APUSH Key Terms Chapter 17 – Flashcards
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Management Revolution
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Internal structure adopted by man large corporations; differentiated between top executives and people in charge of day-to-day operations; system that created departments of operation based upon their function (purchasing, machinery, freight traffic, passenger traffic) → created clear communication lines
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Andrew Carnegie
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Immigrant from Scotland in 1848; was an errand boy for the Pennsylvania Railroad; became an iron manufacturer → making business with men in the railroad business; built a massive steel mill outside Pittsburgh; redefined the production of steel, making it a large U.S. industry; believed that collective bargaining was too expensive, withdrew to Scotland leaving partner, Henry Clay Frick in charge
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Gospel of Wealth
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Essay by Andrew Carnegie; advocated for Social Darwinism; described how wealth was prevalent among few people → result of capitalism; believed that wealth made people gain responsibility
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Vertical Integration
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Business model where corporations controlled all aspects of production of goods; quickens and makes the process faster, but also can create monopolies; Andrew Carnegie and Gustavus Swift pioneered vertical integration during the end of the Civil War; other businesses followed their lead and became very successful by 1900
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Gustavus Swift
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Chicago cattle dealer; believed that slaughterhouses lacked the ability to use waste by-products and cut labor costs; invented the assembly line to improve productivity → each wageworker did the same slaughtering task repeatedly
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John D. Rockefeller
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Skilled businesses manager and founder; founded Standard Oil Company and the Standard Oil Trust → dominated American oil refining; sought to stabilize his industry, decrease competition, and increase profits
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Standard Oil Company
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Company founded by John D. Rockefeller in Cleveland, Ohio in 1870; became very powerful; controlled 90% of America's oil refining by 1879
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Horizontal Integration
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Business concept led by John D. Rockefeller in the late 1800s; pressured competitors and forced rival companies to merge themselves into a conglomerate company
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Trust
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New legal form; organization of a board of trustees (small associates group) to hold stock from a group of combined firms → managing them as a single unit; rapidly evolved into centralized business forms; progressive critics referred to large firms (United States Steel and Standard Oil) as trusts
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J.P. Morgan
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Very successful and powerful businessman; refinanced railroads during the Depression of 1893; founder of U.S. Steel
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U.S. Steel
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Created by J.P. Morgan; first billion-dollar corporation
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Robber Barons
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Term coined by historians during the Great Depression in the 1930s; describes business leaders who use political means to achieve their desires
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Rise of Department Stores
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Department stores were started and pioneered by John Wanamaker in Philadelphia in 1875; displaced small retail shops → used tactics of large show windows and Christmas displays; developed economies of scale, allowing them to slash prices; Macy's has been a popular department store since the late 19th century, advertising their wide variety of retail (books, cooking supplies, china, silk, cigars, food, clothing, drinks)
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Laissez-faire
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System where the government does not interfere with businesses
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Salesmanship
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Traveling salesmen (also known as drummers) became common after the Civil War; rode railroads from town-to-town advertising new products, giving incentives, and suggesting sale displays; built large distribution networks for big companies (cigar corporations, Coca-Cola); leading manufacturer of cash registers in the late 1880s gave employees a script to have conversations with customers; sales were systemized → individual sales quotas, prizes for top salesmen; unsuccessful salesmen were singled out and forced to have remedial training or were fired; businesses followed the advice of a famous psychologist, Walter Dill Scott→ promoted selling to customers based upon their "instinct of escape" and "instinct of combat"
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Women in the Corporate Office
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Women became employed beneath the ranks of managers; 77% of stenographers and typists were female → by 1920 half of all low-level office jobs were held by women, a far cry from just running a laundry-mat, caring for boarders, or sewing from home; unmarried daughters could become domestic service workers or do factory work, as an alternative to clerking or being a secretary; by 1900, 4 million women were telephone operators working for wages; 1/3 of women worked in domestic service, 1/3 in industry, and the rest of the women in office work, teaching, nursing or sales
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Alexander Graham Bell
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Inventor of the telephone in 1876; originally meant for businesses to use on local exchanges; however, were used by residential customers; creation of the telephone employed millions of women to work as telephone operators
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Mass Production
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Term used by Henry Ford (inventor of a system of assembling goods based on standardized parts) → part of the deskilling of industrial labor
