A Journey Through American History: From Pioneers to the 21st Century

Posted on Aug 22, 2024 in History

Expansion, the Civil War, Industrialization & Immigration

The Pioneers

Pioneers followed traders and explorers on flatboats down the Ohio River or in wagons through the Cumberland Gap. Many became farmers and produced flour and salt pork. They developed commerce through the Mississippi River down to New Orleans.

The Louisiana Purchase

Thomas Jefferson (3rd president, 1800-1808) offered to buy the lower Mississippi River around New Orleans. France offered to sell all of her territory west of the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains for 15 million dollars. The size of the U.S. doubled.

Expansion

  • 1804: Lewis & Clark explore the Purchase
  • The War of 1812
  • 1819: Spain signed the Adams-Onis Treaty ceding Florida to the U.S.
  • 1823: The Monroe Doctrine

Industrialization & Trade

  • 1790s: Textile mills for spinning yarn & weaving cloth. First hard-surfaced roads
  • 1793: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin
  • Early 1800s: Many improvements in farming tools (e.g., iron plows, Cyrus Hall McCormick’s reaper) and factory machines (e.g., Elias Howe’s sewing machines)
  • 1803: Federal Government began the Old National Road
  • 1807: The first steamboat (Clermont built by Fulton)
  • 1825: The Erie Canal completed & soon others
  • 1830s: The birth of U.S. Railroads (By 1850 more than 9,000 mi. of railroads in the U.S.)
  • 1840s: Improvements in transportation encouraged growth of mining, manufacturing & trade (Population – 17 million, a third lived in the west).

Expansion

  • 1846: Mexican War begins
  • 1848: Mexican War ends with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
  • 1848: U.S. Expanded to the Pacific: – fur traders – Rockies & Northwest, – southern farmers – Texas – adventurers – goldfields of California
  • Many conflicts and abuse of Natives

The Civil War

a) Reasons

  • Slavery – southern states depended on slavery to support their economy (plantation system)
  • Economic and social factors – northern states had an industrial society. Immigrants from Europe worked in factories, built railroads and settled the west
  • Political factors – No strong sense of permanence of the Union

b) Major Events

  • In 1790: 700,000 slaves; Mid 19th Century: 4 million
  • 1804: All northern states had abolished Slavery
  • 1808: Importation of slaves was prohibited
  • Invention of the cotton gin and expansion of plantations – demand for slaves
  • 1820: The Missouri Compromise
  • The Compromise of 1850
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • 1854: The Kansas-Nebraska Act
  • 1860: Slavery was the main campaign issue for the presidential election
  • Abraham Lincoln won the elections and the southern states seceded from the Union – The Confederate States of America. 1861: The Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C.
  • 1863: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
  • 1863: The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
  • April 1865: The war ended at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant.

c) Outcomes

The Civil War took more than 600,000 lives, destroyed property valued at $5 billion, brought freedom to 4 million black slaves, and opened wounds that have not yet completely healed. The Civil War settled two important points:

  1. All people in the U.S. were to be free
  2. No state could withdraw from the Union

A few days after the close of the war, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Immigration & Major 19th Century Events

Immigration of diverse ethnic groups:

  1. Asians (American Indians)
  2. Spaniards
  3. English (Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians)
  4. Africans
  5. Europeans (Italians, Polish, Swedish), Russians
  6. Hispanics (Mexicans, Central Americans, South Americans, Caribbean)
  7. East Asians (Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos) and South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis)

Why were Europeans attracted to the U.S.?

  • ‘Fabled republic’
  • Turbulent, dynamic, in constant flux
  • The lightly educated were self-assured
  • Rank or status did not hold the common people back

Who were the immigrants in the 19th Century before the Civil War?

  • 9 out of 10 were from England, Ireland, or Germany
  • 1st decade: 250,000. From 1820-1860: 5 million
  • They traveled in family groups
  • They went to the U.S. in search of work, land, food, freedom, and no compulsory military

How did immigration change after the Civil War?

  • Many more went – 9 million immigrants entered the U.S. in the last 20 years of the 19th Century
  • Until 1895 the majority were from northern and western Europe
  • Many arrived from Italy, Poland, Russia, Sweden, the Balkans, and Austria (among other countries)
  • The new wave of immigrants brought a sizable proportion of Catholics and Jews

What were the Major Events (19th Century) after the Civil War?

  • The Reconstruction Period (12 years)
  • 1867: The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million
  • 1876: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone
  • 1879: Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb
  • 1880s: The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee
  • 1898: Congress annexed the Islands of Hawaii
  • 1898: The Spanish-American War (La Guerra de Cuba)
  • Tremendous waves of immigrants (Ellis Island, N.Y. 1892-1954)

20th Century & 21st Century Events

  • WWI
  • The 19th Amendment
  • Stock Market Crash & Great Depression
  • WWII (Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima & Nagasaki)
  • The Korean War
  • The Cold War (Communism, The Witch Hunt & McCarthy)
  • The Civil Rights Act (President JFK & Martin Luther King)
  • The Vietnam War
  • Apollo XI
  • Watergate (President Nixon)
  • The Iranian Hostage Crisis
  • The Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield – Operation Desert Storm)
  • President Bill Clinton
  • The 2000 Presidential Campaign
  • September 11, 2001
  • War against terrorism (Afghanistan)
  • The Iraqi War
  • President Barack Obama