Reconstruction & Freedom
This constitutional amendment permanently abolished slavery across the United States in December 1865.
What is the 13th Amendment?
This ideological concept, coined by John O'Sullivan in 1845, justified continental westward expansion as a divine right.
What is Manifest Destiny?
A derogatory term for late 19th-century industrialists and financiers who amassed immense fortunes through ruthless business practices.
Who are "Robber Barons"?
The powerful Democratic political machine in New York City that traded social welfare services for immigrant votes while engaging in widespread graft.
What is Tammany Hall?
Investigative journalists who exposed corporate corruption, political graft, and social injustices during the early 20th century.
Who are Muckrakers?
Established in 1865, this federal agency provided emergency food, medical care, and schools for freedmen, though it ultimately struggled with land redistribution.
What is the Freedmen's Bureau?
Federal legislation enacted in 1862 that offered 160 acres of public land to settlers who improved it.
The Homestead Act of 1862
This business strategy involves a company controlling every phase of production from raw materials to final distribution, as pioneered by Andrew Carnegie.
What is Vertical Integration?
The muckraking photojournalist who exposed the squalor of New York City tenements in How the Other Half Lives.
Who is Jacob Riis?
Co-founder of Hull House in Chicago, pioneering the American settlement house movement and advocating for urban working-class welfare.
Who is Jane Addams?
These restrictive laws were passed by Southern states immediately after the Civil War to regulate Black labor and maintain white supremacy.
What are the Black Codes?
Federal legislation intended to dismantle tribal communal land ownership and force Native American assimilation through individual land parcels.
What is the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887?
Andrew Carnegie’s famous essay arguing that the wealthy have a moral obligation to use their fortunes for philanthropic community betterment.
What is The Gospel of Wealth?
This agrarian-based political movement in the 1890s advocated for government regulation of railroads, an elastic currency, and free silver.
What is the Populist Party (People's Party)?
This tragic 1911 industrial disaster killed 146 garment workers and catalyzed sweeping workplace safety and fire-code legislation.
What is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire?
This historic agreement resolved the disputed presidential election by withdrawing federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction.
What is the Compromise of 1877?
This tragic event in December 1890 marked the effective end of armed Native American resistance on the Great Plains.
What is the Wounded Knee Massacre?
This nationwide railway strike in 1894 was led by Eugene V. Debs and broken by federal troops, setting a precedent for anti-union injunctions.
What is the Pullman Strike?
Enacted in January 1883, this law established merit-based federal employment examinations to curb the corrupt spoils system.
What is the Pendleton Civil Service Act?
This 1913 legislation created the 12 regional reserve banks regulated by a central board to stabilize the national banking and currency system.
What is the Federal Reserve Act?
These three amendments permanently abolished slavery, defined national citizenship with equal protection, and prohibited voter discrimination based on race.
Reconstruction amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th)
Enacted in 1882, this federal law banned laborers from a specific Asian nation from immigrating to the United States for 10 years.
What is the Chinese Exclusion Act?
The first federal measure aimed at limiting monopolies and business trusts, passed in 1890.
What is the Sherman Antitrust Act?
The 1896 Supreme Court decision that upheld state racial segregation laws under the doctrine of "separate but equal".
What is Plessy v. Ferguson?
Constitutional amendment ratified in 1913 that established the direct popular election of U.S. Senators.
What is the 17th Amendment?