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Act of Toleration
The first colonial statute granting religious freedom to all Christians. However, the statute also called for the death of anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus. -
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Social/Political/Cultural Reforms
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Protestant Revolt
Protestant resentment against a Catholic proprietor erupted into a brief civil war. The Protestants triumphed, and the Act of Toleration was repealed. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Nathaniel Bacon, an impoverished gentleman farmer, seized upon the grievances of the western farmers to lead a rebellion against Berkeley's government. Bacon and others resented the economic and politi cal control exercised by a few large planters in the Chesapeake area. -
The Great Awakening
A movement characterized by fervent expressions of religious feeling among masses of people. -
The Enlightenment
Some educated Americans felt attracted to a European movement in literature and philosophy that is known as the Enlightenment. The leaders of this movement believed that the "darkness" of past ages could be corrected by the use of human reason in solving most of humanity's problems. -
Sons and Daughters of Liberty
The protest against the stamp tax took a violent turn with the formation of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, a secret society organized for the purpose of intimidating tax agents. Members of this society sometimes destroyed revenue stamps and tarred and feathered revenue officials. -
Boston Tea Party
The colonists continued their refusal to buy British tea because the British insisted on their right to collect the tax. Hoping to help the British East India Company out of its financial problems, Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773, which made the price of the company's tea-even with the tax included-cheaper than that of smuggled Dutch tea. -
Common Sense
Paine's essay argued in clear and forceful language for the colonies becoming independent states and breaking all political ties with the British monarchy. Paine argued that it was contrary to common sense for a large continent to be ruled by a small and distant island and for people to pledge allegiance to a king whose government was corrupt and whose laws were unreasonable. -
The Declaration of Independence
After meeting for more than a year, the congress gradually and somewhat reluctantly began to favor independence rather than reconciliation. -
Unions
Long hours, low pay, and poor working conditions led to widespread dis content among factory workers. A prime goal of the early unions was to reduce the workday to ten hours. -
The Whiskey Rebellion
In western Pennsylvania, the refusal of a group of farmers to pay the federal excise tax on whiskey seemed to pose a major challenge to the viability of the U.S. government under the Constitution. -
Slave Revolts
Slaves contested their status through a range of actions, pri marily work slowdowns, sabotage, and escape. In addition, there were a few major slave uprisings. -
The Second Great Awakening
Took place both in churches and frontier camp meetings and often led to the creation of new denominations. Fueled the expansion of Protestant Christianity. Baptist and Methodists evangelized the cities and backcountry of NE.Threw out stodgy written sermons and spoke in plain language. Helped slaves prepare selves spiritually for emancipation. Stress human ability and individual free will. Religion became a central force in political life. -
The Revolution of 1828
Adams sought reelection in 1828. But the Jacksonians were now ready to use the discontent of southerners and westerners and the new campaign tactics of party organization to sweep "Old Hickory" (Jackson) into office. Going beyond parades and barbecues, Jackson's party resorted to smearing the presi dent and accusing Adams' wife of being born out of wedlock. Supporters of Adams retaliated in kind, accusing Jackson's wife of adultery. -
American Peace Society
founded in 1828 with the objective of abolishing war, which actively protested the war with Mexico in 1846 -
Organized Labor
With the common problems of low pay, long hours, and unsafe working conditions, urban workers in different
cities organized both unions and local political parties to protect their inter ests. The first U.S. labor party, founded in Philadelphia in 1828, succeeded in electing a few members of the city council. For a brief period in the 1830s, an increasing number of urban workers joined unions and participated in strikes. -
Movement for Public Asylums
Humanitarian reformers of the 1820s and 1830s called attention to the in creasing numbers of criminals, emotionally disturbed persons, and paupers. Often these people were forced to live in wretched conditions and were regu larly either abused or neglected by their caretakers. To alleviate the suffering of these individuals, reformers proposed setting up new public institutions state-supported prisons, mental hospitals, and poorhouses. -
Antislavery Movement
The Second Great Awakening led many Christians to view slavery as a sin. This moral view made compromise with defenders of slavery difficult. -
American Antislavery Society
In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began publication of an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, an event that marks the beginning of the radical abolitionist movement. The uncompromising Gar rison advocated immediate abolition of slavery in every state and territory without compensating the slaveowners. -
Nativists
Opposition to immigrants led to sporadic rioting in the big cities and the organization of a secret anti-foreign society, the Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. -
Shakers
One of the earliest religious communal movements, the Shak ers had about 6,000 members in various communities by the 1840s. Shakers held property in common and kept women and men strictly separate (for bidding marriage and sexual relations). -
Temperance
The temperance movement began by using moral exhortation. In 1826, Protestant ministers and others concerned with drinking and its effects founded the American Temperance Society. The society tried to persuade drinkers to take a pledge of total abstinence. In 1840, a group of recovering alcoholics formed the Washingtonians and argued that alcoholism was a disease that needed practical, helpful treatment -
Free Common Schools
Horace Mann was the leading advocate of the common (public) school movement. As secretary of the newly founded Massa chusetts Board of Education, Mann worked for compulsory attendance for all children, a longer school year, and increased teacher preparation. In the 1840s, the movement for public schools spread rapidly to other states. -
NAACP
civil rights orginization -
Brook Farm
In 1841, George Ripley, a Protestant minister, launched a communal experiment at Brook Farm in Massachusetts. His goal was to achieve "a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor." -
