Rolfs APUSH Exam Key Terms/People Pageant Chapter Terms 1-41, Native America to Trump

Elizabeth I

ruled from 1558-1603; followed a policy that was a middle course between Catholic and Protestant extremes. She sets up a national Church, is declared head of the Anglican Church, establishes a state Church that moderates Catholics and Protestants, allowed priests to marry, allowed sermons to be delivered in English, and made the Book of Common Prayer more acceptable to Catholics.

rock 'n' roll

"Crossover" musical style that rose to dominance in the 1950s, merging black rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country. Featuring a heavy beat and driving rhythm, rock 'n' roll music became a defining feature of the 1950s youth culture.

Huey P. "Kingfish" Long

"Kingfish" Rep. senator of LA; pushed "Share Our Wealth" program and make "Every Man a King' at the expense of the wealthy; assassinated

Virginia Plan

"Large state" proposal for the new constitution, calling for proportional representation in both houses of a bicameral Congress. The plan favored larger states and thus prompted smaller states to come back with their own plan for apportioning representation.

Interstate Commerce Act

(1887) Congressional legislation that established the ICC, compelled railroads to publish standard rates, and prohibited rebates and pools. Railroads quickly became adept at using this to achieve their own ends, but it gave government an important means to regulate big business

First Anglo- Powhatan War

1610- Lord De La Warr of the Virginia Company initiated war with the Indians, ended with the marriage of John Rolfe to Pocahontas

Tuscarora War

1711, Carolinas, Indians tire of British abuse and rise up but are put down by the British (with the help of the Cherokee Indians). Many of the indians are later used as slaves.

John J. Audubon

1785-1851; an artist who specialized in painting wild fowl; had such works as Birds of america; ironically he shot a lot of birds for sport when he was young. The Audubon Society for the protection of birds was named after him. His depictions of western wildlife contributed to the western population movements

Horace Mann

1796-1859; Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, he was a prominent proponent of public school reform, and set the standard for public schools throughout the nation. Campaigned for longer school terms higher pay for teachers, and better schoolhouses.

Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States, came to office after Lincoln's assassination and opposed Radical Republicans; he was impeached but remained in office

Garrison

1805-1879. Prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. Editor of radical abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator," and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Turner

1831 Slave in Virginia who started a slave rebellion in 1831 believing he was receiving signs from God; his rebellion was the largest sign of black resistance to slavery in America and led the state legislature of Virginia to a policy that said no one could question slavery.

Opium War

1839-1842; War between britain and China over trading rights, particularly Britain's desire to continue selling opium to Chinese traders. The resulting trade agreement prompted Americans to seek similar concessions from the Chinese.

Hayes

1877-1881 19th U.S. President, Republican, his presidency saw the end of Reconstruction

Battle of Midway

1942; A pivotal naval battle fought near the island of Midway on June 3-6. The victory halted Japanese advances in the Pacific.

James Meredith

1st black graduate of University of Mississippi. He was shot during his March Against Fear Campaign. Martin luther king and Carmichael helped finish the program

Garfield

20th President Republican was assassinated in office.

joint-stock company

A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the company's profits and debts.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law

A comprehensive bill passed to protect domestic production from foreign competitors. As a direct result, many European nations were spurred to increase their own trade barriers.

"Lost Generation"

A creative circle of expatriate American artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, who found shelter and inspiration in post-World War I Europe.

Benjamin Wade

A founder of the Republican party and senator from Ohio from 1851 to 1869. A passionate abolitionist, he pressured President Lincoln throughout the Civil War to pursue harsher policies toward the South. He co-sponsored the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864, which required 50 percent of the registered voters of a southern state to take a loyalty oath as a precondition for reentry into the Union, rather than the 10 percent proposed by Lincoln. As President Pro Tempore of the Senate in 1868, he was next in line for the presidency should Andrew Johnson be impeached, and the prospect that someone of such radical views might become president may have contributed to the failure of the effort to impeach Johnson.

social gospel

A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor. Popular at the turn of the twentieth century, it was closely linked to the settlement house movement, which brought middle-class, Anglo-American service volunteers into contact with immigrants and working people.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

A sentimental triumph of the 1920s peace movement, this 1928 pact linked sixty-two nations in the supposed "outlawry of war."

City Beautiful Movement

A turn-of-the-century movement among progressive architects and city planners, who aimed to promote order, harmony, and virtue while beautifying the nation's new urban spaces with grand boulevards, welcoming parks, and monumental public buildings.

James Buchanan

A weak president who was often swayed by his Southern supporters after his election in 1856. He was not a particularly adept politician, and his presidency was marred by the Dred Scott decision, Bleeding Kansas, and the panic of 1857. On the matter of Kansas, he unwisely chose to throw his support behind the Lecompton Constitution for the statehood of Kansas.

Tyler

Added as an afterthought to William Henry Harrison's election ticket, he became the 10th president of the US after Harrison's death in 1841 (Whig)

Dominion of New England (1686-1689)

Administrative union created by royal authority, incorporating all of New England, New York, and East and West Jersey. Placed under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros who curbed popular assemblies, taxed residents without their consent, and strictly enforced Navigation Laws. Its collapse after the Glorious Revolution in England demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control.

Compromise of 1850

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington DC, and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law. Widely opposed in both the North and South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery.

mining industry

After gold and silver strikes in Colorado, Nevada, and other western territories in the second half of the nineteenth century, fortune-seekers by the thousands rushed to the West to dig. These metals were essential to US industrial growth and were also sold into world markets. After surface metals were removed, people sought ways to extract ore from under the ground, leading to the development of heavy mining machinery. This, in turn, led to the consolidation of the mining industry, because only big companies could afford to buy and build the necessary machines.

Nine-Power Treaty

Agreement coming out of the Washington "Disarmament" Conference of 1921-1922 that pledged Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, China, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Belgium to abide by the Open Door Policy in China. The Five-Power Naval Treaty on ship ratios and the Four-Power Treaty to preserve the status quo in the Pacific also came out of the conference.

Mayflower Compact

Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth, signed aboard the Mayflower. Created a foundation for self-government in the colony. 1620

Convention of 1800

Agreement to formally dissolve the United States' treaty with France, originally signed during the Revolutionary War. The difficulties posed by America's peacetime alliance with France contributed to Americans' long-standing opposition to entangling alliances with foreign powers.

three-sister farming

Agricultural system employed by North American Indians as early as 1000 c.e.; maize, beans, and squash were grown together to maximize yields.

corrupt bargain

Alleged deal between presidential candidates John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay to throw the election, to be decided by the House of Representatives, in Adams's favor. Though never proven, the accusation became the rallying cry for supporters of Andrew Jackson, who had actually garnered a plurality of the popular vote in 1824.

Churchill

Allied leader who met with FDR to plan strategy at Casablanca and Tehran

Missouri Compromise

Allowed Missouri to enter as a slave state but preserved the balance between North and South by carving free-soil Maine out of Massachusetts and prohibiting slavery from territories acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.

Affordable Care Act

Also known, somewhat derisively, as "Obama care," the Act extended health care insurance for over 30 million people.

Wilmot Proviso

Amendment that sought to prohibit slavery from territories acquired from Mexico. Introduced by a Pennsylvania congressman, the failed amendment ratcheted up tensions between North and South over the issue of slavery.

containment doctrine

America's strategy against the Soviet Union based on the ideas of George Kennan; it declared that the Soviet Union and communism were inherently expansionist and had to be stopped from spreading through both military and political pressure and, as a result, guided American foreign policy throughout most of the Cold War.

Truth

American abolitionist and feminist. Born into slavery, she escaped in 1827 and became a leading preacher against slavery and for the rights of women.

William Walker

American adventurer, tried repeatedly to get control of Nicaragua, made himself president of the area in July 1856, legalized slavery, shot by a firing squad

Ngo Dinh Diem

American ally in South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963; his repressive regime caused the Communist Viet Cong to thrive in the South and required increasing American military aid to stop a Communist takeover. he was killed in a coup in 1963.

Emily Dickinson

American lyric poet who lived in seclusion and commanded a singular brilliance of style and integrity of vision. With Walt Whitman, she is widely considered to be one of the two leading 19th century American poets.

MacArthur

American military commander in Korea fired by President Harry Truman

Goethals

American military engineer who built the Panama Canal

Alfred Thayer Mahan

American naval officer who wrote influential books emphasizing sea power and advocating a big navy

Trist

American negotiator who secured an armistice with Scott and was sent to Mexico to negotiate] the purchase of California from Mexico

Herman Melville

American novelist, short-story writer, and poet, best known for his novels of the sea, including his masterpiece Moby Dick (1851). In addition, he rejected the optimism of the transcendentalists and felt that man faced a tragic destiny.

Lucy Stone

American pioneer in the women's rights movement; first woman to keep her maiden name after marriage

Hale

American spy who was hanged

Pearl Harbor

An American naval base in Hawaii where Japanese warplanes destroyed numerous ships and caused 3,000 casualties on December 7, 1941—a day that, in President Roosevelt's words, was to "live in infamy." The attack brought the United States into World War II.

George W. Bush

An American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009, and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.

Richard Cheney

An American politician and businessman who was the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009, under President George W. Bush.

Tampico Incident

An arrest of American sailors by the Mexican government that spurred Woodrow Wilson to dispatch the American navy to seize the port of Veracruz in April 1914. Although war was avoided, tensions grew between the US and Mexico.

Alliance for Progress

An attempt to provide American aid for democratic reform in Latin America that met with much disappointment and frustration

Keynesianism

An economic theory based on the thoughts of British economist John Maynard Keynes, holding that central banks should adjust interest rates and governments should use deficit spending and tax policies to increase purchasing power and hence prosperity.

John T. Scopes

An educator in Tennessee who was arrested for teaching evolution. This trial represented the Fundamentalist vs the Modernist. The trial placed a negative image on fundamentalists, and it showed a changing America.

contras

Anti-Sandinista fighters in the Nicaraguan civil war. The contras were secretly supplied with American military aid, paid for with money the United States clandestinely made selling arms to Iran.

Stamp Act Congress

Assembly of delegates from nine colonies who met in New York City to draft a petition for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Helped ease sectional suspicions and promote intercolonial unity.

A. Mitchell Palmer

Attorney General who rounded up many suspects who were thought to be un-American and socialistic; he helped to increase the Red Scare; he was nicknamed the "Fighting Quaker" until a bomb destroyed his home; he then had a nervous breakdown and became known as the "Quaking Fighter."

V-J (Victory in Japan) Day

August 15, 1945, heralded the surrender of Japan and the final end to World War II.

Second Battle of Bull Run

August 1862; Civil War battle that ended in a decisive victory for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who was emboldened to push further into the North.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian physician whose work focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis.

Adolf Hitler

Austrian-born founder of the German Nazi Party and chancellor of the Third Reich (1933-1945). His fascist philosophy, embodied in Mein Kampf (1925-1927), attracted widespread support, and after 1934 he ruled as an absolute dictator. Hitler's pursuit of aggressive nationalist policies resulted in the invasion of Poland (1939) and the subsequent outbreak of World War II. His regime was infamous for the extermination of millions of people, especially European Jews. He committed suicide when the collapse of the Third Reich was imminent (1945).

William Faulkner

Author of A Rose for Emily, Barn Burning, Sound of Fury

Frances E. Willard

Became leader of the WCTU; worked to educate people about the evils of alcohol; urged laws banning the sale of liquor; worked to outlaw saloons as a step towards strengthening democracy

Calvin Coolidge

Became president when Harding died of pneumonia. He was known for practicing a rigid economy in money and words, and acquired the name "Silent Cal" for being so soft-spoken. He was a true republican and industrialist. Believed in the government supporting big business.

Aroostook War

Began in 1839; Series of clashes between American and Canadian lumberjacks in the disputed territory of northern Maine, resolved when a permanent boundary was agreed upon in 1842.

California Gold Rush

Began in 1849; Inflow of thousands of miners to northern California after news reports of the discover of gold at Sutter's Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world by the end of that year/ The onslaught of migrants prompted Californians to organize a government and apply for statehood in 1849.

Arminianism

Belief that salvation is offered to all humans but is conditional on acceptance of God's grace. Different from Calvinism, which emphasizes predestination and unconditional election.

antinomianism

Belief that the elect need not obey the law of either God or man; most notably espoused in the colonies by Anne Hutchinson.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Believed that African Americans should strive for full rights immediately; founded the NAACP

Hiram Revels

Black Mississippi Senator elected to the seat that had been occupied by Jefferson Davis when the South seceded

Malcolm X

Black militant, radical minister, and spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964. Having eschewed his family name "Little," he preached of doctrine of no compromise with white society. He was assassinated in New York City in 1965

Pontiac's uprising

Bloody campaign waged by Ottawa chief Pontiac to drive the British out of Ohio Country. it was brutally crushed by British troops, who resorted to distributing blankets infected with smallpox as a means to put down the rebellion.

civil law

Body of written law enacted through legislative statutes or constitutional provisions. In countries where civil law prevails, judges must apply the statutes precisely as written.

Louis XVI

Bourbon monarch of France who was executed during the radical phase of the French Revolution along with his Queen Marie Antoinette

nonimportation agreements

Boycotts against British goods adopted in response to the Stamp Act and, later, the Townshend and Intolerable Acts. The agreements were the most effective form of protest against British policies in the colonies.

Champagne Charley

British Prime Minister; convinced Parliament to pass the Townshend Acts; pretty much every single colonist hated him

Keynes

British economist whose theories helped justify New Deal deficit spending

George Canning

British foreign secretary circa 1823; wanted America to join Britain in a declaration - wanted the protection of the Latin American states; keep the other European countries out of the western hemisphere; John Adams thought it was best that the US make the declaration, which became the Monroe Doctrine.

Lord Cornwallis

British general who surrendered at Yorktown

Lusitania

British passenger liner that sank after it was torpedoed by Germany on May 7, 1915. It ended the lives of 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the United States closer to war.

Lord Dunmore

British royal governor who bribed slaves with the promise of eventual freedom to run away and join his army

Wilberforce

British statesman and reformer; leader of abolitionist movement in English parliament that led to end of English slave trade in 1807

A. E. Burnside

Burnside was given command of the Union army after McClellan. He was a terrible leader, whose acts ended up slaughtering many of his men.

Department of Homeland Security

Cabinet-level agency created in 2003 to unify and coordinate public safety and antiterrorism operations within the federal government.

Bakke

California medical school applicant whose case led a divided Supreme Court to uphold limited forms of affirmative action for minorities

responsorial

Call and response style of preaching that melded Christian and African traditions. Practiced by African slaves in the South.

Predestination

Calvinist doctrine that God has foreordained some people to be saved and some to be damned. Though their fate was irreversible, Calvinists, particularly those who believed they were destined for salvation, sought to lead sanctified lives in order to demonstrate to others that they were in fact members of the "elect."

McLeod

Canadian involved in the Caroline attack who was arrested and later freed to prevent war after confessing an alibi

Fetterman

Captain whos troops were brutally massacred by the Sioux who wanted the stop of the Bozeman Trail construction

Haiti

Caribbean nation where Clinton sent fwenty thousand American troops to restore ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Cartel compromising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. OPEC aimed to control access to and prices of oil, wresting power from Western oil companies and investors. In the process, it gradually strengthened the hand of non-Western powers on the world stage.

Cohens vs. Virginia (1821)

Case that reinforced federal supremacy by establishing the right of the Supreme Court to review decisions of state supreme courts in questions involving the powers of the federal government.

Henry Cabot Lodge

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was a leader in the fight against participation in the League of Nations

Women and Economics

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's book urging women to enter the work force and advocating cooperative kitchens and child-care centers

Bank of the United States

Chartered by Congress as part of Alexander Hamilton's financial program, the bank printed paper money and served as a depository for Treasury funds. It drew opposition from Jeffersonian Republicans, who argued that the bank was unconstitutional.

Louis Sullivan

Chicago-based architect whose high rise innovation allowed more people to crowd into limited urban space

John Marshall

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835; presided over cases such as Marbury vs. Madison; judicial review

Rehnquist

Chief Justice of the U.S. who presided at the impeachment trial of President Clinton

Jiang Jieshi

Chinese Nationalist leader whose corrupt and ineffective government fell to communist rebels in 1949

proprietary colonies

Colonies - Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware - under the control of local proprietors, who appointed colonial governors.

Cordell Hull

Congressman from Tennessee, he became the Secretary of State under FDR and served in that position longer than anyone in American history. He is often called the "Father of the United Nations." He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

Battle of Fredericksburg

December 1862; Decisive victory in Virginia for Confederate Robert E. Lee, who successfully repelled a Union attack on his forces.

Battle of Fallen Timbers

Decisive battle between the Miami Confederacy and the US Army. British forces refused to shelter the routed Indians, forcing the latter to attain a peace settlement with the United States.

Battle of Saratoga

Decisive colonial victory in upstate New York, which helped secure French support for the Revolutionary cause.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

Declaration of rights adopted during the French Revolution. Modeled after the American Declaration of Independence thirteen years after the American one was written and approved.

Proclamation of 1763

Decree issued by Parliament in the wake of Pontiac's uprising, prohibiting settlement beyond the Appalachians. Contributed to rising resentment of British rule in the American colonies.

Edict of Nantes

Decree issued by the French crown granting limited toleration to French Protestants. Ended religious wars in France and inaugurated a period of French preeminence in Europe and across the Atlantic. Its repeal in 1685 promoted a french migration of Protestant Huguenots to North America.

Yamasee Indians

Defeated by the south Carolinans in the war of 1715-1716. Their defeat devastated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the Southern colonies.

Lewis Cass

Democrat; father of popular sovereignty; general from the War of 1812, senator and diplomat, proponent of popular sovereignty, Democratic National Convention's candidate for 1848.

Bryan

Democratic and Populist candidate for President "Great Commoner" in 1896 who advocated a policy of free silver known for "Cross of Gold Speech"

John W. Davis

Democratic convention nominee in 1924 against Coolidge. He was a wealthy lawyer connected with J.P. Morgan and Company. Coolidge easily defeated him.

scalawags

Derogatory term for pro-Union Southerners whom Southern Democrats accused of plundering the resources of the South in collusion with Republican governments after the Civil War.

three-fifths compromise

Determined that each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation. The compromise granted disproportionate political power to southern slave states.

XYZ Affair

Diplomatic conflict between France and the United States when American envoys to France were asked to pay a hefty bribe for the privilege of meeting with the French foreign minister. Many in the United States called for war against France, while American sailors and privateers waged an undeclared war against French merchants in the Caribbean. Led to the creation of Marine Corps, Navy Department, and new army

Caroline

Diplomatic row between the United State and Britain. Developed after British troops set fire to an American steamer carrying supplies across the Niagara River to Canadian insurgents, during Canada's short-lived insurrection

Patronage

Distributing jobs by the bucketful in return for votes, kickbacks, and party service.

Black Power

Doctrine of militancy and separatism that rose in prominence after 1965. Black Power activists rejected Martin Luther King's pacifism and desire for integration. Rather, they promoted pride in African heritage and an often militant position in defense of their rights.

Arminius

Dutch theologian who preached that individual free will, not divine decree, determined a person's eternal fate, and that ALL humans, not just the "elect," could be saved if they freely accepted God's grace

Sugar Act

Duty on imported sugar from the West Indies. It was the first tac levied on the colonists by the crown and was lowered substantially in response to widespread protests.

Steffens

Early muckraker who exposed the political corruption in many American cities

Federal Style

Early national style of architecture that borrowed from neoclassical models and emphasized symmetry, balance, and restraint. Famous builders associated with this style included Charles Bulfinch and Benjamin Latrobe.

Second Great Awakening

Early nineteenth century religious revival characterized by emotional mass "camp meetings" and widespread conversion. Brough about a democratization of religion as a multiplicity of denominations vied for members.

romanticism

Early nineteenth-century movement in European and American literature and the arts that, in reaction to the hyper-rational Enlightenment, emphasized imagination over reason, nature over civilization, intuition over calculation, and the self over society.

panic of 1837

Economic crisis triggered by bank failures, elevated grain prices, and Andrew Jackson's efforts to curb overspeculation on western lands and transportation improvements. In response, President Martin Van Buren proposed the "Divorce Bill," which pulled treasury funds out of the banking system altogether, contracting the credit supply.

capitalism

Economic system characterized by private property, generally free trade, and open and accessible markets. European colonization of the Americas, and in particular, the discovery of vast bullion deposits, helped bring about Europe's transition to capitalism.

supply-side economics

Economic theory that underlay Ronald Reagan's tax and spending cuts. Contrary to Keynesianism, supply-side theory declared that government policy should aim to increase the supply of goods and services, rather than the demand for them. It held that lower taxes and decreased regulation would increase productivity by providing increased incentives to work, thus increasing productivity and the tax base.

Orders in Council

Edicts issued by the British crown closing French-owned European ports to foreign shipping. The French responded by ordering the seizure of all vessels entering British ports, thereby cutting off American merchants from trade with both parties.

Greely

Editor of the NY tribune selected to run for president by liberal Republicans in 1872 against Grant

Sadat

Egyptian leader who signed the Camp David accords with Israel

market revolution

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century transformation from a disaggregated, subsistence economy to a national commercial and industrial network.

radical Whigs

Eighteenth-century British political commentators who agitated against political corruption and emphasized the threat to liberty posed by arbitrary power. Their writings shaped American political thought and made colonists especially alert to encroachments on their rights.

Deism

Eighteenth-century religious doctrine that emphasized reasoned moral behavior and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. Mostrejected biblical inerrancy and the divinity of Christ, but they did believe that a Supreme Being created the universe.

Revolution of 1800

Electoral victory of Democratic Republicans over the Federalists, who lost their congressional majority and the presidency. The peaceful transfer of power between rival parties solidified faith in America's political system. Revolutionary because of Jefferson's moderation

cotton gin

Eli Whitney's invention that sped up the process of harvesting cotton. The invention made cotton cultivation more profitable, revitalizing the southern economy and increasing the importance of slavery in the South.

Stevenson

Eloquent Democratic presidential candidate who was twice swamped by a popular Republican wear hero

Lease

Eloquent Kansas Populist who urged farmers to "raise less corn and more hell"

Royal African Company

English joint-stock company that enjoyed a state-granted monopoly on the colonial slave trade from 1672 until 1698; the supply of slaves to the North American colonies rose sharply once the company lost its monopoly privileges

Oliver Cromwell

English military, political, and religious figure who led the Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil War (1642-1649) and called for the execution of Charles I. As lord protector of England (1653-1658) he ruled as a virtual dictator.

Carson

Environmental writer whose book, Silent Spring, helped encourage laws like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act

Massachusetts Bay Colony (founded in 1630)

Established by non-separating Puritans, it soon grew to be the largest and most influential of the New England colonies.

Regulator Movement

Eventually violent uprising of backcountry settlers in North Carolina against unfair taxation and the control of colonial affairs by the seaboard elite.

triangular trade

Exchange of rum, slaves, and molasses between the North American colonies, Africa, and the West Indies. A small but immensely profitable subset of the Atlantic trade.

Powell

Explorer and geologist who warned that traditional agriculture could not succeed west of the 100th meridian

Townshend Acts

External, or indirect, levies on glass, white lead, paper, paint, and tea, the proceeds of which were used to pay colonial governors, who had previously been paid directly by colonial assembles. Sparked another round of protests in the colonies.

Eleanor Roosevelt

FDR's Wife and New Deal supporter. Was a great supporter of civil rights and opposed the Jim Crow laws. She also worked for birth control and better conditions for working women

Wallace

FDR;s liberal vice president during most of WWII, dumped from the ticket in 1944

Operation Dixie

Failed effort by the CIO after WWII to unionize southern workers, especially in textile factories.

Korean War

First "hot war" of the Cold War. It began when the Soviet-backed North Koreans invaded South Korea and UN forces, dominated by the United States, launched a counteroffensive. The war ended in stalemate in 1953.

Articles of Confederation

First American constitution that established the United States as a loose confederation of states under a weak national Congress, which was not granted the power to regulate commerce or collect taxes. The Articles were replaced by a more efficient Constitution in 1789.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

First Lady of Bill Clinton, Senator for New York, closest a woman has come to becoming US President

Lexington and Concord

First battles of the Revolutionary War, fought outside of Boston. The colonial militia successfully defended their stores of munitions, forcing the British to retreat to Boston.

Bartolome de Las Casas

First bishop of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. He devoted most of his life to protecting Amerindian peoples from exploitation. His major achievement was the New Laws of 1542, which limited the ability of Spanish settlers to compel Amerindians to labor.

Tariff of 1816

First protective tariff in American history, created primarily to shield New England manufacturers from the inflow of British goods after the War of 1812.

Cherokee, Creeks, Seminoles, Chocktaws, Chickasaws; suffered the most from Indian Removal Act

Five Civilized Tribes

Declaration of Independence

Formal pronouncement of independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson and approved by Congress. The Declaration allowed Americans to appeal for foreign aid and served as an inspiration for countless revolutionary movements worldwide in the future.

Ickles

Former Bull Moose Progressive who spent billions of dollars on public building projects while carefully guarding against waste

Weaver

Former Civil War general and Granger who ran as the Greenback Labor party candidate for president in 1880

Ellsberg

Former Pentagon official who leaked the Pentagon Papers

Berlin Wall

Fortified and guarded barrier between East and West Berlin erected on orders from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 to stop the flow of people to the West. Until its destruction in 1989, the wall was a vivid symbol of the divide between the communist and capitalist worlds.

Alamo

Fortress in Texas where two hundred American volunteers were slain by Santa Anna in 1836.

War of 1812

Fought between Britain and the United States largely over the issues of trade and impressment. Though the war ended in a relative draw, it demonstrated America's willingness to defend its interests militarily, earning the young nation newfound respect from European powers.

European Economic Community (EEC)

Free-trade zone in Western Europe created by Treaty of Rome in 1957. Often referred to as the "Common Market," this collection of countries originally included France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The body eventually expanded to become the European Union, which by 2005 included twenty-seven member states.

Huguenots

French Protestant dissenters, the Huguenots were granted limited toleration under the Edict of Nantes. After King Louis XIV outlawed Protestantism in 1685, many Huguenots fled elsewhere, including to British North America.

Bonaporte

French dictator who allowed the proceed of the Convention of 1800

Robert de La Salle

French explorer. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Talleyrand

French foreign minister who humiliated Americans by issuing a high fee for consulting with him; later realized war with America is not beneficial and suggested convention

Rochambeau

French general who commanded French troops in the American Revolution, most notably at Yorktown

Genêt

French government representative asking for assistance for the French Revolution. Sparked support for the French Revolution and led to the creation of the Democratic-Republican Party

de Grasse

French naval commander; helped the troops in the Navy trap and cut off Cornwallis

Lafayette

French nobleman; major general in the colonial army who trained the militiamen

Acadians

French residents of Nova Scotia, many of whom were uprooted by the British in 1755 and scattered as far south as Louisiana, where their descendants became known as "Cajuns."

Crèvecoeur

French settler who saw in America in the 1770s a "strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country" and posed the classic question "what then is the America, this new man?"; noted the racial diversity of America in his time and acknowledged that they were all equally American

Louis XIV

French vainglorious king who ruled for 72 years and was interested in overseas colonies;

Maximilian

French viceroy appointed by Napoleon III of France to lead the new government set up in Mexico. After the Civil War, the US invaded and he was executed, a demonstration of the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine to European powers.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

From 1993 to 2010, the policy affecting homosexuals in the military. It emerged as a compromise between the standing prohibition against homosexuals in the armed forces and President Clinton's push to allow all citizens to serve regardless of sexual orientation. Military authorities were forbidden to ask about a service member's orientation, and gay service personnel could be discharged if they publicly revealed their homosexuality. At President Obama's urging, Congress repealed DADT in 2010, permitting gays to serve openly in uniform.

