Robber Barons and Rebels
Capitalism vs. Socialism
Chapter 17 Vocabulary
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Technology/Inventors
Transcontinental Railroad (1869)
Credit Mobilier
Grange
Public Utility
Bloc
Vocabulary
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Holding Company
Merger
Monopoly
Trust
Interlocking Directorate
Rebates
Robber Barons
Capitalism v. Socialism
Social Darwinism
New Industries
 Bessemer Process - 3-5 tons to 15 minute
 Farming - 61 hours before the civil war to
produce 1 acre of wheat .
 Farming - 3 hours 19 minutes by 1900
 Manufactured ice enabled the transport
of food and then began the meat industry
 Coal - 1860 (14 million tons)
 Coal - 1884 ( 100 million tons)
New Industries
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Steel - 1880 ( 1million tons)
Steel - 1910 (25 million tons)
Copper - 1880 (30,000 tons)
Copper - 1910 ( 500,000 tons)
Why did the copper industry grow?
Growth of Cities
 New York between 1860-1914 (850,000 to 4
million people
 Chicago (110,00 to 2 million people
 Philidelphia (650,000 to 1.5 million)
 Think of the social changes this rapid
movement to the city made
Inventors or Robber Barons
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Thomas Edison - Electrical Devices
Gustavus Swift - Ice cooled railway car
James Duke - Cigarette rolling maching
Andrew Carnegie - Steel
JD Rockefeller - Oil
Jay Gould - Railroad
The Rise to riches
 Social Darwinism - The explanation why
all of these big businessmen succeeded
and they are living the American Dream
 90 percent of the big business men came
from wealthy familys. There were self
made stories - Andrew Carnegie
The Transcontinental Railroad
 The Central Pacific: spent $200,000 in bribes in
Washington to receive 9 million acres of free
land, $24 million in bonds, and payed $79
million to a construction that was their own
 The Union Pacific moving west paid for 12
million acres, and $27 million. It created the
Credit Mobilier and gave them $94 million when
the cost was $44 million
 Both railroads accepted subsidies from towns
JP Morgan
 Started as the son of a banker who sold stocks
to the railroad after the civil war
 Civil War he profited buying rifles for $3.50 and
selling them to the union for $22. Shoot off
thumbs but profited
 Escaped service in the CW for $300
 Linked Railroads to banks, banks to insurance
companies and controlled 100,000 miles
John D. Rockefeller
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Book Keeper to Merchant
Invested in the new industry of oil
Bought his first oil refinery in 1862
1872 set up the Standard Oil Company
Secret agreements with railroad
companies driving competitors out of
business.
Andrew Carnegie
 Started as a telegraph clerk at age 17
 Secretary to the head of the Pennsylvania
Railroad
 Broker on Wall Street for railroads
 Went to London discovered Bessemer
steel process - set up his own company
 Government passes tariffs to protect
 1900 - $40 mIllion - Sold for $492 million
Mergers
 Morgan bought the steel company and
formed US Steel
 Tariffs were passed to keep foreign steel
out closing out competition and keeping
steel $28 ton; working 200,000 men
twelve hours a day for low wages
 The banks also had interest as well as the
government in these monopolies
What are some businesses
today?
 Which ones are local and which are
national corporations.
 Supersize me
 Do big companies have interests in
government today.
 Do we really have the ability to have
upward mobility today.
The Interstate Commerce Act
 The interstate commerce act was passed to
regulate railroads and other monopolies by the
Federal Government
 This formed a very tight bond between the
government and railroads.
 Although the ICC was formed it was week and
could only control short runs within states.
 Sherman Anti Trust Act
Grover Cleveland vetoes
 Although the presidency switched
political parties it didn’t stop the ties to
big business
 Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill $100,00 to
help farmers because he said the
government is not the parent of farmers
 The same year he used the gold surplus to
pay bondholders $45 million
Education mirrors industry
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The industrial Rows
Bells
Developing Managers and middle people
Colleges are donated by wealth - Johns
Hopkins, Conrelius Vanderbilt, James
Duke, Leland Stanford, Rockefeller
The 14th amendment
 The 14th amendment protected who?
 In 1886 the court did away with 230 state
laws regulating big business.
 It declared big corporations were people
and their money was protected by due
process.
 19 - African Americans - 288 big corp.
Popular Novels
 Progress and poverty - The basis of wealth
is land, and land is being monopolized, a
single tax on land could help even out
society
 Looking Backward - The author falls
asleep and wakes up in year 200 to find a
socialist system - sold millions of copies
Test tomorrow
 Vocab and essay questions