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donleavy America-Empire Of Liberty Page 1 of 51

A new series from Radio 4 charts the development of the UnitedStates, exploring three key themes: Empire, Liberty and Faith.

(In three series)

Presenter

David Reynolds is the Professor of International History atCambridge University and a Fellow of Christ's College.David is a regular visitor to the United States and has held

visiting university appointments at Harvard, Nebraska andOklahoma.

Episode summaries by Victoria Kingston.

Donleavy's Notes:This document prepared using MS Word 2003 for printing on standard A4 paper.It was designed to accompany a torrent residing in Radioarchive.cc which containsthe BBC4 broadcast in MP3 format.

The pdf file was created using Fineprint PDF Factory Pro v3.10


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CONTENTSSeries 1 - Liberty and Slavery (15 Sep-27 Oct 2009) ............................................................. 5

Week 01 - Land And People (01-05) ................................................................................. 5#01 Lost Civilisations:................................................................................................... 5#02 Columbus - Bearer of Death: .................................................................................. 5#03 Borderlands of the Spanish Superpower:................................................................. 5#04 New France Astride America's Heartland: .............................................................. 6#05 English Planters: ..................................................................................................... 6

Week 02 - Empire And Liberties (06-10)........................................................................... 7#06 Faith and Freedom in New England: ....................................................................... 7#07 The Middle Colonies And the Melting Pot:............................................................. 7#08 Awakenings And Nightmares: ................................................................................ 7#09 The Battle For Empire: ........................................................................................... 8#10 Taxes, Tea And Rights:........................................................................................... 8

Week 03 - Independence And Republicans (11-15) ........................................................... 9#11 Declaring Independence: ........................................................................................ 9#12 Winning Independence: .......................................................................................... 9#13 'To Form A More Perfect Union':............................................................................ 9

#14 Making The Republic Work:................................................................................. 10#15 Founding A Capital: ............................................................................................. 10Week 04 - Liberty And Security (16-20) ......................................................................... 11

#16 War and Terror:.................................................................................................... 11#17 'Remember the Ladies': ......................................................................................... 11#18 Jefferson's Western Empire:.................................................................................. 11#19 Victims of Liberty: ............................................................................................... 12#20 The Second War of Independence: ........................................................................ 12

Week 05 - East And West (21-25) ................................................................................... 13#21 'For Jackson & Democracy': ................................................................................. 13#22 A Christian Republic?:.......................................................................................... 13

#23 The Indian 'Trail of Tears':.................................................................................... 13#24 Frontier Values: .................................................................................................... 14#25 'Let Us Conquer Space':........................................................................................ 14

Week 06 - Slave or Free (26-30)...................................................................................... 15#26 The 'Arsenic' of Mexico:....................................................................................... 15#27 Gold, God and the 'Little Giant': ........................................................................... 15#28 'Paddies', Papists & Demon Drink:........................................................................ 15#29 Slaves, Masters and the 'Slave Power':.................................................................. 16#30 'A House Divided': ................................................................................................ 16

Series 2 - Power And Progress (19 Jan-27 Feb 2009) .......................................................... 17Week 07 - North And South (31-35)................................................................................ 17

#31 The 90 Day War: .................................................................................................. 17#32 The Killers Take Command: ................................................................................. 17#33 'Forever Free': ....................................................................................................... 17#34 'A New Nation': .................................................................................................... 18#35 War Behind the Battle Lines: ................................................................................ 18

Week 08 - White And Black (36-40) ............................................................................... 19#36 The Passing of the Dead: ...................................................................................... 19# 37 Dead States, New Birth:....................................................................................... 19#38 Reunion but Not Reconstruction: .......................................................................... 19#39 'New South', Old Ways: ........................................................................................ 20#40 War and Memory:................................................................................................. 20

#41 Week 09 - Capital And Labour (41-45)..................................................................... 22#41 Big Business: ........................................................................................................ 22#42 Made in America: ................................................................................................. 22


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#43 The Cities: America's Pride and Shame:................................................................ 23#44 The Farmers and Workers Revolt: ........................................................................ 23#45 Huddled Masses, Savage Hordes: ......................................................................... 23

Week 10 - Reform And Expansion (46-50)...................................................................... 24#46 Politics and Progress:............................................................................................ 24#47 Roosevelt and Reform: ......................................................................................... 24#48 'The Taste of Empire': ........................................................................................... 25#49 The Wild West: .................................................................................................... 25#50 Fun and God: ........................................................................................................ 25

Week 11 - War And Peace (51-55) .................................................................................. 27#51 'Too Proud to Fight': ............................................................................................. 27#52 A World 'Safe for Democracy': ............................................................................. 27#53 The Lost Peace: .................................................................................................... 28#54 'One Hundred Percent American': ......................................................................... 28#55 The Jazz Age Hits Main Street:............................................................................. 29

Week 12 - From Boom To Bomb (56-60)........................................................................ 30#56 From Boom to Bust: ............................................................................................. 30#57 New Deal: ............................................................................................................ 30

#58 'A War for the Survival of Democracy': ................................................................ 31#59 Floundering into War:........................................................................................... 32#60 'A Hell of a War':.................................................................................................. 32

Series 3 - Empire And Evil (1 Jun - 10 Jul 2009)................................................................. 34Week 13 - Red Or Dead (61-65)...................................................................................... 34

#61 From World War to Cold War .............................................................................. 34#62 A World Half-Slave, Half-Free ............................................................................. 34#63 The Suburban Republic......................................................................................... 35#64 Korea - The Cold War Turns Hot.......................................................................... 35#65 Defended to Death? .............................................................................................. 36

Week 14 - Rights and Riots (66-70)................................................................................. 37

#66 The Back of the Bus ............................................................................................. 37#67 'And We Shall Overcome' ..................................................................................... 37#68 Black Power ......................................................................................................... 38#69 Women's Liberation.............................................................................................. 38#70 'The War on Poverty' ............................................................................................ 38

Week 15 - The Impotence of Omnipotence (71-75) ......................................................... 40#71 Cuba - That Four Letter Word............................................................................... 40#72 Vietnam - The Battleground of Freedom............................................................... 40#73 1968 - Paralysis of a President .............................................................................. 41#74 Vietnam - 'Peace with Honor'? .............................................................................. 41#75 Watergate and the Imperial Presidency ................................................................. 41

Week 16 - Detente and Discontent (76-80)...................................................................... 43#76 America in Retreat? .............................................................................................. 43#77 A Constitutional Abortion..................................................................................... 43#78 The 'Silent Majority' Finds Its Voice ..................................................................... 44#79 Putting God Back Into Politics .............................................................................. 44#80 'Keeping Faith' ...................................................................................................... 45

Week 17 - Revolution and Democracy (81-85) ................................................................ 46#81 'The Acting President' ........................................................................................... 46#82 Reagan and the 'Evil Empire' ................................................................................ 46#83 The Information Revolution.................................................................................. 47#84 'Tear Down This Wall' .......................................................................................... 47

#85 'A New World Order'? .......................................................................................... 48Week 18 - Pride and Prejudice (86-90) ............................................................................ 49

#86 Sole Superpower, Edgy Americans ....................................................................... 49


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#87 Multiculturalism or Disintegration? ...................................................................... 49#88 'America is Under Attack' ..................................................................................... 50#89 Iraq and the 'Axis of Evil'...................................................................................... 50#90 'To Shape An Uncertain Destiny' .......................................................................... 51


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Series 1 - Liberty and Slavery (15 Sep-27 Oct 2009)

Week 01 - Land And People (01-05)

#01 Lost Civilisations:

Mon 15 Sep 2008America's first inhabitants probably arrived from Asia around 12,000 BC over a 'land bridge'

between Siberia and Alaska at the end of the last Ice Age. Although America was settledfrom north to south, the dynamic of development ran from south to north. The most advancedregion was from Peru to Mexico, home to the Inca and Aztec empires, but there were othersophisticated indigenous civilisations throughout America, including the peoples who builtthe biggest prehistoric earthwork in the Americas at Cahokia Mounds in modern day Il linois.Cahokia is now a World Heritage Site, placing it on a par with Stonehenge and the Pyramids.

