People Flashcards
Upton Sinclair (The Jungle)
Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel about unsanitary conditions in meatpacking plants. One of the first people to identify problems in American life at the time.
Fredrick Taylor
He watched workers and timed them with a stopwatch. Through these time-and-motion studies, he determined the most efficient way to perform each task. He trained workers to work faster by reducing wasted motion. Speed boosted productivity, which increased profits. Taylor later published his findings in a book called The Principles of Scientific Management
John D. Rockefeller
created the corporation Standard Oil, which used horizontal integration to become a monopoly in the oil industry. Was very ruthless in his tactics in his rise to the top.
Andrew Carnegie
Carnegie expanded his steel company through vertical integration. He bought the iron mines and coalfields that sent raw materials to his company’s mills. He bought the ships and railroads that transported supplies and finished products. Vertical integration gave Carnegie complete control of the production process and the power to dominate the steel industry.
“Mother” Jones (Mary Harris)
a labor activist that described the “wretched work” that miners did. Their lungs “breathe coal dust,” she wrote, and “coal dust grinds itself into the skin, never to be removed.”
Jane Addams
a social reformer who described a typical slum in Chicago:
The streets are inexpressibly dirty, the number of schools inadequate, sanitary legislation unenforced, the street lighting bad, the paving miserable and altogether lacking in the alleys and smaller streets, and the stables foul beyond description. Was the co-founder of Hull House, the first settlement house in Chicago
Jacob Riis
a writer and photographer who imagined a map of New York’s ethnic communities. “A map of the city,” he wrote in 1890, “colored to designate nationalities, would show more stripes than on the skin of a zebra, and more colors than any rainbow.” He was one of the most respected journalists in the 1800s. Was a muckraker.
William Tweed
Perhaps the most infamous of these bosses was William “Boss” Tweed of New York’s Tammany Hall machine, who in the early 1870s cheated the city out of as much as $200 million.
John Muir
An early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the U.S.
Theodore Roosevelt
Spoke out for the square deal which was focused on regulating big business protecting workers and consumers and for preserving the environment.
- impulsive, active, knew how to get things done
- didn’t really reform the government
- big stick policy (strong America that had an influence around the world)
William Taft
Limited the power of big corporations, added land to national forests
- quiet, reserved, cautious
- did reforms concerning income taxes, banking, and gave people say in electing Senators
- Dollar Diplomacy: protected U.S. trade/investments
Woodrow Wilson
Tried to eliminate all trusts because they were denying economic freedom to smaller businesses
- idealist, reserved
- new freedom: restricted corporate influence, voice to middle class, and reduce corruption
- reduced tariffs, passed the Federal Reserve Act, and supported the 18th amendment (the one about alcohol)
- moral diplomacy: solve problems by talking, not wars
