US History Two Final (All Terms)

Industrial Growth

Abundant raw materials. Large and growing labor supply. Surge of technological innovation. Emergence of a talented, ambitious, and often ruthless group of entrepreneurs. Federal government eager to assist the growth of business. Great and expanding domestic market for the products of manufacturing.

Alexander Graham Bell

First commercially used telephone.

Thomas A. Edison

Incandescent lamp (light bulb). Other electrical devices. One of the greatest American inventors.

Beesemer-Kelly Method

Process for making steel by blowing air through molten iron to burn out the impurities. Discovered at the same time by an Englishman and an American.

Open-Heart Method

Another method of making steel. Introduced from Europe by Abram S. Hewitt of New Jersey.

Edwin L. Drake

Established the first oil well near Titusville, PA in 1859.

Gustavus Swift

Headed meatpacking organizations made possible by the refrigerated freight car.

Wright Brothers

First flight of a heavier than air machine was in Kitty Hawk, NC.

Charles and Frank Duryea

First American gasoline-driven motor vehicle, 1903.

Frederick Winslow Taylor

“Scientific management” of industrial production to increase efficiency. Viewed each worker as a piece of machine.

Henry Ford

In 1914 produced the first of the famous cars that would bear his name.

Railroad Tycoons

James J. Hill, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Collis P. Huntingon.

Biltmore Estate

175,000 sq. feet. 255 rooms. 70,000 gallon swimming pool. Bowling alley. Exercise equipment. Two-story library. Elevators.

Andrew Carnegie

Giant of the early steel industry.

J. Pierpont Morgan

Creator of the United States Steel Corporation

Horizontal Integration

The combining of a number of firms engaged in the same enterprise into a single corporation.

Vertical Integration

The taking over of the business on which a company relied for its primary function.

John D. Rockefeller

Founder of the Standard Oil. The first trust. “God gave me my money.”

Consolidation

Attempt by businessmen to control competition and reduce instability by concentrating economic power.

Pools (Cartels)

Informal agreements among various companies to stabilize rates and divide markets.

Trusts

Stockholders in individual corporations transferred their stocks to a small group of trustees in exchange for shares in trust itself.

Holding Companies

Central corporate bodies that would buy up the stock of various members of the trust and establish direct ownership of these members.

Social Darwinism

The philosophy that strong and wise businessmen would succeed and lazy and careless men would fail. “Survival of the fittest.”

Herbert Spencer

English philosopher. First and most important proponent of Social Darwinism.

William G. Sumner

Foremost American supporter of Spencer’s ideas.

Russell H. Conwell

Baptist minister. Lecture “Acres of Diamonds.” Claimed that everyone had the opportunity to become wealthy.

Horatio Alger

Novelist. Theme “Rags to Riches” through hard work, honesty, virtue, and luck.

Lester F. Ward

Darwinist. Believed that the government should be active in positive planning for the good of society.

Henry George

Blamed poverty on the greed of the wealthy.

Edward Bellamy

Novel Looking Backward. Philosophy of all-powerful and all benevolent government Caused Nationalist Clubs to be started to promote his idea.

Problems of Monopoly

Manipulation of prices. Unstable economy-cycle of booms and busts. Increasing inequality.

Immigrants

25 million between 1865 and 1915. 4 Times the number who came during the previous 50 years.

National Labor Union

William H. Sylvis, 1866, attempted to unite various unions and tried to address matters needing reform. Dissolved after the Panic of 1873.

Knights of Labor

Uriah S. Stephens, 1869, organized by recruiting individuals rather than combining unions. Main goal was long-range reform of the economy.

American Federation of Labor

Samuel Gompers, 1881, organization of skilled workers through a federation of craft unions. Concentrated on labor’s immediate objective of wages, hours, and working conditions.

Haymarket Squared Incident - 1886

Strikers of McCormick Harvester Co. of Chicago called a protest. Someone threw a bomb and seven policemen were killed. Eight anarchists were charged and labor unions got much of the blame.

