The Market Revolution, Westward Expansion, and Manifest Destiny

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering the Market Revolution, early Industrial Revolutions, Antebellum reform movements, Manifest Destiny, overland trails, Texas Independence, the Mexican-American War, and the Missouri Compromise.

Market Revolution

The rapid economic transformation of the United States characterized by the opening of the West, industrial growth, new transportation networks, and the expansion of urban city life.

Erie Canal

A 363-mile artificial waterway completed in 1825 running from the Hudson River to Lake Erie; funded by New York at a cost of $7 million, it revolutionized trade and transformed New York City into a commercial hub.

Lancaster Turnpike

The first major engineered turnpike in Pennsylvania, constructed to connect eastern centers with western resources.

The Clermont

The first commercially viable steamboat, developed by Robert Fulton, which enabled two-way commercial river transportation.

First Industrial Revolution

The pre-1865 wave of American industrial growth focused primarily on textiles, iron, coal, and early railroads.

Second Industrial Revolution

The post-1865 era of industrial expansion centered on heavy industry, including transcontinental railroads, oil, steel, and electricity.

Lowell System

A textile factory system established in Massachusetts in 1823 that brought all stages of cloth production under one roof and primarily employed young, unmarried farm women known as Lowell girls.

Sectionalism

Exaggerated devotion or loyalty to the specific interests, culture, and economy of one's own region of the country rather than to the nation as a whole.

Second Great Awakening

A major Protestant religious revival movement beginning in the 1820s that promoted morality to decrease societal sin and inspired numerous antebellum reform efforts.

Temperance Movement

A moral reform crusade led predominantly by women and Christians aimed at ending the consumption of alcohol, which was viewed as causing domestic abuse and financial ruin.

Common School Movement

An antebellum education reform effort led by Horace Mann and Henry Barnard to establish free, universal public schools funded by local taxes and directed by local school boards to foster civic virtue.

Seneca Falls Convention

The first national women's rights convention held in New York in 1848, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, where approximately 300 attendees gathered to demand equal civil rights.

Declaration of Sentiments

The resolutions adopted and signed by 100 men and women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention calling for an end to social, political, and legal discrimination against women.

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century doctrine asserting that the United States was divinely destined to expand across the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Horace Greeley

Prominent newspaper editor (1811–1872) celebrated for popularizing western emigration with the phrase, 'Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.'

Steel Plow

An agricultural tool invented by John Deere that enabled western pioneers to cultivate the thick prairie soil without dirt sticking to the blade.

Mechanical Reaper

A horse-drawn harvesting machine invented by Cyrus McCormick that dramatically accelerated the gathering of grain crops and reduced labor demands.

Santa Fe Trail

A vital commercial trade route opened in 1821 that connected Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Oregon Trail

A 2,000-mile overland route originating in Missouri and extending to the Pacific Northwest, used by roughly 400,000 emigrants traveling 4 to 5 months by wagon train.

Mormon Trail

The migration route traveled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to flee religious persecution and settle the Great Salt Lake Valley.

Overlanders

Pioneers who undertook the long, dangerous overland trek to the American West in covered wagon trains, traveling roughly 15 miles per day using published guidebooks.

Donner Party

A group of westward-bound emigrants who attempted an untested shortcut, became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846–1847, and suffered high mortality, with survivors resorting to cannibalism.

Empresario

A land agent granted the right by the Mexican government to recruit and settle families on designated lands in Texas in exchange for generous land allocations.

Stephen F. Austin

The most successful American empresario, known as the founder of Austin, Texas, who was later arrested in Mexico City after advocating for greater local autonomy.

Tejanos

Texans of Hispanic or Mexican descent who were outnumbered six to one by Anglo-American settlers in Texas by 1835.

Antonio López de Santa Anna

The president and general of Mexico who suspended the 1824 constitution and personally commanded Mexican troops to suppress the Texas rebellion.

Battle of the Alamo

An 1836 siege in San Antonio in which approximately 6,000 Mexican troops overwhelmed 187 Texan defenders holding a former Spanish mission, killing all defenders except for a woman and several children.

Battle of San Jacinto

The decisive battle in April 1836 where Texan forces defeated the Mexican army and captured General Santa Anna in an eighteen-minute fight, winning de facto Texan independence.

Lone Star Republic

The independent sovereign republic established by Texans in March 1836 with Sam Houston serving as its first elected president, maintaining its sovereignty until annexation in 1845.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)

An accord between the United States and Great Britain establishing the formal boundary between the state of Maine and British Canada, though leaving the Oregon boundary unresolved.

James K. Polk

The 11th U.S. President, elected as a dark horse Democratic candidate in 1844 on a territorial expansion platform pledged to annex Texas, secure Oregon, and acquire California.

54° 40' or Fight!

The expansionist political slogan calling for American annexation of the entire Oregon Territory up to latitude $54^\circ 40'$, before the U.S. accepted a compromise boundary with Britain at the 49th parallel.

Zachary Taylor

The American general sent by President Polk with 4,000 soldiers to patrol the contested Rio Grande border, where an attack by Mexican troops prompted the U.S. declaration of war.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

The treaty ending the Mexican-American War that recognized the Rio Grande as the Texas border and ceded roughly one-third of Mexico's northern territory to the U.S. in exchange for $15 million.

Wilmot Proviso

An 1846 legislative amendment proposed by David Wilmot prohibiting slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico; it passed the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate.

Gadsden Purchase (1853)

A 1853 agreement in which the United States purchased a strip of land in present-day southern Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate a transcontinental railroad route.

Forty-Niners

The influx of tens of thousands of gold-seekers who migrated to California in 1849 following the 1848 discovery of gold, ballooning the population from 14,000 in 1847 to 225,000 by 1852.

King Cotton

A phrase referring to the Southern plantation economy's overwhelming reliance on cotton production, which comprised more than 50% of all total American exports and entrenched chattel slavery.

Missouri Compromise (1820)

An agreement devised by Henry Clay that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while establishing the $36^\circ 30'$ latitude line to restrict slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase territory.