Glossary

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

Teflon president: Term applied to Ronald Reagan. Critics complained that nothing ever "stuck" to the president, for no matter what problems beset his administration, he seemed to lead a charmed life.

Texas fever: An infectious cattle disease transmitted by ticks.

Third Reich: New empire Adolph Hitler promised the German people would bring glory and unity to them.

Third World: Less economically developed areas of the world, primarily the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Tierra del Fuego: The region at the southern tip of South America.

Tories: A term for Irish Catholic peasants who murdered Protestant landlords. It was used to describe the followers of Charles II and became one of the names of the two major political parties in England.

Twelfth: This amendment requires electors to vote on separate Amendment ballots for president and vice president. This was added to the Constitution as a result of the election of 1800.

Twenty Negro Law: The portion of the Confederate conscription law that exempted from the draft one white man on every plantation owning twenty or more slaves. The law's purpose was to exempt overseers or owners, which would ensure discipline over the slaves and keep up production. It was regarded as discrimination by nonslaveholding families.

table a petition or bill: The act of removing a petition or bill from consideration without debate.

tariff: A tax on imports. Under the federal constitution, exports cannot be taxed.

task system: A system of slave labor under which slaves had to complete specific assignments each day. After these assignments were finished, their time was their own. It was used primarily on rice plantations. Slaves often preferred this system over gang labor because it gave them more free time.

technocrat: Manager or administrator with expertise in some technology.

tejanos: Spanish-speaking settlers of Texas. The term comes from the Spanish word Tejas for Texas.

temperance: The act of abstaining from the partaking of alcoholic beverages.

tenancy: Farmers working land they did not own.

the projects: Self-contained urban ghettos inhabited by people with low incomes and little prospect for economic advancement.

think tank: Group or agency organized to conduct intensive research or engage in problem solving. Especially active in developing new technology, military strategy, or social planning.

ticket splitting: The act of dividing one's vote between candidates of two or more parties.

tidewater: The area between the ocean and the fall line. In the southern coastal areas, the tidewater was fairly wide and was open to oceangoing transportation. The coastal area around the Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia and Maryland was known especially as the tidewater. This became the leading tobacco-producing area.

time-and-motion studies: Every distinct motion a worker made in performing a job was recorded and studied: what was done, how long it took, and how often it was performed. The goal was to enable the human laborer to emulate the smooth and apparently effortless operation of an automatic and perfectly calibrated piece of machinery.

tithe: A portion of one's income that is owed to the church. In most places, it was one tenth.

toll roads: Roads for which travelers were charged a fee for each use. Most of the first toll roads were in the Northeast and were built by private corporations with some state support.

ton-mile: The cost of moving one ton a distance of one mile. This is a basic form of measuring the cost of transportation.

total war: Every combatant or country involved in a war commits virtually all of its resources and population to the war. World War I was considered to be total war.

total war: The military condition requiring the total mobilization of a country's population and materials or the total destruction of the opponent's resources in order to bring victory or inflict defeat. The Civil War was the first American experience of total war.

totalitarian movements: Movements in which the individual is subordinated to the state. All areas of life are subjected to centralized, total control, sometimes by force.

treasury notes: Paper money used by the Union to help finance the Civil War. One type of treasury note was known as a greenback because of its color.

trench warfare: Type of warfare in which long, narrow ditches are dug by both sides to protect their soldiers. It is used most commonly as a defensive method of fighting, which was the primary focus on the western front of World War I.

trust: Term derived from an investment strategy pioneered by John D. Rockefeller in which stockholders of several refining companies turned their shares over to Standard Oil. In return, they received trust certificates. The term came to be applied to all large corporations that controlled a substantial share of any given market.