Module 3

Question 1

Who is Edwin L. Drake?

Answer 1

American Petroleum industry pioneer; he drilled the first commercial oil well int he U.S. drawing oil prospectors to the west.

Question 2

Who is Mary Harris Jones?

Answer 2

Irish-American labor organizer; she helped organize coal miners int he Great Strike of 1877, and led a march of injured children worker to expose the crudities of child labor.

Question 3

Who is Eugene V. Debs?

Answer 3

Leader of the American Railway Union and supporter of the pullman strike; he was the Socialist Party candidate for president five times.

Question 4

Who were the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

Answer 4

A labor organization for unskilled worked formed by a group of radical unionist and socialist in 1905.

Question 5

What is the American Federation of Labor? (AFL)

Answer 5

An alliance of trade and craft unions formed in 1886.

Question 6

What is collective bargaining?

Answer 6

Negotiation between employers and an organized group of employees on conditions of employment such as wages or hours.

Question 7

Who is Samuel Gompers ?

Answer 7

An American labor leader who helped fund the American Federation of Labor to campaign for workers rights.

Question 8

What is the Sherman Antitrust Act?

Answer 8

A law enacted in 1890 that was intended to prevent the creation of monopolies by making it legal to establish trust that interfered with free trade.

Question 9

What is a monopoly?

Answer 9

Having complete control in the marketplace without any outside competition.

Question 10

What is a trust?

Answer 10

A business organization in which competing companies are under the control of a single group of Trustees.

Question 11

Who is John D Rockefeller?

Answer 11

An American industrialist and philanthropist he made a fortune in the oil business and use vertical and horizontal integration to establish a monopoly on the oil business.

Question 12

Who is JP Morgan?

Answer 12

An American Banker he made a fortune taking over and merging businesses built by others building a reputation for turning around mismanaged companies and making them more efficient.

Question 13

What is horizontal integration?

Answer 13

The merging of companies that make similar products.

Question 14

What is vertical integration?

Answer 14

A company taking over its suppliers and transportation to gain control over the quality and cost of its product.

Question 15

What is social Darwinism?

Answer 15

An economic and social philosophy supposedly based on the biologist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, holding that a system of unrestrained competition will ensure the survival of the fittest.

Question 16

What is laissez-faire?

Answer 16

In French, “laissez-faire” means “to let do.” It is a form of capitalism that allows companies to conduct business without intervention by the government.

Question 17

Who is Andrew Carnegie?

Answer 17

An American industrialist and humanitarian who focused on steel making and made a fortune through his vertical integration method.

Question 18

What is the Interstate Commerce Act?

Answer 18

A law enacted in 1887 that reestablished the federal government’s right to supervise railroad activities and created a five-member Interstate Commerce Commission to do so.

Question 19

What is Munn vs. Illinois?

Answer 19

A 1877 case in which the Supreme Court upheld states’ regulation of railroads for the benefit of farmers and consumers, thus establishing the right of the government to regulate private industry to serve the public interest.

Question 20

What is Credit Mobilier?

Answer 20

A construction company formed in 1864 by owners of the Union Pacific Railroad who used it to fraudulently skim off railroad profits for themselves.

Question 21

Who is Cornelius Vanderbilt?

Answer 21

An American business leader who controlled the New York Central Railroad and up to 4,500 miles of railroad track.

Question 22

What is the Transcontinental Railroad?

Answer 22

A railroad line linking the Atlantic and Pacific coast of the United States, completed in 1869.

Question 23

Who is George M. Pullman?

Answer 23

An American industrialist and owner of the Pullman Palace Car Company. He invented the railroad sleeping car, started a factory to build them, and founded the town of Pullman, Illinois to house his workers.

Question 24

Who is Alexander Graham Bell?

Answer 24

An American inventor and educator whose interest in electrical and mechanical devices to aid the hearing impaired led to the development and patent of the telephone.

Question 25

Who is Christopher Sholes?

Answer 25

An American inventor and newspaper editor who invented the typewriter in 1867, which changed the world of work.

Question 26

Who is Lewis H. Latimer?

Answer 26

An African American inventor who invented the carbon filament and played a key role in helping Thomas Edison develop a long-lasting incandescent light bulb.

Question 27

Who is Thomas Alva Edison?

Answer 27

An American inventor with over 1,000 patents. He invented the light bulb and established a power plant that supplied electricity to parts of New York City.

Question 28

What is the Bessemer process?

Answer 28

A cheap and efficient process for making steel, developed around 1850.