Lecture Outlines

Lecture 1

"The Foreigners made it otherwise:" first contact, conquest and catastrophe (Pollard)

Introduction: Paul Bunyan and the American Myth

Origins

First Settlements
· Hunter gatherers
· Mound-builder culture
· Iroquois Confederacy
· South-west Indians

Mesoamericans - Olmecs, Mayans, Aztecs
· intellectual achievements
· inability to unite
· similarities between Aztecs and Spaniards

Early Voyagers - Vikings, Red Paint People

The State of Europe
· Fall of Constantinople (1453)
· Spanish Reconquista
· Contest of European nations over America from the beginning

Columbus
· Fragility of new colonies
· Problem of intention - why were the Europeans there?
· Early success - Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica - slaves

Cortez
· clear intentions - conquest
· assisted by disease, Indian superstitions and divisions

Spanish Empire
· rapid expansion into Guatamala, Peru
· pressure for religious conversion
· dominant European power in America long before the British arrived

Conclusion: American Indians and the Myth of the Virgin Land

Lecture 2

The Lure of Gold: Slaves and crops in the colonial South (Pollard)

The State of England
· religious divisions, economic stagnation, wandering poor
· haphazard early colonial enterprises

Roanoke - "the lost colony"

The Virginia Company
· dreams of gold mines or a passage to the East
· muddled plans for settlement - disastrous results
· problems of location of authority - London\Virginia
· Indian relations

Tobacco and other staple crops

The Labour Problem and its three solutions
· Indentured servitude
· American Indians
· African-American slaves

The Slave Trade
The horrors of the middle passage

Conclusion: Georgia and Slavery: ideals v. reality of new world colonisation

Lecture 3

The Lure of God: The Colonial North from the Pilgrims to Pennsylvania (Pollard)

The Religious Problem in England
· centrality of religion to everyday life
· The Reformation and the religious divide in England
· the Puritan situation

The Pilgrim Fathers
· the symbolic early colonists
· role of internal migration

The Massachusetts Bay Colony
· Winthrop and the "Citty upon a Hill"
· religious independence in the New World v. religious transformation of the old
· divisions among the settlers

The Problem of Government
· combining of political and religious authority
· dual challengers - Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams
· harsh treatment of dissenters - Quaker experience

New England contrasted with the South
· migration of families, equality of sexes
· town planning and the town meeting

The Middle Colonies
· New York and the Dutch - "melting pot"
· Maryland and the Catholics - a failed asylum
· Pennsylvania and the Quakers - "the holy experiment"

Conclusion: Benjamin Franklin on Colonial Variety
The Unlikeliness of Revolution

Lecture 4

The Great Awakening and the American Enlightenment (Kidd)

Evangelicalism

Itinerant preaching

Old Lights versus New Lights

Triumph of the Laity?

Phases of Enlightenment: Moderate, Sceptical, Radical, Didactic

Enlightened Anticlericalism

Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

Commonwealth Ideology

Common Sense

Lecture 5

The American Revolution (Kidd)

The French and Indian War

Imperial Fiscal Policy

Stamp Act Controversy

Townshend Duties

Boston Massacre

Boston Tea Party

Intolerable Acts

Continental Congress

Battle of Lexington

Siege of Boston

Declaration of Independence

Retreat from New York

Saratoga

French alliance

Yorktown

Treaty of Paris

Lecture 6

The Constitution and the New National Government (Kidd)

The Articles of Confederation

The Constitutional Convention

The Virginia Plan

The New Jersey Plan

The Connecticut Compromise

Three Fifths Rule

Ratification

The Federalist Papers

The Bill of Rights

Lecture 7

First and Second Party Systems (Kidd)

Theory of Party Systems

First Party System

Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans

Impact of French Revolution

The Election of 1800

The Era of Good Feelings

Emergence of Second Party System

Democrats and Whigs

The Bank Question

Decline of Second Party System

Lecture 8

Indians and the West in the New Republic (Maddra)

Where was the western frontier and which Indian Nations were located within the boundaries of the New Republic?

