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The Civil War | Fort Sumter | Ken Burns | PBS

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The Civil War began at 4:30 am on April 12, 1861 at Ft. Sumter, Charleston, SC.

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Battle of Gettysburg: Summary, Facts & Casualties | HISTORY

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The Battle of Gettysburg, fought over three hot summer days, from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. The South lost the battle—and many men—and it marked a turning point in the bloody war that left the South mostly on the defensive.

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Table of Contents

1. Battle of Appomattox Court House

2. Lee Surrenders to Grant

3. The Final Battle of the Civil War?

The Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. But the resulting Battle of Appomattox Court House, which lasted only a few hours, effectively brought the four-year Civil War to an end.

Battle of Appomattox Court House
WATCH: Appomattox Court House
In retreat from the Union army's Appomattox campaign, which began in March 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia stumbled westward through the Virginia countryside stripped of food and supplies. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had outrun General Lee's troops, blocking their retreat and taking approximately 6,000 prisoners at Sayler's Creek.

Confederate desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Rebels were almost completely surrounded. Nonetheless, early on the morning of April 9, Confederate troops led by Major General John B. Gordon mounted a last-ditch offensive that was initially successful. Soon, however, the Confederates saw that they were hopelessly outnumbered by two corps of Union soldiers who had marched all night to cut off the Confederate advance.

Later that morning, Lee-cut off from all provisions and all support-famously declared that "there is nothing left me to do but to go and see Gen. Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths." But Lee also knew his remaining troops, numbering about 28,000, would quickly turn to pillaging the countryside in order to survive.

With no remaining options, Lee sent a message to General Ulysses Grant announcing his willingness to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia. The two war-weary generals met in the front parlor of the Wilmer McLean home at one o'clock that afternoon.

Lee Surrenders to Grant

Lee and Grant, both of whom held the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and began their dialogue by exchanging awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant had arrived in his mud-splattered field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword.

Did you know? In 1869, the house where Lee surrendered to Grant was sold at public auction after owner Wilmer McLean defaulted on his loan repayments. In the ensuing years, the house had a series of owners before it was reconstructed and opened to the public by the National Park Service in 1949.

Lee asked for the terms of surrender, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. Generously, all officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property-most important to the men were the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee's starving men would be given Union rations.

Quieting a band that had begun to play in celebration, Grant told his officers, "The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again." Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-the final skirmish of the Civil War occurred on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end.

The Final Battle of the Civil War?

News of the surrender traveled slowly. Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-there were six battles that took place after Appomattox, with the final skirmish of the Civil War occurring on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes, the Civil War had come to an end.

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Appomattox Court House - Definition, Date & Location

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The Appomattox Court House, located in Virginia, is where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, bringing an end to the Civil War.

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Find a summary, definition and facts about President Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan for kids. The aims of the Ten Percent Plan. Information about Ten Percent Plan for kids, children, homework and schools.

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https://www.pbs.org/video/the-civil-war-the-civil-war-fort-sumter/

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https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/appomattox-court-house

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https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/battle-of-gettysburg

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http://oer2go.org/mods/en-oya/history-103/videos/Chapter12/5-The-Reconstruction-Amendments-The-13th-14th-and-15th-Amendments.mp4

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Plessy vs. Ferguson/End of Reconstruction

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Plessy vs. Ferguson/End of Reconstruction

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How did Plessy v. Ferguson affect segregation in the United States?

Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial " separate but equal" doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. Plessy v. Ferguson was the first major inquiry into the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's (1868) equal-protection clause, which prohibits the states from denying "equal protection of the laws" to any person within their jurisdictions. Although the majority opinion did not contain the phrase "separate but equal," it gave constitutional sanction to laws designed to achieve racial segregation by means of separate and supposedly equal public facilities and services for African Americans and whites. It served as a controlling judicial precedent until it was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

Background

The case originated in 1892 as a challenge to Louisiana's Separate Car Act (1890). The law required that all railroads operating in the state provide "equal but separate accommodations" for white and African American passengers and prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on the basis of their race. In 1891 a group of Creole professionals in New Orleans formed the Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. They hired Albion Tourgée, a Reconstruction-era judge and social reformer, as their legal counsel. As plaintiff in the test case the committee chose a person of mixed race in order to support its contention that the law could not be consistently applied, because it failed to define the white and "coloured" races. Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. (The state Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the law could not be applied to interstate travel.) After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act. At Plessy's trial in U.S. District Court, Judge John H. Ferguson dismissed his contention that the act was unconstitutional. After the state Supreme Court affirmed the district court's ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, and oral arguments were heard on April 13, 1896. The court rendered its decision one month later, on May 18.

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Plessy v. Ferguson | Summary, Ruling, Background, & Impact

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Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial 'separate but equal' doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

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http://www.american-historama.org/1860-1865-civil-war-era/ten-percent-plan.htm

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Plessy vs. Ferguson/End of Reconstruction

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Plessy vs. Ferguson/End of Reconstruction

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https://www.britannica.com/event/Plessy-v-Ferguson-1896

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Sutter's Mill

On January 24, 1848, James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter originally from New Jersey, found flakes of gold in the American River at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Coloma, California.

At the time, Marshall was working to build a water-powered sawmill owned by John Sutter, a German-born Swiss citizen and founder of a colony of Nueva Helvetia (New Switzerland, which would later become the city of Sacramento). As Marshall later recalled of his historic discovery: "It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold."

Did you know? Miners extracted more than 750,000 pounds of gold during the California Gold Rush.

Days after Marshall's discovery at Sutter's Mill, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the Mexican-American War and leaving California in the hands of the United States-a remarkable twist of fate with important ramifications for an America eager for westward expansion.

At the time, the population of the territory consisted of 6,500 Californios (people of Spanish or Mexican descent); 700 foreigners (primarily Americans); and 150,000 Native Americans (barely half the number that had been there when Spanish settlers arrived in 1769).

Sutter, in fact, had enslaved hundreds of Native Americans and used them as a free source of labor and makeshift militia to defend his territory and expand his empire.

Gold Fever Strikes

Though Marshall and Sutter tried to keep news of the discovery under wraps, word got out, and by mid-March at least one newspaper was reporting that large quantities of gold were being turned up at Sutter's Mill. Though the initial reaction in San Francisco was disbelief, storekeeper Sam Brannan set off a frenzy when he paraded through town displaying a vial of gold obtained from Sutter's Creek.

By mid-June, shops and businesses stood empty, as some three-quarters of the male population of San Francisco had abandoned the city for the gold mines, and the number of miners in the area ballooned to some 4,000 by August.

As news reports-many wildly overblown-of the easy fortunes being made in California spread worldwide, some of the first migrants to arrive were those from lands accessible by boat, such as Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii), Mexico, Chile, Peru and China.

