APUSH Unit 6

transcontinental railroads

building of these linked the East with the West to create on great national market and they promoted settlement on the Great Plains

Great American Desert

arid land between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast

barbed wire

a factor that closed down the cattle frontier was homesteaders using this to cut off access to formerly open range.

Homestead Act

this act encouraged farming on the Great Plains by offering 160 acres of public land free to any family that settled on it for 5 years.

National Grange Movement

organized as a social and educational organization for farmers and their families and existed in almost every state. as it expanded it became active in economics and politics to defend members against middle men, trusts and railroads.

Granger Laws

Laws setting maximum rates for railroad shipping and grain storage to combat unfair practices and protect farmers and their families

Munn vs Illinois

landmark case where the Supreme Court upheld the right of a state to regulate business of a public nature such as railroads.

Frederick Jackson Turner

Historian and Author of “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” who proposed the Frontier Thesis, arguing that the American frontier shaped the nation's democracy and character.

The Significance of the Frontier in American History

A work by historian Frederick Jackson Turner that explores the impact of the American frontier on the development of the United States and its democratic values.

Little Big Horn

A battle in 1876 between the United States Army and Native American forces, particularly the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, which resulted in a significant victory for the Native Americans led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

Ghost Dance Movement

A religious movement among Native Americans in the late 19th century that aimed to restore native lands and practices through ceremonial dancing and was partly a response to the oppression and loss faced by indigenous peoples.

Helen Hunt Jackson

An American writer and activist for Native American rights, best known for her book "A Century of Dishonor," which highlighted injustices faced by Native Americans and called for reform in US policy.

Dawes Act of 1887

Legislation that aimed to assimilate Native Americans by allotting them individual plots of land and granting US citizenship, ultimately undermining tribal sovereignty and communal land ownership.

Indian Reorganization Act

An act passed in 1934 aimed at reversing the Dawes Act's policies by restoring some rights to Native American tribes, including the right to self-govern and to manage their own affairs.

Santa Fe Trail

A 19th-century trade route connecting Missouri to Santa Fe, facilitating commerce and the westward expansion of the United States.

John Muir

Preservationist and leading founder of the Sierra Club

Sierra Club

An organization dedicated to the preservation of Americas great mountains and wilderness enviornments

“New South”

Southerners promoted the vision for this after the Civil War that involved and self sufficient economy, modern capitalist values, industrial growth, modern transportation and improved race relations

George Washington Carver

an African American scientist who promoted the growing of Peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans. His work payed an important role in shifting southern agriculture

Tuskegee Institute

University in Alabama where George Washington Carver studied

Civil Rights Cases of 1883

the court ruled that congress could not ban racial discrimination practiced by private citizens and businesses used by the public

Plessy v Ferguson

court case that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine, establishing that public facilities for Black and White Americans were legal as long as they were equal.

Jim Crow laws

laws that enforced racial segregation and systematically disenfranchised African Americans, mandating separate, inferior schools, restrooms, transport, etc. They created severe social and economic disadvantages

literacy tests

discriminatory voting requirements used to disenfranchise African Americans and poor whites. They were designed to be confusing and maintained white supremacy by blocking Black political participation

poll tax

a tactic to maintain white supremacy that made voting financially inaccessible

grandfather clauses

a discriminatory law that exempted the white men from literacy test and poll tax by allowing them to vote if their grandfathers could vote

Ida B. Wells

African American journalist, suffragist and civil rights activist famous for leading the anti-lynching crusade by exposing racial terrorism

Atlanta Compromise

Booker T Washington’s proposal for African Americans to focus on economic self-improvement through skills and education, accepting temporary segregation in exchange for basic black rights and advancement

transatlantic cable

the under sea telegraph cable laid across the atlantic ocean connecting north America and europe

Alexander Graham Bell

inventor of the telephone

Henry Bessemer

inventor of a new method to mass produce steel by blasting air through molten iron to remove impurities

Thomas Edison

inventor of lightbulb, phonograph, motion picture and pioneer in industrial research labs and electrical systems.

