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30 Cards in this Set

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Cornelius Vanderbuilt
Jason "Jay" Gould (May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history.[1] Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time.[2] Some modern historians working from primary sources have discounted various myths about him
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad (reporting mark NYC), known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States. Headquartered in New York, the railroad served most of the Northeast, including extensive trackage in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Massachusetts, plus additional trackage in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St.Louis in the midwest along with the intermediate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Detroit. The NYC's Grand Central Terminal in New York City is one of its best known extant landmarks.
Federal land Grants 1865-1900
What combination of factors resulted in rapid US industrial growth in the late 1800’s?

· In the late 1800’s the US overtook Great Britain as the world’s largest source of manufactured goods

· Abundant natural resources

o The US was its own source of the raw materials necessary for industrialization

o Coal, iron ore, copper, lead, timber, and oil

· Abundant labor supply

o High immigration between 1865 & 1900

o Increased supply of laborers and high demand for industrial jobs made labor cheap

· Capital (wealth or money) for investing in American businesses

· Laborsaving technological advances

o 440,000 new patents were submitted by the US government from 1860 to 1890

· Pro-Business government policies

o Protection of private property

o Federal subsidies, loans, and land grants for railroads

o Protective tariffs

o Very little federal regulation of business

o Very low taxes on corporate profits



How did railroads impact American industrialization in late 1800’s?

· Railroads were the nation’s first “big business”

o Resources needed to build the nationwide network of railroads led to growth in other industries (especially coal and steel)

o Led to the development of the modern stock-holder corporation

· Cornelius Vanderbilt

o Put millions from his steamboat business into the NY Central Railroad in 1867

o Merged and “consolidated” local railroads into a trunk line connecting NY to Chicago

o Trunk lines major routes between large cities (Baltimore RR, Ohio RR, and Pennsylvania RR)

· Promoted settlement on the Great Plains

· Created one large national market by linking east and west





How did the federal government aid railroad expansion?

· In order to promote western expansion the federal government provided railroad companies with huge subsidies in the form of loans and land grants

o 80 companies received over 170 million acres of public land

o Railroad companies received more than three times the land given away by the homestead act

· The Transcontinental Railroad

o During the Civil War Congress authorized land grants and loans for a transcontinental railroad connecting California to the rest of the Union

o The Union Pacific company built from east to west across the Great Plains from Omaha, Nebraska

· Construction directed by General Greenville Dodge

· Used thousands of war veterans and Irish immigrants for labor

o Central Pacific company built from west to east over the mountains from Sacramento

· Construction directed by Charles Crocker

· Used 6,000 Chinese immigrants as labor

o The two companies met at Promontory Pont Utah on May 10, 1869

o A golden spike was driven into the ground to mark the linking of the Atlantic and Pacific states

· By 1900 four other transcontinental railroads were completed

o The Southern Pacific: connected New Orleans with Los Angeles

o The Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe: connected Kansas City and Los Angeles

o The Northern Pacific: connected Duluth, Minnesota with Seattle, Washington

o The Great Northern Railroad: connected St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle

· Built by James Hill

· Built without federal subsidies

· A financial Panic in 1893 forced ¼ of all railroad companies into bankruptcy

o Bankers like JP Morgan took control of the bankrupt railroad companies and consolidated them into larger companies

o The same groups of bankers sat on the board of directors for competing railroad companies

o Essentially eliminated competition in the railroad industry



What industries made up what is referred to as the “Second Industrial Revolution?”

· Railroads

· The Steel Industry

o The Bessemer System

§ New process for producing high-quality steel, quickly and cheaply

§ Developed by both Henry Bessemer (England) and William Kelly (USA) in the 1850’s

§ Involved blasting air through molten iron

§ Launched the rise of the steel industry

o The Great Lakes region of the US emerged as the nation’s leading steel producing region due to abundant coal and iron resources

o Andrew Carnegie

§ In the 1870’s began steel manufacturing in Pittsburgh

§ Used vertical integration: a company controls every stage of the industrial process, from mining to transporting the finished product

§ By 1900 Carnegie Steel was the nations top steel producing company

o US Steel Corporation

§ Andrew Carnegie sold his company in 1900 for over $400 million to a new steel corporation headed by JP Morgan

§ US Steel was the first billion dollar company and at that time the largest company in the world

§ Controlled over 3/5 of the nation’s steel business

· The Oil Industry

o The first oil well in the US was drilled in Pennsylvania by Edwin Drake in 1859

o In 1863 John D Rockefeller started the Standard Oil Company

§ Later controlled nearly all of the nation’s oil production by eliminating competition

§ Horizontal integration: former competitors were brought under a single corporate umbrella

§ The Standard Oil Trust consisted of separate companies all managed by a board of trustees that Rockefeller controlled

§ Standard Oil controlled supply and prices of oil products

§ Rockefeller was worth $900 million when he retired

§ Inspired the organization of trusts in other industries: sugar, meat, tobacco, leather



How did the anti-trust movement come about as a reaction to big business?

