The Industrial
Revolution
The Rise of Smokestack America
1860-1900
USA, INC.
Post-war industrial
expansion
Factors contributing to rise of American
industry
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Growth of a National Railway System
Abundant natural resources
Cheap, plentiful, docile labor force
Technological Innovations
Favorable Government Policies
(laissez-faire)
– Managerial Revolution
“Robber Barons” or
“Captains of Industry”?
Railroad Tycoons:
Jay Gould, Daniel Drew, Tom
Scott,
Cornelius and William Vanderbilt
 Industrial Monopolists:
John D. Rockefeller, Andrew
Carnegie, Gustavus Swift,
James B. Duke
 Finance Capitalist: J. Pierpoint
Morgan
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New Business
Organizations
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Company-Privately owned by
Individual, Family, Partners
Corporation-Publicly owned by stock
holders; run by elected Board
Trust-Numerous Corporations’ stocks
controlled by a Board of Trustees
Holding Company-Numerous trusts’
stocks controlled by a Board of
Directors
Thomas Alva Edison
“Wizard of Menlo Park”
The Light Bulb
The Phonograph (1877)
The Ediphone or Dictaphone
The Motion Picture Camera
Alternating Current
Nikola Tesla
George Westinghouse
Alternating Current
Westinghouse Lamp ad
Alexander Graham Bell
Telephone (1876)
The Airplane
Wilbur Wright
Orville Wright
Kitty Hawk, NC – December 7, 1903
Model T Automobile
Henry Ford
I want to pay my workers so that they can
afford my product! [$5 a day!]
“Model T” Prices & Sales
U. S. Patents Granted
1790s  276 patents issued.
1990s  1,119,220 patents issued.
Impact of the RR on the
Nation
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New Trans-continental Lines emerge
Railroads as business
National Market
Impact on
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National unity & economics
Industrialization
Mining & agriculture
Grown of cities & urban areas
Immigration
Environment
Time Zones
Wealth
Corruption in the Railroad
Industry
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Scams in the RR industry
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Stock watering
Bribery
The “pool”
Rebates & kickbacks
Price gouging
Government regulation of RR’s
– State regulations and Supreme Court
– Federal regulation (ICC)
Jay Gould & Daniel Drew
Tom Scott
Rockefeller & Standard
Oil Company
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Development of
the American Oil
Refinery Industry
– 1st well
– Kerosene
– Gasoline
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John D. Wreck-afeller
Efforts to curb competition,
curb costs, set prices
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Horizontal
integration
– John D.
Rockefeller in
oil industry
– Control more
& more of a
given niche
(one stage of
production)
of an industry
Steel Industry
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Factors contributing to growth of
steel
– Bessemer Process
– Access to coal
& iron ore
– Ready labor
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Andrew Carnegie
Vertical Integration
– Controls up & down
the hierarchy
– Andrew Carnegie in
steel industry
Owned ore & coal
mines,
Railroads and
barges,
Processing Plants,
Made Finished Iron
& Steel products
Mesabi Range
Carnegie Homestead
Steel Plant
Henry Clay Frick :
“Coke King”
Carnegie and Labor
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Low Wages
Long Hours
Dangerous Working Conditions
Anti-Union
Strike Breaker (Homestead, 1892)
Pinkertons & Scabs
U. S. Corporate Mergers
Wealth Concentration Held by
Top 1% of Households
% of Billionaires in 1900
% of Billionaires in 1918
New Financial
Businessman
The Broker:
 J. Pierpont Morgan
 Combination
 Consolidation
 Concentration
J. Pierpoint Morgan
Finance Capitalist
U.S. Steel: 1st Corporation
Capitalized at over $1 Billion
J.P. Morgan and Company
(Holding Company)
A “Trust of Trusts”)
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Banking
Insurance
Steam Shipping
Railroads (UP, SP, NP, Penn,
B&O, C&O, L&N, AT&SF,
Erie, Atlantic Coast,
Reading, & many more)
Communications (AT&T,
Western Union)
Public Utilities (Edison, NY,
NJ, Chicago)
Real Estate
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U.S. Steel
Amalgamated Copper
General Electric
Westinghouse
International Harvester
National Biscuit Co
American Sugar trust
Pullman Company
Armour & Company
U.S. Rubber Co.
American Ag. Chemical
Pro-Business Government
Policies
Land Grants to Railroads
 Protective Tariff (1862- 1913)
 No Income or Corporate Taxes
 Laissez-Faire ?
