1. The Rise of Industrial America, 1865–190016
Wonder and Woe
The Rise of Industrial America, 1865–1900
1 Visions of America, A History of the United States

2. Chapter Opener: Koehler, “The Strike” (page 469)
Text Excerpt: This scene of industrial discontent, The Strike (1886) by artist Robert Koehler, was inspired by the great railroad strike of Set in an unidentified industrial town, it captures a moment of confrontation as workers pour out of a factory to gather outside the office of their employer. Unlike most scenes of labor unrest painted or drawn in the late nineteenth century, Koehler presented these workers as sympathetic characters, painting each as an individual rather than as nondescript members of a mob. Many wear square hats popular among various skilled trades, suggesting that these are more established workers. They appear as hardworking and hard-pressed men voicing their anger to the employer, perhaps over a wage cut or layoffs, through the spokesman at the bottom of the stairs.
Background:
Unlike most scenes of labor unrest painted or drawn in the late nineteenth century, artists Robert Koehler presents the workers in The Strike as sympathetic characters, painting each as an individual rather than as nondescript members of a mob. Although many appear to be of foreign birth Koehler shuns the popular trope of depicting the immigrant worker as a wild-eyed, violent anarchist. Even the striker speaking to the factory owner, presumably a leader and one especially fired up about the perceived injustice that triggered the walkout, is presented as earnest but calm. Looking upward at the boss (a clever depiction of their respective upper- and lower-class status), he gestures toward the gathering crowd as if to say, “These men will not accept the wage cut, or the speed-up, or the dangerous conditions.”
This theme of moderation is also conveyed by Koehler’s liberal use of square hats on the strikers. Made of paper, they were originally developed by skilled woodworkers, most likely to keep sawdust out of their hair. Nineteenth-century artists placed square hats on any worker they wished to distinguish as skilled, regardless of trade. In so doing, they suggested to viewers their subjects were respectable, hardworking men of American birth who might belong to unions but were less prone to strike than their recently arrived, unskilled, foreign-born counterparts. By including so many of these square-hatted workers in the crowd, Koehler reveals his pro-labor sympathies. The painting suggests a work environment so deplorable that even the skilled, sober-minded, American-born workers have walked out.
At the same time, The Strike is fraught with tension, indicating that at any moment the workers’ composure might dissolve into violence. Clearly, the strike has been called only minutes earlier, as we see workers pouring out of the factory (the only one in the scene with no smoke emanating from its chimney), several of them pulling on their coats and many speaking in clusters, seeking additional information. Behind them dark, foreboding storm clouds loom on the horizon. Most notable is the worker in the foreground stooping to pick up a rock. Maybe he is only a moment away from hurling it at the boss, an act that will surely trigger more violence and lead to clashes with the police or militia. Maybe he will opt for an act of symbolic violence and throw it through a window. Maybe he will simply toss it up and down in his hand as a dramatic but ultimately harmless show of anger. Similarly, in the center foreground a woman is trying to calm down another angry worker, presumably her husband. As with the worker picking up the rock, the viewer is left wondering whether peace or violence will prevail. Will she succeed in deterring him from a rash act? Koehler provides no answer.
This theme of pervasive tension and anxiety over what will happen next is furthered by a mother with two children at the far left. Apprehension verging on terror is evident on the faces of the mother and the child standing next to her. Here Koehler is presenting a familiar element in Gilded Age labor-capital conflict imagery—the powerless and vulnerable wife and children standing on the edge of a scene dominated by male workers, police, and employers. The message in this set piece is that the fate of innocent women and children hangs on the decisions of men. The vast majority of labor-capital conflict images took the side of the employer and thus criticized the deluded American worker for shirking his primary responsibility of providing for his family in favor of pursuing a misguided strike or boycott. As with his positive depiction of the gathering workers, we see how Koehler departs from a dominant trope. While he presents the mother and children as powerless and vulnerable people who will likely suffer the consequences of the action unfolding, he leaves open the question of culpability. If the workers persist in their strike, their families will suffer from lack of income for food and rent. But they will also suffer if the strikers relent and accept the capitalist’s wage cut or dangerous working conditions.
This ambiguity extends to Koehler’s depiction of the factory owner. On the one hand, he appears like Ebenezer Scrooge (replete with a nervous Bob Cratchit figure behind him), standing stiff and emotionless as the worker below him makes his appeal. Note how Koehler creates two distinct worlds—the hardscrabble, grimy landscape of the workers’ world and the elegant, ordered space of the factory owner—to heighten the sense of widening class distinctions and intensifying class conflict. From this perspective, the viewer is inclined to see the factory owner as the quintessential cold-hearted capitalist. There seems little chance that he will accede to the workers’ demands. And yet, there he is, willing to come before his workers and listen. Perhaps his grim countenance reflects not hostility toward his workers, but the great dilemma he faces: He might want to agree to the workers’ demands that he restore a wage cut, or reduce the hours of labor, but doing so would raise his costs and imperil his business in an age of intense competition. Again, Koehler leaves his audience wondering.
The uncertainty in this painting over both what is about to happen and which side—workers or employer—is in the right illuminates a central theme in American society as it experienced rapid industrialization in the late nineteenth century. Many people agreed that the social turmoil of the age threatened the future of the republic, but they disagreed about its causes and especially about its solutions. Koehler presents us with workers who appear hardworking and worthy of sympathy. Yet his inclusion of the man picking up the rock suggests that he is acknowledging a troubling tendency among some workers to embrace radicalism and violence. Similarly, Koehler presents a factory owner willing to talk to his disgruntled workers, suggesting that not all capitalists were greedy and heartless. Yet the man’s stern gaze and the rough landscape of the workers’ world (and the fact that they have just called a strike) serves as an admission that some capitalists bear responsibility for the current labor-capital strife. Koehler is content only to highlight this dilemma and he declines to offer a solution.
Chapter Connections:
1. Competing Visions over the right of workers to stage strikes.
2. Competing Visions over the image of business leaders as callous robber barons or captains of industry.
3. Competing Visions over the image of late nineteenth-century America as a society marked by progress and opportunity or one trending dangerously toward poverty and inequality.
Discussion Questions:
1. Why were many Americans fearful of labor unions?
2. What conditions in industrial America prompted a sharp rise in the number of strikes in the late nineteenth century?
3. How might a powerful capitalist interpret this painting?

3. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA, 1865–1900
Wonder and Woe
THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA, 1865–1900
The Emergence of Big Business
Creating a Mass Market
The World of Work Transformed
Conflicting Visions of Industrial Capitalism
3 Visions of America, A History of the United States

4. The Emergence of Big Business
Sources of the Industrial Revolution
The Railroads
Modern Business Practices
Rising Concern over Corporate Power
Andrew Carnegie: Making Steel and Transforming the Corporation
Rockefeller and the Rise of the Trust

5. Sources of the Industrial Revolution
How did human migration foster American industrialization? How did government officials defend the practice of making huge land grants to the railroads?
How did human migration foster American industrialization? (p. 470)
Answer: Millions of people came primarily from Europe to work in these huge big businesses. People also left their farms and moved into cities to work in the factories.
How did government officials defend the practice of making huge land grants to the railroads? (p. 471)
Answer: Government officials defended this practice by saying that the economic growth resulting from these subsidies benefited everyone.

6. Sources of the Industrial Revolution
Several Factors
Raw materials/Cheap labor
Development/Adoption of New Technology
Government Policy
-Land & Loans
-Laissez-faire
Several factors combined to make US surpass other industrialized countries…
1) nation possessed enormous quantities of two essential ingredients: raw materials and cheap labor (p.470)
-coal in Penn, W. Virg, Kent. Other sources like iron, lead, copper, oil, cotton, wood
-Cheap labor: record levels of immigration & people moved from rural to urban (country to city)
Development and adoption of new technology. Invention patens went from around 1,000 a yr. in 1850 to 20,000 per yr in 1890s.
Government Policy
-Fed. Gov gave substantial support to railroads (180 mill acres and $500 million in loans and tax breaks!)
-Gov also facilitated industrialization by inaction: Laissez-faire (French for let do or leave alone) argued Government should impose NO Restraints on businesses, including worker’s demands for laws to regulate hours, safety, and wages.

7. Image 16.1: The Industrial Revolution by the Numbers
During the second half of the nineteenth century, every area of the economy produced enormous increases in output and value. Huge population increases
helped to drive industrial and farm output.

8. Image 16.2: The Matzeliger Lasting Machine
Jan Matzeliger's complex sewing machine wiped out jobs for skilled shoe “lasters,” who had hand-stitched shoe tops to soles, but allowed for a
huge increase in mechanized shoe production.

9. Image 16.3: Defending Laissez-Faire
This 1878 cartoon warns that government interference with the economy threatens the well-being of the nation.

10. The Railroads Large Corporations Explosion of Railroads
Question: How did railroad grants both reflect and promote national economic growth?
Answer: Railroads provided cheaper and more dependable transportation for the country to move goods and people, which resulted in even more economic growth.
Corporations: groups of individuals and people own through the purchase of stock shares. Pre-Civil War most businesses were 25 or less employee. Post civil war the railroad created business that had 1000s of employees, millions in investments, spanning several states.
The Original Big Business was the Railroads. Offer speed: stagecoach, stuff could go maybe 50 miles in a day. Train: that distance in less 2 hours. Transcontinetal railroad opens the country.
Benefit to national economgy: Farmers can get their stuff to market now & building and maintaining railroads by consuming iron, steel, coal, wood.

