history exam 2
Compromise of 1850
(1) California admitted as free state, (2) territorial status and popular sovereignty of Utah and New Mexico, (3) resolution of Texas-New Mexico boundaries, (4) federal assumption of Texas debt, (5) slave trade abolished in DC, and (6) new fugitive slave law; advocated by Henry Clay and Stephen A. Douglas 6 August 1846 Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania tried to add an amendment to an appropriations bill banning slavery from the territory acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso never passed but led to heated debate and near civil war. Eventually the situation was settled by the compromise of 1850, delaying Civil War for 11 years. The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict, although controversy eventually arose over the Fugitive Slave provision. Although the compromise was greeted with relief, each side disapproved of some of its specific provisions: ● Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico as well as its claims north of 36°30'. It retained the Texas Panhandle, and the federal government took over the state's public debt. ● California was admitted as a free state, with its current boundaries. ● The South prevented the adoption of the Wilmot Proviso, which would have outlawed slavery in the new territories.[1]The new Utah Territory and New Mexico Territory were allowed, under popular sovereignty, to decide whether to allow slavery within their borders. In practice, these lands were generally unsuited to plantation agriculture, and their settlers were uninterested in slavery. ● The slave trade, but not the institution of slavery, was banned in the District of Columbia. ● A more stringent Fugitive Slave Law was enacted, requiring law enforcement in free states to support the capture and return of fugitive slaves, and increasing penalties against people who tried to evade the law.
Matthew Perry and Japan
(1794-1858) In 1854, he negotiated the Treaty of Kanagawa, which was the first step in starting a political and commercial relationship between the United States and Japan. Opening of Japan •The United States, naval squadron under commodore Matthew Perry arrived to open relations between Japan and the United States. Entering Edo (Tokyo) Bay, the Japanese were greatly impressed with Perry's nine warships.
Hariet Beecher Stowe
(1811-1896) Connecticut born abolitionist and author of best-selling 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', a novel that awakened millions of Northerners to the cruelty of slavery ( June 14, 1811 - July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. The book reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
Seneca Falls Convention
(1848) the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written was the first woman's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days over July 19-20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women's rights conventions, including the Rochester Women's Rights Convention in Rochester, New York, two weeks later. In 1850 the first in a series of annual National Women's Rights Conventions met in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Taiping Rebellion
(1850-1864) A revolt by the people of China against the ruling Manchu Dynasty because of their failure to deal effectively with the opium problem and the interference of foreigners.
Joseph Jenkins Roberts (Liberia)
(March 15, 1809 - February 24, 1876) was the first (1848-1856) and seventh (1872-1876) President of Liberia. Born free in Norfolk, Virginia, US, Roberts emigrated to Liberia in 1829 as a young man. He opened a trading store in Monrovia, and later engaged in politics. When Liberia became independent on July 26, 1847, Roberts was elected the first black American president for the Republic of Liberia, serving until 1856. In 1872 he was elected again to serve as Liberia's seventh president.
Frederick Douglass
(born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; c. February 1818 - February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. In his time, he was described by abolitionists as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave.
Illinois and Michigan Canal
- The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was largely replaced by the wider and shorter Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933. - The canal influenced Illinois's north border. The Erie Canal and the Illinois and Michigan Canal cemented cultural and trade ties to the Northeast rather than the South. Before the canal, arming in the region was limited to subsistence farming. The canal made agriculture in northern Illinois profitable, opening up connections to eastern markets. With the expansion of agriculture, the canal created the city of Chicago. Without the initial stimulus of the canal, Chicago would not have attracted the populations, railroads and the industry that it did.
John Jacob Astor
1763 - 1848 he was a German-American fur trader and financier. He immigrated from Walldorf Wuttemberg to America. After arriving in Baltimore, Astor made his way to New York City where his older brother Henry lived. He got in the lucrative fur business. He was able to open his own fur shop in 1786 and often traveled to the wilderness to produce furs for the shop Astoria. Astor's fur trading ventures were disrupted during the war of 1812, when the English captured his trading posts. His business rebounded in 1817. The American fur company came to dominate trading in the area around the great lakes in 1822 and established the Astor House on Mackinac Island as a headquarters. Aster began buying property in upper Manhattan NY as the city grew his property holdings also increased in value. He later sold his fur business in the 1830s and focused much of time of managing and expanding his real estate investments including hotels, and residential properties.
