Notes 1901-1939:
A New Century, Progressivism, the Great War, Roaring Twenties, Depression, and Start of WWII
1901: Assassination!
- McKinley attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo
-Shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz
-TR becomes president (Marcus Hanna quote)
Theodore Roosevelt
-“BULLY!” (favorite word)
- TR’s style = direct actionist
- Nationalistic
-Reformer / moralizer
-Loves publicity
- Finds new ways to work around Congress to grow powers of his “Bully Pulpit”
1903
- US begins construction of the Panama Canal (French had started project but failed)
- TR furious at Colombia for refusing to treaty to allow US to purchase canal zone
- Therefore TR backs a Panamanian revolution against Bogota with US gunboats
- Panama becomes independent nation – gives US treaty it wanted for 10-mile wide zone
- TR quote (“I took the canal and let Congress debate...”)
- US spends $400 million – takes 10 years to build – officially opens for biz. in 1914
- While being built, TR becomes 1st sitting president to visit a foreign land (steam shovel picture)
1903 – Flight!
- Wright Brothers (Orville & Wilbur) – bike repairmen in Dayton, OH
- Design their own propeller, lightweight / flexible wings, internal combustion engine
- 1st flight: Kitty Hawk, NC (Outer Banks) – Dec. 17th – covered 852 ft. / lasted 59 seconds
1904
- TR elected to his own term over Democrat Alton Parker
- Adds “Roosevelt Corollary” to Monroe Doctrine: USA will intervene 1st in Latin America to keep others from doing so – leads to criticism of “Big Stick Diplomacy”
1904
- TR as "Trust Buster"
- TR went after Northern Securities firm of J.P. Morgan and got it broken up using anti-trust laws
- "Busted" 44 trusts in 7.5 years - believed in killing the BAD trusts
1906
- Progressive author Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle exposing filth in meat packing houses
- TR labels such authors as “muckrakers,” yet book stirs him & Congress to act
- TR signs Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act to protect consumers
1908
- Henry Ford introduces the Model T (“Tin Lizzie”) built on 1st true assembly line in USA
- Cut time to build car from 12 ½ hours to 90 minutes = reduced price to around $300
- “Messiah of the Automobile” – cars for the common man
- Ford introduced $5/day minimum wage
Ford's Competition: Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors
- Sloan introduced choice of colors (Ford's quote on car color), yearly model changes, range of models by price, and buying cars on credit (Ford insisted on cash payment)
1908 Election
- TR keeps promise to not to seek re-election
- Handpicks his Sec. of War William Howard Taft (fat/jovial/amicable)
- Taft – with TR’s popularity – wins easily over Democrat W.J. Bryan
- Taft’s style as president – more passive, overall more conservative than TR (will lead to TR criticism), Taft quote on WH
1909
- NAACP organized by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois = first director
- USA’s oldest civil rights organization
- Led the efforts (unsuccessfully) to get Congress to pass anti-lynching bill and sweeping civil rights legislation for decades
- Rejects any compromise with Jim Crow
1911 - Tragedy
- Triangle Factory Fire – Lower East Side Manhattan – Asch Building
- March 25 – 146 garment workers die
- Employers had paid off fire inspectors – never connected sprinklers, locked doors to stairways during shifts
- Led to NYC passing stricter workplace codes – fire escape stairways, etc.
