Late 19th Century Industrialization and Immigration

Key terms and figures related to the industrial revolution, organized labor, and immigration in the late 19th-century United States.

Bessemer Process

A processor purifying iron to make strong, but lightweight steel

Corporation

When a number of people share the ownership of a business

Horizontal Integration

Combining many firms/businesses in the same field or business

Monopoly

Complete control of a product or service

trust

When companies assigned their stock to a board of trustees, who combines them into a new organization that the trustees run

entrepreneurs

People who build and manage businesses or enterprises in order to make a profit

Laissez-faire

Policies which allowed businesses to operate under minimal government regulation

Protective Tariffs

Taxes that made imported goods cost more than those made in the United States

Thomas Edison

A creative genius who had only a few months of formal education, held $1000$ patents, invented the lightbulb, and developed plans for central power plants

John D. Rockefeller

An Ohio oil tycoon who made agreements with railroads that made it difficult for his competitors to ship their products

Andrew Carnegie

Owner of a steel business who had the first monopoly; he gained control of businesses in all stages of manufacturing, including coal mines, open ores, ships, and railroads

Vertical Integration

A method that allowed companies to reduce costs and charge higher prices to competitors by controlling all stages of manufacturing

Social Darwinism

A theory created by Yale professor William Graham Sumner stating wealth was a measure of one's inherent value and those who had it were the most "fit"

Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

Made by congress in $1887$ to monitor railroad shipping rates, but only over state lines

Sherman Antitrust Act

Outlawed any trust that operated "in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states"

sweatshops

Small, poorly ventilated shops or apartments crammed with workers, often family members, who pieced together garments

collective bargaining

Negotiating as a group with an employer for higher wages or better working conditions

Socialism

An economic and political system philosophy that favors public, instead of private, control of property and income

Samuel Gompers

A poor jewish immigrant who became the head of cigamakers union in New York and helped found the American Federation of Labor (AFL)

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

A loose organization of some $100$ unions of skilled workers devoted to specific crafts

Haymarket Riot

An $1886$ labor-related protest in Chicago which included anarchists or radicals and ended in deadly violence on May $4$, $1886$

Homestead Strike

$1892$ strike against Carnegie's steelworks in Homestead, Pennsylvania

Eugene V. Debs

Founder of the American railway union (ARU), which was an industrial union that group all railroad workers together

Pullman Strike

Violent $1894$ railway workers' strike which began outside of Chicago and spread nationwide

New Immigrants

Southern and Eastern European immigrants who arrived in the United States in a great wave between $1880$ and $1920$

Ellis Island

Island in New York Harbor that served as an immigration station for millions of immigrants arriving to the United States

Angel Island

A processing center for Chinese immigrants, opened in San Francisco Bay in $1910$

Americanization

Volunteer institutions known as settlement houses to help new comers learn English and adopt American dress and diet

Nativism

Inclination to favor native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants

Chinese Exclusion Act

$1882$ law that prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers

Urbanization

Expansion of cities and/or an increase in the number of people living in them

mass transit

Public transportation systems that carry large numbers of people

Tenements

Multistory buildings divided into apartments to house as many residents as possible

Gilded Age

Term coined by Mark Twain to describe the post-Reconstruction era as a facade of prosperity