OUTLINE OF U.S. History

380 Pages·2012·7.59 MB·English

OUTLINE OF
U.S.
History
Early Settlement
Colonial Period
Road to Independence
Forming a Government
Westward Expansion
Sectional Conflict
Civil War
Economic Growth
Discontent and Reform
War, Prosperity, and Depression
The New Deal and World War II
Postwar Prosperity
Civil Rights and Social Change
A New World Order
Bridge to the 21st Century
2008 Presidential Election

OOUUTTLLIINNEE OOFF
UU..SS.. HHIISSTTOORRYY
Bureau of International Information Programs
U.S. Department of State
2011

OOUUTTLLIINNEE OOFF
UU..SS.. HHIISSTTOORRYY
C O N T E N T S
CHAPTER 1 Early America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
CHAPTER 2 The Colonial Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
CHAPTER 3 The Road to Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
CHAPTER 4 The Formation of a National Government . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
CHAPTER 5 Westward Expansion and Regional Differences . . . . . . .110
CHAPTER 6 Sectional Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
CHAPTER 7 The Civil War and Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140
CHAPTER 8 Growth and Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154
CHAPTER 9 Discontent and Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .188
CHAPTER 10 War, Prosperity, and Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202
CHAPTER 11 The New Deal and World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
CHAPTER 12 Postwar America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256
CHAPTER 13 Decades of Change: 1960-1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .274
CHAPTER 14 The New Conservatism and a New World Order . . . . . . .304
CHAPTER 15 Bridge to the 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .320
CHAPTER 16 Politics of Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .340
PICTURE PROFILES
Becoming a Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
Transforming a Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
Monuments and Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161
Turmoil and Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229
21st Century Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .293
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349
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CHAPTER
1
EARLY
AMERICA
Mesa Verde settlement in
Colorado, 13th century.
CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
“Heaven and Earth never
agreed better to frame a place
for man’s habitation.”
Jamestown founder John Smith, 1607
THE FIRST AMERICANS ancestors had for thousands of years,
A along the Siberian coast and then
t the height of the Ice Age, be- across the land bridge .
tween 34,000 and 30,000 B .C ., much Once in Alaska, it would take
of the world’s water was locked up these first North Americans thou-
in vast continental ice sheets . As a sands of years more to work their
result, the Bering Sea was hundreds way through the openings in great
of meters below its current level, and glaciers south to what is now the
a land bridge, known as Beringia, United States . Evidence of early life
emerged between Asia and North in North America continues to be
America . At its peak, Beringia is found . Little of it, however, can be
thought to have been some 1,500 ki- reliably dated before 12,000 B .C .; a
lometers wide . A moist and treeless recent discovery of a hunting look-
tundra, it was covered with grasses out in northern Alaska, for exam-
and plant life, attracting the large ple, may date from almost that time .
animals that early humans hunted So too may the finely crafted spear
for their survival . points and items found near Clovis,
The first people to reach North New Mexico .
America almost certainly did so Similar artifacts have been found
without knowing they had crossed at sites throughout North and South
into a new continent . They would America, indicating that life was
have been following game, as their probably already well established in
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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
much of the Western Hemisphere by ing earthen burial sites and forti-
some time prior to 10,000 B .C . fications around 600 B .C . Some
Around that time the mammoth mounds from that era are in the
began to die out and the bison took shape of birds or serpents; they
its place as a principal source of probably served religious purposes
food and hides for these early North not yet fully understood .
Americans . Over time, as more and The Adenans appear to have
more species of large game van- been absorbed or displaced by vari-
ished — whether from overhunting ous groups collectively known as
or natural causes — plants, berries, Hopewellians . One of the most im-
and seeds became an increasingly portant centers of their culture was
important part of the early Ameri- found in southern Ohio, where the
can diet . Gradually, foraging and remains of several thousand of these
the first attempts at primitive agri- mounds still can be seen . Believed
culture appeared . Native Americans to be great traders, the Hopewel-
in what is now central Mexico led lians used and exchanged tools and
the way, cultivating corn, squash, materials across a wide region of
and beans, perhaps as early as 8,000 hundreds of kilometers .
B .C . Slowly, this knowledge spread By around 500 A .D ., the
northward . Hopewellians disappeared, too,
By 3,000 B .C ., a primitive type of gradually giving way to a broad
corn was being grown in the river group of tribes generally known
valleys of New Mexico and Arizo- as the Mississippians or Temple
na . Then the first signs of irrigation Mound culture . One city, Ca-
began to appear, and, by 300 B .C ., hokia, near Collinsville, Illinois, is
signs of early village life . thought to have had a population of
By the first centuries A .D ., the about 20,000 at its peak in the early
Hohokam were living in settlements 12th century . At the center of the
near what is now Phoenix, Arizo- city stood a huge earthen mound,
na, where they built ball courts and flattened at the top, that was 30
pyramid-like mounds reminiscent meters high and 37 hectares at the
of those found in Mexico, as well as base . Eighty other mounds have
a canal and irrigation system . been found nearby .
Cities such as Cahokia depend-
MOUND BUILDERS AND ed on a combination of hunting,
PUEBLOS foraging, trading, and agriculture
T for their food and supplies . Influ-
he first Native-American group enced by the thriving societies to the
to build mounds in what is now the south, they evolved into complex hi-
United States often are called the erarchical societies that took slaves
Adenans . They began construct- and practiced human sacrifice .
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CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA
In what is now the southwest the indigenous population practi-
United States, the Anasazi, ancestors cally from the time of initial con-
of the modern Hopi Indians, began tact . Smallpox, in particular, ravaged
building stone and adobe pueblos whole communities and is thought
around the year 900 . These unique to have been a much more direct
and amazing apartment-like struc- cause of the precipitous decline in
tures were often built along cliff the Indian population in the 1600s
faces; the most famous, the “cliff than the numerous wars and skir-
palace” of Mesa Verde, Colorado, mishes with European settlers .
had more than 200 rooms . Another Indian customs and culture at the
site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along time were extraordinarily diverse,
New Mexico’s Chaco River, once as could be expected, given the ex-
contained more than 800 rooms . panse of the land and the many dif-
Perhaps the most affluent of the ferent environments to which they
pre-Columbian Native Americans had adapted . Some generalizations,
lived in the Pacific Northwest, where however, are possible . Most tribes,
the natural abundance of fish and particularly in the wooded eastern
raw materials made food supplies region and the Midwest, combined
plentiful and permanent villages pos- aspects of hunting, gathering, and
sible as early as 1,000 B .C . The opu- the cultivation of maize and other
lence of their “potlatch” gatherings products for their food supplies .
remains a standard for extravagance In many cases, the women were
and festivity probably unmatched in responsible for farming and the
early American history . distribution of food, while the men
hunted and participated in war .
NATIVE-AMERICAN By all accounts, Native-American
CULTURES society in North America was closely
T tied to the land . Identification with
he America that greeted the first nature and the elements was integral
Europeans was, thus, far from an to religious beliefs . Their life was
empty wilderness . It is now thought essentially clan-oriented and com-
that as many people lived in the munal, with children allowed more
Western Hemisphere as in West- freedom and tolerance than was the
ern Europe at that time — about 40 European custom of the day .
million . Estimates of the number of Although some North Ameri-
Native Americans living in what is can tribes developed a type of hi-
now the United States at the onset of eroglyphics to preserve certain
European colonization range from texts, Native-American culture was
two to 18 million, with most histori- primarily oral, with a high value
ans tending toward the lower figure . placed on the recounting of tales
What is certain is the devastating ef- and dreams . Clearly, there was a
fect that European disease had on good deal of trade among various
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