De Witt Clinton
1769 - 1828) Served as governor of NY from 1817-1822 and from 1825-1828 president over the construction of the Erie Canal. He was a federalist and a major candidate for the American Presidency in the election of 1812 challenging James Madison. He believed that infrastructure (transportation network) improvements could transform American life, drive economic growth, and encourage political participation. He heavily influenced the development of NY State and the US. As the federal government would not finance the canal, he made it state project and floated bonds to finance it.
Manifest Destiny
1800s belief that Americans had the right to spread across the continent. - Definition: The idea of Manifest Destiny told Americans that they had a mission - a special job given only to Americans. This mission was to make the United States bigger so the "borders of freedom" could be open to even more people. Only they could make sure that people living in un-free countries across the world could learn how to govern themselves and live freely in America. - Use by: President James PolkIn 1845, James K. Polk was elected President. Polk believed very strongly in the idea of Manifest Destiny. During his Presidency, the United States grew by a million square miles. - The Mexican-American War: *Ever since he was running for President, Polk had talked about wanting the area that is now around Texas. At that time, Mexico controlled that land. *In June 1845, the United States decided to add Texas to the United States. President Polk sent the United States military to take over the area. The two sides fought for two years. Finally, Mexico surrendered. On February 2, 1848, it signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war. It also gave the United States all of the land above the Rio Grande. This meant the United States had gained all of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico; parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado; and northern California. *A belief in Manifest Destiny helped convince Americans to support the war. It told them it was all right to fight, kill, and take land from Mexicans or other non-Americans. This was all right because they were only doing what God wanted. They were doing what they were destined to do. - Settlement of the west: The belief in Manifest Destiny was also important in encouraging people to go to other parts of the west, like Oregon and southern California.
J. Edgar Thomson
1808 - 1874) was an American civil engineer and railroad leader. Thomson was best known for his leadership of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) from 1852 until his death in 1874, making it the largest business enterprise in the world and a world class model for technological and managerial innovation. His sober, technical, methodical, and non-ideological personality had an important influence on the Pennsylvania Railroad, which in the mid-19th century was on the technical cutting edge of rail development, while nonetheless reflecting Thomson's personality in its conservatism and its steady growth while avoiding financial risks.
Second Seminole War
1835 war in which the Seminoles tried to retain their land in Florida - After the United States acquired Florida from Spain, and fought the First Seminole War with the Indians in Florida, a treaty was signed in which most Florida Indians agreed (or at least the Indian leaders agreed), to move onto a reservation in the middle of Florida. Many of the Seminoles did not want to move onto the reservation, and many of those who did move, began to leave and return to their traditional lands. Conflicts with white settlers occurred, and by the end of 1835, a full-scale war was in place between the Florida government, the white settlers, on one side, and the Seminoles and escaped slaves living with the Seminoles on the other side. - One of the factors in both Seminole Wars was the existence and growth of slavery in Florida, and the natural desire of many of the enslaved blacks to escape their imprisonment. Many of the Florida slaves who did escape, migrated to the Seminole lands seeking refuge. When the slave owners attempted to recapture the escaped blacks, these encounters often led to conflict and violence with the Seminoles. - This war was the most expensive Indian War in U.S. history, and has the added distinction of also being an Indian War in which the Native Americans did not lose. In effect, the U.S. declared the war over in 1842, even though the Seminoles had not in fact been defeated. - The Second Seminole War Resulted In: Seminole Indians were allowed to remain in South Florida, though some were encouraged to move West. In effect, the Army could not defeat the Seminoles, and they were allowed to remain in place.
Free Banking Era
1837-1865 time span where banks were free to print and circulate their own dollars 1836-1865: State-chartered banks and unchartered "free banks" took hold during this period, issuing their own notes, redeemable in gold or specie. Banks also began offering demand deposits to enhance commerce.•In response to a rising volume of check transactions, the New York Clearinghouse Association was established in 1853 to provide a way for the city's banks to exchange checks and settle accounts
Cotton Gin
A machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America's leading export.
