Life in the 1860s
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
No indoor electric lights
No refrigeration
No indoor plumbing
Kerosene or wood to heat
Wood stoves to cook with
Horse and buggy
In 1860, most mail from the East
Coast took ten days to reach the
Midwest and three weeks to get to
the West Coast.
• A letter from Europe to a person
on the frontier could take several
months to reach its destination.
Life in the 1900s
• US Govt issued 500,000 patents—
electricity
• Refrigerated railroad cars
• Sewer systems and sanitation
• Increased productivity made life
easier and comfortable.
• Power stations, electricity for
lamps, fans, printing presses,
appliances, typewriters, etc.
• New York to San Francisco to 10
days using railroad.
• 1.5 million telephones in use all
over the country
• Western Union Telegraph was
sending thousands of messages
daily throughout the country.
•Natural Resources
•Capital
(gold, silver and banking)
•US Government support
•Desire: Creative inventors and
industrialists
•Transportation System
•Labor force (immigrants)
•Oil
•Railroad
•Mining
•Marketing
•Sugar
•Sewing Machine
•Steel
•Vacuums
•Meatpacking
•Typewriters
•Beef/Cattle
•Automobile
•Construction
•Salt
•Telegraph
•Coal
•Telephone
•Agricultural
•May 10, 1869 at Promontory, Utah
•“The Wedding of the Rails”
•Central Pacific and Union Pacific
“The Big Four” Railroad Magnates
•Financed the
Central Pacific
Charles Crocker
Collis Huntington •Hired Chinese men
to do the labor
•They had to cut
through the Sierra
Nevada mountain
range.
Mark Hopkins
Leland Stanford
New Business Culture 6.1.I.C
Laissez Faire
Industrial Age.
 the ideology of the
* Individual as a moral and
economic ideal.
* Individuals should compete freely
in the marketplace.
* The market was not man-made
or invented.
Social Darwinism
Belief that in the
economic world the
strongest companies will
survive
“The growth of a large
business is merely a
survival of the fittest.”
J. Rockefeller
Social Darwinism
•Social Darwinists believed that
companies struggled for survival in
the economic world and the
government should not tamper with
this natural process.
•The fittest business leaders would
survive and would improve society.
•Belief that hard work and wealth
showed God’s approval and
those that were poor were lazy
and naturally a lower class.
New Business Culture:
“The American Dream?”
Protestant (Puritan) “Work Ethic”
* Horatio Alger [100+ novels]
Is the idea of the “self-made man” a MYTH??
6.3.II.A
FORMATION
Organized by associates and
legalized through state charter
OWNERSHIP
Stockholders, according to number
of shares
CONTROL AND Through Board of Directors, elected
by the stockholders (usually one
MANAGEMENT
vote per share of stock held)
NET PROFITS
AND LOSSES
Dividends: to stockholders = profits
Lose: only the amount invested by
stockholders according to number of
shares
LIMITED LIABILITY
Conglomerate
Pool
Trust
(Monopoly)
Holding
Company
A group of unrelated business owned by a
single corporation. Still used today by
companies that merge.
Competing companies that agree to fix prices
and divide regions among members so that
only one company operates in each area.
Outlawed today.
Companies in related fields agree to combine
under the direction of a single board of
trustees, which meant that shareholders had
no say. Outlawed today.
A company that buys controlling amounts of
stock in related companies, thus becoming the
majority shareholder, and holding considerable
say over each company's business operations.
Outlawed today.
New Type of Business Entities
Trust:
* Horizontal Integration  John D.
Rockefeller
* Vertical Integration:
A. Gustavus Swift  Meat-packing
B. Andrew Carnegie  U. S. Steel
Vertical Integration
You control all phases of
production from the raw
material to the finished product
Coke fields
purchased
by
Carnegie
Iron ore deposits
purchased
by
Carnegie
Steel mills
purchased
by
Carnegie
Ships
purchased
by
Carnegie
Horizontal Integration
Buy out your competition until
you have control of a single area
of industry
Railroads
purchased
by
Carnegie
“Robber Barons”

Business leaders built their fortunes
by stealing from the public.

They drained the country of its
natural resources.

They persuaded public officials to
interpret laws in their favor.

They ruthlessly drove their
competitors to ruin.

They paid their workers meager
wages and forced them to toil under
dangerous and unhealthful
conditions.
“Captains of Industry”

The business leaders served their
nation in a positive way.

