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Period: to
Transforming the West
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Western Settlement - Homestead Act
The Homestead Act was signed in May 1862 and opened up settlement in the western United States. This made it able for any American and freed slaves to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. 15,000 homestead claims were established by the end of the Civil War and more followed during the years of postwar. About ten percent of all government held propery for a total of 420,000 square miles of territory and eventually, 1.6 million individuals claims would be approved. -
Transcontinental Railroad - Central Pacific
The Central Pacific Railroad was an American railroad company that was founded in 1861 by the "Big Four" which are a group of California merchants. The railroad began laying track eastward from Sacramento, California in 1863. It hired thousands of Chinese laborers, including many recruited from farms in Canton, to meet its manpower needs. Their job would be to lay the track that crossed the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range which consisted of blasting nine tunnels to accomplish this. -
Period: to
Becoming an Industrial Power
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Robber Barons
The term "Robber baron" is metaphor of social criticism that was applied to American businessmen who used different unscrupulous methods to get rich. The metaphor appeared when The New York Times used it to describe the business practices by Cornelius Vanderbilt. Hal Bridges said that the term represented "business leaders in the United States from about 1865 to 1900 were, on the whole, a set of avaricious rascals who habitually cheated and robbed investors and consumers..." -
Laissez Faire
Laissez Faire is an economic and political doctrine that holds that economies function most efficiently when unencumbered by government regulation. Basically, Government should stay out of the private sphere, the market takes care of itself with no regulations/ rules. This doctrine reached its apex as American factories operated with a free hand in the age of industrialization. However, as competing businesses began to merge, it resulted in a shrinkage of competition. -
Child Labor
Children as young as four years old worked long hours in factories under dangerous conditions in order to help support their families. The reason people would hire children was because they could reach places most adults couldn't. The types of jobs they would work in would be machines in factories, breaking up coal at the coal mines, as chimney sweeps, etc. Many of their jobs caused them to loose limbs or fingers. Also caused them lung diseases because of bad ventilation. -
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward was founded by Aaron Montgomery Ward. He was working as a traveling salesman among rural customers for years which made him realize that customers often wanted "city" goods but could only receive them through rural retailers, this didn't guarantee quality. So, Ward thought that he would be able to cut costs & make many type of goods available for rural customers, if he removed intermediaries. These customers could buy goods by mail & pick them up at the nearest train station. -
Red River War
The Red River War was a military campaign launched to remove the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, & Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains by the United States Army and relocate them to reservations in Indian Territory forcibly. The war had several army columns crisscross the Texas Panhandle in an effort to locate, harass, and capture Indian Bands that were highly movable. Most of the battles were small fights in which neither side suffered many casualties. -
Period: to
The Gilded Age
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Light Bulb
During 1878, Thomas Edison started a serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp. Edison then filed his first patent application for "Improvement In Electric Lights." in October 14, 1878. After this, he still continued to test many types of material for metal filaments to improve his original design. He then filed another U.S. patent for an electric lamp in November 4, 1879, using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected... to platina contact wires." -
Exodusters
African Americans who had migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas as part of the Exoduster Movement, were given the name "Exodusters". This movement was the first black people general migration, which followed the Civil War. It received substantial organizational support. Some supporting people being Benjamin Singleton of Tennessee & Henry Adams of Louisiana. The reason why they migrated was to escape racial violence or by white supremacist groups such as the Ku Kluz Klan. -
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term that is used to refer to many different ways of thinking and theories that came during the second half of the 19th century and tried to apply the evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society. Also,Social Darwinism relates to the controversial Theory of Evolution. It states that rich people are survival of the fittest being intelligent, strong, & adaptable. Another thing it stated was that poor people were unfit and this advocated against helping the poor. -
Tenements
