U.S. History and Geography Quiz Study List

U.S. History and Geography Quiz Study List

GROWTH OF AN INDUSTRIAL AND URBAN AMERICA

Text Pages 608-613

1.  Technology - It is the application of scientific discoveries to industry to produce machines for human use.

2.  Bessemer Process - It was the “air-boiling” method that allowed the making of steel cheaply from pig iron. This method blasted air through molten iron and oxidized the impurities and that process of oxidation raised the temperature of the iron and kept it molten, saving enormously on the amount of fuel needed to maintain furnace temperatures. The result of this method’s development was the making of lots of steel inexpensively.

3.  Iron Ore, Coal and Oil - They are the three minerals needed for the new industrial age.

4.  Railroads - They are iron horse trails. They were the new industrial transportation system built after the canals to connect parts of the nation and to make travel for people and products easier. They helped cause an industrial boom in the U.S.

5.  Patent – A document issued by the government giving someone the sole right to make and sell an invention.

6.  Thomas Alva Edison - He was called the “Wizard of Menlo Park.” He was a tinkerer who claimed he made inventions to order. Among other things, he invented the electric light bulb and two years later a complete light and power system for mass use of electricity.

7.  Incandescent Light - It is the common light bulb. It was Edison’s solution to the electric arc lamps noisy, cumbersome and too strong a light for home use problem. He figured out a filament that would glow a long time without melting or exploding and how to step down electricity so the entire system wouldn’t be affected by a few lights being turned off.

8.  Alexander Graham Bell - This Scots born speech teacher and inventor figured out how to send voice over wires. His invention earned him fame and a communications company that was named after him. He also devised wax records adapted to Edison’s talking machines as well as man-carrying kites.

9.  Telephone - It is the sender and receiver instrument for sending sound as electrical impulses over wires. It made long distance voice communication possible and practical.

10.  Typewriter - It is a machine for writing in characters similar to printer’s block letters. It uses a keyboard with the operated letters striking paper through an inked ribbon.

11.  Henry Ford, Inventor - He developed an early automobile using an internal combustion engine. He went into business producing autos. His Model T was a mass produced for common people and priced so ordinary people could buy it.

12.  Assembly line - It is the production of products in an efficient manner using machines, workers, and equipment in which work passes from operation to operation in a row until the product is finished.

13.  Wright Brothers - Their invention of the airplane enabled Roosevelt to claim it as one of his many firsts, when he became the first President to ride in one. They successfully flew the first powered plane in 1903.

Text Pages 614-619

14.  Entrepreneurs - They are the people who come up with ideas for producing goods and services. They are willing to take the risks of going into business. Successful historical examples include people like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Bill Gates.

15.  Corporation – Business owned by many investors.

16.  J.P. Morgan – He was the nation’s leading financier for many years. This banker saved the nation during the 1893 Silver Panic by supplying the government with 3.5 million ounces of gold in exchange for government bonds, at President Cleveland’s request.

17.  Monopoly - It is a business that has no competition. Several examples of companies which nearly achieved this extent of economic control are the American Sugar-Refining Company which had 95% o the sugar-refining business in 1895, and Standard Oil Trust which controlled 90% of the nations oil refining and marketing from 1882 through 1911.

18.  Andrew Carnegie - This Scots born immigrant went from rags to riches. He made his fortune in the steel industry. His company became the core of United States Steel that today is called USX. He gave away $350 million, in early 1900’s dollars, to start up 2,800 public libraries (including the Traverse City Public Library), many schools and at least one concert hall.

19.  Philanthropy - It is the grant of aid which in some way promotes the betterment of people. Carnegies funding of libraries, schools and theater is and example.

20.  John D. Rockefeller - At one time he was the world’s wealthiest man. He established Standard Oil Company in 1870. By the early 1880’s he had nearly complete control of U.S. oil refining and shipping facilities when he established Standard Oil industry until the government broke it up after his 1911 Supreme Court loss.

21.  Trust - It was the legal agreement between competing businesses to end their competition and act as one with the stockholders getting dividends from the joint profits. Standard Oil is an example.

22.  Free Enterprise – The system in which privately owned businesses compete fairly.

23.  Captain of Industry - It is the phrase describing the head of a great business empire; a prime example of this type of individual in history is Andrew Carnegie.

24.  Social Darwinism - It is natural selection of business and businessmen according to the adaptation of theory of evolution to free enterprise competition. According to this idea only fittest business and businessmen would survive. Whatever survived would be good. This idea appealed to Carnegie, Rockefeller, Horatio Alger and many Americans of the Gilded Age.

25.  Sweatshop System – It is the manufacture of goods under difficult working conditions by employees paid by the piece.

26.  Conditions of Labor – They are the effects of industrialization on workers. Workers experienced a loss of freedom, a loss of identity, poor wages, lengthy work hours of 12 or more a day for 6 or 7 days a week, and dangerous working conditions.

27.  Child Labor – They were industrial workers from the ages 5 to 14 years who earned wages in the factories. They were paid less than adults, suffered great a deal from the long hours, were more prone to injury in the dangerous factory conditions and they lost out on getting an education and thus a chance at a better life.

28.  Triangle Shirtwaist Factory – It was a major garment industry producer. It kept rotten working conditions despite the union winning reforms in the industry as a whole. In 1911, a major fire broke out killing 146 workers who couldn’t get out of the factory due to blocked exits, etc. Its fire helped lead to laws in New York improving working conditions.