Indian removal act of 1830
A series of forced relocations of Native American Tribes in the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The relocated people suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route, and more than ten thousand died before reaching their various destinations. •The removal included members of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw tribes, from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern to areas west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. The Cherokee Tribe removal was last forced removal east of the Mississippi in 1838 was brought on by the discovery of gold near Dahlonega, Georgia in 1828, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush. Approximately 2,000-6,000 of the 16,543 relocated Cherokee died en route.
Seminoles
A tribe of Native Americans who inhabited Florida. Lost war and were removed to west of the Mississippi in 1840s. Seminoles are Indian tribe currently living in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Seminole Indians developed from the Creek Confederation of tribes in early 18th century and settled in Florida, at that time occupied by Spanish settlers. The tribe was joined by a number of other refugee Native Americans and black slaves.
Fort Astoria
Astor stablished the American Fur company on 4/6/1808. He later formed subsidiaries such as the pacific fur company. Southwest fur. The fur trade was controlled around the great lakes, and Columbia River region. Also used the Fort Astoria as the trading post established in April 1811 becoming the 1st United States community on the pacific coast.
Donner Party
California settlers and pioneers who were snow bound in Nevada, they resorted to cannibalism. The Donner Party set out for California in a wagon train in May 1846. Departing from Independence, Missouri, they were delayed by a series of mishaps and mistakes, and spent the winter of 1846-47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Members of the party had to resort to cannibalism to survive.
Pennsylvania Railroad
Chartered in 1846, by 1852, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) began offering all-rail service from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and in 1857, canal system was turned over to the PRR.
Fort Dearborn (Chicago )
Chicago had its start as Fort Dearborn built in 1803 and was destroyed in an 1812 Indian raid where all but one of its garrison and civilian population were Killed. The fort was rebuilt in 1816 and served as a military post until the 1830s. Outside the fort's walls a cluster of traders' shacks and log cabins were built, but the settlement attracted little interest even after Illinois, with most of its population in the central and southern regions, became a state in 1818. Fort Dearborn was a United States fort built in 1803 beside the Chicago River, in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secretary of War. The original fort was destroyed following the Battle of Fort Dearborn during the War of 1812, and a second fort was reconstructed on the same site in 1816. By 1837, the fort had been decommissioned. Parts of the fort were lost to both the widening of the Chicago River in 1855, and a fire in 1857. The last vestiges of Fort Dearborn were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The site of the fort is now a Chicago Landmark, located in the Michigan-Wacker Historic District.
William Lloyd Garrison
December 10, 1805 - May 24, 1879) was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, which he founded with Isaac Knapp in 1831 and published in Massachusetts until slavery was abolished by Constitutional amendment after the American Civil War. He was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United States.
oyster houses
During the early 19th century, express wagons filled with oysters crossed the Allegheny Mountains to reach the American Midwest. The oldest oyster bar in the United States is Union Oyster House in Boston, which opened in 1826.
William B. Ogden
First mayor of Chicago was an American politician and railroad executive who served as the first Mayor of Chicago. He was referred to as "the Astor of Chicago." - Ogden designed the first swing bridge over the Chicago River and donated the land for Rush Medical Center. - Ogden was a leading promoter and investor in the Illinois and Michigan Canal, then switched his loyalty to railroads. Throughout his later life, Ogden was heavily involved in the building of several railroads. "In 1847, Ogden announced a plan to build a railway out of Chicago, but no capital was forthcoming. Eastern investors were wary of Chicago's reputation for irrational boosterism, and Chicagoans did not want to divert traffic from their profitable canal works. So Ogden and his partner J. Young Scammon solicited subscriptions from the farmers and small businessmen whose land lay adjacent to the proposed rail. Farmer's wives used the money they earned from selling eggs to buy shares of stock on a monthly payment plan. By 1848, Ogden and Scammon had raised $350,000—enough to begin laying track. The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was profitable from the start and eventually extended out to Wisconsin, bringing grain from the Great Plains into the city. As president of Union Pacific, Ogden extended the reach of Chicago's rail lines to the West coast." - Namesakes of William B. Ogden include a stretch of U.S. Highway 34, called Ogden Avenue in Chicago and its suburbs, Ogden International School of Chicago, which is located on Walton Street in Chicago, and Ogden Slip, a man-made harbor near the mouth of the Chicago River. Ogden Avenue in The Bronx is also named after him.
