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Daniel webster
“A leading proponent of federal action to stimulate the economy through protective tariffs, transportation improvements and a national bank. As U.S. secretary of state, he helped ease border tensions with Britain through negotiations of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842. Despite his standing as a Whig leader, Webster was never able to secure his party’s nomination for the U.S. presidency.” -
Star-Spangled Banner
“The anthem’s history began the morning of September 14, 1814, when an attorney and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key watched U.S. soldiers—who were under bombardment from British naval forces during the War of 1812—raise a large American flag over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland“ -
Labor movement
‘The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired.’ -
Jacksonian Democracy
“An ambiguous, controversial concept, Jacksonian Democracy in the strictest sense refers simply to the ascendancy of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party after 1828. More loosely, it alludes to the entire range of democratic reforms that proceeded alongside the Jacksonians’ triumph—from expanding the suffrage to restructuring federal institutions...Jacksonianism appears as a political impulse tied to slavery, the subjugation of Native Americans, and the celebration of white supremacy” -
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a 19th-century school of American theological and philosophical thought that combined respect for nature and self-sufficiency with elements of Unitarianism and German Romanticism. -
Bank War
"The Bank War was the name given to the campaign begun by President A Jackson in 1833 to destroy the Second Bank...
August 1833; he started presenting state bank notes for redemption, calling in loans, and generally contracting credit. A financial crisis, he thought, would dramatize the need for a central bank, ensuring support for renewal in 1836." -
Whig party
“Political opponents of President Andrew Jackson organized a new party to contest Jacksonian Democrats nationally and in the states. Guided by their most prominent leader, Henry Clay, they called themselves Whigs, They were immediately derided by the Jacksonian Democrats as a party devoted to the interests of wealth and aristocracy, during the party’s brief life, it managed to win support from diverse economic groups in all sections and to hold its own in presidential elections.” -
Charles Sumner
"Orator and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was known for his deep commitment to the cause of civil rights and emerged as an antislavery leader in the late 1840s. The Harvard-educated lawyer had previously engaged in disarmament efforts and prison and school reforms." -
J.P. Morgan
“One of the most powerful bankers of his era...financed railroads and helped organize U.S. Steel, General Electric and other major corporations...their firm was reorganized as J.P. Morgan & Company, a predecessor of the modern-day financial giant JPMorgan Chase. Morgan used his influence to help stabilize American financial markets during several economic crises, including the panic of 1907.” -
Bleeding Kansas
"Bleeding Kansas is a term used to describe the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraksa Act overturned the Miss. Comps use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory, instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state." -
Kansas-Nebraska act
“The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas–Abraham Lincoln’s opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates–the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise’s use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory.” -
Lincoln -Douglas debates
“Douglas, a member of Congress since 1843 and a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democrat party, was seeking reelection to a 3rd term in the U.S. Senate, Lincoln was running for Douglas’s Senate seat as a Repub. Of Douglas’s political stature, the campaign attracted national attention. It determined the ability of the Democratic party to maintain unity in the face of the divisive sectional and slavery issues, and some were convinced it would determine the viability of the Union itself.” -
Red cross
‘The Red Cross is an international humanitarian network founded in 1863 in Switzerland, with chapters worldwide that provide assistance to victims of disasters, armed conflict and health crises.‘ -
Gilded age
“Came to define the tumultuous years between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century. During this era, America became more prosperous and saw unprecedented growth in industry and technology...It was a period where greedy, corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians enjoyed extraordinary wealth and opulence at the expense of the working class.” -
Knights of labor
“The Knights of Labor began as a secret society of tailors in Philadelphia in 1869...the Knights’ unions were vertically organized–each included all workers in a given industry, regardless of trade...the Knights strongly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Contract Labor Law of 1885; like many labor leaders at the time, Powderly believed these laws were needed to protect the American work force against competition from underpaid laborers imported by unscrupulous employers.” -
Andrew Carnegie
"In the early 1870s, Carnegie co-founded his first steel company, near Pittsburgh. Over the next few decades, he created a steel empire, maximizing profits and minimizing inefficiencies through ownership of factories, raw materials and transportation infrastructure involved in steel-making. In 1892, he created the Carnegie Steel Co." -
Crédit Mobilier
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872-1873 damaged the careers of several Gilded Age politicians. Major stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company, the Crédit Mobilier of America, and gave it contracts to build the railroad. They sold or gave shares in this construction to influential congressmen. They helped themselves by approving federal subsidies for the cost of railroad construction without paying much attention to expenses, railroad builders to make huge profits. -
Liliuokalani
“Born in 1838 in Honolulu, Lydia Kamakaeha was a member of a high-ranking Hawaiian family; her mother, Keohokalole, served as an adviser to King Kamehameha III. Young Lydia was educated by missionaries and toured the Western world, as was customary for young members of the Hawaiian nobility. She spent time in the court of Kamahameha IV and in 1862 married John Owen Dominus, the American-born son of a ship captain, who became an official in the Hawaiian government.“ -
Chinese Exclusion Act
"The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers. Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation's population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white "racial purity."" -
Haymarket riot
“A labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police...eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing...viewed a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. At the same time, the men convicted in connection with the riot were viewed by many in the labor movement as martyrs.” -
Citations
“19th Century.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 21 Aug. 2018, www.history.com/topics/19th-century.
