HIST 2112E Midterm

Social Security Act

- 2nd new deal - Roosevelt also created the country's present-day social safety net - established programs intended to help the most vulnerable: the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled, and the young. - included a pension fund for all retired people—except domestic workers and farmers, which therefore left many women and African Americans beyond the scope of its benefits—over the age of sixty-five, to be paid through a payroll tax on both employee and employer. - Congress also passed a law on unemployment insurance, to be funded by a tax on employers, and programs for unwed mothers, as well as for those who were blind, deaf, or disabled - some elements of these reforms were pulled from Roosevelt detractors Coughlin and Townsend; the popularity of their movements gave the president more leverage to push forward this type of legislation.

Booker T. Washington

- Born into slavery in Virginia in 1856 - became an influential African American leader at the outset of the Progressive Era. - In 1881, he became the first principal for the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, a position he held until he died in 1915. - Tuskegee was an all-black "normal school"—an old term for a teachers' college—teaching African Americans a curriculum geared towards practical skills such as cooking, farming, and housekeeping.

Settlement house movement

- Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, and Ellen Gates Starr, for example, led the settlement house movement of the 1880s. - Their work to provide social services, education, and health care to working-class women and their children was among the earliest Progressive grassroots efforts in the country.

Roosevelt Corollary

- Roosevelt articulated this seeming double standard in a 1904 address before Congress, in a speech - based on the original Monroe Doctrine of the early nineteenth century, which warned European nations of the consequences of their interference in the Caribbean. - In this addition, Roosevelt states that the United States would use military force "as an international police power" to correct any "chronic wrongdoing" by any Latin American nation that might threaten stability in the region - loudly proclaimed the right and obligation of the United States to involve itself whenever necessary. - He used it to establish protectorates over Cuba and Panama, as well as to direct the United States to manage the Dominican Republic's custom service revenues.

Homestead Act

- allowed any head of household, or individual over the age of twenty-one—including unmarried women—to receive a parcel of 160 unappropriated acres for only a nominal filing fee. - All that recipients were required to do in exchange was to "improve the land" within a period of five years of taking possession. - The standards for improvement were minimal: Owners could clear a few acres, build small houses or barns, or maintain livestock. - Under this act, the government transferred over 270 million acres of public domain land to private citizens.

Platt Amendment

- secured the right of the United States to interfere in Cuban affairs if threats to a stable government emerged. - also guaranteed the United States its own naval and coaling station on the island's southern Guantanamo Bay and prohibited Cuba from making treaties with other countries that might eventually threaten their independence. - While Cuba remained an independent nation on paper, in all practicality the United States governed Cuba's foreign policy and economic agreements.

Ku Klux Klan (1920s)

- revived in 1915 in Stone Mountain, GA - unlike the secret terror group of the Reconstruction Era, the Second Ku Klux Klan was a nationwide movement that expressed racism, nativism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Catholicism - supported the bill of National Origins Act of 1924 - strong political influence in some states - dormant since the end of Reconstruction in 1877, experienced a resurgence of attention following the popularity of Birth of A Nation - under the leadership of William Simmons - new Klan now publicly eschewed violence and received mainstream support - Its embrace of Protestantism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-Semitism, and its appeals for stricter immigration policies, gained the group a level of acceptance by nativists with similar prejudices. - not just males - The ranks of the Klan also included many women, with chapters of its women's auxiliary in locations across the country - These women's groups were active in a number of reform-minded activities, such as advocating for prohibition and the distribution of Bibles at public schools. - they also participated in more expressly Klan activities like burning crosses and the public denunciation of Catholics and Jews - By 1924, this Second Ku Klux Klan had six million members in the South, West, and, particularly, the Midwest—more Americans than there were in the nation's labor unions at the time. - While the organization publicly abstained from violence, its member continued to employ intimidation, violence, and terrorism against its victims, particularly in the South. - newfound popularity proved to be fairly short-lived. - Several states effectively combatted the power and influence of the Klan through anti-masking legislation, that is, laws that barred the wearing of masks publicly. - As the organization faced a series of public scandals, such as when the Grand Dragon of Indiana was convicted of murdering a white schoolteacher, prominent citizens became less likely to openly express their support for the group without a shield of anonymity. - influential people and citizen groups explicitly condemned the Klan. - Reinhold Niebuhr, a popular Protestant minister and conservative intellectual in Detroit, admonished the group for its ostensibly Protestant zealotry and anti- Catholicism. - Jewish organizations, especially the Anti-Defamation League, which had been founded just a couple of years before the reemergence of the Klan, amplified Jewish discontent at being the focus of Klan attention. - the NAACP, which had actively sought to ban the film The Birth of a Nation, worked to lobby congress and educate the public on lynchings. - it was the Great Depression that put an end to the Klan. As dues-paying members dwindled, the Klan lost its organizational power and sunk into irrelevance until the 1950s.

Immigration restriction

- "preserve the ideal of American homogeneity," Emergency Immigration Act Bill passed in 1921 - limited immigrants from Europe to 350,000 - 1924, down to 150,000, quotas, National Origin Act - Filipinos = 50 per year and only from Hawaii - Asians were not allowed - No restriction for Western Hemisphere

Farmers' Alliance

- a national conglomeration of 3 different regional farmers' alliances that joined together in 1890 with the goal of furthering farmers' concerns in politics - the Farmers' Alliance brought together over 2.5 million members, 1.5 million white and 1 million black - women had prominent roles

Progressive Party

- formed by the Progressive Republicans who bolted from the Republican Party - Bull Moose Party - When Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in October 1912—the assassin's bullet hit his eyeglass case and only injured him superficially—he turned the near-death experience into a political opportunity. - Insisting upon delivering the speech before seeking medical attention, he told the crowd, "It takes more than a bullet to kill a bull moose!" - a political party started by Roosevelt and other Progressive Republicans who were unhappy with Taft and wanted Roosevelt to run for a nonconsecutive third term in 1912

Manifest Destiny

- found its roots in the long-standing traditions of territorial expansion upon which the nation itself was founded. - This phrase, which implies divine encouragement for territorial expansion, was coined by magazine editor John O'Sullivan in 1845, when he wrote in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review that "it was our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions." - the spirit it invoked would subsequently be used to encourage westward settlement throughout the rest of the nineteenth century.

Scientific management

- solitary and repetitive work style was a difficult adjustment for those used to more collaborative and skill-based work, whether on farms or in crafts shops. - Frederick Taylor's principles - "stop-watch management," where he used stop-watch studies to divide manufacturing tasks into short, repetitive segments.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

After incurring a significant pay cut earlier that year, railroad workers in West Virginia spontaneously went on strike and blocked the tracks - As word spread of the event, railroad workers across the country joined in sympathy, leaving their jobs and committing acts of vandalism to show their frustration with the ownership. - Local citizens, who in many instances were relatives and friends, were largely sympathetic to the railroad workers' demands. - The most significant violent outbreak of the railroad strike occurred in Pittsburgh, beginning on July 19. - governor ordered militiamen from Philadelphia to the Pittsburgh roundhouse to protect railroad property. - militia opened fire to disperse the angry crowd and killed twenty individuals while wounding another twenty-nine. - A riot erupted, resulting in twenty-four hours of looting, violence, fire, and mayhem, and did not die down until the rioters wore out in the hot summer weather. - In a subsequent skirmish with strikers while trying to escape the roundhouse, militiamen killed another twenty individuals. - Violence erupted in Maryland and Illinois as well, and President Hayes eventually sent federal troops into major cities to restore order

Federal Emergency Relief Act

- $500 million in direct grants. - went directly to states to infuse relief agencies with the much-needed resources to help the nearly fifteen million unemployed - illustrate Roosevelt's dual purposes of providing short-term emergency help and building employment opportunities that would strengthen the economy in the long term.

