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Glossary
of American History
N
National
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
An
organization formed in 1890 from two factions of the suffrage
movement, it sought a constitutional amendment to grant women
the right to vote throughout the nation, eventually leading
to the Nineteenth Amendment.
National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Organization
established in 1909 to fight for African-American civil rights
through legal action.
National
Origins Act of 1924
Law
that restricted immigration to 2 percent for any given nationality,
based on the total amounts from the 1890 census. Use of the
1890 census effectively restricted immigrants from eastern and
southern Europe.
National
Recovery Administration (NRA)
The
federal government's plan to revive industry during the Great
Depression through rational planning.
National
System of Interstate and Defense Highways Act
1956
legislation creating national highway system of 41,000 miles,
costing $26 billion and taking 13 years to construct. It solidified
the central role of the automobile in American culture.
Nationalists
These
revolutionary leaders favored a stronger national government
than the one provided for in the Articles of Confederation.
They believed that only a powerful national government, rather
than self-serving states, could deal effectively with the many
vexing problems besetting the new nation. George Washington,
Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison were prominent nationalists.
Nativism
A
backlash against immigration by white native-born Protestants.
Nativism could be based on racial prejudice (professors and
scientists sometimes classified Eastern Europeans as innately
inferior), religion (Protestants distrusted Catholics and Jews),
politics (immigrants were often associated with radical political
philosophies), and economics (labor leaders resented competition).
Naturalism
Literary
style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, where
the individual was seen as a helpless victim in a world in which
biological, social, and psychological forces determined his
or her fate.
Navigation
System
To
effect mercantilist goals, King and Parliament legislated a
series of Navigation Acts (1651, 1660,1663, 1673, 1696) that
established England as the central hub of trade in its emerging
empire. Various rules of trade, as embodied in the Navigation
Acts, made it clear that England's colonies in the Americas
existed first and foremost to serve the parent nation's economic
interests, regardless of what was best for the colonists.
Neutrality
U.S.
policy of impartiality during World Wars I and II.
New
Deal
President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's program designed to bring about
economic recovery and reform during the Great Depression.
New
Lights
As
the Great Awakening spread during the 1730s and 1740s, various
religious groups fractured into two camps, sometimes known as
the New Lights and Old Lights. The New Lights placed emphasis
on a "new birth" conversion experience--gaining God's
saving grace. They also demanded ministers who had clearly experienced
conversions themselves. See Old Lights.
The
New Look
President
Eisenhower's adjustment to the doctrine of containment. He advocated
saving money by emphasizing nuclear over conventional weapons,
on the premise that the next major world conflict would be nuclear.
New
South
The
ideology following Reconstruction that the South could be restored
to its previous glory through a diversified economy, it was
used to rally Southerners and convince outside investors to
underwrite regional industrialization by extolling the resources,
labor supply, and racial harmony of the South.
Nineteenth
Amendment
Passed
in 1920, the Constitutional guarantee of women's right to vote.
Nixon
Doctrine
President
Nixon argued for "Vietnamization," the notion that
the South Vietnamese would carry more of the war's combat burden.
This plan never reached full realization because of the South
Vietnamese inability to carry on the war effort without American
troops.
Non-Intercourse
Act
An
1809 statute which replaced the Embargo of 1807. It forbade
trade with Britain, France, and their possessions, but reopened
trade with other countries.
Nonseparatists
Religious
dissenters from England who wanted to purify, rather than separate
from, what they viewed as the corrupted, state-supported Anglican
church, or Church of England. By and large, the Puritans were
nonseparatists,and some of them banded together to form a utopian
community of believers in America. The Massachusetts Bay Colony
was to be a model society that would show how godly societies
and churches were to be properly organized. See separatists.
Northwest
Passage
During
the Age of Exploration, adventurers from England, France, and
the Netherlands kept seeking an all-water route across North
America. The goal was to gain access to Oriental material goods
and riches while avoiding contact with the developing Spanish
empire farther to the south in Central and South America.
NSC-68
Influential
National Security Council document arguing communism was a monolithic
world movement directed from the Kremlin and advocating a massive
military buildup to counteract the encroachment of communism.
Nullification
The
doctrine, devised by John C. Calhoun, that a state has the power
to nullify a federal legislation within its borders.
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O
Oil
Crisis
Oil
supply disruptions and soaring oil prices that the United States
experienced in 1973 and 1979. In 1973, Middle Eastern nations
imposed an embargo on oil shipments to punish the West for supporting
Israel in that year's Arab-Israeli war. A second oil shock occurred
when the Iranian Revolution disrupted oil shipments to the western
nations.
Old
Lights
As
the Great Awakening spread during the 1730s and 1740s, various
religious groups fractured into two camps, sometimes known as
the Old Lights and the New Lights. The Old Lights were not very
enthusiastic about the Awakening, particularly in terms of what
they viewed as popular excesses in seeking after God's grace.
Old Light ministers emphasized formal schooling in theology
as a source of their religious authority, and they emphasized
good order in their churches. See New Lights.