1912 Presidential Election
- TR tries to win GOP nomination away from Taft – fails – then joins the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party
- Race turns nasty between TR and Taft splitting GOP vote (name-calling quotes)
- Democratic reform governor of NJ Woodrow Wilson wins by a nose
Woodrow Wilson
- “Schoolmaster in Politics”
- Quote: “born between Bible and dictionary”
- Progressive / idealist
- Bookish / Intellectual – former Princeton President
- Non-compromiser
- “God-Almighty Wilson”
Wilson’s 1st Term accomplishments
- Federal Reserve System (1913)
- Federal Trade Commission (1914)
- Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914) – legalizes strikes & peaceful picketing
- 16th Amendment – progressive income tax
- Sends US Army into Mexico to capture bandit “Poncho” Villa – smashed supporters
1912 - Tragedy
- “Unsinkable” RMS Titanic disaster
- White Star Lines’ premier ship
- Maiden voyage from England – America (Southampton à NYC)
- Capt. E.J. Smith convinced to ignore warnings for icebergs and speed up (strikes berg near Newfoundland)
- Night of April 14-15: 1500 drown out of 2200
- Ship wreckage located 1985
1914
- Charlie Chaplin makes his first film
- “Silent Screen Era” of movies
- Nickelodeon – movie houses that charged 5¢ for a 10-minute film
- Entertained the working classes
Chaplin
- English born comedic genius/actor/director
- Superstar of the Teens and Twenties box office – Silent Screen Legend
- Lovable character “The Little Tramp” >70 films
- Most famous film “The Gold Rush” (1925)
1914 – Start of the Great War (WWI)
- Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand & wife Sophia in Sarajevo, Bosnia (troubled part of A-H Empire)
- Assassin – Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip
- Secret treaties: Triple Entente (E, F, R) vs. Triple Alliance (G, AH, I)
- Led to world war between “Allies” (E, F, R) and “Central Powers” (G, AH, T, B)
1915
- Germany adopts “unrestricted submarine warfare” policy
- Goal: prevent Allies from sneaking in supplies to help England
- Enforced by German “U-Boats”
- May 7th – Germans sink British passenger ship Lusitania killing 1200 (inc. 128 Amer.) - President Wilson warns Germany
German U-Boat Pledges
- Sank the ARABIC in 1915 – but thereafter promised to “give a warning first” (Arabic Pledge)
- Sank the SUSSEX in 1916 – breaking the AP – Wilson gives Germany new warning – Germans promise to sink no more passenger/merchant ships (Sussex Pledge)
1916
- Wilson wins reelection over GOP Charles Evans Hughes
- Wilson’s slogan “He Kept Us Out of War” based on strong isolationism in USA
1917
- January – Germany renews unrestricted U-Boat policy – sinks unarmed US ships
- March 1 – Zimmermann Telegram intercepted – proposed German-Mexican alliance – promise of Mexico’s recapturing AZ, TX, NM
- Outraged American public – Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany on April 6th (Wilson quote)
- USA enters the “War to End all War” / “Great War” – breaks stalemate & tips Western theater in favor of Allies
American Patriotism WWI
- Sauerkraut = “Liberty Cabbage”
- Hamburgers = “Liberty Sandwiches”
- “Hang the Kaiser” movies by Creel Committee (propaganda)
- Vilify Germans as evil – “Huns,” “Heinies,” “Krauts”
- Liberty Bond drives by celebrities
- Music – George M. Cohan “Over There”
- Sedition Act – 2000 prosecuted/jailed
1918
- Wilson declares his Fourteen Points = set of idealistic post-war goals for the world (scoffed at by Clemenceau – quote)
- Freedom of high seas, end of colonialism, self-determination, capstone = creating a League of Nations (pt#14)
- Armistice Day = Nov 11
Effects on WWI on America
- Increased role & status of women – Red Cross, nurses, US Navy volunteers – thus increased calls for suffrage
- Increased calls for sobriety on homefront – led to calls for prohibition
- Increased movement of returning Doughboys to cities (Song: “How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm”)
1919
- Versailles Peace Conference – Big Four (Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Orlando)
- Generated mostly vengeful Versailles Treaty – “Make Germany Pay!”
- Germany forced to accept war guilt and $56 Billion in reparations
- Germany must scuttle its U-Boats / battleships and limit army to 100 thousand
- Germany's territory in Europe reduced in size (A-H split up)
- Wilson gets League of Nations inserted in treaty ONLY to have U.S. Senate reject treaty TWICE
1919
- Eighteenth Amendment ratified – National Prohibition of Alcohol begins
- “The Noble Experiment”
- Reduced consumption nation-wide, yet was of great use to mafia / organized crime
- Thousands of “speakeasies” in cities
- “Moonshiners” / Bootleggers in rural areas
- Homemade varieties: “Bathtub Gin”
1919
- First Red Scare
- Russian Revolution had occurred in 1917 – fear of communists in America increased
- Also fearful of socialists, anarchists
- Wilson’s Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer deported @ 6000 “Reds”
- SS Buford: 249 “Reds” incl. Emma Goldman sent to USSR as “Christmas Present from America”
Harlem Renaissance
- 100,000 Blacks moved to Harlem as part of the Great Migration = working-class Black neighborhood of NYC in uptown Manhattan
- Greatest Poet = Langston Hughes – born in Joplin, MO - published “The Weary Blues” in 1927 (1st book of poems)
- Other great poets Claude McKay and Countee Cullen; novelist Zora Neale Hurston
- Black Pride Movement = Garveyism (“Black is Beautiful”)
- Marcus Garvey – born in Jamaica, founder of the UNIA, Black Star Lines - Pan-Africanism
“The Jazz Age”
- Title by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- New Orleans / African-American roots to music
- Rooted in the blues and the Black experience of slavery; also ragtime = a precursor
- “Father of Ragtime” = Scott Joplin
- 1920s “Empress of the Blues”=Bessie Smith
- Originally “jass” = sexual connotation
- Brass Band tradition in NO – funerals, parties
- Music spread via riverboats and railroads to big cities
- Early masters – “Cornet Kings” Buddy Bolden and Joseph Oliver, Creole pianist Jelly Roll Morton
“Sex O’Clock” in America
- Flappers – liberated girls of the 1920s – glamorous – fashion: strings of pearls, V-neck dresses – body on display
- Devil May Care attitude
- Sigmund Freud – sexual repression unhealthy
- 1921 – Miss America Contest (Atlantic City, NJ) started
1920
- 19th Amendment = “Anthony Amendment” ratified – women receive suffrage – helped into being by female participation in WWI (1000s worked in factories / farms plus nursing, civil defense, & U.S. Navy)
- Alice Paul & Lucy Burns – protested for one solid year outside White House – arrested – jailed – hunger strike – force fed – protested Wilson again – finally pressure - Wilson to endorse Anthony Amendment – he did, it passed
- Warren G. Harding (R-OH) elected president over James Cox (D-OH) – Harding = OH Senator & former newspaperman who promised a “Return to Normalcy”
Warren G. Harding
- Laidback, let Congress run country
- Charming
- “Amiable Boob” – not intellectual like Wilson
- Overmatched by job – “God! What a job!”
