APUSH: Chapter 17

Deskilling

-Elimination of skilled labor using machines where workers completed small tasks rather than making an entire product -Employers could pay workers less and could replace them easily

Andrew Carnegie/Carnegie Steel

-Immigrant from Scotland went into the railroad industry and improved the strength of steel; self made -Used vertical integration to build his business and develop process for producing steel -Really successful with steel company, but his terrible treatment of workers lead to the Homestead Revolution -Philanthropist

Gustavus Swift (assembly line/meatpacking)

-Owned a meat packing company and used vertical integration to run his business -Used the assembly line and predatory pricing which helped maintain his company

John D. Rockefeller/Standard Oil

-Owned many oil companies and integrated horizontally -King of petroleum -Used Trusts

Trust

-Small group of associates that hold stock from a group of combined firms, managing them into a single entity -A way to get around anti monopoly laws -Used to control other companies through stock

Trade Unions

-Workers' organization that sought to directly negotiate with employers -Alternative to seeking assistance from politicians in worker-labor disputes

Henry Ford

-perfected the gasoline-burning internal combustion engine (automobile) -mass produced cars (assembly line)

Immigration patterns

1850s to 1860s - Irish, British, and German immigrants 1907 (after civil war) - Chinese. Koreans, Greeks, Japanese,, Italians, etc. (southern/eastern europeans)

Horizontal Integration

A business concept invented in the late nineteenth century to pressure competitors and force rivals to merge their companies into a conglomerate. John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil pioneered this business model.

Vertical Integration

A business model in which a corporation controlled all aspects of production from aw materials to packed products. Robber barons or industrial innovators such as Gustavus Swift and Andrew Carnegie pioneered this business form.

Greenback-Labor Party

A national political movement calling on the government to increase the money supply in order to assist borrowers and foster economic growth; Greenbacks called for greater regulation of corporations and laws enforcing an eight-hour workday.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A nationwide strike of thousands of railroad workers and labor allies, who protested the growing power of railroad corporations and the steep wage cuts imposed by railroad managers amid a severe economic depression that began in 1873.

Mass production

A phrase coined by Henry Ford, who helped invent a system of mass production of goods based on assembly of standardized parts. This system accompanied the continued deskilling of industrial labor.

Farmers' Alliance

A rural movement founded in Texas during the depression of the 1870s that spread across the plains states and the South. The movement advocated for cooperative stores and exchanges that would circumvent middlemen, and it called for greater government to aid to farmers and stricter regulation of railroads.

Scientific Management

A system of organizing work developed by Frederick W. Taylor in the late nineteenth century. It was designed to coax maximum output from the individual worker to, increase efficiency, and reduce production costs.

Closed Shop

A workplace where a job seeker had to be a union member to gain employment. It was advocated by craft unions as a method of keeping out lower-wage workers and strengthening the unions' bargaining position with employers.

Nativism/Chinese Exclusion Act

Americans believe that the Chinese are taking over their jobs. Eventually, CHinese are barred from entering the US and gaining American citizenship.

Interstate Commerce Act

An 1867 act that created the Interstate Commerce Commision, a federal regulatory agency designed to oversee the railroad industry and prevent collusion and unfair rates.

Management Revolution

An internal management structure adopted by many large, complex corporations that distinguished top executives from those responsible for day-to-day operations and departmentalized operations by function.

Robber barons/industrial statesmen

Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller are both examples of robber barons and industrial statesmen. They both used money to hoard wealth. (i.e. Rockefeller controlled oil companies using stocks and Carnegie treated workers poorly) However, they industrialized America through mass production innovation. America became the leading producer of goods.

Granger Laws

Economic regulatory laws passed in some midwestern states in the late 1870s, triggered by pressure from farmers and the Greenback-Labor Party.

Pure-and-simple unionism

Goals: (benefited workers) better wages, hours, and working conditions -Distrusted politicians -Focused on collective bargaining - unions bargaining forall workers collectively with employers -AFL

Homestead lockout

In 1892, Andrew Carnegie locked his workers out of his mill in Homestead after refusing to renew the union contract. The workers clashed with private army and people died.

J.P. Morgan/U.S. Steel

J.P. Morgan created US Steel, the nation's first billion-dollar corporation.

Corporate Workplace (managers/salesmen/women)

Managers and Salesmen (new middle class) -white-collar workers: don't use hands to make money (physical labor) -departments (ex. purchasing and accounting) -middle managers -sales: traveling salesmen, sales quotas and prizes, remedial training and dismissal -business classes Women -secretarial work = white working class women -telephone operators -drop in % of wage-earning women in domestic service

National consumer culture/chain store/mail-order houses and catalogues/department store

National Consumer culture -People start thinking about buying goods -Goods can be sold nationally and internationally bc of transportation -New ways of distributing goods Chain store -Same store opened in different places Department stores -Pioneered by John Wanamaker in 1875 -Displaced small retail shops -Started using large show windows Mail-order houses and catalogues -Money back guarantees -More than 1200 companies by 1900 in America

American Federation of Labor

Organization created by Samuel Gompers in 1886 that coordinated the activities of craft unions and called for direct negotiation with employers in order to achieve benefits for skilled workers.

Robber Barons V. Industrial Statesmen

Positives- benefited economy (planning + expert management) Negatives- political corruption, lying to public, treating workers poorly

Haymarket Square Riot

The May 4, 1886, conflict in Chicago in which both the workers and policemen were killed or wounded during a labor demonstration called by local anarchists. The incident created a backlash against all labor organizations, including the Knights of Labor.

Anarchism

The advocacy of a stateless society achieved by revolutionary mens. Feared for their views, anarchists became scapegoats for the 1886 Haymarket Square bombing.

Producerism

The argument that real economic wealth is created by workers who made their living by physical labor, such as farmers and craftsmen, and that merchants lawyers, bankers, and other middlemen unfairly gain their wealth from such "producers."

Knights of Labor.

The first mass labor organization created among America's working class. Founded in 1869 and peaking in strength in the mid-1880s, the Knights of Labor attempted to bridge boundaries of ethnicity, gender, ideology, race, and occupation to build a "universal brotherhood" of all workers.

Thomas Alva Edison

invented phonograph, dictaphone, electric generator, motion picture, and incandescent lamp

The Wright Brothers

invented the first airplane in Kitty Hawk, NY (1903)

Alexander Graham Bell

invented the telephone in 1876