A popular expression asserts that "9-11 changed everything." In your reasoned opinion, based on the text and our discussions, do you think this is an accurate reading of American History since 2001?
"In your reasoned opinion . . ."
What is your opinion?
Quiz 1:
1. Outline the varying views of Reconstruction by Presidents Lincoln, Johnson and Grant, and among African Americans. How did Reconstruction evolve from 1865 to 1877?
Lincoln outlined a plan to empower African Americans in reintegrate the Southern white into full citizen with the restored Union. He provides some of the most powerful language in American history: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish, a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
His assassination ends this hope. Andrew Johnson as a poor Southern white from the upcountry resents the power of the planters in the fertile valleys but fears the newly freed African Americans more. He wishes to keep white Southerners in power and does not fully support efforts to help African Americans gain economic and educational opportunities as provided by the Federal government (note the Freedman’s Bureau). The Radical Republicans wish to transform the Southern and ensure that a yeoman farmer middle class supplants the planter elite. 40 acres and a mule is the vision that is held by many African Americans and by the Radical Republicans, as is the entry of African Americans into government. The Radical Republicans ideally would have wished to see Southern poor and middle white join with African Americans against the planters to form a more middle class Southern society but race would override class allegiance in this era.
We see this fact in the derogatory terms, carpetbagger for Northerners helping Reconstruction and scalawags for white Southerners who helped Northerners or African Americans try and transform the South. Only in the Civil Right era’s o the 1950s and 1960s would these issues
be reopened.
In essence African Americans wanted to become sturdy independent farmers (yeoman farmers as Jefferson and other founding fathers called them) the vision was of 40 acres and a mule. Poor and middle class whites also wished for grater opportunities in education and agriculture but feared African Americans more than the Southern planters. Again race trumped class. Hence poor and middling white Southerners would join with the white elite to form and staff the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate African Americans and prevent the implementation of Reconstruction. Black Codes and then Jim Crow laws would also be put into effect. White planters would have loved to have become as wealth as they were before the Civil War but American cotton production in the South no longer dominated the world market as it did before 1860 and the Southern planter elite would never regain their wealth relative to the Northern elite of bankers, manufactures, and merchants.Nevertheless, during Reconstruction, African Americans build a powerful network of Black Churches that will be key to their survival and endurance during and after Reconstruction and a key element in the struggle for Civil Rights in the 1960s.
Reconstruction can be divided into the following eras between 1865 and 1877
One: Lincoln’s vision
Two: Johnsons retrenchment
Three: Radical Republican attempt (with help of President US Grant) to implement a plan to create an empowered African American population not only in government but also in agriculture and commerce (here a great hope was that railroad construction would bring a boom to the South—which did not happen).
Four: Southern white defiance which had the support of the Democratic Party. When the disputed election of 1876 was settled, the Republicans get to keep the presidency but the Democrats in Congress are allowed to end radical reconstruction. The era of Jim Crow thus started and would not lift until the late 1960s.
2. How did the coming of the railroad, the development of mining, and the spread of farming across the Great Plains bring an end to the cultural and economic autonomy of the indigenous tribes of this vast region? Why did not the spread of agriculture in this region lead to the development of a settled and stable yeoman farmer class? Did the ideal of the yeoman farmer spread in the South after Reconstruction?
Native peoples had never divided land up into private plots of land, especially on the Great Plains where buffalo hunting was their staple existence. With the penetration of the Great Plains by railroads and the development of more powerful and longer-range rifles the sport of buffalo shooting became the rage in the 1870s. By the 1880s the food source of the Plains peoples had been virtually wiped out. Their lifestyle was no longer tenable and they virtually were forced onto reservations. As Native peoples were removed or slaughtered a vast population of white Americans and European immigrants move into the Plains states and Far West in search of farming, ranching, minerals, wealth from railroad speculation or commercial success.
