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Antiquities Act

Added by yongli on 05/03/2016 - 15:16, last changed on 10/26/2022 - 19:41
The Antiquities Act, enacted in 1906, was the United States’ first federal law recognizing the importance and value of the places and objects that represent the country’s history and prehistory. The act provided for protection of archaeological and historic sites, and gave the President authority...

Black Lives Matter

Added by yongli on 02/08/2022 - 17:10, last changed on 11/09/2022 - 06:39
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international civil and human rights movement organized in 2013 by three Black women: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Formed after the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida, the movement began as a social media hashtag and galvanized antiracist...

Cannabis (marijuana)

Added by yongli on 02/02/2017 - 16:10, last changed on 08/01/2022 - 07:11

Hemp

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Cannabis ( Cannabis sativa ) is a cultivated annual herb. In Colorado it is best known for producing the medicinal and recreational drug “marijuana,” but it is also grown for a variety of other products, including seed oil, rope, ointments, and clothing. The cannabis plant comes in psychoactive and...

Chicago-Colorado Colony

Added by yongli on 12/06/2017 - 12:21, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 06:40
The Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871–73) established the city of Longmont near the confluence of St. Vrain and Left Hand Creeks in 1871. Financed by wealthy Chicagoans and consisting mostly of immigrants from the Midwest, the colony was an agricultural community that emphasized thrift, temperance, and...

Colorado Constitution

Added by yongli on 03/13/2020 - 16:01, last changed on 02/07/2023 - 19:40
The Colorado Constitution establishes the basic framework of the state’s government. Written and ratified in 1876, it has served as the state’s original and only constitution. As in other states, ultimate power rests with the people and is exercised by their representatives in the executive ,...

Colorado’s New Energy Economy

Added by yongli on 02/06/2017 - 16:14, last changed on 01/26/2023 - 17:41
The term New Energy Economy refers to the transition of a state’s energy economy from one based purely on fossil fuels to one that includes a higher percentage of renewable energy sources. State-level energy policies have been the primary force moving the United States toward a greener economy, and...

Eugenics in Colorado

Added by yongli on 02/16/2021 - 13:59, last changed on 02/08/2023 - 16:40
“Eugenics” refers to a social-engineering project based on the unsubstantiated idea that humanity can be improved by eliminating supposedly defective or lesser genes in favor of others. During the twentieth century, American medical professionals and lawmakers influenced by the pseudoscience of...

General Federation of Women’s Clubs

Added by yongli on 01/15/2020 - 11:16, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 08:47
The General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) is an international women’s organization dedicated to community improvement and enhancing the lives of others. In 1906 the group’s Colorado chapter helped establish Mesa Verde National Park , its most enduring contribution to the state. Founded in 1890...

Industrial Workers of the World

Added by yongli on 06/28/2021 - 15:31, last changed on 06/29/2021 - 07:05
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded in Chicago in 1905 as an explicitly anarchist-socialist alternative to the major labor unions of the time, which the IWW’s leaders deemed too conservative. In the following decades, the organization suffered from government suppression on both...

Land and Resource Management in Colorado

Added by yongli on 01/23/2017 - 16:21, last changed on 11/06/2019 - 01:07
The ideologies of conservation and preservation have profoundly shaped Colorado’s physical landscapes and continue to shape Coloradans’ attitudes toward nature. Agencies such as Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and the United States Forest Service (USFS), multiple-use agencies, oversee the use and...

Origins of Mesa Verde National Park

Added by yongli on 10/28/2021 - 13:00, last changed on 10/28/2021 - 13:00
Mesa Verde National Park was established in 1906 as the country’s ninth national park. The site was visited and considered sacred by multiple Indigenous nations before it began attracting interest from white Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While male scientists and...

Populism in Colorado

Added by yongli on 01/31/2017 - 12:51, last changed on 08/18/2022 - 12:38
Populism was a third-party political movement of the 1890s that left an enduring imprint on Colorado history. The Populist or People’s Party was especially strong in the south, Midwest, and west because it focused on the grievances of farmers, workers, and members of what Populists called “the...

Prohibition

Added by yongli on 06/09/2020 - 14:51, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 09:51
Alcohol prohibition in Colorado (1916–33) was a Progressive Era experiment, based on reform-minded and religious sentiments, to completely ban the sale and transport of alcohol. While the intention of reformers was to reduce violence, drunkenness, and crime, outlawing alcohol instead created more...

The City Beautiful Movement in Denver

Added by yongli on 10/22/2015 - 16:06, last changed on 10/30/2021 - 10:45
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the City Beautiful movement sought to create a livable urban environment with healthy and agreeable conditions and an abundance of recreational facilities in the midst of rapidly industrializing cities. Cities throughout Colorado undertook City Beautiful...

United Mine Workers of America

Added by yongli on 01/21/2021 - 14:09, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 09:43
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) formed in 1890 to fight for better pay and working conditions for the nation’s coal miners. In Colorado the union was most active in the early twentieth century, with thousands of members joining strikes in the southern coalfields of Fremont , Huerfano ,...

Western Federation of Miners

Added by yongli on 01/21/2021 - 15:17, last changed on 01/04/2023 - 04:38
Founded in 1893, the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was one of the largest and most active labor unions in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American West. The union was involved in some of the most important labor disputes in Colorado and American history, including the 1894...

Women of the Ku Klux Klan

Added by yongli on 09/12/2017 - 10:57, last changed on 08/18/2022 - 10:59
Membership in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) spiked nationwide during the 1920s, and Colorado was no exception to the hysteria of nativism and religious prejudice that swept the country. Following World War I , national KKK recruiters helped local agitators form a men’s KKK in Colorado. The women’s...

“Great American Desert”

Added by yongli on 09/30/2016 - 09:37, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 12:43
Early nineteenth century Army explorers Zebulon Pike and Stephen H. Long conceptualized the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains as the “Great American Desert.” Long’s report called it “unfit for cultivation,” while Pike compared it to “the sandy deserts of Africa.” The myth of the Great...
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