Free-Soil Movement
In 1848, Northerners who opposed allowing slavery in the terri tories organized the Free-Soil party, which adopted the slogan "free soil, free labor, and free men." In addition to its chief objective-preventing the exten sion of slavery-the new party also advocated free homesteads (public land grants to small farmers) and internal improvements. -
Seneca Falls Convention
The leading feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. At the conclusion of their convention-the first women's rights convention in American history-they issued a document closely modeled after the Declaration of Independence. -
Underground Railroad
a loose network of Northern free blacks and courageous ex-slaves, with the help of some white abolitionists, who helped escaped slaves reach freedom in the North or in Canada. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 by the Northern writer Harriet Beecher Stowe moved a generation of Northerners as well as many Europeans to regard all slave owners as monstrously cruel and inhuman. Southerners condemned the "untruths" in the novel and looked upon it as one more proof of the North's incurable prejudice against the Southern way of life. -
Walker Expedition
Expansionists continued to seek new empires with or without the federal government's support. Southern adventurer William Walker had tried unsuccessfully to take Baja California from Mexico in 1853. Then, leading a force mostly of Southerners, he took over Nicaragua in 1855. -
Bleeding Kansas
Northern abolitionists and Free-Soilers responded by organizing the New England Emigrant Aid Company (1855), which paid for the transportation of antislavery settlers to Kansas. Fighting soon broke out between the proslavery and the antislavery groups, and the ter ritory became known as "bleeding Kansas." -
National Labor Union
The first attempt to organize all workers in all states-both skilled and unskilled, both agricultural workers and industrial workers-was the National Labor Union. Founded in 1866, it had some 640,000 members by 1868. -
Knights of Labor
second national labor union, the Knights of Labor, began in 1869 as a secret society in order to avoid detection by employers. -
The Conservation Movement
The concerns over deforestation sparked the conservation movement, and the breath taking paintings and photographs of western landscapes helped to push Congress to preserve such western icons as Yosemite Valley as a California state park in 1864 (a national park in 1890), and to dedicate the Yellowstone area as the first National Park in 1872. -
Temperance Movement
Another cause that attracted the attention of urban reformers was temperance. Excessive drinking of alcohol by male factory workers was one cause of poverty for immigrant and working-class families. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed in 1874. -
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
One of the worst outbreaks of labor vio lence in the century erupted in 1877, during an economic depression, when the railroad companies cut wages in order to reduce costs. A strike on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad quickly spread across 11 states and shut down two-thirds of the country's rail trackage. Railroad workers were joined by 500,000 workers from other industries in an escalating strike that quickly became national in scale. -
Antitrust Movement
The trusts came under widespread scrutiny and attack in the 1880s. Middle class citizens feared the trusts' unchecked power, and urban elites (old wealth) resented the increasing influence of the new rich. After failing to curb trusts on the state level, reformers finally moved Congress to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, which prohibited any "contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce." -
Social Gospel
In the 1880s and 1890s, a number of Protestant clergy espoused the cause of social justice for the poor-especially the urban poor. They preached what they called the Social Gospel, or the importance of applying Christian principles to social problems. -
Gospel of Wealth
A number of Americans found religion more convinc ing than social Darwinism in justifying the wealth of successful industrialists and bankers. Because he diligently applied the Protestant work ethic (that hard work and material success are signs of God's favor) to both his business and personal life, John D. Rockefeller concluded that "God gave me my riches." -
Civil Service Reform
Public outrage over the assassination of President Garfield in 1881 pushed Congress to remove certain government jobs from the control of party patronage. The Pendleton Act of 1881 set up the Civil Service Commission and created a system by which applicants for classified federal jobs would be selected on the basis of their scores on a competitive examination. -
Social Darwinism
Led by English social philosopher Herbert Spencer, some people argued for Social Darwinism, the belief that Darwin's ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest should be applied to the marketplace. -
Memphis Free Speech
Written by Ida B. Wells, was a response to segregation against African Americans. -
Settlement Houses
Concerned about the lives of the poor, a number of young, well-educated women and men of the middle class settled into immigrant neighborhoods to learn about the problems of immigrant families first-hand. -
Farmers' Alliances
Farmers also expressed their discontent by forming state and regional groups known as farmers' alliances. -
Progressivism
The groups participating in the Progressive movement were extremely diverse. Protestant church leaders championed one set of reforms, African Americans proposed other reforms, union leaders sought public support for their goals, and feminists lobbied their state legislatures for votes for women. Loosely linking these reform efforts under a single label, Progressive, was a belief that society badly needed changes and that government was the proper agency for correcting social and economic ills -
Turner's Frontier Thesis
Turner argued that 300 years of fron tier experience had shaped American culture by promoting independence and individualism. The frontier was a powerful social leveler, breaking down class distinctions and thus fostering social and political democracy. -
Flappers
Influenced by movie actresses as well as their own desires for independence, young women shocked their elders by wearing dresses hemmed at the knee (instead of the ankle), "bobbing" (cutting short) their hair, smoking cigarettes, and driving cars. -
National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act
This major labor law of 1935 replaced the labor provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act, after that law was declared unconstitutional. The Wagner Act guaranteed a worker's right to join a union and a union's right to bargain collectively. It also outlawed business practices that were unfair to labor.