During the 19th century, many people started to settle into America's cities. Many of them being newly arrived immigrants who looked for a better life. In New York, the population doubled so, buildings that had once been single-family dwellings were divided into multiple living spaces to accommodate this growing population. These living spaces were called tenements which were narrow, low-rise apartment buildings. By 1900, about 2.3 million people were living in a tenement housing. -
Farmer's Alliance
After the failure of the Grange to solve agrarian problems through its self-help programs, farmers became more militant. The Farmer's Alliance is a politically-oriented organization which began to gain more support in the 1880s since it demanded a governmental response to the plight of the farmer. This organization called upon the federal government to institute a "sub-treasury program" to help farmers avoid being forced to sell their non-perishable crops on a glutted market. -
Assasination of President Garfield
President Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau because he belibed that the president owed him a patronage position for his "vital assistance" in securing Gardfield's election the previous year. Garfield then died two months later and Vice President Chester A. Arthur became president. Once he was in the office, he pushed through legislation for civil reform. So, the assassination moved the Civil Service Reform from city organizations to a leading topic in the political realm. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur in the spring of 1882. This act offered a 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration & required the few nonlaborers who searched for entry to acquire certification from the Chinese government that they were qualified to immigrate. But because of the 1882 act, many nonlaborers found it very difficult to prove that they weren't laborers. Which made only a small amount of Chinese could enter the country. -
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
Buffalo Bill's Wild West was found in North Platte, Nebraska in 1883. This was when Buffalo Bill Cody decided to change his real-life adventure into the first outdoor western show. The first four tours were in Europe and in between 1887 and 1892. Arizona John Burke, the show's publicist, employed revolutionary techniques like celebrity endorsements, publicity stunts, press kits, op-ed articles, billboards, and product licensing. The result of this was a success and made the show popular. -
Pendleton Act- Spoils System
A spoils system is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives the government civil service jobs to its supporters, friends & relatives as a reward for working towards victory & as motivation to keep working for the party. This term was used where the federal government operated, until the Pendleton Act was passed due to a civil service reform movement. The Pendleton Act established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit. -
Haymarket Riot
A labor protest rally turned into a riot close to Chicago's Haymarket square when someone threw a bomb at the police. The protest was set for the killing and wounding of several workers by the Chicago police during a strike. At least eight people died when a group of police men arrived to disperse the crowd and a bomb was thrown at them leaving seven police officers and at least one civilian dead. Eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. -
Coca Cola
The Coca Cola was first invented by John Pemberton and was taken over by Asa Chandler who later made it into a soft drink. Pemberton was a chemist who earned a pharmacy and had made a nerve tonic, stimulant and headache remedy which was called "Pemberton's French Wine Coca." A prohibition law was what persuaded him to rename the product & rewrite the formula. When the new Coca-Cola was put out later, it was sweetened with sugar instead of wine and Permberton adverticed it as "temperance drink." -
Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Severalty Act was adopted in 1887 by Congress. This act allowed the President of the United States to survey tribal land from American Indians and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. The individual Indians would be granted United States citizenship if they accepted allotments & lived separately from the tribe. The objectives of this act were to abolish tribal & communal rights of Native Americans to adapt to assimilation of them into mainstream American society. -
Hull House
The Hull House was a settlement house in the United States which was co-founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. It was located on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois and was ipened to recently arrived European immigrants. As years passed, the Hull House had grown 13 buildings and was later completed and added a summer camp. The Hull house became the standard bearer for the movement. The construction of the University of Illinois-Circle Campus made the Hull House get demolished though. -
Ghost Dances
The Ghost Dance is a certain dance that would reunite the living with spirits of the dead so that the spirits of the dead would fight on their behalf, make white colonists leave, & bring peace, prosperity, & unity to Native Americans. This dance is part of a religious movement that was incorporated into many American Indian beliefs. The main dance, the circle dance, is a traditional form that has been used since prehistoric times by Indian people & was first practiced among the Nevada Paiute. -
