The Unfinished Nation: A Concise

History of the American People 8th

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University. He

served as university provost at Columbia from 2003 to 2009. He is the author of Voices of
Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression, which won the 1983
National Book Award; American History: Connecting with the Past; The End of Reform:
New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War; Liberalism and Its Discontents; Franklin D.
Roosevelt; and The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century. He is board chair of
the National Humanities Center, board chair of the Century Foundation, and a trustee of
Oxford University Press. He is also a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In
1998–1999, he was the Harmsworth Professor of History at Oxford University, and in
2011–2012, the Pitt Professor at the University of Cambridge. He won the Joseph R.
Levenson Memorial Teaching Award at Harvard and the Great Teacher Award at Columbia.
He was educated at Princeton and Harvard.

John Giggie is associate professor of history and African American studies at the
University of Alabama. He is the author of After Redemption: Jim Crow and the
Transformation of African American Religion in the Delta, 1875–1917, editor of America
Firsthand, and editor of Faith in the Market: Religion and the Rise of Commercial Culture.
He is currently preparing a book on African American religion during the Civil War. He has
been honored for his teaching, most recently with a Distinguished Fellow in Teaching award
from the University of Alabama. He received his PhD from Princeton University.

Andrew Huebner is associate professor of history at the University of Alabama. He is

the author of The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War
to the Vietnam Era and has written and spoken widely on the subject of war and society in
the twentieth-century United States. He is currently working on a study of American fami-
lies and public culture during the First World War. He received his PhD from Brown
University.

• vii
BRIEF CONTENTS

PREFACE XXV 16 THE CONQUEST OF THE FAR

WEST 380
1 THE COLLISION OF CULTURES 1
17 INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY 404
2 TRANSPLANTATIONS AND
BORDERLANDS 24 18 THE AGE OF THE CITY 427

3 SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN 19 FROM CRISIS TO EMPIRE 454

PROVINCIAL AMERICA 54
20 THE PROGRESSIVES 487
4 THE EMPIRE IN TRANSITION 83
21 AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR 518
5 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 106
22 THE NEW ERA 543
6 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE NEW
REPUBLIC 133
23 THE GREAT DEPRESSION 563
7 THE JEFFERSONIAN ERA 154
24 THE NEW DEAL 587
8 VARIETIES OF AMERICAN
25 THE GLOBAL CRISIS, 1921–1941 611
NATIONALISM 184

9 JACKSONIAN AMERICA 201

26 AMERICA IN A WORLD AT WAR 628

10 AMERICA’S ECONOMIC
27 THE COLD WAR 653
REVOLUTION 225
28 THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY 678
11 COTTON, SLAVERY, AND THE OLD
SOUTH 251 29 THE TURBULENT SIXTIES 707

12 ANTEBELLUM CULTURE AND 30 THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY 736

REFORM 272
31 FROM “THE AGE OF LIMITS” TO
13 THE IMPENDING CRISIS 296 THE AGE OF REAGAN 766

14 THE CIVIL WAR 321 32 THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION 789

APPENDIX 823
15 RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW
SOUTH 351 GLOSSARY 851
INDEX 855

viii •
 CONTENTS
PREFACE XXV

1 THE COLLISION OF CULTURES 1

AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS 2 Debating the Past: Why Do Historians
The Peoples of the Precontact Americas 2 So Often Differ? 14
The Growth of Civilizations: The South 4
America in the World: The Atlantic
The Civilizations of the North 4
Context of Early American History 16
EUROPE LOOKS WESTWARD 6 CONCLUSION 22
Commerce and Sea Travel 6 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 22
Christopher Columbus 7 RECALL AND REFLECT 23
The Spanish Empire 9
Northern Outposts 12
Biological and Cultural Exchanges 12
Africa and America 13

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH 18

Incentives for Colonization 18
The French and the Dutch in America 20
The First English Settlements 20
Consider the Source: Bartolomé de Las
Casas, “Of the Island of Hispaniola”
(1542) 10

2 TRANSPLANTATIONS AND BORDERLANDS 24

THE EARLY CHESAPEAKE 25
Colonists and Natives 25
Reorganization and Expansion 27
Maryland and the Calverts 29
Bacon’s Rebellion 30
THE GROWTH OF NEW ENGLAND 31
Plymouth Plantation 31
The Massachusetts Bay Experiment 32
The Expansion of New England 34
Settlers and Natives 37
King Philip’s War and the Technology of
Battle 38
THE RESTORATION COLONIES 39
The English Civil War 39
The Carolinas 40
New Netherland, New York, and New
Jersey 41
The Quaker Colonies 41
The Southeast Borderlands 45
The Founding of Georgia 46
Middle Grounds 47
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMPIRE 50
The Dominion of New England 50
The “Glorious Revolution” 51
Consider the Source: Cotton Mather
on the Recent History of New England
(1692) 36
Debating the Past: Native Americans
and the Middle Ground 48
CONCLUSION 52
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 52
RECALL AND REFLECT 53

BORDERLANDS AND MIDDLE

GROUNDS 42
The Caribbean Islands 43
Masters and Slaves in the Caribbean 43
The Southwest Borderlands 44

• ix
x • CONTENTS

3 SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN PROVINCIAL

AMERICA 54
THE COLONIAL POPULATION 55
Indentured Servitude 55
Birth and Death 58
Medicine in the Colonies 58
Women and Families in the Colonies 59
The Beginnings of Slavery in English
America 60
Changing Sources of European
Immigration 65
AWAKENINGS AND
ENLIGHTENMENTS 76
The Pattern of Religions 76
The Great Awakening 77
The Enlightenment 77
Literacy and Technology 78
Education 79
The Spread of Science 80
Concepts of Law and Politics 80

THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES 65 Consider the Source: Gottlieb

The Southern Economy 65
Northern Economic and Technological
Life 66
The Extent and Limits of Technology 67
The Rise of Colonial Commerce 68
The Rise of Consumerism 69
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY 70
Masters and Slaves on the Plantation 70
The Puritan Community 72
Cities 73
Inequality 75
Mittelberger, the Passage of
Indentured Servants (1750) 56
Debating the Past: The Origins of
Slavery 62
Debating the Past: The Witchcraft
Trials 74
CONCLUSION 81
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 82
RECALL AND REFLECT 82

4 THE EMPIRE IN TRANSITION 83

LOOSENING TIES 83 America in the World: The First
A Decentralized Empire 84 Global War 88
The Colonies Divided 84
Consider the Source: Benjamin
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE Franklin, Testimony against the Stamp
CONTINENT 85 Act (1766) 94
New France and the Iroquois Nation 85
Patterns of Popular Culture: Taverns in
Anglo-French Conflicts 86
The Great War for the Empire 86 Revolutionary Massachusetts 100
CONCLUSION 104
THE NEW IMPERIALISM 90
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 105
Burdens of Empire 90
RECALL AND REFLECT 105
The British and the Tribes 92
Battles over Trade and Taxes 92

STIRRINGS OF REVOLT 93
The Stamp Act Crisis 93
Internal Rebellions 96
The Townshend Program 96
The Boston Massacre 97
The Philosophy of Revolt 98
Sites of Resistance 101
The Tea Excitement 101

COOPERATION AND WAR 102

New Sources of Authority 102
Lexington and Concord 103
 CONTENTS • xi

5 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 106

THE STATES UNITED 107
Defining American War Aims 107
The Declaration of Independence 110
Mobilizing for War 110
Diplomatic Failures 127
The Confederation and the Northwest 127
Indians and the Western Lands 129
Debts, Taxes, and Daniel Shays 129

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 111 Debating the Past: The American
The First Phase: New England 111 Revolution 108
The Second Phase: The Mid-Atlantic America in the World: The Age of
Region 112 Revolutions 116
Securing Aid from Abroad 114
The Final Phase: The South 115 Consider the Source: The
Winning the Peace 119 Correspondence of Abigail Adams on
Women’s Rights (1776) 122
WAR AND SOCIETY 119
CONCLUSION 131
Loyalists and Minorities 119
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 131
The War and Slavery 120
RECALL AND REFLECT 132
Native Americans and the Revolution 121
Women’s Rights and Roles 121
The War Economy 124

THE CREATION OF STATE

GOVERNMENTS 124
The Assumptions of Republicanism 124
The First State Constitutions 124
Revising State Governments 125
Toleration and Slavery 126

