Chapter 18: An industrial giant emerges

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.

J.P. Morgan

A highly successful banker who bought out Carnegie. With Carnegie's holdings and some others, he launched U.S Steel and made it the first billion dollar corporation.

trust

A monopoly that controls goods and services, often in combinations that reduce competition.

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.

Horizontal Integration

Absorption into a single firm of several firms involved in the same level of production and sharing resources at that level

impact of the great strike of 1877

After the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, union organizers planned for their next battles while politicians and business leaders took steps to prevent a repetition of this chaos. For workers and employers alike, the strikes had shown the power of workers in combination to challenge the status quo. Unions became better organized as well as more competent, and the number of strikes increased.

Vertical Integration

An approach typical of traditional mass production in which a company controls all phases of a highly complex production process.

Major American industrialists

Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt are all examples of major American industrialists. They all formed monopolies in their respective industries.

Interstate Commerce Act

Established the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) - monitors the business operation of carriers transporting goods and people between states - created to regulate railroad prices

John D. Rockefeller

Established the Standard Oil Company, the greatest, wisest, and meanest monopoly known in history

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

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.

regulation of railroads

In the late nineteenth-century, most farmers in the West supported Interstate Commerce Act in an effort to get their crops to eastern cities at the lowest cost

Great Railroad Strike of 1877\3 great strikes

July, 1877 - A large number of railroad workers went on strike because of wage cuts. After a month of strikes, President Hayes sent troops to stop the rioting. 3 strikes were held in Maryland, New York, and Pittsburgh. The worst railroad violence was in Pittsburgh, with over 40 people killed by militia men.

American industrial working conditions

Many workers worked in bad, filthy conditions. They were not compensated for injury and wages were low. Also, all men, women, and children had to work in a family in order to make enough money.

The Grange

Originally a social organization between farmers, it developed into a political movement for government ownership of railroads

The rise of railroads

Railroads led to growth in many other industries such as agriculture, cattle, steel, timber, etc. Because these products could now be shipped quicker and cheaper. The passing of the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 also led to the building of a transcontinental railroad, which heavily impacted its growth.

Robber Barons/Captains of Industry

Refers to the industrialists or big business owners who gained huge profits by paying their employees extremely low wages. They also drove their competitors out of business by selling their products cheaper than it cost to produce it. Then when they controlled the market, they hiked prices high above original price.

Social Darwinism

The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies - particularly as a justification for their imperialist expansion.

merger

a combination of two or more businesses to form a single firm

holding company

a company whose primary business is owning a controlling share of stock in other companies

Monopoply

a market dominated by a single seller

Socialism

a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.