USH Unit 6 - Reconstruction, The West, Gilded Age

These flashcards cover key terms and concepts from the lecture notes on Reconstruction and Industrialization in U.S. history.

Reconstruction

The period (1865–1877) focused on rebuilding the South and readmitting Confederate states to the Union.

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency created to provide food, schools, and legal help to formerly enslaved people.

Radical Republicans

A political group that wanted to punish the South and protect the legal rights of African Americans.

13th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that legally ended slavery in the United States.

14th Amendment

Grants citizenship to everyone born in the U.S. and guarantees 'equal protection under the law'.

15th Amendment

Prohibits the government from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race.

Black Codes

Harsh laws passed in Southern states to control and restrict the lives of African Americans.

Sharecropping

A system where farmers worked someone else's land in exchange for a share of the crop, often leading to permanent debt.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

A white supremacist paramilitary group that used violence to restore white supremacy in the South.

Compromise of 1877

A political deal that gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in exchange for removing federal troops from the South.

Panic of 1873

A major economic depression that shifted Northern focus away from Reconstruction.

Disenfranchisement

The use of tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests to take away the right to vote.

Lynching

Illegal killing (usually by hanging) by a mob, used as a tool of racial terror in the South.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 Supreme Court case that ruled 'separate but equal' facilities were legal, leading to Jim Crow laws.

Convict Leasing

A system where Southern states rented out prisoners (mostly Black men) to private companies for forced labor.

Transcontinental Railroad

A continuous rail line completed in 1869 that connected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century belief that the U.S. was destined by God to expand across the continent.

Homestead Act (1862)

A law giving 160 acres of free land to any citizen who farmed it for five years.

Pacific Railway Act (1862)

A law that gave land and money to railroad companies to build the Transcontinental Railroad.

Exodusters

African Americans who migrated from the South to Kansas after the Civil War to find 'promised land'.

Reservation System

Federal land set aside for Native American tribes to live on, often against their will.

Assimilation

The process of forcing a minority group to adopt the culture and language of the majority.

Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)

An agreement that temporarily gave the Black Hills to the Sioux 'forever'.

Battle of Little Bighorn

A major victory for the Sioux and Cheyenne over General Custer’s 7th Cavalry.

Dawes Act (1887)

A law that broke up tribal lands into individual family plots to force Native Americans to become farmers.

Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)

The killing of 300 Lakota Sioux by the U.S. Army, marking the end of armed resistance.

'Kill the Indian, Save the Man'

The slogan for Indian Boarding Schools aimed at destroying Native culture in children.

Open Range

A system where cattle roamed freely across public lands until the invention of barbed wire.

Barbed Wire

An invention that allowed ranchers to fence off their land, ending the era of the 'cowboy'.

The Gilded Age

A term for the late 1800s meaning 'glittering on the outside but corrupt underneath'.

Industrialization

The shift from a farming economy to a factory-based manufacturing economy.

Monopoly / Trust

When one company has complete control over an entire industry, eliminating competition.

Robber Barons

A negative term for powerful industrialists who became wealthy through ruthless tactics.

Captains of Industry

A positive term for business leaders who used their wealth to modernize the nation and help society.

Andrew Carnegie

An industrialist who built a monopoly in the steel industry through vertical integration.

John D. Rockefeller

Founder of Standard Oil who created a monopoly through horizontal integration.

Vertical Integration

Buying every step of the production process (from raw materials to shipping) to control an industry.

Horizontal Integration

Buying out or merging with all competing companies in the same industry.

Urbanization

The rapid growth of cities as people moved from rural areas and foreign countries for jobs.

Tenements

Overcrowded and unsanitary multi-family urban apartment buildings.

Labor Union

A group of workers joined together to fight for better pay and safer working conditions.

Strike

A refusal to work by a labor union as a form of protest.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

A law that banned Chinese immigration to the U.S. for 10 years.

Push and Pull Factors

Reasons why people leave their home (Push) or are drawn to a new country (Pull).

Nativism

An intense dislike or fear of immigrants.

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

The first federal law that gave the government power to break up monopolies.

Second Industrial Revolution

A period of rapid innovation in steel, electricity, and chemicals.

Assembly Line

A factory method where parts are added to a product in a sequential manner.

Social Darwinism

The belief that 'survival of the fittest' applies to human society and business.