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U.S. HISTORY STUDY SHEET FOR THE MIDTERM EXAM
Content Focus Terms, People, Organizations, Events, Documents, and Laws
The Civil War, Reconstruction, and Westward Expansion
(Benchmarks SS.912.A.2.1 - SS.912.A.2.7)
1. Kansas-Nebraska Act: This law created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening
new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of
1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular
sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory. The act was designed
by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The initial purpose of the Kansas–
Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a
Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. It became a problem when popular sovereignty
was written into the proposal so that the voters of the moment would decide whether
slavery would be allowed or not. The result was that pro- and anti-slavery elements
flooded into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, leading to a bloody civil
war. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Republican Horace Greeley, editor of
the New York Tribune, to describe this civil war; its violence indicated that compromise
was unlikely. Many people believe the Civil War actually began in 1854 with the
passage of this law.
2. Black Codes: In the United States, the most notorious Black Codes were laws passed by
Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the
effect of restricting African Americans' freedom and of compelling them to work in a
labor economy based on low wages or debt.
3. Compromise: an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side
making concessions.
4. Popular sovereignty: the power of the people of a nation to directly or indirectly control
the policies and directives of the government.
5. Indian reservation system: In 1851, the United States Congress passed the Indian
Appropriations Act which authorized the creation of Indian reservations in modern day
Oklahoma. Relations between settlers and natives had grown increasingly worse as the
settlers encroached on territory and natural resources in the West. By the late 1860s,
President Ulysses S. Grant pursued a stated "Peace Policy" as a possible solution to the
conflict between white settlers and American Indian tribes whose lands were being taken.
The policy included a reorganization of the Indian Service, with the goal of relocating
various tribes from their ancestral homes to parcels of lands established specifically for
their inhabitation.
6. Sharecropping: Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a
tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on the land.
Sharecropping was a way for very poor farmers (both black and white) to earn a living
from land owned by someone else. The landowner provided land, housing, tools and
seed, and perhaps a mule, and a local merchant loaned money for food and supplies. At
harvest time the sharecropper received a share of the crop (from one-third to one-half),
which paid off his debt to the merchant. By the late 1860s white farmers also became
sharecroppers.
7. State’s rights: The balance of national government powers and those powers held by the
states as defined in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution was first addressed in
the case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). The Court's decision by Chief Justice John
Marshall asserted that the laws adopted by the federal government, when exercising its
constitutional powers, are generally superior to any conflicting laws adopted by state
governments. A major dispute over states' rights was over the issue of slavery.
Supporters of slavery often argued that slavery was a right reserved to the states by the
10th amendment.
8. Suffrage: Suffrage is the right to vote gained through the democratic process.
Throughout the course of American history, suffrage has been extended to more and
more groups of people who had previously been denied the right. The major extensions
of suffrage occurred with the 15TH amendment (black males), the 19th amendment
(women), 24th amendment (eliminated pol taxes and literacy tests as requirements to
vote), and the 26th amendment (lowered the age of voting from 21 to 18).
9. Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of the USA, and the leader of America through the
American Civil War. A practical and effective war president, Lincoln made many moves
that were questioned, such as his promotion of Ulysses S. Grant to the position of leader
of the Union’s armed forces when Grant began the war as a captain, or his move to
suspend habeas corpus and position martial law in the border states to prevent a possible
change of heart (border states were states that were slave states that didn’t secede and
states that were on the border of the 36-30 line). To Lincoln, the preservation of the
United States was more important than anything else; for Lincoln, the end justified the
means.
10. Stephen Douglas: Douglas was an American politician from Illinois and the designer of
the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He was a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and the
Democratic Party nominee for President in the 1860 election, which he lost to Republican
Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in the 1856 Illinois Senate
race, which was noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 over westward
expansion of slavery into the western territories. Ironically, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was
the cause of bloody fighting in those two territories, and many historians believe that the
Civil War really began with the passage of that law in 1854. The disaster of the act was
the catalyst that allowed Lincoln to win the 1860 Presidential election.
11. Jefferson Davis: The only President of the Confederate States of America. Under Davis’
leadership, the confederacy faced insurmountable odds and was finally vanquished in
April of 1865. After Davis was captured in 1865, he was accused of treason but was not
tried and was released after two years. While not disgraced, Davis had been displaced in
white Southern affection after the war by his leading general, Robert E. Lee.
