APUSH Antebellum Important Vocabulary

Stages of Economic Development

Created by Walt Whitman Rostow-- Traditional Society, Pre-conditions for Industrial takeoff, Take off, Drive to Industrial Maturity, High Mass Consumption

Traditional Society

Agrarian Substinence farming; barter trade- trading goods for other goods.

Pre-Conditions of Industrial Takeoff:

Increased specialization, more trade, more entrepreneurs; trade by exchange of capital for products.

Access to Raw Materials (precondition)

Inventions like the McCormick Reaper and the Cotton gin helped increase production and jumpstart industrialization. Harvesting was faster, and production was greater at a lower cost, there was a greater demand for enslaved labor and also westward expansion.

Reliable Power Source (precondition)

Waterfalls helped expand power mills in northern areas. This decreased labor costs, and eventually, water power was replaced by steam, coal, and oil power.

Steady Labor Supply (precondition)

In the South, there was a heavy dependence on enslaved labor, and they refused any limit on enslaved labor. Women and girls were also in the workforce through the Lowell system, which paid them less because women's work was viewed as either supplementary (to the man's work) or temporary (before they had kids). Immigrants also were a labor source, first from Ireland and then from western and northern Europe.

Effective Transportation System (precondition)

Turnpikes (1790-1820) aided faster ground transportation and lowered costs. Canals (1800-1830) enabled water transportation and connected lakes and rivers. Steamboats (after 1800) were faster and cheaper water transportation that could finally go upstream. Railroads (after 1830) were cheaper and faster ground transportation.

Take-Off

Industrialization based on a few basic industries. Political and Social Institutions support these industries.

Drive to Industrial Maturity

The economy diversifies even more; with greater products, and fewer imports (more self-reliance).

High Mass Consumption

Consumerism and Consumption, service sector emergers (things services for the people like Uber Eats or Amazon)

"Peculiar Institution"

How the South referred to slavery, meaning unique to them.

"Necessary Evil"

People like Thomas Jefferson believed that slavery was problematic, but they couldn't do anything about it, so they should just keep it.

"Positive Good"

Others like John C. Calhoun (and many Southerners) believed slavery was good because it benefitted them and their farms/plantations.

Cotton Gin

Mechanically separated seeds from cotton fibers and made a job done by hand become industrialized. Helped produce more cotton and encouraged more enslaved labor.

Outlawing the International Slave Trade

Missouri Compromise

Allowed Missouri to be admitted as a slave state and protected slavery where it already existed but prohibited slavery anywhere above the 36 30' line.

"Firebell in the Night"

Thomas Jefferson's prediction that slavery would bring civil war

Manumission

created a class of free African Americans when the enslaved owners gave freedom papers and manumitted them. This raised questions about property rights, citizenship rights, and integration v. segregation.

American Colonization Society

In 1816, this society was formed to raise funds to send free blacks back to Africa. Some supported because they opposed slavery and others just wanted to get rid of free blacks. Leaders of free blacks hated this idea because they believed they deserved citizenship and that they had built America. However, the society still went through with their plan and sent about 15,000 free blacks on ship over to Liberia.

Abolitionism

Movement for the end of slavery led by William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, David Walker (his writings are speculated to have started Nat Turner rebellion) and Elijah P. Lovejoy (first martyr of abolitionism). They wrote newspapers and books showing the horrors of slavery and encouraged immediate unaccompanied abolition. This led to writings like "Ain't I a Woman" (Sojourner Truth) and "Appeal to colored Citizens of the World" (David Walker), as well as Nat Turner's rebellion. The Grimke sisters also helped support abolition in the South. During the reform era, people began to recognize if they were supposed to "love their neighbor as themselves" and the enslaved person was their neighbor, slavery was unjust.

American Anti-Slavery Society

Formed by Free blacks, William Lloyd Garrison, and many others to fight for the ending of slavery. Arthur and Lewis Tappan also joined and provided monetary funding.

Deism

Religion of Enlightenment thinkers that believed someone started this world, but the rest was subject to supernaturalness.

Unitarianism

Deists called themselves this and only believed in God the Father. They believed in logic and reasoning, the divinity of God, and the humanity of Jesus, and they were mainly confined to the vicinity of Boston.

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth

Jefferson cut out everything in the bible that wasn't provable by science and created this book with the text that was left.

Second Great Awakening -- Southern Wave

Began in Cane Ridge, KY, in 1801 (rural part of the south) and spread throughout the south. They wanted a godly post-revolutionary society to save souls (trying to find god in the world again). They spread their word through camp meetings and tent revivals, and this wave resulted in lay preachers and more churches focusing on the literal truth of the bible.

Second Great Awakening -- Northern Wave

Southern revivals spread to the north revived churches, and cleansed society of sinning. They began to correct the misplaced values of post-revolutionary society to reform society's ills and make earth like heaven. They spread this through church revivals, resulting in politically active churches that promoted reform and social change.

