United States: history 1877–1918

For further details of black American history see slavery and civil‐rights movement.

For the history of the American colonies through to independence see America: colonial history to 1783. For the period from independence to the Civil War see United States: history 1783–1861. For the Civil War itself, and the period of Reconstruction, see United States: history 1861–77.

The post‐war presidents: Grant replaces Johnson
President Andrew Johnson's conciliatory policy to the South after the Civil War had led the Radical Republicans to seek his impeachment in 1868, which he survived by one vote; however, there was no chance of his renomination by either party.

In the presidential campaign in 1868 the Republicans chose the war hero Gen Ulysses S Grant, who defeated his Democratic opponent, Horatio Seymour of New York. Although his first term had been marked by scandals, in 1872 Grant was renominated by the Republicans. His second term was filled with more scandals than the first. Corruption in the administration reflected the unregulated freedom to pursue profit that the great US industrialists were allowing themselves.

The growth of big business and the opening of the West
The era of Reconstruction (1865–77) was the beginning of the ‘Gilded Age’, the era of big business, which in the years that followed produced John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J Pierpont Morgan, and others who controlled vast monopolistic enterprises. The control these ‘trusts’ had over markets led to considerable resentment among many sections of society, but attempts at reform such as the Sherman Anti‐Trust Act of 1890 were relatively unsuccessful. By the end of the century the USA had become the world's leading industrial power.

The industrialization of the country was made possible by the rapid building of railways after the Civil War had ended. The Union Pacific Railroad was completed in 1869, and the network soon spread over the whole continent. The West was opened up, and the pioneers were followed by the farmers. Westward expansion was accompanied by the forcible dispossession of the American Indian peoples, often involving fighting, and by 1887 most American Indians were confined to reservations.

Immigration, poverty, and labour
The disappearance of the ‘Wild West’ as an ever‐expanding frontier, the cultivation of the land, the development of industry, and, most significantly, immigration from Europe, all contributed in the second half of the century to the phenomenal growth of American cities. The population grew from 9.6 million in 1820 to 76 million by 1900; in New York City alone, the population grew from 61,000 in 1800 to 1.5 million in 1900. Before the Civil War, many immigrants came from Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia, but later in the 19th century there was a great influx of people from southern and eastern Europe, and most of these settled in the great cities of the northeast.

The extreme poverty of many of these immigrants was in stark contrast to the extreme wealth of the industrial elite. Labour in the factories was poorly paid, and slow to organize (see trade union, American Federation of Labor), and employers often used violent methods to break strikes. The USA was far behind many European countries in introducing legislation to protect workers, and even in the early years of the 20th century many children were working 12 or 14 hours a day in textile mills.

Presidents and politics in the later 19th century
The labour movement, the control of capitalistic enterprise, and the economics of agriculture formed the three major issues confronting successive presidents. In the succeeding years presidential elections turned principally upon the questions of tariffs, pensions, and the issue of whether there should be unlimited coinage of silver, advocated by various pressure groups as an economic cure‐all.

Grant's administration was followed by a run of three Republican presidents: Rutherford B Hayes (1877–81); James A Garfield (1881,assassinated 1881); and Chester A Arthur (1881–85). In 1884 Grover Cleveland was elected, the first Democratic president since the Civil War. In 1888 the Republican Benjamin Harrison defeated Cleveland when the latter ran for re‐election, but in 1892 Cleveland was again elected president. William McKinley, a Republican, became president in 1897. In the presidential election of 1900 McKinley was easily re‐elected, but on 6 September 1901 he was shot by an anarchist and died on 14 September.

The 1890s witnessed the rise and fall of the Populist (or People's) Party (see Populism) in the West and South, a radical agrarian protest against depressed prices, eastern monopolies, and conservative finance.

Further territorial expansion
Alaska had been purchased from Russia in 1867, and in 1898 Hawaii ceded itself to the USA. Following the war with Spain in 1898 the USA was to become a colonial power.

