APUSH Dr. Olson Period 6 Valley Christian

Unions/strikes

• Groups like the Knights of Labor (inclusive) and AFL (skilled only).

• Used collective bargaining and work stoppages to secure better conditions.

Railroad strike of 1877

The first major nationwide strike; occurred after wage cuts and was suppressed by federal troops sent by President Hayes.

Haymarket Square bombing/riot

An 1886 protest in Chicago that turned violent; led to public association of unions with anarchy and the decline of the Knights of Labor.

Sherman Anti-Trust

1890 law intended to break up monopolies; initially used more effectively by courts to restrict labor unions than corporations.

Interstate Commerce Act

Passed in 1887 to regulate railroad rates and prohibit unfair practices; established the first federal regulatory agency, the ICC.

Horatio Alger stories

Popular “ rags to riches” novels detailing how poor boys achieved success through hard work and luck.

Edison

The “wizard of Menlo Park”; invented the incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera.

Westinghouse

Developed alternating current (AC) systems, allowing electricity to be transmitted over long distances safely.

Bell

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone in 1876, revolutionizing communication.

Homestead Act

1862 law granting 160 acres of land to anyone who would farm it for 5 years; encouraged westward migration.

Treaty of Fort Laramie

Agreements (1851 and 1868) between the US and Plains Indians (e.g., Sioux) defining tribal boundaries and establishing reservations.

Modoc Wars

1872-1873 conflict in CA/OR where Modoc warriors resisted returning to a reservation, reflecting Native resistance to relocation.

Dawes (Severalty) Act

1887 law that broke up tribal lands into individual allotments to force assimilation of Native Americans into white farming culture.

Little Big Horn

1876 battle where Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse defeated General Custer’s 7^{th} Cavalry.

Wounded Knee & Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement to restore Native life; led to the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, ending armed Indian resistance.

A Century of Dishonor

1881 book by Helen Hunt Jackson detailing the government's long history of broken treaties and mistreatment of Native Americans.

Chief Joseph

Leader of the Nez Perce who attempted to flee to Canada; famously said, “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

Geronimo

Apache leader who led fierce resistance against US and Mexican forces in the Southwest before surrendering in 1886.

Crazy Horse

Oglala Sioux chief who led his warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn to preserve the Lakota way of life.

Sitting Bull

Hunkpapa Lakota holy man and leader who united the tribes for the Great Sioux War and predicted the victory at Little Bighorn.

George A. Custer

US Army officer who died with all his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, a defeat for the federal government.

Plains Indians and buffalo

Native survival relied on the bison; the deliberate slaughter of herds by white hunters destroyed the tribes' economic and cultural foundation.

Old vs. New immigration

• Old: North/West Europe (1840-1880), mostly Protestant.

• New: South/East Europe (1880-1920), mostly Catholic/Jewish/Orthodox.

Push factors for old immigration

Potato famine (Ireland), political revolution (Germany), and seeking better economic opportunities.

Push factors for new immigration

Religious persecution (Russian pogroms), extreme poverty, and political instability.

Pull factors for old immigration

Available land (Homestead Act) and the promise of factory jobs during early industrialization.

Pull factors for new immigration

Jobs in the expanding factory/urban system and letters from relatives already in the US.

Dates for old immigration

Roughly 1840 to 1880.

Dates for new immigration

Roughly 1880 to 1920.

Demographics for old immigration

Mostly Northern/Western Europeans (English, Irish, German, Scandinavian) who were often familiar with democracy.

Demographics for new immigration

Southern/Eastern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians) and Asians (Chinese) who were often unskilled and non-English speaking.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Passed in 1882; the first significant US law to restrict immigration based on a specific ethnic group or nationality.

Mamie Tape

The subject of Tape v. Hurley (1885), which challenged the exclusion of Chinese-American children from public schools in San Francisco.

Wong Kim Ark

1898 Supreme Court case that ruled the 14^{th} Amendment granted birthright citizenship to all children born in the US, regardless of parents' status.

Invented Traditions

The creation of cultural practices (like the Pledge of Allegiance or specific interpretations of the flag) to foster a unified American identity.

