U.S. History Key Amendments, Movements, and Leaders (1865–1920s)

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery in 1865, except as punishment for a crime.

14th Amendment

Established birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law.

15th Amendment

Protected voting rights from being denied based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Freedmen's Bureau

Federal agency that helped formerly enslaved people after the Civil War through education, labor assistance, and other services.

Redeemers

Southern Democrats who regained political control and worked against Reconstruction.

Bargain of 1877

Agreement that helped Rutherford B. Hayes become president and led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction.

Gilded Age

Period of rapid industrialization and enormous wealth alongside inequality, corruption, and labor conflict.

Populists

Political movement associated especially with farmers and workers demanding economic and political reforms.

Knights of Labor

Major early labor organization that pushed for reforms such as the eight-hour workday.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Federal law passed in 1882 that restricted Chinese immigration.

Panic of 1893

Major economic depression involving unemployment and financial and business failures.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation under the doctrine of "separate but equal."

Progressive Party

Reform party associated with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, also called the Bull Moose Party.

Spanish-American War

1898 war that helped establish the United States as a greater international and imperial power.

Insular Cases

Supreme Court cases concerning how constitutional rights applied in newly acquired U.S. territories.

Dollar Diplomacy

Foreign policy associated with William Howard Taft that used American economic and financial power to advance U.S. interests abroad.

Fordism

Mass production using standardized products and assembly-line techniques, associated with Henry Ford.

Muller v. Oregon

1908 Supreme Court case that upheld an Oregon law limiting women's working hours.

First Great Migration

Large movement of Black Americans from the South to Northern and Midwestern cities.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's World War I peace plan, which included the idea of a League of Nations.

Schenck v. United States

Supreme Court case involving restrictions on free speech during wartime.

Red Scare of 1919-1920

Widespread fear of communism, anarchism, radicalism, and political revolution in the United States.

Influenza Pandemic of 1918

Deadly worldwide influenza pandemic occurring around the end of World War I.

19th Amendment

Ratified in 1920 and prohibited denying voting rights based on sex.

Jazz Age

Name for the 1920s reflecting the cultural popularity and influence of jazz.

Consumer Culture

A society and economy increasingly centered on purchasing mass-produced consumer goods.

Harlem Renaissance

Major Black artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement centered especially in Harlem, New York.

Prohibition

Nationwide constitutional prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

Immigration Act of 1924

Established restrictive national immigration quotas and greatly limited immigration.

Teapot Dome Scandal

Major political corruption scandal involving federal oil reserves and bribery during the Harding administration.

Great Depression

Severe economic crisis beginning in 1929 that caused unemployment, poverty, bank failures, and business failures.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

Law that raised U.S. tariffs; other countries retaliated and international trade declined.

First New Deal

FDR's initial response to the Great Depression, focused on Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

Second New Deal

Later New Deal programs emphasizing longer-term economic security, workers' rights, and social welfare.

Wagner Act

1935 law protecting workers' rights to organize unions and bargain collectively.

Popular Front

Coalition of left-wing groups in the 1930s united particularly around opposition to fascism.

Abraham Lincoln

Civil War president associated with emancipation.

Andrew Johnson

Reconstruction-era president and first U.S. president to be impeached.

Ulysses S. Grant

Union general who became president during Reconstruction.

Rutherford B. Hayes

President associated with the Bargain of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction.

Thomas Edison

Inventor associated with electrical technology.

Andrew Carnegie

Steel industry.

John D. Rockefeller

Oil industry and Standard Oil.

Sitting Bull

Lakota leader associated with the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Booker T. Washington

Tuskegee Institute.

Jane Addams

Hull House and Progressive social reform.

William McKinley

President during the Spanish-American War.

Theodore Roosevelt

Progressive president associated with the Bull Moose Party and an expansion of presidential power.

William Howard Taft

U.S. president associated with Dollar Diplomacy who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Woodrow Wilson

World War I president associated with the Fourteen Points and League of Nations.

J. Edgar Hoover

FBI.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Anti-lynching activist and civil rights leader.

Herbert Hoover

President when the Great Depression began.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

FDR; president associated with the New Deal.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Activist First Lady.

Frances Perkins

Secretary of Labor and first woman to serve in a U.S. presidential Cabinet.

1865

13th Amendment.

1868

14th Amendment.

1870

15th Amendment.

1877

Bargain of 1877 and effective end of Reconstruction.

1882

Chinese Exclusion Act.

1896

Plessy v. Ferguson.

1898

Spanish-American War.

1908

Muller v. Oregon.

1920

19th Amendment.

1924

Immigration Act of 1924.

1929

Great Depression begins.

1933

FDR takes office and the New Deal begins.

1935

Wagner Act.

13 = FREE

13th Amendment abolished slavery.

14 = CITIZEN

14th Amendment established citizenship and equal protection.

15 = VOTE

15th Amendment protected voting rights regardless of race.

19 = WOMEN VOTE

19th Amendment prohibited denying voting rights based on sex.

Carnegie

STEEL.

Rockefeller

OIL.

Addams

HULL HOUSE.

Washington

TUSKEGEE.

Wells-Barnett

ANTI-LYNCHING.

J. Edgar Hoover

FBI.

Herbert Hoover

GREAT DEPRESSION.

FDR

NEW DEAL.

Wilson

WWI, Fourteen Points, League of Nations.

Great Migration -> Harlem Renaissance

Movement of Black Americans to Northern cities contributed to the growth of Black cultural centers and the Harlem Renaissance.

Fordism -> Consumer Culture

Mass production helped make consumer goods cheaper and more widely available.

Reconstruction -> Jim Crow

Reconstruction expanded Black citizenship and political rights, while the post-Reconstruction period saw those rights restricted through segregation and disenfranchisement.

Relief, Recovery, Reform

The three Rs used to remember the major goals of the New Deal.