Terms and Names

Units 1 - 5

created by a group of investors to establish the

Jamestown colony in 1607

Virginia Company

Native American leader of the group by the same name who had uneasy peace with the

settlers in Jamestown

Powhatan

legislature created in Jamestown in

1619, first form of representative government in North America

House of Burgesses

uprising in 1676 against the royal governor led by Nathaniel Bacon

Bacon’s Rebellion

war, beginning in 1675, between

English colonists and Native

American’s led by Metacom

King Philip’s War

the prosecution and execution of 20

men and women for witchcraft in Massachusetts in

1692

Salem Witch Trials

colony established by

the Dutch in what is present-day New York City

New Amsterdam

economic theory that a country

should acquire as much gold and

silver as possible by exporting more

than it imports (sell more stuff

than buy)

Mercantilism

one leg of the triangular trade, also refers to the

forced transport of slaves from Africa

to America

Middle Passage

colonial inventor, printer, writer, and

statesman; contributed to the

Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

Benjamin Franklin

religious revival in the American

colonies in the 1730s and 1740s,

included preachers Jonathan Edwards

and George Whitefield

The Great Awakening

ended the French and Indian War, France gave up

all land in North America

Treaty of Paris (1763)

order by the British king that closed the region

west of the Appalachian

Mountains to all settlement by

colonists

Proclamation of 1763

groups that organized with the purpose of

encouraging the boycott of British

goods, responsible for the Boston Tea

Party

Sons and Daughters of

Liberty

groups who worked to coordinate

resistance to the British

throughout the colonies, sent

letters from city to city

Committees of Correspondence

pamphlet written by Thomas Paine and published in

January 1776, which called for

American independence from Britain

Common Sense

ended the Revolutionary War, Britain

acknowledged American

independence

Treaty of Paris (1783)

plan that established, in 1781, a limited

national government in the US, later

replaced by the Constitution

Articles of Confederation

an uprising against taxes in

Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787

Shays’ Rebellion

supporters of the Constitution during the debate over its ratification, favored

a strong national government,

included Alexander Hamilton and James

Madison

Federalists

opponents of the Constitution during

the debate over ratification, opposed

the concepts of a strong national

government, included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James

Monroe,

Anti-Federalists

document written 1787 that determined how

western territories could become states, also served as a constitution for

the region

Northwest Ordinance

purchase by the US of the Louisiana

Territory from France in 1803

Louisiana Purchase

declaration by President

Monroe in 1823 that the US

would oppose efforts by any

outside power to control a nation in the Western

Hemisphere

Monroe Doctrine

effort, beginning in Britain in the late 1700s, to increase

production by using machines

powered by sources other than humans or animals, textile industry first to be

affected

Industrial Revolution

argument that it was the undeniable fate of

the US to expand across North America (People believed God wanted America to rule “from sea to

shining sea.”)

manifest destiny

an organized campaign to

eliminate alcohol consumption

temperance movement

movement to end slavery

abolitionist movement

the first women’s rights convention in US history, held

in 1848

Seneca Falls Convention

the right to vote

suffrage

devotion to one’s nation

Nationalism

1820 agreement calling for the admission of

Missouri as a slave state and Maine as

a free state, and outlawing slavery in future states to be created north of

36 degrees 30 minutes North

Latitude

Missouri Compromise

the powers that the Constitution

neither gives to the federal government

nor denies to the states

states’ rights

(states’ rightist - belief that the states are

superior to the national government)

amendment to an 1846 bill stating that slavery

would not be permitted in any of the

territory acquired from Mexico, though it

never became law, Northerners continued

to attach it to bills related to new

territories

Wilmot Proviso

agreement designed to ease

tensions caused by the expansion of

slavery into western territories

Compromise of 1850

1854 law that created these

states, allowed citizens to decide whether slavery to be allowed there,

AKA popular sovereignty

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Supreme Court case that decided slaves were not

citizens, declared Missouri

Compromise unconstitutional

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857

presidential decree by Lincoln

that freed all slaves in

Confederate-held territory

Emancipation Proclamation

Group of congressmen who

believed Civil War was fought over slavery

and insisted Reconstruction

should guarantee blacks equality,

wanted to punish the South for starting the

war

Radical Republicans

Program by the federal gov’t to repair the South

and restore southern states to

the Union

Reconstruction

First major federal relief agency, meant to help former slaves

Freedmen’s Bureau

16th President of the US, president during Civil War

Abraham Lincoln

President of the Confederate States

of America (the South)

