420 Study Guide
Two of the long essay questions will appear on the exam and you will be asked to write on ONE of them. Below them are key terms. You should be able to identify basic journalistic facts about each term (who, what, when, where) and explain their historical significance: how does this item help to explain a larger historical trend, idea, event? Or what part does it play in an important historical narrative? Most of the terms should also be useful in writing about the longer essay prompts. Here are some suggestions on how to approach the in-class history exam.
Study questions for the longer essay
(Numbers correspond to the numbered units on the syllabus)
Did the Wilson administration wage a progressive war in 1917-18? If so, what does your answer tell us about the nature of progressivism?
To what extent did the progressive presidents live up to the ideals of progressivism?
What motivated American involvement in foreign affairs up to the start of WWI?
Did the farmers’ and workers’ movements of the Gilded Age (labor unions, Populism) fail more because of shortcomings of the movements (factors internal to the movements themselves) or because of the ability of the existing order to resist change (factors external to the movements).
Explain the pro-business, conservative ideology of the defenders of the Gilded Age economic order. On balance which cousin was right about the benefits of the system supported by that ideology? (If you forget about the cousins, see units 9 & 12)
8-10: Rise of Industry
Press the arrow to see the key terms for these units. Starred items won't be on the exam.
Taylorism
Efficiency
Productivity
Mechanization
Division of labor
Economies of scale
Mergers
*Trusts
Managers
Limited liability
Stock
Stock exchange
Dividends
Capital
Profits
Capitalists
Robber Barons
Tariff
Invention factories
Wage labor
Contract freedom
Eight-hour day
Strikes
Competition
Consolidation
Real wages
Permanent working class (proletariat)
11: Industrial "progress"
Financiers
Capital accumulation
Brokerage houses
Speculators
Money Supply
Capitalists
Limited liability
Corporations
Dividends
John Henry
Convict leasing
Silicosis
Tuberculosis
*Natick Shoemaker
*Death rates
*Antebellum puzzle
12: Industrial Labor
Great RR strike of 77
General Strike
8-hour day
Child labor
Mechanization
Knights of Labor
Industrial Unions
Pinkertons
Homestead
AF of L
Craft Union
Pullman strike
Eugene Debs
*Injunction
Meatpacking Industry
Immigration
Melting Pot
Lochner v. NY
Police powers
Due process
Liberty of Contract
Judicial Review
13: The West:
*Gold and Silver rushes, 29
*Bison herds, 29
Homestead Act, 31
*Little Bighorn, 37
Transcontinental RR, 40
*Dawes General Allotment Act, 44
*Ghost Dance, 45
*Wounded Knee, 47
*Buffalo Bill, 49
Frontier thesis, 51
Frederick Jackson Turner, 51
100th Meridian
Rain Follows the plow
John Wesley Powell
Aquifers
14. Politics of the Gilded Age
Farmer's Alliance
Populist Party
*Subtreasury system
Monetary policy
Hard money
Free sliver
Bimetallism
Inflation
Deflation
Tom Watson
Colored Farmers’ Alliance
Fusion
William Jennings Bryan
Eugene V. Debs
Socialist Party
*Bourbons
Jim Crow
Lynching
Disfranchisement
Poll tax
Literacy tests
Ida B. Wells
Lost Cause
15. American in the World
"Splendid little war"
Yellow journalism
The Maine
Weyler
Teller Amendment
Platt Amendment
Roosevelt Corollary
Aguinaldo
Hawaii
Filipino Insurrection
Missionaries
Open Door policy
16-20. The Progressive Era
Professionalism
Social Engineering
Muckrakers
City Manager
Robert La Follette
Referendum
Scientific Management
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Square Deal
Anthracite Coal Strike
Bull Moose Party
New Nationalism
New Freedom
Federal Reserve Act
*Gabriel Kolko
Hyphenated Americans
Espionage Act
Neutrality
Lusitania
U-Boats
Zimmerman telegram
CPI (Committee on Public Information)
Liberty Loan
Armistice
14 Points
Peace Without Victory
League of Nations
*Article 10