CH 17 APUSH
Herbert Spencer
"Survival of the fittest"; Social Darwinism between societies and cultures.
Horatio Alger
(1832-1899) American writer of inspirational adventure books featuring impoverished boys who through hard work and virtue achieve great wealth and respect. Supported the belief that in American one could rise from rags to riches.
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
(1882) Denied any additional Chinese laborers to enter the country while allowing students and merchants to immigrate.
Anarchy
(n) a lack of government and law; confusion
Women's Trade Union League
A U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women formed in 1903 to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions.
Corporation
A business owned by stockholders who share in its profits but are not personally responsible for its debts
Model T
A cheap and simple car designed by Ford. It allowed for more Americans to own a car.
Haymarket Square Riot of 1886
A demonstration of striking laborers in Chicago in 1886 that turned violent, killing a dozen people and injuring over a hundred.
Holding company
A firm that buys up stocks and bonds of smaller companies.
Limited liability
A form of business ownership in which the owners are liable only up to the amount of their individual investments.
Trust
A group of corporations run by a single board of directors.
Bessemer process
A way to manufacture steel quickly and cheaply by blasting hot air through melted iron to quickly remove impurities.
Samuel Gompers
American Federation of Labor
Isaac Singer
American inventor and manufacturer, who made his fortune by improving on Elias Howe's sewing machine. His machine fueled the ready-made clothing industry in New England.
Thomas Edison
American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.
George Pullman
American inventor of the Pullman sleeping car and founder of Pullman, Illinois
Molly Maguires
An active, militant Irish organization of farmers based in the Pennsylvania anthracite coal fields who are believed responsible for much violence.
Pool
An agreement to divide the business in a given area and share the profits.
Vertical integration
An attempt by one company to simultaneously control several related aspects of the media business.
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.
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Began to standardize gauge on NY Central Railroad - set standards of excellence and efficiency.
George Bissell
Discovered refined petroleum could be used for mechanized factories, lubricants, as well as lamps.
Looking Backward
Edward Bellamy. Described experience of a young bostonian who slept in 1887 and woke up in 2000 to find the social order changed, large trusts that had grown grew and combined to create one big one that would distribute the wealth among everyone and eliminate class divisions-called it nationalism.
John D. Rockefeller
Established the Standard Oil Company, the greatest, wisest, and meanest monopoly known in history.
Socialist Labor Party
Founded in the 1870s and led for many years by Daniel De Leon. They had an alternative view to what was happening in the country, and they didn't like laissez faire. They were looking for more drastic reform but they never became a real force.
Scientific management
Frederick Taylor. A set of principles and practices designed to increase the performance of individual employees by stressing job simplification and specialization.
William Graham Sumner
He was an advocate of Social Darwinism claiming that the rich were a result of natural selection and benefits society.
Assembly line
In a factory, an arrangement where a product is moved from worker to worker, with each person performing a single task in the making of the product. Henry Ford.
Gustavus Swift
In the 1800s he enlarged fresh meat markets through branch slaughterhouses and refrigeration. He monopolized the meat industry.
Labor Contract Law
Industrial employers recruited many immigrants under this contract until its repeal in 1885. It permitted them to pay for the passage of workers in advance and deduct the amount later from their wages.
Wright brothers
Invented the airplane in 1903. Became a commercial proposition by the 1920s.
General Electric
Investor-created company that encouraged the spread of electricity; manufactured light bulbs, and mainly made electricity available to more people cheaply. Also developed air brakes for trains.
Pinkerton Agents
private detectives used by industrialists to fight strikers.
Self made man
success based on hard work, not because of family wealth.
United States Steel
was the first billion-dollar super corporation and was created by Carnegie.
Craft unions
Labor organizations whose members were skilled workers in a particular craft--for example, carpenters, masons, or cigar makers. The American Federation of Labor was composed of individual craft unions.
DuPont
Large company that produced explosive materials such as gunpowder and dynamite.
Eastman Kodak
Large company that produced photographic materials and equipment.
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
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. The worst railroad violence was in Pittsburgh, with over 40 people killed by militia men
American Railway Union
Led by Eugene Debs, they started the Pullman strike, composed mostly of railroad workers.
Henry Clay Frick
Manager of the Carnegie Steel plant outside of Pittsburgh, PA who barricaded the plant and hired armed Pinkerton guards to attack striking workers
Pullman Palace Car Company
Manufactured sleeping cars for railroads, constructed a "model town" for its employees
Government subsidies
Monetary assistance granted by a government to a person or group in support of an enterprise regarded as being in the public interest. Financial help.
Social mobility
Movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society's stratification system to another.
Henry Ford
Moving assembly line. 1914. Exemplified scientific management. Production line reduced for a Model T. Price.
Bell telephone
Organized in 1877. first telephone company
American Socialist Party
Political party formed in 1901 and led by Eugene Debs that advocated replacing the nation's capitalist system.
Social Darwinism
Survival of the fittest
Law of supply and demand
The claim that the price of any good adjusts to bring the quantity supplied and the quantity demanded for that good into balance.
Terrence Powderly
The leader of the Knights of labor.
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.
Progress and Poverty
Written by Henry George, critical of entrepreneurs, after studying poverty in America, determined that rich didn't pay fair share of taxes and proposed "Single Tax" on incremental value of land.
Daniel DeLeon
forefather of the idea of revolutionary industrial unionism and was the leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party of America.
Interlocking directorates
members of the board of directors of one corporation who also sit on the board(s) of other corporations.
Eugene Debs
1855-1926. American union leader, one of the founders of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World, and five-time Socialist Party of America Presidential Candidate.
National Labor Union
1866 - established by William Sylvis - wanted 8hr work days, banking reform, and an end to conviction labor - attempt to unite all laborers.
Alexander Graham Bell
1876 - Invented the telephone.
Workmen's compensation
money paid to workers who were injured on the job and are unable to work
American Federation of Labor
1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hrs, working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent.
Knights of Labor
1st effort to create National union. Open to everyone but lawyers and bankers. Vague program, no clear goals, weak leadership and organization. Failed.
Frederick Winslow Taylor
considered the "father of scientific management"