U.S. History Study Terms

March on Washington

1963 nonviolent demonstration at the capital to push Congress to pass a Civil Rights Act ending racial segregation (Philip A Randolph's march from 1941 now realized), site of MLK's "I have a Dream" speech

Griswold v. Connecticut

1965 Supreme Court case that decriminalized contraceptives for married couples and affirmed the right to privacy

Griswold v. Connecticut

1965 Supreme Court ruling that decriminalized contraceptives and declared that Americans have the right to privacy

Selective Service Act

Drafted soldiers for WWI

Andrew Johnson

He was Lincoln's VP and became president after the assassination. He was disliked by almost every group in the country. He opposed Republican plans for Reconstruction and opposed granting rights to freedmen

Barry Goldwater

Republican Senator from Arizona, lost against LBJ in 1964. Part of the rise of New Conservatism. Opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His platform and ideas became much more popular in the decades after, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980

Lyndon B. Johnson

Senator from TX, JFK's VP, president (1963-68), Democrat

Jospeh McCarthy/McCarthyism

Senator who accused the state department of being full of communist spies (without any evidence). This was part of the Red Scare in the early 1950s. McCarthyism has become the name for making unsubstantiated claims for the sake of gaining attention and raising fears

Black Codes

Southern states wrote these laws during the Reconstruction period in order to basically turn freedmen back into slaves.

Nikita Khrushchev

Soviet leader (Premier) after Stalin

10% Plan

This was Lincoln's plan to bring the southern states back into the union by requiring only 10% of the population to swear a loyalty oath to the Constitution. It required the new southern constitutions to ratify the 13th Amendment but not to grant any rights to African Americans

Eugene V. Debs

a labor organizer who helped lead the Pullman Strike. He went on to lead the Socialist Party and ran unsuccessfully for president five times. He was jailed during WWI for his opposition to America's involvement

Susan B. Anthony

a leader of the women's suffrage movement and of NAWSA

Thaddeus Stevens

a leading Radical Republican

Sedition Act

law that made it illegal to question or criticize the US government during war time (men like Eugene V. Debs were arrested for saying America shouldn't be fighting in WWI). This law is no longer in effect.

Espionage Act

law that made it treason to aid enemies or hinder America's ability to make war. It is still in effect today.

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

law that penalized companies for hiring undocumented immigrants and offered amnesty (legalization) to several million undocumented immigrants already in the country

Title IX

law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program that gets federal funding, whether academic or athletic

Thurgood Marshall

lawyer for the NAACP, argued the Brown case, later became the first African American Supreme Court justice

Shah of Iran

leader of Iran who the US supported and had helped maintain power for decades who was overthrown in 1979

J. Robert Oppenheimer

leader of Manhattan project

Stokely Carmichael

leader of SNCC who grew tired of repeated beatings and arrests. He turned toward the arguments of black nationalism, the teachings of Malcolm X, and the idea of Black Power

Mikhail Gorbachev

leader of the Soviet Union during the 1980s who introduced reforms like Perestroika and Glasnost

Douglas MacArthur

leader of the US efforts in the Pacific and later of the US forces during much of the Korean War

Moral Majority

led evangelical Christians to get involved in politics in the 1970s to combat what they saw as the loss of their moral values. They opposed homosexuality, secularism, the sexual revolution, abortion, divorce, and wanted to see prayer brought back to public schools. Part of the New Conservative coalition.

Blitzkrieg

lightning war (the Germans used mechanized warfare to overwhelm enemies with a combination of tanks and the airforce)

Progressive Presidents

Theodore Roosevelt (Rep), William H. Taft (Rep), and Woodrow Wilson (Dem)

Radical Republicans

These Congressmen wanted to restructure the South and break the power of white supremacy by requiring the southern states to grant civil rights to African Americans. They pushed for ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments and believed the legislative branch should be in charge of Reconstruction plans (not the President).

Black Panthers

began as a group dedicated to stopping police brutality in California, they grew to become a national party dedicated to Black Power, known for both violence and helping urban neighborhoods through running free food programs, day cares, and health clinics

Freedmen's Bureau

This federal agency was designed to provide aid (food, shelter, education, etc.) to refugees after the Civil War, and in particular the 4 million freedmen.

Dawes Severalty Act

This law "gave" 160 acres to each Native American head of household on the Great Plains and set up schools. Known as "allotment," it was intended to force the assimilation of the Indians to the United States, to dismantle their traditional culture, and to make it easier for white homesteaders to take Indian lands either by squatting or purchase

Homestead Act

This law granted 160 acres to anyone (citizen or non-citizen) who agreed to farm on the Great Plains for five years. It was designed to encourage western settlement.

George Wallace

notorious segregationist from Alabama who ran as an independent/populist/race-baiting candidate who won a surprising number of white northern suburban voters. His rise indicated the anger among white voters against the civil rights movement, liberal policies, and the anti-war movement

GI Bill

offered home loans and free college to American veterans. This was an effort to avoid a postwar depression and to create one of the most educated workforces in history. It is still in effect today.

Students for a Democratic Society

organization made up of anti-war college students

Japanese invasion of Manchuria

part of Japan's imperial expansion into China in the 1930s which became part of WWII and a source of tension with the US

War on Poverty

part of LBJ's domestic agenda was to reduce the number of Americans in poverty.

Reparations

part of the Versailles treaty that demanded Germans pay back the Allies for the damage caused by the Great War.

Progressive tax

people with more money pay a higher percentage of their income (e.g. an income tax)

Detente

period of relaxation/cooling off in tension between the US and its Cold War rivals China and the USSR (late 1960s-1970s)

Silent Majority

phrase used by Nixon to describe the many Americans who didn't protest and whom he believed still supported him and the war in Vietnam

Marshall Plan

plan to send $13 billion to western Europe to help them rebuild after WWII in order to prevent the communists from gaining popularity (part of containment policy)

Glasnost

policy of openness in which the Soviets began to make some democratic reforms such as allowing more freedom of information, criticism of the government

Perestroika

policy of restructuring the Soviet Economy to introduce markets and competition and move away from a command economy in which the government planned production/prices

The New Left

political movement in the 1960s and 70s made up mostly of student activists who protested against the Vietnam War, and for feminism, environmentalism, the rights of homosexuals, and other marginalized groups

Okies

poor farmers moved west away from the Dust Bowl and were often poorly treated

18th Amendment

prohibited the sale and manufacture of alcohol (pushed for by progressives)

Urbanization

the growth of cities (increased rapidly with the increase of immigration in the late 19th century)

Black Power

the idea of taking pride in black identify and separatism (as opposed to the pluralistic or liberal promise of integration found in the ideas of Dr. King)

Melting Pot

the idea that immigrants would come to America, shed their distinct cultures, and become like all other Americans. Many Polish-American, Jewish-American, Italian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, etc. would take issue with the idea that they had to get rid of all traditions to become "American"

Rachel Carson

wrote Silent Spring about the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment which was instrumental in starting the modern environmental movement which pushed for legislation protecting air and water

Betty Friedan

wrote The Feminine Mystique which highlighted the isolation and frustration of housewives in the 1950s and 1960s. This was key to beginning 2nd Wave Feminism

F. Scott Fitzgerald

wrote The Great Gatsby (part of the Lost Gen.)

