1. Activator: Document A Source
Meaning (argument, claims, evidence, language and tone)
Context
Historical significance (relative to the DBQ question)

2. 6.2 The Industrial Revolution
Technological and Industrial Revolution, Rise of Big Business

3. DBQ
In the post–Civil War United States, corporations grew significantly in number, size, and influence. Analyze the impact of big business on the economy and politics and the responses of Americans to these changes. Confine your answer to the period 1870 to 1900.

4. Railroads Union Pacific RR -> built west from Omaha, NE
Given 20 square miles of land for each mile of track laid
Given generous loans from government
“Irish Paddies”
Central Pacific RR -> Sacramento to Sierra Nevada
Given same subsidies as Union Pacific
Used predominantly Chinese labor
Great Northern:
Connected Minnesota to Seattle

5. Consolidation vs. Mechanization
Cornelius Vanderbilt:
Made millions in RR industry, popularized the steel rail
Two improvements in RR:
Steel rail  safer, stronger, last longer
Standard gauge of track  interchangeable parts, popularized by Eli Whitney
Other advancements:
Westinghouse air brake
Pullman Palace Cars

6. Revolution on the Railroads
RR’s “created an enormous domestic market for American raw materials and manufactured goods”
Other impacts of RR:
Stimulated immigration
Establishment of time zones

7. Wrongdoings on the RR
“Stock watering”: Railroad stock promoters grossly inflated value of stock.
Stock = share of a company, offered by a company as a way of earning capital and purchased by investors
RR tycoons became very powerful
Bribed judges and legislatures, employed lobbyists, etc.
“Pools”
An agreement to divide the business in a given area and share the profits (form of combination)
Charged more for short hauls than long ones

8. Document B
Source
Meaning (argument, claims, evidence, language and tone)
Context
Historical significance (relative to the DBQ question)

9. Combinations (mergers, corporations and trusts)
Businesses merge to “corner” a market, eliminate competition and inflate prices
Corporations are entities that are legally independent from their owners
Can sue, be sued, own and sell property, etc.
Run by powerful capitalists (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould, Vanderbilt, etc.)
Trusts, similar to ”pools,” are businesses that combine and do business only with one another
Monopoly = when a business has complete control over an industry (e.g. Rockefeller controlled 90% of oil refineries in the U.S.)

10. New Inventions
Millionaires (entrepreneurs/capitalists) look for areas to invest their capital
Patents were issued at high rates
Key inventions:
Phone (Alexander G. Bell)  women work the “switchboard”
Electric light, phonograph, mimeograph, Dictaphone, moving pictures.

11. Business strategies: Integrations
Andrew Carnegie (steel) introduces vertical integration:
Controlling every aspect of production from beginning to end
improve efficiency by making supplies more reliable, controlling quality of the product at all stages of production, and eliminate middlemen’s fees
Horizontal integration: (Rockefeller, oil)
Owning most or all businesses in an industry
Illegal

12. Document C
Source
Meaning (argument, claims, evidence, language and tone)
Context
Historical significance (relative to the DBQ question)

13. “The Gospel of Wealth,” 1889 “Survival of the fittest”
Darwin's ideas about species were later applied to businesses and humans
Reverend Russell Conwell of Philadelphia, “Acres of Diamonds”: “There is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own short- comings.”
Carnegie believed the wealthy, as caretakers, should be morally responsible
Philanthropy—the belief in giving back to society in the form of charity
Carnegie: “A man who dies rich dies in disgrace.”

14. Processing
Were the entrepreneurs of the industrial age captains of industry or robber barons?