ASUSH Flashcards- Unit 1: The Gilded Age

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What was Gilded Age Characterized by?

• Mass production via mechanization

• Division of labor & Wage System

• Due to unregulated industries / markets, allowed for accumulation of private capital.

Name the technologies used in the Gilded Age.

• (steel) Bessemer Process

• Electric Power

• Telephone

• Combustion engine

• Industrial Chemicals and Food Processing

What item was crucial for the result food transportation along with allowing meatpacking to be born?

• Ice cubes

The Panic of 1873

An economic depression initiated with the bankruptcy of Cooke & Co. (failing to return investments) banking and the selling of northern Pacific railroad.

(1882) First major US trust was…

Standard Oil by Rockefeller.

Horizontal Vs. Vertical Integration

Horizontal integration involves capturing and claiming direct opposition (companies in the same industry).

Ex.) A oil buying out with enough stocks B oil.

Vertical Integration involves assimilation of companies that result in the product you sell.

Ex.) A oil buying out with enough stocks C fossil mining company.

Trust definition

A trust is a company with shareholder stocks- attributed to a “Board of Trustees”. Eliminates competition and maximizes profit.

Name the Robber Barons and their respective materials they managed to get rich off of.

Cornelius Vanderbilt- Railroads

Andrew Carnegie- Steel

John Rockefeller- Oil

J.P Morgan- Financing

Ida Tarbell

Accused Rockefeller of Corruption. Father was also an oilman, which may have had a stronger impact on her views. Talks about Rockefeller’s unfair usage of the railroads- and how they feared him.

The Middle Class

Industrial economy led to growth of this class, popularized by books (like “Ragged Dick” by Horatio Alger) which showed a rags-to riches story.

How The Other Half Lives

Written by Jacob Riis, 1890. Highlights the harsh tenant life in NYC.

Social Darwinism

Use of evolution to explain poverty and other human things. Went against government intervention and trying to help the bottom people of society. “Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative; liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest”

(1905) Lochner V. New York

A supreme court case invalidating NY state law to regulate Bakers’ work hours. Setback for labor laws.

Ironclad Oath

Swearing an employee would never join a labor union.

Taylorism (Scientific Management)

Aimed to increase worker efficiency, by a system of “thinkers” and “doers”. Made by Frederick Winslow Taylor.

Craft v. Industrial Unions

Craft unions categorize employees based on their level of skill; Industrial unions group a group of employees together disregarding skill level.

Employers employed these to combat unions-

Spies to report union activity along with strikebreakers and non- unionized employees called “scabs”.

Homestead Steel Strike

At Homestead, PN. At Carnegie Steel factory and was very violent. Pinkertons were involved because of Henry Clay Frick.

First National Labor Walkout

Great Railroad strike (1877). Resulted in deployment of federal troops.

Rich have a duty to promote advancement of society

The Gospel of Wealth (1889 by Carnegie)

Single Tax

(Progress & Poverty- H. George): government should tax itself based on value of land not improved.

The cooperative Commonwealth (Laurance Gronlund)

Public ownership should replace private control through peaceful evolution

Looking backward (Edward Bellamy)

Utopian novel promoting socialism. Ignores name, and inspired many nationalist clubs.

Social Gospel

Utilization of christian principles to combat problems caused by urbanization and industrialization. (Walter Rauschenbusch was was apparent in the social gospel and single tax movements).

Temperance Movement

Less alcohol via education and legistlation. Women’s CTU, advocate for 19th amendment and founded in 1874.

Comstock Act

Law that banned naughty stuff from mail like contraceptives and birth control.

Victoria Woodhull

Leader for women’s suffrage, 1st women to run for president, and held many controversial opinions especially at the time. Free love movement- Where sex based on who you love.

Knights of Labor

1869- One big union, end chiild labor, 8 hour days. 750k members by 1870.

Haymarket Affair

Chichago’s Haymarket Affair - killed 4 policemen ;protesting murder of striking workers. Haymarket “Martyrs”. Employers associated with violence and foreign radicals.