The American West Professor Mindi Sitterud-McCluskeyWest.docx

The American West
Professor Mindi Sitterud-McCluskey
Westward Expansion
From the inception of the United States, the western frontier
had been imbued with freedom and opportunity in the American
mind as well as in the minds of many Europeans. The western
frontier seemed to offer what the east coast and Western
Europe did not by the mid-1800s: Land. Historically speaking,
land signified empowerment. Land represented independence
and opportunity, namely the possibility of becoming a truly
“free man” through self-management, self-sufficiency, and
claiming and benefitting fully from the product of one’s own
labor.
Land figured prominently into the high ideals with which the
American Revolution and Early Republic were imbued. For, to
be a republic- for, by, and of the people, the United States
would need to be a nation of truly free people. The United
States seemed to have land enough to make this possible.
Empire of Liberty:
Inspired by republican notions of freedom, Thomas Jefferson
had looked west and envisioned an “Empire of Liberty,”
comprised of independent, self-sufficient, and self-managing
small farmers.
Jefferson perceived agriculture as not just conducive to freedom
but also uniquely virtuous. By contrast, he viewed the owning,
investing, and banking class as corrupt and waged laborers as

degraded, dependent and unfree.
Jefferson believed that by securing the western lands, the
United States could better secure itself as a free republic and
avoid the fate of industrial Britain: Armies of unfree wage-
workers, “dark, satanic mills,” and urban slums.
Introduction
Inspired by republican notions of freedom and pushed by
members of the working-class struggle and their abolitionist
allies, the radical Republican Party of Lincoln passed the
Homestead Act even as the Civil War entered its second year on
the East Coast.
Homestead Act (1862)
Offered at least 160 acres of free western land to those who
filed a claim, lived on the land for at least 5 years, and made
improvements.
Open to anyone who had not taken up arms for the Confederacy,
including women, blacks, and immigrants who had applied for
citizenship
Goal: Rooted in republican notions of freedom, it intended to
provide laboring people with land and, by extension, an
opportunity to work their way into a condition of real freedom.
It would be comparable to Washington DC, today, giving
citizens the capital and resources needed to start a small
business.
After being stalled by the southern states for years, the Pacific

Railway Act also became passed by the Republicans as the war
grinded on between the states in the east.
Pacific Railway Act: (1862)
The US government allocated unprecedent funds, grants, bonds
and free land for the purpose of contracting with private
capitalists to build a Transcontinental Railroad.
Westward Expansion
Transcontinental Railroad
Constructed between 1863-1869
Eastward construction began near San Francisco under the
Central Pacific company. Westward construction began near
Council Bluffs, Iowa, under the Union Pacific company.
The 1,912 miles of track eventually became constructed
between these two lines.
The Transcontinental Railroad represented a massive project of
industry, engineering, and muscle- capitalist firms could not
have completed it without substantial financial aid from the
federal government and the labor of thousands of men, native-
born, immigrant, and labor-migrant.
Central Pacific Rail-Line: Constructed primarily by Chinese
Chinese migrants had arrived for the California Gold Rush and
became part of the subsequent mineral rushes of the American

West, 1850s and 1860s.
Railroad agents recruited these miners and traveled to southern
Chinese ports to recruit more.
Chinese crews laid 690 miles of track, through the rocky Sierra
Nevada's and sparse Nevada desert. They tunneled through the
snow to lay track in the winter and used nitroglycerine to carve
roads along faces of cliffs and bore through mountains
Westward Expansion
Union Pacific Rail-Line: Constructed primarily by Irish and
German immigrants as well as freedmen, Civil War vets, and
sundry laboring people hoping to be paid in the process of going
West.
Laid 1,085 miles of track over mostly flat territory.
Before meeting the Central Pacific line in northern Utah, the
final stages became facilitated by Mormon work crews, largely
miners from England and Scotland.
The Transcontinental Railroad represented an engineering
marvel and testament of brut strength against the extremes of
nature.
It also represented unprecedented government/capitalist
corruption.
Even as the project spent the health and lives of thousands of

laboring men, it generated millionaires who never raised a
hammer or pick.
Many of these new millionaires built the first mansions in San
Francisco to oversee the creation of a new commercial empire
extending from the China trade to the settlement and
industrialization of the American West.
Indeed, the Transcontinental Railroad not only facilitated
commerce between the US and Asia, it connected the East Coast
and the West Coast and drove the market economy into the
frontier.
Westward Expansion
The Transcontinental Railroad carried the world into the
American frontier…
As global capitalist transformations and political turmoil
uprooted communities and dispersed families, the American
West became an eclectic, multi-ethnic/ multi-national hotspot.
Many parts of the West were settled by first and second-
generation Americans
Individual ethnic groups tended to settle together, in the same
rural regions of the West, the same urban neighborhoods, and
the same section of a work-camps and company towns.
They generally recreated the village life they had left behind
and continued to speak their native tongues and engage in
aspects of their native culture.
Most of these immigrants also exported part of their wages to

family members in the “Old Country” as well as aspects of
American culture.
Many returned to the Old Country. It was not uncommon for
young men to engage in labor migrations to the US and other
industrializing nations to earn wages with which to live better
in the homeland. These “Birds of Passage” played an important
role in a making the US the most productive nation in world by
the end of the century.
Westward Expansion
The advent of railroad lines in the far West revolutionized and
expanded the cattle industry….
Before the Civil War, cattle ranchers generally supplied local
markets.
During the Civil War, cattle herds, especially in south Texas,
rapidly multiplied due to disrupted markets.
After the Civil War, an excess of cattle caused market prices to
slump.
Solution

: Drive the cattle herds to other markets.
Where did the cattle-drives lead? Increasingly, railheads.
Railroads allowed for the transportation of cattle to distant
markets.
Three factors made the cattle drives possible: The expansion of
railroads, the invention of refrigerated boxcars, and the
existence of an open range.
Western Expansion
Typical cattle drive: 3,000 cattle, 10 cowboys, 30 horses,
wrangler to tend spare horses, and a chuck-wagon with
cook/doctor.
The average Cowboy was:
Young

Poor
Of a variety of nationalities, ethnicities and races
Many former slaves
Mexican Vaqueros
Confederate vets, farm boys and ranch hand
Poorly paid
Most did not own the horse they rode… just the saddle
Overworked
About half made only one drive due to the rigors of the job
Western Expansion
Despite the outpouring of books, wild west shows, and (later)
movies celebrating cowboys and the “Wild West” genre, the
cattle kingdom of the open range proved short-lived, as the

privatization of land and barbed-wire to secure land claims
increasingly limited the free movement of cowboys and
livestock and, thus, closed the “open range.”
1874: Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, an
inexpensive, durable and effective material for fencing the
private property.
1881: Last big cattle drive to Dodge City.
In the previous 15 years, many as two million longhorns had
been driven to market in Dodge.
Thus, even as the American cowboy became an icon of freedom
and open spaces in new pop culture genres called wild west
shows and rodeos, the reality increasingly became cheap wage
labor on large ranches or independent ranchers ever struggling
not to be knocked out of business by ranching monopolies.
As will be discussed in a later lesson, many of the ranching
monopolies rose by displacing pre-existing Mexican rancherias,
especially in Texas and California.

