Midterm Exam Flashcards
“The Gilded Age”
Characterized by industrialization, big business, political corruption, and organized labor.
Gilded Age Republicans
Allied with Big Business
Promoted high tariffs on imported goods
Industrial Revolution
Caused by:
Corporate Agriculture
Technological innovations
The expansion of railroads
Transportation and Communication
The two most important to accelerate the nation’s industrial growth
Life for industrial workers
First to be laid off
Low wages
No safety regulations
Long hours
National Labor Union
Was the first national labor union
- Wanted 8-hour workdays
- Workers’ cooperatives
- Promoted Greenbacks
- Wanted equal voting rights for African-Americans and Women.
Knights of Labor
A national labor group; Became the nation’s largest labor union
Did not believe in organizing members by trade.
Promoted:
- The elimination of convict labor competition
- An 8-hour work-day
- Equal pay for men and Women
Great Railroad Strike, 1877
Started after the financial Panic of 1873
Railroads slashed wages
Announced there would be another reduction
Workers at Martinsburg West Virginia walked off their jobs
Was the first nationwide worker uprising
For the first time, state Governors mobilized state militias to disperse the rioters.
Rioters returned to work, accepting pay cuts
The Haymarket Riot of 1886
Chicago workers went on strike for an 8-hour workday
Violence broke out between strikers and non-union workers hired to replace them;
2 strikers die
Organized a protest in Haymarket Square,
Ended in violence when the police arrived and an unknown assailant threw a bomb at the cops;
The Homestead Steel Strike
Henry Clay Frick became CEO in 1889
Cuts cost by threatening to lay off workers and replace them with machinery
June 25th management threatens to close the mill unless an agreement could be met within 4 days.
Local Pinkertons were called to protect the mill, but once a fight ensued, they were sent packing.
Soon the state militias were sent in to disperse the workers, and they were replaced with non-union workers.
November 20th workers ended their strike, took the wage cuts, many were blacklisted
The Pullman Strike 1894
Paralyzed the economies of the states in the West
During the Depression of 1893 Pullman laid off over half of his workers and cut wages for those left, but refused to lower workers’ rents or the food in the company store.
A workers’ grievance committee was created and 3 of its members were fired
In June Pullman refused to are to negotiations with workers and Railway Union workers stopped handling trains containing Pullman’s railcars.
Railroad executives hired strikebreakers to work the railways, and deputies were sent to protect them, but this did not stop strikers from assaulting them and destroying property.
July 13th the union called off the strike.
“The New South”
Called for the plantation elite to be replaced by a society of small farms owned by both blacks and whites.
Textile mills were the chief accomplishment to industrialize the textile industry.
Due to few Southern banks after the Civil War, people operated with little to no cash: this led to the Crop-Lien System.
Gilded Age Democrats
Conservative Pro-business White supremacists Embraced industrialization Sought state taxes and expenditures Attempted to get a hold on the patronage system
The Industrial Workers of the World
A global labor union
Sought to destroy the capitalist system and replace it with workers’ unions
Western land giveaways
Homestead Act 1862; Congress provided free 160-acre homesteads to settlers in the West.
Railroads and the Economy in the West
People in the West struggled, while the elite railroad owners became filthy rich
Ida B. Wells
First African American to file a suit challenging discrimination
Court decided in her favor
Helped found the NAACP
Worked for womens’ suffrage
Was often in direct opposition of Booker T.
Booker T. Washington
Became the president of the Tuskegee Institute
Had a talent for fundraising
Did not encourage the fight against racial segregation
Prioritize:
- hard work
- self-improvement
- avoiding trouble
W.E.B Du Bois
Was Washingtons most prominent rival
First African American to receive a PhD
Prioritized:
- The right to vote
- The challenging of racial segregation
- Equal rights enjoyed by white Americans
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Aldoph Plessy refused to leave the whites-only car on the basis of him only being 1/8th black
Was convicted of violating the law
Courts ruled that the states maintained the right to racially segregate
The Great Sioux War
The largest military campaign since the end of the Civil War
15 battles that lasted 15 months
Natives were defeated
The Sand Creek Massacre
John Evans called whites to kill the “hostile Indians” who killed a white family.
Persuaded “friendly Indians” to gather to be protected from the attack on the perpetrators
Evans attacked the camp of peaceful natives
