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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 58
Description
American cities were often badly planned and became overcrowded with ethnic and linguistic neighborhoods. Cities were severely polluted with smoke and ash; contaminated water supplies, poor sanitation, and large numbers of horses worsened public health conditions and shortened life expectancy. Reformers tried to Americanize urban immigrants and campaigned for city government reform.
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The stresses of Colonial life produced unusual social eruptions that were aimed at regaining some sense of control. The Great Awakening, a revival of radical Protestant religion across New England, helped people recover a sense of spiritual significance and moral direction; it also touched off violent religious controversy.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 70
Description
America and the Soviet Union disagreed over the future of eastern Europe. A temporary dividing line drawn through Europe became permanent. Soviet possession of nuclear weapons by 1949 created a geopolitical stalemate. The proliferation of nuclear weapons to a point of mutually assured destruction caused anxiety and an intense moral debate about their legitimacy inside the United States.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 65
Description
The collapse of share prices on Wall Street in 1929 ruined many and destroyed the savings of thousands more. From 1929 to 1933, a downward spiral of economic shrinkage, bankruptcies, factory closings, and rapidly worsening unemployment occurred. Drought in the Great Plains states added the Dust Bowl to this catalogue of woe. President Hoover became the scapegoat for these disasters.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 52
Description
The Homestead Act encouraged farmers to acquire land at almost no cost, and those who could overcome the loneliness, prairie fires, insect infestations, extremes of climate, and incessant winds were able to build prosperous lives. By 1890, they were growing massive annual surpluses, driving down the cost of food throughout the Western world and eliminating the danger of famine in America.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 48
Description
Reconstruction improved many aspects of black Southerners' lives, at least for a number of years, and left deep scars on a white South that labored diligently to project an image of Northern oppression. The episode closes with an assessment of whether Reconstruction should be judged a success or a moment of lost opportunity for African Americans in the United States.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 13
Description
The money, credit, weapons, and French naval and military resources forced the British to shift the focus of their war. British field forces fell under a combined land-and-sea campaign conducted by Washington and the French at Yorktown, where the British surrendered. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 reluctantly conceded American independence.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 77
Description
In the late 1960s, the women's liberation movement came into being. The National Organization for Women campaigned successfully for the abolition of gender discrimination in employment. Attacks on sexism in advertising and media, and criticism of gender bias in society and law gave rise to radical feminism. Women campaigned in vain for the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 72
Description
World War II caused a dramatic redistribution of income. Consumer-goods manufacturers and advertisers took advantage of steady rises in available discretionary income. America sprawled in the 1950s and became the wealthiest society in the history of the world. The Soviet Union's surprise victory in the space race led to a new American dedication to education in science and technology.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 68
Description
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin determined how to engage their forces over Europe and North Africa. A year of hard campaigning led to the defeat of Germany, a junction with Soviet forces in central Europe, and discovery of the Holocaust's full horror. America itself was transformed into a high-wage, high-employment economy, with women taking on jobs previously reserved for men.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 19
Description
With renewed war in Europe on the horizon, Napoleon offered to sell the entire Louisiana province for $15 million. Jefferson asked Congress to finance a secret scouting party under Lewis and Clark. Vice President Aaron Burr, who attempted to set up his own independent republic, was thwarted and saved from a treason indictment only by Chief Justice John Marshall.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 29
Description
The Second Bank of the United States regulated the economy by controlling the money supply and by promoting national investment. In 1831, Second Bank director Nicholas Biddle applied to Congress for rechartering; Jackson vetoed the bill. Biddle now began shortening credit and triggered a major economic depression.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 69
Description
Aircraft carriers became the crucial weapon of the Pacific war. By mid-1945, Allied victory in the Pacific was assured. Japanese refusal to surrender and the prospect of a costly and difficult invasion of Japan prompted the new president, Harry Truman, to approve the use of the war's greatest secret weapon, the atomic bomb.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 12
Description
From a military viewpoint, the Revolution started well and spiraled downward. The Continental Army, under the command of George Washington, faced humiliating defeats, abandoning all of New York and New Jersey to the British. Lost more by British incompetence than won by American planning, victory at Saratoga in the summer of 1777 salvaged American hopes.
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The Spanish tapped sources of wealth in the Americas, displaying the most wanton cruelty in obtaining it. By 1600, they had evolved from an extraction society to a settler society. The French attempted extraction incursions and to settle in North America but did not succeed as the Spanish had in the South.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 64
Description
Prohibition created ideal conditions for organized crime; the alcohol ban became unenforceable. The revival of the Ku Klux Klan targeted Catholics and Jews as much as African Americans. A brighter side: high levels of employment; rising real wages; improving city conditions; the rapid spread of cars, refrigerators, and radios among ordinary families; and the maturing of the movie industry.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 53
Description
When Reconstruction ended in 1876, southern "Redeemers" took political control of the South, passing legislation enforcing racial segregation. The federal government's decision to withdraw from the area meant that the white elite ruled unchallenged for much of the next 80 years. Most African Americans lived by sharecropping, condemning many of them to a cycle of debt and dependency.
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History of the United States 2nd Edition volume 76
Description
By 1968, half a million American soldiers were fighting in Vietnam. Casualties and TV footage of troops persecuting villagers or accidentally bombing children with napalm turned public opinion against the war. President Johnson abandoned his re-election plans because of it. The last Americans finally withdrew in 1973.
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If the southern English colonies were motivated by economic self-interest, the northern settlements were motivated by ideas. In New England's case, the ideas were religious. The "godly commonwealth" of the first Puritans was succeeded by the same slow tendency toward aristocracy, based on transatlantic commerce rather than commodities, that characterized Virginia.
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Americans developed cultural forms in both music and art that were uniquely American. The most important cultural transition, part of the European Enlightenment, was from a religious to a scientific and secular understanding of the world. Three illustrative figures of this transition are Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, and Jonathan Edwards.
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