Chapter 17

Herbert Spencer

"Survival of the fittest"; Social Darwinism between societies and cultures

Adam Smith

"Wealth of Nations"

Eugene V. Debs

(1855-1926) Leader of the American Railway Union and supporter of the Pullman strike; he was the Socialist Party candidate for president five times.

Pullman Strike

(GC) 1894, , Strike of 1894. Eugene V. Debs organized the American Railway Union (150000 members). Maintained a company town, and when the Depression hit, wages were cut one third, but the rent and living expenses remained the same. Strikers overturned Pullman cars, paralyzed railway traffic from Chicago to Pacific Coast. Eventually, bayonet militia came in from Washington from Cleveland himself. Strikers were imprisoned without jury trials. He was charged since he interfered with mailing service, The beginning of the end of company towns. People who helped keep law and order was Mayor Hopkins and Governor Altgeld

Date - Series of Recessions

1873-1893

Date - formation of the AFL

1886

Haymarket Square Riot

1886 - 100,000 workers rioted in Chicago. After the police fired into the crowd, the workers met and rallied in Haymarket Square to protest police brutality. A bomb exploded, killing or injuring many of the police. 8 anarchists were convicted in a shoking trial

American Federation of Labor

1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hours, working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent.

Date - Edward Bellamy's Looking backwards

1888

Date - Homestead Steel Strike

1892

Homestead Steel Strike

1892 labor dispute led to bloodshed; when union's contract expired, Frick proposed to cut wages by 20%; then locked employees out of the plant for replacement workers; strikers refused to let Pinkertons land and gunfire followed; Gov. of Penn. ordered the militia to take control and protect replacement workers

Date - Breaking Point of the US Economy

1893

Date - Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth

1901

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical.

Great Railroad Strike

A violent but ultimately unsuccessful interstate strike, which resulted in extensive property damage and many deaths. The first major interstate strike in us history. The panic of 1873 caused railroad lines to cut wages which caused workers to walk off the job and block the tracks- it eventually turned violent. Federal troops finally quelled the violence. After workers turned violent the public began to blame them for the looting and violence and they lost all sympathy - 1877

John D Rockefeller

An American industrialist and philanthropist. He was the 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. In 1870, he founded Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.

J. Piermont Morgan

Banker who took over railroads during the depression of 1893. Improved railroading systems by: taking them over, reorganizing their administration, refinancing their debts, and building system alliances. Also founded US Steel Corporation.

Henry George

He wrote Progress and Poverty in 1879, which made him famous as an opponent of the evils of modern capitalism.

Edward Bellamy

In 1888, he wrote Looking Backward, 2000-1887, a description of a utopian society in the year 2000.

padrones

Labor brokers, usually immigrants, who acted as middlemen between immigrant workers and employers. Padrone System was a a contract labor system used by many immigrant groups to find work in the US.

Date - Demand date of 8 hour workday

May 1, 1886

Date - Hay Market Square

May 4, 1886

George Bissell

Started the commercial industry for oil in Western PA when he showed it could be used for lamps. Also he showed it could yield in some products like paraffin, naphtha, and lubricating oil. He raised money and began drilling in 1859.

Gospel of Wealth

This was a book written by Carnegie that described the responsibility of the rich to be philanthropists. This softened the harshness of Social Darwinism as well as promoted the idea of philanthropy.

Socialist Labor Party

founded in the 1870s and led for many years by Daniel De Leon, an immigrant from the West Indies. He attracted a modest following in the industrial cities, but his party never became a major one. In 1901 they eventually broke away and formed the American Socialist party.

Terrance Powderly

he led the knights of labor in the 1880's...

Knights of Labor

led by Uriah S. Stephens, its ideology may be described as producerist, demanding an end to child and convict labor, equal pay for women, a progressive income tax, and the cooperative employer-employee ownership of mines and factories. Leaderships under Powderly, successful with Southwest Railroad System, failed after Haymarket Riot