Thaddeus Stevens

From Pennsylvania; leader of the House in the joint committee; abolitionist

détente

From the French term for "reduced tension," the period of the Cold War thawing when the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated reduced armament treaties under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. As a policy prescription, détente marked a departure from the policies of proportional response, mutually assured destruction, and containment that had defined the earlier years of the Cold War.

Land Act of 1820

Fueled the settlement of the Northwest and Missouri Territories by lowering the the price of public land. Also prohibited the purchase of federal acreage on credit, thereby eliminating one of the causes of the panic of 1819.

Branch Davidian

Fundamentalist group whose compound in Waco, Texas, was assaulted by federal agents in 1993

Meuse-Argonne offensive

General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing led American troops in this effort to cut the German railroad lines supplying the western front. It was one of the few major battles that Americans participated in during the entire war, and was still underway when the war ended.

Kearny

General that led a detachment of 17,000 troops over the Santa Fe trail from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe.

"Mad Anthony" Wayne

General; beat Northwest Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794); left British made arms on the fields of battle;

Cheney

George W. Bush's vice president who vigorously promoted conservative domestic policies and the invasion of Iraq

Arthur Zimmermann

German minister whose famous telegram was responsible for drawing the US into WWI

U-boats

German submarines, named for the German Unterseeboot, or "undersea boat," proved deadly for Allied ships in the war zone. U-boat attacks played an important role in drawing the United States into the war.

Allies

Great Britain, Russia, and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed this alliance against the Central Powers in World War I.

Alexander Hamiltion

Great political leader; youngest and brightest of the Federalists; "father of the National Debt"; from New York; major general; military genius; Secretary of Treasury under George Washington (1789); established plan for economy that went into effect in 1790 including a tariff that passed in 1789; hoped to extend the powers of the government in order to create institutions that could strengthen the new country;

Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa

Gullah

Wilmot

He proposed that no territory taken from Mexico should become slave-holding territory.

William Tecumseh Sherman

He served as a general in the Union Army during the Civil War for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy and criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth policies" that he implemented in conduction total war against the Confederate States.

Albert B. Fall

He was Secretery of the Interior during Harding's administration, and was a scheming anticonservationist. He was convicted of leasing naval oil reserves and collecting bribes, which was called the Tea Pot Dome scandal.

Richard M. Nixon

He was a committee member of the House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities (to investigate "subversion"). He tried to catch Alger Hiss who was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930's. This brought Nixon to the attention of the American public. In 1956, he was Eisenhower's Vice-President.

Manuel Noriega

He was a drug lord in Panama that H.W. Bush sent in the military to capture.

Clarence Thomas

He was a newly nominated Supreme Court Justice who was a stern critic of affirmative actions. His views received harsh criticisms from many organizations like the NAACP and NOW. He was then alleged with sexual harassment. He was eventually confirmed as the justice becoming the second black justice ever.

Jerry Falwell

He was an evangelical minister who founded the Moral Majority, a political organization. He preached against sexual promiscuity, abortion, feminism, and the spread of gay rights.

John Rolfe

He was one of the English settlers at Jamestown (and he married Pocahontas). He discovered how to successfully grow tobacco in Virginia and cure it for export, which made Virginia an economically successful colony.

James Monroe

He was the fifth president of the United States and the author of the Monroe Doctrine; proclaimed that the Americas should be closed to future European colonization and free from European interference in sovereign countries' affairs. It further stated the United States' intention to stay neutral in European wars.

Mikhail Gorbachev

He was the new Soviet Union leader. He was extremely progressive for the Soviets and realized the necessity to move the Soviet Union along into the modern era. He introduced two groundbreaking policies: glasnost and perestroika which reshaped the USSR and its relations with foreign nations. He also led the end of the Cold War.

Saddam Hussein

He was the ruler of Iraq. He sent his army into Kuwait for their oil supply. This offset a UN reaction to use any force necessary to push Iraq back.

Eugene V. Debs

Head of the American Railway Union and director of the Pullman strike; he was imprisoned along with his associates for ignoring a federal court injunction to stop striking. While in prison, he read Socialist literature and emerged as a Socialist leader in America.

Randolph

Head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters whose threatened march on Washington opened job opportunities for blacks during WWII

Alice Paul

Head of the National Woman's party that campaigned for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. She opposed legislation protecting women workers because such laws implied women's inferiority. Most condemned her way of thinking.

Gould

Head of the Union Pacific Railroad, made millions of dollars by embezzling stocks from several railroad companies with Fisk

War Industries Board

Headed by Bernard Baruch, this federal agency coordinated industrial production during World War I, setting production quotas, allocating raw materials, and pushing companies to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Under the economic mobilization of the War Industries Board, industrial production in the United States increased 20 percent during the war.

Singer

Helped Howe perfect the sewing machine by making it quicker, and he brought it to middle class families and large manufacturers

American System

Henry Clay's three-pronged system to promote American industry. Clay advocated a strong banking system, a protective tariff, and a federally funded transportation network.

Progress and Poverty

Henry George's best-selling book that advocated social reform through the imposition of a single tax on land

U2

High-flying American spy plane, whose downing in 1960 destroyed a summit and heightened Cold War tensions

Lovejoy

Highly opposed abolitionist who failed multiple times with his printing press and died by a mob

New Immigrants

Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who formed a recognizable wave of immigration from the 1880s until 1924, in contrast to the immigrants from western Europe who had come before them. These new immigrants congregated in ethnic urban neighborhoods, where they worried many native-born Americans, some of whom responded with nativist anti-immigrant campaigns and others of whom introduced urban reforms to help the immigrants assimilate.

Birds of Passage

Immigrants who came to America to earn money for a time and then returned to their native land

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt

Imperialist advocate, aggressive assistant navy secretary, Rough Rider

Charles Sumner

In 1856, he delivered a speech titled, "The Crime Against Kansas," condemning the proslavery men and referring insultingly to one of the best-liked members of the Senate, Andrew Butler from South Carolina. His speech incited Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina to beat him with a cane on the floor of Congress until the cane broke.

Monica Lewinsky

In early 1998, inquiries led to charges that the president had had a sexual relationship with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky; that he had lied about in his deposition before Paula Jones's attorneys and that he had encouraged Lewinsky to do the same.

modernism

In response to the demanding conditions of modern life, this artistic and cultural movement revolted against comfortable Victorian standards and accepted chance, change, contingency, uncertainty, and fragmentation. Originating among avant-garde artists and intellectuals around the turn of the twentieth century, modernism blossomed into a full-fledged cultural movement in art, music, literature, and architecture.

middlemen

In trading systems, those dealers who operate between the original producers of goods and the retail merchants who sell to consumers. After the eleventh century, European exploration was driven in large part by a desire to acquire alluring asian goods without paying heavy tolls to Muslim middlemen.

Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

Incendiary abolitionist tract advocating the violent overthrow of slavery. Published by David Walker, a southern born free black.

Harry S. Truman

Inconspicuous former senator from Missouri who was suddenly catapulted to national and world leadership on April 12, 1945

Malinche (Doña Marina)

Indian slave who served as an interpreter for Hernán Cortés on his conquest of the Aztecs. Malinche later married one of Cortés's soldiers, who took her with him back to Spain.

Second Anglo-Powhatan War

Indians last effort to dislodge Virginians, they were defeated. Peace treaty of 1646 stopped any hope of creating native peoples into Virginia society or peace with coexisting.

Neoconservatives

Influential group of intellectuals led by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz who provided key ideas for the "Reagan Revolution"

Underground Railroad

Informal network of volunteers that helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

Greek Revival

Inspired by the contemporary Greek independence movement, this building style, popular between 1820 and 1850, imitated ancient Greek structural forms in search of a democratic architectural vernacular.

Albany Congress

Intercolonial congress summoned by the British government to foster greater colonial unity and assure the Iroquois support in the escalating war against the French.

Kyoto Treaty

International treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It was negotiated and opened for signatories in 1997 and took effect in 2005. Although it was signed by 169 out of 192 countries, the Bush administration rejected the plan as too costly in 2001.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

Investigatory body established in 1938 to root out "subversion." Sought to expose communist influence in American government and society, in particular through the trial of Alger Hiss.

Tehran

Iranian capital where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met to plan D-Day in coordination with Russian strategy against Hitler and the East

Saddam Hussein

Iraqi dictator who was overthrown by invading American armies in 2003

Nicola Sacco

Italian immigrant and anarchist who may have been unfairly convicted because of his political views

Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot)

Italian-born navigator sent by English to explore North American coast in 1498

Hirohito

Japanese emperor who was allowed to stay on his throne despite unconditional surrender policy

Sally Hemmings

Jefferson's slave with whom he had an affair of sorts after the death of his wife; had 5 children with Hemmings; she was considered black although she was 7/8 white

Chinese Nationalists

Jiang Jieshi's pro-American forces which lost the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong's communists in 1949

Mondale

Jimmy Carter's vice president who lost badly to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election

Henry Demarest Lloyd

Journalist who was notable for, pre-1900, attacking the Standard Oil Company with his book "Wealth Against Commonwealth"

Battle of Bull Run (Manassas Junction)

July 1861; First major battle of the Civil War and a victory for the South, it dispelled Northern illusions of swift victory.

Battle of Gettysburg

July 1863; Civil War battle in Pennsylvania that ended in Union victory, spelling doom for the Confederacy, which never again managed to invade the North. Site of General George Pickett's daring but doomed charge on the Northern Lines.

Battle of Buena Vista

Key American victory against Mexican forces in the Mexican war. Elevated General Zachary Taylor to national prominence and helped secure his success in the 1848 presidential election.

GI Bill

Known officially as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act and more informally as the GI Bill of Rights, this law helped returning World War II soldiers reintegrate into civilian life by securing loans to buy homes and farms and set up small businesses. It also made tuition and stipends available for them to attend college, as well as job training programs. The act was intended to cushion the blow of 15 million returning servicemen on the employment market and to nurture the postwar economy.

Works Project Administration

Large federal employment program, established in 1935 under Harry Hopkins that provided jobs in areas from road building to art

Emilio Aguinaldo

Leader of Filipino insurgents who aided Americans in defeating Spain and taking Manila

Chief Joseph

Leader of the Nez Percé tribe who conducted a brilliant but unsuccessful military campaign in 1877; his tribe was fooled and forced into Kansas

Sitting Bull

Leader of the Sioux during war of 1876-1877

Lord De La Warr

Leader of the relief group sent for Virginia Company. Didn't arrive until later (Spring 1610). Sent settlers back to Jamestown, made an army and attacked Indians; burned down their houses and torched fields

Kaiser

Leading American industrialist and shipbuilder during WWII

Reinhold Niebuhr

Leading American theologian who advocated Christian realism and the use of force if necessary to maintain justice against Nazi or Stalinist evil

Bryan

Leading Democratic politician whose intervention narrowly tipped the Senate vote in favor of acquiring the Philippines in 1899

committees of correspondence

Local committees established across Massachusetts, and later in each of the thirteen colonies, to maintain colonial opposition to British policies through the exchange of letters and pamphlets.

Great Exhibition

London World's Affair in 1851 where American products were prominent

Saddam Hussein

Long-time Iraqi dictator who was overthrown by invading American armies in 2003

Armed Neutrality

Loose alliance of nonbelligerent naval powers, organized by Russia's Catherine the Great, to protect neutral trading rights during the war for American independence.

Ernest Hemingway

Lost Generation writer, spent much of his life in France, Spain, and Cuba during WWI, notable works include A Farewell to Arms

Tariff of 1857

Lowered duties on imports in response to a high Treasury surplus and pressure from southern farmers.

Iran-Contra affair

Major political scandal of Ronald Reagan's second term that was revealed in 1986. An illicit arrangement of selling "arms for hostages" with Iran and using money to support the contras in Nicaragua, the scandal deeply damaged Reagan's credibility.

Awful Disclosures (1836)

Maria Monk's sensational expose of alleged horrors in Catholic convents. Its popularity reflected nativist fears of Catholic influence.

Commonwealth vs. Hunt

Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that strengthened the labor movement by upholding the legality of unions.

Thomas Hutchinson

Massachusetts governor; refused to be pushed around by colonial protestors; butted heads with Samuel Adams

Jackson

Massachusetts writer whose books aroused sympathy for the plight of Native Americans

Metacom

Massasoit's son who made pan-Indian alliance for King Philip's War

Marshall Plan

Massive transfer of aid money to help rebuild postwar Western Europe, intended to bolster capitalist and and democratic governments and prevent domestic communist groups from riding poverty and misery to power. The pan was first announced by Secretary of State George Marshall at Harvard's commencement in 1947.

Arnold

May 1775; Helped prevent capture of Fort Ticonderoga and then became a traitor giving away West Point

Allen

May 1775; led a tiny American force with Benedict Arnold that surprised and captured the British garrisons at Ticonderoga and Crown Point

glasnost

Meaning "openness," a cornerstone along with perestroika of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR int he 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

perestroika

Meaning "restructuring," a cornerstone along with glasnost of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Measure enacted by the Virginia legislature prohibiting state support for religious institutions and recognizing freedom of worship. Served as a model for the religion clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

spot resolutions

Measures introduced by Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln, questioning President James K. Polk's justification for war with Mexico. Lincoln requested that Polk clarify precisely where Mexican forces had attacked American troops.

McCormick reaper

Mechanized the harvest of grains, such as wheat, allowing farmers to cultivate larger plots. The introduction of the reaper in the 1930s fueled the establishment of large-scale commercial agriculture in the Midwest.

Yalta conference

Meeting of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin in February 1945 at an old tsarist resort on the Black Sea, where the Big Three leaders laid the foundations for the postwar division of power in Europe, including a divided Germany and territorial concessions to the Soviet Union.

Santa Anna

Mexican dictator who was in charge when war broke out between the Mexicans and Americans; lost Texas to rebels, and was the leader of the armed forces during the war

realism

Mid-nineteenth century movement in European and American literature and the arts that sought to depict contemporary life and society as it actually was, in all its unvarnished detail. Adherents eschewed the idealism and nostalgia of the earlier romantic sensibility.

Great Migration (1630-1642)

Migration of seventy thousand refugees from England to the North American colonies, primarily New England and the Caribbean. The twenty thousand migrants who came to Massachusetts largely shared a common sense of purpose—to establish a model Christian settlement in the new world.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Military alliance of Western European powers and the United States and Canada established in 1949 to defend against the common threat from the Soviet Union, marking a giant stride forward for European unity and American internationalism.

Vietnamization

Military strategy launched by Richard Nixon in 1969. The plan reduced the number of American combat troops in Vietnam and left more of the fighting to the South Vietnamese, who were supplied with American armor, tanks, and weaponry.

Charles Francis Adams

Minister to Great Britain during the Civil War, he wanted to keep Britain from entering the war on the side of the South.

new lights

Ministers who took part in the revivalist, emotive religious tradition pioneered by George Whitefield during the Great Awakening.

Nancy Pelosi

Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011.

cahokia

Mississippian settlement near present-day East St. Louis, home to as many as 25,000 Native Americans

Brant

Mohawk chief who led many Iroquois to fight with Britain against American revolutionaries

Douglass

Most prominent African American leader of the 19th century in the United States; Attempted to escape slavery and finally succeeded in 1838; Became agent for the MA Anti-Slavery Society and a great orator of the abolition movement; published 3 accounts of his life, one being "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass"; started abolitionist newspaper, "The North Star"

settlement houses

Mostly run by middle-class native-born women, settlement houses in immigrant neighborhoods provided housing, food, education, child care, cultural activities, and social connections for new arrivals to the United States. Many women, both native-born and immigrant, developed lifelong passions for social activism in the settlement houses. Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago and Lillian Wald's Henry Street Settlement in New York City were two of the most prominent.

Johnson

Mulatto free slave who owned slaves himself; "barber of Natchez"

Platt

NY politician who successfully schemed to get TR out of NY and into the vice presidency in Washington

Liliuokalani

Native Hawaiian queen overthrown in a revolution led by white planters and aided by US troops

Chief Tommany

Native from who Penn bought land from

Oneidas and Tuscaroras

Natives from the Iroquois Confederacy that sided with colonists

Know-Nothing Party

Nativist political party, also known as the American party, that emerged in response to an influx of immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics.

American Protective Association

Nativit organization that attacked New Immigrants and Roman Catholicism in the 1880's and 1890's

George Dewey

Naval commander whose spectacular May Day victory in 1898 opened the doors to American imperialism in Asia

Macdonough

Naval officer who forced the invading British army near Plattsburg to retreat in 1814; he saved upper New York from conquest.

Rome-Berlin Axis

Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, and Fascist Italy, led by Benito Mussolini, allied themselves together under this nefarious treaty. The pact was signed after both countries had intervened on behalf of the fascist leader Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Jay's Treaty

Negotiated by Chief Justice John Jay in an effort to avoid war with Britain, the treaty included a British promise to evacuate outposts on US soil and pay damages for seized American vessels, in exchange for which Jay bound the United States to repay pre-Revolutionary war debts

Security and Exchange Commission

New Deal agency established to provide a public watchdog against deception and fraud in stock trading

The Association

Nonimportation agreement crafted during the First Continental Congress calling for the complete boycott of British goods.

Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)

Nonprofit organization of centrist Democrats founded in the mid 1980s. The group attempted to push the Democratic party toward pro-growth, strong defense, and anti-crime policies. Among its most influential early members was Bill Clinton, whom it held up as an example of "third-way" politics.

King George's War

North American theater of Europe's War of Austrian Succession that once again pitted British colonists against their French counterparts in the North. The peace settlement did not involve any territorial realignment, leading to conflict between New England settlers for several decades.

Copperheads

Northern Democrats who obstructed the war effort by attacking Abraham Lincoln, the draft, and, after 1863, emancipation.

Elizabeth Blackwell

Northern woman who was the first woman to become a licensed doctor in the US and helped run the US Sanitary Commission

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

One of the best-known sculptors of the period. he was known for his large and robust compositions.

Delany

One of the few black leaders to take seriously the notion of mass recolonization of Africa; visited West Africa's Niger Valley seeking a suitable site for relocation

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

One of the first and most influential female members in the Knights of Labor. She got her start by agitating for the Knights in the Illinois cornfields.

Oneida Community

One of the more radical utopian communities established in NY in the nineteenth century, it advocated "free love," birth control, and eugenic selection. Utopian communities reflected the reformist spirit of the age.

Thomas Alva Edison

One of the most prolific inventors in US history. He invented the phonograph, light bulb, electric battery, mimeograph and moving picture.

antifederalists

Opponents of the 1787 Constitution, they cast the document as antidemocratic, objected to the subordination of the states to the central government, and feared encroachment on individuals' liberties in the absence of a bill of rights.

captain John Smith

Organized Jamestown and imposed a harsh law "He who will not work shall not eat".

writ of habeas corpus

Petition requiring law enforcement officers to present detained individuals before the court to examine the legality of the arrest. Protects individuals from arbitrary state action. Suspended by Lincoln during the Civil War.

Benjamin Spock

Physician who provided advice on child rearing to baby boomers' parents after World War II

Andy Warhol

Pioneering "Pop" artist known for his iconic portraits of Cold War America's material objects, including soup cans and soda bottles.

spoils system

Policy of rewarding political supporters with public office, first widely employed at the federal level by Andrew Jackson. The practice was widely abused by unscrupulous office seekers, but it also helped cement party loyalty in the emerging two-party system.

Solidarity

Polish labor union crushed by the communist-imposed martial-law regime in 1983

Moral Majority

Political action committee founded by evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979 to promote traditional Christian values and oppose feminism, abortion, and gay rights. This group was a major linchpin in the resurgent religious right of the 1980s.

Herbert Croly

Political theorist that argued that the government should use its regulatory and taxation powers to promote the welfare of its citizens

republicanism

Political theory of representative government, based on the principle of popular sovereignty, with a strong emphasis on liberty and civic virtue. Influential in eighteenth-century American political thought, it stood as an alternative ti monarchical rule

Taft

Politically inept inheritor of the Roosevelt legacy who ended up allied with the reactionary Republican Old Guard

squatters

Poor farmers in North Carolina and elsewhere who occupied land and raised crops without gaining legal title to the soil

Era of Good Feelings

Popular name for the period of one-party, Republican, rule during James Monroe's presidency. The term is misleading due to bitter conflict over tariffs, bank, transportation, sectionalism, and slavery

Burned-Over District

Popular name for western New York, a region particularly swept up in the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening.

Horatio Alger

Popular novelist during the Industrial Revolution who wrote "rags to riches" books praising the values of hard work.

Graham

Popular religious evangelical who effectively used the new medium of tv

pet banks

Popular term for pro-Jackson state banks that received the bulk of federal deposits when Andrew Jackson moved to dismantle the Bank of the United States in 1833.

Bill of Rights

Popular term for the first ten amendments to the US Constitution secured by Madison. The amendments secure key rights for individuals and reserve to the states all powers not explicitly delegated or prohibited by the Constitution.

Environmental Protection Act

Powerful new federal agency established to enforce the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and other similar laws.

Nikita Khrushchev

Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958-1964, he was a communist party official who emerge from the power struggle after Stalin's death in 1953 to lead the USSR. He crushed a pro-Western uprising of Hungary in 1956, and, in 1958, issued an ultimatum for Western evacuation of Berlin. Defended Soviet-style economic planning in the Kitchen Debate with Richard Nixon in 1959 and attempted to send missiles to Cuba in 1962 but backed down when confronted by JFK

Al Gore

President Clinton's loyal vice president who won the most popular votes but lost the election of 2000

turnpike

Privately funded, toll-based public road constructed in the early nineteenth century to facilitate commerce.

privateers

Privately owned armed ships authorized by Congress to prey on enemy shipping during the Revolutionary War. more numerous than the tiny American navy, privateers inflicted heavy damages on British shippers.

Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette

Progressive Republican Governor of Wisconsin; wrested control from the corporations and gave it back to the people

Benedict

Prominent 1930s social scientist who argued that each culture produced its own type of personality

Tariff of 1842

Protective measure passed by Congressional Whigs, raising tariffs to pre-compromise tariff of 1832 rates.

Fundamentalists

Protestant believers who strongly resisted liberal Protestantism's attempts to adapt doctrines to Darwinian evolution and biblical criticism

Fifteenth Amendment

Ratified in 1870; Prohibited states from denying citizens the franchise on account of race. It disappointed feminists, who wanted the amendment to include guarantees for women's suffrage.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

Reagan administration plan announced in 1983 to create a missile defense system over American territory to block a nuclear attack. Derided as "Star Wars" by critics, the plan typified Reagan's commitment to vigorous defense spending even as he sought to limit the size of government in domestic matters.

"smoking gun" tape

Recording made in the Oval Office in June 1972 that proved conclusively that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in and endeavored to cover it up. led to a complete breakdown in congressional support for Nixon after the Supreme Court ordered he hand the tape to investigators.

weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

Refers to weapons - nuclear, biological, and chemical - that can kill large numbers of people and do great damage to the built and natural environment. The term was used to refer to nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein had developed WMD provided the rationale for the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003. These weapons were never found after the invasion.

American Colonization Society

Reflecting the focus of early abolitionists on transporting freed blacks back to Africa, the organization established Liberia, a West African settlement intended as a haven for emancipated blacks.

Florence Kelley

Reformer who worked to prohibit child labor and to improve conditions for female workers

black belt

Region of the Deep South with the highest concentration of slaves. It emerged in the nineteenth century as cotton production became more profitable and slavery expanded south and west.

Warren E. Burger

Replaced the retiring Earl Warren in 1969, and this succeeded—by the end of 1971, the Supreme Court had four new members that Nixon had appointed

Second Continental Congress

Representative body of delegates from all thirteen colonies. Drafted the Declaration of Independence and managed the colonial war effort.

Shan of Iran

Repressive pro-Western ruler whose 1979 overthrow precipitated a crisis for the US

Robert Dole

Republican Senator from Kansas who ran unsuccessfully against Bill Clinton in 1996. He had previously been the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1976 and served as senate minority leader during the 1980s and 1990s.

Reed

Republican Speaker of the House who dominated Billion Dollar Congress, proposed the Dingley Tariff Bill in 1897

Newt Gingrich

Republican congressman from Georgia who served as speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999. As the author of the "Contract with America, he led the Republican "revolution" of 1994."

Dewey

Republican presidential nominee in 1944 who failed in his effort to deny FDR a fourth term

Landon

Republican who carried only two states in the futile campaign against "The Champ" in 1936

Battle of New Orleans

Resounding victory of American forces against the British, restoring American confidence and fueling nationalism. Final battle of the War of 1812.

Walker Tariff

Revenue-enhancing measure that lowered tariffs from 1842 levels, thereby fueling trade and increasing Treasury receipts.

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was first elected president in 1980 and elected again in 1984. He ran on a campaign based on the common man and "populist" ideas. He served as governor of California from 1966-1974, and he participated in the McCarthy Communist scare. Iran released hostages on his Inauguration Day in 1980. While president, he developed Reagannomics, the trickle down effect of government incentives. He cut out many welfare and public works programs. He used the Strategic Defense Initiative to avoid conflict. His meetings with Gorbachev were the first steps to ending the Cold War.

Boston Tea Party

Rowdy protest against the British East India Company's newly acquired monopoly on the tea trade. Colonists, disguised as Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor, prompting harsh sanctions from the British Parliament.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Ruler of France; sold Louisiana to the Americans after receiving it from the Spanish

Model Treaty

Sample treaty drafted by the Continental Congress as a guide for American diplomats. Reflected the Americans' desire to foster commercial partnerships rather than political or military entanglements.

Gilded Age

Sarcastic name given to the three decade long post Civil War era by Mark Twain in 1873; time of a large increase in wealth caused by industrialization

Kent State University

Scene of massacre of four college students by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970, in Ohio. In response to Nixon's announcement that he had expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, college campuses across the country exploded in violence. On May 14 and 15, students at historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi were protesting the war as well as the Kent State shooting when highway patrolmen fired into a student dormitory, killing two students.

Bunau-Varilla

Scheming French engineer who helped stage a revolution in Panama and then became the new country's "instant" foreign minister

Queen Anne's War

Second in a series of conflicts between the European powers for control of North America, fought between the English and French colonists in the North, and the English and Spanish in Florida, Under the peace treaty, the French ceded Acadia (Nova Scotia), Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay to Britain.

Onley

Secretary of State during Cleveland's presidency who warned Britain to back off Venezuela (conflict due to gold)

King Philip's War (1675-1676)

Series of assaults by Metacom, King Philip, on English settlements in New England. The attacks slowed the westward migration of New England settlers for several decades.

Pequot War 1637

Series of clashes between English settlers and Pequot Indians in the Connecticut River valley. Ended in the slaughter of the Pequots by the Puritans and their Narragansett Indian allies.

Black Hawk War

Series of clashes in Illinois and Wisconsin between American forces led by Davis and Indian Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk and Fox tribes, who unsuccessfully tried to reclaim territory lost under the 1830 Indian Removal Act.

Watergate

Series of scandals that resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 amid calls for his impeachment. The episode sprang from a failed burglary attempt at Democratic party headquarters in Washington's Watergate Hotel during the 1972 election.

panic of 1819

Severe financial crisis brought on primarily by the efforts of the Bank of the United States to curb overspeculation on western lands. It disproportionately affected the poorer classes, especially in the West, sowing the seeds of Jacksonian democracy.

Treaty of Versailles

Signed in France's famed palace after six months of tough negotiations, it established the terms of settlement of the First World War between Germany and Allied and Associated Powers. Article 231, soon dubbed "the war guilt clause," blamed the war on Germany as justification for forcing German disarmament and saddling Germany with heavy reparations payment to the Allied victors. Germans detested the treaty as too harsh, the French feared it was too weak to prevent future aggression, and the US Senate rejected it, largely because it obliged the United States to join the League of Nations.

