Industrialization, Immigration, Urbanization, and Gilded Age Vocabulary

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards created from the lecture notes covering Industrialization, Immigration, Urbanization, and The Gilded Age.

entrepreneurs

a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

tariffs

a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports.

laissez-faire

a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course in economics, without government interfering.

patent

a government authority or license conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention.

mass production

The manufacture of goods in large quantities by machinery and by use of techniques such as the assembly line and division of labor.

corporation

a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

Social Darwinism

the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same laws of natural selection as plants and animals, particularly when it comes to the success of a business.

Sherman Antitrust Act

passed by Congress in 1890, that prohibits monopolies or unreasonable combinations of companies to restrict or in any way control interstate commerce.

sweatshops

a factory or workshop, especially in the clothing industry, where manual workers are employed at very low wages for long hours and under poor conditions.

collective bargaining

negotiation of wages and other conditions of employment by an organized body of employees.

Monopoly

when one company or corporation controls all or most of the means of production in any particular industry.

socialism

a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Capitalism

an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

nativism

the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants.

mass transit

public transportation, especially in an urban area.

“old” immigrants

groups of people who arrived in the mid-1800s, coming mostly from northwestern Europe.

“new” immigrants

groups of people who traveling mostly from southeastern Europe.

push factors

things such as war, famine, religous persecution, that caused immigrants to want to leave their homeland.

pull factors

things such as jobs, land, religous freedom, that motivated immigrants to come to America.

Ellis Island

From 1892 to 1954, it served as the prime immigration station of the country. Some twelve million immigrants passed through it during this time.

Angel Island

was an immigration station located in San Francisco Bay which operated from January 21, 1910 to November 5, 1940, where immigrants entering the United States were detained and interrogated.

“melting pot”

term used to describe the accumulation of many different cultures, religions into America.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

was the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States.

Urbanization

the movement of large numbers of people to the cities.

Tenements

a room or a set of rooms forming a separate residence within a house or block of apartments, usually poorly ventilated and unsafe.

poll tax

a tax levied on citizens in order to vote.

spoils system

the practice of a successful political party giving public office to its supporters.

“Gilded” Age

the time between the Civil War and World War I during which the U.S. population and economy grew quickly, there was a lot of political corruption and corporate financial misdealings and many wealthy people lived very fancy lives.

Jim Crow laws

created to purposely segregate white americans and black americans in public places.

literacy tests

an examination that determines the qualification of a voter based on his/her his ability to read and write or ability to read and understand any section of the State or Federal Constitution.

grandfather clauses

a clause exempting certain classes of people or things from the requirements of a piece of legislation affecting their previous rights, privileges, or practices.

Plessy v. Ferguson

a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1896 that upheld the rights of states to pass laws allowing or even requiring racial segregation in public and private institutions such as schools, public transportation, restrooms, and restaurants.

Booker T. Washington

An African-American educator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who headed Tuskegee Institute, a college for African-Americans in Alabama.

W.E.B. DuBois

United States civil rights leader and political activist who campaigned for equality for Black Americans (1868-1963)

Pendleton Civil Service Act

is a United States federal law, enacted in 1883, which established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation.