Semester 1 Final Exam Study Guide: US History

These vocabulary flashcards cover key terms, legislation, and events from the Missouri Compromise through the New Deal, as detailed in the Semester 1 Final Exam Study Guide.

Missouri Compromise

An $1820$ agreement that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while drawing a line across the Louisiana Territory at latitude $36^\circ 30'$ to regulate slavery.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

An $1854$ act introduced by Stephen Douglas that opened territories to settlement based on popular sovereignty, effectively overturning the Missouri Compromise.

Lincoln's Position on Slavery

Abraham Lincoln opposed the extension of slavery into western territories, calling it a moral, social, and political wrong, though he stated he would not interfere where it already existed.

Anaconda Plan

The Union's military strategy involving a naval blockade, seizing control of the Mississippi River, and capturing Richmond to economically strangle the Confederacy.

Total War

A military policy of doing whatever is necessary to undermine an enemy's capacity to fight, including destroying civilian infrastructure and crops, as seen in Sherman's March to the Sea.

Emancipation Proclamation

An executive order issued by Lincoln on January $1$, $1863$, declaring all people enslaved in states in rebellion against the United States to be forever free.

Battle of Gettysburg

A major turning point in the Civil War fought July $1-3$, $1863$, which halted General Lee's invasion of the North after the Confederacy suffered more than $50,000$ casualties.

54th Massachusetts Regiment

A famous all-Black unit that fought valiantly during an assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in July $1863$, helping to win acceptance for Black soldiers in the Union Army.

Thirteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment passed during the Reconstruction Era that officially abolished and prohibited slavery throughout the United States.

Freedmen's Bureau

A federal agency established to provide medical care, food, and education to formerly enslaved people, building more than $1,000$ schools.

Radical Republicans

Members of Congress who pushed for a harsher Reconstruction policy, military rule in the South, and full civil and political rights for African Americans.

14th Amendment

A constitutional amendment that granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people.

15th Amendment

A constitutional amendment that prohibited the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, granting African American men the right to vote.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An $1896$ Supreme Court case that established the 'separate but equal' doctrine, providing constitutional justification for racial segregation.

Homestead Act

An $1862$ law that provided $160$ acres of public land to settlers for a small fee if they agreed to live on and work the land for five years.

Dawes Act

An $1887$ federal law that ended tribal ownership of reservation lands, distributing plots to individual members to encourage assimilation into White settler culture.

Capitalism

An economic system in which the means of production, such as factories and equipment, are privately owned rather than controlled by the government.

Laissez-faire

An economic doctrine translating to 'allow to do,' which argued that the market would regulate itself through supply and demand without government interference.

Collective Bargaining

Negotiations held between employers and employee representatives regarding wages, hours, and working conditions.

Pendleton Act

An $1883$ law that addressed patronage by creating a civil service commission to administer exams and ensure merit-based hiring for government jobs.

Party Boss

A leader who controlled a corrupt political machine, such as William 'Boss' Tweed, by managing access to city jobs, business contracts, and elections.

The Jungle

A $1906$ novel by Upton Sinclair that exposed unsanitary conditions in meatpacking plants, leading to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act.

Direct Initiative

A progressive lawmaking reform that allows citizens to propose and pass laws directly by collecting signatures on a petition for a ballot measure.

Referendum

A reform in which a law passed by a state legislature is placed on the ballot for approval or rejection by the voters.

Suffrage

The right to vote, which was extended to women nationwide via the Nineteenth Amendment in $1920$.

Payne-Aldrich Bill

A $1909$ bill signed by President Taft that raised tariffs, angering Progressives and contributing to a split in the Republican Party.

Wilson's New Freedom

Woodrow Wilson's reform program aimed at eliminating all trusts to restore economic freedom for small businesses and ordinary citizens.

Realism

A school of thought in U.S. foreign policy based on the belief that relations with other countries should be guided by national self-interest and practical objectives.

Platt Amendment

Legislation the U.S. forced Cuba to add to its constitution, allowing the U.S. to intervene in Cuban affairs and establish naval bases like Guant\u00e1namo Bay.

Open Door Policy

A series of policy statements issued by John Hay calling for free trade in China and the preservation of Chinese independence.

Panama Canal

A $51$-mile waterway completed in $1914$ that connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, providing significant strategic and economic advantages to the U.S.

Big Stick Policy

President Theodore Roosevelt's approach to foreign affairs, characterized by using 'international police power' to preserve order in the Western Hemisphere.

Dollar Diplomacy

President Taft's foreign policy focused on encouraging and protecting American trade and investment in Latin America and Asia.

Zimmermann Note

A secret coded message from Germany to Mexico proposed an alliance against the U.S. in $1917$, which helped push the United States into World War I.

Great Migration

The mass movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the Jim Crow South to Northern cities like Chicago and New York during and after World War I.

Sedition Act of 1918

A wartime law that criminalized saying anything 'disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive' about the U.S. government.

Schenck v. United States

A $1919$ Supreme Court case that upheld restrictions on free speech during wartime if the speech created a 'clear and present danger.'

Palmer Raids

A series of campaign raids in $1919-1920$ targeting suspected radicals, involving the arrest of $6,000$ people often without warrants.

Emergency Immigration Act of 1921

A law that capped annual immigration at $375,000$ and introduced a quota system limiting immigrants based on their country of origin's residents in the U.S. in $1910$.

Harlem Renaissance

An outpouring of African American creativity in the $1920$s centered in Harlem, involving figures like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Duke Ellington.

Black Tuesday

October $29$, $1929$, the day the stock market crashed catastrophically, marking the beginning of the Great Depression.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act

A $1930$ law that raised tariffs to record-high levels, triggering a global trade war and worsening the Great Depression.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

A government agency created by Herbert Hoover in $1932$ to provide loans to banks, railroads, and big businesses to stimulate the economy.

First Hundred Days

An extraordinary period of legislative activity at the start of FDR's presidency in $1933$ that saw the passage of numerous relief, recovery, and reform bills.

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)

A New Deal agency that paid farmers to plant fewer crops to reduce supply and raise prices to reach parity.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

A Second New Deal program that employed over $3$ million Americans to build bridges, public buildings, and parks, while also supporting arts and literacy.

Social Security Act

A $1935$ law that established a social insurance program providing retirement benefits, disability benefits, and unemployment insurance.