INDUSTRIALIZATION,
IMMIGRATION, AND
THE GILDED AGE
INDUSTRIALIZATION
Why?
-Civil War
-railroads
-quickened pace
-Cheap Labor: immigrants
-Resources
-farmland
-oil
-coal
-iron
-Advances
-Samuel Morse: telegraph
-Cyrus Field: underwater telegraph cable
-Alexander Graham Bell: telephone
-Thomas Edison: electric light
-invention factory
-Westinghouse and Stanley: generator
-Henry Bessemer: process for making steel stronger
Railroads
-key to America’s business development
-advances
-standard gauge
-steel rails
-air brakes
-time zones
executives
-Cornelius Vanderbilt
-New York Central
-Jay Gould
-Erie, Kansas and Pacific, Union Pacific
-James Hill
-Great Northern Northwest
-Abuses
-rebates
-secret discounts off the public price
-watered stocks
-worthless
-pooling
-price fixing
-Credit Mobilier
-lay track and two or three times the cost
-bribed Congressmen
Munn v Illinois: states can regulate railroads
Interstate Commerce Act: regulated by ICC
Big Business
-Social Darwinism: “survival of the fittest in business”
-natural aristocracy
-poverty is inevitable
-individual is responsible for their position
-philanthropy
-giving money to charity
-laissez faire
-no government involvement
-government protects people with money
Result of Social Darwinism:
INDUSTRIAL GIANTS
-called ROBBER BARONS
John D. Rockefeller
-Standard Oil
-first monopoly/trust
-horizontal integration
-sold products below cost
-competitors go out of business
-he buys their business and combines it
with his own
Andrew Carnegie
- “rags to riches”
-U.S. Steel
-made $25 million a year
-vertical integration: owned all means of production
J.P. Morgan
-banker
-bought businesses and improved them
James Duke
-American Tobacco
-advertising
Terms
-Corporation: company owned by several people
-Charter: license
-Stock holders: investors/part owner of a company
-Board of trustees: top stockholders that run the
company
-Advantages
-large capital: resources, land, tools, workers
-limited liability: lose only what is invested
-indefinite life: live after owner dies
-Monopoly: one person controls the industry
-Trust: giant business combination
Labor
-people move to cities
-job competition
-result: workers treated poorly
-12 to 14 hour days
-7 days a week
-$1.50 a week
-poor conditions
-company towns and stores
RESULT: WORKERS FORMED
LABOR UNIONS!!!!!!
Labor Union difficulties
-scabs
-strikebreakers
-yellow dog contracts
-no job if you join a union
-black listing
-not hired anywhere
-too many workers to unite
WORKERS STILL UNIONIZED!!!!!!
Labor Unions
-Knights of Labor
-Terrance Powderly and Uriah Stephens
-skilled and unskilled workers
-no liquor dealers or lawyers
-goals
-8 hour work day
-no child labor
-NO STRIKES
-boycotts: not buying
-arbitration: 3rd party
FAILED:
-HAYMARKET SQUARE RIOT, CHICAGO
a striker is
killed by
police
strikers kill
8 police
KNIGHTS
ARE
BLAMED
American Federation of Labor
-Samuel Gompers
-only skilled workers
-Goals
-8 hour day
-no child labor
-improved conditions
-collective bargaining
-group that represents workers
-group that represents owners
-strikes
Industrial Workers of the World
-Wobblies
-Mother Jones
-Big Bill Haywood
-unskilled workers and blacks
-goals
-improved conditions
-world revolution
STRIKES!!!!!
-Homestead Strike
-Carnegie steel mill
-low pay $10 a week pay, $11.50 to live
-Frick closes the factory
-barbed wire fence
-towers built, sharpshooters hired
-workers lose
-BLACKLISTED!!!!!!!
Pullman Strike
-railroad car company
-five wage cuts in one year
-American Railway Union
-Eugene V. Debs
-Cleveland sends in troops
-mail wouldn’t run
-INJUNCTION!!!!!!
-COURT ORDER THAT MAKES A STRIKE
ILLEGAL
INJUNCTION BECOMES A POWERFUL
TOOL!!!!!!!
Bellwork
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"What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In
what way?--dishonestly if we can; honestly if
we must." -- Mark Twain-1871
How does this quote by Twain apply to the
Gilded Age? What does this say about morals
and priorities in this time?
IMMIGRATION
Urban growth
-expansion of industry
-immigration
Immigrants
-came to avoid war, famine, and persecution
-terrible trip
-Ellis Island
Ellis Island: east coast
-immigrant processing
-medical exam
-document check
-literacy test
Angel Island: west coast
-more like a prison
-Asia
Problems:
-housing
-boarding houses
-row houses
-dumbbell tenements
-fire
-sanitation
-crime
-pick pockets
-street gangs
-underpaid cops
Nativism
-only native born
-WASP, others not
welcome
-Chinese Exclusion Act
-no Chinese for 10 years
(until 1943)
-Gentlemen’s Agreement
-no Japanese emigration to
America
Social Reforms:
-Social Gospel
-salvation through helping the poor
-Jane Addams
-Hull House
-services to slums
-education, babysitting
-John Dewey
-free public education
-make immigrants American
-Salvation Army
-Red Cross
GILDED AGE!!!!!
-named by Mark Twain
-CORRUPTION
Mugwumps
-fight corruption
-laissez faire
-against spoils system (patronage)
-wanted a civil service
-CLEAN UP POLITICS
-Sherman Anti-trust Act
-tried to make trusts
illegal
Political Machines
-trades favors for votes
-ward boss: local level
-city boss: highest level
-usually the mayor
-builds schools, roads,
fire departments
-CORRUPT!!!!!
-graft
-bribes
-election fraud
Tammany Hall
-New York Democratic political machine
-MOST CORRUPT
-Boss Tweed
-depicted in Thomas Nast
cartoons
Gilded Age Presidents: BIG BUSINESS
-U.S. Grant
-Credit Mobilier
-Whiskey Ring
-Rutherford B. Hayes
-investigated corrupt
custom houses
-James A. Garfield
-civil service reform
-assassinated by Charles Guiteau
-Chester A. Arthur
-Pendleton Act: merit for civil service
-Grover Cleveland
-Benjamin Harrison