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AP®︎/College US History
Course: AP®︎/College US History > Unit 7
Lesson 15: Comparison in Period 7Shaping American national identity from 1890 to 1945
Which events of the first half of the twentieth century had the greatest impact on shaping national identity between 1890 and 1945? In this video, Kim compares the effect of major developments like the Great Depression and World II on American core beliefs about individualism, culture, and the proper US role in the world.
Want to join the conversation?
- Did Germany ever think about the consequences of World War II?(8 votes)
- probably, germany was trying to get back land they had lost in world war one, but they ended up paying even more than they originally lost, because they werent able to follow through(1 vote)
- Is there anything to say that the USA dropped the bomb on Hiroshima to boost their power globally?(3 votes)
- The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, in part, to demonstrate to anyone who would dare oppose the USA that they could be utterly destroyed. That was only part of it, but it was in the mix.
My father-in-law who was in training in the Navy to be a supply officer of some sort at that time maintained that dropping those bombs saved his life, because he would not be subsequently sent to the Pacific War. I cannot dispute his opinion, but I think he bought some sort of argument that excused the killing of so many Japanese civilians on the basis that it saved the lives of so many American and other allied nations' soldiers and sailors. At least, he maintained, it saved his own.(7 votes)
- When America drop the Nucellar bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did they know what it would do and how it would effect thewar(4 votes)
- Sorry I'm late, but here's my assumption.
They had an idea on what the nuclear bombs would do, but didn't know exactly, since the test bombs were significantly weaker than the actual nukes. I believe they chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they had less people than some other known cities, as to reduce casualties of civilians. My guess is that the dropped the bombs as an alternative to a submarine invasion, which would result in more death. Another reason I assume they dropped the bombs was in order to get Japan to surrender. Due to the fact that the Japanese philosophy was along the lines of dying in battle is honorable while surrender is not, Japan did not surrender until the US threatened to bomb Tokyo as well.(1 vote)
- Why was imperial game such big thing for uinted sates during world war 2 ?(4 votes)
- when and why did America decide to drop the fat man on Hiroshima(1 vote)
- Little Boy was the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Fat Man was the bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
The reasons are explained more over here:
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/us-wwii/a/the-manhattan-project-and-the-atomic-bomb(6 votes)
- Is the geography of the United States a helpful factor or not throughout its history?(3 votes)
- If you consider the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as being like moats around a medieval fortress, the geography was very important in the past. Now that there are intercontinental missiles, not so much.(2 votes)
- why did we hav eto have a war why oculfnt we just havce a talk over pizza. BRUH MOMENT>..... :((2 votes)
- Between 1890 and 1945, other than in a few urban centers, there wasn't much pizza in America. The spread of pizza into a sort of national cuisine is a post-ww2 phenomenon in most of the USA.(3 votes)
- Why was the imperial game so important?(3 votes)
- because it gave countries natural resources that they could use to fight other countries or strengthen their economies. after WW2 imperialism largely died for European nations since they did not have the strength to control them.(1 vote)
- Considering that as WWII ended that tensions with communist countries intensified, do you think the video's assumptions about the motivations behind immigration limits is accurate? Could the reasons for differences in immigration numbers (I'm assuming there were differences, per the video) be due to the spread of Communism and the approaching Cold War?(2 votes)
- "Nativist" (anti immigrant) sentiment is common in American history. Any old excuse is enough to say, "close the gates and build a wall". Fear of communism was just the one used in the period immediately ollowing the second world war. Other excuses have been used at other times.(1 vote)
- Did Germany ever think about the consequences of World War II?(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] In 1890, the
United States was not exactly a major player on the world stage. It was an industrial behemoth, attracting immigrants
from all over the world, but it was focused on
its own internal growth, not foreign affairs. There was little in the way
of a shared popular culture, and there was practically
no government regulation of industry or the market. Compare that to the United states in 1945, which had a bustling
shared national culture, a social safety net, and
lots of industry regulations brought on by depression and war. And the United States was the
strongest nation on earth. For a time, the world's lone atomic power. These are all enormous changes, changes in ideas about the economy, American culture, and the United
States' role in the world. As a historian, I'm curious about how these changes affected American national
identity during this period. National identity is a
bit of a slippery thing, but it encompasses a lot of core values and beliefs in society about who counts as an American,
how Americans should act, and how the United States should
relate to other countries. So how can we measure just how much impact the events of the first
half of the 20th century had on American national identity. First, we need to get more specific about which core beliefs
around national identity we wanna track, since one of the changes we're looking at relates to the growing regulation of the American economy
in this time period. One belief I think would be
valuable to examine over time is individualism. This is the idea that
everyone should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to earn a good living
through their own hard work. This has been a pretty core
American value over time, but there certainly have been moments when many have question whether
it can really be achieved. Next, I'm curious about changes in American cultural
identity over this period. People did a lot of moving around in the early 20th century,