Detroit

Site of a serious racial disturbance during WWII

Belknap

SoW that got caught stealing from supplies meant for Indian Reserves

George C. Wallace

Southern populist and and segregationist, as governor of Alabama, he famously defended his state's policies of racial segregation. He ran for president several times as a Democrat, but achieved his greatest influence when he ran as a third-party candidate in 1968, winning five states

Franciso Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Incas in what is now Peru and founded the city of Lima

McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819)

Supreme Court case that strengthened federal authority and upheld the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States by establishing that the State of Maryland did not have power to tax the bank.

Warren

Supreme Court justice whose judicial activism came under increasing attack by conservatives

Rosie the Riveter

Symbolic personification of female laborers who took factory jobs in order to sustain U.S. production during WWII

Sharecropping

System in which ex slaves would rent land and pay by growing crops, turned in to a very abusive system a second time bondage.

Treaty of Portsmouth

TR negotiated a deal in which Japan got half of Sakhalin but no indemnity for its losses

transportation revolution

Term referring to a series of nineteenth-century transportation innovations - turnpikes, steamboats, canals, and railroads - that linked local and regional markets, creating a national economy.

Pragmatism

The American philosophical theory, especially advanced by William James, that the test of the truth of an idea was its practical consequences

Roger B. Taney

The Chief Justice in the Dred Scott decision, he persuaded the rest of the Southern judges to go beyond dismissing the Scott case as a black who had no right to be represented in court.

Battle of the Bulge

The December 1944 German offensive (stopped by Patton) that marked Hitler's last chance to stop the Allied advance

Polk

The Democrat-nominated presidential candidate for the 1844 election, he was called "young hickory" by his opposition for his background in Tennessee and "Dark Horse" for being a relatively unknown candidate

Industrial Workers of the World

The IWW, also known as the "Wobblies," was a radical organization that sought to build "one big union" and advocated industrial sabotage in defense of that goal. At its peak in 1923, it could claim 100,000 members and could gain the support of 300,000. The IWW particularly appealed to migratory workers in agriculture and lumbering and to miners, all of whom suffered from horrific working conditions.

Dupuy de Lôme

The Spanish minister in Washington, overwhelmed and infuriated by the depiction of Spanish customs officials brutally disrobing and searching American women; forced to resign his position

Tet

The Vietnamese New Year celebration, during which the communists launched a heavy offensive against the U.S. in 1968

Nineteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment, finally passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote over seventy years after the first organized calls for woman's suffrage in Seneca Falls, New York.

Black Tuesday

The dark, panicky day of October 29, 1929 when over 16,410,000 shares of stock were sold on Wall Street. It was a trigger that helped bring on the Great Depression.

mechanization of agriculture

The development of engine-driven machines, like the combine, which helped to dramatically increase the productivity of land in the 1870s and 1880s. This process contributed to the consolidation of agricultural business that drove many family farms out of existence.

Massive Retaliation

The doctrine upon which Eisenhower and Dulles based American nuclear policy in the 1950s

New Deal

The economic and political policies of Franklin Roosevelt's administration in the 1930s, which aimed to solve the problems of the Great Depression by providing relief for the unemployed and launching efforts to stimulate economic recovery. The New Deal built on reforms of the progressive era to expand greatly an American-style welfare state.

Hetch Hetchy Valley

The federal government allowed the city of San Francisco to build a dam here in 1913. This was a blow to preservationists, who wished to protect the Yosemite National Park, where the dam was located.

Sunbelt

The fifteen-state crescent through the American South and Southwest that experienced terrific population and productivity expansion during World War II and particularly in the decades after the war, eclipsing the old industrial Northeast (the "Frostbelt").

Château-Thierry, Battle of

The first significant engagement of American troops in World War I—and, indeed, in any European war. To weary French soldiers, the American doughboys were an image of fresh and gleaming youth.

Jamestown

The first successful settlement in the Virginia colony founded in May, 1607. Harsh conditions nearly destroyed the colony but in 1610 supplies arrived with a new wave of settlers. The settlement became part of the Virginia Company of London in 1620. The population remained low due to lack of supplies until agriculture was solidly established. Jamestown grew to be a prosperous shipping port when John Rolfe introduced tobacco as a major export and cash crop.

deleveraging

The inverse of "leveraging," whereby businesses increase their financial power by borrowing money (debt) in addition to their own assets (equity). In times of uncertainty or credit tightening, the same businesses seek to improve their debt-to-equity ratios by shedding debt through the sale of assets purchased with borrowed money.

Iwo Jima & Okinawa

The last two heavily defended Japanese islands conquered by the U.S. in 1945

Great Migration

The movement of 6 million African American from the rural South to the urban North and West in two major waves. The first, from World War I until the onset of the Great Depression, brought more than 1.5 millions migrants to northern cities. From 1940 to 1970, another 5 million left the South, pushed off the land by the mechanization of cotton farming and lured north and west by hopes for greater economic opportunity and more equitable political participation. After the 1970, increasing numbers of African Americas trekked back to the South in what was called the New Great Migration, as new jobs became more plentiful in the South than in the older industrial cities of the North and racial relations improved in the South

American Expeditionary Force (AEF)

The name given to the US Army force deployed to Europe in World War commanded by General John J. Pershing and composed mostly of conscripts.

John C. Breckinridge

The nominee for the Southern Democrats in the election of 1860, he would eventually lose to Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election. The Southern Democrats split away from their Northern counterparts after they felt they could not support the Northerners' choice of Stephen Douglas for the presidency.

Appeasement

The policy followed by leaders of Britain and France at the 1938 conference in Munich. Their purpose was to avoid war, but they allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

Bible Belt

The region of the American South, extending roughly from North Carolina west to Oklahoma and Texas, where Protestant Fundamentalism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible were traditionally strongest.

Knights of Labor

The second organization in US history , organized in 1869 as a secret society and opened for public membership in 1881. They were known for their efforts organize all workers, regardless of skill level, gender, or race. After the mid 1880s, their membership declined for a variety of reasons, including their participation in violent strikes and discord between skilled and unskilled members

Bolshevik Revolution

The second stage of the Russian Revolution in November 1917 when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party seized power and established a communist state. The first stage had occurred the previous February when more moderate revolutionaries overthrew the Russian Czar.

V-E (Victory in Europe) Day

The source of frenzied rejoicing, May 8, 1945, marked the official end to the war in Europe, following the unconditional surrender of what remained of the German government.

Brigham Young

The successor to the Mormons after the death of Joseph Smith. He was responsible for the survival of the sect and is establishment in Utah, thereby populating the would-be state.

reservation system

The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the West, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these reservations, most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The US government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the reservations at all times.

columbian exchange

The transfer of goods, crops, and diseases between New and Old World societies after 1492.

WACs (Women's Army Corps)

The women's branch of the US Army established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. Women now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses.

SPARs (US Coast Guard Women's Reserve)

The women's branch of the US Coast Guard established during WWII to employ women in noncombatant jobs.

WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)

The women's branch of the US navy established during WWII to employ women in noncombatant jobs.

Henry Ward Beecher

Theologically liberal American Congregationalist clergyman, reformer, and author. One of his elder sisters was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. An advocate of women's suffrage, the temperance movement, and an antislavery advocate, he bought guns to support Bleeding Kansas (Beecher's Bibles)

Green Party

Third party led by environmentalist Ralph Nader that took votes from Democratic presidential nominee Albert Gore in 2000 election

Agricultural Marketing Act

This act established the Federal Farm Board, a lending bureau for hard-pressed farmers. The act also aimed to help farmers help themselves through new producers' cooperatives. As the depression worsened in 1930, the Board tried to bolster falling prices by buying up surpluses, but it was unable to cope with the flood of farm produce to market.

Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act

This act reversed traditional high-protective-tariff policies by allowing the president to negotiate lower tariffs with trade partners, without Senate approval. Its chief architect was Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who believed that tariff barriers choked off foreign trade.

Neutrality Act of 1939

This act stipulated that European democracies might buy American munitions, but only if they could pay in cash and transport them in their own ships. The terms were known as "Cash-and-Carry." It represented an effort to avoid war debts and protect American arms-carriers from torpedo attacks.

Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act

This law banned "yellow-dog," or antiunion, work contracts and forbade federal courts from issuing injunctions to quash strikes and boycotts. It was an early piece of labor-friendly federal legislation.

Adamson Act

This law established an eight-hour day for all employees on trains involved in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime. It was the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies, and was upheld by the Supreme Court Wilson v. New (1917).

Randolph Bourne

This man was a "cultural pluralist" along with Horace Kallen. He opposed the idea of immigration restriction. He, in fact, believed in cosmopolitan interchange which was destined to make America "not a nationality but a trans-nationality." In this view the U.S. should serve as the vanguard of a more international and multicultural age. (pgs. 724-725)

Underwood Tariff

This tariff provided for a substantial reduction of rates and enacted an unprecedented, graduated federal income tax. By 1917, revenue from the income tax surpassed receipts from the tariff, a gap that has since been vastly widened.

Albert Gallatin

Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of Treasury and a financial genius; helped to cut the national debt nearly in half

The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine's anticlerical treatise that accused churches of seeking to acquire "power and profit" and to "enslave mankind."

Common Sense

Thomas Paine's pamphlet urging the colonies to declare independence and establish a republican government. The widely read pamphlet helped convince colonists to support the Revolution.

Iran, Iraq, North Korea

Three countries labeled by Bush as the "Axis of Evil"

disestablish

To separate an official state church from its connection with the government. Following the Revolution, all states blanck the Anglican Church, though some New England states maintained Congregational Churches well into the nineteenth century.

Rommel

Top German general in North Africa whose advance was finally halted at El Alamein by British General Montgomery

Hoffa

Tough Teamster-union boss whose corrupt actions helped lead to passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act

Lewis

Tough head of the United Mine Workers, whose work stoppages precipitated anti-strike laws

regulars

Trained professional soldiers, as distinct from militia or conscripts. During the French and Indian War, British generals often showed contempt for ill-trained colonial militiamen.

assumption

Transfer of debt from one party to another. In order to strengthen the union, the federal government assumed the states' Revolutionary War debts in 1790, thereby tying the interests of wealthy lenders with those of the national government. District of Columbia was moved to Virginia to please states not benefited by this act

coureurs de bois

Translated as "runners of the woods," they were French fur-trappers, also known as "voyageurs" (travelers), who established trading posts throughout North America. The fur trade wreaked havoc on the health and folkways of their Native American trading partners.

Treaty of Fort Stanwix

Treaty signed by the United States and the pro-British Iroquois granting Ohio Country to the Americans. First treaty signed between the United States and an Indian Nation.

Hitler-Stalin pact

Treaty signed on August 23, 1939 in which Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other. The fateful agreement paved the way for German aggression against Poland and the Western democracies.

James G. Blaine

Two-time Secretary of State; pushed his Big Sister policy into effect; presided over the first Pan-American conference held in Washington DC

Jiang Jieshi

U.S. ally who resisted Japanese advances in China during WWII

George Pickett

US Army officer who became a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for his participation in the futile and bloody assault at the Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name.

Specie Circular

US Treasury decree requiring that all public lands be purchased with "hard," or metallic, currency. Issued after small state banks flooded the market with unreliable paper currency, fueling land speculation in the West.

Scott

US general who lead the American forces to a victory in Mexico City despite large handicaps (1847)

Chivington

US general who massacred Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado (1864)

Scott Key

US lawyer and poet taken hostage who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812.

Florida Purchase Treaty (Adams-Onis Treaty)

Under the agreement, Spain ceded Florida to the United States, and the two nations agreed on the southwestern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. Spain retained the territory from Texas to California while abandoning its claims to the Oregon Country.

George G. Meade

Union General who replaced Hooker and defeated Lee at Gettysburg.

salutary neglect (1688-1763)

Unofficial policy of relaxed royal control over colonial trade and only weak enforcement of Navigation Laws. Lasted from the Glorious Revolution to the end of the French and Indian War in 1763.

New York slave revolt (1712)

Uprising of approximately two dozen enslaved Africans that resulted in the deaths of nine whites and the brutal execution of twenty-one participating blacks.

Stono Rebellion

Uprising of more than fifty South Carolina blacks. They attempted to reach Spanish Florida but were stopped by the South Carolina militia.

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair's book that inspired pro-consumer federal laws regulating meat food and drugs

admiralty courts

Used to try offenders for violating the various Navigation Acts passed by the crown after the French and Indian War. Colonists argued that the courts encroached on their rights as Englishmen because they lacked juries and placed the burden of proof on the accused.

Joseph Pulitzer

Used yellow journalism in competition with Hearst to sell more newspapers. He also achieved the goal of becoming a leading national figure of the Democratic Party.

Millard Fillmore

VP under Taylor, balanced the interests in the Compromise of 1850

King William's War

War fought largely between French trappers, British settlers, and their respective Indian allies. The colonial theater of the larger War of the League of Augsburg in Europe.

Haitian Revolution

War incited by a slave uprising in French-controlled Saint Domingue, resulting in the creation of the first independent black republic in the Americas.

Howe

Washington's adversary; not a military genius; commanded at Bunker Hill and Saratoga

New England Confederation (1643)

Weak union of the colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut led by Puritans for the purposes of defense and organization, an early attempt at self-government during the benign neglect of the English Civil War.

Osama Bin Laden

Wealthy Saudi Arabian exile who formed a global terrorist network that assaulted the U.S.

Jimmy Carter

Well-meaning president who was swamped by the 1980 Reagan landslide but later won the Nobel Prize

Liberia

West African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for freed blacks, fifteen thousand of whom made their way back across the Atlantic by the 1860s.

Zachary Taylor

Whig nomination for 1848 election, "hero of Buena Vista," winner of election, blunt

supported American System, supported state rights/offended by Jackson's power, northern merchants, anti-masonic party, wanted internal improvements and market economy

Whigs characteristics

Dean

White House lawyer whose dramatic charges against Nixon were validated by the Watergate tapes

Blue Eagle

Widely displayed symbol of the National Recovery Admin. (NRA), which attempted to reorganize and reform U.S. industry

Poor Richard's Almanack

Widely read annual pamphlet edited by Benjamin Franklin. Best known for its proverbs and aphorisms emphasizing thrift, industry, morality, and common sense.

stamp tax

Widely unpopular tax on an array of paper goods, repealed in 1766 after mass protests erupted across the colonies. Colonists developed the principle of "no taxation without representation" that questioned Parliament's authority over the colonies and laid the foundation for future revolutionary claims.

peculiar institution

Widely used term for the institution of American slavery in the South. Its use in the first half of the nineteenth century reflected a growing division between the North, where slavery was gradually abolished, and the South, where slavery became increasingly entrenched.

civic virtue

Willingness on the part of citizens to sacrifice personal self-interest for the public good. Deemed a necessary component of a successful republic.

Richard Nixon

Winner of an overwhelming electoral victory who has forced from office by the threat of impeachment

Joseph McCarthy

Wisconsin senator claimed to have list of communists in American government; took advantage of fears of communism post World War II to become incredibly influential

camp followers

Women and children who followed the Continental Army during the American Revolution, providing vital services such as cooking and sewing in return for rations.

Women's Christian Temperance Union

Women's organization founded by reformer Frances Willard and others to oppose alcohol consumption

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's proposal to ensure peace after World War I, calling for an end to secret treaties, widespread arms reduction, national self-determination, and a new league of nations.

Steinbeck

Writer whose best-selling novel portrayed the suffering of the dust bowl Okies in the 1930s

Tecumseh

a famous chief of the Shawnee who tried to unite Indian tribes against the increasing white settlement (1768-1813)

Virginia Company

a joint-stock company, it was this group of investors that founded Jamestown

Bulfinch

designed the Massachusetts State House

Latrobe

designed the U.S. Capitol & White House

Davis

destroyed Stank and Fox tribes in the Black Hawk War

charter

document of the Virginia Company that granted overseas settlers same rights as of Englishmen in America

Remington

drew sketches for Hearst's "Journal"

Boston Associates

earliest investment capital company made by 15 Boston families

Quincy Adams

head of American negotiators at Treaty of Ghent in 1814; disliked late coming Henry Clay; later became Secretary of State under Monroe

Narragansett Indians

helped English settlers slaughter Indians in the Pequot War

Squanto

helped temporarily settle Wampanoag Indians with the Plymouth settlers with his knowledge of English

incas

highly advanced South American civilization that occupied present-day Peru until it was conquered by Spanish forces under Francisco Pizarro in 1532. The Incas developed sophisticated agricultural techniques, such as terrace farming, in order to sustain large, complex societies in the unforgiving Andes Mountains.

Lord Cornbury

horrible governor who ruled NY & NJ

Comstock Lode

huge silver and gold deposit that brought wealth and statehood to Nevada

Field

in 1866, he laid a transatlantic telegraph cable to Europe, one of the most important innovations in communications

state legislatures

indirectly elected senators

Jefferson (architecture)

inspired by Palladio to build Monticello & University of Virginia

Helsinki Accords

international agreement of 1975, signed by President Ford, that settled postwar European boundaries and attempted to guarantee human rights in Eastern Europe

Conkling

led Stalwarts

Trumbull

painted Revolutionary War scenes

Meriwether Lewis

partnered with William Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase

Whittier

poet of antislavery crusade

Electoral Count Act

set up a commission to resolve the crisis of the Hayes-Tilden standoff in the election of 1876

Henry Street Settlement

settlement house made by Wald

Massasoit

signed treaty with Plymouth and celebrated Thanksgiving with the settlers in 1621

Grimkes

sisters who championed against slavery

Blandensburg

site of a militia defeat which led to the burning of the White House

Plattsburgh

site of a naval win by Macdonough which led to the retreat of the British army, saving of NY, and inspiration to the losing Union

Plains of Abraham

site of the death of General Wolfe and Montcalm

Stuyvesant

took over New Sweden

The Man Without a Country

1862; Edward Everett Hale's fiction account of a treasonous soldier's journeys in exile. The book was widely read in the North, inspiring greater devotion to the Union.

Pacific Railroad Act

1862; Helped fund the construction of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad with the use of land grants and government bonds.

Peninsula Campaign

1862; Union general George B. McClellan's failed effort to seize Richmond, the Confederate capital. Had McClellan taken Richmond and toppled the Confederacy, slavery would have most likely survived in the South for some time.

Cooper and Melville

exemplified characters who emphasized rugged individualism like Bumppo and Captain Ahab

George Whitefield

exemplified the Great Awakening; preached a Christianity based on emotionalism and spirituality, which today is more clearly manifested in Souther evangelism.

British East Company

faced bankruptcy so was allowed to have a tea monopoly over colonies

Cornelius Vanderbilt

famous industrialist who worked in railroads and shipping, partner with Thomas Gibbons with the Union Line

Farmer's Alliance

farmer's organization that manifested rural discontent; led to the creation of the Populist party after breaking down due to ignorance towards landless tenant farmers and blacks

Wyoming Stock-Growers Association

farmers organization that controlled state and legislature

Woman's Loyal League

1863-1865; Woman's organization formed to help bring about an end to the Civil War and encourage Congress to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery.

Henry Ford

1863-1947. American businessman, founder of Ford Motor Company, father of modern assembly lines, and inventor credited with 161 patents.

Gettysburg Address

1863; Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted speech, delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg battlefield. In the address, Lincoln framed the war as a means to uphold the values of liberty.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863; Declared all slaves in rebelling states to be free but did not affect slavery in nonrebelling Border States. The proclamation closed the door on possible compromise with the South and encouraged thousands of Southern slaves to flee to Union lines.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A tawdry affair involving the illegal lease of priceless naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California. The scandal, which implicated President Harding's secretary of the interior, was one of several that gave his administration a reputation for corruption

John Jay

Chief Justice of the United States; sent by George Washington to negotiate a treaty with England in 1794; the treaty was a failure because it did not mention British impressments and America had to pay pre-Revolutionary debts; however it prevented a war with England and helped in the signing of the Pinckney Treaty with Spain

Army-McCarthy hearings

Congressional hearings called by Senator Joseph McCarthy to accuse members of the army of communist ties. In this widely televised spectacle, McCarthy finally went too far for public approval. The hearings exposed the Senator's extremism and led to his eventual disgrace.

"unconditional surrender"

Controversial U.S.-British demand on Germany and Japan that substituted for a " second front"

Guantánamo Detention Camp

Controversial prison facility constructed after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Located on territory occupied by the US military, but not technically part of the United States, the facility serves as an extra-legal holding area for suspected terrorists.

Hartford Convention

Convention of Federalists from five New England states who opposed the War of 1812 and resented the strength of southern and western interests in Congress and in the White House

Pontiac

Ottawa chief led several tribes, aided by a handful of French traders who remained in the region, in a violent campaign to drive the British out of the Ohio Country

Salmon Chase

Overambitious Secretary of the Treasury who had a faction vying for his succession of Lincoln.

greenbacks

Paper currency issued by the Union Treasury during the Civil War. Inadequately supported by gold, greenbacks fluctuated un value throughout the war, reaching a low of 39 cents on the dollar.

Non-Intercourse Act

Passed alongside the repeal of the Embargo Act, it reopened trade with all but the two belligerent nations, Britain and France. The act continued Jefferson's policy of economic coercion, still with little effect.

Declaratory Act

Passed alongside the repeal of the Stamp Act, it reaffirmed Parliament's unqualified sovereignty over the North American colonies.

compromise Tariff of 1833

Passed as a measure to resolve the Nullification Crisis, it provided that the Tariff of 1832 be lowered gradually by 10%, over a period of eight years, to 1816 levels.

Force Bill

Passed by Congress alongside the compromise Tariff of 1833, it authorized the president to use the military to collect federal tariff duties; eventually repealed

Oppenheimer

former scientific director of the Manhattan Project who joined Albert Einstein in opposing development of the hydrogen bomb

Wallace

former vice president of the United States whose 1948 campaign as a pro-Soviet liberal split the Democratic Party

Fort McHenry

fort in Baltimore that held firm from British attacks; inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes

forts captured by Clark

Leonid Brezhnev

Seized power from Nikita Khrushchev and became leader of the Soviet Communist party in 1964. Ordered forces in to Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia.

Battle of Antietam

September 1862; Landmark battle in the Civil War that essentially ended in a draw but demonstrated the prowess of the Union army, forestalling foreign intervention and giving Lincoln the "victory he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Milosevic

Serbian president who conducted vicious ethnic cleansing campaigns and was eventually forced from office

Industrial Revolution

Shift toward mass production and mechanization that included the creation of the modern factory system.

"Butcher" Weyler

Spanish general whose brutal tactics against Cuban rebels outraged American public opinion

Amistad

Spanish slave ship dramatically seized off the coast of Cuba by the enslaved Africans aboard. The ship was driven ashore in Long Island and the slaves were put on trial. Former president John Quincy Adams argued their case before the Supreme Court, securing their eventual release.

Brain Trust

Specialists in law, economics, and welfare, many of them young university professors, who advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped develop the policies of the New Deal.

Declaration of Sentiments

Stanton's speech at Seneca Falls

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

Statement delivered by President James Monroe, warning European powers to refrain from seeking any new territories in the Americas. The United States largely lacked the power to back up the pronouncement, which was actually enforced by the British, who sought unfettered access to Latin American markets.

Johnson Debt Default Act

Steeped in ugly memories of World War I, this spiteful act prevented debt-ridden nations from borrowing further from the United States.

Philippines

U.S. owned Pacific archipelago seized by Japan in the early months of WWII

minstrel shows

Variety shows performed by white actors in blackface, first popularized in the mid-nineteenth century.

Patroonships

Vast tracts of land along the Hudson River in New Netherlands granted to wealthy promoters in exchange for bringing fifty settlers to the property.

McCain

Veteran reform-minded senator who won the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2008

Ho Chi Minh

Vietnamese revolutionary nationalist leader, he organized Vietnamese opposition to foreign occupation, first against the Japanese and then the French; became leader of North Vietnam. He led the war to unify the country in the face of increased military opposition from the United States

My Lai

Vietnamese village that was the scene of a military assault on March 16, 1968, in which American soldiers under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Calley murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children. The atrocity produced outrage and reduced support for the war in America and around the world when details of the massacre and an attempted coverup were revealed in November 1969.

Hearst

Vigorous promoter of sensationalistic anti-Spanish propaganda and eager advocate of imperialistic war

Norris

Vigorously progressive senator from Nebraska whose passionate advocacy helped bring about the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority

Nat Turner's rebellion

Virginia slave revolt that resulted in the deaths of sixty whites and raised fears among white southerners of further uprisings.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Vivid autobiography of the escaped slave and renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Half-Way Covenant (1662)

agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children; it signified a waning of religious zeal among second and third generation Puritans

Ralph Ellison

an African-American author who wrote Invisible Man arguing that a black man can't be seen as a real man

Stephen Austin

an American empresario born in Virginia and raised in southern Missouri; known as the Father of Texas, led the second, but first legal and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the United States

Frémont

an American explorer who helped in the Mexican-American War; the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States, and the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery.

Biddle

an American financier who served as the president of the Second Bank of the United States

Morse

an American painter of portraits and historic scenes, the creator of a single wire telegraph system and clacking key which brought an end to the Pony Express

Frederick W. Taylor

an engineer, an inventor, and a tennis player. He sought to eliminate wasted motion. Famous for scientific-management especially time-management studies.

Toussaint L'Ouverture

an important leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first leader of a free Haiti; in a long struggle against the institution of slavery, he led the blacks to victory over the white and freed colored people and secured native control over the colony in 1797, calling himself a dictator

Horace Kallen

an intellectual who championed alternative conceptions of the immigrant role in American society, defended newcomer's right to practice their ancestral customs, vision- the US should provide a protective canopy for ethnic and racial groups to preserve their cultural uniqueness, stressed the preservation of identity, believed pluralism

Hudson

appointed by Dutch; found the Hudson River in 1609 where New Netherlands was established

Pribilof Islands

area of conflict with Canada; resolved with arbitration (1893)

Samoan Islands

area of conflict with Germany in the Caribbean; resolved by division (1899)

Webster

argued for perseverance of the Dartmouth charter; worked with Marshall to challenge state's rights and nullifications

William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood

as a leader of the Industrial workers of the World, the Wester Federation of Miners, and the Socialist Party of America. He was one of the most feared of American labor radicals. During WWI, he became a special target of anti-leftist legislation

Order of the Star-Spangled Banner

early version of what would become the Know-Nothing Party

Victoria Woodhull

radical feminist propagandist whose eloquent attacks on conventional social morality shocked many Americans in the 1870's

Seymour

ran against Grant in the election of 1868; wanted to keep more money in circulation to help south debtors

100th Meridian

ran through Dakotas to Texas separating two climatologically regions

Merrimack

rapid river in Massachusetts used for water power in factories

Marshall

"Molding Father" who created stable environment for business, decreased power of the state legislatures, and shaped the Constitution along conservative, centralized lines countering the democratic spirit of the new country

mercantilism

"Money is power;" Economic theory that closely linked a nation's political and military power to its bullion reserves. Mercantilists generally favored protectionism and colonial acquisition as means to increase exports.

New Jersey Plan

"Small-state plan" put forth at the Philadelphia convention, proposing equal representation by state, regardless of population, in a unicameral legislature. Small states feared that the more populous states would dominate the agenda under a proportional system.

Andrew Jackson

defeated Indians at Battle of Horseshoe Bend and won the Battle of New Orleans

Harriet Tubman

"conductor" of the Underground Railroad, who rescued >300 slaves

rendezvous system

"meeting" system. The principal marketplace of the Northwest fur trade, which peaked in the 1820s and 1830s. Each summer, traders set up camps in the Rocky Mountains to exchange manufactured goods for beaver pelts.