#02 Columbus - Bearer of Death:

Tue 16 Sep 2008Columbus wasn't the first European to 'discover' the New World - Viking sai lors had visited

Newfoundland in the 10th century - but his arrival in 1492 signified the beginning of acatastrophic period for indigenous Americans (whom Columbus wrongly called Indians).

The European invaders, numbered in their thousands, conquered millions of Indians. Horsesand firepower mattered, but equally important were the unwitting weapons of influenza andsmallpox against which the Indians had no immunity. A mid-range estimate is that the Indian

population of North America plummeted from around 5 million to 0.5 million in the 150years after Columbus landed.

#03 Borderlands of the Spanish Superpower:

Wed 17 Sep 2008By 1550 the Spanish Crown controlled much of South and Central America, bringing maize,tobacco, strawberries and tomatoes back to Europe. Treasure from the New World helpedfinance Spain's European wars and the fight against Protestantism.

The Spanish also extended their empire into what is now the southern United States,including Florida and New Mexico. But in contrast to its southern and central Americanempire, Spanish North America remained a series of isolated outposts. The Hispanic legacy

remains evident in North America in food, place names and words such as 'tornado' and'chocolate' but North America, unlike South America, would not be a Spanish domain.


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#04 New France Astride America's Heartland:

Thu 18 Sep 2008Nor would it be French. France began to colonise North America in the 1600s, starting inwhat is now eastern Canada and spreading in the 1680s down the Mississippi. Frenchexplorers founded Louisiana and New Orleans. But the French North American colonieswere fragile and economically unsustainable. In 1700 New France had 15,000 people, morethan Spanish North America, but far less than the white population of England's NorthAmerican colonies which was nearly 250,000.

#05 English Planters:

Fri 19 Sep 2008There was nothing in the early years of English settlement to suggest their North Americancolonies would do any better than those of the Spanish or French. Jamestown in Virginia - thefirst permanent English settlement established in 1607 - was initially decimated by disease

and starvation. Yet there were three important differences which gave the English the edge inVirginia - private ownership of land, which encouraged enterprise; local self-government,which although not democratic was still generous for the period; and, crucially, the hugely

profitable crop of tobacco.

Problems in attracting sufficient European indentured labour encouraged the planters to turnto black slavery, already essential in the Caribbean. English success in settling the AmericanSouth therefore depended on a potent but volatile mix of liberty and slavery that would definethe future United States.


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Week 02 - Empire And Lib ert ies (06-10)

#06 Faith and Freedom in New England:

Mon 22 Sep 2008The first English settlement in North America was in the south, in Virginia. But in 1620

settlers from the Mayflower established Plymouth in what became New England. In the1630s new settlers developed the more successful Massachusetts Bay colony around Boston.

The New England colonists were very different from the Virginian settlers. The climate wastoo harsh to grow really profitable crops for transatlantic trade like tobacco or rice, so therewas no wealthy landed elite or an underclass of white labourers and slaves. New Englanderswere farming or artisan families whose principal reason for leaving England was noteconomic but religious. As fervent Protestants, known as 'Puritans', they feared that KingCharles I was taking the Church of England back to Roman Catholicism.

#07 The Middle Colonies And the Melting Pot:

Tue 23 Sep 2008Whilst the English colonised the northern and southern parts of North America, the middlewas settled by the Dutch, Swedes and other continental Europeans. In the 1660s, after therestoration of the Stuart Monarchy, Charles II decided to take control of these MiddleColonies. In 1664 the English captured New Netherland from the Dutch, renaming it NewYork. This opened a new chapter for North America.

Compared with New England and the South, New York and its southern neighbourPennsylvania - founded by the Quaker, William Penn - had a greater variety of European

ethnic groups and much broader religious toleration. These Middle Colonies pioneered themelting pot.

#08 Awakenings And Nightmares:

Wed 24 Sep 2008From 1740 a series of religious revivals shook colonial America to its foundations. Theychallenged the authority of the formal hierarchical churches of Congregational New Englandand the Anglican South, opening the way for new denominations like the Methodists and

Baptists.

Their popularity reflected larger social and economic changes in the colonies. By 1750 thepopulation was 1.2 million - nearly five times the figure in 1700. New English migrants were


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now outnumbered by Germans and even more so by Scots - Highlanders and UlsterProtestants (known as Scots-Irish). The South was still predominantly rural but the MiddleColonies and New England had many more towns.

Slavery was now vital to the colonial economy. Those Africans who survived the appalling'Middle Passage' brought their own language and customs but, once in America, theydeveloped new cultures which drew on colonial influences, particularly evangelical religion.Black Christianity would be a potent force in the future.

#09 The Battle For Empire:

Thu 25 Sep 2008In 1754, North America became part of a global conflict between Britain and France (knownin Britain as the Seven Years War and in America as the French & Indian War). The Indianswho inhabited the American interior had traditionally been allies of the French, but as sometribes were drawn into Britain's orbit this vast wilderness became a theatre of war. By 1760the British had driven out the French and controlled a great arc from Nova Scotia and the

Great Lakes down the Ohio Valley to Florida. It also ensured that English language andculture would be the dominant influence in North America.

#10 Taxes, Tea And Rights:

Fri 26 Sep 2008Victory over the French increased fivefold the cost of defending and running North America.From 1765 the British tried in various ways to increase taxation of the colonies, determinedto make them pay their share. The colonists consistently argued such taxes could be raisedonly with the consent of their own legislatures. Tension rose until in 1773 colonists threw

thousands of pounds of tea into Boston Harbour as a protest against a tea duty. Parliament putBoston under military rule, which succeeded in uniting the colonies against British rule asnever before.


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Week 03 - Independ ence And Republ ic ans (11-15)

#11Declaring Independence:

Mon 29 Sep 2008In April 1775, after nearly a decade of British attempts to tax North America without the

consent of the colonists, fighting broke out at Lexington, near Boston. A full scale battlefollowed at Bunker Hill.

In response, the Continental Congress, which represented all the American colonies, set aboutdrafting a formal declaration of independence, which was approved on 4th July 1776. Its

principal author was the Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, whose preamble set out the foundingideas of the new republic.

#12 Winning Independence:

Tue 30 Sep 2008

The new nation now had to win its independence from Britain by war. After initial militarysetbacks, the American colonists gained French support which helped them isolate the Britishforces. In 1783 Britain signed a treaty acknowledging American independence.

Around 25,000 Americans had died in what was not only a war of independence but also acivil war - one fifth of white Americans remained loyal to the Crown and, after 1783, theysettled in Canada or Britain. Black people fought on both sides and some slaves won theirfreedom fighting for the British.

#13 'To Form A More Perfect Union':

Wed 1 Oct 2008The new constitution of 1789 was a bundle of compromises, based on an underlying conceptof checks and balances. To ensure balance in the new Congress, in the lower house of thenew legislature representation was determined by the size of the state's population. In theupper house (or Senate) each state, regardless of size, would have two seats. To ensure

balance within the new Federal Government, executive, legislature and judiciary wereseparated. Neither the President nor the heads of executive departments would sit in thelegislature. But to offset the dangers of too much democracy, in the Senate each state's twoSenators were chosen not by the people but their state's legislature.

Slavery was abhorred by many northerners, but they accepted that it would have to remain inorder to keep the South within the Union. This was probably the most fateful compromise ofall. In the new American republic, power now rested with the people, but only if they werewhite, male and property-owners.


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The Constitution was followed by a Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, which enshrinedfundamental liberties including freedom of worship.

#14 Making The Republic Work:

Thu 2 Oct 2008In April 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as America's first president. Hisadministration was wracked by conflict between two senior Cabinet members - TreasurySecretary Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton envisagedAmerica's future as a capitalist nation, developing industry, banking and transatlantic trade.This vision appalled Jefferson who believed America's greatest asset was its free farmers,holding a stake in society by owning land. Jefferson was also deeply distrustful of Britain -unlike Hamilton - and saw the country's burgeoning industry and national debt as signs ofcorruption not progress. Here were rival visions of America's future, one looking east toBritain, the other into the heartland of America, a clash of world views that would endure inAmerican history.

