The Crash of 1929

I. The Crash and the Onset of the Great Depression

A) Farm Crisis – farmers were plagued with overproduction, falling farm prices, and declining income throughout the 1920s.

1)    Over expansion and debt – high prices during the war had encouraged farmers to increase their level of debt; when prices fell in the recession of 1920-21, they had great difficulty in repaying this debt.  Because there were no government subsidies, most farmers in the decade of the 1920s continued in this condition (or worse) for the next ten years or so.

2)    Non-Partisan League – called for government intervention (the government ownership of the grain elevators and slaughterhouses, easier credit, and tax exemptions for farm improvements).  This group was strongest in the upper Midwest (the Dakotas and Minnesota); it remained a force into the 1940s, particularly in Minnesota where it was transformed into the Farm-Labor Party.

3)    McNary-Haugen Bill – passed twice by Congress (1926 and again in 1927), but was vetoed both times by Calvin Coolidge.  This bill introduced the concept of farm parity (which was a guarantee that farmers could sell their crop at a higher price than it cost them to produce it).  A similar law was not passed until the New Deal.

4)    Rationalization of the family farm – more and more families were in fact being pushed off the family farm by the worsening economic conditions; this farmland was then bought up by corporations, who in turn then hired labor (often, the family who had been forced to sell their farm) to work on these farms.

5)    Dustbowl – on the Great Plains, the economic hardships were worsened for farmers by the onset of drought; this area had never received a great deal of rain (settlement had only been made possible by the techniques of “dry farming”), and the extended drought coupled with poor soil conservation practices produced the most famous images of the Great Depression.

B)   Decline of Organized Labor – the reaction against radical politics in general had a definite negative effect on organized labor; with the decline of organized labor also came a decline in the share of profits that workers got from the workplace.

1)    “American Plan” (its evil opposite would, of course, be the “un-American Plan) – the description of the corporate drive for the open (anti-union) shop; the closed (or union) shop imposed upon the “individual liberties” of the American worker.

(a)   Employer Welfare Plans – insurance, company athletic teams, and other company sponsored cultural and social events were all intended to fight the impression that workers labored for a coldly impersonal corporation that would throw them out into the streets as soon as an economic downturn occurred (which, of course, was the reality of the situation).

(b)  Company unions – gave the appearance of employee representation; in reality, company unions were a way of sidetracking employee complaints about working conditions and wages.  Corporations were able to push out or eliminate unions that were affiliated with the AFL, and replace them with unions that the companies could control.

2)    Decline of mature industries – with the decline of mature industries, in particular the coal industry, labor lost many members in these industries which it had already organized, while more workers were finding employment in newer manufacturing industries (like automobiles), that the AFL had never been able to successfully organize in the first place.

3)    Death of Samuel Gompers – Gompers died in 1924, while in office.  William Green, who had formerly been an official with the United Mine Workers, replaced him.  Green was not a dynamic leader, which the labor movement probably needed at this point desperately to battle against the tide of events.

4)    Continuing labor racism

(a)   Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters – led by A. Philip Randolph, by 1926 this union had several thousand members; the AFL, however, refused to charter the union, mainly because it had a largely black membership, and was led by an African American.

(b) Many craft unions in the AFL continued to exclude African American members; those unions the admitted African Americans to membership also tended to be more industrial-union in orientation.

C)   The Business Cycle – the so-called “boom and bust” cycle was an ongoing phenomenon for which we really have no good explanation. However, depression had happened in the past (1837-38, 1857-1861, 1873-1877, 1885-86, 1893-1897, 1907, 1920-1921), but had largely been self-adjusting (that is, they were waited out without government intervention).

1)    “New prosperity” – according to economist Thorstein Veblen in 1921, this so-called new prosperity was based upon an “inordinately productive form of mechanical activity.”  Machinery was able to produce more goods faster with fewer workers; but ultimately this also provided fewer customers to buy these goods.

2)    Wall Street speculation – buying stocks “on margin” (that is, with money that was borrowed, in the expectation that the market would continue its upward trend.  When the market crashed, these investors had to pay back these loans, which often wiped out most of the gains (and then some) that they had made previously.

3)    Unemployment – increased from fewer than 500,000 to more than 4,000,000 between October and December 1929.

4)    Federal Reserve Board – had fueled Wall Street speculation by keeping interest rates low through most of the 1920s; after the crash, the Fed reacted by raising interest rates at exactly the wrong time.

5)    Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930) – raised import duties to the highest levels in US history; this helped increase the downward spiral of the economy, as other countries responded by raising their tariffs, as well.  Many European countries went off the gold standard; Germany ended paying reparations because it was not receiving promised loans from the US, and France and Great Britain also ended payments on wartime loans they had received from the US.

D)   International economic crisis – we tend to forget that this was a worldwide depression, not only localized in the US.  In fact, because other countries were less hesitant to intervene through political means in their own economies, the depression was less severe and lasted a shorter time period than in the US.

E)    Hard Times – bread lines and soup kitchens became common sites in major US cities, and are our most common images of the Great Depression.