Upton Sinclair

wrote a novel called The Jungle that drew attention to the disgusting conditions of meat packing plants.

Herbert Hoover

Republican President, conservative policies/laissez-faire

Ernest Hemingway

wrote A Farewell to Arms (part of the Lost Gen.)

Haight-Ashbury

neighborhood in San Francisco that was the center of the counter-culture movement

Sitting Bull

A leader of Sioux, he resisted forced removal onto a reservation. He was killed for his association with the Ghost Dance.

Second Wave Feminism

(as opposed to first wave which culminated in women's suffrage) In the 1960s and 70s women, inspired by the black freedom movement, fought for equal rights, including reproductive freedom, decriminalization of contraceptives, equal pay for equal work,, passage of the ERA, and an end to discrimination

Emmett Till

14 year old African American who was brutally murdered for speaking to a white woman in Mississippi. His death was part of the South's resistance to Brown v. Board and served to rally many people to the cause of civil rights (listen to Emmylou Harris' "My name is Emmett Till" if you learn better to music)

Cold War Dates

1947-1991

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

1954 Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and declared that "separate is inherently unequal." This meant that segregation in schools was now considered a violation of the 14th Amendment's protection against racial discrimination

Roe v. Wade

1973 Supreme Court case protecting a woman's right to obtain an abortion

Massacre at Wounded Knee

300 Sioux men, women, and children were killed in 1890 at Wounded Knee South Dakota. This marks the end of the "Indian Wars" on the Great Plains.

Number of FDR elections

4 (though he died during his 4th term)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A peacetime alliance for collective defense involving the US and other nations of the Atlantic designed to prevent communist aggression (part of containment policy). It is still in effect today: "an attack on one is an attack on all". The first time NATO allies invoked this motto to go to war was after Sep. 11, 2001.

Zimmerman Note

A secret telegram from Germany to Mexico offering an alliance against the U.S.

Tet Offensive

A surprise communist offensive in 1968 that made many Americans question reports by the govt and the military that the Vietnam War was being won

Compromise of 1877

After the election of 1876, Democrats agreed to give electoral college votes to Republican Rutherford B Hayes in return for the promise to remove federal troops from the South. This marks the traditional end of Reconstruction; soon after black Americans were removed from the political power, voting, or economic opportunities which had begun to appear in the decade prior.

Marcus Garvey

African American civil rights leader whose ideas were part of the development of Black Nationalism

Lend-Lease Act

America could now lend or lease war supplies to countries seen as important to its interests. Britain (later the USSR) no longer needed to pay in cash or carry the goods themselves

USS Maine

American battleship that sank in Havana, Cuba in 1898, triggering the Spanish-American War. The U.S. blamed Spain but in fact it was caused by an internal explosion

Iranain hostage crisis

Americans at the embassy in Tehran, Iran were held hostage for over a year as a result of the Iranian Revolution

Knights of Labor

An early labor union that allowed anyone to join

Lee Harvey Oswald

Assassinated JFK alleged

Martin Luther King Jr.

Baptist minister, the most prominent civil rights activist in the 1950s and 60s. Led the nonviolent movement against segregation in all forms

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Democrat from NY, influenced by progressive policies, polio survivor

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Bill Clinton's wife, put in charge of the unsuccessful effort to get health insurance to more Americans, went on to serve as a Senator from NY and as the Secretary of State under President Obama

Munich Conference

Britain and France gave Hitler permission to take the Sudetenland in return for the promise that he would cease all further aggression

Allied Powers

Britain, France, Russia

John D. Rockefeller

Built a monopoly over the oil industry

Gospel of Wealth

Carnegie's view that no one should be given charity but that wealthy people owed it to society to give back to causes that would make it possible for others to become successful (e.g. building libraries, or giving to the Princeton rowing team)

Fidel Castro

Communist leader of Cuba

Mao Zedong

Communist leader who took control of China in 1994

Spanish Civil War

Communists and supporters of a republic fought against fascists in Spain during the 1930s just before WWII. The fascists won

Woodrow Wilson

Democratic President, Progressive policies, and led the country during the First World War.

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

Congress passed this in 1964 giving LBJ the right to commit troops to Vietnam without a declaration of war)

16th Amendment

Created a federal income tax

Creation of new countries after WWI

Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Iraq

William Jefferson Clinton

Democratic governor of Arkansas, president of the US (1992-2000), balanced the federal budget, failed to pass universal healthcare, became the second president ever impeached after lying/obstructing justice when he tried to cover up an extramarital affair with an intern named Monica Lewinsky. The overall economy was very strong and he left office with high approval ratings

Harry Truman

Democratic president, took over when FDR died, saw the successful conclusion of WWII, won another term, and desegregated the military in 1948

New Deal Coalition

Democratic voters began to include industrial workers, rural farmers, Southern whites, African Americans, unions (this group mostly voted together until Southern whites left the Democratic Party during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s)

Pearl Harbor

Dec. 7, 1941 Japan attacked US base in Hawaii hoping to buy time to secure their empire. This attack brought the US into WWII (Germany declared war on US)

Jimmy Carter

Democrat from Georgia, a Baptist, who became president in 1976, emphasized human rights in his foreign policy

Richard Nixon

Eisenhower's VP, President (1968-1974), promised to win peace with honor in Vietnam, and to bring about "law and order" at home

Election of 1932

FDR (Dem) vs. Hoover (Rep) and FDR won

Arsenal of Democracy

FDR claimed US needed to be this to stop fascism from taking all of Europe (argued US needed to supply Britain and then the USSR with war supplies)

Four Freedoms

FDR laid out his post war vision; spoke of the four freedoms belonging to every human: freedom of speech/expression, freedom to worship in one's own way, freedom from want, freedom from fear

Japanese Internment

FDR signed an executive order to put over 100,000 Japanese Americans, many of whom were US citizens into concentration camps. The military claimed this was necessary to prevent sabotage, but virtually no evidence was ever produced against any of those incarcerated, many of whom lost their entire fortunes. It is now recognized that this was motivated by anti-Japanese sentiments and not war-time necessity.

