Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Question 1

social class and mobility

Answer 1

the ability to move throughout economic and social classes

Question 2

meritocracy

Answer 2

government and leaders will be elected and kept in office with that skills

Question 3

income gap

Answer 3

we watched a video on income inequality today in class (I just posted the link on the calendar for today, 3/3, so you can watch it again if you need to) that describes the myth in America today. Most Americans think that wealth distribution is more fair than it actually is and actually want the wealth to be more fairly distributed. the top 1% controls 40% of all the wealth in America and some other statistics show how much income inequality there is between the rich and the poor. income inequality was also terrible during the Gilded Age and would eventually contribute to the Great depression

Question 4

Brooklyn bridge

Answer 4

one of the wonderful achievements of the Gilded Age that could not have happened without the invention of steel. the steel cables are what allow the bridge to span the East River. built largely by immigrant labor

Question 5

Boss Tweed/ Tammany Hall

Answer 5

BOSS TWEED was able to scam the government (no, he was the government! he was voted into office by taxpayers who were often poor and who he was helping through the political machine) through corruption by increasing taxes and pocketing the extra cash from the government funds.

Question 6

Andrew Carnegie/ Steel

Answer 6

Was born in Scotland and was one of the few examples of someone working their way from poverty to the top class. He claimed he had respect for his workers, but just wanted to make money. Steel: made most of his wealth in steel business.

Question 7

Homestead Strike(Carnegie)

Answer 7

Manager-Frick wanted to cut wages in half and broke the Amalgamated and Association of Steel Workers (a union) and Carnegie wasn’t able to do anything about it. resulted in a violent strike. Frick tried to stop the strike with the private army. blamed it on the workers who got charged with murder and lesser crimes.

Question 8

Strikebreakers

Answer 8

STRIKEBREAKERS- workers, typically new immigrants, who are brought in by factory owners to “break” a strike by workers who are protesting for higher wages or better working conditions. These strikebreakers often worked for even lower wages than those who were on strike and were often targeted by the workers who were fired.

Question 9

Tenements

Answer 9

very poor living conditions. multiple families lived in a very small space.

Question 10

Philanthropy (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gates)

Answer 10

The idea of giving wealth to charity; usually in support of the arts, education,
medical research.

Question 11

George Eastman

Answer 11

philanthropist, very different from father. gave $2 billion away. helped build colleges. built one of the greatest music schools in the world. contributed to the education of African Americans. Significance: gave money away anonymously

Question 12

Robber barons

Answer 12

derogatory term applied to
wealthy and powerful American
businessmen who abused their employees in order to gain wealth.

Question 13

John Rockefeller

Answer 13

made his money from oil

Question 14

Thomas Edison

Answer 14

electricity, inventor, light bulb

Question 15

Monopoly

Answer 15

when one company controls an entire industry, it is bad for consumers because they can set whatever price they want. and bad for innovation because the company has no competitors and bad for the economy because there are no new businesses being created because the monopoly crushes them. (also referred to as a trust or combination during the Gilded Age)

Question 16

Conspicuous Consumption

Answer 16

doing something that shows you have a lot of money; competition to keep up with the wealthy

Question 17

Social Darwinism

Answer 17

ideaology that twisted Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and survival of the fittest to apply to humans. those who followed this philosophy believed that the weakest members of society , or those who were “unfit” should be left to die off so he human race would be stronger.

Question 18

14th amendment and corporations

Answer 18

supreme court ruled that a corporation had the same rights as a person.

Question 19

Laissez faire capitalism

Answer 19

the government leaves the economy alone. This led to corruption from corporations b/c there were no gov’t rules.