11. Modern Business Practices
Incorporation & Stock Management/Standardization Work Hierarchy
Question: What advantages did standardization bring to business?
It allowed railroads, for example, to go from one track to another track, which couldn’t be done if the tracks were of different widths. Standardization of products generally makes them cheaper and thus more available for consumers, which results in greater sales and profits.
Incorporation and Stock: stock sales allow corporations to raise capital to expand business. If company earns profit stockholders benefit by increased value in stock. Also, if the company failed stock holders were not liable for any of the company’s debts. You only lost your shares (later in 1920s this ruins millions)
Management: standardization-1883 nation’s major railroads establish the 4 time zones we still use. Standardized equipment like couplers, signals, brakes and in 1886 the standard gauge for track size of 4 ft. 8.5 inches. As shown in the next picture.
Work Hierarchy: Business execs develop the idea of superintendents, managers, clerks and new system of accounting, advertising, information management, and pricing.
-Major companies like steel, oil, manufacturing and retailing soon copied these organizational practices.

12. Image 16.4: Celebrating the Standard Gauge, 1886
In this imagined scene Northerners and Southerners celebrate the adoption of a standard rail gauge as a measure destined to bind the country together economically.

13. Rising Concern over Corporate Power
Monopoly − The control of an industry or market by one corporation
Question: Why did many Americans come to see railroads as potential threats to democracy?
Answer: railroads created fabulous wealth for their owners primarily because they were monopolies that were allowed to exist by bought-off government officials. This corruption undermined the theory of democracy where all people are equal.
People viewed railroads with mixed feelings: Railroads led to very wealthy men who wielded immense power and influence. Such power, some thought, goes against our nation’s republic principles. Many big executives routinely bribed state legislators, members of Congress, and cabinet officials. There was stock manipulation, price gouging, exploitation of works.
Led to people desiring tighter regulation of railroads.
Image 16.5: Demonizing the Monopoly
Americans grew increasingly worried about the rising power of railroads, the largest of which were often criticized as monopolies that strangled their competition.
Play Railroad Simulation (See folder and materials from Dr. Miller)

14. Andrew Carnegie: Making Steel and Transforming the Corporation
Pauper to Power Reducing production cost $40 mil in 1900
Andrew Carnegie was a prime example of an immigrant turned rich.
Born in Scotland in 1836 he immigrated with his family at age 12. Could barely get by so he dropped out of school to work in a textile factory earning 1.20 a week.
*Took night classes in accounting and taught himself telegraphy and eventually found work for the Western Union.
Got hired on as a personal telegrapher and eventually personal secretary to a Pennsylvania Railroad regional supervisor.
Began investing in railroads, factories, and iron and steel.
In 1870, while running a company that built steel bridges he decided to go entirely to steel production: followed obsessively one fundamental practice reducing production costs to the lowest possible level
In order to do this he began practicing the Bessemer-Kelly process: a method of making exceptionally strong steel quickly and at low cost.
By 1900 he was bringing in annually $40 million making him the biggest corporatio in the world with more than 20,000 employees and operations in other countries.

15. Rockefeller and the Rise of the Trust
John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company
Like Carnegie he rose to the top through savvy business practices and cutthroat ruthlessness by cost-cutting, acquisition of new technology, hiring top-notch managers and scientists. By 1879 he controlled 90% of the nation’s oil refining capacity.
His chief contribution to the rise of big business was the invention of two new forms of business management: the Trust and Holding Company (for holding company detail see slide 17)
(see next slide to explain trust)

16. Rockefeller and the Rise of the Trust
Trust − A legally binding deal bringing many companies in the same industry under the direction of a board of “trustees” Robber Barons
He believed that rival competition was wasteful and led to market instability.
Current practices utilized the “pool” method: whereby secret deals were made between rival companies to set production limits to keep prices high and award participants a certain share of the market.
(e.g. Company A, B, and C all produce paper. Company A agrees to only make 1000 tons of paper as does Company B and C so that they can both keep charging a higher price for their paper and so that they can each maintain control of 1/3 of the market)
To curb this Rockefeller invented the Trust.
Pools had NO legal binding whatsoever and carried no penalty for cheating or not keeping your end of the deal. Trusts were legally binding arrangements that brought many companies in the same industry under the direction of a single board of “trustees.”
To join a trust, a company turned over the majority of its stock in exchange for trust certificates, which guaranteed it a share of the profits. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company was actually 40 different companies under the direction of 9 member board of trustees that Rockefeller chose himself.
(e.g. Company A, B, C would turn over lets say 80% of their stock to join the Paper Production Trust and now be dictated by a board of trustees.)
This lead Americans to denounce these businessmen as “robber barons”
Robber Barons − A pejorative name for big business leaders that suggested they grew rich by devious business practices, exploitation of workers, and political manipulation