· Middle class consumers feared the power of trusts to control supply and prices

· In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act

o Prohibited any “contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise conspiracy in restraint of commerce

o In reality the law was too vague to have much of an impact

o United States vs. E. C. Knight Co. (1895): ruled the Sherman Anti-Trust Act could be applied only to commerce and not manufacturing

o The law was later strengthened in the 1920’s



How did economic ideas contributed to the rapid industrialization of the late 1800’s?

· Laissez-faire capitalism

o The Wealth of Nations: 1776 book by Adam Smith

§ Seen as the beginnings of laissez-faire capitalism

§ Argued that business should not be regulated by government

§ Business should be regulated by supply and demand

§ Businesses would offer quality goods at low prices out of their own self-interest

o In the 1880’s trusts and monopolies undercut the natural regulation of the market proposed by Adam Smith

· Social Darwinism

o Based on Darwin’s theory of natural selection

o The English social philosopher Herbert Spencer applied the ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest to the business world

o Used to justify a small minority of the population controlling a large majority of the nation’s wealth

o Professor William Graham Sumner of Yale University went so far as to argue that help for the poor was wrong because it interfered with survival of the fittest and would weaken the evolution of the human species by allowing the unfit to survive

· The Gospel of Wealth

o Used religion to justify the wealth of industrialists and bankers

o Protestant work ethic: hard work and material success are signs of God’s favor

o “Acres of Diamonds”: popular lecture by Reverend Russell Conwell that preached everyone had a duty to become rich

o “Wealth”: essay by Andrew Carnegie

§ Argued the wealthy had a god-given responsibility to carry out civic philanthropy (charity) for the benefit of society

§ Carnegie put over $350 million into support for libraries, universities, and other public institutions



What type of technological innovations contributed to rapid industrialization in the late 1800’s?

· Railroads: rapid transportation

· Telegraph: invented by Samuel Morse in 1844

o Cyrus W. Field’s transatlantic cable improved overseas communication in 1866

o By 1900 telegraph lines linked all continents in a global network of cables

· Telephone: invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876

· Other inventions that improved business: typewriter (1867), cash register (1879), calculating machine (1887), adding machine (18880

· Consumer use inventions: George Eastman’s Kodak Camera (1888), Lewis Waterman’s fountain pen (1884), King Gillette’s safety razor (1895)

· Thomas Edison

o Developed the world’s first modern research laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ

o Edison’s lab produced over 1,000 patent inventions

o Phonograph, the light bulb, mimeograph machine, motion picture camera

· George Westinghouse

o Inventor who produced 400 patents

o Air-brakes for railroads (1869)

o Transformer for producing high voltage alternating current (1885) allowing for the later lighting of cities, electric street cars, subways and household appliances



How did industrialization impact the marketing of consumer goods?

· Increased production created the need for businesses to find new ways of selling their goods to the public

· Department stores (Macys, started by RH Macy in NY) became the place to shop in urban areas

· Woolworth’s Five & Ten Cent store: started by Frank Woolworth began a nationwide chain of stores

· Mail-order companies:

o Sears & Roebuck

o Montgomery Ward

o Used railroads to ship goods to rural customers

o Consumers ordered everything from hats to houses from catalogs (wish books)

· Advertising helped create a consumer culture that encouraged spending over saving



What impact did industrialization have on American society?

