-Tell me about Andrew Carnegie.
- He was and immigrant from Scotland, his family was very poor. He managed to get a job as Superintendent for the Pennsylvania Railroad. His boss rewarded him with buying stock and he did well. He made a steel mill that had fantastic productivity and got rich off the company, which he eventually sold to J.P Morgan. He became a great philanthropist setting up libraries, institutions, a college and the very famous Carnegie Hall. He had business strategies Vertical and Horizontal integration in order to buy out companies and control as much of the steel business as possible.
-Tell me about John D. Rockefeller.
- He owned the Standard Oil Company. He became very wealthy because of his success in the company, Becoming the richest man of all time (in North America).
-What was Social Darwinism and how did it apply to business?
- Social Darwinism=Survival of the fittest. The bigger businesses would trample the smaller businesses by making it impossible for small businesses to compete. They believed that the rich should become richer.
-Explain how companies formed monopolies(vertical/horizontal integration, trusts)
- You buy out suppliers to make it so smaller companies cannot get supplies and they eventually fail. When the companies fail the major company would buy them out also and continue to expand their own company. In doing this they would form a monopoly, where one company controls and entire industry.
-How did the government try to regulate business?
- They really tried to stay out of business.
Laissez-faire. The Sherman anti trust law, broke up monopolies.
-What are labor unions and what is their purpose?
A union of workers who worked together to obtain better pay, better working conditions(safety), shorter hours, vacation time and other benefits. They also made demands for equal pay and to end child labor.
Were labor unions successful in achieving their goals? Explain/Give examples.
- Yes in some areas they were and it took them a long time to get what they wanted. They struggled for a really long time.
Comments