Key Concepts of the Gilded Age and Post-Reconstruction South

New South

Southern push for industrialization after Reconstruction

Henry Grady

Journalist who promoted the 'New South'

Birmingham (steel)

Southern industrial steel center

Memphis (lumber)

Lumber production city

Richmond (tobacco)

Major tobacco industry city

national rail network

Connected regions; boosted national markets

tenant farmers

Farmers who rented land

sharecroppers

Paid rent with crops; kept farmers in debt

George Washington Carver

Promoted crop diversification

Tuskegee Institute

Black vocational school founded by Booker T. Washington

White supremacists

Groups supporting white dominance

Civil Rights Cases (1883)

Supreme Court allowed private segregation

Plessy v. Ferguson

'Separate but equal' legalized segregation

Jim Crow laws

State laws enforcing segregation

literacy tests

Voting restriction targeting Black voters

poll taxes

Fee to vote

grandfather clauses

Allowed voting if ancestors voted

lynch mobs

Groups that murdered without trials

economic discrimination

Job and wage inequality

Ida B. Wells

Journalist who exposed lynching

International Migration

Movement of people across countries

Society

Organized social structure

Booker T. Washington

Supported gradual equality, job training

W. E. B. Du Bois

Demanded immediate civil rights

Atlanta Compromise

Washington's speech supporting segregation temporarily

economic cooperation

Focus on economic progress first

transatlantic cable

Faster communication between U.S. & Europe

telephone

Voice communication device

Alexander Graham Bell

Invented the telephone

Eastman's Kodak camera

Made photography affordable

Henry Bessemer

Improved steel production

Thomas Edison

Inventor of electric light system

Menlo Park

Edison's research lab

electric power

Energy for cities

electric light

Replaced gas lighting

George Westinghouse

Promoted AC electricity

subways

Underground city transportation

Brooklyn Bridge

Linked Manhattan & Brooklyn

skyscraper

Tall steel-frame buildings

Otis elevator

Made skyscrapers practical

R. H. Macy

Founded large department store

large department store

One-stop shopping centers

mail-order companies

Sold goods via catalogs

Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Major mail-order company

packaged foods

Pre-prepared food products

canning

Food preservation method

Gustavus Swift

Revolutionized meatpacking

advertising

Promoted consumer goods

consumer economy

Economy based on mass consumption

Gilded Age

Rapid growth + inequality (1870s-1900)

Great Plains

Flat farming region

Great American Desert

Early belief Plains were uninhabitable

100th meridian

Line dividing wet/dry farming

Vaqueros

Mexican cowboys

Joseph Glidden

Invented barbed wire

dry farming

Farming without irrigation

cash crops

Crops grown to sell

Transcontinental Railroad

Connected East & West

Central Pacific Company

Built railroad westward

Union Pacific Company

Built railroad eastward

Credit Mobilier

Railroad corruption scandal

Homestead Act

Free land for settlers

Deflation

Decrease in prices

National Grange Movement

Farmers' organization

Granger Laws

Regulated railroad rates

Ocala Platform

Farmers' reform demands

Desert Land Act (1877)

Cheap land in arid regions

Timber and Stone Act (1878)

Sold land to logging/mining interests

Woman's Christian Temperance Union

Anti-alcohol reform group

Munn v. Illinois (1877)

States can regulate business

Wabash v. Illinois (1886)

Only federal gov regulates interstate trade

Comstock Lode

Major silver discovery

Long Drive

Cattle drives to railheads

Frederick Jackson Turner

Historian of frontier thesis

'Significance of the Frontier'

Frontier shaped American identity

Little Big Horn

Native victory over Custer

Ghost Dance movement

Religious resistance movement

assimilationists

Wanted Natives to adopt white culture

Helen Hunt Jackson

Criticized Native mistreatment

Dawes Act (1887)

Broke up tribal lands

Indian Reorganization Act

Restored tribal self-rule

Santa Fe Trail

Trade route

deforestation

Clearing forests

Yosemite

National park

Yellowstone

First national park

Forest Reserve Act (1891)

Protected federal forests

Forest Management Act (1897)

Regulated forest use

conservationists

Controlled resource use

preservationists

Protect nature untouched

John Muir

Preservation leader

Sierra Club

Environmental organization