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35 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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The emergence of big business
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Huge supplies of raw materials. Explosion of industrialization after the civil war. Railroad, steel and petroleum emerged as large powers.
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How much did the gross national product rise between 1860-1900?
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171%
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What were the factors that increased the gross national product?
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two essential ingrediants for industrialization: raw materials and cheap labor. PA & KA = coal, iron, lead, copper, silver and gold. Cheap labor came from record levels of immigration 1 in 5 immigrants. Patent office saw a rise from 1000 per yr to 20000.
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Some notable inventors
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George Eastman (Kodak camera), William S Bouroughs, (adding machine), Issac Singer (sewing machine), Alexander Graham Bell (phone), Thomas Edison (Incandescent light bulb, phonegraph, motion picture camera, mimepgraph), Jan Matzeliger African American(simplified the most time consuming step in shoes),
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How did goverment agencies play a key role in industrialization?
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The feds and the states extended support to railroad projects totalling 180 million acres in land grants, $500 million in loans and tax breaks, High tariffs on imports to promote local goods. The government promoted it by inaction. Laissez-faire (french for let do, leave alone)
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Large Corporations in the 19th century
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Before civil war companies were around 25 employees and privately owned and sold product nearby. After 1865 large companies were born by railroad and telegraph.
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What are modern business practices?
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Incorporating and issuing stocks. Stock sales allowed corps to raise captial and expand. Stockholders had limited liability. The devolopment of modern, sophisticated management practices. 1883 developed time zones. Standarded equipment, couplers, signals and brakes. Devoloped vast systems of heirarchies: superintendants, managers, and clerks...
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What was the rising concern over corporate power?
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Monopolies, a popular term to describe the contol of an industry or market by one corp. Large money was used sometimes for bribes of elected officials. Price gouging of farmers, exploitation of workers. Laissez-Faire was combatted by the Grange group.
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Who is Andrew Carnegie?
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1865 Steel which constructed train tracks, skyscrappers. Carnegie came from humble beginnings, born in Scottland on 1836, he imigrated to America settling in Pittsburg. Bought a steel business and created a process called vertical integration (one company controls the main phases of production, from aquiring raw materials to retailing the finished product).
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What is vertical integration?
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created a process called vertical integration (one company controls the main phases of production, from aquiring raw materials to retailing the finished product). He bought out mines, smelting operations, railroads, and ships. Pursued cutthroat practices rivaling other steel producers. Slashed prices that bankrupted other steel companies.
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Horizontal Integration
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a model where they bought out many companies producing the same product to eliminate the competition.
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Who were other great entrepreneurs of the American Economy? and denounced as robber barons>?
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Philip Armour (Meat packing), James Duke (tobacco products), George Eastman (Kodak), Cyrus McCormick (farm equipment)
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What is a robber baron?
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Leading the public as "capitains of industry" who offered ever-growing numbers of new products and services. Greedy capitalists who grew rich by devious business practices, exploitation of workers and political manipulation.
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What were John D. Rockefellers contribution to big business?
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two forms of management: the trust and the holding company. Trusts are legally binding arrangements that brought many companies in the same industry under the direction of a single board of "trustees". To join a trust, a company turned over to the board a majority of its stock in exchange for trust certs which gaurenteed a share in its profits
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What is the holding company?
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Replaced the trusts in the 1890s as the preferred big business model. It is a huge corporation that bought abd ran other corps by purchasing their stocks. It offered protection from the sherman act.
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What is the SHerman Anti-Trust Act of 1890?
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it was originally proposed as a law that empowered the Justice Department to prosecute any illegal contract, combination, or conspiracy among corporations that was designed to elimninate competition. It made trusts illegal. The final wording made the bill unenforceable.
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What was the art of selling?
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Business developed advertising techniques and marketing strategies. Many hired psychologists and experts to develop campaigns that appeal to consumers fears and desires. Cultivated brand loyalty through catchy slogans. Celebrities were brought in. Advertising spending increased from 50 mill in 1867 to 500 mill by 1900.
