APUSH Ch. 17 Terms

Gilded Age

The period from roughly the 1870s to 1900 characterized by rapid industrialization, extreme wealth inequality, political corruption, and a thin veneer of prosperity masking serious social problems, named after Mark Twain's novel.

Bessemer Process

A revolutionary steelmaking technique developed in the mid-nineteenth century that involved blowing air through molten iron to remove impurities, enabling mass production of steel at dramatically reduced costs and transforming construction and manufacturing.

George Bissell

An entrepreneur who pioneered the commercial petroleum industry by recognizing crude oil's potential as an illuminant and fuel, helping establish the first successful oil drilling operations in Pennsylvania in the late eighteen

Nicolaus A. Otto

A German engineer who invented the first practical internal combustion engine in the eighteen-seventies, creating the four-stroke engine cycle that became the foundation for modern automobiles and powered machinery.

Gottfried Daimler

A German engineer and industrialist who improved upon the internal combustion engine and developed one of the first high-speed gasoline engines, contributing significantly to the development of the automobile.

Henry Ford

An American industrialist who revolutionized manufacturing through the assembly line and mass production of the Model T automobile, making cars affordable for average Americans and transforming American industry and society.

Wilbur and Orville Wright

Two brothers who achieved the first successful powered, controlled airplane flight in nineteen-oh-three at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, inaugurating the age of aviation.

Scientific Management or Taylorism

A management theory developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor that emphasized systematic study of workplace efficiency, breaking tasks into simple components, and using time studies to maximize productivity and worker output.

Assembly Line

A manufacturing process in which workers remain stationary while products move past them on a conveyor system, with each worker performing a specific repetitive task, greatly increasing production speed and efficiency.

Slaughterhouses

Large-scale meat processing facilities, particularly prominent in cities like Chicago, where animals were killed and butchered in systematic, assembly-line fashion, representing an early application of industrial efficiency to food production.

Standard Time

A uniform system of time zones adopted by railroads and eventually the nation in the eighteen-eighties to replace the chaotic system of local times, facilitating coordination of train schedules and commercial activities across vast distances.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish immigrant who became one of America's wealthiest industrialists through his dominance of the steel industry, later becoming a major philanthropist who advocated for the responsible use of great fortunes.

Limited Liability

A legal principle that protects corporate shareholders from being personally responsible for company debts beyond their investment, encouraging investment in corporations by limiting financial risk.

JP Morgan

A powerful banker and financier who reorganized and consolidated major industries including railroads and steel, becoming one of the most influential figures in American finance and helping stabilize the economy during crises.

Horizontal Integration

A business strategy of acquiring or merging with competitors in the same industry to reduce competition, increase market share, and achieve economies of scale.

Vertical Integration

A business strategy of controlling all stages of production and distribution, from raw materials to final sale, allowing companies to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and eliminate dependence on outside suppliers.

John D. Rockefeller

The founder of Standard Oil who became America's first billionaire through ruthless business practices and horizontal integration, controlling approximately ninety percent of oil refining in the United States.

Trusts

Legal arrangements where stockholders of multiple companies transferred their shares to a single board of trustees in exchange for certificates, creating monopolistic combinations that controlled entire industries.

Myth of the Self-Made Man

The cultural belief that individuals achieved wealth and success solely through hard work, talent, and determination, ignoring advantages like inherited wealth, connections, timing, and often exploitative practices.

Social Darwinism

A pseudo-scientific ideology applying Charles Darwin's concept of natural selection to human society, arguing that wealth and success demonstrated fitness and that helping the poor interfered with natural social evolution.

Law of Supply and Demand

An economic principle stating that prices are determined by the relationship between the availability of goods and consumer desire for them, with business leaders using it to justify their practices as natural economic forces.

Gospel of Wealth

Andrew Carnegie's philosophy that the wealthy had a moral obligation to use their fortunes for the public good through philanthropy, while also justifying wealth inequality as beneficial to society.

Russell Conwell

A minister and lecturer famous for his "Acres of Diamonds" speech, which promoted the idea that anyone could become wealthy and that pursuing riches was a Christian duty.

Horatio Alger

An author who wrote popular novels featuring poor boys who achieved success through virtue, hard work, and often fortuitous encounters with wealthy benefactors, reinforcing the myth of the self-made man

Socialist Labor Party

One of America's earliest socialist political organizations, founded in the eighteen-seventies, advocating for worker ownership of production and representing growing labor radicalism.

Henry George

An economist and social reformer who wrote "Progress and Poverty," advocating for a single tax on land values to address inequality and arguing that land monopoly was the root cause of poverty.

Edward Bellamy

Author of the utopian novel "Looking Backward," which imagined a cooperative socialist future and inspired nationalist clubs advocating for government ownership of industry and economic equality.

Molly Maguires

A secret organization of Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania who allegedly used intimidation and violence against mine owners and bosses, with several members executed after controversial trials in the eighteen

The Great Railroad Strike

The first major national labor strike in 1877, sparked by wage cuts, which spread across the country and was suppressed by federal troops, marking a violent turning point in labor-management relations.

Knights of Labor

A broad-based labor organization founded in the 1860s that welcomed workers regardless of skill, race, or gender, advocating for an eight-hour workday and worker cooperatives before declining after the Haymarket affair.

American Federation of Labor

A federation of skilled trade unions founded in 1886 that focused on practical goals like higher wages and better working conditions rather than broad social reform, becoming the dominant labor organization.

Samuel Gompers

The longtime president of the American Federation of Labor who advocated for "pure and simple unionism" focused on concrete improvements in wages, hours, and conditions rather than radical political change.

Haymarket Square

The site of an 1886 labor rally in Chicago where a bomb killed several policemen, leading to a controversial trial and execution of anarchist leaders, damaging the labor movement's reputation.

Homestead Strike

An 1892 strike at Carnegie Steel's Homestead plant in Pennsylvania that turned violent when Pinkerton guards clashed with workers, resulting in deaths and the union's eventual defeat.

Pinkertons

A private detective and security agency frequently hired by corporations to infiltrate unions, protect strikebreakers, and suppress labor activism, often using violent tactics against workers.

Henry Clay Frick

Andrew Carnegie's ruthless business partner who managed the Homestead Steel Works and orchestrated the violent suppression of the Homestead Strike, later surviving an assassination attempt by anarchist Alexander Berkman.

Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers

A craft union representing skilled iron and steel workers that was crushed after its defeat in the Homestead Strike, eliminating effective unionization in the steel industry for decades.

Pullman Strike

An 1894 strike by railroad workers protesting wage cuts at the Pullman Palace Car Company that disrupted national rail traffic and was broken by federal troops and court injunctions.

John Peter Altgeld

The Illinois governor who opposed federal intervention in the Pullman Strike and pardoned the surviving Haymarket defendants, arguing their trial had been unfair, though his actions damaged his political career.

Eugene Debs

A labor leader who led the American Railway Union during the Pullman Strike, was imprisoned for defying a court injunction, and later became a prominent socialist and five-time presidential candidate.