What did mckinley's reelection show about american attitudes toward imperialism

What was “Fordism” and how did workers respond to it?

1. Read Textbook: Foner, Give Me Liberty, ("The Progressive Era, 1900-1916 [start of chapter] to "The Expanding Role of Government" [end of chapter])

T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A . . . 689 Patriotic Assimilation ... 690  The Bracero Program ... 690  Indians during the War ... 691  Asian-Americans in Wartime ... 691  Japanese- American Internment ... 692  Blacks and the War ... 694  Blacks and Military Service ... 695  Birth of the Civil Rights Movement ... 695  The Double-V ... 696  The War and Race ... 696  An American Dilemma ... 697 Voices of Freedom: From Henry R. Luce, The American Century (1941), and From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has Always Wanted the Four Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants (1944) ... 698 Black Internationalism ... 700 T H E E N D O F T H E W A R . . . 700 “The Most Terrible Weapon” ... 701  The Dawn of the Atomic Age ... 701  The Nature of the War ... 702  Planning the Postwar World ... 703  Yalta and Bretton Woods ... 703  The United Nations ... 704  Peace, but not Harmony ... 704 R E V I E W . . . 7 0 6 2 3 . T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D T H E C O L D W A R , 1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3 . . . 7 0 7 O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R . . . 709 The Two Powers ... 709  The Roots of Containment ... 709  The Truman Doctrine ... 710  The Marshall Plan ... 711 x i i Contents  The Reconstruction of Japan ... 712  The Berlin Blockade and NATO ... 713  The Growing Communist Challenge ... 713  The Korean War ... 715  Cold War Critics ... 717  Imperialism and Decolonization ... 717 Voices of Freedom: From Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955), and From Henry Steele Commager, “Who Is Loyal to America?” in Harper’s (September 1947) ... 718 T H E C O L D W A R A N D T H E I D E A O F F R E E D O M . . . 720 Freedom and Totalitarianism ... 720  The Rise of Human Rights ... 721  Ambiguities of Human Rights ... 722 T H E T R U M A N P R E S I D E N C Y . . . 722 The Fair Deal ... 722  The Postwar Strike Wave ... 723  The Republican Resurgence ... 723  Postwar Civil Rights ... 724  To Secure These Rights ... 725  The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts ... 725 T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E . . . 727 Loyalty and Disloyalty ... 728  The Spy Trials ... 729  McCarthy and McCarthyism ... 730  An Atmosphere of Fear ... 731  The Uses of Anticommunism ... 731  Anticommunist Politics ... 732  Cold War Civil Rights ... 733 R E V I E W . . . 7 3 5 2 4 . A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y , 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0 . . . 7 3 6 T H E G O L D E N A G E . . . 738 A Changing Economy ... 738  A Suburban Nation ... 739  The Growth of the West ... 740  The TV World ... 741  Women at Work and at Home ... 741  A Segregated Landscape ... 742  The Divided Society ... 743  Religion and Anticommunism ... 743  Selling Free Enterprise ... 744  The Libertarian Conservatives and the New Conservatives ... 744 T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A . . . 745 Ike and Nixon ... 745  The 1952 Campaign ... 746  Modern Republicanism ... 747  The Social Contract ... 748  Massive Retaliation ... 749  Ike and the Russians ... 749  The Emergence of the Third World ... 750  Origins of the Vietnam War ... 751  Mass Society and Its Critics ... 752  Rebels without a Cause ... 753 T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T . . . 754 Origins of the Movement ... 755  The Legal Assault on Segregation ... 755  The Brown Case ... 757  The Montgomery Bus Boycott ... 758  The Daybreak of Freedom ... 758  The Leadership of King ... 759  Massive Resistance ... 760  Eisenhower and Civil Rights ... 760 C o n t e n t s x i i i Voices of Freedom: From Richard Right, “I Choose Exile” (1950), and From The Southern Manifesto (1956) ... 762 T H E E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 6 0 . . . 764 Kennedy and Nixon ... 764  The End of the 1950s ... 765 R E V I E W . . . 7 6 7 2 5 . T H E S I X T I E S , 1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8 . . . 7 6 8 T H E C I V I L R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N . . . 770 The Rising Tide of Protest ... 770  Birmingham ... 771  The March on Washington ... 772 T H E K E N N E D Y Y E A R S . . . 773 Kennedy and the World ... 773  The Missile Crisis ... 774  Kennedy and Civil Rights ... 775 L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y . . . 776 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ... 776  Freedom Summer ... 776  The 1964 Election ... 777  The Conservative Sixties ... 778  The Voting Rights Act ... 780  Immigration Reform ... 780  The Great Society ... 