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APUSH Unit VIIThe Gilded Age and the Progressive Response1877-1914By: Chris Russell, Demi Adejuyigbe, Ragini Mistry,Gokul Mani, Tiffany Shieh, Michael Kraft, Dakota Reynolds,Tanya Srivastava, and Charles Basile*disclaimer*- There may be errors in this review. If you think something’s wrong, we suggest you look itup. This is shared with others with the current understanding that it cannot be used to cheat in anyway. We do not authorize this review to be used for cheating of any kind.
1.
Gilded Age- Coined by Mark Twain is the period from 1878-1889. A time when the US was onlyrich and amazing on the surface, or gilded with the rich of the few and underneath the majority waspoor.
2.
Jim Fisk- together with Jay Gould they tried to control the US gold market (not controlled by thegovernment but the people in the Gold Room of the NY Stock Exchange) by using Grant. Grantstopped the sail of gold raising prices and eventually realizing the outcome released $4 mil. in golddriving down prices on “Black Friday” (Sept. 24, 1869).
3.
Jay Gould- starting with the Erie railroad line in NY, he was a major competition to Vanderbilt’scompany. Although forced out of his railroad line due to stock watering (See # 11), he did continuein “business” with Jim Fisk.
4.
Credit Mobilier- (1872) Mass. Congressman Oakes Ames was one of the directors of UnionPacific. With the other leaders of that enterprise he made the Credit Mobilier of America which gotall construction contracts for the government. They then charged congress $94 mil. for work thatwas only worth $44 mil., Ames made the deal easier back in Washington by spreading the sharesfor Credit Mobilier and selling them at half their price.
5.
Leland Stanford- The main entrepreneur behind Central Pacific, building the railroad fromCalifornia to central US. Similar business style as Oakes Ames, by winning land grants, contracts,and overpayments to his railroad-owned construction company. One of the few to get away withhis scandals and later built a university with the money.
6.
“Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt- started a Staten Island ferry business that he built into a steamship empire. After the Civil War he expanded into railroads. His company, the New York Central,was built on graft and bribery, and became the largest single railroad line in the US.
7.
Thomas Edison- An inventor of many things, the phonogram, light bulb, moving pictures, and thebasic ability to transmit electricity over larger distances using Direct Current. This meant the abilityto power whole towns with electricity (allowing the towns to spread out further from the center) andwith the light bulb, work hours could go on into the night.
8.
John D. Rockefeller- Originally a book keeper and when asked to see the prospects in oil, heresponded that it had “no future”, to then invest in it himself. His first business was SouthImprovement Company, but was severely corrupt forcing it out of business, to which Rockefeller started Standard Oil of Cleveland in 1870. Standard Oil bought out other businesses with bribesand driving down prices until the competing company went out of business or he could buy themout with Standard Oil stock. Built his business on the idea of horizontal integration (See #14). Alsohe used “trusts” designed by one of his accountants, Samuel C. T. Dodd. The “trusts” were ways toget around state anti-monopoly laws. By making a nine-man board of trustees and selling “trustcertificates” instead of stock. Controlled 90 to 98% of the oil business in the US.
 
9.
Andrew Carnegie- represented the rags to riches idea. He started in a cotton factory after comingover from Scotland with his family in 1848, became a telegraph clerk, to secretary, to head of thePenn. Railroad, then a Wall Street broker. When oil was found on his land he got into that businessand later went into iron and steel, and using the Bessemer Process (which he saw in England)hugely improved the process of steel making in the US, dominating the steel market. He mainlyused vertical integration (See #13).
10.
John Pierpont Morgan Sr- avoided the war by paying his $300 fine, but also profited from the war by buying old rifles for $3.50 apiece, altered the guns by selling to a middle man who bought themfor $11.50 and then the government bought their old rifles for $22 apiece. Six times the originalprice for their old rifles slightly refurbished. Around 1900, he and a few friends owned most of therailroads in the US letting them set rates across the country. His bank in 1900 was one of thebanks so high up, that it loaned money to other banks. He even bailed out the government in 1985by exchanging gold for US bonds which he resold to make a profit off of. Also worked with AndrewCarnegie to make US Steel.
11.
Stock watering- selling stocks at a price much higher than actual value.
12.
Pool rebate-
13.
Vertical integration- the business idea of owning all the companies involved in making one product.Such as owning the mining, shipping, refining and selling of coal or any number of other products.
14.
Horizontal integration- When a company expanded into related fields of business. An example of this would be if Wal-Mart started selling a completely different commodity on its shelves.
15.
Interlocking directorate- A strategy where companies have the same people on their boards of directors to reduce competition among between the companies, and to control the market.Basically, there were a few people controlling an entire industry. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914(word #98) restricted these.
16.
Union Pacific Railroad- built west from Omaha, Nebraska. Competed with Central Pacific to buildas much of the Transcontinental Railroad as possible. Both used Chinese immigrants to build their track. Construction was completed in six years.
17.
Central Pacific Railroad- built east from Sacramento, Calif.
18.
US Steel- Banker J.P. Morgan founded U.S. Steel in 1901, and it immediately became history'sfirst "billion dollar" corporation. At its strongest controlled more than 60% of the American steelmarket. It battled many unions and is still a powerful company today.
19.
Standard Oil- The most powerful company in the US between 1880 and 1910. Controlled the entireline of petroleum processing, from mining to shipping the finished product. Created in 1870 whenJohn Rockefeller and Samuel Andrews combined their holdings in the oil industry. The ownersintended to create an oil monopoly and to keep the price high during periods of low demand. Todisguise its attempts to gain a monopoly over the refining business, the company set up whatappeared to be a competitive company, the Acme Oil Company. By the time Acme Oil's trueownership was discovered, Standard Oil owned most of the refineries in the country. The attorneygeneral of Ohio filed charges against Standard in 1890. Under existing antitrust laws in 1892,Rockefeller agreed to dissolve Standard Oil into 20 independent companies. Rockefeller retained asection of Standard Oil and continued monopolistic behavior until 1911, when the Supreme Courtsaid the company was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and broke Standard Oil into 70 newcompanies.
 
