American Culture Flashcards
Gold Rush
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.
Frontier
Region at the edge of a settled area. It was a transition zone where explorers, pioneers and settlers were arriving.
Appalachians
System of mountains in East Northern America extends into southeastern Canada.
Alleghenies
The Alleghenies comprise the rugged western-central portion of the Appalachians.
Rocky Mountains
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.
Sierra Nevada
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.
The Midwest
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.
The West
=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.
The Southwest
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.
Dwight D. Eisenhouwer
general WWII
Boston Tea Party
republicans
King George III
British monarch
War of Independence
War against Britain
Declaration of Independence
all men are equal
Constitution
First 10 amendments
Benjamin Franklin
president
George Washington
president
John Adams
US
Thomas Jefferson
declaration
Middle Atlantic Region
somewhere
Middle Atlantic Region
somewhere
Forty-Niners
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.
Frontier
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.
Abraham Lincoln
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.
