В) Исключительная личность в Американской истории. Джордж Вашингтон.
Среди героев Америки нет человека, равного Дж. Вашингтону(1732-99). Неутомимый и энергичный вождь, он казался гигантом даже среди той группы окружавших его людей, которых называют создателями и «отцами» США. По словам одного из его современников, Джордж Вашингтон был «первым на войне, первым в мирной жизни и первым в сердцах своих соотечественников.
Вашингтон стяжал бессмертие, сыграв в истории США три важных роли: он командовал Континентальной армией, которая в ходе революционной войны завоевала стране независимость от Великобритании; он был председателем Конвента, который в 1787 году выработал Конституцию США; он был избран первым президентом США и определил форму и стиль правления нового государства.
До 1775 г, когда Вашингтон был избран главнокомандующим Континентальной армией, он занимался главным образом управлением своего поместья в штате Вирджиния, Он также был членом Вирджинской ассамблеи – законодательного органа самоуправления в колонии. Еще ранее он был военным и во время войны с французами и индейскими племенами командовал Вирджинскими силами, находясь в подчинении британскому командованию. Историк и биограф Джемс Флекснер в предисловии к своей книге «Вашингтон - исключительная личность» пишет, что когда он начал изучать жизнь Вашингтона, перед ним предстал «человек, которому, как и другим, свойственно было ошибаться, человек из плоти и крови, сильный духом, а вовсе не мраморная статуя. Безусловно, он был и великим, и хорошим человеком. Во всей мировой истории немногие из обладающих такой властью так мудро и благоразумно пользовались ею на благо своих соотечественников.
|
|
|
4. Discussion problems:
1. The situation before the Revolution.
2. The significance of the American Revolution for the thirteen colonies that becаme Independent.
3. Historical personalities of the period.
PART IV. Formation of American Nation
Read and translate the following words and word-combinations:
Trappers political turmoil
to develop a distinctive identify to strike it rich
to endure a lot of hardships a fortune-seeker
on the grounds a corner-stone
the land-hungry pioneers to raise foodstuff to sell
to make a fortune tacitly
to repeal to offer antislavery credentials
to set up abolitionist societies to secede-secession
to give impetus to deny suffrage
martial law to endorse suffrage
under legislation to be intimidated
to pardon the rebels the plight
|
|
|
The Independence was extremely important for the formation of American state. The leaders of the new nation believed in their country’s uniqueness. The classical republican heritage of Greece and Rome provided a constant source of imitation. The names “president”, “Congress”, and “Senate” were derived from Latin roots. American writers, artists and architects revived neoclassical style. The capitol building in the newly - built republican center of Washington exemplified this style.
Establishment of a firm economic base was another aim of national development. Much attention was paid to the rapid growth in the production of many items such as tools, firearms, paper, cloth, iron and others. Iron manufacture in Pennsylvania became the basis of the industrial economy. The shortage of labor caused development of mechanization of the operations and the growth of machine technology. The construction of the first railroads was begun
Congress worked out a system of adding new states to the original 13 ones. It was decided that when the population of any area grew to 60 thousand this area could become a state Thus five new states were formed from North-west territory: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801 and began to look to the West of the continent to provide land for growing agrarian population. He foresaw the day when Americans would expand to the Pacific coast. In 1798 Spain granted Americans access to the Mississippi and to the port at New Orleans. In 1803 he bought 828,000 square miles (2, 144, 000 square kilometers) of French land west of the Mississippi. This deal became known as the Louisiana Purchase, which included the present-day states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota.
T. Jefferson also asked the USA Congress to allocate appropriate funds for the expedition to the Northwest and exploration of the Missouri River and its tributaries. In 1804, President Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore and map the territory, and to find a water route for boats from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. The explorers, guided by an Indian woman Sacagawea, traveled by boat and on horseback from the Mississippi River westward to Oregon and the Pacific Ocean.
|
|
|
In spite of the War of 1812 which the USA fought on the side of France against Britain the American government continued to take steps to expand the territory available for white settlement on the northern frontier. In 1817 federal government had Indian tribes in Ohio sell their lands and migrate farther west. In the following years many Indian nations, recognizing the futility of resistance, signed over their territories and left. White settlers rushed westward, and five new western states joined the Union. The US government encouraged people to settle in the territory of Oregon, so that it could claim the land as part of the United States.
The annexation of Texas (the 28-th American state) in 1845 brought ranching into American life. Americans moved across Indiana and Illinois and into the plains as trappers, traders and adventurers, acquiring herds of horses and cattle. This began the range cattle industry in Kansas and Nebraska, which supplied beef and fresh horses to immigrants going west, and also fed mining camps and railroad crews.
Fleeing from political turmoil or economic distress at home over 4 million immigrants entered the United States from the 1840s to1880s.The first organized group of American settlers came to California in 1841 .In 1848, after the end of the Mexican War; Mexico ceded California to its powerful neighbor. By mid-century the United States extended its power from the Atlantic to the Pacific, pushing aside all Indian nations and conquering its neighbors.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 set off the famous “Gold Rush”. “Gold Rush” or “Gold Fever”, dramatically described by famous American writer Jack London, occupies a special place in the USA history. The influence of it both on the region and on the whole nation was enormous. After the news about the gold in California had spread, over 80,000 Americans as well as thousands of foreigners streamed to the West with hope to get rich quickly Some of the new arrivals traveled to the port of San Francisco. Others traveled overland, enduring a lot of hardships. In the following seven years the influx of newcomers continued and by 1856 the state already numbered 300,000.Almost all of them tried to make their fortunes by mining gold and thousands of miners lived in camps separated from their loved ones, alone in vast and hostile wilderness. Very many of such fortune-seekers died because of difficult conditions and illnesses. Law and order were constantly broken down there. Even if a miner “struck it rich” (had success) there were always those who tried to take the gold away: gamblers, outlaws, thieves, and saloon keepers. 
|
|
|
Yet there were some who made fortune by selling goods to the miners. A German businessman Levi Strauss bought strong denim canvas and used it to make pants for the miners. Some people turned to agriculture and manufacturing in California. Farmers raised foodstuff to sell to the miners and settlers on their way west. Most of the farmers there were Mormons, who built new towns and grew corn and fruit on large irrigated fields of Southern California where the latest harvesting technology was used. The gold rush helped to change California from a frontier area into a state. In 1850 California became the31 American stat
The Civil War
While the nation was growing and developing, the situation with the Native Americans and black slaves was getting even more complex. The American Revolution gave great impetus to the movement to end slavery by granting freedom to those blacks who served in the armed forces. Following the American Revolution a number of states abolished slavery, and its opponents hoped that emancipation would gradually spread to other areas of the country. But although many northerners opposed slavery, most of them rejected immediate efforts to eradicate it. Age-old prejudices against the Indians and blacks prevented the “white” Americans from considering them as their equals and very many Americans still believed that blacks were basically more inferior than whites. Besides by the Constitution the issue about slavery was left in the hands of the State legislature and Federal Government had no right to abolish it. When Eli Whitney in 1793 invented the machine cleaning cotton of its seeds, the productivity of slave-labor in cotton-growing increased by 50 times and slavery came to be regarded as the mainstay economics in many Southern states. The increased importance of cotton for the South strengthened the hold of slavery in this region.