Literacy Tests
A literacy test was a test to see a person's literacy skills, their ability to read & write. From the 1890s to the 1960s, many state governments in the Southern United States administered literacy tests to expecting voters to test their literacy in order to vote. In practice, these tests were intended to disenfranchise racial minorities. Literacy tests, along with poll taxes, residency & property restrictions & extra-legal activities were all used to deny suffrage to African Americans. -
Period: to
Imperialism
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act is known as a landmark federal statue that was passed by Congress in 1890 when Benjamin Harrison was president. This act made certain business activities that federal government regulators believe are competitive, be able to be recommended to the federal government in order to investigate and pursue trusts. The purpose of this act is not to protect competitors from harm from successful businesses, but to keep a competitive marketplace to protect consumers from abuses. -
Wounded Knee
The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. On the morning of this day, Calvary troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. There's a version of the situation that a man refused to give up his rifle and while an old man was performing the Ghost Dance, his rifle went off & made the U.S. army begin shooting at the Native Americans. At the end of the massacre, more than 150 men, women, & children had been killed & 51 were wounded. -
Depression of 1893 - Coxey's Army
Jacob S. Coxey faced difficult financial times during the Depression of 1893, so, he formed a protest march known as "Coxey's Army". This was a protest of the federal government's failure to assist the American populace during this economic downturn. About one hundred men in the march, started marching to Washington D.C. in order to demand that the United States government assist the American worker. When they arrived, the government assisted workers by hiring them to work on public projects. -
World's Columbian Exposition 1893- Technology
In this fair, more than 65,000 items from all over the world were shown. One of the greatest technological marvel of the fair was the mammoth Ferris Wheel who was made as an answer to the Eiffel Tower which is the center piece of the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. The Ferris Wheel stood 264 feet high and its 89,000 lb. axle made the wheel the largest piece of steel ever made. Another thing that was shown was only one gasoline-powered automobile which was called the Daimler Benz. -
Temperance
The Temperance Movement was a movement that wanted to prohibit alcohol which was wanted mostly by woman since when men got drunk, they would come home and create violence toward their wife and also, it took their family's wages.The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the largest women's organization of the Gilded Age and promoted temperance. This was led by Francis E. Willard and Carrie A. Nation who were both very aggressive as they once walked into a bar and chopped it up with a hatchet. -
Period: to
Progressive Era
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Klondlike Gold Rush
The Klondlike Gold Rush was a migration to the Klondlike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada because of the discovery of gold there. News then reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year and it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Many became wealthy but most of them went vain. To get to the gold fields, most went through the ports of Dyea and Skagway in Southeast Alaska. Here, the Klondikers could follow either the Chilkoot or the White Pass trails to the Yukon River. -
Election of 1896- William Jennings Bryan- Cross of Gold Speech
The Cross of Gold Speech was a speech given by William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In this speech, Bryan believed that bimetallism would bring the nation prosperity. This speech helped him get him into the Democratic Party's presidential nomination which is known as one of the greatest political speeches in American history. The speech delivered at the close of the debate on the party platform and is credited for giving him the nomination. -
Rough Riders
The nickname "Rough Riders" was given to the 1st United States Volunteer Calvary which is one of three such regiments raised for the Spanish-American War. They came to be when President William McKinley called 125,000 volunteers to assist in the war efforts their first commander being Colonel Leonard Wood. But, when he became commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, the Rough Riders became "Roosevelt's Rough Riders." Most of the Rough Riders were college athletes, cowboys, rancher, & others. -
U.S.S. Maine Incident
The U.S.S. Maine was an American naval ship that sank in Havana Harbor by an explosion which killed 268 men & created shock to the American populace. Many Americans assumed that Maine's explosion was because of the Spanish because of the American press headlines.Some being, "Spanish Treachery!" and "Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy!" It was later found that the Maine was destroyed by a submerged mine. Recent research says that the explosion may have been an accident. -
Treaty of Paris (1898)
