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Transforming the West
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Becoming an Industrial Power
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Homestead Act
This Act took place during the Civil War in 1862 and provided any adult citizen who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of land. This included farmers, former slaves, and single women, the women took advantage of this opportunity. Once they claimed their land they were required to "improve" it and cultivate the land. If completed they got to keep the land but a small registration fee was included. -
Laissez Faire
The Laissez Faire was an economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from government intervention such as regulation, privileges, tariffs, and subsides. There are advantages and disadvantages to this philosophy. One advantage is that businesses face fewer government rules and regulations which allowed businesses the freedom to do many things. A disadvantage is that businesses may engage in risky behaviors that could lead to future economic problems. -
John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller did the same thing as Carnegie did but instead with oil production. He control 90% of domestic oil. He became one of the world's wealthiest men and a major philanthropist. Born into modest circumstance in upstate New York, he entered the then-fledgling oil business in 1863 by investing in a Cleveland, Ohio, refinery. In 1870, he established Standard Oil, which by the early 1880s controlled the U.S. refineries and pipelines. -
Women's Temperance Christian
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union 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. With Willard’s death in 1898, it began to distance itself from feminist groups, instead focusing primarily on prohibition. -
Farmer's Alliance
Took reins from the Granger movement and five million members were involve, ONLY whites though. The farmers were overcharging on shipping crops which lead to high interest loans. One of the goals of the organization was to end the adverse effects of the crop-lien system on farmers in the period following the American Civil War. The Northern Alliance sought to protect farmers from industrial monopolies and promote regulations on commerce and tax reform. -
Battle of Little Big Horn
The Battle of Little Big Horn was fought near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, pitted federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Custer against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. The tension has began between the groups since the rising discovery of gold on Native American lands. Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting under Sitting Bull's command, and his forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed in what became known as Custer's Last Stand. -
Tenements
Tenements were a room or a set of rooms forming a separate residence within a house or block of apartments. In the tenements multiple family dwelling from 4-6 stories where dozens of families lived together. There was a lot of crime in this areas including prostitution and a lot of diseases were made due to overpopulation. Some homes were evicted for falling behind and the owners had no choice but to follow because they were very poor. -
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The Gilded Age
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Exodusters
Exodusters were African Americans who migrated west in 1879. Some of them will be successful but many will settle in bad land and lacked money. Some relocated back to the South and others continued further west. They called themselves the Exodusters because they compared themselves to the Israelites escaping Egypt in the Bible. They migrated seeking to begin a new life where they hoped to be treated with fairness and respect. -
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer Process was a steel-making process that was first invented by Andrew Carnegie. It was the mass production of strong steel at low prices. This was a huge success because steel is the building block of industrial america, before they could not mass produce until the early 19th century. -
Killing of the Buffalo
By the late 1880s buffalos almost went extinct due to white buffalo hunters. The natives protected the buffalo that were left because they used them as their main source of life. Later government signed more treaties with western natives that protected hunting grounds which became the beginning of reservations. Reservations were places where natives were placed by whites to make them more Americanized, they were not allowed to speak their language only English and many other restrictions. -
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor wanted to get rid of the market competition for a cooperative one instead. It was open to all workers but was a strictly secret to avoid sabotage by employers. Because of the Knights of Labor, Labor Day was established as a national holiday were everyone got the day off of work. Also workers would work eight hours a day and both men and women got equal pay. -
Booker T. Washington
Born a slave on a Virginia farm, Washington rose to become one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute, a black school in Alabama devoted to training teachers. Washington was also behind the formation of the National Negro Business League 20 years later. He is known for his educational advancements and attempts to promote economic self-reliance among African Americans. -
The Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a federal law made in the United States signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. The law prohibit all immigration of Chinese laborers because the Americans felt threaten by them because they were "taking their jobs from them". Therefore, to resolve their problem they made Chinese immigration illegal. This act was also the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigration to the United States. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Act of 1883 was a United States federal law which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. This Act was passed because of the assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disgruntled job seeker. Also due to public disdain for the old spoils system. The spoils system had become too indoctrinated in the government and led to the assassination of President Garfield. -
