alternatehistory.com

We'll see if this catches on (I personally hope it does). What I want is from 1800-1900 to create the best United States as possible. A sort of "realistic utopia". Not exactly a wank in the terms of invading and killing foreigners, but a civil rights wank. :) As much as is possible a vast improvement on the status of Native Americans, African Americans, Women, and Worker's rights.

Now I do have an idea for a POD, which I will state below. Now let's do this.

Suffrage

Aaron Burr as President.

ranichi17 said:
Women's rights will probably be a major reform with Burr, as we've seen how he educated his daughter.
King of Etri said:
He also tried to get women the right to vote in New Yrok

As stated above, this is more or less the Point of Divergence for this timeline. Perhaps go a little farther back and have his suffrage in New York pass, but other than that have Aaron Burr bring the idea of women's suffrage to the national spotlight as early as the 1800s while he is President.

Women's Suffrage
TFSmith121 said:
In the US, womens' suffrage was certainly a possibility in the later half of the Nineteenth; Seneca Falls in 1848 provided the concept as a political reform, and womens' suffrage was among the possiblilities in the post-Civil War era. Wyoming Territory granted women the right to vote in 1869, and maintained that right at statehood in 1890; Dakota Territory came within one vote of doing so in 1869.
Falecius said:
Sweden had limited women suffrage in 1774 IIRC, so the notion was certainly there early
Quimporte said:
the new New Jersey Constituition specified that men and women who met the property qualifications were able to vote. Only after the Jeffersonians swept the country was the law changed again to exclude women -- the Dem-Reps feared that women would vote Federalist.

This shows that even without the influence of a President suffrage was considered viable as early as the 1840s. In my opinion, a popular President Burr could give some serious weight to the movement (which granted was very small at the time) and his daughter Theodosia could also become a major feminist figure in the early 1800s.

Suffrage for women could be advanced well ahead of the signing of the 19th amendment in the early 1900s. Just spitballing here but perhaps widespread suffrage could occur as early as the 60s? Or is that too conservative given President Burr speaking out on behalf of women.

Slavery

The idea to improve race is threefold; earlier (willing) abolition, a decrease in cotton productivity, and an early threat to secessionism.

Earlier abolitionism:
Kentucky abolishes slavery in 1824
No Nat Turner Rebellion: Virginia outlaws slavery 1832
Delaware end slavery in 1847
Missouri becomes a free state (1860)

I am not fool enough to think that the first one wouldn't butterfly away the rest. But this just goes to show what AH.com has in the past considered the above a "reasonable timeframe" for the early abolition of slavery.

From the Kentucky thread:
DuQuense said:
I have a feeling that if Kentucky goes, Tennessee will Follow.
This means that neither Missouri or Kansas will be Slaves States.

If (like the second link) Virginia goes on to abolish in '32, then we will see slavery seriously pushed south over three decades ahead of time. :cool:

Decrease in cotton productivity:

Boll weevil infestation in southeast USA from 1800?
Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Around 1800, slavery was still considered generally to be bad, just economically necessary, the massive defence of the morality of slavery didn't happen until cotton really took off. So, short-circuiting that would make a huge difference.
Boll Weevil strikes in 1830?
Viriato said:
Many large plantation owners could go bankrupt, forcing them to sell slaves at reduced prices or simply free them. There would have be a shift to less labour intensive crops in the cotton belt, especially maize (corn).

Next in line to discourage slavery is the introduction of the Boll Weevil a century early. IOTL it pretty much crushed the remaining American cotton industry in the early 1900s, leading to black farmhands migrating North due to a lack of work. Here it would have a different effect of making slavery decidedly un-economic. With Upper South abolition and cotton reduced, slavers in the Deep South would have more slaves than they would know what to do with.

Early threat to secessionism:

WI: South Carolina leaves the Union during the Nullification Crisis of 1832

Johnrankins said:
After SC gets the crap beat out of it it would never take the lead on secession again as it would never trust the other Southern states and every other state would think three times as well. The lesson from that incident would be "If you secede you are on your own."
Jello_Biafra said:
Why would the rest of the South want to leave? They controlled the Federal Government pretty thoroughly, and South Carolina (or any other uppity deep south state) trying to leave would threaten their hegemony and their particular institution.

They'd be lining up to beat South Carolina back into compliance.

