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US History Unit 7: Period 7: 1890–1945

The US became a world power, reformed industrial society, endured boom and depression, and expanded government through the New Deal and World War II.

Covers: Imperialism and the Spanish-American War, the Progressive Era, World War I, the 1920s, the Great Depression and New Deal, World War II

Study guide

At the turn of the century, the US expanded overseas. Seeking markets and influence, and inspired by ideas like Alfred Thayer Mahan's naval power and the "white man's burden," it annexed Hawaii and won the Spanish-American War (1898), gaining Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, where a brutal war against Filipino independence followed. The Open Door Policy sought trade in China, Theodore Roosevelt's "big stick" built the Panama Canal, and the Roosevelt Corollary claimed a right to intervene in Latin America.

Progressives tried to fix the problems of industrial society. Muckrakers like Upton Sinclair (The Jungle) and Ida Tarbell exposed abuses. Reforms included trust-busting, the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts, conservation, the Federal Reserve, the 16th (income tax), 17th (direct election of senators), 18th (Prohibition) and 19th (women's suffrage) Amendments. Progressivism largely ignored racial justice; W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP challenged segregation, while Booker T. Washington urged economic progress first. The US entered World War I in 1917 after unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram. At home, the government limited dissent through the Espionage and Sedition Acts, and the Great Migration of Black Southerners to Northern cities began. Wilson's Fourteen Points and League of Nations failed when the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles.

The 1920s brought consumer culture, cars, radio and movies, the Harlem Renaissance and the "New Woman," along with conflict: the Red Scare, immigration quotas, a revived Klan, the Scopes trial and Prohibition. The stock market crash of 1929 began the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover's limited response gave way to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which aimed at relief, recovery and reform through programs like the CCC, WPA, Social Security, the FDIC and the Wagner Act; critics attacked it from the left and the right. In World War II, the US moved from neutrality to the Lend-Lease Act, then entered after Pearl Harbor (1941). Wartime production ended the Depression, women and minorities entered war industries, Japanese Americans were unjustly interned, and the war ended in 1945 after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Progressives gave voters more direct power through the initiative, referendum, recall and direct primaries. Jacob Riis's photographs in How the Other Half Lives exposed tenement life. Wilson's Clayton Antitrust Act and Federal Trade Commission (1914) tightened business regulation, and the Federal Reserve (1913) manages the money supply and interest rates. The Depression's causes included lightly regulated stock speculation with borrowed money (buying on margin), overproduction in farming and industry, unequal incomes that limited consumer demand, bank failures, and high tariffs such as Hawley-Smoot (1930) that shrank world trade.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act paid farmers to produce less so crop prices would rise. The Dust Bowl drought drove many Plains families west to California. When the Supreme Court struck down early New Deal laws, Roosevelt's 1937 plan to add justices ('court packing') was attacked as a threat to the separation of powers and failed. Many New Deal programs accepted segregation because Roosevelt needed the votes of Southern Democrats. Social Security at first excluded farm and domestic workers, jobs held by many Black Americans. Organized labor gained under the Wagner Act, and the CIO organized industrial unions.

In the 1930s, Congress passed Neutrality Acts to avoid the loans and trade that critics blamed for drawing the US into World War I. Roosevelt then gradually aided Britain through cash-and-carry and Lend-Lease. Truman defended the atomic bombings as a way to end the war without a costly invasion of Japan. Black Americans waged a 'Double V' campaign for victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. A. Philip Randolph's threatened march on Washington led Roosevelt to ban discrimination in defense industries (1941).

Key ideas

• The US became an overseas empire after the Spanish-American War.
• Progressives used journalism, laws and amendments to reform industrial society.
• WWI expanded government and limited civil liberties at home.
• The 1920s mixed prosperity and new culture with nativism and conflict.
• The New Deal greatly expanded the federal government's role, and WWII ended the Depression.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Thinking the New Deal ended the Depression; wartime spending did.
• Assuming Progressives supported racial equality; most did not.

Words to know

Imperialism

Extending power over other territories, as the US did after 1898.

Spanish-American War

The 1898 war in which the US gained Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.

Open Door Policy

The US demand for equal trading rights in China.

Roosevelt Corollary

Claimed a US right to intervene in Latin America.

Progressive Era

The reform era of about 1890–1920.

Muckrakers

Journalists who exposed corruption and abuses.

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair's novel exposing the meatpacking industry.

19th Amendment

Gave women the right to vote (1920).

NAACP

The civil rights organization founded in 1909, including W.E.B. Du Bois.

Zimmermann Telegram

Germany's proposal of an alliance with Mexico, which helped bring the US into WWI.

Great Migration

The movement of Black Southerners to Northern cities.

Fourteen Points

Wilson's peace plan, including the League of Nations.

Harlem Renaissance

The 1920s flowering of Black art, music and literature.

Red Scare

Fear of communism after WWI that led to raids and deportations.

Great Depression

The severe economic collapse beginning in 1929.

New Deal

FDR's programs for relief, recovery and reform.

Social Security Act

The 1935 law creating pensions and unemployment insurance.

Japanese American internment

The forced removal of Japanese Americans to camps during WWII.

Sample practice questions

5 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.