12. American History since 1865. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002

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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.

American History since 1865

The period from 1865 to 1877 is known as Reconstruction. Victorious in the Civil War, the North attempted, often hesitantly, to “reconstruct” the South by securing civil rights for blacks freed from slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and Fifteenth Amendment sought to secure those basic rights.

Industrial growth was dramatic in the period from 1865 to 1900, but the expansion of industry did not benefit everyone. The newly rich robber barons amassed enormous wealth, which they often displayed crassly. Particularly in the late 1860s and 1870s, corruption riddled American politics. Meanwhile, many factory workers suffered in misery, and farmers bitterly resented their domination by the railroads and by eastern financiers. The resentments of farmers exploded in the Populist party of the 1890s.

Populism soon went into eclipse, but new efforts to bring social justice and economic order to the United States took shape in the Progressive movement. Progressives attacked abuses such as child labor and corporate pillaging, and they worked successfully for women’s suffrage, which was gained with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Progressives and others also supported Prohibition, which became law after the adoption in 1919 of the Eighteenth Amendment.

Progressivism coincided with the emergence of the United States as a world power. After its victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States steadily raised its profile in international affairs during the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) and Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921). Under Wilson, the United States entered World War I in 1917 and played a key role at the Versailles peace conference after the war.

Postwar prosperity came to a shuddering halt with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. Elected president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt inspired a series of government programs known as the New Deal. In foreign policy, Roosevelt opposed the aggression of Nazi Germany. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States formally entered World War II.

The United States was the only nation to emerge from World War II stronger than at its start. It took the lead in establishing the United Nations, and with the onset of the cold war in the late 1940s it became the leading anti-communist power and head of NATO. Its confrontation with communism led it into the Korean War and the Vietnam War and into proxy wars from Afghanistan to Central America. With the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the sole superpower. To many it appeared that the twentieth century had been the American Century.

At the start of the twenty-first century, American hegemony increasingly appears a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the United States possesses enormous economic, political, and military power and cultural influence. Its seven-trillion-dollar economy is by far the world’s largest. It has overcome the deep internal divisions of the late 1960s and 1970s that were occasioned by the Vietnam War and conflict over civil rights. Despite periodic eruptions, such as the Watergate scandal and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, its politics are basically stable, if usually noisy. It demonstrated its awesome military power in the Persian Gulf War, and its popular culture continues to attract fascination and imitation abroad, even in nations marked by strong anti-Americanism. Its population, now over 270 million, contains a rich mosaic of national origins and cultures. Its Latino population grew by more than ten million in the 1990s. It is not unlikely that by 2005 Latino Americans will form the largest minority group in the United States. The number of Americans of Asian descent has also risen in recent decades, as has the number of American Muslims.

Yet, as the September 11 attacks indicate, the United States is hated in some parts of the world and widely resented in others. At times, opposition to the United States reflects disagreement with specific American policies, such as support for Israel, but often it rests on a perception of the United States as a symbol of materialism and secular values. To many Americans, these criticisms seem to be just another way to say that America is wealthy and free.

—J.F.K.

