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Literacy Tests
Southern state legislatures employed literacy tests as part of the voter registration process starting in the late 19th century. Literacy tests, along with poll taxes, residency and property restrictions and extra-legal activities were all used to deny suffrage to African Americans. The literacy test—supposedly applicable to both white and black prospective voters who couldn’t prove a certain level of education actuality disproportionately administered to black voters. -
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Transforming the West
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YMCA
Young Men's and Women's Christian Associations; established before Civil war and combined physical and other kinds of education with religious teachings.started as an effort to give physical fitness to evangelical men, and eventually women as well. Soon, the idea of "Muscular Christianity" developed from the YMCA. The YMCA was important for business and corporations, as it helped relieve some tensions from labor unrest, and allowed workers to learn the physical discipline required by managers. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States allowing any American, including the freed slaves, to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. By the end of the Civil War, 15,000 homestead claims had been established, and more followed in the postwar years. In total, more than 270 million acres of public land, or nearly 10% of the total area of the U.S. was given away free to 1.6 million homesteaders; most of the homesteads were west. -
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Becoming an Industrial Power
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Laissez Faire
In the late 1800s, many Americans enthusiastically embraced Spencer's "Social Darwinism" to justify laissez-faire, or unrestricted capitalism. He argued for laissez-fare capitalism, an economic system that allows businesses to operate with little government interference. Laissez-faire is a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering. It reached its apex in the 1870s during the age of industrialization as American factories operated with a free hand. -
Indian Appropriations Acts
These treaties, which took much time and effort to finalize, ceased with the passage of the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act, declaring that "no Indian nation or tribe" would be recognized "as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty." This law ended treaty making between tribes and the federal government. Native Americans were stripped of their power and their strength because from that point on they were considered only as individuals. -
South Dakota Gold
With rumors of gold in the air, an expedition was established by the U.S. Army and it consisted of over one thousand men, known as the 7th Cavalry. The team was led by Civil War fighter George Armstrong Custer. The rumors were confirmed when small amounts of gold were found in 1874 in French Creek in Custer, South Dakota. A few gentlemen "struck gold" and established the Homestake Mines which would go on to produce 10 percent of the world's gold supply over the next 125 years. -
Red River War
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874 to remove Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains and forcibly relocate them to reservations in Indian Territory. The Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 called for two reservations to be set aside in Indian Territory. One for the Comanche and Kiowa and another for the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. The goods would give give for a thirty-year period. -
Women's Temperance Christian Union
WCTU was founded in November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio. After Frances Willard took over leadership in 1879, the WCTU became one of the largest and most influential women’s groups of the 19th century by expanding its platform to campaign for labor laws, prison reform and suffrage. Annie Wittenmyer, an experienced wartime fund-raiser and administrator, was elected president at the WCTU’s founding in 1874. WCTU became one of the largest and most influential women’s groups of the 19th century. -
Battle of Little Big Horn
The Battle of Little Bighorn pitted troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. When a number of tribes missed a federal deadlines to move to reservations, the U.S. Army, including Custer and his 7th Calvary, was dispatched to confront them. Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting under the command of Sitting Bull at Little Bighorn. His forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed that became Custer's Last Stand. -
Queen Liliuokalani
Queen Liliuokalani was the last sovereign of the Kamehameha dynasty, which had ruled a Hawaiian kingdom since 1810. she became crown princess in 1877. By the time she took the throne herself in 1891, a new constitution had removed much of the monarchy’s powers in favor of an elite class of businessmen and wealthy landowners. When Liliuokalani acted to restore these powers, a U.S. military deposed her and formed a provisional government. Born Lydia Kamakaeha, she became crown princess in 1877. -
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The Gilded Age
