American civilisation

Curt ADLER
34questions, 3 choses par questions, 1ou 2 questions sur les romans

LES REVENANTS FRANÇAIS

« Cette découverte d’un païs infini semble estre de considération. » Montaigne, 1580
The distance east to west is about 4000kms and from the north to the south is about
2500kms. Hawai and Alaska are a part of America’s “dom tom” for military reason. This area
with the Mississipi river is surrounded by water for the trade. Most of the people is gathered
on the east coast, and then Chicago and then the west coast with the big cities. France is
about 6 or 7 times smaller than the USA. Before google maps made America look bigger than
America while the truth show that America fits in a small corner of Africa.
What is Wisconsin?
WISCONSIN is according to religion, it is about 30% catholic, about 30% protestant and 30%
others or no religion. There are two big cities Madison and Milwaukee. QWERTY (the
keyboard) was invented in Wisconsin. He built typewriters, the layout of it in 1868. Laura
Ingalls Wilder is « la Petite Maison dans la prairie ». Orson Welles from a movie born in
Wisconsin. Senator Joseph McCarty was against communism, a very right senator. Senator
Tammy Baldwin she is the only LGBT senator right now.
Wisconsin : A “swing state” (Etat pivot)
In Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a small city with 60 000, we had the 4th candidates in campaign
(Bernie Sanders, Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz) the same day on April 2 nd 2016.
Rue de la Lanterne, Paris, 1850 on the l’ile de la cité
There are 3 chapeliers (Pierre Fredin, Jehan Provost, Christophe de a Haye) they made their
hat out of the skin of a beaver. They used north American beavers. They are very dark skin
animals so you could make an hat that was very black or brown. He required very little
tincture to make it black then. They were also super warm and waterproof too. The beaver
skin is very waterproof. At that time business was controlled by the king, the king controlled
“les corporations”, the guilds. The guilds would make one and only one thing. There were a
big fight for the furor between 2 gilds. It affected the fashion, example from les Dames à
Versailles. They were a big demand for it, the French chapelier began to rent ships to go back
beavers in Canada. Then they came home and made hats super expensive that they made a
profit.
What was Nouvelle France ?
When the French started to go explore new territories they went North. 153 Jacques Cartier
began exploring new territory. French fisherman exploits abundant cod (morue, cabillaud)
but French do not settle.
1608 Samuel de Champlain founds settlement at Quebec.
1620s NF Managed as a “trading company” (colonie de comptoir) to purchase furs from the
Natives, paying with alcohol, iron and guns. Iron was important for the Natives, they could
hit up quickly their fire, it sounded very valuable for them. The French were very particular
to the natives they would give guns (only their friends). They brought over cheap stuff in
exchange of the Natives trapping the beaver.
Population of Nouvelle France
1664 Louis XIV sent 800 Filles de Roi to Québec to increase permanent population.
1666 population 3,215
1682 pop 10000
1750 pop 70000
1755 French settlers in Acadia (Maine) driven south to the Louisiana Territory by English
Army.

1619 was the first arrival of slave in the American continent (i.e. New York Times podcast) =>
from that a debate struck off in the US between the Democrats and the Conservatives.

READ NOVELS :
The Great Gatsby
The sun also rises

The exam (written one 2hours)

34questions : all of the information are gonna be on the slides.

USA - The beginnings

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.” Thomas Paine

The English settlers

1607 – The English arrive in Jamestown, Virginia. The South is born.
1619 – 20 enslaved Africans are brought to Jamestown by slave traders and are purchased
by settlers.
1620- A group of English Christians, the “Pilgrims” land at Plymouth Rock in Massachussets –
the North is born.
1620-1640 – Up to 50000 English settlers arrive
High death rates due to disease and wars with Natives, but:
They establish themselves through early property ownership and natural population growth.

North-South differences from the start

  Northern colonies – esp Massachusetts
- Bourgeois English families
- Escaped religious prosecution in England (including the death penalty)
- Most wanted a Christian Protestant state
- Mixed economy: Small farms, fishing, shipping, manufacturing
 Middle colonies – New-York and Pennsylvania
- Settlers, including families, from England, Ireland, Holland and Germany
- Religious toleration especially for Catholics
- Mixed economy
 Southern colonies – Virginia, the Carolinas
- English and Scottish men, including prisoners and many slaves
- Sought economic opportunity
- Grew rice, indigo, tabacco, cotton
- Established an aristocracy supported by slave labor.

Slavery started bc they made up big farms.

The northern WASP culture (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)

- Mostly Calvinist Christians, they believed that God selected ‘the chosen few’ (les élus)
for heaven
- Bourgeois political ideology – independent, hard-working, and against pleasure
- High rates of literacy and strong belief in education
- Believed that God gave America to them
- A sense of being threatened – by England, by the Natives, and by temptation to sin
They felt like they were people on a journey to a new Christian land, that’s what they
believed. They felt threatened in England, by the Natives and by the devil.

Justice in a religious community: Salem Witch Trials

- In Massachusetts, being a “witch” (sorcière) was illegal
- Spring 1962 – several girls in villages near Salem (near Boston) fall ill, suffering from
fits, shakes and screaming
- A local doctor diagnoses them as being “possessed by the devil”
- People begin accusing each other of being the “witches” who had ‘cursed’ (maudit)
the children
- May octo 1692 – 200 people are accused of being witches and put in jail, mostly
women
- Most (though not all) are social outsiders
Single and poor
Catholics or non-church-goers
A slave who told stories
An 80-year-old farmer
- Special courts are created, they hear evidence from (sick) children

The Colonies thrive. By 1750

 - 13 colonies with representative governments
- Population 2M
- Large cities Boston, NY, Philadelphia (the largest)
- Major Universities- Harvard, Princeton, Columbia
- Large territory cleared of Natives
- British style laws
Only white male property-owners could vote
Restricted rights for women
Anti-Catholics
Anti-Jews
- Well established system of slave labour

How did they take the land from the Natives?

- Agreed that were misunderstood by the Natives
Largely nomads, the Natives believed in shared territory
The English believed in property ownership and built homes and forts on their
territory
- Wars – colonists murdered many natives using European guns and steel weapons…
But the Natives soon acquired their own guns.
- European diseases decimated Native populations – especially smallpox (=variole).

Why did the colonies break from England?

- They resented British taxes:
1765 Stamp Act – a tax on legal and commercial documents
1767-8 Townsend Acts -taxes on imports
- Violence in Boston
1770 Boston Massacre: colonists harass British soldiers; soldiers respond by shooting
and killing a few colonists
1773 Boston Tea Party: To protest tea tax, men dressed as Natives board ships and
throw 300 chests of tea overboard.
- 1774 the Intolerable Acts – British laws reduce powers to local governments and
strengthen military in Massachussetts
- 1776 Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, best-seller argues against monarchy

The War of Independence 1775-1783

- Began with small battles at Concord and Lexington, 1775
- US Declaration of Independence (circa) 4 July 1776
- American army led by General George Washington
- Lasted 7 long years! And some harsh, deadly winters
- America lost 25 000 men (1% of the population), similar losses by the British
- Could have been avoided if the English had agreed to negotiate

British vs colonials (tableau eprel)

Declaration of Independence
- Date published: 4 July 1776
- Independence from: England
- Signed by: Delegates from 13 colonies
- Written by: Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution
- Date published: 1787
- Written by group of about 40 men over several months, ratified by all states
- Defines powers of the Federal (Central) government, is the supreme law of the USA
- Created those branches of government
Legislative = Congress (House and Senate)
Executive = President
Judicial = Supreme court
- 1788, First 10 Amendments added now called ‘The Bill of Rights’:
Freedom of Religion, Speech, Public Assembly
Right to bear arms
Right to a fair trial, to remain silent, to have a jury
- If it’s not covered by the Constitution, the individual states can create their own laws.
- Constitution only be amended with the agreement of 2/3 of the States.

