UGA Hist 2112 Exam 1 Study Guide - Key Terms & Definitions

Freedman's bureau

engaged in many initiatives to ease transition from slavery to freedom

- Delivered food to blacks and whites in the south

-Helped freed people get labor contracts

- Reunite families of freed people

- Set up education systems for freed men and poor whites

- 1865

Black codes

Southern states began to pass to scrimmage worry loss

- They were meant to maintain social and economic structure of racial slavery in the absence of actual slavery

- Restricted civil participation of blacks from the right to vote, serve on juries, rights to own weapons, right to own/lease land

-1865-1866

Pacific Railroad act

Pivotal in helping settlers move west more quickly as well as mover farm product and later cattle and mining deposits back east

- Commissions the Union Pacific Railroad to build new track west from Omaha while Central Pacific Railroad moved east from Sacramento

- Gave the companies ownership of all land within 200 feet of both sides of the tracks

- Established the first continental railroad that met at promontory point Utah

-1862

Dawes Severalty Act

- Ended tribal rule and divided native lands into 160-acre parcels, allocating each parcel to the head of each family.- The government held the lands in trust for them for 25 years, at which point, they would receive American citizenship.- What land remained after allocation- and it was a significant amount- would be sold in an open market.- In return, natives had to abandon cultural traditions.This act resulted in natives losing almost 80 million acres of their land, and the land they were allowed to keep was inferior to the "excess" and they had difficulty cultivating it. Plus, additional legislation required native children to be sent to boarding schools, where they were given "American" names and stripped further of any native traditions.

-1887

White man's burden

the belief by social reformers that Anglo-Saxon race members were mentally superior and owed the presumed less evolved populations their stewardship and social uplift

- 1899

Roosevelt corollary

In 1904 stated that the colonization of the west has ended and further attempts by European counterparts would no longer be tolerated

- Also said that if the US saw issues are rotting in Central and South AmericaThe US would come in to maintain peace and order throughout the hemisphere

- Based off the Monroe doctrine

- The US would act as "an international police power" to correct any wrongdoing by Latin American regions

-1904

Omaha platform

a platform created by the populist party with the goal to fully explain to all Americans the goal of the new party

- Vilified railroad owners, bankers, and big businessmanAs all being part of a widespread conspiracy to control farmers

- Called for adoption of sub treasury plan, government control of railroads, and an end to the natural bank system, creation of federal income tax, direct election of US senators

- All aimed for a more proactive federal government to support economic and social welfare for all Americans

-1892

W.E.B. du Bois

A professor at an all black Atlanta University who was the first black with a doctorate from Harvard

- Lead a group of prominent civil rights leaders to start a movement dubbed the Niagara movement

- Drafted the "Declaration of principles" Which called for immediate political, economic, and social equality for African-Americans

- Niagara movement laid the foundations for the NAACP

-First half of 1900s

Progressive party

A party created by Roosevelt and other progressive Republicans after Roosevelt felt he was snubbed by the Republican Party when Taft received denomination

- Became known as the "Bull Moose party" After Roosevelt continued his speech after surviving an assassination attempt

- formed 1912

Sharecropping

- Attempt at economic independence for freedmen or poor whites- Entered tenant contracts with large landowners who provided land and supplies in exchange for labor. Laborers were compensated with the harvest.- Intended to be beneficial for both parties, but benefited the white landowners more.- The croppers became dependent on the landowner for housing, work and money, and sharecropping turned into a new version of slavery.

-1865-1877

Manifest Destiny

The phrase, coined by journalist John O'Sullivan, which came to stand for the idea that white Americans had a calling and a duty to seize and settle the American West with Protestant democratic values

-1812-1867

Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie's famous essay that writes the responsibility of the wealthy for being given an opportunity to succeed from American capitalism. He states that the wealthy should find proper uses for their wealth by funding hospitals, libraries, colleges, the arts, and more

1889

Plessy v. Ferguson

- Upheld legality of Jim Crow laws- Court ruled that as long as "separate but equal" facilities were provided, it was constitutional and did not violate the equal protection clause from the 14th amendment- A justice explains: "If one race can be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution cannot put them on the same plane." Civil rights laws can't change racial destiny.

-1896

Booker T. Washington

-A man born into slavery in Virginia 1856, became an influential African American leader at the outset of the Progressive Era

- Took a more progressive approach to gaining civil rights. Thought blacks should get an education and have something provide to the country/civilization.

- Late 1800s to Early 1900s

Direct Primary

A political reform that allowed for the nomination of candidates through a direct vote by party members, rather than by the choice of delegates at conventions; in the South, this strengthened all-white solidarity within the Democratic Party

Settlement house movement

An early progressive reform movement, largely spearheaded by women, which sought to offer services such as childcare and free healthcare to help the working poor.

-1884

Herbert Spencer

-Applied Darwins ideas to human society (Thjis was not intended by Darwin)

-Survival of the fittest

-Justified big biz, ideas of race superiority, and imperialization

Granger Laws

A set of laws designed to address railroad discrimination against small farmers, covering issues like railroad rates

- It accomplished the regulation of railroad rates and the practices of grain elevator owners

- 1860-1870

Streetcar suburbs

A community developed on the outskirts of a city, made possible by the introduction of electric streetcars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

- Facilitating the mass expansion of American cities

Williams v. Mississippi

The court upheld the constitutionality of Mississippi’s laws that use to poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent African Americans from voting

- Gave judicial approval to Jim Crow–era voting restrictions, enabling nearly complete Black disenfranchisement in the South for over half a century

- 1898