17. Rockefeller and the Rise of the Trust
Sherman Anti-Trust Act − Authorized the Justice Department to prosecute any illegal contract, combination, or conspiracy among corporations that eliminated competition or restrained free trade
Americans soon became fearful of these enormously wealthy and powerful trusts. Many of which were in railroads, steel, iron, oil etc.
In 1887 Congress attempted to curb the power of the railroads by establishing the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and making “pools” and rebates (special discounts by railroads for favored customers) illegal.
Led to the Sherman-Anti-Trust Act: Designed to empower the Justice Department to prosecute illegal contracts, combination or conspiracy among corporations to eliminate competition or restrain free trade. Essentially it made trusts illegal.
However…months of lobbying influenced Congress to word the final draft so vaguely that it essentially became unenforceable.
As a result the Justice Department only prosecuted 18 antitrust cases between 1890 and 1904.
Rockefellers’s other practice: Holding Company: replaced the trust in the 1890s.
Holding Company: Was a huge corporation that bought and ran other corporations by purchasing their stock. Rockefeller’s idea caught on quick because it got around the Sherman Act and because it created MASSIVE corporations which exercised near monopoly control of the market. (see next slide)
Big company merges happened quickly. In 1900 seven railroads controlled 2/3rds of the nations track mileage. By 1910, once percent of corporations controlled 44% of the manufacturing market.

18. Trusts and Market Power
Big company merges happened quickly. In 1900 seven railroads controlled 2/3rds of the nations track mileage. By 1910, once percent of the corporations controlled 44% of the manufacturing output.

19. Image 16.7: “Bosses of the Senate” (page 477)
Caption: Reformers criticized trusts for their power to bribe and bully Congress to pass favorable legislation. Here, a meek-looking Congress sits under the domineering gaze of the bloated trusts.
Text Excerpt: In this damning 1889 cartoon from the popular magazine Puck, “The Bosses of the Senate,” the bloated trusts, are clearly in charge. Congress was all too willing to do the bidding of corporate interests. Note that the doorway marked “People’s Entrance” is boarded shut while a much larger “Entrance for Monopolists” is wide open. Note too the bitter conclusion that big business has subverted American democracy: “This is a Senate of the monopolists, by the monopolists, and for the monopolists.”
Background:
The political cartoon, “The Bosses of the Senate,” appeared in the popular Puck magazine on January 23, Significantly, Puck was a publication that catered to middle- and upper-class Americans, a fact that illustrates how widespread anxieties over big business had become in the late nineteenth century. In other words, by the 1880s farmers and working-class Americans were not the only citizens expressing concern over the rising power of trusts and the men who ran them.
In addition to the details discussed in the text excerpt above, note the size difference between the heads of the trusts and the senators. The latter represent the cherished institution of democracy and the idea that their decisions reflect the will of the people. But the cartoon’s title and the depiction of the trust heads as dozens of times larger than the senators presents a decidedly different image. Notice the angry and aggressive countenances of the trust heads and the nervous look upon the faces of many of the lawmakers. What should be a scene of deliberative democracy is instead one of intimidation and tyranny.
The message of the cartoon—that the power of corporations and trusts must somehow be curbed by legislation—led to the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act the next year. However, in a supremely ironic outcome, trusts and corporations lobbied against the law so effectively that when it finally became law members of Congress had stripped away most of its regulatory power. For a similar political cartoon that also appeared in a middle-class publication (Harper’s Weekly), see Image
Chapter Connections:
1. Competing Visions over the question of whether big business ought to be subject to government regulation.
2. Competing Visions over the state of American democracy, with some seeing it as strong and responsible for national prosperity and progress and others arguing that the voice of the people mattered less and less in the face of powerful business interests.
3. The power and influence of political cartoons in shaping public opinion.
Discussion Questions:
1. What caused many Americans during this period to fear the power and political influence of big business?
2. Why did many business leaders seek to establish trusts?
3. What led to the weakness and ineffectiveness of early laws regulating corporations and trusts?

20. Creating a Mass Market The Art of Selling
Shopping as an Experience: The Department Store
Bringing the Market to the Frontier
Selling the World

21. The Art of Selling Production and Consumption
To promote consumption big businesses developed advertising techniques and marketing strategies. Many hired psychologists and other experts to develop advertising that played on people’s fears and desires.
Advertisers cultivated brand loyalty through catchy slogans and impressive claims. (Think of brands that you stick with? Why?)
Used celebrities to sell their products (hired famous entertainers or athletes to promote their product)
Overall idea: is spend some of the company’s profits to generate more profit.
Why did advertising become so important to business success?
Answer: It created more demand for products as people learned about the benefits of new products and how their neighbors were also buying them.