1)    Joblessness – in many of the manufacturing cities in the Midwest and East, unemployment levels ranged between 25% to 50% of the workforce (Toledo was at the high end of those figures).  Women, particularly married women, were forced out of the workforce, since they were there to earn “pin” money anyway, and were taking money out of the pocket of a male breadwinner.

2)    “Sharing the misery” – even those workers still employed were working greatly reduced hours; sometimes only 1-3 days a week, and often for six hours or less a day.  This allowed many more workers to remain on the job than would otherwise be the case; however, this method could only be used in larger manufacturing concerns, smaller ones could not afford to do this.

3)    Return migration – many southern whites returned to the South during this time, since it would be easier to eke out an existence back on the family farm among relatives and friends.  Not all internal migrants, however, chose to return to their former homes, or returned voluntarily.

(a)   Mexican nationals – many Mexican nationals had moved north to manufacturing jobs; with the onset of hard times local government officials and other workers often used intimidation to force these people to vacate their northern homes.

(b)  African Americans – remained in the North, preferring life there, as hard as it was, to returning to the South.  In part, this was probably caused by the increase in physical violence against blacks in the South; lynchings increased in the 1930s for the first time in a decade.

(i)    Scottsboro Boys – nine young black men were found sharing a boxcar with two white women early in the Depression, so naturally they were charged with rape, even though no evidence was ever presented verifying that any kind of sexual intercourse had been taken part of.  The Communist Party gained the trust of a large portion of the African American population during this trial and the endless rounds of appeals for their role in the trial.

F)    Government response

1)    Crisis in confidence – consumer and business confidence in the expansion of the economy had created the extended economic boom; as the depression worsened and lengthened, this confidence evaporated.

2)    Hoover’s response – Hoover was in many ways the personification of progressive politics; a technocrat, an able administrator, who believed that politics could be made apolitical, and that rational decisions could be made after one was able to gather sufficient information.

(a)   Reconstruction Finance Corporation – a plan which loaned $700 million to failing banks and businesses; but the government also raised taxes to pay for this, which largely undercut its economic effectiveness.

(b)  Bonus marchers – victims of an overzealous cavalry charge led by Gen. Douglas Macarthur, who ordered the shanties torched after removing the occupants at bayonet point.

(c)   “Hoovervilles” – shantytowns that were thrown up using discarded scrap were referred to as a “Hooverville,” in a black humor poke at the man most people blamed for their abject condition.

G)   Poor People’s Campaigns

1)    Communist Party and Unemployed Councils – local agitation for rent relief and other kinds of assistance were often led by members of the Communist Party, or by those sympathetic to the immediate aims of the party in the affiliated Unemployed Councils.

(a)   Sharecroppers’ Union – active among black sharecroppers in Alabama

(b)  Ford Hunger March – the march on the River Rouge plant in 1932, demanding work; 4 marchers were killed, and more than 60 others were injured by the Ford Service Department (led by Harry Bennett and peopled by thugs) and the Dearborn Police (kind of an extension of the Ford Service Department).  More than 20,000 people in Detroit marched in the funeral procession, while thousands more watched in respectful silence.

Conclusion – by the time of the presidential election in 1932, the country is suffering from a crisis of confidence, and from a lack of confidence in what had been the economic system—capitalism

Politics and Culture in the Jazz Age

I. Politics and Culture in the Jazz Age


A. Minimize federal government intervention in the economy

1. Treasury Secretary Mellon – persuaded Congress to halve the income tax for the top bracket of taxpayers, and drastically lower the inheritance tax (1926)

2. Federal government and railroads – in 1920, the federal government returned control of the railroads to private hands

II. Presidential politics in the 1920s

A. Warren G. Harding – last, and least, of the Ohio presidents; former newspaper editor from Marion, filled appointments with cronies from Ohio, known as the “Ohio Gang,” who looked to line their own pockets

1. “Normalcy” – (demonstrates the Bush is not our first English-challenged President; Harding in fact made up this word) Harding’s term for returning the country to normal—conditions back to some idyllic period before the class and race strife brought on by the unprecedented US involvement in a foreign war.

2. Teapot Dome Scandal – Secretary of Interior Albert B. Fall, allowed private companies to drill at an oil reserve called Teapot Dome in>Wyoming, secretly, after receiving “loans” from oil company executives.

3. Harding dies in office – after contracting food poisoning on the west coast. He had a hero’s funeral, but almost immediately afterward the stench of scandal from his administration lingered on over much of the next decade.

B. Calvin Coolidge – the solidity of Coolidge, and his personal lack of color, allowed him to distance himself from the scandals of the Harding administration, which he was part of.

