US History

A coded telegram dispatched by the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, on January 16, 1917, to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt, at the height of World War I. The telegram instructed the ambassador to approach the Mexican government with a proposal to form a military alliance against the United States. It was intercepted and decoded by the British and its contents hastened the entry of the United States into World War I.

the battleship sent to Havana to protect Americans and their property; an explosion sank it; killing 260 men

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies.
This radical union aimed to unite the American working class into one union to promote labor’s interests. It worked to organize unskilled and foreign-born laborers, advocated social revolution and led several major strikes. Stressed solidarity.

Henry Demarest Lloyd
He wrote the book “Wealth Against Commonwealth” in 1894. It was part of the progressive movement and the book’s purpose was to show the wrong in the monopoly of the Standard Oil Company.

a fire in New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Company in 1911 killed 146 people, mostly women. They died because the doors were locked and the windows were too high for them to get to the ground. Dramatized the poor working conditions and let to federal regulations to protect workers.

Pioneered scientific management by doing time-motion studies on worker’s operations. Determined the simplest, cheapest way of performing each job.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)
The Hawley-Smoot Tariff wast enacted in 1930. This treaty raised tariffs on many imported goods. Many American trading partners retaliated in response to this tariff. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff might have even worsened the Great Depression. ECONOMIC.

John T. Scopes
Taught evolution in his school; lead to Scopes Monkey Trial; eventually charged, let off on technicality.
Clarence Darrow
Defended John Scopes in the Scopes Monkey Trial; supported teaching evolution in schools

was indicted for teaching evolution in Tennessee. His trial was watched all over the country. This trial represented the Fundamentalist vs. the Modernalist. In the outcome he was only fined $100.00 dollars. While it seemed the Fundamentalists had won, the trial made them look bad.

the first woman elected to congress. she was from montana and voted against WWI as well as WWII.

Pullman strike This was a nonviolent strike which brought about a shut down of western railroads, which took place against the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago in 1894, because of the poor wages of the Pullman workers. It was ended by the president due to the interference with the mail system, and brought a bad image upon unions.
Eugene V. Debs led the Pullman strike and founded the American Railway Union.

A ship that got stuck in the Miami Harbor and then confidence in Florida weakened especially when a hurricane hit. The people who had the houses at the time were stuck with them.

Thomas Edison invented incandescent light bulb and phonograph, established Menlo Park
Menlo Park first modern research laboratory, team of specialists create numerous inventions

A 1920 operation coordinated by Attorney General Mitchel Palmer in which federal marshals raided the homes of suspected radicals and the headquarters of radical organization in 32 cities

Not a British war ship. Not incorporated into British Navy. Solely engaged in transportation of passengers, mail, and freight. Ship was completing fifth trip across Atlantic Ocean.
Nov 3, 1914: Great Britain announced intention to mine North Sea and transform it into a military area. German Government: Viewed action as both an illegal blockade and an attempt to starve out Germany. Great Britain’s action led to retaliation on the part of Germans. May 7, 1915: German Submarine fired torpedo and sank ocean liner
1,198 people killed – including 128 Americans. Took 18 minutes for liner to sink

(1905) Declared unconstitutional a New York act limiting the working hours of bakers due to a denial of the 14th Amendment rights.

Fought for railroad regulation in California helped to break the dominant grip of the Southern Pacific Railroad on California politics in 1910.

Supreme Court approved use of court injunctions against strikes which gave employers a very powerful weapon to break unions; Debs later turned to the American Socialist Party in 1900

A time when a group of talented African-American writers, thinkers, philosophers, and artists produced some of the most influential artistic expressions of the 20th Century within the city of New York.

was given to the US through the Platt Amendment because Cuba was told by the US to sell or lease land to be used for coaling or naval stations, this naval base still remains in existence

head of the U.S. Forest Servic under Roosevelt, who believed that it was possible to make use of natural resources while conserving them.

Ritual dance by Plain Indians to hasten end of the world, dissapearance of whites, revilization of former cultures and hunting grounds, and reuniting with departed friends.

attempt to “americanize” the indians giving each tribe 160 acres; after 25 years this property would become theirs (if they were good little whites) and they would become an american citizen.

