APUSH Chapter 19 Vocab

Pendleton Act

An 1883 law establishing a nonpartisan Civil Service Commission to fill federal jobs by examination. The Pendleton Act dealt a major blow to the "spoils system" and sought to ensure that government positions were filled by trained, professional employees.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Landmark 1890 act that forbade anticompetitive business activities, requiring the federal government to investigate trusts and any companies operating in violation of the act.

Lodge Bill

Also known as the Federal Elections Bill of 1890, a bill proposing that whenever 100 citizens in any district appealed for intervention, a bipartisan federal board could investigate and seat the rightful winner. The defeat of the bill was a blow to those seeking to defend African American voting rights and to ensure full participation in politics.

Omaha Platform

An 1892 statement by the Populists calling for public ownership of transportation and communication networks, protection of land from monopoly and foreign ownership, looser monetary policy, and a federal income tax on the rich.

free silver

A policy of loosening the money supply by expanding federal coinage to include silver as well as gold. Advocates of the policy thought it would encourage borrowing and stimulate industry, but the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan ended the "free silver" movement and gave Republicans power to retain the gold standard.

Williams v. Mississippi

An 1898 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to impose poll taxes and literacy tests. By 1908, every southern state had adopted such measures to suppress voting by African Americans and some poor whites.

Solid South

Term applied to the one-party (Democrat) system of the South following the Civil War. For 100 years after the Civil War, the South voted Democrat in every presidential election.

Square Deal

Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 campaign platform, calling for regulation of corporations and protection of consumers and the environment.

Hepburn Act

A 1906 antitrust law that empowered the federal Interstate Commerce Commission to set railroad shipment rates wherever it believed that railroads were unfairly colluding to set prices.

Standard Oil decision

A 1911 Supreme Court decision that directed the breakup of the Standard Oil Company into smaller companies because its overwhelming market dominance and monopoly power violated antitrust laws.

Newlands Reclamation Act

A 1902 law, supported by President Theodore Roosevelt, that allowed the federal government to sell public lands to raise money for irrigation projects that expanded agriculture on arid lands.

Wisconsin Idea

A policy promoted by Republican governor Robert La Follette of Wisconsin for greater government intervention in the economy, with reliance on experts, particularly progressive economists, for policy recommendations.

Muller v. Oregon

A 1908 Supreme Court case that upheld an Oregon law limiting women's workday to ten hours, based on the need to protect women's health for motherhood. Muller complicated the earlier decision in Lochner v. New York, laying out grounds on which states could intervene to protect workers. It divided women's rights activists, however, because some saw its provisions as discriminatory.

mothers' pensions

Progressive Era public payments to mothers who did not have help from a male breadwinner. Recipients had to meet standards of "respectability" defined by middle-class home visitors, reflecting a broader impulse to protect women but hold them to different standards than men.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

A radical labor group founded in 1905, dedicated to organizing unskilled workers to oppose capitalism. Nicknamed the Wobblies, they advocated direct action by workers, including sabotage and general strikes.

talented tenth

A term used by Harvard-educated sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois for the top 10 percent of educated African Americans, whom he called on to develop new strategies to advocate for civil rights.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

An organization founded in 1909 by leading African American reformers and white allies as a vehicle for advocating equal rights for African Americans, especially through the courts.

New Nationalism

Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 proposal to enhance public welfare through a federal child labor law, more recognition of labor rights, a national minimum wage for women, women's suffrage, and curbs on the power of federal courts.

Federal Reserve Act

The central bank system of the U.S. created in 1913. The Federal Reserve helps set the money supply level, thus influencing the rate of growth in the U.S. economy, and seeks to ensure the stability of the U.S. monetary system.

Clayton Antitrust Act

A 1914 law that gave more power to the Justice Department to pursue antitrust cases to prevent corporations from exercising monopoly power; it also specified that labor unions could not generally be prosecuted for "restraint of trade."

"waving the bloody shirt"

An expression used as a vote getting stratagem by the Republicans during the election of 1876 to offset charges of corruption by blaming the Civil War on the Democrats.

Gilded Age

A name for the late 1800s, coined by Mark Twain to describe the tremendous increase in wealth caused by the industrial age and the ostentatious lifestyles it allowed the very rich. The great industrial success of the U.S. and the fabulous lifestyles of the wealthy hid the many social problems of the time, including a high poverty rate, a high crime rate, and corruption in the government.

Mugwumps

Republican Party activists who had switched to the Democratic Party because they did not like the financial corruption that was associated with the Republican candidate James G. Blaine in 1884.

recall

procedure whereby voters can remove an elected official from office

referendum

a legislative act is referred for final approval to a popular vote by the electorate

William Jennings Bryan

Democratic candidate for president in 1896 under the banner of "free silver coinage" which won him support of the Populist Party.

Theodore Roosevelt

26th president, known for: conservationism, trust-busting, Hepburn Act, safe food regulations, "Square Deal," Panama Canal, Great White Fleet, Nobel Peace Prize for negotiation of peace in Russo-Japanese War

WEB DuBois

Opposed Booker T. Washington. Wanted social and political integration as well as higher education for 10% of African Americans-what he called a "Talented Tenth". Founder of the Niagara Movement which led to the creation of the NAACP.

Eugene V. Debs

Leader of the American Railway Union, he voted to aid workers in the Pullman strike. He was jailed for six months for disobeying a court order after the strike was over.

lynching

putting a person to death by mob action without due process of law --> often happened to black men

Roosevelt's legacies

things he left behind (teddy bear, anti-trust act, national park service, etc.)

progressive goals

protecting social welfare, promoting moral improvement, creating economic reform, fostering efficiency

Woodrow Wilson

28th president of the United States, known for World War I leadership, created Federal Reserve, Federal Trade Commission, Clayton Antitrust Act, progressive income tax, lower tariffs, women's suffrage (reluctantly), Treaty of Versailles, sought 14 points post-war plan, League of Nations (but failed to win U.S. ratification), won Nobel Peace Prize

populism

the political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite