Chap 6-US HISTORY

A New Industrial Age

Chapter 6 period in which natural resources, inventions, growing markets, railroads, big business, and industrialization transformed the United States.

Industrialization

The growth of industries and manufacturing that transformed the United States from an agricultural nation into a major industrial power.

Industrial boom

The rapid growth of American industry during the late 19th century, fueled by natural resources, government support, labor, and growing markets.

Natural resources

Materials supplied by nature, including oil, coal, iron ore, and water, that helped fuel American industrialization.

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.

Edwin L. Drake

The man who successfully used a steam engine to drill for oil near Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, helping begin the American oil boom.

Oil boom

Rapid growth of oil production and related industries after petroleum became an important resource.

Petroleum

Oil found beneath Earth's surface that could be refined into useful fuels such as kerosene and gasoline.

Kerosene

A fuel made by distilling oil or coal that Americans began using to light lamps in the 1840s.

Gasoline

A byproduct of oil refining that eventually became the most important form of oil after automobiles became popular.

Spindletop

A hill near Beaumont, Texas, where oil gushed from a well in 1901, beginning the great Texas oil boom.

Pattillo Higgins

A mechanic and lumber merchant who believed oil existed underground at Spindletop and helped make the Texas oil boom possible.

Anthony F. Lucas

An experienced prospector who worked with Pattillo Higgins to drill for oil at Spindletop.

Texas oil boom

The rapid growth of oil production in Texas that began after the Spindletop oil gusher of 1901.

Coal

An abundant natural resource that provided fuel for industrialization and steel production.

Iron ore

A natural resource used to produce iron and steel; large deposits were found in the Mesabi Range.

Mesabi Range

A large area of iron ore deposits in Minnesota discovered in 1887.

Steel

A lighter, more flexible, and more rust

Bessemer process

A manufacturing method that injected air into molten iron to remove carbon and impurities, allowing steel to be produced cheaply and efficiently.

Henry Bessemer

British manufacturer who independently developed the Bessemer process.

William Kelly

American ironmaker who independently developed the Bessemer process.

Open

hearth process

Pittsburgh

Major steel

Barbed wire

An invention by Joseph Glidden that helped transform the Great Plains by fencing land.

Joseph Glidden

Inventor of barbed wire.

McCormick farm machines

Agricultural machines that helped transform the Great Plains into a major food

Deere farm machines

Agricultural machines that helped transform the Great Plains into a major food

Brooklyn Bridge

A famous bridge completed in 1883 whose steel cables demonstrated the new possibilities of steel construction.

William Le Baron Jenney

Architect who designed the Home Insurance Building, the first skyscraper with a steel frame.

Home Insurance Building

Chicago building designed by William Le Baron Jenney that was the first skyscraper with a steel frame.

Electricity

A new source of energy that changed business, powered machines, allowed factories to locate away from rivers, and made new household appliances possible.

Thomas Alva Edison

Inventor who established a research laboratory at Menlo Park, perfected the incandescent light bulb, and developed a system for producing and distributing electrical power.

Menlo Park

New Jersey location where Edison established the world's first research laboratory.

Incandescent

Giving off visible light as a result of being heated.

Incandescent light bulb

A light bulb that produces light by heating a filament; Edison perfected one and patented it in 1880.

George Westinghouse

Inventor who worked on innovations that made electricity safer and less expensive.

Electric streetcar

A form of transportation powered by electricity that made urban travel cheaper and more efficient and encouraged cities to spread outward.

Christopher Sholes

Inventor of the typewriter in 1867.

Typewriter

An invention that changed office work and helped create new clerical jobs, especially for women.

Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor associated with the telephone, which he unveiled with Thomas Watson in 1876.

Thomas Watson

Inventor who worked with Alexander Graham Bell on the telephone.

Telephone

An invention introduced in 1876 that opened the way for a worldwide communications network.

Industrialization and women

Industrialization created new factory and office jobs for women, including clerical and garment work.

Clerical work

Office work that expanded greatly with inventions such as the typewriter and telephone.

Consumer industries

Industries producing goods for the growing urban population and expanding consumer market.

Standard of living

The general level of comfort and material well

Transcontinental railroad

A railroad system that linked the United States from coast to coast.

Central Pacific Railroad

Railroad company that built eastward from California and employed many Chinese immigrants.

Union Pacific Railroad

Railroad company that built westward and employed many Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans.

Promontory, Utah

Location where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met on May 10, 1869, completing the first transcontinental railroad.

Golden spike

Spike used to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory, Utah, in 1869.