going from farms to cities, and from the old country to the new. So did the United States develop a shared national culture in this time
period along with the advent of new communication
technologies like the radio, or were cultural values
in the United States fractured along lines of
race, class, and ethnicity? Finally, since this is the era in which the United States grew into a world power, I'd like to look at changes in beliefs about what the proper US
role in the world should be. Okay, now that we've
decided which core values of national identity we wanna track, let's brain storm some of the major events that may have affected these
values during this period. I encourage you to pause the video here, and think about what events
you might wanna discuss related to these themes. Think about the big things
that happened in this era and how they could affect
ideas about individualism, culture, and the United
States' role in the world. You may come up with some
different things than I do, and that's okay. Remember, we're doing a high-level
overview of events here, so I'm not gonna go into
much depth about any of them. But if I mention something
you're not familiar with, just jot it down, and you can follow up
on that concept later. Okay, first, let's look at
beliefs around individualism. This is really a question
about whether people thought it was possible for them
to earn a good living through hard work alone. In the 1890s, there were
a few questions about whether industrialization
and business consolidation was making it impossible for
ordinary people to succeed, like the farmers who
supported the Populist Party, and wanted the government
to regulate railroads and alter the money supply. But they didn't get too much traction. The progressive era also introduced some regulations on business, with presidents like Teddy
Roosevelt busting trusts, and reformers helping to pass laws protecting workers and consumers. The Roaring Twenties, by contrast, was an era of boundless optimism about the individual's
ability to get wealthy. With lots of ordinary folks investing in the stock market, and believing that the
economic boom would never end, but of course it did end, and with it, so did a lot of people's
faith in individualism. Factors outside the
control of any one person brought on the great depression, and people looked to the government to provide relief to citizens in a way that it had never done before. The new deal established
a social safety net and a limited welfare state that would influence the
American economy for decades. So looking at this period as a whole, it seems like the events of the first half of the 20th century had
a pretty profound effect on the belief in American individualism. Industrialization and
then the Great Depression led to a growing sense that
the modern industrial economy was too large of a machine for individuals to navigate it successfully on their own. And therefore, the government had a duty to see to the welfare of its citizens. Next, let's examine American
culture over this time period. Was there one shared national culture, like the melting pot analogy or were there many tensions
and divisions in culture over things like ideas, race,
religion, or gender roles. During this time period, migration to cities led to the development of cultural enclaves, like Little Italy, and new cultural movements
like the Harlem Renaissance. Those might suggest a
more divided culture. On the other hand, the growing popularity of radio and cinema in the 1920s contributed to the development of a national culture where
people across the country could watch the same movies, listen to the same radio shows, and root for the same sports starts. But there was also a backlash
against immigrant culture and the urban modern environment with the re-emergence of the KKK, restrictions on freedom of speech, and calls for 100% Americanism
during World War I, and emigration restrictions in the 1920s. However, American propaganda
during World War II emphasize the diversity and inclusiveness of the United States, in contrast to Nazi racial ideology. And US culture became more
accepting toward immigrants from European backgrounds. But Asian-Americans and African-Americans were so largely excluded. So the cultural transition
of the United States is a bit of a mixed bag
in this time period. There were both elements that brought the country together in a shared national culture, and elements that
divided it based on race, ethnicity, and belief. Last, let's look at beliefs about the role of the United
States in the world. Up until the Spanish-American war in 1898, the guiding US foreign
policy was isolationism, staying out of world affairs. But by the turn of the 20th century, the US government was tempted to get in on the imperial game, like the great powers of Europe, and it did so with the
acquisition of Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippines. United States was also reluctant to get involved in World War I, and did so only very late in
the war, after provocation. After World War I, the United States return to
its policy of isolationism throughout the 1920s and 1930s, but the Japanese bombing
of Pearl Harbor in 1941 led the country to fully mobilize for war. After the war with Europe in ruins and growing tensions
with the Soviet Union, the United States would
abandon isolationism as a foreign policy, in favor of membership
in the United Nations and military interventions
to contain communism. So this too is a major shift from outright isolationism,
to imperialism, to interventionism. The events of the first
half of the 20th century, changed the core belief that the United States was better off staying out of world affairs into the belief that US
involvement was crucial to maintaining order in world affairs. So given the evidence we've compiled here, which major events of the
first half of the 20th century had the greatest impact
on national identity? It seems like the aspects
of national identity that changed the most were
the belief in individualism, which transitioned into
a greater acceptance of the role of government in advancing citizen's welfare, and the belief in isolationism, which transitioned into the belief that the United States should
intervene in world affairs. Which events were most crucial in changing those beliefs? I would say that the Great Depression was the most influential in altering individualism, and World War II was the most influential in altering isolationism. What do you think? Would you come to the same
conclusions that I have? Next, think about how you might write a thesis statement in
order to answer this question using the evidence that we've gathered.