Chapter 6 A New Industrial Age

The Expansion of Industry

Natural Resources Fuel Industrialization BLACK GOLD 1840s – Americans use kerosene to light lamps 1859 – steam engines used to drill for oil Petroleum-refining industries in Cleveland and Pittsburgh

BESSEMER STEEL PROCESS Iron – soft and tends to break and rust Steel – lighter, more flexible, and rust- resistant 1850 – Henry Bessemer and William Kelly

NEW USES FOR STEEL Railroads The Brooklyn Bridge Completed in 1883 Spans across the East River in New York William Le Baron Jenney designs the first skyscraper with a steel frame

Inventions Promote Change THE POWER OF ELECTRICITY Thomas Alva Edison George Westinghouse 1890 – electric power ran machines Electric streetcars Industry not bound to rivers

INVENTIONS CHANGE LIFESTYLES Thomas Alva Edison invents the light bulb Christopher Sholes invented the typewriter in 1867 Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson invent the telephone in 1876

The Age of the Railroads

Railroads Span Time and Space A NATIONAL NETWORK 1869 – the transcontinental railroad 1861 – 30,000 miles of tracks 1890 – 180,000 miles of tracks

ROMANCE AND REALITY The Central Pacific Railroad employed thousands of Chinese immigrants The Union Pacific hired Irish immigrants and out-of-work Civil War veterans

The Grange and the Railroads GRANGER LAWS 1871 – Illinois authorized a commission “to establish maximum freight and passenger rates and prohibit discrimination” 1877 – Munn v. Illinois Supreme Court upholds the Granger laws

INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT – the Supreme Court ruled that a state could not set rates on interstate commerce Interstate Commerce Act Reestablished the right of the federal government to supervise railroad activities Established a five-member Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

Big Business and Labor

Carnegie’s Innovations Andrew Carnegie 1873 – Carnegie enters the steel business 1899 – Carnegie Steel Company manufactured more steel than all factories in Great Britain

NEW BUSINESS STRATEGIES Carnegie’s success based on new management practices Make better products more cheaply Use of new machinery and techniques Improvement of his own manufacturing operation Vertical integration Horizontal integration

Social Darwinism and Business PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL DARWINISM Herbert Spencer Used Darwin’s theories to explain the evolution of human society Economists justify laissez faire The marketplace should not be regulated

Fewer Control More Mergers result in monopolies Holding companies buy out stocks of other companies J. P. Morgan and United States Steel Trust

ROCKEFELLER AND THE “ROBBER BARONS” 1870 – Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company processed two or three percent of the country’s crude oil 1880 – Rockefeller controlled 90 percent of the refining business

Industrialists become philanthropists Rockefeller gave away over $500 million Carnegie donated about 90 percent of the wealth he accumulated

SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT 1890 – the Sherman Antitrust Act made it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between states or with other countries Standard Oil reorganized into single corporations

BUSINESS BOOM BYPASSES THE SOUTH The South still tried to recover from the Civil War, Lack of capital Northern businesses owned 90 percent of the stock in the most profitable Southern enterprise The South remained agricultural Only growth in forestry, mining, and in the tobacco, and textile industries

Labor Unions Emerge LONG HOURS AND DANGER Steel mills – a seven-day workweek Seamstresses – worked 12 or more hours a day, six days a week Sweatshops

EARLY LABOR ORGANIZING The National Labor Union (NLU) Formed in 1866 The Colored National Labor Union (CNLU) The Knights of Labor “An injury to one is the concern of all” Membership was officially open to all workers

Union Movements Diverge CRAFT UNIONISM The American Federation of Labor (AFL), with Samuel Gompers as president Focus on collective bargaining

INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM The American Railway Union (ARU) Included skilled and unskilled laborers Eugene V. Debs

Strikes Turn Violent THE GREAT STRIKE OF – workers for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) protest their second wage cut in two months Stopped freight and passenger traffic on 50,000 miles, Federal troops end the strike

THE HAYMARKET AFFAIR May 4, 1886 – 3,000 people gathered at Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police brutality The crowd was dispersing when police arrived Someone tossed a bomb into the police line

THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE Carnegie Steel Company’s Homestead plant Steelworkers called a strike on June 29, 1892 Pinkerton Detective Agency Strikebreakers

THE PULLMAN COMPANY STRIKE 1894 Panic of 1893 and the economic depression Pullman company laid off 3,000 of its 5,800 employees Cut the wages of the rest by 25 to 50 percent

WOMEN ORGANIZE Mary Harris Jones Exposed child labor conditions 1909 – Pauline Newman organizes the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City in March 25, 1911