APUSH Essential Words, Terms, and Phrases

Either expressly mentioned in the CED Key Concepts or logically flowing from. In either case, fair game for the exam in May

The italicized and bolded terms listed below are those expressly mentioned in the College Board’s Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) Course and Exam Description (CED) Key Concepts. That they are expressly mentioned signifies a high likelihood of these terms appearing on the APUSH exam in May. Other terms, not italicized and bolded, logically flow from the language of the Key Concepts, where the explicitly mentioned terms are found. Most successful APUSH teachers ensure their students are familiar with most, if not all, of these terms, as they are integral to a comprehensive understanding of the course material. The entire list of terms, crucial for exam preparation, can be accessed here.

P1 (1491–1607

• Apache
• Atlantic Seaboard Native Americans
• Bison/Buffalo on Great Plains
• Black Legend
• Cabeza de Vaca
• California Native Americans
• Capitalism
• Caravel
• Caste System
• Cherokee of the Southeast
• Chinook
• Chumash
• Christopher Columbus’ Voyage
• Columbian Exchange
• Coronado (Franscisco Vasques de)
• Encomienda System
• Feudalism
• God, Gold, Glory
• Great Basin Aridity
• Great Basin Native Americans
• Great Plains Grasslands
• Great Plains Native Americans
• Increasingly Complex
• Introduction of Tobacco, Chocolate, Corn, Potatoes, and Tomatoes to the Old World
• Introduction of Wheat, Oxen, Horses, Weapons, Farming Tools, and Smallpox to the New World
• Iroquois
• Iroquois
• Joint Stock Company
• Maize Cultivation
• Maritime Technology
• Maroon Communities
• Middle Passage
• Mississippi River Valley Native Americans
• Navajo
• Nez Perce
• New World
• Northwest Native Americans
• Plantation-Based Agriculture
• Present-Day American Southwest
• Present-Day California
• Pueblo
• Roanoke
• Sextant
• Shoshone
• Silver Mines
• Sioux
• Southwest Native Americans
• Spanish Empire in the Western Hemisphere
• Spanish Mission System
• Views of Bartolomé de Las Casas
• View of Juan de Sepúlveda
• Western Great Plains Native Americans
• Western Hemisphere

P2 (1607–1754)

• Anglicanization
• Atlantic Economy
• Atlantic Slave Trade
• Bacon’s Manifesto
• Bacon’s Rebellion
• Beaver Wars of the mid-1600s
• Bread-basket Colonies
• British Colonization
• Chattel Slavery
• Chesapeake and North Carolina Colonies
• Chickasaw Wars of the mid-1700s
• Christianity
• Colonial Legislatures
• Conquistador
• Covert Resistance to Slavery
• Dutch Colonization
• Elected Assemblies
• Elite Planters
• Enlightenment
• Epidemic Diseases
• First Great Awakening
• French Colonization
• Fur Trade
• God, Gold, Glory
• Head-right System
• House of Burgesses
• Imperial Policies
• Indentured Servant
• Intermarriage
• Jamestown Colony
• John Winthrop
• Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
• Mayflower Compact
• Mercantilism
• Metacom’s War
• Middle Colonies
• Navigation Acts
• New England
• New England Colonies
• New France
• New Light Ministers
• New Netherlands
• New Spain
• Old Light Ministers
• Overrt Resistance to Slavery
• Participatory Town Meetings
• Plymouth Colony
• Protestant Evangelicalism
• Pueblo Revolt
• Puritan Work Ethic
• Puritans
• Quakers
• Religious Toleration
• Roanoke Colony
• Salem Witch Trials
• Salutary Neglect
• Self-Governing Institutions
• Slave Codes
• Slave Running Away
• Slave Sabotaging Tools
• Slave Work Slowdown
• Slaves Feigning Illness
• Southern Colonies
• Southernmost Atlantic Coast Colonies
• Spanish Colonization
• Spanish Mission System
• Starving Time
• Stono Rebellion
• Tobacco as a Cash Crop
• Trail of Anne Hutchinson
• Triangular Trade
• Voyage of Columbus

