Modern America 2

By JJleeds

  • Irish Potato Famine

    This famine carried on from 1845-1852 due to a disease spreading throughout the crops. Many people died and the population in Ireland decreased drastically. Many Irish people immigrated to the United States for this reason.

  • 1866 State of Virginia law

    In 1866 the State of Virginia stated that every person having one-fourth or more black blood is considered to be Black and every person not Black and having one-fourth or more Indian blood is considered to be Indian. This was a systematic way to categorize race within the government.

  • Greenback Party

    This political party was an anti-monopoly party that was founded in 1874. The party had presidential candidates in three presidential elections, 1876, 1880, 1884. This party desired labor reforms such as better working conditions and workday schedule.

  • Richard Louis Dugdale

    In 1874 Richard was delegated to inspect 13 county jails in upstate New York. He noticed that many of the inmates were related and carried out a study on their families classifying them as jukes. He created family trees based upon local records and interviews claiming to know the cause of their crimes.

  • Farmers Alliance

    This was an agrarian economic movement among American farmers. This organization movement eventually became part of the populist party. This party looked out for farmers in terms of loans, transportation, industrialization of farming etc.

  • Children's Law

    The expansion of Catholic institutions for children reached a high point after the passage of the Children's Law in 1875. Women religious were expanding Catholic institutions for children through donations. Of the nine Catholic children's institutions in the city all cared for a majority of non-orphaned children.

  • The Socialist Labor Party

    This socialist political party was established in1876. The party was originally known as the Workingmen's party of the United States. The party believes in reform and change within society through the working class and follows Marxist principles.

  • William Henry Vanderbilt

    William Henry Vanderbilt took over of his father's fortune in 1877 and following his death in 1885 gave over the fortune to his two sons Cornelius II and William. In 1869 he was the vice president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad and became president in 1877. He also took over other railroad companies for his father.

  • Carlisle Indian Industrial School

    This school was founded in 1879 by Lieutenant Richard Hnery Pratt under the direction of the United States government. This was an early federally funded boarding school for native Americans to attend off the reserves. From 1879 to 1918 over 10,000 Native Americans attended this boarding school.

  • Progress and Poverty

    This book was published in 1879 by social theorist and economist Henry George. This book was very popular during the late eighteenth century and inspired reform during the progressive era. This book seeks to explain why poverty exists as society is advancing.

  • St. Joseph's Industrial Home

    St. Joseph's Industrial Home received over $77,000 from the city compared to $3,000 from private sources. This was to support approximately 900 children. This made the institution second only to Catholic Protectory in the amount of city funds it received.

  • The New York Charity Organization Society

    This organization was created by Josephine Shaw Lowell who was the commissioner of the State Board of Charities. She combined the efforts of over 500 charities in the city. These efforts were to help the poor get back on their feet and come out of poverty.

  • Chinese Exclusion Act

    This federal Law was signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This law prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. This law was emplaced due to anti-Chinese sentiment.

  • American Economic Association

    This association was founded in 1885 by young progressive economists including Richard T. Ely. They created the association to inform the public further about economic issues and conduct research. Richard T. Ely was not only one of the founders but also the first secretary of the association.

  • Henry George Campaign

    Henry George is the famous writer of Progress and Poverty. He ran for mayor of New York City in 1886. He was the United Labor Party nominee in 1886. He desired anti-monoploy reforms and higher taxation among the rich.

  • Sisters of the Divine Compassion

    This group is also known as Religious of Divine Compassion and was a Roman Catholic religious institute founded in New York City by Mother Mary Veronica. Women were trained to follow certain chaste principles to be a part of the charity group. Mother Mary Veronica claimed women had to declare publicly their wrong doings to escape city investigation.

  • The Dawes Act

    This act regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. This act was named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. This changed the Native American land system into a federal government system, ultimately in pursuit to "Americanize" Native Americans.

  • The Phoenix Indian School

    The Phoenix Indian Industrial School was established in 1891 as a boarding school for Native American children. This school operated from 1891 up until 1990. This school assimilated military style discipline to change the culture of Native American children to an "American" culture.

  • Populist party

    This political party was found in 1892 and was known as the people's party. Mary Elizabeth Lease was a major activist within the party. The party found roots in the Farmers Alliance and advocated for the working class reform.

