Chapter 2 Vocab - US History

2.1-2.5

Entrepreneurs

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

Laissez-faire

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

Invented the light bulb in 1880, established a research laboratory at Menlo Park, NJ in 1876, a creative genius who received more than 1000 patents for new inventions and scientific discoveries.

Bessemer Process

Process developed in the 1850’s by Henry Bessemer; used to purify iron to make strong, but lightweight, steel.

Corporation

A form of group ownership where a # of people share the ownership of a business.

John D. Rockefeller

Was one of the first businessmen to use horizontal integration, owned an Ohio oil tycoon, controlled most of the oil refined in the United States with his standard oil trust in the 1800s. Philanthropist.

Horizontal Integration

The system of consolidating many firms in the same business.

Monopoly

Complete control of a product/service.

Trust

Companies assigned their stock to a board of trustees, who combined them into a new organization that the trustees ran.

Andrew Carnegie

Steel tycoon business leader who owned coal mines and iron fields, alongside the ships/railroads that brought those very materials to his steel mills. Philanthropist.

Vertical Integration

Allowed companies to reduce their cost of production by combining two or more stages of production normally operated by separate companies.

Social Darwinism

Stated by William Graham Sumner that wealth was a measure of one’s inherent value, and those who had it were the most fit. Simply applied “survival of the fittest” to American capitalism.

Interstate Commerce Commission

Created by Congress in 1887 to monitor railroad shipping rates that only crossed state lines. Was the first federal agency to monitor business practices.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Passed by the Senate in 1890, which outlawed any trust that operated “in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states.”

Sweatshops

Small, hot, dark, and dirty workhouses; mainly women worked here for long hours making mass-produced items.

Collective Bargaining

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

Socialism

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

Samuel Gompers

A poor Jewish immigrant from England who had worked his way up to head the Cigarmakers’ Union in New York. Helped found the American Federation of Labor (AFL) + served as president for nearly 40 years.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Founded by Samuel Gompers; was a loose organization of some 100 union of skilled workers devoted to a specific craft. Focused on specific workers’ issues such as wages, working hours, and working conditions.

Haymarket Riot

Took place on May 4th; protesters gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago, over a dozen people died. Left an unfortunate legacy.

Homestead Strike

Part of an epidemic of steelworkers’ and miners’ strikes that took place as economic depression spread across America.

Eugene v. Debs

Former railroad worker, founded and led the American Railroad Union (ARU), jailed for conspiring against interstate commerce, was a fiery and inspirational speaker.

Pullman Strike

A nationwide strike against Pullman ordered by the ARU, nearly 300,000 workers in June 1894 refused to work on, handle, or move any trains that had Pullman cars on them. Railroad traffic came to a halt as a result.

New Immigrants

Were often from southern or eastern Europe, arrived exponentially until WWI, were often Catholic or Jewish.

Ellis Island / Angel Island

Ellis Island: The busy New York harbor immigration station; all third class/steerage passengers were sent here.

Angel Island: A processing center for Chinese immigrants opened in San Francisco Bay in 1910. Designed to filter out Chinese immigrants.

Americanization

Helped newcomers learn English and adopt American dress and diet.

Nativism

A tendency towards preferring native-born, white Americans over “new” immigrants.

Chinese Exclusion Act

Extreme hostility towards Chinese laborers had led Congress to pass this act in 1882. It prohibited immigration by Chinese laborers, limited the civil rights of Chinese immigrants already in the US, and forbade the naturalization of Chinese residents.

Urbanization

The # of cities and people living in them increased dramatically.

Mass Transit

Public systems that could carry large numbers of people fairly inexpensively.

Tenements

Low-cost multifamily housing designed to squeeze in as many families as possible.

Gilded Age

Referred to by historians as the last decades of the 19th century. Middle-class Americans adopted a new lifestyle during this period: shopping, sports + reading popular magazines/newspapers that contributed to America’s cultural development that’d persist for the next century.

Mass Culture

Used to describe the collective interests of the masses; Americans despite wealthiness wore the same clothing styles, owned the same household gadgets, toys, and foods.