Transcript Powerpoint Captains of Industry - American History II

An Industrial Society
Economic Growth during the Gilded Age (1877-1900)
Big Business during the Gilded Age
• Between 1869 and 1899 the U.S. became the world’s leading
economic power—the population tripled, farm production
doubled and the value of manufacturing grew 6X
• Entrepreneurs recognized growing markets and focused their
attention on the techniques of mass production and
distribution into single companies that dominated an
industry (monopolies) or joined forces with competitors to
limit competition (trusts)
• Poor working conditions, business tactics and “laissez faire”
relationship that government had with business would
provoke the formation of an organized labor movement
Factors promoting business
Growth after the Civil War
• Availability of natural resources
• Labor shortage after war caused the invention of
high speed, labor saving machinery
• Railroads/internal improvements encouraged by
federal government
• “laissez faire”
• High tariffs
• Immigration/Cheap labor pool
• Growth of Agricultural sector out west
• Entrepreneurs/Inventors
nd
2 Industrial Revolution
(Market Revolution)
• Centered in U.S. and Germany
• Involved 3 developments:
• National transportation/communication network (National telegraph
and railroad system; steamships; undersea telegraph cable
connecting U.S. with Europe)
• Use of Electric Power created industrial efficiency and urban growth
(Electric trolleys and subways; production of steel and chemicals)
• Applying Scientific Research to industrial process
• Researches figured out how to refine kerosene and gasoline from crude
oil (Edwin Drake)
• Technique for refining steel from iron (Henry Bessemer)
• New products (telephone, typewriter, adding machine, sewing machine,
cameras, elevators, farm machinery)
• All lowered consumer prices, which created a mass consumer
culture
Entrepreneurs—Captains of
Industry or “Robber Barons”
Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt
• Merged rail lines
connecting Albany to
Buffalo into a single
powerful rail network to
New York City
• By 1873 he had connected
lines to Chicago
• When he died in 1877, his
son William added 13,000
miles of line in Northeast
Entrepreneurs—Captains of
Industry or “Robber Barons”
John D. Rockefeller
• Obsessed with order,
precision, tidiness
• Opened Standard Oil
Company of Ohio in 1870;
within 6 weeks he had taken
over 22 of his 26 competitors
• By 1879 he controlled 90-95%
of oil refining business in the
U.S.
• Became the world’s leading
philanthropist; gave away
$500 million by the time he
died at the age of 98
Entrepreneurs—Captains of
Industry or “Robber Barons”
James Buchanan Duke
• Bull Durham cigarettes began in
1868 with Washington Duke
• His son, James Buchanan Duke, took
a chance on a new cigarette-making
machine in 1870s
• By the late 1880s, the Duke
Company was producing 4 million
cigarettes daily.
• One of his competitors, the Kimball
tobacco factory had a daily output
of 42,000 cigarettes
• Noted for his marketing and
advertising
• After a "tobacco war" among the
five principal manufacturers, Duke
emerged as the president of the
American Tobacco Company
Advertisement
Entrepreneurs—Captains of
Industry or “Robber Barons”
Benjamin Duke
• Buck Duke's older brother had
launched the family into the textile
business as early as 1892.
• As their textile interests developed,
the need for economical water
power led the Dukes into the
hydroelectric generating business.
• In 1905, they founded the Southern
Power Company, now known as
Duke Power, one of the companies
making up Duke Energy, Inc.
• Within two decades, this company
was supplying electricity to more
than 300 cotton mills and various
other factories, electric lines, and
cities and towns
American Tobacco
Historic District,
Durham NC
James B. Duke House, 5th Avenue, New York City
James Duke
statue in front
of Duke Chapel,
Duke
University
Marketing-Sears and Roebuck
• Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck
began a mail order catalog by the
1890s
• Purpose was to extend the reach
of national commerce to the
millions of people who lived in
isolated areas
• By 1900 there were 6 million Sears
catalogs distributed a year; it was
the most widely read book next to
the Bible
Entrepreneurs—Captains of
Industry or “Robber Barons”
Andrew Carnegie
• Emigrated to the United
States with his parents
from Scotland in 1848
• In 1850, Carnegie became
a telegraph messenger boy
at the age of 14 in the
Pittsburgh Office of the
Ohio Telegraph Company
at $2.50 per week
• By the 1860s had
investments in railroads,
railroad sleeping cars,
bridges and oil
Andrew Carnegie-Monopoly
• By 1873, he turned his attention
to the steel industry; After the
Civil War steel was cheap because
of the Bessemer Process;
Production increased and prices
decreased
• In 1860 the U.S. had produced
13,000 tons of steel; by 1880 the
U.S. was producing 1.4 million
tons
• Built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel
Company into a monopoly
• Sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for
$480 million, creating the U.S.
