I. After the Civil War
A. Legal Discrimination in the South
Voting laws:
- Literacy tests- if you can't read, you CAN'T VOTE.
a. Sometimes tests were five pages long.
b. Not administered equally- harder for black people.
2. Poll tax- Poor people can't afford to vote.
--Many free African Americans were working as sharecroppers and had very little money for anything but food.
3. Grandfather Clause-those whose "grandfathers" could vote before the Civil War (1866) were exempt from the poll tax and literacy tests.
a. Most all blacks couldn't vote before the Civil War and the 15th Amendment.
b. This meant that whites had a special exception to the voting restrictions.
Jim Crow Laws
Laws requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites: drinking fountains, restrooms, restaurants. Segregation in all public places
B. Plessy v. Ferguson
- 1896- Supreme Court case
- Held that Jim Crow segregation laws were constitutional
- Did NOT deny blacks their equal protection under the constitution as long as the separate facilities were of equal conditions.
- "Separate but equal" is OK.
- In fact, separate facilities for blacks actually DID NOT have equal conditions.
C. Violence Against African Americans in the South
- Lynching-illegal executions, without trial, by a mob
- Ida B. Wells- fought against lynching
- Lynching was used as a method to terrorize African-Americans who were beginning to gain wealth and property
II. Discrimination and Problems in the North
- Segregated neighborhoods especially in cities
- Lowest paying jobs
- Often could't join unions
- Race riots- Happened in some cities (N.Y.-1900)
A. Mexican Americans
- Suffered discrimination
- Lower pay for the same work
- Debt peonage- became almost owned by a landowner until they paid off a debt.
B. Chinese Americans
- Discrimination
- Riots
- Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882- People from China could NO LONGER immigrate to the America
1920's Reaction to The Threat of Communism
Russian Revolution
1917 communist revolution in Russia
Red Scare
Fear of communists. Workers may start a violent revolt in America
Palmer Raids
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer raids suspected anarchists, socialists, and communists; deports immigrants. Civil rights denied in the interest of safety
Sacco and Vanzetti
Radical immigrants are put to death after an unfair trial
Ku Klux Klan
Membership increases; promotes terrorism and violence against people who are "different," such as: African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants. "Protect America from impure races an un-American people.
3 Trends in America in the 1920's
- Isolationism- the U.S. does not want to get involved in the affairs of the world.
- Nativism- mistrust of immigrants. Restrictions on immigration.
- Conservatism- keep things the way they are; no more progressive changes!
LABOR VS. BIG BUSINESS
In the 1920's---> Workers are inspired by the Russian Revolution and socialists in America to seek better pay and conditions
<--- Business Owners and the public are afraid of communists revolt and do not respect unions
<--- Conservative U.S. government tends to side with big business. Strikes are put down with force. There is little progress in workplace reform.
Labor Problems in the 1920's
I. The Boston Strike (1919)
-Boston police go on strike for a decent wage.
a) Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge -says "Police have no right to strike if it threatens public safety."
-Coolidge calls in the National Guard to restore order
b) Policemen fired!!!! Others hired in their place.
New officers get everything that was asked for
II. U.S. Steel Mill Strike (Sept. 1919)
Mill workers were working 7 days a week 12 hours a day in hot, dangerous conditions.
a) U.S. Steel Mill strikers went on strike when their demands for better conditions weren't met.
b) Security police, state militia and federal troops kill 18 workers.
c) strike breakers are hired.
d) Newspapers report lies that strikers are really led by communists who want to destroy the country.
III. Coal miners strike (Nov. 1, 1919)
a) Led by John L. Lewis
b) workers received a 27% pay increase.
Harding-U.S. Foreign Policy
* U.S. encourages all nations to disarm-scrap most existing weapons. and build no more.
POSITIVE
*Kellog Briand Pact
- 64 nations sign treaty never to go to war.- problem; no provision to enforce the treaty if it is violated.
*Dawes Plan
- U.S. banks loam Germany $2.5 billion so they can pay reparations to France. Helps avoid a military conflict.
Harding's Return to Normandy Foreign Policy
Isolationism
Fordney-McCumber
a.60% Tariff on imports
Tariff
b. to protect U.S. businesses
U.S. does not join the League of Nations
Limits to Imigration
a. quota system
b. "They might take away jobs"
c. They can't be trusted to be loyal tot he U.S.
d. Red Scare
U.S. demands that France and Britain keep their word and pay back all debts from WWI.
Hardings Scandal
Good appointments:
a. Charles Evans Hughes- secretary of state
b. Andrew Mellon- secretary of Treasury
c. Herbert Hoover- secretary of Commerce
Ohio Gang
Harding's friends working in Washington
Teapot Dome Scandal
a. secretary of the interior, sells federal land to big oil companies for a kick back $$.
Business in the 1920s
New Inventions
--changes lifestyles:
automobile industry (Henry Ford), airline industry, electrical conveniences (such as the radio, refrigerator, toaster, electrical stove, and the vacuum cleaner)
Advertising
sells more products: the new "age of advertising"
The Installment Plan
allows people to buy more products on credit without having the money.
The economy booms!
it is based on people buying new things with money they don't have.
Urban Sprawl
cities expand- new cars and commuter trains allow workers to live farther away from cities