In the Great Plains and Far West, especially the Southwest of course, white Americans encountered long standing populations of Spanish and Mexican peoples and also confronted Asian immigrants, first from China and then from Japan, in numbers that they had never seen before. The West was also a magnate for European immigrants especially the Irish, German and Scandinavians and then later Italians. The Irish in particular found less prejudice in the West than in the East and women often gained the right to vote first in the West. European immigrants especially came for land while Americans from the East and Middle West often were hoping to strike it rich with one of the many “rushes” involving gold, silver, or other precious metals and later oil. In the late 19th century much more so than in the early part of the century some became highly successful while others became property less, hence the reason for the rise of farmers movements against bankers and railroad companies that they claimed exploited them. Tragically in the West Asian Americans were often the targets of farmer and worker wage out fear that they would work for less than whites. Naturally one of the big draws was the implementation of the Homestead Act by Lincoln’s Republican Party during the Civil War. In short, as Americans moved west in the late 19th century economic competition became more intense and class and racial conflict was often the result. It was much harder to be a self-sufficient farmer when you had to earn much of your income but selling your crops on the market.
There were many myths in the Far West: the independent farmer, being able to strike it rich with a discovery of precious metals, and especially of course the myth of the free and independent cowboy on the plains. This was almost a total myth as these ranch hands usually were season workers and often at the bottom of the social hierarchy more often non-white than white. But with Buffalo Bill and his story and Wild West Show and innumerable novels, stories, and paintings the cowboy became a potent myth for an American that increasingly worked in factories or offices and did not own their own property as they used to.
3. How did the Industrial Revolution change the context and conditions for both bosses and workers? What happened to artisans? How did urban life, both family life and leisure choices, change with the onset of industrialization?
The Industrial Revolution as it spread across the East and Middle West after 1860 increasingly developed in cites and cause these cities to boom, note the case of Chicago for example. With a growth in the number of factory jobs workers moved from the farms and the nations of Europe to work in these jobs that focused on semiskilled machine paced production. The housing and sanitization and public services of these cites usually lagged far behind the advent of industry and as a result poverty and disease often erupted and the lack of good housing and recreation resulted in a lot of hard drinking in saloons which was the main site of leisure. The urban middle class that emerged often feared the crime, dirt, and disease of the cities and moved out to the new shrubs that emerged due to trams and light rail after 1870. At the same time white collar clerks and secretaries and a growing number of professional from accountants to lawyers and doctors resulted in a wide number of different social groups within the broad categories of the middle and working classes. Often workers tried to form unions and were prevented by their bosses or by the local, state or federal government, which saw unions as anti American. In short American grew greatly in wealth but image of a nation of study small to middle sized farmers dear to hear of Jefferson and Lincoln increasingly gave way to a society that was become urban industrial and filled with social conflict.
Quiz 2:
1. What is the relationship between Gilded and Progressive eras? Can one say that that Progressive Era tried to correct the excesses of the Gilded? To what degree is this accurate or a caricature?
Both American cities and industry boomed after 1865 due to the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. But often this rapid expansion resulted in quickly or poorly constructed housing and public sanitation that could not keep up with rapid growth. The profits of the industrialists and their managers and other professionals increased faster than that of the workers in the factories because the new machinery often did not require much skill and therefore wages fell. Of course at this same time there was a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants coming from Europe looking for work. We thus see technological advances in machinery often rendering workers skills obsolete (as we see today with computers often). Workers in the new factories thus often felt that their chance of getting better wages would only happen if they formed unions to obtain higher wages and voted for politicians who would press for a currency based on silver or paper rather than gold (in short putting more money in circulation so that workers might have more purchasing power). As strikes and riots became more common (note Haymarket riot/massacre in 1886) worried members of the middle class called for reforms to improved the housing and working conditions of the workers, hence we see here the Progressive Movement.
Progressives wished to reform society, shorter working hours work place injury compensation, and create more broad based prosperity and thus prevent radicals such as socialists and anarchists from gaining following among the lower classes who felt oppressed in the factories and slums of industrializing America. Socialists wished government would take over industry and finance and thus play a much bigger role in the economy. Anarchists often wanted all government abolished and were willing to assassinate, as we President William McKinley assassinated by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist in 1901. In the Progressive Era, 1900-1916, American politicians felt that the economy would boom even more and workers would have more opportunities if the USA expanded overseas.
Hence Progressives such as Teddy Roosevelt, before and after he becomes president, advocated both reform at home and imperialism abroad as a means of giving Americans a “square deal” including by 1912 his plan for health care, and providing the USA with greater access to world markets and resources, note his advocacy and construction of the Panama Canal.
