Apush Chapter 18

Front 1

American Federation of Labor

Back 1

A new organization formed by craft unions. They replaced the Knights’ grand visions with practical tactics aimed at bread–and–butter issues.

Front 2

Andrew Carnegie

Back 2

Scottish–American philanthropist who worked his way up the Pennsylvania Railroad and eventually built his own steel mill. His philosophy was deceptively simple: “Watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves.” Using rigorous cost accounting and limiting wage increases to his workers, he lowered his production costs and prices below those of his competitors.

Front 3

Eugene v. debs

Back 3

Leader of the American Railway Union.

Front 4

Henry W. Grady

Back 4

Editor of the Atlanta Constitution. The South’s rich coal and timber resources and cheap labor, he proclaimed, made it a natural site for industrial development.

Front 5

Homestead Strike

Back 5

Workers strike at the Carnegie Steel Company plant in Hempstead, Pennsylvania. To destroy the union, managers had cut wages and locked out the workers. When workers fired on the armed men from the Pinkerton Detective Agency who came to protect the plant, a battle broke out. Seven union members and three Pinkertons died. A week later the governor sent eight thousand National Guardsmen to restore order. The union crushed, the mills resumed full operation a month later.

Front 6

Horatio Alger

Back 6

Unitarian minister turned dime novelist whose stories recounted the adventures of poor but honest lads who rose through initiative and self’discipline.

Front 7

Interstate commerce act

Back 7

Established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which oversaw the practices of interstate railroads. The law banned monopolistic activity like pooling, rebates, and discriminatory short–distance rates.

Front 8

J. Pierpont Morgan

Back 8

The investment banker who took over the weakened railroad systems, reorganized their administration, refinanced their debts, and built intersystem alliances.

Front 9

Jay Gould

Back 9

Head of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Front 10

John D Rockefeller

Back 10

American philanthropist who was the head of the Standard Oil Company. By 1879, Rockefeller had seized control of 90 percent of the country’s oil–refining capacity.

Front 11

Knights of Labor

Back 11

A labor organization that welcomed all wage earners or former wage earners; they excluded only bankers, doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, professional gamblers, and liquor dealers. They demanded equal pay for women, an end to child labor and convict labor, and the cooperative employer–employee ownership of factories, mines, and other businesses. At a time when no federal income tax existed, they called for a progressive tax on all earnings, graduated so that higher–income earners would pay more.

Front 12

Marxism

Back 12

Theory named after German philosopher Karl Marx that rested on the labor theory of value: a proposition (which Adam Smith had also accepted) that the labor required to produce a commodity was the only true measure of that commodity’s value. Any profit made by the capitalist employer was “surplus value” appropriated from the exploited workers.

Front 13

National Labor Union

Back 13

A nationwide labor association that represented all workers. It endorsed the eight–hour–day movement, which insisted that labor deserved eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for personal affairs. Leaders also called for an end to convict labor, for the establishment of a federal department of labor, and for currency and banking reform. To push wage scales higher, they endorsed immigration restriction, especially of Chinese migrants, whom native–born workers blamed for undercutting prevailing wage levels.

Front 14

Samuel Gompers

Back 14

Immigrant cigar maker who became head of the AFL in 1886 and led it until his death in 1924. For him, higher wages were not simply an end in themselves but were rather the necessary base to enable working class families to exist decently, with respect and dignity.

Front 15

Sherman anti-trust act

Back 15

Outlawed trusts and any other monopolies that fixed prices in restraint of trade and slapped violators with fines of up to five thousand dollars and a year in jail.

Front 16

Social Darwinism

Back 16

The belief that that inexorable natural laws controlled the social order. The state owed its citizens nothing but law, order, and basic political rights.

Front 17

Standard oil trust

Back 17

Headed by John D. Rockefeller, it was an umbrella corporation that ran oil companies.

Front 18

Thomas A. Edison

Back 18

Inventor of the light bulb.

Front 19

Vertical Integration

Back 19

Controlling all aspects of manufacturing, from extracting raw materials to selling the finished product.

Front 20

Wildcat Strikes

Back 20

Laborers walked off the job without union authorization because pay rates were cut or working conditions became intolerable.

Front 21

William Graham Sumner

Back 21

Yale professor who shared Carnegie’s disapproval of government interference. His combative book What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883) applied the evolutionary theories of British naturalist Charles Darwin to human society.