Category: The Transformation: America 1865-1914
This term refers to the discriminatory belief that was directed against immigrants by some Americans, favoring the interests of native-born Americans over those of immigrants.
What is nativism?
This iconic statue, a gift from France installed in New York Harbor in 1886, became a symbol of hope and freedom for arriving immigrants.
What is the Statue of Liberty?
This term refers to the mass movement of Black Americans from the South to the North between 1865 and 1920, seeking better opportunities and escaping segregation.
What is the Great Migration?
This novel coauthored by Mark Twain in 1873 gives its name to the period between 1870 and 1890, highlighting the era's superficial prosperity.
What is "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today"?
This act, passed in 1916 to restrict child labor, was struck down two years later by the Supreme Court in Hammer v. Dagenhart.
What is the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act?
This 1886 incident in Chicago's Haymarket Square turned a peaceful rally into a violent confrontation between police and protestors.
What is the Haymarket incident?
This 1887 commission was created by Congress to regulate unfair practices of the railroads, marking a significant step in government regulation of private businesses.
What is the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)?
This metaphor, popularized by Israel Zangwill's play in 1908, describes America as a place where different cultures blend together.
What is the melting pot?
This act, passed in 1882, explicitly banned immigration from a specific Asian country to the United States due to prevailing prejudice.
What is the Chinese Exclusion Act?
This New York City political organization, led by Boss Tweed, became infamous for its corruption and manipulation of the city's government in the late 1800s.
What is Tammany Hall?
This famous economist's 1776 work, "The Wealth of Nations," describes the self-regulating nature of a market economy, a fundamental concept of America's economic system during the Gilded Age.
Who is Adam Smith?
This Supreme Court Justice dissented in the Hammer v. Dagenhart case, noting the civilized world's agreement on the evils of child labor.
Who is Oliver Wendell Holmes?
This wealthy industrialist, known for his steel empire, wrote "The Gospel of Wealth," advocating for the rich to use their wealth to improve society.
Who is Andrew Carnegie?
Passed in 1890, this act made monopolies illegal in an effort to promote competition and prevent a single entity from controlling an entire industry.
What is the Sherman Antitrust Act?
This devastating event from 1845 led to mass starvation in Ireland and prompted over a million people to immigrate to America.
What is the potato blight?
From 1880 to 1920, many immigrants to the United States came from these two general regions of Europe, including Italy and Russia.
What are southern and eastern Europe?
In the 1920s, this neighborhood in New York City became a vibrant center for Black culture and the arts, leading to a cultural movement known by this name.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
By 1890, this fraction of Americans owned more wealth than the rest combined, illustrating the extreme wealth disparity of the Gilded Age.
What is the richest one percent?
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, over two million children were sent to work in these locations, facing hazardous conditions.
What are factories, mines, and mills?
In 1892, this strike at the Carnegie Steel Company’s Homestead Steel Works turned deadly when gunfire erupted between strikers and Pinkerton agents.
What is the Homestead Steel Strike?
This political movement, popular among farmers in the late 1800s, advocated for the government to take action to alleviate the economic difficulties facing rural America.
What is populism?
During this time period, known as the Second Industrial Revolution, America underwent significant changes due to immigration, industrialization, and urbanization.
What is 1865 to 1914?
This term refers to the movement in the mid-1800s that was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic, showing early signs of nativism in the United States.
What is the "Know Nothing" movement?
This innovation by Thomas Edison in 1882 marked the beginning of widespread electrical power usage, transforming industries and households.
What is the first electricity-generating power station?
This term, criticized by Karl Marx, became more common in the late 1800s to describe the economic system that Adam Smith referred to as "commercial society."
What is capitalism?
This disease, caused by inhaling coal dust, was a common ailment among coal mine workers, including children.
What is black lung?
This term is used to describe wealthy entrepreneurs who are seen as having exploited workers to amass their fortunes, such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan.
What are robber barons?
This famous speech by William Jennings Bryan in 1896 supported the use of silver in addition to gold, highlighting the economic divide between farmers and the federal gold standard policy.
What is the "Cross of Gold" speech?
This city, along with Boston, was a major destination for newly arrived Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine.
What is New York City?
This religious group, among others from southern and eastern Europe, founded their own schools in America to ensure education in their faith and practices.
What are Catholics?
By the 1910s, this was the share of the world's manufactured goods produced by American industry, indicating the nation's economic dominance.
What is one-third?
This type of oppressive workplace, particularly prevalent in the clothing industry, exploited workers with low wages and long hours.
What is a sweatshop?
Formed in 1886, this federation aimed to improve the lives of trade union members through collective bargaining and strikes when necessary.
What is the American Federation of Labor (AFL)?
This financial titan, known for his investments in banking and industry, famously bought Carnegie's steel company in 1901 for $480 million.
Who is J.P. Morgan?
This system, adopted by the United States in 1900 under President William McKinley, established gold as the sole basis for the nation's currency.
What is the gold standard?
This alternative metaphor suggested by some scholars implies that in American society, diverse cultures coexist like individual pieces, retaining their unique identity.
What is a salad bowl or mosaic?
This processing center, opened in 1892, became the gateway for millions of immigrants arriving in New York Harbor.
What is Ellis Island?
This act, passed by Congress in 1882, showcased the prejudice against a specific group of immigrants by banning further immigration from their country.
What is the Chinese Exclusion Act? (Note: This repeats a detail from the previous text, applying it here for a challenge based on broader context.)
Helen Moore's 1893 observations on this New York City area highlighted the dire conditions of immigrant workers in sweatshops.
What is Manhattan's Lower East Side?
This early 20th-century labor leader grew up poor in London, immigrated to the United States, and eventually became president of the AFL.
Who is Samuel Gompers?
This term refers to labor conflicts that involve workers stopping work to demand better conditions, which were common and sometimes violent from 1865 to 1914.
What are strikes?
He was a prominent figure in the populist movement who advocated for the inclusion of silver to expand the money supply and help indebted farmers.
Who is William Jennings Bryan?
This group of immigrants, alongside the Irish, made up a significant portion of the new arrivals to America in the decade after 1845, many fleeing the failed Revolutions of 1848 in Europe.
Who are the Germans?
This poet wrote a poem celebrating the Statue of Liberty as the "Mother of Exiles," which includes the famous lines inviting the world's "tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
Who is Emma Lazarus?
This term describes the combination of America's economic system and its democratic government, which by the early 20th century had made the U.S. the wealthiest country in the world.
What is political economy?
This ideological critic of commercial society proposed alternative economic structures, contrasting sharply with the principles of the Gilded Age.
Who is Karl Marx?
This act, upheld by the Supreme Court in 1938, finally made child labor illegal, changing the course of labor laws in the United States.
What is the Fair Labor Standards Act?
This organization of skilled workers, involved in the Homestead Strike, tried to enforce its contract with Carnegie Steel Company when tensions escalated in 1892.
What is the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers?
This economic principle advocates for minimal government interference in private business, promoting the idea that individuals should be free to run their businesses as they see fit.
What is free enterprise?