Nate Love: Former slave, cattle driver, ranch hand, & rodeo
champion.
Westward Expansion
Indeed, in contrast with the vision expressed by the Homestead
Act, the West became rapidly industrialized, corporatized,
monopolized, and, otherwise, made vulnerable to the forces
which had rendered family farms and other small enterprises
precarious endeavors throughout the nation by the close of the
century (see “Farmer’s Alliance” lesson). The Transcontinental
Railroad, in essence, sped-up time in the West, meaning
settlement and development occurred much more rapidly, here,
than in the other half of the nation.
The railroad represented industrialization and high finance, and
it ushered-in capitalist expansion, corporatization, and
industrialization.
It carried capitalist investors from the east coast and Europe
into the West- or, at least their agents, as well as armies of
wage-workers.
It extended corrupt courts and speculators into the West who

manipulated law and finance to cheat ordinary people out of
their land and resource claims.
Land and resource monopolies followed, leading to agribusiness
and corporate ranches.
The railroad, itself, became monopolized, despite the public
money (taxes) invested in it. Railroad monopoly rendered the
transportation of goods to the market expensive.
Hence, the Farmers Alliance, populist movement, and labor
wars previously discussed became extended into the West. went
West.
Some family farms and ranches did persist against the odds but,
by the close of the century, western expansion cannot be
accurately described as begetting an “Empire of Liberty.”
Indeed, from the perception of some Americans, it might have
more accurately represented an empire.
Westward Expansion as Colonialism:
Native Americans

Westward Expansion
Historical Memory and the American West
The first generations of American historians, portrayed the
movement of populations westward as a triumphant “taming of
the frontier” during which an American character was forged:
An individualistic, violent, and persevering character, reflective
of the Social Darwinist ideals embraced by the American elite
of the period.
Such portrayals of the West were quite selective. They
emphasized the sensational over the everyday realities of
homesteaders, reliant upon large families and strengthened by
community ties. It all but ignored the industrial laborers.
Such representations further ignored the fact that the ancestors
of many Americans, today, experienced westward expansion,
not as a heroic struggle westward in search of freedom, but as
an invasion and an impending loss of security, sovereignty, and
homeland. For Native people, the struggle for freedom entailed
struggle against the United States and the flood of forces it
ushered-in.

In this way, the extension of US borders, governance,
settlement-building, and hegemony westward constituted more
than just “expansion.” Facing east, it represented entailed a
series of invasions and a larger project of colonialism targeting
indigenous peoples and people of Mexican descent.
Western Expansion
Manifest Destiny: A term used by historians to describe the
belief system that grew-up around American westward
expansion.
It expressed a sense of entitlement to the western lands, despite
these lands being inhabited by Native people and ethnic
Mexicans.
This sense of entitlement found justification in the assertion of
national exceptionalism and a sense of supremacy in culture and
lifeways.
It secularized the old Puritan self-delusions of having a divine
mission to take possession of the land, make it “righteous,” and,

thereby, redeem the world.
Exceptionalism entails a belief that others are “unexceptional”
and, therefore, not entitled to the universal natural/human rights
championed by the revolutionary age.
Moreover, it mixed the high ideals of the revolutionary age with
exceptionalisms to justify killing, stealing, and otherwise
subordinating basic ethics to expand “freedom,” “democracy,”
civilization and Christianity westward as a national “duty.”
Thus, as with the institution of slavery, westward settler
colonialism conflicted sharply with the high ideals of the
American Revolution, standard biblical “shall nots,” and basic
standards of morality. This created a tension in need of
psychological resolution. The cognitive dissonance required
abandonment or the creation of stories and myths to justify such
behavior.
Westward Expansion
Cognitive Dissonance: A principle in psychology which

theorizes that when contradictions arise between one’s desires
and what one understands to be ethical and just, the resulting
tension requires that the individual (or nation) cease and desist
or retreat into fantasy, self-delusions and an alternative reality
in which one’s behavior is justified.
The Puritans of colonial America told themselves stories about
their own “choosiness” and a Divinely mandated mission from
God to assert control over new lands, expand their superior
influence, and, thereby, redeem the world, no matter the carnage
sown. Manifest Destiny secularized Puritan cognitive
dissonance into a national myth.
Chattel slavery functioned in a similar way .
Choosiness’ and exceptionalism imply others are not chosen and
exceptional. The inference is that the chosen and exceptional
people transcend adherence to the “rules” that others are
expected to follow, … because they are, allegedly, on a special
mission to redeem, uplift, and save the world.
Ironically, Manifest Destiny mimicked the narratives that the
British Empire told itself about its place in the world and the
meaning of its colonial project, dubbed a “civilizing mission.”
Having become liberated from the British Empire, the US

became an empire, first overland and then abroad, justified by
many of the same supremist ideals which accompanied British
expansion.
“The White Man’s Burdon” is a poem that was published by
Rudyard Kipling in 1899. It portrayed imperialism, not as the
conquest and plunder it truly is, but as a humanitarian
obligation to uplift and civilize the world’s allegedly inferior
and backward people. It relied upon racism, self-delusions, and
historical amnesia, and disassociation from basic realities.
Nevertheless, the genre of thought it represented and narrative
of the world it spun has proven quite enduring: Imperialism
with a humanitarian face, reliant upon the assumption of
exceptionalism.
Westward Expansion
Settler Colonialism:
A process by which an indigenous population is replaced by
settlers from a distant land.
A Native people, culture, and governance is destroyed and
replaced with an invasive people, culture and governance. This
is ethnic cleansing.

Survivors become subordinated as a subject people in their own
homeland.
American westward settler colonialism occurred in a global
context of a gradual transition from feudalism to capitalism and
an Age of Revolution.
Entrepreneurs called “mountain men” entered the West in search
of animal pelts, followed by traders, as well as gold and silver
miners, wealthy land speculators, then homesteaders and
industrializers.
Some arrived driven by greed, others as religious refugees and
refugees from failed revolutions abroad in search of a space for
liberty. The greatest part were economic refugees: Failed small
farmers, wage-workers and freed people from the eastern states
and European peasants, uprooted from the land by capitalist
processes which made their labor an unneeded surplus.
An important reality is that settler colonialism involves real
people with a diversity of push factors moving into the
homeland of another with the intention of making it their home.

Westward Expansion
With American westward expansion, expanded American
systems which collided with the way in which Native people
perceived of and interacted with the world.
Transformations associated with capitalism continued to prove
destabilizing and catastrophic for the American and European
underclasses who became uprooted amid land privatization,
mechanization, and market forces beyond control.
For Native people, the privatization of nature and impending
loss of a “means of production” proved more perplexing and
devastating.
Indeed, in the case of Native tribes, the “productive property”
which buttressed freedom and sovereignty was not a private
farm nor workshop. It was a tribal claim to territory and a
natural environment capable of sustaining the life of the
community– water resources and plant and animal life,
including game to be hunted and, for some, fertile land to be
planted.

Native people recognized territorial claims among themselves-
typically broad territories in which humans and animals moved.
In some places, different groups shared a common hunting
ground. Nowhere did they have a conceptions of private
property- an exclusive claim to nature and ability to buy and
sell it, until settler colonialism imposed such a system.
“What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth. For the
land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds,
fish, and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it
belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man
say it belongs only to him?
Massasoit, New England 1600s.
"Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work,
free to trade where I choose my own teachers, free to follow the
religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself,
and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.“

Heinmot Tooyalaket (Chief Joseph), Nez Perce Leader
“Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the
animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth
is not bereft of four-footed life - that to the white man is an
'unbroken wilderness.'
But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous
but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly. Our faith sought the
harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the
dominance of surroundings.
― Chief Luther Standing Bear
“When men take to buying and selling the land, saying ’This is
mine’, they restrain other fellow creatures from seeking
nourishment from mother earth…..so that he that had no land
was to work for those, for small wages, that called the land
theirs; and thereby some are lifted up into the chair of tyranny
and others trod under the footstool of misery, as if the earth
were made for a few and not for all men.”
Winstanley, English True Leveller
Historically, neither Europeans (and other “Old World” people)
nor Native Americans conceived of the earth as private

property. When notions of privatized nature began to develop in
Europe across the 1500s and 1600s, commoners were perplexed
that God’s creation could be monopolized by some at the
expense of others…..
Westward Expansion
Beginning with the earliest North American settlers during the
1600s, settlers and Native people generally coexisted and
eagerly traded with one another until the newcomers began to
undermine the ability of Native people to exist in their
homeland. The same pattern became replicated with every push
westward.
In the far West, where the natural landscape and ecosystems are
more dramatic and fragile, the pattern became more intense and
often predated attempts to settle upon the land...
As wagon trains rolled across the Great Plains and Mountain
West toward California and the Oregon Country across the
1850s-1870s:
Migrants polluted rivers with diseases such as cholera