Nevertheless, many Southerners empathized with his defiance, refusal to accept defeat,
and resistance to Reconstruction.
12. Ulysses S. Grant: He was the 18th president of the United States (1869–1877) following
his success as military commander in the American Civil War. Under Grant, the Union
Army defeated the Confederate military; the war ended with the surrender of Robert E.
Lee's army at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. As president, Grant led the Radical
Republicans in their effort to eliminate vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery,
protect African American citizenship, and defeat the Ku Klux Klan. During his second
term the country's economy was devastated by the Panic of 1873, while investigations
exposed corruption scandals in the administration. The conservative white Southerners
regained control of Southern state governments and Democrats took control of the federal
House of Representatives. By the time Grant left the White House in 1877, his
Reconstruction policies were being undone.
13. Andrew Johnson: He was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to
1869. Johnson became president as Abraham Lincoln's vice president at the time of
Lincoln's assassination. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states
to the Union and full implementation of Lincoln’s plan to reunite the nation without
overly punishing the south. His plans, however, did not give protection to the former
slaves, and he came into conflict with the Radical Republican dominated Congress,
culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. The first American
president to be impeached, he was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. His political
career was finished, however.
14. Robert E. Lee: He was an American career military officer who is best known for having
commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War. He
emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning numerous battles
against far superior Union armies. His abilities as a tactician have been praised by many
military historians, and he is even today revered in the Deep South.
15. Ku Klux Klan: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the name of three distinct past and present
far-right organizations (1. Post-Civil War, 2. Xenophobic anti-immigration throughout
the first 1/3 of the 20th century, and 3. The anti-black civil rights movement that began
sometime in the 1950’s and continues to this day, albeit with less fanfare and power)
which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white
nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through real and symbolic
terrorism. Since the mid-20th century, the KKK has also been anti-communist. The
current manifestation is splintered into several chapters with no connection to each other;
it is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty
Law Center. It is estimated to have between 5,000 and 8,000 members as of 2012.
16. Carpetbaggers: In United States history, a carpetbagger was a Northerner (Yankee) who
moved to the South after the U.S. Civil War, especially during the Reconstruction era
(1865-1877), in order to profit from the instability and power vacuum that existed at this
time.
17. Scalawags: In United States history, scalawags were southern whites who supported
Reconstruction, carpetbaggers, and the Republican Party after the American Civil War.
18. Freedman’s Bureau: was a U.S. federal government agency (1866-1870) that aided
distressed freedmen (freed slaves) during the Reconstruction era of the United States,
though by 1870 it had been considerably weakened and was completely gone by the end
of Reconstruction in 1876-1877.
19. Radical Republicans: The Radical Republicans were a faction within the Republican
Party from about 1854 (before the American Civil War) until the end of Reconstruction
in 1877. They called themselves "radicals" because they opposed the lenient policies of
more moderate factions of the Republican party factions led by Abraham Lincoln and
after the war by "conservatives" (in the South) and "liberals" (in the North). Radical
republicans strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted exConfederates, demanding harsh policies for the former rebels, and emphasizing civil
rights and voting rights for freedmen (recently freed slaves).
20. Rutherford B. Hayes: was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). As
president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction, and was actually elected in the closest
election in American Presidential election history. The vote was so close that Northern
Republicans felt obligated to end reconstruction in a compromise with the Southern state
leadership who were ready to demand a recount and/or decry the election as being
“fixed”. Hayes began the efforts that eventually led to civil service reform (Pendleton
Act of 1883), and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and
Reconstruction.
21. William Tecumseh Sherman: Sherman was an American soldier, businessman, educator
and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War
(1861–65), for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military
strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies that he
implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States. Sherman served
under General Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that led to the
fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and ended with
the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee. In 1864, Sherman
succeeded Grant as the Union commander in the western theater of the war after Grant
took command of the entire Union army. He proceeded to lead his troops east during the
scorched earth campaign of 1864 and 1865 to capture of the city of Atlanta, a military
success that contributed to the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman's
subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas further undermined the
Confederacy's ability to continue fighting.
22. The Anaconda Plan: This is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing
the Southern states in the American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield
Scott, the plan emphasized the naval blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an
advance up the Mississippi River to cut the South in two, which would effectively end the
western war.
