An outline, era by era

United States

superpower; Civil Rights Movement

20th Century · 1914 – 2000

In 1914 the United States was a large industrial and agricultural power, but not yet the leader of world affairs. Two world wars, an economic boom in the 1920s, the Great Depression and the Cold War changed that. By 1945 it had the world's largest economy and a nuclear arsenal, and it led a bloc of allies against the Soviet Union. By 1991 it was widely called the sole superpower.

At home, the same century saw a long struggle over the rights of Black Americans. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, Southern states built a system of legal segregation and disfranchisement. The Civil Rights Movement, strongest from the 1940s to the late 1960s, used court cases, boycotts, marches and voter registration drives to challenge it. Its main legal results were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Plessy v. Ferguson and legal segregation

    Event

    What happened

    In 1892 Homer Plessy, a man of mixed ancestry, deliberately boards a whites-only railway car in Louisiana to test a state segregation law, and is arrested. In 1896 the Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, upholds the law by a vote of 7 to 1, ruling that 'separate but equal' facilities are constitutional.

    The rest is history

    The ruling gave legal cover to Jim Crow laws across the South in schools, transport and public places. In practice the facilities for Black Americans were rarely equal. Southern states also used poll taxes, literacy tests and violence to remove most Black voters from the rolls. The decision stood for nearly sixty years, until the Supreme Court overturned it for public schools in 1954.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPlessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). United States Supreme Court decision.
    2. BookWoodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.

  2. The Spanish-American War and overseas empire

    Event

    What happened

    In 1898 the United States goes to war with Spain after the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbour and unrest in Cuba. Within months it wins. In the Treaty of Paris, signed in December 1898, Spain cedes Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States.

    The rest is history

    The war gave the United States its first significant overseas territories and made it a Pacific power. It also led to a long and bloody war against Filipino independence forces from 1899. The country now had colonial interests in Asia and the Caribbean, which became part of its growing international role. Historians still debate how far the war marked a deliberate turn to empire.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTreaty of Peace between the United States and Spain (Treaty of Paris). Signed 10 December 1898.
    2. BookKramer, Paul A. The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

  3. Entry into the First World War

    Event

    What happened

    The United States stays neutral when war begins in Europe in 1914. In January 1917 Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, and the Zimmermann telegram, proposing a German alliance with Mexico, is made public. On 6 April 1917 Congress declares war on Germany, and American troops reach the Western Front in large numbers in 1918.

    The rest is history

    American soldiers, money and supplies helped tip the balance in the Allied victory in November 1918. President Woodrow Wilson put forward his Fourteen Points and helped shape the Paris peace talks. The Senate, however, refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or join the League of Nations. The country had become the leading creditor nation, but it drew back from European commitments for the next twenty years.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryWilson, Woodrow. War Message to Congress, 2 April 1917. United States Congressional Record.
    2. BookKennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

  4. The Great Depression and the New Deal

    Event

    What happened

    The stock market crashes in October 1929, and the American economy falls into the deepest downturn in its history. By 1933 unemployment is about a quarter of the workforce and thousands of banks have failed. Franklin D. Roosevelt takes office in March 1933 and launches the New Deal, with bank reform, public works, and in 1935 the Social Security Act.

    The rest is history

    The New Deal greatly enlarged the role of the federal government in the economy and in social welfare. Historians disagree on how much it ended the Depression; full recovery came with the rearmament and war production of the early 1940s. Its programmes, though, left lasting institutions such as Social Security and federal bank deposit insurance. They also built a political coalition that shaped American politics for decades.

    Sources

    1. BookKennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
    2. PrimarySocial Security Act, 14 August 1935. United States Statutes at Large.

  5. Pearl Harbor and the Second World War

    Event

    What happened

    On 7 December 1941 Japanese aircraft attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States declares war on Japan the next day, and Germany and Italy declare war on the United States a few days later. American industry produces vast quantities of ships, aircraft and weapons, and the Manhattan Project builds the first atomic bombs, used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

    The rest is history

    The war ended with the United States holding unmatched economic strength, a large navy and air force, and a monopoly on atomic weapons, though only until 1949. It helped found the United Nations in 1945 and set up the Bretton Woods financial system in 1944. American troops stayed in Europe and Japan after the war. This is the start of the country's role as a global superpower.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRoosevelt, Franklin D. Address to Congress, 8 December 1941. United States Congressional Record.
    2. BookKennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Random House, 1987.

  6. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

    Event

    What happened

    In March 1947 President Harry Truman asks Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey, and says the United States should support free peoples resisting outside pressure. In June 1947 Secretary of State George Marshall proposes a programme of economic aid for Europe. Congress approves it in 1948, and the United States gives well over ten billion dollars in aid to Western Europe in the following years.

