APUS 2020 Exam Review: (AP Units 3-7; Brinkley Chapters 4-26)

Radical Reconstruction

Republicans passed a series of acts over the veto of President Johnson in 1867. This legislation established the guidelines for Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. The South was divided into five military districts, each governed by a general. It required southern states to guarantee black suffrage, and it disfranchised many former Confederates. Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of their readmission to the Union.

New Harmony, Indiana

Robert Owen was a British utopian socialist who believed in economic and political equality, and he considered competition debasing. He founded this utopian community--a commune where members challenged sexual and religious mores of Jacksonian America. It became a costly failure.

CCC

Roosevelt called the agency his "tree army." Established in 1933 it enlisted jobless, unmarried, needy young men ages 18 to 25 to work on such natural-resource development and conservation projects as flood control, soil conservation, and forest and wildlife protection. In exchange for their work, the men received vocational training, $30 per month ($25 of which went to their families), room and board, and other essentials. This agency was responsible for planting millions of trees. Workers also stocked rivers and lakes with fish, built more than 30,000 wildlife shelters, restored historic battlegrounds, fixed up beaches and campsites, and dug many canals and ditches. During its years of operation, the this agency gave employment to about 2.6 million young men.

Adams-Onis Treaty

Also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, this treaty was negotiated in 1819 and ratified in 1821. The United States gained Florida from Spain and established a definitive boundary between Spanish-held Mexico and the U.S. territory gained in the Louisiana Purchase. In return, the U.S. paid claims against the Spanish government up to $5 million.

Pinckney's Treaty

Also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, this 1795 treaty established commercial relations between Spain and the United States, granted the United States free navigation of the Mississippi River through Spanish territory, and fixed the boundaries of Louisiana and Florida.

Eli Whitney

This skilled and prolific inventor invented the cotton gin in 1793. It almost immediately transformed southern agriculture and revitalized slavery. He also was successful in manufacturing rifles for the government by employing the idea of interchangeable parts.

Federalist Papers

Alexander Hamilton, with the help of James Madison and John Jay wrote this--a brilliant series of essays explaining and defending the national government created by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. These essays serve as a primary source for interpretation of the Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed system of government. According to historian Richard B. Morris, they are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer."

Olive Branch Petition

Although fighting had already erupted between the colonists and the British Army, the Second Continental Congress sent this petition to King George III in July 1775, requesting that the king help broker a compromise between the patriots and the British Parliament. George never answered the petition, and in fact proclaimed the colonists to be in rebellion in August 1775. The fighting escalated during 1775 and 1776, prompting the Continental Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.

Battle of Fallen Timbers

Beginning in 1790, a coalition of American Indians under Miami chieftain Little Turtle defied efforts by the U.S. government to remove them from their lands. The Miami scored two major victories against the US Army. The government responded by dispatching Gen. Anthony Wayne, a distinguished veteran of the American Revolution, to deal with the uprising. In 1794, Wayne confronted the main force of the Miami at this battle. Though Wayne lost 33 dead and 100 wounded, the Miami villages were destroyed. The defeat of the Indians led to the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ceded much of present-day Ohio to the United States, paving the way for the creation of that state in 1803.

Toussaint L'Overture

Born a slave in Saint-Domingue, in a long struggle for independence this man led enslaved Africans to victory over Europeans, abolished slavery, and secured native control over the colony of Haiti. This was the first successful attempt by a slave population in the Americas to throw off the yoke of Western colonialism. When Napoleon lost control of the colony, he became more inclined to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States.

Committees of Correspondence

Colonial radicals formed these groups in 1772 in order to step up communications among the colonies, and to plan joint action in case of trouble. Their organization was a key step in the direction of establishing an organized colony-wide resistance movement.

Second Bank of the U.S.

Congress (re)chartered this institution in 1816. It had extensive regulatory powers over currency and credit. It came under heavy criticism during the Panic of 1819. In 1823, Nicholas Biddle became president of this institution and pursued a strategy that strategy improved America's financial condition and stabilized the money supply, although it stifled growth in the South and West. Biddle made a major tactical blunder in 1832, however, by calling for Congress to renew the charter four years earlier than necessary. President Jackson vetoed the bill and made it the major issue of his reelection campaign later that year. This war quickly became an extremely divisive partisan issue, with Democrats supporting Jackson and Whigs supporting Biddle.

First Continental Congress

Delegates from twelve colonies attended this meeting in Philadelphia in 1774. The delegates denied Parliament's authority to legislate for the colonies, adopted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, created a Continental Association to enforce a boycott, and endorsed a call to take up arms.

Star Spangled Banner

From the deck of the a British ship on the night of September 13th 1814, Francis Scott Key observed the ineffectual British bombardment of Fort McHenry, the city's principal defensive fortification. He was so inspired to see the American flag still flying over the fort on the morning of September 14 that he composed this poem while returning to shore with his friends. His words were soon set to music, and before long, the tune was being played all around the nation. In 1931, Congress resolved that the song would become the nation's official anthem, which President Herbert Hoover then promptly signed into law.

Whiskey Rebellion

Hamilton, unmoved by the plight of the farmers, convinced President George Washington to call up the militia and make a show of force against the farmers. The farmers chose not to fight, but the militia occupied some western Pennsylvania counties for months. This rebellion tested the principles of representative government and the powers of taxation in the new nation.

Noah Webster

He established a uniform national language based on the unique way Americans wrote and spoke English. Then, while teaching in 1782, he became dissatisfied with texts for children that ignored the American culture, and he began his lifelong efforts to promote a distinctively American education. His work not only provided a complete system for teaching English in the elementary schools, but it did so using American examples instead of British ones to illustrate points made. For the first time, information about the European voyages to America and the history of the American Revolution appeared in a textbook. His work constituted the nation's social and cultural declaration of independence from England.

Samuel Slater

He has been called the founder of American industry. He built the first modern textile mill in the United Sates, doing so by importing secrets from his native country, England. Given his expertise, however, leaving England posed a problem. The British government did not want any plans for textile manufacturing to leave the country out of fear that other nations would use them to gain an industrial advantage. He circumvented the English restrictions in two ways. First, memorized the details about its machinery. Second, when he departed in 1789, he did so without telling anyone, and he wore a disguise.

James Monroe

He was the last of the 18th-century revolutionary patriots to lead the nation. He was the fifth president and served during the period known as the Era of Good Feelings, a time of exceptional national political consensus that briefly overshadowed some growing national problems.

War of 1812

In this conflict, the United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain. Causes of the war included British attempts to restrict U.S. trade, the Royal Navy's impressment of American seamen and America's desire to expand its territory. The United States suffered many costly defeats at the hands of British, including the capture and burning of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814. Nonetheless, American troops were able to repulse British invasions in Baltimore and New Orleans, boosting national confidence and fostering a new spirit of patriotism. The ratification of the Treaty of Ghent on February 17, 1815, ended the war but left many of the most contentious questions unresolved. Nonetheless, many in the United States celebrated the War of 1812 as a "second war of independence," beginning an era of partisan agreement and national pride.

cotton gin

Invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, this simple machine could clean the seeds from 50 pounds of cotton in one day, whereas previously a laborer could clean only one pound a day. The machine was largely responsible for revitalizing the plantation system and the Southern state's dependence on slave labor. This device made the United States the dominant world supplier of cotton by the 1820s.

Jay's Treaty

John Jay negotiated a treaty with Britain in 1794 in which the British agreed to evacuate posts in the American northwest and settle some maritime disputes. Jay agreed to accept Britain's definition of America's neutral rights. The terms of the treaty provoked a storm of protest, but it was ratified in 1795.

Coercive Acts

Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing these acts in 1774. They intended to punish Boston and Massachusetts generally for the crime committed by a few individuals. Colonists called these the Intolerable Acts.

XYZ Affair

Peace commissioners sent to France by President Adams in 1797 were insulted by their French counterparts' demand for a bribe as a condition for negotiating with American diplomats. America's tender sense of national honor was outraged by this episode and Federalists increased demands for war against France.

Albany Plan

Plan of union proposed by Benjamin Franklin. The plan was for a permanent confederation among the British colonies in America with an elected parliament to organize their defense and the authority to raise taxes. The plan was rejected by the individual colonial assemblies, but it was an early proposal for unity.

Washington's Farewell Address

President Washington decided not to seek reelection in 1796. Near the end of his term he delivered this address that warned the nation against the harmful effects of rivalry between political parties, and against the dangers of permanent alliances with foreign nations.

Articles of Confederation

Ratified in 1781, this was the United States's first constitution. It sharply limited central authority by denying the national government any coercive power including the power to tax and to regulate trade. The articles set up the loose confederation of states that comprised the first national government from 1781 to 1788.

Constitutional Convention

Responding to calls for a stronger and more energetic national government, 55 delegates met in the summer of 1787 to draft a new constitution to replace the ineffective Articles of Confederation. The product that was created here, the Constitution of the United States, was ratified in 1788. It replaced the Articles of Confederation as the governing document for the United States, and transformed the constitutional basis of government from confederation to federation, also making it the world's oldest federal constitution.

Abigail Adams

She holds a unique place in American history as both the wife of one president and the mother of another. In her own right, she was an ardent American patriot. Her perseverance during the American Revolution kept her family together and enabled her husband, John, to devote himself entirely to the patriot cause. Her letters provided her husband with information and shrewd insights into the political situation in Boston while he was absent. In one letter, she urged her husband to "remember the ladies" in an age when women were seen as strictly domestic.

Treaty of Ghent

Signed on December 24, 1814 in Belgium by representatives from the United States and Great Britain, this treaty officially ended the War of 1812. The war had essentially been a draw, and the treaty did not call for any significant changes to the status quo from before the war. The U.S. Senate unanimously ratified the treaty on February 16, 1815.

Tories

Sometimes called Loyalists, these Americans hesitated to take up arms against England. They may have been as much as one-third of the colonists in 1776. Many were royal appointees, Anglican clergymen, or Atlantic merchants. They were poorly organized and of limited help to British armies, but the Patriots persecuted them.

Revolution of 1800

The election of 1800 was considered this by Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson's victory would lead to a government that would put greater emphasis on states' rights than the previous Federalist administrations. Jefferson also repudiated the hated Alien and Sedition Acts and he attempted to bring the chief executive into greater touch with the people.

Brooks-Sumner Affair

1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts concluded a fiery two-day speech that later became known as 'The Crime Against Kansas'. The speech bitterly denounced the 'slave oligarchy' and its 'rape' of Kansas, and contained insulting remarks about several southern senators, including the absent Andrew P Butler of South Carolina. In retaliation for these remarks, Congressman Preston S Brooks of South Carolina, Butler's nephew, assaulted Sumner on 22 May as he sat at his desk in the Senate chamber. Brooks used his cane to beat Sumner senseless. The North condemned the attack, but the South hailed Brooks as a hero.

Ghost Dance

A Native American messianic cult movement was inspired in 1889 by the Paiute Indian religious leader Wovoka. He promised that if Native Americans lived peacefully and performed this ritual (which involved dancing for days until a trance-like state was attained), whites would disappear, the buffalo would return, and the dead would rise. Militant leaders among the Sioux, angered by the plight of their people who were suffering from hunger and sickness, capitalized on this fervor by preaching the overthrow of the white man and his rule. They promised that the sacred ghost shirt would protect them from soldiers' bullets. Government officials watched with growing concern.

Paxton Boys

A group of American rebels in Pennsylvania, who were Scots-Irish frontiersmen. In 1763, threatened by Pontiac 's Rebellion and agitated by lack of colonial defense and political representation, they first massacred some Christian Native Americans and then marched on Philadelphia, where Ben Franklin managed to pacify them. They were symptomatic of a long-term antagonism between frontier and coastal settlers, having many similarities with Bacon's Rebellion (1676) and the Carolina Regulators (1768 - 71).

Free Silver

A major political issue during the late 19th century, this was a movement in support of the unlimited coinage of silver by the U.S. government to inflate the money supply. Opponents insisted on strict adherence to the more conservative gold stanard. The issue came to a head in the election of 1896 when Populists and Democrats united behind William Jennings Bryan who proclaimed to all opponents,"You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" Although this issue helped Bryan garner over 6 million votes, he lost the election to William McKinley.

Dred Scott Decision

A slave had brought the lawsuit demanding his freedom based on his residence in a free state and a free territory with his master. In this 1857 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not citizens and could not sue in a federal court, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to ban slavery from a territory, that, in effect, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The decision threatened both the central plank of the Republican party platform and the concept of popular sovereignty.

John Brown

A militant abolitionist, he believed that slavery must be overthrown by force. In 1859, he led an unsuccessful raid against the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to spark a local slave rebellion. He was captured and put on trial for treason. His dignified bearing during his trial won him much sympathy in the North. He was convicted of treason and then hanged on December 2, 1859.This event, perhaps more than any other single event, polarized the North and South and led directly to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Adopted by the Confederation Congress on July 13, 1787, this act applied to the territories north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. It provided for the governance of the territories and made a provision for the eventual admission of between three and five states from those territories. Since those states would have the same rights as the original 13, the law assured that the United States would not become a colonial power on the North American continent. The states eventually carved from this law were Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

"Seward's Folly"

After 1865, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, a supporter of territorial expansion, was eager to acquire the tremendous landmass of Alaska, an area roughly one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States. He had some difficulty, however, making the case for the purchase of Alaska before the Senate. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press by this term. On April 9th, 1867, Congress approved the purchase of Alaska for $7 million.

Chicago Race Riots

After World War I, the nation's veterans came home hoping to find work or be reinstated in former employment. For many returning African-American soldiers, the hope was that service to their country would afford them new opportunities in the job market. Instead, as each group competed for jobs, racial tensions increased in many of the nation's industrial centers. That scenario served to foment already escalating tensions, and in the summer of 1919, race riots erupted in 20 cities across the United States. This was the largest and most explosive riot. It began on July 27 after a 17-year-old African American unknowingly crossed the segregated boundary of a city beach. Following a week of rioting, 15 whites and 23 blacks were dead.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

After the Federalist-dominated Congress adopted the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party, responded by secretly authoring these papers. The resolutions suggested that the United States was a compact, much like that formed under the Articles of Confederation, and that states had the right, even the duty, to stop unconstitutional federal actions. Southerners like John C. Calhoun would later transform this vague doctrine of interposition into the doctrines of nullification and secession.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

After the Japanese rejected a final surrender ultimatum issued on July 26, 1945, President Harry Truman decided to employ the atomic bomb. These two cities were the ultimate targets. The first atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy," was dropped on this port city of on August 6. More than 70,000 people were killed instantly, only about a third of whom were military personnel. The United States again demanded surrender, but Japan, dismissing the threat as American propaganda, refused. Three days later, a second atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," was dropped on this city, killing more than 70,000 people. Five days later, on August 14, Japan surrendered unconditionally.

Compromise of 1877

Allegedly, a deal was struck to settle the disputed outcome of the 1876 presidential election. In this compromise, Democrats accepted the election of the Republican, Rutherford Hayes. In return, Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South and end Reconstruction.

Fair Labor Standards Act

Also known as the Wages and Hours Law, this New Deal legislation abolished child labor and established a national minimum wage of 40 cents per hour and a maximum work week of 40 hours.

John Quincy Adams

Although he was able and principled,he served as an ineffectual president, hampered by accusations that he won the Election of 1824 by arranging a "corrupt bargain" with Speaker of the House Henry Clay. After a bitter and personally abusive campaign, Jackson won a decisive election for the presidency four years later in 1828. He is far better remembered for his earlier accomplishments as a diplomat, notably as secretary of state under President James Monroe, when he help negotiate treaties that secured Florida and the northern border with Canada. As Secretary of State, he also drafted the Monroe Doctrine.

Spanish American War

Ambassador John Hay called this "a splendid little war," and in many ways it was. It lasted less than four months, and battle deaths were minimal. The proximate cause of the war was the destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, with the loss of 260 lives. A court of inquiry determined that a mine had initiated the explosion but did not fix responsibility. The yellow press, however, led by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed the Spanish. American outrage was also fueled by a fervent sympathy for Cuban insurgents who had begun a struggle for independence in 1895. Some 200,000 Cuban civilian supporters of the "revolution" had died in Spanish "reconcentration" camps. U.S. victory brought increased respect in the world community; and it ended almost four centuries of Spanish dominion of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The first U.S. overseas possessions seemed at first a bounty but in the end brought difficulties such as the bloody "insurrection" in the Philippines of 1899-1902.

Alfred Thayer Mahan

America's foremost naval historian and theorist in the 19th century, he wrote, "The Influence of Sea Power upon History" in 1890. He was among the leading advocates of American overseas expansion and naval power, and his theories were employed by President Theodore Roosevelt and other expansionists to further their imperial ambitions for America.

Martin Van Buren

As President Andrew Jackson's campaign manager, political confidant, secretary of state, vice president, and finally, handpicked successor, this man played a major role in national politics and the establishment of Jacksonian democracy as a significant political force. Elected president in 1836, he promised to adhere to Jackson's policies, but a severe economic depression, the Panic of 1837, lasted throughout his administration and quickly undermined his popularity. He was defeated by the first Whig president, William Henry Harrison in 1840. By 1848, a coalition disgruntled Democrats and Whigs met in Buffalo, New York, formed the Free Soil Party, which was pledged to a platform against slavery, and nominated this former president as their candidate. After losing again, he retired from politics.

Nicholas Biddle

As President of the Second Bank of the United States, this man occupied a position of power and responsibility that propelled him to the forefront of Jacksonian politics in the 1830s. He, along with others who regarded the bank as a necessity, realized the threat posed by the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Jackson was bitterly opposed to the national bank, believing that it was an unconstitutional, elitist institution that bred inequalities among the people. A bitterly divisive issue, the rechartering of the bank dominated political discussion for most of the 1830s, and for many, this man became a symbol of all for which the bank stood. After Jackson's reelection, the Second Bank of the United States was doomed.

Eugene Debs

As a leader of organized labor and a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, he passionately fought for radical social change in the United States. By 1893, he had organized the American Railway Union (ARU) and called a national strike that quickly tied up the nation's railroads to support the Pullman strike in Chicago. He was arrested and indicted on the charge of interfering with the mail. During the six months he spent in jail, he read socialist literature. Between 1904 and 1920, he ran as the Socialist candidate for president five times.

Mercy Otis Warren

As a talented writer with access to the most important political leaders of her day, she became an important historian, poet, and playwright of the American Revolution. Much of her work helped generate a spirit of resistance to British tyranny.

Jacob Riis

As his colleague observed, he was a reporter who "not only got the news, but cared about it." Armed with a pencil, a notebook, and a camera, he documented the overcrowding, lack of proper sanitation, and grinding poverty of the slums. In 1890, his first and most famous book, How the Other Half Lives, was published. Packed with harrowing details and illustrated with drawings based on his photographs, How the Other Half Lives was a powerful indictment of slum conditions. His exposés of conditions in New York City's slums influenced a generation of investigative reporters, known as muckrakers, and set the standard for future photojournalists.

Wilbur and Orville Wright

As one biographer wrote, "Never before in the history of the world have two individuals so completely merged themselves into one thinking organism for the achievement of an epochal invention." Their creative and technological genius revolutionized transportation on planet Earth. Originally from Dayton, Ohio the two owned a bicycle repair shop and spent their spare time working towards a dream of creating a powered and controlled flying machine. Realizing that dream on December 17, 1903, modern aviation was born. Throwing open the doors for travel, communication, and international commerce, the world was reconfigured as a global community.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

As one of the more radical of the 19th-century suffragists and women's rights leaders, she sought above all else to free women from the legal obstacles that prevented them from achieving equality with men. In 1848, the first women's rights convention was finally held in Seneca Falls, New York. This woman drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence and declaring that women were created equal to men. She later met Susan B. Anthony in 1851. The two women would work together for nearly 50 years in the cause for women's rights. In 1869, she and Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association to work for the passage of a federal women's suffrage amendment.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

As supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II, he directed the invasions of North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. He was not a colorful figure like Gen. George S. Patton or Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. However, his style of firm, calm leadership proved to be ideally suited for welding the disparate forces of the Allies into an efficient military machine capable of accomplishing the largest amphibious invasion in history at Normandy in 1944 and then crushing Nazi Germany.

Alexis de Tocqueville

As the author of Democracy in America, he has become the most famous foreign interpreter of American life. He spent nine months touring the country, recording his impressions of American society, economy, and political system. He wrote, "In America, men are nearer equality than in any other country in the world." By that, he meant that whatever class distinctions existed in American society were not due to government decree because everyone had equality of opportunity. Both historians and political scientists agree that no observer of American attitudes, manners, institutions, and culture has ever written a better or more timeless work.

