Untitled Flashcard Set

Indian Removal Act (1830)

Authorized the forced exchange of Eastern Native American homelands for territory west of the Mississippi, enforced through fraud, bribery, and military coercion.

Trail of Tears (1838-1839)

Forcible march of about 16,000 Cherokee by the U.S. Army, resulting in roughly 4,000 deaths due to disease, starvation, and exposure.

Forced Assimilation

Early U.S. policy of 'civilizing' Native Americans through Christianity and private property.

Kitchen Cabinet

Jackson's informal group of political allies who provided him advice, more trusted than his official Cabinet.

Samuel Slater

Introduced the factory system to America by bringing the design for the first textile mill from Britain in 1793.

Eli Whitney

Invented the cotton gin in 1793, making cotton massively profitable and significantly expanding slavery.

Elias Howe

Invented the sewing machine in 1846, which revolutionized garment manufacturing.

Samuel F.B. Morse

Invented the telegraph and developed Morse Code, creating a system for near-instantaneous long-distance communication.

John Deere

Invented the steel plow in 1837, facilitating large-scale farming in the Midwest.

Cyrus McCormick

Invented the mechanical reaper in 1831, significantly reducing labor needed for grain harvesting.

Robert Fulton

Built the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807.

Cyrus Field

Laid the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.

Benjamin Silliman

Founded the American Journal of Science in 1818, establishing chemistry and geology as academic disciplines.

Lancaster Turnpike

First major improved road in the U.S. built in 1794, running from Philadelphia to Lancaster.

Erie Canal (1825)

363-mile waterway that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie, drastically reducing freight costs.

Clipper Ships

Fast sailing vessels that dominated trans-oceanic trade in the 1840s and 1850s.

Railroads

Beginning with the Baltimore and Ohio in 1828, railroads expanded rapidly by 1860, transforming transportation.

Second Great Awakening

Protestant religious revival emphasizing personal conversion and moral energy driving reform movements.

Deism

Enlightenment belief stating that God created the universe but does not intervene in human affairs.

Charles Grandison Finney

Prominent revivalist who preached in New York and promoted Perfectionism, linking moral perfection with conversion.

Burned-Over District

Region in western New York that experienced intense religious revivals in the 19th century.

Seventh-Day Adventists

Emerged from the Millerite movement, predicting Christ's return; reorganized after the Great Disappointment.

Joseph Smith

Founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known for the Book of Mormon.

Timothy Shay Arthur

Author of 'Ten Nights in a Barroom and What I Saw There,' a temperance novel.

Alexis de Tocqueville

French political scientist who analyzed American democracy and coined 'individualism.'

Knickerbocker Group

Group of early American writers who established a distinct American literary tradition.

Transcendentalism

Philosophical movement arguing that truth comes from individual intuition and nature.

Republican Motherhood

Ideology that women's civic role is to raise virtuous sons and instill patriotic values.

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

The first women's rights convention, producing the Declaration of Sentiments for women's equality.

Cult of Domesticity

Ideology defining middle-class women's roles based on virtue and domesticity.

Lucretia Mott

Quaker minister and abolitionist who co-organized the Seneca Falls Convention.

Susan B. Anthony

Key organizer of the women's suffrage movement; arrested for voting in 1872.

Angelina and Sarah Grimke

Abolitionist speakers who connected abolition with women's rights.

Elizabeth Blackwell

First woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S., founded the NY Infirmary for Women and Children.

Horace Mann

Massachusetts Secretary of Education who transformed public schooling in America.

Noah Webster

Created the American Dictionary, standardizing American English.

William H. McGuffey

Author of the McGuffey Readers, influential in American elementary education.

Emma Willard

Established the Troy Female Seminary for women's college education.

Mary Lyon

Founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, focusing on women's education.

Oberlin College

First college to admit both women and Black students.

Lyceums

Lecture circuits that democratized access to education and ideas.

New Harmony

Secular socialist commune founded by Robert Owen in 1825.

Brook Farm

Transcendentalist community attempted to combine intellectual and manual labor.

Oneida Community

Founded by John Humphrey Noyes, practiced 'complex marriage' and communal child-rearing.

Shakers

Celibate religious community known for crafts and furniture.

NINA

'No Irish Need Apply' signs indicating discrimination against Irish immigrants.

Molly Maguires

Irish miners' organization that used violence in the 1870s.

Nativism

Anti-immigrant sentiment leading to the formation of the Know-Nothing Party.

Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842)

Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling affirming labor unions' rights to organize.

Lowell and Waltham System

Textile mills employing young women from farms with structured housing and pay.

American Temperance Society

Founded in 1826, aimed to curb alcohol use through voluntary abstinence.

John Jacob Astor

America's first multimillionaire from fur trade and real estate.

Pony Express

Mail service that ran from Missouri to California in 1860-1861.

Transcendentalism

Philosophical movement emphasizing individual intuition and nature's importance.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)

Settled U.S.-Canada border disputes and cooperated in suppressing the slave trade.

Creole and Caroline Incidents

Incidents that heightened tensions between U.S. and Britain over slavery.

Oregon Treaty (1846)

Settled disputed territory between U.S. and Britain over Oregon.

Texas Annexation (1845)

Incorporated Texas into the U.S., leading to tensions with Mexico.

James K. Polk

President known for fulfilling territorial expansion through Manifest Destiny.

Horace Greeley

Editor who popularized the phrase 'Go West, young man.'

Mexican-American War

Conflict initiated by U.S. troop deployment along the Rio Grande.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

Ended Mexican-American War, ceded massive territory to the U.S.

Wilmot Proviso

Proposed to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico.

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel depicting slavery's brutality.

Compromise of 1850

Included California being a free state and stronger Fugitive Slave Act.

Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

Required Northerners to assist in capturing escaped enslaved people.

Black Codes

Laws restricting the rights of recently freed African Americans.

KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

Founded in the post-Civil War era, used violence to enforce white supremacy.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court case that legalized segregation under 'separate but equal'.