Key Terms
- Haymarket affair
- the rally and subsequent riot in which several policemen were killed when a bomb was thrown at a peaceful workers’ rights rally in Chicago in 1886
- holding company
- a central corporate entity that controls the operations of multiple companies by holding the majority of stock for each enterprise
- horizontal integration
- method of growth wherein a company grows through mergers and acquisitions of similar companies
- Molly Maguires
- a secret organization made up of Pennsylvania coal miners, named for the famous Irish patriot, which worked through a series of scare tactics to bring the plight of the miners to public attention
- monopoly
- the ownership or control of all enterprises comprising an entire industry
- robber baron
- a negative term for the big businessmen who made their fortunes in the massive railroad boom of the late nineteenth century
- scientific management
- mechanical engineer Frederick Taylor’s management style, also called “stop-watch management,” which divided manufacturing tasks into short, repetitive segments and encouraged factory owners to seek efficiency and profitability over any benefits of personal interaction
- social Darwinism
- Herbert Spencer’s theory, based upon Charles Darwin’s scientific theory, which held that society developed much like plant or animal life through a process of evolution in which the most fit and capable enjoyed the greatest material and social success
- trust
- a legal arrangement where a small group of trustees have legal ownership of a business that they operate for the benefit of other investors
- vertical integration
- a method of growth where a company acquires other companies that include all aspects of a product’s lifecycle from the creation of the raw materials through the production process to the delivery of the final product