Polk Spreads Gold Fever

When the news reached the East Coast, press reports were initially skeptical. Gold fever kicked off nationwide in earnest, however, after December 1848, when President James K. Polk announced the positive results of a report made by Colonel Richard Mason, California's military governor, in his inaugural address.

As Polk wrote, "The accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service."

The '49ers Come to California

Throughout 1849, people around the United States (mostly men) with gold fever borrowed money, mortgaged their property or spent their life savings to make the arduous journey to California. In pursuit of the kind of wealth they had never dreamed of, they left their families and hometowns. In turn, women left behind took on new responsibilities such as running farms or businesses and caring for their children alone.

Thousands of would-be gold miners, known as 49ers for the year they arrived, traveled overland across the mountains or by sea, sailing to Panama or even around Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America.

By the end of the year, the non-native population of California was estimated at 100,000, (as compared with 20,000 at the end of 1848 and around 800 in March 1848). To accommodate the needs of the 49ers, gold mining towns had sprung up all over the region, complete with shops, saloons, brothels and other businesses seeking to make their own Gold Rush fortune.

The overcrowded chaos of the mining camps and towns grew ever more lawless, including rampant banditry, gambling, alcoholism, prostitution and violence. San Francisco, for its part, developed a bustling economy and became the central metropolis of the new frontier.

Gold Rush Politics

The Gold Rush undoubtedly sped up California's admission to the Union as the 31st state. In late 1849, California applied to enter the Union with a constitution that barred the Southern system of racial slavery, provoking a crisis in Congress between proponents of slavery and anti-slavery politicians.

According to the Compromise of 1850, proposed by Kentucky's Senator Henry Clay, California was allowed to enter as a free state, while the territories of Utah and New Mexico were left to decide the legal status of slavery for themselves.

California's Mines

After 1850, the surface gold in California largely disappeared, even as miners continued to arrive. Mining had always been difficult and dangerous labor, and striking it rich required good luck as much as skill and hard work. Moreover, the average daily take for an independent miner working with his pick and shovel had by then sharply decreased from what it had been in 1848.

As gold became more and more difficult to reach, the growing industrialization of mining drove more and more miners from independence into wage labor. The new technique of hydraulic mining, developed in 1853, brought enormous profits but destroyed much of the region's landscape.

Though gold mining continued throughout the 1850s, it had reached its peak by 1852, when some $81 million was pulled from the ground. After that year, the total take declined gradually, leveling off to around $45 million per year by 1857. Settlement in California continued, however, and by the end of the decade the state's population was 380,000.

Impact of the Gold Rush

New mining methods and the population boom in the wake of the California Gold Rush permanently altered the landscape of California. The technique of hydraulic mining brought enormous profits but destroyed much of the region's landscape.

Dams designed to supply water to mine sites in summer altered the course of rivers away from farmland, while sediment from mines clogged others. The logging industry in the area was born from the need to construct extensive canals and feed boilers at mines, further consuming natural resources.

In 1884, hydraulic mining was outlawed by court order, and soon agriculture became the dominant industry in California, and it remains so today. While a few mines and Gold Rush towns remain, much of the heritage of that era is preserved at places such as Bodie State Historic Park, a decaying ghost town, and at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where Sutter's Mill once stood.

Sources

Environmental Impact of the Gold Rush. Calisphere.org.
After the Gold Rush. National Geographic.

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Gold Rush: California, Date & Sutter's Mill - HISTORY

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The Gold Rush in California started in 1848 after gold was found at Sutter's Mill. Within a year, hundreds of thousands of 49ers seeking fortune poured into the state.

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The homestead act was passed May 20, 1862. This act allowed for US citizens to get 160 acres of land out in the west for free. They had to be adults of course, and they also had to have been loyal to...

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Dorey and Yolanda meet with a historian to learn more about the Long Walk.

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https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/gold-rush-of-1849

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"If a Western Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in 1869 and awakened in 1896, he would not have recognized the lands that the railroads had touched. Bison had yielded to cattle; mountains had been blasted and bored. Great swaths of land that had once whispered grass now screamed corn and wheat. Nation-states had conquered Indian peoples, slaughtering some of them and confining and controlling most of them. Population had increased across much of this vast region, and there were growing cities along its edges. A land that had once run largely north-south now ran east-west. Each change could have been traced back to the railroads." - Richard White, Railroaded

Unprecedented Urbanization

Between 1820 and 1860, the visual map of the United States was transformed by unprecedented urbanization and rapid territorial expansion. These changes mutually fueled the Second Industrial Revolution which peaked between 1870 and 1914. Between the annexation of Texas (1845), the British retreat from Oregon country, and The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848) which cemented Mexican cession of the Southwest to the United States, territorial expansion exponentially rewrote the competing visions free-soilers, European immigrants, industrial capitalists, and Native Americans held for the future of the American Empire.

Need for Railroads

The need for massive industry was obvious: in order to reach California's burgeoning port cities like San Francisco and to expedite the extraction of gold from the mines, railroad tracks would need to be laid across the plains to reach the Pacific and open up trade networks. Questions abounded about the character this new American territory would take: would it be reliant on slave labor and fulfill Jefferson's original vision of an agrarian republic? Would corporations or the federal government lay down the required infrastructure to 'tame the West'? Still, others wondered if turning over the bison laden Plains to New York based corporations would stifle the American dream for America's second and third sons. Still, others believed the technological innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution was the unstoppable culmination of modern civilization propelling the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny. Questions of this nature were not new in American history. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, Americans were forced to adjust to the implications of the First Industrial Revolution. 1750 to 1850 marked a century of heightened industrial activity centered around textiles. After the invention of steam power and the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, cotton could be shipped from the American South by New England ships to the vast textile factories of Great Britain, producing a reverse triangle trade around a single global commodity. These developments were hailed by some as "progress," but the pace, scale, and reliance of slave labor on these developments instilled in others a great sense of anxiety and fear.

Although the economic and social problems of the first Industrial Revolution distressed many, these concerns were set aside during the nation's bloody Civil War (1861-1865).

The following maps demonstrate the advancement of the railroad before the Civil War (as always, click to enlarge image):

American Economic Growth

In the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American economy grew considerably as it entered "The Second Industrial Revolution," generally recognized as the period between 1870 and 1914. The U.S. was awash in an abundance of natural resources from its newly acquired territories, a growing supply of labor immigrating from Europe, and the migration of emancipated African Americans North and West, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment.

The Second Industrial Revolution took local communities and their new products out of the shadow of large regional agricultural based economies which was assisted by new labor forces and production techniques. During the Second Industrial Revolution, innovations in transportation, such as roads, steamboats, the Eerie Canal, and most notably railroads, linked distant, previously isolated communities together.

