Key terms dealing with mines Comstock Lode

Key terms dealing with mines? • Comstock Lode • Boom town • Ghost town • problems • Silver strike in the Sierra Nevadas • Town that quickly grew up at a gold strike • Boom towns after the gold was gone • Pollution, Native Americans pushed off their land, foreign miners treated poorly

Transcontinental Railroad • Could travel by rail across the United States • Attracted Chinese immigrants • Brought rapid growth – economic and settlement

Key terms dealing with ranching? • longhorns • Cattle Kingdom • Cattle that roamed free in the West • Ranches spread throughout the West • Reasons for success • Need for beef for miners, railroad workers, etc. Railroads could ship beef from cities like Kansas City to eastern cities • Ranchers let their cattle wander. Barbed wire ended this practice and changes ranching. • Open range

Key terms dealing with farming on the plains? • Homestead Act • Sodhouses • sodbusters • 160 acres given free if the land was farmed for 5 years. • Houses made out of sod – best building material on the plains. • Nickname for farmers who had to break through the thick layer of sod to farm.

Populist Party • 1891 -1896 • Consisted of farmers and labor unions • Free silver – all silver mined to be made into money • William Jennings Bryan was most famous member

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Key terms dealing with Native Americans on the plains? • buffalo • “Walk the white man’s road. ” • Chivington Massacre • Battle of Little Bighorn • Dawes Act (1887) • N. A. culture totally depended on it. • Tried to make N. A. act like white settlers • Native Americans slaughtered • General Custer and his men were killed • Attempted to make farmers out of N. A. - Very unsuccessful.

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What is a corporation ? Business owned by investors who buy shares of stock.

Key terms dealing with corporations? • Capital • Stockholder • dividend • Money to invest • Share in a corporation (partial ownership) • Owner of stock (partial owner of a company) • Payment to stockholder from a corporations profit

So why do you invest in a corporation? To make money – either through the price of your stock going up and then you sell it for a profit or through dividends.

Key terms dealing with railroads? • network • consolidate • System of connected lines • When companies combine • rebates • Discounts to large customers • pool • Several railroad companies divide up business and agree to charge high rates

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What do we need to know about the steel industry? • Leading company • Leading individual • U. S. Steel • Andrew Carnegie • Name of process for making cheap and strong steel • Bessemer Process

Important individuals in the rise of big business? • J. P. Morgan • Andrew Carnegie • Leading banker • U. S. Steel (Steel Industry) • John D. Rockefeller • Standard Oil (Oil Industry) • Cornelius Vanderbilt • Steamships and railroads

What do Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt all have in common? • Started as poor people • Became filthy rich • Gave away most of their profits to projects benefiting society

Important terms for big business. • Trust • monopoly • Group of corporations run by a single board of directors. • Company that controls all of an industry. • Free enterprise system • Businesses that are owned by private citizens. Companies compete by making the nest products at the lowest price.

Inventors and inventions you need to know: • • • Sleeping car • telephone • phonograph • Light bulb • Automated assembly • line (allowed for mass production) George Pullman Alexander Graham Bell Thomas Edison Henry Ford

Knights of Labor • Terence Powderly • 1869 -1886 • Very idealistic (create a perfect workplace all at once) • Not for strikes • Haymarket Riot brought about its end

American Federation of Labor (AFL) • • • Samuel Gompers 1886 Union of skilled worker unions Baby steps to improve the workplace Supported strikes

Labor terms you need to know: • strike • injunction • Scabs • boycott • Refusal to work • Court order to go back to work • Workers who replaced strikers (very unpopular) • Refusal to buy a company’s goods

What was the importance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire tragedy? It led to safer working conditions in factories.

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