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was an agreement involving Spain claiming almost all the remaining Spanish Empire, especially Cuba, as well as giving up Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. A payment of $20 million had to be given from the United States to Spain when Spain was giving up the Philippines. This treaty ended the Spanish-American War along with marking both the ed of the Spanish Empire and the beginning of the age of the United States as a world power. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a policy that protects equal privileges among countries trading with China and in support of Chinese territorial and administrative integrity. Some of the notes of the policy were: each great power should maintain free access to a treaty port or any other vested interest within its sphere, only Chinese government should collect taxes on trade, and no great power having a sphere should be granted exemptions from the various countries were evasive. -
White Man's Burden
The White Man's Burden, written by Rudyard Kipling, is a poem about the Philippine–American War, where he invites the United States to assume colonial control of that country. This poem was to address and encourage the American colonization of the Philippine Islands, a Pacific Ocean archipelago conquered from Imperial Spain, in the three-month Spanish–American War. Kipling encourages the reader and the listener to be on board the enterprise of empire, yet gives warning about the costs involved. -
Andrew Carnegie - Philantrophy
After retiring, as the richest person in the world, he wanted to become a philanthropist, which is a person who gives money to good causes. He believed in the "Gospel of Wealth," which meant that wealthy people were obligated to give their money back to others in society. Before 1901, Carnegie had made some charitable donations but after that time 1901, giving his money away to people who needed it became his new occupation. -
President McKinley - Election of 1900
The election of 1900 was the 29th quadrennial presidential election. This election was a rematch of the 1896 race between Republican President William McKinley and his Democratic challenger, William Jennings Bryan. The recent victory in the Spanish-American War and the return of economic prosperity helped McKinley win the election. President McKinley had chosen New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate. McKinley had achieved 292 electoral votes 7,207,923 popular votes. -
Teddy Roosevelt- Big Stick Policy
In a speech that was given by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt the the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, he outlined his ideal foreign policy which was "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." Two weeks then passed by after this speech and Roosevelt became president and the "Big Stick Policy" defined his leadership. The "big stick" was a sizable naval force, called the "white fleet", which was sent on a world tour to display the controlled might of the United States. -
Teddy Roosevelt- Teddy Bear
Theodore Roosevelt had been invited by Mississippi Governor, Andrew H. Longino, on a bear hunting trip near Onward, Mississippi. Roosevelt's assistants had cornered & tied a black bear to a willow tree which Roosevelt refused to shoot. The news about this spread quickly through newspaper articles across the country. A political cartoonist, decided to make a cartoon about it & a candy shop owner saw this cartoon and got the idea to make stuffed animals that were called 'Teddy's Bear'. -
National Park System
President Theodore Roosevelt made an impact on the National Park System by doubling the number of sites in the system. When he was President from 1901 to 1909 he signed legislation establishing multiple national parks. These being Crater Lake, Oregon; Wind Crave, South Dakota; Sullys Hill, North Dakota; Mesa Verde, Colorado; and Platt, Oklahoma. But then later a new act called the Antiquities Act made Roosevelt be able to proclaim historic landmarks, historic or prehistoric structures, etc. -
Muller v. Oregon
Muller v. Oregon was a landmark decision that stated that women couldn't work for more than 10 hours a day in factories & laundries. Muller was guilty of violating the law since in Muller's laundry, a woman had to work for more than 10 hours. Oregon's attorney agreed that Louis D. Brandeis, a lawyer who supported reforms that protected workers, should defend the law before the Court. Brandeis filed a brief in the case in which the Court proposed that it would support state laws link to health -
Muckrakers
Muckrakers were reform-minded American journalists who would attack established institutions and leaders as corrupt.They usually had huge audiences in some magazines that were popular. The muckrakers took on corporate monopolies and political machines while also trying to raise public awareness & anger at urban poverty, unsafe working conditions, etc. The term 'muckrakers' describes a journalist who writes in the adversarial tradition or a non-journalist that advocates reform and change. -
Roosevelt Corollary
The Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine articulated by President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of the Union address in 1904 after the Venezuela Crisis. The corollary states that the United States will get into conflicts between European countries & Latin American countries to impose legitimate claims of the European powers, rather than having the Europeans press their claims directly. His policy was consistent with his foreign policy included in his Big Stick Diplomacy. -
