chapter 14 Flashcards
Edwin L. Drake
Edwin Laurentine Drake, also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.
Bessemer Process
a steel-making process, now largely superseded, in which carbon, silicon, and other impurities are removed from molten pig iron by oxidation in a blast of air in a special tilting retort
Thomas Alva Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb
Christopher Sholes
Christopher Latham Sholes was an American inventor who invented the first practical typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard still in use today. He was also a newspaper publisher and Wisconsin politician.
Alexander Gram Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent Scottish-born scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.
Transcontinental railroad
A train route across the United States, finished in 1869. It was the project of two railroad companies: the Union Pacific built from the east, and the Central Pacific built from the west. The two lines met in Utah.
George M. Pullman
George Mortimer Pullman was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car and founded a company town, Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it.
Crédit Mobilier
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 involved the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the eastern portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
Munn vs. Illinois
was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with corporate rates and agriculture.
Interstate commerce act
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be “reasonable and just,” but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.
Andrew Carnegie
One of the first industrial moguls to make his own fortune