The Triumph
of Industry
Chapter 4
Technology & Industrial Growth
Section 1
1 of 10
Thomas Edison’s bright ideas
2 of 10
An important Thursday
Thomas Edison was born on Thursday
February the 11th, 1847 in the town of
Milan, Ohio.
When Thomas was seven his teacher
finally lost his patience with his
constant questions.
He noticed that Tom's forehead was unusually wide and his
head was bigger than normal. He made no secret of his
belief that Tom’s brains were scrambled!
3 of 10
What do you do when you get home
from school?
4 of 10
Maybe you turn the lights on
and play Eminem!
Music
Edison’s first important invention was
the phonograph. A machine that could
record and reproduce sound.
But his greatest success was the development
of the electric light.
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The first movie star
While working on the phonograph,
Thomas began working on a device
that, "does for the eye what the
phonograph does for the ear", this
was to become motion pictures.
Thomas first demonstrated motion pictures in
1891, and began making "movies" two years later.
Early Edison Movies
• Edison loved Hip Hop
STEEL
Taking an invention and turning it into an industry
· Scottish immigrant Andrew
Carnegie became the “King of
Steel”, producing the majority
of America’s steel.
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
• This is how he did it.
The Steel Industry
1850’s – The Bessemer Process allowed steel to be produced cheaply.
· Therefore, the steel industry grew rapidly.
Examples: railroads, skyscrapers, nails, pins
Bessemer
converter
At Station
Square
Steel Production
Raw Materials
Example: Iron Ore
1
4
Melting
Casting
Hot air is pumped into
a furnace, melting iron at The liquid steel is cast into
billets and slabs.
1600 degrees Celsius.
(2,912 degrees F)
2
Rolling
The billets and slabs are
heated and rolled into
finished products.
3
Refining
Impurities are removed and alloys
are added from the molten metal
Andrew Carnegie in his “Great Double Role”
This cartoon
originally
appeared in
the July 9,
1892 edition of
The Saturday
Globe, a prounion weekly
out of Utica,
New York.
Caption reads: "Forty-Millionaire Carnegie in his Great Double Role. As the tightfisted employer he reduces wages that he may play philanthropist and give away
libraries, etc.”
Making Steel
• Bill Nye the science guy ; )
RAILROADS AND
INDUSTRY
Railroad growth
• Rapid Growth
Growth of Railroads
- Once the gauge, or width, of tracks was standardized, railroads formed a network, or
system of connected lines.
Top: Railroads in 1890
Right: Railroads in 1918
Effects on Industry:
- The railroad industry
created thousands of
new jobs.
Examples: steelworkers,
lumberjacks, miners,
railroad workers
- The railroads opened
up the country to
settlement and growth.
Anti-railroad
propaganda
Abuses:
- Railroad companies offered
rebates, or discounts, in order to
keep or win customers.
- This forced many small railroad
companies out of business.
- In order to end competition and
keep prices high, railroad
companies agreed to divide up
business in an area and set high
prices. This was known as pooling.
- Railroad companies began to consolidate, or combine, in
order to compete with large companies, such as Cornelius
Vanderbilt’s.
- Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the richest men in America,
and the most powerful railroad baron.
Cornelius Vanderbilt
- Large companies bought smaller ones or forced them out of
business.
Cornelius Vanderbilt and James Fisk are shown in a race for control of New York's
rails. Vanderbilt unsuccessfully tried to take over the Erie R.R. by buying out its stock.
The Rise of Big
Business
Section 2
Corporations- A new business model
Old school- Family owned business
New school- Corporation
•only risk to inventors is what they invested
Vertical and Horizontal Integration
Vertical-buy every aspect of making a car
HorizontalBuy every
company that
makes cars
Mass Production
The development of Mass Production allowed business to
produce goods quickly and inexpensively.
Mass Production often relied on machinery taking the place of
hand tools
Old School Production
• Hand Made
New School-Mass Production
• Assembly Line
Mass Production-Lucy Style
• Sweet
Labor Unions
Workers fight to end
exploitation.