Bacon's Rebellion

(1676) uprising of Virginia back country farmers and indentured servants led by planter Nathaniel Bacon; initially a response to Governor William Berkeley's refusal to protect back country settlers from Indian attacks, the rebellion eventually grew into a broader conflict between impoverished settlers and the planter elite

Leisler's Rebellion

(1689-1691) armed conflict between aspiring merchants led by Jacob Leisler and the ruling elite of New York; one of many uprisings that erupted across the colonies when wealthy colonists attempted to recreate European social structures in the New World

Salem Witch Trials

(1692-1693) series of witchcraft trials launched after a group of adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women of the town; twenty individuals were put to death before the trials were put to an end by the Governor of Massachusetts

Pinckney's Treaty

(1795) Signed with Spain who granted Americans free navigation of the Mississippi, the disputed territory of Florida, and the right of deposit at New Orleans

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions

(1798-1799) Statements secretly drafted by Jefferson and Madison for the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. Argued that states were the final arbiters of whether the federal government overstepped its boundaries and could therefore nullify, or refuse to accept, national legislation they deemed unconstitutional according to the compact theory.

Abraham Lincoln

(1809-1865) Sixteenth president of the United States, he promoted equal rights for African Americans in the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation and set in motion the Civil War, but he was determined to preserve the union.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

(1811-1896) American author and daughter of Lyman Beecher, she was an abolitionist and author of the famous antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Carrie Chapman Catt

(1859-1947) A suffragette who was president of the National Women's Suffrage Association, and founder of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Instrumental in obtaining passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Confederate States of America

(1861-1865) Government established after seven southern states seceded from the Union. Later joined by four more states from the upper South.

General Harrison

defeated retreating redcoats at the Battle of the Thames; earlier defeated Tecumseh

National Labor Union

(1866-1872) This first organization in US history gained 600,000 members from many parts of the work force, although it limited the participation of Chinese, women, and blacks. The organization devoted much of its energy to fighting for an eight-hour workday before it dissolved in 1872

Haymarket Square

(1886) A May Day rally that turned violent when someone threw a bomb into the middle of the meeting, killing several dozen people. Eight anarchists were arrested for conspiracy contributing to the disorder, although evidence linking them to the bombing was thin. Four were executed, one committed suicide, and three were pardoned in 1893

Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railroad Company vs Illinios

(1886) A supreme court decision that prohibited states from regulating the railroads because the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. As a result, reformers turned their attention to the federal government, which now held sole power to regulate the railroad industry

Sherman Silver Purchase Act

(1890) Government bought silver and printed paper money for it and people could turn in the paper money for gold

Sherman Anti-trust Act

(1890) a law that forbade trusts or combinations in business, this was landmark legislation because it was one of the first congressional attempts to regulate big business for the public good. At first the law was mostly used to restrain trade unions, as the court tended to side with companies in legal cases. In 1914 this was revised so it could more effectively be used against monopolistic corporations

lyceum

(From the Greek name for the ancient Athenian school where Aristotle taught) Public lecture hall that hosted speakers on topics ranging from science to moral philosophy. Part of a broader flourishing of higher education in the mid-nineteenth century.

Frances Perkins

(born Fanny Coralie Perkins, lived April 10, 1882 - May 14, 1965) was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman ever appointed to the cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition

Anti-Masonic party

(circa 1826) First founded in New York, it gained considerable influence in New England and the mid-Atlantic during the 1832 election, campaigning against the politically influential Masonic order, a secret society. Anti-Masons opposed Andrew Jackson, a Mason, and drew much of their support from evangelical Protestants.

Liberty party

1840-1848; Antislavery party that ran candidates in the 1840 and 1844 elections before merging with the Free Soil party. Supporters of this party sought the eventual abolition of slavery, but in the short term hoped to halt the expansion of slavery into the territories and abolish the domestic slave trade.

Manifest Destiny

1840s and 1850s; Belief that the United States was destined by God to spread its "empire of liberty" across North America. Served as a justification for mid-nineteenth-century expansionism.

Conscience Whigs

1840s and 1850s; Northern Whigs who opposed slavery on moral grounds. These Whigs sought to prevent the annexation of Texas as a slave state, fearing that the new slave territory would only serve to buttress the southern "slave power."

Brook Farm

1841-1846; Transcendentalist commune founded in Massachusetts by a group of intellectuals, who emphasized living plainly while pursuing the life of the mind. The community fell into debt and dissolved when their communal home burned to the ground in 1846.

Treaty of Wanghia

1844; Signed by the United States and China, it assured the United States the same trading concessions granted to other powers, greatly expanding America's trade with the Chinese.

California Bear Flag Republic

1846; Short-lived California republic, established by local American settlers who revolted against Mexico. Once news of the war with Mexico reached the Americans, they abandoned the Republic in favor of joining the United States.

Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls

1848; Gathering of feminist activists in New York, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her "Declaration of Sentiments," stating that "all men and women are created equal."

Uncle Tom's Cabin

1852; Harriet Beecher Stowe's widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery. it heightened northern support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.

Gadsden Purchase

1853; Acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

Treaty of Kanagawa

1854; Ended Japan's 200 year period of economic isolation, establishing an American consulate in Japan and securing American coaling rights in Japanese ports.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854; Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, thus revoking the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephen Douglas in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Dred Scott vs. Stanford

1857 Supreme Court decision that extended federal protection to slavery by ruling that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory. Also declared that slaves, as property, were not citizens of the United States.

The Impending Crisis of the South

1857; Antislavery tract, written by white southerner Hinton R. Helper, arguing that nonslaveholding whites actually suffered most in a slave economy.

Lecompton Constitution

1857; Proposed Kansas constitution, whose ratification was unfairly rigged so as to guarantee slavery in the territory. Initially ratified by proslavery forces, it was later voted down when Congress required that the entire constitution be put up fot a vote.

Lincoln-Douglas debates

1858 Series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during the US Senate race in Illinois. Douglas won the election, but Lincoln gained national prominence and emerged as the leading candidate for the 1860 Republican nomination.

Freeport Doctrine

1858; Declared that since slavery could not exist without laws to protect it, territorial legislatures, not the Supreme Court, would have the final say on the slavery question. First argued by Stephen Douglas in 1858 in response to Abraham Lincoln's "Freeport question."

Freeport question

1858; Raised during one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates by Abraham Lincoln, who asked whether the Court or the people should decide the future of slavery in the territories.

Pony Express

1860-1861; Short-lived, speedy mail service between Missouri and California that relied on lightweight riders galloping between closely placed outposts.

Jane Addams

1860-1935; Founder of Settlement House Movement and the first American woman to earn the Nobel Peace Price in 1931 as the president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Crittenden amendments

1860; Failed constitutional amendments that would have given federal protection for slavery in all territories south of 36° 30' where slavery was supported by popular sovereignty. Proposed in an attempt to appease the South.

Constitutional Union party

1860; Formed by moderate Whigs and Know-Nothings in an effort to elect a compromise candidate and avert a sectional crisis.

Congressional Committee on the Conduct of War

1861-1865; Established by Congress during the Civil War to oversee military affairs. Largely under the control of radical Republicans, the committee agitated for a more rigorous war effort and actively pressed Lincoln on the issue of emancipation.

Trent affair

1861; Diplomatic row that threatened to bring the British into the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, after a Union warship stopped a British steamer and arrested two Confederate diplomats on board.

Morrill Tariff Act

1861; Increased duties back up to 1846 levels to raise revenue for the Civil War.

Alabama

1862 - 1864; British-built and manned Confederate warship that raided Union shipping during the Civil War. One of many built by the British for the Confederacy, despite Union protests.

Homestead Act

1862; A federal law that sold settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for five years and improved it by, for instance, building a house on it. The act helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of westward-moving settlers, but many people also found disappointment when their land was infertile or they saw speculators grabbing up the best land.

"10 percent" Reconstruction plan

1863; Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10 percent of its voters had pledged loyalty to the United States and promised to honor emancipation.

National Banking System

1863; Network of member banks that could issue currency against purchased government bonds. Created during the Civil War to establish a stable national currency and stimulate the sale of war bonds.

siege of Vicksburg

1863; Two and a half month siege of a Confederate fort on the Mississippi River in Tennessee. Vicksburg finally fell to Ulysses S. grant in July of 1863, giving the Union army control of the Mississippi River and splitting the South in two.

Laird rams

1863; Two well-armed ironclad warships constructed for the Confederacy by a British firm. Seeking to avoid war with the United States, the British government purchased the two ships for its Royal Navy instead.

New York draft riots

1863; Uprising, mostly of working-class Irish Americans, in protests of the draft. Rioters were particularly incensed by the ability of the rich to hire substitutes or purchase exemptions.

Wilderness Campaign

1864-1865; A series of brutal clashes between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee's armies in Virginia, leading up to Grant's capture of Richmond in April of 1865. Having lost Richmond, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Sherman's march

1864-1865; Union general William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march through Georgia. An early instance of "total war," purposely targeting infrastructure and civilian property to diminish morale and undercut the Confederate war effort.

Union party

1864; A coalition party of prowar Democrats and Republicans formed during the 1862 election to defeat antiwar Northern Democrats.

Black Codes

1865-1866; Laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks, particularly with respect to the negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerners' criticisms of President Andrew Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policies.

Freedmen's Bureau

1865-1872; Created to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support. Its achievements were uneven and depended largely on the quality of local administrators.

Thirteenth Amendment

1865; Constitutional amendment prohibiting all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude. Former Confederate states were required to ratify the amendment prior to gaining reentry into the Union.

Ex parte Milligan

1866; Civil War-era case in which the Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals could not be used to try civilians if civil courts were open.

Civil Rights Bill

1866; Passed over Andrew Johnson's veto, the bill aimed to counteract the Black Codes by conferring citizenship on African Americans and making it a crime to deprive blacks of their rights to sue, testify in court, or hold property.

Reconstruction Act

1867; Passed by the newly elected Republican Congress, it divided the South into five military districts, disenfranchised former Confederates, and required that Southern states both ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write state constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise before gaining readmission to the Union.

Tenure of Office Act

1867; Required the president to seek approval from the Senate before removing appointees. When Andrew Johnson removed his secretary of war in violation of the act, he was impeached by the House but remained in office when the Senate fell one vote short of removing him.

Force Acts

1870-1871; Passed by Congress following a wave of Ku Klux Klan violence, the acts banned clan membership, prohibited the use of intimidation to prevent blacks from voting, and gave the US military the authority to enforce the acts.

Standard Oil Company

1870-1911; John D. Rockefeller's company, formed in 1870, which came to symbolize the trusts and monopolies of the Gilded Age. By 1877 this company controlled 95% of the oil refineries in the United States. It was also one of the first multinational corporations and at times distributed more than half of its kerosene production outside the United States. By the turn of the century it had become a target for trust-busting reformers, and in 1911 the Supreme Court ordered it to break up into several dozen smaller companies.

Credit Mobilier Scandal

1872 during the Grant administration; Railroad company bribed Congressmen offering them stocks and pay offs to ignore their corrupt ways, eventually they were caught.

Battle of the Little Bighorn

1876; A particularly violent example of the warfare between whites and Native Americans in the late nineteenth century, also known as "Custer's Last Stand." In two days, June 25 and June 26, 1876, the combined forces of 2,500 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians defeated and killed more than 250 US soldiers, including Colonel George Custer. The battle came as the US government tried to compel Native Americans to remain on the reservations and Native Americans tried to defend territory from white gold-seekers. This Indian advantage did not last long, however, as the union of these Indian fighters proved tenuous and the US Army soon exacted retribution.

Big Sister policy

1880s; A foreign policy of Secretary of State James G. Blaine aimed at rallying Latin American nations behind American leadership and opening Latin American markets to Yankee traders. The policy bore fruit in 1889, when Blaine presided over the First International Conference of American States.

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from immigrating and entering the United States, continued until 1943.

Pendleton Act

1883 began a transfer of federal jobs from the patronage (spoils system) to the merit system based on passing a test and merit.

Dawes Severalty Act

1887; An act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households. Leftover land was sold for money to fund US government efforts to "civilize" Native Americans.

Battle of Wounded Knee

1890; A battle between the US Army and the Dakota Sioux, in which two hundred Native Americans and twenty-nine US soldiers died. Tensions erupted violent over two major issues: the Sioux practice of the "Ghost Dance," which the US government had outlawed, and the dispute over whether Sioux reservation land would be broken up because of the Dawes Act.

McKinley Tariff

1890; Shepherded through Congress by President William McKinley, this tariff raised duties on Hawaiian sugar and set off renewed efforts to secure the annexation of Hawaii to the United States.

Jim Crow

1890s Series of state laws in the South that legalized segregation.

Homestead Strike

1892 Strike at Andrew Carnegie's steel plant in Pennsylvania in which Pinkerton detectives clashed with steel workers

World's Columbian Exposition

1893; Americans saw this world's fair, held in Chicago, as their opportunity to claim a place among the world's most "civilized" societies, by which they meant the countries of western Europe. The fair honored art, architecture, and science, and its promoters built a mini city in which to host the fair that reflected all the ideals of city planning popular at the time. For many, this was the high point of the City Beautiful movement.

Pullman strike

1894; A strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts. The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor. Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened, and federal troops forced an end to the strike. The strike highlighted both divisions within labor and the government's new willingness to use armed force to combat work stoppages.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 SCOTUS ruling that separate but equal facilities for different races were not unconstitutional.

Anti-Imperialist League

1898-1921; A diverse group formed to protest American colonial oversight in the Philippines. It included university presidents, industrialists, clergymen, and labor leaders. Strongest in the Northeast, this assosiation was the largest lobbying organization on a US foreign-policy issue until the end of the nineteenth century. It declined in strength after the United States signed the Treaty of Paris (which approved the annexation of the Philippines), and especially after hostilities broke out between Filipino nationalists and American forces.

Teller Amendment

1898; A proviso for President William McKinley's war plans that proclaimed to the world that when the United States had overthrown Spanish misrule, it would give Cuba its freedom. The amendment testified to the ostensibly "anti-imperialist" designs of the initial war plans.

Maine

1898; American battleship dispatched to keep a "friendly" watch over Cuba in early 1898. It mysteriously blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, with a loss of 260 sailors. Later evidence confirmed that the explosion was accidental, resulting from combustion in one of the ship's internal coal bunkers. But many Americans, eager for war, insisted that it was the fault of a Spanish submarine mine.

Rough Riders

1898; Organized by Theodore Roosevelt, this was a colorful, motley regiment of Cuban war volunteers consisting of western cowboys, ex-convicts, and effete Ivy Leaguers. Roosevelt emphasized his experience with the regiment in subsequent campaigns for governor of New York and vice president under William McKinley.

Open Door note

1899-1900; A set of diplomatic letters in which Secretary of State John Hay urged the great powers to respect Chinese rights and free and open competition within their spheres of influence. The notes established the "Open Door policy," which sought to ensure access to the Chinese market for the United States, despite the fact that it did not have a formal sphere of influence in China.

Gold Standard Act

1900; An act that guaranteed that paper currency would be redeemed freely in gold, putting an end to the already dying "free-silver" campaign.

Boxer Rebellion

1900; An uprising in China directed against foreign influence. It was suppressed by an international force of some eighteen thousand soldiers, including several thousand Americans. The Boxer Rebellion paved the way for the revolution of 1911, which led to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.

Foraker Act

1900; Sponsored by Senator Joseph B. Foraker, a Republican from Ohio, this accorded Puerto Ricans a limited degree of popular government. The first comprehensive congressional effort to provide for governance of territories acquired after the Spanish-American War, it served as a model for a similar act adopted for the Philippines in 1902.

Insular Cases

1901-1904; A badly divided Supreme Court decreed in these cases that the Constitution did not follow the flag. In other words, Puerto Ricans and Filipinos would not necessarily enjoy all American rights.

Hay-Pauncefote Treaty

1901; A treaty signed between the United States and Great Britain giving Americans a free hand to build a canal in Central America. The treaty nullified the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, which prohibited Britain or the United States from acquiring territory in Central America.

Platt Amendment

1901; Following its military occupation, the United States successfully pressured the Cuban government to write this amendment into its constitution. It limited Cuba's treaty-making abilities, controlled its debt, and stipulated that the United States could intervene militarily to restore order when it saw fit.

Elkins Act

1903; Law passed by Congress to impose penalties on railroads that offered rebates and customers who accepted them. The law strengthened the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Hepburn Act of 1906 added free passes to the list of railroad no-no's.

Roosevelt Corollary

1904; A brazen policy of "preventative intervention" advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in his Annual Message to Congress in 1904. Adding ballast to the Monroe Doctrine, his corollary stipulated that the United States would retain a right ti intervene in the domestic affairs of Latin American nations in order to restore military and financial order.

Lochner v. New York

1905; A setback for labor reformers, the Supreme Court decision invalidated a state law establishing a ten-hour day for bakers. It held that the "right to free contact" was implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Pure Food and Drug Act

1906; A law passed by Congress to inspect and regulate the labeling of all foods and pharmaceuticals intended for human consumption. This legislation, and additional provisions passed in 1911 to strengthen it, aimed particularly at the patent medicine industry. The more comprehensive Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1983 largely replaced this legislation.

Meat Inspection Act

1906; A law passed by Congress to subject meat shipped over state lines to federal inspection. The publication of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle earlier that year so disgusted American consumers with its description of conditions in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants that it mobilized public support for government action.

Muller v. Oregon

1908; A landmark Supreme Court case in which crusading attorney (and future Supreme Court justice) Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of limiting the hours of women workers. Coming on the heels of Lochner v. New York, it established a different standard for male and female workers.

Root-Takahira agreement

1908; Agreement by which the United States and Japan agreed to respect each other's territorial possessions in the Pacific and to uphold the Open Door in China. The agreement was credited with easing tensions between the two nations, but it also resulted in a weakened American influence over further Japanese hegemony in China.

Payne-Aldrich Bill

1909; While intended to lower tariff rates, this bill was eventually revised beyond all recognition, retaining high rates on most imports. President Taft angered the progressive wing of his party when he declared it "the best bill that the Republican party has ever passed."

New Freedom

1912; Platform of reforms advocated by Woodrow Wilson in his first presidential campaign, including stronger antitrust legislation to protect small business enterprises from monopolies, banking reform, and tariff reductions. Wilson's strategy involved taking action to increase opportunities for capitalist competition rather than increasing government regulation of large trusts.

New Nationalism

1912; State-interventionist reform program devised by journalist Herbert Croly and advocated by Theodore Roosevelt during his Bull Moose presidential campaign. Roosevelt did not object to continued consolidation of trusts and labor unions. Rather, he sought to create stronger regulatory agencies to ensure that they operated to serve the public interest, not just private gain.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

1932 to 1944; Created New Deal reforms to combat Depression; Established Social Security; Assisted homeless & unemployed; Federal Deposit Insurance Company; Security & Exchange Commission; Civil Conservation Corp (CCC); Led US through WWII; Established United Nations; Led US from isolationism to internationalism; America became a superpower; Government permanently expanded its role in society; Focused attention & power in Oval Office

Schenck v. United States

A Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts, reasoning that freedom of speech could be curtailed when it posed a "clear and present danger" to the nation.

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)

1933; A New Deal program designed to raise agricultural prices by paying farmers not to farm. it was based on the assumption that higher prices would increase farmers' purchasing power and thereby help alleviate the Great Depression.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

1933; A government program created by Congress to hire young unemployed men to improve the rural, out-of-doors environment with such work as planting trees, fighting fires, draining swamps, and maintaining national parks. The CCC proved to be an important foundation for the post-World War II environmental movement.

Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act

1933; A law creating the federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured individual bank deposits and ended a century-long tradition of unstable banking that had reached a crisis in the Great Depression.

National Recovery Administration (NRA)

1933; Known by its critics as the "National Run Around," the NRA was an early New Deal program designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed through centralized planning mechanisms that monitored workers' earnings and working hours to distribute work and established codes for "fair competition" to ensure that similar procedures were followed by all firms in any particular industrial sector.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

1933; One of the most revolutionary of the New Deal public works projects, the TVA brought cheap electric power, full employment, low-cost housing, and environmental improvements to Americans in the Tennessee Valley.

Hundred Days

1933; The first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, stretching from March 9 to June 16, 1933, when an unprecedented number of reform bills were passed by a Democratic Congress to launch the New Deal.

Social Security Act

1935; A flagship accomplishment of the New Deal, this law provided for unemployment and old-age insurance financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees. It has long remained a pillar of the "New Deal Order."

Wagner Act

1935; Also known as the National Labor Relations Act, this law protected the right of labor to organize in unions and bargain collectively with employers and established the National Labor Relations Board to monitor unfair labor practices on the part of employers. Its passage marked the culmination of decades from labor protest.

Court-packing plan

1937; Franklin Roosevelt's politically motivated and ill-fated scheme to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire. His objective was to overcome the Court's objections to New Deal reforms.

Fair Labor Standards Act

1938; Important New Deal labor legislation that regulated minimum wages and maximum hours for workers involved in interstate commerce. The law also outlawed labor by children under sixteen. The exclusion of agricultural, service, and domestic workers meant that many blacks, Mexican Americans, and women - who were concentrated in these sectors - did not benefit from the act's protection.

Office of Price Administration (OPA)

1941-1947; A critically important wartime agency charged with regulating the consumer economy by rationing scarce supplies, such as automobiles, ties, nylon, fuel, and sugar, and by curbing inflation by settling ceilings on the price of goods. Rents were controlled as well as in parts of the country overwhelmed by war workers. The OPA was extended after WWII ended to continue the fight against inflation.

ABC-1 Agreement

1941; An agreement between Britain and the United States developed at a conference in Washington DC between January 29 and March 27, 1941, that should the United States enter WWII, the two nations and their allies would coordinate their military planning, making a priority of protecting the British Commonwealth. That would mean "getting Germany first" in the Atlantic and European theater and fighting more defensively on other military fronts.

Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)

1941; Threatened with a massive "Negro March on Washington" to demand equal opportunities in war jobs and in the military, FDR's administration issues an executive order forbidding racial discrimination in all defense plants operating under contract with the federal government. The FEPC was intended to monitor compliance with the executive order.

Manhattan Project

1942; Code name for the American commission to develop the atomic bomb. The first experimental bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico. Atomic bombs were then dropped on two cities in Japan in hopes of brining the war to an end: Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

1942; Nonviolent civil rights organization committed to the "Double V" - victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. Wafter World War II, CORE would become a major force in the civil rights movement,

Bracero program

1942; Program established by agreement with the Mexican government to recruit temporary Mexican agricultural workers to the United States to make up for wartime labor shortages in the Far West. The program persisted until 1964, by which time it had sponsored 4.5 million border crossings.

Smith-Connelly Anti-Strike Act

1943; Passed amidst worries about the effects that labor strikes would have on war production, this law allowed the federal government to seize and operate plants threatened by labor disputes. It also criminalized strike action against government-run companies.

D-Day

1944; A massive military operation led by American forces in Normandy beginning on June 6, 1944. The pivotal battle led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of WWII in Europe.

Potsdam conference

1945; From July 17 to August 2, President Harry S. Truman met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British leaders Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee (when the Labour party defeated Churchill's Conservative party) near Berlin to deliver an ultimatum to Japan: surrender or be destroyed.

Checkers Speech

1952; Nationally televised address by vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon during which he defended himself against allegations of corruption. Using the new mass medium of television shortly before the 1952 election, the vice-presidential candidate saved his place on the ticket by saying the only campaign gift he had received was a cocker spaniel named Checkers.

Cuban missile crisis

1962; Standoff between John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962 over Soviet plans to install nuclear weapons in Cuba. Although the crisis was ultimately settled in America's favor and represented a foreign-policy triumph for Kennedy, it brought the world's superpowers perilously close to the brink of nuclear confrontation.

Operation Wetback

1954; A government program to round up and deport as manny as 1 million illegal Mexican migrant workers in the United States. The program was promoted in part by the Mexican government and reflected burgeoning concerns about non-European immigration to America.

policy of boldness

1954; Foreign-policy objective of Dwight Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dulles, who believed in changing the containment strategy to one that more directly engaged the Soviet Union and attempted to roll back communist influence around the world. This policy led to a buildup of America's nuclear arsenal to threaten "massive retaliation" against communist enemies, launching the Cold War's arms race.

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

1954; Military engagement in French colonial Vietnam in which French forces were defeated by Viet Minh nationalists loyal to Ho Chi Minh. With this loss, the French ended their colonial involvement in Indochina, paving the way for America's entry.

Montgomery bus boycott

1955; Protest by black Alabamians against segregated seating on city buses, sparked by Rosa Parks's defiant refusal to move to the back of the bus. The bus boycott lasted from December 1, 1955 to December 26, 1956, and became one of the foundational movements of the civil rights movement. It led to the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr., and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision opposing segregated busing.

Suez crisis

1956; International crisis launched when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned mostly by French and British stockholders. The crises led to a British and French attack on Egypt, which failed without aid from the United States. The Suez crisis marked an important turning point in the post-colonial Middle East and highlighted the rising importance of oil in world affairs.

Hungarian uprising

1956; Series of demonstrations in Hungary against the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev violently suppressed this pro-Western uprising, highlighting the limitations of America's power in Eastern Europe.

Sputnik

1957; Soviet satellite first launched into earth orbit on October 4, 1957. This scientific achievement marked the first time human beings had put a man-made object into orbit and pushed the USSR noticeably ahead of the United States in the space race. A month later, the Soviet Union sent a larger satellite, Sputnik II, into space, prompting the United States to redouble its space exploration efforts and raising American fears of Soviet superiority.

kitchen debate

1959; Televised exchange in 1959 between Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and American vice president Richard Nixon. Meeting at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, the two leaders sparred over the relative merits of capitalist consumer culture versus Soviet state planning. Nixon won applause for his staunch defense of American capitalism, helping lead him to the Republican nomination for president in 1960.

New Frontier

1961-1963; President Kennedy's nickname for his domestic policy agenda. Buoyed by youthful optimism, the program included proposals for the Peace Corps and efforts to improve education and healthcare.

Apollo

1961-1975; Program of manned space flights run by America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The project's highest achievement was the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

1961; CIA plot in 1961 to overthrow Fidel Castro by training Cuban exiles to invade and supporting them with American airpower. The mission failed and became a public relations disaster early in John F. Kennedy's presidency.

Voter Education Project

1962-1968; Effort by SNCC and other civil rights groups to register the South's historically disenfranchised black population. The project typified a common strategy of the civil rights movement, which sought to counter racial discrimination by empowering people at grassroots levels to exercise their civic rights through voting.

The Feminine Mystique

1963; Best-selling book by feminist thinker Betty Friedan. This work challenged women to move beyond the drudgery of of suburban housewifery and helped launch what would become second-wave feminism.

March on Washington

1963; Massive civil rights demonstration in August 1963 in support of Kennedy-backed legislation to secure legal protections for American blacks. One of the most visually impressive manifestations of the civil rights movement, the march was the occasion of Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech.

Great Society

1964-1968; President Lyndon Johnson's term for his domestic policy agenda. Billed as a successor to the New Deal, the Great Society aimed to extend the post-war prosperity to all people in American society by promoting civil rights and fighting poverty. Great Society programs included the War on Poverty, which expanded the Social Security system by creating Medicare and Medicaid to provide health care for the aged and the poor. Johnson also signed laws protecting consumers and empowering community organizations to combat poverty at grassroots levels.

