Business
Economic philosophy promoted by Adam Smith in his book, Wealth of Nations, that stated that business and the economy would run best with no interference from the government
laissez-faire
A negative term applied to late nineteenth-century industrialists and capitalists who became very rich by dominating large industries.
Robber Barons
1896 Democratic presidential candidate who was sympathetic to many populist sentiments.
William Jennings Bryan
The process of negotiation between labor unions and employers.
Collective Bargaining
Religious ritual performed by the Paiute Indians in the late nineteenth century. Following a vision he received in 1888, the prophet Wovoka believed that performing this ritual would cause white people to disappear and allow American Indians to regain control of their lands.
Ghost Dance
Multifamily apartment buildings that housed many poor urban dwellers at the turn of the twentieth century. They were crowded, uncomfortable, and dangerous.
Tenement
technique used by Carnegie where he combined into one organization all phases of manufacturing from mining to marketing.
Vertical Integration
Urban organizations that dominated many late-nineteenth-century city elections. They provided needed services to the urban poor, but they also fostered corruption, crime, and inefficiency.
Political Machine
Severe economic downturn triggered by railroad and bank failures. The severity of the depression, combined with the failure of the federal government to offer an adequate response, led to the realignment of American politics.
Panic of 1893
Violent labor conflict in Carnegie's mills;
Henry Frick (manager) announced pay cut
Strike had to be put down by state militia in 1892
Homestead Strike
(1862) law that provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged westward migration.
Homestead Act
The shifting of population from rural areas to city areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change.
Urbanization
Also known as Taylorism, a management style developed by Frederick W. Taylor that aimed to constantly improve the efficiency of employees by reducing manual labor to its simplest components — thus increasing productivity while decreasing cost.
Scientific Management
(1890) a law that tried to regulate Monopolies and Trusts. Ironically, it ended up benefiting businesses rather than workers and was originally used to break up labor unions.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The platform adopted at the founding convention of the Populist (or People's) Party held 1892. The platform supported the coinage of silver (Bimetallism) in addition to other progressive ideas.
The Omaha Platform
1894 strike in Chicago for railroad workers that spread nationwide. President Grover Cleveland called in federal troops to put down the strike.
Pullman Strike
The systematic program by the US government to force Native Americans to adopt European American ideas about culture, private ownership land and school.
Assimilation
The belief that foreigners pose a serious danger to the nation's society and culture. This sentiment rose in the United States as the size and diversity of the immigrant population grew.
Nativism
A form of business ownership in which the liability of shareholders in a company is limited to their individual investments. The formation of these in the late nineteenth century greatly stimulated investment in industry.
Corporations
A company of private investigators and security guards sometimes used by corporations to break up strikes and labor disputes.
Pinkertons
Members of an organization founded in 1867 to meet the social and cultural needs of farmers. They took an active role in the promotion of the economic and political interests of farmers.
The Grange
Founder of the American Federation of Labor
Samuel Gompers
1887 act that ended federal recognition of tribal sovereignty and divided American Indian land into 160-acre parcels to be distributed to American Indian heads of household.
Dawes Act
The first major legal restriction on immigration to the U.S. in 1882 prohibited further unskilled immigration from THIS country in order to reduce competition for jobs.
China (Chinese Exclusion Act)
1895 Supreme Court ruling that manufacturing was a local activity within a state and that, even if it was a monopoly, it was not subject to congressional regulation. This ruling rendered the Sherman Antitrust Act virtually powerless, as it left most trusts in the manufacturing sector, thus beyond the act's jurisdiction.
United States v. E.C. Knight Company
(1883) law that reformed the patronage system (Spoils System); It required federal jobs to be awarded on the basis of merit through competitive exams rather than through political connections.
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
1894 protest movement where this leader and five hundred populists supporters marched from Ohio to Washington, D.C., to protest the lack of government response to the depression of 1893.
Jacob Coxey/Coxey's Army
American union leader, one of the founding members of the International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); went on to run for president
Eugene Debs
Atrocity committed by U.S. military in South Dakota, December 29, 1890. The Plains Indians, on the edge of starvation, began the held a ceremony which they believed would protect them from bullets and restore their old way of life. U.S. soldiers invaded the encampment, killing some 250 people.
Wounded Knee Massacre
Community centers established by urban reformers in the late nineteenth century. Organizers resided in the institutions they created and were often female, middle-class, and college educated.
Settlement Houses