Vocabulary

Unit 7: Gilded Age & Progressive Era

Terms

Gilded Age: time of rapid economic growth, particularly in the Northern and Western United States.

Bessemer Process: a cheap and efficient process for making steel, developed in the 19th century.

Progressivism: group of reform movements that focused on urban problems, including workplace problems, poor sanitation, and government corruption.

Industrial Revolution: the time of transformation from an agricultural to industrial society.

Nineteenth Amendment: allows for women to vote in the United States.

Tenement housing: small, rundown apartments in major cities at the turn of the 20th century.

Square Deal: President Theodore Roosevelt's three-part domestic program; conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.

Sherman Antitrust Act: law making monopolies illegal in the United States.

People & Places

Woodrow Wilson: twenty-eighth president of the United States; served two terms.

Susan B. Anthony: leading figure of the Women's Suffrage Movement.

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt: twenty-sixth president of the United States; served two terms.

William Howard Taft: twenty-seventh president of the United States; served one term.

W.E.B. DuBois: founder of the NAACP.

Jacob Riis: famous journalist who chronicled the poor living conditions of tenement housing.

Ellis Island: the primary immigration station in the United States between 1892-1920.

Concepts

Suffrage: the right to vote.

Monopoly: exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market.

Immigrate: to move to a non-native country or region to live.

Laizzez-faire: belief that the government should stay out of business regulation.

Social Darwinism: states that a system of unrestrained competition will ensure the survival of the fittest.

Unit 8: World War I & 1920s

Terms

Schlieffen Plan: German military plan that addressed how to handle a war on two fighting fronts.

Zimmerman Note: a memorandum sent by Germany to Mexico encouraging an attack on the United States.

Allied Powers: comprised of Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States.

Central Powers: comprised of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Harlem Renaissance: era in which African American literature, art, and music flourished.

Roaring Twenties: an era in which many Americans defied Prohibition and challenged traditional standards.

Speakeasies: illegal, underground bars of the Prohibition era.

Prohibition: era of American history in which the manufacturing, distribution, sale, and consumption of alcohol was illegal.

Treaty of Versailles: peace treaty officially ending World War I.

People & Places

Franz Ferdinand: Archduke of Austria-Hungary.

Kaiser Wilhelm II: Emperor of Germany during World War I.

Woodrow Wilson: twenty-eighth President of the United States.

Gavrilo Princip: Serbian assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Somme: location of the bloodiest battle of World War I.

Paris: capital of France and location of World War I peace conference.

Concepts

Sit-down strike: protest in which a group of people refuse to leave a designated area.

Trench warfare: a type of strategy of attrition in which sides assault one another from long-term, fixed positions.

Casualty: refers to a soldier who is killed, wounded, missing, or deserted in a battle.

Counterculture: refers to a group of people do and believe in things outside of what society considers normal or typical.

Bootlegging: the illegal manufacturing, distribution, and sale of an illegal product.

Unit 9: Great Depression & WWII

Terms

Great Depression: worst economic collapse in U.S. history.

Shantytowns: unplanned slum development in cities during the Great Depression.

New Deal: President Roosevelt's initiative of relief, recovery, and reform during the Great Depression.

Allied Powers: consisted of the United States, Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain.

Triple Axis: consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Operation Overlord: commonly known as D-Day; June 6, 1944.

Operation Market Garden: code name for the Allied liberation of Holland.

Nazi-Soviet Pact: mutual agreement between Stalin and Hitler of non-aggression.

People & Places

Dust Bowl: region of the Great Plains that experienced a long drought during the Great Depression.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR): 32nd President of the United States; served four terms.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Allied commander of World War II in Europe.

Douglas MacArthur: Allied commander of World War II in the Pacific.

Adolf Hitler: leader of Nazi Germany.

Rosie the Riveter: fictional character who promoted gender equality and work in factories.

Stalingrad: location of the bloodiest battle of World War II in Europe.

Okinawa: location of the bloodiest battle of World War II in the Pacific.

Pearl Harbor: site of Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.

Hiroshima: site of first atomic bombing near the end of World War II.

Nagasaki: site of second atomic bombing near the end of World War II.

Concepts

Appeasement: giving into an aggressor's demand in order to maintain peace.

Blitzkrieg: swift, sudden military offensives.

Liberation: U.S. strategy of World War II in Europe.

Unconditional surrender: a process by which no terms or negotiations are offered to a defeated nation.

Holocaust: destruction or slaughter on a massive scale.

Internment camp: confined area for citizens who have been forcefully relocated.