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AP U.S. History 11 5.1 Key Terms: Politics, Industry, Urbanization, and the West (1865-1900)

Terms in this set (22)

Second Industrial Revolution
- Involved development of chemical, electrical, oil, and steel industries

- Mass production of consumer goods also developed at this time through the mechanization of the manufacture of food and clothing. It saw the popularization of cinema and radio

- Provided widespread employment and increased production

- Significant because it led to a new era of technology that greatly exceeded its predecessors. Additionally, it led to many new job openings which led to increased immigration
Tweed Ring
- A symbol of Gilded Age corruption, "Boss" Tweed and his deputies ran the New York City Democratic party in the 1860s and swindled $200 million from the city through bribery, graft, and vote-buying

- Boss Tweed was eventually jailed for his crimes and died behind bars

- Significant because although the gilded age was "covered in gold," William Tweed was a perfect example of the corruption that occurred behind the curtains

- Also significant because it led to control of key power points
Patronage
- A system, prevalent during the Gilded Age, in which political parties granted jobs and favors to party regulars who delivered votes on election day

- Patronage was both an essential wellspring of support for both parties and a source of conflict within the Republican Party

- Significant because it expressed the corruption that occurred, and it led to reforms, such as the Pendleton Act
Compromise of 1877
- The agreement that finally resolved the 1876 election and officially ended Reconstruction

- In exchange for the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, winning the presidency, Hayes agreed to withdraw the last of the federal troops from the former Confederate states

- This deal effectively completed the southern return to white-only, Democratic-dominated electoral politics

- Significant because it ended the debates surrounding the 1876 election as well as ending the Reconstruction era
Pendleton Act, 1833
- Congressional legislation that established the Civil Service Commission, which granted federal government jobs on the basis of examinations instead of political patronage, thus reining in the spoils system

- Significant because it was an attempt to end the corruption of patronage by creating a system for qualified workers to receive the jobs they deserve
Civil Rights Act, 1875
- The last piece of federal civil rights legislation until the 1950s, the law promised blacks equal access to public accommodations and banned racism in jury selection, but it provided no means of enforcement and was therefore ineffective

- In 1883, the Supreme Court declared most of the act unconstitutional
Grandfather Clause
- A regulation established in many southern states in the 1890s that exempted from voting requirements (such as literacy tests and poll taxes) anyone who could prove that their ancestors ("grandfathers") had been able to vote in 1860

- Because slaves could not vote before the Civil War, these clauses guaranteed the right to vote to many whites while denying it to blacks

- Significant because it was another way that the south got to limit the African Americans from voting (racism and Jim Crow)
New South
- After the Civil War, southerners promoted a new vision for a self-sufficient southern economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, and improved transportation

- Henry Grady played an important role.

- Significant because the south had to find their new roots after the Civil War ended slavery
Sharecropping
- An agricultural system that emerged after the Civil War in which black and white farmers rented land and residences from a plantation owner in exchange for giving him a certain "share" of each year's crop

- Sharecropping was the dominant form of southern agriculture after the Civil War, and landowners manipulated this system to keep tenants in perpetual debt and unable to leave their plantations

- Significant because although African Americans were freed, they were still being seen as and treated as slaves
JIm Crow
- System of racial segregation in the American South from the end of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century

- Based on the concept of "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites, the Jim Crow system sought to prevent racial mixing in public, including restaurants, movie theaters, and public transportation

- An informal system, it was generally perpetuated by custom, violence, and intimidation

- Significant because it led to the suppression of African Americans in the south through racism of unfair laws and regulations
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
- A Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of segregation laws, saying that as long as blacks were provided with "separate but equal" facilities, these laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment

- This decision provided legal justification for the Jim Crow system until the 1950s

- Significant because it established the constitutionality of racial segregation
Old Immigrants
- immigrants who had come to the US before the 1880s from Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Scandenavia, or Northern Europe

- Significant because they led to the start of nativist parties, such as the Know-Nothings, temperance movements, etc...
New Immigrants
- Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who formed a recognizable wave of immigration from the 1880s until 1924, in contrast to the immigrants from western Europe who had come before them

- These new immigrants congregated in ethnic urban neighborhoods, where they worried many native-born Americans, some of whom responded with nativist anti-immigrant campaigns and others of whom introduced urban reforms to help the immigrants assimilate

- Significant because they led to widespread debate over the question of immigration and literacy tests. They also made up a large chunk of the workforce
Social Darwinism
- Believers in the idea, popular in the late-nineteenth century, that people gained wealth by "survival of the fittest"

- Therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process

- Some social darwinists also applied this theory to whole nations and races, explaining that powerful peoples were naturally endowed with gifts that allowed them to gain superiority over others

- This theory provided one of the popular justifications for U.S. imperial ventures like the
Spanish-American War.

- Significant because it created racism and nativism in the workplace and in immigration, preventing people from receiving the opportunities from America
Jane Addams
- Founder of Settlement House Movement. First American Woman to earn Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 as president of Women's Intenational League for Peace and Freedom

- Founder of the Hull House, which taught English lessons for immigrants, daycares, and child care classes

- Significant because she helped assimilate immigrants so they can quickly adapt to the American way of life
Gospel of Wealth
- This was a book written by Carnegie that described the responsibility of the rich to be philanthropists

- This softened the harshness of Social Darwinism as well as promoted the idea of philanthropy

- preached that the affluent had a responsibility to provide charity to the poor and social uplift to the masses with middle-class culture

- Significant because it led to widespread donations to libraries, schools, etc... People saw this as a cover up to prove their money was used for good things
Social Gospel
- A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor

- Popular at the turn of the twentieth century, it was closely linked to the settlement house movement, which brought middle-class, Anglo-American service volunteers into contact with immigrants and working people

- Significant because it was described as "the most distinctive American contribution to world Christianity"
Populist Party
- Officially known as the People's party, the Populists represented Westerners and Southerners who believed that U.S. economic policy inappropriately favored Eastern businessmen instead of the nation's farmers

- Their proposals included nationalization of the railroads, a graduated income tax, and most significantly, the unlimited coinage of silver

- Significant because they led to their ideas being spread among the Democratic and Republican parties (led to progressive era of presidents)
Industrial Capitalism
- an economic system based on industrial production or manufacturing

- this type of economy thrived during the Second Industrial Revolution as Industrial Giants controlled the majority of the industry

- Significant because it led to the creation of monopolies, which wiped out the average business owner
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois, 1886
- A Supreme Court decision that prohibited states from regulating the railroads because the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce

- As a result, reformers turned their attention to the federal government, which now held sole power to regulate the railroad industry

- Significant because it led to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission
Pullman Strike, 1894
- A strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts.

- The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor

- Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened, and federal troops forced an end to the strike

- The strike highlighted both divisions within labor and the government's new willingness to use armed force to combat work stoppages

- Significant because it demonstrated the power of labor unions. It also led to more Americans trying to achieve more harmonious relations between capital and labor
Dawes Severalty Act, 1887
- An act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households

- Leftover land was sold for money to fund U.S. government efforts to "civilize" Native Americans

- Significant because it led to the continued deculturalization of the Native Americans
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