Period 6 APUSH - vocab

American Federation of Labor

A federation of trade unions founded in 1881 composed mostly of skilled, white, native-born workers; its long-term president was Samuel Gompers

Anarchism

The advocacy of stateless society achieved by revolutionary means.

A political philosophy that advocates for a society without government or a hierarchical structure, believing that such structures are inherently oppressive and unnecessary.

Atlanta Compromise

Speech to the Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895 by educator Booker T. Washington, the leading Black spokesman of the day; Black scholar W. E. B Du Bois gave the speech its derisive name and criticized Washington for encouraging Blacks to accommodate segregation and disenfranchisement

Assimilation

The social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another.

- The process by which individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society, often through policies or societal pressures aiming to erase unique cultural identities.

Battle of Little Bighorn

Most famous battle of the Black Hills War; took place in 1876 in the Montana Territory; Lakota and Cheyenne warrior massacred a vastly outnumbered U.S Calvary commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer

Capitalism

A system of economic production based on the private ownership of property and the contractual exchange for profit of goods, labor, and money.

- An economic system where private individuals or businesses own the means of production (like factories or land) and operate them for profit, driven by competition and market forces

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law that halted Chinese immigration to the United States

Civil Service Act of 1883

Law that established the Civil Service commission and marked the end of the spoils system

Corporation

A legal entity, distinct from its owners, authorized by the state to conduct business, possessing rights and responsibilities similar to individuals, and facilitating large-scale production and distribution

Coxey's Army

A march on Washington organized by Jacob Coxey, an Ohio member of the People's Party. Coxey believed in abandoning the gold standard and printing enough legal tender to reinvigorate the economy. The marchers demanded that Congress create jobs and pay workers in paper currency not backed by gold.

Dawes Severalty Act

Law passed in 1887 meant to encourage adoption of white norms among Indians; broke up tribal holdings into small farms for Indian families, with the remainder sold to white purchasers

Disenfranchisement

Depriving a person or persons of the right to vote; in the United States, exclusionary policies were used to deny groups, especially African Americans and women, their voting rights

Ghost dance

A spiritual and political movement among Native Americans whose followers performed a ceremonial "ghost dance" intended to connect the living with the dead and make the Indians bulletproof in battles intended to restore their homelands

Gilded Age

The popular but derogatory name for the period from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the century, after the title of the 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

Gold Standard

Policy at various points in American history by which the value of a dollar was set at a fixes price in terms of gold (in the post-World War II era, for example, $35 per ounce of gold)

Grandfather Clause

Loophole created by southern disenfranchising legislatures of the 1890s for illiterate white males whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote before the Civil War

Haymarket Affair

Violence during an anarchist protest at Haymarket square in Chicago on May 4, 1886; the deaths of eight anarchist leaders for conspiracy to commit murder

Horizontal Expansion

The process by which a corporation acquires or merges with its competitors

Interstate Commerce Commission

Organization established by Congress, in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Wabash Railroad v. Illinois (1886), in order to curb abuses in the railroad industry by regulating rates

Immigration Restriction League

A political organization founded in 1894 called for reducing immigration to the United States by requiring a literacy test for immigrants

Kansas Exodus/Exodusters

A migration in 1879 and 1880 by some 40,000-60,000 Blacks to Kansas to escape the oppressive environment of the New South

Knights of Labor

Founded in 1869, the first national union; it lasted, under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly only into the 1890s, supplanted by the American Federation of Labor

Liberty of Contract

A judicial concept of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whereby the courts overturned laws regulating labor conditions as violations of the economic freedom of both employers and employees

Lost Cause

A romanticized view of slavery, the Old South, and the Confederacy that arose in the decades following the Civil War

Lynching

Practice, particularly widespread in the South between 1890 and 1940, in which persons (usually Blacks) accused of a crime were murdered by mobs before standing trial. Often took place before large crowds, with law enforcement authorities not intervening.

Monopoly

When a single company or entity has exclusive control over a market or industry, allowing it to dictate prices and eliminate competition.

A situation where a single company or entity controls the majority of a particular industry or market, effectively eliminating or severely limiting competition

Nativism

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling especially prominent from the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group of its proponents was New York's Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American know-Nothing Party in 1854

New South

Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Crady's 1886 term for the prosperous post-Civil War South he envisioned: democratic, industrial, urban, and free of nostalgia for the defeated plantation South

Plessy v. Ferguson

U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting the legality of Jim Crow laws that permitted or required "separate but equal" facilities for Blacks and Whites

Populist/populism

Founded in 1892, a group that advocated a variety of reform issues, including free coinage of silver, income tax, postal savings, regulation of railroads, and direct election of U.S. senators

Robber Barons/Titans of Industry

Also known as "captains of industry"; Gilded Age industrial figures who inspired both admiration, for their economic leadership and innovation, and hostility and fear, due to their unscrupulous business methods, repressive labor practices, and unprecedented economic control over entire industries.

Separate but Equal

Principle underlying legal racial segregation, upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and struck down in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Sherman Antitrust Act

Passed in 1890, first law to restrict monopolistic trusts and business combinations; extended by the Clayton Anti-trust Act of 1914

Social Darwinism

Application of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to society; used the concept of the "survival of the fittest" to justify class distinctions and to explain poverty

Social Gospel

Ideals preached by liberal Protestant clergymen in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; advocated the applications of Christian principles to social problems generated by industrialization

Socialism

An economic and political system where the means of production (businesses, land, and resources) are owned and controlled by the community or the state, rather than by private individuals, often with the aim of promoting social equality and welfare.

- A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Strike

A refusal to work organized by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their employer.

- A work stoppage initiated by employees to protest against their employer, typically aimed at achieving better working conditions, wages, or other employment terms

Suffrage

The right to vote

Tenements

Multi-family urban dwellings that were often poorly constructed and overcrowded, primarily associated with the housing of immigrants and the working class in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

- A low-rise apartment building, often cramped and poorly maintained, that housed multiple families, particularly immigrants, in rapidly urbanizing cities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Trusts

Companies combined to limit competition

Vertical Integration

Company's avoidance of intermediaries by producing its own supplies and providing for distribution of its product

Wounded Knee Massacre

Last incident of the Indian Wars; it took place in 1890 in the Dakota Territory, where the U.S. Cavalry killed over 200 Sioux men, women, and children