AP U.S. History: Era of Good Feelings, American System, Transportation, and Mechanization

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Key Concepts 4.3, 4.5, and 4.6, including the American System, the Era of Good Feelings, nineteenth-century immigration, and the early Market Revolution.

Era of Good Feelings

A period in U.S. political history marked by one-party dominance under the Democratic-Republicans following James Monroe's presidential victory.

Missouri Compromise of 1820

A congressional agreement that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel in the Louisiana Territory.

Panic of 1819

An economic downturn during the Era of Good Feelings caused by rampant land speculation and the tightening of credit by the Second Bank of the United States.

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

A U.S. foreign policy policy declaration aimed at preventing European intervention and any further European colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

American System

Henry Clay's 1820s three-pronged economic program designed to promote American industry, knit the country together economically and politically, and bolster nationalism.

Protective Tariffs (American System)

Taxes on imported goods intended to promote American manufacturing in the East and generate federal revenue to fund internal transportation projects.

Second Bank of the United States

A national bank chartered in 1816 designed to keep the national economy operating smoothly by supplying easy, abundant credit and a uniform national currency.

Internal Improvements (American System)

Federally funded construction of roads and canals, especially in the Ohio Valley, to move raw materials, foodstuffs, and manufactured goods between regions.

Cumberland Road

An internal improvement road initiated in 1811 to connect regions of the country, despite strict constitutional interpretations that prompted presidential vetoes against federal road funding.

Erie Canal

A major state-funded transportation route completed in 1825 that connected Buffalo, New York, to Lake Erie, linking western agricultural lands to eastern commercial markets.

Robert Fulton's Steamboat

A watercraft innovation that greatly accelerated river travel, spurred an extensive canal boom, and stimulated city development along canal routes.

German Immigrants (mid-1800s)

An immigrant group that arrived in the United States with more financial resources than the Irish, commonly establishing farms and craft shops in the Midwest.

Tammany Hall

A prominent political machine in New York City that gained power by providing incoming immigrants with food, employment, and social assistance in exchange for their votes.

Know-Nothing Party

A political organization that emerged in the 1850s, driven by anti-immigrant nativism and concerns over foreign political and Catholic influence.

Market Revolution

An economic transformation marked by increased consumer purchasing of mass-produced goods, enabled by advances in mechanization and the transportation revolution.

Eli Whitney

An American inventor who developed the cotton gin in 1794 and introduced the manufacturing concept of interchangeable parts in 1810.

Samuel Slater

An early industrialist regarded as the 'father of the factory system' in the United States.

Textiles

The early manufacturing industry whose northern mechanized factories were directly linked economically to southern slave-labor cotton plantations.

Samuel Morse

The inventor who introduced the electric telegraph in 1837, revolutionizing communication and ultimately replacing the Pony Express.

Lowell System

A New England textile production model that employed young women as factory operatives under strict moral behavioral codes, long work shifts, and constant supervision.

Jacksonian Labor Reforms

Working-class advances during the 1820s and 1830s facilitated by expanding male suffrage, yielding improvements such as the 10-hour workday, higher pay, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt.