American History Exam 1 - Flashcards

William Jennings Bryan

Three-time Democratic presidential candidate and orator who championed Populist causes, unlimited coinage of silver, and the interests of the common working class.

“Free Silver”

A late 19th-century monetary policy proposal advocating the unlimited coinage of silver into money to increase the money supply and assist farmers and debtors.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A prominent 19th-century American shipping and railroad tycoon who consolidated several eastern rail networks, building a massive transport empire.

Andrew Carnegie

An industrialist and philanthropist who led the expansion of the American steel industry using vertical integration and advocated the 'Gospel of Wealth'.

Robber Barons

A derogatory term applied to powerful 19th-century American businessmen who used ruthless, unethical, or monopolistic practices to amass enormous fortunes.

Purity Crusade

A late 19th-century moral reform movement aimed at eliminating vice, prostitution, alcohol, and gambling to enforce Christian moral standards in urban society.

Comstock Law

An 1873 federal statute that criminalized the mailing of 'obscene, lewd, or lascivious' material, including contraceptives and information about abortion.

“Conspicuous Consumption”

A concept formulated by economist Thorstein Veblen describing the lavish spending on luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power and status.

Tenements

Multi-family urban housing structures, often overcrowded, poorly ventilated, and unsanitary, where low-income immigrant families lived during the Industrial Era.

Horatio Alger

A 19th-century author famous for writing dime novels featuring impoverished boys who achieved middle-class success through hard work, determination, and morality.

Pullman Strike

An 1894 nationwide railroad conflict that erupted when sleeper car factory workers protested wage cuts, leading President Grover Cleveland to deploy federal troops.

Haymarket Riot

An 1886 labor rally in Chicago that turned violent after a bomb was thrown at police, severely damaging the reputation of organized labor and linking unionism with anarchism.

Eugene Debs

A prominent labor leader, founder of the American Railway Union, and five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate who was jailed for his role in the 1894 railroad boycott.

I.W.W.

An international radical labor union established in 1905, also known as the 'Wobblies,' that advocated for direct action and industrial unionism to overthrow capitalism.

“Cross of Gold” speech

An 1896 address delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention criticizing the gold standard and advocating bimetallism.

Populist Party Platform

The 1892 Omaha Platform advocating for free coinage of silver, government ownership of railroads, a graduated income tax, and direct election of U.S. senators.

Dawes Act

An 1887 federal law intended to assimilate Native Americans by breaking up tribal lands into individual family allotments and selling the remaining land to white settlers.

Homestead Act

An 1862 federal law offering 160 acres of public land in the West to any citizen who agreed to live on and cultivate it for five years.

Chinese Exclusion Act

An 1882 federal statute that banned all laborers from a specific Asian nation from entering the United States, marking the first major restriction on immigration based on nationality.

Ghost Dance

A Native American religious movement of the late 19th century based on a vision that performing a sacred ritual would restore ancestral lands, bring back the bison, and drive away white settlers.

Wounded Knee

An 1890 massacre in South Dakota where the U.S. Army killed nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children, effectively ending the Plains Indian Wars.

First Transcontinental Railroad

A continuous 1,912-mile rail link completed in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, connecting the eastern rail network with the Pacific coast.

Crédit Mobilier scandal

An 1872 political corruption scheme in which Union Pacific Railroad executives created a fraudulent construction company to skim profits and bribed congressmen with discounted shares.

Social Darwinism

A late 19th-century theory applying evolutionary principles of 'survival of the fittest' to human societies, justifying wealth inequality, imperialism, and unbridled capitalism.

Coxey’s Army

An 1894 protest march of unemployed workers led by an Ohio businessman to Washington, D.C., demanding federal public works jobs funded by paper money.

Reconstruction Amendments

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional additions passed between 1865 and 1870 that abolished slavery, granted citizenship and equal protection, and protected voting rights.

Black Codes (1865-66)

Laws passed by Southern states immediately following the Civil War to restrict the freedom of African Americans and compel them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

A landmark Supreme Court ruling that upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of 'separate but equal'.

Ida B. Wells

An African American investigative journalist and civil rights leader who published extensive research exposing the horrors of lynching in the American South.

Jim Crow laws

State and local statutes enacted across the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black citizens.

Booker T. Washington

An African American educator and reformer who founded the Tuskegee Institute and advocated for vocational education and economic self-reliance rather than immediate political rights.

W. E. B. DuBois

An African American sociologist, civil rights activist, co-founder of the NAACP, and leader of the Niagara Movement who demanded immediate equality and higher education.

Code of the West

An unwritten set of informal social rules, ethics, and conduct that guided behavior, self-reliance, and justice in the frontier societies of the American West.

AFL

An alliance of craft unions founded by Samuel Gompers in 1886 that focused on practical labor issues like higher wages, shorter working hours, and safer conditions.

Knights of Labor

A 19th-century labor organization founded in 1869 that sought to unite all workers, regardless of skill, gender, or race, advocating for an eight-hour workday and social reforms.

Compromise 1877

An informal political agreement that resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election by awarding the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South.

Accommodationism

A strategy proposing that African Americans temporarily accept segregation and white political dominance while focusing on economic advancement and vocational skills.

Sand Creek Massacre

An 1864 attack by U.S. volunteer cavalry on a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in Colorado Territory, resulting in the deaths of over 150 Native Americans.

Helen Hunt Jackson / A Century of Dishonor

An 1881 book and its author chronicling the U.S. government's long history of broken treaties, injustice, and mistreatment toward Native Americans.

Laissez-Faire

An economic philosophy asserting that government should not interfere in the operations of the free market, allowing businesses to operate without regulation.

Depression of 1893

A severe economic collapse in the United States triggered by railroad bankruptcies and dwindling gold reserves, resulting in widespread bank failures and mass unemployment.

Vertical integration

A business strategy where a company controls every stage of the production process, from raw materials to final distribution, to reduce costs and eliminate middlemen.

“New Immigrants”

A wave of immigrants arriving in the United States between 1880 and 1920, predominantly from Southern and Eastern Europe, who settled mainly in industrial cities.