· Raised the overall standard of living for most people

· Created sharper economic divisions between the rich, the middle class, and the poor

· By the 1890’s 10% of the US population controlled 9/10’s of the nation’s wealth

· Horatio Alger:

o Wrote novels that popularized the myth of the rags-to-riches “self-made man”

o Alger novels portrayed young men who became rich through hard work and a little luck

· The expanding middle class

o Large corporations required white-collar workers: salaried employees whose jobs did not involve manual labor

o Middle management, accountants, clerical workers and sales people

o Increases in the number of “good-paying” jobs increased the income of the middle class and consumer consumption

· Wage earners or working-class families

o By 1900 2/3 of Americans worked for hourly wages at jobs that required 10 hour days, six days a week

o Wages were determined by the demand for workers and the available supply of workers

o High immigration in the late 1800’s helped keep factory wages low

o David Ricardo’s “iron law of wages”

· Used to justify low factory wages

· Arbitrarily raising wages would attract more workers, increasing the supply of workers

· An increased in the supply of workers would cause wages to fall even lower creating a cycle of misery and starvation

o Most working-class families could not survive on one income leading to women taking factory jobs and child labor

o Women in the workforce

· Most women who worked in factories were young and unmarried

· Only 5% of married women worked outside the home

· Women’s factory jobs were usually restricted to industries that were seen as extensions of the home: textile, garment and food-processing industries

· As the demand for clerical work increased women moved into roles as secretaries, book-keepers, typists, and telephone operators

· Occupations that became feminized usually lost status and received lower wages

· Labor discontent

o Before industrialization artisans (skilled craftsmen) typically worked for themselves and created a product from start to finish

o Factory work used unskilled labor were workers performed just one repetitive step in the manufacturing of a good

o Workers received low pay, worked long hours, and worked in dangerous conditions

o High turnover rate: workers generally changed jobs every three years



How did labor discontent lead to labor unions?

· Unions worked to organize laborers to achieve recognition from management and collective bargaining

· Goals of unions:

o Better pay

o Shorter hours
Transcontinental Railroad
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage[1] that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express
Jay Gould
Jason "Jay" Gould (May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history.[1] Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time.[2] Some modern historians working from primary sources have discounted various myths about
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year.[1] Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures. Compounding market overbuilding and the railroad bubble, was a run on the gold supply (relative to silver), because of the long-established American policy of Bimetalism, which used both silver and gold metals at a fixed 16:1 rate for pegging the value of the US Dollar. Until the Great Depression, the Panic of '93 was considered the worst depression the United States had ever experienced.
J.P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan (April 17, 1837 - March 31, 1913) was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric. After financing the creation of the Federal Steel Company he merged in 1901 the Carnegie Steel Company and several other steel and iron businesses, including Consolidates Steel and Wire Company owned by William Edenborn, to form the United States Steel Corporation.
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly.[1][2] The process had also been used outside of Europe for hundreds of years, but not on an industrial scale.[3] The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten.
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (properly pronounced /kɑrˈneɪɡi/ kar-NAY-gee, but commonly, /ˈkɑrnɨɡi/ KAR-nə-gee or /kɑrˈnɛɡi/ kar-NEG-ee)[1] (November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, entrepreneur and a major philanthropist.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and migrated to the United States as a child with his parents. His first job in the United States was as a factory worker in a bobbin factory. Later on he became a bill logger for the owner of the company. Soon after he became a messenger boy. Eventually he progressed up the ranks of a telegraph company. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which was later merged with Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company and several smaller companies to create U.S. Steel. With the fortune he made from business among others he built Carnegie Hall, later he turned to philanthropy and interests in education, founding the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
Vertical Integration
In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It is contrasted with horizontal integration.
US Steel
The United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X), more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales (see list of steel producers). It was renamed USX Corporation in 1991 and back to United States Steel Corporation in 2001 when the shareholders of USX spun off its steel-making assets following the acquisition of Marathon Oil in 1982. It is still the largest domestically owned integrated steel producer in the United States, although it produces only slightly more steel than it did in 1902.
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller I (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American oil magnate. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.[1] Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, Jabez Bostwick, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner, Stephen V. Harkness. As kerosene and gasoline grew in importance, Rockefeller's wealth soared, and he became the world's richest man and first American worth more than a billion dollars.[2] Adjusting for inflation, he is often regarded as the richest person in history.
Standard Oil Trust
Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world[3] and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations until it was broken up by the United States Supreme Court in 1911.
Horizontal Integration
A diagram illustrating horizontal integration and contrasting it with vertical integration.Marketing
Key concepts
Product • Pricing
Distribution • Service • Retail
Brand management
Account-based marketing
Marketing ethics
Marketing effectiveness
Market research
Market segmentation
Marketing strategy
Marketing management
Market dominance


Promotional content
Advertising • Branding • Underwriting
Direct marketing • Personal Sales
Product placement • Publicity
Sales promotion • Sex in advertising
Loyalty marketing • Premiums • Prizes

Promotional media
Printing • Publication
Broadcasting • Out-of-home
Internet marketing • Point of sale
Promotional merchandise
Digital marketing • In-game
In-store demonstration
Word-of-mouth marketing
Brand Ambassador • Drip Marketing

