Inventors, Business Owners, and Monopolies

Inventors

Invented the Telephone in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell Invented the Telephone in 1876

Thomas Alva Edison Did not start school until age 8 A teacher told his mom that he was dumb and she took him out of school She had been a school teacher so she taught him at home. He worked on the railroad and set up a chemistry lab in the baggage car.

The first invention he sold was a stock ticker used by American companies to count the stock they sold to customers. He sold this for $40,000 He used this money to set up a shop in Newark New Jersey. At this shop he averaged forty new inventions a year for the first five years.

He was a tireless worker, sometimes only sleeping two or three hours a night. He created the phonograph, electric light bulb, storage battery, moving picture camera, and power plant

The Light bulb The light bulb alone took over 1,600 experiments He tried 10,296 experiments to improve storage batteries He once said “The trouble with other inventors is that they try a few things and quit. I never quit until I get what I want.”

“If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work I haven’t failed “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” -Thomas Edison

Andrew Carnegie Began working with the railroad for $35 a week. He invested his money and by age 33 he was making $50,000 a year. In 1865 he bought an iron bridge company and marketed the bridges to the railroad companies. Soon he was making iron bridges for them.

He learned how to make steel much more affordable and quicker than ever before. He always poured the company profits into the business and improvements. Carnegie bought out a lot of his competitors and stayed ontop of the business world. His company made more steel than all his competitors in America combined.

He later saw the need for steel in building American Skyscrapers and changed his company’s focus to preparing steel for American Skyscrapers. Carnegie became enormously rich, possibly the richest man in the world at the time.

Question What determines how much you pay for gas, food, clothes, phone service or electricity?

John D. Rockefeller John D. Rockefeller started out in the grocery business. He decided to buy a refinery in 1867. In 1870 he saw the potential for his companies growth and formed the Standard Oil Company.

He offered to buy all the refineries in Cleveland He offered to buy all the refineries in Cleveland. To those that accepted he paid generously, those who didn’t he became a ruthless enemy to. He cut the price of his oil, even if it meant he lost money, just so the other companies lost money. Once they went out of business he would raise his prices and make money again. Within two years he owned all the refineries in Cleveland. Within a few years he owned all of the refineries in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburg

One thing he require any railroad company that wanted to business with him that they must give him a rebate on the oil shipped. So while he was only paying 10 cents a barrel for shipping his competitors were paying 35 cents a barrel. Rockefeller created a trust which is an organization of companies formed with the intention of controlling an industry.

With the trust in place he bought thirty-nine other oil companies With the trust in place he bought thirty-nine other oil companies. Now he could control the price of oil. Many other companies followed this pattern and by 1900 2/3 of all manufactured goods in the US. were produced by trusts.

Once a person or trust owns all of the processes in manufacturing and providing a product this is called a Monopoly. They determine the price. This is just like the game, the game is over when you have all the money and your opponents can’t survive another turn.