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564 terms

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Battle of New Orleans

This 1815 battle was the last of the War of 1812, and it actually occurred after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed because Americans were unaware of the treaty. General Andrew Jackson successfully defended New Orleans against thousands of British troops, making himself a national hero and making Americans feel nationalistic--that they were one of the top world powers (even though the war itself ended in stalemate).

Battle of Tippecanoe

As a result of this 1811 battle between future president William Henry Harrison and the Shawnee, the US more firmly secured the territory it claimed in Ohio and Indiana. The battle was the source of Harrison's 1840 campaign slogan and song, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

Congressional caucus

This informal method of selecting presidential candidates was used during the early years of the US until the election of 1824, when this system became viewed as elitist and undemocratic. Under this method the public had no voice in the nomination process, instead leaving the choice up to a centralized group of politicians based in Washington, DC.

Embargo Act

A law that was endorsed by Thomas Jefferson and passed in December 1807 that ended all importation and exportation of goods in the US. The act was a response to the Chesapeake-Leopard affair. This law failed to put enough economic pressure on the French and British to force those nations to recognize US trading neutrality rights, and the law hurt the American economy more than it did Britain's or France's. It was repealed in March 1809.

Era of Good Feelings

This era of one-party rule, nationalism, and cooperation lasted from the end of the War of 1812 (in 1815) and the rise of Andrew Jackson in 1828. At the center was James Monroe's presidency, during which Monroe strove to avoid political conflict and strengthen American nationalism and pride.

Haitian Revolution

Toussaint l'Ouverture led this uprising, which in 1790 resulted in the successful overthrow of French colonial rule on this Caribbean island. This revolution set up the first black government in the Western Hemisphere and the world's second democratic republic (after the US). The US was reluctant to give full support to this republic led by former slaves.

Hartford Convention

This Connecticut meeting of Federalists near the end of the War of 1812 led to the downfall that party. The England-based party enumerated its complaints against the ruling Republicans, protested the war, and even debated the possibility of making a separate peace with England. The men who attended were viewed as traitors when the war ended and news of this meeting reached the rest of the country.

Impressment

This British policy from the early 1800s involved forcibly boarding American ships in search of British naval deserters whom they would force back into the navy. Often, naturalized or native-born Americans were also seized, provoking outrage in America. This was one of many actions that helped spark the War of 1812.

James Monroe

As president from 1817 until 1825, he presided during the core of the Era of Good Feelings.

Macon's Bill No. 2

This law helped lead to the War of 1812. It was an 1810 ploy to induce either Britain or France to lift trade restrictions. Under the proposed law, the US promised to lift trade sanctions if one country agreed to free trade with the US. The US would then trade with that nation and reimpose sanctions on the other nation. Napoleon pretended to agree, then backed out of his promise, but damage was already done to US-British relations before American policy could be adjusted again.

Missouri Compromise

Under this 1820 agreement, __________ entered the Union as a slave state, Maine entered as a free state, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the 36°30' line.

Monroe Doctrine

This foreign policy issued in December 1823 asserted that the political systems of the Western Hemisphere and Europe were different, that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization or influence, and that the US would respond with force to any attempt to recolonize newly-independent nations in the Americas. The US wasn't powerful enough to act on this policy for many years, but it paved the way for US dominance of the Western Hemisphere.

Non-Intercourse Act

After the repeal of the Embargo Act, this 1809 law restricted trade with Britain and France only, opening up trade with all other foreign ports.

Panic of 1819

This two-year depression was caused by extensive speculation, the loose lending practices of state banks, a decline in European demand for American staple goods, and mismanagement within the Second Bank of the United States. This economic crisis exacerbated social divisions within the United States and is often called the beginning of the end of the Era of Good Feelings.

Second Bank of the United States

This institution was chartered in 1816 under President Madison and became a depository for federal funds and a creditor for (loaning money to) state banks. It became unpopular after being blamed for the panic of 1819, and suspicion of corruption and mismanagement haunted it until its charter expired in 1836. Jackson fought against this institution throughout his presidency, proclaiming it to be an unconstitutional extension of the federal government and a tool that rich capitalists used to corrupt American society.

Tallmadge Amendment

This 1819 amendment to the bill for Missouri's admission to the Union sought to prohibit the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and would have mandated the emancipation of slaves' children. The proposal was blocked by the Senate, but it sparked intense congressional debate over the balance of slave and free states. This debate ended with the MO Compromise.

Tecumseh

The Shawnee chief who tried to unite Native American tribes in Ohio and Indiana to thwart white settlement. His forces were defeated in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. He later allied with the British during the War of 1812.

Transcontinental Treaty

Also known as the Adams-Onis Treaty, this agreement was signed in 1819 between the US and Spain. Through this treaty, Spain gave Florida to the US and agreed to a southern border of the US for all land west of the Mississippi.

Treaty of Ghent

Signed on Christmas Eve in 1814, this treaty ended the War of 1812, with all territory between both nations remaining unchanged.

War Hawks

A group of westerners and southerners led by John Calhoun and Henry Clay who pushed for war against Britain. These politicians objected to Britain's hostile policies against US ships, including impressment and the seizure of shipping goods, and advocated fighting instead of submitting to such treatment. They also hoped that through war, the US would win western, southwestern, and Canadian territories.

War of 1812

Conflict between the US and Great Britain from 1812-14. It ended in stalemate with the Treaty of Ghent, but the American public believed the US had won the war after news spread of General Andrew Jackson's decisive victory at the Battle of New Orleans, which occurred two weeks after the signing of the treaty. For years following this apparent victory, an ebullient spirit of nationalism and optimism pervaded America.

XYZ Affair

During this scandal three unnamed French diplomats demanded a bribe from Americans in exchange for negotiation rights with French foreign minister Charles de Talleyrand. The Americans had been seeking an end to continued French aggression at sea. When John Adams's diplomats returned to the US with a story of what had happened, the public was outraged, and some called for war.

Alexander Hamilton

This man emerged as a major political figure during the debate over the Constitution as the outspoken author of the Federalist Papers. He later served as secretary of the treasury under Washington and spearheaded the government's Federalist initiatives, most notably through the creation of the Bank of the United States.

Alien and Sedition Acts

These laws were passed by Federalists in 1798 in response to the XYZ Affair and growing public support for the Jeffersonian Republicans. On the grounds of "national security," these laws increased the number of years required to gain citizenship, allowed for the imprisonment and deportation of aliens, and suspended freedom of speech. Popular dissatisfaction with these laws helped Jefferson's bid for presidency in 1800 and led to the VA & KY Resolutions--the nation's first nullification crisis.

Bank of the United States

Chartered in 1791, this controversial institution was a key part of Alexander Hamilton's Federalist economic program.

Citizen Genet

This man was sent to the US in 1793 by the new French government following the French Revolution. Although a diplomat, he openly sought American aid in France's conflicts with Britain and Spain. Because the US had already declared itself neutral in the conflict, Washington had this man deported.

Cotton gin

Invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney. This machine separated the fibers of short-staple cotton from the seeds. By making plantations more efficient and profitable, this invention helped lead to a cotton-dominated economy in the South and a revitalization of the domestic slave trade

George Washington

First president of the United States, Commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He defined the role of the president by setting several precedents: he intervened little in legislative affairs and concentrated mostly on diplomacy and finance, he supported Alexander Hamilton's economic campaign, and after serving two terms in office he established an unofficial policy that presidents should serve no more than two terms in office.

James Madison

Before he became fourth president of the United States (1809-1817), he began his political career as a Federalist in seeking to ratify the Constitution. He was one of the authors of The Federalist Papers and a staunch advocate of strong central government. But he later became critical of excessive power in central government and joined Thomas Jefferson in leading the Republican Party.

Jay's Treaty

This 1795 treaty with England led to the removal of British troops from American land and opened up limited trade with the British West Indies, but said nothing about British seizure of American ships or the impressment of American sailors. The American public criticized the treaty for favoring Britain, but it was one of the greatest diplomatic feats of the Washington administration because it preserved peace with Britain.

John Adams

As America's second president, he served from 1797 to 1801. He was the second and final Federalist president, and he supported a powerful centralized government. His most notable actions in office were preventing a full war with France and overseeing the passage of the unpopular Alien and Sedition Acts.

John Jay

This man played an important role in the establishment of the new government under the Constitution. One of the authors of The Federalist Papers, he was involved in the drafting of the Constitution. He was also the first chief justice of the Supreme Court.

John Marshall

This man served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 until his death in 1835. Under his leadership, the Court became as powerful a federal force as the executive and legislative branches (especially through Marbury v. Madison). During James Monroe's term in office, this man delivered two 1819 rulings that curtailed states' rights and exposed latent conflicts during the Era of Good Feelings.

Judicial review

This principle was established by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison (1803). This doctrine claims that the Supreme Court could declare an act of Congress unconstitutional.

Judiciary Act of 1789

This law formally created the American court system, establishing a federal district court in each state and giving the Supreme Court final jurisdiction in all legal matters.

Lewis and Clark

These two men were hired by Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. They traveled 3,000 miles between 1804 and 1806, collecting scientific data and specimens and charting the territory to the west of the Mississippi. Their journey spurred national interest in exploration and settlement of the West.

Louisiana Purchase

Through this 1803 action, Jefferson nearly doubled America's territory by gaining land from Napoleon and opened the West to exploration and settlement. This acquisition also caused strife in the form of border disputes with foreign powers as well as congressional debates over the admission of new states from the region (whether they would be slave-holding or free).

Proclamation of American Neutrality

In the early 1790s, Britain and France went to war with each other. The American public was torn over which nation to support: the South largely backed France, while the North favored the British. This 1793 announcement was George Washington's response to the public division--a decision that the US would not get involved in the war.

Quasi-war

This was an undeclared naval war between France and the US during 1798-1800. At the expense of his own popularity, President Adams refused to seek a formal declaration of war on France.

Sacajawea

A Native American woman who proved an indispensable guide to Lewis and Clark during their 1804-1806 expedition. She showed the men how to forage for food and helped them maintain good relations with tribes in the Northwest.

Shays's Rebellion

This uprising began in August 1786 in western Massachusetts. A group of farmers led by a Revolutionary War veteran violently tried to shut down three county courthouses in order to prevent foreclosure proceedings. The rebellion was put down by a private militia hired by the wealthy Bostonians, but it alerted many government officials to the weaknesses of the nation under the Articles of Confederation.

Thomas Jefferson

This man was the leading opponent of Alexander Hamilton and became the third president of the United States (1801-1809). He resigned as George Washington's first secretary of state in response to Hamilton's continued efforts to centralize power in the national government. Along with James Madison, he took up the cause of the strict constructionists who wanted to limit federal power. As president he doubled the size of the nation through the Louisiana Purchase and struggled to maintain American neutrality in foreign affairs.

Treaty of San Lorenzo

This 1795 treaty with Spain is also known as Pinckney's Treaty. It gave the US unrestricted access to the Mississippi River and established the border between the US and Spanish Florida.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

These documents were passed by two state legislatures in 1798 in protest to the Alien and Sedition Acts. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson drafted these documents to condemn the Federalists' broad interpretation of the Constitution and to advocate a compact theory of the Union, which stated that states' rights superseded federal powers. The implicit argument was that a state could supercede a federal government decision and could nullify a law that seemed unconstitutional.

Whiskey Rebellion

A July 1794 riot that broke out in western Pennsylvania in response to a high excise tax on ______ initiated by Alexander Hamilton. In a show of national strength, President George Washington led a force of militiamen to crush this uprising.

Equal Rights Amendment

(1) proposed constitutional amendment supported by the National Organization for Women & first proposed by Alice Paul in 1923; its goal was to prevent all gender-based discrimination & in the 1970s, the House and Senate passed the amendment, and sent it to the states for ratification; (2) a "Stop the __" movement prevented this amendment from being approved by the necessary 3/4ths of the states & it failed by 3 states

Deep Throat

secret informant who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein purue story behind the Watergate Scandal; his true identity was a mystery until shortly before his death in 2008--former FBI agent W. Mark Felt acknowledged that he was the informant

Jimmy Carter

(1) devout Baptist president (D) 1977-1981 best known for his commitment to human rights (ex: Moscow Olympics boycott in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan); (2) he faced tension in the Middle East--unsuccessfully dealth w/ Iran Hostage Crisis and successfully brokered the Camp David Peace Accords; (4) ongoing economic difficulties contributed to his failure to be re-elected in 1980; formerly a peanut farmer from Georgia

Gerald Ford

(1) became VP after Spiro Agnew resigned (bribery scandal) and became president after Watergate scandal forced Nixon in Aug. 1974; (2) he pardoned Nixon and pushed a conservative domestic policy, but was little more than a caretaker president when respect for government was at an all-time low

OPEC

(1) monopoly cartel formed by nations in the Middle East, and later S. America, Asia & Africa; it formed following increases in oil prices in the 1970s; (2) in 1973, this group raised the price of oil, leading to an energy crisis but huge profits for oil producers

Oil embargo

the 1973 refusal of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to export oil to Western nations--a response to US miliary support for Israel during the Yom Kippur war; it lasted until 1974 & sparked rapid inflation, crippling the US economy (and plaguing Ford's tenure as president)

Richard Nixon

(1) president (R) from 1969 until he resigned in the wake of a scandal; (2) he oversaw a moderately conservative domestic program; (3) he oversaw detente & launched a policy of "Vietnamization" (after first expanding the war into Cambodia--troop levels hit an all time high before he began the troop withdrawal)

Watergate

(1) hotel in Washington, DC, that was home to the Democratic National Committee headquarters and was targeted for a wiretapping scheme by burglars employed by Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP); (2) the resulting events became the greatest scandal in US history after it became clear that Nixon had known of the break-in & had participated in a cover-up attempt; (3) two years after a landslide victory in re-election Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace in 1974

Women's Strike for Equality

Aug. 1970 event in which tens of thousands of women around the country held demonstrations to demand the right to equal employment and legal abortions

Iran-Contra affair

(1) scandal uncovered after investigations in 1987 revealed that the US had been selling weapons to the anti-American government in Iran (to help secure the release of American hostages) & had been using the profits from these sales to secretly & illegally finance the Contras in Nicaragua (a rebel group fighting the leftist Sandinista regime; (2) NSC member Oliver North had organized the operation from within the White House but there was no proof that Reagan was aware of North's actions

Oliver North

member of the National Security Council who headed the illegal operations that became known in the Iran-Contra scandal; claimed that he kept the operations a secret from President Reagan

Ronald Reagan

president (R) from 1981-1989 who focused on economic prosperity and victory in the Cold War; his "supply side economics" inspired major tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of the economy, a massive military buildup, and a policy toward the USSR that increased tension with that nation to levels unseen since before the Nixon presidency

Reaganomics

officially "supply side economics" (and derided as "voodoo economics"), this economic philosophy argued that the government should take a more laissez-faire approach and lower taxes on the wealthy because the wealth of the rich would naturally "trickle down" to the poor

Black Power

a term that reflects the black nationalism & the desire to fight oppresssion; coined by SNCC's Stokely Carmichael & adopted by Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and other civil rights groups that opposed the more passive "Black Pride" of MLK, Jr.

