American Industrialization Documents
Gilded Age/Industrialization and the Rise of Big Business
Duration: 1 Day
Objective/Learning Target
The student will analyze the economic issues related to the Gilded Age.
TEKS(3) History. The student understands the political, economic, and social changes in the United States from
1877 to 1898. The student is expected to:
(B) - analyze economic issues such as industrialization, the growth of railroads, the growth of labor
unions, farm issues, the cattle industry boom, and the rise of entrepreneurship, free enterprise, and
the pros and cons of big business
(15) Economics. The student understands domestic and foreign issues related to U.S. economic growth from
the 1870s to 1920. The student is expected to:
(B) - describe the changing relationship between the federal government and private business,
including the costs and benefits of laissez-faire, anti-trust acts, the Interstate Commerce Act, and the
Pure Food and Drug Act.
(27) Science, technology, and society. The student understands the impact of science, and technology, and
the free enterprise system on the economic development of the United States. The student is expected to:
(A) - explain the effects of scientific discoveries and technological innovations such as electric power,
the telephone and satellite communications, petroleum-based products, steel production, and
computers on the economic development of the United States.
(28) Science, technology, and society. The student understands the influence of scientific discoveries, and
technological innovations, and the free enterprise system on daily life the standard of living in the United
States. The student is expected to:
(A) - analyze how scientific discoveries, technological innovations, and the application of these by the
free enterprise system including those in transportation and communication improve the standard of
living in the United States.
Materials NeededDocument Sets (1 set per every group of 4 students)
Document Analysis Instruction Page – one per group
Industrial Revolution Document Analysis chart – 1 per student
Gilded Age Document Questions – 1 per student
Teaching StrategyEngage:
1. Provide each group of students with a set of the documents and a document analysis instruction page.
Explain to students that they are looking at documents that will help explain the time period known as
Industrialization. Teacher Note: It would be helpful to explain to students that Historians don’t get
their information from textbooks but rather are somewhat like detectives – investigating the evidence
that is in front of them.
2. Instruct students to analyze the documents and divide them into categories. The categories should be
left up to the students, let them investigate the documents and sort them categories that make sense
to them. Allow them to share how they sorted with the class and discuss as needed. How does looking
at documents give us a sense of what this time period will be like?
Explain/Elaborate:
3. Provide students with the Industrial Revolution Document Analysis chart and have them fill in the
information related to each document.
Teacher Note:
a. The focus is on the economic issues of each document.
b. There is also a column for what questions they have about the document. This will allow the
teacher to help students analyze the documents.
c. Positive/Negative column – have students determine if this document represents a positive or
negative point of view about the time period.
4. Once students have completed their analysis, allow them to ask the questions that they have about the
documents. Allow other groups to respond if they know the answer.
5. Next, provide students with the Gilded Age Document Activity question page and instruct them to
work with their group and the documents to answer the questions.
Evaluate:
Formative AssessmentGraphic organizer and student evaluation questions
Summative AssessmentGilded Age Unit Assessment
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14,
Industrial Revolution Document Analysis
Document Description
What are the Economic issues presented in this document?
What questions do you have about
this document?
Positive/Negative
Document
What are the Economic issues presented in this document?
What questions do you have about
this document?
Positive/Negative
The Gilded Age Document Activity
The Gilded Age is the time period from the end of the Civil War to approximately 1898. This era
of history received its name from a novel published by Mark Twain in 1873: Gilded Age: A Tale
of Today. The term gilding means to cover a solid surface such as wood, stone, or metal by
applying a thin coating of gold. It gives the object the appearance of being solid gold but
underneath it is not as valuable.
Using the primary and secondary source documents you reviewed, answer the following
questions:
1. How would life be different for the average citizen living during this time?
2. What were the technological and scientific discoveries of this time?
3. How would the scientific discoveries of this time period effect the economic development
of the United States?
4. How would the scientific discoveries of this time period impact the standard of living in
the United States?
5. How would the growth of big business change the United States?
6. What are the benefits of working for a corporation rather than owning your own
business?
7. How does the concept of Social Darwinism support “laissez-faire” capitalism?
8. How does the doctrine of “laissez-faire” effect business? What would the costs and
benefits of this doctrine be?
9. To what extent should the government have a role in business?
Primary Source
Document A
In 1855, Henry Bessemer received patent #16802 for the Bessemer convertor or furnace – “The process of
refining molten iron with blasts of air”. It speeded up the process of turning steel out of iron. Steel’s was
more light weight and stronger than iron. It led to building skyscrapers, railroad lines, trains, and ships.