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 killing seven of them. The Haymarket Riot was viewed a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. At the same time, the men convicted in connection with the riot were viewed by many in the labor movement as martyrs. -
Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Severalty Act was a call for back up of reservations which was the assimilation of Natives into American christian society. The act ended communal ownership of the land and parceled it up into pieces to be owned by individual Native Americans. Though, the act did fail because the plots were too small for sustainable agriculture. The Native American Indians lacked tools, money, experience or expertise in farming. The farming lifestyle was a completely alien way of life. -
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-born man who played a very important role in the mass production of steel and later became a major philanthropist. Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before rising to the position of division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859. While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures, including iron and oil companies. He entered the steel business and became a dominant force in the industry. -
Silver Act
The Silver Act was passed by the United States Congress to supplant the Bland-Allison Act of 1878. It not only required the U.S. Government to purchase nearly twice as much silver as before, but also added substantially to the amount of money already in circulation. This act created higher tariffs, caused prices to go skyrocket, but later silver prices fall. Also the Act was the cause of the Panic of 1893, and during the panic the currency switched back to gold which made the panic worse. -
Ghost Dance
The Ghost Dance was a movement where Native Americans resisted to white rules. The movement was originated among the Paiute Indians around 1870. However, a shaman envisioned a flood washing away whites which signified that he said the second coming of Christ and received warning about the evils of white men. This dance was practiced by natives throughout camps in the west for hope that they will eventually be able to free from the evil white men and continue their culture/beliefs. -
Wounded Knee massacre
The Wounded Knee massacre occur after one of the american guns went off accidentally causing a massacre between the Indians and the Americans. The massacre killed 300 Sioux while they were performing a ghost dance. Wounded Knee took place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. An 1890 massacre left about 150 Native Americans dead in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. In other words, it originally made trusts illegal and essentially useless to tackle monopolies but later would be successful. The law prohibits contracts, combinations, or conspiracies in the restraint of trade or commerce. The Act was approved on July 2, 1890 it was based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. -
Holding Companies
The Holding Companies replaced trusts in 1890s, and large corporations bought other corporations to run them. These holding companies was shielded from the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890, the act could originally make trusts illegal. These holding companies were created to buy and possess the shares of other companies, which means that they had all the control of them. -
Vertical Integration
The combination in one company of two or more stages of production normally operated by separate companies. This meant that they basically had control over all the stages of their companies and they could do want they want. This included the supply chain from manufacturing to end sales. -
Horizontal Integration
This was when companies brought out their competition and achieved greater efficiency. This would increase their production of goods or services at the same part of the supply chain. A company may do this via internal expansion, acquisition or merger. The process can lead to monopoly if a company captures the vast majority of the market for that product or service. -
Robber Barons
Robber Barons were greedy capitalists that grew rich due to shady, ruthless, and unscrupulous business practices. They built massive empires and accumulated unprecedented wealth. Many of these people gained their vast fortunes either at the expenses of their factory workers or by methods that were considered unscrupulous. Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt were some of the robber barons in the late 19th century. -
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Imperialism
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Depression of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that took place in 1893. The panic was marked by the collapsed railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing whuc set off a series of bank failures. -
World's Colombian Exposition 1893
The World's Coumbian Exposition of 1893 was the first worlds fair held in Chicago. Carving out some 600 acres of Frederick Law Olmsted's Jackson Park, the exposition was a major milestone. Congress awarded Chicago the opportunity to host the fair over the other candidate cities of New York, Washington D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri. More than 150,000 people passed through the grounds eac day during its six-month run, making it larger than all of the U.S. world's fairs that preceded it. -
City Beautiful Movement
The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban panning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. This movement reduced and eliminated city problems by redesigning public squares, large open parks and many other things. The movement and exposition inspired city planners for a generation. -
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States in 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a strike in response to reductions in wages. -
Period: to
Progressive Era
