Unit 4: Forging an Industrial Society
1865-1909
• Chapter 23: Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age, 1869-1896
• Chapter 24: Industry Comes of Age, 1865-1900
• Chapter 25: America Moves to the City, 1865-1900
• Exam: Chapters 23-25 – Thursday, January 12th
• Chapter 26: The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution, 18651896
• Chapter 27: Empire and Expansion, 1890-1909
• Exam: Chapters 26-27 – Friday, January 27th
• Unit Exam: TBD
. . . continued from Ch. 23
Thursday
January 5, 2017
Chapter 24
Industry Comes of Age,
1865–1900
“The wealthy class is becoming more wealthy; but the poorer class is
becoming more dependent. The gulf between the employed and the
employer is growing wider; social contrasts are becoming sharper; as liveried
carriages appear; so do barefooted children.”
-Henry George, 1879
I. The Iron Colt Becomes an Iron Horse
II. Spanning the Continent with Rails
III. Binding the Country with Railroad
Ties
IV. Railroad Consolidation and
Mechanization
V. Revolution by Railways
• Post-CW economic growth hinged on railroad expansion
supported by gov.
• Transcontinental railroads were supported by land grants &
subsidies.
• Transcontinental Railroad(s) meant big money (and
corruption).
•
•
•
•
Union Pacific Railroad headed westward from NE using Irish labor.
Central Pacific Railroad headed east from CA using Chinese labor.
Rails met near Ogden, Utah (1869).
Four other trans-continental lines were completed.
• Over-speculation caused disruptions.
• Cornelius Vanderbilt became the symbol of what it meant to
be a railroad tycoon.
• Railroad had an impact on almost every aspect of American
life.
The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific
Link at Promontory Point, Utah, May 10,
1869
Federal Land Grants to
Railroads
VI. Wrongdoing in Railroading
VII. Government Bridles the Iron Horse
• Great wealth was amassed by railroad stock
speculators – “stock watering” occurred.
• Railroad tycoons used pools and rebates to
destroy competition.
• Under pressure from the Grange (organized
farmers), many Midwestern states tried to
regulate railroad monopolies.
• Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v.
Illinois case: the U.S. Supreme Court decreed
individual states had no power to regulate
interstate commerce.
• The federal government would have to take on the
railroads, not the states.
• Interstate Commerce Act (1887): prohibited
pools, rebates, etc. and set up Interstate
Commerce Commission (ICC) for regulation –
baby steps!
Friday
January 6, 2017
William H. Vanderbilt, Robber Baron
VIII. Miracles of Mechanization
• Postwar industrial expansion: ranked 1st globally by 1894.
• Why the sudden upsurge:
• Capital was available thanks to the new class of millionaires.
• Foreign investment was at an all time high.
• Innovations in transportation fueled growth: brought resources
(coal, oil, iron) to factories quickly and efficiently.
• Machinery: industry had a major incentive to invent
machines that could replace skilled labor with unskilled
labor.
• Cash register, the stock ticker, typewriter, refrigerator car,
electric rails, telephone, electric lightbulb
• Women moved into the work force in huge numbers.
• Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison: examples of great
inventors.
Thomas Alva Edison in His Lab, 1888
IX. The Trust Titan Emerges
X. The Supremacy of Steel
XI. Carnegie and Other Sultans of Steel
• Most business leaders devised plans to destroy
competition.
• Andrew Carnegie – United States Steel
• Vertically Integrated every phrase of his steel-making
operation – control quality & eliminate middlemen.
• John D. Rockefeller – Standard Oil
• Internal combustion engine made oil king.
• He was a master of the technique of horizontal integration:
meant allying with competitors to monopolize a given
market – trusts!
• J. Pierpont Morgan - Banking
• The depression of 1890s helped Morgan to consolidate his
competition.
• Used interlocking directorates: placed officers of his own
banking syndicate on competing companies’ boards.
The Octopus, 1904
This cartoon visually captures a feeling of
widespread resentment against Standard Oil as a
powerful, sprawling “octopus” whose tentacles
controlled all branches of government.
Left to Right: Rockefeller, Carnegie,
Morgan
XIII. The Gospel of Wealth
XIV. Government Tackles the Trust Evil
• Carnegie: Wealthy people have great responsibility, so
they must behave responsibly and morally: “Gospel of
Wealth.”
• Most defenders of capitalism relied on the survival-ofthe fittest theory – “Social Darwinism.”
• Plutocrats used Constitution for protection:
• The clause that gave Congress sole jurisdiction over
interstate commerce was a godsend to the monopolists.
• The courts ingeniously interpreted a corporation to be a
legal “person”: therefore it cannot be deprived of its
property by a state without “due process of law” (14th
Amendment)
• Ineffective Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): forbade
combinations in restraint of trade, without any
distinction between “good” trusts and “bad” trusts.
How would Social Darwinism explain
the differences in these images?
An 1889
political
cartoon by
Joseph
Keppler
XV. The South in the Age of Industry
XVI. The Impact of the New Industrial Revolution on
America
• Industry came SLOWLY to the South.
• The south remained overwhelmingly rural.
• Kept the South in servitude to the Northeast.
• Example—the “Pittsburgh plus” pricing system in the steel industry.
• In manufacturing cotton textiles, the South fared better.
• Nationally, industry brought:
•
•
•
•
Higher standards of living
urbanization
government involvement w/trusts
concept of time was forever changed thanks to the “workman’s
whistle”
• the “new woman” emerged – employed, independent, athletic
• class division grew: by 1900 about 1/10 of the people owned
9/10 of the nation’s wealth.
• nation of farmers was becoming a nation of wage earners.
American Industry in 1900
By the end of the nineteenth
century, once-rural America
boasted the world’s largest
industrial output—a
development with enormous
consequences for politics,
diplomacy, and family life.
XVII. In Unions There Is
Strength
XVIII. Labor Limps Along
XIX. Unhorsing the Knights of
Labor
XX. The AF of L to the Fore
• The individual worker needed the corporation more
than the corporation needed the individual worker –
necessity of unions.
• Corporations fought unions: injunctions, federal troops,
lockouts, yellow dog contracts, black lists, company towns,
etc.
• The public, for the most part, did not support the unions –
fear of socialism?
• Producers vs. Non-Producers, Skilled vs. Unskilled, Black vs.
White hurt unity.
• National Labor Union  Knights of Labor 
American Federation of Labor
• Fought for health and safety codes, arbitration, eight-hour
workday, closed shop, collective bargaining, right to strike.
• Haymarket Square Riot (Chicago, 1886) destroyed Knights
of Labor.
Sam
uel
Go
mpe
rs
The Strike, by Robert
Koehler, 1886
Samuel Gompers
AF of L
The Path to the Progressive Era
• In the end, the challenges of the 1870s-1890s helped lead to one of
the more significant eras of reform in the United States: the
Progressive Era (early 1900s).
• What is a Progressive?
• What were the issues faced by the American people that led to this
era? (We will add to this list throughout the unit).
• Both Teddy Roosevelt (R) and Woodrow Wilson (D) are considered
progressive presidents despite being from different parties. How
could this be?