Apush Final Review Pt. 9 (Chapters 17+18)

Steel

• The other most important technological development

• The production of it had developed hardly at all by the end of the Civil war 

• In the 1870s and 1880s, its production made great strides toward what would soon be its dominance in the metals industry

Henry Bessemer

• An englishman

• Developed a process for converting iron into the much more durable and versatile steel

“Internal combustion engine”

• In the 1870s, designers in France, Germany, and Austria inspired by the success of railroad engines had begun the development of this 

• Used the expanding power of burning gas to drive pistons

Charles & Frank Duryea

• They built the first gasoline-driven motor vehicle in America in 1893

Henry Ford

3 years after the Dureyas, he produced the first of the famous cars that would eventually bear his name

Wilbur & Orville Wright

• Experimented with gliders to see if they could somehow be used to propel humans through the air 

• They owned a bicycle shop in which they began to construct a glider that could be propelled through the air by an internal combustion engine 

• In 1903, Orville made a celebrated test flight in NC, in which an airplane took off by itself and traveled 20 feet in 12 seconds  

• By 1904, the Wright brothers had improved the plane to the point where they were able to fly over 23 miles, and in the following year they began to take a few passengers with them on their flights

“Scientific management”/ “Taylorism”

• Many industrialists were turning to new principles of “scientific management” 

• Those principles were often known as “Taylorism” after Frederick WInslow Taylor

Moving assembly line

• Introduced by Henry Ford in 1914 

• This revolutionary technique cut the time for assembling a chassis from 12 ½ hours to 1 ½ hours 

• It enabled Ford to raise the wages and reduce the hours of his workers while cutting the base price of his Model T from $950 in 1914 to $290 in 1929

• It became a model for many other industries

Cornelius Vanderbilt

• Tycoon 

• The achievements of him became a symbol to much of the nation of great economic power concentrated in individual hands

Stock

• Under the laws of incorporation, business organizations could raise money by selling stock to members of the public after the civil war 

• Americans began to consider the purchase of stock a good investment even if they were not involved in the business whose stock they were purchasing

“Limited liability”

• This made the practice of stock appealing 

• Investors risked only the amount of their investments; they were not liable for any debts the corporation might accumulate beyond that 

• The ability to sell stock to a brod public made it possible for entrepreneurs to gather vast sums of capital and undertake great projects

Andrew Carnegie

• Central figure in steel 

• Scottish immigrant who had worked his way up from modest beginnings and opened his own steelworks in Pittsburgh, and dominated the industry

• He cut costs and prices by striking deals with the railroads and then bought out rivals who could not compete with him 

• He controlled the processing of his steel from mine to market 

• Financed his undertakings not only out of his own profits, but out of the sale of stock as well

Henry Clay Frick

• Carnegie’s associate 

• With the help of him, him and Carnegie brought up coal mines and leased part of the Mesabi iron-ore range in Minnesota

• They operated a fleet of ore ships on the great lakes, and acquired railroads

J. Pierpont Morgan

• Carnegie sold out for $450 million to this banker 

• He merged the Carnegie interests with others to create the United States Steel Corporation

United States Steel Corporation

• Created by Morgan 

• A $1.4 billion enterprise that controlled almost two-thirds of the nation’s steel production

“Horizontal integration”

• One of the methods business men used to create large consolidated organizations 

• The combining of a number of firms engaged in the same enterprise into a single corporation 

• The consolidation of many different railroad lines into one company was an example

“Vertical integration”

• The other of the methods business men used to create large consolidated organizations

• The taking over of all the different businesses on which a company relied for its primary function

Carnegie Steel

• Example of “vertical integration”

• Andrew Carnegie’s company

John D. Rockefeller

• The most celebrated corporate empire of the late 19th century was his Standard Oil 

• Shortly after the civil war, he launched a refining company in Cleveland and immediately began trying to eliminate his competition 

• Allied himself with other wealthy capitalists, and proceeded methodically to buy out competing refineries 

• He forms the Standard Oil Company of Ohio 

• He began expanding vertically as well and built his own barrel factories, terminal warehouses, and pipelines 

• By 1880, he had established such dominance within the petroleum industry that to much of the nation he served as the leading symbol of monopoly 

