US History: Gilded Age, Progressive Era, Imperialism, and World War I

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the rise of big business, labor movements, urban politics, the Progressive Era, American imperialism, and the causes of World War I.

Corporation

An organization owned by many people but treated by law as though it were a single entity.

Laissez-faire

A form of government or philosophy that leaves businesses to their own devices, without rules, laws, or restrictions governing what business owners can do.

Economies of Scale

The reduction in manufacturing costs achieved by producing goods in large quantities, allowing big businesses to lower costs and increase production.

Monopoly

A business condition where a single company achieves complete control of an entire market.

Trust

A combination of firms or corporations formed by a legal agreement, especially designed to reduce competition and capable of acting like a monopoly.

Vertical Integration

A business strategy of buying out suppliers to control all steps of the production process, utilized by Andrew Carnegie in Carnegie Steel.

Horizontal Integration

A business strategy that involves merging with or buying out competing companies within the same industry.

Robber Baron

A term used to describe wealthy industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, who acquired riches through ruthless and unscrupulous business practices like unfair wages.

Social Darwinism

The ideology holding that weaker businesses will naturally die off in favor of stronger, more capable companies.

Sherman Anti-trust Act (1890)

Federal legislation making it illegal to establish trusts that interfere with free trade, though early prosecution under the act was rarely enforced.

Knights of Labor

A labor organization established in 1869 by Terence Powderly that was open to all types of workers, including women and African Americans.

American Federation of Labor

A labor union founded by Samuel Gompers that admitted only skilled workers and excluded women, African Americans, and immigrants while advocating for collective bargaining and closed shops.

Blacklist

A list maintained and circulated among employers containing names of workers who supported labor unions or change, preventing them from securing jobs.

Scab Labor

Non-union replacement workers hired by management during a strike to keep operations running.

Closed Shop

A workplace arrangement requiring an individual to be a union member as a condition of employment.

1st Wave (Old Wave) Immigration

Immigration into the US between 1820 and 1865, characterized primarily by financially stable, skilled, large family groups arriving from Northern and Western Europe.

2nd Wave (New Wave) Immigration

Immigration into the US between 1865 and 1929, largely consisting of poor, unskilled individuals and young single men from Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and Asia.

Nativism

An anti-immigrant sentiment that led to the rise of anti-immigrant groups and demands for stricter legal restrictions on immigration.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Congressional legislation passed to eliminate or drastically decrease Chinese immigration into the United States.

Political Machine

An urban political organization designed to provide municipal services and control cities at all costs, demanding votes and money from the public in exchange for assistance.

Graft

The unethical or illegal use of political influence to achieve personal financial or material gain.

Patronage

The practice of giving government jobs, favors, or appointments to political supporters or family members in return for political assistance, regardless of qualifications.

Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883

A law requiring applicants for federal government jobs to take examinations and receive appointments based on performance and merit.

Thomas Nast

A political cartoonist whose work exposed the illegal activities and fraud of William Marcy 'Boss' Tweed and the Tammany Hall political machine.

Tenements

Low-rent, crowded multifamily urban housing units that housed the rapidly expanding working-class and immigrant populations.

Jacob Riis

A Danish immigrant, police reporter, and photographer who documented the squalid conditions of urban slums and tenements in his work 'How the Other Half Lives'.

Bimetallism

A monetary system in which the government backs paper currency with both silver and gold to expand the money supply and stimulate the economy.

Gold Standard

A monetary system in which paper currency is backed solely by gold, preferred by bankers to prevent inflation and keep currency stable.

The Grange

An organization started by Oliver Hudson Kelley as a social club for farmers that evolved into a public political movement which led to the People's Party.

Americanization Movement

A social movement organized by government and citizen groups to teach immigrants English literacy, American history, government, cooking, and etiquette needed for citizenship.

Social Gospel Movement

A religious and reform movement that preached salvation through service to the urban poor, inspiring the creation of settlement houses.

Settlement Houses

Community centers in poor urban areas, often run by educated, middle-class women like Jane Addams, providing courses, medical care, and social services.

Muckrakers

Journalists who investigated and wrote exposés about the corrupt side of business and public life in mass-circulation magazines.

Initiative

A progressive electoral reform that empowers citizens to propose a legislative bill directly by petition rather than waiting for lawmakers.

Referendum

A direct public vote by citizens on a proposed initiative or law.

Recall

A progressive reform measure that allows voters to remove an elected official from office before the end of their term.

17th Amendment

A constitutional amendment that instituted the direct, statewide popular election of United States senators by the voters.

19th Amendment

A constitutional amendment that extended voting rights (suffrage) to women across the United States.

Bully Pulpit

A phrase coined by President Teddy Roosevelt to describe the presidency as an influential national platform from which to advocate important issues.

Plessy v. Ferguson

The 1896 Supreme Court ruling that established the 'separate but equal' doctrine, upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation in public facilities.

Imperialism

The policy in which stronger nations extend their economic, political, or military control over weaker territories.

Yellow Journalism

A sensationalized style of newspaper reporting that exaggerates stories and manipulates images to lure readers and influence public sentiment.

Roosevelt Corollary

An extension of the Monroe Doctrine stating that the United States would use international police power and military force to protect its economic interests in Latin America.

Dollar Diplomacy

President Taft's foreign policy of using the federal government to guarantee foreign loans made by American business leaders to safeguard US investments.

Missionary Diplomacy

President Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy maintaining that the US holds a moral responsibility to refuse diplomatic recognition to oppressive, undemocratic, or hostile Latin American governments.

Militarism

The aggressive development of armed forces and their application as a tool of diplomacy; one of the four main causes of World War I.

Schlieffen Plan

Germany's military strategy at the onset of World War I to hold Russia, swiftly invade and defeat France through Belgium, and then focus forces against Russia.

Zimmermann Note

An intercepted German telegram that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico against the United States during World War I.