Transcontinental Railroad

The physical infrastructure that connected the nation, completed at Promontory Point in 1869.

Melting pot and multiculturalism

The melting pot theory suggests different cultures blend into one unique American culture, while multiculturalism suggests they maintain distinct identities.

Ellis Island

Built in 1892 in New York Harbor as the primary processing station for millions of European immigrants.

Angel Island

The primary immigrant processing center on the West Coast (San Francisco), often utilized for detention and interrogation of Asian immigrants.

Americanization: Statue of Liberty and Pledge of Allegiance

Efforts to assimilate immigrants into American culture and values; the Pledge was specifically written in 1892 for school children.

American Protective Association

An anti-Catholic and nativist organization founded in 1887 to restrict New Immigration.

Josiah Strong

American clergyman who wrote Our Country, arguing that Anglo-Saxons were superior and had a duty to spread their values to others.

Assimilation

The process by which immigrants or Native Americans were encouraged or forced to adopt the customs and language of dominant white American culture.

YMCA

Young Men’s Christian Association; provided housing and healthy activities for young men migrating to urban industrial centers.

Settlement Houses

Community centers in poor urban areas providing housing, education, and social services, primarily to immigrants.

Jane Addams

Co-founder of Hull House in Chicago (1889); a pioneer in social work and the settlement house movement.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court ruling that established the “separate but equal” doctrine, legalizing Jim Crow segregation.

Jim Crow

A system of laws and customs that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black Americans in the South after Reconstruction.

WEB DuBois

African American leader who demanded immediate political and social equality; co-founder of the NAACP.

Booker T. Washington

Advocated for economic self-reliance and vocational education (Tuskegee Institute) as a path to eventual racial equality.

Literacy tests

Unfair exams used as a requirement for voting, specifically designed to disenfranchise African American voters in the South.

Grandfather clause

Allowed people to vote only if their ancestors could vote before 1867, enabling poor whites to vote while excluding Black citizens.

Lynching

Extrajudicial mob murder, frequently used to terrorize African Americans and maintain white supremacy in the South.

Ida B. Wells

African American journalist and activist who led a courageous anti-lynching crusade in the late 1$9^{th}$ century.

Civil Rights Cases of 1883

A series of Supreme Court cases that ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, stating the 14^{th} Amendment only applied to state actions.

Republicans

The party of business, higher tariffs, and the gold standard; dominated the presidency during most of the Gilded Age.

Stalwarts

A faction of the Republican Party that supported the traditional machine politics and the spoils system.

Half-breeds

A faction of the Republican Party led by James G. Blaine that favored moderate civil service reform.

Assassination of Garfield

President James Garfield was shot in 1881 by a disappointed office-seeker (Guiteau), which led to the Pendleton Act.

Democrats

The party of the “ Solid South,” low tariffs, and later, the “free silver‐ movement.

Democrat party demographics and “ideas”

Supported by Southern whites, urban immigrants, and farmers; advocated for limited government and states' rights.

Republican party demographics and “ideas”

Supported by Northern businessmen, African Americans, and Civil War veterans; favored government aid to business (tariffs, railroads).

Political machines

Corrupt urban organizations that provided services to immigrants and the poor in exchange for their votes.

Boss Tweed

The head of Tammany Hall, New York’s powerful Democratic political machine; famously exposed by cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Pendleton Civil Service Act

Passed in 1883 after Garfield’s death; required competitive exams for government jobs, ending the spoils system.

Populists

The People's Party; advocated for farmers, unlimited coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and direct election of senators.

William Jennings Bryan

The Democrat and Populist candidate in 1896; famous for his “ Cross of Gold” speech supporting bimetallism.

“waving the blood-soaked shirt”

A Republican political tactic used to remind voters that the Democratic Party was responsible for the Civil War.

Henry George

Social critic and author of Progress and Poverty (1879); proposed a “single tax” on land to solve economic inequality.

Tammany Hall

The most powerful political machine in New York City, which dominated local politics through patronage and corruption.

George Washington Plunkitt

A Tammany Hall politician who famously defended “honest graft”—using inside information for personal gain.

