The Gilded Age: Unit 6

Bessemer process

Bessemer process

• new method to purify iron

• The only made a metal that was lightweight but very strong

  • cheap and efficient

• new material is steel

Thomas Edison

creator of the lightbulb

Alexander Grahman Bell

inventor of telephone

Wright Brothers

inventors of the airplane

Laissez-faire capitalism

an economic philosophy, developed in the 18th century, that opposes any government intervention in business affairs

Vertical & Horizontal integration

vertical integration:purchase of companies at all levels of production

horizontal integration: purchase of competing companies in the same industry

Monopoly

a single seller or producer that excludes competition from providing the same product

Holding company

a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies

Robber Barons

successful industrialists whose business practices were often considered ruthless or unethical. exploited workers as well

Captains of Industry

a business leader whose means of amassing a personal fortune contributed positively to the country

Andrew Carnegie

• american industrialist who amassed a fortune in the steel industry than became a major philanthropist

• entered the steel business and became a dominant force in the industry in the early 1870’s

• the Carnegie steel company = his steel company

Philanthropy

the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes.

“Gospel of Wealth”

• written by Carnegie

• the richest Americans should actively engage in philanthropy and charity in order to close the widening gap between rich and poor

JD Rockefeller (Standard Oil)

• american industrialist

• founder of the standard oil company —> dominated the oil industry

• used illegal tactics to create a strong oil company

JP Morgan and Co.

• helped reorganize businesses to make them more profitable and stable and gaining control of them

• reorganized several major railroads and became a powerful railroad magnate.

• banking company = JP Morgan and Co.

Gilded Age

a period of economic growth as the United States jumped to the lead in industrialization ahead of Britain. The nation was rapidly expanding its economy into new areas, especially heavy industry like factories, railroads, and coal mining.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping

Social Darwinism

• social, economic, and political philosophy that emerged in the late 19th and early centuries

• principles of natural selection and survival of the fittest should be applied to human societies

• used to justify race and class distinctions

New immigration & Old immigration

• 1871 -1921

• predominantly people from eastern/southern Europe & Asia

• seeking economic opportunities, relief from political and/or religious persecution

• less welcomed by native born americans

• 1800-1871

• predominantly from northern/western europe

  • Britian, ireland, germany, france, norway, sweden

• seeking economic opportunities or freedom from persecution

• welcomed

  • similar culturally to americas

Melting pot/salad bowl

melting pot: assumes that various immigrant groups will tend to “melt together,” abandoning their individual cultures and eventually becoming fully assimilated into the predominant society.

salad bowl: describes a heterogeneous society in which people coexist but retain at least some of the unique characteristics of their traditional culture

Ellis Island

inspection station in nyc (european immigrants)

Angel Island

inspection station in san francisco (asian immigrants)

Assimilation

the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society.

Nativism

the policy of protecting the interests of native born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants

Chinese Exclusion Act

• 1882: congress passed the chinese exclusion act

  • suspended the immigration of all chinese laborers for ten years

  • required every chinese person entering or leaving the country to carry paperwork

• first law in us history to broadly restrict immigration based on national origin

Great Migration

• the movement of black southerns to northern and midwest cities

• motivated by:

  • escape racial violence

  • pursue economic

• great migration was not what it seemed

  • faced discrimination

Jim Crow

• a racist caricature of a southern black man portrayed by a northern white man

• federal, state, and local laws

• enforced local segregation

Black Codes

• restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of african americans

• ensure their availability as a cheap labor force

• restricted black people’s right to own property, conduct business, buy and lease land and move freely through public spaces

• during the reconstruction period

Lynching

• public killing of an individual who has not received due process

• often carried out by lawless mobs

Plessy V. Ferguson

The Supreme Court ruled against an African-American man who attempted to ride in a whites-only train car in Louisiana in concluding that the Equal Protection Clause was not violated by state segregation laws which, in effect, keep the races “separate but equal” in public accommodations.

Danville Riot 1883

• White supremacists resented the biracial Readjuster Party which controlled the city council seats in the majority African American city of Danville, Virginia in 1882.

• was a deadly assault on African Americans at a Danville, Virginia market in November 3, 1883 and continued for several days after with violent attacks continuing until after the election

Booker T. Washington

• was a supporter of equal rights for African Americans. He taught himself to read and worked in coal mines. He founded the Tuskegee Institute.

• He rejected the pursuit of political and social equality with whites in favor of developing vocational skills and a reputation for stability and dependability.

W.E.B. Dubois

the most important black protest leader in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. He shared in the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Klu Klux Klan

• first organized terror group in american history

• first formed in 1865 in TN by former confederates

• emerges to suppress and victimize the newly freed slaves

Knights of labor

• all workers (any trade, skilled/unskilled, men/women, white/african americans)

  • no asians

• replace capitalism with workers cooperatives - but rejected socialism

  • 8 hr workday, equal pay for equal work (men/women)

• preferred arbitration (alternative dispute resolution involving a neutral third party who makes a binding decision), also tried collective bargaining, boycotts, strikes (failed)

Samuel Gompers & AFL

• skilled workers of various trade unions; no women; theoretically open to african americans but they were kept out by the local unions

• better wages, better hours, better conditions

  • closed shops - only union members could be hired

  • against socialism

• collected high dues for a strike/pension fund; preferred collective bargaining; used strikes; made some gains

Collective bargaining

the process in which working people, through negotiate contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment which included pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family

Eugene Debs & ARU

was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five-time candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.

ARU: organized a national boycott and strike against all trains hauling Pullman Cars

Socialism

a political and economic system in which the means of production and property have public ownership and are not controlled by the government.

