HUSH: Part 17 - Business and Labor in the Industrial Era

Thomas Edison

one of the most successful inventors in US history who is credited for the invention of the light bulb, phonograph, motion picture camera and telegraph ticker tape.

George Westinghouse

scientist who developed an alternating current system with Nikola Tesla that helped deliver electricity over long distances, also designed the compressed air-brake the increased the safety of trains.

Standard Oil Company

corporation founded by John D. Rockefeller that attempted to dominate the entire oil industry but was forced not to by the government.

Horizontal Integration

the process by which a corporation acquires or merges with its competitors and establishes a monopoly.

Monopoly

a corporation so large that it effectively controls the entire market for its products or services, and controls product quality and pricing.

Vertical Integration

the process by which a corporation gains control of all aspects of the resources and processes needed to produce and sell a product.

Trust

a business arrangement that gives a person or corporation (the "trustee") the legal power to manage another person's money or another company without owning those entities outright.

Holding Company

a corporation established to own and manage other companies' stock, rather than to produce goods and services itself.

Bessemer Converter

apparatus that blasts air through molten iron to produce steel in very large quantities.

Carnegie Steel Company

The largest steel company in the world under the leadership of Andrew Carnegie.

JP Morgan and Company

An investment bank under the leadership of JP Morgan that bought or merged unrelated American companies, often using capital acquired from European investors.

Tariff

a tax on goods imported from other nations, typically used to protect home industries from foreign competitors and to generate revenue for the federal government.

Laissez-Faire

an economic doctrine holding that businesses and individuals should be able to pursue their economic interests without government interference.

Child Labor

the practice of sending children to work in mines, mills, and factories, often in unsafe conditions; widespread among poor families in the late nineteenth century.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

a series of demonstrations, some violent, held nationwide in support of striking railroad workers in Martingsburg, West Virginia, who refused to work due to wage cuts.

National Labor Union (NLU)

a federation of labor and reform leaders established in 1866 to advocate for new state and local laws to improve working conditions.

Knights of Labor

a national labor organization with a broad reform platform that reached peak membership in the 1880s.

Mother Jones

one of the most prominent labor agitators in American History who joined the Knights of Labor as a public speaker.

Haymarket Riot (1886)

Violent uprising in Haymarket Square, Chicago, where police clashed with labor demonstrators in the aftermath of a bombing.

Homestead Strike (1892)

labor conflict at the Homestead Steel Mill near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents hired by the factory's management.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

a national federation of trade unions made up of skilled workers that was founded in 1881.

Pullman Strike (1894)

a national strike by the American Railway Union whose members shut down major railways in sympathy with striking workers in Pullman, Illinois' ended with intervention of federal troops.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

A radical union organized in Chicago in 1905, nicknamed wobblies, but its opposition to World War I led to its destruction by the federal government under the Espionage Act