Big Business History

Gold Standard

System where each dollar in circulation is backed by an equivalent value in gold.

Basket Economy

Economic model involving buying currency from various countries to stabilize the economy.

Middle Class

Tax base of a country, crucial for economic stability and growth.

Promontory Point, Utah

Where the railroads from the East and West met.

1/30

Would get injured

1/90

Would die.

Chinese

General labor of the West

Irish

General labor for the East

Germans

Skilled labor for both the east and the west

The Germans and Irish got ____, but the Chinese wouldn’t because of the _____.

citizenship, Chinese Exclusion Act

Chinese Exclusion Act

1. Prevents the Chinese from receiving citizenship.
   

Italian Grandmas

A successful immigrant class that made good food.

• Results in brothels, saloons, and hotels being created.

Vertical Integration

Business model where a company controls the market from production to selling directly to consumers.

Modern-day example of Vertical Intergation

Apple:

• They would offset their loses to make more money —> Foxconn Incident.

Andrew Carnegie

• Created Carnegie Steel

• Used Vertical Integration

Cornelius Vanderbilt

“The King of Rails”

• Made deal w/ Carnegie so that he gets steel to make rails, and Carnegie has access to rail lines.

Gospel of Wealth

Competition between the rich to donate the most money to help people.

• Carnegie created public libraries and uni.

• Rockefeller created cultural centers.

Horizontal Integration

Business strategy where a company absorbs or merges with competitors to form a monopoly.

Modern Day example of Horizontal Intergration

Disney:

• Buys different businesses and rebrands them.

John D. Rockefeller

• Created Standard Oil

• Used rebates and kickbacks.

Rebates

Getting tricked into buying items in bulk by a company, but the company pays you back some money.

• “Discounts”

Kickbacks

It's pretty much like bribery.

__% of the oil industry was owned by Rockefeller

90%

Ida Tarbell

Exposes Standard Oil —> as a result, Rockefeller changes the names of Standard Oil

Name changes of Standard Oil

Esso —> Exxon —> Mobil —> Exxon Mobil

Jay Gould

No.1 Hated man

• Stock speculator

• Practiced insider trading.

Stock Speculators

• Can tell whether a stock price will go up or down.

• If they hated a certain business, they would bankrupt it buy saying it was financially bad.

  • Often brings down the value, and would buy it and sell it again.

Insider Trading

Tricking people to buy stocks in order to increase the value of a buisness.

• Illegal practice of trading stocks based on non-public, material information.

SEC

“Securities Exchange Comission”

• Created to monitor the market bc of Insider Trading.

Examples of Insider Trading

50 Cent and Martha Stewart.

Monopolies

Control of a specific market by a single entity, leading to price determination without competition.

Laissez Faire

Economic concept advocating minimal government intervention in business affairs.

Holding Company

Owning lots of shares or stocks of a company to the point where you could “hold” or “threaten” the company.

• illegal when someone owns a certain percentage of shares.

Trusts

Agreement where similar businesses combine to control prices and outcomes in a market.

• OPEC (Oil Producing Economic Companies) is a modern-day example

• Controls how much a barrel of oil goes for a day.

Pools

Pooling stock shares to kick someone out.

• J.P Morgan uses this to kick Carnegie out of his buisness.

J.P Morgan

Created Chase Bank.

Social Darwinism

Survival of the Fittest —> leads to more competitions.

Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

Legislation declaring monopolies and artificial business restrictions illegal.

• Vague bc of Artifical Restrictions.

Interstate Commerce Act

Federal authority over interstate traffic on railroads.

• Allows for equitable distribution between taxes.

Thomas Edison

“Wizard of Menlo Park”

• Created light bulb

Heinz

Pickle company

Singer

Typewriters

Swift

Meat packing company

Alexander Granham Bell

Telephones

Quackers

Created oats, and a product for sealing and closing the grains.

Campbell

Created a liner to prevent the acidity of the tomatoes from corroding the can.

Proprietorship

When one person owns a business

• If the business fails, the person loses all of their assets.

Partnership

2 or more people own a business together.

• If the business fails, they would lose all of their assets.

Corportation

• Selling pieces of your business.

• Only lose what you put in.

LLC

“Limited Liability Company”

• If something goes wrong, business and personal life are separate.

• Won’t lose everything

Florence Kelly

Creates the National Consumers League.

National Consumers League

Don’t buy products from companies that you don’t support.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony

Creates NAWSA.

NAWSA

“National American Women Suffrage Association”

• “It takes time!”

• Only wants voting rights for WHITE women.

Alice Paul

A young radicalist who wanted to get voting rights immediately.

• Protested in front of the White House.

National Labor Comittee

• 1904— Wanted to address the misuse of children.

• 1914, established limitations for children working (working conditions, age, and hours, wages)

Education

Science starts challenging religion.

Social Gospel

The goal of society is to help the impoverish/poor.

Red Cross

Created by Clara Barton

Salvation Army

A religious organization that is to help the homeless.

Hull House

For battered women and widows —> extremely successful.

• Located in Chicgao

Settlement House

To help out the homeless —> failed.

• Located in NY.

Johnstown, PA

Town created by Andrew Carnegie for fishing.

South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club

• For the rich ppl, lots of exotic animals etc.

35’ - 40’

The size of the flood that came to Johnstown.

Amount of people who died was ___ and the amount of people who were missing __.

2,200 died, and 750 went missing.

Zoning Laws

Created to prevent companies from doing whatever they want.

Pure Food and Drug Act

Created to stop quackery.

• Eventually becomes the FDA.

Initiative

From the bottom (people) to the government.

Referendum

From the government to the people

• Govt. sends proposal/ voter ballot to the people so that they can vote on what should be enacted.

• Politicans wouldn’t be blamed for the results.

17th Amendment

• Direct primaries aka shrinking down the candidates list.

Muller vs. Oregon

Court case that established working hours for women

• Original 10 hours then became 8.

• Applied to children and then to men.

Workman’s Compensation

If you get hurt on the job, you will be compensated.

16th amendment

Govt. can collect income tax.

Jacob Riis

Used photography to expose homelessness in NY.

David Phillips

Went after senators, ends up takind down 75.

Helen Hunt Jackson

Wrote “Century of Dishonor which talked about the mistreatment of native Americans.

Frederick Turner

Told people to start moving out to the west.

Huge environmentalist.

Upton Sinclair

Wrote “The Jungle” which exposes the horror working conditions of the meat packing industry.

Socialism

Goverment’s job is to help and fix society

Eugene Debs

Factory workers should own the factories as well.

Daniel De Leon

We should overthrow the government.