[APUSH 2] Progressive Era Vocabulary

Ellis Island

Main port of entry for immigrants on the EAST Coast

• Liberty Island isn’t the same as Ellis Island

Angel Island

Main point of entry for immigrants on the WEST coast

• Both Ellis Island & Angel Island closed down sometime after WWI (not immediately)

Nativism

Hatred of immigrants

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

Law that stopped Chinese immigration to the United States

• Chinese farmers came into the west coast were doing so well agriculturally and had a lot of produce, which lowered crop prices for everyone, making American farmers pissed off

• Renewed in 1892 & 1902

Alien Land Act

Prohibited Asians from owning farmland

• Chinese Exclusion Act & Alien Land Law are pushed forward by Western politicians

• If you were Asian & owned land prior to this law being passed, you were forced to sell your land (for a terrible price!) by a certain date

• “Save California from the Japs to prevent the Japs from owning our land”

Row Houses and Tenements

Cheap, overcrowded housing for the poor & immigrants in cities

• Not public housing; privately owned

• City didn’t put up a lot of building codes at this time (things were super unsafe!)

• Immigrants crowd into these places with no bathrooms (people pooped in chamber pockets)

  • People tossed it into the street for the rain to wash it into the sewers, and this is why men walk on the street side of the sidewalk

• When indoor plumbing became a thing, there was 1 bathroom per floor (imagine like 50 people using 1 bathroom), and that bathroom was extremely dirty because it was no one’s job to clean it

Political Machines

Party organizations that gained votes for their parties by giving incentives (such as money) to people

Tammany Hall

A powerful political machine in New York that provided patronage, mainly to social services for immigrants in return for their votes

Boss Tweed

An American politician, most known for being the head of Tammany Hall, and was convicted for stealing millions of dollars from New York City taxes

Thomas Nast

A political cartoonist thought to be the “Father of the American Cartoon,” and was the person who created the animal symbols of the Democratic (Donkey) and Republican (Elephants) political parties

• Created Santa Claus & took down Boss Tweed

• Democrats were jackasses, and the Republican Elephants (long memory), as long as they worked together, they could achieve anything

“Granger” Cases

Series of Supreme Court cases that says states may only regulate intrastate trade (trade within state boundaries)

• Intrastate Trade = regulated by State

  • Trade within state boundaries

• Interstate Trade = regulated by the Federal government

  • Trade between states

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court case that said segregation was legal

• Segregation is legal as long as facilities are “separate, but equal”

• Homer Plessy considered himself a white guy, but his great-grandmother was African-American (he’s technically 1/8th African-American)

• Plessy got on a train and sat in the “White” section of the train, but someone that knew who he was started trouble and said that he should sit in the “Colored” section

• Ferguson’s the State Attorney General of Louisiana (Plessy went against him)

• Plessy loses the case, which promoted legalized segregation

Progressive Movement

Movement around the turn of the century to improve American life

• Different Progressive Movements Within This Era Included:

• Public Schools/Child Labor

  • Rich white men were the only people that went to college

  • High School was for smart kids

• Women’s Suffrage (right to vote)

• Temperance Movement (Nativism)

  • “Irish people drank too much” (stereotype tied to nativism)

  • Patty Wagon was used to take drunk guys home or to jail

• Public Safety

  • Police, Sanitation, etc.

• Corruption

Muckrakers

Progressive authors who exposed social problems

• Magazines were invented by these authors

• 1900s were when the first magazines came out

Jacob Riis

Muckraker author of How the Other Half Lives that exposed living conditions in Manhattan during the Gilded Age

• Wealthy people lived in Manhattan

  • JP Morgan’s mansion was in Manhattan

  • Grand Central is in Manhattan

  • Trump Tower is in Manhattan

• He takes pictures of terrible living conditions inside tenements

• Manhattan wasn’t all it was made to be

Upton Sinclair

Author of The Jungle who exposed the meat industry in the United States

• Worked for years in a meat factory, and he did horrible work in horrible working conditions for horrible pay

• Excerpt says that rats pooped on meat and the industry was overall SUPER unsanitary and a lot of things went into

• “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach”

• People didn’t care about the workers as they were more concerned about the things that they were eating

• Everybody that made meat in this era cooked their meat well done (otherwise would essentially be a death wish)

• Ketchup is America’s “favorite” condiment because it was needed for meat

• President read this book

“Mother” Jones

Advocate for factory workers & children

• Slogan: More schools and less hospitals

Hull Houses

Settlement house started in Chicago by Jane Addams that provided for the city’s poor

• These settlement houses do literally everything (healthcare, education, food, housing, etc.)

• These still exist today in Chicago — Obama got his start doing work at a Hull House

Susan B. Anthony

Leader of the women’s suffrage movement from the late 1800s to the early 1900s

• Cult of Domesticity (women had a distinct role in the household)

  • Father: responsible for working, making money, disciplining their children, and having an interest in politics

  • Mother: responsible for taking care of the house, teaching children moral/religious beliefs, scheduling what happens in the house

  • If women got involved in politics, this balance would be disrupted and affect the children, which backs up this belief

  • The suffrage movement was trying to combat this belief

Ida B. Wells

Progressive author who spoke out against racism and sexism, including racism in the women’s movement

• One of the first women of color in the US to become a bestselling author

• “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them”

• She ants the movement to include more people of color

• Susan B. Anthony claims that putting white faces forward would make the movement more recognized by the public (since America is extremely racist at the time)

• Women’s Suffrage gets earned from WWI due to women working in factories and producing weapons while men were at war

Square Deal

Teddy Roosevelt’s plan for the US that included 4 parts

1. Break Trusts

2. Regulate Transportation (Railroads)

3. Settle Strikes

4. Conservation (of Nature/Natural Resources)

   • Roosevelt institutes Yellowstone National Park

• Teddy Roosevelt essentially changes the role of president and changes a lot

• This plan marks the end of the Gilded Age

16th Amendment

Starts the Progressive Federal Income Tax

• “The more you make, the more they take”

17th Amendment

Starts the direct election of Senators by the people

18th Amendment

Prohibition (of alcohol)

• Al Capone becomes one of the wealthiest men in America by selling alcohol during this era where alcohol was illegal

19th Amendment

Women’s suffrage

• Earned in 1920 after the war due to women working as men were out at war