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Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vaderbilt was a self-made multi-millionaire who became one of the wealthiest Americans of the 19th century. After working as a steamship captain, Vanderbilt went into business for himself in the late 1820s, and eventually became one of the country's largest steamship operators. In the 1860s he shifted his focus to the railroad industry and when he died he left most of his fortune to his children, and less than 5% of his wealth to charity. -
The Great Uprising
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 17, 1877, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Workers for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad went on strike, because the company had reduced workers' wages twice over the previous year. The strikers refused to let the trains run until the most recent pay cut was returned to the employees. By the end of August 1877, the strike had ended primarily due to federal government intervention. -
knights of labor
Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leaders were Terence V. Powderly and step-brother Joseph Bath. Wanted to get rid of market competition for a cooperative one. Open to all workers. Strictly secret to avoid sabotage by employers. Labor day established as a national holiday. Boycotted businesses. 8 hour work day. Equal pay for men and women. -
Social Darwinism
The theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform. The weak were diminished and their cultures delimited while the strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. It was followed by the Geary ACt of 1892 which extended the provisions of the Exclusion Act for another ten years. In 1902 the ban against the immigration of Chinese laborers was made permanent. -
Great Upheaval of 1886
The mayor of Martinsburg tried to threaten the striking workers. The local police were far too insubstantial to match the numbers of the rabble.The mayor turned to the governor of West Virginia for support. The governor sent units of the National Guard to Martinsburg to accompany the trains out of town by force of arms. There was little support for the effort among the Guards. After two people were killed in the standoff, the Guard lay down their weapons. Only one train reached its destination. -
Haymarket Riot
On May 4, 1886, a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. It was seen a setback for the organized labor movement in America. At the same time, the men convicted in connection with the riot were viewed by many in the labor movement as martyrs. -
American Federation of Labor
In December of 1886, the same year the Knights of Labor was dealt its fatal blow at Haymarket Square, Gompers met with the leaders of other craft unions to form the American Federation of Labor. The American Federation of Labor will take the place of the Knights of Labor. It will not allow unskilled labor, blacks, immigrants or women. And instead of cooperatives it will want capitalism. They will have 1.6 million members by 1904.It was a loose grouping of smaller craft unions. -
Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the Unite States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. It intended to turn Native Americans into farmers and landowners by providing cooperating families with 160 acres of reservation land for farming or 320 acres for grazing. This law helped to reduce the tries' ability to live in their traditional ways. It ended communal ownership of land. -
Henry Ford
In 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, and five years later the company rolled out the first Model T. In order to meet overwhelming demand for the revolutionary vehicle, Ford introduced revolutionary new mass-production methods, including large production plants, the use of standardized, interchangeable parts and, in 1913, the world’s first moving assembly line for cars. Enormously influential in the industrial world, Ford was also outspoken in the political realm. -
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Imperialism
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Anti-trust Act is a federal law passed in 1890 that committed the American government to opposing monopolies. The law prohibits contracts, combinations, or conspiracies "in the restraint of trade or commerce." It was the first major legislation passed to address oppressive business practices associated with cartels and oppressive monopolies. Its only effective use was against unions. The first meaningful challenge came in the E.C. Knight case in 1895. -
Wounded Knee
The massacre of Sioux warriors, women and children along Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota marked the final chapter in the long war between the United States and the Native American tribes indigenous to the Great Plains. Life for the Sioux had become bleak, but a glimmer of hope arose with the new Ghost Dance spiritual movement that promised the buffalo would return, relatives resurrected and white men cast away. General Nelson Miles arrived with 5000 troops and so began the massacre. -
Sears and Roebuck
In 1886 Richard W. Sears founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to sell watches by mail order. He relocated his business to Chicago in 1887, hired Alvah C. Roebuck to repair watches, and established a mail-order business for watches and jewelry.In 1889 Sears sold his business but a few years later founded, with Roebuck, another mail-order operation, which in 1893 came to be known as Sears, Roebuck and Company. Sears merged with Kmart in 2005. -
City Beautiful Movement
