1. Industrializing America: Corporations and Conflict
Industrializing America: Corporations and Conflict

2. Characteristics of Industrialization
Increased use of steel and coal (extractive industries)
Favorable government policies (little to no regulation)
Influx of cheap labor (southern and eastern Europeans)
Growth of urban centers .
Increased connectives through communication and transportation.
Rising standard of living and rate of material consumption.
The emergence of a middle class and the concentration of wealth with a small percentage of the population.

3. John D. Rockefeller Standard Oil

4. Andrew Carnegie
Largest steel manufacturer in the world at the time. Sold his company in 1901 for over $400 million dollars

5. Management Revolution: The internal structure and divisions adopted by modern corporations
Deskilling of labor: breaking down complex jobs into simple repetitive tasks. Workers are easily trained and replaced.
Vertical Integration: A big company controls the entire supply chain from creation to distribution as well as the means of production.
Horizontal Integration: A big company uses predatory pricing to drive out or force the sale of small competition. This consolidates the number of players in an industry and creates giant corporations.
Trusts like Standard Oil and US Steel will be based on these principals

6. Trusts
A legal business entity in which a board of directors is created to control a large corporation and stock in the company is issued.
Sometimes only a few people get stock, other times the company is publicly traded and anyone can buy the stock.
Rockefeller and Standard Oil pioneer this concept, but most major players in other industries will follow suit.
We will have everything from Steel and Oil Trusts to Sugar and Salt Trusts.
Sometimes these Trusts use business tactics that are illegal today.
Often times Trusts lead to Monopolies and a lack of competition.

10. Knights of Labor (1869)
One of the most important labor organizations, led by Samuel Gompers.
Over 750,000 members by 1887.
Had open membership (except Chinese) and sought to organize workers across hundreds of industries. Organized craftsmen to iron workers to brewers to domestic workers to tenant famers.
Attempted to pass laws regulating business and relied on political tactics and sheer numbers.
Workplace safety laws, 8 hour work day, prohibition on child labor, public ownership of railroads, and government recognition of workers right to organize.
Like man organized labor unions it grows in power in this era but is hindered and de-legitimized by strikes and episodes of violence by strikers

11. Samuel Gompers and the AFL
Different approach than the Knights of Labor. Less political.
The AFL was inclusive and organized only skilled male workers based on trade.
Instead of focusing on changing laws, AFL sought to directly negotiate with employers for direct benefits, Collective Bargaining.
Instead of changing laws to make our conditions better, lets directly negotiate with management to improve things.

14. Haymarket Riot 1886
Chicago has a huge number of immigrants at this time and is a hotbed for labor union activity (Knights of Labor are a big presence)
Chicago also has a large number of Anarchists (people who advocate for society without a government). Many of the Anarchists were immigrants.

15. Haymarket Riot
A protest is called by local Anarchist leaders in Haymarket Square to protest the death of 4 strikers killed in clashes with police the previous day.
A crowd of 2000 people gather to listen to several different speakers, the main one being Anarchist Albert Parsons.
As the police move in to disperse the crowd, a bomb is thrown into the line of police and a riot ensues.

16. Albert Parsons
Newspaper editor
Former Confederate Civil War soldier
Labor Activist
Advocate of the 8- hour work day
Socialist and later an Anarchist

17. Haymarket
The day after the incident, eight prominent Chicago anarchists are arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Only two of the men were present at the incident
The trial is characterized by hysteria, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-labor sentiment, and no member of the jury is a member of a labor union
Seven are sentenced to death, four are executed, one commits suicide, the others have their sentences commuted down the road.

18. Haymarket becomes a symbol of the struggle: Labor v. Capital
Leaflet circulated throughout working neighborhoods of Chicago after the incident
How does it depict the Anarchists?

19. Significance of Haymarket
In many places, people became more hostile to labor activists because of the rhetoric of many socialist/anarchists and the violence that often comes with Strikes
But on the labor side, workers become even more united in the fight for the 8-hour work day.
On the one year anniversary of the Haymarket Riot, marches called “May Day” happen all over the country advocating for the 8-hour day.
By the 1890’s some industries adopt the 8-hour day, but it won’t be law for all industries until 1916 (Adamson Act)

21. Homestead Strike 1892
Famous steel mill belonging to Carnegie outside Pittsburgh
The workers at Homestead are organized into a Union, and their contract is about to expire.
Carnegie and his right hand man Frick have no intention of signing another contract with the Union. They want each man to negotiate and sign a contract individually.
Carnegie is on holiday in Europe, and leaves Frick in charge
Frick anticipates a strike, and starts fortifying the Homestead Mill with fences and guard towers.

23. Homestead Frick locks the doors to the Mill and keeps the Strikers out
In response, the thousands of workers at Homestead form into military style patrols along the river and in town to keep out strikebreakers (like cops and private security guards) and scabs (non union workers)
Frick orders up hundreds of non union workers and a private security force called the Pinkertons to protect them
As the Pinkertons and the non-union labor arrive at the Mill on barges on the river, the strikers will not let them off.
A shot is fired an a major gun battle ensues. All Pinkertons end up trapped in the middle of the river with several dead
The Strikers take over the Mill and destroy a bunch of property

25. An armed striker hides behind a piece of steel as he watches the Pinkertons

26. Impacts of Homestead
A disgruntled striker will actually go into Frick’s office and shoots him twice. Frick survives and the general public is appalled by the violence and seizure of Carnegie's Mill
The incident leaves a negative impression of the strikers and organized labor for many Americans
The Steel Workers Union in Carnegie's Mills is incredibly weakened, and almost gone by 1900
The effect will carry over into other unions

27. What does Homestead and Haymarket tell us about American Society in the late 1800’s?