"The Gilded Age" US History

Homestead Act

1862 - Provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged westward migration. (160 acres)

Muckrakers

1906 - Journalists who searched for corruption in politics and big business

Corporation

A business recognized by law that has many of the rights and responsibilities as individuals

Gilded Age

A name for the late 1800s, coined by Mark Twain to describe the tremendous increase in wealth caused by the industrial age and the ostentatious lifestyles it allowed the very rich. The great industrial success of the U.S. and the fabulous lifestyles of the wealthy hid the many social problems of the time, including a high poverty rate, a high crime rate, and corruption in the government.

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.

Transcontinental RR

A train route across the United States, finished in 1869. It was the project of two railroad companies: the Union Pacific built from the east, and the Central Pacific built from the west. The two lines met in Utah.

Coal

Access to rivers, iron ore, timber, and _____ was a major determining factor in which countries were able to industrialize during this period.

Monopoly

Complete control of a product or business by one person or group

John Rockefeller

Creator of the Standard Oil Company who made a fortune on it and joined with competing companies in trust agreements that in other words made an amazing monopoly.

Industrialization

Development of a system which supports machine production of goods; grew fast in the 19th century

Coal mines

During the 1800's, the most dangerous work conditions were found here.

Child labor laws

Enacted after the first three decades of the 19th century to limit the number of hours children could be required to work

labor laws

Laws which regulated how workers could be paid and treated

Laissez Faire

Policy allowing business to operate with little or no government interference

economic collapse

The financial panic and downfall of a country

regulations

The formal instructions that government issues for implementing laws. (rules)

Meat packing industry in Chicago

Upton Sinclair's novel entitled The Jungle exposed dangerous workplace conditions in-

Corporate

business, commercial

Gilded

covered in gold; but not gold underneath the thin layer of gold

Ruthless

cruel having no compassion or pity

Steam engine

invention that allowed factories to run machines and rely on manufacturing made industrialization possible

The Great Gatsby

is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The book takes place from spring to autumn 1922, during a prosperous time in the United States known as the Roaring Twenties. It's about a self-made man who woos and loses a married aristocratic woman (Daisy) he loves

Westward expansion

settlers began moving westward beyond the Appalachian Mountains

raw materials

the basic material from which a product is made.

Distribution of wealth

the manner in which wealth is divided among the members of the economy. Welath is unequally distributed: a few people have a great deal of wealth and most other have less

America's canals

waterways used to move goods to places far from the factories.

Prosperity

wealth, success

overextending

when a person or a business stretches their credit beyond the financial guidelines?

sweat shop

where employees are payed low wages for long hours, and under poor conditions

Promontory Utah

where the two lines of transcontinental railroad met

Credit

An arrangement to receive cash, goods, or services now and pay for them in the future.

JP Morgan

An influential banker and businessman who bought and reorganized companies. His US Steel company would buy Carnegie steel and become the largest business in the world in 1901

Sherman Antitrust Act

First federal action against monopolies, it was signed into law by Harrison and was extensively used by Theodore Roosevelt for trust-busting. However, it was initially misused against labor unions

Andrew Carnegie, industrialist

Scottish American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century.

Panic of 1893

Serious economic depression beginning in 1893. Began due to rail road companies over-extending themselves, causing bank failures. Was the worst economic collapse in the history of the country until that point, and, some say, as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s.