APUSH Period 6

Transcontinental Railroad

Completed in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, it linked the eastern railroad system with California's railroad system, revolutionizing transportation in the west.

Great American Desert

The vast arid territory that included the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Western Plateau. Known as this before 1860, they were the lands between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast.

Vaqueros

Skilled riders who herded cattle on ranches in Mexico, California, and the Southwest.

Cattle drives

The migration of massive numbers of cattle to the railroads where they could be shipped to the East

Homestead Act

Passed in 1862, it gave 160 acres of public land to any settler who would farm the land for five years. The settler would only have to pay a registration fee of $25.

Joseph Glidden

Inventor of barbed wire

Dry farming

A farming method used in dry regions in which crops are grown that rely only on the natural precipitation.

National Grange Movement

Organized in 1868 by Oliver H. Kelley as a social and educational organization for farmers and their families.

Munn v. Illinois

1877 Supreme Court decision that allowed states to regulate certain businesses within their borders.

Ocala Platform

A (farmers) platform that would have significant impact in later years: They supported 1) direct election of US senators, 2) lower tariff rates, 3) a graduated income tax, and 4) a new banking system regulated by the federal govt.

Frederick Jackson Turner

American historian who said that humanity would continue to progress as long as there was new land to move into. The frontier provided a place for the homeless and solved social problems.

Little Big Horn

General George Custer and his men were wiped out by a coalition of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

Ghost Dance Movement

The last effort of Native Americans to resist US domination and drive whites from their ancestral lands came through as a religious movement.

Helen Hunt Johnson

United States writer of romantic novels about the unjust treatment of Native Americans (1830

assimilation

the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another

Dawes Act of 1887

Tried to civilize Indians and make them more little settlers by giving them land to farm, instead it harmed their native culture

Indian Reorganization Act

1934 law that granted a new degree of autonomy to Native Americans in the United States, giving them greater control over their lands and allowing them to form legally recognized tribal governments

Santa Fe Trail

Trail from independence Missouri to Santa Fe New Mexico in the mid

deforestation

The removal of trees faster than forests can replace themselves.

Forest Reserve Act of 1891

Authorized the President to set aside public forests as National Parks and other reserves

Forest Management Act of 1897

Withdrew federal timberlands from development and regulated their use

John Muir

(1838-1914) Naturalist who believed the wilderness should be preserved in its natural state. He was largely responsible for the creation of Yosemite National Park in California.

New South

Idea that the south should industrialize after the Civil War. Despite calls for industrialization, sharecropping and tenant farming persisted in the South

Henry Grady

Journalist from Georgia who coined the phrase "New South". Promoted his ideas through the Atlanta Constitution, as editor. He planned Atlanta's International Cotton Exposition

National rail network

Roadways and railways making travel more efficient

Tenant farmers

Farmer who works land owned by another and pays rent either in cash or crops

Sharecroppers

A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.

George Washington Carver

African American farmer and food scientist. His research improved farming in the South by developing new products using peanuts.

Tuskegee Institute

Booker T. Washington built this school to educate black students on learning how to support themselves and prosper

White supremacists

Advocate of the superiority of the white race, racist

Civil Rights Cases of 1883

(A single decision on a group of cases with similar legal problems). Legalized segregation with regard to private property.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

Jim Crow laws

State laws in the South that legalized segregation.

Literacy tests

Methods used to deny African Americans the vote in the South that tested a person's ability to read and write, they were done very unfairly so even though most African Americans could read and write by the 1950's they still failed.

Poll taxes

Small taxes levied on the right to vote that often fell due at a time of year when poor African American sharecroppers had the least cash on hand. This method was used by most Southern states to exclude African Americans from voting. Poll taxes were declared void by the Twenty fourth Amendment in 1964.

Grandfather clauses

A clause in registration laws allowing people who do not meet registration requirements to vote if they or their ancestors had voted before 1867.

Ida B. Wells

African American journalist. published statistics about lynching, urged African Americans to protest by refusing to ride streetcards or shop in white owned stores

International Migration Society

Formed by Bishop Henry Turner, helped blacks emigrate to Africa

Booker T. Washington

Prominent black American, born into slavery, who believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society, was head of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. His book "Up from Slavery."

Atlanta Compromise

Argument put forward by Booker T. Washington that African Americans should not focus on civil rights or social equality but concentrate on economic self

W.E.B. DuBois

Opposed Booker T. Washington. Wanted social and political integration as well as higher education for 10% of African Americans

Transatlantic cable

Is an undersea cable running under the Atlantic Ocean used for telegraph communications. The first was laid across the floor of the Atlantic.

Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor of the telephone

Eastman’s Kodak camera

In 1888, George Eastman invented the camera.

Henry Bessemer

Englishman who developed the first efficient method for the mass production of steel

Thomas Edison

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.

Menlo Park

New Jersey village west of New York City where Thomas Edison established the world's first industrial research laboratory in 1876. He lived there until his wife's death in 1884.

