Exam 1 Flashcards
13th amendment
Abolished slavery
Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner
Take land from the confederates for treason
15th amendment
Prohibited states from denying votes because of race; women suffrage
14th amendment
All native born people are citizens
Black codes
Laws passed by southern states that restricted the rights and liberties of former slaves
Freedmen’s bureau
Federal agency created to supervise newly freed people
Scalawags
Southern white republicans; term used by southern democrats
Carpetbaggers
Northerners who settled in the south during reconstruction.
KKK
White terrorist organization in South originally founded as a fraternal society in 1866. Reborn in 1915, it achieved popularity in the 1920s through its calls for Anglo-Saxon purity, Protestant supremacy, and the subordination of blacks, Catholics, and Jews.
WEB Du Bois
Black leader
Ulysses S Grant
No political experience
Credit Mobilier
Construction company for the Union Pacific Railroad that gave shares of stock to some congressmen in return for favors
Crop lien system
System of credit used in the poor rural south, whereby merchants in small country stores provided necessary goods on credit in return for a lien on the crop. As the price of crops fell, small farmers, black and white, drifted deeper into debt.
Dawes Severalty Act
1877 legislation that called for the dissolution of Indian tribes as legal entities, offered Indians citizenship, and allotted each head of family 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land.
Trust
Large corporation that controlled a substantial share of any given market
Sherman anti-trust act
Intended to declare any form of trade restraint illegal, but proved to be useless in prosecution of corporations
Knights of labor
Secret fraternal organization founded in 1869 in Philadelphia
Homestead strike
Carnegie steel company closed its homestead plant planning to reopen with nonunion workers; the union went on strike refusing to leave the building, which led to a gun battle and several deaths.
Plessy v. Ferguson
1896 Supreme Court case that sanctioned Jim Crow laws as long as the separate facilities for blacks and whites were equal.
Robber barons
Industrial leaders who began to restrain their displays of wealth and make significant philanthropic contributions to the public.
Isolationists
Those who were not in favor of war during WWII
Imperialists
Those who wanted to expand their nation’s world power through military prowess, economic strength, and control of foreign territory.
Social Darwinism
Set of beliefs explaining human history as an ongoing evolutionary struggle between different groups of people for survival and supremacy that was used to justify inequalities between races, classes, and nations.
Open door notes
Foreign policy tactic in which the US asked European powers to respect China’s independence and to open their spheres of influence to merchants from other nations
Jim Crow laws
Laws passed by southern states mandating racial segregation in public facilities
Emancipation
Refers to release from slavery or bondage. Gradual emancipation was introduced in Pennsylvania and provided for the eventual freeing of slaves born after a certain date when they reached age 28
Reconstruction acts of 1867
the acts of Congress during the period from 1865 to 1877 providing for the reorganization of the former Confederate states and setting forth the process by which they were to be restored to representation in Congress, especially the acts passed in 1867 and 1868.
Tenure of office act
“imposed tenure limits on certain current and future officeholders” in order “to insure removal under certain conditions
Treaty of Paris 1898
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was signed on December 10, 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War.
Investment banking
An investment bank is a financial institution that assists corporations and governments in raising capital by underwriting and acting as the agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank also assists companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, derivatives, etc.
Little big horn
a battle in Montana near the Little Bighorn River between United States cavalry under Custer and several groups of Native Americans (1876); Custer was pursuing Sioux led by Sitting Bull; Custer underestimated the size of the Sioux forces (which were supported by Cheyenne warriors) and was killed along with all his command
Redeemer
The “Redeemers” were a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era, who sought to oust the Radical Republican coalition of Freedmen, carpetbaggers and Scalawags. They were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the conservative, pro-business wing of the Democratic Party.
Holding company
a company created to buy and possess the shares of other companies, which it then controls.
Standard oil company
an institution created to conduct business
New south
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a phrase that has been used intermittently since the American Civil War to describe the American South, in whole or in part. The term “New South” is used in contrast to the Old South of the plantation system of the antebellum period.
American federation of labor (AFL)
a federation of North American labor unions that merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955
Laissez-Faire
a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.
Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty was written by Henry George in 1879. The book is a treatise on the cyclical nature of an industrial economy and its remedies.
New immigrants
American immigration (or immigration to the United States of America) refers to the movement of non-residents to the United States. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of American history.
Old immigrants
American immigration (or immigration to the United States of America) refers to the movement of non-residents to the United States. Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of American history.
Populist party
People’s Party: a former political party in the United States; formed in 1891 to advocate currency expansion and state control of railroads
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was caused by railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures.
Cross of gold speech
The Cross of Gold speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 8, 1896. The speech advocated bimetallism.
Separate but equal
racially segregated but ostensibly ensuring equal opportunities to all races.
Promontory point
southernmost edge of the Promontory Mountains in southern Box Elder County, Utah, centered approximately at , with an elevation of 1285 meters (4217 feet) above sea level. It is located on a promontory (peninsula) in the northern part of the Great Salt Lake.
Gospel of Wealth
an essay written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889 that described the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich.
Social gospel
Christian faith practiced as a call not just to personal conversion but to social reform.
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 refers to a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the disputed 1876 U.S. Presidential election and ended Congressional (“Radical”) Reconstruction. Through it, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House
Interstate commerce act
refers to a federal law designed to regulate the monopolistic railroad industry. The Act required that railroads publicize shipping rates and charge no more for short hauling than for long hauling.
Interstate commerce commission (ICC)
The governmental commission charged with making and enforcing regulations concerning interstate commerce.
Mugwump
a person who remains aloof or independent, esp. from party politics.
Frontier thesis
The Frontier Thesis is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the origin of the distinctive aggressive, violent, innovative and democratic features of the American character has been the American frontier.
Railroad strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state militias, and federal troops.
Creative destruction
Creative destruction is an economic theory of innovation and progress, introduced by German sociologist Werner Sombart and elaborated and popularized by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter.
Occam’s razor
the principle that entities should not be multiplied needlessly; the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred
William H Seward
12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Samuel Tilden
Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in the disputed election of 1876, one of the most controversial American elections of the 19th century.
George A Custer
United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Today he is most remembered for a disastrous military engagement known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Sitting Bull
a chief of the Sioux; took up arms against settlers in the northern Great Plains and against United States Army troops; he was present at the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) when the Sioux massacred General Custer’s troops (1831-1890)
Andrew Carnegie
United States industrialist and philanthropist who endowed education and public libraries and research trusts
John D Rockefeller
American oil magnate. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.
JP Morgan
American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time.
Thomas A Edison
American inventor, scientist, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
American author and humorist.
Samuel Gompers
United States labor leader (born in England) who was president of the American Federation of Labor from 1886 to 1924 (1850-1924)
Henry George
American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the “single tax” on land.
Charles Darwin
Darwin: English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882)
William Jennings Bryan
United States lawyer and politician who advocated free silver and prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925)
Booker T Washington
United States educator who was born a slave but became educated and founded a college at Tuskegee in Alabama (1856-1915)
Herbert Spencer
English philosopher and sociologist who applied the theory of natural selection to human societies (1820-1903)
Frederick Jackson Turner
Turner: United States historian who stressed the role of the western frontier in American history (1861-1951)
Political entrepreneurs
someone (usually active in the fields of either politics or business) who founds a new political project, group, or political party
Market entrepreneur
Has a method
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt: United States financier who accumulated great wealth from railroad and shipping businesses (1794-1877)
Edward Collins
American shipping magnate
James J Hill
Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest.
Union Pacific Railroad
Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States.
Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah, USA that formed part of the “First Transcontinental Railroad” in North America. It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Great Northern Railroad
Founded by Hill
Charles Schwab
US steel corporation
Organizational historians
Look in robber barons book
Social mobility
In sociology and economics, as well as in common political discourse, social mobility refers to the degree to which an individual or group’s status is able to change in terms of position in the social hierarchy. …
Leland Stanford
Stanford: United States railroad executive and founder of Stanford University (1824-1893)
Henry Villard
Villard: United States railroad magnate and businessman (1835-1900)
