AP US History Unit 4 Vocabulary Flashcards
When Andrew Johnson conducted the re-enfranchisement of the the Southern States; it was considered too lenient by other sources of power and many Northerners
Presidential Reconstruction
The period when the Legislative Branch of the United States took over the rebuilding of the South as well as the South’s re-admission to the Union; it was rather punitive and many Southerners despised Northern interventions into what they saw as states’ rights
Congressional (Radical) Reconstruction
Leader of the Radical Republicans in Congress who sought to punish the South for starting the Civil War
Thaddeus Stevens
Constitutional law that freed all slaves
13th Amendment
Constitutional law that gave citizenship and equal rights to former slaves
14th Amendment
Constitutional law that ensured that the states had to allow black men the right to vote
15th Amendment
Government agency set up to assist former slaves in finding jobs, giving them medical help, providing food and shelter, etc; it was largely under-funded and was not very successful
Freedman’s Bureau
A white supremacist group who sought to terrorize blacks who attempted to participate in politics and society by using lynch mobs to hang people, burning crosses on people’s property, as well as other forms of terrorism and violence
Ku Klux Klan
Caused the price of cotton to drop dramatically, forcing many to sell their land to the rich and forced people into sharecropping
Panic of 1873’s impact on cotton
Used at first extensively by former slaves because they had no money; people grew crops and instead of paying a land lord with cash, he was paid with a percentage of the farmer’s produce
Sharecropping
Because people had no cash, they offered their future crops to merchants in return for loans to buy tools and seed
Crop Lien
Farmers who rented the land that they farmed instead of owning it; they were often very poor and could not escape constant debt to landlords and merchants
Tenant Farmers
The removal of black people’s rights and citizenship
Disenfranchisement
Laws specifically designed by racist Southern state governments to limit the freedoms of black Americans
Jim Crow Laws
A Supreme Court decision which stated that Americans have dual citizenship; state citizenship rights include rights not in the Constitution and are protected by state governments, national citizenship rights are explained in the Constitution and are protected by the federal government. The two spheres of power do not overlap. States can deny rights provided the Constitution
Slaughter House Cases
Racist Laws to prevent Black Americans from voting; stated that if your grandfather was in a “previous state of servitude” you could not vote
Grandfather Clauses
Racist Laws to require Black Americans to pass reading and writing tests in order to vote
Literacy Tests
Racist Laws that required people to pay a tax to vote; aimed at disenfranchising poor Black Americans
Poll Taxes
Congressional law that prohibited discrimination in public places
Equal Rights Act of 1875
Supreme Court cases that nullified the Civil Rights Act of 1875 by allowing states to discriminate against black Americans
United States v. Reese and United States v. Cruikshank
This caused many to want to focus resources away from rebuilding the South and re-enfranchising blacks, to more pressing economic concerns
Impact of the Panic of 1873 on Reconstruction
The winner of the Electoral College did NOT win the presidential election
Election of 1876
A fifteen-member delegation of Democratic and Republican Congressmen and Supreme Court Justices made a deal to end Reconstruction in exchange for a Northern Republican President, Rutherford B. Hayes
Compromise of 1877
Supreme Court Decision that allowed states and private businesses to segregate black Americans from white Americans as long as the facilities were “equal”
Plessy v. Ferguson
Allowed the mass production of steel, booming the American economy and fueling the Industrial Revolution with a cheap building material
Bessemer Process
Invented the the light bulb and the power grid to supply electricity to urban America
Thomas Edison
Was a new and cheap source of energy to power machines
Electricity
Allowed the rapid assembly of products, dropping prices dramatically
Mass Production
This product became of a vital source of energy to generate electricity, as well as a key ingredient in steel production
Coal
The production of goods on an Industrial scale, with a relatively few producers of goods supplying most of America
Assembly Line
An Act of Congress to create low interest loans, direct grants of cash, and land grants to railroad builders to spur Westward Expansion
Pacific Railroad Acts
A railroad that would span the entire nation, from East to West
Transcontinental Railroad
A corporation that built a railroad from Omaha, Nebraska to Promontory Point, Utah
Union Pacific
A corporation that built a railroad from Sacramento, California to Promontory Point, Utah
Central Pacific
Free land given by the federal, state, or local government
Land Grants
This was mostly used to build the railroads and other dangerous jobs
Immigrant Labor
This occurred as railroads pushed native people off of their lands to construct the Transcontinental Railroad
Displacement of Native People
This system of buying goods allowed people on the frontier to access urban markets
Mail-Order Products
This occurred as a conscience effort to control Indians as well as to make way for railroads
Reduction of Buffalo herds from a million to less than 1,000
A US Supreme Court decision that broke up a railroad monopoly, it was the start of the Progressive Era and government regulation
Northern Securities Company vs. US 1904
Gave 160 acres of land to anyone who would “improve” the land for five years
Homestead Act
Gave states control over sale of land to raise money to build universities specializing in agricultural, mining, and military science
Morrill Land Grant Act
Used by the US military to starve and control Indians in order to force them onto reservations and rely on the US government
Policy of buffalo eradication
Often individual miners speculating for a discovery of a mineral vein to sell so that they could sell the rights to a large mining corporation
Prospectors
One of the biggest silver veins found in the US, driving the mining industry and Westward Expansion
Comstock Lode
There were no railroads in the Southwest and there were millions of cows in high demand in cities
Reasons for Cowboys
This invention allowed farmers to stop cow herds from trampling their land and slowed the age of the cowboy
Impact of barbed wire
Resulted in new breeds of cows bred by research and development driven in agricultural universities
Cattle decimation of 1885-1887
Popularized the idea that the Western Frontier and the hardships endured by Americans their forged the American Spirit.
