Week 2 Exam Terms and Short Answer ?s

Week 2 Key Terms: Homestead Act: 1862, Congress gave away plots of 160 acres/household to settlers in the West. Soddies: Houses made out of dirt and sawed. Golden Spike: located in Utah; completed the transcontinental railroad which connected the East and West portions of the country. Ghost Dance: Religious dance performed by Indians in hopes of bringing back the ?old ways? before white civilization; government feared an uprising so they sent troops in to Wounded Knee, South Dakota and killed 150-200 Indians, mainly women and children. Grant?s Peace Policy: initiated Termination; all Indian?s were required to submit to ?white way? and in turn the government would help them out. If they didn?t conform, they were to be hunted down. Termination: Federal government policy attempting to terminate tribal life; did this by killing the buffalo, creating reservations and boarding schools, and the Dawes Act Frederick Turner: Famous for his ?Turner Thesis? which explained Westward expansion. He excluded Indians in his depiction of the West Week 2 Short Answer Questions: What major industries did white settles expand in the West? -Lumber, mining, ranching, and railroad. Use two examples to briefly explain the U.S. policy towards Indians in the late 1800s: -Grant?s ?Peace Policy? shows that the U.S. doesn?t respect the culture of the Native Americans nor are they willing to accept it. On the contrary, the U.S. wants to eliminate their native cultures and assimilate them into American culture. The Dawes Act showed in addition that the U.S. had no respect for their land and thought they had the right to take it. Week 2 Gilded Age Key Terms: Second industrial revolution: Occurred between the end of the Civil War and the start of the twentieth century; farm life fades as industries boom and people move to the cities to work in factories 1883 Columbian Expedition: World Fair; inaccurately portrayed America as a booming industrial white nation; poor Americans, blacks, and immigrants were not allowed to attend Social Darwinism: Belief in the acceptance of poverty and that material inequality was normal; anti-welfare-it is a waste of time because people would never get out of poverty. Liberty of Contract: labor-employee contract; unions and government should not get involved to help either the employee or the employee; anti-union; inspired by Social Darwinism. Social Gospel: Belief that it was Christian duty to help the poor; competition for wealth goes against the Christian principle of ?brotherhood?; 1880?s Knights of Labor: Union uniting skilled and unskilled workers, including women and blacks (not Asian immigrants); they wanted 8-hour work days, equal pay for women, government ownership of railroads, abolition of child labor Haymarket Affair: Unionists protest the killings of strikers in Chicago, someone throws a bomb into the crowd and 8 socialists are convicted of the crime; contributes to anti-unionism and the downfall of the Knights of Labor Week 2 Gilded Age Short Answer Questions: Discuss several wealthy industrialists; robber barons or entrepreneurs? -Thomas A. Scott (Railroad); Andrew Carnegie (steel); J.P. Morgan (banking); John Rockefeller (oil); Carnegie started out as a robber baron but had a change of heart and later supported laborers and donated millions and millions of dollars. Discuss several famous strikes: -Railroad strike of 1877, Pullman strike (railroad workers refused to work on Pullman cars), and Homestead strike (Carnegie Steel; Pinkerton?s called in) were all sided with big business by the government. Why did the labor movement fail to take hold in the late 1800s? -Failed because there was no shortage of workers; immigration made it easy to replace strikers, especially because factories deskilled workers and jobs so that anyone could perform the tasks.