They increased the supply of goods by
building factories.

They raised productivity and expanded
markets.

They created jobs that enabled many
Americans to buy new goods and raise
their standard of living.

They also created museums, libraries,
and universities, many of which still
serve the public today.
Captain of Industry
•Monopolized the steel industry
•Rags to riches story---came from
Scotland very poor.
•Used scientific ideas (Bessemer
Process) to develop a better way
to produce steel and sell a quality
a product for an inexpensive
price.
•Used Horizontal and Vertical
integration.
Captain of Industry
•Came from a wealthy family
•Bought a substitute during the Civil
War.
•Formed the first modern corporations
in the oil industry Standard Oil
•Was the first billionaire in the U.S. by
1900.
•Used Vertical Integration and
Horizontal Integration to gain a
monopoly in the oil business.
The wealthy would manifest itself in an elite class of
Americans who lived extravagant lifestyles. Many common
people resented their snobbish attitudes and wealth. In
some respects, there was a caste system in the U.S.
1861---------3 millionaires----------1900--------3,800
By 1900, 90% of the wealth in the U.S. was controlled by
10% of population.
Poor working conditions

Unfriendliness/impersonalization

Immigrants taking jobs

Decrease work day

Machines replacing workers

Child labor

Job security

In the 1880s, children made
up more than 5 percent of
the industrial labor force.
Children often left school at
the age of 12 or 13 to work.
Girls sometimes took
factory jobs so that their
brothers could stay in
school.
If an adult became too ill to
work, children as young as
6 or 7 had to work.
Rarely did the
government provide
public assistance, and
unemployment insurance
didn’t exist.
The theory of Social
Darwinism held that
poverty resulted from
personal weakness.
Many thought that offering
relief to the unemployed
would encourage
idleness.
Work Environment
Division of Labor
 Some owners viewed
workers as parts of the
machinery.
 Factory workers worked

 Unlike smaller and
older businesses, most
owners never
interacted with
workers.


