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Immigration & the American Dream
The American dream is the hope in the United States of America that anyone, whatever religion, race, ethnicity can be rich and famous, as long as they work hard and try their very best. For many immigrants the first thing they saw was The Statue of Liberty signifying new opportunities in life. So this statue signifies the American Dream. The dream was born in 1776. -
16th Amendments
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. -
17th Amendments
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. -
Political Machines
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses, who receive rewards for their efforts. The favor was voting and party work in getting others to vote. -
Manifest Destiny
The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable. Basically the U.S. government trying to get more people to move west because cities were getting too crowded. -
Susan B. Anthony
She became active in temperance. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at temperance rallies. Led her to join the women's rights movement in 1852. Soon after, she dedicated her life to woman suffrage.She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property and retain their earnings, and she advocated for women's labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women. -
Homestead Act
Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, 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. -
Urbanization
The process of making an area more urban. Took place during the U.S. expansions in the 1800s-1900s. -
The Gilded Age
From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the disastrous Panic of 1893, the American economy nearly doubled in size. 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. -
Civil Service Reform
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law, enacted in 1883, which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. -
Eugene V. Debbs
During the 1880s Debs’s ideas began to change. At first a firm proponent of organization of workers by their separate crafts, he resisted the industrial organization implicit in the efforts of the Knights of Labor and ordered his members to report to work during the Knights’ 1885 strike against the southwestern railroads. He conducted his last campaign for president as prisoner 9653 in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary while serving ten years for his opposition to World War I. -
Haymarket Riot
On May 4, 1886, a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. -
Ida B. Wells
She was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.Having bought a first-class train ticket to Nashville, she was outraged when the train crew ordered her to move to the car for African Americans, and refused on principle. As she was forcibly removed from the train, she bit one of the men on the hand. Wells sued the railroad, winning a $500 settlement in a circuit court case. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Severalty Act was signed by Grover Cleveland in 1887 with the intention of assimilating Native Americans into the United States. To do this, tribal control of reservations was taken away and land was granted to individuals holdings. -
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. In 1889, Addams and Starr opened one of the first settlements in both the United States and North America, and the first in the city of Chicago: Hull House, which was named after the building's original owner. -
Clarence Darrow
In 1890, he felt sympathy for the trade unions during the Pullman Strike and decided to resign his corporate position to defend Eugene V. Debs, the president of the American Railway Union. Debs had been arrested for contempt of court arising from the strike. Darrow became established as the leading American labor lawyer. He would defend several trade union leaders over the next few years. Darrow also was involved in campaigns against child labor and capital punishment. -
William Jennings Bryan
He starred at the 1896 Democratic convention with his Cross of Gold speech that favored free silver, but was defeated in his bid to become U.S. president by William McKinley. After helping Woodrow Wilson secure the Democratic presidential nomination for 1912, he served as Wilson’s secretary of state until 1914. In his later years, Bryan campaigned for peace, prohibition and suffrage, and increasingly criticized the teaching of evolution. -
Klondike Gold Rush
Began in 1896, Yukon Region, Klondike Region, Canada, Alaska. Around 4,000 gold was found at the Klondike Gold Rush. Because of the harsh terrain and even harsher weather, it took gold rushers a year to reach the Klondike. -
Populism & Progressivism
Those who follow or support progressivism are mostly elite, rich, and powerful politicians while those who support populism are the generally masses. Progressivism is an up-down movement whereas populism is down-up in nature. Populism is an older campaign theory than progressivism. -
Andrew Carnegie
Scottish-born American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He was also one of the most important philanthropists of his era.In 1900 the profits of Carnegie Steel (which became a corporation) were $40,000,000, of which Carnegie’s share was $25,000,000. Carnegie sold his company to J.P. Morgan’s newly formed United States Steel Corporation for $250,000,000 in 1901. -
Theodore Roosevelt
The 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley.Roosevelt confronted the bitter struggle between management and labor head-on and became known as the great “trust buster” for his strenuous efforts to break up industrial combinations under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Roosevelt won a Nobel Peace Prize for his negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War and spearheaded the beginning of construction on the Panama Canal. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was born in Maryland in 1878. His involvement with socialism led to a writing assignment about the plight of workers in the meatpacking industry, eventually resulting in the best-selling novel The Jungle (1906). Although many of his later works and bids for political office were unsuccessful, Sinclair earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1943 for Dragon's Teeth. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes. -
Dollar Diplomacy
Taft shared the view held by Knox, the goal of diplomacy was to create stability and order abroad that would best promote American commercial interests. Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities, but also to use private capital to further U.S. interests overseas. “Dollar diplomacy” was evident in extensive U.S. interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, especially in measures undertaken to safeguard American financial interests in the region.
