| A | B |
|---|
| Ellis Island | immigration center in New York where millions of immigrants landed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, mostly europeans landed here |
| melting pot | idea that the country was a mixture of diverse cultures whose people blended togeter by giving up their native culture |
| Angel Island | Immigration center in San Francisco, many Chinese landed here |
| nativism | over favoritism toward native born Americans |
| Chinese Exclusion Act | law that banned Chinese immigration after 1882 |
| Gentlemen's agreement | agreement that limited Japanese immigration |
| urbanization | growth of cities |
| tenment houses | type of houses found in big city slums, multi-family homes |
| settlement houses | community centers set up in cities to aid the poor |
| Americanization movement | an attempt to bring immigrants into mainstream society by encouraging them to learn English, US history and the political system |
| Jane Addams | founder of Hull House in Chicago |
| Stalwarts | opponents of civil service reform |
| graft | the unethical or illegal use of political influence for personal gain |
| political machines | organized groups that controlled the activities of a poltical party of a city |
| spoils system | giving friends and political supporters jobs in government |
| Pendleton Act | set up a merit based Civil Service system |
| McKinley Tariff | backed by Benjamin Harrison, this law raised tariffs to very high rates |
| James Garfield | president who attempted civil service reform and was assasinated by a disgruntled job seeker |
| Chester A. Aurthur | surprised Stalwarts by attempting Civil Service reform |
| Grover Cleveland | President who served non-consecutive terms, backed lower tariffs |
| skyscraper | Elevators and steel made this space saver possible |
| Central Park | This was intended to soothe the inhabitants of New York City and let them enjoy a "natural setting." |
| Louis Sullivan | This architectural pioneer designed the "proud and soaring" ten-story Wainwright building in St. Louis, Missouri. |
| Brooklyn Bridge | Completed in 1883, this "eighth wonder of the world" that connected Brooklyn to Manhattan took 14 years to build. |
| Richmond | This was the first city to electrify its urban transit. |
| Boston | This city's Back Bay area was originally a 450 acre swamp. |
| George Eastman | He invented the Kodak camera. |
| Fredrick Law Olmsted | This landscape architecht spearheaded the movement for planned urban parks. |
| Orville and Wilbur Wright | These pioneer aviators helped make airmail possible. |
| poll tax | This had to be paid to gain access to the voting booth in many poor Southern states. It kept many poor whites and blacks from voting. |
| lynching | murdering of blacks in the American South for violating racial etiquette |
| segregation | This term refers to any system of seperating people on the basis of race. |
| Ida B. Wells | This African-American journalist began crusading for racial justice after the lynching of three friends. |
| debt peonage | This was a system that bound laborers into virtual slavery in order to work off a debt to the employer; found to violate the 13th amendment in 1911. |
| Jim Crow laws | These laws were passed in the South to prevent white and black people from intermixing and to prevent blacks from achieving equality. |
| grandfather clause | This was added to the constitutions of several Southern states to enable white people to vote if they may have been kept from doing so by other restrictions. |
| Plessy v. Ferguson | This Supreme Court decision ruled that the seperate accomodations for the races was legal and did not violate the 14th Amendment. It established the "seperate but equal" principle. |
| Booker T. Washington | Moderate reformer who hped that improving the economic skills of African Americans would lead to long term gains. He also led the Tuskegee Institute and made it a leader in the education of African Americans. |
| United States v. Reese | The Supreme Court said that grandfather clauses and laws that excluded entire classes of people from voting because of race were violations of the 15th Amendment |
| George Eastman | Inventor of the popular roll-film camera. |
| Mark Twain | Novelist and Humorist who wrote American classics. |
| William Randolph Hearst | newspaper magnate, purveyor of yellow journalism; developed a national chain of newspapers |
| W.E.B. Dubois | first African American to earn a Ph.D from Harvard University and founder of the NAACP |
| Marshall Field | founder of the Marshall Fields department store chain based in Chicago |
| Thomas Eakins | painter, sculptor and photographer known as the father of American realism |
| Stephen Crane | author and journalist famous for such classics as the Red Badge of Courage |
| Montgomery Ward | Chicago based department store chain founded originally as a mail order company |
| Sears Roebuck | Montgomery Ward's main competitor in the mail order business, once sold entire hosues by mail |
| Joseph Pulitzer | newspaper magnate and main competitor of William Randolph Hearst |
| Coney Island | amusement park at the southernmost end of Brooklyn that was developed as a resort as rail lines and trolley lines were extended from New York City |
| William Torrey Harris | established America's first kindergarten in St. Louis in 1873 |
| Niagra Movement | founded in 1905 by WEB Dubois; wanted to make immediate changes in the civil rights situaiton |
