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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of the United States history
Looking for the essentials of more than 200 years of United States history? Starting at the early civilizations, U.S. History For Dummies covers the growing pains of a new nation. Brush up on the major wars, from fighting against each other to fighting the world. And discover the major people and events that shaped the country. Stay in the know, with coverage of timely topics like climate change, Covid, and the January 6th Capitol riot. Then, when you're ready, challenge yourself with free online chapter quizzes. With history covering the start of the U.S. to the 2024 election, learn how this nation came to be what it is today.
- Read engaging accounts of the major events in the history of the United States
- Learn about important historical figures who shaped the nation
- Discover the background of the big issues that Americans face
- Explore important wars and iconic cultural moments
- FREE 1-year access to chapter quizzes online!
Whether you're a history buff eager to delve into the history of the United States or a student searching for a guide to help them with their studies, U.S. History For Dummies has you covered with clear, easy-to-understand information.
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U.S. History For Dummies®
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Beyond the Book
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: America’s Birth and Toddler Years
Chapter 1: America: A Short Biography
They Came, They Saw, They Stayed
Putting America on the Map
Struggling with Greatness
A Cold War and a Brave New World
America in the 21st Century
Chapter 2: American Indians and Explorers: 21,000 BCE (?) –1607
Coming to America
Exploring Early Civilizations
Many Tribes, Not Many People
De-stereotyping the American Indians
Visiting by the Vikings
Spicing Up Life — and Other Reasons for Exploring
Dropping Names of Others Who Dropped By
The Sword, the Cross, and the Measles
Arriving Late for the Party
Chapter 3: Pilgrims’ Progress: The English Colonies, 1607–1700
Seeing Potential in the New World
Settling in Jamestown
Instituting Slavery
Colonizing: Pilgrims and Puritans
Bringing Religious Freedom: Dissidents, Catholics, and Quakers
Dealings of the Dutch
Differing with the Locals
Chapter 4: You Say You Want a Revolution: 1700–1775
Looking at America in 1700
Colonizing New France
Fighting the First True World Wars
Awakening to Greater Religious Freedom
The French and Indian War
Growing like a Weed
Heading Toward Divorce with Britain
Congressing for the First Time
Mr. Revere, Your Horse Is Ready
Chapter 5: Yankee Doodlin’: 1775–1783
In This Corner, the Brits …
In This Corner, the Yanks …
Mr. Washington Goes to War
Declaring Independence
Cozying Up to the French
Undergoing Life Changes: The Loyalists and the Slaves
Winning a War
Chapter 6: Blueprints and Birth Pains: 1783–1800
Making the Rules
Dishing Up Politics, American Style
Raising the Dough
Earning Respect
Finding Foreign Friction
Part 2: Growing Pains
Chapter 7: “Long Tom” and One Weird War: 1800–1815
Jefferson Gets a Job
Disorder in the Court
Growing by Leaps and Bounds
Fighting Pirates
“Little Jemmy” Takes the Helm
Why Not Invade Canada This Year?
Three Strikes and the Brits Are Out
Calling It Even
Chapter 8: Pulling Together to Keep from Falling Apart: 1815–1844
Embracing Nationalism … Sort Of
The Slavery Cancer Grows
Mud-Wrestling to the White House
Nullify This
Inventing a Better Life
Staking Out New Land
Chapter 9: War, Gold, and a Gathering Storm: 1845–1860
Wrenching Land from Mexico
Rushing for Gold
Coming Over and Spreading Out
The Beginning of the End
Squaring Off for a Showdown: The Lincoln–Douglas Debate
Chapter 10: A Most Uncivil War: 1861–1865
Introducing Abraham Lincoln
North versus South: Comparing Advantages and Action Plans
Freeing the Enslaved
Reviewing the Troops, the Generals, and the Major Battles
“Friendless” Plus “Broke” Equals Losing.
Losing a Leader
Chapter 11: Putting the Country Back Together: 1865–1876
A Southern-Fried Mess: Life in the South after the Civil War
Piecing the Union Back Together
The Tailor-Made President: Andrew Johnson
Growing Corruption in Politics
Part 3: Coming of Age
Chapter 12: Growing Up: 1876–1898
Heading West in a Quest for Wealth
Ousting “Undesirables”
Cramming into Cities
Inventing Big Business
Electing a String of Forgettable Presidents
The Rise of Populism
“A Splendid Little War”
Chapter 13: Stepping Up as a World Power: 1899–1918
Here Today, Guam Tomorrow: Colonizing Spain’s Former Colonies
Making a Lot of Noise and Carrying a Big Stick: Roosevelt Takes Office
Progressing toward Political and Social Reform
Contracting Labor Pains
Transporting America
Suffering for Suffrage
Leaving the South: Blacks Migrate to Northern Cities
The War to End All Chapters
Chapter 14: Gin, Jazz, and Lucky Lindy: 1919–1929
Pushing for Peace
Restricting Immigration and Challenging the Natives
Darwin versus God
Warren, Cal, and Herbert: Republicans in the White House
Good Times (or Were They?)
Ain’t We Got Fun?