O'Malley,
Walter
Penny-pinching
owner of baseball's Dodgers who oversaw their 1958 move from
Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Unhappy with the deterioration of Brooklyn's
neighborhoods and lured by the economic promise of California,
the Dodgers' move west illustrated the profound westward - demographic
shift in modern America.
Open
Door Note
Policy
set forth in 1899 by Secretary of State John Hay preventing
further partitioning of China by European powers, and protecting
the principle of free trade.
Operation
Just Cause
An
American military intervention in Panama in December 1989, which
was launched after Panama's leader, Manuel Noriega, who was
indicted on drug-related charges, invalidated civilian elections
and declared a state of war with the United States.
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P
Panic
of 1837
A
financial depression that lasted until the early 1840s.
Parks,
Rosa
African-American
seamstress and active NAACP member arrested for refusing to
give up her seat to a white patron in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting
a huge bus boycott led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Patriarchal
Patriarchal
social and political systems are denoted by power and authority
residing in males, such as in the father of the family. Such
authority then passes from father to son through the generations,
and males, in general, control decision making. See coverture.
Patrons
of Husbandry
An
organization founded in 1867 to aid farmers through its local
granges, it was responsible for state laws regulating railroads,
established cooperatives to help with marketing problems, and
provided a social outlet for rural areas.
Pearl
Harbor
The
main base of the U.S. Pacific fleet, which Japan attacked on
December 7, 1941, forcing the United States to enter World War
II.
Pendleton
Act
A
law passed in 1883 to eliminate political corruption in the
federal government, it outlawed political contributions by appointed
officeholders and established the Civil Service Commission to
administer competitive examinations for covered government jobs.
Permanent
Immigrants
Immigrants
coming to America to settle permanently, often due to ethnic
and religious persecution at home.
Perpetual
Servitude
Indentured
servitude represented temporary service for a specified period,
usually from four to seven years, to a legally designated owner.
Perpetual servitude meant being owned by some other person for
life--and ultimately, even through the generations. In the early
days of Virginia, both English subjects and African Americans
were indentured servants, but over time blacks would be subjected
to perpetual servitude as chattels, defined as the movable property
of their all-powerful masters and without legal rights of any
kind.
Ping-Pong
Diplomacy
Communist
China's chairman Mao Tse-tung sent a table tennis team to the
world championships in Nagoya, Japan, and then invited an American
team to compete in Japan in 1971. This small gesture paved the
way for President Nixon's visit to China in February 1972.
Plantation
Legend
A
stereotype created by popular pre-Civil War writers, that depicted
the South as a region of aristocratic planters, beautiful Southern
belles, poor white trash, and faithful household slaves.
Platt
Amendment
1901
amendment to the Army Appropriation Bill, limiting Cuban independence
by giving the United States two naval bases on Cuba and the
right to intervene in Cuban affairs if the American government
felt Cuban independence was threatened.
Plessy
v. Ferguson
A
Supreme Court decision in 1896 that ruled "separate but
equal" facilities for African Americans were constitutional
under the Fourteenth Amendment, it had the effect of legalizing
segregation and led to the passage of much discriminatory legislation
known as Jim Crow laws.
Political
Slavery
During
the 1760s and 1770s many colonial leaders believed that if they
did not keep resisting unwanted British policies, they would
fall into a state of political slavery in which they had no
liberties. As such, they would be akin to chattel slaves in
their midst. Comprehending how potentially tyrannical chattel
slavery was spurred on many colonists to defend American liberties,
even to the point of open rebellion.
Polk,
James K.
As
president of the United States during the Mexican War, Polk
increased American territory by a third.
Popular
Sovereignty
The
principle, incorporated into the Compromise of 1850 and the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, that the people living in the western territories
should decide whether or not to permit slavery.
Populist
(People's) Party
A
political party established in 1892 primarily by remnants of
the Farrners' Alliance and Greenback party, it sought to inflate
the currency with silver dollars and to establish an income
tax but some of its platform was adopted by the Democrats in
1896 and it died out after the defeat of joint candidate William
Jennings Bryan.
Pragmatism
A
distinctly American philosophy proposed by William James, it
contends that any concept should be tested and its validity
determined by its outcome and that the truth of an idea is found
in the conduct it dictates or inspires.
Price
Revolution
The
large influx of gold and silver into Europe from Spanish America
during the sixteenth century, along with increased demand for
limited supplies of goods, set off a three-fold rise in prices
(the "great inflation") that caused profound economic
turmoil, social disruption, and political instability among
European peoples and nations.
Progressive
(Bull Moose) Party
A
political party established in 1912 by supporters of Theodore
Roosevelt after William H. Taft won the Republican presidential
nomination. The party proposed a broad program of reform but
Bull Moose candidate Roosevelt and Republican nominee lost to
the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
Prohibition
The
ban of the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in
1919, established prohibition. The amendment was repealed in
1933, with adoption of the Twenty-first Amendment.