- Crooked Poker Friends given jobs (“Ohio Gang”)
- Ladies’ Man – White House affair with mistress
1921
- Emergency Quota Act – Congress restricts immigration to 3% of the 1910 census records by nationality
- Unwittingly favors E + S Euros – outrages nativists
- Sacco & Vanzetti Case (1921 – 1927) – 2 Italian anarchists (and atheists) accused of robbing $15,000 & murdering paymaster of shoe factory in S. Braintree, MA
- Sacco = shoemaker ; Vanzetti = fish peddler
- Both arrested carrying guns – Sacco’s was the same Colt MODEL as gun used in crime
- Biased Judge Webster Thayer + biased jury found both men guilty on largely circumstantial evidence
- Worldwide appeal to pardon – failed - electrocuted
1923
- Teapot Dome Scandal – Sec. of Interior Albert B. Fall does secret transfer of public lands in “leases” to oil men for bribe of $400,000
- Found guilty and sentenced to 1 year in jail
- Harding goes to Alaska & West Coast to relax + escape bad headlines
- Warren Harding dies suddenly in San Francisco – Aug. 2 – mystery
Calvin Coolidge
- Sworn in by father in VT
- “Silent Cal” – laconic in speech – not flashy
- Honest New Englander loved gardening
- Pro-business (Quote)
- “Keep Cool with Coolidge” – apostle of status quo
1924
- National Origins Act – reduced immigration quota to 2% of 1890 Census levels – thus favored N. + W. Euros (more Anglo-Saxon)
- Law also banned further Japanese laborers
1925
- Scopes Monkey Trial – Dayton TN
- Biology teacher John Scopes arrested for teaching evolution in violation of TN law
- Scopes represented by ACLU & Clarence Darrow
- Prosecution headed by former Sec. State (& presidential candidate Wm J. Bryan)
Scopes Trial
- Carnival atmosphere in town
- Bible versus Science
- Fundamentalism versus Modernism
- Darrow puts Bryan on witness stand – makes fool out of him
- Bryan wins (& dies shortly thereafter)
- Case appealed to TN Supreme Ct – tossed out
1925
- Louis Armstrong forms the Hot Five recording group in Chicago
- Trumpet virtuoso born in New Orleans’ Black Storyville (vice) region
- Single-handedly transforms jazz from ensemble art form to one with virtuosic solos
- Hot 5 (later Hot 7) Recordings called the “Holy Grail” of Jazz
1927
- Charles Lindbergh makes the 1st solo trans-Atlantic flight – 33 hrs. 32 mins.
- Roosevelt Field, NYC to Le Bourget Field, Paris
- Single-engine monoplane = “Spirit of St. Louis”
- Greeted as hero in Europe – later made “Goodwill Tours” of Mexico, Central America, & West Indies – and later accepted medal from Hitler
- “Lucky Lindy” & “Lone Eagle”
- Tragedy – 19-month-old boy kidnapped & killed in 1932 – led to Lindbergh Act
1927
- First Talking Movie – “The Jazz Singer”
- Starred Al Jolson, white actor who wore “blackface” make-up in movie
- Audience astonished —"Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet"—
- Sang “Toot Toot Tootsie”
1929
- October 29 = “Black Tuesday” = Stock Market Crash
- 16.4 million shares sold in panic
- Over next 2 months, $40 Billion lost
- By end of next year (1930), 4 million jobs lost
- Blamed unfairly on new president Herbert Hoover (R-IA)
Public Blames Hoover
- Hoover refused to acknowledge severity of crisis until 1932
- Offered platitudes “No one is starving in America” and “Prosperity is just around the corner”
- Homeless build “Hoovervilles”
1932
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) elected first time defeating Hoover (R-IA) in landslide, 472 e.v. to 59
- Pledged Americans “a New Deal”
- Resonated with the “Forgotten Man”
- 1st Inaugural Address (1933) Quote "The only thing we have to fear..."
