Gilded Age- 5:3 and 5:4 Flashcards
Gilded Age
Shows extremes of wealth and poverty during Inustrialzation (really rich and really poor)
Laissez-faire
Lazy government! (they don’t get involved with the economy or the big businesses)… Big businesses love this idea because they can get away with anything!
Free Market Economy/ Free- Enterprise System/ Capitalism
People make decisions about the economy through supply and demand
Robber Baron
Big business leader who uses ruthless business tactics to make more money (hurts workers)
Philanthropist (Gospel of Wealth Theory)
Once you are rich, you should give money back to the poor
Social Darwinism
Survival of the Fittest idea that the rich used to justify their wealth
Andrew Carnegie
Steel entrepreneur who used VERTICAL integration (buys out all levels of production) to create his monopoly, but who gave lots of money back to society (libraries, etc)
John D. Rockefeller
Oil entrepreneur who used HORIZONTAL consolidation (buys out competition) to creat his standard oil monopoly, and who was considered to be a robber baron by many
Henry Ford
Makes lots of cars using the assembly line
Trusts/Pools/ Monopolies
Gigantic businesses that takeover the nation and destroy competition
Sherman Antitrust Act
regulates big business by breaking up gigantic trusts in order to restore competition to society
Political Machine
Corrupt group that runs a city unofficially, Tammany Hall= famous ex.
Thomas Nast
Political cartoonist who brought about the downfall of Boss tweed (of Tammany Hall) with his political cartoons
Horatio Alger
author of rags to riches novels
Unions
groups of workers that organized to improve working conditions and used force at times to reach goals
Haymarket Riot
Labor Dispute= Lots of violence; Governmentsupoorts big business
Homestead Strike
Steel Strike at Carnegie’s plant=Lots of violence; Government supports big business, not the workers
Great Railway Strike
RR Strike= Lots of violence, Government supports big business, not the workers
Collective Bargaining
Union’s right to be recognized by their employer (not granted until Great Depression)
Knights of Labor
Union led by Terence Powderly that allows skilled and unskilled workers
AFL
(American Federation of Labor)- Union led by Samuel Gompers that allows skilled immigrants only, uses pure and simple unionism, and organizes workers into craft unions
Pure and Simple Unionism
get the simple things first (shorter work days, wages, better working conditions, etc. )
