Download Chapter 14: A New Industrial Age 1865-1901

Chapter 14: A New Industrial Age 1865-1901
Section 1: The Rise of Industry
American industry grew rapidly after the Civil War, bringing revolutionary changes to American
society.
I. The United States Industrializes (pages 436-437)
A. With the end of the Civil War, American industry expanded and millions of people left their
_________ to work in mines and factories.
B. By the early 1900s, the U.S. had become the world’s largest leading ________ nation. By
1914 the GNP, was eight times greater than at the end of the Civil War.
C. What was responsible for this growth?
-3 Factors That Led to the Industrial Boom:
1. A wealth of ________________________________.
2. A growing urban ___________________ that provided both cheap labor and
markets for new products.
3. Government_____________ for business.
1st Factor Natural Resources: abundance of raw materials; vast natural resources that
industry depended on; water, timber, coal, iron, and copper.
 These resources were here in America! Less __________ of resources now because
America had them!
 Most of these resources were located in the mountains of the _________. The settlement of
the West helped accelerate _________________, as did the transcontinental railroad by
bringing settlers and miners to the West and moving resources back to the factories in the
__________.
 *______________________- drilled the first oil well near Titusville, PA in 1859; oil
production increased.
nd
2 Factor Large Workforce:
 Between 1860 and 1910, the population of the U.S. ____________. This provided a large
workforce and a greater demand for consumer goods.
 Why the population growth? Large families and a flood of ____________________.
3rd Factor Government Support for business:
 __________________________ economics, popular idea in the late 1800s; government
should not interfere with the economy. Supply and demand needed to regulate prices and
wages.
 Profit motive = ___________________ increase; attracted to manufacturing and
transportation fields. Result=hundreds of factories and thousands of miles of railroad built.
 _________________ investments helped fund the nation’s industrial buildup.
 Laissez-faire = government low taxes and low spending; no regulations on industry = all
policies to help industry.
 High tariff controversy? Is the U.S. ready to compete by the early 1800s freely with other
nations or do we still nee a protective tariff?
II. New Inventions Promote Change: New inventions increased America’s productivity, which in
turned produced wealth and job opportunities.
A. _____________________: 1844 telegraph to send messages; before telegraph horse and
rider
B. Elias Howe: 1846 sewing machine
C. Elisha Otis: 1852 safety elevator kept elevator cars from suddenly falling
D. George Pullman: 1864 rail sleeping car
1
E.
F.
G.
H.
Thaddeus Lowe: 1865 ice machine
Gustavus Swift: invented refrigerated rail cars for transporting food
_________________________-:1876 invented telephone
_________________________: 1879 light bulb; electric generator, motion picture
The Power of Electricity
*Thomas Alva Edison- 1876 established the world's first research lab in New Jersey.
There he perfected the incandescent light bulb, which was patented in 1880. He later
invented an entire system for producing and distributing electrical power.
-The harnessing of electricity completely changed the nature of business in America.
Inventions Change Lifestyles
*Alexander Graham Bell and *Thomas Watson- 1876 invented the telephone, which
opened the way for a worldwide communications network.
-Both the typewriter and the telephone created new jobs for women.
-In 1870 women made up 5% of the workforce -- by 1910 they counted for nearly ______of
the clerical workforce.
Section 2: The Age of the Railroads
After the Civil War, the rapid construction of railroads accelerated the nation’s industrialization
and linked the country together.
I. Linking the Nation
A. After the Civil War, railroad construction dramatically expanded. In 1862 President Abraham
Lincoln signed the _______________________, which provided for the construction of a
transcontinental railroad by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies. To
encourage rapid construction, the government offered each company land along its right of way.
B. In 1865 the Union Pacific, under engineer ____________________, pushed westward from
Omaha, Nebraska. Weather, labor, money, and engineering problems hampered the project. The
workers included Civil War veterans, Irish immigrants, farmers, miners, cooks, and ex-convicts.
Camp life was dangerous.
C. Four merchants known as the _____________ invested in the Central Pacific Railroad. They
each bought stock in the railroad and eventually made a fortune. One of them, Leland Stanford,
became Governor of CA, founded Stanford University, and later became a U.S. Senator.
