Moodle+Ch+15

**The Gilded Age-**  refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The name refers to the process of gilding an object with a superficial layer of gold and is meant to make fun of ostentatious display while playing on the term "golden age."

**Cornelius Vanderbilt-**  (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur. He built his wealth in shipping and railroads and was the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history.

**Tammany Hall-** also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It was the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City politics and helping immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. It controlled Democratic Party nominations and patronage in Manhattan from the mayoral victory of Fernando Wood in 1854 through the election of John P. O'Brien in 1932. Tammany Hall was permanently weakened by the election of Fiorello La Guardia on a "fusion" ticket of Republicans, reform-minded Democrats, and independents in 1934, and, despite a brief resurgence in the 1950s, it ceased to exist in the 1960s.

**Union Pacific-** headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman. UP's route map covers most of the central and western United States west of Chicago and New Orleans. As of December 31, 2008 UP operates on 32,012 miles (51,518 km) of track, of which it owns outright 26,171 miles (42,118 km) Both numbers represent the highest amount of any railroad currently operating in the United States. It has achieved this size as a result of purchasing a large number of other railroads, notably the Missouri Pacific, Chicago and North Western, Western Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and the Southern Pacific (including the Rio Grande). Currently, Union Pacific owns 26% of Ferromex while Grupo Mexico owns the remaining 74%.

**Central Pacific-** is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah, USA that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad" in North America. It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad. Many 19th century national proposals to build a transcontinental railroad failed because of the energy consumed by political disputes over slavery. With the secession of the South, the modernizers in the Republican Party controlled the US Congress. They passed legislation to authorize the railroad, and created financing in the form of government railroad bonds. These were all eventually repaid with interest. The government and the railroads both shared in the increased value of the land grants, which the railroads developed. Once the railroad was constructed, the government saved expenses for the transportation of the mails and the military.

**Credit Mobilier-** America scandal of 1872 involved the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad. The distribution of Crédit Mobilier shares of stock by Congressman Oakes Ames along with cash bribes to congressmen took place during the Andrew Johnson presidency in 1868. The revelation of the congressmen who received cash bribes or shares in Crédit Mobilier took place during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in 1872. The scandal's origins actually go back to the Abraham Lincoln presidency with the formation of the Crédit Mobilier in 1864.


 * Whiskey Ring Scandal**-was a scandal, exposed in 1875, involving diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskeydistillers, and distributors. The Whiskey Ring began in St. Louis but was also organized in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Peoria. Before they were caught, a group of mostly Republican politicians were able to siphon off millions of dollars in federal taxes on liquor; the scheme involved an extensive network of bribes involving distillers, rectifiers, gaugers, storekeepers, and internal revenue agents.

**James A. Garfield-** (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) served as the 20th President of the United States, from March 4, 1881 until his assassination on September 19, 1881. He survived a brief 200 days in office, the second shortest presidential tenure to that of William Henry Harrison. He was the only incumbent of the U.S. House of Representatives to be elected President.


 * Gould and Fiske-** September 24, 1869 also known as the Fisk/Gould scandal, was a financial panic in the United States caused by two speculators’ efforts to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange. It was one of several scandals that rocked the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. During the reconstruction era after the American Civil War, the United States government issued a large amount of money that was backed by nothing but credit. After the war ended, people commonly believed that the U.S. Government would buy back the “greenbacks” with gold. In 1869, a group of speculators, headed by James Fisk and Jay Gould, sought to profit off this by cornering the gold market. Gould and Fisk first recruited Grant’s brother-in-law, a financier named Abel Corbin. They used Corbin to get close to Grant in social situations, where they would argue against government sale of gold, and Corbin would support their arguments. Corbin convinced Grant to appoint General Daniel Butterfield as assistant Treasurer of the United States. Butterfield agreed to tip the men off when the government intended to sell gold.


 * Andrew Carnegie**-(November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, entrepreneur and a major philanthropist. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and migrated to the United States as a child with his parents. His first job in the United States was as a factory worker in a bobbin factory. Later on he became a bill logger for the owner of the company. Soon after he became a messenger boy. Eventually he progressed up the ranks of a telegraph company. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which was later merged with Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company and several smaller companies to create U.S. Steel. With the fortune he made from business among others he built Carnegie Hall, later he turned to philanthropy and interests in education, founding the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.