Black Panthers

"black power"/"black nationalism" movement that advocated economic self-sufficiency and armed resistance to white oppression; organized in 1966 in Oakland, CA by Huey Newton & Bobby Seale

Cesar Chavez

(1) Mexican-American migrant farm worker & founder of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in 1963; (2) helped exploited Chicano workers with his successful "boycott grapes" movement that led to better pay, limits on the use of toxic fertilizers, and recognition of farm workers' collective bargaining right

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Great Society law that banned discrimination in education, employment, and all public accommodations; enforced the 14th Amendment passed almost 100 years earlier

Civil Rights Act of 1968

Great Society law that outlawed discrimination in the rental or sale of housing and apartments; it provided further protection for civil rights leaders but penalties for rioters

Economic Opportunity Act

Great Society law that established a government office to provide young Americans with job training & a volunteer network that organized social work & education in impoverished areas

The Feminine Mystique

1963 book by psychologist Betty Friedan that inspired the women's liberation movement; it denounced the social norms that confined women to the home and argued that women should have the same options as men

Freedom rides

1961 program led by the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that brought black & white members to the South on public buses to protest transportation-related segregation laws; the participants were often beaten up by angry whites in the south

Great Society

(1) Lyndon B. Johnson's domestic reform agena, which aimed to achieve racial equality, end poverty, and improve health-care; (2) LBJ pushed many laws through Congress early in his presidency, but the program failed to meet its full goals, partly b/c the administration began to focus more on foreign affairs (esp. the war in Vietnam).

Lyndon B. Johnson

JFK's vice president then president from 1963 to 1968 (he declined to seek reelection--his popularity fell b/c of the failing war in Vietnam); best known for his Great Society program

John F. Kennedy

(1) youngest ever & only Catholic president, a charismatic leader who served from 1961 until his assassination in Nov. 1963; (2) his whole family was involved in politics (the relatively good times when they all worked together was romanticized as "Camelot"); (3) peacefully resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis after the embarassing Bay of Pigs invasion

Medical Care Act

1965 Great Society law that created Medicare and Medicaid--federal govt health insurance plans for senior citizens and welfare recipients

Malcolm X

leading advocate of Black Power & spokesperson for the Nation of Islam; broke from that organization and was assassinated in 1965 after declaring his new dedication to cross-cultural unity

March Against Death

Nov. 1969 protest of 300,000 people who marched in a long, circular path thu Washington, DC, for 40 hours straight (each held a candle and the name of a soldier killed or a village destroyed in Vietnam); a high point in the student antiwar movement & a poignant symbol of antiwar sentiment

Medgar Evers

NAACP leader in Mississippi who was assassinated in Jackson, MS, in 1963 following JFK's speech for civil rights

Martin Luther King Jr.

(1) prominent civil rights leader who rose to fame during the 1955-6 Montgomery Bus Boycott; (2) he led the struggle for integration and equality through nonviolent means (labeled the "black pride" movement); (3) his 1968 assassination sparked riots in cities all over the US

New Frontier

JFK's policy agenda that focused on reform at home & victory in the Cold War (thru both containment and peaceful international development cooperation)

National Organization for Women (NOW)

(1) the central organization of the women's liberation movement; (2) founded in 1966, it continues to lobby Congress for equal rights, initiate lawsuits against discrimination, and raise public awareness of women's issues

Rosa Parks

seamstress & an active member of the NAACP who sparked the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her seat to a white man in Dec 1955

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

college student organization founded in 1962 to achieve racial equality, alleviate poverty, end the Vietnam War, and encourage a more participatory form of democracy

Silent majority

a term coined by Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign to refer to his assertion that many Americans were tired of chaos, student protests, and civil rights agitation & were eager for a conservative federal government

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

organization founded in 1957 by MLK, Jr. & other prominent clergymen to fight segregation using nonviolent means

Stokely Carmichael

once a prominent member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he abandoned his nonviolent leanings in 1966 & advocated Black Nationalism (& coined the phrase "Black Power")

Silent Spring

Rachel Carson's 1962 book that exposed the environmental hazards of the pesticide DDT & helped spur the environmentalist movement

Voting Rights Act

1965 Great Society law that guaranteed all Americans the right to vote & allowed the federal govt to intervene in elections if necessary to protect minority voters; effectively enforced the 15th Amendment passed almost 100 years earlier

The Warren Commission

government body created by LBJ & headed by then Chief Justice Earl __ to investigate JFK's assassination; it concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman & not part of a conspiracy

Watts riots

violent uprisings in 1965 in a poor predominantly black section of L.A. that left >30 dead & 1,000 wounded; the violence came following slow progress in civil rights legislation and the assassination of several civil rights leaders

Berlin Airlift

"Operation Vittles"--the US and British response to Stalin's June 1948-May 1949 blockade of the western half of this German city: thousands of flights delivered food, fuel, and other necessities to prevent this city from falling to communism

Berlin Blockade

the June 1948 Soviet action that led to an airlift of supplies to this western-occupied German city

Marshall Plan

(1) 4-year, >$17 billion plan for the economic reconstruction of Europe (1948-1952); (2) the goal was to prevent communist expansion by eliminating economic & political insecurity in Europe

Douglas MacArthur

(1) American general in the Pacific during WWII, oversaw 6-year occupation of postwar Japan, led UN troops in Operation Chromite (the Incheon Landing); (2) he pushed for total victory in the Korean War--conquering all of Korea and perhaps moving into China--but Truman held him back; (3) he publicly denounced the administration of a month and was relieved of command in April 1951

Spheres of influence

(1) a bloc (group of nations/territories) in unofficial economic, political, and social orbit of a greater power (ex: NATO countries were in the US's ___; the Warsaw Pact countries were in the USSR's __.); (2) this term can also be used to describe the areas in China controlled by each European power during the Open Door era

Truman Doctrine

(1) March 1947 foreign policy declaration that the US would support people anywhere in the world facing "attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures"; (2) the US thus adopted a global police role, which at the time meant containing the spread of communism

United Nations

organization founded by 51 countries in 1945 to preserve peace and global stability through international cooperation and collective security; today it has 192 member states

Mao Zedong

(1) founder of the Chinese Communist Party who defeated Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists in 1949 to establish the People's Republic of China; (2) the US felt that his victory was the result of conspiracy & that American foreign policymakers had somehow "lost China"

Bay of Pigs Invasion

(1) failed April 1961 attempt by US-backed Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government; (2) a huge embarrassment to JFK, the newly-inaugurated president

Berlin Wall

(1) barrier constructed by the USSR (completed in 1961) to prevent people from the eastern zone of this city from escaping to the free west & a symbol of communist, authoritarian rule; (2) it was torn down in Nov 1989--setting the stage for the reunification of Germany and the end of the Cold War.

Boris Yeltsin

president of the Russian Republic in 1991--the first post-Cold War leader; he came to power by helping Mikhail Gorbachev when hard-line Communists attempted to overthrow him--but soon forced Gorbachev to resign & declared an end to the USSR

Containment

(1) Cold War foreign policy established by Truman & continued into the 1960s; (2) it involved economic aid, and covert & overt military action as a way of preventing of communist expansion (while trying to avoid a full-scale war w/ Russia); (3) this doctrine tended to view all communist action as part of a monolithic threat led by Moscow; (4) US diplomat in Moscow George Kennan's "long telegram" helped inspire this policy

Cold War

(1) 1946-1991, the conflict & tension between the US & USSR and their respective spheres of influence; (2) it was characterized by proxy wars, an arms & space race, and geopolitical rivalry; (3) the threat of communism affected all foreign policy (and much domestic) decision-making during this conflict

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

government agency concerned with international espionage; heavily involved in the Third World anti-communist conflicts, including assassination attempts and coups d'etat in Iran & Guatemala in 1953 & 1954

Cuban Missile Crisis

(1) 1962 crisis that nearly led to nuclear war btwn the US & USSR; (2) after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Soviet Premier Khrushchev placed nuclear weapons in Cuba; President Kennedy demanded their withdrawal & set up a naval "quarantine"; (3) in the end Khrushchev backed down and removed the missiles in exchange for a US promise not to invade Cuba (and secret promise to remove US missiles from Turkey)

Fidel Castro

Cuban revolutionary who ousted the authoritarian Batista regime in in 1959 and established the communist regime that remains in power to this day

Camp David Accords

(1) Israeli-Egyptian peace agreements negotiated by President Carter & signed in 1979; (2) it made Egypt the first state to recognize Israel and both countries became major recipient of US economic & military aid; (3) Sadat was assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981 as a result of his cooperation

Détente

(1) the relaxation of tensions between the US & USSR in the 60s & 70s—the second stage of the Cold War—in which the two powers signed treaties limiting nuclear weapons production/testing & opened up economic relations; (2) Nixon's secretary of state Henry Kissinger was a major architect of this policy

Domino theory

the idea that if any nation fell to communism, the surrounding nations would likely fall as well; expounded by Eisenhower & most infamously used to justify US intervention in Vietnam

Eisenhower Doctrine

1957 foreign policy declaration that committed the US to preventing Communist aggression in the Middle East, with force (and nuclear weapons) if necessary

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

(1) congressional resolution passed in 1964 following an alleged N. Vietnamese attack on the USS Maddox--the closest the US came to a declaration of war for the conflict in Vietnam; (2) this document gave LBJ congressional approval for military action, and became the reason Congress later passed the War Powers Resolution

Hydrogen bomb

(1) following the successful 1949 Soviet a-bomb test, the US began a crash program to develop this kind of fission-fusion nuclear weapon & 2 years later succeeded with the "Ivy Mike" (codename) detonation; (2) after the USSR exploded one in 1953 and another in 1954, the US proposed a resolution that nations use atomic energy only for peaceful means

Ho Chi Minh

Vietnamese Communist leader of the Viet Minh (later called the Viet Cong); he fought against the French & other anti-Communists, leading to the division between South and North Vietnam (and later the Vietnam War)

Helsinki Accords

1975 agreements between President Ford, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, & 31 other states to solidify European boundaries, promise to respect human rights, and the freedom to travel (an example of détente-era diplomacy)

Iron curtain

term was coined by Winston Churchill to describe the Eastern Europe after it became cut off from noncommunist Europe & became controlled by the USSR (usually through puppet governments)

Korean War

(1) 1950-1953 UN-led conflict in Asia in which Truman involved American troops as part of a "police action" (without a Congressional declaration of war); (2) General MacArthur (and later Gen. Matthew Ridgeway) led the fighting until a June 1953 armistice established a border similar to the prewar border btwn the two halves of this country

Moon landing

(1) July 20, 1969, feat accomplished by astronaut Neil Armstrong and Colonel Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., who traveled in Apollo 11 and a landing module called the Eagle; (2) this televised event was intended to demonstrate the scientific power of the US

Mikhail Gorbachev

the last Soviet political leader, from 1985 to 1991; he eased tension between the US and the USSR—work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990—and oversaw the perestroika reforms

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)

(1) 1960s US Cold War policy that acknowledged the fact that the US & USSR had enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other many times over; (2) this policy actually led to greater stability b/c both nations hoped to prevent outright war with the other nation and (perhaps ironically) ushered in the era of détente

Nixon Doctrine

foreign policy announced July 1969 along with efforts to withdrawal from Vietnam: a policy that pledged that the US would become a helpful partner in the Third World rather than a military protector

Neil Armstrong

astronaut who became the first person to walk on the moon (along with Colonel "Buzz" Aldrin); said, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

after Khrushchev threatened in 1961 to resume nuclear testing (despite a 1958 ban), this 1963 agreement btwn the US, UK, USSR, and >100 other nations stopped all above-ground nuclear tests

NASA

civilian agency (funded with government money) founded in 1958 to compete with Russia's (initially more successful) space program; it sent expeditions to the moon from the late 1960s to early 1980s, and developed & managed the space station and space shuttle programs.

Puppet governments

governments set up and supported by outside powers; the US & USSR established these kinds of governments during the Cold War--superpowers would hand-pick leaders of developing nations in order to keep them in their sphere of influence

Peace Corps

(1) government agency created by JFK in 1961 to send volunteer teachers, health workers, and engineers on 2-year aid missions to Third World countries; (2) the goal is to spread democratic values & aid the Third World with "soft power" (not military pressure)

Paris Accords

agreements signed in Jan. 1973 to settle the terms of US withdrawal from Indochina, ending the war between the US and North Vietnam (but leaving unresolved the conflict between N. & S. Vietnam)

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT)

May 1972 treaty signed by Nixon as part of détente; this treaty limited each superpower to 200 antiballistic missiles and set quotas for intercontinental and submarine missiles

Sputnik

the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth, launched by the USSR on October 4, 1957; its launch prompted the space race (partly b/c it was understood that rockets could be used to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere on the globe)

Suez Canal Crisis

(1) in 1956 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to nationalize the __ canal (the north-south waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean and the Red Seas), then owned by British and French interests; (2) the US & UN & USSR together condemned the Br, Fr, and Israeli response (an invasion of Egypt), & the US forced its former allies to withdrawal; (3) the US response demonstrated the American superpower status and the US desire for a balance of power in the Middle East

Tet Offensive

(1) Jan. 1968 surprise month-long military campaign launched throughout South Vietnam by the Vietcong & North Vietnamese communists; (2) a military failure for the communitts, but the widespread devastation & death of thousands of American troops convinced the American public that the Vietnam War was unwinnable.

Warsaw Pact

the Soviet response to NATO: a 1954 collective security agreement between the USSR and its Eastern European satellites (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, & Romania)

Henry Kissinger

national security adviser & later secretary of state under President Nixon; he was a major proponent of détente, an advocate of "realpolitik" foreign policy, and often met secretly with communist leaders in efforts to improve East-West cooperation

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

(1) international collective security organization founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet threat in Eastern Europe; (2) all 12 members agreed to fight together in the event of an attack on any one member; (3) throughout the Cold War, this organization was the primary Western alliance and today it continues to function as the miltary body for US & European cooperation in places such as the the former Yugoslavia

Vietcong

pro-communist guerrilla forces in South Vietnam; American GIs often referred to members of this orgaznization as VCs or collectively as "Charlie"

Vietnam War

(1) this conflict began when Eisenhower & Kennedy started US intervention by sending US military advisors to aid the French and to prevent the spread of communism; in 1964 LBJ started the war with massive aerial bombartment (Operation Rolling Thunder) and then a ground campaign; (3) this war was heavily protested in America and ended as a US loss when the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973

War Powers Resolution

(1) 1973 joint resolution of Congress that made it unlawful for the president to send the military into action without the approval of Congress; (2) it requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops & limits military operations for more than 90 days without congressional authorization; (3) it passed over Nixon's veto and has been condemned (or ignored) by nearly every president who has held office since; (4) an attempt to limit what many saw as an abuse of presidential military power

New Look

(1) Eisenhower's Cold War strategy, criticized as "brinksmanship" by some because it preferred nuclear deterrence to ground force involvement & emphasized the threat of massive retaliation; (2) Eisenhower worked to increase nuclear spending and while decreasing the overall military budget.