Protestant
Reformation
A
religious reform movement formally begun in 1517 when the German
friar Martin Luther openly attacked abuses of Roman Catholic
doctrine. Luther contended that the people could read scripture
for themselves in seeking God's grace and that the Bible, not
church doctrine, was the ultimate authority in human relationships.
Luther's complaints helped foster a variety of dissenting religious
groups, some of which would settle in America to get away from
various forms of oppression in Europe.
Public
Virtue
A
cornerstone of good citizenship in republican states, public
virtue involved the subordination of individual self-interest
to serving the greater good of the whole community. Revolutionary
leaders believed that public virtue was essential for a republic
to survive and thrive. If absent, governments would be torn
apart by competing private interests and succumb to anarchy,
at which point tyrants would emerge to offer political stability
but with the loss of dearly won political liberties.
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R
Radical
Republicans
A
faction of the Republican party during Reconstruction, they
favored forcing the South to make fundamental changes before
readmission to the Union. Eventually they won control because
of Southerners' refusal to accept more lenient plans for Reconstruction.
Radical
Revolutionaries
At
the time of the American Revolution, they argued in favor of
establishing more democratic forms of government. Radical revolutionaries
had a strong trust in the people, viewed them as inherently
virtuous (see public virtue), and believed that citizens could
govern themselves. Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas
Paine might be described as radical revolutionaries. See cautious
revolutionaries.
Rage
Militaire
Meaning
a passion for arms, the rage militaire characterized the attitudes
of American colonists as the war with Great Britain began in
1775. When the ravages and deprivations of warfare became more
self-evident, however, this early enthusiasm gave out. In 1776
Thomas Paine criticized the "summer soldiers and sunshine
patriots" among the colonists who seemed so eager to fight
at the beginning of the War for Independence but who so quickly
dropped out as the dangers of engaging in warfare increased.
Rationalism
A
main tenet of the Enlightenment era, meaning a firm trust in
the ability of the human mind to solve earthly problems, thereby
lessening the role of--and reliance on God as an active force
in the ordering of human affairs.
Reagan
Doctrine
President
Ronald Reagan's 1985 pledge of American aid to insurgent movements
attempting to overthrow Soviet-back regimes in the Third World.
Redemptioners
The
redemptioner labor system was similar to that of indentured
servitude in providing a way for persons without financial means
to get to America. Normally, the family had to locate someone
to pay for its passage in return for a set number of years of
labor. If no buyer could be found, then ships captains could
sell the family's labor, most likely on less desirable terms
for the family, to recoup the costs of passage. Thousands of
Germans migrated to America as redemptioners in the eighteenth
century.
Referendum
See
Initiative and Referendum
Reform
Darwinists
Sociologists
who rejected the determinism of the Social Darwinists, they
accepted evolutionary theory but held that people could shape
their environment rather than only be shaped by it and accepted
human intervention in society.
Religious
Liberalism
A
religious viewpoint that rejected the Calvinist doctrines of
original sin and predestination and stressed the basic goodness
of human nature.
Remember
the Maine!
A
national catch phrase following the mysterious 1898 explosion
of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana harbor, inflamed public
opinion, leading to the Spanish-American War.
Removal
(Indian Removal Policy)
A
policy of resettling eastern Indian tribes on lands west of
the Mississippi River.
Renaissance
Beginning
in the 1400s, the European Renaissance represented an intellectual
and cultural flowering in the arts, literature, philosophy,
and the sciences. One of the most important tenets of the Renaissance
was the belief in human progress, or the betterment of society.
Republican
Motherhood
This
definition of motherhood, emanating from the American Revolution,
assigned mothers the task of raising dutiful children, especially
sons, who would be prepared to serve the nation in disinterested
fashion (see public virtue). Mothers thus acquired the special
charge of assuring that future generations could uphold the
tenets of republicanism. This expanded role for mothers meant
that women, not men, would be responsible for the domestic sphere
of life.
Republicanism
At
the time of the American Revolution, republicanism referred
to the concept that sovereignty, or ultimate political authority,
is vested in the people--the citizens of the nation. As such,
republican governments not only derive their authority from
the consent of the governed but also predicate themselves on
the principles of rule by law and legislation by elected representatives.
Republicans
A
political party founded by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson
to combat Alexander Hamilton's fiscal policies.
Rock
and Roll
Musical
style new to the 1950s, combining black rhythm and blues with
white country music. Listened to mostly by young Americans and
embodied by Elvis Presley, the music softly challenged notions
of sexual propriety and racial division.
Roderigue
Hortalez & Cie.
Prior
to its formal involvement in the War for Independence, the French
government supplied the American rebels with critically needed
war goods through a bogus private trading firm known as Roderigue
Hortalez & Cie. French officials did so because they hoped
to see the power of Great Britain reduced but without becoming
directly engaged in the war itself. Once the Franco-American
alliance came into being in 1778, the French could abandon such
ruses in favor of open support of their rebel allies.
Rosenberg,
Julius and Ethel
American
radicals accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during
World War II. Although the death penalty was not mandatory for
their crime, their 1953 execution reflected the national anti-communist
hysteria.
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