Fireside chats

FDR's way of communicating his plans directly to American homes by radio

The Big Three

FDR, Churchill, Stalin

Red lining

FHA loans were not offered to any neighborhood outlined in red on maps, which corresponded to predominantly African American areas, meaning black Americans were largely excluded from loans for improving or buying a home

Charlie Chaplin

Famous movie star

Benito Mussolini

Fascist dictator of Italy in the 1930s/40s

General Francisco Franco

Fascist leader of Spain

U.S. Grant

General Grant became president after Johnson. He was a Republican who helped fight the power of the KKK. His administration was known for corruption (though not him personally)

Central Powers

Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire

Operation Barbarossa/Invasion of the U.S.S.R.

Hitler broke the non-aggression pact with Stalin and invaded in 1941

Sudetenland

Hitler demanded this region of Czechoslovakia

Invasion of Poland

Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 (Stalin took over the eastern half). This was the start of WWII in Europe

Rhienland

Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles when he moved troops into this region which bordered France

Battle of the Bulge

Hitler's last offensive (a failed attempt to push back the gains of the Allies on the 2nd Front)

Sharecropping

In this labor system, poor whites and blacks agreed to farm someone else's land in return for a share of the harvest. In time, it became nearly impossible for sharecroppers to own land of their own or pay back their debts. The system often mirrored slavery.

Thomas Edison

Inventor of the light bulb

Flexible Response

JFK worked to create more military options than just nuclear weapons

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Japanese cities and sites of the first (and last) nuclear weapons ever used against an enemy. Truman made the decision to drop the bombs.

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson/Tenure of Office Act

Johnson broke the Tenure of Office Act and became the first president to be impeached. He was found not guilty and was not removed from office

D-Day

June 6, 1944: the US, Britain, and Canada invaded the Nazi-occupied beaches of northern France (called Normandy). This opened a 2nd front against which Hitler had to fight

Great Society

LBJ's program to use the power of the federal govt to tackle large problems and improve people's lives (from civil rights, to the war on poverty, to better education, and Medicare/Medicaid)

Bolshevik Revolution

Later in 1917, a group of Marxist revolutionaries overthrew the new republic and, after a brutal civil war, set up the world's first communist society. They withdrew Russia from WWI and a few years later created the Soviet Union (USSR)

Cesar Chavez

Latino civil rights and labor activist who used strikes and boycotts to bring attention to migrant farm workers in the 1960s and 70s

Lenin

Leader of the Bolshevik party in Russia

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

MLK led this nonviolent group of clergymen who were civil rights activists.

Populism/Populist Party

Made up largely of farmers, this group wanted the government to regulate/limit the power of Railroads and to create more currency which would increase (inflate) the price of their crops

Criticisms of the New Deal (liberal and conservative)

Many liberals argued that the New Deal didn't go far enough to help those most in need. Many conservatives believed it expanded the power of the federal government too much

"Gilded Age"

Mark Twain gave this label to the late 19th century to suggest that America looked successful from the outside but had corruption and rot at its core/in govt.

Rosa Parks

NAACP activist, became famous when she refused to move seats, instrumental in the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott

Frances Perkins

Nation's first female cabinet member

NAWSA

National American Woman Suffrage Association (fought for ratification of an Amendment to grant women the right to vote)

NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (an organization that fought for equality and the rights of African Americans)

Pearl Harbor

Naval base in Hawaii

Civilian Conservation Corps

New Deal program that gave young men jobs working in conservation to build trails, improve parks, etc. (example of relief)

Tennessee Valley Authority

New Deal program that put people to work to bring electricity to the TVA (example of relief and recovery)

Saturday Night Massacre

Nixon ordered his attorney general and several other leaders of the justice department to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. Three people refused and resigned/were fired before Nixon got his way

Detente

Nixon worked to bring about this cooling off of Cold War tensions b/w the US and the USSR/China

Henry Kissinger

Nixon's Secretary of State and the author of detente

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Agreement which lowered trade barriers between the US, Canada, and Mexico. It caused job losses in some areas but led to overall economic growth and job creation

Election of 1968

Republican Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey (Dem). The Democratic convention saw violence between police and protesters and marked the end of the coalition between southern whites and the Democratic Party

"Theaters of operations"

Pacific and Europe (the two places American fought WWII)

War Guilt Clause

Part of the Versailles treaty that blamed Germany for all of WWI

Reconstruction

Period following the Civil War (1865-1877) in which the reunification of the country took place and the fight began to grant equality to former slaves

Ghost Dance

Plains Indians used this religious dance in the hopes of restoring the buffalo along with their way of life, and in the hopes that whites would leave. The U.S. military viewed it as a threat.

Hideki Tojo

Prime minister of Japan during World War II

18th Amendment

Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages

Fundamentalism

Protestants who take the Bible literally and feared the changes taking place in society during the 1920s

George H.W. Bush

Reagan's VP, became president in 1988. Won the Persian Gulf War and was president when the Soviet Union dissolved

Strategic Defense Initiative

Reagan's proposed missile defense program (known as "Star Wars"). It was never implemented and some said it brought about a new arms race, others see it as helping the US break a stalemate and hastening the end of the Cold War

Warren Harding

Republican President in the early 1920s, marked the end of the Progresive Era)

Gerald Ford

Republican President who took office when Nixon resigned. Famous for pardoning Nixon of all crimes.

Calvin Coolidge

Republican President, 1920s, conservative policies/move back to laissez-faire view of the economy

Henry Ford

Revolutionized the car industry by perfecting the moving assembly line

Standard Oil Trust

Rockefeller's company

Bull Moose Party (Progressive Party)

Roosevelt created this when he ran against his former friend Taft in 1912. Woodrow Wilson won.