John D Rockefeller

As the moving force behind the Standard Oil Company, he helped create the American petroleum industry. His ruthless and cutthroat business practices brought him tremendous wealth, but his reputation with the public became severely damaged. Although he paid fair market value for many companies he acquired, he drove others into submission through cutthroat attacks. He pioneered large-scale, systematic philanthropy, giving away millions of dollars for the advancement of education, medicine, and science.

Monroe Doctrine

At the suggestion of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, President Monroe announced in 1823 that the American continents were no longer open to colonization, and the United States would look with disfavor on any attempt to extend European control over independent nations in the Western Hemisphere. Although this policy is not an actual law, it has profoundly influenced the making of U.S. foreign policy. Subsequent presidents often referred to this policy as justification for U.S. intervention in hemispheric affairs.

Marcus Garvey

Born in Jamaica, this black nationalist leader aimed to organize blacks everywhere but achieved his greatest impact in the United States, where he tapped into and enhanced the growing black aspirations for justice, wealth, and a sense of community. During World War I and the 1920s, his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was the largest black secular organization in African-American history. Possibly a million men and women from the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa belonged to it. His work demonstrated that the urban masses were a potentially powerful force in the struggle for black freedom.

Fort Sumter

Built on a small island, this fort was designed to protect the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. When South Carolina seceded in December 1860, the garrison inside Fort Sumter remained loyal to the United States. When the fort's food supplies began to run out, President Lincoln's effort to replenish them generated military reprisal from Confederate forces. The shelling of this fort on April 12, 1861, started the Civil War.

The Mexican War

Claiming that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil," President Polk stirred Congress into declaring war against Mexico on May 13, 1846. This war marked the pinnacle of U.S. expansionist feeling (Manifest Destiny). On February 2, 1848, representatives from both countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In return for $15 million, Mexico surrendered New Mexico and California—the "Mexican Cession"—to the United States. Would slavery be allowed in this land? The war had tremendously important consequences in the growing sectional controversy and contributed substantially to the coming of the Civil War in 1861.

Neutrality Act

Congress based its act on President Washington's neutrality proclamation of 1793 and the "Rules Governing Belligerents" drawn up in 1793 as instructions to American customs agents. Providing guidelines for neutral action, the law prohibited arming new belligerent vessels in US ports but recognized the legal equipment of foreign vessels. It also prohibited the recruitment of soldiers or sailors within the US territory by a belligerent agent. In many respects, it made activity such as that Genêt had taken officially illegal.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Congress passed this act on May 30, 1854 to promote the rapid settlement of the American West. As a concession to the South, Senator Stephen A. Douglas suggested that territory previously closed to slavery by the Missouri Compromise now be opened to popular sovereignty. Few issues stirred greater passion in the decades prior to the Civil War than the status of slavery, and the disastrous results of this act illustrated that fact, as antislavery and proslavery forces within Kansas literally went to war with one another in an effort to determine the new state's status. This act fanned the flames of sectionalism that led to the the division of the Democrats into Northern and Southern wings, and the birth of the Republican Party, which was formed in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories.

Wade-Davis Bill

Congress passed this bill in 1864 as a substitute for Lincoln's ten percent plan. It required a majority of voters in a southern state to take a loyalty oath in order to begin the process of Reconstruction and guarantee black equality. It also required the repudiation of the Confederate debt. The president exercised a pocket veto, and it never became law.

Horace Mann

Declaring that "In a republic, ignorance is a crime," he set out to reform the system of public education in Massachusetts until it became a model for the rest of the country. The progress he made in remedying the shortcomings of the educational system during his 12 years in office earned him the title of "the father of American public education."

Thomas Edison

Despite a limited formal education, he became one of the nation's most prolific pioneers in the development of electronic inventions that have transformed the lives of people all over the world. Even during his lifetime, the character of such inventions as electric light, the phonograph, and motion pictures gave him an almost heroic stature in the common view, and a virtual mythology grew up about the events of his life and career. He organized companies to make and sell his various inventions that were eventually merged into what is now the General Electric Company.

New York Draft Riots

Discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing Civil War, and objection to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, led to this violent protest. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history. The military suppressed the mob using artillery and fixed bayonets, but not before numerous buildings were ransacked or destroyed, including many homes and an orphanage for black children. Estimated fatalities during the five days of violence totaled more than 100. More than 50 large buildings were destroyed by fire, and property damage was about $2 million.

sharecropping

During Reconstruction, southerners adopted this labor system. In it, the landowners provided land, tools, housing, and seed to a farmer who provided his labor. The resulting crop was divided between them (i.e., shared). Most laborers in this system were newly released slaves and poor, white farmers. A difficult and unrewarding system, this system perpetuated the economic inequalities in the South after the Civil War.

Election of 1916

During his first term, Woodrow Wilson fulfilled many progressive aspirations for reform and expanded presidential authority. But as this presidential election approached, another issue concerned the electorate even more than progressive reform: the "Great War" broke out in 1914. From the war's outset, Wilson implored Americans to remain "impartial in thought as well as in deed" and a campaign slogan, "He kept us out of war" was a popular refrain during this election. Wilson won this election as the peace candidate, but less than six months after this election, America had entered the war.

American Colonization Society

During the 19th century, this was the principal institution promoting the resettlement of African Americans to Africa as a solution to problems associated with slavery and race in the United States. With substantial funding, in 1822 this group purchased land in West Africa and established the settlement of Monrovia (named after President James Monroe). The name of the colony was changed to Liberia (based on the Latin word for "freedom") shortly after it was formed. By the start of the Civil War, the ACS had sent less than 10,000 African Americans to Liberia, a number that represented a minuscule portion of the African-American population in the United States at the time.

Republican Mothers

During the American Revolution many women of all classes became politically active and participated in various ways for the cause. Women took part in boycotts and riots, and served as "Daughters of Liberty." After the Revolution, women were NOT given a larger place in political life or allowed the right to vote. Even if women did not take part in public life, through their role in the home they could raise their sons to become the upholders of the virtues needed by freemen in a free society. This role recognized the reality of restrictions on women but also gave them a vital role ensuring the success of the republic by instilling in its future generations the moral and political values necessary for good citizenship.

Alexander Hamilton

During the American Revolution, he helped lead the assault at Yorktown that resulted in a British surrender. In the 1780s, he became a vocal critic of the Articles of Confederation, condemning them for their ineffectiveness. At the Constitutional Convention, he, with such notables as James Madison and Benjamin Franklin pushed for a powerful executive and federal supremacy. He rallied support for the new constitution through writing of several articles that, along with those of Madison and John Jay, became known as the Federalist Papers. With the Constitution ratified and Washington elected, he was appointed secretary of the treasury. As Treasury Secretary, he immediately confronted the main problem facing the new government, namely its finances. In building support for his program, he created the Federalist Party. In 1804, he was killed in a duel with his political nemesis, Aaron Burr.

Vicksburg

During the Civil War, this strategic location earned the label "The Gibraltar of the Confederacy" because of its impregnable situation on the Mississippi River. In July, 1863, Union major general Ulysses S. Grant completed a successful campaign to capture the city. The Union victory came at a high cost, but it succeeded in cutting off the Confederacy's only remaining route to its western regions with their indispensable supplies. The capture of this location solidified Grant's reputation as a fighting general, prepared to win the war despite the casualties. Lincoln later named him commander of all Union forces.

Herbert Hoover

During the campaign for president in 1928, the stock market soared, and this candidate said in a speech, "We are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land." He won the election in a landslide. In October 1929, less than a year after he took office, the stock market crashed and so too did his dream of presiding over a period of increasing prosperity. He failed as a president to lead the United States effectively during the Great Depression. Relief activities belonged, he believed, to state and local governments. From the perspective of those in need of immediate relief, it appeared as though he was helping the rich instead of the poor. His name became associated with the misery of the Great Depression.

Denmark Vessey

Educated, proud, and charismatic, he became a leader of Charleston's free African-American community and began forming plans for a slave rebellion. The date for the insurrection was set for July 15, 1822, but a house servant who had discovered the plot informed his master of the plan. He was arrested a few days later and executed by hanging. Throughout the summer, more than 100 African Americans were arrested and tried in connection with the plot; 35 were executed. As a result of the conspiracy, restrictions on African Americans (both slave and free) were tightened in South Carolina.

Robert LaFollette

Elected governor of Wisconsin in 1900, he introduced open nominating primaries, state regulation of railroads and public utilities, and management of public resources in the public interest. Journalists publicized the "Wisconsin Idea," and his continual struggle to implement it soon marked him as a rising star in the nationwide progressive movement. In 1905 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he remained until his death. In 1912, he sought to challenge the incumbent William Howard Taft, but his bid was preempted by that of the resurgent "Bull Moose" candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt

Tea Act

Enacted by the British Parliament in 1773, this act served two purposes: first, it offered a financial bailout to the failing East India Company by giving it a monopoly on tea importation in North America; and second, it was a symbolic tax on the increasingly recalcitrant American colonists. Citizens from all of the major ports voiced loud objections to the new tax. In December 1773 in Boston, where 60 colonists dressed as Indians threw 342 chests of tea into the harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.

Espionage and Sedition Act

Enacted in 1917 and 1918 respectively, these laws mandated stricter punishments for those who attempted to undermine the U.S. war effort during World War I. Intended primarily to curb the activities of socialists and pacifists, the acts made it a crime to aid enemies of the United States or to interfere with the war effort or with military recruitment. In additon, speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds was made illegal. Considered "the nation's most extreme antispeech legislation," some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under these acts.

Roosevelt Recession

Encouraged by the successes he saw resulting from New Deal programs, President Roosevelt felt the economy had turned around and he cut spending. At that point, companies failed, unemployment rose, and the stock market fell. This term refers to the period from mid-1937 to 1938 when the economic recovery from the Great Depression stalled: the unemployment rate jumped from 14.3% to 19.0%, and manufacturing output fell by 37% to 1934 levels. Roosevelt responded with a new spending program, and the economy largely returned to pre-1937 levels by the middle of 1938.

Teapot Dome Scandal

Few political scandals in American history have stirred as much controversy as this scandal that took place during the presidency of Warren Harding. President Harding transferred control of naval oil reserves held at in Wyoming from the Navy to his friend Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior, who subsequently leased them to oil companies in return for a bribe. Fall was eventually imprisoned in 1929, following a Senate investigation, the first Cabinet minster to be criminally convicted.

Theodore Roosevelt

Following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, he became the youngest president in American history. A lifelong champion of the strenuous life, he preached time and again, "I always believe in going hard at everything." During his two terms from 1901 to 1909, he was one of the most activist presidents in U.S. history. In pursuit of his "Square Deal," he tackled the social and economic problems created by a modern industrial society; railroads, labor, and the processed food industry came under his scrutiny. His greatest domestic concerns were the regulation of business trusts and the conservation of natural resources. Perhaps the most notable events in foreign affairs during his administration was his foreign policy transition to an "international police power" and the building of the Panama Canal. He ran for president again in 1912 as the Progressive "Bull Moose" candidate, but lost to Progressive Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.

Anti-Imperialist League

Formed in 1898, this organization opposed U.S. imperialism during a time when the United States was negotiating for control of Hawaii, fighting the Spanish-American War, and suppressing a rebellion for independence in the Philippines. Instead, this group advocated free trade without aggression or conquest of foreign territory. Mark Twin was the most famous member of the organization.

Lowell (Waltham) System

Francis Cabot Lowell established a complex of textile mills was built in 1823 in the town of East Chelmsford (later renamed Lowell), Massachusetts. Staffed largely by young women, the Lowell Mills were famous for this system--an innovative method of factory management that provided on-site dormitories, cultural activities, and strict supervision of its workers. By 1840, for economy reasons, the women were replaced by immigrant laborers.

The Gilded Age

Gilded Age This term applies to the period in American history from 1865 to 1900. The period includes depictions of weak and forgettable presidents, corrupt politicians, and corporate magnates, or "robber barons." The name itself indicates a time in which greed and corruption ran rampant, while displays of respectability, generosity, and reform provided a distracting overlay to that decadence. In fact, Mark Twain's first novel lent its name to the era.

Calvin Coolidge

Harding's death in August 1923 made this man president. He moved quickly to neutralize the effects of the Harding scandals and secure the 1924 presidential nomination for himself. His victory seemed to confirm the popularity of the conservative policies that he claimed were responsible for a growing national prosperity. In the domestic policy sphere, his pro-business policies helped secure further cuts in federal taxes and expenditures, maintain a high protective tariff. Among his administration's diplomatic achievements were the Dawes Plan and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. In 1927 he announced that he would not run for president again.

John C. Calhoun

He began his remarkable 40-year political career as an ardent nationalist, Warhawk, and supporter of the American System. He later played a vital role in protecting Southern interests. As a political philosopher and statesman, he defended the institution of slavery as "a positive good," and as an ardent proponent of states' rights, he advanced the right of the South to nullify those laws passed by the national legislature that were viewed as harmful to its sectional interests.

General Douglas MacArthur

He commanded Allied troops in the Pacific during World War II. He was forced to surrender the Philippines in 1941 and was thereafter obsessed with its recapture, which he accomplished in 1944. He later commanded the American occupation of Japan and United Nations troops in the Korean War.

William Randolph Hearst

He copied Joseph Pulitzer's methods and made his "New York Journal" newspaper even more popular than Pulitzer's "New York World." The circulation war between the two papers produced "yellow journalism," or an excessively lurid style of reporting. Also, by firing public sentiment against Spain, he helped cause the Spanish-American War of 1898. His journalistic empire grew through buying or starting newspapers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Seattle, and other cities. He also acquired such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Harper's.

Henry Ford

He did not invent the automobile, but he developed design concepts and assembly line production techniques that allowed its manufacture in such volume and at such cost as to bring it within reach of the average wage earner. It can be said that he, more than any other individual perhaps, invented the twentieth century.

W.E.B. Dubois

He earned a PhD from Harvard in 1895 and became a staunch advocate of African-American rights. He came into conflict with Booker T Washington, opposing Washington's policy of compromise on the issue of race relations. In 1905 he founded the Niagara Movement, which was merged with the newly founded NAACP in 1909. His book Souls of Black Folk (1903) emphasized his revolt against the principles of Booker T Washington. He was also a pioneer of Pan-Africanism, the belief that all people of African descent should join together to fight against discrimination.

Samuel Morse

He invented the telegraph, a communications device that can be traced to the development of many modern communications systems. He also devised a mechanical language of dots and dashes known to convey electric messages on his machine.

Aaron Burr

He is chiefly remembered as the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. In the Election of 1800, he received the same number of votes as Thomas Jefferson. With no clear winner, the Constitution provided that the House of Representatives elect one of the two highest vote getters. Hamilton's influence helped secure the election of Jefferson for president. As vice president, he engaged in a scheme to establish several states in what was then the western United States as an independent country. This plan to help these areas secede from the United States was a treasonable offense and almost resulted in his conviction in 1807.

James Madison

He is often called the "Father of the Constitution" for his critical role in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. In addition to his remarkable contributions at the Constitutional Convention, he dedicated his life to public service: he authored many of the Federalist Papers; he crafted and sponsored the Bill of Rights; he joined Jefferson in founding the Democratic-Republican Party; he drafted the Virginia Resolves; (as Secretary of State) he guided the successful negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase; and (as president) he successfully guided the United States through the War of 1812.

America First Committee

Led by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, this was an isolationist organization in the 1930s that opposed any U.S. intervention in world affairs that might lead the United States into war. Peaking at 800,000 members, it was likely the largest anti-war organization in American history. Started in 1940, it became defunct after the attack upon Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Sam Houston

He moved into Texas and took up residence among the Anglo settlers there in 1832; he was chosen to head the Texas rebel army against Mexico in March 1836. He commanded the troops that defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 20-21, 1836. He was then elected president of the Republic of Texas, serving from 1836 to 1838 and again from 1841 to 1844. After Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served in that body for the next 14 years. In 1859 he became governor in the state but he was forced to resign as governor on March 18, 1861 for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.

Andrew Carnegie

He rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in the world by gaining virtual control of the U.S. steel industry. He had begun the process of vertical integration, by which he came to control raw materials, transportation, and distribution within the steel industry, managing every stage of the production process from beginning to end. U.S. steel production increased until the nation surpassed Great Britain as the foremost steel producer in the world. He was also notable as a philanthropist, who gave millions of dollars to advance education, establish public libraries, and promote world peace.

John Marshall

He was Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835. His rulings strengthened the role of the court and constantly upheld the sanctity of contracts and the supremacy of federal legislation over the laws of the states. Though he established the precedent of judicial review, he also clashed with presidents Jefferson and Jackson over questions of constitutional interpretation.

Henry David Thoreau

He was a leading Transcendentalist in the early nineteenth century. He is best known for his account of two years spent in seclusion in the Massachusetts woods. In Walden (1854) and elsewhere, he gave memorable expression to a social theory that stressed self-reliance and close communion with nature as a route to meaning in life. As a protest against the war with Mexico, he had refused to pay a poll tax owed to the federal government. This act of resistance resulted in his arrest; the experience led Thoreau to write an essay, "Civil Disobedience," which held that individuals were obliged under certain circumstances to offer nonviolent resistance to unjust laws. The essay became influential in the 20th century among such political leaders as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi.

Nathanael Greene

He was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When the war began, he was a militia private, the lowest rank possible; he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer. He commanded Patriot armies in the backcountry of North and South Carolina in 1778-1781. His guerrilla tactics harassed General Cornwallis's army as it moved toward Virginia and the decision at Yorktown in 1781.

Nat Turner

He was a religious mystic who felt that he was ordained by God to lead the struggle to destroy slavery. His plan was to murder as many whites as possible in the process. In one August night in 1831, some 55 whites were killed before most of the slave rebels were killed or captured. On November 5, this leader was tried and convicted; six days later, he was executed by hanging. His rebellion caused a wave of vindictive legislation in the South against all African Americans, which limited their few privileges and restricted their activities. It also ended all discussions of gradually emancipating slaves in the Upper South and virtually destroyed any hopes of ending slavery by reform.

John Deere

He was an American inventor and manufacturer of agricultural equipment. In 1837, he started an eponymous company that went on to become an international powerhouse. As a blacksmith, he found himself making the same repairs to plows again and again, and realized that the wood and cast-iron plow used in the eastern United States—designed for its light, sandy soil—was not up to the task of breaking through the thick, heavy soils of prairieland. So after some experimentation he crafted a new kind of plow. By 1857, his annual output of plows was 10,000. By 2012, his company's worth had climbed to more than $40 billion.

John Wilkes Booth

He was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. He was a Confederate sympathizer vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South's defeat in the American Civil War. He strongly opposed the abolition of slavery in the United States and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves. After shooting the president, he shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!"

Robert Fulton

He was an excellent inventor, engineer, and naval architect. He was especially recognized for his inventions that substantially improved steamboats. His first steamboat, called the Clermont, left New York City for its first trip up the Hudson River to Albany (about 130 miles) in 1807. A huge success, he built many more steamboats and vastly improved the fledgling transportation network in the United States by making upstream river transport more efficient, reliable, and affordable.

George Washington

He was appointed by the Second Continental Congress as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1775. His ability to learn under duress and refusal to accept defeat kept an American army in the field. At the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 with French troop and naval support, he was able to entrap the British troops and force surrender. At the end of the war in 1783, he was the most famous man in America.

Benedict Arnold

He was arguably the finest tactical commander in the Continental Army and directly responsible for several important American victories. But his tempestuous disposition alienated friends and superiors alike. Furious because of a lack of recognition, he threatened to resign and ultimately considered joining with the British. When he offered to betray West Point to the British for a large cash sum, he fled to the safety of a British warship, completing the most notorious episode of treason in U.S. history.

Frederick Douglass

He was born a slave around 1817 in Maryland. In 1838, he escaped using the borrowed papers of a free African-American sailor. He soon became one of the abolition movement's star orators, traveling throughout the North to lecture to large audiences. To prove the truth of what he said, in 1845 he published an account of his experiences in slavery, "Narrative of the Life..." Two years later, he started his own abolitionist newspaper, the North Star. He welcomed the coming of the Civil War, which to him was a crusade for freedom. He urged President Abraham Lincoln to free the slaves as a war measure and to let African Americans fight in the Union Army.