1. 1924 Election – Democratic party badly divided; Southern Democrats continued to support Prohibition, and refused to denounce the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish KKK, while the northern branch of the party wanted former NYC mayor, NY governor, and Catholic Al Smith; after a record 103 ballots, compromise candidate Wall Street lawyer John Davis selected.

a. “Young Bob” LaFollette and the Progressive Party – painted as a dangerous radical by Coolidge campaign.

b. Proclaimed the “Greatest issue is the control of government and industry by monopoly capital”

c. Nationalization of railroads and water power

d. Ban labor injunctions

e. Increase aid for farmers

f. Restructure tax system to benefit working people

g. LaFollette was able to poll one sixth of the popular vote

h. Coolidge as a reflection on dominant ideology

i. Bruce Barton and The Man Nobody Knows – ad-man Barton portrayed Jesus Christ as a successful business man (which he considered a compliment). This provided a way to reconcile new societal mores with America’s fundamentalist Protestant past.

j. New importance of consumption – the “first importance to his country is no longer that of a citizen but that of consumer. Consumption was a new necessity to maintain economic prosperity--but the ability to consume was unequally distributed.

k. Reaction – Sinclair Lewis, in his novel Babbitt, decried the standardization and routinization of everyday life; that nationally advertised brands became the standard of excellence merely because everybody had heard of it.

2. Coolidge era foreign policy – “in these days of competition . . . capital . . .and statecraft go hand and hand.”

a. Pax Americana – the creation of a new world order that would bring stability and allow for expansion of American capitalism.

3. Foreign policy “successes”

a. Negotiated end to the naval arms race; the UK and the US limited to 500,000 tons, Japan to 300,000—but Japan was only interested in maintaining a one-ocean navy).

b. Dawes Plan – reduced the reparations that Germany was required to pay; country at that time was suffering from runaway inflation.

4. Industrial foreign policy a. In 1929, eight US automobile manufacturers were running factories in foreign countries (including Ford in England; high tech companies of the time (GE, International Telephone and Telegraph, Western Electric) had created an international communications system.

5. Exploitation of under developed countries
a. Venezuelan oil
b. Chilean copper
c. Cuban Sugar
d. Central American fruit (Smedley Butler reminder)

C. Immigration policy – after years of anti-immigrant agitation, widespread restrictions on immigration are put in place.

1. 1924 Immigration (Johnson-Feed) Act – restricted total immigration to 165,000/year; also set quotas pegged to the 1890 federal census ethnic totals in a conscious attempt to exclude as many eastern and southern European peoples as possible (Italians had averaged over 200,000/year in 1900s, but were limited to less than 4,000 after 1924)

2. Barred immigration completely from people who were ineligible for citizenship (Asian Indians, Chinese, and Japanese) b. Did not restrict immigration from countries from the Western Hemisphere, so the migration of farm laborers (and industrial workers) fromMexico and laborers from French Canada continued unabated.

D.. Herbert Hoover – a competent administrator who became overwhelmed by circumstances, and who lacked the vision to overcome those circumstances.

1. 1928 Election a. Democratic Party – splits again over the Presidential candidate; this time the northern half of the country prevailed and Alfred Smith, the Catholic, was nominated (as was the former secretary of the Navy and governor of New York Franklin D. Roosevelt); his anti-Prohibition stance did not play well in Peoria, however—or anywhere else outside of the large metropolitan centers, and Smith suffered an overwhelming defeat; because of his stance on alcohol and this Catholicism, he could only carry the six Deep South States
.
III.Mass Culture

A. Radio – for the first time, a mass audience could experience an event at the same time. Although this was used as a technique to keep alive ethnic cultures (polka stations, foreign language programs, etc.), it also allowed others outside that culture to experience it; business side led to mass entertainment to sell products—which in turn contributed to the homogenization of culture.

B. Phonograph records – a way to maintain ethnic ties as well; but once a record was distributed, there was no way to limit who would consume it, which meant that there was a great deal of interaction between cultures, which in turn created a new culture (Caruso, Sophie Tucker “The Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” the Austin High Gang of ethnics who frequented the jazz clubs of Chicago’s South Side and helped to create the swing music of the 1930s, particularly one Benny Goodman)

C. Movies – 1920s were a boom time of the downtown movie palaces, which were paeans to consumer culture; as the star system became more refined, these actors became more and more used to sell products (cigarettes, automobiles, etc.)

D. Automobiles – by 1929, 50% of American families owned an automobile, and the industry directly employed 375,000 people—with millions more indirectly employed because of it.

1. Fordism – Ford’s contribution to the automotive industry was his drive to reduce the cost of the automobile, so that it would become more widely accessible to the general public; Ford accomplished this by increasing the number of specialized machines used to create parts for the automobile. This had two advantages: it decreased his reliance upon skilled workers, who could demand higher wages; and it allowed him to set a specific pace of manufacturing, rather than letting the workers set their own pace

a. Model T – extremely limited choice (it came with no options, and in one color—black), but this allowed Ford to perfect its manufacture—which in turn allowed Ford to drop the price of the automobile from $950 when it was introduced in 1909 to $290 at the height of its popularity in 1924

b. $5 a Day – the famous $5/day wage, instituted in 1914, was approached by few workers, but it helped limit the turnover of 300%; the higher overall wage also allowed workers to purchase the product that they were manufacturing.

c. Increased mobility – ownership of an automobile allowed many more people to move to the suburbs (or “into the country’); also created a greater demand for recreation—along with more workers employed in routinized labor.

