Glossary

American Passages: A History of the United States, Brief, 1st Edition
Ayers, Gould, Oshinsky, Soderlund

Manifest Destiny: The belief that the United States was destined to grow from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic to the tropics. Providence supposedly intended for Americans to have this area for a great experiment in liberty.

McCarthyism: Public accusations of disloyalty made with little or no regard to actual evidence; named after Joseph McCarthy, these accusations and the scandal and harm they caused came to symbolize the most virulent form of anti-communism.

Mesoamerica: An area embracing Central and South America.

Middle Ground: The area of French and Indian cooperation around the Great Lakes that was controlled by New France. It was the basis of their extensive fur trade.

Minie ball: A cone-shaped lead bullet whose base expanded upon firing.

Mourning War: An Indian war often initiated by a widow or bereaved relative who insisted that her male relatives repair the loss.

machine boss: Leader of a highly organized political group, usually in urban areas. Frequently corruption was a unifying force among the members of the group.

machine tools industry: Produced machines for industrial plants, or machines that built other machines, usually involving shaping metal.

magistrate: An official who enforced the law. In colonial America, this person was often also a justice of the peace.

mandamus: A legal writ ordering a person, usually a public official, to carry out a specific act. In Massachusetts in 1774, the new royal councillors were appointed by a writ of mandamus.

manumission of slaves: The act of freeing a slave, done at the will of the owner.

margin: Part of an investment purchased with credit. As used by the stock market in the 1920s, many investors bought on margin or with only a small down payment (sometimes as little 10 percent). The remainder of the investment was borrowed from stock brokers or banks. Investors expected to resell their stocks within a few months at much higher prices, repay the loan, and make a good profit. When prices began falling, creditors began demanding that margin investors repay their loans, which forced stocks to be sold and decreased their prices.

maritime: Of or relating to the sea.

martial law: Government by a military force rather than by civilians. Most often, it was used in emergency situations.

martial law: Government by military force rather than by citizens. It was used most often in emergency situations.

mass production: An industrial technique requiring the coordination of machines with other machines to permit high-speed, uninterrupted production at every stage of the manufacturing process.

massive retaliation: Eisenhower administration's assertion that the threat of U.S. atomic weaponry would hold communist powers in check.

matrilineal: A society that determines inheritance and roles in life based on the female or maternal line.

mercenary: A professional soldier hired by a group or a government other than his own.

microchips: Technological improvement that boosted the capability and reduced the size and cost of computer hardware.

middle class: A term and social group that developed in the early nineteenth century. Those who claimed to be middle class were large-city and country merchants, master craftsmen who had turned themselves into manufacturers, and the mass of market-oriented farmers. The social status first developed in New England, and many middle-class values prevalent in areas of the United States were based on New England morality.

midnight judges: Federal judicial officials appointed to office in the closing period of a presidential administration. The Republicans accused Adams of staying awake until midnight in order to sign the commissions for Federalist officeholders.

military: A company equaled one hundred men. Ten infantry organization companies were a regiment. Four or more regiments organized as a brigade. Three or more brigades formed a division. Two or more divisions formed a corps. Two or more corps organized together were known as armies. Usually disease, casualties, and desertions cut down the numbers in these units considerably.

militia: A community's armed force, made up primarily of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.

millennium: The period at the end of history when Christ is expected to return and rule with his saints for a thousand years.

minstrel shows: The most popular form of theater among working men of the northern cities. White men in blackface portrayed African Americans in song and dance.

minutemen: A special militia force designed for rapid response to any emergency.

missions: Outposts established by the Spanish along the northern frontier to aid in Christianizing the native peoples. They also were used to exploit their labor.

modern: A term that came into widespread use during the 1920s. Modernity implied that science was a better guide to life than religion, that people should be free to choose their own lifestyle, that sex should be a source of pleasure for both genders, and that women and minorities should enjoy the same rights as white males.

monopoly: An individual or company having exclusive control of a service or item sold in the marketplace or having enough control to establish the price of the item.

monotheistic: The belief that there is only one God or deity.

morale: The general feeling of the people toward such events as a war. Good morale greatly enhances an ability to fight or sacrifice for a cause.

muckrakers: A term coined by Theodore Roosevelt as a criticism of writers who wrote about scandalous situations and distasteful alliances involving money. The name became a badge of honor among "muckrakers" determined to expose the seedy, sordid side of life in the United States. They sought to shock the public into recognizing the shameful state of political, economic, and social affairs, and to prompt people into action. Much of their work was published in cheap magazines of the time.

mudsill: The lowest sill of a structure, directly on the ground or foundation. In this chapter, the "structure" is the social scale, and mudsill refers to the belief by some whites that slavery formed a mudsill of blacks that kept whites from the bottom of society.