American Federation of Labor

- 1886, twenty different craft unions met to organize a national federation of autonomous craft unions. - led by Samuel Gompers from its inception until his death in 1924. - focused almost all of its efforts on economic gains for its members, seldom straying into political issues other than those that had a direct impact upon working conditions. - kept a strict policy of not interfering in each union's individual business. - Gompers often settled disputes between unions, using the AFL to represent all unions of matters of federal legislation that could affect all workers, such as the eight-hour workday - By 1900, the AFL had 500,000 members; by 1914, its numbers had risen to one million, and by 1920 they claimed four million working members. - excluded many factory workers and thus, even at its height, represented only 15 percent of the non-farm workers in the country. - majority of American workers still lacked support, protection from ownership, and access to upward mobility.

Dawes Severalty Act

- 1887, named after a reformer and senator from Massachusetts, which struck a deadly blow to the Indian way of life - permitted the federal government to divide the lands of any tribe and grant 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land to each head of family, with lesser amounts to single persons and others. - permitted the federal government to hold an individual Indian's newly acquired land in trust for twenty-five years. - Indians were given the most arid, useless land

Homestead Steel Strike

- 1892 - Homestead factory of the Carnegie Steel Company, workers represented by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers enjoyed relatively good relations with management until Henry C. Frick became the factory manager in 1889. - When the union contract was up for renewal in 1892, Carnegie—long a champion of living wages for his employees—had left for Scotland and trusted Frick—noted for his strong anti-union stance—to manage the negotiations. - When no settlement was reached by June 29, Frick ordered a lockout of the workers and hired three hundred Pinkerton detectives to protect company property. - On July 6, as the Pinkertons arrived on barges on the river, union workers along the shore engaged them in a gunfight that resulted in the deaths of three Pinkertons and six workers. - One week later, the Pennsylvania militia arrived to escort strike-breakers into the factory to resume production. - Although the lockout continued until November, it ended with the union defeated and individual workers asking for their jobs back. - A subsequent failed assassination attempt by anarchist Alexander Berkman on Frick further strengthened public animosity towards the union.

Niagara Movement

- 1905, a group of prominent civil rights leaders, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, met in a small hotel on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls—where segregation laws did not bar them from hotel accommodations—to discuss what immediate steps were needed for equal rights - drafting the "Declaration of Principles," which called for immediate political, economic, and social equality for African Americans. - These rights included universal suffrage, compulsory education, and the elimination of the convict lease system in which tens of thousands of blacks had endured slavery-like conditions in southern road construction, mines, prisons, and penal farms since the end of Reconstruction. - Within a year, Niagara chapters had sprung up in twenty-one states across the country. - By 1908, internal fights over the role of women in the fight for African American equal rights lessened the interest in the Niagara Movement.

National Civil Liberties Bureau

- 1917, Roger Baldwin formed-a forerunner to the American Civil Liberties Union, which was founded in 1920 - to challenge the government's policies against wartime dissent and conscientious objection - 1919, the case of Schenck v. United States went to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of the Espionage and Sedition Acts. The case concerned Charles Schenck, a leader in the Socialist Party of Philadelphia, who had distributed fifteen thousand leaflets, encouraging young men to avoid conscription. The court ruled that during a time of war, the federal government was justified in passing such laws to quiet dissenters.

Charles Lindbergh

- 1927, became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from New York to Paris in 33 hours. - made him an international hero - upon return, Americans greeted him with a ticker-tape parade—a celebration in which shredded paper thrown from surrounding buildings creates a festive, flurry effect. - His flight, which he completed in the monoplane Spirit of St. Louis, seemed like a triumph of individualism in modern mass society and exemplified Americans' ability to conquer the air with new technology. - Following his success, the small airline industry began to blossom, fully coming into its own in the 1930s, as companies like Boeing and Ford developed airplanes designed specifically for passenger air transport. - As technologies in engine and passenger compartment design improved, air travel became more popular. In 1934, the number of U.S. domestic air passengers was just over 450,000 annually. - By the end of the decade, that number had increased to nearly two million. - celebrity, business more than a businessman

Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis

- As he approached the rostrum to speak before historians gathered in Chicago in 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner appeared nervous. - He was presenting a conclusion that would alarm all who believed that westward expansion had fostered the nation's principles of democracy. - His conclusion: The frontier—the encounter between European traditions and the native wilderness—had played a fundamental role in shaping American character, but the American frontier no longer existed. - Turner's statement raised questions. How would Americans maintain their unique political culture and innovative spirit in the absence of the frontier? How would the nation expand its economy if it could no longer expand its territory? - Later historians would see Turner's Frontier Thesis as deeply flawed, a gross mischaracterization of the West. - But the young historian's work greatly influenced politicians and thinkers of the day. - Like a muckraker, Turner exposed the problem; others found a solution by seeking out new frontiers in the creation of an American empire.

Immigration Restriction League

- Boston, 1894 - Chinese males, 1850s, railroads, mines - Chinese Exclusion act - 105, 000 West Coast - Yick Wo vs. Hopkins - Rocksprings, WI, 26 people died

Scottsboro Boys

- 1931, 9 black boys were riding the rails and were arrested for vagrancy and disorderly conduct after an altercation with some white travelers on the train - Two young white women, who had been dressed as boys and traveling with a group of white boys, came forward and said that the black boys had raped them - tried in Scottsboro, Alabama, illuminated decades of racial hatred and illustrated the injustice of the court system. - Despite significant evidence that the women had not been raped at all, along with one of the women subsequently recanting her testimony, the all-white jury quickly convicted the boys and sentenced all but one of them to death - Communist Party of the United States offered to handle the case and sought retrial; the NAACP later joined in this effort - case was tried three separate times - series of trials and retrials, appeals, and overturned convictions shone a spotlight on a system that provided poor legal counsel and relied on all-white juries - October 1932, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the Communist Party's defense attorneys that the defendants had been denied adequate legal representation at the original trial, and that due process as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment had been denied as a result of the exclusion of any potential black jurors - most of the accused received lengthy prison terms and subsequent parole, but avoided the death penalty. - The Scottsboro case ultimately laid some of the early groundwork for the modern American civil rights movement. - Alabama granted posthumous pardons to all defendants in 2013. - extreme injustice of the trial, particularly given the age of the boys and the inadequacy of the testimony against them, garnered national and international attention

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

- 1932, as conditions worsened, Hoover eventually relaxed his opposition to federal relief and formed RFC because it was election year and he wanted to run again - not a form of direct relief to the American people in greatest need - $2 billion in taxpayer money to rescue banks, credit unions, and insurance companies - goal was to boost confidence in the nation's financial institutions by ensuring that they were on solid footing - flawed on a number of levels - the program only lent money to banks with sufficient collateral, which meant that most of the aid went to large banks. - of the first $61 million loaned, $41 million went to just three banks. Small town and rural banks got almost nothing. - confidence in financial institutions was not the primary concern of most Americans. They needed food and jobs. Many had no money to put into the banks, no matter how confident they were that the banks were safe - boost public confidence in financial institutions by ensuring that they were on solid footing

Agricultural Adjustment Act

- 1933-1935 - farm program to raise process by curtailing production - one of two of the most significant pieces of the New Deal - Farmers received $4.5 million through relief payments. - larger part of the program paid southern farmers to reduce their production: Wheat, cotton, corn, hogs, tobacco, rice, and milk farmers were all eligible. - Passed into law on May 12, 1933, it was designed to boost prices to a level that would alleviate rural poverty and restore profitability to American agriculture. - These price increases would be achieved by encouraging farmers to limit production in order to increase demand while receiving cash payments in return. - Corn producers would receive thirty cents per bushel for corn they did not grow. - Hog farmers would get five dollars per head for hogs not raised. - The program would be financed by a tax on processing plants, passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices - a bold attempt to help farmers address the systemic problems of overproduction and lower commodity prices - A bumper crop in 1933, combined with the slow implementation of the AAA, led the government to order the plowing under of ten million acres of cotton, and the butchering of six million baby pigs and 200,000 sows - the price of cotton increased from six to twelve cents per pound—this move was deeply problematic. - Critics saw it as the ultimate example of corrupt capitalism: a government destroying food, while its citizens were starving, in order to drive up prices. - By the spring of 1934, farmers had formed over four thousand local committees, with more than three million farmers agreeing to participate. - They signed individual contracts agreeing to take land out of production in return for government payments, and checks began to arrive by the end of 1934. - For some farmers, especially those with large farms, the program spelled relief.

