VOCABULARY LIST

Ku Klux Klan: an organization of white Southerners who fought the controls of the temporary, federally imposed government.

Scalawags: Southerners who sided with the blacks and carpetbaggers.

Carpetbaggers; Northerners who moved into the south after the war

corset: a type of girdle worn by girls that bound their waste with rods made from bone.

placidity: calmness

convalescent: a person recovering from injury or illness

ordnance; a term used for military supply, particularly weapons or ammunition

insolence; defiance or scorn

scrupulous; meticulous or very proper

ragamuffin: a person who looks ragged or dirty

inveigled: tricked or wrangled something out of someone

washboard: a large flat board with ridges on it; used by women to scrub clothes

earbobs: period term for earrings

pilfering: stealing

tenterhooks: on nerve's edge

denuded: stripped

The Reconstruction: period after the Civil War when the federal government tried to rebuild the economy and lifestyle of the southern states.

capitulate: to give in or give up

"crush": period word for a party; usually lasted all night

disenfranchised: stripped of ones rights

basque: upper part of a woman's dress, very close fitting bodice

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