Great Railway Strike

Beginning July 14, 1877 in West Virginia, in response to 3rd cut of wages in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O). The violence became nationwide, especially in Pittsburg where strikers were bayonetted and shot by the militia. The violence lasted 45 days, ending when President Hayes sent federal troops to all cities involved.

Homestead lockout

In 1892 Andrew Carnegie refused to renew the union contract at this Pittsburg steel mill. Union supporters attacked the Pinkerton army hired to keep them out. The National Guard was called in to suppress this resistance and Homestead became a non-union mill.

management revolution

An internal management structure adopted by many large, complex corporations that distinguished top executives from those responsible for day-to-day operations and departmentalized operations by function.

vertical integration

A business model in which a corporation controlled all aspects of production, from raw materials to packaged products. Industrialists such as Gustavus Swift and Andrew Carnegie pioneered this business form at the end of the Civil War.

horizontal integration

A business concept invented in the late nineteenth century to pressure competitors and force rivals to merge their companies into a conglomerate. John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil pioneered this business model.

trust

A small group of associates that hold stock from a group of combined firms, managing them as a single entity. Rockefeller created this with his Standard Oil Company.

mass production

A phrase coined by Henry Ford, who helped to invent this system based on assembly of standardized parts. It accompanied the continued deskilling of industrial labor.

scientific management

A system of organizing work developed by Frederick W. Taylor. It was designed to get maximum output from workers who must “do what they are told promptly and without asking questions or making suggestions.”

Chinese Exclusion Act

The 1882 law that barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States. This law continued in effect until the 1940s.

Greenback Labor Party

A national political movement calling on the government to increase the money supply in order to assist borrowers and foster economic growth. Supporters also called for greater regulation of corporations and laws enforcing an eight-hour workday.

Granger laws

Economic regulatory laws passed in some mid-western states in the late 1870s, triggered by pressure from farmers and the Greenback-Labor Party.

Knights of Labor

The first mass labor organization created among America’s working class. Founded in 1869, it peaked in the mid-1880s. It attempted to bridge boundaries of ethnicity, gender, ideology, race, and occupation to build a “universal brotherhood” of all workers.

anarchism

The advocacy of a stateless society achieved by revolutionary means. Feared for their views, people who took this approach became scapegoats for the 1886 Haymarket Square bombing.

Haymarket Square

The May 4, 1886, conflict in which both workers and policemen were killed or wounded during a labor demonstration in Chicago, called by local anarchists. The incident created a backlash against all labor organization, including the Knights of Labor.

Farmers’ Alliance

A rural movement founded in Texas during the depression of the 1870s that spread across the Plains and the South. It advocated cooperative stores and exchanges that would circumvent middlemen, and it called for greater government aid to farmers and stricter regulation of railroads.

Interstate Commerce

Act

An 1887 act that created a federal regulatory agency designed to oversee the railroad industry and prevent collusion and unfair rates.

closed shop

A workplace in which a job seeker had to be a union member to gain employment. This approach was advocated by craft unions as a method of keeping out lower-wage workers and strengthening their unions’ bargaining position.

American Federation of

LaborOrganization created by Samuel Gompers in 1886 that coordinated the activities of craft unions and called for direct negotiation with employers in order to achieve benefits for skilled workers.

producerism

The argument that real economic wealth is created by workers who make their living by physical labor, such as farmers and craftsmen, and that merchants, lawyers, bankers, and other middlemen unfairly gain their wealth from such workers.

Andrew Carnegie

Scottish American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. Also known for his “Gospel of Wealth” philosophy.

Gustavus Swift

He founded a meat-packing empire in Chicago during the late 19th century. He is credited with the development of the first practical ice-cooled railroad car, which allowed his company to ship dressed meats to all parts of the country and abroad.

John D. Rockefeller

He was a co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust.

Henry George

Writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax and the value capture of land/natural resource rents, an idea known at the time as Single-Tax. Wrote Progress and Poverty.

Terence Powderly

Irish-American politician and labor union leader, best known as head of the Knights of Labor in the late 1880s. A lawyer, he was elected mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania for six years.

Samuel Gompers

English-born American cigar maker who founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL). He believed in a pure-and-simple unionism that focused primarily on economic rather than political reform as the best way of securing workers' rights and welfare.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Known as “the Commodore,” this American business magnate and philanthropist built his wealth in railroads and shipping in New York.

Eugene V. Debs

He founded the American Railway Union (1893), and later helped found the Industrial Workers of the World (1905). Five times he was the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.

George Pullman

An influential industrialist of the nineteenth century and the founder of the “Palace Car” Company. His innovations brought comfort and luxury to railroad travel in the 1800s with the introduction of sleeping cars, dining cars, and parlor cars.

Pullman Strike

In 1894 George Pullman lowered wages, eliminated jobs, and increased the number of hours required of his workers. But he refused to lower rents in his company town or prices in his company store. The resulting strike became one of the most serious labor revolts in American history ending when President Cleveland sent in federal troops.

J. P. Morgan

American financier, banker, philanthropist and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time.