Chapter 18 Key Terms
Alexander Graham Bell: Inventor of the telephone in 1876, revolutionizing communication.
Andrew Carnegie: Scottish-American industrialist who expanded the U.S. steel industry and became a major philanthropist.
Civil Service Reform: Effort in the 1880s to end the spoils system and reduce government corruption. The Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883 created the Civil Service Commission to award government jobs under a merit system that required examinations for office and made it impossible to remove jobholders for political reasons.
Corporation: A legal entity separate from its owners, allowing it to own assets, incur liabilities, and operate as a business. It is typically owned by shareholders and managed by a board of directors.
Family Economy: Economic contributions of multiple members of a household that were necessary to the survival of the family. From the late nineteenth century into the twentieth, many working-class families depended on the wages of all family members, regardless of sex or age.
Finance Capitalism: Investment sponsored by banks and bankers that typified the American business scene at the end of the nineteenth century. After the panic of 1893, bankers stepped in and reorganized major industries to stabilize them, leaving power concentrated in the hands of a few influential capitalists.
Free Silver: Term used in the late nineteenth century by those who advocated minting silver dollars in addition to supporting the gold standard and the paper currency backed by gold. Poor farmers from the West and South hoped this would result in inflation, effectively providing them with debt relief. Western silver barons wanted the government to buy silver and mint silver dollars, thereby raising the price of silver.
Gilded Age: Period of enormous economic growth and ostentatious displays of wealth during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Industrialization dramatically changed U.S. society and created a newly dominant group of rich entrepreneurs and an impoverished working class.
Gospel of wealth: The idea that the financially successful should use their wisdom, experience, and wealth to help the poor. Andrew Carnegie promoted this view in an 1889 essay in which he maintained that the wealthy should serve as stewards of society as a whole.
Grange: A farmers' organization founded in 1867 to promote agricultural education, social gatherings, and political advocacy for better economic conditions and regulations for farmers.
Grover Cleveland: The 22nd and 24th President of the United States, serving non-consecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897), known for his fight against corruption, championing fiscal conservatism, and handling the Panic of 1893.
Horizontal Integration: A business strategy where a company acquires or merges with other companies in the same industry to increase market share and reduce competition. Notably used by John D. Rockefeller in the oil industry.
Ida B. Wells: An African American journalist, educator, and activist who led an anti-lynching campaign in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and fought for civil rights and women's suffrage.
Ida Tarbell: A pioneering investigative journalist known for her exposé on the Standard Oil Company, which helped to expose monopolistic practices and contributed to the eventual breakup of the company.
Interstate Commerce Commission: Federal regulatory agency designed to oversee the railroad industry. Congress created it through the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act after the Supreme Court decision in Wabash v. Illinois (1886) effectively denied states the right to regulate railroads. The ICC proved weak and did not immediately pose a threat to the industry.
Jason “Jay” Gould: A wealthy and controversial American railroad magnate and financier known for his role in the expansion and manipulation of the railroad industry, including his involvement in the "Black Friday" stock market scandal.
Jim Crow: System of racial segregation in the South lasting from after the Civil War into the twentieth century. Jim Crow laws segregated Black people in public facilities such as trains and streetcars, curtailed their voting rights, and denied other basic civil rights.
John D. Rockefeller: An American industrialist and co-founder of Standard Oil, who monopolized the oil industry and became one of the wealthiest individuals in history.
John Pierpont: A powerful American banker and financier who helped consolidate industries, including railroads and steel, and played a key role in the formation of General Electric and U.S. Steel.
Laissez-Faire: An economic philosophy advocating minimal government interference in business and markets, allowing private enterprise to operate freely.
New South: A term used to describe the South's post-Civil War transformation, emphasizing industrialization, diversification of agriculture, and a shift away from reliance on slavery.
Railroads: key infrastructure in the U.S. during the 19th century, enabling westward expansion, the movement of goods, and the growth of industries and cities.
Samuel F.B Morse: An American inventor known for developing the telegraph and Morse code, revolutionizing long-distance communication.
Sherman Antitrust Act: 1890 act that outlawed pools and trusts, ruling that businesses could no longer enter into agreements to restrict competition. Government inaction, combined with the Supreme Court’s narrow reading of the act in the United States v. E. C. Knight Company (1895) decision, undermined the law’s effectiveness.
Social Darwinism: A social theory popularized in the late nineteenth century by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Proponents believed that only relentless competition could produce social progress and that wealth was a sign of “fitness” and poverty a sign of “unfitness” for survival.
Spoils System: System in which politicians doled out government positions to their loyal supporters. This patronage system led to widespread corruption during the Gilded Age.
Thomas A. Edison: An American inventor and businessman best known for inventing the electric light bulb, phonograph, and founding General Electric. He held over 1,000 patents and revolutionized various industries.
Trust: A system in which corporations give shares of their stock to trustees who hold the stocks “in trust” for their stockholders, thereby coordinating the industry to ensure profits to the participating corporations and to curb competition.
United States vs. E.C. Knight: A Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the federal government could not regulate manufacturing monopolies under the Sherman Antitrust Act, limiting the government's ability to break up trusts.
Vertical Integration: A business strategy where a company controls all stages of production, from raw materials to finished products, reducing costs and increasing control
Wabash vs. Illinois: A Supreme Court case that limited the power of states to regulate interstate commerce, ruling that only the federal government could regulate railroad rates that crossed state lines.
Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU): All-women organization founded in 1874 to advocate total abstinence from alcohol. The WCTU provided important political training for women, which many used in the suffrage movement.