| A | B |
|---|
| Great Plains | center of the U.S. between the Mississippi River and Rocky Mts., fontier area |
| Wounded Knee | Final site of resistance betweent the US military and the Sioux, massacre of men, women & chidren |
| reservations | federal land set aside for Native Americans |
| Dawes Act | law which promoted the U.S. assimilation policy for Natives by ending tribal ownership of land and organization by dividing up the land giving each Native family 160 acres to farm on |
| Homestead Act | Gov't policy to settle the western frontier, give each family 160 acres of land for free if they develop it for 5 yrs |
| Grange | organization for farmers that tried to address their problems together |
| Populist Party | large third party formed by farmers and other groups that felt the Reps & Dems were not representing them, they wanted regulation of the railroads and silver coinage to lead to inflation |
| William Jennings Bryan | Hero of the farmers, brought their problems to the public's attention by running for the Presidency (but lost) |
| Thomas Edison | most famous inventor of the Gilded Age, invented light bulb, stock ticker, phonograph, set up research lab in Menlo Park, NY |
| transcontinental railroad | RR built across the Great Plains connecting the East and West, U.S. gave land grants and loans to companies as incentive to build it |
| Interstate Commerce Act | law which regulated RR requiring reasonable and fair rates and charging the same for short v. long hauls, left the laissez-faire policies behind, although it was not enforced well for some time |
| Gilded Age | The golden age of industrialism from 1870 on, but also a time with serious problems like poverty, poor working conditions, and corruption |
| Social Darwinism | survival of the fittest applied to society & business - justification for monoplies and laissez-faire government policies |
| capitalism | economic system where the means of production are owned by private individuals (as in the U.S.) |
| laissez-faire | hands off policy by the government, allow the economy to run itself through supply and demand |
| monopoly | total control over an industry or part of an industry to the point that prices can be controlled, quality lowered, and consumers hurt, but profit maximized with no competition |
| trust | another name for monopoly |
| Sherman Anti-trust Act | law which outlawed any type of monopoly, end of laissez-faire policies although it wasn't enforced well for while |
| labor unions | group of workers who join together for the common cause of improving their working conditions |
| Knights of Labor | inclusive labor union for skilled, unskilled, black, white, immigrants, etc. led by Terrence Powderly |
| American Federation of Labor | Exclusive union for skilled craft workers only led by Samuel Gompers |
| strikes | work stoppages, used by unions in Gilded Age for lack of other methods |
| arbitration | 3rd party listens to the workers and owners and tries to help settle a labor conflict |
| collective bargaining | owners and workers sit down and negotiate the terms of employment in the form of a contract |
| nativism | anti-immigrant attitude |
| urbanization | growth of cities that accompanied industrialization |
| Chinese Exclusion Act | law which ended all Chinese immigration to America |
| assimilation | "americanization" - the expectation that immigrants and Native Americans would adopt the majority culture and leave their culture behind |
| tenements | poor, slum apartment buildings in the cities |
| sweatshops | work place with horrid conditions, unsanitary, unsafe, long hours, low pay |
| political machines | political organizations that provided services to the immigrants to get votes, to keep their people in office, to have access to power and money |
| Boss Tweed | most famous political boss in NYC |
| philanthropy | using wealth to give back to society - like building libraries, $$ for science research, building a park |
| third party | any party other than Republican & Demoract (like Populists) |
| Pacific Railway Act | law that provided for the building of the transcontinental railroad by giving land grants & loans |
| quota | set number of something |
| National Origins & Emergency Quota Acts | laws that limited the # of immigrants that could come into the U.S - favored NW Europe |
| Thomas Nast | political cartoonist who took on the corruption in the cities like Boss Tweed |
| Andrew Carnegie | Captain of Steel Industry - went from rags to riches building his steel mills |
| John Rockefeller | Captain of Oil industry- had a monopoly on refining petroleum |
