Unit 2 - Industrialization of the US Flashcards
Industrial Revolution
The transition from creating goods by hand to using machines.
Assembly Line
A manufacturing process that allows for finished and almost finished parts to be installed in sequence to automate and reduce the time needed to assemble a finished good. Made by Henry Ford.
Mass Production
A manufacturing process where goods are produced in large quantities using standardized designs, machinery, and assembly line techniques.
Robber Baron
A person who has become rich through ruthless and unscrupulous business practices (originally with reference to prominent US businessmen in the late 19th century).
Entrepreneur
A person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money.
Factory
A building or group of buildings where goods are manufactured or assembled chiefly by machine.
Urbanization
The process of making an area more urban.
Immigration
The action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country.
Nativism
The policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants.
Manifest Destiny
The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.
Discrimination
The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.
Reconstruction
The historic period in which the United States grappled with the question of how to integrate millions of newly freed African Americans into social, political, and labor systems. Main focus was on bringing the southern states back into full political participation in the Union.
Black Codes
Restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished during the Civil War.
Segregation
The action of separating people, historically on the basis of race and/or gender.
Transcontinental Railroad
Any continuous rail line connecting a location on the U.S. Pacific coast with one or more of the railroads of the nation’s eastern trunk line rail systems.
Homestead Act
Provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Made so more people would go west.
Assimilation
The process of taking in and fully understanding information or ideas.
Capitalism
An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.
Laissez Faire
An economic philosophy of free-market capitalism that opposes government intervention.
Social Darwinism
The idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better.
Monopoly
A market structure characterized by a single seller, selling a unique product in the market.
Business Trust
An agreement that allows one party, known as a trustee, to hold, manage, and direct assets or property on behalf of another party, called the beneficiary.
Populist Party
A third-party movement that sprang up in the 1890’s and drew support especially from disgruntled farmers. The platform also called for a graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, a shorter workweek, restrictions on immigration to the United States, and public ownership of railroads and communication lines.
Farmers Alliances
An American agrarian movement during the 1870’s and ‘80’s that sought to improve the economic conditions for farmers through the creation of cooperatives and political advocacy.
Socialism
A political and economic system in which property and the means of production are owned in common, typically controlled by the state or government.
Labor Union
An organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.
Collective Bargaining
Workers formed organized groups so that they could bargain for and secure better workplace safety, wages, and hours. These organized groups of laborers were known as unions.
Discrimination
The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.
Tenement
A room or a set of rooms forming a separate residence within a house or block of apartments.
Muckraker
A group of American writers, photographers, artists, and others who identified with pre-World War I reform and exposé writing.
Sweatshop
A factory or workshop where workers are treated unfairly, for example having low wages, working long hours, and in poor conditions.
Reform
To amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses.
Suffrage
The right for people to vote.
Political Machine
A political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives such as bribes, especially to the poor or immigrants.
Lowell Mills
Mills that allowed women and young girls to have jobs for the first time. Had long hours with horrible working conditions.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion
Led by Nat Turner, a white man, the rebels killed between 55 and 65 White people, making it the deadliest slave revolt in U.S. history. He tried to collect slaves on the way. The south made stricter laws after this.
The Compromise of 1850
California would be a free state, there would be stricter fugitive slaves laws, slave trade would be prohibited in Washington D.C., and popular sovereignty would be used to decided if a state would be a free or slave state. However this pleased no one.
Bleeding Kansas
Kansas was above the Missouri Compromise however popular sovereignty said that it would be a slave state. Violence erupted. Southern congressmen Preston Brooks assaulted Sumner with a cane on the senate floor.
Carpetbaggers
Referred to Republicans who recently migrated from the North to the South during reconstruction.
Scalawags
Referred to the southern-born radicals.
The Freedmen’s Bureau
An act that provided food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.
Pacific Railroad Act
Authorized the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Morill Land Grant Act
Gave public land to find agriculture, merchant, and military science colleges.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Ended the war between the United States and Mexico. By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.
Corporation
A business in which investors own shares, usually called stocks.
Conglomerate
Corporation that owns a group of unrelated companies.
Pool
Companies which agree to split business and fix prices.
Trust
Group of corporations in the same or related fields that sometimes agreed to combine under a single board of trustees that controlled all actions.
The Square Deal
Theodore Roosevelt’s domestic program, which reflected his three major goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.
Melting Pot Theory
People would mix their cultures to form a new Americanized culture.
Old Immigration
Most came from northern and western Europe. Potato famine in Ireland, a revolution in Germany, and others came for better economic opportunities.
Grandfather Clauses
The clause said you could not vote unless your grandfather had voted. This was used to deny suffrage for African Americans.
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
Provided an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States.
Conspicuous Consumption
The purchase of goods or services for the specific purpose of displaying one’s wealth.
Haymarket Riot
A labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day.
Pullman Strike
Widespread railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States
Great Railway Strike
Series of violent rail strikes across the United States in 1877. Was the first strike that spread across multiple different states in the U.S.
Temperance Movement
A social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Pendleton Act
Provided selection of some government employees by competitive exams rather than ties to politicians. Illegal to fire or demote some government officials for political reasons.
Arbitration
Settling legal issues outside of the courts. Is also called mediation.
Picketing
Protesting outside of factories to stop others from going in
Lockout
Lock workers out of work so that they can’t get paid
Injunction
Court order to return to work/not strike
Knights of Labor
Wanted social reforms (8-hour work days, no child labor, opportunities for women). Tactics included going on strike and allowing ANYONE to join their union.
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
Wanted immediate changes in better working hours, wages, and conditions. “Bread and Butter”; peaceful bargaining negotiations.
Kansas and Nebraska Act
Repealed the Missouri Compromise. Allowed for popular sovereignty.
Seneca Falls Convention
The first women’s rights convention. The meeting launched the women’s suffrage movement
Declaration of Sentiments
The document was based on the Declaration of Independence. It proclaimed that “all men and women are created equal” and resolved that women would take action to claim the rights of citizenship denied to them by men.
Texas Revolution
Was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos in putting up armed resistance to the centralist government of Mexico. Texas won, leading to its independence.
Powerloom
Used to weave cloth and tapestry. Made it so only one factory was needed to make and weave cloth.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
A fire that started in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Many young girls who were living there died either from the fire or jumping off the fire escape ladder. There was only one escape ladder. The entrance was also locked from the outside to ensure that the girls would work the entire shift.
Initiative, Referendum, and Recall
Three powers reserved to the voters to enable them, by petition, to propose or repeal legislation or to remove an elected official from office.
Greenback Party
a political party formed after the Civil War advocating the use of fiat money (a type of currency that is declared legal tender by a government but has no intrinsic or fixed value and is not backed by any tangible asset, such as gold or silver) and opposing the reduction of paper currency.
Bull Moose Party
Formed by Theodore Roosevelt in an attempt to advance progressive ideas and unseat President William Howard Taft in the election of 1912.
Executive Privilege
The privilege, claimed by the president for the executive branch of the US government, of withholding information in the public interest.
Naval Quarantine
Kennedy decided to place a naval blockade, or a ring of ships, around Cuba. The aim of this “quarantine,” as he called it, was to prevent the Soviets from bringing in more military supplies. He demanded the removal of the missiles already there and the destruction of the sites.
Alliance for Progress
10-year plan proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to foster economic cooperation between North and South America, particularly aimed at countering the perceived communist threat from Cuba.
