Warm-up for 14-1
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What do you think are the five most important
inventions in history? Put them in order of
importance and explain your reasoning.
3 reasons for industrial boom
after Civil War
1. abundant natural resources
2. govt. support for business
3. growing urban pop. that
provided cheap labor
Black Gold
 Edwin L. Drake- (1859) 1st
to remove oil from beneath
the earth’s surface
 * gasoline is a byproduct of
refining oil- not popular
until automobile
Steel
 U.S. had abundant coal & iron deposits
 steel- flexible, rust-resistant metal that results from removing
carbon from iron
 Bessemer process- cheap process for making steel
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(injecting air into molten iron removing carbon)
open-hearth process allowed steel to be produced from scrap
metals as well as raw materials
steel allows for innovative construction and expansion-bridges
& skyscrapers **
Inventions
 Thomas Alva Edison
world’s 1st research laboratory
*Menlo Park, NJ*
 perfected incandescent light bulb
 invented system for producing &
distributing electrical power
 electricity changes business
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 runs machines
 leads to inventions of time-saving
appliances
 streetcars promote outward
spread of cities & cheap travel
The phonograph was the
first method of recording
and playing back sound.
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Edison is considered to be the greatest inventor in
modern times.
He earned the nickname, “Wizard of Menlo Park” (NJ),
where he built the first industrialized research
laboratory in 1876.
His 1093 inventions have greatly changed the lives of
nearly all people living across the world.
His work includes improving the incandescent electric
light bulb and inventing the phonograph and
kinetoscope, or a small box for viewing moving
pictures or films.
Edison sometimes worked twenty hours a day.
Edison was quoted as saying, “Genius is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration.
In tribute to this important American, electric lights in
the U.S. were dimmed for one minute on October 21,
1931, a few days after his death.
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Christopher Sholesinvented the typewriter
in 1867
Alexander Graham Bellinvented the telephone
in 1876
*both affected office
work & created jobs for
women
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Go to the website and determine the relationship
between voltage, amperage, and resistance learning
about Ohm’s Law.
http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab/Voltage/index.html
Go to the website and take the online Edison Mental
Fitness Test (Sample 30 Questions). Click on teachers &
click on online games.
http://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/education/upload/
qu30.swf
Warm-up for 14-2
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Today we will discuss “The Age of the Railroads.”
What name might you give the present age we are
in? Why? Consider different technologies and their
influence on all aspects of American life.
The Railroad Game
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Railroads created
opportunity to expand
west for individuals &
business
transcontinental railroad(1st -1869) railroad linking
the Atlantic & Pacific
coasts
life as a railroad worker
was harsh
thousands died from
accidents, diseases, &
harsh conditions
thousands of Chinese
immigrants worked for
less $
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railroad time unifies cities & towns
Professor C. F. Dowd proposed 24 time zones, w/ 4
in U.S.
international community adopts railroad time in 1884
railroads promote trade & interdependence by
linking cities & towns
individual towns specialize in particular products
George M. Pullman- built town for factory workers to
manufacture railroad cars
Credit Mobilier
 famous corruption
scheme
 construction company
formed by owners of
the Union Pacific, who
used it to skim profits
for themselves & to
payoff Congress
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(majority of Congressmen
were Republicans- hurt the
party)
Uncle Sam directs U.S. Senators (and
Representatives?) implicated in the Credit
Mobilier scheme to commit Hari-Kari
Grange & the Railroads
(ch.13- org. fighting the RR’s by
sponsoring legislation)
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Grangers demanded
govt. control
railroad abuses hurt
farmers
railroads sold land
grants to businesses, not
settlers
2. railroads charged
different customers
different rates
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Granger laws- sought state regulation of the railroads to benefit farmers
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Munn v. Illinois- 1877 SC case that upheld regulatory Granger laws
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(helped est. idea of govt. regulating private industry)
1886- SC ruled that states could not regulate interstate commerce
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(ex- est. maximum freight & passenger rates)
(overturned Munn)
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
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est. right of the fed. govt. to supervise railroad activities
had little impact due to long legal process & railroad resistance
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bankruptcy of railroad
companies plays role in the
panic of 1893
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(4 reasons)
1. corporate abuses
2. mismanagement
3. overbuilding
4. competition
(eventually only a few large
companies controlled the
nation’s railroads)
The 1896 Broadway melodrama The War
of Wealth was inspired by the Panic of
1893
Cornelius Vanderbilt was born on May 27, 1794, in Port
Richmond, New York. He began a passenger ferry business in
New York harbor with one boat, then started his own steamship
company, eventually controlling Hudson River traffic. He also
provided the first rail service between New York and Chicago.
