THE ROBBER BARONS OF THE 19TH CENTURY Essays - Gilded Age

THE ROBBER BARONS OF THE 19TH CENTURY Essays - Gilded Age THE ROBBER BARONS OF THE 19TH CENTURY Cornelius Vanderbuilt... ... an ill educated, ungrammatical, coarse, and ruthless, but clear-visioned man. He started his millions in the steamboat industry. As a young boy he went to work for a small steamboat owner, Thomas Gibbons. After learning how to operate a steamboat, he designed one and persuaded Gibbons to build it. Vanderbuilt's slogans of low prices for superior rates attracted many customers. But an unknown to the passengers was that the food and drink on the boat was extravagantly overpriced. Later Vanderbuilt saw that real money was in the railroad business. He established a shipping-land transit across Nicaragua, in response to the California gold rush. In 1873 he was the first to connect New York and Chicago by rail. During all the money making, farmers were feeling the rear end of it all. Hit hard by the depression of the 1870s, they protested against "railroad bankruptcy". The government then stepped in and tried to control the railroad monopolies. By winning the Wabash case, it proclaimed that individual states had no power to regulate interstate commerce. Congress took it further by establishing the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887. It prohibited rebates and pools and required the railroads to publish their rates openly. It also forbade unfair discrimination against shippers and outlawed charging more for a short haul then a long one over the same line. Andrew Carnegie... ... was known as the steel king. He was a gifted organizer and administrator. After achieving partnership in the "Pittsburgh millionaires", he further his wealth by devising the "vertical integration", which eliminated middleman fees. Carnegie integrated every phase of his steel-making operations; they were his miners at the Mesabi Range, they were his ships carrying the goods across the Great Lakes, his railroads that delivered to Pittsburgh, and his men who sold it; from mining to marketing, he was in charge of it all. Through this he could improve the efficiency by making supplies more reliable, control the quality of the product at all stages, and eliminating middleman fees and beat out his competitors who had to pay middleman fees. He could deign any price on his steel. The government did not do much to stop Carnegie. But a hindrance in Carnegie's fortune building was the homestead strike. After Carnegie had bought the new steel industry, the people went on strike. Not wanting to deal with the strikers, he waited them out and hired scabs in the mean time. J. Pierpont Morgan... ... a very wealthy man, was a banker's banker. He had devised a way of eliminating competition called "interlocking directories". During the depression of 1890s, many bleeding business men were driven into Morgan's wealthy arms. His prescribed remedy for them was to consolidate their rival enterprises and to ensure future harmony, he placed his own officers of his banking syndicate on their various boards of directors. By owning shares from eclectic companies, he increased his wealth. Later he bought out Carnegie and his steel company. The by adding other companies to join his empire, his wealth increased even more. He was also in control of six major railroad lines as well as the steel corporation. Being of very wealthy descendants, he had plenty of gold in times when even the government was in need. He lent many businessmen money as well as the government, so the government, being in debt to Morgan, could do little to stop him. But then in 1933, the Banking Act was established. Although J.P. Morgan was out of the picture by then, this act effected his company by splitting the company in half. Some partners and workers left but the company still managed to keep intact and continued their success. John D. Rockefeller... ... was an oil baron. He was the owner of the Standard Oil Company. His monopolizing strategy was the "horizontal integration", consolidating with competitors to monopolize a given market. To control bothersome rivals, he created the "trust", the Standard Oil Trust. A board of trustees was set up and the company's properties were placed in its hands. Then every week each stockholder received their share of the profits. This allowed the Standard Oil to function as a monopoly since the board of Trustees ran all

ABA - Applied Behavior Analysis

ABA - Applied Behavior Analysis ABA or Applied Behavior Analysis is a time tested and data-based strategy for teaching children with disabilities. It is most often used with children with autistic spectrum disorders but is an effective tool for children with behavioral disorders, multiple disabilities, and severe intellectual handicaps. It is the only treatment for Autistic Spectrum disorders approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration.) ABA is based on the work of B.F. Skinner, also known as the father of Behaviorism.   Behaviorism is a scientific means of understanding behavior.   Known as the three-term contingency, behavior is stimulus, response, and reinforcement.   It is also understood as Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence, or ABC.   The ABCs of ABA The antecedent is what happens before the behavior, and may or may not have a causal relationship.  The behavior is what the subject does:   we try to operationalize the behavior, or find a way to objectively describe the behavior.   We would not say Jimmy was disrespectful, we would say Jimmy shouted at the teacher and called her an inappropriate racially charged term.  Finally, the consequence, or what happens after the behavior.   It is usually here that we look for the reinforcement: in other words, what Jimmy gets out of calling the teacher that bad name.   Is it attention from his peers?   Is it being sent to the office so he misses the spelling test?   Another scientist who significantly credited with developing ABA was Ivar Lovaas, a psychologist at the University of California Los Angeles.   His seminal work in applying behaviorism to children significantly disabled with autism led to what we now call ABA.   For many people, behaviorism seems overly mechanistic.   Human beings are value and meaning assigning creatures, and we would like to believe that there is some powerful underlying mystic about behaviorhence Freudianism.   Although it may seem simplistic, behaviorism may be the best way to strip away all our cultural prejudices and see behaviors as they are.   This is especially helpful with children with autism, who have difficulty with communication, appropriate social interaction, and language.   Moving to the three-term contingency helps us evaluate what we really see when we see a behavior.   So Jimmy tantrums?   What is the antecedent?   Does it cause it?   What does the behavior look like?   And finally, what happens when Jimmy tantrums?   ABA has proven to be an effective means to support appropriate social, functional and even academic behavior.   A special form of ABA, known as VBA or Verbal Behavioral Analysis, applies the tenets of ABA to language; hence Verbal Behavior. The BACB, or Behavior Analyst Certification Board, is the international organization that certifies professionals who design and create the therapies that are used, especially what are called Discrete Trials.   Discrete trials involve the stimulus, response, reinforcement three-term contingency mentioned above. The BACB also maintains a roster of local BCBAs who can provide services to children with autism. Also Known As: VBA, Lovaas