Part 3
PROSPERITY, DEPRESSION, AND \TAR
(1920-re45)
1924
CHRONOLOGY
June 2 Act of Congress makes ,{merican Indians full U.S.
1920
citizens.
January
1
Government agents
in
several cities
arrest
thousands of suspected communist and anarchist immigrants in "Palmer raids."
January 16 Eighteenth Amendment (alcohol prohibition)
goes into effect.
November 4 Calvin Coolidge elected president; two women
elected as state governors: Nellie Tayloe Ross in Wyoming
and Miriam ("M^") Ferguson in Texas.
1925
Ma¡ch 19 U.S. Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles and the
JuIy IO-ZI The Scopes evolution trial is held in Da¡on,
Iæague of Nations.
Tennessee.
Mray 5 Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
arrested for murde¡.
August
Mry 3l U.S. government
ends price guarantees on wheat,
triggering a downward spiral for all crop prices.
August 26 Nineteenth Amendment' granting women the
right
co
vote, is ratified.
8 40,000 Ku Klux Klan members
march in
\Tashington D.C.
1926
Ma¡ch Robert Goddard test-flies world's first liquid-fueled
¡ocket.
November 2 \Øarren G. Harding elected president.
1927
r92t
February 23 Congress creates the Federal Radio Commission to regulate ¡adio broadcasters.
May 9 Emergency Quota Act restricts the number of
immigrants allowed into the country.
November 2 Margarec Sanger founds American Birth
Control League (later called Planned Parenthood).
r923
March
3
Henry Luce publishes the first issue
of
August 2 President Harding dies; Vice President Calvin
Coolidge succeeds to the presidenry.
introduced in
Congress.
to
l/Lay 20-21 Charles Lindbergh flies his solo flight across
the Atlantic Ocean.
August 23 Sacco and Vanzetti are executed.
October Premiere of
Time
magazine.
December Equal Rights Amendment
April 7 First successful demonstration of television occurs'
Constitutiou
The Jazz Singer æhets
in
era
of sound
movies.
r928
August 27 The Kellogg-Briand Pact oudawing war
is
signed by the U.S. and other nadons.
November 6 Herbert Hoover elecced president.
79
(g,r
il¡
?-
i
Part 3: Prospeúty, Depressíon, and Vl'ar (1920-1945)
December 17 Clark Memorandum repudiates 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to Moruoe Doct¡ine and pledges that U.S. will
stop intewening in l,atin Ame¡ica.
August 14 Th¿ Social Securiry A.l i, ,ig.,.d by Roosevelt.
1936
1929
November 3 Roosevelt reelected president.
October The stock market crashes, triggering the Great
December United Automobile'W'orkers stage a successfirl
sit-down strike against General Motors in Detroit,
Depression.
:
t
1930
June 17 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act drastically raises duties
on numerous industrial and agricultural products.
937
February 5 President Roosevelt proposes his plan (rejected
by Congress) to expand size of Supreme Court.
April
12 The Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality
1932
of the National Labor Relations Act.
January The Stimson Doctrine states that the U.S. refuses
to recognize the 1931 Japanese conquest of Manchuria.
}d.ay
January 22 Reconstruction Finance Corporation
estab-
6 Hindenburg airship
disaster occurs.
r939
lished by President Hoover.
February 27 Supreme Court outlaws sit-down strikes.
November 8 F¡anklin D. Roosevelt elected president.
August 22 Germany and Soviet Union sign nonaggression
Pact.
1933
February 6 Twentieth Amendment to Constinrtion ratified,
moving future presidential inauguration dates from March 4
to January 20.
March
4
Frances Perkins, appointed secretary
becomes first woman to hold cabinet-level post.
of
labor,
March 5 Roosevelt declares a national bank holiday.
March 9-June 16 In the "First Hundred Days" of New
Deal, special session of Congress results in creation of
September 3 France and Great Britain declare war on
Germany following Ge¡man invasion of Poland.
