INDUSTRIALIZATION
1865 - 1901
Industrialization
`
Railroads
Steel
Oil
Banking
Technology
Unions
Vanderbuilt
Carnegie
Rockefeller
Morgan
Edison
Gompers
Cornelius
Vanderbilt
Andrew
Carnegie
John D.
Rockefeller
J. P.
Morgan
Thomas
Edison
Samuel
Gompers
Causes of Industrialization
• National Resources (Raw Materials)
– Water, timber, coal, iron, copper
– Needs helped settle the West - RR
• Oil
– Kerosene
– 1859 - Edwin Drake 1st oil well, Titusville,
Pa.
• Population Increase – Large workforce
– 1860 – 1910, tripled due to immigration
• Free Enterprise
– Laissez –faire
– Entrepreneurs
New Inventions
►
Alexander Graham Bell
 1876, Telephone (AT&T)
►
Thomas Alva Edison
 1877, Phonograph
 1879, Light Bulb
 1889, Edison General Electric Company (GE)
►
Textile Industry




Northrup Automatic Loom
Standard Sizing
Power-driven Sewing Machine
Mass production of Shoes
Railroads

Linking the Nation
– 1865, 35,000 miles
– 1900, 200,000 miles

Transcontinental
Railroad
– 1862, Pres. Lincoln,
Pacific Railway Act
– Union Pacific – Irish
immigrants
– Central Pacific –
Chinese immigrants
Railroads cont.

Spurring Growth
– Increased markets & desire for raw materials
– Consolidation of smaller lines (Vanderbilt)

American Railway Association - 1883
– Time Zones, safer more reliable
– Air Brakes, pull longer, heavier trains
– Standard Gauge, unite all lines

Land Grant System
– Gave RR companies land in the unsettled West
– Sold land for $$ to finance rail construction
Refrigerated Railroad Car
made it possible to ship meat
from slaughterhouses to cities
Gustavas
Swift - meatpacking
Scandals

Robber Barons



RR Entrepreneurs
Built fortunes by swindling taxpayers,
bribing govt. officials, & cheating on
contracts
Credit Mobilier Scandal – 1872



Construction company of Union Pacific
stockholders
Overcharged RR, investors kept extra $$
Used up federal $$, sold stock to
congressmen in exchange for more
federal $$
Big Business
 Corporation
 Produces more goods
cheaper
 Continue to operate in poor
economic times
 Can negotiate rebates from
RR – lowers operating costs
 Drives out smaller
competitors
Pools

Companies agree to maintain
prices of certain products
Business Practices

Monopoly

– Single company
achieves control of an
entire market
– Many states begin
outlawing
Trusts
– Legal maneuver
allowing trustee to
control several
companies & run
them as one

Holding Companies
– Produce no product
– Controls several
companies, merging
into one large
enterprise
Trust Busting
Standard Oil
Standard Oil
Of Ohio
Chevron
Amoco
Exxon
Mobil
Selling the Product




Advertising

New ways to market

1900 - $90 million in ads
Department Stores

Shopping becomes a
past time (fun)

Everything under one roof (Macy’s)
Chain Stores

Group of similar stores owned by same
company

Lower prices instead of elaborate service
(Woolworth’s)
Mail Order

Catalogue buying (Sears)
Working in the U.S.

Workers
–
Machines replacing skilled labor
–
Working conditions unhealthy & dangerous
–
$.22 per hour, 59 hours per week
–
Skilled craft workers – higher wages
–
Laborers – few skills, lower wages
–
To improve conditions – organize into Unions
Early Unions
• Trade Unions
– Limited to workers with skills
• Industrial Unions
– United craft workers & common laborers in
a particular industry
• Anti-Union Methods
–
–
–
–
Contracts to not join a union
Blacklist – not hire suspected Union organizers
Lockout – locked workers out & refused to pay them
Strikebreakers – replace workers during strikes (Scab)
Union Problems





No laws protecting the right to organize
Courts ruled strikes were “conspiracies
that interfered with trade”
Perception that unions threatened
American Institutions
Marxist, Anarchists, or Revolutionaries
Rarely successful
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877




Cut wages
Nation’s 1st labor
protest
80,000 workers, 11
states
President Hayes
sends troops to
regain order


100 killed, millions in damages
Failure led to organization of Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor
 1st
nationwide industrial union
– 8 hr. work day
– Govt. bureau of labor stats
– Equal pay for women
– Abolition of child labor
– Creation of worker owned factories
– Use of arbitration – 3rd party negotiators
Haymarket Riot of
1886
Carnegie Steel Works during
the 'Battle of Homestead
8 hr. day
Clash between police & workers
Anarchists set off bomb – police
open fire
– 7 cops, 4 workers die
– 8 arrested, 4 executed (only 1 a
Knight)
Knights of Labor membership
declines
Pullman Strike

American Railway Union (ARU)

Eugene V. Debs

Cut wages (depression)

ARU stopped handling
cars

Paralyzed U.S. economy

Attached mail cars


George
Pullman
Detach Pullman cars = detach mail cars
Violation of federal law, interfering with U.S. mail
Pullman
American Federation of Labor
(AFL)
• 1881, Samuel Gompers
• Politics
– Reject socialist/communistic
ideas
– Fight for small gains
– Strike only if negotiations fail
• Goals
– Companies to recognize unions & collective
bargaining
– Closed shops – hire only union workers
– 8 hr. work day
Working
Women
• Domestic servants,
teachers, nurses,
secretaries
• Paid less for same job
• Excluded from unions
• Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL)
–
–
–
–
8 hr. work day
No evening work
No child labor
Collected funds to help striking women