• He controlled access to 90% of the refined oil in the United States

Standard Oil Company of Ohio

• Formed by Rockefeller

• Within a few years, it had acquired 20 of the 25 refineries in Cleveland, as well as plants in Pittsburgh, New York City, and Baltimore 

• Its owned its freight cars and developed its own marketing organization

Pool arrangements/ cartels

• The railroads began making these

• Informal agreements among various companies to stabilize rates and divide markets 

• They did not work very well

• If even a few firms in an industry were unwilling to cooperate, these arrangements collapsed

“Trust”

• The most successful new technique of consolidation  

• Pioneered by Standard Oil in the early 1880s and perfected by Morgan 

• Overtime, it became a term for any great economic combination 

• Under a trust agreement, stockholders in individual corporations transferred their stocks to a small group of trustees in exchange for shares in trust itself 

• Owners of trust certificates often had no direct control over the decisions of the trustees; they received a share of the profits of the combination 

• The trustees themselves might literally own a few companies but could still exercise effective control over many

“Holding company”

• Rockefeller created one in New Jersey 

• A central corporate body that would buy up the stock of various members of the Standard Oil trust and establish direct, formal ownership of the corporations in the trust

Philanthropy

• The term has come to mean large-scale giving by wealthy individuals 

• Carnegie accumulated a huge fortune in industry but devoted the last two decades of his life to philanthropy, and established by successful places giving back to people 

• Carnegie established the Carnegie Corporation of New York to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding

Social Darwinism

• The application of Charles Darwin’s laws of evolution and natural selection among species to human society 

• Social darwinists claimed in human society only the fittest individuals survived and flourished in the marketplace

“Invisible hand”

• Aspect of law of supply and demand 

The Gospel of Wealth

• People of great wealth were advocates of this idea

• They thought that it was their duty to use their riches to advance social progress 

• Carnegie wrote a book with this title, in which he wrote that wealthy should consider all revenues in excess of their own needs as “trust funds” to be used for the good of the community

Noble Order of the Knights of Labor

• The first genuinely national labor organization 

• Under the leadership of Uriah S. Stephens 

• Membership was opened to all who toiled a definition that included all workers and most business and professional people 

• The only excluded groups were lawyers, bankers, liquor dealers, and professional gamblers 

• Unlike most labor organizations of this time, they welcomed women members, not just female factory workers, but domestic servants and women who worked in their own homes

Uriah S. Stephens

• Led the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor 

Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions of the U.S. and Canada/ American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Formed by representatives of a number of existing craft Unions 

• It soon became the most important and enduring labor group in the country 

• Rejected the Knights' idea of one big union for everybody 

• An association of autonomous craft unions and represented mainly skilled workers 

• Generally hostile to organizing unskilled workers, who did not fit comfortably within the craft-based structure of existing organizations 

• They believed women were weak and employers could easily take advantage of them by paying them less than men 

• As a result, women workers drove down wages for everyone 

• Concentrated on the relationship between labor and management

• Supported better wages and working conditions and it was ready to use strikes if necessary

Samuel Gompers

• Said that it is the the so called competition of the unorganized defenseless woman worker, that often tends to reduce the wages of the father and husband 

• Talked often about the importance of women remaining in the home

• Argued that there is no necessity of the wife contributing to the support of the family by working

• Believed that a test of a man’s worth was his ability to support a family and that women in the workforce would undermine men’s positions as heads of their families  

• His goal was to secure for workers a greater share of capitalism’s material rewards 

• Opposed the creation of a worker’s party he was generally hostile to any government efforts to protect labor or improve working conditions

Haymarket Square Riot/Bombing

• City police had been harassing the strikers, and labor and radical leaders called a protest meeting here 

• When the police ordered the crowd to disperse, someone threw a bomb that killed seven officers and injured 67 other people 

• The police, who had killed 4 strikers the day before, fired into the crowd and killed four more people 

• Frightened and outraged Americans demanded retribution even though no one knew who had thrown the bomb 

• Chicago officials finally rounded up 8 anarchists and charged them with murder and all 8 scapegoats were found guilty after a trial 