#15 Founding A Capital:

Fri 3 Oct 2008The city of Washington was the world's first purpose-built national capital, but its locationwas decided only after complex political bargaining between North and South. They agreedto locate the capital in a tract of land cut out of Virginia - the District of Columbia. The citywas planned in the grand classical manner but for many decades it remained unfinished andhalf empty. This was embarrassing yet apt because, for much of the 19th century, the FederalGovernment was marginal to the lives of most Americans. Politics revolved around the town,the county or, at most, the individual states. This was the meaning of American federalism.


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Week 04 - Lib erty A nd Secur i ty (16-20)

#16 War and Terror:

Mon 6 Oct 2008America's first decades of independence were entwined with the continuing battle for global

empire between Britain and France. George Washington kept America neutral but by themid-1790s there were divisions between Thomas Jefferson's mainly southern Democratic-Republicans, who were broadly pro-French and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party,whose base was in the north and who feared French imperialism.

By 1798 America and France were close to war. Fear of France provoked Hamilton and theFederalists to push through the draconian Alien and Sedition Acts, part of a 1790s war onterror which allowed the President to deport aliens and stifle almost all criticism. Civi l warseemed close during the election campaign of 1800 but Jefferson won a narrow victory, andhis conciliatory inaugural address helped to defuse domestic tensions. A peace treaty withFrance prevented America from being dragged into war abroad.

#17 'Remember the Ladies':

Tue 7 Oct 2008The war against Britain mobilized American women. They were drawn into political debate,ran home and family whilst their menfolk were away and, in a few cases, marched and foughtwith the armies. In the state of New Jersey some women even had the vote for three decades.But this was a false dawn. Despite the rhetoric of independence, wives remained dependantsof their husbands - unable to own their own property. The Founders, radicals about liberty in

public life, remained strict patriarchs at home.

#18 Jefferson's Western Empire:

Wed 8 Oct 2008After independence was won, attention turned to the settlement of America's vast interior,which was populated by Indians and had few European settlers. Jefferson envisioned an'empire of liberty' - a loose union of states with localised self-government that would spreadacross the continent.

Guided by Jefferson, Congress established a grid, dividing the interior into townships 6 milessquare, subdivided into lots 1 mile square most of which were then further subdivided for sale

to settlers. If you fly over the Midwest today, you can still see the squares etched out by roadsand fields. The Northwest Ordinance established governance in the west. Once the populationin a territory reached 5,000 the people could elect an assembly; above the 60,000 thresholdthe territory could apply to become a state. Unlike the European empires, the United States


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established a clear procedure for moving beyond the colonial stage into membership of theUnion.

In 1803 this new empire was doubled in size when Jefferson bought Louisiana fromNapoleon, pushing the U.S. border from the Mississippi to the Rockies. From this vast areawere carved the modern states of Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, plusmost of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas.

#19 Victims of Liberty:

Thu 9 Oct 2008Jefferson hoped that the Indians could be converted from nomadic hunters into industriousfarmers and be integrated into the American way of life. Some Indian tribes conformed butmany were determined to keep their lands and way of life. Indian resistance coalesced aroundTecumseh, a Shawnee chief, but after he was killed by U.S. soldiers in 1813 his coalition oftribes disintegrated and westward expansion resumed.For American black people the Revolutionary era seemed to offer hope. Although theConstitution-makers avoided the issue of slavery, all northern states passed laws to abolish it.

In 1808 Congress voted to stop the import of slaves from Africa - it seemed the end ofslavery was only a matter of time. However, the halting of slave imports stimulated theinternal slave trade. Demand for slave labour increased as the new territories in the west

proved to have the ideal climate for cotton, and the invention of the gin facilitated large-scalecotton production for the world market.And so the empire of liberty consigned Indians to the margins of the empire and deniedAfrican Americans their liberty.

#20 The Second War of Independence:

Fri 10 Oct 2008

The United States tried to stay neutral during the Napoleonic Wars but it eventually gotsucked in, declaring war on Britain in 1812 because of British infringements of Americantrade and their cooperation with the Indians. In 1814 the British burned Washington - ahumiliating blow for the new nation - but the American victory at New Orleans was sweetrevenge. In 1815 the U.S. and Britain final ly agreed a peace treaty which was a finalconfirmation of American independence.


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Week 05 - East A nd Wes t (21-25)

#21 'For Jackson & Democracy':

Mon 13 Oct 2008

In 1829 Andrew Jackson from Tennessee was inaugurated as President, the first 'Westerner'to hold the office. His supporters portrayed him as a man of the new democratic West battlingagainst the effete Eastern establishment. The words 'Jackson' and 'Democracy' becamesynonymous and his party became known as the Democrats. His various opponents combinedto form the 'Whigs'. The Founding Fathers had viewed political parties as a threat to liberty

but by the 1830s parties were becoming accepted as a fact of political life.

European visitors remarked on the vitality and egalitarianism of American party politics.There were still huge extremes of wealth and the economy of the Southwest depended onslave labour, but by the 1830s in most states all white adult males had the vote - far ahead ofanything in Europe.

#22 A Christian Republic?:

Tue 14 Oct 2008Democracy was also fundamental to American religion. A series of religious revivalstransformed American society in the early 19th century, creating a multitude of egalitarianchurches and sects. The Methodists were particularly popular - by 1860 there were 20,000Methodist churches in America. The greatest moral issue for northern evangelical Protestantswas the crusade against slavery. In the south, evangelicals used their faith to justify slavery asa form of Christian paternalism. In response, black people - especially in southern cities - setup their own congregations as statements of independence. Although church and state were

formally separate under the Constitution, most Americans thought of their country as aChristian republic.

#23 The Indian 'Trail of Tears':

Wed 15 Oct 2008In the Northeast by the 1820s the remnants of once-great Indian tribes like the Iroquois wereconfined to reservations but in the Southeast Indian numbers were much larger, probablyaround 100,000. Americans coveted the land on which these Indians lived.

Jefferson had held out two alternatives for the Indians - adopt the American lifestyle or besent west. In 1830 Congress passed a bill setting aside 'an ample district west of theMississippi' for the Indian tribes where they could live under their own governments. TheChickasaw, Choctaws and Creeks nations exchanged their territory for such land but the


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Seminoles in Florida resisted - it took 6 years for the U.S. Army to crush them. In 1838, theCherokees finally submitted and were marched west in the 'Trail of Tears', a grim 6-month

journey in which one quarter of the 13,000 Cherokees died.

In 1820 about 125,000 Indians lived east of the Mississippi; by the mid-1840s there were aquarter of this number. The way was now clear to develop America's cotton kingdom.

#24 Frontier Values:

Thu 16 Oct 2008In 1815 the western border of the USA was effectively the Appalachians, with only one-seventh of the population living west of these mountains. By 1850, half America's 23 million

people lived beyond the Appalachians after one of the biggest and most concentratedmigrations in history. The government sold off vast tracts of land and thousands migrated insearch of a better life. Taming the wilderness became part of national mythology, whichcelebrated the axe, the plough and, above all, the pioneer with his rugged self-reliance.

#25 'Let Us Conquer Space':

Fri 17 Oct 2008As America moved west, nationally-minded congressmen demanded a massive investment ininfrastructure to tie the country closer together. The Erie Canal (opened in 1825) covered

New York state, spawning towns along its route, slashing transport costs and confirming NewYork's commercial dominance in the east.

In 1828, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad started the railway boom. Railroads spread rapidlyand by 1860 America had three times more mileage of track than Britain, the railway pioneer.In the 1850s the Illinois Central Railroad made Chicago the transport hub of the Midwest,with federal backing (which the canals had lacked) in the form of a huge land grant.

The railroads gave Americans new freedom and prosperity and in that sense bound thecountry together. But opening up the West also forced slavery back on to the agenda as Northand South vied for control of these vast new territories and the railroad links that would makethem profitable.


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Week 06 - Slav e or Free (26-30)

#26 The 'Arsenic' of Mexico:

Mon 20 Oct 2008In the 1820s and early 1830s Americans settled in the Mexican territory of Texas, often with

grants from the Mexican government who wanted to populate their vast territories. In 1835,the American settlers revolted and the following year Mexico conceded independence toTexas. In 1845 Texas was admitted to the Union.