THE SEARCH FOR A NATIONAL

GOVERNMENT 126
The Confederation 126

6 THE CONSTITUTION AND THE NEW REPUBLIC 133

FRAMING A NEW GOVERNMENT 134
Advocates of Reform 134
A Divided Convention 135
Compromise 136
The Constitution of 1787 136
ADOPTION AND ADAPTATION 140
Federalists and Antifederalists 140
Completing the Structure 141
FEDERALISTS AND REPUBLICANS 142
Hamilton and the Federalists 142
Enacting the Federalist Program 143
The Republican Opposition 144
Repression and Protest 150
The “Revolution” of 1800 151
Debating the Past: The Meaning
of the Constitution 138
Consider the Source: Washington’s
Farewell Address, American Daily
Advertiser, September 19, 1796 146
CONCLUSION 152
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 152
RECALL AND REFLECT 153

ESTABLISHING NATIONAL
SOVEREIGNTY 145
Securing the West 145
Maintaining Neutrality 148

THE DOWNFALL OF THE

FEDERALISTS 149
The Election of 1796 149
The Quasi War with France 149
xii • CONTENTS
7 THE JEFFERSONIAN ERA 154
THE RISE OF CULTURAL
NATIONALISM 155
Educational and Literary Nationalism 155
Medicine and Science 156
Cultural Aspirations of the New Nation 157
Religion and Revivalism 157
STIRRINGS OF INDUSTRIALISM 159
Technology in America 161
Transportation Innovations 162
Country and City 163
JEFFERSON THE PRESIDENT 165
The Federal City and the “People’s
President” 165
Dollars and Ships 167
Conflict with the Courts 167
DOUBLING THE NATIONAL
DOMAIN 168
Jefferson and Napoleon 168
The Louisiana Purchase 170
Exploring the West 170
The Burr Conspiracy 171
8 VARIETIES OF AMERICAN NATIONALISM 184
STABILIZING ECONOMIC
GROWTH 185
The Government and Economic
Growth 185
Transportation 186
EXPANDING WESTWARD 187
The Great Migration 187
White Settlers in the Old Northwest 187
The Plantation System in the Old
Southwest 188
Trade and Trapping in the Far West 188
Eastern Images of the West 189
THE “ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS” 189
The End of the First Party System 190
John Quincy Adams and Florida 191
The Panic of 1819 191
SECTIONALISM AND
NATIONALISM 192
The Missouri Compromise 192
Marshall and the Court 193
EXPANSION AND WAR 174
Conflict on the Seas 175
Impressment 175
“Peaceable Coercion” 176
The “Indian Problem” and the British 177
Tecumseh and the Prophet 178
Florida and War Fever 179
THE WAR OF 1812 179
Battles with the Tribes 179
Battles with the British 181
The Revolt of New England 181
The Peace Settlement 182
America In The World: The Global
Industrial Revolution 160
Patterns of Popular Culture: Horse
Racing 164
Consider the Source: Thomas Jefferson
to Meriwether Lewis, June 20, 1803 172
CONCLUSION 182
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 183
RECALL AND REFLECT 183
The Court and the Tribes 196
The Latin American Revolution and
the Monroe Doctrine 196
THE REVIVAL OF OPPOSITION 198
The “Corrupt Bargain” 198
The Second President Adams 199
Jackson Triumphant 199
Consider the Source: Thomas Jefferson
Reacts to the Missouri Compromise,
1820 194
CONCLUSION 200
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 200
RECALL AND REFLECT 200
 CONTENTS • xiii

9 JACKSONIAN AMERICA 201

THE RISE OF MASS POLITICS 202
The Expanding Democracy 202
Tocqueville and Democracy in America 204
The Legitimization of Party 204
President of the Common People 205
“OUR FEDERAL UNION” 209
Calhoun and Nullification 209
The Rise of Van Buren 209
The Webster-Hayne Debate 210
The Nullification Crisis 210
THE REMOVAL OF THE INDIANS 211
White Attitudes toward the Tribes 211
The “Five Civilized Tribes” 211
Trail of Tears 212
The Meaning of Removal 214
The Log Cabin Campaign 219
The Frustration of the Whigs 222
Whig Diplomacy 223
Consider the Source: Alexis de
Tocqueville, Concerning the People’s
Choices and the Instinctive Preferences
of American Democracy 206
Debating the Past: Jacksonian
Democracy 208
Patterns of Popular Culture:
The Penny Press 220
CONCLUSION 224
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 224
RECALL AND REFLECT 224

JACKSON AND THE BANK WAR 214

Biddle’s Institution 214
The “Monster” Destroyed 215
The Taney Court 215

THE CHANGING FACE OF

AMERICAN POLITICS 216
Democrats and Whigs 216

POLITICS AFTER JACKSON 218

Van Buren and the Panic of 1837 218

10 AMERICA’S ECONOMIC REVOLUTION 225

THE CHANGING AMERICAN
POPULATION 226
Population Trends 226
Immigration and Urban Growth,
1840–1860 227
The Rise of Nativism 227
TRANSPORTATION AND
COMMUNICATIONS
REVOLUTIONS 228
The Canal Age 229
The Early Railroads 230
The Triumph of the Rails 231
The Telegraph 232
New Technology and Journalism 234
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 234
The Expansion of Business, 1820–1840 234
The Emergence of the Factory 235
Advances in Technology 235
Rise of the Industrial Ruling Class 236
MEN AND WOMEN AT WORK 236
Recruiting a Native Workforce 236
The Immigrant Workforce 237
The Factory System and the Artisan
Tradition 239
Fighting for Control 240
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY 240
The Rich and the Poor 240
Social and Geographical Mobility 242
Middle-Class Life 242
The Changing Family 243
The “Cult of Domesticity” 244
Leisure Activities 245
THE AGRICULTURAL NORTH 246
Northeastern Agriculture 246
The Old Northwest 247
Rural Life 249
Consider the Source: Handbook to
Lowell, 1848 238
CONCLUSION 249
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 250
RECALL AND REFLECT 250
xiv • CONTENTS

11 COTTON, SLAVERY, AND THE OLD SOUTH 251

THE COTTON ECONOMY 252 Consider the Source: Senator James
The Rise of King Cotton 252 Henry Hammond Declares, “Cotton Is
Southern Trade and Industry 254 King,” 1858 258
Sources of Southern Difference 255
Debating the Past: The Character of
SOUTHERN WHITE SOCIETY 256 Slavery 262
The Planter Class 257 CONCLUSION 270
The “Southern Lady” 257
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 270
The Plain Folk 259
RECALL AND REFLECT 271
SLAVERY: THE “PECULIAR
INSTITUTION” 260
Varieties of Slavery 261
Life under Slavery 261
Slavery in the Cities 264
Free African Americans 265
The Slave Trade 265
Slave Resistance 267

THE CULTURE OF SLAVERY 268

Slave Religion 268
Language and Music 269
The Slave Family 269

12 ANTEBELLUM CULTURE AND REFORM 272

THE ROMANTIC IMPULSE 273 Anti-Abolitionism 291
Abolitionism Divided 291
Nationalism and Romanticism in American
Painting 273 Consider the Source: Declaration of
An American Literature 274 Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca
Literature in the Antebellum
Falls, New York, 1848 284
South 274
The Transcendentalists 275 America in the World: The Abolition
The Defense of Nature 276 of Slavery 288
Visions of Utopia 277 Patterns of Popular Culture:
Redefining Gender Roles 277
Sentimental Novels 292
The Mormons 278
CONCLUSION 294
REMAKING SOCIETY 279 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 295
Revivalism, Morality, and Order 279 RECALL AND REFLECT 295
Health, Science, and Phrenology 280
Medical Science 281
Education 281
Rehabilitation 282
The Rise of Feminism 283
Struggles of Radical Black
Women 285

THE CRUSADE AGAINST

SLAVERY 286
Early Opposition to Slavery 286
Garrison and Abolitionism 287
Black Abolitionists 287
 CONTENTS • xv

13 THE IMPENDING CRISIS 296

LOOKING WESTWARD 297
Manifest Destiny 297
Americans in Texas 297
Oregon 299
The Westward Migration 299
EXPANSION AND WAR 301
The Democrats and Expansion 301
The Southwest and California 302
The Mexican War 303
THE SECTIONAL DEBATE 305
Slavery and the Territories
The California Gold Rush
Rising Sectional Tensions
The Compromise of 1850
THE CRISES OF THE 1850s 310
The Uneasy Truce 310
“Young America” 310
Slavery, Railroads, and the West 311
The Kansas–Nebraska Controversy 311
“Bleeding Kansas” 312
The Free-Soil Ideology 313
The Pro-Slavery Argument 314
Buchanan and Depression 315
The Dred Scott Decision 315
Deadlock over Kansas 316
The Emergence of Lincoln 317
John Brown’s Raid 317
The Election of Lincoln 318
305 Consider the Source: Wilmot
307 Proviso, August 8, 1846 306
308
CONCLUSION 319
308
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 320
RECALL AND REFLECT 320