John W. Simonton (key west)
From a historian's point of view, Key West has an interesting beginning. To be considered is the island's ownership as private property, ownership by the Territory of Florida, ownership by the U.S. Government and finally as a local incorporated entity. John W. Simonton purchased the island on January 19, 1822 from Juan Pablo Salas, who had acquired it as a Spanish Land Grant in 1815 from Don Juan de Estrata, but as a new U.S. Territory the original Don Juan de Estrata Land Grant to Salas had to the confirmed - no U.S. deed could be granted. In reality it went round and round with claims and counter claims. Attempts to follow these look like a spider web. John Simonton soon took on three northern partners: John Whitehead, John Fleeming and Pardon Greene. On the scene arrived General John Geddes of Charleston who had also purchased Key West. It was discovered that Don Juan Salas had sold it twice, first to John Strong, a lawyer no less, and then to Simonton. As if this were not bad enough, Strong had also previously sold Key West to George Murray before John Geddes. In summary, Salas sold it twice, Strong and Simonton, and Strong twice, Murray and Geddes. Simonton had already divided it up amongst three others: Whitehead, Fleeming and Greene. Greene made several strategic moves by buying up claims in his name. On May 23, 1828, Congress acknowledged the land grant of Salas was confirmed. Simonton as the legal owner. We might surmise that this was Florida's first land scam. Amazing as it legally appears, the Territory of Florida with an Act of Incorporation incorporated the City of Key West on January 8, 1828
Erie Canal
Governor Clinton build the Erie Canal which connected Albany (Hudson River) to Buffalo (Lake Erie). The Erie Canal was started in 1817 and completed in 1825. This encouraged NY City to grow as a port and trading center. The canal gently lower the cost of shipping between the Midwest and the Northeast bringing lower food cost to Eastern cities and allowing the east to economically ship machinery and manufactured goods to the Midwest. The canal also made immense contributions to the wealth and importance of NY City, Buffalo, and NY State. The canal was an immediate success tolls connected on freight had already exceeded the state's construction debt in its 1 year of official operation. By 1828 import duties collected at the NY customs house supported federal government operations and provided funds for all the expenses for the national government except interest on the national det.
Eli Whitney
In 1794, US born inventor Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825) patented the cotton gin machine. Despite its success, the gin made little money for Whitney due to patent-infringement issues. Also, his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery even as a growing number of Americans supported its abolition. Whitney later secured a major contract to build muskets for the US government. Through This project, he promoted the idea of interchangeable parts standardized, identical parts that made for faster assembly and easier repair of various devices. For his work, he is credited as a pioneer of American manufacturing.
Frederick Tudor
In America Frederick Tudor and Nathaniel Wyeth saw the potential for the ice business and revolutionized the industry through their efforts in the first half of the 1800s. From Boston Tudor shipped ice to the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1806. Tudor became known as the "Ice King," focused on shipping ice to tropical climates. He experimented with insulating materials and built ice houses that decreased melting losses from 66 percent to less than 8 percent. The ice trade revolutionized the U.S. meat, vegetable and fruit production. It enabled significant growth in the fishing industry, and encouraged the introduction of a range of new drinks and foods. Beer brewing became a year around industry.
Horseshoe Curve
J. Edgar Thomson and Herman Haupt he co-designed the famous Horseshoe Curve and built a with practical grades to get trains over the Allegheny's quickly. Work on Horseshoe Curve began in 1850 and took over 3 years. It was done without heavy equipment, only men with picks and shovels, and horses. The entire line, including Horseshoe Curve, opened on February 15, 1854. The total cost for 31.1 miles of track between Altoona and Johnstown was $2,495,000 or $80,225 per mile.
Daniel Craig McCallum
McCallum self-taught architect and civil engineer. In 1854 he became the general superintendent of the Erie Railroad. Quickly gained reputation for being an innovator in railway operations and administration. Adapted the electric telegraph to railway operations and management. The use of the telegraph in train dispatching made operations safer and more efficient. McCallum outlined this overall of corporate management in 1855 in 6 general principles of administration. The Pennsylvania railroad rapidly further tested and rationalized McCallum's concepts of large scale administration. In 1857 PRR President J. Edgar Thompson adopted the organization and regulations McCallum developed for the Erie Railroad.
