US History: Antebellum to WWI

A collection of 200 vocabulary flashcards covering major concepts, figures, and events from the Antebellum era through World War I based on lecture notes.

Industrialized North

The region characterized by an urban environment and a factory-based economy prior to the Civil War.

Agrarian South

The region characterized by a slave-reliant economy based on agriculture and plantation life.

Southern Culture

A society that valued honor, state sovereignty, and a rigid racial hierarchy.

Wilmot Proviso

An unsuccessful proposal that sought to ban slavery in the lands acquired from the Mexican Cession.

Compromise of $1850$

Legislation that admitted California as a free state while significantly strengthening fugitive slave laws.

Henry Clay

A prominent Whig politician nicknamed the "Great Compromiser."

Daniel Webster

A Northern senator who prioritized the preservation of the Union over sectional interests.

John C. Calhoun

A Southern senator and champion of states' rights and the expansion of slavery.

Stephen Douglas

The Illinois senator who advocated for popular sovereignty in Western territories.

Millard Fillmore

The President who signed the Compromise of $1850$ into law after the death of Zachary Taylor.

Fugitive Slave Act

A federal law that mandated the return of escaped slaves to their owners.

Anthony Burns

An enslaved Virginian whose arrest in Boston triggered massive protests by abolitionists.

$12$ Years a Slave

The memoir by Solomon Northup that exposed the brutality of plantations and kidnappings.

Solomon Northup

An author and former captive whose memoir detailed the horrific realities of slavery.

Underground Railroad

A secret network of pathways used to help enslaved people escape to freedom.

Harriet Tubman

The most famous Underground Railroad conductor who personally rescued dozens of enslaved people.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

A novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe that humanized the horrors of the institution of slavery.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The author whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin galvanized Northern opposition to slavery.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

A law that allowed voters in new territories to decide on the legality of slavery via popular sovereignty.

Pottawatomie Massacre

A lethal attack led by John Brown against pro-slavery settlers in Kansas.

John Brown

A radical abolitionist who led the Pottawatomie Massacre and the raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Border Ruffians

Pro-slavery Missourians who crossed into Kansas to illegally rig territorial elections.

Bleeding Kansas

A term describing the bloody guerrilla warfare between pro- and anti-slavery factions in the Kansas territory.

Sumner-Brooks Affair

A violent incident where Congressman Preston Brooks caned Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor.

Preston Brooks

A Southern congressman who attacked an abolitionist senator with a cane.

Charles Sumner

An abolitionist senator who was brutally beaten after delivering an anti-slavery speech.

Franklin Pierce

A pro-Southern Democratic president who gave his support to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Know-Nothings

A nativist political party that opposed immigrants and the political influence of Catholics.

Irish Immigration

A massive influx of Catholic laborers into the U.S. following Ireland's Great Famine.

Dred Scott Case

A Supreme Court ruling stating that African Americans did not possess U.S. citizenship rights.

Lincoln/Douglas Debates

A series of public discussions in Illinois regarding the moral and legal status of slavery.

Harper’s Ferry

The site of a federal arsenal targeted by John Brown during a failed slave insurrection attempt.

Election of $1860$

The presidential race won by Abraham Lincoln that triggered immediate Southern secession.

Abraham Lincoln

The Republican president whose primary dedication was to preserving the American Union.

The Confederacy

The unrecognized republic formed by the secession of $11$ slave states.

Jefferson Davis

The man who served as the President of the Confederate States of America.

Cornerstone Speech

A declaration by Alexander Stephens that white supremacy was fundamental to the Confederacy.

Alexander Stephens

The Vice President of the Confederacy who delivered the famous Cornerstone Speech.

Ft. Sumter

A fort in South Carolina where the opening shots of the Civil War were fired.

Union States

The Northern, non-slave-holding states that remained loyal to the federal government.

Border States

Pro-slavery states that remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

Confederate States

The group of Southern slave states that seceded from the Union.

Anaconda Plan

The Union overall strategy to blockade Southern ports and split the Confederacy in two.

Battle of Bull Run

The first major land battle of the war, proving that the conflict would be long and difficult.

Stonewall Jackson

A Confederate general renowned for his stubborn defensive battlefield tactics.

George McClellan

A cautious Union general who was twice replaced by President Lincoln.

