5. Unions help the working people.
By 1900 millions of Americans were working in factories. Many of them were immigrants. They spoke little English, some of them used to be criminals, some of them had to make their elder children work, too to feed their family. They could not earn enough money and they were afraid of being fired. Their children had no opportunity to visit school so in future they could join the army of unemployed.
Factory workers decided to start helping themselves. They started labor unions that worked for better conditions and higher salaries for workers. When employers didn’t want to increase salaries, workers started demonstrations called strikes. Often these actions brought losses to the bosses of the factories so they had to accept requirements of the workers. Labor unions have helped workers to improve working conditions.
Samuel Gompers was one of the most famous leaders of the unions. He was a Jewish immigrant from England. He started working in factories when he was only 13 years old. He became the leader of the one of the labor unions. Sam felt that workers all over America should have unions. He began working to get new legislation that would protect civil rights of proletarians. In 1886 he helped to start the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Many unions joined the AFL. Gompers was deserved president of the AFL. During his work here this organization prospered and became popular. Slowly AFL changed state of affairs: from that time workers were given big salaries, the conditions of places their worked in were completely always excellent. If something was wrong AFL tried to solve every problem which was caused by the masters of the factories.
There was one more person that worried about destiny of workers in United States. Mary Jones was an Irish immigrant who also helped workers to attend unions. She traveled all over the United States and called people to enter unions. She was called by workers “Mother Jones” because she was more than seventy years old and very kind to them. She also told people about their rights, helped them in a fight with their bosses. Mother Jones lived to be 100 he died in 1930.
By the beginning of the Great Depression millions of workers were joining unions.
6. The politics of the Progressives.
Between 1900 and 1920 a reform movement developed in America which sought to remove injustices and hard ships caused by the new industrial society. The people involved in this movement came to be called Progressives. They took special measures concerning the health of women and children. They wanted the secret ballot, which would make elections more honest. Higher education and vocational training would help people earn more money. Regulation of the railroads would protect the public. The Progressives worked for all these things. The most important Progressive idea was that government had the responsibility to help the individual citizen.
On the whole it was a radically new movement. It differed from the former politics of the US government, because it was less conservative than previous generations of the governments that substituted each other from year to year in America’s office. The integrating of America to the world’s business began. From that moment the role of simple citizen became also rather high.
7. The “Jazz Age”
In the 1920s praised morality of the Americans cracked. It was a dizzying time. The nation was experiencing greater prosperity than ever before. With prosperity came change. People began to create new forms of music and literature. New fashions became the rage. The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose novels and stories captured the spirit of the decade, called it the “Jazz Age.” Others called it the “Roaring Twenties.”
The 1920s was also a time of conflict. Some Americans, alarmed by rapid changes in values and behavior, struggled to hold on to more familiar ideas and ways of life.
Chapter 3
World War I and its influence on the post-war life of the USA
In the beginning of World War I, President of the United States Woodrow Wilson tried to follow the policy of avoiding involvement in some dangerous conflicts in Europe. He hoped the United States would not play the role of mediator to help bring peace to Europe. So, America was not going to enter this war, and kept neutrality.
Only something extraordinary could make the United States interfere this this bloody war. And soon the reason occurred. The passenger steam – ship “Lusitania” was torpedoed by the German submarine on May 7,1915. This tragic event took the lives of 1.198 people, including 128 American citizens.
Americans were outraged, and President Wilson lodged a strong protest with the German government. Although the Lusitania was in fact carrying arms and explosives to England, Germany apologized, offered to pay damages, and promised not to sink passenger vessels in future.
After the sinking of the Lusitania, Wilson realized that the United States could not remain neutral much longer. At his urging in 1916 Congress passed a series of measures designed to prepare the United States to defend itself from the Central Powers.
The National Defense Act doubled the size of the army, and the Naval Appropriations Bill provided money to build warships. The Council of National Defense was formed to direct and control the supply of the nation’s industries and natural resources.
To raise a large army on short notice, Congress passed the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917. The “draft” required man between ages of 21 and 30(later between 18 and 45) to register for military. By war’s end 4 million men were in army, half of whom served overseas.
From the very beginning of the American military action in Europe it was clear that it was going to be costly. To help finance this unexpected expense, in October 1917 Congress passed the War Revenue Act, increasing income taxes.
