Air blown through molten pig iron burned out the carbon and other impurities in minutes, dropping the price of a ton of steel far below what it had been. What is this steelmaking process called?

A shallow regenerative furnace melts pig iron together with scrap over several hours, letting the crew test and correct the batch before tapping it. It gradually replaced the converter in American mills. Which process is it?

Before 1900 the refineries of western Pennsylvania sold one product above all others: a cheap, clean-burning lamp fuel that replaced whale oil in American homes. What was it?

A steam engine turns a machine that spins coils of wire between magnets, and current flows out along wires to light a street. What is that machine called?

In an older mill one steam engine turned a long overhead shaft and every machine was belted to it. What let a factory give each machine its own power and lay out the floor freely?

Direct current faded within about a mile of the generating station. What made it possible to send electric power from a distant waterfall to a city?

Chicago packers wanted to ship dressed beef to eastern cities instead of shipping live cattle east on the hoof. Which kind of railroad car made that possible?

Compressed-air brakes controlled by the engineer let railroads run longer, heavier and faster trains than hand brakes set car by car allowed.

Ownership is divided into shares that can be bought and sold, the business can sue and be sued in its own name, and it goes on existing when an owner dies. Which form of business is described?

Stockholders of several competing companies hand their voting stock to a single board of trustees and take certificates in return. Each company keeps its own charter, but one board directs them all. What is this called?

A firm manufactures nothing at all. Its business is owning a controlling block of stock in several operating companies and voting that stock to direct them. What is such a firm called?

Rival railroads agree among themselves to divide the freight traffic between them and hold rates up. No line buys another and each stays separately owned. What kind of arrangement is this?

In a corporation, who elects the board of directors that hires the managers and sets company policy?

A railroad sells bonds to pay for new track. What has a person who buys one of those bonds actually bought?

If a corporation fails owing more than it can pay, its shareholders must pay the remaining debts out of their own personal property.

A packing company owns the stockyards, the packing houses, the refrigerated cars that carry the meat and the ice-cooled branch houses that sell it in eastern cities. Which strategy is this?

A refiner buys out one rival refinery after another in the same city until it controls most of the refining capacity there. Which strategy is this?

Outside coke suppliers raised prices twice in a year and once left a furnace standing idle, so a steel firm bought its own coal fields and coke ovens. Besides coke, what did that purchase buy the firm?

A harvester maker drops its independent dealers and builds its own sales branches, credit offices and repair-parts depots across the farm states. What did the company gain by doing this?

Twelve rival wire-nail makers combine into a single company, which then closes its smallest and costliest mills and runs the remaining ones at full capacity. What advantage did combining give?

A plant built to run day and night at full capacity spreads the cost of its buildings and machinery over far more units than a plant running half the time. What is this advantage called?

Combining several firms that all make the same product at the same stage of production is called horizontal integration.

A railroad-car builder owns its own foundry, wheel works and paint shops, and it has also bought the only two other firms that build the same cars. How is this company best described?

Before 1883 a station clock was set by local noon, so a traveler crossing one state passed through many different times. Why did the railroads, of all businesses, take the lead in creating four standard time zones?

In 1886 the southern railroads shifted thousands of miles of track to the same gauge the northern lines used. What did that change end?

Wires strung beside the track carried a New York price quotation to Chicago in minutes, long before any shipment could make the trip. What did that do to markets?

A family on a farm 30 miles from the nearest store orders a stove from a thick illustrated catalog, and the railroad brings it. What made mail-order selling work?

One downtown store sells clothing, furniture, toys and groceries in separate departments, each item marked with a fixed price and returnable if the buyer is not satisfied. What was new about this way of retailing?

Chicago elevators stored grain together by inspected grade, so a buyer could purchase 'No. 2 wheat' by the carload without ever seeing it. Why did that matter to a national market?

By 1900 makers of soap and canned soup were selling in printed, branded packages and advertising in magazines read across the country. What did national brand advertising let a maker do?