Ulysses S. Grant

The aggressive Union commander whose military strategy secured eventual total victory.

Shiloh

A brutal Western theater battle that highlighted the war's high human cost.

Robert E. Lee

The commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia throughout the war.

David Farragut

A Union admiral who led the capture of New Orleans and Mobile Bay.

Antietam

A strategic Union victory that provided the opportunity for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Ben Butler

The general who established the Contraband Policy for dealing with escaped slaves.

Contraband Policy

The practice of treating escaped slaves as captured war property to avoid returning them to the South.

Emancipation Proclamation

An executive order by Lincoln that freed slaves in all rebel-held territories.

Conscription

The mandatory military draft enacted by both the Union and Confederate governments.

Mass $54^{th}$

A highly decorated and prominent all-black Union infantry regiment.

Ft. Pillow Massacre

An atrocity where Confederate troops killed African American Union soldiers who had surrendered.

Nurses during war

Women who pioneered professional battlefield medicine by treating wounded soldiers.

Chancellorsville

A major Confederate victory that was marred by the accidental death of General Stonewall Jackson.

Gettysburg

A three-day clash in Pennsylvania that turned back Robert E. Lee's northern invasion.

Vicksburg

A Union siege that ended with complete federal control of the Mississippi River.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's speech that redefined the Civil War as a fight for human equality.

William T. Sherman

The Union general who executed a "total war" campaign across the state of Georgia.

Total War

A military strategy of destroying the enemy's resources and civilian infrastructure.

Election of $1864$

The election that ensured the war would continue until a total Union victory was achieved.

John Wilkes Booth

A Confederate sympathizer who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

$13^{th}$ Amendment

The constitutional revision that permanently outlawed slavery throughout the United States.

Radical Republicans

Congressmen who fought for black civil rights and harsh penalties for the South after the war.

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln’s successor whose Reconstruction policies frequently clashed with Congress.

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency established to provide food, housing, and schools for formerly enslaved people.

Black Codes

Southern laws passed during Reconstruction to restrict the labor and freedoms of freedmen.

$14^{th}$ Amendment

The amendment that granted citizenship and equal protection under the law for all persons.

$15^{th}$ Amendment

The amendment that prohibited voting discrimination based on race or previous servitude.

Impeachment of AJ

The Congressional effort to remove Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War for personal economic or political gain.

Scalawags

White Southerners who supported and cooperated with Republican Reconstruction policies.

Hiram Revels

The first African American person ever elected to the United States Senate.

Sharecropping

A tenant farming system that often left black farmers in a cycle of debt to white landowners.

Tenant Farming

An agricultural system where farmers paid a cash rent to use land for crops.

KKK

A white supremacist terrorist organization that targeted freedmen and Republicans.

Jim Crow

A system of state-enforced segregation and laws designed to disenfranchise black voters.

Election of $1876$

A contested presidential vote eventually settled by a bipartisan federal commission.

Compromise of $1877$

A deal that gave Hayes the presidency in exchange for removing federal troops from the South.

Rutherford B. Hayes

The President who effectively ended Reconstruction following the Compromise of $1877$.

Segregation

The legal and social separation of races in public facilities and spaces.

Lynching

Public executions without legal trial, used as a tool of terror against minorities.

Laissez-Faire

The economic doctrine that opposes government intervention in private business.

Thomas Edison

The inventor of the electrical grid and the incandescent light bulb.

Bessemer Process

The first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel.

Transcontinental Railroad

The first continuous rail line that connected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Social Darwinism

A theory applying "survival of the fittest" to human society, business, and capitalism.

Robber Barons

Industrialists who built immense wealth using ruthless and anti-competitive business practices.

Andrew Carnegie

A steel magnate who controlled the industry through the method of vertical integration.

Vertical Integration

A business practice where a company controls all stages of production and distribution.

Jay Gould

A railroad developer and speculative financier known for manipulating the market.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A magnate who amassed wealth by consolidating shipping and railroad networks.

John D. Rockefeller

The founder of Standard Oil who dominated the global oil refining market.

Standard Oil

The massive oil monopoly founded and controlled by John D. Rockefeller.

Monopoly

A situation where a single entity has total market control over a specific commodity.

Trust

A legal arrangement used during the Gilded Age to combine corporations and fix prices.