Jerry Thomas
October 30, 1830 - December 15, 1885) was an American bartender who owned and operated saloons in New York City. Because of his pioneering work in popularizing cocktails across the United States as well, he is considered "the father of American mixology." In addition to writing the seminal work on cocktails, Bar-Tender's Guide, Thomas displayed creativity and showmanship while preparing drinks and established the image of the bartender as a creative professional. As such, he was often nicknamed "Professor" Jerry Thomas.
Fort Jefferson
On Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, 68 miles due west from Key West in the Gulf of Mexico, the US Army Corps of Engineers began construction in December 1846 what was to be a super fortification Fort Jefferson It was to have 250 guns and be manned garrison of 1,500 men in wartime. It was still under construction at beginning of the Civil War and finished during the hostilities.It construction cost $14,000,000 and because of rapidly improving ordnance technology the fortress was rendered obsolete in a few years Fort Jefferson is a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. It is the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas, and is composed of over 16 million bricks. The building covers 16 acres. Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island are larger. The fort is located on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas National Park, 68 miles west of the island of Key West. The Dry Tortugas are part of Monroe County, Florida, United States.
Era of Good Feelings, 1815-24
Period of strong nationalism, economic growth, territorial expansion under the presidency of James Monroe. Only one major political party at the time (Republican) -started in 1815 in the mood of victory that swept the nation at the end of the War of 1812. Exultation replaced the bitter political divisions between Federalists and Republicans, the North and South, and the East coast cities and settlers on the western frontier. The political hostilities declined because the Federalist Party had largely dissolved after the fiasco of the Hartford Convention in 1814-15. Phrase was coined by Benjamin Russell, in a Boston newspaper, Columbian Centinel on 12 July 1817, following Monroe's visit to Boston as part of a good-will tour of America
Auburn System
Prison reform in 1790, based on concept that solitary confinement would induce meditation and moral reform; actually led to many mental breakdowns; Auburn system, 1816, allowed congregation of prisoners during the day penal method of the 19th century in which persons worked during the day and were kept in solitary confinement at night, with enforced silence at all times. The silent system evolved during the 1820s at Auburn Prison in Auburn, N.Y., as an alternative to and modification of the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement, which it gradually replaced in the United States. Later innovations at Auburn were the lockstep (marching in single file, placing the right hand on the shoulder of the man ahead, and facing toward the guard), the striped suit, two-foot extensions of the walls between cells, and special seating arrangements at meals—all designed to insure strict silence. The Auburn and Pennsylvania systems were both based on a belief that criminal habits were learned from and reinforced by other criminals. See also Pennsylvania system.
Sir Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, FRS (5 February 1788 - 2 July 1850) was a British statesman and Conservative Party politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834-35 and 1841-46) and twice as Home Secretary (1822-27 and 1828-30). He is regarded as the father of modern British policing, owing to his founding of the Metropolitan Police Service. Peel was one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party. The son of a wealthy textile-manufacturer and politician, Peel was the first prime minister from an industrial business background. He earned a double first in classics and mathematics from Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the House of Commons in 1809, where he became a rising star in the Tory Party. Peel entered the Cabinet as Home Secretary (1822-1827), where he reformed and liberalised the criminal law and created the modern police force, leading to a new type of officer known in tribute to him as "bobbies" and "peelers". After a brief period out of office he returned as Home Secretary under his political mentor the Duke of Wellington (1828-1830), also serving as Leader of the House of Commons. Initially a supporter of continued legal discrimination against Catholics, Peel reversed himself and supported the repeal of the Test Act (1828) and the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, claiming that "though emancipation was a great danger, civil strife was a greater danger
Whailing
Sperm whales were hunted for two main reasons (1)sperm whale oil burned cleanly and brightly and was a superior lubricant.(2)the spermaceti found in the head of the sperm whale was used to manufacture the finest grade of candles. •The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania in 1859 supplanted some of the many applications for whale oils
Bessemer Process
The 1st inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The key element is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten. Developed by Englishman Henry Bessemer who received a patent for it in 1856.
beer riot of 1855 Chicago
The Lager Beer Riot occurred on April 21, 1855 in Chicago, Illinois. Mayor Levi Boone, a Nativist politician and great-nephew of Daniel Boone, renewed enforcement of an old local ordinance mandating that taverns be closed on Sundays and led the city council to raise the cost of a liquor license from $50 per year to $300 per year, renewable quarterly. The move was seen as targeting German immigrants in particular, and subsequently caused a greater sense of community between the group.