Entries

Aaron, Henry	Addams, Jane	Agnew, Spiro
Albright, Madeleine	Ali, Muhammad	Anthony, Susan B.
Apaches	Apollo 11	Ashe, Arthur
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country	Bakke decision	Barton, Clara
Bay of Pigs	Bethune, Mary McLeod	big stick diplomacy
Big Ten	Billy the Kid	Black, Hugo
Black Muslims	Black Panthers	Black Power
Bonnie and Clyde	Borden, Lizzie	Bradley, Omar
brain trust	Brandeis, Louis D.	Brown versus Board of Education
Bryan, William Jennings	Buffalo Bill	Bunche, Ralph
Bush, George H. W.	Bush, George W.	The business of America is business
Byrd, Richard E.	Capone, Al	carpetbaggers
Carter, James Earl	Carver, George Washington	Chappaquiddick incident
Chief Joseph	child labor laws	Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
Civil Rights Act of 1964	civil rights movement	Cleveland, Grover
Clinton, Hillary Rodham	Clinton, William Jefferson	Clinton impeachment
Cobb, Ty	Congress on Racial Equality	containment
Coolidge, Calvin	Crash of 1929, stock market	Crazy Horse
Cross of Gold speech	Cuban missile crisis	Custer’s last stand
Daley, Richard	Darrow, Clarence	A date which will live in infamy
Dawes Act of 1887	Debs, Eugene V.	Democratic party
Depression, Great	Dewey, John	Dillinger, John
doughboys	Douglas, William O.	DuBois, W. E. B.
Dulles, John Foster	Dust Bowl	Earhart, Amelia
Earp, Wyatt	Eisenhower, Dwight D.	Ellis Island
Farmer, Fannie	Ferraro, Geraldine	fireside chats
flappers	Ford, Gerald	Four Freedoms
Fourteen Points	Frankfurter, Felix	Freedom Riders
Friedan, Betty	Fulbright scholarships	Garfield, James A.
Garvey, Marcus	Gehrig, Lou	Geronimo
GI Bill	GI Joe	Gilman, Charlotte P.
Goldwater, Barry	Gompers, Samuel	Graham, Billy
Great Society	Griswold versus Connecticut	Halsey, William F.
Harding, Warren G.	Harding scandals	Hearst, William Randolph
Hickok, Wild Bill	Hiss, Alger	Hoffa, Jimmy
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.	Hoover, Herbert	Hoover, J. Edgar
Hoovervilles	I have a dream	I shall return
Iran-Contra affair	Ivy League	Iwo Jima
Jackson, Jesse	James, Jesse	Japanese Americans, internment of
Jazz Age	Jim Crow	John Birch Society
Johnson, Andrew	Johnson, Lyndon Baines	Jordan, Michael
Keller, Helen	Kennedy, Edward	Kennedy, John F.
Kennedy, Robert	Kent State	Kentucky Derby
King, Martin Luther, Jr.	Kissinger, Henry	Korean War
Ku Klux Klan	La Guardia, Fiorello	Lafayette, we are here
“Letter from Birmingham Jail”	Lindbergh, Charles A.	Lippmann, Walter
Long, Huey	Louis, Joe	lynch law
MacArthur, Douglas	Mafia	Malcolm X
Manhattan Project	Marshall, George C.	Marshall, Thurgood
massive resistance	McCarthy, Joseph R.	McCarthyism
McGovern, George	McKinley, William	Midway Island, Battle of
militia movement of the 1990s	muckrakers	Murrow, Edward R.
My Lai massacre	Nation, Carry	National Origins Act of 1924
New Deal	New Frontier	New Left
Nimitz, Admiral Chester	9-11	Nisei
Nixon, Richard	normalcy	Oakley, Annie
O’Connor, Sandra Day	Oklahoma City Bombing	Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself	Oswald, Lee Harvey	Owens, Jesse
Parks, Rosa	Patton, George	Paul, Alice
Pearl Harbor	Peary, Robert E.	Pentagon Papers
Perkins, Frances	Perot, H. Ross	Pershing, John
Plessy versus Ferguson	Populist party	Powell, Colin
progressive education	Progressive movement	Prohibition
The public be damned	Rankin, Jeanette	Reagan, Ronald
Reconstruction	Red Scare	Religious Right
Remember the Maine	Republican party	Roaring Twenties
Robinson, Jackie	Rockefeller, Nelson	Roe versus Wade
Roosevelt, Eleanor	Roosevelt, Franklin D.	Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt’s Court packing plan	Rose Bowl	Rosenberg case
Rough Riders	Ruth, Babe	Sacco and Vanzetti
Sanger, Margaret	Scopes trial	SDI
September 11 attacks	settlement houses	Seward, William H.
sharecropping	Sherman Antitrust Act	silent majority
Sioux	sit-ins	Sitting Bull
Social Gospel	Spanish-American War	Speak softly and carry a big stick
spoils system	Stanton, Elizabeth Cady	Star Wars
Stevenson, Adlai E.	Stonewall Riot	Super Bowl
Taft, William Howard	Taft-Hartley Act	Tennessee Valley Authority
Tet offensive	Thorpe, Jim	Three Mile Island
transcontinental railroad	Truman, Harry S.	Truman-MacArthur controversy
Tweed, William Marcy	Vietnam War	Voting Rights Act of 1965
Wallace, George	War is hell	War on Poverty
Warren, Earl	Washington, Booker T.	Watergate
Watts riots	“We Shall Overcome”	Wilson, Woodrow
women’s movement	Woods, Tiger	Works Progress Administration
The world must be made safe for democracy	World Series	World Trade Center
Wounded Knee	yellow journalism	Yellow Peril

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS · INDEX · GUIDE · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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