781  The War on Poverty ... 781  Freedom and Equality ... 782 T H E C H A N G I N G B L A C K M O V E M E N T . . . 782 The Ghetto Uprisings ... 783  Malcolm X ... 784  The Rise of Black Power ... 784 V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T . . . 785 Old and New Lefts ... 785  The Fading Consensus ... 786  America and Vietnam ... 787 Voices of Freedom: From Young Americans for Freedom, The Sharon Statement (September 1960), and From Tom Hayden and Others, The Port Huron Statement (June 1962) ... 788 Lyndon Johnson’s War ... 790  The Antiwar Movement ... 792  The Counterculture ... 793  Personal Liberation and the Free Individual ... 793  Faith and the Counterculture ... 794 T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N . . . 7 9 5 The Feminine Mystique ... 795  Women’s Liberation ... 796  Personal Freedom ... 796  Gay Liberation ... 797  Latino Activism ... 797  Red Power ... 798  Silent Spring ... 798  The Rights Revolution ... 799  The Right to Privacy ... 801 1 9 6 8 . . . 802 A Year of Turmoil ... 802  The Global 1968 ... 803  Nixon’s Comeback ... 804  The Legacy of the Sixties ... 804 R E V I E W . . . 8 0 5 x i v Contents 2 6 . T H E T R I U M P H O F C O N S E R V A T I S M , 1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8 . . . 8 0 6 P R E S I D E N T N I X O N . . . 807 Nixon’s Domestic Policies ... 808  Nixon and Welfare ... 808  Nixon and Race ... 809  The Burger Court ... 809  The Continuing Sexual Revolution ... 810  Nixon and Détente ... 811 V I E T N A M A N D W A T E R G A T E . . . 813 Nixon and Vietnam ... 813  The End of the Vietnam War ... 814  Watergate ... 815  Nixon’s Fall ... 815 T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E . . . 816 The Decline of Manufacturing ... 816  Stagflation ... 818  The Beleaguered Social Compact ... 818  Ford as President ... 819  The Carter Administration ... 820  Carter and the Economic Crisis ... 820  The Emergence of Human Rights Politics ... 821  The Iran Crisis and Afghanistan ... 822 T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M . . . 823 Voices of Freedom: From Redstockings Manifesto (1969), and From Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (1980) ... 824 The Religious Right ... 826  The Battle over the Equal Rights Amendment ... 827  The Abortion Controversy ... 828  The Tax Revolt ... 829  The Election of 1980 ... 829 T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N . . . 830 Reagan and American Freedom ... 830  Reaganomics ... 831  Reagan and Labor ... 831  The Problem of Inequality ... 832  The Second Gilded Age ... 833  Conservatives and Reagan ... 834  Reagan and the Cold War ... 834  The Iran-Contra Affair ... 836  Reagan and Gorbachev ... 836  Reagan’s Legacy ... 837  The Election of 1988 ... 837 R E V I E W . . . 8 3 9 2 7 . G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D I T S D I S C O N T E N T S , 1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 0 . . . 8 4 0 T H E P O S T - C O L D W A R W O R L D . . . 842 The Crisis of Communism ... 842  A New World Order? ... 844  The Gulf War ... 845  Visions of America’s Role ... 845  The Election of Clinton ... 845  Clinton in Office ... 846  The “Freedom Revolution” ... 847 Voices of Freedom: From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA (1993), and From Global Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for Global Democracy (December 1999) ... 848 Clinton’s Political Strategy ... 850  Clinton and World Affairs ... 851  Human Rights ... 852 C o n t e n t s x v A N E W E C O N O M Y ? . . . 853 The Computer Revolution ... 853  The Stock Market Boom and Bust ... 854  The Enron Syndrome ... 855  Fruits of Deregulation ... 855  Rising Inequality ... 856 C U L T U R E W A R S . . . 857 The Newest Immigrants ... 858  The New Diversity ... 859  African- Americans in the 1990s ... 861  The Spread of Imprisonment ... 862  The Continuing Rights Revolution ... 863  Native Americans ... 864  Multiculturalism ... 865  “Family Values” in Retreat ... 866  The Antigovernment Extreme ... 866 I M P E A C H M E N T A N D T H E E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 0 0 . . . 867 The Impeachment of Clinton ... 868  The Disputed Election ... 868  A Challenged Democracy ... 869 F R E E D O M A N D T H E N E W C E N T U R Y . . . 870 Exceptional America ... 871 R E V I E W . . . 8 7 3 2 8 . A N E W C E N T U R Y A N D N E W C R I S E S . . . 8 7 4 T H E W A R O N T E R R O R I S M . . . 876 Bush before September 11 ... 876  “They Hate Freedom” ... 877  The Bush Doctrine ... 877  The “Axis of Evil” ... 878 A N A M E R I C A N E M P I R E ? . . . 878 Confronting Iraq ... 879  The Iraq War ... 880  The World and the War ... 881 T H E A F T E R M A T H O F S E P T E M B E R 1 1 A T H O M E . . . 883 Security and Liberty ... 883  The Power of the President ... 883  The Torture Controversy ... 884  The Economy under Bush ... 