Know a few of the tribes living on the Great Plains

Sioux and Cheyenne

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Signed by LBJ, this made Jim Crow laws illegal by declaring that discrimination on the basis of race or sex was not allowed. This act was in part responsible for the exodus of white southerners from the Democratic party to the Republican party

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Supreme Commander of Allied Forces

Baker v. Carr

Supreme Court decision that declared "one man one vote" meaning voting districts needed to have roughly the same amount of people (prior to this rural areas had much higher representation than urban areas)

Miranda v. Arizona

Supreme Court decision that required police to make suspects aware of their constitutional rights (not to incriminate themselves/right to stay silent or their right to an attorney)

Bakke v. California

Supreme Court decision that said racial quotas for admission to colleges was unconstitutional, but that affirmative action programs designed to increase diversity were not always unconstitutional

Gideon v. Wainwright

Supreme Court ruling that declared that every person accused of a crime, even a felony, has the right to a court-appointed lawyer

Square Deal

Teddy Roosevelt's progressive campaign platform that promised regulation of large corporations, consumer protections, and conservation of natural resources

Carpetbaggers

northerners who moved south for many reasons during Reconstruction and were seen by white southerners as invaders

de facto segregation

segregation in fact (e.g. residential segregation or the type of school segregation that exists today)

Black Nationalism

The belief that assimilation of African Americans was impossible in America and that blacks should push for self-determination and a separate, distinct identity

Kamikaze

suicide planes used by the Japanese toward the end of WWII

Robber Barons

The critical name for monopolists like Carnegie and Rockefeller who treated their workers poorly and had too much influence on the government

Meat Inspection Act

The government began to regulate the meat industry

Queen Liliuokalani

The monarch of Hawaii, placed on house arrest by U.S. marines

Self-determination

The right of people groups to create and run their own countries

KKK

This organization appeared during Reconstruction and used violence and terror to reinstitute white supremacy throughout the South. At this time it targeted African Americans, Scalawags, and Carpetbaggers (who at this time were all Republicans living in the South). It declined in power as a result of Grant's actions and the fact that they had achieved their goals by the end of the Reconstruction period.

Al Gore

VP under Clinton, Democrat, early advocate of awareness about global warming, won the popular vote for the presidency in 2000 but lost in the electoral college after the Supreme Court stopped a recount that Gore believed might have shown him to have been the winner in Florida

Harry S. Truman

VP who became president when FDR died in 1945. From Missouri

Vertical vs. Horizontal Integration

Vertical Integration is dominating an industry/market by owning every step in the process of making a product. Horizontal Integration means creating a monopoly by shutting down or buying up all your competitors.

Berlin Airlift

US effort to supply the people of W. Berlin after Stalin closed land routes. The Soviet Union eventually backed down

American Embargo of Japan

US stopped selling scrap iron/oil to Japan to discourage them from imperial expansion

Adolf Hitler

WWI veteran, leader of the National Socialists, gained popularity, became Chancellor, then Fuhrer, abolished the constitutional republic and set up the Third Reich in which he had total power over all political opposition, those he deemed threats such as the Jews, Communists, homosexuals, and what he called the Lugenpresse (the lying media)

Bonus march

WWI vets marched on DC to demand immediate payment of a bonus that had been promised them at retirement age. Hoover sent in troops to remove them and he lost a lot of support for this when the troops opened fire

Spanish-American War

War b/w Spain and the U.S. in 1898

Election of 1896

William Jennings Bryan (Democrat and Populist) lost to William McKinley (Republican)

Fourteen Points

Wilson's vision for the post-war world which called for a decrease in militarism, alliances, and imperialism. It called for self-determination and the creation of the League of Nations. None of these points were ratified by the Allies with the exception of the League of Nations.

"Make the world safe for democracy"

Woodrow Wilson announced that the U.S. was joining WWI in 1917 for this reason

Yuppies

Young Urban Professionals who symbolized the values of the 80s/materialism/success

Lusitania

a British passenger ship carrying civilians and arms to Britain. It was sunk by a U-boat killing 200 Americans

Harlem Renaissance

a celebration of African American history, culture, and art that centered in the Harlem neighborhood of NYC as the Great Migration brought blacks to the North

W.E.B. Du Bois

a civil rights leader who fought for equality, helped found the NAACP, and argued that African Americans should demand political, social, economic equality and that the quickest means to achieve this would be to get high quality liberal arts education. He criticized the approach of Booker T. Washington.

Marxism

a communist ideology based on the teachings of Karl Marx. It believes that true freedom is inevitable and will result in the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of private property, and the establishment of a true classless society.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

a deadly fire in a NY factory that raised public awareness about how dangerous American workplaces had become during rapid industrialization process

Fascism

a far-right ideology, highly nationalistic and militaristic, saw racial struggle/struggle between strong and weak as inevitable, anti-capitalism, anti-feminism, anti-democracy, anti-commumist, anti-socialist, believed in hierarchy and inequality, gave all power to the state

Sit-ins

a method of nonviolent civil disobedience (sitting at a whites-only counter waiting to be served in order to challenge Jim Crow laws across the South)

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

a nonviolent civil rights organization made up of young people (known as SNCC)

Laissez-faire

a philosophy that believes government should take a hands-off approach, especially when it comes to the economy. It is opposed to government regulation of industry. Men like Rockefeller and Carnegie supported this view of government.

Social Darwinism

a philosophy that believes that "survival of the fittest" applies not only to animals but to human society; the strong will survive and the weak will not. It taught that wealthy people deserve their wealth, poor people are capable only of poverty and that helping the poor only prolongs their inevitable decline. Taken even further, it was used to encourage eugenics, forced sterilization, and in the case of the Nazis, genocide.

Dawes Plan

a plan to loan money to Germany, which was then used to pay reparations to France and Britain, who could then pay back their loans to the US

Appeasement

a policy of granting concessions to an opponent in an effort to avoid conflict. After WWII (during much of the Cold War), many Americans looked at appeasement as a failure, believing that only aggressive and decisive foreign policy could prevent future tragedies

Clarence Darrow

a progressive lawyer who defended Scopes

Scopes Trial

a trial in the 1920s in which John Scopes was found guilty of having broken a TN law that banned the teaching of evolution. It highlighted the tensions between the traditional/conservative views and the rapid changes taking place in society

March on Washington/A. Philip Randolph

a union organizer and civil rights activist who, during WWII, demanded that FDR end segregation of the military and discrimination in pay for African Americans working on government contracts helping with the war effort. FDR gave in to some of these demands after a threat to organize a massive protest march on D.C. (the same march that would later take place in 1963/e.g. "I have a dream...")

