Social Studies Vocabulary
1st and 2nd Nine Weeks
Reconstruction
13th Amendment
Scalawags
Black Codes
15th Amendment
Reconstruction
KKK
Andrew Johnson
Emancipation
Proclamation
Freedman’s Bureau
Jim Crow Laws
Carpetbaggers
Sharecropping
Segregation
14th Amendment
impeachment
Westward Expansion
Coolies
Reservation
Black Hills
Colonel George Custer
Battle of Little Bighorn
Homestead Act
Homesteader
Sodbuster
Exoduster
Nicodemus, Kansas
Cattle Drive
Long Drive
Rancher
GoldRush
Transcontinental
Railroad
Pony Express
Pioneers
Boom
Bust
Immigrant
Miner
Abolished slavery in 1865
Southerners who supported Reconstruction
Laws that denied African Americans many civil rights
Gave male citizens of all races the right to vote
Period of rebuilding after the Civil War, during which the Southern states rejoined the Union.
A discriminatory group formed during the Reconstruction Era that terrorized and threatened African Americans.
Became President following Lincoln’s assassination and survived being impeached by only one vote in the Senate
Statement issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, freeing all slaves in Confederate states still at war with
the Unions.
Federal agency set up in 1865 to provide food, schools, and medical care to freed slaves in the South.
Laws passed in the South after Reconstruction enforcing the segregation of blacks and whites
Northerners who moved South to start a business, often arriving with their belongings in suitcases made of carpet.
System of farming in which farmers rent land and pay the landowner with a share of the crops they raise.
Separation of people of different races
Gave African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law
Bringing of charges of wrongdoing against an elected official by the House of Representatives
Chinese immigrants who worked on the railroads
Land where Native Americans were forced to moved by the government in hopes that they would give up hunting and
become farmers
Land promised to the Lakota
Defeated by the Lakota at the Battle of Little Bighorn
Led by Crazy Horse, the Lakota had the biggest victory ever won over the United States forces. This led to the end of
freedom for Native Americans
Law signed in 1862 offering free land (160 acres) to pioneers willing to start new farms on the great plains
Settlers who claimed land through the Homestead Act
Great Plains farmer of the late 1800’s who had to cut through thick sod before planting crops
African American pioneers who moved to the Great Plains after the Civil War
Town founded by African American Pioneers
Method cowboys used to move large herds of cattle north from ranches in Texas to towns along the railroads in the late
1800’s
Trips on which cowhands moved large number of cattle to the railroads
A person that raised many cattle
The time period when thousands of people went to California to search for Gold
Railroad that crosses a continent
Service begun in 1860 that used a relay of riders on horses to deliver mail from Missouri to California in ten days.
Early settlers of a region
Quick economic growth
Money was lost quickly
A person who leaves one country to settle in another
One who extracted gold or other ore from the earth
Industrial Revolution and Immigration
Samuel Morse
Inventor who helped develop Morse Code, which was used to send messages by telegraph
Industrial Revolution
Time period in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation
occurred
Alexander Graham Bell
Invented the telephone in 1876
Thomas Edison
Inventor who had thousands of inventions, but is well known for the phonograph, electric light bulb, and microphone
Orville and Wilbur Wright Brothers who built the first successful airplane in 1903
Henry Ford
Entrepreneur and inventor who invented the Model T, the first car to be widely used in the U.S.
Assembly Line
Method of mass production in which a product is put together as it moves past a line of workers
Albert Einstein
This scientist made some of the most important contributions of the 20th century. He warned the President about the
possibility of atomic bombs.
Atomic bomb
Bomb built during WWII that was more powerful than any bomb built before it.
Mechanization
Using machines to do work
Monopoly
A company that has control over an entire industry
corporation
Business owned by investors
Stocks
A share of a company that is sold to an investor
Ellis Island
Island in New York Harbor that was the entry point for European Immigrants
Angel Island
Island in California that was the entry point for Asian Immigrants
Tenements
Small apartments in a poor section of a city
Sweatshops
Factory or workshop where people work under poor conditions
Prejudice
Unfair negative opinion about a group of people
diversity
Variety
Jane Addams
Founded the country’s first settlement house
Settlement house
Community Center that offered food, clothing, and basic needs for the poor
Andrew Carnegie
Industrialist who made steel a major industry in the United States
John D. Rockefeller
Business leader who started the Standard Oil Company, one of the largest monopolies in the United States
Free enterprise
Economic system in which people are free to start their own businesses and own their own property.
Urbanization
Movement of people from rural areas to cities
strike
Refusal of workers to work until business owners meet their demands
Great Migration
Movement of millions of African Americans to the northern United States between 1915 and the 1940’s in search of work and
fair treatment
Progressives
Reformers who worked to stop unfair practices by businesses and improve the way the government works
Muckrakers
Writer or journalist of the early 1900’s who uncovered shameful conditions in business and other areas of American life
Meat Inspection Act
A Progressive reform that allowed government inspectors to check meat and make sure it was safe to eat
Pure Food and Drug Act A Progressive reform that helped make medicine safer by requiring companies to tell the truth about their products
Blue Laws
Laws introduced by Progressives in the early 1900’s designed to solve social problems, such as alcohol abuse
John Muir
Writer and naturalist who wrote hundreds of articles about protecting nature and worked to establish several national parks
US Expansion
USS Maine
American ship that was sunk by an accidental explosion, however, the media said that Spain did it and it began the
Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The war in 1898 where the US gained Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Phillipines
Rough Riders
Roosevelt’s group of volunteer soldiers
Buffalo Soldiers
African American soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War
Panama Canal
Human-made waterwary across the Isthmus of Panama that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans