Pages

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Late 1800s and early 1900s american history terms

1
  1. freedmen’s bureau – agency of the army directed by the general; distributed food to millions of former slaves; established schools, staffed by northern churches; not a permanent solution, only operated for one year, too small
  2. 14th amendment – definition of citizenship, refused to let confederate states that didn’t ratify it be readmitted,
    1. fifteenth amendment – denied govt right to deny citizenship based on race, color or previous condition of servitude
    1. exodusters –
    2. black codes – southern states made laws known as black codes, authorized officials could arrest unemployed blacks, fine them, and hire them to privated employers to satisfy the fine, blacks not allowed to own or lease farms or have job besides plantation worker, civil rights act made black codes unconstitutional.
    3. plessy vs. Ferguson – Louisiana law prohibited blacks and from riding on white railroad cars – ‘separate but equal’
    4. crop-lein – country stores used credit with huge interest rates (50-60%) to keep blacks in debt, poor, used crops as collateral for loan, contributed to decline in southern agricultural economy; cash crops (cotton) exhausted soil, only realistic way to get out of debt
    5. poll tax – devised by southern whites, state taxes on voting, property qualification, literacy or understanding tests; decreased black vote by 62%, white by 26%
    6. Booker T. Washington – black spokesperson for education, self-improvement, learn industrial trades not classical schooling, improve dress, personal cleanliness; adopt white middle class standards
    7. Chinese exclusion act – Chinese took low wages and hurt unions, banned Chinese immigration, kept them from becoming citizens
    8. homestead act of 1862 – settlers could buy 160 acres for pocket change if they lived on land for five years and improved it. Lead to timber culture act (if planted 40 trees) and desert land act (if they irrigated land in 3 years); could gain up to 1280 acres for little cost. Opened up westward expansion, led to statehood of Midwest and beyond.
    9. Frederick Jackson Turner – historian; ideas on how the expansion on the frontier/westward expansion stimulated individualism, nationalism and democracy.  “passing of the frontier” idea, closing of the first period of American history.  Created romanticism of the west as a place of heroism, triumph and progress
    10. George A. Custer – defeated by Sioux Indians at the ‘Battle of Little Bighorn” and was killed, along with every man in his regiment
    11. Ghost Dance – dances done by Paiute Indians, led by prophet Wovoka; mass, emotional dances emphasized coming of a messiah, people had visions of the white man retreating from the plains and buffalo herds restored
    12. Dawes Severalty Act – provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land, forced assimilation of Indians into White culture, forced them to become individual land owners (gave them land) and give up the tribes; took many Indian children and put into boarding schools, taught Christianity and how to be white; created Christian churches on reservations
    13. Social Darwinism – survival of the fittest, adopted mostly by rich tycoons; claimed they were most fit for wealth, they earned it; believed society benefited from survival of strong and talented; appealed to corporate leaders, confirmed virtues; partly led to trusts/monopolies, promoted business growth during industrial revolution
    14. Bessemer process - The Bessemer process allowed ironists to create a stronger and more reliable form of steel.  The better steel gained a high demand, and a complex transportation system was created to ship it around the growing national economy.  Not only did the new railroad industry need the steel industry, but the steel industry needed the railroads as well.  And the railroads and steel factories needed proper lubrication, which fired the need for oil.  Although petroleum had been discovered in the northern US, its usefulness didn’t begin to be apparent until the steel industry took off.  From this, paraffin, naphtha, kerosene, lubricating oil, and eventually gasoline all were discovered.
    15. horizontal integration – combining of many businesses in the same field into a mega-corporation (trust). Led to price fixing
    16. vertical integration – taking over of all businesses a company relies on for production; Carnegie (US Steel) controlled steel mills, mines, railroads and other enterprises needed for production of steel; led to price fixing
    17. Gospel of Wealth – idea that people of great wealth had great power and responsibility to the public; birth of philanthropy; private wealth is a public blessing; Carnegie wrote bookThe Gospel of Wealth
    18. Railroad Strike of 1877 – began when eastern railroads announced 10% wage cut; strikers destroyed equipment, rioted in pittsburg and other cities, 100 people died; first major national labor conflict
    19. Haymarket bombing – someone threw a bomb that killed 7 policemen during a strike at Haymarket Square in Chicago, policemen opened fire on crowd, eight anarchists charged with murder; middle America saw it as symbol of social chaos and radicalism, anarchism, gave labor organizations bad name and accused them of anarchism
    20. Pullman Strike – Pullman palace car company, town created by company owner George M. Pullman, rented houses to employees; cut wages by 25%, didn’t lower rent, strike began, turned into strike of thousands of railroad workers in 27 states and territories, strike broken when president used troops
    21. Immigration Restriction League – rising nativism provoked political responses, founded by five Harvard alumni; proposed screening immigrants through literacy tests and other standards
    22. “Boss Tweed” – infamously corrupt politician; many publicly funded projects, paid kickbacks to friends…ex. $500 for hammer, $40 toothbrush…
    23. Coxey’s Army – advocated inflation and massive public works program to created jobs; organized march of unemployed on Washington
    24. Cross of Gold – William Jennings Bryan delivered speech on free silver, won; populists made progress on getting off gold standard
    25. Sherman Antitrust Act – first federal opposition of trusts, largely symbolic, most suits against unions, not corporations
    26. Farmer’s Alliances – created alliances within agriculture market; overall, tried to help farmers get out of debt, let to creation of people’s party/birth of populism
    27. Omaha Platform – Populist goals – abolition of national banks, no absentee ownership of land, direct election of senators; subtreaties – network of govt owned warehouses where farmers could deposit crops. Using crops as collateral, growers could borrow money from govt at low apr and wait for price to rise before selling; govt ownership/regulation of railroads, telephone, telegraph; graduated income tax; inflation; make silver money again
    28. Anti-imperialist league – established to fight annexation of Philippines by sugar farmers and upper eastern statesmen
    29. Yellow press – William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer and their sensationalist style of reporting and writing to reach mass market; propaganda during fight for Cuba, fed anger against Spain; exaggerated the sinking of Maine; war in Cuba a war of propaganda
    30. Treaty of Paris – end of Spanish-American War; US given control of Cuba, Puerto rico, guam, Philippines
    31. Lincoln Steffens – a reporter for McClure’s Magazine, exposed political machines, led to public outrage
    32. WEB Dubois – attacked Washington’s ideas; accept nothing less than full assimilation into society and full civil rights
    33. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire – 146 workers died in fire, let to inspection of condition of industrial companies and later to reform of labor rights. Pioneering labor laws and effective methods of enforcement
    34. Roosevelt Corollary – US had right to oppose European intervention in western hemisphere but also to intervene itself in the domestic affairs of its neighbors if those neighbors proved unable to maintain order and national sovereignty on their own
    35. New Freedom – Wilson – proper response to monopoly was to destroy it
    36. New Nationalism – Roosevelt – using govt to regulate and control economy
    37. Liberty bonds – bonds sold to public produced $23 billion to fund WWI
    38. War Industries Board – coordinated govt purchases of military supplies.  Wilson placed it under control of Wall Street financer Bernard Baruch – huge, huge power
    39. Espionage and Sedition Acts – gave govt new ways to persecute spies, espionage, sabotage or obstruction of war effort
    40. Great Migration – 1919 – large black communities crowding into northern cities; south – lynchings increase, due to increase in racial crimes; red summer of 1919
    41. A. Mitchell Palmer – attorney general – raided radical centers and arrested more than 6000, deported 500, part of red scare
-->

No comments:

Post a Comment