Jefferson Davis

Commander of Union forces near the end of the Civil War, later became

18th president

Ulysses S. Grant

Commander of Confederate

forces

Robert E. Lee

railway extending from coast to coast, met at

Promontory Point, Utah in 1869

transcontinental railroad

founder of Standard Oil

Company, used horizontal

consolidation to dominate industry

John D. Rockefeller

a group of separate companies that are placed under the

control of a single managing board

trust

complete control of a product or

service

monopoly

inventor, developed the light bulb and

motion picture camera

Thomas Edison

founder of the American

Federation of Labor

Samuel Gompers

laws, beginning in the 1890s, that

required segregation of

public services by race

Jim Crow

organization founded in 1909 to abolish segregation and

discrimination, to oppose racism, and to

gain civil rights for African Americans

NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People

Supreme Court case in which the ruling of separate

but equal, legalized segregation

Plessy v. Ferguson

1894 railway workers’ strike

that spread nationwide, shut

down the railroads and disrupted the

delivery of the mail

Pullman Strike

Terms and Names

Units 6 - 10

writer and journalist who published The

Jungle, described the meat packing

industry in Chicago

Upton Sinclair

journalist who uncovers

wrongdoing in politics or business

muckraker

a process in which citizens can put a proposed new law

directly on the ballot in the next

election by collecting voters’ signatures on a

petition

initiative

procedure that permits voters to

remove public officials from office

before the next election

recall

process that allows citizens to approve

or reject a law passed by their

legislature

referendum

law passed in 1882 that prohibited

Chinese laborers from entering the country, but did

not prevent entry of those who had

previously established US

residence

Chinese Exclusion Act

President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 extension of the

Monroe Doctrine in which he asserted the

right of the US to intervene in the affairs

of Latin American nations

Roosevelt Corollary

movement of African Americans from the south to

the north in search of factory jobs and

a better life

Great Migration

1917 law that made it illegal to

interfere with the draft

Espionage Act

President Wilson’s proposal in 1918

for a postwar European peace,

included the League of Nations

Fourteen Points

intense fear of communism and other politically

radical ideas

Red Scare

production of goods in great

amounts

mass production

African American literary awakening

of the 1920s, centered in Harlem

Harlem Renaissance

the most severe economic

downturn in the nation’s history,

which lasted from 1929 to 1941

Great Depression

the collapse of the American stock market in 1929

Great Crash

term used to describe the central and

southern Great Plains in the 1930s

when the region sustained a period

of drought and dust storms

Dust Bowl

term used to describe a makeshift

homeless shelter during the early

years of the Great Depression

Hooverville

federal project to provide

inexpensive electrical power, flood control, and

recreational opportunities to the Tennessee River Valley

Tennessee Valley Authority

law passed in 1935 that aided unions

by legalizing collective

bargaining and closed shops, and

by establishing the National Labor Relations Board

Wagner Act

system established in 1935 to provide financial security,

in the form of regular payments,

to people who cannot support

themselves

Social Security System

term used to describe FDR’s relief, recovery, and reform programs designed to combat

the Great Depression

New Deal

1939 laws designed to keep the US out

of future wars, prevented the US

from selling weapons to

countries already at war

Neutrality Acts

pioneering automobile manufacturer in the early 1900s, made

affordable cars for the masses using assembly

line and other production techniques

Henry Ford

jazz musician famous for his long trumpet solos and

“scat” singing

Louis Armstrong

writer active during the

Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes

wrote the song “White

Christmas”

Irving Berlin

first lady 1933-1945, tireless worker for

social causes, including women’s

rights and civil rights for African Americans

and other groups

Eleanor Roosevelt

Louisiana politician in the

1930s, suggested redistributing

large fortunes by means of grants to

families, assassinated in

1935

Huey Long

1941 law that authorized the president to aid

any nation whose defense he

believed was vital to American

security

Lend-Lease Act

1942 WWII battle between the US

and Japan, a turning point in the war in the

Pacific

Battle of Midway

code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy, France

on June 6, 1944

D-Day

secret American program during

WWII to develop an atomic bomb, also

known as Los Alamos

Manhattan Project

program of American economic

assistance to western Europe following WWII

Marshall Plan

declared the US would support

countries threatened by communism

Truman Doctrine

American policy of resisting further

expansion of communism

around the world

containment

Republican senator from Wisconsin in the late 1940s and early 1950s, led a

crusade to investigate officials

he claimed were Communists,

discredited in 1954

Joseph McCarthy

dramatic increase in birthrate,

especially in the years following

WWII

baby boom

the first artificial satellite to orbit

Earth, launched by the Soviets in 1957

Sputnik

1954 Supreme Court case in which racial

segregation in public schools was

outlawed

Brown v. Board of Education

citizens’ personal liberties

guaranteed by law, such as voting and

equal treatment

civil rights

law that made discrimination

illegal in a number of areas, including

voting, schools, and jobs

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Pres. Johnson’s proposals for aid to public education,

voting rights, conservation and

beautification projects, medical

care for the elderly, and elimination of

poverty

Great Society

Federal program that provides low-

cost health insurance to poor Americans of any

age

Medicaid

Federal program that provides

hospital and low-cost medical

insurance to most Americans age 65

and older

Medicare

Rule that police officers must

inform persons accused of a crime of their legal rights

Miranda rule

Law aimed at reducing the barriers that

prevented African Americans from voting, in part by

increasing the federal

government’s authority to

register voters

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Attorney General under his brother,

Pres. John F. Kennedy, in the

early 1960s, assassinated while

running for president in 1968

Robert F. Kennedy

African American civil rights leader

from the mid-1950s until his

assassination in 1968, used

nonviolent means such as marches,

boycotts, and legal challenges to win

civil rights

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Athlete who in 1947 became the

first African American to play baseball in the major leagues

Jackie Robinson

Organization formed in 1966 to promote the full participation of

women in American society

National Organization of

WomenNOW

Union created by Cesar Chavez to

organize Mexican field hands in the

west

United Farm Workers

Scandal involving the break-in of the

Democratic National Headquarters, its cover-up and the

eventual resignation of President Nixon in

1974

Watergate Scandal

Peace treaty signed between Israel and Egypt, organized

by President Carter

Camp David Accords

Scandal in the Reagan

administration involving the use of money from secret Iranian arms sales

to support the Nicaraguan

Contras

Iran-Contra Affair

Agreement calling for the removal of trade restrictions

among the US, Canada, and

Mexico

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Agreement

Supreme Court case which made

abortion legal

Roe v. Wade

Book written by Rachel Carson which brought attention to

the environment

Silent Spring

Biologist who wrote Silent

Spring

Rachel Carson

Organized the United Farm

Workers

Cesar Chavez