American Federation of Labor/Samuel Gompers

a union that excluded women, unskilled laborers, and blacks.

13th Amendment

abolished slavery in the US and all its territories

Causes of Industrialization (the "Second Industrial Revolution")

abundant raw materials, urbanization (large markets and labor force), immigration, railroads, government subsidies (loans, land grants to companies), and entrepreneurship

Emilio Aguinaldo

after fighting the Spanish for independence from their empire, he then led the resistance against the American empire which defeated him and conquered the Philippines

Japanese expansion/imperialism

after industrializing in the late 19th century, Japan began to copy the western model of gaining an empire. They expanded rapidly throughout Asia and the Pacific

Freedom Summer

after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, activists turned attention to voting rights. Many black and white college-age volunteers went to rural Mississippi to register African Americans to vote. This was a violent summer.

Invasion of Czechoslovakia

after seizing the Sudetenland, Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia

Atlantic Charter

agreement b/w FDR and Churchill about the post-world order, e.g. the creation of the United Nations

September 11

al-Qaeda (a terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden) attacked planes, the World Trade Center in NY, and the Pentagon in 2011 leading to the War on Terror, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and passage of the USA Patriot Act

17th Amendment

allowed for the direct election of Senators.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

amendment proposed by Alice Paul in the 1920s, passed Congress in the 1970s, but failed to pass in the early 1980s as conservative reaction to feminism increased. The amendment would guarantee equal legal rights for all Americans regardless of sex, ending all legal distrinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, employment, or property. It is currently one state short of the 38 states required.

Booker T. Washington

an advocate for African Americans who believed that blacks should not demand political or social equality but should patiently accept manual labor jobs and segregation. Whites at the time, like Theodore Roosevelt, preferred his vision for the country to W.E.B. Du Bois'

Phyllis Schlafly

conservative spokesperson who led the opposition to feminism and the ERA

Capitalism

an economic system in which private property, wage labor, and free enterprise are central. In free markets, the law of supply and demand and competition set prices (not the government)

Andrew Carnegie

an immigrant who built a monopoly in the steel industry using horizontal integration and published his views on the "Gospel of Wealth"

League of Nations

an international body with representatives from many nations designed to avoid future wars. It was Woodrow Wilson's idea though the US never joined it.

Jazz age

another name for the 1920s, along with the Roaring Twenties, which rose with the popularity of jazz (an original American form of music, seen as rebellious by older generations)

Nativism

anti-immigrant attitudes rooted in the fear that people from foreign countries threaten one's group identity. Nativism rose rapidly in the 1920s.

New Immigrants

around 1890, most immigrants to the US began to come from southern and eastern Europe (places like Italy, Russia, Poland). Many were Catholic or Jewish and were seen by many Americans at the time as dangerous or unable to assimilate to the U.S.

Consumerism

as goods became more accessible, Americans increasingly defined themselves by what they consumed/what they bought (as opposed to what they did)

Costs of WWII/casualties

at least 60 million dead and millions more wounded. Over 400,000 Americans died

Lost Generation

authors who were disillusioned with America after WWI and with the empty promises of the material wealth of the 20s

War Powers Act

aw passed at the end of Vietnam designed to limit the powers that had been given to LBJ and Nixon. It requires the president to notify congress within two days if troops are sent into potentially dangerous areas and requires that congress approve of all military action within 60 days

Dwight D. Eisenhower

became president after Truman and brought an end to the Korean War

Ayatollah Khomeini

became the leader of Iran after the Revolution of 1979

White flight

because many of the opportunities above (#262), including access to high paying jobs, were mostly available to white families, working class black families were left in urban areas. This meant the tax base of cities declined at the same time that their infrastructure did. The effect was to create even more inequality between the wealth of most whites and blacks.

Effects of Prohibition

consumption of alcohol declined at first, organized crime rose, it was a failure

Buying on margin

borrowing money in order to buy stocks, hoping the value goes up

Panama Canal

built by Theodore Roosevelt, it allowed ships to go from the Atlantic to Pacific much faster

Berlin Wall

built in 1961 to prevent east Germans from fleeing to the west. It became a symbol of the Cold War as a whole and fell in 1989.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

civil rights organization founded during WWII

Double V Campaign

civil rights slogan during WWII (fighting for freedom overseas and back at home)

Classical vs. Keynesian economics: Classical vs. Keynesian economics

classical economics relies on the competition within unregulated free markets (think laissez-faire, or the policies of Hoover). It emphasizes the importance of producers and their willingness to invest in making new products/services. John Maynard Keynes (Keynesian theory) believed that the government can intervene to get an economy out of recession by creating jobs which creates demand for products, etc. For Keynes, consumer demand was the key factor and this could only be maximized when the government invested money in order to get to full employment. The New Deal drew on some Keynesian ideas (e.g. providing employment, using deficit spending to stimulate the economy)

Pentagon Papers

classified documents published by the Washington Post and New York Times revealing that for years the US government had hidden the fact that they had serious doubts about whether the war would be winnable and yet had committed themselves more and more to the war. This caused public support and trust in the government to fall further

Yalta

conference where the Big Three met and discussed post war plans, including the UN and democratic elections in Eastern Europe

The New Right/New Conservatism

convervative movement that grew up in the 1960s and became nationally dominant in the 1980s. It combined those who believed in free markets (low regulation, low taxes), with social conservatives (white Protestants worried about the sexual revolution, affirmative action, and crime), with Cold War hawks who wanted greater spending on the military

Fair Labor Standards Act

created America's first minimum wage ($.25) and limited work week (44 hours)

Social Security Act

created Social Security which provides retirement for those 65 and older, those with disabilities. Also provided unemployment insurance. Paid for through a federal payroll tax.

AIDS

deadly disease appearing in the early 1980s, initially believed by many to affect only homosexual men. Despite an initially very slow response, the government eventually put resources into research bringing the crisis under control, but only after an epidemic that killed tens of thousands of people

Problems facing farmers in the late 19th century

debt, low prices for crops, lack of currency, increasing expenses for better equipment

15th Amendment

declared that the right to vote could not be denied to any man on the basis of race

Union membership in the 1920s

declined as the country turned toward conservative, pro-business policies

USA Patriot Act

law passed after 9/11 granting more authority to the federal government to engage in domestic surveillance over citizens and noncitizens

Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)

law passed in 1990 prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities (e.g. the governement mandated access to public places, education, jobs, etc.)

