“Isn’t she great?”

1. “Isn’t she great?” Rhetorical question A question that is asked not to elicit a response but to call attention to or assert something

2. William G. Sumner A Social Darwinist and Conservative in thought, Sumner worked continuously in charting the evolution of human customs, folkways and mores. He believed that these forces, developed naturally through the course of evolution, made any attempts for social reform useless. Sumner advocated that humanity could only survive in an environment untouched by attempts to change the “natural laws of social development”.

3. John Burgoyne John Burgoyne, (1722–1792), British army officer and playwright, whose bold plan of invading the American colonies from Canada ended in his surrender at Saratoga, N. Y.

4. Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British naturalist who achieved lasting fame by convincing the scientific community of the occurrence of evolution and proposing the theory that this could be explained through natural and sexual selection. This theory is now considered the central explanatory paradigm in biology.

5. “Not that I loved Caesar Less, but that I loved Rome more.” (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 3.2.20-21) Antithesis The contrasting of ideas by the use of parallel structure in phrases or clauses

6. Henry Barnard Henry Barnard (1811-1900), American educationalist, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the 24th of January 1811. He graduated from Yale University in 1830, and in 1835 was admitted to the Connecticut bar. In 1837—1839 he was a member of the Connecticut legislature, effecting in 1838 the passage of a bill, framed and introduced by himself, which provided for “the better supervision of the common schools“ and established a board of “commissioners of common schools” in the state.

7. She glanced at the ball gown, then exclaimed, “I’m supposed to wear old rag?” Meiosis A form of understatement in which something is referred to by a name that is disproportionate to its true nature.

8. James Weaver James Baird Weaver (June 12, 1833 – February 6, 1912) was a United States politician and member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Iowa as a member of the Greenback Party. He ran for President two times on third party tickets in the late 19th century. An opponent of the gold standard and national banks, he is most famous as the presidential nominee of the Populist Party in the 1892 election.

9. Plessy v. Ferguson On June 7, 1892, a 30-year-old colored shoemaker named Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy was only one-eighths black and seven-eighths white, but under Louisiana law, he was considered black and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car

10. “All the other lads there were/Were itching to have a bash.”(Philip Larkin, “Send No Money”) Colloquialism An informal or slang expression, especially in the context of formal writing.

11. Pontiac Pontiac or Obwandiyag (between 1712 and 1725 – April 20, 1769), was a Native AmericanOttawa war leader, remembered for his participation in Pontiac's Rebellion, a struggle against the British military occupation of the Great Lakes region that for many years he was credited with having led.

12. Well, where have you been, Mr. “I’ll-be-over-in-twenty-minutes”? Periphrasis The substitution of an illustrative or descriptive word or phrase in place of a proper noun. (Periphrasis can also apply to the reverse—the use of a proper noun as a description.)

13. Tecumseh Spent much of his life attempting to rally disperate Native American tribes in a mutual defense of their lands, which eventually culminated in his death in the War of 1812.

14. Aaron Burr A major formative member of the Democratic-Republican Party in New York and a strong supporter of Governor George Clinton. Known for hi s intense duel with Alexander Hamilton and his trial and acquittal on charges of treason

15. Zebulon Pike His expedition in Pikes Peak is often compared to the Lewis and Clark expedition. Mapped much of the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase.

16. Sacajawea Native American woman who accompanied the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

17. Robert Livingston Served as Secretary for Indian Affairs from 1695 until his death.

18. Eli Whitney Credited with creating the first cotton gin in 1793. Contributed to the economic development of the Southern states of the U.S.

19. Henry Knox Became chief Artillery officer of the Continental Army and later the nation’s first United States Secretary of War.

20. Benjamin Banneker African-American astronomer, clockmaker, and publisher.

21. Alexander Hamilton An influential delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention and the principal author of the Federalist Papers. First and most influential Secretary of the Treasury.

22. Horatio Gates An American general during the Revolutionary War. He is usually credited with the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga and blamed for disastrous defeat at the Battle of Camden.

23. John Locke British philosopher. He argued a government could only be legitimate if it received the consent of the governed and protected the natural rights of life, liberty, and estate.

24. Ethan Allen Spent a considerable portion of his life in the effort to achieve independence for what is now Vermont, commanding an irregular force called the Green Mountain Boys

25. Othello’s jealousy, fueled by the false Iago, ultimately causes him to kill Desdemona, his wife. Hamartia (also called tragic flaw) In the context of tragedy, a fatal flaw or error that brings about the downfall of someone of high status.

26. Dwight Moody D. L. Moody (1837-1899) was an American evangelist who founded the Northfield Schools in Massachusetts, Moody Church and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and the Colportage Association.

27. As hot as the sun Simile A comparison of two unlike things through the use of like or as

28. “The love of wicked men converts to fear,That fear to hate, and hate turns one or bothTo worthy danger and deserved death.”(Shakespeare, Richard II, 5.1.66-68) Anadiplosis Repetition of an important word from one phrase or clause (usually the last word) at the start of the next phrase or clause.

