1. Big Business and Labor

2. Andrew Carnegie Born in Scotland Worked his way up in RR industry
Entered steel business in 1873
1899 – Carnegie Steel Co. – manufactured more steel than Great Britain;
Vertical Integration

3. John D Rockefeller Born in New York in 1839 Owner of Standard Oil Co.
Around 1880, Rockefeller’s oil company controlled 90 percent of the refining business.
Vertical or horizontal integration?

4. How do you play Monopoly?
Vertical Integration – A company’s taking over its suppliers and distributors and transportation systems to gain total control over the quality and cost of its product

5. Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Horizontal Integration
Merging companies that make similar products into one

6. Laissez-Faire Philosophy?
What was the Government reaction to business prior to this time?
Hands Off!

7. Sherman Antitrust Act
A law enacted that was intended to prevent the creation of monopolies by making it illegal to establish trusts that interfered with free trade
Why is this act so hard to enforce?
What about AT & T?
Do we have monopolies today?

8. What A Funny Little Government

9. Social Darwinism
Grew out of Charles Darwin’s Theory of evolution by natural selection
An economic and social philosophy holding that a system of unrestrained competition will ensure the survival of the fittest
In business….only the most ruthless survives
Used to justify the wealth of the captains of industry

10. Robber Barons
Rockefeller reaped huge benefits by paying his employees extremely low wages and then selling his oil at lower prices then it cost to produce
After he drove his competitors out of business, he hiked back up the price of his oil.
Critics called them “Robber Barons”

12. Captains of Industry
Industrialists were not only just rich men, they were also philanthropists
Rockefeller gave away about $500 million dollars of his assets to build the Rockefeller Foundation
Carnegie donated about 90% of the wealth he accumulated to support the arts and learning

13. A Captain or Robber?
Robber Barons – Industrialists who made fortune by “robbing” others;
Cut prices to eliminate competition
Then increase prices
Low wages for workers
Rockefeller?
Carnegie?
Captains of Industry
Industrialists who gave back to the community;
Built factories in communities;
Gave money for hospitals, libraries, and universities;
Rockefeller?
Carnegie?

14. Working Conditions
Read pages 450 and 451 and list the types of working conditions that people faced:
were they dangerous, or were they relatively safe? How have work conditions changed?

15. Learning Tools
Analyze the statistics regarding workers, their quality of life and pay at the time.
What trends do you see as the late 19th century plays out?

16. Unions
Knights of Labor – Skilled and unskilled workers; Included different races and women; strikes as a last resort; used arbitration
American Federation of Labor – AFL – Samuel Gompers – President; Only skilled workers; focused on collective bargaining; used strikes as major tactic

17. Conflicts Railroad Strike of 1877 – increased union membership
Pullman Strike – application of Sherman Anti-Trust against unions
Haymarket Affair – loss of union support
Homestead Strike – downfall of Knights of Labor
Triangle Fire – state regulations
Children’s March – attention to child labor

18. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
In response to the deaths of so many people, the State of New York started looking into the working conditions of factories

19. Conflict Read about the incidents in a group
Create a news broadcast about the event in which you –
outline the causes of the event
Identify the response of workers
Identify the response of labor and government

20. Industrialists v. Laborers
You will be divided into teams to talk about the different issues that both laborers and industrialists face. Using the prompts, jot a few notes in your notebook about the kinds of things either side would think.

21. Prompts
Workers
“When we tell him our grievances he said we were all his ‘children.’ Pullman, both man and the town, is an ulcer on the body politic.”
“He is patiently sitting beside his millions waiting for what? To see us starve.”

22. Prompts Industrialists
“The task before us, then, narrowed itself down to getting Schmidt to handle 47 tons of pig iron per day and make him glad to do it.”
“When this man tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit down, and you don’t talk back at him.”