Economic Opportunity Act

A component of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. The Economic Opportunity Act established an Office of Economic Opportunity to provide young Americans with job training. It also created a volunteer network devoted to social work and education in impoverished areas.

Eighteenth Amendment

Ratified on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the manufacture, transport, or sale of alcoholic beverages. It was sporadically enforced, violated by many, and repealed in 1933.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

A Republican, served as president from 1953 to 1961. Along with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower sought to lessen Cold War tensions. One notable success in this realm was the ending of the Korean War. Before serving as president, Eisenhower was the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II, coordinating Operation Overlord and the American drive from Paris to Berlin.

Eisenhower Doctrine

Announced in 1957. The doctrine committed the U.S. to preventing Communist aggression in the Middle East, with force if necessary.

Elastic clause

Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution. The article states that Congress shall have the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution . . . powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.” This clause was a point of much contention between those who favored a loose reading of the Constitution and those who favored a strict reading.

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. The proclamation freed all slaves under rebel (Confederate) control. It did not affect the slave states within the Union or Confederate states under Union control, and therefore in practice freed few slaves. Nevertheless, the proclamation gave the war a new objective—emancipation—and crystallized the tension between the Union and the Confederacy.

Embargo Act

Endorsed by Thomas Jefferson and passed in December 1807. The act ended all importation and exportation in response to the Chesapeake-Leopard affair. Jefferson hoped the embargo would put enough economic pressure on the French and British that the two nations would be forced to recognize U.S. neutrality rights in exchange for U.S. goods. The embargo, however, hurt the American economy more than it did Britain’s or France’s, leading to the act’s repeal in March 1809.

Emergency Banking Relief Act

The first act of FDR’s New Deal. The Emergency Banking Relief Act provided a framework for the many banks that had closed early in 1933 to reopen with federal support.

Emergency Committee for Unemployment

Herbert Hoover’s principal effort to lower the unemployment rate. Established in October 1930, the committee sought to organize unemployment relief by voluntary agencies, but Hoover granted the committee only limited resources with which to work.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A leader of the transcendentalist movement and an advocate of American literary nationalism. He published a number of influential essays during the 1830s and 1840s, including “Nature” and “Self Reliance.”

Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871

Sought to protect black suffrage in the wake of Klu Klux Klan activities.

Enlightenment

An intellectual movement that spread through Europe and America in the eighteenth century. Also known as the Age of Reason, Enlightenment ideals championed the principles of rationalism and logic. Their skepticism toward beliefs that could not be proved by science or clear logic led to Deism.

Era of Good Feelings

The period between the end of the War of 1812 and the rise of Andrew Jackson in 1828, during which the United States was governed under a one-party system that promoted nationalism and cooperation. At the center was James Monroe’s presidency, as Monroe strove to avoid political conflict and strengthen American nationalism and pride.

Leif Ericson

The alleged leader of a group of Vikings who sailed to the eastern coast of Canada and attempted, unsuccessfully, to colonize the area around the year 1000—nearly 500 years before Columbus arrived in the Americas.

Erie Canal

America’s first major canal project. Begun in 1817 and finished in 1825, the Erie Canal stretched from Albany to Buffalo, New York, measuring a total of 363 miles.

Espionage Act

Passed in 1917, the act enumerated a list of antiwar activities warranting fines or imprisonment.

Eugenics

Founded on the premise that the “perfect” human society could be achieved through genetic tinkering. Popularized during the Progressive era, writers on eugenics often used this theory to justify a supremacist white Protestant ideology, which advocated the elimination of what they considered undesirable racial elements from American society.

Fair Deal

Truman’s attempt to extend the policies of the New Deal. Beginning in 1949, the Fair Deal included measures to increase the minimum wage, expand Social Security, and construct low-income housing.

Fair Labor Standards Act

Passed in 1938. The Fair Labor act provided for a minimum wage and restricted shipment of goods produced with child labor, and symbolized the FDR administration’s commitment to working with with labor forces.

Farmers’ Alliance

Replaced the Grange as a support group for the nation’s farmers during the 1880s. The alliances were politically active in the Midwest and South, and were central to the founding of the Populist Party.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Created as a part of the first New Deal to increase faith in the banking system by insuring individual deposits with federal funds.

Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA)

One of the New Deal’s most comprehensive measures, passed May 1933. FERA appropriated $500 million to support state and local treasuries that had run dry.

Federal Home Loan Bank Act

A late attempt by President Hoover to address the problems of destitute Americans. The 1932 Federal Home Loan Bank Act established a series of banks to make loans to other banks, building and loan associations, and insurance agencies in an attempt to prevent foreclosures on private homes.

Federalists

Led by Alexander Hamilton. Federalists believed in a strong central government at the expense of state powers and were staunch supporters of the Constitution during the ratification process. They remained a political force throughout the first thirty or so years of the United States. The Federalists entered into decline after the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency and disappeared as a political party after the the Hartford Convention, at the close of the War of 1812.

The Federalist Papers

A series of newspaper articles written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers enumerated the arguments in favor of the Constitution and refuted the arguments of the Anti-federalists.

Federal Reserve Act

Woodrow Wilson’s most notable legislative success. The 1913 Federal Reserve Act reorganized the American banking system by creating a network of twelve Federal Reserve banks authorized to distribute currency.

Federal Reserve Board (“The Fed”)

Responsible for making monetary policy in the United States. The Fed operates mainly through the mechanisms of buying and selling government bonds and adjusting the interest rates. During the Great Depression, the Fed was given greater power and freedom to directly regulate the economy.

Federal Securities Act

Passed in 1914. The act made corporate executives liable for any misrepresentation of securities issued by their companies. It paved the way for future acts to regulate the stock market.

Federal Trade Commission Act

Created the Federal Trade Commission in 1914 to monitor and investigate firms involved in interstate commerce and to issue “cease and desist” orders when business practices violated free competition. The act was a central part of Wilson’s plan to aggressively regulate business.

The Feminine Mystique

Written by Betty Friedan in 1963. The book was a rallying cry for the women’s liberation movement. It denounced the belief that women should be tied to the home and encouraged women to get involved in activities outside their home and family.

Fifteenth Amendment

Ratified in March 1870. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited the denial of voting rights to any citizen based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Millard Fillmore

Vice president to Zachary Taylor until Taylor’s death in 1850. Fillmore took over as president and served out the remainder of Taylor’s term, until 1853. He helped to push the Compromise of 1850 through Congress.

Fireside chats

FDR’s public radio broadcasts during his presidency. Through these broadcasts he encouraged confidence and national unity and cultivated a sense of governmental compassion.

First Continental Congress

Convened on September 5, 1774, with all the colonies but Georgia sending delegates chosen by the Committees of Correspondence. The congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, voted for an organized boycott of British imports, and sent a petition to King George III that conceded to Parliament the power of regulation of commerce, but stringently objected to Parliament’s arbitrary taxation and unfair judicial system.

First Great Awakening

A time of religious fervor during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement arose in response to the Enlightenment’s increased religious skepticism. Protestant ministers held revivals throughout the English colonies in America, stressing the need for individuals to repent and urging a personal understanding of truth instead of an institutionalized one. The Great Awakening precipitated a split within American Protestantism.

First hundred days

Refers to the first hundred days of FDR’s presidency, from March 4 to June 16, 1933. During this period of dramatic legislative productivity, FDR laid out the programs that constituted the New Deal.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A prominent author during the Roaring Twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote stories and novels that both glorified and criticized the wild lives of the carefree and prosperous. His most famous works include This Side of Paradise, published in 1920, and The Great Gatsby, published in 1925.

Flapper

A central stereotype of the Jazz Age. The flapper was a flamboyant, liberated, pleasure-seeking young woman seen more in media portrayals than in reality. The archetypal flapper look was tomboyish and fashionable: short bobbed hair; knee-length, fringed skirts; long, draping necklaces; and rolled stockings.

Force Bill

Authorized President Jackson to use arms to collect customs duties in South Carolina as part of the Compromise of 1833.