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Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush was the migration of about 100,000 people prospecting to the Klondike region of north-western Canada in the Yukon region in the years 1896-1899. The Klondike Kings included Skookum Jim Mason, Tagish Charlie, along with Seattleite Geirge Carmack who found gold in Rabbit Creek, near Dawson, in the Yukon region of Canada, they became very wealthy once gold was discovered all over the place. -
Election of 1896
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 populist party gained national attention when they supported Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan as their presidential candidate. One of the reasons this led to a decline in the populist party is because Bryan alienated the African-American populists. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as separate but equal. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident when an African-American train passenger refused to sit in a car for blacks. Jim Crow legislation & separate public accommodations based on race were encouraged after the Plessy case. -
Yellow Journalism
Yellow journalism is an American term for journalism and associated newspapers that presented no legitimate well-researched news, using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. In the 19th century it was one of many factors that helped push the US & Spain into war in Cuba & the Philippines, leading to the acquisition of overseas territory by the United States. It originated in the competition over the New York City newspaper market between publishers Joseph Pulitzer & William Randolph Hearst. -
U.S.S. Maine Incident
A massive explosion of unknown origin sinks the battleship USS Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard. Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after a rebellion against Spanish rule broke out in Havana in January. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March that the ship was blown up by a mine, without directly placing the blame on Spain. -
Treaty of Paris of 1898
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 ended the U.S. Revolutionary War and granted the thirteen colonies political independence. A preliminary treaty between Great Britain and the United States was signed in 1782, but the final agreement was not signed until September 3, 1783. Peace negotiations began in Paris, France, in April 1782. The U.S. delegation included benjamin franklin, john adams, john jay, and Henry Laurens, while the British were represented by Richard Oswald and Henry Strachey. -
Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. The war originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in February 1895. Spain’s brutally repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed for the U.S. public by several sensational newspapers, and American sympathy for the rebels rose. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, as enunciated in Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899 and dispatched to the major European powers. John Hay, the Secretary of State under President McKinley, proposed an Open Door Policy towards China for all countries. In what would later be called the 'Open Door Note,' he wrote to each country. -
Nativism
Nativists were people who believed they were the true "Native" Americans, despite their being descended from immigrants themselves. In response to the waves of immigration in the mid-nineteenth century, Nativists created political parties and tried to limit the rights of immigrants. -
Philippine-American War
The Philippine-American War was an armed conflict between the First Philippine Republic and the United States that lasted from February to July. The Filipinos saw the conflict as a continuation of the Filipino struggle for independence with the Philippine Revolution: the US government regarded it as an insurrection. The conflict rose when the Philippine objected to the terms of the Treaty of Paris under the US possession of the Philippines from Spain, ending the Spanish–American War. -
Election of 1900
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. McKinley's victory made him the first president to win re-election since Ulysses S. Grant had accomplished the same feat in 1872. McKinley and Bryan each faced little opposition within their own party. -
Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president at the age of forty-two. His nick name was "Teddy" and was also known as a big little kid because he was big in size but very friendly and kind like a child. He was very likable mainly by everyone who knew him and he showed his kindness when he saved a bear cub. Teddy believed the country was at a crossroad and mediator of strikes took place. Lastly, Teddy was a populist, he filed suits against trusts and public interest was his top priority. -
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. Although the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was essentially passive, by the 20th century a more confident United States was willing to take on the role of regional policeman. In the early 1900s Roosevelt grew concerned that a crisis between Venezuela and its creditors could spark an invasion of that nation by European powers. -
Russo-Japanese War
Following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launches a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. During the subsequent Russo-Japanese War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of its non-Western opponent. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
On this date, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Journalists had long reported on the unsanitary conditions of the country’s manufacturing plants, especially in Chicago’s meat-packing industry. But it wasn’t until the public outcry, the publication of The Jungle that Congress moved on legislation that would prevent the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs or medicines, and liquors. -
Muller v. Oregon
Whether the Constitution permits states to pass laws to protect the health of workers. In 1903, Oregon passed a law that said that women could work no more than 10 hours a day in factories and laundries. Muller was convicted of violating the law. His appeal eventually was heard to the U.S. Supreme Court. This case was one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court cases of the Progressive Era, upheld an Oregon law limiting the workday for female wage earners to ten hours. -
