CHAPTER 5

AN INDUSTRIAL NATION

Reasons to Go West

 Opportunities for those who have none here  HOMESTEAD ACT: encouraged farmers, African Americans, and European settlers to move west  Mining: Silver and gold in west!  Ranching  Adventure

1901 – Struck oil in Spindletop

 Kicked off oil boom in Texas  Oil boom lasted 20 years  New technologies   Production Rose New technologies

Industry and Railroads

 1850s “Bessemer” Process made making steel faster and cheaper  1873: 115,000 tons of steel  1910: 24 million tons – world’s top producer!

 Used for railroad locomotives and rails  Bigger bridges  Taller buildings  Nails and wire

Railroads

 Union Pacific laid tracks westward from Omaha  Central Pacific laid track from Sacramento

Railroads

 Led to the adoption of standard time  BEFORE: people kept time according to the sun  Chicago – 12:00  Indianapolis – 12:07  Pittsburgh – 12:31  Michigan had 27 different time zones  Railroads required accurate timekeeping  AFTER: world time zones

THE AMERICAN WEST

 In the mid-1800s US Government’s Indian Policy Changed  BEFORE: army forcibly removed Native Americans, moved them west -- BUT WE WANT TO LIVE IN THE WEST -  AFTER: government seized land and sent Indians to reservations  GOAL: break the power of Plains Indians  Americans agreed  Reservations threatened buffalo-centered way of life  We killed the buffalo to weaken the Native Americans

INDIAN WARS

 Tensions between Plains Indians, settlers, and the US Army grew  Settlers broke treaties  Battle of Little Bighorn  “Sitting Bull” beat the US Army  Wounded Knee: 300 killed  Reservation Life

14

TH

AMENDMENT

 Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws  HOW COULD THE GOV’T TAKE AWAY INDIAN LAND?

Mining

 After California gold rush, each new gold or silver strike inspired a new rush to the West  Everyone was looking to get rich, quick!

 Mining Communities: mostly men, just tents or shacks  Some grew into towns with dirt streets, wooden sidewalks, stores, and saloons  Denver Colorado was a mining town

Cowboys

 Ranching: Demand for Beef rose in cities  Cow in Texas = $4  Cow in East = $40  Ranchers hired cowboys to drive a herd of cattle to railroad town where they would be shipped to meat-packing towns. Usually lasted 3 months, 10-12 miles a day  2/3s of Cowboys were white teenage boys 12-18  Many African Americans, Latinos and even a few women!

Homestead Act

 1862  Allowed any head of household over age 21 to claim 160 acres of land  Required to build a home on the land, make improvements, farm the land for 5 years  2 million people claimed land

The Rise of Big Business

 Rose thanks to:  Were free to do so thanks to:

Social Darwinism

 There were huge inequalities under capitalism  Some explained these inequalities with  Stronger people, businesses will prosper  Weaker ones would fail

Business Organization

 In response to changes in industry, new types of business organization developed  CORPORATIONS  Owned by people who buy stock, or shares, in co.

 Board of directors makes decisions  To expand, corporations can sell stock to make $$  Stockholders can lose only the amount they have invested  Competition was fierce!

CORPORATIONS

 Some corporations merged to form a TRUST  A board of “trustees” ran the company like a single corporation  To gain dominance  When a TRUST had complete control over industry it was a  MONOPOLY

The very, very, very, very, RICH

 Tycoons  John D. Rockefeller: Standard Oil (OWNING EACH STEP OF THE PRODUCTION PROCESS – like pipelines and railroad cars)  Andrew Carnegie: Carnegie Steel  Example of the American Dream!

 Cornelius Vanderbilt: Railroads  George Pullman: sleeper cars

Immigration

 Old Immigrants : 1800-1880  10 million from Northern and Western Europe  New Immigrants: 1880-1910  18 million from Eastern Europe  Greece, Italy, Poland, Russia  Religion, Language, Clothing, Food, all DIFFERENT  Entered at Ellis Island in New York City

What was the reaction to Immigrants?

 Native Born Americans (Nativists) who were afraid of new immigrants pushed: : becoming more American (assimilating)  Poor immigrants never got farther than the city and lived in: : rundown apartment buildings

Titans of Industry Challenge

 Read each task and its decisions  Weigh the pros and cons of each decision  Choose an option for each task, and record your choice on the back, along with its math and its pros/cons  Add up your choices to see how much money your business will make

Example

 +90-20 -5 +10 +2 = 77* 1000 = $77,000  Scale with inflation (what it would be worth today):           1900 2012 90,000 = 2,053,836 80,000 = 1,825,632 70,000 = 1,597,428 60,000 = 1,369,224 50,000 = 1,141,020 40,000 = 912,816 30,000= 750,000 20,000=500,000 10,000=250,000

Sherman Antitrust Act

  In 1890 10% of the country had 75% of the wealth Sherman Antitrust Act: made it illegal to form trusts that interfered with free trade  Ineffective because the government prosecuted few  WORKERS      1/6 children 10-15 held jobs Worked 12-16 hours a day, 6 days/week No vacation Injuries were common Workers began to organize

Unions

 By banding together, organized labor hoped to pressure employers to give better pay and safer workplaces  Knights of Labor in Philadelphia  8 hour work day  End of child labor  Equal pay for equal work  Strikes!

 Common tactic over boycotts or negotiations

Strikes

 Great Railroad Strike  1877  Protested cuts in wages  Workers blocked movement of trains  Stopped traffic for over a week  Clashes with militia led to numerous deaths  Mobs in Pittsburgh caused millions of dollars in damage  Army ended the strike

Strikes

 Haymarket Riot  1886  1,500 strikes over wage cuts  Some involved violent clashes with employers and police  Chicago: crowds gathered in Haymarket Square  Bomb thrown into crowd: 11 dead 100 injured  Foreign-born unionists blamed for violence  8 men with foreign sounding names convicted and sentenced to death

Homestead Strike

 1892  Workers of Carnegie Steel in Homestead, PA  Workers seized the plant  Private guards hired by the company tried to take back control  Killed 16 people  Hurt the steel workers union

Form a Union!

 In your study group you will unite as a union  Appoint a secretary  1. What are your goals as a union?

 2. What are your demands?

 3. What will you do if you don’t get what you want?

 4. What would a strike look like?

Collins Type II

 Purpose of a Union  Purpose of a Strike  Study Group:  Who is the big winner in business – the owner/tycoon or the workers/unions?