In Search of the American Dream: USA, 1917-80

POLITICS

WW1

• 1917: President Wilson takes the USA into WW1, despite promising not to
• Post-war depression caused by drop in production

The First Red Scare, 1919-20

• Triggered by the 1917 Russian Revolution
• Workers' strikes & media hype fuelled fears of a communist revolution in the USA

Isolationism

• Republican policy of keeping out of international affairs
• Tariffs on imported goods to encourage people to buy American
• Not joining the League of Nations

Rugged Individualism

• Linked to laissez-faire
• President Hoover believed that individuals could succeed through hard work, and that inequality was inevitable
• This was why he refused to act when the Wall Street Crash hit in 1929

The Great Depression

• Began with the Wall Street Crash in October 1929
• Markets slowed and businesses panicked, selling off shares & recalling loans

The Bonus Army

• WW1 veterans had not had been paid their bonuses due to the Great Depression
• Gathered in Washington and were dispersed by police and army

The New Deal

• Alphabet agencies e.g. AAA set up to help the poor and revitalise business
• Cogress gives Roosevelt special presidential powers to deal with the economy - war-like rhetoric

How Roosevelt Changed the Presidency

• Fireside Chats
• Positive relationship with the media - kept them updated and used them as a way fo explaining policy to the public
• Expanded White House staff

• Uncharismatic & made mistakes under pressure -"Too err is to Truman"
• Saw a positive relationship with the media as important & gave briefings
• Mishandles the media during the Korean War (police action)
• Less appealing than Roosevelt and didn't explain strategy (e.g. Korea)
• Generally used set speeches, and made serious mistakes when making ad-lib speeches
• Worked well with White House admin, but didn't always choose the right people for the job
• Worked well with Congress, but was often blocked by the Republican majority. Fewer contacts than Roosevelt so less able to network & charm

• Deliberately optimistic, friendly manner
• Saw working with the media as important, but often obscured or minimalised important manners (e.g. USSR into space, Little Rock)
• Good public manner. Used clear imagery to explain things. War veteran - made him popular with the public
• Exceptional organisation with long-term planning & debate
• Worked well with Congress. Good at bargaining & persuasion

• Charming. Worked hard on speech-making style & self-presentation
• Had a good relationship with the media (learned names & had personal chats). Very good on television
• Good public manner. Accessible & attractive
• Poor organisation, with advisors competing for attention. Abandoned regular meetings. Didn't always consult the right people (e.g. Bay of Pigs) & lacked long-term planning

• Experienced. Understood the importance of winning people over & could change his style & opinions to get what he wanted
• Not a natural with the media, but did keep them informed
• Could give good speeches (e.g. voting rights), but often gave stiff, awkward ones
• Organised, but kept much of Kennedy's organisation
• Worked very well with Congress. Good at networking & had contacts

• Clever & capable, but suspicious
• Took criticism badly
• Made spur-of-the-moment decisions before backtracking
• Distrusted the media & was very poor at managing it (e.g. Watergate)
• Not good with people. Often seemed awkward & insincere
• Very organised, but not good at taking advice
• Awkward with Congress. Found it difficult to make connections & persuade

The Second Red Scare

• Triggered by USSR expansion into eastern Europe & China turning communist
• High levels of eastern European immigration caused suspicion
• High-profile accusation, admissions & trials of government employees suspected to be involved with Moscow spy rings
• 1938: House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) set up. Made permenant in 1945 to investigate communist activity

McCarthyism

• Senator Joseph McCarthy headed the Red Scare, using a muddle on ill-substantiated facts as evidence of communists operating within the government
• July 1950: The Tydings Committee Report saying the allegations were a muddle of half-truths & lies
• 1953: McCarthy begins to investigate the army, which lost him a lot of support. The Senate passed a vote ofcensure against him & the Red Scare died down

Counter-Culture

• Sought to change society by rejecting the values of the previous generation
• Hippies: Wanted to loosen the family system & live in communes. Peace & a simple way of life
• August 1969: The Woodstock Festival
• Radical student groups: Sought to create a more equal society. Rejected racism & anti-communism. Protested against the Vietnam War. Mostly used peaceful tactics but some resorted to violence

Conservative Reaction

• The older generations felt that the counter-culture was creating social problems & that liberalism wasn't working
• Emergence of the New Right - neo-liberals, neo-conservatives & the Religious Right

WW2 & Foreign Policy

• 1945: USA joins the UN
• Truman Doctrine & the Marshall Plan - policy of containment by sending aid to countries at risk of falling to communism
• 1949: USA joins NATO

