Reconstruction and Frontiers: Vocabulary

Once the Civil War ended, the United States was faced with hard work putting the country back together. After the southern states were readmitted into the Union, Texas experienced rapid growth in population and economic development. In this unit, you will learn about the Reconstruction era and the closing of the frontiers.

Objective

• Learn vocabulary related to the Reconstruction era and frontiers.

This lesson builds your vocabulary with words you will use in this unit. The words are:

• boom: a sudden growth in economic development of a specific area
• branch: a part of the government with a particular responsibility
• cattle drive: an organized movement of large herds of cattle across open territory
• constitution: a set of basic laws for a state or country that describe the structure of its government and the rights and duties of its citizens
• demand: how much people want to buy a good or service
• federal: the national government in a federal system that divides the power between a central and state governments
• fort: a military building or group of buildings designed to defend territory
• free enterprise system: an economic system in which consumers and producers have freedom of choice
• industry: a group of businesses that produce a similar good or service
• migration: movement from one region to another
• open range: a large, unfenced area for grazing livestock
• Reconstruction: the period of rebuilding the southern states and admitting them back into the Union following the Civil War
• reservation: an area of land set aside by the U.S. government for American Indian tribes
• supply: the amount of goods or services available for buying
• transportation: the act of moving people or things from one place to another

Enchanted Springs Ranch in Boerne, Texas, is often used as a movie set for Westerns.

The word reconstruction combines word parts that are probably familiar to you:

• re-: a prefix meaning “to do over”
• con: a prefix meaning “with”
• struere: a Latin root meaning “to build” or “to assemble”
• tion: a suffix making the word a noun

Think about the word reconstruction. What do you think it means? Post a synonym for it. To list multiple synonyms, separate them with a comma, like this: car, automobile.