Chief Joseph

He was chief of the Nez Perce Indians who conducted one of the most epic retreats in military history. Across 1,700 miles of foreboding terrain, they evaded 10 columns of U.S. Army troops and beat them in 18 skirmishes, only to succumb to exhaustion. This leader's surrender to the US Army marked a turning point in Native Americans' attempt to maintain their sovereignty. The Nez Perce were then sent to reservations in Oklahoma.

Admiral Chester Nimitz

He was commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet throughout World War II. As rapidly as ships, men, and material became available, he shifted to the offensive and defeated the Japanese navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the pivotal Battle of Midway. He culminated his long-range island-hopping strategy by successful amphibious assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On September 2,1945 he signed for the United States when Japan formally surrendered on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

William McKinley

He was elected president in 1896. His first priorities in office were to defend the gold standard and secure the passage of a new high protective tariff, but he is more remembered as the president when the United States became a world power at the turn of the 20th century. During his administration, the country defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War, annexed the Hawaiian Islands, and acquired other overseas colonial possessions. He won reelection in 1900, but was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901.

Al Capone

He was one of America's most notorious criminals, and the crime organization that he created in the 1920s became a symbol of the Mafia. In addition to the flourishing trade in alcohol, the mob expanded its operations in gambling, prostitution and bribery during the 1920s. In 1931, the U.S. Department of Justice successfully prosecuted him for income tax invasion, resulting in a 10-year prison sentence.

Patrick Henry

He was one of the great figures of the revolutionary generation. He stood in the vanguard of those calling for united action by all the colonies against British "tyranny." He was a firebrand demanding national independence, as seen in his "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech at an extralegal session of the Virginia Assembly in March 1775. During the war and its immediate aftermath he was five times governor of Virginia.

John Adams

He was one of the lawyers who agreed to defend the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. At the Second Continental Congress in 1775, he pressed for a complete break with England . In 1778, he was sent to Europe to obtain a treaty of alliance with France. Later, he returned to France and in concert with Franklin and John Jay, negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1783) with Great Britain to end the revolution. He was elected the first vice president of the United States. In 1796, he overcame Hamilton's opposition to his candidacy to win a narrow victory for the presidency. Vilified by the Republicans for not vetoing the Alien and Sedition Acts, he was defeated for reelection by Jefferson in 1800.

Pancho Villa

He was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals. His reputation as a "bandit" grew when he robbed and commandeered trains. In 1916, he led a raid on the New Mexico town of Columbus. His gang killed 10 civilians and 8 soldiers, and burned the town, took many horses and mules, seized available machine guns, ammunition and merchandise, before they returned to Mexico. On orders from President Woodrow Wilson, General John J. Pershing led an expeditionary force of 4,800 men into Mexico to capture this leader. While Pershing failed to capture his target, he and his troops reduced Mexican incursions in to the United States.

J.P. Morgan

He was one of the richest men in America and was a dominant figure in the U.S. economy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He reorganized American railroads, becoming the greatest railroad magnate of his day. He also funded mergers between several prominent American companies, creating large American corporations, including General Electric Company, AT&T, and the United States Steel Corporation. His growing success and power frightened many people and prompted the U.S. government to take a more active part in regulating the economy.

Frederick Jackson Turner

He was the author of a provocative essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," that opened up a new period in the interpretation of American history. He believed that the frontier had shaped the American character; from it stemmed the American's toughness, resourcefulness, and individualism, as well as American democracy. He is also remembered as a historian who brought to historical research a scientific and interdisciplinary approach.

General John Pershing

He was the commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in World War I. Eventually commanding a force of 2 million men, he landed in France on June 14, 1917. He initially resisted attempts by Allied generals to disperse American forces along the front, instead insisting that the AEF remain a "distinct and separate component" in compliance with his orders. He returned to the United States in September 1919 as a national hero.

Robert E. Lee

He was the commander of the Confederacy's Army of Northern Virginia. Always outnumbered but never outfought, he was one of the most brilliant tacticians in American military history and the embodiment of Southern military prowess during the Civil War. For three years, he defied and outmaneuvered superior numbers of Union troops, though his Army of Northern Virginia was perpetually short of men, equipment, and supplies. He surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, in 1865.

Hiram Revels

He was the first African American to serve as a U.S. senator. Born a free black in North Carolina, he became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and during the Civil War an army chaplain. Settling in Mississippi after the War, he was elected to the State Senate in 1869 and the following year to the US Senate, the first black to be so chosen. He served out the unexpired term (1870-1871) of Jefferson Davis, the ex-President of the Confederate States.

James Fenimore Cooper

He was the first writer to capture the popular imagination with stories rooted in America's own history. He wrote romances, the heroes of which embodied the ideals—courage, integrity, and love of the wilderness—of a nation destined to expand and prosper. His stories, like Last of the Mohicans, constitute an American epic, as they relate the story of the exploration of the frontier in terms of human heroism, a majestic landscape, and a sense of national destiny.

Andrew Jackson

He was the hero of several military campaigns, including the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. His election in 1828 is often identified as one of the most important presidential elections in American history. After losing the controversial previous election (Corrupt Bargain), he spent the next four years organizing his campaign and publicly discrediting President Adams. His new Democratic Party mastered the art of political organization and campaigned heartily at the state and local levels. He was the first presidential candidate to have a nickname, "Old Hickory," and used the theme at campaign rallies. By rallying the votes of the "common man," His presidency forever changed American government.

William M. Tweed

He was the leader of New York's Tammany Hall and the most notorious of all late nineteenth-century corrupt politicians. He controlled thousands of patronage jobs and millions of dollars in contracts and government benefits. He could and did steer city contracts to those who paid the biggest bribes or kickbacks or did the biggest favors for his Tammany political machine. He was lampooned by cartoonist Thomas Nast, and eventually jailed.

Charles Grandison Finney

He was the leading Protestant evangelist of the Second Great Awakening that swept 19th-century America and helped to spark the many social reform movements of the mid-century. Besides working to save souls, he took a stand against intemperance and slavery, two of the major social movements of the time. His followers, eager for causes to which they could dedicate their energies, quickly took up his call for action on these issues.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He was the leading transcendentalist thinker of the early nineteenth century. Optimism and self-confidence marked his philosophy, and, like other romantics, he glorified individualism. His essay "Self-Reliance" articulated a particularly American notion of the independence of the individual within society. He is widely regarded as the father of American literature.

William Lloyd Garrison

He was the publisher of "The Liberator," and an immediate abolitionist. The Liberator created a stir by sternly denouncing slavery as a crime and a sin and calling for its immediate abolition without compensation for slave owners. He also advocated full equality for African Americans. For the next 35 years, the paper was the leading vehicle of antislavery thought.

Joseph Pulitzer

He was the publisher of the first newspaper publisher to reach a truly mass audience--the "New York World." He did it with a combination of sensationalism, solid political and financial coverage, and civic crusading. His sensational coverage and fierce competitiveness with William Randolph Hearst led to the spread of yellow journalism at the end of the 19th century.

William Jennings Bryan

He was the voice of the Democratic Party at the turn of the 20th century and a leading advocate of free silver and as a loyal spokesman for the Midwest and West. Nominated by Democrats and Populists in 1896, he campaigned energetically, staging one of the first national traveling campaigns, before losing to his Republican opponent, William McKinley. A fundamentalist crusader, he took a militant position against the theory of evolution. In the summer of 1925, he appeared as prosecutor in the famous Scopes trial and won his case against the teaching of evolution in schools. He died in his sleep on July 26, 1925, a few days after the trial ended.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

He won his party's nomination and promised a "new deal" to the American people. He was elected to office in 1932 and was reelected three more times before he died near the end of World War II. During the 12 years of his presidency, he aroused both intense loyalty and opposition. His critics and supporters agree, however, that more than any other president, Roosevelt was the architect of the U.S. welfare state and established government responsibility for individual social welfare. This president and his New Deal in the did much to shape modern America.

William Howard Taft

His experience as governor of the newly acquired Philippines and then Secretary of War led President Theodore Roosevelt to support his nomination as President in 1908. Having to serve after the immensely popular Roosevelt was perhaps his greatest handicap. Although he instituted twice as many anti-trust suits as Roosevelt, and although the supported the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, he lost support of Progressives when he compromised the tariff issue and forced the resignation of Gifford Pinchot. In foreign affairs, he replaced the Roosevelt "Big Stick" military posturing for an economic influence called "Dollar Diplomacy." He lost his bid for re-election in 1912 because of the defection of Roosevelt, who ran on a "Bull Moose" ticket. The split vote helped Woodrow Wilson win the presidency in 1912. He later became the 10th Chief Justice on the United States Supreme Court. He was the only man to hold both positions.

Zachary Taylor

In 1846, President Polk ordered this general to lead a small American army to Texas to defend the Rio Grande as the southern border. Fighting broke out between his forces and the Mexican Army in April 1846. His victory against a Mexican army four times the size as his at Buena Vista was his most spectacular victory and he was embraced as a national hero. He was elected president in 1848. The central issue concerned whether slavery was going to be allowed into the territory acquired from Mexico. He promised to veto the proposed Compromise of 1850. His tragic death on July 9, 1850 enabled his successor, Millard Fillmore, to secure the passage of the Compromise of 1850.

Dorthea Dix

Imbued with the spirit of reform, she embarked on a study of the prevailing treatment of the mentally ill. She discovered that most institutions housed the insane under sordid conditions, neglecting and abusing them. She was successful in securing funds for new institutions. Not long after the outbreak of the Civil War, she proposed the plan to establish a volunteer corps of women nurses. Commissioned as superintendent of women nurses for the Union Army, she began the difficult task of finding nurses and procuring medical supplies. After the war, she continued her work for the mentally ill, raising money for the more than 50 hospitals that had been established as a result of her efforts.

Boston Tea Party

In 1773, patriot colonists led by the Sons of Liberty protested the Tea Act and the monopoly granted to the British East India Company by boarding three British ships in Boston Harbor and destroying 342 chests of Britsh Tea.

Citizen Genet Affair

In 1793 he was dispatched to the United States to promote American support for France's wars with Spain and Britain. His goals in were to recruit and arm American privateers which would join French expeditions against the British. He also organized American volunteers to fight Britain's Spanish allies in Florida. His actions endangered American neutrality in the war between France and Britain, which Washington had pointedly declared in his Neutrality Proclamation.

Alien and Sedition Acts

In 1798 the Federalist Congress passed these four acts to attack the Republican party and suppress dissent against Federalist policies. The Acts curtailed freedom of speech and the liberty of foreigners resident in the United States. Democratic-Republicans maintained that the acts were an unconstitutional weapon to suppress political dissent, and the acts themselves proved wildly unpopular.

Gabriel Prosser

In 1800, this slave planned an attack on the city of Richmond, chosen because of the four-to-one ratio of blacks to whites in the city's immediate vicinity. He hoped that after capturing Richmond and its arsenal and killing all whites except Methodists, Frenchmen, and Quakers (who were considered sympathetic to the slaves' plight), the rest of Virginia's 300,000 slaves would rise up to join the rebellion. On August 30, 1800, as many as 1,000 slaves marched on Richmond, but heavy rains washed out essential roads and bridges, which slowed the African Americans in their progress. The rebellion was quickly put to an end by Virginia militia forces, and nearly 30 slaves were captured, tried, and executed. This leader was captured in September and tried and hanged on October 7.

Black Hawk War

In 1804, a treaty decreed that the Sac and Fox Indians move west of the Mississippi. Some refused, however, and one leader, Black Hawk, denounced the treaty and proclaimed the Indians' determination to retain their land. After years of skirmishes, the whites forced a new treaty on Black Hawk in 1831, which compelled the Indians to leave. The next spring, however, Black Hawk returned with four hundred braves and their families, hoping to gain additional support from other tribes. When little help materialized, he raised a white flag. After a year of imprisonment, Black Hawk returned to the remnants of his people in Iowa. The defeat of Black Hawk removed the last obstacle to white settlement in the Old Northwest.

Seminole War

In 1817 the American military demanded that a Seminole chief surrender warriors whom military officials believed responsible for the murder of several Georgia families. When the Seminole Chief refused, the First Seminole War (1817-18) began. U.S. authorities attempted to recapture runaway black slaves living among Seminole bands. Under General Andrew Jackson, U.S. military forces invaded the area, scattering the villagers, burning their towns, and seizing Spanish-held Pensacola and St. Marks. As a result, in 1819 Spain was induced to cede its Florida territory under the terms of the Transcontinental Treaty.

Specie Circular

In 1836, President Jackson issued this executive order to halt a speculative land mania fueled by the easy availability of paper currency issued by pet banks and state banks. This order provided that purchasers must pay for public land in gold and silver. It abruptly halted the speculative boom and contributed to the Panic of 1837.

Amistad

In 1839, fifty-three illegally purchased African slaves on this ship managed to seize control of the vessel. They killed two crew members and ordered the remainder to head for Africa. Eventually, the ship was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard. Abolitionists and other northern sympathizers won an American trial for the slaves who were on board. The case proceeded on appeal to the Supreme Court, where former president John Quincy Adams, defending the Africans, argued that they should be granted their freedom. The Court agreed, ruling that since the international slave trade was illegal, persons escaping should be recognized as free under American law.

Wilmot Proviso

In 1846 a Pennsylvania Congressman introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill that provided for banning slavery from any territory the United States might acquire from Mexico as a result of war. It never passed Congress, but it reignited the slavery debate by generating questions about the authority of the federal government to ban slavery from the territories.

Republican Party

In 1854, Northern outrage over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act prompted several independent political factions—including the Free Soil Party, the Know-Nothings, former Whigs, and other smaller groups—to come together to form this political party. The party was formed to oppose what its members perceived as the growing political power of the South during the 1850s and to oppose the extension of slavery into newly acquired Western territories. In 1860, the party chose Abraham Lincoln, an unknown moderate and former Whig from Illinois, for the presidency. In the mid-19th century, the party was known for leading the Union war effort during the Civil War and supporting the rights of newly freed African Americans during Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln

In 1858, the Illinois Republican Party nominated him to run for the Senate against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In his acceptance speech, he identified slavery as the most serious threat to the union:"A house divided against itself cannot stand." He hoped that by preventing the expansion of slavery, its ultimate extinction could be gradually obtained. He challenged Senator Douglas to a series of debates. What they said was reported across the nation. Though he lost the Senate election to Douglas, he was again nominated by the Republican Party to run for president in 1860. His victory in that contest prompted South Carolina to secede from the union. The Civil War dominated his presidency.

Homestead Act

In 1862, Congress passed this act that gave 160 acres of public land to any settler who would farm and improve the land within five years of the grant. It encouraged westward migration into the Great Plains after the Civil War. This remained in effect for over a century. During that time, over 2 million people filed for a homestead on a quarter section of public domain land. However, only about 40%, or 783,000, succeeded in finally earning the title to their property.

Ulysses S. Grant

In 1864, President Lincoln placed this victorious commander at Vicksburg in command of all Union forces. He slowly battered Lee's armies into submission around Richmond in 1864-1865, and received Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. He was elected president in 1868 and 1872 and guided the nation through the difficult period of Reconstruction. His scandal-ridden administration seemed to suggest a transition into a new "gilded age."

barbed wire

In 1873, a De Kalb, Illinois, farmer named Joseph Glidden patented his new design for this fencing with sharp points, an invention that forever changed the face of the American West. Glidden's design used two strands of wire twisted together to hold spur wires firmly in place. His wire proved to be well suited to mass production. Prairie and plains farmers quickly discovered that this wire was the cheapest, strongest, and most durable way to fence their property. The effect of this simple invention on the life in the Great Plains was huge. Farmers could now afford to protect their farms from grazing herds. As a result, this invention also brought an end to the era of the open-range cattle industry.

Little Bighorn

In 1876, Colonel George A. Custer and 260 of his men were killed by Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull at this battle in southern Montana. "Custer's Last Stand" became enshrined in American mythology as a symbol of the brutality of the Indian wars, although there is substantial evidence that Custer acted recklessly in attacking the large Indian encampment.

the trust

In 1882, this new business organization was designed by Standard Oil. All shares of stock from participating companies were held for the company owners by a small number of trustees. The trustees established prices and divided markets, thus eliminating competition and financially disastrous price wars among the participating companies. Owners profited from better earnings, stockholders profited from better dividends, and trustees profited from the fees they collected. Before long, many industries adopted this form of business organization. But their growing power and influence led newspapers, politicians, and the public to increasingly attack these business organizations, especially Standard Oil.

Jane Addams

In 1889, she moved into a mansion donated by Charles Hull on the west side of Chicago. She then transformed the mansion into the "Hull House," the nation's first settlement house. Hull House helped new immigrants and others in need with a variety of programs. At one time or another, it offered kindergarten and daycare facilities for children of working mothers, an employment bureau, an art gallery, libraries, music and art classes, a theater, and a meeting place for trade unions. In 1931, this founder became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

In 1890, Congress passed the first federal law to regulate large corporations and trusts and eliminate monopolies. It based on the constitutional power of Congress to oversee interstate commerce. The act outlawed any contract, combination, or conspiracy that restrained trade or monopolized any market. The act established a precedent for subsequent antitrust legislation and laid the groundwork for the trust-busting campaigns of President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century.

Square Deal

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt introduced this domestic program, which emphasized the conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Among its accomplishments, this program helped the middle class by attacking powerful trusts and monopolies. Roosevelt also created a new Department of Commerce and Labor, and managed to quell a number of labor strikes.

Northern Securities Case

In 1904, a Supreme Court decision ruled that this giant railroad holding Company had violated the Sherman Act. The case, the first successful federal prosecution of a single interstate corporation, was a signal victory for Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt did not want to eliminate large corporations, he used antitrust prosecutions to enhance the authority of the executive branch. With this and other successful suits, Roosevelt won acclaim as the great "trustbuster."

Sacco and Vanzetti

In 1920, these two Italian immigrants were arrested for an armed robbery in which two men had been killed. In the eyes of immigrant union members, left-wing radicals, and rebels of all kinds, they were innocent men who were being railroaded for their political beliefs. Members of the established power structure saw them as dangerous foreigners out to subvert the American way of life. In what many observers felt was an unfair trial, both men were convicted of murder and given the death penalty. The question of the two men's guilt or innocence is still a matter of historical controversy.

Warren G. Harding

In 1920, this Republican presidential candidate promised "less government in business and more business in government" to help bring back prosperity after the recession and inflation that followed World War I. But prosperity was no substitute for leadership. After becoming president, he admitted to his friend, "I knew that this job would be too much for me." He was right. The widespread abuse of the public trust by his cronies shocked the nation. The most notorious abuse was the Teapot Dome scandal by Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall.

court-packing plan

In 1937 in one of his fireside chats, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced this plan to the public. In the preceding years, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared several components of his New Deal program unconstitutional, so Roosevelt wanted to appoint additional justices to the Court who would be more sympathetic to his policies. This plan met with widespread public and congressional condemnation, as Roosevelt was accused of suggesting a major constitutional reform without sufficient cause, and the plan was ultimately defeated.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

In August 1928, representatives of a number of nations met in Paris to sign this pact to renounce war. It was subsequently adopted by over sixty governments. It represented the most ambitious attempt to outlaw war that the modern world had yet seen; at its heart lay the simple notion that war ought to be illegal. In the end, despite the noble intentions of those who promoted the Pact, its lack of any means of enforcement guaranteed its failure.

Atlantic Charter

In August 1941, before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill held a series of secret meetings aboard two ships anchored off the coast of Newfoundland. Britain was at war with Germany at the time. The resulting agreement between the United States and Britain was called this term and was announced to the world on August 14. Although it was neither an alliance nor a binding legal commitment, the agreement articulated the shared goals of Britain and the United States, including: stated the ideal goals of the war: self-determination; reduction of trade restrictions; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations.

Hartford Convention

In December 1814, this meeting of Federalists in Connecticut was organized to protest the War of 1812 and propose several constitutional amendments, including changes to protect the commercial interests of New England. These antiwar Federalists were discredited when the United States achieved an honorable peace in the Treaty of Ghent that same month. This meeting became a synonym for disloyalty and treason, and the Federalist Party, which rapidly declined after the war, never lived down its notoriety.

Stephen F. Austin

In January 1822, he established the first legal settlement of Anglo-Americans in Texas. Largely through his efforts, by 1830 there were over 20,000 Americans living in Texas. As an empresario, he did more than settle colonists. He also mapped and charted bays and rivers, promoted commerce with the United States, and encouraged the growth of commercial enterprises and the establishment of schools. He is considered the founder of Anglo-American Texas.