*___________________________________- in May 1869 the Central Pacific and the Union
Pacific met in Utah to nail the Golden Spike that marked the nation's first cross-country
railroad.
II. Railroads Spur Growth
A. ____________________ encouraged the growth of American industry. They linked the nation
and increased the size of markets. The railroad industry stimulated the economy by spending
large amounts of money on steel, coal, and timber (natural resources )
B. ______________________: famous railroad consolidator
C. 1883 American Railway Association divided the country into ____ time zones, or regions.
where the same time was kept = safety and more reliability = Eastern, Central, Mountain, and
Pacific.
D. Large integrated railroad systems provided increased efficiency, a decrease in time spent in
long distance travel, and it united Americans from different regions.
III. The Land Grant System
A. __________________________ were given to railroad companies by the federal government
to encourage railroad construction.
2
B. Railroad companies like the Union Pacific and Central Pacific were able to cover all their
building costs by selling land to settlers, real estate agencies, and other businesses.
IV. Robber Barons-The growth and consolidation of railroads benefited the nation, but also led to
__________________ and required government regulation.
A. The wealth of railroad entrepreneurs led to accusations that they had acquired their wealth
through illegal means. One of the entrepreneurs with the worst reputation was
______________, who used information he obtained as a railroad owner to manipulate stock
prices to his benefit.
B. Railroad investors realized they could make more money through land grants than by running a
railroad, so many investors bribed members of Congress to vote for more land grants.
C. In 1872 corruption in the railroad system became public with the _____________________
scandal. Several stockholders of the Union Pacific set up the Credit Mobilier, a construction
company. The investors signed contracts with themselves. The company greatly overcharged
Union Pacific, and the railroad agreed to pay the inflated bills.
D. When the railroad was completed, the investors had made a fortune, but the railroad was
almost bankrupt. Congress agreed to give additional grants to the railroad after several
members of Congress were given shares in Union Pacific at a price well below market value.
An investigation implicated several members of Congress, including
_________________________, who later became president Union Pacific had taken up to
$23 million in stocks, bonds, and cash.
E. Not all railroad entrepreneurs were corrupt. ___________________ built the Great Northern
Railroad without any federal grants or subsidies. It became the most successful
transcontinental railroad and the only one not to go bankrupt. 
Chapter 14, Section 3 Guided Reading Notes: Big Business
I.
The Rise of Big Business: By 1900, big businesses dominated the economy.
A. The Role of Corporations
1. Big business would not have been possible without the corporation.
2. Corporation: an organization owned by many people but treated by law as
though it were a single person.
3. Stockholders/Stocks
B. Economies of Scale:
1. Money from stock = investment of in new technologies, hiring a large
workforce, and purchase of machines that increase efficiency
2. Economies of scale: corporations making goods cheaply because they
produce so much so quickly using large manufacturing facilities.
3. Criticisms of corporations: using wealth to drive small companies out of
business.
II.
The Consolidation of Industry: To stop prices from falling (cut in their profits), many
companies formed pools, or agreements to maintain prices at a certain level. Criticism:
interfered with competition and private property rights. Companies that formed pools had no
legal protection and could not enforce their agreements in court. Pools generally did not last long.
Sooner or later competition resumed.
A. Andrew Carnegie and Steel:
1. Built first American steel mills to use the Bessemer Process: make high
quality steel efficiently and cheaply.
2. Vertical Integration: (steel industry) company owns all of the different
businesses on which it depends for its operation.
3
3. Horizontal Integration: (oil) combining many firms engaged in the same
type of businesses into one large corporation. = monopolies; Rockefeller
Standard Oil (buyouts)
4. Later monopolies would be outlawed by the Sherman Antitrust Act
III.
Selling the Product:
1. Advertising Industry Rose: Woolworth’s; Sears, Roebuck
2. Mail-order catalogs, chain stores
Chapter 14, Section 4 Guided Reading Notes: Unions (the other side of the spectrum)
I.
Working the United States:
A. Life for workers in industrial America was difficult.
B. Machines replaced skilled labor; work became monotonous. = little pride in
one’s work.
C. Working conditions were unhealthy and dangerous. Workers breathed in dust,
lint, and toxic fumes. High number of injuries.
