A New Industrial Age

1. A New Industrial Age Ch 14 Pg 436

2. Industrial Boom • B/C of … • Natural resources • Government support for business • Growing urban population that provided cheap labor and markets for new products.

3. Natural Resources Fuel Industrialization • Edwin L. Drake – first to drill for oil w/ a steam engine • Started an oil boom throughout the central U.S. • Gasoline, a byproduct of the refining process was originally thrown away. • After the automobile became popular, gasoline became the most important use of oil.

4. Natural Resources Fuel Industrialization • Abundant coal and iron were available in the U.S. (Birmingham, AL) • Bessemer Process – developed by Henry Bessemer and William Kelly • Technique involved injecting air into molten iron to remove the carbon and other impurities. • Process was widely used during the 1800’s.

5. Natural Resources Fuel Industrialization • Railroads were the biggest customer for steel. • Inventors also found uses for the material. (Glidden’s barbed wire, McCormick and Deere’s farm machinery) • Steel made innovative construction possible. • Brooklyn Bridge • William Le Baron Jenny designed the first skyscraper. • Not even the sky seemed to limit what Americans could achieve.

6. Inventions • Thomas Edison perfected the incandescent light bulb & later invented an entire system for producing and distributing electricity. • Completely changed the nature of business. • Spurred the invention of time-saving appliances, as the energy source became available in homes.

7. Inventions • Electric streetcars made urban travel cheap and efficient. • Promoted the outward spread of cities. • Allowed manufactures to locate plants anywhere. (Not just near rivers)

8. Inventions change lifestyles • Christopher Sholes invented the typewriter. • Changed the world of work. • Alexander Bell and Thomas Watson invented the telephone. • Opened the way for a worldwide communication network. • Both inventions changed office work and created new jobs for women.

9. Results of Industrialization and Inventions • Freed some factory workers from hard manual labor. • Helped improve workers’ standard of living. • Reduced the value of humans. • Provided a vast potential market for new inventions.

10. Age of the Railroads • Section 2 pg 442

11. Age of the Railroads • By 1859, railroads extended west across the Missouri river. • Transcontinental Railroad – a railroad that stretches across the continent. • Railroads hired Chinese and Irish immigrants as well as Civil War veterans. • Railroad workers faced attacks by Native Americans, accidents, and disease. • Thousands of men died and were injured while working on the railroads.

12. Railroad Time • Railroads united the nation. • Each community still operated on a separate time schedule. • None was when the sun was directly overhead. • So, noon is Boston was 12 minutes earlier than noon in New York.

13. Railroad Time • C. F. Dowd suggested the earth be split into 24 time zones. (One for each hour) • U.S. would have Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. • Railroad companies loved the idea and many communities also practiced the time zones. • In 1884, an international conference set worldwide time zones that incorporated railroad time.

14. Railroad Corruption • Stock holders of Union Pacific Railroad gave Credit Mobilier a contract to lay track at 2-3 times the actual costs. • Stock holders then pocketed the profits. • Also “donated” shares of stock to Congressional representatives. • Congressional investigation proved that Union Pacific had taken $23 million in stocks, bonds, and cash.

15. Railroad Abuses • Railroad companies misused government land grants. • Fixed freight prices • Charged different customers different prices

16. Granger Laws • Sponsored state and local political canidates • Elected legislators • Successfully pressed for laws to protect farmers interest. • Munn v. Illinois • Supreme Court upheld Granger Laws • Established the principle – the federal government’s right to regulate private industry to serve public interest.

17. Interstate Commerce Act • In 1886, Supreme Court ruled that a state could not set rates on interstate commerce. • Public was outraged • In response, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act – • Act reestablished the right of the federal gov. to supervise railroad activities and establish a 5-member Interstate Commerce Commission.

18. Panic of 1893 • Corporate abuses, mismanagement, overbuilding, and competition pushed many railroads to bankruptcy. • One of the major causes of the panic of 1893.