Significance of the Louisiana Purchase

Louisiana Territory purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million
Doubles the size of US territory

Removal Policy

Indian Removal Act, May 28, 1830
Prescribed removal of all Indians east of the Mississippi onto 'unsettled' western lands
Permanent Indian frontier

The case of the Cherokee

John Ross
New Echota
President Andrew Jackson
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 1831
Worcester v. Georgia 1832
Treaty of New Echota 1835
Trail of Tears 1838

Manifest Destiny

Western Indians

Great Plains
Horse-borne nomads
Southwest
Pueblos -sophisticated farmers,
Apache, Navajo, and Comanche - small raiding tribes
Great Basin, California and Pacific Coast
Hunter-gatherers

Pressure of white expansion

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the discovery of Gold in California
Consequences of Gold Rush for Californian Indians

Lecture 9

No Way Out: Slavery and the Southern Mind (Pollard)

Prologue: Calhoun and paternalism

Slavery and the American Revolution
· "the silence"
· the lost opportunity?

The unanticipated expansion of slavery
· steam power and the cotton gin
· economic significance of cotton to US economy
· internal growth of slave population

Slave trade
· overseas slave trade illegal from 1808
· persistence and importance of domestic slave trade

Variety of plantation life
· moderate size of most slave-holdings
· contrast with Jamaica, Russia
· slaves and masters in close proximity
· role of overseers
· field\house slave divide

Master-Slave Relationship

· extent of slave dependence\independence
· importance of slave families, religion

Slave Codes
White-black Sexual relations

White society in the South

· variety but hierarchical
· racial unity through hope of ascent in the hierarchy
· racial unity through fear of slave rebellion

Conclusion - No Way Out

Lecture 10

The Antebellum North (Maddra)

Industrialisation

New England
Textile Industry

The Lowell System
Lowell Girls, 1820s-1840s
Paternalism

Transportation
Road building
Lancaster Turnpike
Cumberland/ National Road
Steamboats
Erie Canal
East-west trade
Opens up Midwest
Railroads

Urbanisation and the growth of the cities

Immigration
Irish
Poor and unskilled
Northern cities
Manual labourers
Germans
Mostly skilled
Midwest

Discrimination against the New Americans
Nativism – the American Party (the Know Nothings)

Critical to the dynamics of growth

Lecture 11

Origins of the American Civil War (Kidd)

Slavery

Sectionalism

Missouri Compromise

Wilmot Proviso

Free Soil Party

Compromise of 1850

Decline of Whigs

The Know Nothings

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Rise of Republican Party

Bleeding Kansas

Dred Scott

The Election of 1860

Lecture 12

The American Civil War (Maddra)

Marcus Spiegal

Why is the Civil War considered to be the first Modern War?

The two combatants
Technology of War
Public and the War
Mobilising Resources
The War Begins
The War in the West

How did a war to preserve the Union become a war to end slavery?

Slavery and the War
The Unravelling of Slavery
Steps toward Emancipation
The Emancipation Proclamation

How did the Civil War contribute to a stronger nation state?

Lincoln's Vision
From Union to Nation
Liberty in wartime
The North's Transformation
Government and the economy

What were the military and political turning points of the war?

Gettysburg and Vicksburg
1864
Victory at last

The War in American History.

Lecture 13

Reconstruction and the New South (Maddra)

The Reconstruction Problem
Southern economy devastated
4 million ex-slaves
Constitutional problem of bringing seceded Southern states back into Union

Three differing views

President Abraham Lincoln (moderate)
Bring Southern states back into Union quickly,
Preserve rights and freedoms of black population
Radical Republicans
Punish southern whites
Full freedom and political rights to South’s black male population
Vice- President Andrew Johnson
Bring Southern states back into Union quickly,
No protection of rights of freed men and women

Death of Lincoln – Johnson becomes President

Johnson
War Democrat – Tennessee
Put on Union ticket as gesture of unity

Freedman’s Bureau
Black Codes
Congress refuses admission to Southern representatives
Joint (House-Senate) Committee on Reconstruction

Clash between Johnson and Radicals
Johnson uses veto
Congress over rule Johnson
Civil Rights Bill
14th Amendment
Condition for readmitting southern delegates to Congress
Congressional elections 1866
Johnson’s ‘Swing around the Circle’
Radicals win two-thirds majority in both Houses

Military Reconstruction Act, March 2 1867 (1867-1877)
15th Amendment – black suffrage

