1. Industrialization & the Railroads

2. How we have grown… By 1920’s, the US is an industrial power because:
Abundant natural resources
Growing urban population
Gov’t support for business
Oil turns out to be a profitable industry

3. Steel Steel revolutionizes construction
Longer bridges (Brooklyn Bridge)
Steel reinforced skyscrapers (Flatiron building)
Railroads
Farm machines

8. Changing Work Place- Inventions
1867- Christopher Sholes invents typewriter
1876- Thomas Edison invents light bulb
Electricity allows manufacturers to relocate plants wherever they want
1876- Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
Women become increasingly more active in clerical work.

9. Replica of Thomas Edison’s Lab

11. Promontory Point, Utah, 1869

12. Working on the Railroad
RR’s are built through hard labor
Irish, Chinese immigrants and Civil War vets do most the work
RR’s demand for material helps growth of industry in US, but becomes very corrupt business.
Accidents and disease kill thousands every year.

14. Being a passenger on the RR wasn’t easy either…

18. RR’s Kept on Track
Safer construction and system of rules slowly reduce fatalities
Public outrage over RR corruption leads to Interstate Commerce Act of 1887
Gov’t can now supervise RR’s
Corruption bankrupts many RR’s
By % of RR’s have been sold to banks

19. Andrew Carnegie

20. Andrew Carnegie
Carnegie looks for ways to make better products more cheaply.
Uses vertical integration- buys out suppliers to control materials
Through horizontal integration merges with competing companies
Eventually controls almost entire steel industry.

21. Assembly Line
System of workers who only assemble one part of an object rather than the whole thing.
First used by the meat packing industry, later perfected for auto production (1910’s)

22. So, for production, how efficient is the assembly line really?

23. Social Darwinism – “Survival of the Fittest”
Best work habits, skills, adaption's will survive in business.
Used to justify laissez faire (a “hands off” type of gov’t regulation.)
Wealthy see their riches as sign of God’s favor, poor must be lazy, inferior.

25. Monopolies
Businesses try to control entire industries through mergers.
Control production, wages, prices
John D. Rockefeller founds Standard Oil Company, forms trust
Trustees run separate companies as if one.

27. Sherman Antitrust Act
Gov’t thinks expanding business stop free competition.
Sherman Antitrust Act- makes it illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade.
Difficult for gov’t to prosecute companies

30. Long Hours and Danger Unsafe conditions unite workers
Most work 12 hour days/6 days a week
No vacation, sick leave, injury compensation
To survive, families need children to work for money.
Kids receive lowest wages.

32. Labor Unions
American Federation of Labor (AFL)- bargains for better wages, hours, conditions
Often use strikes as protest
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)- favor socialism to fix problems
Gave industrial workers a sense of belonging and purpose.

33. Management vs. Unions Several strikes turn violent.
Army used in some cases.
Employers often forbid unions from forming in their companies.

34. Summarize the Age of Industrialization in the U. S
Summarize the Age of Industrialization in the U.S. Be sure to include some of the problems that the country faced as a result of industrialization.
Summary