Gilded Age / Industrialization

Robber Barons

Powerful industrialists who controlled major industries and were criticized for unfair business practices and exploiting workers. Vanderbilt = railroads, Carnegie = steel, Rockefeller = oil, J.P. Morgan = banking.

Haymarket Riot

1886 labor protest in Chicago where a bomb was thrown during a confrontation between police and demonstrators. Several people died, and anarchists were blamed and prosecuted.

Eugene Debs

Railroad union leader and socialist who believed capitalism was unfair and fought for workers' rights.

People's Party

Political movement that opposed powerful elites and wanted to give more political and economic power to ordinary people and farmers.

William Jennings Bryan

Democrat who supported free silver and was endorsed by the Populist Party. Lost the 1896 election to McKinley.

William McKinley

Republican president who defeated Bryan and supported the gold standard.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation under the idea of "separate but equal."

Free Silver

Movement to allow silver to be used along with gold as money, increasing the money supply and helping farmers and debtors.

Jim Crow

Laws and practices that enforced racial segregation and discrimination against Black Americans.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Black scholar and civil rights activist who criticized Booker T. Washington for being too willing to accept segregation. He demanded immediate civil and political rights.

Booker T. Washington

Black educator who emphasized vocational education, job skills, and building strong Black communities.

Atlanta Compromise Speech

Booker T. Washington's 1895 speech encouraging Black Americans to focus on economic advancement and education while temporarily accepting segregation.

Thomas Edison

Inventor associated with major developments in electricity and electrical technology, including the practical electric light bulb.

Social Darwinism

Applied "survival of the fittest" to society to justify wealth inequality, class differences, and poverty.

Lochner v. New York

Supreme Court case that struck down a New York law limiting bakery workers' hours, arguing that the law interfered with freedom of contract.

Jane Addams

Progressive reformer who founded Hull House, which provided services to immigrants and the urban poor.

Muller v. Oregon

1908 Supreme Court case that upheld limits on women's working hours because the state had an interest in protecting women's health.

Frederick Winslow Taylor

Developed scientific management, trying to make businesses more efficient by carefully studying workers and production.

Muckrakers

Writers who exposed corruption, unsafe conditions, political problems, and abuses in business and government.

16th Amendment

1913 amendment that established the federal income tax.