Frontier Revivals

Traveling backwoods evangelists and camp meetings were key to frontier revivals. They believed in magic, dreams, etc., and spiritual intensity among frontiersmen was created by evangelists and exhorters. These revivals engaged the whole community, solved division and many were run by women.

Camp Meetings

Organized to encourage churches on the frontier. They were often led by protestant groups and often left people in trances or speaking different tongues. These meetings encouraged the involvement of rural people, especially women.

Evangelicalism

People with a sense of religiosity were spreading the ideas of the awakenings

Burned-Over District

People were attending church but were sinning the 6 other days of the week. They didn't want to apply the good they knew to granting just laws for enslaved people, women, immigrants, etc.

"Make Earth as it is in Heaven"

a religious reform to change the world and become more religious.

"Faith without Works is Dead"

Faith that does not lead the person to do good works is not good faith.

Care for "Less Fortunates"

The ministry is wherever the less fortunate people are so they must go there and help them.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)

Joseph Smith began Mormonism in Palmyra, NY based on his claim that an angel named Moroni had appeared to him and led him to a lost gospel that explained American history. In this discovered history, it said that the Nephites had come across the Atlantic to America, and Jesus had come to talk to them. Smith dismissed all other Christian denominations, criticized the sins of the rich, preached universal salvation, denied hell, told his followers to avoid alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, and said the 2nd coming of Christ was happening.

Book of Mormon

Joseph Smith translated the lost gospel on golden plates into the Book of Mormon.

Nauvoo

Because the Mormons experienced years of persecution, they moved from NYC to Ohio to Missouri, but they were kicked out of Missouri. They then moved to a wetland/mosquito-ridden Illinois, which they renamed the town Nauvoo where they lived separate from the world for many years. Eventually, Joseph Smith was arrested and killed in Jail, so Brigham Young took over in Nauvoo.

Celestial Marriage

Smith believed in polygamy, which is a man having multiple wives.

Salt Lake City

Brigham Young brought the Mormons near Salt Lake City, Utah, because he believed Nauvoo aroused too much suspicion. At the time, this territory was Mexicos, but because of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it became American territory where Young still ruled the Mormons.

Romanticism

A time that unleashed the spirit of the individual. People went against rational thinking and believed humans should act how they feel. They valued the heart, non-conformity, and mystical thinking.

Transcendentalism

This movement promoted radical individualism, spirituality, and looking within. Religious orthodoxy and rationalism of unitarianism weren't accepted because they loved "self-reliance" and spirituality that was uncorrupted by theological dogma and creeds. Transcendentalists wanted everyone to develop their thoughts and beliefs.

Brook Farm

Intellectual Utopia in Massachusetts for Romanticists

Walden (book)

A book by Henry David Thoreau about the beauty and mysticalness of nature.

Civil Disobedience (book)

A book by Henry David Thoreau that encouraged breaking the law if it was creating an injustice to another. He often exhibited this behavior when standing up against slavery or even facing jail time for standing up to President Polk's decision to begin the Mexican-American War just to gain more land for enslaved people.

Temperance

Began with a movement to stop drinking because alcohol brought satan and sin. Trying to protect people from the drunkard's progress.

American Temperance Union

Absolutists created this union in 1833 to fight for alcohol to be prohibited by law. The goal was to help the less fortunate with alcoholism.

The Drunkard's Progress

Drinking alcohol would lead to death and then leaving your family all alone.

The Fruits of Temperance (photo)

image promoting temperance by displaying a happy functional family in which the man practices temperance and therefore does not go down the drunkard's progress and can sustain a positive family life, the image also has references to the role of women in the domestic sphere through the fence separating her from the outside world and her position stuck inside the doorway of the home.

Cult of Domesticity

Women had to practice piety, purity, domesticity and submissiveness and celebrate their "proper" place in the home. Counted on women to be the moral compass because men won't. Women were often named floral or biblical names because they were supposed to just sit and look pretty.

Republican Motherhood

The job of the mother was to teach their sons democracy and teach their daughters how to be good mothers/wives to sons and husbands in republican democracy.

Seneca Falls Convention

convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott where they discussed/fought for women's rights and wrote the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments.

Declaration of Rights and Sentiments

The people at the Seneca Falls convention wrote a paraphrase to the Declaration of Independence saying, "All men and women are created equal". They also stated that any law that placed women "in a position inferior to men are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority." They also urged for the right to vote.

Utopian Communities

groups of people who tried to form a perfect society

Rappites

A religious Utopian community led by George Rapp in Harmony, Indiana. Rapphites believed in heavenly living on earth to prepare for the end of the world through hard work, celibacy (they didn't believe in worldly pleasure if the world was going to end), and separating themselves from wickedness. They didn't succeed because the world didn't end.