Railroad expansion

The rapid growth of railroad lines that connected regions, encouraged settlement, expanded markets, and helped industrialization.

Railroad workers

Laborers who built railroad tracks, often under dangerous conditions involving accidents, disease, difficult terrain, and attacks.

Chinese railroad workers

Chinese immigrants who worked mainly for the Central Pacific Railroad and were generally paid less than white workers.

Railroad time

A standardized system of time created because railroad travel made local differences in time impractical.

C. F. Dowd

Professor who proposed dividing the Earth into 24 time zones, including four U.S. zones.

Time zones

Standardized divisions of time that helped solve the problems created by railroad travel across different local times.

Eastern Time

One of the four U.S. time zones proposed under the railroad time system.

Central Time

One of the four U.S. time zones proposed under the railroad time system.

Mountain Time

One of the four U.S. time zones proposed under the railroad time system.

Pacific Time

One of the four U.S. time zones proposed under the railroad time system.

New towns and markets

Communities and economic markets that grew as railroads connected previously isolated areas.

Chicago

City that became known for its stockyards and benefited greatly from its railroad connections.

Minneapolis

City that became known for its grain industry and benefited from railroad connections.

Pullman

A company town created by George M. Pullman for workers at his railroad

George M. Pullman

Railroad

Company town

A town controlled by a company that provides housing and services for its employees.

Crédit Mobilier

Construction company created by Union Pacific stockholders that charged excessive amounts for railroad construction and used stock to influence members of Congress.

Railroad corruption

Abuses by railroad companies including misuse of government land grants, price fixing, discriminatory rates, and Crédit Mobilier.

Grangers

Members of the Grange, a farmers' organization founded in 1867 that demanded government control of railroads.

Grange

Farmers' organization founded in 1867 that worked to protect farmers from railroad abuses.

Price fixing

When companies in an industry agree to charge the same price instead of competing to offer lower prices.

Granger Laws

State laws designed to protect farmers and consumers by regulating railroad rates and preventing discrimination.

Munn v. Illinois

1877 Supreme Court case that upheld the right of states to regulate railroads for the benefit of farmers and consumers.

Interstate commerce

Railroad traffic that comes from or goes to another state.

Interstate Commerce Act

1887 law that gave the federal government authority to supervise railroad activities and created the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

Five

Panic of 1893

Severe economic collapse in which hundreds of banks and thousands of businesses failed and millions of people lost jobs.

Consolidation

The act of uniting or combining businesses or companies.

Railroad consolidation

The process through which financial companies reorganized railroads and increasingly powerful companies controlled large portions of railroad tracks.

J. P. Morgan

Banker whose company reorganized railroads during the financial problems of the 1890s.

Andrew Carnegie

Industrialist who built a massive steel business and became one of the first major American industrial moguls.

Carnegie Steel Company

Steel company controlled by Andrew Carnegie that became extremely successful and was eventually sold in 1901.

Vertical integration

A business strategy in which a company buys businesses that supply its raw materials, transportation, or other stages of production.

Horizontal integration

A business strategy in which companies producing similar products merge or one buys out competitors.

Carnegie's business strategy

Carnegie improved machinery and manufacturing, tracked costs carefully, offered stock to talented workers, and used vertical and horizontal integration.

Social Darwinism

Theory that applied Darwin's ideas about natural selection to human society and business, arguing that the most capable people naturally succeed.

Herbert Spencer

English philosopher who applied Darwin's ideas of evolution to human society and helped develop Social Darwinism.

Laissez faire

Doctrine that the marketplace should not be regulated by the government.

Natural selection

Darwin's idea that individuals with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce.

Monopoly

Complete control over an industry's production, wages, and prices.

Merger

A situation in which one corporation buys the stock of another corporation.

Holding company

A corporation created mainly to buy the stock of other companies.

United States Steel

Holding company headed by J. P. Morgan that became the world's largest business after buying Carnegie Steel in 1901.

Trust

An arrangement in which competing companies turn their stock over to a group of trustees who operate the companies together as one large corporation.

Trustees

People who ran separate companies together under a trust agreement.

Standard Oil Company

Company founded by John D. Rockefeller that gained control of most of America's oil refining industry.

John D. Rockefeller

Industrialist who used trusts and aggressive business practices to gain control of the American oil industry.

Robber barons

A critical term used by people who accused powerful industrialists of using ruthless or unfair business practices to build their fortunes.

Captains of industry

A more positive description of industrialists who were viewed as effective business leaders who helped grow the economy.