us history

Gross National Product

The total value of goods and services produced by a country during a year.

Laissez-faire

"Let people do as they choose"; policy that government should interfere as little as possible in the nation's economy.

Entrepreneur

One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

Alexander Graham Bell

A Scottish immigrant who invented the telephone in 1876.

Thomas Edison

The leading pioneer in new technology who invented the phonograph (1877) and lightbulb (1879). He also invented and improved the battery, dictaphone, and motion picture. At the time of his death, he held more than one thousand patents.

Vertical Integration

The combining of companies that supply equipment and services needed for a particular industry.

Horizontal Integration

The combining of many firms engaged in the same type of business into one corporation.

Monopoly

Total control of a type of industry by one person or one company.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish immigrant who opened a steel company in Pittsburgh in 1875 using the Bessemer process. He used vertical integration in his steel company, making it the largest such company in the U.S..

Pacific Railway Act

1862 legislation to encourage the construction of a transcontinental railroad, connecting the West to industries in the Northeast.

Ellis Island

Immigration processing center that open in New York Harbor in 1892.

Angel Island

Inspection station for immigrants arriving on the West Coast.

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law that prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers.

Tenement

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