INDUSTRIALIZATION
WHAT WAS REVOLUTIONARY ABOUT THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION?
GLOBAL CONTEXT:
1. Began in England – textiles – a power loom –
and steam engine (James Watt)
2. Rapid development in the U.S. – land with
raw materials, labor, capital, machines, etc.
3. Critical importance of Capital - a capitalist
society is one in which $ goods are privately
owned and managed by competing businesses.
4. Aided by corporate forms of business,
investment in transportation, and patent laws
that encouraged invention.
2. Growth of American Industry after the Civil War
1. Railroads - transcontinental railroad
2. Other railroads - between 1865 and 1900
mileage increased from 35,000 to 260,000
miles of track.
3. New Industries:
a. Steel – Bessemer process
b. Oil discovered in Titusville, Pa.
c. Consumer goods:
1. light bulb, photograph, motion
picture camera - Thomas Edison
2. department stores – many different products in the same store 1862 – NYC – A.T. Stewart
d. Mail-order catalogs – opened rural areas
as a market place.
1. introduced by Montgomery Ward
and Sears Roebuck.
e. Electricity and the Revolution in
communications.
1. Morse – 1844 - telegraph Western Union
2. Bell - 1884 - telephone A T & T. 1900 - 1.5 million
phones.
F. “Captains of Industry” or “Robber
Barons” - helped people or took advantage of them.
1. Andrew Carnegie (1867) – steel
2. John D. Rockefeller (1865) – oil
3. Critics and defenders:
they put others out of business
and at the same time gave money
to society
3. Theories about the capitalist system:
a. Laissez-faire (Adam Smith)
b. Social darwinism (Herbert Spenser)
c. Work ethic (Horatio Alger –writer –rags to
riches)
4. Vertical and Horizontal Integration:
Business combinations:
1. Single proprietorship
2. Partnership:
3. Corporation:
Advantages:
1.
2.
3.
Disadvantages:
5. New ways of doing business:
a. Corporation:
b. Monopoly:
c. Pool:
d. Trust
e. Holding Company
f. Conglomerate:
6. The Beginnings of Federal Regulation of Business
a. Interstate Commerce Act - 1887
prohibited railroads from:
a. Pooling
b. Unjust rates
c. Charging more for short haul than a
long haul
d. Rebates to favored customers
b. Sherman Antitrust Act - 1890
any combination in restraint of trade is illegal
Both were difficult at the time to enforce.
7. Organization of Labor Unions:
a. How the Industrial Revolution changed
working conditions:
1. worked in factories
2. made products by machines
3. worked long hours – 12 hrs. a day – 6 days
a week
4. women and children paid about half of
what men received
5. unhealthy conditions
6. no job security
7. no compensation for injuries
8. easily replaced
8. The Knights of Labor (1869) headed by Terence
Powderly
a. Membership open to all – both skilled and
unskilled
b. Goals:
1. 8 hr. day
2. end child labor
3. equal opportunities and wages for
women
c. Were opposed to strikes
d. Haymarket Square Riot – 1886
Union rallied for striker workers
(McCormick Harvester Company) in
Chicago. A group of anarchist set off a
pipe bomb killing seven policemen.
Police responded by killing four demonstrators.
Eight anarchist were found guilty of
inciting a riot and murder.
Four were hung and one committed
suicide. Three pardoned.
Membership in the Union dropped
drastically because it was equated with
violence.
Membership declined:
1. skilled workers did not want to be
in a union with unskilled workers.
2. union is equated with violence
3. did not accomplish goals
4. whites did not want to work with
blacks.
e. American Federation of Labor – 1881
founded by Samuel Gompers
1. membership limited to skilled
workers arranged according to crafts
2. discriminated against women and
blacks
3. Goals:
a. Higher wages
b. Shorter hours
c. Better conditions
4. Methods: strikes were used when all
else failed.
5. By 1900 – more than 500,000
f. International Ladies Garment Workers Union
1900
1. women in clothing industry
2. protest:
a. Low wages
b. Long hours
c. Unsafe working conditions
1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
9. Radicals in the Labor Movement:
a. Anarchists: wanted to use violent means to
overthrow capitalist system.
b. Socialist: Wanted the government to control
and own factories and railroads.
International Workers of the World (IWW)
1905 – led by Eugene Debs
10. Violent clashes between business and labor:
a. Great Railway Strike: 1877 - Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad.
President Hayes sent federal troops to break
strike
b. Homestead Strike: 1892 – Carnegie Steel
-wanted to decrease wages with stepped up
demands.
-300 Pinkerton guards hired to break strike –
met by 10,000 workers – violence erupted
-troops sent in to stop strike
strike lasted 5 months – was a failure.
c. Pullman Strike – 1894 - led by Debs
-25 % reduction in wages
-workers go out on strike
-across the nation men working on
trains with Pullman cars refused to
work in support of Pullman workers.
-Pres. Cleveland sends in troops to
put down strike.
-Debs jailed for role he played in strike
11. Railroad will be equated with violence and
with being unsuccessful.
Agrarian Protest: Farmers against railroads
1. Farmers’ dependent upon:
a. Railroads - transportation
b. Merchants – goods
c. Banks – credit and loans
2. Granger Movement: also known as
Patrons of Husbandry – 1867 – Oliver Kelley
a. Grievances:
1. rebates were only given to certain
people
2. farmers paid more for a short haul
than a long haul
3. Merchants charged high rates for
storage
4. banks were charging higher rates of
interest
3. Solutions:
a. Cooperatives were formed – owned and\
Operated by the farmers who set grain
Elevators
b. Western state passed laws were
arranged for freight rates of RR comp.
c. Storage rates were determined
d. Many of these laws were ruled
unconstitutional because states can’t
regulate interstate trade.
4. Supreme Court Decisions against and for
regulation
a. 1877 - Munn v Illinois – ruled states
could set maximum rates for grain storage
b. 1886 – Court reverses Munn v Illinois.
Only Congress can regulate interstate
trade.
c. 1890 Congress passes Interstate
Commerce Act.
5. Populist Party (People’s Party)
a. Party developed out of various farmer’s
organizations.
b. Founded in 1890
c. Party Platform:
1. a graduated income tax
2. 8 hour day
3. government owned railroads
4. direct election of Senators
5. initiative, referendum, and recall
6. coin silver as well as gold
d. Populists’ idea for inflated money:
1. coin 16 silver $ for every $ gold
2. would create inflation
3. prices would go for crops but
so would expenses
4. William Jennings Bryan’s
famous “cross of gold” speech
6. Election of 1896
a. Populist nominate Bryan
b. Republicans nominate Mckinley
c. Winner McKinley – Bryan received 9%
of the vote
7. Contributions of Populist Party
a. Graduated income tax – 16th Amendment
b. Direct election of Senators - 17th
Amendment