History Review: Gilded Age to Modern Era

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering major political, economic, civil rights, and diplomatic events in U.S. history from the late 19th century through the early 2000s.

Speculative Bubbles

A situation where people buy stocks or other assets hoping prices will keep rising, even when real value does not justify it; when prices crash, investors lose massive amounts of money, a dynamic that contributed to the 1929 crash.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930)

A law that raised taxes on many imported goods to protect American businesses, causing other countries to retaliate with tariffs and worsening international trade during the Great Depression.

New Deal

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's programs during the 1930s designed to fight the Great Depression by providing relief, promoting economic recovery, and reforming banking and other systems.

Huey Long

A Louisiana politician who criticized Roosevelt's New Deal for not doing enough and proposed the Share Our Wealth program to reduce inequality by redistributing wealth.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)

A New Deal law that paid participating farmers to reduce crop production in order to raise agricultural prices, helping some farmers while disadvantaging many tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

Glass-Steagall Act (1933)

A banking law that separated commercial banking from investment banking and established the FDIC to insure bank deposits and restore public confidence.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A nationwide railroad workers' strike triggered by wage cuts and poor working conditions that prompted federal and state military intervention, highlighting tensions among workers, corporations, and the government.

Vertical vs. Horizontal Integration

Vertical integration involves owning different stages of making and distributing a product (used by Carnegie), whereas horizontal integration involves buying or combining with competing businesses in the same industry (used by Rockefeller).

Laissez-Faire

An economic philosophy meaning 'let it be' that favors limited government interference in business and the economy.

Andrew Carnegie

A wealthy Gilded Age steel industrialist who expanded his company through vertical integration and advocated philanthropy in his Gospel of Wealth.

Progressives

Reformers in the late 1800s and early 1900s who sought to address corruption, dangerous working conditions, corporate power, and other social problems through government action.

Teddy Roosevelt

President from 1901–1909 associated with the Square Deal, known for trust-busting, conservation, consumer protection, and expanding U.S. influence overseas.

Woodrow Wilson

President from 1913–1921 who led the United States during World War I and proposed the Fourteen Points and League of Nations to promote postwar peace.

Volstead Act (1919)

A law that enforced the 18th Amendment and national Prohibition by restricting the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Alfred Thayer Mahan

A naval strategist who argued that powerful nations required strong navies, trade, and overseas naval bases, thereby encouraging American imperial expansion.

Frederick J. Turner

A historian known for the Frontier Thesis (1893), which argued that westward expansion shaped American democracy and national identity.

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

A U.S. foreign policy warning European powers against further colonization or interference in the Americas, asserting American interests in the Western Hemisphere.

Roosevelt Corollary (1904)

An addition to the Monroe Doctrine asserting that the United States could intervene in Latin American countries to maintain stability and prevent European intervention.

Spanish-American War (1898)

A short conflict between the United States and Spain involving Cuba and the Philippines; U.S. victory resulted in control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, expanding its overseas empire.

Missionary Boys

A term associated with American missionary descendants and businessmen in Hawaiʻi who undermined the Hawaiian monarchy, supported the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, and backed U.S. annexation in 1898.

Versailles Treaty (1919)

The peace treaty ending the war between Germany and the Allied powers after World War I, which imposed territorial losses, military restrictions, and reparations on Germany, and established the League of Nations.

Eugene Debs

An American socialist and labor leader who ran for president multiple times, opposed U.S. participation in World War I, and was imprisoned under the Espionage Act for an antiwar speech.

Espionage Act (1917)

A federal law passed during World War I that punished interference with military recruitment and other activities harmful to the war effort, frequently used against antiwar activists.

Sedition Act (1918)

A World War I law that expanded restrictions on speech deemed disloyal or abusive toward the government or war effort, restricting civil liberties until its repeal in 1920.

League of Nations

An international organization created after World War I to prevent future conflicts through diplomacy and collective security; supported by Woodrow Wilson, though the United States never joined.

Zimmermann Telegram (1917)

A secret German diplomatic communication proposing an alliance with Mexico against the United States and suggesting Mexico could recover lost territory, increasing American support for entering WWI.

Lusitania (1915)

A British passenger liner sunk by a German submarine, killing nearly 1,200 people, including 128 Americans, which fueled American anger toward Germany prior to U.S. entry into World War I.

Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)

A surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaiʻi that prompted the United States to enter World War II.

A. Philip Randolph

A Black labor and civil rights leader who threatened a 1941 march on Washington to protest discrimination in defense employment, pressing President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802.

Warren Court (1953–1969)

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren that broadened civil rights and individual protections through rulings on school segregation, criminal procedure, and voting.