Works Progress Administration

- 1935-1943 - Almost one-third of those funds ($4.8 billion for Emergency Relief Appropriation Act) were invested in a new relief agency - Harry Hopkins, formerly head of the CWA, took on the WPA and ran it until 1943. - the program provided employment relief to over eight million Americans, or approximately 20 percent of the country's workforce. - funded the construction of more than 2,500 hospitals, 5,900 schools, 570,000 miles of road, and more. - created the Federal One Project, which employed approximately forty thousand artists in theater, art, music, and writing. They produced state murals, guidebooks, concerts, and drama performances all around the country - the project funded the collection of oral histories, including those of former slaves, which provided a valuable addition to the nation's understanding of slave life. - included the National Youth Administration (NYA), which provided work-study jobs to over 500,000 college students and four million high school students.

Muckrakers

- A group of journalists and writers - provided an important spark that ignited the Progressive movement. - different from "yellow" journalists - exposed problems in American society and urged the public to identify solutions - corrupt machine politics, poor working conditions in factories, or the questionable living conditions of the working class (among others) - shined a light on the problem and provoked outraged responses from Americans. - President Theodore Roosevelt knew many of these investigative journalists well and considered himself a Progressive. - unhappy with the way they forced agendas into national politics, he was the one who first gave them the disparaging nickname "muckrakers," invoking an ill-spirited haracter obsessed with filth from The Pilgrim's Progress, a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan - investigative journalists and authors who wrote about social ills, from child labor to the corrupt business practices of big businesses, and urged the public to take action

Carlisle Indian School

- Beginning in the 1880s, clergymen, government officials, and social workers all worked to assimilate Indians into American life. - The government permitted reformers to remove Indian children from their homes and place them in boarding schools - taught to abandon their tribal traditions and embrace the tools of American productivity, modesty, and sanctity through total immersion. - Such schools not only acculturated Indian boys and girls, but also provided vocational training for males and domestic science classes for females. - Adults were also targeted by religious reformers, specifically evangelical Protestants as well as a number of Catholics, who sought to convince Indians to abandon their language, clothing, and social customs for a more Euro- American lifestyle

John Maynard Keynes

- British economist who espoused a new economic theory - argued that deficit spending was necessary in advanced capitalist economies in order to maintain employment and stimulate consumer spending. - Convinced of the necessity of such an approach, Roosevelt asked Congress in the spring of 1938 for additional emergency relief spending. - Congress immediately authorized $33 billion for PWA and WPA work projects. - Although World War II would provide the final impetus for lasting economic recovery, Roosevelt's willingness to adapt in 1938 avoided another disaster

Espionage and Sedition Acts

- E: 1917, prohibited giving aid to the enemy by spying, or espionage, as well as any public comments that opposed the American war effort - fines and imprisonment up to 20 yrs - S: 1918, prohibited any criticism or disloyal language against the federal government and its policies, the U.S. Constitution, the military uniform, or the American flag. - More than two thousand persons were charged with violating these laws, and many received prison sentences of up to twenty years. - Immigrants faced deportation as punishment for their dissent. - Not since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 had the federal government so infringed on the freedom of speech of loyal American citizens. - over one thousand people were convicted for their violation, primarily under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. - many more war critics were frightened into silence. - One notable prosecution was that of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs, who received a ten-year prison sentence for encouraging draft resistance, which, under the Espionage Act, was considered "giving aid to the enemy." - Prominent Socialist Victor Berger was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act and subsequently twice denied his seat in Congress, to which he had been properly elected by the citizens of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. - One of the more outrageous prosecutions was that of a film producer who released a film about the American Revolution: Prosecutors found the film seditious, and a court convicted the producer to ten years in prison for portraying the British, who were now American allies, as the obedient soldiers of a monarchical empire. - Congress ultimately repealed most of the Espionage and Sedition Acts in 1921, and several who were imprisoned for violation of those acts were then quickly released.

Direct primary

- Grassroots progressives - 1st law - allowed party members to vote directly for a candidate, with the nomination going to the one with the most votes. - This was the beginning of the current system of holding a primary election before a general election. - South Carolina adopted this system for statewide elections in 1896; in 1901, - Florida became the first state to use the direct primary in nominations for the presidency. - It is the method currently used in three-quarters of U.S. states. - a political reform that allowed for the nomination of candidates through a direct vote by party members, rather than by the choice of delegates at conventions; in the South, this strengthened all-white solidarity within the Democratic Party

Hoover and rugged individualism

- Hoover was unprepared for scope of depression crisis - his limited response did not help people - steps he took were very much in keeping with his philosophy of limited government, a philosophy that many had shared with him until the upheavals of the Great Depression made it clear that a more direct government response was required - stubborn in his refusal to give "handouts" = government aid - called for a spirit of volunteerism - "tighten" their belts - steps were too little, too late, he created programs for putting people back to work and helping beleaguered local and state charities with aid - programs = small in scale and highly specific, only touched a small percentage in need - "Hoovervilles" and "Hoover blankets" = American's anger at Hoover's unwillingness to provide direct aid

IWW

- Industrial Workers of the World, founded in 1905, whose emphasis on worker empowerment deviated from the more paternalistic approach of Progressive reformers. - some within the Socialist Party favored a more radical political stance than Debs's craft union structure. As a result, William "Big Bill" Haywood formed the more radical IWW, or Wobblies, in 1905. - reflected elements of the Progressive desire for democracy and social justice. - wanted to bring about radical change through political action

Fourteen Points

- January 1918—a full five months before U.S. military forces fired their first shot in the war, and eleven months before the actual armistice—Wilson announced his postwar peace plan before a joint session of Congress - called for openness in all matters of diplomacy and trade, specifically, free trade, freedom of the seas, an end to secret treaties and negotiations, promotion of self-determination of all nations, and more.

Federal Reserve Act

- Late in 1913, Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act to regulate the banking industry and establish a federal banking system - Designed to remove power over interest rates from the hands of private bankers, the new system created twelve privately owned regional reserve banks regulated by a presidentially appointed Federal Reserve Board. - The Board, known informally as the Fed, regulated the interest rate at which reserve banks loaned or distributed money to other banks around the country. - Thus, when economic times were challenging, such as during a recession, the Fed could lower this "discount rate" and encourage more borrowing, which put more currency in circulation for people to spend or invest. - Conversely, the Fed could curb inflationary trends with interest hikes that discouraged borrowing. - This system is still the basis for the country's modern banking model.

Haymarket affair

- May 4, 1886, in Chicago's Haymarket Square - an anarchist group had gathered in response to a death at an earlier nationwide demonstration for the eight-hour workday. - At the earlier demonstration, clashes between police and strikers at the International Harvester Company of Chicago led to the death of a striking worker. - The anarchist group decided to hold a protest the following night in Haymarket Square, and, although the protest was quiet, the police arrived armed for conflict. - Someone in the crowd threw a bomb at the police, killing one officer and injuring another. - The seven anarchists speaking at the protest were arrested and charged with murder. - They were sentenced to death, though two were later pardoned and one committed suicide in prison before his execution.

