War and the U.S. Military: Drivers of Social Change | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

War and the U.S. Military: Drivers of Social Change

Timeline

1860–1864 ∼ Civil War

Telegraph / hot-air balloon / ironclad ships / submarines / repeating rifles / machine guns

MILESTONES: Silver rush (1860–1880) • Proliferation of sewing machines (1860s) • One-fifth of the American population is killed in the Civil War (1861–1865) • Homestead Act promises land to pioneer settlers (1862) • Indian uprisings (1862–1867) • Irish and Chinese laborers build transcontinental railroad across the U.S.(1862–1869)

1898–1902 ∼ Spanish-American War and Philippine Insurrection

U.S. Imperialism / yellow journalism / women’s nursing corps / Monroe Doctrine / Panama Canal begun

MILESTONES: Women enrolled in college rises from 20 percent in 1870 to 40 percent in 1910 • Henry Ford begins production of the gas-powered automobile (1896) • Alaskan gold rush begins after the discovery of gold in the Klondike (1897) • Spoiled food and yellow fever kill U.S. troops in Cuba (1898–1899)

1900–1914 ∼ Pre-World War I

Military alliances forged in Europe / Schlieffen Plan

MILESTONES: August Otto, in Germany, invents the internal combustion engine (c. 1900) • Lee De Forest invents the vacuum tube, essential to the development of electronics (1906) • Harriet Quimby becomes the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license (1911)

1914–1916 ∼ World War I Begins in Europe

Lusitania sunk / German U-boat attacks / Zimmerman Telegram / conscription of soldiers

MILESTONES: Panama Canal completed (1914) • First voice communication by radio (1914) • Henry Ford institutes the five-dollar day for his factory workers (1914)

1917–1919 ∼ United States Enters World War I

U.S.

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