Labor Unions:
Group of related workers who band together to protect and further the rights and interests of all workers. workers included: female, male, blacks, whites, skilled, and unskilled.
1882, average of 675 workers died per year. 20% of all male workers and 10% of all women workers were under the age of 15.
Immigration:
Europeans, Chinese, and Japanese people came to the U.S. to escape famine, freedom of religion, and the Industrial boom.
United States annexed Hawaii in 1898.
Chinese helped but hurt the U.S.
Challenges included the long trip, hatred, and bad living conditions
Ellis Island, where 12 million immigrants over a 62 year period were examined
Two options for working class immigrants, house on the outskirts, or a small room in a boarding house
New York could be split by ethnics of Germans, Irish, and Broncs
Businesses and Monopolies:
Businesses that dominate or control a specific product, no competition. Allows that company full control over wages/profits.
Sherman Antitrust Act- eliminated monopolies
John D. Rockefeller- joined with competing companies to make the Standard Oil Company one of the most powerful monopolies in history. Company broke up in 1911
Andrew Carnegie- immigrated to U.S. in 1848, became superintendent of Pennsylvania Railroad. Made steel company with stock money; made more steel than Great Britain.
Horizontal integration- buying out all refinery and production
Vertical integration- buying out stores, transportation, and refinery to completely control a product
Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest)- strong survive, weak die out. Monopolies used this statement to support and defend themselves
City:
Settlement houses- run by middle-class women to help those in need, usually found in bad neighborhoods
most homes didn't have indoor plumbing, faucets and toilets in the streets.
Sewer lines and sanitation departments created in 1900's
More people=less control=more crime
Jane Addams- made a settlement house in Chicago, activist for anti-war/equality, won Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
Politics:
Emergence of political machines
Start of local governments, more services to people, allowed immigrants to prosper
Gilded Age- government looks good from the outside, not so much on the inside
Election fraud was used in votes; brides to get certain individuals high up
Boss Tweed- William Tweed was the third largest landowner and was a major leader of the demographic party; Head of democratic political machine in NYC; He was convicted of stealing 25-45 million dollars worth of NYC taxpayers in 1877
Patronage/Spoils system, rejected by reformers, wanted by stalwarts
Rutherford B. Hayes and James A Garfield were reformers during presidency
Merit system
Large businesses wanted higher tariffs (higher prices of imported goods)
Segregation and Discrimination:
African Americans couldn't vote because of Literacy Test, Poll Tax, and Grandfather Clause
Jim Crow Laws split utilities and businesses between white and colored, ruled constitutional in Plessy vs. Ferguson (supreme court)
Mexicans were railroad workers and slaves (to pay off debt)
Chinese immigration stopped due to Chinese mobs
Native Americans were forced off their lands; trail of tears killed many of them as they moved to the reservations
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