Industrialization in America Flashcards
Grade 8 · Social Studies · Flashcards
Key terms and concepts from America's industrial transformation in the late 1800s.
Flashcards
- Industrialization
- The shift from agricultural to manufacturing-based economy; factories replace farms as the main source of work.
- Transcontinental Railroad (1869)
- First railroad to cross the entire United States, connecting Atlantic and Pacific coasts and spurring economic growth.
- Andrew Carnegie
- Steel magnate who built Carnegie Steel Company into the largest steel producer in the world.
- John D. Rockefeller
- Founder of Standard Oil who used horizontal integration to control most of the U.S. oil refining industry.
- Thomas Edison
- Prolific inventor whose electric light bulb and power systems transformed everyday life in the late 1800s.
- Robber Baron
- Negative term for wealthy industrialists who built fortunes through exploitative business practices and harsh treatment of workers.
- Captain of Industry
- Positive term for industrialists viewed as benefiting society through innovation, job creation, and philanthropy.
- Labor Union
- Organization of workers that negotiates collectively with employers for better wages, hours, and working conditions.
- Bessemer Process
- Steel-making method that blasts air through molten iron, dramatically reducing the cost and time to produce steel.
- Gilded Age
- Term coined by Mark Twain for the era of rapid industrialization (1870s–1900) that hid inequality beneath surface prosperity.
- Horizontal Integration
- Business strategy of merging with or buying out competitors in the same industry to gain market dominance.
- Monopoly
- Exclusive control of an industry by one company, allowing it to set prices without competitive pressure.
- Pullman Strike (1894)
- Nationwide railroad workers' strike protesting wage cuts; ended when President Cleveland ordered federal troops to break it up.
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