United States History, 1920-1945

Summaries

Updated August 23, 2008

The 20th century would become known as the “American Century,” and in 1920 foundations of that position of centrality were established. The United States had become an industrial giant, it had been governed since the turn of the century by two strong presidents who were more than willing to intervene in the international arena, and it had delivered 2 million American soldiers onto French soil to turn the tide of the First World War.

This section deals with the period that completes America's transition to the leading position in the world power structure. Following the Great War, the United States, like most other nations, turned inward, reckoning the costs of that terrible conflict. The decade of the 1920s saw substantial changes in domestic American life as Victorian society was replaced by the age of the flapper. At the end of that raucous decade, the crash of the stock market helped trigger the worst depression in America's history, and as the United States struggled to regain her economic footing, she went through a period of self-imposed detachment from the affairs of the rest of the world.

But the world drew her back in when the fascism of Germany and Italy and the militarism of Japan created a new world conflict into which the United States was all but inevitably drawn. Not only the country, but the world at large, saw amazing new technologies and systems evolve. Stimulated by the needs of the Second World War, huge advances were made not only in weaponry, but also in electronics, medicine, communications, and in the development of atomic energy, which would soon become available for civilian as well as military purposes.

By 1945 America was the undisputed greatest power in the world. Although America’s losses in World War II—over 400,000 dead—were great, measured against the overall casualties of the conflict that ended in 1945, which totaled perhaps 50 million, and with her homeland virtually untouched, the United States was in a position to lead the world along whatever path seemed most attractive. America would continue to dominate the international arena for the remainder of the 20th century.

This section of the course deals with domestic issues in the United States from the end of the Great War until 1945 and with America’s involvement in World War II at home and abroad. By 1945, as the United States stood alone as the world’s first superpower, the nation was all but unrecognizable when compared against conditions in the 1920s or 1930s. The “Time of the Americans” was well at hand.

The era begins with the Roaring Twenties, a decade that stands apart as a sort of dividing line between the 19^th and 20^th centuries. We divide history into nice round numbers: centuries, decades, and even millennia. But time periods don’t always break at those logical points. For example, the events surrounding the French Revolution and Empire, including the Napoleonic wars, seem to belong more with the 18^th-century than with the 19^th. Thus it is probably fair to say that in a real sense the 18^th century ended in 1815 with Waterloo and the end of the Napoleonic era.

Likewise, the first world war is in ways a combination of the imperialist drive that was part of the 19^th century; and thus it is not too far amiss to say that in a sense the 19^th century ended at Versailles, and the 20^th century began in 1919 or 20. We also look at the period from 1815 to 1914 as the “Hundred Years’ Peace” to distinguish it from other epochs.

This method of sorting out different eras is not consistent, nor should we try to make it so. For example, it is probably fair to say that the Progressive Era is more of a 20^th-century phenomenon than a 19^th century event. When we look back on the 20^th century we may say that a major, epochal turning point was the end of the Cold War. On the other hand, the events of September 11, 2001, certainly ushered us in to a new era that unfortunately is likely to dominate much of the 21^st century.

But just as the 1890s were a reckless decade and a precursor of things to come, the 1920s were also a wild and woolly period, when old values seem to be cast aside and new ideas bubbled up in many areas of American life. The decade of the 1930s is also in a sense a separate time, in that the Depression of that decade was the worst in American history and certainly stands alone in that regard. On the other hand, the isolationism of the 1930s harkens back to some extent to American isolationism of much of the 19^th century.

The point here is not to draw lines or declare beginning and end times. The point is that our history has twists and turns, beginnings and endings, and often history does repeat itself in fascinating and sometimes troublesome ways. In any case this last section of the book covers an era that changed the world in ways that would hardly have been imaginable at the dawn of the 20^th century, or even as the decade of the 20s began.