 * J.P. Morgan**-(April 17, 1837 - March 31, 1913) was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidationduring his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric. After financing the creation of the Federal Steel Company he merged in 1901 the Carnegie Steel Company and several other steel and iron businesses, including Consolidated Steel and Wire Company owned by William Edenborn, to form the United States Steel Corporation.


 * John D. Rockefeller-** (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American oil magnate. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897. Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, Jabez Bostwick, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner,Stephen V. Harkness. As kerosene and gasoline grew in importance, Rockefeller's wealth soared, and he became the world's richest man and first American worth more than a billion dollars. Adjusting for inflation, he is often regarded as the richest person in history. Some also say that he saved the whales, since before oil, the used whale oil.


 * Social Darwinism**-is a term used for various late nineteenth century ideologies which, while often contradictory, exploited ideas of survival of the fittest. It especially refers to notions of struggle for existence being used to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. The most prominent form of such views stressed competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism but it is also connected to the ideas of the progressive era, in which many promoted eugenics or scientific racism or imperialism, or a struggle between national or racial groups. In sociology it has been defined as a theory of social evolution which asserts that "There are underlying, and largely irresistible, forces acting in societies which are like the natural forces that operate in animal and plant communities. One can therefore formulate social laws similar to natural ones. These social forces are of such a kind as to produce evolutionary progress through the natural conflicts between social groups. The best-adapted and most successful social groups survive these conflicts, raising the evolutionary level of society generally (the 'survival of the fittest')." The term has very rarely been used as a self description.


 * Interlocking Directorate-**refers to the practice of members of a corporate board of directors serving on the boards of multiple corporations. A person that sits on multiple boards is known as a multiple director. A direct interlock occurs when two firms share a director or when an executive of one firm sits on the board of second firm. An indirect interlock occurs when two corporations have directors who each also serve on the board of a third firm.


 * Interstate Commerce Commission-**was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland. The agency was abolished in 1995, and the agency's remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board. The Commission's five members were appointed by the President with the consent of the United States Senate. This was the first independent agency (or so-calledFourth Branch). The ICC's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers.


 * Sherman Antitrust Act**-February 30, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–7) requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. However, for the most part, politicians were unwilling to refer to the law until Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1901–1909).


 * Captain of Commerce-**James Riley (1777, Middletown, Conn. – 1840 at sea) was the Captain of the United States merchant ship Commerce.


 * Knights of Labor-**(U of M) (officially "Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor") was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly. The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and became a small operation again. It was established in 1869, reached 28,000 members in 1880, then jumped to 100,000 in 1885. Then it mushroomed to nearly 700,000 members in 1886, but its frail organizational structure could not cope and it was battered by charges of failure and violence. Most members abandoned the movement in 1886-87, leaving at most 100,000 in 1890. Remnants of the Knights of Labor continued in existence until 1949, when the group's last 50-member local dropped its affiliation.


 * American Federation of Labor**-was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death. As the Knights of Labor faded away, the AFL coalition gradually gained strength. In practice, AFL unions were important in industrial cities, where they formed a central labor office to coordinate the actions of different AFL unions. Most strikes were assertions of jurisdiction, so that the plumbers, for example, used strikes to ensure that all major construction projects in the city used union plumbers. To win they needed the support of other unions, hence the need for AFL solidarity.


 * Commonwealth v. Hunt-**was a landmark legal decision issued by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on the subject of labor unions. Before this decision, based on Commonwealth v. Pullis, labor unions which attempted to 'close' or create a unionized workplace could be charged with conspiracy. However, in March 1842, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that unions were legal organizations and had the right to organize a strike.

Powderly had little power.
 * Terence V. Powderly**-(January 22, 1849 – June 24, 1924 ) was born in Carbondale, Pennsylvania, the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. He was a highly visible national spokesman for the working man as head of the Knights of Labor from 1879 until 1893. Although the Knights claimed over 600,000 members at its peak in 1886, it was so poorly organized that