23. Civil Rights Act of 1866: This Act declared that people born in the United States and not
subject to any foreign power are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or
previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. It also said that any non-white
citizen has the same rights as a white citizen to make and enforce contracts, sue and be
sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and
personal property. Additionally, the Act guaranteed to all citizens the "full and equal
benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed
by white citizens, and ... like punishment, pains, and penalties..."
24. Compromise of 1850: The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five laws passed in
September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the
South and the free states of the North regarding the status of western territories acquired
during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). The compromise delayed secession and
civil war for 10 years but ultimately failed to prevent that disaster from occurring. The
following are the provisions of this compromise:
A. Texas’ application to become a state was approved after it surrendered its
claim to New Mexico (over which it had threatened war) as well as its claims
north of the Missouri Compromise Line, transferred its large public debt to the
federal government, and retained control over El Paso that it had established
earlier in 1850, with the Texas Panhandle thrown in at the last moment.
B. California's application for admission as a free state with its current
boundaries was approved and a Southern proposal to split California at
parallel 35° north to provide a Southern territory was not approved (this made
the Missouri compromise 36-30 line obsolete).
C. The South avoided adoption of the symbolically significant Wilmot Proviso
(the Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the American Civil
War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico
following the Mexican War).
D. The new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory could in principle decide
in the future to become slave states (popular sovereignty), even though Utah
and a northern fringe of New Mexico were north of the Missouri Compromise
Line where slavery had previously been banned in territories.
E. The most concrete Southern gain was the Fugitive Slave Act, the enforcement
of which outraged Northern public opinion. It required that all escaped slaves
were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that all officials and
citizens of Free states had to cooperate in this law.
25. Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857): In this decision, the Court held that African Americans
whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to
sue in federal court (in other words, if a free black person in a free state was forced into
slavery in that state, the black person could legally do nothing about it, even though
slavery was illegal in that state!). It went further to say that the federal government had
no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the
United States.
26. Battle of Gettysburg: Considered by many (along with the rebel surrender at
Vicksburg the next day) to be the turning point of the Civil War, this three day battle in
the summer of 1863 involved the largest number of casualties of any battle in this
horrible war. General Lee believed that the North would be open to surrendering the war
if he could penetrate into union territory in Pennsylvania as far as Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, or even Philadelphia possibly. General Grant and President Lincoln sent
troops to try and stop them and Gettysburg, PA was where they ended up meeting. The
Union dug in and after suffering some early losses on day one, had begun to wear down
Lee’s troops by the end of the second day. On the third day, a desperate plan was put
together by Lee to try and use a massive assault on the center of the Union lines to try
and break through. The Union leader at Gettysburg, General George Meade, predicted
the night before that Lee would attempt this, and the Union forces were ready for it and
decimated the rebel charge. This suicide run is known as “Pickett’s charge”, named after
Maj. Gen. George Pickett, one of three Confederate generals who led the assault.
Defeated, Lee soon ordered a retreat from battle, and while what was left of his army did
escape, they were never able to fight offensively again and never really threatened the
union militarily after this.
27. Gettysburg Address: The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham
Lincoln, one of the best-known in American history. It was delivered by Lincoln during
the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863. In it,
Lincoln reiterated the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of
Independence and proclaimed the Civil War as a struggle not only for the preservation of
the Union, but also one that would bring true equality to all of its citizens.
28. Battle of Vicksburg: It began in May of 1863 with two major Union assaults (May 19
and 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications outside of Vicksburg which were
repulsed with heavy casualties. Grant decided to besiege (surround and starve out) the
city beginning on May 25. With no reinforcements, their supplies nearly gone, and after
holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4 when they
heard that Lee had lost at Gettysburg the previous day. This action, when combined with
Lee's defeat at Gettysburg by is considered to be the turning point of the war..
29. Emancipation Proclamation of 1863: This presidential statement proclaimed the
freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion, and was based on the
president's constitutional authority as commander in chief of the armed forces. The
Proclamation also ordered that "suitable" persons among those freed could be enrolled
into the paid service of United States' forces, and ordered the Union Army (and all
segments of the Executive branch) to "recognize and maintain the freedom of" the exslaves.
