AP United States History Full Course Flashcards

Flashcards including all units of AP United States History and key terms.

Great Recession of 2009

A significant economic downturn that began in late 2007 and lasted until mid-2009.

2016 presidential election

The election held in November 2016 to elect the President of the United States.

Native American cultural regions

Distinct geographic areas inhabited by Native American tribes, each with unique cultural practices.

Dr. King and Malcolm X

Two prominent leaders in the American civil rights movement with differing approaches to achieving racial equality.

Progressive movement

A social and political movement in the early 20th century aimed at addressing issues caused by industrialization and urbanization.

Making Connections features

Special sections in the book designed to help students relate historical events to one another.

Stamp Act Boycott

A protest against the Stamp Act of 1765, where colonists refused to buy British goods.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

A civil rights protest against racial segregation on public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, lasting from 1955 to 1956.

Missouri Compromise

An 1820 agreement that regulated the extension of slavery in the United States.

Brown v. Board of Education

A landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

Transcontinental railroads

Railroads that connected the eastern United States with the western territories, completed in 1869.

1960s counterculture

A social movement that rejected conventional social norms and promoted alternative lifestyles during the 1960s.

First and Second Red Scares

Periods of intense anti-communist sentiment in the United States, particularly in the early 20th century.

Larry Krieger

An acclaimed AP teacher recognized for his contributions to AP education and student success.

COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE

The exchange of plants, animals, and germs between the New World and Europe following the discovery of America in 1492.

ENCOMIENDA SYSTEM

A license granted by the Spanish crown to royal officials to extract labor and tribute from native peoples in specified areas.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

The belief that America has a special mission to be a beacon of democracy and liberty.

MERCANTILISM

Economic philosophy guiding Great Britain and other European powers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to achieve a favorable balance of trade.

Demographic Collapse

The significant decline in Native American population due to European diseases such as smallpox.

Royal Officials

Individuals appointed by the Spanish crown to govern and manage colonial affairs.

Favorable Balance of Trade

An economic situation where a country exports more than it imports.

Raw Materials

Basic materials from which products are made, often sourced from colonies.

Manufactured Goods

Products that have been processed and are sold at a higher price than raw materials.

Population Growth

An increase in the number of individuals in a population, influenced by factors such as diet and health.

FIRST GREAT AWAKENING

A wave of religious revivals that began in New England in the mid-1730s and then spread across all the colonies during the 1740s.

ENLIGHTENMENT

An eighteenth-century philosophy stressing that reason could be used to improve the human condition by eradicating superstition, bigotry, and intolerance.

VIRTUAL REPRESENTATION

British belief that each member of Parliament represented the interests of all Englishmen, including the colonists.

REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT/REPUBLICANISM

Refers to the belief that government should be based on the consent of the people.

SEPARATION OF POWERS

The division of power among the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government.

CHECKS AND BALANCES

System in which each branch of government can check the power of the other branches.

REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD

Belief that the new American republic offered women the important role of raising their children to be virtuous and responsible citizens.

ANTIFEDERALISTS

Opponents of the American Constitution at the time when the states were debating its adoption.

HAMILTON'S FINANCIAL PROGRAM

Hamilton sought to create a sound financial foundation for the new republic by funding the federal debt, assuming state debts, creating a national bank, and imposing tariffs to protect home industries.

STATES' RIGHTS

Doctrine asserting that the Constitution arose as a compact among sovereign states.

JUDICIAL REVIEW

The power of the Supreme Court to strike down an act of Congress by declaring it unconstitutional.

AMERICAN SYSTEM/INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS

The American System was a set of proposals sponsored by Henry Clay to unify the nation and strengthen the economy by means of protective tariffs, a national bank, and internal improvements or transportation projects such as canals and new roads.

JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY

A set of political beliefs associated with Andrew Jackson and his followers.

NULLIFICATION

A legal theory that a state in the United States has the right to nullify or invalidate any federal law that the state deems unconstitutional.

MARKET REVOLUTION

The dramatic increase between 1820 and 1850 in the exchange of goods among regional and national markets.

NATIVISM

Anti-foreign sentiment favoring the interests of native-born people over the interests of immigrants.

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING

A wave of religious enthusiasm that spread across America between 1800 and 1830.

PERFECTIONISM

Belief that humans can use conscious acts of will to create communities based upon cooperation and mutual respect.

CULT OF DOMESTICITY

Idealized women in their roles as wives and mothers.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

An antebellum philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrating the truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination.

MANIFEST DESTINY

Nineteenth-century belief that the United States was destined by Providence to spread democratic institutions and liberty from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

WILMOT PROVISO

The 1846 proposal by Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania to ban slavery in territory acquired from the Mexican War.

SLAVE POWER

Antebellum term referring to the disproportionate power that Northerners believed wealthy slaveholders wielded over national political decisions.

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY

Principle advocated by Stephen A. Douglas that the settlers of a given territory have the sole right to decide whether slavery will be permitted there.

BLACK CODES

Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War denying ex-slaves the civil rights enjoyed by whites.

SHARECROPPING

A labor system in the South after the Civil War where tenants worked the land in return for a share of the crops produced instead of paying cash rent.

CARPETBAGGERS AND SCALAWAGS

Carpetbagger is the derisive name given by ex-Confederates to Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction.

REDEEMERS

White Southern political leaders who claimed to 'redeem' or save the South from Republican domination.

