United States History Part II Examination 1 Review Guide Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards generated directly from the History 2020 examination review notes covering Reconstruction, Western Expansion, and Urbanization.

Freedman’s Bureau

A post-Civil War government agency created in 1865 that helped formerly enslaved people and poor families obtain food, find jobs, and receive legal assistance.

Black Codes

Laws enacted in the South after the Civil War specifically designed to restrict the freedoms and limit the rights of formerly enslaved people.

Sharecropping

An agricultural system in which poor families worked land owned by others in exchange for a portion of the crops, though it usually kept workers trapped in poverty.

Exodusters

Black families who migrated from the South to the West after the Civil War in search of freedom and new opportunities.

Redeemers

White Southern Democrats who sought to 'redeem' the South by rolling back Reconstruction reforms and re-establishing white control.

Ku Klux Klan

A violent white supremacist group founded in 1865 by Confederate soldiers under the guise of a secret social club, whose actual purpose was to intimidate Black communities and block civil rights.

Compromise of 1877

A political agreement resolving the disputed 1876 presidential election, which awarded Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency in exchange for the removal of federal troops and the end of Reconstruction in the South.

Transcontinental Railroad

A rail line completed in 1869 that physically and economically connected the East Coast and West Coast of the United States.

Union Pacific Railroad

The railroad company that constructed tracks westward from Nebraska toward California, meeting the Central Pacific line in 1869.

Central Pacific Railroad

The railroad company that built track eastward from California using a predominantly Chinese immigrant workforce, completing the line at Promontory Summit, Utah in 1869.

Comstock Lode

A massive discovery of silver and gold ore in Nevada in 1859 that spurred major settlement and western development.

Chinese Exclusion Act

An 1882 federal law that prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States.

Long Drive

The overland movement of large cattle herds by cowboys across long distances to reach railheads and market towns.

Comstock Law

An 1873 federal law that made it illegal to send birth control information, books, or pictures through the U.S. postal system.

Laissez-Faire

An economic policy of strict non-interference, where the government allows private businesses to operate without regulation.

Ghost Dance

A Native American religious movement during the late 19th century based on the belief that performing the ritual dance would restore traditional Native ways of life.

Eugenics

A movement focused on controlling human reproduction based on desirable or undesirable traits, grounded in Social Darwinism.

Triangle Shirtwaist Company

A clothing factory employing mostly young immigrant women that became notorious following a tragic fire, driving nationwide labor and safety reforms.

Tenements

Densely populated, low-cost apartment buildings located in urban areas where poor working-class families lived.

Sweatshops

Manufacturing workplaces defined by long working hours, unsafe and overcrowded conditions, and low pay.

Muckrakers

Progressive Era journalists who investigated and publicly exposed social problems, corporate abuse, and political corruption.

Social Gospel

A religious reform movement promoting the idea that Christian ideals should be applied directly to solving societal issues and poverty.

Women’s Christian Temperance Union

An organization founded by women to promote temperance and advocate for the prohibition of alcohol.

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

An organization founded to eliminate racial discrimination and advocate for the civil rights of Black Americans.

13th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that officially abolished and outlawed slavery across the United States.

14th Amendment

The constitutional amendment granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, offering equal protection under the law.

15th Amendment

The constitutional amendment guaranteeing that the right to vote cannot be denied based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

16th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that granted Congress the authority to levy an income tax.

17th Amendment

The constitutional amendment providing for the direct popular election of U.S. Senators instead of election by state legislatures.

18th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors.

19th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote nationwide.

National Union Party

The temporary political party name used by the Republican Party in the 1864 election to unite Northern Republicans and loyal War Democrats under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

Battle of the Greasy Grass

The Native American name for the armed engagement commonly known by Americans as the Battle of Little Big Horn.

NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association)

The organization formed in 1890 through the merger of the NWSA and AWSA to unify efforts for securing women's suffrage.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory Southern term for Northerners who relocated to the South during the Reconstruction era for economic or political reasons.

Scalawags

A derogatory Southern term for white Southerners who supported the Republican Party and Reconstruction policies.

Sherman Anti-trust Act

An 1890 federal law enacted by Congress to prohibit monopolies and restrict business practices that restrained trade.

Interstate Commerce Act

An 1887 law designed to regulate the railroad industry and its shipping rates, marking the first federal regulatory agency.

Horizontal Integration

A business strategy involving the acquisition or merging of competing companies operating at the same stage in the same industry.

Vertical Integration

A business practice in which a single company owns and controls every stage of production and distribution in its supply chain.

Gilded Age

A period in late 1800s America characterized by high economic expansion and corporate riches masking deep social inequality and corruption; a phrase coined by Mark Twain in 1873.

Standard Oil Monopoly Cartoon

A famous political cartoon illustrating John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company as an octopus extending its tentacles over steel, copper, state houses, and the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate political corruption.

Social Darwinism

The belief applying 'survival of the fittest' to human societies, holding that some individuals or races are inherently superior to others.

Jim Crow

A state and local legal structure that mandated systemized racial segregation and enforced disenfranchisement against Black Americans.