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20 Cards in this Set
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- Back
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John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)
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Most famous for his role in the pre-Civil War debate over states' rights, John Caldwell Calhoun was a U.S. senator from South Carolina (1832-43, 1845-50) and vice president under presidents John Quincy Adams (1825-29) and Andrew Jackson (1829-32). Calhoun grew up in South Carolina and was educated at Yale University before opening a law practice back home in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was a state representative (1808) and a U.S. representative (1811-1817) before serving as President Monroe's Secretary of War (1817-25). His terms as vice president were marked by his vocal differences with his presidents. Adams was an avid abolitionist from Boston, but Calhoun was a pro-slavery southern plantation owner, and Jackson and Calhoun were openly hostile to each other. Things heated up in the early 1830s over the issue of federal tariffs: Calhoun claimed that states could nullify federal laws, earning him the nickname of "Arch Nullifier," and Jackson threatened to use the army if South Carolina forced the issue. (
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Al Capone (1899-1947)
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U.S. gangster. Quitting school after the sixth grade, he joined the James Street Boys gang, led by Johnny Torrio. In a youthful fight in a brothel-saloon he was slashed across the left cheek, prompting the later nickname "Scarface." In 1919 he joined Torrio in Chicago to help run prostitution there. When Torrio retired (1925), Capone became the city's crime czar, running gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets. He expanded his territory by killing his rivals, most famously in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in which members of the Bugs Moran gang were machine-gunned in a garage on Feb. 14, 1929. In 1931 Capone was convicted for income-tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison; eventually he served time in the new Alcatraz prison (see Alcatraz Island). Granted an early release from prison in 1939, in part because he suffered from an advanced stage of syphilis, he died a powerless recluse at his Florida estate.
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Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
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U.S. industrialist and philanthropist. The son of a Scottish weaver, he emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1848. A job in a telegraph office led to his early career with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., and his canny investments made him wealthy by age 30. In 1872 – 73 he founded the steelworks near Pittsburgh, Pa., that evolved into the Carnegie Steel Co. in 1889. By adopting technological innovations such as the open-hearth furnace and by increasing efficiency through vertical integration, Carnegie built a vast enterprise that dominated the U.S. steel industry. In 1901 he sold his company to J.P. Morgan, and it became part of U.S. Steel.
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Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
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U.S. biologist and science writer. Carson trained as a marine biologist and had a long career at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Sea Around Us (1951) won a National Book Award. Her prophetic Silent Spring (1962), about the dangers of pesticides in the food chain, is regarded as the seminal work in the history of the environmental movement, which in some respects can be seen to date from its publication.
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George Catlin (1796-1872)
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U.S. painter and author. He practiced law briefly before becoming a self-taught portrait painter in Philadelphia (1823). Long interested in Native American life, in 1830 he began a series of visits to various tribes on the Great Plains. He produced some 500 paintings and sketches based on his travels and exhibited them in the U.S. and Europe. In 1854 – 57 he traveled to Central and South America; in 1858 – 70 he lived in Europe. He published several illustrated books on Native American life. Most of his collection was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its ethnographic and historical interest.
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CCC
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Civilian Conservation Corps.-U.S. painter and author. He practiced law briefly before becoming a self-taught portrait painter in Philadelphia (1823). Long interested in Native American life, in 1830 he began a series of visits to various tribes on the Great Plains. He produced some 500 paintings and sketches based on his travels and exhibited them in the U.S. and Europe. In 1854 – 57 he traveled to Central and South America; in 1858 – 70 he lived in Europe. He published several illustrated books on Native American life. Most of his collection was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its ethnographic and historical interest.
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Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)
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British-U.S. actor and director. The son of poverty-stricken music-hall entertainers, he became a vaudeville performer at age eight. On tour in New York (1913), he caught the eye of Mack Sennett, who signed him to a film contract. While making his second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), Chaplin developed the costume — baggy pants, derby hat, oversized shoes, and cane — that was to become the hallmark of his famous "little tramp" character. He was soon directing his own films, and he became an instant star in The Tramp (1915). After cofounding United Artists in 1919, he produced, directed, and starred in such classics as The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). Harassed for his leftist political views, he moved to Switzerland in 1952. In 1972 he returned to the U.S. to accept a special Academy Award.
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Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
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Cesar Chavez was a union organizer and social activist of the 1960s. The son of migrant laborers, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and later the United Farm Workers (UFW). He led a five-year nonviolent boycott against California grape growers, protesting poor working conditions and the use of pesticides harmful to farm workers. The boycott became a cause celebre and was finally successful in winning new rights for workers. In 1994 Chavez was posthumously awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom
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Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Soldier, politician and finally prime minister, Winston Churchill was one of Britain's greatest 20th-century heroes. He is particularly remembered for his indomitable spirit while leading Great Britain to victory in World War II. Churchill fought with the British Army in India and Sudan, and as a journalist was captured in South Africa (where his dispatches from the Boer War first brought him to public prominence). He became a member of Parliament in 1900 and remained an MP for over 64 years. His early topsy-turvy political career earned him many enemies, but his stirring speeches, bulldog tenacity and refusal to make peace with Adolf Hitler made him the popular choice to lead England through World War II. When Britain and its allies prevailed in 1945, Churchill's place in history was assured.
