Chapter 6
A New Industrial Age
Section 1
The Expansion of Industry
Rise of Industrialism
1. Natural Resources
• Water, timber, coal, iron, and copper
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Inexpensive to obtain
Found in west
• Petroleum – used to make kerosene
• First Well – 1859 in Pennsylvania by Edwin
Drake
• Bessemer Process
• Uses for steel
•
Barbed wire, railroads, farming equipment,
skyscrapers
2. A Large Workforce
• 1860-1910 – population tripled
• Greater demand for products, greater
supply of people to make products
• Large families
• Increase in immigration – 20 million new
immigrants 1870-1910
3. Free Enterprise
• Laissez-faire – no Gov. regulation
• Relies solely on supply and demand
• Low taxes so people make profit, not gov.
• Entrepreneurs
• Ex. – trade, fishing, whaling, textiles,
shoes
4. New Inventions
• Alexander Graham Bell
• 1876- telephone: “Come here, Watson.”
• Bell Telephone Company – later AT&T
• Thomas Edison
• 1877 – phonograph
• 1879 – light bulb and electric generator
• 1882 – began providing power to NYC
residents; Edison General Electric
Company (GE)
• Christopher Sholes
• 1876- Typewriter
• Office work
• Jobs for women
• Orville and Wilbur Wright
• 1903- 1st successful flight. Lasted 12
seconds
• George Eastman
• 1888-Kodak Camera
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas
Edison
Phonograph
Northrop Automatic Loom
Incandescent Light Bulb
Your Assignment Today
• Form groups of two members
• Create an advertisement for one of the products we
discussed
• Member 1 – Draw an advertisement picture – it
must be colored! Include a caption that describes
and gives the audience background info of what
they are buying
• Member 2 – Write out a one paragraph verbal
advertisement, introducing the product as if you
were alive in the 1800s
• Both – Write three ways in which the invention
has impacted American society
Section 2
The Age of the Railroads
• A National Network
• Pacific Railway Act – Lincoln; constructed
transcontinental RR
• Union Pacific – director Grenville Dodge
• 10,000 workers – veterans, Irish immigrants,
miners, farmers, cooks, ex-cons
• Started in Omaha, Nebraska in 1865
• Big Four and Central Pacific –Theodore
Judah
• Started in Sacramento, CA
• Labor shortage – 10,000 Chinese hired
• Romance vs. Reality
• Dreams of land, adventure, and a new life
• 2,000 employees killed
• 20,000 injured
1869 locomotive
• Time Zones – 1883
• Created by American Railway Association
• Divided USA into 4 time zones to standardize
train schedules
• Made travel safer
Opportunities and Opportunists
• New Towns and Markets
• RRs promoted trade
• Towns began to specialize
• Cities like Denver, Flagstaff, Seattle owe
their prosperity to RRS
• George Pullman
• Built a factory to manufacture sleepers
and other RR cars
• Provided workers with basic needs
• Hoped it would help ensure a stable work
force
• Credit Mobilier Scandal
• construction company started by Union
Pacific stockholders
• Investors signed contracts with
themselves; overcharged for their
products/labor
• Union Pacific paid over inflated bills
• Profited the stockholders and profit went to 20
representative in Congress
The Grange and the Railroads
• Railroad Abuses
• Misuse of land grants
• Fixed prices
• Charged different rates
• Interstate Commerce Commission
• Created to give federal govt. the right to
supervise RR activity
• Consolidation
• Hundreds of unlinked small lines
• Pennsylvania RR – linked 73 small lines
• Seven large systems took over
• Terminals in large cities
• Reached countryside
• JP Morgan and Company- reorganized the RRs
• Cornelius Vanderbilt – most famous
consolidator; later formed New York’s Grand
Central terminal
Section 3
Big Business and Labor
• Andrew Carnegie
• Poor Scottish immigrant who worked his
way up to RR supervisor (rags to riches)
• Entered the steel business
• 1875 – first steel mill in Pittsburgh
• New Business Strategies
• Was not afraid to use new machinery and
techniques
• Hired talented people by offering stock
• Vertical integration
• Horizontal integration
Social Darwinism and Business
• Principles of Social Darwinism
• Applying Darwin’s theory of evolution to
society
• Herbert Spencer
• Justified laissez-faire
• A New Definition of Success
• Only the fittest survive
• Sign of God’s favor
• Poor must be lazy or inferior
Fewer Control More
• Growth and consolidation
• Monopolies
• Set up by a holding company
• JP Morgan’s US Steel
• Trust
• Turn stock over to trustees—people who ran
the company as one large corporation
• John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company
• Gained total control of the oil company
• Rockefeller and the “Robber Barons”
• Rockefeller made huge profits, paid
employees low wages
• No competition, hiked prices up
• Robber barons/philanthropists
• Rockafeller gave $500 million
• Carnegie donated 90% of his wealth
• Sherman Anti-Trust
• Illegal to form a trust that interfered with
free trade
• Never really went to court
Labor Unions Emerge
• Long Hours and Danger
• No vacations, 12+hrs a day, no
compensation, faulty equipment, no
ventilation, etc
• $.27 for children’s 14 hr day
• $267 avg yearly income for women
• $498 avg yearly income for men
• Carnegie and Rockefeller earned about
$23 mill a year
• Early Labor Organizing
• Knights of Labor
• 8 hr workday
• Equal pay for equal work
• arbitration
The Rise of the Labor Movement
and Unions
• Groups of workers
organized to negotiate with
employers
• National Labor Union (NLU)
• Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW or “Wobblies”):
William Haywood
• American Federation of
Labor: Samuel Gompers
• United Mine Workers of
America: Mother Jones
Strikes Turn Violent
• Great Strike of 1877
• Protest wage cuts
• Workers blocked the tracks
• President Hayes had to intervene
• Haymarket Riot
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•
•
•
Protesting police brutality
Police arrived
Bomb was thrown
8 convicted: four were hanged and one
committed suicide
• Homestead Strike
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•
•
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Wages cut
Frick hired scabs
Battle left 3 detectives and 9 workers dead
National Guard was called in
• Pullman Company Strike
• Workers laid off and wages cut
• Strike was ordered, union boycotted Pullman
trains
• Pres. Cleveland sent federal troops
• Eugene Debs was jailed
• Strikers were fired and black listed
• Industry Opposes Unions
• Made workers take oaths or sign contracts
to not join unions
• Blacklisted members
• Used lockouts
• Hired strikebreakers