Shakers

Led by Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers originated in England and then the rural north of America. They believed the second coming of Christ was going to be a woman (suspected it was Mother Ann Lee, but then she died). They danced to shake off their sins and also believed in hard work and celibacy. They failed because many died out, and it was hard to recruit new members because they practiced celibacy (continued existing into the 20th century).

Oneida Community

Community led by John Noyes in Upstate New York. They believed in perfectionism (Christ had already returned, so there was no sin), complex marriage (every man is married to every woman, and the women chose sexual partners), and mutual criticism (after dinner, they would criticize each other so no one would develop self-importance). They monetized the community when they began to sell silverware. FAILED because John Noyes fled after there was a warrant for arrest for his crimes, people who wanted to partner permanently left, and the Oneida house was abandoned. Silverware company survived.

Millerites

Led by William Miller in Upstate New York, Millerites believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent, and the world would end on October 22nd, 1844, so they gave away all their belongings. They were "great disappointments" and turned into the 7th day adventist

Owenites

A free love commune in Indiana that practiced "enlightened socialism"

Fourierites

Socialist utopian communities across the country that divided into "cooperative phalanxes" (fun jobs shouldn't be paid but hard jobs should)

The Liberator

An antislavery newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison. He stressed this paper belonged to blacks and called for immediate action to end slavery, not just gradualism.

Women's Rights

Lucretia Mott was one of many to realize that to be taken seriously and allowed to speak at public events like the world anti-slavery Convention she needed to help make women and men equal. Margaret Fuller was another supporter who, through her writings, explained the lives of women in the 19th century and how depriving women of their rights disrupts the national order.

Care for the Deaf

Thomas Gallaudet helped change the worldview that deaf people were "incomplete" or "less than" by using sign language to help communication. Separate schools were started for the deaf.

Gallaudet University

Care for the Blind

Samuel Gridley Howe helped the blind by creating the Boston line type (same idea as Brail) and creating separate schools.

Boston Line Type

Same idea as brail, embossed alphabet so the blind could read.

Care for those with Mental Illness

Dorothea Dix was an advocate for mental illness and dismissed the stigma that these people were crazy or insane. She treated mental illnesses just like illnesses (made them like any other person who was sick and needed help).

Asylum and Mental Hospitals

Instead of putting those with mental illnesses in prisons, other places were created specifically for them to take care of their illness

Care for Prisoners

Prisons weren't the solution for prisoners because they just encouraged more crime due to how the prisoners were treated.

Auburn System

A prison system in New York which enforced rigid rules of discipline, while also providing moral instruction and work programs.

Penitentiary

instead of a prison, people are sent here to repent for their sins/crimes.

Recidivism

the tendency of criminals to reoffend. The Auburn system and penitentiaries were trying to avoid this by treating the prisoners with more dignity and helping them reform.

Romanticism

A reaction to the Enlightenment believing intuition is important in addition to intellect. Naturalism and Individualism (celebrating that everyone is their self as well as nature), Change and progress (a natural process that should be sought out), and emotionalism (emotions are ok!).

Hudson River School

Inspired by the Hudson River, the trend of visual art in America started, and all artists were looking at nature and painting it. Emphasized the grandeur of nature, sought to evoke an emotional response, and showed that change was always happening.

Frederick Edwin Church

Artist in the Hudson River school that emphasized romanticism through his art. Painted a famous sunset that shows the change of nature and its beauty.

Thomas Cole

Painted the edge of civilization (change!) and skys where storm clouds were coming to show natural change.

Romantic Literature

writings emphasized nature and people in a state of nature or change

Cooper, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman

Cooper wrote Last of the Mohicans (talks about how colonizers and indigenous people should live in harmony). Melville wrote Moby Dick (a sea captain wants to kill the whale, but nature wins). Hawthorne's works focuses on sin and its consequences, including pride, selfishness, secret guilt, and the impossibility of rooting sin out of the human soul. Poe's writing reflected his fascination with death, which is shown in one of his most famous works, "The Raven". Whitman was a controversial journalist and poet who focused on industrial development, urban life, working men, sailors, and "simple humanity".

Whig Party

Located in the Northeast, they resembled Hamilton's federalist party with a want for a stronger, centralized government and no expansion in enslaved territories.

Manifest Destiny

the idea that US has the god given the right to expand by any means, justifying the mistreatment of natives

Overland Trails

Land route to the western territories across the Mississippi River, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains. 400,000 men, women, and children traveled on these trails in "moving villages" (wagon trains), enduring the tough journey.

Oregon Fever

Oregon was a land in which the British and US had "joint occupation". It had fertile soil, plentiful rainfall, a mild climate, and magnificent forests that spread eastward. People began to travel in masses to the Oregon territory.