The New lives of Black southerners

Freedom
Took to roads
Moved to towns and cities
Reunited families
Set up black churches
Education

Economics of freedom
Sharecroppers and Tenant Farmers

Politics of freedom
15th Amendment – gave black men right to vote and hold political office

The White Counter revolution (post–1877)
Blacks stripped of their political rights
Violence, Klu Klux Klan
Black Endurance and survival

Lecture 14

The West and the End of the Frontier (Maddra)

The Settlement of the West, 1865-1890

The Mountains
Mining frontier
The Great Plains
Cattle - cowboys/ranches
Small farmer

The Myth of the American Farmer
The Farmers and the Railroads
Farmers dependency on railroads
Railroads and politics

Indebtedness and the Farmers
Heavily mortgaged and in debt

The Money Problem
Hard money vs. 'greenbacks'
Farmers want the govt. to come off Gold standard and increase the money supply

The Real Problems of Farmers
Over production
Low crop prices
World-wide unprotected market
Technological advances

American Indians
Decimation of population
Indian/white relations
Indian Wars, 1860-1890
Indian assimilation - Dawes Allotment Act

'The Frontier Has Gone'

Frederick Jackson Turner's 'Frontier Thesis'
As an explanation for American exceptionalism
Its problems - who's missing?

Lecture 15

A Transformed World, an Incapacitated Politics: America in the Gilded Age (Pollard)

Introduction: The despair of the intellectuals (Mark Twain, Henry Adams)

The Election of 1876 and the abandonment of Reconstruction
i) pre-election collapse of Reconstruction - a Republican voice in Mississippi
ii) fractious nominations, barren campaigns
iii) a disputed result and the abandonment of the African-Americans

A Changing America Sketched
i) immigration
ii) industrialisation

Unchanging Politics:
i) Machines and Bosses
ii) The even political divide
iii) Power-mad Senators and Colourless Presidents

The Question of Political Reforms
Mugwumps, Assassinations and Smears

Conclusion: Henry Adams seeks the faith

Lecture 16

"Chicago will be ours": Populists, Progressives and the promise of a better world (Pollard)

Introduction: Upton Sinclair and the vision of a better world

Agrarian Discontent and its early outlets
i) Railroads and Currency Reform
ii) Granger Movement
iii) Greenback Movement
iv) Farmers Alliances

The Populists and the Election of 1896
i) economic depression and early political success
ii) Bryan's nomination and the problem of political positioning
iii) McKinley's front porch campaign

Background to the Progressives
i) the industrial transformation and the rise of the cities
ii) rise of big business and the trusts
iii) Trade Unions: negotiation or violence

The Progressives and the Movement for Reform
i) importance of the middle class
ii) advances in the cities and the states
iii) Theodore Roosevelt and the revitalised presidency

The Muckrakers and the power of the printed word

The Election of 1912 and the Shadow of War

Lecture 17

"...the grandest, gaudiest spree in history...": Jazz Age America (Pollard)

Introduction: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the wild party v. the clampdown

The new economic transformation and its underside

A New Political Gilded Age
i) Harding: "…not revolution but restoration…"
ii) Coolidge: the marriage of business and government
iii) corrupt and idle government

The Jazz Age and its darker side
i) wartime curtailment of liberties v. Fourteen Points
ii) Red Scare, May Day Riots and Palmer Raids v. rising prosperity
iii) Racism, Nativism, the resurgent Ku Klux Klan v. the Harlem Renaissance and "fighting back"
iv) Religious revival - Bryan and the Scopes trial

The Jazz Age
i) Prohibition: the death of reform, the rise of the speakeasy
ii) The Women's Movement and sexual liberation

Conclusion: Fitzgerald and his characters falling off the edge

Lecture 18

The Great Depression and the New Deal (Maddra)

The Wall Street Crash
Manufacturing expanding
Great profits on the stock market
But prices of stocks and shares been driven too high
Market crash starts Oct 24 1929
Bottoms out in July 1932

The Great Depression
Causes
Crash triggered but did not in itself cause Great Depression
1920s growth based on consumer durables (inevitable limits)
International economy - Germany defaulted on reparations, France and Britain unable to pay WWI debts to US