A movement in environmental design that drew directly from the beaux arts school. architects from this movement strove to impart order on hectic, industrial centers by creating urban spaces that conveyed a sense of morality and civic pride, which many feared was absent from the frenzied new industrial world. progressive movement, architects and city planner, aimed to promote order, harmony,and virtue while beautifying the nation's new urban spaces. -
World's Columbian Exposition 1893
World’s Columbian Exposition, fair held in 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage to America. In the United States there had been a spirited competition for this exposition among the country’s leading cities. Chicago was chosen in part because it was a railroad centre and in part because it offered a guarantee of $10 million. It was planed to spread along the city’s south lakefront area part of this location is now Jackson Park in Chicago. -
Depression of 1893
The Depression of 1893 was one of the worst in American history with the unemployment rate exceeding ten percent for half a decade. The Depression of 1893 can be seen as a watershed event in American history. It was accompanied by violent strikes, the climax of the Populist and free silver political crusades, the creation of a new political balance, the continuing transformation of the country’s economy, major changes in national policy, and far-reaching social and intellectual developments. -
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Progressive Era
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Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1898 drew 100,000 people away from their homes on a spectacular adventure that pitted humans against nature, time, and each other. In August 1896 when Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and George Washington Carmack found gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon terriroty one of the greatest gold rushes in history set off. This led to the establishment of Dawson City and subsequently, the Yukon terrirory. -
Election of 1896
1896 Presidential Election. The United States presidential election of November 3, 1896, saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by historians to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history.The Outcome and Significance of the Presidential Election of 1896. Voter turnout was unprecedented, at around eighty percent of the electorate. Bryan carried most states of the predominately rural South and the mountain West. -
Cuba's Independene
Spanish-American War for Cuba's Independence. By the end of the 1800s, Spain had lost all of its New World colonies except Cuba and Puerto Rico. Many Cubans did not wish to be under Spanish rule, so they fled to Florida and other parts of the United States. Following the defeat of Spain in 1898 Cuba was formally installed on May 19, 1902. On May 20, 1902, the United States relinquished its occupation authority over Cuba, but claimed a continuing right to intervene in Cuba. -
U.S.S. Maine Incident
At 9:40pm on February 15, 1898, the battleship U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, killing 268 men and shocking the American populace. .At the time of the disaster, the compliment of the ship was 26 officers, 290 sailors and 39 Marines. Of these, two officers and 251 men were killed at the time of the explosion. There were 102 saved, but seven later died because of wounds incurred in the explosion. All dead were buried in a cemetery in Havana. -
Battle of Manilla Bay
On May 1, 1898, at Manila Bay in the Philippines, the U.S. Asiatic Squadron destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first major battle of the Spanish-American War (April-August 1898). The United States won the war, which ended Spanish rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the w. Pacific and Latin America. Dewey’s victory cleared the way for the U.S. occupation of Manila in August and the eventual transfer of the Philippines from Spanish to American control. -
Battle of San Juan Hill
The U.S. Army Fifth Corps fought its way to Santiago’s outer defenses, and on July 1 U.S. General William Shafter ordered an attack on the village of El Caney and San Juan Hill. Shafter hoped to capture El Caney before besieging the fortified heights of San Juan Hill, but the 500 Spanish defenders of the village put up a fierce resistance and held off 10 times their number for most of the day. Although El Caney was not secure, some 8,000 Americans pressed forward toward San Juan Hill. -
Siege of Santiago
Following the capture of San Juan Heights, the Americans invested Santiago, bringing up Lawton’s Division and placing Garcia’s Cubans to the west of the city.After further negotiations, Toral accepted Shafter’s terms.On 17 July the Spanish marched out of the city and into captivity. If the Spanish had been able to hold on for another few weeks they might have realized their plan of watching the American army waste away from disease. -
Treat of Paris (1898)
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was an agreement made in 1898 that involved Spain relinquishing nearly all of the remaining Spanish Empire, especially Cuba, and ceding Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States.Ending the Spanish-American War. Following the Spanish defeats in Cuba and Puerto Rico, an armistice was arranged on August 12, 1898. Fighting was halted and Spain recognized Cuba`s independence. The U.S. occupation of the Philippines was recognized pending. -
