Travel and Communication
This device, improved and expanded during the war, allowed generals and presidents to send instant messages across vast distances.
Telegraph
Cottin Gin the "Gin" is slang for?
Engine
A self-taught lawyer from Illinois, who became president
Abraham Lincoln
Passed in 1850, this law required citizens and officials in free states to help return escaped enslaved people to the South.
Fugitive Slave Act
This network of secret routes and safe houses helped enslaved people escape to freedom, often with the aid of conductors like Harriet Tubman.
What is the Underground Railroad?
Not a single invention but a network, this system of iron and steam carried troops and supplies faster than any army before.
Railroad
This horse-drawn device, perfected by Cyrus McCormick, allowed one farmer to harvest as much grain as a dozen men with scythes.
mechanical reaper
This abolitionist attacked Harpers Ferry in 1859 - and likely set off the war.
John Brown.
In 1857, this Supreme Court decision declared that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress had no power to ban slavery in the territories.
the Dred Scott decision?
Published in 1852, this bestselling novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe stirred anti-slavery sentiment across the North and abroad.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Using hydrogen and rope tethers, this early “air corps” gave Union commanders a bird’s-eye view of enemy lines. (hint: people still ride in these for fun at state fairs)
Aerial Balloons
John Deere’s innovation of 1837 used polished steel instead of iron, slicing through tough prairie soil and opening the Midwest to farming.
Steel Plow
Known for his sharp debating skills against Lincoln, this Illinois senator argued that territories should decide the issue of slavery for themselves.
Stephen A. Douglas
This term means the act of formally withdrawing from a political union, as several Southern states did in 1860–1861.
secession
The Northerners/union soldiers were sometimes called this (hint: europeans often call all American soldiers this.
Yankees / Yanks
Technology-Artists like Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner brought this new art form to the battlefield, showing the public the reality of war.
What is war photography, or tintype photography.
This invention separated cotton fibers from their seeds far faster than by hand, transforming the Southern economy.
Cotton Gin
Once a rival for the presidency, he became Lincoln’s Secretary of State and survived an assassination attempt the same night Lincoln was shot. (Hint: his loose association with John Brown ended his presidential hopes)
William H. Seward?
Many Southerners hoped to return to this earlier framework of government, which gave each state far greater independence than the Constitution allowed.
Articles of Confederation
This popular tune of the 1850s became an unofficial anthem of the Confederacy, known for its lively refrain of “I wish I was in Dixie.”
Dixie
The famous clash between the Monitor and the Virginia introduced these armored vessels that made wooden ships obsolete.
Ironclads
By the 1850s, farmers began using this technology to power threshers and pumps, signaling the first steps toward mechanized agriculture. (Hint: Also what powered river boats)
Steam Engine
Born into slavery, this powerful orator and writer became one of the most influential voices for abolition and human liberty in America.
Frederick Douglass?
This principle, rooted in the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment, held that individual states retained ultimate authority over their own affairs — and was used to justify secession.
states’ sovereignty (or states’ rights)
Before motion pictures, Americans flocked to traveling shows featuring comic skits, sentimental songs, and exaggerated caricatures.
minstrel shows