APUSH Unit 7 Test

What did Twain mean by “Gilded Age”

• Refers to the period between 1875-1900
• Referred to the superficial glitter of the new wealth so prominently displayed in the late 19th century
• Thought it looked good but turned out not to be

Who were the supporters of the Republican Party

• Blacks, middle-class businessmen, Protestants
• Mostly the North

Who were the supporters of the Democrat Party

• Big city political machines, immigrants
• Mostly the South

During the Gilded Age, how did Americans feel about the role of the government

• They believed that the role of gov. was strictly limited
• Wanted to restore what they believed was a more normal political equilibrium

What is the spoils system

• Held that after an election the victorious party should reward its supporters by giving them gov. jobs
• Often meant turning members of the opposing party out of their gov. positions and became a major burden for presidents as heads of the office-rich executive branch

What event led to the Pendleton Act and what did the act do

• Garfield’s assassination convinced Congress that something had to be done about the spoils system
• PA: took a number of gov. jobs out of political control (If you want to work for gov., you need to take a test)

How did the political parties differ on tariffs

• Republicans supported high tariffs to protect American industry and jobs
• Democrats wanted to lower tariffs

What were political machines and what did they do

• Highly structured organizations designed to keep a leader and his associates in political power
• Provided working-class citizens jobs, loans, and other favors in exchange for their votes

What was Tammany Hall and who was its boss

• Most famous political machine
• Boss was William M. Tweed (and a group from City Hall)

Who were the candidates in 1876

• Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes
• Democrat, Samuel J. Tilden

What did the Compromise of 1877 do

• The end of a federal military presence and brought Reconstruction to an end
• Most Southern African Americans and whites in the decades after the Civil War remained poor farmers, and they fell further behind the rest of the nation

How did the gov. help railroads

US gov. subsidized the building of the transcontinental railroad and gave huge land grants to rail companies who sought to construct rail lines throughout the west

What were railroads like in the east and who was the railroad leader there

• Cornelius Vanderbilt lead the modernization of older tracks
• Conversion of Eastern lines to common gauge steel rails and consolidated many smaller rail lines under one company

What were the railroads like in the west and where did they eventually meet

• Transcontinental railroad was constructed by the congressionally appointed Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad companies
• They finally met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah, just north of the Great Salt Lake

How did Bessemer revolutionize steel

Henry Bessemer revolutionized the production of steel when he discovered a way to produce it faster and make it stronger

Describe Andrew Carnegie and what was vertical integration

• A young Scottish immigrant who saw a future in the production of steel and emerged as one of the nation’s wealthiest men by the late 1800s through his Carnegie Steel Company
• Tactic where Carnegie controlled every aspect of the production process for steel from the mining of the ore to the distribution of the finished product

Describe John D. Rockefeller and what was horizontal integration

• A young businessman that soon joined Carnegie as one the nation’s wealthiest men
• Strategy was to control one aspect of the production process of oil, in this case, the refining stage

What is laissez-faire policy

Economic system based on natural market forces, not governments, should regulate the marketplace

What did the Sherman Antitrust Act do

• An attempt to break up the massive monopolies that were dominating the American economy
• Forbade the creation of trusts that were designed to restrain trade
• Failed to specify the difference between trusts that were beneficial to customers and those that were harmful
• Failed to include any real method of enforcement

What did the Homestead Act do

Provided a settler with 160 acres of land if he promised to live on it and work it for at least five years

Who is Thomas Nast

A political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, became William Tweed’s archenemy as he began drawing scathing commentaries regarding the machine’s corruption and greed

Who founded the settlement house movement, what did the house do and what was the first one

• Begun by young, college-educated, middle-class women, founded by Jane Addams
• The Hull House was the first private social welfare agency, to assist the poor, combat juvenile delinquency, and help immigrants learn to speak English.