Dollar Diplomacy
From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox followed a foreign policy characterized as “dollar diplomacy.” Taft shared the view held by Knox, a corporate lawyer who had founded the giant conglomerate U.S. Steel, that the goal of diplomacy was to create stability and order abroad that would best promote American commercial interests. Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities. -
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910, ended dictatorship in Mexico and established a constitutional republic. A number of groups, led by revolutionaries including Francisco Madero, Pascual Orozco, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, participated in the long and costly conflict. Though a constitution drafted in 1917 formalized many of the reforms sought by rebel groups, periodic violence continued into the 1930s. -
Albert Fall
Albert Bacon Fall was a U.S. Senator from New Mexico and the Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. Fall had little formal schooling but studied law and, after moving to New Mexico Territory. After his political career in New Mexico, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1912, serving until his appointment as secretary of the interior in 1921. He resigned from the Cabinet two years later and returned to New Mexico. -
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 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. Former president Teddy Roosevelt ran as the Progressive Party candidate, but was unsuccessful. -
Bull Moose Party
Bull Moose Party, formally Progressive Party, U.S. dissident political faction that nominated former president Theodore Roosevelt as its candidate in the presidential election of 1912; the formal name and general objectives of the party were revived 12 years later. Opposing the entrenched conservatism of the regular Republican Party, which was controlled by Pres. William Howard Taft, a National Republican Progressive League was organized in 1911 by Sen. -
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 amendment, ratified in 1913 and was part of a wave of progressive constitutional reforms that sought to make the Constitution, and our nation, more democratic. -
Archduke Franz Ferdinand
In an event that is widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of WW1, 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, in 1914. June 28 was also Franz Ferdinand’s wedding anniversary. His beloved wife, Sophie, a former lady-in-waiting, was denied royal status in Austria due to her birth as a poor Czech aristocrat, as were the couple’s children. -
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World War 1
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Ku Klux Klan
In 1915, white Protestant nativists organized a revival of the KKK near Atlanta, Georgia, inspired by their romantic view of the Old South as well as Thomas Dixon’s 1905 book “The Clansman” and D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation.” This second generation of the KKK was not only anti-black but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labor. It was fueled by growing hostility to the surge in immigration that America experienced in the early 20th century. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was an early feminist and women's rights activist who coined the term "birth control" and worked towards its legalization. Margaret Sanger was born in Sept.14,1879, in Corning, New York. In 1910 she moved to Greenwich Village and started a publication promoting a woman's right to birth control. Obscenity laws forced her to flee the country until 1915. In 1916 she opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. Sanger fought for women's rights her entire life. She died in 1966. -
Mustard Gas
The Germans used mustard gas for the first time during war in 1917. They outfitted artillery shells and grenades with mustard gas that they fired in the vicinity of the troop target. It is commonly mistaken that the combination of ammonia and bleach create mustard gas. Mustard gas contains sulfur in its chemical make-up and has a sulfur (rotten egg) smell to it. Chlorine gas does not have sulfur or the rotten smell attached to it. The symptoms of mustard gas were different as well. -
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century. In 1917, two revolutions swept through Russia, ending centuries of imperial rule and setting into motion political and social changes that would lead to the formation of the Soviet Union. While the two revolutionary events took place within a few short months, social unrest in Russia had been simmering for decades. The Bolsheviks would later become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. -
Espionage Act
The Espionage Act was enforced largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson, the Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. Anyone found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years. -
American Expeditionary Force
The American Expeditionary Force was the name applied to the American troops serving in Europe during World War I. When Congress declared War on Germany in 1917, the United States did not have the organization necessary for the deployment of the enormous numbers that would be required. On May 26, 1917, General Pershing was instructed to take his staff to France. Shortly after arriving, Pershing cabled the War Department that he would require at least a million men by the following May. -
Sedition Act
Along with the Espionage Act of the previous year, the Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson. The Espionage Act, passed shortly after the U.S. entrance into the war in early April 1917, made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces’ prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. -
Royal Air Force
On April 1, 1918, the British Royal Air Force is formed as an amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The RAF took its place beside the British navy and army as a separate military service with its own ministry. In 1911, 8 years after the American brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first-ever flight of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft, an air battalion of the British army’s Royal Engineers was formed at Larkhill in Wiltshire. -