Transporting Products

For the first time, goods from the American interior could be shipped directly to the Atlantic, and vice versa. Being able to ship products great distances transformed the nature of economic activity in the United States. Before the development of this elaborate transportation and communication system, economies were localized and often based on a barter system. The transportation revolution opened up new markets for farmers, industrialists, and bankers who could now bring crops cotton in the Mississippi River Valley, wheat in the Midwest, and manufactured goods in upstate New York into a global market based on credit. Similarly, the expansion of the railroad brought a dramatic reduction in the time and money it took to move heavy goods, creating new opportunities for wealth at a time when two-thirds of all Americans still resided on farms.

Government Involvement

The federal government actively participated in this growth by promoting industrial and agricultural development. High tariffs were enacted to protect American industry from foreign competition, land was granted to railroad companies to encourage construction, and the army was employed to forcibly remove Indians from western land desired by farmers and mining companies. The rapid growth of factory production, mining, and railroad construction all boosted the new industrial economy and stood in stark contrast to the previous small farm and artisan workshop economy of the pre-Civil War era.

By 1913, the United States produced one-third of the world's industrial out put-more than the total of Great Britain, France, and Germany combined. The living standards and the purchasing power of money increased rapidly, as new technologies played an ever-increasing role in the daily lives of working- and middle-class citizens. Between 1870 and 1920, almost 11 million Americans moved from farm to city, and another 25 million immigrants arrived from overseas. By 1920, for the first time in American history, the census revealed more people lived in cities than on farms.

Interconnected Growth

Inventions during the Second Industrial Revolution were interconnected. The railroad spurred the growth of the telegraph machine. Telegraph lines and railroad lines inextricably bound together as telegraph polls dotted the distance of railroad lines. The telegraph, and later the telephone, ushered in the era of instant communication and brought about, in the words of cultural historian Stephen Kern, "the annihilation of distance." This was a profound change for Americans. The "local" shot outward to the "national" and even "international" as a new sense of world unity was established through these new technologies. These technologies also increased the pace of life and the manner in which people worked and lived.

Major Technological Advances of the Second Industrial Revolution:

* 1870s - Automatic signals, air brakes, and knuckle couplers on the railroads; the Bessemer and then the open-hearth process in the steel mills; the telephone, electric light, and typewriter.
* 1880s - The elevator and structural steel for buildings, leading to the first "skyscrapers."
* 1890s - The phonograph and motion pictures; the electric generator, contributing to modern household items such as refrigerators and washing machines and gradually replaced water and steam powered engines; and the internal combustion engine, which made possible the first automobiles and the first airplane flight by the Wright brothers in 1903.

Unstable Growth

The economic growth during this time period was extraordinary but unstable. The world economy experienced harsh depressions in 1873 and again in 1897. Businesses competed intensely with each other and corporations battled to gain control of industries. Countless companies failed and others were bought up by larger corporations which eventually ruled the marketplace.

For those who were able to capitalize on these technological advancements, the Second Industrial Revolution was highly profitable. During the Depression of 1873, the soon-to-be industry giant, Andrew Carnegie established a steel company which controlled every phase of business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution.

Carnegie Fortune

By the 1890s, Carnegie dominated the steel industry and had accumulated a fortune worth millions. His steel factories were the most technologically advanced in the world, although this honor came at a price for his workers. Carnegie ran his companies with a dictatorial hand; his factories operated around the clock and workers were burdened with long hours. Yet, at the same time, Carnegie believed that the rich had a moral obligation to promote the advancement of society and he distributed much of his wealth to various philanthropies, especially towards the creation of public libraries throughout the country.

Like Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller also accumulated enormous amounts of wealth, although his came through domination of the oil industry.

Beating the Competition

Rockefeller annihilated rival oil firms through committed competition, secret deals with railroad companies, and fixed prices and production quotas. He bought out competing oil refineries and managed all aspects of the operation, including drilling, refining, storage, and distribution. Before long, Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controlled a majority of the nation's oil industry. Like Carnegie, Rockefeller publicly supported a number of philanthropies, yet privately domineered over his workers and bitterly fought their efforts to organize and unionize.

The Second Industrial Revolution fueled the Gilded Age, a period of great extremes: great wealth and widespread poverty, great expansion and deep depression, new opportunities and greater standardization. Economic insecurity became a basic way of life as the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s put millions out of work or reduced pay. Those who remained in the industrial line of work experienced extremely dangerous working conditions, long hours, no compensation for injuries, no pensions, and low wages. But for a limited minority of workers, the industrial system established new forms of freedom. Skilled workers received high wages in industrial work and oversaw a great deal of the production process. Economic independence now required a technical skill rather than ownership of one's own shop and tools. It was labeled "progress" by its proponents, but those who worked the floor at the factory knew it came at a price.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914 - US History Scene

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"If a Western Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in 1869 and awakened in 1896, he would not have recognized the lands that the railroads had touched. Bison had yielded to cattle; mountains had been blasted and bored. Great swaths of land that had once whispered grass now screamed corn and wheat.

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http://ushistoryscene.com/article/second-industrial-revolution/

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Inventions: Lightbulb,  Telephone, Automobile,& Airplanes

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Inventions: Lightbulb,  Telephone, Automobile,& Airplanes

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New Innovations

Historians have labeled the years from 1870-1914 as the period of the Second Industrial Revolution. While the First Industrial Revolution caused the growth of industries, such as coal, iron, railroads and textiles, the Second Industrial Revolution witnessed the expansion of electricity, petroleum and steel.

Many of the changes that occurred during this period had to do with new products simply replacing old ones. For instance, during this time, steel began to replace iron. Steel was being utilized for construction projects, industrial machines, railroads, ships and many other items. Steel production made it possible for rail lines to be built at competitive costs, which further spread transportation.

It is hard to imagine a time when electricity was not a common luxury. However, the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution was just such a time. Before the introduction of public electricity, candles and gas lamps were used to light homes and factories.

Many activities were simply done in the daytime. The use of electricity fundamentally changed the way people worked and lived. The first efficient commercial electrical generators were used in the 1870s. In 1881, Great Britain was the very first country to install a public power station. Beginning in 1910, it was possible to power a residential area from one single station.

Electrical Inventions and Improvements

The introduction of public electricity led to many inventions. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan finally perfected the design of the light bulb in 1879. Contrary to popular myth, Edison did not invent the light bulb. In fact, less efficient light bulbs had been around decades earlier. So, why is Edison given credit for this invention? His design was the first one that was practical for home use.

Edison's light bulb was economical and safe, and it stayed on for an impressive 13 and a half hours. Edison also provided another innovation that we take for granted today: the use of a standard light bulb base that fit into any socket.

Electricity was used for transportation, as well. In 1879, the first electric railroad appeared in Berlin, Germany. As early as 1880, electric streetcars began to replace horse-drawn carriages in major European cities. In 1901, Guglielmo Marconi sent radio waves across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

Automobiles and Airplanes

Among the most influential and far-reaching innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution was the internal combustion engine. First introduced in 1878, it was powered by gas and air, which made it impractical for widespread public use. However, once liquid fuels, such as petroleum, were introduced, the possibilities were improved. This engine led to the development of automobiles and airplanes. Without the internal combustion engine, none of the following inventions would have been possible.