An impassioned address by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Deomcratic Convention, in which he attacked the “gold bugs” who insisted that U.S. currency be backed only with gold.

was a propaganda committee that built support for the war effort in Europe among Americans. It depicted Germans and other enemies on bad terms, and served to censor the press. The committee helped spur up the anti-German feeling in America as well as motivated Americans to support war against Germany once declared.

Due Process
1.Liberty interest of having children
2.EPC

A group of WWI veterans who were supposed to be given a “bonus” from the government for their services. In 1932 the deadline for the veterans was pushed back by the government thus causing the group to march onto Washington to demand their money. Excessive force was used to disband these protesters, and because they were veterans and heroes of this country, Hoover’s popularity plummeted because of it.

October 24, 1929, the day the stock market crashed an astounding 9 percent (after a decade of great prosperity); a signal (though not the only cause) of the Great Depression. Stock market crashes and almost 13 million shares are sold that day alone.
Many stocks had been purchased on margin—that is, using loans secured by only a small fraction of the stocks’ value

The Birth of a Nation (also known as The Clansman), is a 1915 silent film directed by D. W. Griffith; one of the most innovative of American motion pictures. Set during and after the American Civil War, the film was based on Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, a novel and play. The Birth of a Nation is noted for its innovative technical and narrative achievements, and its status as the first Hollywood “blockbuster.” It has provoked great controversy for its treatment of white supremacy and sympathetic account of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

Argument put forward by Booker T. Washington that African-Americans should not focus on civil rights or social equality but concentrate on economic self-improvement.

One of the earliest silent film comedians,first comedian to direct own movies. He used his ‘fatness’ as part of his sight gags, and his slightly-vulgar but sweet and playful character became extremely popular with younger audiences.downfall in the early 1920s. He was accused of the rape and murder of young starlet Virginia Rappe.

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1920) extended the right to vote to women in federal or state elections.

1865. Amendement abolishing and continually prohibiting slavery. With limited exception, such as those guilty of comitting a crime, it also prevents indentured servitude.

Key Points
Rapid economic growth generated vast wealth during the Gilded Age
New products and technologies improved middle-class quality of life
Industrial workers and farmers did not share in the new prosperity, working long hours in dangerous conditions for low pay

Gilded Age politicians were largely corrupt and ineffective
Most Americans during the Gilded Age wanted political and social reforms, but they disagreed strongly on what kind of reform
Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner were the first to call the years after the Civil War the “gilded age.” Struck by what they saw as the rampant greed and speculative frenzy of the marketplace, and the corruption pervading national politics, they satirized a society whose serious problems, they felt, had been veiled by a thin coating of gold.
During those years, America’s economy did grow at an extraordinary rate, generating unprecedented levels of wealth. Railroads, and soon telephone lines, stretched across the country, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and cheaper goods for consumers. But a nation that had long viewed itself in idyllic terms, as a nation of small farmers and craftsmen, confronted the emergence of a society increasingly divided between the haves and the have-nots—a society in which many poor workers struggled just to survive while an emerging industrial and financial aristocracy lived in palatial homes and indulged in opulent amusements. Some Americans celebrated the new wealth, others lamented it; all could agree that profound changes were taking place in the country.

During these years, American politics were dynamic and exciting. Voter participation rates were extraordinarily high and national elections were decided by razor-thin margins. But corruption also plagued American politics. At the national level, the administration of Ulysses S. Grant was a cesspool of graft and maladministration. Succeeding presidential administrations were less corrupt—but the influence of America’s rapidly expanding wealth did leave its mark on public life, as many politicians embraced a governing philosophy rooted in the premise that this economic elite should be allowed to pursue its endeavors with minimal government interference.

