Study Guide for the US History EOC Exam
Main Topic / Things You Need to KnowAmerican Eras / · Reconstruction – ended by President Hayes in 1877
· Gilded Age – 1877 to mid-1890’s; age of industrialization, immigration, rapid growth, and westward expansion, but also corruption, exploitation of labor, poverty
· Progressive Era – mid-1890’s to end of WWI; era of reform in politics and society
· WWI- 1914-1918 (US entered war in 1917)
· Roaring Twenties – 1920’s; Rapid growth of business; prosperity except for farmers
· The Great Depression – 1930’s (1929 to 1943); unemployment, bread lines, closing of businesses & banks; the New Deal
· WWII – 1939-1945 (US entered war in 1941)
· The Cold War – 1945 to 1991; tensions between democratic West and Communist states
Reconstruction Amendments / · 13th Amendment – freed the slaves
· 14th Amendment – defined citizenship and gave citizenship to former slaves
· 15th Amendment – granted right to vote for all men regardless of color
The West / · Placer Mining – surface mining by individual prospectors or small groups using picks, shovel, pans, etc.
· Quartz Mining – deep earth mining by corporations using heavy machinery
· Boom Towns – towns that grew quickly around gold/silver strikes
· Vigilance Committees – civilians who took it upon themselves to enforce justice on frontier
· Open Range Ranching – cattle ranching using government-owned grasslands
· Cattle Drives – herding cattle to northern railheads; Chisolm Trail most famous cattle trail
· Barbed Wire – invented by Joseph Glidden; doomed cattle drives; prohibited free movement of cattle
· Farming on Great Plains – Drought, high winds, harsh climate/temperatures; locust (grasshopper) plagues
· Homestead Act 1862 – US gave away free land to homesteaders to settle West; homes made of sod; farmers referred to as “sodbusters”
· Railroad Land Grants – Used by US government to finance railroad construction; railroads sold the land to settlers (some recruited from Europe)
· Bonanza Farms – large mechanized farms owned by corporations
· 1864 Sand Creek Massacre – worst massacre of Indians by US soldiers
· Battle of the Little Bighorn – defeat of US cavalry (commanded by Colonel Custer) by Indians
· 1887 Dawes Act – attempted to make Indians assimilate by becoming farmers; carved up reservations into farm plots; destroyed Indian culture
· 1890 Wounded Knee – Indians left reservations leading to last massacre of Indians by US soldiers
The Gilded Age / · “Gilded Age” Term coined by Mark Twain to describe array of problems under the surface of American prosperity
· Robber Barons – businessmen that gained wealth through corruption and exploitation of labor and resources
· Tammany Hall – NY City political machine that produced infamous Boss Tweed
· Rise of Monopolies & Trusts – US Steel (Andrew Carnegie), Standard Oil (John D. Rockefeller), Railroads (Cornelius Vanderbilt), Banking/Railroads (JP Morgan)
· Bessemer Process – allowed steel to be made cheaper and mass-produced by injecting air into molten iron and burning away impurities
· Immigration mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe (Jews) – came into US at Ellis Island in New York
· Angel Island - Asian immigrants (mostly young males) entered US in San Francisco
· Nativists – anti-immigrant group
· Tenements – multi-storied apartment buildings; dark, unhealthy
Big Business / · Corporation – owned by many people but treated by law as if it were a single person
· Stocks – shares of ownership of a company
· Fixed Costs – money a company must spend regardless if it is running or not such as taxes
· Operating Costs – costs that occur when a company is running such as workers’ pay
· Monopoly – when a single company achieves control over an entire market
· Vertical Integration – a company owns all the different businesses on which it depends for its operation; a type of monopoly
· Horizontal Integration – owning many companies of the same type making one large corporation; a type of monopoly
· Trust – where several companies are controlled as if they were all part of one corporation (a form of monopoly)
· Trade Unions – limited to people with certain skills (skills = crafts, trades)
· Closed Shop – where workers must join a union just to apply for a job
· Blacklist – Factory owners would list troublemakers and keep them from being hired
· Strike- factory workers would try and get better wages/conditions by refusing to work
· Strikebreakers (aka Scabs)- workers hired by factory owners to take the place of striking workers
· Lockout – Factory owners would try and break unions by locking the factory and not letting workers earn money
The Progressive Era / · Progressive Era - Era of reform sparked by excesses of Gilded Age
