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Lecture Guide Part I (first half of course for the Midterm Exam)
The Brave New World: America and the Progressive Era
From 1850-1900, the US was transformed from a Third World nation into an
industrializing world power with large cities. Some have called it the “incorporation
of America.” Robber Baron and corporate abuses led to a reform movement to end
laissez-faire and install the government regulation of business. This process began
with the Progressive Era and its reform presidents: Theodore Roosevelt (Rep.)
(191-1908), Wm. Taft (1908-12), and Woodrow Wilson (1912-20).
See the lecture handout for specific programs!
Teddy Roosevelt:
Trustbusting--Northern Securities Case, est. Bureau of Corporations
Railroad Regulation--Hepburn Act, Elkins Act, use the ICC
Consumerism--Pure Food & Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act,
Conservation—Used the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, Newlands Act, etc.
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Workers’ Rights-10 hour day, workmen’s compensation, safety laws, try to abolish
child labor
Urban Reform-City manager plan, commission government, zoning, etc.
The Postwar Malaise: Repression and Recession
In 1919, there was great optimism that the Treaty of Versailles would create
a new world of peace and democracy. But there was anxiety also about the specter
of Bolshevisim, the rising tide of Eastern European and radical immigrants (esp.
Jews), national rivalries may lead to another war, bitter strikes following postwar
layoffs and wage freezes, many unemployed veterans, etc. These tensions, the war,
and what conservatives considered excessive reform led to a “Return to Normalcy”
movement to return back to the “golden era” of the 1890 and an Isolationist foreign
policy. It was a reaction to Progressive Reform. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s “Cycles in
American History”—the “engine and the brake.”
The Red Scare- In 1919-1920, President Wilson’s Attorney General A.
Mitchell Palmer ordered Justice Department “Red Raids” (J. Edgar Hoover launched
his career with these raids) in January 1920 against Socialists who opposed WWI.
Local politicians joined in. The Seattle General Strike was crushed by the mayor.
May Day (with its Marxist tinges) gave way to Labor Day in the US. Conservative
politicians and newspapers portrayed violence as union and Red-provoked. There
was a National Railroad Strike in 1821 that affected Las Vegas heavily. Xenophobia
swept the nation. California banned Japanese from buying land and funded a
program to send Filipinos back to Manila. In the early 1920s, the Nevada’s
legislature established the US and Nevada Constitution requirement for graduation.
In 1919, there were also race riots. Racial violence and tensions produce three
leaders with different solution to the race problem: Marcus Garvey-Separation;
Booker T. Washington-Education, and W.E.B. DuBois Immediate Equality. Ethnic
whites also faced violence. The Sacco and Vanzetti trial and their subsequent
execution sparked anti-American riots around the world. 29 states passed Red Flag
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laws. Schenck v. U.S. (1919). Congress passed Quota Acts in 1921 and 1924 that
restricted the amount of non-Western European immigrants who could enter the
US.
After WWI, the US farm boom ended as European farms rebounded. There
was little federal aid from 1920 to 1933, and gradually corporate and big
commercial farms took over many family farms in foreclosure.
“Return to Normalcy”: Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover
Warren Harding (R) (1920-1923), Calvin Coolidge (R) (1923-28), Herbert Hoover
(R) (1928-32).
Harding’s Scandals-Teapot Dome, Jesse Smith-Harry Daugherty, etc. Coolidge
cleaned up the government after Harding died. Both supported high tariff
protectionism (Fordney McCumber Tariff of 1922). Also passed are the Revenue Act
of 1921 to reduce the income tax and other taxes as well as other policies of
Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. The farm crisis was largely ignored—the
McNary-Haugen bill to help farmers was twice vetoed. Coolidge and the courts
pushed the “American Plan” for open shops. Union membership plummeted as
strikes were crushed or portrayed as unpatriotic and un-American. As Secretary of
Commerce, Hoover pushed trade association which were almost the equivalent of
government-approved collusion and oligopoly.
“The Age of Anxiety: Blacks, Ethnics, and Women
Urbanization, industrialization and corporate development seemed to
vanquish the traditional pioneer hero (individualism) of the 19th Century.
Americans needed heroes and 1920s sports provided some. Baseball’s Babe Ruth,
golf’s Bobby Jones, tennis’ Big Bill Tilden, and boxing’s Jack Johnson. What
eventually became the NFL started in 1921. College football had Red Grange and the
Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. Charles Lindbergh was an American hero who flew
his “Spirit of St. Louis” airplane across the Atlantic. The boy scouts developed as an
organization and The Americanization of Edward Bok, a real life, rags-to-riches
story, was a national bestseller.
