Midterm Exam US History 102

I took all of the topics mentionend in my class's study guide and made flashcards that I thought would apply. THIS DOES NOT HAVE ALL THE VOCAB OR CORE CONCEPTS FOR EACH CHAPTER OF THE TEXTBOOK. Don't rely on this if you haven't read the chapters, you will miss important stuff :)

The Reconstruction Amendments and what they did

13th - Abolished chattel slavery

14th - Made birthright citizenship law

15th - All men who are citizens can vote regardless of race

The aspirations of freed POC

Overall, they wanted to be left alone and live their lives in peace

Economic autonomy - Have control over their economic success

Basic civil rights - Being able to get married, own land, be educated, etc

Political rights - The ability to vote and hold office

The “Lost Cause“

A myth created by white Southerners in order to turn their defeat in the Civil War into a symbol of the South’s greatness. It was the idea that the South was fighting for a good cause, but was just a temporary setback

Black Codes

Laws that kept citizenship rights from Black Americans

These laws would allow for the arrest of Black Americans who couldn’t provide paperwork for residence/employment, allow for unfair arrests for being “disorderly“, restricted them from participating in government, and barred them from having firearms

Sharecropping

A labor system that put Black Americans back into a similar economic role as slaves. Landowners allowed workers a house, farm animals, and tools and advanced credit in exchange for a share of the laborers' crop

Crop Lein Laws

Because sharecroppers could not provide collateral to the shops they purchased from, these laws gave store owner the right to the next year's crop in exchange for this year's credit

Freedmen's Schools

Schools created by groups created by Freedmen’s Bureau which provided education to freed Black Americans. Significantly improved literacy rates among Black Southerners.

The Ku Klux Klan and the White League

Violent political organizations focused on keeping the race social order. They used violence to intimidate black communities.

Jim Crow Segregation

Segregation laws that became widespread in the South during the 1890s

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

A Supreme Court decision that made segregation legal as long as “equal“ accommodations were given

Disfranchisement 

Using the legal system to bar people from voting. This included poll taxes, literacy tests, and other laws to restrict voting

Lynching

An execution without trial, usually done by a mob. Used to keep Black Americans under control. When a Black American threatened the social order by becoming equal to white Americans, this was often the response. The most common excuse for this was that a black man assaulted a white woman

Ida B. Wells-Barnet

A Black activist who exposed the misinformation used to normalize lynching and launched a anti-lynching campaign

W.E.B DuBois

A Black activist who co-founded the NAACP and worked to organize Black Americans

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

an interracial organization dedicated to restoring African-American political and social rights

Technological changes that drove industrialization

Steam engines; electrical generators; machines to reduce factory labor; and innovations in steel, textiles, and railroads

Deskilling

A process where laborers are reduced to using skills that take less and less time to develop. This process was accelerated by new machines and technology which outpaced artisans. Factory workers were expected to operate machines, not to understand what they were making

Railroads and industry

Railroads allowed for the transportation of goods to larger consumer bases. They allowed for the meatpacking industry to be created, and for other industries to grow. The railroads themselves also required large amounts of laborers

Industrialization’s impact on workers

Industrialization shifted the power dynamic between employers and laborers. Employers now had access to a large population of workers, and could easily fire and hire new workers. As a result workers put up with horrible working conditions as the government refused to interfere in what was assumed to be a private matter

Factory Working Conditions

Due to a lack of regulation, working conditions in factories were harsh. The pay was low, hours were long, the physical working spaces were cramped and unsafe, and workers were often injured on the job due to poor safety conditions

Sweatshops

Small, poorly ventilated shops or apartments crammed with workers, often family members, who pieced together garments

Child Labor

Was common during industrialization. There were few laws around working ages, and if it was regulated, the regulations were not enforced. Children often worked to support their poor families

Tenements

Four- to six-story residential dwellings, once common in New York, built on tiny lots without regard to providing ventilation or light

Working Class Living Conditions

The industrial economy strained working class people and families. Workplace accidents, low pay, poor living conditions, and lack of regulations made life miserable for those who weren’t middle class

Social Darwinism

The application of Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution to society, holding that the fittest and wealthiest survive, the weak and the poor perish, and government action is unable to alter this "natural" process

The Great Railway Strike of 1877 (AKA the Great Uprising)

This was an unsuccessful railroad strike which was organized in order to protest wage cuts and the use of federal troops against strikers; the first nationwide work stoppage in American history

In the early days of the strike, President Rutherford B Hayes dispatched federal troops to protect the railroad business and they opened fire on the strikers and their family killing 25 people. The violence spread as the strike spread, but ultimately the workers did not get any improvements

Unions

Organizations formed from workers who want to protect the interest of workers. They often push for better working conditions, less hours, and higher wages. These goals are often fought for with collective bargaining, strikes, and boycotts.

Examples include: the Knights of Labor, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and the American Railway Union (ARU).

