INDUSTRY COMES OF AGE 1865-
1900
IRON HORSE
Outburst of RR Construction 1865 = 35,000 miles 1900 = 192,556 miles
Congress gave land grants / loans Changed communities = West
Competition
Made local transit reliable
TRANSCONTINENTAL RR
Central Pacific Sacramento, California Employed thousands of Chinese immigrants 690 miles (1,110 km) of track
Union Pacific Omaha, Nebraska Hired Irish immigrants and out-of-work Civil War veterans laid 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track
Promontory Point = Utah May 10, 1869 Golden spike
PROMONTORY POINT
CONT.
Harsh working ConditionsAttacked by Native AmericansAccidents DiseasesKilled thousands each year
2,000 employees killed and 20,000 injured
RR CONSOLIDATION/ MECHANIZATION
1860’sGeorge M. Pullman Manufactured sleepers and other railroad cars Built a town for his employees Under company control
Westinghouse air brakeEfficiency and safety
REVOLUTION BY RR
Iron, Coal, Steel, Lumber, and Glass Industries grew rapidly Trying to keep pace with the demand for materials and parts
Growth of towns Linking isolated cities, towns, and settlements Began to specialize in particular products
Chicago --- stockyard products
Immigration
Promoted trade - interdependence
CONT.
Transformed the diverse regions of the country into a United Nation
1869Professor C.F. DowdEarths surface be divided into 24 hour time zones
U.S. would contain 4 zonesEastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific
Railroad companies endorsed the plan
WRONGDOING IN RR
Farmers upset with railroad corruption
Grangers Farmers organization founded in 1867 Demanded governmental control over the railroad industry Upset by misuse of government land grants Kept farmers in debt = prices Charged different customers different
FARMERS Grangers took political actionPressed for laws = protect interests Establish maximum freight / passenger rates Prohibit discriminationGranger Laws
Munn v. Illinois - 1877Supreme Court upheld the Granger lawsRegulate the railroad for the benefit of farmers and consumers
The Federal government’s right to regulate private industry to serve the public interest
CONT.
Grangers triumph --- short lived Supreme court ruled that a state could not set rates on interstate
commerce
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific RR Company v. Illinois
Public outraged Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act = 1887
Right of the Federal Government to supervise railroad activities
Established 5-member Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
MIRACLES OF MECHANIZATION 1894US 1st in ManufacturingMillionairesInvestors from EuropeInterchangeable partsUnskilled labor
1860 -90440,000 patents
CONT.
Christopher Sholes Invented the typewriter ---- 1867
Changed the world of work
Alexander Graham Bell Invented the telephone ---- 1876 Worldwide communication
CONT.
Thomas Alva EdisonPioneer in the new industrial frontierWorlds first research laboratory
Menlo Park, New Jersey Phonograph, Mimeograph, Dictaphone, Moving picture Incandescent light bulb ---1879 Developed an entire system for producing and distributing electrical power Safer and less expensive
SUPREMACY OF STEEL
“Steel is King” Skyscrapers, transportation = food, shelter
Bessemer-Kelly Process Iron is soft - tends to break and rust Removed the carbon from iron ---- produces Steel
THE TRUST TITAN EMERGES Andrew Carnegie
1873 Entered into the steel business Carnegie Steel Company Pittsburgh
1899 Manufactured more steel than all the factories in Great Britain / Germany
Excellent management practicesEliminate middle manPartnerships Make better products – cheaply New machinery / techniques Hired talented people – offered stock Encouraged competition
CONT.
Vertical Integration --- Bought out suppliers Coal fields and iron mines, ore freighters, and railroad lines
Horizontal Integration --- Bought out competing steel producers Companies producing similar products merge
1901Produced the largest portion of the nation’s steel
CARNEGIE AND OTHER SULTANS OF STEEL
Monopoly A company buys out all it competitors Complete control over the industry
Production, wages, and prices
Holding Company Corporation that buys out the stock of other companies
JP Morgan = Interlocking Directorates 1901 --- bought Carnegie Steel
$400 million = United States Steel
ROCKEFELLER
Standard Oil Company - Ohio Joined with competing companies in trust agreements Turned their stock over to a group of trustees People who ran the separate companies as on large corporation Entitled to dividends on profits earned by the trusts
Used trusts to gain total control of the oil industry
1870Processed 2 -3% of the country’s crude oilWithin a decade controlled 95%
CONT.
Paid employees extremely low wages
Drove competitors out of business Sold oil at a lower price than it cost to produce it When he controlled the market --- hiked prices up
Critics called business practices = Robber Barons
Gave away over 500 million Rockefeller Foundation
GOSPEL OF WEALTH
Charles Darwin --- Biological Evolution Individuals of a species flourish and pass their traits along to the
next generation Natural Selection
Weed out less suited individualsBest adapted survive
Laissez Fair Economists justification for the marketplace not to be regulated
GOVERNMENT TACKLES THE TRUST EVIL Government was worried that corporations would stifle free competition
Sherman Anti-Trust Act = 1890 Made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade
between states or with other countries Prosecuting companies was difficult = loopholes
UNIONS
Unsafe working conditions --- long hours Drew workers together --- Unions
Steel Mills 7 day work week
Seamstresses 12 hours a day – 6 days a week
No vacation, sick leave, unemployment or reimbursement for injuries
UNIONS
1882 675 laborers were killed in work related accidents each week
Wages were so low that families could not survive unless everyone worked
Iron Clad Oaths or Yellow-Dog Contracts
UNIONS
1866 National Labor Union – NLU
Colored National Labor Union – CNLU
Persuaded congress to legalize an eight hour day for government workers
6 yrs. = 60,000 membersSkilled, unskilled, farmersExcluded Chinese
UNIONS
1869 Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
Secret Society = private rituals, passwords Include all workers in 1 union Men, women, whites, blacks Barred “non-producers”
Economic and social reform Codes for safety and health
8 hour work day
Haymarket Square = May,1886
UNIONS
1886 American Federation of Labor – AFL
Samuel Gompers – Cigar maker Association of self-governing national unions Wages, working conditions Collective Bargaining Negotiation between representatives of labor and management
Strikes, boycotts, walkouts 500,000 members - 1900
CONT.
1881 – 190023,000 strikesInvolved 6,610,000 workers
Total loss $450 millionEmbraced small minority of working people3%
Labor Day = 1894
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