The USA in 1789

The war ends in 1783.

Who led the new country?

- George Washington
- Thomas Jefferson
- Alexander Hamilton

George Washington
- Born (rich) in Virginia, married a (rich) woman, became one of the largest landowners
in USA
- Very tall, commanding presence
- Incredibly tough, brave soldier and leader
- Led an amateur army for 7 years during the War
- As president, he held together 13 States (and politicians) who fought constantly
- ‘Untouchable’ leader: John Adams (2nd President) joked that Americans made
Washington their military, political, religious and even moral Pope

Washington: Exciting? Inspirational? Hardly (genre…)

- Lost many of his battles in the War of Independence
- Often said little at important meetings
- Stiff, arrogant behavior, poor social skills
- No sense of humor, very bad temper
- Mumbled his public speeches
 - Not well educated and couldn’t speak French
- But: Dignified presence with an instinctive sense of judgement
- Died rather disappointed by his highly-divided country

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

- Virginia Farmer, self-taught intellectual, Francophile/francophone
- Wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776- ‘All men are created equal’
- In Paris, helped LaFayette write La Declaration des Droits de l’Homme
- As Secretary

Jefferson: Champions of the Common Man? Hardly.

- Lived in a society of inherited wealth
Inherited 2000ha Virginia farm
Then married a rich woman
- Disapproved of slavery … but owned about 200 slaves.
- Never served as soldier, and accused of cowardice during the War of Independence
- Addicted to French luxury
As ambassador in Paris, brought 2000 books and 60

Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804)

- Born illegitimate and poor on Nevis, a carribbean island

- By chance, went to cloumbia University and became a young war hero
- During the War, he was Washington’s aide-de-camp
- Age 30, became a successful lawyer and bank director
- Wrote the federalist papers, the most important legal interpretation of the US constitution
- As secretary of finance, designed and created the US federal tax system and the US central
bank
- Promoted us manufacturing and trade with Britain
- Supported federalist party that located power in a strong central government
- Rose from nowhere to become the most influential man in the country
- Highly-educated
- Published nasty personal attacks on his enemies
- Anti-slavery
- A loving marriage and a scandalous reputation (somewhat effeminate appearance ad several
close friends in the Army, quite ‘close’ to his wife’s sister)
- Nearly destroyed by an affair and blackmail scandal
- Died in a duel

Democracy in the USA

The American system of government

Alexis de Tocqueville

Washington DC

- 1790, chosen (over NY) as the site for the new capital city
 - The choice was a big compromise (federalists got central control of taxation, anti-federalists
got a capital in the south
- Designed by a Parisian, Pierre Charles L’Enfant
- Population today 700 000
- A liberal, educated, transient elite
- Surrounded by a relatively poor largely African-American community

What is the US federal Government?

Three branches

- Legislative (congress) which included hosue of Representatives and the Senate, they make
the laws
- Executive (the president) the federal departments, and the armed forces, he approves and
enforces the laws
- Judicial (supreme court) and lower federal courts they interpret the laws

There is a balance power and ‘creative tension’ between the three branches

All powers not held by the federal government are held by individual State government.

 The house of representatives

- 435 members for a 2 year-term
- Number of representatives for each state is bases on the state’s population
- Initiates bills
- Bills from the house must be approved by the senate and the President
- Has exclusive power to start impeachment of public officials
- If president and Vice-President are removed, the Speaker of the House becomes President
- Current speaker is Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California)

 The Senate
- 100 members, 2 for each state
- 6 year-term, 1/3 elected every 2 years
- Initiates bills
- Bills from the senate must be approved by the President
- Has exclusive power to approve treaties and officials nominated by the president
 - Conducts trials for impeachment
- Led by Vice-president Mike Pence (Republican)

US congress today

A proportion of 25% women

The house of representative is largely democrats but the senate is run by republicans.

What is impeachment?

66% of the senate must agree to the impeachment

- Impeachment means to put a government official on trial

- Officials can be impeached for treason, bribery and other crimes
- The process must start in House of representatives
- The trials is conducted in the Senate, which decides guilty or innocent
- 66% of the senate must agree to the impeachment
- If the president is impeached, the vice assumes office
- No president has ever been removed in this way

The role of president

- Commander in Chief of the armed forces

- Ratifies or vetoes bills that have been passed by both houses
- Leads international diplomacy but treaties must be ratified by the senate
- Can sign Executive orders, laws for an emergency or the proper working of government,
orders can be overturned by Congress or the Courts
- Appoints heads of Federal departments and agencies, these must be ratified by the Senate
- Employs 2 million people + 2 million more military personnel.

Heads Executive Branch Shares Executive Powers with Prime

Minister
Can sign Executive Orders Can sign décrets
Cannot dissolve Congress Can dissolve the Assemblée Nationale
Appointments and treaties must be Appointments and treaties do not need
ratified by Senate ratification by Assemblée
Cabinet Ministers (ie Heads of Cabinet Ministers report to Assemblée
Departments) report to President
Power constantly checked by Congress Greater freedom from Assemblée

Supreme Court

- Highest court in the country

 - Conducts relatively few trials each year (cases of national importance, situation where state
laws contradict federal law, situations where state laws contradict one another
- Justices (judges) are appointed by the president ratified by the Senate, for life
- In 2019, Brett Kavanagh made the supreme court more conservative

Some important Supreme Court cases

- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) – “the constitution does not consider slaves to be US citizens”
- Brown v. Board of education in Kansas (1954) – cancelled state laws that allowed separate
schools for African-American “in the field of public education , the doctrine of ‘separate but
equal’ has no place”
- Roe v. Wade (1972) – the right to privacy protects a woman’s choice in matters of abortion
- Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) – states must recognize same-sex marriage

Summary: balance of powers

- System of ‘Checks and balance’ between congress, the President and the Supreme Court

What is a State?

- Each state has a constitution, a government, elections, laws, courts and taxes
- States have significant legal power over the daily lives of citizen (education, public health,
marriage licenses, voter registration, police and courts)
- There is constant tension federal and states powers

States laws control guns and cannabis

About guns, the states define the restrictions, if they have to be registered and the restriction on
carrying. The laws vary from minimal regulation to comprehensive restrictions

About marijuana, the laws vary from 0 tolerance to allowing medicinal use, recreational use and
sale.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Why is he still studied?

- La démocratie en Amérique was published in 1835-40

- A fascinating guide to American society and the American character
- It is still quoted today
- But it was written for a French audience

Who was he?

- Comte de Tocqueville, his parents escaped the guillotine

- He trained in law and in 1831, he was sent to America by the monarchie de Juillet to study
the prison system where he spent one year.
- In 1836, he visited Ireland and studied Landowners and peasants
- He published his famous book and also wrote a major study of the French revolution
- He became active in government until 1850 promoting individual liberty, decentralized
government, universal suffrage and abolition of slavery in the colonies
 French politics behind Democracy in America

- 1830 Monarchie de juillet installs King Louis-Philippe

- The new monarchy was subject to the people ‘Roi des Français”
- Bourgeoisie gains control over aristocracy. Only wealthy middle-classes could vote, French
industrial revolution created new wealth, François Guizot’s sentiments, if you want to vote,
‘enrichissez-vous’.

