The American Economy

Anti-Imperialist League

  Organization composed mainly of old-fashioned liberal New England politicians, publicists, and intellectuals, who challenged America’s overseas territorial expansion at the close of the nineteenth century Members founded the Anti-Imperialist League at a meeting in Faneuil Hall in Boston on June 15, 1898, in direct response to U.S. expansion in the Caribbean and Pacific at […]

Antidumping

  Preventing the placing of goods on the market in large quantities at a price below normal cost to eliminate competition. Dumping of goods into the United States by foreign manufacturers dates back to the early 1800s. After the Napoleonic Wars, both the British and the French dumped products on the U.S. market, and Congress […]

American System

  Term used by Henry Clay, representative from Kentucky, in a speech before the House of Representatives on March 31, 1824, in favor of a protective tariff and a federal program designed to stimulate the nation’s economic growth and reduce economic dependency on Europe. During the “Era of Good Feelings” from 1816 to 1824, businesspeople […]

Agricultural Policy

  Discussions of agricultural policy in the United States typically focus on price support systems established through the Department of Agriculture. These programs certainly deserve a position at the center of any analysis of agricultural policy, since they have fostered substantial budgetary outlays and large administrative bureaucracies. However, this focus can be somewhat misleading. The […]

Antitrust Suits

  Lawsuits arising when competitors engage in prohibited practices like fixing prices, rigging bids, or allocating customers, which causes prices to rise to artificially high levels or reduces competition. Antitrust laws prohibit practices restraining trade, reducing competition, and promoting or maintaining monopoly power in virtually all industries. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, […]

Antitrust Legislation

  Antitrust legislation is a central tenet of U.S. economic policy and indeed a major force in U.S. economic history. For more than a century, it has shaped the face of modern capitalism and has promoted the idea that free markets and free competition are beneficial to society and even to democracy. At the same […]

Antiunion Policies

  Position taken by the federal government toward labor unions during the nineteenth century. After the Civil War the start of the industrial revolution in the United States led to dramatic changes in labor. Traditionally, Americans owned small proprietorships or worked as apprentices for a skilled master. With the introduction of automated machinery and the […]

Articles of Confederation (1776-1789)

  Document that established the interim government in power from the American Revolution in 1 111 until the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789. The Confederation operated as a loose arrangement, rather than a federal system. It was a central government that could ask for funds, supplies, and troops but had no method to […]

Arab Oil Embargo (1973-1974)

  An embargo—a stoppage of oil shipments from OPEC countries to the West—that created a severe energy crisis among the western industrialized nations. Arab displeasure with the pro-Israeli policy of the United States and some European countries during the October 1973 Yom Kippur war in the Middle East occasioned the imposition of an oil embargo […]

Baby Boom

  Explosive population increase that occurred between 1946 and 1964. After World War II, the United States experienced an abnormal number of births per year. In 1940, records indicate that about 2.6 million Americans were born. As servicemen and servicewomen returned home after World War II, married, and had more children, traditional living arrangements changed. […]

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