· High railroad freight rates and problems with banks sparked radicalization of farmers – Granges established followed by the Alliance Movement which turned into the Populist Party
· Populist wanted governmentt ownership of railroads, unlimited coinage of silver, graduated income tax
· Eugene V. Debs – leader of American Railway Union; led Pullman Strike; Socialist, ran for president multiple times; imprisoned under Sedition Act during WWI
· Muckrakers – journalists who exposed social and political problems; life of immigrants (Jacob Riis in How the Other Half Lives); meat-packing industry (Upton Sinclair in The Jungle); unfair competition of Standard Oil (Ida Tarbell)
· Knights of Labor – first industrial labor union; allowed women and minorities as members; decrease in power due to Haymarket Square Bombing
· American Federation of Labor – founded by Samuel Gompers; “bread and butter” goals such as pay, working conditions, 8-hour work day
· Social Gospel – religious groups seeking to help poor through social and political reform (YMCA and Salvation Army); Settlement Houses (model was Hull House – Jane Addams)
· 16th Amendment – income Tax
· 17th Amendment – direct election of senators
· 18th Amendment – prohibition of alcohol
· 19th Amendment – women’s right to vote
Age of Imperialism and Expansion / · Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan – theorized that to be great, a nation needed a strong navy with its own overseas coaling stations
· 1898 – Spanish-American War; sparked by sinking of USS Maine; cavalry regiment called “Rough Riders” organized by T. Roosevelt; beginning of US Imperialism
· Defeat of Spain gave US Puerto Rico, Guam, and Philippines
· Teller Amendment – US would NOT take Cuba as a colony
· Foraker Act – made Puerto Rico territory of US
· Platt Amendment – US control over Cuban Constitution: Cuba could have no treaties w/Europe, US could intervene, US got bases in Cuba (Guantanamo)
· Filipinos conducted guerrilla war against US; led by Emilio Aguinaldo
· Overthrow of Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani by American planter class led by Sanford Dole; Hawaii later annexed by US; Dole first governor of Hawaii
· US under TR instigated Panamanian Revolution against Colombia to secure land for Panama Canal
· President T. Roosevelt’s policy towards Latin America endorsed use of force if necessary (“Speak softly but carry a big stick”) – called Roosevelt Corollary
· Open Door Policy – US trade policy with China; wanted all powers to respect territory and gov’t of China and engage in free trade; authored by Secretary of State John Hay
· Dollar Diplomacy – President Taft’s policy that pushed the idea of using businesses to gain influence in Latin America
· Election of 1912- three-way race between Taft (Republican), Wilson (Democrat), and TR (Bull Moose/Progressive party); Wilson won election
World War I / · 1914-1918
· Sparked by assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand 1914
· Stalemate caused trench warfare; new weapons such as tanks, flamethrowers, and chemicals developed to break stalemate
· President Wilson tried to negotiate end to war based on his Fourteen Points peace plan
· US entered war in 1917 / Reasons include: unrestricted submarine warfare (Freedom of the Seas), financial ties to Allies, Zimmerman telegram, Allied propaganda
· Espionage & Sedition Acts – severely limited American rights to free speech and free press; Schenck v. United States upheld law’s constitutionality
· American Expeditionary Force (AEF) led by General Pershing
· Biggest Battle: the Argonne Forest; biggest hero: Alvin York
· War ended with Treaty of Versailles negotiated by Wilson; included League of Nations
· US Senate (led by Henry Cabot Lodge) rejected treaty and League of Nations
The Roaring Twenties / · First Red Scare – radicals, anarchist bombings, and Russian Revolution prompted public hysteria against “Reds;” Palmer Raids - mass arrests and deportations of radicals by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer
· 1920 - Harding elected based on “Normalcy”
· Teapot Dome – political scandal in Harding administration; Sec of Interior Albert Fall illegally leased US oil reserves to private companies
· Calvin Coolidge – pro-business president; “The business of this country is business”
· National Origins Act – dramatically decreased immigration through quota system
· The Flapper – young women that showed disdain for conventional dress and behavior
· Volstead Act – gave “teeth” to the 18th Amendment
· Speakeasies – secret bars used to get around Prohibition laws
· Sacco & Vanzetti Trial – people believed defendants convicted b/c they were Italian immigrants and Anarchists