The American character

- Americans are friendly

- Americans are optimistic
- American work ethic
- American women are strong and clever

Are Americans stupid?

- No but they don’t like to think

- They prefer activity to thought
- Attention deficit disorder?
- Obsessed with money

De Tocqueville’s fears and predictions

- Tyranny of the majority

- Native nations will disappear

Slavery

- Conditions of slaves
- In the south, slavery is a matter of life or death
- Slavery will not survive
- But racism will continue

Slavery in the USA

Legal End of slavery 1863

The slave trade

- 1454 in contract Romanus Pontifex, Pope Nicolas V grants King Alfonsus of Portugal the
right to enslave Africans
- Early 15OOs, tobacco and sugar in New World drives use of slave labor by Spanish and
Portuguese
- 1518 Charles V of Spain grants license for slaves to be sold into Spanish colonies
- 1619, English colonists in Virginia buy about 20 slaves from English pirates
- 1635, French Compagnie des Iles de L’Amérique focuses on tobacco and sugar in the
Antilles, slave trade grows steadily
- 1670, Louis 14 officially legalizes French slaves trade
- 1700s, Britain is the world’s largest slave trader
- 1778, Virginia first state to ban importing of slaves for sale
 - 1807, UK bans slave trade
- 1808, US president Jefferson bans international slave trade (not internal), smuggling
continued until 1859

Colonial laws that defined and supported slavery

- British colonies has slave codes which became US State laws

- Codes generally included the following
• Any African blood defined one’s race as African
• Mother’s condition as slave meant all children were slaves
• Slaves not allowed owning property or holding firearms
• restricted rights of assembly
• Slave marriages usually not recognized
• Cruel treatment of a slave was a crime but
• Testimony by a slave against a white person was not admissible in court
- French equivalent was the Code Noir in 1685 (Louis 14)

Some numbers :

- Africans taken to the New World : 12 million (10-20% died en route, 400 000 arrived in the
13 English colonies and US)
- 1763, 230 000 salves In American Colonies
- 1776, 500 000 slaves, 15% of the population of the country
- Slave trade from Africa to NY peaks in late 1780-90
- 1860, 4m slaves out of 31m total US population

Slavery in the US constitution

- Negotiations during the writing of the Constitution included compromises to retain support
of southern slave states
- The constitution does not use the word ‘slave’, instead “those bound for service” or a
“person held for service or labor”
- The constitution guarantees individual states’ powers
- In constitution, slaves are be counted as 3/5 of a person, southern states gained about 50%
more representatives
- Constitution said importation of slaves could not be banned until 1808
- Escaped slaves must be returned to their owners, even if they have escaped to a free state
- By extension, any children of escaped slaves must also be returned to their original owner

After 1776, development of the US and international law

- Northern states abolish slavery one-by-one (Vermont 1777, Pennsylvania 1780, NY 1827)
- 1808, federal act prohibits importing slaves because of ‘violations of human rights’
- 1800-1850, some states grant political statues to African americans
•Maine : equal status with whites
 • NY : African American males with 250 $ in property can vote
• Illinois : slavery illegal, but no political rights for African American
• Kentucky : slavery legal, and no political rights for slave or free African American
Pas fini

Why did Slavery Grow ?

- 1776 tobacco is the primary crop in southern states

- 1780, tobacco exhausts the soil, farms fail and value of clave labor decreases
- 1793, ‘cotton gin’ machine removes seeds from cotton : cotton becomes cheaper to produce
and demand explodes
- 1850, 50% of all US exports is cotton, mostly in Britain
- 1860, 2,650 cotton mills in Lancashire, UK employ 440 000 people
- US manufacturing, Shipping, Banking, Insurance and Railroad rely on profits from cotton

As US expands, slavery claims new territory

- 1820, Missouri compromise divides new states between slave and free
• Admitted Maine (free) and Missouri (slave) as new states
• excluded slavery from any new northern states
• Bitter differences arise over slavery
- 1850, compromise act, California is a free state but fugitive slave act closes route for slave to
escape
- 1854, Kansas Nebraska

Fugitive slave laws

- 1787 US constitution states that escaped slaves must be returned to their owners
- 1793, law strengthened, escaped slaves lust be returned to owners
- 1842, law weakened by Supreme court Prigg v Pennsylvania, state officials forbidden from
capturing freed slaves
- 1850, fugitive slave act declares that state officials must help owners to recapture runaway
slaves, infuriated northern abolitionists
- 1855, Wisconsin the only state to challenge the fugitive slave act, but without success

Dred-scott vs Sandford 1857

- African ar e nt citizens and have ,o protections under US law

- Congress cannot ban slavery in new territory

Harriet Jacobs 1813-1897

- Born into slavery in North Carolina

- When she is fifteen, she is sexually harassed by her owner
- She has a relationship with local white lawyer/politician and has two children, who are also
slaves
- Her owner refuses to sell her, so she runs away and hides in an attic for 7 years
 - Escapes to NY and is pursued under Fugitive slave legislation
- She is purchased by a white abolitionist
- After the Civil War, she is active as an educator and social worker for the African-american
community

Incident in the Life of a slave girl

- 1861 turned down by several American publishers, the book is published privately
- Also published in England
- Long considered

- The only slave narrative to focus on female saves and constant threat of rape

- It shows of southern aristocracy society as a sick knot of rapists, illegitimate children, jealous
wives, white girls living with their half-sister slave

- The book portrays a complex realities of a slave’s daily life

The threat of being sold and having your children sold, fear of being sent from household duties to
harsh outdoor labor, the bitterness of poor, non-slaves owning whites, the middle-status of the free
African-American in the community

Constantly awareness of arbitrary power, includes news from the North and the lies published about
slaves’ conditions

Companies that benefited from enslaved labor

- Book brothers (clothing founded 1818) made clothes for agricultural works
- AIG insured slaves’ lives for the benefit of their owner
- UK banks like Lloyds, Barclay’s
- Railroad network in US and Canada
- Harvard, Yale and other universities

Lincoln is really far from the center of power.

Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865 : Un héros invraisemblable

- Born to poor farmers in Kentucky; they settle and thrive in Illinois

- His mother dies when he is young but Sarah Bush, Lincoln’s stepmother, adores him
- Shows no talent as a boy: Little schooling, does manual jobs, joins the army for a while, works
on a steamboat on the Mississippi.
- Tall and likeable but suffers from depression
- 1836 Studies Law (independently); after a slow start becomes a successful Chicago lawyer
- 1842 – Marries Mary Todd, her parents own slaves in Kentucky
- 1850s Elected to Illinois state government
- Before becoming President, he has no experience of national politics.

The battle to become US Senator for Illinois, 1858

Lincoln represented the republican party.

-Lincoln runs as a Republican – a new party, probusiness and against the expansion of slavery
- Stephen Douglas represents pro-slavery Democrats
- 1858 Lincoln and Douglas meet 7times for the famous ‘Lincoln-Douglas debates’
-The first debates attract small audiences, but soon attract large crowds- and the national press
-Each debate consists of 2 long speeches followed by response and discussion
-The debates summarize US beliefs about race, slavery, the Constitution and national unity
-Lincoln loses the election – but becomes a hero for the Republicans

Douglas: America was conceived and built on slavery

- I hold that is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this
Government was made on the white basis, by white men, for the benefit of white men and
their posterity forever.
- In my opinion, the signers of the Declaration [of Independence] had no reference to the
negro whatever, when they declared all men to be created equal.

- At that time every one of the thirteen colonies was a slaveholding colony, every signer of
the Declaration represented a slaveholding constituency, and we know that no one of them
emancipated his slaves, much less offered citizenship to them.