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Civil Rights Act of 1964
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Slavery, segregation, poverty, and racism have shaped the health status of African Americans throughout American history. One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, blacks were still denied the right to vote in some states and received an inferior education in most. Barriers to public health services and hospital care contributed to excess illness and death. Historically, African Americans have used the public policy process to facilitate the social changes necessary to win the full rights of citizenship. This process peaked during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, probably the most progressive legislation in American history. The act outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, public schools, and health care facilities. It also made possible the Medicaid-Medicare legislation of 1965, which led to improved health status of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minority groups.
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Henry Clay (1777-1852)
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Speaker of the House of Representatives (1811-14, 1815-21, 1823-25), secretary of state (1825-29), U.S. senator (1806-07, 1810-11, 1831-42, 1849-1852), and Whig candidate for president (1832, 1844), born in Hanover County, Virginia. Clay was known as the “Great Pacificator” and the “Great Compromiser” for his role in resolving the Missouri Compromise and Compromise of 1850 crises. Clay signed the treaty ending the War of 1812.
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Coercive (Intolerable) Acts (1744)
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Four punitive measures enacted by the British Parliament against the American colonies. Boston's harbour was closed until restitution was made for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party; the Massachusetts colony's charter was annulled and a military governor installed; British officials charged with capital offenses could go to England for trial; and arrangement for housing British troops in American houses was revived. The Quebec Act added to these oppressive measures. The acts, called "intolerable" by the colonists, led to a convening of the Continental Congress.
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Commitee of Correspondence
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Groups appointed by the legislatures of all 13 American colonies to provide a means of intercolonial communication. The first standing group was formed by Samuel Adams in Boston (1772), and within three months 80 others were formed in Massachusetts. In 1773 Virginia organized a committee with 11 members, including Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. The committees were instrumental in promoting colonial unity and in summoning the First Continental Congress in 1774.
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Common Sense
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A pamphlet written in America by Englishman Thomas Paine, published on January 10, 1776. It called for American independence and a union of the American colonies, and as propaganda, it influenced colonists to pursue both in the Revolutionary War. Paine's “Crisis” papers, issued from 1776 to 1783, were each signed “Common Sense.”
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Compromise of 1833
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The Tariff of 1833 (also known as the Compromise Tariff of 1833, ch. 55, 4 Stat. 629) was proposed by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun as a resolution to the Nullification Crisis. It was adopted to gradually reduce the rates after southerners objected to the protectionism found in the Tariff of 1832 and the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which had prompted South Carolina to threaten secession from the Union. This Act stipulated that import taxes would gradually be cut over the next decade until, by 1842, they matched the levels set in the Tariff of 1816--an average of 20%. The compromise reductions lasted only two months into their final stage before protectionism was reinstated by the Black Tariff of 1842.
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Compromise of 1850
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Series of measures passed by the U.S. Congress to settle slavery issues and avert secession. The crisis arose in late 1849 when the territory of California asked to be admitted to the Union with a constitution prohibiting slavery. The problem was complicated by the unresolved question of slavery's extension into other areas ceded by Mexico in 1848. In an attempt to satisfy pro- and antislavery forces, Sen. Henry Clay offered a series of measures that admitted California as a free state, left the question of slavery in the new territories to be settled by the local residents, and provided for the enforced return of runaway slaves and the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Support from Daniel Webster and Stephen A. Douglas helped ensure passage of the compromise.
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Compromise of 1877
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In order to settle the contested 1876 election, a bargain was struck that also ended Reconstruction. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden led Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in popular votes, and 203-165 in the electoral college, but fraud and violence in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, and questions about an Oregon elector's eligibility, left 20 electoral votes in doubt. Splitting over each state's contradictory returns, the Democratic House and Republican Senate created a fifteen-member electoral commission of ten congressmen and five Supreme Court justices, divided by party, with one independent, Justice David Davis. When Davis declined to serve, Republican Joseph Bradley replaced him, and the commission gave Hayes all 20 votes, prompting a Democratic filibuster.
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Connecticut Compromise
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Connecticut Compromise, which was based on a proposal by jurist and politician Roger Sherman of Connecticut, resolved an impasse in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 between large and small states over the apportionment of representation in the proposed senate. The larger states supported the Virginia Plan, which would create a bicameral legislature in which "the rights of suffrage … ought to be proportioned to the Quotas of contributions, or to the number of free inhabitants." Anticipating greater burdens from the centralization of power in a new national government, these states demanded a commensurate share of control. The small states, jealous of their welfare, refused to be moved from their demand for equality in a unicameral house. This was the fundamental problem of balance in a federation of states differing so greatly in size.On 11 June, Sherman offered a compromise: two houses, one with equal representation for all states and the other with proportional representation based on population. The
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Containment
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Strategic U.S. foreign policy of the late 1940s and early 1950s intended to check the expansionist designs of the Soviet Union through economic, military, diplomatic, and political means. It was conceived by George Kennan soon after World War II. An early application of containment was the Truman Doctrine (1947), which provided U.S. aid to Greece and Turkey.
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Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
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30th president of the U.S. (1923 – 29). He practiced law in Massachusetts from 1897 and served as lieutenant governor before being elected governor in 1918. He gained national attention by calling out the state guard during the Boston Police Strike in 1919. At the 1920 Republican convention, "Silent Cal" was nominated for vice president and elected on a ticket with Warren G. Harding. When Harding died in office in 1923, Coolidge became president. He restored confidence in an administration discredited by scandals and won the presidential election in 1924, easily defeating Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert La Follette. He vetoed measures to provide farm relief and bonuses to World War I veterans.
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