While economic and political elites capitalized on America’s rapidly expanding wealth, industrial workers struggled to survive the bleak conditions often hidden behind the nation’s glittering façade. Industrial wages were low and hours were long in factories that were typically dangerous and unhealthy. But perhaps worse, the restructuring of work—the subdivision of labor into its unskilled parts—left many workers with few marketable skills and little hope for occupational or social mobility. One consequence of all this was a budding labor movement, as workers banded together to try to force their collective will upon the industrial giants that had dominated them as individuals. Workers’ efforts to organize frequently led to long and violent strikes, rocking the economic landscape and even raising the frightening specter of outright class warfare.

Progressive initiatives dominated the legislative history of the early twentieth century. At the federal level, Progressives substantially lowered import duties with the Underwood-Simmons Tariff of 1913. Progressives were also responsible for the creation of the income tax. Through the first 100-plus years of American history, tariffs had provided the bulk of government revenues, and there was no such thing as a federal income tax. Pressed by the Progressives to reduce tariffs, Congress had to make up for the lost revenue somehow; it settled on the modern income tax as a means of funding the government budget. Americans have been complaining about their taxes ever since. Progressives also ensured the direct popular election of Senators with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Progressives supported the Prohibition of alcohol by passing the Eighteenth Amendment of 1918 and contributed to the final push for women’s suffrage, which was granted by the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. And Progressive reforms at the state and municipal levels were even more dramatic.

Progressives tended to be less radical than Populists, so they did not push for nationalization of the railroad and grain storage industries as their rural predecessors had done. Yet during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, Progressives did secure passage of the Warehouse Act, which offered credit to farmers who stored their crops in federally licensed warehouses; this resembled the old Populist subtreasury plan. (In the 1890s, farmers sought to improve rural conditions by pressing the government to build warehouses where they could store their crops until they were sold; they could then use the stored crops as collateral for federal loans with low interest rates.) The Adamson Act, also passed under Wilson, established an eight-hour day for railroad workers; the eight-hour day (for workers in all industries) had been a central demand of the labor movement for decades.

enator (and Governor) Robert La Follette; Senators Robert Wagner, Paul Douglas and Paul Wellstone; Congress members Victor Berger, Jeannette Rankin, Vito Marcantonio, Bella Abzug and Phil Burton; Mayors Tom Johnson, Fiorello LaGuardia and Harold Washington; as well as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and (for his domestic social programs) Lyndon Johnson–the list excludes elected officials.

The 1920s was called various names such as “The Jazz Age,” the Age of Intolerance,” and the “Age of Nonsense.” But perhaps the most telling was the “Roaring Twenties.” It was the beginning of modern America, in politics, arts, customs and fads, literature, sports, etc. Americans felt a relief following the Great War. The nation had survived the deadly worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918. The Twenties was a time of change for just about all the population. Youthful “Flapper” women provoked the older generation by smoking in public, wearing brief skirts, bobbed hair styles, and the use of lots of makeup. New fads included the Charleston dance, dance marathons, flagpole sitting, and flying stunts in the new airplanes. Many sports became “spectator sports” with Baseball and Babe Ruth perhaps being the biggest. Business continued to grow and outward appearances seemed to indicate no slowdown in site. More new products were developed and the consumer was given the opportunity to buy these products “on time.” Government seemed unwilling to try too much regulation for fear of upsetting the economic boom.

In the nineteen 20’s we see:

– Flapper culture appears.
– Prohibition appears.
– Organized crime is a serious problem.
– People are spending alot of money; America made tons of money off WWI
– Crossword puzzles become popular.
– Dances such as the Charleston and the Foxtrot become popular.

the two decades between the two world wars was a critical one for America. In 1919, the sale of alcohol was prohibited by constitutional amendment. Yet the nation lived high anyway, probably consuming more illegal alcohol under Prohibition (which was repealed in 1933) than before. Big business flourished, as did the stock market, as did organized crime. These were the “roaring twenties,” the “jazz age.”

The good times all came to an end with the stock market crash of October, 1929. A Great Depression kept the United States frightened and poor for most of the 1930’s. By 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President. He instituted dozens of social programs in a largely unsuccessful attempt to roll back the Depression. The government grew even larger. Despite growing international troubles, large segments of the American public became isolationists, strong believers in avoiding participation in Europe’s wars.