APUSH Chapter 18

P. T. Barnum

A world-famous showman and businessman who revolutionized the entertainment industry in the 19th century. He is best known for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus and for his mastery of ballyhoo—the use of bold, often exaggerated publicity and "humbug" to attract massive crowds.

Ida B. Wells

A pioneering African American investigative journalist, educator, and early civil rights leader who led a fearless anti-lynching crusade in the 1890s. Born into slavery, she spent her life "turning the light of truth" on racial injustice and was a founding member of the NAACP.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A landmark Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the doctrine of "separate but equal." It effectively gave federal approval to Jim Crow laws, allowing states to legally separate Black and white citizens in almost all areas of public life.

Jim Crow laws

A collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the mid-1950s. Named after a derogatory blackface minstrel character, these laws were designed to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education, or use public facilities.

Young Men’s Christian Association

Founded in London in 1844 and arriving in the U.S. in 1851, this association was a community-focused organization that combined evangelical Christianity with social services. During the Gilded Age, it became a massive "refuge" for young men migrating from rural farms to dangerous, industrial cities.

Negro Leagues

Professional baseball leagues composed of African American (and sometimes Latin American) players that thrived between the late 19th century and the mid-1950s. They were a cornerstone of Black economic and cultural life, proving that Black athletes and owners could create a world-class industry despite systemic exclusion.

Gibson Girl

The first national standard for the "ideal" American woman. Created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson in the 1890s, she appeared in magazines like Life, Collier’s, and Harper’s Weekly, becoming the most famous visual icon of the Gilded Age.

Sierra Club

Founded in 1892, this is one of the oldest and most influential environmental organizations in the United States. It was established by a group of enthusiasts, including the naturalist John Muir, who served as its first president.

National Park Service

This federal bureau was established on August 25, 1916, by the Organic Act, signed by President Woodrow Wilson. It was created to provide a unified management system for the 35 existing parks and monuments that were previously managed by a patchwork of different departments.

National Audubon Society

One of the oldest and most influential conservation organizations in the world, this group was formed to protect birds and their habitats. It emerged as a direct response to the "plume trade," where millions of birds were being killed to provide feathers for the high-fashion hats popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Comstock Act

This federal statute, passed in 1873, was named after a self-styled "moral crusader" who served as a special agent for the U.S. Postal Service. It targeted what was then defined as "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" materials, making it a federal crime to send such items through the mail or transport them across state lines.

Liberal arts

This educational philosophy is rooted in the classical tradition of providing a broad, well-rounded foundation of knowledge rather than focusing strictly on technical or professional vocational training. In the context of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it served as the standard for higher education, emphasizing the development of critical thinking, effective communication, and a sense of civic responsibility.

Booker T. Washington

A prominent African American educator, author, and advisor to several presidents, this individual was the most influential Black leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into slavery, he rose to head the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and became the leading voice for a strategy of racial advancement known as "accommodation."

Atlanta Compromise

This refers to the famous 1895 speech delivered at the Cotton States and International Exposition. It laid out a specific strategy for racial progress in the South that prioritized economic self-sufficiency over immediate social and political rights.

Maternalism

This social and political ideology emerged during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, arguing that women's unique roles as mothers gave them a special duty and a right to participate in public life and government policy.

Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement

This organization, founded in 1874, became the largest and most influential women’s group of the 19th century. Under the leadership of Frances Willard, it adopted the "Do Everything" policy, moving far beyond its original focus on alcohol to advocate for a wide range of social and political reforms

United Daughters of the Confederacy

This organization, founded in 1894, was a women's hereditary group composed of female descendants of those who served in the Confederate military. During the Gilded Age and the early 20th century, they became the most influential force in shaping the public memory of the Civil War across the South.

National Association of Colored Women

Formed in 1896 through the merger of several smaller organizations, this group became the most prominent representative of the Black women’s club movement. Its creation was a direct response to the exclusion of African American women from white-led reform groups and the pervasive racial and gender-based attacks on their character during the Gilded Age.

National American Women Suffrage Association

This organization was formed in 1890 from the merger of two rival groups that had split decades earlier over the 15th Amendment. It became the primary coordinating body of the movement to win the vote, eventually boasting over two million members.

Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

This spectacular event, officially held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, served as a massive "progress report" for the United States. It was the ultimate showcase of Gilded Age industrial power, artistic ambition, and deep-seated social contradictions.

On the Origin of Species

Published in 1859, this landmark scientific work by Charles Darwin introduced the theory of natural selection. While its primary focus was biology, its arrival in America on the eve of the Civil War—and its subsequent rise in popularity during the Gilded Age—completely transformed American social, economic, and religious thought.

Social Darwinism

This socio-political theory emerged in the late 19th century as a way to apply the biological concepts of "natural selection" to human society, economics, and politics. It was popularized by thinkers like Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner, who argued that the same laws of nature governing the animal kingdom also applied to the "industrial jungle."

Eugenics

This refers to the pseudoscientific movement that reached its peak in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was based on the idea that the human race could be improved through selective breeding, specifically by encouraging "desirable" populations to reproduce and preventing the "unfit" from doing so.

Realism

In the late 19th century, this movement in art and literature acted as an unfiltered lens on American life. It rejected the dramatic, idealized, and emotional storytelling of the past in favor of an objective, almost clinical observation of the present.

Modernism

In the early 20th century, this movement represented a radical fracture with the past. While the previous generation sought to document the world as it appeared to the eye, this new wave of creators believed that the traditional ways of storytelling, painting, and building had become obsolete in a world shattered by world wars and transformed by machines.

American Protective Association

Founded in 1887 by attorney Henry Francis Bowers in Clinton, Iowa, this secret society was the largest anti-Catholic and nativist organization of the Gilded Age. It emerged as a response to the rapid rise of Catholic immigration and the perceived political power of the Catholic Church in American cities

Social Gospel

This religious and social movement emerged in the late 19th century as a direct challenge to the "survival of the fittest" mentality of the Gilded Age. It argued that Christian ethics should be applied not just to saving individual souls, but to solving the massive structural problems caused by industrialization and urbanization.

Fundamentalism

In the early 20th century, this movement emerged as a militant reaction within American Protestantism against the rise of Modernism and the Social Gospel. It sought to "return to the basics" by asserting that certain core doctrines were non-negotiable and must be accepted as literal truth.

Billy Sunday

In the early 20th century, this figure was the most famous and influential evangelist in America. A former Major League Baseball player, he traded his outfielder’s glove for the pulpit, bringing a high-energy, theatrical, and quintessentially American style to religious revivalism