In a technological leap forward, German inventor Karl Benz patented the first automobile in 1886. This was the first automobile designed to run on its own power. This model became the first automobile sold to the public in 1888. In that same year, Gottlieb Daimler invented a lightweight automobile engine. Another pioneer, Henry Ford, made his mark by manufacturing his first automobile in 1896.

Prompts About the Second Industrial Revolution:

Writing Prompt 1:

In at least a paragraph, explain how the Second Industrial Revolution was different than the First Industrial Revolution.

Example: You could note the concept of newer materials replacing old ones, such as the use of steel as opposed to iron.

Writing Prompt 2:

Write an essay in which you detail the importance of electricity in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Example: You could describe how electricity changed the way people worked (i.e., that jobs could be performed at night, not only in the daytime).

Writing Prompt 3:

Write an essay in which you describe the importance of transportation in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Example: You could describe the value of the internal combustion engine.

Graphic Organizer Prompt 1:

Create a chart or some other type of graphic organizer that lists and briefly describes the contributions of the inventors noted in the lesson.

Tip: There are nine of them!

Speech Prompt 1:

Choose one of the nine inventors listed in the lesson. Write a speech in which you describe your latest invention. Be sure to describe its importance, what makes it unique, and how it is made. Remember, you are trying to sell your invention to your audience.

Example: If you are portraying Henry Ford, you could explain how easily the Model T is produced on the assembly line, and how it is affordable to the average American.

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the second industrial revolution: timeline & inventions - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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The Second Industrial Revolution: Timeline & Inventions - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Historians have labeled the years from 1870-1914 as the period of the Second Industrial Revolution. While the First Industrial Revolution caused the growth of industries, such as coal, iron, railroads and textiles, the Second Industrial Revolution witnessed the expansion of electricity, petroleum and steel.

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The late nineteenth century saw the rise of "big business" in important areas of economic activity. ("Big" is never defined precisely, but the quantitative term is popularly used to connote something important.) Big business firms were institutions that used management to control economic activity. Big business firms broke themselves into different functions, or "departments," and used managers to coordinate the work of departments, and "middle managers" to coordinate work among departments.

Railroads were the first "big businesses" in the United States. After railroad companies began to operate on tracks that stretched for fifty and more miles, their owners soon realized that they had to divide responsibilities among different managers, with coordination of the various functions of the company--from soliciting business, to operating trains, to maintaining facilities, to financing everything. By the 1850s railroad executives were perfecting systems of managerial control over their ever more complex firms.

After the railroads pioneered the formation of "big business," big businesses appeared in manufacturing and distribution.

Big city department stores were a form of "big business." They combined many different retail operations in one organization, and placed them together in one building. By 1912 department stores were principal features of the downtown districts of every city.

Still other big businesses, mail order firms such as Sears, Roebuck, were by 1912 serving rural areas and small towns.

Thus when Americans shopped in 1912, they were likely to encounter a "big business." In their stores, moreover, they were likely to find products manufactured by "big businesses."

The "big business" form of organization spread rapidly in manufacturing industries after about 1870.

In some lines of manufacturing, there were advantages to have a single organization control raw materials, transportation, fabrication, and distribution. When he sold his steel company in 1901, for example, Andrew Carnegie was the most efficient--and the wealthiest--steel maker in the world. Carnegie steel had control over sources of coal, coke, and iron ore. Carnegie steel exercised control over ships and railroads that brought raw materials to its mills in the Pittsburgh district. Carnegie insisted on his mill remaining the most advanced of their day. Not only did Carnegie Steel manufacture steel, the company also produced finished products like railroad rails and bridge girders. All of these operations were in a single managerial organization. Managers controlled the flow of materials. Carnegie Steel was so efficient that it could undercut all of its competitors and still make large profits.

Meatpacking was another industry that witnessed the rise and perfection of "big business" forms. After 1870, several Chicago meatpackers built huge, complex organizations for purchasing animals, butchering them, and distributing meat to markets all across the nation. Their companies used all of the byproducts of the animals they slaughtered. Skins went into leather goods, hoofs into glue, bones into fertilizer, and fat into soap. One wag commented that the only part of the hog the Chicago packers did not use and sell was the squeal!

By the end of the nineteenth century, Standard Oil, led by John D. Rockefeller, dominated the refining and distribution of petroleum products in the United States, and extended its reach well beyond the nation's borders.

When an entrepreneur like Carnegie was successful in building an efficient organization to control manufacturing processes, he drove competitors out of business. A steel maker either had to compete by mimicking Carnegie's managerial techniques, or go into a niche, or specialized, market that the big steel companies did not enter. In the case of meatpacking, by 1900 thousands of local butchers found themselves squeezed, because they were less efficient than the Chicago packers. Small shopkeepers sometimes faced ruin from large department store competitors. These businesses following older, more traditional practices sometimes fueled popular sentiment to "bust" the trusts.

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The late nineteenth century saw the rise of "big business" in important areas of economic activity. ("Big" is never defined precisely, but the quantitative term is popularly used to connote something important.) Big business firms were institutions that used management to control economic activity.

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Inventions: Lightbulb,  Telephone, Automobile,& Airplanes

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Inventions: Lightbulb,  Telephone, Automobile,& Airplanes

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https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-second-industrial-revolution-timeline-inventions.html

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https://www.bolerium.com/pictures/medium/85649.jpg

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https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/1912/trusts/RiseBigBusiness

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American Imperialism: Crash Course US History #28

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfsfoFqsFk4

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Between 1880 and 1900, cities in the United States grew at a dramatic rate. Owing most of their population growth to the expansion of industry, U.S. cities grew by about 15 million people in the two decades before 1900. Many of those who helped account for the population growth of cities were immigrants arriving from around the world. A steady stream of people from rural America also migrated to the cities during this period. Between 1880 and 1890, almost 40 percent of the townships in the United States lost population because of migration.

Industrial expansion and population growth radically changed the face of the nation's cities. Noise, traffic jams, slums, air pollution, and sanitation and health problems became commonplace. Mass transit, in the form of trolleys, cable cars, and subways, was built, and skyscrapers began to dominate city skylines. New communities, known as suburbs, began to be built just beyond the city. Commuters, those who lived in the suburbs and traveled in and out of the city for work, began to increase in number.

Many of those who resided in the city lived in rental apartments or tenement housing. Neighborhoods, especially for immigrant populations, were often the center of community life. In the enclave neighborhoods, many immigrant groups attempted to hold onto and practice precious customs and traditions. Even today, many neighborhoods or sections of some of the great cities in the United States reflect those ethnic heritages.