Open Door Policy

In January 1900, Secretary of State John Hay announced this policy. It emphasized the economic development of China, which would preserve China's independence and political unity. It called for free access for all nations to the Chinese ports, in contrast to the practice of claiming exclusive spheres of influence by individual powers. Actually, few nations--including the United States--adhered to it in practice.

Bonus Army

In June 1932, these 20,000 World War I veterans marched on Washington, D.C., to demand immediate payment of their "adjusted compensation" bonuses voted by Congress in 1924. Congress rejected their demands, and President Hoover had the army forcefully remove them from their encampment. He feared their ranks were infested with criminals and radicals. The event proved to be the fatal blow to Hoover's political career; Franklin D. Roosevelt used the incident against him during the election of 1932.

William T. Sherman

In September 1864, General William Sherman's army captured Atlanta and began marching toward Savannah on the Georgia coast. He intended to defeat the enemy's forces, destroy its economic resources, and break its will to resist. Sherman himself estimated his raid had inflicted $100 million worth of damage. Sherman's strategy of destruction was designed, as his own saying went, to "make Georgia howl."

Proclamation of 1763

In an effort to avoid any future conflict with the Native Americans after the French and Indian War, the British issued this proclamation--that no English colonists shall be allowed to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. Passed in the wake of Pontiac's Rebellion, the edict forbade private citizens and colonial governments alike to buy land from or make any agreements with natives. The majority of colonists despised the proclamation because it restricted their freedom to settle on western lands. It became one in a long list of colonial grievances against the British.

muckrakers

In the early twentieth century, this group of journalists was committed to exposing the social, economic, and political ills of industrial life. In 1906 they were given this nickname by President Theodore Roosevelt, who described them as those who raked filth rather than look up to nobler things. Their articles and books heightened moral indignation among middle-class Americans over the corruption of big business and politicians. They rallied public support for several progressive federal regulatory measures and they were the impetus for uniting fragmented local and national reform movements into a single, more potent national political movement: progressivism.

Corrupt Bargain

In the election of 1824, four candidates from the same party competed for the nation's highest office. In the end, Andrew Jackson received the most popular votes and the most electoral votes but he was not elected. Because no candidate won a majority of electoral votes, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay steered the election toward John Quincy Adams. When Adams then appointed Clay to be Secretary of State, Jackson and his supporters leveled THIS CHARGE against Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams.

conservation

In the mid to late 19th century, natural resources were heavily exploited, especially in the West. Alarmed by the public's attitude toward natural resources as well as the exploitation of natural resources for private gain, the movement called for federal supervision of the nation's resources and the preservation of those resources for future generations. In President Theodore Roosevelt, they found a sympathetic ear and man of action. President Roosevelt's concern for the environment was influenced by American naturalists, such as John Muir, and by his own political appointees, including Gifford Pinchot, Chief of Forestry. Putting an end to wasteful uses of raw materials, and the reclamation of large areas of neglected land have been identified as some of the major achievements of the Progressive era.

Era of Good Feelings

In the nationalistic spirit that followed the War of 1812, rival political parties disappeared. President Monroe was so popular and the nation appeared so secure, prosperous and content that in 1817, a Boston newspaper coined this phrase to describe the mood that had settled upon the country. The era lasted from 1817 to 1823 in which the disappearance of the Federalists enabled the Republicans to govern in a spirit of seemingly nonpartisan harmony.

Okinawa

In the spring of 1945, it was the site of the largest and final confrontation between the United States and Japanese imperial forces during World War II. The Americans hoped to capture the island so it could be used to stage raids against the Japanese mainland. The Japanese, having dug into caves and bunkers, ambushed every U.S. force. Japanese resistance included kamikaze attacks. After three months of severe fighting, the Americans finally prevailed on June 21, 1945 at a cost of 13,000 dead. Approximately150,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians died. . The tenacity of the Japanese forces convinced President Harry Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan rather than invade and suffer potentially horrendous losses.

Saratoga

In this 1777 battle, British General Burgoyne surrendered his force to American General Horatio Gates. The American victory proved to be a turning point in the American Revolution because it thwarted a British plan to divide the colonies and it convinced France to recognize the United States and sign the Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

McCulloch v. Maryland

In this 1819 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the second Bank of the United States was constitutional, thus affirming the doctrine of implied powers and a loose interpretation of the Constitution. The Marshall Court decision also determined that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy," thus state governments could not tax a federal agency like the Bank.

Gibbons v Ogden

In this Marshall Court case, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a state monopoly and reaffirmed Congress' power to oversee commerce between states. Of all the cases that have interpreted the scope of congressional power under the commerce clause, none has been more important than this "steamboat case." The case established a basic precedent because it paved the way for later federal regulation of transportation, communication, buying and selling, and manufacturing. Today, little economic activity remains outside the regulatory power of Congress.

Worcester v Georgia

In this Supreme Court case, the Marshall Court held that Cherokee Native Americans were entitled to federal protection from the actions of state governments which would infringe on the tribe's sovereignty. However, the judicial outcome that was apparently favorable to the claims of the Cherokee was subsequently precluded by a hostile Congress and the equally hostile President Andrew Jackson. In reaction to this decision, President Andrew Jackson has often been quoted as defying the Supreme Court with the words: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" Jackson did not enforce Marshall's decision, and the Cherokee were eventually relocoated to Indian Territory (part of present-day Oklahoma) in what would become known as the Trail of Tears.

Worcester v. Georgia

In this Supreme Court case, the Marshall Court held that Cherokee Native Americans were entitled to federal protection from the actions of state governments which would infringe on the tribe's sovereignty. The court established the doctrine that the national government of the United States, and not individual states, had authority in Indian affairs. However, the judicial outcome that was apparently favorable to the claims of the Cherokee was subsequently precluded by a hostile Congress and the equally hostile President Andrew Jackson. In reaction to this decision, President Andrew Jackson has often been quoted as defying the Supreme Court with the words: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" Jackson did not enforce Marshall's decision, and the Cherokee were eventually relcoated to Indian Territory (part of present-day Oklahoma) in what would become known as the Trail of Tears.

Election of 1932

In this election, Franklin Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover, whose response to the Great Depression seemed largely ineffective. Roosevelt won the 1932 election with 57% of the popular vote and an even larger percentage of the electoral college. He amassed a diverse coalition of Southerners, African Americans, union members, intellectuals, Catholics, Jews, and others who helped the Democratic Party to dominate the presidency and Congress for the next two decades. The election is usually regarded as an important realigning, or critical, election because it marked a transfer in voter loyalty at the presidential level from the Republican to the Democratic Party.

Election of 1856

In this presidential election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican candidate John C. Fremont. He won the general election by denouncing the abolitionists, promising not to allow any interference with the Compromise of 1850, and supporting the principle of noninterference by Congress with slavery in the territories.

Election of 1852

In this presidential election, the Whig party fielded a candidate for the last time. Whig candidate Winfield Scott was defeated decisively by Democrat Franklin Pierce in this contest for president. The Whigs split between northern "Conscience Whigs" and southern "Cotton Whigs" over the terms of the Compromise of 1850. The demise of a national political party over issues regarding slavery was an ominous sign for the nation.

Panama Canal

It links the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean through the isthmus of Central America. Of great strategic significance in the Western Hemisphere, the 50.7-mile-long canal saves ships from having to sail all the way down to the southern tip of South America to cross the continent. When it was built, the canal revolutionized the possibilities for the international movement of people and trade goods. In 1903, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt gained exclusive treaty rights to the planned canal. Construction began in 1904. The canal was an amazing technological accomplishment and a symbol of North American industrial strength when it opened to traffic in 1914.

Taos Rebellion

Many Mexican families resented the American conquest of their home in New Mexico, and the local Indians had long disliked the American governor because of his trade relations with their northern enemies. In 1847, the Mexicans and Native Americans staged this rebellion against American rule. A violent mob attacked the governor, and then killed and scalped him. Dragging his mangled body through the streets, the mob called for a full-scale rebellion against the American occupation, and by the end of the evening, 15 other Americans had been killed. Within two weeks, the American Colonel Sterling Price had quelled the rebellion and executed the supposed ringleaders. With the end of the Mexican War in 1848, New Mexico and all the rest of Mexico's old northern frontier became the American Southwest.

Gospel of Wealth

Millionaire and industrialist Andrew Carnegie advanced this philosophy that held that those who had accumulated wealth were morally and socially obligated to redistribute that wealth back into the community and help those less fortunate than themselves. During his lifetime, Carnegie reportedly donated more than $350 million to build schools, libraries, and public buildings, as well as supporting causes devoted to working for world peace.

Missouri Compromise

Missouri's application for statehood in 1819 caused considerable controversy because, if it had been admitted as a slave state, Missouri would have tipped the balance in the Senate toward slave states. Opponents of slavery wanted Missouri to eliminate the institution prior to being admitted as a state; proponents thought that was a matter for Missouri alone to decide. In 1820, this compromise, hammered out by Speaker of the House Henry Clay, solved the problem at least temporarily by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine (formerly part of Massachusetts) as a free state. The law further provided that slavery would be prohibited in the Louisiana Territory north of 36°30' north latitude and permitted south of that line.

Yellow Journalism

Named after the "Yellow Kid" cartoon in a popular New York newspaper known for its sensationalism, this phrase came to signify irresponsible, outrageous reporting. Trying to boost their readership, papers known for this practice printed front-page stories about the lurid, often unconfirmed acts of important politicians, businesspeople, and socialites.

Treaty of Versailles

Negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference throughout the spring of 1919, this treaty formally brought World War I to an end. Its lengthy and complicated provisions placed severe penalties on Germany. Although U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had been an active participant in the conference and enthusiastically supported the treaty and the League of Nations it created, the U.S. Senate felt differently and after fierce debate, voted down ratification. Instead, the United States made a separate peace with Germany and its allies.

Neutrality Acts

Neutrality Acts These laws were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure US neutrality by forbidding arms trade and loans to belligerent countries.

Cyrus McCormick

Not long after Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin, another significant agricultural invention that revolutionized farming: the mechanical reaper, invented by this man. His invention automatically cut, threshed and bundled grain while being pulled through a field by horses. The inventor spent years making improvements to the mechanical reaper invention and coming up with business innovations to boost sales (including credit for purchases, performance guarantees, replacement parts and advertising). The farm implements he developed and creatively merchandised contributed to a revolution in agriculture that has allowed the world's food supply to keep pace with its explosive population growth.

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929 is remembered by this term when the stock market "crashed" and wiped out the fortunes and life savings of many investors. The event marked the end of the securities boom of the 1920s and the beginning of the Great Depression. Many investors lost their life savings, and many businesses and banks failed due to their losses. Ultimately, the crash triggered the reform of laws regulating the securities market and led to the establishment of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission which acted to enforce new reporting and listing requirements and other laws that aimed to end manipulative practices in securities trading.

Appomattox Court House

On April 9, 1865, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant in this town in south-central Virginia. The Confederate surrender was the end of the Civil War in Virginia and marked the beginning of the end of the war across the South.

U.S.S. Maine

On February 15, 1898, this battleship exploded and sank in Havana Harbor. Some 266 crewmen lost their lives in the incident, which had its roots in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain and was one of the triggers of the Spanish-American War. The rallying slogan "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!" swept the country. In April 1898, Congress called for Spain to relinquish authority over Cuba and declared war. The Spanish-American War ended later in 1898.

Zimmerman Telegram

On January 16, 1917, German foreign minister sent a telegram to the German minister to Mexico. The German government attempted to forge a German-Mexican alliance in case the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies. British intelligence decoded this telegram and handed its contents over the U.S. State Department, which in turn announced it to the American press on March 1, 1917. U.S. outrage over Germany's dealings with Mexico served to heighten the calls for American entry into the war, which were answered when the United States declared war on Germany on April 6.

Executive Order 8802

On June 25, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed this executive order, "Reaffirming Policy Full Participation in the Defense Program by All Persons, Regardless of Race, Creed, Color, or National Origin, and Directing Certain Act in Furtherance of Said Policy." It ended discriminatory practices in the defense industry, as the United States prepared for its possible entry into World War II.

Gettysburg Address

On November 19, 1863 in a ceremony to commemorate the Battle of Gettysburg fought the previous July, President Abraham Lincoln delivered this brief address to a crowd of 15,000 people as he dedicated a cemetery for the battle's dead. Both at the time and since, Americans have looked to this address as representing the noblest vision of America and the sacrifice that is often called upon to attain that vision.

Irish Potato Famine

One of the great tragedies of the 19th century, this disaster claimed more than 1 million lives during the period from 1845 to 1854 and led to a mass emigration of famine survivors to the United States. By 1854, tens of thousands of people had died of outright starvation, and an estimated 1.1 million people died of famine-related diseases. By 1855, 2 million people had fled, swelling the immigrant populations of Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. Even today, more than 150 years later, Ireland's population has still not recovered.

Embargo Act

One of the most controversial episodes of President Thomas Jefferson's administration, this Act of 1807-1809 halted all trade between the United States and foreign nations in response to both British and French restrictions on neutral trade during the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. Many merchants, particularly in New England, suffered great financial losses, despite the dramatic rise in smuggling during these years. In the end, the this policy had little effect in compelling either France or Britain to respect American neutrality.

Fugitive Slave Act

One of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850, this act mandated that Northerners were constitutionally required to assist slave owners in recapturing runaway slaves. The law infuriated many Northerners, even those who had not previously supported the abolition movement, mainly because they believed such a mandate violated their liberty. As Northerners raged over the law's passage and Southerners fumed at the Northern response to the law, the country moved closer to the outbreak of the Civil War.

15th Amendment

One of three Reconstruction amendments enacted in the years immediately following the Civil War, this amendment was adopted by the U.S. Congress on February 26, 1869 to protect the voting rights of African-American men. It was intended to guarantee blacks the right to vote in the South.

Seneca Falls Convention

Organized in 1848 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth and Mary Ann McClintock, this was the first women's rights convention in U.S. history. After considering the literature of the abolition and temperance movements, the women selected the U.S. Declaration of Independence as the model for the Declaration of Sentiments that they prepared for the convention. With a program and leadership established, the women's movement in the United States had officially begun.

The Birth of a Nation

Originally called The Clansman, this1915 American silent film was directed by D.W. Griffith and was the highest-grossing film of the silent film era and has been praised for its technical innovations. The film was, and remains, highly controversial due to its portrayal of African American men (played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women, and the portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force.The film is also credited as one of the events which inspired the formation of the "second era" Klan and was used as a recruiting tool for the KKK. It was the first motion picture to be shown at the White House.

Judiciary Act of 1801

Passed by the lame-duck Federalists in Congress in 1801 after the election of Democratic-Republican president Thomas Jefferson, this act was a blend of needed judicial reform and partisan politics. The law added six new circuit courts and added 16 new judgeships, along with their support staffs, for outgoing Federalist president John Adams to fill. These judgeships were criticized as "midnight appointments."

Interstate Commerce Act

Passed in 1887, this law created the first federal regulatory agency. It arose in response to public outrage over malpractice and profiteering by the railroad companies. The agency was primarily used to regulate the railroads and it sought to make sure prices were fair.

Morrill Land Grant Act

Passed on July 2, 1862 in the midst of the Civil War, this act encouraged the founding of agricultural (and later engineering) colleges across the United States by providing land for campuses in all states loyal to the Union. Under its auspices, more than 70 land-grant colleges have been founded in the United States.

Quarantine Speech

President Franklin Roosevelt delivered this speech in 1937 as an alternative to the political climate of American neutrality and non-intervention that was prevalent at the time. He condemned international aggression and suggested the use of economic pressure, a forceful response, but less direct than outright aggression.

George McClellan

President Lincoln appointed him commander of Union forces in 1861. After months of preparation however, his army was defeated by Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. His egotism and overcautiousness cost the Union the chance to end the Civil War quickly and finally forced President Abraham Lincoln to relieve him of command after Antietam in 1862. Thereafter, he identified with the political opposition to Lincoln and in 1864 ran unsuccessfully for president as a Democrat.

Fourteen Points

President Wilson outlined this plan for a permanent peace in the wake of the First World War. His dream was to implement a permanent "peace without victory." Wilson's proposed terms included: open diplomacy; freedom of the seas; removal of trade barriers; international disarmament; adjustment of colonial claims; European territorial adjustments; and a general association of nations (which was to become the League of Nations). Although Wilson noticeable did not punish Germany, he was obliged to compromise on many of the points. The Germans, having agreed to the armistice largely on the basis of the Wilson's plan, felt betrayed by subsequent decisions imposed upon them by the Treaty of Versailles.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Published in 1852, this book was the first by an American author to have as its hero an African American. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel appealed strongly to 19th-century readers, and because the book presented the horrors of slavery in vivid human terms, it had a powerful impact. More than 300,000 copies were sold within the first year. While fueling antislavery sentiment in the North,it infuriated Southerners, who charged that Stowe knew nothing about plantation life and grossly misrepresented it.

Margaret Sanger

She dedicated her life to the birth-control movement in the United States, of which she was the founder and controversial leader. She founded the American Birth Control League, serving as president until 1928; the organization later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.

Clara Barton

She served in field hospitals at or near the battlegrounds of Second bull run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, and the Richmond-Petersburg siege. Often under fire, she showed that women could serve in the field with bravery and competence and thus cleared the way for other Northern women to follow her to the Virginia front. The Civil War was the central, defining event in her life: it gave her the opportunity to reach out and seize control of her destiny in the relief of the suffering. She later served in military hospitals in Europe and Cuba and founded and became first president of the American Association of the Red Cross.

Frances Perkins

She was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. During her term as Secretary of Labor, she championed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard 40-hour work week.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Signed in 1842, this treaty was negotiated to settle disputes of the northeastern border between America and Canada. The treaty established the current borders between Canada and Maine, New York, and Vermont. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty on August 20 by a vote of 39 to 9.

Quasi-War

Since 1793, Revolutionary France had been embroiled in a war with England, and it sought to keep foreign shipping from carrying cargoes to English ports. Accordingly, in 1797, the French government issued several decrees authorizing the seizure of U.S. merchant vessels trading with England. On April 30, 1798, President John Adams created the U.S. Navy and ordered it into action against French privateers attempting to halt the Anglo-American trade. The conflict became known by this term.

Ku Klux Klan

Southerners who objected to congressional Reconstruction policies founded several secret terrorist societies; this was the most notorious. It was organized in Tennessee in 1866 and became a vigilante group dedicated to driving blacks out of politics by using intimidation and violence.

Palmer Raids

The Attorney General, concerned that the United States was threatened by the spread of Communism, ordered this series of raids that led to mass arrests and deportation of those accused of being disloyal Americans. Although his authorization of raids, arrests, and deportations were deplored by defenders of civil liberties, they brought him popular acclaim. In historical perspective, his zeal appears excessive, though it must be understood as part of a wave of anti-radical and anti-immigrant hysteria that swept through the nation during the Red Scare following World War I.

National Origins Act

The Immigration Act of 1924 is known by this name because it limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States based on a quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

NRA

The cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program, this administration allowed companies to draw up trade "codes of fair competition." Under the this agency, businesses were allowed to regulate prices, wages, working conditions, and terms of credit as long as they had presidential approval. Businesses that obeyed the codes were exempt from the government's strict antitrust (antimonopoly) laws. However, consumers began to notice higher prices, and small-business owners complained that big companies had all the say in developing government policy. The Supreme Court brought a sudden end to the this administration when it decided the case Schechter Case in 1935: the court unanimously ruled that the this agency was unconstitutional.

Transcontinental Railroad

The Pacific Railroad Act, passed in June 1862 by the U.S. Congress, authorized the building of this--a railroad across the continental United States. The Union Pacific Railroad worked westward from Omaha, Nebraska to meet the rails of the Central Pacific, which had built eastward from Sacramento, California. The railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, when crews of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad lines met and joined tracks at Promontory Summit, Utah.

Panic of 1893

The announcement that US gold reserves had fallen below the $100 million mark on April 21 led to this downturn in the overall economy. By June 27, stocks on the New York exchange fell seriously and before the year ended 491 banks and 15,000 commercial institutions failed. The McKinley Tariff of 1890 cut imports and decreased US customs revenue as the veterans' pension grants of the Harrison administration drained reserves. Generally, this financial crisis aided the US imperial thrust of the 1890s by stimulating the belief that foreign markets for American surplus products were necessary to maintain US prosperity. Populists responded to the crisis by advocating free silver coinage in order to reduce consumer costs at home.

