America: A Narrative History Part B Flashcards

This book is by David E. Shi

Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914)

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, a wave of technological innovations, especially in iron and steel production, steam and electrical power, and telegraphic communications, all of which spurred industrial development and urban growth.

Standard Oil Company

Corporation under the leadership of John D. Rockefeller that attempted to dominate the entire oil industry through horizontal and vertical integration.

Monopoly

Corporation so large that it effectively controls the entire market for its products or services

Trust

A business arrangement that gives a person or corporation (the "trustee") the legal power to manage another person's money or another company without owning those entities outright.

Holding Company

Corporation established to own and manage other companies' stock rather than to produce goods and services itself.

Carnegie Steel Company

Corporation under the leadership of Andrew Carnegie that came to dominate the American steel industry.

J. Pierpont Morgan and Company

An investment bank under the leadership of J. Pierpont Morgan that bought or merged unrelated American companies, often using capital acquired from European investors.

Laissez-faire

An economic doctrine holding that businesses and individuals should be able to pursue their economic interests without government interference

Knights of Labor (1869)

A national labor organization with a broad reform platform; reached peak membership in 1880s.

Haymarket Riot (1886)

Violent uprising in Haymarket Square, Chicago, where police clashed with labor demonstrators in the aftermath of a bombing.

American Federation of Labor

Founded in 1886 as a national federation of trade unions made up of skilled workers.

Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

Labor conflict at the Homestead steel mill near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents hired by the factory's management.

Pullman Strike (1894)

A national strike by the American Railway Union, whose members shut down major railways in sympathy with striking workers in Pullman, Illinois; ended with intervention of federal troops.

What is vertical integration?

A business strategy where a company controls all stages of production, used by Andrew Carnegie.

What was the purpose of the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)?

To outlaw monopolistic practices and promote economic competition.

Which labor union accepted all workers and advocated for broad social reforms?

The Knights of Labor.

What was the goal of the “New South”?

To modernize the Southern economy through industrialization while maintaining racial hierarchy.

What was the significance of the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)?

It marked the end of Native American armed resistance in the West.

What were Jim Crow laws?

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the South.

What was the Populist Party’s main demand?

Free coinage of silver to increase money supply and help indebted farmers.

Who gave the “Cross of Gold” speech?

William Jennings Bryan.

What was the main cause of the farmers' revolt in the late 1800s?

Low crop prices and railroad monopolies.

What triggered the Spanish-American War?

The explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor.

What territories did the U.S. gain after the Spanish-American War?

Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and influence over Cuba.

What did the 17th Amendment establish?

Direct election of U.S. Senators.

Who were muckrakers?

Journalists who exposed corruption and social injustices.

What was the main goal of the Progressive movement?

To use government to solve social, economic, and political problems.

What event led to U.S. entry into WWI?

The Zimmermann Telegram and Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare.

What was Wilson’s Fourteen Points?

A plan for postwar peace including the League of Nations.

Why didn’t the U.S. join the League of Nations?

The Senate rejected it, fearing entanglement in foreign wars.

What was the Harlem Renaissance?

A cultural movement celebrating African American art, music, and literature.

What did the Immigration Act of 1924 do?

It restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe using quotas.

What was the Scopes Trial about?

Teaching evolution in schools; symbolized science vs. religion conflict.

What caused the Great Depression?

Stock market crash, bank failures, and overproduction.

What was the purpose of the CCC and WPA?

To provide jobs and stimulate the economy.

What was the Social Security Act (1935)?

It provided retirement benefits, unemployment insurance, and aid to disabled.

What event led the U.S. into WWII?

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941).

What was the purpose of D-Day (June 6, 1944)?

To open a Western front by invading Nazi-occupied France.

What was Executive Order 9066?

It authorized Japanese American internment during WWII.

What was the goal of the Truman Doctrine?

To contain communism by aiding nations resisting it.

What was the purpose of NATO?

A military alliance formed to defend against Soviet aggression.

What conflict was the first military engagement of the Cold War?

The Korean War.

What did the GI Bill provide?

Education and housing benefits for WWII veterans.

What was McCarthyism?

A campaign against alleged communists in government and society.

What landmark case declared school segregation unconstitutional?

Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

What was the Great Society?

Johnson’s domestic program to fight poverty and promote equality.

What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 do?

It banned discrimination in public places and employment.

What caused the escalation of the Vietnam War?

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave Johnson broad military powers.

What was the counterculture movement?

A youth-led rejection of traditional norms favoring peace, drugs, and personal freedom.

What was the Watergate scandal?

A political scandal involving a break-in and cover-up that led to Nixon’s resignation.

What was the aim of the women’s movement in the 1970s?

Equal rights in employment, education, and reproductive freedom.

What is Reaganomics?

Economic policies favoring tax cuts, deregulation, and reduced government spending.

What was the Iran-Contra Affair?

A scandal involving secret arms sales to Iran to fund Nicaraguan rebels.

What event symbolized the end of the Cold War?

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

What was the purpose of the Patriot Act?

To expand surveillance and counterterrorism powers after 9/11.

What triggered the Great Recession?

The collapse of the housing market and financial sector.

What was a key feature of Obama’s presidency?

Passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

American Tobacco Company

Business founded in 1890 by North Carolina's James Buchanan Duke, who combined the major tobacco manufacturers of the time, controlling 90 percent of the country's booming cigarette production.

Crop Lien System

Credit system used by sharecroppers and share tenants who pledged a portion ("share") of their future crop to local merchants or land owners in exchange for farming supplies and food.

Mississippi Plan (1890)

Series of state constitutional amendments in 1890 which sought to severely disenfranchise Black voters and was quickly adopted by nine other southern states.

Separate but Equal

Underlying principle behind segregation that was legitimized by the Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

Wilmington Insurrection (1898)

Led by Alfred Waddell in Wilmington, North Carolina, White supremacists rampaged through the Black community, overthrew the local government, and forced over 2,000 African Americans into exile.

Atlanta Compromise (1895)

Speech by Brook T. Washington that called for the black community to strive for economic prosperity before demanding political and social equality.

Exodusters

African Americans who migrated west from the South in search of a haven from racism and poverty after the collapse of Radical Republican rule.

Comstock Lode

A mine in eastern Nevada acquired by Canadian fur trapper Henry Comstock that between 1860 and 1880 yielded almost $1 billion worth of gold and silver.

Indian Wars

Bloody conflicts between U.S. soldiers and Native Americans that raged in the West from the early 1860s to the late 1870s, sparked by American settlers moving into ancestral Indian lands.

Sand Creek Massacre (1864)

Colonel Chivington's unprovoked slaughter of the Cheyennes and Arapahos in Colorado, initially reported as a justified battle but soon exposed for the despicable massacre it was.

Great Sioux War

Conflict between Sioux and Cheyenne Indians and federal troops over lands in the Dakotas in the mid-1870s.

Ghost Dance Movement

A spiritual and political movement among Native Americans whose followers performed a ceremonial "ghost dance" intended to connect the living with the dead and make the Indians bulletproof in battles intended to restore their homelands.

Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

Federal legislation that divided ancestral Native American lands among the heads of each Indian family in an attempt to "Americanize" Indians by forcing them to become farmers working individual plots of land.

Gilded Age (1860-1896)

An era of dramatic industrial and urban growth characterized by widespread political corruption and loose government oversight over corporations.

Tenements

Shabby, low-cost inner-city apartment buildings that housed the urban poor in cramped, poorly ventilated apartments.`

New Immigrants

Wave of newcomers from southern and eastern Europe, including many Jews, who became a majority among immigrants to America after 1890.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

Federal law that barred Chinese laborers from immigrating to America.

Social Darwinism

The application of Charles Darwin's theory of evolutionary natural selection to human society; Social Darwinists used the concept of "survival of the fittest" to justify class distinctions, explain poverty, and oppose government intervention in the economy.

Party Boss

A powerful political leader who controlled a "machine" of associates and operatives to promote both individual and party interests, often using informal tactics such as intimidation or the patronage system.

Patronage

An informal system (sometimes called the "spoils system") used by politicians to reward their supporters with government appointments or contracts.

Civil Service Reform

An extended effort led by political reformers to end the patronage system; led to the Pendleton Act (1883), which called for government positions to be awarded based on merit rather than party loyalty.