Freedom Summer

1964; A voter registration drive in Mississippi spearheaded by a coalition of civil rights groups. The campaign drew the activism of thousands of black and white civil rights workers, many of whom were students from the North, and was marred by the abduction and murder of three such workers at the hands of white racists.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic party

1964; Political party organized by civil rights activists to challenge Mississippi's delegation to the Democratic National Convention, who opposed the civil rights planks in the party's platform. Claiming a mandate to represent the true voice of Mississippi, where almost no black citizens could vote, the MFDP demanded to be seated at the convention but were denied by party bosses. The effort was both a setback to civil rights activism in the South and a motivation to continue to struggle for black voting rights.

Six-Day War

1967; Military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. The war ended with an Israeli victory and territorial expansion into the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The 1967 war was a humiliation for several Arab states, and the territorial disputes it created formed the basis for continued conflict in the region.

Seward's Folly

1967; Popular term for Secretary of State William Seward's purchase of Alaska from Russia. The derisive term reflected the anti-expansionist sentiments of most Americans immediately after the Civil War.

Philadelphia Plan

1969; Program established by Richard Nixon to require construction trade unions to work toward hiring more black apprentices. The plan altered Lyndon Johnson's concept of "affirmative action" to focus on groups rather than individuals.

Stonewall Rebellion

1969; Uprising in support of equal rights for LGBTQ+ people sparked by an assault by off-duty officers at a gay bar in New York. The rebellion led to a rise in activism and militancy within the LGBTQ+ community and furthered the sexual rebellion of the late 1960s.

Earth Day

1970; International day of celebration and awareness of global environmental issues launched by conservationists on April 22, 1970.

Phyllis Schlafly

1970s; A New Right activist that protested the women's rights acts and movements as defying tradition and natural gender division of labor; demonstrated conservative backlash against the 60s

southern strategy

1972; Nixon reelection campaign strategy designed to appeal to conservative whites in the historically Democratic South. The president stressed law and order issues and remained noncommittal on civil rights. This strategy typified the regional split between the two parties as white Southerners became increasingly attracted to the Republican party in the aftermath of the civil rights movement.

"Influence of Sea Power on History"

written by Mahan

Roe v. Wade

1973; Landmark Supreme Court decision that forbade states from barring abortion by citing a woman's constitutional right to privacy. Seen as a victory for feminism and civil liberties by some, the decision provoked a strong counter reaction by opponents to abortion, galvanizing the pro-life movement.

War Powers Act

1973; Law passed by Congress limiting the president's ability to wage war without congressional approval. The act required the president to notify Congress within forty-eight hours of committing troops to a foreign conflict. An important consequence of the Vietnam War, this piece of legislation sought to reduce the president's unilateral authority in military matters.

Proposition 13

1978; A successful California state ballot initiative that capped the state's real estate tax at one percent of assessed value. The proposition radically reduced average property tax levels, decreasing revenue for the state government and signaling the political power of the "tax revolt," increasingly aligned with conservative politics.

malaise speech

1979; National address by Jimmy Carter in July 1979 in which he chided American materialism and urged a communal spirit in the face of economic hardships. Although Carter intended the speech to improve both public morale and his standing as a leader, it had the opposite effect and was widely perceived as a political disaster for the embattled president.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty

1987; Arms limitation agreement settled by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev after several attempts. The treaty banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe and marked a significant thaw in the Cold War.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

1990; Landmark law signed by President George H. W. Bush that prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental handicaps. It represented a legislative triumph for champions of equal protections to all.

Operation Desert Storm

1991; US-led multi-country military engagement in January and February of 1991 that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army out of neighboring Kuwait. In addition to presaging the longer and more protracted Iraq War of the 2000s, the 1991 war helped undo what some called the "Vietnam Syndrome," a feeling of military uncertainty that plagued many Americans.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

1993; Free-trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States. A symbol of the increased reality of a globalized marketplace, the treaty passed despite opposition from protectionists and labor leaders.

Contract with America

1994; Multipoint program offered by Republican candidates and sitting politicians in the 1994 midterm election. The platform proposed smaller government, congressional ethics reform, term limits. greater emphasis on personal responsibility, and a general repudiation of the Democratic party. This articulation of dissent was a significant blow to the Clinton administration and led to the Republican party's takeover of both houses of Congress for the first time in half a century.

World Trade Organization (WTO)

1995; An international body to promote and supervise liberal trade among nations. The successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it marked a key world trade policy achievement of the Clinton administration.

Oklahoma City bombing

1995; Truck-bomb explosion that killed 168 people in a federal office building on April 19, 1995. The attack was perpetrated by right-wing and antigovernment militant Timothy McVeigh, who was later executed by the US government for the crime.

Welfare Reform Bill

1996; Legislation that made deep cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment. Part of Bill Clinton's campaign platform in 1992, the reforms were widely seen by liberals as an abandonment of key new Deal/Great Society provisions to care for the impoverished.

Lewinsky affair

1998-1999; Political sex scandal that resulted in Bill Clinton's impeachment and trial by Congress. In 1998, Clinton gave sworn testimony in a sexual harassment case that he had never engaged in sexual activity with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. When prosecutors discovered evidence that the president had lied under oath about the affair, to which Clinton admitted, Republicans in Congress began impeachment proceedings, Although Clinton was ultimately not convicted by the Senate, the scandal put a lasting blemish on his presidential legacy.

No Child Left Behind Act

2001; An education bill created and signed by the George W. Bush administration. Designed to increase accountability standards for primary and secondary schools, the law authorized several federal programs to monitor those standards and increased choices for parents in selecting schools for their children. The program was highly controversial, in large part because it linked results on standardized tests to federal funding for schools and school districts.

9/11

2001; Common shorthand for the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, in which nineteen militant Islamist men hijacked and crashed four commercial aircraft. Two planes hit the twin towers of the World trade Center in New York City, causing them to collapse. One plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC, and the fourth, overtaken by passengers, crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly three thousand people were killed in the worst case of domestic terrorism in American history.

USA Patriot Act

2001; Legislation passed shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that granted broad surveillance and detention authority to the government.

Hurricane Katrina

2005; The costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States, which killed nearly two thousand Americans. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast, especially the city of New Orleans, in late August 2005. In new Orleans, high winds and rain caused the city's levees to break, leading to catastrophic flooding, particularly in the city's most impoverished wards. A tardy and feeble response by local and federal authorities exacerbated the damage and led to widespread criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

2009; Among the earliest initiatives of the Obama administration to combat the Great Recession. It was based on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes that called for increased government spending to offset decreased private spending in times of economic downturn. The act was controversial from the outset, passing with no Republican votes in the House and only three in the Senate, and helping to foster the "Tea Party" movement to curb government deficits, even while critics on the left argued that the act's $787 billion appropriation was not enough to turn the economy around.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)

2010; Also known as "Obamacare," the act extended healthcare insurance to some 30 million Americans, marking a major step toward achieving the century-old goal of providing universal healthcare coverage.

Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

2010; Also known as the Dodd-Frank Act, after its Democratic sponsors, Connecticut senator Christopher Dodd and Massachusetts representative Barney Frank. In an effort to avoid another financial crisis like the Great Recession, the act updated many federal regulations affecting the financial and banking systems and created some new agencies, such as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Arthur

21st President 1881-1885 Republican Pendleton Act.

Cleveland

22nd U.S. President. 1885-1889. Democratic

Willian McKinley

25th President; Responsible for the American-Spanish war.

old lights

Orthodox clergymen who rejected the emotionalism of the Great Awakening in favor of a more rational spirituality.

William H. Taft

27th President of the United States; angered Progressives by moving cautiously toward reforms and by supporting the Payne-Aldrich Tariff; lost Roosevelt's support and was defeated for a second term

Herbert C. Hoover

31st President who was a Quaker humanitarian, head of the Food Administration, and who helped forge a war economy by "voluntary conservation" with patriotism

George H.W. Bush

41st U.S. President. 1989-1993. Republican, republican, former director of CIA, oil company founder/owner, foreign policy (panama, gulf war), raised taxes even though said he wouldn't, more centrist than his son, NAFTA negotiation

Joseph R. Joe Biden

47th and most recent Vice President of the United States before the P.O.S. gay-hating white man was elected, jointly elected with President Barack Obama, the love of my life.

Father Charles Coughlin

A Catholic priest from Michigan who was critical of FDR on his radio show. His radio show morphed into being severely against Jews during WWII and he was eventually kicked off the air, however before his fascist (?) rants, he was wildly popular among those who opposed FDR's New Deal.

Clement L. Vallandigham

A Copperhead congressman. Demanded an end to the "wicked and cruel" Civil War.

Robert F. Wagner

A Democratic senator from New York State from 1927-1949, he was responsible for the passage of some of the most important legislation enacted through the New Deal. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was popularly known as the Wagner Act in honor of the senator. He also played a major role in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937.

Andrew Jackson

A Democratic-Republican who was voted into office in 1828. The people wanted representation and reform from the administration of John Quincy Adams. He believed that the people should rule; first president from the west and represented many of these characteristics; appealed to the common man as he was said to be one of the common people; he believed in the strength of the Union and the supremacy of the federal government over the state government

John Adams

A Federalist who was Vice President under Washington in 1789, and later became president by three votes in 1796; known for his quarrel with France; was involved in the XYZ affair, Quasi War, and Convention of 1800; later became known for his belated push for peace with France in 1800; notably a "respectful irritation"

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

A New Deal-era labor organization that broke away from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in order to organize unskilled industrial workers regardless of their particular economic sector or craft. The CIO gave a great boost to labor organizing in the midst of the Great Depression and during World War II. In 1955, the CIO merged with the AFL.

Harry L. Hopkins

A New York social worker who headed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Civil Works Administration. He helped grant over 3 billion dollars to the states wages for work projects, and granted thousands of jobs for jobless Americans.

Fundamentalism

A Protestant Christian movement emphasizing the literal truth of the Bible and opposing religious modernism, which sought to reconcile religion and science. It was especially strong in the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ, first organized in 1906.

Winslow Homer

A Realist painter known for his seascapes of New England.

John Jordan Crittenden

A Senator from Kentucky who made a last effort to save the Union by introducing a bill to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, and he proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee forever to the right to hold slaves in states south of the compromise line.

George McGovern

A Senator from South Dakota who ran for President in 1972 on the Democrat ticket. His promise was to pull the remaining American troops out of Vietnam in ninety days which earned him the support of the Anti-war party, and the working-class supported him, also. He lost however to Nixon.

Tenskwatawa ("the Prophet")

A Shawnee Indian leader whose brother was Tecumseh; inspired a religious revival that spread through many tribes and united them; killed by Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe

War Refugee Board

A U.S. agency formed to help rescue Jews from German-occupied territories and to provide relief to inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The agency performed noble work, but it did not begin operations until very late in the war, after millions had already been murdered.

Robert Owen

A Welsh socialist and social reformer. He is considered the father of the cooperative movement. He experimented through the New Harmony community, a utopian settlement in Indiana lasting from 1825 to 1827. It had 1,000 settlers, but a lack of authority caused it to break up.

Federal Trade Commission Act

A banner accomplishment of Woodrow Wilson's administration, this law empowered a standing, presidentially appointed commission to investigate illegal business practices in interstate commerce like unlawful competition, false advertising, and mislabeling of goods.

Walker

A black abolitionist who called for the immediate emancipation of slaves. He wrote the "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World." It called for a bloody end to white supremacy. He believed that the only way to end slavery was for slaves to physically revolt.

United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

A black nationalist organization founded in 1914 by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey in order to promote resettlement of African Americans to their "African homeland" and to stimulate a vigorous separate black economy within the United States.

Dred Scott

A black slave who had lived with his master for five years in Illinois and the Wisconson Territory. After his owner had died, he, with the backing of abolitionists, sued the widow for his freedom. He claimed that by living on free soil for five years, he had established his residency and was thus a free man. He lost the case.

McCarthyism

A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering anti-communism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. The term named after him refers to the dangerous forces of unfairness and fear wrought by anticommunist paranoia.

American plan

A business-oriented approach to worker relations popular among firms in the 1920s to defeat unionization. Managers sought to strengthen their communication with workers and to offer benefits like pensions and insurance. They insisted on an "open shop" in contrast to the mandatory union membership through the "closed shop" that many labor activists had demanded in the strike after World War I.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

A campus-based political organization founded in 1961 by Tom Hayden that became an iconic representation of the New Left. Originally geared toward the intellectual promise of "participatory democracy," SDS emerged at the forefront of the civil rights, antipoverty, and antiwar movements during the 1960s.

Harlem Renaissance

A creative outpouring among African American writers, jazz musicians, and social thinkers, centered around Harlem in the 1920s, that celebrated black culture and advocated for a "New Negro" in American social, political, and intellectual life.

Good Neighbor policy

A departure from the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the Good Neighbor Policy stressed nonintervention in Latin America. It was begun by Herbert Hoover but associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Abu Ghraib Prison

A detention center near Baghdad, Iraq. In 2004, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the prison became the the focal point of a prisoner-abuse and torture scandal after photographs surfaced of American soldiers mistreating, torturing and degrading Iraqi war prisoners and suspected terrorists.

Abu Ghraib prison

A detention facility near Baghdad, Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, the prison was the site of infamous torturing and execution of political dissidents. In 2004, during the US occupation of Iraq, the prison became the focal point of a prisoner-abuse and torture scandal after photographs surfaced of American soldiers mistreating, torturing, and degrading Iraqi war prisoners and suspected terrorists. The scandal was one of the several dark spots on the image of the Iraq War and led to increased criticism of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

pragmatism

A distinctive American philosophy that emerged in the late nineteenth century around the theory that the true value of an idea lay in its ability to solve problems. The followers thus embraced the provisional, uncertain nature of experimental knowledge. Among the most well-known purveyors of this theory were John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and William James.

"Our Country"

written by Strong

Al Capone

A famous Chicago gangster who made a fortune ($60 million in one year) off of bootlegging, and "murdered" his way to the top of the crime network, buying off public officials, the police, and judges. He was not convicted of any wrongdoing, however, until a judge in a federal court convicted him of income-tax evasion and sent him to jail in 1931.

Ida Tarbell

A famous muckraker; published a devastating but factual exposé about the Standard Oil Company

McNary-Haugen Bill

A farm-relief bill that was championed throughout the 1920s and aimed to keep agricultural prices high by authorizing the government to buy up surpluses and sell them abroad. Congress twice passed the bill, but President Calvin Coolidge vetoed it in 1927 and 1928.

Volstead Act

A federal act enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Peace Corps

A federal agency created by President Kennedy in 1961 to promote voluntary service by Americans in foreign countries. The Peace Corps provides labor power to help developing countries improve their infrastructure, health care, educational systems, and other aspects of their societies. Part of Kennedy's New Frontier vision, the organization represented an effort by postwar liberals to promote American values and influence through productive exchanges across the world.

George B. McClellan

A general for Northern command of the Army of the Potomac in 1861; nicknamed "Tardy George" because of his failure to move troops to Richmond; lost battle vs. General Lee near the Chesapeake Bay; Lincoln fired him twice.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

A government lending agency established under the Hoover administration in order to assist insurance companies, banks, agricultural organizations, railroads, and local governments. It was a precursor to later agencies that grew out of the New Deal and symbolized a recognition by the Republicans that some federal action was required to address the Great Depression.

Committee on Public Information

A government office during World War I known popularity as the Creel Committee for its Chairman George Creel, it was dedicated to winning everyday Americans' support for the war effort. It regularly distributed pro-war propaganda and sent out an army of "four-minute men" to rally crowds and deliver "patriotic pep."

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

A governmental organization signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1970 designed to regulate pollution, emissions, and other factors that negatively influence the natural environment. The creation of the EPA marked a newfound commitment by the federal government to actively combat environmental risks and was a significant triumph for the environmentalist movement.

Tea Party

A grassroots conservative political movement mobilized in opposition to Barack Obama's fiscal, economic, and healthcare policies. Named after the Boston Tea Party of the Revolutionary Era, Tea Party protestors first demonstrated in early 2009, and they grew steadily in visibility and power as a pressuring force within the Republican Party through the 2010 midterm election and beyond.

Preston S. Brooks

A hot-tempered Congressman of South Carolina took vengeance in his own hands. He beat Sumner with a cane until he was restrained by other Senators. He later resigned from his position, but was soon reelected.

George Creel

A journalists who was the head of the Committee of Public Information. He helped the anti-German movement as well as inspired patriotism in America during the war.

Adkins v. Children's Hospital

A landmark Supreme Court decision reversing the ruling in Muller v. Oregon, which had declared women to be deserving of special protection in the workplace.

Espionage Act

A law prohibiting interference with the draft and other acts of national "disloyalty." Together with the Sedition Act of 1918, which added penalties for abusing the government in writing, it created a climate that was unfriendly to civil liberties

Grandfather Clause

A law to discriminate against blacks (If your grandfather couldn't vote you can't either.)

Mary McLeod Bethune

A leader in the struggle for women's and black equality. She founded a school for black students that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University. She also served as an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

William Randolph Hearst

A leading newspaperman of his times, he ran the New York Journal and helped create and propagate "yellow (sensationalist) journalism."

Southern Renaissance

A literary outpouring among mid-twentieth-century southern writers, begun by William Faulkner and marked by a new critical appreciation of the region's burdens of history, racism, and conservatism.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A member of the women's rights movement in 1840. She was a mother of seven, and she shocked other feminists by advocating suffrage for women at the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca, New York in 1848. She read a "Declaration of Sentiments" which declared "all men and women are created equal."

Jacob A. Riis

A muckraker; famous for using photography to document the incredibly poor conditions of many impoverished communities in the early 20th century' wrote "How the Other Half Lives"

Vesey

A mulatto who inspired a group of slaves to seize Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, but one of them betrayed him and he and his 37 followers were hanged before the revolt started.

Tuskegee Institute

A normal and industrial school led by Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee, Alabama. It focused on training young black students in agriculture and the trades to help them achieve economic independence. Washington justified segregated, vocational training as a necessary first step on the road to racial equality, although critics accused him of being too "accommodationist."

Gifford Pinchot

A notable conservationist who headed the federal Division of Forestry

red scare

A period of intense anti-communism lasting from 1919 to 1920. The "Palmer raids" of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer resulted in about six thousand deportations of people suspected of "subversive" activities.

Francisco "Pancho" Villa

A popular leader during the Mexican Revolution. An outlaw in his youth, when the revolution started, he formed a cavalry army in the north of Mexico and fought for the rights of the landless in collaboration with Emiliano Zapata. (819)

recall

A progressive ballot procedure allowing voters to remove elected officials from office.

initiative

A progressive reform measure allowing voters to petition to gave a law placed on the general ballot. Like the referendum and recall, it brought democracy directly "to the people" and helped foster a shift toward interest group politics and away from old political "machines."

referendum

A progressive reform procedure allowing voters to place a bill on the ballot for final approval, even after being passed by the legislature.

Weld

A prominent abolitionist in the 1830s. He was self-educated and very outspoken. He put together a group called the "Lane Rebels." He and his group traveled across the Old Northwest preaching antislavery gospel. He also put together a propaganda pamphlet called "American Slavery As It Is".

John Muir

A rather eccentric man notable for his push for conservationism on a national level

regionalism

A recurring artistic movement that, in the context of the late nineteenth century, aspired to capture the peculiarities, or "local color," of America's various regions in the face of modernization and national militiamen.

Dorothea Dix

A reformer and pioneer in the movement to treat the insane as mentally ill, beginning in the 1820s, she was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the US and Canada. She succeeded in persuading many states to assume responsibility for the care of the mentally ill. She served as the Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War

Francis E. Townsend

A retired physician who proposed an Old Age Revolving Pension Plan to give every retiree over age 60 $200 per month (using money from a 2% federal sales tax), provided that the person spend the money each month in order to receive their next payment; the object of Towsend's plan was to help retired workers as well as stimulate spending in order to boost production and end the Depression.

yellow journalism

A scandal-mongering practice of journalism that emerged in New York during the Gilded Age out of the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. The expression has remained a pejorative term referring to sensationalist journalism practiced with unethical, unprofessional standards.

Whitewater

A series of scandals during the Clinton administration that stemmed from a failed real estate investment from which the Clintons were alleged to have illicitly profited. The accusations prompted the appointment of a special federal prosecutor, though no indictments.

London Economic Conference

A sixty-nation economic conference organized to stabilize international currency rates. By Roosevelt revoking U.S. participation, there was a deeper world economic crisis.

Beat Generation/Beatniks

A small coterie of mid-twentieth-century bohemian writers and personalities, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, who bemoaned bourgeois conformity and advocated free-form experimentation in life and literature.

Miranda warning

A statement of an arrested person's constitutional rights, which police officers must read during an arrest. The warning came out of the Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona in 1966 that accused people have the right to remain silent, consult an attorney, and enjoy other protections. The Court declared that law enforcement officers must make sure suspects understand their constitutional rights, thus creating a safeguard against forced confessions and self-implication.

Fordism

A system of assembly-line manufacturing and mass production named after Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the Model T car.

Scientific Management

A system of industrial management created and promoted in the early twentieth century by Frederick W. Taylor, emphasizing stopwatch efficiency to improve factory performance. The system gained immense popularity across the United States and Europe.

fourth party system

A term scholars have used to describe national politics from 1896 to 1932, when Republicans had a tight grip on the White House and issues such as industrial regulation and labor concerns became paramount, replacing older concerns such as civil-service reform and monetary policy.

League of Nations

A world organization of national governments proposed by President Woodrow Wilson and established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It worked to facilitate peaceful international cooperation. Despite emotional appeals by Wilson, isolationists' objections to the League created the major obstacle to American singing of the Treaty of Versailles.

American Anti-Slavery Society

Abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, who advocated the immediate abolition of slavery. By 1838, the organization has more than 250,000 members across 1,350 chapters.

Louisiana Purchase

Acquisition of Louisiana territory from France. The purchase more than doubled the territory of the United States, opening vast tracts for settlement.

impressment

Act of forcibly drafting an individual into military service, employed by the British navy against American seamen in times of war against France, 1793-1815. Impressment was a continual source of conflict between Britain and the United States in the early national period.

John Wilkes Booth

Actor responsible for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865

Alien Laws

Acts passed in 1798 by a Federalist Congress raising the residency requirement for citizenship to fourteen years and granting the president power to deport dangerous foreigners in times of peace.

West Virginia

Admitted to the Union in 1863. Mountainous region that broke away from Virginia in 1861 to form its own state after Virginia seceded from the Union. Most of the residents of West Virginia were independent farmers and miners who did not own slaves and thus opposed the Confederate cause.

Langston Hughes

African American poet who described the rich culture of african American life using rhythms influenced by jazz music. He wrote of African American hope and defiance, as well as the culture of Harlem and also had a major impact on the Harlem Renaissance.

Great Rapprochement

After decades of occasionally "twisting the lion's tail," American diplomats began to cultivate close, cordial relations with Great Britain at the end of the nineteenth century - a relationship that would intensify further during World War I.

Macon's Bill No. 2

Aimed at resuming peaceful trade with Britain and France , the act stipulated if either Britain or France repealed its trade restrictions, the United States would reinstate the embargo against the non-repealing nation. When Napoleon offered to lift his restrictions on British ports, the United States was forced to declare an embargo on Britain, thereby pushing the two nations closer toward war.

Québec Act

Allowed the French residents of Québec to retain their traditional political and religious institutions, and extended the boundaries of the province southwards to the Ohio River. Mistakenly perceived by the colonists to be part of Parliament's response to the Boston Tea Party.

Immigration Act of 1924

Also known as the "National Origins Act," this law established quotas for immigration to the United States. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were sharply curtailed, while immigrants from Asia were shut out altogether.

Daniel Burnham

American architect and planner who helped bring French Baron Haussman's City Beautiful movement to the United States

Louisa May Alcott

American author known for her children's books, especially the classic Little Women.

Deere

American blacksmith that was responsible for inventing the steel plow. This new plow was much stronger than the old iron version, therefore, it made plowing farmland in the west easier, increasing the rate of expansion

Josiah Strong

American clergyman who preached Anglo-Saxon superiority and called for a stronger US missionary effort overseas in his book "Our Country"

Loyalists

American colonists who opposed the Revolution and maintained their loyalty to the king; sometimes referred to as 'Tories'.

Rachel Carson

American conservationist whose 1962 book "Silent Spring" galvanized the modern environmental movement that gained significant traction in the 1970s.

Caleb Cushing

American diplomat who negotiated the Treaty of Wanghia with China in 1844

Gorgas

American doctor who led the medical efforts to conquer yellow fever during U. S. occupation of Cuba

Milton Friedman

American economist. Conservative thinker famous for his advocacy of monetarism (an revision of the quantity theory of money) in works like A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (1963). he is strongly associated with the ideals of laissez-faire government policy.

William Clark

American explorer who aided Meriwether Lewis in an expedition through the Louisiana Purchase

J.P. Morgan

American financier and banker who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation; purchased Carnegie Steel and created U.S. Steel.

Francis Parkman

American historian noted for his classic seven-volume history of France and England in North America, covering the colonial period from the beginnings to 1763.

Margaret Sanger

American leader of the movement to legalize birth control during the early 1900's. As a nurse in the poor sections of New York City, she had seen the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancy. Founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and the American Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood.

Walt Whitman

American poet and transcendentalist who was famous for his beliefs on nature, as demonstrated in his book, Leaves of Grass. He was therefore an important part for the buildup of American literature and breaking the traditional rhyme method in writing poetry.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

American poet that was influenced somewhat by the transcendentalism occurring at the time. He was important in building the status of American literature. first American to be in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey

Robin Morgan

American poet, author, political theorist and activist, journalist, lecturer, and former child actor. Since the early 1960s she has been a key radical feminist member of the American Women's Movement, and a leader in the international feminist movement

John Foster Dulles

American politician principally known for serving as Eisenhower's Secretary of State; drafted the "policy of boldness" designed to confront Soviet aggression with the threat of "massive retaliation" via thermonuclear weapons

John Hay

American secretary of state who attempted to preserve Chinese independence and protect American interests in China

Creole

American ship captured by a group of rebelling Virginia slaves. The slaves successfully sought asylum in the Bahamas, raising fears among southern planters that the British West Indies would become a safe haven for runaway slaves.

Henry David Thoreau

American transcendentalist who was against a government that supported slavery. He wrote down his beliefs in Walden. He started the movement of civil-disobedience when he refused to pay the toll-tax to support the Mexican War.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

American transcendentalist who was against slavery and stressed self-reliance, optimism, self-improvement, self-confidence, and freedom. He was a prime example of a transcendentalist and helped further the movement.

Henry James

American writer who lived in England. Wrote numerous novels around the theme of the conflict between American innocence and European sophistication/corruption, with an emphasis on the psychological motivations of the characters. Famous for his novel Washington Square and his short story "The Turn of the Screw."

Rosenberg

Americans convicted and executed for spying and passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union

George F. Kennan

An American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as the "father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War

Edgar Allan Poe

An American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, he was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre.

Aaron Burr

An American politician and adventurer. He was a formative member of the Democratic-Republican Party in New York and a strong supporter of Governor George Clinton. He is remembered not so much for his tenure as the third Vice President, under Thomas Jefferson, as for his duel with Alexander Hamilton, resulting in Hamilton's death. He is also known for his trial and acquittal on charges of treason. Jefferson's vice president for his first term; not voted into a second term because of radical ideas and ventures that threatened to break up the Union and resulted in the death of Alexander Hamilton.

Sarah Palin

An American politician, commentator, and author who served as the ninth Governor of Alaska, from 2006 to 2009.

Jefferson Davis

An American statesman and politician who served as President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history from 1861 to 1865.

