The Age of Industrialization - Study Guide

I.  You should be able to identify and explain the historical significance of the following:

  1. transcontinental railroads
  2. Jay Gould
  3. Cornelius Vanderbilt
  4. Alexander Graham Bell
  5. Thomas Alva Edison
  6. George Westinghouse
  7. John D. Rockefeller
  8. Gospel of Wealth
  9. Horatio Alger
  10. J. Pierpont Morgan
  11. Holding Company
  12. Social Mobility
  13. Molly Maguires
  14. Industrial and Trade Unions
  15. Knights of Labor
  16. American Federation of Labor
  17. Haymarket Affair
  18. Anarchism
  19. Samuel Gompers
  20. Pullman Strike
  21. Eugene V. Debs
  22. Wobblies
  23. Leland Stanford
  24. Collis P. Huntington
  25. James J. Hill
  26. Andrew Carnegie
  27. Terrence V. Powderly
  28. John P. Altgeld

II.  You should be able to define and state the historical significance of the following:

  1.  Land Grant
  2. Stock Watering
  3. Pool
  4. Rebate
  5. Vertical Integration
  6. Trust
  7. Interlocking Directorate
  8. Capital Goods
  9. Plutocracy
  10. Injunction

III.  Describe and state the historical significance of the following:

  1. Union Pacific Railroad
  2. Central Pacific Railroad
  3. Grange
  4. Wabash Case
  5. Bessemer Process
  6. United States Steel
  7. William Graham Sumner
  8. Yellow dog contract
  9. National Labor Union

IV.  Discussion Questions

  1. List and explain the factors that promoted the growth of industry in the United States in the late nineteenth century.
  2. What was the relationship among inventors, entrepreneurs, and great wealth in the late nineteenth century United States? Give several examples. 
  3. Why was the Pullman Strike of 1894 important? 
  4. Compare the goals and methods of the American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World. 
  5. .Explain the appeal of socialism and other forms of radicalism to some American Workers.
  6. Compare and contrast the methods used by late nineteenth century corporations to control competition - especially the pool, trust, interlocking directorate, and vertical integration
  7. Describe the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.  Explain the motives behind their enactment and evaluate the success of each.
  8. Compare and contrast the National Labor Union, Knights of Labor, and American Federation of Labor in regard to their origins, goals, and leadership.  Account for the failure of the first two and the success of the AFL.
  9. Why did labor unions find it difficult to organize industrial workers in the late nineteenth century?
  10. What is your personal definition of the Gospel of Wealth?  Do you agree with its assumptions?  Why or why not?
  11. Business leaders of the late nineteenth century have been characterized as both as greedy and unscrupulous "robber barons" and as great "captains of industry" whose entrepreneurial skill and tactics produced economic growth.  Which view do you find more persuasive?  Why?
  12. I what ways does the development of the railroad industry in the late nineteenth century illustrate the limitations of the myth of industrial free enterprise in American history?  What did government hope to attain by its promotion of railroad construction?  What, in fact, did it attain?

IV.  The following practice quizzes may help you:

   Number One

   Number Two

 

 

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