APUSH Period 5, APUSH Period 4, APUSH Periods 1 & 2, APUSH Period 3

Cyrus McCormick's Reaper

A horse-drawn machine that greatly increased the amount of wheat a farmer could harvest; it was invented in 1831.

The Slave Power

A name given to the South's proslavery political leadership by the Republicans; this group supposedly posed a threat to Northerners' liberties and aspirations more so than "popery" and immigration.

Manifest Destiny

A phrase first used in 1845 to suggest that the annexation of Texas was divinely sanctioned. It was used thereafter to encourage American settlement of Indian lands in the Great Plains and the West and, more generally, as a justification for American empire.

Manifest Destiny

A phrase popularizing a widely-held belief in the 1840s that the U.S. has a divinely appointed mission, so obvious as to be beyond dispute, to occupy all of North America. The belief was based on assumptions of white supremacy and the superiority of U.S. cultural, political, and economic institutions. It was a mid-19th century version of American Exceptionalism.

Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan

A plan enacted by President Abraham Lincoln in Union-controlled Louisiana in 1863 that offered an amnesty and full restoration of rights, including property except for slaves, to nearly all white southerners who took an oath affirming loyalty to the Union and support for emancipation; when 10 percent of the voters of 1860 had taken the oath, they could elect a new state government, which would be required to abolish slavery

Contrabands

African Americans who had been enslaved but fled to, or were captured by, the Union Army, which accepted the useful fiction that they were "property" of military value subject to confiscation.

Annexation of Texas

After gaining its independence from Mexico in 1836, this state asked to be annexed to the U.S. But it was too controversial because Northerners feared the addition of a slave state would increase the power of slavery and the South. Nine years later, after James Polk's election in 1844, Congress finally declared it a part of the U.S. in 1845; Confirmed by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.

National Banking System

After the Civil War broke out, both sides were found unprepared as they lacked a national banking system. In the North, Congress established a system of nationally chartered banks, which were required to purchase government bonds and were given the right to issue bank notes as currency. A heavy tax drove money issued by state banks out of existence. Thus, the United States, whose money supply before the war was a chaotic mixture of paper notes issued by state and local banks, now had essentially two kinds of national paper currency--greenback printed directly by the federal government, and notes issued by the new national banks.

Black soldiers and sailors

After the Emancipation Proclamation, the Union army became an agent of emancipation.

Turnpikes

Also known as toll roads, they were the first advance in overland transportation and were constructed by localities, states, and private companies. They were an important component of the Market Revolution

Freedmen's Bureau

An agency established by Congress in March 1865 to establish schools, provide aid to the poor and aged, settle disputes between whites and blacks, and secure for former slaves and white Unionists equal treatment before the courts.

James Polk and expansion

Assuming the presidency in 1845 with a clearly defined set of goals: to reduce the tariff, reestablish the independent Treasury system, settle the dispute over ownership of Oregon, and bring California into the Union. During his Presidency, he accomplished all of them. He oversaw the annexation of Texas, Oregon, and the entire Mexican cession during his presidency.

Emancipation Proclamation

Because its legality derived from the president's authority as military commander-in-chief to combat the South's rebellion, when President Lincoln issued this order on January 1st, 1863, it exempted areas firmly under Union Control (where the war, in effect, had already ended), nor did it apply to the loyal border slave states that had never seceded nor to areas of the Confederacy occupied by union soldiers. However, it did declare that the vast majority of slaves "henceforth shall be free," which in effect transformed the Civil War from a war to save the Union into a war to end slavery.

Mid-19th Century Immigration

Between 1840 and 1860, over 4 million people entered the United States; the majority were from Ireland and Germany and immigrated to the Northern states where job opportunities were abundant.

