American Neutrality (US History EOC Review - USHC 7.1)

In this segment of the US History EOC Review series, Tom Richey discusses American neutrality as tensions in Europe escalated to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The Neutrality Acts were passed in the 1930s to keep the United States - regretful of its involvement in World War I - out of another European War. The America First Committee and its spokesperson, Charles Lindbergh, rallied Americans around the traditional Washingtonian/Jeffersonian foreign policy of neutrality (aka “isolationism“). In order to support the British, who were fighting against Hitler alone in 1940 and 1941, FDR sought to make the United States the “Arsenal of Democracy“ with Cash and Carry, Destroyers for Bases, and Lend Lease, keeping America technically neutral while giving our ally support. An oil embargo against Japan made it difficult for the Japanese to expand their empire, leading the the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After a day which would live i