scientific management A system of organizing work, developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the late nineteenth century, to increase efficiency and productivity by breaking tasks into their component parts and training workers to perform specific parts. Labor resisted this effort because it de-skilled workers and led to the speedup of production lines. Taylor’s ideas were most popular at the height of the Progressive Era. (p. 683)

Second Great Awakening A popular religious revival that preached that salvation was available to anybody who chose to take it. The revival peaked in the 1830s, and its focus on social perfection inspired many of the reform movements of the Jacksonian era. (p. 339) See also evangelicalism.

separate spheres A concept of gender relations that developed in the Jacksonian era and continued well into the twentieth century, holding that women’s proper place was in the world of hearth and home (the private sphere) and men’s was in the world of commerce and politics (the public sphere). The doctrine of separate spheres eroded slowly over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as women became more and more involved in public activities. (pp. 339–340, 588, 761) See also cult of domesticity.

social Darwinism A social theory, based on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, that argued that all progress in human society came as the result of competition and natural selection. Gilded Age proponents such as William Graham Sumner and Herbert Spencer claimed that reform was useless because the rich and poor were precisely where nature intended them to be and intervention would retard the progress of humanity. (pp. 583–586, 686) See also reform Darwinism.

social gospel movement A religious movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries founded on the idea that Christians have a responsibility to reform society as well as individuals. Social gospel adherents encouraged people to put Christ’s teachings to work in their daily lives by actively promoting social justice. (pp. 677, 678–679)

socialism A governing system in which the state owns and operates the largest and most important parts of the economy. (pp. 351, 611, 622, 643, 779, 802)

social purity movement A movement to end prostitution and eradicate venereal disease, often accompanied by the censorship of materials deemed “obscene.” (p. 677)

spoils system An arrangement in which party leaders reward party loyalists with government jobs. This slang term for patronage comes from the saying “To the victor go the spoils.” Widespread government corruption during the Gilded Age spurred reformers to curb the spoils system through the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which created the Civil Service Commission to award government jobs on the basis of merit. (pp. 333, 525, 586) See also civil service.

state sovereignty A state’s autonomy or freedom from external control. The federal system adopted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 struck a balance between state sovereignty and national control by creating a strong central government while leaving the states intact as political entities. The states remained in possession of many important powers on which the federal government cannot intrude. (p. 467)

states’ rights A strict interpretation of the Constitution that holds that federal power over the states is limited and that the states hold ultimate sovereignty. First expressed in 1798 through the passage of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which were based on the assumption that the states have the right to judge the constitutionality of federal laws, the states’ rights philosophy became a cornerstone of the South’s resistance to federal control of slavery. (pp. 337, 480–481, 507, 508, 699)

strict constructionism An approach to constitutional law that attempts to adhere to the original intent of the writers of the Constitution. Strict construction often produces Supreme Court decisions that defer to the legislative branch and to the states and restrict the power of the federal government. Opponents of strict construction argue that the Constitution is an organic document that must be interpreted to meet conditions unimagined when it was written. (p. 1008)

suffrage The right to vote. The term suffrage is most often associated with the efforts of American women to secure voting rights. (pp. 233, 311–312, 443, 500, 554, 683, 703–704, 760) See also franchise.

Sun Belt The southern and southwestern regions of the United States, which grew tremendously in industry, population, and influence after World War II. (pp. 909, 912–915)

supply-side economics An economic theory based on the premise that tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations encourage investment and production (supply), which in turn stimulate consumption. Embraced by the Reagan administration and other conservative Republicans, this theory reversed Keynesian economic policy, which assumes that the way to stimulate the economy is to create demand through federal spending on public works and general tax cuts that put more money into the hands of ordinary people. (p. 1021) See also Keynesian economics.