The Industrial Society,
1850-1901
Industrial Development
 Entrepreneur:
 US offered ideal conditions for rapid industrial
growth.
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Abundance of cheap natural resources, l
Large pools of labor
Largest domestic market in the WORLD
Capital & government support w/o government regulation
Factors that helped build an
Industrial Economy
 Labor supply from Europe & American FARMS
 Inventions
 National market
 Plentiful $$$
 Favorable government policies
 Entrepreneurs
Railroad Empire
 Positives of the RR
 1865-1916 laid down over
200,000 miles of track
 Saved the federal
government 1 billion $$$
X 1850-1945
 Greater speed & safety
 Urban life to the country
 RR companies were huge
consumers AND
employers
 Building of Trunk lines
 Transcontinental RR 1862
-Central & Union Pacific
 Negatives of the RR
 Monopolies
 Fraud & waste connected
 Intense competition
 Panic of 1893
Empire Builders & Inventions
 Cornelius Vanderbilt - railroads
 Andrew Carnegie – Steel
 J.P. Morgan – Banking then United States Steel
 John D. Rockefeller – Oil – Standard Oil Company &
Standard Oil Trust
 Thomas Edison – telegraph, camera, processed foods,
telephone, phonograph, electricity.
 Bessemer Process…..
Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan,
Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller
Selling a Product to Wage Earners
 Marketing became a tool to sell a product.
 Advertising was common
 Department stores
 Brand names
 Mail order catalogs
 Wage Earners built the new factory society which
included men, women, & children
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Skilled & unskilled but skilled white males received a greater
share of the prosperity.
Culture of work
 The hope of upward mobility was the goal for all
factory workers.
 Work difficult, long hours, little pay, worked w/
machines and by hand.
 Punch the clock
Labor unrest & birth of Labor Unions
 American Federation of Labor (AFL) still exists.
Pushed for better wages & safer working conditions
and did resort to violence to achieve it.
 Knights of Labor founded by Samuel Gompers
 Opposed use of work strikes
 Only skilled workers were members. Women & Blacks not
allowed.
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Employers applied strict laws to increase supply of product.
Lead to more strikes.
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REMEMBER the HAYMARKET RIOT!