AP US History Chapter 24 Flashcards
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5823784732 | Wabash, St. Louis &Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois | -a Supreme Court decision that prohibited states from regulating the railroads because the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce; -as a result, reformers turned their attention to the federal government, which now held the sole power to regulate the railroad industry | 0 | |
5823784733 | Interstate Commerce Act | -in 1887; -congressional legislation that established the Interstate Commerce Commission, compelled railroads to publish standard rates, and prohibited rebates and pools; -railroads quickly became adept at using the Act to achieve their own ends, but the Act gave the government an important means to regulate big business | 1 | |
5823784734 | vertical integration | -the practice of perfected by Andrew Carnegie of controlling every step of the industrial production process in order to increase efficiency and limit competition | 2 | |
5823784735 | horizontal integration | -the practice perfected by John D. Rockefeller of dominating a particular phase of the production process in order to monopolize a market often by forming trusts and alliance with competitors | 3 | |
5823784736 | trust | -a mechanism by which one company grants control over its operations, through ownership of its stock, to another company; -the Standard Oil Company became known for this practice in the 1870s as it eliminated its competition by taking control of smaller oil companies | 4 | |
5823784737 | interlocking directorates | -the practice of having executives or directors from one company serve in the Board of Directors of another company; -J.P. Morgan introducing this practice to eliminate banking competition in the 1890s | 5 | |
5823784738 | Standard Oil Company | -from 1870-1911; -John D. Rockefeller's company, formed in 1870 which came to symbolize the trusts and monopolies of the Gilded Age; -by 1877 Standard Oil controlled 95% of the oil refineries in the U.S.; -it was also one of the first multinational corporations, and at sene production outside the U.S.; -by the turn of the century it had become a target for trust-busting reformers, and in 1911 the Supreme Court ordered it to break up into several dozen smaller companies | 6 | |
5823784739 | Social Darwinists | -believed in the idea, popular in the late nineteenth century, that people gained wealth by "survival of the fittest"; -therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process; -some of these people also applied this theory to whole nations and races, explaining that powerful peoples were naturally endowed with gifts that allowed them to gain superiority over others; -this theory provided one of the popular justifications for U.S. imperial ventures like the Spanish-American war | 7 | |
5823784740 | Sherman Anti-Trust Act | -in 1890; -a law that forbade trusts or combinations in business, this act provided federally financed instruction in maternal and infant health care and expanded the role of government in family welfare | 8 | |
5823784741 | National Labor Union | -from 1866-1872; -this first national labor organization in U.S. history was founded in 1866 and gained 600,000 members from many parts of the work-force, although it limited the participation of Chinese, women, and blacks; -the organization devoted much of its energy to fighting for an eight-hour workday before it dissolved in 1872 | 9 | |
5823784742 | Knights of Labor | -the second national labor organization, organized in 1869 as a secret society and opened for public membership in 1881; -they were known for their efforts to organize all workers, regardless of skill level, gender, or race; -after the mid-1880s their membership declined for a variety of reasons, including their participation in violent strikes and discord between skilled and unskilled members | 10 | |
5823784743 | Haymarket Square | -in 1886; -a May Day rally that turned violent when someone threw a bomb into the middle of the meeting, killing several dozen people; -eight anarchists although evidence linking them to the bombing was thin; -four were executed, one committed suicide, and three were pardoned in 1893 | 11 | |
5823784744 | American Federation of Labor | -a national federation of trade unions that included only skilled workers, founded in 1886; -led by Samuel Gompers for nearly four decades, the AFL sought to negotiate with employers for a better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers fairly with better wages, hours, and conditions; -the AFL's membership was almost entirely white and male until the middle of the twentieth century | 12 | |
5823784745 | closed shop | -a union-organized term that refers to the practice of allowing only unionized employees to work for a particular company; -the AFL became known for negotiating closed-shop agreements with employers, in which the employer would agree not to hire non-union members | 13 |