WW2 & Domestic Policy

• 1956 Interstate Act aimed at creating a road network for evacuating cities
• Federal Defence Administration set up to organise evacuations & give advice
• MAD - arms race & stockpiling of nuclear weapons
• Increase of military activity cost money, but also created jobs & boosted business

Impact on the Presidency

• Power of the president grew with America's involvement in NATO & the UN
• Armed forces grew - the President had the power to move forces around without permission from Congress
• 1947: The National Security Act put the armed foces under the control of the Defense Dept, based at the Pentagon & created the CIA & the NSC - both of which reported to the White House
• The president had to have the power to act instantly in the event of nuclear war

The Impact on Domestic Policy

• Shifted presidential attention away from domestic policy
• Congress took back control over home affairs
• Republicans criticised Truman's handling of the war & the cost

The Impact on the Presidency

• Truman mishandled the media. Reporters strated to get information from alternative sources & speculated on Truman's intentions to use the draft & the atomic bomb
• Pressure to scale up the war
• Bickering between Congress & the White House & between members of Congress

Impact on Domestic Policy

• Spending concerns
• Draft-dodging
• Mutual distrust between the authorites & certain groups in society e.g. police & protestors
• Intensive media coverage - 1968 Cronkite Report

Impact on the Presidency

• Cast a shadow over 4 presidencies
• Unpopular domestic policies
• Responsibility for the Vietnam War placed with the president
• 1975: Shambolic helicopter evacuation from Saigon caused embarrassment

• The media: Explaining policy => criticism => uncovering government deception, Cronkite Report
• Scandal: Watergate, Vietnam - Agent Orange
• Mishandling of events: Korean War & Vietnam War
• The White House administration: Rising costs, bribery & corruption
• Social factors: Police violence; riots; MLK assasination (1968); Kent State University (1970)
• The presidents: Johnson & Vietnam; Nixon & Watergate; Ford & Nixon; Carter & image / crisis management

CIVIL RIGHTS

Push factors:

• Jim Crow
• Lynching
• Poverty

Pull factors:

• Better wages
• More jobs (munitions factories)
• Less racism

Impacts:

• Decline in Southern agricultural economy
• More racism in the North
• Some Blacks moved into the professions & were elected to office
• Emergence of Black m/c

• 1930s: Black voters shifted from Rep. to Dem.
• Roosevelt limited number of Black workers of projects if donors wanted this. Black people moved off projects to make way for whites
• Executive Order banned discrimination in the defense industry
• Social security did not apply to farm workers or those who worked in other people's homes
• Black civil rights organisations attracted the support of communists, which was criticised by opponents
• Black church organisations set up support networks

WW2

• 1941: A. Phillip Randolph threatened a 100,000-strong march on Washington, which was stopped by the Executive Order banning discrimination in the defense industry
• Did not ban segregation
• Northern migration increased

Truman

• Failed to push anti-lynching, anti-segregation & fair employment laws through Congress
• 1946: President's Committee on Civil Rights set up
• 1948: Executive Order desegregating the military
• Earlier collaboration between black civil rights groups & communists aroused suspicion
• More focus on the Cold War than on civil rights

Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896

• "Separate but equal" was constitutional

Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954 & 55

• NAACP challenged the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling at the SC, using examples of school desegragtion.
• Judge Earl Warren ruled that separate but equal had no place in education
• Schools should desegregate with "all deliberate speed"

Black Separatism

• Argued that Blacks would never be fully equal with whites, so should therefore embrace separatism

• Began after NAACP worker Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a white man
• The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was set up, with MLK as its leader, to organise a one-day boycott
• The boycott was a success & was continued for a year, until the SC ruled bus segregation unconstitutional
• 75% of bus users in Montgomery were Black, and most of them participated in the boycott. This put economic pressure on the bus companies & downtown businesses
• Clear turning point in the CRM as a legal challenge operated in conjunction with a direct action protest

• 1955: Appointed leader of the MIA
• Very media-conscious
• 1957: Set up the Southern Christian Leadership Council
• Refined the non-violent protest rules in order to create the best media impression

The rules of non-violent protest

• It must always be clear who is the oppressor, and who the oppressed
• Getting arrested publicly & going peaceably is good publicity. Campaigners were taught to go limp if the police tried to remove them from a sit-in
• Acceot as many white people as you can on your protests

• 9 Black children were selected to attend the previously all-white Central High School
• The National Guard were sent to stop the children entering the school
• Photographs of Elizabeth Eckford being harrassed by an angry white mob shocked the world
• King put pressure on President Eisenhower, pointing out the damage it was doing to his administration
• Eisenhower reluctantly sent in federal troops to guard the children
• Eventually, the school was integrated for good