Frederick Jackson Turner
Extremes of weather and seasonal rains caused 2/3rds of people to abandon farms on the frontier.
Success rate of Homesteaders
Agency created by Congress to assist farmers as well as to regulate them
US Department of Agriculture
Black Americans that left the oppressive South to claim land under the Homestead Act, primarily in Kansas
Exodusters
Created by the federal government to corral and control Native Americans in order to allow Westward Expansion
Reservations of South Dakota and Oklahoma
Changed Indian policy in America from granting land to entire tribe to granting land to individual Native Americans; it was an attempt to assimilate them into white culture and farming
Dawes-Severalty Act
Gave the Sioux Indians Southwest South Dakota, but was nullified when 100,000 settlers moved there to mine gold
Treaty of Fort Laramie
Non-fiction book by Helen Hunt Jackson that chronicles the experiences of Native Americans in the United States, focusing on examples of injustices.
“A Century of Dishonor”
Plains Indians who followed buffalo herds
Sioux
Discovered gold in Black Hills of South Dakota, his seventh cavalry division was decimated by the Sioux at the battle of Little Big Horn
General George Custer
An Indian chief who refused to be conquered by the American government and accept white culture
Sitting Bull
When gold was discovered in the Black Hills Indian Reservation in South Dakota, whites invaded the Indians’ lands and drove them on the warpath. The war culminated in June 1876, when Colonel George A. Custer and all his men were killed by Sioux Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn in southern Montana
Battle of Little Bighorn
A massacre in 1890 that started when Sioux left the reservation in protest because of the death of Sitting Bull. The US army killed 150 sioux at wounded knee; last major incident in the great plains
Massacre at Wounded Knee
The federalist nature of the US governmental system allowed states the autonomy to allow who could and could not vote, many states in the West allowed female voting while most Eastern states did not
Women’s Suffrage
Mostly Chinese and Irish and other “new immigrants”
Laborers on Railroad construction crews
This was a law passed by both houses of Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur in 1882 banning Chinese laborers from coming to the United States because they were “taking American jobs.”
Chinese Exclusion Act
This occurred because the occupation was hard, dangerous, and because these men relied on one another to survive; ethnic background was not as important as the reliability of individuals
Egalitarian nature of cowboy culture
Transformation of American Prairie into America’s Bread Basket
This occurred as 30 million immigrants came to America for free land provided by the Homestead Act and moved West
This occurred as the US Army tried to starve out of existence the Native Americans
Extermination of American Bison
This was a technique used to extract minerals from the earth by blasting sides of mountains away with explosives and high pressure water hoses to expose minerals; it destroyed entire mountains and ecosystems
Strip Mining
The demand for lumber, especially from Great Plains farmers where no trees grew and who needed building materials
Deforestation of much of the Midwest
This occurred as huge amounts of coal were burned to create electricity and to power industrial machines, as well as other harmful chemicals used in industrial processes
Factory pollution
A group of investors who pool their resources and own a business collectively, often times selling stocks and bonds to the public to raise money for the business
Corporation
A share of a company that an individual investor can buy, when the company does well, the value of the company increases it benefits shareholders, when the company does poorly, the company is worth less and the shareholder is negatively impacted
Stock
Essentially, this is a loan that a person gives to a corporation and in exchange, the corporation promises the investment back, plus interest
Bond
The more of something you produce, the cheaper it is per-unit to produce that good
Scale of Economy
A corporation who attempts to buy a controlling amount of stock in many companies that harvest raw materials, transport goods, and create finished products in an attempt of the corporation to control the production of a product from start to finish
Holding Company
A legal business maneuver where a person or corporation attempts to control a product from raw material to selling of a finished product
Vertical Integration
An illegal business maneuver when a corporation attempts to completely control the distribution of a product, that corporation attempts to be the only corporation that sells that one item, it is a monopoly!
Horizontal Integration
This occurred as the American economy relied almost completely on the success of a relatively few number of HUGE corporations; when these corporations did well, people had money, when they performed poorly, the entire American economy suffered
Boom and Bust Cycles
Cheap source of energy to boil water to make electricity
Coal
Women, children and the newest, poorest, most in-need-of-work immigrant laborers
Control-able Work force
Because corporations had nearly every aspect of a market consolidated, they could predict costs, expenditures, losses, and financial gains before they even happened, thus allowing them to entice investors (either honestly or dishonestly) to invest in their corporations!
Projecting Profits for the future
This allowed the 24 hour production of goods in factories
Light bulb increases production
Occurred because Industrialists were concerned only with making huge profits, not with the health and safety of their laborers
Subsistence income