29. Ida Tarbell Ida Minerva Tarbell (November 5, 1857–January 6, 1944) was an author and journalist, known as one of the leading "muckrakers", whose famous exposé of the nefarious business practices of the Standard Oil Company established her as a pioneer of investigative journalism.

30. Jacob Riis former newspaper reporter, known for "How the Other Half Lives".

31. Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (born Tosten Bunde VeblenJuly 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist and a leader of the Efficiency Movement.

32. Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish scientist and inventor. Today, Bell is still widely considered to be the inventor of the telephone, although this matter has become controversial, with a number of people claiming that Antonio Meucci was the 'real' inventor

33. Saying “nice going” when someone makes a mistake Sarcasm A simple form of verba irony, in which it is obvious from context and tone that the speaker means the opposite of what he or she says.

34. Tom Watson WATSON, THOMAS JOHN, JR. [Watson, Thomas John, Jr.] 1914-93, American industrialist, b. Dayton, Ohio. The son of Thomas John Watson , Sr., the founder of the International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), he joined the family business following his graduation from Brown Univ. in 1937. He spent his career at IBM, becoming company president (1952-61), chairman (1961-71), and chairman of the executive board (1972-79). Watson early recognized the importance of computers and maintained IBM's dominance in that and other advanced technologies, while his management and marketing prowess turned IBM into a symbol of corporate excellence.

35. “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”(Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying”) Chiasmus Two Phrases in which the syntax is the same but the placement of words is reversed. (This quotation is also an example of aphorism.)

36. Alice Paul Alice Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an Americansuffragist leader. Along with Lucy Burns (a close friend) and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in granting the right to vote to women in the U.S. federal election in 1920.

37. Oliver Kelley Oliver Hudson Kelley (1826 – 1913) is considered the "Father" of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry (or 'Grangers').

38. Alfred Mahan Alfred Thayer Mahan (27 September 1840 - 1December 1914 ) was a United States Navy officer, naval strategist, and educator, widely considered the world's foremost theorist of military sea power. The USS Mahan and the Mahan class destroyer were named after him.

39. George Dewey George Dewey (December 26, 1837–January 16, 1917) was an admiral of the United States Navy, best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

40. Louis Sullivan Louis Henry (Henri) Sullivan (September 3, 1856 - April_14, 1924) was an American architect, called the "father of modernism", considered by many as the creator of the Prairie School of architecture, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, and a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright.

41. John Dewey John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, whose thought has been greatly influential in the United States and around the world. He is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophical school of Pragmatism (along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James), a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. education during the first half of the 20th century.

42. William R. Hearst William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper magnate, born in San Francisco, California.

43. Frank Boas Franz Boas was born in Minden, Germany, on 9th July, 1858. His Jewish parents had been supporters of the 1848 German Revolution and he was brought up with progressive political views. Boas studied physics at the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn before completing his doctorate at Kiel in 1881.

44. Lincoln Steffens Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1866–August 9, 1936), American journalist, was one of the most famous and influential practitioners of the journalistic style called muckraking. He is best known for his 1921 quote, upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I have seen the future, and it works." He was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a wealthy businessman, and he studied in France and Germany before graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was first exposed to radical political views.

45. Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) wrote in many genres, often advocating Socialist views, and achieved considerable popularity in the early twentieth century. He gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle (1906), which dealt with conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry and caused a public uproar that ultimately led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

46. Herbert Croly Herbert David Croly (January 23, 1869 - May 17, 1930) was a Progressive political author. He was born in New York City to Jane Cunningham Croly and David Goodman Croly. His mother wrote for the New York World and edited Demorest’s Monthly. His father was a reporter for the Herald and the New York World.

47. Frederic Remington Frederic Sackrider Remington (October_4, 1861 - December_26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, and sculptor who specialized in depictions of the American West. He was born in Canton, New York. He spent a childhood hunting and riding, but began to make drawings and sketches of imaginative figures.

48. Richard Ballinger Richard Achilles Ballinger, mayor of Seattle, Washington, from 1904–1906 and U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1909–1911, was born on July 9, 1858 in Boonesboro, Iowa. He graduated from Williams College in 1884 and passed the bar exam in 1886.

49. William Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857–March 8, 1930) was an American politician, jurist, and the 27th President of the United States, serving a single term from 1909 to 1913. A Republican, Taft served as Secretary of War, federal judge for the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Governor-General of the Philippines before being nominated for president in the 1908 Republican National Convention with the backing of his predecessor and close friend Theodore Roosevelt.

50. Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 45th state Governor of New Jersey (1911-1913) and later the 28th President of the United States (1913-1921). He was the second Democrat to serve two consecutive terms in the White House (Andrew Jackson was the first).