Drying Out America: Prohibition Begins
Changing Morals
An Age of Heroes
Chapter 15: Uncle Sam’s Depressed: 1930–1940
The Great Depression: Causes and Consequences
FDR: Making Alphabet Soup
Shoving Aside Racial Minorities
Keeping Women at Home — or Work
Developing Organized Labor
Critics, Crooks, and Crime Fighters
Chapter 16: The World at War: 1941–1945
Trying to Avoid War — Again
Gearing Up for War
Dealing with the War in Europe
Dealing with the War in the Pacific
Dropping the Bomb
Part 4: America in Adulthood
Chapter 17: TV, Elvis, and Reds Under the Bed: 1946–1960
A Cold War and a Hot “Police Action”
Finding Commies under the Bed
Having It All
Moving Slowly to the Front of the Bus
Chapter 18: Camelot to Watergate: 1961–1974
Electing an Icon
Sending Troops to Vietnam
Increasing Pressure in ’Nam and Escalating Fears at Home
Continuing the Fight for Civil Rights
Entering a Generation in Revolt
Weirdness in the White House
Chapter 19: Hold the Malaise, or Ayatollah So: 1975–1992
Wearing Nixon’s Shoes
Good Intentions, Bad Results
There’s a First Time for Everything
Warming Up after the Cold War
Chapter 20: No Sex, Please, I’m the President: 1993–1999
Bill, Newt, and Monica
Homegrown Terrorism
Making Ourselves Sick
A World of Change
Part 5: Nearing Our Semiquincentennial
Chapter 21: Terror Comes Home; America Goes to War(s)
The 2000 Bush-Gore Squeaker
A Nation Stunned
That Damn Saddam
Elsewhere in the World …
Winds and Losses
Chapter 22: Recessions Can Be Really Depressing
Ouch! The Economy Stubs Its Toe
Brother, Can You Spare a Job?
“We’re from the Government; We’re Here to Help …”
Unspreading the Wealth
Chapter 23: Reforming Healthcare Is No Tea Party
The Great Presidential Race of 2008
Going to a Tea Party
Lurching Toward Healthcare
And The Decision Is…
Reelecting Obama in 2012
Meanwhile, Back at the Budget …
Chapter 24: America Disagrees with Itself
Trumped
With Friends Like These …
Guns, Drugs, and #MeToo
Chapter 25: Stormy Weather
Forecast: Unsettled
Revising the Forecast: Getting Worse
Catching COVID-19
Squeaking Into the White House
“An Assault on America”
America Reverses Course
Chapter 26: This New America
The Techno Revolution
Surfing the “Silver Tsunami”
Stirring the Melting Pot
Redefining the American Family
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Chapter 27: Ten Innovations That Made It Easier to Be Lazy
The Escalator (1896)
Sliced Bread (1928)
Pizza Delivery (~1945)
Drive-Through Restaurants (1948)
TV Remote Controls (1950)
Pop-Top Cans (1963)
Microwave Ovens (1967)
Microwave Popcorn (1983)
Global Positioning System (1989)
Amazon (1995)
Chapter 28: Ten Events That Helped Shape American Culture
The Publication of
Poor Richard’s Almanack
(1732)
The First Performance of
The Black Crook
(1866)
The Opening of the Home Insurance Building (1885)
The Advent of the Copyright Act (1909)
The Birth of Talking Pictures (1927)
The Super Bowl (1967)
The Impact of
Deep Throat
(1972)
The Rise of Hip Hop/Rap (early 1970s)
The Release of
Star Wars
(1977)
The Opening of Facebook (2004)
Part 7: The Appendixes
Appendix A: The Bill of Rights: Amendments 1–10 of the Constitution
Appendix B: The Declaration of Independence
Index
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: The arrival of slaves in Jamestown: One of the key elements in Amer...
FIGURE 3-2: The original 13 colonies and their dates of establishment.
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Map of North and Central America during the mid-18th century showin...
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Ten key battles of the American Revolution.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: Territory gained by the Louisiana Purchase.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: Results of the Missouri Compromise.
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: Territory won from Mexico.
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: Key Civil War battles and campaigns.
Chapter 13
FIGURE 13-1: Political cartoonists had fun with Theodore Roosevelt’s appearance...
FIGURE 13-2: The program cover for the suffragettes’ 1913 march on the capitol....
Chapter 15
FIGURE 15-1: Many wait hours in line for bread.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
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U.S. History For Dummies®, 5thEdition
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Introduction
Those who cannot remember the past,” said American philosopher George Santayana, “are condemned to repeat it.”
Generally, in the 12th grade.
Lots of people think of learning U.S. history as a punishment. It’s just a subject you had to take in school. You memorized a bewildering array of dates, absorbed definitions for terms like Manifest Destiny, and wondered whether America really needed two presidents named Harrison. Historical figures were presented as if they were characters in a junior high school costume pageant. Their blemishes were airbrushed out, and their personalities were drained away.
Sure, you were taught George Washington warned the country about foreign entanglements in his “Farewell Address.” But it might have been more interesting to also learn he never actually gave that speech. It was printed in the newspapers. Washington didn’t like giving speeches, partly because of his false teeth, which were not made of wood but at least partially of hippopotamus ivory. Oh, and he was an excellent dancer; after leaving the presidency, he ran a highly successful whiskey distillery.