Gerald Ford

Vice president to Nixon after Spiro Agnew. Ford took over the presidency after the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign on August 9, 1974. Ford pardoned Nixon and pushed a conservative domestic policy, but was little more than a caretaker of the White House until his defeat in the election of 1976.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson’s liberal and idealistic peace program. His plan, outlined January 1918, called for unrestricted sea travel, free trade, arms reduction, an end to secret treaties, the territorial reorganization of Europe in favor of self-rule, and most importantly, the creation of “a general association of nations” to protect peace and resolve conflicts.

Fourteenth Amendment

Ratified in July 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed the rights of citizenship to all people, black or white, born or naturalized in the United States. It also provided for the denial of congressional representation for any state that denied suffrage to any of its male citizens.

Francisco Franco

Controlled the rightist forces during the Spanish Civil War. His fascist government ruled Spain from 1939 until 1975.

Benjamin Franklin

Inventor, patriot, and statesman. Franklin served as an ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War, playing a key role in getting France to recognize the United States’ independence. As the oldest delegate to the Constitutional Convention, the other delegates admired his wisdom, and his advice proved crucial in the drafting of the Constitution. Franklin has often been held up as the paradigm of Enlightenment thought in Colonial America because of his fascination with—and contributions to—the fields of science and philosophy.

Freedmen’s Bureau

Established in 1865 and staffed by Union army officers. The Freedmen’s Bureau worked to protect black rights in the South and to provide employment, medical care, and education to Southern blacks.

Freedom ride

A 1961 program, led by the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in which black and white members of the two organizations rode through the South on public buses to protest illegal segregation in interstate transportation.

Freeport Doctrine

Democrat Stephen A. Douglas’s attempt to reconcile his belief in popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. In the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Douglas argued that territories could effectively forbid slavery by failing to enact slave codes, even though the Dred Scott decision deprived government of the right to restrict slavery in the territories.

Free-Soil Party

A political party supporting abolition. It was formed from the merger of a northern faction of the Democratic Party, the abolitionist Liberty Party, and antislavery Whigs. The Free-Soilers nominated Martin Van Buren as their candidate for president. The party didn’t win the election, but it did earn 10 percent of the national popular vote—an impressive showing for a third party. The relative success of the Free-Soil Party demonstrated that slavery had become a central issue in national politics.

French and Indian War

Fought in North America from 1754–1763. The war mirrored the Seven Years War in Europe (1756–1763). English colonists and soldiers fought the French and their Native American allies for dominance in North America. England’s eventual victory brought England control of much disputed territory and eliminated the French as a threat to English dominance in the Americas.

Fugitive Slave Act

Passed in 1793 and strengthened as part of the Compromise of 1850. The act allowed Southerners to send posses into Northern soil to retrieve runaway slaves. During the early 1850s, Northerners mounted resistance to the act by aiding escaping slaves and passing personal liberty laws.

Fundamentalism

Emerged in the early 1900s as a reaction to the many scientific and social challenges facing conservative American Protestantism. Protestant fundamentalists insisted upon the divine inspiration and absolute truth of the Bible, and sought to discredit or censure those who questioned the tenets of Protestant faith. Fundamentalism peaked in the 1920s with the anti-evolution movement, culminating in the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Gag rule

Passed by Southerners in Congress in 1836. The gag rule tabled all abolitionist petitions in Congress and thereby prevented antislavery discussions. The gag rule was repealed in 1845, under increased pressure from Northern abolitionists and those concerned with the rule’s restriction of the right to petition.

William Lloyd Garrison

Founder of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. Garrison was the most famous white abolitionist of the 1830s. Known as a radical, he pushed for equal legal rights for blacks and encouraged Christians to abstain from all aspects of politics, including voting, in protest against the nation’s corrupt and prejudicial political system.

Marcus Garvey

A powerful African American leader during the 1920s. Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and advocated a mass migration of African Americans back to Africa. Garvey was convicted of fraud in 1923 and deported to Jamaica in 1927. While the movement won a substantial following, the UNIA collapsed without Garvey’s leadership.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln’s famous “Four score and seven years ago” speech. Delivered on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a cemetery for casualties of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln’s speech recast the war as a historic test of the ability of a democracy to survive.

