Chapter 17 & 18 Vocabulary

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

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

Homestead Act

 Federal legislation permitting any citizen or prospective citizen, including feed slaves, to purchase 160 acres of public land in the Western United States for a small fee after living on it for five years

Chinese Exclusion Act

The federal law of 1882 that blocked Chinese immigration and prevented those Chinese already living in America from becoming citizens for ten years

John D. Rockefeller

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

Jacob Riis

New York newspaper photographer who wrote How the Other Half Lives, which used photos and words to expose the harshness of tenement life

Andrew Carnegie

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

Henry Ford

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

Horatio Alger

Author of Gilded Age books whose hardworking heroes go from “rags to riches”

Samuel Gompers

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

Eugene Debs

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

Tenements

By the late nineteenth century, this was a descriptor used for slum dwellings

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

Monopoly

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

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

American Federation of Labor

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

Horizontal integration

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

Vertical integration

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

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

Tammany Hall

Urban machine led by famously corrupt city boss William M. Tweed