  • Carnegie Steel Company

    This was a steel company founded by Andrew Carnegie in Pitsburgh, Pennsylvania. Carnegie formed the steel monoply in the United States and accumulated a great amount of wealth through monopolization. He sold the company to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for around 300 million dollars.

  • Immigration Restriction League

    This organization was found by Charles Warren, Robert DeCouncy Ward, and Prescott F. Hall. This was an American nativist and anti-immigration organization. Wanted to prevent people from southern and eastern Europe from immigrating to the United States.

  • New York State Constitutional Convention

    New York reformers launched a massive campaign to discredit and dismantle the system, culminating in the coalition of Protestant reform and nativist groups at the 1894 New York State Constitutional Convention which tried unsuccessfully to completely cut off funding for Catholic charities. Catholic charities run by women religious specifically for women certainly did not die out completely, but Catholic charities for children predominated.

  • Literacy test

    Literacy tests were used to restrict the number of "new immigrants" from voting. These included People from Southern and Eastern Europe. In 1896 the Republican party put in place a literacy test. The American Federation of Labor promoted the literacy test.

  • Socialist party of America

    Socialist political party formed in 1901 through the combining of the Social Democratic Party of America and the Socialist Labor Party of America. Support from social reformers, populist farmers and immigrants. Many railroad workers, miners and tenant farmers were party of the political party.

  • U.S. Steel Corporation

    In 1901 Carnegie was looking to retire and negotiated a deal with J.P. Morgan to take over and form a steel corporation. J.P. Morgan wanted to buy out various steel companies and create a big corporation. This would lower costs and provide better wages for workers to eliminate competition.

  • J.P. Morgan

    In 1907 during the financial crisis J.P. Morgan held a meeting in his home in New York City with the country's top financiers. There he convinced them to leave failing financial institutions in order to stabilize the market. He did this to manipulate the financial system for his own gain.

  • New Nationalism

    Theodore Roosevelt made the case for the new nationalism during a speech he delivered in Osawatomie Kansas. He focused on government protection of human welfare and property rights as a progressive. He wanted to focus on the federal government protecting the people.

  • Socialist Renters Union

    Southern farmers felt like they were being treated unfairly so this organization was formed as a way for tenant farmers to have a voice. Mexican, Blacks and poor Whites were a part of this group. Mainly in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as Colorado, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

  • The New Freedom

    The New Freedom was President Woodrow Wilson's campaigning focus during the 1912 presidential election. This campaign focused on Tariff reform, Business reform, Banking reform. This was his main focus of his presidency during his first term.

  • Walter Ashby Plecker

    Walter was an American physician and public health advocate. He was the first registrar of Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912-1946. He was also the leader of a white supremacist organization.

  • Commission of Industrial Relations

    This Commission is also known as the Walsh Commission was created by U.S. Congress to evaluate US labor laws. This commission studied work conditions from 1913 to 1915 in industrial US. Various people gave testimonies on the work conditions.

  • American Federation of Hosiery Workers

    The union was originally called the United Textile Workers of America. In 1913 the group became the American Federation of Hosiery Workers. This labor union represented workers involved in manufacturing hosiery.

  • Eugenics movement "Passing of the Great Race"

    This book first appeared in 1916 and gained popularity in early 1920s. This book was written by Madison Grant to express the rising eugenic view of immigration. She claims that the melting pot ideology shows that certain races are incapable of a self-governing system.

  • Junior Red Cross

    The Junior Red Cross was established in 1917 to create a humanitarian spirit among the younger generation in the world. President Wilson emphasized in an address the need for schools to work in the greater cause of freedom. This was possible through the Junior Red Cross. This organization emphasized the need to serve during the war including doing work for others, selling items and food, etc.

  • Pennsylvania Child Labor Law

    This change in child labor laws required school attendance until the age of sixteen through the age of fourteen on a full-time basis and then part-time at a "continuation" school until reaching sixteen. This led to the various ethnic groups children in Kensington interacting with each other in school and work. This happened especially for hosiery workers.

  • Sterilization Law of 1919

    The state of North Carolina first placed sterilization legislation in 1919. The law was titled "An Act to Benefit the Moral, Mental, or Physical Conditions of Inmates of Penal and Charitable Institutions. This was to improve the condition of inmates at state institutions.