Alas, textbooks often overlook the fascinating moments and details of U.S. history. They present it as something dry and distant — events, facts, trends, movements — and don’t focus on what it really is. U.S. history is the story of people: what they thought, did, and tried to do; what they ate and drank; what made them angry; and what made them laugh.
About This Book
This book is not a textbook, nor is it an exhaustive encyclopedia covering everything that ever happened in the United States. Instead, it focuses on people: famous and infamous, well-known and obscure. It gives you a basic foundation of information about U.S. history. You can use it as a handy reference. Haul it off the shelf to settle an argument, such as which President Harrison came first William Henry or Benjamin. Or, you can use it to start your own argument, say, over whether there really was an “Uncle Sam, and whether he really was a meat packer.
Which brings me to this acknowledgment: This is not a straight-down-the-middle, -100-percent objective book. Sorry, there ain’t no such thing. I have tried to stick to facts or at least the version most widely accepted by reputable historians. But the bottom line is that my personal thoughts about which facts to include and leave out, as well as my own biases and interpretations, inevitably intrude. It’s happened in every book ever written. Sorry. If you think something is factually wrong, please let me know. If you just don’t agree with something, feel free to object. You’re reaffirming one of the best things about being an American: having the right to freely express indignation.
Because U.S. history hasn’t always been bright and shining, especially when it comes to topics such as slavery or the treatment of Native Americans, this book doesn’t always deal with pleasant or uplifting subjects. Some of what you read may anger you, sadden you, or even make you feel a little ashamed. In that regard, America’s history shares something in common with just about every country that ever existed.
But the truth is that overall, America’s story is a positive one, even an uplifting one for the rest of the world now and in the future. For a nation in its third century, America still does a whole lot of things right. One of them is recognizing past mistakes and generally — and sometimes gradually — striving to do better.
Enough time on the soapbox. I’m also happy to report you can find things in this book that you won’t find in other U.S. history books (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your sense of humor or taste for trivia). Although they may be of little importance in the overall scheme of things, they’re kind of fun to know — and trot out at dinner with your boring in-laws. Here are some examples: the Civil War general whose name helped popularize a common term for prostitutes (Joseph Hooker), which canned meat product helped win World War II (Spam), and which future president once accused a political opponent of being “pink right down to her underwear” (Richard M. Nixon.) And if you’re a history purist, I think there’s a mention of Manifest Destiny in here somewhere.
Conventions Used in This Book
To help you find your way around in the book, I use the following conventions:
Italics
are used both to emphasize a word to make a sentence clearer and to highlight a new word that’s being defined.
Bold
highlights keywords in bulleted lists.
Foolish Assumptions
I’m assuming you picked up this book because you have some interest in U.S. history (which is why the folks at John Wiley & Sons chose the title). But it doesn’t matter if you know a little or a lot about the subject. I think you may enjoy it either way, even if it’s just to settle arguments about the Louisiana Purchase (Chapter 7) or what Iceland had to do with the Great Recession (Chapter 22). Enough facts are in here to make this a good (if I do say so myself) basic U.S. history book and enough trivia to irritate party guests who won’t go home.
Beyond the Book
You got more than you bargained for when you bought this book. In addition to what you’re reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that puts scads of facts about U.S. history at your fingertips. You’ll be able to make substantive points in discussions about politics, impress potential employers as a well-rounded individual, and convince people you actually remember something from 11th grade. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “U.S. History For Dummies, 5th Edition Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
You also get access to online practice tests. To gain access to the online practice, all you have to do is register. Just follow these simple steps:
Go to
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Select the book title from the drop-down list.
Answer a validation question about the product, and then click “Redeem.”
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Now you’re ready to go! You can come back to the practice material as often as you want — simply log on with the username and password you created during your initial login.
Your registration is good for one year from the day you redeem your product.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout the book, you can find icons in the margins or alongside boxed sidebars that alert you to particular aspects or features of history. Here’s what they mean:
The names, numbers, and other stats behind the news are the focus of this icon.
This icon alerts you to a fact or idea that you may want to stash in your memory bank.
The Tip is a small piece of expert advice that will save you time.
Where to Go from Here
Congratulations! By reading this far, you’ve already learned something about U.S. history: It doesn’t always bite, induce deep comas, or poke you in the eye with a sharp stick. Read a few more pages, and you may get the itch to keep going even further.
Remember, history is the story of people.
And people are the most interesting story of all.
Part 1
America’s Birth and Toddler Years
IN THIS PART …
The first Americans — and the late-coming Europeans — make their way to a new land.
The English colonies establish themselves.
The American Revolution leads to the creation of a new kind of country.
Chapter 1
America: A Short Biography
IN THIS CHAPTER
Tracing America’s roots
Establishing a national identity
Dealing with growing pains
Fighting wars of a different kind
Facing the new millennium
Long before it was a nation, America was an idea, a dream. It didn’t exist as anything but a blank slate waiting to be filled. Eventually, it was filled with people who came for all sorts of reasons and with all sorts of ideas on how to assemble a country. Sometimes, the ideas and the people clashed. But out of the clashes and struggles grew a country founded on a system of government that made it unique in the world.