Features of progressivism

- Most strove for a perfection of democracy, which required the expansion of suffrage to worthy citizens and the restriction of political participation for those considered "unfit" on account of health, education, or race. - Progressives also agreed that democracy had to be balanced with an emphasis on efficiency, a reliance on science and technology, and deference to the expertise of professionals. - They repudiated party politics but looked to government to regulate the modern market economy. - And they saw themselves as the agents of social justice and reform, as well as the stewards and guides of workers and the urban poor

NAACP

- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909 - Du Bois served as the influential director of publications for the NAACP from its inception until 1933. - the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization formed in 1909 by an interracial coalition including W. E. B. Du Bois and Florence Kelley

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

- On March 25 of that year, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company on the eighth floor of the Asch building in New York City, resulting in the deaths of 146 garment workers, most of them young, immigrant women. - Management had previously blockaded doors and fire escapes in an effort to control workers and keep out union organizers; in the blaze, many died due to the crush of bodies trying to evacuate the building. - Others died when they fell off the flimsy fire escape or jumped to their deaths to escape the flames. - This tragedy provided the National Consumers League with the moral argument to convince politicians of the need to pass workplace safety laws and codes. - William Shepherd

Jacob Riis

- Progressive journalist and photographer - wrote book, How the Other Half Lives (1890) - used photojournalism to capture the dismal and dangerous living conditions in working-class tenements in New York City

Harlem Renaissance

- Revived by the wartime migration and fired up by the white violence of the postwar riots, urban blacks developed a strong cultural expression in the 1920s - rediscovery of black culture, African American artists and writers formulated an independent black culture and encouraged racial pride, rejecting any emulation of white American culture. - rejected prejudice and stereotypes, celebrated African American experiences - Claude McKay's poem "If We Must Die" called on African Americans to start fighting back in the wake of the Red Summer riots of 1919 - Langston Hughes, often nicknamed the "poet laureate" of the movement, invoked sacrifice and the just cause of civil rights in "The Colored Soldier," while another author of the movement, Zora Neale Hurston, celebrated the life and dialect of rural blacks in a fictional, all-black town in Florida. Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God was only published posthumously in 1937.

Franz Ferdinand

- Serbian nationalist murdered the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo on June 29, 1914 - led to WWI beginning in Europe in 1914 - Bosnia's capital of Sarajevo, Gavrilo Princip and his accomplices assassinated the Austro-Hungarian archduke in their fight for a pan-Slavic nation. - Serbia failed to accede to Austro-Hungarian demands in the wake of the archduke's murder, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia with the confidence that it had the backing of Germany - brought Russia into the conflict, due to a treaty in which they had agreed to defend Serbia. - Germany followed suit by declaring war on Russia, fearing that Russia and France would seize this opportunity to move on Germany if it did not take the offensive. - eventual German invasion of Belgium drew Great Britain into the war, followed by the attack of the Ottoman Empire on Russia. - By the end of August 1914, it seemed as if Europe had dragged the entire world into war.

Cattle Kingdom

- The completion of the first transcontinental railroad and subsequent railroad lines changed the game dramatically. - Cattle ranchers and eastern businessmen realized that it was profitable to round up the wild steers and transport them by rail to be sold in the East for as much as thirty to fifty dollars per head. - These ranchers and businessmen began the rampant speculation in the cattle industry that made, and lost, many fortunes.

Zimmerman Telegram

- The final element that led to American involvement in World War I - British intelligence intercepted and decoded a top-secret telegram from German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German ambassador to Mexico, instructing the latter to invite Mexico to join the war effort on the German side, should the United States declare war on Germany. - It further went on to encourage Mexico to invade the United States if such a declaration came to pass, as Mexico's invasion would create a diversion and permit Germany a clear path to victory. - In exchange, Zimmermann offered to return to Mexico land that was previously lost to the United States in the Mexican-American War, including Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas

Boxer Rebellion

- The notes were invoked barely a year later, when a group of Chinese insurgents, the Righteous and Harmonious Fists—also known as the Boxer Rebellion (1899)—fought to expel all western nations and their influences from China - The United States, along with Great Britain and Germany, sent over two thousand troops to withstand the rebellion. - The troops signified American commitment to the territorial integrity of China, albeit one flooded with American products

The Birth of a Nation

- The sense that the country was also facing a threat from within its borders and its own citizenry was also prevalent. - clearly reflected in the popularity of the 1915 motion picture, D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation - Based on The Clansman, a 1915 novel by Thomas Dixon, the film offers a racist, white-centric view of the Reconstruction Era. - depicts noble white southerners made helpless by northern carpetbaggers who empower freed slaves to abuse white men and violate women. - heroes of the film were the Ku Klux Klan, who saved the whites, the South, and the nation. - While the film was reviled by many African Americans and the NAACP for its historical inaccuracies and its maligning of freed slaves, it was celebrated by many whites who accepted the historical revisionism as an accurate portrayal of Reconstruction Era oppression. - After viewing the film, President Wilson reportedly remarked, "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

Sixteenth Amendment

- To offset the potential loss of federal revenue, this new law reinstituted the federal income tax, which followed the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. - This first income tax required married couples who earned $4000 or more, and single people who earned $3000 or more, to pay a 1-percent, graduated income tax, with the tax rate getting progressively higher for those who earned more.

Mitchell Palmer

- U.S. attorney general - one bomb destroyed the entrance to his house in Washington - raided radical meeting houses in many major cities, attacking any alleged radicals they found inside. - November 1919, Palmer's new assistant in charge of the Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, organized nationwide raids on radical headquarters in twelve cities around the country. - Subsequent "Palmer raids" resulted in the arrests of four thousand alleged American radicals who were detained for weeks in overcrowded cells. - Almost 250 of those arrested were subsequently deported on board a ship dubbed "the Soviet Ark"

War Industries Board

- Wilson created, run by Bernard Baruch, to ensure adequate military supplies. - had the power to direct shipments of raw materials, as well as to control government contracts with private producers. - Baruch used lucrative contracts with guaranteed profits to encourage several private firms to shift their production over to wartime materials. - For those firms that refused to cooperate, Baruch's government control over raw materials provided him with the necessary leverage to convince them to join the war effort, willingly or not.

War Labor Board

- Wilson only briefly investigated the longstanding animosity between labor and management before ordering the creation of the National Labor War Board in April 1918 - Quick negotiations with Gompers and the AFL resulted in a promise: Organized labor would make a "no-strike pledge" for the duration of the war, in exchange for the U.S. government's protection of workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively. - federal government kept its promise and promoted the adoption of an eight-hour workday (which had first been adopted by government employees in 1868), a living wage for all workers, and union membership. - union membership skyrocketed during the war, from 2.6 million members in 1916 to 4.1 million in 1919. - American workers received better working conditions and wages, as a result of the country's participation in the war. - their economic gains were limited. - While prosperity overall went up during the war, it was enjoyed more by business owners and corporations than by the workers themselves. - Even though wages increased, inflation offset most of the gains. - Prices in the United States increased an average of 15-20 percent annually between 1917 and 1920. Individual purchasing power actually declined during the war due to the substantially higher cost of living. - Business profits, in contrast, increased by nearly a third during the war.

Election of 1912

- Wilson won with over six million votes, with four million votes going to Roosevelt and three and one-half million for Taft. - The internal split among Republicans not only cost them the White House but control of the Senate as well—and Democrats had already won a House majority in 1910. - Wilson won the presidency with just 42 percent of the popular vote, which meant that he would have to sway a large number of voters should he have any aspirations for a second term.

