U.S. History Lecture Review (1863–1900)

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards generated directly from the provided lecture transcript covering Chapters 16 through 20.

Black Codes

Laws passed by Southern states immediately after the Civil War to restrict the rights and freedom of formerly enslaved African Americans and restore white control.

President Andrew Johnson's Program of Reconciliation

A lenient plan for bringing Southern states back into the Union by offering pardons to many Confederates and permitting state governments to form if they accepted the end of slavery.

Fourteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment that granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to formerly enslaved people, establishing birthright citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil.

Ku Klux Klan

An organization that waged a campaign of violence and terror against Black Southerners and white allies to defeat Republicans and re-establish white supremacy.

Sharecropping

A postwar Southern labor system in which planters divided land for freedmen to rent in exchange for a share of each year's crop, leaving black farmers somewhat dependent on white planters.

Fifteenth Amendment

An amendment prohibiting states from denying any citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement where Democrats allowed Republicans to take the presidency in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, leading to the collapse of Reconstruction.

Reservation System

A U.S. government system that took Native American lands, relocated tribes onto designated reservations, and promised annuity payments in return.

Decimation of the Bison Herds

The destruction of Great Plains buffalo herds caused by the transcontinental railroad dividing ranges, alongside droughts, blizzards, fires, and the Indian buffalo robe trade.

Comanchería

A Native American region in the southern Plains that collapsed after Congress sought to end treaties and applied military force to take and burn everything from them.

Chief Red Cloud

A Sioux leader who waged warfare against the U.S. Army along the Bozeman Trail, leading to the slaughter of Fetterman and his troops and securing the Black Hills for his people.

Battle of Little Bighorn

An engagement where U.S. cavalry under George Armstrong Custer attacked a large gathering of Native Americans on the Little Bighorn River and were completely annihilated by warriors led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

Frontier Thesis

Frederick Jackson Turner's argument that the American West was vital in shaping national identity and democracy.

Policy of Assimilation

A late-19th-century U.S. policy aimed at forcing Native Americans to abandon traditional culture and adopt white American language, customs, religions, education, and economic systems.

First Transcontinental Railroad

A railroad line completed in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, which drove national market integration, urban growth, and westward expansion.

Vertical Integration

A steel industry business method pioneered by Andrew Carnegie in which all aspects of production—from mining iron ore to transport to manufacturing steel—were under one company's control.

Standard Oil Trust

A business combination formed by John D. Rockefeller by acquiring competing companies, reducing prices, and controlling the refining and distribution aspects of oil production.

The Big Four

Business figures who constructed the western portion of the transcontinental railroad using federal loans and land grants, connecting to the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869.

Crédit Mobilier Scandal

A Gilded Age scandal demonstrating political corruption and the close, corrupt ties between major businesses and government officials.

Social Darwinism

A philosophy asserting that societal competition was natural, that wealthy individuals succeeded because they were better suited, and that poverty resulted from being less capable.

Jacob Riis

A writer and photographer who exposed the severe poverty, overcrowding, and unsanitary conditions faced by the urban poor, sparking housing and social reforms.

Brooklyn Bridge Construction

A major urban project built by immigrant and working-class laborers who faced dangerous conditions, low pay, and long hours, including working underwater in pressurized caissons.

Urban Political Machines

City political organizations that provided services, jobs, food, and housing aid to immigrants and poor residents in exchange for votes, while exploiting power through bribery and favoritism.

Farmers' Alliance

An organization formed by American farmers in the late 19th century to improve crop prices, secure credit, and combat unfair railroad and banking practices.

Populist Party

A political party created by farmers and reformers advocating for free silver, government regulation of railroads, easier credit, and economic reforms to aid workers and farmers.

Homestead Strike of 1892

A major labor conflict occurring when steelworkers at Carnegie Steel violently protested against wage cuts.

Cripple Creek Miners' Strike of 1894

A successful strike initiated after mine owners lengthened the workday from 8 hours to 10 hours without offering an increase in pay.

Eugene V. Debs

Labor leader who organized the Pullman strike to support workers protesting wage cuts, poor conditions, and high rent in company-owned housing.

Presidential Election of 1896

A critical election where Populist support for Bryan failed to secure the presidency, leading to the decline and loss of influence of the Populist movement.

Spanish-American War

A late-19th-century military conflict that gained overseas territories for the United States, expanding its military power and establishing it as an imperial nation.