US History Chapter 16

Robber Barons

• Derogatory name referring to capitalists who built industries and acquired great wealth. 

• Were aggressive, cost-and efficiency-conscious businessmen

Cornelius Vanderbilt

• Pioneered in shipping through a ferry business

• Controlled much of New York’s waterborne shipping

  • Later controlled waterborne shipping in much of Northeast and West

• Started poor and became successful through hard work

James J. Hill

• Built the Great Northern Railroad without any special privileges or finances from the government

• Market entrepreneur

Andrew Carnegie

• Was a superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad

• Began investing in steel

• Founded Carnegie Steel and controlled every aspect of steel production from mine to markets

  • Became the largest steel company in the world

• He was also a great philanthropist

Vertical Integration

• When a company controls part of all segments of production of a good from raw material to finished product

John D. Rockefeller

• America’s first billionaire and founder of Standard Oil Company

• He was an honest administrator and was very efficient

• Counter to popular belief he was very generous

Trust

• Legal device by which a board of trustees was empowered to make decisions and control the operations of a whole group of companies

Horizontal Integration

• Consolidation of all of one entire segment of an industry

New South

• An economically revitalized south that developers, promoters, and businessmen hoped would revive the South and make it match the North as an economic force. 

• Would be built on the two T’s: tobacco and textiles

JP Morgan

• Leading investment banker in America during the Gilded Age

• Symbolized power and prestige at the top of America’s industrial pyramid

• Pioneered in finance

  • Bought and sold stocks on a grand scale

  • Bought and consolidated many businesses

  • His biggest deal was the consolidation of much of the steel industry

• Founded the United States Steel Corporation

United States Steel Corporation

• Founded by John Peirpont Morgan

• First billion dollar corporation

HJ Heinz

• Unbendingly honest food producer in Pittsburgh

• Devout Methodist

• Pioneered much of modern billboard and newspaper advertising, but refused for his products to be advertised on Sunday

• Leader in producing bottled and canned foods

• One of the only food producers to sell 100% pure products in clear bottles

• Treated his employees very well

  • The H.J. Heinz Company never had a single strike during Heinz’s life

Alexander Graham Bell

• Invented the telephone in 1876

• Scottish immigrant who taught deaf people

Thomas Alva Edison

• America’s most prolific inventor

• Responsible for more than a thousand inventions in his life

  • Invented the phonograph, the motion-picture projector, and the incandescent light bulb

Roscoe Conkling

• Controlled a notorious New York Republican political machine similar to Tammany Hall. 

  • Controlled New York’s tariff-collecting agency, the Customs House, where New York politicians manipulated records and siphoned off money ballooning to the federal government

Stalwarts

• Republicans that favored high tariffs, hard money, and the spoils system

Half-Breeds

• Moderate Republicans that were dissatisfied with Grant, Radical Republicans, and Reconstruction

• Tended to favor reform

James A Garfield

• A half-breed nominated for president for 1881 election

• Won this election against Winfield S. Hancock

• Was assassinated a few months after inauguration on July 2, 1881 by Charles J. Guiteau

Chester A Arthur

• Stalwart nominated for vice president for 1881 election

• Won with Garfield in 1881 election

• Became president after Garfield’s assassination

Mongrel Tariff

• Reduced tariff from 20% to 25%

• Many amendments from Congressman

• Mixture of inharmonious policies

• Failed to reform tariff

• Clarified party positions on tariff issue

Pendleton Act

• Established an independent Civil Service Commission and eliminated much of the spoils system

Civil Service Commission

• Responsible for seeing that only men who scored well on examinations held offices

Grover Cleveland

• Democratic presidential candidate for election of 1884

• Opponent of Tammany Hall known for his honesty

• Many Republicans known as Mugwumps supported him

• Won a narrow victory against James G. Blaine

Interstate Commerce Act

• Directed that railroad rates must be reasonable and just

• Required that railroad companies publish all rates and make financial reports

• Provided for the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), an independent regulatory agency, to investigate and stop alleged abuse

Benjamin Harrison

• Republican candidate for election of 1888

• Grandson of William Henry Harriosn

• Won the election against Cleveland

• Weak president

• President during the Billion Dollar Congress because of liberal spending

Sherman Antitrust Act

• Made the monopolizing of businesses illegal

• Relatively ineffective until the passage of tougher federal regulations in the twentieth century

McKinley Tariff

• Imposed higher duties on manufactured and agricultural imports than had any previous tariff in history, protecting American inefficiency

• The high tariff lowered revenue and radically decreased trade

• Reduced the Treasury’s reserves alarmingly

• Voters demonstrated their anger at the tariff in the congressional election of 1890 giving the Democrats advantage in the House

Knights of Labor

• Earliest significant labor union

• Formed in 1869 as a secret society of skilled and unskilled workers from various occupations

• Emerged as an effective force under the leadership of Terrance V. Powderly

• Advocated 8 hour work days, laws prohibiting child labor, and equal pay for men and women 

• More conservative than the radical unions of Europe

American Federation of Labor

• Most enduring achievement of the AFL was the acceptance of the eight hour work day as a standard

