USA- Truman (Domestic) Flashcards

1
Q

How did Truman win the 1948 election victory?

A

-Character & Personality
-His campaigning
-Appealed to voters
-His background
-His views
-Dewey’s overconfidence

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2
Q

Character & Personality

A

-Loved addressing the people they turned out in hundreds of thousands to him
-He’d always ask the crowd if they would like to meet his family
-Results demonstrated the effectiveness of his personal campaign

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3
Q

Truman’s campaign

A

Did a 33 day tour of the nation
He campaigned in Republican counties and won them
Attacked the Republican do nothing Congress

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4
Q

Truman’s Background

A

As a farm boy Truman knew what concerned farmers and won their vote.

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5
Q

Voters and their views

A

Many votes benefited from the booming economy.
African-Americans voted for him because of his stand on civil rights.
Blue colours voted for him because he was better than a Republican
Voters approved on Truman resistance to communism.

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6
Q

Dewey’s overconfidence

A

Dewey ran an overconfident Republican campaign which lack Truman warmth

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7
Q

Results of 1948 election

A

Truman defeated Dewey by over 2 million votes.
Democrats regain control of Congress.

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8
Q

What was Roosevelt’s GI Bill of Rights 1944

A

Gave returning veterans 52 weeks unemployment pay
Distributed $20 billion to 7.5m veterans between 1945 to 1955

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9
Q

What was the promise of the Bretton Woods system

A

The IMF would step in to help countries and financial trouble.

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10
Q

How did the Employment Act work

A

Only empowered the federal government to use all means to foster maximum employment.

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11
Q

What happened to returning veterans

A

-Most returning servicemen quickly found employment.
-Manufacturing industries boomed.
-Consumer enthusiasm generated many jobs.

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12
Q

What happened to the Price control bill 1946?

A

It was watered down by Congress convinced the president was two week to push it through.

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13
Q

What was unemployment rate in Truman’s presidency?

A

Never saw higher than 5%

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14
Q

What was the aim of the Council of economic advisor?

A

To advise the government along with the employment act which committed the country to maximum employment

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15
Q

What did employment rise to?

A

Employment rose from 46million to 61million

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16
Q

What did the baby boom 1945 to 50 lead to?

A

It led to a huge new market for goods and service as well as stimulating housing in cars.

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17
Q

What led to inflation of 25%?

A

-Federal government budget deficit
-Withdrawal of wartime prices
-Shortages of consumer goods
Men returning home produced a consumer boom

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18
Q

What was the 1946 strikes?

A

-Steelworkers
-Miners
-Railroad workers

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19
Q

What is the Taft Hartley act 1947?

A

Reduced union power.
Unions liables for breaching contract and unions no longer compulsory

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20
Q

What was the economic boom of 1948?

A

Postwar baby-boom equalled manufacturing demand and more jobs

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21
Q

What was the cause of 1952 strikes?

A

Steel workers hadn’t had a pay rise for two years.
Truman seized control of mills this action was confirmed by the Supreme Court as an exceeding his authority humiliating Truman.
Strikes went ahead.

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22
Q

About African-Americans

A

-Made up 10% of the population
-Great migration moving from south to the north driven by injustice of Jim Crow laws
-African-American soldiers who served in segregated units returned home to find Jim Crow law still in place
-GI Bill didn’t apply to them equally
-1/5 of 100,000 black men who applied for educational fund succeeded in registering for college

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23
Q

About white people

A

Dominated the US with over 130 million people

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24
Q

About Hispanics

A

Third largest group with 2 million citizens
Native Americans made the smallest and most neglected of ethnic groups

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25
Q

About Asian Americans

A

Immigration and nationality act of 1952 made immigration easier from Asia
By 1980 there were 3.5 million Asian Americans
Which Chinese who came to work on the railways and stayed
Japanese Americans made small group and suffered from racism

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26
Q

Education rate

A

College educated Americans rose from 10% to 15% in 1948

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27
Q

What percentage of the workforce was female?

A

By 1944 36% of the workforce was female

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28
Q

What was the Housing act 1949?

A

-810,000 housing units should be built for low income Americans
-Only 156,000 units were built
Contributed to a construction boom which provided employment

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29
Q

What was Health insurance?

A

Truman proposed national health insurance scheme based on tax of 4%
Congress attacked it because it wasn’t federal government job to tell people how to arrange their own healthcare.