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Frederick W. Taylor
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Created the scientific management system; wanted to perform each task efficiently, effectively, and cheaply
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Scientific Management
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System of organizing work created by Frederick W. Taylor in the late 1800s; intended to create a maximum output from each worker, make production more efficient, decrease cost of production
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Working Conditions
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Very dangerous conditions; coal miners, brakemen, and railroad workers died or were severely disabled from accidents in their work conditions (explosions and cave-ins in coal mines); lack of regulatory laws and inspections; big industries and factories damaged nearby environments, polluted the air because of noxious by-products being dumped into water supplies; mines contaminated water and land with mercury and lead; mines' contamination of water lead to fatal illnesses; smokestacks caused coughs and lung damage
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Women in Unskilled Labor Positions
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Many women who worked in factories were unskilled and had low pay; men hated women working with them in factories, created labor unions that excluded them; women defended their right to work, stating that they had the right to provide for their families if their husbands could not
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Child Labor
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Child labor was very prevalent in America in the 1900s; one of five kids under the age of 16 worked outside of home; most widespread in the South, low wage industrial sector was prominent after Reconstruction; children worked in textile mills in the Carolinas and Georgia, Pennsylvania coal fields; states enforced laws permitting children 12 and younger from working with a family member → however, 10,000 boys were illegally employed in coal mines
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"New Immigrants"
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Term coined by Americans of the large numbers of Eastern and Southern European immigrants (Poles, Slovaks, Italians, Yiddish-speaking Jews, Slavik people); migration to America began by Irish traveling to the U.S. during a horrific famine in the 1840s; millions of people from rural European areas were displaced during the 1800s as industrialization and commercialization of agriculture spread; displaced Europeans came to America, believing they could become successful and rich quickly; was not always the reality of the situation as they were lucky to work in factories or other minimum-wage earning jobs, people starved and faced poverty and young mortality rates; immigrants were more likely to prosper if they had an education, money, or business connections
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Chinese Exclusion Act
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Law established by Congress in 1882; prohibited Chinese laborers from entering America; was renewed every decade until it was repealed in 1943; prohibited almost all Chinese women from coming to America, separating spouses for years
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Dennis Kearney
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Lived in San Francisco, emigrated from Ireland; fought for worker's rights, led strikes to protest the number of Chinese workers (leader of the Anti-Chinese movement in California; founder of the Workingman's Party, later absorbed into the Granger movement
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Japanese Immigration
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Japanese immigrants began to travel to America in the early 1900s; 40,000 Japanese immigrants were working in agriculture, 10,000 on railroads, and 4,000 in canneries; Japanese immigrants were legally prohibited from becoming citizens (along with Koreans and Chinese people)
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Great Railroad Strike
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Occurred in 1877 in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Chicago; thousands of railroad workers and labor allies nationally stopped working in protest to the increase of railroad corporations power and the increase of wage cuts imposed by railroad managers; was a result of the economic depression that began in 1873; resulted in the stopping of rail travel and commerce; protestors burned railroad property and overturned locomotives when state militia were sent to stop the riots in Pittsburgh; result was $40 million of damage and fifty people dead; railroad workers who participated in the strike were blacklisted and fired; result → National Guard was formed, purpose was to enforce order within America
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Henry George, Progress and Poverty
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Author of the book Progress and Poverty which was published in 1879 was a best-seller for decades; said that Americans were too hopeful in believing that railroads and manufacturing would have a positive impact and bring success to Americans; believed that industrialization would cause a cycle of poverty as the middle class and educated professionals would become very prosperous, while the working class would be oppressed by being deskilled and working for minimum pay in dangerous conditions; encouraged a "single tax" on landholdings, which did not gain support but catalyzed radical movements for economic reform
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Greenbackers
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Members of the Greenback-Labor Party founded during the 1870's depression; protested against the end of Reconstruction; believed every man's vote should be protected; wanted laws to regulate corporations and enforced a limit on the hours a person could work per day (8 hours maximum); wanted to print greenback dollars, increasing the amount of money that would float around society → providing relief to debtors and impoverished farmers; believed in producerism → the idea that economic wealth is created by physical laborers, while middlemen (merchants, lawyers, and bankers) gain money from "producers"
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Grangers
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Rural farmers part of the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry founded in 1867; Grangers wanted to stop the rise of corporate middlemen gaining power through cooperation and mutual aid; organized banks, insurance companies, grain elevators, and a farm implement factor; encouraged political action by building independent political parties that campaigned on anti-corporate platforms