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
The Meat Inspection Act, also known as FMIA, was an American law in which makes misbrand of meat & meat products being sold as food, a crime. This law also made sure that meat & meat products are slaughtered & processed under sanitary conditions. These necessities also apply to imported meat products, which must be checked under equal foreign standards. This law strongly motivated to protect the American diet since any meat product that was unfit for human consumption was condemned. -
Gentlemen's Agreement
The Gentlemen's Agreement was between both the United States & Japan, & it intended to calm growing tension between the two countries over immigration of Japanese workers. Specifically, the United States agreed to not impose restrictions on Japanese immigration, & Japan would not allow further emigration to the United States. Before the countries agreed to this agreement, Roosevelt had to persuade San Francisco mayor & school board to repeal their law that aimed specifically at Japanese. -
Square Deal
The Square Deal was a domestic program created by President Theodore Roosevelt. He had three goals, referred as the "three C's", which were conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, & consumer protection. These three demands were put to help middle class citizens, involved in attacking plutocracy, bad trusts, and also, protecting business from demands of organized labor. Roosevelt had stated that he stands for having rules changed to create equal opportunity and good service -
Henry Ford- Assembly Line Process - Model T
Ford's Model T was simple, sturdy & fairly inexpensive. The reason why it was inexpensive was because he made the Assembly Line Process which was a way to reduce the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to 2 hours & 30 minutes. This assembly line was inspired by the continuous-flow production methods. The way it worked was that workers would build motors and transmissions on rope-and-pulley powered conveyor belts because of the moving lines for bits & pieces that Ford installed. -
17th Amendment
The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. It alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, which allowed for state legislatures to let their governors make temporary appointments until a special election can be put. The amendment was proposed by the 62nd Congress in 1912 and adopted in 1913 upon being ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. -
Archduke Franz Ferdinand- Assassination
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the incident that made the outbreak of World War I happen. It all started when Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were touring Sarajevo in an open car, when Serbian nationalist Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a bomb at their car which wounded an officer and some bystanders. Later that day, on the way to visit the injured officer, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, was there and saw the opportunity to shoot Franz Ferdinand and Sophie at point-blank range. -
Period: to
World War I
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Ludlow Massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack made from Colorado National Guard & Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners & their families in Ludlow, Colorado. During the attack, about two dozen people, which included miners' wives & children, were killed. This massacre resulted in the deaths between 19 & 26 people, two women & eleven children that were asphyxiated & burned to death under a tent. This incident lasted from September 1912 through December 1914. -
Schlieffen Plan
The thinking behind the Herman invasion of France and Belgium was called the Schlieffen plan, a nickname in which was given after World War I. The person who devised a deployment plan for a war-winning offensive, in a one-front war against the French Third Republic was Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, he who was the chief of the Imperial Army German General Staff. After the war, the plan was described as a blueprint for victory from German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and others. -
Tanks
Tanks were originally a response to the stalemate that had developed on the Western Front in World War I. Even though there were vehicles that incorporated the basic principles of the tank in the decade before the War, there was shockingly heavy casualties of the start of its trench warfare that was seen as development. Research took place in both Great Britain and France. The initial vehicle was names "Little Willie" until the new design was demonstrated to the British Army. -
Sussex Pledge
The Sussex Pledge was known as a promise to change Germany's naval warfare policy to the United States during World War I. Germany's naval warfare policy allowed armed merchant ships to be torpedoed without warning. Because of this, a French cross-channel passenger ferry, the Sussex, was torpedoed.This made President Woodrow Wilson state that if Germany were to continue this policy, the United States would break diplomatic relations with Germany which made Germany create the Sussex pledge. -
Zimmerman Telegram
