RAILROADS
1865-35,000 miles of track
1900-193,000 miles of track
Greatest impact on economy
Encouraged mass production, mass consumption, & specialization
Creates time zones
Creation of modern stockholder corporation

RAILROADS
Early building-local lines
– Resulted in incompatible equipment
Age of railroad coincides with settlement of the frontier
Linking east & west creates a national market
Federal government provides loans & land grants to private railroad companies
– Hasty & poor construction
– Corruption-Credit Mobilier

RAILROADS
First Transcontinental Railroad
– Link CA with rest of nation
– Work divided between two railroad companies
Union Pacific-start from Omaha, NE, build west
Central Pacific-start from Sacramento, CA-build east
– Labor
Union Pacific-Civil War vets & Irish
Central Pacific-Chinese
– May 10 th , 1869-Promontory Point, UT
Golden spikes

RAILROADS
Four other transcontinental railroads
– New Orleans to Los Angeles (1883)
– Kansas City to Los Angeles (1883)
– Duluth, MN to Seattle, WA (1883)
– St. Paul, MN to Seattle, WA (1893)
Only one built without government subsidies

TECHNOLOGY
1867-typewriter (Christopher Shoales)
1876-telephone (Alexander G. Bell)
1879-Cash register
1884-fountain pen
1888-adding machine & Kodak camera
Greatest inventors of 19 th century
– Thomas Edison
– George Westinghouse

CONSUMPTION
New ways for businesses to sell products
Large Department stores
– RH Macy-New York
– Marshall Fields-Chicago
“Give the lady what she wants”
Neighborhood discount stores
– Frank Woolworth

CONSUMPTION
Mail order catalogues
– Sears Roebuck
Pre-packaged foods
– Kellogg & Post
Refrigerated railroad cars

INDUSTRIAL EMPIRES
Shift in industrial production from textiles to heavy industry
– Production of steel, petroleum, electric power, & machinery
New forms of business-monopolies
– John D. Rockefeller-Standard Oil (trust/horizontal integration)
– Andrew Carnegie-US Steel (Holding
Company/vertical integration)
– JP Morgan-banking (Interlocking Directorate)

INDUSTRIAL EMPIRES
Anti-trust movement
– Give power back to consumers
– Sherman Anti-trust Act (1890)
“prohibited any contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce.”
Too vague-did not stop monopolies
Hard to enforce
Social Darwinism
– Darwin’s theory of natural selection
– 10% of the population controlled 9/10 th of nation’s wealth
Horatio Alger theory
– “Rags to Riches” stories
– Hard work & honesty leads to wealth

LABOR
By 1900-2/3 rd of Americans working
10 hours a day
6 days a week
Wages determined by employers
In 1890, most families earned less than
$380 a year

LABOR
Biggest change of time-working women
1 out of 5 worked
Most young & single
Most in the textile, garment, or food processing industries
New inventions led to new occupations
– Secretaries, book keepers, typists, & telephone operators

LABOR
Changes in factory work
– Highly structured
– Regulated to increase productivity
– Repetitive
– Very dangerous-especially for children
– Huge turnover
– Workers easily replaced

LABOR
Management held all the power
Only protests-absenteeism & quitting
Formed first unions
Employers created techniques to discourage workers from joining unions
– Lockout
– Blacklist
– Yellow Dog Contract
– Private detectives
“Pinkertons”
– Court injunctions

UNIONS
National Labor Union (1866)
– First attempt to organize all workers
– 640,000 members by 1868
– Wanted 8 hour day & equal rights for women and African-Americans
– Lost support after Railroad strike of 1877 & the creation of the Knights of Labor

UNIONS
Great Railroad Strike (1877)
– Panic of 1876-railroad cut wages
– Strike spreads across county
– Shut down 2/3 rd of nation’s railroads
– Pres. Hayes used troops to end strike
– 100 people killed

UNIONS
Knights of Labor (1869)
– All workers
– Used political activity, education, & arbitration
– More success with strikes
– Downfall due to
Haymarket Affair &
Creation of the
American Federation of Labor

UNIONS
Haymarket Affair (1886)
– Union rally-against police actions
– Ends with 10 workers dead & hundreds injured

UNIONS
American Federation of Labor
(1886)-Samuel Gompers
– Skilled workers only
– Excluded women &
African-Americans
– Believed in supporting candidates & collective bargaining
– Helped raise the weekly wage and the average work week decreased
– But only for skilled workers
30% of population

UNIONS
American Railway
Union (1893)
– Eugene Debs
– All railroad workers, except
Chinese & African-
Americans
– Believed in strikes
& violent protests
– Downfall due to
Pullman strike

UNIONS
Pullman strike (1894)
– Cut wages & fired Union leader who brought demands to management
– Boycott of Pullman cars
– Pullman links cars with federal mail cars
– Pres. Cleveland orders boycott to end
– Union leaders jailed-strike ends

UNIONS
By 1900-Only 3% of workers belonged to a union
Industrial Workers of the
World (1905)
– “Big Bill” Haywood
– Unskilled workers
– Concentrated in the west
– Radical & violent
– Very successful, but
WWI begins and conditions improve
– Proved unskilled workers could organize