America Changes: Economic Growth, Reform, and the Growing Conflict Over Slavery

Vocabulary flashcards covering 19th-century economic expansion, regional interdependence, Second Great Awakening reform movements, and the rise of abolitionism.

Erie Canal

A major waterway completed in 1825 that connected the Great Lakes to the Hudson River, New York City ports, and the Atlantic Ocean, lowering transportation costs and linking western farmers to eastern markets.

Second Great Awakening

A religious revival during the 1820s and 1830s emphasizing that individuals could make their own religious choices and improve themselves and society, which inspired various reform movements.

American System

An economic program proposed by Henry Clay that included import tariffs to protect domestic manufacturing, federal funding for roads and canals, and a national bank.

Henry Clay

A Kentucky politician and leader of the Whig Party who created the American System to promote national economic integration through infrastructure and tariffs.

Temperance

A reform movement in the early 1800s focused on reducing alcohol consumption and encouraging abstinence to address social issues like poverty, family problems, and violence.

Horace Mann

A Massachusetts reform leader in the Common School Movement who promoted free, tax-supported public education managed by local school systems.

Common School Movement

A public education reform effort that advocated for free public schooling supported by local taxes and overseen by community school systems.

Seneca Falls Convention

An 1848 meeting in New York organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott to advocate for women's social and legal rights.

Declaration of Sentiments

A document written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Convention demanding equal rights for women, including the right to vote.

Suffrage

The right to vote, which became a core demand of the 19th-century women's rights movement.

Nat Turner

An enslaved preacher who led a 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia that killed about 60 white people, leading to stricter legal controls over enslaved and free Black populations.

Frederick Douglass

An escaped enslaved person who became a prominent abolitionist speaker, writer, and publisher of the antislavery newspaper The North Star.

The North Star

An antislavery newspaper published by Frederick Douglass to expose the realities of slavery and counter proslavery arguments.

Sarah and Angelina Grimké

Sisters from a South Carolina slaveholding family who became prominent abolitionist speakers after witnessing the realities of slavery firsthand.

American Colonization Society

An organization established in 1818 that advocated freeing enslaved people and assisting them to resettle in Africa, specifically in Liberia.

William Lloyd Garrison

An abolitionist who co-founded the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 to demand the immediate emancipation of enslaved people.

American Anti-Slavery Society

An organization founded in 1833 by William Lloyd Garrison that campaigned for the immediate end of slavery.

Liberty Party

A political party established to advance the abolitionist agenda through political channels and legislation.