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30
Q

What was the fair deal?

A

-Tax cuts for owners
-Federal aid education
-Abolition of poll taxes
-Anti-lynching laws
-New department of welfare
-Increase in minimum wage to 75 cents
-National health insurance
-Expansion of Social Security coverage

31
Q

Unemployment rate by 1953

A

Virtually zero. 62 million were employed.
Agriculture and businesses are all-time high.
No bank had failed nearly 9 years.

32
Q

Poverty in 1952

A

Poverty reduced the percentage of Americans live in poverty fell to 28%

33
Q

Why did Truman have to give up his fair deal?

A

The Korean War.
The fact that many Americans felt the New deal had done enough. His proposals were too revolutionary.

34
Q

Education

A

Little was managed in education as it was seen as a state issue
National school Lunch Act 1946 enabled poor school children to eat free or low cost.

35
Q

What was the Red scare and McCarthyism?

A

-McCarthy claims to have a list of 205 communist party members who are working in the state departments
-His accusations tapped into widespread fear of communism

36
Q

What were the consequences of McCarthyism?

A

Those who lost their jobs
-500 state and local government employed
-600 school teachers
-150 college professors

37
Q

What was set up in order to investigate left-wingers

A

HUAC
The house of representative committees on un-American activities

38
Q

Why was the communist fear so high?

A

-Soviet exploded their first atomic bomb
-China became communist
-Several high profile spy scandals
-Klaus F. who worked on the atomic bomb was arrested for betraying secrets to the Soviets.
-The Rosenbergs were executed for espionage in the Cold War.

39
Q

How did Republican party ambitions help the red scare

A

They attacked Democrats for not waging the Cold War with enough vigour this strategy worked as
73% of Americans considered Truman too soft on Soviet

40
Q

How did the Reds get influence US foreign policy?

A

Truman production and containment played an important part in getting America involved in the Korean War

41
Q

How did McCarthy get away with it?

A

-Fear of communist expansion
-Spy scares
-Republican ambition to regain control of the presidency
-Democrats fears of defending accused so not to be communist sympathisers
-McCarthy‘s good relationship with the press
-Republicans reluctance to challenge him.

42
Q

How did the red scare damage American ideals?

A

It damaged the ideals of freedom of thought and expression
Many innocent people suffered by losing their jobs and being jailed
Over 150 were deported

43
Q

How did Truman contribute to the red scare?

A

He was advised to scare the hell out of American people in order to gain their support for his Truman doctrine

44
Q

How many investigations were conducted on the red scare?

A

The justice department and the FBI conducted over 3 million investigations

45
Q

What was the situation for African-Americans in the Truman presidency?

A

They were often victims of violence in southern law enforcers
Lynching went on punished. They suffered from legal inequality and consequences of the Jim Crow laws.

46
Q

What was the situation of black Americans in the north?

A

North had de facto segregation and lived in ghettos separated from whites

47
Q

What were black American economic status?

A

Black Americans were not priority in the job market
The rural south offered few economic opportunities to blacks.
Northern and Southern blacks usually had the worst jobs without good education it was hard to escape the poverty trap.

48
Q

What were black American political status?

A

Blacks who could vote usually voted Republican
In the north the Republican party took votes for granted
The vast majority of southern blacks could not vote

49
Q

How did black people suffer inequality?

A

The federal government was unhelpful they couldn’t protect blacks from discrimination
-Long-standing southern congressmen used delay tactics to halt bills to help blacks
Southern white dominated local politics
-Southern state governments controlled education, transportation, and law enforcement
-Northern blacks were poor and concentrated upon earning a living wage

50
Q

What was the great migration?

A

Over 6 million blacks migrated from the south to the North by 1970 only 53% of black people lived in the south

51
Q

Why did black people migrate?

A

The north offered greater economic opportunities

52
Q

What tensions resulted as a result of the great migration?

A

-Influx of blacks worsened race relations in Northern cities
-Northerners joined the KKK
-Baltimore passed it first residential segregation law. Other northern cities followed
-Competitions for jobs and housing
-Resentment at increasing black political influence in local election.

53
Q

What was the impact of WW2 on black servicemen

A

-Black veterans increasingly defied Jim crow laws as they felt they should be respected.
A black soldier was asked to move to the back of the bus and refused, 24 black passengers supported him and they were put in prison. Demonstrated views were changing.