885 T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E . . . 885 The 2004 Election ... 885  Bush’s Second Term ... 886  Hurricane Katrina ... 886  The Immigration Debate ... 887  Islam, America, and the “Clash of Civilizations” ... 888  The Constitution and Liberty ... 889  The Court and the President ... 890  The Midterm Elections of 2006 ... 890  The Housing Bubble ... 891  The Great Recession ... 892  “A Conspiracy against the Public” ... 893  Bush and the Crisis ... 894 T H E R I S E O F O B A M A . . . 895 The 2008 Campaign ... 896  The Age of Obama? ... 897  Obama’s First Inauguration ... 897 Voices of Freedom: From The National Security Strategy of the United States (September 2002), and From President Barack Obama, Speech on the Middle East (2011) ... 898 Obama in Office ... 900 x v i Contents O B A M A ’ S F I R S T T E R M . . . 902 The Continuing Economic Crisis ... 902  Obama and the World ... 902  The Republican Revival ... 904  The Occupy Movement ... 905  The 2012 Campaign ... 905 L E A R N I N G F R O M H I S T O R Y . . . 907 R E V I E W . . . 9 0 9 A P P E N D I X D O C U M E N T S The Declaration of Independence (1776) ... A-2 The Constitution of The United States (1787) ... A-5 From George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796) ... A-17 The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments And Resolutions (1848) ... A-22 From Frederick Douglass’s “What, To the Slave, Is The Fourth Of July?” Speech (1852) ... A-25 The Gettysburg Address (1863) ... A-29 Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) ... A-30 The Populist Platform of 1892 ... A-31 Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933) ... A-34 From The Program For The March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom (1963) ... A-37 Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (1981) ... A-38 Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address (2009) ... A-42 T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S Presidential Elections ... A-46 Admission of States ... A-54 Population of the United States ... A-55 Historical Statistics of The United States: Labor Force—Selected Characteristics Expressed As A Percentage of The Labor Force, 1800–2010 ... A-56 Immigration, By Origin ... A-56 Unemployment Rate, 1890–2013 ... A-57 Union Membership As A Percentage Of Nonagricultural Employment, 1880–2012 ... A-57 Voter Participation in Presidential Elections 1824–2012 ... A-57 Birthrate, 1820–2011 ... A-57 S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G S ... A - 5 9 G L O S S A R Y ... A - 6 9 C R E D I T S ... A - 9 7 I N D E X ... A - 9 9 C o n t e n t s x v i i M A P S Japanese-American Internment, 1942–1945 ... 693 C H A P T E R 1 5 C H A P T E R 2 3 The Barrow Plantation ... 446 Sharecropping in the South, 1880 ... 452 Cold War Europe, 1956 ... 714 The Presidential Election of 1868 ... 460 The Korean War, 1950–1953 ... 716 Reconstruction in the South, 1867–1877 ... 471 The Presidential Election of 1948 ... 727 The Presidential Election of 1876 ... 472 C H A P T E R 2 4 C H A P T E R 1 6 The Interstate Highway System ... 740 The Railroad Network, 1880 ... 479 The Presidential Election of 1952 ... 747 Indian Reservations, ca. 1890 ... 491 The Presidential Election of 1960 ... 765 Political Stalemate, 1876–1892 ... 496 C H A P T E R 2 5 C H A P T E R 1 7 The Presidential Election of 1964 ... 778 Populist Strength, 1892 ... 512 The Vietnam War, 1964–1975 ... 791 The Presidential Election of 1896 ... 516 The Spanish-American War: The Pacific ... 532 C H A P T E R 2 6 The Spanish-American War: The Caribbean ... 532 The Presidential Election of 1980 ... 830 American Empire, 1898 ... 534 The United States in the Caribbean and Central C H A P T E R 1 8 America, 1954–2004 ... 835 Socialist Towns and Cities, 1900–1920 ... 553 C H A P T E R 2 7 The Presidential Election of 1912 ... 571 Eastern Europe after the Cold War ... 844 C H A P T E R 1 9 The Presidential Election of 2000 ... 868 The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1941 ... 577 C H A P T E R 2 8 World War I: The Western Front ... 583 U.S. Presence in the Middle East, Europe in 1914 ... 602 1947–2012 ... 882 Europe in 1919 ... 603 The Presidential Election of 2012 ... 906 C H A P T E R 2 0 T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S The Presidential Election of 1928 ... 632 C H A P T E R 2 1 C H A P T E R 1 6 The Presidential Election of 1932 ... 641 Table 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change, The Tennessee Valley Authority ... 646 1870–1920 ... 477 C H A P T E R 2 2 C H A P T E R 1 7 World War II in the Pacific, 1941–1945 ... 679 Table 17.1 States with Over 200 Lynchings, World War II in Europe, 1942–1945 ... 681 1889–1918 ... 523 x v i i i List of Maps, Tables, and Figures C H A P T E R 1 8 Figure 24.3 The Baby Boom and Its Decline ... 