U.S. Intellectual and Cultural History - AP U.S. History

Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement in the early nineteenth century. It explicitly opposed the teachings of the Harvard Divinity School. Transcendentalists argued that there is an inherent unity between man and nature, and both man and nature are inherently good. Central to transcendentalist beliefs is the notion that organized religion and political parties corrupt the nature of the individual and are therefore deplorable. Influential transcendentalists include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was authored by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. The author was a devout abolitionist and the novel centers on the character Uncle Tom—a long suffering black slave. The book was a seminal influence in growing the abolitionist movement. It became the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century and was a significant literary influence on the nature of black identity in the United States.

Sputnik was the first satellite launched into orbit around the Earth. It was launched in 1957, twelve years before America would put a man on the moon, representing a major point of discomfort for many Americans who suddenly felt as if the US was falling behind the Soviet Union. Shortly after Sputnik was launched, the US space program was greatly expanded and significant resources were put into education for scientists and engineers. In 1961, John F. Kennedy initiated the Apollo Program with the intention of putting a man on the moon by 1971.

James Meredith was the student whose integration of the University of Mississippi inspired riots that eventually led President Kennedy to deploy federal forces to Oxford, Mississippi in an effort to keep the peace. Meredith enrolled in the University of Mississippi after being inspired by President Kennedy himself, as well as a desire and belief in his right to attend the most prestigious educational institution in his home state.

Harlem would become overwhelmingly African-American during this time. This is because of the large numbers of African-Americans moving north from the southern states. This large influx of people, many of which concentrated themselves into this neighborhood of New York, led to a confluence of different thoughts and ideas. This meant that artists and thinkers of the time had an audience to play to and work with in forging a new identity.

While African-Americans faced many disadvantages while living in the southern states in this period, religious restrictions were not one of them. The south has many historic African-American churches that were and are well attended with little issue. While the Civil Rights Movement brought much ire to these institutions from radical elements of the segregationist population, at this point in history they were still largely sanctuaries from such issues.

The end of the First World War brought with it a change in American attitude. This major foreign entanglement made the American people desire to focus more on the issues at home. The American public no longer wanted to deal with the issues of foreign nations, but with building the communities of the United States and tackling pressing issues within those communities.

The History of the Standard Oil Company was written by Ida Tarbell in 1904. The Standard Oil Company was owned by John D. Rockefeller (at the time the richest man in the United States). The book exposes much of the improper practices in the company and paved the way for a wave of other “muckraking” books that would contribute to the anti-trust movement in America in the early twentieth century. The term muckraking refers to a type of progressive journalist who performs investigative work for the sake of promoting change.

On December 17th, 1903, the Wright Brothers made such a flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, ushering in the age of modern aviation.

American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.

Formerly known as Malcolm Little, a former street hustler and ex-convict, Malcolm X gained notoriety in the 1950s as the leading speaker for the Nation of Islam. The Nation was a religious movement begun in the 1920s as a spin on traditional Islam, but with a distinct black nationalist message and a theology that considered all white people to be the children of Satan.

Malcolm X's spiritual change lifted him out of poverty and prison, but also made him a leading voice for black separatism. In 1965, Malcolm X began having issues with the Nation's leader, Elijah Muhammad, both because of Malcolm's controversial statements and because of Muhammad's philandering. Malcolm X converted to traditional Sunni Islam in late 1964, and was assasinated by disgruntled Nation members on February 21, 1965.

The counterculture of the 1960s developed as the post-World War II Baby Boom generation grew into their teens and twenties. A wide majority of this generation began defining themselves in opposition to their parents' generation. In particular, the burgeoning music scenes and "hippie culture" in metropolitan areas of the U.S. made acceptance of drugs and recreational sex more common. Politically, the counter culture moved increasingly to the left, with an anti-authoritarian streak and opposition to the Vietnam War, standing beside support of African-American Rights, Women's Rights, and the nascent Gay Rights Movements.

The first satellite launched by the United States during the Space Age was named Explorer I. Explorer I was launched in January of 1958, a few months after the launch of Sputnik 1 and 2 by the Soviet Union. The launch of Explorer I marked the beginning of the Cold War era Space Race between the U.S.S.R and the United States.

Jonas Salk was the first scientist to develop a reliable vaccine for polio. Prior to Salk’s breakthrough in 1955 polio was generally considered one of the most terrifying public health problems in the post-war United States. Epidemics frequently broke out during the summer, and the disease heavily affected young children. In 1952, the worst epidemic on record, more than three thousand people died, and tens of thousands were left with debilitating illnesses. Salk forsook personal profit and refused to patent his idea—in his time he was hailed as a national hero, but is largely forgotten today.

Timothy Leary was a Harvard University psychology professor who began conducting research into the effects of the psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. Leary's research and advocacy made the use of LSD, which would only be criminalized in 1970, one of the key features of the 1960s counterculture. The use of psychedelics would produce many "mind altering" forms of art, philosophy, and culture that greatly informed the youth culture of the 1960s.

All of these elements were closely associated with the art and literature of the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation was a group of authors and aesthetes who came to exemplify the literary and intellectual counterculture of the postwar era, and were seen as the intellectual predecessors to the countercultural revolution of the 1960s.

George Westinghouse was the main proponent of Alternating Current (AC), as opposed to Direct Current (DC), for which Thomas Edison advocated. The conflict between these two set up what we now refer to as the “Currency Wars”; I strongly encourage you to look it up—it’s incredibly interesting.

The short of it is that there are advantages and disadvantages to both AC and DC. AC tends to be more economical in some instances where DC is more expensive. That said, AC is \[more\] dangerous (i.e. you can be electrocuted at a lower threshold) whereas DC is safer. This information formed the backdrop of the rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse, which included some very . . . shocking . . . moments (Edison, for example, attempted to coin the term “Westinghoused” rather than “electrocuted”).

In the end, Westinghouse won out—we use AC in the US today.

This should have been a very simple question. The answer is Henry Ford. Ford not only was the first to apply the assembly line to automobile manufacturing, he also made it more efficient. In other words, he took the different processes it takes to build an automobile (the Model T, in this instance) and then broke them down into discrete actions that only one person performed (and that person performed the same action, every day)

The Great Gatsby was published in 1925 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and was a cautionary tale about the idealism and decadence of the era. The Jungle was published in 1906 by Upton Sinclair, and concerned the unsanitary conditions of the Chicago meatpacking plants, as well as the harsh living conditions of the plants' immigrant workers. Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and portrayed the harsh living conditions of antebellum slaves. Looking Backward was a utopian science fiction novel published by Edward Bellamy in 1888.

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois were both major political activists for the African American community in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. However, they disagreed heavily on how best to affect social equality for African Americans. Washington believed that economic equality was sufficient, and that if the African American community remained patient and peaceful, social and political equality would eventually follow suit. Conversely, DuBois vehemently believed that immediate change was needed, he argued that for too long blacks had been disenfranchised in America and that if African Americans did not have political equality, than they would never be socially or economically equal. Although he rarely went so far as to call for violence, DuBois was a big believer in the power of political agitation for affecting change.