D. Real wages rose  Standard of living rose
E. Uh-oh – Deflation: workers felt like they were being paid less money for the
same amount of work. = many workers decided to organize.
II.
Early Unions:
A. Trade Unions: unions limited to people with specific skills. Largest and
most successful in 1873: Iron Molders’ International Union.
B. Employers were often forced to recognize and negotiate with trade unions
because they represented workers whose skills they needed.
C. However, employers generally regarded labor unions as conspiracies that
interfered with their property rights. They particurlaly opposed industrial
unions: united all craft workers (special skills and training) and common
laborers (few skills and received low wages).
D. Techniques used to stop labor unions:
a. Oaths and sign contracts promising not to join an union; hired
detectives to go undercover and identify union organizers; blacklist: a
list of “troublemakers”; lockout: locked workers out of the property
and refused to pay them; hired strikebreakers.
E. Political and Social Opposition
a. Workers wanting to join a union faced several major problems:
1. No laws allowing workers the right to organize.
2. Owners were not required to negotiate with workers.
3. Courts frequently rules against them, referring to them
as conspiracies.
4. Perception that they threatened American industries.
5. Marxism: basic force shaping capitalist society was the
class struggle between workers and owners; workers
would eventually revolt, seize control of the factories,
and overthrow the gov’t; then gov’t would seize all
private property and create a socialist society where all
property would be evenly divided; leading to a
Communist society.
6. Many labor supporters agreed with Marx, and a few
even supported anarchism.
4
7. All of these ideas were driving forces in Euorpoean
unions = immigrants = nativism = attempts at
suppression of unions.
III.
The Struggle to Organize
A. The Great Railroad Strike: Circle Map
B. The Knights of Labor: Circle Map
5
C. The Haymarket Riot: Circle Map
D. The Pullman Strike: Circle Map
6
IV.
The American Federation of Labor
A. AFL: first leader Samuel Gompers: his approach helped unions become
accepted in American society.
B. He believed that unions should stay out of politic; rejected socialist and
communist ideas.
C. Gompers felt that the AFL should fight for small gains within the American
system. Gompers was willing to use the strike method, but preferred
negotiations.
D. AFL’s 3 main goals under Gompers leadership:
1. Tried to get companies to recognize unions and to agree
to collective bargaining.
2. Pushed for closed shops: companies could only hire
union workers.
3. Promoted an 8-hour workday.
V.
Working Women
A. After Civil War women wage earners increased.
B. “women’s work” – teachers, nurses, sales clerks, domestic servants.
C. Light industrial jobs
D. Paid less than men; most unions, including the AFL excluded women.
E. Mary Kenney O’Sullivan and Leonora O’Reilly: decided to establish a
separate union for women with the help of Jane Addams and Lillian Ward =
WTUL
F. WTUL: pushed for creation of minimum wage, an end to evening work for
women, and abolition of child labor.
.
7
Section 3: Big Business and Labor
Carnegie's Inventions
*Andrew Carnegie- a millionaire who made his riches in the steel industry. By 1899, the Carnegie
Steel Company manufactured more steel and all the factories in Great Britain.
-He attempted to control as much of the steel industry as he could.
*Vertical Integration- was a process in which he bought out his suppliers coal fields and iron mines,
ore freighters, and railroad lines -- in order to control the raw materials and transportation systems. (A
company buys out all of its suppliers).
-Carnegie also attempted to buy out competing steel producers. In this process, known as
*Horizontal Integration- companies producing similar products merge.
Social Darwinism and Business
Principles of Social Darwinism- the philosophy grew out of the English naturalist Charles Darwin's
theory of biological evolution.
-Has process of "natural selection" stated that only the fittest would survive.
*Laissez Fair- (a French term meaning "allow to do”) This theory justified the efforts of millionaires
and discouraged government interference and big business.
-Riches were a sign of God's favor, and therefore the poor must be lazy or inferior people who
deserved their lot in life.
Fewer Control More
*John D. Rockefeller- established the Standard Oil Company. He created trust to gain control of the
oil industry in America.
-He would pay his employees low wages and sell this oil at lower prices than businesses could
produce it for -- driving his competitors out of business. Then, when he controlled the market, he
hiked up prices.