George Westinghouse

An American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry

subways

underground trains

Brooklyn Bridge

A suspension bridge across the East River in New York City

skyscraper

A very tall building with many stories

Otis Elevator

Invented the first safe and reliably working elevator. This invention helped to revolutionize the way that the city could grow. (Now could grow up instead of out)

R.H. Macy

Started one of the first department stores in New York City

Mail order companies

Two companies, Sears Roebuck, and Montgomery Ward, used the improved rail system to ship to rural customers to sell many different products. The products were ordered by mail from a thick paper catalog.

Gustavus Swift

Developer of an efficient system of mechanical refrigeration, an innovation that earned him a fortune and provided a major stimulus to the growth of the cattle industry.

American Railroad Association

In 1883, this organization divided the country into four different time zones, which would become the standard time for all Americans.

Time zones

24 hour zones that are 1,000 miles apart from the other, each one is an hour before or after the one next to it, helps to differentiate between the different times from one point on the Earth to another point.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical.

Jay Gould

American financier and railroad developer who, along with James Fisk, attempted to corner the gold market in 1869

J. Pierpont Morgan

American financier, banker, philanthropist, and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thompson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.

US Steel

The largest steel company of the US, created by J.P. Morgan by merging Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel and several other steel companies together; at the time, the largest corporation in existence.

John D. Rockefeller

American businessman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; a founder of the Standard Oil Company. Rockefeller was the richest man in the world at his retirement and was noted for founding many charitable organizations.

Standard Oil Company

Founded by John D. Rockefeller. Largest unit in the American oil industry in 1881. Known as A.D. Trust, it was outlawed by the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1899. Replaced by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.

monopoly

Complete control of a product or business by one person or group

trust

A monopoly that controls goods and services, often in combinations that reduce competition.

Horizontal integration

Type of monopoly where a company buys out all of its competition. Ex. Rockefeller

Vertical integration

Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution

Holding company

A company whose primary business is owning a controlling share of stock in other companies

laissez -faire

Idea that the government should play as small a role as possible in economic affairs.

Adam Smith

Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. Seen today as the father of Capitalism. Wrote On the Wealth of Nations (1776)

Social Darwinism

The belief that only the fittest survive in human political and economic struggle.

William Graham Sumner

He was an advocate of Social Darwinism claiming that the rich were a result of natural selection and benefits society. He, like many others, promoted the belief of Social Darwinism which justified the rich being rich, and poor being poor.

Protestant work ethic

A work ethic of the protestants that encouraged individual endeavors towards gaining wealth

Self-made men

A nineteenth-century ideal that celebrated men who rose to wealth or social prominence from humble origins through self-discipline, hard work, and temperate habits

Horatio Alger

Popular novelist during the Industrial Revolution who wrote "rags to riches" books praising the values of hard work

Iron law of wages

David Ricardo formulated the iron law of wages, which said that because of the pressure of population growth, wages would be just high enough to keep workers from starving.

Collective bargaining

Negotiations between representatives of labor unions and management to determine pay and acceptable working conditions.

National Labor Union

The first large-scale U.S. union; founded to organize skilled and unskilled laborers, farmers, and factory workers.

Knights of Labor

1st effort to create a National union. Open to everyone but lawyers and bankers. Vague program, no clear goals, weak leadership and organization. Failed

Haymarket bombing

May 4, 1886, conflict in which both workers and policemen were killed or wounded during a labor demonstration in Chicago. The violence began when someone threw a bomb into the ranks of police at the gathering. The incident created a backlash against labor activism.

American Federation of Labor

1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hrs, working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent.

Samuel Gompers

He was the creator of the American Federation of Labor. He provided a stable and unified union for skilled workers.

Homestead Strike

1892 steelworker strike near Pittsburgh against the Carnegie Steel Company. Ten workers were killed in a riot when "scab" labor was brought in to force an end to the strike.

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.

Pushes & Pulls

The forces that spur migration from the country of origin and draw immigrants to a particular new destination country

Old immigrants

Immigrants who had come to the US before the 1880s from Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia, or Northern Europe

New immigrants

Immigrants who came to the United States during and after the 1880s; most were from southern and eastern Europe.

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States

Streetcar suburbs

The appearance of the streetcar made living within the heart of the city unnecessary. People began moving to the edges of the cities and commuting to work by streetcar. Led to growth of suburbs.

Tenement apartments

A run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city

Dumbbell apartments

Small apartments were meant for 4 families with air shafts in the middle (were originally nice) but landlords would pack up to 16 families in them, which made them awful and disgusting.

Ethnic neighborhoods

An area within a city containing members of the same ethnic background

American Protective Association

An organization created by nativists in 1887 that campaigned for laws to restrict immigration

Contract Labor Law of 1885

1885 law that prohibited contract labor in order to protect American workers.

Ellis Island

An immigrant receiving station that opened in 1892, where immigrants were given a medical examination and only allowed in if they were healthy

Political machines

Corrupt organized groups that controlled political parties in the cities. A boss leads the machine and attempts to grab more votes for his party.

Tammany Hall

A political organization within the Democratic Party in New York city (late 1800's and early 1900's) seeking political control by corruption and bossism

Settlement houses

Community centers located in the slums and near tenements that gave aid to the poor, especially immigrants

Jane Addams

1860-1935. Founder of Settlement House Movement. First American Woman to earn Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 as president of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.