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An American Empire• 1823 “Monroe Doctrine”: Europe mustn't get involved in Latin American affairs Stay away from our neighbors!

• 1890s: Should the USA give up “isolationism” and have colonies, as Britain, France and Germany do?

• 1898: Warship The Maine explodes in the harbor of Havana, Cuba Hearst’s newspapers blame Spain

• 1904 “Roosevelt’s Corollary”: USA will intervene in Latin America whenever it is “necessary”

The Maine

REMEMBER“THE MAINE”!

An American EmpireResults of Spanish-American War:Spain hands over the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico to the USA.Cuba:1. forced to give land at

Guantanamo Bay2.Forced to accept permanent USA

military base there3. forced to accept USA military

intervention at any timeCuba still refuses to cash the US rent checks for use of the base, maintaining that the US military is there illegally.

War and PeaceWhy did the USA get involved in the war?• Germans invaded neutral Belgium• Germans sank the Lusitania• German submarines sank US ships carrying supplies to the Allied forces, as well as neutral ships• The Zimmerman telegram• “To make the world safe for democracy!” (President Woodrow Wilson, 1917)

Results of the war:• Wilson’s Fourteen Points; idea for “League of Nations”• Many factories because of war production• Other countries owe the USA money; the USA is richer than ever before• Distrust of foreigners and suspicion of “un-American” ideas

The Roaring Twenties

Characteristics:• America’s love affair with The Car• Huge increase in consumer goods•Credit cards and installment-plan payments• Businessmen are heroes• Stocks and shares bought “on the margin”• Organized crime: “Scarface” Al Capone• Alcohol: Prohibition and bootlegging• Sacco & Vanzetti executed: Xenophobia• Flight: Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart• New music, new fashions, new dance styles, new literature• Jazz! Black Americans find their “voice”

“New” Women: The Flapper by Dorothy Parker

The Playful flapper here we see,The fairest of the fair.She's not what Grandma used to be, --You might say, au contraire.Her girlish ways may make a stir,Her manners cause a scene,But there is no more harm in herThan in a submarine.

She nightly knocks for many a goalThe usual dancing men.Her speed is great, but her controlIs something else again.All spotlights focus on her pranks.All tongues her prowess herald.For which she well may render thanksTo God and Scott Fitzgerald.

Her golden rule is plain enough -Just get them young and treat them rough.

Motion Pictures

• Motion picture production became one of the ten largest industries in the United States during the 1920s.

• In 1922, theaters sold 40 million tickets a week. • By 1929, that number had grown to 100 million a

week.

FARMING TROUBLES

• New machinery led to overproduction

• Fewer immigrants meant less population growth: less food needed

• Less horse feed needed because of cars

• European imports dropped

• Farmers and their families didn’t benefit at all from the surge in industrialization: the “trickle-down” theory didn’t work for them

• Sharecroppers had to turn over most of their profits to the landowners

• More than a half-million farms went bankrupt in the 1920s

WALL STREET CRASH

BLACK THURSDAY: OCTOBER 24, 1929

Crash and Depression:1929 ~ 1940

Breadlines and soup kitchens for the unemployed

A “Hooverville” outside Chicago

Crash and Depression:1929 ~ 1940

Brother, can you spare a dime? (1931)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eih67rlGNhU

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead, Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime? Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime; Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell, Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum, Half a million boots went slogging through Hell, And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time. Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Crash and Depression:1929 ~ 1940

Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. Herbert Hoover:1932

FDR:

American Government needs to take charge of the situation: jobs, welfare, agricultural reform, social security, unemployment insurance

Hoover:

Business needs to take charge of the situation: open factories, begin producing and selling things again; don’t spend Federal money!

Is the current U.S. government under President Obama leaning more towards FDR or Hoover?What about the USA under George W. Bush?

Homeless and UnemployedChristmas Eve, New York City, 1937

The End