Transcript Expansion of Industry

Unit 1: Chapter 6
1870-1900
Overview
 Technology
• Inventions, Innovation, Automation
 Railroads
• Expansion, Corruption, Regulations
 Big Business
• Trusts, Robber Barons, Philanthropists
• Unions
Expansion of Industry
Edwin L. Drake
• 1859
• Steam engine to drill oil
• Started oil boom
Created oil (petroleum)
refining industry
• Cleveland & Pittsburgh
• Transform oil for other
products
Expansion of Industry
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Asphalt roads
Kerosene lamps
Gas – thrown away
Heart valves
Tires
Eyeglasses
Expansion of Industry
• CDs
• Home heating
•Golf balls
•Plastics
Expansion of Industry
Henry Bessemer
• 1850
• Created Bessemer Process
– Cheap, efficient process
– remove carbon from iron to make steel
– Steel lighter, flexible, rust resistant
Expansion of Industry
Brooklyn Bridge
Expansion of Industry
• Spans nearly
6,000 feet over
East River
• Connects
Manhattan &
Brooklyn
• First steel wire
suspension
bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
Expansion of Industry
Skyscrapers
• Home Insurance
Building
• Chicago, 1885
•10 stories high
• 1st Building supported by
steel frame
Expansion of Industry
• Opened Menlo Park Lab
in 1876
• Perfected light bulb
• Created entire system for
distributing electrical
power
• Completely changed
business and home life
• Edison
Thomas Edison
Expansion of Industry
Christopher Sholes
• 1867 Invented first
typewriter
• More women work in offices
• By 1940 – women held 40% of clerical jobs
Expansion of Industry
Alexander Graham Bell
• 1876 - Telephone
• Beginning of
world-wide
communications
• Creates more new
jobs for women
Expansion of Industry
Effects:
• Standard of living rose
• Workweek shrunk–10 hours = more leisure time
• Consumerism
• Urbanization
Transcontinental Railroad
Central Pacific and Union Pacific
railroads
•Met at Promontory, Utah
•May 10, 1869
•Created the 1st transcontinental railroad
By 1890, about 180,000 miles of rail crossed
U.S.
Transcontinental Railroad
• Effects
– Brought land, adventure and fresh starts to
more people
– Harsh life for the workers
• Chinese
• Irish immigrants
• Civil War veterans
Transcontinental Railroad
Dangers
•Native American
attacks
•Mountainous
terrain
•Many accidents,
deaths, injuries,
diseases
Transcontinental Railroad
• Effects
– Created Time Zones
– Brought growth in
• Glass, steel, iron, coal, lumber industries
• Towns, new markets for goods
• Trade between more towns
• Specialization in some cities, towns
Transcontinental Railroad
George Pullman – Railroad car mogul
• Started company to build RR sleeper cars
– Built nearby town for workers – Illinois
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Nice apts, with windows
Provided all services
Strict rules – no hanging out, no alcohol
Goal: stable workforce – control and profits
– Pay decrease without rent decrease = violent strike in
1894
Transcontinental Railroad
Pullman Town
"We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught
in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when
we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell".
Transcontinental Railroad
Credit Mobiller
An example of a “trust” formed to
• Reduce competition
• Earn excessive profits
• Union Pacific RR stockholders formed company
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2-3 times higher prices
Gave bribes to Congressmen to overlook
$23 million in corrupt money
Hurt farmers
Only received “slap on the wrist”
Transcontinental Railroad
Farmers fought back through Grange
• Government regulations
• Munn vs. Illinois
– Supreme Court upheld Granger laws
• Established the principle that government had the right to
regulate private industry to protect the public
• Interstate Commerce Act
– Federal government could regulate RR
– Goal to reduce excessive RR rates
– Not very effective until 1906
Big Business
Andrew Carnegie
• Scottish immigrant
• Carnegie Steel Co.
– Made a fortune in steel
• “Rags to Riches”
• Industrial mogul
• Tried to control steel industry
– Vertical, horizontal integration
Andrew Carnegie
Big Business
Andrew Carnegie
• Donated most of his
wealth
“Man who dies rich,
dies disgraced”
Carnegie Free Library of Braddock in Braddock,
Pennsylvania, built in 1888, was the first
Carnegie Library in the U.S.
Vertical & Horizontal Integration
Big Business
John D. Rockefeller
• Standard Oil Co.
• Joined Trust Agreements
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Competitors fix prices
Goal: Reduce competition
Illegal
Creates monopolies
Huge profits, low wages
• “Robber Barons”
• Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890 – outlawed
Trusts that reduced free trade
J.P. Morgan, Banker, Financier
Big Business
Social Darwinism
• Theory to explain business
success
• Success or failure in business
is natural selection
– “Strongest survive” –
• that’s how it should be
• Theory says no one should
intervene in business
– No government regulations
– Laissez Faire
Labor - Unions
• Main goals: collective bargaining, better
pay & working conditions
• Collective Bargaining – workers negotiate
contracts with management to win
workers’ rights
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Pay
Health insurance
Hours
Work conditions – safety, breaks, etc.
Labor-Unions
• Eugene V. Debs – Union/labor leader
– turned to socialism American Railway
Union
• Knights of Labor
• American Federation of Labor
• United Mine Workers
• Many failed, but added to union
momentum, created solidarity and dignity
for workers
• Many strikes turned violent – unions lost
public support
Haymarket Affair & Strike
• 3,000 in Chicago protest police brutality at
McCormick Harvester plant day before
– Police fire on protestors after bombed tossed at them
– Nearly 10 people killed, including police
– Some charged with inciting a riot: 4 hung, 1 suicide
• Steel strike also results in violence, deaths
• Pullman strike – many blacklisted from jobs in
RR
• Violence = Decrease in support for unions
Pullman Strike
Mother Jones
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
– Irish immigrant
– “mother of the laboring class”
– Death threats, jail
– Marched 80 injured children to President
Roosevelt’s home
– Resulted in passage of child labor laws
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire – NY, 1911
 8th-10th floors on fire
 Workers fleeing, but doors are locked
 Only unlocked door was blocked by fire
 No sprinkler system, fire escape collapsed
 146 female workers, including children, died
 Factory owners cleared of manslaughter
 Could no longer ignore working conditions
 NY studies factory working conditions