54
Q

How did black veterans benefit from GI Bill of Rights

A

-Record numbers attended college
-This improved their employment opportunities

55
Q

What was the reception of Black ask soldiers in Europe

A

Europeans saw Americans as liberators regardless of colour.

56
Q

What was the problem with close proximity to whites?

A

-Whites working with blacks caused more tensions than before
-Jealousy over best jobs
-White opposition to black males working with white females led to violent clashes

57
Q

What is the NAACP

A

Campaign for racial equality
Membership from war time 50,000 to 450,000.
What time propaganda about fighting for democracy contributed to greater assertiveness. The war improved black American bargaining power

58
Q

Who is Thurgood Marshall?

A

Join the NAACP by opposing law school discrimination
Successfully challenged this separately equal ruling from Plessy v Ferguson

59
Q

What did CORE do ?

A

-Organised sit-ins and segregated Chicago restaurants
-1947 Journey of Reconciliation in which -CORE activists Road buses across the south as an integrate group to test whether Supreme Court 1946 Morgan V Virginia ruling against segregation interstate transport was being followed.

60
Q

What were tactics of the NAACP?

A

-Economic boycotts. Activist picketed stores that did not allow black women to try on hats.
Litigation strategy. Work through law courts to prove that segregation facilities will never equal.

61
Q

What was Plessy V Ferguson?

A

Separate but equal facilities

62
Q

What is evidence of upsurge in black activism?

A

-1/5 of the black population voted in Georgia’s governor elections
-Mayor Hartsfield of Savannah appointed six black police officers
-Mississippi progressive voters league attracted 5000 members within the first year of its existence.

63
Q

What is the most successful civil group in the Truman years?

A

The NAACP

64
Q

What was the significance of the journey of reconciliation?

A

Generated substantial interest in the issue of segregation

65
Q

What was the success of Thurgood Marshall?

A

He won a series of cases before the Supreme Court, which challenged different aspects of segregation.
1946 Morgan V Virginia ruled segregation on interstate buses was illegal

66
Q

What was Truman’s view on civil rights?

A

-Truman describe discrimination as a disease.
-He gave a speech about brotherhood of black and white men before the law
-Truman proclaimed his horror at the treatment of black soldiers returning from the war.
-Growing media was providing more coverage and racially motivated murders and treatment felt that something had to be done.
-1946 he established the president‘s committee on civil rights and told its members he wanted the bill of rights to become a reality.

67
Q

What was To secure these rights?

A

A report from the Presidents commission on civil rights attacking or aspects of discrimination:
-In public facilities
-Education
-Housing
-voting

68
Q

What did Truman ask Congress on civil rights 1948?

A

To support protection against lynching and protecting the rights to vote.

69
Q

What did opposition from fellow Democrats mean?

A

Proposal of Truman were never successfully implemented because of the presence of many Dixiecrat congressman.
Members of the party included extreme racists

70
Q

How did civil rights reflect internationally?

A

Truman was aware of how segregation and violence in the south looked overseas and with newly independent countries being entitled to a seat at the UN the danger of alienating African states is very real.

71
Q

What did Truman do to help civil rights

A

-Repeatedly so but never obtained civil rights legislation through Congress
-Failed to get congressional approval for continuation of the FEPC.
-Issued executive orders to end discrimination in the armed forces and guarantee fair employment in the federal bureaucracy.
-Established a committee to investigate attacks on returning black servicemen
-Committee produced to secure these rights report
-Truman had put civil rights firmly on the legislative agenda and given a moral lead to those who sort change

72
Q

How did state and local government prove helpful to civil rights?

A

1952, only 5 states retained the poll tax.
11 states and 20 cities had fair employment laws.
19 states had legislation against some form of racial discrimination.

73
Q

How did state and local government limit civil rights?

A

-Politicians in the deep south remained determined to obstruct black progress towards equality
-State governments controlled voting, education and transport within state and southern states remain pro segregation.

74
Q

What was the conclusion of Truman’s presidency?

A

-62million Americans had jobs
-Unemployment was virtually nil
-No insured bank had filled in 9 years
-8 million veterans had gone to college
-Social security benefits have doubled
-The minimum wage had increased
-Millions of government financial homes had been built
-Incomes had risen more than prices