Migrants hunted wildlife, rendering food sources more-scarce.
Livestock belonging to the migrants ate the grasses and other
vegetation, undermining the quality and quantity available to
Native American ponies and the wildlife needed for sustenance,
including the great bison herds.
Even before profession buffalo hunters entered the Great Plains,
railroad companies fed their large work-crews by killing the
bison around which plains tribes had crafted an existence.
The earliest major conflicts occurred at this juncture- the
juncture in which the interests of the newcomers undermined
the ability of Native people to sustain themselves on the land
and enjoy sovereignty.
Westward Expansion
As tribes of the Great Plains increasingly found their tribal
territories stripped of essential resources and polluted, they
became resistant to further migration and less willing to tolerate

modest settlement building and temporary mining boom towns.
Native people turned to deterrence through harassment and
scare tactics, the same treatment they would have extended to
an encroaching tribe.
Attacks ensued, launched by both sides, followed by small
massacres and then large massacres, including the notorious
Sand Creek Massacre.
1864: First Sand Creek Massacre
Place: Eastern Colorado
Causes:
Flood of migration
Colorado Gold Rush
Resource competition and depletion, which undermined Native
survival.
General harassments and assaults upon Native American women
by the newcomers.
Young Cheyenne “Dog Soldiers” defied an older generation’s
decision to trade territory for peace. They attacked miners and

killed livestock.
The Colorado Volunteers became organized, led by Col. John
Chivington
“Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians… I have come to
kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any
means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”
Col. Chivington
Westward Expansion
Events leading up to the massacre:
Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders travelled to Denver to
renegotiate a treaty
Made camp on the Sand Creek and raised an American flag and
white flag
Warriors went hunting, leaving only old men, women, &
children in camp.

Many of Chivington’s men drank heavily in anticipation of
attacking the camp; some did refuse to attack.
Aftermath:
Some 200 Native people were killed, mostly women and
children
15 soldiers killed, largely from friendly fire
Body parts were paraded through the streets of Denver.
Public outrage forced Chivington to resign and relocate to
Nebraska where he became an unsuccessful freight hauler.
Delegation of Cheyenne, Arapaho and Kiowa Chiefs to Denver,
1864
Westward Expansion

“Fingers and ears were cut off the bodies for the jewelry they
carried. The body of White Antelope, lying solitarily in the
creek bed, was a prime target. Besides scalping him the soldiers
cut off his nose, ears, and testicles…”
Many of Pro-Peace leaders were killed
Cheyenne Dog Soldiers united with young, militaristic warriors
from other tribes to seek revenge and halt migration
Fighting on the plains escalated
With the Civil War winding-down in the east, military
deployments to the West accelerated.
Officers and soldiers who had implemented scorched earth and
total war tactics against the Confederacy became tasked with
also bringing “rebellious” tribes “to their knees.”
Even as the war with Native people accelerated in the West,
Radical Reconstruction went forward in the former Confederacy
amid a growing counter insurgency of vigilante terror and
assassination. By the end of the decade, the labor wars had also
began to accelerated across the nation.

Dog Soldiers
Westward Expansion
The settler colonial wars against Native people entailed military
conflict and, especially, an assault upon nature– “the means of
production” for Native people.
1866: Civil War veteran, General Philip H. Sheridan took
command of U.S. forces in the West and proposed to bring
peace to the plains by exterminating the massive herds of bison
upon which tribes depended.
"Kill the buffalo and you kill the Indians.”
New Indian Policy-
Use military (conventional) warfare and “total war” (war on
civilians) to starve, threaten, and otherwise drive Native people
onto reservations where they would no longer inhibit settlement
and become wholly dependent on the federal government for
food and resources.

Reservation: Territories to which Native tribes were expected to
relocate and remain sedentary. They were typically the most
barren parcels of land and most resistant to agriculture. For
several decades, they functioned as virtual prison camps where
Native people lived under armed guard and relied on
government rations for survival. By destroying the bison, the
Army sought to destroy Native sustenance, and effectively
starve and terrorize these people into a surrender, represented as
dependency within these camps.
Col. Custer: Youngest colonel in the Union army at age 23;
fought in major battles, including Bull Run and Gettysburg;
present at Appomattox Court House. After being court
marshalled for going AWOL, his friend, Sheridan, requested his
services in the West.
1868: Second Sand Creek Massacre
General Philip Sheridan sent Colonel George Armstrong Custer
against the Cheyenne.

Custer's cavalry attacked at dawn, killing more than 100 men,
women and children.
Westward Expansion
The extermination of the great American bison herds was key to
Sheridan’s new policy…
1870: Buffalo hunters began moving onto the Great Plains.
They arrived in large numbers, facilitated by expanding railroad
travel
They were attracted to government bounties ($$$) on buffalo
They were attracted by a growing market for hides and meat
In little more than a decade, they reduced herds once numbering
in the tens of millions to an endangered species.
1873: Although federal authorities estimate that hunters are
killing buffalo at a rate of three million per year, President
Ulysses Grant vetoed a law protecting herds from extermination

Westward Expansion
1871- Indian Appropriations Act:
Ended the practice of treating Native tribes as sovereign nations
Tribes were now to be subjugated, stripped of their sovereignty,
and made “wards” of the federal government.
This was a major step toward efforts to dismantle tribal
identities and neutralize challenges.
1875-77- Lakota Wars
Originated in a flood of settlers and gold seekers into the Black
Hills (South Dakota) in the wake of an economic crisis called
the Panic of 1873. The Black Hills constituted the homeland of
the Sioux and Cheyenne.
Tribal leaders traveled to Washington DC in an attempt to
convince American officials to keep settlers and miners out of

the agreed upon tribal territory. Negotiations broke down after
indigenous leadership refused to sell the sacred Black Hills.
The Cheyenne and Sioux forces, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy
Horse, moved to protect their land and guard against continuing
attacks on villages by settlers and US forces.
Westward Expansion
1876- Battle of Little Big Horn
(aka: Custer’s Last Stand)
By 1876, most of the Cheyenne and Lakota (Sioux) had become
starved onto the reservation.
Cheyenne and Lakota (Sioux) left the reservation to celebrate
the Sun Dance, hoping also to hunt bison if any remained.
After Col. George Armstrong’s 7th Calvary became dispatched
to punish the Native people and return them to the reservation,
the Cheyenne and Sioux (led by Sitting Bull) fought back.
Custer and 268 of his men were killed

This massacred marked the last major victory for the Plains
Indians. Much of the public responded with shock and called for
revenge
Sheridan increased the number of troops in the West to end
Indian resistance.
Surviving Crow scout for Custer
Western Expansion
By the 1880s, the Redeemers had “redeemed” the south from
Reconstruction’s intent to bring newly freed people into real
freedom. The labor wars were accelerating. And, most Native
Americans had become driven to reservations by hunger,
disease, and attacks by federal troops.
1881: Nez Perce, Chief Joseph Surrendered
With his band, he led US troops on a chase from the Pacific
Northwest, through the newly created yellow Stone National

Park in Wyoming, and toward the Canadian border before being
apprehended and sent to Oklahoma. The Nez Perce were not
allowed to return to their homeland.
1881: Sitting Bull returned from Canada and surrendered
“I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe
to surrender my rifle. This boy has given it to you, and he now
wants to know how he is going to make a living.”
1886: Apache, Geronimo Surrendered
Led a resistance movement in the Southwest for a decade,
fighting both American and Mexican armies.
Geronimo and his band were imprisoned in Florida, most died in
prison.
Western Expansion

