Barons
No just a board game that ruins friendships and family evenings, this word orginially refers to a single person or corporation that has complete control of a market and because they have complete control, they may set prices for the entire market.
What is monopoly?
This leader of the American Railway Union went to jail for violating a court injunction which forbid him from from supporting the Pullman strike of 1894 which caused a nationwide railway stoppage. He would go on to run for President for the Socialist Party in the next century.
Who is Eugene Debs?
This is a pejorative for an armed strongman who protects scabs/strikebreakers and threatens or harasses striking workers. The name comes from a detective agency from which many big corporations hired armed guards during the 1890s.
What is Pinkerton?
The first transcontinental railroad was built with blood, sweat, politics and thievery, and in 1869 the the two coast were connected by railway in this state.
What is Utah?
It was this "alliance" of farmers that made up the core the Populist Movement in the 1880s and 90s.
What is the Farmers Alliance?
Started as a bookkeeper in Cleveland to eventually set up the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, he made secret agreements with railroads to ship his oil at a discount resulting in driving his competitors our of business, a business practice that helped him amass a fortune of two billion dollars by 1900.
Who is John D. Rockefeller?
This anarchist conspired to kill the manager of the Carnegie Steel plant, Henry Clay Frick, in the midst of a violent strike. He only succeeded in wounding Frick in his office in Pittsburgh. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentnced to fourteen years in the state penitentiary.
Who is Alexander Berkman?
In 1886, the American Federation of Labor, in an effort to shorten the work day for many American workers, called for a nationwide strike on May 1 wherever this work-hour limit was not in effect.
What is the eight-hour day?
The first transcontinental railroad began construction on both coasts; the Central Pacific began on the west coast and proceeded east while this railroad began in Nebraska and proceeded west.
What is the Union Pacific?
The federal government in the late 1800s helped bankers and hurt farmers by keeping less and less money in circulation which was backed by this valuable mineral.
What is gold?
A son of a banker who sold defective rifles to Union generals during the Civil War, he bought Andrew Carnegie's steel company to form U.S. Steel Corporation and controlled 100,000 miles of railroad, half the country's mileage.
Who is J. P. Morgan?
This radical economist who wrote Progress and Poverty, read by tens of thousands of workers, was nominated by the Independent Labor Party to run for mayor of New York City. He lost the election to Democrat Abram Hewitt, but beat the future President of the US, Republican nominee Theodore Roosevelt.
Who is Henry George?
It was this judicial group during the late 1800s which refused to break up monopolies and interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to include corporations as "persons."
What is the Supreme Court?
In 1894, it was workers striking at this train car company which lead to an entire nationwide rail shutdown with the support of the American Railway Union. Workers derailed trains, blocked the tracks, and pulled uncooperative engineers off the tracks. President Cleveland had to order federal troops to Chicago to break the strike and open the railways.
What is Pullman Palace Car Company?
The purpose of this act of Congress in 1860 was to allow the surplus population on the east coast and in the south to move westward and take up farming.
What is The Homestead Act?
Founder of a prestigious university in North Carolina, he combined the four biggest cigarette producers to form the American Tobacco Company.
Who is James Duke?
He authored a science-fiction novel entitled Looking Backward in which the author falls asleep and wakes up in the year 2000 to find a socialistic society in which people live and work cooperatively.
Who is Edward Bellamy?
In 1892, it was this strike of 3,800 workers at a Carnegie Steel plant, named after the town in Pennsylvania where it occurred, which resulted in many dead on both sides and the state militia being called in to put down the strikers. Strike leaders were charged with treason and murder, but no jury would convict them or any other striking workers.
What is Homestead?
This Republican U.S. President, elected after Grover Cleveland, was a very good friend to the railway corporations. Not only as a lawyer did he prosecute strikers in the 1877 nationwide railway strike in federal court but he also organized and commanded a company of soldiers to break the strike.
Who is Benjamin Harrison?
This system of debts which farmers had to partake in became for many Southerners, white and black, little more that a modified form of slavery. The farmer would be forced to buy supplies from the only merchant around and would owe more money year after year until his farm was taken away.
What is the crop-lien system?
This poplar author during the 1870s and 80s was known for his "rag to riches" stories that mythologized the humble beginnings of multimillionaires.
Who is Horatio Alger?
A great Populist orator, this woman told a People's party convention in Topeka, Kansas: "Wall Street owns this country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street..."
Who is Mary Ellen Lease?
It was in this place in Chicago a few days after the strikes on May 1st 1886 where three thousand people assembled and were then asked to disperse by a detachment of police officers. Then, a bomb exploded among the police and they responded by firing into the crowd. In response to this, eight anarchist, seven of whom were not in the crowd that day, were convicted of inciting murder that day and sentenced to death.
What is Haymarket Square?
Richard Olney, Pres. Cleveland's Attorney General, once tried to avail the railroad barons of their worry about this act of Congress by saying, " It satifies the popular clamor for a government supervision of railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal."
What is The Interstate Commerce Act/Interstate Commerce Commission?
The Populists allied with the Democrats in 1896 to try elect this candidate to the White House.
Who is Williams Jennings Bryan?