1820’s

Urbanization: technological boom in the 19th century contributed to growing industrial strength of US. Result was rapid urbanization, or growth of cities, mostly in the regions of the northeast and mid-west.

1848

Socialism: an economic and political system based on government control of business and property and equal distribution of wealth. Carried to it’s extreme form would result in overthrow of the capitalist system.

1850

Soddy: similar to a dugout, or sod home. They were warm in winter and cool in summer. They were small and offered little light or air. Havens for snakes, insects, and other pests. Although fire proof, they leaked continuously when it rained.

Bessemer Process: developed independently by British manufacturer Henry Bessemer and American iron maker William Kelly around 1850 soon became wildly used. Technique involved injecting air into molten iron to remove the carbon and other impurities.

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1860

Political Machine: provided city dwellers with services, many political bosses fell victim to corruption as their influence grew. Also offered service to voters and businesses in exchange for political and financial support. Gained control of local government in Baltimore, New York, San Francisco and other major cities.

Graft: illegal use of political influence for personal gain. An example of this is helping a person find work on a construction project for the city, political machine could ask for the worker to bill the city for more than the actual cost of materials and labor.

Kickback: illegal payments for their services, enriched the political machines, and individual politicians.

1862

Homestead Act: congress passed the act, offering 160 acres of free land to any citizen or intended citizen who was head of the household.

Fredrick Law Olmsted: landscape architect, spearhead the movement for planned urban parks.

1858

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Sitting Bull: Earned the name Tatanka Lyotanka after a fight with the crow. He led his people by the strength of his character and purpose. A warrior, a spiritual man. He was determined for territory.

1868

Tammany Hall: New York City’s powerful Democratic political machine (Boss Tweed) William M. Tweed became head of.

Patronage: since beginning of 19th century presidents had complained about the problem of giving government jobs to people who had helped a candidate get elected.

Gilded Age: Mark Twain described excesses of late 19th century in satirical novel, collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. Title has since come to represent period from 1870’s to 1890’s. Twain mocks the greed and self indulgence of characters.

18691865

Segregation: separations of whites and blacks in public and private facilities.

1864

Sand Creek Massacre: Most of the Cheyenne, assuming they were under protection of government, peacefully returned to Colorado’s Sand Creek Reserve for winter. General S.R. Curtis, Us Army commander in West sent telegram to militia Colonel John Chivington that said he didn’t want peace until Indians suffer more. Chivington in response descended on the Cheyenne and Arapaho (200 warriors and 500 women and children). The attack at dawn on November 29, 1864 killed over 150, mostly women and children.

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1870

Grange: spent most of their time and energy fighting railroads. Their battle plans included teaching members how to organize, how to set up farmers’ cooperatives, and how to sponsor state legislation to regulate railroads.

Tweed Ring: a group of corrupt politicians in defrauding the city.

Andrew Carnegie: single-handedly relayed messages that unsnarled a tangle of freight and passenger trains. He was rewarded with chance to buy stock from his boss. He was first industrial moguls to make his own fortune, from rags to riches along with supporting charities made him a model of the American success story.

John D. Rockefeller: established Standard Oil Company, took a different approach to mergers; they joined with competing companies in trust agreements. He used a trust to gain total control of the oil industry in America. His oil company processed two or three percent of country’s crude oil.

Jacob Riis: at age 21 found work as police reporter where he was taken to New York slums. He was shocked by the conditions in the overcrowded, airless, filthy tenements. Used his talents to expose hardships of NYC’s poor.

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1874

Greenbacks: political party with an anti-monopoly ideology that was active in this time. Name referred to paper money hat had been issued during the Civil War and afterward. Party opposed shift from paper money back to coins.

George Armstrong Custer: The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho protested to no avail after miners began searching Black Hills for gold. Reported that the Black Hills had gold “from the grass roots down,” a gold rush was on. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, another Sioux chief, vainly appealed again to government officials in Washington.

1871

Civil Service: a branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations.

1872

Mail-Order Catalog: grew from single sheet the first year to booklet with ordering instructions in ten languages.

1873

Bimetallism: a monetary system in which government would give citizens either gold or silver in exchange for paper currency or checks.

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1876

Thomas Alva Edison: became a pioneer on the new industrial frontier when he established the world’s first research laboratory in New Jersey. He perfected he incandescent light bulb-patented in 1850-and later invented an entire system for producing and distributing electrical power.

Alexander Graham Bell: invented the most dramtic invention, the telephone.

Telephone: most dramatic invention unveiled by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson. It opened the way for a worldwide communication network.

1875

Melting Pot: a mixture of people of different cultures and races who blended together by abandoning their native languages and coustums.

Great Plains: Zitkala-Sa knew very little about the world east of the Mississippi River. Most easterners knew equally little about the west, picturing a vast desert occupied by savage tribes. That view could not have been more inaccurate. In fact, distinctive and highly developed Native American ways of life existed on the Great Plains, the grassland extending through the west-central portion on the United States.