2. Sloanism – named after the President of the General Motors Corporation, Alfred P. Sloan. Sloanism is in many ways the perfection of Fordism; automobiles were provided in a variety of styles (kind of), and a variety of price ranges, with advertising aimed at creating a want (or “need”) for a new replacement at regular intervals.

a. Creation of the General Motors Acceptance Corporation – GMAC created in order to provide financing for potential automobile purchasers who could not pay cash for an automobile.

b. Triumph of Sloanism – by 1927, falling sales of the Model T forces Ford to shut down production, and re-tool for the production of the Model A. In 1924, Ford had commanded 55% of the new car market.

c. Increased importance of advertising – used to help people differentiate between largely undifferentiated products; advertising allowed companies to manufacture desires in their customers.

E. African American Culture and Political Development in the North – the vitality and creativeness of African American culture first gets widespread recognition as more African Americans move north, and more white northerners come into contact with it.

1. Jazz – first comes north in the early 1920s—moved up the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis, and then from St. Louis to Chicago; Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago from New Orleans, first with his Hot Five (which eventually grew into his Hot Seven).

2. Southside Chicago – the area around 43rd and State was the heart of the African American community in Chicago, the so-called Black Metropolis. It was here that a group of second generation ethnics from the west side Austin High School came to listen to the jazz bands that played the venues here, and by the late 1930s had transformed the sound into what we know as swing.

3. New York – NYC quickly became a Mecca for African American jazz players, who found gigs in the burgeoning African American neighborhood in the city known as Harlem

a. “Black and Tan Clubs” – clubs where “slumming” whites could come and listen to and dance to black combos, without having to be alarmed with having to mingle with too many African Americans, unless it was the wait staff or the musicians. The Cotton Club became the most famous of the clubs.



b. “Sweet” music and “hot” music – white dance bands toured the hinterlands playing “sweetened” versions of new “hot” jazz hits. Bands like the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, who would hire a few “hot” players (most notably Bix Biederbecke), but played mainly toned down versions of jazz music.



4. Reaction to Mass Culture

a. Prohibition – outlawed the manufacture, and legal drinking; led to the flowering of organized crime. By outlawing what had been acceptable, it grouped this behavior with other behavior that was looked down upon as well (secular music, dance, homosexuality) that then became tolerated in this developing underground society—and then more laws were passed to outlaw this behavior.

b. Rise of Fundamentalist Religion – reaction to increased urbanization, increased social contact with Catholics and Jews in urban settings. White southerners moving north also contributed to this. Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson

c. Rebirth of the KKK – became particularly active in northern cities (as well as much of the state government in Indiana; Catholics and Jews, and those who resisted enforcement of prohibition, became as much a target of intimidation in the North as African Americans during this time.

5. Scopes “Monkey Trial” – the so-called “Monkey Trial” personifies the tensions that were becoming apparent among white protestants in the country. In Dayton, TN, the ACLU convinced a teacher named John Scopes to violate recently passed creationist law; Clarence Darrow was the lawyer for the defense, and William Jennings Bryan was on prosecution team; Darrow called Bryan as an expert witness, and got him to admit to numerous embarrassing literal interpretations of the Bible—Bryan died soon afterward.

Weekly Assignment #7

Read Chapter 7 from Going to the Source, and answer question #3 in a 1 1/2--2 page paper, due March 4

The United States and Imperial Wars

I. Spanish-American War

A. The Imperialist Impulse

1. Alfred Thayer Mahan--the leading naval theorist of his time, Mahan argued that a nation could only achieve foreign policy success by building a strong navy. To achieve this objective, the nation would also have to obtain places for its large fleet to refuel--"coaling stations"--with the reliance upon steam for locomotion. This became the one of the excuses for the aggressive imperialism that became manifested in the foreign policy of the United States in the years just before the turn of the century.

2. Imperialist foreign policy--in many ways, the 1890s are a pivotal decade. In 1890, the  Census Department determined that the frontier in the United States had ceased to exist. By 1892, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner had developed  a theory that the frontier had been the determining factor in the development of democracy in the United States. That same  year, Homer Plessy was arrested in New Orleans for violating the new segregated railroad car law in Louisiana; by 1896, the Supreme Court would institute the doctrine of "separate but equal," instituting legal segregation. Worries about having room to expand met racist presumptions about the ability of  non-white peoples of the earth to govern themselves in this new imperialist foreign policy.