• 1960: 4 Black students sat at a segregated lunch counter at a department store. They waited to be served until the store shut
• The next day, the students returned & were joined by another 30 students
• The following day, almost all the seats were filled by student protestors. White mobs came to heckle them & the protest attracted the attention of the media
• The media was filled with images of calm, well-dressed black students waiting to be served whilst being attacked by racist white mobs
• The shop shut due to a bomb scare, but by then the message had gotten out and sit-ins sprang up across the South

• April 1960: Formed as an integrated student organisation, which advocated non-violent direct action
• Provided training sessions on how to cope with violence & abuse during demonstrations
• Sent field secretaries to live & work in dangerous parts of the South, where they were tasked with encouraging voter registration
• Took King's ideas a step further by actively protesting in areas where they knew there would be violence

• 1961: CORE & SNCC carried out freedom rides in the South
• Designed to test whether bus restfoom facilities had been desegregated
• Intended to provoke a crisis & media outcry
• Wanted to force the govt. to enforce civil rights legislation
• Buses were attacked, chased & firebombed. Riders were imprisoned & beaten up, and three people were killed

• 1963: MLK & SCLC led a push to desegragate the town of Birmingham, Alabama
• One tactic was to get arrested & fill the jails. Within a month all the jails were full
• Children were trained in protest techniques & Police Chief Bull Connor ordered high-pressure hoses & dogs be used on them
• Again, shocking pictures went worldwide
• President Kennedy sent in federal troops to restore calm & the town was desegregated
• The March on Washington (August 1963) showed the scale of civil rights activism

• 1954: Election year. SNCC sent white volunteers to Mississippi to encourage voter registration
• They were joined by local Black volunteers
• 21st June: Three volunteers disappeared, & were found dead six weeks later. By the end of the summer, there had been a total of six murders, 35 shooting incidentd & countless beatings
• Of the 17,000 who tried to register to vote that year, only 1,600 were successful

• 1965: Stokely Carmichael founded the Lowndes County Freedom Organisation
• 1966: James Meredith is shot on the second day of a "March Against Fear". King takes over & urges non-violent direct action, but Carmichael argues that non-violence is not working.
• Carmichael calls for the SNCC to radicalise & exclude white campaigners
• From 1965, the movement splt. The Black Power movement was not a united force, as part of it broke off to form the Black Panthers.
• The Black Panthers wore uniforms & carried guns, and organised community projects in northern ghettos. They formed radical trade unions & demanded that black history courses be taught in universities

• After 1964, MLK turned his attention to the North
• Focus on living conditions in the black ghettos
• The campaign petered out - in many ways it was harder to combat social issues than it was to bring about legislative change
• MLK's relationship with the media turned sour
• 1967: Began the Poor People's Campaign
• 1968: Assassinated whilst supporting a strike of Memphis sanitation workers

Achievements

• Development of a black American upper & middle class
• Home ownership & graduates up
• Black culture more significant & valued
• Voter registration & turnout up

Limitations

• Progress slowed after the CRA & VRA
• Affirmative action not popular with everyone
• Death of MLK meant the movement lost its figurehead
• Black Power movement unpopular with lawmakers

Issues

• Tribal homelands
• Self-determination
• Cultural destruction & appropriation

Methods

• AIM - "Red Power"
• Sit-ins, demonstrations & occupations

Gains & Limitatioms

• Nixon sympathised - legislated for greater Native American autonomy
• Returned some land to tribes
• Some states continued to evict tribes if the land was needed for development

Issues

• Land
• Workers' rights
• Discrimination
• Deportation - Operation *******

Methods

• Cesar Chavez - hunger strikes
• non-violent protest
• Brown Berets - militance

Success

• 1954: Hispanics ruled equal citizens
• 1974: Equal Opportunities Act - bilingual teaching
• 1975: VRA extention provided language assistance at polling stations
• Land issues still not settled

• 1969: Began after the Stonewall Inn riot
• Harvey Milk - elected to office in San Francisco in 1977
• Gay Liberation Front set up after Stonewall
• 1974: Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay person elected to office
• Proposition 6 (Florida, 1977): Proposed state legislation to ban gay people from teaching
• 1978: Save Our Children (SOC) set up to campaign against gay rights legislation

SOCIETY & CULTURE

WW1

• Women recruited to work in munitions factories. Often sacked to make way for men returning from the war
• 1920: Women get the right to vote - mainly educated, m/c white women
• 1920s: Changing industries created new women's jobs e.e. typing. Campaigns for fairer employment launched.
• Flappers