Homestead Strike - 1892

A strike at Carnegie steel plant in Pennsylvania prompted the calling of 300 Pinkertons to break it. A battle ensued, and the Pinkertons surrendered. National Guard was sent, and after four months the union gave in.

Pullman Strike - 1894

Wages were slashed 25% at the Pullman plant near Chicago. The ensuing strike paralyzed transportation between Chicago and the West Coast. President Cleveland sent 2,000 federal troops, and the strike collapsed.

Eugene V. Debs

Leader of American Railway Union and Pullman Strike. Sent to Prison.

Sources of Labor Weakness

Failure of unions to organize the workers. Shifting nature of the work force. Strength of the corporations.

Growth of the Cities

Urban population increases sevenfold. Grew by 700%.

New Immigrants

By the 1890’s, most of the immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. These people would form their own ethnic communities (“immigrant ghettoes”) within the cities.

Assimilation

Most of the immigrants worked to become Americanized.

Nativistm

Some of the Americans blamed the disorder and corruption of the cities on the immigrants. Others resented their willingness to work for lower wages.

Exclusion of the Chinese, 1882

Congress voted to halt any further immigration of the Chinese.

Suburbs

New, smaller communities on the fringes of the big cities that attracted some of the wealthy and moderately wealthy.

Tenements

Originally intended to provide working people with cheap rental housing. Degenerated into miserable slum dwellings.

Mass Transportation

The answer to the needs of commuters: Horse drawn streetcars, steam-powered railways, cable cards, electric trolleys, subways.

Electric Trolley

First introduced in Richmond, VA in 1888. By 1895, 850 towns and cities had them.

Skyscrapers

Solution to overcrowded downtown areas. First built in Chicago 1884.

Louis Sullivan

Chicago architect. Greatest figure in the early development of the skyscraper.

Great Chicago Fire - 1871

A tragedy common to many cities that were built almost entirely out of wood (even the sidwalks)

Result of Major Fires

Construction of fireproof buildings. Development of professional fire departments. Cities forced to rebuild at a time of new technological and architectural innovations.

Strains of Urban Life

Fires, disease, poverty, crowding, crime, violence.

Political Machines

Organizations that dispensed favors to the voters who gave them power. Run by “bosses.”

“Bosses”

Main job was to win votes for their organizations. Accomplished by providing their people with food, jobs, and opportunities were rising in the political machine.

William M. Tweed

Boss of New York City’s Tammany Hall machine in the 1860’s and 1870’s. Most famous and corrupt boss. Went to jail.

Reasons for the Success of the “Boss Rule”

Power of immigrant voters. Wealthy, prominent citizens profited from their dealings with bosses and saw to it that they kept their power. City governments were often weak and divided in authority.

Consumer Market Advances

Ready-made clothing, home ice boxes, chain stores, canned food, refrigerated railroad cars.

Organized Spectator Sports

Became popular with people finding themselves with new leisure time.

Baseball

American League was formed in 1901, and the first World Series was in 1903. First salaried team was the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869. National League was organized by Albert Spaulding in 1876.

Football

Began as a collegiate sport. Amos Alonzo Stagg led in forming the Big Ten 1896 which established rules for eligibility. NCAA was formed in the early 1900’s.

Basketball

Invented by Dr. James Naismith in 1891.

Boxing

First has a bad reputation and in many places illegal. Somewhat redeemed by the Marquis of Queensberry rules. John L. Sullivan was the first world heavyweight champion.

Non-spectator Sports

Available to both men and women. Golf, tennis, bicycling, croquet, crew, swimming, basketball.

Mass Entertainment

Plays and musical comedies, vaudeville, movies, novels and peotry.

Journalism

Circulation of daily newspapers increased nearly nine-fold. Journalism became an important profession. Newspaper began separating news reporting from expression of opinion. Newspapers became important businesses themselves. National press services standardized new reporting.

William Randolph Hearst

Powerful publisher. By 1914, controlled nine newspapers and two magazines. Helped popularize “yellow journalism.”

