AMH2020 Chapter 16

Homestead lockout

The 1892 lockout of workers at the Homestead, Pennslyvania, steel mill after Andrew Carnegie refused to renew the union contract. Union supporters attacked the guards hired to close them out and protect strike-breakers who had been employed by the mill, but the National Guard soon suppressed this resistance and Homestead, and became a non-union mill.

vertical integration

A business model in which a corporation controlled all aspects of production from raw materials to packaged products. “Robber barons”, or industrial innovators such as Gustavus Swift and Andrew Carnegie, pioneered this business form at the end of the Civil War.

horizontal integration

A business concept invented in the late nineteenth century to pressure competitors and force rivals to merge their companies into a conglomerate. John D. Rockfeller of Standard Oil pioneered this business model.

trust

A small group of associates that hold stock from a group of combined firms, managing them as a single entity. Trusts quickly evolved into other centralized business forms, but progressive critics continued to refer to giant firms like U.S Steel and Standard Oil as “trusts”.

deskilling

The elimination of skilled labor under a new system of mechanized manufacturing, in which workers completed discrete, small scale tasks rather than crafting an entire product. With deskilling, employers found they could pay workers less and replace them more easily.

Chinese Exclusion Act

The 1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States. It continued in effect until the 1940s.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A nationwide strike of thousands of railroad workers and labor allies, who protested the growing power of railroad corporations and the steep wage cuts imposed by railroad managers amid a severe economic depression that had begun in 1873.

producerism

The argument that real economic wealth is created by workers who make their living by physical labor, such as farmers and craftsmen, and that merchants, lawyers, bankers, and other middlemen unfairly gain their wealth from such “producers”.

Knights of Labor

The first mass labor organization created among America’s working class. Founded in 1869 and peaking in strength in the mid-1800s, the Knights of Labor attempted to bridge boundaries of ethnicity, gender, ideology, race, and occupation to build a “universal brotherhood” of all workers.

Haymarket Square

The May 4, 1886, conflict in Chicago in which both workers and policemen were killed or wounded during a labor demonstration called by local anarchists. The incident created a backlash against all labor organizations, including the Knights of Labor.

Farmers’ Alliance

A rural movement founded in Texas during the depression of the 1870s that spread across the plains states and the South. The Farmers’ Alliance advocated cooperative stores and exchanges that would circumvent middlemen, and it called for greater government aid to farmers and stricter regulation of railroads.

Interstate Commerce Act

An 1887 act that created the Interstate Commerrce Commission (ICC), a federal regulatory agency designed to oversee the railroad industry and prevent collusion and unfair rates.

American Federation of Labor

Organization created by Samuel Gompers in 1886 that coordinated the activities of craft unions and called for direct negotiation with employers in order to achieve benefits for skilled works. Like other trade unions, the AFL called for all eployees to be union members to keep out low-wage competition and strengthen unions’ bargaining power with employers.