Important terms, people, events, etc
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| 1099106718 | Rebate | A cash refund given for the purchase of a product during a specific period | 0 | |
| 1099106719 | Pool | An agreement to divide the business in a given area and share the profits; one was set up by Rockefeller to establish production quotas and fix prices | 1 | |
| 1099106720 | Horizontal Integration | A technique used by John D. Rockefeller. It is an act of joining or consolidating with ones competitors to create a monopoly. Rockefeller was excellent with using this technique to monopolize certain markets. It is responsible for the majority of his wealth. | 2 | |
| 1099106721 | Entrepreneur | A person who risks time and money to start and manage a business | 3 | |
| 1099106722 | Yellow-Dog Contracts | Employers required workers to sign these to promise not to strike or join a union while working at that company | 4 | |
| 1099106723 | Injunction | Court order | 5 | |
| 1099106724 | Bread and Butter Unionism | The belief that unions should focus on improving working conditions and pay for skilled workers rather than political reform; practiced by American Federation of Labor | 6 | |
| 1099106725 | John D. Rockefeller | Rushed to riches, but gradually became dominant; had a passion for cost-cutting and efficiency like Carnegie; head of Standard Oil Company; scrutinized all aspects of its operation; in mass-production, small changes saved thousands; realized that what controlled the shipment could dominate the industry, so he bought his own tanker cars and got rebates and kickbacks; set up his own massive interregional pipeline network; priced his products below competitors' to ruin them; people ganged up against him so he set up a pool that established production quotas and fixed prices; decided to eliminate competitors completely --> Standard Oil Trust; integrated petroleum industry vertically and horizontally | 7 | |
| 1099106726 | Standard Oil | Established in 1870, it was an integrated, multinational oil corporation led by Rockefeller; first of great industrial trusts | 8 | |
| 1099106727 | J. Pierpont Morgan | He was a banker who financed the reorganization of railroads, insurance companies, and banks; owner of Federal Steel, but bought out Carnegie steel and in 1901 he started the United States Steel Corporation; took over weakened systems, reorganized the administration, refinanced the debts, and built intersystem alliances | 9 | |
| 1099106728 | Railroad Strikes of 1877 | On Baltimore and Ohio Railroads, created by wage cuts after Panic of 1873, started by Knights of Labor, closed nearly two-thirds of railroads due to wildcat strikes; President Hayes sent in federal troops to suppress it; tension turned deadly | 10 | |
| 1099106729 | Pullman Strike | 1894; when depression hit wages were slashed without rent being reduced and workers joined American Railway Union, went on strike, and were led by Eugene V Debs; most systematic use of troops to smash union power: General Managers' Association called for a federal injunction against the strikers for allegedly refusing to move RR cars carrying US mail, injunction secured, Debs refused to order workers back to work, Debs arrested, federal troops poured in, a iron occurred in which freight cars were burned and people died-->the strike was crushed | 11 | |
| 1099106730 | Lester Frank Ward | Challenged William Sumner's ideas in his own "Dynamic Sociology"; geologist; said that the laws of nature could be circumvented by human will; argued that civilization was not governed by natural selection but by human intelligence, which was capable of shaping society as it wished | 12 | |
| 1099106731 | Edward Bellamy | Author of "Looking Backward"; Massachusetts newspaper editor; cast a glimpse into future, tells of future being perfect with government-run economy in 2000; everyone works for common welfare; conflict-free society where all equally enjoy benefits of industrialization; people formed groups to make his dream a reality | 13 | |
| 1099106732 | Looking Backward | Book written by 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 eliminated class divisions--called it nationalism | 14 | |
| 1099106733 | Henry George | Author of "Progress and Poverty"; newspaper editor and theorist; proposed to solve the nation's uneven distribution of wealth through the 'single tax'; noted that speculators repaid huge profits from land they neither worked nor improved; tax this "unearned increment" for government to get money to better the misery caused by industrialization; factored around the country; very popular | 15 | |
| 1099106734 | Progress and Poverty | Written by Henry George, critical of entreprenuers, after studying poverty in America, determined that rich didn't pay fair share of taxes and proposed "Single Tax" on incremental value of land to better misery caused to industrialization | 16 | |
| 1099106735 | Henry W. Grady | Southern newspaper editor of "Atlanta Constitution"; championed this doctrine that said the South's rich coal and timber resources plus cheap labor make the south a natural site for industrial development (perfect place for industry); the New South idealism | 17 | |
| 1099106736 | New South Creed | Phrase used to describe the South's supposed emergence from the Civil War as a region no longer dependent upon slave labor because it was industrializing, and that it's natural resources and cheap labor make it a perfect place for industrialization | 18 | |