2. How did World War I see Progressivism at its zenith of influences yet also cause its eclipse?
By the time the USA entered WWI Progressives of both parties saw the conflict as a means of purifying and reforming the nation. and spreading its values around the world. Note how labor unions gained
unprecedented power during the war and workers new benefits so that the nation could achieve maximum industrial production. Selective
Service was much more equitable in its drafting of American men and did not allow the gross abuses of the rich paying the poor to take their place in the army as had happened during the Civil War. As men
went into the army women gained new employment opportunities in factories, offices, and in public service employment once reserved for men. By the end of the war women win the right to vote, in part
because of their part in the war effort, and alcohol is outlawed. All of these measures were seen by much of the Progressive movement as means of reforming and empowering ordinary Americans. But the end of
the war brought a new form of radicalism, Russian Bolshevik communism. To the jailing of socialists who opposed entry into the war was now added a deportation of many immigrants and radicals out of fear that they were spreading communism. Here we see the liberalism and openness of the Progressive era coming to an end. Following the war American farmers suddenly went from boom to bust conditions as European farmers returned to full production and their nations raised tariffs on American agricultural products. The depression that set in on the farm would be one of the causes for the Great Depression a
decade later (1929). At the same time employers at the end of the war and the federal government dropped their support for labor unions and
labor movement declined only to be revived in a much more radical form at the start of the Great Depression.
Overseas the USA tried to show, through Wilson's idea of a League of Nations, how democratic American values of representational deliberation as in Congress could be extended into international
politics. But the Republican Party, led by Teddy Roosevelt opposed ratification of Wilson's Treaty of Versailles and the USA never entered this international body. The majority of the American people wished to remain aloof from world any form of world government and wished to return to the
"normalcy" of prewar isolationism. Failure to play a prominent role in world affairs, as we shall, see is a major reason for WWII. Thus we see how this War "to make the world safe for democracy" both resolved some old tensions within and beyond the nation and created and exacerbated old ones.
Quiz 3:
1. Why were the 1920s a tale of two nations? That is why did one sector the economy already experience a depression while another part of the economy boom? Be sure to identify which sector boomed and which sector was already in a depression. Why does the Great Depression seem today a logical end to this era but took contemporaries totally by surprise?
The US economy in the 1920 was undergoing a major transition: in 1920 for the first time the US census registered that more Americans lived in urban than rural area. One should note that the US Census defined a community with more than 2.500 in population as a city. Thus from our perspective the USA remained predominantly rural at this time. The shift from a rural agricultural economy to an urban then suburban one brought about a dramatic transformation that would only be fully apparent by the 1960s.
In essence by 1920 the USA had too many farmers. Agricultural productivity increased dramatically due to better crops and machinery and there was not the need for as many farmers as was once the case in the 19th century. But this imbalance was not fully realized until after the boom in farm production due to the demands of Europe during WWI. That is during the Golden Age of the American farmer when high prices encourage high production and resulted in high profits. But after 1918 as Europeans returned to the land and imposed high tariffs on American agricultural imports, American farmers suddenly faced a big drop in the prices they received for their crops. This overproduction became chronic throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. The result is that many farmers had to leave their land and move to the city. But the transition from country to city was not easy or immediate. In essence the agricultural sector of American was in a depression by the early 1920s and remained so through the 1930s. Only slowly did the farm population move to urban areas find work, and become attached to the new American dream: not the house on a farm but a house in suburbia. But the transition to this new American dream and reality would take decades from the Great Depression of the 1930s to full employment in WWII and then the post war boom (1945-1973).
So the 1920s on the farm was a tale of economic depression. In the growing American cities, however, there was a boom. Here we see why the USA was a "tale of two cities" in this decade. Cars, radios, phonographs, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners were just some of the consumer durables that became common in urban life along with buy these products on credit (called installment buying).