- We have risen from a weak and feeble power to become the terror and admiration of the
civilized world; and all this has been done under a Constitution … and under a Union
divided into free and slave States, which Mr. Lincoln thinks, because of such division, cannot
stand.

Lincoln: Wants national unity, but not African-American citizenship

 A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free … Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the
spread of it … or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all
the States, North as well as South.

 I am not nor never have been in favor of … the social and political equality of the white and
black races; I am not nor never have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or
jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people.

1862 Lincoln re-iterates his goal to preserve America as one country

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves I would do it … What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I
believe it helps to save the Union (Letter to Horace Greeley, 1862)

Lincoln’s first days as President

 Nov 1860 Lincoln is elected President

  Feb 1861 – 7 Southern states ‘secede’ from (faire secession de) the ‘Union’; they form the
‘Confederacy’
 4 March 1861 Lincoln takes office
 12 April 1861 Confederates attack Union army at Fort Sumter, Virginia
 Four more states
immediately join the
Confederacy
 The Union Navy blocks
Confederate ports
 So begins America’s
bloodiest war

European response to the War

 Britain (Prime Minister Palmerston)
 Lord Palmerston detests the US
 The War cuts off cotton supplies and causes hardship in English factories – so
Palmerston favours the South
 But Britain fears the US Navy and a US invasion of Canada
 So Britain remains neutral
 France (Napoleon III)
 Since Colonial times, France has strong ties with the South
 France provides supplies to the Confederacy via Mexico
 France seeks a treaty with Britain to support the Confederacy, but this approach is
rejected
 No European country formally recognises the Confederacy

What about the South?

 They fight to preserve their identity, their farms, their slaves – and their lives
 Farms are ruined, especially when slaves escape
 Landholders don’t serve in the Confederate army, but men without land are forced to fight …
 Thus many people without slaves found themselves fighting for a system which did not
benefit them
 Northern destruction created poverty and famine

The Emancipation Proclamation

 Lincoln issued this Executive Order in summer 1862; it was enacted 1 Jan 1863
 The Order freed all slaves in the Confederacy
 Did not free slaves in the border states who were loyal to the Union
 Did not grant citizenship to African Americans
 Can be seen as a war strategy
 Weakened Southern war effort, which depended on slave labour
 Gained European support for the Union
 The Union army benefitted from 186,000 new African-American soldiers
  However, freeing the slaves became the new raison d’être de la guerre

How did the war progress?

 Union has major advantages
 Union population 21 million
 South population 5.5m + 3.5m slaves
 Union has vastly superior manufacturing, transport, finance system
 But South defends home territory, fears for its survival
 Poor Union strategy and leadership gives Confederacy early victories
 1864 Union leadership improves
 9 April 1865 Confederate Army surrenders
- Death toll: 750,000

Lincoln’s assassination
 11 April 1865 Lincoln gives a speech supporting votes for African Americans:
It is … unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would
myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause
as soldiers.
 14 April 1865 (Good Friday) Lincoln and his wife go to Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC to
watch a comedy
 During the play, Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Southern actor who had attended
that speech
 16 April 1865 (Easter Sunday) Lincoln dies
 Booth escapes, with broken leg, to be killed by Federal troops 10 days later

After Lincoln’s death, the Constitution is amended to guarantee African-American rights

 January 1865 – 13th Amendment abolishes slavery in all states
 June 1865 – 14th Amendment grants citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the
United States
 February 1869 – 15th Amendment states that no American can be denied the right to vote on
the basis of race
During the war he made efforts to populate all this huge territory of the “Middle”. At that time, they
weren’t state yet, they were territories.

The Homestead Act 1862

 1850s: The US owns Western Territories but they generate no income to the Government
 1862 President Lincoln offers 100 hectares of land to anyone who would farm it for five years
 Applications were open to all, including women, ex-slaves and immigrants (non-citizens)
 ‘Homesteading’ (d’être agriculteur d’un territoire vierge) was difficult, requiring:
 Equipment,
 Skills and
 Good land
… So many homestead farms actually fail … but
  40% of farms survive (circa 800,000 families by 1900), many of those families still farm the
same land today
 Homesteading brings waves of Americans and European immigrants to the frontier
territories

The Dakota (or Sioux) War 1862

 1837 US buys Minnesota from Natives, Natives retain land along the Minnesota River
 Early 1860s – European settlers build houses on Native territory
 Summer 1962 Some young Dakota tribesmen, hungry and frustrated, kill a few settlers
 Fearing retribution, Dakota Chief Little Crow attacks white communities and kills hundreds of
settlers
 Aug-Sep 1862 Amidst widespread panic, the US Army attacks the Dakotas
 100s of Natives killed - or executed en masse
 1863 US Army clears all Dakotas from Minnesota
 Through this and similar actions, the US secures vast amounts of territory

Petit Désastre dans la Prairie : Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder
1867 Born in Pepin Wisconsin just after the Dakota wars
Her father, Charles Ingalls, drags the family from state to state - little Laura has 12 homes in 12 years!
The family survives:
Intimidation from Natives in Missouri
Drunks and criminals in Iowa
Locusts who eat all their wheat in Minnesota
A winter of continuous blizzards in Dakota Territory
Laura becomes a teacher at 16, marries Almonzo at 18
Almonzo falls ill soon after marriate and has restricted mobility for the rest of his life
Laura’s daughter is a successful publisher
1932 Laura writes and publishes her first book (age 65), Little House in the Big Woods is a commercial
success
Prairie Fires, biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser, wins Pulitzer Prize 2017

Two American Women in Paris who transformed English Literature

Aujourd’hui
 Paris after the war
 Two American women who lived there
 Sylvia Beach
 Gertrude Stein
 The writers they supported
 James Joyce
 F Scott Fitzgerald
 Ernest Hemingway
 How this impacted 20th-Century literature
Art in Paris after WWI
 1914 The Belle Epoque is followed by 4 years of senseless slaughter and destruction
 1.4m French soldiers and many civilians dead (source)
 Farmland, 700,000 houses and buildings and 5,000 km of railways destroyed (source)
 Food shortages and weak industrial output
 Unstable government and weak currency
 1916 Artists attack the bourgeois culture and beliefs that led to the war

Art became challenging, difficult, even aggressive

 The Dadaist manifesto of 1916: «  Nous ne sommes pas assez naïfs pour croire dans le
progrès. Nous ne nous occupons, avec amusement, que de l’aujourd’hui … Nous voulons
supprimer le désir pour toute forme de beauté, de culture, de poésie, pour tout raffinement
intellectuel, toute forme de goût, socialisme, altruisme et synonymisme.  »

Sylvia Beach 1887-1962

 Born in Baltimore Maryland, average upbringing, little schooling
 1916 Volunteers for Red Cross in France
 1917 Studies literature at the Sorbonne
 Meets Adrienne Monnier
 Monnier owns La Maison des Amis des Livres, avant-garde French bookshop
 Address: 7 Rue de L’Odéon (short video on Monnier here)
 1919 Opens Shakespeare and Company at 8 Rue Dupuytren – avant-garde English bookshop
 May 1921 Moves Shakespeare and Co to 12 Rue de l’Odéon

Shakespeare and Co
8 Rue Dupuytren
 “[Beach] was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one I knew was
ever nicer to me.” – Ernest Hemingway

