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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. Political machines are characterized by a disciplined and hierarchical organization, reaching down to neighborhood and block organizers, that enables the machine to respond to the problems of individual neighborhoods, or even families, in exchange for loyalty at the polls. -
Indian Removal
The Indian Removal Act authorized the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. To find more land to live off of the Native Americans were forced to thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears. -
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny is a term for the attitude prevalent during the 19th century period of American expansion that the United States not only could but was destined to, stretch from coast to coast. This attitude helped fuel western settlement, Native American removal, and war with Mexico. The phrase was first employed by John L. O’Sullivan in an article on the annexation of Texas published in the July-August 1845 edition of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, which he edited. -
Urbanization
Urbanization means the redistribution of populations from rural (farming or country life) to urban (town and city) life. Urbanization in America saw the emergence of many new towns and cities which became even larger as more and more people, attracted by employment possibilities, begin living and working in towns and cities. -
Industrialization
Industrialization is the process by which an economy is transformed from primarily agricultural to one based on the manufacturing of goods. Individual manual labor is often replaced by mechanized mass production, and craftsmen are replaced by assembly lines. Characteristics of industrialization include economic growth, more efficient division of labor, and the use of technological innovation to solve problems as opposed to dependency on conditions outside human control. -
Nativism
Nativism refers to a policy or belief that protects or favors the interest of the native population of a country over the interests of immigrants. In the United States, greatest nativist sentiment coincided with the great waves of 19th-century European immigration on the East Coast and, to a lesser extent, with the arrival of Chinese immigrants on the West Coast. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States, allowing any American, including freed slaves, to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. By the end of the Civil War, 15,000 homestead claims had been established, and more followed in the postwar years. Eventually, 1.6 million individual claims would be approved; nearly ten percent of all government-held property for a total of 420,000 square miles of territory. -
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States and president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her work helped pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Along with activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Around this time, the two created and produced The Revolution, a weekly publication that lobbied for women’s rights. -
The Gilded Age
The Gilded age was another name given to
the years after the Civil War by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. Struck by what they saw as the rampant greed and speculative frenzy of the marketplace, and the corruption pervading national politics, they satirized a society whose serious problems, they felt, had been veiled by a thin coating of gold. During those years, America's economy did grow at an extraordinary rate, creating unprecedented levels of wealth like railroads and telephone lines. -
Civil Service Reform
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was passed to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States. The purpose of the Pendleton Act was to break the Spoils System which had become the 'custom and practice' of presidential administrations. The law was sponsored by reformer Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio and was signed into law by President Chester Arthur on January 16, 1883. -
Haymarket Riot
The Haymarket Riot started at a Chicago protest rally near Haymarket Square after someone threw a bomb at police. 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. At the same time, the men convicted in connection with the riot were viewed by many in the labor movement as martyrs. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act authorized the federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning them into individual plots. Only those Native American Indians who accepted the individual allotments were allowed to become US citizens. The objective of the Dawes Act was to assimilate Native American Indians into mainstream US society by annihilating their cultural and social traditions. As a result, ninety million acres of tribal land were stripped from Native American Indians and sold to non-natives. -
Suffrage
Suffrage is the right to vote in political elections. The most known case of suffrage was women's suffrage. The women's suffrage movement was the struggle for the right of women to vote and run for office and is part of the overall women’s rights movement. In 1888, the first international women’s rights organization formed, the International Council of Women. Because the ICW was reluctant to focus on suffrage, in 1904 the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was formed. -
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow was a lawyer who worked as defense counsel in many criminal trials. He was also a public speaker, debater, and miscellaneous writer. In 1887 he moved to Chicago and attempted to free the anarchists charged in the Haymarket Riot. In 1894 he defended Eugene V. Debs, arrested on a federal charge arising from the Pullman Strike. He also secured the acquittal of labor leader William D. Haywood for assassination charges and saved Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold from the death penalty. -
Eugene V. Debbs
Eugene V. Debbs was a labor organizer and socialist leader who began his rise to prominence in Indiana’s Terre Haute lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. Debs organized the American Railway Union, which waged a strike against the Pullman Company of Chicago in 1894. After embracing socialism, he became the party’s standard-bearer in five presidential elections. Late in life, Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his opposition to the United States’ involvement in World War I. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s. In 1896, she formed the National Association of Colored Women. After brutal assaults on the African-American community in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908, Wells sought to take action: The following year, she attended a special conference for the organization that would later become known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. -