The Grange

- a farmers' organization, launched in 1867, which grew to over 1.5 million members in less than a decade - One of the first efforts to organize farmers came with Oliver Hudson Kelly's creation of the Patrons of Husbandry - Kelly believed that farmers could best help themselves by creating farmers' cooperatives in which they could pool resources and obtain better shipping rates, as well as prices on seeds, fertilizer, machinery, and other necessary inputs. - These cooperatives, he believed, would let them self-regulate production as well as collectively obtain better rates from railroad companies and other businesses. - Granger Laws, which regulated some railroad rates along with the prices charged by grain elevator operators. - The movement also created a political party—the Greenback Party,

Robber barons

- a negative term that connoted the belief that they exploited workers and bent laws to succeed. - Regardless of how they were perceived, these businessmen and the companies they created revolutionized American industry. - some of the millionaires - The exploitation of these new technologies provided opportunities for tremendous growth, and business entrepreneurs with financial backing and the right mix of business acumen and ambition could make their fortunes - business dealings were frequently shady and exploitative. - Midwest farmers referred to them as this

Subtreasury Plan

- a plan that called for storing crops in government warehouses for a brief period of time, during which the federal government would provide loans to farmers worth 80% of the current crop prices, releasing the crops for sale when prices rose - armers would have immediate cash on hand with which to settle debts and purchase goods, while their crops sat in warehouses and farm prices increased due to this control over supply at the market. - When market prices rose sufficiently high enough, the farmer could withdraw his crops, sell at the higher price, repay the government loan, and still have profit remaining.

Populist Party

- a political party formed in 1890 that sought to represent the rights of primarily farmers but eventually all workers in regional and federal elections - 1st reform group - 1892, ran James Weaver for president - formed by the alliance - People's party - had modest success, particularly in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, where they succeeded in electing several state legislators, one governor, and a handful of congressmen. - As the 1892 presidential election approached, the Populists chose to model themselves after the Democratic and Republican Parties in the hope that they could shock the country with a "third-party" victory.

W.E.B. DuBois

- a professor at the all-black Atlanta University and the first African American with a doctorate from Harvard, emerged as the prominent spokesperson for what would later be dubbed the Niagara Movement - he had grown wary of Booker T. Washington's calls for African Americans to accommodate white racism and focus solely on self-improvement. - Du Bois, and others alongside him, wished to carve a more direct path towards equality that drew on the political leadership and litigation skills of the black, educated elite, which he termed the "talented tenth."

Coxey's Army

- a spring 1894 protest, led by businessman Jacob Coxey, to advocate for public works jobs for the unemployed by marching on Washington, DC - example of government's failure to act - led a march of unemployed Ohioans from Cincinnati to Washington, DC, where leaders of the group urged Congress to pass public works legislation for the federal government to hire unemployed workers to build roads and other public projects. - From the original one hundred protesters, the march grew five hundred strong as others joined along the route to the nation's capital. - Upon their arrival, not only were their cries for federal relief ignored, but Coxey and several other marchers were arrested for trespassing on the grass outside the U.S. Capitol. - Frustration over the event led many angry workers to consider supporting the Populist Party in subsequent elections.

"Big stick" foreign policy

- allegedly based on a favorite African proverb, "speak softly, and carry a big stick, and you will go far" - At the crux of his foreign policy was a thinly veiled threat. - Roosevelt believed that in light of the country's recent military successes, it was unnecessary to use force to achieve foreign policy goals, so long as the military could threaten force. - This rationale also rested on the young president's philosophy, which he termed the "strenuous life," and that prized challenges overseas as opportunities to instill American men with the resolve and vigor they allegedly had once acquired in the Trans-Mississippi West. - after President Mckinely

Lusitania

- attack on the British passenger ship, RMS Lusitania, on its way from New York to Liverpool on May 7, 1915. - The German Embassy in the United States had announced that this ship would be subject to attack for its cargo of ammunition: an allegation that later proved accurate. - almost 1,200 civilians died in the attack, including 128 Americans. - attack horrified the world, galvanizing support in England and beyond for the war - more than any other event, would test President Wilson's desire to stay out of what had been a largely European conflict.

Wagner Act

- benefit of industrial workers - also known as the National Labor Relations Act - Roosevelt signed into law - protections previously afforded to workers under the NIRA were inadvertently lost when the Supreme Court struck down the original law due to larger regulatory concerns, leaving workers vulnerable. Roosevelt sought to salvage this important piece of labor legislation - act created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to once again protect American workers' right to unionize and bargain collectively, as well as to provide a federal vehicle for labor grievances to be heard. - roundly criticized by the Republican Party and factory owners, it withstood several challenges and eventually received constitutional sanction by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937. - The law received the strong support of John L. Lewis and the Congress of Industrial Organizations who had long sought government protection of industrial unionism, from the time they split from the American Federation of Labor in 1935 over disputes on whether to organize workers along craft or industrial lines. - Lewis began a widespread publicity campaign urging industrial workers to join "the president's union." - The relationship was mutually beneficial to Roosevelt, who subsequently received the endorsement of Lewis's United Mine Workers union in the 1936 presidential election, along with a sizeable $500,000 campaign contribution. - permanently established government-secured workers' rights and protections from their employers, and it marked the beginning of labor's political support for the Democratic Party.

Huey Long

- biggest threat to president - charismatic populist - corrupt but beloved Louisiana senator, Huey "Kingfish" Long - His disapproval of Roosevelt came in part from his own ambitions for higher office - Long stated that the president was not doing enough to help people and proposed his own Share Our Wealth program - Long recommended the liquidation of all large personal fortunes in order to fund direct payments to less fortunate Americans. - He foresaw giving $5,000 to every family, $2,500 to every worker, as well as a series of elderly pensions and education funds - by 1935, Long had a significant following of over four million people. - If he had not been assassinated by the son-in-law of a local political rival, he may well have been a contender against Roosevelt for the 1936 presidential nomination. - governor from 1928 to 1932 - 1932, member of U.S. Senate

Pullman Strike

- company town of Pullman, Illinois, where Pullman "sleeper" cars were manufactured for America's railroads. - company owner George Pullman fired three thousand of the factory's six thousand employees, cut the remaining workers' wages by an average of 25 percent, and then continued to charge the same high rents and prices in the company homes and store where workers were required to live and shop. - Workers began the strike on May 11, when Eugene V. Debs, the president of the American Railway Union, ordered rail workers throughout the country to stop handling any trains that had Pullman cars on them. - In practicality, almost all of the trains fell into this category, and, therefore, the strike created a nationwide train stoppage, right on the heels of the depression of 1893. - Seeking justification for sending in federal troops, President Grover Cleveland turned to his attorney general, who came up with a solution: Attach a mail car to every train and then send in troops to ensure the delivery of the mail. The government also ordered the strike to end; when Debs refused, he was arrested and imprisoned for his interference with the delivery of U.S. mail. - The strike ended abruptly on July 13, with no labor gains and much lost in the way of public opinion. - ARU, Penn militia

Committee of Public Information

- created by Wilson administration - under director George Creel, a former journalist, just days after the United States declared war on Germany. - Creel employed artists, speakers, writers, and filmmakers to develop a propaganda machine. - goal was to encourage all Americans to make sacrifices during the war and, equally importantly, to hate all things German. - Through efforts such as the establishment of "loyalty leagues" in ethnic immigrant communities, Creel largely succeeded in molding an anti-German sentiment around the country. - schools banned the teaching of the German language and some restaurants refused to serve frankfurters, sauerkraut, or hamburgers, instead serving "liberty dogs with liberty cabbage" and "liberty sandwiches." - Symphonies refused to perform music written by German composers. - hatred of Germans grew so widespread that, at one point, at a circus, audience members cheered when, in an act gone horribly wrong, a Russian bear mauled a German animal trainer (whose ethnicity was more a part of the act than reality).

