Dr. Robbins' PowerPoint review of U.S. presidents thru Kennedy

1. 20th Century U.S. Presidents
APUSH
Dr. Robbins

2. Theodore Roosevelt
1901-1909
• Progressive Republican
• Square Deal
• Muckraking: Steffens,
• Control the Trusts Tarbell, Sinclair, Riis
• Consumer Protection (Pure
Food & Drug Act, etc) • State and city
• Conservation government reforms
• Anthracite Coal Miners Strike
• Talk Softly & Carry a Big Stick • Lochner v. New York
• Great White Fleet
• Panama Canal
• Muller v. Oregon
• Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe • Panic of 1907
Doctrine
• Gentlemen’s Agreement
w/Japan
• Russian/Japanese Peace Deal
• Nobel Peace Prize
• Increased executive power

3. William Howard Taft, 1909-1913
• TR’s protégé • Triangle Shirtwaist
• Progressive Republican Factory
• Dollar Diplomacy • Roosevelt loses
• nomination to Taft, starts
More Trustbusting: suits
3rd party
against Standard Oil, US
Steel, etc.
• More Conservation:
Bureau of Mines
• Payne-Aldrich Tariff

4. Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
• Progressive Democrat • 16th Amendment: income tax
• New Freedom program: favored small • 17th Amendment: direction election
enterprise, entrepreneurship and free of senators
markets
• Underwood Tariff (reduces to 27%) • WW1 begins in Europe 1914
• Federal Reserve Act • Lusitania attacked
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act (Trustbusting) • Zimmerman Note
• Farm support (Federal Farm Loan Act, • George Creel: Committee on
& Warehouse Act) Public Information (Propaganda)
• Appoints Brandeis to Supreme Court • Homefront
• Federal Trade Commission • Voluntary rationing & victory
• Involvements Abroad (Mexico, Haiti…) gardens
• Reelected on no-war platform • Labor supports war (except IWW)
• Entered WW1: “safe for democracy”
• Armistice
• Espionage & Sedition Acts
• Fourteen Points (League of Nations) • Paris Peace Conference
• Treaty of Versailles rejected by • 18th Amendment (Prohibition)
Congress • 19th Amendment (Woman
• Volstead Act (prohibition law) Suffrage)

5. The Twenties
Warren G. Harding, 1921-1925 • Red Scare
• Republican • Sacco & Vanzetti Trial
• Pro-business, laissez-faire • KKK revived
• Fordney–McCumber Tariff (increases to • Isolationism
38.5%) • Cultural pluralism
• 5-power Naval Treaty • Prohibition: speakeasies, gangsters
• Immigration Quota Acts, 1921 & 1924 • Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
• Teapot Dome Scandal • Scopes Trial, 1925
• Dies in office before scandal known • Mass consumption
Calvin Coolidge, 1925-1929 • Model T Ford & Airplanes
• Republican, “Silent Cal” • Radios & Movies
• Secretary of Treasury Mellon reduced taxes • Flappers & Vamps
& debt • Margaret Sanger champions birth control
• Pro-business • Alice Paul launches Equal Rights
• Vetoed pro-farmer bills Amendment, 1923
• Mixed record with Latin America • Harlem Renaissance
• Dawes Plan re: German debt etc • Jazz
• Kellogg-Briand Pact • Bull Market
• Buying stock on margin
• 1929: Stock Market Crash

6. Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933
• Republican • Stock Market Crashes on
• Engineer & self-made Black Tuesday, 10/29/29
millionaire • Great Depression Arrives
• Pro-business • Hoovervilles
• Hawley Smoot Tariff: • Bonus Army
increases to 60% • Japan Invades Manchuria
• Federal Farm Board • Mass employment (up to
• Reconstruction Finance Corp. 25%)
helped business & banks • Homeless, hoboes, etc
after Crash
• Norris-LaGuardia Anti-
Injunction Act hurt labor
• Improved relations with Latin
America

7. Franklin Roosevelt, 1933-1945
The Depression & the New Deal
• Democrat (elected four times!) • Populist Critics:
• The New Deal – Huey Long
• Fireside Chats – Father Charles Coughlin
• Government helps the people – Dr. Francis Townsend
• Hundred Days • Dust Bowl
• Closed banks briefly • Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
• Relief programs created immediate • Dorothea Lange photos
jobs (CCC, etc) • John L. Lewis founds C.I.O.
• Recovery set up longer term • Conservative Supreme Court stalls
projects/employment (TVA, etc.) or halts some of FDR’s programs
• Reform made fundamental changes • 20th Amendment: 1933, changes
– Social Security, SEC, FDIC inauguration to January 20
• Keynesian economics (deficit • 21st Amendment, 1933, repeals
spending in crisis) Prohibition
• Court Packing Scheme backfires • Schechter case (chickens)
• NIRA ended after Schechter case