29.  Knights of Labor – This noble order was an organization of workers who supported the 8-hour working day, opposed child and convict labor and wanted equal pay for equal work for women. They thought strikes should be only a last resort. Their successful strike against Jay Gould’s railroads established them as a success from 1869 through the mid-1890s.

30.  Haymarket Affair – It was the riot in Chicago in May 1886 that destroyed the Knights of Labor in public opinion. The rally, the day after the police clash with strikers at the McCormick Harvester plant, turned violent with a bomb killing seven police officers and wounding sixty-seven others. The police attacked, in response, killing ten workers and wounding another fifty. After this, the press and public opinion condemned the Knights of Labor as a gang of radicals.

31.  American Federation of Labor (AFL) – It was league of national unions for skilled workers like plumbers, carpenters, and electricians founded in 1881. It succeeded in its goals of raising skilled labor pay and making the average workweek go from 54.4 hours to 48.9 hours. It stayed out of politics and concentrated on economic goals for its members.

32.  Samuel Gompers – He was a labor leader and founder of the AFL. He led the AFL from 1885 until 1924, with the exception of one year. He made the AFL the first successful confederation of trade unions in U.S. history. He also helped make trade unions respectable.

33.  Collective Bargaining – Unions negotiate with management for workers as a group.

34.  Mother Jones - She was the most famous mine town “mother” during the 1880s and early 1900s. She organized miners, textile workers, etc. into unions. She was a strong supporter for ending child labor.

35.  Pullman Strike – It is an example of government support for industry in 1894. Workers with help of the American Railway Union held a strike against the famous railroad coach and sleeper car construction company. The company refused to negotiate and president Cleveland ordered federal troops to breakup the strike. This failure led to the destruction of the union.

Video: United States History 11: Industrialization and Urbanization + above terms

36.  Long Drive - It was the cowboy-organized movement of a herd of longhorns from Texas to Abilene, Kansas to be shipped to the packing plants in Chicago. The typical herd could cover ten to twenty miles a day, taking about three to four months to reach the railhead for shipment.

Text Pages 620-624

37.  Urbanization – The rapid growth of city populations

38.  Tenements – Buildings divided into many tiny apartments

39.  Jane Addams – Reformer who helped poor urban dwellers. She opened Hull House, the first settlement house, in the slums of Chicago. Immigrants were taught English, sponsored music and sports for young people, provided nursing for children, and other help.

40.  Urban Improvements – At first the basics were improved such as fire protection, sanitation, and police protection. Technology of electric lights, elevated railroads, tall buildings (skyscrapers), department stores, museums, orchestras, art galleries, parks, zoos, gardens all made life more interesting than the rural areas.

41.  Gilded Age Sports – Baseball, basketball, football started and were played at first by ordinary people then as they caught on then professional teams emerged.

42.  American Football – It is a sport that developed out of soccer and rugby in the northeast high schools and colleges during the 19th century. It was not a game for sissy’s as the potential for injury or death was high due to the violence of the game. The sport was forced to change due to public outrage over the violence. Rule changes allowing forward passing and better teamwork were introduced in the early 1900s.

Text Pages 632-635

43.  Compulsory Education – Requirement that children attend school up to a certain age. The requirement started in Massachusetts in 1852 and spread throughout the northeast and then to the rest of the nation. By 1918 every state required children to attend school.

44.  Realists – Writers who try to show life as it really is.

45.  Mark Twain – The most popular author of the Gilded Age. Samuel Clemens made his stories realistic by capturing speech patterns of southerners who lived along the Mississippi River. His most famous novel is Huckleberry Finn. He also wrote about western mining, youth books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, satire like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and The Prince and the Pauper, political satire The Gilded Age, etc.

46.  Gilded Age – It is the name of the time period from roughly 1870 to 1896. Mark Twain called it this name because of the level of corruption existing in national politics.

47.  Newspaper Boom – A benefit of the spread of compulsory education and urbanization. Joseph Pulitzer created the first mass-circulation newspaper, The New York World. He added to his paper color comics like The Yellow Kid, the first popular comic strip character. Sensational headlines about crime and scandal also helped rock sales.

Urban Disaster Articles

48.  1900 Galveston Hurricane – It was one of the most severe West Indian storms ever to lash the United States coast. In the fall of a year at the beginning of the 20th century, it barreled into a Texas city with winds of 100 to 120 mph and a twenty-foot tidal wave. Over 6,000 people, 1/7th of the city’s total population were killed and an equal number injured. The city was almost obliterated.

49.  1900 Galveston Hurricane Reform - It was the political result of the powerful 1900 hurricane and tidal wave that almost demolished a major Texas City on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Because the incompetent politicians botched the rebuilding, it spurred the development of the commission form of government

50.  The Mighty Blizzard of March 1888 – It was the most infamous snowstorm in U.S. history. It battered ten states in the northeast and killed at least 400 people. It’s minus 50 degree Fahrenheit wind-chill temperatures and drifting snow shut down New York while injuring thousands of people. Needless to say the weathermen of the time didn’t correctly predict the storm. The attitude of employers to have workers show up no matter the weather conditions also helped increase the casualty toll.

51.  Chicago Fire – Legend says that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked a lantern in the barn starting the fire. The October 8-10, 1871 fire quickly spread from the Patrick O’Leary barn through central Chicago starting around 9:30 pm. Due to high winds, drought, an already exhausted fire department and the wood buildings soon a wall of flames moved northeast across Chicago. People fled in panic to Lake Michigan. Unexpected rainfall on October 10th helped the fire-fighters gain control. 300 were killed; hundreds injured and about 90,000 were left homeless. Subsequently Michigan was deforested to rebuild Chicago.