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Chapter 24

Chapter 24. Industry Comes of Age (The Gilded Age Part II). The Railroad. Built with government subsidies and land grants Frontier outposts became flourishing cities (if they were lucky) 1869: The Transcontinental Railroad links east and west

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Chapter 24

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  1. Chapter 24 Industry Comes of Age (The Gilded Age Part II)

  2. The Railroad • Built with government subsidies and land grants • Frontier outposts became flourishing cities (if they were lucky) • 1869: The Transcontinental Railroad links east and west • The “golden spike” is hammered in at Promontory Point, Utah • Steel provided the rails and bridges • Airbrakes made travel safer

  3. Revolutionary Railroads • Physical unification of our country • The nation’s first “big business” • 20% of US investment $ • More employees than any other • Who wants to be a millionaire?? • Raw materials factories Finished goods consumers • Farm products from the West population centers in the East • Railroads changed time itself!

  4. Golden versus Gilded • Stock watering inflated the RRs values artificially • Bribes/Kickbacks to politicians and judges • Rates were not made public • The reality: RR owners controlled American life • Politically, socially and economically ($) • Especially true of the farmers who were treated unfairly • Remember…this is where we saw the rise of Populism

  5. Cleaning Up This Gilded Age • Wabash v. Illinois (1886) ruled that it was the federal government’s job to regulate interstate commerce • Illinois was trying to regulate railroad rates within their state • The I.C.C. (1887) set the precedent that the government was bound to protect the public interest • Our nation’s first trueregulatory agency

  6. Mechanization and Innovation • Investment + abundant nat. res. + the size of the American market + transportation networks + cheap, plentiful labor + innovators and inventors (the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Edisons and the Bells) = SUCCESS! • By 1894, the US was the world’s manufacturing leader

  7. In Trusts We DON’T Trust • Large business combinations (trusts) make millions while reducing competition • w/ the Pendleton Act taking the incentive out of political contributions, politicians turn to big business • Horizontal Integration • J.D. Rockefeller & Standard Oil • A monopoly • Vertical Integration • A. Carnegie & Carnegie Steel • NOT a monopoly

  8. Horizontal Integration occurs when a business expands its control over other similar or closely related businesses. • By 1890, Standard Oil controlled over 90% of the refined oil in the U.S. • Vertical Integration occurs when a business expands its control over other business that are part of its overall manufacturing process.

  9. What did he do?? • Temporarily undercutting the prices of competitors until they either went out of business or sold out to Standard Oil. • Buying up the components needed to make oil barrels in order to prevent competitors from getting their oil to customers • Using secret rebates from the RR to reduce shipping costs to a level far below the rates charged to competitors. • Secretly buying up competitors and then having officials from those companies spy on and give advance warning of deals being planned by other competitors.

  10. …or a “Captain of Industry?” • John D. Rockefeller: "The American Beauty rose can be produced in all its splendor only by sacrificing the early buds that grow up around it."

  11. Gilded Age Philosophies • Herbert Spencer and others were often labeled as “social Darwinists” • Individuals “won” their station in life based on competition and their natural talents (Darwin…Get it?) • This could also be applied to entire nations in order to justify dominating “lesser peoples” • Self-justification of one’s wealth led to contempt for the poor

  12. Gilded Age Philosophies • Some Gilded Age capitalists did believe they had a duty to give back to the society that gave them their $ • This was known as the “Gospel of Wealth” • Andrew Carnegie famously said, “He who dies rich, dies disgraced” • By his death in 1919, he had given away over $350 million and provided more than 2,500 free public libraries throughout the world (J.D.R. will give away $500 million)

  13. The Drumbeat of Discontent • An epidemic of strikes raised the prospects ofan industrial workers and farmer alliance with the Populists • Haymarket Square (1886) • 7 police killed and 60 wounded when a pipe bomb explodes • Homestead (1892) • 10 people were killed, 60 wounded when violence between Pinkertons and striking workers broke out in Pittsburgh

  14. Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) • The first federal anti-trust law • Authorized federal action against any “combination in restraint of trade”

  15. …and in the South?? • James B. Duke revitalizes the tobacco industry w/ machine-rolled cigarettes • North vs. South (Really? Again?) • N. manufactured goods were given preferential treatment by the RR • RR encouraged the use of S. raw materials • “Pittsburgh Pricing” to keep S. steel from heading N. • Keeping labor cheap kept S. workers in poverty

  16. The Worsening Condition of Labor • Frederick Taylor published the Principles of Scientific Management • Unskilled workers become “part of the machine” • The skilled worker could be replaced • The craftsmen of old no longer controls his destiny

  17. Working conditions proved less than ideal • Small, crowded rooms • Specialization led to boredom, monotony and injury • Stale air and unsafe machinery • Long hours, low wages, no job security

  18. Labor Unions • Knights of Labor • 1st national union • Skilled & unskilled • T. Powderly becomes the leader in 1879 and ends the secrecy of the organization • American Federation of Labor • Organization of individual unions into one • Only skilled • Collective bargaining • Samuel Gompers was their most significant leader

  19. The Impact of the Industrial Revolution • “Jeffersonian ideals were withering…” • Rural Americans and European immigrants were headed for the factories • A new “ideal woman” (the Gibson Girl) enters the workplace for secretarial/clerical work • Gap between the rich & poor grows • Dependent workers • Clamor for international trade

  20. Chapter 25 America Moves to the City

  21. The Urban Frontier • Characteristics of cities at the turn of the century • How cities were “monuments of contradictions”

  22. The New Immigrants • Where from? • Social/Economic characteristics • Pushes and Pulls • How they were welcomed (or not) • How obstacles were overcome

  23. Women, Blacks and Whites • Meanwhile, the NAWSA foughtfor suffrage forwomen…but only white women • Ida B. Wells helps launch the National Assoc. of Colored Women fighting for equality as well as anti-lynching laws

  24. Booker T. Washington took an “accomodationist” approach • Go to technical school (like Tuskegee Institute) and learn a trade • In 1895 at the Atlanta Exposition he said: • “In all things purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (remember Plessy v. Ferguson?) • W.E.B. DuBois spoke of the “Talented Tenth” in 1903 • “Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst” • Go to college. Lead. • Considered the “Atlanta Compromise” propaganda

  25. Divergent Paths to Equality for African-Americans

  26. 1818 Frederick Douglass 1895 1856 Booker T. Washington1915 1868 W.E.B DuBois1963 1925 Malcolm X 1965 1929 M.L.K. 1968

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