| Victorianism | term used to describe the conservative moral standards, attitudes, and conduct associated with Queen of Britain from 1837 to 1901. |
| minstrel show | theatrical performance in which white actors exaggerated |
| literacy test | test administered by poll workers; designed to keep African Americans from voting |
| ragtime | musical style that originated among African Americans playing in saloons in the South and Midwest in the 1880s |
| yellow journalism | term used to describe "sensationized" news coverage |
| woman question | wide-ranging debate about the social role of women |
| de facto discrimination | discrimination in fact although not necessarily by law |
| jazz | unique American musical style that originated in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century, rooted in African American musical styles, blended with Western music theory and technique |
| vaudeville | style of mulit-act theater that flourshed in North America from the 1880s through the 1920s |
| rural free delivery (RFD) | started in 1896 this allowed delivery of mail and packages directly to residents and sparked the beginning of mail order catalog businesses like Sears and Montgomery Ward |
| Edwin L. Drake | drilled the first successful oil well |
| Titusville, Pa | place where the first oil well was drilled |
| Bessemer process | cheap efficient process to manufacture steel; created by Henry Bessemer |
| Thomas Alva Edison | invented the electric generator, the motion picture camera and projector, the electric light, the phonograph to record sound |
| Christopher Sholes | invented the typewriter |
| Alexander Graham Bell | invented the telephone |
| transcontinental railroad | railroad spanning the nation from coast to coast; the first was completed in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah |
| George M. Pullman | manufactured sleepers and other rail cars for use on the railroad |
| Credit Mobilier | railroad scandal in which members of Congress got stock in a front company which got fraudulent contracts from the Union Pacific railroad |
| Grangers | members of the Grange who took political action to control abuses by the railroads |
| Munn v. Illinois | Supreme Court upheld Granger laws and gave states the right to regulate railroads to the benefit of farmers and consumers |
| Interstate Commerce Act | established the right of the federal government to supervise railroads |
| Andrew Carnegie | rail and steel magnate; made his money mostly in steel |
| vertical integration | process in which a company buys its suppliers in order to make manufacturing much more efficient |
| horizontal integration | process in which companies making similar products merge to form giant companies or monopolies |
| Social Darwinism | transferred the theories of Darwin to human society; said that some will succeed and some will fall by the wayside; less suited individuals are weeded out along the way |
| John D. Rockefeller | founder of Standard Oil of Ohio; became the richest man in the world at one time; was the first billionaire in history |
| monopoly | also known as a trust; describes a situation where one company dominates an entire industry |
| Sherman Anti-Trust Act | made it illegal to form monopolies and to interfere in interstate and international commerce |
| Samuel Gompers | helped found the American Federation of Labor |
| Eugene V. Debs | Socialist candidate for president who helped found the union movement; believed that all workers should belong to Unions |
| Industrial Workers of the World | also known as the Wobblies, gave a big boost to the Union movement |
| Mary Harris Jones | supported the Great Strike of 1877 and helped organize for the United Mine Workers |
| Great Plains | grassland extending through the western part of the United States |
| Treaty of Fort Larmie | treaty in which the Sioux agreed to live in a reservation along the Missouri River |
| Sitting Bull | leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux, present at the Battle of Little Big Horn; later part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show |
| George A. Custer | led the 7th Cavalry to disaster at the Little Bighorn |
| Dawes Act | law designed to "Americanize": gave land to each Native American family for farming |
| Battle of Wounded Knee | 300 unarmed Native Americans in South Dakota |
| longhorns | sturdy breed of cattle rounded up by early cowboys in Texas |
| vaquero | Mexican cowboy |
| Chisholm Trail | main cattle trail from San Antonio to Abilene Kansas |
| long drive | overland transport of cattle from the open range to the rail head |
| soddy | house made of prairie sod |
| Homestead Act | gave free land to settlers in the West |
| exodusters | black settlers who went to Kansas after Reconstruction |
| Morrill Act | set aside land for state agricultural colleges |
| bonanza farms | large single crop farm owned by railroad companies and investors |
| Grange | organization of farmers whose purpose was to organize farmers to protect their interests |
| Farmers Alliances | groups of people who sympathized with farmers |
| Oliver Hudson Kelly | founder of the Grange |
| Populism | advocated for the common man (movement of the people) |
| bimetallism | monetary system in which the government backed the currency with silver and gold |
| gold standard | backing dollars only with gold |
| greenbacks | money not backed with any metal |
| William McKinley | Republican Party candidate in 1896 who backed the gold standard |
| William Jennings Bryan | Democratic candidate for president in 1896; backed bimetallism |