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In microeconomics and strategic management, the term horizontal integration describes a type of ownership and control. It is a strategy used by a business or corporation that seeks to sell a type of product in numerous markets. Horizontal integration in marketing is much more common than vertical integration is in production. Horizontal integration occurs when a firm is being taken over by, or merged with, another firm which is in the same industry and in the same stage of production as the merged firm, e.g. a car manufacturer merging with another car manufacturer. In this case both the companies are in the same stage of production and also in the same industry. This process is also known as a "buy out" or "take-over".
Anti Trust Movement
To the average American in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, economic and political life seemed to be moving out of control. In a country that valued independent entrepreneurs, rural self-sufficiency, and middle-class religious values, politics seemed to be growing corrupt and opportunities for leading a morally satisfying life were becoming fewer. Economic power was clearly concentrating into small groups that were not open to the average citizen. A feeling of impotence in the face of these perceptions led to numerous movements for reform; antitrust was one of these.

Trusts had emerged as sensible ways of rationalizing economic life. Basic industries needed dependable supplies, means of transportation, markets, and banking connections. Competing local, state, and federal jurisdictions interfered with efficient business practice without providing firm legal guidelines specifying which practices were illegal, unethical, or merely inevitable. In order to survive fierce competition after the Civil War, businesses were soon negotiating agreements that froze competitors out of markets and enabled surviving firms to raise prices. Certain companies, such as Standard Oil, set the pace: ruthlessly buying out or forcing out its competition in the production of oil, it was soon in a position to charge whatever it wanted for its products. Independent businesses and consumers were both at risk. Industries that dealt with the company, most obviously the railroads, especially felt threatened, for so large a customer could intimidate those who supplied it with goods or services. Politicians soon got the message that something had to be done or the American way would be in danger.

Agitation against the trusts grew in the 1880s and resulted in the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). Its first two provisions made illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations," and declared that "every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize ... any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations," was guilty of a misdemeanor. The law was vague and unclear, and never defined what a "trust" or a "monopoly" was. It seemed yet another example of congressional irresponsibility, substituting rhetoric and ritual for meaningful reform. The courts soon made hash of any effective application: cases against the whiskey and sugar trusts were thrown out. The pattern of many reforms of the Progressive Era was being set: economic forces led to problems unknown a few decades earlier; agitation by those who were hurt in some way led to political debate and the enactment of a statute; and the courts, in their leisurely way, made sure that few businesses suffered in practice. In America, economic activity had divine sanction in all but the most egregious cases, and the protection of property took legal precedence over any sense of damage to the community as a whole.

Theodore Roosevelt, like most Americans, was both proud and fearful of successful trusts. They represented something new and native in modern life and were premonitions of a wider American role in world affairs. To him, some trusts were good and some were bad. Good trusts were run by gentlemen who were often his friends and contributors to Republican campaigns; with their capital concentrations and huge markets they could pour new products into an ever greater democracy: electric lights, farm machinery, and automobiles, to select almost at random, were on the way, promising a more bountiful life for all. Bad trusts were those whose leaders were greedy financiers interested in private profit regardless of consequences, thus undermining the public sense of moral and decent behavior.

Roosevelt was no radical, but he knew when conditions were getting out of hand. Eager for favorable publicity and preferring a conservative approach that would preempt a more destructive, radical reform, he authorized his attorney general in 1902 to file suit against a huge and growing railway trust, the Northern Securities Company. In 1904, in a narrow 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court backed him up, effectively overruling its own earlier decisions and issuing a significant public warning against certain industrial combinations. Businessmen, always easily shocked, were publicly outraged at such restrictions on their liberties; the public seemed delighted. In practice, the impact was mostly cautionary and journalistic: the Court in effect had warned businessmen to be careful. The decision also encouraged numerous articles by muckrakers eager to expose the "money trust," the "meat trust," the "patent medicine trust," and the rest.

Roosevelt instituted a reasonable number of other prosecutions, and his successor, William Howard Taft, began even more. But few critics were happy, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson asked for further controls on interlocking directorates and an interstate trade commission with enhanced regulatory authority especially over railways, as well as clearer definitions of what precisely was illegal. He won the Federal Trade Commission Act to regulate unlawful trade practices and the Clayton Antitrust Act, which tightened some of the loopholes in the Sherman Act. This legislation specifically prohibited pricing agreements that restrained trade, outlawed interlocking directorates in large corporations, and made it illegal for a firm to acquire stock in a competitor.