Taylorism

- emphasis on efficiency, the use of science, and the reliance on experts - scientific management became known - not widely popular among workers who resented managerial authority and the loss of autonomy over their work. - Many workers went on strikes in response, although some favored Taylor's methods, since their pay was directly linked to the productivity increases that his methods achieved and since increased efficiency allowed companies to charge consumers lower prices. - a system named for Fredrick Winslow Taylor, aimed at improving factory efficiency rates through the principle of standardization; Taylor's model limited workers to repetitive tasks, reducing human contact and opportunities to think or collaborate

Bonus Army

- end of Hoover's presidency, most notable protest - spring of 1932, 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington to demand early payment of their veteran bonuses (not due until 1945). - Bonus Expeditionary Force - group camped out in vacant federal buildings and set up camps in Anacostia Flats near the Capitol building - Many veterans remained in the city in protest for nearly two months, although the U.S. Senate officially rejected their request in July - ordered the police to empty the buildings and clear out the camps, and in the exchange that followed, police fired into the crowd, killing two veterans - Hoover then ordered General Douglas MacArthur, along with his aides, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton, to forcibly remove the veterans from Anacostia Flats - military burned down the shantytown and injured dozens of people, including a twelve-week-old infant who was killed when accidentally struck by a tear gas canister

First Treaty of Fort Laramie

- established distinct tribal borders, essentially codifying the reservation system. - In return for annual payments of $50,000 to the tribes (originally guaranteed for fifty years, but later revised to last for only ten) as well as the hollow promise of noninterference from westward settlers, Indians agreed to stay clear of the path of settlement. - Due to government corruption, many annuity payments never reached the tribes, and some reservations were left destitute and near starving. - In addition, within a decade, as the pace and number of western settlers increased, even designated reservations became prime locations for farms and mining. - Rather than negotiating new treaties, settlers—oftentimes backed by local or state militia units—simply attacked the tribes out of fear or to force them from the land. - Some Indians resisted, only to then face massacres.

Francis Townsend

- felt that Roosevelt had not done enough - retired dentist, Dr. of California - proposed an expansive pension plan for the elderly - Townsend Plan = gained great deal of popularity - recommended paying every citizen over sixty who retired from work the sum of $200 per month, provided they spend it in thirty days

Battle of Wounded Knee

- final episode in the so-called Indian Wars occurred in 1890 - South Dakota. - On their reservation, the Sioux had begun to perform the "Ghost Dance," which told of an Indian Messiah who would deliver the tribe from its hardship, with such frequency that white settlers began to worry that another uprising would occur. - The militia prepared to round up the Sioux. - The tribe, after the death of Sitting Bull, who had been arrested, shot, and killed in 1890, prepared to surrender at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890. - Although the accounts are unclear, an apparent accidental rifle discharge by a young male Indian preparing to lay down his weapon led the U.S. soldiers to begin firing indiscriminately upon the Indians. - What little resistance the Indians mounted with a handful of concealed rifles at the outset of the fight diminished quickly, with the troops eventually massacring between 150 and 300 men, women, and children. - The U.S. troops suffered twenty-five fatalities, some of which were the result of their own crossfire.

"New Woman"

- flappers: emancipated, public freedom, wore makeup, drank, smoked in public, wore revealing clothes - the search for new styles of dress and new forms of entertainment like jazz was part of a larger women's rights movement. - early 1920s, especially with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing full voting rights to women, was a period that witnessed the expansion of women's political power. - The public flaunting of social and sexual norms by flappers represented an attempt to match gains in political equality with gains in the social sphere. - Women were increasingly leaving the Victorian era norms of the previous generation behind, as they broadened the concept of women's liberation to include new forms of social expression such as dance, fashion, women's clubs, and forays into college and the professions. - women's participation in the labor force increased steadily. - most were paid less than men for the same type of work based on the rationale that they did not have to support a family. - While the employment of single and unmarried women had largely won social acceptance, married women often suffered the stigma that they were working for pin money—frivolous additional discretionary income.

Chinese Exclusion Act

- forbade further Chinese immigration into the United States for ten years. - The ban was later extended on multiple occasions until its repeal in 1943. - Eventually, some Chinese immigrants returned to China. - Those who remained were stuck in the lowest-paying, most menial jobs. - Several found assistance through the creation of benevolent associations designed to both support Chinese communities and defend them against political and legal discrimination; however, the history of Chinese immigrants to the United States remained largely one of deprivation and hardship well into the twentieth century.

Nineteenth Amendment

- giving women the right to vote - prohibited all efforts to deny the right to vote on the basis of sex. - took effect in time for American women to vote in the presidential election of 1920. - the abusive treatment of suffragist hunger-strikers in prison, women's important contribution to the war effort, and the arguments of his suffragist daughter Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre moved President Wilson to understand women's right to vote as an ethical mandate for a true democracy.

Alice Paul

- joined NAWSA in 1912, sought to expand the scope of the organization as well as to adopt more direct protest tactics to draw greater media attention. - When others in the group were unwilling to move in her direction, Paul split from the NAWSA to create the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, later renamed the National Woman's Party, in 1913. - Known as the Silent Sentinels, Paul and her group picketed outside the White House for nearly two years, starting in 1917. - In the latter stages of their protests, many women, including Paul, were arrested and thrown in jail, where they staged a hunger strike as self-proclaimed political prisoners. - Prison guards ultimately force-fed Paul to keep her alive

Emilio Aguinaldo

- led Filipino rebels - fought back against American forces stationed there. - The Filipinos' war for independence lasted three years, with over four thousand American and twenty thousand Filipino combatant deaths; the civilian death toll is estimated as high as 250,000.

National Recovery Administration

- mandated that businesses accept a code that included minimum wages and maximum work hours. - to protect workers from potentially unfair agreements among factory owners, every industry had its own "code of fair practice" that included workers' rights to organize and use collective bargaining to ensure that wages rose with prices - Headed by General Hugh S. Johnson, the NRA worked to create over five hundred different codes for different industries. - While codes for key industries such as automotive and steel made sense, Johnson pushed to create similar codes for dog food manufacturers, those who made shoulder pads for women's clothing, and even burlesque shows

"White man's burden"

- many of these reformers believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was mentally superior to others and owed the presumed less evolved populations their stewardship and social uplift - a service the British writer Rudyard Kipling termed

The Grapes of Wrath

- thousands of farmers packed up what they could and walked or drove away from the land they thought would be their future. - communal strengths and needs over individual strengths and needs - They, along with other displaced farmers from throughout the Great Plains, became known as Okies. - - Okies were an emblem of the failure of the American breadbasket to deliver on its promise - their story was made famous in John Steinbeck's novel

Lost Generation

- migration of African Americans from the South. - writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Edith Wharton, and John Dos Passos expressed their hopelessness and despair by skewering the middle class in their work. - They felt alienated from society, so they tried to escape (some literally) to criticize it. - Many lived an expatriate life in Paris for the decade, although others went to Rome or Berlin. - writer that best exemplifies the mood of the 1920s was F. Scott Fitzgerald, now considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. - His debut novel, This Side of Paradise, describes a generation of youth "grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faith in man shaken." - The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, exposed the doom that always follows the fun, fast-lived life.

Gospel of Wealth

- modest lives - Carnegie's famous essay, borrowed Herbert Spencer's theory of social darwinism, which held that society developed much like plant or animal life through a process of evolution in which the most fit and capable enjoyed the greatest material and social success. - funding hospitals, libraries, college, and the arts

Knights of Labor

- more able to attract a sympathetic following than the Molly Maguires and others by widening its base and appealing to more members. - Philadelphia tailor Uriah Stephens grew the KOL from a small presence during the Panic of 1873 to an organization of national importance by 1878. - That was the year the KOL held their first general assembly, where they adopted a broad reform platform, including a renewed call for an eight-hour workday, equal pay regardless of gender, the elimination of convict labor, and the creation of greater cooperative enterprises with worker ownership of businesses. - Much of the KOL's strength came from its concept of "One Big Union"—the idea that it welcomed all wage workers, regardless of occupation, with the exception of doctors, lawyers, and bankers. - welcomed women, African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants, of all trades and skill levels.

