Chapter 17: The Gilded Age

Question 1

Alexander Graham Bell

Answer 1

• initially a teacher for the deaf, but showed the MIT and World’s Fair how speaking into a vibrating set of reeds created a fluctuating current that be turned back into the same sound through another set of reeds at the end of an electronic wire, went back to teaching while others transformed his idea

Question 2

Thomas Edison

Answer 2

• initially a telegraph transmitter, invented the Edison Universal Stock Printer and working on better telegraph technology before Bell, and created the independent research laboratory at Menlo Park to tinker with his lightbulb invention

Question 3

George Westinghouse & Nikola Tesla

Answer 3

• found an alternating current was a lot more efficient in transmitting electricity than the direct current Edison used

Question 4

Frank J. Sprague

Answer 4

introduced first electric streetcars to Richmond, VA in 1888, which were cheaper and safer than horse buggies and steam cars

Question 5

George Eastman

Answer 5

• developed film in Rochester, NY, in 1896

Question 6

Henry Ford

Answer 6

• publicized/revolutionized the production of the automobile through his use of the assembly line and interchangeable parts that routinized a speedy production of automobiles, lowering the cost

Question 7

Wright Bros

Answer 7

• used a deserted beach in Kitty Hawk, NC, to develop a flying machine, but its use took a longer time to become popular since it was so dangerous in the beginning

Question 8

Gilded Age

Answer 8

• era in America during the late 1800s referring to the shallow display and worship of wealth characteristic of the period, named by Mark Twain

Question 9

The Panic of 1873

Answer 9

A major economic downturn, launched when the country’s leading financier, Jay Cooke, went bankrupt during which thousands lost their jobs and from which the country took years to recover, caused by drop of wheat prices during the Franco-Prussian war

Question 10

Jay Cooke

Answer 10

• Banker who connected to the mid-West to the Pacific-West coast through railroads

Question 11

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Answer 11

• bought railroads to improve rails, service, and created a managerial system resulting in better and safer travel and produced a missive corporation. NY Central RR was his pivotal railroad, became America’s richest man

Question 12

Monopolies

Answer 12

• companies/industries that take down all competition in their field of work, forcing consumers to either buy their product, or not have the product at all
• John D. Rockefeller (Oil Refining), Andrew Carnegies (all industries dedicated to the extracting, producing, and marketing of steel)

Question 13

Horizontal Integration

Answer 13

• purchase of competing companies in the same industry
• Ex: Rockefeller and oil refining

Question 14

Vertical Integration

Answer 14

• purchase of companies at all levels of production- Ex: Carnegie and steel

Question 15

Mugwumps

Answer 15

• a reform faction of the Republican party who supported Cleveland, the Democratic nominee over the Republican Blaine in the 1884 election
• opponents said their mug was on one side of the fence and their “wump” was on the other

Question 16

Pogroms

Answer 16

• government-directed attacks against Jewish citizens, property, and villages in tsarist Russia beginning in the 1880s; a primary reason for Russian Jewish migration to the U.S.

Question 17

Chinese Exclusion Act

Answer 17

• act passed by Congress in 1882 that suspended Chinese immigration, limited the civil rights of resident Chinese, and forbade their naturalization

Question 18

Stalwarts

Answer 18

• a faction of the Republican party in the 1870s and 1880s that wanted the party to stay true to its earlier support for Reconstruction in the South and who were less connected to the emerging big-business interests than other

Question 18

Melting pot

Answer 18

• the mingling of diverse ethnic groups in America including the idea that these groups should be “melting” into a single culture or people

Question 19

Sweatshops

Answer 19

• small, crammed workspaces where multiple people would gather to quickly sew garments under strict supervision by the owner, used to create clothes in mass

Question 20

J.P Morgan

Answer 20

• launched J.P. Morgan & Company in financial chaos of Civil War to sell reconditioned guns to govt., helped U.S. after Jay Cooke & Company launched the Panic of 1873, held many board seats in big corporations, acted as peacemaker between rival RR companies (NY Central & PA RR)
• European investors pulled gold from U.S. banks after Panic of 1893 that almost bankrupt govt., so he offered $65 mil in gold in return for 30-year govt. bonds, and served as the Federal Reserve Bank to be made in 1916
• created U.S. Steel Corporation by combining Illinois Steel, Rockefeller steel mines, and Carnegie Steel

Question 21

Andrew Carnegie

Answer 21

• created a steel mill just outside Pittsburgh near rivers and RR lines to squeeze out profit, developed assembly line approach to steel production, kept workers’ salaries as low as possible, and constantly updated and replaced eqpt.
• built/bought everything for steel business

Question 22

Standard Oil

Answer 22

• the model of horizontal monopoly that controlled all of the nation’s oil refining, fueled by Henry Ford’s automobiles that created a demand for gasoline, refined from the same oil as kerosene (Edison’s lightbulb replaced)
• world’s navies turned from sail to oil-powered steamships
• Rockefeller-Flagler partnership

Question 23

Ellis Island

Answer 23

• prime point of immigrant entry in NY’s harbor replacing Castle Garden in Manhattan that combined quarantine, customs, and reception
• 12 mil ppl came to Ellis Island before it closed in 1954
• 2% denied entry, excessive questions, new anglicized names given (Cooperstein=Cooper)

Question 24

John D. Rockefeller

Answer 24

• Rockefeller did not like the idea of drilling/extracting oil, so he focused on refining oil
• kept his products better and prices lower than any competition to monopolize oil refining market
• utilized the railroads and dominated the Cleveland refinery market

Question 25

Assembly Line Production

Answer 25

• each worker is assigned one small task to be repeated over and over t create a routinized fashion of producing that greatly speeded production thus lowering the cost