US HISTORY UNIT 2 VOCAB
Chapter 3: Industrial Revolution & Chapter 5: Progressivism
By: Katelynn Fuentes
American Industrial Revolution
At the end of the Civil War, American industry expanded and millions of people left their farms to work in mines and factories.
Laissez Faire
In the late 1800's, state and federal government had a laissez-faire attitude by keeping taxes and spending low and by not imposing regulations on industry.
Trust
A trust is a group of corporations run by one board of directors, which is still a monopoly.
Rober Baron
A robber baron is a businessman who uses ruthless business tactics such as stealing from the public, abusing the law, mistreating their workers, and bribing government officials.
Vertical Integration
This is when a company owns all of the different businesses on which it depends for its operation. Instead of paying other businesses for their services, they own all aspects of production and delivery.
Horizontal Integration
This is when a company takes over or buys out a competitor in an effort to gain market share.
Political Machine
An informal political group designed to keep power and provided essential services for immigrants.
Ellis Island
A small island in New York Harbor that served as a processing center for most immigrants arriving on the East Coast after 1892.
Tenements
The majority of urban dwellers were part of the working class who lived in city tenements, or dark and crowded multi-family apartments.
Ethnic Enclaves
Most immigrants settled in cities and lived in neighborhoods that were separated into ethnic groups. They duplicated many of the comforts of their homelands, including language and religion.
Gilded Age
The Industrial Revolution period was known as the Gilded Age. It was a term coined by Mark Twain meaning a layer of glitter over a cheap base.
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a social theory that attempts to adapt Charles Darwin's natural selection principles and apply it to society. This theory promotes a culture that embraces the concept of "survival of the fittest". It is used to explain poverty and to justify class distinctions and the imbalances of power between races and nations.
Americanization
This was a process in which immigrant school children were taught the English language as well as culture. Its purpose was to assimilate ethnic immigrant groups into the dominant culture.
Gospel of Wealth
Carnegie wrote an essay referred to as The Gospel Of Wealth where wealthy Americans had the responsibility to donate money to further social progress.
Social Gospel Movement
Religious reformers strove to improve conditions in the cities according to the biblical ideals of charity and justice.
Progressivism
A reform movement that occurred in the early 1900s as a response to the problems created from urbanization and industrialization,
Muckraker
Muckrakers are writers who exposed filth and corruption in society and also about other social injustices.
John D. Rockefeller
He established standard oil in 1870, which by the early 1880s controlled some 90 percent of US refineries and pipelines.
Andrew Carnegie
He was a Scottish immigrant who amassed a fortune in the steel industry. While working for the railroad, he invested in various ventures, including iron and oil companies, and made his first fortune by the time he was in his 30s.
JP Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan is one of the most powerful bankers of his era, he financed railroads and helped organize US Steel, General Electric, and other major corporations.
Cornelius Vanderbilt
He was a self-made multi-millionaire due to shipping and railroads. He went into business for himself and eventually became one of the country's largest steamship operators. He holds a reputation for being fiercely competitive and ruthless.
Thomas Edison
He was the inventor of the phonograph, the light bulb, and the kinetoscope.
Henry Ford
He learned that the less people had to move, the faster they would work, which led to him perfecting the assembly line that also lowered the cost of the Model T.
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was the first American Federation of Labor leader and wanted to approach labor relations to help unions become accepted.
William "Boss" Tweed
He was the leader of New York City's corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s.
Upton Sinclair
He acquired fame from his muckraking novel, The Jungle, which exposed conditions to the US Meat Packing Industry.
Jacob Riis
He described the poverty, disease, and crime that afflicted many immigrant neighborhoods in the book How the Other Half Lives.
Theodore Roosevelt
He created the Bureau of Corporations to investigate monopolies and trusts; enforced the Sherman Anti-trust Act.
William Taft
He busted standard oil in 1911, created the Children's Bureau, and continued conservation policies.
Meat Inspection Act
It works to prevent altered meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions.
Intersate Commerce Commision
The federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry. It required that railroads be "reasonable and just".
Children's Bureau 1912
President Taft created the Children's Bureau to "investigate and report the welfare of children".
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
A landmark federal statue in the history of the US anti-trust law passed by Congress in 1890.
17th Amendment
It allows the direct election of senators. They wanted to decrease corruption.