Jackie Robinson

1st African-American player to play in the major league baseball (for the Brooklyn Dodgers): baseball had been segregated in 2 separate leagues 1884-1947

Smith Act

(1) aka the Alien Registration Act, a 1940 law that act made it illegal to speak of or advocate overthrowing the US government; (2) 5 million aliens in the US also had to register with the federal government; (3) in 1948, Truman demonstrated his aggressive stance against communism by prosecuting 11 Communist Party leaders under the this law; prosecutions continued until 1961

Harry S. Truman

(1) president (D) from FDR's death in April 1945 to 1953; (2) he ordered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki & initiated Containment; (3) at home, he attempted to extend the New Deal policies with the "Fair Deal"; (4) desegregated the army

Taft-Hartley Act

(1) 1947 anti-union law that was passed by Republicans in Congress over Truman's veto; (2) the law banned many union practices and allowed the president to delay strikes with an 80-day "cooling off" period; (3) Truman's opposition to the law roused the support of organized labor, a group crucial to his narrow re-election in 1948

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)

post-WWII govt agency that gained control of nearly all aspects of research related to nuclear power--including monitoring scientists to prevent espionage, safeguarding power plants, and developing advanced nuclear weapons (such as the H-Bomb)

Baby boom

the postwar & 1950s period characterized by economic prosperity and an increased birthrate (when US population grew: 150 to 180 million)

Dynamic conservatism

Eisenhower's philosophy of government: forward-looking rather than traditional or laissez-faire, bipartisan (he was willing to work with the Democratic Party), and willing to accept most of the New Deal reforms

Dwight D. Eisenhower

(1) president (R) 1953-1961 who worked w/ Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to continue containment while lessening Cold War tensions (ex: ending the Korean War); (2) he had been the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in WWII, coordinating Operation Overlord and the Allied drive to Berlin

Fair Deal

Truman's attempt to extend the policies of the New Deal beginning in 1949: increases to the minimum wage, expanded Social Security, and constructed low-income housing.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

during the McCarthy Red Scare, this congressional committee provided a forum for many hearings about suspected communists in the government

McCarthyism

the anticommunist "witch hunt" mentality of Senator Joseph __, who led a public campaign against alleged subversives in the early 1950s.

Elvis Presley

1950s rock-and-roll star; symbol of sex & youth rebellion; his music fused black R & B with white country music

Polio vaccine

Dr. Jonas Salk invented this in 1955 & the govt distributed it throughout the nation nearly eradicating ___ (disease)

The Rosenbergs

(1) husband and wife (Julius and Ethel) accused of spying for the Soviets in 1950--and executed in 1953; (2) they claimed that they were being targeted b/c of their Jewish background and leftist political beliefs during their very public trial (part of the 2nd Red Scare)

To Secure These Rights

title of a report published in 1947 by Truman's Presidential Commitee on Civil Rights, which called for the elimination of segregation; Truman followed their recommendation by desegregating the army in 1948

Thurgood Marshall

(1) NAACP attorney who successfully argued the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954; (2) in 1967, the 1st African American appointed to the Supreme Court

The Beat movement

(1) major nonconformist American literary movement of the 1950s, including Allen Ginsberg (Howl, 1956) & Jack Kerouac (On the Road, 1957); (2) they rejected the consumerism and conformity of middle-class culture and sought to overturn sexual and social norms of the era

Earl Warren

liberal Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 1953 to 1969 who oversaw many important civil rights decisions, including Brown v. Board of Ed.

GI Bill

(1) aka the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, aka the __ of Rights--a very generous compensation package that granted $13 billion to WWII veterans in the form of govt-sponsored education, guaranteed housing/business loans, & a small stipend; (2) the law attempted to reward soldiers for their service, to help them readjust to society after demobilization, and to avoid unemployment & the Bonus Army-like problems that had occurred after WWI

Alger Hiss

(1) longtime govt employee who was in 1948 accused by Time magazine editor Whitaker Chambers of spying for the USSR; (2) after highly publicized hearings and trials, he was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to 5 years in jail, emboldening conservatives to root out subversives in the government (part of 2nd Red Scare)

J. Edgar Hoover

investigator in the Palmer Raids during the 1st Red Scare & head of the FBI 1924-1972; he aggressively investigated suspected subversives during the Cold War

Joint Chiefs of Staff

a group created by FDR in Feb. 1942 to advise the president and oversee rapidly growing military; it still consists of representatives from the army, navy, and air force

Axis powers

WWII alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan—the nations that signed the Tripartite Pact in Sept 1940

Atlantic Charter

(1) the document on Aug 14, 1941, after a meeting btwn FDR & British Prime Minister Winston Churchill; (2) it described an ideal postwar world, condemned military aggression, asserted the right to national self-determination, and advocated disarmament

Battle of Britain

(1) the Nazi bombing of England in summer & fall of 1940--preparation for an amphibious assault that Hitler never was able to launch; (2) American radio news reports from London increased US sympathy for the Allied side

America First Committee

(1) isolationist organization that opposed FDR's reelection in 1940 & urged neutrality in WWII ("the US wouldn't be harmed by Hitler's advances in Europe"); (2) pilot/celebrity Charles Lindbergh was its most visible spokesperson

Cash-and-carry

policy enacted in Sept 1939 as part of a new, amended Neutrality Act, which allowed warring nations to purchase arms from the US as long as they paid in full and transported the arms away on their own ships

Declaration of the United Nations

This document was signed on January 1, 1942, by 26 nations that agreed not to make separate peace agreements with the enemy and to uphold the Atlantic Charter. In 1945 the agreement evolved into another that became the basis for the successor organization to the League of Nations.

Francisco Franco

(1) right-wing fascist leader who won the Spanish Civil War and who ruled Spain 1939-1975; Mussolini and Hitler helped him come to power, and he kept Spain neutral throughout the war (except for helping the Axis Powers invade the USSR); (2) later he was an anti-communist US ally in the first half of the Cold War.

Holocaust

known in Hebrew as the "Shoah," the Nazis' systematic efforts to exterminate all of Europe's Jews from 1933-1945; more than 6 million Jews died in concentration camps throughout Germany and Nazi-occupied territory

Adolph Hitler

(1) elected Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the fascist Nazi leader who oversaw German economic recovery by mobilizing industry for military purposes; (2) he aggressively sought global hegemony & oversaw one of the century's most notorious genocide attempts

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

two cities that were targets of Fat Man and Little Boy, the first nuclear weapons to be used in wartime. The August 6, 1945, bomb killed 70,000 instantaneously and another 70,000 over time with radiation poisoning. The August 9, 1945, bomb caused 40,000 immediate deaths and 60,000 injuries.

Lend-Lease Act

(1) March 1941 law that allowed any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the US" (Britain & even the USSR after Hitler attacked it) to borrow/rent weapons; (2) a key move in support of the Allied cause before the US formally entered WWII, and one that provoked German naval attacks on American targets even before the Pearl Harbor attacks

Manhattan Project

(1) the $2 billion, 3-year secret American scientific initiative to develop the atomic bomb; (2) scientists worked for almost three years in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and other sities until the successful July 16, 1945, detonation; (3) prominent members included Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and the project's military commander, Gen. Leslie Groves

Munich Pact

(1) 1938 agreement between Britain, France, Italy, and Germany that allowed Germany to annex the Czech Sudentenland after Hitler declared he was willing to take it by force; (2) this "appeasement" policy only emboldened Hitler, thus convincing later foreign policymakers of the need to take a hard stance against dictators (esp. in the 1st half of the Cold War)

Neutrality Acts

several laws passed by Congress btwn 1935 and 1937 banning arms sales to warring countries and forbidding American citizens from traveling aboard ships of belligerent nations (in an effort to keep the US out of WWII)

Nuremberg Trials

13 trials of Nazi war criminals that began in Nov. 1945 & that were overseen by the Allies; 200 defendants were indicted & all but 38 were convicted of conspiring to wage aggressive war and of mistreating prisoners of war & inhabitants of occupied territories

National War Labor Board

federal agency that monitored and regulated the efforts of organized labor during WWII; the agency restricted wage increases but encouraged the extension of many fringe benefits (such as health care) to workers

Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

(1) secret agency created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1942 to conduct espionage, collect information for strategic planning, & assess the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy; (2) this organization eventually evolved into the CIA during the Cold War

Office of Censorship

created in Dec. 1941, a government agency that examined all letters sent overseas and that worked with media firms to control information broadcast during WWII

Office of War Information

government agency that employed artists, writers, and advertisers to shape public opinion during WWII; it publicized reasons for US entry into the war & often portrayed the Axis powers as barbaric and cruel

Operation Overlord

(1) the Allied air, land, and sea assault on occupied France that centered on the "D-Day" invasion on June 6, 1944, when American, British, and Canadian troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, in northern France; (2) this costly operation took gave the Allies a beachhead in Hitler's "Fortress Europe" from where they were able to gradually move inland

Pearl Harbor

American naval base in Hawaii bombed by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941; >2,400 Americans were killed & the US declared war on Japan the next day

Potsdam Conference

July 17-Aug. 2, 1945 conference in which Truman, Churchill, & Stalin met to divide Germany into occupation zones & plan for the Nuremberg Trials, the final meeting between the Big Three powers during the war

Rosie the Riveter

popular WWII advertising character—a strong woman factory worker who symbolized the important role American women played on the home front

Revenue Act of 1942

(1) law that raised taxes to help finance the WWII effort by raising rates for the wealthiest Americans; (2) it included new middle- and lower-income tax brackets, vastly increasing the number of Americans responsible for paying taxes

J. Robert Oppenheimer

physicist who was the civilian head of the Manhattan Project

Leslie Groves

(1) Army general in charge of the Manhattan Project; (2) later in charge of design of the Pentagon home to the military and the Defense Department (though only 5 stories tall--and thus less susceptible to attack--the Pentagon is by floor surface area the largest office building in the world)

Joseph Stalin

totalitarian ruler of the Soviet Union 1928-1953 who cooperated with the Allies during WWII--but whose relations with the west soured after the war, a condition that eventually led to the Cold War

Smith-Connally Act

aka the War Labor Disputes Act, a law was passed in 1943 over FDR's veto which limited the right to strike in industries key to the war effort and that authorized federal intervention in any strike; this law eroded what had been amiable relations btwn the govt and organized labor

shoot-on-sight order

US military order issued in 1941 before Pearl Harbor (in response to German submarine attacks on American ships in the Atlantic Ocean) that allowed naval patrols to fire on any Axis ships found between the US and Iceland

Tripartite Pact

Sept. 1940 agreement signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan that created the Axis powers

Tehran Conference

1st major meeting between the Big Three leaders (Churchill, FDR, & Stalin), held from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, 1943 in which the 1944 assault on Vichy France & the division of Germany was first planned

War Production Board

created in 1942, the government agency that oversaw production of thousands of planes, tanks, artillery pieces, and munitions that FDR requested once the US entered the war; the agency allocated scarce resources and shifted domestic production from civilian to military goods

Winston Churchill

(1) Prime minister of England from 1940 to 1945 and one of the "Big Three," famous for his inspirational speeches and zealous pursuit of war victory; (2) in 1946, he leader coined the term "iron curtain" to describe the USSR's harsh occupation of eastern Europe

Yalta Conference

(1) Feb. 4-11, 1945 meeting btwn the Big Three in which Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan soon after Germany surrendered; (2) plans for a UN conference in April 1945 were also approved along with territorial divisions of Europe

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)

(1) 1933 1st New Deal law that sought to reduce farm production & increase crop prices by offering subsidies to farmers who planted less than a set quota; (2) a 2nd version of this law was passed in 1938 after the Supreme Court declared the first law was declared unconstitutional in 1936

Black Thursday

October 24, 1929, the day the stock market crashed an astounding 9 percent (after a decade of great prosperity); a signal (though not the only cause) of the Great Depression

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

(1) labor organization that split from the AFL in 1938 and that focused on unskilled workers; (2) it gained influence during the New Deal & 40s but merged in 1955 with the AFL (when labor influence was declining)

Civil Works Administration (CWA)

1st New Deal agency created by FDR to reduce unemployment during the cold winter months of 1933; it spent $1 billion on short-term projects for unemployed manual laborers but was abolished in the spring of '34

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

(1) 1st New Deal agency created in 1933 to provide unemployment relief in environment-related projects; (2) 3 million men were eventually hired by this agency--mostly white men 18-25 years old, but 200,000 blacks and 100,000 Native Americans also worked in separate units

Court Packing scheme

(1) FDR's proposed 1937 judiciary reform bill which would have allowed him to appoint up to 6 additional justices; (2) FDR claimed that he wanted to ease the workload of judges aged >70, but he was really trying to stop the older, conservative justices who opposed the New Deal; (3) the Democrat-dominated Senate voted against the proposal; (4) the plan seemed to damage FDR's credibility, slow the New Deal, but also stopped the SC from declaring more programs unconstitutional

dust bowl

the southern Great Plains region (Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma) during the 1930s, which was hit by severe drought, fierce winds/sandstorms that destroyed farmland, machinery, and houses, and countless injuries; Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath chronicled the plight of roughly 800,000 residents of this region who migrated west to California in the '30s & '40s

Emergency Committee for Unemployment

Hoover's committee (estab'd Oct. 1930) to lower the unemployment rate with support from voluntary agencies; it lacked the resources to make dramatic progress

Emergency Banking Relief Act

one of FDR's first New Deal laws; helped hundreds of banks that had closed early in 1933 to reopen with federal support

Federal Home Loan Bank Act

(1) 1932 law that established a series of banks which were supposed to make loans to other banks, building and loan associations, and insurance agencies; (2) a late attempt by Hoover to help indebted Americans avoid losing their homes to foreclosure

Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)

one of the most comprehensive New Deal laws, a May 1933 law that gave $500 million to state and local treasuries that had run out of money

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

government-run company created by the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act to prevent bank runs & to reform the banking system; (2) it still exists & requires all banks to pay into a government fund that is used to guarantee that individuals will not lose their bank savings, even if individual banks fail (go bankrupt)

Fair Labor Standards Act

1938 2nd New Deal act that estab'd a minimum wage and restricted shipment of goods produced with child labor; it showed FDR's willingness to work with labor groups

First hundred days

(1) March 4 to June 16, 1933, a period of dramatic, unprecedented legislative productivity when Congress passed many laws & created many agencies that established FDR's New Deal; (2) presidents ever since have been measured by their actions in the same period of time

Fireside chats

FDR's radio broadcasts in which FDR encouraged confidence and national unity & convinced struggling Americans that the government was compassionate about their needs

Hooverville

nickname for the shantytowns and shack communities that sprang up around most major American cities in the early 1930s

John Steinbeck

major author of the 1930s who depicted simple, rural lives & depression-era struggles in works like The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

New Deal

(1) FDR's programs that sought relief & recovery (first one) and later reform (second one) during the Depression; (2) FDR had no specific plan, but he used many trial-and-error methods to increase faith in the economy, avoid radicalism/riots, and apply Keynesian principles (of using government spending to jumpstart the private sector)

National Labor Relations Act

(1) the Wagner Act, a 1935 law that formally gave workers the right to join unions and engage in collective bargaining; (2) it forbade employers from discriminating against unions, but much of the law was repealed by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act

Herbert Hoover

(1) president (R, 1929-1933) who held office during the stock market collapse and the height of the Depression; (2) his efforts to control the economic & social problems of the nation resembled those of the New Deal, but those efforts were generally considered too little, too late

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

(1) president (1933-1945) who broke the tradition of serving no more than two terms--he oversaw both the New Deal & WWII until his death a month before V-E Day; (2) he exercised greater authority than perhaps any president before him but also encouraged a new understanding of the role of the government; (3) he created the modern Democratic Party, garnering support from labor unions, blacks, urban workers, & farmers; (4) perhaps the most popular president in US history

National Recovery Administration (NRA)

