Ch 18 History Vocab

Front 1

Island Communities

Back 1

Small communities of people with no connections to the more populated areas.

Front 2

Credit Mobilier

Back 2

Scandalous company created by Union Pacific Railroad insiders, it distributed shares of its stock to Congressmen to avoid detection

Front 3

Trunk Lines

Back 3

The Big Four railroads in northeast: Baltimore and Ohio, Erie Railroad, New York Central Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad

Front 4

Railroad Gauge

Back 4

The width of the train track, which was eventually standardized so that pieces of track could connect safely.

Front 5

J. Edgar Thomson

Back 5

Leader of one of the main trunk lines, the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Front 6

Thomas Scott

Back 6

Irish laborer executed by Riel and the Metis for treason against the new provisional government

Front 7

JP Morgan

Back 7

Banker who buys out Carnegie Steel and renames it to U.S. Steel. Was a philanthropist in a way; he gave all the money needed for WWI and was payed back. Was one of the "Robber barons"

Front 8

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Back 8

The "Commodore" he went from a monopoly of steamboats to owning many of the main railroads.

Front 9

JD Rockefeller

Back 9

He founded "Standard Oil". His 40 oil companies owned about 90% of the nation's pipelines and refined 84% of the nation's oil.

Front 10

Andrew Carnegie

Back 10

A Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892. By 1901, his company dominated the American steel industry.

Front 11

American Railway Association

Back 11

Divided country into four time zones and adopted standard time to avoid scheduling conflicts

Front 12

George Pullman

Back 12

The inventor of the Pullman Car, which was a luxurious train car for the rich. These cars, also known as sleeper cars allowed for much more comfortable travel.

Front 13

Vertical Integration

Back 13

Acquiring control of all the steps required to change raw materials into finished product .

Front 14

Horizontal Consolidation

Back 14

A form of monopoly that occurs when one person or company gains control of one aspect of an entire industry or manufacturing process.

Front 15

Union Pacific and Central Pacific

Back 15

The railroad companies were chartered to work together to create the first transcontinental railroad. One was to begin in Omaha, Nebraska, and end in California.

Front 16

Transcontinental Railroad

Back 16

Completed in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, it linked the eastern railroad system with California's railroad system, revolutionizing transportation in the west.

Front 17

Bessemer Process

Back 17

An industrial process for making steel using a Bessemer converter to blast air through through molten iron and thus burning the excess carbon and impurities

Front 18

“Trusts”

Back 18

Firms or corporations that combine for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices (establishing a monopoly). There are anti-trust laws to prevent these monopolies.

Front 19

Knights of Labor

Back 19

One of the most important American labor organizations of the 19th century, demanded an end to child and convict labor, equal pay for women, a progressive income tax, and the cooperative employer-employee ownership of mines and factories

Front 20

US Steel Corporation

Back 20

Launched by JP Morgan in 1901 valued at 1.4 billion dollars, America's first billionaire company.

Front 21

AFL

Back 21

American Federation of Labor. A union of skilled workers from one or more trades which focused on collective bargaining (negotiation between labor and management) to reach written agreements on wages hours and working conditions. The AFL used strikes as a major tactic to win higher wages and shorter work weeks.

Front 22

Henry Clay Frick

Back 22

American industrialist and art patron, once known as "America's most hated man" partnership between H. C. Frick & Company and Carnegie Steel Company.

Front 23

Homestead Strike

Back 23

Strike at Andrew Carnegie's steel plant in which Pinkerton detectives clashed with steel workers

Front 24

Cyrus Field

Back 24

American businessman who laid the first telegraph wire across the Atlantic. This cut down the time it took for a message to be sent from Europe to American and vice-versa.

Front 25

Alexander Graham Bell

Back 25

He was an American inventor who was responsible for developing the telephone. This greatly improved communications in the country.

Front 26

Chinese Exclusion Act

Back 26

(1882) Denied any additional Chinese laborers to enter the country while allowing students and merchants to immigrate.

Front 27

Haymarket Riot

Back 27

100,000 workers rioted in Chicago. After the police fired into the crowd, the workers met and rallied in Haymarket Square to protest police brutality. A bomb exploded, killing or injuring many of the police. The Chicago workers and the man who set the bomb were immigrants, so the incident promoted anti-immigrant feelings.

Front 28

Northern Securities Company

Back 28

A railroad monopoly fromed by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill which violated Sherman Antitrust Act

Front 29

Pullman Strike

Back 29

1894 railway workers strike for higher wages against the Pullman Company, in which President Grover Cleveland issued an injunction.

Front 30

George Eastman

Back 30

United States inventor of a dry-plate process of developing photographic film and of flexible film (his firm introduced roll film) and of the box camera and of a process for color photography (1854-1932)

Front 31

Thomas Edison

Back 31

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures.

Front 32

Chain Store

Back 32

One of a chain of retail stores under the same management and selling the same merchandise.

Front 33

Mail Order Catalogs

Back 33

Marketing strategy developed in late 1800's and early 1900's. Brought consumer products to rural areas. Example: Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward.

Front 34

Rise in Advertising

Back 34

When competition rose after the Civil War, Americans began to advertise more than they had ever before. Flyers, barkers, and mail order catalogs were only a few ways they tried to pull in customers.

Front 35

Muller v Oregon

Back 35

1908 - Supreme Court upheld Oregon state restrictions on the working hours of women as justified by the special state interest in protecting women's health

Front 36

Brandeis Brief

Back 36

A friend of the court opinion offered by Louis Brandeis, in the Supreme Court case Muller v Oregon (1908), which spoke about inherent differences between men and women in the workplace

Front 37

Holden v Hardy

Back 37

Supreme Court upheld a law limiting working hours for miners because their work was dangerous and long hours might increase injuries

Front 38

Lochner v New York

Back 38

A Supreme Court ruling that unless long work hours directly jeopardized workers' health, the government could not abride an employee's freedom to negotiate his own work schedule with his employer.

Front 39

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Back 39

A large number of railroad workers went on strike because of wage cuts. After a month of strikes, President Hayes sent troops to stop the rioting. The worst railroad violence was in Pittsburgh, with over 40 people killed by militia men

Front 40

Upton Sinclair

Back 40

United States writer whose novels argued for social reform (1878-1968

Front 41

“The Jungle”

Back 41

Choose the best definition (100 found)
This 1906 work by Upton Sinclair pointed out the abuses of the meat packing industry. The book led to the passage of the 1906 Meat Inspection Act.

Front 42

Jacob Riis

Back 42

A Danish immigrant, he became a reporter who pointed out the terrible conditions of the tenement houses of the big cities where immigrants lived during the late 1800s. He wrote How The Other Half Lives in 1890.