These United States: A Nation in the Making: 1890 to the Present

by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Thomas J. Sugrue

Overview

From two major scholars, a powerful narrative that explores the making and unmaking of American democracy and global power in the twentieth century.

President Franklin Roosevelt told Americans in a 1936 fireside chat, “I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.” These United States builds on this foundation to present a readable, accessible history of the United States throughout the twentieth century—an ongoing and inspiring story of great leaders and everyday citizens marching, fighting, voting, and legislating to make the nation’s promise of democracy a reality for all Americans.

In the college edition of These United States, Gilmore and Sugrue seamlessly weave insightful analysis with all of the support tools needed by students and instructors alike, including paired primary source documents, review questions, key terms, maps, and figures in a dynamic four-color design.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393264463
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/17/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	784
Sales rank:	953,869
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore is the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, African American Studies, and American Studies at Yale University. Her research interests include twentieth-century U.S. history; African American history since 1865; U.S. women's and gender history since 1865; history of the American South; and reform movements. Her publications include Norton’s Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950, which was one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books and the Washington Post’s Best Books of 2008, and she edited Who Were the Progressives? and co-edited Jumpin’ Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights. Her first book, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920, won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, the James A. Rawley Prize, the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize, and the Heyman Prize.

Thomas J. Sugrue is Professor of History and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, specializing in twentieth-century American politics, urban history, civil rights, and race. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Society of American Historians, and past president of both the Urban History Association and the Social Science History Association. He is author of Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race and Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. His first book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, won the Bancroft Prize in American History, the Philip Taft Prize in Labor History, and the President's Book Award of the Social Science History Association, among other honors. In 2005, Princeton University Press selected The Origins of the Urban Crisis as one of its 100 most influential books of the past hundred years.

Table of Contents

List of Maps, Tables, and Figures xxi

Preface xxiii

Acknowledgments xxxi

Chapter 1 Origins of the American Century 1

The World's Columbian Exposition 2

Building an Industrial Nation 7

Mobilizing Farmers: The Populist Movement 18

Building American Unions 24

Making a Nation: Mary Elizabeth Lease, "Wall Street Owns the Country" (c. 1890), and Samuel Gompers, "What Does the Working Man Want?" (1890) 28

The Color Line 32

Suggested Reading 38

Chapter Review 39

Chapter 2 "To Start to Make This World Over": Imperialism and Progressivism, 1898-1912 40

The Spanish-American War 44

U.S. Foreign Engagement at the Turn of the Century 50

The Roots of Progressivism 58

Progressive Era Reform 63

Making a Nation: Vice Commission of the City of Chicago, "The Social Evil in Chicago: Study of Conditions and Recommendations" (1911), and Susan W. Fitzgerald, "Women in the Home" (1908) 66

Federal Progressivism 71

Progressivism at High Tide 75

Suggested Reading 80

Chapter Review 81

Chapter 3 Refining and Exporting Progressivism: Wilson's New Freedom and the Great War, 1913-1919 82

The Fight for Woman Suffrage 85

Wilson's Economic Reforms 91

Civil Rights and the New Freedom 96

The Great War 99

U.S. Involvement in the Great War 106

Making a Nation: Eugene V. Debs, Canton, Ohio, Anti-War Speech (1918), and W. E. B. Du Bois, "Returning Soldiers" (1919) 110

The Treaty and the League 114

Suggested Reading 120

Chapter Review 121

Chapter 4 Prosperity's Precipice: The Paradoxes of the 1920s 122

Domestic Polities in the Aftermath of the Great War 125

Affluence and Its Discontents 131

A Nation on the Move 139

Making a Nation: Thomas Nixon Carver, "Our Peaceful Revolution" (1924), and Alain Locke, "Negro Youth Speaks" (1925) 144

The Politics of Prosperity 147

The Great Depression 151

What Should Government Do? 153

Suggested Reading 160

Chapter Review 161

Chapter 5 A Twentieth-Century President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Term, 1932-1936 162

Between Election and Inauguration 165

The First Hundred Days: Emergency Medicine 170

The First Hundred Days: Lasting Reform 175

Radical Solutions for an Intractable Depression 183

The New Deal State 187

Cementing the Democratic Ascendancy 194

Making a Nation: Robert Carter, "Boys Going Nowhere: Notes from the Diary of an American 'Wild Boy'" (1933), and Edward Levinson, "Labor on the March" (1937) 196

Suggested Reading 200

Chapter Review 201

Chapter 6 A Rendezous with Destiny, 1936-1941 202

The New Deal at High Tide 205

Fascist Ambitions, American Neutrality 212

Preparing a Neutral Nation 221

The March to War 227

The Shock of Attack in the Air 231

Making a Nation: Charles A. Lindbergh, "Neutrality and War" (1939), and Asa Philip Randolph, "Call to the March" (1941) 232

Suggested Reading 238

Chapter Review 239

Chapter 7 The Watershed of War: At Home and Abroad, 1942-1945 240

Enter the United States 243

Mobilizing the Home Front 254

Human Rights at Home and Abroad 260

Making a Nation: Langston Hughes, "My America" (1943), and Franklin D. Roosevelt, State of the Union Message to Congress (1944) 262

