US History Study Guide - Industrial Revolution to the 1890s

Vocabulary flashcards covering key historical figures, political terms, movements, and court cases from late 19th-century United States history.

Horatio Alger

Popular novelist during the Industrial Revolution who wrote "rags to riches" books praising the values of hard work and "Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps."

vaudeville

A type of inexpensive variety show that first appeared in the 1870s, often consisting of comic sketches, song-and-dance routines, and magic acts.

The Salvation army

A welfare organization that came to the US from England in 1880 and sought to provide food, shelter, and employment to the urban poor while preaching temperance and morality.

Patronage / Spals system

Granting favors or giving contracts or making appointments to office in return for political support.

Charles J Guiteau

Assassinated President James Garfield by shooting him because he believed that the Republican Party had not fulfilled its promise to give him a government job.

Grover Cleveland

Unmarried president that had fathered a child out of wedlock and was condemned as immoral.

Deflation

A situation in which prices are declining.

The Populist Party

A political organization formed in 1892 by both Black and White farmers that supported the abolition of national banks and the government ownership of railroads.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were "equal".