Abraham Lincoln

Born in Kentucky, served as a Whig in the Illinois state legislature and later in Congress (1847-49); this politician re-entered politics after the Kansas-Nebraska Act; Despite later being known as the Great Emancipator, he held the Free Labor/Soil ideology and became a Republican; in 1858, he accepted his party's Illinois Senate nomination and carved a name for himself as he battled against Stephen Douglas, ultimately losing in '58; in 1860, he went on to win both the electoral and the popular vote to become the 14th U.S. president; he dedicated his presidency to keeping the Union intact and eventually winning the Civil War and abolishing slavery

Compromise of 1850

Complex compromise devised by Senator Henry Clay that: Admitted California as a free state Included a stronger fugitive slave law Applied popular sovereignty in the new territories of New Mexico and Utah Abolished the slave trade (not slavery) in D.C

The Reconstruction Acts of 1867

Established temporary military governments in ten Confederate states—excepting Tennessee—and required that the states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and permit freedmen to vote.

Slave Coffles

Forced marches of (around one million) enslaved, and chained, African Americans from older slave states in the upper South to the deep South where cotton production was expanding throughout.

Free Soil Party

Formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848. By 1854 most of the party's members had joined the Republican Party. They were not opposed to the continuation of slavery in the South where it already existed; they simply wanted to prevent any expansion of slavery into the West.

Church of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons

Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the religion was a product of the intense revivalism of the "burned-over district" of New York; Smith's successor Brigham Young led 15,000 followers to Utah in 1847 to escape persecution.

Radical Republicans

Group within the Republican Party in the 1850s and 1860s that advocated strong resistance to the expansion of slavery, opposition to compromise with the South in the secession crisis of 1860-1861, emancipation and arming of black soldiers during the Civil War, and equal civil and political rights for blacks during Reconstruction.

Cotton Gin

Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the machine separated cotton seed from cotton fiber, speeding cotton processing and making profitable the cultivation of the more hardy, but difficult to clean, short-staple cotton; led directly to the dramatic nineteenth-century expansion of slavery in the South.

Telegraph

Invented during the 1830s by Samuel F. B. Morse, the device made possible instantaneous communication throughout the nation; it was put into commercial operation in 1844.

John Deere's Steel Plow

Invented in 1837 and mass-produced by the 1850s, this new agricultural technology made possible the rapid subduing of the western prairies.

The Draft

Mandatory military service for all men of a certain age. During the Civil War, both the Union and the Confederacy allowed men who were drafted to hire substitutes; this lead to class resentments and charges of a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight."

Crop-lien System

Merchants extended credit to tenants based on their future crops, but high interest rates and the uncertainties of farming often led to inescapable debts.

Know-Nothing Party

Nativist, anti-Catholic third party organized in 1854 in reaction to large-scale German and Irish immigration. They feared Catholics would be loyal to the Pope, rather than to the United States. The party's only presidential candidate was Millard Fillmore in 1856. Officially called "the American Party," it was secret organization, and when asked about the party by non-members, members were supposed to say, "I know nothing."

Ku Klux Klan

Organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 to terrorize former slaves who voted and held political offices during Reconstruction; a revived organization in the 1910s and 1920s stressed white, Anglo-Saxon, fundamentalist Protestant supremacy; they revived a third time to fight the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the South.

Steamboats

Paddlewheelers that could travel both down-and up-river in deep or shallow waters; they became commercially viable early in the nineteenth century and soon developed into America's first inland freight and passenger service network.They were an important component of the Market Revolution

Annexation ("Reoccupation") of Oregon

Part of Polk's and the Democratic Party's campaign strategy to capture northern Democrats; Polk promised to annex Texas while reoccupying the British controlled Oregon. This way, the balance of power in the Senate between representatives from free states and slave states would not be upset. After his election, Polk oversaw a successful negotiation with Great Britain that brought in most of the Oregon Territory.

Wade-Davis Bill

Congressional bill proposed by Republicans in response to Southern Secession; Congress's authority to admit states into the Union Required a majority of white male southerners (not 10%) to pledge support for the Union before Reconstruction could begin in any state The new state constitutions would have to abolish slavery (ratify the 13th amendment that said slavery is not allowed) and disfranchise (take away the power to vote) Confederate civil and military leaders Guaranteed blacks equality before the law, but did not guarantee black voting rights or land redistribution Lincoln pocket-vetoed this bill, so it never became a law.