The U.S. failed in its attempts to purchase New Mexico and California from the Mexicansand President Polk exploited a border clash to justify declaring war. America's victory led toa treaty in 1848 which ceded New Mexico and California to America for $15 million, leavingMexico an embittered neighbour. America's borders now stretched from the Atlantic to thePacific but this reopened the debate about whether the west should be open to slavery. AuthorRalph Waldo Emerson predicted that the U.S. would swallow the Mexican lands but that theywould be like arsenic, poisoning the Union.

#27 Gold, God and the 'Little Giant':

Tue 21 Oct 2008California, newly acquired from Mexico, was transformed by the discovery of gold. The goldrush of 1849 produced a flood of settlers for whom proper government had to be established.Congress had to decide whether the new state of California should admit slaves or be the

preserve of free whites. After a bitter battle, the Compromise of 1850 made concessions toboth sides. California was admitted as a free state, satisfying the free-soilers, but the FugitiveSlave Law - obliging Northerners to return runaway slaves to their masters - gave the Southsome assurance that its interests would be respected.

#28 'Paddies', Papists & Demon Drink:

Wed 22 Oct 2008The decade after 1845 saw a new challenge to American identity as 3 million immigrantsarrived, mostly from Ireland and Germany. Proportionate to the existing population, this wasthe biggest influx of newcomers in U.S. history. To date the country had been run by peoplelargely of British, Protestant stock, who despised the non-British newcomers as poor,criminal and Catholic. Cities like New York and Philadelphia saw fierce culture wars

between newcomers and the established ethnic groups.


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#29 Slaves, Masters and the 'Slave Power':

Thu 23 Oct 2008Support for abolition was boosted by the 1852 publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's UncleTom's Cabin. What really concerned most Northerners was not the fate of the slaves but themenace of the slave-owners - known as the 'slave power' - whom they believed threatened thewhole country. If slavery were allowed in the West, since it was cheaper than free labour itwould squeeze out the free farmer. More slave states equalled more pro-slavery members ofCongress, perpetuating the South's apparent dominance of political life.

In 1854, a new political party was formed in the North to combat this. The new RepublicanParty campaigned for 'Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men'. The two main parties todate - the Democrats and Whigs - had supporters across the country but the Republicans wereentirely Northern. Their rise signif ied that America's party system was fall ing apart.

#30 'A House Divided':

Fri 24 Oct 2008Although California was fast-forwarded into the Union, the Great Plains were still largelyunsettled. In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, creating separate Kansas and

Nebraska territories and al lowing inhabitants to decide for themselves whether to allowslavery. Fearing the other side would gain control of the state, pro- and anti-slavery factionsrushed to Kansas, which descended into anarchy. Stories about 'Bleeding Kansas' helped

persuade many Northerners of the threat posed by Slave Power to the nation and they flockedto the Republicans.

The Democratic Party - the last political bridge spanning the Union - fractured into Northernand Southern wings, giving victory in the 1860 presidential election to Abraham Lincoln and

the Republicans. Within a few months most of the Southern states had broken from theUnion, declaring independence as the Confederate States of America while Northernersflocked to the colours to preserve the Union, plunging America into civil war. Lincoln hadwarned that 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'. The anguished debate about the

place of slavery in the land of liberty, which had dogged America ever since independence,would now be decided by force.

----------- END OF SERIES ONE -----------------


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Series 2 - Power And Progress (19 Jan-27 Feb 2009)

Week 07 - Nort h A nd Sout h (31-35)

#31 The 90 Day War:

Mon 19 Jan 2009 (begin Series 2)Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 election drove seven southern states to declareindependence and secede from the Union, creating the Confederate States of America. Theywere convinced, wrongly, that Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery.

The first shots of the civil war were fired at Fort Sumter, near Charleston, on 12th April 1861.Five days later Virginia, the most populous and industrialised southern state, opted forsecession; 11 states eventually formed the Confederacy. The hopes of both sides for a quick,easy war were dashed by the first large battle, at Bull Run (known as Manassas byConfederates), near Washington on 21st July, where the Northern army was routed.

#32 The Killers Take Command:

Tue 20 Jan 2009A more aggressive spirit began to appear on both sides, personified in the rising star of theUnion armies, Ulysses S. Grant, who proved his mettle defeating the Confederates at theBattle of Shiloh in April 1862, and the Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

In the late summer of 1862, Lee marched into Maryland, hoping to prompt Europeanmediation and put pressure on Lincoln. The opposing armies met at Sharpsburg (also knownas Antietam) on 17th September. The battle was the single bloodiest day of the war but wasmilitarily inconclusive; Lee was forced to withdraw to Virginia.

#33 'Forever Free':

Wed 21 Jan 2009The Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the confidence to make his Emancipation Proclamationon 22nd September 1862, declaring that from January 1863 all slaves in rebel states werefree. He had gone to war to preserve the Union, not free the slaves, but had slowly movedtowards supporting emancipation.

The Proclamation had little immediate impact but was seen by black leaders as pivotal;blacks flocked to join the Union armies. It also discouraged the British government fromrecognising the Confederacy, which never received the European support it so desperatelysought.


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In the South, the slave system was crumbling anyway, as slave owners went to fight andslaves took advantage of the chaos to flee. Northerners knew that the four million slavescould be of decisive importance in bolstering their armies while the slaves' absence would sapthe South's war effort.

The Confederates took the Emancipation Proclamation as yet more proof that the South wasright to secede but in 1865 an acute manpower shortage forced them to allow slaves into theirarmy, in return for an offer of post-war freedom. The measure had no military effect, but itwas hugely symbolic. Military service had always been a mark of full citizenship, and yetSouthern slavery rested on the assumption that most blacks were incapable of being citizens.

The 200,000 black servicemen in the North demonstrated the falseness of the South's theoryof slavery. And yet there wasn't equality in the North - blacks eventually received equal pay

but mostly fought in segregated units and faced continued discrimination.

#34 'A New Nation':

Thu 22 Jan 2009After a bloody 3 day battle (1st-3rd July 1863) at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, theConfederate army was forced into retreat. A day later, the Confederate city of Vicksburg fel lto Grant, splitting the Confederacy and giving the Union control of the Mississippi. This wasa turning point in the war.

On 19th November Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a newnational cemetery at the battlefield. He redefined the civil war not only as a struggle for theunion but for equality in a united, democratic, nation and resolved that 'these dead shall nothave died in vain'.

#35 War Behind the Battle Lines:

Fri 23 Jan 2009The conflict dragged on through 1864 but the South was nearing collapse. Northern generalswere now waging total war, designed to break both Confederate armies and civi lians. Withdouble the population and four-fifths of the industry, the North's war effort was nearly self-sustaining, whereas the South relied heavily on imports. The Northern blockade began to biteand food shortages sapped morale. The fall of Atlanta in early September was a major blowto the Confederates.

Lincoln feared that resentment against the inequalities of the draft and what seemed like anunending war would harm his election chances. However, boosted by Atlanta's capture, on8th November 1864 he was re-elected.


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Week 08 - Whi te An d B lack (36-40)

#36 The Passing of the Dead:

Mon 26 Jan 2009On 4th March 1865, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for his second presidential term. On

9th April, the Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant atAppomattox Court House in Virginia. Five days later Lincoln was assassinated inWashington by secessionist John Wilkes Booth. The burden of rebuilding and reunifying thecountry fell to Vice President Andrew Johnson.

# 37 Dead States, New Birth:

Tue 27 Jan 2009The Confederates had lost the Civil War and the South's population, landscape and many ofits cities were devastated. Congress had formally abolished slavery in March 1865 and the

South's four mill ion slaves were enjoying their first taste of freedom, while lacking the meansto assert their independence.

The challenges of what Northerners called 'Reconstruction' were huge. President Johnson,like Lincoln, was concerned to bring the South back into the Union as quickly as possible.States could be re-admitted once they repudiated secession and accepted abolition. Johnsonleft the question of whether blacks could vote to individual states. In reality, Southern states

began to pass legal codes keeping blacks subordinate, denying them the right to vote, serveon juries or bear arms.

