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Due to industrialization, what became less and less important?
Skilled workers; trades
Describe Taylorism, also known as scientific management.
Increased efficiency by subdividing tasks; interchangeability
Which robber baron is most famous for utilizing “Taylorism” towards his famous assembly line?
Henry Ford (automobiles)
Who brought in a production manager from Colt firearms to increase productivity in his mechanical reaper production?
Cyrus McCormick
What institution was a legal mechanism for enterprises to marshal capital while limiting shareholders’ liability?
Corporations
What is the biggest obstacle for profit?
Competition
How would corporations limit competition?
Form pools or trusts, enter price-fixing agreements, divide markets, merge into consolidations
Name one example of one of the 41 separate consolidations that controlled over 70% of their market.
General Electric, DuPont, United States Steel
Which robber baron oversaw the formation of US Steel, built from 8 leading steel companies and what became the world’s first billion-dollar company?
JP Morgan
What is the consolidation called when it controls the market?
Monopoly
The notion of a glittering world of wealth and technological innovation masking massive social inequities and deep-seated corruption gave the era its most common label, the ___.
Gilded Age
Who coined that term?
Mark Twain and Charles Warner
There are two mainstream terms for these financial leaders of the Gilded Age: robber barons and what else?
“Titans of Industry”
How bad was the financial inequality of the titans? In other words, in 1890, the top 1% of Americans controlled how much of the nation’s assets?
Top 10%? 25%; over 70%
Which titan got his money through being a railroad operator?
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Which titan got his money through being an oilman?
JD Rockefeller
Which titan got his money through being a steel magnate?
Andrew Carnegie
Which titan got his money through being a banker?
JP Morgan
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was applied to society and popularized this phrase, in reference to “superior” people would do well, and the weak would falter.
Survival of the fittest
This phrase is the mantra of which philosophy that spread among wealthy Americans and their defenders?
Social Darwinism
Which fan of Darwin brought this theory to the US through his book Synthetic Philosophy?
Herbert Spencer
Which political party was pro-business from the Civil War and into the Gilded Age?
Republican Party
How do we know?
Republicans gave millions of dollars and acres of land to railroad companies
How did this party shield American businesses from foreign competition?
High protective tariffs
Were the average Americans pro-business?
No
How did these workers attempt to improve their ways of life?
Strikes
What convinced workers of the need to organize into unions?
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
What led to the success of the Knights of Labor?
Open membership (all can join, including women, skilled or unskilled laborers)
How would managers of factories break strikes?
They would hire scabs in place of the union members on strike, hire Pinkerton detectives to infiltrate unions and keep them out of factories, and they would promote the negative things strikers were doing in the newspaper to gain public support
What was the main rallying cry of the Knights of Labor?
8-hour work day
When was the organized nationwide strike for the 8-hour day?
May 1, 1886
In response to the strikes in Chicago, police forces killed several workers to break up the protests outside McCormick reaper works. Labor leaders organized a protest in response, which led to what event happening?
Haymarket Riot; a bomb went off and killed seven officers
What was the main consequence of the Haymarket Riot?
Many Americans began to associate unionism with radicalism and violence
How did the Knights’ successor American Federation of Labor differ?
Rather than have “open membership,” was an alliance of craft unions; a more conservative approach to unions
At what strike were Pinkerton detectives defeated in 1892?
Homestead Strike of 1892
Who owned the factory? Who operated the plant?
Carnegie; Henry Clay Frick
What was the cause of the Pullman strike?
George Pullman cut wages by a quarter but kept prices in his company town constant
What did Eugene Debs do in response?
Instigated a “sympathy strike” through the American Railway Union; the ARU would refuse to handle any Pullman cars on any rail line in the country
How did the Pullman strike end?
President Grover Cleveland dispatched troops to break the strike, a federal court issued an injunction against Debs and arrested him.
Who else was affected negatively by the Gilded Age, aside from laborers?
Farmers
How did the farmers fight the Gilded Age economists and politics?
Farmers’ Alliance
What was the Farmers’ Alliance?
Farmers would form “cooperatives” to share machinery, bargain from wholesalers, and negotiate higher prices for crops.
Because these farmers felt their voices were not heard by the two major political parties, what party did they come together and form?
The People’s Party, or Populists
At their first national convention, they established their vision and mission of what the party wanted to accomplish based on their cooperation program, named after the location of the convention.
Omaha Platform
What was on this platform? List 3.
Expanded federal power; nationalize the railroads and communications (telegraphs) to ensure they’re performed in the best interests of the people, advocated for savings banks to help farmers earn credit, direct election of senators, bimetallism (monetize silver), secret ballot voting, graduated income tax.
Who was the first presidential candidate of the Populists in 1892 (earned over 1 million popular and 22 electoral votes)?
James B. Weaver
Which Populist speaker called on farmers to “raise less corn and more Hell”?
Mary Elizabeth Lease
How did the Populists respond to the Panic of 1893?
Due to their increased credibility, gave stump speeches across the country, “stumping” and blaming the greed of business elites and corrupt party politicians for causing the crisis. Won six Senate seats and seven representatives in Congress.
How strong was the Populist movement in the South? Why?
Southern Populists failed to balance their call to action of the working class and their favor of white supremacy.
Who was the presidential candidate of both the Populists AND the Democratic Party in the election of 1896?
William Jennings Bryan
What was his biggest campaign promise?
Free coinage of silver (bimetallism)
What was his famous speech in support of bimetallism and against the gold standard?
“Cross of Gold” speech
Who did the Republicans run in opposition to Bryan? What was his platform?
William McKinley, champion of business and the gold standard
Who won, and why?
McKinley; his campaign spend five times that of Bryan
What law ended the monetary policy debate?
Gold Standard Act of 1900
Why is the Populist Party considered the most significant third-party movement in American history?
Many policies outlined within the Omaha Platform would eventually be put into law over the following decades
Which later political movement contains a lot of the policies of the Populist Party?
Progressive movement
Following his prison sentence, Eugene Debs became a what?
Socialist
Which socialist labor union was formed by William D. “Big Bill” Haywood in 1905?
Industrial Workers of the World, or “Wobblies”
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Flashcard (27)