Redeemers

Conservative white Democrats, many of them planters or businessmen, who reclaimed control of the South following the end of Reconstruction.

Mexican American War, 1846-48

Controversial war with Mexico for control of California and New Mexico, 1846-1848. The first American War to be fought primarily on foreign soil and the first in which American troops occupied a foreign capital.

Missouri Compromise of 1820

Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay in 1820 to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri's admission as a slave state; Maine's admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri (36' 30'' line).

Thirteenth Amendment

Declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, this Amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified during the period of Presidential Reconstruction by the states on December 6, 1865.

Carpetbaggers

Derisive term used by Southern whites for northern emigrants who participated in the Republican governments of the Reconstruction South.

Scalawags

Derisive terms used by Southern whites for other southern white Republicans who supported Reconstruction governments.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act aroused strong opposition in the North because it allowed special federal commissioners to determine the fate of alleged fugitives without benefit of a jury trial or even testimony by the accused individual. It prohibited local authorities from interfering with the capture of fugitives and required individual citizens to assist in the capture when called upon by federal authorities. It also revealed that the South was willing to accept the expansion of federal authority over states rights as long as it strengthened the institution of slavery.

Civil Rights Bill of 1866

Passed by Radical Republicans, over President Johnson's veto, in response to the black codes, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (along with the Fourteenth Amendment) guaranteed the rights of citizenship to former slaves.

Fifteenth Amendment

Prohibited states from denying citizens the right to vote because of race.

Abolitionism

Social movement of the pre-Civil War era (predominantly in the North) that advocated the immediate emancipation of the slaves and their incorporation into American society as equal citizens.

"Fire-eaters"

Southern nationalists hoping to split up the Democratic party and form an independent Southern Confederacy.

Freedmen

Term that referred to free citizens who were formerly slaves before the Civil War.

Reverend Charles Grandison Finney

The evangelical preacher most associated with the Second Great Awakening who held months-long revival meetings in New York in the 1820s and 1830s.

Navajo's Long Walk

The forced migration of 8,000 Navajo people in the Southwest to a reservation set aside by the government.

"Self Made Man"

The idea that those who achieved success in America did so not as a result of hereditary privilege or government favoritism as in Europe, but through their own intelligence and hard work.

Sectionalism

The regional divide becoming apparent in American politics leading up to and even after the Civil War; the North and South were clearly divided by multiple political, economic, and cultural factors, yet each distinct region had little political variance. By 1860, the two major parties--the Republicans and the Democrats--were strongly associated with the North and the South, respectively.

Texas Revolt (1836)

The revolt in 1836 of Americans legally settled in Texas (a Mexican territory) when Mexico feared losing power and annulled land contracts and barred future emigration and slavery; Stephen Austin led the rebels to demand greater autonomy, resulting in Texan independence in 1836. The war included the infamous battle of "The Alamo" (187 killed)/ "Remember the Alamo." Today, Texas is called "The Lone Star State" because of the nine year period of its independence from both Mexico and the U.S.

Congressional Reconstruction

The second phase of Reconstruction, which lasted roughly from the impeachment of Andrew Johnson until the Redeemers overthrew reconstruction efforts in the South. This phase of reconstruction was lead by the Radical Republicans in Congress and was much more interested in protecting the rights and equality of the freedmen than Presidential Reconstruction.

Harper's Ferry, Virginia

The site of abolitionist John Brown's failed raid on the federal arsenal, in 1859, that heightened sectional tensions; Brown intended to liberate and arm the slaves with weapons from the arsenal and then start a liberation movement that he hoped would sweep south throughout the region. The plan failed. Brown was captured and hung. Brown was celebrated as a martyr by many Northerners, which alarmed many Southerners.