During the final years of the 1800s, industrial cities, with all the problems brought on by rapid population growth and lack of infrastructure to support the growth, occupied a special place in U.S. history. For all the problems, and there were many, the cities promoted a special bond between people and laid the foundation for the multiethnic, multicultural society that we cherish today.

To find additional sources in American Memory on this general topic, use such keywords as city, neighborhood, immigration, industry, urbanization, transportation, suburbs, slums, tenements, and skyscrapers.

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City Life in the Late 19th Century - American Memory Timeline- Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources - Library of Congress

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Between 1880 and 1900, cities in the United States grew at a dramatic rate. Owing most of their population growth to the expansion of industry, U.S. cities grew by about 15 million people in the two decades before 1900. Many of those who helped account for the population growth of cities were immigrants arriving from around the world.

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http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/city/

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reforms

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reforms

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The Progressives - Constitutional Rights Foundation

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The 1890's are often viewed today as a happy time period when Americans lived uncomplicated lives with few problems to worry about. But, time has a way of covering up the negative and the ugly.

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reforms

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Political Corruption and Progressive Government Reforms

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http://www.crf-usa.org/election-central/the-progressives.html

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Global Fund for Women's approach focuses on winning rights for women, girls, and all historically marginalized people. Women's human rights are essential to achieving gender justice globally. Learn more about gender justice here.
What are women's human rights?

Women's rights are the fundamental human rights that were enshrined by the United Nations for every human being on the planet nearly 70 years ago. These rights include the right to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination; to be educated; to own property; to vote; and to earn a fair and equal wage.

As the now-famous saying goes, "women's rights are human rights." That is to say, women are entitled to all of these rights. Yet almost everywhere around the world, women and girls are still denied them, often simply because of their gender.

Winning rights for women is about more than giving opportunities to any individual woman or girl; it is also about changing how countries and communities work. It involves changing laws and policies, winning hearts and minds, and investing in strong women's organizations and movements.

Global Fund for Women exists to support the tireless and courageous efforts of women's groups who work every day to win rights for women and girls. These groups are working to ensure women can own property, vote, run for office, get paid fair wages, and live free from violence - including domestic violence, sexual assault, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.

What rights do we stand for?

We want every woman and girl to realize the rights that are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also stand for other rights that are vital for women's equality. We stand for a woman's right to decide if and when she has children, and to have high-quality health care that means she won't die in pregnancy or during childbirth. We know female genital mutilation is a violation of girls' rights, and must be eliminated. And we stand for the right of every woman to live equally and free from discrimination, no matter her sexuality or identity.

We support two critical documents for women's rights that have followed the UN declaration. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international bill of rights for women, requires governments to end gender discrimination and affirms women's rights to health services, including family planning. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted in 1995 at the UN's Fourth World Conference in Beijing, was a rallying cry to embed gender equality and women's rights in every facet of life.

Women's rights and the Global Goals

The UN Millennium Development Goals set specific targets to reduce poverty, including targets for increased gender equality in education, work, and representation. UN Women found that progress was uneven. Globally, more women are now in school and work. Yet girls are still more likely than boys to be out of school (particularly at the secondary level). And although the number of women in elected office has risen, they are still only 21.8 percent of parliamentarians. What's more, women's rights remain at risk in many areas not addressed in the millennium goals - from violence against women to sexual and reproductive rights. And women who are already marginalized because of their race, caste, sexuality, income, or location see the fewest gains of all.

The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hold real promise to embed advances in women's rights, and include a specific goal (Goal 5) for gender equality. Goal 5 is more broad-based than the last gender goal and includes targets on ending gender-based violence, eliminating child marriage and female genital mutilation, and ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health. It also includes equal access to education, expanding women's economic opportunities, and reducing the burdens of unpaid care work on women and girls. Now it is up to all of us to hold governments accountable for their commitments and make sure the goals are met. Involving women - and funding the solutions of grass-roots women's groups - will be critical to success.

What does the future of women's rights look like?

The future of global women's rights is at stake. The U.S. administration's proposed cuts to foreign aid and stringent policies-from abortion and refugee resettlement to climate change- pose a direct threat to the health, dignity, and well-being of women and girls everywhere. We must reflect: Will women globally lose hard-won rights, or will the backlash instead catalyze new wins?

This moment calls for energizing new efforts and focus on strengthening women's movements to help lead the charge for social change on the most pressing issues of our time. Global Fund for Women is committed to turning these challenges into opportunities for women to assert their leadership, action, and voice. By 2020, Global Fund for Women will ensure that movements for women's rights are powerful, influential, and achieving lasting gains. Now is the time to stand with the global women's movement.

Global Fund for Women is working for a world where every woman and girl can realize and enjoy her human rights.

Only when women and girls have full access to their rights - from equal pay and land ownership rights to sexual rights, freedom from violence, access to education, and maternal health rights - will true equality exist. Only when women have taken leadership and peacemaking roles and have an equal political voice will economies and countries be transformed. And only then will all women and girls have the self-determination they are entitled to.

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Information about Women's Human Rights - Global Fund for Women

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Global Fund for Women focuses on winning rights for women, girls, and marginalized people. Learn more about what women's human rights are and more, today.

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https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/womens-human-rights/

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The Assassination of the Archduke France Ferdinand

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The Assassination of the Archduke France Ferdinand

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Deeply in love, Ferdinand chose to marry Sophie Chotek in 1900 despite the opposition of his uncle, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef, who refused to attend their wedding. Though not exactly a commoner, Sophie came from a family of obscure Czech nobles and not from a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty of Europe. As a result, her and Ferdinand's children were declared ineligible for the throne. Sophie also became the victim of countless petty slights. At imperial banquets, for example, she entered each room last, without an escort, and was then seated far away from her husband at the dinner table.

His marriage notwithstanding, Ferdinand remained Franz Josef's heir and inspector general of the army. In that capacity, he agreed to attend a series of June 1914 military exercises in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary had just annexed these provinces a few years earlier against the wishes of neighboring Serbia, which likewise coveted them. Ferdinand believed the Serbs to be "pigs," "thieves," "murderers" and "scoundrels." Yet he had opposed annexation for fear that it would make an already turbulent political situation even worse. Formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire, Bosnia-Herzegovina's population was roughly 40 percent Serb, 30 percent Muslim and 20 percent Croat, with various other ethnicities making up the remainder.

Upon learning of Ferdinand's upcoming visit, the Young Bosnians, a secret revolutionary society of peasant students, began plotting to assassinate him. In May, Gavrilo Princip, Trifko Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic traveled to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, where they received six handheld bombs, four semi-automatic pistols and cyanide suicide capsules from members of the so-called Black Hand, a terrorist group with close ties to the Serbian army. After practicing with their pistols in a Belgrade park, the three men journeyed back to Bosnia-Herzegovina, receiving help from Black Hand associates to smuggle their weapons across the border. To this day, it remains unclear whether the Serbian government participated in the scheme.

