INDUSTRIAL AGE
CHAPTER 6
VS
VS
IN THE LATE 1800, THE US WAS
CONSIDERED A TIME OF GROWTH IN
BUSINESS, UNIONS, AND IMMIGRANTS
EDWIN DRAKE- OIL
• Seneca Oil Company to investigate
suspected oil deposits
• Steam engine to power drill
• First person to drill for oil 1858 near
Titusville, Pennsylvania
STEEL
•Bessemer Process- technique involved by
Henry Bessemer and William Kelly 1850
injecting air into molten iron to remove
the carbon and other impurities. This
method was allowing the US to produce
90% of the world’s steel by 1880.
WHY STEEL??
• RAILROADS!!
Barbed wire,
McCormick’s and
Deere’s farm machines
• Brooklyn bridge
(1883),
• sky scraper with
steel frame (William
le Baron Jennyfather of
skyscrapers)
Home Insurance Building
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
• growing urban population provided
cheap labor and markets for new
products
• Why was it cheap?
• Who provided the labor??
MEN AT LUNCH
Here are the immigrants who built, by hand, the
greatest skyline in the world. Here are the
unsung heroes of Manhattan.
INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS
• Thomas Edison- Incandescent light
bulb and entire system for producing
and distributing electrical power
• Charles Sholes- typewriter
• Alexander Graham Bell- telephone
RAILROAD
• -allowed for westward expansion (companies,
people, commerce moves west)
• Harsh living conditions for railroad workers.
Romance and reality
• linked previously isolated cities, town
• promoted trade
• individual towns began to specialize in something
• Chicago: stockyards
• Minneapolis: grain industries
• sell large number of its product
to entire country
ROMANCE VS REALITY
Romance
• Access to available
land
• Adventure
• Fresh start
• Made possible by the
hard workers
Reality
• Central Pacific Railroad
• immigrants
• lay tracks by hand
• attacks from NA
• accidents and diseases
• 1888: 2,000 dead 20,000
injured
PROFESSOR C.F. DOWD
• Each company ran on its own time
• 24 time zones
• US
• Eastern, Central, Mountain, and
Pacific
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
• How did the growth of the
railroads influence other
industries?
• Iron, coal, steel, lumber, and glass
needed for railroad’s demand for
materials and parts.
COMPANY TOWN
• George C. Pullman- factory for making sleeper and
other railroad cars
• built a town near factory for employees
• town provided basic needs
• clean, well-constructed brick houses and apt
buildings-1 window per room (luxury)
• services- doctor, shops, athletic fields
• affects the south
COMPANY TOWN= NOT SO GLORIOUS
strict guidelines
could not hang out on front steps
could not drink alcohol
tightly controlled environment= ensure stable work
force
• Did not lower rents, led to Pullman Strike
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FARMERS VS RAILROAD
railroads entered into formal agreements to fix priceskept farmers in dept
charged different customers different rates
demanded more for shorter hauls
GRANGER LAWS
• Munn v Illinois-1877
• Interstate Commerce Act-1887- federal
government supervise railroad activities
• Steel, 1899 Carnegie Steel Company
• 1. make better products cheap
• 2. incorporated new machinery and a new
accounting system to
• 3. attracted talented people by offering them stock
in the company and he encouraged
• competition among his assistance
• Goal: Control as much of the steel
• industry
ANDREW CARNEGIE
MONOPOLY (HOW IT WORKS)
• Veritical integration- buy out the
suppliers
• Horizontal integration- buy out the
companies producing similar products
(limited competition)
SOCIAL DARWINISM AND LAISSEZ
FAIRE
• philosophy- Charles Darwin
• natural selection- pick of the weak “survival
of the fittest”
• laissez faire- “allow to do”
• marketplace should not be regulated
• government should not intervene in a business
MONOPOLY
• Mergers- “cant beat them, join them”
• horizontal integration
• one corporation bought out the stock of
another
• a firm that bought out all of its competitors=
monopoly
• complete control over an industry’s
production, wages, and prices
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
• Standard Oil Company- huge profits but
paid his employees extremely low, driving
his competitors out of the market. When he
controlled the market, he hiked prices far
above original levels.
• 1890- controlled 90% of nations refineries
• This tactic is what gave the name Robber
barons
PHILANTHROPISTS
• give away a large sum of money to a charity or an
organization
• Rockefeller- $500 million Rockefeller Foundation
• funds to create University of Chicago
• medical institution that help find a cure for yellow fever
ROCKEFELLER’S DEFENSE FOR
MILLIONAIRES
• “It will be a great mistake for the community to
shoot the millionaires. For they are the bees that
make the most honey, and contribute most to the
hive even after they have gorged themselves full.”
SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT-1890(STOP
MONOPOLIES)
• Government concerned that expanding
corporations would stifle free competition
• illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade
between states or with other countries
• hard to define trust
• eventually stopped enforcing act
EMERGENCE OF LABOR UNION
• Laborers joined together to try and improve their
working conditions
- seven day work week
-12 or more hours a day
-working conditions 675 laborers were killed by work
related accidents each week
-Child labor
• Average pay 1899:
-women $267 year
-men $498 year
-Andrew Carnegie $23 million
LABOR UNIONS
• First large scale Labor Union:
NLU- National Labor Union segregated
Knights of Labor- “An injury to one is the concern of
all”
-8 hr work day, equal pay for equal work- faded
out, but labor unions increased and divided
SAMUEL GOMPERS AND AMERICAN
FEDERATION OF LABOR (AFL)
• focused on collective bargaining, negotiation
between representatives of labor and
management to reach written agreements on
wages, hours, and working conditions.
• The AFL used strikes as a major tactic to get what
was demanded.
• This labor union only included skilled laborers
EUGENE V DEBS AND AMERICAN
RAILWAY UNION (ARU)• included skilled and unskilled laborers
• 1894- won a strike for higher wages (pullman strike)
• membership- 150,000
IWW AND SOCIALISM
• Socialism-government controls business and
property however there would be an equal
distribution of wealth.
• A radical group, Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) 1905, or known as wobblies.
• headed by William “Big Bill” Haywood
• Major strike in 1912- the Lawrence Textile strike
THE GREAT STRIKE OF 1877
• Great Strike of 1877- Baltimore and Ohio Railroadprotest 2nd wage cut in 2 months. 50,000 miles
freight and passenger lines stopped for over 1
week- President Hayes had to intervene
THE HAYMARKET AFFAIR• May 4th 1886
• 3,000 people crowd Chicago’s Haymarket Square
to protest police brutality- (one striker killed and
several wounded day before)
• someone dropped a bomb into the police linepolice fired
• 7 police and 7 workers died
• 8 charged for the riot- 4 hanged and 1 committed
suicide in prison
• After riot- labor unions have a bad reputation
THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE
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Carnegie Steel Company’s Homestead Plant in PN
June 29, 1892- company cuts wages
hired armed guards to protect the plant and scabs
workers forced out the guards
3 detectives and 9 workers died
National Guard
strike continued till November
Changed Carnegie’s reputation
PULLMAN STRIKE
• Pullman Company laid off 3,000 of its 5800
employees
• cut pay and did not lower rent
• Eugene Debbs and ARU
• Strike turned violent
• federal troops called in
• Debbs jailed and workers blacklisted
WOMEN’S LABOR MOVEMENT
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Mary Harris Jones
supported Great Strike of 1877
organized United Mine Workers of America
death threats and jail
led a march with wounded children to Teddy
Roosevelt