Erie Canal

The construction of the 363-mile long canal began the canal boom of the 1820s and 1830s. It was financed by the state of New York with public funds. Begun in 1817, it was completed in 1825 and was an immediate financial success. It was the first transportation route between the eastern seaboard (New York City) and the western interior (Great Lakes) of the United States faster than carts pulled by draft animals, and cut transport costs by about 95%.

Election of 1864

The contest in the midst of the Civil War pitted President Abraham Lincoln against Democrat George B. McClellan, the general who had commanded the Army of the Potomac until his indecision and delays caused Lincoln to remove him. The Republicans attracted Democratic support by running as the Union party and putting Johnson, a pro-war Democrat, on the ticket. McClellan repudiated the Democratic platform's call for peace, but he attacked Lincoln's handling of the war. Lincoln won in a landslide, owing to the military successes of Generals Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia and William T. Sherman in the Deep South. The electoral vote was 212 to 21.

Lusitania

This British steamship was sunk on 7 May 1915 off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, after being torpedoed by a German U-boat. The ship had left New York on 1 May 1915 bound for Liverpool. Of the 785 passengers lost, 124 were American. The incident was a diplomatic disaster for the Germans, with the American government coming close to breaking off relations. It had a major influence on the eventual decision of the USA to enterWorld War I.

Bank Holiday

The day after becoming president in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt called for this—a temporary closure of all banks while they were investigated by federal examiners. In this time, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. When banks reopened depositors stood in line to return their stashed cash to neighborhood banks. On March 15, 1933, the first day of trading after the extended closure, the New York Stock Exchange recorded the largest one-day percentage price increase ever. With the benefit of hindsight, this action ended the bank runs that had plagued the Great Depression and signaled the vigorous executive action associated with Roosevelt's New Deal.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

The fire on March 25, 1911 in New York City killed 146 garment workers, nearly all of them young women, and was the worst industrial fire in New York history. The disaster proved to be a seminal event in both the labor and progressive movements, as it galvanized support for government regulation of factory safety and working conditions.

13th Amendment

The first of three Reconstruction Amendments enacted in the years immediately following the Civil War, this Amendment officially prohibited slavery in the United States and its territories. Ironically, by negating the Three-fifths Clause in the Constitution, it had the effect of increasing the representation of the southern states in Congress.

NAWSA

The formation of this group in 1890 represented the start of a truly nationwide women's rights movement and worked to advance women's suffrage in the United States. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the group's first president, but Susan B. Anthony assumed the post in 1892. The organization was infused with the ideas of a younger generation of feminists who had attended college and had careers. After the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, the group became the League of Women Voters, which is still active today.

Argonne Offensive

The greatest AEF engagement in World War I came here in September, 1918. 1.2 million American soldiers fought for over a month through dense forest and formidable German defenses. When the AEF finally broke through, they broke the German center at the cost of 120,000 AEF casualties. The war ended weeks later.

Judith Sargent Murray

The history of American feminism--the self-conscious desire to achieve sexual equality--began soon after the Revolution, when women's rights tracts first appeared in print. This early feminist and writer wrote an essay arguing that men and women are of equal intelligence and should be equally educated. She wrote about politics, education, religion, and other topics until 1794, once commenting that women, capable of more than reflecting on the "mechanism of a pudding," should be allowed to earn a living, receive equal education, and be an equal companion to men. The egalitarian spirit that pervaded her works reappeared in many ways over the next two centuries.

Indian Reorganization Act

The law replaced the "Dawes Act" and reversed previous Indian policy by guaranteeing tribal self-government and providing economic assistance. It was intended to allow Native Americans to resurrect their culture and traditions lost to government expansion and encroachment years earlier. Part of Congress's intent was to help Native Americans achieve economic parity with white people, while not becoming dependent on state governments. The goal of the act, however, was to give greater independence to local tribes, not individual members.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

The most radical union in U.S. history, it was dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. It was formed in Chicago in 1905 and its members were nicknamed "Wobblies" It was active in mainstream politics (its Detroit Conference of 1909 agreed to support the presidential campaign of the Socialist Eugene Debs), but other sections of the movement indulged in sabotage and sought to foment strikes. Such actions resulted in prosecutions and alienation of many potential supporters, allowing the government to label the IWW as "red fanatics." Between 1912 and 1915, when its influence was strongest, the union had 100,000 members but it declined rapidly after the Red Scare.

WPA

The purpose of this New Deal agency was to create useful jobs for the country's many unemployed people. It became the most important and innovative New Deal work-relief agency: most WPA jobs centered on construction and improvement projects. During the program's eight years, its workers built 78,000 bridges, 116,000 buildings, and 651,000 miles of public roads. The agency also sponsored and supported such cultural groups as the Federal Art Project, the Federal Theater Project, and the Federal Writers' Project, which all provided jobs in the arts. During the depression, it employed about 8.5 million people. It cost the government a total of $11 billion.

Coxey's Army

This term was given to supporters of Jacob Coxey. Coxey vividly dramatized the plight of the unemployed in the United States by leading a march on Washington to demand relief during the depression of the mid-1890s. His march may well have contributed to the groundswell of support for the Populist Party that enabled it to elect six senators and seven congressmen in 1894.

The Populist Party

The rise of this political party was the culmination of two decades of agrarian distress among farmers of the South and West. This party advocated policies to relieve the hardships of farmers, including especially the unlimited coinage of silver to increase the money supply. In 1896, they struck an unofficial truce with the Democratic Party in support of William Jennings Bryan for president. Although the political movement lost momentum after the electoral loss in 1896, many ideas survived and were enacted into law over the span of the next 20 years. The graduated income tax, the direct election of senators, the secret ballot, and government subsidies to farmers all had origins with this party.

Hessians

These German troops were hired by the British in 1775 to help suppress rebellion in the colonies. Colonists took offense, and Britain's use of these mercenaries made reconciliation with the colonies seem out of the question.

Townshend Duties

These acts of Parliament, passed in 1767, imposed duties on colonial tea, lead, paint, paper, and glass. The purpose of these duties was to help support government in America. The act prompted a successful colonial nonimportation movement. Parliament gradually rescinded the tax on all of the items enumerated in the laws except tea. The episode served as another important step in the coming of the American Revolution.

Lexington and Concord

These battles, fought on April 19, 1775 were the opening engagements of the American Revolution. Though there had been increasing violence and unrest throughout New England for several years, the colonists killed 73 British soldiers and wounded 174 and therefore brought the American patriots into open rebellion.

buffalo

These creatures (more correctly, bison), once roamed the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico and as far east as the Mississippi River. It is estimated that at their peak, around 1800, there were 40 million buffalo in the United States. The principal source of food for the Plains Indians, the buffalo was also a resource in other ways. Robes, shields, and drums, among other things, were made from the hide. The sinews were used for bowstrings, hooves could be converted to glue, and hair was used for headdresses. The unbelievably swift destruction of the herds by white hide-hunters during the last half of the 19th century exacerbated tension between Indians and whites.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

These debates took place in Illinois during 1858 between the Republican Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, and the incumbent Democratic Party candidate. Because the primary topic of the debates was whether slavery could legally be extended into free territories, they were widely covered in the national press. Although the Republican ultimately lost the election, the publicity surrounding the debates gained him national attention and helped him to obtain the Republican Party's nomination for the presidency in 1860.

"dumbell" tenements

These housing accommodations were built in New York City to accommodate the influx of immigrants. The structure resembled a dumbbell, with a long narrow hall connecting two buildings. Though the tenements were built to improve the insufficient housing conditions, the severe crowding, with often four families on a single floor, and the lack of sufficient garbage facilities brought about a deplorable living situation for the tenants. The narrow formation of the tenements provided little light or ventilation, and the buildings persisted as severe fire hazards despite the addition of fire escapes.

Navajo Code Talkers

These marines developed and implemented one of the few unbroken codes in history. The language was largely unwritten and not a subject of linguistic study. They based the code on nature as a reference. Birds indicated planes, a buzzard was a bomber, and fish denoted types of ships. They worked with all six marine divisions in the Pacific and served with distinction on the islands of Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Guadalcanal. The code was finally declassified in 1968.

The Shakers

These people established a religious commune founded by Ann Lee. Reflecting the utopian impulse, they practiced celibacy because they believed the millennium was imminent. But their emphasis on celibacy precluded their producing a new generation of believers, and their dedication to a life of simplicity and a severe work ethic discouraged new members. The communities steadily declined and disbanded.

Zoot Suit Riots

These riots were a series of racial confrontations in wartime Los Angeles between June 3 and June 13, 1943. The primary targets of this violence were Mexican-American youths who wore the flamboyant clothing to to express a certain teenage independence. The riots were initiated by navy recruits and discharged veterans who claimed to have been beaten and robbed by Mexican pachucos. After several days of rioting and assaults by servicemen, more than 150 had been injured and police had arrested and charged more than 500 Latino youths for "rioting" or "vagrancy," many themselves the victims. The violence of the riots and the miscarriage of justice that followed caused long-lasting resentment and hostility among the city's Mexican Americans.

Jim Crow Laws

These southern state laws were passed after Reconstruction ended when federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877. The purpose of these laws was to maintain racial segregation and keep blacks in an inferior position to whites. The laws restored segregation of the races and deprived blacks of the rights guaranteed by Civil Right Acts and constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War. Races were segregated in every aspect of life-in schools, churches, housing, hotels and public parks. Blacks were also effectively prevented from voting, as they had to pay the poll tax before they could vote. The laws were effective from the 1870s to the 1950s.

"Redeemers"

These were Southern democrats who headed the post-Reconstruction governments in the last 30 years of the 19th century. Their name is derived from their hope to restore the South from the changes brought about during the Civil War. They were resistant to Radical Reconstruction, enacted repressive legislation called Jim Crow laws, which provided a legal basis for segregation in the South. These laws contributed to the severe discrimination African Americans faced until the civil rights movement.

Black Codes

These were highly restrictive laws that Southern states adopted after the Civil War to deny many rights of citizenship to free blacks. The laws regulated the freedom and movement of former slaves. The adoption of these laws convinced many Northerners that federal legislation and constitutional amendments (as well as federal military districts in the South) would be necessary to secure the rights of African Americans.

Anti-Federalists

They were a loosely organized group that arose after the American Revolution to oppose the Constitution and the strong central government that it created. They feared the potential of strong governments to infringe on the liberties of the people and the rights of the states.

Dust Bowl

This 150,000-square-mile area in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and portions of Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico, was struck by a severe drought and high winds in the summers from 1934 to 1937. Those conditions caused the topsoil to blow into great clouds of dust. The dust clouds obscured sunlight, piled up in drifts as high as snow, and devastated agriculture and livestock in the region. For many farmers who were already suffering the effects of the Great Depression, the dust clouds were the final blow. They sold or abandoned their land and migrated west to California to start over.

Sugar Act

This 1764 Act initiated prime minister George Grenville's plan to place tariffs on some colonial imports as a means of raising revenue needed to finance England's expanded North American empire. It also called for more strict enforcement of the Navigation Acts. The end of "salutary neglect" and the effort to curb smuggling led to many of the early colonial protests against British interference in colonial affairs.

Stamp Act

This 1765 Act of Parliament was the first purely direct (revenue) tax Parliament imposed on the colonies. It was an excise tax on printed matter, including legal documents, publications, and playing cards, and the revenue produced was supposed to defray expenses for defending the colonies. Americans opposed it as "taxation without representation" and prevented its enforcement; Parliament repealed it a year after its enactment.

Webster-Hayne Debate

This 1830 debate is generally regarded as one of the greatest congressional debates in history. During an ongoing argument about the constitutionality of nullification, Senator Daniel Webster eloquently defended the Constitution and the Union and closed his speech with a call for "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" This debate stirred deep sentiments in both the North and the South, but only the Civil War could finally resolve the contested issues.

Chinese Exclusion Act

This 1882 law was the first to restrict immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers. The Chinese had been entering the country in record numbers for several years previously, particularly in California, where many of them lived as near slaves while employed building railroad lines across the West. They were also frequently victims of attacks by workingmen and other immigrant groups, who believed the Chinese were taking jobs away from them. This act placed a ban on Chinese immigrants entering the United States or being naturalized as U.S. citizens for 10 years. The legislation proved very effective, and the Chinese population in the United States sharply declined.

Dawes Act

This 1887 law revised official government policy with regard to Indian lands. The law terminated tribal ownership of land and allotted some parcels of land to individual Indians. By dividing reservation lands into privately-owned parcels, legislators hoped to complete the assimilation process by forcing the deterioration of the communal life-style of the Native societies; it was hoped that Native Americans would learn the benefit of owning and cultivating property. Most allotment land, which could be sold after a statutory period of 25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices.

Plessy v Ferguson

This 1896 US Supreme Court decision opened the way to racial segregation under the US Constitution by upholding the concept of 'separate but equal'. The court ruled that if the facilities offered blacks were equal to those for whites, there was no infringement of the 14th Amendment. The decision came to underpin the whole structure of segregation in the Southern states during the first half of the 20th century, eventually being overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954

Scopes Monkey Trial

This 1925 trial was considered the "trial of the century." It represented the opening skirmish between fundamentalist Christians and modernists over the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools. In early 1925, the state of Tennessee made it illegal to "teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man." When a biology teacher violated this law and taught evolution, the case wen to court. William Jennings Bryan represented the prosecution and Clarence Darrow represented the teacher. The teacher was found guilty, but the trial presented a serious challenge to fundamentalist teachings.

Common Sense

This 50-page pamphlet, written by Thomas Paine, inspired the Declaration of Independence. Even after fighting broke out in April 1775, many Americans were reluctant to break their ties to England. Paine's publication in January 1776 helped remove that obstacle by convincing the colonists that further association with the English king was undesirable. It was highly influential and sold more than 120,000 copies in the first three months, making it the biggest best-seller of its time.

Lend-Lease Act

This Act (March, 1941) provided for the extension of credit, weapons, and supplies to the British government, as Great Britain struggled against the aggression of Nazi Germany in World War II. Technically, the law allowed the president to grant aid to any country whose defense the president believed to be vital to U.S. security. Over the course of the war and under the auspices of this bill, the United States granted more than $50 billion of aid to its allies.

Federal Reserve Act

This Act, passed in 1913 during Wilson's administration, established the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the "Fed." The Federal Reserve System is still the central bank of the United States and is charged with the responsibility of developing and administering monetary and credit policies for the nation. The Fed provides the nation with central banking functions that include handling of government deposits, managing the federal debt, and supervising and regulating private banks. Its most important function in terms of the nation's economic well-being is that of determining the supply of money and credit in the system.

Ida B. Wells

This African American woman was a journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing that it was often used as a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, rather than being based on criminal acts by blacks, as was usually claimed by white mobs. She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician and traveled internationally on lecture tours. Throughout her life, she was militant in her demands for equality and justice for African-Americans and insisted that the African-American community win justice through its own efforts.

21st Amendment

This Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment which had mandated nationwide Prohibition. It was ratified on December 5, 1933.

Townshend Plan

This American physician was best known for his proposal for a revolving old-age pension plan during the Great Depression. This proposal is often considered an important influence on the establishment of the Social Security system during the Roosevelt Administration

Sam Adams

This American revolutionary political leader rose to prominence in the Massachusetts assembly during the opposition to the Stamp Act in 1765. An organizer of Boston's Sons of Liberty, he conceived of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and took a leading role in its formation and operations from 1772 through 1774. He was among those who planned and coordinated Boston's resistance to the Tea Act, which climaxed in the famous Tea Party, and he later worked for the creation of the Continental Congress, helping propel it into supporting Massachusetts in the crisis.

WACs

This Army Corps included the first women besides nurses ever to serve with the army. These women almost immediately proved themselves invaluable—both as domestic replacements for the servicemen overseas and as efficient workers in the theaters of war. While the leadership of the Army and public opinion generally was initially opposed to women serving in uniform, the shortage of men necessitated a new policy. While most women served stateside, some went to various places around the world. The first battalion went to Europe in 1943 and took up such varied essential jobs as switchboard operators, typists, secretaries, and motor pool drivers; some also became cryptographers, radiographers, photo interpreters, and mail censors. About 150,000 American women eventually served in this army corps during World War II.

Antietam

This Civil War battle took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland in September, 1862. Gen. Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, had led his troops into the North to forage for supplies and to rally Southern sympathizers in Maryland. This was the bloodiest battle of the entire Civil War. The Confederates' defeat was a serious blow to their morale and diminished the Confederacy's chances of securing international recognition. McClellan, despite winning the battle, was criticized for not inflicting a more resounding defeat on the Confederates with their vastly superior numbers.

18th Amendment

This Constitutional Amendment (1919), along with the Volstead Act, legislatively banned "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors." The era of Prohibition was underway. This Amendment was the culmination of efforts to ban alcohol that dated to the19th-century temperance movements. The Amendment was eventually repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.

14th Amendment

This Constitutional amendment was one of three Reconstruction amendments enacted in the years immediately following the Civil War. Passed by Congress in April 1866, it expanded the definition of U.S. citizenship to include people of all races, specifically African Americans; and it commanded the federal government to ensure the protection of certain fundamental rights at the state level.

Andrew Johnson

This Democratic Senator from Tennessee was Lincoln's vice-presidential running mate in 1864. He succeeded to the presidency when Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. His Reconstruction policies infuriated Radical Republicans in Congress, and he was impeached and nearly removed from office in 1867. While he retained office, his power was reduced. None of his vetoes were upheld during his last year in office. One of his last acts as president was to grant amnesty "without limitation to all who had participated in the rebellion."

Eleanor Roosevelt

This First Lady (1933-1945) was the first wife of a president to use her unique position to fight for the rights of minorities, women, and the destitute. She worked in the slums, visited workers in mines and factories, held press conferences, and wrote a newspaper column. Strongly committed to civil equality for African Americans, she was often the only person close to the White House who was willing to speak up on the issue. After her husband's death in 1945, she continued her public life, serving as a delegate to the United Nations until 1952.

Battle of the Bulge

This German counter-offensive was launched in December, 1944 as a final effort to turn the tide of the war. A successful surprise attack on the thin Allied line would enable Germany to recapture the Allied supply port at Antwerp, and it would also separate the British forces from the American troops. The German ambush caught the Allies off guard and temporarily drove them back. However, Allied reinforcements and air superiority led to a major defeat for the German Army; it opened the door for Allied invasion of Germany itself.

Huey Long

This Louisiana Senator was a left-wing critic of the New Deal, contending it did too little to help the poor. He advocated a "Share Our Wealth" program to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. He made it clear that he hoped to run for the presidency at the head of the Democratic Party in 1936 or 1940, but that if he could not secure the nomination he would run as an independent. He never had the chance. He was assassinated on September 8, 1935 by the son-in-law of a political opponent he was attempting to destroy. He died two days later.

AAA

This New Deal agency was created in 1933 to fight the damage suffered by the nation's farms during the Great Depression. The strategy was to pay benefits to farmers for lowered production of such staple crops as cotton, wheat, tobacco, and corn. This incentive greatly helped land-owning farmers and raised the prices of their commodities, but sharecroppers and tenant farmers usually faced threats of eviction when farm production went down. By 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court had decided in United States v. Butler (1936) that the plan was unconstitutional because its government subsidies constituted an illegal system of regulation

Woodrow Wilson

This Progressive governor from New Jersey was elected president of the United States in 1912. As a Progressive Democrat, he secured passage of a lower Underwood Tariff and the first progressive income tax. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission were also noteworthy accomplishments of his domestic agenda. After the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, he gradually became preoccupied with foreign policy issues. Initially, the position of his administration was to adopt a policy of strict neutrality. But three years later, he asked Congress for a declaration of war on April 2, 1917. "The world," he said, "must be made safe for democracy." His "Fourteen Points" became the basis of peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.

Tecumseh

This Shawnee chief organized an Indian confederacy to try to defend Indian land and culture in the Ohio country. He combined military skill and oratory brilliance to fashion one of the biggest pan-Indian alliances. In 1811 his confederacy was shattered at the Battle of Tippecanoe. He was killed later at the Battle of the Thames during the War of 1812.