Mugwumps

Reformers who bolted the Republican party in 1884 to support Democratic Grover Cleveland for president over Republican James G. Blaine, whose secret dealings on behalf of railroad companies had brought charges of corruption.

Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) (1887)

An independent federal agency established in 1887 to oversee businesses engaged in interstate trade, especially railroads, but whose regulatory power was limited when tested in the courts.

Tariff Reform (1887)

Effort led by the Democratic party to reduce taxes on imported goods, which Republicans argued were needed to protect American industries from foreign competition.

Granger Movement

Began by offering social and educational activities for isolated farmers and their families and later started to promote "cooperatives" where farmers could join together to buy, store, and sell their crops to avoid the high fees charged by brokers and other middlemen.

Farmers' Alliances

Like the Granger movement, these organizations sought to address the issues of small farming communities; however, Alliances emphasized more political action and called for the creation of a Third Party to advocate their concerns.

People's Party (Populists)

Political party formed in 1892 following the success of Farmers' Alliance candidates; They advocated a variety of reforms, including free coinage of silver, a progressive income tax, postal savings banks, regulation of railroads, and direct election of U.S. senators.

Panic of 1893

A major collapse in the national economy after several major railroad companies declared bankruptcy, leading to a severe depression and several violent clashes between workers and management.

Money Question

Late-nineteenth-century national debate over the nature of U.S. currency; supporters of a fixed gold standard were generally money lenders, and thus preferred to keep the value of money high, while supporters of silver (and gold) coinage were debtors, they owed money, so they wanted to keep the value of money low by increasing the currency supply (inflation).

Imperialism

The use of diplomatic or military force to extend a nation's power and enhance its economic interests, often by acquiring territory or colonies and justifying such behavior with assumptions of racial superiority

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783

Historical work in which Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that a nation's greatness and prosperity come from the power of its navy; the book helped bolster imperialist sentiment in the United States in the late nineteenth century.

Yellow Journalism

A type of news reporting, epitomized in the 1890s by the newspaper empires of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, that intentionally manipulates public opinion through sensational headlines, illustrations, and articles about both real and invented events.

U.S. battleship Maine

American warship that exploded in the Cuban port of Havana on January 25, 1898; though later discovered to be the result of an accident, the destruction of the Maine was attributed by war-hungry Americans to Spain, contributing to the onset of the War of 1812.

De Lome Letter (1898)

Private correspondence written by the Spanish ambassador to the U.S., Depuy de Lome, that described President McKinley as "weak," the letter was stolen by Cuban revolutionaries and published in the New York Journal, deepening American resentment of Spain and moving the two countries closer to war in Cuba.

Teller Amendment (1898)

Addition to the congressional war resolution of April 20, 1898, which marked the U.S. entry into the war with Spain; the amendment declared that the United States' goal in entering the war was to ensure Cuba's independence, not to annex Cuba as a territory.

Rough Riders

The First Volunteer Cavalry, led in the Spanish-American War by Theodore Roosevelt; victorious in their only engagement, the Battle of San Juan Hill.

American Anti-Imperialist League

Coalition of anti-imperialist groups united in 1899 to protest American territorial expansion, especially in the Philippine Islands; its membership included prominent politicians, industrialists, labor leaders, and social reformers.

Open Door Policy (1899)

Official U.S. assertion that Chinese trade would be open to all nations; Secretary of State John Hay unilaterally announced the policy in 1899 in hopes of protecting the Chinese market for U.S. exports.

Roosevelt Corollary (1904)

President Theodore Roosevelt's revision of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) in which he argued that the United States could use military force in Central and South America to prevent European nations from intervening in the Western Hemisphere.

Dollar Diplomacy

Practice advocated by President Theodore Roosevelt in which the U.S. government fostered American investments in less-developed nations and then used U.S. military force to protect those investments.

Muckrakers

Writers who exposed corruption and abuses in politics, business, consumer safety, working conditions, and more, spurring public interest in progressive reforms

Social Gospel

Mostly Protestant movement that stressed the Christian obligation to address the mounting social problems caused by urbanization and industrialization.

Women's Suffrage

Movement to give women the right to vote through a constitutional amendment, spearheaded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's National Woman Suffrage Association.