Once again, these reforms were more public relations than substance, and court interpretations gutted any meaningful effect. Little of substance occurred during the 1920s. Not until late in the New Deal, under the direction of Thurman Arnold, once one of antitrust policy's sharpest critics, did antitrust revive as an issue. It remained alive, well funded, and occasionally effective through the 1970s. In the 1980s, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, public faith in antitrust reached an all-time low, with few prosecutions being initiated and others being abandoned. Even the vogue of the leveraged buyout, which threatened the independence of many industries throughout the economy, and the bad publicity surrounding the issuing of so-called junk bonds, failed to stir the public or the regulators to antitrust activity.

As America entered the 1990s, antitrust remained a possibility rather than an actuality in the minds of both politicians and businesspeople. In a world where competition often spoke Japanese or Korean, antitrust seemed almost quaint. Some of its victories, such as the one that broke up American Telephone and Telegraph, seemed quixotic at best, confusing consumers and raising the phone bills of most citizens, all in an effort to restrain a company that seemed to be a model of public service. But the mere existence of an antitrust division probably prevented numerous unhealthy combinations and modified the practice of many others. In a complex society, it plays a small but important role as a lingering progressive conscience, cautioning business leaders against excessive behavior.
Sherman Antitrust Act 1890
The Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act,[1] February 30, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7) requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1901–1909).
United States v. E.C. Knight
The Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 as a response to the public concern in the growth of giant combinations controlling tranportation, industry, and commerce. The Act aimed to stop the concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of the few. It outlawed "every contract, combination...or conspiracy, in restraint of trade" or interstate commerce, and it declared every attempt to monopolize any part of trade or commerce to be illegal. The E.C. Knight Company was such a combination controlling over 98 percent of the sugar-refining business in the United States.
Laissez – Faire Capitalism
In economics, laissez-faire (English pronunciation: /ˌlɛseɪˈfɛər/ ( listen), French: [lɛsefɛʁ] ( listen)) describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies.

The phrase laissez-faire is French and literally means "let do", but it broadly implies "let it be", or "leave it alone."
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – died 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. It earned him an enormous reputation and would become one of the most influential works on economics ever published. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism.
Gospel of Wealth
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

"Wealth",[1] more commonly known as "The Gospel of Wealth",[2] "the Richest man in the World,"is an essay written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889[3] that described the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. The central thesis of Carnegie's essay was the peril of allowing large sums of money to be passed into the hands of persons or organizations ill-equipped mentally or emotionally to cope with them. As a result, the wealthy entrepreneur must assume the responsibility of distributing his fortune in a way that it will be put to good use, and not wasted on frivolous expenditure. In this he represented a captain of industry who had risen to power by his own hand and refused to worship wealth.
Transatlantic Cable
The transatlantic telegraph cable was the first cable used for telegraph communications laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. It crossed from the Telegraph Field, Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable bridged North America and Europe, and expedited communication between the two. Whereas it would normally take at least ten days to deliver a message by ship, it now took a matter of minutes by telegraph.
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.

Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work.[1] His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone in 1876.[N 1] In retrospect, Bell considered his most famous invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.[3]

Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils and aeronautics. In 1888, Alexander Graham Bell became one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society.[4]
Sear Roebuck
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century. Formerly a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Sears[2] merged with Kmart in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation.
Horatio Alger
Horatio Alger, Jr. (January 13, 1834 – July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many formulaic juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of respectable middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. He initially wrote and published for adults, but a friendship with boys' author William Taylor Adams led him to writing for the young. He published for years in Adams's Student and Schoolmate, a boys' magazine of moral writings. His lifelong theme of "rags to respectability" had a profound impact on America in the Gilded Age. His works gained even greater popularity following his death, but gradually lost reader interest in the 1920s.

Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Alger entered Harvard College at age sixteen and became a professional writer at seventeen with the sale of a few literary pieces to a Boston magazine. He worked briefly as an assistant editor for a Boston magazine before teaching in New England boys' schools for a few years. He graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1860, wrote in support of the Union cause during the American Civil War, and accepted a ministerial post with a Unitarian church in Brewster, Massachusetts in 1864. He left the church in 1866 following an internal investigation regarding sexual misconduct allegations involving two teenage boys of the parish. He denied nothing and relocated to New York City. In 1864 he published Frank's Campaign, his first boys' book, and in 1865 his second boys' book Paul Prescott's Charge.