From: the Pittsburgh Collection, sub-collection of the Pittsburgh Photographic Library Collection, Carnegie
Library of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Dept.
Persistent URL: hdl.handle.net/10493/482
National Archives Source Info:
Thomas Edison's Electric Lamp Patent Drawing Record Group 241
Records of the Patent and Trademark Office - National Archives and Records Administration
ARC Identifier: 302503
Primary Source
Document B
Primary Source
Document C
This patent for
“improvements in
telegraphy” eventually
became the telephone. The
Bell Telephone Company
would later become AT&T the
largest telephone company in
the world. By 1883, the cities
of New York and Boston were
connected by telephone.
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inv
entors
Source: National Archives Drawing
Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone Patent Drawing
Record Group 241
Records of the Patent and Trademark Office
National Archives and Records Administration
ARC Identifier: 302052
Primary Source
Document D
Source/Date: Puck, December 10, 1879
Primary Source
Document E
Primary Source
Document F
“What is the chief end of man? – to get rich.
In what way? – dishonestly if we can; honestly
if we must.”
--Mark Twain -1871
“The Revised Catechism”
Primary Source
Document G
The Congress shall have power:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors
and Inventors the exclusive Right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries.
United States Constitution: Article I, Section 8, Clause 8
http://regentsprep.org/Regents/ushisgov/graphics/3b_5.gif
Primary Source
Document H
Primary Source
Document I
Title: Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
Author: U.S. Government
Year Published: 1887
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
Be it enacted..., That the provisions of this act shall apply to any common
carrier or carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property
wholly by railroad, or partly by railroad and partly by water when both are
used, under a common control, management, or arrangement, for a
continuous carriage or shipment, from one State or Territory of the United
States, or the District of Columbia, or from any place in the United States
through a foreign country to any other place in the United States, and also to
the transportation in like manner of property shipped from any place in the
United States to a foreign country and carried from such place to a port of
transshipment, or shipped from a foreign country to any other place in the
United States, and also to the transportation in like manner of property
shipped from any place in the United States to a foreign country and carried
from such place to a port of entry either in the United States or an adjacent
foreign country: Provided, however, That the provisions of this act shall not
apply to the transportation of passengers or property, or to the receiving,
delivering, storage, or handling of property, wholly within one State, and not
shipped to or from a foreign country from or to any State or Territory as
aforesaid.
The term "railroad" as used in this act shall include all bridges and ferries
used or operated in connection with any railroad, and also all the road in use
by any corporation operating a railroad, whether owned or operated under a
contract, agreement, or lease; and the term "transportation" shall include all
instrumentalities of shipment or carriage.
All charges made for any service rendered or to be rendered in the
transportation of passengers or property as aforesaid, or in connection
therewith, or for the receiving, delivering, storage, or handling of such
property, shall be reasonable and just; and every unjust and unreasonable
charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.
Sec. 2. That if any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall,
directly or indirectly, by any special rate, rebate, drawback, or other device,
charge, demand, collect, or receive from any person or persons a greater or
less compensation for any service rendered, or to be rendered, in the
transportation of passengers or property, subject to the provisions of this
act, than it charges, demands, collects, or receives from any other person or
persons for doing for him or them a like and contemporaneous service in the
transportation of a like kind of traffic under substantially similar
circumstances and conditions, such common carrier shall be deemed guilty of
unjust discrimination, which is hereby prohibited and declared to be
Primary Source
Document I
unlawful.
Sec. 3. That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the
provisions of this act to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference
or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation, or
locality, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever, or
to subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation, or locality, or
any particular description of traffic, to any undue or unreasonable prejudice
or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever….
Sec. 11. That a Commission is hereby created and established to be known
as the Inter-State Commerce Commission, which shall be composed of five
Commissioners, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate. The Commissioners first appointed under
this act shall continue in office for the term of two, three, four, five, and six
years, respectively, from January 1, 1887, the term of each to be designated
by the President; but their successors shall be appointed for terms of six
years. . . . Any Commissioner may be removed by the President for
inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. Not more than three of
the Commissioners shall be appointed from the same political party. No
person in the employ of or holding any official relation to any common carrier
subject to the provisions of this act, or owning stock or bonds thereof, or
who is in any manner pecuniarily interested therein, shall enter upon the
duties of or hold such office. Said Commissioners shall not engage in any
other business, vocation, or employment. No vacancy in the Commission
shall impair the right of the remaining Commissioners to exercise all the
powers of the Commission.