Many experts believed that since most of the American population still did not have all these products even in the late 1920s that the boom of the 1920s would go on for decades. But because of the lack of purchasing power among farmers and even much of the urban working class much of the population did not have the earning power to sustain an expansion decade after decade. This is a big reason for the Stock Market Crash in October 1929. Also key to this fall was buying on margin, that is buying stocks on credit in the hope that with a steady increase in the price of stock the debit that one incurred buying the stocks would be wiped out with the steady increase in the value of the stock. But as in 2008 so in 1929 one can never assume a market, or an asset will constantly go up. Of course the 1920s were also an age when the cultures of urban and rural America diverged dramatically. Farm communities remained tied to to church and family and more or less to a temperate life style though there was still much "moonshine" while urban youth, in particular, increasingly went out to movies, illegal "speakeasies" to drink in couples, and enjoyed the Jazz Age in nightclubs and with radios and phonographs. Cars became not only a means of transportation but a way to enjoy both urban and rural "sights" and experience the power of speed and rapid and individual mobility around the city. Henry Ford had been the prophet of both mass production and mass consumption, arguing if he paid his workers well they would be able to buy his product, buy a home, take their families out for trips around the city and country rather than drinking in bars. This was the great ideal of 1920s America but for the most part only those in the middle and upper classes has the salaries to be able to afford this new consumer society. The First Industrial Revolution witnessed the emergence of a new industrial infrastructure with railroads, bridges, and factories, and the emergence of electricity; the Second Industrial Revolution brought about a transformation in daily life with the rise of cars, movies, and consumer home durables.
2. What made the Great Depression unprecedented? Were the measures taken to end the longest economic downturn in American history consistent with the principles of the Progressive Era or a radical redirection in American history?
No economic downturn across American history lasted as long as the Great Depression. It did not fully end until the USA went into WWII and the government put the entire nation to work with orders to supply the military with all the weapons and machines necessary to prevail.
At first, after the October 1929 Stock Market Crash, Herbert Hoover the Republican president, believed he could ride out the downturn with a mobilization of traditional religious charities and using the Boy and Girl Scouts. He also created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to help companies stay in business and did some major public works, such as Hoover Dam. But more than anything Hoover believed, and based on historical precedent he was correct, that in two or three years the economy would be growing again. But this did not happen due to the difficult transition from a rural agricultural to an urban industrial society in the USA and the major dislocations in the world economy due to WWI. The result would be the each nation as it went into depression tried to close off its markets to outside competition in order to allow its own industries to employ it population. But in a modern capitalist economy protectionism produces static if not declining industrial production because when world trade declines all nations and populations are hurt due to decline in exports.
At first, after the October 1929 Stock Market Crash, Herbert Hoover the Republican president, believed he could ride out the downturn with a mobilization of traditional religious charities and using the Boy and Girl Scouts. He also created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to help companies stay in business and did some major public works, such as Hoover Dam. But more than anything Hoover believed, and based on historical precedent he was correct, that in two or three years the economy would be growing again. But this did not happen due to the difficult transition from a rural agricultural to an urban industrial society in the USA and the major dislocations in the world economy due to WWI. The result would be the each nation as it went into depression tried to close off its markets to outside competition in order to allow its own industries to employ it population. But in a modern capitalist economy protectionism produces static if not declining industrial production because when world trade declines all nations and populations are hurt due to decline in exports.
In November 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a distant cousin of President Teddy Roosevelt) won in a land slide promising to provide "freedom from fear." In his inaugural he uttered the famous saying "there is not we have to fear but fear itself!' Though these were grand ideas he was highly pragmatic. He instituted a vast array of programs from the short lived National Recovery Act (NRA) to the long lasting Social Security and kept doing so especially during his first term. FDR also talked to the American public frequently with his "fireside chats" during which he explained what he was doing. In essence across his first two terms (1933 to 1941) FDR reestablished the US banking system with greater regulation to ensure that speculation would not lead to a stock market crash (ending buying stocks on margin for the most part). He also began a set of programs whereby Americans could more easily buy new homes in the suburbs and deduct mortgage payments. Though this would not produce an immediate rise of the suburbs it did lay the foundation for the post WWII suburbanization of the USA. Roosevelt did not end the Great Depression but unemployment did fall from around 25% in 1933 to 10% by 1940. The key point is that he constantly tried new programs and kept the American population hopeful. Although Republicans and other conservatives called him a "socialist" or a "fascist" his New Deal enlarged the role of the government at all levels of society but did not over whelm privately held businesses either at the level of the local store or the big corporation such as General Motors or Ford. At the same time FDR kept the nation's workers from becoming more radical, for example joining the American Communist Party, by legalizing and encouraging the spread of unionization. At the same time industry did innovate and rationalize during the 1930s. The USA remained by far the largest economy in the world and was well prepared to fight WWII when it broke out, not only in terms of a large army but also in terms of a highly organized industrial infrastructure. Labor unions ensured that the workers could be organized and disciplined not
only to strike for higher wages, benefits, and better working conditions but also to work longer and more efficiently at their jobs. This would be proven during WWII when workers in the USA were much more productive than those of other belligerent nations even though there were many strikes.
