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 presentday 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)