14 THE CIVIL WAR 321

THE SECESSION CRISIS 322
The Withdrawal of the South 322
The Failure of Compromise 322
The Opposing Sides 323
Billy Yank and Johnny Reb 323
THE MOBILIZATION OF THE
NORTH 326
Economic Nationalism 326
Raising the Union Armies 327
Wartime Politics 328
The Politics of Emancipation 329
African Americans and the Union Cause 330
Women, Nursing, and the War 331
1863: Year of Decision 343
The Last Stage, 1864–1865 347
Debating the Past: The Causes of the
Civil War 324
Patterns of Popular Culture: Baseball
and the Civil War 334
Consider the Source: The Gettysburg
Address, November 19, 1863 346
CONCLUSION 349
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 350
RECALL AND REFLECT 350

THE MOBILIZATION OF THE

SOUTH 331
The Confederate Government 331
Money and Manpower 332
Economic and Social Effects of the War 333

STRATEGY AND DIPLOMACY 333

The Commanders 333
The Role of Sea Power 336
Europe and the Disunited States 337

CAMPAIGNS AND BATTLES 338

The Technology of War 338
The Opening Clashes, 1861 339
The Western Theater 339
The Virginia Front, 1862 341
The Progress of the War 343
xvi • CONTENTS

15 RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH 351

THE PROBLEMS OF
PEACEMAKING 352
The Aftermath of War and Emancipation 352
Competing Notions of Freedom 352
Plans for Reconstruction 354
The Death of Lincoln 355
Johnson and “Restoration” 357
RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION 358
The Black Codes 358
The Fourteenth Amendment 358
The Congressional Plan 359
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson 362
THE SOUTH IN
RECONSTRUCTION 362
The Reconstruction Governments 362
Education 364
Landownership and Tenancy 364
Incomes and Credit 364
The African American Family in
Freedom 365
The Compromise of 1877 369
The Legacy of Reconstruction 371
THE NEW SOUTH 371
The “Redeemers” 371
Industrialization and the New South 372
Tenants and Sharecroppers 373
African Americans and the
New South 373
The Birth of Jim Crow 374
Debating the Past: Reconstruction 356
Consider the Source: Southern Blacks
Ask for Help, 1865 360
Patterns of Popular Culture: The
Minstrel Show 376
CONCLUSION 378
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 379
RECALL AND REFLECT 379

THE GRANT ADMINISTRATION 366

The Soldier President 366
The Grant Scandals 367
The Greenback Question 367
Republican Diplomacy 368

THE ABANDONMENT OF
RECONSTRUCTION 368
The Southern States “Redeemed” 368
Waning Northern Commitment 369

16 THE CONQUEST OF THE FAR WEST 380

THE SOCIETIES OF THE FAR
WEST 381
The Western Tribes 381
Hispanic New Mexico 382
Hispanic California and Texas 382
The Chinese Migration 383
Anti-Chinese Sentiments 385
Migration from the East 386
THE CHANGING WESTERN
ECONOMY 386
Labor in the West 387
The Arrival of the Miners 387
The Cattle Kingdom 388
THE ROMANCE OF THE WEST 390
The Western Landscape and the Cowboy 390
The Idea of the Frontier 391
THE DISPERSAL OF THE TRIBES 393
White Tribal Policies 394
The Indian Wars 395
The Dawes Act 397
THE RISE AND DECLINE
OF THE WESTERN FARMER 398
Farming on the Plains 398
Commercial Agriculture 399
The Farmers’ Grievances 401
The Agrarian Malaise 402
Debating the Past: The Frontier and
the West 392
Consider the Source: Walter Baron
Von Richthofen, Cattle Raising on the
Plains in North America, 1885 400
CONCLUSION 402
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 403
RECALL AND REFLECT 403

17 INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY 404
SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL
GROWTH 405
Industrial Technologies 405
The Technology of Iron and Steel
Production 406
The Automobile and the Airplane 407
Research and Development 408
The Science of Production 408
Railroad Expansion and the
Corporation 410
CAPITALIST CONSERVATISM AND
ITS CRITICS 412
Survival of the Fittest 412
The Gospel of Wealth 413
Alternative Visions 417
The Problems of Monopoly 419
18 THE AGE OF THE CITY 427
THE NEW URBAN GROWTH 428
The Migrations 428
The Ethnic City 429
Assimilation and Exclusion 431
THE URBAN LANDSCAPE 433
The Creation of Public Space 434
The Search for Housing 435
Urban Technologies: Transportation and
Construction 436
STRAINS OF URBAN LIFE 436
Fire and Disease 437
Environmental Degradation 437
Urban Poverty, Crime, and Violence 438
The Machine and the Boss 438
THE RISE OF MASS
CONSUMPTION 440
Patterns of Income and Consumption 440
Chain Stores, Mail-Order Houses, and
Department Stores 441
Women as Consumers 441
LEISURE IN THE CONSUMER
SOCIETY 443
Redefining Leisure 443
Spectator Sports 444
Music, Theater, and Movies 445
Patterns of Public and Private Leisure 446
The Technologies of Mass
Communication 447
The Telephone 447
CONTENTS • xvii
THE ORDEAL OF THE WORKER 419
The Immigrant Workforce 419
Wages and Working Conditions 420
Emerging Unionization 421
The Knights of Labor 422
The American Federation of Labor 422
The Homestead Strike 423
The Pullman Strike 424
Sources of Labor Weakness 424
Consider the Source: Andrew Carnegie
Explains the Gospel of Wealth, 1889 414
Patterns of Popular Culture: The
Novels of Horatio Alger 416
CONCLUSION 425
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 425
RECALL AND REFLECT 426
HIGH CULTURE IN THE URBAN
AGE 448
Literature and Art in Urban America 448
The Impact of Darwinism 449
Toward Universal Schooling 450
Universities and the Growth of Science and
Technology 450
Medical Science 451
Education for Women 452
America in the World: Global
Migrations 432
Consider the Source: John Wanamaker,
the Four Cardinal Points of the
Department Store, 1874 442
CONCLUSION 452
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 453
RECALL AND REFLECT 453
xviii • CONTENTS
19 FROM CRISIS TO EMPIRE 454
THE POLITICS OF EQUILIBRIUM 455
The Party System 455
The National Government 456
Presidents and Patronage 457
Cleveland, Harrison, and the Tariff 458
New Public Issues 459
THE AGRARIAN REVOLT 460
The Grangers 460
The Farmers’ Alliances 460
The Populist Constituency 462
Populist Ideas 462
THE CRISIS OF THE 1890s 462
The Panic of 1893 463
The Silver Question 464
“A Cross of Gold” 465
The Conservative Victory 466
McKinley and Recovery 466
STIRRINGS OF IMPERIALISM 468
The New Manifest Destiny 468
Hawaii and Samoa 468
WAR WITH SPAIN 472
Controversy over Cuba 472
20 THE PROGRESSIVES
THE PROGRESSIVE IMPULSE 488
487
The Muckrakers and the Social Gospel 489
The Settlement House Movement 491
The Allure of Expertise 492
The Professions 492
Women and the Professions 493
WOMEN AND REFORM 493
The “New Woman” 494
The Clubwomen 494
Woman Suffrage 495
THE ASSAULT ON THE PARTIES 496
Early Attacks 496
Municipal Reform 497
Statehouse Progressivism 497
Parties and Interest Groups 498
SOURCES OF PROGRESSIVE
REFORM 498
Labor, the Machine, and Reform 499
Western Progressives 501
African Americans and Reform 501
CRUSADES FOR SOCIAL ORDER
AND REFORM 503
The Temperance Crusade 503
Immigration Restriction 503
The Dream of Socialism 504
Decentralization and Regulation 504
“A Splendid Little War” 473
Seizing the Philippines 476
The Battle for Cuba 476
Puerto Rico and the United States 478
The Debate over the Philippines 478
THE REPUBLIC AS EMPIRE 481
Governing the Colonies 481
The Philippine War 482
The Open Door 484
A Modern Military System 485
America in the World: Imperialism 470
Patterns of Popular Culture: Yellow
Journalism 474
Consider the Source: Platform of the
American Anti-Imperialist League,
1899 480
CONCLUSION 485
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 486
RECALL AND REFLECT 486
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND
THE MODERN PRESIDENCY 505
The Accidental President 505
The “Square Deal” 506
Roosevelt and the Environment 507
Panic and Retirement 509
THE TROUBLED SUCCESSION 510
Taft and the Progressives 510
The Return of Roosevelt 510
Spreading Insurgency 511
Roosevelt versus Taft 512
WOODROW WILSON AND THE NEW
FREEDOM 512
Woodrow Wilson 512
The Scholar as President 514
Retreat and Advance 515
America in the World: Social
Democracy 490
Debating the Past: Progressivism 500
Consider the Source: John Muir on the
Value of Wild Places, 1901 508
CONCLUSION 516
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 516
RECALL AND REFLECT 517
 CONTENTS • xix