B. Cuba Libre!

1. The "Yellow" Press--the  birth of the modern newspaper in the years just before the turn of the 20th century led many of the papers to promote lurid, sensationalist stories in an attempt to sell more  newspapers.

a. William Randolph Hearst

2. Remember the Maine

a. The USS Maine--in response to perceived "Spanish aggression," the USS Maine was dispatched to Havana Harbor to "show the flag." On the night of February 15,1898 the Maine suffered a catastrophic explosion, which an investigating committee concluded could only have happened from a mine placed  in the harbor (modern evidence points to spontaneous combustion in a coal bin).  As a result, pressure to declare war on Spain grows irresistible. When McKinley asks Congress to declare war (the Constitutional method  of doing so, by the way), Roosevelt resigns his position in the administration to join the Rough Riders he had been busy organizing.

b. Cuban rebels--had been fighting Spanish forces off and on for the previous thirty years, and at this point had nearly worn Spain into submission before the Americans even began their short voyage. Rebel forces, in fact, held off Spanish forces during the American invasion, which is the main reason why the American forces landed unscathed.

3. The Rough Riders--is really a manifestation of the multi-culturalism that Roosevelt learned from his association with Jacob Riis. The Rough Riders were a mixture of blue blood friends from New York (who made up much of the officer corps), with cowboys, Indians, Mexicans, and a smattering of other  ethnic groups--with one important exception--who all brought the "barbarian virtues" that Roosevelt felt  Anglo-Saxons had lost.

4. The Charge up Kettle Hill--this engagement, like the whole War With Spain, was a FUBAR mess. It took weeks to transport troops to Cuba, supplies were inadequate--as were preparations, medical attention, and just about everything else  about the operation.

1. The Role of the10th Cavalry--under the command of General John J. Pershing, the all African American 10th Cavalry actually bore much of the brunt of the fighting for both Kettle Hill  and  San Juan Hill. Their bravery under fire was remarked on by a number of officers,  including initially one Lt. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. The 10th Cavalry did not have a personal war correspondent,  however, so none of them were awarded a Medal of Honor

B. The Philippines

1. Philippine Revolution--Filipino insurgents, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, had fought Spanish forces to a standstill by December 1897, and the Spanish government paid Aguinaldo to go into exile. From exile in Hong Kong, however, Aguinaldo maintained that he was contacted by US representatives and encouraged to return to The Philippines to take back up the struggle. Aguinaldo returned in April 1898, and soon rebel forces had overrun the Spanish Army in the entire archipelago except for Manila. With the US Pacific fleet anchored in Manila Bay, victory (and independence) seemed imminent. Filipino force were warned to stay out of Manila, however, on danger of being fired upon by American forces--and the Spanish surrendered to the Americans.

2. Filipino-American War--it quickly became apparent to Filipinos that the United States aimed at replacing Spain as the colonial master of the islands, and not long after open hostilities broke out. Outgunned, the Filipinos retreated to the jungle and fought a guerrilla war until 1902, after Aguinaldo was assassinated--although certain guerrilla fighters carried on until 1914.

3. The Carrot and the Stick--the United States, to win the hearts and minds of the Filipino, built roads, schools, hospitals, and other government buildings--while also burning villages to the ground that they suspected of harboring guerrillas, and torturing--or murdering--combatants that were captured

a. Dealing with "gooks"--Filipinos were referred to by many soldiers as "goo-goos," which became gooks--an epitaph that became used to describe most people of Southeast Asia.

II. Panama Canal

A. Connecting the Oceans--part of the concern raised by Mahan dealt with the time it took to sail around Cape Horn through the Drake Passage. Efforts to build a canal through the Isthmus of Panama (only 48 miles wide) were begun by France--which had just constructed the Suez Canal, with British assistance--began in 1880. After millions of dollars and the deaths of more than 21,000 workers--most from yellow fever and malaria--the French abandoned the project.

B. Creating Panama--until 1903, Panama was a province of Columbia. To get a better deal on rights to construct the canal, US representatives--under the direction of President Theodore Roosevelt--persuaded a number of leading businessmen and landowners in Panama along the proposed route of the canal to declare their "independence"--an independence enforced by the US Navy anchored of the Panamanian coast.


III. Mexican Revolution

A. Border raids

1. Two Mexican governments – one in the north (led by Poncho Villa), and one in the south

2. Anti-American sentiment – many people in Mexico resented the United States interference in political affairs previously in Mexico, as well as the way many of their relatives and former countrymen were being treated in the Southwest.

B. Unstable business environment – for US businesses, anyway; fear of intervention by British or German forces which would conflict with US business interests.

1. Petroleum

2.Mining – particularly silver, lead, and copper mines

3. Intervention – invoking the Monroe Doctrine, used as justification to interfere in affairs of Mexico.

4. Tampico Affair – avenging US honor, or the humiliation of Mexico?  US sailors arrested, then quickly released with apology from Mexican government; naval commander insists Mexican officials salute US flag, which they refuse to do; Marines and sailors occupy Veracruz by force.

5. Pursuit of Poncho Villa – Villa, looking to provoke US invasion, Villa’s forces raid Columbus, New Mexico, burn it to the ground, and kill sixteen US citizens; Wilson responds by sending Gen. John Pershing into Mexico to pursue Villa; Pershing is unable to capture Villa or his forces, however, and US forces are withdrawn, quietly, a year later (to be transported across the Atlantic).