• 7 sentenced to death, one committed suicide

Homestead Plant/Strike

• The steel industry reduced the companies’ dependence on skilled labor 

• In the carnegie system, the union had a foothold in only this, one of the corporation’s 3 major factories 

• By 1890, Carnegie and frick had decided that the Amalgamated had to go even at Homestead 

• Over the next two years, they repeatedly cut wages at Homestead 

• At first, the union acquiesced, aware that it was not strong enough to wage a successful strike 

• In 1892, the company stopped even discussing its decisions with the Amalgamated in effect denying the union’s right to negotiate 

• When Frick announced another wage cut at Homestead and gave the union two days to accept it, the Amalgamated called for a strike 

• Frick abruptly shut down the plant

Pinkerton Detective Agency

• When Frick shut down the plant, he called in 300 guards from this agency to enable the company to hire nonunion workers 

• They were hated and well known strikebreakers, and their mere presence was often enough to incite workers to violence 

• They approached the plant by river on barges and the strikers prepared for them by pouring oil on the water and setting it on fire

• They also met the guards at the docks with guns and dynamite 

• After several hours of pitched battle, during which three guards and ten strikers were killed and many other injured, they surrendered and were escorted roughly out of town

Pullman Palace Car Company/Strike

• Manufactured sleeping and parlor cars for railroads, which it build and repaired at a plant near Chicago 

• The company built a 600 acre town, named Pullman, and rented its trim, orderly houses to employees 

• Slashed wages by 25%, citing declining revenues the depression that began in 1983 was causing 

• At the same time, Pullman refused to reduce rents in its model town, which were 20-25% higher than rents for comparable accommodations in surrounding areas 

• Within a few days thousands of railroad workers in 27 states and territories were on strike, and transportation from chicago to the Pacific coast was paralyzed

American Railway Union

• Workers in the Pullman company went on strike and persuaded the this militant union to support them by refusing to handle Pullman cars and equipment 

Eugene V. Debs

• Led the American Railway Union 

Frederick Law Olmsted

• One of the most successful American promoters of the notion of the great urban parks as refuge 

• These reflected the desire of a growing number of urban leaders to provide an antidote to the congestion of the city landscape 

• Landscape designer

Calvert Vaux

• One of the most successful American promoters of the notion of the urban park as refuge

• Landscape designer  

• Teamed up w/ Olmsted to design New York City’s Central Park

“Streetcar suburbs”

• The moderately well-to-do took advantage of the less expensive land on the edges of the city and settled in new suburbs 

• Boston saw the development of some of the earliest of these 

• Dorchester, Brookline and others which catered to both the wealthy and middle class

“Tenement”

• Originally referred to simply a multiple family rental building, but by the late 19th century it was being used to describe slum dwellings only 

• The first of these were built in NYC and had been hailed as a great improvement in housing for the poor 

• They soon became miserable with many windowless rooms, little or no plumbing or central heating, and often a row of privies in the basement

• A NY state law required then required a window in every bedroom build after that date 

• They were incredibly crowded with 3, 4, and sometimes many more people crammed into each small room

Jacob Riis

• Danish immigrant and New York newspaper reporter and photographer 

• Shocked many middle-class Americans with his sensational book How the Other Half Lives

How the Other Half Lives

• Written by Riis 

• Descriptions and pictures of tenement life 

• Said that they were almost universally sunless, practically airless, and poisoned by summer stenches 

• The solution many reformers favored was to raze slum dwellings without building any new or better housing to replace them

“Great fires”

• One of the serious problems in the cities 

• In one major city after another, fires destroyed large downtown areas, where many buildings were still constructed of wood 

• Chicago and Boston suffered what were known as these in 1871

• Terrible and deadly experiences, but they also encouraged the construction of fireproof buildings and the development of professional fire departments 

• They also forced cities to rebuild at a time when ne technological and architectural innovations were available 

• Some of the modern high-rise downtowns of American cities arose out of the rubble of great fires

Salvation Army

• Charitable society 

• Began operation in America in 1879, one year after it was founded in London 

• Concentrated more on religious revivalism than on the relief of the homeless and hungry 