742 Table 18.1 Rise of the City, 1880–1920 ... 546 Table 18.2 Immigrants and Their Children as C H A P T E R 2 5 Percentage of Population, Ten Major Cities, 1920 ... 547 Figure 25.1 Percentage of Population below Table 18.3 Percentage of Women 14 Years and Poverty Level, by Race, 1959–1969 ... 782 Older in the Labor Force ... 549 Table 18.4 Percentage of Women Workers in C H A P T E R 2 6 Various Occupations ... 550 Figure 26.1 Median Age of First Marriage, Table 18.5 Sales of Passenger Cars ... 551 1947–1981 ... 810 Table 26.1 The Misery Index, 1970–1980 ... 817 C H A P T E R 1 9 Figure 26.2 Real Average Weekly Wages, 1955–1990 ... 819 Table 19.1 The Great Migration ... 597 Figure 26.3 Changes in Families’ Real Income, 1980–1990 ... 832 C H A P T E R 2 0 Figure 20.1 Household Appliances, 1900–1930 ... C H A P T E R 2 7 611 Figure 27.1 U.S. Income Inequality, 1913–2003 ... Table 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas 856 under the 1924 Immigration Act ... 626 Table 27.1 Immigration to the United States, 1960–2010 ... 858 C H A P T E R 2 1 Figure 27.2 Birthplace of Immigrants, Figure 21.1 The Building Boom and Its Collapse, 1990–2000 ... 860 1919–1939 ... 647 Figure 27.3 The Projected Non-White Majority: Figure 21.2 Unemployment, 1925–1945 ... 659 Racial and Ethnic Breakdown ... 861 Table 27.2 Home Ownership Rates by Group, 1970–2000 ... 862 C H A P T E R 2 2 Figure 27.4 Changes in Family Structure, Table 22.1 Labor Union Membership ... 684 1970–2010 ... 865 Figure 27.5 Women in the Paid Workforce, C H A P T E R 2 4 1940–2000 ... 866 Figure 24.1 Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita, 1790–2000 ... 738 C H A P T E R 2 8 Figure 24.2 Average Daily Television Viewing ... Figure 28.1 Portrait of a Recession ... 893 741 L i s t s o f M a p s , Ta b l e s , a n d F i g u r e s x i x P R E F A C E Since it originally appeared late in 2004, Give Me Liberty! An American History has gone through three editions and been adopted for use in survey courses at close to one thousand two- and four-year colleges in the United States, as well as a good number overseas. Of course, I am extremely gratified by this response. The book offers students a clear narra- tive of American history from the earliest days of European exploration and conquest of the New World to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Its central theme is the changing contours of American freedom. The comments I have received from instructors and students encour- age me to think that Give Me Liberty! has worked well in the classroom. These comments have also included many valuable suggestions, ranging from corrections of typographical and factual errors to thoughts about subjects that need more extensive treatment. In preparing new editions of the book I have tried to take these suggestions into account, as well as incorporating the insights of recent historical scholarship. Since the original edition was written, I have frequently been asked to produce a more succinct version of the textbook, which now runs to some 1,200 pages. This Brief Edition is a response to these requests. The text of the current volume is about one-third shorter than the full version. The result, I believe, is a book more suited to use in one-semester survey courses, classes x x Preface where the instructor wishes to supplement the text with additional read- ings, and in other situations where a briefer volume is desirable. Since some publishers have been known to assign the task of reduction in cases like this to editors rather than the actual author, I wish to empha- size that I did all the cutting and necessary rewriting for this Brief Edition myself. My guiding principle was to preserve the coverage, structure, and emphases of the regular edition and to compress the book by eliminating details of secondary importance, streamlining the narrative of events, and avoiding unnecessary repetition. While the book is significantly shorter, no subject treated in the full edition has been eliminated entirely and noth- ing essential, I believe, has been sacrificed. The sequence of chapters and subjects remains the same, and the freedom theme is present and operative throughout. In abridging the textbook I have retained the original interpretive framework as well as the new emphases added when the second and third editions of the book were published. The second edition incorporated new material about the history of Native Americans, an area of American his- tory that has been the subject of significant new scholarship in the past few years. It also devoted greater attention to the history of immigration and the controversies surrounding it—issues of considerable relevance to Amer- ican social and political life today. The most significant change in the third edition reflected my desire to place American history more fully in a global context. In the past few years, scholars writing about