The Zimmerman Telegram was one of the reasons why the United States entered World War I. It was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. The proposal was intercepted & decoded by British intelligence. It angered American public opinion when the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman publicly admitted the telegram was real which helped create support for the United States declaration of war on Germany. -
Mustard Gas
During World War I, various of gases were used. One being perhaps the most effective was the mustard gas. This gas was introduced by Germany and is not a particularly effective killing agent but was used to harass and disable the enemy as well as pollute the battlefield. Mustard gas was delivered in artillery shells, was heavier than air, & it settled to the ground. When in the soil, mustard gas remained active for many days, weeks, or even months, which all depended on the weather conditions. -
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) “Shellshock”
The phrase "Shell shock" was gotten in World War I which described the type of post traumatic stress disorder many soldiers would face during the war. This disorder was gotten because of the intensity of the bombardment and fighting which produces variously as panic and being scared. During the war, "shell shock" was interpreted as a physical or psychological injury, or simply as a lack of moral fibre. This term is still used by the Veterans Administration to describe parts of PTSD. -
Espionage Act
The Espionage Act is a United States federal laws that was passed shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. This act wanted to prohibit interference with military operations to prevent insubordination in the military as well as to prevent the support of enemies of the United States during wartime. Anyone who was found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison of 20 years.The Espionage Act was reinforced by the Sedition Act the following year. -
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
The American Expeditionary Forces was a group of fighting men of the United States Army during World War I. This Army was established in France and was under the command of General John J. Pershing. In the United States campaigns in World War I, AEF fought next to the French Army, British Army, Canadian Army and the German Empire. A small group of the AEF troops fought against the Austro-Hungarian Army and alongside the Italian Army, in the same year. -
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge was born in Beverly, Massachusetts and was an American Republican Congressman and historian. He was a member of the prominent Lodge family, and received his PhD in history from Harvard University. He is usually best known for his positions on foreign policy, especially his battle with President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 over the Treaty of Versailles. Because of the failure of that treaty, it ensured that the United States never joined the League of Nations. -
18th Amendment
The Eighteenth Amendment established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by making the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal. The Volstead Act had set down methods for enforcing the amendment and identified what liquors were prohibited and which were an exception from prohibition.The Volstead Act then set the starting date for nationwide prohibition for January 17, 1920, which was the earliest day allowed by the Eighteenth Amendment. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles ended World War I on June 28, 1919. This treaty was written by the Allies with almost no participation from the Germans. Eventually, the negotiations revealed a split between the French who wanted to dismember Germany to make it impossible for it to re-establish war with France, the British and Americans. In the end, the treaty included fifteen parts and four-hundred and forty articles. The German government had then signed the treaty under protest. -
Volstead Act
The Volstead Act, also known as the National Prohibition Act, was enacted to carry out the 18th Amendment, this in which it established prohibition in the United States. The three purposes of the Act were, to prohibit intoxicating beverages, to regulate the manufacture, sale, or transport of intoxicating liquor and to ensure an ample supply of alcohol & promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye and other lawful industries, and practices. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal - Albert Fall
The Tea Dome Scandal revealed an unheard of level of greed & corruption within the federal government which shocked Americans. It 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. A former Secretary of the Interior, named Albert Fall, received bribes from oil companies in trade for private rights to drill for oil on federal land. Albert Fall was then charged for this. -
Cars- New Roads
In the 1890s, roads that had been improved for bicycles were ruined by automobile traffic & dirt roads became impossible to travel on for most of the year. When Ford's Model T came, many people started getting them, since they were affordable and were designed to cope with rural roads but roads then had to change to accommodate cars. In 1904 only one-sixth of rural public roads had any kind of surfacing. By 1920, roads started to be covered with gravel since the number of cars started to rise. -
Anti-Saloon League
The Anti-Saloon League was a leading organization seeking to influence prohibition in the United States in the early 20th century.