21 AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR 518

THE “BIG STICK”: AMERICA AND
THE WORLD, 1901–1917 519
Roosevelt and “Civilization” 519
Protecting the “Open Door” in Asia 520
The Iron-Fisted Neighbor 520
The Panama Canal 521
Taft and “Dollar Diplomacy” 522
Diplomacy and Morality 522
THE ROAD TO WAR 524
The Collapse of the European Peace 524
Wilson’s Neutrality 524
Preparedness versus Pacifism 525
Intervention 525
“OVER THERE” 527
Mobilizing the Military 527
The Yanks Are Coming 529
The New Technology of Warfare 530
Organizing the Economy for War 532
The Search for Social Unity 533
THE SEARCH FOR A NEW WORLD
ORDER 535
The Fourteen Points 535
The Paris Peace Conference 536
The Ratification Battle 536
A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 537
The Unstable Economy 537
The Demands of African Americans 538
The Red Scare 540
Refuting the Red Scare 540
The Retreat from Idealism 541
Consider the Source: Race, Gender,
and World War I Posters 528
Patterns of Popular Culture: George
M. Cohan, “Over There,” 1917 534
CONCLUSION 541
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 542
RECALL AND REFLECT 542

22 THE NEW ERA

THE NEW ECONOMY 544
543
Consider the Source: America’s Early
Technology, Organization, and Economic Telephone Network 546
Growth 544
America in the World: The Cinema 552
Workers in an Age of Capital 545
Women and Minorities in the CONCLUSION 562
Workforce 548 KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 562
Agricultural Technology and the Plight RECALL AND REFLECT 562
of the Farmer 551

THE NEW CULTURE 551

Consumerism and Communications 551
Women in the New Era 554
The Disenchanted 555

A CONFLICT OF CULTURES 556

Prohibition 556
Nativism and the Klan 557
Religious Fundamentalism 558
The Democrats’ Ordeal 558

REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 559

Harding and Coolidge 559
Government and Business 560
xx • CONTENTS

23 THE GREAT DEPRESSION

THE COMING OF THE
DEPRESSION 564
The Great Crash 564
Causes of the Depression 565
Progress of the Depression 567
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN HARD
TIMES 568
Unemployment and Relief 569
African Americans and the Depression 570
Hispanics and Asians in Depression
America 570
Women and Families in the Great
Depression 573
563
The Election of 1932 584
The “Interregnum” 585
America in the World: The Global
Depression 566
Consider the Source: Mr. Tarver
Remembers the Great Depression 572
Patterns of Popular Culture: The
Golden Age of Comic Books 576
CONCLUSION 586
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 586
RECALL AND REFLECT 586

THE DEPRESSION AND AMERICAN

CULTURE 574
Depression Values 574
Radio 574
The Movies 575
Literature and Journalism 578
The Popular Front and the Left 579

THE ORDEAL OF HERBERT

HOOVER 581
The Hoover Program 581
Popular Protest 582

24 THE NEW DEAL

LAUNCHING THE NEW DEAL 588
587
Restoring Confidence 588
Agricultural Adjustment 589
Industrial Recovery 590
Regional Planning 591
The Growth of Federal Relief 592
THE NEW DEAL IN TRANSITION 593
The Conservative Criticism of the
New Deal 593
The Populist Criticism of the New Deal 596
The “Second New Deal” 598
Labor Militancy 598
Organizing Battles 599
Social Security 600
New Directions in Relief 601
The 1936 “Referendum” 602
THE NEW DEAL IN DISARRAY 603
The Court Fight 603
Retrenchment and Recession 603
LIMITS AND LEGACIES OF THE
NEW DEAL 606
African Americans and the
New Deal 606
The New Deal and the “Indian
Problem” 607
Women and the New Deal 607
The New Deal and the West 608
The New Deal, the Economy, and
Politics 608
Debating the Past: The New Deal 594
Consider the Source: Franklin D.
Roosevelt Speaks on the
Reorganization of the Judiciary 604
CONCLUSION 609
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 610
RECALL AND REFLECT 610
 CONTENTS • xxi

25 THE GLOBAL CRISIS, 1921–1941

THE DIPLOMACY OF THE
611
Patterns of Popular Culture:
NEW ERA 612 Orson Welles and the “War of the
Replacing the League 612 Worlds” 620
Debts and Diplomacy 613
Hoover and the World Crisis 613 Consider the Source: Joint Statement
by President Roosevelt and Prime
ISOLATIONISM AND Minister Churchill 624
INTERNATIONALISM 616
CONCLUSION 626
Depression Diplomacy 616
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 627
The Rise of Isolationism 617
RECALL AND REFLECT 627
The Failure of Munich 618
FROM NEUTRALITY TO
INTERVENTION 619
Neutrality Tested 619
The Campaign of 1940 623
Neutrality Abandoned 623
The Road to Pearl Harbor 625
America in the World: The Sino-
Japanese War, 1931–1941 614

26 AMERICA IN A WORLD AT WAR

WAR ON TWO FRONTS 629
628
THE DEFEAT OF THE AXIS 643
Containing the Japanese 629 The European Offensive 644
Holding Off the Germans 630 The Pacific Offensive 646
America and the Holocaust 631 The Manhattan Project and Atomic
Warfare 649
THE AMERICAN ECONOMY IN
WARTIME 633 Consider the Source: The Face of the
Prosperity and the Rights of Labor 633 Enemy 638
Stabilizing the Boom and Mobilizing Debating the Past: The Decision to
Production 634
Drop the Atomic Bomb 648
Wartime Science and Technology 634
CONCLUSION 651
RACE AND ETHNICITY IN WARTIME KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 652
AMERICA 635 RECALL AND REFLECT 652
African Americans and the War 635
Native Americans and the War 636
Mexican American War Workers 637
The Internment of Japanese
Americans 637
Chinese Americans and the War 639

ANXIETY AND AFFLUENCE IN

WARTIME CULTURE 639
Home-Front Life and Culture 639
Love, Family, and Sexuality in
Wartime 640
The Growth of Wartime Conservatism 642
xxii • CONTENTS
27 THE COLD WAR
ORIGINS OF
653
THE COLD WAR 654
Sources of Soviet–American
Tension 654
Wartime Diplomacy 655
Yalta 655
THE COLLAPSE OF THE PEACE 658
The Failure of Potsdam 658
The China Problem and Japan 659
The Containment Doctrine 659
The Conservative Opposition to
Containment 659
The Marshall Plan 660
Mobilization at Home 661
The Road to NATO 661
Reevaluating Cold War Policy 663
AMERICA AFTER THE WAR 663
The Problems of Reconversion 663
The Fair Deal Rejected 665
The Election of 1948 666
The Fair Deal Revived 667
28 THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY
THE ECONOMIC “MIRACLE” 679
Economic Growth 679
The Rise of the Modern West 680
Capital and Labor 681
THE EXPLOSION OF SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY 682
Medical Breakthroughs 682
Pesticides 683
Postwar Electronic Research 684
Postwar Computer Technology 684
Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles 684
The Space Program 685
PEOPLE OF PLENTY 686
The Consumer Culture 687
The Suburban Nation 687
The Suburban Family 687
The Birth of Television 688
Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and
Environmentalism 689
Organized Society and Its Detractors 692
The Beats and the Restless Culture of
Youth 692
Rock ’n’ Roll 693
THE OTHER AMERICA 694
On the Margins of the Affluent Society 694
Rural Poverty 695
The Inner Cities 695
The Nuclear Age 668
THE KOREAN WAR 669
The Divided Peninsula 669
From Invasion to Stalemate 671
Limited Mobilization 671
THE CRUSADE AGAINST
SUBVERSION 672
HUAC and Alger Hiss 672
The Federal Loyalty Program and the
Rosenberg Case 673
McCarthyism 673
The Republican Revival 676
Debating the Past: The Cold War 656
Consider the Source: National Security
Council Paper No. 68 (NSC-68) 664
Debating the Past: McCarthyism 674
CONCLUSION 676
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 677
RECALL AND REFLECT 677
678
THE RISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT 696
The Brown Decision and “Massive
Resistance” 696
The Expanding Movement 697
Causes of the Civil Rights
Movement 698
EISENHOWER REPUBLICANISM 698
“What Was Good for . . . General
Motors” 699
The Survival of the Welfare State 699
The Decline of McCarthyism 699
EISENHOWER, DULLES, AND THE
COLD WAR 700
Dulles and “Massive Retaliation” 700
France, America, and Vietnam 700
Cold War Crises 701
The U-2 Crisis 702
Patterns of Popular Culture: On
the Road 690
Consider the Source: Eisenhower
Warns of the Military–Industrial
Complex 704
CONCLUSION 705
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 706
RECALL AND REFLECT 706

