Chapter 25 - America Moves to the City, 1865–1900

Flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and vocabulary concepts from Chapter 25: America Moves to the City, 1865–1900.

Urbanization

The growth of cities and the percentage of Americans living in them.

Dumbbell Tenement

A crowded urban apartment building designed to fit many poor immigrant families into limited space around narrow air shafts.

New Immigrants

Immigrants arriving in large numbers during the late 1800s (especially beginning in the 1880s), mainly coming from southern and eastern Europe.

Assimilation

The process of immigrants adopting the language, culture, and customs of their new country.

Nativism

Hostility toward immigrants from people who considered themselves native-born Americans.

Settlement House

A community center in a poor urban neighborhood where middle-class reformers lived or worked to provide services like education, healthcare, and childcare.

Hull House

Famous Chicago settlement house founded by Jane Addams to help immigrants and poor city residents.

Chinese Exclusion Act

A federal law passed by Congress in 1882 that blocked Chinese immigration.

Fundamentalism

A religious stance defending traditional religion and a literal reading of the Bible in response to new scientific ideas like evolution.

Modernism

A religious trend (also associated with Liberal Protestantism) that attempted to reconcile Christianity with modern science and evolutionary ideas.

Tuskegee Institute

An educational institution in Alabama connected with Booker T. Washington that focused on industrial education and job training for Black Americans.

Accommodationism

Booker T. Washington's strategy of focusing on vocational training and economic self-help rather than immediately challenging white supremacy or demanding full social equality.

Talented Tenth

W.E.B. Du Bois's idea that a highly educated group of Black leaders could lead the larger fight for racial advancement and equality.

Double Consciousness

W.E.B. Du Bois's concept describing the tension Black Americans feel between their own identity and seeing themselves through the prejudiced eyes of white society.

Land-Grant College

A college supported by federal land grants provided to states under the Morrill Act of 1862.

Yellow Journalism

Sensational, emotional, or exaggerated newspaper reporting designed to attract readers and sell papers, practiced by figures like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

Pragmatism

A practical philosophy associated with thinkers like William James and John Dewey that judges ideas by whether they work in real life and produce practical results.

NAWSA

The National American Woman Suffrage Association, created in 1890 to campaign for women's voting rights.

WCTU

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a major reform organization formed in 1874 to combat alcohol abuse and push for prohibition.

Temperance

A movement aimed at reducing or eliminating alcohol consumption.

Realism

A literary style that depicted ordinary life and current social issues as they actually appeared, led by figures like William Dean Howells and Mark Twain.

Naturalism

A literary style that examined human behavior scientifically, emphasizing how social environment and circumstances shape people's lives.

Regionalism

A literary style that focused on the specific culture, speech, customs, and local flavor of particular regions of America.

City Beautiful Movement

An urban planning movement aimed at making cities cleaner, more attractive, and better planned through parks, open spaces, and impressive public buildings.

World's Columbian Exposition

A massive 1893 world's fair in Chicago that displayed American architecture, technology, industry, and culture, and popularized city planning concepts.

Jane Addams

Middle-class reformer who founded Hull House in Chicago and became a leading figure in the settlement house movement and social work.

Ida B. Wells

Black journalist and activist who launched an anti-lynching crusade, investigating racial violence and helping inspire the Black women's club movement.

Booker T. Washington

Enslaved-born Black educator linked to Tuskegee Institute who advocated economic progress, practical job skills, and self-help over immediate civil rights demands.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Black intellectual and author of The Souls of Black Folk who rejected Washington's accommodationist stance, demanding immediate civil rights, political power, and higher education.

Carrie Nation

A radical temperance advocate known as the 'Bar Room Smasher' who physically destroyed alcohol-related property in saloons using a hatchet.

American Protective Association

An anti-Catholic organization created in 1887 by Protestant nativists who urged members to vote against Catholic political candidates.

Louis Sullivan

An architect who helped develop the modern skyscraper, enabling cities to build upward to maximize space.

Dwight L. Moody

A Protestant evangelist who preached kindness and forgiveness, adapting Christian message to modern urban life and founding the Moody Bible Institute in 1889.

Henry George

Author of the 1879 book Progress and Poverty, who argued that rising land values created unfair wealth inequality and proposed a heavy tax on land value gains.

Edward Bellamy

Author of the novel Looking Backward, which depicted a future where major businesses were managed for the public good rather than private profit.

Victoria Woodhull

Publisher of Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly who advocated for 'free love' and greater personal freedom for women in relationships.

Anthony Comstock

Moral reformer who championed the Comstock Law to enforce censorship against sending material involving sex, birth control, and abortion through the mail.

Carrie Chapman Catt

A prominent leader in NAWSA who organized national campaigns for women's voting rights.