American Pageant Ch 24 Question Review by Ashton Wong

How much worth of manufactured goods did America annually export by 1900?

$600 million

How many miles of steam railways were there when Lincoln was shot in 1865? Where was most of the railways located?

Miles of railways in 1900?

35,000 miles;

east of Mississippi;

192,566 miles

When did Congress first advance liberal loans to trans-continental railroad companies?

How many acres of land did they grant?

How much more would the western states contribute?

1862;

155,504,994;

49 million more acres (total area larger than Texas)

Who overthrew the practice which allowed railroad companies to withhold unnecessary land?

President Grover Cleveland (in 1887)

What were the benefits of the government granting valuable rights and lands to greedy corporations?

long-term preferential rates for postal service and military traffic

How much did railroad companies sell their unused land for?

$3 an acre

What did cities that were bypassed by the railroad become?

Ghost towns

What was an important argument for the Union Pacific Railroad mentioned by the book?

What years was this argument made?

The binding of the Pacific Coast to the rest of the union, more specifically California.

1862

When did the Union Pacific Railroads first begin construction? From where? How much land was the company granted for each mile of track constructed?

How many acre sections would they be alternating on either side of the track?

The end of the Civil War, 1865

Omaha, Nebraska

20 square miles of land

640-acre sections

How much did builders receive in a federal loan for each mile build on flat prairie land? For mountainous country?

$16,000

$48,000

Who made all possible haste of building railroads?

"Groundhog" promoters

How much did the Crédit Mobilier construction company pocket from federal loans?

How much was their construction actually worth?

$73 million

$50 million

How much railroad track was laid by 5,000 Irish men on one record-breaking day? What were the Irish called?

Ten miles

Irish "Paddies" (Patricks)

What were worker's tented towns for relaxation known as?

"Hells on wheels"

What undertook rail-laying at the California end of the transcontinental railroad? Where did the line push eastward from? Where would it push through?

The Central Pacific Railroad

Sacramento

Sierra Nevada

What group of people were the chief financial bankers of the Central Pacific Railroad?

Who were two notable people part of this group?

"The Big Four"

California's ex-governor Leland Stanford and Collis P. Huntington (adept lobbyist)

What made the Chinese good laborers?

How did many of the laborers lose their lives?

They were cheap, efficient, and expendable (they were good for companies obviously death is bad)

Premature explosions

What was the event when the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad joined together?

Where and when would this occur?

"Wedding of the rails"

Ogden, Utah, 1869

Who drove the last ceremonial (golden) spike? With what did he drive it in?

Leland Stanford

Sliver maul

How many miles of railroad did the Union Pacific build?

How many miles of railroad did the Central Pacific build?

1086;

689

What did the transcontinental line do?

What did Americans compare this achievement to?

Welded the West Coast more firmly to the Union and facilitate flourishing trade with Asia;

Declaration of Independence, Emancipation of Slaves

How many transcontinental railroad systems existed within the US in 1900?

5

Where did the Northern Pacific Railroad stretch from?

Where did the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroads stretch from?

Where did the Southern Pacific Railroad stretch from?

Where did the Great Northern Railroad stretch from?

Lake Superior to Puget Sound (reached terminus in 1883);

southwestern deserts to California (reached terminus in 1884);

New Orleans to San Francisco (reached terminus in 1884);

Duluth to Seattle north of Northern Pacific (reached terminus in 1893)

Who is credited for the creation of the Great Northern railroad?

James J. Hill (Greatest railroad builder of all)

Sometimes where did rails that were laid down lead to?

"From nowhere to nothing"

Who is behind the idea of welding old railroads notably the New York Central to new ones?

"Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt

How much money did Vanderbilt amass a fortune of?

$100 million

Through what contribution was Vanderbilt best remembered?

How much money was put into it?

Vanderbilt University of Tennessee;

$1 million

What two things were made better about the new railroads?

The use of steel rails as opposed to iron;

standard gauge of track width

What was a marvelous contribution to efficiency and safety?

Westinghouse air brake (adopted in 1870s)

What were Pullman Palace Cars advertised as? What did alarmists condemn them as?