-His company went from refining 3% of the nation's oil in 1870 to refining 90% a decade later.
-Critics began to refer to the tactics of industrialists such as Rockefeller as *Robber Barons.
-Although Rockefeller kept most of his assets, he still gave away over $500 million, establishing the
Rockefeller Foundation, providing funds to found the University of Chicago, and creating a medical
institute that helped find a cure or prevent yellow fever.
8
*Sherman Antitrust Act- 1890, made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between
states or with other countries. Finding it hard to enforce the act, the consolidation of businesses
continued.
-As business boomed in the north, the south was still trying to recover from the Civil War. However,
growth industries in mining, and in the tobacco, furniture, and textile industries offered hope.
Section 4: Labor Unions Emerge
Long Hours and Danger
-7 day work week -- 12 hour days -- no vacation or sick leave -- no unemployment compensation or
reimbursements for injuries suffered on the job.
-Injuries were common. Many caused by dangerous or faulty equipment.
-Wages: sweatshops- $.27 for 14 hour day. In 1899 women earned $267 a year, while men earned
$498 year.
Early Labor Organizations
*National Labor Union (NLU)- 1866, the refusal of some NLU local chapters to admit African
Americans led to the *Colored National Labor Union (CNLU).
-In 1868 that NLU persuaded Congress to legalize the eight-hour workday for government workers.
Union Movements Diverge
-2 major types of unions made great gains under forceful leaders.
-Craft Unions- included skilled workers from one or more trades.
*Samuel Gompers- led the Cigar Makers International Union to join with other craft unions in 1886.
*The American Federation of Labor (AFL)- with Gompers as its president, it focused on collective
bargaining, or negotiation between representatives and labor-management to reach written
agreements on wages, hours, and work conditions.
-The AFL use strikes as a major tactic.
-Industrial Unionism- unions that included all laborers-skilled and unskilled, in a certain industry.
*Eugene V. Debs- formed the American Railway Union (ARU).
*Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)- the Wobblies, headed by William "Big Bill" Haywood,
included minors, lumberers, and cannery and dockworkers.
-It was organized by a group of radical unionists and socialists in Chicago in 1905 and it welcomed
African-Americans, unlike the ARU.
Strikes Turned Violent
-Industry and government respond forcefully to union activity, which they saw as a threat to the entire
capitalist system.
*The Great Strike of 1877- railroad workers struck over a second pay cut. Federal troops were sent
in to end the strike.
*The Haymarket Affair- May 1886, 3,000 people gathered at Chicago's Haymarket Square to protest
police brutality -- a striker had been killed and several had been wounded at a plant the day before.
-Then someone threw a bomb into a police line and the police fired back. After this incident, the
public began to turn against the labor movements.
*The Homestead Strike of 1892- over working conditions and a pay cut at the Carnegie Steel
Company’s Homestead Plant in PA.
-The National Guard was called in to put it down. After this, it would take 45 years for steelworkers to
mobilize once again.
*Pullman Company Strike- during the panic of 1893, Pullman cut wages and laid people off but never
cut the prices on employees housing. After paying the rent, workers took home less than $6 a week.
9
-The strikes turned violent and federal troops were sent in.
-Debs was jailed and most of the strikers were fired and blacklisted from working at other railroad
jobs.
Women Organize
*Mary Harris Jones- organized the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). Nicknamed Mother
Jones, she led 8 million children, many with hideous injuries, on a march to the home of President
Teddy Roosevelt. This helped pass some child labor laws.
*The Triangle Fire- 1911, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City.
-The company had locked all but one of the exit doors and the one that was unlocked was blocked by
fire. There was no sprinkler system and the single fire escape collapsed killing 146 women.
-Public outrage flared after this -- New York set up a task force to study factory-working conditions.
Management and Government Pressure Unions
-The more powerful the unions became, the more employers came to fear them.
-Many employers would make their employees sign *Yellow Dog Contracts- swearing they would not
join a union.
-The industrial leaders, with the help of the courts, turned the Sherman Antitrust Act against labor. All
the company had to do was say that a strike, picket line, or boycott hurt the interstate trade, and the
state or federal government would issue an injunction against the labor action.
-These legal limitations made it more and more difficult for unions to be effective.
10