Gertrude Stein 1874-1946

 Born in Pittsburgh into a wealthy family; childhood in Vienna, Paris and California
 Studies psychology at Radcliffe, then goes to Medical school
 1904 Follows her brother to Paris, settles at 27 Rue de Fleurus
 1907 Meets Alice B Toklas; This relationship causes her brother to reject her
 During the war they buy a truck and serve as ambulance drivers for wounded soldiers
 The apartment becomes an important meeting place for writers and artists
 She becomes known as an art collector, critic, literary advisor and writer

Gertrude Stein:
‘If I told him, a complete portrait of Picasso’
1923
If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him.
           Would he like it would Napoleon would Napoleon would would he like it.
           If Napoleon if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if I told him if I told him if
Napoleon. Would he like it if Napoleon if Napoleon if I told him. If I told him if Napoleon if Napoleon
if I told him. If I told him would he like it would he like it if I told him.
           Now.
           Not now.
           And now.
           Now.
           Exactly as as kings.
           Feeling full for it.
           Exactitude as kings.
           So to beseech you as full as for it.
           Exactly or as kings.
           Shutters shut and open so do queens. Shutters shut and shutters and so shutters shut and
shutters and so and so shutters and so shutters shut and so shutters shut and shutters and so. And so
shutters shut and so and also. And also and so and so and also …

Then came the crowds

 In the 1920s, thousands of Americans arrive in Paris
 Writer and artists … but also bankers, industrialists, African-Americans ex-soldiers, language
teachers, drifters etc
 They settled, they worked, and they hated American tourists …
Why do they come?
 American businesses want to enter the European market
 The French franc has collapsed, so Paris is cheap
 Freedom from Alcohol Prohibition in US (1919-1933)
 Greater sexual liberty
 Freedom from racial restrictions

The Great Depression: First the Storm, and then The Rainbow
Aujourd’hui
 What caused the Great Depression?
 How did Herbert Hoover respond?
 Radio, the new medium
 FDR, the New Deal
 A political rainbow
 Aaron Copland, the truly American composer?

1920s: An Economic Miracle

 1920-29 - US Economy grows by 42% (source)
 Industry grows due to mass production methods
 Cars become common
 1920 - 8m cars
 1929 – 23m cars
 Pushes growth for petrol stations, motels, new roads (source)
  People buy new consumer goods: washing machines (lave-linges), hoovers (aspirateurs),
band-aids (sparadraps) …
 Radio broadcasting – and advertising - begins
 Low interest rates increase borrowing and debt
 Most Banks are not insured and don’t keep adequate reserves
 From 1924, many consumers invest in the Stock Market for the first time –
 And take out loans (prêts) to purchase shares (actions)!
 June-3 Sept 1929: Value of Stock Market increases 20%
Before the 1920’s not much of communication- Action started to be bought from 1924

Ouf ! The Crash, Oct 1929 (Crise boursière)

 Aug 29 US Federal Bank (central bank that provides found to all the other) raises interest
rates to reduce lending => it was a signal
 Sept 29 A crash is predicted
 Roger Babson (rich investor) predicts crash in well-publicised speech (source)
 Early October, British Prime Minister calls the US Stock Market ‘a perfect orgy of
speculation’ (source)
 Joseph Kennedy, well-known investor (father of President) sells his shares
 24 Oct: Black Thursday = first crash (-11%)
 28 Oct: Black Monday (-13%)
 29 Oct: Black Tuesday (-12%)
 By Nov: Stock market has lost 50% of its value
 1932 Stock Market down 90%

1930-1933: No parachute
 As sales decline, industrial production falls by 50%
 1933 Unemployment hits 25%
 30% of banks fail; bank accounts are not insured, so people lose their savings (épargne)
 No mortgage-protection insurance (assurance d’hypotheque); large numbers of houses and
farms are repossessed (saisi par la banque)
 No national social welfare (assistance sociale)
 Individual state programs are inadequate to support large numbers of unemployed people

Herbert Hoover : President 1929-1933

 Geologist/Engineer, Quaker, successful businessman
 Active in humanitarian projects; in WWI he leads hunger-relief programs in Belgium and then
works to send food to the Soviet Union
 1920s As Secretary of Commerce:
 Creates many new regulations for business
 Leads public construction projects (Hoover Dam)
 Supports workers’ rights
  Elected President 1928 (during the economic boom)
 After the crash, though, Hoover enforces the old political rules:
 Balanced Federal Budget (budget équilibré) – refuses to borrow money to help
people
 Laissez-faire economic policy: Government should not support business, thus no
stimulus programs
 Believes in charity and personal self-reliance (confiance en soi-même)
 Is considered by some to be the worst American president

Hoover’s response to the Depression

 To balance budget, he retains high interest rates and taxes
 Retains Gold Standard = High exchange rate (taux d’échange) for dollar
 Introduces Smoot-Hawley tariffs on imports – and starts a trade war with Europe
which reduces exports (during the depression but after the crash)
 Is denounced by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) for ignoring racial violence in Southern states (source)
 1932: Tanks subdue ‘Bonus Army’ strikers in Washington DC – (video) – Hoover is
blamed for the excessive use of force
 1932 Finally provides money for social welfare, banks and public works … but too late
so he was defeated by F. Roosevelt

Radio : Mass communications arrive

1920s Radio technology improves and prices fall
Soon hundreds of local radio stations appear
1927 Two private companies have nation-wide radio coverage (rayonnement)
Columbia Broadcasting System CBS
National Broadcasting Company NBC
1927 Hoover grants NBC and CBS exclusive rights to main broadcast frequencies (bandes de
radiodiffusion), limiting smaller stations’ access to the market
By 1933 most American homes have a radio
1934 Mutual Broadcasting Network also gains nationwide coverage
Americans listen 4-5 hours per day

Radio and big business

 Early 1930s, Radio was largely ‘entertainment’ programs (émissions)
 Live music and sports
 Dramas and comedies
 Some news and political broadcasts; some classical music and serious theater
 All programs are sponsored by private companies
 Daytime series are supported by companies for soap (savon) and cleaning
products eg Proctor & Gamble – thus called ‘Soap Operas’ (feuilletons)
 Companies own musical groups eg ‘Champion Sparkers’ (Spark Plug = Bougie
d’allumage) ‘Sylvania Foresters’ (Sylvania = fabriquant d’ampoules)
  Children’s shows promote children’s products
 Sponsors encourage feedback, and some radio stations receive 1m letters per month!

Amos ‘n’ Andy in the 1930s

 15-minute comedy series, 5 nights per week
 40m listeners - Immanquable et incontournable
 Heros are two African-Americans played by white men, Freeman Gosden and Charles
Correll
 They portray situations of poverty and powerlessness (and comic stupidity) in
Harlem, New York City
 Attacked as racist, especially for its minor characters
 But attracts a mixed-race audience and is defended by some African-American
activists (source)
 Continues into the 1950s and moves to television

Rural Radio : ‘National Barn Dance’

 ‘Country-music’ program broadcast from Chicago
 Sponsored by Aladdin Kerosene Lamp company
 Rural Americans had radios before they had electricity!

Did people worry about the new media?

