Ch. 6, 8th grade
 One of the great influences on
westward expansion was the building of
the Transcontinental Railroad
 Let’s find out more…
Chapter 6, Section 1:
The Growth of Industry
Inventions that
Encouraged the Growth
of Industry
 Edison's electric light
 Bessemer steel
process
 Edwin Drake's
method for drilling
for oil launched the oil
industry
http://www.history.com/shows/modernmarvels/videos/light-bulb-turns-night-intoday#light-bulb-turns-night-into-day
The steel industry
was important to
the nation’s
economic growth
because steel was
better than iron for
use in building RR
tracks.
Edwin Drake
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4sykoU
WZ8g
Section 1: The Growth of Industry


a patent is a government document
giving an inventor the exclusive
right to make and sell his or her
invention for a specific number of
years
A generator is a machine that
a patent
produces electric current
U. S. Patents Granted
1790s → 276 patents issued.
1990s → 1,119,220 patents issued
Section 1: The Growth of Industry
 American industry didn't grow at a
steady pace
 pattern of good and bad times
is the business cycle
Section 1: The Growth of
Industry
Bell and the Telephone
• Alexander Graham Bell invented the
telephone
• It took him years of experiments
• March 1876, Watson, Bell's assistant heard
Bell say,
• "Mr. Watson, come here.
I want you."
Chapter 6, Section 2:
Railroads Transform the Nation
 The Transcontinental Railroad
Spanned the Continent
 - In 1862, Congress passed a bill
calling for two companies to
build a railroad that crossed the
entire country
 - the Central Pacific would start
in California and go East
 - the Union Pacific would start
in Nebraska and go West
 - the government offered them
20 square miles of land for
every mile of track that they laid.
The RR could sell it for money
Chapter 6, Section 2:
Railroads Transform the Nation
 Building the Railroad:
 - Due to the mining boom, the
Central Pacific faced a shortage of
workers to build tracks
 - they decided to hire Chinese
immigrant workers, who were not very
well liked by many people in
California & the West
 - this was a great move, because they
worked very hard, got sick less
(drank tea instead of the water), etc.
 - the Union Pacific hired former
soldiers from the Civil War, freed
slaves, and many immigrants from
Ireland, etc.
Chapter 6, Section 2:
Railroads Transform the Nation
 Railroads Tie the Nation Together
 - the RR lines met in 1869
 - a “Golden Spike” ceremony was
held to celebrate the meeting of the
two lines in Promontory Point, Utah
 - hundreds of people gathered as
the president of the Central and the
vice president of the Union Pacific
drove the last spike in
 - even though they both missed,
the telegraph still sent the news that
America was now connected
 - the Chinese workers didn’t get the
credit deserved
Chapter 6, Section 2: Railroads Transform the Nation
 Railroad Time
 - America had to change
their time system now
 - before, each town had
it’s own “solar time”
based on the sun
standard time
1. was proposed or begun by the RRs
2. divided U.S. into 4 time zones
3. it replaced a system where each town kept
its own time
4. the standard time system is till in effect
today
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-did-trains-standardize-time-in-the-united-states-william-heuisler
Chapter 6, Section 2:
Railroads Transform the Nation
 How did the RRs change where
Americans lived in the 1800’s?
 1) Linked the economies of the west
and east (shipping)
 2) Helped people settle the West
(jobs, travel, etc)
 3) Affected Native American life in
the West (RRs carried hunters who
killed buffalo, and miners who laid
claim to NA land)
 4) In the late 1800’s RRs changed
lives people relied less on the
environment (not near water)
 5) Places that were not on a coast
or a major river became important
cities
9:55
The Transcontinental
Railroad
The History Channel
9:42
9:04
Impact of Western
Expansion of the U.S.
 Population shift to west coast and great plains
(East coast still has the most though)
 Native American way of life pretty much
wiped out
 Farming in the plains increased
 New towns formed
 Railroad transformed travel
6.3 The Rise of Big Business
Business leaders guided
industrial expansion and
created new ways of doing
business.
6.3 The Rise of Big Business
The Growth of Corporations
~most businesses had been owned directly by
one person or by a few partners
• owners wanted to buy new equipment and
needed to raise money
• they used a corporation to do it
• a corporation is a business owned by
investors who buy part of the company
through shares of stock
•
Who founded the oil and steel industries?
A. These industries were controlled by two people
1. John D. Rockefeller-oil (bought other refineries)
2. Andrew Carnegie-steel (bought companies
related to the manufacturing of steel)
6.3 The Rise of Big Business
The Oil and Steel Industries
•
•
•
•
these industries began to grow in the 1800's
John D. Rockefeller established a monopoly
on the oil industry
monopoly- a company that wipes out its
competitors and controls an industry (when
one company controls an industry)
he created a legal body that held stock in
many companies called a trust
6.3 The Rise of Big Business
Differences in methods:
•
•
Rockefeller tried to control all the oil
companies in his industry by establishing an
oil trust which gave him a monopoly.