Gibbons v. Ogden

1824 Supreme Court case involving state versus federal licensing rights for passenger ships between New York and New Jersey. A devoted Federalist, Chief Justice Marshall ruled that the states could not interfere with Congress’s right to regulate interstate commerce. He interpreted “commerce” broadly to include all business, not just the exchange of goods.

Samuel Gompers

The founding leader of the American Federation of Labor. Under Gompers, the AFL rarely went on strike, and instead took a more pragmatic approach based on negotiating for gradual concessions.

“Good Neighbor” policy

FDR’s policy toward Latin America, initialized in 1933. He pledged that no nation, not even the U.S., had the right to interfere in the affairs of any other nation.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The last Soviet political leader. Gorbachev become general secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the USSR in 1988. He helped ease tension between the U.S. and the USSR—work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He oversaw the fall of the Soviet Union and resigned as president on December 25, 1991.

Gospel of Success

Justification for the growing gap between rich and poor during the Industrial Revolution. The “Gospel” centered on the claim that anyone could become wealthy with enough hard work and determination. Writers like Horatio Alger incorporated this ideology into their work.

Grange

The Patrons of Husbandry, known as “the Grange.” Formed in 1867 as a support system for struggling western farmers, the Grange offered farmers education and fellowship, and provided a forum for homesteaders to share advice and emotional support at biweekly social functions. The Grange also represented farmers’ needs in dealings with big business and the federal government.

Ulysses S. Grant

Commanding general of western Union forces for much of the war, and for all Union forces during the last year of the war. Grant later became the nation’s eighteenth president, serving from 1869 to 1877 and presiding over the decline of Reconstruction. His administration was marred by corruption.

Great Debate

An eight-month discussion in Congress over Henry Clay’s proposed compromise to admit California as a free state, allow the remainder of the Mexican cession (Utah and New Mexico territories) to be decided by popular sovereignty, and strengthen the Fugitive Slave Act. Clay’s solution was passed as separate bills, which together came to be known as the Compromise of 1850.

Great Society

Lyndon B. Johnson’s program for domestic policy. The Great Society aimed to achieve racial equality, end poverty, and improve health-care. Johnson pushed a number of Great Society laws through Congress early in his presidency, but the Great Society failed to materialize fully, as the administration turned its attention toward foreign affairs—specifically, Vietnam.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Passed by the Senate in 1964 following questionable reports of a naval confrontation between North Vietnamese and U.S. forces. The resolution granted President Johnson broad wartime powers without explicitly declaring war.

Gulf War

Began when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. In January 1991, the U.S. attacked Iraqi troops, supply lines, and bases. In late February, U.S. ground troops launched an attack on Kuwait City, successfully driving out Hussein’s troops. A total of 148 Americans died in the war, compared to over 100,000 Iraqi deaths.

Alexander Hamilton

The outspoken leader of the Federalists and one of the authors of The Federalist Papers. Hamilton supported the formation of the Constitution and later, as secretary of treasury under Washington, spearheaded the government’s Federalist initiatives, most notably through the creation of the Bank of the United States.

Warren G. Harding

President from 1921 until his death in 1923. Harding ushered in a decade of Republican dominance in the U.S. He accommodated the needs of big business and scaled back government involvement in social programs. After his death, Harding’s administration was found to be rife with corruption.

Harlem Renaissance

The flowering of black culture in New York’s Harlem neighborhood during the 1920s. Black writers and artists produced plays, poetry, and novels that often reflected the unique African American experience in America and in Northern cities in particular.

Harpers Ferry

1859 raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, led by John Brown. Twenty-one men seized a federal arsenal in a failed attempt to incite a slave rebellion. Brown was caught and hanged.

Hartford Convention

A meeting of Federalists near the end of the War of 1812, in which the New England-based party enumerated its complaints against the ruling Republican Party. The Federalists, already losing power steadily, hoped that antiwar sentiment would lead the nation to support their cause and return them to power. Perceived victory in the war, however, turned many against the Federalists, whose actions in Hartford were labeled traitorous and antagonistic to the unity and cooperation of the Union.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Early American fiction writer. His most famous work, The Scarlet Letter (1850), explored the moral dilemmas of adultery in a Puritan community.

