History Chat - July 23, 2020

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Summary : State of the Republican party into the 1920’s, which includes reform programs and changes in the perspective of Economy as a result of the economic boom. The increase in college education, paired with newly available Technology, such as radio, toasters and washing machines, changes the dynamic of everyday life.

Timestamp 6:20:People with access to magazines and radio feel like the change is real. If you go into the Midwest and West, once the War contracts that were sustaining the Midwest and West are done, the financial stress is felt during what becomes known as the Dust Bowl years. During this time, people go broke trying to sustain their farms and invest in better products to make their farm profitable. This results in Farmers going to congress to assist.

Timestamp 10:27: African Americans do not experience the 1920’s as others do. In contrast, they experience an uptick in Lynchings. This leads to a resurgence of the KKK, who initially cover their faces to hide their wrongdoing, but in the 1920’s tend to publicize it with photography.

Timestamp 14:46: African Americans migrate in Mass out of the south to the north to fill Factory jobs. This is met with racial animosity, where they are labelled as rapists. This is followed by race riots, mainly the race riots in 1919 when an African American boy floated towards the white section of the beach, was stoned and drowned. This is met with an increase in African American Culture, Literature, Blues and Poetry which is commonly known as the Harlem Renaissance. Race was previously seen as a “Southern issue” but with the migration of blacks to the North for work, it forced the government to look at how it plays in as an issue with Democracy overall instead of just geographically.

Timestamp 20:00: Lynching increases n the 1920’s with the second rise of the KKK, who stands equally amongst Jews, Mexicans,Catholics, and Immigrants as they do African Americans. Anyone who challenges the Traditional white wholesome american image is targeted. This happens while republicans actively back away from Black rights.

Timestamp 22:39: In 1924 the 1924 immigration act lowers the quota of immigrants permitted into the United states, and gives an amount permitted per Country. This gave rise to the thought that certain cultures were less desirable, which brought on Eugenics and forced sterilization, which persisted into the 1970’s as they were perceived as the “underbelly of the country”.

Timestamp 26:45: In the late 1920’s. With the new commodities on the market, people are pouring money into the economy which creates a bubble. Everyone wants to make money quick, so they begin investing on margin. Those who challenge this increase in the economy are seen as “Anti American”. Hoover starts to worry, and on October 24th the stocks drop. In panic, the big investors drop their stocks. The ticker tape runs behind, and the full extent of the market is not seen until October 29th. This debunks the idea that if Businessmen run the government great prosperity will follow.

Timestamp 32:11: Around 1.5 million people were affected by the crash,with a population of 120 million at the time. The issue was the people at the top were affected by the crash, but the wages for people at the bottom had not changed. With the people at the top being affected, there was no money to sustain the economy (no people buying cars, going to department stores, etc) The push to tie together all of the banks and all of the department stores also caused them all to collapse instead of individual ones. Embezzlement and insider trading was revealed. Additionally, agriculture prices plummeted, unemployment explodes, housing can’t be affordable so people live in “Hoovervilles”

Timestamp 37:58: FDR re evaluates government departments and programs. With this, it provides up to 8.5 million people with jobs, therefore paychecks, and helps build infrastructure. The Securities and Exchange commission is also built in an effort to level the playing field in the stock market to avoid having to know the right people. The Glass Steeple act is also made to separate Savings and investment banks, and permits workers rights to argue collectively.

Timestamp 42:37: Increased concern with fascism, as it is a political movement worldwide, supporting the idea that some are better than others. This supports the idea of rallying the “less intelligent” workers into the military, and addresses any protest against the government in violence. The government seemed to be less concerned with the possibility of facism than the threat of FDR building a communist state. They felt the New Deal was Socialism of sorts as it helped the people at the bottom of the financial ladder, which included African Americans in most cases.

Timestamp 48:30: The republican party splits with the new Deal, which affects the Republicn party up until current day. People who are opposed to the New Deal are led by Taft’s son who works for Hoover and believes the New Deal is the demise of the country. They believe they are the true republicans. They work closely with Southern Republicans.

Those who acknowledge that the 1920’s didn’t work are led by Thomas Dewey. They are open to embracing the New Deal.

Timestamp 52:56: The GI bill was pushed into legislation in 1943, which helps new home purchases, promotes marriage, which results in the purchase of commodities and ultimately the baby boom. This also promotes extended training and education to provide the opportunity to get a better paying job to contribute more to the economy and middle class.

Timestamp 57:13: the war ends after the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, which causes an expected post war recession. The Republicans sweep the midterm elections of 1946, where Republicans anticipate getting rid of the new deal after the election in 1948.

[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.

In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]

In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]

In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]

In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]

In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]