Yellow Journalism

Popularized by popular publishers Pulitzer and Hearst and deliberately sensational style of new reporting. Specialized in scandals.

Edward W. Bok

Built the “Ladies Home Journal” to a circulation of over 700,000.

Stephen Crane

Author and most famous for The Red Badge of Courage. Also wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.

Upton Sinclair

Author of The Jungle. Exposing the evils of the Chicago meatpacking industry.

William Dean Howells

Author of The Rise of Silas Lapham, describing the shallowness and corruption in ordinary American lifestyles.

American Painters

Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, James McNeil Whistler. American painters who broke form the Old-World traditions to experiment with new styles.

Charles Darwin

English scientist associated with the theory of evolution. Origin of Species.

Pragmatism

Belief that society should not be guided by moral principles but by the test of the scientific inquiry. An outgrowth of evolution. No idea was valid unless it worked.

William James

Harvard psychologist. Prominent publicist of pragmatism.

Revisionist Historians

Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles Beard. Claimed that economic factors were the main influence on history.

John Dewey

Applied the theories of pragmatism to education.

Public Education

After the Civil War, free public education began to spread rapidly. By 1900, thirty-one states and territories had compulsory attendance laws.

Morrill Land Grant Act

During the Civil War era, the federal government donated land to states for the establishment of the colleges to teach. By 1900, 69 institutions had been started as a result.

Women’s Colleges

Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mar, Vassar, Radcliffe

Republican Party

The Grand Old Party. Almost became a religion. Opposition to them represented “slavery” and “treason.”

Patronage (spoils system)

The privilege of the party in power to control and dispense jobs to those who supposed the party, party loyalty rather than ability often determined who was hired.

Stalwarts

Led by Conkling. Half-breeds captained by James G. Blain of Maine. This branch of Republicans stood for machine politics and the spoils system.

Half-Breeds

The other fraction of the Republican party. Supported reform civil service and government efficiency. Led by James G. Blain.

Democrats

Retained a Jacksonian image so as to hold the allegiance of the toiling masses.

James A. Garfield

Born in a log cabin. Rose “from the towpath to the White House.” Assassinated in 1881.

Pendleton Act - 1883

The first national civil service measure. Required competitive written exams for certain government jobs.

Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion

A remark made by Protestant preacher Dr. Samuel Bruchard describing the Democratic Party. Taken as a slander in the Catholic and caused New York to support Cleveland in 1884.

Interstate Commerce Act, 1887

Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the railroad industry and halt certain abuses. Opposition of the courts made it largely ineffective.

Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890

The Congressional effort to outlaw monopolies was also rather ineffective because of court opposition.

Wilson-Gorman Tariff

Though, originally designed by Representative Wilson as a moderate reduction in the tariff Gorman and other Senators added 643 amendments that protected nearly every important trust.

The Grangers

First major organization of farmers. Founded by Oliver H. Kelly in 1867. First intended to create a feeling of community and continued growth in agricultural skills. After the Panic of 1873, farm prices decimated and the membership swelled to over 800,000. Grangers began to concentrate on political and economic action. First major cooperative movement in the U.S. Montgomery Ward.

Alliances

Successor of the Grangers. Alliances focused on helping the farmers become independent. Southern Alliance had more than four million members by 1890 they merged.

People’s Party (Populists)

One of the most powerful third parties in U.S. history, founded in 1892 by the merged Alliances. James B. Weaver was the first Presidential candidate. Most attractive to small farmers who had little economy security.

Omaha Platform

Populist platform for the election in 1892: Elements, abolition of national banks, direct election of senators, government regulation and ownership of railroads, telephones, and telegraph; graduated income tax, inflation of currency.

Panic of 1893

Began in March 1893 with the bankruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. 20% of the workforce lost their jobs. Real prosperity did not return until 1901.

Coxey’s Army

Several hundred unemployed, led by Populist Ohio businessman, marched on Washington to present their demands to the government. Corralled and Congress ignored them.

Crime of ‘73

Congress passed a law to discontinue silver coinage. It was valued 16:1 with gold.