US History - Key Terms and Definitions

Gilded Age

  • Growth and Change in the West
    • Migration West
    • Factors:
      • Push Factors: Economic hardship, overpopulation in the East.
      • Pull Factors: Available land, Homestead Act incentives, Transcontinental Railroad.
    • Conflicts:
    • Between Farmers and Native Americans: Land disputes and resource competition.
      • Assimilation: Efforts to integrate Native Americans into American culture.
      • Dawes Act: Aimed to assimilate Native Americans by allotting them individual plots of land.
    • Populism:
    • Political movement addressing the needs of farmers and the working class.
    • Key Aspects:
      • Advocacy for increased money supply (free silver).
      • Famous Cross of Gold Speech by William Jennings Bryan advocating for bimetallism.
    • Impact: Rise in political voice for disadvantaged groups.

Immigration (Late 1800s)

  • New Immigrants:
    • From Southern and Eastern Europe.
    • Cultural Effects: Creation of ethnic enclaves along with unique cultural practices.
    • Living Conditions:
    • Overcrowded cities, poor housing (tenements).
    • Jacob Riis’s work, "How the Other Half Lives," highlights the plight of poor immigrants.
    • Political Machines:
    • Provided services to immigrants in exchange for votes.
    • Rise of Nativism:
    • Anti-immigrant sentiment resulting in laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act.
    • Social Gospel Movement:
    • Sought to provide social services to help immigrants.

Industrialization and Innovation

  • Key Inventions and Innovators:
    • Light Bulb: Thomas Edison, increasing accessibility to lighting, leading to longer workdays.
    • Telephone: Alexander Graham Bell, revolutionized communication.
    • Bessemer Process: William Kelly, facilitated faster, cheaper steel production.
    • Impacts: Enhanced productivity and changed both life and work in the late 1800s.

Labor Unions

  • Rise of Labor Unions:
    • Emerged to combat workplace issues created by industrialization.
    • Techniques: Strikes, collective bargaining.
    • Goals: Demand better wages, conditions, and benefits for workers.

Progressive Era

  • Progressive Movement:
    • Key Groups: Middle-class Americans, women, and muckrakers (investigative journalists).
    • Notable Muckrakers:
    • Ida Tarbell: Exposed corruption of the Standard Oil Company.
    • Upton Sinclair: "The Jungle" revealing issues in the meatpacking industry.
    • Jacob Riis: Documented poverty.
    • Jane Addams: Established Hull House for immigrants.
    • Ida B. Wells: Led anti-lynching crusades.
    • Goals: Increase government accountability and improve citizens' quality of life through reforms (17th, 19th amendments).

American Imperialism and World War I

  • Path of Imperialism:

    • Spanish American War: Resulted in U.S. acquisitions such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
    • Panama Canal: Built to shorten shipping routes between the Pacific and Atlantic.
    • Roosevelt Corollary: Asserted U.S. intervention in Latin American crises to protect interests.

  • Foreign Policies - Early 1900s:

    • Theodore Roosevelt: Big Stick Diplomacy - use of military force to achieve U.S. goals.
    • William Taft: Dollar Diplomacy - encouraging U.S. investment abroad.
    • Woodrow Wilson: Moral Diplomacy - promoting U.S. moral values in foreign relations.

  • World War I:

    • Causes: Militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism (MAIN), assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
    • U.S. Entry: Triggered by the violation of the Sussex Pledge and the Zimmerman Note.
    • Major Battles and Tactics: Trench warfare, use of tanks, poison gas.
    • Outcomes: Treaty of Versailles imposed reparations, redefined European boundaries, and set up the League of Nations.