dollar Diplomacy 39, 40Dominican Republic 47Domino Theory 292Doud, Mamie 224DuBois, W.E.B. 67Dulles, Allen 280Dulles, John Foster 230, 232, 241,

248–51‘Dust Bowl’ 134

EEagleton, Thomas 341Economic Opportunity Act 308Eden, Anthony 257Edison, Thomas 16, 103Ehrlichman, John 344–6, 358Einstein, Albert 172Eisenhower, Dwight David 166, 206,

207, 224–9Electoral College 5Elementary and Secondary Education

Act 307Elliot, T.S. 87Ellis Island 12Ellsberg, Daniel 342, 358Emergency Banking Relief Bill 123Emergency Quota Act 84Emergency Revenue Act 35Emergency, Tariff Act 97, 106Enlai, Zhou 205, 362Enola Gay 180Espionage Act 32, 61, 62Evans, Hiram 92

Index 371

Executive Order 9066 162Executive Order, 9809 163

F‘Fair Deal’ 212, 226–7Fall, Albert B. 76Farm Cooperatives Act 97Faubus, Orville 238Faulkner, William 87Federal Crop Insurance Corporation

130Federal Emergency Relief Act 125Federal Highway Act 35, 106Federal Reserve Board 33Federal Trade Commission Act 34Field of Honor Association 62‘Fireside Chats’ 123, 130, 153First World War 20, 79Fitzgerald, F. Scott 87Five-Power Treaty 144Forbes, Charles R. 76Ford Foundation 242Ford, Gerald 343, 346–9Ford, Henry 101–3, 113, 117Ford Motor Company 95, 103, 137,

164, 211Fordney–McCumber Act 104, 106Forestal, James 225Formosa 191Founding Fathers 1, 4Fourteen Points 63, 65Frazier–Lemke Bankruptcy Act 135Fremont, John C. 6Frost, Robert 87, 263Fuchs, Klaus 219Fuel Administration 60Fulbright, William J. 321

GGaither report 242Gaither, Rowan 242Galt, Edith 34Garner, John 118, 121–2General Electric Company 43General Motors 95, 104, 213,

229–30George, Henry 18Ghandhi, Mohandas 238Giap, General 319Glass–Steagall Banking Act 126Glenn, John 293Gold Standard Act 14Goldman, Eric 304Golf, US Open Tournament 16Goldwater, Barry M. 303–4Good Neighbor Policy 145–6

Goodwin, Richard 304Gore, Howard M. 105Grand Alliance 175Grand Old Party ‘GOP’ 29Grant, Madison 11Grapes of Wrath 134Great Migration 100Great Society 246Grew, Joseph 147Grey, Sir Edward 54Griffiths, D.W. 77Groves, Leslie 172

HHaiti 39, 47Haldeman, H.R. 342–6, 349–50, 358Harding, Warren G. 61, 73, 74, 75, 77,

80, 85Harrington, Michael 269–70Haugen, Gilbert 97Hawley–Smoot Tariff 106, 109Hawley, Willis 106Hay–Herran Treaty 45Hay, John 45Hay, Will 87Haynes, Roy 80Hearst, William Randolph 16, 41Heller, Walter 270Hemingway, Ernest 87Hepburn Act 23Hirohito 146, 169, 197Hiroshima 169, 180, 198Hiss, Alger 219Hitler, Adolf 142, 148, 150, 161, 166Ho Chi Minh 257Ho Chi Minh Trail 363Hollis–Burkley Rural Credit Bill 35‘Hollywood Ten’ 218Homefront 60–1, 70Homestead Act (1862) 7Hoover, Herbert 60, 76, 88, 121‘Hoovervilles’ 114, 121Hopkins, Harry 125, 161Hotline 288House, Colonel Edward 64House of Representatives 5House Rules Committee 28House Un-American Activities