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The department store
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Irish immigrant Alexander Turney Stewart established the first NY City in 1846. Fixed prices eliminated negotiation. Money back gaurentee and free delivery at times. Woolworths was at the discounted end of the spectrum
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Montgomery Ward
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Offered product by mail order to the west.
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What was the impact of new technology?
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New machines that produced more goods in less time required only low skilled workers to operate. That means they get less wages.
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What was the average wage for an earner in the late 19th century?
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400-500 per year when 600-800 a year was the min requirement to live decently.
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What were the boom busts and depressions?
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severe depressions (1873-77 & 1893-97) and recessions interupted periods of prosperity and economic growth. Each depression or bust as it was called, involved a contraction of growth, wide spreade business failure, and high rates of umemployment lasting several yrs.
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Child labor
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Was exploited from 180000 to 1.7 mil from 1880-1900 to help with the family income.
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Who created the first union and what did it do?
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William Sylvis, an iron molder, founded the National Labor Union (NLU). A federation of independent craft unions, the NLU sout to unite skilled workers nationwide to secure federal laws establishing an 8 hour a day and federal department of labor. Its membership topped 300000 (nearly all white men). Sylvis's sudden death and the depression wipped it out.
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What was the result of strikes?
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Between 1881-1905 American workers staged 36,757 strikes. The Molly Maguires carried out intimidations, vandalism, violence and some murders. July 14, 1877 was the largest strike in the workd. The "Great Uprising," of railroad workers began in Matinsburg, WV and spread to Baltimore, Phili, and Chicago. Violence on both sides. Some terminal buildings were destroyed.
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What is socialism?
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a theory that rejected capitalism and advocated common ownership of private property and greater social and economic equality.
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Why did the Chinese Exclusion Act come about?
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Hard times hit during the depression of the 1870s, anti chinese sentiment among American workers soared, leading to the act that was enacted in 1882 barring Chinese immigration to the US. They blammed the Chinese for taking jobs. It remained in effect until 1943.
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What were the new roles and oppurtunities for women?
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Economic necessity brought millions of women into the paid workforce. They worked in factories for 1/2 the wages of men. Employers justified it because women worked for extra money whereas men had to take care of the household. Nursing emerged in the late 18th century as it was almost exclusively women. Africa women were paid even lower wages and had to continue to work through their lives.
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Carnegie and his image
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A philanthropist, donated a lot of $ to creating librarys for people to better themselves who championed capitalism. He pointed out the virtue of the captialists economy: the self made man.
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What is social darwinism?
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A corruption of British naturalist Charles Darwin's central idea that in evolution, plants and animals that are able to adapt to changing conditions survive while others become extinct, tailoring it to fit his idea of modern industrial society as "survival of the fittest." The wealthy and powerful in society were the fittest because they were the smartest, stongest and adaptable that enabled them to succeed. The poor were unfit, men and women consigned by nature to failure, misery and early death. This was argued so regulations and corporations it was immoral and impractical to affront laes of nature and god. It was also argued against any law that would help the plight of the poor.
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Labor Day
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Established in 1882 workers in NY City held the first Labor Day celebration.
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What is the Knights of Labor (KOL)
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a labor organization that in the 1880s accepted workers of all trades and backgrounds to become the worlds largest industrial union. Opened to the unskilled, immigrants, african americans, women and offered a uptopian kind of outlook. Terance Powderly (the eventually leader of KOL) organized the union into sucess and created Labor Day.
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What was the Great Upheaval of 1886?
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May 1, 1886 1,340,000 workers across the country staged a one day work stoppage to bring attention their demand for the 8 hr day. The Haymarket incident happen three days later with union leaders meeting and police trying to dispearse them. 7 police lay dead and 4 workers. They Haymarket incident sparked a backlash against organized labor.
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American Federation of Labor (AFL)
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1886 comprised exclusively of unions of skilled workers and led by cigar-maker Samuel Gompers, which shunned the KOL's idealistic vision. Focused on higher wages, shorter hours and job security.
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What is it meant to blacklist?
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A list of workers that employers in a particular town or industry refused to hire because they were considered trouble makers.
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