8. FDR, Foreign Policy & War Years
• Good Neighbor policy • Mussolini invades Ethiopia
• Tydings MacDuffie Act: • Spanish Civil War
Philippines Promised • Japan Invades China
Independence in 1946 (1934) • Hitler Seizes Austria
• FDR does not attend London • Munich Conference
Economic Conference
• Hitler seizes Czechoslovakia
• Reciprocal Trade Agreement
• Nazi-Soviet Pact
• US Neutrality Acts
• Hitler Invades Poland
• Bases for destroyers, 1940
• Fall of France
• Lend-Lease Act, 1941
• Battle of Britain
• Atlantic Charter, 1941
• Hitler Attacks Soviet Union
• Mandatory draft before US
enters war • Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
• US enters war after Pearl
Harbor

9. FDR: More War Years
• Unprecedented production for • War Production Board
war ends the Depression (full • War Labor Board
employment) • Women: WAACs, WAVES,
• Fair Employment Practices SPARs & factory workers
Commission • Congress of Racial Equality
• Japanese Internment, 1942 (CORE)
(Executive Order 9066) • Bracero program
• Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act, • wartime migration (especially
1943, limited strikes African Americans)
• Casablanca Conference • Navajo Code Talkers
• Teheran Conference • Mandatory rationing
• D-Day • More Victory Gardens
• Roosevelt dies in 1945 just • Zoot Suit Riots, 1943
before war ends, but he could
see it coming! • Detroit race riots
• Korematsu v. U.S.

10. Harry Truman, 1945-1953
• FDR’s VP takes over as president at • Germany surrenders/Holocaust revealed
FDR’s death, later reelected • Hiroshima & Nagasaki
• Democrat • Japan surrenders
• Potsdam Conference • War Crimes trials (Nuremberg, Tokyo)
• Drops Atomic Bombs on Japan
• US recognizes Israel (1948)
• GI Bill
• “Voice of America” radio to communists
• Kennan’s Containment Policy to
“contain” communism • NATO established, 1949
• Cold War Begins (Iron Curtain) • Communist revolution in China, 1949
• Yalta Conference • McCarthy anti-communist hunt begins,
• Marshall Plan: rebuild Europe 1950 (HUAC)
• Taft Hartley Act, 1947, passed over • Sweatt v. Painter
Turman’s veto: limited union’s rights • Korean War (1950-1953)
• Truman Doctrine—aid countries to • Baby Boom begins
withstand communist influence, • Population grows, moves to Sun Belt
starting with Greece & Turkey
• National Security Act creates Dept • Suburban sprawl, family-focused
of Defense & NSC (Natl Security • Education levels & production rise
Council), 1947 • Middle class grows
• Berlin Airlift, 1948 • Increasing prosperity after initial post-war
• NSC-68, quadruples military budget, recession
1950 • Farming turns corporate

11. Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, 1953-1961
• Had been top US general in WW2 • New technologies (transistors, computers)
• Republican • Betty Friedan, The Feminist Mystique
• America’s grandfather, “I Like Ike” • Pink color ghetto: women’s occupations
• Hesitantly supports civil rights • Television
• Cold War continues • Rock n’ Roll
• Interstate Highway Act, 1956 • Critics of conformity: David Riesman, etc.
• Secretary of State Dulles & “massive • McCarthy’s Army hearings bring him down
retaliation” • Brown v. Board of Education, 1954
• CIA-sponsored coup in Guatemala • Civil Rights Movement begins
• American aid to Vietnam begins • SEATO formed
• Sends troops in to support Little Rock • Warsaw Pact
Nine, 1957 • Operation Wetback repatriates Mexicans
• Civil Rights Act of 1957 • Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955
• Mediates Suez Crisis • AF of L joins with CIO
• Eisenhower Doctrine—support Middle • Little Rock Nine desegregate Arkansas
Eastern countries against communism high school, 1957
• Landrum Griffin Act, 1959 • SCLC formed (So Christian Leadership)
• U-2 Incident—spy plane over USSR • Communist Revolution in Cuba, 1959
• Space race after Sputnik • Alaska & Hawaii join US, 1959
• Emphasized Math/Science education • OPEC formed, 1960 (oil–producing
• Establishes NASA countries)
• Warns of growing power of industrial- • Sit-ins begin in Greensboro, NC (SNCC)
military complex

12. John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963
• Democrat • Berlin Wall built, 1961
• Youngest president • Laos Civil War
• First Catholic • Vietnam conflict escalates
• “New Frontier” program • Freedom Riders, 1961
• Cold War Continues • James Meredith integrates University of
• Secretary of Defense McNamara & Mississippi
“flexible response” military policy • Police violence against Birmingham
• Starts Peace Corps Protests shown on nationwide TV
• Postpones Civil Rights—needs • MLK & March on Washington DC, 1963
southern Dems for other issues • Birmingham church bombed, killing 4
• Supports tax cut & pressures steel little girls, soon after March on DC
industry on prices • Beatniks: poetry in dark coffeehouses
• Plans moon landing • Beginning of disaffected youth
• Sends “military advisors” to Vietnam movement (Jack Kerouac’s On the
• Road, etc)
Modernization theory—to help
underdeveloped countries • Birth control pill introduced, 1960
• Trade Expansion Act cut tariffs, 1962
• Bay of Pigs, botched invasion of Cuba
• Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
• Assassinated on November 22, 1963