Chapter 19: Toward an Urban Society (1877–1900) Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering urbanization, immigration, social reform, education, and political movements in late nineteenth-century America based on Chapter 19.

Push and Pull Factors of Late 19th-Century Immigration

Pushes included European unemployment, food shortages, military conscription, and religious persecution (e.g., Russian anti-Semitic pogroms); pulls included expanding industrial factory jobs, higher wages, available land, and rumors of American freedom.

Ellis Island vs. Angel Island

Ellis Island in New York processed mostly European immigrants with relatively quick health and legal inspections, whereas Angel Island in San Francisco processed Asian immigrants, holding many in harsh detention for weeks or months due to discriminatory anti-Asian policies.

Nativism

An anti-immigrant ideology that favored native-born inhabitants over newcomers, driven by economic fears of job competition, anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic prejudice, and cultural assimilation anxieties.

Chinese Exclusion Act of $1882$

Federal legislation that prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the United States and denied Chinese immigrants a path to naturalized citizenship, marking the first major federal restrictions based on race.

WASPs

Acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the historically dominant cultural, economic, and political demographic group in the United States during the Gilded Age.

The Homestead Act

Federal law that granted $160$ acres of public western land to any citizen who paid a small registration fee and agreed to live on, cultivate, and improve the land for five years.

Dumbbell Tenement

A 7- to 8-story urban housing structure designed by James E. Ware in the late 1870s that packed dozens of four-room apartments into a 25 by 100-foot lot, notorious for narrow middle air shafts that acted as firetraps.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire ($1911$)

A industrial fire in New York City where $146$ garment workers died due to locked exit doors and inadequate fire escapes, galvanizing public outrage and leading to strict workplace safety laws.

Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed

The Democratic political machine in New York City led by _________, which maintained power by trading social services, coal, and jobs to poor immigrants in exchange for political votes while extracting millions through graft.

New Immigrants

A wave of immigrants arriving after $1880$ primarily from southern and eastern Europe (including Italy, Greece, Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Russia) who were mostly Catholic or Jewish, poor, and unskilled.

Immigrant Associations

Fraternal and community organizations (such as the Polish National Alliance) created by newcomers to offer fellowship, health insurance, unemployment aid, cultural preservation, and job placement.

Hull House

A famous Chicago settlement house founded in $1889$ by Jane Addams that provided neighborhood immigrants with English classes, healthcare, childcare, vocational training, and cultural programs.

Social Gospel Movement

A Protestant reform movement led by figures like Washington Gladden that emphasized reforming society, improving urban slum conditions, and advancing social justice as fundamental Christian duties.

Booker T. Washington's Educational and Civil Rights Strategy

Outlined in the Atlanta Compromise, this philosophy advocated that African Americans focus on practical vocational training, economic self-reliance, and patience rather than immediate political or social agitation.

W. E. B. Du Bois's Educational and Civil Rights Strategy

A philosophy demanding immediate full civil rights, higher academic education for 'The Talented Tenth', and active political agitation against legal segregation and disenfranchisement.

Robber Barons vs. Captains of Industry

Contrasting perceptions of Gilded Age business magnates like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. P. Morgan—viewed either as ruthless monopolists who exploited workers or as innovative leaders who drove national industrial growth and philanthropy.

Muckrakers

Progressive Era investigative journalists, authors, and photographers who exposed corporate monopolies, government corruption, and horrific urban living and working conditions to spur federal reform.

Jacob Riis and How the Other Half Lives

An $1890$ book of photojournalism and text that exposed the dark, overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions inside New York City's tenement slums to middle-class readers.

Upton Sinclair and The Jungle

A $1906$ muckraking novel exposing the unsanitary conditions and worker exploitation in Chicago's meatpacking plants, directly leading to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act.

Ida Tarbell

A prominent muckraking journalist whose detailed investigative articles exposed the ruthless and anti-competitive business practices of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company.

Initiative and Referendum

Progressive political reforms that empowered voters to propose new legislation directly or vote to approve or repeal laws passed by the state legislature.

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments

Constitutional amendments ratified in $1913$ that established a federal progressive income tax ($16\text{th}$) and required the direct popular election of U.S. Senators by citizens ($17\text{th}$).

Seneca Falls Convention ($1848$)

The nation's first women's rights convention, where organizers led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments demanding political, social, and voting rights for women.

Nineteenth Amendment ($1920$)

Constitutional amendment that officially granted women the right to vote nationwide by prohibiting federal or state government disenfranchisement based on sex.

Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

An organization formed in $1874$ and long led by Frances E. Willard that campaigned for total abstinence from alcohol to eradicate crime, poverty, and domestic abuse, laying groundwork for Prohibition.

The Dark Side of Progressivism

Aspects of the Progressive movement that embraced eugenics, enforced racial segregation, excluded African Americans from reform campaigns, and sought to restrict foreign immigration.

Louis H. Sullivan

A prominent Chicago architect who championed the principle that form follows function, creating iconic soaring skyscrapers like the Wainwright Building and Carson, Pirie, and Scott store.