Republican Inaction
Hoover believes government should stay out of the economy, that it could only recover if left alone
Relief must come from charity, not the government

The Human face of the Great Depression
Unemployment goes from 3% in early 1929 to 24% in 1932
Everyone affected - but worse for Black Americans, blue-collar workers and farmers
Families split up, children abandoned, marriage and birth rates decline

The Radical Reaction
Americans reject political extremism - fascism and communism
Bonus Marchers, 1932

The New Deal
FDR and the election of 1932
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Promised a 'new deal for the American people'
Landslide victory

The First Hundred Days
FDR gave inspirational inaugural address
'Brain trust' and the New Deal
Took America off gold standard
Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)
National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)
Civilian Conservation Corps
Tennessee Valley Authority Act
Fireside chats - embodied confidence, energy and hope

Attacks on the New Deal
NIRA and AAA declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court, 1935-36
FDR re-elected in bigger landslide 1936.
Pushed through new ideas
New Deal did not beat Depression, but by end of 1930s conditions much better

How radical and revolutionary was the New Deal?
Introduced new concepts such as government should have an active role in economy and has a duty to protect the welfare of its citizens
But also, New Deal conserved and protected American corporate capitalism

Lecture 19

American Society and Culture during World War II

The Coming of World War II
Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1942

War in Europe and Asia
Europe
Hitler's dreams of Third Reich
German/ Italian alliance
Invasion of Poland - France/Britain declare war on Germany
Allied fascists dominate Europe - Britain stands alone in opposition
Asia
Japanese military campaigns and territorial expansion into China
Desire for World Power status
Need of raw materials
Axis Powers (Japan, Germany, Italy) sign treaty of support

American Drive for Neutrality
American Isolation
1935,1936, & 1937 - Neutrality Acts
'Cash and Carry' policy
Peacetime draft
Land-lease Bill
Attack on Pearl Harbor - America declares war on Japan

America in World War II

America Mobilises for War
War ends Great Depression
US spent staggering $320 billion on war effort.

The War at Home: New Opportunities
Tax increase to pay for war
Southern black Americans, and Mexican Americans from southwest, head north to provide industrial labour
Women workers fundamentally significant to victory
Rosie the Riveter
Forerunner for 1960s/70s women's movement

The War at Home: The Darker Side
The internment of Japanese Americans
'Zoot Suit' and Detroit riots, 1943
Discrimination against black America soldiers - Double V

The War in Europe
Victory in North Africa
Slow invasion of Italy
Russian successes at Stalingrad
D - Day
Defeat of Germany

The War in the Pacific
Japanese successes
Decisive naval battles - Coral Sea (May 1942); Midway (June 1942)
'Island hoping' campaigns
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Japanese surrender

The End of the War

New World Order
America and Soviet Russia emerge as Superpowers.
France, Britain & Germany forced to take back seat.

Lecture 20

America and the Outside World, 1898-1919 (Ball)

A New Imperial Power?

· Benevolent Assimilation
· Balangiga Massacre
· European Powers
· Panama Canal
· Great White Fleet
· ‘Open Door’
· Treaty of Portsmouth

Woodrow Wilson

· Mexico
· Non-intervention
· War supply
· Declaration of War
· Wilson in Europe
· Reservationists v. Irreconcilables

Lecture 21

America and the Outside World, 1919-1947 (Ball)

Republicans

· 1920 Election
· Economic Diplomacy
· Arms Control
· Great Crash
· 1932 Election

Roosevelt (1)

· Isolationist Roosevelt
· Neutrality Acts
· 1936 Election
· Economic Diplomacy
· Quarantine
· Arsenal of Democracy

Roosevelt (2)

· Lend Lease
· ‘Day of Infamy’
· Germany First
· Indirect Strategy
· 2-Ocean War
· Unconditional Surrender
· Four Policemen

Truman

· A-bomb
· UMT
· Containment
· Truman Doctrine
· Marshall Plan
· NATO

Lecture 22

The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (Maddra)

Black Experiences in the South - Post Reconstruction

The Elimination of Black voting
The Law of Segregation
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
The Segregated South
The rise of Lynching

The Revival of Black Protest at the beginning of the 20th C.