Election of 1840

Whigs nominated William Henry Harrison and John Tyler ("Tippecanoe and Tyler too" became their slogan because Harrison was the war hero at Tippecanoe). The Democrats nominated Martin Van Burren, who had just struggled through his last term. The Whigs won!

Curse of Tecumseh

Harrison was elected during a year ending with zero and possibly thanks to the curse of Tecumseh, died only a couple weeks into his presidency.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Finally, the issue of the line between Maine and Canada was solved. Daniel Webster negotiated this and was the only one who wasn't convinced by Clay to leave John Tyler's Cabinet.

Empresarios

Visionary land developers who negotiated with Mexico to let them settle in Texas. This was first led by Moses Austin but then taken over by Stephen Austin when Moses died. He thought it was their job to "Americanize" Texas.

The Old 300

Refers to the settlers who received land grants from Stephen Austin in his Anglo-Texan colony

Texan Independence

In April of 1830, Mexicans outlawed American immigration into Texas because they were worried about their intentions. Americans, however kept coming, and they outnumbered the Tejanos (Texans born in Spain or Mexico). When the Tejanos began to fear that General Santa Anna would free their enslaved people, they became rebellious. When Santa Anna imprisoned Stephen Austin, they transformed themselves into revolutionaries. This began the Texas revolution, and a number of battles led to the independence of Texas.

Alamo

At San Antonio, Santa Anna led his 1,800 men to attack 200 Texians, Tejanos, and recently arrived American volunteers (the majority from Tennessee hence why they're called the volunteers) at a Catholic church called the Alamo. William B. Travis led the Texans refused to follow orders and retreat. David Crockett was a notable Tennessee frontiersman at the battle as well as Jaun Seguin, a Tejano who was tired of Santa Anna's tyranny. The Mexicans ordered the Texans to surrender, but Travis refused, so for 11 days, the Mexicans got destroyed. BUT one day, the Mexicans attacked while the Texans were still sleeping, and round after round, Santa Annas men kept coming. The Texans were defeated, but this battle turned the rebellion into a fight for independence.

Goliad

A couple weeks after the Alamo, A Mexican force defeated the Texans again at the Battle of Coleto. Santa Anna ordered all the captives to be marched to the town of Goliad and refused to show mercy, so then they were marched out of Goliad and murdered.

San Jacinto

Sam Houston had served under Andrew Jackson, like David Crockett, in the War of 1812 and became the Commander in Chief of the Armies of the Republic of Texas. He was angered by the many Mexican victories, so he led his soldiers to the Mexican encampment near the San Jacinto River and surprise attacked the Mexicans during their afternoon siesta. The battle lasted only 18 minutes, and the Texans kept killing Mexican soldiers for two hours after. General Santa Anna was captured and had to buy his freedom.

Texas Statehood

54 40 or Fight

slogan to advocate for claiming all the Oregon territory and no longer sharing it with Great Britain. This was backed by Southern Democrats because enslavers wanted more land for enslaved labor.

Wilmot Proviso

David Wilmot said that If the US was to gain any land in Mexico from Texas, it should be land without slavery

Free Soil Party

Barnburner Democrats and Conscience Whigs formed the Free Soil Party and called the Wilmot Proviso, the Free Soil Doctrine. In the election of 1848, they elected Martin Van Burren as their nominee, but unfortunately, he lost.

Three Fronts of the Mexican War

(1) Border skirmish along the Rio Grande over the Texas border. The Americans, led by Zachary Taylor, ran into Mexicans while they were both trying to defend the border they believed to be theirs. US victories at Monterrey and Buena Vista. (2) California: struggle to support California in their fight for independence. John Fremont supported California rebels in Sonoma. Stephen Watts Kearny captured San Diego. California won its independence and asked to be a part of the United States Union (they haven't been granted statehood yet). (3) American Invasion of Central Mexico. Winfield Scott landed at Veracruz and then pushed into Mexico City and captured it. This forced Mexico to negotiate and led to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Mexico abandoned the claim of Texas, California, and all their Western Lands. The US paid $15 Million for the land and $3 million for war damages.

Election of 1848

The Free soil party elected Marten Van Burren as their candidate, stressing that slavery would not be allowed in the western territories. Whig, Zachary Taylor and Democrat, Lewis Cass received far more votes than Van Burren and Zachary Taylor won.

Oregon Treaty (Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty of 1846)

Polk was willing to go to war with the British over full control of the Oregon territory, but Great Brittain was not. They settled the matter with the treaty stating the border between the United States and British Canada extended westward to the Pacific coast along the 49th parallel.

The Drunkard's Progress

Drinking alcohol would lead to death and then leaving your family all alone.

The Fruits of Temperance (photo)

The Drunkard's Progress

Drinking alcohol would lead to death and then leaving your family all alone.

Celestial Marriage

Smith believed in polygamy, which is a man having multiple wives.