CHAPTER 6 A NEW INDUSTRIAL AGE
What helped the boom in industry and invention? Large supply of natural resources Explosion of inventions Growing city population that wanted the new products.
What were these natural resources/inventions? Oil (gasoline) Coal and Iron in Minn. Invention of steel Generation of electricity (appliances, machines, street cars) Typewriter Telephone Phonographs, bicycles, cameras
Unfortunately, many factory employees worked long hours in unhealthy conditions.
THE AGE OF RAILROADS
TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 1869, work completed on first TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD. This railroad crossed the entire continent.
Building & Running Railroads: Very difficult & dangerous work. Most work done by Chinese & Irish immigrants & desperate out-of-work Civil War Vets.
- Travel made easier - Industry grows - New communities are formed What effect did railroads have on America?
FARMERS VS. RAILROADS why?
Farmers claimed that railroads sold government land grants to businesses rather than to families. They also accuse railroad industry of setting high shipping prices to keep farmers in debt.
MUNN vs. ILLINOIS Battle between Farmers & Railroads reached Supreme Court in Court declared that government could regulate private industries in order to protect the public interest. Railroads had lost the fight.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT 1887 Gave federal government even more power over railroads. Railroad companies, however, continued to resist all government intervention.
BIG BUSINESS & LABOR
VERTICAL & HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION: VERTICAL INTEGRATION: companies that are involved in the processing of a product HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION: buying out or merging w/other companies.
What is Social Darwinism? Theory, based on ideas of biologist Charles Darwin. the best suited people to survive & succeed
Most entrepreneurs tried to control competition by forming a MONOPOLY or “Trusts”
Robber Barons Someone who made massive amounts of money in the industrial revolution This was an insulting term Suggested these business men made money off the back of their workers Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan
Review Big Business (railroads / robber barons) are not taking care of workers Workers are not happy with conditions, hours, treatment, etc. yCZtNE3g_sQ (Gilded Age) yCZtNE3g_sQ yCZtNE3g_sQ
Worker Conditions EqJN59o EqJN59o EqJN59o TO 5:50
Workers respond by forming LABOR UNIONS: Long hours, low wages Women and children working Tired of ownership making money at their expense utube.com/wat ch?v=g- 95bn8IFyc
Development of Labor Unions: NATIONAL LABOR UNION (NLU)- COLORED NATL’ LABOR UNION (CNLU) KNIGHTS OF LABOR –.
UNION MOVEMENTS DIVERGE…. STRIKES TURN VIOLENT!!!
One major type of union was CRAFT UNIONS.. Samuel Gompers- Formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in Gompers used strikes & collective bargaining.
EUGENE DEBS formed an industrial union…a union for all workers. American Railway Union (ARU) Debs & other workers turned to socialism.
1894, Eugene Debs led strike against the Pullman Company The strike turned violent when federal troops were called out to break up the strike.
IWW or WOBBLIES Union formed in 1905 by radicals & socialists
In the West, Japanese & Mexican farm workers formed a union to improve conditions
Unions used strikes to improve conditions 1877, workers for Baltimore & Ohio railroad went on strike. Strike broken up when railroad president persuaded President Rutherford B. Hayes to bring in federal troops to end strike.
HAYMARKET AFFAIR 1886, bomb exploded at demonstration in Chicago’s Haymarket Square in support of striking workers Several killed Labor leaders charged w/inciting a riot. 4 were hanged. 1 Committed suicide in jail.
HAYMARKET AFFAIR
MARY HARRIS (MOTHER) JONES OOOOrganizer for the United Mine Workers. UUUUnions’ struggle for better conditions was hurt by government intervening on side of management.
Despite pressures of government action, unions continued to grow