 It was seen as invasive and omnipresent
 Promoted superficial messages and restricted engagement with difficult issues
 Kept the public informed
‘Since last Summer, instead of seeking diversion from his troubles, as you’d expect, the
average American seems to hanker for (avoir envie de) bad news. He can’t hear enough
about the state of the nation and the state of the world’ (NY Times 1932)
 Keeps people pacified and disengaged from society –
Radio has a ‘dazing, almost anesthetic effect upon the mind’ (1932, source)
 Commercialises art and prevents detailed appreciation or debate
 Forms a unified public with similar opinions

Radio in Europe
 European leaders largely reject American commercialism
 England (BBC) – Government radio only, mostly cultural programming
 Germany: Nazis controlled all stations in 1930s, radio made to access only
government stations
 France: Creates Government radio stations but allows some private broadcasting
 Luxembourg: Private radio broadcasts popular music all across Europe

The Roosevelts
 They are distant cousins, both related to President Theodore Roosevelt
 1905 They marry and soon have 6 children (5 of whom survive)
  1920 They consider divorce
 1923 FDR suffers polio and loses the use of his legs
 1920s FDR rises in politics,
 1920s Eleanor emerges as a writer, speaker and advocate for women, the poor and
minorities
 1933 President FDR elected and creates the ‘New Deal’
 They continue to live together, Eleanor often advising and occasionally opposing FDR
 1945 FDR dies in office
 1946 Eleanor becomes first
US Delegate to UN
 Eleanor continues her pubic activism until her death

The New Deal (1933-)

 1933 FDR elected by large majority over Herbert Hoover
 Initiates massive programme of public works:
 Public Works Administration - large bridges, tunnels
 Civilian Conservation Corps - rural roads, bridges and parks
 Tennessee Valley Authority – dams (barrages) and electricity across the
Southern US
 Workers who must travel are paid their salary, and additional money is sent home to
their families

Other New Deal legislation

 Creates National Social Security programme (Assistance sociale)
 Closes all American banks for a week, and then re-opens them with new cash
 Creates insurance for banks (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC)
 Regulates the Stock Market (Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC)
 Uses Radio very effectively via ‘Firesode chats’
 Ends prohibition with a martini cocktail!
FDR’s inclusive politics
 Grants rights to workers to join unions
 Unleashes 1800 strikes by workers for union recognition
 A long, bitter strike by San Francisco port workers follows
 Appoints Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor, to oversee public works programs;
first woman ever in US Cabinet
 Promotes equal rights for African-Americans
 Appoints first African American federal judge, William H Hastie
 Triples number of African Americans working for the government
 Includes racial quotas for Public Works projects
 Funds largescale educational programmes for African Americans (source)
 Creates first national Theatre, Arts, Writing and Music projects
Eleanor Roosevelt’s activism
 As new President’s wife, she visits soldiers protesting in Washington DC
 First white person to join NAACP in Washington DC
 Resigns from ‘Daughters of the American Revolution when they refuse to allow
Marian Anderson (African American opera star) to sing
 Writes a daily column, My Day, about being the President’s wife – and about the
issues facing America – for some examples see here
 Travels constantly to visit hospitals, poor neighborhoods, factories (to inspect
working conditions) etc.
 Occasionally faced criticism and ridicule in the press
 Today she remains much admired as an American liberal and feminist
 Wrote a column everyday in My Day the newspaper

The political rainbow: When America felt like Europe!

 Mass Media gives voice to a broad spectrum of political parties and views
 Catholic priest Charles Coughlin captures millions of radio listeners each week,
preaching:
"I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism
because it robs the laborer of this world's goods. But blow for blow I shall strike against
Communism, because it robs us of the next world's happiness.”
Ultimately silenced for anti-Semitic speeches
 In Louisiana, Governor Huey Long promotes radical socialism
 Attacks big business
 Supports the Mafia
 Uses censorship, extortion and bullying to retain power … (video)
1935 Long is assassinated

Literature gets political: Culture and the Crisis

 1932Culture and the Crisis: An open letter to the writers, artists, teachers, physicians,
engineers, scientists and other professional workers of America
 Signed by 52 prominent American writers
 Advocates political union between working and professional classes
 Said only Communism allows ‘brain workers’ full freedom to exercise their skills
 Openly supports election of Communist candidates James W Ford and William Z
Foster
 40,000 copies distributed

Yes – Actual (réel) American Communism

 1931: 100,000 Americans move to Soviet Union
 Throughout 1930s New Masses and Partisan Review, both communist journals,
publish famous American writers
 Ernest Hemingway
 John Dos Passos
  Langston Hughes
 Eugene O’Neill
 Upton Sinclair
 William Carlos Williams
 1936 Earl Browder, President of CPUSA, broadcasts on CBS Radio
‘America, if it and when it comes to a socialist system of society, will have an entirely
different kind; it will grow out of the most advanced society in the world and will reflect that
in [its] socialism; it will be democratic socialism.’ (source)

An unusual American hero

 1920s Copland studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris
 Knows European avant-garde music, but ….
 Prefers to use simple melodies for a democratic American voice
 1930s Supported $$$ by New Deal arts programs
 1950s Blacklisted for communistleanings
 Was quietly gay
 Is much loved today as an American symphonic composer

1947: The year they remade the world

Aujourd’hui
 France 1947
 USA 1947 and President Harry Truman
 Three speeches that defined US foreign policy
 Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech
 Truman’s foreign-policy ‘Doctrine’ speech
 The Marshall Plan speech
 What was the Marshall Plan?
 Beyond politics: How the US supported French culture

Post-war France
 After the war, bitter trials, formal executions and épurations sauvages of
collaborateurs/-trices (source)
 791 formal executions
 Thousands of collaborators murdered
 Thousands of women shaved (rasée): A US commander said “The French were
rounding up collaborators, cutting their hair off and burning it in huge piles,
which one could smell miles away (source)“
 1946 New French Constitution; de Gaulle’s defeat leads to series of weak coalition
governments
 1946-47 Harsh winter weather, -15 degrees
 1947 Transport networks still en panne –
  Food shortages
 Coal shortages
 Strikes
Low manufacturing and high inflation

President Harry S Truman

 1 Jan 1945 Truman elected Vice President under Roosevelt
 Roosevelt and Truman are not close partners and they rarely meet = Roosevelt didn’t
like Truman
 12 April 45: Roosevelt dies = Truman didn’t know his health issue, he was at a
meeting when he died, he rushed back to the White House, Truman becomes
president
 Truman is a ‘New Deal’ Democrat
 Believes in Government intervention in the economy
 Supports creation of UN and peace-keeping, appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as
first US delegate
 Will enact major civil-rights legislation
 Reflective, tough, and decisive
 Close relationships with two older women:
 His well-educated mother: they speak regularly while he is president, every
day
 His intolérable right-wing mother-in-law: she visits the White House regularly
– she didn’t believe he was good enough for her daughter

How Truman ended the war:

Hiroshima 6 Août 1945
Nagasaki 9 Août 1945
 « Ce pays a connu comme peu le niveau de destruction dont l'être humain est
capable. » -Pape François, 24 novembre 2019

The atomic bombs

6, 9 August 1945 Truman authorises atomic bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Japan
Kills 150,000+ civilians
Truman justifies Hiroshima, saying it ended the war with Japan with fewer deaths than
traditional warfare
There has never been a justification for the bombing of Nagasaki
Later, Truman would block further use of nuclear arms: ‘This isn’t a military weapon. It is
used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So,
we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannons.’
The bombs establish global US military dominance for a few years

Truman’s situation after the war

  US political landscape is deeply divided
 High inflation causes industrial strikes
 Truman introduces rationing (rationnement) and price controls, very
unpopular
 Nov 1946 - In mid-term elections, right-wing Republicans defeat Democrats
and control House of Representatives and Senate
 Joseph McCarthy (Wisconsin) and his colleagues pursue McCarthy-ism,
passing anti-union legislation and starting anti-communist trials in Hollywood
 Truman inherits the ‘Morganthau plan’ for Europe:
 Offers significant financial aid to Europe, but:
 Ignores Germany’s desperate need for humanitarian aid
 Starts dismantling (démanteler) German factories
 Seeks to reduce Germany to an agricultural nation

Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech

 5 March 1946, Churchill (ex-Prime Minister of UK) speaks at a small college in
Missouri
 Churchill wants to avoid further war
 Notes that Russian communism is conquering Eastern Europe:
‘An iron curtain has descended across the Continent … The Communist parties … in all
these Eastern States of Europe … are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian
control.’
 Says western democracies must remain united - and demonstrate force - to prevent
the Soviets from attempting to expand their territory:
‘There is nothing [the Soviets] admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for
which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.’
WC was an unbelievable alcoholic, he wrote a 5volume history of England. Very British, very
clear thinking.

