Chapter 18 Key Terms - Industrial Capitalism and the Gilded Age - APUSH

Anarchism - 1840

The advocacy of a stateless society achieved by revolutionary means. Feared for their views, anarchists became scapegoats for the 1886 Haymarket Square bombing.

American Federation of Labor - 1886

Organization created by Samuel Gompers in 1886 that coordinated the activities of craft unions and called for direct negotiation with employers in order to achieve benefits for skilled workers.

Chinese Exclusion Act - 1882

1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States.

Closed Shop - 1886

A workplace in which a job seeker had to be a union member to gain employment. The closed shop was advocated by craft unions as a method of keeping out lower-wage workers and strengthening the unions' bargaining position with employers.

Deskilling - 1790

The elimination of skilled labor under a new system of mechanized manufacturing, in which workers completed discrete, small-scale tasks rather than crafting an entire product. With deskilling, employers found they could pay workers less and replace them more easily.

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

A nationwide strike of thousands of railroad workers and labor allies, who protested the growing power of railroad corporations and the steep wage cuts imposed by railroad managers amid a severe economic depression that had begun in 1873.

Greenback Labor Party - 1874

A national political movement calling on the government to increase the money supply in order to assist borrowers and foster economic growth; "Greenbackers" also called for greater regulation of corporations and laws enforcing an eight-hour workday.

Haymarket Square - 1886

The May 4, 1886, conflict in Chicago in which both workers and policemen were killed or wounded during a labor demonstration called by local anarchists. The incident created a backlash against all labor organizations, including the Knights of Labor.

Homestead Lockout - 1892

The 1892 lockout of workers at the Homestead, Pennsylvania, steel mill after Andrew Carnegie refused to renew the union contract. Union supporters attacked the guards hired to close them out and protect strikebreakers who had been employed by the mill, but the National Guard soon suppressed this resistance and Homestead, like other steel plants, became a non-union mill.

Horizontal Integration - 1901

A business concept invented in the late nineteenth century to pressure competitors and force rivals to merge their companies into a conglomerate. John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil pioneered this business model.

Interstate Commerce Act - 1887

An 1887 act that created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), a federal regulatory agency designed to oversee the railroad industry and prevent collusion and unfair rates.

Knights of Labor - 1869

The first mass labor organization created among America's working class. Founded in 1869 and peaking in strength in the mid-1880s, the Knights of Labor attempted to bridge boundaries of ethnicity, gender, ideology, race, and occupation to build a "universal brotherhood" of all workers.

Management Revolution - 1869

An internal management structure adopted by many large, complex corporations that distinguished top executives from those responsible for day-to-day operations and departmentalized operations by function.

Mass Production - 1888

A phrase coined by Henry Ford, who helped to invent a system of mass production of goods based on assembly of standardized parts. This system accompanied the continued deskilling of industrial labor.

Producerism - 1890-1910

The argument that real economic wealth is created by workers who make their living by physical labor, such as farmers and craftsmen, and that merchants, lawyers, bankers, and other middlemen unfairly gain their wealth from such "producers."

Scientific Management - 1887

A system of organizing work developed by Frederick W. Taylor in the late nineteenth century. It was designed to coax maximum output from the individual worker, increase efficiency, and reduce production costs.

Trust - 1870

A small group of associates that hold stock from a group of combined firms, managing them as a single entity. Trusts quickly evolved into other centralized business forms, but progressive critics continued to refer to giant firms like United States Steel and Standard Oil as "trusts."

Vertical Integration - 1890

A business model in which a corporation controlled all aspects of production from raw materials to packaged products. "Robber barons" or industrial innovators such as Gustavus Swift and Andrew Carnegie pioneered this business form at the end of the Civil War.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.

Gustavus Swift

In the 1800s he enlarged fresh meat markets through branch slaughterhouses and refrigeration. He monopolized the meat industry.

John D. Rockefeller

Was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy.

Henry George

He wrote Progress and Poverty in 1879, which made him famous as an opponent of the evils of modern capitalism.

Terence Powderly

Knights of Labor leader, opposed strikes, producer-consumer cooperation, temperance, welcomed blacks and women (allowing segregation)

Leonora Barry

Labor leader and social reformer who from 1886 to 1890 served as general investigator women's worked for the Knights of Labor.

Samuel Gompers

He was the creator of the American Federation of Labor. He provided a stable and unified union for skilled workers.