    The rest is history

    These steps set the course of American policy in the Cold War, known as containment of Soviet influence. The Soviet Union and its allies refused the Marshall aid. The US followed with the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, creating NATO. Europe was now divided into two blocs, and the United States was committed to long-term military and economic involvement abroad.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTruman, Harry S. Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey, 12 March 1947.
    2. BookGaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.

  7. Brown v. Board of Education

    Event

    What happened

    In the 1930s and 1940s the NAACP's lawyers, led by Thurgood Marshall, bring cases against segregated schools and universities. On 17 May 1954 the Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, rules unanimously that segregated public schools are unconstitutional. A second ruling in 1955 orders desegregation 'with all deliberate speed'.

    The rest is history

    The decision removed the legal basis of 'separate but equal' in public education and encouraged the wider Civil Rights Movement. Many Southern officials resisted. In 1957 President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Actual school desegregation in much of the South came slowly, mostly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBrown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). United States Supreme Court decision.
    2. BookPatterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  8. Montgomery bus boycott to the Voting Rights Act

    Event

    What happened

    On 1 December 1955 Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat. Black residents boycott the city buses for over a year, led by a young minister, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Supreme Court ends bus segregation there in 1956. Sit-ins in 1960, the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the March on Washington of August 1963 follow. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

    The rest is history

    These laws banned segregation in public places and discrimination in employment, and gave the federal government power to protect Black voting rights. Black voter registration in the South rose sharply in the following years. The movement also inspired other campaigns for the rights of women, Latinos, Native Americans and others. King was assassinated in Memphis in April 1968.

    Sources

    1. BookBranch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.
    2. PrimaryCivil Rights Act of 1964, Public Law 88-352; Voting Rights Act of 1965, Public Law 89-110.

  9. Rosa Parks was just a tired seamstress

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Rosa Parks is often said to have refused to give up her seat simply because she was tired after a long day at work. In this telling, her act was a spontaneous, personal moment that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott.

    The rest is history

    Parks said later that she was not physically tired, but tired of giving in. She was 42, a seamstress, and also secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, and had attended training at the Highlander Folk School in 1955. Others had been arrested for the same offence earlier that year, but local activists judged her the best figure for a test case. The Women's Political Council had also been preparing a boycott. Her action was a choice within an organised campaign, not an isolated accident.

    Sources

    1. BookTheoharis, Jeanne. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Boston: Beacon Press, 2013.
    2. BookParks, Rosa, with Jim Haskins. Rosa Parks: My Story. New York: Dial Books, 1992.

  10. The Civil War was fought only over states' rights

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A common claim in the era of segregation, and still repeated, is that the Civil War was fought over states' rights and not slavery, and that Jim Crow was a settled Southern custom.

    The rest is history

    The seceding states' own declarations in 1860 and 1861 name slavery as the cause. Mississippi's declaration says its position is 'thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery'. The 'Lost Cause' version of events grew after 1865 and was promoted through memorials and school books in the early 20th century, during the same years Jim Crow laws were being built. Modern historians broadly agree that slavery was the central cause of secession. Jim Crow itself was a set of laws written from the 1880s and 1890s onward, not an unchanged old custom.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryA Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union. January 1861.
    2. BookBlight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

  11. The bombing of Pearl Harbor as a complete surprise

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The attack on Pearl Harbor is often told as a bolt from the blue, with no warning at all. A rival story says Roosevelt knew in advance and let it happen to bring the country into the war.

    The rest is history

    Neither version holds up. American codebreakers had read parts of Japanese diplomatic traffic, and officials expected a Japanese move in the Pacific, but they expected it in Southeast Asia, not Hawaii. Several official inquiries and later historians found failures of intelligence and communication, not a plot. Roberta Wohlstetter's 1962 study argued that warning signals were lost in a mass of noise. The attack killed over 2,300 American service members.

    Sources

    1. BookWohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962.
    2. BookPrange, Gordon W. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.

  12. Lincoln freed the slaves and ended the problem

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Many people believe that Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed all enslaved people at once and ended the struggle over Black rights, making later civil rights campaigns a separate matter.

    The rest is history

    The Proclamation of 1 January 1863 applied only to areas in rebellion, not to the border states loyal to the Union. Slavery was ended nationwide by the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments followed, granting citizenship and voting rights to Black men. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, those rights were largely stripped away in the South. The Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century was in large part a campaign to enforce these amendments.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryEmancipation Proclamation. Executive proclamation, 1 January 1863. National Archives.
    2. BookFoner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.

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