P3 (1754–1800)

• Abigail Adams’ “Remember the Ladies”
• American Revolution
• Anti-Federalists
• Appalachian Mountains
• Articles of Confederation
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Bank of the United States (BUS)
• Benjamin Franklin’s Energized American Independence Movement
• Bill of Rights
• Boston Massacre
• Boston Tea Party
• Boycotting
• Cabinet
• Colonial Independence Movement
• Common Sense
• Confederate Form of Government
• Constitutional Convention
• Constitution
• Continental Army
• Declaration of Independence
• Deep South and Adjacent Western Lands
• Democratic-Republican Party (led by Jefferson and Madison)
• Different Forms of Government
• Executive Branch
• Faction
• Federal Form of Government
• Federalism
• Federalist Papers (written by Hamilton and Madison)
• Federalists (led by Hamilton)
• First Continental Congress
• Foreign Alliances
• French and Indian War
• French Revolution
• George Washington and John Adams Presidential Administration
• George Washington’s Farewell Address
• Great Compromise
• Haitian Revolution
• Ideals of Self-Government
• Intolerable Acts
• Judicial Branch
• Judicial Review
• Legislative Branch
• Louisiana Purchase
• Loyalists
• Mercantilism
• Marbury v. Madison
• Mississippi River
• Navigation Acts
• Northwest Ordinance
• Patriot Movement
• Paul Revere’s Painting of the Boston Massacre
• Pontiac’s War
• Proclamation of 1763
• Prohibition of the International Slave Trade after 1808
• Quakers
• Quartering Act
• Ratification of Constitution
• Republican Ideas
• Republican Motherhood
• Revolutionary War
• Salutary Neglect
• Shay’s Rebellio
• Second Continental Congress
• Separation of Powers
• Slave Trade Compromise
• Smuggling
• Sons of Liberty / Daughters of Liberty
• Stamp Act
• Sugar Act
• Tar and Feathering
• Tea Act
• Taxation without Representation
• The 3/5s Compromise
• The Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom
• Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
• Three Branches of Government
• Tidewater
• Townshend Acts
• Whiskey Rebellion

P4 (1800–1848)

• Abolitionist Movement
• Agricultural Inventions
• American Anti-Slavery Society
• American System
• American Temperance Society
• Annexation of Texas
• Anti-Slavery Movement
• Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
• Cotton Gin and Growth of Short Staple Cotton
• Cumberland Road
• Declaration of Sentiments
• Democrats (led by Jackson)
• Distant Market
• Dorothea Dix and Prison Reform
• Erie Canal
• Era of Good Feelings
• First Industrial Revolution
• First Political Party System
• Free Soil Movement
• German Immigrants
• Golden Age of American Whaling
• Horace Mann and Education Reform
• Hudson River School of Art
• Impressment
• Indian Removal Act
• Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
• Interchangeable Parts
• Irish Immigrants
• Jackson’s Veto of the Second BUS
• King Cotton
• Knickerbocker Group
• Lancaster Turnpike
• Lewis and Clarke
• Louisiana Purchase
• Lowell Mill Girls
• Lydia Child’s Challenge of the Cult of Domesticity
• Marbury v. Madison
• Market Revolution
• McCulloch v. Maryland
• Mechanical Reaper
• Mexican-American War
• Mexican Cession
• Mississippi River
• Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Monroe Doctrine
• Mormon Migration
• More Participatory Democracy
• Nat Turner Rebellion
• New National Culture
• Ohio River
• Regional Interdependence
• Romanticism
• Second Great Awakening
• Second Party System
• Sectional Differences
• Semi-Subsistence Agriculture
• Seneca Falls Convention
• South Carolina Nullification of Tariffs of 1828 and 1832
• Steam Engine
• Steamboats
• Steel Plow
• Tariffs
• Telegraph
• Textile Machinery
• Trail of Tears
• Transcendentalism
• Treaty of Wanghia
• Underground Railroad
• War of 1812
• Whigs (led by Clay)

