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laissez-faire

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A practice of avoiding intervention in public affairs and economics.

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second industrial revolution

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Begun in the mid-nineteenth century and centered in the United States and Germany, the second industrial revolution was sparked by an array of innovations and inventions in the production of metals, machinery, chemicals, and foodstuffs, and transformed the economy and society into its modern urban-industrial form.

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transcontinental railroad

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First line across the continent from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, established in 1869 with the linkage of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads at Promontory, Utah.

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Union Pacific Railroad

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1,086 miles of railroad built along a north-central route westward from Omaha and linked up with the Central Pacific, completed on May 10, 1869.

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Central Pacific Railroad

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689 miles of railroad built along a north-central route eastward from Sacramento and linked up with the Union Pacific line, completed on May 10, 1869.

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Promontory, Utah

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Site where California governor Leland Stanford drove a gold spike to symbolize the completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 10, 1869.

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robber baron

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Epithet applied to railroad entrepreneurs and other "captains of industry" for their shady financial practices.

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captain of industry

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Label applied to entrepreneurs and businessmen in the latter half of the nineteenth century who were shrewd, determined, often dishonest men, driven more by greed than glory.

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Credit Mobilier Company

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A construction company controlled by insiders that paid off congressmen and overcharged the Union Pacific Railroad by $50 million.

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Jay Gould

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The prince of the railroad "robber barons" who mastered the fine art of buying rundown railroads, making cosmetic improvements, paying dividends out of capital, and selling out at a profit, meanwhile using corporate funds for personal speculation and judicious bribes.

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Cornelius Vanderbilt

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One of the railroad barons who directed the first of the major eastern railroad consolidations.

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Alexander Graham Bell

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Inventor of the telephone, which was patented in 1876; later formed the National Bell Telephone Company.

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Thomas Edison

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Inventor who created or perfected hundreds of new devices and processes, among them an improved version of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone which became the prototype of the modern instrument; the Edison Electric Illuminating Company began the great electric utility industry.

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George Westinghouse

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Inventor of the air brake for trains who developed the first alternating-current system in 1886, which allowed electric currents to cover long distances, and manufactured the equipment through the Westinghouse Electric Company.

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"Battle of the Currents"

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Conflict in the late 1880s between inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over direct versus alternating electric current; Westinghouse's alternating current (AC), the winner, allowed electricity to travel over long distances.

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John D. Rockefeller

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Entrepreneur behind the Standard Oil Company which, through his aggressive business tactics such as vertical integration, the trust, and the holding company, grew to control 90 to 95 percent of the oil refining in the country; made a fortune which he then distributed among causes such as education and medicine, becoming the world's leading philanthropist.

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Andrew Carnegie

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Entrepreneur who succeeded in industries ranging from telegraphy, railroading, bridge building, iron-and steel-making and investments; stood out from other business titans as a thinker who fashioned and publicized a philosophy for big business, a conservative rationale that became deeply implanted in the conventional wisdom of some Americans.

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Standard Oil Company

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Founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller in Cleveland, Ohio, it soon grew into the nation's first industry-dominating trust; the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) was enacted in part to combat abuses by Standard Oil.

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vertical integration

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Company's avoidance of middlemen by producing its own supplies and providing for distribution of its product.

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trust

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Companies combined to control competition.

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interlocking directorates

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Business device through which the board of directors of one company was made identical or nearly so to the boards of the others.

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holding company

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Investment company that holds controlling interest in the securities of other companies.

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Bessemer converter

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A process by which steel could be produced directly and quickly from pig iron (crude iron made in a blast furnace), invented in 1856 by Sir Henry Bessemer.

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"Gospel of Wealth"

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Andrew Carnegie's best-remembered essay, published in 1889, in which he argued that in the evolution of society the contrast between the millionaire and the laborer measures the distance society has come.

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J. P. Morgan

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Investment banker whose firm J. Pierpont Morgan and Company, under various names, channeled European capital into America and grew into a financial power; he also controlled one-sixth of the nation's railway system, and consolidated the steel industry with the United States Steel Corporation, the first billion-dollar corporation.

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investment banker

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Bankers who would buy corporate stocks and bonds wholesale and then sell them at a profit, but were also capable of becoming involved in the operation of their clients' firms and influencing company policies.

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Aaron Montgomery Ward

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Traveling salesman whose company beginning in the early 1870s eliminated the "middlemen," whose services increased the retail price of goods, by reaching consumers directly through mail-order catalogs.

