14.1
New Industries Emerge
1. Steel Making
a. Bessemer Process (use of hot air and iron to purify steel)
- transformed the U.S. into a modern industrial economy
b. steel is cheaper = item affordability + greater strength
2. Oil Industry
a. vital fuel source and lubricant
- Edwin Drake drilled first oil well in PA
b. wildcatters = oil prospectors
- discovery of oil wells = decline in oil production
Free Markets
1. Capitalism
a. competition decides prices and wages
- Laissez-Faire capitalism
b. no government restrictions
- believed regulation = destruction of independence, good profit, and healthy economy
Government and Business
1. Hands off Policy
a. government doesn't regulate business
- growing corporation signaled need for policy change
b. Sherman Anti-Trust Act
- made it illegal to prevent business competition
- too vague
c. Workers
- government paid less attention
- many made less than five hundred dollars a year
New Inventions
1. Streetcars
a. first models were horse-drawn
- needed more power
- led to cable cars (San Francisco)
2. Subways
a. Developed from traffic increase
- Boston 1897
- New York 1904
3. Automobiles
a. 1867 internal combustion engine
- first car in 1897
- sign of wealth
4. Airplanes
a. Wilbur and Orville Wright
- first successful flight in 1903 (12 seconds and 120 feet)
Railroads
1. Transcontinental Railroad
a. union pacific
b. laid tracks from Omaha, NE
- prairie lands make for easy progress laying railroad lines
- resistance from NA tribes
2. Central Pacific
a. laid track eastward from Sacramento, CA
- mountains made for difficult terrain
- NA resistance
3. Railroads were funded by Congress and met in a historical event
Social Darwinism
- ideology of Charles Darwin: "survival of the fittest"
a. AKA natural selection
b. applies to society
- strongest people, businesses, and nations thrive
Industrial Workers
1. Workforce
a. primarily immigrants and rural Americans
- best jobs go to native born white people (cause for later conflict)
- by 1900, 1/6 of children ages 10-15 hold jobs
2. Working Conditions
a. worked 10hr days, 6 days a week
- no paid vacation or sick leave
Communication
1. Telegraph
a. invented by Samuel F.B Morse
b. sent messages over wire with electricity
- used for Morse code
- wires ran alongside railroads
2. Telephone
a. invented by Alexander Graham Bell
- 1876
b. became business tool for companies
- people wanted them
3. Typewriter
a. invented by Christopher Latham Sholes
- 1867
- improved keyboard with QWERTY board
Railroad Expansion
- promoted trade
- provided jobs
2. Led to Population Dispersal + Growth
- improved settlement
3. Invention of Standard Time
- proposed by C.F. Dowd (an NY principal
Business Structures
1. Proprietorships and Partnerships
- small businesses owned by individuals or partners
- responsible for all debt and responsibilities
Change for Workers
- 1794 - shoe makers form union
1. National Unions
a. Terrence V. Powderly leads the Knights of Labor
- accept unskilled workers, women, and African Americans
- campaign for reforms (Ex: 8hr days, end of child labor, better wages)
b. Great Railroad Strike
- 1877 event caused by wage cuts
- violence leads to death
- U.S. army shuts down strike
Thomas Edison
1. Nearly deaf by age 12
a. opened research lab in Menlo Park, NJ
- known as "Wizard of Menlo Park"
b. Worked by assistants
- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration"
c. Invented the incandescent lightbulb
- earned over 1,000 patents in his lifetime
- brought electricity to NYC
Corporations + Trusts and Monopolies
1. Owned by stockholders
a. decisions made by a board of directors
b. investment money comes from selling stock
2. Board of trustees run a group of companies
a. hold complete control of an industry
- no competition = prices raised at will
Workers Rebel
1. Haymaker Riot
1886 - Bomb thrown in Chicago protest
- 11 dead
- leads to growing xenophobia
2. American Federation of Labor (AFL)
a. employers force workers to sign anti-union contracts
- blacklists form (list of "troublemakers" made by business owners)
b. Samuel Gompers leads skilled workers
- AFL wins wages increases and shortened workweeks
c. scabs = people who worked without protesting harsh conditions
3. Homestead Strike
1892 - Carnegie steel workers refuse to work faster
a. owner tries locking them out
- workers seize plant
- government of PA calls in state militia
Industrial Tycoons
1. Rockefeller in Oil
a. gained power through use of vertical AND horizontal integration
2. Carnegie with Steel
- used vertical integration
3. Cornelius Vanderbilt
- invested in railroads during the Civil War
4. George Pullman
- designed and built sleepers cars
- controlled aspects of life in the town of workers
Pullman Strike
- 1893
a. owner laid off workers and cut wages by twenty five percent
- rent stayed the same
- workers strike
b. Eugene V. Debs leads protest
- government orders end of strike and is met with resistance
- Grover Cleveland calls in troops