Bell Ringer
What 5 products have had the
greatest impact on your life?
Explain your answer.
¾’s of a page.
Due to…
• Wealth of natural resources
• Government support of
business
• Growing urban populations
• Cheap labor
• Markets for new products
Innovators
&
Invention
Change the
Landscape of America
Forever
Edwin L Drake
• Used the steam engine to
remove oil from beneath the
earth’s surface
• Started oil boom in America
• Gas started as waste by-product
Henry Bessemer
• Created process which
cleaned impurities from iron
= creating steel
• This created materials for
things like railroads, and…
The Brooklyn Bridge
• Completed in 1883, it
spanned 1595 feet
• Called a wonder of the
world due to its height and
weight bearing structure
Skyscrapers
• Allowed buildings to be
built to astronomical
heights because of the
steel beams used in
construction
• It developed time saving
appliances because energy
was so cheap and efficient
• Electric streetcars spread
cities out
• Plants and factories no
longer had to be near water
Innovation
Changes
Lifestyles in
America
Christopher Sholes
•In 1867 invented the
typewriter, which
changed the way
many people work
• Women became 40% of
the clerical work force
• Industrialization freed
workers from backbreaking labor
• By 1890 work day
reduced to about 10
hours
Industrialist
• A person involved in the
ownership or management
of industry
Henry Ford
• Created Ford Motor
Company in 1903.
• First Model T was
created in 1908
• Mass production
techniques allowed Ford
to turn out a Model T
every 24 seconds.
(Assembly Line)
Alexander Graham
Bell
• Invention of the
telephone in
1876 opened a
worldwide
communications
network
Orville & Wilbur Wright
• were two Americans
who are credited
with inventing and
building the world's
first successful
Airplane and making
the first controlled,
powered and
sustained heavierthan-air human flight
on December of 1903
Expansion of
Industry
Leads to
Boom in Big
Business
Andrew Carnegie
• One of
Industrial Steel
moguls to make his own
fortune
• Instituted new
management practices
such as…
st
1
• Vertical Integration
–Bought out suppliers
–Controlled Raw Materials and
Transportation
• Horizontal Integration
–Bought out companies
producing similar products
–Controlled the whole industry
Social Darwinism
• Success and failure in
business governed by
natural law
• Justifies “laissez-faire,” or
“allow to do.” Keeps
government out of
marketplace
• Big business created
more than 4000
millionaires since the
Civil War
• Appealed to Protestant
work ethic
–Riches = God’s favor
–Poor = Lazy and inferior
• Mergers
–Industrialists pursued buying out
competitors
• Monopolies
–When industries buy out all
competitors and completely
control industry
–Allows them to set wages, prices,
and production
Holding Companies
•Set up
specifically to
buy out stock of
competitors
John D Rockefeller
• Owned Standard Oil Co.
• Joined companies in trust
agreements
– Stocks in companies held
by trustees and ran as
one business
– Not legal
JP Morgan
• Banker/Financier
who dominated
corporate finance
and industrial
consolidation in late
1800 and early 1900’s
TRUST
• A trust is traditionally
used for minimizing
estate taxes and can
offer other benefits as
part of a well-crafted
estate plan
• A trust is a fiduciary
arrangement that allows
a third party, or trustee,
to hold assets on behalf
of a beneficiary or
beneficiaries.
• Drove companies out of
business by selling below
production cost, then
jacking up prices
• Called “Robber Barons”
for such tactics
Sherman Anti-Trust
Act of 1890
• Made it illegal to form
trusts that interfered with
trade
• Hard to uphold because it
didn’t define what a “trust”
was
Exploitation and
Unsafe Working
Conditions Draw
People Together
in Labor
Movement
Statistics
• By 1882, and average 675
people killed in workrelated accidents
• Wages so low, most
families had to send
everyone out to get jobs
• 20% of boys and 10% of girls
under age 15 held jobs
• By 1899 women averaged
$267 per year, men $498, and
Carnegie $23 million not
taxed
• Sweatshops were
unregulated
– Paid about $.27 for a child’s 14 hour day
American
Workers
Start
Organizing
Samuel Gompers
• Organized skilled workers in
the American Federation of
Labor (AFL)
• Used strikes to get higher
wages, and better hours and
conditions
• The AFL was
successful in many
ways
–Over the course of 15 years, the
average wages rose from $17.50 to
$24.00
–Over the same time period, hours
decreased from 54.5 hours to 49
per week
Eugene V Debs
• Organized skilled and
unskilled workers into the
American Railway Union
(ARU)
• Had a huge membership
Socialism
• Labor activists like Debs
wanted government control
of industry and equal
distribution of wealth – not
the overthrow of capitalism
Radicals
• The Industrial Workers of
the World (IWW, or
“Wobblies”) pushed for
socialism including the
downfall of capitalism
Other Movements
• Immigrant workers
such as Japanese and
Mexicans organized as
well
–This increased labor movements
–This increased tensions between
management and labor
Women’s Roles
• Women were banned from
most unions
• They held a great deal of
influence by backing
specific labor leaders to
demand wages, an end to
child labor, and better
working conditions
Mary Harris Jones
• Supported the Great Strike
of 1877, as well as many
others
• Endured threats and jail
• Nicknamed “Mother”
• “Mother” Jones led a
march in 1903 of 8 million
children, many injured
from factories, to the
home of Theodore
Roosevelt.
• Influenced passage of
child labor laws
Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire
•More than 146
women died in fire
•Company had locked
all doors to prevent
theft
• When factory owners
acquitted of the deaths,
the public was outraged
• This tragedy led to the
establishment of a task
force to study factory
working conditions
Management vs
Unions
•Management tried to
stop unionizing by:
–Forbidding union meetings
–Firing union members
–Forcing employees to sign
“Yellowdog Contracts”
Courts vs Unions
• Courts punished
unions using the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
–Said unions were interrupting
trade