Marbury v Madison

This Supreme Court case was pivotal in establishing the doctrine of judicial review of laws made in Congress and thus helped to shape the government of the United States. Chief Justice John Marshall effectively strengthened the judiciary as a co-equal branch of the federal government

OPA

This U.S. federal agency was established to prevent wartime inflation. This agency set maximum prices for various goods including almost 90% of the retail food prices. Ultimately consumer prices were relatively stable during the remaining war years. Besides controlling prices, this agency was also empowered to ration scarce consumer goods in wartime. Tires, automobiles, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meats, and processed foods were ultimately rationed.

WPB

This U.S. government agency oversaw the production and procurement of materials and equipment used by the military in World War II. It took over almost all civilian operations and converted them to war production. It controlled raw materials and components so that civilians could not use them for their own purposes. It set schedules for operations all over the country to ensure that production of war equipment proceeded at maximum efficiency.

Washington Naval Conference

This was an International diplomatic meeting 1921 to avert a naval arms race between the principal maritime powers: Britain, the USA, Japan, France, and Italy. The resultant treaty 1922 put a stop to naval competition by limiting the battleship strength of the five powers.

NAACP

This US civil-rights organization was dedicated to ending inequality and segregation for blacks. Founded in 1909, it campaigned to end segregation and discrimination in education, public accommodations, voting, and employment, and to protect the constitutional rights of blacks. It has made the most significant gains for civil rights through groundbreaking judicial cases. In 1909 it merged with the Niagara Movement founded in 1905 by W E B Du Bois, who went on to edit the organization's journal The Crisis.

Bull Moose Party

This US political party was founded 1912 by supporters of the former president Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" platform included legislation for workers' protection and strict regulation of corporations. The new progressive party and Roosevelt's candidacy split the Republican Party completely; as a consequence the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, won the 1912 presidential election by an overwhelming majority.

Election of 1912

This United States presidential election was fought among three major candidates. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican Party. Former President Theodore Roosevelt failed to receive the Republican nomination and called his own convention and created the Progressive Party (nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party"). Woodrow Wilson won the Democratic nomination. The split between Roosevelt and Taft helped Wilson win the election. Wilson was the second of only two Democrats to be elected President between 1860 and 1932. This was also the last election in which a candidate who was not a Republican or Democrat came second in either the popular vote or the Electoral College.

Land Ordinance of 1785

This act was adopted by the United States Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) on May 20, 1785. The act provided for the political organization of these territories and laid the foundations of land policy in the United States. Land was to be systematically surveyed into square "townships", six miles on a side and then be further subdivided for sale to settlers and land speculators. The law was also significant for establishing a mechanism for funding public education. Section 16 in each township was reserved for the maintenance of public schools.

Platt Amendment

This amendment to the Cuban Constitution barred Cuba from making a treaty that gave another nation power over its affairs. Also, the United States could intervene in Cuban affairs to keep order or maintain independence, and could buy or lease sites for naval and coaling stations (the main one was Guantánamo Bay). Later in 1901, under American pressure, Cuba included the amendment's provisions in its Constitution.

Horatio Alger

This author wrote books with rags-to-riches themes to reinforce the prevailing business philosophy of late-19th-century America. This philosophy held that any individual, however humble his or her beginnings, could become president or a millionaire by dint of hard work and good deeds. The legend embodied by his heroes became the basis of the "American Dream" of success through individual effort.

Gettysburg

This battle is considered by many historians to be the turning point of the Civil War. General Lee planned a raid into Pennsylvania to relieve the strained Virginia countryside, disrupt Union economic security and bring foreign recognition to the Confederacy. US General George G. Meade ordered the entire army to concentrate on this battlefield against Lee's forces. After the Confederate loss there, Gen. Robert E. Lee never took the strategic offensive in battle again. Lee's army of 75,000 troops suffered 28,000 casualties. Though Meade had kept Lee out of the North, he was later criticized for not further pursuing and demolishing the Confederate Army.

Yorktown

This battle proved to be the decisive battle in the revolutionary defeat of Great Britain at the hands of American colonists. After the failure of his Carolinas campaign, British general Lord Charles Cornwallis withdrew his army into Virginia and hoped to receive reinforcements. Before that could occur, however, the Franco-American Army, commanded by Gen. George Washington arrived and laid siege to the city. British reinforcements were also cut off by the arrival of French admiral François de Grasse, who drove the British Navy out of Chesapeake Bay and ensured that it could not support Cornwallis. Giving up any hope of assistance, Cornwallis surrendered his troops on October 19, 1781.

Battle of New Orleans

This battle took place on January 8, 1815, weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed. It was the final major battle of the War of 1812. American forces, with General Andrew Jackson in command, defeated an invading British Army. At the end of the day, the British had 2,037 casualties; the Americans had 71 casualties. Such a route of British forces stirred American nationalism and contributed to the heroic legacy of Andrew Jackson.

Battle of Tippecanoe

This battle took place on November 7, 1811 between Shawnee Indians and U.S. forces. In the years after 1805, the Shawnee Prophet and his brother Tecumseh encouraged Indian resistance to U.S. demands for land in the Old Northwest. William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana Territory, was greatly concerned and organized more than 1,000 troops. The Prophet had decided that he must attack to forestall Harrison. This battle was fiercely fought, and the Americans lost nearly 200 killed and wounded. It is likely that Indian casualties were about the same. Harrison, however, claimed a major victory because the Indians dispersed. The Indians, however, were now more determined than ever to resist the Americans, and many were ready to join the British in the event of war.

Chateau-Thierry

This battle was fought on July 18, 1918 and was one of the first actions the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) under General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. The Germans were only 50 miles outside of Paris, but the AEF stopped the German offensive. As a result, for the first time in more than a year the Germans were on the defensive.

Midway

This battle, fought in June, 1942 is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Japanese admiral Yamamoto anticipated that the attack would lure those American aircraft carriers that had escaped from the Pearl Harbor attack into open waters, where they could be sunk. However, this battle marked the first clear-cut Japanese defeat since the outbreak of World War II; it ended Japan's ability to expand its control in the Pacific, and forced the Japanese to be on the defensive for the remainder of the war. Japan was unable to recover from the loss of four aircraft carriers, the best in the navy's fleet, and the loss of so many skilled pilots.

Oneida Perfectionists

This community in New York was one of the most successful and longest-lived utopian societies in American history, lasting from 1848 to 1880. Based on the perfectionist theology of John Humphrey Noyes, the highly organized group supported Bible communism, and the group adopted communal ownership of all property. In 1837, Noyes spread the belief that monogamous sexual arrangements were incompatible with perfectionism. By 1846, the community was practicing complex marriage, in which all the adults in the group were considered married to every adult of the opposite gender, as a means of dissolving selfishness.

French and Indian War

This conflict had its focal point in North America and pitted the French and their Native American allies against the English and their Native American allies. Although it lasted from 1754-1763, the event was known in Europe as the Seven Years' War. This struggle drove the French from North America, but it fundamentally changed the relationship between Britain and the American colonies.

James K. Polk

This dark horse candidate, was elected president in 1844 on a platform of territorial expansion. His election secured the annexation of Texas in 1845. The Mexican War, fought during his term, resulted in the United States' acquisition of New Mexico and California in 1848. During his administration, more than a million square miles of new territory were added to the United States. Exhausted and prematurely aged due to his overwork and poor health, he decided not to run for reelection in 1848. He died on June 15, 1849, only a few months after retiring from office, but today he is remembered as one of the most effective chief executives in American history.

carpetbaggers

This disparaging term was applied to northerners who went to the South after the Civil War. They were a mixed lot of idealists and self-interested seekers of political and economic opportunity, many of whom became involved in Republican politics. According to the stereotype, this was a seeker of power and plunder whotook advantage of the Reconstruction Acts to sway the easily exploitable black voters and lowborn Southern white traitors known as scalawags.

Dorthea Lange

This documentary photographer is best known for her sensitive, impassioned images of depression-era poverty. Her achievements in photographic technique and her respect and compassion for the subjects of her portraits raised the level of art photography and the awareness of the plight of those most affected by the Great Depression.

Election of 1896

This election is often considered to be a realigning election that promoted the ascendancy of the Republican party. William McKinley forged a conservative coalition in which businessmen, professionals, skilled factory workers, and prosperous farmers were heavily represented. He was strongest in cities and in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Pacific Coast. William Jennings Bryan was the nominee of the Democrats and the Populist Party. He presented his campaign as a crusade of the working man against the rich and promoted the free and unlimited coinage of silver. Mckinley's victory over Bryan led to a Republican ascendancy that did not end until the Great Depression and the election of Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

prohibition

This era was underway when the 18th Amendment This (1919), along with the Volstead Act, legislatively banned "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors." The 18th Amendment was the culmination of efforts to ban alcohol that dated to the19th-century temperance movements. The Amendment was eventually repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.

Haymarket Square Riot

This event ocurred on May 4, 1886 in Chicago. A bomb exploded among a group of policemen as they attempted to disperse a giant labor rally. The explosion killed seven policemen and injured 70 people. The incident received considerable nationwide publicity and seriously damaged the image of the growing labor movement--especially the Knights of Labor which was branded as a breeding ground for political dissidents rather than an organization of workers trying to secure better conditions.

Columbian Exposition

This event opened in Chicago in 1893 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the landing of Columbus in the New World. The exposition, commonly known as the Chicago World's Fair, ran from May 1 through October 30, 1893, and the exposition company recorded nearly 27 million attendants in the six months that the fair operated. It was the greatest tourist attraction to that date in U.S. history, and some 14 million people came from outside the United States to see it. This Chicago fair was particularly notable to its citizens because of the devastating fire of 1871 that had left almost 100,000 people homeless and destroyed $190 million in property. The fair coincided with a massive municipal renovation known as the "upward movement" and offered the city an occasion to show off its new image.

TVA

This federal government agency was part of the New Deal proposals to offset unemployment by a program of public works. It set out to provide for the development of the whole Tennessee River basin. It was authorized to construct new dams and improve existing ones, to control floods and generate cheap hydro-electric power, to check erosion across seven states. Today, the 29 hydroelectric dams help this agency become one of the largest producers of electricity in the country.

Good Neighbor Policy

This foreign policy stance was adopted by President Franklin Roosevelt to promote better diplomatic relations, especially with South America. The policy called for non-intervention in Latin America. As the Great Depression gripped the United States in the 1930s, this policy redirected U.S. funds from Latin American aid toward domestic programs. Roosevelt's policy helped the United States maintain good relations with Latin America and contributed to Latin America's support of the United States during WWII

Booker T. Washington

This former slave became a major spokesperson for his race in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1881, he became principal of a new school for African Americans at Tuskegee, Alabama. Tuskegee offered training in a variety of skilled trades and emphasized the practical applications of learning rather than learning for its own sake. He delivered his most famous speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. He believed that African Americans should advance through education and effort instead of seeking social and political equality with whites. Critics called this "Atlanta Compromise" a policy of submission.

Shays' Rebellion

This was an armed rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers to prevent state courts from foreclosing on debtors unable to pay their taxes in1786-7. Fears generated by this rebellion helped to convince states to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787.

Rosie the Riveter

This generic name given to US women employed in defense production during World War II. By 1944, over 50 per cent of workers in aircraft manufacture and shipbuilding were women and the number of married women in work had increased from around 15 per cent to almost 25 per cent. This image was invented by the government's poster-making crews and popularized by the press. It reflected the nation's desire to romanticize wartime work. Women's level of performance, in jobs for which they had previously been considered unsuitable, was so high that attitudes towards women in work were permanently altered, but after the soldiers returned, in 1945-46, women were bumped from their skilled, well-paying industrial jobs.

Committee on Public Information

This government agency was a propaganda body whose purpose was to mobilize public support for U.S. participation in World War I. The goal was to make sure citizens' loyalty to the United States stayed strong. The agency was in charge of staging a national campaign to encourage service in the military and the purchase of war bonds to fuel the massive military effort. 75,000 speakers and100 million copies of pamphlets outlined the U.S. stance on the war. George Creel, a progressive journalist and publicist, led the agency and was instrumental in engineering the image the American public came to have of Kaiser Wilhelm III and his countrymen as "barbaric Huns."

Federal Trade Commission

This government agency was established in 1914 as part of President Woodrow Wilson's progressive effort to ensure free and fair competition among the nation's businesses. It is an independent regulatory agency formed to combat trusts and protect the public against false advertising. Its functions were initially similar to those of the earlier Bureau of Corporations, which it absorbed, but the it was given considerably more power than the bureau to do its work, including unprecedented access to corporate records and the right to issue cease-and-desist orders.

War Industries Board

This government agency was established in1917, during World War I to coordinate the purchase of war supplies, to encourage the use mass-production techniques, to increase efficiency, and to eliminate waste by standardizing products. The board set production quotas and allocated raw materials. Under this government board, industrial production in the U.S. increased 20 percent.

Henry Clay

This great American statesman and orator represented Kentucky in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He was a leading war hawk advocating war with Great Britain in 1812. After the war, he advocated his "American System" for modernizing the economy, especially tariffs to protect industry, a national bank, and internal improvements to promote canals, ports and railroads. He was a founder and leader of the Whig Party that Challenged Jaksonian Democrats in the 1830s and 1840s. Although his multiple attempts to become president were unsuccessful, he secured a reputation as the "Great Compromiser" for his role in drafting the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the compromise tariff of 1833 (that relieved the nullification crisis) and the Compromise of 1850.

Radical Republicans

This group in Congress, headed by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade, insisted on black suffrage, equal rights for Freedmen, and federal protection of the civil rights of blacks. They gained control of Reconstruction in 1867 and demanded harsh, punitive policies toward the Confederate State and ex-Confederates.

Iroquois Confederacy

This group was the dominant Native American military power in North America during the 18th century. The five separate nations composing this group were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Their peaceful coexistence allowed them to benefit economically from trade with both the English and the French. They largely sided with the British in the French and Indian War, but the American Revolution itself was a catastrophe for this group. The dispute separated the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, who sided with the British, from the Oneidas and Tuscaroras who fought with the patriots.

Louisiana Purchase

This has been called the greatest real estate deal in U.S. history, and it remains one of the largest peaceful annexations of land in world history. Stretching from British Columbia to New Orleans, from the Ohio River to the eastern border of New Spain. Although he did wonder whether he could constitutionally buy the land with the U.S. government's money, Jefferson pushed the deal forward. It soon became clear to American citizens that the new land would provide more opportunity for them.

Pontiac's Rebellion

This indian uprising began in 1763 when a grand council of Potawatomis, Hurons and Ottawas was called to rise up against the British and American colonials and drive them back across the mountains. The British sent 15 regiments to restore order, but the war had been costly for the white settlements that were affected: an estimated 2,000 civilians and some 400 soldiers died during the conflict. To prevent future conflict with the indians, the British restricted American settlement west of the Appalachian mountains.

Underground Railroad

This informal network of abolitionists (mostly free African Americans in the North) guided fugitive slaves across the Canadian border to safety during the years prior to the Civil War. Conductors like Harriet Tubman helped slaves to elude capture by hiding them at safe houses and other secret places, known as stations.

League of Nations

This international organization was established as part of the Treaty of Versailles to preserve the peace and settle disputes through negotiation. Although President Woodrow Wilson strongly advocated for this organization, the United States refused to participate. It was virtually powerless to stop renewed aggression in the 1930s. The organization was extremely important, however, as a forerunner of the United Nations, developing ideas and procedures that have aided the UN.

Roosevelt Corollary

This interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Roosevelt asserted that the United States would exercise an "international police power" to intervene in the Western Hemisphere in an effort to protect the nations of Latin America from European aggression.

Pet Banks

This is a degrading term for state banks selected by the U.S. Department of Treasury to receive government deposits in 1833, when President Andrew Jackson "killed" the Second Bank of the United States. The term gained currency because most of the banks were chosen not because of monetary fitness but on the basis of the spoils system, which rewarded political allies of Andrew Jackson. Most of these banks flooded the country with paper currency. Because this money became so unreliable, Jackson issued the Specie Circular, which required all public lands to be purchased with metallic money. This contributed to the Panic of 1837.

Transcendentalism

This is a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual over the material and empirical. It was a mystical, intuitive way of looking at life that subordinated facts to feelings. They argued that humans could move reason and intellectual capacities by having faith in themselves; they were complete individualists. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the principal spokesperson of this American philosophical movement of that began in New England during the 1830s and sparked the American Renaissance in literature in the mid-19th century.

"New South"

This is a term used by many historians and pundits to describe the American South in the post-Civil War period. During the era of Reconstruction, the term was meant to refer to the recasting of the South as an industrialized region with an emphasis on racial harmony, rather than the slave-based agrarian region that it had been in the Antebellum period. Wealthy Southern leaders promoted this ideal, hoping to ally with Northern industrialists who would invest in new factories and other industrial business ventures. Southern business leaders touted the notion that industrialization would bring new prosperity to the region. The lofty aspirations of this ideal lay unrealized for decades

Nullification

This is the act of rendering something ineffective. In political terms, it is the failure or refusal of a state to enforce federally created laws within its territory. This was the proposed remedy for unconstitutional federal legislation. this theory led to a crisis between South Carolina and the federal government when the U.S. Congress passed a new tariff act. South Carolina perceived the act as unconstitutional and its state legislature voided the act, advancing the idea that the state did not have to follow federal law. Henry Clay eased the crisis by enacting a compromise that produced a degree of tariff reduction in 1833. Sectional tension, however, remained and would eventually culminate in the Civil War.

Wagner Act

This is the more common name for the National Labor Relations Act (1935) which created the National Labor Relations Board to aid unions by prohibiting employers from engaging in unfair labor practices. The law set the stage for the development of collective bargaining for labor organizations during the 1930s. One of the key pieces of legislation during the New Deal, this act, among other things, created the National Labor Relations Board, which heard thousands of cases of alleged unfair labor practices. The passage of this law elevated the standing of labor unions across the country.

Log Cabin Campaign

This is the name given to the 1840 Presidential campaign of William Henry Harrison. Harrison was the first president to campaign actively for office. Whigs, eager to deliver what the public wanted, declared that Harrison was "the ___ ___ and hard cider candidate," a man of the common people from the rough-and-tumble West. They depicted Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a wealthy snob who was out of touch with the people. In fact, it was Harrison who came from a wealthy, prominent family while Van Buren was from a poor, working family. But the election was during the worst economic depression to date, and voters blamed Van Buren. Harrison served only one month as president before dying of pneumonia on April 4, 1841.

Great Migration

This is the term given to the large-scale relocation of African Americans from the southern United States to the industrial states of the north and the mid-west in the early 20th century. Events such as the First World War caused a massive growth in American war industries which contributed to an increased demand for industrial workers in the northern states that was filled by African Americans who were trying to escape the memories of slavery and servitude. The northern states offered greater opportunities for education as well as increased wages and better standards of living in general. In all, approximately 4.1 million African Americans moved out of the Southern United States to the North, Midwest and West from 1910 to 1930.

Dollar Diplomacy

This is the term used to describe America's efforts--particularly under President William Howard Taft--to further its foreign policy aims in Latin America and the Far East through the use of economic power. In Nicaragua, for example, American intervention included funding the country's debts to European bankers. As another example, the State Department persuaded four American banks to refinance Haiti's national debt, setting the stage for further intervention in the future. This approach to foreign policy was repudiated by President Woodrow Wilson within a few weeks of his inauguration in 1913.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL)

This labor organization was an association of trade unions representing skilled workers in many industries. By the end of the 19th century, it was the dominant organization representing the interests of skilled labor in the United States. Under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, the union focused on improving the day-to-day conditions for workers and bargained for higher wages and shorter hours, rather than on social or political issues.

Gadsden Purchase

This land acquisition transferred ownership of a small strip of land covering approximately 30,000 square miles in the Southwest (part of present-day New Mexico and Arizona) from Mexico to the United States for the sum of $10 million. The United States wanted the land for the southern route of the transcontinental railroad. This was the final acquisition in the continental expansion of the United States. It also served as one more inflammatory issue in the ongoing sectional controversy, as Northerners objected to the transcontinental railroad being constructed on a southern route.

Selective Service Act

This law was enacted on May 18, 1917. This program of conscription gave the president the power to draft men into the armed forces of the United States. The initial authorization called for the president to raise by draft an army of 1 million soldiers. It was also stipulated that certain classes of citizens might be exempt or receive deferments, but all men between the ages of 21 and 30 were required to present themselves for registration on the date set by the commander in chief.

Smith-Connally Act

This law was passed on June 25, 1943, over President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto. The Act allowed the federal government to seize and operate industries threatened by or under strikes that would interfere with war production.