1940
June Germany conquers France; controls most of Eu¡ope.
September America Fi¡st Committee
is
organized to
oppose U.S. involvement in war in Europe.
September 3 U.S. exchanges 50 desroyers to Great Britain
for leases on naval and air bases.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Recovery
Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and other programs.
September 16 Congress passes first peacetime draft in
American history.
April 19 U.S. abandons gold standard.
November 16 Roosevelt extends formal diplomatic
dliance.
September
November 5 President Roosevelt wins an unprecedented
recognition to the Soviet Union.
third term.
December 5 Prohibition ends when Eighteenth Amendment is repealed.
1941
r934
May Dust storm destroys topsoil in Texas, Oklahoma, and
other states.
May 29 1901 Platt Amendment superseded by new U.S.Cuba treaty that ends Cuba's status as U.S. protectorate.
June 18 Congress enacts the Indian Reorganization Act to
heþ presewe India¡r uibal culture; reverses Dawes Act of 1887.
March LendJease aid to Great Britain and other nations
authorized by Congress.
June 22 Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union.
June 25 Roosevelc establishes Fair Employment Practiiês
Board a¡rd ba¡s racial discrimination by defense contractors.
August 1 U.S. bans exports of aviation oil to Japan.
August 9 Roosevelt and Churchill meet offNewfoundland
and formulate the Atlantic Charter.
Septembet 11 Roosevelt orders navy
submarines "on sight."
1935
May 27 The Supreme Court srrikes down
27 Germany, Italy, and Japan sign military
several New
Deal measures as unconstitutional.
July 5 President Roosevelt sigru the National I¿bor Relations
to shoot
German
7-Ll Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor;
Congress declares war against Japan; Germany and Italy
decla¡e war on the U.S.
Decembet
Act.
August Congress
of neutrality acts
designed to prevent American entry into another European
wa¡.
80
passes the
first in
a series
1942
February 20 Roosevelt authorizes the military internment
and relocation of Japanese Americans.
OPPOSING VIE'\TPOINTS
IN AMERICAN HISTORY
:,
':
Chronologt
June 3-6 Batde of Midway is the turning point in U'S. war
April 12 President Roosevelt
dies; Vice President Harry S.
to the presidency.
against Japan.
Truman
1943
May
tühite soldiers invade Mexic¿n-American commuJune 4
nities in "zoot-suit" riots of Los Angeles'
June 26 United Nations Charter signed by U.S. and 50
other nations in San Francisco.
June 20-22 Race riot in Detroit occurs.
July 16 United States successfrrlly explodes first atomic
bomb in New Mexico.
1 Roosevelt, British Pflme
and
Sovicc leader Joseph Stalin
Chu¡chill,
miuister
meet together for first time at the Teheran Conference.
November 28-December
'!Øirxton
I
succeeds
Victory in Europe Day occurs.
Juty l7-Âug¡rst 2 Truman meets Stalin and Churchill at
Potsdam Conference in suburb of Berlin.
1944
August 6 Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
June 6 Allied forces cross English Channel and land in
Normand¡ France, on D-Day'
August 8 The Soviet Union decla¡es war on Japan.
November 7 Roosevelt reelected to a fourth term.
Augrrst 9 Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
August 14 The Japanese government announces its
1945
intention to surrender.
February Yalta Conference occurs bent¡een Roosevelt,
Churchill, and Stalin.
'\üØorld'$Var
September
VOL.2: FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO THE PRESENT
2 Yictory
over JaPan Day signals the end of
II.
81
Not all Americans shared in the economic good
times. Olde¡ industries, such as the railroads and coal
mines, struggled in the face of new comperirion. Due
in part to a reduction of union membership, wo¡kers
received a declining share of business profits. Farmers
were hit hard by falling crop prices; net farm income
dropped from 99.5 billion in 1920 to $5.3 billion in
1928.
