American Industry

Business Regulations What are some business regulations that the government has put in place to protect workers and business owners?

Minimum wage 40 hour work week Overtime pay for more than 40 hours a week and/or more than 8 hours worked in a day Workers comp for injury Health insurance Personal stake in the betterment of the company through stocks Safety measures for building codes Hiring requirements- age, citizenship, health requirements Hiring discriminations- gender and race

Trust Titans Top business leaders in the late 1800’s and early 1900s: Andrew Carnegie- the steel king John D Rockefeller- the oil baron J. P. Morgan- premier financer, bank owner All three men were known for their great business minds, their wealth and their fairly illegal means of gaining wealth

Steel Titan Carnegie pioneered: Vertical integration Combining into one organization all phases of manufacturing from mining to marketing When producing steel only those employed by Carnegie were allowed to touch the product Miners employed by Carnegie dug the ore from the mines, his ships carried the ore across the Great Lakes, his railroads delivered the product to the factory, his factory workers produced the ore into steel. Produced reliable product and cut out middleman costs

Oil Titan Rockefeller pioneered: horizontal integration Allying with competitors to monopolize a given market Created the Trust Stockholders in various smaller oil companies assigned their stock to the board of directors of his Standard Oil Company, he then consolidated the companies into one

Banking Titan J.P. Morgan pioneered: interlocking directorates Executives or directors from one company serve on the Board of Directors of another company

The Gospel of Wealth Those of great wealth thought that even though God had given them their money, they did have a moral responsibility to prove themselves worthy Social Darwinism- survival of the fittest Those with better natural talents won over those with little to no talent

Government Regulates Business Sherman Anti-Trust Act Forbid combinations in business No restrictions on good or bad, just bigness This act did very little, it truly had no power to control business combinations

Southern Industry Remained very little Agriculture still ruled majority of economy The first manufactured good was pre- rolled cigarettes The next manufactured good was textiles: cotton. Using the agricultural good they produced and actually making it into fabric