Chapter 13

Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

An industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892.

William Graham Sumner

Influential Yale professor; critic of natural rights; first to teach a "Sociology" course; credited with introducing the term "ethnocentrism," a term intended to identify imperialists' chief means of justification.

Molly Maguires

A 19th century secret society of mainly Irish-American coal miners

Trust

A business entity formed to create a monopoly or fix prices.

Closed Shop

A form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed

Pool

A grouping of businesses or individuals for the purpose of combining resources and deriving common benefit from their association.

Pullman Strike (1894)

A nationwide conflict between labor unions and railroads that occurred in the United States in 1894.

Open Shop

A place of employment at which one is not required to join or financially support a union (closed shop) as a condition of hiring or continued employment. AKA: merit shop.

Scientific Management

A theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity.

"Taylorism"

AKA: Scientific Management

"The Wizard of Menlo Park"

AKA: Thomas Edison

Edward Bellamy

An American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, a Rip Van Winkle-like tale set in the distant future of the year 2000. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of over 160 "Nationalist Clubs" dedicated to the propagation of Bellamy's political ideas and working to make them a practical reality.

Lester Ward

An American botanist, paleontologist, and sociologist. He served as the first president of the American Sociological Association.

J. Pierpont Morgan

An American financier, banker, philanthropist and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

An American industrialist and philanthropist who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. Made initial gift to Vanderbilt University.

Henry Ford

An American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry.

Thomas Alva Edison

An American inventor and businessman. Developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. "The Wizard of Menlo Park"

Frederick W. Taylor

An American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. Regarded as the father of scientific management and was one of the first management consultants. Was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement.

Eugene v. Debs

An American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies), and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.

"Yellow-Dog" Contract

An agreement between an employer and an employee in which the employee agrees, as a condition of employment, not to be a member of a labor union. Outlawed in 1932.

"Gospel of Wealth"

An article written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. Describes the perils of mentally or emotionally ill-equipped people handling large amounts of money.

Injunction

An equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing specific acts.

Social Darwinism

An ideology of society that seeks to apply biological concepts of Darwinism or of evolutionary theory to sociology and politics, often with the assumption that conflict between groups in society leads to social progress as superior groups outcompete inferior ones.

Haymarket Riot (1886)

Beginning as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians, and the wounding of scores of others.

Alexander Graham Bell

Credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

Scabs

Derogatory term for Strikebreakers

Vertical Integration

Describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner.

Horizontal Integration

Describes a type of ownership and control. This process is also known as a "buy out" or "take-over". The goal of horizontal integration is to consolidate like companies and monopolize an industry.

Herbert Spenser

Developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies.

National Labor Union

First national labor federation in the United States. Paved the way for other organizations.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Founded in Columbus, Ohio in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor

Samuel Gompers

Founded the AFL. Promoted harmony among the different craft unions that comprised the AFL, trying to minimize jurisdictional battles. He promoted "thorough" organization and collective bargaining to secure shorter hours and higher wages

John D. Rockefeller

Founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy.

Terence V. Powderly

Highly visible national spokesperson for the Knights of Labor, though he held little real power due to lack of organization

Knights of Labor

Largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism.

Andrew Carnegie

Led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. Large philanthropist.

Blacklisting

Listing or registering entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition.

Pinkerton Agency

Private security guard and detective agency. Became famous when he claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln, who later hired Pinkerton agents for his personal security during the Civil War.

Model T

Produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company. Generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that opened travel to the common middle-class American

Horatio Alger

Prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many formulaic juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. ("Rags-to-Riches")

Kitty Hawk, NC

Site of the Wright Brothers' flight experiments.

Great Railroad Strike (1877)

Started on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in response to the cutting of wages for the second time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O). Striking workers would not allow any of the stock to roll until this second wage cut was revoked.

Henry George

The most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land. He inspired the economic philosophy known as Georgism, whose main tenet is that people should own what they create, but that everything found in nature, most importantly the value of land, belongs equally to all humanity.

"Self-Made Man" Myth

The myth that government does not help businesses or individuals succeed (i.e., the government never helped me with anything - I'm a self-made man").

"Invisible Hand"

The term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace.

William and Orville Wright

Two American brothers, inventors, and aviation pioneers who were credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903.

Dynamic Sociology

Ward's sociology philosophy.

Looking Backward

Written by Bellamy.

Progress & Poverty

Written by Henry George in 1879. The book is a treatise on the cyclical nature of an industrial economy and its remedies.