PREFACE
The quarter cenrury following \World'War I was one
of the most evenrful periods of American history. These
years featured new heìghrs in economic prosperiry and
technological development, the most severe financial
crash in all of Ame¡ican history and a corresponding
economic depression, revolutionary developments in the
¡ole of the national governmenr in American life, and
another cataclysmic world conflict. Americans often profoundly disagreed on how to meet the challenges created
by these events.
Vorld
'W'ar
I,
and especially
from 1923 to
1929, America enjoyed significant economic growth.
Experts believed that a "permanent plateau" of prosperiry
had been reached. Innovative methods of manufacturing,
such as the use of the assembly line and the replacement
of steam power with electricity, greatly improved productivity. These and other technologies led to the development of new consumer goods-including the radio, the
vacuum cleaner, and the refrigerator-and the creation
of entire industries, including that of the automobile.
The automobile was perhaps the single key factor behind America's economic growth in the 1920s. Due to
the manufacturing innovations of Henry Ford, the automobile was transformed from an expensive plaything for
an elite few into an affordable necessiry for the middle
class. Passenger-car registrarions rose
1920 to 23 million
in
from 8 million in
1930. The automobile industry
employed thousands of workers and spurred the develop-
ment of many secondary industries, including rubber
and oil.
The development of the auto industry helped fuel a
growing economy and rising standard of living for
many Americans. During the 1920s, per capita income
¡ose 20 percent, unemployment averaged 3.7 percent,
and inflation was virtually nonexisrent at less than I percent. Low inflation and steady economic growth meanr
higher standards of living; by the mid-1920s the typical
middle-class family owned a càr, a radio, a phonograph,
a telephone, and other consumer goods. These goõds
were often purchased on installment plans from national
6h¿i¡¡ s¡e¡s5-two other important economic dcvelopments of the 1920s.
82
G. Harding administration in the early 1920s). In
many respects, the Democrats followed the Republicans'
lead and offered few alternative economic proposals. AIthough in the country ar large rhere were debates ove¡
taxes, the Federal Reserve System, and the stock market,
these issues were not of fundamental concern to most
Americans.
UNEVEN ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
Following
Howevcr, clespite the economic hardships of some,
the majority of Ame¡icans continued to have confidence
in the economy and in the pro-business Republican leadership in \Øashington, as evidenced by the Republican
presidential election victories of 1920, 1924, and 1928
(despite significant polirical scandals during the \Tarren
CULTURE CI-ASH
The most burning conrroversies of the 1920s were nor
economic or political, but rather cultural. The decade
was marked by numerous national disagreements on various social and cultural issues, ranging from the teaching
of Darwinian evolution in public schools ro rhe impacr
of immigrants on American society. To some degree the
cultural debates of the 1920s reveal a clash berween rhe
traditional values of small-town America and the new values emerging in the modernizing American cities.
One of the defining conrroversies of the era was the
national debate over the prohibition ofalcohol, instituted
by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution
1919 and evenrually repealed by the Twenty-First
in
in 1933. Prohibition was enrhusiastically
supported by many white Protesta¡t residents ofAmerica's
rural areas and small towns, especially in the South and
the Midwest. It was generally opposed by several distinct
groups of Americans-urban Catholic immigrants, the
wealthy and cosmopolitan elite, intellectuals, and social
liberals-whom many of Prohibition's supporters viewed
with profound suspicion. In many respects, the debate for
and against Prohibition reflected the underlying cultural
divide in America at this time.
Amendment
The most extreme reacrionary movement of the
Ku Klux Klan. Its members
preached American racial, ethnic, and moral puriry
1920s was the revival of the
against the presumed threats posed by blacks, immigrants,
Catholics, and others. At its height, membership in the
Ku Klux Klan reached 5 million and attained signiûcant
political power in several srares far beyond the boundaries
of the Old South, the territory of the original Klan of the
?i
Ê
Preface
post-Civil War period. But financial and sexual
caused the membership and power
gready decline after 1925.
