exam 2

• Social Darwinism:

  • Belief that the strong should see their wealth and power increase while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease
• Exceptionalism:

  • Idea that the United States of America is a unique and even morally superior country
• William H. Seward:

  • Buys Alaska from Russia
  • Claims the Midway Islands for the US
• Alfred Thayer Mahan:

  • Writes The Influence of Sea Power upon History
• Battleship Maine:

  • Sank in Havana Harbor
  • Contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War
• Yellow Journalism:

  • Style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts
• Spanish-American War (1898):

  • Begins in April and ends in August
  • Spanish warships are destroyed
  • US blocks Cuban ports and invades Puerto Rico
• Teller Amendment:

  • Placed a condition on the US military’s presence in Cuba
• Anti-Imperialist League:

  • Formed to fight U.S. annexation of the Philippines
  • Believed that imperialism was wrong
• Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”:

  • Presents the conquering of non-white races as white people's selfless moral duty
• Open Door Policy:

  • Stated that all nations, including the US, could enjoy equal access to the Chinese Market
• Platt Amendment:

  • Allowed the United States to wield a significant amount of power in Cuba
  • Included the right to intervene, a naval base, and permission to put down Cuban rebellions
• Panama Canal:

  • Huge engineering feat
  • Panamanian government gains independence and sells the canal to the US
• Roosevelt Corollary:

  • An addition to the Monroe Doctrine
  • Asserted the right of the United States to interfere in the economic affairs of small states of Central America and the Caribbean
• W.E.B. DuBois:

  • American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist
  • Advocated for complete, immediate equality
• Booker T. Washington:

  • Educator and reformer
  • First president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute
  • Believed in conforming to the existing social order
• Robert M. LaFollette believed the best way to improve American Society was to condemn the unequal distribution of wealth and economic power
• Initiative/Referendum/Recall is a method of election in which voters can oust elected officials before their official terms have ended
• Social Gospel was a Protestant movement that emphasized individual salvation and good works, believing Christians had a duty to address social ills of the day
• Muckrakers were journalists who exposed the corruption and social hardships of the day
• Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the conditions of the meat industry
• Ida Tarbell wrote The History of the Standard Oil Company to expose Standard Oil and Rockefeller's brutal business practices
• Prohibition was the legal prevention of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment, largely a middle-class campaign
• Eugenics is the belief that society should promote the advancement of the human race through direct government intervention, arranging reproduction in the population to increase desirable traits and weed out undesirable traits
• Women’s Suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections
• Margaret Sanger was the founder of the birth control movement in the United States and an international leader in the field
• Theodore Roosevelt was seen as a hero of the Spanish-American war, utilized the “bully pulpit” to lead, and was more directly involved in foreign affairs
• William Taft was picked by Roosevelt, made a number of progressive reforms, passed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, followed dollar diplomacy, and made good relations with Latin America and Asia
• Woodrow Wilson campaigned for the neutrality of the US in WWI, was an academic and eloquent speaker, and showed little support for the social concerns of progressivism
• Hepburn Act was intended to give power to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to regulate railroad shipping rates
• Meat Inspection Act made it illegal to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food
• Pure Food and Drug Act prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation’s first consumer protection agency
• Gifford Pinchot was the first chief of the US Forest Service
• Progressive Party/Bull Moose Party ensured a Democratic victory by drawing votes away from the GOP
• New Nationalism focused on regulating business, ending child labor, minimum wages, national primary system, national pension system, and woman’s suffrage
• New Freedom focused on lowering tariffs, better banking, and strengthening anti-trust laws
• Federal Reserve Act created a new banking system, bringing back central banking
• Federal Trade Commission investigates companies to ensure fair trade practices
• Clayton Act strengthens the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
• Woodrow Wilson proclaimed neutrality and advocated for Willsonianism, democracy, Open Door Policy, and free-market capitalism