White Man's Burden
A phrase used to justify European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The phrase implies that imperialism was motivated by a high-minded desire of whites to uplift people of color.In February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled “The White Man's Burden...” In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the “burden” of empire, as had Britain and other European nations. -
Election of 1900
The United States presidential election of 1900 was the 29th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1900. In a re-match of the 1896 race, Republican President William McKinley defeated his Democratic challenger, William Jennings Bryan. The United States presidential election of 1900 was held on November 6, 1900. It was a rematch of the 1896 race between Republican President William McKinley and his Democratic challenger, William Jennings Bryan. -
Andrew Carnegie
After retiring in 1901 at the age of 66 as the world's richest man, Andrew Carnegie wanted to become a philanthropist, a person who gives money to good causes. He believed in the "Gospel of Wealth," which meant that wealthy people were morally obligated to give their money back to others in society. Giving his money away became his new occupation. In 1902 he founded the Carnegie Institution to fund scientific research and established a pension fund for teachers with a $10 million donation. -
Square Deal
Square Deal" embraced the three Cs: control of the corporations, consumer protection, and the conservation of the United States' natural resources. was formed, a part of which was the Bureau of Corporations, which was allowed to probe businesses engaged in interstate commerce; it was highly useful in "trust-busting. The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program. He explained in 1910: -
Roosevelt Corollary
The Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine articulated by President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of the Union address in 1904 after the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03. The Roosevelt Corollary of December 1904 stated that the United States would intervene as a last resort to ensure that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their obligations to international creditors. "speak softly, and carry a big stick." The United States increasingly used military force -
Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen plan was made in 1905 by German army general Alfred Von Schlieffen. It was made for the purpose of avoiding a war on two fronts, one against Russia on the east, and the other against France on the west.The Schlieffen Plan was the operational plan for a designated attack on France once Russia, in response to international tension, had started to mobilise her forces near the German border. The Schlieffen Plan led to Britain declaring war on Germany on August 4th, 1914. -
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (FMIA) is an American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned the Neill-Reynolds report, which confirmed many of Sinclair's horrid tales. In response to both The Jungle and the Neill-Reynolds report, Congress passed the Federal Meat Inspection Act in June 1906. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes. One Muckraker, Upton Sinclair, wrote a book called The Jungle, which documented the dirty conditions of rat-infested meat factories. Due to Sinclair's work, the Meat Inspection Act was signed into law on the same day as the Pure Food and Drug Act. -
Election of 1912
United States presidential election of 1912, American presidential election held on November 5, 1912, in which Democrat Woodrow Wilson defeated Bull Moose (Progressive) candidate and former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt and Republican incumbent president William Howard Taft. Some Republicans, unhappy with William Howard Taft, split with the Republican Party and created the Progressive Party in 1912. -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures. The Constitution was changed with the 17th Amendment so that 'the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years... -
Federal Reserve Act
By December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, it stood as a classic example of compromise—a decentralized central bank that balanced the competing interests of private banks and populist sentiment.The Federal Reserve Act intended to establish a form of economic stability in the United States through the introduction of the Central Bank. The Federal Reserve Act is perhaps one of the most influential laws concerning the U.S. financial system. -
Central Powers
World War One is a conflict between the Central Powers and the Allies. The Central Powers (red) consist of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Important allied powers (yellow) are Serbia, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and the United States.The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers on October 29, 1914. Bulgaria came in on October 14, 1915. -
Allied Powers
The Allies included Britain, France, Russia, Italy and the United States. These countries fought against the Central Powers.The major Allied powers in World War I were Great Britain (and the British Empire), France, and the Russian Empire, formally linked by the Treaty of London of September 5, 1914. Other countries that had been, or came to be, allied by treaty to one or more of those powers were also called Allies. -