Amelia Bloomer

An American women's rights and temperance advocate. She presented her views in her own monthly paper, The Lily, which she began publishing in 1849. One of the major causes promoted was a change in dress standards for women so that they would be less restrictive.

SEATO

An Asian alliance, set up by Secretary Dulles on the model of NATO, to help support the anti-communist regime in South Vietnam

Stephen A. Douglas

An Illinois Senator who ran against Lincoln, Bell, and Breckinridge in the 1860 presidential election on a popular sovereignty platform for slavery, he also authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and heightened the slavery debate.

Federal Reserve Act

An act establishing twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks and a Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president, to regulate banking and create stability on a national scale in the volatile banking sector. The law carried the nation through the financial crises of the First World War.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

An amendment that declared full constitutional equality for women. Although it passed both houses of Congress in 1972, a concerted grassroots campaign by antifeminists led by Phyllis Schlafly persuaded enough state legislatures to vote against the ratification. The amendment failed to become part of the Constitution.

Dawes Plan

An arrangement negotiated in 1924 to reschedule German reparations payments. It stabilized the German currency and opened the way for further American private loans to Germany.

Charles Grandison Finney

An evangelist who was one of the greatest preachers of all time (spoke in New York City); also made the "anxious bench" for sinners to pray and was against slavery and alcohol

abstract expressionism

An experimental style of mid-twentieth-century modern art exemplified by Jackson Pollock's spontaneous "action paintings," created by flinging paint on canvases stretched across the studio floor.

Ku Klux Klan

An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing secret society founded in the mid-nineteenth century and revived during the 1920s. It was anti foreign, anti black, anti Jewish, anti pacifist, anti Communist, anti internationalist, anti evolutionist, and anti bootlegger, but pro Anglo-Saxon and pro Protestant. Its members, cloaked in sheets to conceal their identities, terrorized freedmen and sympathetic whites throughout the South after the Civil War. By the 1890s, Klan-style violence and Democratic legislation succeeded in virtually disenfranchising all southern blacks.

Quarantine Speech

An important speech delivered by Franklin Roosevelt in which he called for "positive endeavors" to "quarantine" land-hungry dictators, presumably through economic embargos. The speech flew in the face of isolationist politicians.

Brock

An inspired British general who led brilliant defensive operations during the war of 1812; led to the capture of fort Michilimackinac

naturalism

An offshoot of mainstream realism, this late-nineteenth-century literary movement purported to apply detached scientific objectivity to the study of human characters shaped by degenerate heredity and extreme or sordid social environments.

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

An organization founded in 1890 to demand the vote for women. It argued that women should be allowed to vote because their responsibilities in the home and family made them indispensable in the public decision-making process. During World War I, it supported the war effort and lauded women's role in the Allied victory, which helped to finally achieve nationwide woman suffrage in the Nineteenth Amendment of 1920.

The Liberator

Antislavery newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison, who called for the immediate emancipation of all slaves.

Free Soil Party

Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

Battle of Shiloh

April 1862; Bloody Civil War battle on the Tennessee-Mississippi border that left more than twenty-three thousand soldiers dead, wounded, or missing, and ended in a marginal Union victory.

Al Qaeda

Arabic for "The Base," an international alliance of anti-Western Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist organizations founded in the late 1980s by veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union. The group was headed by Osama bin Laden and has taken responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks, especially after the late 1990s. Al Qaeda organized the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States from its headquarters in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the launch of the "global war on terror," the group has been weakened but still poses significant threats around the world.

International Style

Archetypal, post-World War II modernist architecture style, best known for its "curtain-wall" designs of steel-and-glass corporate high-rises.

John McCain

Arizona senator and war hero who was runner up to George W. Bush for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000 and was the nominee in 2008

Paxton Boys (1764)

Armed march on Philadelphia by Scots-Irish frontiersmen in protest against the Quaker establishment's lenient policies toward Native Americans.

Shays's Rebellion

Armed uprising of western Massachusetts debtors seeking paper money, lower taxes, and an end to property foreclosures. Though quickly put down, the insurrection inspired fears of "mob rule" among leading Revolutionaries.

Harvey

Author of the popular pro-silver pamphlet "Coin's Financial School"

Moctezuma

Aztec emperor defeated and killed by the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes.

Lend-Lease Bill

Based on the motto, "Send guns, not sons," this law abandoned former pretenses of neutrality by allowing Americans to sell unlimited supplies of arms to any nation defending itself against the Axis Powers. Patriotically numbered 1776, the bill was praised as a device for keeping the nation out of World War II.

Bank War

Battle between President Andrew Jackson and congressional supporters of the Bank of the United States over the bank's renewal. Jackson vetoed the bank bill, arguing that the bank favored moneyed interests at the expense of western farmers.

Battle of Long Island

Battle for the control of New York. British troops overwhelmed the colonial militias and retained control of the city for most of the war.

Charles Darwin

Believed in evolution by natural selection, the principal that the weaker die out or "survival of the fittest." Wrote On The Origin of Species.

John Brown

Believed to be insane, he was the controversial figure in the beginning stages of the battles within Kansas and the infamous raid on Harpers Ferry. He and his followers mutilated five bodies in retaliation against the Southern attack on Lawrence, believing God was leading him to free the slaves.

Richard Olney

Belligerent US Secretary of State who used the Monroe Doctrine to pressure Britain in the Venezuelan boundary crisis as well as broke up the Pullman Strike

Peter Cartwright

Bets known of the Methodist traveling frontier preachers; ill-educated; strong servant of the Lord who spent 50 years traveling from Tennessee to Illinois while calling upon sinners to repent; converted thousands with his bellowing voice and flailing arms; physically knocked out those who tried to break up his meetings

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

Brave commander of the Confederate Army that led troops at Bull Run. He died in the confusion at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

muckrakers

Bright young reporters at the turn of the twentieth century who won this unfavorable moniker from Theodore Roosevelt but boosted the circulations of their magazines by writing exposés of widespread corruption in American society. Their subjects included business manipulation of the government, white slavers, child labor, and the illegal deeds of the trusts and helped spur the passage of reform legislation.

Little Turtle

Chief of the Miami Confederacy who led a Native American alliance that raided US settlements in the Northwest Territory. He was defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Greenville. Later, he became an advocate for peace.

Port Arthur, Manchuria

Chinese territory that was in dispute between Russia and Japan

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Civil rights leader and Baptist preacher who rose to prominence with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. He was an outspoken advocate for black rights throughout the 1960s, most famously during the 1963 March on Washington where he delivered the "I Have a Dream Speech." He was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 while supporting a sanitation workers' strike

Bleeding Kansas

Civil war in Kansas over the issue of slavery in the territory, fought intermittently until 1861, when it merged with the wider national Civil War.

Boston Massacre

Clash between unruly Bostonian protestors and locally stationed British redcoats, who fired on the jeering crowd, killing or wounding eleven citizens.

The Federalist

Collection of essays written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, published during the ratification debate in New York to lay out the federalists' arguments in favor of the new Constitution. Since their publication, these influential essays have served as an important source for constitutional interpretation.

land-grant colleges

Colleges and universities created from allocations of public land through the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Hatch Act of 1887. These grants helped fuel the boom in higher education in the late nineteenth century, and many of today's public universities derive from them.

royal colonies

Colonies where governors were appointed directly by the king. Though often competent administrators, the governors frequently ran into trouble with colonial legislature, which resented the imposition of control from across the Atlantic.

Patriots

Colonists who supported the American Revolution; also known as 'Whigs'.

Columbine High School

Colorado high school where a deadly shooting in 1999 stirred a national movement against guns and gun violence

Wood

Commander in Spanish-American War who organized the efficient American military government of Cuba

Dwight D Eisenhower

Commander of the Allied military assault against Hitler in North Africa and France

Douglas MacArthur

Commander of the US Army in the Pacific during WWII, who fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines

Chester W. Nimitz

Commander of the US Naval forces in the Pacific and brilliant strategist of the island-hopping campaign

New Harmony

Communal society of around one thousand members, established in Indiana by Robert Owen. The community attracted a hodgepodge of individuals, from scholars to crooks, and fell apart due to infighting and confusion after just two years.

Joseph Stalin

Communist leader of Russia

holding companies

Companies that own part or all of other companies' stock in order to extend monopoly control. Often, a holding company does not produce goods or services of its own but only exists to control other companies. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 sought to clamp down on these companies when they obstructed competition.

Erie Canal

Completed in 1825; New York State canal that linked Lake Erie to the Hudson River. It dramatically lowered shipping costs, fueling an economic boom in upstate New York and increasing the profitability of farming in the Old Northwest.

Compromise of 1877

Compromise that enables Hayes to take office in return for the end of Reconstruction in the South.

Olive Branch Petition

Conciliatory measures adopted by the Continental Congress, professing American loyalty and seeking an end to the hostilities. King George III rejected the petition and proclaimed the colonies in rebellion.

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general who had opposed secession but did not believe the Union should be held together by force.

Merrimack

Confederate ironclad whose successes against wooden ships signaled an end to wooden warships. Fought a historic though inconsequential battle against the Union's ironclad, Monitor, in 1862.

Sally Tompkins

Confederate nurse who ran a hospital in Richmond, Virginia during the Civil War.

Chesapeake affair

Conflict between Britain and the United States that precipitated the 1807 embargo. The conflict developed when a British ship, in search of deserters, fired on the American Chesapeake off the coast of Virginia.

First Continental Congress

Convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that convened in Philadelphia to craft a response to the Intolerable Acts. Delegates established The Association, which called for a complete boycott of British goods.

Congress of Vienna

Convention of major European powers to redraw the boundaries of continental Europe after the defeat of Napoleonic France.

Tweed Ring

Corrupt political organization that controlled New York City government milked New York City for over $200 million dollars.

Northwest Ordinance

Created a policy for administering the Northwest Territories. It included a path to statehood and forbade the expansion of slavery into the territories.

Astor

Created one of the largest fur businesses, the American Fur Company. He bought skins from western fur traders and trappers who became known as mountain men; Also speculated in the real estate maket

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr.

Created the Department of Energy and the Depatment of Education. He was criticized for his return of the Panama Canal Zone, and because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, he enacted an embargo on grain shipments to USSR and boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and his last year in office was marked by the takeover of the American embassy in Iran, fuel shortages, and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, which caused him to lose to Ronald Regan in the next election.

insurrectos

Cuban insurgents who sought freedom from colonial Spanish rule. Their destructive tactics threatened American economic interests in Cuban plantations and railroads.

Fidel Castro

Cuban revolutionary who overthrew Batista dictatorship in 1958 and assumed control of the island country. His connections with the Soviet Union led to a cessation of diplomatic relations with the United States in such international affairs as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oversaw his country through the end of the Cold War and through nearly a half-century of trade embargo with the US

Anthracite Coal Strike

Dangerous labor conflict resolved by Rooseveltian negotiation and threats against business people

Seventh of March speech

Daniel Webster's (1850) impassioned address urging the North to support the Compromise of 1850. Webster argued that topography and climate would keep slavery from becoming entrenched in Mexican Cession territory and urged northerners to make all reasonable concessions to prevent disunion.

war hawks

Democratic-Republican congressmen who pressed James Madison to declare ware on Britain. Largely drawn from the South and West, the war hawks resented British constraints on American trade and accused the British of supporting Indian attacks against American settlements on the frontier.

baby boom

Demographic explosion from births to returning soldiers and others who had put off starting families during the war. This large generation of new Americans forced the expansion of many institutions such as schools and universities.

Sheppard Towner Maternity Act

Designed to appeal to new women voters, this act provided federally financed instruction in maternal and infant health care and expanded the role of government in family welfare.

Fredrick Law Olmsted

Designer of New York City's Central Park, who wanted cities that exposed people to the beauties of nature. One of his projects, the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, gave a rise to the influential "City Beautiful" movement.

Sedition Act

Enacted by the Federalist Congress in an effort to clamp down on Jeffersonian opposition, the law made anyone convicted of defaming government officials or interfering with government policies liable to imprisonment and a heavy fine. The act drew heavy criticism from Republicans, who let the act expire in 1801.

Embargo Act

Enacted in response to British and French mistreatment of American merchants, the act banned the export of all goods from the United States to any foreign port. The embargo placed great strains on the American economy, while only marginally affecting its European targets, and was therefore repealed in 1809.

Valley Forge

Encampment where George Washington's poorly equipped army spent a wretched, freezing winter. Hundreds of men died and more than a thousand deserted. The plight of the starving, shivering soldiers reflected the main weakness of the American army: a lack of stable supplies and munitions.

Treaty of Ghent

Ended the War of 1812 in a virtual draw, restoring prewar borders but failing to address any of the grievances that first brought America into the War. Basically an armistice.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Ended the war with Mexico. Mexico agreed to cede territory reaching northwest from Texas to Oregon in exchange for $18.25 million in cash and assumed debts.

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton

Entered office in January 1993 as the first Democratic president since Jimmy Carter and a self-proclaimed activist. He had a very domestic agenda. When in office he had a lot of controversial appointments. When a longtime friend, Vince Foster, committed suicide it sparked an escalating inquiry into some banking and real estate ventures involving the president and his wife in the early 1980s. This became known as the Whitewater affair.

US Sanitary Comission

Established 1861; Government agency founded with the help of Elizabeth Blackwell that trained nurses, collected medical supplies, and equipped hospitals in an effort to help the Union army. The commission helped professionalize nursing and gave many women the confidence and organizational skills to propel the women's movement in the postwar years.

National War Labor Board (NWLB)

Established by FDR to act as an arbitration tribunal and mediate disputes between labor and management that might have led to work stoppages and thereby undermined the war effort. The NWLB was also charged with adjusting wages with an eye to controlling inflation.

Society of the Cincinnati

Established in 1783; Exclusive, hereditary organization of former officers in the Continental Army. Many resented the pretentiousness of the order, viewing it as a vestige of pre-Revolutionary traditions.

Tammany Hall

Established in 1789; Powerful New York political machine that primarily drew support from the city's immigrants, who depended on patronage, particularly social services.

West Africa Squadron

Established in 1808. British Royal Navy force formed to enforce the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. It intercepted hundreds of slave ships and freed thousands of Africans.

Dominion of Canada

Established in 1867. Unified Canadian government created by Britain to bolster Canadians against potential attacks or overtures from the United States.

War Production Board (WPB)

Established in 1942 by executive order to direct all war production, including procuring and allocating raw materials, to maximize the nation's war machine. The WPB had sweeping powers over the US economy and was abolished in November 1945 soon after Japan's defeat.

Shakers

Established in the 1770s, they had a lively dance worship. They emphasized simple, communal living and were all expected to practice celibacy. First transplanted to American from England by Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers counted six thousand members by 1840, though by the 1940s the movement had largely died out.

Tallmadge amendment

Failed proposal to prohibit the importation of slaves into Missouri Territory and pave the way for gradual emancipation. Southerners vehemently opposed the amendment, which they perceived as a threat to the sectional balance between North and South.

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Federal legislation signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower to construct thousands of miles of modern highways in the name of national defense. Officially called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, this bill dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, as white middle-class people could more easily commute to urban jobs.

Thorstein Veblen

Famous sociologist/economist; wrote "The Theory of the Leisure Class"

Benito Mussolini

Fascist dictator of Italy (1922-1943). He led Italy to conquer Ethiopia (1935), joined Germany in the Axis pact (1936), and allied Italy with Germany in World War II. He was overthrown in 1943 when the Allies invaded Italy.

Bancroft

Father of American History

Madison

Father of the Constitution

Slater

Father of the Factory System, British-born textile pioneer in America. He oversaw construction of the nation's first successful water-powered cotton mill (1790-1793)

Battle of Fort Henry and Ford Donelson

February 1862; Key victory for Union general Ulysses S. Grant, it secured the North's hold on Kentucky and paved the way for Grant's attack deeper into Tennessee.

Harpers Ferry

Federal arsenal in Virginia seized by abolitionist John Brown in 1859. Though Brown was later captured and executed, his raid alarmed southerners, who believed that northerners shared in Brown's extremism.

Patent Office

Federal government bureau that reviews patent applications. A patent is a legal recognition of a new invention, granting exclusive rights to the inventor for a period of years.

midnight judges

Federal justices appointed by John Adams during the last days of his presidency. Their positions were revoked when the newly elected Republican Congress repealed the Judiciary Act.

Comstock Law

Federal law promoted by a self-appointed morality crusader and used to prosecute moral and sexual dissidents

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Federal law that banned racial discrimination in public facilities and strengthened the federal government's power to fight segregation in schools. Title VII of the act prohibited employers from discriminating based on race in their hiring practices, and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to regulate fair employment.

Betty Friedan

Feminist author of "The Feminine Mystique" in 1960. Her book sparked a new consciousness among suburban women and helped launch the second-wave feminist movement

panic of 1857

Financial crash brought on by gold-fueled inflation, overspeculation, and excess grain production. Raised calls in the North for higher tariffs and for free homesteads on western public lands.

Panic of 1873

Financial crisis caused by excessive lending by banks to businesses that did not turn a profit, caused a world wide economic collapse.

Mason-Dixon line

Originally drawn by surveyors to resolve the boundaries between Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the 1760s, it came to symbolize the North-South divide over slavery.

Border States

Five slave states - Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia - that did not secede during the Civil War. To keep the states in the Union, Abraham Lincoln insisted that the war was not abolishing slavery but rather protecting the Union.

Russo-American Treaty (1824)

Fixed the line of 54°40' as the southernmost boundary of Russian holdings in North America. Created Russian boarder on northern part of the Oregon Territory

Trail of Tears

Forced march of fifteen thousand Cherokee Indians from their Georgia and Alabama homes to Indian Territory. Some four thousand Cherokees died on the arduous journey.

Hiram W. Johnson

Fought for railroad regulation in California; helped to break the dominant grip of the Southern Pacific Railroad on California politics in 1910

Battle of Bunker Hill

Fought on the outskirts of Boston, on Breed's Hill, the battle ended in the colonial militia's retreat, though at a heavy cost to the British.

New England Emigrant Aid Company

Founded in 1854; Organization created to facilitate the migration of free laborers to Kansas in order to prevent the establishment of slavery in the territory.

American Temperance Society

Founded in Boston in 1826 as part of a growing effort of nineteenth-century reformers to limit alcohol consumption.

Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Founded in Ohio in the 1870s to combat the evils of excessive alcohol consumption, it went on to embrace a broad reform agenda, including campaigns to abolish prostitution and gain the right to vote for women.

Joseph Smith

Founded the Mormon religion after reporting that he was visited by an angel and given golden plates in 1840; the plates, when deciphered, brought about the Church of Latter-Day Saints and the Book of Mormon; he ran into opposition from Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri when he attempted to spread the Mormon beliefs, but was killed by non believers. His establishment of the Mormon faith started a movement within America of values which included no drinking, gambling, and an unorthodox view of marriage. His sacrifice for his religious beliefs is a symbol of what America was built on back in the colonial days; polygamy delayed admittance of state

Tripolitan War

Four-year conflict between the American navy and the North African nation of Tripoli over piracy in the Mediterranean. Jefferson, a staunch noninterventionist, reluctantly deployed American forces, eventually securing a peace treaty with Tripoli.

Jack Kerouac

Frenetic novelist and progenitor of the bohemian Beat Generation (a term he coined). He gained celebrity after publishing the group's unofficial bible, On the Road.

Battle of Yorktown

George Washington, with the aid of the French army, besieged Cornwallis, while the French naval fleet prevented British reinforcements from coming ashore. Cornwallis surrendered, dealing a heavy blow to the British war effort and paving the way for an eventual peace.

Battle of Trenton

George Washington surprised and captured a garrison of sleeping German Hessians, raising the morale of his crestfallen army and setting the stage for his victory at Princeton a week later.

Farewell Address

George Washington's address at the end of his presidency, warning against "permanent alliances" with other nations. Washington did not oppose all alliances, but believed that the young, fledgling nation should forge alliances only on a temporary basis, in extraordinary circumstances.

Fletcher vs. Peck (1810)

Georgia granted Mississippi to private speculators then attempted to cancel the transaction. Supreme Court said Georgia could not back down from its contract. Established firmer protection for private property and asserted the right of the Supreme Court to invalidate state laws in conflict with the federal Constitution.

Watson

Georgia politician and leader of the Populist Party; assisted poor Georgians and farmers

Kristallnacht

German for "night of broken glass," it refers to the murderous pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent thousands to concentration camps on the night of November 9, 1938. Thousands more attempted to find refuge in the United States, but were ultimately turned away due to restrictive immigration laws.

Zimmermann note

German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman had secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. When the note was intercepted and published in March 1917, it caused an uproar that made some Americans more willing to enter the war.

Hessians

German troops hired from their princes by King George III to aid in putting down the colonial insurrection. This hardened the resolve of American colonists, who resented the use of paid foreign fighters.

Albert Einstein

German-born physicist who helped persuade Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb

Hessians

Germans who sided with Britain

Central Powers

Germany and Austria Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria made up this alliance against the Allies in World War I

Thirty Years War

Golden Age of Sweden was during and after 1618-1648

Clinton

Governor of New York who started the Erie Canal project. His leadership helped complete the canal, which boosted the economy greatly by cutting time traveled from west New York to the Hudson.

Reform Bill of 1867

Granted suffrage to all male British citizens, dramatically expanding the electorate. The success of the America democratic experiment, reinforced by the Union victory in the Civil War, was used as one of the arguments in favor of the bill.

Dust Bowl

Grim nickname for the Great Plains region devastated by drought and dust storms during the 1930s. The disaster led to the migration into California of thousands of displaced "Okies" and "Arkies."

Hoovervilles

Grim shantytowns where impoverished victims of the Great Depression slept under newspapers and in makeshift tents. Their visibility (and sarcastic name) tarnished the reputation of the Hoover administration.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Guaranteed equal accommodation in public places and prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection; SCOTUS much of the act unconstitutional in Civil Rights Cases 1883.

James

Harvard philosopher and one of the leading anti-imperialists opposing U.S. acquisition of the Philippines

Nuremberg war crimes trial

Highly publicized proceedings against former Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity in postwar Germany. The trials led to several executions and long prison sentences.

ecological imperialism

Historians' term for the spoliation of western natural resources through excessive hunting, logging, mining, and grazing. Affected beavers, buffalo, and sea-otters.

Battle of Québec

Historic British victory over French forces in the Plains of Abraham of Québec. The surrender of Québec marked the beginning of the end of French rule in North America.

Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker

Hooker was given command by Burnside after "Burnside's Slaughter Pen." He was in charge at the Battle where Stonewall Jackson died.

republican motherhood

Ideal of family organization and female behavior after the American Revolution that stressed the role of women in guiding family members toward republican virtue.

Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Idealistic American volunteers who served in the Spanish Civil War, defending Spanish republican forces from the fascist General Francisco Franco's nationalist coup. Some 3,000 Americans served alongside volunteers from other countries.

United Nations/UN

International body formed in 1945 to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars. Much like the former League of Nations in ambition, the UN was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five powers in keeping the peace in the world. Thus, it guaranteed veto power to all permanent members of its Security Council - Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Montgomery

Irish born general of the British army who pushed up the Lake Champlain route and captured Montréal; met by Benedict Arnold's army in Québec and was killed; his troops narrowly missed success over their invasion of Canada

Ancient Order of Hibernians

Irish semi-secret society that served as a benevolent organization for opposed Irish immigrants in the United States.

McCormick

Irish-American inventor that developed the mechanical reaper

Kearny

Irishman who fired up a street fight between Irish and Chinese

Marcus Alonzo Hanna

Iron tycoon from Ohio who helped to elect McKinley with his strong endorsement, "I love McKinley". Served as kingmaker and campaign manager, trying to make the focus of the election the tariff.

Knickerbocker Group

Irving, Cooper, Bryant

Neutrality Proclamation

Issued by George Washington, it proclaimed America's formal neutrality in the escalating conflict between England and France, a statement that enraged pro-French Jeffersonians.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

Landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and abolished racial segregation in public schools. The Court reasoned that "separate" was inherently "unequal," rejecting the foundation of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation in the South. This decision was the first major step toward the legal end of racial discrimination and a major accomplishment for the civil rights movement.

Clara Barton

Launched the American Red Cross in 1881. An "angel" in the Civil War, she treated the wounded in the field.

Jones Act

Law according territorial status to the Philippines and promising independence as soon as a "stable government" could be established. The United States did not grant the Philippines independence until July 4, 1946.

Clayton Anti-Trust Act

Law extending the anti-trust protections of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and exempting labor unions and agricultural organizations from antimonopoly constraints. The act conferred long-overdue benefits on labor.

common law

Laws that originate from court rulings and customs, as opposed to legislative statutes. The United States Constitution grew out of this Anglo-American tradition and thus provided only a general organizational framework for the new federal government.

Wendell L. Willkie

Lawyer in the United States and was the dark horse Republican Party nominee for the 1940 presidential election. Liberal who was against domestic policies of the New Deal. He thought were inefficient and anti-business.

Oliver O. Howard

Leader of Freedman's Bureau, Boden's College, Christian general, from Maine, founder of Howard University

Jacob S. Coxey

Leader of a group of unemployed workers who petitioned Washington DC.

Clark

Leader of a small Patriot force that captured British-controlled Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes forts in the Ohio Valley in 1779; secured the Northwest territory for America

Geronimo

Leader of the Apaches of Arizona in their warfare with the whites

irreconcilables

Led by Senators William Borah of Idaho and Hiram Johnson of California, this was a hard-core group of militant isolationists who opposed the Wilsonian dream of international cooperation in the League of Nations after World War I. Their efforts played an important part in preventing American participation in the international organization.

Sandinistas

Leftwing anti-American revolutionaries in Nicaragua who launched a civil war in 1979.

loose construction

Legal doctrine that the federal government can use powers not specifically granted or prohibited in the Constitution to carry out its constitutionally mandated responsibilities.

limited liability

Legal principle that facilitates capital investment by offering protection for individual investors who, in cases of legal claims or bankruptcy, cannot be held responsible for more than the value of their individual shares.

Employment Act of 1946

Legislation declaring that the government's economic policy should aim to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power, as well as to keep inflation low. A general commitment that was much shorter on specific targets and rules than its liberal creators had wished. The Act created the Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with data and recommendations to make economic policy.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Legislation pushed through Congress by President Johnson that prohibited ballot-denying tactics, such as literacy tests and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act was a successor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and sought to make racial disenfranchisement explicitly illegal.

Lewis

Lewis Domineering boss who launched the CIO

Earl Warren

Liberal Californian politician appointed Chief Justice the Supreme Court by Eisenhower in 1953, he was principally known for moving the Court to the left in defense of civil and individual rights in such cases as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

Kennedy

Liberal Democratic senator whose opposition to Carter helped divide the Democrats in 1980

48ers

Liberal German refugees who failed democratic revolutions and fled to America

Eugene McCarthy

Liberal anti-war senator from Minnesota who rallied a large youth movement behind his presidential campaign in 1968. Challenging sitting President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, he captured 41% of the vote and helped ensure that Johnson would quit the race

French and Indian War (Seven Years' War)

Nine-year war between the British and the French in North America. It resulted in the expulsion of the French from the North American mainland and helped spark the Seven Years' War in Europe.

Bretton Woods Conference

Meeting of Western allies to establish a postwar international economic order to avoid crises like the one that spawned World War II. Led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, designed to regulate currency levels and provide aid to underdeveloped countries.

Atlantic Charter

Meeting on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed this covenant outlining the future path toward disarmament, peace, and a permanent system of general security. Its spirit would animate the founding of the United Nations and raise awareness of the human rights of individuals after World War II.

Liberal Protestants

Members of a branch of Protestantism that flourished from 1875 to 1925 and encouraged followers to use the Bible as a moral compass rather than to believe that the Bible represented scientific or historical truth. Many became active in the "social gospel" and other reform movements of the era.

