Vocabulary for Chapter 24 and 25 of The American Pageant, 13th Edition.
602094222 | Cornelius Vanderbilt | United States financier who accumulated great wealth from railroad and shipping businesses (1794-1877) | |
602094223 | Thomas Edison | American inventor and physicist who took out more than 1,000 patents in his lifetime. His inventions include the telegraph (1869), microphone (1877), and light bulb (1879). He also designed the first power plant (1881-82), making possible the widespread distribution of electricity. During World War I, he worked on a number of military devices, including flamethrowers, periscopes, and torpedoes. | |
602094224 | Andrew Carnegie | United States industrialist and philanthropist who endowed education and public libraries and research trusts (1835-1919) | |
602094225 | John D. Rockefeller | An American oil magnate who revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897. | |
602094226 | J. Pierpont Morgan | An American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 he arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric. | |
602094227 | Samuel Gompers | An English-born American labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. He founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924. | |
602094228 | Vertical integration | A style of management contro in which companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It is contrasted with horizontal integration. | |
602094229 | Horizontal integration | A type of ownership and control. It is a strategy used by a business or corporation that seeks to sell a type of product in numerous markets. It is much more common than vertical integration is in production. It occurs when a firm is being taken over by, or merged with, another firm which is in the same industry and in the same stage of production as the merged firm, e.g. a car manufacturer merging with another car manufacturer. In this case both the companies are in the same stage of production and also in the same industry. This process is also known as a "buy out" or "take-over". | |
602094230 | trust-building | A marketing theory based on building consumer relationships through trustworthy dialogue and unbiased information. The concept was originated by Dr. Glen L. Urban, Professor and former Dean of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. It focuses on customer advocacy techniques that assist consumers in making informed purchase decisions based on comprehensive marketplace options and equitable advice. | |
602094231 | company town | A town or city in which much or all real estate, buildings (both residential and commercial), utilities, hospitals, small businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations, and other necessities or luxuries of life within its borders are owned by a single company. | |
602094232 | closed shop | A form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to only hire union members, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed. | |
602094233 | Union Pacific Railroad | The largest railroad in the United States created by the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. It was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872, that involved bribing congressmen and stock speculations. | |
602094234 | Bessemer process | The first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten. | |
602094235 | gospel of wealth | An essay written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889 that described the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. | |
602094236 | Sherman Act | Requires that the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. | |
602094237 | Interstate Commerce Act | A United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates. It also required that railroads publicize shipping rates and prohibited short haul/long haul fare discrimination, a form of price discrimination against smaller markets, particularly farmers. | |
602094238 | Haymarket Riot | A demonstration and unrest that took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of eight police officers, mostly from friendly fire, and an unknown number of civilians | |
602094239 | American Federation of Labor | One of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death. | |
602094240 | Jane Addams | The first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a long, complex, career, she was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher (the first American woman in that role), sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace. She was the most prominent woman of the Progressive Era and helped turn the nation to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health and world peace. | |
602094241 | Florence Kelley | A social and political reformer from Philadelphia. Her work against sweatshops and for the minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, and children's rights is widely regarded today. | |
602094242 | Booker T. Washington | An American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. | |
602094243 | William F. Cody | An American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was one of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872. | |
602094244 | social gospel | A religious movement that arose in the United States in the late nineteenth century with the goal of making the Christian churches more responsive to social problems, such as poverty and prostitution. Leaders of the movement argued that Jesus' message was as much about social reform as about individual approaches to salvation. | |
602094245 | yellow journalism | The type of journalism that relies on sensationalism and lurid exaggeration to attract readers. | |
602094246 | Women's Christian Temperance Union | The oldest continuing non-sectarian women's organization worldwide. Organized at a national convention in Cleveland, Ohio in 1874, the group spearheaded the crusade for prohibition. Members in Fredonia, New York advanced their cause by entering saloons, singing, praying, and urging saloon keepers to stop selling alcohol. | |
602094247 | Trusts | A relationship whereby property (including real, tangible and intangible) is managed by one person (or persons, or organizations) for the benefit of another. | |
602094248 | Lintheads | "Hillbillies;" families who lived in seclusion making cloth. | |
602094249 | Lewis Hine | An American sociologist and photographer. He used his camera as a tool for social reform and his photographs were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States. | |
602094250 | Gibson girl | The personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen-and-ink-illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States. | |
602094251 | Knights of Labor | The largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly. They promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and became a small operation again. |