13: The Socialist Challenge

Question 1

Taylorism is a mechanized form of what

Answer 1

Division of labour

Question 2

146 women burned to death at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company (1911) in part because

Answer 2

The factory doors were locked illegally and they couldn’t escape

Question 3

True or False: The AFL (American Federation of Labour), the largest Union in America, was diverse and open to all genders and ethnicities in the early 20th century

Answer 3

False, it was almost all white and male despite other demos making up a large part of the workforce

Question 4

The Industrial Workers of the World began as a split with the AFL because, among other things, it disliked this form of labour organization

Answer 4

Craft unions that divided the working class into many different occupational groups

Question 5

“Wobblies” was a term for what?

Answer 5

The IWW

Question 6

What strategy would the IWW use to fight free-speech laws

Answer 6

They would force mass arrests upon themselves and clog up the jails until the free-speech restrictions were lifted

Question 7

True or False: The strike against the American Woolen Company in Lawrence Massachusetts, 1912, was an abject failure.

Answer 7

False, workers got many demands met (wage increase, overtime pay, no discrimination for strikers)

Question 8

From 1890s to 1904 strikes per year increased from what to what?

Answer 8

1,000; 4,000

Question 9

Eugene Debs was presidential candidate for this party that got 900,000 votes in 1912

Answer 9

The socialist party

Question 10

Emma Goldman was skeptical that woman’s emancipation could come through this

Answer 10

Suffrage/the ballot box

Question 11

Name some advancements of the “progressive period” under Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson

Answer 11

Hepburn Act (regulate railroads & pipelines), Mann-Elkins act (regulate telephone and telegraph systems), FTC to control growth of monopolies, Federal Reserve, graduated income tax, election of senators by popular vote

Question 12

Gabriel Kolko calls the strengthening of government during the progressive period the emergence of what?

Answer 12

Political capitalism

Question 13

This President was known as a trustbuster, despite frequently conspiring with corporate leaders in order to let them off the hook (Elbert Gary and George Perkins of J.P. Morgan’s empire)

Answer 13

Theodore Roosevelt

Question 14

Ralph Easley organized this group in 1900, whose aim was to “get better relations between capital and labour” (they were basically on the side of capital)

Answer 14

National Civic Federation

Question 15

The “Ludlow Massacre” (the burning death of 11 children and 2 women by the national guard) was the culmination of this violent Labour struggle (1913-1914)

Answer 15

Colorado Coal Strike