In 1820 by the Missouri Compromise Act slavery was tacitly allowed south of 36^30’ but not north of it, but a special Bill in 1854 virtually repealed the Missouri Compromise. The new Fugitive Law compelled the northerners to assist in capturing slaves who had escaped from their owners in the South
The new Republican Party, which sprang up in 1854, with Abraham Lincoln as one of its chief founders, demanded that slavery be kept within old boundaries set out in 1820. Tremendously important in awakening the nation’s consciousness was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852), 300 000 copies of which were sold within the first year and which was soon translated into dozens of foreign languages. Frederick Douglas’s autobiography, a poignant account of slave life, was also sold in numerous copies. Later Douglass edited his own newspaper, consistently urging militant action to bring about the abolition of slavery in the USA.
In 1854 the Republican Party became associated with the name of Abraham Lincoln. The revival of slave controversy stirred him deeply. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong”, he stated with the clarity and simplicity of expression for which he later became famous. He was convinced that America could not be divided and said “A home divided against himself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave, half free”.
In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the USA. “Honest Abe”, was a shrewd politician and a person of strong principles who offered good antislavery credentials. His votes were drawn only from the Northern States. A few days after A. Lincoln’s election the South Carolina convention voted for secession. By February 1861 many other southern states: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas followed the lead. In February the congress of seceded states formed the Confederate States of America and announced slavery as the corner – stone of their constitution.
In April 1861 the civil war between the North and the South actually began. Although abolition of slavery was to be one of its problems, the war was fought not only to destroy slavery but first of all to preserve the union. When the Civil war broke out, the North could expect an easy victory. It had superiority in material resources and more than double the population of the South (20.7 million against 9 million, of which 3,5 were blacks).On the other hand, the South was in some respects very favorably placed for resisting invasion from the North. The country abounded in strong positions for defense, which could be held by a relatively small force while the northerners had to advance long distances, thus exposing their lines of communication to attack. As soldiers, the Southerners started with certain superiority for most of them were accustomed to fighting as a normal and suitable occupation for men. Besides among their leaders there were two men of great military talent – generals Jackson and Lee, while the Northerners lacked such brilliant officers. During the first stages of the war the Union Armies had a lot of failures. But Lincoln himself read books on strategy, scanned military maps, and outlined plans of campaigns. And his determination soon began to be widely felt and appreciated by common people. The belief that he could be trusted spread quickly and at the end the Northern army acted as an emancipating crusade.
Lincoln’s greatness of mind and heart were unexcelled. In his famous Gettysburg Address (1863) Lincoln made public his great plans of reconstructing the country on a new, more democratic basis: “The great task remains before us – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
. Since 1862 the blacks were allowed to join the Northern army and by the end of the war one Northern soldier in eight was black. commanded by white officers. Soon the segregated troops proved themselves in battle: 38,000 were killed, a rate of loss 40 times higher than among white troops.
In the summer of 1863 General Grant of the North won several decisive battles and cut Tennessee and Arkansas. In a series of fierce battles he lost 60,000 but gained his objectives, destroying everything on its way that might help the Southerners continue the fight.
In 1864 Abraham Lincoln was unanimously renominated President. He gave the closest attention to the final military phase of the war, visiting the army. .On April 3, 1865, Grant and Lee had to recognize the futility of further resistance. The confederate soldiers laid down their arms and were allowed to return to their homes in peace.
The war lasted four years and cost the nation 600,000 lives but the concept of an indissoluble union won universal acceptance. A more technically advanced and productive economic system resulted from the war.
The war forced the Government to proclaim emancipation for slave-soldiers fighting for the Union. In 1865 it was followed by the antislavery amendment to the Constitution making slavery illegal throughout the whole country. Lincoln’s part in this matter was undoubtedly central and the liberation of American slaves will be always associated with his name.
On April 14, 1865 during a theatrical performance in Washington, Lincoln was lethally wounded by a southern conspirator John Booth and early next morning he died. The feat of Abraham Lincoln’s life is best summed up in the following lines from the poem by Walt Whitman dedicated to the memory of this great American:
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip be done,
The ship has weathered every rock; the prize we sought is won.
Shortly before his death, the president endorsed suffrage for “very intelligent” blacks and former black soldiers in the Union army. After Lincoln’s assassination Presidend Andrew Johnson continued Lincoln’s moderate policies. The !4PthP Amendment, defining national citizenship so as to include blacks, was passed by Congress in 1866 and was ratified despite rejection of most Southern states.
That Northern victory launched the era of Congressional Reconstruction which lasted 10 years starting with the Reconstruction Acts of 1867.Under that legislation the 11 Confederate states were readmitted to the Union and had to accept the 14-th and later the 15PthP Constitutional Amendments, intended to ensure the civil rights of the black freedmen.
At first Reconstruction of the Union seemed to hold many promises for Black men and women in the South, who were allowed to leave their former owners and move to other states. But in reality the Northern efforts brought few serious changes in the status of black people. The laws did not guarantee any social rights of the Blacks. They did not require redistribution of land or wealth and power and only temporarily interrupted white supremacy in the South. Without land and property black freedmen again became dependent on white landowners and worked for them as tenants. Harsh labor-contract laws, imprisonment for minor crimes, work under deplorable conditions for coal, lumber, or railroad-building corporations left most blacks in situation slightly improved from slavery. The political rights of Black people were not secured either. Under the free interpretation of the 15PthP amendment the freedmen were actually denied suffrage on the grounds that they lacked education and property.
