Market Revolution and Civil War Vocabulary

Market Revolution

A period of rapid economic change in the early 19th century involving the expansion of markets and transportation systems.

Lowell System

A factory system in the early 19th century that employed young women to work in textile mills.

Nativism

A political policy that favors the interests of native-born citizens over immigrants.

Cult of Domesticity

A prevailing value system in the 19th century that emphasized women's roles as homemakers and moral guardians of the family.

Second Great Awakening

A religious revival movement in the early 19th century that encouraged a personal approach to faith and social reform.

Denmark Vesey

A formerly enslaved man who planned a slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822, but was executed when the plot was discovered.

William Lloyd Garrison

An abolitionist and journalist who published 'The Liberator,' advocating for immediate emancipation of enslaved people.

Charles Grandison Finney

A prominent preacher in the Second Great Awakening known for his innovative revivalist practices and emphasis on personal conversion.

Horace Mann

A leading advocate for public education in the 19th century, promoting the establishment of public schools and educational reform.

Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

A document from the 1848 women's rights convention that outlined the grievances and demands for women's equality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A philosopher and essayist who led the transcendentalist movement, advocating for individuality and self-reliance.

Wilmot Proviso

A proposed amendment aimed at prohibiting slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

Compromise of 1850

A series of legislative measures aimed at resolving tensions between slave and free states, including the admission of California as a free state.

Dred Scott Decision

An 1857 Supreme Court ruling that declared African Americans were not citizens but property and had no legal standing to sue for their freedom.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

An 1854 law that allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery, leading to violent conflict known as 'Bleeding Kansas.'

Harpers Ferry

The site of John Brown's raid in 1859, an attempt to incite a slave revolt by seizing a federal armory.

Battle of Antietam

Northern victory followed by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves in rebellious areas.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln speech emphasizing the principles of human equality and in addition to the importance of preserving the Union.

Sherman's March to the Sea

A military campaign during the Civil War in which General William Tecumseh Sherman led his troops through Georgia, destroying infrastructure to weaken the Confederacy.

Thirteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment ratified in 1865 that abolished slavery in the United States.

Radical Reconstruction

A period following the Civil War characterized by significant changes to Southern society and government, aimed at granting rights to newly freed slaves.

Fourteenth Amendment

An amendment ratified in 1868 providing citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.

Fifteenth Amendment

The amendment ratified in 1870 that granted African American men the right to vote, prohibiting voting restrictions based on race.

Enforcement Acts

A series of laws passed in the early 1870s aimed at protecting African American voters and curbing the activities of the Ku Klux Klan.

Black Codes

Laws passed in Southern states after the Civil War aimed at restricting the rights and freedoms of African Americans.

Vagrancy Laws

Laws that imposed penalties on individuals who could not prove employment or residency, often targeting African Americans in the South.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement that resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election, resulting in the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and effectively ending Reconstruction.