Committee 217–18, 222Howe, Julia Ward 26Hughes, Charles E. 75Hughes, Langston 87Humphrey, Hubert H. 266, 302–3,

359Hungary 233Hunt, Howard 342

372 Index

Hydrogen Bomb 189Hyle, Arthur 105

IIBM Computers 229Ickes, Harold 215Immigrants 8, 11, 21Immigration 83Immigration Restriction Bill (Burnett

Bill) 34Inchon, Korea 202–4Inland Waterways Commission

24Intermediate Farm Credit Act 97Internal Security Act (1950) 217Interstate Highways Act (1956) 230,

246‘Iron Curtain’ 181, 193Iwo Jima 169–70

JJackson, Andrew 5Jackson, Henry 242Jardine, W.M. 105Jaworski, Leon 343–4Jefferson, Thomas 2, 38, 40, 47Jiang Jieshi 168, 191Jim Crow 131, 236, 237Johnson Act 153Johnson, Hugh 125Johnson, L.B. 240, 301–14Johnson, Senator Albert 84Joyce, James 87

KKaufman, Irving 222KDKA Radio 101Kearney, Denis 11Keating, Kenneth 283Keating–Owen Child Labor Bill

35Kefauver, Estes 237, 264Kellogg–Briand Pact 145Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier 263Kennedy, John F. 240, 246Kennedy, Robert 267, 354Kern–McGillicuddy Bill 35Khrushchev, Nikita 259–60, 279–89Kimmell, Admiral 156King, Coretta 270King, Martin Luther Jr. 234, 235, 237,

238, 268Kissinger, Henry 345, 355–6, 358–63Knox, Philander Chase 26Korean War 229–41Kramer, John E. 80

Kredit-Anstalt Bank 110–11Ku Klux Klan 77–9, 88, 236, 237

LLafollette, Robert 31, 65Lamont, Robert 105Landon, Alfred 129Lansing, Robert 64Larkin, Thomas 107Latin America 39League of Nations 142Leahy, William 182, 197LeMay, Curtis E. 196, 353Lend Lease program 152–3, 161Lenin 84Levitt, Abraham 229Levittown 229Lewis, John L. 136Liddy, Gordon 342, 345, 358Lima Conference 145Lincoln, Abraham 6, 20Lindbergh, Charles 102, 151Little Rock 237, 240Lloyd George, David 65Lodge, Henry Cabot 32, 66Long, Huey 126–8Lowden, Frank 88Lusitania 51, 56, 57Lynching 131

MMacArthur, Douglas 171, 192, 200–6,

224Macmillan, Harold 257Madison, James 5Mahan, Admiral 39, 44Maine 41Manhattan Project 170–1, 179Mansfield, Michael 317Mao Zedong 191, 201Marshall Aid 185–6Marshall, George 185–6, 191, 194Marshall, Thomas Riley 32Marshall, Thurgood 271Matsu 231, 241McAdoo, William G. 60McCarran Act 219McCarran, Patrick 217McCarthy, Eugene 321–2, 354McCarthy, Joseph 209, 217–23,

227–8McCarthyism 241McClure’s magazine 18McCormack, John W. 273McFadden Banking Act 97McGovern, George 341

Index 373

McKinley, William 2, 15, 19, 20, 21, 41,42, 46

McNamara, Robert 315, 336–6, 358McNary, Charles 97, 138Medicaid Act 309Medicare Act 308Mellon, Andrew 75, 101, 104–5Memorial Day massacre 137Meuse–Argonne 60, 69Mexico 47Midway, Battle of 170Military Industrial Complex 243,

261–2Miller, Bob 133Mills, Ogden 105Minh, Ho Chi 327–9‘Missouri Gang’ 215Mitchell, John 337Mohr, Charles 234Mondale, Walter 349Monkey Trial 82, 83Monroe Doctrine 46Montivideo Conference 145Moos, Malcolm 243Moran, Bugs 81Morgan, J.P. 21, 49Morison, Samuel Eliot 49Moscow Air Show 242Muckrakers 18Mussolini, Benito 142, 148My Lai Massacre 323

NNagasaki 169, 181, 198Nasser, Colonel Abdul Gamel 257Nation, Carry 15National Association for the

Advancement of Colored Peoples164, 236

National Association for WomanSuffrage 25

National Center for Health 10National Conservation Commission

23National Conservation Congress 24National Defense Act 58National Industrial Recovery Act 125,

132, 136National Labor Relations Act (Wagner

Act) 128National Origins Act (1921) 84National Security Council 188, 253National Security Council Resolution

68 189National Security State 148National War Labor Board 161

Native Americans 100–1Neutrality Acts 151–2New Freedom 31, 32, 37New Frontier 267–76‘New Look’ defence policy 241New Nationalism 31, 33New South 8Newlands Reclamation Act 22Nicholas II (Tsar) 52, 53, 58Nine-Power Act 144–6Nixon Doctrine 360Nixon, Richard M. 217, 226, 232–3,

258, 275, 337–47, 352–63Norris–LaGuardia Act 136North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO) 187–9, 226Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 288Nye Committee 149Nye, Gerald 149

OO’Bannion, Dion 81Oberholtzer, Madge 79Office of Economic Stabilization 213Office of Price Administration 161,

213Ohio Gang 76Okinawa 169–70Open Door Policy 45, 46‘Operation Chromite’ 202‘Operation Overlord’ 166, 225Oppenheimer, J. Robert 172, 220Oswald, Lee Harvey 298Ozment, Robert 111

PPackers Stockyard Act 97Page, Walter Hines 50Palmer, Mitchell 72Panama Canal 44Panmunjon, Armistice 206, 250Parks, Rosa 234, 235, 237Patton, George 163Payne–Aldrich Tariff 28, 33‘Peace without Victory’ 54, 63Peal Harbor 151, 155–60, 162–7Peek, George 135Perkins, Frances 119, 215Pershing, General John J. 47, 58, 59,

62, 69Philadelphia Convention 4, 5Philippine Government Act 43Philippines 42Pinchot, Gifford 28Platt Amendment 44, 145Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) 236

374 Index

Plumbers 358Poincaré, Raymond 64Population 1, 3, 4, 8Potsdam Conference 179–81, 198Powers, Gary 259President’s Committee on Civil Rights

163Progressivism 17–18Prohibition 24–5, 26, 77, 81, 88Promontory, Utah 6Public Works Administration 126Puertyo Rico 44Pulitzer, Joseph 41Pure Foodland Drug Act 22Putnam, George 228

QQuemoy 231, 241, 253–4

RRailroad Administration 60Railway mileage 6Rankin, Jeanette 35Rayburn, Sam 273Reagan, Ronald 348Recession, economic (1921–2) 95Reconstruction Finance Corporation

117, 164Red Scare 32, 71, 77, 83–4

1950s 217Reeb, James 309Reed, James A. 65Republican Party 1, 6, 20, 26, 31, 248Ridgway, General Matthew Bunker

206Robinson, Joseph 88Rockefeller, Nelson 353Roosevelt, Eleanor 100Roosevelt, Franklin D. 73, 100,

118–41, 175–8Roosevelt, Theodore 17–18, 19, 20–21,

27, 31, 34, 38, 41, 42, 45, 46Rosenberg, Ethel 219–22Rosenberg, Julius 219–22Rostow, Walt 290‘Rough Riders’ 20, 42Rural Electrification Administration

128Rusk, Dean 300, 316

SSacco, Nicola 72–6SALT 1 361–2SALT 2 361San Francisco Conference 250Scott, Coretta 234

Securities and Exchange Act 126Sedition Act 32, 61, 62, 76Selective Service Act 58, 161Senate Cloture Rule 35Senate Foreign Relations Committee