America was lucky to have great leaders in bad times when it most needed them. It had abundant natural resources, generally peaceable neighbors, and plenty of room to grow. And boy, did it grow. But before all this could happen, someone had to transform it from a fantasy to a very real place. This chapter gives you the lowdown on how that came about and directs you to the places in the book that give you the nitty-gritty in more detail.
They Came, They Saw, They Stayed
The first Americans probably wandered over from Asia about 14,000 years ago, maybe a lot longer. Either way, it was, in geologic terms, an eye-blink ago. Over the succeeding four or five millennia, they spread out over the North and South American continents.
There weren’t a lot of these first Americans, at least not in what became known as the United States of America, but they were wildly diverse in their customs and culture. Many of the differences had to do with the environment in which they settled. Around AD 985, Northern Europeans, popularly known as Vikings, showed up on the North American continent, sticking around only long enough to irritate the Native Americans.
But two things — imagination and greed (not necessarily in that order) — prodded other Europeans into taking their place. Looking for a new route to the riches of the East (particularly spices), explorers such as an Italian weaver’s son named Christopher Columbus thought they might sail west around the globe until they hit Asia. Of course, the Americas got in the way. Rather than reverse course, Columbus and his counterparts refocused their priorities on exploring and exploiting the New World.
The exploiting part included enslaving or killing off the native population. Sometimes, the killing was deliberate; sometimes, it was inadvertent by introducing diseases for which the Native Americans had no defenses. See Chapter 2 for more details on Native Americans and explorers.
Catching up to the Spanish
Spain got a head start in the Americas, mainly because it was the first to get enthusiastic about exploring this New World. But other European countries eventually sought to catch up. France split its efforts between colonizing and just carting off resources like fish and furs. However, the English took steps to make their presence more permanent.
English settlements were founded for both economic and ecclesiastical reasons. In the South, colonists hoped to make money by growing tobacco and, later, cotton. To make their enterprises more profitable, they imported slaves from Africa. It was a practice that would prove far costlier in terms of human misery than the crops were ever worth monetarily.
In the North, settlers who had fled religious persecution established colonies based more on religious principles than making a buck (although they weren’t averse to the latter). Like the Spanish, English settlers often found the easiest way to deal with the Native Americans was to shove them aside or kill them. The English colonies grew rapidly. Chapter 3 has the stories of Pilgrims, Puritans, and entrepreneurs.
It’s revolutionary!
It was probably of small comfort to the Native Americans, but the French and British also spent an inordinate amount of time killing each other. Throughout much of the 18th century, the two nations squared off in a series of wars that were fought in both Europe and the New World. When the dust settled, Britain had cemented its position as the top dog among the European powers in North America. But a new power — whose members increasingly called themselves Americans — was beginning to assert itself. See Chapter 4 for the details.
Stung by slights — both real and imagined — from the mother country, American colonists grew restless under British control. In 1776, after a series of provocations and misunderstandings, the colonies declared themselves independent. The American Revolution took seven years for the colonists to win. To do so took a brilliant leader in George Washington, a timely ally in France, and healthy helpings of tenacity and luck. Chapter 5 has the lowdown on what’s basically the birth of the USA.
Making a country out of the victorious colonies also took tenacity, luck, and genius. Over the summer of 1787, a remarkable group of men gathered in Philadelphia to draw up the rules for the new nation. The United States of America elected Washington as its first president, set up a reasonable financial system, and avoided war with European countries long enough to get itself established. All these events are in Chapter 6.
Putting America on the Map
Thomas Jefferson was a great example of America finding the right man at the right time. He helped the country make a smooth transition from one political party being in charge to another. Plus, he had the imagination to pull off a pretty big land deal — the Louisiana Purchase. That not only doubled the size of the country, it gave Lewis and Clark a good reason for an expedition. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court asserted itself as a co-equal branch of government. That’s all in Chapter 7, along with fighting pirates and getting into another war with Great Britain.
Nationalizing a nation
The end of the War of 1812 also marked the fading of the Revolution generation. People increasingly began to identify themselves as Americans rather than New Yorkers or Virginians. But it wasn’t the end of tensions among sections of the country when their interests diverged. Those divergent issues included fights over banking, tariffs — and especially slavery.
With the invention of the cotton gin, growing the fiber became quite profitable in the South. Along with a surge in growing sugar, the region became intensely dependent on slave labor. Many people in Northern states opposed slavery for a variety of moral, political, and economic reasons. A fight over the question of allowing slavery to spread was avoided, at least temporarily, with a fragile compromise in 1820.
Beyond its borders, the United States was increasingly alarmed by European nations who were thinking about grabbing former Spanish colonies in Latin America that had recently gained their independence. In 1823, Pres. James Monroe formally warned Europe to keep its hands off the Americas.
Not all the political squabbling was international. In 1824, a crusty military-man-turned-politician, Andrew Jackson, lost a hotly contested and controversial election to John Quincy Adams. In 1828, Jackson avenged the loss after one of the sleaziest campaigns (by both sides) in U.S. history. As president, Jackson found himself confronted by a theory called nullification, which held that states could decide for themselves which federal laws they did and did not have to obey. The theory served to deepen the divide between North and South.
Despite a national recession brought on by speculation and shady financial dealings, Americans were busy coming up with ways to make life better. Improvements in equipment triggered a boom in railroad building. The development of steel plows and rolling harvesters greatly enhanced grain production, and the invention of the telegraph signaled the start of a national communications medium.