What was the goal of the temperance movement

• Make laws to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages
• Believed prohibition would cure society of a variety of ills, particularly poverty

Who were the leaders of women’s suffrage and where in the US did women gain the right to vote

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony formed the National American Woman Association
• Number of western states did allow women to vote by 1900, Wyoming being the first

What was the ruling in Plessy vs Ferguson

• Ruled that because a car was provided for African-American passengers, the state of Louisiana had not violated the Fourteenth Amendment
• Justices used the “separate but equal” doctrine to justify their decision

What were Jim Crow Laws

Segregated public facilities from drinking fountains to hotel rooms

Compare Booker T. Washington and WEB DuBois

• Washington argued that “the agitation of the questions of social equality is the extremist folly”
• WEB DuBois would demand an end to segregation and the granting of equal rights to all Americans (Talented 10th)

What were three examples of Jim Crow laws

• Poll Taxes
• Liberty Tests
• Grandfather Clause

Which case later overturned Plessy

The Plessy vs Ferguson ruling would later be overturned in 1954 by Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka Kansas

What were tenement buildings

Poorly built, overcrowded housing where many immigrants lived

What did the Dawes Act do

• Attempt to “civilize” Native Americans
• Stripped tribes of their official federal recognition and land rights and would grant individual Indian families land and citizenship in 25 years if they “behaved”

What did the Morrill Land-Grant Act do

• Intended to stimulate higher education in the states
• Federal gov. gave hundreds of thousands of acres of public land to state governments

What was life like for those who attempted to farm in the west

• Conditions on the western plains were harsh
• Because of the lack of trees and wood, many settlers had to build their homes out of sod
• Water was often in short supply, and tainted sources of water spread diseases such as typhoid

What were bonanza farms

• Large farms that came to overcome agricultural life in a lot of the west in the late 1800s.

• Large amounts of machinery were used, and workers were hired laborers, often performing only specific tasks

Which was the first state to grant women’s suffrage

Wyoming led the way in giving women the right to vote in statewide elections

What were Exodusters

• Most famous group of African Americans to leave the South for the West
• They modeled their journey on the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promise Land

What was the Grange and what did it do

• Organization that formed farmer cooperatives to enable members to enjoy economies of scale by buying and marketing products
• Organized politically and sponsored state legislation to regulate railroads and grain elevators

Who was Mary Lease

Popular speaker, telling farmers to “raise less corn and more hell”

What did the Interstate Commerce Act do

Planned to regulate railroads but did not prove effective

What party represented farmers and what were some of its goals

• The Populist Party hoped to unite all working people across the country
• Called for increasing the amount of senators, gov. ownership of railroads, and the eight-hour day for workers

Who were the presidential candidates in 1896 and how did they differ

• Republican, William McKinley, conducted a “front porch” campaign
• Democrat, William Bryan, campaigned vigorously throughout the swing states of the Midwest

Which party benefited from 1896

The debate of Bryan and the Populist free-silver movement initiated an era of Republican dominance of the presidency and of both houses of Congress

What were some other effects of the election of 1896

• Populist Demise
• Urban Dominance
• Beginning of Modern Politics

What was the Turner Thesis

• Jackson Turner asserted that the American national character was shaped by the move west
• He argued that American democracy and self-reliance were products of the frontier experiences

What caused the creation of labor unions

• Labor was doing the heavy lifting for the country
• Ten-plus hours a day, six days a week, and unsafe conditions created a vacuum that labor unions attempted to fill

Describe the American Federation of Labor

Would see the greatest and longest-lasting success of all unions because of their use of collective bargaining and focus on “bread and butter” issues

What were some ways business handled labor dissent

• Closing the factory
• “Locking out” the workers
• Keeping them from obtaining their day’s pay

Where were most of the new immigrants from

Most immigrants came from Northern Europe, usually from the British Isles and Germany

Where did most new immigrants arrive when they came to the US

The federal gov. opened Ellis Island in New York City harbor as a reception center

What were some acts that limited immigration

• Chinese Exclusion Act
• Webb Alien Land Act