Industrial Titans and Cities
Industrialist who dominated American steel production using the Bessemer Process.
Andrew Carnegie
Primary NYC arrival point for Southern & Eastern European immigrants.
Ellis Island
1862 act granting 160 acres of free western land for 5 years of cultivation
Homestead Act
Corrupt political boss who headed New York City's Tammany Hall machine.
William "Boss" Tweed
Critical term for wealthy business owners accumulating massive fortunes
Robber Barons (or Industrial Capitalists)
Pennsylvania center of steel production and Midwestern meatpacking/railroad hub.
Pittsburgh (steel) and Chicago (meatpacking/railroads)
Urban neighborhood enclaves providing familiar culture and mutual aid.
ethnic clusters
Infrastructure completed in 1869 linking markets and disrupting Plains bison herds
Transcontinental Railroad
Political cartoonist who exposed Tammany Hall graft to the public.
Thomas Nast
Primary monopoly group charged with unfair freight shipping rates by western farmers.
Railroads/ Railroad Companies
Inventors of the telephone and commercial incandescent bulb/power grids.
Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison
San Francisco entry station known for harsh detention of Asian immigrants.
Angel Island
Designated areas where federal policy forced Indigenous tribes to relocate.
Reservations
Railroad construction scandal involving dummy corporations and government subsidies.
Credit Mobilier Scandal
1887 landmark law passed by Congress to regulate interstate railroad rates.
Interstate Commerce Act
First African American female millionaire who built a hair care product empire.
Madam C.J. Walker
1882 federal legislation prohibiting immigration based explicitly on race or nationality.
Chinese Exclusion Act
Carlisle Indian School's policy aimed at stripping youth of Indigenous cultural traditions.
Forced Assimilation (boarding schools)
Practice that led directly to President James A. Garfield's assassination.
Spoils System (Political Patronage)
Three harsh working conditions defining urban factory labor during the Gilded Age.
Low Wages, Long Hours, and Unsafe/unregulated working conditions
How did monopolies by Rockefeller, Morgan, and Vanderbilt accelerate rural-to-urban migration?
Corporate monopolies concentrated factory jobs in urban centers, pulling rural workers and immigrants into wage labor.
How did Jacob Riis (photojournalism) and Jane Addams (Hull House) address the urban slum crises?
Jacob Riis exposed slum conditions to spark housing reform, while Jane Addams provided settlement house social services to help immigrants assimilate (childcare, English classes, etc.)
1887 Dawes Act: method of dissolving tribal land ownership into private plots
divided communal reservation land into individual family allotments to destroy tribal unity and sell surplus lands to white settlers.
How did President James A. Garfield's death inspire federal civil service reform via the Pendleton Act?
Public outrage over patronage-fueled violence forced congress to pass the Pendleton act, requiring competitive merit examination for federal jobs.
Contrasting economic philosophies of Gilded Age industrialists versus labor unions/farmers.
Industrialists favored laissez- faire capitalism and corporate freedom, where farmers and wage earners wanted government regulation of monopolies and labor protections.