Steel Corporation.
• It was the first corporation in the
world with a market capitalization
over $1 billion.
Andrew Carnegie-Philanthropy
• Devoted the remainder of
his life to large-scale
philanthropy
• By 1911, Carnegie had
given away over $43
million for the construction
of 2811 libraries
• The Carnegie Corporation
of New York formed to
give away $150 million.;
has given large grants to
the other Carnegie trusts
as well as universities,
colleges, schools
Andrew Carnegie-Philanthropy
• The Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace
Founded in 1910 with $10
million, the Endowment is
the oldest public policy
institution in the United
States concentrating on
issues of war and peace.
• He gave $2 million in 1901
to start the Carnegie
Institute of Technology
(CIT) at Pittsburgh now
part of Carnegie Mellon
University
Gospel of Wealth
• Analyze Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” using the
APPARTS sheet
• In the significance category, think about whether these Gilded
Age entrepreneurs should be considered “Captains of
Industry” or “Robber Barons”
• Furman Owens, 12
years old. Can't read.
Doesn't know his
A,B,C's. Said, "Yes I want
to learn but can't when
I work all the time."
Been in the mills 4
years, 3 years in the
Olympia Mill. Columbia,
S.C.
Adolescent girls from Bibb Mfg. Co. in Macon, Georgia
A general view of spinning room, Cornell Mill. Fall River, Mass.
A moments glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a year. Rhodes Mfg. Co. Lincolnton, N.C.
Some boys and girls were so small they had to climb up on to the spinning
frame to mend broken threads and to put back the empty bobbins.
Bibb Mill No. 1. Macon, Ga.
The overseer said apologetically, "She just happened in." She was working steadily. The mills seem full of
youngsters who "just happened in" or "are helping sister."
Newberry, S.C.
One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at
night. Runs 4 sides -48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then
added confidentially, "I'm not old enough to work,but do just the same." Out of 50 employees, there were ten children
about her size.
Whitnel, N.C.
Francis Lance, 5 years old, 41 inches high. He jumps on and off moving trolley cars at the risk of his life. St. Louis, Mo.
View of the Ewen Breaker of the Pa. Coal Co. The dust was so
dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the
utmost recesses of the boys' lungs. A kind of slave-driver
sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into
obedience. S. Pittston, Pa.
A young driver in the Brown mine. Has been driving one year. Works 7 a.m.
to 5:30 p.m. daily. Brown W. Va.
Oyster shuckers working in a canning factory. All but the very smallest babies
work. Began work at 3:30 a.m. and expected to work until 5 p.m. The little girl in
the center was working. Her mother said she is "a real help to me." Dunbar, La.
•
After 9 p.m., 7 year old Tommie Nooman demonstrating the advantages of the Ideal Necktie Form in a store window on Pennsylvania Ave.
in Washington, D.C. His father said, "He is the youngest demonstrator in America. Has been doing it for several years from San Francisco, to
New York. We stay a month or six weeks in a place. He works at it off and on." Remarks from the by-standers were not having the best
effect on Tommie.
Joseph Severio, peanut vender, age 11. Been pushing a cart 2 years. Out after midnight on May
21, 1910. Ordinarily works 6 hours per day. Works of his own volution. All earnings go to his
father. Wilmington, Del.
A.D.T. messenger boys. They all smoke. Birmingham,
Ala
Fish cutters at a Canning Co in Maine. Ages range from 7 to 12. They live near the
factory. The 7 year old boy in front, Byron Hamilton, has a badly cut finger but helps
his brother regularly. Behind him is his brother George, age 11, who cut his finger half
off while working. Ralph, on the left, displays his knife and also a badly cut finger.
They and many youngsters said they were always cutting themselves. George earns a
$1 some days usually 75 cents. Some of the others say they earn a $1 when they work
all day. At times they start at 7 a.m. and work all day until midnight.
Messengers absorbed in their usual game of poker in the "Den of the terrible nine"
(the waiting room for Western Union Messengers, Hartford, Conn.). They play for
money. Some lose a whole month's wages in a day and then are afraid to go home.
The boy on the right has been a messenger for 4 years. Began at 12 years of age. He
works all night now. During an evening's conversation he told me stories about his
experiences with prostitutes to whom he carries messages frequently.
Homestead Strike
• Bloody labor confrontation lasting
143 days in 1892
• Centered on Carnegie Steel's main
plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania
• Dispute between the National
Amalgamated Association of Iron
and Steel Workers of the United
States and the Carnegie Steel
Company over wages
• the arrival of a force of 300
Pinkerton agents from New York
City and Chicago resulted in a fight
in which 10 men—seven strikers
and three Pinkertons—were killed
and hundreds were injured.
• Labor defeated