ch16 gilded age

Statue of Liberty

America's most revered national icon, stood as a symbol of freedom to welcome immigrants

2nd Industrial Revolution

(1870 - 1914) US underwent a rapid and profound economic revolution/growth.

Thomas Edison

Era's greatest inventor, established new inventions like phonograph, lightbulb/electric power, and motion picture that transformed the whole world

Trusts

Legal devices whereby the affairs of several rival companies were managed by a single director

Vertical Integration

A company that controlled every phase of the business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution.

Horizontal Integration

Buying out competitor companies to dominate the industry and increase prices.

Philanthropy

Tycoons like Carnegie and Rockefeller gave much of their fortune away, establishing foundations to promote education and medical research

The Gospel of Wealth

By Andrew Carnegie, a philosophy asserting that wealthy industrialists had a duty to use their fortunes for the public good through large-scale philanthropy

U.S. Steel

The world's largest corporation by merging Andrew Carnegie's steel empire by vertical integration

Standard Oil Company

Carnegie did vertically integrated monopoly which dominated the drilling, refining, storage, and distribution of oil

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

Offered a shocking account of desperate conditions among the urban poor, complete with photographs of apartments in dark, airless, overcrowded tenement houses

The Gilded Age

(1870-90) Name coined by Mark Twain, plagued by corruption of corporate dominance of politics

Social Darwinism

Applying Darwin's natural selection/evolution process to human society, justifying the class divide and extreme poverty.

Liberty of Contract

Powerful legal tool used to block progressive labor reforms, defining freedom narrowly as freedom from government.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

The 1st national labor walkout in the US, workers protested a pay cut that stopped rail traffic across the country.

Labor Unions

Started in the 1880s, where workers did strikes, boycotts, and political action.

Socialism

The American middle class turned to socialism in response to extreme wealth inequality, advocating for collective ownership.

Social Gospel

Freedom and spiritual self-development require an equalization of wealth and power.

Haymarket Affair

In Chicago 1886, a rally to protest police killings of labor strikers resulted in violence and panic.

Land Grant College Acts

Provided federal lands to states to establish public universities focused on agriculture, mechanics, and military science.

Homestead Act

Offering 160 acres of free land to settlers who'd live on, improve, and farm it for five years.

Bonanza Farms

Large farms covering thousands of acres and employed large numbers of agricultural wage workers in the West.

Cattle Drives

Moving large herds of Texas longhorn cattle on foot to railheads for shipment to eastern meat markets.

Chinese Immigration

Began during the gold rush in California and continued, with families of working people immigrating East.

Transcontinental Railroad

Symbol of a reunited nation, brought thousands of newcomers to the West and stimulated expansion.

Plains Indians

Faced immense disruption from U.S. westward expansion, moving to the mounted hunting of buffalo.

Reservations

Indian Reservations were established to confine Natives to specific lands, facilitating white expansion.

Buffalo

Faced near extinction due to massive, sport-driven hunts, facilitated by railroads.

Battle of Little Bighorn

Most famous Indian victory in June 1876, symbolizing fierce resistance to U.S. expansion.

Indian Boarding Schools

Government-funded schools where Indian children were forcibly abducted and abused for speaking their Native languages.

Dawes Act

Law authorized the President to break up reservation land into small allotments for individuals.

Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890

Fearing a native uprising, the US government sent troops to fire on a party near Wounded Knee Creek.