Question 20

Russel Conwell

Answer 20

believed that if a person worked hard, they could go from rags to riches (lectured about this idea all over America). significant because he used God and religion to make people believe that God was punishing poor people

Question 21

Government Regulation/control

Answer 21

necessary according to JP Morgan to keep the economy stable. necessary according to progressives because the only way to stop companies from exploiting workers and consumers was for the government to pass laws making sure the company protected the health of Americans and didn’t exploit them. government regulation keeps companies from only focusing on profit/the bottom line

Question 22

Influence of the media

Answer 22

media can twist or bury the truth of any story- focused more on the wealthy and hid the truth of the poor and their living conditions. but can also uncover problems and shine a spotlight on them, for example publishing Thomas Nast’s political cartoons that were critical of Tweed and helped bring him down

Question 23

muckrakers

Answer 23

investigative journalists who reported on the ugliness so Americans couldn’t ignore it(exposing the truth)(wealth)

Question 24

Thomas Nast/political cartoons

Answer 24

Nast was the political cartoonist that we saw in the video on NY. He was a progressive muckraker who published cartoons that were critical of Boss Tweed and the muckrakers. Tweed was angry because his constituents (voters) often couldn’t read, but they understood what was happening from the cartoons. they exposed him as a fraud.

Question 25

Reform

Answer 25

to implement change. usually for the good of society. for example: ending child labor. progressives were fighting for reforms.

Question 26

Mother Jones

Answer 26

Organized strikes; dedicated to getting
rid of child labor; 1903: March of the
Mill Children

Question 27

Jacob Riis

Answer 27

Danish-American, photographer, journalist, and social reformer; wrote about gap between rich and poor and tenements in NYC; the photos really struck people and made them understand what the poor were really going through

Question 28

Upton Sinclair: The Jungle

Answer 28

corporations ignored public health and proper working conditions for its’ employees; Sinclair was a muckraker who pushed for reforms

Question 29

Meat Inspection Act; Pure Food and Drug Act

Answer 29

T.R. passed these acts in order to place government regulations on corporations after reading “The Jungle” which talked about the disgusting conditions in meat factories.

Question 30

rSBT (bovine growth hormone)

Answer 30

a hormone given to cows to make them grow larger so there is more meat to be sold (ignoring public health standards).

Question 31

Teddy Roosevelt

Answer 31

passed Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. also pushed for regulations on corporations and protected the environment. wanted a Square Deal for all Americans, meaning equal opportunities and a system that wasn’t corrupted by money

Question 32

William Taft

Answer 32

Progressive president that encouraged 16th amendment, busted monopolies and encouraged regulation(taxes)

Question 33

Woodrow Wilson

Answer 33

also encouraged regulation and passed laws to make sure companies didn’t exploit Americans. eventually encouraged the suffrage amendment (19th amendment)

Question 34

Cult of domesticity

Answer 34

idea of womanhood. women need to be religious, pure, cook/clean, and listen to their husbands. idea was all over the media.

Question 35

Suffrage; 19th amendment

Answer 35

in 1920, women finally gained the right to vote with the passage of a federal amendment (19th)

Question 36

Civil disobedience

Answer 36

citizens breaking the law and accepting the consequences to point out an injustice; method of dissent

Question 37

Carrie Chapman Catt

Answer 37

head of NAWSA (old school suffrage organization) who was pushing for each state to pass voting rights for women; opposed the radical NWP party

Question 38

NAWSA

Answer 38

old school organization for suffrage -state by state

Question 39

Alice Paul

Answer 39

radical Quaker who went on hunger strike and organized picketing of the White House to get suffrage amendment passed (19th)

Question 40

NWP

Answer 40

National Women’s Party -radical suffrage organization trying to get amendment passed

Question 41

Blacklisted

Answer 41

If you were a worker fighting for higher wages or better working conditions, you might be targeted as a troublemaker. If the factory owner targeted you as a “blacklisted”, it would mean that the owner would call other factory owners to make were you weren’t hired.

Question 42

Progressive Era

Answer 42

time period after the Guilded Age where reformers were pushing for America to clean up the ugliness it had created (REFORM=CHANGE)

Question 43

Progressive Reformers

Answer 43

Americans who broadcasted the horrible conditions

Question 44

Union-strike

Answer 44

workers joined unions so that they had protection in numbers. if there was no union and one employee asked for higher wages, they would simply be fired. if they all joined a union and signed a petition and said they would refuse to work (go on strike) if the owners didn’t raise their wages, then they could make the company owners listen

Question 45

Gilded Age

Answer 45

Although the surface of society appeared to be a glittering gold surface, corruption, poverty & discrimination lurked below the image.