Transcript A New Industrial Age Chapter 6 Review

A New Industrial Age
Chapter 6 Review
“What’s good for business is good for
America” ~ coolidge
The Expansion of Industry
• In 60 years U.S. becomes the leading industrial
power house in the world
1. natural resources
2. government support of business
3. growing urban population = cheap
labor and people to buy new goods
Resources & Inventions
• Edwin Drake makes drilling Oil practical
• Henry Bessemer = Bessemer Process – turns
iron into steel
• Thomas Edison 1876 – perfects the light bulb
and creates a system to distribute power
• Christopher Sholes 1867 invents the
typewriter.
• Alexander Graham Bell – 1876 invents the
telephone.
RAILROADS
Promontory Point, UT
(May 10, 1869)
Railroad Construction
Chinese Immigrants
• Asians received the worst pay from railroad
companies.
PAY
Whites: 10 hour day = $40 -$60 a month with
free meals
Asians: dawn to dusk = $35 a month and no free
food.
• Many were buried in avalanches or found frozen
to death as they worked to build our railroads.
Pullman
• 1880 builds a factory for manufacturing
sleeper cars
• Pullman provided housing for his workers
1. employees had clean brick houses
2. one window in every room
3. doctors, shops and an athletic field
were also built for the workers.
Downside to Pullman
• Town under strict control of the company
• Residence could not hang out on front
porches or drink alcohol.
• Workers strike over rent in 1894
Abuses
• Credit Mobiliers
• Railroad abuses
• Sweatshops pay children .27cents for 14 hour
day
• Women earn $267 a year
• Men earn $498 a year
• Andrew Carnegie made $23 million and paid
no income taxes!
• Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Regulations
• Granger Laws – Munn v. Illinois- gave states
the right to regulate railroads.
• Interstate Commerce Act- Federal government
can regulate activities of the railroads
• Labor Unions- emerge from unsafe working
conditions, long hours, no vacation or sick
time.