Ferdinand and Sophie departed their estate for Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 23. Having received multiple warnings to cancel the trip, the archduke knew that danger potentially awaited them. "Our journey starts with an extremely promising omen," he purportedly said when the axles on his car overheated. "Here our car burns, and down there they will throw bombs at us." After arriving at a spa town a few miles outside of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina's capital, Ferdinand attended two days of military exercises while Sophie visited schools and orphanages. On a whim, the couple drove in one evening to check out Sarajevo's bazaars. While there, they attracted a crowd of onlookers, including Princip, but were apparently treated with warmth and politeness.

Following a banquet with religious and political leaders, only one day of events remained before Ferdinand and Sophie were to return home. That morning, June 28, the archduke sent a telegram to his eldest son congratulating him on his latest exam results. He and Sophie then boarded a train for the short ride into Sarajevo. For once, Sophie was permitted to walk alongside Ferdinand during a brief troop inspection, after which the couple got in an open-topped car for a motorcade ride to city hall. The car in front of them was supposed to carry six specially trained officers but instead had only one, plus three local policemen. In fact, throughout the trip, Austro-Hungarian officials allegedly focused more attention on dinner menus than security details.

Meanwhile, seven Young Bosnians had fanned out along the Appel Quay, a main avenue in Sarajevo running parallel to the Miljacka River. When the motorcade passed by, its route having been published in advance, Cabrinovic asked which car carried the archduke. He then hurled his bomb at the car, only to watch it bounce off the folded-up roof and roll underneath the wrong vehicle. The subsequent explosion wounded two army officers and several bystanders but left Ferdinand and Sophie essentially unharmed. Cabrinovic jumped into the mostly dry riverbed and made a half-hearted attempt to kill himself before being apprehended. "I am a Serbian hero," he purportedly shouted as the police led him away. At least two other Young Bosnians also had good looks at the archduke but apparently lost the nerve to attempt an assassination.

Rather than immediately flee Sarajevo, Ferdinand decided to continue on to the planned event at city hall. Upon finishing that up, he insisted on visiting the wounded officers in the hospital. In order to dissuade any other bomb throwers, the motorcade zipped down the Appel Quay at high speeds. By mistake, however, the first three cars turned onto a side street right where Princip happened to be standing. As the cars attempted to reverse back onto the Appel Quay, Princip whipped out his pistol and fired two shots at the archduke from point-blank range, piercing him in the neck and also striking Sophie's abdomen. "Sophie, Sophie, don't die-stay alive for our children," Ferdinand murmured. Within minutes, though, both had passed away. Princip, a slender, 19-year-old Serbian army reject, later admitted to killing Ferdinand but said he had not meant to hit Sophie. Three weeks too young for the death penalty, Princip was given a 20-year sentence, but contracted tuberculosis and died in jail in April 1918, at the age of just 23.

With tensions already running high among Europe's powers, the assassination precipitated a rapid descent into World War I. First, Austria-Hungary gained German support for punitive action against Serbia. It then sent Serbia an ultimatum, worded in a way that made acceptance unlikely. Serbia proposed arbitration to resolve the dispute, but Austria-Hungary instead declared war on July 28, 1914, exactly a month after Ferdinand's death. By the following week, Germany, Russia, France, Belgium, Montenegro and Great Britain had all been drawn into the conflict, and other countries like the United States would enter later. Overall, more than 9 million soldiers and nearly that many civilians would die in fighting that lasted until 1918.

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The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 100 Years Ago

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Deeply in love, Ferdinand chose to marry Sophie Chotek in 1900 despite the opposition of his uncle, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef, who refused to attend their wedding. Though not exactly a commoner, Sophie came from a family of obscure Czech nobles and not from a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty of Europe.

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When Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman famously said "War is hell," he was referring to war in general, but he could have been describing trench warfare, a military tactic that's been traced to the Civil War. Trenches-long, deep ditches dug as protective defenses-are most often associated with World War I, and the results of trench warfare in that conflict were hellish indeed.

Trenches were common throughout the Western Front.

Trench warfare in World War I was employed primarily on the Western Front, an area of northern France and Belgium that saw combat between German troops and Allied forces from France, Great Britain and, later, the United States.

Although trenches were hardly new to combat: Prior to the advent of firearms and artillery, they were used as defenses against attack, such as moats surrounding castles. But they became a fundamental part of the strategy with the influx of modern weapons of war.

Long, narrow trenches dug into the ground at the front, usually by the infantry soldiers who would occupy them for weeks at a time, were designed to protect World War I troops from machine-gun fire and artillery attacks from the air.

As the "Great War" also saw the wide use of chemical warfare and poison gas, the trenches were thought to offer some degree of protection against exposure. (While significant exposure to militarized chemicals such as mustard gas would result in almost certain death, many of the gases used in World War I were still relatively weak.)

Thus, trenches may have afforded some protection by allowing soldiers more time to take other defensive steps, such as putting on gas masks.

Trench warfare caused enormous numbers of casualties.

At least initially in World War I, forces mounted attacks from the trenches, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, by climbing over the top edge into what was known as "no man's land," the area between opposing forces, usually in a single, straight line and under a barrage of gunfire.

Not surprisingly, this approach was rarely effective and often led to mass casualties.

Later in the war, forces began mounting attacks from the trenches at night, usually with the support of covering artillery fire. The Germans soon became known for effectively mounting nighttime incursions behind enemy lines, by sending highly trained soldiers to attack the trenches of opposing forces at what they perceived as weak points.

If successful, these soldiers would breach enemy lines and circle around to attack their opponents from the rear, while their comrades would mount a traditional offensive at the front.

The brutality of trench warfare is perhaps best typified by the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France. British troops suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day of fighting alone.

Disease and 'shell shock' were rampant in the trenches.

With soldiers fighting in close proximity in the trenches, usually in unsanitary conditions, infectious diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever were common and spread rapidly.

Constant exposure to wetness caused trench foot, a painful condition in which dead tissue spread across one or both feet, sometimes requiring amputation. Trench mouth, a type of gum infection, was also problematic and is thought to be associated with the stress of nonstop bombardment.

As they were often effectively trapped in the trenches for long periods of time, under nearly constant bombardment, many soldiers suffered from " shell shock," the debilitating mental illness known today as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It's likely all of these factors, which stemmed from the widespread use of trench warfare, made World War I the deadliest conflict in global history to that point. It's believed that as many as one in 10 of all fighting forces in the conflict were killed.

It was also the first conflict in world history to have more deaths caused by combat, rather than from disease spread during the fighting.

Trench warfare was also employed in World War II and in the Korean War to some degree, but it has not been used regularly during conflicts in the ensuing decades.

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Life in the Trenches of World War I | HISTORY

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Trenches-long, deep ditches dug as protective defenses-are most often associated with World War I, and the results of trench warfare in that conflict were hellish indeed.