Moroe Doctrine
The cornerstone of US Foreign policy declared on 2 December 1823 by President James Monroe in his annual message to congress. It had four basic points:(1)The US would not interfere in the internal affairs or in the wars of European powers.(2)The US recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere.(3)The Western Hemisphere is closed to future colonization. (4)Any European power attempting to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the US.
the best friend of Charleston (locomotive)
The locomotive was built for the South Carolina and Rail Road Company by the west point foundry of NY in 1830. Dissembled movement by ship to Charleston, South Carolina, it was The Best Friend of Charleston. After its inaugural run on Christmas Day 1830, the best friend was used in regular passenger service along a six mile demonstration route in Charleston. For the time, this locomotive was considered one of the fastest modes of transportation available, taking its passengers at speeds of 15-25 miles p/hour.
Pennsylvania canal
The success of the Erie Canal inspired the construction of other new canals, such as the Pennsylvania Canal opened in 1834, linking Philadelphia with the growing industrial center of Pittsburg. As the Erie Canal near completion the Pennsylvania assembly of 1824 applied the term to Pennsylvania canal as the main line of public works to be built across the southern part of Pennsylvania. When finished in 1834 the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburg could be made in 3-5 days, weather conditions depending. In 1859 all canals owned by the commonwealth were sold, the PRR formed the Pennsylvania Canal Company in 1867 and continued to use canals to haul freight. The canal business, however declined steadily in the last quarter of the century, and most Pennsylvania canals no longer functioned after 1900.
wrecking
There are legends that some ships were deliberately lured into danger by a display of false lights. As soon as the Spanish began sending home the treasures they found in the New World, some of the treasure was lost in shipwrecks. By the 1540s Indians along the coast of Florida, where many of the Spanish treasure ships wrecked, were diving on the wrecks and recovering significant amounts of gold and silver.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
Treaty that ended the Mexican War, granting the U.S. control of Texas, New Mexico, and CA in exchange for $15 million - The peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican American War which was primarily caused by the refusal of Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas and its admission to the United States, and by border disputes. - The peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was made in 1848 in which Mexico agreed to abandon claims to Texas, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. In return the United States agreed to pay Mexico $15,000,000 and withdraw its armies from Mexican soil. The Mexicans owed American settlers large sums of money and the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo also agreed to pay the claims of American citizens on Mexico. These claims proved to amount to $3,500,000. - The United States therefore paid just $18,500,000 for this massive and extremely valuable addition to its territory and increased the popular belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States. What was the date of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? The date the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was ratified by the U.S. Senate on March 10th, 1848 and ratified by the Mexican Congress on May 25th, 1848. As an additional point of interest the informal Treaty of Cahuenga that ended the fighting of the Mexican American War in Alta California was signed on January 13, 1848. Where was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed? The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed at Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo, which is a northern neighborhood of Mexico City. Who negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was negotiated by Nicholas Trist (1800 - 1894) for the United States with a special commission representing the collapsed government of Mexico led by Don Bernardo Couto, Don Miguel de Atristain, and Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas.
Stephen Russell Mallory
United States Senator, Civil War Confederate States Cabinet Secretary. Following volunteer service in the Second Seminole War (1835 to 1842), he was elected as a Democratic Senator from Florida to the United States Senate and served from 1851 to 1861. At the beginning of the Civil War, he resigned his seat in the Senate to follow the Confederacy, and in February 1861 Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of the Navy. At the time the Confederate Navy was all but nonexistent, but in time his navy accomplished numerous feats including the exploits of the "CSS Alabama" commanded by Raphael Semmes, the development of successful ironclad warships and the first submarine to sink an enemy ship, the "CSS Hunley". In April 1865, he was captured in La Grange, Georgia, and held prisoner for almost a year. After his parole he returned to Pensacola and practiced law.