22. Shopping as an Experience: The Department Store
Shoppers Ambience
First department store was created in 1846 by an Irish immigrant in NYC. Now customers, called shoppers, came to a place where uncomfortable negotiations did not take place due to fixed prices, clerks helped you around and found products for you, attractive policies like “money back guaranteed and free delivery.”
Now shopping is not only done out of necessity for items but for the experience. Shopping now had to be a pleasurable experience.
So, you begin to see lavishly decorated stores, statues, displays. Everything is attractive and appealing…creates an atmosphere (ambience of luxury) which in turn can whisk shoppers away into a fantasy world of sorts, if only for a few moments.
Why did retailers spend so much money to build lavish stores?
Answer: These huge stores, such as Macy’s in New York, were like resorts or wonderlands where shoppers could escape from their humble households and be surrounded by innovation and variety.

23. Image 16.8: Shopping as an Experience
Large retailers in cities built lavishly appointed shopping palaces to attract customers. The Siegel-Cooper store in New York City opened with great fanfare in 1896.

24. Selling to the World
Image 16.9: The Globalization of American Industry
Like many large American corporations, the Singer Sewing Machine Co. became an international corporation by the 1890s, selling its machines throughout the world.
Our exports grew enormously, from 1870 to 1900 our exports rose from 450 mill to 1.5 bill.
By 1897 Am bus. had invested $635 mill in overseas mines, oil, plantations, manufacturing plants.
The Globalization of the American economy brought many benefits to the economy but it also contributed to the sentiment that by the 1890s people felt that the US needed to be an Imperial Power to protect overseas investments to keep overseas markets open.

25. The World of Work Transformed
The Impact of New Technology
Hard Times for Industrial Workers
Exploitation, Intimidation, and Conflict
New Roles and Opportunities for Women

26. The Impact of New Technology
Trade to Menial Labor
Machinery transformed what once was skilled labor into low-skilled labor to operate.
Because employers could easily replace low-skilled laborers they could afford to pay low wages and demand long hours. If people complained they could easily fire or replace them.
How did new technology weaken the independence of skilled workers?
Answer: Lower skills were needed to operate the new machines, thus skilled labor was less in demand, and lower skilled labor, which was plentiful, could replace the higher skilled laborers.

27. Hard Times for Industrial Workers
Long hours, low wage Danger
Many worked 12 hour days, six days a week barely making enough to cover living expenses. Some estimate put earners at $ a year when living decently required To make up for this people sent their children to work.
and were severe depression years.
Not only did monotony set in for the workers but often these jobs were very dangerous places. Between 1880 and ,000 on average were killed on the job and another 500,000 were injured.
At this point there were no laws forcing factory owners to make the work environment safe.
Not only danger but child labor skyrocketed. Between 1870 and 1900 the number of children-usually under 16 and paid a fraction of what adults made-rose from 700,000 to over 1.7 million. (See next pic)
Why were industrial workplaces so dangerous?
Answer: There were few laws that required safety be considered in the workplace, so most employers concluded that it was unnecessary to implement preventative measures.

28. Image 16.10: The Price of Child Labor
Because they could pay children less than one-half the wages of an adult, employers hired increasing numbers of child laborers in the late nineteenth century, depriving them of education and often exposing them to industrial hazards.
This boy lost his arm while operating a power saw in a box factory.

29. Exploitation, Intimidation, and Conflict
Blacklist − A list of workers who employers in a particular town or industry refused to hire because they were considered troublemakers
First major effort to build a nation labor movement started after the Civil War in 1866 when William Sylvis founded the National Labor Union.
It sought to unite skilled workers nationwide to secure demands such as federal law estabilishing the 8 hour day. Membership soared to over 300,000 in 1869 however that year Sylvis suddenly died and then the depression of the 1870s hit and wiped it out.
Employers saw unions as threats. So, many hired spies to expose labor organizers so they could blacklist them.

30. Image 16.12: The Pageantry of Execution
On June 21, 1877, “Black Thursday,” Pennsylvania officials staged carefully planned executions of ten convicted miners known as Molly Maguires
Rising worker frustration and anger led to more strikes and violence. Between 1881 and 1905 more than 6 mil Am workers particpated in over 37,000 strikes.
In Penn. Miners responded to abusive coal mine bosses. The miners, mostly Irish born immigrants formed the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA). Within the union a secret organization formed known as the Molly Maguires. They carried out acts of intimidation, vandalism, violence, and even murder against foremen and managers.
Mine owners went on the offensive and within a year more than 50 arrests had taken placed. 20 people were hanged for murder, including 10 in a single day as shown in this picture. The officials made a public spectacle of the men.