· Scopes “Monkey” Trial – trial of John Scopes for teaching evolution in school; Prosecution led by William Jennings Bryan; Defense led by Clarence Darrow
· Eugenics – pseudo-science advocating against immigration of inferior races, calling for selective abortion, breeding of human race
· Henry Ford – mass production of cheap automobiles; assembly line
· Charles Lindbergh – first solo flight from US to Europe in Spirit of St. Louis
· Glenn Curtiss – Father of naval aviation; helped develop modern airplanes
· President Herbert Hoover elected 1928 – blamed for Depression
· 1929 – Stock Market Crash; beginning of Great Depression
The Great Depression / · Hoovervilles – shanty towns formed when people evicted from homes
· Bonus Army – WWI veterans marched on Washington DC to demand bonus payments promised by gov’t; troops burned Bonus Army camp; American public turned against Hoover
· Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) elected president in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944
· Bank Run – people withdrew all their money causing the bank to financially collapse; Bank Holiday – US closed banks to make sure they were stable
· 20th Amendment – moved inauguration day forward from March to January
· 21st Amendment – repealed Prohibition
· Hundred Days – first months of FDR’s new administration; first New Deal programs
· FDIC – Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; protects bank accounts in case bank fails
· SEC – Securities and Exchange Commission; reformed ways in which stocks are bought/sold
· CCC – Civilian Conservation Corps; young men hired to work in National Parks
· TVA – Tennessee Valley Authority; dams created electric power
· AAA – Agricultural Adjustment Administration; raised crop prices by limiting production
· WPA – Works Progress Administration; gave jobs to many groups including artists, actors, writers
· Social Security Administration – set up Social Security system under which Americans live today (Second New Deal program)
· Fireside Chats – FDR connected with public via radio broadcasts
World War II / · 1939-1945
· Began in Europe with German invasion of Poland
· US supplied Great Britain (and later Russia & China) with military supplies under Lend-Lease Act
· US entered war after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941
· Bataan Death March - Japan invaded Philippines; US and Filipino POWs forced to march to prison camps; thousands died
· A. Phillip Randolph – head of black porter’s union; threatened march on Washington if gov’t jobs not opened to minorities; FDR complied
· Double V Campaign – black soldiers fighting nation’s enemies but also racism at home
· Executive Order 9066 – authorized internment of Japanese Americans
· Korematsu v. United States – upheld internment of Japanese-Americans
· North Africa – first place US troops fought w/German Army
· US strategy in Pacific – “Island Hopping”
· Turning point in Pacific was Battle of Midway; US put Japan on defensive
· Turning Point in Europe was D-Day (invasion of Normandy, France); put Germany on defensive
· Oveta Culp Hobby – First director of the Women’s Army Corps
· General Omar Bradley - Commander on ground on D-Day
· General Dwight Eisenhower - Commander of all Allied forces in Europe
· General George Patton - Most effective US battle commander in Europe
· Tuskegee Airmen – all black fighter squadron in Europe
· General Douglas MacArthur - Commander of all US Army in Pacific
· Admiral Chester Nimitz - Commander of all naval forces in Pacific
· Navajo Code Talkers (aka “Wind Talkers”) – US Army used Native-Americans to operate radios because Japanese could not translate Indian language
· Flying Tigers – US volunteer fighter pilots who supported the Chinese Nationalist Army
· Battle of the Bulge – largest battle US fought in Europe; last offensive in West by Germany
· FDR died April 1945; WWII in Europe ended May 1945 (V-E Day)
· US developed atomic bombs in Manhattan Project
· US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
· WWII in Pacific ended August 1945 (V-J Day)
The Cold War / · 22nd Amendment – limited presidents to only two terms (because of FDR)
· Cold War - era of tension between Western nations led by US and communist nations led by Soviet Union
· Containment – policy in which US attempted to stop expansion of communism
· Truman Doctrine – containment policy in which US provided $ and arms; first used in Greece
· Berlin Airlift – Soviet Union blockaded Allied-occupied sectors of Berlin hoping to get them to leave; Allies responded by airlifting supplies to Berlin
· Marshall Plan – Sec of State George Marshall plan to rebuild Europe to keep it from turning to communism
· US and Western nations established NATO (military alliance) to protect against USSR