• Splinter group from the Knights of Labor

• Formed craft unions for skilled laborers

• Supported higher wages, shorter working hours, safer and cleaner working conditions, and elimination of child labors

• Unions in the AFL did not oppose cold labor 

Samuel Gompers

• Led the American Federation of labor

Haymarket Riot

• Most famous example of labor violence

• Factory workers in Chicago agitated by anarchists went on strike and demanded an 8 hour work day

• Bomb thrown into the crowd and killed seven policemen and four civilians 

• Discredited the Knights of Labor and ended the 8 hour movement for the time being 

Homestead Strike

• Strike that occurred after Carnegie’s assistant, Henry C. Frick proposed lowering the workers’ wages because of the use of new labor-saving machinery

• After 5 months of striking the workers agreed to Frick’s proposal 

Eugene V. Debs

• Founder of the American Railway Union

• Presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket

• Led the Pullman Strike

The Pullman Strike

• Precipitated by five successive wage reductions, totaling 25% in 1894. Though the reductions were due to the depression, rent on company houses and goods in company stores remained the same price

• Workers retaliated by striking and the company withdrew the strikers credit from the company stores

• Workers appealed to Debs’s American Railway Union

• Boycott resulted in destroyed engines, cars, and equipment

• Federal courts issued an injunction

Injunction

• A court order 

Socialism

• Advocates government regulation or ownership of the means of production

• Eugene V. Debs was a socialist

The Grange

• Organization of protesting farmers 

• Began to be used as a means of confronting railroads

• Made state regulations of railroads its chief goal and gained much support

• As a result, several midwestern states passed Granger Laws (legislation regulating railroads) 

• Lacked organizational strength and declined in influence 

Farmers Alliance

• Agricultural reforms surged in the 1880s with this organization

• United farm cooperatives across the country and looked to politics to meet demands such as railroad regulation, favorable currency policies, and antitrust laws

Populist Party

• Formed from independent grassroots organizations that sprang up throughout the Midwest and eventually merged through the politics of discontent

• Polled more than a million votes with their presidential candidate James B. Weaver in 1892

• Issue that dominated the movement was currency policy

  • Wanted to make both silver and gold the dual standard for American currency

Free silver

• The unlimited coinage of silver

William McKinley

• Republican nominee of the election of 1896

• Was a friend of the industrialists, a fitting candidate for the gold-standard, pro-tariff, and had a big business platform of the Republicans

• Campaign

  • Stayed home and ran a front porch campaign 

  • train loads of select audiences were given all-expense paid trips to see McKinley talk

  • Hundreds of speakers fanned out across the country to promote him

• Won the election

William Jennings Bryan

• Democratic candidate of the election of 1896

• Called the “Great Commoner” because of his genuine sympathy for the common man

• Was a remarkable political figure and fervent Christian

• Campaign

  • Went on a whirlwind tour of the country

  • Make hundreds of stops and was seen by 5 million people

• Lost the election 

urbanization

• Many farmers moved to the city because the boom in manufacturing and service industries provided jobs for both the influx of immigrants and the farmers

• Was filled with slum squalor, high crime, and dangerous diseases

New Immigration

• A wave of immigrants different from those in the past

• Many came from eastern European countries

Charles Darwin

• Wrote the Origin of Species and created the theory of natural selection- Darwinism

  • Natural selection- a process through which all current species including man have supposedly struggled and evolved

    • The survival, development, and improvement of species depend on their ability to adapt to the changes of the world

Darwinism

• Name given to the evolutionary theory that involves ‘natural selection’

• Social Darwinism- the application of the evolutionary theory to social institutions

  • Chief proponent was Herbert Spencer

  • White supremacy 

• Reform Darwinism- human progress was best achieved through cooperation rather than competition

  • Chief proponent was Lester Frank Ward

  • Believed that man was inherently good  

Mark Twain

• Samuel Langhorne Clemens

• Realism author

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnand Life on the Mississippi

Realism

• Contrasted the emotional, exotic character of romanticism

• Drew a picture of simple, ordinary life

Naturalism

• Emphasized man’s helplessness and struggle with the world 

Stephen Crane

• Used the Darwinism style of writing his his works, A Girl of the Streets and The Red Badge of Courage

• Naturalist writer

Jack London

• Wrote the Call of the Wild

• Wrote from the naturalism perspective and portrayed the triumph of brute force over the cruel world

Materialism

• The desire for worldly possessions and the belief that they can bring true happiness

• Mass production and labor saving machinery provided more people with more things and more time to enjoy them

• Became the philosophy of many Americans

Urban evangelism

• The conducting of large, citywide campaigns in huge auditoriums or large churches in major cities

Dwight L Moody

• Leader of the urban evangelism movement

• Method of speaking influenced by the business world

  • Was able to combine business practices and evangelism

• Had informal, but orderly services that were carefully planned and organized

Fanny Crosby

• The most prolific hymn writer in history

Sam Jones

• “The Moody of the South”

• Methodist preacher that spoke in a direct and blunt manner