Andrew Carnegie tried to beat his
competition in the steel industry by making
the best and cheapest product and by
controlling all the processes related to
making steel
Philanthropists
•
Rockefeller and Carnegie were both multi
millionaires.
•
They were both philanthropists, people
who give large sums of money to
charities
•
Rockefeller-more than $500 million
Carnegie- more than $350 million
universities and libraries
•
•
http://www.history.com/shows/america-thestory-of-us/videos/andrew-carnegie#andrewcarnegie
2:11
6.3 The Rise of Big Business
•
The Gilded Age-an era in the late 1800's that
was a time of fabulous wealth for some
Americans
•
By calling this era the Gilded Age, Twain and Charles Warner
who wrote a book about it, were sounding an alarm.
Something is gilded if it is covered with gold on the outside
but made of cheaper material inside. A gilded age might
appear to sparkle, but Twain, Warner, and other writers tried
to point out that beneath the surface lay corruption,
poverty, crime, and great differences in wealth between the
rich and the poor.
•
The Gilded Age video
6.3 The Rise of Big Business
The South
• one region that knew great poverty was the
South
• the Civil War had left it in ruins
• the Southern economy grew very slowly after
the war
•
most of the South remained
agricultural
Chapter 6 “An Industrial Society 18601914”Section 4 “Workers Organize”
Main Idea: To increase
their ability to bargain
with management,
workers formed labor
unions.
In order to keep profits high, business owners
ran companies as cheaply as possible,
sometimes turning to sweatshops1.workers labored long hours under poor
conditions for low wages
2. Children often worked there, as well as
adults
3. The work was repetitive and boring
6.4 Workers Organize because:
• in 1873, a serious economic
depression started, and
companies like the B & O RR and
the Pullman Company, needed
to cut costs.
• worker pay cuts for the next 4
years
• 1/5 lost their jobs
What were the early unions?
Labor unions unite across the country to improve
conditions for workers
1. Strikes against the RRs were the first attempt to
protect workers’ rights (Knights of Labor)
2. In 1877, the B&O RR workers were the first to
strike due to a wage cut of 10%
3. President Rutherford B. Hayes called out
federal troops to end the 1877 RR Strike
because RR traffic was stopped.
4. before the end of the two week strike, dozens
of people were killed
The Haymarket Affair
•
•
•
•
~1886, Chicago, the McCormick Harvester
Company locked out striking union members
then they hired strikebreakers to replace
them
on May 3, there was a fight and one union
member was killed
the next day, union leaders called a protest
meeting at Haymarket Square
The Haymarket Affair cont.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
it was a rainy night, and not many people
attended
police moved in to end the rally
an unknown person threw a bomb
it killed 7 police and wounded about 60
police opened fire on the crowd, killing several
people and wounding about 100
the public saw the union movement as radical
and violent
opposition to unions increased, and membership
in the Knights of Labor dropped rapidly
Homestead Strike
~1892, labor strike over lowered wages breaks out at a
steel mill in Homestead, PA; workers lose (Andrew
Carnegie wins), violence erupts-10 dead and troops had to
be called out
Pullman Strike (Unions DID NOT get fed funding for this strike)
~1884, Labor strike at Pullman Palace Car Co.
*25% pay cut, but didn’t lower rent on company housing
*rail traffic comes to a halt
* Pres. Cleveland called out federal troops to end the
strike because it halted RR traffic disrupting
transportation and commerce
What were the union setbacks?
Business and government leaders fear unions
Clashes between strikers, “strikebreakers,” and police
cause union membership to drop (ex.Haymarket Affair)
Who was Gompers? What was the AFL?
A. Labor unions continue to fight; Samuel Gompers
starts national organization of unions known as the
AFL (American Federation of Labor). Served as the
president for 37 years.
1. Using strikes, boycotts, and negotiations the AFL
wins shorter work hours and better pay for workers
Labor Struggles Facts
• The Homestead Strike and the
Haymarket Affair both involved
violence
• Federal troops were called in to end
the RR Strike of 1877 and the Pullman
Strike when traffic was stopped.
• The AFL won shorter working hours
and better pay for workers
What did the RR Strike of 1877, the
Pullman Strike, and the Homestead
Steel Strike all have in common?
They were all caused by employers
cutting workers’ wages.
The Pullman Strike
Child Labor
• http://www.history.com/videos/the-fightto-end-child-labor#the-fight-to-end-childlabor
1:39