Who: Congress set it up within the War Department

What: the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands; later came to be known just as the "Freedmen's Bureau"

When: March 3, 1865

Where: n/a

Why: To provide "provisions, clothing, and fuel" to relieve "destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children."

Important Because: It was the first federal experiment in social welfare. It was made to try to help the new freed men to transition into a free society.

Who: Congress passed it in 1866; ratified by the states in 1868.

What: Amendment that gave "all persons born in the United States... excluding Indians not taxed" citizenship that granted them "full and equal benefit of all laws." 

When: Congress passed it in 1866, ratified by the states in 1868.

Why: To remove all doubt about the validity of the new Civil Rights Act.

Important Because: It gave all black, US born people full citizenship. They were citizens entitled to "full and equal benefit of all laws."

Who: Made by the Democratic Party

What: Plan made by the Democratic Party in an attempt to overthrow the Republican Party in the state of Mississippi by means of organized threats of violence and suppression or purchase of the black vote.

When: 1875

Where: Mississippi

Historically Important: It was actually successful because it kept blacks away from the polls. It was later adopted by white democrats in South Carolina. 

Who: Democrats and Republicans

What: A bargain that settled the disputed 1876 U.S. Presidential Election. Republicans promised that if elected, Hayes would withdraw federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina, letting the Republican governments there collapse. In return, the Democrats pledged to withdraw their opposition to Hayes, accept in good faith the Reconstruction amendments, and refrain from partisan reprisals against Republicans in the South.

When: February 26, 1877

Where: The bargain was physically struck at Wormley's Hotel in Washington, D.C.,

Why: To settle the disputed 1876 U.S. Presidential Election

Important Because: It marked the end of Reconstruction.

Who: Young editor of the Atlanta Constitution

What: ^

When: After the Civil War

Where: The New South

Why:

Important Because: He was the major prophet of this New South. That the South must liberate itself from nostalgia and create a new society of small farms, thriving industries, and bustling cities. By the late 1870s, with Reconstruction over and the panic of 1873 forgotten, a mood of progress permeated the editorials and speeches of the day.

Who: Homer Plessy, an octoroon (he was 1/8th African ancestry)

What: Supreme Court Case

When: Decided in 1896

Where: Supreme Court -__-

Important because: For the first time, it established that state mandated racial segregation was protected by federal law. 

Who: Congress passed the bill

What: Authorized a ten-year suspension of Chinese immigration.

When: in 1882

Why: to limit immigrants coming in from China

Important Because: It showed the powerful prejudice that Chinese immigrants encountered, especially by white workers. It sharply reduced the flow of Chinese immigrants.

A term used in business where different companies in the same industry merge together; occurred frequently during the rise of business in mid to late 1880s; created pools and trusts, and resulted in the allocation of markets and set prices

In the late 1800s, Gustavus Swift developed an efficient system of mechanical refrigeration, an innovation that earned him a fortunate and provided the cattle industry with a major stimulus. 

He is credited with the development of the first practical ice-cooled railroad car which allowed his company to ship dressed meats to all parts of the country and even abroad, which ushered in the "era of cheap beef."

Another labor group of national standing. Started in 1869, grew slowly, but during the years of depression after 1873, spread more rapidly (peaked at around 700,000 members). Due to poor organization, it went into rapid decline after a failed railroad strike. The Knights nevertheless attained some lasting achievements, among them:

The creation of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Foran Act of 1885, which penalized employers who imported contract laborers from abroad.

They also spread the idea of unionism and initiated a new type of union organization: the industrial union, an industrywide union of skilled and unskilled workers.

1879

Law required that every inhabitable room have a window opening to plain air. The solution was a design competition where the dumbbell shape won. Each building had small air vents between them opening to fresh air.

It is important because it caused even bigger problems because garbage piled up in the vents and fired and diseases spread more easily. 

Ran against William McKinley at the turn of the 20th century. Lost twice, but managed to still retain control of the Democratic party. He was a supporter of the free coinage of silver. Bryan was a two-term congressman from Nebraska. 

He also influenced the vote for approval for the Treaty of Paris, right when it seemed that the opposition to the treaty may have been strong enough to kill the treaty.

This was a reference to Anti-Spanish Propoganda

A term coined in 1914 by Julian Juderias in his book "the Black Legend" in reference to the examples of anti-Spanish propaganda and Hispanophobia in the Early Modern Period. It was historically important because it brought out the fact that racial segregation was not against just blacks and Chinese, but also felt toward the Spanish.

In 1911, there was a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City. 146 workers died, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants, most of them women and many of them in their teens, because the owner kept the stairway doors locked to prevent theft. Workers trapped on the upper floors died in the fire or leaped to their death.

Important because Stricter building codes and factory-inspection acts followed.

Written by Upton Sinclair in 1906

Graphically portrays the filthy conditions in Chicago's meatpacking industry.

Historically significant because:

After two federal agents investigated and confirmed these conditions in Chicago, the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 required federal inspection of meats destined for interstate commerce and empowered officials in the Agriculture Department to impose sanitary standards. The Pure Food and Drug Act, enacted the same day, placed restrictions on the makers of prepared foods and patent medicines and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated, misbranded, or harmful foods, drugs, and liquors. 

John Muir led the Sierra Club in a campaign to protect the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a part of Yosemite National Park, from being filled by a reservoir.

The battle for Hetch Hetchy was perhaps the first effort at what is now known as "grassroots lobbying," getting individual citizens to contact elected officials in support of or opposition to legislation.

It was the first time the young national park system had been so violated. Although the Sierra Club lost that battle, the loss of Hetch Hetchy served to awaken the nation in defense of its national parks. Remembering the loss of Hetch Hetchy, in the 1950s and 1960s, the Sierra Club successfully stopped dams from being built in Dinosaur National Monument and in Grand Canyon National Park.