Unit 6: 1865-1898

Railroad Expansion

Played a major role in the industrialization of the United States and the occupancy and upbringing of new settlements West.

public-private partnership

A business venture approach whereby a public sector authority and a private enterprise join forces and combine resources to deliver government projects aimed at serving the public good

Panic of 1893

Serious economic depression beginning in 1893. Began due to rail road companies over-extending themselves, causing bank failures. Was the worst economic collapse in the history of the country until that point, and, some say, as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Bessemer Process

A way to manufacture steel quickly and cheaply by blasting hot air through melted iron to quickly remove impurities.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.

Vertical Integration

Practice where a single entity controls the entire process of a product, from the raw materials to distribution

Carnegie steel

A steel producing company created by Andrew Carnegie to manage business at his steel mills in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in the late 19th century. Significance: had a monopoly in the steel industry. vertical integrations.

John D. Rockefeller

Established the Standard Oil Company, the greatest, wisest, and meanest monopoly known in history

Standard Oil Company

Founded by John D. Rockefeller. Largest unit in the American oil industry in 1881. Known as A.D. Trust, it was outlawed by the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1899. Replaced by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.

Laizzez-faire

idea that government should play a small role in economic affairs

Sherman Antitrust Act

First federal action against monopolies, it was signed into law by Harrison and was extensively used by Theodore Roosevelt for trust-busting. However, it was initially misused against labor unions

Social Darwinism

The belief that only the fittest survive in human political and economic struggle.

Gospel of Wealth

This was a book written by Carnegie that described the responsibility of the rich to be philanthropists. This softened the harshness of Social Darwinism as well as promoted the idea of philanthropy.

Carnegie Hall

is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States.

Carnegie Mellon University

private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools, the university became the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912.

Labor Union Goals

Obtaining pay and working conditions that satisfy their members and of giving members a voice in decisions that affect them

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A large number of railroad workers went on strike because of wage cuts. After a month of strikes, President Hayes sent troops to stop the strike (example of how government always sided with employers over workers in the Gilded Age). The worst railroad violence was in Pittsburgh, with over 40 people killed by militia men

Eugene V. Debs

Leader of the American Railway Union, he voted to aid workers in the Pullman strike. He was jailed for six months for disobeying a court order after the strike was over.

Pullman Strike

in Chicago, Pullman cut wages but refused to lower rents in the "company town", Eugene Debs had American Railway Union refuse to use Pullman cars, Debs thrown in jail after being sued, strike achieved nothing

Haymaker Riot

At a strike for 8-hr workdays, someone threw a bomb and wounded 60+ and killed 8 people

Knights of Labor

1st effort to create National union. Open to everyone but lawyers and bankers. Vague program, no clear goals, weak leadership and organization. Failed

American Federation of Labor

1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hrs, working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent.

Old v. New Immigrants

Old: Northern European (English, Germans, Irish Catholics), assimilated easier, high skill level, often spoke English

New: South/Eastern, wouldn't assimilate, close- knit community, uneducated, poor, unskilled laborers

American Protective Association

An organization created by nativists in 1887 that campaigned for laws to restrict immigration. Immigration caused conflict in workforce because immigrants wouldn't fight for higher wages.

Chinese Exclusion Act

(1882) Denied any additional Chinese laborers to enter the country while allowing students and merchants to immigrate.

Homestead Act

1862 - Provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged westward migration.

Reservation System

The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the west, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these reservations, most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The U.S. government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the reservations at all times.

Indian Appropriations Act

Federal Act that created the reservation system. This gave Indians restricted areas known as native reservation lands

Sioux Wars

lasted from 1876-1877. These were spectacular clashes between the Sioux Indians and white men. They were spurred by gold-greedy miners rushing into Sioux land. The white men were breaking their treaty with the Indians. The Sioux Indians were led by Sitting Bull and they were pushed by Custer's forces. Custer led these forces until he was killed at the battle at Little Bighorn. Many of the Indian were finally forced into Canada, where they were forced by starvation to surrender.

Ghost Dance Movement

The last effort of Native Americans to resist US domination and drive whites from their ancestral lands, came through as a religious movement.