Immigration where and why

The most common reason for this was due to economic struggles. There’s a combination of “push“ and “pull“ factors which cause someone to leave

1860’s: Jewish people were targets of Pogroms (acts of terrorism) and came to the US because it was seen as a place of religious freedom

1880’s: Irish people fled from political unrest and violence from the English. Chinese people were fleeing from economic depression

1880-1910: Italians, Greeks, and Japanese people were all fleeing economic depression

1910’s: Mexicans were fleeing from the Mexican Revolution

From 1865-1917 the majority of immigrants were European

Jobs were the most important pull into the US

The Naturalization Act of 1870

Made it so that people had to stay in the US longer in order to become a citizen and made it harder to become a citizen. Limited citizenship to “white persons and persons of African descent“

The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882

Halted the immigration of Chinese people. Made it so if a person was Chinese, they were stuck in the US. If they left they couldn’t come back

Other restrictions on immigration

Literacy restrictions were placed on immigrants. Made it so that immigration officers could reject whoever they didn’t want in the US

Middle-class consumption during industrialization

Industrialization provided them with railways and electric trolleys which provided an opportunity for a new environment: the suburbs. Advances in transportation allowed people to leave the city

Industrialization provided them with large amounts of convenient new products like appliances, clothes, and per-packaged store-bought food

Convenience was everything. The development of department stores and tabloids reflected this

Entertainment industries boomed. Baseball was especially adored and people listened to games over the radio and eventually watched on the television

Grangers

A farmers association which campaigned for regulation over railroad rates, grain elevators, and the nation’s financial systems

Granger laws

State laws enacted in the Midwest in the 1870’s that regulated the rates charged by railroads, grain elevator operations, and other middlemen

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

A law that expanded federal power over business by prohibiting pooling and discriminatory rates by railroads and establishing the first federal regulatory agency: the Interstate Commerce Commission

The Sherman Antitrust Act

The first federal antitrust measure, passed in 1890; sought to promote economic competition by prohibiting business combinations in restraint of trade or commerce

Progressivism

Represented the coalescing of different and even contradictory movements that sought changes in the nation's social, economic, and political life

Wanted to correct the problems created by industrialization and urbanization and created new methods to do this, rejected individualism, believed that the government should be involved in creating public responsibility

Using the government as a tool

A believe held by progressives where they pushed for the government to create solutions for better lives for Americans

The Social Gospel Movement

Movement created by reform-minded Protestant ministers seeking to introduce religious ethics into industrial relations and appealing to churches to meet their social responsibilities.

Muckraking

Journalism exposing economic, social, and political evils, so named by Theodore Roosevelt for its "raking the muck" of American society. They often proposed solutions which were foreign-born

Muckraking examples

Samuel S. McClure: sent reporters to uncover political and corporate corruption. Created sensational exposes

Upton Sinclair: Wrote The Jungle which exposed nauseating conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking industry

John Spargo: Wrote The Bitter Cry of the Children which stirred enough public outrage to get every state to implement laws around minimum working ages

The 1909 garment worker’s strike/Uprising of the 20,000

One of the most successful ventures of the Women’s Trade Union League which lasted for several months and resulted in unions signing contracts with employers and better working conditions in many factories

The Triangle Fire

A fire in a shirtwaist factory that resulted in the deaths of 145 workers. The factory was unsafe and workers were unable to escape the fire because of a lack of safety regulations

The fire caused a massive push for government involvement in regulating business practices and shifted the relationship between employer and employee to a strictly private relationship, to a more public, regulated relationship

How Eugene Debs’ childhood shaped his understanding of the world?

Eugene Debs’ favorite book was Les Miserables gave him a strong sense of social responsibility and caused him to consider poverty, inequality, and injustice. He also read the work of many other progressive thinkers, and saw injustice in how the relationship between employers and employees operated through his dad’s job

The experiences in Eugene Debs’ early adulthood which made him decide to work on labor issues

Debs worked on a railroad in East St. Louis, and witnessed poverty in person. He also witnessed a friend who was killed on the job due to a lack of safety standards. Debs won two elections as a city clerk and then was elected as a state representative for Indianan. He lost faith in the legal system when a bill he created to hold railroads liable for the deaths and injuries of their employers was made useless by the State Senate

Eugene Debs’ role in the American Railway Union and why he considered unions to be important

Eugene Debs founded and ran the American Railway Union (ARU). Debs gave workers support to call for the ARU strike in 1894. He considered unions to be an effective way of acquiring change which supported workers

What happened when the ARU went on strike in 1894?

The railroads shut down because all of the workers were no longer keeping the railroad running. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike to be illegal, and federal courts issued an injunction which attempted to force the strikers to stop. When that didn’t work, President Cleveland sent in federal troops to force strikers away from the railroads, which ended up in a conflict that killed about 30 workers

How does the ARU strike in 1894 fit into the close relationship between government and big businesses?

It showed how government and businesses were connected. The government supported businesses over workers and took their interests into account while also refusing to protect workers

Why did Eugene Debs join and lead the Socialist Party?

Debs had just faced a crushing defeat from the failure of the ARU strike in 1894, and had already been disillusioned from making changes through getting involved in government, so when socialists started talking to him, he reconsidered his world view. He felt that the US really needed a party that represented workers

Why did Debs join and lead the anti-war movement during World War I?

