The Civil War era (1844-1877) & The Gilded Age (1865-1898)

The Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sanford, which declared that black Americans were not US citizens, was ultimately overruled by

the Fourteenth Amendment.

Abraham Lincoln, who was elected president in 1860, represented

the anti-slavery Republican Party.

White Southerners choosing to fire on Union-held Fort Sumter is considered to be

the official start of the Civil War.

During Reconstruction, the derogatory term scalawag was applied to

white Republicans who sympathized with African Americans in the South.

How did the American Federation of Labor, the union group that gained popularity after the failed Knights of Labor, differ from that organization?

American Federation of Labor organized by craft; skilled workers performing the same trade banded together.

In the Homestead Strike of 1892, the manager of Homestead Steelworks locked union steelworkers out of his plant. As a result, the union workers went on strike. A gun battle ensued between the union members and a group of armed men Homestead had hired. The dispute was ultimately resolved when 6,000 state troops reopened the plant.

Big businesses like Homestead were anti-Union. Unions served to protect workers' rights, including working hours and conditions, which slowed production.

The possibility of great wealth suddenly arose during the Gold Rush. How did this change the racial dynamics of California?

Competition over mining claims led to xenophobia and racial violence against immigrants.

The eleven states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61 formed a new political entity called the

Confederate States of America.

What was one consequence of the implementation of Black Codes across the South immediately following the Civil War?

Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law

The Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in 1868, stipulates that

Everyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen and entitled to equal protection under the law.

What did James Marshall discover when he was overseeing the construction of a California sawmill in 1848?

Gold! The discovery set off the Gold Rush of 1849.

Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency thanks to the Compromise of 1877. What was the Compromise?

Hayes, a Republican, would become president in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South.

In 1870, Mississippian Hiram Revels became a US Senator, occupying the seat recently vacated by Confederate president Jefferson Davis. What was unique about Revels?

He was the first African American Senator in US history.

What was "popular sovereignty" in the context of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Popular sovereignty left it up to the citizens living in each territory to decide whether that territory would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state.

What did John Brown believe about slavery and abolition?

Slavery could only be abolished through violent means: armed uprising.

Upon meeting her, why did Abraham Lincoln (allegedly) say to Harriet Beecher Stowe, "So you're the little lady who started this great war!"

Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin had brought abolitionist sentiment into the mainstream, increasing sectional tension to the breaking point.

In 1874, Atlanta newspaper editor Henry Grady proposed an economic plan to achieve what he called the "New South." What did he suggest?

That the South abandon its agrarian economy for a modern economy grounded in factories, mines, and mills

What was one of the major problems surrounding Jim Crow laws in the South, which mandated racial segregation in "separate but equal" accommodations for African Americans?

The "equal" accommodations were not actually equal and African Americans had vastly inferior and underfunded resources made available to them.

Under the Dawes Act of 1887, how would Native Americans be eligible for American citizenship?

They would have to disavow tribal practices and cultivate a parcel of land in the settler's fashion.

What consequences did members of the 7th US Cavalry undergo for participating in the massacre at Wounded Knee?

Twenty US Army personnel were awarded the Medal of Honor, and the event was generally regarded as favorable by the American public.

William Lloyd Garrison created The Liberator, which was

an abolitionist newspaper.

Financial crises like the Panic of 1873, which caused prices of agricultural products to tank, led to

farmers and sharecroppers organizing activist groups to protect their interests.

The goal of the Populist political party, an agrarian-based organization, was to

fight for farmers' rights and against the monopolies of big businesses and banks.

The Emancipation Proclamation

freed all enslaved people living in territories then in rebellion against the United States.

Implemented in states across the South after the Civil War, Black Codes

legally barred African Americans from voting, owning firearms, or traveling without a pass.

Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster opposed the "Great Nullifier" John Calhoun, calling instead for

national unity.

The terror campaigns of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction demonstrate

ongoing resistance to racial equality and Republican rule in the South after the Civil War.

After the Civil War, many free black Americans were forced by economic necessity into a system called sharecropping, where they rented land from their former slave owners and

paid rent on the land by giving part of their crop yield back to the landowner.

By repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which drew the horizontal line of slavery across the West along the 36 30' parallel, the Kansas-Nebraska Act

reopened the possibility of slavery to expand to new territories north of the Missouri Compromise line.

The antislavery American Colonization Society planned to deal with the issue of slavery by

sending slaves to a colony on the west coast of Africa.

"Peculiar institution" is a euphemism for

slavery.

Andrew Johnson, who ascended to the presidency after Lincoln's assassination, treated Southern states

Leniently; he pardoned many former Confederates and had their land restored, and he put a premium on states' rights.

Why did actor John Wilkes Booth assassinate Abraham Lincoln?

Lincoln gave a speech announcing his intention to extend citizenship to African Americans, and Booth was a Southern sympathizer and racist.

Why did some people frown on Lincoln's appearance and speech at Gettysburg at the time?

They thought he was using the dedication of the cemetery for the fallen soldiers as a political opportunity.

What were the Force Acts of 1870 meant to accomplish?

They were intended to force the South to comply with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Who created the proslavery Lecompton Constitution?

"Border ruffians" from Missouri who crossed the border to vote for the legalization of slavery in Kansas

In 1896, the Supreme Court declared Jim Crow segregation legal in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by ruling that

"Separate but equal" accommodations for African Americans were constitutional.

Boss Tweed, and the corrupt Democratic Party operation he ran at Tammany Hall, is a prime example of

19th-century machine politics.

What did the Homestead Act guarantee for American citizens?

A 160-acre plot of land, in exchange for working the land for 5 years.

"Jim Crow" laws in the American South segregated the races and discriminated against African Americans. Who was Jim Crow?

A fictional stock character who often appeared in comical theatre productions known as minstrel shows

The violence at the Haymarket Square riot in Chicago led to

A growing distrust in unions, especially in the inclusive Knights of Labor, and the eventual shutdown of that organization.

The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in January 1865,

Abolished the institution of slavery in the United States.

The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to

African American men.

How did the Dawes Act challenge Native American authority?

It attempted to destroy tribal governing councils and confiscate tribal land.

What was one consequence of the Fugitive Slave Law?

It made northerners directly complicit in slavery, prompting many of them to take a firmer stance against slavery.

The Battle of Bull Run, fought in April 1861, was notable because

It was a clear Confederate victory, signaling to the United States that the Civil War would be considerably longer and more difficult than expected.

How did the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn go for the U.S. Army?

It was an utter rout; Colonel George Custer was killed and the 7th cavalry was defeated.

Which Reconstruction-era organization helped formerly-enslaved African Americans find lost family members, learn to read, and negotiate labor contracts?

The Freedmen's Bureau

What did the prophet Wovoka promise would come about as a result of the Ghost Dance?

The buffalo, hunted to near-extinction, would return; white settlers would be banished from Indian territory; and the spirits of the dead would return to aid the living in combat.

Social Darwinists took up Darwin's language of evolution and natural selection to explain what?

The differences between the rich and poor and different races. They claimed that poor people and non-whites were "less evolved."

How is this photo of John D. Rockefeller's mansion contrasted with this photo of laborers' quarters a good illustration of why this era is known as the "Gilded Age"?

The grand splendor of the wealthy few was achieved at the expense of many impoverished workers.

What major political event leading up to the Civil War took place while James Buchanan was a lame duck president?

The seven states of the Deep South seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 was a major turning point in the Civil War because

The victory of US forces ended the attempted Confederate invasion of the North.

What were Indian reservations mainly meant to accomplish?

They kept Native Americans off of lands that white Americans wanted to settle.