Spanish Flu
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide about one-third of the planet’s population and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks. -
Treaty of Versailles
World War 1 officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany. 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, and Hitler’s rise to power and subsequent actions rendered moot the remaining terms of the treaty. -
League on Nations
The League of Nations formally took place when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect. In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war ever fought to that date. As more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. -
Volstead Act
Andrew J. Volstead, Republican representative from Minnesota, was the driving force behind the National Prohibition Act (popularly the Volstead Act), written to provide for the enforcement of the recently ratified 18th Amendment. It was passed by Congress in October, 1919, but was vetoed by President Wilson on October 27. The House again passed the measure, with enough votes to override Wilson's veto, on the same day and the U.S. Senate did the same on the next day. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s shocked Americans by revealing an unprecedented level of greed and corruption within the federal government. The scandal involved ornery oil tycoons, poker-playing politicians, illegal liquor sales, a murder-suicide, a womanizing president and a bagful of bribery cash delivered on the sly. The scandal would empower the Senate to conduct rigorous investigations into government corruption. It also marked the first time a cabinet official was a felon. -
Cars in the 1920s
Henry Ford innovated mass-production techniques that became standard, and Ford, General Motors and Chrysler emerged as the “Big Three” auto companies by the 1920s. Manufacturers funneled their resources to the military during World War II, and afterward automobile production in Europe and Japan soared to meet growing demand. Once vital to the expansion of American urban centers, the industry had become a shared global enterprise with the rise of Japan as the leading automaker by 1980. -
Eleanor Roosevelt
First lady Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a leader in her own right and involved in numerous humanitarian causes throughout her life. 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. In the White House, she was one of the most active first ladies in history and worked for political, racial and social justice. -
18th Amendment
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the US by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal. By the late 1800s, prohibition movements had sprung up across the United States, driven by religious groups who considered alcohol, specifically drunkenness, a threat to the nation. The movement reached its apex in 1920 when Congress ratified the 18th Amendment. -
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. In 1848 the movement for women’s rights launched on a national level with the Seneca Falls Convention. After the convention, the demand for the vote became a centerpiece of the women's rights movement. After a lengthy battle, these groups finally emerged victorious with the passage of the 19th amendment. -
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s, the period is considered a golden age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance and art. In 1915 and 1916, natural disasters in the south put black workers and sharecroppers out of work. -
Jazz in the 1920s
Artists such as King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Duke Ellington define the future of jazz in the United States and abroad. Race Records: Learn about the origins of Race Records and the increase in the number of these recordings made in the 1920s. If freedom was the mindset of the Roaring Twenties, then jazz was the soundtrack. The Jazz Age was a cultural period and movement that took place in America during the 1920s from which both new styles of music and dance emerged. -
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1920s
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American Indian Citizenship Act
The American Indian Citizenship Act legally gave Native Americans citizenship but it did not allow them to have voting rights. They gained voting rights until the 1940s almost twenty years after the act was passed. -
Immigration Act of 1924
President Calvin Coolidge signs into law the Immigration Act of 1924, the most stringent U.S. immigration policy up to that time in the nation’s history. The new law reflected the desire of Americans to isolate themselves from the world after fighting World War I in Europe, which exacerbated growing fears of the spread of communist ideas. It also reflected the pervasiveness of racial discrimination in American society and many Americans saw the unskilled, uneducated immigrants as a threat. -
Valentine's Day Massacre
Gang warfare ruled the streets of Chicago during the late 1920s, as chief gangster Al Capone sought to consolidate control by eliminating his rivals in the illegal trades of bootlegging, gambling and prostitution. This rash of gang violence reached its bloody climax in a garage on the city’s North Side on February 14, 1929, when seven men associated with the Irish gangster George “Bugs” Moran, one of Capone’s longtime enemies, were shot to death by several men dressed as policemen. -
The New Deal
The Great Depression in the United States began on October 29, 1929, a day known forever after as “Black Tuesday,” when the American stock market which had been roaring steadily upward for almost a decade crashed, plunging the country into its most severe economic downturn yet. Speculators lost their shirts; banks failed; the nation’s money supply diminished; and companies went bankrupt and began to fire their workers in droves. -
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), America’s 31st president, took office in 1929, the year the U.S. economy plummeted into the Great Depression. Although his predecessors’ policies undoubtedly contributed to the crisis, which lasted over a decade, Hoover bore much of the 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 squarely address it. -