"gorgeous traveling hotels"

"wheeled torture chambers"

What were some safety features of railroads and Pullman Palace Cars?

telegraph ("talking wires"), double-tracking, and the block signal

What percent of investment dollars from foreign and domestic investors did railroads "gobble up"?

20%

What did railroad companies stimulate the mighty stream of?

immigration (advertised in Europe)

Who replaced the "lords of the lash"?

"lords of the rail"

In which four states did settlers following the railroad plant rectangular corn fields?

Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, and Nebraska

In which three states did cattle replace buffalo?

The Dakotas (North and South) and Montana

In which three states did white pine forests disappear into lumber due to the rush by the rail to prairie farmers to build houses and fences?

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Before timezones were introduced, when it was noon in Chicago, what time was it in St. Louis?

Detroit?

11:50 am;

12:18 pm

What was established by railroad companies on November 18, 1883 to ease confusion of scheduling?

"standard time" and "time zones"

How many standard timezones does the U.S. have?

four

Who was the best at manipulating stuff with railroads to make money illegitimately and busted and boomed the stocks of Erie, Kansas Pacific, Union Pacific, and the Texas and Pacific?

Jay Gould

What was it called when stock promoters greatly overstated the value of their stocks? What was the profit they made called?

"Stock watering"

"Promoters' profits"

What did Vanderbilt remark when told the law stood in his way?

"What do I care about the law? Hain't I got the power?"

Who was Cornelius' Vanderbilt son?

What did he reportedly snort when asked in 1883 about the discontinuance of a fast mail train?

William H. Vanderbilt;

"The public be damned!"

What specific people had more power than the president?

Railroad Kings

What was earliest form of combination which agreed to divide the business in a given area and share the profits? As a result who paid the highest rates?

the "pool"

small farmers

What was the hope that in a catch-as-catch can economic system, anyone might become a millionaire?

the "American Dream"

What agrarian group pressured midwestern legislatures to try and regulate the railroad monopoly?

Grange (Patrons of Husbandry)

What court case decided that states had no power to regulate interstate commerce?

Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois

What act was passed by Congress in 1887 to stabilize interstate commerce by setting up the ICC? What does ICC stand for?

The Interstate Commerce Act

Interstate Commerce Commission

What leading corporation lawyer of the day noted that the new commission "can be made of great use to the railroads...."?

Robert Olney

What type of law did the interstate commerce act rank as?

Red-letter law

In what year did the US become ranked first in manufacturing nations around the world?

What was it ranked at when Lincoln was elected?

1894;

4th

Unlike many other countries, where would America put their money received from abroad into?

private hands

Where were investors in America primarily from? What other countries did investors come from?

Britain

France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland

What were the three major abundant natural resources in America?

What other resources made similar journeys from mine to manufacture?

coal, oil, and iron;

Copper, bauxite, zinc

What shipping system would carry the rich iron deposits?

Where was the rich iron deposits carried from?

Shipping system through Great Lakes;

Mesabi Range of Minnesota to Chicago

What scooped up mountains of red-rusted ore by steam shovels?

the bonanza

Who used the assembly line to mass produce automobiles? What was the automobile called? What system would this be called?

Henry Ford;

Model T;

"American System"

What was a major incentive by the captains of industry to invent machines?

possible to replace expensive skilled labor with unskilled workers that were cheap and plentiful

What keystone industry was built largely on the sweat of low-priced immigrant labor from eastern and southern Europe?

How long would they work?

Steel;

two 12 hr shifts, 7 days a week

How many patents were issued between 1860 and 1890?

440,000

What machines facilitated Business operations?

cash register, stock ticker, typewriter

What is a nickname the book gave for the typewriter?

"literary piano"

What speeded up urbanization?

refrigerator car (electric dynamo) and electric railway

What did Graham Bell invent in 1876?

What type of nation would this turn America into?

The telephone;

nation of "telephoniacs"

Why were telephone boys replaced with "number please" women?

The boys used profanity

What were Edison's inventions that were mentioned in the book (just name 3 and your fine)? What is his famous quote? What was a nickname of workshop?