At the same time the white opposition to the Reconstruction in the Southern states was growing. In 1869 the racist organization Ku-Klux-Klan added violence to the whites’ resistance. Despite federal efforts to protect black people, they were intimidated at the polls, robbed of their earnings, beaten, or murdered. The Klan’s purpose was not only economic (to keep the slavery) but also openly political and social, as Klansmen also attacked white philanthropists and schoolteachers who openly showed their support of the Black people. None who helped to raise the status of the blacks was safe.
The K.K.K’s actions moved Congress in 1871 to pass two Force acts directed against its violence. These acts permitted the use of martial law against the Klansmen, but for a long time proved unsuccessful in combating the Klan’s activities. In 1870s the failure of the Reconstruction became apparent. American reform movements achieved only partial success.
When in 1872 the Amnesty Act was adopted which amnestied the white rebels, terrorism against blacks even widened. Between 1874 and 1876 a series of “race riots” swept across the South. Nighttime visits; whippings, and murder became common phenomena. After that thousands of blacks started migrating to the North, first to Kansas City and then farther North. Thus the nation ended over 16 years of bloody war without establishing real freedom for Black Americans.
The Indian Policy
The plight of the Indian population was even worse. The land-hungry American pioneers stopped at nothing in their drive to the West. In 1830 the Indian Removal Act was passed. The terrible implementation of this Act produced one of the darkest chapters in American history. The story of treaties and broken agreements, raids and massacres, was repeated in the settlement of the trans-Mississippi West and the Northwest.
The period after the Civil War was the period of the reservation policy. The blocks of land where Indians were forced to live were usually the poorest barren places where nobody else wanted to live. Extermination of the buffalo herds eventually led to destruction of the traditional Indian life as they had always lived on the buffalo hunt, and their ritual and worship had been dedicated to its success. The disappearance of the buffalo left the Indians starving, purposeless and hopeless.
By the 20-th century poverty, perpetual hunger, European diseases and hostilities had reduced the Indian population in reservations to only 250000.The Indian civilization was facing extinction. Indians were not allowed to keep their traditional culture, dances, religion and language.
Answer the questions.
1. What was the situation with Indians and black slaves in the USA after the Revolution?
2. Were Indians and Blacks granted Civil rights?
3. Why did the abolition issue become particularly stressful in the 1850?
4. How did the southerners regard slavery?
5. How did the secession process develop?
6. What was Abraham Lincoln attitude to slavery?
7. How did the Civil War actually start?
8. How long did the war last?
9. Were the black slaves liberated immediately after the Civil War? What instruments were designed by Southern whites to terrorize blacks?
10.What were the activities of the K. K. K.?
11.Why did black Americans fail to achieve real equality during the term of reconstruction?
2. Render the texts in English:
A).Завоевание независимости было лишь первым шагом, облегчавшим путь к модернизации. Прошло лишь несколько десятилетий после американской революции, как появилась новая проблема, грозившая стране разрушением государственного единства или отходом от завоеваний демократии. Эту проблему создавало растущее противоречие между городским, индустриальным, демократическим Севером и Югом, который по-прежнему оставался рабовладельческим и сельскохозяйственным. После революции многие политические деятели, в том числе и Дж. Вашингтон, думали, что рабство, запрещенное в северных штатах, постепенно, само собой будет исчезать и на Юге. Однако ход событий был совсем иным.
Выращивание хлопка, сахарного тростника и табака на рынок требовали организованного труда большого количества людей. По мере того, как США расширяли свои границы, присоединяя или осваивая новые территории, Юг поднимал вопрос о распространении рабства на вновь образовавшиеся штаты. Между Севером и Югом вспыхивали острые конфликты из-за штатов Миссури, Канзас, Нью-Мексико. Постепенно все более реальной становилась возможность политического отделения южных штатов. В апреле 1861 г. южные рабовладельческие штаты подняли мятеж (апрель 1861 г.) с целью сохранения рабства и распространения его по всей стране.
В) Приход к власти А. Линкольна – непримиримого противника рабства и тем более его распространения на новые территории – ознаменовал начало давно назревавшей гражданской войны. Военные действия длились с 1861 по 1865 г. и нанесли стране огромный урон. Помимо людских потерь были и потери экономические. Некоторые города (Колумбия, Ричмонд, Атланта) были сожжены до основания, многие заводы и железные дороги разрушены. На первом этапе (1861-1862 гг.) война со стороны Севера велась нерешительно, “по конституционному”, что привело к ряду военных поражений северян. Второй этап характеризуется революционными методами ведения войны с участием широких народных масс. В 1864-1865 гг. были разгромлены основные силы южан и в апреле 1865 г. взят город Ричмонд – столица рабовладельческих штатов. Победа Севера сохранила страну как единое государство. Она уничтожила господство плантаторов и рабство (официально отменено 1 января 1863 г.) и создала условия для капиталистической индустриализации и освоения западных земель. На большой части территории США победил фермерский (так называемый американский) путь развития капитализма в сельском хозяйстве. Однако взаимная ненависть на долгие годы разъединяла южан и северян. Гражданская война не принесла действительной свободы черным рабам, освобожденным без земли. По стране бродили тысячи бывших невольников, потерявших хозяев и привычное место работы.
В) Индейцы в Америке. В течение двух веков американское правительство вело настоящую войну против “краснокожих”, виноватых только в том, что они занимали прекрасные плодородные земли. Это была долгая кровопролитная война, исход которой был предрешен. Силой и обманом индейцев заставляли подписывать договоры о капитуляции и под вооруженным конвоем отправляли в резервации, на самые бесплодные, не пригодные для жизни человека территории. Это было сознательная политика “расчистки” нового континента от его хозяев.
3. Discussion Points:
I.The main reasons of the Civil War.
2.The abolition of slavery.
3.Abraham Lincoln and his Contribution to American history.
Chapter II. Years of Growth
H 1896 Ford Quadricycle
Read and translate the words and word combinations:
backwater slums
A slaughter house to streamline
obliterate installment plan
to be plagued thugs
to succumb(syn. submit, relent) military conscription act
to work at full swing to clang (clangorous)
to pay the way desegregation
unscrupulous incipient
to put down the riot a dismal failure
to pave the way relocation policy
After the end of the Civil War the United States continued the acquisition of the new territories. The United States acted like an imperial nation, gathering and settling new territories, pushing aside those who stood in its path. In 1867 the United States bought Alaska from Russia, later Spain gave most of its oversea empire to the USA – Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and a small Pacific island Guam. At the same time the USA also annexed Hawaii - a group of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Having started as a colonial country, the USA quickly became a colonial power herself.