Hayes-Tilden Compromise

Resolved the conflict arising from the election of 1876, in which Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote but Republican leaders contested some states’ election returns, thereby ensuring Republican Rutherford B. Hayes’s victory. To minimize protest from the Democratic Party, Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction by removing federal troops from the last two occupied states in the South.

Haymarket riot

1886 rally in Chicago to protest police brutality against striking workers. The rally became violent after someone threw a bomb, killing seven policemen and prompting a police backlash. After the riot, leaders of the Knights of Labor were arrested and imprisoned, and public support for the union cause plunged.

William Randolph Hearst

A prominant publisher who bought the New York Journal in the late 1890s. His paper, along with Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, engaged in yellow journalism, printing sensational reports of Spanish activities in Cuba in order to win a circulation war between the two newspapers.

Helsinki Accords

Signed in 1975 by Gerald Ford, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, and the leaders of thirty-one other states in a promise to solidify European boundaries, respect human rights, and permit freedom of travel.

Ernest Hemingway

One of the best-known writers of the 1920s’ “lost generation.” An expatriate, Hemingway produced a number of famous works during the 1920s, including The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929). A member of the Popular Front, Hemingway fought in the Spanish Civil War, depicted in his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. His work, like that of many of his contemporaries, reflects the disillusionment and despair of the time.

Hiroshima

A Japanese city that was site of the first-ever atomic bomb attack. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 70,000 of its citizens instantaneously and injuring another 70,000, many of whom later died of radiation poisoning.

Alger Hiss

Longtime government employee who, in 1948, was accused by Time editor Whitaker Chambers of spying for the USSR. After a series of highly publicized hearings and trials, Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to five years imprisonment, emboldening conservatives to redouble their efforts to root out subversives within the government.

Adolph Hitler

Became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Hitler led the nation to economic recovery by mobilizing industry for the purposes of war. His fascist Nazi regime attempted to secure global hegemony for Germany, undertaking measures of mass genocide and ushering Europe into World War II.

Holocaust

The Nazis’ systematic persecution and extermination of European Jews from 1933 until 1945. More than 6 million Jews died in concentration camps throughout Germany and Nazi-occupied territory.

Homestead Act

Passed in 1862. The Homestead Act encouraged settlement of the West by offering 160 acres of land to anyone who would pay $10, live on the land for five years, and cultivate and improve it.

Homestead strike

1892 Pittsburgh steel workers’ strike against the Carnegie Steel Company to protest a pay cut and 70-hour workweek. Ten workers were killed in a riot that began when 300 “scabs” from New York (Pinkerton detectives) arrived to break the strike. Federal troops were called in to suppress the violence.

Herbert Hoover

President from 1929 to 1933, during the stock market collapse and the height of the Great Depression. A conservative, Hoover made only limited efforts to control the economic and social problems of the nation—efforts that were generally considered to be too little, too late. He did, however, set the stage for many future New Deal measures.

J. Edgar Hoover

Head of the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972. He aggressively investigated suspected subversives during the Cold War.

Hooverville

Communities of destitute Americans living in shanties and makeshift shacks. Hoovervilles sprung up around most major U.S. cities in the early 1930s, providing a stark reminder of Herbert Hoover’s failure to alleviate the poverty of the Great Depression.

House of Burgesses

Established in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The House of Burgesses is considered to be the New World’s first representative government. It consisted of 22 representatives from 11 districts of colonists.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

During McCarthyism, provided the congressional forum in which many hearings about suspected communists in the government took place.

Henry Hudson

An English explorer sponsored by the Dutch East India Company. In 1609, Hudson sailed up the river than now bears his name, nearly reaching present-day Albany. His explorations gave the Dutch territorial claims to the Hudson Bay region.

Hull House

An early settlement house founded in Chicago in 1889 by Jane Addams. Hull House provided education, health care, and employment aid to poor families.

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was the leader of Iraq. In August 1990, he led an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, sparking the Gulf War.

Anne Hutchinson

A dissenter in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who caused a schism in the Puritan community. Hutchinson’s faction lost out in a power struggle for the governorship and she was expelled from the colony in 1637. She traveled southward with a number of her followers, establishing the settlement of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.