Captains of Industry or Robber Barons AIM: How did industrialists during the Gilded Age justify their motives and methods?

I. Types of Business Organization Corporation: raises capital through the sale of stocks. Monopoly: the elimination of competition Pool: arrangement among business competitors to control prices by dividing up the market among themselves Trust: Competing corporations turn control over to a Board of Trustees to control the entire industry.

II. “Captains of Industry” A. Thomas Edison “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration” B. Cornelius Vanderbilt

Andrew Carnegie John D. Rockefeller

George Westinghouse J.P. Morgan

Granville T. Woods Henry Ford

Frederick W. Taylor Gustavus Swift

Dupont Family: James B. Duke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaT0s6Gx2FI L. Sears and Roebuck

Point of View Industrialists’ Philosophy Arguments Against Monopolies

III. Philosophy of the Industrialists Laissez Faire Capitalism: 1. business should be permitted to run without government regulation or control

B. Social Darwinism States: companies struggle for survival and government should not interfere with the natural process Herbert Spencer coined term Promoted by Yale Professor William Graham Sumner Supported by moral and constitutional conviction that individuals should be free to manage their property and enter into contracts themselves.

5. Social Darwinism reinforces Laissez Faire: a. How?

C. Horatio Alger Stories “Rags to Riches” stories of young boys suceeding. Supported concept of Social Darwinism Success remained exclusive to men, not women. Women: “Manuels on Motherhood”

D. Gospel of Wealth 1. Socio-economic philosophy that justifies earning great wealth but carries with it a social responsibility to the community.

2. Gospel of Wealth justifies Social Darwinism a. How?

because democracy alone is not enough to produce widely shared prosperity.