US History
Order by
116 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Commercial Farming | The farming which is performed on large scale, with the help of machine like treshers, harvesters, tractors etc is called commercial farming, produce enough to sell for a profit |
| Subsistence Farming | farming that provides for the basic needs of the farmer without surpluses for marketing |
| Plymouth Colony | Colony founded by the Separatist Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Located in New England. |
| Staple Crop | crops in constant demand |
| Immigrant | a person who comes into a country to live there |
| Indentured Servant | Laborer who agreed to work without pay for a certain period of time in exchange for passage to America |
| Salutary Neglect | british colonial policy during the reigns of George I and George II. relaxed supervision of internal colonial affairs by royal bureacrats contributed significantly to the rise of American self government |
| Jamestown Colony | First permanent English Colony in North America 1607 |
| Triangle trade route | the trade route that connected the colonies, Europe [England], Africa and the West Indies. All of the countries were interconnected by the slave trade. |
| Mercantilism | an economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought |
| Plantation system | A system of agricultural production based on large-scale land ownership and the exploitation of labor and the environment. This system focused on the production of cash crops and utilized slave labor. |
| Middle Passage | the route in between the western ports of Africa to the Caribbean and southern U.S. that carried the slave trade |
| Joint Stock Company | A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the company's profits and debts. |
| Merchant | a businessperson engaged in retail trade |
| Self-sufficient | able to provide there own needs |
| Monarchy | an autocracy governed by a monarch who usually inherits the authority |
| Cash Crops | crops that could be sold for money |
| Navigation Acts | Laws that governed trade between England and its colonies. Colonists were required to ship certain products exclusively to England. These acts made colonists very angry because they were forbidden from trading with other countries. |
| Proclamation of 1763 | A proclamation from the British government which forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalacian Mountains, and which required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east. |
| Stamp Act Congress | group of colonists who protested the Stamp Act, saying that Parliament couldn't tax without colonist' consent |
| Sugar Act | halved the duty on foreign made molasses, placed duties on certain imports, and strenghtened the enforcement of the law allowing prosecutors to try smuggling cases in a vice-admiralty court |
| Quartering Act | an act passed by the British that allowed British troops to live in the homes of the colonists |
| Internal Taxes | Taxes which arose out of activities that occurred "internally" within the colonies. The Stamp Act was considered an internal tax, because it taxed the colonists on legal transactions they undertook locally. Many colonists and Englishmen felt that Parliament did not have the authority to levy internal taxes on the colonies. |
| External Taxes | Taxes arose out of activities that originated outside of the colonies, such as cusotms duties. The Sugar Act was considered an external tax, because it only operated on goods imported into the colonies from overseas. Many colonists who objected to Parliament's "internal" taxes on the colonies felt that Parliament had the authority to levy external taxes on imported goods. |
| Natural Rights | the idea that all humans are born with rights, which include the right to life, liberty, and property |
| Committees of Correspondence | Organization founded by Samuel Adams consisting of a system of communication between patriot leaders in New England and throughout the colonies |
| Treaty of Paris 1783 | Treaty Between England and the Colonies , formally ended the American Revolutionary War |
| Coercive Acts | This series of laws were very harsh laws that intended to make Massachusetts pay for its resistance. It also closed down the Boston Harbor until the Massachusetts colonists paid for the ruined tea. Also forced Bostonians to shelter soilders in their own homes. |
| Patriots | Colonists who wanted independence from Britain |
| Loyalist | A person who supported the British during the American Revolution |
| Boston Tea Party | demonstration (1773) by citizens of Boston who (disguised as Indians) raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor |
| Townshend Acts | A tax that the British Parliament placed on leads, glass, paint and tea |
| Boston Massacre | The first bloodshed of the American Revolution, as British guards at the Boston Customs House opened fire on a crowd killing five americans |
| Declaration of Independence | the document recording the proclamation of the second Continental Congress (4 July 1776) asserting the independence of the colonies from Great Britain |
| Sons of Liberty | A radical political organization for colonial independence which formed in 1765 after the passage of the Stamp Act. They incited riots and burned the customs houses where the stamped British paper was kept. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, many of the local chapters formed the Committees of Correspondence which continued to promote opposition to British policies towards the colonies. The Sons leaders included Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. |