Can't really say it much better than it is said in the above quotes. Have an early secession that is decidedly NOT about slavery makes the South comfortable not joining South Carolina while at the same time making a very powerful precedent for why secession is a bad idea.

Once again, I would like to state that I am aware that due to butterflies this exact situation would not come to pass. But I do not believe that this means that a similar situation is impossible and in fact I think that it could arise and have pretty much the same effects.

With all of the above in mind, I feel comfortable positing that the United States Federal Government could reasonably abolish slavery in the late 1840s / early 1850s period. Whether or not this happens without bloodshed is perhaps up for debate, but I think because of the South Carolina precedent there will be no organized force to protect the institute of slavery (which as stated would be largely discredited at this point).

Native American

Which Indian tribes would be good canidates to become states
twovultures said:
The 5 Civilized tribes are your best candidates, as they were the most willing to act within the frame of American law.
othyrsyde said:
also what Thande has in Look to the West's ENA and UPSA. It's a more autonomous reservation/reserve system, almost like the princely client states of colonial India.

The United States undertook horrible actions in their effort to remove, marginalize, and eradicate the Native American identity on the North American continent. For me, this feels like the hardest change given that Americans and Natives have been fighting non-stop since the American Revolution (as of the POD in the early 1800s).

Best case scenario here is one or two Indian majority states (one in the South and one in the North, the former more likely than the latter) and worst case scenario (worst case as in it barely fits the idea of the thread but still works) is a semi-independent Indian state that's very Puerto Rico like in it's relation to the United States.

Socialism

War of the Classes by Ofaloaf and Reds! by Jello_Biafra are some of my favorite timelines on this website.

I'll also throw in this thread (AHC: Christian Socialism) for fun.

I'll be honest I'm a little bit short on PODs for this part, especially because I do not see it coming to pass until after most of the other sections of this post come to past.

I'm imagining a situation where black freedmen and poor whites unite against capitalist oppression (probably in the form of railroad companies and union busters like in Ofaloaf's TL). This would be TTL's American Civil War (possibly, see the section on slavery).

While some of you may not agree with Socialism being apart of a "Utopia USA" I am throwing it in here anyways because I'm the OP. :cool:

The main thrust is probably going to be securing worker's rights more than any sort of outright Communist revolution. Preferably this should all be settled by 1900 as stated before.

And for fun

Improved Inventions

Steam cars in the 18th century
carlton_bach said:
it is quite likely the competition won't be able to kill steam cars, which will have implications for road building (potentially more emphasis on macadamising or alternative metalling) and steam technology

Earlier airplanes
tielhard said:
you need a POD well before 1860 say 1795 someone needs to develop theoretcial aerodynamics and then they need to do lots of work with gliders then in 1830 someone needs to build a workable IC engine (or a Brayton cycle engine)

Earlier sound technology

Armored Diplomacy said:
Actually, the first sound recording ever is from 1860. You could probably bump it back to mid or early 1850s, and if they kept working at it, you can have coherent recordings by the mid to late 1860s instead of the 1880s (yes, there were coherent recordings even back then).

Earlier photography and film
oshron said:
im starting to think that our earliest possible POD would be for Lavoisier to avoid execution; whatever contributions he could make in his remaining life could speed up the OTL schedule of chemistry and therefore photography by however many years; from there, the butterfly effect could very well cause some other discoveries and inventions to occur a little earlier than IOTL, adding on to the schedule speed-up (so, for example, if Lavoisier makes a contribution in 1804, that could speed up the schedule by, say, five years; then, Niepce could conceivably make further discoveries based on that, leading to the oldest surviving permanent photographs dating to 1820 rather than 1826, speeding up the discovery by another six years. adding these together, Daguerre may discover mercury fumes can develop latent images from shorter exposures as many as eleven years earlier than IOTL)

Edison vacuum tubes
M79 said:
He did try in the 1880s by using light bulbs with extra filaments, plates, and eventually filed a patent for the first electronic device based on this in 1883. This led to the investigation of radio detecting technology and eventually the diode about 1904/1905 by a British scientist. So I think Edison could develop a diode or maybe even a triode in 1890
Tesla transistors
danwild6 said:
two of Tesla's patents from 1903 contain the basic principles of the logic AND circuit element.

BookerTWashington.PNG

^ Not going to happen because of butterflies, but it should give you an idea of what I want for this timeline. We have plenty of dystopias. Let's try and make something happy. :)

BookerTWashington.PNG
Top