(1) perhaps the most important element of the 1st New Deal, this agency established a forum in which business & government officials met to set regulations for fair competition; (2) industries obeyed these regulations from 1933 to 1935, when the the agency was declared unconstitutional

Public Works Administration (PWA)

unemployment relief agency created by the National Industrial Recovery Act that spent over $3 billion on projects (schools, bridges, libraries)

"Good Neighbor" policy

FDR's foreign policy toward Latin America initiated in 1933 which declared that included that no nation (not even the US) had the right to interfere in the affairs of any other nation

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

(1) government company created by Hoover in 1932 to make loans to large economic institutions such as RRs & banks; (2) it loaned over $2 billion in 1932, but that amount was not enough to impact the Depression; (3) the agency continued operating under FDR

Second New Deal

(1) FDR's set of programs designed to stimulate the economy that began in 1935 after much of the 1st New Deal was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; (2) these programs were characterized by greater government spending, increased work relief, and some attempt at long-term reform (esp. the Social Security system)

The Securities and Exchange Commission

(1) government agency created in 1934 to regulate the stock market; (2) it still enforces regulations & fights abuse in the financial system (such as false statements to investors or insider trading)

Social Security

tax-supported government agency estab'd in Aug. 1935 to provide benefits to the elderly & disabled; it still exists

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

1933 tariff that was originally Hoover's attempt to lower the price of goods & encourage trade early in the Depression--but Congress raised rates to an all-time high (and 94% of the taxed imports were agricultural)

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

(1) FDR's New Deal agency that established power plants, oversaw conservation, and pumped money into a poor, undeveloped region of the Appalachians; (2) it completed many major projects and revitalized the region, but faced criticism from environmentalists and conservatives who feared what looked like Soviet-style central government planning

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

(1) unemployment relief agency that received much of the $5 billion allocated to FDR by the Emergency Relief Allocation Act of 1935; (2) for 8 yrs, this agency provided job for all kinds of workers (from industrial engineers to authors & artists); (3) partly because of this agency's efforts, unemployment fell by >5% in 1935-1937

Bonus Army

(1) 20,000+ WWI veterans who in 1932 camped out in Washington, DC, to ask Congress to give them an early pension payment; (2) Hoover ordered these men forcibly removed from their camp near the Potomac River, an act that severely harmed the president's already waning popularity

Huey Long

(1) Louisiana senator & vocal critics of FDR's New Deal; (2) his liberal "Share Our Wealth" program proposed a 100% tax on all income over $1 million & large wealth redistribution; (3) his passionate speeches earned him followers & enemies: he was assassinated in Sept. 1935 at the capitol building in Baton Rouge

Assembly line

(1) production method first implemented on a large scale in 1908 by Henry Ford for the production of his Model T car; (2) this innovation increased industrial efficiency while creating work that demanded repetitive actions for workers all day

Bootleggers

smugglers who illegally made or brought (also called rum-running) alcohol into the US during Prohibition (1920-1933), often from Canada or the Caribbean

Calvin Coolidge

president (R, 1923-1929) known for his silence and his efforts to prevent Congress from regulating business during the 1920s economic boom

Warren G. Harding

(1) president (R), 1921-1923 (died of a heart attack), who ushered in a decade of support for big business, isolationism, and the decline of Progressivism; (2) his administration was also rife with corruption.

Clarence Darrow

Chicago trial lawyer and leading member of the ACLU who earned fame defending the values of science and modernism in the 1925 Scopes Trial (and effectively weakening fundamentalism)

Dawes Plan

(1) the 1924 plan of US banker Charles G. __ that scaled back US demands for debt payments and WWI reparations from Germany; (2) the plan included loans to Germany but it failed to prevent the economic crisis that eventually became a global depression

Flapper

(1) a new kind of woman in the 1920s who was flamboyant, liberated, and pleasure-seeking; she was young, slim and had a tomboyish look (bobbed hair) with fringed miniskirts, long necklaces and rolled stockings; (2) a kind of woman who became a symbol of the Jazz Age and the sexual revolution--though more oftan a media image than a reality

F. Scott Fitzgerald

prominent 1920s Lost Generation author who both glorified and criticized the lives of the carefree rich; wrote This Side of Paradise (1920) & The Great Gatsby (1925)

Marcus Garvey

(1) advocate of black nationalism and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA); (2) advocated black separatism: mass migration of blacks to Africa & economic independence (black-owned businesses for the black community; (3) he had a strong following but his movment collapsed after he was deported to Jamaica in 1927

Harlem Renaissance

(1) the flowering of black culture in during the 1920s especially in NYC; (2) writers (Allan Locke, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston), artists, and musicians (Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong) created work that often reflected the African American experience

Immigration Acts

(1) series of laws (1921, 24, 27) that established a quota system that allowed only 3% of each nationality in the 1910 US population to immigrate each year, then lowered to 2% of the 1890 population, then simply set at 150,000 per year and only from W. and N. Europe; (2) the 1965 law ended the quotas and set a limit of 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere & 170,000 from elsewhere, leading to the high Asian and Latin American immigration that continues today

Jazz Age

nickname for the 1920s that refers to the music and publicized (though perhaps exaggerated) accounts of parties, (illegal) drinking, and dancing

Kellogg-Briand Pact

(1) 1928 treaty signed by >60 nations in an attempt to outlaw the use or threat of war; named after US Secretary of State Frank __ & French Foreign Minister Aristide __; (2) the agreement was symbolically important but did not include methods for enforcement

Lost Generation

(1) small but prominent circle of writers, poets, and intellectuals of 1920s, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound; (2) disillusioned with post-WWI America's materialism & prohibition, many became expatriates and produced great literature that was often critical of America

Laissez-faire

"hands-off" approach to the economy ("let do" in French) that seeks to allow markets to regulate themselves; characteristic of Republican-dominated federal governments during the Gilded Age & the 1920s

Charles Lindbergh

(1) 1st pilot to fly nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (in the Spirit of St. Louis, from NY to Paris in 1927); (2) in the 30s he used his fame as spokesperson for the America First organization to try to keep America from getting involved in a conflict with Germany in the 1930s

H. L. Mencken

(1) satirist for the American Mercury and The Baltimore Sun who lampooned political leaders & American society in the 1920s, a journalistic counterpart to the postwar disillusionment of the "lost generation"; (2) he criticized fundamentalism & Prohibition (a "backwards rural lifestyle" imposed on his more cosmopolitan America)

National Origins Act

(1) 1924 law that established maximum quotas for immigration into the US based on where individuals came from; (2) it severely restricted immigration from S. and E. Europe and entirely excluded Asians

Scopes Monkey Trial

(1) 1925 Tennessee trial involving a biology teacher who broke a state law by teaching evolution in a public school; (2) Prosecutor William Jennings Bryan and ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow faced off during the highly publicized trial, and although Darrow lost the case, he made a fool out of Bryan and the anti-evolution fundamentalists

Speakeasies

hidden bars during Prohibition famous for live jazz music & illegal liquor (often run by organized crime rings)

Sexual revolution

(1) the changing of gender roles and the easing of sexual taboos in some segments of society during the 1920s, in which female sexuality and "flapper" fashion were celebrated, divorce laws were relaxed in many states, and casual dating became more common; (2) this trend continued in even more visible ways with the 1960 invention of the birth control pill

Sacco-Vanzetti case

(1) 1920 Massachusetts murder trial in which 2 anarchist Italian immigrants were sentenced to death, despite the fact that the evidence against them was lacking and they were little able to defend themselves; (2) the case shows the way nativist, conservative forces affected the legal process during the First Red Scare

Teapot Dome scandal

scandal involving Harding's Secretary of the Interior (Albert B. Fall), who secretly leased federal govt oil reserves to two businessmen in exchange for a $400,000 bribe; the crime was exposed after Harding's 1923 death in but came to symbolize government corruption

Fundamentalism

belief system that emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to the many scientific and social challenges facing conservative American Protestantism; this ideology advocates literal interpretation of the Bible and attacks on any science that seems to contradict the letter of the Bible

Allies

(1) the WWI partnership of Great Britain, France, and Italy—and starting in 1917, the US; they fought the Central Powers; (2) this name was also used in WWII by Britain, the USSR, the US, and France

Central Powers

(1) the WWI partnership of Germany and Austria-Hungary; they fought the Allies

Espionage Act

(1) 1917 law enumerated a list of antiwar activities punishable by fines or imprisonment; (2) the law also made anti-war protest illegal (Debs was jailed for violating this law)

Fourteen Points

(1) Wilson's 1918 speech that outlined his liberal, idealistic goals for the post-WWI peace; (2) he called for unrestricted sea travel, free trade, arms reduction, an end to secret treaties, self-determination for all nations, and a League of Nations

Henry Cabot Lodge

senator who led the "reservationists" in the 1919 debate over the League of Nations; they would ratify the Versailles Treaty only if major revisions were made to the League charter

Lusitania

(1) British vessel sunk by a German u-boat in May 1915, killing more than 120 American citizens; (2) this event prompted Wilson to plan for a military buildup & encouraged American alliance with Britain and France

League of Nations

(1) international organization that was the predecessor to the UN; based on Wilson's idea for a collective security body that could peacefully resolve conflict; (2) the US Senate voted against joining, so it was never a strong international force

National Defense Act

June 1916 law that called for the buildup of military forces in anticipation of war, largely a response to German threats to American neutrality

Moral Diplomacy

Wilson's multilateral approach to foreign relations that rejected "big stickism" and dollar diplomacy; it denounced imperialism focused on spreading democracy

Sedition Amendment

(1) 1918 amendment to the Espionage Act that criminalized any "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the US government, flag, or military; (2) an example of the curbing of civil liberties during a time of perceived threat

Sussex Pledge

(1) Germany's 1916 promise not to attack merchant ships without warning; (2) came after a German U-boat attack on a French ship (carrying US civilians) when the US threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Germany

Selective Service Act

May 1917 draft law that required all men aged 21 to 30 to register for military service

Treaty of Versailles

(1) treaty signed in June 1919 that created the League of Nations & ended WWI but was never ratified by the US Senate; (2) despite Wilson's hope for a generous settlement to promote democracy, this agreement punished the Central Powers: Germany was forced to pay massive reparations, the Ottoman Empire was dismantled, and new nations were created to grant self-determination to formerly oppressed ethnic groups

U-boat

(1) German submarines in WWI that attacked French and British passenger ships; (2) outrage over these boats attacks helped convince the US to join the war

Woodrow Wilson

(1) Progressive president (D, 1913-1921) who sought to limit corporate power, protect laborers, and aid poor farmers; (2) president during WWI and encouraged neutrality at first but then aggressively supported American involvement; (3) his 14 Points outlined his "moral diplomacy" plan for self-determination & worldwide democracy

Zimmerman Telegram

(1) secret 1917 message that became a key reason the US declared war on Germany; (2) sent by the German foreign minister to the German ambassador to Mexico, intercepted by British intelligence and shown to the US; revealed Germany's plans to urge Mexico to enter the war against the US in exchange for help restoring Mexico's former territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas

Palmer Raids

(1) series of "investigations" in 1919 coordinated by Attorney General A. Mitchell __ during the first Red Scare; police and federal marshals raided the homes & headquarters of suspected radicals/radical organizations (such as the IWW) in 32 cities; (2) they resulted in than 4,000 arrests, 550 deportations, and many civil rights violations

The Awakening

1899 Kate Chopin novel that reflects the changing attitudes of women at the turn of the century; about a married woman who defies social conventions by falling in love with another man but eventually commits suicide when she learns that his views on women are as oppressive as her husband's

Susan B. Anthony

leading member of the women's suffrage movement who served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) from 1892-1900

Anti-Saloon League

organization founded in 1895 that spearheaded the Prohibition movement during the Progressive Era

Bull Moose Party

nickname of the Progressive Party, led by TR in 1912; the most successful 3rd party in US history--but it succeeded only in splitting Republican votes & giving victory to Wilson (D), who earned only 42% percent of the popular vote

Clayton Antitrust Act

Wilson's 1914 act that strengthened the vague Sherman Antitrust Act by enumerating a series of illegal business practices

Eugene Debs

(1) prominent socialist leader and five-time presidential candidate; (2) founder of the the American Railway Union in 1893 & leader of the Pullman Strike; co-founder of the IWW in 1905; (3) he was imprisoned 1918-1921 for opposing the US role in WWI

Eugenics

(1) pseudoscience that attempted to create the "perfect" human society by eliminating "undesirable" racial elements (but that tended only to justify a white supremacist Protestant ideology); (2) more than 60,000 mentally disabled people were sterilized because of laws based on this in the era 1907-1963

Federal Trade Commission

agency created under Wilson to aggressively regulate business (replacement for the ICC); it still monitors & investigates firms involved in interstate commerce and has the power to issue "cease and desist" orders when businesses harm free competition

Federal Reserve Act

1913 act that created "the Fed," which still regulates the money supply through a network of 12 banks that distribute currency & loan money to banks; Wilson's most notable legislative success

Mann-Elkins Act

1910 law that helped regulate businesses by giving the ICC the power to regulate telephone & telegraph lines, to regulate cable & wireless companies, and to handle any disputes in court.

Meat Inspection Act

1906 law that set federal regulations for meatpacking plants and established a federal monitoring system; the result of muckraker exposés (like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) that revealed the unsanitary and hazardous conditions in food processing plants

Margaret Sanger

(1) leader of the birth control movement who was found guilty in 1914 of obscenity for using the mail to promote contraception; (2) she hoped to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, particularly for poor women; she organized the NY Birth Control League

Muckrakers

investigative journalists during the early 1900s who sought to expose problems in industry and corruption in politics as a way to encourage reform; ex: Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis, and Lincoln Steffens

National Conservation Commission

commission created in 1908 by TR to encourage efficient, responsible management of the nation's resources (may be considered a forerunner of today's EPA); Taft & Congress didn't support the agency & stopped funding it after one year

NAACP

(1) leading Afro-American advocacy organization founded in 1909 by a group led by W.E.B. DuBois; (2) this group was led by middle-class blacks who called for an end to racial discrimination; (3) they brought several cases to court, and in 1955, their chief counsel (Thurgood Marshall) convinced the Supreme Court to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson

Pure Food and Drug Act

1906 law passed in response to questionable packaging & labeling practices in the food and drug industries; this act created a new federal agency that still monitors foods and medicines made or sold in the US

Theodore Roosevelt

(1) former Progressive NY governor & VP, then president from 1901 to 1909, following McKinley's assassination; (2) imperialist who rose to fame as the leader of the Rough Riders, a volunteer unit during the Spanish-American War and who later advocated "big stick" diplomacy; (3) his "Square Deal" sought to regulate the activities of corporations, protect consumers and workers, and promote moderate environmental conservation; (4) ran unsuccessfully for a 3rd term in 1912

William Howard Taft

(1) the handpicked successor of TR, president 1909-1913; (2) not as enthusiastic about progressive reform (except trustbusting) as TR, he soon broke from Progressive Republicans by raising tariffs and precipitated a split in the party

Progressive Movement

many loosely associated movements, some contradictory, from approx 1900-1918; the movement focused on urban problems and was led by middle class reformers; it resulted in 4 new national amendments but typically had the greatest impact on the metropolitan & state level

Square Deal

TR's social & economc policies that sought improved relationships btwn capital and labor, control of business, and environmental conservation

Upton Sinclair

famous muckraker who wrote The Jungle (1906); his primary aim was to encourage socialism, but his book instead led only to laws designed to ensure the safety of foods and medicines.