| American System | an economic regime pioneered by Henry Clay which created a high tariff to support internal improvements such as road-building. This approach was intended to allow the United States to grow and prosper by themselves This would eventually help America industrialize and become an economic power. |
| Industrialization | the development of industry on an extensive scale |
| Interstate Commerce | trade between two or more states |
| US Bank | Powerful private institution with the gov as the major stockholder and into which the treasury would deposit surplus monies; also print a national currency. |
| Maritime | bordering on or living or characteristic of those near the sea |
| Embargo | a government order imposing a trade barrier |
| Gold Rush | a period from1848 to 1856 when thousands of people came to California in order to search for gold. |
| Manifest Destiny | This expression was popular in the 1840s. Many people believed that the U.S. was destined to secure territory from "sea to sea," from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This rationale drove the acquisition of territory. |
| King Cotton | cotton and cotton-growing considered, in the pre-Civil War South, as a vital commodity, the major factor not only in the economy but also in politics. |
| Internal Improvements | federal projects, such as canals and roads, to develop the nation's transportation system |
| Louisiana Purchase | territory in western United States purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million |
| Tariff | a government tax on imports or exports |
| Urbanization | movement of people from rural areas to cities |
| Calhoun | South Carolinian who served as Vice President under Jackson; opposed the protective tariff; resigned as VP over the tariff issue |
| Lowell | Invented a weaving machine and made factories. he started the Industrail revolution |
| Eli Whitney | United States inventor of the mechanical cotton gin (1765-1825) |
| Samuel Morse | United States portrait painter who patented the telegraph and developed the Morse code (1791-1872) |
| Lewis and Clark | Sent on an expedition by Jefferson to gather information on the United States' new land and map a route to the Pacific. They kept very careful maps and records of this new land acquired from the Louisiana Purchase. |
| Trail of Tears | The Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their lands. They traveled from North Carolina and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas-more than 800 miles (1,287 km)-to the Indian Territory. More than 4, 00 Cherokees died of cold, disease, and lack of food during the 116-day journey. |
| Texas Annexation | 1845. Originally refused in 1837, as the U.S. Government believed that the annexation would lead to war with Mexico. Texas remained a sovereign nation. Annexed via a joint resolution through Congress, supported by President-elect Polk, and approved in 1845. Land from the Republic of Texas later bacame parts of NM, CO, OK, KS, and WY. |
| Corporations | businesses that are owned by many investors who buy shares of stock |
| Labor Union | An organization of workers in a particular industry or trade, created to defend the interests of members through strikes or negotiations with employers. (p. 709) |
| Collective Bargaining | negotiation between an employer and trade union |
| Sherman Anti Trust | broke up trusts |
| Interchangeable Parts | identical components that can be used in place of one another in manufactoring |
| Tenements | poorly built, overcrowded housing where many immigrants lived |
| Manufacturing | making products to sell |
| Strike | a group's refusal to work in protest against low pay or bad work conditions |
| Laissez Faire | the doctrine that government should not interfere in commercial affairs |
| Knights of Labor | 1st effort to create National union. Open to everyone but lawyers and bankers. Vague program, no clear goals, weak leadership and organization. Failed |
| American Federation of Labor | The first federation of labor unions in the United States. Founded by Samuel Gompers in 1886 |
| Urban | city |
| Lowell Mill Workers | individuals went on strike in Massachusetts seeking better working conditions |
| Scabs | Stirkebreakers hired by employers as replacement workers when unions went on strike |
| Free Enterprise System | An economic system in which individuals depend on supply and demand and the profit margin to determine what to produce, how to produce, how much to produce, and for whom to produce. The quest for improvement financially and materially motivates consumers and producers. |
| Trust | a consortium of independent organizations formed to limit competition by controlling the production and distribution of a product or service |
| Robber Baron | an American capitalist who acquired a fortune in the late nineteenth century by ruthless means. |
| John D. Rockefeller | Was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. |
| Social Darwinism | The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies - particularly as a justification for their imperialist expansion. |
| Monopoly | exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices |
| Bessemer Process | an industrial process for making steel using a Bessemer converter to blast air through through molten iron and thus burning the excess carbon and impurities |
| Mass Production | the production of large quantities of a standardized article (often using assembly line techniques) |
| Standard Oil | Established in 1870, it was a integrated multinational oil corporation lead by Rockefeller |
| Horizontal Consolidation | The process of bringing together many firms in the same business to form one large company |
| Antitrust Act | stop price discrimination |
