APUSH-Unit 6-Chapter 19–1865-1898-Rise of Big Business and Unions – Flashcards
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"captains of industry"
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19th century industrialists who owned big businesses. This is a positive term, implying that these industrialists brought benefit to society.
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robber barons
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Some were also known as "robber barons," who gained political support through bribery and shady deals. Examples include Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller.
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Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt
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19th century industiralist who used his millions earned from his steamboat business to merge local railroads into New York Central Railroad--NY to Chicago
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Andrew Carnegie
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19th Century industrialist who was a poor Scottish immigrant who started US Steel in Pittsburgh. He led the steel industry by salesmanship, latest technology, and vertical integration. He sold his company to J.P. Morgan, and devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy.
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John D. Rockefeller
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19th Century industrialist His company, The Standard Oil Trust, gained 90% control of the oil refinery business through latest technologies, efficient business practices, and other means--getting rebates from railroad companies and causing rival companies to sell out by cutting prices on his kerosene oil temporarily.
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J.P. Morgan
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Powerful banker who bought bankrupt railroads after Panic of 1893 to create regional railroad monopolies. He bought Andrew Carnegie's steel company, consolidating it with his Co., creating the first billion dollar company--US Steel
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Vertical integration
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strategy where a company would control every stage of the industrial process, from mining the raw materials to transporting the finished product
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Horizontal integration
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former competitors in an industry are brought together under one umbrella company or board of trustees--Used by John D. Rockefeller and other industrial giants—(sugar, tobacco, meat, leather)
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mass production
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The manufacture of many identical products using division of labor ; dividing production into many small repetitive tasks.
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economies of scale
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Decrease in unit cost of a product or service resulting from large-scale operations, like mass production
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assembly line
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A manufacturing system in which products are made by moving them from one worker or machine to another.
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monopoly
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Complete control of a product or business by one person or group
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trust
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A group of corporations that unite in order to reduce competition and control prices in a business or an industry and which are run by one board of directors Ex. Rockefeller's Standard Oil
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pools
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informal agreements between companies to maintain prices and production at a certain level
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rebates
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Developed in the 1880s, a practice by which railroads would give money back to its favored customers, rather than charging them lower prices, so that it could appear to be charging a flat rate for everyone.
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act
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(1890) law passed by Congress that prohibited any "contract, combination, in the form of a trust ....in restraint of trade or commerce" A law against monopolies, but it was too vaguely worded to be enforced until the Progressive Era
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U.S. vs. E.C. Knight
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1895 Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Anti-trust Act could only be applied to commerce, not manufacturing. Therefore, the US Dept of Justice secured few convictions until the Progressive Era
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Adam Smith
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1776—The Wealth of Nations—Smith argued that business should be regulated, not by government, but by the "invisible hand" (impersonal economic forces) of the laws of supply and demand.
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"laissez-faire"
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(leave it alone) If government left business alone, owners would be motivated by self-interest to offer improved goods at low prices.
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Social Darwinism
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Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection and "survival of the fittest" applied to the marketplace.
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Herbert Spencer
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a very influential British Social Darwinist--idea that in the difficult economic struggle for existence, only the "fittest" would survive. He argued that the concentration of wealth in the hands of the "fit" (wealthy) was a benefit to the human race.
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William Graham Sumner
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Social Darwinist of Yale argued that help for the poor was misguided because it interfered with the laws of nature and would only weaken the evolution of the species by preserving the unfit.
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Gospel of Wealth
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Advocated by Andrew Carnegie-- the belief that the rich had an obligation to serve society (donating to just causes, creating public institutions, etc.).
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Alexander Graham Bell
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invented the telephone—great leap in communication technology—It followed the telegraph and transatlantic cable
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Thomas Edison
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"The Wizard of Menlo Park" Established his research laboratory at Menlo Park, NJ; introduced idea of engineers working in teams to create new technologies. Over 1000 patents came out of his lab—incandescent light bulb, dynamo for generating DC electricity, mimeograph machine, motion picture, phonograph, camera
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trade union
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An organized association of workers, often in a specific trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.
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Knights of Labor
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a national union started in 1869 as a secret society to avoid detection by employers. It went public in 1891; led by Terence Powderly. Its membership was open to all workers: skilled/unskilled, African-Americans, women. They worked for a variety of social reforms and work place improvements
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Chinese Exclusion Act
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1882 Congressional law that suspended Chinese immigration, limited the civil rights of resident Chinese
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Haymarket Square Riot
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Chicago 1886-- Knights of Labor meeting following violence at an International Harvester factory// police tried to break it up, then someone threw a bomb & killed 7 police //Bomb thrower never found, but 8 anarchists convicted, 7 sentenced to death **Americans concluded that K. of Labor were radical and violent and Knights popularity declined rapidly
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American Federation of Labor
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Founded 1886 as an association of 25 craft unions—Led by Samuel Gompers; Union that concentrated on practical economic goals—higher wages ; better working conditions—directed local union workers to walk out until the employer agreed to negotiate a new contract through collective bargaining--Would not achieve major goals until 20th century
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Great Railroad Strike
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1877 One of the worst outbreaks of labor violence erupted during economic depression when RR companies cut wages to reduce costs. It shut down 2/3 of country's rails. Strike quickly becoming national in scale, millions of dollars of property destroyed by protesters. 100+ killed Federal troops used by Pres. Hayes to end labor violence.
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Homestead Strike
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Henry Clay Frick, manager of Andrew Carnegie's Homestead Steel Plant, provoked a strike by cutting wages 20 %. He used the lockout, private guards, and strikebreakers to defeat the strike after 5 months. This defeat set back the Union movement in the steel industry until the New Deal in 1930s
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Pullman Strike
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Pullman Co. cut wages and fired union negotiators//workers walked out//American Railway Union workers agreed not to pull any trains with Pullman cars//Pullman Co added their cars to mail cars and asked President Cleveland to use the army to keep the mail running//Court order forced trains to run // Debs and other Union leaders went to jail
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Eugene Debs
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Leader of the American Railway Union that joined the Pullman strike. He served jail time for refusing to follow a court order to keep the trains running. Founded the American Socialist Party; ran for President 4 times
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In RE Debs
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Supreme Court case that approved the use of court injunctions against strikes which gave management a powerful weapon
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Gilded Age
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Term applied to late nineteenth-century America that refers to the shallow display and worship of wealth characteristic of that period; coined by Mark Twain
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Conspicuous Consumption
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highly visible displays of wealth
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Frederick Law Olmstead
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landscape architect; designed Central Park in NY; bring country to city; 1860s created a suburban community with curved roads and open spaces called "a village in the park" led "City Beautiful movement"
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tenements
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four to six story residential dwellings, once common in New York, built on tiny lots without regard to providing ventilation or light
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The New South
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A term coined by Henry Woodfin Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, and other powerful southerners. They saw the South after the Civil War as a region of industrial development concentrating on modern textile mills operating near expanded cotton fields with a cheap labor source not limited by labor unions and child labor laws. They welcomed northern investment.
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The New South
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A term coined by Henry Woodfin Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, and other powerful southerners. They saw the South after the Civil War as a region of industrial development concentrating on modern textile mills operating near expanded cotton fields with a cheap labor source not limited by labor unions and child labor laws. They welcomed northern investment.
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The New South
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A term coined by Henry Woodfin Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, and other powerful southerners. They saw the South after the Civil War as a region of industrial development concentrating on modern textile mills operating near expanded cotton fields with a cheap labor source not limited by labor unions and child labor laws. They welcomed northern investment.
