Unit 1 Topic 2 Flashcards
Research and development
- companies; to research ways of improving product
- universities; to learn and research ways to make better machines
What ways did industrial technology grow?
- Iron to steel; steel is stronger and lasts
- usage of oil; to lubricate machines
- electricity; Thomas Edison’s invention from 1876 allowed businesses to stay powered
Railroad expansion
- Railroad growth from 1860-1880
- easier access to markets
- development and industrial growth
Laissez-Faire
- French meaning leave it alone/hands off
- gov can’t make rules or regulations that businesses have to follow
- Because of this businesses can grow
Protective tariffs
- Tax on imported goods
- encourages people to buy American goods
- protective because it protects American goods
Previous way of doing business
Used to be owned by single family
Corporations
Multiple people own
Consolidating
To come together
Consolidating corporate America
- horizontal integration
- vertical integration
- allowed businesses to cut cost
Horizontal integration
Bringing together businesses that do same thing as their business and make them into a corporation
Vertical integration
To take under one company all the steeps necessary for the business
Types of big business
Monopoles, trust, cartels
Monopolies
One corporation owns a big part of industry
Trusts
Trusting someone with decision making
Cartel
Business stays independently owned but all similar business must agree to set sales at one price
J. Piermont Morgan
Banker
Owned most powerful bank during gilded age
Able to be a trusty
Used finance to get many companies to trust him
Captains of industry
- cornelious Vanderbilt
- Andrew Carnegie
- John D. Rockefeller
Cornelius Vanderbilt
- railroad industry
- used to work at steamship and ferry business
- sold ships and used money to buy NY railroads
- expanded business by horizontal integration
Andrew Carnegie
- delt with steel
- used to work at a railroad business
- made a new steel technology so it was faster, stronger, and cheaper
- drove out of business all other steel companies
- horizontally and vertically integrated
- first to show how powerful a business can become with vertical and horizontal integration
- got a trusty
John D. Rockefeller
- standard oil
- got trusty
- bought oil refinery plants
- horizontal and vertical expansion
- said he’d ship oil through one companies railroad if they jacked up the price for other oil companies
Social Darwinism
- came up with the idea of captain of the fitise
- idea was if strong business survive, you survive. If not it sucks
- a self made man
Horatio Alger
A self made man
Wrote novels about self made men
Robber barons
- someone who obtained wealth with corruption
- not a self made man because he used questionable tactics
Union
A group of workers who come together to demand better conditions
Strike
Workers who stop working to get what they want
Urbanization
Movement of people to cities
Assimilate
Join into a new culture
Captains of industry
- lowered prices for consumers
- increased industrial production
- provided jobs and improved life
- donated money to charity
Wages and conditions
- low wages and many hours; unskilled labor;400-500 a year needed at least 600 to get by; 12-14 hrs a day
- job (in)security; easily fired;two major economic depression
- health and safety; unsafe unsanitary; injuries and major sickness; packed closely together
- no control for workers
- woman workers; 70%; mostly textile jobs; $300 a year; lowered mans salary
- child labored; 2 million worked
- there were laws but they were worked around
Struggle to unionize
- up against big businesses
- publics opinion(mostly against workers)
- blacklisted workers
Blacklisted workers
Workers who tried to start unions were fired and placed on the list and woulsnt get hired in other businesses
The great railroad strike (1877)
- RR company cut wages
- rapidly spreading strike
- violence by strikers
- government intervention to stop strike
- inspired workers to work/protest in a union
Knights of labor (1869)
- membership open to all workers
- loosely organized; composed of many smaller unions; let each labor do its own thing
- demands; tried getting workers to join Union; held parades; to reform economic system
Post civil war immigration
- don’t speak English
- no skills; no education
- workers who accept low pay; providing industrial growth
Robber barons
- business growth happened by dishonesty
- small businesses were put out of business
- increased gap between rich and poor
- power to raise prices when they want
- political corruption; paying off congress to they’d keep their hands off
Blacklisted workers
Workers who tried to start unions were fired and placed on the list and wouldn’t get hired in other businesses
The great railroad strike (1877)
- RR company cut wages
- Rapidly spreading strike
- Violence by strikers
- government intervention
- inspired workers to work/protest in a union
Knights of labor (1869)
- membership open to all workers
- loosely organized(composed of many smaller unions;let each labor do its own thing)
Demands for knights of labor
- actively tried to get workers to join their union
- held parades to persuade to join
- to reform economic system
- “workers are Slave to their wage”
- wanted a worker to be part owner of the company which means more pride more say more money, men and woman to get paid the same
Radical tendencies at the local level
- more fiercmess in the local compared to the knifes of labor
- problem is they hired too many workers because each ethnicity had different demands
American Federation of Labor(1881)
- Samuel Gompers
- skilled Laborers
- collective bargaining
- willing to strike
Demands for American Federal of Labor
- safe conditions
- higher wages
- limit conditions
- few women in work places as possible
- government limits
- 8 hour work day
Haymaker square riot(1886)
- striking workers rioted in Chicago
- violence at haymarket square (workers vs. Government)
- impact on Knights of labor and labor movement
Homestead strike(1892)
- strike of steel factory workers(steel becoming not skilled job)
- wage cuts in steel industry
- violent strike(fired them because of it and got new workers; prevented new workers to start new jobs; lasted long time after 4 months gov sent 8thousand people to break up strike)
- government intervention(sided with businesses)
Pullman strike(1894)
- strike that worked at train cars
- cut wages of workers so workers went on strike
- American railway Union strike(started a sympathy strike to support their workers)
- transportation in the US stopped
- federal government intervention(workers said they won’t stop; arrested leaders; pointed guys at workers; federal injunction and court order; court order that workers must return)
