Across the long arc of American history, three moments in particular have disproportionately determined the course of the Republic’s development. Each has defined the historical legacy of a century with lasting transformative impacts. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the American people endured the largest economic crisis in the history of the country where many became unemployed. The New Deal programs began to reshape the public’s attitudes toward government. However, only the mobilization that followed America’s entry into World War II would be the historical moment that would bring an end to the Depression. This war would be one of the most defining events in history because it solidified America’s role as a global power as well …show more content…
Though the Allies and the Axis Powers had been at war since 1939, the United States remained neutral until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December. The civilian economies of both the Soviet Union and Great Britain shrank by nearly one-third during war time. In the United States civilian consumption expanded by nearly 15 percent. The war forever banished the Depression and ignited the economic after-burners that propelled the American economy to unprecedented heights of prosperity in the postwar decades. Roosevelt created ways to maximize the advantages at minimum costs. From ‘Ken Burns “The War,” Explore PBS Website,’ it says “American industry provided almost two-thirds of all the Allied military equipment produced during the war: 297,000 aircraft, 193,000 artillery pieces, 86,000 tanks and two million army trucks. In four years, American industrial production, already the world’s largest, doubled in size.” This shows the scope of American production, post-Depression, and the major turnaround of the American economy it caused. War production profoundly changed the American industry where industries were transformed. For example, making cars turned into making engines and other parts for airplane engines, guns, tanks, and other military purposes. The War also led to many social changes, including a women’s movement that would put women into previously male only …show more content…
As soon as the Cold war was instigated, the differences in ideology and other factors became apparent which worsened the relationship between the two countries. This was shown in the many events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the arms race which nearly led to a war. As the Cold War progressed for decades until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had major impacts on American society. The Cold War created a strong anti-communism idea within the USA. The hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. became known as the Red Scare. The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Instigating the fear was a senator, Joseph McCarthy. The hatred got so strong that it eventually led to McCarthyism in 1950 where people were accused and aggressively investigated of being affiliated with the party without evidence. This eventually came to an end when McCarthy began to accuse everyone of being affiliated until an army man denounced McCarthyism. Although the Cold War never actually led to a hot war between the two major powers, it caused massive impact upon the world, including American society spreading the fear of communism, war and economic
Almost instantly after the end of World War Two, the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to tear away at the thin bond formed by the two counties' alliance in the war. McCarthy and many other republican politicians believed that the democratic party, along with President Harry S. Truman, were not harsh enough on the communist party and they strongly opposed Roosevelt's New Deal. When the Republicans took control of the presidency in 1952, "McCarthyism," as it is now known. This new movement, McCarthyism, accused some Americans of being communist’s sympathizers and people that were suspected o...
The Great Depression tested America’s political organizations like no other event in United States’ history except the Civil War. The most famous explanations of the period are friendly to Roosevelt and the New Deal and very critical of the Republican presidents of the 1920’s, bankers, and businessmen, whom they blame for the collapse. However, Amity Shlaes in her book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, contests the received wisdom that the Great Depression occurred because capitalism failed, and that it ended because of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Shlaes, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a syndicated financial columnist, argues that government action between 1929 and 1940 unnecessarily deepened and extended the Great Depression.
During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.
There were Communists infiltrating America, and it seemed McCarthy was the only one actively trying to find it. McCarthy governed the U.S. people with fear for three years, was censored, and now is being proven correct, despite people trying to hide the truth. 1950 Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, began a crusade of anti-communism (Bartlett). In this period of time “the widespread accusations and investigations of suspected Communist activities in the U.S.” became known as ‘McCarthyism’ (Reeves). Many events happened during the McCarthyism era to justify his suspicions; Communism was spreading throughout Czechoslovakia and China, and North Korea invaded the South –which started the Korean War (Reeves).
In order to understand Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, we must endeavor to understand the circumstances, both political and economic, which surrounded it, and appreciate the origins of the ideals that sought to rectify our country. The Great Depression left Americans doubting their country’s economy and government. Unemployment rates were at an all-time high and every American questioned what the future might hold. During this time, we also witnessed substantial government growth under the presidencies of men like Roosevelt and Wilson. Even after the Korean War ended, many of the controls and interventions that they had enacted remained in force.
Beginning in the late 1940s, as the Cold War escalated between the United States, the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China, the United States went through a period of intense anti-communist tensions and suspicion. Many thousands of individuals were suspected of being Soviet spies, Communists, or communist sympathizers. Although the American Communist Party was never illegal under Federal law, membership in the party or support of its goals were regarded by many as tantamount to treason. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of this era of anti-communism. The term McCarthyism was coined that same year to describe and condemn the senator's methods, which were widely seen as demagogic and based on reckless, unsubstantiated accusations. Later the term was applied more generally to the anti-communism of the late 1940s through the late 1950s; today, it is often used even more broadly, to describe public attacks made on persons' character and/or patriotism that involve the sort of tactics associated with McCarthy.
The attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...
Mistrust on all sides contributed to the buildup of fear during the time of the Cold War. One of the most prominent fears present within America during the Cold War was that from the late 1940s and to the early 1950s, known as the time of the Red Scare. That being the prospect of communist subversion at home and abroad seemed frighteningly real to many people in the United States. One individual who contributed to this fear was a man by the name of Joseph R. McCarthy. This man spent a total of five years attempting to expose communists and other left-wing “loyalty risks” present within the U.S. government for personal benefits.
In 1949, the Soviet Union tested a nuclear bomb and Mao Zedong's communistic forces took over China. Just a year after that, the Korean War had begun. All of this was just showing the American people that communism is spreading all around the world. This would be the time that would become to be the height of the Red Scare, specifically when Senator Joseph McCarthy gave a speech in which he said he knew of 205 members of the Communist Party that worked for the United States Department of State, this began the era that is known as The McCarthy Era. The McCarthy era was a time in which Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activites Committee essentially hunted down communists, monitoring citizens and their behavior. This led to even more public fear and hysteria over communists, and of course, dozens of
Since the Russian Revolution in 1905, the world housed suspicions regarding communism. These suspicions grew through both World War I, blossoming into a direct confrontation between Communist Russia and Capitalist America. Following the acts of World War II, the Cold War erupted. During the Cold War, United States foreign policy grew gradually aggressive, reflecting the public sentiment.
Immediately after the end of World War II, two different political ideologies came into power – Soviet communism and American capitalism. The Cold War was a state of military and political tension between the two powers who both vied for supremacy on an international scale. As the Soviets’ development of nuclear capability this fear, dubbed “the Red Scare” metastasized from the arena of government employment into the party politics, professions, the media, and the people at all levels, and was a catalyst for many changes in America. The Red Scare compromised many civil liberties of American politics, society, and people, and led to a range of profound and enduring effects on the US government and society. Such impacts were shown through many
The New Deal period has generally - but not unanimously - been seen as a turning point in American politics, with the states relinquishing much of their autonomy, the President acquiring new authority and importance, and the role of government in citizens' lives increasing. The extent to which this was planned by the architect of the New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been greatly contested, however. Yet, while it is instructive to note the limitations of Roosevelt's leadership, there is not much sense in the claims that the New Deal was haphazard, a jumble of expedient and populist schemes, or as W. Williams has put it, "undirected". FDR had a clear overarching vision of what he wanted to do to America, and was prepared to drive through the structural changes required to achieve this vision.
Although it is over in 1945, it still gave various impacts to America and they are ranged from the financial and production sector to the effects to the households as most of the men were drafted to the war. According to History.com staffs (2009), the attack on Pearl Harbor angered American and mosu t of them was working hard as a nation to win the world war 2. The effort given by the U.S was remarkable as since 1942 the people was given a ration stamp for food, gas, clothing, and fuel oil. This effort is done in order to ensure that the military force in the front line will have more to consume. Moreover, individuals were also contributing by recycling scrap metals, rubber, and aluminum cans to produce war-related armaments. They were also buying U.S war bonds and the profit was used to fund the cost of the
The United States faced the worst economic downfall in history during the Great Depression. A domino effect devastated every aspect of the economy, unemployment rate was at an all time high, banks were declaring bankruptcy and the frustration of the general public led to the highest suicide rates America has ever encountered. In the 1930’s Franklin D Roosevelt introduced the New Deal reforms, which aimed to “reconcile democracy, individual liberty and economic planning” (Liberty 863). The New Deal reforms were effective in the short term but faced criticism as it transformed the role of government and shaped the lives of American citizens.
As a result of the United States joining the war in 1916, industry productions boomed. (Effects of WWI in America) Factories and manufacturers had to keep up with the growing demands of the war effort by solely producing weapons, tanks, airplanes, and any other necessary products. In order to produce more material in a short amount of time, new technologies were developed to help manufacturers meet the needs of the people and government. Also, more employment opportunities opened for women and African-Americans. With fewer healthy, working men in America, women became the main work force, largely employed in factories across the nation. (Effects of WWI in America) African-Americans also became popular in factories as they migrated to cities in search of job opportunities. As industries boomed during this time, so did the economy. According to David Jarmul, "Because World War One left Europe so devastated, industry boomed in the United States to fill the worldwide demand." By the end of World War One, the United States produced more goods and services than any other nation. (Jarmul) Americans had more coal, food, cloth, and steel than even the richest foreign countries. In 1920, the United States ' national income became greater than the combined incomes of France, Britain, Canada, Japan, Germany, and seventeen smaller countries. The Unite...