Term | Definition |
Garfield | The president who wanted to reform politics and who was assassinated over the issue |
WEB DuBois | African American who called for equal rights for African Americans |
Ellis Island | The place where European immigrants arrived in the US |
Angel Island | The place where most Asian immigrants arrived in the US |
pool | secret arrangement between company leaders to keep prices low |
trust | a company that doesn’t make a product, but which owns the stock of multiple companies who makes products |
corporation | a business made up of many people but treated as one person by law; it can sell stock to stockholders. |
Captains of Industry | Entrepreneurs or business leaders, risk takers, ingenious business men who helped grow the American economy |
Great Railroad Strike of 1877 | first nationwide labor protest; President Hayes sent troops in after railroad tracks were ripped up. |
Pendleton Civil Service Act | The reform act which ended the spoils system and began the use of the merit system in choosing government employees |
Sherman Anti-Trust Act | Act of the government passed in 1890 with the goal of breaking up monopolies & opening up competition in the market. |
Garfield | The president who wanted to reform politics and who was assassinated over the issue instead was |
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire | The disaster which led to the creation of new building and fire codes as well as workman’s compensation laws |
Eugene Debs | Socialist leader, labor union organizer of the Haymarket Riot outside of Chicago. |
Opened Hull House in Chicago | The most famous of the settlement houses of the gilded age. |
Tammany Hall | NYC’s most infamous political machine. |
Ida Wells Barnett | African American who spoke out against lynching |
WEB DuBois | African American who called for equal rights for African Americans |
Children’s Bureau | Government agency formed to enforce child labor laws |
Thomas Nast | Famous cartoonist, noted for bringing down Boss Tweed |
Robber Barons | Name Gilded Age entrepreneurs were often called because of the way they used unfair business practices and forced others out of business. |
Boss Tweed | Corrupt leader of Tammany Hall |
Laissez-Faire | Type of economy in which the government leaves industry alone in order to grow businesses |
Monopoly | When a business has almost total control of the marketplace and does not allow competition |
vertical integration | when a company purchases companies at all levels of production when making a product. Like when Swift purchased the cattle, refrigerated railroad cars, all the way to the meat packing plant |
Steel | The invention was most influential in building the modern, vertical, city |
Knights of Labor | The first nationwide industrial union |
Big Business | Group who would have used injunctions, scabs and lockouts when handling a labor disputes |
Streetcar | The streets clogged with people, horse drawn trolleys and animals in the 19th century that it could sometimes take an hour to walk a few yards. Pedestrians were killed in the street due to all the traffic. This invention was created to solve this problem |
Old Immigrants | They came from Western European countries like Ireland |
New Immigrants | They came from Eastern European countries like Italy, Russia & Poland |
Political Machine | A strong political party which offered jobs & places to live to immigrants in exchange for their vote |
Chinese Exclusion Act | An effect of nativism (or hatred of immigrants) that developed in the late 1800s |
secret ballot | Solution to stop corruption of the political machines at the city and state level |
Public library | the “poor man’s university” during the gilded age |
Industrialization | Shift from an agriculture economy to manufacturing on a large scale; from people to machine |
Urbanization | Huge population boom in the cities |
Social Darwinism | Idea that used Darwin’s theory of evolution to justify the extreme wealth of the entrepreneurs- belief in “survival of the fittest.” |
Rags to riches | Belief that no matter your beginnings you can make a better life & rise up in society if you work hard |
Horatio Alger | author of “rags to riches” stories |
Gospel of Wealth | Andrew Carnegie’s theory that a person should be allowed to make as much as possible but pass much of it on to worthy causes |
Credit Moblier | Name of the 1872 railroad scandal in which it was found that some Union Pacific stockholders were swindling the government to make a profit |
George Eastman | Inventor of the Camera |
Alexander Graham Bell | Inventor of the Telephone |
George Pullman | Inventor of the Sleeping Car |
Thaddeus Lowe | Inventor of the Ice Machine |
Wright Brothers | First in Flight |
Elisa Otis | Inventor of the Elevator |
Thomas Alva Edison | Inventor of the electric light bulb |
James B. Duke | The tobacco industry entrepreneur |
JP Morgan | Banker who incorporated US Steel |
John D. Rockefeller | The oil industry entrepreneur |
Cornelius Vanderbilt | Railroad industry entrepreneur |
Gustavus Swift | meatpacking industry entrepreneur |
Andrew Carnegie | steel industry entrepreneur |
AT&T | what the companies formed by Alexander Graham Bell are today called |
General Electric | what the companies formed by Thomas Edison are today called |
YMCA and Salvation Army | 2 Christian groups that formed in the US in the late 1800s to help the poor |
Violent Strikes | why many Americans disliked labor unions during the Gilded Age business, when the labor unions & business clashed, it was the side the government always took. |
George Eastman | Inventor of the Camera |
Alexander Graham Bell | Inventor of the Telephone |
George Pullman | Inventor of the Sleeping Car |
Thaddeus Lowe | Inventor of the Ice Machine (early refrigerator) |
Elisa Otis | Inventor of the Elevator |
Thomas Alva Edison | Inventor of the electric light bulb |
James B. Duke | The tobacco industry entrepreneur |
JP Morgan | Banker who incorporated US Steel |
John D. Rockefeller | The oil industry entrepreneur |
Cornelius Vanderbilt | The Railroad industry entrepreneur |
Gustavus Swift | The meatpacking industry entrepreneur |
Carnegie | Copied the Bessemer process to make cheap steel & begin the US steel industry |
Pittsburgh | the city were Carnegie established his steel plant |
Wages | the goal of the members of labor unions in the Gilded Age was higher _______ |
injunction | court order forcing strikers back to work |
scab | a non-union worker brought in when workers were on strike |
business | when labor unions and business clashed, the side the government always supported. |