Jim Crow Laws: segregation laws that became known as this. Named after a popular old minstrel song that ended in the words, “Jump, Jim Crow”.

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National Farmer’s Alliance: these groups included many others who sympathized with farmers. Alliances sent lectures from town to town to educate people about topics such as lower interest rates on loans and government control over railroads.

Poll Tax: annual tax that had to be paid before being qualified to vote.

Social Darwinism: the philosophy grew out of the English naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution. In his book, On The Origin of Species, Darwin describes his observations that come individuals of a species flourish and pass their traits along to next generation, while others do not. Applied the theory.

1880

George Pullman: built a factory for manufacturing sleepers and other railroad cars on Illinois prairie.

1877 1883

Joseph Pulitzer: Hungarian immigrant who had bought New York World, pioneered popular innovations, such as a large Sunday edition, comics, sports coverage, and women’s news.

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1884

Eugene V. Debs: attempted to form such an industrial union- the American Railway Union (ARU). Some unions leaders felt that unions should include all labors-skilled and unskilled-in a specific industry.

1886

Samuel Gompers: led the Cigar Makers’ International Union to join with other craft unions.

Colored Farmer’s Alliance: About 25,000 African Americans belonged to this group. Some alliance members promoted cooperation between white and black alliances, but most members accepted the separation of organizations.

Haymarket Affair: crowd was dispersing when police arrived, someone tossed bomb into police line. 3 speakers and 5 other radicals were charged with inciting riot though no one knew who threw the bomb. All eight convicted; four hanged and 1 had commit suicide in prison. After Haymarket, public began to turn against labor movement.

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1887

Dawes Act: Congress passed act aiming to “Americanize” Native Americans. Act broke up reservations and gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans-160 acres to each head of household and 80 to each unmarried adult, resulting income would be used by Native Americans to pay farm implements.

Settlement House: community centers in slum neighborhoods that provided assistance to people in the area, especially immigrants.

Jane Addams: one of the most influential members of the settlement house movement. Cofounded Chicago’s Hull House in 1889.

1888

George Eastman: developed a series of more convenient alternatives to heavy glass plates previously used. Now photographers could use flexible film coated with gelatin emulsions, and could send their film to a studio for processing. Eastman decided to aim at the masses because professionals were slow to begin using the film.

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1890

Wounded Knee: Within minutes the Seventh Calvary slaughtered as many as 300, mostly unnamed Natives, including some children. The soldiers left the corps to freeze on the ground. This battle brought the Indian wars-and an entire era-to a bitter end.

Literacy Test: some states required registration officials to administer these tests. Blacks who were trying to vote were asked more difficult questions than whites. Officials could pass or fail applicants as they wanted.

Sherman Antitrust Act: this act made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between states or other countries.

Booker T. Washington: prominent African American educator, believed that racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society.

1891

Collective Bargaining: negotiation between representatives of labor and management, to reach written agreements on wages, hours, and working conditions.

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1892

Ellis Island: immigration station moved here. 20% of the immigrants on Ellis Island were detained for a day or more before being inspected. Only about 2% of those were denied entry. It was an ordeal that might take five hours or more.

Ida B. Wells: after March 9, 1892 when 3 African American businessmen, her friends, were lynched, moved north and fought against lynching by writing, lecturing, and organizing for civil rights.

1894

Pullman Strike: Pullman’s refusal to lower rents after cutting his employee’s pay led to a violent strike.

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1895

William Randolph Hearst: purchased New York Morning Journal. Sought to outdo Pulitzer by filling Journal with exaggerated tales of personal scandals, cruelty, hypnotism, and even an imaginary congress of Mars.

W.E.B. Dubois: first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard. He strongly disagreed with Booker T. Washington’s gradual approach.

1896

William Jennings Bryan: editor of Omaha World-Herald, who delivered impassioned address known as the “Cross of Gold” to the assembled delegates.

William McKinley: known as a saint of lost causes, largely because he let beliefs, not politics, guide his actions. Nominated by the Republican party.

Plessy vs. Ferguson: the supreme Court ruled that the separation of races in public accommodations was legal and did not violate the 14th Amendment. Decision established doctrine of “Separate but Equal” which allows states to maintain segregation for almost 60 years.

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1903

Orville & Wilbur Wright: bicycle manufacturers from Dayton, Ohio. They had the first successful flight December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1910

Angel Island: primarily Chinese, arrived on west coast at this island on San Francisco Bay . Between 1910 and 1940, about 50,000 Chinese immigrants entered the US through here. They endured harsh questioning and long detention in filthy, ramshackle buildings while they waited to find out whether they would be admitted or rejected.

1911

Debt Peonage: system that bound laborers into slavery in order to work off a debt to the employer. Not until 1911 did Supreme Court declare involuntary peonage violation of 13th Amendment.

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