Mr. Mize

New Inventions

 Bessemer Process (1850s) allowed steel to be produced cheaply.

 Steel industry grew rapidly.

 Examples: railroads, skyscrapers, nails, pins

Raw Materials Example: Iron Ore 1 Steel: Vertical Integration Rolling The billets and slabs are heated and rolled into finished products.

4 Melting Hot air is pumped into a furnace, melting iron at 1600 degrees Celsius.

(2,912 degrees F) Casting The liquid steel is cast into billets and slabs.

2 3 Refining Impurities are removed and alloys are added from the molten metal through the use of a ladle.

What Issues Do You See?

Railroads

 The South had short rail lines that didn’t form a

network.

 The tracks in the North and the South had different widths, or gauges, so they couldn’t be connected.

 Solution?

 Southern railroads adopted the rails of the North.

Railroads

 The railroad industry created thousands of new jobs.

 Examples: steelworkers, lumberjacks, miners, railroad workers  Created a middle class  The railroads opened up the country to settlement and growth.

Railroads



There was a huge need for railroads



Time zones were created for trains



Protective Tariffs

 Protected US goods, making it cheaper to buy US good rather than import.

 Helped boost the US economy

Railroads

o This meant people could become very rich  Large companies bought smaller ones or forced them out of business.

 Monopolies = no/limited competition

Monopolies & Merges

+ =

Monopolies & Merges

+ + + = = =

Railroad Abuses

 Railroad companies offered rebates, or discounts, in order to keep or win customers.

 Forced many small railroad companies out of business.

 To end competition and keep prices high, railroad companies agreed to divide up business in an area and set high prices. This was known as pooling

.

Government Intervention

 Interstate Commerce Commission  Established to help Populists and Farmers  Regulated railroad rates  banned pools and rebates, which were special discounts to favored customers  Sherman Anti-Trust Act  Passed in 1890, banning the formation of trusts and monopolies.

 Difficult to regulate  Hard to prove

Day 2

Work Conditions

    Factory workers, miners and steel workers faced serious injury or death on a daily basis.

Average work day : 12 16 hours Average work week: 6-7 days Children worked in many industries, doing dangerous work for low pay.

Pullman Strike



(1893)

George Pullman cut the salaries of his workers at his railroad car factory.

 However, the rent in company owned houses remained the same.

 The workers went on strike.

Triangle Fire



(1911)

One hundred and fifty people, mostly young women, died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City.



Triangle Fire

The 240 employees sewing shirtwaists on the ninth floor had their escape blocked by back-to-back chairs and workbaskets in the aisles. The 75-foot long paired sewing machine tables obstructed essential access to the windows, stairs, and elevators.

Workers Organize

Knights of Labor

– formed in 1869 as the first labor union in the nation.

Goal #1: Shorter work day Goal #3: Equal pay for men and women Goal #2: End child labor

Labor Unions

 “…You are our employers, but you are not our masters. Under the system of government we have in the United States we are your equals, and we contribute as much, if not more, to the success of industry than do the employers…”

Success

 Women become very active in the strikes  Fire and safety rules are established  In some cases, working hours and wages are also set.

 Working age laws are also created