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Further Immigration, Expansion, and Industrialization

The document summarizes key events in United States history from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. It describes major periods of immigration and industrial expansion that transformed the US economy and demographics. It also outlines America's rise as a world power including territorial expansion, two world wars, the Great Depression, and emergence as a global superpower. During the postwar era, the US competed with the Soviet Union in the Cold War while also experiencing the civil rights movement aimed at ending racial segregation and discrimination.

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51 views4 pages

Further Immigration, Expansion, and Industrialization

The document summarizes key events in United States history from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. It describes major periods of immigration and industrial expansion that transformed the US economy and demographics. It also outlines America's rise as a world power including territorial expansion, two world wars, the Great Depression, and emergence as a global superpower. During the postwar era, the US competed with the Soviet Union in the Cold War while also experiencing the civil rights movement aimed at ending racial segregation and discrimination.

Uploaded by

Andra Elisa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Further immigration, expansion, and industrialization

Main articles: Economic history of the United States and Technological and industrial history of


the United States

Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, was a major entry point for European immigration into the U.S.[129]

In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern


Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture.
[130]
 National infrastructure including telegraph and transcontinental railroads spurred economic
growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. The later invention
of electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life. [131]
The United States fought Indian Wars west of the Mississippi River from 1810 to at least 1890.
[132]
 Most of these conflicts ended with the cession of Native American territory and the
confinement of the latter to Indian reservations. This further expanded acreage under mechanical
cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets. [133] Mainland expansion also included
the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.[134] In 1893, pro-American elements in
Hawaii overthrew the monarchy and formed the Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in
1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, following
the Spanish–American War.[135] American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after
the end of the Second Samoan Civil War.[136] The United States purchased the U.S. Virgin
Islands from Denmark in 1917.[137]

The Statue of Liberty in New York City, symbol of the United States as well as its ideals [138]

Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of
many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller,
and Andrew Carnegie led the nation's progress in railroad, petroleum, and steel industries.
Banking became a major part of the economy, with J. P. Morgan playing a notable
role. Edison and Tesla undertook the widespread distribution of electricity to industry, homes,
and for street lighting. Henry Ford revolutionized the automotive industry. The American
economy boomed, becoming the world's largest, and the United States achieved great
power status.[139] These dramatic changes were accompanied by social unrest and the rise
of populist, socialist, and anarchist movements.[140] This period eventually ended with the advent
of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms in many societal areas, including women's
suffrage, alcohol prohibition, regulation of consumer goods, greater antitrust measures to ensure
competition and attention to worker conditions.[141][142][143]

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II


Further information: World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

The Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world when completed in 1931, during the Great
Depression.

The United States remained neutral from the outbreak of World War I in 1914 until 1917, when it
joined the war as an "associated power", alongside the formal Allies of World War I, helping to
turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading
diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join
the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this and did not ratify the Treaty
of Versailles that established the League of Nations.[144]
In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional
amendment granting women's suffrage.[145] The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass
communication and the invention of early television.[146] The prosperity of the Roaring
Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After
his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, which
included the establishment of the Social Security system.[147] The Great Migration of millions of
African Americans out of the American South began before World War I and extended through
the 1960s;[148] whereas the Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities
and spurred a new wave of western migration. [149]

U.S. troops landing on Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944


At first effectively neutral during World War II while Germany conquered much of continental
Europe, the United States began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through
the Lend-Lease program. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers.
[150]
 Although Japan attacked the United States first, the U.S. nonetheless pursued a "Europe first"
defense policy.[151] The United States thus left its vast Asian colony, the Philippines, isolated and
fighting a losing struggle against Japanese invasion and occupation, as military resources were
devoted to the European theater. During the war, the United States was referred to as one of the
"Four Policemen"[152] of Allies power who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the
Soviet Union and China.[153][154] Although the nation lost around 400,000 military personnel, [155] it
emerged relatively undamaged from the war with even greater economic and military influence.
[156]

Trinity test of the Manhattan Project's nuclear weapon

The United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods and Yalta conferences with the
United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and other Allies, which signed agreements on new
international financial institutions and Europe's postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was
won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United
Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[157] The United States and Japan then fought
each other in the largest naval battle in history in terms of gross tonnage sunk, the Battle of Leyte
Gulf.[158][159] The United States eventually developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on
Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; causing the Japanese to surrender on September
2, ending World War II.[160][161] Parades and celebrations followed in what is known as Victory Day,
or V-J Day.[162]

Cold War and civil rights era


Main articles: History of the United States (1945–1964), History of the United States (1964–
1980), and History of the United States (1980–1991)
Further information: Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, War on Poverty, Space Race,
and Reaganomics

Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March
on Washington, 1963

After World War II the United States and the Soviet Union competed for power, influence, and
prestige during what became known as the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide
between capitalism and communism[163] and, according to the school of geopolitics, a divide
between the maritime Atlantic and the continental Eurasian camps. They dominated the military
affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the USSR and its Warsaw
Pact allies on the other. The U.S. developed a policy of containment towards the expansion of
communist influence. While the U.S. and Soviet Union engaged in proxy wars and developed
powerful nuclear arsenals, the two countries avoided direct military conflict.
The United States often opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored,
and occasionally pursued direct action for regime change against left-wing governments, even
supporting right-wing authoritarian governments at times. [164] American troops fought
communist Chinese and North Korean forces in the Korean War of 1950–53.[165] The Soviet
Union's 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite and its 1961 launch of the first manned
spaceflight initiated a "Space Race" in which the United States became the first nation to land a
man on the moon in 1969.[165] A proxy war in Southeast Asia eventually evolved into full American
participation, as the Vietnam War.

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