| 1099106737 | Terence V. Powderly | Head of Knights of Labor after Stephens; leader of the "horney-fisted sons of toil"; eloquent and successful in clashes, so he attracted members; opposed strikes ("a relic of barbarism") and organized producer and consumer cooperatives; urged temperance and advocated admission of blacks into segregated local KOL unions; welcomed women; supported restricted immigration and a total ban on Chinese immigration | 19 | |
| 1099106738 | Knights of Labor | Dream of a labor movement that combined skilled and unskilled workers lived on with this Noble and Holy Order; led by Uriah Stephens and then Terence Powderly; began as secret society modeled after Masonic Order; welcomed all, or former, wage earners; excluded bankers, doctors, lawyers, etc; demanded equal pay for women; wanted end to cooperative employer-employee ownership of industries; called for graduated progressive tax on all earnings (so higher earners pay more); grew slowly at first, but then membership shot up when Powderly took over; many members opposed Powderly's anti-strike view, led a series of random strikes; conflict with Gould and Wabash Rail ->victory; turned to political action and elected mayors and judges, and secured passage of bans on convict labor and passed federal laws against foreign imported contract labor; it's strength decreased after failed strikes in 1886 | 20 | |
| 1099106739 | William H. Sylvis | In 1863 he was was elected president of the Iron Moulder's International Union. He traveled the country encourage iron molders to organize. In 1866 his dream of a nationwide union to represent all works, he called a convention in Baltimore that formed the National Labor Union (NLU) | 21 | |
| 1099106740 | National Labor Union | Formed with help of William Sylvis; represented all workers; endorsed 8-hour day; called for end of convict labor, establishment of a federal dept of labor, and currency/banking reform; support cause of working women and elected one as one of their national officers; urged blacks to organize in racially separate unions; faded quickly when Sylvis died | 22 | |
| 1099106741 | William Graham Sumner | Shared Carnegie's disapproval of government interference in business; "What Social Classes Owe Each Other"; applied evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and Social Darwinism to human society; survival of the fittest; the state owed its citizens nothing but law, order, and basic political rights | 23 | |
| 1099106742 | Social Darwinism | The application of ideas about evolution and "survival of the fittest" to human societies; applied by William Graham Sumner | 24 | |
| 1099106743 | Samuel Gompers | Creator of American Federation of Labor; pursued Bread and Butter unionism; an immigrant cigar maker who believed higher wages were not an end goal but a stepping stone to a working-class family existing decently with respect; said labor, to stand up to corporations, would have to harness the bargaining power of skilled workers that couldn't be easily replaced and then concentrate on practical goals of higher wages and reduced hours; knew AFL gave independence, so he would have to persuade people to join forces without violating their autonomy | 25 | |
| 1099106744 | American Federation of Labor | 1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hours, and working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent; Bread and Butter Unionism; later platform demanded 8-hour day, liabilities for injuries, and mine-safety laws; began to exclude women because Gompers thought they undercut men's wages | 26 | |
| 1099106745 | United Mine Workers | The 1902 strike by this union in eastern Pennsylvania threatened to cause an energy crisis requiring the federal government to intervene on the side of labor (first time); led by Mother Jones; staged parades and dramatized importance of militant mothers fighting for their families; successful: wage reductions restored bc no big company dominated the industry and owners needed to continue production | 27 | |
| 1099106746 | Mother Jones | Persuaded coal miners in PA to join United Mine Workers of America; campaigned for better working conditions, hours, and pay | 28 | |
| 1099106747 | Interstate Commerce Act | 1887; established the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) - monitors the business operation of carriers transporting goods and people between states - created to regulate railroad prices; banned monopolistic activity like rebates, pooling, and discriminatory short-distance rates; passed in response to Supreme Court ruling that states can't control interstate commerce | 29 | |
| 1099106748 | Interstate Commerce Commission | Established by Interstate Commerce Act; made up of 5-members; to oversee interstate railroads; federal regulatory agency often used by rail companies to stabilize the industry and prevent ruinous competition | 30 | |
| 1099106749 | Philip Armour and Gustavus Swift | Chicago meatpackers who used every part of the animal in trying to reduce production costs; pioneered high-efficiency meatpacking | 31 | |
| 1099106750 | Horatio Alger | Author of "Ragged Dick"; Unitarian minister turned novelist; told adventures of poor but honest men who rose through initiative and self-discipline; RAGS TO RICHES; poor boys became successful businessmen | 32 | |
| 1099106751 | Marxism | The economic and political theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that hold that human actions and institutions are economically determined and that class struggle is needed to create historical change and that capitalism will untimately be superseded | 33 | |
| 1099106752 | New Immigrants | Immigrants who came to the United States during and after the 1880s; most were from southern and eastern Europe; replaced Irish immigrants who did horse-carting and construction | 34 | |
