This print was published in 1862.retreived from Library of Congress
A constitutional republic is a state where the chief executive and representatives are elected, and the rules are set down in a written constitution.
The head of state and other representatives are elected but they do not
have uncontrolled power. What their power is limited to is written in the constitution. If there is dispute about what the constitution means, this is decided by a court system that is independent from the representatives.
Constitutional republics usually have a separation of powers.
The separation of powers means that no single officeholder gets unlimited power. John Adams said that a constitutional republic was “a government
of laws, and not of men“.[1]
Supporters of such a republic who? argue that it is meant to be a safeguard against “tyranny“. No office holder can get to a position of absolute power. However, some have argued that a constitution can be written in such a way that it lets tyranny arise, and that a constitution is therefore not a fail proof safeguard against tyranny.[2]
Aristotle was the first to write about the idea in his works on politics.
Constitutional monarchies are a special case: even though the monarch is not elected, the people still elect other governing bodies. The constitution also limits the power of the monarch.
Print shows the outline of 34 states and 9 territories, a Civil War battle scene, and Liberty holding the U.S. flag and sword riding on the back of an eagle, Lincoln and his cabinet (the secretaries linked to images of the Army, Navy, Treasury, Interior, P.O. Dept., and State Department) representing the “Executive” branch, the Senate and the House of Representatives representing the “Legislative” branch, and the Supreme Court representing the “Judicial” branch of the federal government. Also, cameo portraits of “The seven builders and leading spirits of the revolution.”
The Constitutional Republic is absent from the school curriculum because Marxists have taken over our classrooms. We are just like Portugal in the early 1900s. Progressives took over the country under the guise of democracy
Free speech, poverty and imprisoned clergy was the result.
Overview
U.S. History Primary Source Timeline
Colonial Settlement, 1600s – 1763
The American Revolution, 1763 – 1783
The New Nation, 1783 – 1815
National Expansion and Reform, 1815 – 1880
Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861-1877
Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929Overview
Automobiles in the Progressive and New Eras
Cities During the Progressive Era
Conservation in the Progressive Era
Immigrants in the Progressive Era
Prohibition: A Case Study of Progressive Reform
U.S. Participation in the Great War (World War I)
Women’s Suffrage in the Progressive Era
Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945
The Post War United States, 1945-1968
Additional Navigation
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The early 20th century was an era of business expansion and progressive reform in the United States. The progressives, as they called themselves, worked to make American society a better and safer place in which to live.
They tried to make big business more responsible through regulations of various kinds. They worked to clean up corrupt city governments, to improve working conditions in factories, and to better living conditions for those who lived in slum areas, a large number of whom were recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Many progressives were also concerned with
the environment and conservation of resources.
Suffragettes – Mrs. Alice Burke and Nell Richardson in the suffrage automobile “Golden Flyer” in which they will drive from New York to San Francisco. April 7, 1916. Bain Collection
This generation of Americans also hoped to make the world a more democratic place. At home, this meant expanding the right to vote to women and a number of election reforms such as the recall, referendum, and direct election of Senators. Abroad, it meant trying to make the world safe for democracy.
In 1917, the United States joined Great Britain and France–two democratic nations–in their war against autocratic Germany and Austria-Hungary. Soon after the Great War, the majority of Americans turned away from concern about foreign affairs, adopting an attitude of live and let live.
The 1920s, also known as the “roaring twenties” and as “the new era,” were similar to the Progressive Era in that America continued its economic growth and prosperity. The incomes of working people increased along with those of middle class and wealthier Americans. The major growth industry was automobile manufacturing. Americans fell in love with the automobile, which radically changed their way of life. On the other hand, the 1920s saw the decline of many reform activities that had been so widespread after 1900.
Automobiles in the Progressive and New Eras.
Sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd conducted a major study of American society during the 1920s. In 1929, they published their research in a book titled Middletown. “Middletown” was the name used to disguise Muncie, Indiana, the actual place where they conducted their research. One of their findings was that the automobile had transformed the lives of people living in Middletown and, by extension, virtually everywhere else in the United States.
Ford Roadster, ca.1923
Prosperity and Thrift, 1921-1929More specifically, the Lynds found that the automobile had such effects as the following: (1) family budgets had changed dramatically; (2) ministers complained that people drove their cars rather than going to church; (3) parents were concerned that their boys and girls were spending too much time together “motoring”; and (4) the car had revolutionized the way people spent their free time.