New Freedom

(1) Wilson's progressive reform platform in the 1912 election (in contrast with TR's New Nationalism), including more trust-busting, tariff reductions, and reform of the banking system; (2) After Wilson was elected, some of his policies (like the Federal Reserve system) came to resemble strategies that TR had actually advocated.

United Negro Improvement Association

(1) organization brought from Jamaica to the US in 1916 by black nationalist Marcus Garvey; (2) it urged racial pride and economic (or physical) separation for blacks rather than integration

Underwood Tariff

a reduced tariff (by almost 15%) pused through Congress by Wilson in 1913; the law also established a graduated income tax to cover the lost tariff revenue

Federal Reserve

(1) nicknamed "The Fed," the agency responsible for monetary policy; (2) it buys & sells govt bonds and adjusts interest rates on loans to banks; (3) during the Depression, the Fed was given greater power and freedom to regulate the economy and it retains that role today

Federal Securities Act

1914 law passed during the Wilson administration that made corporate executives liable for any misrepresentation of their company's stock; it paved the way for future stock market regulation

16th Amendment

(1) amendment ratified in 1913 that allowed the federal government to collect a direct income tax (to compensate for lower tariffs and to pay for the expanded role federal govt assumed during the Progressive Era; (2) at first Congress instituted a small graduated income tax, but it has been expanded since and is today the federal govt's largest source of revenue

17th Amendment

amendment ratified in 1913 that provided for the direct election of senators (rather than their selection by state legislatures)

18th Amendment

amendment ratified in 1919, this amendment prohibited the manufacture, transport, or sale of alcoholic beverages; it was made law by the Volstead Act but was sporadically enforced, violated by many, and repealed in 1933

19th Amendment

amendment ratified in 1920 that extended the right to vote to women in all federal and state elections.

Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

two Sioux chiefs who resisted and killed Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer and his troops at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876

William H. Seward

pro-expansion Secretary of State for Lincoln & Johnson who hoped to expand the US into Canada & S. America but who succeeded only in purchasing Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867; at first, this purchase was ridiculed by the public but later gold & oil were found in Alaska

Anti-Imperialist League

anti-expansionist organization that formed in the late 1890s; its members included William James, Andrew Carnegie, William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams, and Mark Twain.

Boxer Rebellion

1900 Chinese nationalistic rebellion that protested European and American dominance in China; the US committed 2,500 men to an international force that crushed this rebellion

A Century of Dishonor

Helen Hunt Jackson's 1881 book that raised awareness of the harsh, dishonorable treatment of Indians at the hands of the US government

Dawes Severalty Act

(1) 1887 law that broke up Indian reservations and redistributed the land to each Native American family; (2) an attempt to assimilate Indians into white society; (3) resulted in the loss of more than 2/3rds of the remaining Indian land & eventually widespread Indian poverty and homelessness

Joseph Pulitzer

owner of the New York World, the main competiter of William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal at the time of the Spanish-American War; his paper was the slightly more reputable of the two papers but also engaged in yellow journalism

USS Maine

US battleship that exploded and sunk in Havana harbor in Feb. 1898, creating a reason for Congress to declare war on Spain (though later investigations suggested that an onboard fire had caused the blast)

Spanish-American War

(1) 3-month war in 1898 that began because of US concerns about the Spanish suppression of a Cuban independence movement & the sinking of the USS Maine; (2) a decisive US victory that resulted in the US's gaining Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, and independence for Cuba; (3) the war marked the entrance of the US as a significant world power

George Armstrong Custer

Civil War veteran who invaded the hills of South Dakota in 1874 to seek gold that had been discovered in the region; after the Sioux refused to obey the army's removal orders, this man mobilized his troops but was killed with all of his men at the Battle of Little Bighorn

Wounded Knee

1890 massacre of more than 200 unarmed Teton Sioux; the last military battle between Plains Indians and US troops

Yellow journalism

exaggerated and sensationalized news stories, particularly the stories about Spanish military atrocities against Cuban independence fighters in papers like the New York World and New York Journal

William Randolph Hearst

newspaper magnate who published the New York Journal; competed with Pulitzer's New York World & engaged in yellow journalism, exaggerating reports of Spanish activities in Cuba in order to win a circulation war

Teller Amendment

amendment to the 1898 declaration of war on Spain that declared that the US wouldn't seek to acquire Cuba once Spain was defeated.

Big stick diplomacy

(1) TR's foreign policy that sought an aggressive US role in international affairs ("speak softly and carry a ___"); (2) while following this doctrine, the US assumed a "police role" in the western hemisphere, declared its domination over Latin America, and built the Panama Canal

Dollar diplomacy

Taft's foreign policy that attempted to promote international stability and encourage American businesses overseas by aggressively using American military pressure; his actions were widely resented in Latin America

Open Door policy

(1) foreign policy toward China proposed in 1899 by Secretary of State John Hay that sought to give the US, Japan, & European powers equal influence in Chinese markets, (2) the policy effectively turned China into a de facto colony of many world powers.

Panama Canal

waterway built by the US (1904-1914) after TR pressured the Colombian province of ___ to declare its independence (after Colombia's central govt rejected earlier American proposals); the nation of __ gained full control of this waterway in 1999

Platt Amendment

1901 amendment to Cuba's constitution granting the US special rights in Cuba: forbidding Cuban treaties that limited its independence, giving the US right to intervene in Cuba, and granting the US permanent control over a naval base at Guantanamo Bay (on the southeastern tip of the island)

Russo-Japanese War

1904-1905 conflict for control of Manchuria; TR negotiated the treaty btwn the 2 nations involved b/c he sought to maintain the balance of power in the Far East to ensure that American businesses could continue through the Open Door policy

Puerto Rico

(1) island territory that the US acquired under the 1898 Treaty of Paris; (2) in 1917 its residents were made US citizens & in 1952, the island acquired commonwealth status (its residents can't vote in presidential elections, don't pay federal taxes, and don't have representation in Congress); (3) its people today are still undecided about whether to remain a commonwealth, seek statehood, or become an independent country

Populist

farmers political party (w/ small support from labor unions) formed in 1891 to demand government help with falling farm prices, regulation of RR, & the free coinage of silver (circulating more money to promote inflation)

National Grange

the "Patrons of Husbandry," an organization formed by Oliver Kelley in 1867 as a social (and later political) group for struggling western farmers; this (partially successfully) lobbied state and federal govts for laws to protect farmers from big business

Farmers' Alliance

organization that replaced the National Grange as a lobbying group for the farmers in the 1880s; these organizations were active in the Midwest and South and evolved into the Populist Party

Munn vs. Illinois

1876 case that seemed like victory for the Grangers: the Supreme Court allowed states to regulate commerce (particularly RR and grain elevator companies); the decision was largely overturned 10 years later by the Wabash case

Wabash case

(1) 1886 case that overturned the earlier Munn vs. Illinois case, severely limiting the right of state governments to regulate interstate businesses; (2) farmers responded to this case with increased political organizing, and Congress responded by creating the ICC

Interstate Commerce Act

1887 law supported by farmers who sought price regulation and control of monopolies (esp. railroads); the agency created by this law had no enforcement power until the TR administration, though (and was replaced under Wilson by the FTC)

Ocala Platform

a series of demands adopted by the Populists after an 1892 farmers' convention in Florida, including (1) the direct election of senators, (2) lower tariff rates, (3) a graduated income tax, and (4) a new banking system regulated by the federal government

Inflation

(1) the increase of available paper money and bank credit, which leads to higher prices and less-valuable currency; (2) Populists of the 1890s wanted a policy of bimetallism to encourage this (to reduce the burden of farmer debt)

William Jennings Bryan

(1) presidential candidate (D) who lost in 1896 (& in 1900); his support of "free silver" and oratory skills earned him the nomination of the Populist Party; (2) later as Secretary of State for Wilson; (3) he advocated isolationism/anti-imperialism; in the 1920s led the fundamentalist cause in the Scopes Monkey Trial

William McKinley

pro-big business president (R, 1897-1901) who defeated William Jennings Bryan two times; he supported high protective tariffs & imperial expansion; he was assassinated by an anarchist in 1901

Transcontinental railroad

construction project completed in 1869 when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific RRs joined at Promontory Point, Utah; this innovation facilitated western settlement, shortening to a week the coast-to-coast journey that had once taken 6-8 months by wagon

Boss Tweed

the leader of the Tammany Hall political machine in NYC who maintained his power through illegal means; in 1871, political cartoonist Thomas Nast helped to expose his corruption; future NY governor/pres. candidate Samuel Tilden also helped break up this man's ring

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

(1) moderate labor organization founded in 1886 by Samuel Gompers to organize unions of skilled craftsmen; (2) this organization advocated strikes for higher wages but avoided political issues; (3) it differed from the KOL by allowing only skilled workers and by maintaining a loose structure that allowed individual unions to remain autonomous; (4) In 1955, this organization merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, allowing unskilled laborers to join

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 federal law (amid a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment among laborers) that banned Asian immigration for ten years (and that was renewed many times)

Gospel of Success

a belief system that provided justification for the growing gap between rich and poor during the Gilded Age; this belief (made popular by writers like Horatio Alger) centered on the claim that anyone could become wealthy with enough hard work and determination

Homestead strike

(1) 1892 Pittsburgh steel workers' strike against the Carnegie Steel Company that led to a riot in which ten workers were killed when Pinkertons brough 300 "scabs" from NY to break the strike; (2) soldiers were eventually called in to suppress the violence, an action that highlighted the labor strife in this era & the government's lack of sympathy for workers

Haymarket riot

(1) 1886 labor rally in Chicago (during a strike at the McCormick Reaper Works) that became violent after an anarchist threw a bomb, killing seven policemen; (2) the violence prompte a public backlash against the KOL, even though that organization's leaders weren't involved in the violence

Jane Addams

(1) reformer & pacifist/anti-imperialist best known for her 1889 founding of Hull House, an early settlement house that provided educational and other assistance to poor immigrants; an opponent of the first red scare anti-radical paranoia; (2) first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (for her efforts to support the 1928 Kellog-Briand Pact)

Knights of Labor

(1) moderate labor organization founded in 1869 by Terence Powderly, one of the first such organizations in the US; (2) this all-inclusive organization grew quickly but fell into decline after one of its leaders was executed for killing a policeman in the Haymarket Riot

Machine politics

the means by which political parties during the Industrial Revolution controlled candidates and voters in many cities through networks of loyalty and corruption; in this system, party bosses exploited their ability to give away jobs and benefits (patronage) in exchange for votes.

McKinley Tariff

a Republican Congressman (& future president) wrote and engineered the passage of this 1890 tariff that bears his name; the act raised protective tariffs by nearly 50 percent—the highest ever tariff at that point

Mark Twain

leading satirist and literary figure during the era of industrialization; author of The Gilded Age (1873), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), among other books

Mugwumps

Republicans who left the party (because of politcal corruption) during the 1884 election and helped elect Democrat Grover Cleveland (opposing James Blaine)

J.P. Morgan

Wall Street financier and business leader was involved in many of the most profitable business ventures during the era of industrialization; he bought Carnegie Steel in 1901 & established the world's first billion-dollar corporation, US Steel

Pendleton Act

1883 law that established a civil service exam for many public posts and created hiring systems based on merit rather than on patronage; the act aimed to eliminate corrupt hiring practices

Panic of 1893

economic crisis that began when the RR industry faltered during the early 1890s, sparking the collapse of many related industries; confidence in the US dollar plunged and the depression lasted about four years

John D. Rockefeller

"robber baron" who was chairman of the Standard Oil Trust, which grew to control nearly all of the United States' oil production and distribution

Robber barons

nickname for wealthy entrepreneurs and businessmen (like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller) during the Industrial Age

Railroad strike

first nationwide strike in the US, began in 1877 when workers on nearly every train line from NY to San Francisco protested wage cuts; related riots resulted in more than 100 deaths & President Hayes sent in federal troops to suppress the strikers

Social Darwinism

an attempt to apply the theory of "survival of the fittest" (British theorist Herbert Spencer's term) to human societies; Rockefeller and others cited used these theories to justify their success and to reject government involvement in the economy

Samuel Gompers

founding leader of the American Federation of Labor & its president for 35 years; avoided politics but used strikes to gain "bread and butter" concessions from employees (higher wages and better working conditions)

Sherman Antitrust Act

1890 law was passed with the intention of breaking up business monopolies, but actually used by big businesses to break up unions (until the early 1900s); this was possible because its vague wording outlawed "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in the restraint of trade"

Salvation Army

welfare organization that came to the US from England in 1880 to provide food, shelter, and employment to the urban poor while preaching temperance and morality

Tenements

dirty, dangerous, & narrow, four- or five-story buildings that had few windows and limited electricity & plumbing; they housed poor ethnic minorities and immigrants

Credit Mobilier Scandal

scandal in the 1870s when a railroad construction company's stockholders used funds that were supposed to be used building the Union Pacific Railroad for their own personal use; to avoid conviction, stockholders even bribed congressmen and the vice president

Andrew Carnegie

Scottish immigrant & steel industrialist; later a philanthropist who donated more than $300 million to charity during his lifetime

Alexander Graham Bell

patented the telephone in 1876; in 1885 his American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) began building the infrastructure to put the telephone to widespread use

Horatio Alger

author of popular young adult novels (such as Ragged Dick) during the Industrial Revolution that used "rags to riches" tales to emphasize the American Dream (the idea that anyone could become wealthy and successful through hard work and a little luck)

Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA)

organization founded in 1851 to help the poor by providing young people with affordable shelter and recreational alternatives to drinking

Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

organization founded in 1874 to worked alongside the Anti-Saloon League to push for prohibition; avtiviincluded Susan B. Anthony and Frances Elizabeth Willard

Trust

a conglomerate of businesses that acts like a monopoly, seeking control over a particular industry--to reduce market competition & amass greater profits (often at the expense of poor workers and consumers)

Pullman strike

1894 strike against the Chicago-based ____ Palace Car Company led by Eugene Debs; the courts ruled that the strikers had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, Debs was arrested, and federal troops marched in to crush the strike (13 dead, 53 injured)

Industrial Workers of the World

radical labor organization, also known as the Wobblies, founded in 1905 & led for years by Eugene Debs; they advocated revolution and societal reorganization to put the working class in control of government and the economy

Wade-Davis Bill

July 1864 law pocket vetoed by Lincoln that would have made stringent (& probably unrealistic) requirements for Confederate states' readmission to the Union; would have demanded that more than 50% of a seceded state's population declare loyalty & swear they never supported the Confederacy

Enforcement Acts

1870 and 1871 laws that sought to protect black suffrage in the wake of KKK activities.