The Rise of Labor Unions
• 1st were called trade unions
• Began as a way to provide help in
bad times
• Goals:
•
•
•
•
shortened workdays
higher wages
better working conditions
End child labor
Tools of the Union:
• Collective Bargaining: negotiations between representatives
of labor and management to reach agreement on wages,
benefits and conditions
• Arbitration: allowing outside “referee” to decide issues
between sides
• Strike: refusal to work until demands are met
Labor Unrest: 1870-1900
Labor Unions . . . .
Key
Organizations:
Knights of Labor:
• Opened membership to all
workers
• Advocated 8 hr. day/ equal pay
for equal work
• Preferred arbitration to strikes
• Under Terence Powderly,
expanded membership in
1880’s
Terence Powderly
Workers Organize
Knights of Labor – formed
in 1869 as the first labor
union in the nation.
Goal #3:
Equal pay for men
and women
Goal #1:
Shorter work day
Goal #2:
End child labor
American Federation of Labor:
• A craft union led by Samuel
Gompers
• Advocated collective bargaining
with threat of strikes
• Focused on better pay and
benefits
• More associated with violence
Samuel Gompers
AF of L Goals
o
Catered to the skilled worker.
o
Represented workers in matters of national legislation.
o
Maintained a national strike fund.
o
Evangelized the cause of unionism.
o
Prevented disputes among the many craft unions.
o
Mediated disputes between management and labor.
o
Pushed for closed shops.
American Railway Union:
• Founded by Eugene V. Debs
• Included skilled and unskilled
workers
• Led way to the foundation of
the American Socialist Party
• Won successful strike in 1894/
then faded
Eugene V. Debs
Some Strikes Turned Violent:
• Haymarket Square: 1886-
confrontation between striking
workers and police resulted in
several deaths
• Homestead Strike: 1892- steel
workers against Carnegie fought hired
“thugs”
• Pullman Strike: 1894- Debs’
workers were attacked by “strike
breakers” resulting in President
Cleveland sending out troops
Sketch of tension leading to
violence during the Pullman
Strike
•
•
Haymarket Riot
Demonstration in 1886 for an eight-hour workday—strikes in many cities
At Chicago factory, police broke up a fight between strikers and scabs (workers who replace striking
workers)—several workers killed
• Led to a protest rally
in Chicago’s Haymarket
Square—bomb thrown at
police, several killed
• American public begins
to associates unions with
violence & radical ideas
Homestead Strike: 1892
• Andrew Carnegie’s partner Henry Frick attempted to
cut workers’ wages at Carnegie Steel:
• Union at plant in Homestead, PA called a strike
• Frick used the Pinkertons (a private police force known for
their ability to break strikes)—led to shootout with strikers
• Following a failed assassination attempt of Frick by
radical—union called off the strike
Homestead Strike
• Andrew Carnegie and the Homestead Strike — History.com
Video
The Corporate
“Bully-Boys”: Pinkerton
Agents
Pullman Strike: 1894
• Railway workers’ strike
that spread nation-wide
• Eugene V. Debs called for
a boycott of Pullman cars
after company refused to
bargain with workers
• Marked a shift in the
federal government’s
involvement with labor –
employer relations:
federal troops were sent
A “Company
Town”:
Pullman, IL
Pullman Cars
A Pullman porter
The Pullman Strike of 1894
Management vs. Labor
“Tools” of
Management
“Tools” of
Labor
 “scabs”
 boycotts
 P. R. campaign
 sympathy
demonstrations
 Pinkertons
 lockout
 blacklisting
 yellow-dog contracts
 informational
picketing
 closed shops
 court injunctions
 organized
strikes
 open shop
 “wildcat” strikes
Gains of Unionism:
• Limited work hours
• Regulated work conditions
• Preserved rights to collective
bargain
• Rise of violence led public to
distrust unions and fear threat
of communism (Red Scare)