scandals
of the new Klan to
regulation and reform of the nation's financial institutions, a social securiry system for the elderly and retired,
natural resource preservation, and collective bargaining
tives on
guarantees for the A
THE GREAT DEPRXSSION
AND THE NE\ùø DEAL
Debate on cultural issues was overshadowed by concern
about the state of the economy following the stock market
craslr of October 1929 and the onset of the worst cnd longest economic col
suffering of the G
ceived by looking
bers can provide
unemployment rose from 3 Percent to nearly 25 percent'
America's gross national product (GNP) plunged from
in 1929 to $59 billion in 1932. More
banls closed, wiping out the savings
five
thousand
than
of millions of Americans. Farm and home foreclosures
skyrocketed. Al[ these economic calamities came at a
$104 billion
time when there was little or no safety net of government
relief, welfare programs, or unemployment comPensation. Care of the unemployed was primarily a responsibil-
ity of private charities, which often found
and recovery and reform to the economy. The-se programs
included public worla projects to create jobs, government
themselves
stretched beyond their capabilities during the depression.
The initial response of government at all levels to this
economic disaster was limited. At the federal level President Herbert Hoover strongly believed that government
intrusion into the private sphere would undermine Amer-
ican individualism and contribute to the creation of an
oppressive bureaucracy at best or full-blown socialism at
*oì.t. Ele.t.d president in 1928 with the promise of continued prosperity, Hoover saw his role as that of an "influential adviser and well-placed cheerleader." As such he
exhorted business leaders to maintain high levels of employment while cutting back on production (since he
teli.v.d that the country's economic dilemma resulted
from an excess of goods in circulation). He also urged
banking leaders to cooperate among themselves to Prevent weak banks from failing' And he encouraged American workers and consumers to spend with the confidence
that recovery was just around the corne¡. Floover's
approach proved unsuccessful at alleviating the Great
Depressiôn. He was defeated for reelection in 1932 by
a wide margin.
Hoover's vanquisher was Franklin D. Roosevelt, a
New York governor and Democratic politician who
ive
would go on to win an unP
cal
presidential elections and d
trr
life until his death in 1945
both in its fìght against the Great Depression and in its
fight against Germany and Japan in W'orld \Øar II'
Pledging a "New Deal" to the American people, in
his first term Roosevelt launched a flulry of federal programs aimed at bringing relief to beleaguered people
VOL.2: FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO THE
that
o,rsly into socialism;
New Deal was too co
danger-
ihe right argued
that the
obsolete
and disgraced capitalism. But such criticisms did not prevent Roosevelt's reelection by large margins to three subsequent terms in 1936, 1940, anð' 1944. Historians and
.cãnomists still argue over the benefits of Roosevelt's
New Deal and how much it helped America end its
Great Depression (most conclude that the nation's
involvement in Vorld SØar II had a greater role). However, the New Deal did, for better or worse' greatly expand the size, reach, and responsibilities of the federal
gorr"rrr-.n, in managing America's economy and providing for the people's welfare.
THE END OF ISOIATIONISM
Even as Franklin D. Roosevelt and his political opponents were arguing over various asPects of the New
Deal, events in Europe and Asia were beginning to turn
the country's attention to world affairs. \?'ithin a few
years America would have to make the crucial decision
over whether or not to intervene in yet another world
war.
Following the rejection of American membership in
new international organization
\?'oodrow \Øilson after \Øorld
hared an isolationist outlook.
The Senate repeatedly rebuffed presidential efforts to
tVorld Court
sânction American membership on the
(an arm of the League of Nations). Congress passed immigration laws in the early 1920s that sharply limited
the number of immigrants allowed into the country-¿¡other reflection of the isolationist spirit of the times.
In addition, many historians, writers, and some congressional committees severely criticized America's 1 9 I 7
'W'ar I, blaming that
áecision to intervene in \Øorld
choice on the conspirings of British diplomats, international bankers, and arms manufacturers' So persuasive
were their arguments that isolationism returned in full
force after \Øorld \Øar I, reaching a peak in the mid1930s when Congress passed a series of neutrality laws
designed to prohibit Americans from lending money
and selling arms to warring nâtions. These laws were an
attemPt to Prevent repetition of what were viewed as
the mistakes of 1917.
