Gilded Age and Progressive Era Review

Americanization

This process was designed to make immigrants more "Americanized". It included learning to dress, speak, and act like other Americans. This was done through the schools.

Assimilation

is the process by which a person or a group's language and/or culture come to resemble those of another group.

Andrew Carnegie

This man was the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company & promoted philanthropy among wealthy industrialists known as the Gospel of Wealth.

Big Business

During the Gilded Age, the economy saw a rise in this, often seen as more efficient but also as unfair competition.

Chinese Exclusion Act

This was the first (1882) to limit the immigration of a specific group.

Collective Bargaining

Negotiations between employees and employers regarding the conditions of employment. This can prevent strikes.

New Immigrants

This group of people who came to America were opposed by Nativists and attributed to urbanization. Mainly from South East Europe after 1880

Industrialization

New inventions led to the growth of industry in the United States. This in turn led to a move to urban centers (cities) where individuals often found themselves living in crowded conditions.

Labor Unions

These are formed in response to poor working conditions and low wages. (Ex: Knights of Labor, American Federation of Labor)

Laissez Faire

This theory refers to a lack of government interference in American business through regulations. It is known as a "Hands Off Approach"

Monopoly

total control of a type of industry by one person or one company

Nativist

a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants.

Philanthropy

The practice of giving money to help make life better for others. This was practiced by Captains of Industry during the Gilded Age.

Rural

Americans move from this to the urban areas because of increased job opportunities in the cities.

Standard of Living

The new technological innovations in both transportation and communication saw an improvement of material comfort available to a person or community.

Urban

This term has to do with cities.

Urbanization

This is caused by the increase of immigrants and individuals locating to the cities & can lead to overcrowding, tenements, poor sanitation).

Capitalism

Economic system based on private ownership of means of production

Reform

make changes in (something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it

Socialism

economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole

Progressive Movement

an early 20th century reform movement seeking to return control of the government to the people, to restore economic opportunities, and to correct injustices in American life

16th Amendment

Established a federal income tax

17th Amendment

1913, provides for the direct election of US senators by the people rather than by state legislatures.

Prohibition

the banning of the manufacture, sale, and possession of alcoholic beverages.

The 18th amendment made prohibition the law. The 21st amendment ended prohibition.

19th Amendment

Gave women the rights to vote

Pure Food and Drug Act & Meat Inspection Act

Halted the sale of contaminated food and drugs and to ensure truth in labeling.

-established strict cleanliness requirements for meat-packers and created a federal meat-inspection program.

W.E.B. DuBois

Co-founded the NAACP to help secure legal equality for minority citizens. Spoke out against lynchings

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical.

Alexander Graham Bell

Invented the telephone

Thomas Edison

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.

John D. Rockefeller

Established the Standard Oil Company, the greatest, wisest, and meanest monopoly known in history

Theodore Roosevelt

26th president, known for: conservationism, trust-busting, Hepburn Act, safe food regulations, "Square Deal," Panama Canal, Great White Fleet, Nobel Peace Prize for negotiation of peace in Russo-Japanese War

Upton Sinclair

muckraker who shocked the nation when he published The Jungle, a novel that revealed gruesome details about the meat packing industry in Chicago. The book was fiction but based on the things Sinclair had seen.

American Federation of Labor

1886; founded by Samuel Gompers; sought better wages, hrs, working conditions; skilled laborers, arose out of dissatisfaction with the Knights of Labor, rejected socialist and communist ideas, non-violent.

Knights of Labor

Led by Terence V. Powderly; open-membership policy extending to unskilled, semiskilled, women, African-Americans, immigrants; goal was to create a cooperative society between in which labors owned the industries in which they worked

Pullman Strike

in Chicago, Pullman cut wages but refused to lower rents in the "company town", Eugene Debs had American Railway Union refuse to use Pullman cars, Debs thrown in jail after being sued, strike achieved nothing

Homestead Strike

1892 steelworker strike near Pittsburgh against the Carnegie Steel Company. Ten workers were killed in a riot when "scab" labor was brought in to force an end to the strike.

Haymarket Affair

1886 incident that made unions, particularly the Knights of Labor, look violent because a bomb exploded during a protest of striking workers.

Old Immigrants

immigrants who had come to the US before the 1880s from Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Scandenavia, or Northern Europe

Tenement

A building in which several families rent rooms or apartments, often with little sanitation or safety

Capitalism

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

Communism

a form of government where there is no private ownership, everyone is equal, often run by a totalitarian leader.

Helen Hunt Jackson

A writer. Author of the 1881 book A Century of Dishonor. The book exposed the U.S. governments many broken promises to the Native Americans. For example the government wanted Native Americans to assimilate, i.e. give up their beliefs and ways of life, that way to become part of the white culture.

Progressive demands

1-government involvement in social issues

2-more power to the people

3-woman voting

4-end child labor

5-government regulation of business

Ida Tarbell

Leading muckraking journalist whose articles documented the Standard Oil Company's abuse of power

John Spargo

Wrote, The Bitter Cry of the Children in 1906 which was about abuses of child labor.

Jacob Riis

Early 1900's muckraker who exposed social and political evils in the U.S. with his novel "How The Other Half Lives"; exposed the poor conditions of the poor tenements in NYC and Hell's Kitchen

Lincoln Steffens

Early muckraker who exposed the political corruption in many American cities

Teddy Roosevelt

Twenty-sixth president of the United States; he focused his efforts on trust busting of corporations, environment conservation, and consumer protections .

Northern Securities Case

Roosevelt's legal attack on the Northern Securities Company, which was a railroad holding company owned by James Hill and J.P. Morgan. In the end, the company was "trust-busted" and paved the way for future trust-busts of bad trusts.

Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World)

union which developed to protect the needs of unskilled labor and was ok to use violence if necessary.

Coal Strike of 1902

1902 T. Roosevelt set the precedent by settling this strike using arbitration - 1st time government took the side of the worker over management.

2nd Industrial revolution (ROSE)

RR - Oil - Steel - Electricity

Rockefeller

Captain of industry that created a monopoly in oil refineries

Significance of the year 1890?

end of the frontier and Native American lifestyle as they had known it.

Dawes Severalty Act

The act passed with the intent to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream of American life by dissolving tribes as legal entities and eliminating tribal ownership of land.