The phonograph, the mimeograph, the Dictaphone, the moving picture, and the lightbulb

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration"

"Invention factory"

What allowed Thomas Edison to concentrate without distraction?

his severe deafness

What invention was Thomas Edison most known for?

Before this invention, how many hours of sleep would people sleep an average of?

How much would they sleep after the invention?

Electric Lightbulb in 1879;

nine hours;

bit more than seven hours

Who were the three big Tycoons who circumvented competition to amass their wealth?

Andrew Carnegie(the steel king), John Rockefeller(the oil baron), J.P. Morgan(the bankers' banker)

What tactic did Carnegie employ which combined all aspects of manufacturing into one enterprise?

What was the process in the tactic?

Vertical Integration;

Ores from Mesabi range by his miners would be floated across the Great Lakes with Carnegie ships and Carnegie railroads would deliver to blast furnaces at Pittsburgh where the metal would be poured into glowing crucibles

What was the tactic of allying with competitors to monopolize a given market called?

Who was a master of this tactic?

What device did they perfect that would control bothersome rivals?

Horizontal Integration;

Rockefeller;

the TRUST

What company founded by Rockefeller cornered almost the entire petroleum market?

Standard Oil Company

What was Rockefeller unknown motto?

"Let us prey"

What strategy did Morgan employ when he put his own men of his own banking syndicate on their various boards of directors?

interlocking directorates

What was a war cry for the new industrialized generation?

"Steel is king!"

Where did Vanderbilt originally import his steel from?

What railroad was Vanderbilt working for?

Britain;

New York Central

How much of the world's steel was America producing by the 1890's?

What two countries was America producing as much steel of combined?

1/3;

Britain and Germany

What steel-purifying process was partly responsible for America's growth in the steel industry as it was a method of making cheap steel?

Who would invent this process?

Who would discover it?

What was steel he created called?

What technique did he originally try to apply to his own product?

The Bessemer Process,

invented by British inventor

later discovered by Kelly (Kentucky manufacturer)

Kelly's fool steel;

"air boiling" techniques

When was Carnegie brought to America?

What was his job when he arrived and how much would he make a week?

1848;

Bobbin Boy at $1.20 a week

How much of the nation's Bessemer Steel was Carnegie producing in 1900? How much profit was made a year? How much did the Carnegie receive?

1/4

40 million

25 million

What was Carnegie's nickname?

"Napoleon of the Smokestacks"

Who bought out Carnegie?

What was their nickname?

How much did Morgan pay to buy out Carnegie?

How long would it take for the financier to finally agree to Morgan to buy out Carnegie?

J.P. Morgan

"Jupiter" Morgan

$400 million

8 hours

Where did the Carnegie enter the steel business?

How many "Pittsburgh millionaire" did his organization that was a partnership involve?

Pittsburgh

40

How much of Carnegie's wealth did he give away?

$350 million

What was America's first billion-dollar corporation that was launched by Morgan in 1901?

What was it capitalized at?

The United States Steel Corporation

$1.4 billion

In what event did the first well in Pennsylvania pour out oil? What was a nickname for the oil?

Drake's Folly

black gold

What became the first major product of the infant oil industry?

Kerosene

What became America's fourth most valuable export?

Kerosene

What industry was superseded by Petroleum?

Whaling/Whale Oil (the lifeblood of New Englanders before days of Moby Dick)

How many Edison bulbs were in use by 1885? 1900?

250,000; 15 million

What invention brought back the demand for oil?

The Automobile

Who would dominate the oil industry?

How old were they when they became a successful businessman?

Rockefeller;

19

What was the "nucleus" of Rockefeller's great trust?

The Standard Oil Company of Ohio (in Cleveland)

What was piratical practices employed by?

"corsairs of finance"

What percentage of American oil refineries did Rockefeller control in 1877? What was nickname for Rockefeller given by Carnegie?

95%

"Reckafellow"

As Rockefeller thought he was simply obeying the law of nature, for aggressive consolidation what did he later reflect?

"The time was ripe!"

What trusts blossomed with the American Beauty of oil (name 2/3 and your prob fine)?

sugar trust, tobacco trust, the leather trust, and the harvester trust