The fact cannot be emphasized enough: The so-called “Indian
Wars” of the American West constituted a struggle over nature-
how nature would be used and imagined, who nature would
benefit.
For pre-industrial people, nature and a healthy ecosystem was
the “means of production” that made sustenance, self-
sufficiency, self-rule, and sovereignty possible. Nature was also
the basis of spiritual belief, culture, community, and sense of
self.
Without a sovereign territorial claim to productive nature,
Native people entered a condition of dependency, domination,
exploitation, suppression, and alienation.
Consequently, the reservations into which Native people were
starved, terrorized and coerced became places of policing and
surveillance, humiliation, and coercion through hunger and
want.
Reservations were generally plagued with disease and
malnutrition.
Malnutrition and want was made more severe by corruption

among government agents, notorious for selling government
rations rather than dispersing them among the tribes.
Reservations naturally became places of material, psychological
and spiritual suffering and grief.
Western Expansion
Across the 1870s and 1880s, messianic religious movements
spread among the broken and disenchanted tribes of the West
and produced a string of prophets. Most counseled non-
violence, tribal unity, & turning inward to traditions for
spiritual and cultural strength. Where Native people saw hope,
many Americans perceived resistance and threat.
1889-90: Ghost Dance Religion
Believers imagined that performing the dance would bring back
the dead and the bison and return life to what it had been.
Many believed special ghost shirts offered protection from

bullets
They would dance themselves into a trance, and then fall to the
ground and later report having visions.
Nervous reservation officials began to suspect a plot of mass
insurrection.
Tensions ultimately led to unarmed men, women, and children
at the Pine Ridge reservation becoming surrounded by armed
soldiers and howitzers, and massacred, killing at least 300. This
became known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Westward Expansion
Native people had sympathizers. Activists condemned the
carnage and broken promises made by the US government.
1881: Helen Hunt Jackson published A Century of Dishonor, the
first serious critique of federal policy regarding Native people.

She argued that empty promises, broken treaties, and brutality
paved the way for American settlers and national expansion.
But, … what was the solution to the so-called “Indian
Question?” Respect for territorial and cultural sovereignty was
not considered a realistic option within a capitalist order of
private property rights and profit motives, even among
sympathetic reformers.
To save “the race” from becoming extinct, most reformers
believed that Native people must be denied sovereignty, agency,
and liberty, and actively remade.
Native people became classed as wards of the state- or,
dependents rather than humans with natural rights to own
themselves and exist without domination, exploitation and
suppression.
From a position of dependency, they could be controlled. Even
this was not enough, however. They had to be remade.

Boarding Schools: Native American children became removed
from their families and transported to often distant boarding
schools. The intention was to indoctrinate them with
mainstream American ideals, strip them of their own culture
and familial and tribal ties, and train them for manual labor jobs
as preparation for having a “place” in American society.
Parental rights and agency over even small children were not
recognized. The boarding schools became notorious for severe
punishment for holding on to tribal tongue and culture as well
as rampant child abuse, neglect, and death.
"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead
one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that
all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian
in him and save the man.“ General Pratt
Westward Expansion
The destruction of Native American identity and community

also advanced through remaking their relationship with nature
and work.
1887: Dawes General Allotment Act
The act aimed to remake Native American reservations-
originally shared by a tribe or collection of tribes, into
individual allotments assigned to separate families as private
property (though still under federal authority).
Native families were expected to farm their own allotments
according to the individualistic and nuclear family norms of
American society, as opposed to their communal traditions.
In essence, the goal was to stop Native Americans from existing
within communal tribal relationships, including shared labor
and child raising responsibilities and shared resources.
By bringing about the end of communal relationships, American
authorities hoped to bring about the end of tribal leaders, tribal
culture, tribal interests and tribal identities. In essence, they
hoped to dissolve a sense of “us” among Native peoples and
hone identification with conqueror- the United States.
Of course, the process of parceling-out reservation land was rife

with corruption. After allotments had been made, the remaining
land became sold.
The process and larger goal of better controlling Native people
by stripping them of their culture, identity, and tribal
relationships was also rife with resistance. Indeed, military
resistance became replaced with cultural resistance, evidenced
today in the continuation of tribal languages tribal identities,
and tribal structures.
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use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or
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be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.

be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.

be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.

be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
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be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.

be prosecuted.
be prosecuted.
MGT 6302, Project Management Strategy and Tactics 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Discuss how organizational factors can impact project
management efforts.
2.1 Assess how a project and its personnel and resources are
affected by organizational structure.
8. Analyze communication, ethics, and leadership in effective
project management.
8.1 Explore project communication within a specific
organizational structure.
8.2 Examine the project manager’s role within a specific
organizational structure.
Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes
Learning Activity
2.1
Unit Lesson
Part 1: Chapter 2
Part 2: Chapter 1
Article: “Considerations for the Occasional Project Manager”
Unit II Proposal

8.1
Unit Lesson
Part 1: Chapter 2
Part 2: Chapter 1
Unit II Proposal
8.2
Unit Lesson
Part 1: Chapter 2
Part 2: Chapter 1
Unit II Proposal
Required Unit Resources
Part 1: Chapter 2: The Environment in Which Projects Operate
Part 2: Chapter 1: Introduction
In order to access the following resource, click the link below.

Hubble, A., & Spitulnik, J. (2016). Considerations for the
occasional project manager. Performance
Improvement, 55(7), 15–20.
https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=https://
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dire
ct=true&db=bsu&AN=117572833&site=ehost-live&scope=site
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Project Management and
Organizational Structure
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=117
572833&site=ehost-live&scope=site
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Unit Lesson
Introduction

Welcome to Unit II. In this unit, we focus on project
management and organizational structures. The
organizational structure plays a significant role in determining
how projects are managed and operated.
Today's organizations are comprised of individuals who work
together to meet the organization's strategic
goals and objectives. These individuals complete their own set
of coordinated tasks, which helps the next
individual to complete their tasks. Every organization has a
certain structure or makeup regarding how they
are organized. The choice of organizational structure is often
influenced by the industry in which it is
operated, the environment, and the internal culture. In addition,
organizational culture also plays a role in the
project and how the project manager leads the team.
Communication, ethics, and leadership styles are all
attributed to the organization’s culture
The three common types of organizational structures are
functional, project, and matrix. You will see in your
textbook that additional, less common structures are also
identified, such as organic, virtual, and hybrid. Let’s
focus on exploring each of the three major organizational
structures.

Functional Structure
Within the functional structure, the project teams are grouped
according to the skills, knowledge, and work
tasks that they provide for the organization. For example, an
organization may have an accounting
department to handle its finance and budgeting operations. It
may have a human resources department to
handle activities related to personnel, including hiring and
firing of employees. The functional structure has
many components of the hierarchy system and focuses on a top-
down approach. In this type of structure, the
functional managers have the authority, and project managers
have limited authority in the budget, resources,
and schedule. The functional manager is given more authority
since the organization believes that they are
the experts in the area. For most project teams operating in the
functional structure, there is not a great deal
of difference from their day-to-day jobs and tasks. Since the
work is very similar, the project teams can lose
interest in the projects and become unmotivated to deliver a
strong project deliverable (Hubble & Spitulnik,
2016).
Project Structure

For the project structure, the team members as well as the
resources are grouped according to the goods
and/or services produced or according to the territories, clients,
or legal entities served. If given the option,
most project managers would choose to manage a project using
the project or projectized structure. This
structure is the exact opposite of the functional structure even
though the group members will still become a
part of the group based on the department that they work in and
the skills that they possess. In the project
structure, the project manager has complete authority over the
project and is seen as the expert in the field.
The project team will also be devoted solely to the project, so
they do not have to worry about their normal
daily tasks. This provides them with more time to focus on the
project and their assigned activities. Since the
project manager has full authority, the communication is usually
clearer and more direct. In addition, decisions
are made quickly with only the project manager to make the
final call. The biggest disadvantage would be the
pressure on the project team. Usually, these members are
working on multiple projects simultaneously and
feel the need to deliver (Hubble & Spitulnik, 2016).