Haymarket Strike/riot/affair

May 4, 1886, when a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing

Homestead strike

It was one of the most violent strikes in U.S. history. It was against the Homestead Steel Works, which was part of the Carnegie Steel Company, in Pennsylvania in retaliation against wage cuts.

Pullman strike

• Railway workers for the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike for increased wages in may 11, 1894.

• The strike would grow to include hundreds of thousands of workers and span dozens of states

  • but would eventually end after federal troops were sent in to break up the strike and American Railway Union leaders were arrested.

  • The American Railway Union agreed to assist Pullman workers. Switchmen who were members of the ARU refused to handle Pullman cars, which disrupted the rail network.

    • This initial boycott led to widespread strikes among the nation's railroad workers.

Gov’t and public reactions to strikes

government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often sided with management and against unions.

Governments at every level opposed strikes

company town

a place where all the stores and housing are owned by one company

triangle shirtwaist factory fire

• March 25, 1911,

• killed 146 workers

• It is remembered as one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history, as the deaths were largely preventable–most of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building.

• The tragedy brought widespread attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories, and led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of workers.

urbanization

• A shift in the population from living in more rural areas to more urban areas 

tenement housing

• Housing building with multiple units (apartments) 

• Run down, low quality, typically many families in 1 room/unit 

  • Result of urbanization & immigration 

muckracking

reform journalism with the goal to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions; aimed at fixing some of these societal issues

jacob riis

• american journalist and photographer

  • wrote the book how the other half lives (1890) that described living conditions in nyc

  • details shocked americans and encouraged housing reforms and aid to the poor

muckrackers

reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publications.

upton sinclair/the jungle

• american journalist and photographer

• wrote the book the jungle, a fiction book that described immigrant lives and living conditions in meatpacking towns

  • used to created food regulation laws

meat inspection act

to prevent adulterated or misbranded meat and meat products from being sold as food and to ensure that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions

pure food and drug act

prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food and drugs in interstate commerce and laid a foundation for the nation's first consumer protection agency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

prohibition

was a nationwide ban on the sale and import of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933

susan b. anthony/NAWSA

Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women's suffrage movement

jane addams

• american reformer

• founder of the hull house

hull house

a place where immigrants of diverse communities gathered to learn, to eat, to debate, and to acquire the tools necessary to put down roots in their new country.

eugenics

it is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations

buck v. bell

In 1927, Buck v. Bell upheld Virginia's Eugenical Sterilization Act, authorizing the state of Virginia to forcibly sterilize Carrie Buck, a young, poor white woman the state determined to be unfit to procreate

18th amendment

established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States

transcontinental RR and impact

it became a symbol of America's growing industrial power and a source of confidence that led them to take on even more ambitious quests

time zones

• needed to create a uniform system for telling time to organize train departure sand arrivals

  • —> creation of time zones

sioux/plains/indian wars

were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century.

reservations

small parcels of land on which Indian people were supposed to live

little bighorn/custer’s last stand

it marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The demise of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty.

wounded knee

the slaughter of approximately 150–300 Lakota Indians by United States Army troops in the area of Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota. The massacre was the climax of the U.S. Army's late 19th-century efforts to repress the Plains Indians.

chief joseph

• fought in the nez perce war

• faced with settlement by whites of tribal lands in Oregon, led his followers in a dramatic effort to escape to Canada

sitting bull

• member of the lakota

• was a hunkpapa lakota military, religious, and tribal chief

• fought in the battle of the little bighorn

  • victoriously masterminded the defeat of the US troops

• stalwart defender of his people’s land and way of life which were threatened by the intrusion of white settlers

buffalo hunting

• over hunting of the buffalo

  • meant to harm the native people and disrupt their way of life

  • allow room for roads/settlements

• species nearly went extinct in late 1300’s

• conservation efforts in the early 1900’s to 1990’s

open range

a large area of grazing land without fences or other barriers

barbed wire and other inventions

brought a speedy end to the era of the open-range cattle industry

homestead act of 1862

government encourages farming with free 160 acres if you farm it for 5 years

homesteaders

those who settled the land from the homestead act

exodusters

african americans who moved west after the civil war and reconstruction

carlisle boarding school

The school administrators' mission was to remove indigenous children from the families and communities to assimilate them and stop the passing-on of indigenous culture. The boarding schools forced indigenous children to adopt Euro-American culture.

dawes act

the law authorized the President to break up reservation land, which was held in common by the members of a tribe, into small allotments to be parceled out to individuals. Thus, Native Americans registering on a tribal "roll" were granted allotments of reservation land

political machine

political party’s organization that wins voter loyalty and grants power to a small group of leaders, often for political gain

political bosses/tweed

individuals who ran the political machines

was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party's political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century New York City

kickbacks/grafts

a misappropriation of funds that enriches a person of power or influence who uses the power or influence to make a different individual, organization, or company ric

tammany hall

it became the main local political machine of the Democratic Party and played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics, and helped immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise in American politics from the 1850s into the 1960s.

thomas nast

American cartoonist, best known for his attack on the political machine of William M. Tweed in New York City in the 1870s.

initiative

A petition to propose amendments to the constitution. A petition to propose enactment of national legislation.

referendum

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

recall

a power reserved to the voters that allows the voters, by petition, to demand the removal of an elected official.

direct primary

voting processes by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election.

secret (australian) ballot

is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election is anonymous.

16th amendment

It grants Congress the authority to issue an income tax without having to determine it based on population.

17th amendment

allowed voters to cast direct votes for U.S. senators

clayton antitrust act

prohibit certain actions that lead to anti-competitiveness.

sharecropping

wealthy farmers allowed poor farmer to toil their land in exchange for some of the crop

treaty of fort laramie (1868)

guaranteed sioux native americans the right to land in the black hills