The Gilded Age Vocabulary Review

Vocabulary terms and definitions from the Gilded Age Social Studies review study guide.

Transcontinental Railroad

A continuous railway line completed in the mid-to-late 1800s that connects the eastern US rail network with the west coast.

U.S. Census

A survey that goes out to every citizen in the US to find its population.

Industrialization

The process of the economy shifting from agricultural based work to more technical and fracturing work.

Urbanization

The growth and development of cities, which started to be created in the 1890s.

Laissez-faire

The idea that the government should NOT interfere in the economy.

Capitalism

An economic system in which people put money or capital into a business project in order to make a profit later on. Private citizens own and control property and let supply and demand freely set prices.

Free enterprise system

Economic system where each privately owned business decides what to produce and how much to produce.

Corporation

A business owned by many investors or people who help pay for the initial expenses of the business.

Monopoly

A company that controls all or close to ALL businesses in an industry. For example: The Railroads.

Trust

Group of corporations run by a single (1) board of directors.

Robber Barons

Men who made their fortunes by crushing their competition; a term used by critics who considered them cold and greedy.

Captains of Industry

People who were bold and innovative; considered the opposite of robber barons.

Andrew Carnagie

An immigrant who took over the steel industry by converting iron into steel, building advanced steel mills in Homestead, PA, manufacturing almost all 930,000 tons of US steel by 1879, and selling out to form U.S. Steel Corporation in 1901.

Cornelius Vanderbuilt

A self-made multimillionaire who started as a steamship captain, was competitive and ruthless, did not donate to charities, kept his money to himself, and whose heirs built the largest home in the United States.

J.P Morgan

A banker who became a powerful force in the American economy by controlling key industries like railroads and steel, buying stock in troubled corporations, and running them to eliminate competition and increase profits.

John D. Rockefeller

A business giant and son of a New York peddler who invested in an oil refinery at age 23 and used profits to buy other oil companies, crushing competitors and slashing prices.

Adam Smith

18th-century author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (The Wealth of Nations), considered today as the father of modern economics.

Tenements

Slum, cheap, overcrowded apartment buildings with shared bathrooms.

"Old" immigrants

Immigrants who came to the US in the early and mid 1800s, mostly Protestants or Catholics from northern and western Europe, who often spoke English and had experience in democracy.

"New" immigrants

Immigrants who came to the US in the late 1800s from southern and eastern Europe (Italy, Poland, Russia, Greece) or Asia and the Pacific, mostly Catholic or Jewish, with very few understanding English or having experience living in a democracy/city.