Industry Comes of Age
(1865-1900)
Chapter 24
1.Railroads – How did the Federal government support transcontinental railroad
building in the late 19th century?
2.Cornelius Vanderbilt – (“The Commodore”) – What improvements did he make
to his railroad that greatly increased ridership on his NY Central line because of
safety?
3.What three Railroad inventions made traveling safer and more convenient in the
last half of the 19th century? (even though they continued to be “fiery death traps” but with less frequency)
4.Analyze the impact of the railroad industry on the industrialization of the United
States.
5.List all the methods employed by Railroad monopolies to increase their profits.
6.State the names of three Railroad tycoons.
7.Why didn’t the American public generally support labor union activity?
8.Grange Movement – Who were the Grangers and what weretheir political and
economic goals? How did the Supreme Court Rule in the Wabash Case (1886)?
9.Interstate Commerce Act (1887) What were its provisions? In the short-term
how effective was it? In the long term, why was it significant?
10.Sherman Anti-Trust Act(1890) – (p.544) What were its provisions? In the
short-term how effective was it? In the long term, why was it significant?
11.What were the significant economic and social impacts of Alexander Graham
Bell’s telephone and Thomas Edison’s lightbulb?
12.Monopolization techniques: Explain the person, the industry and the technique
“vertical integration”-
“horizontal integration”-
“interlocking directorates”–
13.How did industrialists justify their control and wealth? Explain by defining these phrases or words:
“consolidation leads to efficiency” –
“Gospel of Wealth” –
“Survival of the Fittest”
14.How did industrialists use the 14th amendment to stop litigation against their
companies while at the same time using the Sherman Anti-trust act to stop labor
strikes?
15.The South and manufacturing – Other than sharecropping and some tobacco
production, characterize a typical “textile mill” town.
16.Characterize the Gibson’s Girl image and compare it to the reality of the working
woman and the jobs they held.
17.Big Business Oppression of the worker – List the ways that a company could keep its labor force in line working for cheap wages.
18.Early Labor Unions – Discuss the leaders (if given), goals, constituent labor
groups and the limited successes these labor unions had between 1870 and 1900.
National Labor Union –
Knights of Labor –
American Federation of Labor–
19.Haymarket Square Riot (1886) – What happened and what was its impact on
the labor movement?
20.Though most of the labor strikes wereunsuccessful and there was less
membership in 1900 than in 1885, what had labor unions forced the public to
come to accept for the most part by 1900 (though several decades will pass before
business and gov’t will)?