Much controversy still surrounds FDR's New Deal, but in general by empowering ordinary people with greater access to labor unions and to mortgages for family homes this era laid the foundations for an expansion of the American middle class, a chief goal of the Progressive Era. Thus the New Deal did not lead the USA to socialism but in many ways as more workers moved into the middle class the became Republicans, one of whom would be Ronald Reagan.
3. How did World War II transform American society? Was the impact of the conflict as profound on American society as it was on America's position in the world?
World War Ii ranks with the American Revolution and the Civil War in terms of a transformative moment. Not only did attack on Pearl Harbor end the Great Depression as unemployment fell virtually to zero, the USA's economy virtually doubled in size between 1941 and 1946. By 1945 the USA was producing over half of all the goods in the world! Naturally a key fact here is that the continental USA did not suffer much damage compared to the nations of Europe and Asia which were often devastated.
The USA saw a dramatic increase not only in its industrial and military "complexes" (to use a term later devised by President Dwight David Eisenhower) but also in its scientific and technological infrastructure. The shining and horrifying exemplar of this transformation was of course the atomic bomb and atomic energy. After WWII government investment in the military and science would result in putting people on the Moon and creating the computer industry.
With full employment and good wages (in large part due to unionization) most of the white working class entered the middle class, women gained more skills during their own work in factories during the war and would return to work in large numbers after having
a large number of babies during the Baby Boom (1946-1964), African Americans moved into the cities and states of the entire nation and
laid the foundations for the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, the South too began to industrialize and become fully integrated into the US economy. Finally the big bulge of European immigrants that had entered the USA between 1890 and 1920 was fully integrated into American life during the war.
In short, WWII laid the foundation for US prosperity at home.
Abroad the USA did not retreat from world engagement as it had after WWI. FDR set up the United Nations and the USA provided Europe and Japan with forms of a "new deal" (note the Marshall Plan in Europe, which ensured the unprecedented growth of these regions and nations after 1945. The USA along with the USSR was a "superpower" which now effectively arbitrated the affairs of the world. The USA set up military alliances in Europe, NATO, the Middle East, CENTO, and Asia SEATO in order to stop Soviet Communism during the Cold War, when the capitalist and communist world vied with each other to see who could produce the most prosperous and free society and win over the most nations of the world to their cause.
In short, both internally and externally the USA after WWII became a giant among the nations of the world.
QUIZ 4:
1. Explain the evolution of Cold War liberalism between 1945 and 1968, that is from the presidency of Harry S. Truman through John F. Kennedy and to Lyndon Baines Johnson. Why did Jimmy Carter eschew the label during the 1976 election?