31. THE LEGITIMACY OF UNIONS
Competing Visions
THE LEGITIMACY OF UNIONS
Trade unions and labor organizations are despotic toward their members, oppressive to the working class, impertinent, and meddling. They assume rights to control property that is not theirs to control. They are criminal and foolish.
Trade unions are necessary for workers’ protection. They fight against unendurable wages and unjust conduct by employers. Strikes may fail, but things would be even worse if there were no unions to protest and warn against harsh actions.
Why did labor activists argue that unions were defensive in nature?
Answer: Since unions usually react to the abuses in the workplace such as long hours or unsafe working conditions, they are said to be defending their lives and livelihood.
Why did labor activists argue that unions were defensive in nature?

32. New Roles and Opportunities for Women
Image 16.14: Rising Numbers of Women in the Paid Workforce
Economic necessity and a desire for greater independence brought millions of women into jobs outside the home.
Teaching, social work, and nursing emerge as almost exclusively female occupations because they were viewed as natural nurturers.

33. Image 16.15: Women Find Opportunities in Nursing
These graduates of the Philadelphia School for Nurses, with Red Cross founder Clara Barton at center, were among the thousands of young women in the late nineteenth century who flocked to the nursing profession.

34. Conflicting Visions of Industrial Capitalism
Capitalism Championed
Capitalism Criticized
Power in Numbers: Organized Labor
The Great Upheaval of 1886

35. Capitalism Championed
Growth, Wealth, Employment
All of these things were made possible exclusively by capitalism.
Definition of capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Carnegie argued that men like him were visionaries who built key industries that brought immeasurable benefits to Americans like jobs, products that improved the quality of life. Carnegie explained this in what he called “The Gospel of Wealth.”
Carnegie proposed that the best way of dealing with the new phenomenon of wealth inequality was for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner. Known as philanthropy. (he built libraries and such. Things that benefit society as a whole.)
Carnegie sold his company for $400 mill to J.P. Morgan and then donated most of his money, of which lots was used to build libraries. Including the former library in Pella.

36. Capitalism Championed
Social Darwinism − The belief that the principles of evolution, which Darwin had observed in nature, also applied to society
Advocates argued that individuals or groups achieve advantage over others as the result of biological superiority, an idea expressed as “survival of the fittest.”
Some have a more negative few of it.

37. Capitalism Criticized
Society became increasingly divided amongst the Haves and the Have-nots.
Tour of New York…
Nothing shows this better than the sad story known as the Little Matchgirl.
Show the Little Matchgirl
****COULD ALSO USE THIS MATERIAL (ABOVE) FOR GILDED AGE**** make sure to note if used in chapter 16 or 17.
16.18 The Growing Gap between the Haves and Have-Nots (page 489)
Caption: This image, The Hearth-Stone of the Poor from the popular magazine Harper’s Weekly (February 12, 1876) captured the growing concern among Americans over the growth of poverty amid rising levels of wealth.
Text Excerpt: A tour of any city provided ample evidence of what some called the “haves and the have nots,” a concern vividly captured in this 1876 image from a popular magazine. Its caption, “The Hearth-Stone of the Poor,” and accompanying article pointed out that many of the poor, unlike the wealthy family on the left, had no warm fireplace around which to gather on cold nights. Instead, like these children, they gathered around outdoor steam vents to keep warm. Note how the wealthy parents fail to notice the shivering children as they pass.
Background:
This image, “The Hearth-Stone of the Poor,” appeared in the popular magazine Harper’s Weekly on February 12, It reflects the dualistic nature of the period known as the Gilded Age ( ). The family on the left clearly enjoys prosperity and material comfort. They appear well-dressed and well-fed. The father, presumably a successful businessman or professional, also exudes the self-confidence that pervaded much of the rhetoric of the period. Americans in the Gilded Age frequently invoked the optimistic themes of progress, expansion, growth, and success. “[E]very American citizen must contemplate with the utmost pride and enthusiasm the growth and expansion of our country,” offered President Grover Cleveland in a typical address in 1893, “… the wonderful thrift and enterprise of our people, and the demonstrated superiority of our free government.” Nowhere was this ebullient spirit more evident than at the world’s fairs held in Philadelphia (1876) and Chicago (1893), events that afforded superb opportunities to showcase the wonders of American technological genius.
And yet, many Americans argued that there was more to this upbeat image of national development and progress than initially met the eye. A closer look at the Gilded Age revealed a decidedly dark, unnerving side—one portrayed starkly by the impoverished family in the Harper’s image. Both world’s fairs, for example, were followed one year later by massive railroad strikes (the Great Uprising in 1877 and Pullman in 1894). These were not isolated incidents of labor-capital violence, for the period witnessed nearly 37,000 strikes. The Gilded Age, while producing unprecedented wealth and astonishing new technology, also witnessed a massive growth in poverty. The era was marked by economic turmoil that included two severe economic depressions in and , and several significant recessions, all of which contributed to business failures and high unemployment.
This underside of the Gilded Age troubled many Americans because it suggested that the American republic was in danger. One of the most powerful elements of American national identity in the nineteenth century was the notion that the United States was the antithesis of Europe. In contrast to a Europe marked by monarchy, landed aristocracies, established churches, and fixed classes, the American republic featured democracy, individualism, opportunity, and equality. For much of the nineteenth century American political culture was marked by an ever-present concern that the United States not descend into Europeanism. Indeed, this fear explains the prevalence of the phrase “republican experiment” in nineteenth-century speeches, essays, and sermons—a phrase that suggested a certain fragility to American republicanism.
Images of rising levels of poverty like “The Hearth-Stone of the Poor,” were intended not merely to evoke sympathy for the poor, but also to raise an alarm over the Europeanization of American society. For many middle- and upper-class Americans, such an image conjured up scenes from the novels of English writer Charles Dickens (David Copperfield, Hard Times, etc.), works Americans read in part to reassure themselves that such inequality and poverty was impossible in their vibrant and free society. The anxiety this poverty produced in the Gilded Age was captured in one of the last speeches delivered by the famous poet, Walt Whitman. “If the United States, like the countries of the Old World, are also to grow vast crops of poor, desperate, dissatisfied, nomadic, miserably-waged populations, such as we see looming upon us of late years--steadily, even if slowly, eating into them like a cancer of lungs or stomach--then our republican experiment, notwithstanding all its surface-successes, is at heart an unhealthy failure.”
These fears fueled movements for social reforms that eventually flourished in the Progressive Era (see Chapter 18).
Chapter Connections:
1. Competing Visions over the image of late-nineteenth century America as a land of opportunity for all versus the unnerving reality of soaring levels of poverty.
2. Competing Visions over the cause of poverty, with some Americans blaming the poor and others condemning the laissez-faire economy.
3. Competing Visions over the proper response to poverty, with some embracing social Darwinism and arguing against any relief efforts and others insisting that business be regulated to ensure a living wage.
Discussion Questions:
1. What were the main sources of poverty in the late nineteenth century?
2. Why did many Americans become concerned about the growth of poverty?
3. What made social Darwinism an attractive ideology to many industrialists?