For years the people of Cuba had been in revolt against Spanish rule, and President Cleveland, following the Monroe Doctrine, had warned Spain that the USA could not look on calmly. In January 1898 he sent the battleship Maine to Havana to guard US interests in Cuba. On the night of 15 February the ship was blown up and 266 of her crew lost their lives. On 21 March a naval committee of inquiry reported that the tragedy was caused by the explosion of a submarine mine. The popular call for war was now more insistent, and on 25 April war was formally declared against Spain. For details of the war see Spanish‐American War.

The war ended with Cuba's nominal independence, but for decades afterwards the USA was to look upon Cuba as an American preserve. Following the war the USA also gained the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. In the Philippines US forces set about suppressing the Filipino nationalists, and in the course of the war (which lasted until 1901) some 200,000 Filipinos were killed.

Theodore Roosevelt and Progressivism
Following the assassination of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, who had been elected vice‐president, succeeded to the presidency. In 1904 he was elected president in his own right.

Roosevelt's accession marked the beginning of the Progressive era in American history. Progressivism was a largely middle‐class reform movement that touched most areas of the country, and made its most significant advances in urban and municipal areas. Aided by the sensational exposures of the ‘muck‐raking’ journalists, reformers set about confronting the worst evils of the cities. Although much remained to be done at the end of the period, the Progressive impulse had at least focused public attention for the first time upon the more glaring defects in US society, and thus paved the way for future reform movements in the 20th century.

In national politics Roosevelt achieved considerable success in promoting the Progressive spirit, although he produced few significant reforms. By such dramatic actions as his intervention in the 1902 anthracite strike (in which he enforced an arbitration agreement), Roosevelt sought to enlarge the power of the state and particularly of the executive itself. He also revived the Sherman Anti‐Trust Act, and used it successfully against a number of monopolistic business trusts. The main legislative enactments of Roosevelt's presidency were the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, and the Hepburn Act of the same year in the field of railroad regulation.

In foreign affairs, Roosevelt succeeded in obtaining rights to build the Panama Canal, and acquired the Panama Canal Zone for the USA ‘in perpetuity’ (1903), but only after the USA had assisted the secession of Panama from Colombia. The Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, establishing the USA as a police agent in the Western hemisphere, was the other significant development of this period.

In 1908, W H Taft was elected to succeed Roosevelt, but the latter was soon opposing the new president's administration, thus splitting the Republican Party. When the Republicans held their nominating convention in 1912 Taft was nominated. Thereupon Roosevelt formed his Bull Moose Party and ran as its candidate.

The Wilson era
Woodrow Wilson, who had been governor of New Jersey, was nominated by the Democrats to run for president in 1912. Largely because of the split in the Republican ranks, he won overwhelmingly. In his first term Congress passed the Underwood Act, which greatly lowered the tariffs; a finance bill, which took the control of the nation's finances out of the hands of Wall Street and placed it under the Federal Reserve Banks; and a bill placing the USA on an equality with foreign vessels in the matter of Panama Canal tolls. In 1916 Wilson was renominated and in the presidential election defeated Charles E Hughes, the Republican nominee.

When World War I broke out in 1914 Wilson first called upon the people to be neutral, and tried to maintain this isolationist stance. But with the return to unrestricted warfare on neutral shipping by German submarines in early 1917, the USA entered the war against Germany on 6 April 1917. The build‐up of US forces in Europe took some time, but the US army played a significant role in the final Allied offensives of 1918. In addition, the vast financial and industrial resources of the USA were major contributions to the Allied victory. (For more details of the USA's entry into the war, and its military role in it, see World War I.)

When the Peace Conference opened on 18 January 1919 Wilson broke all precedents by attending as head of the US delegation. The harsh draft treaty (see Versailles, Treaty of) did not meet with his approval, but he yielded because the Covenant of the League of Nations (which he himself had proposed in 1917) was interwoven with it, and he believed that these articles could mitigate the rest. He returned to advocate its adoption by the US Senate, but met increasing opposition, and was seriously ill and incapable of governing during his last year of office. The treaty was eventually rejected by the Senate. The USA never became a member of the League, and entered another long period of isolationism.

For US history after 1918 see United States: history 1918–45 and United States of America.