Cold War liberals, especially President Harry S Truman, whose tenure in the White House lasted between 1945 and 1953, wished to provide a wide range of state supported services to help theAmerican people become more educated, prosperous, and secure, (for example the GI Bill, labor unions, and Social Security) but at the same time wished to stop the spread of communism which they saw as imposing too much government power and wiping out the economic freedoms of the people (in the USSR, then in the nations the Soviets conquered or occupied at the end of WWII and then in Asia after the communist revolutions in China –1949-- and then in North Vietnam--1954). The impact on American culture was complex. On the one hand, the Cold War liberals wish to keep the gains of the New Deal secure from Republicans who wanted to modify, such as the Taft Hartley Act that limited the power of labor unions, or abolish New Deal programs. But, on the other hand, Cold War liberals wished to be able to show that they could fight communism as effectively as the Republicans. After being out of power since 1932 the Republicans increasingly believed they had found, in anti Communism, a good cause with which to regain power. Senator Joseph McCarthy showed the excesses of anti-communism but Congressman and then Senator Richard M. Nixon showed how it could enhance a career and make him Vice President by 1953. But in 1960 John F. Kennedy would run as a Cold War liberal saying that the Nixon Eisenhower administration had allowed a “missile gap” to open up in favor of the USSR and win. But then Lyndon Baines Johnson who succeeded JFK after the assassination in 1963 would take the USA fully into a ground war in Asia in Vietnam by 1965 and the result would be a shattering of the Cold War Liberal consensus, as hawks turned toward Nixon and doves turned toward McCarthy as the 1968 election approached. Hubert Humphrey another Cold War Liberal would make the election close but he would be the last of his kind to be nominated by the Democrats for president. When Jimmy Carter runs for president in 1976, even after the stain of Watergate had seemed to make the Republican brand momentarily toxic, this peanut farmer and former governor of Georgia asserted that as a politician from outside the beltway (that is beyond Washington) he could clean up American politics and solve problems with new ideas. He did not identify himself with Cold War liberalism and did not have the sort of New Deal, Square, Deal, New Frontier, or Great Society sort of them that Democratic presidents had had since FDR. The Democrats had lost any sense of vision.
2. Between the end of the Korean War and the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1965, the concept of an American dream" seemed to have its strongest hold on the American population. How did the protest movements of the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s confirm or transform this vision of the "pursuit of happiness" in the USA?
Between roughly the end of the Korean War in 1953 and the start of intense American involvement in Vietnam in 1965, the USA seemed to have achieved both peace and prosperity. Never before or since had more Americans had more purchasing power in part due to the high wages strong unions were able to secure. International economic competition had not yet rendered manyAmerican industries obsolete so high paying factory jobs seemed secure. Owning a house, a car, a TV, a stereo all became an accepted party of American life to an unprecedented degree. The group advertisers found who most influenced family spending were the youth and as a result the “baby boom” (1946-1964) was relentlessly targeted with advertisements and women entered the job market after having children to be able to ensure that their families could have all the possible consumer goods. The USA had seemed to be able to defeat Nazism in WWII, polio in the early 1950s, and then elected a Catholic for the first time as president in 1960 (JFK) and thus seemed a nation with almost limitless potential. As the second youngest president ever, Kennedy added to American ambition by calling on young people to serve the rest of the world through his Peace Corps, and to attain extraordinary accomplishments, putting a person on the moon. Moreover JFK strove the ensure Civil Right to African Americans and thus right the wrongs of the failed first Reconstruction. In short this era saw the USA at its most optimistic.
After 1964 as the Civil Rights movement, the Beatles, drugs and the Vietnam War impact youth culture there is both a more hedonistic and political cast to the emerging Counter (hippie) culture than to the youth culture of the 1950s and early 1960s. Its high power was the happy Woodstock Concert in the summer of 1969 and its low happened the following fall at Altamont where the Rolling Stone’s concert is marred by a death. By 1970 with the assassinations of the late 1960s (Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy) and the deaths at the Vietnam War protests during the Cambodia invasion of the spring of 1970 the counter culture reached an impasse and started to decline as Nixon wound down the war and the economy began to sputter with the oil shock of 1973-74.
3. Why was Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech so pivotal in American history? Did it redefine the nature of America? Of the American dream,?
