America: A Concise History 3Rd Edition "companionate Marriage - Jingoism"

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Companionate marriage

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Reflecting republican ideas, some men and women in the early nineteenth century tried to create marriages based on mutual equality and respect. Although the husbands retained significant legal powers, they increasingly viewed their wives as loving partners rather than as inferiors or dependants

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Conservation, conservationist

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Advocacy for protection of the natural environment for sustained use. As applied by Theodore Roosevelt at the start of the twentieth century, conservation accepted development of public lands, provided this was in the public interest and not wastefully destructive. In contrast, preservationists valued wilderness in its natural state and were more broadly opposed to developement

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Containment

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American Cold War policy designed to prevent Soviet expansionism, articulated most forcefully in 1946 by American diplomatic advisor George Kennan. For over forty years, American Defense policy was guided by Kennan's argument that the Soviets would stop only when met with "unanswerable force"

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Counterinsurgency

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A military operation using specially trained forces to defend against guerilla warfare. The U.S. military created the Green Berets in the early 1960s to fight this type of nontraditional warfare, characteristic of the conflict in Vietnam

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Court injunction

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A directive issued by a judge that prohibits certain conduct until a dispute is legally adjudicated. During labor disputes, probusiness judges routinely issued injunctions that prevented labor unions from striking or picketing and imposed stringent penalties against individuals and unions who defied the injunction

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Covert interventions

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Secret undertakings by a country in pursuit of foreign-policy goals, as evidenced by the Central Intelligence Agency, started in the 1950s when operating in the interests of the United States. Knowledge of these acts, like U.S. participation in the overthrow of the government of Guatemala in 1954 and support for the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980's was kept from the American people and most members of Congress

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Cultural pluralsim

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A term coined in 1924 that posits that diversity, especially religious and ethnic diversity, can be a source of strength in a democratic nation and thus cultural differences should be respected and valued

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Deficit spending

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High government spending in excess of tax-revenues based on the ideas of economist John Maynard Keynes, who proposed in the 1930s that governments should be prepared to go into debt to stimulate a stagnant economy

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Deflation

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The sustained decline of prices, generally accompanying an economic depression, but in the United States after the Civil War, The result of rapidly rising productivity, market competition, and a tight money supply

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Deism, Deist

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The belief, popular in the eighteenth century among educated americans urban artisans, that God made the world but subsequently exerted no influence on it or its people. This doctrine was radical because it repudiated the belief of many Christians that God intervened directly in human affairs

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Deregulation

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Process of removing or limiting federal regulatory mechanisms, justified on the basis of promoting competition and streamlining government bureaucracy. President Carter began deregulation in the 1970s, starting with the airline, banking, and communications industries. The process continued under subsequent administrations

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Detente

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From the French word for a relaxation of tension, this term was used to signify the new foreign policy of President Nixon, which sought a reduction of tension and hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union and China in the early 1970s

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Direct primary

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The selection of party candidates by a popular vote rather than by the party convention, this progressive reform was especially pressed by Robert La Follette, who viewed it as an instrument for breaking the grip of machines on the political parties. In the South, where it was limited to whites, the primary was a means of disfranchising blacks

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Division of labor

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A system of Manufacture that assigned specific tasks to different workers. It improved efficiency and productivity but also eroded the workers control over the conditions of labor. This system began around 1800 in the shoe industry and soon became the general practice throughout the manufacturing sector of the economy

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Dollar diplomacy

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Policy adopted by President Taft emphasizing the connection between America's economic and political interests overseas. The benefits would flow in both directions. Business would gain from diplomatic efforts in its behalf, while the strengthened american economic presence overseas would give added leverage to American diplomacy

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Domino theory

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An American Cold War concept associated with the containment policy that posited that Communist incursions into nations must be stopped befor communism spread to neighboring countries and envelope entire regions. The term was first used by President Eisenhower, who warned of the "falling domino" principle

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Dower, dower right

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A legal right originating in medieval Europe and carried to the American colonies that extended to a widow the use of one-third of the family's land and goods during her lifetime

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Enclosure acts

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The laws passed in England in the sixteenth century that allowed landowners to fence in the open fields surrounding many peasant villages and set sheep to graze on them. The acts left many peasants without land to cultivate and forced them to work as wage laborers or as wool spinners and weavers

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Encomenderos

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Privileged Spanish Landholders in America who held land grants from the Spanish crown and the right to collect tribute from the resident Native American population, both in goods and through forced labor

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Encomiendas

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Land grants in America given by the Spanish kings to reward conquistadors and others in the sixteenth century. the encomiendas also gave the landholders legal control over the native population who lived on or near their estates

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Entitlement programs

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Government programs that provide financial benefits to which recipients are entitled by law. Examples include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment compensation, and agricultural price supports

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Established church, establishment

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A church that enjoys a government-bestowed preferred legal status. Historically, established churches in Europe and America were supported by public taxes and sometimes were the only legally permitted religious institutions in a nation or colony

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Ethnocultural

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Refers to the distinctive social characteristics of immigrants and religious groups, especially in determining their party loyalties and stance on political issues touching personal behavior and public morality

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Fascism

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Right-wing antidemocratic totalitarian movements that began in Europe after World War I and which were characterized by strong dictators backed by military. The dictatorships of Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany, and Francisco Franco in Spain represent this

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Feminism, feminist

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Doctrine advanced in the early twentieth century by women activists that women should be equal to men in all areas of life. Earlier women activists and suffragists had accepted the notion of separate spheres for men and women, but feminists sought to overcome all barriers to equality and full personal development

