UAHS American History Midterm Review

The Trigger

Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand and a Serbian, killed the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, causing Austria-Hungary and its leader to want to eliminate Serbia as a political threat, which set off a chain of alliances that escalated into a world war.

The USS Maine

This U.S. naval ship blew up on February 15, 1898, killing 268 people on board. The explosion was blamed on the Spanish, which was one of the factors which led to the Spanish-American War.

Yellow Journalism

Writing that twists or exaggerates the truth to attract readers and sell newspapers.

Moral Diplomacy

A foreign policy that states that the US will not recognize any government in Latin America that has come to power through violence.

Treaty of Paris

The peace treaty that ended the Spanish-American War, in which Spain gave up control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and sold the Philippines to the US for $20 million.

Rough Riders

A cavalry unit led by Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood during the Spanish-American War that was composed of rugged westerners and upper-class easterners.

Open Door Policy

An American policy that was intended to give the US equal access to trade in China.

Boxer Rebellion

A Chinese secret society that killed foreign missionaries and besieged the foreign diplomats' district in Beijing, which was eventually put down by a multinational force.

Big Stick Diplomacy

Theodore Roosevelt's policy that relied on military strength, saying, "speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

Dollar Diplomacy

William Howard Taft's policy that promoted US investment in foreign economies to establish US power.

Neutrality

The US did not take sides in WWI until 1917, as President Wilson was attempting to settle the conflict diplomatically.

Zimmerman Telegram

A secret message sent to the Mexican government by the German foreign minister, which offered to help Mexico reclaim Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona if they allied with Germany against the US.

Propaganda

Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or damage an opposing cause.

Lusitania

A British passenger ship sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland, which killed 1,200 passengers, including 128 Americans, greatly escalating tensions.

League of Nations

World organization established after World War 1 to promote peaceful cooperation among countries.

Alvin York

An American World War 1 soldier who killed 20 German soldiers and captured 132 others after his best friend died in battle.

Philippine-American War

A war fought from 1899 to 1902 in which the Philippines rebelled against US control.

Emilio Aguinaldo

The first Philippine president who continued to fight against the US after Spain ceded the Philippines to America.

Pure Food and Drug Act

Preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of misbranded or poisonous foods and drugs.

Direct Primary

A reform in elections that enabled all members of a political party to choose the people who would represent their party in a general election.

Recall

Gave citizens the power to remove public officials from office before their term ended by collecting enough signatures on a petition.

Initiative

Gave citizens the power to propose a new law by collecting signatures on a petition.

17th Amendment

Allowed for the direct election of U.S. Senators by the citizens of each state, instead of by state legislatures.

Social Darwinism

The belief that society should be governed by the "survival of the fittest," and that children work forces bettered the economy.

Social Gospel Movement

The movement that believes that to become a true Christian that you must better the lives of the people around you.

Muckrakers

Journalists who wrote to expose or bring light to political corruption, unsafe working conditions, and poverty.

Progressive Movement

A period of political and social reform aimed at making America a more moral, just, and orderly place for the American people.

Jacob Riis

A journalist and photographer who wrote the novel How the Other Half Lives, exposing the terrible living conditions of immigrants in New York City's tenements.

Upton Sinclair

A muckraker who wrote the novel The Jungle, which exposed the unsanitary conditions and poor treatment of workers in the meat-packing industry.

Jane Addams

A key figure in the Social Gospel Movement, responsible for the construction of settlement houses (community centers for people that live in poor areas).

Referendum

Gave citizens the power to vote whether to approve or reject a law, after getting enough signatures on a petition.

Gilded Age

A term used to describe the era in American history where rapid industrial growth and lavish wealth hid corruption and poor living conditions in the cities.

Industrial Revolution

Rapid development of industry brought about by the development of machines, which allowed fewer workers to produce food, enabling more people to move to and live in cities.

Urbanization

The process where more people move to and live in cities.

Andrew Carnegie's Industry

The Steel Company.

John D. Rockefeller's Industry

The Oil Company.

Vertical Integration

Allowed companies to reduce their costs of production by controlling every stage of the product's manufacturing process from raw materials to distribution.

Horizontal Integration

Consolidating many firms in the same business.

New Inventions

Innovations that transformed American society, including the Assembly Line, Washing Machine, and Radio.

Purpose of Labor Unions

To negotiate with the business owners for better working hours, wages, working conditions, and restrictions on child labor.

Collective Bargaining

Negotiations between an employer and a group of workers who all agree on working hours, conditions, and/or wages.

Business Conflict Pattern

Business owners usually won the conflicts, but the problem reached the newspapers and the general public.

New Immigrants

Immigrants coming to the U.S. from Southern and Eastern Europe. 

Old Immigrants

Immigrants coming to the U.S. from Northern and Western Europe. 

nativism

The idea that only white Americans belong in America. 

Chinese Exclusion Act

Barred all Chinese laborers because the labor movement wanted to stop foreign workers from undermining wages. 

Angel Island

An immigration center for people from China, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Korea, and Hawaii. 

Ellis Island

A huge immigration center that checked for diseases such as trachoma, insane, yaws, and favus. 

tenements

Low-cost, multi-family apartment buildings designed to house as many families as possible, often with poor sanitation and little fresh air. 

