US History Final Exam Keywords (Significance not definitions)

not definitions!!

Vertical Integration

One part of the ways industries gained money and grew

Robber Barons

Used to describe successful industrialists who were seen as “unethical.”

Social Darwinism

Used to justify the accumulation of wealth, racism, and imperialism

Dawes Act

Attempted cultural removal through assimilation of Native Americans by the U.S. government

Ghost Dance

This terrified US officials, and eventually was used as justification for the wounded knee massacre.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Banned businesses from colluding or merging to form a monopoly but it was also used to break up unions and punish strikers

Populists

People who believed an idea and appealed to emotion rather than reason and they almost always implied a conspiracy

Atlanta Compromise

**To encourage African Americans to temporarily accept the status quo in order to advance economically to the point that white communities would accept Black people as equal in business and eventually would have equality**

Disenfranchisement

Loss of voting rights

Plessy v Ferguson

Made "separate but equal", also known as segregation, as constitutional

New Immigrants

Came from Southern and Eastern Europe, and did not receive a warm welcome because of nativism and racism

Chinese Exclusion Act

First large law that restricted immigration into the United States of an ethnic working group. 

Progressivism

 A faith in government power and the belief that we can use that power to regulate society so that more people can realize their full potential

Settlement House

Provided educational, and recreational social services to immigrants

Pure Food and Drug Act

A key piece of Progressive Era legislation to regulate what we put into our bodies

Fourteen Points

Wilson’s plan to achieve “peace without victory”

Espionage and Sedition Acts

In an effort to mobilize the country for war, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918.

NAACP

Civil rights organization founded to fight prejudice, lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and inequality

(Two) Great Migrations

The ____ aggravated racial tensions throughout the United States

Tulsa Riot

Massacre of highly successful Black people by white people

Versailles Treaty

Ended the war between Germany and the Allied Powers. Punished Germany, which set the stage for World War II

League of Nations

Part of Wilson’s plan to achieve peace without victory

Flapper

They were considered the first generation of independent American women, flappers pushed barriers in economic, political and sexual freedom for women.

Scopes Trial

Tennessee trial pitting Christian Fundamentalism against Darwins theory of evolution

Harlem Renaissance

African American literary and cultural movement celebrating Black culture

Great Depression

Major economic downturn that was overcome with massive government spending to put people to work and to fight in World War Two

New Deal

FDR’s plan for relief, recovery and reform to end the Great Depression.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

This relief program employed single, young men by putting them to work on various building and beautifying projects around the nation.

Agricultural Adjustment Act

This plan relied on farmers to work with the government to bring up the price of food products.

Federal Housing Administration

Created by the government to promote home ownership by offering discount mortgages with government backing.

Share Our Wealth Movement

Huey Long’s program was a response to some of the shortcomings of the New Deal.

Social Security Act

Its pension plan was one of the most heavily criticized New Deal programs

Lend-Lease Act

Modification of the Neutrality Acts that allowed FDR to supply the Allies with materials and weapons

GI Bill of Rights

Government support of veterans that was typically reserved for white males

Zoot Suit Riots

White mob violence direct toward Latinos

Korematsu v. United States

Supreme Court decision upholding the internment of Japanese Americans

Double V

Victory over racism abroad and at home

United Nations

Rooted in liberal internationalism as pioneered by the League of Nations

NNM

A movement to celebrate Black pride, showcasing Black talent, and raising awareness about Black struggles through the arts and humanities.

Containment

The guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War aka the Truman Doctrine

Decolonization

Coincided with the new Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and the early development of the new United Nations.

McCarthyism

AKA the Second Red Scare/ political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and socialist influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s.

Levittown

For returning veterans and their new families, the communities offered attractive alternatives to cramped, central city locations and apartments but wasn’t open to Black veterans

Baby Boom

Demographic bubble that continues to affect the United States. Increase in the birth rate after WWII.

Urban Renewal

Tearing down dilapidated neighborhoods in the name of progress": the process of seizing and demolishing large swaths of private and public property for the purpose of modernizing and improving aging infrastructure.

Brown v Board of Education

Overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1896) - the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional.

SCLC

a civil rights organization founded in 1957, as an offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which successfully staged a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery Alabama's segregated bus system

Southern Manifesto

White backlash against the integration promised by Brown v. Board of Education

Military-industrial complex

President Eisenhower’s warning that profits, not actual security risks, were causing war

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

Used sit-ins to provoke a response in their protests for civil rights

Cuban Missile Crisis

direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict

Civil Rights Act

Outlawed segregation in public places and in employment

Voting Rights ACt

Moving toward political equality regardless of race

Great Society

Represented the most sweeping social welfare bill since the New Deal.

Black Power

A direct result of the slow pace of civil rights reform. The belief that when attacked, Black people should be able to fight back → urge economic independence and start/support buisnesses

Gulf of Tonkin resolution

Gave President Johnson the power to launch a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

Counterculture

Grew out of a shared frustration with a culture seen as too materialistic and shallow.

The Feminine Mystique

A new turn for the feminist movement that revealed societal pressures for women to do unpaid work at home instead of paid work in the broader economy

Stonewall Inn

A 1969 raid by NYC police here launched the gay rights movement.

Silent Spring

That spraying chemicals to control insect populations can also kill birds that feed on dead or dying insects. Launched the modern environmentalist movement.

Roe v. Wade

Protected a woman’s right to privacy and struck down state prohibitions against abortion during the first trimester.

Tet Offensive

Although American forces quickly recovered, this was a major psychological blow to the American people.

Affirmative Action

Designed to promote career opportunities for minorities who have historically been excluded from these pathways to long-term financial success.

Détente

Relaxation of strained relations between nations.

My Lai Massacre

Slaughter of Vietnamese women and children that added to a growing sense among the American public that our government was lying to us about the Vietnam War.

Watergate

A break-in here led to the resignation of President Nixon and to a growing cynicism among Americans about our government.

Deindustrialization

Involved the transformation of the United States from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.

Sunbelt

Massive population growth here following World War Two led to greater political power for this region in the 1980s. Part of the US that’s most of the states in the South.

Reagonomics

Trying to stimulate the economy by freeing up profits for corporations and the wealthiest Americans. (tax cuts, decreased social spending, increased military spending, and deregulation of domestic markets)

Globalization

Highly disruptive process that has drastically reduced global poverty.

Bush v. Gore

Supreme Court decision that made George Bush president. Ruled that the state of Florida's court-ordered manual recount of vote ballots in the 2000 presidential election was unconstitutional

War on terrorism

Militaristic approach to ending anti-Americanism around the world.

Obergefell v. Hodges

The 14th Amendment requires all states to license marriages between same-sex couples and to recognize all marriages that were lawfully performed out of state.

Tea Party

conservative republicans opposed to government growth and taxes. Won in 2010 elections. Populist conservative movement that portrays the government as the true source of their constituents’ problems

American Exceptionalism

the belief that the US is very special and unique because they have an optimistic and humanistic view on society to change the future and learn from the past