The Truman Doctrine, 12 March 1947

 Greece and Turkey have asked the US for humanitarian aid;
 12 March 1947 Truman addresses the Senate and the House of Representatives in
response. (source)
At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between
alternative ways of life.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free
institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty,
freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the
majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections,
and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to
support free peoples … I believe that our help should
be primarily through economic and financial aid.
The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery
and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty
and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope
of a people for a better life has died.
We must keep that hope alive.
 Sets policy of US economic support for Europe
 This speech was hugely popular!

The America people respond: The Friendship Train, 1947

 1947 Americans are donating $12m per month to charities (associations) to support
Europe
 In addition, the ‘Friendship Train’ crosses America collecting food and gifts; at each
stop new boxcars (wagons) are added
 700 boxcars of goods – value $44m – are shipped to France and Italy
 1949 France responds with a ‘Merci train’ with 52,000 gifts – dolls, books, paintings
etc

The political response: The ‘Marshall Plan’

 5 June 1947 – General George Marshall delivers the graduation speech (discours) at
Harvard – the subject is not expected by the audience
 Truman’s press officers do not publicise the speech in the US
 But the speech is broadcast in the UK by the BBC
 17 June - UK Prime Minister Bevin calls a conference of European countries in Paris

What did Marshall say?

 Europe is in trouble:
‘Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is entirely obsolete … Long-standing commercial ties,
private institutions, banks, insurance companies and shipping companies have disappeared,
through loss of capital, absorption through nationalization or by simple destruction … The
breakdown of the business structure of Europe during the war was complete.’
 America must help
‘Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential
products – principally from America – are so much greater than her present ability to pay,
that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social and political
deterioration of a very grave character.’
 Marshall does not exclude communist countries:
‘Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty,
desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world
so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can
exist.’
  Europe itself must decide how to rebuild:
‘This is the business of the Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The
program should be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all European nations.’

The assumptions behind The Marshall Plan

 A strong Europe will benefit US exports
 Sharing US technical knowledge will help European recovery (récuperation)
 Europe needs to cooperate as a union and reduce tariffs (impôts) between countries
 If the US supports European recovery, Communism will be contained (limité)
 Americans can feel good about this: Truman says: ‘In all the history of the world, we
are the first great nation to feed and support the conquered.’
 Of course not all Americans agreed …

How did Europe respond?

 June 1947 - European Nations gather in Paris, including the Soviet Union, Poland,
Czechoslovakia
 2 July - Vyacheslav Molotov, Russian Foreign Minister, walks out of talks
 Poland and Czechoslovakia are ‘encouraged’ to follow him - they also leave Paris
 12 July - 16 remaining nations meet in the French Foreign Ministry and form the
Committee for European Economic Cooperation (CEEC) – The USA is not represented
in Paris, let the European decide what they want to do

The Conference for European Economic Cooperation CEEC

En sommes-nous donc arrivés donc au terme de la période des concessions vaines et de la
confusion systématique qui ont caractérisé l’immédiate après guerre?
- France Illustration, 12 July 1947

Marshall Plan facts

 Approved in the US April, 1948
 Sixteen countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and Western
Germany
 US eventually approves $13.3 billion from 1948 to 1951 ($88 billion in today's
dollars), about 3% of European economy
 90% grants, 10% loans
 Europeans spend most of the money on American goods or investing in American
technology
 But European governments invest additional funds which remain in their local
economies

Who was in charge of the Plan in the US?

 The ‘Economic Cooperation Adminstration’
 Led by Paul Hoffman, President of Studebaker cars
  Hoffmann and his team of senior businessmen visit Europe and analyse dozens of
factories
 Hoffmann:
‘Almost all European countries faced the necessity of a rapid increase in productivity.
Their factories were filled with out-dated tools and they were employing old-
fashioned methods’

Technical Assistance program

 1930s – US Bureau of Labour Statistics measures productivity (cost accounting) for
industries companies in US
 After visits to Europe, BLS officials report: ‘Productivity levels in the United States are
more than twice those in Great Britain, and more than three times that of Belgium,
France and other industrial countries of Europe.’ (source)
 Technical Assistance Program brings 24,000 Europeans and Asians to the US to visit
factories, learn new business concepts, and see new products, engineering methods
and equipment.
 France sends 500 missions with 4700 experts to US
 The program also enables co-operation between companies within France: ‘Team
members now visit each others’ plants—usually for the first time in their lives—
before going to the United States in order to have a rounded picture of their own
industries.’
 TAP budget: $300 million = 1.5% of Marshall Plan
 Some Europeans resent America’s arrogance, as if America had ‘invented’
productivity …

What about Germany ?

 German manufacturing facilities continue to be dismantled by US and Soviets up to
1951
 German expertise and manufacturing information is taken (stolen!) from factories
and government sources (source)
 Germany had to pay costs of US occupation in Germany
 Marshall Plan support does not reach Germany until 1949

What did the French think?

 1947 Simone de Beauvoir complains of US naivete and optimism:

‘On dirait qu’ils croient pouvoir régler le sort de l’Europe à coups de boîtes de
conserves.’ (Source)

French communists openly oppose Marshall plan

 “The Communists had a monopoly on the walls of Paris.” - Thomas Wilson, Marshall
Plan Information Officer to England and France
  Communist dockworkers in Le Havre and Marseille refuse to unload ships with
Marshall Plan goods. They have to be unloaded by the French Army. (source)
 French film makers also object to trade agreements, which opened the French
market to US films: In 1947, 340 American films were shown in France compared to
40 French films
Sartre and Camus call for a new Socialist Europe
October 1947, Sartre and Camus publish ‘A First Call to International Opinion’ (source)
‘The men of Europe have come to expect just a few years’ or few months’ respite before a
new massacre.

This war … unimaginable in its effects and its destructiveness, would make any historical
future unimaginable.
Europe is already a battlefield for the two great enemy powers.

Only a radical transformation of the existing social order will provide a definitive solution.
[We must work] within the framework of an international organisation. It requires a socialist
revolution and the replacing of private property by really collective property.’

Did the The Marshall Plan work?

 1948-1951 per capita GNP grew 33.5% across Western Europe
 Europe might have experienced growth without US aid
 The plan opened the gates for free trade between the US and Europe
 ‘The United States ought not to forget that the European Union is one of its own
greatest achievements: It would never have happened without the Marshall Plan.’
- German chancellor Helmut Schmidt source

Beyond business: How the US supported French culture after the war
Ginette Nevue 1919-1949
 Nov 1947- Nevue plays in Carnegie Hall
 Striking intensity for a young player (video)
 Time Magazine celebrates European musicians, ‘these masterful and strangely
concentrated young people who came to maturity amidst bloodshed and treason.’
 Died in 1949 on another flight to the US

Cluny tapestries displayed in New York

 Agreement between French government and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
 44 crates of tapestries shipped from Paris
 140,000 visitors in 4 months
 New York Mayor William O'Dwyer says: ‘While the countries of the world are thinking
in terms of war, France is thinking in terms of culture.’

