U.S. History: Reconstruction, the American West, Industrialization, and the Progressive Era

Flashcards covering lecture topics including Reconstruction, Western expansion, industrial labor, economic philosophies, and the Progressive Era.

Manifest Destiny

The belief that Americans had a God-given right to claim and own land 'from sea to shining sea,' operating under the assumption that the territory was untouched nature rather than Native American lands.

Total War (1863–1865)

A military strategy adopted by the Union after the Battle of Gettysburg in which attacks were no longer restricted to the Confederate army, employing scorched-earth warfare such as General Sherman's March to the Sea.

Antebellum South

The Southern society before the Civil War, defined by four essential characteristics: states' rights, agrarianism, an aristocratic ideal of nobility due to lack of industrialization, and slavery.

Appomattox Court House

The site where the Civil War ended on April 12, 1865, following the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln's 10% Plan (1863)

A Reconstruction plan allowing seceded states to establish a new government and regain federal relations once a number of voters equal to $10\%$ of the 1860 presidential electorate took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Radical Republicans' "Golden Moment"

A perspective advocated by Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) and Representative Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) viewing the end of the Civil War as a prime opportunity to do the right thing for freed Black Americans.

Fourteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment that provided constitutional protections for freedmen, though it did not grant women personhood under the law as it specifically used the word 'male.'

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

A constitutional amendment establishing that voting rights cannot be denied to citizens on account of race.

The Freedmen's Bureau

Formally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, an agency that supplied food and medical care, established schools and colleges, negotiated labor contracts, and attempted to manage confiscated land during its 4-year existence.

Black Codes

Laws passed by white Southerners—including 'anti-vagrancy laws'—intended to restrict the freedoms of Black citizens due to white fear of the 'Africanization' of Southern society.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory term used in the South for poor people who arrived from the North to make money off Southern residents during Reconstruction.

Scalawags

A term for Southern traders and residents who collaborated or sought to make money in the South during Reconstruction.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement resolving the disputed 1876 presidential election that awarded victory to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for abandoning Reconstruction programs and removing federal troops from the South.

Exodusters

African Americans who left Southern farm fields to move to Southern cities such as Memphis, Tennessee, contributing to the formation of a Black middle class.

Turner Thesis

Frederick Jackson Turner's argument that the Western frontier fostered individualism, unrestraint, and freshness while breaking the customs, ideas, and bondage of older societies.

Homestead Act of 1862

A federal law granting ownership of Western land to farmers after they lived on and worked it for $5\,\text{years}$, attracting large numbers of European immigrants.

Currier and Ives prints

Popular prints that depicted an idealized version of life on the plains, attracting settlers to move westward.

Bonanza Farms (Agribusiness)

Large-scale farming operations funded by capital from the Northeast and worked by Chinese and Mexican immigrant laborers, which put prospective independent yeoman farmers out of business.

Vaqueros

Mexican heritage cowboys who operated on the open range before corporate cattle operations transformed ranching into wage labor.

Dawes Allotment Act (1887)

An assimilationist law aimed at transforming Native Americans into individual property owners by allotting $160\,\text{acres}$ of land to each family head under the assumption that tribal collectivism caused savagery.

The Ghost Dance

A late 19th-century Native American spiritual movement led by Jack Wilson (Wovoka) aimed at bringing peace, indigenous unity, and restoring traditional ways of life.

Scab

A replacement worker hired by an employer to replace striking union members during a labor dispute.

American Exceptionalism

The ideology that the United States is inherently distinct from other nations because it is a land of the free founded as a nation of immigrants.

"The New Colossus"

A poem written by Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus to raise funds for the construction of the Statue of Liberty pedestal.

Paper Sons

Chinese immigrants during the Exclusion Era who circumvented exclusionary immigration laws by purchasing forged documentation claiming familial relation to naturalized Chinese Americans.

Angel Island Immigration Station

An immigration facility in California through which approximately $50{,}000$ Chinese immigrants passed between 1910 and 1940.

Bourgeoisie

A term identified by Karl Marx to describe the urban middle class and factory-owning capitalist class that arose during the Industrial Revolution.

Proletariat

A Marxist term for industrial wage laborers and the working class who do not own the means of production.

Luddites

British industrial laborers who actively resisted mechanized manufacturing by destroying textile machines in 1812.

Classical Liberalism

A political and economic philosophy emphasizing the rule of law, representative government, freedom of speech and assembly, individual property rights, and a laissez-faire economy.

"The Dismal Science"

A moniker for economics linked to Thomas Malthus's theory that human population growth would inevitably outstrip food production and trigger a demographic crisis.

Iron Law of Wages

An economic thesis associated with David Ricardo and Ferdinand Lassalle asserting that market forces naturally keep real wages at the bare minimum necessary for worker subsistence.