By the time Congress convened in December 1865, Southern intransigence had radicalised

many moderate northerners. Convinced that Johnson had failed, Congress set out more far-reaching plans to put the South under peacetime mil itary rule until it changed its ways.Passions reached such a pitch that, in the spring 1868, the Republicans impeached thePresident (the only such impeachment until Clinton in 1999). Johnson narrowly escaped, buthis Presidency had only a few months to run. By 1868, Congress had cleared the way for theReconstruction of the South on radical lines.

#38 Reunion but Not Reconstruction:

Wed 28 Jan 2009During the 1870s, the imposition of Northern military rule allowed blacks all over the Southto play an active part in politics. Many held office in conjunction with 'carpetbaggers', thenickname given by resentful Southerners to Northerners who went South to govern. The new


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state governments endorsed full citizenship for blacks and also spent money rebuildinginfrastructure and creating a system of free public education. Many Southerners sawReconstruction as a continuation of the war by political means and opposition to Republicanrule, and black rights, turned violent with the formation in 1866 of a secret society called theKu Klux Klan (KKK) in Tennessee.

Southern conservatives (Redeemers) also focused on the cost and corruption ofReconstruction. This gained the support of moderate Republicans, poor farmers and evensome blacks. Gradually the Southern states began electing members of the Democratic Partyinto office.

The disputed 1876 presidential election was decided by a Congressional Commission infavour of Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. Southern acquiescence was bought inexchange for the Republicans agreeing to withdraw federal troops from the South.

Radical Reconstruction was now effectively over. It had been a bold experiment, but it wastoo radical for many Northerners. Most Americans believed that liberty meant freedom fromgovernment intervention, not the use of federal power to help minority groups. By 1877, the

South had rejoined the Union and slavery was abolished. That was enough for most Northernwhites. It would need a second era of Reconstruction, in the 1960s, to complete theunfinished task.

#39 'New South', Old Ways:

Thu 29 Jan 2009Superficially it seemed that there was real progress in the 'New South'. During the 1880s,railroad mileage more than doubled, opening up areas like West Virginia to profitable coalmining. By 1900 Birmingham, Alabama was the South's eleventh largest city, yet it had only

been founded in 1871 to exploit mineral deposits for steel making.

Yet much of the South remained set in old ways. The slave plantations had gone, but werereplaced by a new system of 'share-cropping'. Most blacks (and many poor whites) wereforced to become tenant farmers and were caught in a cycle of poverty binding them to thelandowner almost as tightly as if they had been slaves.

Now that northerners had lost interest in Reconstruction, southern blacks had to make theirown plans for the future. Two men, Booker T. Washington and Burghardt Du Bois,represented different strategies for dealing with white supremacy in the New South -Washington advocated incremental economic progress within the system, while Du Bois

believed in an active political struggle for civil rights.

With the distinction between slave and free abolished, southern conservatives had to drawnew lines of segregation. 'Jim Crow' laws now separated black and white in public places,including public transport, schools and restaurants. In 1896, the Supreme Court affirmed thatsegregation was constitutional as long as the faci lities were separate but equal (which theyrarely were).

#40 War and Memory:

Fri 30 Jan 2009In the two decades after the Civil War, most veterans were keen to forget their experiences.But by the 1880s, nostalgia began to develop and interest in, and commemoration of, the war


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increased. Membership of the principal Northern veterans association, the Grand Army of theRepublic, rose from 30,000 in 1878 to 428,000 by 1890.

In the North, there was a reconciliatory mood but in the South real bitterness remained.Southerners lamented the 'Lost Cause' and the struggle was recast as the southern defence ofthe rights of states against centralizing government, with slavery conveniently forgotten.


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#41 Week 09 - Capit al An d Labo ur (41-45)

#41 Big Business:

Mon 2 Feb 2009Steel and rail were the fundamentals of America's industrial revolution. In the 30 years afterthe Civil War, the country developed a national rail network and by 1900 had more track than

Europe. And this track was made from steel.

Andrew Carnegie from Pittsburgh was the king of steel and he, along with men like John D.Rockefeller in oil and Cornelius Vanderbilt in railroads, were known as the 'Robber Barons'.Ruthless capitalists in their business dealings, they were also generous philanthropists in laterlife.

The lasting legacy of this industrial revolution was not big businessmen but big business.Through corporations like General Electric and Du Pont America pioneered the pattern ofcorporate capitalism which Europe followed. By 1900, half of US workers were employedfor salaries or wages. Many regarded this as an alarming erosion of the independent middle-

class cherished by Thomas Jefferson as the backbone of the republic and the merits anddrawbacks of big business became a big issue for Americans around 1900.

#42 Made in America:

Tue 3 Feb 2009The post-Civil War railroad boom unified the United States into a single market for peopleand goods. Mergers produced a handful of big railroad companies and imposed a nation-wideuniform track gauge. The railroads also introduced standard time zones. This single market,and political unity after 1865, enabled the country to capitalize on its abundant naturalresources, particularly wood, coal, iron and oil. New technologies were also important - the

lack of labour in a vast country with plenty of cheap land provided the incentive to developlabour-saving devices.By 1900 the United States had leapfrogged Britain - 'the workshop of the world' - to producea third of the world's manufactured goods. American entrepreneurs such as Heinz andWoolworth were even penetrating the British domestic market, while financially challengedBritish aristocrats were eager for mergers with America's plutocrats - between 1870 and 1914one-sixth of the peerage secured American wives.


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#43 The Cities: America's Pride and Shame:

Wed 4 Feb 2009In cities like Chicago and New York, where land was limited and costly, the 1890s saw thedawn of the skyscraper era. In the quarter-century before World War One, the New Yorkskyline was transformed. These spectacular urban developments contrasted with appallingslums, as European immigrants and migrant rural workers flocked to cities that could not

provide them with decent, affordable housing.

#44 The Farmers and Workers Revolt:

Thu 5 Feb 2009The 1890s saw the worst depression in America's history. Agriculture had actually been indecline for years and by 1900 a third of America's farmers were tenants. Many blamed theirfall ing incomes on freight rates and bank charges set by greedy capitalists on the east coast.They formed Farmers' Alliances to cut out middlemen and boost profits; these also became a

tool of political education for rural America.

By 1890 the National Farmers Alliance had over a mil lion members, mainly in the south andwest, and its own political party, the People's (or Populist) Party which gained over onemillion votes in the 1892 election The Populists' advocacy of a currency with silver coins asreadily available as gold came to be its defining policy. The party was buried by a Republicanlandslide in the 1896 election, ending its potential as a radical third-party alternative.

These were the years when socialism swept Germany and France and the Labour Party wasestablished in Britain. This never took hold in the United States, for a variety of reasons:

*The struggle for the vote was a primary goal for European workers, but in the United Stateswhite adult males had the vote, so they did not need a new class party to advance their goals;* Samuel Gompers, who led the largest American union the American Federation of Labour(AFL), believed unions were an integral part of American business and not a subversiveforce, so the AFL worked within the system rather than against it;* Social mobility meant many Americans could and did rise into the middle class;* Geographical mobility undermined the sense of local working-class community so evidentin Britain and Germany;* Perhaps most significantly, large scale immigration prevented a sense of classconsciousness developing amongst a new working class fractured by huge differences oflanguage, religion and lifestyle.

#45 Huddled Masses, Savage Hordes:

Fri 6 Feb 2009For much of the nineteenth century, the majority of migrants to America came from northernand western Europe - from Britain, Ireland, Germany and Scandinavia. By the turn of thecentury, most came from southern and eastern Europe - Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire,the Balkans, and Russia. The numbers were unprecedented - fifteen million between 1890and 1914, with nearly 1.3 million arriving in the peak year of 1907.The depression of the 1890s revived anti-immigrant stereotypes, casting newcomers as analien, non 'Anglo-Saxon' threat to American values. The language was Darwinian, the fearthat world history would turn on the survival of the fittest race, and so America must keepitself 'pure'.


