University City High School
AP United States History
Honors United States History
Mr. Brown
AP United States History
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Honors United States History Weekly Assignments Page
Quarter 4 1920-1970
2021
Quarter 4 1920-1970
2021
Week 4
05/03-5/07
World War II on the Home Front
The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb
"Hiroshima: Was it Necessary?" by Doug Long
The Decision (Nagasaki Exploratorium)
In the fall of 1994, the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., installed in its main hall the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare on Hiroshima in 1945. Originally, the airplane was to have been accompanied by an exhibit that would include discussions of the many popular and academic controversies over whether the United States should have used the bomb. But a powerful group of critics led by veterans' groups and aided by many members of Congress organized to demand that the exhibit be altered and that it reflect only the "official" explanation of the decision. In the end, the museum decided to mount no exhibit at all. The Enola Gay hangs in the Smithsonian today entirely without explanation for the millions of tourists who see it each year.
The furor that surrounded the Air and Space Museum installation reflects the passions that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continue to arouse among people around the world, and people in the United States and Japan in particular. It also reflects the continuing debate among historians about how to explain, and evaluate, President Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb in the war against Japan.
Truman himself, both at the time and in his 1955 memoirs, insisted that the decision was a simple and straightforward one. The alternative to using atomic weapons, he claimed, NAGASAKI SURVIVORS A Japanese woman and child look grimly at a photographer as they hold pieces of bread in the aftermath of the dropping of the second American atomic bomb this one on Nagasaki.
American invasion of mainland Japan that might have cost as many as a million lives. Given that choice, he said, the decision was easy. "I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used." Truman's explanation of his decision has been supported by the accounts of many of his contemporaries: by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, in his 1950 memoir, On Active Service in Peace and War; by Winston Churchill; by Truman's senior military advisers. It has also received considerable support from historians. Herbert Feis argued in The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (1966) that Truman had made his decision on purely military grounds to ensure a speedy American victory. David McCullough, the author of a popular biography of Truman published in 1992, also accepted Truman's own account of his actions largely uncritically, as did Alonzo L. Hamby in Man of the People (1995), an important scholarly study of Truman. "One consideration weighed most heavily on Truman," Hamby concluded. "The longer the war lasted, the more Americans killed." Robert J. Donovan, author of an extensive history of the Truman presidency, Conflict and Crisis (1977), reached the same conclusion: "The simple reason Truman made the decision to drop the bomb was to end the war quickly and save lives."
Other scholars have strongly disagreed. As early as 1948, a British physicist, P. M. S. Blackett, wrote in Fear, War, and the Bomb that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was "not so much the last military act of the second World War as the
first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia." The most important critic of Truman's decision is the historian Gar Alperovitz, the author of two influential books on the subject: Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (1965) and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (1995). Alperovitz dismisses the argument that the bomb was used to shorten the war and save lives. Japan was likely to have surrendered soon even if the bomb had not been used, he claims; large numbers of American lives were not at stake in the decision. Instead, he argues, the United States used the bomb less to influence Japan than to intimidate the Soviet Union. Truman made his decision to bomb Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of a discouraging meeting with Stalin at Potsdam. He was heavily influenced, therefore, by his belief that America needed a new way to force Stalin to change his behavior, that, as Alperovitz has argued, "the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe."
Martin J. Sherwin, in A World Destroyed (1975), is more restrained in his criticism of American policymakers. But he too argues that a rapidly growing awareness of the danger Stalin posed to the peace made leaders aware that atomic weapons and their effective use could help strengthen the American hand in the nation's critical relationship with the Soviet Union. Truman, Sherwin said, "increasingly came to believe that America's possession of the atomic bomb would, by itself, convince Stalin to be more cooperative."
John W. Dower's War Without Mercy (1986) contributed, by implication at least, to another controversial explanation of the American decision: racism. Throughout World War II, most Americans considered the Germans and the Italians to be military and political adversaries. They looked at the Japanese very differently: as members of a very different and almost bestial race. They were, many Americans came to believe, almost a subhuman species. And while Dower himself stops short of saying so, other historians have suggested that this racialized image of Japan contributed to American willingness to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities. Even many of Truman's harshest critics, however, note that it is, as Alperovitz has written, "all but impossible to find specific evidence that racism was an important factor in the decision to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
The debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb is an unusually emotional one driven in part by the tremendous moral questions that the destruction of so many lives raises and it has inspired bitter professional and personal attacks on advocates of almost every position. It illustrates clearly how history has often been, and remains, a powerful force in the way societies define their politics, their values, and their character.