Civics Online
http://www.civics-online.org
Primary Source
Document J
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Library of Congress
www.loc.gov/teachers
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Library of Congress
www.loc.gov/teachers
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Library of Congress
www.loc.gov/teachers
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3701p+rr005950))
Library of Congress
www.loc.gov/teachers
Secondary Source
Document K
Economic Terms
Free Enterprise – An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of
production, free markets, and the right of individuals to make most economic decisions. The
free enterprise system is also called the free market system or capitalism.
In a free enterprise system, producers and consumers are motivated by self-interest. To
maximize their profits, producers and consumers are motivated by self-interest. To maximize
their profits, producers try to make goods and services that consumers want. Producers also
engage in competition – through lowering prices, advertising their products, and improving
product quality – to encourage consumers to buy their goods. Consumers serve their selfinterest by purchasing the best goods and services for the lowest price.
Government plays a limited, but important, role in most free-enterprise economies…
Source: McDougal Littell - The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century
Business Owner (Sole Proprietorship) – A business owned by an individual. Prior to the Civil
War, most businesses were owned either by an individual or group of partners.
Corporation –A group of people authorized by law to act as a legal personality and having its
own powers, duties, and liabilities. Individuals invest in a corporation for a couple of different
reasons. First, it allowed the group to pool their capital (money) in order to purchase the large
machinery that was needed for their factories or refineries. Second, it limits their liability.
While they will lose their invest money if the business fails, they won’t be held for the debt that
may still exist.
Monopolies – A situation in which only one seller controls the production, supply, or pricing of
a product for which there are no close substitutes. This exclusive control of a commodity or
service makes it possible to manipulate prices.
Trust – A form of business merger in which the major stockholders in several corporations turn
over their stock to a group of trustees. The trustees then run the separate corporation as one
large company, or trust. In return for their stock, the stockholders of the separate corporations
receive a share of the trust’s profits.
Secondary Source
Document L
Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism
British philosopher Herbert Spencer went a step beyond Darwin's theory of evolution and
applied it to the development of human society. In the late 1800s, many Americans
enthusiastically embraced Spencer's "Social Darwinism" to justify laissez-faire, or
unrestricted, capitalism.
In 1859, Charles Darwin published Origin of Species, which explained his theory of animal and
plant evolution based on "natural selection." Soon afterward, philosophers, sociologists, and
others began to adopt the idea that human society had also evolved.
The British philosopher Herbert Spencer wrote about these ideas even before Darwin's book was
published. He became the most influential philosopher in applying Darwin's ideas to social
evolution. Born in 1820, Herbert Spencer taught himself about the natural sciences. For a brief
time, he worked as a railroad surveyor and then as a magazine writer. Spencer never married,
tended to worry a lot about his health, and preferred work to life's enjoyments.
In 1851, he published his first book. He argued for laissez-faire capitalism, an economic system
that allows businesses to operate with little government interference. A year later, and seven
years before Darwin published Origin of Species, Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the
fittest."
Darwin's theory inspired Spencer to write more books, showing how society evolved. With the
financial support of friends, Spencer wrote more than a dozen volumes in 36 years. His books
convinced many that the destiny of civilization rested with those who were the "fittest."
Spencer's View of Government
Herbert Spencer believed that the government should have only two purposes. One was to
defend the nation against foreign invasion. The other was to protect citizens and their property
from criminals. Any other government action was "over-legislation."
Spencer opposed government aid to the poor. He said that it encouraged laziness and vice. He
objected to a public school system since it forced taxpayers to pay for the education of other
people's children. He opposed laws regulating housing, sanitation, and health conditions because
they interfered with the rights of property owners.
Spencer said that diseases "are among the penalties Nature has attached to ignorance and
imbecility, and should not, therefore, be tampered with." He even faulted private organizations
like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because they encouraged
legislation.
In the economic arena, Spencer advocated a laissez-faire system that tolerated no government
regulation of private enterprise. He considered most taxation as confiscation of wealth and
undermining the natural evolution of society.
Spencer assumed that business competition would prevent monopolies and would flourish
without tariffs or other government restrictions on free trade. He also condemned wars and
colonialism, even British imperialism. This was ironic, because many of his ideas were used to
justify colonialism. But colonialism created vast government bureaucracies. Spencer favored as
little government as possible.
Spencer argued against legislation that regulated working conditions, maximum hours, and
minimum wages. He said that they interfered with the property rights of employers. He believed
labor unions took away the freedom of individual workers to negotiate with employers.
Thus, Spencer thought government should be little more than a referee in the highly competitive
"survival of the fittest." Spencer's theory of social evolution, called Social Darwinism by others,
helped provided intellectual support for laissez-faire capitalism in America.
Adapted from: Constitutional Rights Foundation www.crf-usa.org
Bill of Rights in Action: Spring 2003 (19.2)