Alfred Thayer Mahan

- naval strategist - instrumental in the country's move toward foreign expansion, and writer Brooks Adams further dramatized the consequences of the nation's loss of its frontier in his The Law of Civilization and Decay in 1895

Treaty of Versailles

- officially concluded WWI - resembled little of Wilson's original Fourteen Points. - The Japanese, French, and British succeeded in carving up many of Germany's colonial holdings in Africa and Asia. - dissolution of the Ottoman Empire created new nations under the quasi-colonial rule of France and Great Britain, such as Iraq and Palestine. - France gained much of the disputed territory along their border with Germany - U.S. never became official signatory - passage of a "war guilt clause" that demanded Germany take public responsibility for starting and prosecuting the war that led to so much death and destruction. - Great Britain led the charge that resulted in Germany agreeing to pay reparations in excess of $33 billion to the Allies. - As for Bolshevik Russia, Wilson had agreed to send American troops to their northern region to protect Allied supplies and holdings there, while also participating in an economic blockade designed to undermine Lenin's power. - This move would ultimately have the opposite effect of galvanizing popular support for the Bolsheviks. - The sole piece of the original Fourteen Points that Wilson successfully fought to keep intact was the creation of a League of Nations.

John D. Rockefeller

- oil tycoon - businessman who grew their respective businesses to a scale and scope that were unprecedented. - company changed how Americans lived and worked, and they themselves greatly influenced the growth of the country. - born in 1839 of modest means, with a frequently absent traveling salesman of a father who sold medicinal elixirs and other wares. - helped his mother with various chores and earned extra money for the family through the sale of family farm products. - had an opportunity to take accounting and bookkeeping courses while in high school and developed a career interest in business. - While living in Cleveland in 1859, he learned of Colonel Edwin Drake who had struck "black gold," or oil, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, setting off a boom even greater than the California Gold Rush of the previous decade. - refining crude oil into kerosene, which could be used for both heating and lamps. - kerosene quickly replaced whale oil in many businesses and homes. - worked initially with family and friends in the refining business located in the Cleveland area, but by 1870, Rockefeller ventured out on his own, consolidating his resources and creating the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, initially valued at $1 million. - Rockefeller was ruthless in his pursuit of total control of the oil refining business. - forged agreements with several large railroad companies to obtain discounted freight rates for shipping his product. - He also used the railroad companies to gather information on his competitors. - As he could now deliver his kerosene at lower prices, he drove his competition out of business, often offering to buy them out for pennies on the dollar. - He hounded those who refused to sell out to him, until they were driven out of business. - horizontal integration = controlling virtually al oil refining in the U.S. - Bessemer Method = steel

Californios

- original white colonizers - those who did settle the area were proud of their heritage and ability to develop rancheros of great size and success. - quickly lost their land to white settlers who simply displaced the rightful landowners, by force if necessary

Emergency Banking Act

- over five thousand banks had been shuttered. Within forty-eight hours of his inauguration, Roosevelt proclaimed an official bank holiday and called Congress into a special session to address the crisis - signed into law on March 9, 1933, a scant eight hours after Congress first saw it - took the country off the gold standard (although conservative and traditionally viewed as safe, severely limited the circulation of paper money) - Those who held gold were told to sell it to the U.S. Treasury for a discounted rate of a little over twenty dollars per ounce - dollar bills no longer redeemable in gold - law also gave the comptroller of currency the power to reorganize all national banks faced with insolvency, a level of federal oversight seldom seen prior to the Great Depression - Between March 11 and March 14, auditors from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Treasury Department, and other federal agencies swept through the country, examining each bank. - By March 15, 70 percent of the banks were declared solvent and allowed to reopen.

Pacific Railway Act

- pivotal in helping settlers move west more quickly, as well as move their farm products, and later cattle and mining deposits, back east. - commissioned the Union Pacific Railroad to build new track west from Omaha, Nebraska, while the Central Pacific Railroad moved east from Sacramento, California. - provided each company with ownership of all public lands within two hundred feet on either side of the track laid, as well as additional land grants and payment through load bonds, prorated on the difficulty of the terrain it crossed.

Eighteenth Amendment

- prohibiting alcohol - public support of rationing grain seemed to make prohibition patriotic - strong anti-German sentiment encouraged animosity - Congress passed the Volstead Act, translating the Eighteenth Amendment into an enforceable ban on the consumption of alcoholic beverages, and regulating the scientific and industrial uses of alcohol. The act also specifically excluded from prohibition the use of alcohol for religious rituals - Congress ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919, with provisions to take effect one year later. - the amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors. - It did not prohibit the drinking of alcohol, as there was a widespread feeling that such language would be viewed as too intrusive on personal rights. - by eliminating the manufacture, sale, and transport of such beverages, drinking was effectively outlawed.

Selective Service Act

- required all men 21-30 to register for the draft - Congress passed in 1917 - In 1918, the act was expanded to include all men between eighteen and forty-five. - Through a campaign of patriotic appeals, as well as an administrative system that allowed men to register at their local draft boards rather than directly with the federal government, over ten million men registered for the draft on the very first day. - By war's end, twenty-two million men had registered for the U.S. Army draft. - Five million of these men were actually drafted, another 1.5 million volunteered, and over 500,000 additional men signed up for the navy or marines. - In all, two million men participated in combat operations overseas. - Among the volunteers were also twenty thousand women, a quarter of whom went to France to serve as nurses or in clerical positions. - provoked opposition, and almost 350,000 eligible Americans refused to register for military service. - About 65,000 of these defied the conscription law as conscientious objectors, mostly on the grounds of their deeply held religious beliefs - those who were found guilty at military hearings received stiff punishments: Courts handed down over two hundred prison sentences of twenty years or more, and seventeen death sentences.

George Westinghouse

- responsible for making electric lighting possible on a national scale. - While Edison used "direct current" or DC power, which could only extend two miles from the power source, in 1886, Westinghouse invented "alternating current" or AC power, which allowed for delivery over greater distances due to its wavelike patterns. - The Westinghouse Electric Company delivered AC power, which meant that factories, homes, and farms—in short, anything that needed power—could be served, regardless of their proximity to the power source. - A public relations battle ensued between the Westinghouse and Edison camps, coinciding with the invention of the electric chair as a form of prisoner execution. - produce/supply electricity

Sacco-Vanzetti Trial

- revealed many Americans' fears and suspicions about immigrants, radical politics, and the ways in which new scientific theories might challenge traditional Christian beliefs - sense of fear and anxiety over the rising tide of immigration came to a head with the trial - Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants who were accused of being part of a robbery and murder in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1920. - There was no direct evidence linking them to the crime, but (in addition to being immigrants) both men were anarchists who favored the destruction of the American market-based, capitalistic society through violence. = At their trial, the district attorney emphasized Sacco and Vanzetti's radical views, and the jury found them guilty on July 14, 1921. - Despite subsequent motions and appeals based on ballistics testing, recanted testimony, and an ex-convict's confession, both men were executed on August 23, 1927. - Opinions on the trial and judgment tended to divide along nativist-immigrant lines, with immigrants supporting the innocence of the condemned pair. - The verdict sparked protests from Italian and other immigrant groups, as well as from noted intellectuals such as writer John Dos Passos, satirist Dorothy Parker, and famed physicist Albert Einstein.