FDR
- Irony – savior of poor born Hyde Park NY aristocrat
- Handicapped in 1921 by polio – carefully hidden from public
- Press agreed not to publish photos
- Elected 4 times as president
- Exuded confidence in his “Fireside Chats” radio speeches – dynamic speaking style
First Lady Eleanor
- “Conscience of the New Deal”
- Advocate for Black civil rights, the poor, women
- New type of First Lady – travels around nation making speeches, writes daily column
1933
- FDR’s “First Hundred Days” (March 9 – June 16) – over dozen new laws passed quickly to meet economic emergency
- FDR declares “Bank Holiday” (March 6-9) – shuts all banks for 4 days Congress passes new banking law
- FDR’s “Three R’s”: Relief, Recovery, Reform
- Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
1933 - First New Deal Programs
- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), National Recovery Administration (NRA)
- first of many “Alphabet Laws”
- Employed 3 million young men (CCC), built dams on TN River providing jobs + power (TVA), paid farmers to destroy surpluses and meet mortgages (AAA), voluntary fair competition codes (NRA)
1935 - FDR’s Second New Deal Programs
– Works Progress Administration (WPA), Social Security Act (SSA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
- WPA becomes largest New Deal agency, employing 9 million Americans on 1000s on big construction projects – WPA arts projects
- Built schools, hospitals, highways (WPA), Federal Arts Projects (WPA), provided old age retirement pension benefits (SSA), guaranteed bank deposits up to $5000 per account (FDIC)
1935
- 1st Neutrality Act passes (1935-1937)
- Once President “proclaimed existence of foreign war” then automatic restrictions started such as:
1) no sailing on ship of a “belligerent” nation
2) no selling/transporting weapons to “belligerents”
3) no loans to “belligerents”
- Designed to keep US out of foreign wars
1936
- FDR reelected over Gov. Al Landon (R-KA) in landslide (523 ev to 8 ev)
- Landon had tried to criticize FDR’s New Deal as wasteful spending – didn’t work
- Hitler’s “Saturday Surprise” on March 7--German troops remilitarized the Rhineland in violation of Versailles – Allies did nothing
1936
- Spanish Civil War begins (1936-1939)
- Civil war between Loyalists and Fascists
- US refuses to aid fellow democracy (Loyalist side) fight Gen. Franco (Fascist)
- Germany + Italy (Mussolini) help Franco – Franco wins and becomes dictator of Spain
- Critics call this “Peace-at-any-price-ism”
1937
- FDR plan to pack the Supreme Court fails
- Plan would have increased # of justices from 9 up to 15 for every justice who did not retire at age 70
- Public outcry – even Dem. Leaders in Congress - attack plan – rare FDR defeat
- FDR has to wait for anti-New Deal justices to retire
1937
- “Roosevelt Recession” – things get worse again
- FDR’s New Deal critics delighted
- FDR embraces “Keynesianism” = “Deficit Spending” – spends even MORE money
- Depression did not really end until 1939 with increased military spending
1938
- Munich Conference – Hitler wants Allies to allow him to take part of western Czech. called Sudetenland
- Allies cave in interest of peace (“appeasement”) – sign agreement Sept. 30
- Hitler promises no more “territorial ambitions”
- Brit. PM Neville Chamberlain foolish quote
1938
- Kristallnacht – Night of Broken Glass
- Nov 9-10: Nazis organize nationwide pogrom vs. German Jews carried out by SA (Stormtroops), SS (Blackshirts), Hitler Jugend
- 191 synagogues burned, 7500 Jewish shops destroyed, 90 killed, 30 thousand arrested & sent to concentration camps
- FDR only world leader who spoke out – but only 6 days later
1939
- Germany invades Poland – September 1 – England declares war on Germany
- WWII begins – Americans still isolationist
- World shocker: Hitler-Stalin Nonaggression Pact – Hitler and Stalin (two foes) agree to divide Poland and stay out of each others’ way