Immigrant Employment (Typical)

Jobs that were low-skill and required little "education" or English Fluency. 

Religious Group Growth

New immigrants led to growing numbers of Catholics and Jews in the U.S.

League of Nations

An international organization created after World War I to provide a forum for resolving international disputes.

Bootlegger

One who sells illegal alcohol.

Harlem Renaissance

A cultural movement where writers, poets, and artists celebrated black culture and increased awareness of the struggles of black Americans.

19th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.

Alice Paul

A leader in the American women's suffrage movement known for her strategic and confrontational tactics.

Chicago race riots

Conflicts between blacks and whites in Chicago as a consequence of the Great Migration.

Volstead Act

Federal law created to enforce prohibition.

Carrie Chapman Catt

A leader in the Woman's suffrage movement who fought for the 19th Amendment and served as President of the NAWSA.

Seneca Falls

The first national demand for women's rights to vote.

Anti-Saloon League

A group that campaigned against drinking alcohol and observed its effects on society.

Johnson Reed immigration law (quota system)

An arrangement that limited the number of immigrants allowed into the U.S. from specific countries.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Italian immigrant anarchists convicted and executed for a robbery that resulted in a death.

Kellogg Briand Pact

A pact that stated war should not be fought to solve problems, promoting peaceful resolution.

Plessy vs Ferguson

A court case that upheld the 'separate but equal' doctrine, allowing racial segregation.

Organized Crime

Criminal organizations, like the Mafia, that thrived during Prohibition by engaging in illegal liquor activities.

18th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that banned the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol in the U.S.

Technological innovations

New inventions that enhance technology and improve living standards.

Palmer Raids

Raids initiated by Attorney General Palmer against suspected radicals and communists in the early 1920s.

Prohibition

The legal ban on the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcohol.

KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

A white supremacist group that targeted African Americans and immigrants in the 1920s.

Lynchings

The extrajudicial killing of a person, usually by hanging, often by a mob.

Red Scare

The period of fear in the U.S. following the Russian Revolution regarding the spread of communism.

Jim Crow laws

State laws that enforced racial segregation in the southern U.S.

The Great Migration

The movement of six million blacks from the South to northern cities between 1910 and 1930.

Freedmen's Bureau

A U.S. government agency established in 1865 to aid newly freed slaves in the South during the Reconstruction era.

13th Amendment

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.

Radical Republican

A faction of American politicians within the Republican Party who, from 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877, strongly opposed slavery and advocated for harsh punishments for Confederate leaders and full civil rights for African Americans.

14th Amendment

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, that granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteed them equal protection under the law.

15th Amendment

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1870, that granted African American men the right to vote.

KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

A white supremacist terrorist hate group that emerged during Reconstruction to intimidate and terrorize African Americans and their allies and undermine their newly gained rights.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states between 1877 and the mid-20th century. These laws enforced racial segregation and disenfranchisement.

Compromise of 1877

An informal agreement that resolved the disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, marking the end of the Reconstruction era.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A landmark 1896 Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine, which became the legal basis for Jim Crow Laws.

Booker T. Washington

An influential African American educator, author, and political leader. He founded the Tuskegee Institute and promoted a strategy of economic self-sufficiency and vocational training for African Americans as a path to equality.

WEB DuBois

An American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and author. He co-founded the NAACP and advocated for a more direct and confrontational approach to gaining civil rights and social equality for African Americans.

Exoduster

An African American who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late 19th century as part of the first mass migration of African Americans following the Civil War.

Manifest Destiny

The 19th-century belief that the expansion of the United States across the North American continent was both justified and inevitable.

Homestead Act

A U.S. law, passed in 1862, that encouraged westward migration by providing settlers with 160 acres of public land in exchange for a small filing fee and a promise to live on and improve the land for five years.

Transcontinental Railroad

A continuous railway line built in the 1860s that connected the East Coast with the West Coast, significantly speeding up travel and settlement in the West.

Reservation

A parcel of land managed by a Native American tribe under the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. This land was often a small, undesirable fraction of a tribe's ancestral territory.

Sitting Bull

A Hunkpapa Lakota holy man who led his people during years of resistance to U.S. government policies. He is most famous for leading the Lakota and Cheyenne to victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Battle of Little Bighorn

A battle in 1876 where forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, defeated the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.

Assimilation

The process by which a person or a group's culture comes to resemble those of another group. In U.S. history, this often referred to policies aimed at forcing Native Americans to abandon their traditional cultures and adopt American customs.

Dawes Act

A U.S. law, passed in 1887, that authorized the President to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments for Native American families. The goal was to force assimilation and break up tribal landholdings.

Wounded Knee (1890)

A massacre of Lakota people by the U.S. Army in 1890, which marked the final major conflict of the Indian Wars.

Open range system

A system of livestock ranching common in the American West where cattle roamed freely on unfenced public lands, which eventually led to conflicts over land use and resources.

Las Gorras Blancas

A group of Hispanic-American vigilantes who formed in New Mexico in the late 19th century in response to Anglo-American settlers encroaching on their land and fences.

Billy the kid

An American outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a legendary figure of the era.

Federalists

Supported strong central government