The KKK

This organization was reborn in the 1910s and 1920s, after fictionalized version of an earlier version of the group was presented in The Birth of a Nation. In the 1920s they added foreigners, Jews, Catholics, and organized labor to their lists of enemies. In this era, the great stronghold of this group was the Midwest, and the organization enjoyed a wider membership base and great political power. They advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism.

Indian Removal Act

This law, signed by President Andrew Jackson in1830, empowered him to offer land in Indian Territory to all American Indians situated east of the Mississippi River, in exchange for their lands there. Most northern American Indian peoples, except the Iroquois, were peacefully relocated, but the Five Civilized Tribes in the southeast refused. The Cherokees successfully challenged the removal laws in the US Supreme Court in 1832, but the ruling was ignored by President Andrew Jackson. The Florida Seminoles fought relocation for seven years in the second Seminole Wars 1835-42. Nearly 100,000 American Indians were forcibly relocated and between a quarter and a third died during the journey and resettlement. Today 90% of all American Indians live west of the Mississippi.

Emilio Aguinaldo

This leader of the Filipino rebels fought for Philippine Independece. He was a close ally with the United States when the Spanish American War began and he helped Commodore Dewey defeat the Spanish at Manila. After the Spanish American War, he still fought for independence, this time against the United States in the "Philippine Insurrection."

Second Continental Congress

This meeting gathered in May 1775 in Philadelphia. It was immediately faced with the pressure of rapidly unfolding military events. It served as the colonial government during the American Revolution. It issued paper money, made decisions that controlled the Continental Army, established committees to acquire war supplies, and investigated the possibilities of foreign assistance. This became the crucial governmental body of revolutionary America.

Social Security

This monumental piece of New Deal legislation (1935) established a system of old-age, unemployment, and survivors insurance funded by wage and payroll taxes. At age sixty-five workers could retire with a modest benefit. Because agricultural laborers and domestic servants were excluded from coverage, three-fifths of African American workers were ineligible for these benefits, as were most Native Americans. Also excluded were teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers--all predominantly female occupations.

Regulator Movement

This movement began in 1766 when backcountry farmers in the Carolinas protested a series of government abuses and taxes. Many farmers were unable to pay these taxes and fees and as a result lost their land to corrupt officials. By 1768 the movement had turned violent. In 1771, the governor and colonial militia crushed the Regulators in the two-hour Battle of Alamance. After the battle, the royal government of North Carolina executed seven protestors.

The Granger Movement

This movement began in 1867 to improve the status of farmers. Also known as The Patrons of Husbandry, the primary concerns of the movement were declining crop prices, an increase in indebtedness among farmers, and the sporadic rate system for freight imposed by the railroads. Gradually, other organizations like the Farmers' Alliances and the Populist Party emerged to support agricultural concerns, and by 1880, the membership declined.

temperence

This movement was a national crusade against drunkenness. Using a variety of techniques, supporters set out to persuade people not to drink intoxicating beverages and was successful in sharply lowering per capita consumption of alcohol. It was an example of the spirit of reform that was so prevalent in the early 1800s.

temperance

This movement was a widespread effort in the 19th and early 20th centuries to control, limit, or prohibit the use of alcohol. The drive to ban the sale of liquor began in earnest in the East in 1840 and in the West in the early 1870s. Protestant churches and women, who were frequently the victims of family violence, were at the forefront of the movement, which over the years had come to favor government prohibition. Carry Nation, the most famous of those women, marched into saloons with an ax or bricks to smash bars and bottles. Educator Frances Willard founded the WCTU in 1874 to advocate for reform. This movement culminated in 1919 with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which enacted a nationwide ban on the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors."

Molly Maguires

This name was given to a secret organization of Irish immigrant coal miners in northeastern Pennsylvania during the 1860s and 1870s who resorted to violence in an attempt to force mine owners to improve labor conditions. It was eventually suppressed when it was infiltrated by the Pinkerton detective agents.

Free-Soil Party

This national political party was launched in 1848. It was comprised of anti-slavery Democrats (Barnburners) and andi-slavery Whigs (Conscience Whigs). The party's fundamental issue was the restriction of slavery. For president in 1848, the party nominated former president Martin Van Buren. Although Van Buren lost, the party won nine House seats and two Senate seats. After the political upheavals associated with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, most of this party's adherents joined the newly formed Republican Party.

American System

This nationalistic program was the brainchild of Kentucky Congressman Henry Clay. It envisioned an active role for the federal government in fostering the U.S. economy through a national bank, a protective tariff, and such internal improvements as canals and roads.

John Muir

This naturalist, explorer, and author was a major figure in the forest conservation movement in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Largely through his efforts, Yosemite and Sequoia were established as national parks and preserved for future generations. In 1892, he helped form the Sierra Club to coordinate the work of conservationists. As the club's first president (a post he held for the rest of his life), Muir built the Sierra Club into one of the most important and longest-lasting conservation organizations in the country.

Daughters of Liberty

This organization of women assembled in communities throughout the colonies to support nonimportation and the patriotic cause. After the passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767, American patriots boycotted British-made goods, and this organization manufactured many of the replacement supplies.

Immigration Restriction League

This organization was founded in Boston in 1894 by a group of middle- and upper-class professionals who wanted to limit the rising numbers of immigrants coming to the United States in the late 19th century. This group, and other like-minded activists, sought to restrict immigration by raising literacy requirements. Because many of the new immigrants came from poor regions, many did not know how to read; a literacy requirement, therefore, would be an effective barrier to their admission to the country.

"City Beautiful" Movement

This phrase first entered popular use in the United States in 1899 among New York City reformers who wanted to adorn their city with civic sculpture, public fountains, waterfront parks, indoor murals and statuary, artistic street fixtures, and much more. It quickly became a catch-phrase used throughout the nation for all manner of efforts to upgrade the appearance of towns and cities. The cultural movement reflected Progressive Era reform impulses to revitalize public life and instill civic awareness.

Lincoln's 10% Plan

This plan devised by President Lincoln in 1863 promised a quick and moderate method for readmitting the seceding states to the Union; it required just 10 percent of a state's prewar voters to swear allegiance to the Union and a new state constitution that banned slavery. Many congressional Republicans considered this standard too thin to support a general reconstruction of the Union and responded with the Wade-Davis Bill.

Virginia Plan

This plan set the agenda for much of the Constitutional Convention. The plan was believed to have been written chiefly by James Madison. It was devised as a means to correct and enlarge the Articles of Confederation. Although the plan underwent many modifications, key principles like the separation of powers and bicameralism, and key institutions like the executive and judicial branches, clearly originated in this plan. It is most remembered now for its rejected proposal that representation within the national legislature be based solely on population.

Great Compromise

This plan was proposed by Roger Sherman of Connecticut at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to resolve differences between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. It called for creating a national bicameral legislature: in the House of Representatives places were to be assigned according to a state's population (proportional representation) and filled by popular vote; in the Senate, each state was to have two members (equal representation) elected by its state legislature.

Democrat Party

This political party evolved out of the Democratic-Republican Party of the early 19th century. Calling upon the political heritage of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Andrew Jackson became the first leader of the this party following his election to presidency in 1828. The core of its membership was composed of farmers, immigrants, and white Southerners. Jackson's presidency has traditionally been called the "Era of the Common Man," an era that reflected two decades of expanding the suffrage, economic change, and Western expansion. Jackson and the newly constituted party embraced this rough and tumble democratic culture. This party controlled the presidency for much of the 1840s and 1850s, with James K. Polk serving a single term from 1844 to 1848, Franklin Pierce serving a single term from 1852 to 1856, and James Buchanan serving a single term from 1856 to 1860.

Democrat-Republican Party

This political party was organized in the 1790s and became the first opposition party in US history. Following the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, this party was opposed to a strong central government and a central bank and supported strict construction of the Constitution and the predominance of agriculture in the economy. In 1800, Jefferson was elected president after a bitter political campaign against Adams. For the first time, power was transferred peacefully from one faction to another.

Know-Nothing Party

This political party, formally named the American Party, was a short-lived third party in the 1850s that was based on the growing tide of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant feeling of the 1840s. They consisted mainly of Whigs, who felt engulfed by the growing numbers of immigrants (particularly Irish fleeing the potato famine) and the resulting rise of Catholicism. The party derived its famous name from the determination of its members to remain mysterious about their activities. As with the other political parties during this era, however, the pressures of sectionalism forced the party to divide between Northern and Southern wings.

Whig Party

This political party, formed in 1834 and lasting until 1854, was the major political party opposing Andrew Jackson, who they called, "King Andrew," and his Democratic Party in the antebellum era. The party inherited the Federalist belief in a strong federal government and adopted many Federalist and National Republican policy ideas, including federal funding for internal improvements (building roads, canals, bridges; improving harbors), a central bank, and high tariffs to protect the growth of manufacturing enterprises. Famous members of this party included President William Henry Harrison, President Zachary Taylor, and Henry Clay.

Omaha Platform

This political platform represented the new Populist Party in 1892. It called for government ownership of communication and transportation, the free coinage of silver, a progressive income tax, paper currency, the direct election of senators, the eight-hour day, and a new "Subtreasury" scheme for creating agricultural credit. The Populists won 1 million votes in 1892, but by 1896, the Populists would join Democrats to focus on the silver issue. Eventually, many of the ideas in the Omaha platform would be incorporated into the American governing system.

Election of 1860

This presidential contest was a four-way race with two dominant issues: the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and slavery. Although Lincoln, with strong support in the North and Midwest, won a clear majority of the electoral college, he garnered only 40% of the overall vote. Seven Southern states (later joined by four others) seceded from the Union even before Lincoln's inauguration. Determined to uphold his oath to support the Constitution and preserve the Union, Lincoln stood firm against the secessionists, and the Civil War began.

The Dorr Rebellion

This rebellion was an attempt to force broader democracy in the U.S. state of Rhode Island, where a small rural elite was in control of government. It was led by Thomas Wilson Dorr, who mobilized the disenfranchised to demand changes to the state's electoral rules. The state used as its constitution the 1663 colonial charter that required a man to own $134 in property to vote, and gave an equal weight in the Rhode Island General Assembly to all towns no matter what their population. The effect in the 1830s was that the rapidly growing industrial cities were far outnumbered in the legislature. Although the rebellion failed, and its leader was imprisoned, a new constitution in 1843 dropped the property requirement for men born in the United States, and it gave more seats in the legislature to the cities.

scalawags

This term was given to southern whites--mainly small landowning farmers and well-off merchants and planters--who supported northern policies of reconstruction and cooperated with the congressionally imposed Reconstruction governments set up under the Reconstruction Acts for diverse reasons.

54th Massachusetts

This regiment was one of the first official African American units in the United States armed forces. The regiment gained recognition on July 18, 1863, when it spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. Although the Union was not able to take and hold the fort, the unit was widely acclaimed for its valor, and the event helped encourage the further enlistment and mobilization of African-American troops, a key development that President Abraham Lincoln once noted as helping to secure the final victory.

Mormons

This religion was founded by Joseph Smith in western New York in the 1820s. They were resented because of their unorthodox religious views and exclusivism. Smith was forced to move the church several times to escape persecution. In 1844, Smith and his brother were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, and the leadership of the church fell upon Smith's disciple, Brigham Young. Young determined that the church should move to a place where they could practice their beliefs without interference. In 1846, church members began one of the great migrations in American history. They finally located near Great Salt Lake (Utah) in the 1840s where they have flourished ever since.

The Second Great Awakening

This religious revival swept across the western frontier and northeastern United States from the 1790s through the 1830s. Led by leading revivalist minister Charles Grandison Finney, this period vastly increased the membership in Protestant churches. It also thrust many Americans into a search for social reform. This new energy—manifest in the rapid rise of the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church—represented in part the influx of democratic ideas, or a reworking of traditional religious institutions to better match the average American's sensibilities and frontier lifestyles. In fact, the revivals in some ways "democratized" the churches and mirrored the political democratization underway during the Jacksonian era.

National Road

This road, also called the Cumberland Road, was the first major federal response to the growing demand facilitate westward travel. In 1806 Congress approved the route for the first section, largely along an Indian trail; it ran westward from the end of the Baltimore Turnpike in Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, in western Virginia, where travelers could board ships on the Ohio River. Planning began in 1806, but contracts were not granted until 1811, and because of delays associated with the War of 1812, construction did not begin until 1815. The road reached Wheeling in 1818.

Ashcan School of Art

This school of art evolved during the early years of the twentieth century in New York City. Departing from the staid portraiture and genteel landscapes of the nineteenth century, the artists focused on urban scenes, particularly those exposing the shabbier aspects of city life. Their intent, however, was not muckraking social commentary but the portrayal of urban vitality.

Social Gospel

This social reform movement combined the social welfare agenda of the Progressive Era with Christian charity. Founded by Washington Gladden, a Congregationalist minister in Ohio, the movement rejected the older idea that the poor were responsible for their poverty. Among its social aims were an end to child labor, a weekly day off, a living wage, improved working conditions for women, and religious and moral education for the poor.

Pullman Strike

This strike began in 1894 when workers walked out on a Chicago manufacturer of passenger railway cars. The American Railway Union, headed by Eugene V. Debs, was in sympathy with the striking workers, and led 125,000 workers in a nationwide boycott. Interference with the delivery of the U.S. mail gave the federal government cause to enter the dispute. President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops, who opened fire on a crowd of strikers, killing some 30 people. The federal courts then granted an injunction against the strike and the activities of the leaders of the American Railway Union. Debs went to jail for violating the injunction, and the American Railway Union called off the failed boycott two month later.

Homestead Strike

This strike started on June 29, 1892 when the entire workforce of the Carnegie steel manufacturing plant stopped working. Fearful of losing their jobs and angry over pay cuts, they seized the steel plant. Management hired Pinkerton detectives and later gained the assistance of the state militia to put down the strike. Within days many were dead or injured. Within weeks, the strike was broken, and the union demolished. In many ways, the union's debacle at Homestead revealed the limited ability of organized labor to improve the conditions for America's workers during the Industrial Revolution.

Federalists

This term applied to those who advocated ratification of the Constitution; they were centralizing nationalists who were convinced that America's survival required the new, stronger government outlined in the Constitution.

Trail of Tears

This term defined the route of the tragic removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia to Indian Territory under severe conditions in 1838. The relocation resulted from the government's removal policy, which sought to open eastern lands for white settlement and provide a permanent home for Native peoples in the West. Approximately 16,000 Cherokees relocated to the West and an estimated 4,000 died. Despite this tragedy, the federal government remained committed to the removal policy.

Fireside Chats

This term described the national radio addresses delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt that were intended to reassure the public and inform them of any national issues or crises. After the success of the first radio address on March 12, 1933, Roosevelt went on to give 28 more over the next 10 years. Not only did these speeches garner him wide support as an understanding president, but they also promoted New Deal programs.

Lost Generation

This term described the young generation of artists and writers, disillusioned by the brutality of World War I and alienated by the materialism and conformity of the new mass culture, who became critics of modern society's manners, morals, and materialism. Many Americans among them became expatriates, leaving the United States to live in Europe.

Bleeding Kansas

This term describes the civil disorders that occurred in Kansas after the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The act allowed the residents of the territory of Kansas to vote on whether slavery would be allowed (popular sovereignty). Both proslavery and antislavery factions promoted the emigration of settlers to Kansas in an attempt to swing the territory's balance of political power to slaveholders or nonslaveholders. There were even rival state legislatures and state constitutions. A steady stream of killings, robberies, and other forms of violence between the two factions continued right up to the outbreak of the Civil War.

planter aristocracy

This term describes the class of wealthy planters in the antebellum South who wielded strong economic and political power. Although only 0.5% of the population, these wealthy planters were able to influence Southern politics, further widening the wealth gap between rich and poor. They also established themselves as the social elite and greatly influenced Southern culture. In terms of slavery, the planter aristocracy viewed themselves as benevolent masters with the right to govern the lower ranks of society and obligated to look after the welfare of their slaves.

yeoman farmers

This term describes the hard-working, self-reliant, and moderately prosperous farmers in the North and South. These farmers owned a modest amount of property, allowing them to be self-sufficient and immune to the outside influence of large landowners and money lenders. In the antebellum South these farmers may have owned a few slaves, but would have generally worked the fields side-by-side with the slave labor.

consumer culture

This term describes the patterns of consumption (of commodities) within capitalist societies. After the advent of industrialization in the late 19th century, people increasingly purchased goods produced for a mass market rather than for specific customers. As mass production satisfied more people's basic needs more easily, consumption soon became a form of entertainment and a symbol of social class.

D-Day

This term designates June 6, 1944, the day Allied troops launched Operation Overlord and crossed the English Channel and opened a second front in Western Europe. The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in world history, with nearly 200,000 troops and 5,000 ships involved. The landings took place along a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast . The success of this invasion led to the liberation of France in late August 1944 and to the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945.

nativism

This term implies a favoring of native-born inhabitants and a prejudice toward outsiders, particularly foreigners. This anti-immigrant sentiment has emerged at various times in American history: John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition acts; the Know-Nothing Party opposed Catholic and Irish immigration; the Chinese Exclusion act was passed in 1882; and in response to the flood of "new immigrants" at the turn of the century, the American Protective Association was formed to stop the immigrant tide.

Sand Creek Massacre

This term refers to the 1865 massacre of more than 200 Cheyenne Indians, many of them women and children. The attack was led by U.S. Army Colonel John M. Chivington, who ordered his troops to slaughter every Indian in the village and to accept no prisoners. Chivington's order was even more diabolical as the Indians had previously surrendered to the U.S. government and were ostensibly under U.S. protection at the time. The massacre compelled the Cheyenne to break off peace talks with the Americans and led to a vicious war during 1867-1869.

Plains Indians

This term refers to the Native American tribes who have traditionally lived on the Great Plains in North America. Their historic nomadic culture and development of equestrian culture and resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made these Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere. Famous tribes in this region included the the Comanche of Northern Texas and the Sioux of the Dakotas.

Bill of Rights

This term refers to the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. James Madison, considered the "father of the Constitution," guided the amendments through the new Congress. The amendments were ratified by the requisite number of states on December 15, 1791 and went into effect on March 1, 1792. The amendments protect individual liberties and states' rights against the power of the national government.

Taylorism

This term refers to the form of scientific management that was designed to get the most work out of each employee in the least amount of time. Named for Frederick W Taylor, the popular efficiency methods were being applied in many industries by 1900. Taylor carefully observed and analyzed all the individual actions in a job, then devised the most efficient way to perform that job and told managers how to make sure employees strictly followed his efficiency plan. Business owners embraced this type of scientific management because it meant more output with fewer workers and less cost.

Copperheads

This term refers to the northern Democrats who opposed all measures in support of war against the Confederacy. These "Peace Democrats" were convinced that the war was centralizing national power and that such developments ultimately posed greater dangers to the nation than the military challenge of Southern Rebels. Many Northerners strongly suspected unpatriotic motives lay behind the scathing attacks leveled by these Democrats against the war and the administration. Republicans branded them as disloyal. Indeed, the activities of some seemed to border on the treasonable, causing Lincoln such concern that he once expressed his fear of a "fire in the rear."

flappers

This term refers to the young women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.

Cattle Kingdom

This term represents the extent of the cattle industry that grew tremendously in the two decades after the Civil War. With the expansion of the railroads, the cattle business was a profitable one. A steer purchased for less than ten dollars in south Texas might sell for three or more times that amount in the Kansas cow towns. Since the herds grazed on the open range and as few as a dozen cowboys could handle several thousand heads of cattle, a rancher's operating expenses were low. The open-range gave way after 1886 to settled agriculture.

Spoils System

This term usually used derisively, identifies the practice of elected officials who reward loyal members of their own party with jobs in public office. Jackson was accused of initiating this (which he called rotation-in-office) when he was elected to the presidency in 1828.

War Hawks

This term was given to members of the U.S. Congress who strongly supported American participation in the War of 1812. The most adamant were Western and Southern members, including Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun. By 1811, these young Congressmen called for war against Great Britain as the only way to defend the national honor and force the British to respect America's neutral rights.

The "New Negro"

This term was popularized during the Harlem Renaissance. It referred to a more outspoken advocacy of dignity and a refusal to submit quietly to the practices and laws of Jim Crow racial segregation. Those described by this term were seen invariably as men and women (but mostly men) of middle-class orientation who often demanded their legal rights as citizens, but almost always wanted to craft new images that would subvert and challenge old stereotypes. Above all, they sought a "spiritual emancipation" in the 1910s and 1920s.