Dawes Act of 1887

tried to civilize Indians and make them more little settlers by giving them land to farm, instead it harmed their native culture

National Grange

Social and educational organization founded in 1867 to gain more political representation for farmers and to improve their living standards.

Patrons of Husbandry

a group organized in 1867, the leader of which was Oliver H. Kelley. It was better known as the Grange. It was a group with colorful appeal and many passwords for secrecy. The Grange was a group of farmers that worked for improvement for the farmers.

Interstate Commerce Act

Established the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) - monitors the business operation of carriers transporting goods and people between states - created to regulate railroad prices

Political Machines/Bosses

a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state

Tammany Hall

a political organization within the Democratic Party in New York city (late 1800's and early 1900's) seeking political control by corruption and bossism

Jane Addams and Hull House

Social reformer who worked to improve the lives of the working class. In 1889 she founded Hull House in Chicago, the first private social welfare agency in the U.S., to assist the poor, combat juvenile delinquency and help immigrants learn to speak English.

National American Woman Suffrage Association

a group formed by leading suffragist in the late 1800s to organize the women's suffrage movement. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Woman's Christian Temperance Union

..., an organization that blamed alcohol for crime, poverty, and violence against women and children, and fought against it.

Anti-Saloon League

National organization set up in 1895 to work for prohibition. Later joined with the WCTU to publicize the effects of drinking.

Carrie Nation

Founded WCTU to outlaw selling/drinking alcohol. She was married to an abusive man that she killed with an axe and she didn't get punished for it. She formed a group that walked into bars with axes.

Hatchetation

A violent protest against the drinking of alcohol in which the protester attacks the bar with a hatchet

Social Gospel Movement

A social reform movement that developed within religious institutions and sought to apply the teachings of Jesus directly to society

New South

After the Civil War, southerners promoted a new vision for a self-sufficient southern economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, and improved transportation. Henry Grady played an important role.

Henry Grady

Journalist from Georgia who coined the phrase "New South". Promoted his ideas through the Atlanta Constitution, as editor. He planned Atlanta's International Cotton Exposition

Plessy v. Ferguson

a 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized state ordered segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal

Jim Crow Laws

Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

seperate but equal

the judicial precedent established by in the Plessy v Ferguson decision that enabled states to interpret the equal protection provision of the fourteenth amendment as a means of establishing segregation

Muckrakers

Journalists who attempted to find corruption or wrongdoing in industries and expose it to the public

Ida B. Wells

African American journalist. published statistics about lynching, urged African Americans to protest by refusing to ride streetcards or shop in white owned stores

Booker T. Washington

African American progressive who supported segregation and demanded that African American better themselves individually to achieve equality.

W.E.B. DuBois

1st black to earn Ph.D. from Harvard, encouraged blacks to resist systems of segregation and discrimination, helped create NAACP in 1910

NAACP

Interracial organization founded in 1909 to abolish segregation and discrimination and to achieve political and civil rights for African Americans.

Guilded Age

Widespread poverty, America looked good on outside (rich like Rockefeller and Carnegie) but most people were poor(like the immigrants), period of greed and corruption.

Pendleton Act

1883 law that created a Civil Service Commission and stated that federal employees could not be required to contribute to campaign funds nor be fired for political reasons

Populist Party

U.S. political party formed in 1892 representing mainly farmers, favoring free coinage of silver and government control of railroads and other monopolies (People's party)

Omaha Platform

Political agenda adopted by the populist party in 1892 at their Omaha, Nebraska convention. Called for unlimited coinage of silver (bimetallism), government regulation of railroads and industry, graduated income tax, and a number of election reforms.

William Jennings Bryan

United States lawyer and politician who advocated free silver and prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925)

Cross of Gold Speech

An impassioned address by William Jennings Bryan at the 1896 Deomcratic Convention, in which he attacked the "gold bugs" who insisted that U.S. currency be backed only with gold.

J.P. Morgan

Banker who buys out Carnegie Steel and renames it to U.S. Steel. Was a philanthropist in a way; he gave all the money needed for WWI and was payed back. Was one of the "Robber barons"

Horizontal Integration

Absorption into a single firm of several firms involved in the same level of production and sharing resources at that level