Civil Rights Act of 1968

law that made it illegal to discriminate when renting or selling property on the basis of race, religion, national identity, or sex. This was an attempt to end residential segregation

Life for farmers after WWI

demand for their products fell and the 20s were a very tough decade for them (the Great Depression began early for them)

Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, and 1937)

designed to maintain isolation, these laws banned all trade with any nation who was at war with anyone else

Non-Aggression Pact

despite their hatred of each other and the opposition b/w fascist and communist ideology, Hitler (Germany) and Stalin (USSR) signed an agreement not to attack each other

Saddam Hussein

dictator of Iraq, defeated in the Persian Gulf War, then removed from power during the War in Iraq in 2003 when George W. Bush invaded

George Armstrong Custer

died at the Battle of Little Bighorn after attacking a large group of Sioux Indians. Americans responded quickly and violently.

doves/hawks

doves were those who wanted to end the war in Vietnam and hawks were those who supported US involvement

Dust bowl

during the GD a large part of the soil on the Great Plains dried up and blew away making the area largely uninhabitable.

Cash and Carry

early attempt to work around Neutrality Acts as the Nazis grew in power (allowed sale of war materiel to Britain as long as they paid in cash and they crossed the Atlantic to pick it up)

John F. Kennedy

elected president in 1960, one of the youngest ever, Democrat, Catholic (the only Catholic president in American history). Represented a new and hopeful generation. Assassinated in 1963.

Treaty of Paris

ended the Sp-Am War and granted the U.S. the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines

Immigration Act of 1965

ended the national quotas put in place during the nativist 1920s but also placed a limit on the overall number of immigrants from the western hemisphere for the first time, creating new problems of its own

Unemployment rate during Great Depression

national rate in 1932-33 was 25% (though 50% for African Americans and in many cities)

Malcolm X

famous civil rights activist in the 1950s and 60s who spoke of using self-defense in the face of violence and suggested that nonviolence was naive and ineffective in the face of white supremacy. He converted to the Nation of Islam and drew upon the ideas of black nationalism. He called out the racism embedded in the North especially and was assassinated in 1965.

Louis Armstrong

famous jazz musician

"Nothing to fear but fear itself"

famous line from FDR's first inaugural address where he tried to inspire the American people

Woodstock

famous music festival in NY that drew hundreds of thousands of hippies

Langston Hughes

famous poet and part of the Harlem Renaissance

Fannie Lou Hamer

famously told the story of how when she and other African American sharecroppers in Mississippi had been beaten and arrested for attempting to register to vote.

Environmental Protection Agency

federal agency created in the 1970s to regulate pollution and protect Americans' air and water

Little Rock Nine

first African Americans to integrate into the all-white Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Eisenhower had to send in the military to escort them and to enforce the Brown decision

Bank Holiday

first act of FDR was to close all banks, inspect them, and only open those he could promise were trustworthy. This action worked to restore faith in American banks

Selective Service Act

first peacetime draft in US history

Sputnik

first successful man-made satellite in history, launched by the USSR in 1957, triggering fear in America that they had fallen behind Soviet technology

Sandra Day O'Connor

first woman appointed to the Supreme Court

Napalm

flammable substance made from gasoline and used to burn jungles and people in Vietnam

Winston Churchill

followed Chamberlain as the war time Prime Minister of Britain

Causes of American Imperialism

following a European trend, need for new markets for manufactured goods, desire to spread Protestant Christianity, belief in Anglo-Saxon racial and cultural superiority, desire for coaling stations and military bases in the Pacific

Viet Minh

forces of Vietnam who fought the Japanese, French, and then Americans

Containment

foreign policy begun under Truman: America promised to prevent the spread of communism (as opposed to trying to eliminate it). This became the basis of American foreign policy for most of the Cold War

Ronald Reagan

former actor who became governor of California then elected President (1980-88). Republican who represented the rise of the New Right/New Conservatism (cut taxes, cut regulations, spent on the military, spoke to conservative values on social issues)

Ho Chi Minh

fought the French, Japanese, and then the Americans for an independent and communist Vietnam

Margaret Sanger

fought to distribute contraceptives and information about contraceptives in the 20s when this was illegal. She was arrested several times. She went on to help develop the first birth control pill and to create Planned Parenthood

National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act

gave new powers to labor unions which increased their membership dramatically)

Chiang Kai-shek

nationalist leader who opposed Mao and fled to Taiwan

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

government promised to protect savings accounts in the event of future bank closures (example of reform)

George W. Bush

governor of TX, Republican, President (2000-2008), cut taxes, declared a War on Terror after the attack on 9/11 by al-Qaeda. Invaded Afghanistan for harboring al-Qaeda and later Iraq in the Iraq War (2003-2011) for allegedly having Weapons of Mass Destruction (which it turned out not to have), was president when the Great Recession began in 2008 and signed legislation to bail out Wall Street banks

Medicare

govt provided healthcare for all Americans over 65 (eventually included those with disabilities too)

Medicaid

govt provided healthcare for lower-income Americans

14th Amendment

granted equal protection of the law/civil rights to all Americans. It declared that anyone born in America has citizenship.

19th Amendment

granted women's suffrage in 1920

American First Committee

group of Americans who wanted to stay out of WWII at all costs and in so doing, "put America first". Many admired Hitler's successes in the 1930s.

American Indian Movement

group of Native American activists who drew upon the legacy of the black power movement to advocate for Native American rights through demonstrations and protests

Beatniks

group of poets and artists in the 1950s who rejected mainstream culture, capitalism, materialism while favoring greater freedom (sexual, drug, etc.). Think of them as forerunners of the hippies. Examples are author Jack Kerouac and poet Allen Ginsburg.

Viet Cong (VC)

guerrilla troops who fought the US in South Vietnam

Herbert Hoover's response

he felt badly but believed that direct government aid or employment would do more harm than good

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire whose assassination in 1914 triggered WWI

Jerry Falwell

helped found the Moral Majority in the 1970s

Pullman Strike

nationwide strike of railroad workers. Federal troops intervened and after much violence, the strike failed. Unions lost public support but Labor Day was created.