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Week 10 - Reform An d Exp ansio n (46-50)

#46 Politics and Progress:

Mon 9 Feb 2009From the time America won independence from Britain, national government was

deliberately kept weak. By 1900 rapid industrialisation and urbanisation had generated hugeeconomic and social challenges. The 'Progressives' believed that America's eighteenth-century institutions must be updated for the modern era and that government should take amore active role in American life.

Progressivism was a broad church and its targets were multiple and varied. In the cities theyincluded corrupt political machines, most notoriously New York's Tammany Hall, andmonopolies in utilities like electricity and gas. At state level, Progressives campaignedsuccessfully for senators to be elected by the people, rather than by state legislatures, whichwere often dominated by big businesses; this was adopted in 1913 as the 17th Amendment tothe Constitution.

Yet progressivism was not simply a battle between idealists and big business and urbanpolitical machines. The latter were often first to promote workers' welfare, notably after thedeaths of 148 workers in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in Manhattan in 1911.

#47 Roosevelt and Reform:

Tue 10 Feb 2009In 1901, President McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt became President. Herevolutionised an office which, since Lincoln, had been filled by mediocrities, and used it as

an instrument for progressive reform. The Justice Department was tasked with prosecutingthe most notorious monopolies. Congress passed legislation which represented the firstserious government attempt to regulate the railroads, and which was the precursor of dozensmore regulatory commissions.

Roosevelt was re-elected in 1904 but stood down at the end of his term. He then tried to runas a candidate against his hand-picked presidential successor, William Howard Taft, in the1912 presidential election. He split the Republican vote, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson waselected. Wilson continued Republican efforts to regulate big business, establishing theFederal Trade Commission to protect consumers against anti-competitive business practices

and introducing the Federal Reserve Act to stabilise the banking system.


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#48 'The Taste of Empire':

Wed 11 Feb 2009For years, America had been watching events in nearby Cuba with concern. By 1895, theSpanish colonial rulers were fighting against the island's independence movement. In 1898,the US battleship Maine, sent to Cuba to protect US citizens, mysteriously exploded inHavana. The Americans blamed the Spanish and in April 1898 the two countries went to war.The USA won a swift victory along with Spain's empire, which also included the Philippinesand Puerto Rico.

Cuba became an American protectorate as did the Philippines, but only after a brutal two-year war against the national independence movement, resulting in up to 250,000 Filipinosdeaths.

The Spanish-American War made America a colonial power and set the country on a newcourse of self-assertion on the world stage.

#49 The Wild West:

Thu 12 Feb 2009In 1889, Oklahoma was opened up for settlement and tens of thousands of people flooded outacross 2 million acres declared 'free land' by the government. In the 1830s, the area had infact been set aside as reservations for Indian tribes evicted from their lands east of theMississippi; now they were moved on again.

Further north on the Great Plains, the Sioux and Apaches resisted the settlers, most famouslyin 1876 when they annihilated Custer's 7th US Cavalry on Montana's Little Bighorn River.

Outrage at 'Custer's Last Stand' intensified the corralling of the remaining Indians onreservations. By 1890 Indian resistance had been crushed and, as far as most Americans wereconcerned, the Indian 'problem' was 'solved'.

Once the West was conquered it was commercialised. No-one was more responsible for thisthan William F Cody - his 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West' toured America and Europe for threedecades, helping to create the myth of a heroic western past that never existed.

A different, though equally wild, image of the West was also emerging as PresidentRoosevelt put 'conservation' on the national agenda. Until then, government doled outwestern lands for development with no thought for the ecological consequences. Against

business opposition, Roosevelt created millions of acres of national forest and savedprehistoric Indian remains and sites of natural beauty like the Grand Canyon.

#50 Fun and God:

Fri 13 Feb 2009Two great symbols of America came of age in this period. Baseball boomed - annualattendances at major league games doubled to seven million a year, the World Series wasinaugurated and new ballparks built. America was also entering the automobile age. In 1908Henry Ford introduced his Model T, the first affordable motor car. His revolutionaryassembly-line methods enabled his Detroit factory to produce half a mil lion cars annually.


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In the progressive era, Christian faith stil l remained a powerful influence on Americansociety - even though it was, as ever, interpreted in many different ways. The 'Social Gospel'movement, the most influential advocate of which was Baptist Walter Rauschenbusch, calledfor a fundamental shift away from the values of competitive capitalism to a Christianitywhich permeated the whole of society. The movement influenced later Christian reformersincluding Martin Luther King, Jr.

Many evangelical Protestants believed this religious liberalism undermined the Church'sessential message - what mattered was a faith rooted in belief that the Bible was divinelyinspired. An influential set of essays - The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (1910-1915) - gave American twentieth century fundamentalism its name and early inspiration.


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Week 11 - War And Peace (51-55)

#51 'Too Proud to Fight':

Mon 16 Feb 2009

President Woodrow Wilson tried to keep America neutral when war broke out in Europe in1914, but U.S. trade was entangled with Britain's and U.S. banks raised loans for the Allies.And, although Wilson won re-election in 1916 with the slogan 'He Kept Us Out of War', hisvictory was partly due to the war boom.

After the outrage caused in America by the German sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915,Wilson persuaded Germany to suspend its all-out submarine warfare, but the strategy wasresumed in January 1917. The Germans knew this risked war with America but gambled oncutting the Allies' Atlantic li feline before the U.S. could become fully engaged. In April1917, America declared war on Germany.

#52 A World 'Safe for Democracy':

Tue 17 Feb 2009Before America joined the war, Wilson had opposed conscription as an erosion of Americanliberties. But he conceded to avoid the chaos of volunteers denuding industry of vital skillsand, within 18 months. 4 mill ion Americans were in the armed forces.

US troops began arriving in France in earnest in the summer of 1918. A massive Germanspring offensive had stalled and, with American help, the Allies rallied and counter-attacked.Reports of the arrival of legions of strong, well-fed Americans had a devastating impact on

German morale. Military defeat combined with the Allied economic blockade to triggerGermany's collapse.

Back in America the struggle for nationwide women's suffrage was escalating. There wasopposition from many quarters, not least Southerners who feared setting a precedent for blackrights. In June 1918 suffragettes picketing the White House were arrested, and some given

prison sentences. The outrage this aroused across America made a huge impact on politicalleaders. Wilson finally gave his backing to female suffrage, although he cited wartimeexpediency rather than equal rights. In the summer of 1919, the Nineteenth Amendmentgiving women the vote passed both Houses of Congress.


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#53 The Lost Peace:

Wed 18 Feb 2009In 1918, Wilson seemed to be in a powerful position to honour his pledge of making theworld safe for democracy. The Allied war effort depended on American finance and freshtroops from the US. Germany and its allies had agreed an armistice based on the President's'Fourteen Points' in which Wilson had called for a new world order, the abolition of secretdiplomacy, freedom of the seas, halting the arms race, and consideration for the interests ofcolonised people. All this would be based on a League of Nations giving mutual guaranteesof independence and territorial integrity to all states.

By the time Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conferences In 1919, the balance of power hadshifted. Britain and France were much less dependent on American finance and manpowerand, at home, Wilson's Republican opponents now dominated Congress. Wilson was tiredand ill and there was intense pressure to finalise the peace before Europe followed Russiadown the road to revolution. Britain and France won concessions, including financial

reparations from Germany and a 15-year occupation of the Ruhr. Wilson got his League ofNations but the harsh peace in which it was embedded seemed a far cry from his originalideals.

Under the US Constitution treaties have to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate to becomelaw, so Wilson returned home to another battle. Having been blocked on Capitol Hill, he tookhis case to the country. In three weeks he covered 8,000 miles, giving dozens of speeches.The strain caused a massive stroke, but this only hardened Wilson's intransigence. Hecouldn't win a two-thirds majority for the League but he wouldn't compromise. By 1920 therewas paralysis on Capitol Hill. The U.S. would not join the League of Nations that itsPresident had designed.

#54 'One Hundred Percent American':

Thu 19 Feb 2009During and after the First World War ultra-patriotism and social conformity dominatedAmerica, finding a variety of outlets. German-Americans were targets even before Americaentered the war, and Congress passed tough wartime Espionage and Sedition Acts targetinganyone who spoke or wrote against the U.S. government, flag or uniform.