In the early 1900s the American government wanted to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama to join North and South America and separates the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean. As the Columbian government was slow to give the Americans permission to build the canal, in 1903 president Theodore Roosevelt sent warships to Panama. The warships helped a small group of Panamanian businessmen to rebel against the Columbian government and to give the Americans Control over a ten-and-a-half-mile wide strip of land called the Canal Zone.
Parallel to the acquisition of the oversea lands the USA continued the settlements of North American territories. After the “Gold Rush» in California gold and silver were also discovered in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona, Wyoming and Dakota. Some former mining settlements grew into permanent communities. New towns sprang up throughout the gold and silver regions.
Within twenty-five years after the end of the Civil War the Great Plains were divided into States and territories of the USA. Ranchers were feeding large herds of cattle on the “sea of grass”; farmers were using the latest harvesting technology on the large irrigated fields of “Great American Desert” to grow wheat. By 1890 the separate areas of settlement on the Pacific Coast and along the Mississippi River had moved together and the wilderness had been largely conquered.
In the 1880s great Mesabi deposits of iron were found near lake Superior. Soon the Mesabi became one of the largest producers of iron ore in the world. Besides iron at that time a great amount of coal was being extracted in the USA. Iron and coal were used to make steel for the railroads, locomotive, freight wagons and passenger cars. The first railroad finished in 1869 and was quickly joined by others. By 1884 four more major transcontinental lines had crossed the continent to link the Atlantic with the Pacific Coasts. New towns appeared along the railroads. By 1890 the industries of USA were earning the country more than its farmlands. Within a few decades after the civil war the USA transformed from an undeveloped backwater into a primary world power..
By 1913 more than one third of the whole world’s industrial production had been originated from the mines and factories of the USA. The growth of American industry was organized and controlled by the number of powerful businessmen like Andrew Carnegie, the owner of the giant Carneqie steel corporation and D. Rockfeller, the “king” of the growing oil industry. As the corporations grew bigger and more powerful, they often became “trusts”. By the early 20-century the trusts had controlled large parts of American industry. The biggest trusts were richer than most other nations. By their wealth and power - and especially their power to decide wages and prices - they controlled the lives of millions of people.
The United States was created as a land of equal opportunities to everyone. Yet half the American people had hardly enough finance to buy sufficient food and clothing. In the industrial cities of the North, such as Chicago and Pittsburgh, immigrant workers still labored long hours for low wages in steel mills, factories and slaughter houses. The workers’ homes were over-crowded slums. In the South thousands of poor farmers, both black and white, worked from sunrise to sunset to earn barely enough to live on.
The handful of rich and powerful men bribed politicians to pass laws, which favored them. Others hired private armies to crush any attempts by their workers to obtain better conditions. Their attitude to the rights of other people was summed up in a famous remark of the railroad “king” William H. Vanderbilt. When he was asked whether he thought that railroads should be run in the public interest, “The public be damned” he replied.
Progressive Americans were alarmed by the power of the trusts and the contemptuous way in which leaders of industry like Vanderbilt rejected the criticism. In the early years of the twentieth century a stream of books and magazine articles drew people’s attention to a large
number of national problems. Novelists like Mark Twain and Henry James analyzed the impact of wealth and ambition on social life. Herbert G. Wells in his novel “The War in the Air”(1908) sharply criticized “ the unprecedental multitudousness of the thing, the inhuman force of it all…” He wrote: “I see it, the vast rich various continent, the gigantic process of development, the acquisitive successes, the striving failures, the multitudes of those rising and falling who come between, all set in a texture of spacious countryside, of clangorous towns that bristle to the skies, of great exploitation, of district and crowded factories, of wide deserts and mine-torn mountains, and huge half-tamed rivers”.
The Progressive movement found a leader in the Republican Theodore Roosevelt T. Roosevelt who became president in 1901 got particularly concerned about the power of the trusts. His idea was to give the USA the best of both worlds. He wanted to allow the businessmen enough freedom of action to make their firms efficient and prosperous, but at the same time to prevent them from taking unfair advantage of other people (the policy of so-called “square deal». However the “square deal” of Roosevelt’s administration (1901-1909) failed to bring the trusts under control.
President Woodrow Wilson who won the presidential elections in 1912 started his policy “The New Freedom». One of Wilson’s first steps was to reduce the powers of the trusts, give more rights to labor unions and make it easier for farmers to borrow money from the federal government to work their land.
The Progressive movement changed and improved American life in many ways, but did not help unemployed or unprivileged very much. The ideals of equal opportunity, proclaimed in the USA, were often denied to Americans who were non-white. Millions of the Blacks still lived in great poverty. Most of them still lived in Southern farms. In cities they lived in so-called “black ghettos”, because many whites resented their moving into white neighborhoods.
The First World War and the Roaring Twenties.
The World War 1 contributed to the USA to become even more powerful. While the war started on the continent of Europe, brought death and sufferings to millions of European people, the USA, physically untouched by combat and greatly enriched by wartime profits, quickly became the main supplier of weapon and capital to the countries of the Anti-German allies. The entire railroad system came under government supervision, the demand for industrial production grew fast. Guns, ships, shells, and other essential goods were made for the war.
When in May 1919 the Versailles Peace Treaty was signed in Europe, the USA met it as the country with a primary world economy, with enormous productive capacity and extensive markets for manufactured goods. Having less than 10% of the world’s population, the USA produced about 25% of the world’s goods and more than 40% of the world manufacture. Business boomed. Automobiles and trucks transformed the life of the nation. Airplanes, used during the war, were now geared to peacetime purposes. Chemical and electrical processes, together with light machinery made of alloyed metals, were changing the character of factories. Mass production proved itself in building ships and airplane motors. Electricity also speeded the revolution in production: in 1914 some 30% of manufacturing was electrified, in 1929 70% of all factories benefited from the power sources. In the field of finance, New York began to replace London as the hub of the world’s finance market.
Businessmen became popular heroes in the 1920s.There were widespread beliefs in the USA that individuals were responsible for their own life success, and that unemployment or poverty were the result of personal failings. The newspaper and magazine writers maintained that although not all Americans could become rich, at least middle-class Americans ought to be rich.
