Test 2 Flashcards
What year did Congress make provisions for the first transcontinental railroad?
1862
Which railroad company was commissioned in the railroad construction beginning in Omaha, Nebraska?
Union Pacific Railroad
Which railroad company was commissioned in the construction beginning in Sacramento, California?
Central Pacific Railroad
Where did these two railroad lines meet?
Ogden, Utah in 1869
Who was the genius behind the eastern railroad networks?
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Who were the biggest haters for the railways?
Farmers
What is the Granger Movement? When did it occur?
After the Panic of 1873, farmers organized themselves to protest against the railroads for overcharging and placed pressure on state legislatures to regulate the railroads.
What is the significance of the Wabash Case?
In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that the state railway restrictions couldn’t be applied to control interstate commerce, which was strictly reserved for Congress. The states could, however, control commerce within their own borders.
What is the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887?
Specifically prohibited rebates and pooling profits and required companies to publicize their rates. Companies shouldn’t be higher charges for short hauls than for a long haul and forbade unfair discrimination against shipments or shippers. The Interstate Commerce Commission was created to enforce and administer the new legislation.
Did the Interstate Commerce Commission work?
No, the law wasn’t feared by operators and welcomed by who who were eager to put a stop to cutthroat tactics. Railroad stocks rose and the courts weakened possible control of rails by ruling the Commission had no power to fix rates and make regulations.
What reasons caused the United States to rise in rank for manufacturing?
1) Liquid capital
2) abundant mineral resources
3) adequate labor
4) American ingenuity
Eli Whitney’s important inventions?
1) cotton gin
2) interchangeable parts
Name some inventions that hastened the Second American Industrial Revolution.
1) cash register
2) stock ticker
3) Christopher Scholes’ typewriter
4) refrigerator car
5) electric dynamo and the electric railway
Who created the telephone in 1876?
Alexander Graham Bell
Who invented the incandescent electric light, the phonograph, the mimeograph, the dictaphone, and the moving picture?
Thomas A. Edison
Used to control a large part of the market of one commodity. Stockholders in various smaller companies would assign their stock to the board of directors of the trust, who would then pay dividends out of the profits of the consolidated enterprise.
trust
Name advantages of the trust.
1) permanent and limited financial liability of its stockholders
2) size allowed to take full advantage of the money-saving techniques of mass production and mark it cheaply
3) limit production
4) fix prices
5) secure favorable railroad rates
Describe the Bessemer process.
A method of making cheap steel that required cold air blown on red-hot iron caused metal to become white-hot by igniting the carbon and thus eliminating impurities.
The personification of the age of steel was…?
Andrew Carnegie
Who manufactured steep pipe tubing?
J.P. Morgan
In 1900, who bought Carnegie’s steel holdings?
J.P. Morgan
What is the United States Steel Corporation?
J.P. Morgan’s monopoly over steel companies that he created in 1901 after expanding his industrial empire by adding the Carnegie holdings, added others, and watered the stock liberally.
What is Social- Economic Darwinism in John D. Rockefeller’s opinion?
Survival of the best company
When and where was the first oil well discovered and produced oil?
In 1859 and in Pennsylvania (Drake’s Folly)
Who dominated the new oil business?
John D. Rockefeller
In 1870, Rockefeller organized…?
the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, the nucleus of the great trust he formed in 1882
Name other trusts that popped up.
1) Sugar Trust
2) Tobacco Trust
3) Leather Trust
4) Harvester Trust
Who dominated the meat industry?
Swift and Armour
How did the trusts defend themselves from state legislatures and the law?
1) the Congress jurisdiction over interstate commerce
2) 14th Amendment, which had originally been designed to protect the rights of ex-slaves as persons
Industrialists sough to incorporate easy states for what reason?
Low restrictions on big business were mild or non-existent
Congress passed it after the public appealed to them about control over the trusts. The act prohibited combinations in restraint of trade, without any distinctions between “good” and “bad” trusts.
Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890.
Was the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890 effective?
No, it contained loopholes for trusts but it was effective against labor unions. The law wouldn’t be strengthened until 1914.
Agriculture in post-war South had a hard time getting back on its feet. Who grew cotton post-Civil War?
Negro and white sharecroppers with one mule for a share of the crop.
Who invented the machine production of cigarettes in the 1880s and is the leader of the American Tobacco Company? His name was given to which famous university?
1) James Buchanan Duke
2) Duke University
Why did the South not have as many factories or industries? What were some of their advantages over the North?
They lacked capital and the skills to develop industry, but they still had raw product, water power, cheap land, cheap labor, a mild climate, low taxes, railroads, and seaports
Name an industry that moved to the South after capital amassed in the Southern states.
the iron industry in Birmingham, Alabama
Name reasons the United States turned to imperialism.
1) growth of American industry, need for raw materials, additional markets, and for places to invest surplus capital
2) closing of the frontier in 1890
3) European powers’ influence
4) call for expansion
Russian purchase in 1867 and called “Seward’s Folly”
Alaska
Served American merchant ships as supply harbors and coaling stations before coming under American control in 1872 with the Pago Pago harbor.
The Samoan Islands
Served American merchant ships as supply and refueling station. It drew American missionaries to convert natives to Christianity and American investors for sugar plantations.
The Hawaiian Islands