P5 (1844–1877)

• 13th Amendment
• 14th Amendment
• 15th Amendment
• America Party
• American First Transcontinental Railroad
• Annexation of Texas
• Battle of Gettysburg
• Battle of Little Big Horn
• Battle of Vicksburg
• Bessemer Process
• Birth of the Republican Party
• Black Codes
• California Gold Rush
• Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
• Charles Sumner Canning of Senator Brooks
• Chinese Immigration
• Civil War
• Clipper Ships
• Comstock Lode
• Compromise of 1850
• Compromise of 1877
• Confederacy
• Decimation of Buffalo
• Dred Scott
• Election of 1844
• Election of 1860
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Ethnic Communities
• Failure of Reconstruction
• Formation of the Republican Party
• Free Soil Movement
• Free Soil Party
• Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
• German Immigrants
• Gettysburg Address
• Grandfather Clauses
• Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Homestead Act
• Homefront Opposition
• Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
• Irish Potato Famine
• Jim Crow Laws
• John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
• Kansas Nebraska Act
• Know Nothing Party
• Klu Klux Klan
• Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
• Lenient vs. Harsh Penalties for South
• Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• Lincoln’s House Divided Speech
• Lincoln’s Ten Percent Reconstruction Plan
• Literacy Tests
• Manifest Destiny
• Mexican American War
• Mexican Cession
• Moderate Republican
• Moral High Ground
• Mormon Migration
• Mormon Settlements in Utah
• No Southern Electoral Votes
• Northern Conscription Act
• Oil Drilling
• Pacific Railway Act
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• Poll Taxes
• Pony Express
• Popular Sovereignty
• Positive Social Good Proslavery Argument
• Radical Republicans
• Reconstruction
• Reconstruction Amendments
• Rephrame Purpose of War
• Reservation System
• Rich Man’s War but Poor Man’s Fight
• Sand Creek Massacre
• Secession of Southern States
• Second Party System
• Sharecropping
• Sherman’s March to the Sea
• Southern Secession
• States Right Pro-Slavery Argument
• Tenant Farming
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• War Democrats and Peace Democrats
• 54th Regiment

P6 (1865–1898)

• Alternative Visions for American Business
• American Anti-Slavery Society
• American Bison Decimation
• Americanization
• Annexation of Hawaii
• Anti-Trust Act (Sherman)
• Anti-Trust Act (Clayton)
• Assimilation
• Barbed Wire
• Battle of Little Big Horn
• Bleeding Kansas
• Booker T. Washington’s Vision for African Americans
• Boomtowns
• Boss Tweed
• Business Consolidation
• Carnegie (Steel)
• Child Lanor
• Chinatowns
• Chinese Exclusion Act
• City Beautiful Movement
• Colored Farmers Alliance
• Commodore Perry's Expedition to Japan
• Consolidation
• Cowtons
• Coxeys Army March
• Dawes Act
• Decimation of American Bison
• Direct Election of US Senators
• Distinctive Middle Class
• Ellis Island
• Exodusters
• Farmer Alliances
• Federal Loans and Land Grants
• Field (Transatlantic Telegraph)
• Free Silver Movement
• Freedman’s Bureau
• George Washington Carver’s Vision for African Americans
• Ghost Dance Movement
• Gilded Age
• Gospel of Wealth
• Government Subsidies for Communication
• Government Subsidies for Transportation
• Ghost Dance
• Graham Bell (Telephone)
• Graduated Income Tax
• Great Sioux War
• Haymarket Affair
• Homestead Steel Strike
• Horizontal Integration
• How the Other Half Lives
• Industrial Capitalism
• Interstate Commerce Act
• Influence of Sea Power Upon History
• Jane Addams Settlement Houses
• Jim Crow Laws
• Knights of Labor
• Laissez-Faire Policies
• Large Scale Industrial Production
• Migration Trails (Oregon, California, Mormon)
• Morgan (Banking)
• National Farmers Alliance
• Nativism
• Need for Managers and Clerical Workers
• New Immigrants
• New South
• Pacific Railway Act
• Paper Tiger
• Patronage
• People’s (Populist) Party
• Philanthropy
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• Political Machine
• Populist-endorsed Measures
• Public ownership of railroads and communication lines,
• Pullman Strike
• Purchase of Alaska
• Push and Pull Factors
• Reapers, Combines, and Bonanza Farming
• Reservation System
• Rise of Leisure Time Activities
• Rockefeller (Oil)
• Rural to Urban Migration
• Sand Creek Massacre
• Sears Mail Order Catalogue
• Settlement Houses
• Sharecropping and Tenant Farming
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act
• Shorter Work Week
• Social Darwinism
• Social Gospel
• Southern Farmers Alliance
• Spoils System
• Standard Oil Trust
• The Bessemer process
• Tenement Housing
• Territory Acquired as a Result of Victory in the Spanish-American War
• The Black Hills
• The Las Gorras Blancas
• The Liberator
• The Oil Well
• Transatlantic telegraph cable
• Transcontinental Railroad
• Treaty of Fort Laramie
• Treaty of Wangjua
• Trusts and Holding Companies
• Turner Thesis
• Underground Railroad
• Unions
• Vanderbilt (Railroad)
• Vaudeville
• Vertical Integration
• Montgomery Ward (Mail Order Cataloge
• Wounded Knee Massacre

