History 1493 Chapters 16-19 Key Terms

Black codes

laws some southern states designed to maintain White supremacy by keeping freed people impoverished and in debt

carpetbagger

a term used for northerners working in the South during Reconstruction; it implied that these were opportunists who came south for economic or political gain

Compromise of 1877

the agreement between Republicans and Democrats, after the contested election of 1876, in which Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the presidency in exchange for withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South

crop-lien system

a loan system in which store owners extended credit to farmers for the purchase of goods in exchange for a portion of their future crops

Freedmen’s Bureau

the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which was created in 1865 to ease Black peoples’ transition from slavery to freedom

Ironclad Oath

an oath that the Wade-Davis Bill required a majority of voters and government officials in Confederate states to take; it involved swearing that they had never supported the Confederacy

Ku Klux Klan

a White vigilante organization that engaged in terroristic violence with the aim of stopping Reconstruction

Radical Republicans

northern Republicans who contested Lincoln’s treatment of Confederate states and proposed harsher punishments

Reconstruction

the twelve-year period after the Civil War in which the rebel Southern states were integrated back into the Union

redeemers

a term used for southern White people committed to rolling back the gains of Reconstruction

scalawags

a pejorative term used for southern White people who supported Reconstruction

sharecropping

a crop-lien system in which people paid rent on land they farmed (but did not own) with the crops they grew

ten percent plan

Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan, which required only 10 percent of the 1860 voters in Confederate states to take an oath of allegiance to the Union

Union Leagues

fraternal groups loyal to the Union and the Republican Party that became political and civic centers for Black people in former Confederate states

Americanization

the policy aimed at assimilating Native Americans into a middle class, Protestant version of the American way of life through boarding schools for Native American children and land allotment for Native American households

bonanza farms

large farms owned by speculators who hired laborers to work the land; these large farms allowed their owners to benefit from economies of scale and prosper, but they did nothing to help small family farms, which continued to struggle

California Gold Rush

the period between 1848 and 1849 when prospectors found large strikes of gold in California, leading others to rush in and follow suit; this period led to a cycle of boom and bust through the area, as gold was discovered, mined, and stripped

Comstock Lode

the first significant silver find in the country, discovered by Henry T. P. Comstock in 1859 in Nevada

exodusters

a term used to describe African Americans who moved to Kansas from the Old South to escape the racism there

Fence Cutting War

this armed conflict between cowboys moving cattle along the trail and ranchers who wished to keep the best grazing lands for themselves occurred in Clay County, Texas, between 1883 and 1884

las Gorras Blancas

the Spanish name for White Caps, the rebel group of Hispanic Americans who fought back against the appropriation of Hispanic land by White people; for a period in 1889–1890, they burned farms, homes, and crops to express their growing anger at the injustice of the situation

Manifest Destiny

the phrase, coined by journalist John O’Sullivan, which came to stand for the idea that White Americans had a calling and a duty to seize and settle the American West with Protestant democratic values

Sand Creek Massacre

a militia raid led by Colonel Chivington on a Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples camp in Colorado, flying both the American flag and the white flag of surrender; over one hundred men, women, and children were killed

sod house

a frontier home constructed of dirt held together by thick-rooted prairie grass that was prevalent in the Midwest; sod, cut into large rectangles, was stacked to make the walls of the structure, providing an inexpensive, yet damp, house for western settlers

Wounded Knee Massacre

an attempt to disarm a group of Lakota people near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, which resulted in members of the Seventh Cavalry of the U.S. Army opening fire and killing over 150 Lakota

Haymarket affair

the rally and subsequent riot in which several policemen were killed when a bomb was thrown at a peaceful workers rights rally in Chicago in 1886

holding company

a central corporate entity that controls the operations of multiple companies by holding the majority of stock for each enterprise

horizontal integration

method of growth wherein a company grows through mergers and acquisitions of similar companies

Molly Maguires

a secret organization made up of Pennsylvania coal miners, named for the famous Irish patriot, which worked through a series of scare tactics to bring the plight of the miners to public attention

monopoly

the ownership or control of all enterprises comprising an entire industry

robber baron

a negative term for the big businessmen who made their fortunes in the massive railroad boom of the late nineteenth century

scientific management

mechanical engineer Fredrick Taylor’s management style, also called “stop-watch management,” which divided manufacturing tasks into short, repetitive segments and encouraged factory owners to seek efficiency and profitability over any benefits of personal interaction

social Darwinism

Herbert Spencer’s theory, based upon Charles Darwin’s scientific theory, which held that society developed much like plant or animal life through a process of evolution in which the most fit and capable enjoyed the greatest material and social success

trust

a legal arrangement where a small group of trustees have legal ownership of a business that they operate for the benefit of other investors

vertical integration

a method of growth where a company acquires other companies that include all aspects of a product’s lifecycle from the creation of the raw materials through the production process to the delivery of the final product

City Beautiful

a movement begun by Daniel Burnham and Fredrick Law Olmsted, who believed that cities should be built with three core tenets in mind: the inclusion of parks within city limits, the creation of wide boulevards, and the expansion of more suburbs

graft

the financial kickback provided to city bosses in exchange for political favors

Great Migration

the name for the large wave of African Americans who left the South after the Civil War, mostly moving to cities in the Northeast and Upper Midwest

instrumentalism

a theory promoted by John Dewey, who believed that education was key to the search for the truth about ideals and institutions

machine politics

the process by which citizens of a city used their local ward alderman to work the “machine” of local politics to meet local needs within a neighborhood

naturalism

a theory of realism that states that the laws of nature and the natural world were the only relevant laws governing humanity

pragmatism

a doctrine supported by philosopher William James, which held that Americans needed to experiment and find the truth behind underlying institutions, religions, and ideas in American life, rather than accepting them on faith

realism

a collection of theories and ideas that sought to understand the underlying changes in the United States during the late nineteenth century

settlement house movement

an early progressive reform movement, largely spearheaded by women, which sought to offer services such as childcare and free healthcare to help the working poor

social gospel

the belief that the church should be as concerned about the conditions of people in the secular world as it was with their afterlife

Social Register

a de facto directory of the wealthy socialites in each city, first published by Louis Keller in 1886

Tammany Hall

a political machine in New York, run by machine boss William Tweed with assistance from George Washington Plunkitt