George Westinghouse

inventor and industrialist known for developing the air break for railroads and championing Alternating Current

mail-order companies

companies that used expansive catalogs and the national rail system to sell goods directly to rural consumers

Cornelius Vanderbilt

wealthy industrialist who built a massive empire in shipping and railroads, famously consolidating trunk lines, popularizing steel rails for safety and efficiency and connecting eastern ports to Chicago and becoming a symbol of Gilded age capitalism and consolidation

Jay Gould

Gilded age magnate and financier, known as an unscrupulous “robber baron” for manipulating stock markets, bribbing officials and cornering the gold market for personal profit ultimately controlling vast railroad networks

J. Pierpont Morgan

financier who dominated corporate finance by merging industries, buying failing railroads and creating massive trusts like US steel, he symbolized the union of banking and industry and had immense financial influence during the Panic of 1907

Andrew Carnegie

An industrialist who built a steel empire using vertical integration became one of history’s richest men,

United States Steel

the first billion-dollar corporation, formed in 1901 by J.P. Morgan by merging Andrew Carnegie's steel empire with other firms, symbolizing the massive consolidation, industrial capitalism, and monopolies of the Gilded Age, providing steel for railroads and infrastructure, and showcasing vertical integration

John D. Rockefeller

founder of the Standard Oil Company

Standard Oil company

American petroleum trust that dominated the oil industry by controlling nearly all refining and marketing in the U.S., but it was broken up by the Supreme Court in 1911 for being an illegal monopoly

horizontal integration

a process through which one company takes control of all its former competitors in a specific industry, such as oil refining or coal refining.

vertical integration

a process through which one company takes control of all stages of making a product

holding company

a company created to own and control diverse companies.

laissez-faire

a philosophy advocating minimal government interference on economic affairs, letting free markets and individual choice drive outcomes

Social Darwinism

the belief that Darwin’s ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest should be applied to the marketplace

Survival of the fittest

core concept of natural selection in evolution. Coined by philosopher Herbert Spencer. People who adapt to their environment are more likely to survive.

Protestant work ethic

hard work, diligence, and frugality are signs of God's favor and a path to salvation

collective bargaining

the process where labor unions negotiate with management for better wages, hours, and working conditions on behalf of their members

Railroad strike of 1877

labor conflict sparked by wage cuts on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, spreading nationwide and involving over 100,000 workers protesting harsh conditions, leading to violence, property destruction

Samuel Gompers

Founder of the American Federation of Labor

Homestead strike

a violent labor conflict at Carnegie Steel's Homestead, PA, plant against wage cuts by manager Henry Clay Frick; workers, locked out and confronted by armed Pinkerton guards, fought them, leading to deaths, the National Guard's intervention, and the eventual crushing of the union, marking a significant defeat for organized labor during the Gilded Age

Pullman strike

a major nationwide railroad strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago, sparked by wage cuts during an economic depression and high rents in company-owned housing, involving the American Railway Union

Eugene V Debs

President of the American Railway Union (ARU).

Pullman Strike (1894):Led the boycott against the Pullman Company, resulting in a federal injunction, his conviction, and a six-month jail term, making him a martyr for labor

“old” immigrants

the wave of immigrants arriving in the U.S. primarily before the 1880s, mostly from Northern & Western Europe (Britain, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia), characterized by higher literacy, skills, Protestantism (though Irish/German Catholics existed), and easier assimilation

“new” immigrants

the large wave of immigrants arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe. often poorer, illiterate backgrounds, settling in urban ethnic enclaves and fueling nativist reactions and restrictive immigration laws

tenement apartments

overcrowded, poorly constructed, multi-family urban dwellings, common in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, housing poor immigrants and the working class in cramped, unsanitary conditions with little light or plumbing, symbolizing urban poverty

Chinese Exclusion Act

the first federal law to significantly restrict immigration, specifically banning Chinese laborers for 10 years, denying citizenship to existing Chinese residents

Ellis Island

the primary U.S. immigration processing center in New York Harbor (1892-1954), a symbol of hope for millions of European "new immigrants" seeking opportunity

political machines

were powerful, hierarchical urban organizations led by a "boss" that controlled local government by trading favors (jobs, housing, social services) for votes, especially from immigrants

Tammany Hall

NYC's powerful Democratic political machine, controlling city politics through patronage, offering immigrants jobs, services (like housing/food), and social support in exchange for votes

