Gilded Age/ Progressive Era Flashcards
What are labor unions? What did they want? What effects did they have on working conditions during the late 19th century?
- Labor Unions: an organized association of workers, often in trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests.
- They wanted to protect the common interests of workers by having better pay and working conditions.
What is a free enterprise?
An economic system where businesses are allowed to compete.
Pros and Cons of big business
- Pros: unions organized labor/safer working conditions, educated workers.
- Cons: trusts-reducing competition, monopoly (complete control over prices and quality of prices.
Who were the major industrialists (captains of industry) of the late 19th century?
- John D. Rockefeller: oil
- Andrew Carnegie: steel
- J.P. Morgan: banking
- Thomas Edison: inventor
- Cornelius Vanderbilt: railroads
- Henry Ford: cars
What is laissez-faire?
- Laissez-faire: a policy that government should interfere as little as possible in the nation‘ s economy.
- It provides individuals with the greatest incentive to create wealth.
Who were the major inventors of the late 18th century and what did they invent?
- Thomas Edison: Modern light bulb
- Henry Bessemer: New method of turning iron into steel
What were the policies of the US government towards Natives Americans?
The Dawes Act:
- aims to Americanize the Native American
- breaks up reservations and gave some of the land to individual Native Americans (160 acre to head of household)
American Indian Citizenship Act:
- gave all Native Americans immediate citizenship.
- did not have to give up land or customs
Why did urbanization happen in the US? How did it affect cities? What problems were created by urbanization?
- economic growth and job opportunities drew people to cities
- most immigrants who came to the US were city dwellers because it was cheap and convenient
- cities offered unskilled laborers jobs
- problems: overpopulated cities, inadequate infrastructure, pollution, lack of affordable housing
What is a political machine? How did they operate? What was their goal? How did they affect American cities?
- Political machines: organized groups who organize the political party in a city
- the machine is organized like a machine with a boss at top
- the bosses helped to make improvements in the urban infrastructure and has control of city jobs, business licenses, and has influence in the courts
- the machines helped immigrants with naturalization, housing and jobs – in return, t immigrants provided what the political bosses needed – votes!
Describe the life of an immigrant in the late 18th century.
- very difficult
- never enough jobs
- employers took advantage of immigrants
- poor living conditions
- discriminated
What was the Klondike Gold Rush and how did it affect settlement of the west?
A migration of 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899.