Journalist L .Allen wrote that at that time “business had become almost the national religion of America”. Men like automobile-maker Henry Ford, steel industry owner Andrew Carnegie, oil and finance tycoon Rockefeller, George Pullman, W. Colgate, Procter and Gamble and others were widely admired as the creators of nation’s prosperity, the models of so-called “American Dream.” In 1913 Ford began using interchangeable parts and assembly-line method in his plant. By 1920 the half of the cars produced in the world were his cars, by 1930 there were over 26.7 million cars, registered in the USA. Cars in America became the “family horses, used for more than commuting to work or driving for leisure. The automobile revolution started the consumer revolution. Appliances-radios, telephones, electric refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners led the parade. The consumer boom stimulated advertising. Americans had to be convinced to spend their money, to buy all-electric kitchen, “to keep up with the Joneses” (to live better than the neighbors). “Live now, pay tomorrow” was the general motto. Incredible number of Americans began to buy goods on the installment plan (monthly payments). Thousands of Americans invested money in successful firms so that they could share their profits. There was also an orgy of speculation in real estate and stocks, buying and selling shares - “playing the market” became a national hobby and a sort of fever. Many Americans borrowed the large sums of money from the banks to buy shares on credit and to get “easy money” on selling them later “on the margin” (a higher price).
The first two decades of the 20PthP century came into American history not only as the years of industrial and manufacturing boom. On the surface it seemed that prosperity would continue forever but below the surface there were already a lot of troubles. Bank debts were mounting. Low wages of most workers led to underconsumption. Excessive industrial profits and low industrial wages distributed one third of all personal income to only 5% of the population. The agricultural sector was also plagued with overproduction.
One of the serious problems of the 20s was the terrible growth of crime. “The Roaring Twenties” was the general name which many historians called that time. After adoption of the 18PthP Amendment to the USA Constitution, prohibiting selling of alcoholic drinks, so-called “speakeasies” (illegal bars) were opened in basements and backrooms all over the country. The drinks were obtained from criminals, united in gangs or mobs, called “bootleggers”. One of the best-known mobs worked in Chicago. It was led by the gangster “Scarface” Al Capone, who turned into the great celebrities of the 1920s. His income was over 100 million dollars a year. He had a private army of nearly a thousand thugs and was the real ruler of Chicago. Competition between rival mobs sometimes caused bloody street wars, fought out with armored cars and machine guns. The winners of the gangster wars became so powerful that they bribed police and other public officers. Organized crime opened the way for the new kind of American business. And American newspaper headlines and crime stories bespeak America’s fascination with these new celebrities. , Americans loved energetic people who got ah
Depression and the Policy of New Deal
In October 1924 stock prices dropped dramatically. The nation succumbed to panic. The money crash unlashed a devastating depression. Between 1929 and 1933 the shock of the depression was felt in all areas of American life. Distress influenced such industries like coal, railroads, construction and textiles. By the end of 1931 nearly eight million Americans were out of work, but unlike unemployed British or German workers in Europe they received no government unemployment pay. Millions spent hours shuffling slowly forward in “breadlines» where they received free pieces of bread or bowls of soup, paid for by the money collected from those who could afford charity.
By 1932 the situation became still harder. Thousand of banks and over 100000 businesses had closed down. Industrial production had fallen down by half and wage payments by 60%. Twelve million people, one out of every four of the country’s workers, were unemployed. The factories were silent, shops and banks closed. With the number of people out of work rising day by day, farmers could not sell their produce. In despair some of them banded together. Some paraded together with the workers in angry demonstrations, demanding that President Hoover (1929-33) take strong action against depression. Hoover who strongly believed in market economy said that he could do two things to end the Depression: to balance the budget and to restore businessmen’s confidence in the future. Time and time again in the early 1930s Hoover told people that recovery from the Depression was “just around the corner”. But the factories remained closed and the breadlines grew longer.
A change took place with the election of Franklin D.Roosevelt as president in1933. Although Roosevelt was crippled by polio he was energetic and determined to care for the welfare of ordinary people. Roosevelt’s main idea was that the federal government should take the lead in the fight against the Depression. His program, which he called The New Deal 15 major, consisted of a number of legislative measures. At first Roosevelt took active steps to stabilize banking. He also put right agricultural production by paying subsidies to farmers and introduced a system of regulated prices for corn, cotton, wheat, rice and diary products. Believing that his most urgent task was to give employment to the American people, he proposed a plan for public works and relief payments to the needed citizens. Roosevelt was especially anxious about the young people. The Civilian Conservation Corps found work for many young people. Part-time employment was provided for students who were invited to build roads and construct hospitals and schools. Roosevelt’s New deal program financed the painting of murals and the staging of plays. Writers were paid to write guidebooks and regional ethnic. In 1935 the Act was passed that granted workers the right to unionize and bargain collectively. New trade unions were organized.
During his first term Franklin Roosevelt did not manage to fight unemployment and solve some other tasks completely As a result of all his measures unemployment dropped from 13 million people in 1933 to 9 million in 1936, but there were still over four million jobless people in the country and there was no real increase in the life of Afro-Americans, Indians and other minorities. The nation was still plagued by under consumption.
Ultimately it was the Second World War that put the American people back to work.
The Second World War and the USA
When the Second World War broke out in 1939 F. Roosevelt, who had been reelected for the second term, persuaded the USA Congress to approve the first peacetime military conscription act in the USA history and later to accept his Lend Lease Plan. The USA quickly became the main supplier of weapons and other goods to the countries fighting Hitler Germany. American factories began working at full swing again. The unemployment practically ended.
In 1941 after Japanese warplanes bombed, sank and badly damaged 8 American battleships in American base Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), killing over 2000 men, the USA declared war against Germany and Japan. They joined the countries of anti-Hitler coalition (The Soviet Union and Britain).
The USA government organized the whole American economy towards winning the war. “Old Dr. New Deal has to be replaced by Dr. Win-the-War”, said. Roosevelt. Controls on wages and prices were placed, and high income taxes were introduced. Gasoline and some foods were rationed. Factories stopped producing consumer goods such as cars and washing machines, and started making tanks, bombers and other war supplies. The USA war production became six times greater than the military output before the war. The overall effect of the war was a positive one for the economy in general and the business community in particular.
