Unit 2 Key Terms

  • 1540

    Great Plains

    the broad expanse of flat land that lies west of the Mississippi River in the United States and east of the Rocky Mountains
  • Naval Station

    when the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution creating the Continental Navy
  • Alfred T. Mahan

    was a United States naval officer and historian, whom John Keegan called "the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century."
  • Urbanization

    the process where an increasing percentage of a population lives in cities and suburbs
  • Monroe Doctrine

    was a US policy of opposing European colonialism in America
  • Americanization

    a variety of programs and campaigns aimed at turning foreigners into Americans
  • Sanford B. Dole

    was president of the Republic of Hawaii and, after its annexation to the United States in 1898, first governor of the Territory of Hawaii. Sanford Dole was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on April 23, 1844, the son of Protestant missionaries from New England
  • Industrialization

    the process of an economy that is transformed from primarily agricultural to one based on the manufacturing of goods
  • Immigration

    the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country where they are not natives
  • Homestead Act of 1862

    an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain
  • Homesteader

    lifestyle of self-sufficiency
  • Transcontinental Railroad

    a 1,912-mile continuous railroad line that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay
  • Assimilation

    the process of adjusting to the culture of a group or nation
  • Imperialism (Expansionism)

    Imperialism is a policy of expanding a country's power and regulate through diplomacy or military force. Expansionism is a policy of territorial or economic expansion
  • Rural

    places that live outside of towns or cities
  • Urban

    a region surrounding a city or town
  • Chinese Exclusion Act

    a United States federal law that prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers
  • "Closing of the Western Frontier"

    there was no longer a discernible frontier line in the west, nor any large tracts of land yet unbroken by settlemen
  • Spanish-American War

    a mysterious explosion sank the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor, triggering the war between the US and Spain
  • Yellow Journalism

    associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales
  • Acquisitions

    Philippine revolutionaries declared independence and establishment of the First Philippine Republic, the Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish–American War was signed, and the treaty transferred control of the Philippines from Spain to the United States.
  • Klondike Gold Rush

    migration by over 100,000 people to find gold
  • Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

    was governor of New York before becoming U.S. vice president. At age 42, he became the youngest man to assume the U.S. presidency after President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. He won a second term in 1904.
  • Henry Cabot Lodge

    he led the successful congressional opposition to his country's participation in the League of Nations following World War I
  • Missionaries

    a person sent by a church into an area to carry on evangelism or other activities, as educational or hospital work. a person strongly in favor of a program, set of principles, who attempts to persuade or convert others