US History: America Becomes an Industrial Nation

Flashcards about US History: America Becomes an Industrial Nation

Transcontinental Railroad Systems

Helped unify the nation’s economy after the Civil War, often favoring industrialists at the expense of farmers, by linking the nation and creating a national market which encouraged mass production and consumption.

National Grange Movement

An organization formed by farmers to leverage its large membership to defend farmers against trusts and railroad exploitation.

Westward Expansion Reasons

Americans moved westward for economic opportunity, self-sufficiency, and easier access due to railroads and actions such as the Homestead Act.

Homestead Act

Act in which the federal government gave land grants to homesteaders who would go out and live on them, and develop them.

The Indian Problem

The term used by Americans to describe the conflict between white settlers and indigenous people as the Transcontinental Railroad facilitated huge mass migration west.

Reservation System

The government's solution to the "Indian problem", where Indian populations were assigned to tracts of land.

Sioux Wars

A series of conflicts between the U.S. government and the Sioux tribes, marked by initial Native American resistance followed by U.S. victory; subsequently followed by the Indian Appropriation Act

Indian Appropriation Act

Act that ended federal recognition of Indian sovereignty and nullified all previous treaties that had been made with these in the, you know, semi independent, nations.

Assimilationist Movement

movement that attempted to force Indians to abandon their cultural heritage and blend in with Americans.

Dawes Act

Act which broke up tribal organizations and divided tribal lands into 60-acre plots, granting U.S. citizenship to those who assimilated.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Supreme Court decision that allowed for the racial segregation of society.

Jim Crow Laws

Expansive laws that segregated every part of Southern society by race, making it very difficult for black southerners to keep hold of the gains that they made during Reconstruction.

Ida B. Wells

A newspaper editor who editorialized against lynchings and against Jim Crow laws, and, you know, she suffered violence as a result and, you know, had to move north in order to continue her efforts.

Bessemer Process

Technological innovation that was able to create much stronger steel, which, you know, steel is what American industry was built with.

Vertical Integration

A business practice championed by Andrew Carnegie in which you acquire all the industries required for manufacturing.

Horizontal Integration

A business practice associated with John D. Rockefeller in which you buy out all the competitors until you dominate your industry.

Monopoly/Trust

The goal of industrial leaders to get as big and powerful as possible.

Laissez-faire Policies

The anti regulation atmosphere of the federal government.

Social Darwinism

The idea, some of these industrialists began buying into, that the strong eat the weak in nature. Well, why shouldn't the strong eat the weak in business as well.

Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie's propagated ideal and life practice that the rich had a moral obligation to better society with their riches.

White Collar Workers

Middle managers required to make new industries work and that didn't get their hands dirty. They just managed the whole process.

Knights of Labor

A labor union that crusaded for better wages, a shortened workday, and safer working conditions. It ultimately disappeared after the Haymarket Square riot.

American Federation of Labor

A labor union that crusaded for better wages, a shortened workday, and safer working conditions.

Immigration

Going from one country to another.

Migration

Moving within the same country.

Exoduster Movement

Mass migration of black people who lived in the South, and then migrated to the Midwest. And, you know, they wanted to establish homesteads and become farmers primarily because they wanted to leave the South and flee all the, you know, Jim Crow persecution that they lived with day in and day out and the threat of violence from, you know, lynching and, organizations like the the Ku Klux Klan.

American Protective Association

A nativist organization that was very much anti Catholic because all the the Irish immigrants are coming in. They're all to for the most part, Catholic.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Act where congress actually passes the Chinese exclusion act, which restricts all immigrants from China for a certain period of time.

Jane Addams

Created a series of of places known as settlement houses, which helped assimilate immigrants to American society. Taught them English, helped them find jobs, that sort of thing.

Settlement Houses/Hull House

Places which helped assimilate immigrants to American society, teaching them English and helping them find jobs.

Social Gospel

A growing number of Christians who believe that the gospel ought not only to be applied to the sins of the individual soul, but also to the sins and ills of society.

Eugene V. Debs

The leader of a major labor union and champion of socialism as the cure for all the sicknesses of the Gilded Age, and and founded the Socialist Party of America.

Populist Party

A group mainly representing the interest of farmers where they wanted to correct the the concentration of economic power held by trusts and banks.

Omaha Platform

The published platform of the Populist party which said, among other things, that they want the direct election of senators, the the right for initiative and referendum, and the unlimited coinage of silver.

National American Woman Suffrage Association

organization where there was a big push in this period for women's suffrage.

Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1881

Act that replaced the patronage system with a competitive civil service examination, which meant that anybody who was gonna be working in the federal bureaucracy, would be qualified in their particular area of authority.

Tammany Hall

An urban political machine in New York headed by Boss Tweed which would help people of their community in exchange for their votes on election day.