Harriet Tubman
United States abolitionist born a slave on a plantation in Maryland and became a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad leading other slaves to freedom in the North (1820-1913) (born Araminta Ross, c. January 29, 1822- March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved people, family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the United States Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the struggle for women's suffrage.
Waltham-Lowell System (textile mill)
Waltham -Lowell System a labor and production system for the manufacture of textile. Made possible by inventions such as the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and water frame in Great Britain in the late 18thCentury. All stages of textile production done in one factory complex with employees living in company housing, and away from home and family. The Waltham-Lowell System did not use the poor from the cities, mill girls from farm familes, who came to the new textile centers from rural towns to earn more money than they could at home, and to live a cultured life in "the city". The lives of the mill girls were very regimented -they lived in company boardinghouses and were held to strict hours and a moral code. The system declined with the Civil War as women returned home or took up other professions and the number of European immigrants increased.
Frederick Townsend Ward
Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts on November 29, 1831. Poor behavior in school in 1847 led his father to find him a position as second mate on the Hamilton, a clipper ship commanded by a family friend. •Aside from working as a seafarer during the 1850s, Ward found employment, as a filibuster. Filibustering or smuggling arms and raising private often armies and leading them into other countries for revolutions or independence movements. Ward worked for the infamous "King of the Filibusters", William Walker, in Mexico, where he learned how to recruit, train, and command mercenary troops. In 1861 Ward partly organized the Ever Victorious Army for the Qing Dynasty with some 5,000 men, organized in four battalions as well as an artillery corps, with several riverboats used for transport and mobile artillery. The troops were trained to western standards and Ward instituted an effective pay system which maintained high morale. •Ward was mortally wounded in the Battle of Cixion September 21, 1862
balitmore and ohio railroad
Was chartered in 1826, but construction did not begin until 1828, A-13 mile section was opened to traffic in 1830. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad was the 1st common carrier-carrying passengers and all type of freight.
Black Hawk War (1832)
a brief but bloody war from April to August 1832.•A Black Hawk 65-year-old Sauk Chief who in early April led some 1,000 Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo people, including about 500 warriors, across the Mississippi River to reclaim land in Illinois that tribal leaders had surrendered to the US in the Treaty of St. Louis in 1804. The band's crossing back into Illinois spurred fear and anger among white settlers, and eventually a force of some 7,000 mobilized against them—including members of the US Army, state militias, and warriors from various other tribes. •Some 450-600 Indians and 70 soldiers and settlers were killed during the war. By 1837 all surrounding tribes had fled to the West, leaving most of the former Northwest Territory to white settlement. •Among those who participated in various roles during the war were a number of men who would figure prominently in U.S. history, including future US presidents Abraham Lincoln and Zachary Taylor, longtime military leader Winfield Scott, and Jefferson Davis, who would become president of the Confederate States of America
Underground Railroad
a system of secret routes used by escaping slaves to reach freedom in the North or in Canada The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century, and used by African-American slaves to escape into free states, Canada and Nova Scotia with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.
Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa)
c. 1745 - 31 March 1797), known in his lifetime as Gustavus Vassa was a writer and abolitionist from the Igbo region of what is today southeastern Nigeria according to his memoir, or from South Carolina according to other sources. Enslaved as a child, he was taken to the Caribbean and sold as a slave to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker trader. Eventually, he earned his own freedom in 1766 by intelligent trading and careful savings.
Chief Osceola
corageous leader of the seminole indians in florida who hid his people in the swamps rather than move to indian territory American Indian leader during the Second Seminole War, which began in 1835 when the U.S. government attempted to force the Seminole off their traditional lands in Florida and into the Indian territory west of the Mississippi River. Osceola moved from Georgia to Florida, where, although not a chief, he came to be acknowledged as a leader of the Seminoles. He led the young Indians who opposed the Treaty of Payne's Landing (1832), by which some of the Seminole chiefs agreed to submit to removal from Florida. In 1835 he and a group of braves murdered Charley Emathla, a chief who was preparing to emigrate with his people, and Gen. Wiley Thompson, the U.S. Indian agent at Ft. King. For the next two years, U.S. troops attempted to crush Seminole opposition. The Indians withdrew into the Everglades and fought back, employing guerrilla tactics. In October 1837 Osceola and several chiefs went to St. Augustine, Florida, under a flag of truce to attend a parley with Gen. T.S. Jesup. By special order of the general, the Indians were seized and imprisoned. Osceola was removed to Ft. Moultrie at Charleston, South Carolina, where he died. The war continued until 1842, but only sporadically after Osceola's death.