Simone de Beauvoir in the USA

Simone de Beauvoir in 1947
 Known as a novelist, philosopher, and companion to the (more famous) Jean-Paul
Sartre
 She met and fell in love with an American man Nelson Agren
 1947 She is invited to spend 4 months lecturing at universities across the US
 The trip was a major event in Beauvoir’s life
 Experiences all sides of America, and writes L’Amérique au jour de jour
 Meets and falls in love with Nelson Algren
 Begins to write her greatest work, Le Deuxième Sexe
 One American journalist reports: ‘Well, surprise! Mlle. de B. is the prettiest
Existentialist you ever saw!’ (The New Yorker 22 February 1947)

Beauvoir in Love
1929 Beauvoir and Sartre become partners
1947 in Chicago, Beauvoir meets Nelson Algren, a poor, tough, struggling writer
It’s passionate – Back in Paris, she wears Algren’s ring
But she won’t leave Paris for the US and she won’t leave Sartre
‘Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms …’ Le
deuxième sexe

Echoes of America in The Second Sex (1949) : 20000 copies the first week
 Beauvoir experiences racism in Southern US:
This is the first time we’re seeing with our own eyes the segregation we’ve heard so
much about … it was our own skin that became heavy and stifling, its colour making
us burn. (L’Amérique au Jour de jour)
 Algren persuades Beauvoir to expand her essays on women into a book-length work
and to compare sexual discrimination with the racial discrimination suffered by
African Americans
 In The Second Sex she will write:
“It is when the slavery of half of humanity is abolished that the human couple will
discover its true form.”

The US and France create a symphony: Olivier Messiaen, 1908-1992

 Music teacher at Paris Conservatoire and organist at La Trinité church, Montmartre
for many years
 1943 While imprisoned by Nazis, Messiaen writes ‘Quartet for the end of Time’
 1946 Boston Symphony Orchestra commissions (commandent) Messiaen to write a
symphony
 1947 Writes Turangalîla Symphony
 It’s long, requires a huge orchestra, has a bizarre structure, and includes a strange
electronic instrument, the ‘Ondes Martinot’
 1949 Turangalîla is first performed in Boston, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
  Considered to be the greatest European symphony written since WWII

La mode française pendant la guerre

And then, in 1947 …

Dior in Paris
 1905 Born to wealthy family
 1930s His family is ruined; he is poor, without a profession and in poor health
 Spends a few years as junior designer, then is backed by Maurise Boussac, a French
fabric manufacturer
 1946 Dior shop opens on Avenue Montaigne
 12 Feb 1947 – The New Look show
 90 dresses, some with waists 44 cm
 Bad weather: -13 degrees

Amidst post-war poverty, Dior models are attacked in Marché Lepic

But the Americans are seduced: Vogue USA April 47

Dior conquers the USA

 1948 Opens first shop in New York; creates designs and licences them to
manufacturers and large retailers
 1949 Dior clothes account for 5% of French exports
 1950 Dior earns 50% of France’s revenues for clothing
 1950 First designer to offer perfume and licence his name on accessories – bags,
neckties ties etc.
 Raises and lowers hemlines (ourlets) so often that he receives death threats from
American husbands
 1957 - Appears on cover of Time magazine

Hollywood and the 1930s

Early history
 1890s: cameras, film and projectors
invented
 Similar inventions in Europe and US
 Louis and Auguste Lumière (France)
 Thomas Edison and George Eastman (USA)
 1905-1914: Pathé (France) is world’s
largest film producer
 1910: Hollywood attracts early
film-makers
 Dry weather; sea, mountains, and deserts all
within reach
  Labour not unionised
 After WWI, US dominates world film production
 Hollywood companies own the studios (ateliers), stars (vedettes), and the cinemas

Two early producers

Movie industry grows in the 1930s

 1927 - The Jazz Singer, first sound film, launches ‘talkies’
 1930s - 60 million Americans attend cinema every week
 Five major studios own most of the cinemas – Paramount, MGM, Warner brothers,
RKO and Fox
 Three smaller studios did not own cinemas – Universal, Columbia and United Artists
 By late 1930s, colour appears
 Movies are censored from 1915 … Supreme Court says:
 Movies are commercial products, not art
 Movies are NOT protected under Freedom of Speech, thus:
 Movies can be censored by federal, state and local boards

The Marx Brothers

Who were the Marx Brothers?
 Grew up in a poor immigrant
neighborhood in New York
 Father - French-Alsation
 Mother – German Jewish
 1907 Mother puts them on stage; they tour the US
 1924 Achieve first commercial success on Broadway
 1929 First movie, Cocoanuts, a film version of one
of their Broadway shows
 1934 Their fifth film, Duck Soup (La soupe au
canard), a political satire on fascism and perhaps their best
 1940s, driven by Chico’s gambling debts
(dettes de jeu) they make many bad films
 1950s Groucho has long-running television show
‘You Bet your Life’

What’s unique about their humour?

 Much verbal humour – The brothers’ have their own language(s) that subvert
American rules of communication
 Groucho –
 Puns (calembours) mock the unambiguous language of the powerful
 Asides (apartés) – by speaking directly to the audience, he breaks the
conventional illusion of film
 Rude behaviour (grossièreté) breaks rules of social cohesion
 Clip from Animal Crackers here
 Chico – Italian character shows little respect for the American language
 Harpo – communicates via his ‘Corne de brume’ and complex sign-language –
thus cannot be understood by the ‘normal’ American characters
 Their sexual desires and situations challenge Hollywood norms
 Groucho is a powerless male pursuing all-powerful women
  Harpo displays unrestrained (innocent?) sexual desire
 Some scenes are so anti-realistic they appear to draw on European Surrealism

Arthur Marx (beyond Harpo)

 Taught himself to play the harp
 Promoted the instrument and introduced Jazz to harp repertoire
 Donated his harp to the state of Isreal
 Married and adopted 6 children
 Was friendly with American
writers (such as Dorothy
Parker) and modernist
composer Arnold Schoenberg

Orson Welles: A great independent American film-maker 1915–1985

 Born Kenosha, Wisconsin
 1920 His parents separate
 1924 His mother, pianist and socialite, dies
 1930 Father travels around the world with Orson, then dies
 1930, Welles goes to Ireland
 Paints landscapes (paysages) on remote islands
 In Dublin, meets the theatre directors Hilton Edwards and Michael
MacLiammor
 Plays many roles at the famous ‘Gate Theatre’
 1930s: New York City, successful on stage AND on radio
 1934: Director of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with an all African-American cast
 1938 Appears on the cover of TIME magazine for his performances of Shakespeare –
aged 23!

War of the Worlds, 1938

 30 October: A normal radio
programme is interrupted by a
news story …
 Scientists are seeing strange explosions
through a telescope … And then
Martians land on a farm in New Jersey …
 And now they are taking over the world! (listen here – first break in music 2:54)
 Many Americans believe the story and panic!
 The next day Orson Welles apologises – but enjoys the attention …
 As a result he’s hired by RKO Studios to write and produce a movie. Any movie.

Citizen Kane scenes, 1941

 Boyhood scene – deep focus, two long takes, and note the radio-quality voices here
 Library scene – lighting, competing dialoque, deep focus here
 The party scene – watch for low-ceilings that concealed the microphones! here
 Make-up and script – see 10 years of marriage in 2 minutes here:
 Politics
 A child
 Workaholism
 The influence of the media
 The end – all Kane’s possessions - the famous warehouse scene here