The Rise of Industry
The shift of millions of Americans from rural farms to cities in search of factory jobs led to this process, causing urban populations to explode by 1920
Urbinization
To navigate the corruption of the era, many immigrants relied on these local political organizations, which provided jobs and social services in exchange for votes.
Political Machines
This 1913 landmark act, signed by Woodrow Wilson, created a central banking system to manage the U.S. money supply and provide economic stability
Federal Reserve
This 19th-century process for mass-producing steel by blowing air through molten iron to remove impurities made skyscrapers and modern railroads possible
Bessemer Process
This term describes the intense anti-immigrant sentiment of the era, driven by fears that "New Immigrants" from Southern and Eastern Europe would not assimilate or were taking American jobs.
Nativism
Prompted by the horrors described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Roosevelt pushed for this 1906 act to ensure sanitary conditions in the meatpacking industry.
Meat Inspection Act
To eliminate "ruinous competition," John D. Rockefeller used this business strategy of acquiring or merging with smaller businesses at the same level of production
Horizontal Intergrtion
This 1901 New York state law set the gold standard for urban reform by requiring new tenements to have outward-facing windows, indoor toilets, and fire escapes.
Tenement House Act
Woodrow Wilson’s domestic program, aimed at breaking the "triple wall of privilege"—tariffs, banks, and trusts—was known by this two-word name
New Freedom
This 1892 strike at a Carnegie steel plant turned violent when the company hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to protect strikebreakers
Homestead Strike
This "boss" of Tammany Hall became the symbol of urban political corruption, allegedly stealing up to $200 million from New York City taxpayers before being exposed by cartoons
William "Boss" Tweed
Wilson’s 1914 "Magna Carta of Labor" prohibited corporations from acquiring stock to create monopolies and specifically exempted labor unions from being prosecuted as "trusts"
Clayton Antitrust Act
To facilitate nationwide trade, the railroad industry rather than the federal government established these four geographical markers in 1883 to synchronize schedules.
Standard Time Zones
The widespread use of these two industrial innovations—the Bessemer steel beam and the safety elevator—allowed cities to grow vertically rather than just horizontally
Skyscrapers
This 1906 law gave the ICC the authority to set maximum railroad rates, a major victory for farmers and a key part of Roosevelt’s regulatory agenda
Hepburn Act