29 THE TURBULENT SIXTIES
EXPANDING THE LIBERAL
STATE 708
John Kennedy 708
Lyndon Johnson 710
The Assault on Poverty 711
Cities, Schools, and Immigration 712
Legacies of the Great Society 712
THE BATTLE FOR RACIAL
EQUALITY 713
Expanding Protests 713
A National Commitment 716
The Battle for Voting Rights 717
The Changing Movement 717
Urban Violence 720
Black Power 720
“FLEXIBLE RESPONSE” AND THE
COLD WAR 721
Diversifying Foreign Policy 721
Confrontations with the Soviet Union 722
Johnson and the World 723
THE AGONY OF VIETNAM 724
America and Diem 724
30 THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY
THE YOUTH CULTURE 737
The New Left 737
The Counterculture 739
THE MOBILIZATION OF
MINORITIES 740
Seeds of Indian Militancy 741
The Indian Civil Rights Movement 741
Latino Activism 742
Gay Liberation 744
THE NEW FEMINISM 745
The Rebirth 745
Women’s Liberation 746
Expanding Achievements 746
The Abortion Issue 747
ENVIRONMENTALISM
IN A TURBULENT SOCIETY 747
The New Science of
Ecology 748
Environmental Advocacy 748
Earth Day and Beyond 749
NIXON, KISSINGER, AND THE
VIETNAM WAR 750
Vietnamization 750
Escalation 750
“Peace with Honor” 751
Defeat in Indochina 753
CONTENTS • xxiii
707
From Aid to Intervention 725
The Quagmire 725
The War at Home 727
THE TRAUMAS OF 1968 729
The Tet Offensive 731
The Political Challenge 731
Assassinations and Politics 732
The Conservative Response 733
Debating the Past: The Civil Rights
Movement 714
Consider the Source: Fannie Lou
Hamer on the Struggle for Voting
Rights 718
Patterns of Popular Culture: The
Folk-Music Revival 728
America in the World: 1968 730
CONCLUSION 734
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 734
RECALL AND REFLECT 735
736
NIXON, KISSINGER, AND THE
WORLD 753
The China Initiative and Soviet–American
Détente 753
Dealing with the Third World 754
POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
IN THE NIXON YEARS 755
Domestic Initiatives 755
From the Warren Court to the
Nixon Court 758
The 1972 Landslide 759
The Troubled Economy 759
The Nixon Response 760
THE WATERGATE CRISIS 761
The Scandals 761
The Fall of Richard Nixon 763
Consider the Source: Demands of
the New York High School Student
Union 738
America in the World: The End of
Colonialism 756
Debating the Past: Watergate 762
CONCLUSION 764
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 765
RECALL AND REFLECT 765
xxiv • CONTENTS

31 FROM “THE AGE OF LIMITS” TO THE AGE

OF REAGAN 766
POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY AFTER
WATERGATE 767
The Ford Custodianship 767
The Trials of Jimmy Carter 769
Human Rights and National Interests 769
The Year of the Hostages 770
THE RISE OF THE NEW
CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT 771
The Sunbelt and Its Politics 771
Religious Revivalism 771
The Emergence of the New Right 773
The Tax Revolt 774
The Campaign of 1980 774
THE “REAGAN REVOLUTION” 775
The Reagan Coalition 777
Reagan in the White House 779
“Supply-Side” Economics 779
The Fiscal Crisis 780
Reagan and the World 781
AMERICA AND THE WANING
OF THE COLD WAR 782
The Fall of the Soviet Union 782
The Fading of the Reagan
Revolution 783
The Presidency of George H. W. Bush 784
The Gulf War 785
The Election of 1992 786
Consider the Source: Ronald Reagan
on the Role of Government 776
CONCLUSION 787
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 788
RECALL AND REFLECT 788

32 THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION

A RESURGENCE OF
789
The Rise of Terrorism 816
PARTISANSHIP 790 The War on Terror 818
Launching the Clinton Presidency 790 The Iraq War 818
The Republican Resurgence 791 America after the Iraq War 820
Clinton Triumphant and Embattled 793 Patterns of Popular Culture: Rap 798
Impeachment, Acquittal, and
Resurgence 793 Consider the Source: Same-Sex
The Election of 2000 794 Marriage, 2015 810
The Presidency of George W. Bush 795 America in the World: The Global
The Election of 2008 796 Environmental Movement 812
Obama and His Opponents 800
CONCLUSION 821
Obama and the Challenge of Governing 801
KEY TERMS/PEOPLE/PLACES/EVENTS 822
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN RECALL AND REFLECT 822
THE NEW ECONOMY 802
The Digital Revolution 803 APPENDIX 823
The Internet 803 GLOSSARY 851
Breakthroughs in Genetics 804 INDEX 855
A CHANGING SOCIETY 805
A Shifting Population 805
African Americans in the Post–Civil
Rights Era 805
The Abortion Debate 807
AIDS and Modern America 808
Gay Americans and Same-Sex Marriage 809
The Contemporary Environmental
Movement 813

AMERICA IN THE WORLD 815

Opposing the “New World Order” 815
Defending Orthodoxy 816
Another random document with
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length, and their reproduction is as clear as that of any phonograph,
indeed in many respects it is considerably more perfect.
Another electrical apparatus for recording speech may be
mentioned. This rejoices in the uncouth name of the
Photographophone, and it is the invention of Ernst Ruhmer, a
German. Its working is based upon the fact that the intensity of the
light of the electric arc may be varied by sound vibrations, each
variation in the latter producing a corresponding variation in the
amount of light. In the photographophone the light of an arc lamp is
passed through a lens which focuses it upon a moving photographic
film. By speaking or singing, the light is made to vary in brilliance,
and proportionate effects are produced in the silver bromide of the
film. On developing the film a permanent record of the changes in
the light intensity is obtained, in the form of shadings of different
degrees of darkness. The film is now moved forward from end to end
in front of a fairly powerful lamp. The light passes through the film,
and falls upon a sort of plate made of selenium. This is a non-
metallic substance which possesses the curious property of altering
its resistance to an electric current according to the amount of light
falling upon it; the greater the amount of light, the more current will
the selenium allow to pass. The selenium plate is connected with a
telephone receiver and with a battery. As the film travels along, its
varying shadings allow an ever-changing amount of light to pass
through and fall upon the selenium, which varies its resistance
accordingly. The resulting variations in the current make the receiver
diaphragm give out a series of sounds, which are exact
reproductions of the original sounds made by the voice. The
reproduction of speech by the photographophone is quite good, but
as a rule it is not so perfect as with the telegraphone.
About ten years ago a German inventor, Professor A. Korn,
brought out the first really practical method of telegraphing drawings
or photographs. This invention is remarkable not only for what it
accomplishes, but perhaps still more for the ingenuity with which the
many peculiar difficulties of the process are overcome. Like the
photographophone, Korn’s photo-telegraphic apparatus utilizes the
power of selenium to alter its resistance with the amount of light
reaching it.
Almost everybody is familiar with the terms “positive” and
“negative” as used in photography. The finished paper print is a
positive, with light and shade in the correct positions; while the glass
plate from which the print is made is a negative, with light and shade
reversed. The lantern slide also is a positive, and it is exactly like the
paper print, except that it has a base of glass instead of paper, so
that it is transparent. Similarly, a positive may be made on a piece of
celluloid, and this, besides being transparent, is flexible. The first
step in transmitting on the Korn system is to make from the
photograph to be telegraphed a positive of this kind, both transparent
and flexible. This is bent round a glass drum or cylinder, and fixed so
that it cannot possibly move. The cylinder is given a twofold
movement. It is rotated by means of an electric motor, and at the
same time it is made to travel slowly along in the direction of its
length. In fact its movement is very similar to that of a screw, which
turns round and moves forward at the same time. A powerful beam
of light is concentrated upon the positive. This beam remains
stationary, but owing to the dual movement of the cylinder it passes
over every part of the positive, following a spiral path. Exactly the
same effect would be produced by keeping the cylinder still and
moving the beam spirally round it, but this arrangement would be
more difficult to manipulate. The forward movement of the cylinder is
extremely small, so that the spiral is as fine as it is possible to get it
without having adjacent lines actually touching. The light passes
through the positive into the cylinder, and is reflected towards a
selenium cell; and as the positive has an almost infinite number of
gradations of tone, or degrees of light and shade, the amount of light
reaching the cell varies constantly all the time. The selenium
therefore alters its resistance, and allows a constantly varying
current to pass through it, and so to the transmission line.
At the receiving end is another cylinder having the same rotating
and forward movement, and round this is fixed a sensitive
photographic film. This film is protected by a screen having a small
opening, and no light can reach it except through this aperture. The
incoming current is made to control a beam of light focused to fall
upon the screen aperture, the amount of light varying according to
the amount of current. In this way the beam of light, like the one at
the transmitting end, traces a spiral from end to end of the film, and
on developing the film a reproduction of the original photograph is
obtained. The telegraphed photograph is thus made up of an
enormous number of lines side by side, but these are so close to one
another that they are scarcely noticed, and the effect is something
like that of a rather coarse-grained ordinary photograph.
It is obvious that the success of this method depends upon the
maintaining of absolute uniformity in the motion of the two cylinders,
and this is managed in a very ingenious way. It will be remembered
that one method of securing uniformity in a number of sub-clocks
under the control of a master-clock is that of adjusting the sub-clocks
to go a little faster than the master-clock. Then, when the sub-clocks
reach the hour, they are held back by electro-magnetic action until
the master-clock arrives at the hour, when all proceed together.
A similar method is employed for the cylinders. They are driven
by electric motors, and the motor at the receiving end is adjusted so
as to run very slightly faster than the motor at the sending end. The
result is that the receiving cylinder completes one revolution a
minute fraction of a second before the transmitting cylinder. It is then
automatically held back until the sending cylinder completes its
revolution, and then both commence the next revolution exactly
together. The pause made by the receiving cylinder is of extremely
short duration, but in order that there shall be no break in the spiral
traced by light upon the film, the pause takes place at the point
where the ends of the film come together. In actual practice certain
other details of adjustment are required to ensure precision in
working, but the main features of the process are as described.
Although the above photo-telegraphic process is very
satisfactory in working, it has been superseded to some extent by
another process of a quite different nature. By copying the original
photograph through a glass screen covered with a multitude of very
fine parallel lines, a half-tone reproduction is made. This is formed of
an immense number of light and dark lines of varying breadth, and it
is printed in non-conducting ink on lead-foil, so that while the dark
lines are bare foil, the light ones are covered with the ink. This half-
tone is placed round a metal cylinder having the same movement as
the cylinders in the previous processes, and a metal point, or “stylus”
as it is called, is made to rest lightly upon the foil picture, so that it
travels all over it, from one end to the other. An electrical circuit is
arranged so that when the stylus touches a piece of the bare foil a
current is sent out along the line wire. This current is therefore
intermittent, being interrupted each time the stylus passes over a
part of the half-tone picture covered with the non-conducting ink, the
succeeding periods of current and no current varying with the
breadth of the conducting and the non-conducting lines. This
intermittent current goes to a similar arrangement of stylus and
cylinder at the receiving end, this cylinder having round it a sheet of
paper coated with a chemical preparation. The coating is white all
over to begin with, but it turns black wherever the current passes
through it. The final result is that the intermittent current builds up a
reproduction in black-and-white of the original photograph. In this
process also the cylinders have to be “synchronized,” or adjusted to
run at the same speed. Both this process and the foregoing one
have been used successfully for the transmission of press
photographs, notably by the Daily Mirror.
Professor Korn has carried out some interesting and fairly
successful experiments in wireless transmission of photographs, but
as yet the wireless results are considerably inferior to those obtained
with a line conductor. For transmitting black-and-white pictures, line
drawings, or autographs by wireless, a combination of the two
methods just mentioned is employed; the second method being used
for sending, and the first or selenium method for receiving. For true
half-tone pictures the selenium method is used at each end.
 CHAPTER XX
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY AND TELEPHONY—
PRINCIPLES AND APPARATUS

