REVIEW SHEET – Unit 7 – Growth of the Nation 1865-1916

Westward movement:

  • Reasons why settlers moved West (know exodusters, Homestead Act of 1862)
  • Life on the Great Plains (soddies, weather hardships)
  • Cowboys and cattle drives
  • Impact of new technologies (railroads, mechanical reaper, steel plow)
  • Impact on Native Americans

Immigrants flock to America:

  • Old immigrants (before 1871): from northern and western Europe: Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden)
  • New immigrants(1871 until 1921): from southern and eastern Europe (Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, and present-day Hungary and Yugoslavia), and Asia (China and Japan).
  • Immigration push factors (why did they leave their homes?) and pull factors (what pulled them to America?)
  • Contributions of immigrants – what industries did they work in? (e.g., Chinese workers on Transcontinental Railroad); (textile and steel mills in the Northeast, the clothing industry, coalmines)
  • Problems of immigrants (working conditions, fear they would take jobs, prejudice, Chinese Exclusion Act)
  • Ellis Island, Angel Island, Assimilation/Americanization

Growth of Cities:

  • Industrialization growth of cities for manufacturing/transportation(Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York)
  • Problems of cities: living conditions, rapid growth, housing shortages (tenements/slums), need for sewer /water systems and public transportation

Inventions/Innovations and Leaders of Industry (Robber Barons):

  • Corporation (limited liability)
  • Bessemer steel process
  • Light bulb (Thomas Edison) and electricity as a source of power and light
  • Telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)
  • Airplane (Wright Brothers)
  • Assembly line manufacturing (Henry Ford)
  • Andrew Carnegie (steel)
  • J.P. Morgan (finance)
  • John D. Rockefeller (oil)
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt (railroads)

Business and Labor

  • Laissez-faire capitalism – monopolies, trusts, social Darwinism, government support of business
  • Labor supply (from immigration and migration from farms)
  • Dangerous working conditions, child labor, long hours, low wages, no job security,
  • Company towns (workers had to live there and pay high rent)
  • Labor unions (8 hr day, better pay, better conditions) Knights of Labor, American Federation of Labor (Samuel Gompers), American Railway Union (Eugene V. Debs), Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (Triangle Fire)
  • Strikes (Haymarket Square Riot, Homestead Strike, Pullman Strike)

Goals of Progressive Movement – know examples of each type of reform

  • Political: Government control to the people (initiative, referendum, recall; city managers; election reform)
  • Economic: Economic fairness through government regulation (Sherman & Clayton Anti-Trust Acts)
  • Social: Elimination of social injustices, response to problems of industrialization and immigration
  • Muckrakers – who were they?
  • Progressive Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson
  • 17th Amendment (senators), 18th Amendment (Prohibition), 19th Amendment (woman suffrage)

African Americans struggle for equality:

  • Jim Crow laws, lynching
  • Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) -- “separate but equal”
  • “Great Migration” to Northern cities
  • Know these people and their beliefs: Ida B. Wells; Booker T. Washington; W E.B. Du Bois (NAACP)