Meanwhile, American expatriates in Texas led a successful revolt against Mexico and then waited for nine years to become part of the United States. The annexation of Texas, in turn, helped start another war. Chapter 8 covers this and much more.
Fighting with a neighbor
In 1844, America elected its first dark horse, or surprise, presidential candidate — James K. Polk, a hard worker with a yen to expand the country to the Pacific Ocean by acquiring territory from Mexico. Polk saw it as the nation’s Manifest Destiny.
Mexico saw it as intolerable bullying. After the Mexican government refused to sell, Polk sent U.S. troops to the border. A fight was provoked and quickly escalated into war. The Americans’ rapid and decisive victory resulted in the grabbing of about 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory, comprising much of what became the western United States.
These actions not only fulfilled Polk’s vision of Manifest Destiny but also gave California to America. That addition proved to be particularly fortuitous when gold was discovered there in early 1848. By the end of 1849, the California gold rush had sparked a human stampede and given America all the elbowroom it would need for decades. That was a good thing because immigration was again booming, particularly from Ireland and the European states that would become Germany. However, the acquisition of Mexican territory also renewed the struggle to balance the interests of slave states and free states.
In 1850, Congress worked out a five-bill compromise. California was added as a free state. The free-or-slave question was postponed in other areas of the former Mexican lands. And Congress enacted a law that made it easier for slave owners to recover fugitive slaves. While a movement to give women rights and opportunities equal to men’s rights began to gather steam in the 1850s, the slavery issue overshadowed it. Violence broke out in Kansas and Virginia. An 1857 Supreme Court decision that held that slaves had no more rights than mules infuriated slavery opponents.
And in 1860, the badly divided country gave a plurality of its votes to a 51-year-old Illinois lawyer in a four-way race for the presidency. The election of Abraham Lincoln was the last straw for Southern states, which began leaving the Union. See Chapter 9 for accounts of the war with Mexico, the California gold rush, and America’s divorce from itself.
Fighting among ourselves
Talk about timing: America had its best president at the worst time in its history — during the Civil War. Lincoln had a knack for getting the best out of most of the people around him and a self-deprecating sense of humor that disarmed others. Lincoln was no fan of slavery, but even more important to him was preserving the Union. The North seemed well-equipped to accomplish that. It had a larger population, better manufacturing and transportation systems, and an established navy and central government. The South had the home-field advantage and better military leaders, and it only had to fight to a draw.
While the North was largely successful in establishing a naval blockade of Southern ports, the South won most of the early land battles. Its best general, Robert E. Lee, even succeeded in taking the fight to Northern territory for a while. But eventually, the North’s superiority in numbers and supplies asserted itself, and the tide turned.
It took four years and 600,000 American lives for Northern forces to prevail, restore the Union, and end slavery. But less than a week after the surrender of the South’s main army, Lincoln was assassinated. With him went the nation’s best chance of healing its wounds. The details are in Chapter 10.
Making up is hard to do
The postwar South was a mess, and that’s putting it mildly. The infrastructure was wrecked, the economy was in shambles, and the best and brightest of its leaders were gone. Millions of Black people were free — with no education, no place to work, and nowhere to go.
With Lincoln gone, many of the North’s leaders were more in the mood for revenge than for Reconstruction. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, had few friends in Congress and fewer leadership skills. Such a climate resulted in the North imposing draconian laws on the South, which led, in turn, to economic and physically violent reprisals by white Southerners on Black Southerners.
Reconstruction efforts suffered further when the great Northern general Ulysses S. Grant turned out to be a not-so-great president. Political corruption infected every level of government. The corruption peaked — or bottomed out — with a sleazy deal that gave the 1876 presidential election to a former Ohio governor named Rutherford B. Hayes. It’s all there in Chapter 11.
Struggling with Greatness
With the North-South struggle over, America began stretching west in earnest. Great tracts of land were available to settle, and money could be made in mining, ranching, and farming. Tragically, that meant pushing out or bumping off the original human residents. Most of America’s surviving Native Americans were on the Great Plains. But by 1890, wars, murders, disease, starvation, and forced relocation had largely “solved” the “Indian problem.”
Other minorities fared little better. In the South, the failures of Reconstruction led to a series of Jim Crow laws that sanctioned racial segregation. Immigration from China was temporarily banned in 1882, and the ban lasted six decades. Immigrants from other nations poured in, however, many of them populating vast slums in rapidly growing cities.
But Big Business boomed in what Mark Twain dubbed The Gilded Age. Railroads, steel, and oil were the objects of monopolistic cartels, and new industries sprang up around new inventions like the telephone and electric lighting.
With its frontier rapidly settled, America cast its eyes beyond its borders. In 1898, it went to war with Spain. The conflict lasted four months and resulted in Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines becoming U.S. territories. See Chapter 12 for details.
Finding a place in the world
As the 20th century began, the nation marched to the twin drums of imperialism — running other people’s countries for America’s benefit — and progressivism — improving the bad habits of Big Business and Big Politics. At the forefront of both was a human dynamo — Theodore Roosevelt. The country also underwent labor pains, with unions striving, often violently and not very successfully, with business leaders. Women were also struggling to gain a place at the polling booth and in the pay line.