As the war ended, fear of communists and anarchists began to escalate. There were only

70,000 communists in the US in 1919, but concern was intensif ied by a rash of strikes,reflecting a delayed reaction to wartime wage restraint. In 1919 America's small anarchistmovement launched a bombing campaign against politicians and businessmen. Governmentreacted by reorganising the Justice Department, creating a new Bureau of Investigation -forebear of the FBI - and a General Intelligence Division to target terrorist radicals. However,as the strikes abated, America pulled out of its post-war slump, and the Bolshevist tidereceded in Europe, the Red Scare subsided.

The tide of 'patriotism' also turned against immigrants. The resumption of post-warimmigration coincided with a recession, so unions joined in, concerned about the perceivedthreat to jobs. In 1921 and 1924 Congress passed acts slashing immigration from Europe to150,000 a year, and imposing quotas discriminating against eastern and southern Europeans.


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The crusade for social conformity had another triumph. For decades evangelical Protestantshad campaigned against the demon drink. Using the war as an excuse, in 1917 Congressapproved an amendment to the Constitution banning the manufacture, import and sale of'intoxicating liquors'. 'Prohibition' came into force in January 1920.

#55 The Jazz Age Hits Main Street:

Fri 20 Feb 2009The Twenties were the decade when the Jazz Age hit Main Street. The cinema was a

powerful influence, spreading new values and fashions across the nation. 'Prohibition' drovealcohol underground, with illegal alcohol manufacture run by organized crime. Gangsters likeChicago's Al Capone used profits from illicit liquor to dominate their territories, settling turfwars with dramatic shootouts.

At the same time, thousands of Southern blacks - 750,000 during the 1920s - were fleeing tonorthern cities to escape discrimination and economic depression. In the South, the whitesupremacist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was resurrected, with 4-5 million members in the early

1920s. Blacks were its main target, but it also attacked other non-whites and also non-Christians and supported Prohibition. The KKK was really an extreme manifestation of thebacklash by conservative white Anglo-Saxon Protestants against a country that was losing allthese characteristics.

The conservative heartland was rural small-town America and there was much debate aboutthe supposed clash of rural and urban values. The most dramatic example was the Dayton'Monkey Trial'. In 1925 Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution in schools as itcontradicted the Biblical account of creation. Teacher John Scopes deliberately violated thelaw to stand in a widely publicised test case. He was convicted but the trial was seen as asetback for the anti-evolution camp. Modernists proclaimed it as the end of an era, banishing

small town provincial values. This was premature - Fundamentalists went on to impose anti-evolution laws all over the South and would create their own sub-culture.


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Week 12 - From B oom To B omb (56-60)

#56 From Boom to Bust:

Mon 23 Feb 2009The mid-1920s saw an unprecedented economic boom in America. Unemployment was under

2% in 1926 and share values on the New York Stock Exchange increased fifteen-foldbetween 1923 and 1929. The bubble burst in October 1929, when the value of the market fellby one-third. Few people owned shares so the crash of the over-inflated stock market wasn'tin itself decisive but it represented a barometer for the whole economy. The resultinguncertainty led to a cutback in spending.

Throughout the 1920s consumer goods were the growth area, as advertising spread themessage that Americans needed fridges, radios and above all cars, often bought on credit. Sowhen Americans started tightening their belts in the winter of 1929, there was a massiveknock-on effect throughout the economy. Factories closed and workers were laid off and, as

prices collapsed, farmers suffered too.

Many couldn't keep up payments for goods or mortgages, which in turn undermined therickety banking system, leading to banks collapsing. Millions lost their savings, their jobs andtheir homes.

The President, Herbert Hoover, seemed unable to cope and the actions he did take were toolittle, too late. He was defeated in the 1932 presidential election by Franklin D. Roosevelt,known as FDR.

#57 New Deal:

Tue 24 Feb 2009When Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933, America was in the grip of its deepestdepression. A quarter of American workers were unemployed and 38 of the 48 states hadclosed their banks.

Roosevelt himself had faced considerable personal adversity after his lower body wasparalysed by polio in 1921. He knew that confidence was what the American people needed,and it became the watchword of his first 'Hundred Days' and of his presidency. He introducedregular radio talks, his 'Fireside Chats' and in his fi rst, explained his plans for resurrecting the

banking system. This helped to restore trust in American banks. FDR also honoured theDemocrats' election pledge to end Prohibition. By April 1933 the national mood was morepositive - testament that the Depression was in part psychological.


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In 1935, the Federal Government embarked on a massive programme of work relief. By theend of 1938 it employed an eighth of the workforce on construction projects - roads, hospitalsand airports - while professionals were paid to overhaul libraries and become schoolteachers.

The United States' libertarian tradition meant it lagged far behind Europe in welfareprovision, but the Social Security Act of 1935 established national unemploymentcompensation and old-age pensions. To allay fears that this went against the tradition ofAmerican self-help, it was financed through payroll taxes rather than by Federal government.The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave, for the first time, Federal backing toworkers' rights to organize unions.

Another initiative was the Rural Electrification Administration, or REA, representing one ofthe most fundamental transformations of American life in the period. When Roosevelt

became president, one farm in ten had electricity; by 1939 this was up to one quarter, and, by1950, nearly all did, revolutionising the lives of farming families.

In a piecemeal way, in the second 'Hundred Days' the Democrats and the New Deal werereallocating Federal largesse to those groups that had missed out before. It was little wonder

that in 1936 Roosevelt was re-elected by a landslide.

#58 'A War for the Survival of Democracy':

Wed 25 Feb 2009Supporters of Roosevelt's New Deal saw it as America's salvation; opponents regarded it as asocialist-style threat to their liberties. Roosevelt's decision to wage war on the SupremeCourt, attempting to appoint additional members to support his policies, played into the handsof his adversaries. And in the autumn of 1937 the New Deal seemed to have run out of steam,as the economy took a nosedive and unemployment soared. Roosevelt was convinced he

would not win a third term, but events in Europe would change everything.

The mid-1930s marked the depths of American isolationism. Fearing the entanglementswhich had dragged the U.S. into the Great War, Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts

banning Americans from sel ling arms or making loans to belligerent countries in any futurewar. Although Roosevelt detested Nazism, he believed responsibility for confronting Hitlerlay with France and Britain.

When the Munich Agreement signalled their unwillingness to do this, Roosevelt becamemore assertive, developing a new foreign policy position that, on grounds of security andideology, America could not be indifferent to events in Europe.

When war broke out 1939, FDR proclaimed U.S. neutrality but persuaded Congress to amendthe Neutrality Acts to a "cash-and-carry basis", which was essentially covert aid to Britain.His hope that Britain and France would fulfil their roles as America's frontline was dashed inMay 1940, when Germany occupied Western Europe. Privately FDR did not rate Britain'schances of survival but publicly he supported Britain with the September 1940 destroyers-for-bases deal.

The crisis caused by the Fall of France gave FDR a credible reason to run for a third term(George Washington had set the precedent of no more than two). In November 1940 he wasre-elected, giving him more freedom of manoeuvre to help Britain.


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#59 Floundering into War:

Thu 26 Feb 2009Roosevelt's main foreign policy objective was now helping Britain stay in the war. Britainwas short of funds, but politically Roosevelt could not be seen to be giving them supplies.The solution was Lend-Lease which was passed by Congress in March 1941. In the course ofthe war, it would cover over half Britain's total balance of payments deficit - a hugecontribution to Britain's war effort.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific, with the British and Russians fighting for their lives, the USremained the only significant obstacle to Japanese expansion. On December 7th 1941 theJapanese launched a surprise attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands.2,400 Americans were killed and 8 battleships sunk or badly damaged. Roosevelt described itas 'a date which wil l live in infamy' and Congress declared war on Japan. Three days laterHitler declared war on the U.S.

On the West Coast there was panic, and nearly 120,000 Japanese-Americans were moved to

camps in remote parts of the interior. On the East Coast, the danger was complacency. It tookmonths for a proper convoy system to be established, and a blackout imposed on coastaltowns - German U-boats took the opportunity to sink 3 million tons of Allied shipping in thefirst 7 months of 1942.

