Industry 485-498 - 09/08 Flashcards
The Gospel of Wealth
Rich businessmen’s duties to use their riches to advance social progress
- Created by Andrew Carnegie
Russell Conwell
Baptist minister that became known for his lecture “Acres of Diamonds”
Series of stories that told of individuals who found opportunites for extraordinary wealth in their own backyards
Lester Frank Ward
Social Darwinist that argued civilization was govered not by natural selection but by human intelligence
Henry George
Proposed the single tax, which would return the increment to the people. He argued the tax would destroy monopolies, distribute weath more equally, and eliminate poverty.
Monopoly
Control of the market by large corporate combinations
Monopoly thereatened competition but certain notions of manhood.
-Was considered ‘dangerous’ because the rise of large combos seemed to threated the ability of individuals to advance in the world
Horatio Alger
Young boy who got noticed by a wealthy man
-Attended Harvard
-Wrote famous books that sold at astonishing rates even AD
-Wrote about rags to riches and assistance to becoming successful
Louisa May Alcott
Author of famous novels such as “Little Women”
Loss of control for factory workers
Factor workers, usually paid $400 - $500 / yr, loss control over the contions of their labor. They had no say in their income/low wages and log hours.
Poorly paid women
Women industrial workers were mostly young (75% <25) and majority being daughters of immigrants.
-Women worked for wages as low as $6-$8/wk. and below the amount men earned working the same job
-Extremely low incomes drove many women to prostitution
Ineffective child-labor laws
-(at least) 1.7M children <16 were employed in factories + fields in 1900 (more than 2x the number of 30 yrs before)
- 60% of child workers were employed to agriculture, picking/hoeing 12 hr days in fields
-Children employed in factories set a min. age of 12 and max workday of 10 hrs
-Kept awake by getting cold water thrown at face
-Little girls in canneries cut fruits + veggies 16 hrs/day
-Exhausted children were ceptible to injury while working at dangerous machines and killed in industrial accidents at alarming rates
National Labor Union
Founded by William H. Sylvis
-claimed 640,000 members
-primary concern was to reduce 10 hr. workday to 8 hrs.
Molly Maguires
-secret organization of coal miners supposedly responsible for acts of terrorism in the coalfields of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, U.S., in the period from 1862 to 1876.
-attempted to intimidate coal operators via violence and occasional murder
-goal was to protect their members from oppressive mine owners
The Great Railroad Strike
Strikers disrupted rail service from Baltimore to St. Louis, destroyed equipment, and rioted in the streets of Pittsburgh + other cities.
-caused b/c railroad workers responded to yet another pay cut by shutting down the yard.
The Knights of Labor
Founded by Uriah S. Stephens
-Membership that inluded all workers and most business and professional people. Excluded groups were lawyers, bankers, liquor dealers, and professional gamblers
-Welcomed women and AA members
-Goals: embraced a vision of a society in which workers, not capitalists, would own the industries in which they labored, sought to end child labor and convict labor, equal pay for men & women, shorter workdays
The American Federation of Labor (AFL)
Organized by Samuel Gompers
-AFL male leaders were hostile to the idea of women entering the paid workforce.
-Believed that because women were weak, employers could easily take advantage of them by paying them less than men, resulting in drove down wages for everyone
-Believed that women shouldn’t work and should instead stay at home, but sought equal pay for women who DID work
GOAL: to secure for workers a greater share of capitalism’s material rewards, better wages/working conditions
