chapter 1 american studies review
Chapter 1: OVERVIEW
Reading 1: An expansive and diverse nation
1. General info
- Federal republic
- Area: 9,629,047 sq km à 3rd
- Population: à 3rd
- 50 states:
+ 48 contiguous states + 2 non-contiguous states: Hawaii & Alaska
+ outlying areas: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the islands of American Samoa & Guam.
- Largest state: Alaska à Texas àCalifornia
- Most populous state: California à Texas à NewYork
- Smallest state: Rhode Island
- Less populous state: Wyoming (plateau & rugged mountains)
- State à counties (parishes) à cities à towns à small villages
- Metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois, New York city
2. Geographic diversity
- 4 most productive agricultural climates of the world (1/3 of the country; mix of rain, sun, long growing season)à make US 1 of the world’s leading agricultural countries.
- Major river systems: Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Colorado, Rio Grande
èFlow south (drinking water, crop irritation, industrial production) if flow north, ice & frozen soil would block the melt water, causing floods, making land unusable for agriculture.
- Rich natural resources: a wide array of mineral resources; the shallow water along the coastline is rich breeding ground for marine life (commercial + sport fishing); the comprehensive networks of rivers (transportation & hydroelectricity)
3. Cultural diversity: 1 of the most diverse countries in the world (culture & environment)
- Native American pp (spoke > 300 diff lang)
- The 1st European & Africans arrived
- Huge chunks of territory & millions of immigrants (mainly fr Europe)
- 2nd immigration: Hispanics fr Mexico to northward
- Slaves brought fr Africa
àthey saw it as a land of a plenty
4. Unity & Diversity
èDebates: pros & cons of bilingual edu, impacts of multiculturalism, merits of affirmative action policies.
· Bilingual education:
- 1960s: demands of bilingual edu by organizations representing Spanish-speaking Americans (1.want the use of Spanish in schools & 2.teaching of Mexican American culture).
- 1968: Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act; 1975: Rights Act (vote in their own lang)
- 1980: oppositions (1. Make E the official lang; 2. Restrict bilingual school programs)
- For: forcing stns to give up their native langs weakened their distinctive cultures
- Against: bilingual edu slowed down the pace at which no-E-speaking stns entered the mainstream of society
- 1998: California passed Proposition 227 (a program of nearly all E instruction)
· Multiculturalism (M): the acceptance of immigrant & minority groups (gr) as distinct communities, distinguishable fr the majority population à Debates
- For: + minority grs should enjoy equal rights in US without giving up their own ethnic cultures
+ reject the idea of melting pot & assimilation; national identity must be based on a common heritages & values
- Against: + M creates conflict among grs
+ M: a token gesture designed to hide continuing domination of A culture by majority gr
+ Recognition of cultural differences & gr identities doesn’t help address social & economic disadvantages.
· The policy of affirmative action: the most widespread controversy
- 1961: president Kenedy 1st used to require grs (doing business with Gov.) to take affirmative action to remedy discrimination against African Americans.
- Nixon: included women & minorities
èFor: AA give opportunities to mems of groups that suffered past discrimination
èAgainst: AA reverse discrimination à object to the use of quotas for mems of minority groups
- Americans have to balance individual rights against group rights to consider problems that involve national identity versus group identity.
Reading 2: Brief history of the US
1. The colonial era:
- 1st successful E colony in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia
- E Puritans came to American to escape religious persecution for their opposition to the Church of England, power of Queen.
- 2nd British establishment in 1620 at Plumouth Colony (Massachusetts)
- 1636: E clergyman Roger Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island.
- 1733: E settlers had founded 13 colonies along the Atlantic Coast
- 1763: the Seven Years’ war between England & France left England in control of Canada
- 19/4/1775: American Revolution War broke out à 4/7/1776: Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independence.
Explanation
+ City upon a hill: an ideal community that the Puritans hopes to build in New England.
+ Intolerant moralism: kind of religion, system of strict moralism, used to teach pp
+ Boston tea party: an event which a group of patriots responded to tea taxation. They disguised as Indians & boarded British merchant ships & dumped 342 crates of tea into Boston harbor.
+ Tea act (10/5/1773): an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain
+ Treaties of alliance: 1777, the deal between France & Americans in which France supported Americans to defeat British.
2. The new nation
- Gov. --> 3 branches: legislative (Congress), executive (president & federal agencies), judicial (federal courts) à reason: avoid excessive central power.
- George Washington: favor a strong president & central government
- Thomas Jeffeson: prefer to allot more power to states.
3. Slavery and Civil war
- 1828: Andrew Jackson became the 7th US president à1st outsider
+ a man fr the frontier state of Tennessee
+ born in a poor family
+ outside the cultural traditions of the Atlantic seaboard.
à End of a political era dominated by the planter aristocracy and the commercial aristocracy
- 1820: North & South debated the question of whether slavery would be legal in western territories
- 1860: Abraham Lincoln, a foe of slavery was elected 16th US president
- 1860: 11 states left the Union & declared to be independent nation
- The Civil War began in 1861 & ended in 1865
- The Civil War put an end to slavery and decided that the country was not a collection of semi-independent states but an indivisible whole.
Explanation:
+ the Missouri Compromise: a compromise in which slavery was permitted in the new state of Missouri & the Arkansas Territory but bared everywhere west & north of Missouri.