Atlanta Compromise

This term was used by critics to refer to a speech given by black leader Booker T. Washington in 1895. He urged blacks to concentrate on learning useful skills. He viewed black self-help and self-improvement, not agitation over segregation, disfranchisement, and racial discrimination, as the surest way to social and economic advancement for blacks.

"Separate Spheres"

This term, also known as the cult of true womanhood, reflected the early 19th century middle-class ideal about the role of women in society. In an increasingly industrial society, husbands began to work away from the home in factories or offices, and their wives stayed at home and engaged in domestic pursuits. This helped create a view that men should support their families while women stayed at home where they were sheltered from the cold realities of politics and capitalism. In these "separate spheres," work became increasingly associated with men, and the home became associated with females.

Cult of Domesticity

This term, also known as the cult of true womanhood, reflected the early 19th century middle-class ideal about the role of women in society. In an increasingly industrial society, husbands began to work away from the home in factories or offices, and their wives stayed at home and engaged in domestic pursuits. This helped create a view that men should support their families while women stayed at home where they were sheltered from the cold realities of politics and capitalism. Work became increasingly associated with men, and the home became female identified.

Social Darwinism

This theory, highly regarded during the late 19th century, that applied Charles Darwin's biological theories of evolution and natural selection to society. Proponents of this belief held that the less fit and less capable members of society were destined to lead lives of poverty, while those who successfully adapted to the rigors of life would rise to the top of society and become wealthy and powerful.

Oregon Trail

This trail played a significant role in the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century. The trail, which extended from Independence, Missouri, to the Columbia River and the Oregon Territory, originated with fur traders but soon became a main route for settlers migrating west. The 2,000-mile route usually took settlers about six months to complete by wagon train. All told, in the mid-19th century, more than a half million settlers used the trail in search of farmland or gold and helped settle the West. The heyday of the trail rail finally came to an end in 1869, with the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Chisolm Trail

This trail was one famous route used in the post-Civil War era to drive cattle overland, from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. This gentle trail provided an ideal route. In the early 1870s, more than a million head of cattle traveled up the road, trampling down a path that was in some places 200 to 400 yards wide. Hooves and the erosion of wind and water eventually cut the trail down below the level of the plains it crossed, permanently carving Chisholm's Trail into the face of the earth and guaranteeing its lasting fame. Traces of the trail may still be seen to this day.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

This treaty ended the French and Indian War (Great War for the Empire) in 1763. France abandoned nearly all its territorial claims in North America to Great Britain.

The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

This treaty ended the Mexican-American War. Mexico had suffered badly in the war and was compelled to relinquish vast amounts of land as well as abandoning all claims on Texas. In exchange, the United States paid Mexico $15 million. In the United States, the additional territory secured by the treaty reunited the fires of sectional controversy by raising questions regarding the expansion of slavery.

Treaty of Paris, 1898

This treaty ended the Spanish-American War. The conflict had been a complete disaster for Spain, which lost almost all of its colonial holdings in the Western Hemisphere. According to the terms of the treaty, Spain relinquished Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. The United States agreed to pay Spain $20 million. Debate over ratification of the treaty was particularly tense in the U.S. Senate, where imperialists and anti-imperialists battled against one another. The Senate narrowly ratified the treaty on February 6, 1899 with just two votes to spare.

Treaty of Paris (1783)

This treaty officially brought a close to the American Revolution, with Great Britain recognizing the colonies' independence. Negotiated in Paris by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, the treaty granted to the fledgling United States nearly everything it wanted, including territory extending to the Mississippi River. The document was formally signed on September 3, 1783.

sit-down strikes

This type of strike by General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan energized the new CIO and labor union movement during the Roosevelt administration. GM was the largest and most profitable U.S. corporation, the very epitome of twentieth-century corporate power. From December 29, 1936, until February 11, 1937, GM workers occupied several key GM plants. The strike was widely supported and skillfully publicized. The auto workers' stunning victory came to symbolize CIO solidarity and militancy, galvanizing not only auto workers but all labor.

Schechter Case

This unanimous Supreme Court decision declared the National Industrial Recovery Act, a main component of President Roosevelt's New Deal, was unconstitutional. Speaking to aides of Roosevelt, Justice Louis Brandeis remarked that, "This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we're not going to let this government centralize everything."

Boston Massacre

This violent confrontation between British troops and a Boston mob occurred on March 5, 1770. Five citizens were killed when the troops fired on the crowd that had been harassing them. The incident inflamed anti-British sentiment in the colony.

Emancipation Proclamation

This war measure was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 to take effect on January 1, 1863. It freed the slaves in all areas rebelling against the Union at that point. Slaves in areas still within the control of the Confederacy were obviously not affected by this order, nor were slaves residing in the border states that had remained loyal to the Union. Despite the limited practical impact, however, it had an enormous psychological impact, elevating the abolition of slavery to one of the North's stated war aims and leading the way for the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment after the war ended in Union victory in 1865.

Compromise of 1850

This was Congress's attempt to settle several outstanding issues involving slavery. It banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C.; admitted California as a free state; applied popular sovereignty to the remaining Mexican Cession territory; and passed a more stringent Fugitive Slave Act. Although many other men played important roles in hammering out the compromise, this controversy is remembered as the last crisis in which the three congressional titans of the day—Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun—all played a part.

New Deal

This was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan for, and active government response to, the Great Depression. It called for experimentation in providing relief for individuals, recovery of the economy, and reform of the American system. Numerous federal programs, such as the CCC, CWA, and TVA, illustrate this proactive, pragmatic legislative agenda.

War Relocation Authority

This was a United States government agency established to handle the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing military commanders to create zones from which certain persons could be excluded if they posed a threat to national security. Orders informed Japanese Americans residing in these zones they would be scheduled for "evacuation." The internment camps were surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by armed soldiers, and located in isolated parts of the country. Life in a WRA camp was difficult and living space was minimal. Except for those men who were drafted, virtually all the Japanese Americans sent to these camps were forced to remain in them until 1945.

Brook Farm

This was a communal experiment from 1841 to 1847 in Massachusetts started by utopian, Transcendentalist reformers led by George Ripley. It's goal was to free people from labor in order to pursue intellectual pursuits and leisure. At its peak, Brook Farm had between 70 and 80 members.

Ostend Manifesto

This was a confidential dispatch sent in 1854 to the U.S. State Department from U.S. ambassadors in Europe. It suggested that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States, the United States would be justified in seizing the island. Northerners claimed it was a plot to expand slavery and the proposal was disavowed.

Freedmen's Bureau

This was a federal agency set up to aid former slaves after the Civil War. It provided them food, clothing, and other necessities as well as helping them find work and set up schools. Initiated by President Lincoln in 1865, Congress extended the bill by overriding President Johnson's veto of a renewal bill in 1866.

Panic of 1837

This was a nationwide, financial depression that gripped the country between 1837 and 1843. The United States had experienced unprecedented growth during the early part of the 19th century, but speculation had soared as investors financed new ventures. In an effort to slow down excessive financial speculation, President Andrew Jackson issued the Specie Circular. As a result, many banks halted gold payments to the public, which caused a panic and a general loss of confidence in the banking system.

"King Cotton"

This was a phrase used mainly by Southern politicians and authors who wanted to illustrate the importance of the cotton crop to the southern economy. By the time of the Civil War, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports, representing a total value of nearly $300 million a year. Southern plantations generated three-fourths of the world's cotton supply. However, the attempt to use this trade as a diplomatic weapon to force Europe's hand in the American Civil War failed.

Cash and Carry

This was a policy requested by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, as World War II was spreading throughout Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1936. The revision allowed the sale of material to belligerents, as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash, assuming all risk in transportation.

Harlem Renaissance

This was a time of cultural renewal among African Americans, concurrent with the Jazz Age during the 1920s. Centered on the activities of African-American writers, artists, and musicians in the Harlem district of New York City, the new appreciation for and celebration of black culture spread throughout the United States. The movement was fuelled by the Great Migration, when African Americans left the south seeking jobs and a better way of life in northern cities. Names like Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong are all associated with this term.

The Alamo

This was an 18th-century Spanish colonial mission located in San Antonio, Texas. It was the site of one of the most dramatic battles of the Texas Revolution, which involved Texans fighting for independence from Mexico. All 187 Texan defenders, including Bowie and Crockett, were killed by Mexican General Santa Anna's army; but estimates put the number of Mexican Army casualties at anywhere from 600 to 2,000. The fall of this mission became a rallying cry for those fighting to secure Texas' independence and the 13-day siege quickly became enshrined in the public's mind as one of America's most heroic moments.

Commonwealth v. Hunt

This was an American legal case in which the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine of criminal conspiracy did not apply to labor unions. Until then, workers' attempts to establish union shops had been subject to prosecution. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw asserted, however, that trade unions were legal and that they had the right to strike or take other steps of peaceful coercion to raise wages and ban nonunion workers. Shaw, in effect, legalized the American labour union movement by this decision.

literacy tests

This was one of the techniques used in the Jim Crow South to disenfranchise African Americans. When the federal government decided to withdraw its troops from the South after the Compromise of 1877, the white supremacist governments in the Southern states slowly took away most of the civil rights of black residents. One of the first rights taken was voting. Since the Fifteenth Amendment gave blacks the right to vote in 1869, the Southern states could not legally prevent African Americans from voting. Therefore, they instituted this measure that required that a citizen be able to read to be eligible for voting. Blacks had a much lower literacy rate than whites, so it systematically eliminated them from voting. Moreover, the test was usually arbitrary and depended on the whim of the white registrar. For example, in Florida, one of the questions included in the test was "How many windows are in the White House?"

John Marshall

This was the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme court for 35 years: from 1801-1835. Firmly committed to the need to create a strong and effective national government, his historic effect on the Court began with his decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter on the constitutionality of laws. He combined his belief in the need for a strong central government with a deep appreciation for the rights of individuals and the sanctity of private property. His decisions guided the United States through a period of rapid physical and economic growth.

Pearl Harbor

This was the U.S. naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. It was the worst naval disaster in U.S. history, with more than 2,000 casualties, dozens of aircraft destroyed, and 16 ships damaged or destroyed. While Americans had previously been divided over whether to enter World War II or maintain a policy of isolationism, Japan's surprise attack effectively ended the debate. On December 8, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before Congress, where he called December 7 "a date which will live in infamy" and asked for a declaration of war against Japan.

manifest destiny

This was the belief of nineteenth-century Americans that their nation's territorial expansion was inevitable and ultimately a good thing, even for those being conquered. Some proponents of the idea even suggested that the country should absorb Canada, Mexico, and the nations of Central America and the Caribbean. This conviction helped Americans justify the aggressive acquisition of new territories in the 1840s.

Manhattan Project

This was the code name for the American effort to develop the atomic bomb. Under the auspices of Gen. Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army, the project involved roughly 125,000 people and cost more than $2 billion, yet it remained top secret throughout the course of World War II. The project culminated in the detonation of the first atomic weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico (16 July 1945).

Lewis and Clark

This was the commander and co-captain of the Corps of Discovery--a group of 33 men who set out from St. Louis, Missouri on May 14, 1804 to explore the Louisiana Territory. Throughout the trip, the explorers kept multiple copies of maps and notes of observations of the climate, vegetation, and people. Both also kept diaries with complex scientific observations of the animal and plant life encountered by the expedition.

Tariff of Abominations

This was the derisive term for the Tariff of 1828, which placed high tariffs on such imported manufactured products as glass, textiles, and ironware to foster these fledgling industries in New England. Southern planters condemned the tariff by this term because it kept their profits down and stifled free trade.

Comstock Lode

This was the first major U.S. deposit of silver ore, discovered under what is now Virginia City, Nevada. After the discovery was made public in 1859, prospectors rushed to the area to stake their claims. Excavations yielded about $400 million in silver and gold.

Bull Run

This was the first major battle of the Civil War fought between the 32,200 Confederate soldiers of Brigadier General Pierre Beauregard's army and 30,000 Union troops under the command of Brigadier General Irwin A. McDowell. By the afternoon of 21 July, Confederate reinforcements arrived and finally broke the Union right flank. The retreat rapidly became a rout, and McDowell's forces fell back in disarray. Altogether, nearly 900 men had been killed and over 2,700 wounded, numbers that would pale in comparison to later battles, but nonetheless shocked a nation that had naively expected a relatively bloodless war. The battle helped convince the Washington government that the war would be a costly affair.

Railway Strike of 1877

This was the first rail strike and general labor strike in U.S. history. In response to wage cuts, railroad workers went on strike in West Virginia in 1877. The strikers blocked freight trains from moving and threatened to continue until pay cuts were reversed. The strikes spread wherever there were railroads and in many areas, evolved into a general labor strike. After over a month of constant rioting and bloodshed, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops to end the strikes. The strike led to increased regulation of the railroad industry and better organization of the labor movement.

Hudson River School

This was the first real landscape painting movement in the United States. It was a uniquely American movement that hoped to separate American artists and painting styles from those in Europe. From the 1830s-1860s, the movement celebrated the wildness of the American frontier and led the way toward a more realistic portrayal of nature. The founder and most influential artist was Thomas Cole. He sensed both the power and fragility of nature before man. After the Civil War, the movement went into decline. By the 1870s, it was considered old fashioned and provincial by artists and critics. It is now regarded as an artistic movement that reflects the optimism and sensibilities of its time.

Korematsu v. United States

This was the landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a law, prompted by fears generated by the attack on Pearl Harbor and American participation in World War II, that excluded all Americans of Japanese descent living on the West Coast from this area. The majority opinion held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed an individual's rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent.

Knights of Labor

This was the largest and most powerful labor union in America during the last half of the 19th century. It represented all workers—men and women, white and black, citizen and immigrant, and skilled and unskilled—in all industries. It was founded by Uriah Stephens, and under the leadership of Terence Powderly, the union reached its peak strength of 750,000 members. The union's image was hurt when union members were blamed for the violence at Chicago's Haymarket Square riot in May 1886.

Rough Riders

This was the name given to The First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, formed in 1898 on the eve of the Spanish-American War by Assistant Secretary to the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt recruited 1,250 cowboys, Native Americans, Eastern aristocrats, and Ivy League athletes, among others. On June 30, Roosevelt was promoted to the rank of colonel and the following day, led the charge on Kettle Hill to help drive the Spanish from their fortifications on San Juan Hill. On September 16, 1898, the men were shipped home after 137 days of service. In the end, one out of three Rough Riders was either killed, wounded, or afflicted by disease, the highest casualty rate among troops who served in the Spanish-American War.

Hoovervilles

This was the name given to shantytowns that were occupied by those most severely hurt by the economic calamity. Poverty-stricken men and women were forced into tin shantytowns where they ate out of garbage cans and cooked on discarded scrap metal. These towns were nicknamed after the Herbert Hoover administration, which was blamed for failing to notice or remedy any underlying weaknesses in the apparently booming U.S. economy.

American Expeditionary Force (AEF)

This was the name of the American army sent to France to fight in World War I. Beginning in June 1917, under Gen. John J. Pershing, 2 million American men traveled to France to support the Allied troops on the western front. Under the direct and independent command of Pershing throughout the war, the American Army played a vital role in Allied victory. The American Army remained in France until November 1918, and by the end of the war had lost nearly 120,000 men.

Red Scare

This was the period of popular fear of a communist or socialist uprising in the United States in 1919. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and World War I, there was a fierce swing in public opinion against foreigners, trades unionists and the political parties of the left. Industrial strikes were violently suppressed and Congress and state legislatures passed laws banning many socialist and syndicalist organizations.

Tammany Hall

This was the popular name for the Democratic Party political machine that dominated much of New York City's political life until 1933. Under the leadership of corrupt political manipulators like "Boss" Tweed and Richard Croker, it evolved into a powerful political machine after 1860 and used patronage and bribes to control the city administration for decades.

Forty-Niners

This was the popular name given to the thousands of people who poured into California in 1849 after the discovery of gold the previous year by James Marshall at Sutter's Fort. News of the discovery prompted a stampede of settlers from the eastern United States and the rest of the world, and by the end of 1849, California's population had increased from about 15,000 to more than 150,000. This huge growth prompted California to petition Congress to become a state.

Impressment

This was the practice of forcing unwilling men to serve in the military by often brutal and violent means. Between 1790 and 1814, the British, while searching U.S. vessels to seize deserters from the Royal Navy, frequently impressed naturalized U.S. citizens that were on board. America's sense of national honor was outraged and this became a cause of war in 1812.

V-E Day

This was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. The victory happened on President Harry Truman's 61st birthday. He dedicated the victory to the memory of his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died of a cerebral hemorrhage less than a month earlier, on 12 April.

Valley Forge

This was the site in eastern Pennsylvania near Philadelphia where the Continental Army encamped during the winter of 1777-1778. Of the 10,000 men there, 2,500 died of disease and the rest suffered from lack of rations and other supplies; many deserted. General George Washington, despite the enormous privations endured by the colonial troops, with the assistance of European advisers, succeeded in re-organizing and re-equipping his men into an effective military force.

WAVEs

This was the women's branch of the United States Naval Reserve. It was established in 1942. The purpose was to release officers and men for sea duty and replace them with women in shore stations. Women served at 900 shore stations and in Hawaii, and entered fields previously held by men. Many enlisted women became aviation mechanics, parachute riggers, and radiomen. But most of them worked in the secretarial and clerical fields. The peak strength of this branch was 86,291 members.

A. Philip Randolph

ThisL labor leader and social activist founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which by 1937 would become the first official African-American labor union. In the 1940s, his abilities as an organizer had grown to such lengths that he became the driving force in ending racial discrimination in government defense factories and desegregating the armed forces, both done via presidential decree. Becoming involved in additional civil rights work, he was a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. He died in New York City in 1979.

Francis Cabot Lowell

Through his founding of textile mills in the early 19th century, this man changed the character of textile manufacturing and contributed significantly to America's early industrialization. He opened his first factory at Waltham, Massachusetts in 1814. It was the first mill in the world that converted raw cotton into finished cloth at a single location. For laborers he hired mainly young single women who lived in company housing under strict supervision.

Wounded Knee

Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement. In December 1890, the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it's unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it's estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men. The massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America's deadly war against the Plains Indians.

crop-lien system

To finance the sharecropping system, southerners turned to this system of borrowing and debt. Landowners and sharecroppers borrowed (at high interest rates) against the future harvest. Lenders insisted that they produce cash crops like cotton. The system made landowners and sharecroppers dependent on local merchants, and it prevented the development of diversified farming in the South.

Sons of Liberty

Wealthy merchants John Hancock and Samuel Adams formed this radical patriot organization in Boston in 1765. This group engaged in direct action against British rule, more or less covertly. In 1773, for example, they organized and executed the Boston Tea Party. Throughout the revolutionary period, they continued to fight, eventually disbanding in 1783 with the end of the war.

New Jersey Plan

When James Madison offered the Virginia plan at the Constitutional Convention, calling for proportional representation in Congress, James Paterson responded with this plan, hoping to protect the less populous states. This plan called for equal representation for each state in a unicameral legislature. The controversy was resolved in the Great Compromise.

New Freedom

Woodrow Wilson advocated this domestic platform in the election of 1912. Wilson called for freedom from raw capitalism, in which so much wealth was concentrated in the hands of so few. He also focused on breaking up monopolies, limiting corporate campaign contributions, and establishing a federal income tax. In the campaign, Wilson denounced Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" as paternalistic; it would sap entrepreneurial initiative and that it was potentially despotic. Untrammeled free enterprise had to remain the basis of American freedom, and that principle became the basis for his campaign platform.

Peace Without Victory

Woodrow Wilson, a scholar and former governor of New Jersey, was US president in 1914 when World War I erupted in Europe. As the war progressed, Wilson sought a peaceful resolution, partly in an effort to keep the USA from being pulled into the European conflict. In this speech to the Senate, he expresses his hope for this, stating that "only a peace between equals can last."

Declaration of Independence

Written by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, this justified the American Revolution by reference to republican theory and to the many injustices of King George III toward the colonies. The indictment of the king provides a remarkably full catalog of the colonists' grievances, and Jefferson's eloquent and inspiring statement of the contract theory of government makes the document one of the world's great state papers.

habeas corpus

habeas corpus This Constitutional right requires arresting authorities to explain the grounds for a person's imprisonment or detention before a court of law. Abraham Lincoln suspended this right in Maryland in order to "suppress the insurrection" and restrain "disloyal persons."