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Monroe Doctrine
The principle of US policy, originated by President James Monroe in 1823, that any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the US. -
Nativism
movement based on hostility to immigrants; motivated by ethnic tensions and religious bias; considered immigrants as despots overthrowing the American republic; feared anti-Catholic riots and competition from low-paid immigrant workers. -
Indian Removal
The policy of the United States government in the 19th century whereby Native Americans were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River, thereafter known as Indian Territory. -
Manifest Destiny
During the 19th century period of American expansion that the United States would be stretched from coast to coast. It helped start western settlement, Native American removal, and a war with Mexico. -
Susan B. Anthony
After teaching for fifteen years, Susan B. Anthony became active in temperance. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at temperance rallies. This experience led her to join the women's rights movement in 1852. She then dedicated her life to woman suffrage. -
Bessemer Process
a steel-making process, now largely superseded, in which carbon, silicon, and other impurities are removed from molten pig iron by oxidation in a blast of air in a special tilting retort -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land. -
Political Machines
a political organization in which an authoritative boss gains the support of businesses, who receive rewards for their efforts. An example is Tammany Hall. Headed by William Marcy Tweed, the Tammany Hall political machine of the late 1860s and early 1870s used bribery and rigged elections to earn the city of over $200 million. -
The Gilded Age
The American economy nearly doubled in size in between 1877 to 1893. New technologies and new ways of organizing business led a few individuals to the top. The competition was ruthless. Those who could not provide the best product at the cheapest price were simply driven into bankruptcy or were bought up by hungry, successful industrialists. -
Robber Barons
An unscrupulous plutocrat, especially an American capitalist who acquired a fortune in the late nineteenth century by ruthless means,
facing few impediments to creating monopolies, engaging in shady stock trading practices, or exploiting workers, some individuals made enormous fortunes. -
Social Gospel
A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor. Popular at the turn of the twentieth century, it was closely linked to the settlement house movement, which brought middle-class, Anglo-American service volunteers into contact with immigrants and working people. -
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
This law was the first restricting immigration to the United States. Passed by congress, the act provided a 10 year ban on Chinese labor immigration. -
Haymarket Riot
At Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor rally. The police responded with wild gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more. The demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers, was organized by German-born labor radicals in protest of the killing of a striker by the Chicago police the day before -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. -
Muckraker
Bright young reporters at the turn of the twentieth century who won this unfavorable moniker from Theodore Roosevelt, but boosted the circulations of their magazines by writing exposés of widespread corruption in American society. Their subjects included business manipulation of government, white slavers, child labor, and the illegal deeds of the trusts, and helped spur the passage of reform legislation. -
Populism & Progressivism
The populist movement started during the 1880’s when Farmers believed industrialists and bankers controlled the government and made the policy against farmers. Farmers became united to protect their interests. Middle class stated the progressivism movement in the early 1900s. They struggled by remaining in the political mainstream. The election system, exploitation of workers, women and children, and corruption in the business class, are the major root cause of this movement. -
Eugene V. Debs
Debs was a labour organizer and Socialist Party candidate for U.S. president five times between 1900 and 1920. As president of the American Railway Union, he led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railroad in 1894. He had been arrested for “sedition” because he opposed World War I. -
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician from Illinois, and a huge force in the the Democratic Party, standing three times as the Party's nominee for President of the United States. In 1894, Bryan worked to unite the Democrats and Populists in Nebraska, but lost a bid for a Senate seat. Out of politics, Bryan became the editor of the Omaha Herald and traveled as a lecturer. -
Yellow Journalism
journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration, it was first coined during the famous newspaper wars between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer II. -
Klondike Gold Rush
Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and George Washington Carmack found gold in the Klondike River in Canada. Beginning in 1897, an army of hopeful gold seekers, unaware that most of the good Klondike claims were already staked, boarded ships in Seattle and other Pacific port cities and headed north toward the vision of riches to be had for the taking. -
Andrew Carnegie
As a self-made millionaire, Andrew Carnegie was one of the wealthiest businessmen in the 19th century. Selling is business to the United States Steel Corporation, Carnegie spent out his years helping others and donating to foundations. -
Theodore Roosevelt
During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment. Roosevelt became the 26th, and youngest, president of the United States. Roosevelt ensured the construction of the Panama Canal and won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the Russo-Japanese War. -
Industrialization
the process by which an economy is transformed from primarily agricultural to one based on the manufacturing of goods. Individual manual labor is often replaced by mechanized mass production, and craftsmen are replaced by assembly lines. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
To protect the public against adulteration of food and from products identified as healthful without scientific support, muckrakers successfully heightened public awareness of safety issues stemming from careless food preparation procedures and the increasing incidence of drug addiction from patent medicines -
Urbanization
a population shift from rural to urban areas and the ways in which each society adapts to the change. -
Dollar Diplomacy
From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State Philander C. Knox followed a foreign policy characterized as “dollar diplomacy.” Dollar Diplomacy is the use of a country's financial power to extend its international influence. -
16th Amendment
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was an anti-lynching crusader, suffragist, women's rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. She stands as one of our nation's most uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of democracy. In Chicago, she helped develop numerous African American women and reform organizations. -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act created and established the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States, and which created the authority to issue the U.S. Dollar. -
Jane Addams
Jane Addams co-founded one of the first settlements in the United States, the Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, and was named a co-winner of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. Being a women's right activist, Addams founded several foundations such as Women's International League for Peace. -
18th Amendment
After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. -
19th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s involved national security, big oil companies and bribery and corruption at the highest levels of the government of the United States. It was the most serious scandal in the country’s history prior to the Watergate affair of the Nixon administration in the 1970s. -
Clarance Darrow
In 1925, when he volunteered to defend John Scopes' right to teach evolution, Clarence Darrow had already reached the top of his profession. The year before, in a sensational trial in Chicago, he saved the child-killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb from the death penalty. -
Immigration & the American Dream
To immigrants, the idea of the American Dream is being able to come to another country and having a better, fuller, happier life despite social class or race. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair fought for leftist reforms in the 1930s and 1940s. Meanwhile, he wrote a series of 11 novels looking at contemporary history. He founded the California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and as a candidate for the Socialist Party he launched unsuccessful bids for Congress. -
Initiative, Referendum, and Recall
Initiative: citizens right to propose a new law.
Referendum: a law passed by the legislature can opened to citizens for approval/veto.
Recall: citizens can petition and vote to have an elected official removed from office. These all made elected officials more responsible and sensitive to the needs of the people, and part of the movement to make government more efficient and scientific.