These primary sources also indicate the impact of the automobile on Americans’ lives. Some of those effects were seen as positive; others were much more troubling.
To find additional documents in Loc.gov concerning automobiles, search individual collections using such terms as automobile, car, motor car,
or filling station and motel.
Documents
Suffragettes – Mrs. Alice Burke and Nell Richardson in the suffrage automobile “Golden Flyer” in which they will drive from New York to San Francisco
Miss. Ella Bartlett Describes “The Good Old Days”
Fill It Up, Sir?
Growing Up with the Automobile
Hotels and Automobiles
The Inventor
Cities During the Progressive Era. – Bing images
General Motors Bldg., Detroit, Mich.
In the early 1900s, the United States entered a period of peace, prosperity, and progress. In the nation’s growing cities, factory output grew, small businesses flourished, and incomes rose. As the promise of jobs and higher wages attracted more and more people into the cities, the U.S. began to shift to a nation of city dwellers. By 1900, 30 million people, or 30 percent of the total population, lived in cities.
The mass migration of people into the cities enriched some people but caused severe problems for others. For the emerging middle class, benefiting from growing incomes and increases in leisure time, the expanding city offered many advantages. Department stores, chain stores, and shopping centers emerged to meet the growing demand for material goods. Parks, amusement parks, and baseball stadiums were built to meet aesthetic and recreational needs. Transportation systems improved, as did the general infrastructure, better meeting the increased needs of the middle- & upper-class city dwellers.
Thousands of poor people also lived in the cities. Lured by the promise of prosperity, many rural families and immigrants from throughout the world arrived in the cities to work in the factories. It is estimated that by 1904 one in three people living in the cities was close to starving to death. For many of the urban poor, living in the city resulted in a decreased quality of life. With few city services to rely upon, the working class lived daily with overcrowding, inadequate water facilities, unpaved streets, and disease. Lagging far behind the middle-class, working-class wages provided little more than subsistence living and few, if any, opportunities for movement out of the city slums.
To find additional documents in Loc.gov on this topic, you might consider conducting searches using such terms as urbanization, urban immigrants, progressivism, and the names of individual cities such as Cincinnati, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
Documents
The Lure of the Past, the Present and Future
A Trip to the City, or At the Phone Booth
General Comments on the Progress of Los Angeles
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
Progressive Reforms Affected Cities in Many Ways
Photo Collage of New York City in the Early 1900s – Bing images
Dakota Apartment House
A Monday Washing, New York
Lower East Side Ghetto
Shoppers on Sixth Avenue
Family in Attic Home with Drying Laundry
Italian Neighborhood Mulberry Street
Photographs of Early Urbanization – Bing video
The New York Ghetto: Hester Street, 1902
Armour Boulevard and Holmes Street, Kansas City, 1909
Canal Street, New Orleans, ca. 1900-1910
Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, 1905
Main Street, Dayton, Ohio, 1904
Main Street, Kansas City, ca. 1900-1910
Conservation in the Progressive Era.
Yosemite Valley, California In the mid to late 19th century, natural resources were heavily exploited, especially in the West. Land speculators and developers took over large tracts of forests and grazing land. Acreage important to waterpower was seized by private concerns. Mining companies practiced improper and wasteful mining practices. Assuming a seemingly inexhaustible supply of natural resources, Americans developed a “tradition of waste.”
Alarmed by the public’s attitude toward natural resources as well as the exploitation of natural resources for private gain, conservationists called for federal supervision of the nation’s resources and the preservation of those resources for future generations. In President Theodore Roosevelt, the conservationists found a sympathetic ear and man of action. Conservation of the nation’s resources, putting an end to wasteful uses of raw materials, and the reclamation of large areas of neglected land have been identified as some of the major achievements of the Roosevelt era.
President Roosevelt’s concern for the environment was influenced by American naturalists, such as John Muir, and by his own political appointees, including Gifford Pinchot, Chief of Forestry. Working in concert with many individuals and organizations, the Roosevelt administration was responsible for the following: the Newlands Act of 1902, which funded irrigation projects from the proceeds of the sale of federal lands in the West; the appointment of the Inland Waterways Commission in 1907 to study the relation of rivers, soil, forest, waterpower development, and water transportation; and the National Conservation Commission of 1909, which was charged with drawing up long-range plans for preserving national resources. Along with a vocal group of conservationists, the Roosevelt administration created an environmental conservation movement whose words and actions continue to be heard and felt throughout the nation today.
