THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA, 1865-1900

The Rise of Big Business 1900 – U.S. is leading

industrial power Exceeds Great

Britain, France, and Germany

4% growth per year

Reasons: Natural resources Massive labor supply Growing population Capital - $$$$ Labor-saving

technologies Friendly govt. policies Talented

entrepreneurs

The Business of Railroads BIGGEST business 1865 – 35,000 miles of

track 1900 – 190,000 miles

1883 – split U.S. into four time zones

Created market for commercial goods

Eastern Trunk Lines: 1830-1860 – Huge

growth Different gauge tracks After Civil War – RRs

consolidated Cornelius Vanderbilt – 1867

– New York Central 4,500 miles of track NYC to Chicago

Western Railroads: Played a role in settling

West Promoted settlements on

Great Plains Linking East to West

creating one market

Federal land grants 80 rail companies Problems:

Hasty and poor construction Led to widespread

corruption

Transcontinental RR Pre-Civil War land grants Link CA to Union

Union Pacific – started at Omaha, NE

Central Pacific – Sacramento to ???

Constructed by Chinese and Irish

Met at Promontory Point, UT – May 10, 1869

Panic of 1893 ¼ of all RRs went

bankrupt

J. Pierpont Morgan Consolidated RRs Eliminated competition Controlled 7 companies by

1900

Industrial Empire Major shift in output

Antebellum Textiles Clothing Lumber Leather products

Postbellum Heavy industry Steel Petroleum Electrical power

Steel Industry 1850s – Henry Bessemer

and William Kelly

Bessemer Process

Great Lakes region becomes hotbed for steel

Minnesota’s Mesabi Range

Andrew Carnegie 1848 – Scottish

immigrant Superintendant of RRs

1870s – Pittsburgh, PA Technology Salesmanship

Horizontal and Vertical Integration

Carnegie Steel Corp. 20,000 employees Produced more steel than

ALL of Great Britain

U.S. Steel Carnegie retires Sold company in 1900 for

$400 million to J.P. Morgan

Control 3/5 of all steel 168,000 employees

Petroleum Industry 1859 – Edwin Drake –

Titusville, PA 1863 – John D.

Rockefeller – Standard Oil Company By 1891 – controlled 90%

of oil industry Established “trusts” –

conglomerates of businesses $900 million fortune

Laissez-Faire Capitalism

Adam Smith (1776) Wealth of Nations

Social Darwinism “Survival of the Fittest”

Gospel of Wealth Carnegie

Anti-Trust Movement Trusts came under harsh

scrutiny Middle class believed

trusts controlled everything

Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) Prohibited creation of trusts Tried to make trade honest

Marketing Consumer Goods Increased demand for

goods Increased output Decreased price

R.H. Macy Frank Woolworth

Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward

Inventions and Inventors Between 1860 – 19,591

patents By 1900 – over 400,000

patents

Changed the way we did everything!!!

American Workforce Workers were poor

Top 10% of wealthiest owned 90% of income

“New Money”

Working conditions were horrible

Living conditions were unsanitary

Horatio Alger Myth “Rags to Respectability”

Organized Labor National Labor Union

1860s First union to try to

unionize all workers Higher wages 8-hour day Equal rights Lost members during

Panic of 1873

Knights of Labor 1869 – secret society Wanted members from

ALL work forces

Demands: Worker cooperatives Abolish child labor Abolish trusts and

monopolies

Settled disputes legally

Haymarket Bombing – May 4, 1886

American Federation of Labor Samuel Gompers – 1886 Economic-minded

Method: Collective bargaining

1901 – 1 million members

Immigration 1850 – 23.2 million 1900 – 76.2 million

1850-1900 – 16.2 million immigrants entered U.S.

Pushes Poverty Overcrowding Religious persecution

Pulls: Tolerance Jobs!!! “Streets were paved with

gold”

Old vs. New

Old immigrants: England Germany Scandinavia

New immigrants: Russia Italy Greece Croatia Poland

Incoming Terminals

Ellis Island, New York Europeans

Angel Island, California Asians

Urbanization By 1900 – 40% of

Americans lived in cities

Tenements Lousy conditions Ethnic neighborhoods

Safe havens

Political Machines Tammany Hall – NYC

Boss Tweed 1860s – 1871 Backed and protected

immigrants

New York County Courthouse (1870)

Thomas Nast Harper’s Weekly

Mugwumps – wanted to end reform

Awakening of Reform: Problems in cities were

brought to attention

Books of social criticism How the Other Half Lives A History of Standard Oil

Company The Jungle

Settlement House Movement Educated reformers Moved into ghettos

Hull House – Chicago Jane Addams (1889) Taught immigrants English Childhood education Industrial arts education

By 1900 – 400 settlement houses

Women’s Movements Women’s Christian

Temperance Movement (1874) Frances Willard

Anti-Saloon League (1893) Cary Nation