Term | Definition |
Henry Clay (Congressman) | He proposes that the gov. invest in transportation |
Steam Boats | -Robert Fulton created the first steam boat & controlled the Erie canal from Buffalo to Albany & the Hudson river to NYC
-Cornelius Vanderbilt challenges Fulton and transports people from NJ to NYC |
1861, Union blockades Southern ports | -To starve the South of income
-The British could not get the cotton they needed
-The North knew they could not fight Great Britain and South
-The British Empire agreed not to attack the North if they would abolish slavery |
John Rockefeller | -had a monopoly on refined oil
-first billionaire
-he tapped out the US market so he invested in China's market |
Labor after the Civil War | -Immigrants from Europe increased labor
-Immigrants had to prove they were healthy & would not be a burden on US
-Immigrants were looking for jobs
-Wages were so low families needed children to work
-Less workers on farms because of Tech advances |
Technology in the 1800s | -1840s the Telegraph is invented and AT&T is created
- Bessemer creates the first steam oven (used on trains)
-Railroad won the Civil War |
Role of Government in the late 1800s | -small role
-high terrifies on American goods so Americans would buy American goods
-national currency after the Civil War
-$1 paper money backed by $1 worth of gold
-Homestead Act |
Working vs. Fixed Capital | -Working Capital: The cost to run the day to day operations of your business
-Fixed Capital: Cost of goods that can't move |
National Equity Market | -Local equity stock markets before Civil War
- NY Stock Exchange emerges creating a national stock market
- Reasons for NYSE: telegraph, acct. practices get better, foreign investment, $ backed by gold
-Firms offer both stocks and bonds |
Horizontal Integration | Buying firms that make the same goods as you |
Vertical Integration | Merger of firms producing different goods but on the same plane
-Ex: a car company buying a paint company so they don't have to pay someone else to make paint |
Incorporating in Delaware | -DE was the only state to keep the court of equity after the Civil War
- Incorporation is all done on paper & is tax free except for what you sell in DE
-Court of Chancellery to deal with arguments not in SCJ & business disputes could be settled |
American Ferderation of Labor (AFL), 1886 - | -made up of skilled laborers that are hard to replace, so employees are morel likely to give you what you want
-Knights of Labor was the first labor union, & their jobs are easily dispensable so the union failed |
Election of 1900, WJB & WM | -WM has Teddy Roosevelt running as VP
- Roosevelt was a veteran of the Spanish American War & he hated being VP
- McKinley is assassinated in 1901 & Roosevelt becomes president |
Progressive Reforms | -Teddy Roosevelt pledges he will be antitrust buster
-Pure Food & Drug Act - regulatory agents that oversee major industries
-income tax establish, targeted at the wealthy |
Sherman Antitrust Act | Firms that operate in collusion with one-another would be illegal |
DuPont in the early 20th century | -created gun powder & blasting powder
-declared a monopoly, but was allowed to keep a monopoly on smokeless gunpowder for national security
-DuPont supplies both sides in WWI who bought on credit |
Consumer Revolution takes off in the US in the 1920s | -Idea of convincing people that their lives would be better if they buy this product
- Electricity creates a new avenue for products to be created
-Radio comes about in the 1920s |
What do you need to sustain a consumer economy? | -higher wages
-standardize mass production
-outlet to sell your goods
-catalogs for rural American, Ex: Sears Catalog |
Why did life expectancy increase in the 1920s? | -Improved healthcare
-Improved urban life (farm wast, water)
-FDA improves
-Increased life span of children |
Stock Market before the Crash | -Investors bought on margins & only put 5% down
-Firms that traded stock did not have to disclose information
-Banks led money based on stocks & invested their money in the stock market |
1929 Stock Market Crash | -Stock Market loses half its value
-If your bank closed you lost everything in the bank
-People bought goods on credit so they cut back on buying
-US stopped being a major supplier of food to Europe |
Election of 1928, Hubert Hoover (Republican) vs. Smith | -Hoover was a rich engineer
-Smith was the governor of NY & the first Roman Catholic Candidate
-Hoover wins election & the stock market crashes 1 month after he's in office |
