HIST 1301-146 Final Review

dual credit

Railroads

A key innovation of the Market Revolution that dramatically increased the speed and volume of goods and people transported across the U.S. They lowered shipping costs, sped up economic growth, and fostered the creation of a truly national market.

Steamboats

Revolutionary water transport that allowed travel upstream against river currents, especially on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. They significantly reduced travel time and costs, integrating the economies of the South and West with the North.

Telegraph

A revolutionary communication technology invented by Samuel F.B. Morse that allowed instantaneous transmission of messages across long distances via electrical signals. The telegraph connected the nation politically and commercially, helping to manage railroads and unify the economy.

Urbanization

The rapid growth of cities, particularly in the Northeast, driven by the jobs created by the new factory system during the Market Revolution. This led to issues like overcrowding, poverty, and sanitation problems, but also fostered cultural development.

Factory Systems

A method of manufacturing that centralized labor and machinery in one location, allowing for mass production of goods like textiles. This system separated work from the home and fostered a new class of industrial wage laborers.

Lowell Mills

A prominent example of the early New England factory system, these textile mills primarily employed young, unmarried farm women ("Mill Girls"). This system offered independence but eventually deteriorated as conditions worsened due to competition.

Immigration

The large influx of foreign-born people, particularly Irish and Germans, to the United States starting in the 1840s, driven by economic opportunity and crises abroad (like the Irish Potato Famine). This immigration supplied cheap labor for factories and led to a backlash from nativist groups.

Nativism

A political and social movement in the mid-19th century characterized by an opposition to immigration and a desire to favor native-born inhabitants. Nativists, like those in the Know-Nothing Party, feared immigrants would steal jobs and corrupt American culture.

Romanticism

An artistic and intellectual movement in the early 19th century that emphasized emotion, nature, intuition, and the sublime over rational thought. It influenced American art, literature, and philosophy, including the Transcendentalists.

Transcendentalism

An American philosophical movement, led by thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, that taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity. It emphasized self-reliance, individualism, and intuition as a means to discover truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The central figure of the Transcendentalist movement, known for his essays like "Nature" and "Self-Reliance." He urged Americans to develop their own cultural identity and rely on inner spiritual truth rather than tradition or established institutions.

Henry David Thoreau

A leading Transcendentalist known for his book Walden and his essay "Civil Disobedience." He advocated for simple living in nature and famously resisted paying taxes to protest the Mexican-American War and slavery, influencing later civil rights leaders.

Hudson River School

An American art movement of the mid-19th century, known for landscape paintings that romanticized the American wilderness. The artists celebrated the natural beauty of the U.S., reflecting the era's fascination with nature and westward expansion.

Second Great Awakening

A Protestant religious revival movement during the early 19th century that spurred the growth of evangelical denominations, particularly Methodists and Baptists. It emphasized personal salvation through individual effort and inspired many moral and social reform movements, including abolition and temperance.

Five Points

A notoriously impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhood in lower Manhattan during the mid-19th century, often cited as an example of the negative impacts of rapid urbanization and immigration. It was one of the first slums in American history and housed various immigrant groups.

American System

An economic plan proposed by Henry Clay in the early 1800s aimed at promoting national prosperity and unity through a protective tariff, a national bank, and federally funded internal improvements like roads and canals. It was intended to connect the three major economic sections (North, South, and West).

American Colonization Society

An organization founded in 1817 that advocated for the gradual emancipation of slaves and their relocation to a colony in Africa, which became Liberia. While supported by some abolitionists, critics saw it as a racist effort to rid the US of free Black people.

David Walker

A free Black abolitionist in Boston who published Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829, one of the most radical anti-slavery documents of the era. He passionately called for enslaved people to revolt against their masters, greatly alarming slaveholders.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The author of the influential anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852. The book dramatized the cruelty of slavery and galvanized public opinion in the North against the institution, becoming a major political force.

Liberty Party

A minor political party in the 1840s that was the first to run candidates on a platform specifically for the abolition of slavery. It split from the Garrisonian abolitionists because it sought to use political means to end slavery rather than moral suasion alone.

Free Soil Party

A short-lived political party in the late 1840s and early 1850s whose main platform was opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories. They were distinct from abolitionists, as their primary goal was to reserve the West for white farmers.

Declaration of Sentiments

The foundational document of the women's rights movement, issued at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, modeled after the Declaration of Independence. It detailed the injustices women faced, notably demanding the right to vote (suffrage).

Temperance

A reform movement, largely driven by women and the Second Great Awakening, aimed at curbing the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Reformers argued that alcohol was the root cause of poverty, crime, and abuse.

Cotton

The dominant cash crop of the American South following the invention of the cotton gin, leading to the region's moniker, "King Cotton." Its high profitability fueled the demand for enslaved labor and tied the South's economy inextricably to the institution of slavery.

Eli Whitney

The inventor of the cotton gin in 1793, a machine that quickly separated cotton fibers from seeds. While intended to reduce labor, it ironically made cotton production vastly more profitable, which dramatically increased the demand for enslaved labor across the South.

Cult of Domesticity

An ideal that defined women's roles in the mid-19th century, viewing the home as a separate, virtuous sphere from the competitive public world of men. It dictated that women should focus on piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.

Poor Richard's Almanack

A publication written by Benjamin Franklin under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders," famous for its practical advice and pithy sayings promoting industry and thrift. It represented the earlier American values of the Enlightenment and practicality.

Dorothea Dix

A prominent social reformer who dedicated her life to improving conditions for the mentally ill, advocating for the establishment of state-run mental health hospitals rather than confining the ill in prisons. Her work led to significant reforms in asylum care across the US and Europe.