In November 1942 Combined British and American forces landed in North Africa, defeating the German general Rommel’s Africa Corps. 1943 they invaded Sicily, the mainland of Italy and months of bitter fighting freed Rome from German control.
At Tehran conference (Iran, 1943) Stalin met Roosevelt and Churchill to coordinate their military plans with the Allied cross-channel invasion. In 1944 the Allied troops opened so-called The Second Front in Europe and after hard fighting occupied France and liberated Paris. In September Allied forces crossed Germany western border. On the 25Pth Pof April the remarkable event took place – British and American soldiers met advancing Soviet troops on the banks of the River Elbe in the middle of Germany. In five days Hitler committed a suicide. German soldiers everywhere laid down their weapons and on the 5PthP of May 1945, Germany surrendered.
The final details of the war and plans for the postwar world were hammered out at the Yalta Conference in the Crimea in 1945. Russia was to become the guardian of the nations of Eastern Europe. Defeated Germany was to be divided into four zones of military occupation, and a conference was to be convened in San Francisco on April 25 to create the United Nations Organization and formulate its Charter.
Roosevelt left Yalta physically weak but pleased that he had brought Allied unity. Nine weeks after Yalta conference he had a stroke and died. His Vice President Harry Truman came into office. Truman participated with Stalin and Churchill in the final meeting at Potsdam, from which two declarations were issued. One of them confirmed the occupation zones in Germany and settled the reparation issue.
The second was an unconditional surrender ultimatum to Japan. In 1945 American bombers made devastating raids on Japanese cities. In June the island of Okinawa fell to the Americans. On August 6 an American bomber dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A few days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Both cities were devastated and nearly 2000000 civilians were killed. Even the scientists who had been working on the bomb were shocked by the result. On August 14 the Japanese government surrendered. The Second World War was over.
The Cold War and the McCarthy Witch Hunts
The Cold War was an ideological struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States over control of the world. Americans was the only nation in the world that the Second World War had made better off. Their homes had not been bombed or their land fought over like the homes and land of the Russian people. Busy wartime factories had given them good wages. Americans became the most prosperous people in the world. But despite economic prosperity during the years under president Truman (1945-53) and then president Eisenhower (1953-61) there was a constant anxiety in America and fear of the Russian influence on the afterward world. After two unpleasant surprises – the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb and the creation of communist China – a wave of panic swept across the USA. Due to the terrible propaganda some Americans started to see communist plots everywhere. When in 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea their fears became even stronger. An ambitious and unscrupulous politician McCarthy tried to use these fears to win fame and power for himself. He started the campaign that came into American history with the name a “Witch Hunt” – a search for people he could blame for supposed threats to the United States. For over five years, from early 1950s till the mid 50s McCarthy launched the serial of “hearings”, accusing a lot of people – government officials, scientists, and famous entertainers – of secretly working for the Soviet Union. He never gave proofs, but Americans were so much frightened by the threat of communism that many believed his accusations. They were afraid to give jobs or even to show friendship to anyone “suspected” in “Soviet sympathy”. In 1957 McCarthy died, but so-called McCarthyism did serious damage to the relations between the countries.
In 1961 a new President John F. Kennedy (1961-3) was elected, the most progressive president since A. Lincoln and F. Roosevelt. He was young, had a good education, energy and keen, quick wit. The unfulfilled promise of Kennedy’s thousand days in office is nearly impossible to measure. He told American people that they were facing a “new frontier” with both opportunities and problems. He announced policy of fighting poverty and giving civil rights to black people. He streamlined and pushed through the space program and new laws for pollution treatment, but his main merit was his foreign policy.
When J. Kennedy came to the office, foreign problems were numerous. Soviet Union power was growing and relations between two superpowers were as cold as ever. The incipient nations of Africa were rebellious. Fidel Castro had taken control of Cuba. Unrest was evident in all Latin America. Kennedy’s first two innovations – the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress – captured the imagination of much of the world. The Peace Corps sent thousands of young Americans abroad to assist underdeveloped countries. The Alliance for Progress was designed as a broad assault upon the economic and social problems of Latin America.
In June 1961 a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles supported by the CIA attempted an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Although the attempt was a dismal failure, the Soviet Union tried to install Soviet mediation-range ballistic missiles and bombers in Cuba. Kennedy met the Soviet Union challenge and displayed great mind in dealing with what was probably the most serious confrontation of the Cold War era. He gave the promise not to invade Cuba. The leader of the Soviet Union Nikita.Khrushchev also promised to recall the weapons from Cuba. The two leaders succeeded in setting up a “Hot Line” to facilitate a quick exchange of views in case of major crises, and in signing a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that halted surface atmospheric and outer space testing. While Kennedy was president he frequently said: “All I want them to say about me is what they said about John Adams, “He kept the peace”. In the speech he had intended to give in Dallas on November 22,1963, the day of his assassination, Kennedy declared: “We ask…that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of ”peace on earth, goodwill toward men”. Kennedy’s sensible policy not only reduced the tension between the two but also started the policy of so-called “détente”.
Even the long and bloody war in Vietnam (1965-73), finished by the victory of the latter, was not allowed to interfere into it. In May 1972 President Nixon flew to Moscow to sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) with the Soviet Union. The idea of SALT was to slow down the arms race as well as to make war between them less likely. When the Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan in 1979 American Congress refused to renew the SALT agreement.Both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to develop new, more deadly nuclear missiles and in the early 1980s détente looked dead. In the middle of the 1980s American military strength was increased so much that president Reagan realized the necessity to slow down the race M. Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985 in the USSR, also believed that the huge cost of the arms race was crippling the Soviet Union economy. In 1987 Gorbachev and Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty. According to the treaty both countries agreed to destroy all their land-based medium and shorter-range nuclear missiles within 3 years. A hope was born that a new time of peaceful cooperation between the SU and the USA might be possible now. “I believe that future generations will look back to this time and see it as a turning point in world history. We are not in a cod war now” the British prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1988 .
