Midterm Vocab

Question 1

Water-powered textile mills constructed along the Merrimack River in Lowell, Massachusetts, that pioneered the extensive use of female laborers. By 1836, the eight mills there employed more than five thousand young women, living in boardinghouses under close supervision.

Answer 1

Lowell Mills

Question 2

National bank with multiple branches chartered in 1816 for twenty years. Intended to help regulate the economy, the bank became a major issue in Andrew Jackson’s reelection campaign in 1832, framed in political rhetoric about aristocracy versus democracy.

Answer 2

Second bank of the United States

Question 3

Political party that evolved out of the National Republicans after 1834. With a Northeast power base, the Whigs supported federal action to promote commercial development and generally looked favorably on the reform movements associated with the Second Great Awakening.

Answer 3

Whigs

Question 4

Political party that evolved out of the Democratic Republicans after 1834. Strongest in the South and West, the Democrats embraced Andrew Jackson’s vision of limited government, expanded political participation for white men, and the promotion of an ethic of individualism.

Answer 4

Democrats

Question 5

Act that directed the mandatory relocation of eastern tribes to territory west of the Mississippi. Jackson insisted his goal was to save the Indians. Indians resisted the controversial act, but in the end most were forced to comply.

Answer 5

Indian Removal Act of 1830

Question 6

Forced westward journey of Cherokees from their lands in Georgia to present-day Oklahoma in 1838. Despite favorable legal action, the Cherokees endured a grueling 1,200-mile march overseen by federal troops. Nearly a quarter of the Cherokees died en route.

Answer 6

Trails of Tears

Question 7

Theory asserting that states could nullify acts of Congress that exceeded congressional powers. South Carolina advanced the theory of nullification in 1828 in response to an unfavorable federal tariff. A show of force by Andrew Jackson, combined
with tariff revisions, ended the crisis.

Answer 7

Nullification

Question 8

Unprecedented religious revival in the 1820s and 1830s that promised access to salvation. The Second Great Awakening proved to be a major impetus for reform movements of the era, inspiring efforts to combat drinking, sexual sin, and slavery.

Answer 8

Second Great Awakening

Question 9

Organization founded in 1826 by Lyman Beecher that linked drinking with poverty, idleness, ill-health, and violence. Temperance lecturers traveled the country gaining converts to the cause. The temperance movement had considerable success, contributing to a sharp drop in American alcohol consumption.

Answer 9

American Temperance Society

Question 10

An organization of religious women inspired by the Second Great Awakening to eradicate sexual sin and male licentiousness. Formed in 1833, it spread to hundreds of auxiliaries and worked to curb male licentiousness, prostitution, and seduction.

Answer 10

New York Female Moral Reform Society

Question 11

Finished in 1825, covering 350 miles between Albany and Buffalo and linking the port of New York City with the entire Great Lakes region. The canal turned New York City into the country’s premier commercial city.

Answer 11

Erie Canal

Question 12

First major economic crisis of the United States that led to several years of hard times from 1837 to 1841. Sudden bankruptcies, contraction of credit, and runs on banks worked hardships nationwide. Causes were multiple and global and not well understood.

Answer 12

Panic of 1837

Question 13

Tools usually powered by horses or oxen that enabled farmers to harvest twelve acres of wheat a day, compared to the two or three acres a day possible with manual harvesting methods.

Answer 13

Mechanical reapers

Question 14

The practice of manu-facturing and then assembling interchangeable parts. A system that spread quickly across American industries, the use of standardized parts allowed American manufacturers to employ cheap unskilled workers.

Answer 14

American system

Question 15

Term coined in 1845 by journalist John L. O’Sullivan to justify American expansion. O’Sullivan claimed that it was the nation’s “manifest destiny” to transport its values and civilization westward. Manifest destiny framed the American conquest of the West as part of a divine plan.

Answer 15

Manifest destiny

Question 16

Route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon traveled by American settlers starting in the late 1830s. Disease and accidents caused many more deaths along the trail than did Indian attacks, which migrants feared.

Answer 16

Oregon Trail

Question 17

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. Most Americans deemed the Mormons heretics. After Smith’s death at the hands of an angry mob in 1844, Brigham Young moved the people to Utah in 1846.

Answer 17

Mormons

Question 18

Independent republic, also known as the Republic of Texas, that was established by a rebellion of Texans against Mexican rule. The victory at San Jacinto in April 1836 helped ensure the region’s independence and recognition by the United States.

Answer 18

Lone Star Republic

Question 19

Mining rush initiated by James Marshall’s discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in 1848. The hope of striking it rich drew over 250,000 aspiring miners to California between 1849 and 1852 and accelerated the push for statehood.

Answer 19

California gold rush

Question 20

Utopian community organized by John Humphrey Noyes in New York in 1848. Noyes’s opposition to private property led him to denounce marriage as the root of the problem. The community embraced sexual and economic communalism, to the dismay of its mainstream neighbors.

Answer 20

Oneida Community

Question 21

Declaration issued in 1848 at the first national woman’s rights convention in the United States, which was held in Seneca Falls, New York. The document adopted the style of the Declaration of Independence and demanded equal rights for women, including the franchise.

Answer 21

Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

Question 22

An organization dedicated to sending freed slaves and other black Americans to Liberia in West Africa. Although some African Americans cooperated with the movement, others campaigned against segregation and discrimination.

Answer 22

American Colonization Society

Question 23

Network consisting mainly of black homes, black churches, and black neighborhoods that helped slaves escape to the North by supplying shelter, food, and general assistance.

Answer 23

Underground Railroad

Question 24

February 1848 treaty that ended the Mexican-American War. Mexico gave up all claims to Texas north of the Rio Grande and ceded New Mexico and California to the United States. The United States agreed to pay Mexico $15 million and to assume American claims against Mexico.

Answer 24

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo