Gilded Age and Progressive Era Key Terms

Vocabulary and key terms from history lecture notes covering industrialization, urbanization, and the Progressive Era.

Bessemer-Kelly Process

Innovation in steel production where air was blown on molten iron to remove impurities, allowing steel to be produced cheaply at mass quantities; developed in the $1850s$ by British inventor Henry Bessemer and Kentucky kettle manufacturer William Kelly.

Interstate Commerce Act

Congressional legislation that established the Interstate Commerce Commission, compelled railroads to publish standard rates, and prohibited rebates and pools.

vertical integration

The practice perfected by Andrew Carnegie of controlling every step of the industrial production process in order to increase efficiency and limit competition.

interlocking directorates

The practice of having executives or directors from one company serve on the board of directors of another company; introduced by J. P. Morgan in the $1890s$ to eliminate banking competition.

Standard Oil Company

John D. Rockefeller’s company, formed in $1870$, which controlled $95\,\text{percent}$ of the oil refineries in the United States by $1877$ and became a symbol of Gilded Age trusts.

horizontal integration

The practice perfected by John D. Rockefeller of dominating a particular phase of the production process in order to monopolize a market, often by forming trusts and alliances with competitors.

trust

A mechanism by which one company grants control over its operations, through ownership of its stock, to another company; famously used by the Standard Oil Company to eliminate competition.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

A law that forbade trusts or combinations in business; it was landmark legislation as one of the first congressional attempts to regulate big business for the public good.

National Labor Union

The first national labor organization in U.S. history, which gained $600,000$ members and devoted much energy to fighting for an $8\text{-hour}$ workday before it dissolved in $1872$.

Knights of Labor

The second national labor organization, organized in $1869$ and opened for public membership in $1881$, known for organizing all workers regardless of skill level, gender, or race.

Haymarket Square

A May Day rally that turned violent when someone threw a bomb, killing several dozen people; eight anarchists were arrested for conspiracy, four of whom were executed.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

A national federation of trade unions for skilled workers founded in $1886$ and led by Samuel Gompers; it negotiated for better wages, hours, and conditions.

closed shop

A union-organizing term referring to the practice of allowing only unionized employees to work for a particular company.

New Immigrants

Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe (many Catholic or Jewish) who formed a wave of immigration from the $1880s$ until $1924$, settling in ethnic urban neighborhoods.

political machines

Urban political organizations, such as Tammany Hall, that captured the immigrant vote by promising municipal jobs, housing, and social services.

Tweed Ring

A symbol of Gilded Age corruption where "Boss" Tweed and his deputies swindled $\$200\,\text{million}$ from New York City in the $1860s$ through bribery, graft, and vote-buying.

settlement house

Facilities in immigrant neighborhoods, run mostly by middle-class native-born women, providing housing, food, education, and social connections for new arrivals.

liberal Protestants

A branch of Protestantism ($1875$ to $1925$) that used the Bible as a moral compass rather than a source of scientific truth and was active in the "social gospel" movement.

Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School

A higher education institution founded by Booker T. Washington to train young Black students in agriculture and trades to help them achieve economic independence.

Land-grant colleges

Colleges and universities created from public land allocations through the Morrill Act of $1862$ and the Hatch Act of $1887$.

yellow journalism

A sensationalist, scandal-mongering practice of journalism that emerged from circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

An organization founded in $1890$ to demand the vote for women, arguing their domestic responsibilities made them indispensable to public decision-making.

Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Founded in the $1870s$ to combat excessive alcohol consumption, it expanded its agenda to campaigns for woman suffrage and abolishing prostitution.

Realism

A mid-nineteenth-century movement in literature and arts that sought to depict contemporary life and society as it actually was, eschewing idealism.

naturalism

A late-nineteenth-century literary movement that applied detached scientific objectivity to the study of characters shaped by heredity and social environments.

regionalism

An artistic movement that aspired to capture the "local color" or peculiarities of America's various regions in the face of national standardization.

City Beautiful movement

A turn-of-the-century movement among architects and city planners to promote order, harmony, and virtue by beautifying urban spaces with parks and grand buildings.

World’s Columbian Exposition

The $1893$ Chicago world's fair that honored art, architecture, and science, featuring a mini-city that reflected ideals of urban planning.

social gospel

A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor.

muckrakers

Turn-of-the-twentieth-century reporters who boosted magazine circulation by writing exposés of widespread corruption in business and government.

initiative

A progressive reform measure allowing voters to petition to have a law placed on the general ballot.

referendum

A progressive reform procedure allowing voters to place a bill on the ballot for final approval after being passed by the legislature.

recall

A progressive reform procedure that allows voters to remove elected officials from office.

Australian ballot

A system introduced during the progressive era that allows voters privacy in marking their choices to help counteract boss rule.

Muller v. Oregon

A landmark Supreme Court case where Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Court to accept the constitutionality of limiting the hours of women workers.

Lochner v. New York

A setback for labor reformers where the Supreme Court invalidated a state law establishing a $10\text{-hour}$ day for bakers based on the "right to free contract."

Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire

A $1911$ factory fire in New York City that caused $146$ worker deaths and sparked movements to improve fire codes and factory safety.

Elkins Act

A $1903$ law that imposed penalties on railroads offering rebates and customers who accepted them, strengthening the Interstate Commerce Act.

Meat Inspection Act

A $1906$ law subjecting meat shipped over state lines to federal inspection, mobilized by descriptions of slaughterhouses in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

Pure Food and Drug Act

A $1906$ law to inspect and regulate the labeling of all foods and pharmaceuticals intended for human consumption.

Newlands Reclamation Act

Congress authorized the collection of money from public land sales in western states to fund the construction of dams and irrigation projects.

Hetch Hetchy Valley

Located in Yosemite National Park, the federal government allowed San Francisco to build a dam here in $1913$, causing a split between preservationists and conservationists.

panic of 1907

A financial panic triggered by bankruptcies and a stock market crash, staunched by J. P. Morgan, which eventually led to the creation of the Federal Reserve in $1913$.

Brownsville Affair

A $1906$ incident in Texas where Theodore Roosevelt ordered the discharge of Black soldiers from the $25th$ Infantry Regiment following tenuous links to a shooting.

dollar diplomacy

President Taft's policy of supporting U.S. investments and political interests abroad, first applied to financing railways in China after $1909$.

Payne-Aldrich Bill

A $1909$ bill intended to lower tariffs that instead retained high rates on most imports, which President Taft controversialy called the "best bill that the Republican party ever passed."

New Nationalism

Theodore Roosevelt’s reform program seeking stronger regulatory agencies to ensure that consolidated trusts and labor unions operated in the public interest.

New Freedom

Woodrow Wilson's reform platform including stronger antitrust legislation to protect small business, banking reform, and tariff reductions.