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1 A New World
2 Beginnings of English America, 1607–1660
3 Creating Anglo-America, 1660–1750
4 Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire, to 1763
5 The American Revolution, 1763–1783
6 The Revolution Within
7 Founding a Nation, 1783–1789
8 Securing the Republic, 1790–1815
9 The Market Revolution, 1800–1840
10 Democracy in America, 1815–1840
11 The Peculiar Institution
12 An Age of Reform, 1820–1840
13 A House Divided, 1840–1861
14 A New Birth of Freedom: The Civil War, 1861–1865
15 “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction, 1865–1877
16 America’s Gilded Age, 1870–1890
17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad, 1890–1900
18 The Progressive Era, 1900–1916
19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I, 1916–1920
20 From Business Culture to Great Depression: The Twenties, 1920–1932
21 The New Deal, 1932–1940
22 Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II, 1941–1945
23 The United States and the Cold War, 1945–1953
24 An Affluent Society, 1953–1960
25 The Sixties, 1960–1968
26 The Triumph of Conservatism, 1969–1988
27 Globalization and Its Discontents, 1989–2000
28 September 11 and the Next American Century

Chapter 19: Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I, 1916–1920

Outline

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  1. An era of intervention
    1. Theodore Roosevelt and Roosevelt Corollary
      1. Panama
        1. U.S.-backed separation of Panama from Colombia
        2. U.S. acquisition of Panama Canal Zone
        3. Construction of Panama Canal
      2. Dominican Republic
      3. Cuba
    2. William Howard Taft and Dollar Diplomacy
      1. Nicaragua
      2. Honduras
      3. Dominican Republic
    3. Woodrow Wilson and "moral imperialism"
      1. Haiti
      2. Dominican Republic
      3. Mexico
        1. Mexican Revolution under leadership of Francisco Madero
        2. Assassination of Madero and outbreak of Civil War
        3. Wilson dispatch of troops, skirmishes with Pancho Villa
  2. America and the Great War
    1. Outbreak of European war
      1. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
      2. Allied Powers (Britain, France, Russia, Japan) versus Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire)
      3. Protracted, bloody stalemate
    2. Implications of European war
      1. Undermining of faith in human progress and reason
      2. Indication of power of nationalism in modern world
    3. American response
      1. Mixed sentiments
        1. Sympathy for Allied Powers
          1. British roots
          2. Association of Britain with democracy, Germany with tyranny
        2. Opposition to Allied Powers, and/or U.S. involvement
          1. German, Irish, Russian (anti-czarist) roots
          2. Antiwar feminists, pacifists, social reformers
      2. The road to American involvement
        1. Initial declaration of neutrality
        2. British and German blockades
        3. American business ties to Britain
        4. Sinking of Lusitania
        5. "Preparedness" policy
        6. German suspension of submarine warfare against neutrals
        7. Reelection of Wilson; "He Kept Us Out of War"
        8. German resumption of open submarine warfare
        9. Zimmerman Note
        10. First Russian Revolution (Menshevik); overthrow of czar
        11. American declaration of war against Germany
    4. From American entry to Armistice
      1. Second Russian Revolution (Bolshevik)
        1. Vladimir Lenin's break with Allies
        2. Withdrawal of Russia from war
      2. Wilson's Fourteen Points
      3. Defeat of German advance; Allied counteroffensive
      4. German surrender
  3. The war at home
    1. Perceived prospects for fulfillment of Progressive vision
      1. Economic rationalization
      2. Spirit of national unity and purpose
      3. Social justice
    2. Expansion of federal powers
      1. Military conscription
      2. Economic intervention
        1. Areas
          1. War production (War Industries Board)
          2. National transportation (Railroad Administration)
          3. Coal and oil (Fuel Administration)
          4. Farming and food preparation (Food Administration)
          5. Labor relations (National War Labor Board)
        2. Varied degrees of intervention
          1. Coordination of overall war production (WIB)
          2. Control of some sectors (railroads)
          3. Regulation of some sectors (coal, oil, labor relations)
        3. Partnership between business and government
          1. Guaranteed profit
          2. Suspension of antitrust
        4. Labor-management-government cooperation
          1. Uninterrupted production
          2. Federal mediation
          3. Labor's right to organize
          4. Improved wages and working conditions
      3. Raising of revenue
        1. Corporate and income tax increases
        2. Liberty bonds
    3. Propaganda war
      1. Widespread opposition to American entry
        1. Industrial Workers of the World
        2. Socialist party
      2. Committee on Public Information; George Creel
        1. Modes of propaganda
          1. Pamphlets
          2. Posters
          3. Advertisements
          4. Motion pictures
          5. Four-Minute speeches
        2. Themes
          1. Social cooperation
          2. Expanded democracy and freedom
          3. Demonization of Germans
    4. Revitalization of Progressive causes
      1. Women's suffrage
        1. Optimism that wartime patriotism will gain women the vote
