U's Flashcards
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
a fictional book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe depicting what she perceived as the evils of slavery; furiously denounced in the South, the book became an overnight bestseller in the North, where it turned many toward active opposition to slavery
Underground Railroad
a loosely organized system to help fugitive slaves flee from their masters in the South to freedom in the North
Union League
an organization used by Southern Republicans to control the black vote; by the following year, six more states (Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) had followed suit
Unions
groups of workers organized to fight for benefits, an early example of which occurred in 1835 when Boston construction craftsmen struck for seven months to win a ten-hour work day
Unstable Pluralism
a term used by historians to describe the population of New Netherlands, which was a mixture of people from all over Europe, as well as many African slaves
Urban Slaves
black slaves who worked in Southern towns, serving as factory hands, domestics, artisans, and construction workers and who lived fairly independent lives
Utopians
people who established cooperative communities in the mid-nineteenth century in an attempt to improve the life of the common man in the face of increasing impersonal industrialism in the United States