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Fiscal policy

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The manipulation of government expenditure and taxation aimed at affecting a nation's allocation of economic resources, the distribution of income, and the level and general growth of economic activity

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Flexible response

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A strategy adopted by the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s that called for a military establishment that was prepared to fight any foe-large or small, with conventional or nuclear arms-that was seen as a threat to American interests

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Fourteen Points

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President Wilson proposed these as a basis for peace negotiations at Versailles in 1919. Included in the points were open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, free trade, territorial integrity, arms reduction, national self-determination, and establishment of the League of Nations

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Franchise

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The right to vote. It was extended to all adult white males in the 1820s and 1830s by most states, to black men in 1870 by the Fifteenth Amendment

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Free soil

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A political movement of the 1840s that opposed the expansion of slavery in order to allow white farm families to settle the wastern territories and install democratic republican values and institutions there. The short-lived Free-Soil Party stood for "free soil, free labor, free men" which subsequently became the program of the Republican party

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Freehold

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Property owned in its entirety, without feudal dues or landlord obligations. Freeholders have the legal right to improve, transfer or sell their property. The first settlers of New England instituted this landholding system in an effort to escape exploitative leaseholds and feudal obligations

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Fundamentilsts, fundamentalism

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Conservative protestants who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. In the 1920s, fundamentalists opposed modernist Protestans, who tried to reconcile Christianity with Darwin's theory of evolution and recent technological and scientific discoveries. Fundamentalists' promotion of antievolution laws for public schools led to the famous Scopes trial of 1925

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Gang-labor system

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A system of work discipline used on Southern cotton plantations in the mid-nineteenth century. White overseers or black drivers constantly supervised gangs of enslaved laborers in order to enforce work norms and secure greater productivity

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General strike

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A strike that draws in all the workers in a society, with the intention of shutting the entire system down. Radical groups like the International Workers of the World (IWW), in the early twentieth century, saw the general strike as the means for initiating a social revolution

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Gentry

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A class of English men and women who were substantial landholders but lacked the social privileges and titles of nobility that marked the aristocracy. During the Price Revolution of the sixteenth century, the relative wealth and status of the gentry rose while that of the aristocracy declined

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Globalization

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As the flow of capital and trade expands, regional economies become more integrated; national political and economic borders become less significant; and multinational corporations dominate world trade. This process began in the 1970s and heated up in the 1990s, in part as a result of the end of the Cold War and the shattering of political barriers that had restrained international trade

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Gold standard

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An international monetary standard in which the values of national currencies of participating countries are fixed in terms of gold and, therefore, in terms of each other

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Habeas corpus

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A legal writ (Latin for "bring forth the body") used in English common-law courts to force government authorities to justify their arrest and detention of an individual. It was Given the status of a formal privilege in the U.S. Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 9), which also allows its suspension in cases of invasion or insurrection. During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to stop protests against the draft and disloyal activities. The USA PATRIOT Act (2001) likewise suspends this privilage in cases of suspected terrorism, but the act's constitutional legitimacy has not yet been decided by the courts

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Hegemony

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Dominance in global affairs by a nation. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from World War II as the world's leading powers, each exercising a tremendous influence, within their respective spheres of influence

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Heresy, heresies

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Religious doctrines inconsistent with the teaching of an established, official christian church. Some of the Crusades between 1096 and 1291 stand as examples of Christians attempting to crush groups spreading these "unauthorized" doctrines

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Home rule

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A rallying cry used by southern democrats painting Reconstruction governments as illegitimate-imposed on the South-and themselves as the only party capable of restoring the South to "home rule" By 1876, northern Republicans were inclined to accept this claim

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Homespun

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Yarn and cloth spun and woven by American women and long worn by poor colonists. During political boycotts in the 1760s, the wearing of homespun clothes by higher social classes took on a political meaning. It also substituted for the textiles previously imported from Britain and provided women with the opportunity to contribute directly to the Patriot movement

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Ideology

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A systematic philosophy or political theory that purports to explain the character of the social world or to prescribe a set of values or beliefs

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Impeachment

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First step in the constitutional process for removing the president from office, in which charges of wrongdoing (article of impeachment) are passed by the House of Representatives. A trial is then conducted by the Senate to determine whether the impeached president is guilty of the charges

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Indenture, Indentured servants

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A seventeenth-century labor contract that required service for a period of time in return for passage to North America. Indentures were typically for a term of four or five years, provided room and board in exchange for labor, and granted free status at the end of the contract period

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Indulgences

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Certificates granted by the Catholic Church that allegedly pardoned sinners from punishments in the afterlife. In his Ninety-five Theses, written in 1517, Martin Luther condemned the sale of indulgences, a common practice among Catholic clergy

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Injunction, Court injunction

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An order by a judge halting a specified activity by a party to a legal dispute on the grounds that potential injury to the other party would be irreparable. these are not subject to normal due-process proceedings but are emergency measures instituted prior to the resolution of the dispute. They were widely used in early-twentieth-century labor disputes

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Isolationism, isolationist

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A foreign-policy stance supporting the withdrawl of the United States from involvement with other nations, especially an avoidance of entangling diplomatic relations. The common view of post-WWI U.S. foreign policy is that it was this, but in fact the United States played an active role in world affairs, particularly in trade and finance

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Jim Crow

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A term first heard in antebelum minstrel shows to designate black behavior and used in the age of segregation to designate facilities restricted to blacks

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Jingoism, jingoes

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This term came to refer to the super-patriotism that took hold during the mid-1890s during the American dispute with Spain over Cuba. These were enthusiastic about military solution as a way of showing the nation's mettle and, when diplomacy failed, they got their wish with the Spanish-American War of 1898