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Granger Laws
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Economic regulatory laws enforced in some Midwestern states in the late 1870s; Greenback-Labor Party and farmers advocated for the ratification of the laws which would regulate grain elevator and railroad freight rates and would address discrimination against farmers who work on the railroad
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Munn v. Illinois
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1876 Supreme Court Case; viewed as a victory for the Grangers movement; was a step toward an increase of government regulation of the economy; decided that states had the ability to regulate commerce within their states, was overturned 10 years leader in the Wabash case
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Terence Powderly
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Founder of the Knights of Labor; believed that alcohol abuse would rob workers of their wages; wanted to avoid strikes, believing they were costly and risky
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Wages and Working Conditions for Workers
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Farmers worked in rough conditions; droughts caused prices of corn, cotton, and wheat to plunge; conditions for factory workers and coal miners were dangerous, worked long, grueling hours → received minimum wages; believed that they were the infrastructure of the economy, while the wealthy businessmen used the physical laborers hard work to their own personal advantage (consumerism)
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Knights of Labor
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Most important union; founded in 1869; first mass labor organization created among America's working class; wanted to bridge boundaries of race, ideology, ethnicity, gender, and occupation to create a universal "brotherhood" among all working class men; goal was to have laborers own the industries which they worked in; membership peaked in 1886 because of their open-membership policy, acceptance of both skilled and unskilled workers (including women, immigrants, and African-Americans); believed they were able to eradicate conflict between labor managements; admitted members who went on strike against the railroad companies → known as being influential; reputation was tainted with anarchists from the Haymarket Square incident, lost widespread support → members were tied up in court proceedings
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Haymarket Square Incident
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Occurred on May 4, 1886 in Chicago; anarchists (primarily German immigrants) congregated in town protesting; police tried to end the protest, when a rioter threw a bomb into the crowd → killing several police officers; officers responded with gunfire
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Anarchism
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Advocates for a stateless society; believed goal could be achieved by revolutionary means; were feared by many because of their seemingly extreme views, they were scapegoats in the Haymarket Square Incident
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Farmers' Alliance
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New rural movement formed after the Haymarket Square Incident and after the Knights of Labor had lost support; believed in similar ideals as the Grangers and Greenbackers; founded in Texas during the depression in the 1870s; largest farmer-based movement in American history as it spread across the plains states and the South; appeal to join the alliance was enforced by the harsh conditions farmers faced
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Colored Farmers' Alliance
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Similar to the Farmer's Alliance; represented rural African-Americans
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Hatch Act
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Ratified by Grover Cleveland in 1887 in response to pressure put on the government by the different Farmers' Alliances; provided federal funding for agricultural research and education; reached the farmers' pleas for the government to provide aid for the agriculture industry
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Interstate Commerce Act
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Ratified in 1887; created the Interstate Commerce Commission, giving the federal government the right to oversee railroad activities; could prevent collusion and unfair rates by forcing railroad to publicize their rate schedules and file them with the government
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Wabash v. Illinois
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Supreme court case that occurred in 1886; ruled that individual states did not have the ability to control interstate commerce; Interstate Commerce Commission and Act were results of the court case ruling
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Interstate Commerce Commission
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Was created by the Interstate Commerce Act; investigated interstate shipping, made railroads publicize their rates, sued in court in order for companies to reduce unreasonable rates; direct response to farmer-laborer demands, served as a compromise; faced challenges, secret "pooling" (rate settling) continued; Supreme Court ruled in 1897 that the ICC had no right to interfere with shipping rates; even though it was not approved by the Supreme Court, Congress continued to fund it and it became one of the most powerful federal agencies charged with overseeing private businesses
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Closed Shop
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Work environment where the job seeker had to be a union member; craft unions encouraged method as a way to keep out lower-wage workers; strengthened the union's bargaining position with employers
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American Federation of Labor
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Founded in 1886; organized the activities of skilled workers in craft unions; focused on increasing wages of workers, shorter hours, and better working conditions; consisted of skilled and well-paid workers; focused on winning a large share of its rewards; membership increased to over 2 million workers in 1904; leading voice for workers
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Samuel Gompers
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Founder of the American Federation of Labor; Dutch-Jewish cigar maker; family immigrated in 1863 to New York; in charge of the AFL for thirty years following its establishment; did not welcome minorities and women into the organization