the American past have sought to delineate the influ- ences of the United States on the rest of the world as well as the global devel- opments that have helped to shape the course of events here at home. They have also devoted greater attention to transnational processes—the expan- sion of empires, international labor migrations, the rise and fall of slavery, the globalization of economic enterprise—that cannot be understood solely within the confines of one country’s national boundaries. Without seek- ing in any way to homogenize the history of individual nations or neglect the domestic forces that have shaped American development, this edition retains this emphasis. The most significant changes in this Fourth Edition reflect my desire to integrate more fully into the narrative the history of American religion. Today, this is a thriving subfield of American historical writing, partly because of the increased prominence in our own time of debates over the relations between government and religion and over the definition of reli- gious liberty—issues that are deeply rooted in the American experience. The Brief Edition also employs a bright new design for the text and its various elements. The popular Voices of Freedom feature—a pair of excerpts from primary source documents in each chapter that illuminate divergent inter- pretations of freedom—is present here. So too are the useful chapter opening P r e f a c e x x i focus questions, which appear in the running heads of the relevant text pages as well. There are chapter opening chronologies and end-of- chapter review pages with questions and key terms. As a new feature in the Brief Edition there are marginal glosses in the text pages that are meant to highlight key points and indicate the chapter structure for students. They are also useful means for review. The Brief Edition features more than 400 illustrations and over 100 captioned maps in easy to read four-color renditions. The Fur- ther Readings sections appear in the Appendix along with the Glossary and the collection of key documents. The Brief Edition is fully supported by the same array of print and electronic supplements that support the other edi- tions of Give Me Liberty! These materials have been revised to match the con- tent of the Brief Edition. Americans have always had a divided attitude toward history. On the one hand, they tend to be remarkably future-oriented, dismissing events of even the recent past as “ancient history” and sometimes seeing history as a bur- den to be overcome, a prison from which to escape. On the other hand, like many other peoples, Americans have always looked to history for a sense of personal or group identity and of national cohesiveness. This is why so many Americans devote time and energy to tracing their family trees and why they visit historical museums and National Park Service historical sites in ever-increasing numbers. My hope is that this book will help to con- vince readers with all degrees of interest that history does matter to them. The novelist and essayist James Baldwin once observed that history “does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, . . . [that] history is literally present in all that we do.” As Baldwin recognized, the power of history is evident in our own world. Especially in a political democracy like the United States, whose government is designed to rest on the consent of informed citizens, knowledge of the past is essential—not only for those of us whose profession is the teaching and writing of history, but for everyone. History, to be sure, does not offer simple lessons or imme- diate answers to current questions. Knowing the history of immigration to the United States, and all of the tensions, turmoil, and aspirations associated with it, for example, does not tell us what current immigration policy ought to be. But without that knowledge, we have no way of understanding which approaches have worked and which have not—essential information for the formulation of future public policy. History, it has been said, is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of inter- pretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is con- stantly changing. There is nothing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among x x i i Preface themselves on basic questions like the causes of the Civil War or the rea- sons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each generation asks dif- ferent questions of the past, each generation formulates different answers. The past thirty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of the scope of historical study. The experiences of groups neglected by earlier scholars, including women, African-Americans, working people, and others, have received unprecedented attention from historians. New subfields—social history, cultural history, and family history among them—have taken their