Counterculture

hippies/those who rejected basic tenents of mainstream American life in the late 1960s (capitalism, materialism, etc.) and sought different forms of freedom in regards to social consciousness, sex, drugs, and rock and roll

Speakeasies

illegal establishments that sold alcohol during Prohibition

Cuban Missile Crisis

in 1962 the Soviets put nuclear missiles in Cuba leading to a tense stand-off with the U.S. This is considered one of the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Eventually, JFK and Krushchev reached a compromise and tensions eased

Red Scare

in the years just after WWI and into the early 20s there was a heightened fear of immigrants and of the spread of anarchy and communism.

Radio

increasingly found in homes in the 20s, it gave rise to mass media and more standardization of culture (less regional variation)

Theodore Roosevelt

influential president, Republican and Progressive, expanded the power of the executive branch through the use of what he called his "bully pulpit" (his ability to drive national conversation around issues of concern)

National Organization for Women (NOW)

initially led by Betty Friedan, this feminist organization fought for women's rights, including for passage of the E.R.A.

United Nations

international peace-keeping body that replaced the League of Nations. Still in operation today.

Muckrakers

investigative journalists/authors, like Sinclair, who brought public attention to various social problems (related to health, corruption, injustices, etc.)

Standard of living in the 1920s

it rose for most skilled laborers. For unskilled laborers and farmers it did not improve

Lynching

killing someone without the due process of law (e.g. a trial). There were thousands of lynchings of African American men during the Jim Crow era

Causes of the Great Depression

lack of demand in the US and in Europe, debt, lack of purchasing power among a large group of Americans, bank failures, the same farm troubles as before

Thirty-eighth parallel

line dividing N and S Korea in 1950 when North Korea invaded the South. The US came to the South's defense and China to the North's. After several years of violent war, both sides agreed to keep the country divided at the same parallel. This is how the division stands today.

Regressive tax

low-income people pay a higher amount of their income to pay for these taxes (e.g. tariffs on cheaply produced goods)

26th Amendment

lowered the voting age to 18 (passed after backlash to military service in the Vietnam War)

Anti-imperialism

many Americans, like William Jennings Bryan and Mark Twain fought against the push to conquer foreign territories. They saw imperialism as contrary to American values of self-determination and independence from foreign tyrannies.

Suburbanization

many middle class families moved out of the cities in the 1940s and 50s. New roads, including the interstate system, greater access to cars, the GI Bill and FHA loans made this possible.

The Great Migration

mass migration of African Americans to the west and north ran from about 1910 through 1970 (with a pause during the Great Depression). They were pushed by the violence in the Jim Crow South and pulled by the availability of industrial jobs

My Lai

massacre during which hundreds of innocent civilians were brutally murdered by American troops.

Works Progress Administration

massive program that directly employed millions of Americans, putting them to work building roads, schools, dams, bridges, hospitals, etc. It also employed artists, musicians, actors, etc. One of the most famous New Deal Programs.

Progressive

middle-class reformers (1890-1920) who wanted to use the power of the federal government to improve society in numerous ways (this was in opposition to the laissez-faire approach of previous decades). Different reformers fought for different issues including better working conditions, an end to child labor, women's suffrage, temperance, conservation of land, regulation of monopolies (trust-busting), a federal income tax, and more direct democracy (e.g. popular election of U.S. Senators)

Long-term causes of the war (M.A.I.N.)

militarism (building up/glorifying the military); Alliances (the guarantee to go to war when an ally is threatened); Imperialism (Europeans clashed as they all tried to expand their empires); Nationalism (belief in the superiority of one's nation over all others and also the desire for those without their own country, to create their own nations--e.g. The slavic people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)

1920s sentiment about WWI

most Americans regretted the decision to get involved in WWI. They returned to isolationism

Deficit spending/debt/end fo the Great Depression?

most economists agree that it was government spending during WWII, rather than the New Deal that brought the GD to an end. In both cases, the government made use of deficit spending (spending money it didn't have)

Ida Tarbell

muckraker who uncovered the corrupt practices of Standard Oil Trust, which led the government to break up its monopoly (or at least to try)

New Deal

name for FDR's many programs designed to end the Great Depression

Federal Housing Administration

provided loans for people to buy homes or improve their homes. It helped many people but also excluded many others, especially African American neighborhoods (example of racist recovery)

American Isolationism

regretting their involvement in WWI, Americans sought to avoid any future wars overseas that did not directly involve them

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

regulated the stock market by looking into corruption and requiring companies to make public statements about their value (example of reform)

The Three Rs of the New Deal

relief (providing immediate help to people); recovery (reduce unemployment and jumpstart the economy); reform (put new protections in place to provide security from future economic crises)

21st Amendment

repealed the 18th Amendment soon after the Great Depression began

Poll taxes

required payments in order to vote (a way to exclude African American voters)

impact of the automobile

rise in independence of young people, greater emphasis on leisure and availability of more past times for more people

Bank failures

runs on banks meant banks had no money to return to people, savings were lost and many banks closed

Iran-Contra Affair

scandal in the Reagan administration in which arms were illegally sold to Iran and the profits were then illegally given to the Contras who were fighting the Sandinistas who had allied themselves with the Soviet Union and Cuba

de jure segregation

segregation by law (e.g. Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, etc)

Barack Obama

senator from Illinois, Democrat, president (2008-2016), first African American president, came to office in the middle of a recession, along with Congress passed legislation to bail out GM and Chrysler, signed the Affordable Care Act to expand health care to millions of uninsured/underinsured Americans, was president with Osama bin Laden was found and killed, withdrew troops from Iraq

Voting Rights Act of 1965

signed by LBJ, this law forbade poll taxes and literacy tests. It allowed the federal government to monitor the voting laws in any state with a history of voter suppression. It has been rolled back in the last few years.

Federal Reserve Act

signed by Woodrow Wilson in 1913, it created the Federal Reserve (America's central banking system); the Fed was set up to increase economic stability. It prints money, essentially sets interest rates, and tried to limit unemployment and inflation (more people working can lead to inflation in prices so these are in tension)

Baby boom

the generation born in the years just after WWII (1945) into the 1960s. This was the largest generation ever (over 50 million babies born)

Pure Food and Drug Act

the government began to regulate foods and medicines being put on the market

Island hopping

strategy of taking some key islands but skipping others in an effort to get within bombing range of Japan itself

Hawaii

territory annexed by the U.S. in 1898

Literacy tests

tests used to exclude African American voters

Australian ballot

the "secret ballot," borrowed from Australia in order to break the monopoly on power of political bosses. Prior to this voting was often done in public

Nazi Party

the National Socialist German Workers Party (the fascist party of Germany/the Weimar Republic).