(Little or no regulation?)
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Wall Street – 1867 &
1900
Government & Industry
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Constitutional safeguards for
industry
– Interstate commerce clause
– 14th Amendment
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Government attempts to control
business
– Sherman Anti-Trust Act
– Enforcing the Sherman Anti0Trust
Act
– Significance of Act
The Protectors of Our
Industries
The ‘Bosses’ of the Senate
The ‘Robber Barons’ of the
Past
Justifications of Divisions
between Rich & Poor
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Rising upper class
Falling working class
Defending class distinctions
– Gospel of Wealth
– Social Darwinism
– Rugged individualism & contempt
for poor
– Popular aspirations:
“self made man”
Carnegie’s Philanthropy
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The Gospel of Wealth
God-given
“Stewardship”
“Wise Benevolence”
Carnegie’s Philanthropies
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Over $350,000,000
Music Halls
Carnegie Institute
Carnegie-Mellon University
Endowment for
International Peace
1679 Libraries
1679 Carnegie Libraries
Social Darwinism
 British economist.
 Advocate of
laissez-faire.
 Adapted Darwin’s
ideas from the
“Origin of Species”
to humans.
Herbert Spencer
 Notion of “Survival
of the Fittest.”
Social Darwinism in America
$
$
William Graham Sumner
Folkways (1906)
Individuals must
have absolute
freedom to
struggle, succeed or
fail.
Therefore, state
intervention to
reward society and
the economy is
futile!
Horatio Alger Novels
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“Luck and Pluck”
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“Rags to Riches”
“The American Dream?”
Protestant (Puritan) “Work Ethic”
 Horatio Alger [100+ novels]
Is the idea of the “self-made man” a MYTH??
Fiction?
Edward Bellamy’s
“Looking Backward” (1887)
Henry George and the
Single Tax Movement
The Reorganization of
Work
Frederick W. Taylor
The Principles of Scientific Management (1911)
The Reorganization of
Work
The Assembly Line
Unskilled Labor
The Labor Movement
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Life of Workers
Corporate resistance to unions
– Use wealth to undermine
– Appeal to federal courts
– Used troops to break strikes
– “lockouts”
– “yellow dog contracts” & “ironclad
oaths”
– “blacklists”
– Company towns
Rise of Unions
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Early unions
– National Labor Union (1866)
– The Knights of Labor (1869)
– The American Federation of Labor
(1886)
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Strikes
Popularity
– Grow in strength but 3% of
workforce in 1900
– Collective labor=“Radicalism”
National Labor Union
8 hr. Day
William Sylvis (1866-1873)
The Great RR Strike of
1877
Pray for the dead and
fight like hell for the
living.
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I asked a man in
prison once how he
happened to be there
and he said he had
stolen a pair of shoes. I
told him if he had
stolen a railroad he
would be a United
States Senator.
Cincinnati Railroad
Station
Strikers vs. Troops
Who Wins? (1877)
Molly Maguires
Pennsylvania Coal Miners
Damn Pinks- James
McParland
Knights of Labor
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One Big Union
NO Strikes
Terrence V. Powderly
700,000 members
1873-1886(?)
McCormick Chicago Factory
Strike
Haymarket Incident-1886
Jolly Coppers and
Anarchist Bombers?
Anarchist Bastards
John Peter Altgeld’s Pardon
Emma GoldmanRussian Immigrant
Red Emma-Anarchist
Emma and Alexander
Berkman
Henry Clay Frick
and Andrew Carnegie
George Pullman’s Dream
Pullman Palace Car
Factory
Worker’s Apartments
Pullman’s Home
Pullman Strike and
Boycott
Eugene V. Debs and the
American Railway Union
5X Presidential Candidate
until 1920
Samuel Gompers:
AFof L Leader 1886-1924
P.J. McGuire
Pure and Simple Unionism=
“MORE!”
Samuel Gompers’ Credo
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We want more school houses and less jails;
more books and less arsenals;
more learning and less vice;
more constant work and less crime;
more leisure and less greed;
more justice and less revenge; in fact,
more of the opportunities to cultivate our better
natures,
to make manhood more noble, womanhood more
beautiful and childhood more happy and bright.
These in brief are the primary demands made by the
Trade Unions in the name of labor.
These are the demands made by labor upon modern
society and in their consideration is involved the fate
of civilization.
Sam in San Antonio