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Unit 5 Vocabulary
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Term | Definition |
---|---|
Thomas Edison | American inventor with over 1,000 patents; invented electric light bulb |
Monopoly | one company that eliminates competition and controls an entire product; can charge high prices; hurts common people |
John D. Rockefeller | American businesses man; created monopoly out of Standard Oil by using vertical and horizontal integration |
Standard Oil | Owned by John D. Rockefeller; monopoly on the oil refining business |
Trust | a group of businesses with the same product controlled by one person or group; similar to a monopoly |
Andrew Carnegie | Scottish immigrant turned American businessman; founder of U.S. Steel & philanthropist |
Samuel Gompers | Founder of the American Federation of Labor |
Labor Unions | an organization of workers that relies on collective bargaining or striking to get companies to meet demands of better pay and working conditions |
Ellis Island | immigration processing center in New York Harbor (east coast); immigrants who came from Europe; only 2% rejected |
Angel Island | immigration processing center in California (west coast); immigrants from Asia; 18% rejected |
Nativist | people who viewed the fast-growing immigrant population as dangerous to the American political system |
Irish immigrants | typically Catholic & impoverished; discriminated against while competing for unskilled labor jobs in Northern cities |
Chinese immigrants | many hired to work on transcontinental railroad in 1860s; discriminated against & later U.S. passed law that banned immigration from China (Chinese Exclusion Act) |
Sitting Bull | Native American chief who led resistance against the U.S. government; was killed while being placed under arrest because he was suspected of being part of the Ghost Dance movement |
Battle of Little Big Horn | battle fought in the Great Sioux War that resulted in the death of most of the U.S. cavalry unit; victory for natives |
Wounded Knee | Massacre of approximately 300 Lakota Sioux; marked the end of Native American resistance to white settlers' expansion |
Transcontinental Railroad | railroad spanning from the east to the west coast of the U.S. mainly built using immigrant labor; created national markets and time zones |
Jim Crow Laws | Laws passed in Southern states to ensure segregation in public facilities (separate bathrooms, transportation, etc. for white and black) |
Progressivism | people that strengthened American democracy through social & political reforms; against corruption in government and business |
Muckraker | Someone who exposed corruption and hidden problems in society; usually a journalist |
Jacob Riis | muckraker; New York photojournalist who published "How the Other Half Lives" which exposed unhealthy living conditions of immigrants in tenement houses |
Jane Addams | women's/civil rights activist & founder of Hull House - a place that provided services & education to immigrants |
Plessy v. Ferguson | Supreme Court case which ruled that separate facilities were O.K., as long as "equal" facilities were provided for white & black; stemmed from Homer Plessy challenging Jim Crow laws by sitting in the white car on a train |
Initiative | Reform which allowed voters to PROPOSE laws which they would like to see passed |
Referendum | Reform which allows voters to PASS laws without the legislature |
Recall | voters to remove politicians from office who are unsatisfactory before their term ends |
Voter empowerment | Progressive political reforms that gave voters more power on the local, state, and national levels (initiative, referendum, recall, 17th amendment) |
Upton Sinclair | muckraker who wrote The Jungle to expose poor working conditions for immigrants |
The Jungle | book that exposed the unclean procedures used in the meatpacking industry; led to federal laws that established cleanliness standards (Pure Food & Drug Act) |
Ida Tarbell | muckraker who exposed Standard Oil's unfair business practices in "The History of the Standard Oil Company" |
Seventeenth Amendment | established popular election of U.S. senators |
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) | founded by a group of white people & W.E.B. DuBois to secure rights guaranteed by 13, 14, & 15 amendment; legally challenged Jim Crow laws, segregation, and lynching |
Conservation Movement | A push to protect the environment, while also using nature (responsibly!) for recreation; one leader was President Teddy Roosevelt |