american history

Civil War main cause

The conflict over slavery and whether new states would allow it

Emancipation Proclamation

Order by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War that freed slaves in Confederate-held territory

Reconstruction

Period after the Civil War focused on bringing Southern states back into the Union and rebuilding the South

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery in the United States

14th Amendment

Defined citizenship and guaranteed equal protection under the law

15th Amendment

Gave African American men the right to vote (universal male suffrage)

Sharecropping

System where freedmen and poor whites farmed land owned by others, often leading to debt

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the South

Industrialization

Fast growth of factories and industry in the US after the Civil War, driven by resources, large workforce, new inventions, and railroads

Robber Barons

Wealthy and often ruthless industrialists of the Gilded Age, accused of corrupt practices

Horizontal Integration

When a company buys up competitors in the same industry to decrease competition

Vertical Integration

When a company controls all aspects of production, from raw materials to finished goods

Monopoly

A company that controls nearly all of one industry, eliminating competition

Trust

Legal arrangement where companies assign their stock to a board to form a monopoly and avoid monopoly laws

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Union led by Samuel Gompers, focused on wages, working hours, working conditions; preferred negotiation; excluded African Americans and women

International Workers of the World (IWW)

Union that wanted a single large union for all workers under socialism; included skilled and unskilled labor, and had one major successful strike

Knights of Labor

Labor union that accepted women and African Americans, advocating for 8-hour workdays, no child labor, and arbitration over strikes

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Major strike against wage cuts in the railroad industry, ending after military intervention and violence

Homestead and Pullman Strikes

Strikes where businesses and government used force to break unions, highlighting government support for business

Immigration Pull Factors

Economic opportunity, land, higher standard of living, social mobility in the US

Immigration Push Factors

Poverty, political/religious oppression, war, overpopulation in home countries

Ellis Island

Immigration station near New York for European immigrants; health inspections, gender segregation, short to long waits

Angel Island

Detention center in San Francisco Bay for Asian immigrants, involving long detainment, strict interrogations, and harsh living conditions

Nativism

Hostility toward immigrants by native-born Americans; included anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiment

Chinese Exclusion Act

Law that barred Chinese immigrants for 10 years and kept Chinese residents from becoming citizens; lasted until 1943

Urbanization

Growth of cities with industrialization, resulting in new infrastructure, crowded tenements, social class divisions

Tenement

Crowded, often unsanitary apartment buildings for working-class urban families

How the Other Half Lives

Book by Jacob Riis exposing poor living conditions in urban slums, aiming to inspire social reform