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World War I
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Assassination
In an event that is widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is shot to death along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on this day in 1914.Austria-Hungary, like many in countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slav nationalism once and for all. -
Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution, (1910–20), a long and bloody struggle among several factions in constantly shifting alliances which resulted ultimately in the end of the 30-year dictatorship in Mexico and the establishment of a constitutional republic. The revolution began against a background of widespread dissatisfaction with the elitist and oligarchical policies of Porfirio Díaz that favoured wealthy landowners and industrialists. Huerta assumed the presidency the following day, after arresting Madero. -
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
The American Expeditionary Force was the U.S. armed forces that were sent to fight in Europe during World War 1. It was the first time in the history of America that the U.S. sent troops abroad to help defend other countries. The U.S. started out with an army of 127,500 military personnel when it declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917, but by the end of the war over 4,000,000 people had served in the U.S. army.he AEF fought in France against the German Forces. -
First Red Scare
The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism. The First Red Scare was fuelled by post-war tensions in American society. All of these factors increased the fear of immigrants and communists. The Russian Revolution sparked anxiety over communism. Communists had overthrown the royal family in Russia and murdered them a year later. Additionally an anarchist had shot President McKinley. -
14 Points
The Fourteen Points speech of President Woodrow Wilson was an address delivered before a joint meeting of Congress during which Wilson outlined his vision for long-lasting peace in Europe, the Americas and the rest of the worldWorld War I.Wilson’s proposal called for Allies to set unselfish peace terms with Central Powers of World War I.The devastation and carnage of the First World War grimly illustrated to unavoidable relationship between international stability and American national security. -
Murder of the Romanovs
In Yekaterinburg, Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed by the Bolsheviks, bringing an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty. In 1914, Nicholas led his country into another costly war–World War I–that Russia was ill-prepared to win. Discontent grew as food became scarce, soldiers became war weary and devastating defeats at the hands of Germany demonstrated the ineffectiveness of Russia under Nicholas.In March 1917, revolution broke out on the streets of Petrograd. -
Argonne Forest
At 5:30 on the morning of September 26, 1918, after a six-hour-long bombardment over the previous night, more than 700 Allied tanks, followed closely by infantry troops, advance against German positions in the Argonne Forest and along the Meuse River. By the morning of the following day, the Allies had captured more than 23,000 German prisoners; by nightfall, they had taken 10,000 more and advanced up to six miles in some areas.The Germans continued to fight, however, putting up a resistance. -
18th Amendment
After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women’s suffrage, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest.On May 21, 1919, U.S. Rep. James R. Mann, a Republican from Illinois and chairman of the Suffrage Committee, proposed the House resolution to approve the Susan Anthony Amendment granting women the right to vote. The measure passed the House 304 to 89—a full 42 votes above the required two-thirds majority. -
Treaty of Versailles
World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. After strict enforcement for five years, the French assented to the modification of important provisions. Germany agreed to pay reparations under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, but those plans were cancelled in 1932. -
Mandatory Public Schooling
The movement for compulsory public education in the United States began in the early 1920s. It started with the Smith-Towner bill, a bill that would eventually establish the National Education Association and provide federal funds to public schools. Eventually, it became the movement to mandate public schooling and dissolve parochial and other private schools.The movement focused on the public's fear of immigrants and the need to Americanize. -
The Lost Generation
Lost Generation, a group of American writers who came of age during World War I and established their literary reputations in the 1920s. The term is also used more generally to refer to the post-World War I generation.The generation was “lost” in the sense that its inherited values were no longer relevant in postwar and because of its spiritual alienation from a United States that seemed to its members to be hopelessly provincial, materialistic, and emotionally barren. -
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1920s
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Tea Pot Dome Scandal
