Download emergence of industrial america

EMERGENCE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA
Western mining – Wealth of ____________________________________________ necessary for industrial
production [Silver – NEV/Klondike gold/Mesabi Range
Immigration – Immigrants (southern & eastern Europe) provide a large _____________ force
Gov’t _________________ & tax concessions to rr’s – Transport raw materials & finished products, as well as
settlers, to create national markets
Advances in communication – Telegraph, telephone, typewriter, & mail service improved
Corporation charters – Access to investment capital & protection of limited liability [Captains of Industry &/or
Robber Barons]
_____________________________ attitude of gov’t – Gave businesses considerable latitude in determining their
policies & procedures w/o regulation
Bessemer process – Allowed for the less expensive conversion of iron to _____________, a stronger & less
brittle material which was necessary for construction of rrs & heavy equipment
New sources of power – Coal & oil are inexpensive sources of fuel [Rockefeller]
High tariffs – Republican administrations especially sought high import taxes to lessen foreign competition
Yankee ingenuity – US inventors, protected by gov’t patents: electric lights, vulcanized rubber, telephone,
typewriter, steel plow, & modern press
Entrepreneurs – Contributed enormous amts. of capital & introduced new policies & techniques that spurred
US’s industrial growth
Vertical integration – Pioneered by ____________________ & US Steel: All of the various business activities
needed to produce & sell a finished product (procuring the raw materials, preparing them, producing them,
marketing them, & then selling them) would be done by the same company.
Horizontal integration – Strategy of gaining as much control over an entire single industry as possible, usually
by creating trusts & holding companies: Rockefeller & ______________________ (92% at one point in time)
National markets – Created huge demand for industrial products & large scale investments in machinery &
advanced techniques profitable
Civil War profits & foreign investment – Created large amts. of __________________ necessary for large scale
industrialization
PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUSTRIALISTS
Laissez-faire – Economic philosophy suggesting businesses should be permitted to run w/o gov’t regulation or
control
Social Darwinism – Economic philosophy stating that companies struggle for survival & the gov’t shouldn’t
interfere (survival of the fittest)
Gospel of Wealth – Socio-economic philosophy justifying earning great wealth but it came with a social
responsibility to the community [Carnegie – schools & libraries]/[Social Darwinism]
DEVELOPMENT OF LABOR UNIONS
Knights of Labor – Uriah Stephens, 1869
 All workers (women, African-Americans, professionals, laborers, skilled, anarchists, socialists, & farmers),
except _________________________
 Aimed to get rid of capitalism by creating worker-owned businesses based on the concept of
cooperatives
 Used boycotts, ________________, & mass meetings
 8 hr. day, prohibition, inflation, abolition of child labor, & establishment of producers’ & consumers’
co-operatives
 Won several strikes & made impressive wage gains in 1885-86
 Vague & unrealistic goals, ineffective leadership, loss of several important strikes, failure of
cooperatives, ease of replacing unskilled members in strikes, & association
w/__________________________________________ [Powderly/ Anarchists]
American Federation of Labor – Samuel Gompers, 1881
 Skilled workers only, in separate ____________ unions
 Bread & butter issues – better wages, shorter hrs. & better working conditions
 Anthracite Coal Strike (1902) – TR (_____________________________)
 membership of over 1 mil by 1901
 Only small part of work force eligible to join AFL
Industrial Workers of the World – Bill Haywood, Debs, & Daniel DeLeon, 1905
 All workers
 Overthrow of ______________________ & putting means of production in hands of workers
 Won Woolen Strike of 1912
 left spiritual heritage of organized labor
 Relativity small membership (never over 13,000), public opposition to violent tactics & revolutionary
aims (They opposed labor unions, anarchists, & socialists) [Wobblies]
STRIKES
RR Strike – President Hayes
 Baltimore & Ohio RR
 1st time to send in federal _____________________ to break up strike
Homestead Strike – Gov. of PA used state troopers to break up the strike & allowed strikebreakers (scabs) to
enter the mill
 Pinkertons
Pullman Strike – 1894: Federal gov’t issued an ________________________ to force rr workers back to their
jobs
 Mail cars – disrupted flow of mail is a federal offense
 Pres. Cleveland called out National Guard to end strike
GENERAL BELIEFS: Socialists were economically unsound because eliminating private enterprise seemed an
unrealistic goal for the workers; socialists were wrong because they used foreign & radical doctrines & they
were an industrial impossibility because there was not motive for workers to produce.
FARMERS’ DILEMMA
RRs - Controlled nominating conventions & state legislatures so that ______________________ had difficulty
getting favorable gov’t responses to their concerns
 rr controlled elevators & warehouses, fixed storage prices farmers had to pay, & arbitrarily graded
farmers’ grains
 Western farmers had only 1 choice of rr to transport their produce to market.
Middlemen – Their percentage was taken from a farmer’s profits.
Bankers – Farmers had to borrow $$$ for land & equipment & to tide them over from one harvest to the next
(_______________________________)
 Banks charged high interest rates (up to 40%) & a bad year often meant __________________.
__________________ – Fixed prices of farm products & also machinery costs, so that farmers had little control
over either the sale price of their produce or over the cost of necessary machinery.
Gov’t Officials – Farmers had heeded politicians’ advice to raise big crops only to find their success negated by
falling prices due to ____________________________
 They were bribed by contributors.
Farmers failed to understand the law of _________________________________________. They believed free &
unlimited coinage of ________________ would inflate the currency & cause rising prices.