Chapter 18 + 19 Vocab

Question 1

Plessy v. Ferguson

Answer 1

An 1896 Supreme Court case that racially segregated railroad cars and other public facilities, if they claimed to be “separate but equal,” were permissible according to the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 2

YMCA

Answer 2

Introduced in Boston in 1851, the YMCA promoted muscular Christianity, combining evangelism with athletic facilities where men could make themselves “clean and strong.”

Question 3

Comstock Act

Answer 3

An 1873 law that prohibited circulation of “obscene literature,” defined as including most information on sex, reproduction, and birth control.

Question 4

Atlanta Compromise

Answer 4

An 1895 address by Booker T. Washington that urged whites and African Americans to work together for the progress of all. Delivered at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, the speech was widely interpreted as approving racial segregation.

Question 5

Maternalism

Answer 5

The belief that women should contribute to civic and political life through their special talents as mother, Christians, and moral guides. Maternalists put this ideology into action by creating dozens of social reform organizations.

Question 6

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

Answer 6

An organization advocating the prohibition of liquor that spread rapidly after 1879, when charismatic France Willard became its leader. Advocating suffrage and a host reform activities, it launched tens of thousands of women into public life and was the first nationwide organization to identify and condemn domestic violence.

Question 7

National Association of Colored Women

Answer 7

An organization created in 1893 by African American women to provide community support. Through its local clubs, the NACW arranged for the care of orphans, founded homes for the elderly, advocated temperance, and undertook public health campaigns.

Question 8

National American Woman Suffrage Association

Answer 8

Women’s suffrage organization created in 1890 by the union of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association. Up to national ratification of suffrage in 1920, the NAWSA played a central role in campaigning for women’s right to vote.

Question 9

Feminism

Answer 9

The ideology that women should enter the public sphere not only to work on behalf of others, but also for their own equal rights and advancement. Feminists moved beyond advocacy of women’s voting rights to seek greater autonomy in professional careers, property rights, and personal relationships.

Question 10

Social Darwinism

Answer 10

An idea, actually formulated not by Charles Darwin but by British philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer, that human society advanced through ruthless competition and the “survival of the fittest.”

Question 11

Eugenics

Answer 11

An emerging “science” of human breeding in the late nineteenth century that argued that mentally deficient people should be prevented from reproducing.

Question 12

Fundamentalism

Answer 12

A term adopted by Protestants, between the 1890s and the 1910s, who rejected modernism and historical interpretations of scripture and asserted the literal truth of the Bible. Fundamentalists have historically seen secularism and religious relativism as markers of sin that will be punished by God.

Question 13

Race Riot

Answer 13

A term for an attack on African Americans by white mobs, triggered by political conflicts, street altercations, or rumors of crime. In some cases, such “riots” were not spontaneous but planned in advance by a group of leaders seeking to enforce white supremacy.

Question 14

Tenements

Answer 14

A high-density, cheap, five- or six-story housing unit designed for working-class urban populations. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tenements became a symbol of urban immigrant poverty.

Question 15

Yellow Journalism

Answer 15

A derogatory term for newspapers that specialize in sensationalistic reporting. Yellow journalism is associated with the inflammatory reporting by the Heart and Pulitzer newspapers leading up to the Spanish-American War in 1898.

Question 16

Muckrakers

Answer 16

A critical term, first applied by Theodore Roosevelt, for investigate journalists who published exposes of political scandals and industrial abuses.

Question 17

Political Machines

Answer 17

A complex, hierarchical party organization such as New York’s Tammany Hall, whose candidates remained in office on the strength of their political organization and their personal relationship with voter, especially working-class immigrants who had little alternative access to political power.

Question 18

Progressivism

Answer 18

A loose term for political reformers- especially those from the elite and middle classes- who worked to improve the political system, fight poverty, conserve environmental resources, and increase government involvement in the economy. Giving their name to the “Progressive Era,” such reformers were often prompted to act by fear that mass, radical protests by workers and farmers would spread, as well as by their

Question 19

Hull House

Answer 19

One of the first and most famous social settlements, founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and her companion Ellen Gates Starr in an impoverished, largely Italian immigrant neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.

Question 20

Pure Food and Drug Act

Answer 20

A 1906 law regulating the conditions in the food and drug industries to ensure a safe supply of food and medicine.

Question 21

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Answer 21

A devastating fire that quickly spread through the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City on March 25, 1911, killing 146 people. In the wake of the tragedy, fifty-six state laws were passed dealing with such issues as fire hazards, unsafe machines, and wages and working hours for women and children. The fire also provided a national impetus for industrial reform.