American History Exam 1 Study Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering Reconstruction, Industrialization, Western Expansion, Progressivism, World War I, and the Roaring Twenties based on Exam 1 lecture notes.

13th Amendment

Constitutional amendment that freed slaves.

14th Amendment

Constitutional amendment that provided citizenship to all people who had recently been freed.

15th Amendment

Constitutional amendment granting Black men the right to vote.

Radical Republicans

People who wanted to rebuild the South by remaking it like the North, and who controlled the South through Congress during Reconstruction.

Protective tariff

A tax on imported goods.

Patent

A government-created protection providing a way for inventors to gain exclusive rights to their inventions.

Laissez-faire policies

The policy that government intrudes as little as possible on business.

Corporation

A legally separate entity from its owners.

Monopoly

A business practice that occurs when a corporation or person is the only supplier of a specific good or commodity.

Cartel

An arrangement where businesses making the same product agree to limit production and keep prices high.

Trust

A type of business model that assigns stock to a separate organization in order to circumvent the law.

Horizontal integration

The illusion of choice, developed because people did not want to buy from the same big companies (e.g., GM making GMC, Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac).

Vertical integration

A business structure where one business owns all entities of the business (e.g., CFA owning farms, trucks, and restaurants).

Social Darwinism

The concept and belief that only the best and brightest can succeed.

Captains of industry

Business figures viewed positively who made their money in clever ways, established factories, created jobs, and lowered prices of goods.

Robber Barons

Rich and powerful business leaders who used ruthless methods to crush small businesses, built monopolies, and forced workers into low-paying, harsh, and unsafe conditions.

Collective bargaining

A process that allowed workers to use their numbers to gain better working conditions.

Haymarket Riot

A riot that led to the death of nine whites and forty African Americans.

John D. Rockefeller

A businessman who began partnerships in oil refining and owned Standard Oil.

Ellis Island

An immigration station located in New York City where Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans, Jews, and Russians entered.

Angel Island

An immigration station located in San Francisco where Asian and Chinese immigrants arrived.

Nativism

The belief that those born in a country have a larger stake in it than immigrants.

Melting pot

The concept of having all different types of people all mixed together in the US, including Americans and immigrants.

Americanization

The process of immigrants adapting to American/English customs, such as changing a surname to sound more English.

Gold rush

A movement where settlers went west searching for gold, primarily located in Pikes Peak and Carson River Valley, causing supply towns to spring up.

Vigilante

An individual who took law enforcement into their own hands without following outlines, codes, or laws that citizens can understand.

Boomtown

A town that quickly sprung up across the West as a result of the gold rush.

Transcontinental Railroad

A railroad built by Central Pacific, Union Pacific, the Irish, and the Chinese that united the whole country by rail.

Homestead Act of 1862

A federal law giving away free land to any settler willing to stay on the land for five years, dig a well, and build a road.

Lakota Sioux

A Great Plains Native American tribe whose culture was shaped by large grasslands and bison, relying on bison for food, clothing, tools, and shelter.

George Custer

A top soldier and leader of US Army Forces during the Indian Wars who is best known for his failure and death at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Crazy Horse

An Indian Chief who surrendered to US forces but was bayoneted and killed upon surrender after refusing to be imprisoned.

Sitting Bull

A Sioux chief who was confronted and accidentally shot in 1890 after his men refused to let policemen take him into custody.

Wounded Knee

The location where officers tracked down and killed all the fleeing Indians after Sitting Bull's shooting, except for one young girl adopted by an army officer.

Muckrakers

Reporters that Theodore Roosevelt believed only focused on the negative aspects of the news.

Trustbusting

The practice of breaking up business trusts.

Square Deal

A policy conceived by Theodore Roosevelt to create an even playing field for businesses and prevent the wealthy from exploiting small business owners and the poor.

Conservation

The practice of preserving or reserving nature, exemplified by setting aside 1.5 million acres of dams, national parks, and 50 wildlife sanctuaries.

Rough Riders

A group of volunteers that rode bareback on horses and helped fight in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

Central Powers

The World War I coalition that included Germany, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.

Allied Powers

The World War I coalition that included Britain, France, Russia, and Belgium.

Lusitania

A British cruise ship carrying American passengers that was sunk by a German U-boat, resulting in the death of 123 Americans.

Zimmermann telegram

A German proposal offering Mexico assistance in retaking parts of the US in exchange for helping delay American entry into World War I.

Propaganda

The strategic use of words and imagery to get people to feel a certain way.

Committee of Public Information

An agency that produced war propaganda (films, songs, books) with the co-operation of news media to garner public support.

Meuse-Argonne Offensive

The largest military engagement in U.S. history; a 47-day battle starting September 26, 1918, involving 1.2 million American soldiers with 117,00 killed or wounded.

Battle of Belleau Wood

A major World War I engagement directly under Pershing's command where outnumbered American forces defeated and demoralized the Germans.

Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing

General of the US Armies in World War I who insisted that American troops remain an independent fighting force rather than being integrated into British and French armies.

Armistice Date (WWI)

November 11, 1918.

Wilson’s 14 points

President Woodrow Wilson's post-war plan calling for an end to imperialism, open diplomacy, free trade, and a reduction of armaments.

League of Nations

An organization of countries formed to meet and discuss how to prevent future wars and halt conflicts before they begin.

Treaty of Versailles

The peace treaty signed in 1919 that brought World War I to an end.

18th Amendment

A constitutional amendment banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors, initiating the Prohibition era.

Bootlegging

The illegal production and distribution of alcohol.

Flappers

Emancipated young women in the 1920s who embraced new fashions and urban attitudes.

Great migration

The movement of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the South to large Northern cities.

Harlem Renaissance

A Black literary, musical, and social cultural movement centered around Harlem, New York.

Langston Hughes

The Harlem Renaissance movement's best known poet.

Suffragette

Any woman who actively advocated for women's right to vote.

19th Amendment

A constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.

21st Amendment

A constitutional amendment that repealed the 18th Amendment, ending the ban on the production, sale, and transport of alcohol.

Buying on credit

Purchasing an item to pay back later either in installments or all at once, typically incurring monthly interest.