Eugene Debs believed that the war was not okay because the working class, who would fight in the war, had no say in if or how the US participated in the war. He saw it as just a fight between capitalists

Protective legislation for women and children

The death and injuries children faced in their workplaces were documented by journalists and muckrakers. By 1914 most states had minimum working age laws, but the enforcement and regulation of working conditions for children required national regulation efforts. Women also earned laws on maximum hours in about 39 states and gained minimum wages in some states

The prohibition movement

Social workers saw liquor as a cause of crime, poverty, and family violence; employers saw it as a source of inefficiency; and many people found liquor’s social importance in the lives of immigrants as a reason to ban it. The 18th Amendment made prohibition a constitutional issue

The women’s suffrage movement

A difficult right to fight for as it seemed to challenge the natural order of society for people with traditionalist beliefs. Suffragists began using activist tactics in the early 20th century with rallies, parades, and “suffrage tours.“ The movement also leaned away from discussing equality and instead leaned on traditionalist ideas about how women’s maternal instincts could be beneficial in politics. In 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified and allowed citizens of any gender to vote

Initiative

Procedure by which citizens can introduce a subject for legislation, usually through a petition signed by a specific number of voters

Referendum

Submission of a law, proposed or already in effect, to a direct popular vote for approval or rejection

Recall

The process of removing an official from office by popular vote, usually after using petitions to call for such a vote

The progressive Amendments

16th: Authorized a federal income tax

17th: Constitutional change that in 1913 established the direct popular election of U.S. senators

18th: Enacted prohibition as the law of the land

19th: Allowed adult citizens of any gender to vote

The Pure Food and Drug Act

Regulated the production and sale of food and drug products

The Newlands Reclamation Act

Provided clearance for federal irrigation projects which private capital would not undertake. And allowed large corporate farms and just farms in general to grow in the West due to the new irrigation access

The Federal Reserve Act

The 1913 law that revised banking and currency by extending limited government regulation through the creation of the Federal Reserve System

The Federal Trade Commission Act

Created a government agency established in 1914 to provide regulatory oversight of business activity

The Keating-Owens Act

Prohibited the interstate shipment of products made by child labor

Reasons the US decided to expand

A desire to get access to more markets and navel bases as well as to keep US influence in the Western Hemisphere

The Spanish-American War

A war in which the US forced Spain out of the Western Hemisphere so the US could continue imperialist expansion without much challenge. The war originated in Cuba’s quest for independence from Spain. The war made American an imperialist nation, gave America a foothold in the Philippines and allowed the US to annex Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam.

Cuban rebellion

The rebellion which started the Spanish-American War and gave the US public support for imperialism

The Teller Amendment

A congressional resolution adopted in 1898 renouncing any American intention to annex Cuba

The Battle of Manila Bay

Gave America a foothold in the Philippines through a strategic naval harbor and new commercial opportunities

The Platt Amendment

Weakened Cuba’s independence from the US. A stipulation the United States had inserted into the Cuban constitution in 1901 restricting Cuban autonomy and authorizing U.S. intervention and naval bases

The Filipino-American War

Resulted from the betrayed hope of the Filipino people for independence following the Treaty of Paris. Filipinos traded Spain as a ruler for the US. Was a brutal war and reflected America’s interest in China

McKinley's justification for the war in the Philippines

McKinley wanted to use the islands to strengthen America’s political and commercial position in East Asia, and believed that Filipinos could not rule themselves

The Panama Canal

The value of it laid in the quick trade routes it might provide. Because of its value, President Roosevelt acquired the land through encouraging a revolt against Colombian authority

Informal imperialism

Establishing loose control through influence or agreements that gave perks to the US

The Causes of World War I in Europe

Competing imperial ambitions, economic rivalries, and military expansions all lead to international tensions. Countries created alliances with each other, so once a Serbian terrorist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a series of dominoes fell and Europe was at war

American Neutrality

America’s predisposition to staying out of European conflicts. This stems far back into American history. However, most Americans did sympathize with Britain and the Allies, and American policy followed this trend

The sinking of the Lusitania

A German submarine sank a British Passenger liner which killed 1,198 people which included 128 Americans which started President Wilson’s campaign to get involved in WWI

U-boats

A German submarine used in WWI and WWII

The Zimmermann note

A message from the German foreign minister to the German minister in Mexico which proposed an alliance between Mexico and Germany in the event of a war between the US and Germany. It created a wave of public hostility toward Germany and increased support for intervention in the war

Wilson's War Message

A message from President Wilson which stated that the US could no longer remain neutral, and that the US’s war goals were not about conquest or imperialism but for peace, liberation, and democracy

Wilsonian idealism and Fourteen Points

Wilson’s ideas for WWI included peace, liberation, and democracy. At the end of the war his goals all followed this idea. He proposed assuring self-determination, liberation of colonies, peace, and an international organization which could ensure international stability

War Industries Board (WIB)

The federal agency that reorganized industry for maximum efficiency and productivity during World War I

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

Government agency during World War I that sought to shape public opinion in support of the war effort through newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, films, and other media

Schenk v. United States

A Supreme Court decision which held that the Espionage Act did not violate the 1st Amendment. This case decided that when there was “clear and present danger“ the government was allowed more control over speech