Big Business Flashcards
Monopoly
Dominating an entire market
1870’s companies begin “pooling” so they don’t have to compete with each other
Vertical Integration
A Company buys suppliers to make a specific product
Car maker produces components and sells cars
Horizontal Integration
Buying out competition to form 1 company - not entire market
What are the 3 business methods
Monopoly
Vertical Integration
Horizontal Integration
Trusts
Several companies in one field entrust their stock to a board, board makes decisions
Captains of Industry vs Robber Barrons
Good versus bad in business
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Grabs up land to build Railroads.
Controls the entire industry
John D Rockefeller
Standard Oil – John D Rockefeller 40 competing firms are
forced to join or be destroyed.
Standard controls the market and fixes prices for a maximum profit
Andrew Carnegie
Created a steel monopoly - US Steel,
richest company in the US
JP Morgan
Banker who cornered the market in the growth and spread of electricity
Labor Union
Workers UNITE to protest abuses in low wages, hours and working conditions by forming Unions
Scabs
People who go to work at a company whose workers are on strike –
Hurts the cause of strikers, by keeping business running
Stike
Stop working
Workers go on strike to gain public sympathy and stop companies’ production
Homestead Strike (1892)
Against Carnegie Steel for higher pay
Pinkerton guards brought in, strike turns violent and several people are killed
Pullman Strike 1894
Railroad workers exploited. Strikers put a halt to railroad traffic.
Army brought it to move trains.
Haymarket Riot 1886
Farm equipment factory
Bomb is thrown at police trying to break up a demonstration in Chicago
7 police, several strikers killed
Teddy Roosevelt
President 1901-1909
By 1900 Businesses are getting too powerful for the government to control
Trustbusting- Roosevelt does not intend to destroy Big Business, he only wishes to stop its abuses like price fixing and intimidation
Starts enforcing the Sherman Anti Trust Act – breaking
some of the monopolies’ power
Anti Trust Act
Enforced by Roosevelt to break up monopolies
Successes of early labor unions
8 hour workday
Weekends off
Paid overtime
Safety regulations put in place for workers
Child labor laws
Social Darwinism
Survival of the fittest
The strongest traits are kept to succeed/survive
Sherman Antitrust Act
Made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between states or with other countries
Socialism
Major industries are owned by the workers instead of private businesses
Thomas Nast
Political Cartoonist