Matrix Structure
Finally, with the matrix departmentalization, they combine
functional and project structures. The functional
departments, such as marketing, are on one side of the
organization while the project structure, which
handles specific projects, are on the other. Employees typically
are assigned to report to both a functional
manager and a project manager, depending on their job duties
(Hubble & Spitulnik, 2016).
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
The following table can help you compare the three
organizational structures by exploring the advantages and
disadvantages of each.
Functional
Advantages

-defined and channeled
to go throughout the organization. This
results in the sharing of information, which enables those in the
organization to learn more from each
other.
control easier.
updated with technology.
Disadvantages
organization, so it may be difficult to pull
together and coordinate the resources needed to complete the
project.
organization’s various functional departments, so it
may be difficult to establish responsibility for the project.
Functional organizations tend to be focused

on the organization’s daily, ongoing activities, making it less
likely that projects will be a priority. This
also makes it more difficult for projects to be managed.
and those involved in projects may be less
motivated to complete the project.
Project
Advantages
to goods and/or services
produced or the stakeholders who are
served, so it is easier to accommodate projects and make them a
priority.
project, making it easier to compile and
coordinate the resources. Responsibility for the project is well-
defined.
to complete it are in the same
division.

receive priority, so those involved in the
projects are more likely to be motivated to complete them.
Disadvantages
since the same functions, such as financial
management, are performed in each project. This can be more
costly as well as less efficient.
so some personnel may be devoted to
projects and may experience downtime between projects. The
project teams may communicate little,
if at all, among each other, limiting their ability to share
information and learn from each other.
which makes technology more expensive.
This may result in the organization not having the latest
technology available to complete projects.

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Matrix
Advantages
of both the functional and project
structures.
Disadvantages
organization may experience the disadvantages of both
the functional and project structures.
The Significance of Organizational Culture in Managing
Projects
Organizational culture can impact the completion of projects.
The organization’s culture often sets the tone for
how the employees work together and how the operations are
managed; the role that the employees have in
feedback all play a major role in how the projects will be

managed. Let’s explore a few of the common types
of organizational cultures (Leith, 2016).
Aggressive Organizational Culture
This culture values competitiveness. When organizations
promote competitiveness among their employees,
their employees may perform at a higher level, helping the
organization to be more competitive in the
marketplace. In this type of culture, ethical behaviors could be
questioned. The project manager needs to
ensure that the team remains focused on the project’s tasks and
performs the project in accordance with
ethical guidelines.
Detail Oriented Organizational Culture
This culture focuses on precision. Such organizations want their
employees to complete their work in specific
ways, and they value the details regarding each employee’s
activities. Organizations that are detail oriented
tend to be more capable of producing goods and services that
are standardized and consistent. In this type of
culture, open communication is valued since the team will be
detail oriented and focused on delivering a top-

notch project.
Innovative Organizational Culture
This culture tends to be flexible and adaptable, with leaders,
managers, and employees who are willing to
experiment with new ideas. With organizations that practice an
innovative culture, creativity is encouraged,
and creative ideas become an important way to continuously
change and improve the organization’s
operations. Communication is especially important in this
culture since innovative projects often change
quickly, and the project team will need to stay informed.
Outcome Oriented Organizational Culture
This culture focuses on achievement. Instead of focusing on the
policies and procedures used to accomplish
an organization’s goals and objectives, outcome-oriented
organizations focus on the outcome. The
organization’s success or failure is measured by whether the
outcome is achieved—not by how it is achieved.
Like the aggressive organizational cultures, the project manager
needs to ensure that the team completes the
project in an ethical manner. The team should not let the

pressures of the sponsors or organization cloud their
judgments.
Service Oriented Organizational Culture
This culture emphasizes high-quality service, striving to
structure and coordinate the entire organization’s
activities in such a way that the organization can deliver top
quality goods and services to customers, fully
meeting their needs and expectations. Project teams focus on
ethics and ensure that the project sponsors are
satisfied with the end results. The team will have a focus on
quality and meeting the schedule and budget.
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Team Oriented Organizational Culture
This culture promotes teamwork, emphasizing the need for

employees to work together to find ways to
improve the organization’s work processes and the quality of its
goods and services. Within the team setting,
communication is essential. The team will build a relationship
based on its communication.
Conclusion
Projects are a necessary venture for most organizations to
achieve continued growth and success. Projects
can be complicated, and they are affected by an organization’s
structure. To increase their chances of
successfully completing a project, project managers must
understand the structure of their organization and
how their projects fit into the organization’s structure and
culture.
References
Hubble, A., & Spitulnik, J. (2016). Considerations for the
occasional project manager. Performance
Improvement, 55(7), 15–20.
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dire
ct=true&db=bsu&AN=117572833&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Leith, M. (2016, November 21). Organizational culture.
ProjectManagement.com.
https://www.projectmanagement.com/wikis/351444/Organizatio
nal-culture
Learning Activities (Nongraded)
Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in
their course of study. You do not have to submit
them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further
guidance and information.
Visit the website YouTube, and perform a search for each of the
following keyword search terms to view a
wide variety of resources that offer additional insight into this
unit’s topics. Note the channels or authors
whose videos you find most helpful, and consider bookmarking
or subscribing to them for continued
professional development. It is suggested when looking for
online resources, you choose those that are most
recent, as they will offer the most up-to-date information.
Keyword search terms for this unit are listed below.

• Project organizational structure
• Project organizational culture
• Project manager role
https://www.youtube.com/Course Learning Outcomes for Unit
IILearning ActivityRequired Unit ResourcesUnit
LessonIntroductionFunctional StructureProject StructureMatrix
StructureThe Significance of Organizational Culture in
Managing ProjectsAggressive Organizational CultureDetail
Oriented Organizational CultureInnovative Organizational
CultureOutcome Oriented Organizational CultureService
Oriented Organizational CultureTeam Oriented Organizational
CultureConclusionReferencesLearning Activities (Nongraded)
Unit II Proposal
Instructions
In Unit II, you have learned about the organizational structures
and cultures that projects must operate in. To prepare for this
assignment, review Table 2.1 on page 23 of the textbook.
Your first task is to choose one of the three major
organizational structures to associate with Lucky Me Animal
Rescue. The structure you choose to associate with the rescue is
up to you, but keep in mind that it will continue to be the
environment for your project as you complete the additional
assignments in this course.

Next, you will write a proposal you can deliver to the rescue’s
leadership and stakeholders to help them understand how the
adoption event will be managed within the identified
organizational structure. The goal is to help them understand
how their organizational structure will affect the project.
Your proposal should start with a very brief identification and
description of Lucky Me Animal Rescue’s organizational
structure.
You must then address how that structure will affect project
characteristics. Refer to Table 2.1 in the textbook for a list of
specific characteristics.
Finally, at a minimum, your proposal must also:
· examine the project manager’s role in the structure,
· explore how project communication will be conducted within
the structure, and
· assess how project personnel and resources are affected by the
organizational structure and how this can impact project
progress and completion.
Your proposal must be a minimum of two pages in length, not
counting the title and reference pages. You must use at least
three sources to support your proposal, one of which may be the
textbook. All sources used must be peer-reviewed or academic
in nature.
You must use at least three sources that are either peer-
reviewed or academic in nature to support your submission. One

of the sources may be our textbook.
Adhere to APA Style when constructing this assignment,
including the title page and in-text citations and references for
all sources that are used. Please note that an abstract is NOT
needed.
Resources
The following resource(s) may help you with this assignment.
·
Citation Guide
·
CSU Online Library Research Guide
·
Submit Writing Center Request
World War I: Part I
Professor Mindi Sitterud-McCluskey
World War I: Overview
World War I: 1914-1918
World War I became ignited in 1914 and continued for over

four years. Its causes can be summarized as European
imperialism, greed among the European ruling class, and the
rise of European ultra-nationalism.
It was a European war that became extended to European-held
colonies. It resulted in the creation of additional European-held
colonies after the Ottoman Empire became shattered and carved-
up. Former Ottoman subjects living in the Levant-- Syrians,
Palestinians, and Iraqis, set out to create a democratic republic
for themselves, only to become coerced into colonial rule by
France and Britain.
The European Zionist movement took a large step toward the
creation of a Jewish state in Palestine (Israel) as a result of
WWI; the House of Saud (Saudi Arabia) entered a partnership
with Britain whereby oil and the policing of the Levant would
be exchanged for weapons and extraordinary wealth, and the
people of Russia became galvanized by wartime conditions into
a revolution, resulting in the USSR as well as a British led
Allied invasion of a former ally.
From a national security perspective, it made little sense for the
US to enter Europe’s war. Nevertheless, it did so during the
final year of the conflict in opposition to public opinion and
with unprecedented state coercion and manipulation.

