Midterms Exam Flashcards
Fourteenth Amendment
(1868) Guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Fifteenth Amendment
This amendment forbids states to deny any person the right to vote on grounds of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” Former Confederate states were required to ratify this amendment before they could be readmitted to the Union.
“black codes”
Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves; to combat the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment and set up military governments in southern states that refused to ratify the amendment.
“carpetbaggers”
Northern emigrants who participated in the Republican governments of the reconstructed South.
“scalawags”
White Southern Republicans–some former Unionists–who served in Reconstruction governments
Andrew Carnegie
He was a steel magnate who believed that the general public benefited from big business even if these companies employed harsh business practices. This philosophy became deeply ingrained in the conventional wisdom of some Americans. After retiring, he devoted himself to philanthropy in hopes of promoting social welfare and world peace.
J. Pierpont Morgan
As a powerful investment banker, he would acquire, reorganize, and consolidate companies into giant trusts. His biggest achievement was the consolidation of the steel industry into the United States Steel Corporation, which was the first billion-dollar corporation.
Standard Oil Company of Ohio
John D. Rockefeller found this company in 1870, which grew to monopolize 90-95% of all the oil refineries in the country. It was also a “vertical monopoly” in that the company controlled all aspects of production and the services it needed to conduct business. For example, they produced their own oil barrels and cans as well as own their own pipelines, railroad tank cars, and oil-storage facilities.
New South
Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady’s 1866 term for the prosperous post Civil War South: democratic, industrial, urban, and free of nostalgia for the defeated plantation South.
Great Sioux War
In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel Custard led an exploratory expedition into the Black Hills, which the United States government had promised to the Sioux Indians. Miners ion followed and the army did nothing to keep them out. Eventually, the army attacked the Sioux Indians and the fight against them lasted for fifteen months before the Sioux Indians were forced to gov up their land and move onto a reservation.
George A. Custer
He was a reckless and glory-seeking Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S Army who fought the Sioux Indians in the Great Sioux War. In 1876, he and his detachment of soldiers were entirely wiped out in the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Frederick Jackson Turner
An influential historian who authored the “Frontier Thesis” in 1893, arguing that the existence of an alluring frontier and the experience of persistent westward expansion informed the nation’s democratic politics, unfettered economy, and rugged individualism.
Ellis Island
reception center in New York Harbor through which most European immigrants to America were processed from 1892 to 1954.
nativist
A native-born American who saw immigrants as a threat to his way of life and employment. During the 1880s, nativists groups worked to stop the flow of immigrates into the US. Of these groups, the most successful was the American Protective Association who promoted government restrictions on immigration, tougher naturalization requirements, the teaching of English in schools and workplaces that refuse to employ foreigners or Catholics.
Chinese Exclusion Act
The first federal law to restrict immigration on the basis of race and class. Passed in 1882, the act halted Chinese immigration for ten years, but it was periodically renewed and then indefinitely extended in 1902. Not until 1943 were the barriers to Chinese immigration finally removed.
Frederick Law Olmsted
In 1858, he constructed New York’s Central Park, which led to a growth in the movement to create urban parks. He went on to design parks for Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago , Philadelphia, San Francisco, and many other dates.
social Darwinism
Application of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to society; used the concept of the “survival of the fittest” to justify class distinctions and to explain poverty.
Herbert Spencer
As the first major proponent of social Darwinism, he argued that human society and institutions are subject to the process of natural selection and that society naturally evolves for the better. Therefore, he was against any form of government interference with the evolution of society, like business regulations, because it would help the “unfit” to survive.
Populist/People’s party
Political success of Farmer’s Alliance candidates encouraged the formation in 1892, it advocated a variety of reform issues, including free coinage of silver, income tax, postal savings, regulation of railroads, and direct election go U.S Senators.
William Jennings Bryan
He delivered the pro-silver “cross of gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention and won his party’s nomination for president. Disappointed the 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.
“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.
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.
“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).
Booker T. Washington
He founded a leading college for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama, and become the foremost black educator in America by the 1890s. He believed that the African American community should establish an economic base for its advancement before striving for social equality. His critics charged that his philosophy sacrificed educational and civil rights for dubious social acceptance and economic opportunities.