66Separation of Powers 4Servicemen’s Readjustment Act ‘Gl Bill

of Rights’ 212Shepard, Alan 293–4Sherman Anti-Trust Act 24Short, General 156Shriver, Robert 341Shriver, Sargent 308Simmons, William 77–8Sinclair, Upton 18, 22Sirhan Sirhan 354Smith Act 218, 219Smith, Alfred E. 88, 120Smith–Hughes Act 35Social Darwinism 11, 44Social Democratic Party 18Socialist Party of America 18Solid South 6Sorensen, Theordore 269Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

(SEATO) 253Southern Christian Leadership

Conference (SCLC) 269Space Race 293–5Spanish-American War 20, 40, 41, 42,

43, 44Sparkman, John 207Spirit of St. Louis 102Sputnik, Satellite 242Stalin, Josef 173, 176, 186, 249–51Standard Oil Company 24, 29, 43Stanton, Elizabeth 25State Department 217, 220State’s Rights Democratic Party 216Statue of Liberty 11, 93, 94Steinbeck, John 134Stevenson, Adlai 207Stiffen, Lincoln 18Stone, Lucy 26Straus, Oscar S. 114Sullivan, Louis 9Sung, Kim-Il 198, 201Supreme Court 4, 29, 125, 135Smith, Howard K. 267

TTaff, Robert A. 138Taft–Hartley Act 215, 218Taft, William Howard 23, 26, 27, 28,

36, 46

Index 375

Taylor, Frederick 101–3Tehran Conference 175, 225Tenements 13Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 125,

135Tet Offensive 326–9Tho, Le Duc 356, 359Thurmond, Strom 216, 235Tidelands Oil Act (1953) 125, 135, 231Till, Emmett 237Townsend, Francis 126–7Trading with the Enemy Act 61Treaty of Paris 42Triangle Fire (1911) 12Truman Doctrine 183–5Truman, Harry S. 118, 179–85, 194–5,

204, 211Trusts 21Tugwell, Rexford G. 124Tunney, Gene 87Twining, Staff General Nathan 241Tyler, Mrs Elizabeth 78

UUS Steel 21, 23, 112Underwood, Oscar 215–18Underwood, Tariff 33Union Pacific Railroad 6United Auto Workers Union 213United Nations 175United States Brewers Association 25University: Harvard 9, 32, 49, 194, 221University: Johns Hopkins 10, 29University: Kent State 322, 357University: Massachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT) 172University: Michigan 304–7University: Mississippi 237University: Notre Dame 270University: Princeton 29, 32, 172University: Rice 294University: Stanford 15University: Yale 32

VVandenberg, Arthur 138Vanzetti, Bartolomeo 72, 73, 93

Versailles Treaty 65, 146Vienna Summit 282, 287Voting Rights Act 310

WWall Street Crash 98, 105, 112, 116Wallace, George 353–4Wallace, Henry 105, 135War Department 62War Finance Corporation 97War Industries Board 60War on Poverty 308, 313–14Warehouse Act 35Warren, Chief Justice Earl 340Washington Conference 143, 146Washington, George 38Watts Riots 305, 312Welch, Joseph 228Westinghouse 113Westmoreland, General 319, 326Westward Expansion 39Wheeler, Charles A. 14Wheeler, Wayne 25White Citizens Council 237Whitlock, Brand 56Wilkie, Wendell 138Willard, Frances E. 24Wilson, Charles E. 230Wilson, Woodrow 7, 30, 31, 33, 36, 39,

47–50, 55, 58, 63, 64, 71, 73Wofford, Harris 270–1Women’s Christian Temperance Union

24Works Progress Administration (WPA)

128–9, 133, 137Wounded Knee, South Dakota 7Wright Brothers 102

YYalta Conference 166, 175–8, 190–1Yom Kippur War 363Young Plan 144Young, Whitney 310

ZZhukov, Marshall 225Zimmermann Telegram 47, 50, 52