Chapter 14: North and South - Diverging Societies (1820s-1850s)

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing key terms, economic systems, demographic changes, and technological inventions from Chapter 14: North and South (1820s-1850s).

Clipper Ship

A ship with sleek hulls and tall sails that "clipped" time for long journeys.

Telegraph

A device that used electric signals to send messages.

Morse Code

A system of dots and dashes that represents the alphabet.

Trade Union

An organized group of workers formed to protect and promote their common interests.

Industrial North

A modern, diverse, wage-based economy characterized by expanding cities, factories, and railroads powered by waves of European immigrants.

Agricultural South

An economy overwhelmingly dependent on a slave-based agricultural system, built on the labor of 4 million enslaved African Americans producing cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar for global markets.

Cotton Gin

An invention by Eli Whitney that made cotton production extremely profitable, enabling the South to produce two-thirds of the world's cotton by 1860.

King Cotton Economy

A highly profitable agricultural system that exhausted soil quickly and demanded vast new land, expanding the plantation system and brutal enslaved labor westward into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Irish Immigrants (1820-1860)

A vital labor force in the North that built canals and railroads and filled northern factories while enduring virulent social and economic discrimination.

German Immigrants (1820-1860)

Immigrants who frequently migrated westward to establish farming communities or remained in urban centers as skilled craftsmen, educators, and intellectuals.

Emerging Middle Class

A new Northern class composed of merchants, doctors, lawyers, and skilled craftsmen who valued hard work, education, and upward mobility.

Secession Crisis of 1860-1861

The political crisis resulting from profound, uncompromisable economic and cultural differences between the North and South.