Black codes

Reconstruction-era state laws passed under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan that granted freedmen a few basic rights but were more focused on enforcing heavy civil restrictions on them

Carpetbaggers

derogatory name for northerners who moved South during Reconstruction to seek political/economic opportunity & to aid in the rebuilding effort; Southern Democrats considered them opportunists (who left home so quickly that they stuffed all their belongings in rough oversized suitcases)

15th Amendment

(1) amendment ratified in March 1870 that prohibited the denial of voting rights to any citizen based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; (2) not enforced till the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Freedmen's Bureau

government institution established in 1865 and staffed by Union army officers: to protect black rights in the South, to rebuild damaged areas, & to provide employment, medical care, and education to blacks, along with rebuilding

14th Amendment

amendment ratified in July 1868 to (1) guarantee the rights of citizenship to all people, black or white, born or naturalized in the US; (2) also attempted to deny congressional representation for any state that prevented of its male citizens; (3) not fully enforced till the 1960s

Compromise of 1877

(1) the "Hayes-Tilden Compromise"; resolved the conflict arising from the election of 1876, when Samuel Tilden (D) won the popular vote but Republican leaders contested some states' election returns, thereby ensuring Rutherford Hayes's (R) victory; (2) to minimize protest from the Democratic Party, Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction (by removing federal troops from the last two occupied states in the South)

Jim Crow laws

state laws that institutionalized segregation in the South from the after Reconstruction, from the 1880s to the 1960s; along with segregating schools, buses, and other public accommodations, these laws made it difficult or impossible for Southern blacks to vote

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

This southern vigilante group was founded in 1866 in Tennessee, and by 1868, the Klan operated in all Southern states. This group conducted raids and lynchings to intimidate black voters and Republican officials. The group faded away in the late nineteenth century, but resurfaced in 1915 in opposition to everyone except white native-born Protestants. Membership and influence declined again in 1925, when corruption among the group's leaders was exposed.

Panic of 1873

economic crisis that occurred because of over-expansion, over-speculation, the collapse of the nation's largest and many smaller banks, and the collapse of the stock market; a 5-year national depression followed that weakened faith in the nation's Republican leadership

Radical Republicans

minority faction in Congress, led by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner, that emerged during the Civil War; they sought to punish the Southern states during Reconstruction, called for civil rights for blacks, and economic reform in the South; a powerful force in Congress until Moderates gained influence the mid-1870s

Reconstruction Act of 1867

law that dismantled the state governments established under Lincoln's and Johnson's plans, arranged military occupation of the former Confederacy, and required state govts to allow black suffrage

Redemption

This political movement was a violent attempt to overturn Reconstruction in the South. This movement involved a shift in power in state governments from Republican to Democratic hands, and a new oppression of freedmen, often at the hands of weapon-toting conservative whites.

Scalawags

derisive term used to describe Southern moderates who cooperated with Republicans during Reconstruction

Sharecropping system

replacement for the plantation system established after the Civil War as the primary method of agricultural production in the South; small farm subdivisions were rented to freedmen in exchange for a share (usually half) of the agricultural goods produced; freedmen gained a only slight independence under this system that kept whites in control of the land

Charles Sumner

(1) leading Radical Republican senator who argued ardently for civil rights for blacks; he later led the abandoned the Radicals after thinking that the Reconstruction goals were accomplished; (2) before the Civil War he was caned by Congressman Preston Brooks

Thaddeus Stevens

leading Radical Republican, a gifted orator and an outspoken legislator devoted to stringent and punitive Reconstruction; Stevens worked toward social & political equality for Southern blacks

Ten percent plan

Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction, a lenient way to readmit Southern states to the Union if a small percentage of each state's voting population took an oath of loyalty to the Union and if the states established new non-Confederate governments; this bill was rejected when Congress proposed its own more punitive plan

Booker T. Washington

founder of the Tuskegee Institute (1881) who adopted a moderate approach to addressing racism and segregation; urged his fellow African Americans to learn vocational skills and to strive for gradual improvement in their social, political, & economic status (rather than pursuing civil rights and political reform).

Reconstruction

(1) an era of controversy (1865-77) following Union victory in the Civil War, when the nation needed to reintegrate the South by allowing the southern states representation in Congress; (2) this era followed three stages, led by the White House, Congress, and finally conservative governments in the Southern states.

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln's (R) vice president, a Democrat who was considered too lenient by the Radical Republicans in Congress during his presidency (1865-69); as a result, Congress fought his initiatives and sought a more punitive Reconstruction plan; his relationship with Congress worsened culminating in his impeachment in 1868—though he was ultimately acquitted.

Liberal Republicans

temporary breakaway party that formed in 1872 in opposition to president Grant's re-election; these politicians argued that the goal of Reconstruction was complete, that Grant was corrupt, and that Congress should seek reconciliation with the south; this defection shattered many Americans' enthusiasm for Reconstruction

Grandfather Clauses

many state constitutions added these amendments to their voting laws beginning in the 1890s as a way of preventing anyone from voting whose ancestor could not vote before 1867; Congress often tolerated these laws until the Supreme Court struck them down in 1915 and until actual enforcement was provided in the 1960s

13th Amendment

amendment that prohibited slavery, ratified on December 6, 1865

W.E.B. Du Bois

(1) African-American leader opposed to Booker T. Washington's gradual approach of achieving equal rights; he advocated immediate equal treatment and equal educational opportunities for blacks (2) part of the Niagara Movement, he helped found the NAACP in 1909 and was the first black man to receive a PhD from Harvard University

Atlanta Compromise

Du Bois and other black leaders used this term to criticize a speech given by Booker T. Washington in which Washington seemed to suggest that blacks would be satisfied even with menial labor and that if blacks could earn steady employment, they wouldn't protest for civil rights

Mason and Dixon Line

line that divided free and slave states (originally a surveying line in the 1760s that divided PA & MD)

Kansas-Nebraska Act

(1) 1854 law that divided Nebraska territory into two parts and applied popular sovereignty there; (2) the law essentially nullified the Missouri Compromise by allowing the possibility of slavery north of 36°30'; (3) controversy over the law led to the collapse of the Whig Party; (4) the influx of pro- and anti-slavery activists into related territories led to Bleeding KS

Great Debate

eight-month controversy in Congress over Henry Clay's proposed compromise omnibus bill; Clay's bill passed but the individual proposals became the Compromise of 1850.

Millard Fillmore

VP to Zachary Taylor until Taylor's 1850 death; the last Whig president, he helped push the Compromise of 1850 through Congress.

Zachary Taylor

Whig president from 1849 until his death in 1850 (probably a stomach virus); advocate of popular sovereignty, but in 1849 he encouraged California to apply for statehood as a free state, thereby re-igniting the free- vs. slave-state controversy.

Popular sovereignty

an idea first espoused by presidential candidate Lewis Cass (D) in 1848 but more famously championed by Stephen A. Douglas; a compromise position suggested that Congress should allow people living in new territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery while applying for statehood (but had tremendous unforeseen consequences)

Roger B. Taney

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864; supported slavery laws and delivered the majority opinion on Dred Scott v. Sanford.

Wilmot Proviso

(1) proposed (and failed) amendment to an 1846 war funding bill suggested that slavery be prohibited in any territory the US gained from Mexico in the Mexican War. (2) the proposal highlighted the increasing sectional divides (it passed in the House w/ support from the North, but failed in the Senate)

Bleeding Kansas

violent clashes that began in 1856; included John Brown's massacre at a pro-slavery camp at Pottawatomie Creek and the sack of the free town of Lawrence (a mini-civil war in the territories before the real CW)

Abraham Lincoln

1st Republican president; elected 1860 and re-elected assassinated in 1865; his primary goal during the Civil War was to restore the Union, but he expanded presidential authority when in 1863 he announced an Emancipation Proclamation

Franklin Pierce

president (D) 1853 to 1857, the last president until 1932 who won the popular & electoral vote in both the North and South; like Buchanan after him, this "doughfaced" president did little to reduce the increasing sectional tensions

John Brown

religious zealot and extreme abolitionist who believed that God had ordained him to end slavery; he led attacks on pro-slavery government officials in Pottawattamie Creek, Kansas, in 1856 and in 1859, he led 21 men in a raid on a federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia (a failed attempt to incite a slave rebellion)

Battle of Gettysburg

largest battle of the Civil War, July 1-4, 1863, that resulted in an unprecedented 51,000 total casualties; the war's turning point and the high water mark of Lee's attempt to invade the North; the southern PA battle was the Union's 1st major victory in the East.

Battle of Antietam

Sept. 17, 1862 battle, the single bloodiest day of the Civil War; Union forces failed to fully defeat Lee but they forced him to retreat from MD, and the "victory" gave Lincoln the confidence to announce the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

Confederate States of America

the country that the seceded states in the South attempted to establish before and during the Civil War

Frederick Douglass

escaped slave from MD & the most famous of all abolitionists; he worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison to promote abolitionism in the 1830s and founded The North Star magazine

Jefferson Davis

former secretary of war and Mississippi senator and president of the Confederacy; he struggled during the Civil War to unite the CSA states under one central authority

Stephen A. Douglas

Speaker of the House and leading Northern Democrat who became prominent when he pushed the Compromise of 1850 through Congress; a supporter of popular sovereignty and the author of the KS-NE Act; he defeated Lincoln for a seat in the Senate in 1858 but lost to him in the presidential election of 1860.

Emancipation Proclamation

(1) announcement issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863: all slaves in rebel territory would be set free at the end of the war (though in reality no slaves were freed when this statement was issued); (2) significance: the war gained a new moral objective; foreign nations would not help the south after this statement

Freeport Doctrine

idea proposed by Stephen Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858; a desperate-looking attempt to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision: Douglas argued that territories could forbid slavery simply by not enacting slave codes

Fugitive Slave Act

1793 law strengthened by the Compromise of 1850; the law allowed Southerners to send bounty hunters into the North to retrieve runaway slaves; Northerners resisted this act in the 1850s by aiding escaping slaves and by passing "personal liberty laws"

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's famous "Four score and seven years ago" speech, delivered Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of a cemetery for casualties of the Battle of ___; this speech described the war as a historic test of a republic's ability to survive

Homestead Act

1862 law encouraged that encouraged western settlement, a major part of the Republican Party platform; the law gave 160 acres of land to anyone who paid $10, lived on the land for five years, and cultivated/improved it

William Lloyd Garrison

most famous white abolitionist of the 1830s & 40s; founder of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator; he pushed for immediate emancipation without compensation to slave owners & equal legal rights for blacks; considered more radical than other abolitionists

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

series of seven debates from Aug 21 and Oct 15, 1858 betwn senatorial candidates Lincoln (R) and Stephen Douglas (D), a free-soil supporter vs. a popular sovereignty supporter; the inconclusive debates crystallized the opinions of Northerners about slavery & propelled Lincoln into the national spotlight.

Personal liberty laws

state laws passed by nine northern states to counteract the Fugitive Slave Act: guaranteed alleged fugitives the right to a lawyer & jury trial, and prohibited state jails from holding alleged slaves

Sherman's March to the Sea

Union Gen. William T. ___ led his forces during this event from Atlanta to Savannah, GA; he ordered large-scale destruction in an attempt to bring the South "to its knees"

Harriet Tubman

former slave who helped establish the Underground Railroad

Union

A general term for the United States during the Civil War which also was used to refer to the Northern army.

Underground Railroad

A network of safe houses and escorts established by Northern abolitionists to foil enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. This network helped escaped slaves reach freedom in the North and in Canada.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel that portrayed the evils of slavery & sold 1.2 million copies in 2 years; the book increased sectional tensions: aroused sympathy for runaway slaves & hardened many against the South's defense of slavery

Robert E. Lee

commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia; many historians believe that the CSA held out as long as it did only because of his skill as a military commander

James Buchanan

moderate "doughface" president (D, 1857-1861) who had support from both the North and South but who did nothing to stem the sectional conflict or stop the secession that began when he was a lame duck at the end of his presidency

Ulysses S. Grant

(1) Commanding general of the western Union forces for much of the Civil War and of all Union forces during the last year of the war; (2) later the 18th president (1869 to 1877), during the decline of Reconstruction; (3) his administration was marred by corruption and beset by partisan and sectional strife

Battle of the Alamo

1836 battle during the Texas Revolution that resulted in the massacre of about 200 Americans who were defending this fort (including frontiersman Davy Crockett); vengeful Americans rallied to the cry "Remember the ___" when they eventually defeated the Mexicans at San Jacinto.

Buffalo Bill Cody

William H. ___ was most famous for his Wild West Shows that romanticized the invasion of Indian lands and the movement of white Americans to the western frontier; earlier he was a scout in the military who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in fighting the Cheyenne.

California Gold Rush

thousands of Americans (especially single men) began traveling west to mining settlements from 1848-50; few struck it rich, but this movement led to organized settlements and eventually statehood for several western territories.

Mexican War

(1) 1846-8 war that began after TX accepted Congress's offer of admission to the Union despite the Mex. govt's opposition. When Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande in protest, the US declared war, (2) manifest destiny is an ideological cause; (3) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war and granted the US possession of TX, NM, and CA in exchange for $15 million

James K. Polk

President (D) from 1845 to 1849 and a firm believer in expansion, he gained much of Oregon Territory from England and led the US into the Mexican War in 1846, after which the US acquired a great deal of new territory; Northerners criticized him as an agent of Southern will aiming to expand slavery into the West.

Manifest destiny

mid-nineteenth century expansionist ideology that suggested that the US would (and should) expand across the entire continent because of its superior political system; journalist John L. O'Sullivan first coined the phrase in 1845 in Democratic Review (the magazine he edited)

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

treaty that ended the Mexican War in 1848, granting the US control of Texas, New Mexico, and California. In return, the US assumed responsibility for all monetary claims of US citizens against the Mexican government and paid Mexico $15 million

Democratic Party

party formed to support Andrew Jackson following the election of 1824; in the mid to late 1800s, this party championed states' rights and fought political domination by economic elites (opposing tariffs, federal funding for internal improvements, and other extensions of federal power); this party had its core support in the South until the 1930s during FDR's presidency, when it began to embrace a more aggressive and involved federal government. During the New Deal, Democrats began to lose the support of the white South—their traditional stronghold—and won support from farmers, urban workers, blacks, and women.

National Republican Party

party eventually known as the Whig Party; led by Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams in the late 1820s to challenge the Jackson's supporters. Like the Federalists, this party found its core support in the Northeast.

Whigs

This group's name was used many times: 1) English aristocrats who opposed overcentralization of power and who therefore sought to gain more political power at the expense of the king, 2) American colonists who supported independence, 3) the party name adopted by the "National Republicans" who opposed Jackson's strong-armed leadership style and policies. This party promoted protective tariffs, federal funding for internal improvements, and other measures that strengthened the central government. Many became active social reformers at the peak of their popularity in the 1830s. They disappeared from national politics in the 1850s (following the controversial KS-NE Act).

American System

policies to improve economic self-sufficiency that were crafted by Henry Clay and backed by the National Republicans (Whigs): 1) high protective tariffs, 2) a re-chartering of the Bank of the US (to stabilize & unify the nation's currency), 3) federally-funded transportation improvements, and 4) high land prices (to increase federal govt revenue).

Corrupt bargain

Andrew Jackson's supporters claimed that this had occurred when Jackson lost the election of 1824; in that year, Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes, but not the requisite majority and so the election was decided by the House of Representatives, where Speaker of the House Henry Clay backed John Quincy Adams for president, (ensuring Adams's victory), and Adams rewarded Clay by making him secretary of state. Following this scandal, Jackson's enraged supporters formed the Democratic Party.

John Quincy Adams

son of a president and himself president from 1825 to 1829; earlier, as Monroe's secretary of state, he expanded the nation's borders and authored the Monroe Doctrine; because of the "corrupt bargain" that led to his election, his presidency was largely ineffective and Democrats in Congress opposed many of his policies.