Nullification

The theory, most famously advanced by John C. Calhoun, that a state has the right to declare a federal law void and not binding within its borders if the state believes the law is unconstitutional. This doctrine fueled the Nullification Crisis over tariffs.

Tariff of Abomination

A protective tariff passed in 1828 that was labeled as such by Southern states because it protected Northern industries while raising the cost of imported goods the South relied upon. This led to the political crisis in which South Carolina threatened secession.

Force Bill

Legislation passed by Congress in 1833 that authorized President Andrew Jackson to use the military to enforce federal laws (specifically the tariffs) in South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. The bill asserted federal authority over the states.

Jacksonian Democracy

The political movement associated with the seventh U.S. President, Andrew Jackson, and his supporters, which championed the "common man" and the expansion of suffrage to all white males, regardless of property ownership. It also involved the use of the spoils system.

Whig Party

A political party active from the 1830s to the 1850s that was formed in opposition to Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. They generally favored Henry Clay's American System, a national bank, protective tariffs, and federal aid for internal improvements.

Wilmot Proviso

A proposal introduced in 1846 to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American War. Though it never passed, the intense debate over the Proviso underscored the growing North-South sectional divide.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The treaty signed in 1848 that ended the Mexican-American War. Mexico ceded vast territories, including California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, to the U.S. in exchange for $15 million, further intensifying the debate over slavery's expansion.

Gold Rush

The rapid influx of settlers to California beginning in 1849 following the discovery of gold. This massive migration quickly transformed California into a bustling, diverse territory and accelerated its path to statehood, adding urgency to the slavery debate.

Compromise of 1850

A package of five separate bills passed by Congress intended to temporarily resolve the territorial and slavery disputes following the Mexican-American War. Key provisions included admitting California as a free state and strengthening the Fugitive Slave Law.

Fugitive Slave Law

A harsh component of the Compromise of 1850 that required federal officials to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves, even in free states. It angered the North and intensified abolitionist efforts.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Legislation passed in 1854 that organized the two territories and explicitly allowed the settlers in each territory to decide the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty. This effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise and led to violence in the region.

Bleeding Kansas

The period of violent political confrontations in the Kansas Territory between 1854 and 1861 over whether the territory would enter the Union as a slave or free state. It was a dress rehearsal for the Civil War.

Republican Party

A major political party formed in the mid-1850s as a coalition of anti-slavery Whigs, Free-Soilers, and Democrats. Its main platform was the uncompromising opposition to the expansion of slavery into any new territories.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

A series of seven dramatic political debates in 1858 between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas during the Illinois Senate race. Though Douglas won the election, the debates propelled Lincoln onto the national political stage.

Secession

The formal withdrawal of 11 Southern states from the United States following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, as they feared the new Republican administration would abolish slavery. They formed the Confederate States of America.

Confederate States of America

The government formed by the 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union between 1860 and 1861. Its constitution was heavily modeled on the U.S. Constitution but explicitly guaranteed the protection of slavery.

Anaconda Plan

The Union's strategic military plan for winning the Civil War, devised by General Winfield Scott. It involved a naval blockade of Southern ports and an effort to gain control of the Mississippi River to squeeze the Confederacy economically and geographically.

Antietam

The site of a crucial battle in September 1862, which was the bloodiest single-day battle in U.S. history. The Union victory here gave President Lincoln the confidence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Contraband Camps

Camps established by the Union Army during the Civil War to house and employ enslaved people who had escaped from the Confederacy. By classifying the escaped slaves as "contraband of war," the Union refused to return them to their owners.

Gettysburg Address

A famous speech delivered by President Abraham Lincoln in November 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In it, he redefined the purpose of the war as a struggle to preserve a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

War at Sea

Naval operations during the Civil War, which included the Union's successful blockade of Southern ports (Anaconda Plan) and the battle between the ironclad ships, the Monitor (Union) and the Merrimack (Confederate). The naval war severely hampered the South's ability to trade cotton for war supplies.

Appomattox Court House

The location in Virginia where Confederate General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865. This event effectively ended the major fighting of the Civil War.

Assassination of Lincoln

The murder of President Abraham Lincoln by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, just days after Lee's surrender. This tragic event removed the one leader who may have been able to achieve a moderate and smooth Reconstruction.

Black Codes

Laws passed by Southern state legislatures immediately after the Civil War that severely restricted the freedom and rights of African Americans. These codes were intended to maintain a labor supply and racial hierarchy reminiscent of slavery.

Freedmen's Bureau

A federal agency created in 1865 to aid millions of recently freed slaves and poor whites in the South by providing food, housing, medical aid, schools, and legal assistance. It was the first attempt by the federal government to provide social services.

Sharecropping

A system of agriculture that emerged in the South after the Civil War in which a landowner allowed a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced. While technically free, this system often kept formerly enslaved people in a state of debt servitude.

Impeachment of Johnson

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives for violating the Tenure of Office Act after clashing with the Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction policy. He was acquitted by the Senate by a single vote.

Black Colleges

Institutions of higher learning established during and after Reconstruction to educate African Americans, such as Fisk and Howard Universities. They were crucial in developing a new Black professional and intellectual class in the face of widespread segregation.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory term used by white Southerners to describe Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War during the Reconstruction era. They were often viewed as opportunistic outsiders seeking political or economic gain.

Scalawags

A derogatory term used by Southern Democrats to describe white Southern Republicans who supported Reconstruction policies and cooperated with the federal government and Black freedmen. They were often seen as betraying the Southern cause.

Hiram Revels

A Republican politician who became the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1870, representing the state of Mississippi. His election symbolized the political progress of freedmen during Reconstruction.

Rutherford B. Hayes

The Republican candidate whose disputed election victory in 1876 was secured through the Compromise of 1877. His inauguration signaled the official end of the federal government's commitment to Reconstruction in the South.