Defense of American values was a national preoccupation in the face of
change and diversity. The Ku Klux Klan had a revival. It opposed racial equality,
unlimited immigration, Jews, Blacks, Catholics, and Mormons. The Americanization
(of immigrants) was a popular movement, especially in public schools during the
1920s. But immigrants fought back. Inner city immigrants built more parochial
schools, as Protestants tried to push Americanization initiatives in public schools.
Popular evangelicals like Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson embraced
traditional piety and Prohibition as panaceas. The 1925 Scopes Trial against
Darwinistic science was part of the movement against modernism and liberalism.
Moralists tried to censor books in libraries across the nation. Local vice societies
even got books like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn taken off the shelves and
instead encouraged kids to read the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery novels.
Will Hays was appointed Hollywood’s censor, and the Catholic bishops organized
the Legion of Decency to rate movies. But Hollywood still reinforced the new
morality where possible and the new role for women—the flapper-immortalized by
Betty Davis and Barbara Stanwyck.
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The “New Woman”--In the 1920s women became somewhat liberated. There
were miniskirts, new sexy dances, and increased sales of birth control devices. WWI
had taken women out of the home and put them into the workplace. This disrupted
traditional family roles. More women went to college in the 1920s. Women got the
vote by 1920 but the 1st ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) for women failed.
The Klan opposed it. The Klan also openly attacked Catholics, Jews (Leo
Frank was hanged in Atlanta in 1915), blacks and even the Mafia. The Klan tried to
enforce Prohibition—even in Chicago until Al Capone’s men killed a few prominent
ministers. Jews, Catholics and blacks even worked together in some cities to beat up
Klansmen in the North. African Americans respond with “solutions” offered by
Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois.
A Lost Generation: Revolt of the Intellectuals
This movement began long before 1920, and is known as “The Revolt against
Formalism.” It consisted of, among other things, John Dewey’s Pragmatism, the
Muckrakers’ exposes, Ashcan Art, Isadora Duncan’s dance, Jazz (Eubie Blake, Louis
Armstrong,etc.), William james’ psychology, Oliver Wendell Holmes’ sociological
jurisprudence, Albert Einstein’ relativity physics, Eugene O’Neill’s situation ethics
plays, etc.
World War I ended 100 years of relative peace. WWI was a barbarous war
made worse by the Industrial Revolution, which created efficient weapons for killing
millions. Philosophers and writers felt it was the end of the Age of Reason and the
Enlightenment and Victorian Eras when Europeans thought the world was getting
better. It was “the Hell of Christ.” The 1920s produced a spate of cynical books,
including Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt, Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West, the poetry
of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, etc. Even before WWI, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard
Shaw, and others wrote cynical works. However, the 1920s also produced the
Harlem Renaissance, encouraged by The NAACP’s magazine, Crisis, which was
edited by DuBois. This publication showcased new talented black writers like Alain
Locke and explored many important race issues. This period saw the emergence of
the so-called “black bourgeoisie.” And the Cotton Club popularized a new type of
music, jazz.
American universities also led the attack against tradition. New research
questioned the prevailing cultural assumption that God loved EuroAmericans more
than other peoples and that democracy and capitalism were naturally the best
political and economic systems. Anthropologists (like Edward Sapir) led the assault,
especially Franz Boas (his theory of cultural relativism) and his major students:
Melville Herskovitz, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict. They were joined by social
scientists like Otto Klineberg who studied army intelligence tests and concluded that
culture (nurture) more than nature (inheritance-genes), determined high scores. All
of this research questioned the assumption that WASPS were inherently superior to
everyone else. Urban anthropologists (like Ernest W. Burgess, Ralph Linton, and
Albion Small) studied local neighborhoods in Chicago and New York and reached a
similar conclusion: that one’s environment more than their innate inferiority
accounted for the problems blacks, Irish Catholics, and others had adjusting to
American society.
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Other research also questioned the assumed superiority of American culture.
This included Ralph and Helen Lynds’ study of Muncie Indiana and Charles Beard
and Vernon Parrington’s study of the evils of capitalism and the Robber Baron’s
crushing of American democracy as well as the government favoritism shown rich
businessmen like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. In response, businessmen
pressured regents and trustees to fire radical faculty. The professors formed the
American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which successfully pushed
for tenure to make these politically-motivated firings harder.
1920s Reform Politics- Progressive Party ran Wis. Sen. Robert LaFollette (the
Wisconsin Idea—recall, referendum, etc.) for President in 1924.There were various
Farm-Labor parties in the Midwest that push for more liberal grace periods for
mortgages, farm subsidies, and the min. wage, etc. for city workers. For the most
part, American Socialists and esp. Communists did not join these groups but
retained their own identities.
