Unit 6 Flashcards
(34 cards)
Sand Creek Massacre
The near annihilation in 1864 of Black Kettle’s Cheyenne band by Colorado troops under Colonel John Chivington’s orders to “kill and scalp all, big and little.”
Treaty of Fort Laramie
The treaty acknowledging U.S. defeat in the Great Sioux War in 1868 and supposedly guaranteeing the Sioux perpetual land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.
Edmunds-Tucker Act
1887 act which destroyed the temporal power of the Mormon Church by confiscating all assets over $50,000 and establishing a federal commission to oversee all elections in the Utah territory.
Lynching
Execution, usually by a mob, without trial.
Homestead Act of 1862
Law passed by Congress in May 1862 providing homesteads with 160 acres of free land in exchange for improving the land within five years of the grant.
Morrill Act of 1862
Act by which “land-grant” colleges acquired space for campuses in return for promising to institute agricultural programs.
Forest Management Act
1897 act which, along with the National Reclamation Act, set the federal government on the path of large-scale regulatory activities.
Omaha Act of 1882
Act which allowed the establishment of individual title to tribal lands.
Dawes Severalty Act
An 1887 law terminating tribal ownership of land and allotting some parcels of land to individual Indians with the remainder opened for white settlers.
Vertical Integration
The consolidation of numerous production functions, from the extraction of the raw materials to the distribution and marketing of the finished products, under the direction of one firm.
Horizontal Combination
The merger of competitors in the same industry.
Gospel of Wealth
Thesis that hard work and perseverance lead to wealth, implying that poverty is a character flaw.
Chinese Exclusion Act
Act that suspended Chinese immigration, limited the civil rights of resident Chinese, and forbade their naturalization.
Knights of Labor
Labor union founded in 1869 that included skilled and unskilled workers irrespective of race or gender.
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
Union formed in 1886 that organized skilled workers along craft lines and emphasized a few workplace issues rather than a broad social program.
Tenements
Four- to six-story residential dwellings, once common in New York, built on tiny lots without regard to providing ventilation or light.
Gilded Age
Term applied to late nineteenth-century America that refers to the shallow display and worship of wealth characteristic of that period.
Women’s Educational and Industrial Union
Boston organization offering classes to wage-earning women.
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
The 1887 law that expanded federal power over business by prohibiting pooling and discriminatory rates by railroads and establishing the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
A law of 1883 that reformed the spoils system by prohibiting government workers from making political contributions and creating the Civil Service Commission to oversee their appointment on the basis of merit rather than politics.
Populist Movement
A major third party of the 1890s formed on the basis of the Southern Farmers’ Alliance and other reform organizations.
Grange
The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, a national organization of farm owners formed after the Civil War.
Farmers’ Alliance
A broad mass movement in the rural South and West during the late nineteenth century, encompassing several organizations and demanding economic and political reforms.
Great Uprising
Unsuccessful railroad strike of 1877 to protest wage cuts and the use of federal troops against the strikers; the first nation-wide work stoppage in American history.
