14.2 Expansion, Reform, the Modern United States & Twentieth-Century Texas

Overview & Exam Relevance

This section completes Competency 002 (History). It covers the major eras of U.S. history after the founding: westward expansion, reform movements, the Civil War and Reconstruction amendments, industrialization and immigration, and the twentieth century. It also covers how Texas changed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The framework asks you to understand significant historical events and developments, the contributions of diverse individuals and groups, and how Texas history connects to U.S. history.

Major National Eras & Milestones

• Westward Expansion: The Louisiana Purchase (1803) under Thomas Jefferson doubled the territory of the United States for $15 million, explored by Lewis and Clark (1804-1806). The doctrine of Manifest Destiny expressed the belief that the United States was divinely destined to expand across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
• The American Civil War (1861-1865): Stemmed from deep sectional conflicts over the expansion of chattel slavery into western territories, economic tariffs, and states' rights. Triggered by Abraham Lincoln's election and the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter (April 1861). Key turning points:
  • Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863): Issued by Lincoln, freeing all enslaved people in Confederate states currently in rebellion, transforming the war into a crusade against human bondage.
  • Battle of Gettysburg & Gettysburg Address (July/November 1863): Turning point battle in Pennsylvania; Lincoln's address redefined the struggle as a preservation of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people."
  • Surrender at Appomattox (April 9, 1865): General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant.
• The Reconstruction Amendments:
  • 13th Amendment (1865): Officially and permanently abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States.
  • 14th Amendment (1868): Granted national citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States (reversing the Dred Scott decision) and guaranteed all citizens Due Process and Equal Protection of the laws.
  • 15th Amendment (1870): Prohibited federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
• Industrialization, The Great Depression & The Civil Rights Movement:
  • Second Industrial Revolution: Rapid 19th-century expansion of railroads, steel (Andrew Carnegie), oil (John D. Rockefeller), and urban factory labor.
  • The Great Depression (1929) & The New Deal: Initiated by the 1929 stock market crash; Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the New Deal programs (Relief, Recovery, Reform), creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Social Security Administration, and public works agencies (WPA, CCC).
  • The Civil Rights Movement (1950s-1960s): Led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and community leaders; the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that racial segregation in public schools was inherently unequal, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson. The movement culminated in landmark federal legislation: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (outlawing public segregation and employment discrimination) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (outlawing literacy tests and voter suppression).

Reform Movements of the 1800s and Early 1900s

Immigration, Industry, and the Twentieth Century

• Immigration and urbanization: Between 1880 and 1920, millions of immigrants from Europe and Asia arrived through ports such as Ellis Island (New York) and Angel Island (San Francisco), and through Galveston on the Gulf Coast. They worked in factories, mines, and railroads, and cities grew rapidly.
• World War I (U.S. involvement 1917–1918) made the United States a world power.
• World War II (U.S. involvement 1941–1945) began for the United States with the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Factories retooled for war production, and women and minorities entered new jobs.
• The Cold War (about 1947–1991) was a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that included the space race. Apollo 11 landed astronauts on the Moon on July 20, 1969, with mission control at NASA's Houston center.
• Late twentieth and twenty-first centuries: The personal computer and the internet transformed communication and work, and the attacks of September 11, 2001, reshaped national security.

Texas in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

• The 1900 Galveston Hurricane killed an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people, the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Galveston responded by building a seawall, raising the grade of the city, and pioneering the commission form of city government.
• The oil boom after Spindletop (1901) and later discoveries, such as East Texas in 1930, drew workers to boomtowns and shifted Texas from a rural to an industrial economy.
• The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl (1930s) devastated farmers in the Texas Panhandle with drought and dust storms. New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps built parks, including at Palo Duro Canyon.
• World War II: Texas hosted many military bases and training fields. Texans Chester W. Nimitz (Fredericksburg) commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and Dwight D. Eisenhower (born in Denison) became Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
• Civil rights in Texas: Delgado v. Bastrop ISD (1948), a federal district court ruling, barred the segregation of Mexican American students. In Sweatt v. Painter (1950), the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the University of Texas law school to admit Heman Sweatt. Hernandez v. Texas (1954) held that the 14th Amendment protects Mexican Americans from discrimination. Leaders include Dr. Hector P. García (founder of the American GI Forum) and Barbara Jordan, the first African American woman from a Southern state elected to the U.S. House (1972).
• Texans in national leadership: Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• Modern Texas: Rapid urbanization (most Texans now live in metropolitan areas), the growth of the aerospace, technology, and medical industries, and trade with Mexico under NAFTA (1994) and its successor, the USMCA (2020).