Afro-Americans after the World War II
World War II paved the way for change in the he area of civil rights. In 1946 president Truman created a President’s Committee to investigate the status of civil rights in America and recommend their improvements. In 1947 the committee called for changes in lynch laws, voting laws, for elimination of discrimination in the armed forces and in the federal civil service through the creation of the Fair Employment board. A lot of cases were passed to the Supreme Court. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of children in public schools on the basis of race as unconstitutional. After the decision had been given, the question appeared how the nation, and particularly the Southern population, would respond to it
Under President D. Eisenhower desegregation made progress. But in the Deep South resistance to it began even to harden. White Citizen’s groups were created, and the Ku Klux Klan was revived. In 1956 nineteen Southern senators issued a “Manifesto” against “forced integration”. Economic reprisals were taken against blacks and the progressive organizations were under constant fire. The first open official resistance occurred in Little Rock (Arkansas), when the school board approved of a plan to admit a few black students to central High all-white school. The night before the opening of the school the governor of Arkansas appeared on television to announce that he was strongly against the plan. In 1963 President Kennedy had to dispatch regular army troops to Oxford, Mississippi, to put down a riot when black James Meredith tried to be enrolled as a university student. “ It ought to be possible for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed by troops”,- the president commented.. By 1964 only 1.17% of all black students were attending schools with white pupils. Schools for black students were usually much inferior to schools in middle-class neighborhoods
On December 1, 1955 black woman Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Alabama and sat down in the free whites-only section, as she was very much tired. Whites and the bus driver began to threaten her, but she did not move. Her arrest proved to be the catalyst for a new black protest movement. Under the leadership of Baptist clergyman Martin Luther King, Montgomery blacks formed the Improvement Association, boycotted the bus lines, and referred their case to the state court and then to the Supreme Court. Seventy-five percent of the black population walked to work. Both the District court and Supreme Court ruled that segregated busing was unconstitutional. The movement propelled King into a position of national prominence and led to the organization of a regional group called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SCLC, a group of one hundred southern clergymen of the beliefs that churches and church leaders must assume civil rights. From the beginning its emphasis was on nonviolence, and its guiding light was Dr. Martin Luther King. The organization was active in the areas of voter registration, protests, and citizenship. Although SCLC preached nonviolence, blacks were beaten, set upon by police dogs, and hit with water from high-pressure water hoses. Still the brutal treatment of black demonstrators shown by national television little by little stirred the nation’s conscience. More and more whites became convinced that it was time for the blacks to achieve equality.
Martin Luther King was primarily responsible for the March on Washington in 1963 for Jobs and Freedom – the largest civil rights rally in American history. Over 250000 blacks and whites gathered to ask the president for a federal fair employment practice. They also demanded new civil rights legislation. The protests of the 1950s, the March on Washington, Birmingham, and the consciences of white Americans climaxed in a monumental Civil Rights Act in 1964, claiming the discrimination based on race or sex in all public facilities and in all areas of interstate commerce as illegal. The Voting Rights Act abolished the number of discriminating devices and provided protection for persons seeking the right to vote.
From 1965 to 1968 King’s direction was a much more northerly one. He became involved in peace movements against the Vietnamese War and in better housing conditions for blacks in northern ghettos. King’s leadership cannot be overestimated. He was the driving force of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the apostle of nonviolent protest. He viewed the world in terms of a brotherhood of people and accomplished so much more than black leaders before him. King never lived to see whether his “dream” would be realized. . His life was cut short by his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee
Black Americans began to play a much greater role in American society. The black middle class has appeared. The struggle was long and hard, but blacks have gained more positions of power and prestige than ever before in politics, in the media, in police, in justice, in education, in sports and offer a lot of promise. The slogan “black is beautiful” today has taken on a new meaning In Virginia, Douglas Wilder became the nation’s first elected black governor. When the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, there were only 300 black elected officials, now there are more than 7000.Emanuel Cleaver was elected mayor of Kansas City – a city where only one of four votes is black. General Colin Powell rose to prominence during the Gulf War and was invited to Bush administration later to the position of State Secretary. He was changed by black woman Conzolesa Right. The climax – the election of the first black President Barack Obama at the end of 1908.Barack Obama’s trip to Moscow in June, 2009 was an impressive diplomatic performance to shift the orientation of U.S.-Russia relations fro the past to the future.
. The American Indian Today
During World War II approximately 25 thousand Indians served in the armed forces, the majority as enlisted men in the army. Many were awarded for bravery. Because of increased contact with the white world, some Indians preferred the white man’s ways and were assimilated. Many others returned to the reservations. Those who remained in white society lived in two worlds with two cultures.
After World War 11 under the Eisenhower administration in 1953 some measures were taken to accelerate assimilation and destroy remaining Indian culture, which provided a real threat to the tribes. So-called “relocation” policy was implemented. Many Indians were screened, and those judged best suited to survive in the cities were chosen in the reservations.” Relocation Centers” exist in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix, and Minneapolis. Some Indians were successfully relocated and started to live in the white urban world. Others returned to the reservations or remained jobless and homeless in the city.
However, not all postwar policies were so disastrous. In 1946 an Indian Claims Commission was established to make amendments for breaking of some 400 treaties made in colonial days. It gave permission to the Indian, whose number is now about two million, to sue the government for adjusted compensation for lands or other properties taken from them as the result of broken treaties. Under President Kennedy the government perused new programs of education, vocational training, housing, and economic development. The health of the Indian people was taken over by the US Public Health Service.
Under President Johnson the Indian R. Bennett was made Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The anti-poverty program of the Office of Economic Opportunity made it possible for Indians to administer their own programs on a limited basis.
The modern Indians are on the move, and their national conscience has again been aroused. The National Congress of the American Indians and the National Indian Youth Council are trying to head a movement toward Indian nationalist protest. Meanwhile President Reagan and futher administrations attempted to develop a successful business attitude to reservations and at the same time implement welfare and program budget cuts. A plan is being debated to place more self-determine-nation in Indian hands and less reliance on the government.
Some books devoted to Indians’ plight were published. Dee Brown’s book “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” became a bestseller. While the movies such as “Soldier Blue”, “A Man Called Horse” and “Little Big Man” portrayed Indian perspectives sympathetically, the movies “Little Big Man”, “Powwow Highway” and “Dances with Wolves” went a long way toward changing the usual Hollywood stereotypes of Indians
Answer the questions.
1.What factors have contributed to the USA becoming the leading economic nation?
2.What role did tycoons play in American society?
3.Why were measures taken to control big business?
4.What were the main causes of the Great Depression?
5.Why were the World Wars so beneficial for the USA?
6.What were the main reasons of the “witch-hunt” of the 50s in the 20PthP century?
7.What is the role of John Kennedy in the détente?
8.What measures were taken by the Federal Administrations for desegregation of Black Americans after World War II ?