Wireless telegraphy is probably the most remarkable and at the

same time the most interesting of all the varied applications of
electricity. The exceptional popular interest in wireless
communication, as compared with most of the other daily tasks
which electricity is called upon to perform, is easy to understand.
The average man does not realize that although we are able to make
electricity come and go at our bidding, we have little certain
knowledge of its nature. He is so accustomed to hearing of the
electric current, and of the work it is made to do, that he sees little to
marvel at so long as there is a connecting wire. Electricity is
produced by batteries or by a dynamo, sent along a wire, and made
to drive the necessary machinery; apparently it is all quite simple.
But take away the connecting wire, and the case is different. In
wireless telegraphy electricity is produced as usual, but instantly it
passes out into the unknown, and, as far as our senses can tell, it is
lost for ever. Yet at some distant point, hundreds or even thousands
of miles away, the electrical influence reappears, emerging from the
unknown with its burden of words and sentences. There is
something uncanny about this, something suggesting telepathy and
the occult, and herein lies the fascination of wireless telegraphy.
The idea of communicating without any connecting wires is an
old one. About the year 1842, Morse, of telegraph fame, succeeded
in transmitting telegraphic signals across rivers and canals without a
connecting wire. His method was to stretch along each bank of the
river a wire equal in length to three times the breadth of the river.
One of these wires was connected with the transmitter and with a
battery, and the other with a receiver, both wires terminating in
copper plates sunk in the water. In this case the water took the place
of a connecting wire, and acted as the conducting medium. A few
years later another investigator, a Scotchman named Lindsay,
succeeded in telegraphing across the river Tay, at a point where it is
over a mile and a half wide, by similar methods. Lindsay appears to
have been the first to suggest the possibility of telegraphing across
the Atlantic, and although at that time, 1845, the idea must have
seemed a wild one, he had the firmest faith in its ultimate
accomplishment.
Amongst those who followed Lindsay’s experiments with keen
interest was the late Sir William, then Mr. Preece, but it was not until
1882, twenty years after Lindsay’s death, that he commenced
experiments on his own account. In March of that year the cable
across the Solent failed, and Preece took the opportunity of trying to
signal across without a connecting wire. He used two overhead
wires, each terminating in large copper plates sunk in the sea, one
stretching from Southampton to Southsea Pier, and the other from
Ryde Pier to Sconce Point. The experiment was successful, audible
Morse signals being received on each side. In this experiment, as in
those of Morse and Lindsay, the water acted as the conducting
medium; but a year or two later, Preece turned his attention to a
different method of wireless communication, by means of induction.
This method was based upon the fact that at the instant of starting
and stopping a current in one wire, another current is induced in a
second wire placed parallel to it, even when the two wires are a
considerable distance apart. Many successful experiments in this
induction telegraphy were made, one of the most striking being that
between the Island of Mull and the mainland, in 1895. The cable
between the island and the mainland had broken, and by means of
induction perfect telegraphic communication was maintained during
the time that the cable was being repaired. Although this system of
wireless telegraphy is quite successful for short distances, it
becomes impracticable when the distance is increased, because the
length of each of the two parallel wires must be roughly equal to the
distance between them. These experiments of Preece are of great
interest, but we must leave them because they have little connexion
with present-day wireless telegraphy, in which utterly different
methods are used.
All the commercial wireless systems of to-day depend upon the
production and transmission of electric waves. About the year 1837 it
was discovered that the discharge of a Leyden jar did not consist of
only one sudden rush of electricity, but of a series of electric
oscillations, which surged backwards and forwards until electric
equilibrium was restored. This discovery was verified by later
experimenters, and it forms the foundation of our knowledge of
electric waves. At this point many readers probably will ask, “What
are electric waves?” It is impossible to answer this question fully, for
we still have a great deal to learn about these waves, and we only
can state the conclusions at which our greatest scientists have
arrived after much thought and many experiments. It is believed that
all space is filled with a medium to which the name “ether” has been
given, and that this ether extends throughout the matter. We do not
know what the ether is, but the important fact is that it can receive
and transmit vibrations in the form of ether waves. There are
different kinds of ether waves, and they produce entirely different
effects. Some of them produce the effect which we call light, and
these are called “light waves.” Others produce the effect known as
heat, and they are called “heat waves”; and still others produce
electricity, and these we call “electric waves.” These waves travel
through the ether at the enormous speed of 186,000 miles per
second, so that they would cross the Atlantic Ocean in about 1/80
second. The fact that light also travels at this speed suggested that
there might be some connexion between the two sets of waves, and
after much experiment it has been demonstrated that the waves of
light and electricity are identical except in their length.
Later on in this chapter we shall have occasion to refer
frequently to wave-length, and we may take this opportunity of
explaining what is understood by this term. Wave-length is the
distance measured from the crest of one wave to the crest of the
next, across the intervening trough or hollow. From this it will be
seen that the greater the wave-length, the farther apart are the
waves; and also that if we have two sets of waves of different wave-
lengths but travelling at the same speed, then the number of waves
arriving at any point in one second will be greater in the case of the
shorter waves, because these are closer together.
A tuning-fork in vibration disturbs the surrounding air, and sets
up air waves which produce the effect called sound when they strike
against the drums of our ears. In a similar way the discharge of a
Leyden jar disturbs the surrounding ether, and sets up electric ether
waves; but these waves produce no effect upon us in the shape of
sight, sound, or feeling. There is however a very simple piece of
apparatus which acts as a sort of electric eye or ear, and detects the
waves for us. This consists of a glass tube loosely filled with metal
filings, and having a cork at each end. A wire is passed through each
cork so as to project well into the tube, but so that the two ends do
not touch one another, and the outer ends of these wires are
connected to a battery of one or two cells, and to some kind of
electrically worked apparatus, such as an electric bell. So long as the
filings lie quite loosely in the tube they offer a very high resistance,
and no current passes. If now electric waves are set up by the
discharge of a Leyden jar, these waves fall upon the tube and cause
the resistance of the filings to decrease greatly. The filings now form
a conducting path through which the current passes, and so the bell
rings. If no further discharge takes place the electric waves cease,
but the filings do not return to their original highly resistant condition,
but retain their conductivity, and the current continues to pass, and
the bell goes on ringing. To stop the bell it is only necessary to tap
the tube gently, when the filings immediately fall back into their first
state, so that the current cannot pass through them.
Now let us see how the “coherer,” as the filings tube is called, is
used in actual wireless telegraphy. Fig. 33a shows a simple
arrangement for the purpose. A is an induction coil, and B the battery
supplying the current. The coil is fitted with a spark gap, consisting of
two highly polished brass balls CC, one of these balls being
connected to a vertical wire supported by a pole, and the other to
earth. D is a Morse key for starting and stopping the current. When
the key is pressed down, current flows from the battery to the coil,
and in passing through the coil it is raised to a very high voltage, as
described in Chapter VIII. This high tension current is sent into the
aerial wire, which quickly becomes charged up to its utmost limits.
But more current continues to arrive, and so the electricity in the
aerial, unable to bear any longer the enormous pressure, takes the
only path of escape and bursts violently across the air gap
separating the brass balls. Surging oscillations are then produced in
the aerial, the ether is violently disturbed, and electric waves are set
in motion. This is the transmitting part of the apparatus.