In the Pacific too, the war initially went badly. After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese drove theAmericans from the Philippines, the British from Malaya and Burma and the Dutch from theEast Indies. It looked as if India and Australia might fall. But pioneering a new kind ofseaborne air warfare, in June 1942 the Americans won their first significant victory againstthe Japanese at Midway. This marked the high tide of the Japanese advance across thePacific.

#60 'A Hell of a War':

Fri 27 Feb 2009 - End of Series 2On the home front, the war pulled America out of the Depression: between 1940 and 1944unemployment dropped from 15% to just over 1%. Much of this was due to conscription inthe armed forces, but war production also had a massive effect on the economy. Shipyardsand factories in cities across the South and the West Coast boomed, drawing in workers fromall over the U.S. One of the biggest migrations was of blacks from the rural South into

Northern cities, where discrimination remained but paid jobs were available.

Discrimination in the armed forces meant blacks served in segregated units with inferiorfacil ities and low-quality white officers. The military authorities ruled out integration,arguing that their job was to win the war, not engage in social engineering.

Across the Atlantic, Britain remained the senior partner in the military alliance. Fearing theWestern Allies were not yet prepared for a cross-Channel attack, the fighting wasconcentrated first in North Africa and then in Italy, much to the frustration of the Americanswho were pushing for the invasion of France.

In 1944 the United States became the senior partner and the Allied landings in Normandy,which eventually came in June 1944, were headed by an American general, DwightEisenhower.


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American dominance at the front reflected the massive arsenal of democracy at home - by1944 the United States was producing 40% of the world's armaments. The most strikingtestimony to America's industrial might was the development of the atomic bomb. In that

period, no other nation could have found the vast tracts of land and the resources (nearly 2billion dollars) for the project.

The Bomb was intended for possible use against Germany but the Nazi regime surrendered inMay 1945. By then America had entered a new era. In April Roosevelt died from a cerebralhaemorrhage. U.S. forces had gradually been driving the Japanese out of the Pacific, but aninvasion of Japan itself would face savage resistance. So a new and inexperienced president,Harry Truman, made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan, which surrenderedunconditionally a few days later. In the new jargon of the time, the United States was now a'superpower'.

----------- END OF SERIES TWO -----------------


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Series 3 - Empire And Evil (1 Jun - 10 Jul 2009)

Week 13 - Red Or Dead (61-65)

#61 From World War to Cold War

Mon 1 Jun 2009By 1947, the Soviet Union was transformed from America's ally to its greatest foe, as thewartime alliance degenerated into half a century of Cold War. The Second World War haddevastated the Soviet Union and Stalin was determined to control the key states on hiscountry's borders. During 1945, Communist-dominated governments were established inPoland, Bulgaria and Romania.Americans were tired of entanglements abroad and wanted to get out of uniform and on withtheir lives. But as tensions with the Soviets mounted, Truman, catapulted into the presidency

by Roosevelt's death, was determined not to be bullied or to squander the hard-won fruits ofvictory. In a speech to Congress in March 1947 he appealed for aid to fight communism inGreece and Turkey. Setting out what became known as the 'Truman Doctrine', he called onthe U.S. to support nations it believed were threatened by totalitarianism.A central battle of the Cold War was the struggle for mastery of Germany, now ruined andoccupied but with the potential to be Europe's strongest economy. The Russians wanted tokeep Germany weak and fragmented. The Americans and British hoped that by reviving theGerman economy, they could avoid the economic misery which had encouraged fascism andmight foster communism.Frustrated at the deadlock, in June 1947 U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall announced

the Marshall Plan. Over four years the Plan provided $13 billion of American aid to WesternEurope. Meanwhile, Stalin drew the iron curtain tighter, forcibly extracting as much fromEastern Europe as the U.S. was pumping into Western Europe.

#62 A World Half-Slave, Half-Free

Tue 2 Jun 2009Unable to reach agreement with the Soviets on the political and economic future of Germany,in June 1948 the western Allies introduced a new currency - the Deutschmark - to their zonesof Germany to try and stabilise the economy. In retaliation, Stalin cut off all access to Berlin.The city was occupied by all four allies, but America, Britain and France had to cross Soviet-

controlled territory to reach their sectors. Convinced they must maintain their presence inBerlin, the Americans and British set up an 'airbridge' to supply the city. Eleven months later,the Soviets backed down and lifted the blockade. For millions of Germans, America wastransformed from enemy to friend.


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In a further blow for Stalin, Truman used the crisis to justify negotiating the North AtlanticTreaty, signed in April 1949. It was a landmark in American foreign policy - the first time the

New World had made peacetime commitments to the Old.Within a year, the international situation had deteriorated for the Americans. In August 1949,the Soviets carried out their first atomic test (the CIA had predicted this wouldn't occur until1953). U.S. strategy had been based on countering Soviet superiority in conventional forceswith the threat of an American nuclear attack on the USSR. Now Stalin would be able todeliver atomic retaliation against Western Europe.As U.S. policymakers absorbed the shock of the Soviet test, Mao Zedong proclaimed acommunist victory in China. In response to the grimmer global outlook, Truman agreed to thedevelopment of a hydrogen bomb known as the 'Super' because of its massively enhanced

power.

#63 The Suburban Republic

Wed 3 Jun 2009In the mid-1940s, the biggest worry for millions of Americans wasn't international politics,

but the domestic housing shortage. So American business turned its energies to suburban

house-building, using the mass-production methods that helped win the war. Across thecountry, new communities were constructed in record time, often in identical styles.Suburban living required a car. By the mid-1950s, three-quarters of American families owneda car; motels, malls and drive-in movie theatres all came of age. The government respondedwith the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, creating a state-subsidised national system of roads.Sixteen mil lion Americans had served in the war, and they were repaid with the 1944 'GI Billof Rights', giving guaranteed home loans and grants for education. But, like subsidized road-

building, this Federal largesse benefited a selected part of the population, mainly thesuburban middle class rather than the urban poor.The American post-war economic boom continued, with a few blips, for a quarter-century. In1950 the U.S. had 7% of the world's population but half its manufacturing production. Per

capita income and levels of home ownership were double those in Britain. Millions ofAmericans were now moving into the suburban middle class and even America's poor wererich by global standards. And those poor remained disproportionately non-white. Southernleaders wanted to keep African Americans in their place to act as cheap farm labour. Raceremained America's Achilles heel.

#64 Korea - The Cold War Turns Hot

Thu 4 Jun 2009At the end of the war, Korea had been divided in two with the border along the 38th parallel.In June 1950, the Soviet-backed North Koreans invaded the south to take control of the whole

country. Truman was determined to prevent South Korea turning communist. Initially, thecampaign went well for the Americans, who re-took the capital Seoul in September 1950 butin November, the Chinese intervened and the Americans were overwhelmed.In America, fear of communism was whipped up by the sensational accusations of SenatorJoseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who claimed that hundreds of government officials wereCommunists. For many, McCarthy epitomized the worst in Cold War demagoguery. TheTruman administration knew his accusations were not completely unfounded - wartimeintelligence had revealed that over 300 Americans, some in senior government positions, had

been in contact with Soviet agents.In 1947, on the basis of Venona information, Truman imposed a loyalty programme onFederal employees and gave the FBI - led by J. Edgar Hoover - its head in investigating their

backgrounds. The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities publicly pi lloried not onlyleftists but also Jews, intellectuals and free spirits in the media. Around 1,500 people were

blacklisted.


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During the winter of 1950-1 Truman turned the North Atlantic Treaty from a diplomatic pactof mutual support into a military alliance, backed by four new U.S. combat divisions and anAmerican commander - Dwight Eisenhower.

#65 Defended to Death?

Fri 5 Jun 2009Running for the Republicans, Eisenhower won a landslide in the 1952 presidential election.The Democrats were tarnished by the deadlock in Korea. The new administration wanted toreduce government spending and avoid entanglement in another unwinnable ground war. Theanswer was greater reliance on America's nuclear arsenal and Eisenhower's 'New Look'defence policy. Rather than fighting land wars, America would prevent aggression by lettingRussia and China know that the result would be a massive nuclear retali

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