        2. Insistence that women should enjoy "democracy" at home
          1. National Women's party
          2. Alice Paul
        3. Support from Wilson
        4. Postwar ratification of Nineteenth Amendment
      2. Prohibition
        1. Sources of support
          1. Employers
          2. Urban reformers
          3. Women
          4. Anti-immigrant Protestants
          5. Anti-Germans
        2. Progress
          1. Passage of state laws
          2. Postwar ratification of Eighteenth Amendment
    5. Repression of dissent
      1. Instruments
        1. Federal government
          1. Espionage Act
          2. Sedition Act
        2. State governments
        3. Vigilante organizations
      2. Themes
        1. Definition of "patriotism" as support for government, war, economic status quo
        2. Definition of "un-Americanism" as labor radicalism, opposition to war
      3. Means
        1. Criminalization of dissent; conviction of Eugene V. Debs
        2. Investigations of suspected dissidents
        3. Mass arrests
        4. Public harassment and intimidation
        5. Suppression of labor protest
        6. Terror
      4. Minimal reaction from Progressives
    6. The "race problem"
      1. Progressive-era conceptualization
        1. Ethnic groups as "races"
        2. Inbred "racial" characteristics
        3. Racial diversity as threat to American civilization
      2. Progressive solutions
        1. Mainstream
          1. "Americanization"
          2. Eugenics
        2. Insistence by some on respect for other cultures
      3. Wartime Americanization
        1. Government-sponsored
        2. Pressure on immigrants to demonstrate patriotism
        3. Suppression of German-American culture
      4. Heightened interest in immigration restriction, eugenics
    7. Ambiguous status of groups neither black nor white
      1. Mexicans in Southwest
      2. Puerto Ricans
      3. Asian-Americans
    8. Status and response of African-Americans
      1. Progressive era
        1. Barriers to political rights, employment opportunity, consumer economy
        2. Progressives' indifference or aversion to black freedom
          1. Activists
          2. Intellectuals
          3. Presidents
        3. W. E. B. Du Bois and revival of black protest
          1. Du Bois background
          2. The Souls of Black Folk
          3. Challenge to Booker T. Washington accommodationism
          4. "Talented tenth"
          5. Niagara movement
          6. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
      2. World War I era
        1. Optimism that wartime patriotism would gain blacks equal rights
          1. "Close ranks"
          2. Minimal gains
        2. Great migration
          1. Scale and direction
          2. Motivations and aspirations
          3. Disappointing realities
        3. Anti-black violence, North and South
        4. New spirit of militancy
          1. Silent Protest Parade
          2. Garveyism
  4. 1919
    1. Upheaval around world
      1. Inspirations and manifestations
        1. Russian Revolution
        2. Spread of communist-led governments
        3. General strikes
        4. Peasant movements
        5. Anti-colonial campaigns
      2. Underlying aspirations
        1. Socialism
        2. "Industrial democracy"
        3. National self-determination
      3. Counter-mobilization
        1. Allied intervention in Soviet Union
        2. Limits of Wilson's internationalism
      4. Receding of postwar radicalism around world
    2. Labor upheaval in America
      1. Breadth and magnitude
      2. Spirit and themes
        1. Appropriation of wartime rhetoric of freedom and democracy
        2. Social and ideological diversity
      3. Leading instances
        1. Seattle general strike
        2. Boston police strike
        3. Coal strike
        4. Steel strike
      4. Anti-union mobilization
        1. Employers
        2. Government
        3. Private organizations
      5. Defeats of postwar strikes
      6. Red Scare
        1. Methods
          1. Federal raids on offices of labor and radical organizations; Palmer Raids
          2. Arrests
          3. Deportations
          4. Secret files
        2. Outcomes
          1. Devastation of labor and radical organizations
          2. Broad outrage over abuse of civil liberties
  5. Forging of postwar international order
    1. Wilson's performance abroad
      1. Rapturous reception in Paris
      2. Hardheaded diplomacy at Versailles
    2. Treaty of Versailles
      1. Wilsonian elements
        1. League of Nations
        2. New sovereign nations in Europe
      2. Harsher elements
        1. French occupation of Saar basin and Rhineland
        2. Restrictions on German military
        3. Crippling reparations for Germany
      3. Limits of national sovereignty
        1. Denial of independence for French and British colonies
        2. League of Nations "mandates" for former Ottoman lands
        3. Reallotment of former German colonies
    3. Seeds of instability for twentieth-century world
    4. Wilsonian internationalism in postwar America
      1. Short-term setbacks
        1. League of Nations debate
        2. Wilson's stroke, incapacity
        3. Senate rejection of Versailles treaty
        4. Eclipse of Progressivism; "return to normalcy"
      2. Long-term legacy for American foreign policy
        1. Blend of idealism and power politics
        2. Appeals to democracy, open markets, global mission
        3. Impulse for military intervention abroad

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