a. Transmitting. b. Receiving.
Fig. 33.—Diagram of simple Wireless Transmitting and Receiving
Apparatus.
 If a stone is dropped into a pond, little waves are set in motion,
and these spread outwards in ever-widening rings. Electric waves
also are propagated outwards in widening rings, but instead of
travelling in one plane only, like the water waves, they proceed in
every plane; and when they arrive at the receiving aerial they set up
in it oscillations of the same nature as those which produced the
waves. Let us suppose electric waves to reach the aerial wire of Fig.
33b. The resistance of the coherer H is at once lowered so that
current from battery N flows and operates the relay F, which closes
the circuit of battery M. This battery has a twofold task. It operates
the sounder E, and it energizes the electro-magnet of the de-coherer
K, as shown by the dotted lines. This de-coherer is simply an electric
bell without the gong, arranged so that the hammer strikes the
coherer tube; and its purpose is to tap the tube automatically and
much more rapidly than is possible by hand. The sounder therefore
gives a click, and the de-coherer taps the tube, restoring the
resistance of the filings. The circuit of battery N is then broken, and
the relay therefore interrupts the circuit of battery M. If waves
continue to arrive, the circuits are again closed, another click is
given, and again the hammer taps the tube. As long as waves are
falling upon the aerial, the alternate makings and breakings of the
circuits follow one another very rapidly and the sounder goes on
working. When the waves cease, the hammer of the de-coherer has
the last word, and the circuits of both batteries remain broken. To
confine the electric waves to their proper sphere two coils of wire,
LL, called choking coils, are inserted as shown.
In this simple apparatus we have all the really essential features
of a wireless installation for short distances. For long distance work
various modifications are necessary, but the principle remains
exactly the same. In land wireless stations the single vertical aerial
wire becomes an elaborate arrangement of wires carried on huge
masts and towers. The distance over which signals can be
transmitted and received depends to a considerable extent upon the
height of the aerial, and consequently land stations have the
supporting masts or towers from one to several hundred feet in
height, according to the range over which it is desired to work. As a
rule the same aerial is used both for transmitting and receiving, but
some stations have a separate aerial for each purpose. A good idea
of the appearance of commercial aerials for long distance working
may be obtained from the frontispiece, which shows the Marconi
station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, from which wireless
communication is held with the Marconi station at Clifden, in Galway,
Ireland.
In the first wireless stations what is called a “plain aerial”
transmitter was used, and this was almost the same as the
transmitting apparatus in Fig. 33a, except, of course, that it was on a
larger scale. This arrangement had many serious drawbacks,
including that of a very limited range, and it has been abandoned in
favour of the “coupled” transmitter, a sketch of which is shown in Fig.
34. In this transmitter there are two separate circuits, having the
same rate of oscillation. A is an induction coil, supplied with current
from the battery B, and C is a condenser. A condenser is simply an
apparatus for storing up charges of electricity. It may take a variety of
forms, but in every case it must consist of two conducting layers
separated by a non-conducting layer, the latter being called the
“dielectric.” The Leyden jar is a condenser, with conducting layers of
tinfoil and a dielectric of glass, but the condensers used for wireless
purposes generally consist of a number of parallel sheets of metal
separated by glass or mica, or in some cases by air only. The
induction coil charges up the condenser with high tension electricity,
until the pressure becomes so great that the electricity is discharged
in the form of a spark between the brass balls of the spark gap D.
The accumulated electric energy in the condenser then surges
violently backwards and forwards, and by induction corresponding
surgings are produced in the aerial circuit, these latter surgings
setting up electric waves in the ether.
 Fig. 34.—Wireless “Coupled” Transmitter.

For the sake of simplicity we have represented the apparatus as

using an induction coil, but in all stations of any size the coil is
replaced by a step-up transformer, and the current is supplied either
from an electric light power station at some town near by, or from a
power house specially built for the purpose. Alternating current is
generally used, and if the current supplied is continuous, it is
converted into alternating current. This may be done by making the
continuous current drive an electric motor, which in turn drives a
dynamo generating alternating current. In any case, the original
current is too low in voltage to be used directly, but in passing
through the transformer it is raised to the required high pressure.
The transmitting key, which is inserted between the dynamo and the
transformer, is specially constructed to prevent the operator from
receiving accidental shocks, and the spark gap is enclosed in a sort
of sound-proof box, to deaden the miniature thunders of the
discharge.
During the time that signals are being transmitted, sparks follow
one another across the spark gap in rapid succession, a thousand
sparks per second being by no means an uncommon rate. The
violence of these rapid discharges raises the brass balls of the gap
to a great heat. This has the effect of making the sparking
spasmodic and uncertain, with the result that the signals at the
receiving station are unsatisfactory. To get over this difficulty Marconi
introduced a rotary spark gap. This is a wheel with projecting knobs
or studs, mounted on the shaft of the dynamo supplying the current,
so that it rotates rapidly. Two stationary knobs are fixed so that the
wheel rotates between them, and the sparks are produced between
these fixed knobs and those of the wheel, a double spark gap thus
being formed. Overheating is prevented by the currents of air set up
by the rapid movement of the wheel, and the sparking is always
regular.
 PLATE XIII.

Photo by Daily Mirror.

(a) MARCONI OPERATOR RECEIVING A MESSAGE.

 By permission of The Marconi Co. Ltd.

(b) MARCONI MAGNETIC DETECTOR.