30. The Civil War Amendments (AKA Reconstruction Amendments): This refers to the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution,
adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the Civil War. The
amendments were important in implementing the Reconstruction of the American South
after the war. Their proponents saw them as transforming the United States from a
country that was (in Abraham Lincoln's words) "half slave and half free" to one in which
the constitutionally guaranteed "blessings of liberty" would be extended to the entire
populace, including the former slaves and their descendants. The Thirteenth
Amendment abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment included the privileges
and immunities clause (all people are guaranteed the same privileges no matter what state
they find themselves in), and the due process (all people will be treated fairly by the law)
and equal protection clauses (all people are entitled to the equal protection of the law,
meaning no one should be above the law or be treated differently than anyone else under
the law) applicable to all persons. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination in
voting rights of citizens on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
31. Radical Republican Reconstruction Plan: The Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln's
terms for reuniting the United States during Reconstruction, which began in 1863, which
they viewed as too lenient. They proposed an "ironclad oath" that would prevent anyone
who supported the Confederacy from voting in elections; Lincoln blocked it. Radicals
passed the Wade-Davis Bill (the bill made re-admittance to the Union for former
Confederate states contingent on a majority in each Southern state taking the Ironclad
oath to the effect they had never in the past supported the Confederacy) in 1864; Lincoln
vetoed it. The Radicals demanded a more aggressive prosecution of the war, a faster end
to slavery and the total destruction of the Confederacy. After the assassination of
Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson became president. Although he appeared at first
to be a Radical, he broke with them, and the Radicals and Johnson became embroiled in a
bitter struggle. Johnson proved a poor politician and the Radicals soon had full control of
Congress and could override Johnson's vetoes. Johnson vetoed 21 bills passed by
Congress during his term, but the Radicals overrode 15 of them, including the
Reconstruction Acts (the creation of five military districts in the South, each commanded
by a general, which would serve as the acting government for the region in order to
enforce the laws of the Constitution regarding the rights of blacks and the provisions of
the Civil War amendments).
Late 19th Century, Industrial Revolution, Farmer’s Challenges, the Shift From a Rural
Agrarian to an Urban Industrial Society, Immigration, and the Labor Movement
(Benchmarks SS.912.A.3.1 - SS.912.A.3.13)
32. The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural
Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from the end of the civil war
through most of the 20th century.
33. The Homestead Act of 1862 was the first of several Homestead acts, the 'Homestead Act
of 1862”, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. Anyone
who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government (including freed slaves and
women), was 21 years or older, or the head of a family, could file an application to claim
a federal land grant. There was also a residency requirement (The occupant had to reside
on the land for five years, and show evidence of having made improvements. If so, and
the land would be theirs for free).
34. The Anaconda Plan is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing the
seceding states in the American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott,
the plan emphasized the blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down
the Mississippi River to cut the South in two.
35. The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the
intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, pulled federal troops out of state
politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era.
36. The Dawes Act of 1877 was adopted by Congress in 1887. It authorized the President of
the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual
Indians. The stated objective of the Dawes Act was to stimulate assimilation of Indians
into American society.
37. The Industrial Revolution refers to the movement away from an agrarian (agricultural)
based economy to an economy centered on manufacturing. There is generally thought to
have been two of these revolutions, the first beginning in England in the late 18th century
and rapidly spread across Europe and into America and mainly involved the manufacture
of textiles (the creation of woven fabrics). The first Industrial Revolution evolved into
the second Industrial Revolution between 1840 and 1870, when technological and
economic progress continued with the increasing adoption of steam power (steampowered railways, boats and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the
increasing use of machinery in steam powered factories. Eventually, the revolution
exploded at the turn of the 20th century with the creation of controlled electric power.
38. Reservation System refers to the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act which gave funds to
move western tribes onto reservations. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Orlando Brown
explained the rationale behind this policy in 1850. Brown suggested that reservations
should be “a country adapted to agriculture, of limited extent and well-defined
boundaries; within which all, with occasional exceptions, should be compelled constantly
to remain until such time as their general improvement and good conduct may supersede
the necessity of such restrictions.”
