People
Andrew Carnegie
What is created United States Steel and dominating the steel industry
American federation of labor
A national federation of trade unions that included only skilled workers, founded in 1886. Led by Samuel Gompers for nearly four decades, the AFL sought to negotiate with employers for a better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers fairly with better wages, hours, and conditions.
Gospel of Wealth
Carnegie’s central argument—that the wealthy were divinely ordained to act as “trustees” for their wealth—struck many as a self-serving justification for the status quo. He portrayed the concentration of wealth in the hands of a select few as a natural outcome of capitalism, even a beneficial one, as long as the wealthy used their surplus for the “improvement of mankind.”
political machines
a term used to describe political organizations that flourished in urban centers that captured the immigrant vote by promising them municipal jobs, housing, and rudimentary social services. Though they were criticized for breeding corruption, their supporters thought they were rendering valuable social services.
laissez-fair
The dominant economic ideology during 1865-1900. It was a "hands-off" approach taken by the U.S. government towards the economy, for it to prosper.
John D. Rocketefeller
what is founder of standard oil company
knights of labor
The second national labor organization, organized in 1869 as a secret society and opened for public membership in 1881. The Knights were known for their efforts to organize all workers, regardless of skill level, gender, or race.
Social Gospel
A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor. Popular at the turn of the twentieth century, it was closely linked to the settlement-house movement, which brought middle-class, Anglo-American service volunteers into contact with immigrants and working people.
Tammany hall
Powerful New York political machine that primarily drew support from the city’s immigrants, who depended on Tammany Hall patronage, particularly social services.
Pendleton act
Congressional legislation that established the Civil Service Commission, which granted federal government jobs on the basis of examinations instead of political patronage, thus reining in the spoils system.
Booker T. Washington
The head of tuskegee institute in alabama, advocated for vocational education for African Americans.
pullman strike
A strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts. The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor.
Tuskegee Institute
A normal and industrial school led by Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee, Alabama. It focused on training young black students in agriculture and the trades to help them achieve economic independence. Washington justified segregated vocational training as a necessary first step on the road to racial equality, although critics accused him of being too “accommodationist.”
Chinese Exclusion Act
Federal legislation that prohibited most further Chinese immigration to the United States. This was the first significant legal restriction on immigration in U.S. history.
Credit mobilier
Owners of the Union Pacific Railroad formed a construction company for the purpose of receiving government contracts to build the railroad at highly inflated prices—and profits. In 1872 a scandal erupted when journalists discovered that the Crédit Mobilier Company had bribed congressmen and even the vice president to allow the ruse to continue.
WEB Du bois
founder of NAACP and brought attention to racism in America and demanded legal and cultural change
haymarket riot
The Haymarket Riot (also known as the “Haymarket Incident” and “Haymarket Affair”) occurred on May 4, 1886, when a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned violent when someone threw a bomb into the middle of the meeting, killing several dozen people.
settlement houses
Settlement houses in immigrant neighborhoods, mostly run by middle-class native-born women, provided housing, food, education, child care, cultural activities, and social connections for new arrivals to the United States. Jane Addams’s Hull House in Chicago and Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement in New York City were two of the most prominent.
Social darwinism
The idea, popular in the late nineteenth century, that people gained wealth by “survival of the fittest.” Therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process.
Wabash v. Illinois
A Supreme Court decision that prohibited states from regulating the railroads because the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. As a result, reformers turned their attention to the federal government, which now held sole power to regulate the railroad industry.
Ida B. Wells
African American journalist who went to heroic lengths in the late 1890s to document the horrifying practice of lynching black people.
Eugene V. Debs
(1855-1926) A tireless socialist leader who organized the American Railway Union in the Pullman Strike in 1894. Debs was later convicted under the World War I’s Espionage Act in 1918 and sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary. A frequent presidential candidate on the Socialist party ticket, in 1920 he won more than 900,000 votes campaigning for president from his prison cell.
populist party
Officially known as the People’s party, the Populists represented Westerners and Southerners who believed that U.S. economic policy inappropriately favored Eastern businessmen instead of the nation’s farmers. Their proposals included nationalization of the railroads, a graduated income tax, and, most significantly, the unlimited coinage of silver.
settlement houses
Mostly run by middle-class native-born women, settlement houses in immigrant neighborhoods provided housing, food, education, child care, cultural activities, and social connections for new arrivals to the United States.
I.C.A (Interstate Commerce Act)
Forbade pools, rebates, and other monopolistic practices.