 impersonalization

by the clock.
Workers could be fired for
being late, talking, or
refusing to do a task.
Workplaces were not safe.
Children performed
unsafe work and worked in
dangerously unhealthy
conditions.
In the 1890s and early
1900s states began
legislating child labor.
National Labor
Union
•William Sylvis, 1866
•Skilled, unskilled,
farmers but
excluded Chinese…
•Cooperatives, 8 hr.
work day, against
labor strikes
•Founded a political
party in 1872
•Involved in the
Chinese Exclusion
Act.
•Lost election, faded
away
•Replaced by
Knights of Labor.
Knights of Labor
•Terrence Powderly
American Federation
of Labor or AFL
•All workers except
Chinese
•Samuel Gompers,
1881
•8 hr. day,
cooperatives,
prohibition, end child
labor
•Skilled workers in
separate unions.
•Several strikes won
some wage gains 1885
to 1886
•Unrealistic and vague
goals
•Loss of important
strikes and failure of
cooperatives
•Haymarket Riot—1886
•Work within political
system for change.
•Closed shop and
collective bargaining
•Over 1 million
workers joined and
won several strikes
•Small part of work
force eligible to join.
Goals of the Knights of Labor
ù Eight-hour workday.
ù Workers’ cooperatives.
ù Worker-owned factories.
ù Abolition of child and prison labor.
ù Increased circulation of greenbacks.
ù Equal pay for men and women.
ù Safety codes in the workplace.
ù Prohibition of contract foreign labor.
ù Abolition of the National Bank.
How the AF of L
Would Help the Workers
ù Catered to the skilled worker.
ù Represented workers in matters of
national legislation.
ù Maintained a national strike fund.
ù Evangelized the cause of unionism.
ù Prevented disputes among the many craft
unions.
ù Mediated disputes between management
and labor.
ù Pushed for closed shops.
Railroad Workers Organize
The Great Railroad
Strike of 1877
– Railway workers protested
unfair wage cuts and unsafe
working conditions.
– The strike was violent and
unorganized.
– President Hayes sent federal
troops to put down the
strikes.
−From then on, employers relied on federal and state
troops to repress labor unrest.
Railroad Workers Organize
Debs and the American
Railway Union
–At the time of the 1877 strike,
railroad workers mainly organized
into various “brotherhoods,” which
were basically craft unions.
–Eugene V. Debs proposed a new
industrial union for all railway
workers called the American
Railway Union (A.R.U.).
–The A.R.U. would replace all of
the brotherhoods and unite all
railroad workers, skilled and
unskilled.
•May 3, 1886, joining a nation wide
strike for an 8 work day Chicago
workers protested against the
McCormick Reaper plant.
•A riot broke out and Chicago
police officers killed several
protesters
•To protest the killing, protesters
planned a rally for May 4
•3,000 gather at Chicago’s Haymarket Square
•During the protest, a bomb exploded
•7 police officers were killed and civilians killed and injured
•Chicago police hunt down murderers
•7 anarchists were convicted of conspiracy to murder
•1892, Carnegie Steel workers
strike over pay cuts
•Management locks out
workers and hires scab
workers.
•Violence erupted between
strikers and scab workers.
•Pinkerton Security called in to
settle violence
•Strikers ambush them and forced Pinkerton’s to walk the
gauntlet between striking families.
•Some killed and many injured
•National Guard was called in by the governor of Pennsylvania
to stop violence and reopen plant
•Carnegie successfully broke
up the attempt to organize a
union.
•No labor unions in steel
industry until the 1920’s.
•Carnegie would be
remembered for events at
Homestead.
•His public image suffered
Conservation
Movement 6.1.III.A
With President
Theodore Roosevelt
John Muir
Yellowstone National Park
First national park
established in 1872.
Rainier will be the third
New Agricultural
Technology
6.1.III.B
Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]
“Prairie Fan”
Water Pump
Steel
Plow
Allowed farmers to cut through dense,
root-choked sod.
Mechanized
Reaper
Reduced labor force needed for harvest. Allows farmers to
maintain larger farms.
Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden
Farm Organization
6.1.III.B
• Grange
– Kelley
– Laws
• Greenback-Labor
– Weaver
– Butler
• Alliance Movements
– Southern and Northern
– Colored Farmer’s
– National
Populists (People’s Party)
6.1.III.C
•
•
•
•
•
Ignatius Donnelly
Mary Elizabeth Lease
Tom Watson
“Sockless” Jerry Simpson
William Peffer
Issues:
1. Coinage
2. Income tax
3. Sub-treasury plan
4. Regulation
5.
6.
7.
8.
8-hour day
Immigration restrictions
Direct elections
Initiative, referendum, recall
Populist Organization
• Founded 1890
• National 1892
– Weaver
• 1896-Bryan
– Cross of Gold
Coxey’s Army,
1894