Elvis Presley

Memphis-born singer whose youth, voice, and sex appeal helped popularize rock 'n' roll in the mid-1950s. Commonly known using only his first name, he was an icon of popular culture, in both music and film

Hudson River School

Mid-nineteenth century American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes.

transcendentalism

Mid-nineteenth century literary and intellectual movement that emphasized individualism and self-reliance, predicated upon a belief that each person possesses an "inner light" that can point the way to truth and direct contact with God.

"A Century of Dishonor" and "Ramona"

wrote by Jackson which resulted in increased sympathy for natives

Rosa Parks

NAACP leader in Montgomery, Alabama, who inaugurate the city's famous bus boycott in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. She became a leading symbol of the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and the cause of racial equality throughout her long life

dollar diplomacy

Name applied by President Taft's critics to the policy of supporting US investments and political interests abroad. First applied to the financing of railways in China after 1909, the policy then spread to Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua. President Woodrow Wilson disavowed the practice, but his administration undertook comparable acts of intervention in support of US business interests, especially in Latin America.

Occupy Wall Street

Name of the original protest that launched the populist, anti-Wall Street "Occupy" movement in late 2010 and early 2011. Youthful radicals pitched tents and occupied Zuccotti Park in New York's financial district beginning in September 2010 to protest inequality and corporate political power. This demonstration inspired similar occupations in many other cities.

The South Carolina Exposition

wrote secretly by Calhoun to condemn tariffs

Henry A. Kissinger

National Security Advisor and Secretary of State during the Nixon Administration, he was responsible for negotiating an end to the Yom Kippur War as well as the Treaty of Paris that led to a ceasefire in Vietnam in 1973.

National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (NSC-68)

National Security Council recommended to quadruple defense spending and rapidly expand peacetime armed forces to address Cold War tensions. It reflected a new militarization of American foreign policy, but the huge costs of rearmament were not expected to interfere with what seemed like the limitless possibility of postwar prosperity.

code talkers

Native American men who served in the military by transmitting radio messages in their native languages, which were undecipherable by German and Japanese spies.

Napoleon III

Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and elected emperor of France from 1852-1870, he invaded Mexico when the Mexican government couldn't repay loans from French bankers, he sent in an army and set up a new government under Maximilian during the Civil War. He refused Lincoln's request that France withdraw. After the Civil War, the US sent an army to enforce the request and Napoleon withdrew.

Allen Ginsberg

New Jersey-born poet who served as spokesman of the Beat Generation. The 1956 publication of his Howl and Other Poems sparked a San Francisco literary renaissance and a local obscenity trial that brought nationwide publicity to the bohemian Beat movement.

Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire

New York City disaster that underscored urban workers' need for government protection

Zenger trial

New York libel case against John Peter Zenger. Established the principle that truthful statements about public officials could not be prosecuted as libel.

Jackson Pollock

New York-based painter who became the father of abstract expressionism with his spontaneous "action paintings."

Arthur Miller

New York-born playwright who dramatized the pitfalls of postwar American materialism in Death of a Salesman and Cold War hysteria in The Crucible, among other plays.

silent majority

Nixon administration's term to describe generally content, law-abiding, middle-class Americans who supported both the Vietnam War and America's institutions. As a political tool, the concept attempted to make a subtle distinction between believers in "traditional" values and the vocal minority of civil rights agitators, student protestors, counterculturists, and other seeming disruptors of the social fabric.

Burger

Nixon appointee as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who failed to overturn earlier liberal Court decisions as Nixon hoped

Agnew

Nixon's tough-talking conservative Vice President, who was forced to resign in 1973 for taking bribes and kickbacks

Tariff of Abominations

Noteworthy for its unprecedentedly high duties on imports. Southerners vehemently opposed the tariff, arguing that it hurt southern farmers, who did not enjoy the protection of tariffs but were forced to pay higher prices for manufactures.

popular sovereignty

Notion advanced before the Civil War that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by northern abolitionists, who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

Nueces River

Original southern boundary of Texas

Black Monday

October 19, 1987. Date of the largest single-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average until September 2001. The downturn indicated instability in the booming business culture of the 1980s but did not lead to a serious economic recession.

Bonus Army

Officially known as the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF), this rag-tag group of 20,000 veterans marched on Washington to demand immediate payment of bonuses earned during World War I. General Douglas MacArthur dispersed them with tear gas and bayonets.

Populists

Officially known as the People's party, the Populists represented Westerners and Southerners who believed that US economic policy inappropriately favored Eastern businessmen instead of the nation's farmers. Their proposals included nationalization of the railroads, a graduated income tax, and, most significantly, the unlimited coinage of silver.

Executive Order 9981

Order issued by President Truman to desegregate the armed forces. The president's action resulted from a combination of pressure from civil rights advocates, election-year political calculations, and the new geographical context of the Cold War.

Indian Removal Act

Ordered the removal of Indian tribes still residing east of the Mississippi to newly established Indian Territory west of Arkansas and Missouri. Tribes resisting eviction were forcibly removed by American forces, often after prolonged legal or military battles.

Willamette River Vallley

Oregon area which contained American missionaries that saved the soil of Oregon for US by stimulating interest into a faraway domain

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Organization founded by W. E. B. Du Bois and others to advance black social and economic equality

Black Panther party

Organization of armed black militants formed in Oakland, California, in 1966 to protect black rights. The Panthers represented a growing dissatisfaction with the nonviolent wing of the civil rights movement and signaled a new direction to that movement after the legislative victories of 1964 and 1965.

American Liberty League

Organization of wealthy Republicans and conservative Democrats whose attacks on the New Deal caused Roosevelt to denounce them as "economic royalists" in the campaign of 1936

Freedom Riders

Organized mixed-race groups who rode interstate buses deep into the South to draw attention to and protest racial segregation beginning in 1961. This effort to challenge racism, which involved the participation of many northern young people as well as southern activists, proved a political and public relations success for the civil rights movement.

Judiciary Act of 1789

Organized the federal legal system, establishing the Supreme Court, federal district and circuit courts, and made Jay chief justice

Wade-Davis Bill

Passed by congressional Republicans in response to Abraham Lincoln's "10 percent" Reconstruction plan, it required that 50 percent of a state's voters pledge allegiance to the Union and set stronger safeguards for emancipation. Reflected divisions between Congress and the president, and between radical and moderate Republicans, over the treatment of the defeated South.

criminal syndicalism laws

Passed by many states during the red scare, these nefarious laws outlawed the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change. Stump speakers for the International Workers of the World, or IWW, were special targets.

Judiciary Act of 1801

Passed by the departing Federalist Congress, it created sixteen new federal judgeships, ensuring a Federalist hold on the judiciary.

Fugitive Slave Law

Passed in 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850, it set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

Workingmen's Compensation Act

Passed under Woodrow Wilson, this law granted assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability. It was a precursor to labor-friendly legislation passed during the New Deal.

Daughters of Liberty

Patriotic groups that played a central role in agitating against the Stamp Act and enforcing nonimportation agreements.

Sons of Liberty

Patriotic groups that played a central role in agitating against the Stamp Act and enforcing nonimportation agreements.

funding at par

Payment of debts, such as government bonds, at face value. In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the federal government pay its Revolutionary war debts in full in order to bolster the nation's credit.

Treaty of Paris

Peace treaty signed by Britain and the United States ending the Revolutionary War. The British formally recognized American independence and ceded territory east of the Mississippi while the Americans, in turn, promised to restore Loyalist property and repay debts to British creditors.

carpetbaggers

Pejorative used by Southern whites to describe Northern businessmen and politicians who came to the South after the Civil War to work on Reconstruction projects or invest in Southern infrastructure.

racketeers

People who obtain money illegally by fraud, bootlegging, gambling, or threats of violence. Racketeers invaded the ranks of labor during the 1920s, a decade when gambling and gangsterism were prevalent in American life.

cult of domesticity

Pervasive nineteenth-century cultural creed that venerated the domestic role of women. It gave married women greater authority to shape home life but limited opportunities outside the domestic sphere.

Great Compromise

Popular term for the measure that reconciled the New Jersey and Virginia plans at the Constitutional Convention, giving states proportional representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate. The compromise broke the stalemate at the convention and paved the way for subsequent compromises over slavery and the Electoral College.

Whiskey Rebellion

Popular uprising of whiskey distillers in southwestern Pennsylvania in opposition to an excise tax on whiskey. In a show of strength and resolve by the new central government, Washington put down the rebellion with militia drawn from several states.

Women's Christian Temperance Union

Powerful progressive women's organization that sought to "make the world homelike" by outlawing the saloon and the product it sold

Warren G. Harding

Pres.1921 laissez-faire, little regard for gov't or presidency. "return to normalcy" after Wilson + his progressive ideals. Office became corrupt: allowed drinking in prohibition, had an affair, surrounded himself w/ cronies (used office for private gain). Ex) Sec. of Interior leased gov't land w/ oil for $500,000 and took money himself. Died after 3 years in office, VP: Coolidge took over

Nixon Doctrine

President Nixon's plan for "peace with honor" in Vietnam. The doctrine stated that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but, in the future, countries would have to fight their own wars.

Fair Deal

President Truman's extensive social program introduced in his 1949 message to Congress. Republicans and southern Democrats kept much of his vision from being enacted, except for raising the minimum wage, providing for more public housing, and extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries under the Social Security Act.

Truman Doctrine

President Truman's universal pledge of support for any people fighting any communist or communist-inspired threat. Truman presented the doctrine to Congress in 1947 in support of his request for $400 million to defend Greece and Turkey against Soviet-backed insurgencies.

Gamal Abdel Nasser

President of Egypt from 1956-1970, was known for his pan-Arab nationalism and opposition to colonialism, specifically in his decision to nationalize the Suez Canal in 1956. Although his reputation was somewhat tarnished by his country's military failure against Israel in the 6 Days War of 1967, he remained a popular leader in Egypt and throughout the Arab world

Boris Yeltsin

President of the Russian Republic in 1991. Helped end the USSR and forced Gorbachev to resign.

John F. Kennedy

President of the United States who narrowly defeated the incumbent vice-president Nixon in 1960 to become the youngest person ever elected president. Launched New Frontier programs and urged legislation to improve civil rights; assumed the blame for the Bay of Pigs invasion and was credited as well for the superb handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald

Lyndon B. Johnson

President of the United States who rose to tremendous power in the Senate during the New Deal. Tapped to be JFK's running mate in 1960 and was chosen largely to help solidify support for the Democratic ticket in the anti-Catholic south, he assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Was responsible for liberal programs such as the Great Society, War on Poverty, and civil rights legislation, as well as the escalation of the Vietnam war

Lord North

Prime Minister during the Revolution; passed the Intolerable Acts and supported the king to the extent that Britain was ruled only by the king

George Grenville

Prime Minister; put into place the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act; his methods of taxation and crackdown on smuggling were widely disliked by Americans

affirmative action

Program designed to redress historic racial and gender imbalances in jobs and education. The term grew from an executive order issued by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 mandating that projects paid for with federal funds take concerted action against discrimination based on race in their hiring practices. In the late 1960s, President Nixon's Philadelphia Plan changed the meaning of affirmative action to require attention to certain groups, rather than protect individuals against discrimination.

Sinclair

Progressive novelist who sought to aid industrial workers, but found his book, The Jungle, instead inspiring middle-class consumer protection

Gag Resolution

Prohibited debate or action on antislavery appeals. Driven through the House by proslavery southerners, it passed every year for eight years and was eventually overturned with the help of John Quincy Adams.

Maine Law of 1851

Prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. A dozen other states followed this state's lead, though most statutes proved ineffective and were repealed within a decade.

Booker T. Washington

Prominent black American born into slavery who believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society. Head of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881. Wrote a book called "Up From Slavery."

federalists

Proponents of the 1787 Constitution, they favored a strong national government, arguing that the checks and balances in the new Constitution would safeguard the people's liberties.

Land Ordinance of 1785

Provided for the sale of land in the Old Northwest and earmarked the proceeds toward repaying the national debt.

Greene

Quaker General who distinguished himself in the Georgia & Carolina campaign of 1781 by his strategy of delay; exhausted Cornwallis in vain pursuit; nicknamed the "Fighting Quaker"

Lucretia Mott

Quaker activist in both the abolitionist and women's movements; with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was a principal organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848

Debs

Railway union leader who converted to socialism while serving jail time during the Pullman strike

"The American Scholar"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's address at Harvard College, in which he declared an intellectual independence from Europe, urging American scholars to develop their own traditions.

"Self-Reliance"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's popular lecture-essay that reflected the spirit of individualism pervasive in American popular culture during the 1830s and 1840s.

Fourteenth Amendment

Ratified in 1868; Constitutional amendment that extended civil rights to freedmen and prohibited states from taking away such rights without due process.

McCarthy

Reckless and power-hungry demagogue who intimidated even President Eisenhower before his bubble burst

Union League

Reconstruction-era African American organization that worked to educate Southern blacks about civic life, built black schools and churches, and represented African American interests before government and employers. It also campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates and recruited local militias to protect blacks from white intimidation.

Mormons

Religious followers of Joseph Smith, who founded a communal, oligarchic religious order in the 1830s, officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They were facing deep hostility from their neighbors, eventually migrated west and established a flourishing settlement in the Utah desert.

Great Awakening

Religious revival that swept the colonies. Participating ministers, most notably Johnathan Edwards and George Whitefield, placed an emphasis on direct, emotive spirituality.

Taft-Hartley Act

Republican-promoted, anti-union legislation passed over President Truman's vigorous veto that weakened many of labor's New Deal gains by banning the closed shop and other strategies that helped unions organize. It also required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath, which purged the union movement of many of its most committed and active organizers.

Waving the Bloody Shirt

Republicans that revived gory memories of the Civil War, coined powerful Republican slogan "Vote as You Shot"

Quartering Act

Required colonies to provide food and quarters for British troops. Many colonists resented the act, which they perceived as an encroachment on their rights.

Battle of San Jacinto

Resulted in the capture of Mexican dictator Santa Anna, who was forced to withdraw his troops from Texas and recognize the Rio Grande as Texas's southwestern border.

Battle of Tippecanoe

Resulted in the defeat of Shawnee chief Tenskwatawa, "the Prophet," at the hands of William Henry Harrison in the Indiana wilderness. After the battle, the Prophet's brother, Tecumseh, forged an alliance with the British against the United States.

Ostend Manifesto

Secret Franklin Pierce administration proposal to purchase or, that failing, to wrest militarily Cuba from Spain. Once leaked, it was quickly abandoned due to vehement opposition from the North.

Pentagon Papers

Secret US government report detailing early planning and policy decisions regarding the Vietnam War under President Kennedy and Johnson. Leaked to the New York Times in 1971, it revealed instances of government secrecy, lies, and incompetence in the prosecution of the war.

Molly Maguires

Secret organization of Irish miners who campaigned, at times violently, against poor working conditions in the Pennsylvania mines.

George C. Marshall

Secretary of State during and after World War II

Edwin M. Stanton

Secretary of War appointed by Lincoln. President Andrew Johnson dismissed him in spite of the Tenure of Office Act, and as a result, Congress wanted Johnson's impeachment.

"Intolerable Acts"

Series of punitive measures passed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, closing the Port of Boston, revoking a number of rights in the Massachusetts colonial charter, and expanding the Quartering Act to allow for the lodging of soldiers in private homes. In response, colonists convened the First Continental Congress and called for a complete boycott of British goods.

Margaret Thatcher

She was the first British prime minister. She came to office during Reagan's administration. They both had very similar plans to reduce labor union and government involvement in business, thus, they got along very well.

Sandra Day O'Connor

She was the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. She was a conservative.

Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937

Short-sighted acts passed in 1935, 1936, and 1937 in order to prevent American participation in a European War. Among other restrictions, they prevented Americans from selling munitions to foreign belligerents.

Sacajawea

Shoshoni woman who helped Lewis and Clark in their expedition

Nullification Crisis

Showdown between President Andrew Jackson and the South Carolina legislature, which declared the 1832 tariff null and void in the state and threatened secession if the federal government tried to collect duties. It was resolved by a compromise negotiated by Henry Clay in 1833.

Rush-Bagot agreement

Signed by Britain and the United States, it established strict limits on naval armaments in the Great Lakes, a first step in the full demilitarization of the US-Canadian border, completed in the 1870s.

Anglo-American Convention

Signed by Britain and the United States, the pact allowed New England fishermen access to Newfoundland fisheries, established the northern border of Louisiana Territory, and provided for the joint occupation of the Oregon Country for ten years.

Executive Order No. 9066

Signed by President FDR on Feb. 19, 1942, it authorized the secretary of war to designate military zones from which certain categories of people could be excluded. Fueled by historic anti-Japanese sentiment as well as panic following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the order led to the forced removal of some 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry (70,000 of the US citizens) from the Western Military Zone (the coastal sections of Washington, Oregon, and California.) Most but not all of those removed were interned in relocation camps in the interior West. The order was rescinded in December 1944, and legislation passed in 1988 offered an official government apology and modest financial compensation to surviving citizen internees.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

Signed by great Britain and the United states in 1850, it provided that the two nations would jointly protect the neutrality of Central America and that neither power would seek to fortify or exclusively control any future isthmian waterway. Later revoked by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, which gave the United States control of the Panama Canal.

Millerities

interpreted god to return on set date

Casablanca

Site of 1943 Roosevelt-Churchill conference in North Africa, at which the Big Two planned the invasion of Italy and further steps in the Pacific war

Appomattox Courthouse

Site where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865 after almost a year of brutal fighting throughout Virginia in the "Wilderness Campaign."

breakers

Slave drivers who employed the lash to brutally destroy the souls of strong-willed slaves.

"Fifty-four forty or fight"

Slogan adopted by mid-nineteenth-century expansionists who advocated the occupation of Oregon Territory, jointly held by Britain and the United States. Though President Polk had pledged to seize all of Oregon, to 54° 40', he settled on the forty-ninth parallel as a compromise with the British.

clipper ships

Small, swift vessels that gave American shippers an advantage in the carrying trade. These ships were made largely obsolete by the advent of the sturdier, roomier iron steamers on the eve of the Civil War.

War of Jenkins's Ear

Small-scale clash between Britain and Spain in the Caribbean and in the buffer colony, Georgia. It merged with the much larger War of Austrian Succession in 1742.

Susan B. Anthony

Social reformer who campaigned for women's rights, the temperance, and was an abolitionist, helped form the National Women's Suffrage Association

Gerald "Jerry" Ford

Solely elected by a vote from Congress. He pardoned Nixon of all crimes that he may have committed. Evacuated nearly 500,000 Americans and South Vietnamese from Vietnam, closing the war. We are heading toward rapid inflation. He runs again and debates Jimmy Carter. At the debate he is asked how he would handle the communists in eastern Europe and he said there were none and this apparently sealed his fate.

Bush

Son of a former president whose narrow election as president in 2000 didn't prevent him from pursuing a strong conservative agenda in office

Nelson Mandela

South African statesman who was released from prison to become the nation's first democratically elected president in 1994 (born in 1918)

Fort Sumter

South Carolina location where Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in April of 1861, after Union forces attempted to provision the fort.

Palmetto State

South Carolina nickname

McGovern

South Dakota senator whose anti war campaign was swamped by Nixon

Redeemers

Southern Democratic politicians who sought to wrest control from Republican regimes in the South after Reconstruction.

Francisco Franco

Spanish General; organized the revolt in Morocco, which led to the Spanish Civil War. Leader of the Nationalists - right wing, supported by Hitler and Mussolini, won the Civil War after three years of fighting.

SALT II

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty agreement between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and American president Jimmy Carter. Despite an accord to limit weapons between the two leaders, the agreement was ultimately scuttled in the US Senate following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Levittown

Suburban communities with mass-produced tract houses built in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas in the 1950s by William Levitt and Sons. Typically inhabited by white middle-class people who fled the cities in search of homes to buy for their growing families.

Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824)

Suit over whether New York State could grant a monopoly to a ferry operating on interstate waters. The ruling reasserted that Congress had the sole power to regulate interstate commerce.

Dartmouth College vs. Woodward (1819)

Supreme Court case that sustained Dartmouth University's original charter against changes proposed by the New Hampshire state legislature, thereby protecting corporations from domination by state governments.

Marbury vs. Madison

Supreme court case that established the principle of "judicial review" - the idea that the Supreme Court had the final authority to determine constitutionality.

An American Dilemma

Swedish scholar Gunnar Myrdal's powerful book highlighting the conflict between America's high democratic ideals and its treatment of its black citizens

Barack Obama

The 44th and most recent President of the United States before the literal antichrist was elected, and the first African American to hold the office.

Kissinger

Talented diplomatic negotiator and leading architect of détente with the Soviet Union during the Nixon and Ford administrations

Wilson-Gorman Tariff

Tariff passed by Cleveland which was humiliating; Democrats left McKinley tariff unchanged, 2% income tax allowed

tariff

Tax levied on imports. Traditionally, manufacturers support tariffs as protective and revenue-raising measures, while agricultural interests, dependent on world markets, oppose high taxes.

excise tax

Tax on goods produced domestically. These taxes, particularly the 1791 tax on whiskey, were a highly controversial component of Alexander Hamilton's financial program.

Molasses Act (1733)

Tax on imported molasses passed by Parliament in an effort to squelch the North American trade with the French West Indies. It proved largely ineffective due to widespread smuggling.

Corps of Discovery

Team of adventurers, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, sent by Thomas Jefferson to explore Louisiana Territory and find a water route to the Pacific. Lewis and Clark brought back detailed accounts of the West's flora, fauna, and native populations, and their voyage demonstrated the viability of overland travel to the West.

Reign of Terror

Ten-month period of brutal repression when some forty thousand individuals were executed as enemies of the French Revolution. While many Jeffersonians maintained their faith in the French Republic, Federalists withdrew their already lukewarm support once the Reign of Terror commenced.

Yuppies

Term for "young urban professionals" of the 1980s who flaunted their wealth through conspicuous consumer spending

New Right

Term for a loose network of conservative political activists and organizations that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. More populist in tone than previous generations of conservatives, the New Right emphasized hot-button cultural issues like abortion, busing, and prayer in school. They also espoused a nationalist foreign policy outlook that rejected détente and international treaties.

boll weevils

Term for conservative southern Democrats who voted increasingly for Republican issues during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

military-industrial complex

Term popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address, referring to the political and economic ties between arms manufacturers, elected officials, and the US armed forces that created self-sustaining pressure for high military spending during the Cold War. Eisenhower also warned that this powerful combination left unchecked could "endanger our liberties or democratic process," favoring defense concerns over more peaceful goals that balanced security and liberty.

stagflation

Term referring to the simultaneous occurrence of low employment growth and high inflation in the national economy The phenomenon characterized the economic troubles of the 1970s and posed both an intellectual challenge to economists and a policymaking challenge to government officials.

Old Northwest

Territories acquired by the federal government from the states, encompassing land northwest of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and south of the Great Lakes. The well-organized management and sale of the land in the territories under the land ordinances of 1785 and 1787 established a precedent for handling future land acquisitions.

H. Ross Perot

Texas billionaire businessman who ran populist campaigns for the presidency in 1992 and 1996. In 1992, he garnered 19 percent of the popular vote, probably throwing the election to Bill Clinton. His campaigns represented anti- establishment sentiment and desires for "common sense" governance.

Goliad

Texas outpost where American volunteers, having laid down their arms and surrendered, were massacred by Mexican forces in 1836.

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

The 1964 congressional action that became a "blank check" for the Vietnam War

Iranian hostage crisis

The 444 days, from November 1979 to January 1981, in which American embassy workers were held captive by Iranian revolutionaries. The Iranian revolution began in January 1979 when young Muslim fundamentalists overthrew the oppressive regime of the American-backed shah, forcing him into exile. Deeming the United States "the Great Satan," these revolutionaries triggered an energy crisis by cutting off Iranian oil. The hostage crisis began when revolutionaries stormed the American embassy, demanding that the United States return the shah to Iran for trial. The episode was marked by botched diplomacy and a failed rescue attempt by the Carter administration. After permanently damaging relations between the two countries, the crisis ended with the hostages' release the day Ronald Reagan became president, January 20, 1981.

Cold War

The 45 year tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that divided much of the world into polarized camps, capitalist against communist. Most of the international conflicts during that period, particularly in the developing world, can be traced to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Stalin

The Allied leader who constantly pressured the U.S. a nd Britain to open a "second front" against Hitler

Eighteenth Amendment

This constitutional amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages, ushering in the era known as prohibition.

Treaty of Greenville

Under the terms of the treaty, the Miami Confederacy agreed to cede territory in the Old Northwest to the United States in exchange for cash payment, hunting rights, and formal recognition of their sovereign status.

John Pope

Union general whose cocky attitude towards General Robert E. Lee led to his forces crushing defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Monitor

Union ironclad whose successes against wooden ships signaled an end to wooden warships. Fought a historic though inconsequential battle against the Confederacy's ironclad, Merrimack, in 1862.

Ulysses S. Grant

Union military commander who won victories where others had failed; defeated Robert E. Lee

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

United States anarchist (born in Italy) who with Nicola Sacco was convicted of murder and in spite of world-wide protest was executed (1888-1927)

Charles A. Lindbergh

United States aviator who in 1927 made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean (1902-1974)

Frederick Jackson Turner

United States historian who stressed the role of the western frontier in American history (1861-1951).

Alexander Graham Bell

United States inventor of the telephone, born in Scotland (1847-1922)

Howe

United States inventor who built early sewing machines and won suits for patent infringement against other manufacturers (including Isaac M. Singer) (1819-1867)

Perry

United States naval commodore who led the fleet that defeated the British on Lake Erie during the War of 1812; helped seize control of the vital Great Lakes

William Seward

United States politician who, as Secretary of State in 1867, arranged for the purchase of Alaska from Russia (Seward's Folly).

John Dewey

United States pragmatic philosopher who advocated progressive education (1859-1952).

Mark Twain

United States writer and humorist best known for his novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1835-1910)

Hill

University of Oklahoma law professor who charged Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment during bitter 1991 Supreme Court hearings

James Fenimore Cooper

Wrote numerous sea-stories as well as the historical romances known as the Leather Stocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, which many people consider to be his masterpiece

Daniel Webster

Yale graduate known as "Schoolmaster of the Republic" for creating improved textbooks

Berlin airlift

Year-long mission of flying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners, whom the Soviet Union cut in the first major crisis of the Cold War.

Nixon

Young California congressman whose investigation of Alger Hiss spurred fears of communist influence in America

factory girls

Young women employed in the growing factories of the early nineteenth century; they labored long hours in difficult conditions, living in socially new conditions away from farms and families.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Youth organization founded by southern black students in 1960 to promote civil rights. Drawing on its members' youthful energies, SNCC in its early years coordinated demonstrations, sit-ins, and voter registration drives.

