Chapter 18 Flashcards
Federal and state politicians actively encouraged
The growth of business by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports as a means of blunting competition and by providing land and cash to finance railroads and other transportation improvements
What are the factors that helped accelerate economic growth in the Civil War?
Nation’s unparalleled resources, rapidly expanding population, inventors and business owners developed more efficient, labor saving techniques, and innovative bold leadership as many entrepreneurs took advantage of fertile business opportunities
What Was the Homestead Act of 1862?
The distribution of 160 acre homesteads to citizens
Equally important to helping the economic boom was
That it did not regulate the activities of other corporations
Business leaders usually got what they wanted from
Congress and state legislators. Bribery was common
What was also booming in the late 1800s?
The agricultural sector
By often sending their products to factories, the agricultural sector
Stimulated the industrial sector
The industrial transformation also benefited from
An abundance of cheap power sources (water, wood, electricity, etc.)
What was the 2nd Industrial Revolution spurred by?
Creation of interconnected transportation and communication networks, widespread application of electrical power, and the systematic application of scientific research to the industrial process.
What connected the United Stares and Europe?
Steamships and the underwater telegraph line
What did electricity make grow?
Steel and chemical industry and urban growth
What symbolized the urban-industrial revolution?
Railroads
When did the railroads especially grow?
the 25 years after the Civil War
What was a major cause of the panic of 1893?
Railroads were expensive to manage
What were problems with railroads?
Often created shoddy working conditions, they were often poorly managed which led many companies to bankruptcy, and many executives often “lobbied” and had a dangerous degree of influence
Pacific Railway Act?
Authorized the construction of a rail line along a north central route by the Union Pacific Railroad westward from Omaha and Central Pacific Railroads eastward from Sacramento
Many railroad comoanies
Bribed legislators, manipulated accounts, used federal troops to suppress Indians
The Union Pacific Railroads workers were mostly
Past Civil War soldiers, former slaves, and Irish and German immigrants.
The Central Pacific Crew was mostly
Chinese
What delayed the finishing of the transcontinental railroad?
Iron prices spiked, broken treaties,prompted Indian raids, blizzards, and adverse conditions
The railroad met in
Promontory Utah
Alexander Graham Bell invented the
Telephone, founded the Bell Telephone Company, which was surpassed by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company
What did Thomas Edison invent?
Storage battery, Dictaphone, mimeograph, light bulb, phonograph, electric motor, electric transmission, and motion picture camera
The Edison Electric Illuminating Company
Began the great electric utility industry
The railroad and shipping connections made Cleveland a strategic location for
Servicing the booming oil fields of western Penn.
Where was the first oil well?
Titusville, Pennsylvania
How did Rockefeller weed out his competition to raise prices?
Bought out his Cleveland competitors, and those who resisted were forced our
What Is vertical integration?
Where a company produces whatever it needs. In addition, it also keeps large amounts of cash reserves to make it independent of banks
With Standard Oil owning much of the pipelines leading to the railroads, plus railroad rank cars and the oil storage facilities, it
Was able to dissuade the railroads from serving its eastern competitors
What was the Standard Oil Trust?
All 37 stockholders conveyed their stock to nine trustees, receiving trust certificates, which paid them annual dividends from the company’s earnings
But this trust proved vulnerable to
Prosecution under state laws agains monopoly or restraint of trade
Rockefeller perfected the holding company:
A company that controlled other companies by holding a majority of their stock
Who was Carnegie a secretary for?
Thomas Scott, then district superintendent of the Penn. railroad and later its president
What did Henry Bessemer do?