Jacob Coxey & his “Army of
the Commonwealth of Christ.”
 March on Washington  “hayseed socialists!”
Black
“Exoduster”
Homesteaders
The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great Plains
African American & Chinese
Populations:
1880-1900
Mining (“Boom”)
Towns-Now Ghost Towns
Calico, CA
Pell St. - Chinatown,
NYC
Mulberry Street –
“Little Italy”
•To provide a center for
higher civic and social
life; to institute and
maintain educational
and philanthropic
enterprises.
•To
investigate
andWOMEN
RUN BY
COLLEGE
EDUCATED
improve
the conditions
provide
educational,
cultural, social
services in the industrial
districts
of to
Chicago.
send visiting
nurses
the sick
help with
job, financial
•To personal,
help assimilate
the
problems
immigrant population
Most successful work was in alerting the nation of the evils of
alcohol and promoting legislation to outlaw it.
•Passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919 to outlaw
alcohol.
•Led by Frances Willard
 This opened the Indian
Territory to the settlers.
 What used to be Indian
Territory out west was opened
to Americans once Indians are
finally on the reservation.
 State of Oklahoma would be
formed.
INDIAN
WARS
6.2.II.B
Colonel John Chivington
Kill and scalp all, big and
little!
Sandy Creek, CO
Massacre
November 29, 1864
Chief Joseph
I will fight no more
Nez Percé tribal
forever!
retreat (1877)
•Refused to recognize the authority of a 2nd treaty with the US
Government reducing his tribal land.
•Refusing to go to the reservation, he led his tribe on a 1,400 march
trying to get to Canada. Trying to meet up with Sitting Bull.
•Eventually surrendered.
•In 3 months, the band of about 700, 200 of whom were warriors,
fought 2,000 U.S. soldiers in 4 major battles and skirmishes
The Battle of Little Big Horn
1876
Gen. George
Armstrong
Custer
He
was heavily outnumbered and trapped.
Custer & all 220 of his men died.
“Custer’s Last Stand” outraged Americans and led to
Chief Sitting Bull govt. retribution.
The Sioux and Cheyenne were crushed within a year.
Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1851)
2nd Treaty of
Ft. Laramie
(1868)
Treaty of
Medicine
Lodge Creek
(1867)
Reservation
Policy
•1871 to 1875, the US supported
the extermination of 11 million
buffalo.
•Take away the food
source from the Native
American and they will be
forced to submit and go to
the reservations.
Helen
Hunt Jackson (1830-1885),
activist for Native American rights
and author of Century of Dishonor
was published in 1881.
Jackson
also began work on a book
condemning the government’s Indian
policy and its record of broken
treaties.
When
Jackson sent a copy to every
member of Congress with the
following admonition printed in red
on the cover: "Look upon your hands:
they are stained with the blood of your
relations." To her disappointment,
the book had little impact.
Dawes Severalty Act (1887):
Assimilation Policy
Carlisle Indian School, PA
The Ghost Dance Movement -1890
 Paiute medicine man Wovoka promised
the return of the buffalo and Indian way
of life.
 The religion prophesied the end of the
westward expansion of whites and a
return of Indian land.
 Spread to Sioux
 Sitting Bull killed
 Leads to Wounded Knee
Battle of Wounded Knee – Dec.1890
 Violence erupted, 300
Indians and 25 whites lay
dead.
 This is the last of the Indian
conflicts.
Chief Big Foot
1. A Two-Party Stalemate
Presidents-Republican
Senate-Republican
House-Democrat
2. Intense
Voter
Loyalty
to the
Two Major
Political
Parties
3. Well-Defined Voting
Blocs
Democratic
Bloc
Republican
Bloc
 White southerners
(preservation of
white supremacy)
 Northern whites
(pro-business)
 Catholics
 Northern
Protestants
 Recent immigrants
(esp. Jews)
 Urban working
poor (pro-labor)
 Most farmers
 African Americans
 Old WASPs (support
for anti-immigrant
laws)
 Most of the middle
class
4. Very Laissez Faire Federal Govt.
 From 1870-1900  Govt. did very
little domestically.
 Main duties of the federal govt.:
 Deliver the mail.
 Maintain a national military.
 Collect taxes & tariffs.
 Conduct a foreign policy.
 Exception  administer the annual
Civil War veterans’ pension.
5. The Presidency as a Symbolic
Office
 Party bosses ruled.
 Presidents should
avoid offending any
factions within their
own party.
 The President just
doled out federal jobs.
Senator Roscoe Conkling
 1865  53,000 people worked for the federal govt.
 1890  166,000
“
“
“
“
“
“
1880 Presidential Election:
CORRUPTION
LEADS TO DEMAND
Republicans
FOR CHANGES
Half Breeds
Stalwarts
Sen. James G. Blaine
(Maine)
compromise
Sen. Roscoe Conkling
(New York)
Mugwumps
1884
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur (VP)
Pendleton Act (1883)
 Civil Service Act.
 The “Magna Carta” of
civil service reform.
 1883  14,000 out of
117,000 federal govt.
jobs became civil
service exam positions.
1900  100,000 out
of 200,000 civil service
federal govt. jobs.
These are the first laws to regulate
industry and big business.
Interstate
Commerce
Congress passed Interstate
Commerce Commission (ICC).
Act
the US Government
U.S. government regulated
(1887) To regulate means
would make
laws totrade
oversee,
adjust,
interstate
within
the country.
(Wabash
case)
fine tune and correct
the unfair
End
railroad
corruption
business
tactics
in industry
and bigof charging
