FlashcardsChapter21
Term
Description
Gilded Age (1860 - 1896)
An era of dramatic industrial and urban growth characterized by loose government oversight over corporations, which fostered unfettered capitalism and widespread political corruption. (page 849)
Political ‘machine’
A network of political activists and elected officials, usually controlled by a powerful ‘boss,” that attempts to manipulate local politics. (page 849)
Stalwarts
Conservative Republican party faction during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877 - 1881; led by Senator Roscoe B. Conkling of New York, Stalwarts opposed civil service reform and favored a third term for President Ulysses S. Grant. (page 854)
James Gillepsie Blaine (1830 - 1893)
As a Republican congressman from Maine, he developed close ties with business leaders, which contributed to him losing the presidential election of 1884. He later opposed President Cleveland’s efforts to reduce tariffs, which became a significant issue in the 1888 presidential election. Blaine served as secretary of state under President Benjamin Harrison and his flamboyant style often overshadowed the president. (page 857)
Mugwumps
Reform wing of the Republican party that supported Democrat Grover Cleveland for president in 1884 over Republican James G. Blaine, whose influence peddling had been revealed in the Mulligan letters of 1876. (page 858)
Granger movement
Political movement that grew out of the Patrons of Husbandry, an educational and social organization for farmers founded in 1867; the Grange had its greatest success in the Midwest of the 1870s, lobbying for government control of railroad and grain elevator rates and establishing farmers’ cooperatives. (page 866)
Farmers’ Alliance
Two separate organizations (Northwestern and Southern) of the 1880s and 1890s that took the place of the Grange, worked for similar causes, and attracted landless, as well as landed, farmers to their membership. (page 866)
Populist/People’s party
Political success of Farmers’ Alliance candidates encouraged the formation in 1892 of the People’s party (later renamed the Populist party); active until 1912, it advocated a variety of reform issues, including free coinage of silver, income tax, postal savings, regulation of railroads, and direct election of U.S. senators. (page 869)
Mary Elizabeth Lease (1850 - 1933)
She was a leader of the farm protest movement who advocated violence if change could not be obtained at the ballot box. She believed that the urban-industrial East was the enemy of the working class. (page 869)
William McKinley (1843 - 1901)
As a congressman, he was responsible for the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which raised the duties on manufactured products to their highest level ever. Voters disliked the tariff and McKinley, as well as other Republicans, lost their seats in Congress the next election. However, he won the presidential election of 1896 and raised the tariffs again. In 1898, he annexed Hawaii and declared war on Spain. The war concluded with the Treaty of Paris, which gave America control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Soon America was fighting Filipinos, who were seeking independence for their country. In 1901, McKinley was assassinated. (page 874)
William Jennings Bryan (1860 - 1925)
He delivered the pro-silver ‘cross of gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention and won his party’s nomination for president. Disappointed pro-gold Democrats chose to walk out of the convention and nominate their own candidate, which split the Democratic party and cost them the White House. Bryan’s loss also crippled the Populist movement that had endorsed him. (page 874)
‘Jim Crow’ laws
In the New South, these laws mandated the separation of races in various public places that served as a way for the ruling whites to impose their will on all areas of black life. (page 879)
Mississippi Plan
In 1890, Mississippi instituted policies that led to a near-total loss of voting rights for blacks and many poor whites. In order to vote, the state required that citizens pay all their taxes first, be literate, and have been residents of the state for two years and one year in an electoral district. Convicts were banned from voting. Seven other states followed this strategy of disenfranchisement. (page 880)
‘separate but equal’’
Principle underlying legal racial segregation, which was upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and struck down in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). (page 881)