P7 (1890–1945)

• 16th Amendment
• 17th Amendment
• 18th Amendment
• 19th Amendment
• Agricultural Adjustment Administration
• American Expeditionary Forces
• Annexation of Hawaii
• Anti-Imperialism
• Atomic Bomb Droppings
• Bad Trusts vs. Good Trusts
• Bootlegger
• Big Stick Diplomacy
• Braceros Program
• CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)
• Charleston
• Census 1890
• Cinema
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act
• Closing of the Frontier
• Code Talkers
• Consumer Culture
• Court Packing Scheme
• D-Day Invasion
• Deficit Spending
• Dollar Diplomacy
• Economic Reform
• Economic Stimulation
• Emergency Quota Act
• Executive Order 9066
• FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)
• FDR’s First Hundred Days
• FDR’s Four Freedoms Speech
• Federal Reserve System
• Federal Trade Commission
• Flappers
• Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management
• Fundamentalism vs. Modernism
• GI Bill
• Great Depression
• Great Migration
• Grapes of Wrath
• Harlem Renaissance
• Henry Ford’s Model T
• Henry Ford’s Moving Assembly Line
• Holocaust
• Immigration Act of 1917
• Immigration During the 1920s
• Immigration Quotas of the 1920s
• Imperialism
• Ida Tarbell’s History of Standard Oil
• Island Hopping
• Isolationism vs. Interventionism
• Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives
• Jane Addams’ Hull House
• Japanese Internment
• Jazz Age
• John Muir and the Sierra Club
• Keynesian Economics
• Korematsu v. US
• League of Nations
• Limited Welfare State
• Lost Generation
• Muckrakers
• Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power Upon History
• Meat Inspection Act
• Modern Republicans
• Mobilization
• Moral Diplomacy
• Moving Assembly Line
• National Industrial Recovery Act
• National Parks
• National Origins Immigration Act
• Nativism
• New Deal
• Pearl Harbor Attack
• Political Realignment
• Preservation and Conservation Movement
• Progressive Amendments
• Progressive Era
• Progressive Era Reforms
• Prohibition
• Pure Food and Drug Act
• Radio
• Race Riots in Detroit, Tulsa, and Chicago
• Red Scare
• Refrigerator
• Relief for the Poor
• Rural Agricultural Economy
• Roaring Twenties
• Rudolph Kipling’s White Man’s Burdon
• Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• Schenck v. US
• Second Wave Immigration
• Securities and Exchange Commission
• Settlement Movement
• Sherman Anti-Trust Act
• Singking of Lusitania
• Social Security Act
• Spanish American War
• Speakeasy
• Stock Market Crash
• Taylorism
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• The Great Migration
• The First Red Scare
• The Three R’s
• Treaty of Versailles
• Turner’s Thesis
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
• Urban Industrial Economy
• Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
• Supression of Philipine Nationalist Movement
• Urban Migration
• Unilateral Foreign Polic
• Vacuum Cleaner
• Washing Machine
• W.E.B. Du Bois and the Niagara Movement
• White Man’s Burden
• WPA (Works Progress Administration)
• Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points
• Women’s Suffrage
• Woodrow Wilson’s Call for Entry into World War I
• Zimmerman Telegram
• Yellow Journalist

