Chapter 17—Industrial Supremacy
BIG PICTURE QUESTIONS FOR SECTION I: What technologies, techniques, and organizational strategies helped spur the
growth of American industry in the late 19 th century?
I. Sources of Industrial Growth—What factors contributed to the growth of American industry?
A. Industrial Technologies—What was the most important technological development during this time?
1. New Steel Production Techniques—Who was Henry Bessemer and what did his process do?
2. Pittsburgh—Where did the steel industry first emerge and why?
3. Rise of the Petroleum Industry—How did the oil industry begin to develop?
B. The Airplane and the Automobile—What two technologies were crucial to the development of the automobile?
1. Henry Ford—Who were some of the early car makers? What did the Wright brothers do? Why was Charles Lindbergh’s
flight important?
C. Research and Development—What did business leaders sponsor, and why?
1. Corporate Research and Development—What were the effects of corporations driving research?
2. Transformation of Higher Education
D. The Science of Production
1. “Taylorism”—What did Taylor urge employers to do? What was Taylor’s goal?
2. Moving Assembly Line—What effect did Ford’s assembly line have on making cars?
E. Railroad Expansion—What was the principal agent of industrial progress? What affects did railroads have on areas through
which new lines were built? How did time zones come about?
1. Rapid Expansion of the Railroad—Who were some of the big railroad tycoons?
F. The Corporation
1. Limited Liability—What was “limited liability” and how did it encourage investment? How did it benefit businesses?
2. Andrew Carnegie—Ultimately, was parts of the steel-making industry did Carnegie come to own? What product did
Gustavus Swift make?
3. New Managerial Techniques—What new managerial techniques did these modern corporations use?
G. Consolidating Corporate America
1. Horizontal and Vertical Integration—What is “horizontal integration” and how does it benefit a business? What is “vertical
integration” and how does it benefit a business?
2. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil—How did Standard Oil use both horizontal and vertical integration?
H. The Trust and the Holding Company
1. The Trust Agreement—What is a “trust”?
2. Rapid Corporate Consolidation—How consolidated had American businesses become?
BIG PICTURE QUESTIONS FOR SECTION II: How did capitalists justify growing economic inequalities and how did
critics answer them?
II.
Capitalism and Its Critics
A. The “Self-Made Man”—What was the “self-made man” and who were some of these men?
B. Survival of the Fittest
1. Social Darwinism—What did Social Darwinists argue about society? How popularized Social Darwinism in England and
America?
2. Justifying the Status Quo—In what 3 ways did Social Darwinism appeal to businessmen? What did Social Darwinists
believe about government economic intervention or labor unions? What did Social Darwinist businessmen try to do about
competition?
C. The Gospel of Wealth—What did Andrew Carnegie say was the “Gospel of Wealth”?
1. Russell Conwell—What was the message of Conwell’s “Acres of Diamonds” message?
2. Horatio Alger—Who was Alger, and what was the message of his stories?
D. Alternative Visions
1. Lester Frank Ward—How did Ward’s arguments contrast with Social Darwinism?
2. Henry George—On what did George blame social problems?
3. Looking Backward—Who wrote the book, and what was it about?
E. The Problems of Monopoly—What are monopolies and what problems were blamed on monopolies?
BIG PICTURE QUESTIONS FOR SECTION III: How did workers react to working conditions in industrial America?
III.
Industrial Workers in the New Economy—How were workers both beneficiaries and victims of the growth of industrial
capitalism?
A. The Immigrant Workforce—What sources of immigrants helped fill the industrial workforce?
1. New Sources of Immigration—In the 1870s and 1880s where did most immigrants come from? How did that pattern change
by the end of the century? Where did most immigrants to the West come from? Who helped recruit immigrants to come to
America?
2. Heightened Ethnic Tensions—How were ethnic tensions increased by new sources of immigrants?
B. Wages and Working Conditions—What were wages and working conditions like for most industrial workers?
1. Loss of Control—Over what had workers lost control?
C. Women and Children at Work—Why were women and children attractive recruits for industrial labor?
1. Poorly Paid Women—What were most women workers like? What industry employed most women? How were they paid,
compared to men?
2. Ineffective Child Labor Laws—What laws were in effect to protect children, and how effective were they?
D. The Struggle to Unionize
E. The Great Railroad Strike
1. National Strike—When did the strike occur, and what was the significance of the strike?
F. Knights of Labor—Who were the Knights of Labor? How did they treat women? What were their goals?
G. The AFL—What does AFL stand for? What sorts of laborers made up the AFL?
1. Opposition to Female Employment—Why did the AFL oppose women employment?
2. The AFL’s Agenda—One what types of issues did the AFL focus?
3. Haymarket Square—What happened in Haymarket Square, and what was the result for labor unions?
H. The Homestead Strike—What happened during the Homestead Strike, and how was the strike ultimately put down?
I.
The Pullman Strike—What happened during the Pullman Strike, and how was the strike ultimately put down? What
happened to Eugene V. Debs?
J.
Sources of Labor Weakness—What were 5 major weaknesses of the labor movement?
Terms to Know
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Gospel of Wealth
Alcott, Louisa May
Alger, Horatio
Altgeld, John Peter
American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
Anarchism
Bellamy, Edward
Bessemer Process
Carnegie, Andrew
Child labor laws
Debs, Eugene
Ford, Henry
Frick, Henry Clay
George, Henry
Gompers, Samuel
Haymarket Square
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Homestead Strike
Horizontal and Vertical integration
Knights of Labor
Limited Liability
Molly Maguires
Morgan, J.P.
National Labor Union
Pinkerton Detective Agency
Pullman Strike
Railroad Strike of 1877
Rockefeller, John D.
Social Darwinism
Sumner, William Graham
Taylor, Frederick W.
Trusts and Holding Companies
Vanderbilt, Cornelius
Ward, Lester Frank