Unit 10 Vocab

Spindletop – This 1901 strike in Beaumont was the first “gusher” oil discovery in Texas.

Suffrage – Voting rights.

Prohibition – The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that made it illegal to make or drink alcohol.

Texas Railroad Commission – State agency created to oversee and regulate railroads and the oil industry in TX.

Texas Equal Suffrage Association – Organization founded in Houston to advocate for voting rights for women.

Galveston Hurricane of 1900 – The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history; caused the city to erect a sea wall to protect the city from flooding in future hurricanes.

Boomtown – Towns that developed wherever oil was struck; they were notoriously dirty, crowded, and rough.

Sour Lake – Oil strike in 1903 made by the Texas Oil Co., later called Texaco.

Petroleum – Naturally occurring liquid fossil fuel commonly called oil.

James Hogg – Governor of Texas who set up the Texas Railroad Commission and protected citizens from unfair business practices.

Howard Hughes Sr. – Businessman who helped to invent the two-cone rotary drill bit, which allowed further oil exploration and drilling in Texas.

Patillo Higgins – Man who discovered the Spindletop oil strike but did not receive any profit from it.

Wildcatter – Person who searches for oil in new locations.

Texas Farmers Union – Union created after the failure of the Populists’ Party. They were advocates of farmers.

League of United Latin-American Citizens – Organization founded in Corpus Christi to support the rights of Latin Americans in the U.S.

Progressivism – Movement in America at the turn of the century that encouraged social, political, and economic reform.