He created the Bessemer converter, a process where steel could be produced directly and quickly from pig iron
Carnegie insisted on using
Uo to date machinery and equipment and used times of recession to expand cheaply by purchasing struggling companies
According to Carnegie, continual innovation in order to,reduce
Operating costs
Carnegie believed he was a
Public benefactor,
JP Morgan was born in
Wealth
The J. Pierpoint Morgan and Company channeled
European capital into the United States and grew into a financial in its own right
Morgan was an investment banker-
He would buy corporate bonds and stocks wholesale and sell them at a profit
Morgan sought out to consolidate rival firms into
Giant trusts
Morgan started out in the
Railroad business (controlling 1/6 of it) and later the steel industry. He bought out Carnegie’s company and Rockefeller’s iron ore holdings. Later founded the US Steel Corporation
The continuing demand for unskilled/ semiskilled workers attracted
New groups entering the workforce at the bottom: immigrants above all, along with women and children
The US was the only industrial nation in the world to have no
Workmen’s compensation program to provide support for injured workers
Parents desperate for income had to put
Children at work
Throughout Appalachia boys worked at coal mines
Girls in NE worked in dusty textile mills, brushing away lint from the clacking machined and retying broken threads
Children suffered 3x times
As many accidents and respiratory diseases were common
Although there were some laws regarding child safety, they wrre
Rarely enforced and ignored
The only proof required by employers in such states was a
Statement from the child’s parents
Why was organized protest difficult?
Differing cultures of the workers and civic leaders respected property rights more than the rights of labor
What was the main cause of the Great railroad Strike of 1877?
10% wage cut led many workers to walk off job and block tracks. This spread to hundreds of cities and towns
In San Fran, strikers often took wrath on
Chinese immigrants. Racist populism was common place in the Soutn
Federal troops finally
Quelled the widespread violence. Destroying property wore itself out
Eventually, the workers,
La kong organized bargaining power went back to work
The Great Railroad Strike demonstrated potential
Union strength and need for tighter organization
What Was the Sand Lot incident?
The depression hit hard in the west coast and many workers blamed it on the Chinese immigrants
Denis Kearney
Had organized the Workingmen’s Party of California, to stop Chinese immigration. He caused a national issue
The National Labor Union comprised
Delegates from labor and reform groups more interested in political and social reform
What did the Nlu advocate?
Eight hour work day, workers’ cooperatives, greenbackism, and equal rights for all
What caused the failure of NLU
Passing of their leader
The NLU was influential in
Persuading Congress to enact an 8 hour work day and to repeal 1864 Contract Labor act
The Knights of Labor endorsed
The reforms advanced by previous workingmen’s groups, including the creation of bureaus of labor statistics and mechanics’ lien laws, elimination of convict labor competition, 8 hour work day, and paper currency
The Knights allowed as members those
Who worked for wages except doctors, lawyers, bankers, and sellers of alcohol
Terrence Prowdley was
Frail, sensitive to criticism and indecisive at critical moment
However, Powerdly did
Increase the growth to strikes that occurred during his leadership
Anarchists believed that the government was
An abusive device used by the rich to exploit the working poor
Many European anarchists arrived to establish
Their belief in the impact of the propaganda of the dead
The Haymarket Affair grew indirectly out of
Prolonged agitation for an 8 hour work day
Violence started at the McCormick
Reaper Works plant, where farm equipment was made
What happened on May 4
There were long speeches complaining about low wages and long working day, when policemen showed up and told the group to disperse. Someone threw a bomb and chaos ensued. Because of this labor meetings were banned in Chicagom
Seven anarchist leaders were hanged despite any
Evidence against them
The violent incident at Haymarket Square triggered
Widespread revulsion at the nights of labor groups in general
What were factors for the KOL’s decline?
A leadership more dedicated to reform than the nuts of boots of an organization, fear of radicalism, the failure of the KOL’s co-op owned enterprises, and a preoccupation with politics that led the Knights to sponsor labor candidates in hundreds of local elections
Gompers focused on
Concrete economic gains
The Homestead Strike’s caused was not helped when Alexander Berkman
Tried to assassinate Frick
The Pullman strike paralyzed
The economics of 27 sates snd territories taking up the western half of the nation