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If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

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The United States in World War I (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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The Treaty of Versailles, What Did the Big Three Want? 1/2

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History Brief: The Rise of the Automobile

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The 18th amendment is the only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. This amendment took effect in 1919 and was a huge failure. Not only did regular people find other ways to drink alcohol, criminals made a lot of money selling alcohol to those people. The 21st amendment repeals the 18th amendment in 1933, and today we call the period that the 18th Amendment was law Prohibition.

The 18th amendment was not always unpopular. In fact, some states had already banned alcohol before the 18th amendment. Before the 18th amendment became law, religious activists, famously women but also some men, blame alcohol for violence and other problems that were affecting American families. They would take axes and other weapons and attack saloons or other places that stored alcohol, destroying all of it. The motivation for the 18th amendment was inspired by these activists and their desire to make a better society by outlawing alcohol. We now know that the 18th amendment failed and in fact, made things worse.
Let's explain the text of the 18th amendment.
After one year from the ratification of this article...

(the 18th amendment would go into effect one year after the states ok'ed it)

...the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited...

(selling, making, or bring liquor into the country or United States territory, will be made illegal)

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

(Congress can pass any laws it needs to make sure that this law is enforced and alcohol is not consumed illegally)

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

(this amendment needs to be ratified by ¾ of the states within seven years of it will become invalid)
What were the effects of the 18th amendment?
Mississippi was the first state to accept the amendment, in 1918 and New Jersey was the last, in 1922, at number 46. By then the majority had already been reached. After the 18th amendment, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which set the date for prohibition at January 17, 1920. This act also defined strict limits on beverages containing alcohol, ensuring that the content would be no more than .5%. The Volstead Act contained the provisions to enforce the 18th amendment on Americans. This Act did allow for some alcohol to be kept as "medicine" and for "research," and this was often exploited.

The 18th amendment gave rise to the gangsters of the 1920s that made a huge profit selling illegal alcohol. Such was this disaster that the government would finally agree to get rid of Prohibition and the 18th amendment ten years later.

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The 18th amendment is the only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. This amendment took effect in 1919 and was a huge failure. Not only did regular people find other ways to drink alcohol, criminals made a lot of money selling alcohol to those people.

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Stock Market Crash: 1929 & Black Tuesday | HISTORY

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The Stock Market Crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, as some 16 million shares were traded on Black Tuesday, Oct. 29, 1929, wiping out many investors.

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Business cycle/Causes of the great depression

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Business cycle/Causes of the great depression

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David Wheelock: Now, what caused this mess?

Well, the stock market crash is everyone's kind of popular cause of the Great Depression. We had a stock market crash in the fall of 1929, immediately we had the Great Depression, therefore if - I used to know the Latin for that, it's whatever it was - post hoc ergo propter hoc - one followed from the other. Therefore, the first one caused the second one.

For this, there's some truth to it actually. The stock market lost 80%, or 85%, of its value from the peak in September 1929 to the trough in July 1932. Now, what could (the) that wipeout of the stock market have done?

Well, it destroyed a lot of wealth. There's the so-called wealth effect. So if you were an investor in the stock market, and in the 1920s a lot of kind of middle-class people got into the stock market for the very first time, there was a lot more buying of stocks on credit. It was the great credit boom. And so a lot of ordinary folk like us got into the stock market, but it was still pretty much a rich man's game. Rich men lost a lot of money. Some of them jumped out of windows on Wall Street, and they certainly, with their decline of wealth, could afford to buy a lot less goods and services than they did before. So there's a wealth effect that matters. Uncertainty about the economy, even if you are not an investor in the stock market, but you saw the smart rich guys jumping out of windows on Wall Street, you have to be wondering ... What in the world is happening here? Is this really healthy, an indication of a healthy economy? Well, probably not.

So what are you going to do? What's the logical thing to do if you've got a little money in the bank? Keep it there, save. You're not going to go out and buy a new car or a new refrigerator, go on a vacation. You're going to hunker down and be as conservative as you can until the clouds have cleared away and you have a better sense of the future of the economy.

Christina Romer - some of you may know that name, she's an economic historian who teaches at University of California, Berkeley - and she was, for a time, President Obama's chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers. Christina wrote a paper that was published a few years ago looking at this uncertainty effect of the stock market crash. Her research found that after the stock market crash, there was a lot less spending on consumer durable goods, like cars and refrigerators, all those newfangled inventions that had come along in the 20s. But the level of spending on food and fuel and basic necessities kept right on steady. So people kept buying their daily necessities, but they really pulled back on the big-ticket spending.

And so it did have a measurable effect. That is, the stock market crash did have a measurable effect on spending. And then there's the role of banks. Banks were heavily involved in lending to investors in the stock market; many banks subsequently failed. So there's this connection as part of the financial fabric was involved here.

So the consensus among economists - excuse me, economic historians - is the stock market crash had some effect. However, as big as it was, still not big enough to have caused the Great Depression. Without the stock market crash alone we would have had a pretty severe recession, but we would not have had the Great Depression. So there must be more to the story than that.

Some people point to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, enacted by Congress in 1930, signed by President Hoover against a petition signed by hundreds of economists at the time saying "don't do this, it's a mistake."

Well, big business and agriculture, they wanted protection from foreign competition. They didn't like the fact that there were cheap imported goods of rice and wheat and corn and and manufactured goods coming in from abroad. And so they petitioned Congress to raise tariffs to block those imports or to make them more expensive to discourage consumers from buying the goods and services.

Well, what happens when one country raises its tariff? They all did - it was retaliatory. Canada raised their tariffs, United Kingdom raises its tariffs, France raises its tariff. So everybody's putting up these walls against trade to try to protect their domestic industries from foreign competition and everybody ends up losing.

So there's a tremendous collapse in world trade. I stole this picture, I mean I borrowed this picture [audience laughter] from a book called The World in Depression by Charles Kindleberger, who is an economist and economic historian at MIT. And he investigated the collapse of world trade during the Great Depression and I thought this was a cool chart because it just shows this downward spiral of world trade that was going on during the Depression, from about three billion dollars' worth of trade in 1929, it collapsed by two-thirds to less than a billion dollars by 1933. So the global economy that is trading shrank by two-thirds, whereas the U.S. economy shrank by one-third, so that was a much bigger collapse than the total amount by which the U.S. economy collapsed.

However, the U.S. was much of a what we call a "closed economy" in the 1930s. International trade accounted for a relatively small part of domestic U.S. production, so despite the fact that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was was not helpful at best and other countries retaliated, the decline in world trade, the decline of U.S. exports was not big enough to have caused the Great Depression, although it was another contributor.