"Hiroshima: Was it Necessary?" by Doug Long
The Decision (Nagasaki Exploratorium)
Assignments
1. Debating the Past
The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, one on Hiroshima and the second on Nagasaki. Was dropping the bomb on Hiroshima justifiable, what were the options, what was Truman's ultimate declaration? Do the reasons for dropping the bomb on Hiroshima apply equally to the bombing of Nagasaki?
2. C24 Assessment 5/7
C24 Key Terms
1. Adolf Hitler
2. Appeasement
3. Munich Conference
4. Atlantic Charter
5. Winston Churchill
6. Benito Mussolini
7. Facsism
8. Neutrality Acts
9. Hideki Tojo
10. Hitler Stalin Pact
11. Axis Powers
12. Committee to Defend America
13. America First Committee
14. Lend-lease Act
15. Pearl Harbor
16. Braceros
17. “Rosie the Riveter”
18. Dwight D. Eisenhower
19. D-Day
20. Enola Gay
21. Robert Oppenheimer
22. Harry S. Truman
23. Hiroshima & Nagasaki
24. The Holocaust
25. Executive Order 9066
26. Korematsu v. U.S.
27. Manhattan Project
28. Zoot suits
29. Double V Campaign
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Week 3
04/26-4/30
The Great Depression and World War II
World War II on the Home Front
The experience of World War I had a significant influence on both the American public and American policy makers during the pre-1941 period. Congress passed neutrality legislation during the 1930s in and explicit attempt to prevent a repeat of the experiences that led to involvement of the United States in World War I. A major theme from the interwar period is the issue of isolationism. Historians once used the term to describe American foreign policy from the end of World War I until the outbreak of World War II. Many historians prefer terms such as “independent internationalism” to describe American policy during the 1920s, noting the degree to which American foreign investment involved the United States with other nations.
The United States entered World War II ideologically unified but militarily ill-prepared. A corporate-government partnership solved most of the production and manpower problems, and the massive wartime output brought an end to the Great Depression. Labor troubles, racial friction, and social tensions were not absent, but they were kept to a minimum. Roosevelt and the American generals made the decision that Germany must be defeated first, since it presented a more serious threat than Japan. Gradually, American production and American military might turned the tide in the Pacific and on the western front in Europe. The key to victory in Europe was the invasion of France, which coincided with the Russian offensive on the eastern front. Less than a year after D-Day, the war in Europe was over. In the Pacific, American forces, with some aid from the British and Australians, first stopped the Japanese advance and then went on the offensive. The strategy for victory involved long leaps from island to island that bypassed and isolated large enemy concentrations and drew progressively closer to the Japanese homeland. Conventional bombing raids pulverized Japanese cities, and American forces were readied for an invasion that the atomic bomb made unnecessary.
2. SAQ C24 due Friday 4/30
Compare and contrast the impact of the war on the many ethnic, gender, and racial groups in America.How did the war affect life on the home front, especially for Women, African Americans, Japanese Americans, Mexican American, Native Americans?
a. African Americans
b. Native Americans
c. Mexican Americans
d. Japanese Americans.
e. Women
C24 Key Terms
1. Adolf Hitler
2. Appeasement
3. Munich Conference
4. Atlantic Charter
5. Winston Churchill
6. Benito Mussolini
7. Facsism
8. Neutrality Acts
9. Hideki Tojo
10. Hitler Stalin Pact
11. Axis Powers
12. Committee to Defend America
13. America First Committee
14. Lend-lease Act
15. Pearl Harbor
16. Braceros
17. “Rosie the Riveter”