place alongside traditional political and diplomatic history. Give Me Liberty! draws on this voluminous historical literature to pres- ent an up-to-date and inclusive account of the American past, paying due attention to the experience of diverse groups of Americans while in no way neglecting the events and processes Americans have experienced in common. It devotes serious attention to political, social, cultural, and eco- nomic history, and to their interconnections. The narrative brings together major events and prominent leaders with the many groups of ordinary peo- ple who make up American society. Give Me Liberty! has a rich cast of char- acters, from Thomas Jefferson to campaigners for woman suffrage, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to former slaves seeking to breathe meaning into emancipation during and after the Civil War. The unifying theme of freedom that runs through the text gives shape to the narrative and integrates the numerous strands that make up the American experience. This approach builds on that of my earlier book, The Story of American Freedom (1998), although Give Me Liberty! places events and personalities in the foreground and is more geared to the structure of the introductory survey course. Freedom, and battles to define its meaning, has long been central to my own scholarship and undergraduate teaching, which focuses on the nineteenth century and especially the era of Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877). This was a time when the future of slavery tore the nation apart and emancipation produced a national debate over what rights the former slaves, and all Americans, should enjoy as free citizens. I have found that attention to clashing definitions of freedom and the struggles of differ- ent groups to achieve freedom as they understood it offers a way of mak- ing sense of the bitter battles and vast transformations of that pivotal era. I believe that the same is true for American history as a whole. No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom. The central term in our politi- cal language, freedom—or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably—is deeply embedded in the record of our history and the language of everyday life. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind’s inalienable rights; the Constitution announces its pur- pose as securing liberty’s blessings. The United States fought the Civil War P r e f a c e x x i i i to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the Four Freedoms, and the Cold War to defend the Free World. Americans’ love of liberty has been represented by liberty poles, liberty caps, and statues of liberty, and acted out by burning stamps and burning draft cards, by running away from slavery, and by demonstrating for the right to vote. “Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the cradle of liberty.’” The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be mislead- ing. Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging defi- nition. Indeed, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American Revo- lution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So too have demands by various groups of Americans to enjoy greater freedom. The meaning of freedom has been constructed not only in congressional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and even bedrooms. Over the course of our history, American freedom has been both a real- ity and a mythic ideal—a living truth for millions of Americans, a cruel mockery for others. For some, freedom has been what some scholars call a “habit of the heart,” an ideal so taken for granted that it is lived out but rarely analyzed. For others, freedom is not a birthright but a distant goal that has inspired great sacrifice. Give Me Liberty! draws attention to three dimensions of freedom that have been critical in American history: (1) the meanings of freedom; (2) the social conditions that make freedom possible; and (3) the boundaries of free- dom that determine who is entitled to enjoy freedom and who is not. All have changed over time. In the era of the American Revolution, for example, freedom was pri- marily a set of rights enjoyed in public activity—including the right of a com- munity to be governed by laws to which its representatives had consented and of individuals to engage in religious worship without governmental interference. In the nineteenth century, freedom came to be closely identi- fied with each person’s opportunity to develop to the fullest his or her innate talents. In the twentieth, the “ability to choose,” in both public and private life, became perhaps the dominant understanding of freedom. This develop- ment was encouraged by the explosive growth of the consumer marketplace which offered Americans an unprecedented array of goods with which to satisfy their needs and desires. During the 1960s, a