1. Chapter 14, Section 2 Big Business & Organized Labor p. 488-493
As businesses grow in size & power, workers organize to demand better conditions.

2. New Ways of Doing Business
Main Idea: Business leaders develop new ways to raise money needed for expansion.
entrepreneur - someone who sets up new businesses to make a profit
corporations - businesses owned by many investors
Shares of stock are sold to investors.
Investor runs risk of profit or loss.
Banks loan big $ to corporations
Industry grows faster
Bankers like J.P. Morgan make huge profits and have tremendous political influence in the early 20th century.
Does he look familiar?
John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan
One of the richest and most powerful men in the U.S.

3. Table Question:
Describe how buying & selling shares of stock helps investors & corporations make (or lose) money.
Stocks and bonds

4. Growth of Big Business
Main Idea: By the late 1800s, many major industries are dominated by a few giant companies.
monopoly - a company that controls most or all business in a particular area
Andrew Carnegie: Self-made man
Born poor, works for his money
Starts U.S. Steel Company
Produces more steel than the entire nation of England.
Owned mines, mills, rail & shipping lines – (vertical monopoly)
Ruthless businessman but practices the “Gospel of Wealth”
Gives almost all his $ to charity
“I started life as a poor man and I wish to end it that way.” –A. Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie ( )
-Steel magnate

5. John D. Rockefeller Also born poor Founder of Standard Oil Trust
Largest Oil Refinery in the nation
a legal arrangement grouping a number of companies under a single board of directors
Trusts are seen as a threat to free enterprise
the system in which privately owned businesses compete freely
Justifies business success due to “Social Darwinism”.
As in nature, businesses survive because of adapting to change
“survival of the fittest”
John D. Rockefeller
-Oil Magnate

6. Is America really the “Land of Opportunity”?
Did our natural resources & system of government set us up for success?
Here is a list of the richest people in the History of the world:
4 are monarchs
The rest AMERICANS
ALL born in the middle of the 19th century
List obtained from the book Outliers
-by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
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MONARCH
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7. Here is the rest of the top 30:
MONARCH
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Here is the rest of the top 30:
- 7 more Monarchs
(including Queen Elizabeth & Cleopatra)
- 11 more Americans
(including Sam Walton & a few Jrs.)
And the rest of the top 50…
- 15 more Americans
- some from the 20th Century
MONARCH
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8. of the wealthiest people EVER made their MONEY in the U.S.
MONARCH
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51 out of 75 (68%)
of the wealthiest people EVER
made their MONEY in the U.S.
And we’re less than 250 years old
Do you think Rockefeller & Carnegie could have shared some of their $600 BILLION with their workers?
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9. Changes in the Workplace
Main Idea: As industry grows, working conditions often get worse.
Post Civil War factories become large, impersonal
Many women & children work in sweatshops -
manufacturing workshops where workers toil long hours under horrible working conditions for low pay
No school = dismal future
Dangerous working conditions:
Fibers & dust in textile mills, coal mines, & tobacco factories
Fire destroys Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York
Kills 146 people, mostly women
Sweatshop: New York
early 20th Century

10. President of the Knights of Labor
Workers Organize
Main Idea: Despite many obstacles, organized labor begins to grow in the late 1800s.
Knights of Labor: one of the 1st unions in the U.S.
Founded by Uriah Stephens as a secret organization
Allows women and minorities to become members
Led by T. Powderly, the Knights of Labor establish the modern-day goals of future labor unions:
8-hour work day
equal pay for equal work
government regulation of trusts
end to child labor
Violent strikes weaken influence
Terence V Powderly
President of the Knights of Labor

11. American Federation of Labor (AFL)
Forms local unions into one national union
Limits membership to skilled laborers
Believes in collective bargaining
unions negotiate with management for workers as a group
Organizes mineworkers and steelworkers
“accomplish the best results in improving conditions of the working people…today and tomorrow.”
Women play major role in union building
“Mother” Jones fights for kids
Samuel Gompers
Founder of the AFL

12. Federal troops protect train from striking workers.
Workers Strike!
George Pullman cuts wages of his workers
Raises rents for the housing in his company town
Workers go on strike shutting down rail hub, stop all rail lines through the Midwest.
Cut off the East coast from the West Coast
President Cleveland orders federal troops to Chicago
U.S. Attorney general breaks strike with a court order
Claims the strike violates the U.S. Constitution because the union’s actions are restricting interstate trade. TRUE?
Federal troops protect train from striking workers.

13. The Homestead Strike from: Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America July 6, 1892 “Darkest day in American labor history”
Steel mill near Pittsburgh, owned by Carnegie
Run by union
Frick wants to break union, hires non-union when contract expires
Workers attack, take over
6 workers, 3 Pinkertons die
National Guard called in
SCABS take union jobs
Union destroyed for 40 years.
Sets gap between labor and management in America
By 1900, only 3% of American workers belong to unions.
Andrew Carnegie
Steel worker keeping watch on Pinkertons
Henry Clay Frick

14. “robber barons” or “captains of industry”?
“Philosophical Chairs”
Choose a side: Were industrial giants like Rockefeller and Carnegie good guys or bad guys?
“robber barons” or “captains of industry”?