The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872-1873 damaged the careers of several Gilded Age politicians. Major stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company, the Crédit Mobilier of America, and gave it contracts to build the railroad. They sold or gave shares in this construction to influential congressmen.
A Union or Northern soldier during the Civil War was often referred to as a "Yankee," although this was sometimes used in a derogative sense by people in the South.