crucial chapter in the history of American freedom, the idea of personal freedom was extended into virtually every realm, from attire and “lifestyle” to relations between the sexes. Thus, over time, more and more areas of life have been drawn into Americans’ debates about the meaning of freedom. x x i v Preface A second important dimension of freedom focuses on the social con- ditions necessary to allow freedom to flourish. What kinds of economic institutions and relationships best encourage individual freedom? In the colonial era and for more than a century after independence, the answer centered on economic autonomy, enshrined in the glorification of the inde- pendent small producer—the farmer, skilled craftsman, or shopkeeper— who did not have to depend on another person for his livelihood. As the industrial economy matured, new conceptions of economic freedom came to the fore: “liberty of contract” in the Gilded Age, “industrial freedom” (a say in corporate decision making) in the Progressive era, economic security during the New Deal, and, more recently, the ability to enjoy mass consump- tion within a market economy. The boundaries of freedom, the third dimension of this theme, have inspired some of the most intense struggles in American history. Although founded on the premise that liberty is an entitlement of all humanity, the United States for much of its history deprived many of its own people of free- dom. Non-whites have rarely enjoyed the same access to freedom as white Americans. The belief in equal opportunity as the birthright of all Ameri- cans has coexisted with persistent efforts to limit freedom by race, gender, class, and in other ways. Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that one person’s freedom has fre- quently been linked to another’s servitude. In the colonial era and nine- teenth century, expanding freedom for many Americans rested on the lack of freedom—slavery, indentured servitude, the subordinate position of women—for others. By the same token, it has been through battles at the boundaries—the efforts of racial minorities, women, and others to secure greater freedom—that the meaning and experience of freedom have been deepened and the concept extended into new realms. Time and again in American history, freedom has been transformed by the demands of excluded groups for inclusion. The idea of freedom as a universal birthright owes much to abolitionists who sought to extend the blessings of liberty to blacks and to immigrant groups who insisted on full recognition as American citizens. The principle of equal protection of the law without regard to race, which became a central element of American freedom, arose from the antislavery struggle and Civil War and was rein- vigorated by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, which called itself the “freedom movement.” The battle for the right of free speech by labor radicals and birth control advocates in the first part of the twentieth century helped to make civil liberties an essential element of freedom for all Americans. Freedom is the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations. At various times in our history, it has served as the rallying cry of the power- less and as a justification of the status quo. Freedom helps to bind our cul- ture together and exposes the contradictions between what America claims P r e f a c e x x v to be and what it sometimes has been. American history is not a narrative of continual progress toward greater and greater freedom. As the abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson noted after the Civil War, “revolutions may go backward.” While freedom can be achieved, it may also be taken away. This happened, for example, when the equal rights granted to former slaves immediately after the Civil War were essentially nullified during the era of segregation. As was said in the eighteenth century, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In the early twenty-first century, freedom continues to play a central role in our political and social life and thought. It is invoked by individuals and groups of all kinds, from critics of economic globalization to those who seek to export American freedom overseas. As with the longer version of the book, I hope that this Brief Edition of Give Me Liberty! will offer begin- ning students a clear account of the course of American history, and of its central theme, freedom, which today remains as varied, contentious, and ever-changing as America itself. x x v i Preface A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S All works of history are, to a considerable extent, collaborative books, in that every writer builds on the research and writing of previous scholars. This is especially true of a textbook that covers the entire American experience, over more than five centuries. My greatest debt is to the innumerable histo- rians