Chapter 18 IDs

Chapter 18 IDs

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt used his millions earned to merge local railroads into forming the New York Central Railroad.

New York Central Railroad (1867)

It was a railroad that ran from New York City to Chicago and operated more than 4,500 miles of track.

Truck Line

This was a major railroad between large cities.

Federal Land Grants

Railroad companies got acres of public land, which the government expected the companies would sell to settlers to finance their construction.

Transcontinental Railroads

During the Civil War, Congress authorized land grants and loans to build the first transcontinental railroad from California to the rest of the Union.

Union and Central Pacific

The Union Pacific was a railroad that was built westward from the Great Plains, and the Central Pacific was a railroad that was built to go across mountain passes in the Sierras towards Sacramento.  

Jay Gould

Gould was a speculator who went into the railroad business for a quick profit, and made millions by selling off assets and watering stock.

Watered Stock

Watered stock is when a corporation’s assets are inflated and they profit before selling this stock to the public.

Pools

A pool is when competing companies agree secretly and informally to fix rates and share traffic.

Rebates

Rebates are discounts.

Panic of 1893

This financial panic was when it forced a quarter of all railroads into bankruptcy.

J. Pierpont Morgan

Morgan was a banker who took control of bankrupt railroads and brought them together which eliminated competition and this allowed them to stabilize rates and reduce debts.

William Vanderbilt

William inherited his father’s transportation empire the New York Central Railroad.

Second Industrial Revolution

After the Civil War this allowed for the growth of heavy industry like production of steel, petroleum, electric power, and the production of other goods.

Bessemer Process

Bessemer discovered that blasting air through molten iron produced high quality of steel.

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew started manufacturing steel and began to outdistance his competitors by a combination of sales technique and the latest technology.

Vertical Integration

It is when a company would control every stage of the industrial process, from mining the raw materials to transporting the finished product.

U.S. Steel

This was the first billion dollar company, it was the largest enterprise in the world, employed about 168,000 people and it controlled over 3/5’s of the nations steel business.

John D. Rockefeller

Rockefeller founded a company that would later control most of the nation’s oil refineries.

Standard Oil Trust

This company controlled 90% of the oil refineries, this consisted of various companies that he had and managed by a board of trustees that Rockefeller and Standard Oil controlled.

Horizontal Integration

This was when former competitors were brought under a single corporate company.

Antitrust Movement

These trusts came under scrutiny and stack, because citizens feared the trusts’ power and influence.

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

This was an act that prohibited any conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce.

United States v. E.C. Knight

This was a ruling from the Supreme Court which ruled that the Sherman Act only applied to commerce not manufacturing.

Laissez-Faire Capitalism

It is an idea where there is no regulation or taxation of business and trade.

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

This book argued that business should be regulated, not by government but by the “invisible hand” (the law of supply and demand).

Social Darwinism

This is a theory of natural selection in biology plays a role in the bolstering views of the economic conservative.

Herbert Spencer

Was the most influential of the social Darwinist and agreed with the idea of survival of the fittest.

Survival of the Fittest

It is an idea where wealth is in the hands of the “fit” , and this would benefit the future of the human race.

Gospel of Wealth

When justifying the wealth of successfulness of industrialist and bankers Americans used religion.

Russell Conwell

This reverend preached to everyone that they had the duty to become rich.

Protestant Work Ethic

It was an idea that hard work and material success are signs of God’s favor.

Samuel F. Morse

Morse was the inventor of the first radical change in the speed of communications.

Transatlantic Cable

This suddenly made it possible to send messages across the seas instantly; this linked all continents of the world in an electronic network of instantaneous global communication.

Alexander Graham Bell

Bell was the inventor of the telephone.

Telephone

The telephone was another huge leap in communications technology.

Thomas A. Edison, Research Laboratory

One of the greatest inventors of the 19^th century established a laboratory, and the purpose was to invent new technologies. This was the world’s first modern research laboratory.

George Westinghouse

He was an inventor who developed air brakes fro railroads and a transformer for producing high-voltage alternating current, which is the basis for modern society today.

Consumer Goods

They are final products made by companies for the use of consumers (people).

Sears, Roebuck; Montgomery Ward

These companies used the new railroads to transport goods to rural customers.

Concentration of Wealth

In the 1890’s the richest 10% of the U.S. population controlled 9/10’s of the nation’s wealth.

Horatio Alger

Alger sold books which portrayed a young man who becomes rich through honesty, hard work, and a little luck.

Upward Mobility

It was an idea that movement into a higher economic class was possible.

White-Collar Workers

These workers worked on a salary, and their jobs did generally involve manual labor.

Middle-Class

It is an economic class between the higher and lower classes most were white-collar workers.

David Ricardo; Iron Law of Wages

It was a theory that argued that if you raise wages, the working population would increase and then would cause the wages to fall and this would cause a cycle of misery and starvation.

Scab; Lockout; Blacklist; Yellow-Dog Contract; Injunction

A scab is a person who is unemployed and desperate for a job, Lockout is when the factory closes to break a labor movement, Blacklist is a list filled with workers names who are a part of a union, Yellow-dog contract is when employees must sign a contract that would not allow them to be part of a union, and an Injunction is when a court stops strikes.

Railroad Strike of 1877

It was a strike on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, this causes the shutdown of 2/3’s of the countries railroad tracks, it then became a nationwide strike.

National Labor Union

This was the first attempt to organize all the workers around the country from all different types of industry into one union.    

Knights of Labor

It was the second national union but a secret union to avoid detection from employers.

Terence V. Powderly

He opened membership to all even African-Americans and women, he advocated for each man is his own employer, abolition of child labor, and abolition of trusts and monopolies.

Haymarket Bombing (1886)

On a May Day labor movement violence broke out and someone threw a bomb that killed 7 police officers.

American Federation of Labor

It was a labor movement that concentrated on practical economic goals.

Samuel Gompers

He advocated for higher wages, improved working conditions, and told workers to negotiate their contracts through collective bargaining.

Homestead Strike (1892)

Due to the company slashing wages by 20% workers went on strike, but the company hired private guards and strikebreakers to defeat the steelworkers.

Pullman Strike (1894)

Pullman announced wage cuts so workers left work and appealed to the American Railroad Union.

Eugene V. Debs

Debs directed workers to not handle Pullman cars, this boycott tied up rail transportation across the country.

In re Debs

This was a Supreme Court decision were they approved the use of court injunctions to stop strikes; this became a powerful weapon for employers.