In the receiving apparatus already described a filings coherer

was used to detect the ether waves, and, by means of a local
battery, to translate them into audible signals with a sounder, or
printed signals with a Morse inker. This coherer however is
unsuitable for commercial working. It is not sufficiently sensitive, and
it can be used only for comparatively short distances; while its action
is so slow that the maximum speed of signalling is not more than
about seventeen or eighteen words a minute. A number of different
detectors of much greater speed and sensitiveness have been
devised. The most reliable of these, though not the most sensitive, is
the Marconi magnetic detector, Plate XIII.b. This consists of a
moving band made of several soft iron wires twisted together, and
passing close to the poles of two horse-shoe magnets. As the band
passes from the influence of one magnet to that of the other its
magnetism becomes reversed, but the change takes a certain
amount of time to complete owing to the fact that the iron has some
magnetic retaining power, so that it resists slightly the efforts of one
magnet to reverse the effect of the other. The moving band passes
through two small coils of wire, one connected with the aerial, and
the other with a specially sensitive telephone receiver. When the
electric waves from the transmitting station fall upon the aerial of the
receiving station, small, rapidly oscillating currents pass through the
first coil, and these have the effect of making the band reverse its
magnetism instantly. The sudden moving of the lines of magnetic
force induces a current in the second coil, and produces a click in
the telephone. As long as the waves continue, the clicks follow one
another rapidly, and they are broken up into the long and short
signals of the Morse code according to the manipulation of the
Morse key at the sending station. Except for winding up at intervals
the clockwork mechanism which drives the moving band, this
detector requires no attention, and it is always ready for work.
Another form of detector makes use of the peculiar power
possessed by certain crystals to rectify the oscillatory currents
received from the aerial, converting them into uni-directional
currents. At every discharge of the condenser at the sending station
a number of complete waves, forming what is called a “train” of
waves, is set in motion. From each train of waves the crystal
detector produces one uni-directional pulsation of current, and this
causes a click in the telephone receiver. If these single pulsations
follow one another rapidly and regularly, a musical note is heard in
the receiver. Various combinations of crystals, and crystals and
metal points, are used, but all work in the same way. Some
combinations work without assistance, but others require to have a
small current passed through them from a local battery. The crystals
are held in small cups of brass or copper, mounted so that they can
be adjusted by means of set-screws. Crystal detectors are extremely
sensitive, but they require very accurate adjustment, and any
vibration quickly throws them out of order.
The “electrolytic” detector rectifies the oscillating currents in a
different manner. One form consists of a thin platinum wire passing
down into a vessel made of lead, and containing a weak solution of
sulphuric acid. The two terminals of a battery are connected to the
wire and the vessel respectively. As long as no oscillations are
received from the aerial the current is unable to flow between the
wire and the vessel, but when the oscillations reach the detector the
current at once passes, and operates the telephone receiver. The
action of this detector is not thoroughly understood, and the way in
which the point of the platinum wire prevents the passing of the
current until the oscillations arrive from the aerial is something of a
mystery.
The last detector that need be described is the Fleming valve
receiver. This consists of an electric incandescent lamp, with either
carbon or tungsten filament, into which is sealed a plate of platinum
connected with a terminal outside the lamp. The plate and the
filament do not touch one another, but when the lamp is lighted up a
current can be passed from the plate to the filament, but not from
filament to plate. This receiver acts in a similar way to the crystal
detector, making the oscillating currents into uni-directional currents.
It has proved a great success for transatlantic wireless
communication between the Marconi stations at Clifden and Glace
Bay, and is extensively used.
The electric waves set in motion by the transmitting apparatus of
a wireless station spread outwards through the ether in all directions,
and so instead of reaching only the aerial of the particular station
with which it is desired to communicate, they affect the aerials of all
stations within a certain range. So long as only one station is
sending messages this causes no trouble; but when, as is actually
the case, large numbers of stations are hard at work transmitting
different messages at the same time, it is evident that unless
something can be done to prevent it, each of these messages will be
received at the same moment by every station within range, thus
producing a hopeless confusion of signals from which not a single
message can be read. Fortunately this chaos can be avoided by
what is called “tuning.”
Wireless tuning consists in adjusting the aerial of the receiving
station so that it has the same natural rate of oscillation as that of the
transmitting station. A simple experiment will make clearer the
meaning of this. If we strike a tuning-fork, so that it sounds its note,
and while it is sounding strongly place near it another fork of the
same pitch and one of a different pitch, we find that the fork of similar
pitch also begins to sound faintly, whereas the third fork remains
silent. The explanation is that the two forks of similar pitch have the
same natural rate of vibration, while the other fork vibrates at a
different rate. When the first fork is struck, it vibrates at a certain
rate, and sets in motion air waves of a certain length. These waves
reach both the other forks, but their effect is different in each case.
On reaching the fork of similar pitch the first wave sets it vibrating,
but not sufficiently to give out a sound. But following this wave come
others, and as the fork has the same rate of vibration as the fork
which produced the waves, each wave arrives just at the right
moment to add its impulse to that of the preceding wave, so that the
effect accumulates and the fork sounds. In the case of the third fork
of different pitch, the first wave sets it also vibrating, but as this fork
cannot vibrate at the same rate as the one producing the waves, the
latter arrive at wrong intervals; and instead of adding together their
impulses they interfere with one another, each upsetting the work of
the one before it, and the fork does not sound. The same thing may
be illustrated with a pendulum. If we give a pendulum a gentle push
at intervals corresponding to its natural rate of swing, the effects of
all these pushes are added together, and the pendulum is made to
swing vigorously. If, on the other hand, we give the pushes at longer
or shorter intervals, they will not correspond with the pendulum’s rate
of swing, so that while some pushes will help the pendulum, others
will hinder it, and the final result will be that the pendulum is brought
almost to a standstill, instead of being made to swing strongly and
regularly. The same principle holds good with wireless aerials. Any
aerial will respond readily to all other aerials having the same rate of
oscillation, because the waves in each case are of the same length;
that is to say, they follow one another at the same intervals. On the
other hand, an aerial will not respond readily to waves from another
aerial having a different rate of oscillation, because these do not
follow each other at intervals to suit it.
If each station could receive signals only from stations having
aerials similar to its own, its usefulness would be very limited, and so
all stations are provided with means of altering the rate of oscillation
of their aerials. The actual tuning apparatus by which this is
accomplished need not be described, as it is complicated, but what
happens in practice is this: The operator, wearing telephone
receivers fixed over his ears by means of a head band, sits at a desk
upon which are placed his various instruments. He adjusts the tuning
apparatus to a position in which signals from stations of widely
different wave-lengths are received fairly well, and keeps a general
look out over passing signals. Presently he hears his own call-signal,
and knows that some station wishes to communicate with him.
Immediately he alters the adjustment of his tuner until his aerial
responds freely to the waves from this station, but not to waves from
other stations, and in this way he is able to cut out signals from other
stations and to listen to the message without interruption.
Unfortunately wireless tuning is yet far from perfect in certain
respects. For instance, if two stations are transmitting at the same
time on the same wave-length, it is clearly impossible for a receiving
operator to cut one out by wave-tuning, and to listen to the other
only. In such a case, however, it generally happens that although the
wave-frequency is the same, the frequency of the wave groups or
trains is different, so that there is a difference in the notes heard in
the telephones; and a skilful operator can distinguish between the
two sufficiently well to read whichever message is intended for him.
The stations which produce a clear, medium-pitched note are the
easiest to receive from, and in many cases it is possible to identify a
station at once by its characteristic note. Tuning is also unable to
prevent signals from a powerful station close at hand from swamping
to some extent signals from another station at a great distance, the
nearer station making the receiving aerial respond to it as it were by
brute force, tuning or no tuning.
Another source of trouble lies in interference by atmospheric
electricity. Thunderstorms, especially in the tropics, interfere greatly
with the reception of signals, the lightning discharges giving rise to
violent, irregular groups of waves which produce loud noises in the
telephones. There are also silent electrical disturbances in the
atmosphere, and these too produce less strong but equally weird
effects. Atmospheric discharges are very irregular, without any real
wave-length, so that an operator cannot cut them out by wave-tuning
pure and simple in the way just described, as they defy him by
affecting equally all adjustments. Fortunately, the irregularity of the
atmospherics produces correspondingly irregular sounds in the
telephones, quite unlike the clear steady note of a wireless station;
and unless the atmospherics are unusually strong this note pierces
through them, so that the signals can be read. The effects of
lightning discharges are too violent to be got rid of satisfactorily, and
practically all that can be done is to reduce the loudness of the
noises in the telephones, so that the operator is not temporarily
deafened. During violent storms in the near neighbourhood of a
station it is usual to connect the aerial directly to earth, so that in the
event of its being struck by a flash the electricity passes harmlessly
away, instead of injuring the instruments, and possibly also the
operators. Marconi stations are always fitted with lightning-arresters.
The methods and apparatus we have described so far are those
of the Marconi system, and although in practice additional
complicated and delicate pieces of apparatus are used, the
description given represents the main features of the system.
Although Marconi was not the discoverer of the principles of wireless
telegraphy, he was the first to produce a practical working system. In
1896 Marconi came from Italy to England, bringing with him his
apparatus, and after a number of successful demonstrations of its
working, he succeeded in convincing even the most sceptical
experts that his system was thoroughly sound. Commencing with a
distance of about 100 yards, Marconi rapidly increased the range of
his experiments, and by the end of 1897 he succeeded in
transmitting signals from Alum Bay, in the Isle of Wight, to a steamer
18 miles away. In 1899 messages were exchanged between British
warships 85 miles apart, and the crowning achievement was
reached in 1901, when Marconi received readable signals at St.
John’s, Newfoundland, from Poldhu in Cornwall, a distance of about
1800 miles. In 1907 the Marconi stations at Clifden and Glace Bay
were opened for public service, and by the following year
transatlantic wireless communication was in full swing. The sending
of wireless signals across the Atlantic was a remarkable
accomplishment, but it did not represent by any means the limits of
the system, as was shown in 1910. In that year Marconi sailed for
Buenos Ayres, and wireless communication with Clifden was