Whiskey Ring

A corruption scandal during the Grant administration involving federal agents and whiskey distillers who conspired to defraud the government of tax revenue.

Credit Mobilier Scandal

Union Pacific insiders formed a construction company and hired themselves at inflated prices to build the railroad, bribing congressmen to stay quiet.

Grange movement

An organization of farmers (The Patrons of Husbandry) that fought against railroad monopolies and high grain elevator rates.

Frederick Jackson Taylor

Historian who argued that the American character was defined by the existence of a frontier.

Frontier thesis

1893 argument that the availability of free land on the frontier was the most important factor in American development.

legacy of conquest

An alternative view of the West as a site of ongoing conflict between diverse groups rather than just white progress.

Railroad and farmers

Farmers were dependent on railroads to ship crops, leading to conflict over high, unpredictable, and discriminatory freight rates.

Cowboys and Cattle drives

The movement of cattle from Texas to railyards in Kansas (e.g., Chisholm Trail); ended by railroads and barbed wire.

Barbed wire

Invention that allowed farmers to fence in their land on the treeless plains, ending the era of the open range and long cattle drives.

Farming the Plains

Involved techniques like dry farming and the use of hardy wheat varieties to grow crops in a semi-arid environment.

Children’s Blizzard

A sudden, deadly blizzard in 1888 that caught school children on the plains, illustrating the extreme dangers of life in the West.

Demise of Bison

The near-extinction of the buffalo due to industrial hunting, which effectively forced Plains tribes onto reservations by destroying their food supply.

Challenges of life on Plains

Isolation, lack of timber (sod houses), extreme weather, and unpredictable crop prices.

McCormick reaper

Mechanical device that allowed for faster harvesting of grain, leading to increased agricultural productivity and commercial farming.

John Deere plow

The steel plow (1837) that allowed farmers to break through the tough sod of the American Midwest and Plains.

Transcontinental Railroad

• Multiple routes - north, south

• East → West

  • Started in Omaha

  • Union Pacific

• West → East

  • Started in Sacramento

  • Central Pacific

• Two railroads meet at Promontory Point, Utah (1869)

• Better than canals

Railroad Act of 1862

Legislation that provided federal support for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, offering land grants and financial incentives to railway companies in 1862.

Central Pacific Railroad

A railroad company that built the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, starting from Sacramento, California, and connecting with the Union Pacific at Promontory Point, Utah.

Union Pacific Railroad

A major railway company that built a portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, starting from Omaha, Nebraska and moving westward.

Impact of the Railroad

• Wealth/power for creators

• Tourism grew

• Nationwide market for goods

• Farming new areas

• “Spur” industries - one industry creating new industries

• Decline of importance of nature

• Importance and even idea of time (Standard Time Zones)

Morgan

Started with JP Morgan bank, then bought US Steel, and controlled major railroads through “interlocking directorates.”

Rockefeller

• Standard Oil

• Personal morality - no drink, smoke, or swear

• Horizontal integration: controlling one aspect of production (refining)

Carnegie

• Archetypal “self-made man”

• Earned 25M a year

• Vertical integration: controlling every stage of production (mines to transport)

• Sold Carnegie Steel to Morgan for 480 million

Vanderbilt

Consolidated railroad lines in the Northeast; originally made a fortune in the shipping/steamship industry.

Sears & Roebuck

Mail-order company which used the rail system and catalogs to reach rural customers, creating a national consumer culture.

Social Darwinism vs. Social Gospel

• Social Darwinism: “Survival of the fittest” applied to society by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner.

• Social Gospel: Religious movement led by ministers like Washington Gladden; argued that Christianity requires helping the poor and fixing social injustice.

Walter Rauschenbusch

• Minister in Hell’s Kitchen who noticed the urban poor dying due to systemic issues.

• Author of Christianity and the Social Crisis, advocating social reform as a Christian duty.

William Graham Sumner

American proponent of Social Darwinism; believed that helping the poor was harmful to the progress of the species.

Samuel Gompers

First and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL); focused on “bread and butter” issues like wages and hours.