The Long Weekend: Technology and Social Change in the 1920s
WWI propaganda inspired modern advertising, as “Madison Avenue”
emerged in the 1920s. Popular slogans of the 1920s were for Ivory Soap, Camel
cigarettes, RCA Victor. The first radio station is 1920. CBS and NBC were formed in
the late 1920s to network various big city radio stations together. Congress
established the Federal Radio Commission (today’s FCC) to regulate the airwaves.
Radio and other new media prompted the rise of a mass society (the philosopher
Ortega y Gasset wrote about it) and national culture. The movies moved from New
York to Hollywood and big studios (D.W. Griffith) emerged. The automobile (Henry
Ford Model T mass production assembly line) also became important—L.A.’s
“Miracle Mile” for shopping, suburbanization, school buses ended the one-room
schoolhouse, jeeps, tanks and cavalry ended the use of cavalry=horses in war.
Oligopoly of GM, Ford and Chrysler emerges, as many small car companies were
consolidated for more efficiency. GM successfully challenged Ford with Chevrolet
thanks to many innovations pioneered by GM executive, Alfred Sloan. The
automobile revolutionized American society. Los Angeles was the first city to build
freeways rather than the traditional mass transit approach of NYC and other big
cities.
Education in the 1920s was promoted by the spread of electricity and the
school bus. The use of chain stores (e.g. Rexall Drugs) eliminated many mom and
pop stores and reduces prices. Family employment dominated the 1920s, as most
families need more than one income to survive. Migrant farm workers entered the
US heavily. Mexican and African American workers were hurt badly by the 1929
crash.
The Reluctant Giant: American Foreign Policy, 1920-1932
The controversial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles planted some of the
seeds for WWII. The Senate rejected ratification with several “Reservations”
[Massacusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R)], and the US never joined the League
of Nations that Wilson helped create with his 14 Points. Wilson was arrogant, and,
unlike Harding, Coolidge and Hoover did not work well with Congress.
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As part of Harding’s “Return to Normalcy”, the US drifted into an isolationist
foreign policy and protectionism. Indeed, the Fordney-McCumber tariff was the
highest tariff in US history up to that time and did little to help our Allies recover
financially from WWI. In 1930, Hoover pushed and the even higher Hawley-Smoot
Tariff. The US was the biggest producer in the world but cut trade with Europe.
Harding’s Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, pushed the Washington Naval
Treaty of 1921 to encourage naval arms control. Hughes did conduct unofficial
relations with the League of Nations. He approved the Four Power Treaty and the
Nine Power Treaty. He collect war debts and did not end the Monroe Doctrine.
However, he was active in improving US relations with Latin American nations after
Teddy Roosevelt’s militaristic approach earlier.
Coolidge’s Secretary of State was Frank Kellogg (1923-29). He tried and
failed to get the US to join the World Court. He negotiated the Kellogg Briand Peace
Pact, which did little to guarantee France our help or to prevent future wars.
Kellogg had a mixed record handling the Nicaraguan Revolution (1925-27) and
Monroe Doctrine—US Marine interventions in the Caribbean. Dwight Morrow
negotiated for Mexican nationalization of US-owned oil fields in Mexico.
Laissez-Faire under Storm: Hoover and the Crash of 1929
Symptoms of a recession included bank failures and falling auto sales, which
caused a drop in steel production and worsened unemployment. October 29, 1929
was the big crash on Wall Street, although the market had been dropping for weeks
before and continued to fall for weeks afterward. Hoover’s “Voluntarism” and
optimism did little to help the situation. The Director of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics was fired for reporting the real unemployment numbers. Hoover opposed
the welfare state and established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to loan
money to banks and corporations to jumpstart the economy, but the RFC was
largely a failure. A desperate Hoover eventually approved creation of the Grain and
Cotton Stabilization boards, but they were underfunded and did little to help.
Hoover also created POUR—a group of prominent businessmen to distribute aid in a
more efficient manner. But Hoover would not agree to welfare. Eventually,
Hoovervilles sprang up around the nation. The Bonus Army protesters were driven
out of Washington by force. The depression hurt education and reduced church
attendance, etc.
New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt emerged as the Democratic
Candidate in the 1932 election. His “Little New Deal” in New York was very
appealing to voters. FDR put together a strong coalition of ethnic city voters and
farmers to win the presidency from Hoover.
End the first part of the course (end Lecture Guide Part I). Everything up to
now is for the Midterm Examination. Everything in lecture after now
(contained in Lecture Guide Part II) is for the Final Examination.