Scopes "monkey" trial

- science education vs. religious beliefs - John Scopes, TN, 1925 - breaking the law against teaching evolution - prosecuted by Williams Jennings Bryan (leader of Fundamentalist movement) - defended by Clarence Darrow - Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, was never really in question, as Scopes himself had confessed to violating the law. - Scopes/Darrow lost trial, led to evolution being taught in more American schools - turned into a carnival that captured the attention of the country and epitomized the nation's urban/rural divide - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hoped to challenge the Butler Act as an infringement of the freedom of speech. As a defendant, the ACLU enlisted teacher and coach John Scopes, who suggested that he may have taught evolution while substituting for an ill biology teacher - Charles Darwin, evolution

Omaha Platform

- to more fully explain to all Americans the goals of the new party - Written by Ignatius Donnelly, the platform statement vilified railroad owners, bankers, and big businessmen as all being part of a widespread conspiracy to control farmers. - As for policy changes, the platform called for adoption of the subtreasury plan, government control over railroads, an end to the national bank system, the creation of a federal income tax, the direct election of U.S. senators, and several other measures, all of which aimed at a more proactive federal government that would support the economic and social welfare of all Americans. - At the close of the convention, the party nominated James B. Weaver as its presidential candidate.

Ghost Dance Movement

- told of an Indian Messiah who would deliver the tribe from its hardship, with such frequency that white settlers began to worry that another uprising would occur

Panama Canal

- subsequent discovery of gold in California in 1848 further spurred interest in connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and led to the construction of the Panama Railway, which began operations in 1855. - Several attempts by France to construct a canal between 1881 and 1894 failed due to a combination of financial crises and health hazards, including malaria and yellow fever, which led to the deaths of thousands of French workers. - Upon becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt was determined to succeed where others had failed. - Following the advice that Mahan set forth in his book The Influence of Seapower upon History, he sought to achieve the construction of a canal across Central America, primarily for military reasons associated with empire, but also for international trade considerations. - The most strategic point for the construction was across the fifty-mile isthmus of Panama, which, at the turn of the century, was part of the nation of Colombia. - Roosevelt negotiated with the government of Colombia, sometimes threatening to take the project away and build through Nicaragua, until Colombia agreed to a treaty that would grant the United States a lease on the land across Panama in exchange for a payment of $10 million and an additional $250,000 annual rental fee. - The matter was far from settled, however. The Colombian people were outraged over the loss of their land to the United States, and saw the payment as far too low. - Influenced by the public outcry, the Colombian Senate rejected the treaty and informed Roosevelt there would be no canal. - Excited by the work, Roosevelt became the first sitting U.S. president to conduct an official international trip. - He traveled to Panama where he visited the construction site, taking a turn at the steam shovel and removing dirt. - The canal opened in 1914, permanently changing world trade and military defense patterns.

Teapot Dome Scandal

- the bribery scandal - 1920 to 1923, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall was involved in a scam - Fall had leased navy reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and two other sites in California to private oil companies without opening the bidding to other companies. In exchange, the companies gave him $300,000 in cash and bonds, as well as a herd of cattle for his ranch. Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies; he was fined $100,000 and sentenced to a year in prison. It was the first time that a cabinet official had received such a sentence.

Prohibition

- the campaign for a ban on the sale and manufacturing of alcoholic beverages, which came to fruition during the war, bolstered by anti-German sentiment and a call to preserve resources for the war effort - After decades of organizing to reduce or end the consumption of alcohol in the United States, temperance groups and the Anti-Saloon League finally succeeded in pushing through the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors - The law proved difficult to enforce, as illegal alcohol soon poured in from Canada and the Caribbean, and rural Americans resorted to home-brewed "moonshine." - The result was an eroding of respect for law and order, as many people continued to drink illegal liquor. - Rather than bringing about an age of sobriety, as Progressive reformers had hoped, it gave rise to a new subculture that included illegal importers, interstate smuggling (or bootlegging), clandestine saloons referred to as "speakeasies," hipflasks, cocktail parties, and the organized crime of trafficking liquor.

Model T Ford

- the first car produced by the Ford Motor Company that took advantage of the economies of scale provided by assembly-line production and was therefore affordable to a large segment of the population - Ford's innovation lay in his focus on using mass production to manufacture automobiles; he revolutionized industrial work by perfecting the assembly line, which enabled him to lower the Model T's price from $850 in 1908 to $300 in 1924 - most significant innovation of the era, Henry Ford, which made car ownership available to the average American. - Ford did not invent the automobile—the Duryea brothers in Massachusetts as well as Gottlieb W. Daimler and Karl Friedrich Benz in Germany were early pioneers - people could buy used Model Ts for as little as five dollars, allowing students and others with low incomes to enjoy the freedom and mobility of car ownership. By 1929, there were over twenty-three million automobiles on American roads. - emphasis on cheap mass production brought both benefits and disadvantages to its workers. Ford would not allow his workers to unionize, and the boring, repetitive nature of the assembly line work generated a high turnover rate. - he doubled workers' pay to five dollars a day and standardized the workday to eight hours (a reduction from the norm). - Ford's assembly line also offered greater equality than most opportunities of the time, as he paid white and black workers equally. - Seeking these wages, many African Americans from the South moved to Detroit and other large northern cities to work in factories.

Red Scare

- the term used to describe the fear that Americans felt about the possibility of a Bolshevik revolution in the United States; fear over Communist infiltrators led Americans to restrict and discriminate against any forms of radical dissent, whether Communist or not - destabilizing factor arrived from overseas - As revolutionary rhetoric emanating from Bolshevik Russia intensified in 1918 and 1919, a Red Scare erupted in the United States over fear that Communist infiltrators sought to overthrow the American government as part of an international revolution - investigators uncovered a collection of thirty-six letter bombs at a New York City post office, with recipients that included several federal, state, and local public officials, as well as industrial leaders such as John D. Rockefeller, fears grew significantly. - eight additional bombs actually exploded simultaneously on June 2, 1919 - the country was convinced that all radicals, no matter what ilk, were to blame. - Socialists, Communists, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies), and anarchists: They were all threats to be taken down.

The "deserving poor"

- those who lost all of their money due to no fault of their own. - wealthier Americans had concern for them - belonged to a different category from those who had speculated and lost - concept gained greater attention beginning in the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when early social reformers sought to improve the quality of life for all Americans by addressing the poverty that was becoming more prevalent, particularly in emerging urban areas - charitable assistance could not begin to reach them all - fifteen million or a full one-third of the labor force, were struggling by 1932 - country had no mechanism or system in place to help so many - Hoover remained adamant that such relief should rest in the hands of private agencies, not with the federal government

Marcus Garvey

- took Negro nationalism to a new level - Jamaican immigrant who had become utterly disillusioned with the prospect of overcoming white racism in the United States in the wake of the postwar riots and promoted a "Back to Africa" movement - founded the Black Star Steamship Line. - started the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which attracted thousands of primarily lower-income working people. UNIA members wore colorful uniforms and promoted the doctrine of a "negritude" that reversed the color hierarchy of white supremacy, prizing blackness and identifying light skin as a mark of inferiority - DuBois considered him to be a charlatan - was eventually imprisoned for mail fraud and then deported - his legacy set the stage for Malcolm X and the Black Power movement of the 1960s.

Speculation

- where investors purchased into high-risk schemes that they hoped would pay off quickly, became the norm. - prosperous 1920s brought a feeling of euphoria which led people to speculate on wilder investments - the government was a willing partner and the Fed. Reserve eased requirements on banks - banks began to offer easy credit - Ponzi schemes = unfounded ventures - ex. FL land boom of 1920s - in stock market - the practice of investing in risky financial opportunities in the hopes of a fast payout due to market fluctuations