Chapter 13 winds up with America failing to stay out of World War I. America’s participation in the war turned out to be a good thing for the rest of the world, as it helped the war get over with sooner.
Roaring through the ’20s
After the war, America decided to mind its own business and restricted immigration to keep the rest of the world out. It also gave up drinking — at least legal drinking. Prohibition resulted in a lot of illegal drinking, which seemed, in turn, to affect the country’s mores in other areas. America also elected a string of presidents, all of whom seemingly did what they could to make the rich richer. Everyone else made do by buying things on installment plans and looking for ways to get rich themselves.
Americans spent their increasing leisure time going to the movies, listening to the radio, and paying homage to heroes like Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh. As Chapter 14 closed, the Roaring Twenties sputtered to an end with a stock market crash, which makes for a depressing Chapter 14.
What’s so great about a depression?
A whole fistful of factors helped cause the Great Depression, from the stock market crash to bad weather. It all added up to an economically catastrophic decade. Unemployment and foreclosures soared. Tens of thousands of farm families migrated to the promise of better times in California. Minority groups were even worse off than usual. About the only groups to make progress were labor unions.
Trying to untangle the mess was a patrician New Yorker named Franklin D. Roosevelt. As president, FDR launched an alphabet’s worth of federal programs to combat the Depression, with mixed results. For Depression distractions, America had an array of demagogic politicians, dangerous criminals, and long-winded radio personalities. They’re all right there in Chapter 15.
The big one
As the 1930s ended, most Americans were too preoccupied with their own problems to worry about problems in the rest of the world. As it turned out, however, the country couldn’t get by indefinitely, just selling war materials to friendly nations.
By the end of 1941, America was in another world war, and the country was up to the task. Industrial production ramped up. Women went to work, taking the place of men at war. Minority groups gained ground in the struggle for equality by making invaluable contributions to the effort.
American efforts overseas were even more valiant. After helping to secure North Africa, U.S. troops were at the vanguard of the Allied invasions of Italy and France. In the Pacific, the military recovered quickly from the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor and began a methodical hopscotch across the Pacific. As Chapter 16 concludes, America ends the war by using nuclear weapons — and begins a very uneasy chapter in world history.
A Cold War and a Brave New World
America marked the end of World War II by beginning a decades-long struggle with totalitarian regimes in two nations that had been wartime allies — the Soviet Union and China. After helping get the United Nations off the ground, the United States began diplomatically, and sometimes not so diplomatically, dueling with Soviet, Chinese, and other communists trying to overthrow governments in other countries.
In 1950, UN troops, consisting mainly of U.S. troops, began what was termed a police action, trying to push back a Chinese-supported North Korean invasion of South Korea. It took until mid-1953, and 33,000 U.S. dead, to end the war in a stalemate. At home, meanwhile, Americans’ antipathy toward communism resulted in demagogic persecution of U.S. citizens. Commie hunting became something of a national pastime. It took until mid-1954 for a poison of innuendo and smear tactics spread by Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy to run its course.
Communists aside, Americans were doing pretty well after the war. Returning veterans came home to plenty of jobs and government aid programs, which meant a booming economy. People bought houses and cars in new suburban communities, where they watched a new cultural phenomenon called television and listened to a new kind of music called rock ’n’ roll.
But not everyone was having fun. After helping win two world wars, Black people decided it was past time to be treated as equals. A 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision and a 1955 boycott of a bus company helped jump-start the civil rights movement. It’s all in Chapter 17.
From a Kennedy to a Ford
After eight years of Dwight Eisenhower (a great general but a pretty dull president), America was ready for some charisma in the White House. It got it with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Kennedy proved his leadership skills in 1962 when he pulled the country — and the rest of the world — back from the brink of nuclear war over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. But his assassination the following year ended the promise of his presidency.
In Kennedy’s place came Lyndon B. Johnson, a practiced politician. Johnson inherited a messy U.S. involvement in a civil war in Vietnam, which grew increasingly messier in his five years in office. Antiwar sentiment grew almost as fast and kept Johnson from seeking a second full term. At home, the civil rights movement that began in the ’50s picked up speed in the ’60s, fueled by a confluence of Johnson-pushed federal legislation, nonviolent demonstrations led, most notably, by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the violence of race riots in many U.S. cities.
Blacks weren’t the only ones protesting. Latinos, women, and gay Americans took their grievances to the streets. Young people embraced freer attitudes toward drugs, sex, and personal appearance. Their parents, meanwhile, elected Richard Nixon president — twice.
Except for Vietnam, Nixon enjoyed some success in foreign policy, warming up relations with China and gingerly seeking a middle ground with the Soviet Union. After expanding the U.S. role in Vietnam by bombing targets in Cambodia, Nixon administration officials decided it was time to exit and announced a peace settlement with North Vietnam in early 1973. At home, Nixon’s paranoid fixation on getting even with political foes led to a spying-and-lying scandal that led to him becoming the only U.S. president to resign his office. The Watergate dirt is in Chapter 18.