To find additional documents in Loc.gov, use such words as
conservation, reclamation, natural resources, preservation
and Theodore Roosevelt.
Documents
A Letter from President Roosevelt
Report of the National Conservation Commission
Man and the Earth
The Lay of the Land
The Fight for Conservation
Conservation by Sanitation
The Necessity of Conserving Our Resources
Immigrants in the Progressive Era – Bing video
[New York, N.Y., immigrants’ landing, Ellis Island] Detroit Publishing Company Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States. That was about equal to the number of immigrants who had arrived in the previous 40 years combined. In 1910, three-fourths of New York City’s population were either immigrants or first-generation Americans
(i.e. the sons and daughters of immigrants).
Not only were the numbers of immigrants swelling, the countries from
which they came had changed dramatically as well. Unlike earlier immigrants, the majority of the newcomers after 1900 came from non-English speaking European countries. The principal source of immigrants was now southern and eastern Europe, especially Italy, Poland, and Russia, countries quite different in culture and language from the United States, and many immigrants had difficulty adjusting to life here.
At the same time, the United States had difficulty absorbing the immigrants. Most of the immigrants chose to settle in American cities, where jobs were located. As a result, the cities became ever more crowded. In addition, city services often failed to keep up with the flow of newcomers. Most of the immigrants did find jobs, although they often worked in jobs that most native-born Americans would not take. Over time, however, many immigrants succeeded in improving their condition.
To find additional documents in Loc.gov, search the collections using such terms as immigration, immigrant, or people from specific countries (e.g., Polish, Irish, or Italian).
Documents
The Saranoff Family Embraces America
Henry Boucher, French Canadian Textile Worker
Louis T., “I Sell Fish”
Adam Laboda, Polish Textile Worker
Steve Comeau, French Canadian Immigrant
An Interview with Roland Damiani
Arrival of emigrants [i.e. immigrants], Ellis Island
Prohibition: A Case Study of Progressive Reform.
[Policeman standing alongside wrecked car and cases of moonshine] National Photo Company Collection The temperance movement, discouraging the use of alcoholic beverages, had been active and influential in the United States since at least the 1830s. Since the use of alcohol was often associated with such social ills as poverty and insanity, temperance often went hand in hand with other reform movements. From the 1850s onward, the temperance movement focused much of its efforts on Irish and German immigrants.
Temperance advocates did not always emphasize prohibiting the consumption of alcohol. But by the late 19th century, they did. The prohibition movement achieved initial successes at the local and state levels. It was most successful in rural southern and western states, and less successful in more urban states.
By the early 20th century, prohibition was a national movement.
Prohibition exhibited many of the characteristics of most progressive reforms. That is, it was concerned with the moral fabric of society; it was supported primarily by the middle classes; and it was aimed at controlling the “interests” (liquor distillers) and their connections with venal and corrupt politicians in city, state, and national governments. Still, it was not until U.S. entry into the Great War that prohibitionists were able to secure enactment of national legislation. In 1918, Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. States ratified the Amendment the next year.
Herbert Hoover called prohibition a “noble experiment,” but the effort to regulate people’s behavior soon ran into trouble. Enforcement of prohibition became very difficult. Soon, such terms as “bootlegger,” “bathtub gin,” and “speakeasy” became household words. Gangs of hoodlums became more powerful as they trafficked in alcohol. By the 1930s, a majority of Americans had tired of the noble experiment, and the 18th Amendment was repealed.
Documents
Every Attempt to Legislate Morals Resulted in Disaster
Money That Was Poured Out in the Gutter
Only Suckers Work
Harlem Rent Parties
The Temperance Army (Song Lyrics)
Women’s Suffrage in the Progressive Era
Suffragists, April 22, 1913.
Immediately after the Civil War, Susan B. Anthony, a strong and outspoken advocate of women’s rights, demanded that the Fourteenth Amendment include a guarantee of the vote for women as well as for African-American males. In 1869, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. Later that year, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and others formed the American Woman Suffrage Association. However, not until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919 did women throughout the nation gain the right to vote.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, women and women’s organizations,
not only, worked to gain the right to vote, they also worked for broad-based economic and political equality and for social reforms. Between 1880 and 1910, the number of women employed in the United States increased from 2.6 million to 7.8 million. Although women began to be employed in business and industry, the majority of better paying positions continued to go to men.