There's a professor at UCLA, Lee Ohanian, recently has a paper blaming Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression. Now Hoover has often long been blamed for the Great Depression. He was blamed as this sourpuss who didn't care about people. "Heck, it's all right, people get laid off. I'm going to put the water cannons on him or worse, if they're in trouble." Now, Hoover has been a much-maligned individual over the years. He was a great humanitarian during World War I and he basically fed the country of Belgium during the war. He was also - he was an engineer by training, he was really an interventionist in the economy and was one for using the government to help solve problems.

One thing he did when he saw the Great Depression come on is he asked the big corporations not to cut wages, which was their traditional inclination when the demand for their products fell, they would cut wages. Prices fell, they'd cut wages.

Man in audience: But they keep people employed.

Wheelock: That's the difference. So according to Ohanian, Hoover brought all these guys in that said don't cut wages because if you cut wages, then people won't have income to spend. Well that - there is some logic to that, but in a macroeconomic sense that doesn't hold up. So what happens, as you pointed out, instead of cutting wages, they laid people off instead. So it's great if you're one of the 75% who kept a job but it was not so great for the 25% who went from the wage to nothing.

That's Ohanian's argument. Now it's not a widely accepted view. I'm rather skeptical that Hoover had as much power as Ohanian ascribes to him to actually get big business to come in and do what he wanted them to do. But it is true, the wages did not fall very rapidly at the beginning of the Depression. As I pointed out, in talking to Ohanian, you wouldn't have had this problem if we didn't have deflation. If prices weren't falling, because the prices of the cars that Ford was trying to sell or General Motors was trying to sell, if they weren't falling, then Ford, General Motors wouldn't have had any reason to cut wages or lay people off. So the deflation was kind of the problem, it wasn't Hoover so much. And there, where I get to the meat of my story, which is to blame the Fed, and bank failures, and the monetary collapse.

I've been monologuing it here for 40 minutes so I'm happy to take a break and stop and answer any questions as we go. Particularly if anybody's completely lost or asleep at this point. I don't see more than half the room is not asleep despite having that dessert but...

Woman in audience: I think I saw your original presentation here...

Wheelock: So you're really bored then, you've seen the whole thing [audience laughter]. You want it to quit right now, then...

Woman in audience: I really need a lot of economics support, but um... as I remember it and not jumping ahead too far, and what I share with my students generally is the Fed's inaction to do anything with monetary policy is what exacerbated it. Is that...?

Wheelock: Yep, you got the story. You really can leave now [audience laughter].

Woman in audience: But I guess, if you - I need that explained to me again, so I shouldn't leave.

Wheelock: OK.

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Dave Wheelock discusses suggested causes including: the stock market crash, the collapse of world trade due to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, government policies, bank failures and panics, and the collapse of the money supply. (Part 5 of The Great Depression presentation)

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On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany's violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917.

Germany's resumption of submarine attacks on passenger and merchant ships in 1917 became the primary motivation behind Wilson's decision to lead the United States into World War I. Following the sinking of an unarmed French boat, the Sussex, in the English Channel in March 1916, Wilson threatened to sever diplomatic relations with Germany unless the German Government refrained from attacking all passenger ships and allowed the crews of enemy merchant vessels to abandon their ships prior to any attack. On May 4, 1916, the German Government accepted these terms and conditions in what came to be known as the "Sussex pledge."

By January 1917, however, the situation in Germany had changed. During a wartime conference that month, representatives from the German Navy convinced the military leadership and Kaiser Wilhelm II that a resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare could help defeat Great Britain within five months. German policymakers argued that they could violate the "Sussex pledge" since the United States could no longer be considered a neutral party after supplying munitions and financial assistance to the Allies. Germany also believed that the United States had jeopardized its neutrality by acquiescing to the Allied blockade of Germany.

German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg protested this decision, believing that resuming submarine warfare would draw the United States into the war on behalf of the Allies. This, he argued, would lead to the defeat of Germany. Despite these warnings, the German Government decided to resume unrestricted submarine attacks on all Allied and neutral shipping within prescribed war zones, reckoning that German submarines would end the war long before the first U.S. troopships landed in Europe. Accordingly, on January 31, 1917, German Ambassador to the United States Count Johann von Bernstorff presented U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing a note declaring Germany's intention to restart unrestricted submarine warfare the following day.

Stunned by the news, President Wilson went before Congress on February 3 to announce that he had severed diplomatic relations with Germany. However, he refrained from asking for a declaration of war because he doubted that the U.S. public would support him unless he provided ample proof that Germany intended to attack U.S. ships without warning. Wilson left open the possibility of negotiating with Germany if its submarines refrained from attacking U.S. shipping. Nevertheless, throughout February and March 1917, German submarines targeted and sank several U.S. ships, resulting in the deaths of numerous U.S. seamen and citizens.

On February 26, Wilson asked Congress for the authority to arm U.S. merchant ships with U.S. naval personnel and equipment. While the measure would probably have passed in a vote, several anti-war Senators led a successful filibuster that consumed the remainder of the congressional session. As a result of this setback, President Wilson decided to arm U.S. merchant ships by executive order, citing an old anti-piracy law that gave him the authority to do so.

While Wilson weighed his options regarding the submarine issue, he also had to address the question of Germany's attempts to cement a secret alliance with Mexico. On January 19, 1917, British naval intelligence intercepted and decrypted a telegram sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Ambassador in Mexico City. The "Zimmermann Telegram" promised the Mexican Government that Germany would help Mexico recover the territory it had ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War. In return for this assistance, Germany asked for Mexican support in the war.

The "Zimmermann Telegram"

Initially, the British had not shared the news of the Zimmermann Telegram with U.S. officials because they did not want the Germans to discover that British code breakers had cracked the German code. However, following Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February, the British decided to use the note to help sway U.S. official and public opinion in favor of joining the war. The British finally forwarded the intercepted telegram to President Wilson on February 24. The U.S. press carried the story the following week.

Despite the shocking news of the Zimmermann Telegram, Wilson still hesitated asking for a declaration of war. He waited until March 20 before convening a Cabinet meeting to broach the matter-almost a month after he had first seen the telegram. The precise reasons for Wilson's decision to choose war in 1917 remain the subject of debate among historians, especially in light of his efforts to avoid war in 1915 after the sinking of the British passenger liners Lusitania and Arabic, which had led to the deaths of 131 U.S. citizens.

However, by 1917, the continued submarine attacks on U.S. merchant and passenger ships, and the "Zimmermann Telegram's" implied threat of a German attack on the United States, swayed U.S. public opinion in support of a declaration of war. Furthermore, international law stipulated that the placing of U.S. naval personnel on civilian ships to protect them from German submarines already constituted an act of war against Germany. Finally, the Germans, by their actions, had demonstrated that they had no interest in seeking a peaceful end to the conflict. These reasons all contributed to President Wilson's decision to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. They also encouraged Congress to grant Wilson's request and formally declare war on Germany.

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Milestones: 1914-1920 - Office of the Historian