Transcript A New Industrial Age - Shasta Union High School District

A New Industrial Age
- The Expansion of Industry
- The Age of the Railroads
- Big Business and Labor
Black Gold
Native American tribes
used oil as medicine.
 Abraham Gesner, a
Canadian geologist, uses
kerosene to light lamps.
 1859 Edwin L. Drake
successfully used a
steam engine to drill for
oil.

Bessemer Steel
Process
In “1887 prospectors discovered
iron ore deposits more than 100
miles long and up to 3 miles wide in
the Mesabi Range of Minnesota.”
(Page 231)
 Henry Bessemer was a British
manufacturer .
 1850: Bessemer and William Kelly
develop the Bessemer process for
making steal.

Uses For Steal
Railroad tracks
 Innovative construction, like the
Brooklyn Bridge
 Skyscrapers
 Can you think of anything else
steal is used for?

The Power of
Electricity
“In 1876, Thomas Alva Edison
established the world’s first
research laboratory.”
 The incandescent light bulb
was patented in 1880.
 What does “patent” mean?

Typewriter

Christopher Sholes invented the
typewriter in 1867.
Telephone
Both Alexander Graham Bell and
Thomas Watson invented the
telephone in 1876
 With the invention of the
telephone and the typewriter
women started working in offices.
In 1870 women made up only 5%
of the work force and by 1910
they made up 40%!

Railroads: A National
Network
“By 1865, the railroads extended west to
the Mississippi River.”
 Central Pacific Railroad and the Union
Pacific Railroad meet at Promontory
Point, Utah. May 10, 1869
 Before the Civil war there was 30,000
miles of track. By 1890 there was
180,000!

Railroad Time
Professor C. F. Dowd proposed that the
earths surface should be divided into 24
time zones. 1869
 Finally in 1883 railroad crews and towns
across the country synchronized their
watches.

New Town’s and
Markets
Chicago was known for its stockyards
 Minneapolis was know for its grain
industries

Pulman
Built a factory town to make
railroad cars.
 The factory provided everything
for the workers. ( doctors, offices,
shops, and athletic fields)
 “ Pullman's refusal to lower rents
after cutting his employees’ pay
led to a violent strike in 1894”

Granger Laws
Granger laws, “ … to establish
maximum freight and passenger rates
and prohibit discrimination”
 Supreme Court case: Munn v. Illinois
upheld the Granger laws

Interstate Commerce
Act
“ In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that
a state could not set rates on interstate
commerce.”
 Since this made so many people angry
the Supreme Court passed the interstate
commerce act. This act established the
right of the federal government to
supervise railroad activities and
establish the ICC. 1887

Panic and
Consolidation
ICC = a five-member Interstate
Commerce Commission. ( It was a
federal organization to supervise
railroad activity )
 “Railroads, corporate abuses,
mismanagement, overbuilding, and
competition pushed many railroads to
the brink of bankruptcy” (240) this then
led the country into an economic
depression called the Panic of 1839

Carnegie’s Innovations
Born in Scotland
 Started poor and worked his
way to the top
 Left the railroad business to
produce steal
 Vertical integration, buy out
suppliers
 Horizontal integration, buy out
competing steel producers

Social Darwinism and
Business
Charles Darwin’s published his theories in
the book “ On the Origin of Species,” in
1859.
 Herbert Spencer used Darwin’s biological
theories to explain the evolution of human
society.
 Big businesses used this theory to justify
the doctrine of laissez faire.

John D. Rockefeller
Participants in a trust turned their stock
over to a group of trustees—people who
ran the separate companies as one
large corporation. In return the
companies were entitled to dividends on
profits earned by the trust.
 In other words: He controlled all of the
oil industry in the U.S.

Sherman Antitrust Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act made it illegal
to for a trust to interfere with free trade
between states or with other countries.
Labor Unions Emerge
Exploitation
 Unsafe working environments
 Long Hours
 The National Labor union was formed in
1866
 Knights of Labor was a labor union open
to all races and genders.

Union Movement and
Strikes
Craft Unionism
 Industrial Unionism
 The Great Strike of 1877: Workers for
the railroad had a strike, and federal
troops were forced to intervene.

Women Organize
Equal pay for equal work
 Worked to end child labor
 Fire in the Shirtwaist Factory in 1911: all
the but one of the doors were locked
and 146 women died.