The War in Europe 264

Victory and Realpolitik 271

War's End 274

Suggested Reading 280

Chapter Review 281

Chapter 8 A Rising Superpower, 1944-1954 282

Truman and the Postwar World Order 284

The Origins of the Cold War 290

Reconversion: The Home Front 293

Cold War, First Moves 298

The Election of 1948 302

Anti-Communism at Home 307

An Escalating Cold War 311

Making a Nation: fled Channels, The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (1950), and Coleman A. Young, Testimony before the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings in Detroit, Michigan (1952) 312

Suggested Reading 322

Chapter Review 323

Chapter 9 Postwar Prosperity and Its Discontents, 1946-1960 324

Postwar Prosperity 327

The Baby Boom 331

A Nation of Homeowners 333

Life in the Consumers' Republic 335

Eisenhower's Middle Ground 339

God's Country 343

Teens, Sex, Anxiety 344

The Black Freedom Struggle 349

Making a Nation: Harry Henderson, "The Mass-Produced Suburbs" (1953), and the New York Times, "Levittown Incident" (1957) 358

The Covert Cold War 360

Security and insecurity 363

Suggested Reading 364

Chapter Review 365

Chapter 10 A Season of Change: Liberals and the Limits of Reform, 1960-1966 366

Kennedy and the Liberal Revival 369

Civil Rights 373

Cold War Crises 377

"Where's the PEN, Mr. President?" 380

Making a Nation: John F. Kennedy, Commencement Address at Yale University (1962), and John Lewis, "Wake Up America!" (1963) 384

President Johnson 387

The New Right 390

The Great Society 395

Expanding the Boundaries of Citizenship: Voting Rights and Immigration 399

Jobs and Freedom 402

Black Power, White Backlash 403

Suggested Beading 406

Chapter Review 407

Chapter 11 May Day: Vietnam and the Crisis of the 1960s 408

The Origins of the Vietnam War 411

Lyndon Johnson's War 415

The Antiwar Movement 421

Making a Nation: Lyndon Johnson, "Peace Without Conquest" (1965), and Paul Potter, "Naming the System" (1965) 426

A Working-Class War 429

War at Home: The Urban Rebellions 431

The Collapse in Public Support for the War 433

Tet and Bloody 1968 435

The Spirit of Rebellion 440

Suggested Reading 444

Chapter Review 445

Chapter 12 Which Side Are You On? The Battle for Middle America, 1968-1974 446

The Election of 1968: Democratic Fracture 449

Nixon and the "Silent Majority" 454

Nixon in Power 457

Rebellion and Repression 459

Undermining integration 463

The Personal Is Political 467

Making a Nation: League of Women Voters of California, Yes ERA! (1974), and Phyllis Schlafly, "What's Wrong with 'Equal Rights' for Women?" (1972) 476

The Election of 1972 and Watergate 479

Suggested Reading 484

Chapter Review 485

Chapter 13 A Season of Darkness: The Troubled 1970s 486

The War's End 489

New Directions in the Cold War 492

Economic Shifts 495

The Oil Shock 498

Recession and Disillusionment 502

The Environmental Crisis 507

The Urban Crisis 510

Making a Nation: Pete Hamill, "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class" (1969), and Studs Terkel, Interview with Gary Bryner (1975) 512

Political Reform 516

The Carter Presidency 518

The Turn to the Right 523

Suggested Reading 524

Chapter Review 525

Chapter 14 The New Gilded Age, 1980-2000 526

The Reagan Revolution? 530

The Social Safety Net 535

Religious Revivals 539

"Peace Through Strength" 545

America in the World 547

G.H.W. Bush and the Currents of Republicanism 553

From Cold War to Gulf War 554

The Low-Wage Economy 558

Immigration 560

Politics and the Slumping Economy 562

Clinton and Political Triangulation 564

The Contract with America and Welfare Reform 566

The Boom and Income Inequality 568

Making a Nation: William Galston and Elaine Ciulla Kamarck, The Politics of Evasion: Democrats and the Presidency (1989), and Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and the House Republicans, "Contract with America" (1994) 570

Impeachment 573

Foreign Affairs 574

At Century's End 575

Suggested Reading 576

Chapter Review 577

Chapter 15 United We Stand, Divided We Fall, Since 2000 578

The Election of 2000 582

Bush in Office 585

9/11 589

The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq 592

The Limits of Conservatism 598

The Election of 2008 602

Obama and the World 605

Obama and the Limits of "Change" 606

The Burden of History 609

Making a Nation: Joseph S. Kalinowski, "The Truth about Income Inequality" (2012), and Chuck Collins, "The 99 Percent Spring" (2012) 610

Suggested Heading 614

Chapter Review 615

Notes N1

Glossary G1

Appendix

The Declaration of Independence A1

The Constitution of the United States A5

Amendments to the Constitution A13

Presidential Elections, 1884-2012 A19

Admission of States, 1889-1959 A22

Population of the United States, 1890-2010 A23

Unemployment Rate, 1890-2013 A24

Union Membership as a Percentage of Nonagricultural Employment, 1890-2012 A24

Credits C1

Index I-1

Editorial Reviews

"[A] timely, remarkable new survey of America since 1890 […] required reading."

Slate - Eric Herschthal