The Great Depression

• Women who were divorces, deserted or widowed suffered the most
• Some looked for work to supplement their husbands' incomes
• The Women's Bureau of Labor - sometimes viewed as hindering progress - supported restricting women's hours. Pushed for minimum wage (no minimum wage for men)
• A lot of legislation did not apply to agricultural work or domestic service
• Men given priority on work programmes
• Some benefits given to the poorest families
• Housewives Leagues set up by Black women to organise local help for those in need

WW2

• Rosie the Riveter
• 1940 Selective Training & Work Act
• 1941 Lanham Act provided additional childcare
• Lots of women in agricultural work
• Black women allowed into professions e.g. nursing
• Female employment rose again after the war ended. Restrictions barring married women from ceertain jobs were lifted
• Some women moved from clerical work into specialist industries e.g. advertising or insurance

Suburbia

• Social networks & friendship groups - working women / non-conformists often excluded.
• Labour-saving devices
• Betty Friedan - The Feminine Mystique (1963)
• Women in rural communities remained cut off until out-of-town shopping centres, radio & electrcity came to rural areas

• 1961: Kennedy set up a Commission of Enquiry on the Status of Women. Found that the Equal Pay Act needed enforcing
• Socialisation of girls - not encouraged to think about careers
• 1963: Betty Friedan - The Feminine Mystique
• 1966: National Organisation for Women (NOW)
• Young radicals emerged - used by the media to do down the movement
• 1970: General strike

Opposition

• STOP ERA - campaign against the Equal Rights Act

Successes & Limitations

• ERA never passed - bill expired
• 1973: Contraception made available to married & unmarried women
• Movement fragmented

• Open-door policy until WW1 - immigration largely from Northern & Western Europe
• Immigration increased rapidly & many failed to integrate
• 1911: The Dillingham Report - concluded that immigration was posing a threat to American society & culture
• Spike in unemployment & the First Red Scare - hostilities against immigrants
• 1920s: Immigration Acts
• Immigration from Europe & Asia reduced. Immigration from S.America increased to fill the need for cheap labour
• Deportations of Mexican workers during the Depression to make way for unemployed Americans
• Americans of Italian, German & Japanese origin considered "enemy aliens"
• 120,000 Japanese put in internment camps 
• Many fought in the US army
• Cold War: Refugees fleeing communism e.g. Cuba, Vietnam & Eastern Europe

• Quotas used from the 1920s - 1965
• From 1953, Refugee Acts were passed to allow the US to take in refugees fleeing communism
• 1965: Johnson removed quotas, making it easier to admit refugees
• 1960s: Refugees from Vietnam
• 1954: Operation ******* began deporting illegal immigrants in the Southern states

• 1927: The Jazz Singer became the first movie with sound
• Movie theatres boomed during the 1920s
• Newsreel before the main movie - WW1 & WW2
• Actors & Actresses became very influential - expected to behave in a way that fitted their on-screen image
• Studios held a lot of power
• 1930: The Hays Code brought in to regulate movies

• Jazz became popular in the cities after WW1 & during the Great Depression - many bands / singers were black
• Radios sold better than records during the Depression
• Radio broadcast news faster than the newspapers. Used sponsorship & advertising to gain funding
• Radio Act 1927 - brought the airwaves under federal control
• Mass culture

• 1939: FDR - 1st President on television
• Development of TV programmes began at local level
• Advertising directed at children & teenagers
• Politicians began to use television to gain support
• Recording techniques, sets & special effects improved
• More channels & shows
• Less shown live - news & sport
• 1969: PBS set up - education the main aim
• Drama series e.g. M*A*S*H drew on real-life issues e.g. the Vietnam War
• Sitcoms reflected black family life e.g. Fresh Prince of Bel Air
• Political satire
• News programmes became more opinionated & analytical

• Pre-1930 - Reporting on govt. activity & issues
• Great Depression - Communicating with & explaining issues to the public. Good relationship with the presdient e.g. Fireside Chats
• 1945-1960's - criticising the govt. e.g. Korean War
• 1960s-80 - uncovering govt. wrongdoing e.g. Watergate & Vietnam
• Ed Murrow - Criticised McCarthy during the Second Red Scare
• Walter Cronkite - The Cronlite Report, 1968
• Jimmy Carter - poor media image. Media used incidents as a way of illustrating his weaknesses