In 1895, it became a national organization and quickly rose to become the most powerful prohibition lobby in America, getting rid of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party. Its victory was nationwide prohibition and locked into the Constitution with the 18th Amendment. The prohibition was then repealed in 1933. -
19th Amendment- Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony was born on Feb. 15, 1820. She was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the US and was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1872, she voted in the presidential election illegally, was arrested, and fined $100 which she never paid. After she died, women still weren't able to vote until 14 years later. All the hard work she did helped make the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution happen, which was giving women the right to vote. -
Marcus Garvey - Universal Negro Improvement Association
Marcus Garvey was a leader in the black nationalist movement. His Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was the largest secular organization in African-American history. Him and the UNIA, proclaiming a black nationalist "Back to Africa" message, established 700 branches in 38 states. This message reached large urban areas such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, as well as small towns across the country. UNIA's appeal was later in countries outside of America as well. -
Period: to
1920s
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Immigration Act of 1924
The immigration Act of 1924 was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States as of the 1890 census, down from the 3% cap set by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. The law was primarily aimed at further restricting immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans, Slavs and Eastern European Jews. -
F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American writer that rose to prominence as a chronicler of the jazz age. He was born in St. Paul, Minn. & dropped out of Princeton University to join the United States Army. The first novel of his that became a success was, "This Side of Paradise" which came out in 1920. This novel made him an instant celebrity. Since, the twenties were beginning to roar, witty Fitzgerald was the ideal spokesman for the decade. He then came out with "The Great Gatsby" in 1925. -
Charles Lindbergh - Spirit of St. Louis
The Spirit of St. Louis was built by Ryan Airlines in San Diego, California, and was a single engine, single-seat, high wing monoplane that Charles Lindbergh flew on solo on May. This in which was the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. This flight took a total of 33 hours, 30 minutes and the distance he traveled was approximately 3,600 miles (5,800 km). Because of this flight, Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize. -
Period: to
The Great Depression
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Valentine's Day Massacre
In order to eliminate rivals in the illegal trades of bootlegging, gambling, & prostitution, Al Capone & the gang warfare gunned down seven members of George "Bugs" Moran's operation while they were standing lined up, facing the garage wall. When the police officers arrived, they found only one alive and pressed him to reveal what happened but he wouldn't talk. So, the police found a few eyewitnesses and concluded that the gunmen dressed as police officers and pretended to be arresting them. -
Black Tuesday
Black Tuesday was where investors trade 16,410,030 shares on the New York Exchange in a day. During this day, billions of dollars were lost, which removed thousands investors, & stock tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not handle the tremendous volume of trading. Because of this, stock prices wouldn't go up which made America and the rest of the industrialized world spiral downward into the Great Depression. The stock market crash accelerated the global economic collapse. -
The Brain Trust
The Brain Trust is a group of academic advisers that FDR gathered to assist him during the presidential campaign in 1932.
During their first one hundred days in office, the Brains Trust helped Roosevelt enact fifteen major laws. One of the most important initiatives was the Banking Act of 1933, which put an end to the banking panic. After the Brains Trust defended its reform-recovery program in 1933, it broke up to make room for other advisers & lawyers capable of legislative draftsmanship. -
Election of 1932 - Herbert Hoover
The election of 1932 took place against the backdrop of the Great Depression. It was between Republican Herbert Hoover and Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. This election marked the end of the Fourth Party System which was taken over by Republicans. During this time, voters felt Herbert Hoover was unable to reverse the economic collapse or deal with prohibition so his popularity started falling. Franklin D. Roosevelt used his failure to deal with these problems as a platform for his own election. -
New Deal Coalition
The New Deal coalition was the alignment of interest groups & voting blocs in the United States that supported the New Deal & voted for Democratic presidential candidates. This made the Democratic Party the majority party which lost only to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Franklin D. Roosevelt then forged a coalition that included the Democratic state party organizations, city machines, labor unions, blue collar workers, minorities, farmers, etc.The coalition began to fall apart during the 1968 election. -
National Socialist-German Workers’ Party (NAZI)
The National Socialist-German Worker's Party, also known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1919 which promoted German pride and anti-Semitism. It also expressed discontent with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler then joined the party the year it was founded in 1921. The party then grew into a mass movement in which in 1933 Hitler became chancellor and after Germany’s defeat in World War II the Nazi Party was outlawed and many of its top officials were convicted of war crimes. -
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration, also known as the Emergency Relief Administration, was established as a result of the Federal Emergency Relief Act. The main goal FERA was to reduce household unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government. Although jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments, they were more beneficial to the unemployed. Since they wanted any sort of job because of their self esteem which wanted to play the role of male breadwinner. -
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)
