CH 203 Examination 2 Review: 19th and Early 20th-Century American History and Literature

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering conceptual terms, major passage identifications, ideological movements, and historical events from the CH 203 Examination 2 study guide.

Missouri Compromise

1820 agreement setting the $36^\circ 30'$ parallel boundary for western slavery, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to maintain balance in Congress.

Approaches to Abolition

The ideological split within the abolitionist movement between William Lloyd Garrison's peaceful "moral suasion" and John Brown's radical belief in armed violence to end slavery.

Moral Suasion

Abolitionist strategy aimed at transforming public morality and hearts through persuasion and media, explicitly rejecting violent revolution or political compromise.

The Slave Narrative

Literary genre detailing the horrors of bondage, traditionally beginning with the formulaic phrase "I was born" and emphasizing literacy's double-edged sword and human dignity.

Transcendentalism

The first original American philosophical movement, emphasizing radical individualism, spiritual connection to nature, and nonconformity.

Self-Reliance

Emersonian core concept urging individuals to trust inner intuition and resist conforming to societal traditions or institutional pressure.

Free Verse (Poetry)

Poetic structure lacking fixed rhyme and meter, famously utilized by Walt Whitman to express a democratic ethos using common speech.

Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau's political philosophy stating that citizens are morally obligated to nonviolently break unjust laws enacted by government.

Manifest Destiny

19th-century belief that the United States was divinely ordained to expand across North America, spreading democracy, capitalism, and white settlement.

Mexican-American War

Expansionist conflict driven by Manifest Destiny that seized vast Western territories, accelerating intense national debates over the spread of slavery.

The Lost Cause

Southern myth reframing the Civil War as a noble defense of states' rights, romanticizing the Confederacy and softening the brutal reality of slavery.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 law establishing popular sovereignty to decide slavery in territories, effectively overturning the Missouri Compromise and causing "Bleeding Kansas."

Dred Scott Decision

1857 Supreme Court ruling stating that African Americans were not citizens and that Congress lacked constitutional power to prohibit slavery in federal territories.

"Slave Power Conspiracy"

Northern political belief that a wealthy elite of Southern slaveholders disproportionately controlled federal government policies.

"Rain Follows the Plough"

Pseudoscientific Gilded Age theory claiming that agricultural cultivation and human settlement increased rainfall in arid Western lands.

Approaches to Reconstruction

Post-Civil War debate between Abraham Lincoln's and Andrew Johnson's quick, lenient restoration plans and Radical Republicans' strict military reform designed to protect freedpeople.

Reconstruction Amendments

The 13th (abolished slavery), 14th (citizenship and equal protection), and 15th (voting rights) Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively forming America's "second founding."

Myth of the Vanishing Indian

Cultural narrative claiming that Native Americans were destined to fade away naturally before white progress, functioning to justify federal land theft.

Reservations and Allotments

Federal policy forcing Native American tribes onto reserved lands, which were later partitioned under the Dawes Act into 160-acre individual plots to mandate private ownership.

Carlisle Boarding School

Off-reservation assimilation school implementing Richard Henry Pratt's strategy to "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

The "Frontier Thesis"

Frederick Jackson Turner's theory arguing that continuous expansion into the Western wilderness forged unique American democracy and individualism.

The Gilded Age

Late 19th-century era marked by rapid industrialization and ostentatious wealth masking extreme poverty, labor exploitation, and political corruption.

The Progressive Era

Early 20th-century reform movement seeking to remediate social inequality, corporate monopoly power, political corruption, and urban decay.

Social Darwinism

Misapplication of evolutionary principles to human society, claiming wealth and power reflected natural biological superiority ("survival of the fittest").

Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie's philosophy asserting that wealthy industrialists held a moral duty to administer surplus fortunes for public philanthropic benefit.

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 federal statute halting Chinese labor immigration, establishing America's first major race- and nationality-based statutory restriction.

Johnson-Reed Act

1924 immigration law setting strict national origin quotas that sharply limited Southern and Eastern European immigration and banned Asian entry entirely.

Eugenics

Pseudoscientific movement promoting the selective breeding of human populations, which fueled 1920s anti-immigrant legislation and reinforced racial hierarchies.

Compromise of 1877

Political settlement that withdrew remaining federal military forces from the South, effectively dismantling Reconstruction and abandoning freed people to systemic disenfranchisement and violence.

Cornerstone Speech

1861 address by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens asserting that the Confederacy was fundamentally founded upon the idea that African Americans are not equal to white men.

Thirteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide, while preserving an exception clause permitting forced labor as punishment for a crime.

Fourteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment establishing birthright citizenship and guaranteeing equal protection under the law, directly overturning the Dred Scott ruling.

Fifteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment prohibiting the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, granting suffrage to Black men nationwide.

How the Other Half Lives

Exposé written by Jacob Riis documenting and illustrating the extreme urban poverty and squalid tenement housing conditions of New York City.

America and I

Autobiographical text by Anzia Yezierska detailing immigrant identity, the emotional struggle of cultural assimilation, and economic exploitation in America.

American Indian Stories

Collection by Yankton Dakota author Zitkála-Šá describing the profound cultural dislocation and loss of identity inflicted by assimilationist Indian boarding schools.