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Sears and Roebuck

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Retailer who dominated the mailorder industry and by 1907 had become one of the largest business enterprises in the nation; the Sears catalog helped create a truly national market.

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Molly Maguires

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Secret organization of Irish coal miners that used violence to intimidate mine officials in the 1870s.

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Railroad Strike of 1877

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Violent but ultimately unsuccessful interstate strike, which resulted in extensive property damage and many deaths.

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Knights of Labor

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Founded in 1869, the first national union picked up many members after the disastrous 1877 railroad strike but lasted, under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly, only into the 1890s; supplanted by the American Federation of Labor.

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Terence V. Powderly

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Labor leader who succeeded Uriah S. Stephens as head of the Knights of Labor in 1879.

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Haymarket Affair

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Riot during an anarchist protest at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886, over violence during the McCormick Harvester Company strike; the deaths of eleven, including seven policemen, helped hasten the demise of the Knights of Labor, even though they were not responsible for the riot.

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industrial union

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Organization of industrywide unions of the skilled and unskilled that was initiated by the Knights of Labor; later propagated by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

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craft union

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Unions of workers who shared special skills and opposed industrial unionism; organized into the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886.

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Samuel Gompers

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Union leader and president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) who focused on concrete economic gains, avoiding involvement with utopian ideas or politics.

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American Federation of Labor

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Founded in 1881 as a federation of trade unions, the AFL under president Samuel Gompers successfully pushed for the eight-hour workday.

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Homestead Steel Strike

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Violent strike of 1892 at the Homestead Works in Pittsburgh over a lockout of unionists that lasted for five months and ended with the destruction of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, probably the largest craft union at that time.

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H. C. Frick

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President of the Carnegie company during the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892 who was shot and stabbed by a deranged anarchist.

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Pullman Strike

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Strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in the company town of Pullman, Illinois, on May 11, 1894, by the American Railway Union under Eugene V. Debs; the strike, was crushed by court injunctions and federal troops two months later.

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Eugene V. Debs

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Labor leader and socialist who was a tireless spokesman for labor radicalism; founded the American Railway Union and was caught up in the Pullman Strike of 1894 and sentenced to six months in jail as a result; organized the Social Democratic party in 1897 and ran for President in 1900, 1904 and 1912.

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Industrial Workers of the World

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Radical union organized in Chicago in 1905 and nicknamed the Wobblies; its opposition to World War I led to its destruction by the federal government under the Espionage Act.

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William D. Haywood

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Leader of the Industrial Workers of the World who promoted the concept of one all-inclusive union whose credo would be the promotion of socialism.

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What fueled the growth of the post-Civil War economy?

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Second Industrial Revolution The postwar economy was characterized by large-scale industrial development and a burgeoning agriculture sector. The Second Industrial Revolution was fueled by the creation of national transportation and communications systems, the use of electric power, and the application of scientific research to industrial processes. The federal government encouraged growth by imposing high tariffs on imported products and granting the railroad companies public land.

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Who composed the labor force of the period, and what were labor's main grievances?

answer

Labor Conditions and Organizations The labor force was largely composed of unskilled workers, including recent immigrants and growing numbers of women and children. Some children as young as eight years of age worked twelve hours a day in coal mines and southern mills. In hard times, business owners cut wages without discounting the rents they charged for company housing or the prices they charged in company stores.

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The Americsn Federation was an organization of craft unions.

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False

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In 1900, the average worker in manufacturing only worked about 45 hours per week.

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False

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All of the following are true of American workers in the 1800s, except:

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They joined unions in large numbers

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Anarchists advoacated a stateless society and the disappearence of government altogether.

answer

True

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The first transcontinental railroad was completed in

answer

1869

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Who consolidated the steel industry into U. S. Steel?

answer

Andrew Carnegie

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The organization that wanted to destroy the state and replace it with "one big union" was the

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Industrial Workers of the World

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The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

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The first major interstate strike

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Samuel Gompers was a leader of the

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American Federation of Labor

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By the 1870s who led the world in agricutural prouction?

answer

America

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What was the first big business in the US?

answer

Railroads

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The Homestead Strike of 1892 was against

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Carnegie's steel mill

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The use of the trust device for consolidating industry originated with

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John D. Rockefeller

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Who originated in the mail-order retail industry?

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Sears and Roebuck

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Samuel Gompers

answer

He was the creator of the American Federation of Labor from1886-1924. He provided a stable and unified union for skilled workers.

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