At the turn of the century, 60 percent of all working women were employed as domestic servants. In the area of politics, women gained the right to control their earnings, own property, and, in the case of divorce, take custody of their children.
By 1896, women had gained the right to vote in four states (Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah). Women and women’s organizations also worked on behalf of many social and reform issues. By the beginning of the new century, women’s clubs in towns and cities across the nation were working to promote suffrage, better schools, the regulation of child labor, women in unions, and liquor prohibition.
Not all women believed in equality for the sexes. Women who upheld traditional gender roles argued that politics were improper for women.
Some even insisted that voting might cause some women to “grow beards.”
The challenge to traditional roles represented by the struggle for political, economic, and social equality was as threatening to some women as it was to most men.
To find additional documents on this topic in Loc.gov, use such key words as women’s rights, equality, social reform, and voting rights.
Documents
Women and the Alphabet
Women’s Sphere Cartoon
The Remonstrance
Why Women Should Vote
Corner of the Battlefield Near Arras, Aug. 8, 1918.
U.S. Participation in the Great War (World War I)
Detroit Publishing Company War broke out in Europe in the summer of 1914, with the Central Powers led by Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and the Allied countries led by Britain, France, and Russia on the other. At the start of the war, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would be neutral. However, that neutrality was tested and fiercely debated in the U.S.
Submarine warfare in the Atlantic kept tensions high, and Germany’s sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killed more than 120 U.S. citizens and provoked outrage in the U.S. In 1917, Germany’s attacks on American ships and its attempts to meddle in U.S.-Mexican relations drew the U.S. into the war on the side of the Allies. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917.
Within a few months, thousands of U.S. men were being drafted into the military and sent to intensive training. Women, even many who had never worked outside the home before, took jobs in factories producing supplies needed for the war effort, as well as serving in ambulance corps and the American Red Cross at home and abroad. Children were enlisted to sell war bonds and plant victory gardens in support of the war effort.
The United States sent more than a million troops to Europe, where they encountered a war unlike any other—one waged in trenches and in the air,
and one marked by the rise of such military technologies as the tank, the field telephone, and poison gas.
At the same time, the war shaped the culture of the U.S. After an Armistice agreement ended the fighting on November 11, 1918, the postwar years saw a wave of civil rights activism for equal rights for African Americans, the passage of an amendment securing women’s right to vote, and a larger role in world affairs for the United States.
As you explore the primary sources in this group, look for evidence of the different roles U.S. citizens played in the war effort, as well as the effects of
the war on the people of the United States.
To find additional sources, visit the Library of Congress World War I page.
You can also search the Library’s online collections using terms including
World War I or Great War, or look for specific subjects or names, such as
Woodrow Wilson, doughboys, trench warfare, or “Over There.”
To analyze primary sources like these, use the Library’s Primary Source Analysis Tool.
Documents
I Did My Bit for Democracy
Life as a Conscientious Objector in Wartime
A Woman in the Red Cross Motor Corps
Loyalty The Breath of the Hun
Stripped
One Hundred Million Soldiers
Immigrant Support for the War
A Soldier Remembers the War’s End
America and World War II
When events began happening in Europe that would eventually lead to
World War II, many Americans took an increasingly hard line toward getting involved. The events of World War I had fed into the United States’ natural desire of isolationism, and this was reflected by the passage of Neutrality Acts and the general hands-off approach to the events that unfolded on the world stage.
Increasing Tensions.
While the United States was wallowing in neutrality and isolationism, events were occurring in Europe and Asia that were causing increasing tension across the regions.
These events included:
Totalitarianism as a form of government in the USSR (Joseph Stalin), Italy (Benito Mussolini), Germany (Adolf Hitler), and Spain (Francisco Franco)
A move toward fascism in Japan
The creation of Manchukuo, Japan’s puppet government in Manchuria, beginning the war in China
The conquest of Ethiopia by Mussolini
Revolution in Spain led by Francisco Franco
Germany’s continuing expansion including taking the Rhineland
The worldwide Great Depression
World War I allies with large debts, many of whom were not paying them off.