6. “Dollar Diplomacy” – interventions on the part of US government to protect the interests of American businesses, began in 1909 with personal appeal from Taft to Chinese leaders on behalf of US businesses; with Wilson, this “diplomacy” often took the force of arms

7. Nicaragua

8. Haiti

9. Dominican Republic

a. Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, USMC

IV. War in Europe

A. Hyphenated Americans

1. German-Americans – number 8.25 million of German parentage

2. Irish-Americans – 4.5 Million of Irish parentage

3. Both groups either expressed opposition for English war aims (Irish), or support for German war aims (German-Americans)

B. Why support Allies? – Cultural affinity with Great Britain by politicians; the fact that Great Britain controlled US access to information about the war, so US only heard about “Hun atrocities.”

C. “Preparedness” v. anti-militarism – US had long held suspicion of large standing army, and of militarism, but this was in the process of changing.

1. Preparedness advocates

a. Theodore Roosevelt – felt the military was the great democratic leveler (unless you were black and relegated to a segregated unit), and would restore masculinity that was sorely lacking, particularly in the middle class (desk jobs)

2. Anti-militarists

a. William Jennings Bryan

b. Women’s Peace Party (40,000 members)

c. Most Progressives

d. Socialist Party

e. IWW – latter two believed that this was a capitalist war, fought to control overseas colonies (and largely, it was)

3. Wilson’s position – shifting, depending upon the political climate

a. 1915 – recommends military build-up

b. 1916 – switches positions, promising to keep US from entangling alliances, because that position is more politically popular, and there was an election coming up.

4. Peace tied to US economic expansion

5. Economic Effects of War on US

a. 1914 recession – US securities were held abroad and cashed in for gold, which depleted reserves; between $2.5 and $6 billion worth of US securities were dumped in the fall of 1914.

b. 1915 boom – with orders for war materials from Europe, US business booming; also, with immigration from Europe cut off, workers seeing wages rise for first time after a series of recessions; however, wages do not keep pace with inflation which soon hits the economy.

c. Wall Street Journal – praised war’s “tendency toward conservatism” in financial matters.

D. Effect of Total War in Europe on US

1. British blockade – Most of German fleet was locked up in ports along the Baltic Sea due to British blockade and naval superiority.

2. Contraband – anything enroute to German ports was seized as contraband by British war ships, and transported to British ports.

3. German U-Boats (Unterseebooten)

4. War ship inferiority – German navy smaller, had to rely upon U-Boats as equalizer.

a. SS Lusitania – British passenger liner, which German u-boat sank; suspected of ferrying small arms; of the 1200 passengers killed when it sank were 124 Americans (May 7, 1915)

b. Bryan, greatest voice for peace in Administration, resigns post over Administration handling of Lusitania, which leaves hawks in control.

c. Germany agrees to give warning to passenger boats in the future before torpedoing

d. German peace proposal – demands cessation of Belgium Congo, as well as other colonies; rejected by Allies.

E. Russian Revolution (1917)

1. Socialist revolution – overthrew czar, support for entering the war on the side of the Allies was gained from Russian Jews, Poles, and Scandinavian immigrants, who had feared policies of czarist policies.

2. Allied war effort – in trouble; French leader Aristide Briand’s government falls; Britain forced to use conscription (and considers conscripting the Irish)

3. Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare – in the spring of 1917

4. Zimmerman telegram – Germany tries to make an allied pact with Mexico in case US should enter the war on the side of the Allies.

F. Selling the War to the American Public – Wilson used the carrot and stick approach, using advertising techniques to sell the “benefits” of the war, and the law and police powers to squelch dissent.

1. Committee on Public Information – publicized German atrocities

2. War Industries Board – essentially, a planned economy; production planned; support of labor unions sought (through representation on the War Labor Board, a subset of the War Industries Board).

3. Revenue Acts (1916-1917)

4. Espionage Act (1917)

5. Alien and Sedition Act (1918) – made it illegal to voice any opposition to the war; it was under this act that Eugene Debs was arrested, tried, and convicted.

G. US entry into the War – the manpower the United States was able to provide tipped the scale in favor of the Allies.

Oppositional Politics in the Pre-War Era

I. Socialist Party – the so-called “left-wing” of Progressivism was an important source of opposition to the government as it was then constituted, and attempted to give voice to the discontents of a number of workers.

1. Eugene V. Debs – the perennial Presidential candidate of the party, former labor leader (founder of the American Railway Union, which was a leading force in the Pullman Strike in 1894), who turned to politics after being placed in jail for a year after the Pullman Strike.

a. 1900 Social Democratic Party – presidential candidate

b. 1901 Socialist Party founded – from the ashes of the Socialist Labor Party

c. 1912 Presidential election – Deb’s polled over 900,000 votes, 6% of the total that year; he was gaining substantial support not only in New York City and Chicago, but also in places like Butte, Montana, Oklahoma City, OK, Milwaukee, WI, and Schnectady, NY.



II. Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

A. “Continental Congress of the Working Class” – founding convention held in Chicago in 1905, which was attended by a number of leading leftists: Debs, Mother Jones, Daniel DeLeon, and “Big Bill” Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners.Many of the early leaders of the organization came out of the WFM

B. Egalitarian in Nature

1. Organized without regard to race, ethnicity – organized workers from lumber “bums” in the Pacific Northwest to turpentine camps in Louisiana to textile workers on the east coast (Lawrence, MA and Patterson, NJ)

2. Organized without regard to gender – calls for equal pay for women many years before it became fashionable.


C. Oppositional Culture

1. Abolish the wage system

2. Refusal to sign contracts – this idea went along with abolishing the wage system; thinking went along the lines of why sign any contracts, since the ultimate end was to get rid of the owning classes althogether?

3. Free speech fight – fought mainly on the West Coast, the bastion of personal liberty.

4. Belief in unions as a revolutionary vehicle – most member of the IWW believed that society needed to be revolutionarily changed, and that that change would be fostered by a labor union rather that a political party; this belief is called syndicalism.


5. Song – Joe Hill and “Solidarity Forever,” “Pie in the Sky Bye and Bye” and other which were compiled in the “Little Red Songbook.”

D. IWW “Organization” Drives

1. 1910 McKees Rocks, PA – led strike of immigrant railcar workers

2. 1912 Lawrence, MA – the famous “Bread and Roses” strike, when the IWW led members of numerous ethnic groups, who previously had been hostile to one another, on a huge strike.

a. Large number of workers who were women and children

b. Organized strike and relief committees for each of the different ethnic groups, and provided translators for the speeches given at the daily strike rallies, as well as for strike literature.

c. Striking pickets were able to surround the factories, forcing them to close down, which brought out state repression

d. Attempts to starve strikers into submission led to families placing their children with sympathizers around the country, which in turn led the state and companies to attempt to stop this practice, which led to sympathetic coverage in the press

3. 1913 Patterson NJ strike – the strike by Patterson’s silk workers followed much the same pattern as the Lawrence strike the previous year.

a. Seven month strike, again led by IWW after the workers had walked out

b. Betrayal by native workers – each of these strikes was eventually defeated by native white workers betraying their fellow workers and going back to work, allowing production to begin again.

E. Other worker rebellions

1. United Mine Workers – although miners were skilled workers, their lack of an apprentice system meant that they had little control over who entered the field, which therefore led the organization to be more receptive to organizing African Americans and southern and eastern European immigrants, since they were in the mines anyway.

2. 1914 Ludlow CO Massacre

a. Strike began in late 1913, at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; this company was owned by John D. Rockefeller,Jr., who also owned much of Standard Oil and was the richest man in the world.

b. Miners were evicted from their company owned homes, and forced to live in tents in the middle of the Rocky Mountain Colorado winter; mine owners pay for the Colorado militia to be brought in the quell “disturbances” – mainly picketing.

c. Easter night, militia moved in on the tent city, raked it with machine gun fire and set many of the tents on fire, killing sixteen people, including twelve children.

d. Touched off ten day gun battle between militia and miners, which was only ended when Federal troops were brought in and disarmed the miners.

e. Aftermath – resultant bad publicity spurs the development of professionalization of employee relations.

III. Race and the Progressive Movement

A. Booker T. Washington – former slave, founder of the Tuskegee Institute

1. 1895 Cotton States Exposition speech – “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers on a hand, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

2. Tacit acceptance of Jim Crow and voter disenfranchisement

B. W.E.B. DuBois – first African American granted Ph.D degree from Harvard.

1. Souls of Black Folks – contained as essay entitled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” which challenged the views of Washington and his followers.

2. 1903 Niagara Movement – meeting at Niagara Falls, Canada, because no hotels on the American side would allow African Americans to register; meeting drew up a list of demands to end segregation and discrimination in unions, courts, and public accommodations.

C. Progressive Era Race Riots


1. 1906 Atlanta – newspapers exploited alleged black on white rapes, which whipped a large crowd into a murderous rampage.

a. Georgia State militia – marched on “Brownsville,” home to a large population of middle class black (including, at this time, one W.E.B. DuBois) as well as a number of black colleges; professors and students were rounded up at gunpoint and marched downtown to prevent white “retaliations.”

b. Eventually, 26 people were killed in the rioting, 25 of those black, including four who were beaten to death.

c. Atlanta an ill-policed city – muckraker Ray Stannard Baker investigated this riot, and found Atlanta ill-policed, with high rates of crime which affected all citizens; his investigation of the reported rapes found two actual and three attempted rapes of white women by black men; he also discovered three cases of white on white rape which the newspapers had failed to report at all.

2. 1908 Springfield Illinois – white riot again provoked by rumors of black on white rapes, which resulted in three days of rioting and one black death.

D. Founding of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – in response to these widely reported riots, a meeting was “Called to Discuss Means for Securing Political and Civil Equality of the Negro,” which involved both whites and African Americans who had been involved in the Niagara Movement; became the NAACP in 1911.