He continued to write and published a third boys' book Charlie Codman's Cruise. He found his literary niche in 1866 with his fourth boys' book Ragged Dick, the story of a poor bootblack's rise to middle-class respectability. His many boys' books that followed were essentially variations on Ragged Dick and featured a series of stock characters – the valiant youth, the noble mysterious stranger, the snobbish youth, and the evil squire. In the 1870s Alger took a trip to California to gather material for future books but the trip had little influence on his writing; he remained firmly fixed in his "rags to respectability" formula. The Puritan ethic had loosened its grip on America during these years, and Alger's moral tone coarsened. Violence, murder, and other sensational themes entered his works; public librarians questioned whether his books should be made available to the young. He published about 100 boys' books and died in 1899. A biography that eventually proved to be a hoax was published in 1928 and held great sway for many years. Since 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans has bestowed awards and scholarships on the deserving, and in 1982 Alger's works inspired a musical comedy called Shine!. One modern scholar has described his work as a male Cinderella myth noting similarities with the classic fairy tale.
Railroad Strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state militias, and federal troops.
National Labor union
The National Labor Union (NLU) was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AF of L (American Federation of Labor). It was led by William H. Sylvis. The National Labor Union followed the unsuccessful efforts of labor activists to form a national coalition of local trade unions. The National Labor Union sought instead to bring together all of the national labor organizations in existence, as well as the "eight-hour leagues" established to press for the eight-hour day, to create a national federation that could press for labor reforms and help found national unions in those areas where none existed. The new organization favored arbitration over strikes and called for the creation of a national labor party as an alternative to the two existing parties.

The NLU drew much of its support from construction unions and other groups of skilled employees, but also invited the unskilled and farmers to join. On the other hand, it campaigned for the exclusion of Chinese workers from the United States and made only halting, ineffective efforts to defend the rights of women and blacks. African-American workers established their own Colored National Labor Union as an adjunct, but their support of the Republican Party and the prevalent racism of the citizens of the United States limited its effectiveness.

The NLU achieved an early success, but one that proved less significant in practice. In 1868, Congress passed the statute for which the Union had campaigned so hard, providing the eight-hour day for government workers. Many government agencies, however, reduced wages at the same time that they reduced hours. While President Grant ordered federal departments not to reduce wages, his order was ignored by many. The NLU also obtained similar legislation in a number of states, such as New York and California, but discovered that loopholes in the statute made them unenforceable or ineffective.

The Union boasted 700,000 members at its height. It collapsed when it adopted the policy that electoral politics, with a particular emphasis on monetary reform[citation needed], were the only means for advancing its agenda. The organization was spectacularly unsuccessful at the polls and lost virtually all of its union supporters, many of whom moved on to the newly formed Knights of Labor. The depression of the 1870s, which drove down union membership generally, was the final factor contributing to the end of the NLU.
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor (U of M) (officially "Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor") was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly. The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and became a small operation again.

It was established in 1869, reached 28,000 members in 1880, then jumped to 100,000 in 1885. Then it mushroomed to nearly 700,000 members in 1886, but its frail organizational structure could not cope and it was battered by charges of failure and violence. Most members abandoned the movement in 1886-87, leaving at most 100,000 in 1890.[1] Remnants of the Knights of Labor continued in existence until 1949, when the group's last 50-member local dropped its affiliation.
Haymarket Bombing
On 1st May, 1886 a strike was began throughout the United States in support a eight-hour day. Over the next few days over 340,000 men and women withdrew their labor. Over a quarter of these strikers were from Chicago and the employers were so shocked by this show of unity that 45,000 workers in the city were immediately granted a shorter workday.
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death. As the Knights of Labor faded away, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength. In practice, AFL unions were important in industrial cities, where they formed a central labor office to coordinate the actions of different AFL unions. Most strikes were assertions of jurisdiction, so that the plumbers, for example, used strikes to ensure that all major construction projects in the city used union plumbers. To win they needed the support of other unions, hence the need for AFL solidarity.
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers[1] (January 27, 1850 – December 13, 1924) was an English-born American labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924. He promoted harmony among the different craft unions that comprised the AFL, trying to minimize jurisdictional battles. He promoted "thorough" organization and collective bargaining to secure shorter hours and higher wages, the first essential steps, he believed, to emancipating labor. He also encouraged the AFL to take political action to "elect their friends" and "defeat their enemies." During World War I, Gompers and the AFL worked with the government to avoid strikes and boost morale, while raising wage rates and expanding membership.