| Piecework | work paid for according to the quantity produced |
| Sweatshops | factoreies where emplyees are subjected to bad working conditions and get paid little money. |
| Haymarket Riot | A planned strike by the Knights of Labor results in police confrontation and a bomb |
| Homestead Strike | 1892 steelworker strike near Pittsburgh against the Carnegie Steel Company. Ten workers were killed in a riot when "scab" labor was brought in to force an end to the strike. |
| Alexander Grahm Bell | Invented the telephone |
| Central Pacific | the railroad company based on the West Coast that helped build the transcontinental railroad; starting point was Sacramento, California |
| Union Pacific | the railroad company that began building of the transcontinental railroad from its eastern starting point in Omaha, Nebraska |
| Pullman Strike | 1894 - nonviolent strike (brought down the railway system in most of the West) at the Pullman Palace Car Co. over wages - Prez. Cleveland shut it down because it was interfering with mail delivery |
| Vertical Consolidation | process of gaining control of the many different businesses that make up all phases of a product's development |
| Economies of Scale | factors that cause a producer's average cost per unit to fall as output rises |
| Anarchists | people who oppose organized government |
| Eugene Debs | Prominent socialist leader (and five time presidential candidate) who founded the American Railroad Union and led the 1894 Pullman Strike |
| Investment Capital | money that a business spends in hopes of future gain |
| Prosperity | an economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment |
| Prohibition | a law forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages |
| Land Speculation | buy land then sell if for a huge profit |
| Drought | Long period of dry weather |
| Nativism | the belief that native-born Americans are superior to foreigners |
| On Margin | This means they paid only a fraction of the stock price and borrowed the rest from their brokers. Brokers, in turn, borrowed their money from banks. As long as the value of stocks continued to rise, the buyer could sell later, pay back what had been borrowed, and make a profit. If that value fell, though, investors and brokers would not have enough cash to pay off the loans. |
| Black Thursday | The days that share pirces dropped rapidly. Thousands of people lost huge sums of money as share prices fell about 80 percent. share prices were up and down for the next 3 years |
| Hoovervilles | shanty-towns that housed many who had lost everything. Shelters were built of old boxes and other discards. |
| Franklin D Roosevelt | often referred to by his initials FDR, was the thirty-second President of the United States. Elected to four terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945, and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms of office. He was a central figure of the 20th century during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war. |
| Great Depression | The economic crisis and period of low business activity in the U.S. and other countries, roughly beginning with the stock-market crash in October, 1929, and continuing through most of the 1930s. |
| New Deal | the legislative and administrative program of President F. D. Roosevelt designed to promote economic recovery and social reform during the 1930s; also : the period of this program |
| CCC | Civilian Conservation Corps. It was Relief that provided work for young men 18-25 years old in food control, planting, flood work, etc. |
| WPA | Work Progress Administration: Massive work relief program funded projects ranging from construction to acting; disbanded by FDR during WWII |
| TVA | (Tennessee Valley Authority Act) Relief, Recover, and Reform. one of the most important acts that built a hyro-electric dam for a needed area. |
| Dust Bowl | Region of the Great Plains that experienced a drought in 1930 lasting for a decade, leaving many farmers without work or substantial wages. |
| Social Security | federal program of disability and retirement benefits that covers most working people |
| Bonus Army | Group of WWI vets. that marched to D.C. in 1932 to demand the immediate payment of their goverment war bonuses in cash |
| Flappers | carefree young women with short, "bobbed" hair, heavy makeup, and short skirts. The flapper symbolized the new "liberated" woman of the 1920s. Many people saw the bold, boyish look and shocking behavior of flappers as a sign of changing morals. Though hardly typical of American women, the flapper image reinforced the idea that women now had more freedom. |
| Speakeasy | (during prohibition) an illegal barroom |
| Bootlegging | the act of making of transporting alcoholic liquor for sale illegally |
| Okies | unflattering name given to Oklahomans and others from the rural Midwest, especially those who left the Dust Bowl looking for better lives during the 1930s |
| Installment Buying | a consumers buys products by promising to pay small, regular amounts over a period of time |
| Red Scare | Most instense outbreak of national alarm, began in 1919. Success of communists in Russia, American radicals embracing communism followed by a series of mail bombings frightened Americans. Attorney General A. MItchell Palmer led effort to deport aliens without due processs, with widespread support. Did not last long as some Americans came to their senses. Sacco/Vanzetti trial demonstrated anti-foreign feeling in 20's. Accused of armed robbery & murder, had alibis. "Those anarchists bastards". Sentenced to death and executed. |
First Time Here?
Welcome to Quizlet, a fun, free place to study. Try these flashcards, find others to study, or make your own.