19. Big Business and Labor • Section 3 Pg 447

20. Andrew Carnegie • Worked his way up to private secretary to the head of the Pennsylvania Railroad. • After successful work he was offered an opportunity to buy stock of the company. • Mortgaging his mother’s home to make this possible, he made a tremendous amount of money from the dividends. • First industrial mogul to make a fortune in a rags to riches fashion.

21. Andrew Carnegie • Entered the steel business w/ his earnings. • BY 1899, Carnegie Steel Company made more steel than all of Great Britain. • Success due to… • Searched for new ways to make products cheaper. • Used new machinery and techniques. • Attacked talented people by offering stock of the company. • Controlling as much of the industry as possible.

22. Controlling Industry • Vertical Integration – buy out suppliers to control the raw materials and transportation systems. • Horizontal Integration – buy out competing steel producers. • Companies w/ similar products merge.

23. Social Darwinism • Charles Darwin’s book Origin of the Species • Natural Selection – some individuals of a species pass their traits along to the next generation. • Less – suited individuals are weeded out and do not survive. • Philosophers used this theory to explain the evolution of human society. • Justified “laissez faire” and concluded that the market place should not be regulated.

24. Consolidation • Mergers • Usually occurred when 1 corporation bought out the stock of another company. • A firm that bought out all competitors could achieve a monopoly.

25. John D. Rockefeller • Standard Oil Company joined w/ competing companies in trust agreements. • Participants gave their stock to be managed by a group of trustees as 1 company. • Rockefeller used a trust to gain total control of the oil industry in the U.S. • Big business owners w/ no competition began to be called “robber barons”

26. Sherman Antitrust Act • Gov. concerned that expanding corporations would stifle free competition. • Sherman Antitrust Act made it illegal to form a trust that interfered w/ free trade b/w states. • Very difficult to prosecute violators of the act. • Gov. finally gave up trying to enforce the Sherman Act.

27. Business Bypasses the South • South still recovering from the Civil War. • Had very little money to use for investments. • Southerners were fearful of risky business ventures. • Northerners owned 90% of stock in the most profitable southern businesses. • South was still primarily agricultural so they were at the mercy of the railroads.

28. Labor Unions Emerge • Labor Unions emerged b/c of harsh working conditions. • Steel mills often required 7 day work weeks, working 12+ hours a week. • Employees were not given vacation or sick leave and were not compensated for on the job injuries nor unemployment. • Factories had poor ventilation and machines were very dangerous. • One average 657 workers were injured per week.

29. Labor Unions Emerge • First large scale national labor union was the National Labor Union. (NLU) • In 1868, Congress legalized the 8 hour work day for factory workers b/c of the NLU.

30. Types of Labor Unions • Craft Unionism – skilled workers from one or more trades. • American Federation of Labor • Focused on collective bargaining, or negotiation b/w representatives of labor and management, to reach written agreements on wages, hours, and working conditions.

31. Types of Labor Unions • Industrial Unionism – labor leaders felt that unions should include all laborers – skilled and unskilled – in a specific industry. • Eugene Debs made the first attempt to form an industrial union – American Railway Union.

32. Socialism • Many labors turned to Socialism. • Socialism – economic and political system based on gov. control of business and property and equal distribution of wealth. • Industrial Workers of the World or the Wobblies.

33. Violent Strikes • Great Strike of 1877 • The Haymarket Affair • The Homestead Strike • Pullman Company Strike

34. Women Organize • Women were banned from most labor organization, but they rallied behind members for change. • Women supported equal working conditions and an end to child labor. • Marry Harris Jones was the most prominent woman organizer. • The women’s crusade influenced the passage of child labor laws.

35. Government Pressures • The more powerful the unions became, the more employers came to fear unions. • Many employers forbade union meetings, fired union members, and forced new employees to sign “yellow-dog contracts”. • “Yellow-dog contracts” – contract swearing that they would not join a join. • Legal limitations made it more difficult for unions to be effective.