JIM CROW

A system of racial segregation in the South lasting from the end of Reconstruction until the 1960s.

FRONTIER THESIS

Argument by historian Frederick Jackson Turner that the frontier experience helped make American society more democratic.

Vertical Integration

A business model in which a corporation controls all aspects of production from raw materials to packaged products.

Horizontal Integration

A business model in which one company gains control over other companies that produce the same product.

Social Darwinism

The belief that there is a natural evolutionary process by which the fittest will survive and prosper.

Gospel of Wealth

View advanced by Andrew Carnegie that the wealthy were the guardians of society and should fund institutions that create 'ladders of success.'

Social Gospel

A late nineteenth-century reform movement based on the belief that Christians have a responsibility to confront social problems such as poverty.

New Immigrants

Refers to the massive wave of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who came to America between 1890 and 1924.

Realism

A late nineteenth and early twentieth-century movement calling for writers, artists, and photographers to portray daily life as precisely and truly as possible.

Populism

The mainly agrarian movement developed in the 1890s that supported the unlimited coinage of silver, government regulation of the railroads, and policies favoring farmers and the working class.

Progressivism

A movement that sought to use government to help create a more just society, fighting against impure foods, child labor, corruption, and trusts.

Muckrakers

Early twentieth century journalists who exposed illegal business practices, social injustices, and corrupt urban political bosses.

Red Scare

A term for anticommunist hysteria that swept the United States after World War I, leading to government raids on alleged subversives.

Great Migration

A massive movement of blacks leaving the South for cities in the North that began slowly in 1910 and accelerated between World War I and the Great Crash.

Harlem Renaissance

A flowering of African American artists, writers, and intellectuals during the 1920s, asserting African American culture.

Isolationism

A U.S. foreign policy calling for Americans to avoid entangling political alliances following World War I.

Containment

America's Cold War policy of blocking the expansion of Soviet influence, advocated by George Kennan.

McCarthyism

The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade during the early 1950s.

Second Red Scare

A climate of fear and paranoia created by McCarthy's accusations that communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department and other federal agencies.

BEATS

A small but influential group of literary figures based in New York City and San Francisco in the 1950s, led by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who rejected mainstream America's carefree consumption and mindless conformity.

DOMINO THEORY

This geopolitical theory refers to the belief that, if one country falls to communism, its neighbors will also be infected and fall to communism, as predicted during the Cold War regarding South Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE

The title of an influential book written in 1963 by Betty Friedan critiquing the prevailing cult of domesticity, which helped spark second-wave feminism focusing on workplace inequalities, reproductive rights, and the Equal Rights Amendment.

BLACK POWER

The Black Power movement of the 1960s advocated that African Americans establish control of their political and economic lives, with key advocates including Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Huey Newton.

COUNTERCULTURE

A cultural movement during the late 1960s associated with hippies who advocated an alternative lifestyle based upon peace, love, and 'doing your own thing.'

SILENT MAJORITY

Term used by President Nixon in a 1969 speech to describe those who supported his foreign and domestic policies but did not participate in public protests.

DÉTENTE

The policy advocated by President Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to relax tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, including the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and expanded trade.

STAGFLATION

An economic term to describe the unusual combination of high unemployment and inflation during the 1970s.

REAGANOMICS

Term used to describe President Reagan's supply-side economic policies that attempted to promote growth and investment by deregulating business, reducing corporate tax rates, and lowering federal tax rates for upper- and middle-income Americans.

SUN BELT

Name given to the states in the Southwest and South that experienced a rapid growth in population and political power during the past half century.

MULTICULTURALISM

The promotion of diversity in gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual preferences, which became increasingly influential and controversial during the period from 1980 to the present.

Columbian Exchange

The contact among Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans that resulted in significant social, cultural, and political changes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

First Americans

The earliest North American residents who crossed a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago.

Pacific Northwest

A region where the abundant natural resources supported a relatively dense population, with tribes such as the Haida and Kwakiutl utilizing the area's resources.

Desert Southwest

A cultural region characterized by unique adaptations to arid environments, though specific details were not provided in the notes.

Southwest Climate

The Southwest challenged Native Americans with a much drier climate than that of the Pacific Northwest.

Pueblo Settlements

The Pueblo built settlements near the Rio Grande and its tributaries.

Hopi Defenses

The Hopi lived near cliffs that could be easily defended.

Rainwater Collection

They collected rainwater in rock cisterns and carefully parceled it out to their fields and to families living in clusters of houses called pueblos.

Adobe Houses

People throughout the region lived in multi-story houses made of adobe.

Crops in Southwest

They coaxed crops of maize (corn), beans, melons, and squash from sun-parched, but fertile, soil.

Great Plains Geography

The Great Plains are flat open grasslands extending from the Rockies to the Mississippi River.

Great Plains Climate

Hot, dry summers followed cold, snowy winters.

Buffalo Herds

Huge buffalo herds roamed across the vast grasslands.

Pawnee Agriculture

The Pawnee planted corn, squash, and beans.

Tepees

While on the hunt, the Pawnee lived in portable houses made of buffalo skin called tepees.

Eastern Woodlands Geography

Hardwood forests dominated the land stretching from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south.

Squirrel Travel

It was said that a squirrel could travel from Tennessee to New York without ever touching the ground.

Tribes of Eastern Woodlands

Tribes such as the Creek, Choctaw, and Powhatan cleared the forest and built villages.