Capital and Labor
Legislation
Technology
Date It:
Captains and Barons
100
When one person or company buys out and absorbs competition in one particular sector of an industry to create a monopoly. Primary example- John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil.
What is Horizontal Integration?
100
The Sherman antitrust act was first used against these types of groups
What are labor unions
100
The War of the Currents did not have a single official calendar end date, though it is widely considered to have concluded unofficially on November 16, 1896, when the Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant began transmitting alternating current (AC) electricity to Buffalo, New York. Marking this inventor the war's champion.
Who is Nikola Tesla
100
Designed by John A. Roebling, who died during early construction; his son Washington Roebling and daughter-in-law Emily Warren Roebling oversaw its completion. Its opening was presided over by U.S. President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland on May 24, 1883.
What is the Brooklyn Bridge?
100
Under its sway we shall have an ideal State, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because administered for the common good; and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if distributed in small sums to the people themselves
Who is Andrew Carnegie/ Gospel of Wealth?
200
Economic theory devised by Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith. It was best suited for the founding fathers in the age of agriculture, however during the industrial era it contributed to growing inequality, pollution, corruption, and worker exploitation.
What is Laissez-faire/ Hand's off economics?
200
Disastrous 1911 industrial fire in NYC where 146 workers died, spurring 36 new state laws regulating factory safety
What is the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
200
Industrialists who sought to increase efficiency and reduce costs embraced his scientific management approach to production
Who is Taylor/ Frederick Winslow Taylor?
200
From Jun 30, 1892 to Jul 6, 1892, Workers at this Carnegie Steel plant occupied the property- fighting off non-union workers and the pinkertons. Only ending when 4,000 armed national guardsmen swarmed the city.
What is the Homestead Strike
200
Seen here is his infamous "Dagger Portrait," this American Financier gained great power and wealth. His dedication for efficiency, accountability, and modernization transformed the American economy and corporate business practices.
Who is J.P. Morgan?
300
Former railroad fireman turned labor leader. Radicalized by the government's violent response to striking railroad workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company. Became a Socialist, running for president 5 times.
Who is Eugene V Debs.
300
Legal orders issued by federal courts during the Gilded Age that broke worker strikes and declared boycotts illegal. A short-term emergency order issued quickly to prevent immediate, irreparable harm before a full hearing can take place.
What are injunctions?
300
Before the introduction of the telephone, this was the main mode of long-distance communication.
What is the telegraph?
300
This protest against police brutality in 1886, turned into a violent bombing that marked the end for the Knights of Labor; unfairly associating the labor group with radical politics.
What is the Haymarket Riot?
300
Social Darwinist belief held by many successful businessmen of the day. Success was a mark of one's hard work and talents. State welfare or government regulation on business was viewed as harmful to progress.
What is Survival of the Fittest?
400
This union was established by Samuel Gompers in 1886. It only allowed skilled workers in and sought only what unions always seek: better wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions
What is the AFL/ American Federation of Labor?
400
The first federal agency created in 1887 to regulate railroad rates and unfair business practices across state lines, Interstate Commerce.
What is the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
400
With Kerosene no longer needed in large demand, Rockefeller's Standard oil was revived by the internal combustion engine's appetite for this explosive substance
What is gasoline?
400
This was a major economic depression caused by overspeculation of the railroad industry. It caused bank and business failures. George Pullman cut his workers wages without lowering their rent. It strengthened Populist demands for silver.
What is the Panic of 1893?
400
At the height of his power, his Standard Oil controlled 90-95% of he oil in the U.S. It was said his unofficial motto was "Let us PREY"
Who is John D. Rockefeller?
500
Exactly what Carnegie did to dominate the steel industry- he bought out and controlled every step of the production process. From the mines that contained the ore and coal, to the factories that made the product, and the railroads and ships that hauled his product.
What is Vertical Integration
500
Republican party dominance of national government aided in shielding homegrown corporations from foreign competition by repeatedly voting for this trade measure. Increasing its rate multiple times- burdening the consumers with higher prices and insulating monopolies from competition
What is a protective Tariff/ Tariff?
500
Tesla's main competitor thought this charge moving in one constant direction was the wave of the future for the electric industry.
What is Direct Current?
500
Known as the "White City," a World's Fair in This city in 1893 marked the end of the war of currents, solidifying A.C. currents dominance in the electrical industry
What is Chicago?
500
This group was used repeatedly by corporations, Captains, and Robber Barons alike against competitors and pesky unions. Their tools of the trade included- sabotage, intimidation, and sometimes violence on behalf of their clients.
What is the Pinkerton Detective Agency?
600
Led by Terence Powderly, this union came out of the shadows in 1881. It welcomed all workers- black, white, male, and female. Their main goal was to achieve better working conditions and an 8-hour workday. A string of strike failures and a bombing marked the end of this group.
What is the Knights of Labor?
600
The 1890 federal act passed to outlaw monopolies and trusts that restrained trade, though courts initially weakened it.
What is the Sherman Antitrust Act
600
This commercial innovation, pioneered by Gustavus Swift in the late 1870s, transformed Chicago into America's meatpacking capital by allowing fresh beef to be shipped safely to East and West Coast markets.
What is the refrigerated railcar?
600
Andrew Carnegie’s 1872 trip to England was the defining turning point that transformed him from a successful regional businessman into the legendary, world-dominating "King of Steel. It was there that Carnegie saw his process for making the flame so hot it purified the iron and made the creation of steel cheap.
Who is Henry Bessemer?
600
Carnegie's right hand man. Took responsibility for breaking up striking union workers at Homestead
Whos is Henry Clay Frick
700
This association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times. It is the central fact from which spring industrial, social, and political difficulties that perplex the world, and with which statesmanship and philanthropy and education grapple in vain. From it come the clouds that overhang the future of the most progressive and self-reliant nations. It is the riddle which the Sphinx of Fate puts to our civilization, and which not to answer is to be destroyed.
Who is Henry George/ Progress and Poverty?
700
The Supreme Court case from the Gilded Age that ruled this unconstitutional was Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. in 1895. The court found it was unconstitutional because it was a "direct tax" placed upon wealth people. Later reversed by the 16th Amendment
What is Income Tax
700
His Company was transformed into the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which still exists today as AT&T.; By 1880, fifty thousand telephones were in use in the United States, including one at theWhite House. By 1900, that number had increased to 1.35 million.
Who is Alexander Graham Bell?
700
The famous Golden Spike ceremony took place here on May 10, 1869 (not 1867), joining the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads.
Promontory Pt., Utah
700
J.P. Morgan convinced him to give up his "war of the currents" and to restructure his company as General Electric in 1892. It would become a major engineering conglomerate in- aerospace, power electrification, and medical equipment.
Who is Thomas Edison?