Meanwhile, international tensions were building
around the world. The League of Nations, bereft of
American support, was unable to Prevent wars or protect
PRESENT
B3
Part 3: Prosperìty, Depression, and War (1920-1945)
nâtions from attack. Japan invaded the northern Chinese
province of Manchu¡ia in l93l.In Europe the countries
of Italy and Germany had adopted fascist regimes and
had become increasingly aggressive toward their neighbo¡s. In 1937 Roosevelt suggested that such agg¡essor nations be "quarantined" by the collective action of peaceloving nations. But he quicldy backed away from concrete
action to cârry out such a quarantine in the face ofstrong
isolationist sentiment from members of Congress and the
media.
Thus, when war broke our in Europe in 1939, Roosevelt had almost no choice but to proclaim American
neutrality (although he did not follow'üoodrow'!üilson's 1914 lead by asking Americans to be neutral in
their "hearts and minds" as well). For the next two
years Roosevelt prodded Congress to modify the neutral-
iry laws to permit American trade and aid to Great Britain, France (conquered by Germany in June 1940), and
the Soviet Union (invaded by Germany in June 1941).
He also presided over an American military buildup,
pressed for the country's first peacetime draft, negotiated
a controversial agreement to trade American destroyers
for rights to British naval bases, and deployed the U.S.
Navy to patrol the Atlantic Ocean against Germa¡r submarines. All of these actions were opposed by a vociferous
isolationist movement that abated only after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Decembe r 7, 7941.
IøORLD II'AR
II
The United States was far more heavily involved in
II than it had been in Vorld STar I. Fifteen
million men and 338,000 women served in America's
armed forces. The United States suffered 1 million casualties during the war, including 292,000 battlefield
deaths. The war affected most Americans at home as
well. Income taxes increased significantly. The govern\Øorld \lar
ment rationed food and goods, including beef and gaso-
line, and housing shortages were â critical problem in
many ereas. FIowever, by 1943 unemployment had almost vanished as millions of men and women wenr ro
84
work in defense plants manufacturing war materials.
Most historians have credited the war and its massive military spending (the United States spent an estimated $350
billion during the war) for finally bringing the country
out of the Great Depression.
\Øorld Var
II brought
new challenges and opportu-
nities for women and minorities. Between l94l and
1945, 6 million women entered the labor force. Many
workcd in manufacturing jobs previously dominated by
men. The war also opened up new roles and oppottunities for blacks. Some fought in lØo¡ld \Øar II in segregated units; others found employment in American
In response to pressure from A. Philip Randolph and other black leaders, President Roosevelt
in June 1941 issued an executive order banning discriminatory employment practices in federal agencies and
factories,
companies doing defense-related work. However, fearing
sabotage and disloyalty, the U.S. government interned
112,000 members
of
another minority-Japanese
{¡¡ç¡iç¿¡s-in detention camps during the war. Many
of those detained lost their homes, businesses, and
farms as a ¡esult of thei¡ internment.
The war in Europe ended in the spring of 1945 with
the surrender of Germany. The war in Asia ended in
August 1945 following the dropping of atomic bombs
on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
early August 1945. The decision to use this new weapon,
developed by a massive research effort during'World \Øar
II, contributed to Japan's surrender, but it also engendered great controversy around the world.
\Øith the war's end America faced the challenge of
attempdng to return its economy to peacetime conditions
and reintegrate its soldiers into civilian life. There also
came an American resolve not to repeat the retreat to isolationism that followed \Øorld'S7ar I. ln 1945 America's
political leadership was willing to assume a significant
role in world politics. Not all Americans shared this determination, however. The years after \Øorld'!Øar II brought
renewed debate on both the government's role in American
life and America's role in the world.
OPPOSING VIE\øPOINTS
IN AMERICAN
HISTORY