April 6, 1917: The US declared war on Germany
Spring 1918: US soldiers officially entered the conflict
November 11, 1918: The war ended.
World War I
WWI produced unprecedented carnage and destruction: The
world had not yet seen, nor anticipated, such a large-scale
slaughter and more diabolical weaponry.
The conflict saw industrialization and science become fully
integrated into war-making.
Factories which had churned out consumer goods became
transformed into war machines.
Civilians became military targets because they built the
weapons and grew the food which sustained the soldiers on the
front-lines. Thus, more than a war between soldiers, WWI
constituted a Total War.

By the time the armistice was signed, November 11, 1918:
Nearly 90 million people had fought
9-10 million soldiers had been killed on the battlefield.
20-22 million people had been killed, total.
20 million people had been seriously wounded (paralyzed,
amputated, etc.)
US losses 116,516 soldiers of 4.7 million mobilized
Germany lost 1.8 soldiers (killed), 4 million wounded (55% of
mobilized)
Russia: 1.7 million soldiers killed, 5 million wounded (76% of
mobilized)
France: 1.3 soldiers million killed
While the fighting devastated much of Europe, the US home-
front escaped military attack. There was war at home, however;
a war against all who did not fall in-line with entering what
was, for the US, a non-defensive war.

Allied Powers
France
Britain and its Empire
Russia* (until 1917)
Serbia
Belgium
Montenegro
Japan
Italy
Romania (1916-18)
Portugal (1916-18)
Greece (1917-18)
US (1917-18)

Central Powers
Germany
Austria-Hungry
Ottoman Empire
Bulgaria
*Russia: In 1917, Russia left the war due to an uprising at
home. The Russian Revolution was largely triggered by
hardships resulting from WWI, including the senseless slaughter
of soldiers on the battlefield and shortages of food and
necessities on the home-front
Major Causes of WWI
World War I: Overview
Causes and Contributing Factors
A desperate and dying global hegemon

The British Empire had fallen into decline.
As is the lifecycle of an empire, the British Empire had
overexpanded itself militarily abroad to secure profit-making
opportunities for a relatively small group of men. In the
process, the home-front had become gutted and neglected,
leading to economic downturn and a loss of intellectual and
cultural rigor. It had also become politically dysfunctional
through the corruption which empire’s breed.
Germany, by contrast, was on the rise.
It had expanded moderately in terms of empire while surpassing
Britain in economic growth and intellectual/technological
development. It further developed constructive relations with
the Ottoman Empire and commenced tapping into a new energy
resource: Oil.
Britain sought to “knock the legs out from under” Germany, or,
otherwise prevent its ascendance, and it became partnered with
France and Tsarist Russia to do so in the interest of maintaining
a status quo that the ruling class of all three nations benefitted
from. This is the essential and fundamental tension without
which there would not have been a continental war.

Enrichment: Rising Germany
The British Empire had risen through a combination of colonial
conquest and industrial production. The British working class
made the British empire the “workshop of the world” by the
mid-1800s. In the decades approaching WWI, however,
Germany surpassed the economic growth rate of Britain:
Germany was second only to the United States in industrial
production and exports (that British investors were heavily
embedded in the US economy rendered US growth acceptable).
It experienced solid growth in the steel and coal industries and
motor engineering.
Manufacturing increased 4x in 40 years, w/exports increasing
3x.
German manufactures were squeezing British competitors out of
home-front and capturing markets abroad.
Germany’s standard of living was on the rise & employment
levels were good

Economic health was reflected in a rapidly growing population.
Germany was also outpacing Britain in education.
For example, Germany claimed 60,000 university students to
Britain’s 6,000, with 3,000 graduate engineers to Britain’s 300
annually.
Germany was developing constructive trade relationships with
the Ottoman Empire and Austrian Empire, and gaining access to
oil resources (then, a newly coveted energy source)
Enrichment: Rising Germany
Trade and Oil Resources
Having forged a constructive partnership with the Ottoman
Empire, Germany was developing international railroads into
the Middle East and Eastern Europe to facilitate trade, including
in the new markets for oil.
In construction: A Bagdad to Berlin Railway that would have

connected the Ottoman Empire to Germany
Financed by Deutsche Bank, the rail-line proposed to transport
a range of commercial, agricultural and industrial goods
between Europe and the Middle East, including petroleum / oil.
A German engineer, Gottleib Daimler, had recently developed
the world’s first workable petroleum motor. This greatly
increased the importance of oil to European militaries. Put
another way, the days of coal-powered navies were numbered.
Powerful British and American capitalists, including the
Rockefellers, were invested in US oil (then the greatest
producer) and creeping into Middle Eastern deposits. They
viewed German oil interests as a threat to their oil profits.
Major Causes: WWI
Wars that respond to the economic growth of one nation
threatening the profits and power of another nation’s ruling
class are typically preceded by years of disinformation,
propaganda and emotional manipulation intended to shape
public perceptions toward war. The overriding message:
[Germany] is innately evil and threatens the safety and security

of [the British people].
Propaganda and Fear Mongering
Hence, years ahead of the outbreak of World War I, certain
British “influencers” began to produce an outpouring of scare-
stories meant to dehumanize, vilify and distort Germany and
emotionally manipulate the British public into fearing and
hating Germans.
These sources included newspapers owned by capitalist
plutocrats or influenced by them through advertising revenue.
Some plutocrats had investments tied to the British Empire and
industries “threatened” by German industrial growth. Some
merely understood that sensationalism sells.
Sources also included writers, academics, film-makers and
politicians who saw a career niche in manipulating the emotions
of the public and stoking feelings of nationalism with a
manufactured threat.
In truth, Germany did not threaten the British people and home-
front prior to the war, but its economic growth did threaten the
profit-interests of certain British elite.

Major Causes: WWI
Typical Propaganda Tropes (which remain with us, today)
The Immigrant Subversive: During an age of transnational labor
migrations, many German workers migrated to and through
British industrial hubs. As in the US, some immigrants settled
into a new citizenship and others sought only a temporary
source of wages. In this context, British articles and novels such
as “The Enemy in Our Midst” (Walter Wood, 1906) portrayed
Germans in Britain as a national security threat and innately
loyal to the “Fatherland.” Thus, even as they served in the
British military, taught in British schools, and labored in British
industries, Germans became tainted with suspicion of
subversion.
The Dehumanized “Other”: Famed imperialist poet and novelist,
Rupyard Kipling coined the phrase “hun” and wrote about
Germans as a lesser and separate breed of humans or non-
humans: “There are only two divisions in Europe today, human
beings and Germans.” He referred to them as beasts, microbes
(diseases who infect others), and devils who do evil because it

is their nature.
Imminent Invasion: As the German economy grew and quality
of life rose, writers insinuated that this ascent was somehow
rooted in an ambition of invade Britain and hurt the British
people. This propaganda tactic functioned to apply pressure to
the British government to increase munitions purchases. Cui
bono? Who benefits?
Major Causes: WWI
As will be true of the US in relation to Soviet Russia by the
mid-1900s, the scare-stories, vilification, and disinformation
advanced the personal interests certain individuals and entities.
The “German Menace” bolstered careers, sold books,
magazines, and films, justified the purchase of munitions and
weapon stockpiles, and conditioned minds toward a war that
industrialists, merchants, and bankers sought to wage years
before its outbreak.
The propaganda only accelerated after the war had begun. Many
of the same sources accused Germans of the most ludicrous

crimes, including bayonetting babies and crucifying Christians
(never mind that most Germans were Christian). No evidence
was presented. None was required. The Germans had already
become stripped of rational motives and humanity in popular
portrayals ahead of the war.
As a global conflict, World War I also became set in motion by
the larger Age of Empire and nation formation.
Competition Among European Empires Abroad
As European nations became industrialized, many pushed
further into the world in search of colonies to exploit, markets
to manipulate, and economies to control. With imperial
expansion came competition among European powers, and
competition beget militarism and chauvinism ,
Major Causes: WWI
Competition and Nation Formation Within
The Age of Revolution broke a pattern of kingdoms and empires

by formulating the concept of “the nation” as a community of
like-minded people with common interests. The assertion went
forward that such communities of people (“nations”) should be
independent entities- states, rather than existing among a
diversity of peoples within an empire.
Although substantial diversity typically existed within ethno-
religious groups and regional communities, processes associated
with nation-formation promoted unity through the invention of
traditions, symbols, culture, and history, and a manufactured
opposition to other.
Europe’s internal empires, thus, justified geographic expansion
under the pretext of absorbing imagined historical homelands.
This led to border disputes within Europe between empires.
European empires also became destabilized by internal
rebellions among people newly cognizant of a “national” sense
of self and seeking independence and attacks by break away
regions aiming to annex what they perceived to be historic
homelands This was especially true of Eastern Europe where an
outpouring of newly cognizant ethno-nationalities challenged
the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Russian Empire, and the
Ottoman Empire.