Good intentions, mixed results
After Nixon quit, the country had two very good men who were not very good presidents — Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter. Ford angered many Americans by pardoning Nixon of any crimes connected with the Watergate scandal. Carter, who defeated Ford in the 1976 presidential race, angered many Americans by pardoning Vietnam War draft dodgers. And both men had trouble with a national economy that suffered from runaway inflation and an embargo by oil-producing nations that resulted in long lines and high prices at gas stations. Carter did broker a peace deal between Egypt and Israel, but he also oversaw a mess in America’s relations with Iran.
The successor to Ford and Carter was seemingly about as improbable a presidential choice as America had ever made: a former B-movie actor who had served two so-so terms as governor of California. But Ronald Reagan turned out to have as much impact on the country as any president since FDR. He was charismatic, optimistic, stubborn, decisive, and lucky — all of which was just what the country needed to restore its self-confidence.
An ardent anti-communist, Reagan heated up the Cold War, in part by proposing an ambitious “Star Wars” military program based on laser-shooting satellites. But his tenacity, combined with tough economic and political times in the Soviet Union, pushed the Soviet bloc closer to its demise in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Chapter 19 ends with the one-term presidency of George H. W. Bush, a short war with Iraq, the worst riot in a U.S. city in a century, and the election of a president whose hometown was Hope. Really.
Finishing out the century
A native of Hope, Arkansas, Bill Clinton was the nation’s first president born after the end of World War II. Although he successfully pushed for a major trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and helped restore some order in the war-torn states of the former Yugoslavia, most of the Democratic president’s energies were aimed at domestic issues.
A major effort to reform America’s healthcare system failed, but he was more successful in working with a Republican majority in Congress to reform the welfare system. After he won reelection in 1996, he also shone when it came to economic matters, turning a federal budget deficit into a surplus and a 1993 tax hike into a 1997 tax cut.
But in 1998, Clinton was caught lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern. The GOP-controlled House impeached him, and he became just the second president to be tried by the Senate. (Andrew Johnson was the first, in 1868.) The Senate acquitted the president, mostly on the grounds that getting caught with his zipper down and trying to cover it up wasn’t sufficient reason to throw him out of office.
Clinton’s budgetary success was tied to the overall success of the U.S. economy in the ’90s. That, in turn, was driven by technological advances (home computers, cell phones, the Internet) that helped foster tighter economic ties with the rest of the world.
But the ’90s also saw the broadening of America’s experience with a problem it heretofore had associated mostly with other countries: terrorism. Bombings of the World Trade Center in New York City, of a federal office complex in Oklahoma City, and at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta brought home the chilling realization that America wasn’t immune to horrific acts of sudden mass violence.
The country also battled the less sudden but more widespread problems of illicit drug use and the spread of AIDS. As Chapter 20 (and the 20th century) ends, America and the rest of the world found themselves on the cusp of technological and economic changes that made a seemingly smaller planet spin at a faster pace.
America in the 21st Century
There’s nothing like kicking off a new millennium with a nail-bitingly close presidential election, and that’s where Chapter 21 begins. The contest between George W. Bush (the eventual winner) and Al Gore wasn’t decided until seven weeks after the polls closed, and only then by a 5–4 U.S. Supreme Court decision. Over the eight years of the Bush presidency, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in modern times, got into two wars, toppled one dictator, and got hit with a couple of nasty hurricanes. All in all, it’s one untidy chapter.
Bursting economic bubbles
As the biggest economic calamity to hit the country since the 1930s, the Great Recession seemed to warrant its own chapter, which is what Chapter 22 is all about. People lost their houses and their jobs at dizzying rates. As it had in the Great Depression, the federal government tried to fix things with ambitious and expensive programs. And as America gradually got back on its fiscal feet, it found its economy had reshaped itself into a form that didn’t fit all Americans the same.
Politics and healthcare are no tea party
In 2008, the country elected a Black man as its president for the first time. Barack Obama faced a deeply divided nation when it came to choosing which political philosophy to be guided by on issues that ranged from federal government spending to devising an efficient and broad-based healthcare system. Take a look at Chapter 23 to see how it worked out for him.
Stormy times and a new kind of president
The economy was humming along, America was still the world’s most dominant country when it came to military might and cultural influence — and yet the nation was perhaps more deeply divided along ideological, political, and financial lines than it had been since the Civil War.
Part of the reason was a new president who was either loved or hated — there seemed to be no middle ground when it came to assessing Donald J. Trump. Elected in one of the biggest upsets in U.S. presidential history, Trump’s approach to governing seemed to stir controversy at every turn and in nearly every part of the world.
At home, meanwhile, Americans struggled with problems that ranged from opioid addiction and gun violence to hurricanes, sexual harassment, and racial divides. It all makes for an unsettling Chapter 24.
Climate, COVID, and a capitol clash
If you thought Chapter 24 was unsettling, wait until you get to 25. America approached its Semiquincentennial (250th birthday) with troubling changes in its climate, a devastating illness, two of the most bitterly divisive presidential elections in its history, and an unprecedented and quite literal attack on its basic governmental processes. There were dire warnings about the country splitting up, revolution, and dictatorships. Told you it was unsettling.
Changing technology, changing America
As the new century moved along, Americans found themselves riding a wave of technological innovation that upended old ways of news-gathering, communicating, socializing, shopping, and entertaining. The new technology also crept into the country’s political processes in sometimes troubling ways. At the same time, changes in both the demographics — a lot of people got a lot older — and cultural norms were dramatically reshaping who Americans were and how they lived. The new reflection is revealed in Chapter 26.