3 ways the Fed could of improved the economy during the Depression
- Ways the Fed could of put money in the economy | 1. Lower the discount rate (the interest rate charged to local banks)
2. Open Market Operations
-Feb buys debt from states and buys bonds
3. Lowered the Lost-Reserve Ratio (amount of money banks are required to keep on hand) |
Hoover's Treatment of the Depression | -AMA created to buy up excess demand of food
-RFC created to put money into week industries to hire them
- Calls on farmers to grow less food so that food prices would go up & Businesses were to keep hiring and expanding (did not happen) |
FDR's New Deal | -Presented at the 1932 Democratic convention
-FDR flew from NY to Chicago
-First candidate to speak at a convention
-Said: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." |
3 big categories of the New Deal | 1. Relief Programs
2. Recovery - larger programs
3. Reform - things to stop a depression from happening again:
-SEC, FDIC, Social Security |
Neutrality act of 1935, 1936, 1937 | -U.S. is isolated from foreign a fairs
-Nye Comity hearings, during the 1930s, said WWI took businesses into the war |
Lend-Lease with Great Britain | -Churchill and FDR agree to terms that Great Britain would return unused goods & pay over time for used goods
-The U.S. was thinking that if Great Britain was taken the U.S. will be next
-1940 U.S. begins to industrialize |
Embargo of Japan | -U.S. is selling scrap metal & oil to Japan (has no oil)
-U.S. embargoes scrap metal because Japan is turning them into vehicles & weapons, later embargoes oil
-This angers Japan to attack the U.S.
-FDR was able to get a declaration of war easily |
Government Co-ordination | -Companies were told what to build for the war or the company would be taken over by the gov.
-U.S. navy had to be rebuild in the pacific
-Men lie about their age to be in the army
-Unemployed people find work |
Office of Price Administration (OPA) | -they were worried about inflation at the time
-price were frozen at the time |
National Wage Labor Board (NWLB) | -Wages were frozen to stop inflation
-Overtime wages were not regulated, so higher overtime pay was given to better workers
-The gov. did not offer benefits, so companies offered benefits as an incentive for you to work for them |
Government spending put the country into debt.
How does the government fix this problem? | -Gov. passes a war time measure to withhold taxes instead of taking the taxes all at once
-Half of the war debt payed by taxes
-The rest of the war debt was payed by bonds were the money would come back to you after 5 or 10 years after the war |
Immigration during WWII | -People move to the city were the jobs and factories are
-African Americans and Women get jobs in the factories that they previous didn't have
-Women lose their factory job when men return from the war |
Social Consequences during WWII | -Not socially except able for men to go to college during the war
-Executive order 9066 send the Japanese to prison camps
-Japanese Americans could not serve in the U.S. army, but the Italians and German Americans could |
Atomic Bomb / Manhattan project | -Jewish European Scientists and top university students were brought together
-Only a small number of people knew what the whole project was
-1st of 3 bombs was test in New Mexico |
Why did the U.S. bomb Hiroshima & Nagasaki? | -Most industrial cities were bombed
-Tokyo was bombed flat by 1945
-Hiroshima was at the cross point of two rivers making it an easy target from the air
-Nagasaki was an island in a river
-Kyoto wasn't bombed because Stimson like the way it looked |
Truman Doctrine | -Kennan warns the U.S. that Russia wants to expand, that for communism to work it must be globally, and advocates a policy of containment which starts Cold War
-Truman announced that he will protect any country that is being threaten by communism |
G. I. Bill | -Service Men Readjustment Act
-52-20 says that for 52 weeks you will be payed $20 a week after service
-Provides benefits to eligible veterans that served at least 6 months |
G. I. Bill - Education | -Provides education benefits to veterans
-Use benefits to go to any school you could get into
-Each veteran was given $500 and living expenses
-Colleges didn't have to worry about people defaulting on loans |
G. I. Bill - Housing | -Provided money to pay for housing if it was under $100 a month
-Suburbs are created and roads are built
-Veterans administration did not discriminate, but local neighborhoods could discriminate |
G. I. Bill - Business | -Veterans could take out a subsidize loan |