Honors U.S. History
INDUSTRIALIZATION & LABOR
Questions to Think About.
1. How do the late 1800s represent the emergence of modern America?
2. How is “the West” an integral component of industrialization and how did the U.S.
government support this relationship?
3. How did industrialization and corporate consolidation impact labor?
4. How did actions or inactions of the U.S. government affect corporations? labor?
5. How did Amherst develop as an industrial town? Why did it change?
Key Topics & Terms Include:
mining syndicates
Timber and Stone Act
riparian rights v. prior appropriation
subsidies
industrial revolution
division of labor
economies of scale
Frederick W. Taylor
Taylorism and scientific management
factory model
mass production and the assembly line
producer v. employee
Henry Ford
“iron law of wages”
boom and bust
economic concentration
corporation
shareholder
pools, trusts, holding companies, merger
horizontal and vertical integration
robber barons
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Stanford, Gould
Black Friday
Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism
laissez-faire capitalism
“The Gospel of Wealth”
protective tariff
critiques and commentaries: Carnegie, Conwell,
Rockefeller, and Thoreau
role of the Supreme Court
Sherman Anti-trust Act
“restraint of trade”
14th Amendment
U.S. v. E.C. Knight & Co.
Holden v. Hardy
Lochner v. New York
Muller v. Oregon
trade or craft union; industrial union
Strikes of 1877
National Labor Union
Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor
Haymarket bombing and riot
American Federation of Labor
Samuel Gompers
Homestead strike
Pullman strike, General Manager’s Association
(GMA), Eugene V. Debs & American
Railway Union (ARU)
Industrial Workers of the World
“Mother” Jones, “Big Bill” Haywood
Uprising of the 20,000
Triangle fire
Telephone Operators’ Depart of the IBEW
Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL)
Honors U.S. History - Textbook Noteguide – Industrialization & Labor
I. Exploitation of Natural Resources 483-487
- what were most valuable resources
- who financed exploitation
- role of government in patterns of exploitation
- water rights, western land
- racial divisions in Western society
II. Age of Railroad Expansion 488-491
- secondary effects of railroad construction (effects on other industries)
- railroads and perception of time
- organizational advances
- positive and negative effects of government subsidies
III. Technology and Triumph of Industrialism 506-511
- Edison's contributions to industrial development
Edison perfects an incandescent light bulb, 1878-80
GREAT MAP, p. 508
- Ford's contributions to industrial development
gasoline burning internal-combustion engine
plus, a marketing planmass production, so “everyone will be able to own one,
and about everyone will have one.”
Assembly line—each worker, one task
1908—1st year of Model T—sold 10,000 cars
1914—248,000 Fords sold, many for $490
Ford starts Five-Dollar-Day plan—combined wages and profit sharing $5
(up from average $2/day)
increase in other industries—rubber, oil, paint, glass
- economies of scale
higher production at lower costs
Only large companies could—take advantage of discounts for shipping in bulk,
buy large machines, and operate at full capacity
- Taylor and efficiency movement: scientific management
Engineers and managers assuming responsibilities previously enjoyed by
artisans
Less skill and independent judgment from workers
Frederick W. Taylor—apply scientific studies to determine how quickly work
could be done
Ex—designed 15 kinds of shovels and proper motions for each to speed up
shoveling of iron ore—reduced workers at this plant (Bethlehem Steel
Company) from 600 to 140 workers, with higher wages but more
stressful jobs
IV. Corporate Consolidation 528-531
- advantages of corporate business structure, stock exchange
capital investment put pressures on companies to produce more economically,
but therefore needed to sell more, to do this, needed to reduce prices, to expand to
pay back loans, reduce wages to increase prices and compensate for reduced
prices
- this process strangled small firms who could not compete, workers >> uncertainty
- economic declines—1873, 1884, 1893
- blamed overproduction, underconsumption, lax credit and investment
practices
- created centralized systems—corporations, pools, trusts, holding companies to
reduce impact of a decline
- 1880s, 1890s—Supreme Court rules that corporations are protected like
individuals by the 14th Amendment
- states could not deny corp’s equal protection under the law
- dangers of pools, trusts, and holding companies
- pools—companies of same industry agree how much to produce, share profits
- Rockefeller called the “ropes of sand”, weak and undependable
- trusts—lure or force stockholders of smaller companies to yield control of
their stock “in trust” to the larger company’s board of directors
- horizontal integration
- 1882 Rockefeller combines Standard Oil Co with others he bought up through
trusts
- holding company—owned a partial or complete interest (stocks) in other
companies
- companies could merge assets (including equipment, management…)
- ex—Rockefellers Standard Oil
- vertical integration—to dominate markets, many holding companies bought
all aspects of their operation (raw materials, production, distribution
(including marketing)
- US Steel—JP Morgan--$1.4 billion in 1901—included iron ore
properties, freight carriers, wire mills, plate and tubing companies…
V. Gospel of Wealth 531-35
- Social Darwinism
- Andrew Carnegie and Gospel of Wealth
- tariff policy
- Sherman Ant-Trust Act
VI. The Union Movement 517-522
- Strikes of 1877
- Knights of Labor
- Haymarket Riot
- American Federation of Labor
- Pullman Strike
- Women and the Labor Movement
- Immigrants, African-Americans, and the Labor Movement