Chapter 2
American Indians and Explorers: 21,000 BCE (?) –1607
IN THIS CHAPTER
Examining the early civilizations in the Americas
Exploring American Indian cultures
Visiting by Viking ship
Recounting the exploits of Columbus and other explorers
Because U.S. history is most often written about by the descendants of Europeans (me included), there’s a tendency to overemphasize the experiences of European settlers at the expense of others who dropped by the New World (American Indians included).
However, tracking what the American Indians did can be difficult because they left no written records of their activities (not in our sense of written words), but they did leave some information behind in later civilizations (for example, the Iroquois Constitution or totem poles). In this chapter, I make some educated guesses and then get on with all those Europeans.
Coming to America
Once upon a time, some people from what is now Siberia walked across what was then a land bridge but is now the Bering Strait and into what is now Alaska. They were hunters in search of ground sloths the size of hippopotamuses, armadillos the size of Volkswagens, mammoth-sized mastodons, and other really big game.
They weren’t in any kind of hurry. Their descendants kept walking south for 4,000 or 5,000 years — not stopping until they got to Patagonia, at the tip of South America. Along the way, they split up and spread out until people could be found in all parts of the continents and islands of North and South America.
Maybe.
Actually, no one knows when humans first showed up in the New World. For most of the 20th century, the most widely accepted view among scholars was that people got to the Americas about 14,000 years ago by walking across a land bridge during the Ice Age, when there was more ice and the world’s ocean levels were lower than today.
However, recent discoveries have caused many scientists to reconsider the land bridge theory. Archaeological sites in Alaska, Oregon, Florida, Chile, and other places have yielded clues, such as tools, animal bones carved and smashed by humans, and even DNA from human remains, which indicate people may have been in the Americas for a much longer time. In 2023, for example, archeologists found human footprints in a dry lakebed in New Mexico. Radiocarbon tests showed they were at least 23,000 years old.
There is evidence that despite the presence of the land bridge, thousands of square miles of ice on the North American side would have been too difficult to cross.
If that’s the case, Americans may very well have come some other way, such as by water. One theory is that the first Americans followed The Kelp Highway, traveling by boat and hugging the shoreline where they would have found food, such as shellfish. (Imagine being the first guy in your tribe to put an oyster or lobster in your mouth.) The boat people were followed, the theory goes, by those crossing the land bridge when the vast ice fields retreated, but before the water covered the bridge.
Other puzzles have popped up to cause scientists to look hard at the Bering Strait theory. One study of human blood types, for example, found that the predominant blood type in Asia is B, and the blood types of American Indians are almost exclusively A or O. This finding seems to indicate that at least some of the American Indians’ ancestors came from somewhere other than Siberia.
Exploring Early Civilizations
Although it’s unclear who got here first and when, it’s known that the forerunners of American Indians were beginning to settle down by about 1000 BCE. They cultivated crops, most notably maize, a hearty variety of corn that takes less time to grow than other grains and can also grow in many different climates. Beans and squash made up the other two of the “three sisters” of early American agriculture.
Growing their own food enabled groups of humans to stay in one place for long periods. Consequently, they could make and acquire things and build settlements, which allowed them to trade with other groups. Trading resulted in groups becoming covetous of other groups’ things, which eventually led to wars over these things. Ah, civilization.
The Puebloans
One of the earliest cultures to emerge in what’s now the United States was the Puebloans. Although they were around the southwestern United States for hundreds of years, they flourished from about AD 1100 to 1400.
At their peak, the Puebloans (the name comes from a Spanish word for “villages”) built walled towns in nearly inaccessible areas, which made the communities easier to defend. The towns featured apartment houses, community courts, and buildings for religious ceremonies. The Puebloans made artistic pottery and tightly woven baskets, traded with other groups as far away as central Mexico, and developed sophisticated ways of timing their agricultural efforts by measuring the seasons through astronomical observations.
Because of the region’s arid conditions, the Puebloans couldn’t support a large population and were never particularly numerous. By the mid-15th century, many of the towns were abandoned, possibly because of prolonged drought throughout the region.
Despite a widespread popular belief that the Puebloans just “disappeared,” the actuality is they simply moved elsewhere. In fact, more than 20 federally recognized Puebloan tribes exist in the 21st century, mostly in New Mexico and Arizona.
The Mound Builders
East of the Puebloans were groups of early Americans who became known as Mound Builders after their habit of erecting large earthworks that served as tombs and foundations for temples and other public buildings. One group, known as the Woodland Culture, was centered in Ohio and spread east. Their mounds, which took decades to build, reached more than seven stories in height and were surrounded by earthwork walls as long as 500 yards. The largest of these mounds was near what’s now the southern Ohio town of Hopewell.
The largest Mound Builder settlement was on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, about 8 miles from what’s now St. Louis. It was called Cahokia. At its zenith, around AD 1100, Cahokia covered 6 square miles and may have been home to as many as 30,000 people. To put that in perspective, Cahokia was about the same size as London in 1100, and no other city in America grew to that size until Philadelphia did 700 years later.