9.What is the role of Martin Luther King in the civil right movement of Black Americans?
10.What is the situation of Indians now?
2. Render the texts in English:
A) Победа северных штатов и модернизации во время гражданской войны принесли свои плоды. США получили стимул для мощного рывка вперед. За10 лет, с 1860 по 1870 г, число промышленных предприятий выросло на 80%, а общая стоимость продукции – на 100%; за это время было проложено 20 тыс. км. железнодорожных путей. Врастание Юга в промышленный переворот происходило долго и с большими трудностями, но все-таки процесс выравнивания северных и южных штатов развивался.
К началу 20 в. США шли впереди всех других государств по уровню промышленного производства. К 1913 г. продукция черной металлургии и угледобывающей промышленности превышала то, что выпускали в этих отраслях Англия, Германия и Франция вместе взятые. Что же создало основу такого быстрого расцвета? Причин было много. Американские историки считают, что важную роль сыграли богатые сырьевые ресурсы; большой приток иммигрантов, которые обеспечивали растущую промышленность рабочей силой; хорошо налаженная система водного и железнодорожного транспорта; протекционистские пошлины, защищавшие американскую промышленность от иностранной конкуренции.
Б) На протяжении второй половины 19 США не раз потрясали экономические кризисы. Хотя американские рабочие в целом жили лучше европейских, уровень их жизни был достаточно низок, а условия труда тяжелы. Социальные контрасты особенно ярко проявлялись в городах, где прекрасные современные здания соседствовали с мрачными трущобами, много раз описанными американскими журналистами и писателями.
Уже в 1880-е гг. по стране прокатилась волна возмущения и требований лучших условий труда. Рабочие США, ставившие перед собой, как правило, «ближайшие» экономические цели уже к началу 20 в. добились основных прав на организацию союзов и проведение забастовок, на заключение коллективных договоров с работодателями.
Не меньшую активность проявляли и фермеры, объединившиеся в эти годы в ассоциации и союзы фермеров, пользовавшиеся огромной популярностью в стране, критиковавшие коррумпированность правительства, и оказавшие большое влияние на политическую жизнь.
Превращение страны в самую сильную индустриальную державу в мире, при всех противоречиях этого процесса, произошло в значительной мере благодаря результативному диалогу между государственной властью и обществом. В ответ на волну возмущений против злоупотреблений монополий правительство Теодора. Рузвельта начало принимать меры по обузданию трестов и корпораций. Прошли шумные судебные процессы, на которых применялась тактика « беспощадной огласки». Нельзя сказать, что с произволом монополий было покончено, но он был существенно ограничен антитрестовскими законами.
В) Великая депрессия 1929 г. была первым звонком, возвестившим о наличии какого-то изъяна в либеральной экономики. Оказалось, что принцип «каждый за себя» не приводит автоматически ко всеобщему благоденствию. Франклин Рузвельт стал инициатором целого комплекса реформ, призванных не только устранить последствия депрессии, но и оздоровить американское общество в целом. В рамках « нового курса» Рузвельта была организована помощь нуждающимся, миллионы безработных получили возможность принять участие в общественных работах, субсидировавшихся государством. Был установлен контроль за выпуском ценных бумаг, принят закон о социальном обеспечении, предусматривавший страхование безработных, введение пенсий, государственную помощь вдовам, сиротам и инвалидам. Закон о трудовых отношениях не только устанавливал систему государственного регулирования трудовых отношений, но и окончательно закреплял право рабочих на забастовки и организацию профсоюзов.
Г) За две мировые войны были убиты и искалечены миллионы людей, погибли неисчислимые материальные ценности. Но пламя войн не затронули территорию Америки. Соединенные Штаты наращивали промышленную мощь, автоматизировали производство, производили оружие и продавали его другим странам. На военных поставках американские монополии наживали колоссальные капиталы. В период между двумя мировыми войнами США выросли в мирового банкира. После второй мировой войны в результате ослабления западных стран, участвующих в войне, США захватили их рынки, сильно увеличили экспорт товаров, за которые многие государства расплачивались золотом. Золото поступало в американские банки со всех континентов Подавляющее большинство стран Западной Европы стали должниками США.(Н.Карев. Америка после юбилея).
Д) Начало формирования «социалистического лагеря»после Второй Мировой Войны заставило Запад принять ответные меры, в частности «план Маршалла», ставший беспрецедентным актом вмешательства государственного аппарата Соединенных Штатов в «свободную экономику». Однако сплочение Запада для противостояния советской экономике не остановило его отхода от протестантских идеалов. Важной вехой были 1960-е годы, когда был убит президент Кеннеди и пастор Мартин Лютер Кинг. Из дискриминируемой группы черные стали превращаться в привилегированную группу афро-американцев.
Одновременно труды доктора Альфреда Кинси произвели «сексуальную революцию», опрокинувшую пуританскую мораль, на которой держалась Америка.
3. Discussion Points:
1.Franklin Roosevelt and his role in American history;
2.John Kennedy and his peaceful initiativesю
3.What developments have affected the role of Black people in the USA?
4.The life and recent changes in the life of American Indians
Chapter III. The Governmental and Political System
Mount Rushmore. Gutson Borglum memorial of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt.
Read and translate the words and word combinations:
to be in force to have drives
“check and balances” powers national party conventions
a succession of state primaries and caucuses to specify
to amend (amendment) to go to the palls
to correct wrongs to run for president
fellow citizens to vote the straight ticket
to strike down a national convention
to override a veto nominate (nominee)
to be bound to party program to reach a compromise
to be subject to electoral college
to vote a “straight ticket” lobby (lobbying)
a constituency
a number of civic groups
The governmental systems of the United States – federal, state, country, and local are quite easy to understand. The operation of these systems is based on the US Constitution, which was adopted by US Congress in 1785.
The Constitution the oldest still in force in the world sets the basic form of government: three separate branches, each one having powers (“check and balances”) over the others. It specifies the powers and duties of each federal branch of government, with all other powers and duties, belonging to the states.
To meet the changing needs of the nation, the constitution has been repeatedly amended. Ten amendments in the Bill of rights (1791) guaranteed the basic rights of individual Americans. The other sixteen amendments included the one besides banning slavery (1865) to give women the right to vote (1920)
The Bill of Rights
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution and their purpose
Дата добавления: 2019-11-25; просмотров: 282; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!