Major Causes: WWI
Ultra Nationalism:
With the rise of modern nation-states and nationalities emerged
belligerent and chauvinistic ultra-nationalisms.
Ultra-nationalism differs from a healthy sense of pride in
homeland. It is chauvinistic, militant and cult-like. The ultra-
nationalist will mindlessly rally behind unethical but
charismatic national leaders and illogical military exploits.
Wrapped in the flag, he/she will beat the war-drum as the nation
is goose-stepped into self-destruction. A saner patriot might
save the nation from such leaders, enablers, and cult-like
devotees.
Historians have noted that as Europe became more secular and
less inclined to traditional religious practices, many people
seemed to worship the nation and substitute religious ritual for
civic ritual and irrationality.

Major Causes: WWI
Alliance-Building:
Tensions between Britain and Germany, or Serbia and Austria-
Hungary, might have produced a regional war if not for the
formation of alliances during the years leading up to World War
I.
The formation of a network of alliances in the context of rising
tensions and border disputes made an otherwise limited war
between two nations into a world war.
Arms Race
Rising tensions during the years leading up to the war also
generated a stockpiling of weapons. This was rooted in efforts
to intimidate rivals.
It was also advanced by the lobbying efforts of munitions-
manufacturers and bankers with a profit motive to bring about
the hyper-militarization of nations
“Merchants of Death”:

With loans from central banks, major European nations grew
their militaries and developed new weapons of war. The
industrial-scale slaughter of WWI would not have been possible
without the consolidation of wealth in centralized banks and a
willingness among associated bankers to enable carnage.
WWI: American Home-Front
Western Elite Culture
By the eve of World War I, a distinct culture had grown-up
among the elite of Europe and the United States. It was steeped
in anxieties about elite “manliness,” elite concentrations of
unearned wealth, and an inability to justify obscene wealth
accumulation upon the backs of the laboring class by any pre-
existing moral code.
In the context of Europe long being without a major continental
conflict, the literature read in elite academic institutions

portrayed war as purifying, glorious, heroic, and necessary. It
allegedly unified and redeemed the nation and its men from
vices, materialism, and decadence of peace. There could be no
sweeter death, the storyline went, than to die bravely in battle
to redeem your nation.
The pseudo-science of Social Darwinism pretending that
humanity, like nature, should not be expected to transcend
instincts toward “survival of the fittest” (never mind our
superior forebrain and higher capacities for empathy and
justice). This mode of thought justified relations between
empire/colony, capitalist/laborer, and rich/poor by asserting that
those occupying a more powerful position did so because they
are innately superior. If further justified a lack of respect for
sovereignty, mercy, and charity (nature respects not those
things) and promoted conquest and war as an essential means by
which “superior” nations and people avoid degeneration.
Thus, as with the Spanish American War, many well-educated
sons of privilege eagerly anticipated the conflict that became
WWI and goaded their nations toward it.
“…so I wake to the higher aims
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold,
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames…
Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep…

And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names…
For the peace, that I deem’d no peace, is over and done,…
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire…
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind…
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind…”
Alfred Tennyson
Major Causes: WWI
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
A Serbian nationalist assassinated the heir to the throne of the
Austria-Hungarian Empire. The assignation did not cause the
war, but it was the trigger which lit the fuse of pre-existing
conditions.
Serbia was one of several new ethno-nationalities, recently
liberated from empire and seeking to liberate what were
perceived as additional historical homelands.
The assassination led to a month of diplomatic maneuvering

between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain,
called the July Crisis.
Austria-Hungary delivered unreasonable demands, intending to
create a pretext for attacking the less powerful Serbia. Russia,
sharing a common Orthodox Christianity with Serbia, attempted
to prevent an attack by mobilizing against Austria-Hungary.
Having forged an alliance with Austria-Hungary in the context
of British hostilities and subversions, Germany’s Kaiser
Wilhelm II asked his cousin, Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, to
suspend mobilization against Austria-Hungary. When the Tsar
refused, the Kaiser felt compelled to reassure Austria-Hungary
of Germany’s loyalty to the alliance, lest the hedge against the
British threat be lost. Thus, Germany declared war on Russia,
and the web of continental alliances propelled further
declarations of war to fall like dominos until the conflict
became continental.
Major Causes: WWI
A failure of basic diplomacy:
There was no good reason for Europe to go to war with itself.

Had not Germany felt threatened by a British Empire which had
become belligerent and hostile in the throes of imperial decline,
it might not have felt compelled to reinforce its alliance with
Austria-Hungary by declaring war on Russia. Russian saber-
rattling then might have stayed the Austrian hand against little
Serbia.
Either way, the declarations of war fell amid a failure of basic
diplomacy. Mobilization by Russia, France, and Britain went
forward with an intent to reinforce the status quo, including the
British Empire; all belligerents sought to use the war to expand
territorial claims and national wealth, and no belligerent could
have fought a modern war for an extended period without
becoming enabled by industrialists and bankers in pursuit of
profits.
Diplomacy failed also amid royal family dysfunction. The kings
of Germany, Britain, and Russia were all cousins.
Like essentially all wars, the instigators and diplomats did not
shed their own blood. The poor and working class provided
most of the soldiers and bore the heaviest weight of civilian
consequences.

Reluctant Soldiers
The Christmas Truce
The war began in Western Europe with a massive barrage of
industrial weaponry. Neither side knew how to advance under
these new conditions of war, so they dug down and created long
lines of trenches.
Despite the years of anti-German propaganda leading up to the
war, a great part of the armies on both sides of the conflict
neither held particularly belligerent feelings toward the other,
nor understood why the war had begun.
The combination of this uncertainly regarding how to advance
under new industrialized war conditions, and a reluctance to
fight fellow Europeans, led to one of the most profound
episodes in the history of warfare.

The Christmas Truce
Along the western front during the weeks leading up to
Christmas 1914 (5 months into the war), there was a lull in the
fighting:
This lull presented opportunities for informal truces and even
fraternization between opposing British/French and German
forces.
Some encounters involved a tacit agreement between the two
sides to allow the bodies of the dead strewn across no-man’s
land to be gathered and buried without threat of violence.
Some encounters involved the direct approach by enemy
soldiers and even low-level leadership for the purpose of
informal conversations.
Soldiers spoke about such things as English football leagues
(many Germans having lived in England). Confessions were
made on both side to not wanting to fight this war.

The Christmas Truce
On one occasion, Christmas carols being sung in the German
trenches could be heard in the Allied trenches. The Allies-
British and French, joined in the singing. The “ice” had broken.
The “enemies” walked out of their respective trenches to wish
one another “Merry Christmas.”
They went on to eat and drink together, play football games,
exchange items, and converse.
The Christmas truce involved 100,000 “enemy” soldiers and
even officers.

