Unfinished Nation - Chapter 17 Key Terms

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

union of skilled workers, formed in 1881 and led by Samuel Gompers, that used strikes to gain concessions from management

American Socialist Party

political party for economic reform created in 1901 that was closely aligned with organized labor

Andrew Carnegie

Scottish immigrant who became a steel magnate and then philanthropist during the Gilded Age

Edward Bellamy

author of the utopian novel Looking Backward (1888) in which government monopolies created an equitable society

Eugene V. Debs

leader of the American Railway Union in the Pullman strike of 1894; presidential candidate for the Socialist Party

gospel of wealth

term popularized by Andrew Carnegie to argue that those with immense wealth carry a greater burden to use that wealth for social progress

Haymarket bombing

in a clash between striking laborers and police in Chicago on May 1, 1886, an unknown person threw a bomb into a crowd killing seven police and injuring nearly seventy others

Henry Ford

early leader of the automobile industry who stressed the standardization of parts and assembly lines

Henry George

author of Progress and Poverty (1879), which argued for tax reform on land as a way to break the power of monopolies

Homestead strike

a strike of the steel mill union in 1892 that led to armed conflict and the involvement of state militia

Horatio Alger

author of Gilded Age books whose hardworking heroes go from "rags to riches"

horizontal integration

a corporate combination where a group of businesses that do the same thing are consolidated

John D. Rockefeller

founder of Standard Oil, famous for horizontal and vertical integration, and the wealthiest man of the Gilded Age

J.P. Morgan

banker and creator of U.S. Steel

Knights of Labor

short-lived early national labor union that championed eight-hour workdays and the end of child labor, open to almost all workers

Louisa May Alcott

author of the Little Women series about an ambitious girl who fought conventional society to become a writer

Molly Maguires

a secret society of Irish-born coal miners willing to use violence to deal with management

monopoly

a business entity that controls an industry or market sector without competition

Pullman strike

a 1894 railroad strike that escalated to twenty-seven states and territories, ultimately broken by federal troops and resulting in management's victory

Samuel Gompers

union organizer under whose leadership the American Federation of Labor (AFL) grew by combining similar skilled unions together

Social Darwinism

the belief that societies are subject to the laws of natural selection and that some societies or peoples are innately superior to others

Taylorism

named for Frederick Winslow Taylor, an attempt to use scientific management to improve factory production

vertical integration

the arrangement by which a company takes ownership of businesses in various stages of production and distribution within the same industry

Wilbur and Orville Wright

builders of the first self-powered airplane, successfully flown in 1903