American Culture

Question 1

Gold Rush

Answer 1

Gold rush (1848-1851) James Marshal discovers gold at John Sutter’s mill (northern California). This let to gold craze all over the country.
1849 80,000 people + 1854 300,000.
Forty-Niners; young males miners (East American, Chile, China, France, Mexico). =>Huge immigration = permanent settlement of new regions.
Activities propelled by gold rushes =significant aspects of the culture of the North American frontiers.
World’s money supply was based on gold => economic stimulus far beyond the gold fields.

Question 2

Frontier

Answer 2

Region at the edge of a settled area. It was a transition zone where explorers, pioneers and settlers were arriving.

Question 3

Appalachians

Answer 3

System of mountains in East Northern America extends into southeastern Canada.

Question 4

Alleghenies

Answer 4

The Alleghenies comprise the rugged western-central portion of the Appalachians.

Question 5

Rocky Mountains

Answer 5

1,000s passed Rocky Mountains = Oregon Trail (1840s).
1859 - 1864, gold was discovered in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia,=> several gold rushes = thousands of prospectors and miners = first major industry.
The Idaho gold rush =more gold than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined =>important financing of the Union Army during = American Civil War.

Question 6

Sierra Nevada

Answer 6

A mountain range in the Western United States.
Gold Rush began at Sutter’s Mill western foothills of the Sierra. On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River.

Question 7

The Midwest

Answer 7

One of the four geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, occupying the northern central part of the United States of America.
Three waterways have been important to the development of the Midwest.
1. Ohio River, which flowed into the Mississippi River.
2. network of routes within the Great Lakes. (Erie canal)
3. Missouri River, extended water travel from the Mississippi almost to the Rocky Mountains.

Railroad junction in Chicago = world’s largest (Henry Ford = six Class I railroads meet in Chicago).
Detroit remains home to General Motors, Chrysler, and the Ford Motor Company.

Question 8

The West

Answer 8

=The American Frontier comprises the geography, history, folklore, and cultural expression of life in the forward wave of American expansion. Began with English colonial settlements and ended with the admission of the last mainland territories as states in 1912.
Second half of the 19th century, a period sometimes called the Old West, or the Wild West, frequently exaggerating the romance and violence of the period.

Question 9

The Southwest

Answer 9

The Territory South of the River Ohio was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States as the State of Tennessee.

Question 10

Dwight D. Eisenhouwer

Answer 10

general WWII

Question 11

Boston Tea Party

Answer 11

republicans

Question 12

King George III

Answer 12

British monarch

Question 13

War of Independence

Answer 13

War against Britain

Question 14

Declaration of Independence

Answer 14

all men are equal

Question 15

Constitution

Answer 15

First 10 amendments

Question 16

Benjamin Franklin

Answer 16

president

Question 17

George Washington

Answer 17

president

Question 18

John Adams

Answer 18

US

Question 19

Thomas Jefferson

Answer 19

declaration

Question 20

Middle Atlantic Region

Answer 20

somewhere

Question 21

Middle Atlantic Region

Answer 21

somewhere

Question 22

Forty-Niners

Answer 22

Young gold miners (Gold Rush); East American, Chile, China, France, Mexico. Simply panned for gold in California’s rivers and streams.
Named after Gold Rush in 1849.

Question 23

Frontier

Answer 23

Refers to a contrasting region at the edge of a European-American line of settlement. American historians cover multiple frontiers but the folklore is focused primarily on the 19th century west of the Mississippi River.

Question 24

Abraham Lincoln

Answer 24

16th president; lawyer => Whig Party (Illinois) promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Unpopular in congress because of opposition to the Mexican–American War. 1854 reentering politics became leader in building the new Republican Party, spoke out against the expansion of slavery, but lost the U.S. Senate race to Douglas. spoke out against the expansion of slavery, swept the North and was elected president in 1860 => seven southern slave states to form the Confederate States. On April 12, 1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union. Lincoln pushed a moderate view of Reconstruction.

Question 25

Civil War

Answer 25

The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America. The Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U.S. history.

Question 26

Abolitionists

Answer 26

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery, whether formal or informal.

Question 27

Confederate States of America

Answer 27

Commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was a breakaway country of 11 secessionist slave states existing from 1861 to 1865. It was never formally recognized as an Independent country, although it achieved belligerent status by Britain and France. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven states – South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas – in the Lower South region of the United States whose regional economy was mostly dependent upon agriculture - particularly cotton - and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.

Question 28

Confederate vs US Army

Answer 28

• troops vs militia
• at first both sides volunteers
• Confederate: young men aged 18 to 35; overseers of slaves, government officials, and clergymen were exempt.
• US Army: European immigrants.
• Both armies had grown into the “largest and most efficient armies in the world” within a couple of years.

Question 29

Slave state

Answer 29

State that allows slavery (Southern part of US)

Question 30

Free state

Answer 30

State that sets a slave free, abolism

Question 31

Slavery & plantations

Answer 31

Plantations needed a large workforce this was provided by slaves. The demand for cotton increased => necessity for slavery.

Question 32

Slaves

Answer 32

• Africans deported to the Americas, sold there as slaves to plantation owners.
• Ofspring of slaves (& plantation owner, supervisor)

Question 33

The South

Answer 33

The 7 (later 11) Southern states of the US.