W. E. B. Du Bois
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 1909
'Closing Ranks' in World War I
The Great Migration and the 'Promised Land'
The rise of Garveyism

Rebirth of the Civil Rights Movement post WWII

The Legal assault on segregation
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
The Montgomery Bus Boycott - Rosa Parks
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Leadership of King
Massive Resistance - Little Rock

Lecture 23

From Martin to Malcolm: civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s (Maddra)

Martin Luther King, Jr. and nonviolent resistance

· King's philosophy
· Sit-ins and non-violent resistance
· Southern white reactions: significance of TV
· Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
· Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965)

From Civil Rights to the Poor Peoples' Campaign

· Watts Riot (August 1965) and the three 'long hot summers'
· Poor Peoples' Campaign established in Chicago (1968)
· King assassinated April 1968

Malcolm X: From nonviolence to Black Power

· 1966 SNCC taken over by black militants (eg Stokely Carmichael)
· Black Power, and origins of Black Panthers in Oakland, California
· Rise of Elijah Muhammad and Nation of Islam (Black Muslims)
· Malcolm X

Native American civil rights

· Indians in first half of 20th century
· American Indian Movement (1968)
· Occupation of Alcatraz (1969), followed by Wounded Knee, Mount Rushmore, and HQ of Bureau of Indian Affairs
· Like black civil rights, Indians resort to courts for legal redress

Lecture 24

America's Vietnam War (Maddra)

Post WWII

US now backs Japan and opposes China
French Indochina
Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese independence movement
Dienbienphu: French defeat

 

Early American Involvement

SEATO, and containment in Asia
Diem
Eisenhower, and the Domino Theory
Kennedy, and gradual escalation
Debate over Kennedy's intentions

 

Johnson and Escalation

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Massive expansion of troops Rolling Thunder
Nature of the guerrilla conflict
My Lai massacre
Tet Offensive
Problems facing America in Vietnam
Losing a 'hearts and minds' war

 

Nixon Administration

Fearful of decline: escalation and Cambodia Spring
Vietnamization
Fall of Saigon

 

Impact of the War on the USA

Baby boomers
War fought by poor and Black Americans
Protest and disillusion
Difficulties facing soldiers
Role of media

 

Making sense of Vietnam, 1975-present

Lecture 25

Kennedy and Nixon (Kidd)

The Old Nixon

The Election of 1960

Cuba

Vietnam

Assassination of JFK

Warren Commission

LBJ and Goldwater

Democrat Divisions

The New Nixon

Southern Realignment

Kissinger and Foreign Policy

Lecture 26

Watergate (Kidd)

The Burglary and Cover-Up

Antecedents and Context: the Huston Plan, the Plumbers and Gemstone

The FBI Succession

Sirica

Senate Watergate Committee

Special Prosecutor

Woodward and Bernstein

The Tapes

Stennis Compromise

Saturday Night Massacre

Impeachment

The Smoking Gun

Pardon

Lecture 27

The Part of the President will be played by an actor: Reagan and the Rivitalised American Myth (Pollard)

Introduction: Reagan and American National Pride

The Presidency: Imperial and "Imperilled"

The Election of 1976 and the Carter Presidency

The Advent of Reagan
i) his character
ii) changing dynamics of Republican party
iii) Democratic divisions

Reagan in Office: Active or Passive?

Major Policy Aims - Domestic
i) reduce the scope of government
ii) revive the economy
iii) strengthen defence

Major Policy Issues - Foreign
i) carrying a bigger stick in relations with Russia
ii) cowboy style regime change
iii) the Iran-Contra Affair

Edmund Morris: Reagan restores the power to dream?

Lecture 28

'You're either with us or against us': War, Scandal and the Poisoned Politics of the 1990s (Pollard)

Introduction: Polarisation at home and abroad

The Point of Departure: The Election of 1988

Bush I - "a distressingly ordinary man"

Problems of Reagan's legacy
i) spiralling deficit
ii) America's place in the world

The Election of 1992: "It's the economy, stupid."

Clinton in Power
i) personal style and the obsession with polls
ii) the Republican Ascendancy in Congress
iii) Scandal, Impeachment and the right-wing conspiracy

George W. Bush, 9/11 and the 2004 Election
The "two Americas"

Conclusion: 2006 Midterms
Joe Lieberman and the return of genuine partisanship?