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush was an event of migration by nearly 100,000 people prospecting to the Klondike region of northwestern Canada. Gold was discovered in many rich deposits along the Klondike River but due to the remoteness of the region and the harsh winter climate, the news of gold couldn’t travel fast enough to reach the outside world. Reports of the gold in newspapers created a hysteria that was nation-wide.Many people quit their jobs and then left for the Klondike to become gold-diggers. -
Initiative and Referendum
Initiative and referendum refer to processes that allow citizens of many states to vote directly on particular pieces of legislation. An initiative process allows citizens to propose or initiate a statute or constitutional amendment. Citizens initiating such legislation are known as the measure's proponents. The referendum process allows citizens to refer a statute passed by the legislature to the ballot so that voters can enact or repeal the measure. -
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley. He was also a dedicated conservationist, setting aside some 200 million acres for national forests, reserves and wildlife refuges during his presidency. In the foreign policy arena, 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. -
Dollar Diplomacy
Dollar Diplomacy, a foreign policy created by U.S. Pres. William Howard Taft and his secretary of state, Philander C. Knox, to ensure the financial stability of a region while protecting and extending U.S. commercial and financial interests there. It grew out of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s peaceful intervention in the Dominican Republic, where U.S. loans had been exchanged for the right to choose the Dominican head of customs. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was an activist writer whose works, including 'The Jungle' and 'Boston,' often uncovered social injustices. Initially rejected by publishers, in 1906 the novel was finally released by Doubleday to great public acclaim—and shock. Despite Sinclair’s intention to reveal the plight of laborers at the meatpacking plants, his vivid descriptions of the cruelty to animals and unsanitary conditions there caused great public outcry and ultimately changed the way people shopped for food. -
Muckraker
The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who attacked established institutions and leaders as corrupt. They typically had large audiences in some popular magazines. The name muckraker was pejorative when used by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in his speech of April 14, 1906. But muckraker also came to take on favorable connotations of social concern and courageous exposition. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The Pure Food and Drug Act prevented 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. The act not only gave unprecedented new regulatory powers to the federal government, it also empowered a bureau that evolved into today's Food and Drug Administration. -
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was a Settlement house founder and peace activist who was one of the most distinguished of the first generation of college-educated women, rejecting marriage and motherhood in favor of a lifetime commitment to the poor and social reform. In her autobiography, "20 Years at Hull-House"(1910) she argued that society should both respect the values and traditions of immigrants and help the newcomers adjust to American institutions. -
William Jennings Bryan
Jennings Bryan became a Nebraska congressman in 1890. 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. -
Third Parties Politics
Third parties often represent factions that break away from the major parties over policy issues. In 1912, former Republican President Teddy Roosevelt ran for the White House for the Bull-Moose party against Republican incumbent William Howard Taft. Opposed to Harry Truman's civil rights program, Strom Thurmond bolted the Democratic party in 1948 and became the candidate of the States' Rights party. -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act established the Federal Reserve System as the central bank of the United States to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. The law sets out the purposes, structure, and functions of the System as well as outlines aspects of its operations and accountability. Congress has the power to amend the Federal Reserve Act, which it has done several times over the years. -
16th Amendment
The 16th Amendment was proposed by President William Howard Taft in 1909 to address the Supreme Court ruling in the Pollock v. Farmers' Loan Trust Co. case. It stated that: 'The Congress shall have the 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 Amendment
The 17th Amendment redefined the rules about how senators are elected. This debated amendment came after the Senate was accused of vast corruption. The 17th Amendment came about during the Progressive Era. During this time in American history, reformers were pushing to clean up health standards, improve moral standards, elevate American education and fight corruption in state and local governments. The push for popular election of Senators became part of that campaign. -
Populism & Progressivism
The main difference between populism and progressivism is that the populism arose in the late 19th century by the farmers about change in economic system and the progressivism started at the beginning of the 20th century by the middle class about the changing in the political system. -
18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment prohibits the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors. Prohibition proved difficult to enforce and failed to have the intended effect of eliminating crime and other social problems–to the contrary, it led to a rise in organized crime, as the bootlegging of alcohol became an ever-more lucrative operation. In 1933, widespread public disillusionment led Congress to ratify the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Doma Scandal revealed a large amount of greed and corruption within a presidential administration. The scandal involved ornery oil tycoons, poker-playing politicians, illegal liquor sales, a murder-suicide, a womanizing president and a bagful of bribery cash delivered on the sly. The Teapot Dome Scandal was regarded by the public and historians alike as the most sensational example of high-level corruption in the history of U.S. politics. -
19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, prohibiting any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. At the time the U.S. was founded, its female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote. It was not until 1848 that the movement for women’s rights launched on a national level with a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, organized by abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. -
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. From about 1872–73, at about age 38, he began concentrating on steel, founding near Pittsburgh the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works, which would eventually evolve into the Carnegie Steel Company.
