Social Studies 8
Name ________________________
Vocabulary Activity 20
Date ______________ Period ____
The Gilded Age
ethnic group
slum
assimilate
realism
vaudeville
ragtime
emigrate
tenement
steerage
suburb
regionalism
1. What term means to leave one’s homeland to live in another country?
__Emigrate___________
2. What term refers to minorities that speak different languages or follow different
customs from most people in a country? ___ethnic group___________________________
3. What term names the cramped, noisy quarters on the lower decks of a ship?
____steerage________________________________
4. What term means to become part of something, such as part of a country’s culture?
____assimilate________________________________
5. What are two related terms: the first names an apartment building in which several
families rented rooms; the second names the poor, run-down neighborhood where these
buildings were located? ______tenement_______________
____slum______
6. What term refers to a residential area located outside of a city center?
_____suburb_______________________________
7. What term suggested both the extravagant wealth of the late 1800s and the terrible
poverty that lay underneath? ________The Gilded Age
8. What are two literary terms of the late 1800s and early 1900s: the first refers to writing
that described the real lives of people of the time; the second refers to writing that
focused on a particular part of the country?
___realism_______________________
______regionalism______________________
9. What term names music with complex rhythms that dominated popular music for about
20 years near the turn of the century? _____ragtime________________________
10. What word names variety shows of the early 1900s with dancing, singing, comedy, and
magic acts? ______vaudeville____________________________________
11. DEFINE THE TERMS ON THE BACK OF THIS PAGE
Immigrate
Coming to live permanently in a country
Ethnic Neighborhood
Neighborhood comprised of people mainly from one ethic background/culture
Persecution
Angel Island
Ellis Island
These people tend to live in the same neighborhoods because of common cultural
practices, languages, religions, etc.
Hostility or ill-treatment toward an individual or group based on race, religion
or political beliefs
Checkpoint in New York City for immigrants crossing the Atlantic Ocean and
arriving on the east coast of America
Usually European immigrants
Checkpoint in San Francisco for immigrants crossing the Pacific Ocean and
arriving on the west coast of America
Usually Asian immigrants
Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882
Government act that prevented Chinese immigrants from coming to the United
States
Immigration Act of 1917
Government act that restricted the immigration of ‘UNDESIRABLES’ from other
countries, including "idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, alcoholics, poor, criminals,
beggars, any person suffering attacks of insanity
Gentlemen’s Agreement
of 1907
Informal agreement between the US and Japan whereby the United States of
America would not impose restriction on Japanese immigration, and Japan would
not allow further emigration to the U.S.
Quota
A limited or fixed number or amount of people or things
Assimilation
The process by which a person or persons acquire the social, cultural or
political characteristics of a group
Tenement
A multi-family dwelling, usually very small, crowded and unsanitary conditions
(many immigrants lived in them)
Nativism
The idea that one is against anything or anyone not considered to be nativeborn or established inhabitants (This idea opposes immigration)
Where “old” immigrants
were from
Northern and Western Europe
Where “new”
immigrants were from
Southern and Eastern Europe