high
prices
to
ship
goods
and
business. Not
take
over
or
control
it
Rockefeller’s illegal deals.
because
that would violate laissez
Rebates/kickbacks/drawbacks
were
faire. illegal.
Sherman
Antitrust Act
In 1890, Congress passed a law
which made trusts/monopolies illegal
(1890)
or any business that prevented fair
competition.
Limitation: U.S. vs. E.C. Knight
State Reforms
Recall
Initiative
Allows voters to petition to have an
elected representative removed
from office.
Allows voters to petition state
legislatures in order to consider a
bill desired by citizens.
Allows voters to decide if a bill or
proposed amendment should be
Referendum
passed.
Privacy at the ballot box ensures
that citizens can cast votes without
Secret Ballot
party bosses knowing how they
voted.
Ensures that voters select
Direct Primary candidates to run for office, rather
than party bosses.
The Socialists
Eugene V. Debs
Founder of the Socialist
Party in the U.S.
Overthrow the existing
laissez faire and capitalistic
Believes
in government
ownership of business and
capital (money, natural
resources)
Government controls
production, sets wages,
prices and distributes the
goods. No profit or
competition.
Runs
for the presidency
several times.
RACIST AND NATIVIST THEORIES
6.3.I.B
social reality
Supreme Court decision which
legalized segregation
throughout the nation.
•“Separate but Equal” as long as
public facilities were equal
•Problem: Black facilities would
never be equal to White facilities
•Our nation would be segregated
until the 1960’s.
CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL
ARGUMENTS 6.3.II.A
“On Wealth”
Andrew Carnegie
$ The Anglo-Saxon race
is superior.
$ “Gospel of Wealth”
(1901).
$ Inequality is inevitable
and good.
$ Wealthy should act as
“trustees” for their
“poorer brethren.”
Philanthropist
•Gave millions to colleges and
libraries.
•It was the sacred duty of the
wealthy to give back to society
who has given to him.
•Stressed education as a means
to better one’s self.
•Carnegie Hall
•Carnegie-Mellon
Philanthropist
•Gave millions of his
money to hospitals and
colleges.
•University of Chicago
•Spellman College
•National Parks
•United Nations
•Williamsburg
•Cancer Research
CRITICS OF CORPORATE ETHIC
6.3.II.B
Henry George
Edward Bellamy
Social Gospel
Socialists
RACE AND GENDER
CHANGES 6.3.II.C
Women: Preparing the Way for Suffrage
American women activists first demanded the right to
vote in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New
York.
The movement eventually split into two groups:
The National Woman Suffrage Association fought for
a constitutional amendment for suffrage.
The American Woman Suffrage Association worked
to win voting rights on the state level.
In 1890, Wyoming entered the union and became the
first state to grant women the right to vote.
In 1872, in an act of civil disobedience, a suffrage leader,
Susan B. Anthony, insisted on voting in Rochester, New
York. She was arrested for this act.
Suffragist Strategies
NWSA
Constitutional Amendment
Winning suffrage by a
constitutional amendment
The first federal amendment
was introduced in Congress in
1868 and stalled.
In 1878, suffragists introduced
a new amendment.
Stalled again, the bill was not
debated again until 1887. It
was defeated by the Senate.
The bill was not debated again
until 1913.
AWSA
Individual State Suffrage
Winning suffrage state by state
State suffrage seemed more
successful than a constitutional
amendment.
Survival on the frontier required
the combined efforts of men and
women and encouraged a greater
sense of equality.
Western states were more likely
to allow women the right to vote.
Booker T. Washington
How do Black Americans overcome segregation?
Southern Perspective
•Former slave
•Wrote a book/ Up From Slavery
•Don’t confront segregation head on
•Before you are considered equal in society-must be self sufficient like most Americans
•Stressed vocational education for Black
Americans
•Gradualism and economic self-sufficiency
•Founder of Tuskegee Institute
Speech given by Booker T. Washington
in Atlanta, Sept. 18, 1895, at the
Atlanta World Exposition.
Booker T. Washington, founder of
Tuskegee Institute, was a black leader
in education in the South.
 Many of those who viewed this speech
saw it as a willingness on the part of
Washington to accept social inequality
in return for economic equality and
security for the southern blacks.

W.E.B. Dubois
How do Black Americans overcome segregation?
Northern Perspective
• Fought for immediate Black equality in society
• Talented 10%: Demanded the top 10% of
the talented Black population be placed into the
“power positions”
• Gain equality by breaking into power
structure
• Founder of NAACP
 National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
Begins in 1906 in a meeting at Niagara Falls,
Canada in opposition to Booker T.
Washington’s philosophy of accepting
segregation.
1. Encourage of Black pride
2. Uncompromising demand for full political and civil
equality
3. No acceptance of segregation----opposed Booker T.
Washington’s “gradualism”.
4. Gain acceptance of white reformers.
5. Formation of the NAACP in 1909 with Dubois as the
editor of the NAACP’s journal, The Crisis
6. Other Black groups formed to support Dubois,
National Urban League in 1911