Gilded Age Quiz

Populism

A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.

Booker T. Washington

African American progressive who supported segregation and demanded that African American better themselves individually to achieve equality.

Transcontinental Railroad

Completed in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, it linked the eastern railroad system with California's railroad system, revolutionizing transportation in the west

Wounded Knee

December 1890; where over 200 Native American men, women, and children were gunned down by the U.S. army

Angel Island

Immigration processing station in the San Francisco Bay for Asian immigrants.

bonanza farms

Large scale farms often over 50,000 acres, where farmers set up companies to operate

Jim Crow

Laws written to separate blacks and whites in public areas/meant African Americans had unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government

Social Darwinism

The belief that only the fittest survive in human political and economic struggle.

dry farming

a way of farming dry land in which seeds are planted deep in ground where there is some moisture

Ellis Island

an island in New York Bay that was formerly the principal immigration station for European immigrants coming the United States

corporation

an organization that is authorized by law to carry on an activity but treated as though it were a single person

monopoly

control of a product or service by one company

Gilded

covered with a thin layer of gold; made to be bright and shiny

homestead

land acquired from the United States public lands by filing a record and living on and cultivating it under the homestead law

Laissez-faire

policy based on the idea that government should play as small a role as possible in the economy--"hands off"

ethnic

relating to races or groups of people with common customs

wheat belt

wheat-growing region that included the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas

W.E.B Dubois

African-American Activist--he believed that African Americans should strive for full rights immediately. He also helped found the NAACP.

Dawes act

An act that removed Indian land from tribal possesion, redivided it, and distributed it among individual Indian families. Designed to break tribal mentalities and promote individualism.

Plessy v. Ferguson

a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

entrepreneur

a person who starts up and takes on the risk of a business

nativism

a policy of favoring native-born individuals over immigrants