+ The Confederate: the army of the Confederate states of America which fought against the US federal Gov. (the Union)
+ The Union Army: the army of the US federal Gov.
4. The late 19th century:
- Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865; Andrew Johnson was the 17th president of the United States in 1865
- Development of US industry in the late 19th cent.: the United States became a leading industrial power, and shrewd businessmen made great fortunes
- Unrestrained economic growth brought dangers
+ Heavy immigration, many of the workers in the new industries were foreign-born.
+ Food prices were falling, and farmers had to bear the costs of high shipping rates, expensive mortgages, high taxes, and tariffs on consumer goods.
- In 1867, the USA purchased Alaska from Russia.
- In 1898, the war between the US and Spain began à When the war was over, the US had gained a number of possessions from Spain: Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
+ 1902 American troops left Cuba
+ Philippines obtained limited self-government in 1907 and complete independence in 1946.
+ Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth within the United States.
+ Hawaii became a state in 1959 (as did Alaska).
Explanation:
+ Laissez faire: let the Gov. interfere with commerce as little as possible
+ Progressive Movement (1900) has purpose to reform society &individuals through gov. action.
5. War & peace
- 1914: World War I in Europe; 28th president Woodrow Wilson urged a policy of strict American neutrality.
- 1917: Congress declared war on Germany à 11/1818, Germany asked for peace
- In 1919, because of the failure of the Treaty of Versailles, Americans were becoming hostile to foreigners in their midst.
- 1919: a series of terrorist bombings produced the “Red Scare”
- The 1920s:
+ The age of Prohibition: in 1920 a constitutional amendment outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages.
+ The Roaring Twenties: the age of jazz and spectacular silent movies and such fads as flagpole-sitting and goldfish-swallowing.
+ For big business, the 1920s were golden years with booming markets for radios, home appliances, synthetic textiles, and plastics.
Explanation:
+ Ku Klux Klan (KKK): several past & present secret militant organizations in US whose purpose is to protect the rights & further of interests of White Americans.
+ The Roaring Twenties: a phrase to describe the A society in the 1920s, that emphasizes the period of social, artist.
+ Henry Ford: the most admired men of the decade bez he is the person who had introduced the assembly line into automobile factories. He could pay high wages & still earn enormous profits by mass-producing the Model-T; a car that millions of buyers could afford.
6. Great depression
- By 1932 thousands of American banks and over 100,000 businesses had failed.
- Industrial production was cut in half, wages had decreased 60 percent.
- One out of every four workers was unemployed.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt the 32nd president of the United States (1933-1945) had rushed through Congress a great number of laws to help the economy recover.
- Although Roosevelt's New Deal programs did not end the Depression, the economy improved.
Explanation:
- Reason for depression: with low profits soaring & interest rates, plenty of money was available for investment; much of money went into stock market. Prices were pushed up, investors bought stocks on margin, borrowing up to 90% of the purchase price. Then stock market crashed, triggered out a worldwide depression.
- The new deal of Roosevelt: gave to a complex package of economic programs to recover the US economy
7. World war II & Cold War
· WWI
- 1939: WWI stared in Europe, US remained neutral
- 1941: the Bombing Pearl Harbor naval in Hawaii brought the US to the war.
- 11/1942: British and American forces landed in North Africa, proceeded to Sicily and the Italian mainland in 1943, and liberated Rome (4/7/1944).
- 6/6/1944: D-Day, allied forces landed in Normandy.
- 5/5/1945: the Germans finally surrendered.
- 8/1945, the USA used atomic bombs against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
· Cold war: between US & its wartime ally the Soviet Union.
- 4/1949: US had allied with Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- 1950: Korean War with US involvement à1953: ended & the final settlement left Korea divided.
- 1945 - 1970 the United States enjoyed a long period of economic growth
- 1960 John F. Kennedy was elected president à 1963: Kennedy was assassinated.
- Lyndon B. Johnson managed to push through Congress a number of new laws establishing social programs including preschool education for poor children, vocational training for dropouts from school, and community service for slum youths.
- Vietnam war:
+ By 1968, 500,000 American troops were fighting in Vietnam.
+ Demonstrations protesting American involvement broke out on college campuses.
+ Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968.
+ He pursued a policy of Vietnamization, gradually replacing American soldiers with Vietnamese.
è2 purposes: re-established U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China and negotiate the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Soviet Union.
+ 1972: he easily won re-election.
- The Watergate:
+ During that presidential campaign, 5 men had been arrested for breaking into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington.
+ Tape recordings made by the president himself revealed that he had been involved in that scandal.
+ 9/8, Richard Nixon became the only U.S. president to resign from office.
Explanation:
+ NATO: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4/4/1949.
+ Berlin wall: the physical barrier divided Eastern & Western Germany for > ¼ cent.
+ The Watergate scandal
8. Decade of changes
- In late 1991, the Cold War came to an end.
- After WW II, Democrats held majorities in the Congress in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
- In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan was elected president.
- In 1988, Republican George Bush became the next US president.
- When Iraq invaded oil-rich Kuwait in 1990, Bush put together a multinational coalition that liberated Kuwait early in 1991.
- Bill Clinton, a Democrat, is the 42th president.
- The economy was strong in the mid-1990s.
9. Beginning of 21st century
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