Unit 10: The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Practice Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the key people, places, legislation, and concepts of Unit 10: The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

Stratification

The hierarchical arrangement of individuals into social classes, groups, or strata within a society.

Tycoon

A wealthy and powerful business leader or industrialist.

Monopoly

The exclusive control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

Strike

A refusal to work organized by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their employer.

Labor Union

An organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.

Trust

A large-scale business combination or organization where corporations are managed by a single board of directors to control a market.

Graft

The acquisition of money, gain, or advantage by dishonest, unfair, or illegal means through the abuse of one's position or influence in politics or business.

Patronage

The power to control appointments to office or the right to privileges, often given as a reward for political support.

Recall

A procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before their term has ended.

Referendum

A general vote by the electorate on a single political question that has been referred to them for a direct decision.

Segregation

The enforced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment.

John D. Rockefeller

An American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Standard Oil Company and dominated the oil industry.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late $19th$ century.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping.

Jay Gould

A leading American railroad developer and speculator who was often identified as a archetypal robber baron.

Tammany Hall

A New York City political organization that endured for nearly two centuries, known for its role in controlling city politics through political machines.

Boss Tweed

The American politician most notable for being the 'boss' of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine.

Benjamin Harrison

The $23rd$ President of the United States who served from $1889$ to $1893$.

Mother Jones

An influential community organizer and activist who co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World and fought for laborers' rights.

Eugene Debs

An American socialist, political activist, and trade unionist who was one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World.

American Federation of Labor

A national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in $1886$ by an alliance of craft unions.

Homestead, PA

The location of the Carnegie Steel Company plant where a major strike and violent confrontation occurred in $1892$.

Carrie Chapman Catt

An American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Emma Goldman

An anarchist political activist and writer known for her political activism, writing, and speeches.

Henry Clay Frick

An American industrialist and financier who was the chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a key role in the Homestead Strike.

Nellie Bly

An American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in $72$ days and her investigative reporting on mental institutions.

Ida B Wells

An African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the civil rights movement.

Booker T. Washington

An American educator and author who was the dominant leader in the African-American community and the contemporary Black elite between $1890$ and $1915$.

W.E.B. DuBois

An American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist who was a co-founder of the NAACP.

Upton Sinclair

An American writer who wrote the muckraking novel 'The Jungle,' which exposed conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry.

Alice Paul

An American suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment.

Teddy Roosevelt

The $26th$ President of the United States, known for his Square Deal domestic policies and conservationism.

Jacob Riis

A Danish-American social reformer and 'muckraking' journalist who used his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City.

Ida Tarbell

An American writer and investigative journalist who was one of the leading muckrakers of the progressive era, best known for her work on the Standard Oil Company.

Robber Baron

A derogatory term applied to powerful $19th$ century industrialists viewed as having used exploitative practices to amass their wealth.

Captain of Industry

A business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributed positively to the country in some way, such as through increased productivity or philanthropy.

Horizontal Integration

A strategy where a company acquires or merges with other companies at the same level of the supply chain to create a monopoly.

Vertical Integration

A strategy where a company expands its business operations into different steps on the same production path, such as owning suppliers and distributors.

Social Darwinism

The theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals; used to justify political conservatism and imperialism.

Economies of Scale

The cost advantage that arises with increased output of a product, where the fixed cost is spread over more units of output.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A deadly industrial disaster in New York City in $1911$ that led to improved factory safety standards and helped grow the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

Sherman Anti-Trust Law

The first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices, passed by Congress in $1890$.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A series of countrywide strikes by railroad workers in response to wage cuts, which was eventually suppressed by federal troops.

Taylorism

A theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows, with the main objective of improving economic efficiency and labor productivity.

Pendleton Civil Service Act

An $1883$ federal law that mandated that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political patronage.

Political Machines

Political organizations in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters who receive rewards for their efforts.

Progressive Era

A period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States that spanned the $1890s$ to the $1920s$.

Muckraking

The action of searching out and publicizing scandalous information about famous people or organizations in an underhanded way, often used by journalists to trigger reform.

Square Deal

President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program that focused on the '3Cs': conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.

17th Amendment

Passed in $1913$, it established the direct election of United States Senators by popular vote.

NAWSA and NWP

Two major women's suffrage organizations: the National American Woman Suffrage Association (moderate) and the National Woman's Party (militant/confrontational).

19th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote, ratified in $1920$.

Plessy v Ferguson

An $1896$ Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were 'separate but equal.'