During the Teapot Dome scandal, Fall, who served as secretary of the interior in President Harding's cabinet, is found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office. Fall was the first individual to be convicted of a crime committed while a presidential cabinet member.After Pres.Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company rights to the Teapot Dome reserves. -
Prohibition
Prohibition was difficult to enforce, despite the passage of companion legislation known as the Volstead Act. The increase of the illegal production and sale of liquor (known as “bootlegging”), the proliferation of speakeasies (illegal drinking spots) and the accompanying rise in gang violence and other crimes led to waning support for Prohibition by the end of the 1920s. In early 1933, Congress adopted a resolution proposing a 21st Amendment to the Constitution that would repeal the 18th. -
Temperance Movement
The temperance movement began in the early 19th century (around the 1820s). Before this, although there were pieces published against drunkenness and excess, total abstinence from alcohol (i.e. teetotalism) was very rarely advocated or practiced.In 1873, the WCTU established a Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges, with Mary Hunt as National Superintendent. Frances Willard led the group under the motto "Do Everything" to protect women and children. -
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. The uncertainty generated over national security during World War I made it possible for Congress to pass this legislation, and it included several important provisions that paved the way for the 1924 Act. -
American Indian Citizenship Act
In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act, an all-inclusive act, was passed by Congress. The privileges of citizenship, however, were largely governed by state law, and the right to vote was often denied to Native Americans in the early 20th century. Before the Civil War, citizenship was often limited to Native Americans of one-half or less Indian blood. In the Reconstruction period, progressive Republicans in Congress sought to accelerate the granting of citizenship to friendly tribes. -
F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a short story writer and novelist considered one of the pre-eminent authors in the history of American literature due almost entirely to the enormous posthumous success of his third book, The Great Gatsby. Perhaps the quintessential American novel, as well as a definitive social history of the Jazz Age, The Great Gatsby has become required reading for virtually every American high school student and has had a transportive effect on generation after generation of readers. -
Charles Lindberg
Charles Lindbergh was a famous aviator. In 1927 he became the first man to successfully fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean. He called his airplane the Spirit of St. Louis, and his courageous feat helped make Missouri a leader in the developing world of aviation.5:22pm - The Spirit of St. Louis touches down at the Le Bourget Aerodrome, Paris, France. Local time: 10:22pm. Total flight time: 33 hours, 30 minutes, 29.8 seconds. Charles Lindbergh had not slept in 55 hours. -
Spirit of St. Louis
With his backers entrusting in him their full confidence, Lindbergh set off to find the right plane. His notion of what constituted the right plane for such a flight put him at odds with the prevailing ideas of the day. While other aviators were placing their faith in the increased power and safety of multi-engine planes, Lindbergh determined that multiple engines increased, rather than decreased, the odds of failure.Less weight would increase fuel efficiency and allow for a longer flying range. -
Herbert Hoover
Although his predecessors’ policies contributed to the crisis, which lasted over a decade, Hoover bore blame in the minds of the American people. As the Depression deepened, Hoover failed to recognize the severity of the situation or leverage the power of the federal government to address it. The president was viewed as callous & insensitive toward the suffering of millions of Americans. As a result, Hoover was defeated in the 1932 presidential election by F.D.R. -
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The Great Depression
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Black Tuesday
On this date, share prices on the New York Stock Exchange completely collapsed, becoming a pivotal factor in the emergence of the Great Depression.Stock prices began to decline in September and early October 1929, and on October 18 the fall began. Panic set in, and on October 24—Black Thursday—a record 12,894,650 shares were traded. Investment companies and leading bankers attempted to stabilize the market by buying up great blocks of stock, producing a moderate rally on Friday. -
The Great Migration
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1916 and 1970. Until 1910, more than 90 percent of the black population lived in the American South. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the First World War. -
Great Depression in Germany
The economic situation in Germany briefly improved between 1924-1929. However, Germany in the 1920s remained politically and economically unstable. The Weimar democracy could not withstand the disastrous Great Depression of 1929. The disaster began in the United States of America, the leading economy in the world. The immediate effects of the Wall Street Crash. Unemployed men lining up to register for work, Berlin 1929. By 1932 unemployment in Germany reached more than six million. -
Great Depression in the U.S.