• Tensions often arose between native Protestant philanthropists and Catholic immigrants over religious doctrine and standards of morality

“Bosses”

• Any politician who could mobilize the power of voting in an immigrant community stood to gain enormous influence if not in public office 

• There emerged of group of urban “bosses”, themselves often of foreign birth or parentage 

• Many were irish, because they spoke english and because some had acquired previous political experience from the long irish struggle against the English at home, and almost all were men

• The principal function of the political boss was to win votes for his organization which mean winning the loyalty of his constituents

• To do so, a boss might provide potential voters with occasional relief, baskets of groceries, bags of coal

Tammany Hall

• George Washington Plunkitt was from it

• New York City 

• Corruption associated with it 

• Saw its candidates for mayor and other high city offices lose almost as often as they won in the last decades of the 19th century

William. M. Tweed

• The most famously corrupt city boss 

• Boss of New York City’s Tammany Hall in the 1860s and 1870s 

• His excesses finally landed him in jail in 1872

Vaudeville

• A form of theater adapted from French models

• The most popular urban entertainment in the first decades of the 20th century 

• Even saloons and small community theaters could afford t offer their customers this, which consisted of a variety of acts and was inexpensive to produce 

• One of the few entertainment media open to African American performers 

• They brought to it elements of the minstrel shows they had earlier developed for AA audiences in the late 19th century

Thomas Edison

• The most important form of mass entertainment was the movies 

• Him and others had dreaded the technology of the motion picture in the 1880s 

• Soon, short films became available to individual viewers though “peep shows” in pool halls, penny arcades, and amusement parks 

• Larger projectors made it possible to project the images onto big screens, which permitted substantial audiences to see films in theaters

D.W. Griffith

• Carried the motion picture into a new era with his silent epics 

• Examples were The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and others which introduced serious plots and elaborate productions to filmmaking

Birth of a Nation

• Film created by Griffith 

• Celectration of the Ku Klux Klan and its demeaning portraits of African Americans 

• Also contained notoriously racist messages, an indication, among other things, that the audiences for these early films were overwhelmingly white

Anti-Saloon League

• An important setting or the leisure time of working-class men was the neighborhood saloon, which became a place where a worker could be sure of encountering a regular circle of friends 

• They became political centers: saloon keepers were especially important figures in urban political machines, largely because they had regular contact with so many men in a neighborhood 

• Organizations like this one and other temperance organizations attacked the saloons 

• They would weaken political machines 

• Opponents also noted correctly that saloons were sometimes places of crime, violence, and prostitution, and entryway to the dark underworld of urban life

William Randolph Hearst

• By the turn of the century, important newspaper chains had emerged as well 

• The most power was his chain which by 1914 controlled nine newspapers and two magazines

Joseph Pulitzer

• Hearst’s rival publisher 

“Yellow journalism”

• Pulitzer and Hearst helped popularize what became known as this

• A deliberately sensational, often lurid style of reporting presented in bold graphics, designed to reach a mass audience

Upton Sinclair

• Socialist writer who published The Jungle 

• This novel was designed to reveal the depravity of capitalism 

• It exposed abuses in the American meatpacking industry

• While it did not inspire the kind of social response for which Sinclair had hoped, it did help produce legislative action to deal with the problem

Charles Darwin

• The widespread acceptance of the theory of evolution, associated with the most prominently with this English naturalist 

“Natural selection”

• Darwinism argued that the human species had evolved from earlier forms of life through a process of this 

• It challenged the biblical story of the Creation and almost every other tenet of traditional American religious faith 

• Suggested that history was not the working out of a divine plan, as most Americans had always believed 

• It was a random process dominated by the fiercest or luckiest competitors 

• It met widespread resistance at first from educators, theologians, and even many scientists 

• By the end of the century, evolutionists had converted most members of the urban professional and educated classes 

• The rise of Darwinism was contributing to a deep schism between the new cosmopolitan culture of the city 

• Promoted the growth of anthropology and encouraged some scholars to begin examining other cultures 

• A few white Americans began to look at Native American society as a coherent culture with its own norms that were worth their respect

Social Darwinism

• An intellectual current that Darwinism spread 

• Used to justify their favored position in American life