clipper ships
large, fast, sailing ships and steamers connected the US with Europe, Latin America and Asia. The United States led Britain and other countries in the operation of these vessels. American clipper ships, which usually carried crews of 25 to 50 sailors, established many remarkable and long-lasting records
John Slidell (Mexican war)
served as agent to Mexico in the months preceding the outbreak of war between that nation and the United States. A native of New York City, Slidell had gone south after the War of 1812 and rose to become a scrappy New Orleans politician. He entered the U.S. Congress in 1842, and became a close ally of James K. Polk. - Slidell's connections landed him the official task of negotiating a deal with Mexico. He was instructed to offer a settlement of all U.S. claims against Mexico, in exchange for recognition of the Rio Grande as the boundary between the two nations. In addition, Polk instructed Slidell to try and buy California for $25 million. - The Mexicans rejected Slidell and his mission outright. He responded to President Polk by hinting that the Mexican reluctance to negotiate might require a show of military force by the United States. Based on this intelligence, Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to head for the Rio Grande. Slidell remained in Mexico until March 1846, but left as war became unavoidable. - After the U.S.-Mexican War, Slidell rose to prominence in Louisiana politics. When that state seceded from the Union in 1861 and joined the Southern Confederacy, Slidell served as minister to France. He remained in Europe until his death in 1871.
Pennsylvania System (prison)
system originally developed by the Pennyslvania Quakers. Substituted incarceration for Corporal Punishment penal method based on the principle that solitary confinement fosters penitence and encourages reformation. The idea was advocated by the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, whose most active members were Quakers. In 1829 the Eastern State Penitentiary, on Cherry Hill in Philadelphia, applied this so-called separate philosophy. Prisoners were kept in solitary confinement in cells 16 feet high, nearly 12 feet long, and 7.5 feet wide (4.9 by 3.7 by 2.3 m). An exercise yard, completely enclosed to prevent contact among prisoners, was attached to each cell. Prisoners saw no one except institution officers and an occasional visitor. Solitary penitence, however, was soon modified to include the performance of work such as shoemaking or weaving. The Pennsylvania system spread until it predominated in European prisons. Critics in the United States argued that it was too costly and had deleterious effects on the minds of the prisoners. The Pennsylvania system was superseded in the United States by the Auburn system.
Jacksonian Democracy
the idea that the common people should control the government Expanded Suffrage -By 1820, universal white male suffrage was the norm, and by 1850 nearly all requirements to own property or pay taxes had been dropped. •Westward Expansion -That Americans had a destiny to settle the American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and that the West should be settled by yeoman farmers. •Patronage-Also known as the spoils system, the policy of placing political supporters into appointed offices. Patronage was theorized to be good because it would encourage political participation by the common man. •Strict Constructionism -Favoring a federal government of limited powers. Jackson said that he would guard against "all encroachments upon the legitimate sphere of State sovereignty." Jackson did not take states' rights to the extreme. During the Nullification Crisis (1832-33) would find Jackson fighting against what he perceived as state encroachments on the proper sphere of federal influence. •Laissez-faire Economics -The Jacksonians generally favored a hands-off approach to the economy, as opposed to the Whig program sponsoring infrastructure construction, and manufacturing. •Banking-opposed government-granted monopolies to banks, especially the national bank. Jackson himself was opposed to all banks because he believed they were devices to cheat people; he and many followers believed that only gold and silver should be money
Oregon Trail
was a roughly 2,000-mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, which was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mid-1800s to emigrate west. The trail was arduous and snaked through Missouri and present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and finally into Oregon. Without the Oregon Trail and the passing of the Oregon Donation Land Act in 1850, which encouraged settlement in the Oregon Territory, American pioneers would have been slower to settle the American West in the 19th century.
