Industrialization
US Industrial Advantages
Natural Resources
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abundance of raw materials
water, timber, coal, iron, copper
motivated settlement of west
petroleum industry built on demand for
kerosene
Large Workforce
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US population tripled, 1860-1910
large families & immigration
20 million immigrants—many from China and
Eastern Europe
Bicknell Families
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Vass/Vash
Teryanyi
Dumas, Almaras,
Chambon, DeCoursey
Maberto
O’Hara, O’Conner,
O’Dell
Vendes/Vengis
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Marczak, Stanczak,
Zak
Moore, Russell, Cullen
The Government’s Role
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Laissez-faire
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economic system in which government “lets
alone” business & markets
low taxes, little regulation
Support of Business
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subsidies for roads, canals, railroads
high protective tariffs (tax on imported goods)
New Inventions
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1874 Alexander Graham Bell—telephone
1877 Thomas Edison—phonograph
1879 Thomas Edison—light bulb, electric
generator
1882 Thomas Edison—electric company
(later GE)
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Edison, 1847-1931
Firestone, Ford, & Edison
Technology’s Impact
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1877 refrigeration allowed RR cars to ship
fresh meat (Swift)
looms—cheap cloth
sewing machines—cheap, ready-made
clothes
mass-produced cheaper shoes
The Railroads
America’s 1st Big Business
Linking the Nation
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1865: 35,000 miles of RR
1900: 200,000 miles of RR
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Pacific Railway Act, 1862
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encouraged transcontinental RR
The Transcontinental Railroad
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Union Pacific
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engineer Grenville Dodge pushed west from
Omaha, NE
10,000 workers, many Irish immigrants
“Hell on Wheels”
Central Pacific
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The “Big Four:” Leland Stanford, Charley Crocker
Mark Hopkins Collis P. Huntington
California investors made fortune
10,000 workers, many Chinese
The Transcontinental Railroad
Chinese Workers, Central Pacific RR
The Golden Spike
Railroads Spur Growth
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Linking other lines
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Commodore Vanderbilt consolidated RRs in NY
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NY Central 1869
Grand Central Station
Vanderbilt controlled all lines to Chicago by 1873
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt
Benefits of a national system
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time zones
cheaper freight
created more homogeneous US
The Land Grant System
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Federal Government subsidized RR growth
with 120 million acres of western lands
RR companies then sold it to pay costs of
construction
Robber Barons
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Jay Gould
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Gould acted as “shark” on Wall
St. becoming “richest man in
America” by buying & selling
RR stock
Gould became “most hated
man in America” by ruining
many RR companies
Crédit Mobilier Scandal
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construction co. owned by same stockholders
of Union Pacific
overcharged for its work so RR paid inflated
bills
investors made millions, but RR needed more
grants
Congressmen bought off with discounted
shares in Union Pacific
Congress implicated in investigation
The Great Northern
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James J. Hill built RR from
Minnesota to Washington with no
grants or subsidies
well-planned route to towns
discount fares to homesteaders
carried Chinese import freight on
return trips
honestly-run Great Northern didn’t
go bankrupt with rest
The Great Northern Railway
Big Business
The Rise of Big Business
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The Role of Corporations
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new laws allowed for more corporations after
1830s
selling stock allows for bigger projects
Consolidation of Industry
Andrew Carnegie
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poor Scottish immigrant
who began as “bobbin
boy” in textile mill
Andrew Carnegie
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RR supervisor; began investing
met Henry Bessemer (Bessemer process)
founded Carnegie Steel
millionaire by age 30
Vertical & Horizontal Integration
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Carnegie Steel bought coal mines; limestone
quarries; iron ore fields
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vertical integration=greater profit
John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil bought
out competitors
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90% of oil refining by 1900
horizontal integration=eventual monopoly
Standard Oil as The Octopus, 1904
Carnegie & Rockefeller
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Carnegie gave away $300 million to charity—
mostly libraries
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enjoyed public affection
John D. Rockefeller
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Rockefeller died at 98
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devout Baptist & charitable,
but despised by public
Standard Oil came to
symbolize a danger to
democracy
Trusts
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allows one person to manage another
person’s property
Standard Oil the first trust to merge
businesses legally
stockholders gave their shares to “trustees”
who managed several companies as if one
Holding Companies
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New Jersey allowed corporations in NJ to
own stock in other businesses
holding companies controlled all of the
companies it owned
Labor Unions
Working in the US
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Industry achieved high productivity through
long hours, low wages, and dangerous
conditions
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1900: avg factory worker 22¢ hr., 59 hour week
workers in 1890s angered by lower wages even
though prices deflated
Early Unions
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Two basic types of workers in 1800s
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craft workers: special skills & training; higher wages
common laborers: few skills, lower wages
Craft workers began to form trade unions—limited
to people with skills
Industry opposes unions
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corporations forced to deal with trade unions, but refused to
deal with industrial unions
corp. used blacklists, lockouts, strikebreakers, private
detectives to prevent unions
Political & Social Opposition
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unions had no legal rights
sometimes outlawed
associated with Marxism, anarchism, and
foreigners
The Struggle to Organize
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
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July 1877 wage cuts triggered 1st nationwide
labor protest
80,000 workers in 11 states walked off job
100 people killed in violence between
workers and state militias
US Army reopened railroads
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The Knights of Labor
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secret, but peaceable society that sought
“universal brotherhood” of all workers
advocated free land, income tax, public
ownership of RR, equal pay for women,
abolition of child labor
successful strike against Gould’s RRs
increased membership to 700,000
1st nationwide industrial union
The Haymarket Riot
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May 1886 strike for 8-hour day
3,000 unionists & anarchists demonstrated in
Chicago’s Haymarket Square
someone threw a bomb at police
11 killed
end of 8-hr day & Knights of Labor
American Federation of Labor
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Samuel Gompers
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called for “plain & simple
unionism”
unions should stay out of
politics
rejected socialist & Marxist
ideas
American Federation of Labor
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Three Main Goals:
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union recognition & collective bargaining
closed shops: union workers only
8-hour workday
by 1900, biggest union
but less than 18% of workers belonged
to any union
Working Women
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1900: 18% of workers were women
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1/3 were domestic servants
1/3 were teachers, nurses, sales clerks,
secretaries
1/3 were factory workers, especially garment
industry
regardless of job, women were paid less than
men
most unions rejected women
Women’s Trade Union League, first in 1903