Weekly Assignmnet #5

Read chapter 5 from Going to the Source, and fully answer question number 2

Women and the Progressive Movement

I. Settlement House movement

A. Jane Addams and Hull House--Addams established Hull House with Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, and immediately attracted the attention of a large contingent of well-healed supporters and a great deal of favorable publicity.

1. Inspiration--Addams was inspired by her observations of what was happening at Toynbee Hall in the East End of London. There, young men from Oxford (often looking toward a career in the ministry) lived among the poorest of the poor in London, ministering to their needs.

2. Vision--Although Addams was inspired by the work at Toynbee Hall, she made important changes to the operation of the settlement house when she brought the idea to the near west side of Chicago.

a. Non-sectarian--Toynbee Hall was an arm of the Anglican Church, the established church of England. Many of the new immigrants living in the neighborhood around Hull House were Roman Catholic or Jewish, and the decision to remain unaffiliated with any religious body (although accepting help from all) made it seem less threatening to religious institutions in the neighborhood.

b. Democracy--Addams saw Hull House as an incubator for the democratic process, and therefore programming at Hull House was much freer than she had observed at Toynbee Hall. Although English language classes and the "classics" of English literature were available, neighbors were welcome to bring in their own cultural artifacts to supplement these materials.

3. Creating Public Space for Women--Addams graduated from the Rockford Seminary in 1881, but spent the next eight years floundering because she had no idea of how to make a career for herself outside of that fo housewife--which she had no interest in.

a. Death of her father--Addams' father was her source of self-confidence; when he died in the mid-summer of 1881, Jane Addams was left adrift.

b. The Family Claim--as the remaining unmarried female child in her family, Jane Addams was expected to be the companion of her step-mother until the step-mother's death.

c. Limited Female Public Role--the roles that middle class white women filled in American society was extremely limited at the beginning of the Progressive Era was extremely limited--school teachers, missionaries, lawyers, and doctors would make up most of a list of "respectable" occupations.

II. Municipal Housekeeping--During the Progressive Era, women began claiming the right to speak out and be heard in public as an extension of their duties in the home--a right claimed with the phrase "municipal housekeeping."

A. Settlement Houses--as discussed extensively above, this was a way for many women (and a few men) to reach out to recent immigrant groups--some more successfully than others.

B. Municipal politics--while women were restricted from participating in politics at the national level until passage of the 19th Amendment, women were active politically in a number of municipalities.

1. Toledo--Pauline Perlmutter Steinem--grandmother of feminist Gloria Steinem, Pauline Steinem was one of the earliest women to hold elective office in the state of Ohio when she was elected to the Toledo Public School Board in 1905.

2. Chicago--women also gained the right to vote in municipal elections in Chicago, in part because many had found a way to become politically active before being granted that right.

a. City Club of Chicago--a group of well-heeled, wealthy men roused to action as a result of the labor strife that had become endemic in Chicago (Great Upheaval of 1877, Haymarket Affair of 1886, Pullman Strike in 1894, among numerous other events). Organization formed in 1903, with the idea that citizens of a community should take responsibility for improving conditions in that community.

--The City Club of Chicago was an exclusive organization. Members had to be recommended by other members, and then prove through a written application that they adhered to the political ideology of the other members--which was very business-friendly.

--Resolution of issued tended to revolve around was Club members viewed as being most "cost-efficient"--that is, whatever result might return a profit or lower tax rates.

b. Women's City Club of Chicago--made up of many of the wives of the well-heeled, wealthy men of the Chicago City Club--but also a number of other women (including those involved in settlement work), and who had a more expansive and inclusive vision of what "betterment" of the community meant.

--Garbage disposal in Chicago: City Club called for the continuation of private contract for the disposal of garbage, since companies not only did it "efficiently," but through the process of  "reduction" produced on oil used in the production of soap. The fact that citizens were inconvenienced by having to separate garbage from trash, that the rickety wagons that transported the garbage to the reduction plant leaked and spilled garbage along the route, and ran infrequently, were not persuasive arguments for making garbage pick-up and disposal a municipal function.

The Women's City Club of Chicago not only supported efforts to make garbage pick-up a municipal function, but also funded a study to ascertain whether the city should not instead operate an incinerator to dispose of both trash and garbage, and to use the ash left over to make paving bricks for the city streets.

C. Women's Christian Temperence Union (WCTU)--a quasi-political national organization that advocated the total banishment of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages of any kind. Organization was formed as a result of the split formed in the women's suffrage movement. The WCTU's great moment of triumph was the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919.

III. Jacob Riis and the Image of the Immigrant

A. Jacob Riis--an immigrant from Denmark, migrated to the United States in 1870. His experience as an immigrant was an extremely difficult one, and acquainted him with the dark underside that was part of the immigrant experience. He eventually landed a job with the New York Tribune as a police reporter. His most famous bit of writing is contained in a book he produced, called How the Other Half Lives, which helped connect him with Theodore Roosevelt when Roosevelt became a police commissioner in the latter part of the 1880s.