Second American Revolution

The transformation of American government and society brought about by the Civil War. Major elements of the revolution include: the abolition of slavery, the consolidation of Lincoln's vision of the nation united by the ideals of political democracy and human liberty, the increasing power and activity of the federal government (punishing dissent, the Homestead Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, increased tariff, income tax, a system of nationally chartered banks.)

Black Codes

These were laws passed by southern states during Presidential Reconstruction in order to restrict the rights of former slaves. To nullify the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Homestead Act, 1862

This Civil War era law authorized Congress to grant 160 acres of public land to a western settler, who had to live on the land for five years to establish title. It reflected the Republican Party's Free-Labor ideology ("free soil for free labor'). By the 1930s, more than 400,000 families had acquired farms under its provisions. In addition, the Land Grant College Act assisted the states in establishing "agricultural and mechanic colleges" across the nation.

Enforcement Acts

Three acts passed between 1870-1871 outlawing terrorist societies and allowing the president to use the army against them.

Sharecropping

Type of farm tenancy that developed after the Civil War in which landless workers‚ often former slaves, farmed land in exchange for farm supplies and a share of the crop. It offered severely limited economic opportunity.

Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819)

U.S. Supreme Court upheld the original charter of the college against New Hampshire's attempt to alter the board of trustees; set the precedent of support of contracts against state interference.

John C. Calhoun

Vice President under Andrew Jackson; leading Southern politician; began his political career as a nationalist and an advocate of protective tariffs, later he becomes an advocate of free trade, states' rights, pro-slavery, limited government, and nullification; in 1844, Calhoun wrote a letter that linked the annexation of Texas to strengthening slavery in the US.

Squatters

Western migrants who set up farms on unoccupied land without a clear legal title.

Southern Unionists

White southerners living in the Confederacy who opposed secession and organized a peace movement against the Civil War.

Popular sovereignty

The belief that settlers in western territories should have the right to decide the slavery issue for themselves (rather than having Congress decide it for them); program most closely associated with Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Election of 1860

The candidates were Lincoln (Republican), Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), Bell (Constitutional Union [wanted to preserve the Constitution as it was, with slavery]), Douglas (Northern Democrat). Despite not even appearing on the ballot in most southern states, Lincoln won both the electoral and the popular vote; a clear example of the sweeping sectionalism dividing the nation. Breckinridge carried most of the slave states and Lincoln took the large majority of the North; Douglas was the only candidate to have significant support across the nation. Lincoln's victory triggered the secessionist movement.

Lincoln-Douglas debates

Series of senatorial campaign debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slavery in the territories; held in Illinois between Republican Abraham Lincoln, who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, who managed to hold onto his seat.

Sea Island Experiment

A famous "rehearsal for Reconstruction" in which groups of northerners attempted to successfully transition the island's black population to freedom after the Union navy occupied the islands off the coast of South Carolina in 1861.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

A final piece of reconstruction legislation that outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation like hotels and theaters.

Individualism

A term that entered the language in the 1820 to describe the increasing emphasis on the pursuit of personal advancement and private fulfillment free of outside interference.

The Slaughterhouse Case

A Supreme Court decision in 1873 that rejected the claim by butchers that their right to equality before the law had been violated. In this case, the Justices rules that the 14th Amendment had not altered traditional federalism, thus whittling away at the guarantees of black rights adopted by Congress during Radical Reconstruction.

Proslavery

A belief held by Southerners that supported slavery morally, politically, socially, and economically

Free Labor ideology

A comprehensive worldview that glorified the North as the home of progress and freedom; the defining quality of Northern society--as opposed to the South--was the opportunity it offered each laborer to move up to the status of landowning farmer or independent craftsman, thus achieving economic independence essential to freedom. In terms of the question of slavery in the West, the free labor position and the free soil position were synonymous: slavery can remain in the South but it should not be allowed to expand into the West. This was a position held by most northerners who feared that the expansion of slavery would block their economic opportunities in the West.

The Confederate States of America (CSA)

A self-proclaimed nation from 1861-1865 of eleven slave-holding and seceding states (Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia).