The United States passed the Neutrality Acts in 1935–1937, which created an embargo on all war item shipments. U.S. citizens were not allowed to travel on “belligerent” ships, and no belligerents were allowed loans in the United States.
The Road to War:
The actual war in Europe began with a series of events: Germany took Austria (1938) and the Sudtenland (1938) The Munich Pact was created (1938) with England and France agreeing to allow Hitler to keep the Sudetenland as long as no further expansion occurred
Hitler and Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis military alliance to last 10 years (1939)
Japan entered an alliance with Germany and Italy (1939)
The Moscow-Berlin Pact occurred, promising nonaggression
between the two powers (1939) Hitler invaded Poland (1939)
England and France declared war on Germany (September 30, 1939)
The Changing American Attitude
At this time and despite President Franklin Roosevelt’s desire to help the allied powers of France and Great Britain, the only concession America made was to allow the sale of arms on a “cash and carry” basis.
Hitler continued to expand in Europe, taking Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In June 1940, France fell to Germany. The speed of the expansion was noticed in the U.S. and the government began to reinforce the military.
The final break in isolationism began with the 1941 Lend-Lease Act, whereby America was allowed to “sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government…any defense article.” Great Britain promised not to export any of the lend-lease materials. After this, America built a base on Greenland and then issued the Atlantic Charter on August 14, 1941. The document was a joint declaration between Great Britain and the U.S. about the purposes of war against fascism. The Battle of the Atlantic began with German U-boats wreaking havoc. This battle would last throughout the war.
Pearl Harbor
The real event that changed America into a nation actively at war was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was precipitated in July 1939 when Franklin Roosevelt announced that the U.S. would no longer trade items such as gasoline and iron to Japan, which needed it for its war with China. In July 1941, the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis was created. The Japanese began occupying French Indo-China and the Philippines, and all Japanese assets were frozen in the U.S. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, killing more than 2,000 people and damaging or destroying eight battleships, which seriously damaged the Pacific fleet. America officially entered the war and now had to fight on two fronts: Europe and the Pacific.
After the U.S. declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. Strategically, at the beginning of the war the U.S. government began following a Germany First strategy, mainly because it posed the greatest threat to the West, it had a larger military, and it seemed the most likely to develop newer and more lethal weapons. One of the worst tragedies of World War II was the Holocaust, during which between 1933 and 1945 it is estimated that anywhere from 9 to 11 million Jews and others were killed. Only after the defeat of the Nazis were the concentration camps closed and the remaining survivors freed.
American Rationing:
Americans at home sacrificed while soldiers fought overseas. By the end of the war, more than 12 million American soldiers had joined or were drafted into the military. Widespread rationing occurred. For example, families were given coupons to purchase sugar based on the size of their families. They could not buy more than their coupons would allow. However, rationing covered more than just food—it also included goods such as shoes and gasoline.
Some items were just not available in America.
Silk stockings made in Japan were not available—they were replaced by the new synthetic nylon stockings. No automobiles were produced from February 1943 until the end of the war to move the manufacturing to war-specific items.
Many women entered the workforce to help make munitions and implements of war. These women were nicknamed “Rosie the Riveter” and were a central part of America’s success in war.
Japanese Relocation Camps.
Wartime restrictions were imposed on civil liberties. A real black mark on the American homefront was the Executive Order No. 9066 signed by Roosevelt in 1942. This ordered those of Japanese-American descent to be moved to “Relocation Camps.” This law eventually forced close to 120,000 Japanese-Americans in the western part of the United States to leave their homes and move to one of 10 “relocation” centers or to other facilities across the nation. Most of those relocated were American citizens by birth. They were forced to sell their homes, most for next to nothing, and take only what they could carry.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act that provided redress for Japanese-Americans. Each living survivor was paid $20,000 for the forced incarceration. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush issued a formal apology.
America and Russia.
In the end, America came together to successfully defeat fascism abroad. The end of the war would send the U.S. into a Cold War due to concessions made to the Russians in exchange for their aid in defeating the Japanese. Communist Russia and the United States would be at odds with each other until the downfall of the USSR in 1989.
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What are 5 things you are THANKFUL for?
Being above ground is 1 thru 5.
But I have a lot from 6 on.
1. breathing (kinda) 2. seeing
3. smell 
4. hearing
5. Inner Peace – Unique sense about myself:Still thankful I live in America; but that could change by 2024.