| 1099106753 | James B. Duke | Had American Tobacco Company; used trading cards, circulars, boxtops, prizes, and scientific endorsements to convert Americans to cigarette smoking; made tobacco a profitable crop in the modern South; a wealthy tobacco industrialist; monopolized tobacco | 35 | |
| 1099106754 | Wildcat Strikes | Walking off a job without union authorization because of cut pay rates or intolerable conditions; often exploded into violence | 36 | |
| 1099106755 | Vertical Integration | Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution; done by Rockefeller | 37 | |
| 1099106756 | Trust | A group of corporations that unite in order to reduce competition and control prices in a business or an industry; Rockefeller set one up for Standard Oil that replaced the pool with something of legal status that created an umbrella corporation that ran them all; created an oligopoly where a small number of people control prices | 38 | |
| 1099106757 | Boycott | A group's refusal to have commercial dealings with some organization in protest against its policies | 39 | |
| 1099106758 | Anarchist | A person who seeks to overturn the established government; an advocate of abolishing authority | 40 | |
| 1099106759 | Laissez-Faire | Idea that government should play as small a role as possible in economic affairs; "hands-off"; defenders of capitalism preached this by saying that the government should never try to control business; promoted by Carnegie and Spencer who cited Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" | 41 | |
| 1099106760 | Andrew Carnegie | Founder of Carnegie Steel; embodied the close connection between RR expansion and the growth of corporations; "the world's richest man"; took over as head of western decision of Pennsylvania RR; daring innovator who used complex cost analysis techniques to over double the rail's mileage and quadruple its traffic; slashed commuter fares to keep cars full and developed cost-cutting techniques; decided to build his own steel mill that was promised success because of his connections to the RR business; used strict cost-accounting while limiting wages to lower production and travelers' costs below that of competitors; used vertical integration | 42 | |
| 1099106761 | Jay Gould | RR entrepreneur of Union Pacific Railroad; faced huge financial and organizational problems; with others, raised money for RRs with generous land and loan subsidies from governments and by selling stocks and bonds | 43 | |
| 1099106762 | Thomas Edison | Perfected the lightbulb; made it possible to shop after work; epitomizes inventive impulse and a capacity for creating new consumer products; "Wizard at Menlo Park"; vision of a large, interconnected industrial system resting on the foundation of technological innovation; started working with the telegraph and then invented the phonograph and set off to develop incandescent light bulbs; build complex lightbulb system with support of JP Morgan; _____ Illuminating Company opened power plant in NYC; put out invention after invention; his lab at Menlo Park served as a model for later industrial research labs and demonstrated that the systematic use of science paid a lot; led to invention becoming a big business | 44 | |
| 1099106763 | Homestead Strike | 1892 at Carnegie Steel Company; to destroy the union, managers cut wages and locked out the workers; when workers fired on the armed men who came to protect the plant, a battle broke out and 10 people died; National Guardsmen were sent to stop the battle and the union was crushed | 45 | |
| 1099106764 | Eugene V. Debs | Led the Pullman Strike; promised to "strip the mask of hypocrisy from the pretended philanthropist and show him to the world as an oppressor of labor"; refused to switch Pullman cars and refused to order workers back to work after injection; arrest for the strike | 46 | |
| 1099106765 | Alexander Berkman | Russian immigrant anarchist who, in 1892, tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick (manager of Carnegie's Homestead Steel Works); wanted a new social order but got a long prison sentence confirmed the business stereotype of "labor agitators" as lawless and violent | 47 | |
| 1099106766 | Chinese Exclusion Act | 1882; passed by Congress and placed a ten-year postponement of Chinese immigration into the US; ban extended in 1902 and repealed in 1943 | 48 | |
| 1099106767 | Sherman Anti-Trust Act | 1890; after Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust, Congress feared that trusts would stamp out all competition; under the leadership of John Sherman, passed this that outlawed trusts and other monopolies that fixed prices in restraint of trade and slapped violators with fines and prison sentences; failed to clearly define "trust" or "restraint of trade" --> LOOPHOLES | 49 | |
| 1099106768 | Haymarket Square Bombing | 1886; a protest rally in Cincinnati where someone threw a bomb form a nearby building and killed 7 policemen; police fired wildly into crowd and killed 4 protestors; public reaction to this was immediate; 8 men arrested and all convicted of murder; animosity toward labor unions intensified | 50 | |
| 1099106769 | US vs E.C. Knight Company | Supreme Court further disabled Congressional anti-trust efforts by interpreting the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in ways favorable to big business; federal government against sugar trust; argued that the Knight firm, which controlled over 90% of US sugar refining, operated in illegal restraint of trade; saying that manufacturing wasn't interstate commerce and ignoring the company's vast distribution network that enabled it to dominate, the Court threw out the suit | 51 |