38. Power in Numbers: Organized Labor
What conditions led to rapid membership growth in the Knights of Labor? Why did so many workers find the Knights of Labor so appealing? What role did the press play in promoting a negative impression of labor unions?

39. Power in Numbers: Organized Labor
Knights of Labor − A labor organization founded in 1869 that in the 1880s accepted workers of all trades and backgrounds and became the world’s largest industrial union

40. Image 16.19: Labor Day parade (page 492)
Caption: In 1882, workers in New York City held the first local Labor Day celebration. It soon became a national holiday.
Text Excerpt: The spirit of protest inspired workers in New York City, many of them KOL members, to establish the Labor Day holiday in September The organizers took care to present workers as orderly and dignified, marching in almost military fashion. Yet they also held aloft signs voicing their grievances (“Abolish Contract Labor” and “8 Hours to Constitute A Day’s Work”) and announcing their intent to reclaim their influence in the political system (“Vote for the Labor Ticket”).
Background:
This first commemoration of Labor Day on September 5, 1882 testified to labor’s rising power and unity in the Gilded Age and its sense that this power and unity was necessary to withstand the growing power of capital. The Labor Day holiday originated with the Central Labor Union (CLU), a local labor federation formed in New York City in January 1882 to promote the interests of workers in the New York area. The CLU immediately became a formidable force, staging protest rallies, lobbying state legislators, and organizing strikes and boycotts. By August membership in the organization boomed to fifty-six unions representing 80,000 workers.
But CLU activists wanted to do more than simply increase membership and win strikes. They wanted to build worker solidarity in the face of jarring changes wrought by the industrial revolution. Gilded Age workers were alarmed by the growing power of employers—from local building contractors to national corporations like Western Union—over their employees. With political leaders wedded to laissez-faire economics, employers were free to increase hours, slash wages, and fire workers at will. Equally disconcerting was the growing gap between rich and poor, a disparity made shockingly clear by the emergence of millionaire industrialists and financiers with names like Gould, Stanford, Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie.
Labor leaders noted that these developments called into question the future of the American republic. “Economical servitude degrades political liberties to a farce,” announced the CLU constitution. “Men who are bound to follow the dictates of factory lords, that they may earn a livelihood, are not free [A]s the power of combined and centralized capital increases, the political liberties of the toiling masses become more and more illusory.” CLU activists believed the establishment of a day celebrating the honest worker, who is the foundation of the republic, would open their eyes and compel them to reclaim their rights.
The first parade, held on Tuesday September 5, 1882, started small: Only 400 men and a brass band had assembled by the time it touched off at 10:00 a.m. But as the parade continued north up Broadway it swelled in size as more unions fell into line from side streets. Huge crowds gathered to cheer on the impressive spectacle of labor solidarity. Midway through the parade, the throng passed a reviewing stand at Union Square. Among the many dignitaries was Terence Powderly, Grand Master Workman of the Knights of Labor, the most powerful labor organization in the nation.
After moving up Fifth Avenue, past the opulent homes of Vanderbilt, Morgan, Gould and other recently-minted tycoons, the grand procession of 5,000 or more terminated at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue. Participants headed to a park for a massive picnic replete with food, drink, music, and pro-labor speeches.
Inspired by the success of their first effort, CLU leaders staged a second Labor Day the following year that drew an even larger number of participants. In 1884 the CLU officially designated the first Monday in September as the annual Labor Day, calling upon workers to “Leave your benches, leave your shops, join in the parade and attend the picnic. A day spent with us is not lost.” Upwards of 20,000 marched that year, including a contingent of African American workers. The first women marchers participated in 1885.