39. A monopoly exists when there is only one seller of a good or service and there is no
reasonable alternative available. Monopolies are generally considered undesirable in a
free enterprise system as they tend to keep prices high and quality levels of goods and
services produced low – competition, the opposite idea of monopoly, does the opposite
and is considered to be one of the cornerstones of a free enterprise system. In America,
only certain types of monopolies are legal. Corporations have tried to get around antimonopoly laws in several ways, disguising their business models so as to attempt to
avoid detection by the law.
40. Urbanization refers to the post-Civil War – 1930 migration of people from farming areas
(rural) to cities and towns (urban).
41. The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the massproduction of steel from molten pig iron prior to the open hearth furnace. The process is
named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855.
The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being
blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass
and keeps it molten.
42. Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American
industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil. He was also a key figure in the development
of the eastern coast of Florida along the Atlantic Ocean and was founder of what became
the Florida East Coast Railway. He is known as the father of Miami, Florida and also
founded Palm Beach, Florida.
43. Muckrakers were turn of the century investigative journalists who exposed corruption in
business and government and publicized it in books, newspapers and magazines. This
many times forced business and government to institute changes in response to this
negative press.
44. Immigration refers to the migration of foreign people into the United States to live here
permanently or semi-permanently. Americans, despite the imagery of America as a
“melting pot” have always been afraid of and generally been against immigration. This
fear of foreigners (xenophobia) has led to many historical events that both define and
haunt the American experience (Sacco and Vanzetti, the 2nd coming of the KKK, etc.).
45. Innovation, or invention, was a major force of the late 19th and early 20th century and
still is today. People like Thomas Edison (lightbulb, electric generator, phonograph),
Nicola Tesla (AC electricity), and Henry Ford (assembly line mass production factory)
stand out as great turn of the century innovators.
46. The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor
organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence V. Powderly. The
Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the working man, rejected Socialism
and radicalism, and demanded the eight-hour day. In some cases it acted as a labor union,
negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion
in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and became a small operation again.
47. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor
unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in May 1886 by an
alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor
association. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected
president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year
except one until his death in 1924. The AFL was the largest union grouping in the United
States for the first half of the 20th century, even after the creation of the Congress of
Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that were expelled by the AFL in 1935 over
its opposition to industrial unionism. While the Federation was founded and dominated
by craft unions throughout the first fifty years of its existence, many of its craft union
affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the
CIO in the 1940s. In 1955, the AFL merged with its longtime rival, the Congress of
Industrial Organizations, to form the AFL-CIO, a federation which remains in place to
this day. Together with its offspring, the AFL has comprised the longest lasting and most
influential labor federation in the United States.
48. Social Darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in
the United States and Europe in the 1870s, and which sought to apply biological concepts
of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists
generally argue that the strong should see their wealth and power increase because of
their inherent genetic superiority while the weak should see their wealth and power
decrease, resulting from a lack of strong genes. Obviously, different social Darwinists
have different views about which groups of people are the strong and the weak, and they
also hold different opinions about the precise mechanism that should be used to promote
strength and punish weakness.
49. The Social Gospel movement was a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was
most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. The movement
applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as
economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean
environment, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war.
This movement gave rise to philanthropy, as well as organized institutions such as
settlement houses, YMCA organizations, and charitable organizations such as the
Salvation Army.
50. George Washington Carver (by January 1864 – January 5, 1943), was an American
scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown;
he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864. Carver's
reputation is based on his research into and promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such
as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, which also aided nutrition for farm families. He
wanted poor farmers to grow alternative crops both as a source of their own food and as a
source of other products to improve their quality of life.
51. The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur
on May 6, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those
revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend Chinese immigration, a ban that was intended to last
10 years. This law was repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943.
52. The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot)
refers to the aftermath of a bombing that took place at ``a labor demonstration on Tuesday
May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of
workers striking for an eight-hour day. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at
police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire
resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others
were wounded.
53. The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act, July 2, 1890, Ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, 15
U.S.C. §§ 1–7) is a landmark federal statute on United States competition law passed by
Congress in 1890. It prohibits certain business activities that federal government regulators
deem to be anticompetitive, and requires the federal government to investigate and pursue
trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of being in violation. It was the first federal
statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust
litigation by the United States federal government.
54. The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892,
culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. The
battle was the second largest and one of the most serious disputes in U.S. labor history.
The final result was a major defeat for the union and a setback for efforts to unionize
steelworkers. Carnegie Steel was the overall victor.