Martin Van Buren

president and organizer of the Democrats; served as Secretary of State during Jackson's first term and as VP during his second. As Jackson's handpicked successor, he won the presidency in 1836, but b/c of the Panic of 1837, he lost his bid for reelection in 1840.

John Tyler

unpopular Whig president who inherited the office in 1841, when William Henry Harrison died after just one month in office; his most significant accomplishment: as a lame duck, he asked Congress to annex Texas through a joint resolution.

Andrew Jackson

strong-willed Democrat who as president (1829-1837) (1) strengthened the presidency ("King Veto," spoils system), (2) limited the power of the federal govt (Bank War), (3) supported Indian removal; opponents called him a "military chieftan," because he was most famous for his leadership at the Battle of New Orleans and against Indians before he became president.

Spoils system

Jackson was the 1st presidents to extensively use this method of appointing officials, in which the previous president's appointees are replaced with loyal members of the winning party; Jackson claimed it was necessary to cycle bureaucrats out of government often to prevent power from becoming entrenched in government, but later political machines would form because of these precedents.

Henry Clay

This Senator was most noteworthy as the author of several major compromises. He had a vast impact during the Era of Good Feelings and the Jackson Era, when he engineered the American System. He was Speaker of the House during Monroe's presidency and he later led the Whig Party until his death in 1852.

John C. Calhoun

S. Carolina statesmen who held most major posts in govt (except president): congressman, Monroe's Secretary of War, vice pres. (for both the Whig JQA and for the Democrat Jackson for one term); he was a war hawk before 1812, a nationalist throughout the Era of Good Feelings, but then as SC Senator, he became a leading defender of sectionalism, slavery, and states' rights during the nullification crisis (as the author of the SC Exposition & Protest and opponent of Jackson)

Daniel Webster

a leading statesmen in the first half of the nineteenth century; he started as a Federalist lawyer who won the Dartmouth College (1819) and McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) cases in the Supreme Court; he later became a powerful defender of northern interests, (supporting the 1828 tariff); his opposition to Jackson and to southern nullification made him a leader of the Whig Party.

Erie Canal

waterway built by the government of NY (constructed 1817-1825), the first major civil engineering works project in US history; it stretched 363 miles, west to east from Albany to Buffalo, and its commercial success led many other states to fund similar projects

Tariff of Abominations

name given by Southern politicians to an 1828 tariff that threatened to hurt the South's economy while benefiting Northern and Western industrial interests; resistance to this law in S. Carolina led to a Nullification Crisis.

Nullification Crisis

constitutional crisis caused by a disagreement between SC (led by V.P. John C. Calhoun) and the federal Government; after the Tariff of 1828 threatened to harm the Southern economy, Southerners denounced the tariff as unconstitutional, argued that federal laws must benefit all states equally, and SC's state government claimed to have the power to nullify a tariff within its own borders; by opposing a federal law, SC set off a debate over tariffs and states' rights from November 1832 until new compromise tariffs were passed in 1833.

Force Bill

bill that authorized President Jackson to use the military to collect customs duties (and thus stop state nullification in S. Carolina); this law was made unneccessary by the Compromise Tariff of 1833.

Bank veto

Andrew Jackson's 1832 action in response to the proposed charter renewal of the Second BUS. This was the beginning of Jackson's five-year "____ war."

Specie Circular

1836 executive order was issued by Pres. Jackson in an attempt to stabilize the economy, which had been rapidly expanding since the early 1830s because of state banks' excessive lending practices and over-speculation. This policy required that all land payments be made in gold and silver rather than in paper money or credit, but the policy precipitated an economic depression known as the panic of 1837.

Panic of 1837

economic crisis that followed a boom caused by state banks' loose lending practices & over-speculation after the dismantling of the 2nd BUS; another cause was Jackson's Specie Circular, which had led to a contraction of the nation's credit, widespread debt, and unemployment. Martin Van Buren spent most of his presidency attempting to stabilize the economy and ameliorate this depression.

Independent Treasury Bill

1840 law that established an institution to hold public funds (tax money) and prevent excessive lending by state banks, thus guarding against inflation; this bill was a response and solution to the Panic of 1837.

Gag rule

regulation in Congress passed by Southerners in 1836 that tabled all abolitionist petitions, thereby preventing any antislavery discussion; this policy was repealed in 1845, under increased pressure from Northern abolitionists and from those opposed to any limits on the people's right to petition.

Indian Removal Act

1830 law that gave Jackson funds and authority to move Native Americans to assigned lands in the West; the law targeted primarily the Cherokee tribe in Georgia as part of Jackson's plan to claim Native American lands inside the boundaries of the states.

Jacksonian Democracy

(1) a concept at the heart of the "era of the common man" that advocated more liberal voting requirements (suffrage rights for even landless white men) and social reform movements; (2) a celebration of egalitarian political conditions in the US (compared to those in other nations), though one with a misleading name, since it is named after a president who supported some democratic reform, but was anti-democratic in some ways (the spoils system) and was an opponent of most social reform.

Kitchen Cabinet

nickname for Jackson's presidential advisors, so named because they were his close political allies (not policy experts); rather than shaping the president's agenda, Jackson's advisors assumed a passive, politically supportive role.

Transcendentalism

spiritual/philosophic movement arose in the 1830s as a challenge to rationalism and a challenge to much organized religion; leaders like Emerson and Thoreau sought an inner, emotional understanding of God rather than a rational, institutionalized one, and they believed that truth could be found through intuition and conscience (not logic/reason); they were critical of slavery in the South and growing materialism in the North.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

leader of the transcendentalist movement and an advocate of American literary nationalism in the 1830s and 1840s; his most influential essays were "Nature" and "Self Reliance."

Henry David Thoreau

transcendentalist author of "Civil Disobedience" (1849) and Walden (1854) who advocated a connection with nature and a life lived according to one's conscience, removed from materialism and repressive social codes.

James Fenimore Cooper

influential American writer of the American Romantic movement; his frontier-set novels, The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), and others, focused on American themes such as independence, self-reliance, and a relationship with nature.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

fiction writer of the American Romantic movement; his Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the moral dilemmas of adultery in a Puritan community and focused on themes of individual morality and self-reliance.

Edgar Allen Poe

fiction writer of the American Romantic movement who gained popularity in the 1840s as a writer of horrific, gothic tales such as "The Raven" (1844) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846).

Walt Whitman

a disciple of the transcendentalist Emerson, this writer is most famous for Leaves of Grass (1855), a poetry collection that celebrated America's diversity and democracy.

Trail of Tears

forced migration that led to the deaths of approx. 4,000 Cherokee; Federal troops forced the Cherokee from their ancestral homes to Indian Territory (despite the Supreme Court decision in Worcester v. Georgia which determined that the government had no right to do so).

Mormonism

religion of the Latter-Day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith in 1831; Smith's followers moved steadily westward during the early 1830s to escape religious persecution, and after Smith's murder in 1844, the new leader Brigham Young led the Mormons to Utah, where they are still centered today.

Utopian communities

small, experimental communities sprang up beginning in the late 1820s, perhaps a response to a freedom that was not available in many other parts of the world and often a response to new religious and social ideals; reformers in these communities attempted to build perfect societies and present models for other communities to emulate--but most collapsed by the late 1840s.

Nat Turner

leader of an 1831 slave uprising in Virginia, the most violent such rebellion in US history; result: VA's legislature briefly considered abolition, but instead state lawmakers further restricted slaves and free blacks, mob violence against blacks ensued, and national-level lawmakers further advocated the "gag rule," outlawing any discussion of slavery in the House

Seneca Falls Convention

1848 meeting in NY organized primarily by Mott & Stanton, marking the beginning of the women's rights movement; the meeting produced a "Declaration of Sentiments" modeled on the Decl. of Independence, declaring that "all men and women were created equal" and was followed by many years of activism that resulted in improved divorce and property ownership laws for women

Second Great Awakening

religious movement emerged in the early 1800s, partly a backlash against America's growing secularism and rationalism; this wave of revivalism spread throughout the nation and gave rise to a number of new denominations (especially Methodism); ministers in this movement tended to de-emphasize Calvinism and often stressed individual empowerment, equality under God, and social reform.

Camp meetings

frontier religious revivals during the 2nd Great Awakening; hundreds or thousands of people—often members of various denominations—met at these meetings to hear speeches on repentance and to sing hymns.

Dorothea Dix

Massachusetts schoolteacher who became a reformer after studying the conditions of the insane in poorhouses and prisons; her asylum reform effort helped garner support for institutions where the mentally ill could receive better treatment.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

This prominent advocate of women's rights organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention with Lucretia Mott.

Lucretia Mott

An outspoken proponent of women's rights, she organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Horace Mann

This prominent public school reformer was appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. He reformed the school system by increasing state spending on schools, lengthening the school year, dividing students into grades, and introducing standardized textbooks, among other changes. He set the standard for public school reform throughout the nation.

Northwest Ordinance

This 1787 law defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union from the territory south of the Great Lakes and north of the Ohio River. This law forbade slavery in the territory but allowed citizens to vote on the legality of slavery once statehood had been established. This law was the most lasting measure of the national government under the Articles of Confederation.

Constitution

This document outlines the operation and central principles of American government. As opposed to the Articles of Confederation, which it replaced, this document created a strong central government with broad judicial, legislative, and executive powers--though it purposely restricted the these powers through a system of checks and balances. Written at a convention in Philadelphia, the Constitution was ratified by the states in 1789.

Annapolis Convention

Delegates from five states came to this September 1786 meeting (led by Alexander Hamilton) originally planning to discuss the promotion of interstate commerce, but they ended up deciding to hold a larger meeting to amend the Articles of Confederation.

Articles of Confederation

This document was adopted in 1777 during the Revolutionary War as a basic plan for a central government. This document granted limited power to the central government and reserved most powers for the states. The result was a poorly defined national state that couldn't govern the country's finances, maintain stability, or resolve interstate disputes.

The Federalist Papers

These writings were a series of newspaper articles written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, enumerating the arguments in favor of the Constitution and refuting the arguments of the Anti-Federalists.

Elastic clause

Article I, Section VIII, of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution... powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States." This clause was a point of contention between those who favored a loose reading of the Constitution and those who favored a strict reading.

Connecticut Compromise

This agreement ended weeks of stalemate at the Constitutional Convention. Also known as "the Great Compromise," delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth proposed a bicameral legislature to reconcile the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan for determining legislative representation in Congress.

Three-fifths clause

This line in the Constitution resolved the dispute between Southern delegates who argued that slaves should count toward a state's representative seats and the Northern states who argued that counting slaves as members of the population would grant an unfair advantage to the Southern states in Congress.

Strict Constructionists

This faction favored a reading of the Constitution, especially the elastic clause, that forbade the government from assuming any power that was not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Led by Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans, this group sought to limit the powers of the central government.

Bill Of Rights

This document was the result of demands made by Anti-Federalists that there would be specific amendments to the constitution that would protect individuals (and states) from government interference and possible tyranny. These first 10 amendments were drafted by a group led by James Madison and focused on the civil rights that would be guaranteed for American citizens.

Constitutional Convention

In response to the Annapolis Convention's suggestion, Congress called for the states to send delegates to Philadelphia to amend the Articles of Confederation. This meeting began in May 1787 and resulted in an entirely new framework that would give greater powers to the central government.

Anti-Federalists

This faction (not a political party) rose up as the opponents of the Constitution during the ratification period. They opposed the Constitution's powerful centralized government, arguing that the Constitution gave too much political, economic, and military control. They instead advocated a decentralized governmental structure that granted most power to the states.

Federalists

Led by Alexander Hamilton, this faction believed in a strong central government. They were staunch supporters of the Constitution during ratification and were a political force during the early years of the United States. Many of the individuals in this faction went on to form the party that bears the same name. But the influence of this group declined after the election of Republican Thomas Jefferson to the presidency and disappeared completely after the 1814 Hartford Convention.

Virginia Plan

This proposal during the Constitutional Convention suggested the creation of a bicameral legislature with representation in both houses proportional to population. This plan favored the large, populous states.

Checks and Balances

This concept is embodied in the Constitution's establishment of a government composed of three branches that each have powers to ensure that no other branch could gain a dangerous amount of power.

Loose constructionists

This faction was the core of the Federalist Party. Led by Alexander Hamilton, they favored a reading of the Constitution—-especially of the elastic clause—-that would allow an expansion of the powers of the central government to include implied constitutional powers, not just enumerated ones.

Electoral College

This system was created during the Constitutional Convention as a way to prevent the public from voting directly for the president. Instead, voters in statewide elections choose electors who then vote directly for the president and vice president on behalf of the entire state. Each state is given one electoral vote for every senator (two) and representative (at least one) from that state. Most states use a winner-take-all system for the votes during presidential elections.

New Jersey Plan

This plan was presented at the Constitutional Convention as an alternative to the Virginia Plan. The plan favored small states in that it proposed a unicameral Congress with an equal number of representatives from each state.

Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer

(1) 12 documents published by John Dickinson in 1767-8 that denounced the Townshend Duties (using many of the same arguments that had been used against the Stamp Act--that the colonies' had sovereignty over their own internal affairs); (2) though Dickinson would later be uncomfortable declaring independence from the British Empire, these writings inspired anti-British sentiment

Rationalism

Enlightenment ideology that criticized much of traditional religion as irrational and that argued that both religious beliefs and "natural philosophy" (science) should be acquired through investigation and logical reasoning

Pontiac's Rebellion

Great Lakes-area Native American uprising that began after the Fr & Indian War, when colonists began moving westward and invading Indian land; the Ottawa chief who led this costly uprising convinced Parliament to issue the Proclamation of 1763

Treaty of Greenville

signed in 1794 by 12 Native American tribes after their defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, this treaty cleared the Ohio territory of tribes and opened it up to US settlement

Suffolk Resolves

the 1st Continental Congress endorsed these Massachusetts resolutions which declared that the colonies did not have to obey the 1773 Coercive Acts since they infringed upon basic liberties

Virginia Resolves

(1) The VA House of Burgesses passed these resolutions in response to the 1765 Stamp Act at the urging of Patrick Henry; (2) these strongly-worded resolutions denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies and emboldened many other colonial legislatures to adopt similar positions

Writs of Assistance

search warrants authorized by Parliament during the Fr & Indian War that gave British customs officers to search any colonial building or ship that they believed might contain smuggled goods--even without probable cause for suspicion; the colonists considered the use of these documents a grave infringement upon their personal liberties

Intolerable Acts

(1) 1774 laws passed by Parliament as the four "Coercive Acts," intended to punish the colonists after the 1773 Boston Tea Party; (2) seen by American colonists as a British plot to deny the Americans of representative government--thus inspiring the convening of the First Continental Congress; (3) the somewhat unrelated Quebec Act was also part of these laws--it expanded Quebec into the Great Lakes region and gave residents there the right to be Catholic, so some American colonists saw that law as a step toward stripping away all their rights and Protestant religion

Committees of Correspondence

(1) system of communication through letter-writing groups in New England and other colonies; (2) they were organized by patriot leader Samuel Adams and helped provide the organization necessary to unite the colonies in opposition to Parliament & they helped send delegates to the First Continental Congress

First Continental Congress

an extralegal legislature (never authorized by King/Parliament) 1st convened in 1774 to protest the Intolerable Acts; it endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, voted to boycott British imports, and sent a petition to George III that conceded Parliament's right to regulate commerce (but not to tax the colonists directly or to impose an unfair judicial system)

