The Gilded Age: Big Business, Labor Unions, Urbanization, and Political Machines

Vocabulary flashcards covering Gilded Age topics including big business, labor unions, working conditions, political machines, urban poverty, and industrialization based on lecture notes.

Pros of Big Business

Advantages during the Gilded Age including increased production efficiency leading to lower prices, the capacity to hire more workers, high-quantity production, and available resources for expensive research and inventing new items.

Cons of Big Business

Disadvantages during the Gilded Age including an unfair competitive advantage over smaller businesses, exploitation of workers, environmental pollution, indifference to operational locations, and unfair influence over government policies.

Morris Rosenfeld

A Russian-Polish immigrant garment worker in New York City who authored the poem "The Sweatshop," describing how noisy machinery and endless labor destroyed his selfhood and made him feel like a machine.

Sweatshop

A small urban workshop or factory characterized by wildly noisy machinery, dangerous working conditions, long hours, and severe tumult.

Gilded Age Working Conditions

Labor conditions characterized by workdays of 10 to 14 hours, 6 days a week, low weekly wages ranging from $3 to $12, and hazardous un-fenced machinery causing thousands of injuries and deaths annually.

Child Labor

The practice of employing children in textile mills and coal mines because they were small enough to fit between machine parts, exposing them to high injury rates and depriving them of school, play, sunshine, and fresh air.

Andrew Carnegie

A major Gilded Age business owner who utilized immigrant labor and declared he would rather shut down his factories than negotiate with labor unions.

Labor Union

An organization formed by workers to act as a unified group rather than individuals, organizing strikes and protests to demand higher pay, shorter hours, and safer working conditions.

Knights of Labor

A major union formed in 1869 that joined both skilled and unskilled workers, demanded an 8-hour workday, higher wages, and safety codes, supported equal pay and conditions for women and children, and favored restrictions on immigration.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

A labor union founded by Samuel Gompers that created a powerful alliance specifically for skilled workers, such as carpenters, across similar trades.

Samuel Gompers

The founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who organized skilled workers into trade unions to demand better pay and working conditions from employers.

Haymarket Square Riot

A labor protest seeking an 8-hour workday that turned violent when a bomb was thrown at the police, resulting in at least 8 deaths and widespread public blame placed on labor unions.

Pullman Strike

A labor strike that turned violent after company owner George Pullman increased workday hours, cut worker wages, and maintained high rents in his company-owned town.

Gilded Age Government Attitude Toward Labor

A prevailing pro-business climate where the government feared union strikes would harm the economy, while the public largely believed owners had the right to hire and fire workers as they pleased.

Political Machine

An urban organization that controlled political parties in cities, guaranteed election outcomes, and ensured government operations worked to its own advantage.

Political Boss

The head of a political machine who controlled jobs and city services, providing housing and employment to new immigrants in exchange for guaranteed votes.

The Two I's of Political Bosses

Immigrants and Infrastructure—the two key focus areas of political bosses, who constructed city infrastructure and provided aid to incoming immigrants to secure political votes.

Boss Tweed

The corrupt head of Tammany Hall, New York City's most powerful political machine, who led corrupt politicians and stole large sums of money from the city.

Tammany Hall

New York City's most powerful political machine during the Gilded Age, famously led by Boss Tweed.

Spoils System

The corrupt practice of giving government positions to political friends and supporters regardless of qualification, allowing individuals to use public office for private monetary gain.

Gilded Age Election Fraud

Corrupt voting methods employed by political machines to win elections, including casting votes under fake names, voting multiple times, bribing voters, and accepting kickbacks.

Urbanization

The rapid growth of cities, evidenced by the U.S. urban population expanding from 20% in 1860 to 35% in 1890, and an overall national population jump from 2 million to 76 million between 1865 and 1900.

Dumbbell Tenement

Overcrowded city apartment housing marked by severe sanitation problems, raw sewage, outhouses, piled-up garbage, horse manure, disease, and difficulty supplying clean water.

Gilded Age Poverty Statistics

Socioeconomic figures showing 11 to 12 million people earning less than $120 per year, 70% of city populations living in poverty, and approximately 30,000 street children in New York City.