A New Industrial Age - The Expansion of Industry - The Age of the Railroads - Big Business and Labor

Black Gold  Native American tribes used oil as medicine.  Abraham Gesner, a Canadian geologist, uses kerosene to light lamps.  1859 Edwin L. Drake successfully used a steam engine to drill for oil.

 In “1887 prospectors discovered iron ore deposits more than 100 miles long and up to 3 miles wide in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota.” (Page 231)  Henry Bessemer was a British manufacturer.  1850: Bessemer and William Kelly develop the Bessemer process for making steal. Bessemer Steel Process

 Railroad tracks  Innovative construction, like the Brooklyn Bridge  Skyscrapers  Can you think of anything else steal is used for? Uses For Steal

 “In 1876, Thomas Alva Edison established the world’s first research laboratory.”  The incandescent light bulb was patented in  What does “patent” mean? The Power of Electricity

 Christopher Sholes invented the typewriter in Typewriter

 Both Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson invented the telephone in 1876  With the invention of the telephone and the typewriter women started working in offices. In 1870 women made up only 5% of the work force and by 1910 they made up 40%! Telephone

 “By 1865, the railroads extended west to the Mississippi River.”  Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad meet at Promontory Point, Utah. May 10, 1869  Before the Civil war there was 30,000 miles of track. By 1890 there was 180,000! Railroads: A National Network

 Professor C. F. Dowd proposed that the earths surface should be divided into 24 time zones  Finally in 1883 railroad crews and towns across the country synchronized their watches. Railroad Time

 Chicago was known for its stockyards  Minneapolis was know for its grain industries New Town’s and Markets

 Built a factory town to make railroad cars.  The factory provided everything for the workers. ( doctors, offices, shops, and athletic fields)  “ Pullman's refusal to lower rents after cutting his employees’ pay led to a violent strike in 1894” Pulman

 Granger laws, “ … to establish maximum freight and passenger rates and prohibit discrimination”  Supreme Court case: Munn v. Illinois upheld the Granger laws Granger Laws

 “ In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that a state could not set rates on interstate commerce.”  Since this made so many people angry the Supreme Court passed the interstate commerce act. This act established the right of the federal government to supervise railroad activities and establish the ICC Interstate Commerce Act

 ICC = a five-member Interstate Commerce Commission. ( It was a federal organization to supervise railroad activity )  “Railroads, corporate abuses, mismanagement, overbuilding, and competition pushed many railroads to the brink of bankruptcy” (240) this then led the country into an economic depression called the Panic of 1839 Panic and Consolidation

 Born in Scotland  Started poor and worked his way to the top  Left the railroad business to produce steal  Vertical integration, buy out suppliers  Horizontal integration, buy out competing steel producers Carnegie’s Innovations

 Charles Darwin’s published his theories in the book “ On the Origin of Species,” in  Herbert Spencer used Darwin’s biological theories to explain the evolution of human society.  Big businesses used this theory to justify the doctrine of laissez faire. Social Darwinism and Business

 Participants in a trust turned their stock over to a group of trustees—people who ran the separate companies as one large corporation. In return the companies were entitled to dividends on profits earned by the trust.  In other words: He controlled all of the oil industry in the U.S. John D. Rockefeller

 The Sherman Antitrust Act made it illegal to for a trust to interfere with free trade between states or with other countries. Sherman Antitrust Act

 Exploitation  Unsafe working environments  Long Hours  The National Labor union was formed in 1866  Knights of Labor was a labor union open to all races and genders. Labor Unions Emerge

 Craft Unionism  Industrial Unionism  The Great Strike of 1877: Workers for the railroad had a strike, and federal troops were forced to intervene. Union Movement and Strikes

 Equal pay for equal work  Worked to end child labor  Fire in the Shirtwaist Factory in 1911: all the but one of the doors were locked and 146 women died. Women Organize