The Civil Rights Movement challenged the American Dream of economic mobility and cultural freedom by saying that the dream should be open equally to all Americans regardless of race class or gender. The Civil Rights Movement affirmed the AmericanDream of economic mobility and cultural freedom by saying it was great and noble dreams as long as all people were judge by “the contents of their character not the color of their skin” as MLK say in his 1963 speech in Washington which in many was refdefined the nation as a multi-cultural society rather than a white European one that had been implict before up until then. One result would be the rise of the Black is Beautiful movement stressing that European looks should not be taken as the standard of beauty as they so often had or that European culture was the only standard of civilization. As a result the USA began to become more culturally tolerant. The civil rights legislation underlined this shift: not only did African Americans have their basic civil rights once again affirmed as during the first failed reconstruction but also immigration law was changed allowing people from all over the world to enter equally and no longer were there to be restrictions on non European immigration. Finally Civil Rights legislation also struck down gender discrimination and opened up the notion that some sort of affirmation action would be needed to overcome the longhistory of discrimination. But after these triumphs, when Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights leaders turned to fight de facto rather than de jure segregation and inequality, the struggle became much less clear cut and more complex. Moreover the opposition to the Vietnam War by Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights leaders became highly controversial for much of theAmerican public as did King’s fight for unionization, better pay, and better education for disadvantaged workers. Martin Luther King was planning for a poor peoples march on Washington when he was assassinated in the spring of 1968. Frustration with the failure to end economic inequality quickly helped radicalize many African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans, women, and s, s, and transgender who wished to economic equality and cultural autonomy from the white world which seemed incapable of being moral and just. The result would be a rise of the Black Power movement and other movements inspired by the writings of Malcolm X and other theorists. Although his actions after 1963 did not win Martin Luther King the wide spread support as did his 1963 “I have a dream speech” had, his actions like that of the Civil Rights Movement in general, helped prepare the USA for the highly diverse and global society of the 21st century.
QUIZ 5:
1. Despite Watergate, did not Richard Nixon's presidency start the Republican ascendency of the following period? Why and how did this happen?
Richard Nixon was able to win over much of the Cold War liberal coalition by his support of the Vietnam War and American patriotism in the face of many anti-war protestors whom many Americans thought wished to a communist victory (note the chant Ho . . . Ho . . Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win”) Nixon also appeared to be less zealous in applying Civil Rights legislation and implanting more expansive legislation so that African Americans could attain economic equality with white America (Nixon and Republicans in this era however often were behind Affirmative Action programs but they were less expensive than anti-poverty programs) thus Nixon was able to build on Goldwater’s taking of most of the key states in the once “solid South.” Later many of these working class voters would be labeled “Reagan Democrats” but their shift towards the Republican Party began with Nixon. The message that Nixon developed in 1968 (Kennedy had pummeled the Eisenhower and Nixon in 1960 for creating a missile gap, which in fact did not exist but helped get him in the White House) was that the Democrats are weak on national defense and patriotism. Reagan would develop this them against Carter and Mondale. Thus the Republican Party began its rise to dominance with Nixon, especially with his “Southern strategy” where by Nixon slowed down government action against racial discrimination, yet this World War II veteran established the Environmental Protection Agency, reestablished diplomatic contact with China, imposed wage and price controls, and even wanted a “negative income tax” and universal health care. In short, Nixon was much more a moderate Republican than a conservative like Reagan. In fact the journalist Tom Wicker called Nixon the last “great liberal” President. But his presidency provides a transition from Democratic literalism of the 1960s and conservatism Reaganism of the 1980s.
2. Explore both the strengths and weaknesses of Ronald Reagan's presidency. What has made his vision so dominant ever since?
The failures of the Carter administration-- whether at home with inflation or abroad with the Iran Hostage Crisis and the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan-- became a key foil for Ronald Reagan when he ran for president in 1980. It appeared that under Carter the Democratic Cold War Liberal Agenda had unraveled and could no longer guarantee either prosperity at home or security abroad. Even though Carter appointed Paul Volker to head and Federal Reserve and fight inflation though high interest rates, it would be under Reagan (who reappointed Volker in 1983) that inflation came down. Inflation, which had been steadily rising since the later 1960s, reached its peak under the last years of the Carter Administration. Carter also started the increase in military spending that Regan would continue. But the key point is that Reagan had a vision of the world being liberated through freeing up economic markets and asserted that the USSR was an “evil empire” and that communism was not only a disaster for human liberty but also for economic progress. The fall of the USSR and the transformation of China, though not directly caused by Reagan, confirmed his worldview. Moreover after two years of deep economic slump (1981-1982) the economy under Reagan came roaring back in 1983-84 and ensured his reelection in a landslide. The rise of the high tech economy in the USA and the flourishing of much of Asia, also seemed to ensure that Reagan’s vision was correct. The national debt soared under Reagan and for the first time since WWI the USA became a debtor nation, but this did not seem too worrisome at the time especially when the national debt seemed to stabilize under the Democratic President Bill Clinton who proclaimed “the era of big government is over” and who went even further in deregulating the economy, repealing the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial and speculative banking activities, and limiting welfare. George W. Bushy, unlike his father George H. W. Bush, as president continued to cut taxes, following the supply side economic theory that Regan had championed. Although Barack Obama entered the White House promising “change you can believe in” in practice has not forcefully attacked Reagan the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt attacked Hoover. In short, Reagan’s vision of “morning in America” remains highly seductive as we see with Tea Party movement and all the Republican candidates in the presidential primary of 2012 pledging continued support for the “Gipper.”
