APUSH Chapter 17 Terms

Andrew Carnegie set the standard for new steel mills. Carnegie was an advocate of Social Darwinism and believed that unrestricted competition would eliminate weak businesses. He also thought that a concentration of wealth was a natural result of capitalism, but that it should be given back to society. ECONOMIC & CULTURAL.

The Homestead Strike of 1892 was a violent strike at the Homestead Works in Pittsburgh over a lock out follwing a decision to cut wages by nearly 20%. This strike ended with the destruction of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel workers, probably the largest craft union at the time. Union workers had had a friendly relationship with Carnegie's company until Henry Frick became President and wanted to cut costs. ECONOMIC.

Railroads underwent a major boost after the Civil War. The railroad building was handed over to construction companies, which were primarily financial structures, but were notoriously corrupt. One railroad line was started in California and another in Nebraska and they were later connected. This allowed for increased trading, and saw the entire economy boom as a result. ECONOMIC.

Gustavus Swift recognized the importance of keeping meat fresh in transit, and invested in a fleet of refrigerated cars. By 1900, his firms produced almost 90% of the meat shipped in the interstate commerce. ECONOMIC.

The involvement by a company in more than one of the activities in the entire value chain from development through production, distribution, sales, and after-sales service. This streamlines the process, but also allows monopolies to develop. ECONOMIC.

John D. Rockefeller established the Standard Oil of Ohio in 1870 and ran it until he retired in the late 1890s. Rockefeller often did this by buying out other companies which created a monopoly. He kept his stock and, as gasoline grew in importance, his wealth soared and he became the world's richest man and is often regarded as the richest person in history. ECONOMIC. WHAT A BOSS.

The philosophy of enlightened marketing that holds that the company should view and organize its marketing activities from the consumer's point of view. This often involves using tests to determine what the consumer likes, so that things can be marketed as well as possible. ECONOMIC.

The Managerial Revolution is James Burnham's concept that as control of large businesses moved from the original owners to professional managers, society's new governing class became not the traditional possessors of wealth but those having the professional expertise to manage, lead and organize large corporations. ECONOMIC.

White Collar Jobs are jobs that do not involve manual labor. These jobs require less education, however, also provide a lower income than do the jobs held by the upper-middle class (nurses, small-business owners, salesmen). ECONOMIC.

The new textile mills that sprang up in the South were filled with recruited workers who struggled to make ends meet. To attract them, the mill wages had to just barely exceed those of farms. Whole families were recruited, and not much attention was paid to race. ECONOMIC.

As European agriculture became increasingly commercialized, peasant economies began to fail, and set off a great upheaval of Europeans to European mines and factories, South America, and Australia, but mostly to the United States. Ethnic origin tended to determine the work, and races tended to stick together, but low-paid labor tended to be the most common job route. CULTURAL & ECONOMIC.

The Great Migration from Europe started in the 1840s with the potato famine in Ireland. But, as European culture began becoming more commercialized, more Europeans began leaving their peasant status and moved elsewhere. CULTURAL.

More than four million women worked for wages in 1900. The number of working wives were much higher in African American communities. Mostly young women, and older women to whom something had gone wrong worked. They were paid much less than men. One in every five children under 16 worked in 1900 to help support their family. CULTURAL.

Mass Production was named by Henry Ford. It lent itself to mechanization. As the machines were specialized to produce a long run of a single product, specialized workers lost their specialty. ECONOMIC.

Collective Bargaining is the process by which management and union representatives negotiate the employment conditions for a particular bargaining unit for a designated period of time. This was a new innovation that gave workers some say in the condition of their workplace. ECONOMIC.

Closed shop was the idea that all jobs were reserved for union members. It helped keep out lower-wage and incompetent workers. ECONOMIC.

The Knights of Labor were founded in 1869 as a secret society of garnet workers in Philadelphia, but emerged as a national movement by 1878. They believed that fraternity was harnessed to labor reform, and intended to set up factories and shops that would lead to a cooperative commonwealth. However, they ended up devoting themselves to education. ECONOMIC.

Trade Unionism was the act of forming unions whose members are workers of a single trade. This practice was more successful than unions that consisted of unskilled workers. The number of unions grew over the course of the Gilded Age. ECONOMIC.

The American Federation of Labor was a union of skilled laborers formed by Samuel Gompers in 1866. The AFL quickly became one of the most powerful unions in the United States. They achieved success by avoiding larger political questions in favor of "bread and butter issues" such as shorter workdays and higher wages for union members. It merged with its rival, the Confederation of Industrial Organizations in 1955 to form AFL-CIO. ECONOMIC.

Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and led the AFL from 1886 until his death in 1924. He promoted harmony among the different craft unions that comprised the AFL, and opposed industrial unionism. Focused on higher wages and job security, and after 1907, he formed alliances with the Democratic Party at the local, state and national levels. He enthusiastically supported the American entry into World War I, opposing Eugene V. Debbs and other leftists who were against the war. ECONOMIC & POLITICAL.

After the police fired into the striking crowd, the workers met and rallied in Haymarket Square to protest police brutality. A bomb exploded, killing or injuring many of the police. The Chicago workers and the man who set the bomb were immigrants, so the incident promoted anti-immigrant feelings. It also harmed the interests of the labor movement. POLITICAL.

A written contract between employers and employees in which the employees sign an agreement that they will not join a union while working for the company. This allowed big businesses to maintain low working wages and poor conditions. ECONOMIC.

An 1894 railway workers strike for higher wages against the Pullman Company. Eugene Debs had American Railway Union refuse to use Pullman cars, and Debs was thrown in jail after being sued. President Grover Cleveland issued a court order to stop the strike, strike achieved nothing. POLITICAL.

As leader of the American Railway Union, he voted to aid workers in the Pullman strike. After being jailed he emerged as avowed radical committed to lifelong struggle against a system that enabled employers to enlist the powers of government to beat down working people. He initially identified self as Populist but quickly changed to Socialist, founded Socialist Party of American in 1901 that attracted ordinary Americans. He ran for President numerous times, most notably in 1912 and 1920. POLITICAL.