Neville Chamberlain

the Prime Minister of Britain who thought he had appeased Hitler at the Munich Conference

Nativism

the attitude that one's country belongs to native-born inhabitants and that immigrants pose a threat. Nativists in the late 19th century were white Protestants who were opposed to New Immigrants (and for that matter, Native Americans too). The Chinese Exclusion Act would be an example of Nativism, as would the resurgence of the KKK

Domino Theory

the belief that if Vietnam became communist the rest of Asia would follow (part of containment policy and the justification for American involvement)

Iron Curtain

the division between western Europe (mostly democratic/capitalist countries) and eastern Europe (the bloc of Soviet satellite states communist and undemocratic)

Hindered Days

the first few months of FDR's presidency and a period of many significant bills signed into law (became a benchmark for future presidents)

American Expeditionary Force

the first troops America sent to fight in WWI

William Jennings Bryan

the former presidential candidate who defended Tennessee in the Scopes trial

Al Capone

the most famous criminal/bootlegger of the 1920s

Captions of Industry

the name given to supporters of industry leaders like Carnegie and Rockefeller who created jobs and wealth

Russian Revolution

the people of Russia overthrew the czar and his family (the Romanovs) and attempted to set up a republic in 1917

Robert Kennedy

the presumed Democratic nominee in 1968 who was assassinated in California

Truman Doctrine

the promise to send money to those resisting communism in Greece and Turkey (part of containment policy)

Causes of American entry

the sinking of U.S. merchant ships by German U-boats which were blockading Britain from trade, the sinking of the Lusitania, the Zimmerman Telegram

Rosie the Riveter

the symbolic image of American women who helped the war effort by working in factories to produce war materiel

The Holocaust

the systematic program of the Nazis to round up and exterminate over 6 million Jews, Communists, Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses

"Supply-side" economics (Reaganomics)

the theory that if taxes are lowered on wealthy people they will work harder and invest more in new products and jobs, boosting the overall economy. Critics called this "trickle-down" economics because of it's belief that helping upper income people was the best way to get wealth to lower income people (e.g. that some would trickle down). Supply-side economics was favored by the New Right.

Weimar Republic

with the end of WWI, Germany ceased to be an empire and set up this constitutional republic (the one Hitler would eventually replace with the Third Reich)

Quota laws of 1921 and 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act/National Origins Act

these laws created national quotas which attempted to limit immigration from different countries in order to preserve a "white" identity. They were rooted in racist attitudes, especially toward people from Asia, but also southern and eastern Europe.

Jim Crow Laws

these laws segregated black and white society throughout the South from the end of Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They are an example of de jure segregation

Sacco and Vanzetti case

these two Italian-American anarchists were found guilty and executed for armed robbery and murder. They were not given a fair trial and most countries at the time saw this as an example of American nativism.

Plessy v. Ferguson

this 1896 Supreme Court case ruled that Jim Crow laws (discrimination on the basis of race) was not unconstitutional/not a violation of the 14th Amendment. It declared that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. This case would not be overturned until Brown v. Board in 1954

Korematsu v. U.S.

this 1940s Supreme Court case deemed the internment of Japanese Americans as justified and therefore not a violation of the 14th Amendment's prohibition against racial discrimination and the 5th Amendment's guarantee of due process

Schenk v. United States

this Supreme Court ruling argued that the Sedition Act did not violate the 1st Amendment's protection of freedom of speech

Stock Market Crash

this happened in 1929 and was the beginning of the Great Depression

Watergate Scandal

this led to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. It began with an attempt by members of the president's reelection campaign to steal documents and spy on the Democratic National Committee. Nixon obstructed attempts to investigate by the FBI and others, then refused to hand over audio recordings showing his involvement in the cover up.

KKK

this organization was recreated and grew to a membership of millions of Americans across the nation in the 1920s. In this new form, it opposed not only African Americans, but Catholics, Jews, and most immigrants.

Treaty of Versailles (1919)

this treated Germany very harshly by taking both territory and colonies away, and limiting the size and effectiveness of their armed forces. The humiliation and resentment in Germany because of the treaty was used by the Nazis to gain power in the 1930s

Chinese Exclusion Act

this was the first law to exclude an entire group of immigrants on the basis of ethnicity.

Court Reorganization Plan/Court Packing

to deal with Supreme Court opposition, FDR proposed forcing old judges to retire and increasing the number of justices on the court. Public opinion was against this and he didn't go through with it.

Zoot Suit Riots

took place in Los Angeles during WWII when violence broke out between American sailors and Mexican American teenagers. This was an example of tensions on the homefront

Manhattan Project

top-secret program that developed the world's first atomic bombs

Stalingrad

turning point battle on the eastern front. The Soviets defeated the Nazis and began to push them back toward Berlin

Midway

turning point in the Pacific/island where the US defeated the Japanese Navy

Alice Paul

used more militant tactics in the fight for women's suffrage than NAWSA (e.g. hunger strikes)

Persian Gulf War

when Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait for its oil in 1991, the US and UN invaded and defeated Iraq (Operation Desert Storm)

military-industrial complex

when he left office in 1960 Eisenhower warned the country about the growing influence of the military into the economy (e.g. large defense contracts) and politics

Stonewall Inn

when police raided this gay bar in NY in 1969 the patrons fought back. Many see this as the beginning of the gay liberation movement when homosexuals began to advocate openly for rights

Trust-busting

when the government regulated/broke-up monopolies

Freedom Riders

white and black college students who forced JFK to enforce the court's order that interstate bus travel could not be segregated. Freedom riders met with violent resistance throughout their trip

Redeemers

white southern Democrats who began to win back power towards the end of Reconstruction. They reinstituted white supremacy.

Scalawags

white southerners who supported Republican plans for Reconstruction

Elenor Roosevelt

wife of FDR and one of the most influential First Ladies ever; pushed her husband to support the cause of civil rights and later worked on human rights with the United Nations

Flappers

young women who wore their dresses and hair short, smoked, drove, and challenged the gender norms of the period