The Gilded Age/ Second Industrial Revolution

Question 1

How long did the Gilded Age last?

Answer 1

It started and ended roughly between 1870-1890

Question 2

What was the second industrial revolution?

Answer 2

A technological revolution during which a number of inventions and innovations emerged in manufacturing, transport and communication.

Question 3

What were the innovations and inventions that changed the way goods were produced, distributed and sold?

Answer 3

-Moved production into factories increasing efficiency (by eliminating waste, speeding up work, established long hours and breaking work into small tasks).
-Automatic signals and air brakes on the railways.
-The open-hearth and Bessemer methods of production in steel mills (better quality steel and greater productivity).
-Development of telephone, electric light and typewriter.
-Elevators and structural steel enabling skyscrapers to be built.
-Electric generator (resulted in electric powered homes which also led to refrigerators and washing machines).
-Internal combustion engine (led to automobile and powered flight).
-Gramophone and motion pictures.

Question 4

What paradox did the expansion of agricultural lands led to?

Answer 4

The more farmers there were and the more productive farmers became the smaller was agriculture’s share of the economy

Question 5

What happened when farmers production increased?

Answer 5

-They produced more than the country could consume with less labour
-They exported the excess
-Children of farmers migrated to cities and towns
-At the beginning of the century exports had 10% of darm income increasing to 20-25% by the end of the century

Question 6

When was the first railway made and where did they travel?

Answer 6

-1828
-Ballimore and Ohio

Question 7

When was the first transcontinental railroad made and where did they travel?

Answer 7

-1869
-Central Pacific and Union pacific

Question 8

How did the federal government and Congress encourage the expansion of railways?

Answer 8

-Federal government: Provided subsides by the mile to railway companies in exchange for discounted rates
-Congress: Provided federal land grants to railroad companies

Question 9

What factors contributed to the rise of capitalism?

Answer 9

-Expansion of railways
-Immigrant labour
-Post-Civil war reconstruction
-Discovery of oil
-Mass production

Question 10

What were the reasons for the Gilded Age?

Answer 10

-Lots of natural resources
-Increased population
-Immigration (14 million)
-Improved transport systems
-Technological innovations improving communication and production
-Increased capital investment in industry
-Levels of government assistance

Question 11

What is significant about Andrew Carnegie?

Answer 11

-Owner of Carnegie Steel Company in Pittsburgh
-Expanded Steel industry making it cheap through mass production
-Used vertical integration to maintain market dominance

Question 12

What was significant about John D. Rockefeller?

Answer 12

-Founder of Standard Oil Company
-Used horizontal integration to buy out competition
-First US business trust

Question 13

What was significant about Cornelius Vanderbilt?

Answer 13

-Steamboat and railroad tycoon
-laid thousands of miles of railroad tracks and established standard gauge for railroads
-Bought real estate in Manhattan and Staten Island
-Established the Staten Island Ferry

Question 14

What was significant about Theodore Roosevelt?

Answer 14

-26th U.S. president
-Launched a collection of progressive domestic policies known as the ‘Square Deal’
-Youngest president at 42
-Involved in ‘trust busting’ and regulation of industry

Question 15

What was significant about Robert La Follette?

Answer 15

-Wisconsin governor
-One of the most prominent progressives in the early 1900s

Question 16

What was significant about William Howard Taft?

Answer 16

-27th U.S. president
-Involved in ‘trust busting’
-Strengthened Interstate Commerce Commission
-Passed 16th Amendment
-Was the handpicked successor to Roosevelt in 1908

Question 17

What was significant about JP Morgan?

Answer 17

-Financier and banker
-Formed General electric
-Created US steel
-Stopped panic of 1907
-Modernised US business

Question 18

What was significant about W.H Hearst?

Answer 18

-Newspaper publisher who built nation’s largest newspaper chain

Question 19

Define Vertical integration?

Answer 19

-It is the expansion of a business into different steps (remove middlemen from production line) along it’s production path or supply chain
-This business might have a farm, distribution business and green grocer (like Coles and Woolworths)

Question 20

Define Horizontal integration

Answer 20

-Process of acquiring or merging with competitors, leading to industry consolidation- it is a strategy, where a company acquires, merges or takes over another company in the same value chain creating a monopoly
-Bakeries buying bakeries for example

Question 21

What does the nickname ‘Robber barons’ refers to?

Answer 21

-‘The Captains of industry’ cared little for consumers and did anything to increase profit earning the nickname ‘Robber barons’

Question 22

What behaviours applied to these ‘Robber barons’?

Answer 22

-Engaged in unethical and monopolistic practises
-Wielded widespread political influence
-Amassed enormous wealth

Question 23

Define trusts

Answer 23

-A business structure in which seemingly rival and multiple companies are managed by a single director

Question 24

What was the three main ideas for Theodore Roosevelt’s square deal?

Answer 24

-Protection of consumers
-Control of large corporations
-Conservation of natural resources

Question 25

What did the Sherman Anti-Trust Act make illegal, what were the penalties and when was it passed?

Answer 25

-Illegal for any business combination to try to restrain trade
-$5000 fines or 1 year imprisonment
-1890

Question 26

Why was this age called the ‘Gilded’ Age?

Answer 26

Gilded means a thin layer or coat of gold- the suggestion being that under the thin layer of gold, there was nothing of value reflecting on the imbalance of wealth

Question 27

Why were successful industrialists and businessmen criticised by social reformers?

Answer 27

They lived lavish lives with elaborate mansions, holiday homes, and lavish entertainment causing criticism for displaying these ‘conspicuous consumption’ that is spending money to display wealth

Question 28

How did businesses influence and corrupt politics?

Answer 28

Bribes and influence

Question 29

Define Social Darwinism

Answer 29

This belief emphasised that social difference was natural and that through the process of natural selection, stronger and more able members of a society would thrive.

Question 30

What was the Fourteenth Amendment enacted to do and what did it declare?

Answer 30

-To give former slaves political and civil right
-No state should deprive a citizen of life, liberty or property

Question 31

What legal theory was drawn from the Fourteenth Amendment and when?

Answer 31

-‘liberty of contract’
-1873

Question 32

What was argued under the liberty of contract?

Answer 32

Individuals and corporations were free to form contracts without Government restriction. The right to buy and sell labour through contracts was the ‘liberty of the individual’ and was therefor protected under the Fourteenth Amendment

Question 33

Define collective bargaining

Answer 33

When a union representing a group of workers negotiates wages and conditions with the worker’s employer

Question 34

What are two of the best know unions, when were they established and how many members did they have?

Answer 34

-Knights of Labour established in 1869 with 700,000 members at its peak
-American Federation of Labour in 1886 with 2 million members in 1905

Question 35

What did the strikes in the railway industry in 1877 spark?

Answer 35

It caused conflict across the country with 100 protesters killed by militia (military force) in cities including Chicago, New Jersey and Ohio

Question 36

Define tariffs

Answer 36

A tax on exports or imports

Question 37

Define laissez-faire

Question 38

What empires did Jason Jay Gould operate and at one stage what did he own and what amount of this specific tycoon did he own?

Answer 38

-A railway tycoon and telegraph operator
-The Union Pacific Railroad
-He owned 1/15th of America’s railroad tracks

Question 39

What did Jason Jay Gould allegedly say during the Great Southwest railroad strike of 1886 and what union did it crush?

Answer 39

-“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half”
-The Knights of Labour