Cocar HIST 2112 Mid-Term Fall 2017

Abraham Lincoln

President during the Civil War; freed all slaves by signing the 13th Amendment...but, at beginning of Civil War, was only interested in keeping slavery out of Western territories

Andrew Johnson

President after Lincoln killed; desired very few new freedoms for former slaves

Freedmen's Bureau

U.S. government agency to provide basic help for freed African-Americans; ended up main contribution would be public schooling for African-Americans

Veto

When the President stops a bill that Congress passed from becoming law; can be overturned by 2/3 majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate

Radical Reconstruction

Radical Republicans' efforts to punish (white) South and provided valuable freedoms for African-Americans

14th Amendment

1868; Made all African-Americans citizens with legal rights

15th Amendment

1870; Allowed all African-American men the right to vote.

Ku Klux Klan Act

Law that mandated that the U.S. military should stop the KKK's violence. It did so by 1873.

Economic crisis [panic] of 1873

The economy declined in 1873 [the first of many such events in the new corporate economy] and took attention away from Reconstruction.

Mississippi (1875)

The success of Redemption in Mississippi when President Grant did not intervene when the Republican governor was forced out by white violence.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

The Supreme Court endorsing segregation and excusing it as "separate, but equal."

Booker T. Washington

Gave Atlanta Compromise (1895) which said that African-Americans would give up political rights in exchange for being allowed to work and accrue money

W.E.B. DuBois

Rejected Washington's ideas as nonsense; founding member of NAACP and urged fighting for political freedom for African-Americans.

Corporation

New business arrangement that grew in importance right after Civil War; allowed for legal advantages and led to incredible centralization in business structures as a result

Industrialization and Regulation

More rules in Europe than in the U.S. led to fewer deaths in dangerous occupations such as mining

Money supply of 1880s

Starting in 1879, money was tied to gold, reducing the amount of money available by half throughout the 1880s

Knights of Labor

Unique labor union that did not use strikes, called for sharing management of factories with corporations, and accepted women, minorities, and unskilled workers

Populists

Political party of farmers who wanted the government to take over railroads, build storehouses for crops to remain in until prices went up, and introduce silver into the money supply to expand it

William Jennings Bryan

Presidential candidate [lost] in 1896 of both the Democrat and the Populist parties; challenged corporation like few others

Cotton

Tricky crop for north Georgia in 1880; most farmers converted from corn farming and risked all they had, only to find global cotton prices dropping and preventing them from making a profit

Trains

The first space where segregation laws applied.

Hawaii

One of first colonies the U.S. took over after it had finished conquering the West...we loved its sugar and Pearl Harbor

Hepburn Railroad Act

1906 law signed by Teddy Roosevelt resulting in regulation of railroads; the railroads had to open their accounting books

Federal Reserve

Super-bank [private/public] that Woodrow Wilson created in 1913 with branches throughout the U.S. to rationally control the supply of money in the United States

tariffs

Woodrow Wilson lowered them, for the first time, in 1913; they had been high through most of the nineteenth century (1800s); taxes on imported goods that helped American manufacturers

Lusitania

British ship sunk by a German sub in 1915, carrying American passengers but also weapons

Zimmerman Telegram

1917 secret message from Germany to Mexico asking them to wage war against the United States, promising the Southwest in exchange

Austro-Hungarian Empire

Allied with Germany in World War I; prince's assassination by Serbs started World War I

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's list of ways to make the world better, ranging from the absurd [no more secret treaties] to the wise [not further weaken Germany with punishments/reparations]

The League of Nations

Created by the Versailles Treaty which ended World War I; brain-child of Woodrow Wilson but treaty was never ratified by United States Senate due to isolationism, and as a result, U.S. never ever joined

Growth of military and U.S. entry into World War I

Even though the United States joined the war in 1917, a draft was necessary to increase the U.S. military; only in spring/summer 1918, did U.S. start to have a real presence in Europe

World War I

1914-1918; primarily an European war; defensive with little movement; trenches due to machine guns; chemical warfare, U.S. clinched victory for Great Britain and France in late 1918

Middle Class Wealth

As a result of the growth of corporations, the middle class saw its wealth increase by about 30% from 1870 until 1900