The government also raised money by selling liberty bonds. Politicians and movie stars gave speeches urging people to buy bonds. Some 21 million Americans bought bonds – in effect, loaning money to the government. Through these measures, and by increasing taxes on corporations and on goods such as alcohol and tobacco, the government raised $10.8 billion.
The war also placed extraordinary demands on American industry. Almost overnight, factories began producing great quantities of tanks, airplanes, guns, and other war materials. The dramatic increase in production would not have been possible without the dedication of factory workers. Samuel Gompers and other labor leaders pledged their support, and union members did the rest. During the war, union membership rose from 2.74 million in 1916 to 4.05 million in 1919.
More than 1 million women entered the work force, often taking the jobs of men who had joined the military. They drove trucks, delivered mail, and made ammunition.
The war also brought many more African Americans into work force. Northern industries sent agents to the South, looking for workers. By 1917, responding to promises of good salaries and fair treatment, as many as half a million black workers had moved north to take factory jobs.
Although most Americans threw themselves into the war effort, a few held back. Some people firmly believed that the nation should stay out of Europe’s wars. Others were pacifists. There were about 20.000 pacifists to be drafted.
Afraid that the opposition would hurt the war effort, Congress passed the Espionage Act in June 1917. The act set strict penalties for anyone who interfered with recruiting soldiers or made statements that might hinder the war effort.
The Sedition Act of May 16, 1918, made it illegal to utter disloyal statements about the Constitution, the government, the flag or the armed forces. In 1919 the Supreme Court ruled that the government had the right to suspend free speech during wartime.
Labor unrest
During the war, American industry had focused on producing weapons and supplies. With the war over pent – up demands for goods, and for better wages and working hours were unleashed.
However, factories that had been producing war materials could not immediately change to making clothing, shoes, cars, and other goods that a peacetime population demanded. Prices for these scarce products rose. Meanwhile, returning soldiers, looking for places to live, drove up the cost of housing. By 1920 prices were twice as high as in 1914.
As rents and prices rose, however workers’ wages remained low. During the war American workers had not gone on strike so as not to hurt the war effort. It was now time, they believed, to push for higher wages and workdays shorter than 12 hours.
In 1919 union leaders across the nation led workers out on strike. While early strikes succeeded, workers faced growing opposition as the year wore on.
When shipyard workers in Seattle walked off their jobs, other unions in the city showed support by striking, too. Seattle’s mayor turned the public against the strikers claiming their leaders they are radical and extremists.
In Pennsylvania and the Midwest, striking steelworkers called for an end to 12 – hour workdays and 7-day workweeks. Steel mill owners ignored their demands. They also accused the strikers of being linked with radicals. Whether the accusations were true or not, political leaders and newspapers turned against the workers and sided with business leaders.
After four months the striking steelworkers gave up. This failure dealt a crushing blow to the union movement.
Racial unrest
The tense mood of the nation was seen in racial violence as well. In 1919 white mobs terrorized black communities from Texas to Washington D.C. Black tenant farmers in Arkansas were attacked for attempting to form a union. In Chicago a white mob stoned to death a black swimmer who had strayed into a “white section” of a beach on Lake Michigan. In the violence which followed, 38 people were killed.
Faced with such attacks, and thousands of lynchings since 1890, African Americans launched an anti-lynching campaign. In this campaign, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called on Congress to make lynching a federal crime. The Senate, however, refused.
Despite its failure in Congress the National Association continued to bring attention to the issue of lynchings. It won several victories in the 1920s, as when a court struck down an Oklahoma law denying blacks the right to vote.
Chapter 4
The Great Depression
1.The beginning of the Great depression and its reasons.
Business began to slow in the fall 1929. The value of stocks drifted down. The decline prompted some people predict that the economic boom was coming to an end.
The greatest economic depression in the world’s history started in 1929. The stock market – source of the profit for the biggest part of the population of the United States crashed on October 29, 1929. It was the worst day in Stock Market history. People lost most of their monetary savings. Most of the banks crashed too. Most of the stocks became very cheap and everyone wanted to get rid of them, but no one wanted to buy them. Panic in every life area started. Unemployment, panic, chaos, together with wrong politics of the government made this depression more serious than it could be.