18. Dwight D. Eisenhower
19. D-Day
20. Enola Gay
21. Robert Oppenheimer
22. Harry S. Truman
23. Hiroshima & Nagasaki
24. The Holocaust
25. Executive Order 9066
26. Korematsu v. U.S.
27. Manhattan Project
28. Zoot suits
29. Double V Campaign
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Week 2
04/19-4/23
In October 1929, the stock market's over inflated values collapsed and the Great Depression began. Its causes were complex and its consequences were enormous. In a few short years, the 2 percent unemployment rate of the 1920s had become the 25 percent rate of 1932. The nation's political institutions were not equipped to respond. The task overwhelmed local and private relief efforts. President Herbert Hoover's tentative program of voluntary cooperation, big-business loans, and limited public works was activist by old standards but inadequate to the challenge. American tariffs and war-debt policy aggravated international economic problems and thereby added to domestic woes. Although the suffering of Americans, especially African Americans and Hispanics, was great, most citizens clung to traditional values and resisted radical solutions. With veterans marching, farmers protesting, and millions not working, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency.
Use your knowledge of FDR's New Deal to answer the questions below
Answer a, b, and c.
a). For All of the areas below, explain how effective the New Deal was in achieving its goals. Be specific.
Providing relief to the poverty stricken (relief)
Stimulating the economy (recovery)
Instituting economic reforms (reform)
b). Provided Two pieces of historical evidence to prove its effectiveness.
c). Choose ONE area and explain why New Deal programs were not as effective in achieving its goals as it was for the area you choose.
1. Herbert Hoover
2. Hoovervilles
3. The Bonus Army
4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
5. The Dust Bowl
6. The 1932 Election
7. The New Deal (relief, recovery, reform)
8. The First Hundred Days
9. Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
10. National Recovery Administration (NRA)
11. Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC)
12. Huey Long
13. The Second New Deal
14. The National Labor Relations Act (The Wagner Act)
15. The Social Security Act
16. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC)
17. Glass-Steagall Act-Federal Deposit Insurance
18. Works Progress Administration (WPA)
19. Court Packing Scheme
20. Dorthea Lange
21. Eleanor Roosevelt
22. John Steinbeck
23. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Quarter 4
Week 1
04/12-4/18
The 1920’s was the first decade to have a nickname: Roaring 20s" or "Jazz Age." It was a decade of prosperity and dissipation, and of jazz bands, bootleggers, raccoon coats, bathtub gin, flappers, flagpole sitters, bootleggers, and marathon dancers. It was, in the popular view, the Roaring 20s, when the younger generation rebelled against traditional taboos while their elders engaged in an orgy of speculation. But the 1920s was also a decade of bitter cultural conflicts, pitting religious liberals against fundamentalists, nativists against immigrants, and rural provincials against urban cosmopolitans. The 1920’s was a decade of major cultural conflicts as well as a period when many features of a modern consumer culture took root. In this chapter, you will learn about the clashes over alcohol, evolution, foreign immigration, and race, and also about the growth of cities, the rise of a consumer culture, and the revolution in morals and manners.
1. Discuss the emergence of the following during the 1920's
a. Ku Klux Klan
b. Nativists and immigration reform
c. Religious fundamentalists and the Scopes Trial
2. Explain the characteristics of each of the following, and discuss the impact of popular culture on American society during the
1920s:
a. Movies and Sports
b. The "New Negro" and the Harlem Renaissance
c. Prohibition and the 18th Amendment
d. The "New Woman"
1. Warren G. Harding
2. The Red Scare
3. Red Summer
4. Prohibition and Speakeasies
5. St. Valentines Day Massacre
6. Al Capone
7. The Ku Klux Klan
8. Calvin Coolidge
9. The Scopes Trial
10. Religious Fundamentalism
11. Herbert Hoover
12. The Equal Rights Amendment
13. The National Origins Act 1924
17. “The New Negro” and the Harlem Renaisance
18. Hollywood 1920's
19. Popular Culture
20. The Jazz Singer
21. The Harlem Renaissance
22. Langston Hughes
23. Jazz
24. Duke Ellington
25. The Great Migration
26. Babe Ruth
27. The "New Woman" and The Flapper
28. Margret Sanger
29. Lost Generation
30. F. Scott Fitzgerald
31. Ernest Hemingway
32. Sacoo-Vanveti Trial