With such an impressive start, the tradition of an annual Labor Day holiday quickly gained popularity across the country. By 1886 Labor Day had become a national event. Some 20,000 workers marched in Manhattan, another 10,000 marched in Brooklyn, while 25,000 turned out in Chicago, 15,000 in Boston, 5,000 in Buffalo, and 4,000 in Washington, D.C. Politicians took notice and in 1887 five states, including New York, passed laws making Labor Day a state holiday. Seven years later—just a dozen years after the first celebration in New York—President Grover Cleveland signed into law a measure establishing Labor Day as a holiday for all federal workers.
Labor Day caught on so quickly among Gilded Age workers because unlike the traditional forms of labor activism (for example, striking and picketing) or civic holidays commemorating victories in war, it drew together workers for the purposes of celebration. As P. J. McGuire later wrote of the parade, “No festival of martial glory of warrior’s renown is this; no pageant pomp of warlike conquest attend this day It is dedicated to Peace, Civilization and the triumphs of Industry. It is a demonstration of fraternity and the harbinger of a better age—a more chivalrous time, when labor shall be best honored and well rewarded.”
Chapter Connections:
1. Competing Visions over which group constitutes the heart and soul of the republic, workers and farmers or bankers and industrialists.
2. Competing Visions over the legitimacy of labor unions, with some deeming them dangerous and un-American institutions and others defending them as necessary for the protection of workers.
3. Competing Visions over the sources of labor discontent, with some arguing it stemmed from the introduction of “foreign” ideas like socialism by immigrants and others declaring it emanated from low wages, long hours, harsh conditions, and a lack of opportunity to rise economically.
Discussion Questions:
1. What prompted American workers to create the Labor Day holiday in 1882?
2. Why did Labor Day quickly become a national holiday?
3. What is significant about the messages workers wrote on the signs they carried in the first Labor Day parade?

41. Images as History
WHY FEAR BIG BUSINESS?
Why did so many Americans come to fear big business in the Gilded Age?

42. Images as History WHY FEAR BIG BUSINESS?
The knight symbolizes aristocracy and anti-republicanism.
The people vastly outnumber the capitalists.
Capitalism is supported by “corruption of the legislature” and “subsidized press.”

43. Choices and Consequences
TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE?
The Mundell Shoe Company reduced all workers’ wages, then rescinded the cut when male workers threatened action.
The company then imposed a wage cut on female workers only.

44. Choices and Consequences
TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE?
Choices Regarding Striking
No workers would strike
Men would remain on the job; women would strike
Both men and women would strike

45. Choices and Consequences
TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE?
Decision and Consequences
Both men and women agreed to strike.
The strike lasted weeks.
The company rescinded the wage cuts.
The successful action boosted KOL membership and convinced the KOL to admit women.
What made strikes so risky for workers?

46. Choices and Consequences
TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE?
Continuing Controversies
How should organized labor deal with the rising number of women in the workforce?

47. The Great Upheaval of 1886
Haymarket Riot − A violent incident touched off when a bomb exploded amid a group of policemen as they broke up a peaceful labor rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886

48. The Great Upheaval of 1886
What led to the rapid demise of the Knights of Labor?

49. Image 16.20: The Haymarket Incident, 1886
The Haymarket incident sparked a nationwide backlash against organized labor. Newspapers ran images like this one, in which martyred policemen hover over a scene where “murderous rioters” are gunned down.
If there were time in another class, could do the Haymarket Histories Mystery activity.

50. Key Points Railroads were the first big business
Set the standard for modern business practices
American Economy Boomed
Raw materials/Cheap labor
Development/Adoption of New Technology
Government Policy
-Land & Loans
-Laissez-faire
Rising Concern-trusts
Plight of the Workers
People like Carnegie and Rockefeller worried some because they were becoming so rich.
Plight: long hours, low wage, poor living…led people to begin the formation of Unions. Led to violence sometimes between police and workers.