20.
Social Darwinism- Darwin argued that within nature, there was competition between species, andonly the fittest organisms survived. Social Darwinists believed that this theory of evolution gavevalidity to the notion that government should stay out of the economy, and let the strongestcompanies survive.
21.
Gospel of Wealth- A concept created by Andrew Carnegie. He believed that the rich had to bestewards of wealth, and that God wanted them to be wealthy. But he also believed that the wealthymust use their power to help society.
22.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act- (1890) - Opposition against trusts led to this act, which declared trustsillegal. Trusts were blamed to be illegally restricting trade and violated the corporate charters.Trusts were then replaced by the holding company, a company that could purchase other companies. This was a fairly weak act.
23.
Interstate Commerce Commission- The first federal regulatory commission. It investigatedrailroads to prevent monopolies from forming. Formed as a result of the Interstate Commerce Actof 1887.
24.
Terence V. Powderly- A Catholic president of the Knights of Labor that made the organization opento workers of every sex, nationality, or race.
25.
Samuel Gompers- (1850-1924)- The first president of the American Federation of Labor, the firstenduring national labor union. Believed that labor had the most to gain by organizing only skilledcraft workers, not all workers in an industry. Refused to form an alliance with the Knights of Labor.
26.
Yellow dog contract- A contract stating that an employee would not join a labor union; manyemployers forced employees to sign them. Yellow-dog contracts were made illegal until thepassage of the Norris-La Guardia Act in 1932.
27.
National Labor Union-
Was a loose federation of city trade assemblies, reform organizations andtrade unions. The first convention was in Baltimore and the group may have had up to 500,000members. It was against strikes and sought to improve working conditions through legislativereform. It turned into the National Labor Reform Party in 1872 and nominated David Davis of Illinois as its presidential candidate, but the party made a poor show at the polls. The lastconvention was in 1873 and then the NLU collapsed.
28.
Knights of Labor-
The first labor union.
 
Founded 1869 in Philadelphia, by Uriah Stephens as asecret organization of tailors. The KoL was one of the most important early labor organizations andit structured workers into “one big brotherhood”, instead of separate unions whose members hadcommon skills or who worked in the same industry. It had a strong Protestant influence, butCatholic Terence V. Powderly was elected as its head thus allowing almost anyone to join(excluding bankers, lawyers, gamblers and saloonkeepers). This is an open shop policy. It was atits height in 1885 with 700,000 members. The Knights won victories against the Union Pacificrailroad in 1884 and against Wabash railroad in 1885. The Knights pushed for social and economicchange; they wanted an 8 hr work day, the abolition of child labor, improved safety in factories,equal pay between sexes, and compensation for injury. The Knights favored cooperatively runworkshops and cooperative stores. They held the first Labor Day celebration in 1882. The Knightsdeclined after the 1886 with the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago.
29.
American Federation of Labor-
Founded Samuel Gompers. It was a closed shop union that onlyaccepted white males who were skilled workers. It replaced the Knights as the largest labor organization. It was made up of craft unions and was committed to “bread and butter” (basicfunctions related to one’s business, survival or income) unionism. Had more realistic goals thanthose of the Knights (increased wages, reduce hours and the improvement of working conditions).
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