Transcendentalists

A small group of mid-nineteenth-century New England writers and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson (author of Self-Reliance), Henry David Thoreau (author of Walden, and "Civil Disobedience"), and Margaret Fuller, whose philosophy stressed personal and intellectual self-reliance.

Factory System

A system in which large groups of workers were gathered under central supervision using power-driven machinery, which replaced hand tools.

"The American System of Manufactures"

A system that relied on the mass production of interchangeable parts that could be rapidly assembled into standardized finished products.

"Waving the bloody shirt"

A tactic of Republicans after the Civil War whereby they identified their opponents (Democrats) with secession and treason.

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 1848

A treaty signed between Mexico and the U.S. in 1848 that ended the Mexican-American war, confirmed the annexation of Texas, and ceded California, present-day New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah to the U.S. in exchange for $15 million.

The Market Revolution

An economic transformation in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century sparked by a series of innovations in transportation and communication. It lead to increased economic production and greater interconnection of the U.S. economy, particularly between the North and the Old Northwest.

Nativism

Anti-immigrant feeling. It was especially prominent in the 1830s through the 1850s against the Irish immigrants, who were mostly Catholic; the largest group was New York's Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American (Know-Nothing) Party in 1854.

Dred Scott Decision (1857) (Dred Scott v. Sandford)

Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri who, for a period of several years, accompanied his owner into Illinois (where slavery was illegal). When he returned to Missouri, he sued his owner for his freedom because he thought residence in a free state (Illinois) should make him free. In the infamous Dred Scott Decision of 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that 1) no black people could be citizens of the U.S., 2) Dred Scott's residence in Illinois had not made him free, and 3) perhaps most shockingly, Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. This third part seemed to imply that the Missouri Compromise Line had been unconstitutional and that the Republican Party's free-labor ideology would be obsolete.

Fourteenth Amendment

Guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. More specifically, it established the first Constitutional definition of citizenship ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States"), outlawed the black codes ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizen of the United States") and guaranteed equal treatment for all freedmen in the South ("Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

"Bleeding Kansas"

In 1856, after the Kansas-Nebraska Act had gone into effect, there was large voter fraud and the outbreak of violence between pro- and antislavery settlers in the Kansas Territory. The violence in Kansas largely discredited the idea that popular sovereignty could settle the questions over the future of slavery in the West.

New York Draft Riots

In July, 1863, the introduction of the draft provoked four days of rioting in New York City. The mob, composed largely of Irish immigrants, assaulted symbols of the new order created by the war--draft offices, the mansions of wealthy Republicans, industrial establishments, and the city's black population, many of whom fled to New Jersey or took refuge in Central Park. Only the arrival of Union troops quelled the uprising, but not before more than 100 persons had died.

Election and Bargain of 1877

In the aftermath of a close presidential election, an Electoral Commission declared Rutherford B. Hayes president contingent a variety of compromises and agreements upon his taking office. The Democrats agreed to acknowledge that Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes had won the election in exchange for the Republican promise to abandon efforts at southern reconstruction.

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

Law sponsored by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas to allow settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border (KA and NB Territories) to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the resulting repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican Party.

Frederick Douglass

Leading 19th century African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. (And in Mr. Nordlund's opinion, his autobiography--Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave--is amazing, and you should read it this year because it will make your look at education, a and your country with a whole new perspective.)

Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

Lincoln had restricted civil liberties during the Civil War by suspending the writ of habeas corpus in order to arrest and detain outspoken opponents of the war in the North. However, after the war, in 1866, in the case, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to bring accused persons before military tribunals where civil courts were operating. The Constitution, declared Justice David Davis, is not suspended in wartime--it remains "a law for rulers and people, equally in time of war and peace."

"Filibustering" expeditions

Nineteenth century, invasions of Central American countries launched privately by groups of Americans seeking to establish personal rule and spread slavery.