Scientific Socialism

The Marxist theoretical framework developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels focused on dialectical materialism, class conflict, and the inevitable political rise of the proletariat.

Utopian Socialism

An early socialist approach advocated by Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and Charles Fourier seeking to reform society through the voluntary establishment of model cooperative communities.

Dialectical Materialism

A Marxist philosophical framework of political evolution that progresses through thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, recognizing only the material world.

Victorian Sexuality

A 19th-century cultural norm that viewed middle-class women as innocent, pure, completely lacking sexual desire, and requiring male protection.

Frances Willard

The head of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) from 1879 until 1898 who expanded the organization's focus into broad social and political reform.

Jane Addams

A Progressive reformer who practiced the 'social gospel' tradition, providing job training and childcare to uplift urban immigrants.

Progressivism

A political reform movement between 1900 and 1920 operating on the idea that the American political system was fundamentally sound but required state intervention and legislation to reform societal problems.

Muckrakers

A term coined by President Theodore Roosevelt for investigative Progressive journalists who focused on exposing societal corruption and corporate abuses.

McClure's Magazine

A leading monthly magazine that popularized Progressive causes and published investigative exposes by muckraking journalists.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A catastrophic workplace fire on March 25, 1911, in New York City that killed numerous garment workers, many of whom were immigrant Jewish women and their daughters.

Manifest Destiny

The belief that Americans had a God-given right to claim and own land 'from sea to shining sea,' operating under the assumption that the territory was untouched nature rather than Native American lands.

Total War (1863–1865)

A military strategy adopted by the Union after the Battle of Gettysburg in which attacks were no longer restricted to the Confederate army, employing scorched-earth warfare such as General Sherman's March to the Sea.

Antebellum South

The Southern society before the Civil War, defined by four essential characteristics: states' rights, agrarianism, an aristocratic ideal of nobility due to lack of industrialization, and slavery.

Appomattox Court House

The site where the Civil War ended on April 12, 1865, following the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln's 10% Plan (1863)

A Reconstruction plan allowing seceded states to establish a new government and regain federal relations once a number of voters equal to $10\%$ of the 1860 presidential electorate took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Radical Republicans' "Golden Moment"

A perspective advocated by Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) and Representative Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) viewing the end of the Civil War as a prime opportunity to do the right thing for freed Black Americans.

Fourteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment that provided constitutional protections for freedmen, though it did not grant women personhood under the law as it specifically used the word 'male.'

Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

A constitutional amendment establishing that voting rights cannot be denied to citizens on account of race.

The Freedmen's Bureau

Formally established by Congress to aid refugees, this agency supplied food and medical care, built schools, and negotiated labor contracts during Reconstruction.

Black Codes

Laws passed by white Southerners—including 'anti-vagrancy laws'—intended to restrict the freedoms of Black citizens due to white fear of the 'Africanization' of Southern society.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory term used in the South for poor people who arrived from the North to make money off Southern residents during Reconstruction.

Scalawags

A term for Southern traders and residents who collaborated or sought to make money in the South during Reconstruction.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement resolving the disputed 1876 presidential election that awarded victory to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for abandoning Reconstruction programs and removing federal troops from the South.

Exodusters

African Americans who left Southern farm fields to move to Southern cities such as Memphis, Tennessee, contributing to the formation of a Black middle class.

Turner Thesis

Frederick Jackson Turner's argument that the Western frontier fostered individualism, unrestraint, and freshness while breaking the customs, ideas, and bondage of older societies.

Homestead Act of 1862

A federal law granting ownership of Western land to farmers after they lived on and worked it for $5\,\text{years}$, attracting large numbers of European immigrants.

Currier and Ives prints

Popular prints that depicted an idealized version of life on the plains, attracting settlers to move westward.

Bonanza Farms (Agribusiness)

Large-scale farming operations funded by capital from the Northeast and worked by Chinese and Mexican immigrant laborers, which put prospective independent yeoman farmers out of business.

Vaqueros

Mexican heritage cowboys who operated on the open range before corporate cattle operations transformed ranching into wage labor.

Dawes Allotment Act (1887)

An assimilationist law aimed at transforming Native Americans into individual property owners by allotting $160\,\text{acres}$ of land to each family head under the assumption that tribal collectivism caused savagery.

The Ghost Dance

A late 19th-century Native American spiritual movement led by Jack Wilson (Wovoka) aimed at bringing peace, indigenous unity, and restoring traditional ways of life.

Scab

A replacement worker hired by an employer to replace striking union members during a labor dispute.

American Exceptionalism

The ideology that the United States is inherently distinct from other nations because it is a land of the free founded as a nation of immigrants.

"The New Colossus"

A poem written by Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus to raise funds for the construction of the Statue of Liberty pedestal.

Paper Sons

Chinese immigrants during the Exclusion Era who circumvented exclusionary immigration laws by purchasing forged documentation claiming familial relation to naturalized Chinese Americans.

