465-479 Flashcards
date for the telephone
1876
Most of his more than one thousand inventions used electricity to transmit light, sound, and images. In 1878 he embarked on a search for a cheap, efficient means of indoor lighting.
After tedious experiments, he perfected the incandescent bulb. His Electric Light Company also devised a system of power generation and distribution to widely provide electricity. To market his ideas, at Christmas 1880, he illuminated Menlo Park.
Thomas Edison
date for the light bulb
1879
to market his idea, Edison illuminated this location in Christmas 1880
Menlo Park, New Jersey
He purchased European patent rights to generators that used alternating current and transformers that reduced high-voltage power, thus making long distance transmission more efficient.
George Westinghouse
financiers Henry Villard and J. P. Morgan bought up patents in electric lighting and merged small equipment-manufacturing companies into the _____
General Electric Company
an engineer sometimes called the black Edison, patented thirty-five devices vital to electronics and communications.
Granville T. Woods
transformed the chemical industry. In 1902, three cousins, Alfred, Coleman, and Pierre, took over and broadened production into fertilizers, dyes, and other chemical products. In 1914 they invested $25 million in General Motors, helping that company compete with Ford.
The company also pioneered methods of management, accounting, and reinvestment of earnings, which contributed to efficient production, better recordkeeping, and higher profits.
Du Pont
an electrical engineer in Detroit’s Edison Company, experimented with Daimler’s engine to power a vehicle.
Applying organizational genius to this invention, he spawned a massive industry.
Henry Ford
the textile industry was relocated to the south
“The New South”
The most influential advocate of efficient production
he concluded companies could best reduce costs and increase profits by applying studies of “how quickly the various kinds of work . . . ought to be done.” This meant producing more for lower cost per unit, usually by eliminating unnecessary workers.
In 1898 he took his stopwatch to the Bethlehem Steel Company to llustratehis principles of scientific management
Frederick W. Taylor
In the economic slump that followed the Panic of 1873, railroad managers cut wages, increased workloads, and laid off workers, especially union members.
Workers responded with strikes and riots. Violence spread from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to the Midwest, Texas, and California, derailing trains and burning rail yards.
railroad strikes of 1877
Tuesday May 4, 1886 in Chicago, began as a rally which became violent and was followed later by internationally publicized legal proceedings. An unknown person threw a bomb at police as they marched to disperse a public meeting in support of striking workers. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and an unknown number of civilians. Eight anarchists were tried for murder. Four were put to death, and one committed suicide in prison
Haymarket Riot
In July 1892 the AFL-affiliated Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steelworkers went on strike against pay cuts in Homestead, Pennsylvania.
Henry C. Frick, president of Carnegie Steel Company, closed the plant. Shortly thereafter, Frick hired three hundred guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to protect the factory and snuck them in by barge at night. Lying in wait, angry workers attacked and routed the Pinkertons. State troops intervened, and after five months the strikers gave in. By then public opinion turned against the union.
Homestead Strike
in 1894 workers at the Pullman Palace (railroad passenger) Car Company walked out over exploitative policies at the company town near Chicago
Pullman Strike
Founded in 1869 by Philadelphia garment cutters, they began recruiting other workers in the 1870s.
In 1879 Terence V. Powderly was elected grand master. They welcomed unskilled and semiskilled workers, including women, immigrants, and African Americans (but not Chinese).
They intended to eliminate conflict between labor and management by establishing a cooperative society in which laborers, not capitalists, owned factories, mines, and railroads
Knights of Labor
Founded in 1886, it emerged as the major workers’ organization. An alliance of national craft unions, it had about 140,000 members, mostly skilled workers.
Led by Samuel Gompers, former head of the Cigar Makers’ Union, it pressed for higher wages, shorter hours, and the right to bargain collectively
American Federation of Labor
led the AFL (American Federation of Labor)
Samuel Gompers
was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894,
Coxey’s Army
led the union, and, refused to handle Pullman cars attached to any trains
Eugene Debs
founder of Standard Oil
John D. Rockefeller
financed the most spectacular U.S. Steel Corporation, in 1901. Made up of iron-ore properties, freight carriers, wire mills, and other firms, it was capitalized at over $1.4 billion (more than $35 billion in current dollars).
J. P. Morgan