Southern vs. Northern War Aims

Northern: Restore the shattered Union, which meant it had to invade and conquer an area larger than Western Europe. Union soldiers had to be motivated to fight, and possibly die, to defend relatively abstract concepts like union and freedom. Southern: Win independence, which meant it had to not surrender to the Northern Army. Confederate soldiers were motivated to defend their own families, homes, and property, in addition to more abstract concepts like liberty.

Railroads

Opened vast new areas of the American interior to settlement while stimulating the mining of coal for fuel and the manufacture of iron for locomotives and rails. Work on the Baltimore and Ohio ("The B&O"), the nation's first commercial one, began in 1828. They were an important component of the Market Revolution

Republican Party

Organized in 1854 by the antislavery Whigs, Democrats, and Free Soilers in response to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act; nominated John C. Frémont for president in 1856 and Abraham Lincoln in 1860; also the name of the party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the 1790s.

Second Great Awakening

Reacting to the growth of secularism and rationalism in religion (Deism) during the Revolutionary generation, this was a religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century that stressed the right of private judgment in spiritual matters and the possibility of universal salvation through faith and good works. Relying on opportunities offered by the market revolution, (preachers embarking on tours by canal, steamboat, and railroad, and flooding the country with mass-produced, inexpensive religious tracts) this movement eventually spread to all regions of the country and democratized American Christianity. It began the predominance of the Baptist and Methodist churches.

Transcontinental Railroad

Refers to the first railroad line across the continent from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, established in 1869 with the linkage of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads at Promontory, Utah

Wilmot Proviso

Reflecting free-labor ideology, this was a PA Congressman's proposal to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mexican-American War. Every northern Congressman supported it, but Southern Congressmen, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, defeated the measure repeatedly.

The First Modern War

The American Civil War; the first time armies confronted each other with weapons created by the industrial revolution. In a modern war like the Civil War, the effectiveness of political leadership, the ability to mobilize economic resources, and a society's willingness to keep up the fight despite setbacks are as crucial to the outcome as success or failure on individual battlefields. The casualties dwarfed anything in the American experience War was transformed from army vs. army to society vs. society. First time that the railroad transported troops and supplies and the first to see railroad junctions become major military objectives. First demonstration of the superiority of ironclad ships, revolutionizing naval warfare. Telegraph was used for military communication and the introduction of observation balloons to view enemy lines. The musket was replaced with the more accurate rifle, which changed the nature of combat. Propaganda was used to motivate both sides of the war.

Southern and Northern resource advantages/disadvantages

The North: Population= 22 million in 1860 In manufacturing, railroad mileage and financial resources outstripped the South Mostly had farm boys, shopkeepers, artisans and urban workers South: Population: 9 million w/ 3.5 million slaves Less manufacturing than the North However, southern armies could lose most of the battles and still win the war if their opponent tired of the struggle Non-slaveholding small farmers with slave-owners dominating the officer corps

Gold Rush

The mania for gold incited by its discovery in January of 1848; drastically increased the number of settlers who migrated to California.

Erie Canal

The most important and profitable of the canals of the 1820s and 1830s. It stretched from Buffalo to Albany, New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast making New York City the nation's largest port.

Cotton Kingdom

This term for the South and it's economy arose during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, when the Northern textile mills increased the demand for cotton, supplied by Southern plantations using slave labor.

Civic Religion

This term refers to the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals (like saying the pledge, or singing the anthem), texts (like the Declaration of Independence), public symbols (such as the national flag), and public ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places (such as monuments, battlefields, or national cemeteries).

Presidential Reconstruction

This was the first phase of Reconstruction overseen first by Lincoln and then by Johnson, resting on the premise that the South had not actually succeeded, but rather they had launched an insurrection and thus the President had the authority to execute the law in this situation. This first phase of Reconstruction was mainly aimed at quelling the insurrection quickly with little disruption.

Women and Civil War Work

Women took advantage of the wartime labor shortage to move into jobs in factories and into certain largely male professions, particularly nursing.

Mill Girls

Women who worked at textile mills during the Industrial Revolution who enjoyed new freedoms and independence not seen before.