Angel Island Immigration Station

An immigration facility in California through which approximately $50{,}000$ Chinese immigrants passed between 1910 and 1940.

Bourgeoisie

A term identified by Karl Marx to describe the urban middle class and factory-owning capitalist class that arose during the Industrial Revolution.

Proletariat

A Marxist term for industrial wage laborers and the working class who do not own the means of production.

Luddites

British industrial laborers who actively resisted mechanized manufacturing by destroying textile machines in 1812.

Classical Liberalism

A political and economic philosophy emphasizing the rule of law, representative government, freedom of speech and assembly, individual property rights, and a laissez-faire economy.

"The Dismal Science"

A moniker for economics linked to Thomas Malthus's theory that human population growth would inevitably outstrip food production and trigger a demographic crisis.

Iron Law of Wages

An economic thesis associated with David Ricardo and Ferdinand Lassalle asserting that market forces naturally keep real wages at the bare minimum necessary for worker subsistence.

Scientific Socialism

The Marxist theoretical framework developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels focused on dialectical materialism, class conflict, and the inevitable political rise of the proletariat.

Utopian Socialism

An early socialist approach advocated by Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and Charles Fourier seeking to reform society through the voluntary establishment of model cooperative communities.

Dialectical Materialism

A Marxist philosophical framework of political evolution that progresses through thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, recognizing only the material world.

Victorian Sexuality

A 19th-century cultural norm that viewed middle-class women as innocent, pure, completely lacking sexual desire, and requiring male protection.

Frances Willard

The head of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) from 1879 until 1898 who expanded the organization's focus into broad social and political reform.

Jane Addams

A Progressive reformer who practiced the 'social gospel' tradition, providing job training and childcare to uplift urban immigrants.

Progressivism

A political reform movement between 1900 and 1920 operating on the idea that the American political system was fundamentally sound but required state intervention and legislation to reform societal problems.

Muckrakers

A term coined by President Theodore Roosevelt for investigative Progressive journalists who focused on exposing societal corruption and corporate abuses.

McClure's Magazine

A leading monthly magazine that popularized Progressive causes and published investigative exposes by muckraking journalists.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A catastrophic workplace fire on March 25, 1911, in New York City that killed numerous garment workers, many of whom were immigrant Jewish women and their daughters.

Homestead Strike (1892)

An industrial lockout and strike at a Pennsylvania steel plant where union workers clashed with armed private detectives after protesting severe wage reductions.

Pinkerton National Detective Agency

A private armed security service hired by industrial managers like Henry Clay Frick to protect factories and violently suppress striking laborers.

Second-Wave Immigrants (1880–1920)

An influx of approximately $23\,\text{million}$ newcomers to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, predominantly originating from southern and eastern Europe.

Ellis Island

The primary federal immigration processing station in New York Harbor through which roughly $12\,\text{million}$ newcomers entered the United States between 1892 and 1954.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Federal legislation prohibiting the immigration of Chinese laborers, marking the first major federal restriction on immigration based explicitly on race and nationality.

Promontory Point, Utah

The junction where the First Transcontinental Railroad was officially completed on May 10, 1869, joined by the driving of the Golden Spike.

Helen Hunt Jackson

An author and reformer whose 1881 book A Century of Dishonor detailed the broken treaties and systemic injustices inflicted upon Native American tribes by the United States government.

Chief Joseph

A leader of the Nez Perce who resisted forced relocation onto a federal reservation, later surrendering with the declaration: 'From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.'

Comstock Lode

A massive Nevada silver ore deposit discovered in 1853 that accelerated the transition of western mining from independent prospectors to heavily capitalized corporate operations.

How the Other Half Lives (1890)

A pioneering photojournalism work by Jacob Riis documenting the squalor, disease, and poverty of New York City tenement slums during the Gilded Age.

Manifest Destiny

The belief that Americans had a God-given right to claim and own land 'from sea to shining sea,' operating under the assumption that the territory was untouched nature rather than Native American lands.

Total War (1863–1865)

A military strategy adopted by the Union after the Battle of Gettysburg in which attacks were no longer restricted to the Confederate army, employing scorched-earth warfare such as General Sherman's March to the Sea.

Antebellum South

The Southern society before the Civil War, defined by four essential characteristics: states' rights, agrarianism, an aristocratic ideal of nobility due to lack of industrialization, and slavery.

Appomattox Court House

The site where the Civil War ended on April 12, 1865, following the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln's 10% Plan (1863)

A Reconstruction plan allowing seceded states to establish a new government and regain federal relations once a number of voters equal to $10\%$ of the 1860 presidential electorate took an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Radical Republicans' "Golden Moment"

A perspective advocated by Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) and Representative Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) viewing the end of the Civil War as a prime opportunity to do the right thing for freed Black Americans.