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The Great Depression
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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. -
Hoovervilles
During the Great Depression, shantytowns appeared across the U.S. as unemployed people were evicted from their homes. As the Depression worsened, causing severe hardships for millions of Americans, many looked to the federal government for assistance. When the government failed to provide relief, President Herbert Hoover was blamed for the intolerable economic and social conditions, and the shantytowns that cropped up across the nation, became known as Hoovervilles. -
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 held personally responsible for their misery. United States presidential election of 1932, American presidential election held on Nov. 8, 1932, in which Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Pres. Herbert Hoover. -
Emergency Relief Act
On May 12, 1933, the United States Congress created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). This organization's purpose was initially to distribute 500 million dollars in federal funds to state agencies. These funds were grants and not loans. The purpose of FERA was to work cooperatively with state government, providing federal grants for relief purposes. The provisions of the FERA of 1933 provided that authorization for FERA would expire in two years from the date of inception. -
Glass-Stegall Act
The Glass-Stegall Act effectively separated commercial banking from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, among other things. It was one of the most widely debated legislative initiatives before being signed into law by Roosevelt in June 1933. The emergency legislation that was passed within days of President Franklin Roosevelt taking office in March 1933 was just the start of the process to restore confidence in the banking system. -
20th Amendment
The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3rd day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin. The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20. -
21st Amendment
In 1933, widespread public disillusionment led Congress to ratify the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition. If public sentiment had turned against Prohibition by the late 1920s, the advent of the Great Depression only hastened its demise, as some argued that the ban on alcohol denied jobs to the unemployed and much-needed revenue to the government. The efforts of the nonpartisan group Americans Against Prohibition Association (AAPA) added to public disillusionment. -
Hitler
Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany from 1934-1945. He initiated fascist policies that led to World War II & the deaths of at least 11 million people, including the mass murder of an estimated 6 million Jews. Hitler was chancellor of Germany serving as dictator and leader of the Nazi Party for the bulk of his time in power. Hitler’s policies precipitated World War II and led to the genocide known as the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews & 5 million noncombatants. -
Neutrality Act
In 1935, Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, which he calls an “expression of the desire…to avoid any action which might involve [the U.S.] in war.” The signing took place when newly installed fascist governments in Europe were beginning to beat the drums of war. FDR said that the new law would require American vessels to obtain a license to carry arms, would restrict Americans from sailing on ships from hostile nations & would impose an embargo on the sale of arms to “belligerent” nations. -
Munich Conference
Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.” Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived. -
National Socialist-German Worker's Party (NAZI)
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 1933-1945. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers’ Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, & expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I & required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations. -
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World War 2
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The Battle of Britain
In 1940, German & British air forces clashed in the skies over the UK locked in the largest sustained bombing campaign to that date. A significant turning point of World War II, the Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force despite months of targeting Britain’s air bases, military posts &, ultimately, its civilian population. Britain’s decisive victory saved the country from a ground invasion and possible occupation by German forces. -
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill is one of the best-known, and greatest, statesmen of the 20th century. Though he was born into a life of privilege, he dedicated himself to public service. His legacy is a complicated one he was an idealist and a pragmatist; an orator and a soldier; an advocate of progressive social reforms and an unapologetic elitist; a defender of democracy as well as of Britain’s fading empire but for many people in Great Britain and elsewhere, Winston Churchill is simply a hero. -
Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic was Canada's longest military engagement of the Second World War, lasting from September 1939 to May 1945. This battle was bravely fought by the men and women of the Canadian Merchant Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force. More than 4,600 courageous service men and women lost their lives at sea. From the very outset of hostilities in the Second World War in 1939, the Atlantic supply route from North America to the United Kingdom was threatened. -
Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, 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
To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community. 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. It was the mass murder of 6 million Jews & other groups, took place by the Nazi in the Holocaust.