3. A popular expression asserts that "9-11 changed everything." In your reasoned opinion, based on the text and our discussions, do you think this is an accurate reading of American History since 2001?
Still note this overview about how much has befallen the USA since the Twin Towers disintegrated:
I have left this question opened ended because we are living in such an unsettled age where almost anything can happen. Here are some comments to help refine your comments for the final.
When 9-11 happened the USA was still basking in a decade of economic growth and geopolitical and military victory (the fall of the USSR and the quick victory in the first Iraq War). After 9-11 the pace of job losses in manufacturing and even high tech picked up, the USA fought two unfunded wars, and saw big cuts in taxes for the wealthiest Americans all while a new prescription drug benefit for senior citizens too affect. Then in 2008 the housing bubble that had helped sustain American consumer spending (by allowing millions of home owners to borrow against the increase valuation of their property) burst. At the same time Europe was suffering from some of the same economic problems. As a result the American economy has not bounced back since the 2008 economic crisis as it did after the steep recession of 1981-82. At the same time the rise of China, India, and Brazil, and the Arab Spring pose new challenges to American world leadership. Not surprisingly in such times of crises the American voters have swung dramatically between the two parties: reelecting Bush in 2004 with continued Congressional majorities but then throwing out the Republicans from the control of Congress in 2006, then electing the Democrat Obama in 2008 with both majorities in both the House and the Senate but then voting for a Republican House in 2010. At the same time the Baby Boom is reaching retirement age, the debt continues to grow, and Iran may be on the verge of producing nuclear weapons. It is thus not surprising that for much of the American population 9-11 began a decade or two (perhaps 2000 to 2020?) that seem filled with crises. It is no wonder that so many Americans wonder what will happen to the American Dream. Thomas Jefferson’s vision of the yeoman farmer promised Americans a short at owning land and being able to grow enough food for their own subsistence and for some profit in the market place. Henry Ford’s mass production and consumption program resulted in the modern American dream of a good paying (if boring) job with a home in the suburbs. What new vision will emerge in this era of automation and high technology? This is the task we face today, to update the American Dream.
As an AI, I don't possess personal opinions or emotional reasoning. However, I can provide an objective analysis based on the text and our discussions.
The statement "9-11 changed everything" suggests that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks had a transformative impact on American history since that time. To evaluate the accuracy of this assertion, we can consider several key factors:
1. The Impact of the Attacks: The 9/11 attacks were a moment of immense tragedy and loss, resulting in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. The immediate impact of these attacks led to significant changes in American society, such as heightened national security measures, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the initiation of the War on Terror.
2. Changes in American Foreign and Military Policy: Following 9/11, the United States responded with military intervention in Afghanistan and later Iraq. These actions significantly shaped American foreign policy, military strategy, and resource allocation for the next two decades.
3. Societal Implications: The attacks had a profound psychological effect on the American people, leading to increased vigilance, changes in public sentiment towards security and foreign policy, and reshaping the discourse around immigration and religious tolerance.
4. Legislation and National Security Measures: The U.S. government introduced a series of measures in response to the attacks, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and enhanced airport security measures. These actions sought to prevent future attacks but also raised concerns regarding civil liberties and privacy.
Considering these points, it is reasonable to conclude that the 9/11 attacks had a significant impact on American history since 2001. However, whether it can be said that "9-11 changed everything" is subjective and open to interpretation. Some argue that other significant events like the financial crisis of 2008 or the election of Barack Obama also had transformative effects on American society.
To get a more nuanced perspective, it would be helpful to consult various sources, such as scholarly articles, books, and analyses from experts in the field of American history and politics. These sources can provide a comprehensive understanding of the different ways in which 9/11 shaped American history over the past two decades.