1. Expansion, Progress and Reform
Review Part 7
Expansion, Progress and Reform

2. Free Enterprise
U.S. Economic System – minimal government regulation or taxation
Encouraged business creation, investment and trade
Encouraged competition

3. Urbanization Movement of People from farms to cities
Poor areas featured cramped and unsafe housing

4. immigration U.S. factory jobs attracted many immigrants
Cities became diverse

5. Improvements and advancements
Transportation – new roads, canals, railroads
Steamboat – sped river travel; allowed goods to move between markets
Communication – mail service and telegraph
Cotton gin” removed seeds from cotton; cotton production, slavery and plantation system expanded in South; cotton sent to New England factories
Interchangeable parts – making of individual machined parts; made production of many good faster and cheaper

6. culture
Hudson River School – Landscape painters of America’s natural beauty
John James Audubon – Painted , studied and wrote about American birds

7. transcendentalism
Philosophy that creativity and activity were better than reason and theory
Believed people were basically good, human potential was limitless, and that answers could be found in nature and within

8. Manifest destiny
Belief held in 19th century by Americans that the U.S. was destined to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific, spreading culture and democracy

9. expansion
Manifest Destiny resulted in U.S. policies that expanded the U.S. territory westward by wars with Indian tribes and Mexico, purchases from foreign governments, and the annexation of Texas

10. Expansion
Louisiana Purchase 1803: Thomas Jefferson purchased from France, doubling size of the U.S.
Florida 1819 – Spain sold to U.S.
Texas 1845 – annexed by U.S.; Republic of Texas requested admission
Oregon Territory 1846 – Britain abandoned its claims to Oregon
Mexican Cession – 1848 – Mexico ceded what became southwestern U.S. after Mexican War
Gadsden Purchase 1853 – Mexico sold to U.S. for $10 million; for transcontinental RR

11. u.s. – Mexican War
Causes – U.S. annexed Texas in 1845; boundary disputes between Mexico and Texas; U.S. wanted more land – Manifest Destiny
Events – U.S. President Polk declared war after troops he placed in disputed territory clashed with Mexican troops; U.S. troops reached Mexico City; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Effects – Mexico ceded land – Mexican Cession; border at Rio Grande in Texas

12. Abolitionists
Underground RR – network of abolitionists, paths and places that secretly helped slaves escape to north or Canada
William Lloyd Garrison – published The Liberator – newspaper that called for the complete and immediate abolition of slavery by peaceful means
Frederick Douglass – famous speaker, writer, reformer who had escaped slavery; believed in equality of all people
John Brown’s Raid – 1859, John Brown and fellow abolitionists attacked a federal arsenal in Virginia and tried to start a slave rebellion; he was hung for treason and became a martyr

13. Reform
Women’s Rights – for women to have same civil rights as men; own property and vote
Temperance – to end or reduce use of alcohol; promoted to cure social ills be preachers, liberals, and conservatives
Educational Reform – to educate all American children at public expense in order to create an educated and moral citizenry
Labor Reform – to restrict child labor and improve working conditions
Prison Reform – to eliminate crowded cells, debtor prisons, corporal punishment, death penalty and convictions of insane
Care of disabled – to create state-supported asylums and schools