GILDED AGE KEY MONOPOLISTS AND LABOR UNIONS REFERENCE CHART
OWNER/INDUSTRIALIST
Cornelius Vanderbilt
COMPANY NAME
Various regional railroad companies
INDUSTRY
railroads
Andrew Carnegie
J. Pierpont Morgan
US Steel
United States Steel Corporation; General Electric; JP Morgan &
Company
Standard Oil Company
Standard Oil Company; Florida East Coast Railroad
Union Trust Company
Union Pacific and Western Pacific railroads
steel
banking; investment
John D. Rockefeller
Henry Flagler
Andrew Mellon
Jay Gould
oil
oil; railroads
Banking
Railroads
KNIGHTS OF LABOR
Background
• • • • Program
• • • • • • • Strategies
Results
• • • • • Founded 1869
Initially secret
Industrial union (skilled and unskilled
laborers)
Included women and African-Americans
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
(AFL)
• Known as AFL
• Samuel Gompers president from 18861924
• Limited to skilled white male workers
• Federation of self-governing trade
unions
Reform of economic system
Economic power for workers
End of wage system-workers determine
prices and wages, split profit
End of government-monopoly
partnership
Equal pay for sexes
8-hour workday
Strongly anti-Asian
• Preferred peaceful boycotts
Some strikes (leadership opposed
method)-participated in 1886 Haymarket
Square Incident
• Bureau of Labor Statistics created
(1884)
National law allowing arbitration of
labor disputes (1884)
Declined due to AFL influence in 1890s
and Haymarket Square incident
• • • • • • • • • • • SOCIALIST PARTY OF LABOR
• • • Accepted ideas of capitalism and wage
system
Better working conditions
Higher wages
Shorter hours
Women should not be allowed in
workplace
Companies should have to hire unionassociated members (closed shop)
• Sought support from various societal
groups (churches, state legislatures)
Supported strikers (Homestead Strike1892; Anthracite Coal Strike-1902;
Ludlow Massacre of 1914; series of
strikes in 1919)
Collective bargaining
Led to creation of Labor Day (1894)
Gompers elected to National War Labor
Board during WWI
Clayton Antitrust Act (1914):
recognized unions as not hurting
trade/business
Suffered setbacks in 1920s as nation
became largely anti-union in face of
communism
• • • • • • • • • • • • INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE
WORLD-IWW (Wobblies)
Founded in 1905
Assortment of socialists, radicals, and
independent unionists
Led by William “Big Bill” Haywood
Largely aligned with Socialist Party
More successful in West than East
(mines, lumber camps, farms)
Abolition of wage system
Endorsed struggle between working
class and employing class
Denounced capitalism
Supported immigrant rights
Opposed WWI
Led by Eugene Debs
Founded in 1901
Strength in South and Midwest (former
Populist locations) as well as
manufacturing centers in north
• • Varied in degree of opposition to
capitalism (some for abolition while
others nationalization of major
industries)
Free college education
Improved working conditions
Minimum wage
Shorter hours
Government aid to unemployed
Government ownership of railroads,
banks, and factories
Using electoral politics to have
supporters elected
Some direct action (protests, marches)
Relied on newspapers to spread message
• • • • Supported use of strike
Endorsed direct action (marches,
protests, large meetings)
Ran candidates for presidency in 1904
(3%), 1908 (2.8%), 1912 (6%), and 1920
(3.4%)
Leaders arrested during WWI for
opposition to war effort
Red Scare of 1920s focused on
“subversives” including socialists
• • Few accomplishments
Major efforts by state and federal
governments to suppress
• • • • • •