Unit 7 and 8 Vocabulary: Early Technological Innovation, Manifest Destiny, and Sectionalism

Expansionist / Expansionists emphasized extending the “area of freedom” and settling coast to coast. Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny / The idea that the US has the right and the duty to expand coast to coast spreading democratic ideals and extending the US’ sphere of influence.
John O’Sullivan / Coined the term “manifest destiny” to describe American dreams of expansion coast to coast.
Santa Fe Trail / Trail leading through New Mexico westward where settlers traded for mules and silver. Became a migratory path for expansion.
Oregon Trail / A migratory trail west that cuts through the Rocky Mountains.
Brigham Young / Took over after Joseph Smith was murdered; led the Mormons to Utah
Joseph Smith / Founder of the Mormon religion
Cyrus McCormick / Invented the mechanical reaper
American System of Manufacturing / Manufacturing interchangeable parts; gave advantages to manufacturing in America; interchangeable parts made replacement parts possible.
Railroad / First major business corporation in America; transformed American cities in to thriving commercial hubs
Phrenology / Rested on the idea that the human mind comprised thirty-seven distinct faculties; believed a person’s personality
PT Barnum / Father of mass entertainment
Washington Irving / Rip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hollow
American Renaissance / After 1820, a flowering of literature that helped foster an American form of writing.
James Fenimore Cooper / Introduced an enduringly influential American fictional character, the frontiersman
Ralph Waldo Emerson / Transcendentalist; wrote Self Reliance; Nature
Henry David Thoreau / Transcendentalist; student of Emerson; wrote Civil Disobedience; Walden Pond
Margaret Fuller / Transcendentalist; conducted “Conversations” for intellectuals; wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century; did not believe in separate spheres for men and women
Walt Whitman / Self-educated writer; Leaves of Grass
Nathaniel Hawthorne / Anti-transcendentalist; wrote The Scarlet Letter
Herman Melville / Wrote Moby Dick
Edgar Allan Poe / Wrote fiction and poetry
Domestic novel / Most popular form of fiction in the 1840s and 1850s; aimed at women
Hudson River School / Painters who wanted to preserve the American landscape
George Catlin / Painted the American West
King Cotton / Cotton grew to become the major cash crop for the South
Tredegar Iron Works / Nation’s fourth largest producer of iron products; located in Richmond
Southern code of honor / Honor defined as an extraordinary sensitivity to one’s reputation; a belief that one’s self-esteem depends on the judgment of others
Stephen Austin / Supported Texas’ bid for independence
Commonwealth vs. Hunt / Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that labor unions were not illegal monopolies that restrained trade
Alamo / Became a symbol of Texan independence
Sam Houston / Head of the Texas Army
William Henry Harrison / 1840 Whig candidate who won the presidency and installed Whig majorities in both houses
John Tyler / Harrison’s VP; becomes president upon Harrison’s death
Webster-Ashburton treaty / Settled disputed boundary between Maine and Canada
Election of 1844 / James K. Polk, a dark horse candidate becomes president; favored expansion; Fifty-four forty or Fight!
Samuel F. B. Morse / Invented the telegraph and Morse Code
Mexican American War / 1846-1848; Mexico ceded vast amounts of territory to the US; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war: Mexico ceded Texas with Rio Grande as boundary; New Mexico and California were ceded to the US; US assumed the claims of American citizens against the Mexican government and paid Mexico $15 million
Wilmot Proviso / Stipulated that slavery be prohibited in the territory acquired from Mexico; did not pass
Election of 1848 / Zachary Taylor ran as a Whig; Lewis Cass ran as a Democrat; extension of slavery/popular sovereignty were major issues; Taylor won
Gold Rush / 1849; began with a gold strike in the California Sierra Nevada range; led to mass migration to the west coast
Compromise of 1850 / Attempted to settle the issues of California’s request for statehood as a free state