Benjamin Franklin

a self-educated Philadelphia printer who later served as ambassador to France during the Revolution and as the oldest delegate at the Constitutional Convention (providing crucial advice to help the other delegates compromise); he was the most famous American in Enlightenment-era Europe because of his contributions to science and philosophy

Thomas Paine

author of the propaganda pamphlet "Common Sense" (1776), which convinced many Americans to declare independence and establish a new government based on republican ideals; he also wrote patriot propaganda during the war (The Crisis) and published rationalist criticisms of religion, most famously in The Age of Reason (1794-1807)

King George III

(1) King of England from 1760 to 1820, he man exercised a greater hand in the government of the American colonies than had many of his predecessors; colonists felt loyal to him even in the 1770s but grew torn in their loyalty as Parliament carried out more acts & taxes in his name; (2) when he rejected the Olive Branch Petition, many colonists came to see him as a tyrant

Battles of Lexington and Concord

(1) April 1775 battles that started the Revolutionary War (before the Decl of Independence); (2) the fighting began when Boston's British military governor Thomas Gage sent troops to arrest protest leaders who were gathering weapons, but the redcoats met unexpected resistance by "minutemen" militia members who forced the British to retreat to Boston

Samuel Adams

Boston-area politician who played a key role in the defense of colonial rights as leader of the Sons of Liberty and organizer of the Committees of Correspondence; he is often credited as one of the organizers of the Boston Tea Party

Declaration of Independence

(1) document drafted by Thomas Jefferson and approved by the 2nd Continental Congress on July 4, 1776; it formalized the colonies' separation from Britain; (2) the document summarized the Enlightenment values (inspired by John Locke) which the American Revolution & the US were based, especially the basic natural rights: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

Virtual Representation

Prime Minister George Grenville's theory on why Parliament could legally tax the colonists even though the colonists could not elect any members of Parliament; this idea argued that the members of Parliament did not only represent their specific constituencies but also considered the well-being of everyone in the British empire

Treaty of Paris (1783)

Sept. 1783 agreement (ratified by Congress in Jan. 1784) that ended the Revolutionary War--granting the US its independence; it granted the US all land east of the Mississippi River

Stamp Act Congress

(1) representatives of nine colonial assemblies met in NYC at this 1765 meeting; the delegates who attended agreed widely that Parliament could not tax anyone outside of Great Britain and could not deny anyone a fair trial--both of which would have been allowed in the Stamp Act; (2) this meeting marked a new level of inter-colonial political organization

Stamp Act

(1) 1765 law that would have required colonial Americans to pay taxes on all newspapers, legal documents, and other printed material; violators faced juryless trials in vice-admiralty courts (as had been the case under the 1764 Sugar Act); (2) the law provoked the first organized response to British impositions, and Parliament was forced to repeal it when it was found that tax collectors in the colonies were afraid to enforce the law

Sugar Act

(1) 1764 law that lowered the tax on foreign-produced molasses as an attempt to discourage colonial smuggling; the act further stipulated that Americans could export many commodities--including lumber, iron, skins, and whalebone--to foreign countries only if the goods passed through British ports first; (2) the terms of the act and its methods of enforcement outraged many colonists who had enjoyed freer trade for many years

Tories

loyalists who opposed independence and/or those who fought the American Revolutionaries

Townshend Duties

(1) taxes established by the Revenue Act of 1767 on glass, lead, paper, paint, and tea entering the colonies--an attempt to replace the failed Stamp Act; (2) colonists objected to the fact that the act was to raise revenue exclusively for England rather than to regulate trade in a manner favorable to the entire British empire

Siege of Yorktown

(1) 1781 battle in Virginia in which French navy and American land forces trapped British General Cornwallis's army, forcing the surrender of 8,000 troops; (2) the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.

Second Continental Congress

(1) intercolonial legislature that first convened in May 1775 in the hope of reconciling with Britain (under the conditions that there be a cease-fire in Boston, the Coercive Acts be repealed, and that negotiations begin immediately); George III rejected this "olive branch petition" (2) this body also established the Continental Army (appointing George Washington to lead it) and later organized committees to write the Declaration of Independence, establish the Articles of Confederation, and gain foreign support/recognition of the new country

Boston Tea Party

(1) Boston-area protest of the the 1773 Tea Act in which 50 young men (some thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians) boarded British ships and dumped cargo into Boston Harbor; (2) Parliament responded with the Coercive (aka Intolerable) Acts

Boston Massacre

March 1770 incident in which a crowd of Boston colonists protested British customs agents in the presence of British troops; the redcoats fired and killed five colonists who had been taunting and throwing snowballs & rocks at the soldiers

Revolutionary War

1775-1783 conflict that resulted in the Treaty of Paris and American Independence; the US won its independence through a combination of patient guerilla tactics and French military support

Tea Act

(1) 1773 law that allowed the British East India Company to sell directly to consumers rather than through merchants, effectively creating a monopoly for that company (which had been in financial difficulties); (2) this law actually lowered the price of ___, but it outraged many colonists who were suspicious that Parliament was using the law to force the colonies to accept its power to tax

Quartering Act

the name of at least two laws (1765, 1774) that required colonists to provide room and board to British troops--even in private homes (after the Fr & Ind War and later as part of the "Intolerable Acts")

Minutemen

local militiamen who fought against the British during the Revolutionary War, so named because of their supposed ability to be ready for battle at a moment's notice

Common Sense

(1) Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet that argued that the colonists should free themselves from British rule and establish an independent government based on republican ideals; (2) the pamphlet became so popular that many historians credit it with garnering the necessary support for a declaration of (and fight for) independence

Enlightenment

(1) the Age of Reason, an era and intellectual movement that spread through Europe and America in the 1700s; (2) its followers championed the principles of rationalism and science; they tended to be Deists and political & economic liberals

Deists

influenced by the spirit of rationalism, these people believed that God was like a celestial clockmaker who created a perfect universe and then had stepped back to let it operate according to natural laws (an alternative to the traditional, interventionist God envisioned by many Calvinists)

Declaratory Act

(1) 1766 law passed just after the repeal of the Stamp Act, stating that Parliament could legislate for the colonies in all cases; (2) most colonists interpreted the act as a face-saving mechanism and nothing more, but Parliament continually interpreted the act in its broadest sense when it sought to legislate & control the colonies in the years that followed

Sons of Liberty

group of colonists (including Samuel Adams) who led opposition to the Stamp Act and other mercantalist laws

Saratoga

1777 turning point battle of the Revolution that won open French support; Americans Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold (later a traitor) defeated Gen. Burgoyne & captured a Loyalist stronghold in upstate NY

First Great Awakening

(1) period of religious fervor during the 1730s & 1740s, partly a reaction to the rise of skepticism/rationalism and the Enlightenment; (2) Protestant "new light" ministers held revivals throughout the English colonies in America, stressing Calvinist messages & urging a personal understanding of truth

French and Indian War

(1) conflict (1754-1763) that mirrored the Seven Years War in Europe (1756-1763) in which English colonists, soldiers, & their Native American allies fought the French & their Native American allies for dominance in North America (2) England's eventual victory drove the French from N. America & gave its ally Spain much of the far west

Salem Witch Trials

1692 panic in __, Massachusetts, in which more than 100 people were tried as witches, and 19 women and one man were executed for witchcraft; Puritan minister Cotton Mather eventually helped stop the trials and executions

Navigation Acts

a series of mercantilist laws (1651-1673) that attempted to regulate colonial trade; the laws required goods to travel aboard only British ships, provided subsidies for the production of certain raw goods in the colonies, and banned the colonists from competing with the English in large-scale manufacturing; the last of these laws forbade trade with any nation other than England

Treaty of Paris (1763)

treaty that ended the Seven Years War in Europe (& the Fr & Indian War in N. America); Britain acquired all of Canada and almost all of the modern US east of the Mississippi River

Triangular trade

the trade system that linked England's capital and manufactures with sugar/rum from the West Indies, foodstuffs and other raw materials in N. America, and slaves from Africa

Albany Plan

(1) Benjamin Franklin's 1754 proposal to a gathering of colonial delegates in ___, NY that the colonies unify to face the French and Indian threats; (2) the delegates at the meeting approved the plan, but the colonies they represented later rejected it for fear of losing their autonomy; the Crown also rejected the plan, too, as George II was wary of too much intercolonial cooperation

James Oglethorpe

British general and philanthropist who in 1733 founded Georgia, the last of the 13 Colonies; his goal was a kind of social experiment--a place where England's "worthy poor" (unlucky rather than lazy debtors) could thrive and make a living; his colony was also to be a buffer between the Carolina colonies and Spanish Florida; his attempt to ban slavery and alcohol were denounced and his colonial vision collapsed when slave owners flooded into the colony

John Smith

freebooter who saved Jamestown during that colony's first year "starving time" by organizing work gangs to improve food/sanitation and by negotiating temporary permission to settle from Chief Powhatan

Sir Walter Raleigh

English explorer/privateer who established England's first N. American colony--the failed settlement on Roanoke Island.

Roanoke

failed 1st English settlement in N. America; established in 1587 on an island near today's North Carolina; Virginia Dare (1st English child born in America) was born there.

Salutary neglect

(1600s-early 1700s) English govt's policy of non-intervention in the colonies (taxes were indirect, on goods traded across the Atlantic); this policy of autonomy ended with British victory in the French & Indian War.

Separatists

English Protestants who refused to accept allegiance to the Church of England. One such group was the Pilgrims involved in founding Plymouth Plantation and other settlements in New England; this group also includes Quakers and Baptists.

Congregationalism

church system set up by the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in which each local church served as the center of its own community. Most adherents of this denomination believed themselves loyal to the Church of England, even though their decentralized organizational structure was very different from the heirarchical Anglican Church.

Roger Williams

Puritan dissenter who clashed with the ruling class in Mass. over separation of church and state; banished from Massachusetts in 1636, he founded the colony of Rhode Island, which granted full religious freedom to its inhabitants and sought better treatment of the local Indians.

John Winthrop

(1588-1649) governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony; instrumental in forming the colony's religious but relatively democratic government; he preached the "city upon a hill" sermon that envisioned Boston as a center from which Puritans would spread religious righteousness throughout the world.

William Penn

English Quaker who founded Pennsylvania in 1682 after receiving a charter from King Charles II the year before; his colony was to be a "holy experiment" based on religious tolerance.

Bacon's Rebellion

(1) 1676 uprising led by Virginia planter Nathaniel ___, in which a group of 300 settlers waged war against the local Native Americans, and then against VA royal governor (Wm. Berkely); after the rebels burned & looted Jamestown, the uprising collapsed after Bacon's fell sick and died. (2) this event showed increasing hostility between the tidewater elites and backcountry poor in the Chesapeake region and resulted in a shift in the region's labor force from indentured servants to slaves

House of Burgesses

legislature established in 1619 by colonists in Jamestown, Virginia; the first representative government in what is today the US. It consisted of 22 representatives from 11 districts of VA.

Anne Hutchinson

dissenter in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who preached antinomianism, causing a schism in the Puritan community; her faction lost in a power struggle for the governorship & she was expelled from the colony in 1637; she & her followers established the settlement of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

Mayflower

ship that carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic from the Netherlands to Plymouth Plantation in 1620 (these English Puritans had fled to the Netherlands before heading to the New World).

Joint-stock companies

these organizations were the forerunners to modern corporations, formed to accrue funding for colonization through the sale of public stock; by 1600 the English crown and Parliament were reluctant to spend money on risky colonization attempts after fighting the Spanish for a position in N. America; these companies dominated English colonization during the seventeenth century.

Indentured servants

laborers, usually white adult males, who were bound to labor in the colonies for a fixed number of years, after which time they gained freedom and a small amount of land. Some came willingly, but some were criminals, and others were kidnapped or manipulated into coming in order to remedy labor shortages in the colonies.

Mercantilism

economic ideology & theory of trade that stressed that a nation's wealth depended on exporting more than it imported; the British version of this system manifested itself in triangular trade and in laws passed between the mid-1600s and the mid-1700s (such as the Navigation Acts) aimed at fostering British economic dominance over and a favorable balance of trade with her colonies.

New England Confederation

a colonial alliance formed (w/out formal royal permission) by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth in 1643 as a defense against local Native American tribes and the encroaching Dutch.

Pilgrims

English Separatists who first sought refuge from the Church of England in the Netherlands and then in the New World; one such group traveled in 1620 on the Mayflower and established Plymouth.

John Rolfe

English settler in Jamestown who married Pocahontas (daughter of the influential Powhatan chief) and who he introduced the Jamestown colonists to West Indian tobacco in 1616; this crop saved the Jamestown colony, bringing in revenue and immigrants eager for a share in the colony's expanding wealth.

Puritans

Protestant group that aimed to remove all traces of Catholicism from the Anglican Church & that suffered religious persecution in England; in the early 1600s, many emigrated to the Americas until 1640, when many remained to fight on Cromwell's side in the English Civil War; these people established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston and influenced the whole New England region, with their emphasis on family life, pious restraint of passion, hard work, and the need for education.

Christopher Columbus

sailed to the New World for the Spanish monarchs in 1492; though not the 1st European to reach the Americas, he opened permanent contact between the two worlds & in 1493 established Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola as a base for further exploration.

Treaty of Tordesillas

1494 agreement authorized by the pope, dividing all discoveries in the New World btwn Spain & Portugal; other European countries soon ignored this agreement and claimed their own territories.

Vasco de Gama

Portuguese explorer who was the first European to sail from Europe to India--w/ four ships he sailed around the Cape of Good Hope (southern tip of Africa), opening a trade route still used today.

Conquistador

a general term for Spanish explorers who sought to conquer native people, establish dominance over their lands, and prosper from their natural resources (esp. gold). These freebooters established New Spain from Mexico to Chile and wrought havoc among native populations.

Hernando Cortes

Spanish Conquistador who moved to the West Indies in 1504, established Veracruz (1st Spanish colony in Mexico) in 1519, and conquered the Aztec empire in 1521.

Sir Francis Drake

English privateer who circumnavigated the globe (1577 to 1580). He raided Spanish ships and settlements on behalff of Elizabeth I and defended England against the Spanish armada's attempted invasion in 1588 (earning him the nickname El Draque, "the Dragon").

John Cabot

English name of the Venetian man who explored the NE coast of North America in 1497 & 1498, claiming much of SE Canada for England.

Jacques Cartier

French explorer of the St. Lawrence River region; searched for a Northwest Passage in 1534 & 1542; his expeditions opened the region to future French colonization.

Samuel de Champlain

French explorer of the Great Lakes; established the 1st French colony in N. America at Quebec in 1608.

Leif Ericson

Viking who supposedly led a group of Icelandic people to the eastern coast of Canada; failed attempt to make a colony called Vinland in approx 1000 CE, (500 years before Columbus)

Henry Hudson

English explorer, sponsored by the Dutch East India Company, who in 1609 sailed up the river that now bears his name, nearly reaching present-day Albany. The Dutch claimed this region (now New York) b/c of his travels.

Ferdinand Magellan

Portuguese explorer who sought to travel to India by sailing west around the American continent; he died in 1520 after passing the Strait of ____ (named after him), but his crew was the first to circumnavigate the world.

Juan Ponce de Leon

Spanish explorer who sought a Fountain of Youth and who named Florida; he was one of the first Europeans to travel there

northwest passage

An all-water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific that explorers hoped to find (but that doesn't exist)

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