In 1869, he directed the Harlem to begin construction of the
Grand Central Depot on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Finished in
1871, the depot was replaced by Grand Central Terminal in
1913. When he died in 1877, Vanderbilt had amassed the largest
fortune accumulated in the U.S. at that time.
Warm-up for 14-3
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What personal qualities do you think one
needs to become a billionaire in today’s world?
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
 industrial mogul that rose
from poverty
 founded Carnegie steel
 successful management
strategies
1. always searched for way to
make products cheaper
2. attracted talent by offering
stock in the company
3. encouraged competition
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attempted to control as
much as he could
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vertical integration- process of buying out
suppliers to control materials & transportation
horizontal integration- process of merging
companies that produce similar products
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Carnegie’s success explained
scientifically
Social Darwinism
 economic & social philosophy
 a system of unrestrained
competition will ensure survival
of the fittest
 developed from Charles Darwin’s
theory of biological evolution
 used to justify the doctrine of
laissez faire (allow to do, hands off)
 *marketplaces should not be
regulated
 survival & success appealed to
Protestant work ethic of many
Americans
 poor people were lazy or inferior
Fewer Control More
 merger- occurred when
one company bought out
stock of another company
 monopoly- achieved when
a company bought out all
of its competitors, or
complete control over its
production, wages, &
prices
 holding companycorporation that did
nothing but buy out the
stock of other companies
(don’t actually produce
goods or services)
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)
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est. Standard Oil Company
joined competing companies in
trust agreements
trust-companies would hand
over their stock to a board of
trustees & receive trust
certificates; trustees control
company, but original owners
got dividends
paid employees low wages &
forced them to work in
dangerous conditions
sold oil lower than it cost to
produce it to bankrupt
competition, then raised $
critics called industrialists
“Robber Barons”
was a philanthropist & 1st U.S.
billionaire
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Sherman Antitrust Act-1890 act that made it illegal to form a trust that
interfered w/ free trade between states or w/ other countries
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companies reorganized & act did not clearly define a trust which led to little enforcement
Labor Unions Emerge
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exploitation & unsafe working conditions brought workers together nationwide
people worked 12 or more hours a day, 6 days a week
no vacation, sick leave, unemployment compensation, reimbursement for injuries
sweatshops- workshops in tenements that employed women & children
In 1882, an average of 675 laborers were killed in work-related accidents each week
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“It would be a great mistake for the community to shoot the
millionaires for they are the bees that make the most honey,
and contribute most to the hive even after they have gorged
themselves full.” Andrew Carnegie
Carnegie did donate about 90% of his wealth
In 1899, women earned an average of $267 a year, men
earned an average of $498. The next year Andrew
Carnegie earned $23 million- with no income tax
The Johnstown Flood occurred on May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the
South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River 14 miles upstream of the town of
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA. The flood killed 2,209 people and caused $17
million of damage (about $425 million in 2012 dollars). It was the first major disaster
relief effort handled by the new American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton. Henry
Frick purchased the abandoned reservoir, and converted it into a private resort lake
for the wealthy. Many were connected through business and social links to
Carnegie Steel. Development included lowering the dam to make its top wide
enough to hold a road. These alterations are thought to have increased the
vulnerability of the dam. The members built cottages and a clubhouse to create the
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive and private mountain retreat.
Membership grew to include more than 50 wealthy Pittsburgh steel, coal, and
railroad industrialists.
Strikes Turn Violent
 Homestead Strike-1892
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Pullman Strike-1894
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Carnegie steel plant that killed 9
union lost power & failed to
mobilize for 45 yrs.
cut wages of workers by 25-50%
federal troops ended the strike
railroad blacklisted strikers
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Incident-1911
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garment factory in NYC
fire killed 146 women
brought attention to poor factory
working conditions