The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939, and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929 which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out mil. of investors. Over the next years consumer spending and investment dropped causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933 15 mil. Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. -
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation’s 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or “fireside chats.” His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans. -
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt the U.S. president from 1933 to 1945, was a leader in her own right and involved in numerous humanitarian causes throughout her life. The niece of President Theodore Roosevelt Eleanor was born into a wealthy New York family. She married Franklin Roosevelt, her fifth cousin once removed, in 1905. By the 1920s, Roosevelt, who raised five children, was involved in Democratic Party politics and numerous social reform organizations. -
The New Deal
The New Deal was the set of federal programs launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after taking office in 1933, in response to the Great Depression and lasting until American entry into World War II in 1942. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known collectively as the New Deal, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans.Roosevelt’s New Deal changed the fed gov relationship to the U.S. pop. -
Election of 1932
In hindsight, FDR might look like a shoo-in for the 1932 presidential election. The campaign unfolded during the darkest days of the Great Depression, and Roosevelt's opponent, Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover, was the man many Americans (perhaps unfairly) held personally responsible for their misery.In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York. He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. -
National Socialist-German Workers' Party
Under the leadership of Hitler the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945. Founded in 1919 as the Party promoted German pride & anti-Semitism, and dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I and required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations. Hitler joined the party the year it was founded and became its leader in 1921. -
Emergency Relief Act
The Federal Emergency Relief Act of May 12, 1933, implemented President Roosevelt's first major initiative to combat the adverse economic and social effects of the Great Depression.To provide for cooperation by the Federal Government with the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia in relieving the hardship and suffering caused by unemployment, and for other purposes. was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). -
Glass-Stegall Act
The Glass–Steagall legislation describes four provisions of the U.S. Banking Act of 1933 separating commercial and investment banking.The bill was designed “to provide for the safer and more effective use of the assets of banks, to regulate interbank control, to prevent the undue diversion of funds into speculative operations, and for other purposes.” The measure was sponsored by Sen. Carter Glass and Rep. Henry Steagall. On June 16, 1933, President Roosevelt signed the bill into law. -
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was enacted to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. The Volstead Act provided for the enforcement of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, also known as the Prohibition Amendment. ... In 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified, repealing prohibition. -
Huey Long
Huey Long was a powerful Louisiana governor and U.S. senator. A successful lawyer, he rose through the ranks of the Louisiana government to take over the state’s top post in 1928.He entered the U.S. Senate in 1935, where he developed a fervent following for his promises of a radical redistribution of wealth. Long had launched his own national political organization and was prepared to run for the presidency when he was killed by the son-in-law of a political opponent. -
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl refers to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions. -
German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 yrs. With Europe on the brink of another major war, Soviet leader Stalin viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military. German chancellor Hitler used the pact to make sure Germany was able to invade Poland unopposed. -
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz and the 1896 McKinley-Bryan Campaign. ... The Cowardly Lion = William Jennings Bryan. The Wizard = "any President from Grant to McKinley.... [H]e symbolizes the American criterion for leadership--he is able to be everything to everybody," wrote Littlefield.Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz include treatments of the modern fairy tale as an allegory or metaphor for the political, economic, and social events of America in the 1890s. -
Royal Airforce
At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the first-line strength of the RAF in the United Kingdom was about 2k aircraft. The RAF fighter pilots distinguished themselves during the Battle of Britain in the early stages of the war against the numerically superior Luftwaffe. By the time the war ended the strength of the RAF was 963k personnel. When the forces were demobilized in 1945 the total strength of the RAF was reduced to about 150k the approximate number retained into the 1980s. -
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North African Campaign
The North African Campaign of the Second World War took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria as well as Tunisia.The battle for North Africa was a struggle for control of the Suez Canal and access to oil from the Middle East and raw materials from Asia. Oil in particular had become a critical strategic commodity due to the increased mechanization of modern armies. -
Battle of Moscow
As early as Jul 1941, the Russians knew the Germans were going to breach their defenses and threaten Moscow. On 3 Jul, Lenin's body was moved from Moscow to Tumen to prevent German capture or destruction. Two weeks later, on 22 Jul, 127 German bombers raided Moscow, even lightly damaging the Kremlin. As a response, Moscow residents were ordered to build mock houses on Kremlin's grounds and paint the distinct roof of the building in order to blend it in with the rest of the city. -
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones, clearing the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans in U.S. concentration camps. As a result, over 120k Japanese ppl were forced to relocate to 1 of 10 different camps around the U.S -
Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. As the Germans drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. -
The Holocaust
The mass murder of some 6 million European Jews as well as members of some other persecuted groups, such as Gypsies and homosexuals by the Nazi during WWII. To Hitler Jews were an inferior race and threat to Germans. After years of Nazi rule in Germany, during which Jews were consistently persecuted, Hitler’s “final solution”–now known as the Holocaust–came to fruition under the cover of world war, with mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps of occupied Poland.