The Christmas Truce
The question for military leadership became: How to get these
men to start killing each other?
The truces seemed to be spreading, even reaching the Eastern
Front.
In some places, soldiers refused to fire on their new friends.
Military discipline was failing on both sides of the conflict, as
men refused to comply with orders to kill other men in a war
not of their making and not in their interest.
Only when military leadership commenced to execute their
soldiers for treason did military discipline return and the killing
resume
The coerced fighting gradually broke the peace.
With the exchange of fire, came fear, death, grief for comrades,
and feelings of revenge.
WWI went on to be the second bloodiest war, thus far, in
history.

Led by mad generals and monarchs, the war might have
continued with even more carnage had it not been for the
mutinies that erupted among soldiers in the trenches on both
sides of the conflict.
WWI: Trenches
Crisis of Legitimacy
As the war machines became ignited, the stories that western
civilization had long told itself about “glorious” and
“purifying” war began to fall apart.
The fire-power of industrialized weaponry was such that neither
side could significantly advance against the other. The only
option was to dig in and chip away at the other side in
increments of a few acres of territory with each sporadic
suicidal charge. Thus, Europe bled itself.
The trenches were not romantic and glorious.

Two lines of enemy forces bombarded one another from rat
infested, muddy trenches, month after month.
Periodic charges across No Man’s Land- the strip of land
between the two lines of trenches, went forward under a barrage
of fire and blinding chemical weapons, …through barbed wire
and the decaying bodies of men and horses.
No Man’s Land became scorched and cratered by continual
bombardment. It became a graveyard for those who had gone
“over the top” and failed.
The US and World War I
Death in the trenches and on No Man’s Land did not weed-out
the lesser men, as Social Darwinism suggested:
Life and death were random.
Luck, not skill, most determined survival.
The strongest did not always survive.

Death did not arrive gracefully
The trenches were mud, defoliated landscapes, constant
deafening bombardment, barbed-wire, chemical weapons, dead
bodies rotting across No Man’s Land and body parts scattered in
the trenches, armies of rats following the stench of death… Men
built cages for themselves to guard against being devoured by
rats in their sleep.
Men lost their minds in the trenches.
The psychological stress of being on the frontline, week after
week and month after month, with sounds beyond what
humanity had yet encountered, and under hellish conditions, led
many soldiers to develop Shell Shock…
Dying in war was not glorious
Industrial weapons blew bodies to pieces
Chlorine attacks did not provide for a graceful and dignified
death.

WWI: Trenches
Many men returned home severely disfigured and
mentally/emotionally broken.
Science responded with the first regenerative surgeries and
facial prosthetics.
Mask-making industries responded to a desire to hide physical
disfigurement.
Mental and emotional disfigurement became evidenced in
overflowing mental institutions, as did the lack of desire or
ability to live with men damaged and broken by war.
Across both the Western Front and Eastern Front, armies on
both sides of the war engaged in periodic mutinies, almost
always to be sent back into the trenches at gunpoint or executed
for treason.

Millions of men died fighting- for what? Nobody knew. Still,
leadership on both sides of the conflict only demanded more.
When the US finally entered the war, its young men went
mostly into the trenches of the Western Front
The widespread disfigurements of WWI led to new industries of
mask-making, facial prosthetics, and regenerative surgery
The United States and WWI
The United States and WWI
Reluctant Americans:
As WWI carried-on in Europe through 1914, 1915, 1916, and
even into 1917, most ordinary Americans took pride in the
reality that their nation had stayed out of Europe’s war.

The prevailing mood among ordinary Americans: Non-
Interventionism- Not our war, not our business….
As war broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared
that the US would maintain strict neutrality. He became re-
elected as president on the platform, “He kept us out of war.”
Some ordinary Americans leaned toward the Allies, tracing their
origins and cultural ties to Britain. Some leaned toward the
Central Powers, tracing their origins and cultural ties to
Germany.
As a nation, however, the consensus among the ordinary
laboring majority of Americans, as Europe tore itself apart:
non-intervention.
Beyond a general mood of non-interventionism, movements and
factions existed in the US with logical arguments and
philosophical purposes for staying out of Europe’s war:

Peace Movement
As part of the idealism and moral uprightness of early 1900s
progressivism and socialism, a vibrant peace movement thrived:
Human progress has made starvation and want unnecessary;
thus, all wars are by choice.
American Christianity
Within the nation’s largest religion, there existed prominent
pacifist organizations and a social gospel movement committed
to emulating the New Testament Jesus: A pacifist who cared for
the poor and down-trodden and purged the “money changers”
from the temple.
Working Class Farmers
The US remained strongly agrarian, and these farmers tended to
oppose entering the war, at least partially because a draft would
take sons whose labor was essential to farm operations. Many
American farmers also continued to be infused with the anti-
Wall Street sentiments of the populist movement.

WWI American Home Front
The Working-Class Left
When the war broke out, working class activism was surging,
both within a conservative trade union movement led by the
AFL and a more radical wing led by the Industrial Workers of
the World on behalf of the creation of a cooperative
commonwealth.
Socialism was also surging.
Thus, there existed many men and women with a sophisticated
understandings of the capitalist nature of imperialism and the
role of bankers and industrialists in fomenting war for profit.
Strong opposition existed to sending American working-class
men abroad to kill other working-class men.
Strong opposition existed to squandering national resources and
wealth on war rather than investing in the uplift the poor and
working class.
Bankers, industrialists, militarists, & devils dance on the bodies
of young men sent to war, printed in a newspaper for farmers.

As in Europe, the war hawks resided among the sons of
privilege and those positioned to profit from the war:
Preparedness Organizations:
By 1915, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (the former president’s son)
had commenced establishing preparedness organizations for the
purpose of promoting entrance into the war and organizing
young men for military duties.
These organizations later evolved into the first American
Legion posts, many of which later became openly supportive of
fascism (see PP: WWI Consequences)
Roosevelt established training camps for mostly Ivy League
elite sons and petitioned congress for mandatory military
training.
Like his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., “gushed” over war for
war’s sake.
When war came, it took the life of the youngest Roosevelt son,

Quinton. Teddy Roosevelt Sr. never emotionally recovered.
Ordinary Americans had long imagined Britain in an adversarial
way, as the empire from which the US won independence and
the enemy of the War of 1812. As American bankers and
industrialists commenced profiting from loans and
weapons/supplies sales to Britain, an outpouring of propaganda
depicted the two imperialist nations as unified in common
values, interests, and destiny.
WWI Homefront
While some sons of the elite “prepared” to don a military
uniform and enter a European warzone to “sustain American
virility,” other privileged sons mobilized to profit from the
conflict from a safe distance. In loaning money and selling
weapons to belligerents, these sons compromised the nation’s
official status of neutrality.
Though various munitions-makers had sold weapons to
belligerents from the start, JP Morgan’s banking House of
Morgan led the way among the financiers by organizing a
syndicate of 2200 banks in 1915 for the purpose of loaning

large sums (with interest).
Russia: 12 million
France and Britain: $500 million
The House of Morgan also became the sole purchasing agent for
the British government.
Much of what he purchased came from businesses that he
owned. Thus, he turned a double profit: Commission as
Britain’s purchasing agent and additional revenue by gearing
his purchases toward his own businesses.
When American ships carried weapons and supplies to Britain,
these vessels entered what Germany had declared to be a
warzone. Although the US remained officially neutral, the act of
aiding one side of the conflict rendered these vessels belligerent
Consequently, about one of every four steamers did not reach
Britain. They became sank by Germany submarines and U-
boats.

“In the World War [One] a mere handful garnered the profits of
the conflict. At least 2,100 new millionaires and billionaires
were made in the United States during the World War. That
many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax
returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax
returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How
many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it
meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of
them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and
shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a
bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded
or killed in battle?”
–
Major General Smedley Butler
The House of Morgan

By the end of 1915, it had become apparent that Germany and
its allies were winning the war. If this occurred, the side to
which the House of Morgan and its syndicates made mega-loans
would likely default on these loans. The banking syndicate
would suffer heavy losses if this occurred.
Morgan and his associates determined that the US must enter
the war on the side of Britain.
Problem: Most Americans oppose entering the war.

The American West Professor Mindi Sitterud-McCluskeyWest.docx

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