on whose work I have drawn in preparing this volume. The Suggested Reading list in the Appendix offers only a brief introduction to the vast body of historical scholarship that has influenced and informed this book. More specifically, however, I wish to thank the following scholars, who gener- ously read portions of this work and offered valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions: Wayne Ackerson, Salisbury University Mary E. Adams, City College of San Francisco Jeff Adler, University of Florida David Anderson, Louisiana Tech University John Barr, Lone Star College, Kingwood Lauren Braun-Strumfels, Raritan Valley Community College James Broussard, Lebanon Valley College Michael Bryan, Greenville Technical College Stephanie Cole, The University of Texas at Arlington Ashley Cruseturner, McLennan Community College Jim Dudlo, Brookhaven College Beverly Gage, Yale University Monica Gisolfi, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Adam Goudsouzian, University of Memphis Mike Green, Community College of Southern Nevada Vanessa Gunther, California State University, Fullerton David E. Hamilton, University of Kentucky Brian Harding, Mott Community College Sandra Harvey, Lone Star College–Cy Fair April Holm, University of Mississippi David Hsiung, Juniata College James Karmel, Harford Community College Kelly Knight, Penn State University Marianne Leeper, Trinity Valley Community College Jeffrey K. Lucas, University of North Carolina at Pembroke Tina Margolis, Westchester Community College Kent McGaughy, HCC Northwest College James Mills, University of Texas, Brownsville Gil Montemayor, McLennan Community College Jonathan Noyalas, Lord Fairfax Community College Robert M. O’Brien, Lone Star College–Cy Fair P r e f a c e x x v i i Joseph Palermo, California State University, Sacramento Ann Plane, University of California, Santa Barbara Nancy Marie Robertson, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Esther Robinson, Lone Star College–Cy Fair Richard Samuelson, California State University, San Bernadino Diane Sager, Maple Woods Community College John Shaw, Portland Community College Mark Spencer, Brock University David Stebenne, Ohio State University Judith Stein, City College, City University of New York George Stevens, Duchess Community College Robert Tinkler, California State University, Chico Elaine Thompson, Louisiana Tech University David Weiman, Barnard College William Young, Maple Woods Community College I am particularly grateful to my colleagues in the Columbia University Department of History: Pablo Piccato, for his advice on Latin American his- tory; Evan Haefeli and Ellen Baker, who read and made many suggestions for improvements in their areas of expertise (colonial America and the history of the West, respectively); and Sarah Phillips, who offered advice on treating the history of the environment. I am also deeply indebted to the graduate students at Columbia Univer- sity’s Department of History who helped with this project. Theresa Ventura offered invaluable assistance in gathering material for the new sections plac- ing American history in a global context. April Holm provided similar assis- tance for new coverage in this edition of the history of American religion and debates over religious freedom. James Delbourgo conducted research for the chapters on the colonial era. Beverly Gage did the same for the twenti- eth century. Daniel Freund provided all-round research assistance. Victoria Cain did a superb job of locating images. I also want to thank my colleagues Elizabeth Blackmar and Alan Brinkley for offering advice and encourage- ment throughout the writing of this book. Many thanks to Joshua Brown, director of the American Social History Project, whose website, History Matters, lists innumerable online resources for the study of American history. Nancy Robertson at IUIPUI did a superb job revising and enhancing the in-book pedagogy. Monica Gisolfi (Univer- sity of North Carolina, Wilmington) and Robert Tinkler (California State University, Chico) did excellent work on the Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank. Kathleen Thomas (University of Wisconsin, Stout) helped greatly in the revisions of the companion media packages. x x v i i i Preface At W. W. Norton & Company, Steve Forman was an ideal editor— patient, encouraging, and always ready to offer sage advice. I would also like to thank Steve’s assistants, Justin Cahill and Penelope Lin, for their indispensable and always cheerful help on all aspects of the project; Ellen Lohman and Debbie Nichols for their careful copyediting and proof read- ing work. Stephanie Romeo and Donna Ranieri for their resourceful atten- tion to the illustrations program; Hope Miller Goodell and Chin-Yee Lai for their refinements of the book design; Mike Fodera and Debra Morton-Hoyt for splendid work on the covers for the Fourth Edition;