Braddock

a 60 year old officer experienced in European warfare who was sent to Virginia with a strong detachment of British regulars during the French and Indian War; set out in 1755 with 2,000 or so men to capture Fort Duquesne; moved slowly; British suffered appalling losses because of the inexperience of the colonial regulars

Lord Sheffield

a Founding Father; wrote a popular pamphlet in England that said Britain would win back America's trade and that commerce would naturally follow old channels

multiculturalism

creed started in the 1970s and built on cultural pluralists like Kallen and Bourne of early 1900s

Black Hawk

a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the United States; inherited an important historic medicine bundle, but was not one of the Sauk's hereditary civil chiefs; sttus came from leading war parties as a young man, and from his leadership of a band of Sauks during the Black Hawk War of 1832

trust

a mechanism by which one company grants control over its operations, through ownership of its stock, to another company. The Standard Oil Company became known for this practice in the 1870s as it eliminated its competition by taking control of smaller companies

rigshout

dance of shuffling in a circle while answering preacher's shouts

American Federation of Labor

a national federation of trade unions that included only skilled workers, founded in 1886. Led by Samuel Gompers for nearly 4 decades, this sought to negotiate with employers for a better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers with better wages, hours, and conditions. Their membership was mostly white and male until the middle of the 20th century

Webster

a nationalist from New Hampshire; involved in the Webster-Haynes debate over states' rights; served as the Secretary of State under the Tyler administration; ran for the Presidency in 1836 as a member of the Whig party where he lost to Martin Van Buren; America's greatest orator

John Peter Zenger

a newspaper printer who assailed the corrupt royal governor and was charged with seditious libel; defended by a former indentured servant: Andrew Hamilton, who argued that he had printed the truth; Hamilton's eloquence swayed the opinions of the jurors who then voted Zenger "not guilty"

Sam Houston

a nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier; best known for his leading role in bringing Texas into the United States

F. Scott Fitzgerald

a novelist and chronicler of the jazz age. his wife, zelda and he were the "couple" of the decade but hit bottom during the depression. his noval THE GREAT GATSBY is considered a masterpiece about a gangster's pursuit of an unattainable rich girl.

Samuel Chase

a strong supporter of the American Revolution; a signer of the Declaration of Independence; an ardent Federalist; the only Supreme Court Justice ever to be impeached in 1804, for alleged prejudice against the Jeffersonians in treason and sedition trials, the senate, however, in a decision that indicated reluctance to remove judges for purely political reasons, did not convict him, and he remained on the court until his death; a lawyer by profession, in 1796 he was appointed to the US Supreme Court by president Washington after he served as Chief Justice of the General Court of Maryland in 1791;

closed shop

a union-organized that refers to the practice of allowing only unionized employees to work for a particular company. The AFL became known for doing this with employers, in which the employer would agree not to hire nonunion members

Copely

actually became a famous painter, but had to go to England to complete their training and find subjects willing to sit for portraits and pay money for them; considered a Loyalist during the Revolutionary War

Stowe

advocated against brutal slave auctions in Uncle Tom's Cabin

Catlin

advocated for a national park system after witnessing Sioux Indians slaughter buffalo for whiskey trade. Ideas later resulted in creation of Yellowstone Park in 1872

Trumbull

aspiring painter of Connecticut; discouraged by his father's words "Connecticut is not Athens"; forced to travel to London to pursue his ambitions

Guiteau

assassinated Garfield

Brown

assisted Slater financially in building the first American machinery for spinning cotton thread

Taylor

attacked by Mexican troops at Rio Grande; later won the hard battle of Buena Vista and gained large influence

Samuel Adams

attended the Continental Congress; ringleader at Lexington and Concord; propagandist and engineer of rebellion; organized committees of correspondance

Tilden

attorney that gained fame after prosecuting Tweed; ran for president in 1876 on the Democrats side

Paine

author of Common Sense; set the foundation for American independence as well as American foreign policy; argued that all government officials should derive their authority from popular consent; heavily advocated for a republican form of government where power came from the people and not from a monarch

Bryan

became Democratic nominee for the election of 1896 after his sensational "Cross of Gold" speech; advocated for radical coinage of silver

Root

became Secretary of War and established a general staff of the army and War College

Social Darwinism/ Darwinists

believes in the idea, popular in the late 19th century, that people gained wealth by "survival of the fittest". Therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process. Some also applied this theory to whole nations and races, explaining that powerful people were naturally endowed with gifts that allowed them to gain superiority over others. This theory provided one of the popular justifications for US imperial ventures like the Spanish-American War

Franklin

born in Boston came to Philadelphia at 17 in 1720

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

brilliant feminist writer who advocated cooperative cooking and child care arrangements to promote women's economic independence and equality

Mother Ann Lee

brought Shakers from England to NY

National Road

built by government and stretched from Maryland to Illinois; later extended from Baltimore to Mississippi

Crawford

candidate from Georgia who suffered from a paralytic stroke which took him out of the 1824 election

Wolfe

chosen by William Pitt to lead expedition against Québec; sent a detachment up a poorly guarded part of the rocky eminence protecting Québec; French were defeated and the city surrendered

Buffalo

city that surpassed New Orleans in handling most western produce due to new transportation systems

Nullies vs. Unionists

clashed in South Carolina over issue of tariffs

tar, pitch, rosin

colonial naval stores

St. Leger

commander of small British force which attacked from Lake Ontario and the Mohawk Valley

Matthew C. Perry

commodore in 1852 sent by Pres. Fillmore to Japan who achieved the Japanese signature of the Treaty of Kanagawa

Slidell

compromiser rejected by Santa Anna who offered 25 million for California

Hudson's Bay Company

conducted fur trade near the Columbia River fro the British

Yellowstone & Yosemite

conservative national parks created after the frontier line was no longer discernible

Guantanamo Bay

controversial prison, located on the land occupied but not technically owned by the US

Henry George

controversial reformer whose book, Progress and Poverty, advocated solving problems of economic inequality by a tax on land

jayle birds

convicts that were not all criminals

Daguerrre

created photographs

Glidden

created the barb wire

Scott

elite southerner who tried to revive feudal society and medieval practices like jousting

headright system

employed in the tobacco colonies to encourage the importation of indentured servants, the system allowed an individual to acquire fifty acres of land if he paid for a laborer's passage to the colony

Wheatley

enslaved poet; female; brought to Boston at age 8 and never formally educated; taken to England at 20 years old where she published a book of verse and subsequently wrote other polished poems that revealed the influence of Alexander Pope; she is remarkable because she overcame her severely disadvantaged background to release poetry

Tappan brothers

financially aided Weld in his trip to Lane Theological Seminary

Ferraro

first woman to be nominated to a major party ticket as democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1984

von Steuben

foreign advisor who helped train American soldiers during the Revolution

Cadillac

founded Detroit "City of Straits"

Salle

founded Luisiana in the Mississippi Basin

Gray

founded the Columbia River

James Madison

fourth president; Secretary of State; lead nation through War of 1812

Emily Dickinson

gifted but isolated New England poet, the bulk of whose works were not published until after her death

Gates

given credit for Battle of Saratoga

Reed

got rid of mosquitos in Cuba

Taft

governor at Philippines who became attached to "little brown brothers"

Hayne

governor of SC who passed the ordinance of nullification in retaliation to Jackson

William Berkeley

governor of Viginia who monopolized the fur trade, held friendly policies toward the Indians that were resented by the colonists, and refused to retaliate against a series of brutal Indian attacks, which led to Bacon's Rebellion, which was later crushed by him

Andros

governor who curbed popular assemblies, taxed residents, and enforced Navigation Laws

Hickok

gunman and cowboy of Abilene

Champlain

intrepid soldier and explorer whose energy and leadership earned him the title "Father of New France"; led groups to Québec where the beginnings of a vast empire were established for the French; had friendly relations with the nearby Huron Indian tribes

Whitney

invented the cotton gin and interchangeable parts for the muskeet

Fulton

invented the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clermont, in the United States

twine binder and combined reaper-thresher

inventions that increased production of wheat

Penn's Valley Forge

iron factories that were numerous but smaller than England's

King George III

king of Britain during the Revolution; Declaration of Independence was directed specifically at him

Granger Laws

laws that pushed for public control of private business for general welfare

Henry Clay

lawyer, politician, and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives

Custer

leader of the 7th Cavalry that was destroyed by the Sioux in Montana

William Ladd

leader of the American Peace Society who called for international peace organizations; plans failed because of the Crimean and Civil War

Mao Zedong

leader of the Chinese Communists whose revolutionary army seized power in China in 1949

Osceola

leader of the Seminoles

Walter Rauschenbusch

leading Protestant advocate of the social gospel who tried to make Christianity relevant to urban and industrial problems

Podhoretz

leading neoconservative intellectual who attacked excesses of 1960s liberalism and provided ideological support for Ronald Reagan

Blaine

led Half-Breeds

Patrick Henry

led antifederalist movement in Massachusetts

Half-Breeds

led by Blaine (split from the Republican party)

Stalwarts

led by Conkling (split from the Republican party

Decatur

led navy against Caribbean pirates after War of 1812

Vesey

led rebellion in SC

Kelley

led the Grange and encouraged the farmers to socialize

Andrew Carnegie

led the expansion of the American steel in the late 19th century, one of the richest Americans ever

Gabriel

led uprising in Virginia; foiled and hanged

Robert F. Kennedy

little brother of JFK, part of the youngest cabinet

T.S. Eliot

wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men;" British WWI poet, playwright, and literary critic

Sand Creek, Colorado

location of an Indian massacre led by Chivington

Central Valley, California

location of large agricultural business

Resumption Act of 1875

lowered the amount of greenbacks and redeemed paper was decreased

Lancaster Turnpike

made by a private company and stretched for Pennsylvania to Lancaster

Hamilton

made radical proposal of super powerful central government

Cherokee National Council

made written constitution and wrote legal code

"North American Review"

magazine that expressed nationalistic feelings

Burgoyne

main invading force on assault on Albany; surrendered at Saratoga; British actor-playwright-soldier

Monticello

mansion built by Jefferson

indentured servants

migrants who, in exchange for transatlantic passage, bound themselves to a colonial employer for a term of service, typically four to seven years; their migration addressed the chronic labor shortage in the colonies and facilitated settlement

Grand Army of the Republic

military veteran group that supported Republicans

Boston Port Act

most drastic of the Intolerable Acts

Silliman

most influential scientist of the nineteenth century; taught at Yale College

Simms

most noteworthy literary figure produced by South before Civil War

Samuel Gompers

most significant person in history of the American labor movement. Founded the American Federation of Labor and served as its first president for 40 years

Crispus Attucks

mulatto (half black half white man) killed in the Boston Massacre; became an icon of the anti-slavery movement

James Wilkinson

one of the Commissioners appointed to receive the Louisiana Purchase from the French; served as Governor of Louisiana from 1805-1806; informed President Jefferson of Burr's conspiracy to take over Louisiana, and was the primary witness against Burr at his treason trial, even though he was implicated in the plot

Rochester and Syracuse

new cities that arose due to the Erie Canal

Dodge City, Abilene, Cheyenne

notable terminal points of the Long Drive

emerging of third party and national nominating conventions

novelty of election of 1832

Jeremiad

often-fiery sermons lamenting the waning piety of parishioners first delivered in New England in the mid-seventeenth century; named after the doom-saying Old Testament prophet Jeremiah

Marshall

one of the men sent to the XYZ Affair; later became chief justice

Society for Propagating the Gospel Among Indians

organization which helped civilize and Christianize the Indians

Nathaniel Hawthorne

originally a transcendentalist; later rejected them and became a leading anti-transcendentalist. He was a descendant of Puritan settlers. The Scarlet Letter shows the hypocrisy and insensitivity of New England Puritans by showing their cruelty to a woman who had committed adultery and was forced to wear a scarlet "A"

Divorce Bill

passed by Van Buren to separate government and banking

Dey of Algiers

pirate who attacked Mediterranean commerce of Yankees

Manila

place in the Philippines where a Spanish fleet was wrecked by Dewey's American Asiatic Squadron (Roosevelt's Command)

Annapolis

place of the first Constitutional Convention called by Virginia

El Alamein

place were Rommel was halted by Montgomery

New Orleans

place where Americans lynched Italians and therefore had to pay compensation in order to prevent conflict

Dakota and Oklahoma

places were government herded Indians through the reservation system

Virginia, Massachusetts, Penn, North Carolina, Maryland

popular colonies in order

Gibraltar

port Spain hoped to receive with its alliance with France

Emerson

portrayed "rugged individualism" in his lecture "Self-Reliance"

Long Drive

practice of moving cattle from cities to railroads

Al Gore

president Clinton's loyal vice president who won the most popular votes but lost the election of 2000

Franklin Pierce

president from 1853-1857, from Democratic National Convention, from New Hampshire, won by a landslide in electoral college

Jay, Madison, Hamilton

printed articles for "The Federalist"

social work

profession established by Addams and others that opened new doors for women while engaging in urban problems

American Slavery As It Is

propaganda pamphlet made by Weld

Henry Lee

proposed move for independence

Cooper

wrote about Bumppo, American Revolution, & the sea

Protestant Episcopal Church

reformed version of the Anglican Church

Fredrick the Great

repelled forces in Pruissa

Daniel Shays

veteran of the American Revolution; captain; condemned to death as a result of leading the Rebellion but later pardoned; a Founding Father

Defense of Marriage Act

ruled unconstitutional, this law prohibited same sex marriage

New Amsterdam

run for Dutch Company in interest of stockholders and had no enthusiasm for religion or democracy

voyageurs

same thing as coureurs de bois

Carlisle Indian School

school in Penn that "civilized" Native American children

Halifax-Quabec

seaport along which Britain wanted to build a road in the disputed Maine boundary

Austrialian ballot

secret ballot

Congregational Church

self-governing Puritan congregations without the hierarchical establishment of the Anglican Church

Ashburton

sent by London Foregin Office to make a compromise on the Maine boundary with Webster

Franklin

sent to Paris as an envoy and also to negotiate the Model Treaty with France; was deliberately undiplomatic and plainly dressed; this allowed the French to view him as a "specimen of a new democratic social order"

Franklin, Adams, & Jay

sent to consult with French allies by Congress

slave codes

set of laws defining racial slavery beginning in 1662, including establishing the hereditary nature of slavery, and legally limiting the rights and learning of slaves

Bowie & Crockett

slain heroes in Texas' war for independence

Gordon

slave trader that was executed for smuggling slaves

Thurmond

southern segregationist who led Dixiecrat presidential campaign against Truman in 1948

Greenback Labor Party

started as a result of the hard money Policies and contraction

Jonathan Edwards

started the Great Awakening in Northampton Massachusetts; preached the severe, pre-deterministic doctrines of Calvinism and became famous for his graphic depictions of Hell

Fort Duquesne

strategic French stronghold; renamed after a great British statesman

Phillips

strict abolitionist

Schwartzkopf

successful commander of American forces in the First Persian Gulf War

Taney

successor of Marshall; chief justice who ruled in favor of new businesses and helped create new entrepreneurial possibilities while decreasing monopolies of state charters

Dingley Tariff Bill (1897)

tariff bill proposing new high rates after McKinley's election

Pitt

the "Great Commoner"; drew his strength from the common people who admired him deeply; believed in his cause, country, and self with a passion; became a foremost leader in the London government in 1757; earned the title "Organizer of Victory"; decided to soft petal assaults on the French West Indies and focus on the Québec-Montréal area instead; picked young and energetic leaders rather than incompetent and cautious older generals; responsible for British victory against Louisbourg in 1758

Prescott

wrote about conquests of Mexico and Peru

Robert R. Livingston

the US minister to France from 1801 to 1804; negotiated the purchase of the Louisiana Territory

Tiananmen Square

the central location in Beijing, China, where demonstrators demanding greater freedom and democracy were brutally crushed by government tanks in spring 1989

38th parallel

the dividing line between north and south korea, across which the fighting between communists and united nations forces ebbed and flowed during the korean war

Martin Van Buren

the eighth President of the United States; prior to his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

the highest protective tariff in the peacetime history of the United States, passed as a result of good old fashioned horse trading. o the outside world, it smacked of ugly economic warfare

Taliban

the international terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden

Neal S. Dow

the mayor of Portland, Maine who, in 1851, sponsored a law that helped earn his nickname "Father of Prohibition"

William Henry Harrison

the ninth president of the United States; an American military officer and politician and the first president to die in office

interlocking directorate

the practice of having executives or directors from one company serve on the board of directors of another company. J.P. Morgan introduced this practice to eliminate banking competition in the 1890s

vertical integration

the practice perfected by Andrew Carnegie of controlling every step of the industrial production process in order to increase efficiency and limit competition

horizontal integration

the practice perfected by John D. Rockefeller of dominating a particular phase of the production process in order to monopolize a market, often by farming trusts and alliances with competitors

social gospel

the religious doctrines preached by those who believed that the churches should directly address economic and social problems

John Quincy Adams

the sixth president of the UNited States; a republican from Massachusetts who was the first minority president; served only one term (four years from 1824 to 1828); could never gain the support of the Americans because he was a minority president; in favor of funding national research and appointed Henry Clay as his Secretary of State; during his presidency, the National Republicans were formed in support of him; essentially chosen by the House of Representatives

Thomas Jefferson

third president; leader of Democratic-Republicans; hated Hamilton with a passion; Anti-Federalist; created Jeffersonian republicanism; first president to take office in Washington DC

Alfred E. Smith

this American Democratic politician ran against Herbert Hoover during the election of 1928. Because he was both Catholic and anti-Prohibition, he divided the Democratic voting base and lost the election.

Goering

top nazi official who committed suicide after being convicted in war crimes trials

middle passage

transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies; mortality rates were notoriously high

Cheyenne and Sioux

transformed themselves into nomadic traders and hunters with horses

Lane Theological Seminary

trip for which the Tappan brothers paid for for Weld

Spain and Holland

two countries that joined the war siding against the British

National Republicans vs. Democratic Republicans

two parties that rallied in the election of 1828

Irving and Cooper

two writers who spurred nationalism after War of 1812

George Washington

unanimously drafted as president by the Electoral College in 1789; hoped to extend the powers of the government in order to create institutions that could strengthen the new country;

Breecher

urged women to enter the teaching profession

compact theory

used to depict that stated made the fed gov so therefore they can nullify its acts (pro-Jeffersonians)

Calhoun

vice president during Jackson's terms and a political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century; wrote anonymously "The South Carolina Exposition" denouncing tariffs and proposing nullification

John D. Rockefeller

was an American oil industry businessman, head of Standard Oil Company

Robert S. McNamara

was the secretary of defense under Kennedy. He helped develop the flexible response policy. He was against the war in Vietnam and was removed from office because of this.

Osama bin Laden

wealthy Saudi Arabian exile who formed a global terrorist network that assulted the United States

Henry Adams

well connected and socially prominent historian who feared modern trends and sought relief in the beauty and culture of the past

Freedmen's Savings & Trust Company

went bankrupt in the Panic of 1873

Stephen C.Foster

white Pennsylvanian who wrote the most famous black songs; went to the south one time in 1852; contributed to American folk music by capturing the painful spirit of slaves; lost his art and popularity and died in a charity ward as a drunkard

Abigail Adams

wife of John Adams who stood up for women during the Revolution

John Hancock

won his fortune by smuggling; rebel ring leader at Lexington and Concord

Irving

won international recognition as literature figure

Louis D. Brandeis

wrote the book Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use it. Further showed the problems of the American banking system. Wilson nominated him to the supreme court making him the first jew in that position.

Nathaniel Bacon

young Virginia planter who led a rebellion against Governor William Berkeley in 1676 to protest Berkeley's refusal to protect frontier settlers from Indian attacks

H. L. Mencken

young author; published the monthly American Mercury; assailed marriage, patriotism, democracy, prohibition, Rotarians, and the middle class Americans; dismissed the South and attacked the Puritans

Hutchinson

believed in antinomianism

Wigglesworth

wrote "Day of Doom" in 1662 about fate of the damned

John Calvin

wrote "Institutes of the Christian Religion" in 1536

noche triste

"Sad night", when the Aztecs attacked Hernán Cortés and his forces in the Aztec capital, Tenochitlán, killing hundreds. Cortés laid siege to the city the following year, precipitating the fall of the Aztec Empire and inaugurating three centuries of Spanish rule.

Henry VIII

(1491-1547) King of England from 1509 to 1547; his desire to annul his marriage led to a conflict with the pope, England's break with the Roman Catholic Church, and its embrace of Protestantism. Henry established the Church of England in 1532.

pope's rebellion

Pueblo Indian rebellion that drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico

Hiawatha

A Mohawk leader who called members of five groups together forming the Iroquis Confederacy around 1570.

Francisco Coronado

A Spanish soldier and commander; in 1540, he led an expedition north from Mexico into Arizona; he was searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold, but only found Adobe pueblos.

Act of Toleration

A legal document that allowed all Christian religions in Maryland: Protestants invaded the Catholics in 1649 around Maryland: protected the Catholics religion from Protestant rage of sharing the land: Maryland became the #1 colony to shelter Catholics in the New World.

Father Junipero Serra

A major Canadian Franciscan friar that founded the mission chain in California. He was a great promoter of the spread of Christianity because of his missions.

Pocahontas

A native Indian of America, daughter of Chief Powahatan, who was one of the first to marry an Englishman, John Rolfe, and return to England with him; about 1595-1617; Her brave actions in saving an Englishman paved the way for many positive English and Native relations.

Blue Laws

Also known as sumptuary laws, they are designed to restrict personal behavior in accord with a strict code of morality. Blue laws were passed across the colonies, particularly in Puritan New England and Quaker Pennsylvania.

black legend

False notion that Spanish conquerors did little but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the name of Christ.

Isabella of Castile

Along with Ferdinand of Aragon, monarch of largest Christian kingdoms in Iberia; marriage to Ferdinand created united Spain; responsible for reconquest of Granada, initiation of exploration of New World.

Ferdinand of Aragon

Along with Isabella of Castile, monarch of largest Christian kingdoms in Iberia; marriage to Isabella created united Spain; responsible for reconquest of Granada, initiation of exploration of New World.

Sir Walter Raleigh

An English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the Americas. In 1585, he sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. It failed and is known as " The Lost Colony."

Christopher Columbus

An Italian explorer responsible for the European discovery of America in 1492. He had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, under the patronage of the king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, hoping to find a westward route to India.

Iroquois Confederacy

An alliance of five northeastern Amerindian peoples (after 1722 six) that made decisions on military and diplomatic issues through a council of representatives. Allied first with the Dutch and later with the English, it dominated W. New England.

English Civil War (1642-1651)

Armed conflict between royalists and parliamentarians, resulting in the victory of pro-Parliament forces and the execution of Charles I.

Powhatan

Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy and father to Pocahontas. At the time of the English settlement of Jamestown in 1607, he was a friend to John Smith and John Rolfe. When Smith was captured by Indians, Powhatan left Smith's fate in the hands of his warriors. His daughter saved John Smith, and the Jamestown colony. Pocahontas and John Rolfe were wed, and there was a time of peace between the Indians and English until Powhatan's death.

Calvinism

Dominant theological credo of the New England Puritans based on the teachings of John Calvin. Calvinists believed in predestination—that only "the elect" were destined for salvation.

Fundamental Orders (1639)

Drafted by settlers in the Connecticut River Valley, document was the first "modern constitution" establishing a democratically controlled government. Key features of the document were borrowed for Connecticut's colonial charter and later, its state constitution.

Sir Francis Drake

English explorer/pirate who circumnavigated the globe from 1577 to 1580 and was sent by Queen Elizabeth I to raid Spanish ships/settlements for gold

Puritans

English Protestant reformers who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic rituals and creeds. Some of the most devout Puritans believed that only "visible saints" should be admitted to church membership.

Roanoke Island

English colony that Raleigh planted on an island off North Carolina in 1585; the colonists who did not return to England disappeared without a trace in 1590

barbados slave code

Established in 1661, it gave masters virtually complete control over their slaves including the right to inflict vicious punishments for even slight infractions.

battle of acoma

Fought between Spaniards under Don Juan de Oñate and the Pueblo Indians in present-day New Mexico. Spaniards brutally crushed the Pueblo peoples and established the territory as New Mexico in 1609

Lord Baltimore

Founded the colony of Maryland and offered religious freedom to all Christian colonists. He did so because he knew that members of his own religion (Catholicism) would be a minority in the colony.

James Oglethorpe

Founder and governor of the Georgia colony. He ran a tightly-disciplined, military-like colony. Slaves, alcohol, and Catholicism were forbidden in his colony. Many colonists felt that Oglethorpe was a dictator, and that (along with the colonist's dissatisfaction over not being allowed to own slaves) caused the colony to break down and Oglethorpe to lose his position as governor.

Buffer

Georgia was started as a barrier to keep out, French, Spanish and Indians from the other colonies

Conversion

Intense religious experience that confirmed an individual's place among the "elect," or the "visible saints." Calvinists who experienced conversion were then expected to lead sanctified lives to demonstrate their salvation.

aztecs

Native American empire that controlled present-day Mexico until 1521, when they were conquered by Spanish Hernán Cortés. The Aztecs maintained control over their vast empire through a system of trade and tribute, and came to be known for their advances in mathematics and writing, and their use of human sacrifices in religious ceremonies.

Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution (1688)

Relatively peaceful overthrow of the unpopular Catholic monarch, James II, replacing him with Dutch-born William III and Mary, daughter of James II. William and Mary accepted increased Parliamentary oversight and new limits on monarchical authority.

Quakers

Religious group known for their tolerance, emphasis on peace, and idealistic Indian policy, who settled heavily in Pennsylvania in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Protestant Reformation

Religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church beginning in 1519. It resulted in the 'protesters' forming several new Christian denominations, including the Lutheran and Reformed Churches and the Church of England.

Navigation Laws

Series of laws passed, beginning in 1651, to regulate colonial shipping; the acts provided that only English ships would be allowed to trade in English and colonial ports, and that all goods destined for the colonies would first pass through England.

treaty of tordesillas

Signed by Spain and Portugal, dividing the territories of the New World. Spain received the bulk of territory in the Americas, compensating Portugal with titles to lands in Africa and Asia.

conquistadores

Sixteenth-century Spaniards who fanned out across the Americas, from Colorado to Argentina, eventually conquering the Aztec and Incan empires.

Separatists

Small group of Puritans who sought to break away entirely from the Church of England; after initially settling in Holland, a number of English Separatists made their way to Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts in 1620.

Hernan Cortes

Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs and conquered Mexico

encomienda

Spanish government's policy to "commend", or give, Indians to certain colonists in return for the promise to Christianize them. Part of a broader Spanish effort to subdue Indian tribes in the West Indies and on the North American mainland.

Gorges

attempted to colonize Maine (1623)

Williams

called for break from Church of England and questioned the Bay Colony charter (1635 exiled)

Captain Standish

captain on the Mayflower that set sail from Holland in 1620

Cotton

clergy (educated at Cambridge) who defended government's duty to enforce religious rules

New Haven

failed to be set up as a bustling seaport after sheltering two outlaws; became merged into Connecticut

canadian shield

first part of the North American landmass to emerge above sea level

Winthrop

governor of Bay Colony who helped colony prosper through fur trading and shipbuilding; only allowed Puritans church membership

Bradford

governor of the Plymouth colony

plantation

large-scale agricultural enterprise growing commercial crops and usually employing coerced or slave labor. European settlers established plantations in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and the American South.

Hooker

led Boston Puritans into Hartford to form Connecticut in 1636 also created the Fundamental Orders

Laud

made anti-Puritan persecutions which were sanctioned by Charles I

mestizos

people of mixed Indian and European heritage, notably in Mexico

primogeniture

right of inheritance belongs exclusively to the eldest son

caravel

small regular vessel with a high deck and three triangular sails. they could sail more closely into the wind, allowing European sailors to explore the Western shores of Africa, previously made inaccessible due to prevailing winds on the homeward journey.

Spanish Armada

the Spanish fleet that attempted to invade England, ending in disaster, due to the raging storm in the English Channel as well as the smaller and better English navy led by Francis Drake. This is viewed as the decline of Spains Golden Age, and the rise of England as a world naval power.

James I

the first Stuart to be king of England and Ireland from 1603 to 1625 and king of Scotland from 1567 to 1625; he was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and he succeeded Elizabeth I; helped fun the Virginia Company

House of Burgesses

the first law-making assembly in an English colony

nation-states

the term commonly describes those societies in which political legitimacy and authority overlay a large degree of cultural commonality