Unit 5: Period 6 Vocab Flashcards
Trust
An economic method that had other companies assigns their stocks to the board of trust who would manage them. This made the head of the board, or the corporate leader wealthy, and at the same time killed off competitors not in the trust. This method was used/developed by Rockefeller, and helped him become extremely wealthy. It was also used in creating monopolies.
John Rockefeller
Created Standard Oil Co. monopoly using ruthless business practices, philanthropist, wealthiest American. Horizontal integration.
JP Morgan
Banker who financed the reorganization of railroads, insurance companies, and banks. He bought out Carnegie and in 1901 he started the United States Steel Corporation.
Knights of Labor
Largest labor organization in 1880s, most prominent leader Terence V. Powderly. Promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected socialism and anarchism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers
American Federation of Labor
Union of skilled laborers with president Samuel Gompers in 1866. The AFL quickly became one of the most powerful unions in the United States. They achieved success by avoiding larger political questions in favor of “bread and butter issues” such as shorter workdays and higher wages for union members.
Mother Jones
Perhaps the most prominent organizer in the women’s labor movement. She supported the Great Strike of 1877 and later joined the United Mine Workers of America.
Conspicuous Consumption
The theory, developed by economist Thorstein Veblen, that much spending on luxury goods occurs primarily to display wealth and status to others rather than from enjoyment of the goods or services.
Sharecropping
Sharecropping was a system of work for freedmen who were employed in the cotton industry. This system traded a freedmen’s labor for the use of a house, land, and sometimes further accommodations.They would usually give half or more of their grown crop to their landlords.
Tenant Farming
Landowners rented land to farmers who grew crops for landowners and kept a small percentage, often not enough to sell. Farmers lived in poverty as a result. Different from sharecroppers, as tenant farmers were usually white and owned their own tool and sometimes house, and could sell off some of the profit.
Sierra Club
Oldest environmental conservation organization founded by John Muir in 1892 San Francisco
Dept. of Interior
Manages and protects nation’s public land and natural resources. Including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Geological Survey and the Bureau of Territorial and International Affairs
Booker T Washington
Former slave. Encouraged blacks to keep to themselves and focus on the daily tasks of survival, rather than leading a grand uprising. Believed that building a strong economic base was more critical at that time than planning an uprising or fighting for equal rights. Washington also stated in his famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech in 1895 that blacks had to accept segregation in the short term as they focused on economic gain to achieve political equality in the future. Served as important role models for later leaders of the civil rights movement.
Ida B Wells
African American journalist. published statistics about lynching, urged African Americans to protest by refusing to ride streetcars or shop in white owned stores
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a member of the women’s right’s movement in 1840. She was a mother of seven, and she shocked other feminists by advocating suffrage for women at the first Women’s Right’s Convention in Seneca, New York 1848. Stanton read a “Declaration of Sentiments” which declared “all men and women are created equal.”
Gospel of Wealth
An article written by Andrew Carnegie in June of 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich.
Edward Bellamy
Envisioned a utopian socialist society where the government owned the means of production and distributed wealth equally among all citizens. Competition was irrelevant. The book inspired the creation of hundreds of Bellamy discussion clubs
Henry George
Controversial reformer whose book Progress and Poverty advocated solving problems of economic inequality by a tax on land
Social Darwinism
The theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals
Chinese Exclusion Act
(1882) Federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur; denied any additional chinese laborers to enter country while allowing students and merchants to immigrate; reason: US West coast have declining wages and economic troubles (hated chinese workers and scapegoated them for troubles) Congress appeased these ppl by passing the act
American Protective Association
Organization led by nativists in 1887 = want laws to restrict immigration; urged voting against Roman Catholic candidates to office and sponsored anti immigrant slander
Commerce Act
Interstate Commerce Act( 1887) → established the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission)= monitors the business operation of carriers transporting goods and people between states - created to regulate railroad prices
Socialism
Political belief in promoting social and economic equality through the ownership and control of the major means of production by the whole community rather than by individuals or corporations.
Gilded Age
A name for the late 1800s, coined by Mark Twain (sarcastically because of the corruption) to describe the tremendous increase in wealth caused by the industrial age and the ostentatious lifestyles it allowed the very rich. The great industrial success of the U.S. and the fabulous lifestyles of the wealthy hid the many social problems of the time, including a high poverty rate, a high crime rate, and corruption in the government.
Referendum
When citizens vote on laws instead of the state or national governments. The referendum originated as a populous reform in the populist party, but was later picked up by the progressive reform movement.
