Robber Barons or
Captains of
Industry?
11.2.5 Discuss corporate mergers that
produced trusts and cartels and the economic
and political policies of industrial leaders.
Homework


Read and take Cornell Notes on section 14.2
to prepare for an activity on Tuesday.
Challenge Option – Come up with 8 cause
and effect statements from the reading.
Example:
The South had fewer people  they lost the Civil
War

3 New Vocabulary words…

Mass Production – Used by Henry
Ford to make cars more affordable.

Monopoly: Oil and steel industries
were both controlled by monopolies at
the beginning of industrialization.

Trust: a set of companies managed by
a small group known as trustees, who
can prevent companies in the trust
from competing with each other. If all
search engines were controlled by the
same people.

Corporation: Google, Netflix, Apple.
Any company that sells stocks.
HOT ROC:

Do billionaires have a responsibility to help
the poor?


*HW Check


Do millionaires?
Organizational Categories for your project.
Project Reminder:

Essay outline with a thesis statement for the
project is due on Friday
Simulation
 T-shirt
shops
where will you
shop?
Big Business and the Government

Horizontal
and
Vertical
Integration

Textbook,
page 171
Andrew Carnegie
$75 Billion


Don’t take notes on this section
Andrew Carnegie came from Scotland
with his parents in 1848.

In 1861, at the age of 26, he started
up the Freedom Iron Company, and
used the new Bessemer process for
making steel

He formed all of his companies into
the Carnegie Steel Company in 1899,
which controlled raw materials,
manufacturing, storage, and
distribution for steel.

Vertical Integration
John D. Rockefeller
$192 Billion






Don’t take notes on this section
Born in 1839
His working life started as a
bookkeeper
He established one of the first oil
refineries
1870—With partners, forms a
business trust: Standard Oil
At its peak, controls 90% of all oil
companies

Horizontal Integration
The Gilded Age…1870s-1900


Where was the most money
made?
Was this positive or negative for
America?
Steel
Production
1870
1900
77,000
tons
11 million
tons
Oil production 5 million
barrels
63 million
barrels
Railroad track 53,000
miles
200,000
miles
What would Rockefeller say…



Monopolies are good
because we can produce
goods at a lower cost to
consumers!
Now everyone can have
cheap oil and gas.
We use our wealth to benefit
others through our charitable
donations (philanthropy)
Big Business and the Government:
POV
Leave Business Alone
 Laissez-faire
 Social Darwinism
Limit Business

Sherman Anti-Trust Act
 1911--Splits
Rockefeller’s Standard
Oil into 34 companies

(A U.S. Court of Appeals
found in 2001 that Microsoft
violated the Sherman Act
antitrust law.)
What would the Populists (poor farmers)
say?



Monopolies are bad
because they control
the whole industry and
there is no competition
over prices.
We have to pay high
prices to ship our wheat
on the trains!
And these companies
pay low wages to their
workers!
Draw a Below the Surface graphic from
each point of view…


1. According to Rockefeller—monopolies are like…
2. According to the Populists—monopolies are like…
Who are the billionaires (Robber Barons)
of today?
Forbes 2011
Rank
Name
Worth
Age
Source
Country
1
Carlos Slim Helu & family
$74 B
71
telecom
Mexico
2
Bill Gates
$56 B
55
Microsoft
USA
3
Warren Buffett
$50 B
81
Berkshire Hathaway
USA
4
Bernard Arnault
$41 B
62
LVMH
France
5
Larry Ellison
$39.5 B
67
Oracle
USA
6
Lakshmi Mittal
$31.1 B
61
Steel
India
7
Amancio Ortega
$31 B
75
Zara
Spain
8
Eike Batista
$30 B
54
mining, oil
Brazil
9
Mukesh Ambani
$27 B
54
petrochemicals, oil &
gas
India
10
Christy Walton & family
$26.5 B
56
Walmart
USA