  • Treaty of Versailles

    The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty at the end of World War I between Germany and Allied Powers. The United States never ratified the treaty and made a separate treaty with Germany. The treaty was to create world peace and forced Germany to sign without being in the negotiation.

  • Ozawa v. United States

    The United States Supreme Court found Takao Ozawa, a Japanese American who was born in Japan but had lived in the United States for 20 years, ineligible for naturalization. In 1914 Ozawa filed for US citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906. This allowed free white people to naturalize, he argued that Japanese people were free white people.

  • United States v. Thind

    Supreme Court of the United States decided that Bhagat Singh Thind was an Indian Sikh who identified himself as Aryan, was ineligible for naturalized citizenship in the United States. In 1919, Thind filed a petition for naturalization under the Naturalization Act of 1906.

  • Immigration Restriction Act

    This act limited the number of immigrants allowed into the United States per year. This act favored people from Northern and Western European countries. This act completely excluded immigrants from Asia.

  • 1924 presidential election

    Robert La Follette was a republican for most of his life, but when he ran for President of the United States, he was a candidate of his own progressive party. He had the support of the Socialist Party, farmer's groups, labor unions and others. He wanted to break down the power of the private monopolies over the political and economic life of America.

  • Racial Integrity Act 1924

    In 1924 the Virginia General Assembly put in place the Racial Integrity Act. This act focused on racial segregation by prohibiting interracial marriage. This classified whites as people only have traces of Caucasian blood nothing else. This furthered scientific racist propaganda.

  • The Meriam Report

    This report was to compile the information of the Native Americans across the country. This research was directed by Lewis Meriam of the Institute for Government Research. This report analyses the Dawes Acta and the Indian Boarding Schools.

  • 1930 U.S. Census

    During the 1920s Walter Plecker campaigned against Virginia's Native people's efforts to be listed as Indians on the 1930 U.S. Census. He tried to classify to campaign for Natives to be classified as Black during this time. He sent letters to Virginia town and county clerks claiming that people who are Indian are fraud.

  • Eugenics Board of North Carolina

    This Eugenics Board was a State Board of the North Carolina. This board was formed by the North Carolina State Legislature through the House Bill 1013. The focus of the board was sterilization.

  • Federal Emergency Relief Act

    The Federal Emergency Relief Administration was a program established by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. This Act gave grants to the states to operate relief programs. Harry Hopkins was appointed to be the head of the administration.

  • Public Works Administration

    The PWA was part of the New Deal in 1933 and was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. This was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933. It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Goal to spend 3 billion dollars in first year.

  • Indian Reorganization Act

    This U.S. federal legislation focused on the status of Native Americans in the United States. The goal was to reverse the traditional goal of cultural assimilation of Native Americans into American society. This was to help protect the different rights of Native Americans.

  • Soil Conservation Service

    The SCS was created by the Soil Conservation Act of 1935, signed by President Roosevelt on April 27, 1935, and placed under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new agency was an expansion of the Soil Erosion Service, which had been created in 1933 with funds from the National Industrial Recovery Act. Hugh Bennett headed both of these agencies.

  • The Resettlement Administration

    The Resettlement Administration was a New Deal U.S. federal agency. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm Administration.

  • The War Production Board

    On January 16, 1942, a month after the Pearl Harbor attacks, the War Production Board was established. The impetus was a need for a centralized agency to redirect civilian industry toward war production. The task at hand was to improve the conservation of scarce materials. For instance, by salvaging scrap and to increase and redirect production to outproduce the Axis.

  • The Office of War Information

    The Office of War Information was a United States government agency created during World War II and operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films, and other media platforms the CWI connected the civilian communities with the battlefront.

  • The Bracero Program

    This program was initiated when the United States signed the Mexican Labor Agreement with Mexico. For these farmer workers they were guaranteed decent living conditions, minimum wage of 30 cents an hour, and protection from forced military service. Joint program under the State Department, the Department of Labor, and the Immigration and Naturalization Services.

  • National Air and Space Museum

    The Air and Space Museum was originally called the National Air Museum when formed on August 12, 1946, by an act of Congress and signed by President Truman. The museum is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics.

  • Operation Wetback

    Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. They used military style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants from the United States.

  • Enola Gay Exhibition

    The Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets. This aircraft became the first to drop an atomic bomb during World War II. During 1995 putting the plane on display for the 50th anniversary became a major controversy due to negatively depicting America.