History (Gilded Age)

Gilded Age

Mark Twain used this term to describe the time period in American history when many social problems were masked by a thin layer of gold that made things look better than they actually were

Melting Pot

The blending together of cultures in America due to high immigration numbers in the late 19th century

Navitism

An anti-immigration movement during a time period of high immigration in the late 19th century

Ellis Island

Processing center for incoming European immigrants arriving in New York

Horizontal Integration

Business strategy where a company grows by merging with or buying other companies that make the same project

Vertical Integration

A business strategy where a company owns or controls multiple stages of its supply chain

Urbanization

Growth of cities

John D. Rockefeller

Associated with standard oil company

Exodusters

Blacks that left the south to the great plains

Homestead Act

Gave settlers up to 160 acres of land in west; required settlers to improve land and live on it for five years; signed into law by president Lincoln

Chinese immigrants

Came to the US to work on the railroad

Promontory Point

Place where eastern and western parts of the transcontinental met railroad

Henry Bessemer

He advocated steel process

James Hargreaves

Spinning Jenny

Eli Whitney

Cotton gin

James Watt

Steam engine

Edward Jenner

Small pox vaccine

Henry Ford

Motel T automobile

Guglielmo Marconi

Radio

Thomas Edison

Photograph or record player

Wright Brothers

Invented first functional airplane

Monoply

A business where one single company supples all of the products

Laissez-faire

Few government regulations on industry

Robber Barons

Squashed all competition; paid very low wages; explolted their wages; uses their influences manipulate government polices

Andrew Carnegie

Gave away millions of dollars to the poor, schools, and other school programs

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Known for controlling, shipping, and railroads

Jacob Riis

Photographed homeless children and people living in tenements

Upton Sinclair

He wrote the Jungle; worked in a meat packing plant to observe unsafe conditions and unhealthy meat

Cities

Expanded with the development of subways sky scrappers and suspension bridges

Tenements

Purpose was to provide single family homes for working class families

Skyscrapers

Made possible by the invention of bessemer process and elevators