The National Industrial Recovery Act was one of the measure by which President Franklin D. Roosevelt found to assist the nation's economic recovery during the Great Depression. It permitted the president to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that could stimulate economic recovery. It also established a national public works program known as the Public Works Administration. This act was widely hailed in 1933 but when it was 1934, business' opinion of the act has soured. -
21st Amendment
The 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 16, 1919. The 21st Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933. It is unique for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment and to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions. All other amendments have been ratified by state legislatures. People were already drinking before the 21st Amendment became officially effective. -
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government. The SEC holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws, proposing securities rules, and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other activities and organizations, including the electronic securities markets in the United States. The SEC was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. -
Wagner Act
The Wagner Act, named after New York Senator Robert F. Wagner, is an act that guarantees basic rights of private sector employees to be able to organize into trade unions, take part in collective bargaining for better terms and conditions at work, and take collective action including strike if is needed. Another thing the act did was create the National Labor Relations Board, which manages elections that can require employers to engage in collective bargaining with labor unions. -
Huey Long "The Kingfish" - Assassination
On September 8, Huey was in the State Capitol in Baton Rouge for a special session of the Louisiana legislature. Dr. Carl Weiss, then approached Huey in a corridor and shot him at close range in the abdomen. Huey’s bodyguards immediately opened fired on Weiss as Huey ran to safety. Weiss was killed instantly, and Huey was rushed to a nearby hospital, where emergency surgery failed to stop internal bleeding. Huey died two days later on September 10, 1935, eleven days after his 42nd birthday. -
Neutrality Acts - Cash and Carry
Cash and carry was a policy that was requested by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a special session of the United States Congress that was followed by the war in Europe. The policy replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1936. It also allowed the sale of materiel to belligerents, only if the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships & paid immediately in cash. The basic purpose was to keep neutrality between the U.S. and European countries while giving aid to Britain. -
Soviet Union - Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was the director of the Union of Soviet Republics in which the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military force. In 1939, on the before World War II, Joseph Stalin and German dictator Adolf Hitler signed a nonaggression pact. Stalin then proceeded to annex parts of Poland and Romania, as well as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Germany then broke the Nazi-Soviet pact and invaded the USSR, making significant early inroads. -
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World War II
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Dunkirk - Evacuation
The Dunkirk evacuation was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, which is in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The operation began after large numbers of Belgian, British, and French troops were cut off and surrounded by German troops during the middle of the six-week long Battle of France. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech to the House of Commons and called this "a colossal military disaster." -
Battle of Leningrad
A German army surrounded the city of Leningrad in an extended siege, right after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. In the following months, the city wanted to establish supply lines from the Soviet interior & evacuate citizens, which would often be using a hazardous “ice and water road". A successful land corridor was then created in January 1943, & the Red Army finally managed to drive off the Germans. The siege lasted almost 900 days & resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million civilians. -
Executive Order 9066 - Japanese Americans
Roosevelt signed Public Law 503 in order to provide for the enforcement of his executive order. The law made violations of military orders a misdemeanor punishable. As a result, about 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were held in American concentration camps Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not incarcerated in the same way, despite the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even though the Japanese American population in Hawaii was nearly 40% of the population of Hawaii itself. -
Bataan Death March
The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer of 60,000–80,000 Filipino & American prisoners of war which were loaded onto trains by the Imperial Japanese Army. The transfer began after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II. The prisoner of war casualties were from 5,000 to 18,000 Filipino deaths & 500 to 650 American deaths during the march. The march was described as severe physical abuse & wanton killings, which was later judged to be a Japanese war crime. -
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC), a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. They were trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama and they flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. They also went to Italy & shot down 12 German fighters in 2 days. Their performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, which helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces. -
Little Boy Bomb - Enola Gay
The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Super fortress bomber, named for the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. During the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The bomb,"Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused unknown destruction. Enola Gay was then in the second atomic attack as the weather reconnaissance aircraft for the primary target of Kokura. Clouds and drifting smoke resulted in Nagasaki, being bombed instead. -
Navajo Code Talkers
Code talkers are people who used obscure languages as a means of secret communication during wartime. The term is now usually associated with the United States service members during the world war who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In general, there were approximately 400–500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages.