THE CHANGING QUALITY OF LIFE

• Post-war depression caused by slowing of production. Crop prices fell due to over-production. Strikes & the decline of older industries led to increased unemployment
• 1920s Boom caused by growth in mass production. Goods bought on credit. Mass production (e.g. Ford Model T). Investment in the bull market. Consumer confidence high
• 1929 Wall St. Crash. Demand for cunsumer goods had began to fall, so shareholders began to sell off shares. Businesses cut wages & sacked employees This triggered panic selling & led to the crash. Fuelled by media hysteria. People lost homes. farms & businesses as they couldn't keep up with loan repayments
• Recovery under the New Deal. FDR's Alphabet Agencies set up to help with employment & loans. All the banks were closed & only the healthy ones were allowed to re-open. WW2 pulled the USA out of economic depression

Causes of the Post-War Boom

• Demand for consumer goods
• Expansion of business
• Govt. clampdown on strikes
• Post-war baby boom meant demand for child-related consumer goods
• Demand for crops at home & abroad meant farmers did well
• Govt. spending rose steadily - welfare & social security

• Farmers & businesses exploited demand for goods & deregualtion of prices - inflation rose
• Growth in consumer confidence - consumerism = patriotic vs. communism
• Levttowns - cheap, pre-fabricated homes
• USA lost its place as technological innovator to Japan (transistor radio)
• Industry moved South & West
• Paper money & gold reserves became increasingly out of balance as the govt. increased the money supply

Stagflation

• Businesses stopped expanding (wages fell), but prices continued to rise
• Fixed income earners suffered
• Govt. spending still high

Fuel Crises

• OPEC supported Palestine during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. It put up oil prices & embargoed oil exportes to countries that supported Israel (e.g. the USA). Major shortage, 55 mph speed limit introduced & oil rationed
• 1979 Fuel Shortage was less severe, but there were concerns regarding winter heating
• People blamed the govt. for failing to deal with the crises

Confidence Crisis

• Depression, unemployment, rise in prices
• Rising homelessness
• Fall in living standards

• Home ownership - 1920: 6,700,000 ; 1940: 19,600,000
• Appliances included in 1940 census: running water (69.9%); electric lighting (78.7%); gas cooker (48.8%); central heating (42%); electric fridge (44.1%); radio (82.8%)
• 1920s: Growth of chain stores
• 1930s: More spent on food, but less spent on eating out (due to the Depression)
• 1920s & 30s: Boom in household appliances. Widespread electrification boosted sales of goods in rural areas
• Death rate declined - some increase in the 1930s
• Education - 1917: 27.1% aged 14-17 in school ; 1940: 73%

• WW2: consumerism was unpatriotic
• Post-war: Consumer society boomed - increase in advertising, colours, models, in-built obsolescence
• Growth of TV - advertising & sponsorship - "pester power" & targetted advertising
• Food - Fast food, sugary drinks & ready meals
• Teenage consumption - transport, food, clothing & sports, entertainment
• 1960 census: home ownership (62%); running water (93%); electric cooker (30.8%); freezers (18.5%); radio (92%); washing machines (40.3%); telephones (78.5%); TV (85%)

• Non-white Americans & employment - lower wages. Affirmative action unpopular & unhelpful
• Poverty - 1966: 12% white Americans ; 41& non-white Americans
• Inner cities - planned shrinkage
• JFK - New Frontier
• LBJ - Great Society - not enough funding
• Nixon - shift of focus towards the working poor, the elderly, children & the disabled - "workfare, not welfare" 
• Carter - wanted to help working & non-working poor, without raising costs

1917-45

• Speakeasies during prohibition
• Variation between areas - e.g. number & quality of cinemas in NYC varied between white areas & black areas
• Growth in car ownership meant people could get to the National Parks, Kiddie Parks, amusement parks
• Radios & books (cheap paperbacks v. popular
• Impact of radio on spectator sports - forced to offer packages etc to boost attendence
• Impact of WW2

1945-80

• Better wages & working conditions = more leisure time
• Fast food chains
• Baby boom - family leisure activities e.g. Disneyland, 1955
• Shopping malls
• Home computers

• Industry - Expansion of the car industry = more jobs. Wages for industry workers went up, price of cars went down, demand increased
• Associated supplies - filling stations, mechanics' workshops, dealerships
• Roads improved & expanded
• Diners & motels, travelling salesmen, commuters, deliveries, freight
• Out-of-town shopping malls
• Drive-in fast food chains, cinemas
• Tourism - cities, attractions
• New car every year - competition & consumerism
• Poor people still relied on public transport
• Rise in pollution

• 1915: Small seaplanes & mail carriers
• 1925: Kelly Act laid down national routes for mail delivery
• Air travel became safer, so more people flew
• Post-WW2: Jet engines & radar
• By the 1970s, air travel had become much cheaper, so m/c Americans could afford to fly regularly. Some commuted by plane
• Tourism to the USA increased
• 1978: Airline Deregulation Act - deregulated ticket prices, routes buyouts & mergers