WESTWARD EXPANSION
Law that offered 160 acres to settlers willing to live on and improve land for 5 years.
What is the Homestead Act?
Federal law that broke tribal lands into individual family plots to encourage assimilation.
What is the Dawes Severalty Act?
Steel tycoon known for the “Gospel of Wealth.”
Who is Andrew Carnegie?
A situation in which one company dominates the market and eliminates competition.
What are Monopolies?
Early national labor organization that welcomed skilled and unskilled workers.
What are the Knights of Labor?
The U.S. victory that became a symbolic turning point in Native resistance (1890).
What is the Wounded Knee Massacre?
School designed to “Americanize” Native children by stripping language/culture.
What is the Carlisle Indian School?
Innovation that allowed steel to be produced faster and cheaper.
What is the Bessemer Process?
Legal arrangement where stockholders give power to a small group to manage several companies as one.
What is a Trust?
Major labor union founded by Samuel Gompers focusing on skilled labor and “bread and butter” issues.
What is the AFL?
Famous 1876 battle where Custer and his forces were defeated by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.
What is Custer’s Last Stand?
This law aimed to replace communal tribal ownership with private property ownership.
What is the Dawes Severalty Act?
When one company controls every step of production (raw materials → shipping → sales).
What is Vertical Integration?
Industrialist who built Standard Oil and became a symbol of monopoly power.
Who is John D. Rockefeller?
Argument that society improves when the “fittest” rise to the top; used to justify inequality.
What is Social Darwinism?
Indigenous workers who played a major role building the western section of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Who were Chinese Railroad Workers?
This event symbolized the end of organized Native resistance in the West.
What is the Wounded Knee Massacre?
When one company takes over competitors in the same industry.
What is Horizontal Integration?
Railroad empire builder known as “Commodore.”
Who is Vanderbilt?
Protective taxes on imports supported by industrialists but opposed by many farmers.
What are Tariffs?
The railroad system that linked the eastern U.S. to the Pacific, completed in 1869.
What are the Transcontinental Railroads?
Reformers argued Native Americans must assimilate by adopting farming, Christianity, and English—this school embodied that idea.
What is the Carlisle Indian School?
The powerful banker/financier who built influence by consolidating industries and stabilizing markets.
Who is J.P. Morgan?
Critics argued this business structure concentrated wealth and weakened democracy.
What are Trusts? (or Monopolies)
This idea pushed silver coinage to increase inflation and help indebted farmers.
What is Free Silver?