George Kennan

An American diplomat who helped develop the containment policy, which sought to limit the spread of Soviet communism rather than overthrow it directly.

Marshall Plan (1948)

An American foreign aid initiative providing economic assistance to rebuild Western Europe following World War II, aimed at strengthening democratic governments and checking communist influence.

Truman Doctrine (1947)

President Harry Truman's pledge to support nations threatened by communist expansion, initially focused on providing aid to Greece and Turkey as a cornerstone of containment.

NSC-68 Report (1950)

A classified national security paper warning that the Soviet Union posed an existential threat and urging a substantial expansion of U.S. military power during the Cold War.

McCarthyism

A period of fierce anti-communist investigations and allegations in the 1950s led by Senator Joseph McCarthy that damaged many careers and reputations without adequate evidence.

Korean War (1950–1953)

A conflict initiated by communist North Korea's invasion of South Korea; a U.S.-led UN force defended the South and clashed with intervening Chinese forces, ending with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)

A congressional measure giving President Lyndon Johnson broad authority to use military force in Southeast Asia after reported attacks on U.S. ships, enabling escalation of the Vietnam War.

Tet Offensive (1968)

A massive, coordinated assault by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces during the Vietnam War; despite heavy losses for the attackers, it undermined American public confidence that the war was being won.

Black Panthers

The Black Panther Party, established in Oakland in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale to advance Black self-determination, armed defense against police brutality, and community initiatives like free breakfasts.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

A landmark federal statute outlawing racial segregation in public accommodations and banning employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Boynton v. Virginia (1960)

A Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in bus terminal restaurants serving interstate travelers violated federal interstate commerce law, which helped inspire the Freedom Rides.

Freedom Rides (1961)

Integrated journeys taken by civil rights activists on interstate buses through the American South to challenge segregation, enduring violent attacks and compelling the federal government to enforce desegregation rules.

SNCC

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, formed in 1960 as a youth-led civil rights organization that conducted sit-ins, voter registration drives, and grassroots activism.

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909 to combat racial discrimination through litigation, public advocacy, and organizing, including the legal challenge to segregated schools.

Rosa Parks

A civil rights activist whose arrest for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery in 1955 helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Woolworths

The site of the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, where four Black college students refused to vacate a segregated lunch counter in North Carolina, igniting a widespread sit-in movement.

Little Rock Nine (1957)

Nine Black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, facing hostile resistance until President Dwight Eisenhower deployed federal troops to protect them.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

A landmark Supreme Court decision holding that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Kerner Commission (1968)

A federal commission that investigated racial unrest in American cities and determined that systemic racism, discrimination, and inequality were the primary causes.

Equality vs. Essentialist Feminism

Equality feminism stresses identical rights, treatment, and opportunities regardless of gender, whereas essentialist feminism emphasizes distinct traits or experiences inherent to women that merit specific recognition.

Margaret Sanger

An early birth control advocate who championed contraceptive access and helped form organizations that became Planned Parenthood, though her legacy remains controversial due to associations with eugenics.

Betty Friedan

An influential second-wave feminist whose 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, challenged the societal expectation that women should derive fulfillment solely from domesticity, marriage, and motherhood.

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

A Supreme Court ruling establishing a constitutional right to marital privacy and invalidating a state law that prohibited married couples from using contraception.

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

A 13-day diplomatic and military standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, resolved peacefully through talks between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev.

Richard Nixon

President from 1969 to 1974 known for pursuing détente, establishing relations with China, and resigning from office due to the Watergate scandal to prevent likely impeachment and removal.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

A major New Left student activist organization of the 1960s that championed participatory democracy and spearheaded campus demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

Counterculture

A 1960s social and cultural movement that rejected traditional norms regarding authority, the military, sexuality, gender roles, lifestyles, and social conformity.

Ronald Reagan

President from 1981–1989 who advocated conservative policies including tax cuts, deregulation, and military buildup, known for Reaganomics and a confrontational early Cold War posture.

Shah of Iran

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the monarch of Iran whose authoritarian rule and close ties to the United States sparked domestic opposition, culminating in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979–1981)

A diplomatic crisis in which Iranian militants occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran, holding 52 Americans captive for 444 days, severely straining U.S.–Iran relations and damaging President Carter politically.

Nakba (1948)

An Arabic term meaning 'catastrophe' that describes the large-scale displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the establishment of Israel.

Operation Desert Storm (1991)

A coalition military operation led by the United States during the Gulf War that successfully drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait following Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion.

Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)

A U.S.-led military invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein; justified in part by allegations regarding weapons of mass destruction that were not found, leading to prolonged armed conflict.