Key Concepts in U.S. Business, Politics, and Social Movements (19th-20th Century)

Vertical integration

Business strategy by which a company would control all aspects of a product from raw material mining to transporting the finished product.

Horizontal integration

Buying companies out and combining the former competitors under one organization.

Interstate Commerce Act 1886

A federal regulatory agency designed to oversee the railroad industry and prevent collusion and unfair rates.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890

Prohibited any 'contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce.'

Knights of Labor

Welcomed unskilled and semiskilled workers, including women, immigrants, and African Americans; were idealists who believed they could eliminate conflict between labor and managements.

Laissez-faire capitalism

Theory of no government intervention in the economy, even as they accepted high tariffs and federal subsidies.

Social Darwinism

Belief that government's helping poor people weakened the evolution of the species by preserving the unfit.

Political machines

Major cities came under the control of tightly organized groups of politicians.

Trust

Small group of associates that hold stock from a group of combined firms, managing them as a single entity.

Farmer's Alliance

Rural movement that advocated cooperative stores and exchanges that would circumvent middlemen, and it called for greater government aid to farmers and stricter regulation of railroads.

WEB DuBois

Advocated for equality for blacks, integrated schools, and equal access to higher education.

Ethnic neighborhoods

Different immigrant groups created distinct neighborhoods where they could maintain their distinct identity.

Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

Law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States.

Tenements

Buildings were often divided into small crowded windowless apartments for the poor.

Settlement Houses

Provided social services to new immigrants.

Jim Crow Laws

Designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites.

Social gospel

Movement to renew religious faith through dedication to public welfare and social justice, reforming both society and self through Christian service.

Salvation Army

Charity provided the basic necessities of life for the homeless and the poor while also preaching Christian Gospel.

Booker T Washington

Ex-slave founded the Tuskegee Institute, he stressed patience, manual training and hard work for blacks.

Plessy v Ferguson

Ruled that 'separate but equal' facilities were permissible according to the Fourteenth Amendment.