P8 (1945–1980)

• Affirmative Action
• Anti-Vietnam War Protests
• Baby Boom
• Bakke v. California
• Beat Movement
• Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique”
• Black Power
• Brown v. Board of Education
• Camp David Accords
• Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers
• Christian Evangelicalism
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Civil Rights Movement
• Clean Air Act of 1970
• Cold War
• Collective Sector Theory
• Communism
• Conservatism
• Consumerism
• Containment Policy
• Counter Culture Movement
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Decolonization
• Delano Grape Strike
• Detente
• Draft Evasion
• Earth Day
• Ecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
• Engle v. Vitale
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Feminist and Gay/Lesbian Activist
• Focus on the Family
• Ford’s Pardon of Nixon
• Free Speech Movement
• Freedom Rides
• Freedom Summer
• George Kennan’s Long Telegram
• GI Bill of Rights
• Great Society
• Growth of the Aerospace Industry
• Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• Hawks and Doves
• Hippies
• Hollywood Ten
• House Un-American Activities Committee
• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
• Immigration Act of 1965
• Iran Hostage Crisis
• Johnson’s Vietnam Policy
• Kent State Shooting
• Korean War
• Latino, American Indian, and African American Movements
• Liberal Policies
• Liberalism
• Little Rock Nine
• March on Washington
• Marshall Plan
• Martin Luther King’s Direct Action and Non-Violent Protest Tactics
• Mass Culture
• McCarthyism
• Medicaid and Medicare
• Military Industrial Complex
• Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Moral and Cultural Decline
• Moral Majority
• Mutual Coexistence
• Nationalist Movement
• NATO
• New York Times v. Sullivan
• Nixon’s Vietnam Policy
• Nuclear Arsenal
• Occupation of Alcatraz
• Operation Rolling Thunder
• Pentagon Papers
• Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”
• Rock and Roll
• Second Red Scare
• SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)
• Second Red Scare
• Social Security Act
• Stonewall Riots
• Sun Belt Migration
• Tet Offensive
• The Sun Belt
• Title IX
• Truman Doctrine
• US v. Nixon
• Vietnam War
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Warren Court
• Watts Riots
• Wategate Scandal
• Woodstock

P9 (1980–2015)

• Affordable Health Care Act
• Asian Immigration
• Citizens United v. FEC
• Conservative Beliefs
• Deregulation of Airline Industry
• Deregulation of Many Industries
• Deregulation of Oil Industry
• Detente
• Democratic Shift
• Election of Sunbelt Presidents
• Fracking
• Global Warming
• Globalization
• Iran-Contra Scandal
• Iran Nuclear Treaty
• Keystone Pipeline Debate
• Latin American Immigratio
• Latinos Becoming Largest Minority Group in America
• Newly Ascendant Conservative Movement
• Osama Bin Laden
• Outsourcing
• Presidential Election of 1980
• Real Wages
• Recession Rising Income Gap
• Ronald Reagan’s Domestic Policy
• Ronald Reagan’s Foreign Policy
• Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” Speech
• September 11 Attacks
• Service Sector Employment
• Star Wars Missile Defense System
• Union Membership
• US Patriot Act
• War on Terrorism
• World Trade Center and Pentagon Attack