Jane Addams

a pioneering social reformer, founder of Chicago's Hull House (America's first major settlement house), and a key figure in the Progressive Era, advocating for immigrants, the urban poor, women's suffrage, and world peace

settlement houses

community centers in poor urban areas, often run by middle-class women (like Jane Addams' Hull House), that provided social services (daycare, education, healthcare) and advocated for social reforms (labor laws, suffrage) to help immigrants and the poor assimilate and improve living conditions

melting pot

the metaphor for the United States as a society where diverse immigrant cultures blend and assimilate into a single, cohesive national culture, abandoning their original identities to form a new, shared American identity

“Gospel of Wealth”

essay by Andrew Carnegie, defined the duty of the wealthy to use their fortunes for the public good, acting as trustees for society to distribute riches responsibly, primarily through philanthropy like libraries, schools, and arts, rather than leaving it to heirs or giving it directly to the poor

Clarence Darrow

a famous defense lawyer, ACLU member, and champion of civil liberties known for defending controversial figures, most notably as the defense attorney for John Scopes in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial

Joseph Pulitzer

a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher famous for making the New York World a mass-circulation paper

William Randolph Hearst

a powerful newspaper publisher who built a media empire using sensationalism, known as yellow journalism, to sell papers and sway public opinion

Salvation Army

a late 19th-century English import providing social welfare (food, shelter) to the urban poor while preaching Christianity

Social Gospel

a late 19th/early 20th-century Protestant movement applying Christian ethics to solve urban problems (poverty, labor exploitation) from industrialization, emphasizing social justice, public welfare, and the "Kingdom of God on Earth" through social reform

Jane Addams

key Progressive Era reformer, famous for founding Chicago's Hull House

Susan B Anthony

a crucial leader in the 19th-century women's suffrage movement, co-founding the National Woman Suffrage Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and tirelessly campaigning, speaking, and organizing for women's right to vote, famously getting arrested for illegally voting in 1872

NAWSA

National Woman Suffrage Association

WCTU

Women's Christian Temperance Union

Anti-Saloon League (ASL)

a powerful, single-issue political force formed in 1893 that successfully lobbied for nationwide Prohibition (18th Amendment)

Mark Twain

a literary voice using humor and realism to critique American society, slavery, and imperialism, notably in works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He represents the shift to colloquial language, social commentary, and the post-Civil War/Progressive Era transition in American literature and history. 

Frank Lloyd Wright

America's greatest architect, known for Organic Architecture

Credit Mobilier

A major railroad scandal in the 1870s in which Union Pacific Railroad executives created a fake construction company to overcharge the government and bribed congressmen to ignore it.

Interstate Commerce Act of 1887

The first federal law regulating railroads; it required railroad rates to be “reasonable and just” and created the Interstate Commerce Commission

Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

The first federal law aimed at limiting monopolies and trusts by making business practices that restrained trade illegal.

United States v. E. C. Knight Co.

An 1895 Supreme Court case that weakened the Sherman Antitrust Act by ruling that manufacturing was not interstate commerce.

Pendleton Act of 1881

A law that reformed the civil service by requiring government jobs to be awarded based on merit rather than political patronage.

Civil Service Commission

A federal agency created by the Pendleton Act to administer competitive exams and oversee government hiring.

Panic of 1873

A major economic depression caused by railroad overbuilding and banking failures, leading to unemployment and financial instability.

Bland-Allison Act

An 1878 law that required the federal government to purchase silver and coin it into money, increasing the money supply.

“Solid South”

The South’s consistent support for the Democratic Party after Reconstruction, largely due to resentment toward Republicans.

Farmers’ Alliance

A late 19th-century movement of farmers that sought economic reforms such as railroad regulation and monetary expansion.

Omaha Platform

The 1892 platform of the Populist Party, calling for reforms like free silver, government ownership of railroads, and direct election of senators.

Grover Cleveland

The only U.S. president to serve two nonconsecutive terms; a Democrat who supported the gold standard and limited government intervention.

Panic of 1893

A severe economic depression marked by bank failures, high unemployment, and debates over gold vs. silver currency.

William Jennings Bryan

A Democratic and Populist leader who supported free silver and became famous for his powerful oratory.

“Cross of Gold” speech

An 1896 speech by William Jennings Bryan arguing against the gold standard and supporting free silver.

William McKinley

The Republican president elected in 1896 who supported the gold standard and business interests.

Gold standard

A monetary system in which currency is backed by gold, limiting the money supply.

Populist Party / Populism

A political movement in the 1890s that sought to represent farmers and laborers by advocating for economic and political reforms.